Speaker 1: The Projection Booth podcast is sponsored by Scarecrow Video. Try
Speaker 1: out Scarecrows run by mail service. Choose from over one
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty thousand films and get blu rays, four
Speaker 1: k's and DVDs delivered directly to your door. Visit scarecrow
Speaker 1: dot com today.
Speaker 2: Oh gez, folks, it's showtime.
Speaker 3: People say good money to see this movie. When they
Speaker 3: go out to a theater. They want cloth, sodas, pop, popcorn,
Speaker 3: and no monsters in the projection Booth.
Speaker 2: Everyone pretend podcasting isn't boring.
Speaker 4: Got it off, left to die in the desert as
Speaker 4: a baby, and she's been raised by wild dogs.
Speaker 3: She's come to find her parents.
Speaker 4: Her paths were destined to meet.
Speaker 5: She died.
Speaker 6: Tell me do you ever get strange vibrations in this place?
Speaker 7: Oh?
Speaker 2: Yes, our time. Mister Leadingham used to be a movie studio.
Speaker 3: You know, really.
Speaker 8: The baby is a lie.
Speaker 5: Have you taken your medication today?
Speaker 4: DearS?
Speaker 6: I am leading Ham, Chaos leading Ham.
Speaker 3: I was falling in love with a dingo.
Speaker 2: The place was cursed.
Speaker 4: We were surrounded by monsters behind each door.
Speaker 5: The blood sucking freaks.
Speaker 4: Have a dark secretly buried beneath this place there will
Speaker 4: rise up to night and we will be forced to
Speaker 4: act them out.
Speaker 2: Join this too in unoly matrimony.
Speaker 7: It's about the girls.
Speaker 2: She's coming back if she hasn't here already.
Speaker 8: I knew I was different from the rest of the letter.
Speaker 3: Very good, Very good. I see danger, I see sacrifice.
Speaker 3: Perhaps if you just.
Speaker 2: The girl must be brought to me immediately.
Speaker 5: God, we will pay the child with flash.
Speaker 7: Baby name, Oh murder, though it hath no tongue, We'll
Speaker 7: speak with most miraculous organs.
Speaker 8: For the sake of humanity.
Speaker 3: You must die times.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the projection booth. I'm your host, Mike whiteho
Speaker 1: and me once again is miss Heather Drain.
Speaker 8: That is quailed leading word.
Speaker 1: Also joining us as Ms Peyton McCartney seemus Hey. We
Speaker 1: continue a month looking at Australian films with one from
Speaker 1: Hayden Keenan Pandemonium, released in nineteen eighty seven. The film
Speaker 1: stars David Argue as Cale's leading him or.
Speaker 8: Quailud's leading Horde.
Speaker 1: An escapee from an insane asylum who tells an innocent
Speaker 1: bus rider the tale of him being a surveyor at
Speaker 1: an old movie studio run by EB and pb de
Speaker 1: Wolf at the center of his tale is the Dingo Girl.
Speaker 1: We will be spoiling the ins and outs of Pandemonium
Speaker 1: as we go along, so if we don't want anything ruined,
Speaker 1: please turn off the podcast and come back after you've
Speaker 1: tracked down the movie. We will still be here. So Heather,
Speaker 1: I can tell from our last conversation you have seen
Speaker 1: Pandemonium before. When was your first time and what did
Speaker 1: you think?
Speaker 8: It was?
Speaker 9: Probably, I want to say two to three years ago,
Speaker 9: and I had discovered it via a wonderful review written
Speaker 9: by Dave Jackson, who's a really really cool Australian film
Speaker 9: writer and filmmaker. If anybody out there has heard with
Speaker 9: Kat sig Blues, that's Dave Jackson, which is that's an
Speaker 9: amazing movie. Very different vibe here, but Dave had written
Speaker 9: about a movie called Pandemonium and reading it, I immediately
Speaker 9: was like, this is something I need to find to like.
Speaker 9: It just felt like there is connective tissue. There was
Speaker 9: my DNA possibly somewhere.
Speaker 8: In this madness.
Speaker 9: And I tracked down the company Smart Street Films, which
Speaker 9: was the only way you could get it legally and
Speaker 9: can get it, I believe, and I purchased it, got
Speaker 9: a really sweet email apologizing for how for the shipping
Speaker 9: and handling, and turned out it was from Hayden Keenan,
Speaker 9: and I was like, holy shit, the director just email
Speaker 9: me about this and he's sweet, such a sweetheart, And
Speaker 9: I finally got the movie and it did not disappoint.
Speaker 8: It did not disappoint. This movie to me.
Speaker 9: The best way for me to sum it up, it's
Speaker 9: imagine a Marx Brothers movies where all the Marx Brothers
Speaker 9: are David Argue and everybody is on acid, and even
Speaker 9: then you're barely kind of scratching the surface that Yes,
Speaker 9: I absolutely was floored by it. I've rewatched it copious
Speaker 9: time since then. I adore this movie.
Speaker 1: And Peyton, how about yourself, Well.
Speaker 10: I was really excited when you reached out to me
Speaker 10: about this because I had just started spending a lot
Speaker 10: of time thinking about Hayden Keenan because Muscle Distribution just
Speaker 10: re released Going Down in twenty twenty five, and I
Speaker 10: watched it and absolutely fell in love with it. It's
Speaker 10: such a beautiful, like slice of life, kind of loose
Speaker 10: punk coming of age story with an amazing soundtrack. So
Speaker 10: watching this I was really struck by the wild contrast
Speaker 10: here between that film and this one. They shared DNA
Speaker 10: and that kind of beautiful queer craziness going on. But yeah, no,
Speaker 10: trying to describe this movie to a friend who was like,
Speaker 10: what did you do today? Was like, there's a lot
Speaker 10: to unpack her, but also there it's impossible to as
Speaker 10: all good, all like true all cult films are. There's
Speaker 10: just simply no way to really some this one up.
Speaker 10: It's I think I said it was somewhere between Dogma
Speaker 10: rocky horror, and with Noel and I in aesthetic vibe
Speaker 10: with like a little bit of Vegas in space.
Speaker 8: So it's a great time. God, I love Vegas and space.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I remember having this one described to me as
Speaker 1: being like rocky horror, and really, other than the end
Speaker 1: of the movie where the big movie studio takes off
Speaker 1: and flies away, wasn't seeing a whole lot of rocky horror.
Speaker 1: There's there's one moment of a song, I think maybe
Speaker 1: two songs in here, but yeah, not very rocky horror
Speaker 1: other than though you can't tell by the accents. That's
Speaker 1: the thing that I think I love the most about
Speaker 1: this is just how everyone seems to have an accent,
Speaker 1: and it seems to be more and more outrageous than
Speaker 1: the last one. I mean, our movie studio husband with
Speaker 1: his really flat American accent that he does, and then
Speaker 1: all of the Nazi stuff that's going on in this movie. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think I tracked this one down, maybe on VHS.
Speaker 1: Maybe Andrew Leovold made a copy of it for me
Speaker 1: back when he was working at Trash Video in Queensland,
Speaker 1: I think it was. And yeah, it took me forever
Speaker 1: to finally sit down and watch this one. This whole
Speaker 1: month has been you need to sit down and watch
Speaker 1: these movies. So this is my excuse to finally see this.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I am so glad that Pandemonium, this version
Speaker 1: of Pandemonium because I've always been a fan of the
Speaker 1: Pandemonium with Paul Rubins and.
Speaker 8: Carol Kine, Alfred Soul, Yes.
Speaker 1: Alfred Soul's Pandemonium. But now when you look at our
Speaker 1: archive page, you're going to see two pandemoniums. Very different films.
Speaker 9: To me in a lot of ways. I mean, ultimately
Speaker 9: this feels like Hayden, this is his film. He's like,
Speaker 9: he's I think, such a fascinating director, especially Peyton, like
Speaker 9: speaking like do you bring up Going Down? Like his
Speaker 9: film Mark so fascinating because you know, we have Going Down,
Speaker 9: we have this, we have several documentaries. He's done a
Speaker 9: lot of like very cool, very activist type work with
Speaker 9: some of his documentaries too. He's a fascinating guy. But
Speaker 9: to me, there's so much like if somebody's a Ken
Speaker 9: Russell fan, particularly, I'm thinking like listless so Mania and
Speaker 9: that era like in you know, in Tommy. In fact,
Speaker 9: the the ending of this film has a parallel with
Speaker 9: a with a key scene to Tommy. It was so
Speaker 9: refreshing because I feel like if we don't really see
Speaker 9: a lot of directors put themselves out there quite like
Speaker 9: this late, like Hayden does, other than Ken Russell, Like
Speaker 9: Ken Russell's to me is a director I think who
Speaker 9: continually put himself out there no matter what the budget
Speaker 9: it was, no matter what the circumstances was. Well with
Speaker 9: the activism part, I was really struck. This movie includes
Speaker 9: an Aboriginal Holy Ghost figure and he's played by Gary Foley,
Speaker 9: who was an Aboriginal. He started this group called the
Speaker 9: Aboriginal ten See in the seventies and established like the
Speaker 9: first Aboriginal legal services. He also like co wrote and
Speaker 9: acted in the first ever Indigenous Australian stage production.
Speaker 10: So like there's a lot going on there. Plus the
Speaker 10: origins of this movie in this very particular like Bondie
Speaker 10: scene in this housing you know, this like squatting situation
Speaker 10: that the Heather you sent a very cool article about
Speaker 10: it in terms of tenants rights there. So there's underneath
Speaker 10: about seventy five layers of glittering grime there. The politics
Speaker 10: there are like both gesturing towards feminism, like in terms
Speaker 10: of the Rocky Horror parallel to me, the thing that
Speaker 10: really reminded me most was the Amanda dole Dingo girl
Speaker 10: character having her Janet what Janet arc you know, like
Speaker 10: her her sexual desire and exploring herself, which when I
Speaker 10: found out she was the youngest ever Australian playboy play
Speaker 10: moy playmate, that was crazy too. Like, so the cast
Speaker 10: is crazy. There's so much going on anyway.
Speaker 8: It is wild though I know she was sixteen.
Speaker 9: I got to do an essay for Midnight Spares when
Speaker 9: that was released on Blu ray, and in that movie,
Speaker 9: she does like kind of a burlesque routine that's set
Speaker 9: up like her person layout and it's very much set
Speaker 9: up like a sort of lay room, like it's very gross.
Speaker 9: It's gross that but she's fabulous and Midnight Spaars is
Speaker 9: a fun movie and it's got David Argue.
Speaker 8: So I remember when I because I saw a Panemonium
Speaker 8: first and I was like, oh my.
Speaker 9: God, I marked out so hard because I was I
Speaker 9: was already excited about David Argue and then seeing Amanda.
Speaker 9: I love everybody in this movie, and I think she
Speaker 9: really she does bring like a nice sort of like
Speaker 9: gravitas in a way because you really do care about
Speaker 9: her character.
Speaker 8: And that's impressive given that we don't. I mean half
Speaker 8: the movie she's.
Speaker 9: You know, mostly naked, and we only hear her like
Speaker 9: via telepathy until but you but her facial like her
Speaker 9: facial reactions to everything, and just she has this like
Speaker 9: this sort of calm serenity about her.
Speaker 8: I hate it that this was her last film. That
Speaker 8: what a way to go is if you're gonna pick
Speaker 8: a Moyvie to be your last one, I mean, Pandemonium's
Speaker 8: pretty striking. Also, Epsence storms amazing in this Like I
Speaker 8: didn't recognize them because.
Speaker 10: He's such a like sleazy, sexy young grifter in Going
Speaker 10: Down and then you see him here as like and
Speaker 10: he's unrecognizable but such a good chameleon of a guy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're right about those Nazi grets. I forgot. There's
Speaker 1: very much a tell us about a Janet type of
Speaker 1: moment in this.
Speaker 9: I love our incestuous twin lesbian Nazis. Those actresses interact
Speaker 9: with each other. They're so playful. Oh, they's so sort
Speaker 9: of feline. And I forget his name, but I know
Speaker 9: he was like originally I think like an audio guy.
Speaker 9: I think it did audio on Going Down. But the
Speaker 9: actor that plays Little Adolf, he's great that full dialoguets
Speaker 9: with him in the vamp sort of our beautiful gothic
Speaker 9: vampress character where it's like and go balls had no
Speaker 9: balls at all?
Speaker 8: Like the wasn't that a rhyme that they staying in
Speaker 8: World War Yeah? I did not know about.
Speaker 2: My very small headlamla.
Speaker 7: That's all.
Speaker 1: When there's that whole weird thing where so many of
Speaker 1: these people in this house are zombies and they refer
Speaker 1: to them as zombies, it's like, you know, you're talking
Speaker 1: about this whole idea of the squatters and stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this whole house feels like it's just filled with people
Speaker 1: that really shouldn't be there, and it almost feels like
Speaker 1: the zombies are just kind of these hangers on that
Speaker 1: really shouldn't still be in this place. I mean that
Speaker 1: our main character, David argues playing this surveyor. I'm not
Speaker 1: really clear on what his role is. He walks around
Speaker 1: with a lot of equipment. He's got like this almost
Speaker 1: like laser gun radar gun type thing he's taking measurements with,
Speaker 1: and he's got blueprints, but he just doesn't seem to
Speaker 1: be very interested in doing this job at all.
Speaker 9: Well, he's sort of a parapsychologist type of surveyor, and
Speaker 9: that even took me a few bearings. For whatever reason,
Speaker 9: the first time I watched this movie, I thought I
Speaker 9: thought he was a documentarian.
Speaker 8: I don't know where I got that from.
Speaker 9: But and then by I think the fourth theoring, I'm like, oh,
Speaker 9: I'm ridiculous, Now he's not a documentary. But finding that
Speaker 9: article that I shared and to all the listeners like that.
Speaker 9: We found some articles that were written in the pre
Speaker 9: production process of this film, which was gave us some
Speaker 9: really cool insight and one of the biggest inspirations for pandemonium.
Speaker 9: It is a completely like a reaction to gentrification that
Speaker 9: was going on. Now, is it bondi beach or bondi beach?
Speaker 9: I've heard both two pronunciations.
Speaker 1: Well, Hayden would say Bondi, then I.
Speaker 9: Will go with that one, because I do not trust
Speaker 9: my my southern patois on pronunciation anything but no. In fact,
Speaker 9: the film was originally called A Longlow Hell House, and
Speaker 9: the Alonglow was, like I said, of living spaces that
Speaker 9: a lot of the artists lived on very cheaply in
Speaker 9: the seventies and the eighties, off off a bondy and
Speaker 9: in the eighties, like gentrification, like the evil black mole
Speaker 9: that it is, started creeping in and all of a
Speaker 9: sudden you get developers, and you know, people start getting
Speaker 9: kind of kicked out or priced out. It's bad felicity
Speaker 9: sometimes to kick people out, so we'll just you know,
Speaker 9: jack up the rent. And it's like, is this how
Speaker 9: the developers and the polite society kind of viewed all
Speaker 9: these cool bohemians as they viewed them as like these
Speaker 9: are these are totally and you know, you know the
Speaker 9: kind of people they are. There's mad scientists, there's vampires,
Speaker 9: there's zombies. There's weird Nazi sisters and they're little tiny
Speaker 9: Adolph Clone.
Speaker 8: It's out of Clone. Though he looks he actually looks
Speaker 8: like Greg Ham. It's like a boys friend boom plot
Speaker 8: because later on there's like Israeli Hitler who shows up artism.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then his nose grows In parts of it,
Speaker 1: he's got a very ax.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: He looks like Sereno de Berger racing parts.
Speaker 8: I love when they rouge the tip of it. I
Speaker 8: put a little little dap aversion. And that's the ride
Speaker 8: this film is because by the time that happens, you've
Speaker 8: already seen like so much insanity. You're like, sure, you
Speaker 8: know why? Of course, of course that was a long Yeah.
Speaker 10: The context that helped most for me, I think was
Speaker 10: when I was listening to that interview you did with
Speaker 10: Hayden Mike, was that every single element is pulled from
Speaker 10: The reason I said Withanol and I earlier is in
Speaker 10: reference to the opening scene of Windall and I where
Speaker 10: he's reading the tabloids, because every single plot element was
Speaker 10: pulled from tabloid headlines and tabloid stories, right, So like
Speaker 10: the kind of pastiche brickilage thing he's doing is also
Speaker 10: just like overtly pulled from the salacious, eye catching grocery
Speaker 10: store shit, but it sounds like it doesn't make sense.
Speaker 10: It kind of doesn't. And there was another line in
Speaker 10: that interview that I wanted to bring up to where
Speaker 10: he was talking about the idea of what he called
Speaker 10: VSM or vague semblance of meaning, or he was saying
Speaker 10: he was trying to write a script rooted in reality
Speaker 10: through the press clippings as a total cheat. So there
Speaker 10: is that feeling that like everything's loose and doesn't make
Speaker 10: sense on purpose, like just to make you experience the
Speaker 10: experience more than the narrative.
Speaker 1: I think it captures that. Yeah, I mean even when
Speaker 1: it comes to like Dingo Girl, I kind of wonder
Speaker 1: if she's a based on the whole Lindsay Chamberlain Crichton
Speaker 1: thing of the Dingo ate my baby, because I think
Speaker 1: there's a thing later on where well it's the whole like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: the Dingo stole her, but yet maybe she was abandoned
Speaker 1: by I'm going to screw up their names, but the
Speaker 1: woman that runs the studio feels like that's a reference
Speaker 1: to that stuff. So being pulled from the headlines totally
Speaker 1: make sense.
Speaker 9: Missus d Wolf, we'll call her. I think she's peeby.
Speaker 9: I don't know the eating and peebee thing. It gets
Speaker 9: very confusing. But Missus de Wolf, that actress and I
Speaker 9: love everybody, I mean, David argued for me, is pink
Speaker 9: in this film, David argued, tends to be king and
Speaker 9: everything he was in though, just because he has that
Speaker 9: sort of like almost where he will suck the focus
Speaker 9: in if he's on camera, because you just is I mean,
Speaker 9: he's just magnetic. But number two is Missus de Wolf,
Speaker 9: that sort of Blanche Dubois patois.
Speaker 10: She's so good that on vodka through like a baby bottle.
Speaker 8: Yes, oh my gosh.
Speaker 9: When she is trying to there's like a levitating doll
Speaker 9: that I wish we could have seen more of.
Speaker 8: I am obsessed with this doll.
Speaker 9: It's like a pink Raggedy Ann meets those little like
Speaker 9: razor teeth Barbarella dolls and she's trying to like chew
Speaker 9: choo train the vodka.
Speaker 8: Then the doll says like, yo, fuck the train, lick me,
Speaker 8: lick me.
Speaker 1: Super Exorcist.
Speaker 10: Yeah, oh my god, I said, no, you know I
Speaker 10: hate that Lanquitch.
Speaker 8: That's her response.
Speaker 9: It's not the fact of this levitating like hell do
Speaker 9: doll that's wanting you to like it.
Speaker 8: It's a and that it's just it's Oh, there's so
Speaker 8: many great little moments you mentioned doctor doctor Hayden Keenan's makeup.
Speaker 9: I love that he is our doctor. He looks amazing.
Speaker 9: I think I hate it is such a great face anyways,
Speaker 9: but like that little pencilton mustache, that sort of almost
Speaker 9: like if if you ever seen Humphrey Bogart and is
Speaker 9: it Doctor X A return of Doctor X. It's like
Speaker 9: the one bo yes, and he's got that silver streak.
Speaker 9: It's it's it's totally giving that. But the way he
Speaker 9: has his aids free Clone Adrian a poor.
Speaker 8: Adrian, because the second time we see him, he's like,
Speaker 8: you know, you know, I think you hate me, and
Speaker 8: he's I don't hate you, fucking idiot.
Speaker 9: Just all these so many great moments of just insane
Speaker 9: comedy that just is like nothing else.
Speaker 8: The moosehead oh god, oh my god.
Speaker 10: Yes, yeah, when Bullwinkle showed up, that's where I kind
Speaker 10: of had to like give into the flow of the
Speaker 10: film because.
Speaker 1: He doesn't even try to take that moosehead off. It's
Speaker 1: just like a part of him for like the longest time,
Speaker 1: and then finally it's it's off at one point. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and there's like these visual rhymes that happen because you're
Speaker 1: talking about like the levitating doll. But then like David
Speaker 1: Argue led levitates at one point, he's about to kiss
Speaker 1: Dingo girl, and next thing you know, he starts to
Speaker 1: float up in the air, and it's just like all
Speaker 1: these little things where you're like, oh, well, that's kind
Speaker 1: of similar to this thing over here, and that's kind
Speaker 1: of similar over there. And I don't know if that's
Speaker 1: on purpose or just like coincidence, because there's just so
Speaker 1: many strange things that happen in this film.
Speaker 8: This film, I think, really satisfies a sweet spot.
Speaker 9: I kind of love a story from an unreliable narrator,
Speaker 9: which realistically most human stories tend to be, but this
Speaker 9: one's really from an unreliable narrator, and David argues like
Speaker 9: I think his main influence was Terry Thomas as Kle
Speaker 9: like the Great, the Great Terry Thomas, who's just in
Speaker 9: so many just that stiff upper lip kind of sensibility
Speaker 9: and very prattiness. He's a very pratty character kle Is
Speaker 9: and just he's constantly bungling like you want him in
Speaker 9: the dinga Girl to be together, but he every single
Speaker 9: time he has a chance to save her, he fucks
Speaker 9: it up, Like the first time she does head butt him,
Speaker 9: so that's different. But then the other times he's just
Speaker 9: you know, it's like every single person in this film though,
Speaker 9: even when they mean well or they still are just
Speaker 9: looking to kind of use her, which is an aspect
Speaker 9: of sort of having a messiah character, I think is
Speaker 9: always a real intriguing one to kind of pursue. You
Speaker 9: don't often see it, I think, especially if you're raised
Speaker 9: around a lot of religious you know, films or anything,
Speaker 9: if you're raised very religious. I mean I was raised
Speaker 9: around a lot of Southern Baptists, so those that angle
Speaker 9: tends to not really explore those kinds of questions. So
Speaker 9: I love I love seeing that here.
Speaker 8: Yeah. I was thinking about Dudley do Right a lot
Speaker 8: with his affect. Actually I forgot his name after Quaylude.
Speaker 10: I was like, I'm gonna google this later, and in
Speaker 10: my notes, he's just Dudley dow Hi.
Speaker 4: I'm Quaylude leading Hoon, Quail Sleezing man, excuse me, quake, leading.
Speaker 3: Horn, loose, sleezing breed, quaylude, leading hoon. Wow, don't tell
Speaker 3: me you've come about the ad.
Speaker 2: I wasn't expecting anyone quite so soon. But uh, if
Speaker 2: you just stay here, I'll be with you in the moment.
Speaker 3: Okay, But now, why won't you marry me?
Speaker 8: Because you are too good dadly for you?
Speaker 3: Nell I would rutten up.
Speaker 8: There is totally it's some deadley do right.
Speaker 9: We get Dank the dingo boy, who's also David Argue.
Speaker 9: David Argue makes an adorable dingo.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's got that great voice. And I think the
Speaker 1: scenes of him and eb or PB, you know, the
Speaker 1: male half of the couple, those two going back and forth.
Speaker 1: I could just watch that all day long.
Speaker 8: The fact that that's Esben with the two pey like
Speaker 8: as well.
Speaker 9: And it's especially because like there was in one of
Speaker 9: the articles I found, there was a great picture of
Speaker 9: him and Hayden from like the earl like around probably
Speaker 9: going down your early eighties. You can look at Hayden
Speaker 9: and be like, I can see how that's doctor doctor
Speaker 9: espen No, no, no, no no, and he fully gives
Speaker 9: in to just the sleazy quote unquote art. I love
Speaker 9: that his little, like little newspaper ad says art films,
Speaker 9: but it's a very nebulous doesn't.
Speaker 8: Say we're kind of films.
Speaker 9: Oh, there are there art films wake, which I'm sure
Speaker 9: a lot of real creepy leisure suit wearing.
Speaker 2: So, Julie, do you like Swedish films?
Speaker 10: There are references to porn throughout this movie, Like it's
Speaker 10: not just his character trying to get Dingo Girl to
Speaker 10: strip on camera. There's also the green door that everything
Speaker 10: is behind, and the exploitation thing of the fact that
Speaker 10: Amanda Dolt is naked eighty percent of the time, right,
Speaker 10: And it's just kind of a given. It's like you
Speaker 10: oscillate between the almost Doris Wishman nudy qutie vibe of
Speaker 10: like or even like rock hell Welsh stuff all the
Speaker 10: way up.
Speaker 8: To behind the green door. So it's it's and the nudity.
Speaker 9: I love how just kind of random. It seems to
Speaker 9: get too, like because there are times where I was
Speaker 9: during the great party scene we see the two sisters
Speaker 9: and I'm like, look at the gold top and I'm like,
Speaker 9: wait a minute, those are their boobs?
Speaker 8: Like this is a bunch of glitter.
Speaker 9: We don't get full male nudity, but we have a
Speaker 9: naked male bartender who has that great day glow kind
Speaker 9: of makeup paint.
Speaker 8: I love him. We see mister David. That party scene
Speaker 8: was so fun.
Speaker 9: Oh my gosh, that could have gone on longer. Well
Speaker 9: this movie, God, it could be eight hours and I'd
Speaker 9: be like more more, but yeah, and mister David can't live.
Speaker 9: I even get to mister David, our most zombie of
Speaker 9: all the zombies, because he's like a voo proper voodoo zombie.
Speaker 9: And that's Ian Nimmo, who has a great history with Hayden.
Speaker 9: And there's a really cool music video for Going Down
Speaker 9: that Hayden directed and Ian's in it. It kind of
Speaker 9: floors me because I rewatched that music video for prepping
Speaker 9: for this today and I'm like, goud, that's mister David. Yeah,
Speaker 9: mister David at one point ends up naked doing that
Speaker 9: ancient sort of yogi technique. It seems like where you
Speaker 9: swallow like muslin cloth and you pull it out. It's
Speaker 9: supposed to cleanse your intestines. I mean, anybody listening to
Speaker 9: this don't maybe don't try that at home. But that
Speaker 9: kind of reference greg Ham for a minutet work. Really,
Speaker 9: he does look like you could be a little Adolph's
Speaker 9: like bigger brother. Oh yeah, greg Ham is my favorite
Speaker 9: minute work member. Colin has a class second, but him
Speaker 9: is Marvel the Magnificent. We get him as a magician.
Speaker 9: I love Carnie magicians in general, but Greg Ham is
Speaker 9: right up there with William Finley from the Fun House
Speaker 9: as Marv.
Speaker 8: He's like Marco the Magician. That's probably pure coincidence, but
Speaker 8: I love it.
Speaker 1: As we get a Colin Hay song on the soundtrack
Speaker 1: as well, which is nice. That was kind of a
Speaker 1: surprise for me. I really like Caong myself, King Smith,
Speaker 1: who I didn't realize that he I'm pretty sure he's
Speaker 1: the main, one of the three main people in the
Speaker 1: Quiet Earth, And then I know he was a featured
Speaker 1: orc in the Lord of the Rings movies, So I
Speaker 1: don't know what his lines were if he gets to
Speaker 1: talk about being back on the menu or anything, but
Speaker 1: I guess I would be featured or Chai if that
Speaker 1: were the case. But I don't know how many people
Speaker 1: were employed to be Orcs and goblins and Orcai and
Speaker 1: Lord of the Rings. But like it feels like it
Speaker 1: feels like it was mostly Maori guys that were in
Speaker 1: that makeup, because most of the time, like there's a
Speaker 1: bad guy who's in Die Another Day and it's like, well,
Speaker 1: what else was this? And sure enough he's like one
Speaker 1: of the lead orcs. So it's like all right, yeah,
Speaker 1: like you're in New Zealand, you got a good build,
Speaker 1: let's put you in some orc makeup here.
Speaker 8: That's reminding me of the Island of Doctor Moreau.
Speaker 10: They literally just hired tons of like carnies and then
Speaker 10: a bunch of local folks, like indigenous local folks, to
Speaker 10: do stuff. And so there's a scene in that movie
Speaker 10: where there's just a didgeridoo in the background and it's
Speaker 10: just because the guy was a professional like digeridoo player,
Speaker 10: and they were like, that's cool, we'll put that in here.
Speaker 1: There is a lot of Island of Doctor Moreau as
Speaker 1: well with his character where it's just.
Speaker 2: Like you gotta help me, Doc.
Speaker 3: I'm sick of being rejected. Doc, I'm sick of the
Speaker 3: girls laughing at me. Make me make me appealing. I
Speaker 3: want animal magnetism, you call. I don't think that would
Speaker 3: be so difficult, got.
Speaker 8: I love everybody.
Speaker 9: All the women's response for one of those sisters is
Speaker 9: like yeah, wow, Wow, what a.
Speaker 1: Chest he's injected with like gorilla DNA. But then it
Speaker 1: was like, oh, gorillas have really small penises or something,
Speaker 1: and he's like, what the hell are you doing to
Speaker 1: call and come on?
Speaker 9: I feel like it's inferred that the Dingo Girl and
Speaker 9: cong kind of hook up, but she's has remained her
Speaker 9: maiden head.
Speaker 2: Head.
Speaker 8: I don't know if it has heard this.
Speaker 9: There's a line where I feel like doctor Doctor referred
Speaker 9: to her vagina as her shamehole. So I have new
Speaker 9: vernacular for my next go to college disappointment. But yeah,
Speaker 9: but yeah, so her mi made it is still attacked.
Speaker 9: So if his penis really, oh poor Kong.
Speaker 8: I do love him.
Speaker 9: I love it when he starts staring up his apartment
Speaker 9: and mister de Wolfe is basically like, I'm gonna tell
Speaker 9: my wife that's not part of your agreement, and he
Speaker 9: goes squad squad.
Speaker 1: Right exactly back to the squatting again. Yeah, we mentioned
Speaker 1: the religious overtones and this whole idea of like the
Speaker 1: Holy ghost showing up and she's the set up. The
Speaker 1: Dingo girls set up t be this like savior type character,
Speaker 1: and then there's the whole thing of like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: the witnesses are on the way, and they just cut
Speaker 1: to this car with this guy who's got these intense,
Speaker 1: like rasputant eyes driving, and you've got this little boy
Speaker 1: in the middle who's got a cross, and you've got
Speaker 1: this woman. I don't know if she's a wife or
Speaker 1: the older sister, but she's dressed up like she's from
Speaker 1: the sixties or whatever. And it's just like they cut
Speaker 1: to that and it's only on screen for I don't know,
Speaker 1: less than a minute, and then they forget about it
Speaker 1: for an hour, and then all of a sudden at
Speaker 1: the end, it's like, oh, the witnesses are here. It's like,
Speaker 1: what a way to set up, you know. I love
Speaker 1: that set up and pay off they have.
Speaker 8: I love this the complete cynicism.
Speaker 9: We really get about religion and God with this film,
Speaker 9: because like, the Holy Ghost has been basically defracked because yeah,
Speaker 9: he got missus DeWolf pregnant, but she had a girl,
Speaker 9: and God won't accept a female messiah, which yeah, that's bullshit,
Speaker 9: But also why do we have to keep sacrificing people here?
Speaker 8: But yeah, he's great.
Speaker 9: I love when he comes back at the end and
Speaker 9: he's wearing that like nudy suit that's got like the
Speaker 9: anti Jesus fish in sequence on the back.
Speaker 8: Is God, Elvis? Am I mistaken? Am I remembering that?
Speaker 1: I don't think you're mistaken. I don't think you're mistaken.
Speaker 10: I'm teaching a class on my book right now, and
Speaker 10: I was talking about Rosemary's Baby and that reminded me
Speaker 10: of that whole dinner conversation in Rosemary's Baby about like
Speaker 10: imagine how much he spends on robes alone, you know,
Speaker 10: And yeah, like God as an Elvis impersonator is really
Speaker 10: crossly excellent.
Speaker 1: Got the showmanship down, that's for sure, in those spangling out.
Speaker 8: And gray hair, Oh yeah yeah.
Speaker 10: And then there's all the like gonzo Shakespeare stuff happening throughout.
Speaker 10: Not a lady of the Frame narrative, but you just
Speaker 10: have random references to Hamlet and Midsummer Night's Dream, and
Speaker 10: like the last line is a reference. I think it's
Speaker 10: to Midsummer Night's Dream if I'm remembering correct.
Speaker 1: It is, Yes, the whole if we have offended thee
Speaker 1: that whole.
Speaker 10: Thing, yeah, yeah, And like plays within the play kind
Speaker 10: of the that Shakespearean frame narrative thing going through. It
Speaker 10: is a great parallel to the religious stuff because it
Speaker 10: just feels like he threw high culture and low culture
Speaker 10: into a blender and let the blender explode.
Speaker 1: Kong ends up becoming kind of King Kong, also kind
Speaker 1: of island of Doctor Morowe. Then you've got like a
Speaker 1: magic mirror at one point that's talking with Missus de
Speaker 1: Wolf and it's like, where's this coming from? And then
Speaker 1: you talked about the doll and everything. It's just all
Speaker 1: of these weirdo little references here and there, and then yeah,
Speaker 1: mixing them with the Shakespeare and then the religion, and
Speaker 1: I mean, this movie just it pays off. It gives
Speaker 1: you so much more each time you watch it. I
Speaker 1: can't say it ever really gels one hundred percent as
Speaker 1: far as like, oh this makes complete sense to me now,
Speaker 1: but I definitely make more sense of it the more
Speaker 1: I watch it.
Speaker 9: The thing that really helped pull me into this film
Speaker 9: just from the get go, you know. And there's actually
Speaker 9: a really phenomenal trailer for this on YouTube.
Speaker 8: So anybody if you're.
Speaker 9: Curious but you don't want to like put forth the money, yeah,
Speaker 9: you know, I did the commitment what's a trailer and
Speaker 9: see what you think, But the way that the visual
Speaker 9: language and the lighting and the composition, like Hayden has
Speaker 9: such a great eye.
Speaker 8: There's a shot of the dingo girl that's kind of.
Speaker 9: In the moonlight outside and there's like that those yellows
Speaker 9: and that sort of like dreamy sort of dark blue
Speaker 9: behind her, and just you know, everything has something very
Speaker 9: visually arresting in it, and it can be something subtle,
Speaker 9: it can be something really over the top, but that's
Speaker 9: the thing.
Speaker 8: And I was really I was so disheartened to see.
Speaker 9: I'm not surprised because I think a lot of times
Speaker 9: when an artist really does something out of the box,
Speaker 9: they're usually nine times out of ten going to be
Speaker 9: probably either misunderstood or just you know, pushed to the
Speaker 9: side for you know, something more respectable, like a like
Speaker 9: a nice drama. And I love dramas, but you know
Speaker 9: what I mean, Like, if you go out bounds, you're
Speaker 9: usually not going to get received well.
Speaker 8: And Panemonium got some really just.
Speaker 9: Amazingly bad reviews and just everything from I saw one
Speaker 9: and these are all from Australia, you know, just writing
Speaker 9: it off as a rocky clone, which I'm like, I
Speaker 9: don't think you watched the movie all the way if
Speaker 9: that's all that was your only takeaway.
Speaker 8: But you can't make a movie like this without knowing
Speaker 8: exactly what you're doing because everything is so well connected.
Speaker 8: I mean, I love the fact Peyton the high and
Speaker 8: low art. That's brilliant because you just nailed it. That's
Speaker 8: exactly what he's doing here, and that's why you can
Speaker 8: watch it again.
Speaker 9: I think if somebody's just making something that's for the
Speaker 9: lowest common denominator, that's not going to be very rewatchable,
Speaker 9: first of all, but also it's not going to be
Speaker 9: very memorable. There's all there's all the time like terrible
Speaker 9: shitty movies that are made to be just outrageous, but
Speaker 9: there's no skill, there's no vision, there's no subversiveness. And
Speaker 9: that's the thing you got to have, to me for
Speaker 9: something to stick, you have to have that subversive sort
Speaker 9: of spirit about it, something that is very anti status quo,
Speaker 9: because that's the food for thought.
Speaker 8: It's giving you that sustenance.
Speaker 9: I mean, surrealism's great, but you got to have like
Speaker 9: it's like a cake, you know, Like the surrealism is
Speaker 9: the sprinkles of the frosting, but you got to have
Speaker 9: that cake to support it, and this film is all
Speaker 9: cake and sprinkles and all of that.
Speaker 8: That's a very strange bakery analogy.
Speaker 10: But that makes sense for this movie too. There was
Speaker 10: a great anecdote that I think speaks to that dynamic
Speaker 10: where it's like you have to both be a collage
Speaker 10: artist and a composer at the same time, where the
Speaker 10: sets were literally taken from the trash right like it
Speaker 10: was theater company's like random sets that they weren't using anymore,
Speaker 10: and he just kind of went and they were like, yeah,
Speaker 10: we just did. Had a gabbler like you want the mansion,
Speaker 10: and he was like, perfect, and that's.
Speaker 8: Why it's there. It's great because you just you toss
Speaker 8: it together.
Speaker 10: But if you have enough yeah vision, then you can
Speaker 10: actually make that work.
Speaker 1: Another movie I was reminded of with this and Feel Free,
Speaker 1: how they're to tell me that I'm just full of shit.
Speaker 1: I was reminded a little bit of Cafe Flesh while
Speaker 1: I was watching this, especially like the big party scene
Speaker 1: that they have. It just felt very much like the
Speaker 1: cabaret type atmosphere for me.
Speaker 8: Mike, first, I'd never tell you you're full of shit. That's
Speaker 8: rude and you and you are never full of shit.
Speaker 8: I wouldn't.
Speaker 9: I wouldn't be on the show if I thought you
Speaker 9: had potential to be full, to be full of the shite.
Speaker 9: But no, I could see that, especially because both Stephen
Speaker 9: and Hayden have a very strong visual eye, and especially
Speaker 9: with the artificial with these stay you know, like the
Speaker 9: stage setup, the makeup, that sense of applying.
Speaker 8: Even when you're playing something real, there's something very artificial
Speaker 8: to sort of outline it and give you that contrast.
Speaker 8: So no, I could see that.
Speaker 9: I mean, they're two very different films, but I think
Speaker 9: I mean, I mean, I think almost everything's probably pretty
Speaker 9: different from Anemonium, but that's why we're talking about it.
Speaker 9: It's amazing, and there's really nothing quite like Cafe Flush either.
Speaker 9: But I could see that.
Speaker 2: I could see that.
Speaker 9: I mean, I think that would actually be a fun
Speaker 9: double feature because kat Fia Flush is so brilliant, but
Speaker 9: it's ultimately very sad, you know, it's Scott that melancholy
Speaker 9: about it, So you'd kind of after that you might
Speaker 9: want to watch Pandemonium and kind of jure evening on
Speaker 9: a higher note in terms of the frame narrative, what
Speaker 9: like where he's sitting and talking to that woman on
Speaker 9: the bus.
Speaker 10: What movie did you guys think about? Because for me,
Speaker 10: the first thing that jumped to mind was the Realm
Speaker 10: of the Ancient Mariner. But I mean, obviously, frame narratives
Speaker 10: of that kind are you know, all over the map,
Speaker 10: and it's it's like, clearly you know a classic, like
Speaker 10: you know forty's universal horror type riff.
Speaker 8: So what jumped to your guys's mind.
Speaker 1: You're gonna hate what I say, But I've brought this
Speaker 1: up recently, and I'm trying to remember which movie I
Speaker 1: was talking about. I despise frame narratives that don't come back,
Speaker 1: that are just then they're like one bookend. I immediately
Speaker 1: thought whenever I see this, I thought of Aladdin because Aladdin,
Speaker 1: they never come back to that frickin' frame, and it
Speaker 1: drives me up a wall. It's the old man telling
Speaker 1: the story of Aladdin. We never get back to that
Speaker 1: little old man who's also voiced by Robin Williams. So
Speaker 1: I was so happy when they actually come back to
Speaker 1: the frame at the end. I was like, please please
Speaker 1: come back, make sure that you wrap this thing up
Speaker 1: and sure enough that poor girl kind of like that
Speaker 1: poor lady from Forrest Gump, sitting there listening to this
Speaker 1: mad man at a bus stop argue with that wild
Speaker 1: white hair and that kind of his face is super pale,
Speaker 1: and then wearing that straight jacket and just letting the
Speaker 1: arms flap around and stuff. He looks amazing.
Speaker 9: I think at the time it just me it felt
Speaker 9: very like an old Hollywood thing, but I can't think.
Speaker 8: Of what specific title.
Speaker 9: I think I was probably blinded by the David Argue
Speaker 9: in that great sort of wig and his weird giggle,
Speaker 9: the heat that's this weird sort of like shrieky giggle
Speaker 9: in it got There's so many just little things that
Speaker 9: even even when like the Dingo girl is starting to come,
Speaker 9: you know, just starting to feel very sensuous, and she
Speaker 9: keeps her pawing at Kale and he's like stop that,
Speaker 9: and she goes pussy pussy wet, wet, and the way
Speaker 9: the way he reacts like I can't even do it,
Speaker 9: but he's like pussy pussy wet.
Speaker 7: What is?
Speaker 8: It's just iconic.
Speaker 10: We're hitting all the zingers. The only only haven't really
Speaker 10: talked about yet is the giant dildo machine.
Speaker 8: Oh my god, so good.
Speaker 10: I'm actually glad that you said the thing about the
Speaker 10: strait jacket though, because that actually clicked in my head.
Speaker 10: I realized what movie they're referencing, which is the the
Speaker 10: nineteen forty thirty four Dwayne Espermaniac.
Speaker 8: Oh my god, the hair. I'm like, yes, holy shit, yes,
Speaker 8: oh my god. Now that's a double bill.
Speaker 9: I'm surprised we didn't have a cat get its eyeball
Speaker 9: poked out here. If that was the only thing we
Speaker 9: did get, well, Adolf got a ball. That's what this
Speaker 9: movie does to you, though.
Speaker 8: You're like, poor a little Adolf, and then you're like, wait,
Speaker 8: what am I saying?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 9: And the little like the little people that come in
Speaker 9: with which I could.
Speaker 8: Be very wrong on this.
Speaker 9: I know that there's a musician and singer that has
Speaker 9: three roles in this film, but they're all very small roles,
Speaker 9: Ignacious Jones. And I'm a big sort of post punk fan.
Speaker 9: And he did a song called like a Ghost that
Speaker 9: I've always really loved. And I notice he's in this movie,
Speaker 9: which I'm like, Ignacious Jones. I think he's the guy
Speaker 9: that gives the news that Adolph is gonna have to
Speaker 9: be put down because they found the other. Fear that
Speaker 9: I could be wrong on that because the other two
Speaker 9: roles because it's director, wedding attendant and something else.
Speaker 8: Anyways, that's an aside.
Speaker 9: But if there's any if all two of you out
Speaker 9: there that know the song like a ghosts that guy's
Speaker 9: in this movie?
Speaker 1: No is he He's a he's a regular.
Speaker 9: Yeah, That's why I'm thinking, because like, I don't remember
Speaker 9: there being like a film director in this film night.
Speaker 9: I mean other than like mister de Wolf. I'm wondering
Speaker 9: if the director means the guy giving the news, the
Speaker 9: Teddy Bear picnic coming into place.
Speaker 8: And seeing those little like womp like she's only a wombat.
Speaker 8: It's adorable, adorable, Australia's amathing. She's the whole coke snorting
Speaker 8: with little Adolph.
Speaker 9: I kind of, but I love her wanting revenge like
Speaker 9: that's a great great like character arc. I mean, the
Speaker 9: doll just pulls that off brilliantly. Kale is so square.
Speaker 9: I see the Dudley do right completely because like when
Speaker 9: he brust in, he's like, is this some kind of
Speaker 9: marijuana party? And he refers to them earlier as dreary hippies.
Speaker 9: What a sad, little little oxymoron that is. I know,
Speaker 9: it's like, I don't know how a mad scientist one
Speaker 9: to two vampires, a voodoo zombie and some beautiful Nazi
Speaker 9: lesbian acestuous sisters are dreary hippies.
Speaker 8: I don't remember that Woodstock.
Speaker 1: I love that he has the book that he gives her,
Speaker 1: and you see the book when he's dressed up as
Speaker 1: that kind of Egyptian god type figure, and then him
Speaker 1: just walking off into that moonlight, just along the water
Speaker 1: and off he goes. Yeah, well you've got that whole
Speaker 1: quote from Midsummer Night's stream on there. I mean, this
Speaker 1: movie is fucking wild.
Speaker 8: And there's like a little bit of money Python type
Speaker 8: DNA in there.
Speaker 10: In terms, I was thinking, this is going to be
Speaker 10: totally random, but John Landis's Schlock the kind of weird
Speaker 10: seventies comedy picuresque thing that you get with these kinds
Speaker 10: of loose meta referential narrative structures.
Speaker 8: I was thinking about Schlock.
Speaker 10: But also Muney Python with just like a very simple
Speaker 10: series of puns like have you heard of Sirius?
Speaker 8: This is serious?
Speaker 2: No serious?
Speaker 8: The whatever that you know, the star and it's just great.
Speaker 9: Oh completely, yeah, because at at what point we get
Speaker 9: you know, yo, this is a laboratory, not a laboratory.
Speaker 9: This film really does have something for everybody if they
Speaker 9: have an open mind.
Speaker 8: Granted, but I actually wrote this down I have.
Speaker 9: I found in researching in some of those papers, the
Speaker 9: best quote about Pandemonium I've ever read from Hayden Keenan
Speaker 9: himself describing it as it's a rat bag ride through
Speaker 9: a landscape of sacred cows. We've taken people's favorite items
Speaker 9: and put them an aspect. If I ever get a tattoo.
Speaker 8: That is on the LISZ, that kind of nails it.
Speaker 8: But even then it only begins to cover.
Speaker 9: I've always wanted to kind of find Dave Jackson and
Speaker 9: just to say like, thank you for writing about this film.
Speaker 8: That's how I discovered it. I am.
Speaker 9: I'm hoping that we do get more about Hayden in
Speaker 9: this country, especially which Peyton.
Speaker 8: I'm so I'm so happy and jealous.
Speaker 9: You got to see that that Muscle release, because God
Speaker 9: bless Liz Purcell for all the work she's doing with
Speaker 9: Muscle Distribution, and particularly with Hayden, because he's such a
Speaker 9: cool and I think important filmmaker and just not really
Speaker 9: that known over here, especially with Pandemonium even more so.
Speaker 8: And yeah, I would love to say that, because that's
Speaker 8: it's a very misunderstood film. I don't know why.
Speaker 9: I was hoping for at least one really, like one
Speaker 9: reviewer that was cool enough to get this film over
Speaker 9: in Australia.
Speaker 8: And maybe they were.
Speaker 9: I mean, ug well Dave was, but I mean in
Speaker 9: the papers. But it did play cable in Australia like
Speaker 9: at midnight, which god, can you imagine like like surfing,
Speaker 9: Like you get home from a party and you're like, oh,
Speaker 9: what's on Cinemax or whate of the equivalent.
Speaker 10: You know, it never got a theatrical in Australia, right,
Speaker 10: So it's like it's not like you went to the
Speaker 10: movies and then you saw It's not like Planet of
Speaker 10: the Apes for being.
Speaker 8: On TV all the time.
Speaker 10: It's like, what is that ghost object that is only
Speaker 10: on cable at midnight?
Speaker 9: Yeah, and it had a VHS front I think a
Speaker 9: little bit later in Australia it didn't come out. I
Speaker 9: think immediately I might be wrong on that, but that's
Speaker 9: I've found something that kind of inferred that I don't
Speaker 9: know I mean there's so many like mediocre movies. I'm
Speaker 9: always sort of like, I think flummix, I understand if
Speaker 9: this isn't for somebody, there's a lot of I mean,
Speaker 9: but nothing's really for everybody.
Speaker 8: But I'm always like, just like, really, this is what
Speaker 8: you guys are gonna hate.
Speaker 9: On, Like with the thirty million dollar epics or whatever
Speaker 9: coming out of Hollywood that are just like eating I
Speaker 9: don't know, like a rice cake, like you forget about
Speaker 9: it as soon as you eat it. You won't forget
Speaker 9: this film. I mean, that's the thing. Even if somebody
Speaker 9: hates it, I can't imagine they're gonna forget the Bullwinkle.
Speaker 9: I'm so glad you brought that up. That Boo said,
Speaker 9: which is in the trailer. That probably is a good
Speaker 9: litmus test. If you're down with the Bullwinkle, you're down
Speaker 9: with pandemonium.
Speaker 8: Yeah, you're not bothered by the Nazi lesbians. I mean,
Speaker 8: everything is trying to offend you. If you like that
Speaker 8: punk vibe, you'll like this movie. If you have a
Speaker 8: problem with the AIDS and non aids clone than probably
Speaker 8: seek elsewhere.
Speaker 1: I mean, they have a burning schwastika that looks like
Speaker 1: it's going to start spinning around at any moment. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's built on that punk rock aesthetic where it's just like,
Speaker 1: oh you like this will fuck you. We're going to
Speaker 1: just do whatever we want.
Speaker 9: We're Adrian there because the a's free clone, we only
Speaker 9: really see him as like a jan in the pan,
Speaker 9: we only get to see his head.
Speaker 8: I'm like, that's little.
Speaker 9: I love the Brain, the Brain that went and die
Speaker 9: got that. That is a wild movie. That's the spirit
Speaker 9: this film should be taken into. But again it's like
Speaker 9: that's why, I like.
Speaker 8: Why isn't this a bigger cult film?
Speaker 9: I mean, I know it was like limited, but you
Speaker 9: kind of think because there are Australian films I've heard
Speaker 9: about way before, heard about this one, that were like
Speaker 9: shot on video, that were way more kind of underground,
Speaker 9: like Smoke Them if you Got Them, which that film
Speaker 9: I do really recommen especially if you're going for something
Speaker 9: that's like post apocalyptic, but like on Truck or Speed,
Speaker 9: that one's very punk rock.
Speaker 8: It's great. You know, I can't think of like an
Speaker 8: American equivalent, but it's kind of like knowing about Nick
Speaker 8: Zed before you know about I don't know, like Stephen
Speaker 8: Sadian like both are great, but it's like, why is
Speaker 8: the morunderground stuff better known over here than Hayden.
Speaker 1: Well, And Hayden is just such a nice guy. I
Speaker 1: was telling how their last week Peyton is that after
Speaker 1: I interviewed him a couple weeks before the whole incident
Speaker 1: at Bondai Beach that happened with the recent shooting recent
Speaker 1: as to this recording, and I was just like, are
Speaker 1: you okay or I hear about Bondai Beach and we
Speaker 1: were just talking about it and here's this incident and
Speaker 1: he was just like, oh yeah, it was horrific, and
Speaker 1: he he opened up his house and was just like,
Speaker 1: you know, hey, come on in, Like people are running
Speaker 1: down the street and he's just like flagging people down,
Speaker 1: like you know, here's a safe space kind of thing.
Speaker 1: And it's just like most people probably wouldn't do that.
Speaker 1: They probably just shut the door and be like, well,
Speaker 1: you know, make sure that I'm safe and fuck everybody else.
Speaker 1: But it's just like, no, come on in. And I
Speaker 1: love him. He's just like always like a disaster movie.
Speaker 1: And then after we're all in there for a while,
Speaker 1: it felt like extreminitated Angel and I'm just like, thank
Speaker 1: you filmmaker for making a reference to an exterminity angel.
Speaker 1: I'm so glad you are telling stories in the way
Speaker 1: that I tell stories, where're just relating things back to movies.
Speaker 1: So thank you. I appreciate that.
Speaker 9: I don't and to see of artists that you are
Speaker 9: afraid if you know anything about the most people, they're
Speaker 9: going to disappoint you.
Speaker 8: Hayden Keenan is the exception. I love that. Anytime I've
Speaker 8: told an about this film, I'm like, if you want.
Speaker 9: To support him, get it from Smart Street Films, try
Speaker 9: not to tour at it, don't do any of that
Speaker 9: like support and that thing. It's like, we've got to
Speaker 9: support our artists if we ever, if we want to
Speaker 9: continue having great art and great out of bounds art,
Speaker 9: especially art that's not going to play by the rules
Speaker 9: and you know, be safe for you know, certain festivals
Speaker 9: or whatever, you've got to support indies.
Speaker 8: And Hayden Keenan's the real deal. He's been doing this
Speaker 8: since the early seventies of not late sixties.
Speaker 10: That's something I really appreciated about Liz Burchell's muscle distribution, right,
Speaker 10: is like what they've been doing with Custration movie in
Speaker 10: that road show is.
Speaker 8: So incredible on that score.
Speaker 10: Also what Annapurnaser did with Buck Toys this year, which
Speaker 10: hasn't gotten a distribution deal yet. But just like sex Worker, Queer, Fantasia, Crazy, Camp, Fever,
Speaker 10: Dream Beautiful, you know, so it's like those are the
Speaker 10: best movies, you know, when I have to do for like,
Speaker 10: you know, my film criticism thing, like my top ten
Speaker 10: of the year. Most of the time, the things that
Speaker 10: I love most are the things I saw at festivals
Speaker 10: and then you have to wait two years for them
Speaker 10: to come out, right, But like Castration movie, you can
Speaker 10: just rent for five dollars directly from the filmmakers right now,
Speaker 10: and that's fantastic and everyone should, you know, support independent
Speaker 10: art from across generations and we love movie.
Speaker 1: I did not know that you could rent that. I've
Speaker 1: been looking for it, so now I'm gonna have to
Speaker 1: try that down. So awesome.
Speaker 8: Yeah, no, everything I've seawright, I'm like, I want to
Speaker 8: see that.
Speaker 9: But I'm I've land lucked and a part of the
Speaker 9: region that doesn't really get cool screenings. So I'm somebody
Speaker 9: who has to kind of rely on either like physical
Speaker 9: media or rental and.
Speaker 8: I love that you can rint it.
Speaker 9: That's really because so many people are stuck out in
Speaker 9: the Midwest or the South where they you know, or.
Speaker 8: Some small town where they can't access cool stuff like that.
Speaker 1: And then when it comes to Fuck Toys, I know
Speaker 1: that Rob Saint Mary has seen that. I've had a
Speaker 1: copy of it forever, but I haven't sat down and
Speaker 1: watched it. So now with your recommendation, it's like Rob
Speaker 1: a few months ago is like, we should do an
Speaker 1: episode on this, and I'm like, dude, the holidays are
Speaker 1: coming up. There's no way that I can do anything.
Speaker 1: But it's like, okay, yeah, no, So it sounds like
Speaker 1: I'm going to have to sit down and watch that
Speaker 1: one finally. So thanks for the reco on that.
Speaker 10: And I could talk about that movie for hours, like
Speaker 10: it's really something so special.
Speaker 8: It's just a crazy, a crazy experience.
Speaker 1: Let's go ahead and take a break and we'll be
Speaker 1: back with an interview with Hayden Keenan. Right after these
Speaker 1: brief messages looking for something superior to streaming a place
Speaker 1: with more than five times the selection available and all
Speaker 1: of the streaming services combined, I've got Scarecrow videos ran
Speaker 1: by mail service so like from an unparalleled collection of
Speaker 1: over one hundred and fifty films and get Blu rays,
Speaker 1: four k's and DVDs delivered directly to your door. Get
Speaker 1: in on it now at Scarecrow dot com, and rediscover
Speaker 1: the wonders of physical media. I'd love to get a
Speaker 1: little bit of how you got into filmmaking overall, I
Speaker 1: suppose with the number of these things, it's serendipity.
Speaker 2: Where my father died when I was quite young, about eight,
Speaker 2: and my mother for reasons beyond me, I'd never been
Speaker 2: out of Melbourne in Australia, and sold up and we
Speaker 2: moved to Vancouver in nineteen fifty nine, and from there
Speaker 2: we moved to London and I went to a little
Speaker 2: school outside London where I boarded with a very international
Speaker 2: group it was multicultural before the word was invented, and
Speaker 2: started acting in school plays. From there, I came back
Speaker 2: to Australia and discovered the smell of chemicals and a
Speaker 2: red light and started taking still photographs and met a
Speaker 2: group of like minded people at my high school and
Speaker 2: we started making a little film together. I was acting
Speaker 2: and I was the star of the first film we
Speaker 2: made of you know sex religion, teachers, parents, you know,
Speaker 2: to get it all off your chest in your first film,
Speaker 2: which I'm a great believer in. And then myself and
Speaker 2: my partner swapped roles and he was the lead in
Speaker 2: my first film. So I applied for the National Acting School,
Speaker 2: the Institute of Dramatic Art here, and I also applied.
Speaker 2: We had a government film studio here which produced films
Speaker 2: for use in schools, embassies and various government departments. You know,
Speaker 2: how to use an artillery piece in the field for
Speaker 2: the Defense Department, that sort of stuff. But I didn't
Speaker 2: make it into I thought, whichever one I get into,
Speaker 2: I'll do. And I didn't make it into the Acting School,
Speaker 2: but I did make it into the It was called
Speaker 2: the Commonwealth Film Unit. In that Film unit, Australia had
Speaker 2: just thrown off the shackles of nearly thirty years of
Speaker 2: conservative government where there was no support for Australian culture
Speaker 2: or artistic output. And when the left of center labor
Speaker 2: government came in, there was support for film theater, all
Speaker 2: sorts of stuff. When I went to work at the
Speaker 2: Commonwealth Film Unit, amongst the young cohort Peter Weir, who
Speaker 2: went on to direct a million films. The camera department
Speaker 2: had Dean Semler, who won the Oscar for dancers with wolves.
Speaker 2: There was people who as a twenty year old you
Speaker 2: thought they were all incredibly old and conservative. We continued
Speaker 2: making short films after hours while being the third assistant director,
Speaker 2: driving extras home, sweeping the floor, and in fact, you know,
Speaker 2: it was funnily enough, it was a medieval guild system.
Speaker 2: There was no film schools, there was no framed tertiary certificate.
Speaker 2: You were in a strand, whether it was editing or
Speaker 2: production or camera, and when the people above you decided
Speaker 2: you were ready to move up a level, you did.
Speaker 2: And it was an incredibly efficient and incredibly valuable process
Speaker 2: because you really learned what now meant I need it now?
Speaker 2: There are no excuses. I can remember my first week
Speaker 2: we were shooting a film with Peter Weir was directing
Speaker 2: it and I just arrived in Sydney from Melbourne, and
Speaker 2: I was the third assistant and the first assistant who
Speaker 2: runs the set, and the third assistant is that person's assistant.
Speaker 2: He came to me and he said, I need two
Speaker 2: white horses and you've got two hours to get them.
Speaker 2: And I'd been in Sydney for ten days. I had
Speaker 2: no idea where I was, and I said, where will
Speaker 2: I get them? He said, I don't mind. I had
Speaker 2: walked off. So I learned the craft of lying and
Speaker 2: schmoozing and cajoling and your horse will be a star.
Speaker 2: And I found a stables and I brought back three
Speaker 2: horses and the director could choose the two he wanted.
Speaker 2: That meant I got the job next week as well,
Speaker 2: because this kid's a goer. This kid knows as opposed
Speaker 2: to I've got a certificate from a film school that says,
Speaker 2: I'm Fellini, what do you mean? I have to interrupt
Speaker 2: my phone call to go and find some horses. So
Speaker 2: it was an incredibly valuable learning experience making films after hours,
Speaker 2: and we made a couple of short films which won
Speaker 2: two of the three categories at the Sydney Film Festival,
Speaker 2: Documentary and Drama. And because both of us had the
Speaker 2: defective David O. Selznick gene where we were moguls, we
Speaker 2: immediately resigned aged twenty and twenty one and set about
Speaker 2: making a feature film which everyone said, oh, you'll never
Speaker 2: be able to do it, et cetera, et cetera, and
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy one. The world was on fire. Haskell Wexler
Speaker 2: had made me Liam Pool. The Novelle Vague was happening
Speaker 2: the front the English Tony Richardson. The whole scene was exploding.
Speaker 2: In many ways, a more democratic, youthful the generation reaching
Speaker 2: maturity after World War II was overthrowing the old farts
Speaker 2: who were telling us how films should be made, and
Speaker 2: in the first flush of support for films in Australia,
Speaker 2: because Australia in many ways is uncertain of its place
Speaker 2: in the world where a Caucasian community at that stage,
Speaker 2: particularly in the South of Asia in the South Pacific,
Speaker 2: we were never quite sure of who or what we were.
Speaker 2: We were living in a space the size of just
Speaker 2: smaller than the USA, with a population about the size
Speaker 2: of New York. We didn't dominate the land mass. The
Speaker 2: land mass dominates you in Australia, and we weren't quite
Speaker 2: sure who we were, and consequently, much of the stuff
Speaker 2: we were turning out was nineteen fifty style studio work.
Speaker 2: It was either Tit's in US, sex comedies, middle of
Speaker 2: the Road, Victorian era historical melodramas. While the world was
Speaker 2: on fire, people were putting cameras on their shoulders and
Speaker 2: diving into the Democratic Convention riots in nineteen sixty eight.
Speaker 2: And here we were making slow pans across the landscape
Speaker 2: with girls in you know, long dresses and you know,
Speaker 2: and we set our film inside a mental asylum. It
Speaker 2: was the story of a man who was alcoholic and
Speaker 2: locked up under a section of the Mental Health Act,
Speaker 2: section twenty seven A, which allowed the government to lock
Speaker 2: you in an asylum until you could prove your eligibility
Speaker 2: to be released. It was rough, it was fantastic. It
Speaker 2: was social Realist on your shoulder, Hamer in your face, wonderful,
Speaker 2: wonderful actors finally given a chance after the desert of
Speaker 2: no film production. Australian film production had been taken over
Speaker 2: and all our cinemas bought by the US and England
Speaker 2: after the war, and there was no interest in screening
Speaker 2: Australian films. Our film turned out to be holded by
Speaker 2: that fucker Jack Nicholson, who came out three months before
Speaker 2: we opened with One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest. So,
Speaker 2: as happens occasionally in these things, you'll find you just
Speaker 2: get aced and the timing's not quite right. The Australian
Speaker 2: Film Institute is our equivalent of the American Film Institute.
Speaker 2: But it ran our equivalent of the Oscars and the
Speaker 2: Film Awards and our little tiny film one Best Film,
Speaker 2: Best Actor, Best Fiction. It cleaned up at the annual awards,
Speaker 2: much to the chagrin of the old brigade making the
Speaker 2: slow pans across the Victorian melodrama. They hated us, and
Speaker 2: we got up on stage and said to all those
Speaker 2: people who think that young people can't make films, get fucked.
Speaker 2: One of the senior producers in Australia then wrote a
Speaker 2: letter to the editor about the appalling behavior of the
Speaker 2: young people at last night's awards. These are exactly the
Speaker 2: sort of people that should not be in the film industry.
Speaker 2: The next day we went int to the major distributor
Speaker 2: in Australia that we've done a deal with to sign
Speaker 2: our distribution agreement, and there was the press cutting letter
Speaker 2: to the editor on his table. He summarily stood up,
Speaker 2: tore up a distribution agreement and threw us out into
Speaker 2: the street. So we were standing like I was twenty
Speaker 2: two by this stage, my partner was twenty three, and
Speaker 2: we were standing out in the street in tears, just
Speaker 2: an absolute shock and it was a salutary lesson. I'm
Speaker 2: not quite sure what the lesson was. The lesson was,
Speaker 2: if he's going to speak the truth, then be prepared
Speaker 2: for a backlash you didn't expect and you become then
Speaker 2: a rebel. One of the problems we face in Australia
Speaker 2: is that because we don't have the size of economy
Speaker 2: that is in Europe, the UK or the US, we
Speaker 2: had and still do in many ways a so style
Speaker 2: centrally planned cultural economy. So much of the film industry
Speaker 2: is supported by government grants to kick it off, and
Speaker 2: then equity or private investors come in or distributors. But
Speaker 2: what that means is that the Presidium, the Central Committee
Speaker 2: decides what's suitable. So you will very often find that
Speaker 2: bureaucrats tend to support films that are like that, they
Speaker 2: would like that are not going to risk their jobs,
Speaker 2: et cetera, et cetera. So we've had an enormous amount
Speaker 2: of Australian taxpayers money spent on films that no one
Speaker 2: went to see, and the middle of the road, middle
Speaker 2: class filmmakers, as Lenny Bruce would say, would then turn
Speaker 2: on the audience for not laughing at their fabulously literate
Speaker 2: jokes or not digging their wonderfully nuanced portrayals, et cetera.
Speaker 2: And when you think people were hard and tickets are
Speaker 2: not cheap, and you know, if you've got a twenty
Speaker 2: dollar ticket, they want a twenty one dollar movie. And
Speaker 2: that's what I've always tried to do, is have audiences
Speaker 2: walk out of my films doing good on the deal.
Speaker 2: The problem we've faced with having cleaned up with this
Speaker 2: film that was had you know, it was all private money.
Speaker 2: The next film, Going Down, which was one of the
Speaker 2: first Australian films to go to Sundance, we couldn't get
Speaker 2: We couldn't raise a penny because when you snub your
Speaker 2: nose at the bureaucrats, they put you into a little
Speaker 2: black list that of course doesn't exist, but you then
Speaker 2: find it enormously difficult to get any money. So I've
Speaker 2: always found it a lot easier dealing with people that
Speaker 2: want to make money rather than people who give you
Speaker 2: the impression I can actually make this film better than
Speaker 2: you if I wasn't trapped behind this desk, you know
Speaker 2: what I mean, As opposed to out on the typewrope,
Speaker 2: dealing with people down at the fish market who'll cut
Speaker 2: your throat. They're much easier to deal with. I find
Speaker 2: just maybe some money son, you know, I don't. You're
Speaker 2: the filmmaker, get on with it. So that's how our
Speaker 2: film Going Down got made. And it was a street picture.
Speaker 2: Purchell picked it up and screened it. Has been screening
Speaker 2: it in the US now for a few months. And
Speaker 2: I was shooting a thing in London and flew over
Speaker 2: for the New York opening and was it still works.
Speaker 2: It's a film written for by and about twenty something
Speaker 2: women about the last night of a small group of
Speaker 2: women in Sydney, the night before one of them goes
Speaker 2: to New York and their youthful group is going to
Speaker 2: break up. And it's one of those nights where you
Speaker 2: say yes to everything right, you know, and by about
Speaker 2: three am things start to break up. The film said
Speaker 2: over twenty four hours, and while we were still busy
Speaker 2: making melodramas, Going Down had punk music, neon light, short
Speaker 2: skirts and girls who knew those were I know a
Speaker 2: girl like that. I know that bitch, I know her.
Speaker 2: And the women responded incredibly to the movie, and we
Speaker 2: couldn't get distribution on it, and found little cesspit in
Speaker 2: the middle of Sydney, a one hundred and eighty seater and
Speaker 2: it ran for four months. We had the filmmaker's wet
Speaker 2: dream with a few one hundred and fifty meters down
Speaker 2: the street. On the opening night. He was a film
Speaker 2: for them. It was Australian. It spoke to them in
Speaker 2: a language that they knew. And again the bureaucrats hated it.
Speaker 2: So we the film in Milan at a film market
Speaker 2: where screen films and do deals and Troma. The surf
Speaker 2: Nazis must die. Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz, I'll never
Speaker 2: forget it like it was our first stop out of Sydney,
Speaker 2: and he said, I like your picture very much. And
Speaker 2: he put his hand in his pocket and he pulled
Speaker 2: out a ward of US currency and he said, I've
Speaker 2: got fifty thousand dollars here. Give me the film and
Speaker 2: I'll give you this. And I thought, if they're offering
Speaker 2: this much on our first stop, next stops London, then
Speaker 2: New York, then LA on the way back to Sydney,
Speaker 2: I can do better. I couldn't. I couldn't. But at
Speaker 2: that film market, next to me, my partner and I
Speaker 2: Gay Steele. We had almost no marketing materials, and next
Speaker 2: to me there was a guy selling a movie and
Speaker 2: I thought he had a poster up on his little
Speaker 2: boothed and I said, that good title. And I'm a
Speaker 2: great believer in good titles. And I said, what's what's
Speaker 2: the movie? He said, oh, it's not a movie. I said, oh, well,
Speaker 2: you've got a script and you're selling the script now.
Speaker 2: He said, no, I've got a script. I said, what
Speaker 2: have you got? He said, I've got the poster. He said,
Speaker 2: I'm using the poster at a parley of script and
Speaker 2: then I'm going to go from the script. I thought, fuck,
Speaker 2: this is genius. What kind of idiot is trying to
Speaker 2: make a film? Why wanted you to start with a
Speaker 2: good title and work your way out? Which is where
Speaker 2: Pandemonium was founded. It was founded in the abattoir of
Speaker 2: film markets as you see, you know, chainsaw numb, slasher
Speaker 2: movies and everything except the major studios, all that production,
Speaker 2: and there was just fantastic stuff everywhere, with people out
Speaker 2: and about touting their works. And we came back and thought,
Speaker 2: look this sounds It was so innovating, and we lived
Speaker 2: in a block of flats in Bondai, and there was
Speaker 2: a rock band who had become a major Australian musical force.
Speaker 2: There were actors, there were writers there. It was just insane,
Speaker 2: a block of about eight or ten apartments. The doors
Speaker 2: are always open, the blue smoke flowed out of every window,
Speaker 2: and it was this creative well spring, and we thought,
Speaker 2: why don't we try and do something set just inside
Speaker 2: this building, filled with cinematic horrors into which an innocent
Speaker 2: comes and a man comes to survey the place and
Speaker 2: discovers that it's on an Aboriginal sacred site, and that
Speaker 2: this is going to be the change of world reality,
Speaker 2: as the galaxy is a line, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 2: I'm a great believe it's a school of filmmaking. I've
Speaker 2: invented or I've given a characterization to Mike called VSM
Speaker 2: and you see it. A friend of mine, Russell Multey,
Speaker 2: who did Raise her Back, and a number of other
Speaker 2: Highlander He was a big music video director before anything,
Speaker 2: and he was the fountainhead of VSM filmmaking. VSM stands
Speaker 2: for vague semblance of meaning. It looks like it means something,
Speaker 2: but when you pull the elements to bits, it actually
Speaker 2: doesn't mean anything at all. It's just a girl with
Speaker 2: blonde hair on a white horse with Duran Duran music
Speaker 2: playing and some fog and some backlighting. But it doesn't
Speaker 2: mean anything. So we set about trying to write a
Speaker 2: script that was rooted in reality, and we ended up
Speaker 2: with a wall covered in press clippings that if you
Speaker 2: watch Pandemonium, almost every scene in it and every horror
Speaker 2: in it is from a press cutting, whether it be
Speaker 2: fetuses used for Swiss, pharmacological face youth enhancement cream, whatever
Speaker 2: it is. We just put all this stuff together and
Speaker 2: attempted to do something that was a cheat, a complete cheat.
Speaker 2: The film costs about seven hundred thousand dollars Australian. The
Speaker 2: sets were from theater companies that were throwing out their sets,
Speaker 2: and someone would ring and say, listen, we're dumping it
Speaker 2: at the tip tomorrow, and we'd send a truck down
Speaker 2: there and grab their set. A friend of mine, who
Speaker 2: did all the art, direction and design for Mad Max
Speaker 2: and in fact the first ten series of Walking Dead,
Speaker 2: Grace Walker, rang up and said, listen, we've just finished
Speaker 2: this film, and all the sets of still in place.
Speaker 2: It's a Turkish harem Arab streakscapes, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 2: Get down there, you can have it. So the film
Speaker 2: came out of this. We haven't got a film, We've
Speaker 2: just got a poster mentality and we thought we don't
Speaker 2: want it to be Australian. And we got a map
Speaker 2: of the US and all the cast had to put
Speaker 2: blindfolds on and stick a pin in the map of
Speaker 2: the US and that would be your accent. So there's
Speaker 2: Blanche Duboir and there's you know, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 2: We set about trying to make something that would not
Speaker 2: be the accents, wouldn't distract you. And in fact, there's
Speaker 2: not one frame of synchronous sound in the film, not
Speaker 2: one the whole film. We just shot guide tracks and
Speaker 2: then we did what they called the old days post
Speaker 2: sinking in the nineteen fifties and forties, where the actors
Speaker 2: replaced all their dialogue. I do recall the hit of
Speaker 2: Disney called us head of production and said, look, I'd
Speaker 2: like to see your film, and I say, mate, there
Speaker 2: is no way I'm paying for a freight to LA.
Speaker 2: You are never going to touch this film in a
Speaker 2: million years and he said, no, no, no, I've heard some
Speaker 2: interesting things about it. I'll pay for the freight blah
Speaker 2: blah blah. About two weeks later he wrang me back
Speaker 2: and said how much did that film cost? And I
Speaker 2: said how much do you think? And he said fifteen
Speaker 2: million US? Good? I said half a million US. He said, wow,
Speaker 2: that is incredible. He said, I've been in the business
Speaker 2: thirty five years, and let me tell you something, I
Speaker 2: have never seen anything like PANDEMONI. You're right, we will
Speaker 2: never touch this film. But the Japanese loved it and
Speaker 2: we made a fantastic sale there, a million dollar sale. Unfortunately,
Speaker 2: our agent was a scoundrel and stole it all, so
Speaker 2: we missed out on that. It went incredibly well in Germany,
Speaker 2: the UK, and it never got a release in Australia.
Speaker 2: It was so villified here and I was certified as
Speaker 2: clinically insane. So that's the you report you so, you know,
Speaker 2: especially in a small place like this. So again the
Speaker 2: Troma guys offered me a deal and THEIRDA was fantastic.
Speaker 2: It was some shitty amount of money, but the term
Speaker 2: was eternity plus a day. I said, you really need
Speaker 2: the extra day and he said, well, you never know,
Speaker 2: so it's all the fun of the fair. You know.
Speaker 1: I know that you had worked with David Argued before,
Speaker 1: but when did you first meet him and what was
Speaker 1: that like.
Speaker 2: One of the people the Commonwealth Film Unit was also
Speaker 2: a part time actor and he was in our first
Speaker 2: film in the psych Hospital, Richard Moyer, and he then
Speaker 2: went on to have a really good career in Australian
Speaker 2: film before being struck down with Parkinson's disease. And we had,
Speaker 2: because of the Mogul thing, we rented a huge mansion
Speaker 2: and installed theaters editing rooms in downtown Sydney and it
Speaker 2: was a little bit I wouldn't say of the factory,
Speaker 2: but it was a real creative hub. People came in,
Speaker 2: there were painters, there were filmmakers. There was stuff happening
Speaker 2: in every room. And Richard came and said, oh, look
Speaker 2: I've met this. He did get into the National Acting
Speaker 2: Group and he said, look I've got this fantastic young bloke.
Speaker 2: You've got to meet him. He's the youngest person ever
Speaker 2: to have been admitted to the drama course. And he
Speaker 2: brought David Argue round to our studio and I think
Speaker 2: David was about seventeen and I was probably twenty four
Speaker 2: or twenty five. We clicked. I mean, David was the
Speaker 2: most wonderful person. Sadly he died a few months ago.
Speaker 2: And David was one of those people. He was not
Speaker 2: a literate person. He responded to sounds and pictures, so
Speaker 2: particularly mel Blank, the Warner Brothers, oh mister ed Sagan Bilco,
Speaker 2: that you name it. And he had the capacity to
Speaker 2: be in a room and spot the way you sort
Speaker 2: of hold your beard, and then look at the way
Speaker 2: someone else spoke, and then the way someone stood and walked,
Speaker 2: and take bits and assemble it into a new character.
Speaker 2: His mother was a dancer and his father was a
Speaker 2: comedy magician with Holiday Disney's Holiday on Ice, So they
Speaker 2: toured the world on ice dancing, singing, magic and David
Speaker 2: and when they retire they opened ice rinks in Melbourne.
Speaker 2: And David was incredible as my film going down on
Speaker 2: roller skates, ice skates, anything like that, and he was
Speaker 2: a great props maker. We did a play together, Samuel
Speaker 2: Beckett's Craps Last Tape, which is a one man show
Speaker 2: about compromise and failing hope as you get older and
Speaker 2: it could have been written for him, and he had
Speaker 2: trouble reading the script until we had you know, idiot
Speaker 2: boards everywhere, and then he got the But it was
Speaker 2: when he started to build the props. He was a
Speaker 2: great props maker. He made the shoes, then he made
Speaker 2: the trousers. Oh I get it this and the character
Speaker 2: came out of this sort of tactile experience. So David
Speaker 2: was a unique character who was a look. I think
Speaker 2: one of the things in Australia, the US and the
Speaker 2: UK has headhunted our actors, cinematographers, picture and sound editors, directors,
Speaker 2: but not our producers. And in many ways I think
Speaker 2: might be getting better now. But Australian producers didn't like reading.
Speaker 2: They came out of production management and with sort of
Speaker 2: glorified accountants, and someone like David Argue is a handful.
Speaker 2: And in the US here the producer would say, oh,
Speaker 2: I don't like him, I don't want to work with him.
Speaker 2: In the US the argument might be I've got enough friends,
Speaker 2: I don't care if I like him more. Not does
Speaker 2: he sell tickets? And every time David Argue came on
Speaker 2: the screen, people fell out of their seats laughing. That's
Speaker 2: all I care about. So I think he would eat
Speaker 2: Jim Carey for breakfast. And Jim Carey, I hear, has
Speaker 2: problematic crates. But in the US, if you sell, they'll
Speaker 2: get you a dresser. There'll be someone who drives you
Speaker 2: to the set. There'll be someone who puts your clothes
Speaker 2: on you. There'll be someone. And once you go in
Speaker 2: front of the lens, boom, it happens. And here there's
Speaker 2: a small town Peyton place sort of vibe. And David
Speaker 2: got drummed out of the film industry at times. He
Speaker 2: was his own worst enemy and he knew that. And
Speaker 2: you know it's silly, but people loved him. Audiences absolutely
Speaker 2: loved him, and he was a He was a tragedy, right,
Speaker 2: It was a tragedy of a small town culture. And
Speaker 2: he should have pissed off to the US early on.
Speaker 2: And I think he would have had a different career
Speaker 2: narrative because I saw it in New York, a forty
Speaker 2: year old picture Going Down in May, and audiences were
Speaker 2: pissing themselves laughing as David did his thing in Going Down.
Speaker 2: And it's a different culture, different accents, different era, but
Speaker 2: people laughed at David and he was an incredible pratfaller.
Speaker 2: He could do them just things we thought, oh no,
Speaker 2: he's going to break his shoulder, and he could fall
Speaker 2: and bounce up again. So it was memorable. And David
Speaker 2: and I worked together happily, chaotically badly on a couple
Speaker 2: of films, a couple of TV ads, play, etc. And
Speaker 2: he was a dear friend and collaborator, and we'd written
Speaker 2: a script together with another chap about a failed pawn
Speaker 2: producers who end up winning pan by mistake. He loved
Speaker 2: making films, he loved theater, and he was a wonderful
Speaker 2: stand up comic. You know you sent that.
Speaker 1: He reacted to sounds and I'm curious did he do
Speaker 1: a lot of voices.
Speaker 2: He was incredible with voices. He was absolutely incredible when
Speaker 2: he was on his He had a habit of ringing
Speaker 2: into late night talkback radio after he started not being
Speaker 2: able to get work, and he'd ring in with seven
Speaker 2: a Norwegian fisherman who is in Australia, or some little
Speaker 2: old lady or he was absolutely incredible. Mike, he was
Speaker 2: amazing again, And it's mel Blank was a huge hero
Speaker 2: of his absolute and he just loved all that stuff.
Speaker 2: You know, so his his vocal control and his thing
Speaker 2: where at times, and you see it in Pandemonium a
Speaker 2: bit too, where the face is made of stone but
Speaker 2: the eyes turned sixty degrees to the left and that's
Speaker 2: that's cartoon land or an eyebrow moves or and it's
Speaker 2: very The camera loved him, and particularly the close up.
Speaker 2: At times, acting in scenes with him could be nerve
Speaker 2: racking because you wouldn't know when he was going to
Speaker 2: drop in the que line, or he'd add lib something
Speaker 2: when you're expecting you're supposed to say your bit. But yeah, no,
Speaker 2: he was technically really really strong, and it's that sort
Speaker 2: of stuff where everyone goes, oh, you add libert. So
Speaker 2: it's free form ad libe I've always found is rehearsed
Speaker 2: at times. Man, you know, and you know, if you
Speaker 2: can fake spontaneity, you know you've got it made. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think the first time I really clicked with him
Speaker 1: was Hercules Returns and just the manic energy that he
Speaker 1: was bringing to that. And then all the voices, you know,
Speaker 1: so much of that is all voice over work. And
Speaker 1: then yeah, I was curious with Pandemonium, did you have
Speaker 1: him do more than one voice? Was he voicing multiple characters.
Speaker 2: No, it was mainly just his stuff. A number. It
Speaker 2: was interesting with the revoicing because modern actors generally don't
Speaker 2: have to do that, and it took a number of
Speaker 2: the cast members. That was really confronting for them because
Speaker 2: you know, they couldn't get the sink right, or when
Speaker 2: they got the sink right, they sounded stultified. Whereas David
Speaker 2: took to it like a duck to water, hercules, et cetera.
Speaker 2: And not only did he excel at it, he actually
Speaker 2: improved his performance. Can I just add a little bit
Speaker 2: of an inflection? And he would then add color to
Speaker 2: his vocal delivery, or when he turned away from the camera, oh,
Speaker 2: I could slip in a line that says, you know.
Speaker 2: So he understood the film process so well. He took
Speaker 2: to it like a duck to water, whereas others found
Speaker 2: the idea of sinking your voice to a picture on
Speaker 2: a screen in a theater quite difficult. You know, can
Speaker 2: you tell me a.
Speaker 1: Little bit about espen Storm. I know that you had
Speaker 1: worked with him for a long time, had been mates
Speaker 1: with him since you guys were super young.
Speaker 2: We were at school together and I start in his
Speaker 2: first film, and he started my first film, and then
Speaker 2: we both went to this Commonwealth Film unit in Sydney.
Speaker 2: He was again the same it was he had done
Speaker 2: acting at school. We founded this little company, his Smart
Speaker 2: Street Films, which was in a street that in Melbourne,
Speaker 2: Smart Street, and we had a It was it was
Speaker 2: a great relationship in the sense that after you after
Speaker 2: a while working together, not in a wink, will speak volumes.
Speaker 2: And it was pretty old school in the sense that
Speaker 2: whilst he was you know, on our first film he
Speaker 2: wrote and direct and I produced. At times there would
Speaker 2: be a discussion whether the scene's working. And I don't
Speaker 2: know if you ever know that there was a There's
Speaker 2: a book called Mimo which is the memorandums of David O. Selznick,
Speaker 2: and it's like an itching for filmmakers. No matter what
Speaker 2: problem you run into in film, he will have dealt
Speaker 2: with it. And because he was so anal retentive, I
Speaker 2: mean he proposed to his wife in a memo, but
Speaker 2: he came to production whilst he wasn't a cinematographer, he
Speaker 2: understood the principles of it. Whilst he wasn't a wardrobe mistress,
Speaker 2: he understood wardrobe and in many ways that's why I'm
Speaker 2: saying so many of these producers come out of accountancy
Speaker 2: slash production management rather than a creative input where the
Speaker 2: producer in many ways is the first member of the audience.
Speaker 2: So when that film comes out of the camera and
Speaker 2: you see it the next day in the old days
Speaker 2: film in a theater, you can say, listen, miss O'Hara's
Speaker 2: dress isn't coming up red enough. Let's talk to the
Speaker 2: camera department and wardrobe. We need that dress to really
Speaker 2: jump off the screen or per makeups not right, whatever
Speaker 2: it is, whether it be script, performance, etc. And Esben
Speaker 2: and I had that which was really creative, really exciting,
Speaker 2: rather than you're half a day behind schedule, you're going
Speaker 2: to have to drop a scene, this sort of bullshit,
Speaker 2: you know. And I think in some ways, I don't
Speaker 2: know whether it's happening more now, but I think that
Speaker 2: the producer is the first member of the audience, and
Speaker 2: I think that the producer is needs to be a
Speaker 2: deeply creative sounding board for the whole production. So as
Speaker 2: and I got on incredibly well. We worked fabulously together
Speaker 2: and then started making films separately, and just funnily enough,
Speaker 2: just before he died, we were talking about working together again.
Speaker 2: So the wheel comes around again.
Speaker 1: You know, how was it directing a friend and partner.
Speaker 2: I knew was actually a pretty good actor, and he
Speaker 2: hadn't done any acting since school, so we cast him
Speaker 2: as the shithead junkie in those days he used to
Speaker 2: be able to get cough mixture in Australia, I don't
Speaker 2: know about the US full of coded it was, you know,
Speaker 2: so they're out there buying six bottles of para codin.
Speaker 2: I knew he could play this sort of thing really well,
Speaker 2: so cast him in that, and he knocked people's socks
Speaker 2: off in going Down, and it started a side hustle
Speaker 2: for him. He was making films, et cetera. But it
Speaker 2: started a little side hustle acting in other people's films,
Speaker 2: you know. So he was the perfect foil to the girls,
Speaker 2: and in fact, in many ways, because the film is
Speaker 2: written by and about the lives of four women, by
Speaker 2: the four women that had happened to most of the
Speaker 2: males are greasy, grifter's gray type, you know, sleazy, and
Speaker 2: he was perfect. It was so perfect, and directing him
Speaker 2: it was easy, just you know, just bring it back
Speaker 2: a bit or you didn't need to talk it to death.
Speaker 2: You just you just we're coming into the close up here.
Speaker 2: Don't forget this lens here just gives the look to
Speaker 2: the left. So is understood that when you're on you know,
Speaker 2: a wide angle lens and you're close to it, that
Speaker 2: if you just move your eye over this way. Like
Speaker 2: all good film actors, they want to know what lenses
Speaker 2: on the camera so they know how to work it.
Speaker 2: And I think that was you know, one of the
Speaker 2: great things with him is that he understood the process,
Speaker 2: so you didn't have to explain that we're going to
Speaker 2: come back in then pick this up later and blah
Speaker 2: blah blah. You know. So it was great fun. It
Speaker 2: was really great fun. And because he was a committed filmmaker,
Speaker 2: would do anything, you know. And in Pandemonium he shaved
Speaker 2: his head, he did, you know, he did his own stunts,
Speaker 2: he did, you know, it was all sorts of stuff.
Speaker 1: Who is the guy in Panemonium? He plays doctor Doctor?
Speaker 2: I think it is.
Speaker 1: Who's that charming young actor?
Speaker 2: Said? The guy who was going to play it had
Speaker 2: to pull out a week before due to a family illness.
Speaker 2: And I'd originally written thinking I can have a go
Speaker 2: at it, and then thought look it's just too much.
Speaker 2: I'll cast it and I did as good as I could, hope.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's funnily enough. If you can't get work
Speaker 2: as an actor, make a film and past yourself. You know,
Speaker 2: I was in our first film twenty seven A. I
Speaker 2: make a cameo in Going Down, and took this little
Speaker 2: role in Pandemonia, so you know this. It is funny
Speaker 2: walking around in makeup dressed as a sort of a
Speaker 2: mad doctor while you're directing the film.
Speaker 1: You talked about how the movie never played in Australia,
Speaker 1: but did it eventually, like do you have retro screenings
Speaker 1: of it there?
Speaker 2: Or it might have had one or two screenings. We
Speaker 2: were assailed by Christian Group and the mainstream conservative distribution
Speaker 2: companies threw up their hands in horror, absolute horror, and
Speaker 2: in many ways, you know, I mean they loved a razorhead.
Speaker 2: And it's one of those things I was talking about
Speaker 2: before this cultural insolarity, whereas if the same thing had
Speaker 2: come from the US or the UK, it would have
Speaker 2: had a much better chance. You know, Almdova selling you know,
Speaker 2: junkie nuns selling young girls out of high rise government
Speaker 2: apartments in Madrid. Great but try and do it homegrown
Speaker 2: and the again there's that I don't like it, not
Speaker 2: whether it will sell. And funnily enough, in the last
Speaker 2: twelve months or so, there have been a number of
Speaker 2: a younger generation there must be pirates out there somewhere,
Speaker 2: and people contacting me saying, oh, I saw Pandemonia. It
Speaker 2: was so wonderful. All my friends were killing ourselves laughing,
Speaker 2: et cetera, et cetera. And we've put on one or
Speaker 2: two little screenings which have gone down incredibly well with
Speaker 2: an under thirty age group and people say, oh, the
Speaker 2: film is ahead of its time or whatever. And by
Speaker 2: it's no perfect film by any stretch of the imagination.
Speaker 2: But we've just done a four kay restoration on it
Speaker 2: and I'm hoping that we can pick up some certainly
Speaker 2: some screenings here and see if we can get it
Speaker 2: out internationally. It's a film that travels, it's because of
Speaker 2: its sort of everything's on a set, et cetera. It
Speaker 2: doesn't date as such. I'm hoping that we can get
Speaker 2: it out and about in the US and in Australia
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty six.
Speaker 1: Who's putting that as an umbrella?
Speaker 2: Umbrella's going to be putting it out initially, and we're
Speaker 2: going to be handling theatrical.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, that's really good to hear. You talked about
Speaker 1: that whole apartment block where it was all of those
Speaker 1: creative people. And as you're talking about that, I've been
Speaker 1: listening to a lot of stuff around Francis for Coppola
Speaker 1: lately and it almost feels like you made Australian Zowa
Speaker 1: Trope at that point.
Speaker 2: It was. It was a very very dynamic time and
Speaker 2: Australian music was exploding. It was, in a funny way,
Speaker 2: a rebirth of Australian culture. And previously, you know, government a, well,
Speaker 2: what's wrong with American movies? So why shouldn't we have
Speaker 2: you know, what do you need? Who needs Australian films?
Speaker 2: And there was always something a little bit oh you lefties,
Speaker 2: you know, there was a thing about you know, et cetera. So,
Speaker 2: and I've got to say it was quite an extraordinary
Speaker 2: experience to see our first Australian films because you had
Speaker 2: to overcome the sense that it's not a real proper
Speaker 2: film because the accents weren't right. The accent I call
Speaker 2: you yesterday and here you come today. You know, we're
Speaker 2: used to Red River and John Wayne and you know,
Speaker 2: et cetera, and it took us all a little while
Speaker 2: to get used to our own accents. It's so bizarre
Speaker 2: day that, you know, the government wet blanket over things
Speaker 2: that were risk free. I think there's some very interesting
Speaker 2: stuff starting to happen at the moment, both in genre areas,
Speaker 2: but in other areas where there was a thing where
Speaker 2: if you don't give me government money, I won't make
Speaker 2: the film, and in some cases say, you know, do
Speaker 2: you promise, And now people are sidestepping them and just saying,
Speaker 2: I'm going to fucking make it anyway, man, and I'm
Speaker 2: going to get it together, and I don't care if
Speaker 2: it's eight mil or I don't care if it's anything.
Speaker 2: And in the end, risk taking the risk because no
Speaker 2: one knows nothing, as the man said, And we're seeing
Speaker 2: these Timothy challow May pitchures crashing and burning. Man, there's
Speaker 2: a list who are not selling tickets. There's a sea
Speaker 2: change happening. I've seen a couple of little things that
Speaker 2: are eight millimeter and they've then blown it up to
Speaker 2: you know, four K DCP or whenever it is. They're
Speaker 2: getting it into cinemas and young kids are coming in
Speaker 2: watching the stuff. Now it's not mainstream, but it's good
Speaker 2: foot in the door stuff and it's good stepping stones
Speaker 2: and it's also where you know, it's that sort of
Speaker 2: thing where Australian films, too often and probably mainstream anywhere,
Speaker 2: they try to be everything to everyone, and consequently they
Speaker 2: are nothing to no one, you know, and some of
Speaker 2: our stuff, where the Pandemonium, Going Down twenty seven A,
Speaker 2: these films, they're not for everyone, and consequently you can
Speaker 2: afford to take risks. You can afford to focus what
Speaker 2: you're doing onto a very clear demographic, and you can
Speaker 2: afford to alienate a demographic as we did with Going
Speaker 2: Down and Pandemonium, where uncool people are not going to
Speaker 2: like this great because cool people will and they'll know
Speaker 2: what we're talking about. You know, there's some fascinating young
Speaker 2: filmmakers coming through and they are challenging the industrial formats.
Speaker 2: You know. I know there's a guy and trapesing around
Speaker 2: La those sunburnt concrete pavements with a ninety minute horror
Speaker 2: picture and he can't get any purchase on the thing
Speaker 2: at all, and no, no, no, And then someone's come
Speaker 2: back to him and said, look, I don't I really
Speaker 2: like the story, but can you give me thirty three
Speaker 2: minute episodes instead of one night and vertical?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: Right? So you know, and you're seeing people watching, you know,
Speaker 2: two hundred million dollar movies on a friggin phone in
Speaker 2: the bus, So you go, why did I bother with focus?
Speaker 7: What?
Speaker 2: You know? So you know, the you're seeing things breaking
Speaker 2: down where they're episodic, they're fitting to people are determining
Speaker 2: what and how they're going to watch stuff, you know,
Speaker 2: and how long is the average bus journey or train
Speaker 2: journey or whatever. Let's make it fit inside that. So
Speaker 2: you know, the cinema Is it the art form of
Speaker 2: the twentieth century? I hope not because that you know,
Speaker 2: and it's such a tired aphorism, but there is nothing
Speaker 2: like sitting in an audience sharing the dream scape, everyone
Speaker 2: having the same dream. And there's nothing like a full
Speaker 2: house watching it's a mad, mad, mad mad world and
Speaker 2: just screaming their tits off with laughter. It's a wonderful.
Speaker 2: And you can't get up go out to the toilet,
Speaker 2: or you can't. I'll press pause while I go and
Speaker 2: make a cup of coffee or whatever. You agree, you
Speaker 2: sign a quiet dream contract all to when the lights
Speaker 2: go down, here we go and up comes John Barry's
Speaker 2: music for Bond, and you go, whoa, here we go,
Speaker 2: and it's that wonderful experience, almost childlike, dream like and
Speaker 2: something that's that has sucked me in from the time
Speaker 2: I was a child. And now you know, we're making
Speaker 2: a feature length documentary at the moment. And I've been
Speaker 2: in the US and Canada and all over the world
Speaker 2: shooting this damn thing. But you know, I have to
Speaker 2: be flexible to say, okay, maybe the one hundred minutes
Speaker 2: or go to film festivals, but it might have to
Speaker 2: be chopped into one, two or three television hours or
Speaker 2: into even shorter forms for social media or whatever. You know,
Speaker 2: YouTube is making more money than cinema is. You know,
Speaker 2: the games are bigger than film and TV combined. People
Speaker 2: are reverse engineering their PlayStation games and making their own
Speaker 2: feature films, and AI is opening up things incredibly excitingly,
Speaker 2: and I think in a funny way also maybe democratizing stuff.
Speaker 2: You don't have to have gone to Egypt to shoot
Speaker 2: in front of the pyramids. Imagination is now there for
Speaker 2: the doing up until now, you know, with our stuff.
Speaker 2: We've always don't hide the flaws, flaunt them, use them
Speaker 2: as your part, as your entry card, you know. And
Speaker 2: there's nothing worse than people trying to pretend it's something
Speaker 2: and not quite pulling it off, as opposed to some
Speaker 2: trashy movie where don't hide it, launt it.
Speaker 1: What is your documentary on?
Speaker 2: As I said, when I went to my mother moved
Speaker 2: us to England, and then I went to this little
Speaker 2: school and there are a lot of Nigerians, Ghanaians, some American, Canadian,
Speaker 2: a lot of what we call Persians, Iranians, a lot
Speaker 2: of Kenyans, a lot of Pakistanis, and a few English boys.
Speaker 2: And the head master was a descendant of Armenian genocide refugees.
Speaker 2: And there was no racism in the school, none at all.
Speaker 2: There was no sectarianism, although there were Jews, Muslims, Christians, Zoroastrians,
Speaker 2: you know, you name it. And the head master prided
Speaker 2: himself in finding out what you were good at and
Speaker 2: then giving you the tools to excel. By crime, you'd
Speaker 2: better excel or you'll see me tomorrow. Boy, what I
Speaker 2: have done. I went to the school and when I
Speaker 2: left the school, I came back to Australia, and I
Speaker 2: didn't see any of those boys again for fifty years
Speaker 2: until watching the World Soccer Cup in twenty fourteen. And
Speaker 2: I'd always get up to watch Garner because they were cool.
Speaker 2: Ghanaians are funny, they're laid back, they're very very cool guys.
Speaker 2: And the camera panned across the coaching group and there
Speaker 2: was my best friend, the coach of Garner. So I
Speaker 2: tracked him down in a cra and I said, Herbert,
Speaker 2: I'm coming over to see you, and he said, come over.
Speaker 2: I'm really well known. We'll have a great time. And
Speaker 2: I put it off and he got malaria and died,
Speaker 2: and I thought, I'm never going to do that again.
Speaker 2: I'm never going to put off anything. As I get older,
Speaker 2: I start burying more and more of my friends. So
Speaker 2: I started trying to track down the boys that I
Speaker 2: went to school with in Tehran, Los Angeles, Vancouver, New York,
Speaker 2: Madrid and ask them how growing up we all live together,
Speaker 2: how growing up in a non racial, non religious environment
Speaker 2: influence the rest of their lives. And the film is
Speaker 2: about growing up in a non racial, non religious environment
Speaker 2: and whether there are any lessons we can take from
Speaker 2: that little school and use in today in the twenty
Speaker 2: first century about how we educate children to give them
Speaker 2: confidence and responsibility at a time when xenophobia and populism
Speaker 2: and the world as we see it seems to be
Speaker 2: implying very different values. And I've been around the world.
Speaker 2: We've finished shooting about six weeks ago. I've been shooting
Speaker 2: for seven years, and six weeks ago I talked all
Speaker 2: of them into flying in from Ghana, La, everywhere. And
Speaker 2: they all flew in for dinner at the school and
Speaker 2: hadn't seen each other for sixty years. I don't know.
Speaker 2: It was pretty amazing actually, and we had a couple
Speaker 2: of cameras there and it's going to be the last
Speaker 2: scene in the fall inspired by donnad Have you ever
Speaker 2: seen a film called A Lucky Man? Oh? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: you know the last scene in the film. It's the
Speaker 2: rap party. There's Alan Price in the band. If you
Speaker 2: have a friend on whom you think you can rely,
Speaker 2: you are a lucky man. And you can see the
Speaker 2: camera cracking on the dolly and it comes through to
Speaker 2: Malcolm McDowell and Lindsay Anderson at the very end, and
Speaker 2: I thought, that's what I want to do. A scene
Speaker 2: where and we've got you can see the cameras and
Speaker 2: the recorders and it's a rap party and that's such
Speaker 2: a wonderful film. And again that's one that you haven't
Speaker 2: seen from you know, it doesn't get a lot of air,
Speaker 2: that film. So I'm hoping to make a film we're
Speaker 2: just editing now about memory, about how we bring up
Speaker 2: children and about how the influence of the environment on
Speaker 2: young children really affects the rest of their lives. And
Speaker 2: you know, I've got billionaire propertied of Iranian property developers
Speaker 2: in Vancouver. I got Mudjya Hadeen fighters in Tehran. I
Speaker 2: got the president of Ghana. I've got a fifth generation
Speaker 2: circus clown who now mainly does political theater, who gave
Speaker 2: me a role of film a file got by the
Speaker 2: Loomi Air Brothers in eighteen ninety of his great great
Speaker 2: grandfather Juggle in Paris. And I've got the first out
Speaker 2: gay member of the House of Law in England. So
Speaker 2: I've got an eclectic group of people, and I'm hoping
Speaker 2: that we can come up with something that's fresh, energetic,
Speaker 2: nuanced without being too nuanced, and gives you hope, gives
Speaker 2: your hope for young people. Look, I'm hoping I can
Speaker 2: get it into a couple of film festivals. We've made
Speaker 2: it like it's one of those ones gorilla thing where
Speaker 2: you know, we just started shooting. And I thought, man,
Speaker 2: I don't give a fuck. I bought a camera, I
Speaker 2: shot it. It's been a one man thing, you know.
Speaker 2: And I bought a little drown and I've made about
Speaker 2: four trips to Europe or I feel like I threw
Speaker 2: myself into the river and I thought, wherever it takes me,
Speaker 2: I'm just going to go there, man. And I found
Speaker 2: myself living in a gypsy caravan outside Madrid. I found
Speaker 2: myself in a you know, boutique hotel in Vancouver, as
Speaker 2: these people said, oh listen, we own a hotel. Just
Speaker 2: book in there and you'll be right. Just tell them
Speaker 2: how long you're staying. The clown had oh, look, the
Speaker 2: caravan my father was born in is empty. You can
Speaker 2: take that. And people were so kind and so wonderfully
Speaker 2: generous that, you know, had I had to pay for
Speaker 2: airfares and you know, the bits and pieces. But in
Speaker 2: the end, I thought, are you a filmmaker or not?
Speaker 2: You know? And if you you know, if I've got
Speaker 2: three scripts, a couple that I've been trying to get
Speaker 2: going and not having a great deal of luck. And
Speaker 2: I've got a couple of documentary ideas but can't quite
Speaker 2: get them over the line. And this one was such
Speaker 2: a great story, and people kept saying to me, but
Speaker 2: that's a film that's you know that you saw the
Speaker 2: guy in the middle of the night, your old friend
Speaker 2: who was the coach of the Gharnaan football team, make
Speaker 2: it go start and he just thought, fuck it, man,
Speaker 2: just start, you know. And if you know how long
Speaker 2: it's going to take, you'd never start. But once you're
Speaker 2: a bit into it, you can't back out. As you know,
Speaker 2: the producers of Heaven's Gates will tell you, once you're
Speaker 2: in far enough, it'll be finished round Easter. And anyone
Speaker 2: that can finish a film no matter what, I give
Speaker 2: a huge tick. It's so hard, and coming up with
Speaker 2: reasonable ideas is not all that hard. A few drinks
Speaker 2: and a bit of entertaining conversation, but doing it that's
Speaker 2: the bit that separates the sheep from the ghosts. If
Speaker 2: you can then get it finished, you get a huge tick.
Speaker 2: That's a single project. There is a separate project, and
Speaker 2: that is distributing the fucking thing, and that is a
Speaker 2: different thing altogether. And if you can then take that thing,
Speaker 2: you got the tick for the finished film and get
Speaker 2: it out there right, there's another tick for you, you know.
Speaker 2: And we had a John Ohas by John Waters, very
Speaker 2: inspiring character and on going down because all the major
Speaker 2: distributors have knocked it back off. Who wants to see
Speaker 2: a film about four girls and drugs and music and
Speaker 2: that I'm going I know and the guy who I'll
Speaker 2: just quickly tell you, the guy who ran the film.
Speaker 2: We were down to our it was their last card
Speaker 2: and we'd audience tested it. Now I'm a great believer
Speaker 2: in audience testing. You don't have to take what they say,
Speaker 2: but listen. And we knew we have a hit. They
Speaker 2: absolutely loved it, absolutely loved it. It was about them.
Speaker 2: They knew the scene, the drugs and the drug jokes weren't. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I've had nights like that. So we knew we had
Speaker 2: a hit. And we couldn't convince the middle aged middle management,
Speaker 2: those barts. Anyway, we go to this place, I think
Speaker 2: you get hepatitis off the friggin's seats and he says,
Speaker 2: bring me the first reel and the last reel. Don't
Speaker 2: you want to see the middle? He said, no, I
Speaker 2: just want to see how it starts and how it acts.
Speaker 2: Oh righth, So I'd bring in in those days, you know,
Speaker 2: those cans of thirty five mili film. And I came
Speaker 2: back an hour later and he said, it's appalling, it's terrible.
Speaker 2: It's atrocious, the girls with the skirts up their backsides,
Speaker 2: that loud music, the drugs. You open in four weeks.
Speaker 2: And I said, but you said it was atrocious. He said, oh,
Speaker 2: that's what I think. But I'm not the one buying tickets,
Speaker 2: and I know who is, and there's a lot of
Speaker 2: them who are going to love this film. And it
Speaker 2: was the first time I thought this really professional approach.
Speaker 2: I'm a middle aged old man. I'm not the audience.
Speaker 2: Who is? And are there enough of them to warrant
Speaker 2: putting this on? It is atrocious and you open in
Speaker 2: four weeks. That was a real eye opener for me.
Speaker 2: Who are you making this film for? Heap that in mind,
Speaker 2: because so many filmmakers are, oh, well, it's sort of
Speaker 2: it's and you think, come on, who's it for? And
Speaker 2: you need to answer those simple questions and you know
Speaker 2: it's old school, but you need to be able to
Speaker 2: say it in one sentence. And I've always found that
Speaker 2: people make decisions very very brutally, especially with finance in
Speaker 2: the first twenty seconds. The image, the name. I invented
Speaker 2: a subsidiary of Smart Streak Films called TIFTAFF, which is
Speaker 2: the Institute for titling Australian Films. There was a film
Speaker 2: called Board Olives that was made in Australia, which is
Speaker 2: just waiting for Pauline Kale to say the olives weren't
Speaker 2: the only ones board and so we just put out
Speaker 2: this press release. Do you want your film to be
Speaker 2: called two Lane, Blacktop three ten to Yuma, things like that,
Speaker 2: or bored Olives people bit it was just a complete joke,
Speaker 2: but I'm a great but you know, mad Max, it
Speaker 2: rolls off the tongue, you go, whoa, what's that? And
Speaker 2: again that central poster image, you know on a building site,
Speaker 2: you want people to double tape, not go no. The
Speaker 2: title and that central image, and both of those Australia's
Speaker 2: never been particularly good at. And you know you'll often see,
Speaker 2: you know, a Volkswagen with enlarged cartoon heads coming out
Speaker 2: of the windows, that sort of stuff, or you'll see
Speaker 2: something that you just go, wow, what's that. Oh, I've
Speaker 2: got to find out you want to encourage the viewer
Speaker 2: to find out more. We're starting to cotton onto it
Speaker 2: now in Australia. The Europeans have always been incredibly good
Speaker 2: at it, you know, the Germans, just where they focus
Speaker 2: on something and doing elegant. Don't crowd it, keep it simple,
Speaker 2: keep it you know. So. But you know, I've got
Speaker 2: a I've got a a script that I can't quite
Speaker 2: get it over the It's called Trouble in Blonde. My
Speaker 2: other one is called Fuck City, but that's not working
Speaker 2: quite so well.
Speaker 1: Good friend of mine just put out a movie called
Speaker 1: Fuck My Son.
Speaker 2: So well. I think Liz Burchell put out the things
Speaker 2: she's put out after going Down was pastration movie and
Speaker 2: I said to you, Liz, what would that be about?
Speaker 2: Titling is incredibly important, people are no. I insist on this,
Speaker 2: and you're going, but but it's going to turn people off.
Speaker 2: There's no need to turn people off.
Speaker 1: Well, mister King, this was so great. Thank you so
Speaker 1: much for your time.
Speaker 2: No, I really appreciate it. Mike. You know, someone trawling
Speaker 2: through the detritus of cinema and coming up with these things.
Speaker 2: So keep it up, keep up the great one.
Speaker 3: I'm going that day as soon as I get to
Speaker 3: New York.
Speaker 8: Guys shoots off.
Speaker 11: Why Daddy give you some money to go away with investors?
Speaker 2: Revolution is going to start from the barking basements out
Speaker 2: of part instant.
Speaker 3: To go to a party.
Speaker 11: Okay, okay, let's go something.
Speaker 3: Are those crutches right? I mean, where did you get
Speaker 3: your money from?
Speaker 7: Her?
Speaker 12: I know where it came from.
Speaker 8: I just want to find out where I went.
Speaker 2: Nothing lost river kulous. I know what I want.
Speaker 3: And I'm going to get it.
Speaker 6: Why do you Interrexual's right.
Speaker 1: We were back and we were talking about Pandemonium, and
Speaker 1: I wanted to talk real quick about the other smart
Speaker 1: Street film that is getting out there now. I'm really
Speaker 1: excited that Hayden says that Pandemonium will be coming out
Speaker 1: pretty soon, hopefully THROUGHLLA. He was very nice to send
Speaker 1: over a restored version of it, or kind of in progress.
Speaker 1: I saw a little some rough spots towards the beginning
Speaker 1: where it seemed like stuff was going out of frame
Speaker 1: a little bit, but I think that's going to be
Speaker 1: all cleaned up, But yeah, Going Down is out there now,
Speaker 1: and I'm really excited that this is out there. What
Speaker 1: a different movie. It's so interesting to see just how
Speaker 1: different of a filmmaker he could be. And even though,
Speaker 1: like you said, we've got some same actors from the
Speaker 1: you know, from Pandemonium, some people that he worked with
Speaker 1: before totally cast different. I mean I almost didn't recognize
Speaker 1: David Argue with those great glasses, and I think he's
Speaker 1: got the great physical comedy. You get to see him
Speaker 1: like be tossed and he's there like landed on his
Speaker 1: head kind of thing. And then yeah, Ebsen looks so
Speaker 1: completely different. It is I couldn't believe that he was
Speaker 1: the same person. But yeah, looking at those old photos
Speaker 1: of him, I was just like, oh, this guy really
Speaker 1: had it going on. And then you see him in
Speaker 1: Pandemonium with the beer belly, that horrible shirt and the
Speaker 1: gray hair with the mismatching uh to pay. I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: what a what an amazing transformation of.
Speaker 8: That wink Death comes for us all man, It's just
Speaker 8: part of life.
Speaker 9: Don't forget the poly blend shirt. He's got some amazing
Speaker 9: Polly Blint with like large trees like nature scenes and
Speaker 9: that little mustache, a mustache that totally if an old
Speaker 9: back issue of Jugs magazine had a scent, it would
Speaker 9: smell like that mustache. Yeah, I'm so I'm so curious
Speaker 9: because you got to see this in the theater, Hayton, Like,
Speaker 9: did you go into going down Like was that like
Speaker 9: a total blind thing where you just knew like a
Speaker 9: little bit, Like what was what was the experience with
Speaker 9: you getting to check that out?
Speaker 8: Yeah? I knew very little about it.
Speaker 10: I was approached by the people who were, you know,
Speaker 10: like helping promote the film, and I looked at it
Speaker 10: and just a couple of stills, like there's one image
Speaker 10: of a bunch of it's because it's following these three
Speaker 10: party girls through an evening as one of them's about
Speaker 10: to move and then somebody steals.
Speaker 8: Her like starting out money and it's this nighttime.
Speaker 10: Odyssey, and then in the morning they're like trying to
Speaker 10: get to the airport and one of them's huking like
Speaker 10: projectile vomiting off the back of a car.
Speaker 8: And I saw that image and I was like, this
Speaker 8: is special and I have to go.
Speaker 10: And so I was going in expecting just like hung
Speaker 10: Rock extravagance, and then there's so much genuine pathos in
Speaker 10: that movie, Like it's a very complicated emotional landscape that
Speaker 10: just happens to have some of the best bang and
Speaker 10: needle drops ever. Like it's the blend there. It's very
Speaker 10: easy and breezy, but also very like melancholy.
Speaker 8: And I know one of the.
Speaker 10: Lead actresses died before it came out, right, so it
Speaker 10: has that feeling to it of like this is a
Speaker 10: very real story about a very real community that's contending
Speaker 10: with like how to live as young people in a
Speaker 10: precarious environment. It's just really elegant, and I think it
Speaker 10: hit everyone who saw it in and it was doing
Speaker 10: its little run in a similar way.
Speaker 8: It's very touching. Yeah, it looks amazing, And there are
Speaker 8: a few different trailers on.
Speaker 9: YouTube, say listening to check out the Muscle one, there
Speaker 9: is one that's two years old that's kind of a
Speaker 9: slightly longer one from Hayden's YouTube channel that looks great.
Speaker 9: One film that predates is that I'm so curious about
Speaker 9: is twenty seven A I know this is different that
Speaker 9: Esben directed and Hayden produced, and that one, I want
Speaker 9: to say it was seventy four, like more early mid seventies,
Speaker 9: but I know, dealing with somebody who's basically kind of
Speaker 9: an institution trying to dry out for alcoholism, and it
Speaker 9: sounds it sounds very understandably very heavy, but it sounds
Speaker 9: really good. Like everything I found written about it, I'm like,
Speaker 9: I want to see this movie, Like this sounds amazing,
Speaker 9: and God, both him and Esbend just we're so young
Speaker 9: just going out and just doing this.
Speaker 8: I just love that pioneering spirit. Especially with film an
Speaker 8: error you had to like things are easier and harder.
Speaker 8: With digital.
Speaker 9: It's harder because there's everything is changed as far as
Speaker 9: trying to get your films out there. But everybody has
Speaker 9: like easier access to equipment, which is amazing because but
Speaker 9: I mean back then, I mean, film was so much
Speaker 9: more expensive.
Speaker 8: I'm like, I look back on some of the filmmakers
Speaker 8: like that they're independent.
Speaker 9: I'm just like, gosh, like it always just sort of
Speaker 9: blows my mind just how you make these things happen
Speaker 9: totally and talk about punk rock, Like I remember reading
Speaker 9: about that particular film and wasn't that the one that
Speaker 9: kind of got them run out of the like hot
Speaker 9: shot Up and coming mainstream because they won an award
Speaker 9: for it, and then they got on stage and we're
Speaker 9: basically like, fuck you, let cool young people make art,
Speaker 9: and the institution was like, well, fuck you right back,
Speaker 9: and that was that for them. I love that, Like
Speaker 9: I I swear to God, the more I find out
Speaker 9: about these guys, and particularly Hayden, I'm just like, oh
Speaker 9: my stop it, okay, you're already amazing. And again it's
Speaker 9: like I love seeing that kind of spirit in anything.
Speaker 9: The spirit of the the di y It to me
Speaker 9: is the absolute source of anything great creatively. And I
Speaker 9: mean and that predates what we call punk too obviously,
Speaker 9: but like anytime you see somebody do that, that is
Speaker 9: to me, it's like a sign of life. Like I'm
Speaker 9: not religious, I'm almost pretty much anti religion, to be honest,
Speaker 9: but if something makes me feel spiritual.
Speaker 8: It's that nature and fucking unbridled art. It's those two things.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 1: Let's go ahead and take another break and play a
Speaker 1: preview for next week's show right after these brief messages.
Speaker 3: Together, Name's feelings true, this is Penny. I'm not saying
Speaker 3: why go on, people don't.
Speaker 2: Fly fly.
Speaker 3: Penals m. I'm not on a bicycle enough, what's the
Speaker 3: carry off raver.
Speaker 12: Fie.
Speaker 2: He's even I.
Speaker 3: Don't want to talk ame out about five days at
Speaker 3: the fast. Well, come you're on the run.
Speaker 2: What went wrong?
Speaker 3: Why don't you go back to WAP no more time?
Speaker 8: Yeah, come.
Speaker 3: Come on, come on, come on, come on. That's right.
Speaker 1: We'll be back next week when a look at Alex
Speaker 1: Proyus's Spirits of the Air Gremlins of the Clouds. Until then,
Speaker 1: I want to thank my co host Peyton and Heather. So, Heather,
Speaker 1: what is the latest with you, ma'am?
Speaker 9: I am recently on three new releases, which you can
Speaker 9: all get through Vinegar Syndrome.
Speaker 8: If you are looking for something traumantastic, Terra Firmer, it's
Speaker 8: got my essay on it and it is probably arguably
Speaker 8: the best Troma film ever made. I love Terror Firmer.
Speaker 8: If you're looking for something.
Speaker 9: You really want to get underground, you want to get offensive,
Speaker 9: you want to run out your roommates.
Speaker 8: I am on Saturn's Core release of the Films of Joe.
Speaker 9: Christ Volume one, and I did a video essay for that,
Speaker 9: and I love it. Joe Christ is definitely not for everybody,
Speaker 9: but you know what, anything worth checking out is going
Speaker 9: to be.
Speaker 8: But if you're you're not want to go too far.
Speaker 8: I'm on tank Girl. I got an essay for that.
Speaker 8: That's set is insane, by the way, it's free luxurious.
Speaker 9: But for all my other sundry items, go to my
Speaker 9: link tree, leaktree dot com, Forward, Slash, Mondo, Heather, It's
Speaker 9: got my website, Patreon, social media.
Speaker 8: The whole, Schmeer and Peyton.
Speaker 1: How about yourself?
Speaker 10: I got a ton of reviews coming up. I write
Speaker 10: for Reroom, morg a lot. I have been in letterboxed
Speaker 10: recently and will be again soon. I have a short
Speaker 10: story or two coming down the line. They're kind of
Speaker 10: gross and smutty. I'm looking to sharing though. For all
Speaker 10: of my stuff, I'm always doing something. You can follow
Speaker 10: my Instagram at hate Place, p A Y T P
Speaker 10: L A c E. I, you know, keep everybody updated
Speaker 10: there with all of my stuff.
Speaker 1: Thanks again, ladies for being on the show. Thanks to
Speaker 1: everybody for listening. Do you want to support physical media
Speaker 1: and get great movies in the mail, head over to
Speaker 1: scarecrow dot com a try. Scarecrow Video is incredible rent
Speaker 1: by mail service, the largest publicly accessible collection in the world.
Speaker 1: You'll find films there entirely unavailable elsewhere. Get what you want,
Speaker 1: when you want it, without the scrolling. If you want
Speaker 1: to hear more of me shooting off my mouth, check
Speaker 1: out some of the other shows that I work on.
Speaker 1: They are all available at Waitingwaymedia dot com. Thanks especially
Speaker 1: to our Patreon community. If you want to join the community,
Speaker 1: visit patreon dot com slash Projection Booth. Every donation we
Speaker 1: get helps the Projection Booth take over the world.
Speaker 2: Tell me, came my beggar?
Speaker 3: What's the nature of the beast?
Speaker 12: I cannot be satisfied.
Speaker 3: If I ever lead my neighborhood. And I'm not one
Speaker 3: to goose if I'm only from mine. He's a man.
Speaker 12: God man on the long side side of the story's
Speaker 12: story man on the light side.
Speaker 3: Pockets A line will.
Speaker 1: Last to the question have you heard of Nature's all?
Speaker 3: You have to be fit to survive, not to speak
Speaker 3: that wild deception and exceptions to the song are not
Speaker 3: fit to be a lie.
Speaker 6: You don't need me.
Speaker 3: There's no lot lot You have failed me in the past,
Speaker 3: And for how come.
Speaker 7: I can so.
Speaker 6: The love?
Speaker 8: They don't know?
Speaker 2: Does it w when I can sit up?
Speaker 3: So?
Speaker 5: What if I.
Speaker 10: Can know my lost.
Speaker 6: Its really good. What's a natural Harvard best? I love
Speaker 6: yet to realize child, and no more when or less
Speaker 6: than one of those when you're fall, there's no surprise.
Speaker 10: Can it sun?
Speaker 6: It's a lot. It's the bad worse.
Speaker 3: Well the side stand so.
Speaker 8: I can't realize.
Speaker 6: No from the life.
Speaker 3: Even the less.
Speaker 6: That's a n.
Speaker 8: I would sit down.
Speaker 7: Riding by.
Speaker 9: I couldn't my way.
Speaker 3: Un in my b spot.
Speaker 7: No,