Drew Pearce • Films To Be Buried With with Brett Goldstein #143

them they've died. Then I get them to discuss their life through the films that meant the most of them. Previous guests include Sharon Stone, Kevin Smith, James a Caster, and even said Pambles. But this week it's the brilliant writer and director mister Drew Piss. Head over to the Patreon at patreon dot com forward slash Brett Goldstein, where I think you get an extra thirty minutes with Drew

where we chatted about openings and closings of films. You get a secret, you get the whole episode uncut and add three and as a video. But I have to say this week's Patreon is especially good. If you want a film school, I mean, we go deep onint of stuff He even reveals some stuff like behind the scenes at Marvel. I mean, it's a really good one. This one. You're going to want to check it out. Check it out over at patreon dot com, forward Slash Brett Goldstein.

Your two TV missions, as usual, are to watch season one of ted Lasso Want an Apple TV Plus app and season one of Soulmates on Amazon. Prinemne makes you happy, the other will make you question your relationships. So mister Drew Pierce. Drew Pierce is a British man who made a sitcom in the UK. Then he went to Hollywood and he ended up writing on the screenplays for Iron

Man three Fast and Furious Hobbs in Shure. He worked on the story for a Mission Impossible Rogue Nation, and he wrote and directed his own master work, Hotel Art to Miss, amongst other things. It's got quite an incredible CV and credible life. He's the very definition of an inspiration and I was delighted to talk to him over Zoom a few weeks ago. He was brilliant. The sound

was a bit fucked. There was a bit of an issue with the sound, but I do have the amazing producer Buddy Peace, who I think has managed to salvage all of it and you probably won't notice, so I probably shouldn't have said anything. Anyway, You'll love it. So that is it for now. I very much hope you enjoy episode one hundred and forty three of Films to be Buried With. Hello, and welcome to Films to be

Buried With. It is I Brett Goldstein, and I am joined today by a writer, a producer, a director, an executive producer, a Continuity and Script Department crew member, a hero, a legend and about town and a lesson for us all. Please welcome to the show, the brilliant mister draw piss I by a lesson for the result I've seen. You mean a cautionary tale. Well I realized as I said it I sounded like that. But what I mean it's truthfully droopissed. Thank you for doing the podcast. It is

lovely to have you here. Is that you are one of the people. I think you're in a very small group of people who are kind of heroic to British people in that you were here in England and you made a short with Aaron and Daniel called Ginger and Black the Storytellers, and it was really really good and it was only for and it was very funny and

very well made. And then, as far as I could tell, you made that short and you went to Hollywood and you made die Man three, and it was like, Wow, that's how you do it, that's the It seemed pretty simple. I think that's exactly my origin story. I made a fifteen minute short for E four in two thousand and five, and then magically in two and thirteen, iron Man three

came out. It was quite the overnight success. Yeah, I mean I started writing iron Man three actually before Iron Man came out, and during those eight years we really honed the movie. Yeah, it shows it's a fantastically tight film. No, but you came out. I mean, if you could give us, yeah a brief version of it, because it is quite extraordinary. Your story, Well, it's weird, and it's also like it doesn't really start there, because it actually starts with me

being like a really bad musician who had Yeah. Yeah, I was kind of a musician, and I just I'm not one of those people who kind of came straight out the gate at the age of twelve thinking I could do what I do now. And I'll be honest, I honestly think it's because of my upbringing. I went to like not to Brochet at Satville School lest gre instead, but wasn't you know, a comprehensive school chock full of ambition.

So throughout my life I guess I didn't. I didn't really do things until I met a person who was doing them, and then I was like, oh, I can do that, I'm allowed. So I didn't really feel like I had permission. And so weirdly like my kind of my way through was like I worked at the Face, when I was at the magazine. When I was like eighteen years old, I became a musician. I was always around kind of comedy, and I was always writing and

making stuff. You know. I think kind of mine was like the first generation where it wasn't like you decided necessarily to be a director or a writer or whatever. You just made ship. And now obviously that is the norm, but for us it was that that wasn't kind of how it had been. And also like TV and film were really the you know that it was for posh people.

You couldn't even go work in London because if you didn't know someone was to work in London, then you weren't going to get paid enough to get a flat or whatever. So that's why. So my kind of pre film stuff is really it's really eclectic. And then kind of when I locked in, I did a couple of shorts, so did Ginger and Black. I did like a couple of music videos, and then I spent three years writing a pilot for a TV show called No Heroics, which was a series about off gt superheroes in a in

a superhero it's only pub in Soho. And it came out and it did pretty well, but it was a recession and we didn't get a second series, and um, you know. And so in England they were like, congratulations, you made a very rude comedy show, but in America they were like superheroes. M and No Rods basically came

out at the same time as well Iron Man. But actually, weirdly, the movie I was worried about was Hancock, which came out that summer I was and I remember going to see it in the cinema and being like, oh, fuck, are they going to have stolen every gag stolen? They got their first Will Smith, but pre stole? Did they

pre steal all my gag? Yeah? And so yeah, and honestly, and then I got this like ABC pilot based on the British No Heroics, which is insane because the British No Heroics like has in the second episode has like, you know, someone using their powers to have like kind of cottagey sex in the toilets of the pub and like and then in America, like it was like for ABC for Disney, so oddly that didn't fly. How did the cottaging thing change in the ABC version? What? What

was it? Instead? It's so funny because and I have found this to be in the case in most of the last like twelve years of being here in Los Angeles and stuff, all the things that you've heard about that people then say, oh, that's apocryphal, that's not true, that doesn't happen. In my experience, every single one of

them does happen and weirder and worse. And the No Heroics American pilot was just a brilliant, brilliant example of that, like me constantly having to go in between takes because like my executives were behind me hostage video eyes to the actors, but say out loud because we were on mic.

Everyone needs to smile more. When they say their lives like, I mean, that's the tiniest, tiniest I mean, everything weird and wrong and apocryphal that could happen did But what was really interesting is I kind of knew the moment I landed. I met an actress, like for one of

the roles. I'd literally been there for an hour and she came in and she was brilliant as Lizzie Kaplan, who you know, obviously a fantastic community actress, and she was just finishing was it called what was it called, Party Hard, Party Down, and she came in, she met me, and she was like, read the script really like it's never gonna fucking happen. And I was like what She's like, Look, I've been around Pilot season for fifteen years and she

was like twenty five or something at the time. She was like, this is what this is just never going to happen. And she was totally right, and it was actually totally fine. But I was in America. Hang on when she told you this was she your digiting for it? Yeah, well, it's not auditioning. When it's someone famous who's going to your script, they're auditioning you more than your right and

she was like each pilot season. It's a long time since I did like kind of pilot season, and I don't even really know if it exists anymore in streaming world, but there was. There's this weird thing where like three or four actors and actresses each season are like the hot ship, just because they may have come off of a show or they've said they would never do TV, and then this year they've decided they will, which is kind of why it doesn't happen anymore, because there is

nobody who says I don't want to do TV. That's just also, even Meryl Street cracked. So it was weird. That's what put me back and forwards to America. And then it was you know, I won't go into the insane origin story, but basically I thought tooth and nailed. I got really lucky in a weird way. I had loads of meetings, nothing stuck. And then that volcano whose name I can never remember, even though I changed aged my company for a while to the name Nice Volcano Company,

because my career wouldn't exist without that volcano. I basically got. I got trapped in LA for four months and I was sleeping on sofa, and I'd been in to see Marvel, who were a very new company at the time, or at least film wise, and it was the only place I'd ever gone where everyone had seen No Heroics in America and actually anywhere in the world. It's probably like the six of the twenty people who saw No Heroics

are a Marvel. And then, and weirdly, the day after I got stuck there, I got a phone call from them saying we had twenty people coming into pitch on this movie that you said was one of the unprompted, was one of your favorite comics of all time? One of them just dropped out. If you can get to Manhattan Beach tomorrow morning at nine am. This was like three pm in the afternoon on a Monday, then you

can have the final pitch lot. And I went from twenty to fifteen, fifteen to twelve, twelve to eight, eight to five. Yeah, I had, And then I had to go home, and I was like, wee fuck now, because out of site, out of mind. Then and I got Runaways, which was my first script. Yeah, tell me this, just because I'm always curious about how people are with this. Obviously, all of this is hard and it's a long journey and all of that. Are you nervous when you go

into these big things? Do you feel a lot of pressure or do you what is your attitude do you have? Like are you thinking, shit, this is it fun? Fun funk, I've got to be amazing or are you like pretty cool about the how thing? Like? How is your actual state? I mean, you know, always in a kind of like fluctuating vortex of anxiety and self doubt with that weird kind of genetic thing. That means you, you know, kind of have to be able to switch that off and

kind of be in the moment. It helps that I'm not like for some reason, you know how, like you're just it feels like kind of nature or not or whatever it is. Sometimes you're just predisposed to certain bad things and good things. One of the advantages for my job is for some reason, I don't know what it is, like, I don't get intimidated around kind of if you star talent. I don't even know why. Like I would get really intimidated if I'd ever met Lee Hazelwood or Searge Gangsberg,

but like, but not around Tom Cruise. And so you feel the pressure the whole time. But I don't know. I mean, it's also you know, it's obviously that it's incredibly hard work and you're working twenty hour days and all that shit, but like it's really fun as well, Like and I really look, there are days and months and years where you don't remember that. But I think if there's anything of this last year, it's like, oh, yeah,

I love making films my job. If you offered me my job as my hobby fifteen years ago, I would have bit in your hand off, right. So yeah, so it doesn't like pitching sometimes is really intimidating and all of that stuff. But the other weird thing about Hollywood, Hollywood that sounds so weird, like the movie industry in America. The people who work in it are mostly against cliche, really fucking smart, even if they make something bad or

they make something good. It's really hard to make something good, first of all. But a lot of them are the smartest people I've ever worked with in any medium. And so I find those kind of rooms really enjoyable as long as you're not a kind of precious person. I think they're just really stimulating on some levels. And you have so you haven't I mean, I love to hear this. You don't take this for granted. Ever, You're never at the point of like, yeah, no, obviously, Jesus Christ. Every

job is your last job, for sure, for sure. And look, you know, it would be nice if at some point that I crossed that meridian and like I felt comfortable or like, you know, like it was all gonna be good, Like I have my niche, like I have my people and my audience. But I mean, honestly, I actually don't even think it works like that. I think I think you just have to fucking graft the entire time. And I think that's without wishing sound like a Love Island contestant.

I think basically it's all about crafting. Oh, I can still drop. I can still drop a British pop cultural reference from two thousand and seventeen, despite the fact I live in Hollywood. Yeah he's really really but it's the only reference I have Loved Island. I'm gonna make like twenty Love Island twenty seventeen references real man of the people, Like I'm really connected. It's like love It's like Love Island, right, Drew, Yeah, I've forgotten to tell you something. Oh, no, what, God,

I'm an idiot, Bret, just tell me. Nah, I feel bad about it. I feel like because I don't know you that well, and it's it's quite a big thing to have to tell you. Look, it's fine. Nah, I don't know if I can, man, I just because I feel guilty because I should have should have told you before, and I mean now now I am worried, and they really just do have to come. God, you've died. You're dead, sake. That's a good You're not off fucking doctor, isn't it.

That's a terrible bedside man. I'm so sorry. Oh God, you're right. How did you die? Well? I think I died when the robot revolutionaries kind of rose up and took their rightful place in evolution. I think that's how I died. But it's tough to remember because what they did grant me was like a death in the simulation. And so what I remember of my death is sitting like James Bond, like near the end of Casino Royale,

looking out over Lake Cuomo. I don't remember my testicles having been smashed in by a man with a dripping blood eye. But yeah, so I think the way I died was peacefully with a chilled glass of white wine in my hand, looking out over a lake. But I really can't be sure because of the singularity. So you died in essentially judgment day in Terminator two. Judgment day

in real life. It was a lot more reasonable than that, honestly, because I think one of the things was the robots had evolved and they were more reasonable, and they put a really good case forwards. Yeah, it's interesting you said they're rightful place. It's starting to make me think you know something or ai I don't know, but I hear things. Sure, Yeah, yeah, okay, interesting. I mean I can't talk about it now because otherwise I'll be first up against the wall. Yeah, we'll fascinating.

That is fascinating. Do you think we're in the simulation now anyway? I actually have a true answer to that, which is sometimes sometimes I wake up this is this absolutely speaks to why I should be doing my job and shouldn't be doing my job. You asked me earlier, like do I take it for granted or anything like that.

Right on days where things go well, I often have a nightmare or a premonition like awake that I died at certain point in the timeline of my life and then a simulation took over, and that is the only reason that I feel like something good happened that day A therapist, Brett, because I think as a therapist you should try and get under the under the hood of that. That's so interesting. Have you Have you always felt that way? You've got happy phobia for sure? Yeah, I mean I

definitely like I'm happy wary. I would say maybe more than happy phobia, because again, at a certain point I have learned to kind of learn to love the simulation frankly, but I mean, look, definitely I've been going well, triggers a sense in me, not even that I am a fraud, but that the existence is a fraud and I am being this is this, this good moment is being piped into my central cortex. And who's piping it in the robots? I don't know, it could be the robots. I actually

don't believe in the singularity. I'll tell you what, I tell you, an honest thing. You can cut all the eggs. It's so fucking boring. No, we haven't talked about the singularity on this show yet, and it's about time. And we admitted it's going. So I've done. I've got this movie that I'm writing. At the moment, few is starring in it. AI is an element though frankly we all know AI movies are. That's an orange flag at least when it comes to entertainment value usually. But so it's

actually more of a Coryndroma with an element it. But so I got lucky enough about a year and a half ago to go and spend a bunch of time at Darper and spend some time at NASA and in DC with like the machine learning departments, and not to go into like a zillion details, but basically, the singularity is unlikely because robots really learn from us. So the most you get at the moment is a robot that's exactly as smart as the smartest person in the room. Right.

They don't then take over, they don't get paid well, I mean, so it's more of an even playing field on the revolutionary front than you might imagine. But is it not. You've seen the film Transcendence, Please tell me Transcends No Limitless with Bradley cooperway it takes pills that make him dead clever and to spoil the ending, if

you've not seen it pauses skip this fifteen seconds. At the end, he's run out of pills, but he's so clever he's worked out how to make his brain do the thing without the pills anyway, So is that not the thing? I mean? I didn't ask the Darper scientists about Bradley Cooper's movie Limitless Go back, guys, Guys, there's one thing I forgot. I know it's two years later, but something's been really weighing on my mind. No, I mean, like, honestly,

that world is genuinely fascinating. The way that they teach robots is with another robot mostly, so you get two robots essentially kind of sitting opposite each other and they kind of throw a billion questions at each other. So the thing that does happen is the kind of the knowledge base and emotional base that takes you kind of your whole life as a human to happen. They can

accelerate that into like two weeks. So yeah, no, I mean, all of that stuff is happening, and it's happening now, So good luck everyone, batten down and get rid of that fucking smart fridge because it is watching. So the two robots that sat there like Philip Symhoffman and Joaquin Phoenix in the Master just absolutely Wow. Do you worry about death a lot? I mean it sounds like you dream about it whenever something good happens, which, yeah, I mean, do I worry about death? I think I am both

preoccupied with death and quite good at compartmentalizing. Otherwise. I always think, then you're the kind of person and there are plenty of them who can't drive on a freeway in America because they're insanely dangerous, seven lanes, everyone going at eighty miles an hour. If you weren't able to kind of like switch off that part of your brain, there is absolutely no rational way that you would drive on you know, on the one I one in Los Angeles. You just wouldn't do it. It's just stupid. So I

do think. I do think I'm good at compartmentalizing. But yeah, you know, death's always in the room and all that isn't it? Yeah? What do you think it happens when you die? Wow? I mean I literally came here to talk about RoboCop. This is um what happens when you die? Look, welcome to the shade Tree. I really thought it was more on the movies than the when you die part the Buried With. Remember there's more more words in the buried With section of the tail that is true. Um

So what do I think it happens when you die? Honestly, I'm not a religious Now there I've said it. I think as as one becomes older, one perhaps loses that spiky, modish nihilism of youth and starts to become a little more open to a more cosmic view of a possibility of energy and all that stuff. But I also suspect that is a creeping sense of mortality and the gentle slow building of a moral backdoor for which to go. Oh. Actually, I do believe in spirituality. By so you're still holding

onto nothing. There's nothing. I mean, listen, I'm not getting into this story completely. But I had a really big near death experience like eleven years ago, and I was dead for sixty seconds on the floor of Amba Records. Just that, I'll just drop that fact. Just drop that. Please tell a little bit more detail. I just I don't think I've ever spoken about this, but it's good.

Other people have these things, especially I had a out of nowhere I had a non epileptic grand mouth seizure and I yeah, I was like, I was essentially brained down on the floor of Amba Records for fifty seconds.

The last person I saw before I fell unconscious, I was coming down the stairs from the DVD section and I looked across and Christmas his name, the guy that played doctor Spachemin in thirty Rock was standing there, particularly Ironic, the world's best comedy bad Doctor, and he looked up at me, and I remember looking at him and then thinking I feel weird. And then the next thing I remember, I came around and basically and there's there's the whole

stories gathered around me. And the first thing I did, everyone was like, oh, you're gay, okay. I was like, oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I think I think I had like some brain thing. Um. I really apologize and just spent the first five minutes apologizing, as any good British person worked then. And I was like, I was like, I'm going to go now, and they were like no, no, no no, you should wait there you what's your name? And I was like, oh, oh that that's a that's

a good question. I couldn't tell you. I couldn't tell you what my name is. Maybe I'll sit here for a little minute and see if that comes back to me anyway. Yeah, everything's fine. It was a one off. It was, you know, whatever, brought on by stress and lack of sleep, so everyone should you know. And in the gap, in the sixty second gap, you've got no memory of that none. Well, okay, did you want to hear the darkest Yes, very much. So this is the

darkest thing. So obviously you know it's a situation like that happens for me. I want to know as much about it as I possibly can. And so two days later, even though it was terrifying to go back there, I went back to a meeba and I asked them to show me the security video of the bit where I went unconscious so I could see what happened. And they did and I and I saw myself be completely out for whatever it was. I think it was more like kind oft I've ramded it to a minute to make

its sound like flat flat liners. But um, but yeah, and so I just h and it was weird, like I wasn't a lot of times in like an epileptic seizure, people bite their tongue, they kind of um, they lose control of their body functions. I was just there, just done like and then being came around it weird. It's a weird one, Brett. That's fascinating. You sort of had an out of body experience by watching it on the security camera. I had a CCTV out of body experience. Yeah,

my my. The Tunnel of Light for me was just very fuzzy and gray. How fascinating. Well, I'll tell you what. Heaven wasn't ready for you, but it's ready now. And you can tell you've done a few of these breats. That was fucking majestic. I'm touched. I'm touched. There is a heaven. You're very welcome. It's got all your favorite things. What's your favorite thing? Serge gains books everywhere. There's lads of kinds of them everywhere, and in this heaven they

want to know about your life through film. And the first thing they ask you is what is the first film you remember seeing Drew piss Well, you know, I do have a bad memory, so I actually asked my mom and dad if they could remember, and I think it's like, it's just very it's the classic tenets of my of like a man of my age, who grew up in England at the time. I think probably the first film I saw was bits of like a James Bond movie on Christmas Day, you know, but I don't

remember it as such. So I think probably the first film that I went to and I was really young and I'm really surprised my parents were quite strict about this, but I went to see Superman in the cinema. It was a year after it came out, apparently, because that's what cinemas did then and now weirdly, but yeah, and so I Superman I think was the first film I, you know, someone bought a ticket for me to go see.

And it's weird because I think it kind of I don't know about you, but I feel like movies often do work a bit like life memories as well, in that you don't necessarily remember the you know, the moments on the timeline that the a biographer would say are significant or something, you know, so like, um, so, the things I remember about Superman are I remember the map like on Lex Luther's floor or whatever. And I remember

I remember the dam breaking. For some reasons, the dam was much more impactful than like a man flying around the world backwards. I do remember, like I do remember just really hating all the stuff with Clark Kent and just being really amazing for the Superman stuff. But yeah, so I think I think Superman, think the original Superman movie, look at that, look at that. That was your starting point, and you ended up in making superhero stuff. Yeah, I know it so so linear. So yeah, I'm so basic.

We need more subtext in this story. Why couldn't mom and dad have taken me at the age of four to see like the Death of a Chinese Bookie by Cassavetti's the life I could have had? What is the film that scared you the most? Do you like scary? Do you like being scared? You know what I haven't. I have a really complex relationship with scary films in that they really do scare me, like on a very

visceral level. And I always have, Like I've already suggested, I'm quite a visceral dreamer, and like movies do act like dreams for me. And actually I think I think horror movies are the most I mean, obviously it's literal in their nightmarish, but I do think they work in I don't know, that kind of they work in that weird liminal space in your psyche a lot more so

I am scared of the devil. So the Exorcist was terrifying and like, but then also but there are like so you know, I don't know if you've seen the Serbian movie, which is just a horrific exploitation movie. Yeah. I decided to give that a miss because I read what it was about and I thought that's not for me, and that stayed in my brain because because it actually made me just hate humanity. But I actually I think the genre that scares me most is kind of home

invasion movies. They're the things that and I think probably my scariest movie is the original Funny Games, right, but like Straw Dogs, Eden Lake, like all of those. Even like it's a genuinely horrible movie, it kind of doesn't get the love slash fee. Yeah it's really horrible, but it should. It's really really horrible with an amazing ending

as well. Again no spoilers, but yeah, so so home invasion movies, I think are the things that scare me most, which is weird because when I was thinking about this, I was like, that's strange because my comfort food viewing is often also lock in movies, um, like or siege movies. So like The Rock or Precinct thirteen. Like, there's something I find really sat I mean, Hotel Astomus, the first time I directed, is basically a locking movie. You know. Well, I was just gonna say, it's half a lock in

movie and half a home invasion movie. Yeah, because it is. Oh, I hadn't shit, I hadn't thought about the home invasion. Yeah,

that's so true. That's so true. So so yeah, that's it's weird because it's obviously like a sweet spot for what scares me the most and also what I enjoy watching like a little I think it's also like I like making little worlds, you know, And I think kind of there must be a psychological flip side to that, which is, you know when like when you're a kid, you build a fort, but part of the fun of building a fort is smashing the fort down. I think

it probably kind of speaks to that. Weird though part of my brain absolutely fascinating that what is the film that made you cry the most? Do you do you do? You? Are you a crier? I am such a crier. It's great ridiculous that I will never forget in the arc light doing theater in Los Angeles watching Creed standing balling like as I shouted in like happiness and simultaneous sadness. But but what this one is, This is a I've

never told this story because it's really weird. But I'm saying that a lot, Brett, I don't love that comfortable. But um uh, did you spike my drink? No? No, there's nothing to do with your programming. So the time I cried most at a movie was watching Precious. I don't know if you've seen was its full title again, it has a complicated title that because of the shape of my memory I do not remember, but Precious, and I've seen it a few times. But the first time

I saw it, I was on a transatlantic flight. And you know, it's a medical reality that, like being at altitude, makes you more susceptible to emotional, you know, fluctuation. And I'd had like three good red wines at this point, and I remember I was sitting at like the front of listen. It was fancy. I was in premium economy, all right, So all the haters who want to come at me, I had extra I had that extra half foot of room. Plus I was at that bit at

the front, you know where it's even bigger. Um. And so I remember I watched Precious. I started watching it and I didn't really have that much expect and I started crying about three minutes in, and I didn't It was actually it was do you know what it was?

It was like it was when I was coming back to the forwards, I think for Marvel, just at the beginning, and my first kid was like three months old, so I was super heightened and I was missing him, and I started crying three minutes in, and by forty minutes in I was actively howling with tears, so much so that one of the stewardesses came and asked me if I was okay first of all, and I was like,

I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm just watching this movie. Ten minutes later, bawling more, she actively asked me to stop watching the film because I was disturbing the other PASTNSS with my crying. So in answer to your question, great, Yes I am a crier. I think Press Precis does that. That's very good. Do you cry in the real life or just at films in the real life? I like that we're actually you, and I say, the real life in this conversation, like we both know it's a simulation

to why are we pretending? But yeah, I do know, I do, And I'm like, you know it's a cliche, but like I will cry at adverts, I will cry. The thing that always gets me is like nobility. Nobility that makes me like, you know, obviously you know, I am a man with boys, So anything that even is a sniff my own daddy issues and so anything that's a sniff of father son shit, Like I was watching it, is It Onward? Is that what? That movie? My God? That killed me for an entire weekend? Forget it. I

was like, I'm watch it with my kids. I'm literally there like trying to be above them physically so that they can't and holding in my silent sobs and just my face just streaming with tears once I try and keep so I was not to disturb them. Basically, fuck say that one was again that one is. It's also really underrated, I think probably because there were so many kind of good films that kind of came out a good animation. But like, weirdly Soul didn't make me cry. Well,

I tell you why I've talked about it. I really love Soul. It's because it's the first Pixar movie that isn't that's message is about loving life, is a pro life message where nearly all the Pixar films are about death and despair and existential. You know that that people will die, people will leave, you will die, everything ends. That's what all Pixar films about. But then Soul is about. Aren't leaves nice? Oh? They see what My takeout from Soul was it's okay to cheat and jump the line

because you won't actually be punished in the act. So that was my take out, very different takeaway. Tell me it's not true. Tell me the story doesn't tell you that. I guess it does. But he does good, he does, He does do something good to earn his que jumping. Doesn't he to earn the cheat like the factum he So everyone from this point onwards is allowed to ask for forgiveness, not permission when it comes to cheating mortality. Yes,

which is why you didn't cry at the end of this. Yeah, I also do think like to be much more like honest about Soul, which I thought was fantastic. I think you're absolutely right. I think it's also it's more discursive than than button pushing, and I don't like that. I don't resent having my buttons pushed by Pixar movies. I adore it, like they're just they are masters. They are playing the keys like like rap manonoff. But I don't

think Soul is as interested in doing that. And I think it is like that's why it feels like a French art movie. On some levels it is. Yeah, and because the messages is not as clear as in the message is partly achieving your dreams? Isn't the answer, which is a very bold thing for a Hollywood film, is the opposite of most Hollywood films. And then it's like the answer is sort of this, The answer is life

is leaves. Like on a technical level, I feel like that is an ending that got changed six hundred times in a good way as they kind of like turned it up or turned it down. Because the movie, again in a very un Hollywood way, never literally says the words oh you weren't meant to be the star, you were meant to be the teacher. It like I never actually, I don't think they ever put that even in text. I think it becomes clear that that there is maybe more truth to that, but it's it's not as absolutist

even as that. So no, I thought it was a really subtle movie. I kind of am glad that it kind of dropped like on streaming weirdly rather than in cinemas, because I don't know a huge audiences would have gone to it. But but huge audiences absolutely did come to it when it was there on a Saturday night and you had Disney Plus, So I don't know. I think that's one of those weird I wish all cinemas were open and we could all go see all our movies

in the cinema. But I think I think Soul might become more a part of the world psyche because of the way it was released than if it had come out in theater that weekend. That's fair. What is the film that people don't like critically? It's not acclaimed, but you love it unconditionally and everyone else is an idiot. I mean, look, you should edit out the compulsory filmmaker caveat that starts this answer, which is bad films, Brett, which it made them. You know, it's really impossible to

make movies and blah. Plus I also, you know, there are a ton of movies that I used to love that no one did, Like there was a time when no one loved After Hours. The school says, Yeah, there was a time when Ladies and Gentlemen. The Fabulous Stains was considered like a ship movie about music rather than one of the best movies about music, like or Belly was unloved or for example, and I feel it coming around right now, the counselor but which I genuinely do

believe it. But I think the one, the one I kind of wanted landed on most was there's a brilliant director called Richard Rush. He made a string of genuinely kind of classic American kind of cop kind of thriller movies in the sixties and into the seventies. The one who's most famous for is The Stuntman, the Petro Tool Movie, which is absolutely brilliant. If you've not seen it, it's just a classic. But the one that's really unloved that I do love is called Freebie and the Bean. Have

you seen Freebie and the Bean? I have not seen Freebie in the Bean, and it sounds like a sex film. Partly why it's it's about two cops. It's one of the like working with Shane Black. Freebie and the Bean and the Seven Ups are actually the two kind of seventies movies that inspired the kind of eighties into nineties cop team up, like Thinking and Bolts as well, but like, but Freebie and the Bean is mostly unloved because it's

James Cahn and Alan Arkin. But the reason it's called Freebie and the Bean is James Cahn plays a character called Freebean and Alan Arkin plays a character called the Bean because he's Mexican, right, So Alan Arkin is playing Mexican in this cop movie with absolutely there was no layer of irony there. This is just like that was the casting decision that was made. It's of its time,

nineteen early seventies. But yeah, yeah, if I don't suggest if you do try and get past that, if you don't feel comfortable doing it, but if you do feel comfortable just for an hour and a half, for the love of Arkin getting past that, then Freebie and the Bean is an absolute treat and one that kind of

all it's really funny. It absolutely you can see all of the stuff that became templates for like lead, the weapon and Shane stuff, and frankly like double cop action movies in general, it's all there and Freebie and the Bean, it's all good cop back cop never heard of it, or white Cop, other white cop, but playing personal cop, which it's not gonna fly. It's not gonna fly these

days that remakes, it's not gonna work. What is the film that you used to love but you've watched it recently and for some reason it doesn't hold up for you. This one is annoying because there's a movie that I've defended, like the last category for many years, and then I did watch it for the first time in twenty years a few months ago. I only surrealize that I had been defending something that was crashingly bad, which is RoboCup three.

Have you seen Robert Cup three? Robber Cup three is the Lake Family friendly one right where it was like a PG or a twelve. No, it's the opposite. No, I mean it made me PG, but like I don't think it. No, isn't it isn't at all. It's very interesting because, first of all, Weller doesn't come back for it. He's not he's not down for RoboCup three on a kind of conceptual level, it is um it's much more ambitious.

They basically off the back of The Dark Knight Returns, the biggest comic book in the late eighties that Frank Miller wrote. Frank Miller, who obviously also wrote three hundred and frankly, as the years have gone on, we've realized is a fairly like polarizing and totalitarian writer. And that's the thing that goes through his work. But basically what RoboCop three does, Frank Frank Miller wrote it with Fred Decker, who co wrote a bunch of stuff with Shane Black,

who wrote The Monster Squad, who's a brilliant writer. And it is basically about it's basically the plot of The Dark Knight Returns comic, which is an uprising in Chicago of the kind of street punks. And it's got brilliant, brilliant late eighties street punk gangs, which I am a sucker for, like The Warriors is in my blood. So you see what I'm selling here, you're buying I think, oh,

I'm downloading it now. And I haven't even mentioned that there are Ninja androids as well, I know, right, I mean, it's just like and so and what RoboCop does is Robocops a bit like Batman in the Dark, Knight returns comic in the he is against these street punks, and then he actually joins and kind of leads a street punk uprising against OCP and they're new army of Ninja androids. Again, almost the perfect pitch. But just take my money, Take my money. And I defended it for twenty years and

then I watched it. This absolutely shit, really good answer doesn't hold up. What a shame. What is the film that means the most to you? Not necessarily the film itself is very good, but the experience you had around seeing the film that will always make it special to you.

I thought a lot about this, and I think it's really easy to answer, kind of like the kind of no shade on anyone who's ever answered it this way, obviously, but like like it's easy to answer about like the first film where you got off with someone in the cinema or whatever. Actually this is more to your point at the beginning, about how how lucky I got to

come do my job over here. So again, like I've said before, I'm not great imagining that I'm giving my self permission to do a thing until I've met someone that can do it or whatever. And actually in my friend group, kind of one of the guys who's really inspiring to me in a really low key way, I'll

say it like that. Alwise it sounds weird, but is James Bobin who direct He directed and co created the Flight of the Concord series, and he directed the Muppets, and that first Muppets movie with Siegel that he did is just dentally good and so but it was interesting. So Bobin was always a bit more like I always

found Bobin to be a bit of a groundbreaker. Like when I first moved to London in the mid nineties, Bobin already had like a flat near the bricklayers arms in Old Street and there was nothing in Old Street. It was literally just an Old Street and James and

the bricklayers arms. And similarly, like the you know, in Los Angeles, most British people always lived in West Hollywood and stuff like that, and in the last fifteen years people kind of ended up living on the East Side, which is like lost Feelers in Silver Lake, which are

all hips to areas now. When I first started coming to America in like two thousand and four, two thousand and five, James had kind of made the leap quicker than everyone else because of concords, because of at that point it was because of concords, because we were both

from TV and stuff like that. And I remember going to see Napoleon Dynamite, and then later I met James for a flaming Margarita at elkom Padre on Sunset Strip, which is a very dangerous drink because it is on fire and it is also viscous and sugary, and so the sugar can take effect a bit like napalm if you don't drink it correctly, in that it sticks to you and it's still on fire. So just as an aside,

just watch out for a flaming Margharita. But anyway, we sat and we were talking and like, and James said something really interesting which really resonated for me, which was just this idea that and this is absolutely like to Napoleon Dynamite's credit. But the reason Napoleon Dynamite means so much to me is it's the first movie where I had sat there with a friend and we both went we could probably do that. I don't think we could

do apocalypse now. I don't know how we get to that, but like and hopefully you know, And now I would say, like, I hope myself and my contemporaries can get to that, and I hope I haven't whatever and apocalypse now and me whatever it is. But like then that was the Napoleon Dynamite. Means so much to me because I think it was the evolutionary step I needed in that conversation with Bobin to go, you know, we fucking could do that. We absolutely could do that. Let's let's lock in and

do it. And so so I think that's my house. I love answer so much. That's fucking great. And Bobin made the Muppets, which is just phenomenal. It's actually it's one of those ones. It's a bit actually weirdly, a bit like the Paddington movies, but also like that's not to suggest it's just in the kids genre, but like sometimes people make an actually perfect movie and it's virtually impossible.

It's virtually impossible to do, but everyone has been on the page so clearly and it's so talented that everything moves in the right direction, and it feels like every single choice that was made was the right one, And I really do feel like Boben's Mukeet movie is that Yeah, quite jealous, deeply jealous. Frankly, it was you was your fault for having that bloody conversation. If I hadn't so comically burnt my lips, he would never have been inspired.

What's the film that you most relate to? My honest answer is terrifying. The film I most relate to is Uncut Gems. Incredible answer, because just like the constant juggle of ant like, it really reminds me of trying to be a parent and have a job at the same time, like and I have a life and have friends and a relationship and all of that stuff. It's just like, like, so, yeah, honestly, like either the last ten minutes of Good Fellas or the whole of Uncut Gems often feels like the movie

I most relate to. I've got a huge respect for you for that answer. That is a great answer, and I totally get what you mean. What do other people say? That's one of those ones where I'm like, wait, I'm trying to remember what other people have said. People Often it's often people go, I don't know what you mean, and I always thinks, shut up, because you know what I mean, you've absolutely nailed it. Here we go, what's the sexiest film you see? Because you did this in

a different order, you'd skip through it. You're like, no one wants to know that. I think it's sexy, and I was really comfortable with that. I know, I was holding off for the good stuff. I mean, this one is that thing of like I think, kind of for me, I don't really find films that sexy anymore. I find like, there are moments that are sexy, and you know, but I think kind of the sexiest films are probably the sex ones that you watch or the moments of sex

in movies when you are like an adolescent. And there are two that really spring to mind. And by the way, again I've already proven my basic credentials. So what I'm really just going to tell you is two moments in movies.

When I was twelve, when I saw Boobs. I know, but but so the first one I remember was well, I mean, I'm sure there were before it, but like the two that stick out were Trading Places, Magnificent, the classic mirror our door closing scene, and of course then later on at the party, the absolutely, I mean the

definition of gratuousness. And then the other one is a movie that like it's one of those movies so not spoken of and I don't even think, I don't know if you can find it anymore, but that sometimes you kind of question if it I don't know if you have those movies the way you question whether it even existed.

So there is a late eighties I think it's late acies maybe early nineties movie version of Martin Amos's The Rachel papers Man with in this guy and Dexter Flectser and National Treasure Dexter Fletcher coming coming off the back of press Gang, huge, huge answer, and that like weirdly like kind of that felt like the sexiest movie because it kind of felt like that is a sexy movie a year and a half ahead of where I was in my sexuality was, where The Rachel papers Were was,

and it felt felt weirdly real, you know, like to a degree that you would fucking never get married with a movie that's about like a mainstream movie that's about eighteen year olds, because it doesn't positive like kids or something or in any way in any way frankly destructive. Again, it has more of the feel of a kind of French movie or like it's just more explicit physically than it needs to be, but in doing so feels much more honest, and I think that's why it kind of

clicked in with me. It's actually someone messaged me talking about the Rachel paper and said, have you seen this? It really holds up. It's an incredible It's a really grain enough incredible film, and my memory of it is very positive. I have no idea if it's wildly it might be wildly problematic. Now I don't know, but I

certainly thought it was. Yeah. I mean, I seem to recall that he's supposed to be a bit of a cunt any, Like, he's definitely an Alfie esque character in it in that like, I don't think we are supposed to totally root for his late teen womanizing necessarily, but it has like it has even has a quote that like which is probably I think is definitely from the book through the movie, but like, um, there's a great smug line that Dexter Fletcher's character says that I kind

of still hold to be true, which is that he says grandly to Ione Sky he goes parties are meant to be received and never given. I'm like, this is a really good line. I'll take that. I don't know if it's not true either. I like it seems that that kind of that speaks to me. Yeah, really good answer. Let's see how you get on with this subcategory. Subcategory is traveling, bone is worrying? Why ones film you founder rousing?

You weren't sure you should? That one is easy actually for me, right, I mean not easy to talk about Brett obviously. I think it's basically like the entire over if you will of Brian de Palmer. Really good answer,

what a thoughtful answer. He absolutely so. I mean not all of his movies, like I will not count the untouchables in this or on Firevanities, but like if you're talking about, like you know, Body Double or stuff like that, from from all the way through from being a teenager kind of to present day, he does this really weird thing with sexuality which makes me feel queasy, but I

think is genuinely sexy as well. Like Melanie Griffiths at like in Body Double is the exact example, because I can't even quite tell in a post you know, kind of enlightened world, she seems to have a lot of agency, and yeah, like it's he I think he works in an area of sexuality, male sexuality as well, and male gaze principally that is honest and scary and queasy and

makes me feel weird. Well, he fits in there, He's like, because David Finch always says audiences are perverts, and Hitchcock thought audiences were perverts, and Deparma is like Hitchcock with no censorship. He's like, yeah, audience is a perfect and I'm going to make you feel like a pervert. And here's some really pervy shots, some pervy scary stuff. And but what's really interesting for no good reason. I just finished a five hundred page book about the making of

bonfires and vanities. Oh yeah, it's called The Devil's Candy, right, so it is. Yeah, have you read it. I've got it,

and I'm desperate to get into it. It is. I mean, it's very weird to read a book for three weeks about a movie you saw once and you're never going to rewatch, and not because it's the Room or something like that, because it's like but but you do get a real insight into like, I don't know how weird Deparma thinks his depictions or his worldview even is like you get a really interesting like it's hard to come down, and by the way, maybe you don't have to come

down anywhere, and maybe he doesn't either, definitely as an artist, but like there's definitely an element of trolling, and there's definitely an element of like, I don't understand what the fuss is all about, and like between those two things is definitely where he fluctuates fascinating. I'm going to read that, what is objectively the greatest film of all time? Oh? God,

do you know what? I think? This one was the toughest question because it's a really difficult one to say anything particularly interesting about right in a weird way or stony like my objectively, I feel like Cassablanca and Sunset Boulevard are the best movies of all times. Don't come up enough. No, Oh, I just thought I was hitting like the no and listen, ninety percent of people say The Godfather and it drives me mad. Casablanca is better

than the Godfather. Oh, casmancer Is, I mean like Hotel Atomis is essentially a very very very low rent garage cover version of Casa Blanca. Casi Blancer is is just pleasant, but like, I don't know, Like, yeah, so I think those are probably the two objective ones. Like my head goes to RoboCop as well, because I do feel like

that is. I know that sounds insane to go like a Blanca sunset Boulevard RoboCop, but I do feel like RoboCop is another one of those movies that for me, every decision is absolutely perfect for the movie, in the same way that I kind of feel like it's so hard to say objectively about more modern movies because they haven't existed on the timeline for as long. But like, but I think there will be blood will end up

in the top ten movies objectively of all time. And I would even say that something like Silence like Dammi and Silence of the kind of edges near there, because again, Science of the Lambs is like is as close to perfection filmmaking wise as I personally can imagine. But you know, let's let's just let's just rest at Casablanca and know that we're right. Great, great, great, What is the film you could or have? What's the most over and over again. I mean, this one is very hard to not answer.

Die Hard, but I don't even know if it's true. Like there's just like there is a rotation, right, It's kind of like the whank bank of your cinematic comfort nexus, and it in it is like is RoboCop is The Warriors is like and so it's hard for me to take one out of the carousel, do you know what I mean? Like yeah, but it's also weird because in that bank you get things that aren't necessarily the best

movie by the filmmaker. I have sinned The Departed half drunk forty times maybe or parts thereof, because if it's twelve o'clock and it's on a cable channel in the hotel room, whatever it is, I'm gonna watch some of The Departed till the end, you know. And it's kind of yeah, yeah, so And it's the same with actually another one that's good for that is true romance. Like I don't think it's the best version of Tarantino on screen,

but I do think it might be. It weirdly might be the Tarantino adjacent movie I have watched most very interesting, as we've already done the caveat, and neither of us like to be negative, but very quickly, what's the worst film you ever seen? I have a really trolling answer, and I'm going to like say it and then say a different one. So I think The Joker is the worst movie. No, no, no, I didn't say that. I'm going to push through. Like. The thing I hate most

is like, I like stupid movies for clever people. I think that's where cinema is its best on. What I really dislike is supposedly clever movies for stupid people. And so things like Crash like not the not the Cronenberg

Crash um anyone, Haggitts Crash not Cronaberg crash like. Um, those are the movies that I kind of that I find to be the worst, which is really unfair, but it's personal because I find them to be falsely intellectual or emotionally in a blackmailing yeah and again and and and inauthentic and just um yeah, I just I find

them too. It's I feel kind of the same with you know, a lot of the things that do function as awards movies, not to the degree that I think it makes them the worst movies ever, but like you know, like a twentieth century biograph, you know, Buyo pick of like a semi unknown World War two white Posh War hero. Like, like, if you're hitting all those buttons for me, that is that I'm going to taste gun metal soon after. Do you want to say any any more about Joker or

it just fits that category. I'm just gonna like, I'm just gonna leave it there and all the intell motherfuckers that it was made for. You just come at me. You you you're in comedy when the funniest films, I mean, it's a long time. I don't know if anyone's ever said that, And it's a long time. It's I'm even comedy at Jason mature comedy. What's the film that made

you laughter most? You know, what's really weird? Like I do actually think the first four app movie might be might be one of the funniest movies of all time. But the thing that I think informed my humor in the Weird Beliegue is there is dirty rotten scoundrels um. Yeah, Like there's just something about the humor in that movie. And look, there are a million other films, but like there's just I don't like, I don't naturally remember lines.

I don't even remember my own lines. I have a producer who holds onto every draft of a script, but I do because I have this weird memory, as I've said, and so I don't remember lines that I've kicked out. It actually makes me like a dream to collaborate with because I'm never precious because I literally can't remember who wrote what line. But I do remember the lines from of and the whole of that movie. I like that.

That's one that's just like a proper hit me at the right time, scorched into you know, the my kind

of comedy Souls. You've been extraordinary. This has been absolutely brilliant. However, when robots took their rightful place and you were killed, but you didn't remember, you didn't experience being killed because they were kind enough to put you in a simulation where you were sat at Lake Cuomo and you were sipping on flaming margharitas, which didn't burn you because you were in this mulation and you were looking out at

the sun. That was the sign. You were like, my lips are sticking and my whole place is on fire and it's still good. Yeah, you're looking out of the sun, and then your brain much ghost Rider with a cock and a bath road, much like it did in the Meba records eleven years ago, which maybe has been a simulation ever since your brain stopped and you were dead. Now, I was knocking about Judgment Day carrying a coffin looking for you where it's Drue gone. I ain't seen him

since he went. I haven't seen him in years and years and years, and I find you rotted in the ground. Mess everywhere. Animals have been eating you. It's awful, and I'm like, this is no way for him to be so I get you, but you're stuck to bits. There's all sorts of stuff you have to chop you up into laser little bits. I stuff you in this coffin. It's absolutely rounded in the coffin, a lot more of you than I was expecting, very little room in there, and enough room to slide one DVD in the side

for you to take across to the other side. And on the other side it's movie night every night. What film are you taking to show the people of heaven when it's your movie night? He really turned this question into like a high pressure moment. I would say, like, maybe like too much pressure. I honestly think I would

take them Repo Man. I think Repo Man would be a really fun DVD to have to watch every single night, because I think it's a very rich text and I think we would get more and more out of it as every day went by. And I don't think Alex Cox has received his duew in heaven and hence I'm the man who bring it there. Yeah, you're the first person to bring it and that's that's fantastic, fantastic, Drew Piers.

Before we say goodbye, is there anything you would like people to look out for, or to watch or to listen to of yours? I will say the most cliche thing, which is like, as soon as you have a vaccine and you feel comfortable, as much as your living room is also comfortable, please you know if you can venture out to cinemas as well, because because we need the widest bread of movies being made and widest bread the filmmakers, and we need cinema to continue outside of the home

as well as in in order to do that. I hope that wasn't too pious. Literally the only synthesis thing I've said in two hours so that you have been an absolute treat. Thank you very much for your time. Good luck with your projects. Good day to you, sir, good luck with all of yours. Thank you now. So that was episode one hundred and forty three. Head over to patreon dot com forward sasprect Goldstein for the extra thirty minutes of chat and film School Secrets video Withdrew Everything.

Go to Apple Podcasts, give us a five star rating, and don't write about the show, right about the film that means the most to you and why I do read them. I love them and they're great and I appreciate it. Thank you very much for everyone for listening. Thank you so much to Drew for doing the show. Thanks for scrupis pipping the Distraction Pieces Network. Thanks to Buddy Piece for producing it. Thanks to Akas for hosting it. Thanks to Adam Richardson for the graphics, based a Lading

for the photography. Come and join me next week for another cracker of a guest. And that is it for now. In the meantime, have a lovely week and please be excellent to each other.