Hey, I'm Osman Farooqui and this is the drop a culture show from the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, where we dive into the latest in the world of pop culture and entertainment. The gang's all here. I'm here with Mel Schembri and Thomas Mitchell. What's up team? How are we doing?
Good.
Yeah. Very good. Nice to be back. How are you down there?
Oh, thank you for asking. That's very kind. I'm in. I'm in better spirits than I have been previously. I don't know if you guys have seen the news, but, um, Wayne Bennett, super coach, is back at South Sydney. We're paying him enormous amounts of money to rescue our failing clubs. So I got a spring in my step off the back of that news.
Yes. I mean, he's he's about 200 years old now, but he's he's still probably the best coach, uh, in that age bracket.
Yeah. I feel like these sorts of announcements are made just to reassure kind of players and fans that, look, we have a plan here. It's unclear whether or not it's a great plan, but it's just don't freak out. You know Wayne, he's very good. He works very well with this cohort of players. Just don't shit yourselves, guys, we've got this sorted. So I am I'm excited about getting slightly more reinvested in NRL this year than I have been for we.
Are famously Thomas and I, the worst NRL tippers in the office. Every year we sign up for the tipping comp every year. It turns out that both of us are being pursued for our tipping funds. Yeah, and then every year both of us forget to tip and get expelled from the competition.
I actually opted out this year because I couldn't deal with the stress.
I also opted out this year because the wonderful Jason, who manages the tipping comp, had just increasingly threatened to kill me for not paying. You know, the tipping fees.
I became afraid to come to work because I was like. And in the end, we were both like, why don't we just pay it? Something in us resisted. The more we were chased, the less we wanted to give.
Also, because by the time you're in like round six and you haven't paid, you know you're not going to win. So what is the incentive to put money into the system now?
At first lend a man. He's quite terrifying too. He walks around with his dragons hat. He's a Dragons fan and you know, he like he's broken legs before. I reckon he's his slack.
Emoji is also like he's got a permanent slack emoji. That is just the Dragons logo is incredible guy.
And he also wears a big scarf. And there's something about a big scarf on a small man, which is frightening.
This is just us auditioning for our sports podcast that they won't let us have, so we smuggle it in to this one. Um, Thomas, it's good to have you back. How was your adventure to the town or place that were not allowed to say until you tell us about it in a piece you're writing for later this year?
Allegedly writing?
Uh, yeah. Northern territory was really good.
Um.
Uh, it was amazing up there. But we'll talk about that more later. But I would say, um, sadly, I noticed that in my one week absence, not a single review missing my nuance.
I was going to bring this up. It is funny because when I was away earlier this year, there was some there was some, you know, reviews saying nice things that they missed me when Mel was away. There was some reviews saying nice things about people missing her. And when you were away, no one said anything?
No. Firstly, I was away for one week.
So be careful what you wish for. I will take an extended break and then I will set up a bunch of burner accounts like Martha from Baby Reindeer. And I will be, like, demanding the return of Thomas.
And to be fair, we talked about you so much on the pod. It was almost like you were in the room with us. I did actually.
I listened to the pod as well, unlike you. Um, just purely to hear my own name. Uh, and it came up a fair bit, but I was it was a great episode. Uh, obviously it missed that magical element, but now we're all back together. It's great.
And, Mel, we are recording this episode slightly later than than usual. Um, part of the reason for that is you were being very busy and famous, uh, on Wednesday at the Sydney Writers Festival, which is kicked off this week. Can you tell us a bit about that and what the vibes are like this year at the Writers Fest?
Famous definitely feels a bit of a stretch, but the vibes are great. This was kind of the opening day. It was at the State Library of New South Wales in this beautiful new auditorium they've got down there where the walls all kind of look like wooden books, which is very fitting. I was interviewing Lauren Groff, who, um, did wrote The Vaster Wilds, which I talked about a few a few months ago on the Pod and Matrix and Fates and Furies, which is probably her most famous one.
She was great. She's very interesting. She's just opened a bookstore, and she's really campaigning against book banning. And the bookstore called The Links. It really champions banned books like it's got a whole wall of them, and it's whole project is to make sure and to react against the book banning that's going on in Florida and has obviously kind of been a topic of discussion here. So she was great.
And then in the afternoon, I spoke to Susan Wyndham, former literary editor here, about her new book, which is about Shirley Hazzard and Elizabeth Harrower, and Gian Jankovic, a friend of the pod and our colleague here who has a book out called Just Friends. And Thomas actually was in the audience for that one. So if you want any kind of feedback on the session, he is your man.
I do have some things to update you on. I met yeah, I met Melanie's mother.
Oh, that's.
A good.
Development.
It was amazing.
I tried.
It was so.
Hard to avoid this.
It was so funny. Was it like.
Seeing a second Mel or was it like a very different experience?
Well, in the most like, I guess, Schembri family esque way. Mel didn't even know her own mother was turning up. She surprised her at the Sydney Writers Festival and then she obviously Mel tried to, like, not let me know that her mum was there. As soon as she let it slip, I went over there. Um, we had an amazing chat. Uh, she loves the pod. She talked about the podcast. She also told me that I wasn't as broad as my photo in the paper, so that's something for me to unpack.
We then had to unpack for a lot. Is that a good thing or a bad thing?
What am I going.
To have broad in the abdominal region.
And I know I was like, is that a good thing? Am I gonna like, have I got a vibe with Mel's mum now I. I know. Um, well then.
Mum followed up immediately after being like that. Tom was very nice. I was like, what is going on here?
But yes, it was very funny. And you and you're right, Mel, like, I've been to a few Sydney writers festivals with Mel and she is like a celebrity there. She's kind of like the mayor. She's like kissing babies and shaking hands. I can see that. It's amazing. And the whole it always reminds me of, like, you know, in like 21 Jump Street when they go back to high school and suddenly, like, Channing is the uncool one and Jonah Hill is the
cool one. That's what it's like going to like a writers festival with Mel compared to, like, a normal event.
Yeah, yeah, this is my field. Like when we go to the movies, you shine at the Writers Festival. I'm. I'm the one. Yeah.
You guys. Absolutely. The mayors of those respective weird, small little culture worlds. That's very funny.
Yeah, it is, it's weird, but it was great. Uh, Mel did a very good job moderating. Um, John was amazing as well. And, uh. Yeah, all in all, a fun afternoon out at the Writers Festival.
And I will tell you a bit of trivia just quickly, I was speaking to Lauren Groff in the green room. And here's another way to smuggle Taylor into.
Uh, yeah.
Into the green room, which is just like this barren room. And they had the weirdest, like, little food. It was like arancini balls, shapes. And then some, like, pastrami. It was very odd. Is this the.
Green room at.
The State Library or the one at the at Carriageworks? Like the main green room.
This was at the State Library.
Yeah, because.
Because the Carriageworks green room for the Writers Festival. I got to say, I've been lucky enough in my life to go to many Writers Festival, Green Rooms, the Carriageworks one for the Writers Festival. It's pretty top tier. There's like a barista, there's all sorts of fancy drinks, there's like fresh food, there's fruit, there's salads. I think they turned it into like a wine bar after hours. But this was not quite that level.
It wasn't quite that, but it was, you know, it did the job of being a little holding room. Um, but I was chatting to Lauren Groff, and I was. She lives in Florida, and I was like, wow, how's how's Florida's rep? Since Taylor and Florence and the Machine's Florida song came out? Turns out for Florence and the machine posted on Instagram that the song was based on Lauren Groffs collection of short stories called Florida. Wow.
Wow, that's actually cool. Apparently that's really cool.
Yeah, and apparently they sold about 200 more copies of the short story. That's it that week. Yeah, I know, not heaps, but still whole new audience.
Taylor Taylor could post it.
Come on. If you're inspired by this brilliant work, why don't you share that? Taylor.
Yeah, I'll credit it. That's what I reckon. But, um. Yeah, apparently she woke up and her phone was just blowing up because Florence had posted. That's great editing it. So, um. Yeah. Very interesting.
We'll actually have more to say about Taylor Swift later in this episode. The main focus of today's episode is Furiosa, the latest installment in the mad Max franchise. It's a follow up to 2015 stunning Fury Road. It's the most
expensive Australian film ever made. It's also one of the few remaining big ticket event releases on the cinema calendar this year, so we're going to talk about the relatively lackluster lineup for the rest of 2024, but there are a few other newsy bits and pieces in the world of culture I wanted to talk to you guys about. Probably the most interesting has been the, uh, war between Scarlett Johansson and Open Eye, the company that is probably
most well known for releasing ChatGPT, the AI prompt software. Thomas, you wrote about this stoush for us this week. Can you give us a bit of a breakdown? Why is Scarlett fired up at OpenAI?
Yeah, because I guess in a case of, you know, life imitating, art imitating Scarlett Johansson in the movie, her, uh, essentially a few weeks ago, OpenAI introduced the voice of Sky. So this new AI assisted tool, like a conversation tool, um, and basically the voice sounded eerily similar to Scarlett Johansson. Uh, people were very quick to pick up on this. And also the fact that she did famously star in the Spike Jonze film her, where she lent her voice to a,
you know, an AI, um, starring opposite Joaquin Phoenix. So people were pretty quick to be like, this is weird. You know, Scarjo has a very, uh, like, unique and noticeable voice and, you know, to the point where people on the internet were like, this is obviously Scarlett Johansson. Even her boyfriend, Colin Jost made a joke about it on the SNL finale. Um, so it was all kind
of like, okay, this is odd. On the day of release as well, the OpenAI CEO Sam Altman just tweeted one single word her, which everyone you know kind of knows is a reference to that film. So it was all kind of there. Uh, and then this week, Scarlett Johansson came out and basically released a statement saying she was shocked and angered that this had happened because they
actually approached her. She considered it for a little bit, but then ultimately said, no, um, you know, and then she says in her statement, when I heard the release demo, I was shocked and angered and in disbelief that Mr. Altman would pursue a voice that sounded so eerily similar to mine that my closest friends and news outlets could not tell the difference. So yeah, very weird. Like we've had so much chat about, you know, what's happening with
AI and the fact that OpenAI did approach Scarlett. She said no. And they kind of like went ahead and did it anyway. So similarly, uh, basically the way they framed it, they've paused the use of the voice, um, because she did engage legal counsel. Yeah. It's kind of like the next step in the AI debate that we've all been fearing.
Yeah, it's worth pointing out that. And I say that they used another voice actress who they're not naming for privacy reasons, but the fact that like a couple of days before it was released, they went back to Scarlett and said, hey man, like, just want to let you know, we still.
Really want to use your.
Voice. What do you think about this? It feels like one of the main concerns around AI at the moment is what it could do to the creative industries, whether that's writing, music, film, art, whatever. And you'd think that these companies or the people behind them would be a little bit aware of what it looks like to potentially just rip off a very famous person's voice.
Yeah. To me, this is so odd. Personally, like, even approaching Scarlett Johansson in the first place, when she was one of the actors that's kind of contributing huge amounts of money to end the strike stalemate and is very
involved in those discussions about the role of AI. To approach her to be the voice of AI in the first place feels like an odd decision then to approach her, because potentially linking the AI voice to the film her is also maybe missing the point, because that film showed a lot of the potential dangers that can come from the role of AI in our life. That's also odd. And then again, to seek a voice that is has been called sexy, sultry, very overly feminine also is a
huge misstep. Um, for a company that is trying to position itself as forward thinking. So I just feel like this is a, you know, a strange choice on top of a strange choice, on top of a strange choice. And it's a kind of worrying sign of who's at the the helm of this company.
It's almost like.
These tech bros are not very good at, like, very normal things.
And it's like.
They thought it was a really funny like wink or something. And everyone was like, you've completely cooked it.
I'm glad you brought up the fact that the movie her is, is kind of not really a glowing endorsement of AI. I feel like by the end of the movie you're like, oh, this is a terrible for the potential alienation of society. Someone, someone on social media pointed out that this is now the third movie about tech or science, that Sam Altman has completely misunderstood the meaning of in 2023. Sam Altman tweeted, I was hoping that the Oppenheimer movie would inspire a generation of kids to
be physicists, but it really missed the mark on that. Yeah, no shit. The movie where the guy says at the end, I think we destroyed the world is not supposed to inspire people to make nuclear bombs like that. That's the point of the movie.
Sam Altman Um, yeah. At the end of the.
The point was to question the role of has he.
Not also, has he not seen Young Sheldon? What about a young physicist?
Um, and at the.
End of that tweet, he said in brackets, I think the social network managed to do this for startup founders. So basically he's saying, I think the social network did encourage people to be startup founders. And that's good. Again, definitely not the.
Point of the movie. The Social Network.
I love that he watched it and that's why he is now doing this. It was all because of The Social Network, though it did make me think. I started to think about films that probably shouldn't have inspired me. But then, you know that did. I was thinking about Black Swan. I was like, that makes the ballet one. I thought, that makes the ballet world look kind of like cool, which was not the point of that film.
Yeah, I watched Godzilla.
Godzilla x Kong, and that made me want to be a podcaster. So that's.
Well, a dream.
I recently saw June 2nd that made me want to kill myself. I'm not sure if you guys.
Will become like a giant worm.
I wish I could have buried my head in the sand for the entire we're not.
Relitigating.
June 2nd. It's too early.
But.
Um, um, one of the other things I wanted to touch on briefly with you guys is the Taylor Swift versus Billie Eilish war that's kind of been raging. The pop culture charts, pop culture discourse for the past week. You guys, you guys across this.
Yeah, you couldn't see. But just so, in an attempt to let you see, I like physically, I rolled my whole body when you said verses each other, I don't know what.
What is this? Your take saying that it's unfair to pit two women against each other.
Well, maybe we should question the pit.
Okay, I know I think I'm.
Ready for this conversation because Taylor Swift is so actively doing something that I think is quite like nefarious here, that I don't think people who comment on it should be portrayed as evil people. Let's just break this down. Right? So Billie Eilish released her latest studio album, Hit Me Hard and Soft, last week on Friday. I actually really enjoyed the album. I think it's got some real fun songs on it. It's a bit too short for me.
I think she was like experimenting with some fun new ideas and musical styles and then it sort of just ends. But I thought it was pretty good. Did you guys enjoy it?
I loved it. I thought it was such a mature album. I found it quite shocking that she's only 22. I thought it was full of surprises and I kind of like, you know, it does have that old Billie style of the ballads and the whispers. But then I really loved like the kind of synth pop songs too, that kind of moved to the dance floor. I thought it was a really interesting record, and yeah, I've been listening to it a lot.
I'll be totally honest. I was in the Northern Territory last week and I was mostly listening to Troy Cassar-daley. Yeah, they don't really do Billie Eilish up there.
That's appropriate. I haven't that's appropriate. Yeah.
Um, okay. Well, it's good to know that you like the album, Mel, because I did also, and I think you'll be shocked to learn what your number one fave taylorswift is doing to poor Billie. So in the lead up to the album's release, Billie talked in interviews about the tendency of artists now some artists, to release multiple physical versions of the same album on vinyl to basically juice their numbers to get their fans to buy 12 copies. In the case of the Midnights release, rather than just one,
their fans loved them. They'll spend all their pocket money on it, and the album sales will go through the roof, helping get that song to the top of the Billboard charts, she said. It was unethical, and she said it was really bad for the environment, and everyone basically interpreted that as a bit of a dig at Taylor Swift, because she is the person who is the most prominently involved with this. So anyway, Billie's album comes out on Friday.
On the very same day, Taylor Swift decides to release three new digital only versions of her most recent album, The Tortured Poets Department, and these include extra tracks including First Draft Phone Memos. So basically just a voice recording of Taylor singing some harmonies and choruses. Her fans obviously buy these up because they will do anything Taylor tells
them to do. Tortured poets uh album has been number one for four weeks, the most obvious chance coming up for it to be knocked out of that position was Billie Eilish's Hit Me Hard and Soft. The chart numbers at the moment are a little bit too early to tell. We'll find this out next week. Suggest that Billie is probably aiming for a number two spot. Gonna get pipped by Taylor because she chose that same day to release
day of Billie Eilish's album to juice the numbers again. Now, that's not me saying I'm just going to pit two random women against each other for the sake of it. That's Taylor Swift launching a salvo at Billie Eilish keeping her from the number one spot. Like, quite obviously, isn't it?
Firstly, I'd like to say that I love both these women and I'm not, I don't. I, as much as he liked to identify me as Taylor's number one fan girl, I'm kind of generally just interested in her as a phenomenon. I don't identify as a swiftae personally. Um, I will say a few things to this that I.
I will begin.
Saying now that I will begin. It's like the terms of the debate. Um, no, I think I think there is an interesting discussion about the release of vinyl albums and multiple versions of the album, but I will note that Eilish has released nine vinyl editions of Hit Me for separate CD options, a cassette and a deluxe album that is different. So I will say that. And Eilish herself has acknowledged that she too releases multiple vinyl albums. Um, and that is, what does that have to.
Do with Taylor Swift doing new releases on the day of Billy's album?
Well, I think what has pitted them up against each other in your mind is the story leading up to this that Billie makes a comment about the vinyl albums. Taylor is for some reason offended by that, and then drops her vinyl albums on the same day. Like the narrative leading up to this release is that it's some kind of act against Billie, which is what I guess I'm refuting. I don't think it's an act against Billie.
I think Taylor always releases vinyl albums. I would also question whether Billie did like, I think this album is going to do really well, but whether realistically she and we will find out be number one only for a number of reasons, because the album track is so small, it's got ten songs compared to what Taylor's albums have, so the chances of that album going to number one are already lower and also like if you look at a tortured poets department has sold kind of, you know, two,
2.5 million albums. I mean, that's just abroad. It's obviously album figures are hard to compute, but that's almost like half of what Billie has sold in her entire career. So I do wonder whether this story that Taylor has stopped Billie from getting to number one is really true. Like, I'm questioning, I guess, Taylor's intent, or the intent that has been attributed to her, and the reality of whether that is what's stopping Billie from getting to number one.
All right, true pain over here. Taylor Swift's publicist, I, I, I don't think that that explains what happened in the past week, to be honest with you, because Taylor Swift's album moved a stack of units right in its first few weeks. We're now into week five of that album, one of the biggest pop stars in the world, probably the second biggest female pop star in the world after Taylor Swift, is Billie Eilish. She has won two Academy
Awards she's won a bunch of Grammys for. Her to release an extremely anticipated album that is getting pretty good. Critical response. It would be normal for that to be considered number one, particularly when the Tortured Poets department is in its fifth week. The only reason that that would continue to be number one is if everyone had bought a whole bunch of new copies of that, which they have done, because Taylor released new copies with the extra
voice memo stuff on it. I don't think it's a coincidence that she just managed to do that the week. Not even the week. The day of the Billie album release.
Okay, so.
Even if even if we take your point that Taylor is deliberately trying to stay at number one, is that like, what? Is there something wrong with that? I mean, why are men allowed to compete all the time or we don't make them have to, you know, we don't make them have to stand out of the way to let another
man come to the top. I don't know, like this is saying, even if we take which I disagree with your imputation, that Taylor is deliberately trying to sabotage Billie or to stay ahead of her, why is she not allowed to have a competitive attitude, but.
At least do it the proper way and start releasing diss tracks?
I don't know why.
What no, I do, I see this is very fun for me to watch. Number one, I see the point you're both making, but I do think I.
Know where you're gonna fall on this. And it does not surprise me. No.
But like. I would say the same thing. I think, well, we did, we did.
We did do a whole episode on two men fighting each other. And so it's fine for two women to be competitive and want to, like, edge each other out. But that's kind of the point. Like you're sort of saying inside of this conversation saying, don't pit these people against each other. I'm like, oh, of Billy and Taylor are in an antagonistic relationship of a commercial album sales right now to get to number one, they're definitely allowed to do that. I think the tactics and strategy of
Taylor choosing this particular moment. In terms of setting up a competition with Billy in particular, and doing it not through the actual release of tortured poets, but through this modern way of just trying to rinse your fans for more money. It feels both. It feels crass to me
on a number of levels. It feels crass on the level of you're just extracting more money from your desperate fans who have this parasocial relationship with you when you're already the wealthiest and most successful artist on the planet. That's one. To me, that feels a little bit weird. And two, you're doing it at a time where you know you're stopping another young pop artist who is a generation below you from receiving the number one, which is
a significant potential achievement. Both of those things, it's valid. She's allowed to do it. I'm not saying she's not allowed to do it. She should be sent to jail for doing it. But it doesn't end with her looking great in my in my view.
I do kind of agree with that. Shocking. No, I do kind of agree with that though, because if it was a case of like, you know, Billy's album and Taylor's album coming out on the same day, and then it was just like, it's a it's a fair competition. But I think given we know how dominant and talented and just like the saturation levels of Taylor Swift, it
does make it feel. And there is already, I guess, this like mythology around her that she is, you know, kind of suffocating the culture with her dominance, which is not her fault. But then to actively, like, release this fifth version with extra voice memos, like on the same day that Billy's releasing her new album, it's like, you know how this is all going to pan out and it just doesn't lend itself to, you know, you.
Liking Taylor Swift anymore? Well, look, I think we're going to have to disagree on this one.
Well, look, Taylor Swift did get another victory literally today in the Apple Music Top 100 albums of all time. Uh, this is something that Apple has been doing over ten days. They released ten albums in the countdown each day. They're saying that this is not based on like streaming numbers. It's just an editorial, subjective viewpoint based on this panel
of experts and some musicians that they've got. There's kind of interesting stuff to talk about with this one, but I reckon we could start with running through the top ten countdown of of the top Apple albums of all time, starting from number ten, working our way to number one, it's Lemonade by Beyoncé, never mind by Nirvana, back to black, Amy Winehouse, Good kid, Mad City by Kendrick Lamar. Songs. In the Key of Life by Stevie Wonder. Blonde by
Frank ocean. Purple rain, by Prince Abbey. Road, by The Beatles. Thriller, by Michael Jackson. Number one. The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, by Lauryn Hill.
Played dual.
Um takes.
On that top ten. Firstly, how how do you guys feel about it?
Yeah, it's really weird. I mean, Mel and I spoke about this beforehand. These lists are designed, I guess, for conversations like this. Um, you know, they are always going to be controversial. I saw someone post that being like, was this list designed to exclusively make me angry? And the answer probably is yes. Like there is absolutely no. You know, we don't like it isn't based on any
kind of data. It's just like a bunch of nameless people creating a list that then is released into, you know, the internet, and then off we go to discuss it, like, I mean, and the other hard thing is like when there is no kind of criteria, these are all great albums. You could possibly make an argument for many of them to be number one, except I don't know how blonde got on there, even though I love that album.
Yeah, I want to talk about some of the some of the things about why that album from that artist as well.
Yeah, yeah, it's really weird. Um, but yeah, I guess like and especially starting at the top, I suppose like Lauryn Hill, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, one of my favorite albums. So great, but I, I don't even know what my number one album would be, but I don't know if it would be that I.
Was happy with The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill as number one, I could. I'm comfortable. I think that fits quite nicely there. I don't know the top ten. None of them were really surprising to me. I think they're all worthy places in the top ten. Could they have been in the top 20 and others have been in there? Sure, I don't know. I do take these lists, as Thomas was saying, with a with a grain of salt, because obviously they're hugely subjective and I don't know actually how useful they are.
But yeah, all those albums deserve a place in top ten. So yeah, I wasn't shocked by any. Yeah, I feel.
Like the list making is sort of partly let's make some people angry. And partly we just need to, like, mention every giant act from the past 70 years somewhere so people don't actually kill us. So there's got to be a Beatles record. There's got to be a Michael Jackson record. There's got to be Nirvana. Because, you know, even though that genre of music is dead, it was a big album for a bunch of people or on our platform. So it's almost feels like a little bit
focus grouped now as well. Um, it was interesting doing the breakdown by genre. Hip hop was the most represented genre with 21 tracks, uh, rock, uh, then second with 18 and pop, third with 16. That's what it feels, you know, feels right in terms of what is generally considered, you know, really iconic albums. Taylor Swift, uh, she with 1989, Taylor's version was at number 18, Billie Eilish with When
We All Fall Asleep, Where do We go? 30. So that's another victory for Taylor Swift over Billie this week.
Oh, no. Better take it down a notch.
Weird that there is no John Mayer.
Um, so.
Yeah, let's talk about some of the ones that stood out to me as being a little bit odd, like blonde. Fine album, but like it's better than Channel Orange. Since when did we agree that that was a thing that that that was that was a thing? Basically. I'm not crazy for thinking that, right?
No. Definitely not. That was the weirdest edition to me. Um, like, yeah, I mean, good kid, m.A.A.d city. Fair enough. I don't know, it's a very strange list, but yeah, definitely Frank ocean has like, obviously he's got like, nudes of someone at Apple because he's snuck onto that list.
Yeah, like I could have easily replaced him with like, rumours. Even Adele's 21 blue Joni Mitchell. I feel like there were a lot of others that could have been substituted for that. I was gonna say.
The Chronic Doctor Dre in at 19, I love.
The most.
Um, the most egregious thing on this list, though, genuinely to me, is My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy being 26. And maybe that's like a Kanye is insane thing, but it's like, okay, we're gonna have Michael Jackson and like, various cooked artists in the top ten. What's the argument for not putting what is widely considered one of the most groundbreaking albums of history outside the top 25? Like that? That's strange to me.
Did Eminem make the list?
Don't believe Eminem made the list.
Oh no no no, the.
Marshall are true. Number 80. Yeah, there you go.
Number 80.
So we can cut this. But did John Mayer actually not make the list at all?
John Mayer why would John May make the list?
John may make the list.
What did he have? One song, my body is a Wonderland.
No, no.
Fucking.
John Mayer deserve to make the list via Taylor. And that's it.
That's this.
Is I mean, like.
We all of us have been involved, you know, in making these kinds of lists and that kind of fun. And, you know, Mel, you did one not that long ago with all of the Kylie Minogue songs. And and it's pretty interesting and you know, that it's going to spark a debate. You know, that's part of the reason it's about people saying, I love that. I don't love that. I want that moved around. One of the things I find. Odd about lists is that they're never going to be objective, right?
You've got different people with different perspectives, and there are obviously some arguments being had around like why that album? Why? Why is it 19 and not 17? I find that conversation more interesting than the end result itself. Like I'd way rather see the working out of the conversation. I don't know if Apple is going to release like videos of the producers or the. I think there's some artists like Charli XCX and Bad Bunny involved in these conversations.
I'd love to watch those guys arguing and talking through like, that's interesting. Criticism isn't just a number out of ten, or isn't just a ranking on a list, but people justifying why Miseducation of Lauryn Hill deserves to be number one versus other albums. And when you just get the list, it feels a bit reductive and pointless at that point.
Yeah, I agree, I think Apple and we should demand that Apple release the marking scorecards for this so that we can see how they were graded and judged and who ranked what where. That's definitely more interesting. But I do think these lists are fun, aren't they? Because they do let you kind of see your own musical education
and revisit albums, discover new albums. I haven't listened to quite a few of these albums, and some I haven't listened to for some time, so I also find that they do have a value in that sense.
Well, the blueprint is super high by Jay-Z, so I'm actually just going through the list officially now.
Why is this the first? You're the one who wanted to talk about this, and this seems like the first time you've read the list on there.
Huh?
I didn't look at the full list. But anyway.
Three.
Members of the Knowles-carter family with four albums Beyonce and Jay-Z, that's that's pretty strong representation. It's like 4% of the list.
Yeah, they're a big deal.
And as far as I can tell, oh only is AC, DC the only Australian act on the list.
Yeah Australia copping some ls there who the Australian do would have like to see up there.
Troy Cassar-daley I mean obviously Troy Cassar-daley uh Brad Cox kid Laroi uh, no, I think like I'm kind of surprised that I thought like these types of lists especially, I would have seen like maybe Tame Impala on the list or something. Oh yeah.
I can see there's a there's a case for that.
All right, let's talk, Furiosa, before we get into this film. The latest installment in the mad Max franchise. Where are you guys at with mad Max? You fans of the earlier films, your fans of Fury Road. How do you feel about the post-apocalyptic world cooked up by George Miller?
I am a huge mad Max fan. Um, and I have seen all of them up to the latest one, and I think it's very easy as much as I mean, I think the films are good in and of themselves, but I also think the significance of the film culturally
is what's really interesting. And it's easy to forget so many decades on from the first mad Max, just how huge it was for Australian cinema at the time, because it was during that ozploitation phase of the 70s and 80s these kind of budget films with these shaky cams and mad Max cut through and it cut through globally, and it showed that Australia could do action with an Australian accent on it. And then these films have kind of been so significant globally and also for filmmaking in Australia.
Pretty much all of them, apart from one has been shot in Australia. So I think their role in Australia's cinematic history and relevance globally is often kind of overlooked only because it was such a gap between the first films and then kind of Fury Road in 2015, and this one, now that you kind of forget the original
origin story of where this franchise has grown from. And I mean, I think like also when it came out in the 80s, a lot of the kind of desert stories in Australian fiction and sorry, now I feel like I'm giving like a Ted talk or something.
Keep going. You're cooking.
In. Yeah. Well, a lot of the, you know, the films leading up, when you had films and stories about going into the desert, the desert was often this kind of unknown place. It was this real colonial lands. And then mad Max came along, and the desert is wild and barren, but it's because of what humans have done to it. It's because of what white people have done to it. They've overfarmed it. They've exploited it for oil. So I always thought that was really interesting about the
films as well. And it was a very early example of like climate fiction too. And like, you know, water and drought have have always been central to these films. So, uh, yeah, for that reason, I really do like mad Max.
Great. That was a very it.
Was that was an that's an extensive relationship.
Said great. Great explanation.
Yeah. As above, I agree. I know I like my mum and dad were really into them growing up. I hadn't actually watched the original three until like maybe 4 or 5 years ago, kind of maybe around the time that, um, Fury Road came out. But yeah, I've like I mean, look, as we've discussed previously and today on this pod, I'm not a big fan of like, sand related epic films, but this I will make an exception. Uh, and yeah,
I mean, I thought Furiosa was amazing. We'll obviously get into it, but yeah, I've always been here for the mad Max universe. Um, and I guess, like it was really the making of Mel Gibson. He's obviously become a strange figure for like, people to process now, especially Australians. But that early era Mel Gibson like man, he was on one with some of those films and it all really started with mad Max.
I love that Taylor gets demon in a mel Gibson gets strange.
I mean.
That's just a demon.
He definitely didn't say that.
Um, I went through our archives with the help of our wonderful library staff here at the Herald, and asked them to dig up, like, our coverage of mad Max when it was first released. And interestingly, the first reference is in 77. So a couple of years before the movie came out, and it's like this doctor from Queensland, George Miller, has managed to get together $350,000 to make this,
you know, weird apocalyptic movie that's about cars. And then a few months after that, it's like two nighter graduates cast in their first film, Mel Gibson and Steve Bisley. They're ready to give real acting a go. It's so odd to think that is the genesis of what became the biggest Australian film franchise in history. And funnily enough, I also looked up our first review of mad Max in the Sydney Morning Herald. It was not good.
Um, did Mel Ryder.
The reviewer? Uh meled. Dubois, who wrote, reviewed a lot of movies for the Herald I think in the 70s, said the movie was brutal but lacked social value. She was not into, I guess, some of the violence, and I have to say, I don't know when the last time you watched, like the first mad Max was, but I rewatched it in anticipation for Furiosa. It is way more depraved and violent than I remember, like a brilliant movie. But there is some very, very intense stuff, and I think,
you know, it's in service of the plot. It's not just there for the sake of it, but it's kind of crazy to think that this, you know, this, this kind of Australian exploitation movie, as you said, Mel, influenced by George Miller's work as a doctor in Queensland treating car crash victims, became this huge franchise and what is now the most expensive Australian film ever. It's such a fascinating journey from that film to where we are now.
Yeah, totally. And like the aesthetics are so completely different. As you said, it's such a dark, kind of austere film in a way. Real revenge narrative. After his family is killed to the kind of hyper saturation that Fury Road and Furiosa are known for. It has been a really interesting journey, but I think that's also part of why I like it. Like, you know, even the shift towards different gender roles in the characters, with Furiosa essentially
replacing mad Max, which I'm sure we'll talk about. Is is an interesting like how that franchise is adapting and reflecting what George Miller.
Mad Max has gone.
Woke is what you're saying.
Yeah.
I don't think that's quite what I'm saying. But yeah, I do think that I actually think, to be fair, they have done those changes in a good way, like in an interesting way. Like I actually don't think it comes across as overly woke.
Do you know? Sorry, I didn't mean to. I think it's just more.
And we'll talk about this when we get into furious. I think he's yeah. More explicit engagement with very contemporary political themes is much more noticeable in the last couple of films. His his filmography is crazy. He makes the three mad Max films, then he goes on a detour with like Babe and Babe, Pig in the city, Happy Feet one and Happy Feet two, and he's like, you know what I'm doing Fury Road, man, we got we got to.
Go back to mad.
Max. It is such a strange, um, strange journey for a director who started in Oz exploitation land. Mel, you unfortunately weren't able to see Furiosa this week. You were unwell. Um, so. So Thomas and I will probably, uh, do most of the chatting in this one, but but, you know, jump in at any moment with your thoughts or questions. All right.
So Furiosa, prequel to Fury Road, starring Anya Taylor-Joy as a younger version of the character played by Charlize Theron in Fury Road, and Chris Hemsworth as her key antagonist. He's a kind of nomadic warlord called Dementors. The movie opens with a young Furiosa played in the first section of the film, actually by a young Australian actress, uh,
Leila Brown. Uh, being snatched from the Green Place is kind of idyllic Paradise in this otherwise post-apocalyptic hellscape by a group of bikers who take her to Hemsworth's Dementors. She tries unsuccessfully to escape before being traded to Immortan Joe, who rules over the Citadel, which is the key location for most of the action in Fury Road took place. She eventually does escape. She blends into the world of the Citadel. She plots her eventual escape back to the
Green Place and revenge on Dementors. Uh, in this movie, there's significantly more world building than we got in Fury Road, which was kind of just like a straightforward road movie and a chase film. Other than The Citadel, we got hints of this broader world in this, in this landscape, but we didn't see them. But in Furiosa, places like Gas Town and The Bullet Farm, which were alluded to, I kind of fully realized, and the action takes place in and around a kind of universe that is more
fleshed out. I think there's also a really interesting stretch of the film where Furiosa teams up with a very mad Max like character. Uh, this guy called Praetorian Jack, played by Tom Burke. I really enjoyed that element of it as well. It's kind of like we've got a story that is very different. It's about a different character, but we know that people also want to see a guy in a leather jacket driving cars around. So let's
include him in this too. I think the biggest challenge the film faced is the obvious comparison to Fury Road. Largely considered widely considered to be one of the best action films of this century. I think when you get over that and you realize that, yes, this movie is obviously a prequel, it's set in the same universe. It's not trying to tell the same kind of story. It's trying to do something a little bit different and and something with a bit more scope, more history, I think
some more broader political scope as well. Like, I think Fury Road focused on feminism and environmental destruction here. There's a lot of that. There's also a lot of talk about humanity's just inability to stop going to war with one another, and the damage that is doing on both a personal and community level. And I think there's some playing around with, like, interesting ideas around class as well. I watch this movie in Imax. It looked and sounded
awesome for me. The real highlight is Chris Hemsworth as Dementors. He's brilliant. He's having a lot of fun. He's bringing this kind of Shakespearean lunatic presence to the stage. I think he kind of outshined Anya in a lot of scenes, but I think she did a really great job as well, channeling that kind of quiet fury that Charlize, uh, really, really displayed in Fury Road. I had an awesome time with this movie overall. Thomas, what did you think?
Yeah, I really liked it. Um, I agree that I, we actually having this conversation not too long ago where it was like, Is Chris Hemsworth a good actor? Like, we all know, he's really famous and like jacked and he's in Marvel movies and stuff, but like, has he ever done anything where you're like, wow, that was like Chris Hemsworth, like kind of owned that. And this I think is that movie, um, kind of from the first time you meet Dementors, it's like, wow, he's got, you know,
kind of some prosthetics. They've made him like, it still looks like Chris Hemsworth in prosthetics, but he looks a bit weird. And pretty quickly I was like, okay, like, he's going for this. Almost like Jack Sparrow meets like, Heath ledger as the Joker. He's kind of like, almost a bit camp. And he the way he speaks is really interesting. I don't know, the whole thing. I was like, okay, I'm here for this. And I did think he kind of stole the movie. Um, yeah. Like visually it was
like I also saw it in Imax. I almost think you're doing yourself a disservice if you don't see this in Imax. Um, and like even the way the movie sounds, everything about it was like, it's such a movie going experience. And it was funny, like looking in it was like Imax was packed. And you could see people, like, actively like sitting back in their chairs as if they were being, like, forced back by the actual, like, weight of the film. Um, yeah.
It was it was incredible. It did definitely feel like, as you said, I feel like Fury Road is widely accepted now as this like, wow, that is, you know, the kind of benchmark for a modern action film. And this felt a little bit more like drifting into the Marvel territory of, like, are we being set up for the mad Max universe completely now? Because we did, you know,
see a lot more of the wasteland universe? And will there be like, like, will it be another eight years before we get another mad Max, or will it be like two or something like, Will we.
Get, you know, the mad Max TV show spin offs, exploring certain characters? I think that's potentially something that could happen here.
Yeah, it does feel a little bit like that. Or maybe George Miller, like, hands the IP over to someone else and they do make a, you know, ten part Disney show out of it or whatever. And then I did, even though I like enjoyed the film, I walked away thinking like, oh, it does feel perhaps like Hollywood has kind of got its claws in the mad Max franchise now and are we going to get like an Immortan
Joe ten parter? Or, you know, like, are we going to start to see it diluted and broken down and like basically sold off for parts?
Yeah, I mean, George Miller is 79 now. People said that when Fury Road came out, it was that was going to be the last one. I think it's amazing that he's come back with this one and it is as good as it is. But, you know, the IP of the film, I think it's owned by Warner Brothers, or at least Warner Brothers is the company behind this. Warner Brothers is now a part of Warner Brothers Discovery, which owns HBO and all these sorts of things. And
you're seeing this happen with Dune, right? Well, we've got the Dune films, and simultaneously to the Dune films, we've got the Dune TV series trailer dropped for Dune Prophecy, which is about the history of the Bene Gesserit. You know, the kind of nuns in that I feel like. And I don't begrudge George for this at this stage of his life, his career. If he's just like, give me $1 billion, I will retire happy. My family will never have to work again. And you can make whatever mad
Max films or shows you want. I don't really begrudge him for that. I don't think the movie is like the movie isn't bad because of the world building he's done. It kind of all works. But your spot on, Thomas, you can see. Cool. Let's get the history of the Green Place. Let's get a drama set in. What's going
on in Bullet Town? Mad Max has always done that in a really interesting way, where, you know, through in Fury Road, there were those guys on stilts just kind of walking in the wasteland in this sort of marsh, and it's never explained. And there's been stuff like that throughout the franchise's history. You don't have this overriding, this dialogue, this exposition, you just kind of thrown into it. This one had a bit more of that. Even at the
start of this film. You have this montage of news clips that allude to how we ended up in this apocalyptic hell space. Things like pandemic, nuclear war, environmental destruction. It felt a little bit more like George linking very current things going on to what's happened. I think, Mel, you mentioned that the first mad Max films always had a little bit of that going on, but it was
never laid out for us explicitly. Manohla Dargis in The New York Times review of this film made the point that, you know, we never really talked about George Miller being a prophet, but as like, time has gone on and the world is edged closer to the kinds of battles over resources that he first talked about in the 70s and this movie kind of shrinking that gap between reality and fiction even more. It has become like a more prophetic franchise.
And did you feel that that kind of world building slowed it down? Because definitely the original two, and the third one is a bit of an interesting outlier of a film, but the first two and even Fury Road are quite simple stories of revenge, like it's a very clear pattern, almost like a fable, which then, you know, allows him to do spectacular stuff elsewhere. But did you feel that it slowed it down, that they were developing too much of the world?
It's a really.
Attracted.
It's a really interesting question. I enjoyed a lot of it, and there is a lot of great action set pieces, but at certain points I was wondering, and I don't often feel this about movies. I was like, just give me more crazy scenes of them on the road doing crazy stuff, like there's a bit where they get to this big conflict and instead of showing it, it's just like a narration and a montage. And I'm like, what?
This what these movies do so well, particularly since Fury Road are stunts that you're just like, they take your breath away. You know, my guy Steven Soderbergh has that famous quote about Fury Road. He's like, every time I watch it, I don't understand how there aren't, like, dead bodies here on the set and some of the set pieces. I mean, most of them are astonishing. There's one in particular which is like the big iconic war rig scene from Fury Road, and they take it to another level
and I'm like, that is amazing. And it's interesting that when the trailer for this film came out, I wasn't particularly excited. A lot of people seemed to react a bit negatively because it looked very CGI focused, not a lot of practical effects, and the CGI didn't look great. Sometimes we forget that trailers are released before all the work has been done on the visual effects. This looked really good, like it felt very practical. I. And think
the CGI looked bad. What did you think about that, Thomas?
Yeah, no, I think like it didn't didn't really bother me at all. And I just think the scope of some of those set pieces is, like, so amazing. And like, you know, we spoke earlier before about how the rest of them have kind of been filmed in Australia. Mad Max Fury Road was like a lot in Namibia, but it was so nice to be. It was so obviously Australia again, having just recently returned from the Northern Territory
for undisclosed reasons. But like, you know, like that, that sense of the, you know, when you do get into those parts of Australia that feel like so barren and you're the only person in the world like it's nice to see that back on screen. And I just thought it looked incredible. It's been funny, you know, like the last week, I think George Miller has done a sit down. And he spoke again about the strange relationship between Tom
Hardy and Charlize Theron on Fury Road. And then inevitably, like, you know, it comes up as this movie comes out. But I thought the actual chemistry between Chris Hemsworth and Anya Taylor-Joy, they have some really intense scenes towards the end. And just like from a physical standpoint, like he is so imposing and she is quite like a little person. She's, you know, she's like slender and but like, they feel
like such a great match. And again, you know, like these are not dialogue heavy films, although Chris Hemsworth does have some long speeches. But I reckon Anya Taylor-Joy, like, as Furiosa says, like, I don't know, 40 words in the whole film. Yeah, not a lot.
And it's a hard role because Charlize played that so well, and I've not historically been like, I've never really gotten the Anya Taylor-Joy thing. I didn't love Queen's Gambit. I think she did The Northman. She's pretty cool, but I
was really impressed with her. And this I think there is like that, you know, it's a bad pun, but a quiet fury of rage, like what her motivations are, how she feels within each scene, what her what her goal is like, what the kind of struggles that she has about trying to make peace with where she's at whilst not losing sight of where she came from. She really does that very well through her face and her acting more so than through dialogue. So I thought she was wonderful in this film, and it.
Is interesting that she's going for these kind of quite big epic films. She was flagged at the end of June, and there's a lot of rumors that she will kind of be a main character in Dune Part three. She's got a quite interesting career trajectory, and at this point, she's kind of seems to be moving away from character roles and doing a lot more of these huge franchise acting, um, huge franchise action roles.
Do you think like this? I know that Fury Road, you know, obviously it was like made over 400 million at the box office. It was nominated for like eight Academy Awards. Um, it's like swept the technical categories. No acting awards. Do you suspect? Obviously. Well, you haven't seen it, but do you suspect that it will be similar this time around? Do you think Chris could get a nom?
I think there's a there's a chance Chris gets a nod. I might depend on what category he's in. He's he's probably a bit too much for Best Supporting Actor. And it's probably not a good enough or big enough performance or kind of Oscar worthy performance for best actor. But yeah, I, I think this will do very well in the technical categories.
It'd be awesome if Chris got some sort of acknowledgement, because I think he's really trying and he's showing off the acting that he can do, and it's such a reversal of the Marvel stuff where he's the good guy in this. He's playing the bad guy. His character's name is literally Dementors, you know? I mean, the character names in this movie. Thomas, you mentioned the Australian landscape. The
sheer australianness of these movies is I love them. Like every Australian, that guy actor like pops up in these movies. Some of the names he gave Immortan Joe, he got Praetorian Jack.
It's just.
Ridiculous. My personal favorite is, uh, So Lucky, whom plays two characters. He plays Immortan Joe, and he plays this one eyed sort of consiglieri to, uh, Dementors. This character's name is Ridsdale Pell, right. George Ridsdale, one of the most notorious pedophile priests in Ballarat. And George Pell.
What is George Miller doing? That's that's so weird.
I did not I did not know that that is. Yeah, right. That's layered that's a layered drive by from George. And there.
Is some, you.
Know, pedophile stuff in this film. So that's just coming out of nowhere. But you know, there are some pretty like dark characters and dark moments in this film.
Wow. And fun fact that I was reading that, um, apparently Bathurst where they were filming around was too green. So like in post-production they had to remove all the greenery to make it have that arid look, which I thought was kind of interesting, but also the case for Australian government supporting filmmaking here, because it was because of the rebates and incentives that they kept it in Australia, really, versus 2015 when those rebates weren't here and they took Fury Road elsewhere.
But one of the good things about Fury Road being in Namibia is that Mel Gibson didn't want to go there. There's like some quotes from him and his wife sort of not really wanting to be in Africa, you know, make of that what you will. Um, and I do think that movie is better without like contemporary Mel Gibson in there.
So yeah, I'm that's a that was a great decision on behalf of everyone.
I wonder I wonder if Miller was like.
How do I get rid of Mel from this franchise.
Given that the first set of films was a trilogy, we're now on two of the newest Mad Max's, but Happy Feet and Babe are both. Also arrested on two. What does George Miller do next? Are we going to see babe three Pig Piggy Road, or are we going to see some kind of happy feet? I would love to see another babe get James Cromwell Magda Szubanski back together. It's like this. I mean, there's so much to do there.
Give us.
The babe. Expanded universe. I think he's like, he's nearly 80. I don't know if he's going to make another movie.
He'll probably end up coaching South.
Yeah, I wouldn't mind.
Him seeing taking like, another animal franchise. And like, what if he did like, a Winnie the Pooh or something? Like, I wouldn't mind another animal franchise.
Well, that IP is up.
For the taking, aren't they? They're making it. It is.
Winnie the Pooh is out of copyright.
Um, one of the conversations around films in 2024 has been that they're not performing at the box office as well as anticipated. The fall guy did okay, but, you know, didn't do amazingly. There's not a lot of big tentpole releases, big event movies on the calendar. This is one. After this, it's the new Marvel one. Deadpool versus Wolverine. There's the Joker sequel. There's not much else, I think. I mean, I think this could do very well. It's being released
in Imax around the world. You know that that costs a bit more. It's good for box office results. It's a pretty bare like cinema listings at the moment. I don't know if you guys have looked at what's on, but people messaged me. They're like, you know what, what do I see? I'm like, there's not it's not a heap on there's actually a pretty great film. It's a bit violent. We're not a family friendly movie, but I wonder whether this could break the drought and do do
quite well. Maybe get to that four, $500 million mark at the box office.
Yeah, it wouldn't surprise me. I mean, it is funny that like, I read read that kind of similar articles about fall guy, like not really doing what it was supposed to do. And, you know, like there was such a, I guess, a thought from the studio of like, we'll pluck Ryan Gosling from the biggest film of last year and Emily Blunt from the other biggest film of last year and put them together. And we can't lose in this, you know, with like kind of semi existing IP and
you know, it'll be funny and look amazing. And then it did okay. But it didn't like Set the World on fire. The fall guy. And then yeah it is it is strange looking at the rest of the year. Like I think Deadpool versus Wolverine will be fucking enormous. Like I reckon that will go bonkers. Um, everyone loves, you know, the Deadpool character. Then we're bringing back in, you know, Wolverine and the popularity of Hugh Jackman. I
reckon that'll go crazy. But the rest of the year is kind of like, you know, lacking in things to look forward to in terms of, like, big box office hits. So yeah, I suspect that mad Max will do really well. And we've already seen like, you know, what did Dune two do, like crazy numbers.
800 million or so. Maybe got close to a billion. I mean, it it's interesting. The Australian Australia is punching above its weight when it comes to bringing in box office results this year. Anyone but you big hit into the, uh, start of this year. Filmed in Sydney. The fall guy you know didn't do enormously still is making quite a lot of money. Filmed in Australia. Mad Max Furiosa filmed in Australia. Largely Australian cast and director. Deadpool versus Wolverine. Wolverine.
He's Australian. Australia. What? Like that's cool.
Yeah, Australians are cool. I've been saying it for ages.
Yeah.
Yeah that's great. It's our it's our year and hopefully it'll be a showing at the uh at some of the awards ceremonies too.
That being said, one of my other I mean, I know we're about to get on to this, but one of my other most anticipated films of the year is also shot in Australia. Uh, and that is Nicolas Cage.
Ah. The surfer.
Yeah. So I wanted I wanted to.
Talk to you guys a bit about, uh, a bit about Khan, which has been happening over the last week, and this has been a particularly interesting one to watch because of the fact that the big studio films, you know, like we've said, there's not there's not a heap to get excited about. So what is playing at Khan and what is reacting? Getting good reactions and uh, being highly anticipated could give us a slightly more fleshed out, you know, second half of the year of these films get picked
up and distributed in Australia. One of those that got a really great reception was the Surfer, the Nick cage film Thomas.
Yeah. So that's like was shot up in WA. I think, uh, Nicolas Cage plays, I think he's like on the run or something and he plays and then he kind of gets into surf, falls in with a surf gang. It feels like kind of an exploitation, like B movie vibe. Um, like I did want to say before we get into this, like, do we think at this point the standing ovation thing at Cannes is getting like, ridiculous?
It is. It's now become like a complete joke, right? Where for people who don't know, different media outlets are now recording the length of standing ovations, different films get. Some of them are seven minutes, some of them are 11 minutes, some of them 17 minutes. It's always been like a very Khan specific thing, and I think now it's become a bit of a joke. People are making kind of memes about it, you know? Hans Moleman man gets hit in the head by football. 17 minutes standing ovation.
I can't like it's funny stuff. It seems completely ridiculous because it often has nothing to do with the quality of the film. It's just this director's back. Let's just stand up and clap. Honestly, I could not imagine anything worse than being forced to clap for like seven minutes, let alone 17.
I can imagine being the person who has to receive the.
Clapping for.
That long. Like, what do you do? I hate when I would be.
Fine with that. Honestly, I.
Hate when people sing.
Happy Birthday for 30s. What do you do for seven minutes of like I just every time I see the footage of people having to like, smile and say thank you for seven, 13, 15 minutes, I just internally shrivel up and die.
A few years ago, Adam Driver got one for. And I mean, it can't have been for that weird Italian movie. But anyway, he got one one. It was like the sixth minute and he lit up a cigarette and.
Just started smoking it. Well, that's boss, which I think.
Is kind of great, but like, yeah, you know, like there's this weird new, like, not Yellowstone movie by Kevin Costner and that got like a 12 minute standing ovation, like, are you fucking kidding me? Like two minutes is a long time. I don't know, I just find that whole thing weird. And then it does become this. Like, it's almost like a calling card, like, oh, they got a, you know, ten minute standing ovation. It must be amazing.
It's like the new star ranking.
Yeah, exactly. So that that is very weird. But yeah, Nicolas Cage, as we all know, we know and love Nicolas Cage. He's got this. Probably the strangest IMDb besides George Miller, I suppose. Um, he does like horror movies, amazing movies, Oscar movies, insane movies, B movies, action movies. Uh, and it sounds like the surfer might tick a lot of those boxes. So, yeah, I'm very excited about that one.
Um, the other you mentioned Kevin Costner in the horizon film. I'm sort of excited by that. Like, I like Yellowstone and this is Kevin Costner kind of ditching Yellowstone and putting all of his money into, uh, you know, horizon, Udorn and American sort of Western frontier film. Apparently it's not great. It just basically looks like a TV show, and he's doing part one, and then he's doing six weeks later in cinemas, part two. That's kind of wacky, but I guess I applaud lunatic people in the film
industry putting all their money into their passion projects. Which brings me to what looks like one of the craziest films ever made. And we've talked about this, uh, earlier in the year when we were previewing upcoming, upcoming, when we were previewing upcoming movies, Francis Ford Coppola's Megalopolis, starring Adam Driver. Uh, this is crazy. I mean, the reviews on this one are just wacky. Some people are convinced it's, you know, brilliant or tourist cinema at its best. Other
people say it's a total mess. It makes no sense. It has now just received an Australian distributor in Mad Men, so it will be coming to Australian cinemas hopefully later this year. I'm very excited to watch it. Like I'm famously one of the three people in the world that thought Babylon, Damien Chazelle's very messy, strange movie about Hollywood,
was great. I like Coppola, I feel like even if it's a bit of a weird movie again, I back the fact that he sold off his entire, like estate to make this film, which seems to be a statement on the death and decay of American Empire. Like, you know, he's a great artist making a crazy movie about ideas he cares about. Let's watch.
It.
Yes, I'm very excited for this film, whether or not it was filmed in Australia. Uh, yeah. Just that he has staked so much on it and that he sees it as the kind of epitome of his career and how it's going to throw all his other films in a different light. I can't wait.
For the other film that made some headlines this week, uh, The Apprentice, Ali Abbas Iranian director's new film about Donald Trump, uh, starring Sebastian Stan as Donald Trump and starring Jeremy Strong as, uh, Trump's lawyer during this era. It's it's pretty interesting. It's got some controversy for a seemingly quite explicit scene of sexual assault that, uh, you know, Trump allegedly perpetrates based on some divorce documents, I think, with with his ex-wife.
That was sort of the main story coming out of Cannes. I mean, we loved Jeremy Strong. Sebastian Stan certainly looks a lot like Donald Trump. I'm pretty interested in this one.
Yeah, I'm kind of keen to check in on Jeremy Strong, to see that he's back on his feet into a new character. Yeah, I miss Jeremy from our screens.
Yeah, I'm very excited for this one. Um, and we've already seen Trump tweeting madly about it. Uh, rubbish movie garbage. Uh, probably hasn't seen it, but yeah, it looks great. You know, like you got those, like leaked photos from set and it was just like Sebastian Stan as Trump sitting on a bench eating a sandwich. I was like, yeah, I am in for this. I actually reckon that could also be one that maybe is a like a bit of
a surprise hit at the box office. Like we're going to be deep in, you know, Trump content for the next like few months as the election heats up and the debates and everything. So yeah, it's interesting timing and I suspect that might do quite well. Plus all the succession heads will be so keen to see number one son back on screens.
Shall we go to Cannes?
Yes we should.
Yes we absolutely. How do we get there?
Um, which hopefully someone listening to this podcast, either one of our bosses or someone more, you know, wealthier and some sort of patron just wants to send us there to do podcasts for two weeks.
Man, I.
Would love a patron. I think about kind of back in the day, the Renaissance and having a patron. We all need one like we should all individually kind of acquire a patron.
I'm surprised you don't have one.
You seem like the patron type. I thought.
The Nine.
Entertainment company is our patron. What are you talking about? Um, let's, uh, move on to our Impress Your Friends segment where we share something we watched, listened to, read. Otherwise, enjoy consuming this week. Mine's pretty quick. TV is in a bit of a lull, I reckon. I'm hoping that one of you has a great show to recommend, but I went a bit sideways. Talk about music. Chief Keef has a new album Almighty. So two back on my hip hop thing after the Kendrick Drake beef. I'm like, you know
what country's over, man? Hip hop is where it's. At a caf is like the godfather of Chicago drill. It's probably been one of the most interesting and influential genres in hip hop over the past decade. This is a really great album. It's like a full return to the drill roots he had, but it feels like contemporary and progressive and fun to really, really good album. It's really hard. Go listen to it. That's my recommendation.
Nice, I will. Well, I am this this week recommending the Sydney Morning Herald 2024 Best young Australian Novelists.
Either of us on the.
List, you.
Are absolutely not, but famously has written a book. Yes. Um, these we announce these every year. The prize is in its 28th year, which is kind of insane. Um, and the winners get $5,000 thanks to the Copyright Agency Cultural Fund. Um, they have to be under 35 or 35 at the time of publication. So there you go. You've both got a few more years. Um, the winners this year were Andre Dao, who wrote Anam, which is this kind of
sweeping story based on his own family history. John Morrissey, who has written a really great, fun, interesting short story collection, kind of speculative fiction, and Emily O'Grady, whose novel feast is really dark and full of tension. And she said it was inspired by this dream she had about Nick Cave and Tilda Swinton being in love, stuck in a gothic, um,
stuck in a gothic castle. So three really different books, three really interesting books, and kind of, you know, I read, I think about there were more than 30 or so young novelists entered in the prize. So it's a really good way to get a temperature check about what's coming out of emerging writers in, in the country. And I think these three really kind of, you know, cream of the crop and a and a good sign of what
is being written in Australia now. So, um, yeah, I'd recommend each of their books and all three because they're all so different.
They all sound very good. I'm keen, especially feast, I think. I want to check that out. I think you would.
Really like that.
I also have a book this week actually, also by an Australian author.
Great.
Are you proud of me? Uh, this is Thunderhead by Miranda, darling. I'm not sure if either of you have read this. I have read.
This. Yes. I knew you would like this book.
Really? Yeah.
Yeah, it's really good. Uh, it's like it's a funny one. Like it, I guess. I hate to be this person, but, like, for fans of Rachel Cusk, it does feel very, uh, in that space, right down to actually the cover art, which looks basically like a Rachel Cusk book. But this is Thunderhead by Miranda Darling. She's an Australian author. Um, it's basically set over the course of one day when we meet Winona Dalloway. And basically she's a mother of two who we learn is in this very strange relationship.
It's kind of like a stream of consciousness book. Um, but there are multiple voices that are kind of talking to each other as she, you know, prepares for this dinner party. We kind of learn that she's in this coercive relationship. Her husband, who only is referred to as him or he, uh, is, you know, not a very nice person. Um, it's like this kind of, like, snapshot of suburbia and motherhood and crushed dreams and all these different things. There's a lot going on, but it's very tense. Um,
it's a short book. You can read it basically in 1 or 2 sittings, but I've been really enjoying it. Plus, there are the occasional side references to Sydney and Taronga Zoo. But yeah, it's great, it's gripping and it feels very like contemporary. So if you're into that type of thing, uh, that is Thunderhead by Miranda Darling, and the cover does look great. So if you chuck it on your grid, Osman and I will probably like it. So that's what's up.
Your ability to.
Turn every book review into a comment about the cover and Instagram is very funny to me. Um, no. Really good Rex books and music to listen to while we wait for like good TV to come back. But there are a couple of exciting things on that front that I hope we will get to talk about in the next couple of weeks. Thomas and Mel, thanks so much, Tim.
Thank you. That'll do pig.
This episode of The Drop was produced by Kai Wong. If you enjoyed listening to today's episode of The Drop, make sure to follow us in your favorite podcast app. Leave us a review or better yet, share it with a friend! I'm Usman Farooqi, see you next week.