Hi, I'm filmmaker and Movie Crypt host, Joe Lynch. And I'm Becca Howard, a writer, editor, and person. And thank God it's... Tuesday? No, I mean technically I know it's Tuesday, but this is for a couple of old fashions. Oh, so you want me to lie and pretend it's Friday? Well... Cinema is lies at 24 frames per second. Going for Goddard quotes already. Really going to be lining them up for that one. There's no need to. Thank God it's. Run! As it were.
Hi! Well, no matter what day you're listening to this, we're here to talk to you about a couple of old-fashioned... a new limited series subsidiary of the Movie Crit Podcast. As you may or may not know, at our first date, Joe and mine, we each brought a surprise movie that neither of us had prior warning of. I brought My Man Godfrey, a 1936 screwball classic. And I brought Lucio Fulci's...
The New York Ripper. And true love was born. And now, a few years later, we're married. And more importantly, we're co-hosting this new series together. Every Friday at midnight, a new episode featuring yours truly. will drop via the Movie Crypt Patreon account. Each episode has a unique theme for that week's movie marathon. We both bring a surprise title that neither of us know about, and we watch them together. Off screen.
Yeah, no one wants to just watch us watch movies for hours on end. I mean, that's what Slumber Party Massacre is. Anyway. We then discuss the movies together with a couple of old-fashioned cocktails. Having a couple of old-fashioned conversations with our old-fashioned dog, Rocco. What we liked or didn't like about each other's pics. Whether they worked together or didn't work together.
The movies, right? Not us? Yes. This isn't a litmus test that just never ends. Anyway, we would love to invite you guys all to join us on our double-feature date night.
at the movies. And let us know what you think of our picks and what you guys would have brought to the marathon. Our first episode's theme is one night only which may also be how long the whole show lasts and that one is already up on our podcast and available to listen to or watch or both at the same time for free if you like what you see and hear Going forward, the episodes will drop every Friday at midnight and will be only three bucks an episode to act.
Three bucks? Geez, I can get three Taco Tuesday tacos for that amount. Well, that's the lowest amount you can set a price at on Patreon. Surely you have to be worth at least three bucks. Nah, I'm a ten cents a dance kind of girl. Not anymore, right? Okay, well we hope to see you here every Friday for a couple of old-fashioned movies, a couple of old-fashioned conversations, a couple of old-fashioned cocktails, and a couple of old-fashioned people. Now back to Taco Tuesday.
No, remember, it's Friday. Oh, yeah. Lying. I mean, cinema is lies at 24 frames. Thank God it's Friday. As it were. So be sure to tune into... A Couple of Old Fashions with Becca and Joe, right here on the Movie Crypt Network. And now on to the show. It's the Movie Crypt! And welcome to another edition of the Movie Crypt. I'm Joe Lynch.
And I'm just Joe Lynch. I'm the only person here. Not actually. No, that's not true. Adam is still on assignment. Actually, as of now, we are recording this actually on way back. February 9th, 2025. This will air in mid-March. So that means that as of right now, while you are listening to this episode,
Adam probably has a gun to his head, maybe not his own, trying to make his day in Malta. God bless you, Adam. Hope you're doing well. Hope you're making your days and, you know, fighting off all those sharks. That is a reference to the unfortunate news that came out a couple days ago about how Adam's movie is a shark movie. I'm sure that you've listened to Movie Crypt Live and Samba Party Massacre, where Adam has vehemently denied the allegations of any shark involvement.
Let's just say there's a little shark involvement, but not a lot. There's a little. It's fine. But he is in Malta right now, so I'm doing this solo. He actually just texted me about an hour ago and said, Dear mystery guest, wish I could be there. I'm so excited for the movie. Mazel tov. So so, yeah, so he's he wishes he was here in spirit. He is not. But I am thrilled to have our next guest on because I have been a fan of his for years, whether it.
the Shockwaves podcast or the Colors in the Dark. More often than not, the Pure Cinema podcast, which is in my top three rotations of all podcasts, because, well, not only do you get the calendar episode, which has... A wonderful breakdown of every single movie that plays at the New Beverly every month. And having had been a guest and had to watch all of those movies, it's a little daunting. And this is one of the things that I love about shows like this.
is that when you get to know, when you listen to a show enough, you feel like you know those people. So when you... see them at a party or see them on the streets and you start like maybe not on the street not not vice squad style or anything no neon slime here but when you start to feel like you have a connection with that person and then when you get to be on their show or see them socially or see them at the new Bev or want to root them on because they just made a fucking movie. Holy shit.
I've been dying to have our guest on for a while just to shoot the shit. But now I have a real reason to, because his new movie, The Dead Thing, has... Dropped on Shudder back in February 13th, I guess? 14th. Right on Valentine's Day. The perfect date movie. But guess what? There's more. It's more than a date movie. It is a...
God, I don't even know how to fucking describe it, but I'll let him do it in a little bit. But to me, it was probably the perfect amalgamation of one of the movies that I know he's a huge fan of, Possession, but almost through the lens of like... Early 80s Michael Mann, in a way. It's a cautionary tale. It's psychosexual, very transgressive, and I fucking loved seeing it on 35mm at the new Beverly. How fucking meta does it get when you have a...
a show about the new Beverly, and then you have a movie that's in that calendar. Fucking surreal. Dreams do come true, kids. And please, welcome to the movie crypt, Elric Kane. Yay! Usually that's where I cut in some creepy little kids clapping and shit like that. My favorite, creepy kids. Because you love creepy kids. First off, I want to say... Congratulations. Thanks, man. Like seeing you.
Because I've been to some of the live events that you guys have done before that you've moderated at the New Beverly, and I've done them too. And it is weird when you go to the Church of Cinema. as frequently as I know we do and you sit there and you know you'll see like Phil or Beck get up there or Michael will get up there and they'll do their spiel turn off your phones or we'll kick you out or what have you
You know, you're just watching them as a very complacent, you know, enjoyer of the movies. But then when you're flipped around the other side and you're looking at everybody, especially like when it's at a full house. It is daunting, you know, but at the same time, when you're surrounded by friends and family and the dead thing celebrated its LA premiere at the new Bev. So it was a lot of cast and crew there. So it was an, it was a wonderful mix of people who.
We're going to clap for every single credit that comes up on the screen in the beginning or the end. But also a lot of people who were just fans of yours, fans of the show, or just wanted to see a great new movie on 35mm. That crowd was elected. And now the thing about the movie that's so interesting is that it's not your usual like it's not hands on a hard body or, you know, Lost Boys like you saw last night.
You go there and part of the fun is the chemistry of the crowd clapping for every quote or remembering every moment and they get really jazzed about it. This is a... And don't take this the wrong way, but it is a small, intimate, quiet film. But that's what makes it so effective and disturbing. And like being in that audience, there's a difference between.
And I don't know if you tested the movie at all, like in front of like a crowd crowd. There's a difference between like testing a movie with a bunch of friends or sending a link out and seeing it with an audience where you kind of check. there's a difference between going like, they're really getting it. And are they getting it? Because the crowd is quiet. But the thing is...
I don't want to hear anyone. I want to feel the tension in the air. When somebody coughed, I'm like, what the fuck? It's like, shut the fuck up. I think it was the quietest.
new bit right like and because the movie's also got quite it's got score and everything but i was in a in a way that i was actually impressed at the end because i was like wow i was feeling a bit of the tension because engagement right and and the only way i could gauge that was actually at the end when i stand up there and i look out and go
I've never seen this many people stay after the movie after seven minutes of credits to listen to us talk. That's pretty impressive. That's the, um, that's the true litmus test. I've done a few Q and A's for newer movies at the new Bev. Like recently I did. street trash and uh the the people's joker and And this is no slide on street trash, but...
A lot of people left after the Q&A. I think it was just that they didn't know what to expect with that movie. And when you go and you hear, wait a second, they're doing a remake slash, you know, come sequel to a legacy sequel to the original Street Trash. Very light.
I think some people might have been disappointed with that. People's Joker, I think everyone knew what they were going for. And plus, Vera's just an amazing... to and hear her talk so that was great but everybody stayed in the room to hear like explain yourself basically which I think is like is part of the fun but I will admit this is one of those movies that like I walked out going, I don't know what I think about it. Not in a bad way, but I would rather.
A film like that can under my skin. And like I woke up yesterday morning. still thinking about the movie. It burrowed itself underneath my skin. So it's not the type of movie that you go like, buffo, you know, like we got a buffo reaction.
There's two lines where every audience I'm like, I wonder if we'll get a laugh because there's only two jokes in the movie. And both times I'm like, good, that's a good audience if I get a laugh. Is there nothing better than when you know, even if it's like a joke that. Especially if it was one that the producer's like, no one's going to get that joke. And you're like, trust me, they're going to get it. And then when they do...
It's the best feeling in the world. Yeah, I don't have a specific genre. Like, you know, you've heard me talk about movies. I love such a diverse... type of movie but i do what the words you just used is all i'm looking for is to get under your skin that's literally when i read something especially at our age where i go okay
When I was mid-20s, I would have made just anything to make a movie, but now that's past that. I don't want to just make a movie. I want to make something that gets under my skin first, so I have to read it and understand what is it. If it's about sexuality, if it's about, in this case, if it's about being consumed by the modern world and just getting lost.
and ourselves, which we all do, I need that needs to get under my skin before I can get really excited to want to make it because I'm going to be stuck with this thing for, especially in this case, this was such an independent film, like truly. Truly indie, when you're just talking about producer's notes.
we don't have any of that no one no one to answer to yeah no one to check but but it it was which is also you know there's sometimes it's nice to have something to bump up against you know uh in this case so i have to make sure i especially anything i do in the future this one really because it took you know two and a half years from the point of shooting it almost, you know, like, so that's a long period of backend.
But I somehow have stayed interested in it, I think, largely because every time I watch it, I see Blue's performance, and I can forget all the stuff I went through and just watch her be. And that's part of the joy of this kind of filmmaking, this kind of close, you're close to a person. you know, a little bit of like looking at how the way Bergman shot movies back in the day, like those close-ups were close.
And yeah, they kind of, you don't forget those when you're young and, and, and watch something like, who's your DP on it again? Ioana Vasili. Um, how did you find it was she? So it was interesting. So again, a cool thing about indie, like you have your people, you're always going to shoot movies. There's a guy called Jake Utel, and I had decided he's the only person who's going to shoot all my movies. He did one recently called She Dies Tomorrow. He does all the work with Amy Simons. Oh, yes.
I've been friends with him since I moved here. He shot a short for me a decade ago, and I was like, he's going to shoot my feature. Get to that point. Oh, he's shooting Open Outer Range, the TV show for Amazon. And I was like, lost them. And so then I started thinking about the material and I was like, you know, it'd be interesting. Are there any interesting female DPs that I don't really know? Because.
Because of the subject matter, this person's going to be very close to someone who is going to be vulnerable a lot. And just that might be an interesting eye. But of course, I don't do things just because of gender. They have to be great. There has to be a legitimate reason. I did the same thing with suitable flesh up until the very last moment. We had a female DP and.
because I was deliberately from the day that I said, I wanted to do this. I was like, I want to make this as female gaze as possible. I want to be. take this the wrong way but I want I kind of want to be the only dong on set you know it's like I would much rather this be as and not just for comfortability factor but I know that there's going to be a perspective that I'm not going to see purely because of how I was raised or what my gender politics was.
like from costume design to sound, to production design, but especially the cinematography. And there's so many great female directors out there that are working. Almost too much because I had one that was amazing. And then she got an Apple TV show and gone, you know, within weeks of when we were going to shoot.
That said, what was great was that she was so cool because we did work on it a while. She imparted so much that I was able to kind of hold on to as much as I possibly can. There's a movie that's playing that you guys talked about. On Pure Cinema, the calendar episode, Body Chemistry, Mark Singer. I'm just going to lay all the cards on the table. I jerked off to that fucker so many times when I was a kid because it was on all the time on HBO. And any chance I'd be like.
Beastmaster's getting it on. Like, man, Mark Singer rules. Daddy's Beastmaster, that's what I call it. Daddy's Beastmaster. And, you know, when I found out later that it was directed by a woman, it... It changed, like, because I never thought, I thought this was, you know, a very male-centric kind of sub-genre. And it made me rethink how I saw that. And we watched Body Chemistry when we knew.
kind of like yourself, where our resources were slim. And there's something about, and I'm sure you went through this too, If you're going to try to shoot for the stars, sometimes when you see that it's cloudy skies due to a budget, you might want to lean into that. So that was where I was like, I'm. All of my fancy schmancy De Palma shots and everything are probably going to have to get really, really.
And that's where we started watching a lot of those Concord 90s erotic thrillers because anything with Shannon Tweed, you know, aside from like all the neon that was in it. They had its own particular aesthetic. I remember them being somewhat stylish, but at least they knew what they had in there. And I wanted to rely on that kit instead of going like, where's my techno crane steadicam shot? And I'm like, it wasn't going to do me no good.
And some people liked it, some people didn't, but at least I leaned into it. And that one, the one you're talking about, is pretty kinky, Body Chemistry. It has a kink that maybe that is a slightly different perspective than some of the others we were watching at the time. When we were young, I'm the same as you. I didn't have access to pornography.
at that age that was as close as I could find to that back in New Zealand yeah back in New Zealand like it was movies like that that would come on some late night thing so it'd be like very soft core type stuff but it was like that was an exciting way this is why when people talk about not having sex in movies the thing that's crazy to me
is A, what part of our mental space every day is taken up thinking about sex? How much of our subconscious is about sex? So imagine saying, let's not have that in movies. That's taking half of the pallet away. But beyond that, it's also like... Yes, there's bad versions of how you learn about this stuff. Of course, I watch Revenge of the Nerds now and go, oh, I guess that was a problem. But as a young person, I didn't realize that. Dude, so I showed Becca and her sister who came into...
And we had this whole itinerary of movies that we were going to watch. movies that she had never seen jess had never seen before one of them was return of the living dead and now she is a devotee like she we get random texts do you want a party gif we get that all the time or tar man or what have you I don't know why I thought this would be a nice icebreaker, but I put Bachelor Party on. That movie. problematic in the purview of today yeah yeah back then
No one bat an eyelash that Tom Hanks was trying to sexually assault his girlfriend with a turkey, like a mixer. But now... feels weird yeah i don't like warning like i don't like to put trigger warnings i show a lot of films to students And I don't really censor myself for the most part. You know, I usually just, but I do warn them that like, just remember this is made when it was made. So you might want to judge the movie, but try to watch it.
I want to pick your brain on this. I know we're all over the place. Welcome to the movie. One of the things that really bothers me about that modern sensibility applied to. You know, we watch, thanks to Becca, I watch so many more classic films, pre-code films, films like from the 1930s. a lot of old noir, and a lot of that old noir is, for all intents and purposes, it's very male skewed. It's very... As was society. Yes. You know, the world.
It's easier for me now to be able to take my modern cap off and go, these are the sexual politics of the time. And I can see, you know, Desert Heat, for example, which is... one of the queerest fucking noir movies I've ever seen. Yet no one really put that out there, but the subtext is there. If you watch it like that, you can see that. But one of the issues that I have with how people recontextualize older films in a modern sensibility is I think my theory is that because.
Transfers have gotten so good now that you can watch an older movie from the 50s, 60s, 70s, even 80s. And you get to see these beautiful new transfers that make the movie look like they were possibly shot, you know, yesterday, just thrown an old filter on there and color timing. And I think there are younger generations that watch those classic movies now not seeing bad 4x3 VHS kind of version. The transfer dates the film based on the format.
I remember watching movies, you know, in the 90s and 2000s of older films that might have been considered problematic. But I think part of that that helped me. date it was the fact that they looked like shit or they looked lo-fi. Whereas now... There's so many movies that keep getting remastered and mastered in 4K that look just as good as they did back then, but now it's almost they're asking for... a woke audience or someone who like a social you know justice warrior to watch it and go you
tentacles all over that poor woman. Sam Neill, get out of there. Like it just, it changes the context. Do you feel that like our obsession with remastering has affected how we watch movies in that purview? I mean, I've never heard quite that slant on it, which I actually think is kind of interesting. I do think we benefited by growing up in a time with so many in our lifetime we have had.
so many formats. So if somebody coming into movies right now, like you say, like an 18 year old right now is really seeing the worst quality is DVD, but even that probably they're not seeing, they're seeing Blu-ray up.
And you're right, that's such a clean, perfected, everything feels modern. But the lens we were seeing, I mean, the first time I saw Night of the Living Dead was the colorized version. Oh, God, the Ted Turner version? Yeah, my first, I didn't know better. I'm like a little kid and I'm watching this thing.
I thought it was still magical. And then when I watched it in Black and White, I was like, holy shit, this is stark. It changes your point of view of it. It does, but I don't regret that, or I don't regret any of the things that I've seen. I still watch stuff, as you know, from watching a show, but I'm all about it. deeper cuts and trying to find stuff that's not available and you know going into the if I have to watch a bad VHS transfer on YouTube because it's the only version of a film
And I watched that, and maybe a year later, some company puts it out, and sometimes it might have had something to do with us, sometimes it doesn't. But I feel good about knowing that we're going out there to discover something. So it's hard for me to answer that because I'm the same generation as you. We came up just watching everything. We watched how formats got better and better and better. But the movies, they're time capsules. They don't unless.
You got a Lucas or Spielberg or somebody going in and like fixing things or what have you, or Fincher's now like messing with some of his stuff. I think it's more the issue of culture. It's just like a different generation that's looking through a lens of culture first before. I just have no interest. My interest is emotion first.
Like I want to know what is the emotion of the thing and do I feel something? Whatever that feeling is, it can be shock or, you know, deeply moved, whatever. And that's what I'm looking for. And so I think you have to almost unlearn some of the stuff. And I've had some students who. really quickly unlearn some of that. And they do put it aside as long as you bring it up and you're open. I'm not close to it. Their readings on a lot of stuff are completely accurate.
on an intellectual basis. But I don't have interest in cinema as an intellectual. Unless you're watching Godard, he's one of the only filmmakers who actually work intellectually. I have no interest in intellectual film. I want to see something with that movie. And that's that's another thing that I'm like jealous that you have that.
Pretty much. I mean, all I knew is like, because I was making, that's a lot of things first film, but it's like I was making these like very low budget movies in New Zealand. No budget features in New Zealand. So probably about 15 years, not just teaching, like teaching here and there, but I kind of built my career to make sure I would never have a job that wasn't somehow related to movie. And so if teaching's it.
If I have to teach film, at least I don't have to go into an office and not like I'm always talking about film. Yeah. And I've made that my life. And so far, I've succeeded at least in that, even though I wanted to make films much earlier, you know. But having that outlet, having that forum to constantly be. production or theory or...
being more analytical with it. Um, every time you always talked about it, I'm like, cause you know, there's that old adage that everyone's been using for years. Those who don't do teach. Um, and. Like I did a seminar last year at a college out. while I was doing suitable flesh promotion. And it was great. I loved it. I mean, I always, any chance.
that I can get to talk about movies in whatever form it is. Just rev me up and let me go. But I can see how being able to expose And talk about film to younger generations or people that might not have seen films in that. mindset or that purview before is so exciting that there's um I started getting into, you know, the Ringer, the podcast, like the rewatchables. I started going to their back catalog and they did a four hour episode on Pulp Fiction. Holy shit. And it is fascinating. One thing...
Again, welcome to the show. I go on diatribes. I never... And I've seen, I saw Pulp Fiction opening weekend when it came out. Where were you? What city? New York? I was in upstate New York. I had to take a two hour cab ride to the only theater in Watertown that played it and had to walk back. The first time I saw it, I hated it because...
Because of all the hype from Palme d'Or, I knew who Quentin was before. I saw Reservoir Dogs. He gave me a VHS tape of it at a Weekend of Horrors years before. I was already like as hyped as it got. Brought a couple friends with me. We watched it. my expectations were way too high. So when it finished, I went, oh, fuck. I know I was supposed to like that. So we went and snuck into Wes Craven's New Nightmare, which came out the same weekend.
cleansed our palate a little bit with a little, you know, meta Freddy went back masterpiece. Interesting. And so I was visiting from New Zealand. My grandma was from Brooklyn originally, but moved to New Zealand. My grandma, it was her 90th birthday. We came back to New York the day it was opening. And I go right in Manhattan and I, you know, I'd seen Reservoir. But I didn't have the hype you were so mad. This is a common joke for the show that Adam always makes fun of me where I go like.
if somebody says anything about any movie theater in Manhattan. Which one? Oh, yeah. I can't even remember now, but it might have been an Angelica. At that time, it was probably Angelica Film Center. It probably was, but this is the reason this is an interesting story. I'm sitting there. The movie's... 15, 20 minutes into it, and I'm just on the edge of my, you know, because of the structure and everything. Of course. Edge of my seat, and the film starts to burn.
I've never seen that, and I've never seen it happen since. It's a true grindhouse moment. Literally, and this is the opening night. It just went boom. So it took them like 20 minutes, like five minutes. We're all in the dark, and then a few minutes later, and then somebody's rethreaded, and then we watch the rest, and I'll never.
because it was just, I mean, it just like, again, we're talking about formats and we're talking about the experience. Because how many movies have we seen also where that shit happens and the blob comes out or gremlins start to show up and shit like that? It was such a great memory of Pulp Fiction for me. So it did work for me completely. So you've seen it a few times. I have seen a few times. Though that said, I saw a once upon a time in Hollywood.
in the like we got lucky because we're doing the podcast we got no you got to see the secret but I had that thing where I couldn't get my arms around it when we're sitting in an edit bay watching it on the TV. Was the time code going? It was pretty done, but I can't explain it. I knew it was good. but I didn't fully get, and then I went back a couple days later, and I think it's his best film. It blew my mind. All of his movies, I think, hit harder the second time. Because he is...
He's reformulating your brain in whether it's the structure, whether it's the tone, whether it's the subject matter. It take it always every single movie of his. The first time I see it, I either absolutely love it, but I know I'm going to love it more or I like it or I go.
And then, second time I watched it, Masterpiece. I mean, that one played with, when you play with expectations, like you're going to have the Manson family, things like that, it throws you around and you get this amazing ending. When we were at the Cinerama Dome, when they did the preview screening right before, it was like the first. screening they did like the official screening they did and the electricity in the air because no one knew
When we got to that point, what the fuck was going to happen? And the exhilarated sigh of relief when history started being reworked. Like everyone was like, it's a fucking rock show of violence and murder. And I fucking love it. It was amazing. Yeah. Brad Pitt saying, nah, it's something stupider than that. From that moment on, it becomes like, it's just one of the greatest. And then fucking Sadie, the dog bites the balls and that's it. It's on. So the reason why I bring this up is.
So I'm watching the show and these guys are talking about the movie for four hours. And one of them brings up. Now, I do not do heroin. I am not a drug. form uh but they're talking about how all of this the whole situation with mia transpires because Eric Stoltz character didn't have balloons for the heroin because in drug culture heroin gets put into balloons and because he had a baggie
Put it in the baggie. If Mia had pulled out the balloon, she would have thought it was heroin and she wouldn't have had the overdose. Because she saw it in a baggie and thought it was coke, that's why she did it. And it fucking, how many times I've seen that fucking movie.
Or I think it was a couple of years ago. And, you know, again, I've seen the movie a million times. I used to show I had a bootleg of it that I would play every Friday night in Syracuse. I just found it like I had a screener copy of it. So I would just show people. And I never fucking noticed the shoes on Eric Stoltz's wall when he's doing the drug deal. Just never noticed it before. And then I'm like.
Holy fuck. How did I fucking miss that? And that's again, why? And the reason why I brought that up too was like to go back to what you were saying about, you know, teaching and showing people movies is there is sometimes is no better thrill. than to show someone from a younger generation or someone that you're close with who might... or watched this particular movie that you know like the back of your hand showing it to them for the first time and letting that
Not to sit there and go and watch them like, so what do you think? Oh my God, the needle scene, huh? There are movies that you know as the... whether a programmer or a film instructor, whatever, you know are just guaranteed crowd pleaser, whatever it is, right? So like I had a class recently, none of these, because they're like 19 now, none of them have seen Drive. Drive just feels so recent.
that I was like, isn't it crazy to think that that's 10 years old? And we're now talking about a generation born after the movie, the matrix came out. Oh, it being in film schools. Yeah. So, so that was like, that's a bit of a mind blank, but what is more important than that is. I have to remember that when I was a student, and I remember this really well. And this goes with, I don't know if everyone's like this with taste, but you have to go back to the ones that the teacher showed you.
that you didn't like when you first watched it? but you didn't stop thinking about it, and eventually you came back to it and became a favorite. I remember Robert Breslin's Mouchette was showing me a class, and I was just sitting there like, what am I looking at? This is so depressing. Getting kind of angry at the movie. When I first saw Crash by Cronenberg, I remember leaving the theater feeling kind of...
upset with it. And it didn't, it wasn't what I wanted from a movie. And then years later, you change, you know? Funny you should mention that. Yeah. I saw crap. in a theater, like my local theater in Long Island. was home from uh for spring break it played and very rarely have I ever been in the theater where I watched the half of the audience leave yeah during the Elias Cotia sex scene with James Spader like
They just fucking gone. I was riveted. Yeah. No, he's pushing a boundary. He is pushing. Twin Peaks Fire Walk With Me. These are movies that on first viewing, you kind of go back and go, oh, maybe I do get why audiences and critics didn't get it. but then I felt the same way with firewall. First time I saw it, I'm like, I also brought a date with me, which was a big fucking mistake and she did not like it. Therefore I didn't like it. So the reason why I brought the crash up was so.
Love the movie. And then a year later, it was one of the... Few modern Criterion Collection Laserdiscs. It was a single flipper. It was stuck there for a long time. But I bought it right the fuck away. Like Kim's... There was like a laser company here that would sell. Dave's video had Laserdisc, so I bought it, had it shipped to me. It showed up right before my film theory class.
And I'm walking in like I'm fucking hot shit. Like, look what I got. You know, no one else gave a shit. But the teacher, the film that they were playing that day just didn't show up. But they print didn't show up or whatever it was. So like, well, we don't have anything to watch. So I'm like, actually, and the AV room that we were using, the screening room, had a Laserdisc player. So I'm like, do you guys want to watch Crash? He's like, oh, I'm a big Cronenberg fan. Sure. Throw it in.
100 minutes rolls by, and when the lights came up again, the teacher goes, Joe, can I speak to you outside? I almost got kicked out of school because the teacher hated it so much. And I even said, I'm like, Are you offended by the movie or did you just not like it? Because I don't want to get kicked out of your class. because of your subjective viewpoint of the movie. If you found this offensive, but at the same time...
He showed Salo a month ago. I mean, that's crazy. And also he gave you the permission to show it. Yes. So he gave me consent to show that. Yeah. The best. It shows it. But that's what we got back to the very first couple lines of this episode. Getting under someone's skin. Yeah.
It isn't always for the positive. Sometimes you're under the skin and it's like, this is my new favorite movie. But that's just kind of how I felt when I saw Possession 27 years. I feel like I was one of the early people, at least in my friend group, who watched that and went, oh, this rewired something in me the way Shining did at 10.
The way out certain movies just get under your skin. Possession was one of those movies that I always saw. You know, the scene in Pee Wee's Big Adventure where he's like, he runs in to save all the animals and he keeps passing by the snake. And he's like, or like, I'm going to get to those guys. Possessions poster.
It never grabbed me, even though it's the one with her back and everything. I don't know what it was. It was something about it that made me go like, eh, I don't know. And I never gave it two thoughts. And then during the pandemic, you guys started talking about it. And this is where we were all in isolation. We're all in pandemic mode and no one can go anywhere. But cinephile.
I like to call it our video store, even though I travel from Burbank to fucking Santa Monica to go. I love that store, but it's too far from me now. It's so far. We went there because we started going, they started opening up and we started going there.
Becca was shocked that I had never seen it. And this was in 2021. And I was even, the more that you were talking, I'm like, the fuck did I miss this movie? And then I'm, of course, looking online and I can't find it anywhere. It's not streaming anywhere at that point. And Cinephile had a bootleg 35 millimeter scan of it. Oh, cool. And so we brought it back, put it on, and it wasn't like pristine at all. But it didn't matter because that is one of the few movies in the last five years that...
deeply fucked with my brain and my heart. And I was going through a divorce at the time too. It's so deeply emotional for people. Like, and I'm never going to show, people can remake. One thing about Possession that I will personally always be on record for is every director should make their version of Possession, but not ever remake Possession. The fact that they are doing that, the only reason I take umbrage with that is like...
That's like the director made that movie from a place of absolute. Like I am making a film to survive my divorce that my wife, I returned, my wife has a new lover and our kid is just being left out. And what do I do? Like if that's the place where your movie camera, it's hard to imagine someone. And I worry that you remake a movie like that in the same way.
that the bad producers of the American cut of that movie, which cut out 45 minutes of the movie and it, and just basically up to a couple of the horror parts. They lost, they didn't actually understand what the movie was. They were like, Oh cool. There's a fuck monster. Let's, let's get that more on screen. I, Hey, I, I love the fuck monster, but I also, It's the emotional searing stuff at the start that seems almost comical and so over the top. But it's if you've ever had an argument.
somebody when there's something really at stake. Those tight scenes when Isabella, like where they're in with Sam and they're in their tight little kitchen. The kitchen stuff is just unbelievable. It kills me. It absolutely kills me.
devastating, and people would go, well, you just break up and you walk away. It's like, not if you have kids. It doesn't go that easy. It's going to be a lot harder if you've got an anchor point in a relationship and two people yelling at each other because there's something else.
that isn't just there. And so it's like a movie, it's more than just, but it also doesn't fit easily into a horror genre either. It's like a movie that, yes, is it a horror? Yes. Is it a thousand other things? Yeah. And therefore it's difficult to categorize it. But it's funny because once movies and one of the things I don't like as much, I mean, I love banging the drum for a movie.
But then once the movie gets fully adopted by everyone and then meme cultures and then gifts and stuff, then I realize, oh, I don't need to talk about that movie ever again, really.
It just is out there in the culture now. I'll talk about it in the ways it's personal to me, but I don't need to get the word out the way I used to feel I had to with a movie like that. It was like years ago when we were all going like, where's the fucking hitcher? Yeah, I was definitely on that too. Where's the block? In the blog remake, you couldn't find it anywhere. And now... I think it was Drew McQueenie just texted me. He's like, hey, do you know that Sean Baker went up on...
like some critics thing and said like, the blob is the reason why I wanted to make horror movies. I'm like, fuck you, dude. That was me. I was saying, I was saying it for years. Well, as I love that it's now in the same conversation as the thing, which was also a mind movie at the time. You know, the fly is the only one that hit on the way out. Like everyone knew that was a hit. But the other two are, I agree, I think they're all three of the best in terms of practical effects.
being on that high phantasmagoric level, but also emotional, blah, blah, a little less. the emotion story isn't like the main rollercoaster. But, but man, you watch the fly again. And I'm like, I watched, I showed that to people recently. And again, and I was like, the emotional story of that is, I don't think it's ever been topped. What do you, how, like when you're dealing with.
Sorry, I promise we're going to get to the movie. Trust me, I'll take every detour you like. Good. I'm always fascinated with your curriculum because when you do mention some of the movies that you talk about, we're like, oh, I just showed this to my students. What's the usual curriculum and what's the basis of...
We have different classes. The main class that over the last decade I've just kind of like perfected for me the way I teach it is just called Aesthetics of Cinema. And so I would call it like the ultimate intro to directing class and not directing as in this is where you put the camera, but as in...
How do movies work? So I show through all the clips I show. So like the very first thing, if you're sitting in my class for the very first time you've just sat down, I start by showing a clip of the opening of rear window and I go, look how the camera's pointing to everything. It's very literal. It tells you everything you need to know. There's no dialogue spoken.
So this is just show and tell, right? Show don't tell, basically. And then I show them the opening of Blue Velvet right after that. Oh, no, sorry. I show blue right after that. So Kieslowski's blue because the opening of that is a little girl in the back of a car, but also silent. But it's a totally different type of story. Those three color movies are fucking great. Yeah, it's like a visual thing. And I do a little trick where basically there's a car crash at the end of the scene.
And then there's an eyeball. And I always say to them, whose eyeball is it? And every, I've never had a single, everyone says, every single person says it's the little girl. And I say, because in an art house movie, this foreign director just showed you a little girl for five minutes. And then it's her mom's eye because the little girl's dead and everyone's dead. except this woman, and the director just showed you what's been lost.
And that is not how an American version of this movie would have started. And then I show the opening of Blue Velvet. So it's all three in a row, the opening of Blue Velvet to go, now this is really far off the narrative that you've been watching. We've gone from like point and shoot.
to like kind of abstract to completely abstract when we get down to the, you know, it's all pure symbolism at the start of this. We go below the grass and we see the ants, but they all get it because you've gone, these three clips alone. I often think like, I've never changed over the years because those three worked so well.
And they're so well constructed. Yeah, exactly. Each person knows exactly what they're doing. You know the thesis. You remember when we were growing up and our English teacher would go, make sure your thesis is in the first paragraph. All three of those movies. You can't watch those opening scenes. Maybe rear window more than the others, but...
You can't watch those movies and go, I know how this is going to end. There's no fucking way. But you know where they're going. Right. Like the opening of my movie is a woman walking down a hall in darkness, looking at possible dates and then swiping as we see her fucking. one of the future dates like there's a time that's important to do in the first minute yeah because it's like I'm not gonna hold that back
Because the horror is going to be held back for a while. So I can tell you that part. But I only bring that up because that's how you get in. And so the curriculum, I'm like bad because I can't show the same movie over and over again. It drives, personally, I want to keep changing it for myself. Of course. And part of the cool thing that you teach is like changing it for yourself so you never get bored. So you're kind of just also enjoying it.
But like I will say, I've shown Blood Simple every single year for the last decade. And it's the only movie I can think of that I haven't once not wanted to show. And every time I learn something. I think it's my now most watched movie, Blood Simple. It is my most watched movie. I love it. Because I might have told you this. Every since Everly because when I was making Everly in Serbia
You know, we had movies shot completely in one room and I had to make this room out of fucking thin air. I had to like construct it out of my head and put it onto a stage. And I've always had a fetish for those like half moon windows. Oh, yeah. And just always love them. There's something aesthetic. There's I have.
a fucking kink for those fucking windows and I don't know where they came from And, you know, we constructed the room and it has two of those because I was like, oh, and thematically it's like Tycho the bad guy's eyes are watching her the whole time.
I think it was like a day or two before we started shooting and I put on, no, it was two days before I put on Miller's crossing and I'm watching the scene with Albert Finney and boom, there are those two fucking windows. I'm like, Holy shit. There it is. And.
There was a documentary on the disc after it, and they were like, and they talked about those windows and how the motif that was in Blood Simple. And I'm like, wait, what? And went back, and the night before I started shooting Everly, I watched Blood Simple. And there are those windows again. And something chemically changed in me where, and I know you know this feeling from the movies that you've made, especially this last one.
When you're on day zero and it's like, and usually, you know, we start on, everyone usually starts on a Monday. So Sunday is kind of the down day a little bit. It's like, it's the calm before the storm. And that's the moment that you get to supposedly breathe a little bit, go through your shot list, make sure all your ducks are in a row, make sure that everybody's got what they need going. If it's, you know, super micro, you're probably the one sending out the call sheet yourself.
But it is like you're on the precipice of chaos and you don't know how things are going to go tomorrow. You have no fucking clue. I, especially on that one, I was terrified because. with Selma two days before where I found out that she didn't read the script until I made her read the script and I called her out on it. So there was a chance that I was going to get fired because I called her out on it.
It was just madness. And thankfully, right up until that Sunday, it was like, well, I might not be here anymore because if the producers have to... Make a choice. It's not going to be, you know, the upstart fucking genre director. It's going to be the fucking moneymaker movie star. But thankfully, it all worked out. watching blood simple the night before put me into a calm because I remember going, if those guys could make that movie.
so assured, right out of the gate, first film, and you know it's a Coen Brothers movie. Yeah. Front to back. from first shot to last, from every, from every sound effect to music cue, you know, they, they were confident in what they were doing, even though they had five bucks, right. Or 150,000, but still, but you watch that and they're doing.
camera over the bum and the bar. Always makes me laugh every time. Every single time. A quick aside that you'll, this is amazing. I've shown it every time in these classes and then the one time I'm showing this, I swear to God, this is my favorite thing ever in a class. I'm showing it to a group of students. And this one guy, I suddenly hear this squeal. He's like, oh, my God. And I'm like, what? He's like.
Remember that, you know, the stripper gets up, the girl who dances on the bar. That's my mom. Oh my God. And I wait, what? And he goes, my mom told me she was in a movie once. called Blood Simple and I didn't realize but that's her fucking legs I've never seen this movie and he was from Texas and I was like this is the greatest moment of my life like this student had never seen this moment he's like that's my mom and I'm like that
wonderful that's amazing you never know you're gonna get but exactly I agree there's an assuredness there and I went I think I did the same before this there's I have a tradition now where I watch blood simple much to Becca's chagrin because usually she's with me whenever I shoot so she's like
watch Blood Simple again, right? And every single time, it zens me out, but I also find something new every single time. Again, the hardest thing about making anything, I think, is like, oh, but there's so many options. If once you go with your gut and when you watch blood, simply go, Oh, these are all choices. Yeah. And, and, and maybe I think they're all mostly the right choices. That's what's amazing about the movie, but.
But even if they weren't, it feels like it's all been the right choice. And so you just have to get in the thing that I will choose. They lean into it to the point where even if it feels like it might have been a mistake, in the end, though. If they choose it in the edit, it is a choice. Yeah, it is a choice. Like when Tarantino let the yellow balloon fly in Reservoir Dogs. I've been trying to explicate that fucking thing for 20, 30 years. I even did an homage of it in...
Point blank, I literally throw a fucking yellow balloon as someone drives by. How interesting. As my homage to Reservoir Dogs. And then a year later, I had... dinner with Quentin and Brady Snellis. And I went like, cause I had no clue that Quentin saw any of my shit. And he's like, Oh my God, you did Everly. Holy shit. Tell me everything about that movie. I'm like, but then I go, you know,
Did a little homage to you in my movie Point Blank. Oh, yeah, what? I'm like, the yellow balloon. He goes, oh, really? And I'm like, what did that mean? He goes, I don't fucking know. It was just the balloon flew by, and I left it in the edit. but it's the fact that he left it in the edit that allows you. And I think that is partly due to when you feel like you're in the hands of someone who is making confident choices. that even happy accidents, you know, even...
Again, bringing pulp back, the fact that he used two different Amanda Plummer quotes in the beginning for the, you know, any of you fucking move, I'll execute every one of you motherfuckers, and then it's different in the other version. it makes you think a little bit of why that choice was there. And now, to bring it all the way back to the dead thing, there are moments in your movie that... especially in the moments like when blues, what's blues character's name? Alex, Alex. When Alex is, um,
stalking the couple from the bar going that first time. There's a moment where you do a camera move, like where it kind of tilt pans up and then comes back to her and everything. It's not normal coverage. Yeah. It's a curious choice by that point. I felt like I was in the hands of someone who was completely 100%.
confident and had complete control of the camera, the performances, the editing, the music, all of it fell into place. We've seen plenty of movies where it feels like it's just madness. Yeah. Right. your mood feels like. You knew every choice. Whether you knew it or not. We never do. We never do. I would say it certainly wasn't as planned in advance. I think the first week I planned everything kind of pretty well in advance, and then we...
because we didn't have a lot of pre-time for this. So I think the directing initially... So much of this movie, thankfully I realized I'm actually pretty good under pressure and pretty good in the moment, which is something you don't always know. I figured from stuff I'd shot in New Zealand that I don't thrive off chaos. You don't want to sound like you're insane.
but I do feel like William Friedkin. No, but I do feel like I'm able to like hold tight inside and go, okay, but I know how, and I'm also confident at not needing full cover. So that's not how I want to shoot the movie anyway. So, so the time thing like that, that sequence that, that, that leads to the stalking scene, that was like, there was like three or four pages. I'll never forget it.
Three or four pages of stuff happening. She was meant to stake it. It's almost like a stakeout. She was out there with a coffee. Her phone's running out of battery. She's watching. We were getting to the end of the night. I knew that the next conversation someone was going to have with me was going to be, you're going to have to cut that scene. And I'm like,
Wasn't Webb your first AD? My co-writer became the first AD at some point. What a shitty position. He put himself in. It was amazing. Oh, you want the data? That only happened the very last day of shooting, but where he leaned into me. I'll never forget it because we're very close. He's such a great guy.
And he's such a good writer. And all he cares about is the final product. But the fact that he had to do this job and he just leaned into me and goes, we're really running out of time. You're just going to have to start. speeding this up and i just like it was a slow motion turn just do you want this to work yeah and he just like backed away which means we didn't really have an ad yeah it was it was he he also probably knows like we all do it's like
likely not coming back to that location. And sometimes you do, you have to be responsible to the money and the investors and everything. But there was a couple of times like that on suitable flesh, which was my lowest budget film, but you know, for. circumstances that were beyond my control. But there were moments where the producers were like, you don't need that. And I'm like, you know what? I guarantee you.
that we're going to be in the edit room and you're going to go, why don't you have that? Yeah. And I would rather allow you to have that option. to say maybe we don't need that there than me going hey guys
Or we don't have it. Sorry. Well, and some you won't know in the moment because you are with this indie film like this where you're so strapped, like time is your biggest thing. And so like in the case of that, that four pages I had in the moment, instead of waiting for somebody to say that to me in the moment, my brain went, okay, I'm going to shoot. like long take of the scene but change it completely what it is but in the moment change it and I'm still getting everything I needed
on an emotional level, but I've changed the whole thing. But I was totally confident doing that in the moment. It doesn't mean I'm confident it's going to work. In the long run, in the edit, but in the moment I felt in the zone. And I think that's about, as a director, trying to get yourself in the...
same zone we try to get actors in the moment. We're asking them to be in the moment. I think often directors are the opposite. People never talk about this about Kubrick. The thing that makes Kubrick one of the single greatest directors of all time, and I didn't know this about him when I was young.
His films feel just like Hitchcock's. They feel completely pre-planned. And then you go watch The Shining documentary and you go, he doesn't storyboard. He walks into the room and he looks around and he lies on his back. And that inspires me so much more because I'm like, yes, you have to plan things in your head. You have to do your homework.
But then to find it, to make it alive, you've got to get in there and act like that's not a gospel. It's the same muscle that a filmmaker needs that an actor has where they need, you need to be quote unquote off. Yeah. Because if you're not off book, all you're thinking about is what are my lines? What are my lines? What are my lines? If you're off book, you've absorbed it to a point where you can make it your own.
you can still be slavish to the script, but you can also, you've absorbed everything from the beats, the intentions. And for you as a filmmaker, you're. Obviously taking in everything you've gotten before, everything you still need. You have the Adobe Premiere in your head and you're cutting it in your head going like, what do I really need? You've now.
acclimated to the workflow of the actual production you know this hopefully the strengths and weaknesses of the actors you know involved and you can go like can rely on them to be able to do a long take some actors can't you know but at the very least if you know that film up and down left and right in and out enough because There's so much. The shot where she was stalking him.
rolling LA blackouts. So we were just looking for a place to shoot it. We kept driving block to block and the lights went out everywhere because we knew we had to shoot with natural light. It was a couple summers ago. And we finally got to one block where there were still lights. And we're like, all right, this is where we're shooting. So there's no scout for that. And it's still one of my favorite parts of the whole movie because it feels alive. It feels.
It feels spontaneous. It feels spontaneous. But it still feels like there's control of the story. It doesn't feel superfluous to just throwing out there for style for style's sake. I'm getting more and more sick of the... flashy one-er. Yeah, no, that wasn't the idea. It's not to save time either. It's more like, oh, it will work this way. But it's funny that shot you brought up.
You couldn't have brought up just the fact that you picked that, a shot of a person's point of view looking at a couple and then coming back to the guy. I love that shot. Because it's incredibly, that's where the intention. As we go, the one thing I think that helped me stay locked in was just being true to point of view. I kept saying to myself, okay, this movie I want people to feel not always literal point of view shots.
but as many times as possible i want it to feel like you're locked into her perspective not just on her face which we do a lot but and a shot like that was so intentional but even as you're doing it you're like i don't know how this will feel but it felt like I laugh every time I say it because I think it does work. I think it does work.
show her shifting focus and attention. Oh, 100%. But I like Polanski's work. And like, again, I know it's always hard to talk about him now because of his... what happened in his career I firmly subscribe to the separate the art yeah no and again that's it's a whole other conversation that we don't need to have bit but He was the first filmmaker. So when I was, that same trip I took where I told you about Pulp Fiction.
I happened, this is actually the turning point for me to, we were making super eight films before this, but I didn't take it seriously. And it's even hard, like it's hard for anyone from Jersey or whatever.
to truly believe you're going to actually become a filmmaker. Oh yeah. But in New Zealand, I think you're also another step removed where it's like not, this is pre PJ. If you're not Peter Jackson. No. And we hadn't seen bad taste yet. So this is like a couple of years before I saw a bad taste and where you started to go. Oh. Okay. Kind of like we would with Raimi or someone.
You just don't know, but on that same trip, I'd seen Rosemary's Baby, and I'd seen Chinatown, and I'd seen all these films before at 16, and he was probably one of my... favorite just on a filmmaking level. But I wandered into Anthology Film Archive. The Tenet? No, get this. It was the Wodz Film School, L-O-D-Z, but Polish. It was the Polish Film School.
graduate shorts. And it was from like the 40 year anniversary of their graduate shorts. It was Jersey Skolomowski, The Shout, Roman Polanski movies, Andre Vida, a couple others. So all big names people, but all their black and white school shorts. And his was like the two men with the bathtub thing. And I'm sitting there and I, it completely made me go, Oh, you can make moves.
Like a human being can just make movies. Because I can't get that with Chinatown because it's perfect. But I was sitting there watching these handmade movies. And from that moment on, I wanted to make films. Like I knew I could actually do this. So I went to school, you know, study film studies and all that. Did the whole, whatever this trajectory has been. I've had all these detours, obviously, to get this long. But all the time, it never really changed. But it was seeing...
how these handmade movies were done that made me go, oh yeah, you can do that. And then you watch Repulsion again, go, oh, I can see the end.
But I did think about his... I definitely got repulsion vibes. Yeah, and I didn't re-watch anything. The only thing I re-watched right before I was shooting, I re-watched Morvin Caller, which I hadn't seen in years, and it reminded me, oh, there's no rules. Like, to coverage, there's no rules to coverage. And I re-watched some Kyoshi Kurosawa ones I hadn't seen. Which one? They weren't my favorite. I love Cure and I love Pulse. Did you see Cloud yet?
I did see Cloud at the festival. How was it? It was very different. It's very funny. It's, like, very surprising. Because the opposite of Chime is, like, perfect. Like, perfect 40-minute movie. Cloud is, like, it's got some darkness, but it's, like, this guy who everyone's kind of coming after. I think you'll enjoy it.
It's got a sense of humor that's definitely in the wheelhouse of dark humor. I mean, he had me already. But no, it was a couple... Was it Retribution? There were two that I just... Kind of more generic on one where he's investigating a ghost who, like, he might be the killer. But it was just... the way he shoots it's just to remind yourself
Because I didn't want to, you don't want to be overly influenced when you're shooting. It's very hard. You know, we always have all the, but it was a reminder to myself that it's just about making choices. It's about like not being scared. Like, you know, the office stuff I purposely in the start of the movie, I purposely, I'm not trying to make it slow to bore someone.
I'm shooting it so you feel her life. This has got to take its time so you feel a little trapped the way she does. I'll admit, you know, I... Slow burn is such a naughty word, and I can't stand that. And I think like... I'm trying to remember. I think it was Quentin who said it recently. He's like, no one makes movie stories anymore. They make situations. Where it's like, put a person in a situation, they get out of the situation. As opposed to, you know, movies that have.
tapestries and you know like an altman movie that will just kind of like take you from scenario to scenarios to scenario that is character based yeah like um like was it the the long goodbye yeah i love the long you know like You can't really describe, even though it's a noir movie.
And I didn't get it at 15. I didn't either. I did not get that movie, especially with Sterling Hayden at the end. I remember when I went to rewatch it a few years ago, I was like, am I going to like this now? Because back then, that really threw me. I watched it now, and I was like, this is the greatest thing ever made. Oh, now, yeah. I totally locked in now. But there's moments, especially in Dead Thing, where... The editing, especially when you're going from...
date to date to date and showing the fractured storyline. Was that in the script originally? Yeah, yeah. So it's very accurate to how the start's written because there's a movie called... But without, and this is something you mentioned in the Q&A, that your budget kind of... stifled having dialogue moments in that. And the second you said it, I go, smart. You didn't need anything. The looks, you know, because, you know, Blue's character is.
you know, kind of on a dating montage in a way, trying to find some form of connection using this app and going back and forth. I think if anything, I think a younger generation who is going through that right now will absorb that so much faster than someone in our generation who we've been, we've grown up with screenwriters having those talks. before. And then the sex scenes happen or feel the need to have a little tête-à-tête before. Whereas now...
So you swiped through her story and done in a way that I think is very elliptical, you know, with the editing. And it never felt when I was walking out. um, was say like, Oh yeah, it takes a little while to get going. I'm like, I don't think so at all. Yeah. Like I think it. It depends on your wavelength. I've read reviews, and this is like all your, as a creative anyway.
oh, you're going to put this out and everyone's going to... Have you letter trolled? I do, but I think the day it's on Shudder, I will not anymore. I will stop at that. Trust me after the first day. And my tactic was anybody who didn't like it, I'd be like, sorry, didn't you like it? You know, maybe better luck next time. And.
more times than not they go oh I didn't know you'd actually read this I really like the movie I'm like then what then fucking be honest about it no but what I what I find funny is that that that the filmmaker inside us will have the it's a protective layer thinking oh This is for everyone. Everyone's going to like it. And then you go.
Oh, but the movies I liked in that influence list are definitely 50-50. Half the people hated it, whether it's Lost Highway or Nicholas Rogue's Bad Timing. And Possession, these are the movies that are in my DNA to make movies. And I'm like, oh, that's right. All the movies I truly love are like...
movies that people are very mixed. They either love them or found them. And even at the early festival reviews, it was very interesting for me to realize that the thin line, you could say love and hate, but the thin line between the word mesmerizing and the word dull. And it makes you realize like, oh.
So a set of images in a row could mesmerize someone. Very thin line. Yeah, or somebody else could be watching and go, but nothing's happening. And I'm like, oh, that's fascinating. So you're either on the wavelength or you're either on the journey and you just got into it somehow or you didn't. And I find that to be... This is actually like this has been an interesting reminder. Like, oh, yeah. So the thing people don't I've never heard talked about with the festival circuit.
You know, we all want to get our film in a festival. To me, it's because I want people to see it in the street. You want those festival wreaths. Yeah, but what I realized why it's so important, why I really tell young people listening to this thinking, like if my movie had gone straight to Shudder. And I think about this now, I'd probably be devastated because what I realize now is.
The festival is what also helps you start thickening your skin. And it gives you time to process. Like the very first screening at Fantasia was a big deal. And to answer your way earlier question, no one in a room had ever seen it. That was the first screening? Yeah, first ever. So only a handful of people had seen it individually. But you had Mitch.
and you had that crowd which you've been there before meowing this was my first time up there though wait really and okay another little tip for filmmakers and this one really served me especially if you're getting older and you haven't done it yet I, because like you and people listening might not know, we started podcasting at the same place at the same time. Killer POV was our first one. You guys were doing this at the same place years ago.
And we would get, you know, we started getting fan bases and stuff. People have asked to invite us to everything. At a certain point, I said to myself, I need some motivation. And I will never go to Sundance. I will never go to Fantasia. I'll never go to Fantastic. Until you have a film. Unless it's with a film. And I promised myself I'd been to some before that, but I've never been to those.
and a fright fest never going and I fucking said to myself I will only go and that was part of the you know the first level of like no do your thing you moved here to make movies you didn't move here to be podcasting I'll just randomly occurred around me because I'm obsessed by film and so you and you wake up someday and you parlayed it into a very good you know cottage industry between the teaching and the podcasting and stuff like that
whether it paid the bills or what have you, but at least, like you said before, it keeps you in the world of film. Yeah, but you have to be careful. They said, like, I remember that David Mamet's little, he has that really thin little book on filmmaking, and I'm not, like, Mamet's to me as a filmmaker is still more of a verbal guy. It's not messing my back.
But he had this one line. It was just like, people with a backup plan have a tendency to use it. And it really, it stings. That's the kind of thing where I read it like, you're right. I need to make it a little harder on myself because I fall into this other stuff kind of easily. Talking about movies, the easiest thing in the world for me. Oh yeah. And so, whereas making it, it's not that you're not, inside you know what you can do. There's so many.
factors against you going out there and making it, whether getting the script out or getting it funding or getting it made or getting it distributed. you will always be behind the eight ball on that. And then your own worst enemy where you need it to be perfect because in your head this film that's flickering through your brain is different. And then the idea of actually taking that first step. So there's so many things against doing it.
slip this by i'll be able to get this yeah my budget was only you know x amount of dollars but i'll be able to make it look like five million instead of one million or less than that you always think that you can case the system or hack it somehow and more times than not The dealer says otherwise. Right. So Fantasia was your first.
Oh, I know. So what I was saying, that very first screening, and I've been there for a day or something, and I had to do a live podcast there. Do you have poutine? Oh, my God. One of the best of my life. It was just one of the most delicious meals. So we do the first screening. Everyone's dressed up, and it went fine.
But I just felt weird. And I couldn't explain it to anyone. And then you'll see a great review. You'll see a bad one. And so you go, oh, I better not get into the headspace of this. And then two days later, they played it a second time. And it's one of the best moments of my life.