The subject of suicide does come up in this episode If You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet, it is dealt with in the movie we are discussing today. If this triggers anything for you, reach out to Lifeline thirteen eleven fourteen, Good day, Peter, Hell ay you here? Welcome to you Ain't Seen Nothing Yet? The movie Podcast, where I chat to a movie lover about a classic or beloved movie
they haven't quite got around to watching until now. And today's guest television producer, writer, creator, and mate Chris Walker.
You ever dance for the Dead of the Dale line?
I'm walking here? Walk good?
Heeare of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world? She walks in the.
Mine, haven't a crip. I first met Chris Walker aka Walks when I joined the Project team a bit under ten years ago. We became mates very quickly. Chris enjoyed my friendship so much he decided to lead the project a couple of years after I joined, reuniting with Project alumni Charlie Pickering to executive produce The Weekly with Charlie Pickering. Rich also produces award winning quiz show Hard Quiz with
Tom Gleeson. And Tomorrow Tonight with Annabel Krab and Charlie Pickering. Recently, he hosted and produced a podcast named Rainstrust, which had well known as his reflecting on the Clusterfuck that was twenty twenty. Walks is a critical thinker, Sharper's Attack and one of the thoroughly decent human beings I've met during my time in this biz they call show. Here is sadly though, a Richmond supporter.
My name, as Pete said, my name is Chris Walker. I am sharp as attack. My three favorite films which we I want some cave its on this latter on, but my three favorite films are Terminator Too and if.
Your clothes, your boots, and your motorcycle Gladiator.
Time for honoring yourself will soon be at.
An end, and the silence of the lambs.
People will say we're in love.
And until recently I had not seen the film Network, much to my surprise, and Pete's podcast gave him the opportunity, and I watched it this week.
I don't want you to protest, I don't want you to ride. I don't want you to write to your congressman, because I wouldn't know what to tell you to write. I don't know what to do about the depression and the inflation, and the Russians and the crime in the street.
All I know is that first.
You've got to get Matt. You've got to say I'm a human being. God damn it, my life has value. So I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now. But go to the window, open it and stick your head out and yell him as brag as hell.
And I'm not trying to.
Take this anymore.
Yes.
Veteran news anchor Howard Beale, played by Ozzie Peter Finch in his Oscar winning role, has been told, due to dwindling ratings, he will be finishing up at the network. Howard takes news well. He announces that he will take his own life on air on the fourthcoming Tuesday, as the fictional TV network UBS rushes to get him offair. Fade Dunaway's Diana Christensen has other ideas as she strives to give the new Matt Profit of the air waves
as much time on the airwaves as she can. Muster sidnella Met's rather prophetic nineteen seventy six classic continues to be as relevant today as it was forty five years ago, A scathing satire on how corporate influences can corrupt not only programming, but the people behind the camera walks you work in television? Are you as mad as hell? And if so, are you going to take it anymore?
I'm always mad as hell.
I don't know if it's corrupted, just the people behind the cameras, possibly corrupted the people in front of the camera, isn't it, Pete?
Yes, Well I'm come on mate, let's not. Yeah, we both of those. I mean, I've given you a big introduction and announced your overhead line or your credits. Note perfectly on point. We both work in television. We're working news television. So this is an interesting one for us to discuss. Did you did you see? Was it you feel like a satire to or did it feel like a mirror?
There's two things I reckon about that. First of all, I think it it was confronting in one way, and I think we can talk about that. But the very you know, the very first thing I thought when I watched it was how interesting it was to have watched it for the first time. In twenty twenty one rather than have I mean, obviously I wasn't alive when it was first made, but even if you'd watched that movie thirty years ago, just how precient it was about the
world that was to come. Like back then, it would have seem controversial to have this guy standing up and basically spouting bullshit in order to please the masses. But now we have networks dedicated to doing stuff like that.
We had until fairly recently, we had a president that was a reality TV star that would literally just say whatever it took in order for the masses to vote for vote him in and to be a populist, and so in some ways when we watch it or I don't know what you felt, but when I watched it, I was like, oh, you know, there's yes, you can clearly see it's a satire of the world back then, and to some degree it's a satire of the world that we have now, but it's just not as confronting
because we live in a world that is sort of twenty thirty forty years on from that. But at the same time, and this is why I'm so interested to talk about this movie. Particuan, you and I have talked about talking about this movie in the past, is it does make you think about what, in your case, what you say on television, but also what we create to put on television, and all of the motivations and pressures and and reasons good and otherwise for wh why we
put the thing we put on air. And clearly that movie is a satire about corporate and economic you know, stockholders and shareholders and stuff, effectively deciding what should and shouldn't go on air, you know, if not, if not overtly, just by the nature of that, everyone answers to shareholders. So the fade done away character essentially sees sees the matrix a little bit and says, you know, this is what we'll put on.
This will work, And it does.
And she puts this, you know, half crazed dude on air and he starts his demagoguery and and you know, it's all beautifully written, and you know, and he performed it beautifully well and and and all of America attaches to it and and neither of you I have been at that level.
But I think, and this is what I think is interesting, is I think.
In my life in lockdown, Sotty Big.
So we're both in situations where I think we've probably said and done things for reasons of populism.
I mean, I know we have.
Well, I know, because it's not just I guess you're I guess you're referred to Trump. I'm going to read between the lines. And this film has gotten seemingly more relevant over the last five years because of Trump, but also the social media of the you know, who the masses follow and what the points they can to latch onto until they decide not to latch onto that anymore.
And yeah, the things that kind of jumped out for me were that, and also I had to really think about because I you know, I'm a pretty easy, go lucky kind of guy. You know, my job on the news program I work on is to provide comic relief. It's not all, you know, it's not the only thing I do on the show. Sometimes I will, you know, have an opinion on various things and in courage to do so. But it made me think of the times when the network necessarily we're in different hands. It has been.
I've been at the Channel ten pretty much for twenty years. You know, I had a year or two off in the middle of there, but and so there's been a few different own owners, both owners, but also people you know overlooking the station as far as you know, executives, And there was a time you know where there was, you know, a Murdock in charge and that creative content was not at the front of their mind. It was a pretty depressing place to be around that time.
I must admit that I was actually wondering before I came here whether or not the Murdock period predated you, because that was the I was at the project for people who don't know, for five years as the I guess you'd call the series producer, and that period he both came and went in my time from memory, and it was significantly different when he was even though you didn't see him like you said, I saw him once, but you absolutely understood that he was in charge of
the network. And all of a sudden things started changing, like there was different, Like you started hearing things from on high and we can't do this and we should be doing that, and why is this person, why is this left person speaking, and why is this And you felt absolutely like in this film that you were both making a show for an audience of one and an audience of stockholders Channel ten stockholders, and at the time I wasn't sure whether that was right or wrong. I
was young in experience. I'm still not sure about the ethics of you know, there wouldn't be a Channel ten without stockholders, and you know, they largely are responsible for
its longevity and its life. So and I think that's what's really interesting about Network is that, you know, the Fade Dunaway character, who I thought was possibly the most interesting character in the film, although there were several is you know, she is almost almost a character turre, I guess, or of someone who's just you know, I mean they
talk about this in the film. You know, she falls in love with with Max, you know, who is the producer of the news show, and they sort of have a what I thought was a pretty strange actual relationship really, Like I didn't feel like that was actually eat out that well in the film, Like it was sort of it sort of happened, and then all of a sudden they're in love and then they're breaking up and and and that really revolved essentially around her just being a
complete you know piranha really for ratings, Yeah, and she would will she would absolutely do anything for them.
Yes, Yes, she was a shark. She was a machine and and and I'll make this point and then we'll we'll go back and talk about some of your favorite films. We'll come back to the network. But when Sidnela met the director, met with Fate don Away to discuss the character, he said to her, he goes, I know what you're gonna ask. You're going to ask, where's her vulnerability? He says, there is none. Don't look for it. If you put
it in, I'll edit it out of the film. Really yeah, and she wants she wanted to ask her for this film wins four Oscars. She wins for Best Actress or Best Supporting Actress, and which is pretty incredible because so that there's cifaying a woman with no vulnerability and with nor her story is almost a straight line. But she doesn't get corrupted. She starts pretty much corrupted and everyone else kind of gets corrupted, you know, she doesn't. She kind of starts corrupted and it stays corrupted.
And completely unmoved by Yes.
Doesn't have it like any kind of feeling of remorse at the end of like, oh this is you know, I mean that we'll get to the end later, but we'll come back and obviously talk a lot more about network. There's a lot to dissect and jump into. But I want to talk about your three favorite films, some big ones, some big heavy hitters. Here germinated. So this has come up,
This has come back pretty recently. I forget who it was, but yes, I mean I remember seeing tournamated two twice at the cinema and being all there for it, particularly because Guns and Roses had Yeah in the sound.
I just want to put a quick cave it in for my favorite, okay favorite three films. It's only because it's you that I'm willing to say three films. I am very uncomfortable about sticking my name to my three favorite films. Yes, I feel like I've read a great quote from Vince Skillig and the guy make Breaking Bad about how picking you best films is like having a package of two thousand doritos and you're picking three of them.
Which I agree with.
And I also think my favorite film changes as well, and I don't know if that's the same for you. But so I wrote down a couple of things I think you'll be interested, and then we can talk about the three, I said.
The film that I was affected most by was Spotlight.
Okay, yeah.
The film that I laughed most at on first watch was Me, Myself and Irene, which has got some problems.
Was it a pissing scene?
I've interest all of it.
The movie I was most enthralled by was Gladiator. The one I was most impressed by was the Matrix. The one I'm most attached to is stand by Me. And the one I was most impressed by was the Silence of the Lambs. And from that fairly strange, arbitrary matrix, I came up with the three films that I've said, Terminator two, Gladiated, the Silence of the Lamps. Now, Terminator two obviously wasn't in those first time I noticed that.
So Terminator two.
I was ten years old and I was on holiday in the Gold Coast when I went to the local Gold Coast multiplex and watched Terminator Too. And it was for the next forty eight hours I was so pissed off that I wasn't Edward Furlong like I was. Just all I could think about was being Arnie's mate, and being even though it was a robot, and being in that film and just everything about it, you know.
I mean, obviously these days.
It's well, actually I think the special effects stand up when you watch it again. But the liquid T one thousand, which is played by Robert Patrick, was just the absolute edge of special effects and the fact that they reimagine Arnie is a goodie, and it just was everything you could hope for as a ten year old.
It's hard to think of a film that is a sequel that has gone up as many notches as Tea two went from the original Terminator.
Well correct, like even Godfather. You can argue that two is better than one.
Yeah, I often argue that, But it's not like it's.
A mile in front at all. I was thinking about that today. Actually, I think there is another one that was. But yeah, I agree, it's it's.
My Empire strikes back. It will be argued as being the best Star Wars would be better than I just don't think it's leaps ahead of it. You can have the same argument as you have with the godfarmerl.
Yeah, it's not like Phil Smith and Lebron James, is it.
I'm Team Smile.
Hell of a one on one game. Yeah, So I just loved it. I just it was.
It was pretty thrilling and that and that Robert Patrick as as the one thousand.
Yeah, two one thousand, Yeah, that was just you know when.
You when you come up with a villain that you just kind of go, how's he going to get?
Has he gonna be beating?
He was such an immovable force and there was he just kept up and get like basically by definition, he would just get up and keep going like you're shoot him with a shotgun. He blows apart and then he breaking jeals and off he goes again. He's just constantly dusting himself off and coming again and like there aren't that man. And I think that was the the difference between T one and Sorry Terminator and Terminator Too was that.
I mean, Arnie was a good baddiean Terminator, but the villain in Terminator Too is you know, it's right up there with in my view as the best.
And he doesn't really talk.
Like he's just this it's this new type of villain that I think, you know that didn't have vulnerabilities.
Yeah, really, yeah, I remember the feeling I had, and I cot you almost picture myself in the theater when he's chasing he's chasing after the Arnie and forlong in the car and they shoot him all day and you think it's over, and I remember feeling the relief that it was over, and then he starts running again and then he gets his hooks into that, you know, and it's just like.
Oh, it's so funny you said that, because it's exactly the feeling you had, Like do you actually despaired for a minute for Arnie and and you're like that can't beat this guy.
No, this, this guy's unbeatable.
So it's wrought it up. Actually, when we chatted to Bob Murphy about Butchercshid in the Sundance Kip like the gang that are chasing Butcher and Sundance, it feels very similar in that kind of feeling that then they never going to get away from this, from this gang, and I think, if you can, if you're can achieve that, and then you know it ends up differently for Sundance and Butch, but you had to set up your heroes. If most heroes win the day, So you know, it's
great writing because they've made it hard for themselves. I haven't cheated by making it easy where you can say, okay, well, you know. The reason we don't talk about these film because they're shit films because heroes know the villain's no good. But this is a great villain. And yeah, speaking of great villains. Funnily enough, I watched this recently just for fun. I watched Silence of the Lambs and it's come up a couple of times. I remember seeing this at the
cinema as well. Hand to elect one of the great villains, Jonny Foster both got oscars for this.
I did, and I think it was also Best Picture for ninety one. Perhaps, so this movie is interesting for me. So growing up, I was allowed to watch anything growing up, Like I watched RoboCop when I was six. I don't know if you've gone back and watched the first ten minutes unbelievably violent like In fact, I think it got knocked back from classification in America seventeen times before they finally got an R rating for it because it was
just so violent. They kept giving it what was in X rating there, which is different to what it is today. But the so I wasn't But the one film I wasn't allowed to watch was The Silence of Lambs. In fact, it was that in the hand that rocks the cradle, and as it turns out, Mum was mistaken. She thought that the Science of the Lambs was based on a real story, so she thought the film was sort of exploiting someone's misery.
As of course it's currently made up book.
And anyway, So for all these years, I wasn't allowed to watch it, and it wasn't until I was like a I think, probably sixteen, even sixteen, maybe not that old, but until I watched it, and you know, I was just I was captivated from the first ninety seconds, Like the first ninety seconds of that film is a great illustration of what you can do, in my view, without any dialogue and setting up characters. It's a bit like
with the I don't jump around too much. But in seven, the Morgan Freeman character, there's a scene when he wakes up and he's throwing knives at a dartboard, and really, what it's trying to tell you is this guy's meticulous and he's a bit of a loner. And with the silence of Lambs, you know, you have her at the training camp and she's running, so you realize she's determined, You realize she's she's not the boss. You realize that
she's a trainee. And this goes on for about ninety seconds, and we ended up studying I think I ended up studying it when I did cinema at UNI, and we went through the whole film and just the way they set up the characters of that film, and the way they set up Hannibal Lecter, you know, you know, going in, before you even see him, you know he's accounibal. You know he's done all this horrendous stuff. You know, he's
a psychiatrist. You know, he's possibly insane. And then when the camera pans into that plexiglass dungeon that he's living in, and he's just standing there with his arms yeah, sort of slunk to once, you know, side by side in a completely calm, sort.
Of menacing way.
And then you know, and then Anthony Hopkins just sort of takes over from there.
And there's his choice to stand like that. That had to be. The director asked him, how do you want to be like when we come to your what do you want to be? Do you want to be in the corner? Do you want to turn around the review? So he goes, no, I's going to stand there still.
I mean that's he's just I mean, he was playing in a different ballgame, wasn't he He was?
I mean, he he It's funny when I think of Anthony Hopkins, like not a whole bunch of films come like Scions of the Lamps is clearly the one that comes to my mind. And like, I know he was being good in Remains of the Day, yeah, and those
kinds of films. But when I think of like, you know, considering how great an actor he is, I sometimes don't have the amount of films that I kind of love to watch that star him outside of the you know, he's been in The Mission Impossible, in the thor movies, and but this one is clearly like he's best yes before.
I mean, it's what's amazing to me is that he's so Jodie Foster won the Oscar and he's clearly the best part of that film.
Yeah, I think it's I think it's an awesome combination.
Absolutely, But to me, he was just the impact he has in every scene and just like I mean, it's could be what were saying before, like could there be a better villain? Like he's such an incredible villain?
Yeah, what a great. You kind of forget that he's actually not the main villain in him, like he's not. Crime is not really about him, like he's.
And he's not even a typical villain, is he because he helps as well, Like he's he's obviously Buffalo me.
I'm sure most people a sense stands. But Buffalo bills the villain villain. Yeah, he's the one going around doing naughty things but horrible.
But and he was based on three different serial killers I believe, like Bundy being one of them, son of Sam, and yeah, I forget the other two ones that I hadn't really I don't think I heard I heard of Bundy, but because one of the I think might have been Bundy, who would often use like pretending his hand was in a car right to trap his victims.
Yeah, and put him in a van.
And yeah, I did forget when I was watching it recently that when Jodie Foster walks out that she cops, she cops, that that little surprise to the eye, Yeah, throwing that took me. Actually, I think I flinched the multiple MiGs, yeah, yes, yes, mix MiGs. Yeah, and it's I literally flinched. And I think.
Even that scene I think shows just how much restraint there is like in the in that film for its all entirety, like because there's only really sort of.
Imply you sort of hear him.
Talk about how Anthony Hopkins Hannibal Lecter gets into MiGs, Like, so the story is supposed to be that Meg swallows his own tongue ye in distress because Hannibal Lecter effectively for his own amusement, you know, berated him to death. And I mean you get all of that in such a fleeting scene and it's just and just yeah, just the way they just so much show and so little tell is I just love it.
Yeah, It's it's incredible. Gladiator also has a pretty good villain in Juaquin Phoenix. But I funnily enough, also saw this at the cinema in on the Gold Coast, right, I believe we've tripod that. We were on on.
Just doing the soundtrack, just doing the soundtrack. We were on.
This, just laying down some tracks. My good friends and they were on the road show and Melbourne conference saw a road show and it was playing. It was out and we're pretty exciting. There's a lot of hype because of Russell Crow and being yeah, we're excited to see it, and yeah, I love I love Gladiator. I have watched it for a while.
Yeah, I just thought for me, I think it came out in two thousand and it was just you know, there's been some great epics up until that point, you know, the Brave Heart and I mean all sorts of great epics, but this one just just delivered. I thought on what it promised, like, you know, there's a lot of hype about it.
I remember they hadn't made like a you know, they called them the Sword and Sandal film for a while. No Braveheart. Obviously it was huge. That was as an epic, but they hadn't gone back to Roman times. But that was kind of bringing the Western back on.
Yeah, that's what I'm sure, that's right.
Yeah, but I remember, I mean I remember being at the MCG watching the Tigers beat the Pies probably and there was a huge I think the scoreboard I think at one point became you know, like it was like massively promoted from memory, like big big bit, and I just thought when I went.
There, it delivered interestingly.
In preparation for talking to you, I went back and read some reviews of Gladiator, thinking that all be pretty glowing, right.
And it wasn't the case. There was a lot of like.
You know, the characters aren't well formed, and you know, the commedist character is he's almost a bit cartoony. And yeah, just the fight scenes, you know, I mean, this is where I'm out of my league here a little bit. When they start talking about the fight scenes aren't choreographed properly, I meant to me, I remember watching it just thinking, you know, he's sticking a couple of swords in him and cutting his head off and throwing swords into the crowd.
It was awesome.
Yeah, yeah, I don't remember having an issue at all with the fight fight scenes. It's interesting and you know, often I'll have a quick look at some reviews for the movies we're talking about. This is the film we're going to get back too soon. Network. Pauline Kale is a famous New York Times I think, and she didn't
like this film. She thought it was too stagy and too kind of too actor y and and you know, and I can understand what she means by that, but I think you just you kind of you either have your arms and mind open to receive some film the way it is presented like this does feel like a play. At times. It is very wordy, it's very you know, I wouldn't be shocked if Aaron sork And this is his favorite film. You know, it's very it does feel like a play, but it's brilliant. You know, you can
be talkie and chatty and have lots of dialogue. If the dialogues is good, I'm up for it.
I also think I think I probably watch films in a very different way to what I mentioned.
Critics, of course, yes, because they're not having I would find it impossible really to watch as many films as they have to. You know, we watch films. We love films when we have time to watch, when we watch them, and we generally deal it with an open mind. I
think critics are watching it. You know, they might have three films a day, you know, and they have to, you know, they have to have this critical kind of response to it, and they're dissecting, and they don't you know, often they're not going off any kind of bars or any kind of often and or any reactions from their friends or their coworkers or their family. They're just you know, sometimes they get horrifically right, Rogerie. But it's got some massive you know.
Well, I mean I actually we will talk about Roger d but because I read his take, well, I'm both on Gladiator and on Network, and in some ways it kind of ruins it for you a little bit. Like I'm so I so easily slip into films, like to the point where like I have to actually think quite hard afterwards to go, Okay, what were the what were the thematics of this film? What were they trying to say?
And what were the and and even like when I watch TV shows and movies in my partner carries, She's often like, I.
Know what will happen.
I'm like, oh, really, I don't like because I just I just get it just to think because I've I mean, when I was a kid, I would just like go to the video showp and just go all right, stack them up and just watch them, and I think, I just I just let myself be in them and then don't worry too much about the floors and don't worry too and obviously if the floors are too great, the film shit and you don't like it.
Yeah, yeah, the nitpicky stuff very.
Much I'm the same way. I let films wash over me. I don't try to get ahead of it. I don't try to think how who the villain necessarily, so yeah, if it's yeah, like Knives Out was a good film recently, Ryan Johnson and I try to try to, you know, times to think who the killer might be.
But that was part of the purpose that exactly.
It's who done it, So they're inviting you to ask that question of yourself. But generally, I let films wash over me, and I'm like you, I don't. I don't kind of get to the end of the film where the credits roll and go, oh, this film's about the you know, the corp of corruption in television, you know, like this one's you know, it's it's it's more prevalent probably in this than most films. But I started to
really think about it. Yeah, and you know, and I you know, I read some articles and I, you know, and this is I talk about it. I'm still like this loving thing about this podcast. It's it is a review, you know, podcast to an extent, but it's also about at least one of us, my guess, processing something they've just watched. Absolutely, so you might and any of my guests may feel differently about the film a week from now,
six months, and now a year from now. We've had people who have come on the show Rachel, call with Castaway, and email with Nail and I who weren't necessarily blown away by the film, but then after discussing it for an hour, they were actually, I might go back and give it a watch.
Yeah, I mean, having listened to a lot of the podcasts, like I feel like those a lot of your guests are much closer to where I'm at than the critic.
But we'll get there.
But it's actually, I mean some of the stuff that the critic bring up are interesting, and I think having spent the day I finished watching it last night, having spent the day thinking about it and reading about it, it's grown on me sort of twofold.
Yeah, just in a day.
Yeah, Like it's interesting. You said there's a lot of dialogue, Like there's bits of.
It, and I was, oh, this is a bit you know, this is a bit overaught now like there we can chill out guys on the dialogue. But then I thought about it. I was like, actually, quite like I mean, you just put it. I quite liked the play of it. Yeah, Like there's a scene which if you haven't seen the film,
that makes the sense. But he ends up speaking to the sort of the head honcho of the network that I think is called Arthur Jensen from memory, and they have this scene from a long, long table where he's at the other end and they've shot it from quite far away, which I thought was interesting, and he has this huge soliloquy almost like I mean, it's had another character, but it's like it's and it's incredibly flamboyant and it's almost again cartoonish.
Yeah, but I loved it.
Yeah, and it's satire, so you know, it's I think it's allowed to have those those moms. I love that it's played by Ned Beatty. He's the easy character. The actor's name and out the Jensen is the character name. And he got nominally for an Oscar for this basically for this speech and it goes on for about five minutes. It's lovely. He he kind of he comes in and
he kind of takes me. He says, you know, I want to have a chat to you, but we'll go into the conference room and he just kind of like genterally kind of guides him in, and then just before he goes in, he kind of almost pushes him into the room. And then he kind of goes into this room. He says, welcome to Valhalla, and then he closes the curtains. Like to be Peter Finch on that day, because he basically has two lines maybe and right at the end of you know, right in the saying like this. Watching
him do that would have been quite amazing. It's one of the best monologues in movie history. In fact, let's have a little bit of a listen there. This is ned Beatty in the conference room talking to Howard Bill. Let's have a listen, and you have meddle with the primal forces of nature.
And you will tone.
Am I getting through to Yoursterdill. You get up on your little twenty one inch screen. And how about America and democracy? There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and it T A AT and T and DuPont dow Union, abide and excellent.
Those are the nations of the world today.
What do you think the Russians talk about in their Councils of State, Carl Marks, they get out there linear programming charts statistical decision there has been in max solutions and compute the price cost probabilities of their transactions and investments, just.
Like we do.
We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, mister Bell.
The world is a.
College of corporations, inexorabally determined by the immutable by laws of business.
The world is a business, mister Bill.
It's it's it's it's hard to h We've played about a minute of it there and let's say it goes to five minutes, and there's a lot of the loud of stuff way he begins, which is very dramatic. Uh, And it's it's really fun. I quite like he's he's changed of tone after when he says you will you will I tone am I getting threugh to your mister Bill.
But it's it's it's really lovely. But yeah, I mean, and it makes it kind of makes sense love from his point of view, you know, not saying we agree with the the the idea, but I think it's it's probably it's valid, it's valid, the very valid point is making.
Yeah, And I think so clearly.
This film at its core is a satire of television and the power of television.
So the question of horses and the forces and the forces.
Behind television correct.
Correct.
The question I had for you coming here today was do you reckon television has been a net good?
Well, yeah, it's funny because we have this conversation has been happening a lot about social media recently. It's probably overtaken that the question you just asked, but I think it has. I feel like television has done less damage than what social media has already done.
This one of the things I read today, which I'm just going to read to you, has TV proliferated after the war, which is when it sort of really went gang busses after World War Two. In Britain in nineteen seventy one, ten percent of homes still had no indoor laboratory or bath, thirty one percent had no fridge, and sixty two percent had no telephone, but only nine percent
didn't have a TV. And it goes on to make the point that there's something about TV that almost trumps reality, that you don't believe it until you've seen it on TV. And I thought about that for a second, and I remember Evie, my five turning six year old, said to me, she was talking about the olden days, and she goes, but in the olden days, Daddy, everything was black and white, wasn't it.
Yeah, he's always thinking that. Yeah, almost, I could not. I still have trouble picturing world without without it not being a black and white But.
That is that is purely a phenomenon of TV. Yes, because if we didn't have TV, I mean, there's lots of things that would be different. Obviously wouldn't have seen the moon landing, would see nine to eleven. But that alone, like a six year old genuinely believing that at some point the world turned from black and white into color, is a fairly extraordinary feat of TV. And it makes you think, like if that's obviously an incredibly basic thing, but it's like, is it any wonder how much impact
TV has had? And again I don't have the answer either, but I was sort of I was struggling with it a little bit, like there's been plenty of times when you know, moving on from what we're talking about the project when we make TV, where I do worry about what we say and what impact it has on the people that are listening. Like, for the most part, I'm fairly libertarian, it's like, we'll make up your own mind.
We should be allowed to say or do whatever we want, and people should can and will react however they like.
But having said that.
Like often with something like The Weekly, which pickering, I'm often saying, hey, let's balance this with that, Like if we're going to say this, let's say that. And you know, in some ways, I'm in sort of this constant negotiation with our host about what we're saying, partly because I want to broaden the possible audience. So what I'm actually doing is saying, no, I want you to say things that most people are going to want you to say. Yeah, And that's there's something weird about that, Like.
I think there's something that happened, you know, not long
after I joined the project. I've been on there, you know, eight years or so, give or take, and I remember having a conversation with Carrie about We're just talking about how we've sometimes I think we're going through a bit of a phase where we were thinking a lot about what was happening online, about the reaction of not holding back saying things, because you know, whether it's online as far as Twitter goes or even you know, news services
online you know, like you know, the things sometimes that get grabbed from any show, but you know, I show like the project and taken as a headline because it is sometimes sometimes baffling, not not all the time, but sometimes it's baffling, you know. And carriage us a lot of a lot more than I do, and well it does as well, but it is something And even with me my role being the comedian on the show, sometimes I've not gone for a joke because I think I it could be taken out of content.
But isn't that I mean, that's that's really interesting because that's almost the antithesis of being a comedian.
Yes, like, oh yes, I mean I think I think people have forgotten I think comedians have forgotten their role. I think some some percentage of the audience have forgotten the roles. I mean lit maybe that's some fair. Maybe there are comedians who have forgotten their roles and maybe might look at me and go, maybe they think I've forgotten my role because I'm on the new show and I express opinions that aren't necessarily funny. I did have somebody on Twitter who I made a comment about something
about Lockdown. It wasn't particularly controversy. I was told to stay in my lane, and I just happened to go to their pages so that there was a Pilates instructor. Now would I would be told to stay in your layed by a Pilarate's instructor. Is slightly weird, but it's also just everyone's entitled to do an opinion on this. It wasn't like I was. I was.
I was also opinion.
It was a medical side. I wasn't trying.
It's everyone's lane.
Yeah, everyone should have an opinion.
But what's interesting though, is it Okay, let me ask you this, because this is relevant to network, do you ever change what you say based on whether you think you're going to lose or gain audience?
Yes? Absolutely, absolutely, yes, you would have to do before live on it and also tweeting. You know, if I was the tweet something, I've certainly written a tweet and gone deleted it because I've got that I think that could be taken the wrong way or in this taking the right way. But I just I just don't feel like.
Yeah, and I think there's a there's a that's just sensible because we're in the game of wanting to survive in media but I think what Network points out where it gets different is it's when the the corporate structures are behind what you can and can't do, and they suddenly start changing things and moving things.
Around in order to protect their dollar.
And I guess the question is, then is there anything wrong with that if they're putting up the money?
Well, yeah, absolutely, I mean you can yeah, we can't think. And it's where it's interesting. And you're in a different situation being on the ABC because it's a government funded and it's taxpayers seven cents of is it still seven cents or sixth sense?
Although it has a similar it has a similar tenor because people get pretty pissed off about their eight cents a week.
Oh of course, it's just as dangerous if you like.
It's different, Like there's one thing to have the autonomy over what you say because you're trying to eat it, you're trying to maximize your audience.
That's that's pretty normal. It's different.
And I think what Network points out and clearly what the director and the writer they clearly had an issue with. Then they used film to satirize TV because they didn't
like where this was possibly going. And and I think we're I mean, I mean I often see people, especially on air, people you know, Bristol, at the idea that the suit upstairs in Sydney is going to tell us how what we can and can't say because they've got, you know, their mate who works for excell I mean, I think we all, I mean to a degree, don't
like that. But the question I guess really is, in this world where everything is really owned by smaller and smaller number of conglomerates, is whether we can be you know, we sort of have to live and die bite a little bit, don't we.
Yeah. It used to be that you you would just read an article or watch a report and that's how you would You would feel informed by that. And now you feel like you need to be informed by the forces behind whoever's giving you this report or this article, which is something that you know growing up, and until recently I wasn't. You know. I think we all have to make conscious decisions about where we get our news from and keep keep being informed if things have changed,
you know. So it's it's I mean, it's pretty depressing. It's it's it's I think it's really depressing with what's happening in like I said, the amount of the very few people who control media.
Yeah, and I think that was what I loved. I think that's what I really connected with with network. You know, this was telling that story a long long time ago.
You know. You know, this film, I think is.
Made what need to come out six seventy six, so it's like sort of twenty years the sort of the putative golden age of television.
Yeah, So I did.
Think of that during it, Like television was still pretty new, correct when this film comes out, right, you know, even the whole you know, the conceiving and development of the writing of the scripts by Patty Chevski, it's not like it'd been Television got corupted pretty quick. I saw the opportunity really quickly.
Yeah. Absolutely.
The other thing that I wanted to ask you about with the film, which I think you have some interesting interest take on, it, says this. So this is part of the I was saying before about what Roger Ebitt said about the film, and when I read back it
sort of, you know, it wasn't quite as positive. Like he was incredibly positive about the film generally and thought the acting was great and stuff, but he said if the whole movie had stayed with this theme, with the theme of corruption in TV, we might have had a very bitter little classic here. As it was, it was a supremely well acted, intelligent film that tries for too much, that attacks not only television but also most of the
other ills of the nineteen seventies. We're asked to laugh at and be moved by or get angry about a long list of subjects sexism, agism, revolutionary ripoffs, upper middle class anime, capitalist exploitation, Nielsen ratings, sidekicks, and the perennial stand by.
The failure to communicate.
I mean, is he having one foot in each camp?
Is because interestingly, before I read that, I was kind of impressed with how many things they ticked off.
I mean, I didn't come away being angrily individually at those things. The one thing I really I just took away and it made me think about it. And I guess we've probably already chatted about the idea of these
forces behind television. And it's interesting because you know, I work on a show and it is, you know, news delivered differently because we have an entertainment approach to it, and this show is largely about what happens when the entertainment division kind of starts meddling with the news division. So it's like, and I'm just leaving my little world, and I'd love to tell my jokes on the TV and through out of my silly segments. But I am I naive to think you know that there are no
puppet masters. I can hand on my heart, can say that I've never been told to have this opinion or that opinion, or that we're skewing left or we need to scure more right.
You know, what did you make of the part of what the film's saying that I don't know if it was saying this before it's time without knowing it was saying but the guy's the mad prophet is mad. Part of the part of the thing is he's mentally unstable.
Yes, it's not like you are. And the fact that he changes, he flips. When the Seaman has listened to before with Arthur Jensen, he basically TOAs the company line, you know, because they're they're they're afraid of losing money from the from the Arabs who just called the Arabs. I imagine a conglomerate out of the Saudi Arabia and he says, you know, I've just seen the face of
God and and he toes the company line. So I thought it was kind of interesting that, you know, you know, this great kind of you know, Soothsayer was you know, and the People's Champion flipped on, you know, turned on and turned on a dime.
But it made me think about, like, I mean, we've had these conversations, we had these conversations a lot back, going back to the project. But when you do and don't put a mentally unwell personal on television.
Well, there's a one of the biggest shows in the country at the moment puts people who have failed that you know, a reality TV show about people. I wan say which one, but it's about getting married really quickly when.
You've just seen someone.
And they So a lot of the shows have psyched tests, so it's you know, psychiatric tress. So you you know, and I've been told by extremely reliable source that a lot of them don't pass, don't pass, and they put on air.
How do you feel about that?
I think it's disgusting, yeah, because I feel like and anyone who tells me they watch that show, I take it up with them because I I think it's gone past entertainment, you know. I think it's it's I have an undeniable sinking feeling that there's going to be someone get hurt, somebody get worse than hurt on that show.
So I can honestly say I haven't watched that show, except that we make fun of it on my show, on our show, The Weekly.
Disgusting.
I well, that's a fair question.
Yeah, I mean it's it's like when are you it's I think it's a big thing in comedy, isn't it like when you some people and Ricky Gervaso's about a lot the idea of confusing the punchline with the target, you know, and people get triggered by words, not the sentiment. Bend the joke. You can actually talk well one, I think you can. It's a comedian's job that, you know, go and make jokes about anything, and that that doesn't mean you can't you know, that can't be a bad taste.
And then you have to you know, a tone for it or and ideally you know you have a good if you have a good sense of what the joke is about, and you can stand by it, then go I say, I say, go for it. But if you've taken, if you've rolled the dice and you you.
Know, and then you're not clear on the target.
If you're not clear on the target, then then that's when you can get yourself down.
And what's worth saying that in the jokes that we make, they're quite specific. There's a certain producer who produces those little bits. It's usually like a recap of that show and it has it's essentially a joke about the production. It's a show that it's a joke about the fact
that this show exists at all. But there's no question that the people, the participants what do we call them, the contest, I don't know, whatever they call they are collateral in the jokes because they are strange people to put on TV. It's part of the reason it's a show.
Yes, and no doubt, you know, with think your producer had on. If I know, if I was working on the weekly, I'll be going, well, this is the number one, you know, closer to number one rating show on. Tell about them if we have a little bit of you know, we can have a little slice of that.
Yeah, And it's sort of it all comes under this sort of bullshit thing that well, you know, it's a bit like footy Like if they're out there, they're fit like you. I mean like it's like if they're on that show, they're fit for satire and fit for jokes. But as we know, you can go onto the footy field and you can not be that fit. And it's just a network made me think about it again, you know, like it wasn't really major theme of network like it was. You know, you can imagine that because it was made
in nineteen seventy six. It was just called the Mad Profit and none really gave a fuck about his mental health really other than his best mate. For the rest of them, it was just part of his act. But it did make me think about it, you know.
And there's been it's probably too dangerous for us to talk about this, but there's been times, you know, particularly back at the project was much when we interview people where we you know, we put this is one of them one of those times before your time, but we put a person on who's clearly not It wasn't safe.
Yeah, usual walks. Have you ever walks? Have you ever walks? I got a question, have you ever used the word cockman?
No? But I'm going to from now on.
I've never heard the word cockman ship.
I don't think it's the perfect way to describe one's ability in the sack. Yeah, so in the in the Fields where they say the show in the film, Diana has a go at Max for not being particularly good at having sex. She also admits that she's not particularly good at sex, and he says, I don't know why. And he's about a sixty year old man.
He's like, I mean, you know, were you in this relationship for the hot sex, Diana or forman ship? So he says, And he says, he says, why why do women think the worst thing they can say to her man is to, you know, have a go at his cockman ship?
That's right, yeah, of which I can't actually remember what she responds. Either way, it's a great word.
It's a great word, and we'll use it. Or has your copmanship.
Say he's gonna ask first.
I think it's fairly moderate, to be honest, I feel I feel quite similar to Max.
I'm not representing Australia. I'm not, but I'm getting I'm getting around the community cap I'm getting a few.
Kicks moving on networks about a network for let's ever listen to HOWD Beal and HOWD Beal showed the mad profit of the airwaves as he rives up his studio audience.
Had you in charge running eyes today, and you in charge running with the chairman of the board of the Union Broadcasting Systems. And he died at eleven o'clock this morning of a heart condition. That wyss, We're in a lot of trouble.
So a rich little man.
With white hair died.
What is that going to do with the price of rice?
Right?
And why is that woe to us? Because you people and sixty two million other Americans are listening to me right now, because less than three percent of you people read books, because less than fifteen percent of you reading newspapers. Because the early truth, you know, is what you get over this tube right now. There is a whole an entire generation that never knew anything that didn't come out of this tube. This tube is the gospel, the ultimate revelation.
This tube can make or break presidents, pots, prime ministers. This tube is the most awesome, goddamn force in the whole godless world. And woe is us if it never folded the hands of the wrong people and that's why woe is us that Edward George Ruddy died. Because this company is now in the hands of CCA, the Communication Corporation of America. There's an old chairman of the board, a man called Frank Hackett, sitting in mister Ruddy's office
on the twentieth floor. And when the twelfth largest company in the world controls the most some goddamn propaganda fast and the whole godless world, who knows what ship will be better for truth on this network. So you listen to me, Listen to me. Television is not the truth. Televisions are goddamn amusement.
Park m It makes him battled point.
Yeah, I mean I think I agree with him. Everybody I was listening to us like, yeah.
What did what did? One of the things I liked about it when when Howard Beale makes his first the announcement that he's the action he's going to take, He's going to take his own life on the air next Tuesday. I really liked that the people kind of in their own station had missed it. Well, they weren't watching.
It's an incredible saying. Yeah, I mean, I kept thinking they're going to put the lifeline THINGU. But yeah, I mean it was a beautiful illustration, wasn't it. Of just like they were too busy, I think, you know, trying to what were they doing.
I think it quite quite specific they were.
I do forget what they or what it was.
Just the very fact that they the very fact that this guy is saying on ed that he's going to kill it any he says it two or three times and everyone misses it and never misses it. Everyone misses It's a beautiful illustration I think of of just I mean, it's actually not exactly how TV works. I mean, obviously, if someone said that on air and you're in the control m, obviously you'd clock it.
But it was a beautiful illustration.
I thought it's a great illustration that it came at times become a production line and it's just nobody's really paying attention and they're not being aware of the the weapon that they have.
Yeah, and I mean what he said then is incredible. Wasn't it the that you know it can make and break presidents and that you know fifteen percent of people read the newspaper.
I mean it's yeah, I mean, and I can only imagine those those stats were on the money, like researched and they writer Padichevski, did you find the did it feel like TV station? Do you someone? I'm sure we've both seen TV shows and movies set in TV stations. Week it doesn't feel like it was pretty I mean.
It was it was I think it was purposely poky, like I think they were trying to illustrate the fact that the UBS News was the fourth rated news, and it was like I think at one point that Robert Deval character refers to it as a whorehouse and that you know, it's really the bottom of the pile, which is great because it's the story of it coming from fourth to first on the back of this crazy I.
Did like that he only got to the fourth in the ratings, like he wasn't like did he make his number one? And like Phyllis was that he was behind Phyllis and the Little House in the Prayer and all in the families.
But yeah, so, but I mean, in essence, it is like, you know, everybody sitting around and there's always someone on the phone yelling at someone else. No one's taking responsibility him. But you know he's best mates, you know, he's producer, but he doesn't really have control over him. All he can really do is taking him out and get drunk and giving him somewhere to sleep. And so, you know, I means, obviously it's exaggerated, but it's you know, I mean everybody has those stories in TV.
Yeah, everybody.
Patif said that he wanted I think he's a really good lesson for writers actually, but he knew there was maybe some terms in that the audience wouldn't know what they meant, but he wanted it to. He said he didn't care that the audience didn't understand those bits. He just wanted to feel authentic. Yeah, and I think that's that's really important. And you've written stuff and somebody might say that people get that, it's like, no, it feels right. Yeah, then that's what you're after.
Well that's right.
Yeah, And I mean I imagine you know, you must find that when you're writing. You must have there must be an incredible motivation to try and explain everything because you know the network note's going to come back that, oh I don't understand this bit. I guess the point where you've got to say, who blew up Batman's tires?
Like it's how far back. Do you go like, is it ever reductive? Like?
Yeah, Often the de bait we often have is about time, and time is important, how explaining the jumps in time between scenes and and some people are really really finicky about we need to know why and how and where. And I'm like, no, that's just this is another part of the day, and like and I don't like, I feel like shit's creaked? Does it really?
Well?
They're just you know, you can have you know, Dan Levy in the scene, you know, at the at his store, and then he's in the next scene at the hotel, you know, with his dad and you know it.
But you and while Leader Think in this podcast talked about Star Wars and Moley brought up a point that I've never actually bothered to think about, was that why why did the rebels? Sorry? Why does the Empire want what they want?
Yeah? I was the same, why are they good?
And why? Sorry? Why are they bad? And why the rebels? But I mean, I was thirty thirty nine when I heard your podcast two weeks ago, and I was like, I hadn't cared too, Like it didn't matter that.
That's one of the big questions that has come out of this podcast for me, and the other one was Tony Martin's Top Gun where he said who is that enemy at the end, like who are they? The Canadians. It's crazy. It is absolutely crazy for Costa Ricans because it's just off the coast of San Diego. You know, Patty Chamsky wins three Oscars. He's only the only writer to win three Oscars without sharing the credit so solo.
He won it for Marty, he won for the Hospital, which I haven't seen in the hospital, and he won it for Network.
He is superstar.
He's an absolute superstar. And it's like I said, it's quite prophetic this and I heard somebody you refer to it as the Fifth War. So this idea, so we know what the fourth wall is is when a character talked to the camera in the audience, you know, like Kevin Spacey in House Cards. Sorry, couldn't think of another example. I was space in the first one that came to no, no, we'll leave that in. So the War, which I'd never
heard of. But it's it's and I'm not sure how much if it's somebody's opinion, you know, their idea or actually is something that is a thing but is a fifth war is when the characters are kind of almost the characters almost know they're in a movie. Like the way they are referring to scenes and seedy little drama is almost like they know what that they're in a film about.
Yeah.
Well, there's a beautiful little scene where where Max he's been sleeping with Diana Faate Danaway's character for a bit and he and he kicks the script off the table, saying referring to the script of his own life and that she's she's literally living inside.
A TV herself. Yeah, so it's very sort of like that.
It's like sort of TV inception or something weird like it's but yeah, it was very much like that, like it was sort of reflected on it reflexive on itself.
Let's have a listen to that. So this is Max Levy or you know, announcing these guns leave Diana.
And it's a happy ending.
Wayward.
The husband comes to his senses, returns to his wife with whom he's established a long and sustaining love. Heartless young woman left alone in her art desolation music up with us, Well, final commercial, and here are a few scenes from next week's show.
It's a good one. It's a William Holden so good. All the actors are amazing.
He's amazing.
He I did feel like his wife took the whole thing quite well. You know when he breaks to his wife having an affair for a month, that she cracks it for about thirty seconds, but she's laughing by the end of the scene.
And even in this scene, it's like, you know, Diana's saying, you know, leave and leave, and then she said, then don't leave. You know, he makes the point, and it's it's it's it's a lovely kind of kind of flow. Beaches Straight was on screen for five minutes and two seconds and one an Oscar. She's a wife. She won the Oscar. It's the briefest appearance on stage ever to win an Oscar.
What did you make of their relationship the Max and Diana?
Did you? I? I mean I kind of saw it from Max's point of view, like he's going through a bit of a crisis and Diana is doing it. I think part not purely out of out of her career. I think it's a lot a lot of it's loaded into that, but you know, he was her mentor, and you know that.
I think the story about it.
Yeah, Yeah, there was that scene where he William Holden played Max Shoemaker. He's trying to tell her that he loves her, and apparently William Holden was apparently not. He was always a little bit uncomfortable with acting like he's a legend, like he's in some Bulevard Sabrina star like seventeen The Towering Ferno.
And he was always the river choir as well.
He might have been into rigid. That was certainly alec I'm sure everyone I was in there. But and he's doing it and for some reason couldn't quite get this scene right. And then he Sidney Lamette noticed he wasn't looking at her in the eye, and he just kind of said the next tape, look her in the eye when you say this, And he looked her in the eye, and he started like welling up and like just he was amazing an actor of his experience.
Hadn't thought of looking there in the eye, look in their eye. I mean, I did find that that possibly that relationship was underdone, like whether it was just for the purposes of time. But I found it hard to buy into the fact that been living together for a month and that he genuinely thought that there was genuine love.
But I took that as being a man of his age going through a crisis and like being a little bit deluded by it. And it's also I think there's a comment about people who are buying into drama, you know, like max Is He's sorry, Howard's buying to the drama.
Of being the max Is antipathist.
Profit Diana's buying to the drama of having an affair with the man, and He's he's buying into the drama of leaving his wife to be with his.
But he also he also.
In some ways he feels like an antidote to it a little bit, because even when he's going through like when Jane is cracking the ships at him and saying, you know, I'm leaving you and whatever, he's just happy to get he just pracks the bag for like he's just it's almost like he's a bit exhausted by all of it.
Yeah, I think by then, by then it shifted. Is that great line where he says, you know, I'm closer to the end that I am in the beginning, Like death has definable features.
That's amazing that. Yeah, I'd never thought about definable feach, just like that's just such incredible sentence.
That stood out. Peter Finch is great. One of the reasons when I first watched his film, and I've probably watched it maybe fifteen years ago, is I thought, I gotta watch this guy, Peter Fincher. I haven't really seen any of his other films, and he's in Australian and he's running Oscar and I haven't seen it. So that's why I watched it. He's so good in this in
this film. So he was born in London, moved out to Australia when he was ten, and then Sir Lawrence Olivier kind of saw him, spoted him and said, when you come out to London and be my plays because he kind of ran the theater and so he came back and ended up having an affair with Sir Lawrence Oliviy Cuddy's lunch Vivian Lee was not good at them, known as a hard drinking woman iSER whin It didn't
have to act to no Win's five Baftors. He was nominated for an Oscar for another film, Sunday Buddy Sunday, where he played a gay joy instructor and died months after this and won the Oscar posthumously. Ironically, the next person that went it posthumously was also in Australian Eth Ledger Heath Ledger for The Dark Knight.
Forty eight what is it? Forty eight years apart?
Yeah?
What did he win? When did he know he would have been? When would he won this Oscar?
Nineteen seventy six, seventy six or when it was seventy six or seventy seven? Yeah, yeah, he he's amazing in this and yes, yes, sadly wasn't need to receive it this. I get some fun facts for you. We love doing fun facts.
Yeah.
So beat You Straight won the on the Oscar lost the Rocky for Best Picture the film. Yep, really yeap beat You Straight? I said, wins it for five minutes and two seconds on screen. Ned Beattie, who played Arthur Jensen, also got nominated. Only worked the one day on the on the on the movie literally turned up for one day one day, so they basically shot all that in one day.
Yeah, oscar nomination.
That's a nomination. It's not the quantity, it's quality.
Sadly, when asking you happy that he happy satisfied with the result of Rocky beating Network.
It's a tough one. It's a genuinely, genuinely tough question. Rocky is a great movie, and you know, I don't have as big an issue as you might think. Rocky four was pretty good, Tommy Gunn, Rocky four was no Drago Dolph, Yeah, Ivan Drago Sorry, Yeah, rock was five? Five? Yeah, three Club of Lane. That's correct again, And then it doesn't matter. After that they shot the scene I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore. Day one, that was the first day of shooting they
shot that. There were other people in contention for the role of Howard Beale that went to Peter Finch eventually long listed names.
Is mad as hell? Is this film? The beginning of that saying.
Yes, so John mchayld reference to imagine it has to be, but.
To a certain degree, yeah, yeah, because you say mad as hell like it's nothing now.
Yeah.
As far as whether it was the first time anyone had said mad as hell those words.
It was the reason.
I think us unconscious. I think so yeah. I don't know absolutely, I mean so yeah, I'm going with it from some of these some of the reading.
It seems to be. I was just interested whether or not that literally was the first, but I guess there's no way possibly knowing that, but.
Not right now. No, Peter Fincher's living in England and they were not convinced he could get the New York accent down in time and convincing enough. And he said, give me, send me some tapes with water Kronkite and give me two weeks. And he sent back in two weeks the perfect kind of accent that he has in the film that's crazy. Yeah, it's it's it's it's it's so good.
And when he he was doing that while I was getting pissed, most.
Probably having a few of fans on accent, or maybe he's like the character Dane Christinson who actually he talks about TV whiles he's having sex.
Oh she's just no stop But there was no.
Stop button, not a single one. Sadly, Peterfnch dies I mentioned that a couple of times, but similat witness his death. He had a heart attack. They'll be about to go to do an interview and meeting in the lobby at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Peter Finch had a heart attack, in the arrived. Yeah he was having a heart attacked.
Director saw it.
Yeah, yeah, I imagine probably canceled the interview.
They're plenty of practice for a big out though, didn't he because he's constantly collapsing in the film.
Yes, yeah, I know, I know. I mean you're not seriousness like you do something you do one. I did wonder like quite a stressful role, like a lot of yelling like that would have been yeah, you won't even did Yeah, haven't he If.
You just had a big night on the mattress and a few gins, you'd be I mean, he could have knocked him over early.
He might not have made them. He might have digitized him in for the Last Lady.
They got the film shot. We spoke about Waking Fright Ross Noble a couple of weeks ago Chips Raffi. He died not long after. That was his last film, and he was drinking like thirty pints a day because he wanted to be drinking for real on that and died of a I think a heart attack months later. You kind of think, you know, a few days probably would have only shot for you know, maybe a week, but also if thirty pints, but it.
Feels like you could have done that on a fifteen pint.
I think he was offset for the last th just back at his hotel. It's incredible, incredible.
Can you do accents because you acted?
No?
In fact, when I so?
If I sent you a tape saying I want you to sound like.
Well, it'd be interesting. I've never dedicated time to doing it. When we're in lockdown. I thought one of the things I might try to do is like this, bunk down on one accent and try to learn an accent. It's precared, you know. I just kind of forgot to do it. I was busy learning French.
Are you learning French?
Well, I was in lockdown and then I stopped some un learnt it.
Sorry, Railroad, your podcast. I've often meant to. I don't know why I haven't asked you this over beers. How in the fuck do you fit everything in? You asked me the day to play tennis. You've got your shooting and comedy.
Now we haven't played.
You're on the Pack project. You've written about forty eight books. If you're doing this, I've seen the list. This podcast must have thirty episodes.
Forty and this is the season finale. You know this is the seasons, the season finale.
If I've known that, I would have done in an accent.
No, Well, you just you just you know, like you just do it. You just do it that. Somebody asks my manager that same question, and her reply was he just does it. And I think that's that's the best answer I can give.
That's not a good enough answer, because is this there's a mathematics involved, like there's only some of the fact you've got three kids, you've got a wife. Not that I'm saying your wife takes up time. She's in fact probably gives you more time.
Yes, you go to compartmentalizes, basically your compartmental lives. You work out what needs to be done next.
I need don't I just need? I need your help or you're.
You're running about five shows at the moment. You've got your podcast.
Yeah I know, but it's just I don't know. You just managed to get.
And you're you know, and my kids are a bit older as well. Yeah, that's it, that's that helps. Sorry, wait did they get a bit older?
Stuff? You can't?
Season finale, Season finale, We made the record another one. I bet you when this comes up, get Tom Bellard. In next week, Tom Bella will be appearing in season two of Swing to Him and we're working out a film to watch. Hey, uh, we mentioned it's been quite prophetic, this film network. One of the things is, you know that this was UBS was the fictitious station, and not long after the fourth station did arrive in America, which
was Fox News Thank god, Am I right? And kind of you know, try to mix entertainment with news and deliver news differently. What a strange parallel that could blow back together? Last Yeah, that, but to be anti establishment and you know and all that. So that was kind of one of the one of the things that kind of, I guess Chesky prophesized in a way. But also the h I wrote saying the idea of the almost reality TV.
So the idea when Brian's you know, she wants to she starts working with the Ecumenical Liberation Army and and she wants to put real robberies and vision there, it's basically reality TV. Fox News. In nineteen eighty eight, there was a writer strike which went for like twenty six weeks or something like that that they started running long content. So Cops. The show Cops was born. They just boot cameras, not squads, and and the show that now only ran
up until recently was born. So it's kind one of also also kind of prophesized, I guess the rise in in reality television, which we all love so so much.
Well, yeah, I mean it's it's it's I mean, it folds back a little bit to what we were saying before. But you know, the ethics of that are interesting as well, like the ethics of in So in the film, it's a robbery, a live robbery, which you know, and then Diana spends her time trying to court more crime. She wants more crime to happen and put cameras in front of it so that she can put it on TV and then write narratives around that, which is you know, and it does speak.
To the idea you know in television sometimes and even we've radio this is in a much smaller degree. I've worked in radio before, where this is a much smaller example of what we what we've got to talking about, but this idea that this is what matters and nothing
else really matters. I've worked in radio where it could be like five third in the morning and we're like, oh, I'd be good to get somebody to talk about this and let's give a call, and I'll be like, it's five thirty in the morning, like it doesn't matter's wake them up, give the call. It's just like it's not making tho.
Yeah, you crashed through the normal societal norms of like yeah.
Because we're a radio show to do Yeah. Not someone who would be expecting I'm not talking about you, a regular who you might might expect a call every now and then. But there's somebody who.
We're shooting a promo this week for the weekly with a cow. I was thinking, and they said, can we bring the cow in the studio? And half a beat for me out? I just watched it was I said, I don't have a cow. What's to be in the studio?
Does anyone ask the cow?
There's the car of an agent, there is the cow. Expensive?
I don't know. I never asked about the dollars.
We had a turtle.
I mean, it can't be that expensive because we're doing it on a weekly.
We had a turtle on series two of How to Stay Married and it was probably the highest paid actor and actor on the series. In fact, it gets that's what it gets cooled off. In season three, someone just frizbeesit out a window. I think I'm joking. I got some news, but okay, let's get to do What do you think of the end the conversation I had that just comes up and how economical and like almost heartless.
It is the.
Idea of like, let's it's not thrown out as a joke and then kind of like and then read the room it's like, no, you're kill him, and then that that idea is taken and then added.
To I mean that scene. I it was interesting because at first when I was first borderline unbelievable, Like the way they were discussing. It's like if I said to you, went back when we were working on the proje together, Hey, what if we kill Hughesy? Yeah, maybe I'll pick a different person, and what if we kill what if we kill Carrie? You'd be like, ah, it's really funny walks.
Yeah, we kill Carry And it's like no, no, no, no, she's too expensive.
We've got to kill We just ask her to take a pay cup.
But the way they do it in the film, it's like but then I reflected and I actually quite liked it, like it showed how well kind of what you're saying before their world had become so important to them, TV was so it was everything that the idea of someone just being liquidated was secondary to them, and it really just became a question of how to do it, of which Diana had the answer almost within almost immediately.
I kind of like that. You can imagine a version of this film where they really go into the mechanics of making this happen and the hiring of who they didn't they just got. They got straight to it well interestingly.
And I don't know what you think of this, because then we might as well do the spoiler.
Now you get the.
Two people stand up and shoot him live on air, and he obviously died. He's assassinated, and the two people shoot him on camera perfectly ever seen. You know, you have to think, well, that's pretty strange way to do it, Like these people are now going to jail, although I think they do say that one of them escapes. But I just thought about it, and I think if you made that film today, I don't reckon the scene would work.
Well. This is the thing about I think films on the seventies, and I brought it up they just do. They they cut through a lot of bullshit, I think, and then they're going to go that's we don't need to see. We don't need to see who they hire. We don't need to see the meeting with the I mean, even though there could be some great drama in those moments, you know, but we don't need to see. Yeah, we don't need to They do say one scares, but by then they didn't even need that, Like that was just
a little detail they threw in. But now I feel like, yeah, it would it would be we would ask we want to know more information, and those filmmakers, most filmmakers, I think, offer up a lot of that information.
And all the loose ends would have to be attended to. Yeah, which takes time, because.
Of course you could ask a question, why didn't they just kill him in his apartment? But every movie comes with those questions.
No, I mean, I mean I think there was a good reason for that in this one. Is they want to I mean, part of the satire of the movie was having it live on air.
Was I've got that's that's why the movie did it.
Yeah.
As far as the character.
Yeah, the characters never it never the characters go, hey, we could.
Just do this yeah in a dark alley.
And not have people doing life sentences at the end of it. But the scene, I mean, obviously he gets shot and he eyes and then the very final scene is sort of a replay of him being shot and you know, his bloody head and body and stuff, with other images of fairly banal, mundane TV things like a.
Kid commercials TV commercial. Yeah, and I was I think possibly my favorite scene.
Yeah, that was great. I thought it was great the way what I was waiting for was almost because so there's the four squares that we kind of started at the start, and then one kind of goes to a commercial and then there's reports of him, you know, and I was kind of waiting for the four squares to all become commercials almost like it just like the world moved on. Yeah, I still got that feeling, you know, that this was just you know, Tomorrow's is a new day.
And to me, to me, it was just a real expression of just the banality of it that it that he was worth shit.
Yeah, they need television are still selling commercials and they're still making profit.
The other aesthetic or the other device that used in the film, which I thought was interesting with the narrator because it wasn't like a normal narrator, like he was very, very sporadic.
Yeah, it's always there's almost there was almost one at the top, one at the end of one in the middle.
Yeah, it wasn't like that normal like Shawshank.
When you know, Red's walking through every single scene virtually we're in this one. He just sort of popped up, linked you to the next bit, and off he went.
Yeah, it was really interesting.
Yeah, I think it worked. I was happy with that. To people hate voiceovers, but I when done right, I think why not? And I mean, you know, you mentioned Shorwhank. Redemption one of the great, one of the great voiceover movies.
I was going to put that in my top three, but I just figured everybody.
Does oka a bittle of avoided, mostly because I think that reason. But we did have Phil Lloyd who was brave enough to put your shape re empty stop through. I think it is one of those ones that feels a little well, you know, of course. And he noted when he said it, like he said, you know, it seems obvious, but it's the one movie that I put on and.
You know, I mean every time you see it on you end up watching the whole thing.
Yeah, yeah, mate, thank you so much for doing a little bit of homework for me.
I'm just so pumped that you. If it wasn't few, I wouldn't. I don't think I would have watched it.
Well, this is what the podcast has been quite nice for and often it's been lovely for me to revisit it and when I watch it the first time, you know, I didn't necessarily do it the deep diving afterwards that I do when I watch it. So what it's been lovely about the podcast is watching films either I haven't seen before or that I haven't seen for a while.
Especially encouraged me because I've been doing a lot of TV series. But I'm actually now going to go back and just do like a month or two of just watching films that I should have seen.
Ye have you seen the Big One? The last years for me? And we did it with Jerdie Hicky a few weeks ago, Harold and Maud. Have you seen that first new list? Put it on? Yep? Done mate, Thank you so much. Watched the Weekly Watch Hard Quiz Listen to the Brains Trust or Brains Trust, which is a great podcast you did about people reflecting on twenty twenty.
You got season two of Brains Trust coming, so you'll have to return favor for me on the on that podcast.
No, I've got nothing to say. Ronnie Chang, I'm I'm too busy, man. You got Ronnie Chang in there, this podcast you got, you got Blake Can you Find Again? It's it's really it's a really great listen. So well, I'm congratulations on.
That and thanks for having me.
We'll go for a beer, play some tennis.
Awesome.
What the hell is going on?
Prepare yourself for a perfectly outrageous motion picture?
Howard Beale one up there last night and said what every American feels, that he's tired.
What a lot of.
Bakes, Diana.
We're talking about putting a manifestly irresponsible man on national television.
Yes, that was Chris Walker. Great smart man, smart man, funny man, and it was great to chat to him about a network. We did discuss doing this a while ago, so I was really curious as to what he thought of it. And yeah, I really enjoyed that chat. That was a season finale of season two of You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet. I'm going to take a few weeks off reload, I finish, finish up on filming How to
Stay Married. It'll be on air late April. Also, I'm at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival for a couple of nights three nights late March. Check Comedy Festival dot com dot au or Comedy dot com a good promoting show. It's good, Loopy. I'm really proud of the show. You got put on hold after the lad Fringe last year, so I can't wait to get back into it next season. If you ain't seen nothing yet, people have approached already.
Judith Lucy will be coming off watching. Finally the Sound of Music, as I mentioned in the show, Tom Ballard will be coming on. I'm chasing Denise Scott and many many others. So thank you. I've such a great time. Derek Meyers Castways Studios dot com dot au for all your podcast needs a great space to record a podcast. There is a turn table and a bar set up in here now, so look out. Yasny podcast at gmail dot com. Send me an email thank you for everyone
who's reached out. We will be back in a few weeks. We won't be a long break, it just gonna be a chance to finish up on how today married and record a few more of these. So thank you so much. Everybody keeps safe, keep watching movies, and until then life and our
And so we leave all Pete save Mansul, and to our friends of the radio audience, we've been a pleasant over time.