Get a Pete Hally He welcome to you Ain't seen nothing yet? The movie podcast where I chat to a movie lover about a classical love film they haven't quite got around to watching until now. And today's guest actor author poet Mike Brendan Cow.
You ever dance from the Devil of the Dale of Light?
I'm walking ahead, walking.
Ahead of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world.
She walks into mines.
Haven't any rife?
No, you ain't seen nothing new.
One of the lovely things about sticking around long enough in this crazy business is you sometimes become mates with someone you're a fan of, and that happened with today's guest and me, Brendan Cow. Between two thousand and four and two thousand and seven, my wife and I fell in love with the Australian series Loved My Way. Brendan was a massive part of the show's success, not only with his betrayal of Tom, but he also wrote on the series, which set a new benchmark for screenplays on
Australian television. I urge you if you haven't checked out Loved My Way, it will break your heart. It'll make you cry. It will make you laugh as well. It is absolutely brilliant. Brendan has continued to put his unique stamp on stage, screen, and indeed literature. Brendan has a main line into the suburban Australian male experience his playturn movie Reuben Guthrie, which starred Peter the plum Lum, who is beginning to feel the effects of age and concussion.
And when he begins interacting with the great poets of history, he has given a chance to change his life. Only he can just somehow muster enough courage to do so. I cannot recommend this book anymore. Brendan's credits also include Game of Thrones, Avatar, to Noise, the and with Francis O'Connor and Harriet Walter. Brandon is emotionally present as a crystal clear social insight is hilarious and bloody stokes to have my mate with me today? Gooday.
My name's Brendan cow And my three favorite films are The Blues Brothers, Wake In Fright.
And Punch Druck Love.
And up until this week, I had not seen broadcast news.
A TV anchor, man and news reporter and a producer are living their perfect lives. They've gotten exactly what they've wanted ever since they were kids working on a big news network in New York. But now that they are adults, can they get what they really want? Or will the burden of their own ambitions cost them? It all a classic love triangle, combining substance and style in ways few achieved. Broadcast News released in nineteen eighty seven, is romantic and comedic,
but not quite a romantic comedy. Holy Hunter. William Hurt and Albert Brooks are dynamite in this funny, smart dramedy about professionals who can't stop getting in each other's and their own way. All three actors were nominated for an Oscar. All three sadly lost. James L. Brooks comes off terms of endearment and rights and directs this gem, which was nominated for a total of seven Oscars. Sadly no wins. Brennan CaAl, Have you ever sweated that much throughout any performance in your life?
Wasn't that amazing? I mean the sweat, the sweat coming out of his head. I was just thinking, how did they create that? Did they have some kind of little balloon that released water? Because there was these thip thick drips, wasn't it.
It was like and it was not perfectly timed creative when they cut back to him when they kind of fixed him up, they kind of mopped him up a little bit, and then a couple of seconds and then there it is. So I was saying the same thing. I thought the makeup makeup should have been nominated for an Oscar.
I was phenomenal.
I don't know how they did it, like that Billie Eilish film clip where the black ink comes out of our eyes and you see in the inner documentary how they did that, and it's just amazing.
They must have had something. But you know, we.
Always lord actors for whether they can cry on cue, and perhaps we need to switch our attention to anyone can cry on cute?
That's easy. Who can sweat?
Who can sweat? Yeah, like that's the next level.
Who can drop a leader from the forehead?
Well, Albert Brooks obviously? Is there somebody now that you if you had to pin your life on somebody backing somebody in to sweat on cue? Christian Bale?
Yeah, Christian Bale, who they said he's done every transformation in Hollywood other than get shorter.
You know, pretty much. That's the only part he's got left, you know.
And Christian Bale's got this park he's three foot, he's three ft, he's just done it.
Yeah, he's got shot. Well do you know how he got short? I have no idea.
Well Brad Pitt did that. Benjamin Button somehow manage that so it has been done.
Was extraordinary in this film.
And he's such an interesting because in the rom com setup, you know, it's often he's the guy, you know, that that you kind of hope that they're with, and then there's the sexy guy that might not hang around that they're drawn to, and and it was kind of flipped in this movie.
Well, William Hurts the kind of.
Morally dubious and command and this guy is the good guy, but he's actually a little scary in the way that he loves it. So I love the way they kind of subverted the rom com tradition.
There are so many I think brilliant choices James L. Brooks makes, and the screenplay level, and then at the directing level, and we'll get to all of that because there is so much to talk about this with this movie. Why hadn't well, why did you nominate I know there's a few movies you nominated. Yeah, and you said which ones, And I think I came up with two that you were on the list. I think Paper Moon might have
been the other one in Broadcast News. Why hadn't you seen broadcasting and what did you know about it?
I think the other one was Lord of the Rings that I was and I think I tried to watch that and I got forty minutes in.
I'm like, they haven't even left the cave.
Bago Baggins or whatever his name is, Bill Goo Bogans, They're still in the bloody cave.
Forty five minutes in, I am and I fell as, I'm out of here. Rings. Yeah, well, there's not it. Where's the Ring? There's nothing crazy happening.
You nominated that a while ago, and I was like, and I was up for it, and I think we should definitely.
I've been shooting in New Zealand.
I've gone on so many tours of wedder and stuff and they're like, this is where the famous Sword of Thing. I'm like, oh yeah, and they look at me like you should be blown away. You're touching the sword of the Thing of Gandalf, Like it's a good sword mate, Well well done, Kevin.
Did you build that? Did you? You know? I'm hungry.
I don't know how you were able to film in New Zealand for two years and not have seen Lord of the Rings. I know. It's an incredible achievement.
Thank you.
It is.
It is maybe my finest.
Possibly now you've got some credits. You've got some credits, yes, so broadcast news.
I'll tell you why. I've never seen it, never heard of it. Really, I'd never heard of it. And when I look through that, I thought, is this like Network or maybe I've you know, It's one of those movies you get twenty minutes in you went, oh, watch this with dad when I was ten, watching this at Yuni studied it, you know, and you go, okay, you know, like I watched The Last Supper again the other day. Oh, I've seen the Last Supper and the movie starts to
remind you. But I drank so much in my thirties, I can't remember most of the things that I've done or seeing, you know what I mean. So I was like, but I've never seen it, and I couldn't believe it, and that was what was so exciting. Well, this podcast is so great. It's like I just get to experience it. I didn't read up anything. I just pressed plays, sat back, turned the phone off and when it hit me and it was just beautiful, so funny. And the connections which
you can't buy with rom coms. The connection between Holly Hunter and William hurt In it is palpable, and where that which guy's better option and her kind of situation that she's in, being this high powered, slightly anxious producer, and what it means to her to choose either of those men.
It was really real.
The casting is brilliant. And what I suspect has happened with me with broadcast news is I tried to watch it around the time it came out, certainly none of the cinema. I mean, I was my favorite film I think comes out of that year. It was really just playing strains and automobiles, well my favorite comedy. The fact that this was an adult, you know, dealing with their
own neuroses wasn't really capturing my attention. I reckon. What I did is I tried to watch it maybe on video or even when it was on TV, and I couldn't quite It didn't hold my attention because I do remember and maybe this has just been replayed over the years. The famous in my mind is famous Joan Cuzak running through and diving under the filing cabinet and an amazing scene.
Hitting a knee on the water fountain and yeah.
Yeah, So there were parts throughout it that were familiar to me, but I had no idea where it was going. So it was a lovely I guess rewatch or I've really felt like I was watching it for the first time. So there's so much to talk about with broadcastings. I want to talk about your three excellent nominations. I think officially Blues Brothers has gone past Princess Bright as the most nominated favorite film in this podcast. Now.
Yeah, and I thought, come on, be edgier than that.
Choose a subtitles one show that you're d Then I thought, you know what, this is movie that I've watched most in the world, because when I was I think twelve to twenty, I think I watched it two hundred times, you know, I mean two hundred, Like I just it was just kind of always on and when Sean Batman my best mart you know, primise, like whenever, it was just have Blues Brothers on It was just on and
I knew every single line from it. And it was also when I was developing a passion for blues music that I just couldn't believe how good the music was.
And it's kind of wild. Those movies in the nineties, like that Ferris Bueller movies and Say Anythings and those color you know, the sixteen Can some of those movies all of a sudden, you know, Blues Brothers and Ferris Bueller both suddenly are these tiny movies that then break into song and the whole city is in a dance piece, you know, Ferris Bueller, the Beatles song shakesa twister, shower and then and then it just goes back to them in the car, and you could do that in those
nineties movies, and Blues Brothers just has that with you know, Ray Charles, shake tail feather, all of a sudden, that was city's dancing. Then you're back in the car. But those two actors together unbelievable. The love story, the adventure. Suddenly you've got Nazis chasing them. It was completely bonkers. It's an adventure, but it's a sibling story. Aretha Franklin's in it. It's it's incredible and wild that it even happened.
Yeah, Yeah, there's a great book that I think I've mentioned a couple of times when whenever Blues Brothers gets mentioned, which I recommend to you and to anyone listening, called Wild and Crazy Guys, and it's about that generations focuses on like Belushi, Ackroyd, Chevy Chase, Eddie Murphy and Bill Murray, I think, the Ones and Steve Mauttin. Yes, so, and the focus is on there, like transition from Saturday Night Live to movies becoming movie stars, and it's it's a
it's a great it's a great read. It was on the other it is one of those movies for me, it's like Princess Bright. It doesn't quite hold the same emotional real estate in my heart. And then a lot of obviously friends and movie lovers, but I really, I really love it. And when I watch it, I don't necessarily watched it. If it's on, I always watch, always watch it until the next set piece. For example, the other I watched it and it's well's coming up. Yeah, I'll watch Aretha.
And I know the bits like I know when Belushi looks at the camera in the shopping mall, you know what I mean, right on the drum beat, it looks at the camera like when the car crashes into the makeup store, and like, I know, all these funny little blueberry bits and I you know, and and the Peter Gunn thing boooo.
It's just like unbelievable right at the end.
And they finally get to that bank for the end up the car chase and which I often feel like this car but they get out of the car and then the car goes. The car just crumbles, yeah, and they look at it and go, yeah, fair enough. But also such great timing and comedy in that movie and four hole fried chickens and a coke and all that stuff, you.
Know, And the car chase is legitimate, like it is. It is up there with French connection and bullet and yeah, you know.
And Princess Leia trying to shoot him with the berzooka in the tunnel because she loves him.
I remember I hadn't Twiggy. I remember, well, I hadn't seen it for such a long time, Twiggers.
And then I was like, oh ship, that's princes Layer, princess in love with John belus. She's got out of prison, she's waiting for him, and because he yeah, they have history, she goes to shoot.
Him with a cannon in the tunnel.
When what he was his brothers made you know. So this is post Star Wars, wasn't it. It was Star Wars seventy seven. Yeah, incredible waking fight. We we discussed this with Ross Noble. Really great chatter about Ross about waking for it.
I was more original, No.
No, but no, that's he was watching for the first time. I'm not sure if anyone's nominated as the as their favorite film. I love this film and I love watching it again. I had seen it and I love watching it again. For that episode. What a punch to the Australian male psyche that.
Is, yeah, which you know is on brand for me, if not my brand. So I'm kind of envious to this movie and also the fact that you just couldn't make it again. I mean the kangaroo sequence, the reu hunting sequence that you go, is this really taking place?
Yeah? Right now, it's funny you hit the director talk about it now and I think he's he's playing his cards, got a little bit close to his chest. So he's not. He's kind of saying, oh, we obviously we shot it differently, like because the idea is that they went and shot that the kangaroo's being slaughtered on an actual kangaroo like
culing thing. So the shots and then the shots are shot separately and the reverse shots which we will get to during broadcast news obviously, but so it's done separately. But it's still can't get away from the fact. I mean, and there's two issues, isn't It is one that you can talk about. The issue is like, is that should we should sinly be going those areas and having that. But then there's the the visceral response you have as an audience when you disregard that and kind of go
wow that that is fucking full on. Yeah.
And then when they finish that, they go back to a pub and they get drunk and they kind of have the most homo erotic bar fight. Yeah, you know, and the whole thing is homo erotic between these men that they can't have sex with each other. So they go out into the wild and they challenge kangaroos and then they fight each other and it's so hot and so sweaty, and he kind of does go home with the doctor who says I'm the local doctor and alcohol, you know, and the what.
The globe is swinging and you're like, what exactly happened on that mattress that night after the fight?
How good is They're also good? Donald Pleasants is just same performance. It is just remarkable. But he's where is it at a bell and Gabba? But what's the town called the Yabba? The Yabba?
Yeah?
An English school teacher trying to get to the city to meet this girl that he keeps having fantasies about whether she exists or not, who knows, and he, you know, starts his game of two up, thinking it's harmless, gets a bit into it, suddenly loses money.
He's stuck.
The pub's only got men in it, you know, the cops drinking four beers at once.
Everyone just chips Jeep's.
Rafferty and suddenly he's out on He's like, I'm stuck here, and he just starts to lose his sanity, which I imagine is what would happen to an englishman out in the middle of Australia after a while, you know, and what's real and what's not? Starts to kind of dissolve in his head as he becomes more and more carnal and starts to realize he ain't going to get that beach fantasy with the girl. He's going to have to do it here tonight, you know.
And and he's probably never get getting out.
He's never getting out, and you can't.
It reminded me that when I watched it. I went and saw Parasite not long after in the cinema son, and I just said to my son, I said, they make really I want, I want you to watch this film because and I hadn't seen it, but I said, you know, it was literally just out in cinemas, and I said, they do things very differently the way the Americans do cinema. Look at the opening scene without knowing what it was, and I guarantee you it'll say something about what this movie is about. And it does. It's
that basement kind of half basement shot. And I thought of that because when I watched Wake in Fright, the opening shot is that kind of three sick this shit they do you know of that that town, and it just for me, that just foreshadows the this guy's in a loop.
And well he wakes up he's going to get druck thinking I'm there. Yeah, I mean Sidney's like.
Oh no, I in yeah.
You know, and it's like, yeah, Australia, you can't leave.
You can't.
We got your buddy. So settling, settling, And and.
Part of the argument is the best films about Australia are made from outside directors.
Walk about, wake and fright.
You know. And he's the Canadian director. Yeah yeah, and.
I mean the director made Weekend Bernie's You believe that is it is because they come in Australia and go, you.
Guys are crazy. You know, this place is mad, it's really hot, You're all really weird.
You're disconnected with the original inhabitants of this land, Like what is going on here? You drink forty beers a day and you think it's normal and we can't say They were like, oh, yeah, this is We're just doing the thing, and outside directors come in and going.
You guys are nuts. We're going to make a film about it, you know.
Yeah. So for those who aren't really aware of it, one, I think the Paldi or yeah, in car it's based.
On a book based on Lacey can.
That's yeah, that sounds roughly right now and then, and it didn't do big business outside of France. The French loved it, yeah, and then it just disappeared. They lost the print and they only found the print in like and they restored it, but only about twelve years ago.
So it's right because they started to release it on thirty five again in like the cremorn Orphium in Sydney, and I did a quote for the book for the re release of the book, so they must have had a resurgence.
Of the book and the film. Yeah, they can get your hands on it.
I've got a really good original poster of it in my place in London.
It is just priceless and Australia. It's Australia in a movie to me.
Yeah, yeah, and it was well when I made Ruben Guthrie, that's what I tried to kind of work on that time, kind of just a wild, hilarious but kind of ominous.
Kind of like that's really interesting.
Actually, Yeah, I when I want that unsettling yet hilarious set, like a holy shit, what's going on in the waters here?
Feeling well Ruben Guthrie because it's it's you can look at waken fright and kind of go, that's them and that's the outback and that's what they do out there. And what is great about Ruben Guthrie, and what I really connected with it is that, oh no, this is this happens in our cities, in our in our suburbs, in our households. You know that that that pool of light. You're not going to stop drinking, are you, mate?
Yeah?
Your dad doing that too.
Just have one and and and that's what some of the criticism of Ruben Guthrie was, Oh, a white, middle class advertising guy with drinking probably, And I'm like, no, no, But that's the point is there's no reason for this guy to be this way.
You know that that it doesn't matter.
You know, this is how it is in Australia, and I wanted to show that that it's not just about having a bad news story. And you know, and and from a difficult place, this is in built even with privilege.
You know what a fight club's almost about, isn't it. It's like Damien Power made a good point that you know, it's important that those characters in fight club are white and in middle class, because that's that is the point.
And succession, you know, all those kind of Yeah, absolutely.
I'm glad you said Punks Drunk Love. We will be doing Boogie Nights this series with Beck Childhood and Mith Forhurs had a great chat about Magnolia that was one of her favorite films, but nobody yet has nominated Punch Drunk Love, and I still don't know. I love Paul Thomas Anderson so much that I still I can't completely commit to which one is my favorite film, but Puns Drunk Love is definitely in the conversation.
Yeah, oh, I'm glad you feel that way because I did too. And everyone's so hardcore with Magnolia and Boogie Knights, which.
I think he was twenty nine when he made Boogie Knights.
The Bastard incredible like and.
But something about Punch Drunk Love. Adam Sandler in the lead role, who knew this is not a silly movie, and he just holds the emotional gravitas of this really disturbing film about falling in love.
I just love this guy because he tells it the way it is.
He's not a phony, and these and these guys, and this guy calls up and he's talking about his senior and so TJ.
Justice says, what was your senior pool? What was all great about it? He says, I.
Stole an ancient proverb and so he says okay, and he says confusion. Say DJ Justice is confusion or confusions, And it was just so comical if DJ Justic just cut you down the sides. You know, that's that's my favorite part of the show. I laugh, I laugh and laugh even when I'm alone.
Yeah, And you know, you've got other movies like Blue is the warms color that make you go feel sick with that falling in love feeling.
You know that it's it's it's so pleasant, it's unpleasant. The first love, you.
Know, and the harmonium falling off the truck out the front of the warehouse in this weird spontaneous crash that makes no sense. And then this harmonium comes into the building and Adam Sandler starts pressing the buttons on it, going, what is this?
That's love?
You know?
And that's what I love about What PTA does is his films not only tell the story of something, the film itself embodies it in music, form and structure. You know, the movie is love. When they're at the height of their love, where do they go Hawaii? Yeah, because when you're in love, Pta, like they said to Pta, why do.
You go to Hawaiian? And goes, well, you know, when you're in love, everything's Hawaii, you know.
And Adam Sandler has that line. He looks around and he goes, it's just so Hawaiian, and it's true. You know, love is a Hawaiian street festival. And they were Lucky Palel when they were shooting the street festivals on they went, oh my god, this is ridiculous. And you've got their moving through it and that's what it's like. Nothing can go wrong and you're in love at that early stage,
you know. And the soundtrack to this is spectacular. I love the fact he's got all those sisters because I've got two sisters and you know, and they have these opinions on what's wrong with you and everything, and even in the you know, in the warehouse, the forklift, the walls, the boxes, everything falling over and unsteady, you know, and
everywhere he looks that's love too, you know. And then Phillips my Hoffmann he represents the past, which is when you fall in love, some shit might come and take it away that you used to do that you did once, and there's phone calls that might come and they might find out about who you truly are and how you didn't treat someone well or your own money or whatever.
You and you're like, no, I've changed, I've changed. I've changed. Like, no, you haven't.
There's an a strange cricket captain who might want to check out Punchtruck Love at the moment. But seriously hard, sorryto biography, there's a lot of pain there.
Anyway. What is the opposite of that hilariously hard.
Hilariously hilariously hard, very fluid? Is I'm hilariously hard anyway? Punstrung Love. What I love about puns Strung Love is that Adam Sandler's character is hiding away. He's hiding away in that warehouse, and that that harmonic what do you call it.
I think it's a weird organ.
Yeah, and that comes to him, Emily Watson comes to him. He's not out looking for love, he's playing. He almost doesn't feel like he's deserving of it, I feel, you know. And then and his sisters, you know, pushing him into like meet this, you know, they bring Emily Watson to him. So it's like when you are watching a wedding speech made by you know, the father of the bride, and it's completely against everything in his fiber to get up
in front of two hundred people. And those moments make me anytime I see his speech, I don't necessarily want to see people like me. I don't want to see comedian making speech at the wedding. I don't want to go see the guy who's like, you know, the funny guy in the group. I mean, you know, I have a laugh. And but what I love, what gets me, what punches me, and what pulls my heart strings, is a discomfort of like going this has taken me, This has taken courage for me to write these words and
now have to perform. And the hands are shaking, And that's Adam Sandler throughout punstrung love that when they go on a date. And I had the absolute pleasure. And I think I've mentioned it on my podcast. I forget what I mentioned when I haven't. I had the absolute One of my bucket list moments was I had dinner with poor Thomas Anderson and our friend Joel Perlman, and and I was like, he was out here for the master, and I was like, I can't, I can't, I can't
just geek out. I need to come, you know, just ride the waves and all that. But but the one conversation we had about was it was about puns Strung Lab and that scene. I just love the scene where Adam Sandler is quoting the f the breakfast DJs and just saying how funny he is. And he you know, DJ Justice, I think his name is DJ Justice. He just really gets to them. He doesn't, he doesn't get them.
He doesn't let him get away with anything that I'm paraphrasing, but it's like, it's so it's so funny that he's The conversation he's having is its basically saying how somebody else is, how charming and funny somebody else is, you know. And then he goes to the bathroom and he tears it up, and then he comes back and he gets comes over the way to come. The manager comes over and he says, did you just tear up the bathroom
and he's like, no, I don't, I don't know. Eventually says, fuck off, mate, you did, and he's gone.
It's that anger that he has. It's really interesting.
That kind of makes the movie surprising, yeah, you know, and their combination and like one of the most beautiful love scenes I think I've ever seen the movie is when they're staring each other, going, you're so I'll go I want to punch you in the face. Yeah, you know, and there's just this weird like they're spitting into each other's mouths in a way, there's this kind of like I just want to you know, and and saying these horrible things, but it's love. It's like, I'm so angry
at you. I'm so scared, I hate you for doing this to me. I'm so in love with you. Why have you come and ruined my life because now I'm never going to be the same again, and you can see me and I'm really worried this is going to kill me, you know. And it's like that understanding of love like that. Also, you know, movies like In The Mood for Love and Blue is the warmest color seem to get the illness, the darkness and the rage inherent with true love.
I thought it was just, well, we are so used to seeing films about people really searching for love and needing love and having love before and now wanting it again and being on the rebound or whatever. This is about those who weren't looking for it, you know, from Adam Sandler's perspective.
You can't do anything about it.
Yeah, it's got its claws in you. Yeah, that beautiful sequence.
And there's the proscenium march and all the commuters walking past, and they just move towards each other and kiss. So he has all those kind of old nods to those classic Bogardi kind of you know actually like all those old movies, has all those nods those movies. Yeah, I listened that a lot when I'm writing, Like, I listened to a lot of scores. I'm writing on the mood. But that's that's a fantastic thing to listen to. And and the scene where he runs up to Hoffman and says,
I have so much is it? I have so much love, so much power or strength in me?
Yes?
Yeah, he has love.
Yeah, so I can tackle my past, I can tackle my demons, yeah, because I've got love in my heart.
Yeah. And this runs just runs through the streets and then.
Yeah, like is that when Hoffman does the phone shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up. Fuck you a right to take shut up.
Well, shut up, shut up, shut shut shut shut shut up, shut up.
Now are you threatening me? Which you know would have been Hoffman improvising?
Ah, because when I worked with Hoffman, he tracked me in True West, you know, which changed my acting game and my life. And and he if anyone doesn't know this, Philip Hofbin's obsessed with one thing, and that's the truth. And he just says, do not ever lie to the audience. And he does stakes and status. So he's obsessed with scenes and breaking down scenes to You're a status of ten here and the stakes are eight. Your status are two here and the stakes are four, you know, so
you break it down in numbers. And if you look through all his performances, you can see when he is playing stakes in Boogie Nights, he's playing status of one. It's like so in love with Markey Wall but the stakes are ten.
Yeah.
This is the most important conversation in my life, talking about how much I bench with Mirk Wahlberg's character.
How much do you love my car?
But my status is won, you know, and then the stakes and then the status that he has in Boogie Knights it's ten.
Yeah, shut up, shut up, shut up. You know what I mean.
And the stakes of it is probably ten as well because of the money, you know. And you can see in all his performances how he's adjusting his stakes and his status, you know, from being the king in the in the Hand of Cards to the dance the one you know, and you can just that performance him playing the ten is amazing.
That sma Hoffmann, not just because he's my doppelganger, but I could just any anything, even the films where he's not disappearing, you know, or like well he always disappears though, doesn't he I mean, like even Moneyball, the mistake you would make his thinking that was walking the park for him, and like I'm not sure if any performance was walking the parking. That's that's not giving him enough credit for the work under preparation he would do.
No, you kind of like I remember telling his wives that you can't be around him when he's acting, like because he's there, yeah, you know what I mean. And when he did true West John c Riley be reading the New York Times Phillip by scrape, scratching his head against the wall till the bled to go on stage, you know what I mean, Like he's he's the real, real deal when it comes to getting into that space.
But yeah, he's extraordinary in it.
Yeah, all right, let's talk about the movie We Are We Are Here for Broadcast News nineteen eighty seven. James L. Brooks. He wins three oscars for Terms of Endearment in nine and eighty three, so he has to back it up with something pretty special, and I reckon he has done the job. And speaking of interesting choices, don't you think there's this interesting choices all over all over this movie.
But the very fact that like the Tom goes, you know, to Jane's hotel room after they meet, after that Q and A.
And then straight away and she tries to have X with him, yeah, instantly, which is completely in opposition to her character.
Yeah, which is like, but you believe it, you believe it. She's kind of mad.
It feels like there is some writer and directors like port I think, like James L. Brooks that understand that adults and people make sometimes choices that go against We're not we're not consistent.
That's what we call behavior, Yes, And I think that's what we go to watch. We go to watch human behavior that shocks us. But we understand it, we connect with it and go, oh, she's not she isn't. I cannot or don't keep doing it. And because we know, you know, and humans are opposite creatures. You know, animals are like hungry kill, you know, horny root, you know, scared hide, and whereas adults are like hungry confused, like
we do the opposite. We cry at a wedding's laugh at funerals where human behavior contradicts because of our conditioning and our luggage and everything, we don't always behave in the right way, which is why there's more than one documentary made abouts we can have all these movies, yeah, you know, because we keep doing stuff that doesn't make any sense, but that we connect with.
Movies and let's let's clean all this up. Yeah, And it's the great movies and the great writers and the great directors and the great actors who see through that and kind of go, no, it's messier. Yeah, trust the audience to go with it, because it's we all know deep down, even if we're not articulating it, that we have made decisions that maybe go against our own sometimes even moral code sometimes.
And people can come into your life and suddenly you're behaving in a really strange way.
Yeah, you know, and you become the.
A's almost every movie, though, isn't it, Like yeah, yeah, yeah, you suddenly this is your life and something's going to come along that's going to change your life.
And suddenly you're the ten year old in the school yard again.
Yeah, even though you're the high powered producer, which she is, you know, anxious.
Overworked work, a whole killer, you know.
And but at the same time, she is worthy, she's earnest, you know, she's about stuff. And that's what the movie kind of gets to in the end, is she has a moral decision to make with William Hurt, which if you look now at the way news is what William Hurt does. And I don't know if we're doing spoilers on this podcast, but.
What we can do spoilers, I mean, I don't want to get to the ending too soon, so we might park that because I'll go back to the idea of you got the hotel room and then he leaves, which is a great scene. And I want to ask you to talk to the flow of scenes. I think you'd be a perfect person to I'd love to hear you talk about it. But then he calls her from a a you know, his pre mobile, which I love the fact that it was all premobile mobile fanes and he
says that I'm actually I work, I'm working with you. You know I didn't tell you that, which is actually, you know, whatever reason me shitty thing to do, maybe not to declare that, to go back to somebody's room and not declare that. So you think then when he goes to work on the Monday, that this has been set up. There's a version, many, many, many versions of this film
where they hate each other. You know, they can't stand each other because this is how they met and this is how they clashed, and it's awkward, and Holly Hunter's maybe a bit kind of like job focus, which is true to a character, and she's a bit you know, she keeps him at a distance. But they don't necessarily go to war with each other. And I think they would have been such an easy decision to make.
No, they don't. And when they have that, no, I think it's a Libya war.
And suddenly they have to jump into a story together.
In the summer of nineteen eighty one, two Libyan jets suddenly attack to American f fourteens point.
Golts claim them.
You do know that the golf is part of Libya's territorial water to you and I shared by other nations, including the US. After a brief dog fate, both Libyan Judds were down by the American fighters. Nathan Bentley is at the Pentagon, So that's great, Commander. It must have been a bit tougher today shooting down the Med twenty one. The one you got was Nesu twenty two.
Was it like at the moment's confrontation.
What's it like to be in a real dog fait?
That's the love dance, Yeah, you know of the movie.
That's the that's the moment where they go the two of us combined in this beautiful way. But at the same time, he's threatened by the fact that it was her brilliance in his face and you know, and he is threatened by the fact that she's brilliant and she's a woman, you know, and he's got to come to terms with that, and he wants to do his own thing.
But he does know what's great about it. He knows he needs her, Like, yeah, the whole way through, Like I love to set up as the kids said, I thought it was so Yeah, I really enjoyed that. I really felt like, Okay, I think I'm going to enjoy this. But he is like he doesn't He says he doesn't understand a lot of the news stories. He he doesn't write.
He's not the brightest crayon. He's so charismatic and he does care and he wants to make great stuff. And the tension they have, which you can't buy, Like, I don't know if you've ever seen the auditions for The Notebook and you see Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling just in a rehearsal room, you know, look at and they're three feet apart, and you're like, just have sair, you know, and let me wase like there is and often in Hollywood you know, I've done it before. You have the
chemistry test and it is a thing. And the tension when big tall William Hurd is standing there in a tiny little office between a desk and a door and she's looking up at him but she has all the power, it makes you breathless. You know there's something in the
writing there and what they're talking about. And there's also two people not unlike punched drunk love who don't want this, and they want to stay with how they're doing, which his career focused money and burying their truth and burying their emotional wellbeing in work and just you know, don't look up, just keep keep going ahead with what you're doing. And they can't, you know what I mean. There's such
a palpable attraction for them. And you know the plot it weaves brilliantly by with the use of Albert Brooks coming in. Who you can tell is that guy that you know didn't get laid at high school? He really cares, He gets forgotten in the conversations, and he's just so in love with Holy Hunter's character and always has been.
Yeah, you know, and.
He's probably the good guy, but he doesn't have the charm or William Hurt, the effortless charm.
Yeah, despite being funny. And that's what I love about the scenes. We see him being beaten up, and even as he's been beaten up, he's still throwing out one liners and yeah, yeah, he can think. He's way through.
You'll never make more than nineteen thousand dollars a year, and I'm going to travel the world.
That's it. That's it, And It's really interesting because it is this love triangle. At first, you kind of think, well, Albert Brooks, Aaron's obviously in the friend zone.
I reckon Albert Brooks was totally in with the shot. That would be my controversial opinion.
James Ler Brooks did not know who Jane was going to end up with, and the actors didn't know. You're right, you are true smack bang on the money that I only found that out through doing some research.
She doesn't it.
We don't want to give it away, but that he is so effortlessly charming, but he's too not predatorial. He's leaning on her too hard because he doesn't raid himself because of his bully, you know, because of that kid that was bullied in the yard. He thinks his dickhead is never going to get the girl. And he actually would have if he just stayed respectful and enthusiastic and supportive and curious about her instead of almost trapping her
in his flat. Because of his jealousy towards William Hurt, he became Macavalian almost kind of really unhealthy, unwell looking man in front of her. He declared his spite and and Holly Hunter's like No, that's not you.
Why are you doing that?
Yeah?
Why are you behaving in that way?
But it's because the effortless swagger guy had rolled into town that all his demons school yard demons comes out.
He was probably going to get there.
You have all these complicated relationships with the characters because they all do really kind things and they all do really shitty things. Like it tries the kind things. You know, Tom teaches gives Aarronos tips about how to be you know, the jacket, yeah, and punching words and angles and this is your good angle.
But like William Hurt, some of the scenes you imagine put trying to put in a movie now.
You know.
He goes into Holly Hunter's office, grabs her chair, pulls her chair towards him.
Yes, you locking in my ear.
It's like great sex, you know, and you think, hang on, I don't think that would fly.
In a movie, now you know. And like when they're.
Outside, she she skips that fancy dinner and they go outside and have a wine on this.
Because she doesn't want to go through to the security scanners because she has condoms packed in her.
Handbag, which it's a great detail, and she yeah, they go through, they have a dinner outside and then he kisses it once. He basically just puts his hand inside a blouse straight away and she's like, are you going to kiss me while you're doing that?
Yes? Whoa.
But it's also a declaration of who he is, which is a result driven man, you know, And that's what the revelation is in the denument of the fact that he doesn't care how he gets it as long as he gets it, which is the shot at the end, you know, how he gets the story. Yeah, as long as you get the shot doesn't matter if it's real, you know. And you can see Brooks is about no, it's this is this is journalism here, this is human beings and that's Holly Hunter as well.
It's this human beings on off of here.
And we see both sides. We see, Yeah, we see the acts of kindness, but we also see the odd behavior like what we just spoke about, but also the shitty things they all do, Like Aaron tells Jane about that you know that that you know, like knowing that his best friend that we now know is in love with that Tom only had the one camera, so he basically spoils that moment Jane sends Jennifer to fucking Alaska to cover Alaska, Like, well, it's not sending somebody to
the outback the cover the serial killer, because Tom and her are starting to you know, and now you know, early stages of a relationship.
So it's Romeo and Juliet, isn't it's it's it's rome and Julia. It's something such a deft hand. The letter, yeah, you know. And then the poison, No, it's not real poison. She's not dead. She's faking it from the fryar. And if and if Romeo, if the letter Romeo sent wasn't hidden, it's the notebook with the mum destroying the letters. Yeah, you know, it's it's a standard love story trope of like if only you got that information, why was it thwarted?
You know, if he didn't declare about the camera, she would have gone to William Hurt's house and they would have had sex, and they probably would have gone on that holiday at the end, and all those kind of you know, star cross lovers and it's actually the world that has more of a problem with them than they do, and all that kind of stuff. But in the end, she's dating someone. Yeah, Albert Brooks as a kid, yep.
And William Hurt's still interested in her. But he's still William Hurt's character, you know, he hasn't changed, Yeah, you know, and it's it's I love the ending because it's sad, but it's beautiful.
And James L. Brooks cared so much about his characters.
He did not And I imagine that in those we wouldn't have been zoom meetings because there wasn't him. But you know, in those production meetings, I imagine the investor and the network would have gone, oh, come on, we need a wedding here, you know, and we'll have the news and they'll do it and they'll be on Staten Island or you know, come on, guys, and this.
Is where this is where, you know, in the movie making business. The fact that he won three Oscars for Terms of Endearment probably gives him the power to have the ending that he actually wanted. He did shoot an alternative ending, did he with William jumping in the cab and the airport And they basically just improved this dialogue.
It's available online. You can easily YouTube it, and it goes about three minutes and they kiss quite passionately, and then they kind of they talk and William her just goes, you make me crazy, you know, and all that.
So he's going to get on the plane. Yeah, and he gets off the planet. She's sitting on that chair going what is my life?
She's in the cab at this stage.
Yeah, yeah, And then she gets in the cab.
Yeah right, and and she goes, you can take the three Highway.
It's quicker. Oh sorry, you know, so.
Let's let's talk about We can even go back and talk about other stuff. But so the big one of the big things that happens here is that Tom does an interview with a victim of date rape and it's it's it's quite a powerful thing obviously, just with the woman's account. But then it cuts to a shot of Tom doing an interview and he's crying. The newsroom is
watching it. It seems to me that Aaron Aaron has a problem with it immediately for many reasons, both on a professional level, this is crossing a line and on a personal level that he actually sees that the women in the office seem to be responding to this, and Jane seems to be, you know, responding to it. Or at least he's trying to maybe cut it off at the past that you know, this is not this is
this is no good. So and Jane says something that's I think really important, particularly for later on, where she says when he when he asked, what did you think of it? She says, it was real and it got me.
Yeah, you got me.
Yeah. And I think that's important because later on because well, and you talk about now when you watch it in twenty twenty one, and there's a great line that I think is really prevalent today that Tom says, he goes, I keep moving the line. Well, the line from nineteen eighty seven to twenty twenty one has been shifted kilometers miles, you know. It is like, that's just not And.
Also there's a different relationship with the line now, yes, you know. And I think that's what's hard for people like yourself comedians and myself artists, is like the line that we push, which is our role, and it's also what's funny and interesting. People are now going back, going that was bad what you said, and you're like, yeah, but the line was in a different spot, you know. And our role storytellers is to arrive at the line and question it, or not question it, but arise things
from within. Comes from being in a relationship with the line. The line keeps moving. You can only really question people's relationship with a present.
Line, you know what I mean.
And if you look at him, he fakes tears basically for this story because there was one camera. She wasn't there.
You know, when he did the tears, they turned around on him and he just kind of wet, you know, he just he didn't sweat like Albert Brooks. He had swept from the eyeballs, and so he manipulated something. And you think, now, in terms of modern day news and storytelling, you like, is sorry, is that a problem?
We are so morally barren now with what it takes.
I mean, people, there's now a concept called fake news, which is like we decide whether that actually happened, not only whether it was crying on everyone cares if he's crying or not. Get the story, get the clickbait, get the link, push it out there, whether it's real or not.
Nobody's cared about that for years.
Everyone's got their new service in their own head now in my herman's head news service, you know, And I mean What I like about it, though, is there's a gray area of because the when it was the camera person or whoever was said to him when they said they're the reversal shots. So Tom explains to the interviewee what that means. And then the woman who's kind of setting up the whether it's the lighting, she goes, oh, wow,
I thought you were about to cry. That wouldn't that have been a great shot or something like that, And that puts the idea and he said, so somebody has recognized that he was close to tears. Oh that wasn't on camera, though, Let's reflect what I was feeling with a little bit of mayo on it. So it's kind of like.
And do you know what, maybe this helps the story? And the story is the thing? Yes, if I make this more powerful, am I doing more for victims of this issue, if this gets.
More and more interest globally?
Yes, you know, if I do whatever it takes to make this a huge story, am I helping victims? And it's like, what is the moral fire are inherent in that ultimatum?
You know? It's and that's him, He's willing to do what it takes.
But the fact that Holy Hunter has such a high ground at that point, which in that period completely justified. I mean, that's what thwarts her ability to be with him and go on this funny holiday. And he says that sexy line, let's just have six days and see what we're like together out of this place.
Yeah, And it's such a great sentence.
It's like that is their only chance because their tension is this uncomfortable workplace and the tensions in the offices, and the excitement and the fact that anything could go wrong on such an enormous level. In news, and I've been watching The Morning New Morning Wars Morning Wars, which I think has three different names depending on what country.
You're watching it in.
I think, you know, and you see that kind of cutthroat billy crowddup character, and you're like William Hurt's characters come along way, Yes, Billy Kradit basically says, I hate myself, I have no soul, life is meaningless.
Will you do this for me?
Yeah?
You know, And that's his every line of dialogue.
It's funny because breakfast broadcast news. I was expecting it more to be blasically romantic comedy and have less to say about the news like Network famously has a lot to say about the news when news is heading, but this has got a lot to say.
But the fact that it involves Libya and it involves date Ray, which were issues at that time. They were like whoa, and he plants these massive issues that clearly he wanted to bring up.
Yeah, come on, guys, let's have a little chat about this.
He hit them in a very Shakespearean way, like how the fool pops up in Macbeth, you know what I mean. And the fool can speak about anything because everyone's laughing at them, but they get to say the most kind of disturbing stuff about the political situation at the time. And that's the Shakespearean notion of the fool, you know. And he does that really really well in this movie You've Gone. This is a bouncy, romantic comedy with people in a sexy job in New York who are high flying.
Will they have sex or won't they? Underneath I want to say stuff about the.
World, yeah, and about the performative nature of news, and that's becoming performative and that Aaron actually says, oh, of course, because it's all about us now, isn't it all? You know, like, yeah, it's saying absolutely saying something the other important thing I feel like. And the first time I was I was like, I was like, holy Jane, are you really giving up this relationship because of this? Like really you can't get
over that? And then I thought, well, hang on. There was the moment which I mentioned before, when she says, you know, you got me. It wouldn't be what I would have done, but it worked. You got me with a tear. So that's the moment for me, she emotionally falls in love with him. There's been any like a thing more of a physical infatuation with him that up until then, So that moment that the tear is tied
to her falling in love with him. And the other thing that I think is really ever is when they go to South America and the guys trying to put on his boots and Jane goes over there and you know, there's the camera guys saying this, put on your boots and will film it. And she runs over and goes, no, no, we are not here to interfere. You do exactly what you do, and the guy thinks about it, and then this puts on his boot and she's so proud and so happy with that footage, and it's like, well, this
is what's brilly about James A. Brooks. It plays as a comedic moment, you know, it's just a small little moment and that yeah, okay, she's great. Great, you've got a shot of somebody putting a boot on. But then at the end when she is tying herself to this moral post, it makes sense because I've seen her in the South American jungle kind of stop something and kind of going, no, this is important. We cannot impact the news. We are not the news. They're the news. Let's just put it.
We put our agents or catalysts to information, and that's you know, wiki leaks, you know what I mean.
It's like what is information? Who owns information?
You know?
And they were kind of tapping on a back then.
I mean, it looks so dated and funny and hilarious the way Tho's gone in and her running through the room with a big beta tape going we've.
Got to get it in there, you know.
But he's obsessed with character, Brooks, and character is action in all these movies, and that's where all the drama comes from. Human behavior. The character's behaving and you question, did William Hurt come up with this victim date rape news story to get Holly Hunter to cry and see that he is a beautiful, complicated man, you know what I mean?
Like, was that is he?
And he plays that fine line of grayness, and grayness is for me the greatest world for movies to be made in where audiences you're giving audiences a go, you're giving them a you're crediting them with intelligence, and you're saying, I don't know, it's messy.
Isn't it a bit like life?
You know?
And you're like, is William Hurt did he do that to get laid or does he actually care about those victims?
Who is this man?
And when he goes for the the you know, when he goes to touch under her blouse after the first kiss and wants to get her home, but then and then once ago, and you're like, is he a normal alpha male or is he really really like does he have all these preordained thoughts?
Is he quite manipulative in a way?
You know?
And he does that with Brooks. Brooks is this great guy, but at the same time he's so desperate and urgent and full of jealousy. You know, and and then Holly Hunter's like, you know that great romantic question for women in romantic comedies.
His life only complete when.
There's a guy, you know, which is in so many of those movies, like oh my god, when am I going to find mister rait?
What I like about this she's deciding whether to be that woman. Yeah, because and that's why I.
Really like that one. She is the one pursuing him. Yeah, And I like the fact that it's initially it's about sex, like's, yeah, she's not. She's not that one woman who is working out can she have it both? I don't think it's like I just want I've got something. There's a chemistry between us, and I need to explore that sexually and then and then that's what with the date, rape story and the tear, it becomes something else. And that's why it's like, I'm okay, I think I actually have feelings
with this guy, and that's going to complicate things. I want. I want to play a scene in two parts, and this is the scene where after they kiss and they're big kisses, aren't they They're big over mouth kisses.
I remember those days you just used to hash off Yeah, full nineties, tonguies just rip right in. But there was a one kiss where their mouths were both open for about twenty seconds, and I thought, what goes on there?
Yeah, and that you only.
See those pashes in TV because I wouldn't know how to do no, because the mouths are like frozen, and they just twist their head kind of eight degrees each way back.
And forth, and you're like, what's what is happening? Are they just breathing? Is this like that you John ambulance course kind of?
You know, it's not COVID safe. It's not COVID safe. She goes back to Aaron's place, and you know, like again a good friend, like I promise this is going to happen. By the way, how how how funny is and brilliant is Aaron's debut of reading the news the sweating and well, my faure apart was somebody knocks the set in the background and their hands holding it, somebody else you going go your hand, your hand, your hand.
And shut and the map starts fading and rip tearing down the middle. And everyone can relate to that moment where you go, I can actually be the front man. But then all your greatest fears manifest where you realize, no, you're just ordinary. Yeah, you know, and you're like, why do I ever think that I can go to this level? And He's world starts deteriorating in front of him. He doesn't have it.
And again another great choice when Holly Hunter goes back and she asks how it went and she doesn't know and Aaron Aaron's responses and now what Brooks is such a funny guy. Like there's a version where it's like in most movies, did the whole it was? My career is over?
It was a contrast. I can't believe it. Yeah, why didn't they press star?
Yeah it's there were calls, you know, I sweat so much I lost six six kilos. Yeah, there were calls, a really nice ones. They thought I was having a heart attack.
But that's the character, isn't he He's the like, you know, it's a very woody Alleny kind of trope that.
Well, he's trying to stay upbeat and positive. But the one thing that will drag him back is the idea that when Holly Hunter's Jane, he wants to get back to Tom. So let's let's have a listen to the first half of this scene where Aaron starts laying down a bit of a law for it for Jane.
I've never seen you like this with anybody. So don't get me wrong when I tell you that Tom Well, being a very nice guy, is the devil.
This isn't friendship.
What do you think the devil's gonna look like if he's around God? Come on, No one's.
Gonna be taking him.
By a guy to the long great point he tail Come on, what's he gonna sound like? A No, I'm semi serious here, you're serious. He will be attractive, he'll be nice and helpful. He'll get a job where he influences a great, god fearing nation. He'll never do an evil thing, he'll never deliberately hurt a living thing. He'll just bit by little bit lower our standards where they're important, just a tiny little bit, just copes along flash over substance,
just a tiny little bit. And he'll talk about all of us really being salesman, and he'll get all the great women.
What a great line to finish on. Yeah, it's it's it's a it's a cracker. And I want I want to ask you I mentioned earlier. I want I want a lot of that here. You talk about people, you know, listeners who may not you know, most of our listeners don't write movies, they don't make movies. They love movies, though, and they they're aware, obviously, even subconsciously, of there's an emotional flow that goes through movies, that there's a journey that the hero must go on over over the period
of that film and arrive at a different place. But what we having haven't spoken about much on this podcast is the idea that that that's happening also in every single scene. There's an emotional journey happening in every scene. The idea that you cannot arrive at the same place wherever you start that scene the end of that scene cannot you cannot have your characters in the same emotional space unless to a degree.
With Holly Hunter, it's running, you know, and she does. You know, characters walk down the street, they fall in a hole. The next time they go, oh, I better go round it, And then the third time they fall in it deeper.
Then they really learn how to go around it.
They build something that goes over the top of the hole, or whatever the metaphors may be, you know, and so you need your characters to not learn things too quickly, and that has to you know, torture your characters, which is the ultro absolutely back them into a corner where you think they can't get out of this, challenge them till they until it seems impossible, and then at the end, you know, have them face their their deepest fear. And
I think for holy hundreds, it's intimacy. But she has a decision to make about what she values more, you know, in her work and in a relationship.
Would she prefer to.
Remain alone a spinster, you know, and be someone she can go to sleep at night knowing that she's doing her job for the goodness of humanity. Or is she willing to accept this guy and maybe just glaze over a few of the things that irked her in order to not be alone, you know. And that's a pretty hefty conuntrum.
For a movie James Abrook's. Apparently, two years after it he finished making it, watched it again and said that he realized the film was about three people who lost their opportunity to have intimate relationships.
Yeah it's really sad, Yeah it is.
It is. And what's interesting about that is the idea. There's your relationship with your work change over the years. Have you reflected on something and kind of gone, oh, there's something in that that I can see that I was actually working through or dealing with, or saying something that I wasn't even I didn't know that I was saying at the time. I think people had this idea that when author sit down, they know they are in complete control of the messaging and what is going on.
That's true to an extent, but there must be I always find there's something else going on when you reflect on something down the track.
Absolutely, And I would say I'm the opposite of the writer who writes what he knows. I write what I'm trying to know. I write what I don't know, and I think what stops me in my tracks and goes ooh. I think this is an idea is when I've had something happen to me and I don't understand who I became in that situation, and it threw up so many questions that brought out what we caught what we're talking about before human behavior. I behaved in a really strange way,
and so did the people around me. And I think there's got to be something in this. But I'm absolutely working on a question and I look back and I see, oh, you were wrestling with that and then you got through it.
And I think I probably also write less.
From biography now, like a lot of my stories with the Reuben Guthries and how it feels were definitely even love my way, you know, in theacter of Tom being a fucked up young man and who even go through dealing with drinking in Australia and trying to work out, you know, how to manage being sober, which is an issue that I know longer and lost about, and how it feels dealing with why we're also angry in Crenulla and why so many boys took their own lives and stuff.
And now with Peter Lum, yeah, I'm fascinated. I think a little less with myself and more with others than human behavior. But in the same way, what Peter Lum's going through is something that I've been going through the last five years, which is how do you change your
life as a bloke? And can you have a second chapter that doesn't look like the first one, you know, and how do you change in Australia And what is the effect on all your relationships, and how do you share and stuff like that, how do you share your confusion and your pain and your stress. So absolutely I think writing, you know, when you're coming from a really personal place, affects everybody.
The more honest you ah, even in the smallness, the absolute smallness.
Which is what broadcast news does so well, that's what makes it universal. Chekhov never lift his village, larsvon trere Belly leaves his village. But they speak about America, they speak about the world still, you know what I mean, because they're so personal and precise about their own experience.
I think.
And how important is it and broadcasting news has it? How far ahead of your audience do you like to be? Because I think I feel like it's something I remember writing It's a date BC. And we would always meet with the actors to discuss any ideas they had and just you know, we're really collaborative process. And the Dean Gardner, the one from the Dean Gardener said to me, she is you need to be ahead of your audience, like as soon as your audience catches up to you, you
are dead in the water. And the Dean is brilliant and she can be intense, you know, she's you know, and I remember looking at me straight in the eye, and because we're taking her through, and I think she just thought maybe the audience is with us, you know, like two with you know, you know, maybe they're even in front of.
Us or just involving the audience, which I think is what James L.
Brook starts of going, what do you think is happening?
Yeah?
You know, do you think he's an asshole? Or do you think he's just like every other horny guy. Do you think he'd be a good boyfriend. Do you think they're well matched? Do you think it's just sex? Do you think she's always going to be alone? Do you think that's okay? You know, and he's kind of going here go, I'm not going to tell you. I'm going to ask you constantly with my blurry human scenes that are so funny because they're so uncomfortable, because you know, we don't know as humans.
Well. It's often people think movies, even filmmakers would think movies are about giving answers, but they're more about raising questions.
Active questions, yes, you know, questions that are happening live in front of you that you are completely awoken by from your own life, but they're not, you know, and we see it now in so many films and TV shows. You're thirty seconds in and you go, oh, so, I guess they'll have the fight, he'll go there, and then they'll end up together. And also, what pisses me off
about those five minute trailers that you see now? You know, I think when we're coming through watching movies nowadays nineties, they just give you this forty second verse and you're like, what the fuck is that?
I've got to see it?
Yeah, I don't know what it is, but.
You just gave me a taster. And now you know.
I watched PTA's Midnight Pizza or whatever it's called, Licorice Pizza, Lekriash Pizza.
I got to the end of the five minute trailer and went, oh, I've seen that.
But if you notice, if you notice there's a twenty second trailer before the three minute trailer. Yes, yes, they say this is the there's a trailer before the trailer, a trailer teaser, a trailer teaser, which is immediately before the trailer. You go immediately into the then you go.
To the movie and they're like, this is the thirty seven minute cut down. If you want to see the movie, you have to go down the road, and then you go down that.
We'll show you an hour, but we'll speed it.
Up, you know, like, where can I what's a movie I want to want to be? Actually I forgot because it happens. It's not audible, But what a reaction and what a choice Holly Hunto or Dan jel Brooks, probably in collaboration makes when Aaron says I love you, she winces. You know, I'm not.
Because I think we have the kind of friendship where if I were the devil, You'll be the only one I would tell, well, you were awfully put to run after time's help with.
All right, want have.
And things have gone well for me tonight that I probably wouldn't be saying any of this. I grant you everything, but give me this. He personifies everything that you've been fighting against and I'm in love with you.
How do you like that.
I buried the lead? Yeah?
I mean that's there's a really tough line as well. Earlier when before she goes up to the Correspondence dinner where she's getting ready while he's there and he says, can you at least pretend this is awkward for you, which is both funny and heartbreaking. Is like, oh, well, you are in the friend zone, aren't you.
Yeah, And she is slightly she has she's verging on her personality disorder.
Yeah, she doesn't entertained this idea. She doesn't like Listen, I'm just not you're my friend. There's never that scene where she goes, you are a great friend, and you are my friend, you know, I just don't feel that way about you. And I love that that scene doesn't happen.
But she that's what's wonderful about her character is that she kind of she doesn't need a guy to be complete in the eighties, and that she she's just completely besulted with this man who's just you know, he's just stopped her life. And it's the attraction and stuff like that. And and she said, who does she say it to you? She goes, I think I'm in love with them. She says it to Brooks doesn't.
Yeah, Yeah, I mean, what a strange because normally that would be with the gay friend or the sister at the bar gay.
I think I'm in love with this guy.
I don't know what to do, what should they do Yeah, And instead she says it to the guy who's in love with her. Yeah, you know, And that's great riding, isn't it. It's like she confides in him, yeah, to break his heart.
And then and then she calls Tom to kind of know what's going on. And it's a really interesting again. It's it's asking questions of like is he being passive aggressive? Is he is he happy that she's not on his way? He says, oh, my dad's coming through in the morning, But he's also saying like that sounds like an important that he knows what's going on. He taped the newsballer than the sweating news. He knows that sounds more important. You stay there, I've got stuff to deal with. And
he says something. He says, I'm not I'm not one of your chores you need to tick off. Yeah, which is slightly passive aggressive, but absolutely, but it's it's still he's still wondering is he is that fair enough? Like who's being unreasonable? You did go off to you know, your friend's house, you know, after a massive.
And when she's walking down the corridor, like I totally had that.
Moment of like just keep going have sex, Go and just enjoy us, or go and have love. Don't get caught up in this guy's resent, this guy's unhappiness, you know what I mean. And and but because she's a people pleaser, because she loves him, because she can't leave a guy.
You know, she does love him as a friend.
You know, she comes back into the room and gives up on her own love story, you know, and you're.
Like, no, bust through the door.
Totally different movie if she leaves down that corridor and those great New York apartments, you know, like the New York apartments. Just it's a character. It's so extraordinary, the role that plays. And he sits on the couch, she comes around. It's just perfect cinema. In those corridors. Remind me of you know, how Woody Allen stoles so much of that stuff from Bergmann. You know, I've used in those corridors and that apartment to tell so much of
the story. And Woody Allen, I think, you know, Hannah and her sister's Annie Hall. He kind of, you know, around the same time, was doing the slightly ambiguous romantic comedy as well. Annie Hall's a film about two people that kind of become friends at the end, you know.
You know, Okay, we tried. You're weird, You're weird.
I don't think this is going to work out, but I'll I'll always be in your life because you are amazing. And it's like this kind of slightly melancholy romantic comedy, you know, And the same with Hannah and her sisters was like that.
And what was the other one?
I was just thinking about a kind of a similar nineties romantic comedy that kind of ends in that kind of kind of way. And I thought about Spotlight actually while I was watching it, because I thought, that's another news movie said in Boston about you know, the pedophile ring within the Catholic church, and and just how different that kind of the tone and aggressiveness of that movie is.
And I love movies, you know, back in that time that gave characters so much time, and I think, you know, I talked to my nephews about films and stuff like that, and you know, and a lot of young people like.
Why is it taking so much time for them to get into it?
You know?
And we used to build movies through character and world and just give the audience more grayness and time and now we're like smack bang.
You can see the influence James L. Brooks has had on someone like Judd Apatow. Yeah, because you always say, why does Jad Appetel's films need to be over two hours?
And you know films are over to our listen sometimes and sometimes I feel the criticism may be warranted with jud Apetel's films when it's just an ad lib fest, when it's just like I reckon, there's there's sharper stuff throughout this movie that you know, and sometimes you know there's there's some lovely moments and that's those that's creative. But I feel like I'm okay. I'm personally okay with it. But I yeah, I remember up about our saying people say,
why are your films so long? It's up because I'm dealing with the biggest things in the world. I'm dealing with love and loss and you know, like these James similar things that James L. Brooks I think deals with UH And I think I think James L. Brooks has more to say, though I think I certainly broadcast.
Know.
I still think Abata's films often run out with thirty seven minutes left and then it just goes to kind of penis jokes, and.
I feel like there's some films like This is forty, I feel like so funny people. I think was one film where I think probably Jadapeta had James L. Brooks in the back of his head, like I feel like he was trying to say something yeah a lot more.
And which he did knocked Up, like, and I know that, you know.
I think Je's films have more in them some people give him credit for.
Because he was talking about, you know, when him and his wife got pregnant and they were living in this house with stoners and they had no idea, you know, like what do we do? And that has that film and knocked Up, Yeah, and that has that sense and you can tell it comes from an authentic place.
What does that seem I think it's knocked up? Is that this is what he is that I think it's knocked up with Paul rud and Leslie Man a married couple, because I think they're married in that movie and then they yeah yeah, And there's a great scene in the driveway where it's like she thinks he's having an affair, but he's going off and doing fantasy football. Yeah, and he has to admit that's what he's been doing. And he's just like, sometimes I just want to you know,
the kids and all that. It's so hard and I just want to go. And you know, last week I watch Spider Man by myself and she's and she's almost like there are times where I want to watch Spider Man. Yeah, and I like, I remember watching that and I almost cried because I know I was going through a stage. I young kids, and I often leave work early. When I was working on on Rod, leave an hour early and go see you and go see a film just
because I like I needed something that wasn't home. And it wasn't because my mind am I So.
That you think it is grade at home? Yeah, so that you can do because you love them so much.
But that's a hard discussion to have. I need this. It's not because you know bridges at home. You know.
One of the you earned a massage joint.
Not that time, not that time. I'll see Spider Man. But how good? Yeah? And James J. Brooks is just there's all these details in his movies that could easily be taken out in an out. But you can imagine people saying over your shoulder, Do you need that? Which sometimes yeah, it's always worth asking, but sometimes a character, Yeah, it's like it's all these little moments, her looking at the when she hears the door and she thinks, you know,
William Hurts walked through and she he hasn't. And and William Hurt holding the kettle with his with his sleeve, and the older guy we've never seen before calling home asking his wife's there or something, and you know.
Her storming in and abusing William Hurt and his dad's there, and then the dad said, I don't think that woman's ever going to be affectionate to you.
Yeah, you know, it's like, what, yeah, you take that out of the movie and nothing happens, No exactly, but it's there and something happens.
And there's that great comedy trope of just keep surprising the audience every five pages with something, just another big moment, big revelation, big twist.
You know that.
You go, oh god, I thought I was watching Oh I thought I was watching that all I thought I was watching that.
How good is Holy Hunter? By the way, the three of them are fantastic, but how good is it? And this is a very rare role for a woman in the nine to eighty seven I had this complicated center at this absolute send, not necessarily in a movie that says she will only be whole once she gets together with a very handsome American successful man.
Yeah, yeah, you know, pretty ahead of his time because rom Gons had to catch up again ten years ago, you know, and they're still doing it.
But how satisfying is that when there is a sexiness to a character that comes from who they are as a person, as opposed to they're looking hot in a shot, you know, a shot skirt or something, you know, like whatever it might or a sex scene. You know, like it's like she's sexy because she is good at her job and complicated and real vulnerable, all exact flawed and actively flawed, yes, you know, and active flaws driving drama.
Yeah, like it's just that's writing. That's great writing.
Yeah, she gets the role. She hadn't done much. She did she did Raising Arizona the same year.
Oh is that wrong?
Yeah, in nine eighty seven, Raising Arizona, of course with the Coen Brothers. She did a voice in Barton Fink. She did some TV credits and yeah great, Yeah, let's not get started on button, I think, but she she Basically they Debra Winger was the first choice for the role share the pull out. I think she was pregnant. They did a massive search. They went through all the Alis actors though three days out from shooting apparently, and these stories, like.
I remember, I was telling me the fatal Attraction story, you know, because she'd done.
Well that so that that big chill and they were.
Like, you know, you're warm, You're warm in a cashmere jumper. You're the loving warm woman. She's like, let me, let me and beg for the audition. I think turned up. I think Santa Tapean turned up. And when you will see me and they're like, no, you're warm, wholesome, you know, big chill. And she's like, give me a shot. And then she sat there and did that scene where she turns the lights on and off, and they went, oh, my god, changed your career forever.
She got nominated that year eight So in eighty seven, one eighty, I'll get to the Oscars that year because it's quite an interesting thing. But your Holy Hunter goes to the audition. Basically, they've seen everybody else, They said, is there anyone else? And she arrives the person who greets people thought she was a PA and she goes, actually, no, I'm here to She hit an audition. She gets the role almost immediately. She starts rehearsing. The next day, she's filming.
Three days later. At the end of the first week filming, she I think has she actually has a breakdown. She blames on the medical illness and and and bronchitis or something, and William Hurt says to her, no, you're scared, and Holy Hunter said, it changed everything. It changed the dynamic between her and William Hurt because she said, in that moment, William Hurt saw through her. He wasn't saying her yeah, he saw her, and he wasn't saying as in like.
A condescending way, condesce anyway. It's like, it's okay, he's probably saying I'm scared too.
Yeah. Yeah. And it's like and that and that is where that you talk about the chemistry between them. It starts. It starts from that.
That's why I never get nervous in front of other movie stars. Not other movie stars, movie stars and actors, no matter who. I've met Hoffman's and I was a bit nervous in front of Hoffman, but he's directing me. But yeah, Brad, you know whenever I met because I just go, I know that you're just as scared as I am when the movie rolls, and I know that
you're just as scared with your next part. And I know you're trying to be brilliant, and I know you're trying to do a good job and make sure everyone thinks you're believable and that the next job is the most scary one you've ever done. And every actor is the same, and so I never get nervous because I look in their eye and go, yeah, I know.
I literally, I literally listened to an interview with George Clooney on Make Marin's WTF podcast yesterday and he was saying exactly that, Well, George Clooney, he's intimidated by other actors, you know, and you know, he's been wiped off the floor by young actors, you know, act that he hadn't heard of it had come along, and yeah, and he's.
I don't know if I'm saying that. I'm just saying, like, I don't, I know, not to revere them because they're so vulnerable. And that's you know, our feelings are on the surface, and we live in a state of fear that we'll get it. We're going to get it right, and we'll be able to expose it, We'll be able to are we going to be able to nail it and tell the story? And I don't necessarily worry if an actor is going to wipe the floor with me, because I don't think of it in those terms of
who's better. I'm just like, I know you are just as shit scared as the guy coming out of film school.
And good actors I assume I and you've worked with a lot more actors and done a lot more acting, by a whole country more than I have. But I imagine good actors know that we're we're in we are in this together like we are. We are trying to create a piece of work here. And if you're if I'm no good for you and you're not good for me, this is not going to work.
Yeah, and if you come into an acting job going so I just want to let you guys know I've kind of got this nailed.
I know my character.
I know I'm going to do this funny walk, I'm going to throw those looks so I don't know what you guys are doing, but I'm sortied.
Like there's no discussions.
Yeah, so you have to be vulnerable for it to work.
Yeah, you know, Whereas when I'm around musicians, I'm so nervous. I'm like, how do you do the thing you do because I'm a failed musician, you know. With actors, I'm like, hey man, how you going?
Yeah?
Yeah, I know. I love seeing actors like on set who are comfortable, like not like coming into going I've got all this, you know, like yeah, yeah.
Like comfortable in the vulnerability, yes, comfortable in the unknown, yes, yeah. And the best actors are like, the best actors are kind listening, scared, yeah you know, and you say, and then I'm talking about the really successful ones. Really really they're bloody lovely, they're bloody curious.
And it's like it's their first day on set. Yeah.
But I mean they're confident, yeah, absolutely, but they're open, yeah, you know, and that's why they're good.
Yeah, mate, Pete thinklige is did you know who's doing Sereno? Yes? I was nearly in that, which basically it'spectially especially a sequel to I Love You Too, isn't it isn't it has that been around for a bit longer. I mean it's about basically.
Because he's putting the words in his mouth.
Yes, well, sir, and I was, you know, an inspiration for I Love You Too. And now.
Steve Martin does a great one, doesn't.
He Broxne and yeah, it's great. Now he's got to look forward to seeing that. I just thought I quickly mentioned it, but I want to talk about it before we let you go. The nineteen eighty eight Oscars hosted by Chevy Chase. Do you know who won the Best Picture of You? It's a film that nobody is seen, like nobody like. It's a well regarded film, but like it does, it doesn't go expert, It doesn't get I don't know when you're in a team or teh.
What was it.
Last Emperor BERNARDOUCHI that nominally for nine Oscars, that it was up against broadcast News, Fatal Attraction, Hope and Glory and Moonstruck and Glory. I must say it wasn't It didn't. It doesn't feel like a banner year for the Oscars. The good character good movies, yeah, good good good adult good adult movies.
Hope and glory.
That's not Matthew Broderck. Yeah, Matthew Roderick on a horse. Yeah, it's Matthew broder gonna.
Hold no, hang on a secon. That's glory.
Yeah.
I I was thinking it was Matthew.
Broderck and horse in glory, which just looks because what's fairest doing on a horse in the war.
It was a big shift, Yeah, maybe too big a shift. I love Matthew Roderick.
You can count on me how good is he?
And you can count on me as the boss who's upset with all the fonts on the screen.
So into my office? Yeah, what fun to are you using? He's amazing in that?
And ruffo ruffle is that isn't Lord Lenny, Lord Lenny laud Lannie is so good in that. So their brother brother sister, No, no brother sister. It starts ruf car crash. Ye, parents died in a car crash. They were in the back. They survived. He's trouble. She's got a son, a mccaulkin, a Coulcin. They're everywhere now.
She's got a Colkin son. Yes, and she's a bit She's working at a bank. And this is Kieren Colkan isn't it. It's Kieran Con He's amazing, Yeah, because.
She's like, you got your backpack, it's a knapsack. It's not a backpack.
Mom's knapsack.
And she and he just falls in love and he Marc Ofolo comes back from Alaska. He's got to get some money, I think to post back to a girl. Something's happened. He's been out in jail.
Yeah, he's like a black sheep.
Brother admits to her and he smokes the joint before he has lunch with her.
And it's so beautiful.
That it's Kenneth long Agan. It's Manchester recently my weekly. My seventeen year old son has seen it, like watch Manchester to see like a few times now and just loves it.
It's what you can count on me if you haven't listeners.
It is incredible, It really is.
But literally wins the James Job. Brooks does not get nominated. This is the whole comedy being judged differently, even though you're got to argue that there's a lot more. This is not a straight out comedy broadcast news and then like a lot of directors who wouldn't be necessary household names for our listeners. Adrian Lynn for a Fatal Attraction gets nominated and he has done nine and a half weeks. He's done Flash Dance. He went under those indecent proposal, unfaithful.
He obviously had an area that he was comfortable. Yeah, but it's interesting because there is a bias against movies outside of Europe. I think that deal with sex. Do you think like that? It's hard. I feel like any movie that looks at sex and it's like, you know, at the forefront, feels like they get kind of derided a little bit that come out of America. Well, those films.
Maybe videotapes changed that a lot. One Sun Dance and people went, well, a movie about sex. Yeah, completely kind of rocked to America. Really small movie about sex really rocked American. But American sexuality is so weird.
Yeah, you know, they are freaks. And then John Borman wants It's hope and glory. He made the Tailor of Panama. Later on the exos to Norman Jewison had had he had made. He'd been nominated for the Heat of the Night and Filler on the Roof. He did Moonstruck and Lassie Halstrom. Of course, My life is a Dog Swedish starling.
He's just making a film now with from my friend Maeve Dermody's in it.
Oh really Yeah, he's making a.
Film in Sweden.
Yeah, awesome, so you'll know his filmed or he's more English language film. Side of House rules shock a lot, and what's itating gilber Great Michael Douglas win to Fatal Attraction up against.
How does Glenn not win?
Well, Glenn Glenda Glen does not win close for Fatal Attraction, she loses the share So Share one for Moonstruck beats Holy Hunter Glenn Close, Sally Kirtlin for a film called Anna. She played the title role.
Look if I good turn back time, I would give it.
He would give the oscar to Glenn. Yeah, if you would give the oscar Glens and Sean Connery wins for The Untouched was which I have no problem with. Adolf for Best Supporting Actor beats Albert Brooks, Morgan Freeman, Vincent Gardenia, and Denzel Washington for crist Freedom. And just before we go, one thing, we should mention Jack Nicholson in.
This Why that's what I meant to mention? How crazy is that Jack Nicholson's in this.
Movie was not credited in any of the marketing or poster and in fact refused to be paid for it. Did it as a favorite obviously in terms of indeement, but like.
What did you what was he coming out of at that time?
Was he big? Well, he wasn't mean, but he did terms of indiement, he must have made like you know, this is he's something shining.
It's you.
He's done this Jack, He's on all those seventies films.
He's done forty.
Yeah, he's on one flo floor of the Cookie's Nest. He's done. He's done, you know the last detail. He's done. Like some of them aren't necessary massive films, but he's done.
He goes to work with this director and I think he's.
Under a fab in ninety seventeen years later, ten years later, so it.
Hasn't done and you can handle the truth that's later.
That's about five years. I reckon it's ninety two. But did you find it? Did you? I found it distracting. You have to when one of the acts is too famous, So why And it's not a massive problem, but I just think I was expecting more when he comes back to the retrenchments and He's like, I'm going to take everyone out. Okay, that's going to be He's going to have He's going to impact our story. Yeah, this doesn't impact the story in any way. Like that could have been played by a character actor.
But it's the gravitas.
Oh he does that, and you understand why I.
Think it's with another actor.
You go, Okay, there's the news there's the news man. When it's Jack, the stakes are higher, and the fact that they're trying to get his approval and he never likes anything, and he says to her, why don't you come up to New York. She goes, I didn't right the whole story. I just worked on it. And he goes call me, you know, and you go.
He liked it. He liked it.
And the fact that he's the god and he's the one that kind of says to you know, his minions, I accept you.
We will do this.
You know. Jack gives that, and and that scene where he talks to Holy Hunter but not Albert Brooks, and then that beautiful actor where Albert Aaron whispers to Jane, yeah my heart is broken, but just sathingly funny and laugh out loud, and she does it in such a great way. And then it's it's so it's so beautiful, but.
They would have gone in for half a day, two days, two days.
They get and kept all his suits. The one other little I think think I want to go about The Holy Hunter is the crying. Like, you're such a brilliant actor, what like, explain how hard that is one just crying? But she's crying with no external provocation.
But female actors are insanely good at it. Like, and what I like about her crying is it's not poor me crying. It's I'm so invested in this and I'm so lost and I'm so passionate about it. It's like it's it's almost comic in the way that she cries in different moments, and her crying is active and it's got story in it. Yeah, while she's crying, you know, whereas we see so many crying scenes where I go, I'd love to see another choice. You know, I think there's way too much crying.
You know.
I remember seeing that show The Sinner Jessica Biel. She cries in every scene. I think it should have been called the Sobber. She's just crying, and I'm like, come on, guys, let's have some other scenes that doesn't have crying. I know it's a tough time, but also when you get a bit more used to tragedy, you do stop crying and you're hard en up, and you know, that's more interesting for me to watch people trying not to cry.
It's really interesting people see people trying not to cry is way more powerful than seeing people crying. Yeah.
I love it in Shine where where Noah hits the ground and this single tear comes out of his thing his head and he knows where he's you know that the rest of his life's already ordained, and like really interesting choices with crying, I think good not choices.
Maybe it's just what happened. But I'm not a great crier.
I can work myself up by putting the headphones on, getting the cat power playing, you know, channeling heart.
Bro're behind a curtain now.
Yeah, channel Yeah, we're in the actor studio.
And I can go, okay, I'm ready and roll camera and I'll fucking go and I'll get to sobbing and there'll be snot and that's but then once that takes done, I'm probably done for the day.
You know.
I can't like I'm cried out.
If that's Monday, I can maybe cry again on Thursday and.
That's me done.
So if you want one, give me half an hour and then I'll come at you as a noise canceling headphones.
You know, it's canceling headphones.
And then you know, I'll need to go for a swim, and then I need to go see my mom and then.
You know, But these actors can, they can whack it.
I remember Patrick Bramble and Ruben Guthrie telling the story of his friend died. He just went bang bang fourteen takes in a row, like yeah, yeah.
I can't do that.
Yeah, I'm guilty of grabbing the tear stick and rubbing it under the eyes, no problem.
I spoke to a director a little while ago who said they worked with an actress who was wonderful, like a really gave a stony performance, but but she literally cried in every scene. Like they're not scenes where there's no reason they had to c g I out.
Yeah, does it all the time. She loves to cry.
But it's like it's not their fault, it's director, and it's just like don't smile on every seen like let's have some different stuff, you know. And and but I don't think it's anyone's fault because I think people have been told that that's what acting is.
Actings crying. How often do you cry as a human, like not heaps?
I've had three crists today.
Yeah, you're doing a podcast with me, you know what I mean?
So?
Why why are we seeing someone's crying when crying is such.
A rare thing in life? Yeah, you know, like it's and I.
Think sometimes I cry, you know, text him a nephew and he got a job of McDonald's in the nugget section, and I'm like.
I'm texting you know sometimes I have an amazing apple.
You look at the stripes on a beetle and you cry, and you go, fucking hell, how good are beatles?
Is that weird tear? That this comes down with no no reason.
That's interesting to me, Like, what's going on there? Why did that come up? Maybe you're happy?
Yeah, there's tear that falls down.
It's like.
There's no sadness that I'm aware of in me at the moment, and.
It just just meant something.
Yeah, you know, mate, it is so good to see you in the flesh I'm glad we were able to do this. Person. Thank you so much for doing your homework and watching. I know it comes with homework broadcast. It is great homework. I gave it a big plug at the start. But your book Plum, which I have spoken to you personally, well, so I was quarantining with COVID. I ripped through it and it is extraordinary. It is another extraordinary addition to a conversation about masculinely in Australia.
You have a main line into what it means to be an Australian male battling demons in suburbia. And it is and it is funny, it is heartbreaking, It pulls at all the right things and it's wholly original.
Oh thanks man.
Yeah, it's out there in the bookstores now. And you know, I got a DM from a lady this morning who said, you know, I know what to do with my boy who's in year eleven. Now I'm going to give him words. I'm going to talk to him about words. And it's just like a suck. Start crying at that because I'm like that, really, at the end of the day, I've got a bit of money, I'm okay, I've got a house.
If I can do that, like I really am, just like you know.
And a guy said he listened to me on ABC Conversations and he played it to the Year nine boys and said, this is how men can talk to each other, Me and Richard Weidler, and it's like, you know, plumb Peter, the plumb lum rugby league play with concussion issues. He's probably going to die, and he's like, how do I not die? I've got to change? How do I change? I might have to not do what I've been doing my whole bloody life. Oh shit, do I reach out?
No?
I Hi drink run? That didn't work. What do I do share?
Now?
I can't do that? Hi drink run? Okay, maybe I'll share. How do I do that?
Write some stuff down, you know, and some dead poets come in and help him.
And it's really hard and not just men women, you know what I mean, like humans, human behavior.
It's so hard to share our confusion.
And maybe that's right and down, maybe it's you know, whatever it is for different people.
But I love that.
It's you know, the reviews are great that you know, online and print and people are loving it. But I just love hearing from people the actual effect that it's had, and they've that it's.
Been of use.
Yeah, you know, and that's really more and more just what I want my art to be.
I just want it to be of use to people.
Well, it's fascinating because it's it's a it's about a man. They're trying to make a big change in his life. And I feel like you do get to an age where you're like, oh, well, this is who I am, and it could be as simple as you know, the way what you weigh or the way you dress, and you're going to go, well, I can't. I've just like this my whole life. I'm not going to I wrack up in a Hawaiian shirt now. Yeah.
And it's kind of a coming out story Peter Plum love, Yeah it is. He's not going guys, I love her. He's going all write poems sometimes.
Yeah, I expectence.
You know, he's got a barret on, he's having a gabinet instead of the schoon. That's you know, it's just like it's really hard to change, you know, but he has to or he'll die. And are those guys that are with you on the punt and on the piss. You know that we have those mates? Are they there and not when life comes a knocking because you're in trouble, mate, can you use those mates?
You know?
Who can you use? Because you can't do it alone in this world. You need connection, connections the opposite of fear. You know, when you connect, the fear goes away. When there's other people you know who are going through what you're going through and you can share it with them, Suddenly you've got muscles in.
The game, you know. And that's what I'm kind of trying to say. It's okay to admit your confusion and your weakness and your fear.
Here here it is. It is brilliant. I highly recommend Plum in all the bookstores check it out or order book book Type is always a good place to order Melbourne.
I've just gone the Reddings, Carlton and Avenue and the leaf Shop and yes, the Saurs, so there should be some Sewing copies all around Melbourne.
Brilliant mate. I love you, Yeah, you.
Too, my brother, Well do this every week if I could, I'll bring you back Lord of the Rings.
Bloody Bagging's still in the cave. Big finish.
That was fantastic Brendan Calee, bloody Hell. I love that movie Broadcast News. I really really enjoyed revisiting that, and I'm glad Brennan loved it as much as I did. So yes, just to repeat if you if you skipped through the first bit, we are coming back later in January. I just wanted to get this episode out one just to give you something to get you by, and also to promote Brennan's book Plumb. It is a fantastic book. Check it out. It's great for Christmas if you're looking
for something to read over summer as well. So Plumb by Brennan cale in all good bookstores now. It is absolutely brilliant, already been nominated for various awards. And so we leave Old Pete safe and south, and
To our friends of the radio audience, we've been a pleasant good night