Good day, Peter Helly here, welcome to you Ain't Seen Nothing Yet?
The movie podcast, where I chat to a movie lover about a classic or beloved movie they haven't quite got around to watching until now, and today's guests comedian Tommy Dasolo.
He loove the speller play pop in the morning.
Good morning, be now.
I have come here to chew bubble gum and kick ass.
And a wall part of Bobbles happening right now. You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet.
Tommy Deslo is one hand of the podcasting phenomenon that is the Little Dumb Dumb Club, which he began way back in twenty ten with his partner in crime and former guests on this podcast Carl Chandler, who sat through Titanic for us.
Thank you, Carl.
Tommy also hosts the Filthy Casuals Are Comedy video game podcast with co hosts Ben Venell and Adam Knox. Tommy's been performing stand up comedy since I was thirteen years old, with acclaim shows at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, which is also toured around the country with gems such as Little Golden Dassolo, Boarding Cherub and the controversially titled dreamboat Tommy.
Tommy is smart, insightful, entrepreneurial, and bloody fun to be around, and I'm stoked to have him as my guest today.
Hello, I'm stoked to be here. Where did you get that? I started when I was thirteen?
I wanted to interrogate that a lot of bit that's on Wikipedia?
Oh man, Yeah, there's there's a lot of There's a lot of misinformation on my Wikipedia. Which I think is the bane of doing a podcast is that you you mention your IMDb or your Wikipedia, and then people that listen decide they're going to get on and put that there's a thing on my Wikipedia that I review chicken schnitzels as a part time job. There's there's just so much. There's a thing on my IMDb says that I'm four foot tall. Yeah, there's barely anything about me on the
internet is correct. But everything else you said is right though.
The Little Dundune Club is a particularly interactive audience and engaged right.
Yeah, it's performance art where it's like the the podcast is like one hour out of the week, and then yeah, it's it's the show with what happens after the show is recorded?
Who are you what do you got to tell us?
My name is Tommy Dassilo. My three favorite films, Ah Briggsby.
Bear Everything, It's very big, It's really very big.
Who framed Roger Rabbit?
But tell me, Eddie, is that a rabbit in your pocket? You're just happy to see.
Me and rabit? And up until very recently, I had never seen the.
Shining his Johnny Well.
To be more precise, here's Jack playing Jack Torrence, who takes up a gig as caretaker of the Overlook Hotel as it empties for the Halsh Winter Ahead, bringing his wife Wendy Shelley Devale and haunted some Danny Danny Lloyd. Jackie is attempting to get some writing done. What kind of writing good question? We don't really know, But Jack assures us that he just needs some peace and quiet
to get the work done. But as Danny and his finger friend Tony begin having visions of daintily dressed twin girls, blood gushing from elevators, and general carnage, more and more questions begin piling up. In Stanley Kubrick's nineteen eighties classic horror flick from the book by Stephen King, who famously hates the film questions, Mike, what is the deal with Room two three seven? Why did Jack take the job? And seriously, what the fuck is up with that Teddy
Bear Tommy Dassilo. Does all work and no play make Tommy a dull guy?
Yeah?
Very much so.
It was.
It was a very interesting experience watching this film in twenty twenty one, after a year of COVID of being trapped inside and going, you know what, I'm finally going to write that novel.
This is it.
I'm not sure why this has happened, but it's pure coincidence.
But in the lockdown, the short lockdown we're having in Melbourne at the moment, and hopefully we're about to come out of it. The two films we've done are both in Kubrick Films, One Full Metal Jacket with Lisa mceuwn and Now and Now The Show Right with You?
So yeah maybe and Adam Sandler film needs to be on the horizon.
Yeah, get someone incredibly serious on who's like, I've never seen Billy Madison.
Yeah, yeah, David Stratton has never once seen Haby Gilmore. Let's let's chat. Why had it you seen shiny habit loom large over your filmography.
Oh absolutely, Yeah.
I don't know, I just never I just it's one of those ones that just always escaped me. Like I'm I'm not a big horror fan in general, Like I'd not that I find them too scary or anything. I just don't get that same kind of giddy thrilled that some people get out of them. But I definitely, if for no other reason than to.
Piece together the many, many Simpsons references that are in my head from this film from over the years, It's been one of those ones where it's like you've got You've just got to get around to it sometime.
You know.
It feels like, whether or not you have an interest in the genre, you have to have watched The Shining at some point.
It feels like it is a regular occurrence. We almost need a sting whenever The Simpsons. We should have played a Simpsons theme whenever somebody watches a classic movie, which obviously this podcast is all about, and they go, oh, now there's all these Simpsons references. I get Mark Samuel Banano, it was like, oh, all those wow, Simpsons is basically an animated Citizen Kane right right.
Well, The Shining even more so because there's like that whole It's basically got a whole episode that's just the plot of the Shining, Like, yes, not so much, just little references here and there, but it's yeah, they dedicated a whole chunk of a Halloween episode to it.
So there's a whole bunch to get stuck into about the Shining. Let's talk about your three favorite films, which are films. I think one of them may have come up, but the first one, I'm very I haven't seen and I have a little clue as to what. Brigsby Needs a Bear.
Yeah, you know what.
I was kind of hoping that you hadn't seen this because you should watch it because I think you'd love it.
It is a film from It's probably about four or five years old, and it's got Kyle Mooney in it from Saturday Night Live, and he plays an adult man who is living in this bunker with his parents because the Earth's atmosphere has become unbreathable, and he basically kills his time by watching this show called Brigsby Bear, which is it's sort of like an HR puff and Stuff style show, and he like obsesses.
Over the law of it online.
And then one day, the police turn up and it turns out that the air outside is breathable. Who he thinks that his parents have just been telling him that because he was kidnapped as a baby and they've been raising him as his own. So he is reunited with his real parents that he got stolen from when he was a baby, and he's readjusting to real life and at one point he's like, hey, when are we getting the new Brigsby Bear episode?
And they're like what.
And it turns out that his captive parents had been creating this show to keep him occupied while he was being raised by them, and so he kind of freaks out because he doesn't have access to this show. So he decides with some new friends that he's made, that he is gonna start making these new episodes and continue the story of Brisby Bear because he's been showing the tapes to people and they're like, this is great, and.
Yeah, it's an incredible movie.
It's funny, it's heartwarming, but then you're also like, oh, this kid has trauma, like this is this is like a deeply messed up story, but it's everyone and it is great. Mark Hamill plays the dad who kidnapped him who's been making Brisby Bear for all these years. It's it's really great, and it's really frustrating because I think I'd walked out of the cinema and immediately was like, that's an all timer, but no one has seen it.
So not only haven't I seen it, Usually you know films, I don't think we've had a film that's been mentioned on this podcast where I've gone, oh, yeah, I'm aware. I'm aware of roughly what that's about, or who might be in or when it was made. But I have there's very little traction on the old rector scale over here that sounds phenomenal.
I don't really know why that is.
I saw it at the Melbourne International Film Festival, and I know it came out like in wider release here, but it just I don't know why it never quite got that foothold, because it's one of those rare films where I walked out of the cinema and when I've truly never seen anything like that, Like it's such a unique style and story and yeah, I really would love you to watch it and then hear what you think on my podcast that I'm going to start where I
get a guest on every week who's never seen Brigsby Bear.
Every week, I just talk about the same movie with a different I mean.
God Montgomery might have a word to you, but well, I will definitely watch it, and I'll also I will trade you a film that I think you would also love if you love Brigsby Bear. There's a film that I saw, In fact, I probably saw it at the Melton International Film Festival as well, won the Palm Dior in nineteen ninety five and Kahn and it's a film called Underground, and it's a Serbian film about some black market kind of profiteers during World War Two who basically
on the run. So they go they dig underground and they they start living underground and they stay there for years and years and years until they they're having their own community. They have babies are born underground, but one of them stays above ground, one of them, you know, stays underground. And then there's got a little bit of a love triangle. There's reasons why one's keeping the other.
He's just pretending the war is still going to keep the keep his mate underground so he could basically have the have the woman the.
Both are in love with so it's it's it's not it's got some amusing.
Things about and it's very extremely stylistic, but it's an incredible film.
Okay, great, Yeah, so I have to check it out.
We'll do it. We'll do a trade Brings Me Bear and Underground because the last.
Thing I recommended to you was the the Economy Archy food court when you're in Hiroshima, and I remember you getting giving me a good response back to that. So hopefully Brings Me Bear lives up to the lofty expectations that I've set with my recommendations.
That was a brilliant recommendation. If you're ever in Tokyo, if you're had any over the Olympics, Olympians.
Get there, car bload Cake.
I saw who framed Roger Rabbit as a school excursion. What a cool school excursion and that was. And for those who may be too young, explain how like how massive this was when this kind of and how revolutionary this was when it was released.
Yeah, like so many things about it, like the technology behind it quote unquote technology because it's all basically done by hand. But it's a hybrid live action two D animated film where cartoon characters exist in the real world. They're they're actors who are employed, and these and the cartoons that you see are actually filmed, and so yeah, they filmed it live and then they took the film
cells and just drew over the top of them. So it's like very rudimentary technique compared to today, but not
just the technology behind it. But there's a scene in it where Donald Duck and Daffy Duck are doing like a dueling pianos thing in a nightclub, like the kind of like nightclub acts on the side of being in these films, and just that at the time would have been huge, Like it's probably it probably doesn't quite have the same impact in a time now where like you know, Disney owns like one hundred different companies, so you know, if they wanted to make a film where Donald Duck
and the Ewoks go on a road trip with up Poo from The Simpsons, they could.
Just make that happen.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, But like the amount of tech like legal wrangling they must have had to do to get that that one scene off the ground.
How did that feel seeing it in the cinema at the time.
I was amazing And I probably just want I'm not sure how much worker Poo's getting these days, but it was, it was so exciting, and that's you know, that's where you know, my love of movies I think came from, like those the memories of going to the cinema with you know, friends, and that was where I've got to go with all my friends because we went on a bus into the city to see this movie that we're all completely amped about. Yeah, and it was it was incredible,
Like the technology was incredible. We all came out with crushes on Jessica Rabbit. Absolutely, you know, it was the best cartoon character of all time. And and you're right that that that Donald the Daffy Duck and Dougs Bunny dueling kind of pianos was. It's a bit almost the cartoon animated equivalent of my Robert de Niro and al Pacino in Heat, right.
Yeah, yeah, it's I mean, I remember renting it at the video store and being drawn to it because it's you know, there's cartoons on the cover and the fact
that it's live action blending looked really cool. But then it's also it's so dark, and it's kind of an intense film at times too, and that thing where like I don't know how old you were when you saw it, but I remember it had that great thing where it's very funny and there's cartoons in it, but there's a point where you feel like, oh, this is I'm not meant to be watching this, Like the like the end with Christopher Lloyd is just so like traumatizing.
And like scary, you know what I mean, Like that great thing when you're a.
Kid where you feel like you've snuck into something that you're not you're not quite ready to be watching yet, but you've somehow gotten away with it.
Yeah, And I wonder, I must say, I don't have a clear memory of this, of this exactly, but I I wonder if the teachers were like going, oh this, should we have taken them the seat? Maybe we should have checked this film out first, like it's not Yeah, it's not a complete cartoon.
I'm sure there was heaps of that when it came out. Yeah, would have been very misleading and this problem and this is like before the time where it's like, oh, cartoons can be for adults as well, Like there's no there's no Simpsons or anything like that.
So yeah, it would have been a fair assumption to just see a cartoon character and go, oh, this is a kid's movie.
Ratatuy Pixar is it's one of the it's one of the ones.
It sometimes gets a bit lost in the you know, now, Pixar's got such an amazing canon of work now, but Radatuy I remember seeing it when it came out. I always try to see the Pixar movies as soon as they come out, and it's a great it's a great film.
It gets for me, it gets, you know.
When I think of Pixar films, my favorite ones are usually you know, the Wali's and Inside Out, But yeah, Toy Story emotionally is the one I go to, you know, from a just from a gut emotional But tell us about RATATOUI.
Yeah, Radatui I think is probably still my favorite pixel And like putting together a top three list for the start of this is it was almost more stressful than the actual watching of the Shiny itself.
Yeah, it's like, well, what do you want to do? Do you want to put?
Like?
I think there's films that are like maybe technically better made than the ones that are on my list, But I think the last year, especially has driven home the importance of like a comfort food film, right and all of these were that for me where in the lockdown, Like my girlfriend hadn't seen any of these and so I was like, great, put these on, you'll love it.
And it's also it's just going to be a fun, enjoyable watch.
That are you know, these films that are safe and comforting when there's not a lot of that going on.
But right at TUI. I was pretty interested in when it got announced because I was a big fan of Patton Oswalt at the time, and I just thought it was really cool that this, like then relatively obscure stand up comedian was getting to be a voice in a Pixar film.
I just thought that was so cool and like, yeah, I love the premise. I thought it seemed really interesting and funny. Like I remember when the trailers came out, I knew a lot of people who were like, this.
Doesn't make sense. They got a rat that's that's cooking, Like this is such a dumb premise for a film, And I was like, what what picks? What have you been taking away from these other Pixar films, Like literally the first thing that happens in all of them is that a desk lamp comes to life and crushes a little bouncy all like, what am I going? Insane? But so I saw it in I was in.
America when it came out, and this was back when our pix up films would come out kind of three months later here in Australia, and I was in New York and I'd gotten food poisoning almost immediately, and I had spent this my first time in I was twenty one,
I was traveling by myself for the first time. I was so excited to be in New York and I was just like in bed with just this like awful food poisoning for a week, and my last day there, I finally started to feel a bit better and the only thing I could handle doing was going to the cinema and Ratatui.
Had just come out.
So I think that's part of like I was just so happy to be doing anything, and like I just found the film like so wonderful and joyous, and I think that like is a big part of why it's in my head as this like really positive thing, because I just.
Dragged myself out of bed and I had this great time and I was getting to see this film a few months before it came out in Australia. Like, yeah, I think that's why it's so intrinsically linked in my head. As it's old timer.
It's not always it's not always about what those three films about what's.
On the screen.
You're absolutely You're right, it's it's sometimes it is about and even whether it's your top three or not. I have such a very similar kind of vibe with Cable Guy because because I saw it. I remember my dad took me into work and sorry into the city and I had had an appointment. It might have been like a dental appointment, but then I had something else and I had like that three hours in between. I didn't really know how to, you know, spend my time in
the city at that age. You know, I seventeen and sixteen seventeen, and I saw a Cable Guy was on and I love Matthew Broderick. I've got to say I wasn't a massive Jim Carrey fan at that stage.
For some reason. He kind of annoyed me the mark.
I'd never seen the mask, and even it just kind of I wasn't a massive fan of that really heightened, I mean Eric and comedy, I kind of for whatever reason, and I saw it despite my feelings about Jim Carrey, and it completely changed my mind on who Jim Carrey is and what he's capable of.
And you've had, like your experience with the cable guys like the exact opposite to like everyone else on the planet.
Exactly because you're a big roderick.
Head, and it turned you the right way around on Gary like.
And there are so many people who hate that film, like who don't into it was too because very it's very dark for you know, for a comedy and for a Jim Carrey comedy at the time.
But it's so it's so good.
Written and directed by Ben Stiller, one of Owen Wilson's maybe his first appearance, and Jack Black one of Jack Black's early ones as well. It's it's if you haven't seen it, it's great.
Guy's incredible. It's so good.
It's a good Leslie Man one of her first that's where jad Apatao and Leslie Man Matt the now married for almost since then.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's a crazy but a lot of it has to do with me kind of. I think you also whether yeah, you saw it at a cinema or hey, you saw it. Sometimes it's that the films that surprise you, right almost like you discovered I suspect brings me bear.
A lot of it is that, ah, there's a sense of pride. You saw that film and now you've become like an ambassador.
Oh absolutely, yeah, yeah, yeah, And especially when you see something at a film festival and like it's like a very wanky thing to say, but like you got in early and you feel like you're you know, often those films are they're on at a film festival for a bit, and then six months later they're on it like the Nova Cinema or a bit wider at Lease, and you get to be the one being like, oh, everyone's got to check this out.
Like I got in and I had no expectation.
But like the other thing about Ratato just very quickly that that I really what I remember, like really loving about it is the specifically the end where they talk a lot about criticism and the role of the critic compared to the role of the art.
That they're criticizing.
And I mean I was pretty early on, in relatively early on in doing comedy at the time well, I mean according to my Wikipedia, but at.
That age we've been doing comedy for about eight years or something.
But yeah, I just you know, I was pretty new into like doing the festivals and stuff and dealing with like putting so much work into something and then maybe getting like a bad review and that line at the end of Ratiitu where the critic is like, as a critic, we have to deal with the fact that even the worst thing that we review still holds more artistic merit than anything that we will ever produce, just in the cinema, Like, yes, and.
I always find it it's such a tough line to straddle.
I think when a writer and then a director or an actor you know, tackles the idea of criticism on screen or on stage as well, because it is it's vexed and it's there's emotional loading in that. So to get it right without appearing to be like fuck you all your garbage critics, which you know a lot of us feel like that many times. But there are there are good critics, you know, there are there are reasonable critics, so you know, so to get that right I think is impressive.
It's tricky, yeah, and I mean it does feed into the actual story that they're telling in that film, and it's just it's so funny to have a film that is ostensibly a kid's film that has this big chunk that's just teeing off on arts critics, which is just like such an adult thing.
Like, but it's what Pixar does so well.
I mean, you know, I remember seeing the very first Toy Story in the cinema, yeah, by myself, and and and that was because I just heard that it was kind of revolutionary as far as the artwork goes, and you know, Pixar was a Pixar. Then it was just you know, it was just this movie was coming out and just going wow that this is this is I really I really really enjoyed that. And then I think they made the sequels and Monster's Ink might have been
the next new film I think they did. But you could just tell there was something else going on in those films that it wasn't just it wasn't just for kids, setting us at play here.
And Disney had kind of lost their sheen a little bit around that point. They'd sort of lost the magic touch, so it was just right for another company to kind of get in and do what they had been doing so well at the peak of their powers. But I think they did it with a bit more of an accessible like a lot more in it for adults than the than the than the Disney Golden Age films kind of tended to have.
I got to chat to Pete Doctor for about an hour, like last year during lockdown for a festival here in Melbourne. It was online and the makers of Soul, the latest sound, the Pixar film, and I'm not sure. I'm sure if you put in Peter Halley, your Peak Doctor in you'll
be able to find it. But I really just set up some questions for him, and but they listen to him, even if it's not that interview, but they listen to Peak Doctor talking about creativity and his story is quite inspiring for anyone who wants to getting to writing or just even to understand picks our films more and to know the person behind.
Him, because he's he is incredible.
I mean those some of those scenes inside Out, you know where you got the elephant, Yeah, the visible friend who when they're stuck at the bottom and it's just heartbreaking, and again they have these you know, these things happening in kids films is.
Like, yeah, and I'd like to have had such huge success and to now be owned by Disney and you know all that kind of stuff. And they, you know, like anyone, they still have their they still have their slight missteps, but they're still pretty consistently. I thought Soul was great, Like they're still pretty regularly delivering the goods like that, Like all their films are still.
Worth checking out.
Which there's not too many companies that get to the size that they have and the and have the revered status that they have that are still able to, you know, do such a consistently great job.
I would love to have Pixars missteps.
I would love them, right yeah, Like yeah, if the worst thing that you've done is like Monsters university level, that's that's pretty admirable.
Let's let's reasonably sharply change gears from Pixar to Stanley Kubrick's nineteen eighty classic The Shining starring Jack Niggson, Shelley Devell, and Daddy Lloyd. It's so, I'd seen this film years ago. It freaked me out a little bit, gave me the heavy gbis, But I like this, did you enjoy it?
I did?
Enjoy it. Yeah, So when did you see it?
I wouldn't, I reckon, I would have seen it as a late teenager, I.
Think, okay, right, Yeah, It's it's funny looking it up last night, because I think that's a bit of a part of why it had taken.
Me so long to get around to it.
It feels like any film like this that sort of looms so large culturally that you you can't just watch the film like you then have to like go and like do all the reading about it, and you can't just chuck it on for two hours and ago, well that's me done. It's like, no, it's it's had an influence on culture in the like forty years since it was made. Like, you've got to you've got to dig in a little bit. You've got to do some extra reading on it.
It's like watching Mayor of Easttown and then going, let's watch Monsters University.
Yeah, the prequel to Mayor of East Town where it goes into what that priest was doing before.
Into the town, which is project.
Yeah. No, I did.
I did really enjoy it, but it's it's again, it would have been awesome to see it back in the day before you know, like a lot of things before just piecing it together going like, oh right, that's that bit from that Simpson's episode. It's because, yeah, I don't think that you some some things from this long ago.
You do have to sit down and you know you have to watch it with the with the eye of you know, putting yourself in that era and going like, you know, this, this isn't going to feel like a film from today.
I'm sure that's something that comes up pretty regularly on this show.
But and someone said that to me before I watched it, that you know, you got to you got to really go in, you know, remembering that it came out in nineteen eighty. But I really don't think you'd have to give it too many concessions because like this style of film, the sort of suspenseful horror film, feels like it has.
Come back around a bit more to being made in this kind.
Of way where for a while they're all horror was like very bombastic, or it was like the sort of you know, sadistic torture style stuff of SA or whatever. But I don't think this is the pacing and the feel of this is a million miles away from something like Get out in terms of similar builds and then kind of all letting loose at the end.
But most of both of those films are like you going, oh, what's what's going on here?
Yeah?
No, absolutely, I mean I think that's a really good, good reference to it. And what's amazing for me is how and this has come up with lots, but particularly films around the seventies, and this is obviously nineteen eighty, but how they don't give you all the details. They don't like they're very quickly get in or they come in late and they get out early.
You know, Yeah, you're right, the very idea.
In this film, we don't know really anything about Jack Nicholson's or Jack and Wendy's Matt. We do learn a little bit that it's you know, it's not a great marriage, but we're not sure when Jack turns, and this is the film works for me. But I think, and this is what was one of Stephen King's issues with it, is that when Jack turns, we're not sure if he's just been an asshole from the beginning, or if he's actually if this hotel is having its way with him
in these moments. So I mean the fact that he takes the job. You know, like, what did you what did you say? Listen, sweet, I'm going to take this job. It's it's not you know, it's going to be pretty lonely, and I'll do it. I'll get some writing done. You and Danny stay here, I'll send the checks home.
And yeah, because why you'd invite them along. It's like this is such a bummer hanging for the rest of the family.
Yeah, yeah, so you kind of go, okay, is he's not a very thoughtful husband. At the most generous you could say, he's not a thoughtful husband. And then pretty quickly he starts he starts turning like there.
You know. In fact, we might.
Play the scene where he's working away and his wife Wendy comes in just to check on him, offer bringing some sandwiches. And let me say, if I reacted like this, it's a bridge on you. When she offered me sandwiches, you know, the blood might be coming out of my neck, to be honest. So let's have a little listen to this scene.
Come on, huh, they'll be so grouchy. I'm not being grouchy. I just want to finish my work. Okay, I understand.
I'll come back later on with a couple of sandwiches for you, and maybe you'll let me read something.
Then, Wendy, let me explain something to you.
Whenever you come in here and interrupt me, you're breaking my concentration, you're distracting me. And then well then taking time to get back to where I works understand.
Yeah, fine, and we're going to make a new rule.
Never I'm in here, you hear me typing, whether you don't hear me typing with them, the fuck you.
Hear me doing in here?
When I'm in here, that means that I am working. That means don't come in How do you think you can handle that?
Yeah?
Fine, why don't you start right now and get the fuck out of here?
Not nice manners.
I'm sure there's many like a narcissistic like creative type who's seen that bit in the film and gone, see, yes, that's what it's like.
Hegets it is missing the point.
Well, I honestly, if you, if you took this out of it, I've often thought about how what a selfish profession writing and yeah, even what we do a comedy.
Can be.
You do have to you do have to create time and space and sometimes that can be at the expense of, you know, being around your loved ones, that the birthday party is the weddings that you miss because you're on tour. You know, you know this is an extreme but I do wonder if Stephen King and Steve mc kubrick saw this as a comment on the selfishness of you know, that profession.
It's funny, like, yeah, every now and then someone will talk about another comedian and they'll be like, oh, yeah, it's a bit of a narcissist, and it's like, yeah, of course, Like it's a profession of people that think that they're the funniest person in any given room that they're in life.
But narcissis is like the baseline of the profession, right, But there's.
That funny story where well not funny story, but anecdote, where is it that scene or the scene later was kind of Nicholson's idea where he he was telling Kubrick about he basically had that experience where he was like trying to write something and him blowing up at his first wife and he's.
Like, yeah, that scene was my idea. It's like, why'd you ever admit that?
I certainly heard the read that he that there was some some lines within that scene that that he had lived and brought to it, But I wasn't aware that there was the whole scene.
But you're right, yeah, keep those cards close to your chest.
Yeah, I mean, this is this is the era where you could just be a real piece of work on set and it's like, even if it does get out, it's not gonna there's no there's no clapback culture, there's no like, which I I think definitely works in Kubrick's favor if you if you read into some of the stuff about him with yeah pretty sorry.
So yeah, so the reports and she Devo was openly spoken about, and that as is Jack Nicholson saying that Shelley Deval was treated pretty horribly well, you know, certainly kept on edge and almost a nervous breakdown.
She was losing clumps of hair during this.
Because you know, it is this that I want to start telling people that I was in a Kubrick film.
How many, Tommy, how many?
I was the little boy. I was a little boy, and I was so traumatized.
You were Tony the actual your finger. But it's you know, it is that kind of and I hope this. I think this style of directing has.
Gone away where you kind of you you just treat an actor, you know, with disdain and you know, disrespect to elicit a performance out of them. Like the idea should be that you hire an actor who is good enough to get themselves into whatever state you need them to be for that scene without being manipulated. And you know, I mean, Shelly developed in a couple of years ago did an interview where she goes, I still suffer trauma from there, and weekly she says she doesn't regret the experience, and.
Right, I mean, that's what's hard about it, right, is the people who went through those kinds of experiences with in whatever sort of creative leadership role they're in, they do often talk about like, yeah, but it meant that I got to have a part in this thing that is now incredibly revealed, revered and and will be for you know, basically forever.
So I wouldn't change it, but it is.
It's a shame because like watching the film, like you go into the film, you know, seeing it now and all you've heard over the years is it's one of the great performances from Jack Nicholson, and.
He is fantastic in it.
But I always feel like any roles that get built up where the person, generally a male actor, is playing like a complete psycho, I kind of think that that's sort of easy because you've just got so much to work with and you get to have fun, like you get to you just get to run around and be mental.
Not to say that there's no skill behind it, but I think that the sort of role that Shelley Devol is doing in this film is way harder than the sort of role that Jack Nicholson is doing, because you've got to just react and scream and look terrified for this hour and a half thing and have it be believable and probably feel a bit silly when you're just in a room that he's not even in and you're just screaming, Like, I think that's way more challenging, and
you get far less credit and you know, legacy.
From doing the role that she did.
And Jack Nicholson, funnily enough, made a very similar point he and he was he wanted I think Jessica Lang casts in this role that Kubrick wanted Shelley Deval and but at the end, Jack Nixon said he thinks it's it's it's one of the finest performances he's seen from an actress, but.
Also that one of the toughest, like the lenks she went to.
And I guess he's probably referring to some of the treatment at Kubrick's hand, but he really respected the performance of Shelley Devel put out there under those circumstances and probably also recognizing that that can be a thankless role, right, you know, being the woman in distress, but she gives it more than that, Like she's also got this kind of like one of my favorite roles to see on the film is that kind of lioness when the mother just becomes the lion ness and you know, I'm going
to do anything it takes to protect you know, my kid, and.
And you know I love that to it as well.
Yeah yeah, yeah, but just think back to because the idea in Stephen King's book is that the role of Jack is somebody more sympathetic. So and then you see that the hotel is the one that kind of starts
turning turning that character. And I do agree with him, even though I do enjoy this film, but I just think I was a bit confused it's going so is he an asshof and the get go is he And I think it would have been really good to see him have a better relationship with his family and seem like, I think it's more powerful if it's a good guy who's turned bad as opposed to somebody who's already halfway there.
Right, because that was his big That's King's big criticism is that he thinks that Nicholson was miscast because Nicholson comes in and he's already got the manic look. So from the get go you're like, what the hell is up with this guy? Which is which yeah, is completely fair, Like it would play completely differently like yeah, you get the sense with this that he early on is just a he's already unhinged and he's just looking for an
excuse to just snap and go wild. There's a there's a thing that I read that when he's in there, when he's waiting to go into the job interview, that he's he's reading a playgirl magazine and Kubrick's so like detail oriented that nothing that's you know, no, no small
thing like that is in there by accident. And there's a thing that I think that issue of Playgirl had an article about incest in it, which people think is meant to suggest that there's been some kind of like abuse of Danny in that regard.
But then also the other thing is like what kind of job leaves a Playgirl magazine as reading material in the waiting room. So the other thing is like that's a bit of a clue of like that this is like a weird place, Like that's meant to set you up for that.
Jump jump into it.
But so there's so many theories about this film, and because is such a detail director, everything gets looked at, from the books that are right sitting on desks, to artwork on the walls, the carpet, the patterns of carpet, and there is I mean, it's mentioned in the film that this was you know this.
The hotel was built on an old never ho a burial site.
So and then there's there's a certain artwork on the wall that kind of backs that up as far as this may be the curse of the hotel may come from from the fact that that happened. But yeah, the one of the big theories which I've never picked up when I first watched it, and it was only doing a bit of deep diving last night. This this is what you mentioned, this, this whole thing of there may have been a sexual abuse happening between Jack and Danny,
and it's it's that Playboy. I think it's played Girl magazine. Yeah, you obviously haven't for detail for those things.
Yeah, the film, the film took. The film took six hours to watch because I paused on that bit.
I was going through frame by frame with my girlfriend, like just I think it's going to give us a deeper enjoyment.
I'm pretty sure I've got that addition. Actually, I think it's signed as well.
But then because then there's that really weird bet scene where Shelley Devaul is running through the hotel and she sees basically what we would refer to, I believe now as a plushy somebody dressed up as a bear costume appearing to give a blowjob to an older man. Yeah, and then if you so, what's been pointed that if you earlier on when I think Danny's been a doctor saying to him and he's actually is in.
A T shirt and he's underwear, but he's lying on a bear rug.
And there's and there's another kind of photo of a bear, I think in the cub above his bed.
So there's just these little kind of.
Things are tied together because and the fact is that bear was maybe the weirdest.
Thing in the film. If it doesn't mean anything, it's just purely weird.
And maybe this is supposed to be weird and subversive or something, but but Kubrick doesn't just do that for for kicks.
You know, everything does get tidy, and so I can't of suspect that it's true. And then when you when you think back to the scene where he's on the lap, you know, he calls him in the sit on his lap, and that's that was That was one of the more tense scenes for me.
And that was before I kind of had, you know, kind of started reading about the possible sexual abuse of Danny, but that scene just from a the tension in that scene for me was Danny almost getting his innocently putting his mum in the pathway of the of the hurricane in the way by kind of saying, you know, innocently, you'll never hurt you know, mum, And I would you? And he's like, no, what did your mum tell you
to say that? Or did you has your mum been saying something and you just think, you know, whether he's crazy or not. At this stage, it's like that, Okay, the hurricane is now you know, going to going to head towards Wendy.
Yeah, because it's already it's it's explicitly stated in the film that the Jack's gotten drunk and.
Physically abused Danny. Right, That's that's early on, so that that's.
Kind of like on the record in the film, So it's not a huge stretch to assume that there's there's more going on other than just what the film tells you. And yeah, again, it does just feed into that thing of it makes him such a different character right to there, because one of the first things you hearing is like, oh, this guy got blind drunk and hit his kids. So it's like already just a completely an unsympathetic character who
you know you're not. Yeah, it does change where you're not you don't feel you're not really watching him go as mad because it's like, this guy's already just a just an awful person.
And maybe it's not Kubrick.
Maybe it was Kubrick's point, the idea that you know, if he was and I'm not sure how much of that the abuse, you know, Danny's is in Stephen King's book Feel Free let us know.
He has any podcast at gmail dot com.
But but I wonder if he knows, if he's in his head that Jack has abused, actually abused Danny, then he's not probably looking for ways to lighten him.
Up at the start and make it so connected. Perhaps you know, yeah, I mean.
That's got to be.
That's got to be brutal for Stephen King, Like you write this book and then then the director comes along and takes your character and goes, yeah, he's a pedophile.
I've just made him a pedophile.
So it's.
My character, my vin character, my innocent Jack.
I think the film looks like how do you as as the esthetic goes, because it's kind of like contained in this in this mansion, which doesn't outside the carpet.
We've all been in hotels with with a weird cover.
But it's it's it's not It didn't feel particularly dated with me, like, besides, you know, Wendy's smoking at the breakfast table and then not wearing a seat belt as they go by, you.
Know, precarious cliffs. It felt like it hadn't aged a lot with me.
I know you're kind of reference you know, as far as get Out, and I think you're probably talking about more the vibe of the horror and and and all the.
Other pacing and stuff. But yeah, yeah, visually, I mean, yeah, it's that's the benefit of if you set something in a in a in just basically one location that's that's already meant to look pretty dated at the era that this film is said, it kind of makes it a bit evergreen again to reference the Simpsons, Like the Simpsons in its heyday was parodying stuff from fifteen years ago that was already like you know, I'm cool when they were parodying it. So it's like it's never going to date.
And yeah, I'd love to see this. This is a weird thing to think, but I would love to see Where's Anderson do a remake of the Shining because like this the actual like the kind of weird dated opulence of the hotel. It is a bit like Grand Buddapest, Like you can imagine him just getting a setting like that and just really you know, getting his jollis off with that environment.
That exterior shot of like, yeah, that's the exact same thought came into my head. Not necessarily I like to see the remake, but it's like, surely this played a part in We's Anderson's thinking for the grandpa to pest hotel.
Yeah, We's Anderson, and he does it.
He does one of his little stop motion film where it's like a little a little puppet Jack going insane. Have you seen the YouTube video about the guy who points out how just like none of the architecture makes sense.
Yeah, so the idea that the manager's office, Yeah, in fact, that there's a window at the bat that looks appears to be looking outside because there's trees out there geographically as far as architecturally would be in the middle of the hotel.
Yeah, someone's put it together and there's like there's hallways that don't make sense. But then there's someone who worked on the film in I think twenty twelve was asked about it in an interview and they're like, no, that's yeah, that was deliberate. It's meant it's meant to feel like the hotel is sort of you know, it's meant to make you feel like you're going crazy, And it's like, twenty twelve is such a long time after the fact
to address that. It's like, that's the most convenient, Like if you're making a psychological horror film, it's like the most convenient thing to go.
No, this era, it's it's meant to be in there. It's you know, it's yeah, that's deliberate.
I mean we're already obviously spoken about Kubrick and nothing's by chance. That feels a bit like when anticipate the arrival of Internet nerds.
Yeah, absolutely, something like that.
I don't imagine because yeah, unless you were shooting in the actual hotel and so what like it did all make sense, Like I can't imagine that's something you'd ever really think about too deeply back in the day.
I love the the Danny's is it a tricycle or I'm sure what those things that he rides around on. Let's call it a trick. What a great what a great tool one to give us a tour of the hotel. Yeah, you know, in a really kind of fun, fun way. But the way they use the sound design when he's on floorboards, yes, then onto the carpet, back onto the floorboards, back onto the carpet, and it's just sound design almost like a muted drum roll.
He's on the floorboards. It's it's so good.
Yeah, it looks great.
Was that?
And again that was that's parodied in like I think, I think an episode of Family Guy, I remember that. I mean, this is a film where plenty of films have like one kind of bit that's iconic, that sort of sticks out. But this film, like nearly every scene has some element to it that has just become so iconic in the last forty years, like nearly every shot has become referenced in some way or another.
Yeah, well culture, I mean, you know, his Johnny is probably the you know, the the most quitable, which is apparently an ad lib line from Jack Nificent and Kubrick, who based himself in England and didn't really fly much because he had a fear of flying, made most of his films, if not all, in England. The studio where this was shot also Empire Strikes Back was shot there. I think this because when overtime it held up filming on Raiders of the Bust Dark.
He didn't I'd like how he he didn't show up to when they were filming the opening, like the opening scene where they're like driving through the mountains. Yeah, Krubrick just didn't rock up because he's like, doesn't Yeah, it doesn't want to leave England, which is which is crazy.
It's like the first the first bit of your movie that people are seeing. You're like, nah, someone else can handle this, and it does.
And they shot that aren't using a helicopter. This is obviously pre drones, so they basically strapped the camera to a helicopter. And and you know, I'll tell you what if you didn't have the music, if you had a bit of Dave Dobbin there, that's a New Zealand tourist campaign, a spice of heaven.
I mean, there is.
Something unreal about this, Like i'minous score and then seeing the name Scatman Cruthers come up in huge Players, I could not feel like it's slightly undermined the vibe.
What a great name, a great performance, Scatman, Scatman Ruthers plays, He's so good and he plays hollerin and I want to put an ode make it sound irish but hand And apparently he was also quite traumatized by the amount of takes the Stanley Kubrick would make him do, like often a hundred takes and will get quite emotional.
I was just watching a little bit.
There's some great documentaries online about the making of the Shining that Vivian Kubrick did and some great behind the scenes stuff. But and there's an interview where he with let's call him the Scatman and asking him what was
like the work of young Danny. He has tears welling up in his eyes and he makes the point, he goes that he's a happy tears, but you do wonder like if, like Shelley Develle, he's also experienced some you know, some trauma, no like with Scatman, because he like just obviously it was bringing up a lot of emotional memories. And this is done at the time, so and he's on the record, and it's on the record that he was quite traumatized by the amount of takes Kubrick would
make him do. The next film he does is with Clint Eastwood, and Clint Eastwood's is the opposite he's famous doing if you get anything, one take, you get any one take and we move on. And apparently he did his first take and he basically cried and just just had a gratitude, almost broke down and gratitude of saying thank thank God. And you would like going from a film where you are doing one hundred takes, yeah, of scenes where you kind of think, surely we have this.
Like we spoke about Full Metal Jacket.
There's a scen where they're mopping the floors and they did like sixty it's a short little scene they did like sixty sixty takes of that baseball bat scene.
Is is that it's in the Guinness Book of World Records. It's like the most number of takes, like one hundred and twenty seven takes or something like that.
Yes, that's right.
Yeah, assume that's.
Still current because it's again, this is a thing where you just now, you wouldn't get away with this. You wouldn't get like, yeah, you wouldn't get Judd Apatow going now boys, sorry, Seth, you got to do that laugh four hundred times, so we know we've got the right one.
Yeah. And I I was chatting with the police of McCune about it and in the Full Metal Jacket episode, and because you get my instinct is like that's ridiculous. Surely.
My attitude was like, well, cribbage. Obvio was having a bad day and he's, oh, he doesn't know. He doesn't want to move on to the next setup for whatever reason. But we kind of maybe stumbled upon the point. Maybe it's about putting the actors in an emotional state again, which he seems to like to do. So it's not
about getting the perfect tait. He probably knows he's got the perfect take in take twelve, or he's got it by take twelve, but for whatever reason, he wants the actors to be in an emotional state for the next scene that he's going to film, or even sure, yeah, in five days time, we're going to be shooting another scene, and I want you know, I wanted the frustration.
Yeah, you want people to be like genuinely exhausted and worn down. I mean I can also see it in the sense of, like, you know, doing stand up you can never have the perfect gig right, so you know, you feel like you've you know, everything can be going completely right and you can have a great one, but you can there'll still be like one little thing where you're like, ah, I could see that one person in the front row didn't love that bit as much as it So I sort of can understand it in that
sense a little bit. It's like, no, it's still not quite because he also with this, I mean, I think Kubrick's just a weird guy in general, but like this, the shining is off the back of him having had a big bomb, right, So yes, So so he's he's presumably coming into this being like this one's got to be dynamite like this, this one's got to get my got to save my reputation a little bit and make money.
Yeah, we have talk reckon.
We obviously talked about two thousand and one and the Clockwork Orange and and the Shining and Full Metal Jacket.
But you know, there are films that you know, along the way.
That that didn't go you know, he wasn't he wasn't necessarily hit factory, and even a lot of these films weren't necessarily you know, critically acclaimed when they were released or big box office, you know, clock of Orange, you know, I think was was taken off screens right.
In was the US.
I think them in the US because I think and I think Kubrick did it because there was a spate of like almost imitation kind of crimes, you know, and then he felt guilty about that, so he actually took took it off screens, didn't it didn't reappear it was even in the UK or the US, and didn't repeat in that country until like, you know, years, almost like a decade later.
Finally if he did the same thing with this, like too many people are convinced they can write a novel.
Now we got to what if I created? But he did change. He recut this after it had already been out for a weekend. Right, he changed the ending.
Oh is that right? I didn't know that.
Yeah, it had been out for a weekend, and he took this whole ending scene out.
But the here we go, So it's not uncommon for a film's ending the changing pace production, but Kubrick he changed the ending of the film after been playing in theaters for a weekend. The film version is lost, but pages from the screenplay do exist, and the scene that takes place after Jack dies in the snow, Olman visits Wendy in the hospital. Yes, I did read actually I did see that in one of the behind the scenes stoccos. So yeah, yes, he visits a Wendy in the hospital.
So that's that's gone now, so.
Yeah, and the and the they say that A.
Copp had gone over the over the place of the fine tooth comb, and they didn't find the slightest evidence of anything at all out.
Of the ordinary.
That's the film meens with text over black. The Overlook Hotel would survive this tragedy, as it had so many others. It is still open each year from May twentieth to September twentieth. It is closed for the winter, but.
To end on.
Yeah, it's funny though, isn't it, Because I can imagine why that makes sense. It's why I keep saying about these films of this era where they just get out early, Like yeah, with Jaws, they kill the shark, they basically they swim back and we don't even see the celebratory kind of reunion with the loved ones. It's just like, you know, we're the film's over. The credits are rolling before they make it back to short And I kind of love that, like.
I sort of especially you know a lot of films now there's this expectation that they'll go for two hours minimum, and you've had a good time and then everything's wrapped up and you get in there. Here's one year later and we're all hanging out it's like I'm just mentally checked out. I'm already in the car on the way home.
Like, yeah, I think we've all been burnt by Peter Jackson's Return of the King.
What did you do?
You feel like you have a handle on what the shining.
Is?
Yeah, it's like it's basically telepathy, right, It's you can you can read minds, and I guess in Danny's case, he can he no, he, I mean he can see into the past because all the stuff he's seeing is stuff.
That's happened in the in the hotel previously.
Yes, and he And also this idea that the hotel also has. It's it's not just people who can have the shining that if the hotel is kind of drawing people into it.
Yeah, I mean I have to admit that final shot where it's the it's the very old photo from the forties, and I think it is yeah.
All right, sorry, yeah, nine twenty one and Nicholson's just in it in the center. I thought that was really cool, but I did have to go and look it up and think about it afterwards because I was like, I don't really quite get what this is, what this is meant to mean?
What this is symbolizing.
Yeah, So I think one of the pivotal scenes is actually takes place in the bathroom when the waiter spills drinks on Jack and they go to the bathroom, and then he recognizes the name earlier when the manager has said that about the groundskeeper who went crazy and he gives him a name, which that name escapes me right now to say it Stasoloe. So he recognizes the surname, but it's not the first he has a different first name,
and it's this idea that he's they've both been there forever. Basically, I think is that there's there's a reincarnation I think element that goes on. I don't think they're saying that that's Jack as we know him now, because we assume this this is taking place in modern day, which is nineteen eighty in the film, and he's nineteen twenty one and he looks slightly younger. But there's a like a reincarnation element, so that the person went crazy was a distant relative of that waiter.
Yeah, which is slightly strange because you the whole build up to it is like, Okay, there's something going on with this kid, and he's doing the thing with the finger, and he's seeing all this stuff, and then you know, the guy takes him aside and it's like, hey, you've got this gift. You can you know, you can communicate, you can read thoughts and all this kind of stuff, and you go, Okay, something bad's going to happen here, and you know, maybe this kid is the center of it.
Maybe the kid is going to be in some way causing the bad stuff to happen. And then it's it's all of a sudden, it's just this like, yeah, this whole theme of Jack seeing these ghosts and this reincarnation idea, it's it's sort of this really sharp like kind of you turn away from what it's set you up to feel like the themes of it are going to be.
Yeah. I think it's a really good point.
I think, particularly when I saw it, and obviously you saw it sweet, but we've seen all those shows, you know, the Chucky and the Demonic Kids, and you know, yeah, and it feels like this. When I first saw it, I certainly thought that Danny was going to be the troublemaker, like he's the one who's going to cause all this carnage.
Yeah, I mean, him riding around is kind of creepy, like it's got this vibe of like sizing up the place.
Kind of thing.
Yeah.
Absolutely, so the fact that he has all these visions and he's got he's got his you know, Tony his voice, which is it's pretty creepy. But then you're right, it kind of like it's all it's all Jack that happens, and it seems to kind of like swing away from from Danny and it's and we don't see we don't really even see Jack have any of these visions really, like we you know, we see him have a dream,
but we don't see the dream. We don't Yeah, yeah, we don't see Jack get traumatized by the hotel really, which is I think really interesting.
But again, it happens so quickly, and it's like he's he just seems very willing and ready for this to happen, like yeah, he's almost into it, like he's just like he's just pumped, he's just gotten it. It just feels like this real dirt bag who's just like stoked that he's got an excuse to take the handbreak off and just really yeah, let loose.
Yeah, I completely agree. What did you make a room Chief thirty seven. What does Do you have any theories about what might have been going on there?
Yeah?
Again, I tend to watch things pretty kind of surface level. Really, I don't.
I'm not someone who kind of goes away from something and really digs into it. Again, I'm fine with stuff existing just purely because it's aesthetically interesting or it's a good vibe for the scene, and I think it just kind of does all those things without I didn't feel the need to kind of go away and pick it apart. I was just like, yeah, that was a cool scene. If that's the only reason it's in there, then I'm fine with that.
And I had a new lady in that You're sick.
Oh yeah, there is a neod lady in there, isn't there?
Yeah?
Right right?
Yeah, No, I've got a few theories about that element of it. If you want to hear it, maybe you're fair. I've done some drawings that I can use to help get the point across.
It was when I was reading about the actress who played that she hadn't been in the film before. I think she was a London model who hadn't been in an actress before. Was never in one sense, but apparently he was like loved basically, it was it was very happy to take out the take of you know, pashing Jack Nichols cinemas.
Very okay.
They offer her, like addressing Gammetwen takes, She'll be like, nah, I'm good, I'm good.
That's great.
The one person on set that's not traumatized by Cobrick, like getting to get it on with Jackie Boy.
Yeah, good on her.
It's funny how they the hotel wanted the because in the book it's Room two seventeen, and the actual, the real life hotel asked them to change it because they didn't want to put people off.
But then all these people just end up requesting Room to seventeen.
Yeah.
Anyway, Yeah, there's a big conspiracy theory where, you know, back in the day when conspiracy theories were fun, but that Kubrick made two thousand and one as a rehearsal to then film the fake moon landing.
Yeah.
So there's a doco about this called Room two three seven that I kind of only just found out about this morning, which sounds awesome.
I got to watch it.
Yeah, well I haven't seen that, check in with it and that's so the changing of two three seven means something about about the distance to the moon. But apparently the sums are all wrong, right, And Danny's wearing a Polo thirteen like or a rocket ship on his you know, his sweater, and there's some tang in the storage room and apparently I think that's what they had, you know, on the on the oh Man on the So there's a whole bunch of nutbag tinfoil stuff happening.
I love the idea of someone checking into room two seventeen in the real hotel and then call in the front desk and going, Hi, there's no nude woman in the bath in this hotel. I'd like to I'd like to request I be moved immediately.
And they're like, yeah, we haven't got the new woman in the bath. We have the older scavvy woman available, and we can send her up with the BLC if you like. But yeah, it's it's it's there's so much, you know, jump online, there's so many things. Mirrors are a big thing as well, the way they use mirrors
in this film. There's also that scene where the tennis ball kind of is rolled to Danny when he's playing with those toys and if you do notice if you look back the carpet, but the way it's it's it's patterned is is like he's there and he's got his has driving around the patterns, using them like little mini roads,
I guess. But then when the ball comes, the pattern changes and it's he's all of a sudden there's an opening with them gets closed off, which is just the attention of detail that kind of subliminately say that anyone who notices that now Danny is trapped.
Yeah, which is yeah, which is so interesting to put these little kind of small obscure details in because it is a film of such big performances that it's it's so like, that's what you're drawing the first time you watch it, that's all you're drawn to, because it is so bombastic.
In any other way.
But then to have all these other, like really really little minuscule things kind of dotted around it for the for the repeat viewing at a time when yeah, nineteen eighty, so what what's the home There's there's home media at that point, but certainly not to the extent of you know, this like freeze framing and this obsessive going back and noticing all the stuff, like who were they putting this stuff in for? That's that's what's so interesting about it.
Yeah, exactly.
And and I think one of the things it has touched on that doesn't date the film is that that lack of there's no phones.
They haven't got you know, like they've got the old speaker thing to the to the I guess the two A radio or whatever, rangers and all that.
But there's no There's a little bit of TV when Haller ends watching, when he starts getting the you know, the signals that that Danny might need help. But outside of that, there's there's very little stuff going on, you know. So it's quite a classic aesthetic.
What's the what's the Scapman brothers is on his bed and he's what's the like the picture that he's got behind him on his bed?
Is this this like big picture of a nude woman, isn't it?
Yeah, it's a new a new black woman. And above the TV there's another nude black woman. So like, I'm not I'm not sure if that's scap Man's wife or something. They're great, I mean they're great fights. If you have anyone, yeah, sent them my way. Yeah, I'm sure Bridge mind.
Merch.
It's merged from my favorite film.
It was either a lightsaber out of Star Wars or scatman for others.
Nude painting from his bedroom.
The I like the.
Story about how h Danny the finger thing was kind of his idea. So funny because they because he's.
Like five, they told him he was filming a drama and he comes in with this just like insane, like sadistic idea.
It's like, what.
Yeah, when I first saw the film, I was like, Oh, this is gonna like Tony is really going to be like the evil. Yes, he's going to read some habit. He's going to be about a little Tony. But it kind of what wasn't I think in the book that that representation is basically Danny's older self, like ten years into the future, like his older teenage self letting him know, like trying to guide him. I think, so it's again quite quite a quite a departure. What did you think
of the so We've got the maze? There was a great, a great sequence. You know, it looks amazing in the book, there's no there's no maze, but there are some hedge animals that come to life, right, which is, you.
Know, obviously a very different thing.
Also, the boiler, the boiler explodes and kind of burns the hotel down. Obviously that doesn't happen. But I like, I like Danny's nouse to kind of walk backwards in his footsteps to the trick. Yes, Jack, And I think I think there's probably a walking backwards kind of theme because Wendy's walking backwards with the axe, so with the baseball bat up the stairs as as she gets away from from Jack as well.
And I mean he can kind of see but you know, back into time, right, So that's kind of what gives him the heads up that this.
Is going to happen.
Yeah, absolutely, But what did you think? I think I almost chuckled the hard cut because it's so unexpected, but almost like the hard cut, when Jack sits down, when he's almost given up, he's like Danny has disappeared, and then he kind of see them jump in the snowmobile and into old mister plow and head off to take to the driveways of Springfield. Yeah, and then so Jack sits down, and then it's quite a hard cut to daylight to.
A frozen Jack. And my first thought was that's Prince Philip.
Yeah, I think that I hate to say it, like kind of the sting of that was taken out for me from The Simpsons because I so after watching this, I then went back and watched that whole Treehouse of Horror segment again and it's it's so like it's they've designed the backgrounds to look exactly the.
Same and all of that. But yeah, as soon as they went out into.
The snow, I just remembered that bit from The Simpsons where it's like and they do that same hard cut as well, where it's they're sitting there, they're watching the little portable TV and then it's the sound effect and so I kind of again, I think that's so like
of its time and so vibey. Like I would have loved to have seen that without the context of, you know, sort of knowing that it was coming, because like it's, yeah, it's great, Like it's so abrupt and weird, like and I don't think if you were making a scene like that now you would make it in that way.
But I think it's so it's so effective.
Yeah, And it's just it is amazing to me that you don't even get an interior shot inside the snamobile of Wendy and Danny, just that relief of them leaving.
He doesn't even give us the bay. It's it's it's incredible, Yeah, incredible, They're gone.
Jack's dead. It's like, that's that'll do. That's all you need to know.
I mean, yeah again, Now, if you made this film, the temptation would be what you see them back at home and everything seems normal, but you know, Danning's still showing some signs of you know, something weird and what's.
Going to happen in the sequel. Right, That's that's how they'd set it up.
Now, yeah, yeah, before we wrap up, and I'll give you some fun facts. You may even have some more fun facts you want to share. But there is there's one scene that we refre to before, but I wouldn't one playing it, which is the bar scene where Jack finds an empty bar and it appears to be empty until it's not.
A hand on god damn it, I didn't.
I wouldn't touch one hair on his goddamn lad.
I love the little son of a bitch.
I'd do anything for him, any fucking thing for him, that bitch, as long.
As I live. She'll never let me forget what happened.
I didn't hurt him once, Okay, it was an accident, completely unintentional, could have happened to anybody, And.
It was three goddamn years ago.
A little fucker had thrown all my papers all over the floor.
All I try to do is pull them up.
The moment loss of muscular coordination, few sprawl foot.
Pounds of energy per second per second.
Yeah, you watching that scene, it reminded me that sometimes we forget how brilliant Jack Nicholson's face isn't how rubbery it is in an almost Jim Carrey style way, like the muscles he's working in his face in that scene is is incredible.
Yeah, I hadn't watched Jack Nicholson in anything for a little while before watching this, And yeah, Jim Carrey, you could definitely see that he's been influenced. I got a lot of Jack black the like the kind of wild eyebrows thing. You can definitely tell that that's a thing
that he's taken away from it. But yeah, also, just hearing that clip reminded me, so we haven't talked about yet, that you can through the whole film, you can hear that, like that faint like the wind and the snow like blowing in the in the background throughout the whole film. It's just that just does such a great job of setting this tone of just this like isolation and this like barricaded in feeling like that.
It's just subtly there through the whole film, like no matter what, no matter what room they're in, that you can hear that is just such a great call.
It's such an impressive film in that. I mean, and I can understand if people don't like this film, like because it's it raises more questions, I think than sometimes it answers. But like the idea that this what does all this mean? You know, with the bartender all of a sudden appearing and then later on there's a you know, it's filled with people who appears to be from the twenties, you know, ye all dressed up.
Not everyone has the patience to kind of do their own digging about and reading about what this means. Even when you do your own reading and digging about it is different intations as to what this means. So you're either up for that kind of experience or you're not. And I know I really, I really enjoy this film. I'm surprised I maybe haven't revisited for you know, probably thirty years, but I enjoy doing so.
I like that you can, yeah, that you can dig, but you can also just treat it as purely aesthetic and purely a.
Vibe and it still works.
It's like, like I said earlier, even if the decision was only just like, oh, we'll have this ghost bartender in this nineteen twenties party because it just looks cool and it'd be fun to shoot, it's like, all right, yeah, you're not wrong. It's like, yeah, it's it's unexpected that he's in this abandoned hotel and then all of a sudden there's this party around him. It's it's interesting, it's unexpected.
Yeah, And he says in that scene, I'd sell my soul for a beer, and you know, if you wanted to, you could just see that as the entire movie. That's what he did, you know, like he literally sold his soul. Didn't actually have a beer in the end, had a bourbon. But but yeah, it's it's yeah, I really, I really,
I really enjoy it. I've got some fun facts before we let you go with it's been a big episode, and you may know some of these facts and feel free to jump in with anymore you have, Tommy, but Danny Lloyd, he played Danny, didn't see the film until he was seventeen, which is eleven years after, and Kubrick was very protective of him. As you mentioned earlier, he was told that this was a drama, not so much a horror, so they I guess they use different tricks
to get reactions from him. I know in the scene when Wendy accuses Jack of abusing him with the neck rash that she was actually holding a dummy once. When you see her she's holding him, it's actually a manequin to do it, you know, keep him more away from all that stuff he's Johnny seen obviously improvised by Jack. Nicholson took three days, according to Shelley, develop the film, and sixty doors were broken.
There's a great clip on YouTube of Nicholson pumping himself up before that, yes, where he's just like they're setting up cameras and he's just like running around swinging an axe, like jumping up and down, like getting himself hyped.
Like, oh man, it would have been intense to be around American.
Well, but it's funny though, because I've seen that clip and I've seen that the bits that lead into that, and Vivian Kubrick, who was Stanley Kubrick's daughter, and she starts shooting well without Jack realizing, and he's on the phone ordering saying something like just put some something with rice and noodles, and then he notices that he's been filmed, and he's quite okay with it.
He's kind of laughing.
He's kind of saying, well, what happens if I was doing something talking business or something a bit more private, you know, But he's kind of joking about it, and then he wants to go to have go to the toll. He goes, you're sure you don't want to come in and film? He here, he's having he's having fun, and then he kind of goes, I'm not sure if it's all one shot. I don't think it's all one shot, but it's all done. He's getting ready to shoot this scene.
So then he kind of goes in and then he starts doing that kind of I think what you've seen where he's like psyching himself up. So I get the impression that he wasn't necessarily you know, like a method as such, like he was just you know, and.
Yeah, but at the same time, someone who like him in that era, so he's like a huge star and there's no there's no accountability at this point of people in this era, like you can just imagine being a bit of a piece of work.
Like I mean, you imagine all of them being you know, but based on I guess I'm just basing and on what I like, he wasn't. He wasn't walking around with an axe like you know, because you have Yeah, the Christian Bale method would would possibly be that he walks around with an actually the entire morning, on the entire
day and doesn't talk to anyone. But he was actually just happily chatting, you know, with crew members before he amped himself up, which is really seeing you do where you need some adrenaline and you that's what you should be doing. You should be kind of like getting yourself into that adrenalized.
Yeah, I mean, Daniel day Lewis would have made it his mission to actually murder a crew member at some point to keep in the in the vibe of the film he was shooting.
He killed seventeen men and there will be blood. That's a fact.
Robert de Niro, Robin Williams, Harrison Ford were all considered for the lead by Stanley Kubrick. Yeah, and he was put off by Morecamindy. He saw more Comindy and said, no, that's not our guy.
I reckon he would have been kind of perfect for the thing that we've been talking about the whole way through this, that that lightness at the start and but seeing him kind of turn and you can see him putting in a great performance of going crazy in the same way by the end, but having that sort of warmth in the beginning.
Yeah, I think directors have gotten better at not pigeonholing actors and like seeing the opportunity for somebody who we may perceive as a comedic actor. And Rob when he is a great example later on in his career with
the Google Hunting and Dead powert Society. Let me see Jim Carrey do the same thing with the Truman Show, you know, and maybe at this stage, you know, directors were less involved here, although you know, he was working with Peter Sellers, and you know, obviously we thought the strange Eno, which was comedic ye, his Johnny one was
I mentioned was improvised. Kubrick almost didn't use it because he, because he was based in England, wasn't really familiar with Johnny Carson, which seems amazing that any American, you know, it wasn't familiar with Johnny Carson because of the legacy he now has, but was didn't really understand it and was almost going to cut it, but it was committed to keep it in there. It's all shot in order, so they which means that all the sets had to be built, they had to be pre lit and ready
to go, which is rarely happens. Couric secretary took months to write out the words all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
I read somewhere that there's a rumor that it was actually Kubrick did it himself.
Oh right, yeah, which is just, like I guess, easy to believe because he's a weirdo and he's meticulous. And I think that typewriter, that model of typewriter has like an auto thing that you could have done, but because each line has like one a little different mistake in it, like it has to have been done by hand.
Yeah, that's interesting.
I hope that's true. I love the idea that it's him.
Oh yeah, yeah, And it kind of rings true that it would be him.
The final one I just make about Jack Nicholson, it's quite interesting to look at his career up until this point.
So he's made his first break at and this is back in the day where they would make lots.
Of movies before they had the movie that broke through, Like now it feels like, you know, your second or third film is you are Ryan Gosling all of a sudden,
you know. But now, back back they would have to make twenty thirty films before they had that one that kind of explored, And that happened in nineteen sixty nine for Jack Nicholson with Easier Rider with Dennis Hopper in seventy he makes five easy Pieces seventy one Carnal Knowledge, seventy three of the Last Detail, seventy four, Chinatown, seventy five one flew Over the Cookie's Nest, and then he doesn't make many films between seventy five and eighty, but
then he makes The Shining and he's in Reds, which we shot pretty quickly after this, which came out in eighty one with Warren BET's big directorial debut.
I think it was.
But then it's then it feels like there's a changing of you know, like the kind of films that he starts making. He makes after this he makes Pretty's Honor Heartburn, which is of Eastwick Broadcast News, and then eighty ninety makes Batman, So he kind of really goes from being that kind of crazy. I wonder if it was like him saying, I can't keep playing this loose unit all the time.
You know, I need to you know, like mix things up a bit.
May And maybe it's also a bit like you know, this goes the back to back, well not quite back to back, but you know, one flow of the Cooko's Nest and then the shining there's just a bit less to prove now, like he's you know, maybe would.
Have I don't think it was.
It wasn't that critically revered at the time, right, Like that took a bit of time to kick in, but certainly over time he would have gotten a sense of like, you know what, I've made one of the all time greats. I don't really have to stress about my legacy as a as an artist. Like that's that's set in Stone, So yeah, play the Joker.
Yeah, And in fact, this film was nominated for two Rasies, by the way, which really yes for Shelley Deval, which is really unfair. And I think maybe the screenplay or might have even met Kubrick's direct But yeah, but how incredible for Jack Nicholson to kind of make these kind of you know, like more art serious kind of pieces and then turn to you know, lighter fair but still you know, still saying something and still be and yeah, it's still be Jack.
Nicholson and still you know.
And then yeah, and then you've got ninety You've got a few good men as good as it gets, you know, So totally yeah, making all these great films.
So I mentioned I hadn't seen Jack Nicholson in anything for quite a while before watching this, and then yeah, came away from it going the great man. Like I said to my girlfriend, like, let's do a let's do a Nicholson a thumb, let's let's you know, let's let's boot.
Up some old some other Nicholson's.
And then the next night we watched another Jack Nicholson film, which was my girlfriend's choosing do you do you want to guess?
Which Nicholson film we watched.
Is it more recent than the ones I've mentioned, Yes, it.
Was Something's Got to Give. I really would recommend if you've not seen both of those films.
Still and back to back, because it's just cut out everything in the middle and go straight to like one of the last films he's done, where the whole conceit of Something's Got to Give is like Jesus Christ, this guy's old, isn't he.
Well.
One of my favorite more recent Nicholson film roles, and I say more recent, it's probably going back now nearly twenty years is about Schmidt with Alexander Payne, which and that's when that was one of the first roles I think where he accepted that he was old, Like he went from still like having the younger women as girlfriends and you know, yeah, even as good as a guest Helen Hunt is that you know, they love interest to know I am old and I'm going to look old.
I'm going to you know.
And part of one of the great lines in these is you know you ever wake up in the morning and think who is this? And look in the mirror and think who is this old guy sitting stand in front of me, like.
He says yes to an Adam Sandler film where the whole, the whole conceit of the film is basically like, how funny would it be if we got Jack Nicholson in one of these?
And he's just like, all right, yeah, I'm happy to do it. Can I share a Can I share a tidbit that?
I yes, that I quite like.
The different foreign translations of All Work and No Play makes Jack a dull boy.
Yes, yes, please share some. I know they did different for each Yeah, many markets.
Yeah.
Kubrick wanted them to all be slightly different in different languages. So in German it's don't put off till tomorrow what you can do today. In Spanish it's although one will rise early, it won't dawn sooner. And in Italian he who wakes up early meets a golden day, which are all which are all kind of saying the same thing, which which is a very different sentiment to what like the whole thing of you know, he's he's basically writing
in the English language, he's basically going I'm going insane. Yeah, And then all of the foreign language ones are like, you know, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush lin It just like.
Yeah, I believe the AUSTRAI release was get a dog up here, Tommy. I know this, this podcast comes with homework. I very much appreciate you putting the yards in and checking out the Shining for us.
Thanks mate, no, thank you, thank you for having.
Me little pigs, Little pigs, let me come in.
Not buying the hair on your che chun chin.
And I'll pass and I'll blow your house here, Tommy Dassilo the Shining, I really, I really enjoyed that. Say, when I finished the project one night and I knew I had to go home and watch the Shining for the podcast. I gotta say sometimes I'm like, I'm not sure if I feel like watching a Kubrick film tonight, or you know, a two and a half hour film. It's two hours, I think, but I you know, as it always happens, as soon as I sit down and the movie starts, I realized I'm in the hands of
a master, you know, filmmaker. And I really enjoyed watching it again and learning a bit more about it. I'm glad Tommy got something out of it again. The Little Dumb Dumb Club. Check it out. It's incredible what he and Cayl Chandler doing. So that's an engaged audience, so check it out. So Derek Myers, welcome by to Caasawaystudios dot com and you are doing great work in the
podcasting space. We love recording in the studio. This episode with Tommy was done in hopefully the final stages of Lockdown Lockdown four in Melbourne.
So hopefully back in the studio next week. But did you get your shine on?
I did? It was It was an interesting experience for me.
When I was a kid my brother the seventies and my brother used to collect Mad magazines or buy them when they came out, and we got our knowledge of grown up movies. The plot from Mad magazines, The Shinning Clockwork Lemon and the Poop Side Down Adventure. Those those three come to mind, and we said, you sort of roughly learned the plot. And I must admit that Clockwork Orange still didn't make sense even when you know I didn't understand.
I think. I asked my father, I said, Dad, what Clockwork Orange? Have you ever seen it? And he said, oh, yeah, yeah I did. I was wandering around London with nothing to do, and I thought I'll pop in and watch this, and he goes, oh, and he just shook his head.
I don't know.
So so anyway, the Shinning was fascinating.
And I was probably fourteen when it came out, and when I first saw it it was like a scary horror movie.
I'm now old enough to watch, so I reckon.
I watched it as a Stephen King thing, you know, and you just absorb it, you know, on a shallow level and go, jeez, that was bloody scary. But then this time around, I guess even just when I went to put it on, you know, just the start, you know that what would normally be that beautiful mountains and a little Volkswagen. You go, oh, this is idyllic, but that but that score, you're going immediately whoever's in.
That car is fucked. They're in trouble bomb form sort of there.
And Danny wasn't wearing a seat, so you get onto that. That's that's great.
We love getting emails and correspondence at Yasne Podcast at gmail dot com.
We read them all. And you have one an email of the week.
Yeah, I've got one from Satif.
And it says, Hi, Peter, I really enjoy your podcast, Could you please review some culturally diverse movies, recent movies like Parasite or Minari, or famous foreign films that have won multiple awards in the past like A Separation and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, et cetera.
Cheers, thanks enough the excellent email and all excellent films. And I saw Manari in the cinemas just before we went into lockdown, and without knowing really much about it at all, and it blew me away.
I really, I really loved it. It was great.
I've seen Parasite probably five times now. I took my kids to see it.
They love it.
And of course Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was a huge smash it. I saw it in a cinemas and I saw A Separation as well, the great Iranian film about a couple going through well in a separation, really fascinating. I urge everyone to see that if you can. Certainly Parasite and Crouching Tiger are on the list that I give people. It is when I approach people, I basically, you know, find out. I approach friends of mine and the process is that I send them a list of
films and they kind of choose. So yeah, the show works best if if it's a film that they're usually they're like, oh yeah, I know. Often that they know straight away the film the classic film they haven't seen. But with that said, I'm happy to maybe you know, nudge somebody to watch some of these films. And I would like actually to do the Three Colors trilogy. That would be great. But a movie Underground, which I mentioned a Serbian film would be a great one to do
as well. But yes, Parasite, Minari, Crouching Tiger, Him, Drag and a Separation or really great films, and yeah, let's let's see if we can find somebody to check them out. Have you seen any of those films?
Derek Crouching Tiger.
My wife is constantly nagging the kids, We've gotta watch this, We've gotta watch this.
They don't seem interested. For some weird reason. I don't get it.
It was one of those movies that kind of like when it came out, was like, it was one of those it felt like it this took filmmaking, you know, another step forward.
Our generation got into the hype and now we're you know, we've got a real link to.
It going right.
You've got to watch this kid, this is amazing and yeah, it really hit hit home. We just recently watched Parasite.
Which is amazing.
Yeah.
I took my oldest boy to see Parasite in the cinemas and then when it started getting a bit more traction a couple of months later around the Oscars, my sixteen year old also wanted to watch it, and he's watched it, I think twice. I think they've both watched it twice and now they they love it, which is which is great, so great. Email said, thank you so much for reaching out, and yeah, we will. I'd love to check out any of those films with somebody for the first time.
Next week on you Ain't Seen Nothing yet.
The one the only one of my favorite people in the world right now, he said Tony Armstrong from the Yuckeye Footy Show, also from ABC Sports. He's seen him recently on the project. He's a fantastic individual. Amanda is full of joy, he's smart, he's funny, and he's going to be keeping the Kubrickian theme going.
That's right.
I don't know why, it just seems to be happening. Everyone's nominating Stanley Kubrick films, so not only did we do the Shining with Tommy Dassolo today, and we've done full middle jacket with Lisa mchown recently. We are going we are going to space next week two thousand and one, a Space odyssey with Tony Armstrong next week.
And you ain't seen nothing yet until then. Bye, And so we leave all Pete see.
Van Salt, and to our friends of the radio audience, we've been a pleasant good name.
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