Gid Apeter Hally here Welcome to you Ain't seen Nothing Yet? The movie podcast where we ch had to movie lovers about classic or but love the movies they haven't quite got around to watching until now. And today's guest Will Anderson.
Life moves pretty fast. You don't stop and look around once in a while. You could miss it.
Would you be shocked if I put on something more comfortable?
Haven't right now?
You ain't seen nothing yet?
What can I say about today's guests? He is simply a giant of Australian comedy. Perhaps nobody tours harder and for longer than today's guest Will Anderson. I met Will very early on in my stand up comedy career. Will have been on the scene for a couple of years and I was immediately taken with him. And it's the way he went about it, his commitment to his craft, which is not at all waned over the years. In fact, he's obsession with perfecting stand up comedy has become almost
legendary in comedy circles in Australia. There's been many times over the years I've been at a cafe or just walking path the cafe and seeing Will there with the newspaper, tearing out headlines and articles which would lately become fodder for his stand up routines.
He of course is the host.
Of the Gruin Transfer or Ruined, a show about advertising on the ABC which I don't think anybody could predict how massive that show has become, and it is such a unique show.
If you haven't seen Ruin, get onto it.
But I reckon if you're listening to this in Australia, you are well and truly across a Will is a great mate.
I am always fascinated when I chat to him.
Also worth checking out his podcast Philosophy, where he chats to various people beat comedians, sports people, politicians, just all kinds of types about their philosophies and what guides them and navigates them through life. It's a fascinating podcast and I even did an episode. You know you can browse and if you get online great. There are other ones that are probably better. I'm sure that I did do
the podcast and had a great chat. Like I said, I met Will in the mid to late nineties and he has just been at the top of his game for all those years. I have so much respect for him. So much love and admiration for him, and it just seemed with Will, I wanted to get the right movie, and we went back and forth quite a bit, but we chose this one because I think it's well obviously quite timely, and Will had some really fascinating insights into this.
He had seen it.
I had seen it quite a few years ago, but it was great the film, a great film to revisit with him. So enjoy today's special. I guess Coronavirus edition of You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet to all those in Victoria, my home state. I know it's tough. I think we're seeing some results for the restrictions hanging there. Reach out to people if you need, and there are things you can be doing to pop a movie on.
Maybe Capagon is not the movie for you right now.
I fully accept that, but you know, maybe Happy Gilmore or something just fine. Whatever is going to make you happy, and whatever gets you through this period of time, and we'll come through the other end.
I'm much stronger and so all right. Enjoyed this episode. Will Anderson on you Ain't Saying Nothing.
Yet, Good Eye, I'm Lil Anderson and my three favorite films Ground Hug, Good day.
This is one time where television really fails to capture the true excitement of a large squirrel predicting the weather.
The Dark Knight se madness, as you know, is like gravity. All it takes is a little hush, And the princess abride.
Didn't fall inconceivable you give using the horde.
I do not think I missed what you think.
It miss But up until this week, I had never seen contagion. We can't even tell people right now what they should be afraid of.
We tried that with swine.
Flu, and all we did is get healthy people scared.
It's the biggest shopping weekend of the year.
I think we need to consider the schools, though.
And Tuesdays home with the kids, people that work at stores, government workers, people that work at hospitals.
When will we know what this is, what causes it, what cure is it? Things that kicker will come.
Inspired by the SARS outbreak, Steven Soderberg's two eleven virus horror flick sees pre goop Gweneth Poultrow become patient zero in the fictitious MeV one global pandemic.
After she well, we'll get to that later.
Fregrant Soda Bird collaborator Scott z Burns writes are pretty tight and mostly I'm led to believe accurate by Hollywood's standard script. And it may be the best or worst time to revisit this two thousand and eleven classic.
Will Anderson, how the hell are you?
I'm fantastic better hell a you? But man, twenty eleven, I'd never seen this film, so I did not know that it was a classic. Not only is it a classic, it should win. I don't know if they're going to have the Oscars next year, but you have to actually win an Oscar in twenty twenty one for Best Documentary this film is. I don't know if it was as amazing. I feel like in some ways I've been really blessed by the idea of this podcast because I never saw it.
In the first place. I thought I had seen it, but I was getting get confused for that movie Outbreak, you know, with the Monkey, and I thought it was the same movie for some reason. I was like, yeah, it's a monkey movie. I've seen it, but I hadn't seen it. And it is an incredible look at what we're currently going through now, to the point where you're
just like make Donald Trump watch this. I know he doesn't have time to read all the graphs, and he wouldn't understand the graphs even if he read the grass Peter. But he has two hours where they could just get him down into the White House, into that beautiful cinema they have in the White House, and they don't tell him that he's going to learn something. They just go, would you like to see a movie? Work? Word? As Paltrow dies, and he's like, yeah, I'd love to say that.
Get him a bucket of popcorn, get Millennium and Barren down there and make him watch Contagion.
Well that's the other thing. We'll get to this.
We get this because I want to get back to your favorite films. We'll come back to Contagion. But you mentioned Gwenneth Poultrow. Jesus her head gets you know, the must filmmakers out there, they go, what can I do to Gwenneth Paltrow's head? Where David Fincher put her head in the box and now Steven Soderberg wants to peel the skin off her off her head to reveal her brain. So there's plenty of stuff going on. We'll come back to contagent. I imagine, like me, you have basically just
watched this film. I hadn't watched it since I saw it in twenty and eleven. I imagine you were watching it kind of going, wow, that's rings true, and that's you know, they haven't got that not necessarily a haven't got that bit right, but that you know, we're dealing with this in COVID that they haven't you know. But there's so many, you know, layers to this, particularly now, and I'm glad it felt like you kind of said it was a good it was good to watch. I
was nervous when we nominated this. I thought, am I sending you down a rabbit hole in this weird year that you don't really want to cut, you know, go down?
Oh. I watched it with Amy, and the whole time she was just going, how are you gonna make this funny? And she like, it's really terrifying to watch. Now we probably can confess to be before we get to My favorite movie is that we were going to do Avatar now, because the Avatar is a movie that I've never seen, and I knew that I would hate Avatar, and I tried to watch it twice and I just could not get through it, and I had to call Pete and say, we can't do Avatar. Can we pick an up movie.
I'm willing to relive the Contagion we're currently going through as long as I watch an Avatar.
Because my wife, who's a bit of a germophobe, a bit of a smug jermophobe. But I want to share how many germophobes, you know, they're all a bit smug at the moment they're like, yeah, I warned you that this stuff everything's connected. So she's always refused to watch Contagion. But you were one of the trickier ones to kind
of peg down a film. Some people are straight away I have not seen The Godfather, I've not seen Sound of Music, and they know that it's kind of been looming or lurking over their their filmography.
But you, it took a while. We really had to kind of dig deep a little bit.
I watch a lot of movies, and mostly if I haven't watched a movie, it's because I know that I won't like the movie. So that's why Avatar did appeal to me. But I just didn't realize the level of the revulsion I would have for the experience of trying to watch Avatar, and I just was like, I can't do this, and like literally it was like how high can it be? You're in the middle of a pandemic, you have nothing else to do, just sit down and watch a movie about blue people. But I could not do it.
How long did you last?
I reckon, I got about seven minutes in the first time, and I might have got twelve minutes in the second time. I don't think I saw a lot of blue people. I don't think I got to watch blue people.
I ask you to mention your three favorite films at the start, and I do that with all my guests, and I will do and chat about your three great films and that they have come up some of them have come up quite a bit already in the podcast.
But Nikki Britton, I forgot you.
I'll give you warning. I gave you like forty five minutes warning. I'm going to ask you that you know that your top three films. Sometimes I forget, so I just spring it before I press record and say, oh, by the way, I'm gonna ask you to say your three favorite films, and Nicky kind of freaked out. NICKI was like, oh, well, three favite films. Some people feel
the pressure of their three favorite films. And I forget the other two films that she said, and well, the film will that episode was Catablanca.
It was it was great, But she.
The third film was Avatar, and I must have had a look on my face because and I read it on her face that I was shocked that she had said Avatar, and she got, well, what.
Was wrong with that?
I said, I just it's Avatar is an interesting one. It just doesn't come up. It's it's I know they're making the seven or eight and eight sequels, but I just I just, you just don't hear it is a much loved film, you know, it's not. It's one of the biggest unforgettable films of all time.
It was, for ages, the highest grossing film of all.
Time, and yeah, which is incredible.
That means a lot of people saw it. And I have a lot of questions for all those people about how they got through the first twelve minutes.
Hey, Marie Grease, well, who would you expect? No, I'm nuts.
I think fast.
Motor controls looking good.
But it's like all those people saw it, will and then never spoke about it again.
Right, it is a one and done. I can't imagine I would be very suspicious of somebody if they said, I'm back to see Avatar again.
All right, let's contraight to your three favorite films, and they're great films and one I just watched recently with my kids, Groundhog Day.
I love this movie. I mean, I love Bill Murray. You know, you know you'd imagine this as well. Pete like similar eras you're a little bit younger than I am. But he was one of those, you know people that if you love comedy, you probably grew up loving Bill
Murray in something, so yeah, you've immediately got that. But I just think that the conceit of that film, I think appeared to me in a way when I first watched it, which was that the idea was very appealing that you would get to do the same day, you know,
over and over until you perfected something. But the more you watch the film and the older you get, you also understand the darkness of being trapped in reliving the same day over and over, and you get fascinated by the depths of the thinking around how long Bill Murray
was actually in that Groundhole Day. If you go through all the skill sets he picks up during the film, and you measure the idea that might take your ten thousand hours to play piano that well or to have those particular skills, then you start to not measure the time he was in there in days or months, but maybe in you know, decades or hundreds of years, or
even thousands of years. And the writers of the film, they've speculated about the idea that it might have been, you know, the idea that he was within that same
time loop for thousands of years. So for me, even that concept is immensely fascinating for a comedy movie, right, So, like it feels like it's this movie about a weather man trapped, you know, in this ridiculous Groundhog Day, yeah ceremony, and it's on the surface a romantic comedy, but it's dealing with a depth of thinking that I find immensely appealing at the heart of it, which makes it so rewatchable because I think that some movies are rewatchable because
they're perfect movies. And you know, when we talk about The Princess Bride, we can talk about that they're just perfect from start to finish. Movies and they're rewatchable because you just enjoy it being a great movie over and over again. But you don't necessarily get a depth of understanding about the Princess Bride each time you watch it that you didn't have before you watch it the previous time.
Whereas I think you can watch much like the concept of groundhog Day, I could watch groundhog Day over and over and gain a deeper understanding of you know, what's really going on in that film and in that time loop. But then just the actual film itself. I mean, as somebody who makes things, you must just look at that and think the construction in that film, you know, the way that they use the conceit to structure the film,
and how perfectly paced and structured it is. It never gets too comedic, it never breaks out of the reality of the universe, even though it's quite but just the audio cues, the visual cues, the repeats, the editing in the repeats of so you know, initially all the scenes get played out in full, but after a while, when we understand the format has been established, you can shorthand we're going to get to this bit and now we're going to reboot and we're going to get to this bit,
and you've given the audience all the information they need to not have it explained each and every time that is going through the exact same thing. Like the structure of it and the way that it's constructed as a movie is like for a comedy movie is you know, beyond compared to me.
It's it's one of the all time great comedy scripts.
And it's funny when we go back and look at some of those movies, even movies I Die Hard and Film and Luise, which we've covered on this on this podcast, the economy of getting into the story is quite phenomenal. Like they could have done a lot more set up with you know, how dislikable Bill Murray's character was actually supposed to be. Like I remember watching a kind of I like Bill. I never disliked this character. Was I supposed to dislike it? It's Bill Murray, of course I
like Bill Murray. You know, they could have actually think if they made it now, they may actually try to, you know, put a bit more grease on that wheel maybe, or just just a bit more gristle, you know, like it just just kind of have that tension there wasn't a whole lot of tension between Bill Murray and Annie McDowell really at all.
But it works perfectly they obviously.
What I like about it also is that there wasn't So there's a Richard Curtis film that's also about time travel and dating. Do you remember what the name of that film is?
Someone out of Time or out of time?
Yeah, that sounds right, something like that anyway about time, maybe about time about time? And I hate that film. I absolutely hate that film. And the reason I hated is it really feels like a man uses time travel to trick a woman into having sex with him. Like that's what the movie is, right.
Somebody brought that with me with groundhog Day. Recently, Dave O'Neil. Dave O'Neill said that he thought groundhog Day upon Reflection was exactly what was that same thing? And I, I don't know, I'm not sure if I see it the same way.
Well, and that's why I think it's great that there isn't that huge level of friction between the two. It feels like he essentially could have that is a relationship that could have worked before the time travel. It feels like he becomes a better person. He doesn't tricked her into loving him, because she is not a sort of person who can be tricked into loving somebody. She is an independent character in her own right, and she's going
to make her own decisions about him. But he is not in a position at the start of this film to be able to offer himself to her in the way that she needs. He becomes better in that time, so he can be a better person for that character, but he does not trick her into falling in love with him in my reading of the film, And I think that is partly because they don't start so hugely separated.
And I think about that a lot because I hated that about time so much because I felt like it didn't feel like that, and I always have that thought. I'm like, well, isn't that just what Groundhog Day is? But I don't think they are. I think they're really different.
I think it's a really good point. I remember watching it. I didn't see that at the cinema. I'm not sure if you did, but I sort of five years maybe after after it was in cinemas, and I for some reason thought it was that the repetition happened like three times. It was like, yeah, the same day three times over. And I don't know why I thought that, but I remember being really quite amazed that, Oh no, he's, like I said, he's in it for this. Who knows how
long he's in it for. And that's when we talk about the craft, the breaking down, you know, and that and the the outlining of that scripts and the and the post it notes that must have gone up on those walls. It would have been must have been incredible, must have been incredible, and it just it, you know, it's it's it's such an easy film to watch, but it's.
Just such impeccable. You know this as a comedian, like the capacity for out wearing a callback, This film is so perfectly balanced in that the running jokes are the perfect amount of running. They never overstay, they're welcome, or if they do oversay, they're welcome. It's because the point is, like Sideshow Bob and the Raikes, that you find it hilariously funny. Then you go through a period where it's gone on for too long, and then it becomes funnier than anything you've watched before.
I think people place too much emphasis on their careers. I wish we could all live in the mountains at high altitude.
That's where I see myself in five years. How about you?
Oh?
I agree. I just like to go the flow. See what leads me.
I's led you here. This is about a million miles from where I started.
Out in college. You weren't in broadcasting in journalism, believe it or not. I studied nineteenth century French poetry. What a waste of time.
I mean for someone else, that would be an incredible waste of time. I'm so bold of you didn't choose that. It's incredible. It must be a very very strong person.
I think people place too much emphasis on their careers. Gosh, I wish we could.
All live in the mountains at high altitudes. That's where I see myself in five years.
How about you?
Oh I agree, I'd just like to go.
With the bow.
Yeah, see what happened. Well, it's gotten you here.
Uh huh.
Of course, it's a million miles from where I started out in college. Oh yeah, you weren't broadcasting or journalist.
Anything like that, Believe it or not.
I studied nineteenth century French poetry. Right few mail you see I've come alfare.
You said?
I'm shure.
You speak French. That's what this movie is so good at. You never feel like, ah, they just went to that well one more, one more time than they should have.
Yeah.
Yeah, And I do love watching like said, I watched this for my kids recently and I loved it. I do love watching a film where you to see the younger versions of the people you know now and sometimes my kids, my kids a big Ship's Creek family and to see young Chris Elliott a young Roll and Shit.
As the cameraman. Grand og Day was quite a shriep.
Dark Knight. Now, I'm not surprised. It's a great film discuss.
So I could have said any of the Nolan Batman trilogy.
Right, I.
That is perceived by everybody to be, you know, the best film in the trilogy. But I got to say that I like Rises as much and I like Batman Begins because of what it was for. When it was I had never seen a comic book movie that was the sort of comic book movie that I wanted to see in comic book movies, and Batman Begins to me was I've been a person who had been fine with the ta Batman's I find, you know, particularly some joy in that even the latest sequels, I found some joy
in all of those because it was Batman. But to see a version of The Batman, which was actually the Batman that I liked represented on screen like Batman Begins, blew me in way in a way that you know, The Dark Knight couldn't because I'd already seen something like The Dark Knight. I'd seen Batman Begins. So I like to think that think of them all as really one film. It's Nolan's Batman, you know what I mean, Like, yeah, and I just think they're all great. I think Rises
is great. I think it has one bum note in the whole thing. I know people didn't love that film as much, but I think it's a really great film. And if you look at what we're going currently going through in the state of our world, I think it was actually like a lot of Christopher Nolan films. He was having a stab at how would this play out
in reality? And as you see riots on the street of America over inequality with what we're going on with right now, and you know, people looking to you know, like you know, militia and you know pro test and you know, breaking down of the police force departments and all these sort of things. These are the themes that were being you know, reflected in essentially what is a you know, a popcorn superhero movie. And Tom, like, I mean, He's Ledger as the Joker is one of the great
performances of all time. But you are playing also one of the great characters of all time. Like, it's hard to play the Joker and not get nominated for an Academy Award, you know, like it's a great character. It's like being it's like being given Hamlet or whatever, a
Macbeth in the olden days. This is the role that everybody wanted to play, whereas Bain, you know, up until that point, was not really a character at all in the public consciousness, at least in you know, sort of visual media that we And for Tom Hardy to turn that into one of the most iconic, you know, comic book villains of all time, I think is almost, well at least equal of what heath led to do with the Joker.
I think, Oh, are you think dark is your You merely adopted the dark.
I was born in it, molded by it.
I didn't see the light until I was already a man. But then it was nothing to me.
But yeah, no, absolutely, And you know you you put a mask on on Tom Hardy, it's like putting Billy's on on the boat. You know you're gonna get some results.
Tom Hardy doesn't like going to make up. I feel like Tom Hardy does a lot of his deals going how much can my face be covered in these scenes. I'm willing to do your movie, but I'm only going to make up for two thirds of the movie, so you've got to work around the rest.
So what I'm curious because I am not necessarily a big comic book fan. I love the comic book movies. Yeah, I will see, I will see them more, not the more I will see. I've seen all the Marvel stuff, and i'd love Nolan Batman.
I love Nolan.
I absolutely loved it. But what's happened? Why can't DC make that franchise work?
Well? I think, okay, well, part of the reason is that I think, well, my gut instinct is that Marvel were doing so great, right, so I think DC got caught in between not knowing what to do. So the smartest thing to do was just like copy Marvel. They've worked out how to do it, Just copy what they're doing, and do a version of that and everybody will be fine with that. So they had a bit of a toe in that they tried to create universes and weave
it all together and that sort of stuff. But they also were like, we're going to be nothing like Marvel because we have to, like you know, have a point of difference. So I think that they took the worst
two elements and then kind of put them together. Like what what Marvel were really good at doing was they did all these solo movies and started to weave all the stories together and then got to the Avengers, and I see think how they landed that is one of the I mean again comic book movies, right, you know,
popcorn movies. But to land a twenty episode like movie length series to be able to wind it all up like in a really satisfying storyline that included most of the characters at the end, Like, there are very few entertainment makers in the entire world who land the landing as well as the Marvel films landed that landing. But it had been decades in the work, and you know, some failures along the way and some recast things, and some mythology that had to be YadA yarded to make
it all work. But they made it all work. They got it done in the end, whereas DC just went straight to that. They were just like, let's get them all in the movie together without building up any of the goodwill. They've got all these great characters, They've got the dream Team, right. All the most recognizable characters from our childhood are all DC characters. Marvel started with fucking iron Man. They didn't have This was part of like
their disadvantage was their advantage. They didn't have the rights to any of the good stuff at the time. They didn't have a Spider Man at the time. So they had to get like, you know, Captain America and Iron Man, who were at best sort of be r C characters in the comic book universe, right, and turn them into a listers. And so that's what they did. And then they just got fucking cocky. They were like, we can make anyone to start a man, Let's give.
It a go.
You know.
It always became like, oh, you're like you're joking, aren't you. Like I remember, like to my kids, I tell my kids, when Iron iron Man came out, he was not a thing.
He was.
He was like, you know, I'd heard of iron Man, but he wasn't.
He wasn't you know, he wasn't on on you know, birthday supplies and pencil cases.
He was. He was, you know, like it was never.
This was never supposed to work from anyone outside of of Marvel. And then it became what you're trying it with Captain America, You're trying to withthor then eventually you got ant Man, this is how how are you doing this? And I completely agree the landing of that series is one of the great achievements in cinematic history. It is the triple axel that they have landed and absolutely stuck.
It's phenomenon.
It's incredible, and I think that their capacity to I mean, if you believe in that theory that you know, if the butterfly flaps, it swings in the forest, then it has repercussions throughout the world. Right, If you believe in that, then you've also got to believe. It's great that Robert Downey Jr. Did too many drugs, because if Robert Downey Junior hadn't done so many drugs, he was going to
be the most revered actor of his generation. Like talent to Burn, Charisma to burn, did way too many drugs, ended up sleeping on some strangers couches after breaking into their house. And that's the only way that ever would have got him to play fucking iron Man.
You know, like they.
Needed all of that to happen for the perfect scenario, because getting Robert Downey Jr. On for Iron Man meant that they could then go and ask other decent actors to do their movies.
Yeah, but I mean again, I'll tell my kids, Robert Downey Jr.
Was nobody.
It's not like, yeah, I don't know that he was just offered the role or ten people passed on it, or he had the audition, but he was you know, he wasn't in a great space, you know.
It was it was And then it was Chris.
You know, a guy from Home and Away in their next movie, and Chris Evans who had been in another failed superhero movie, and you.
Know so well, I believe and maybe this is me speaking out of school, but I think this is on the public record, but I believe that Chris Hemsworth. I interviewed Chris Hamsworth immediately after he made the First Floor, and I believe that he got something like two two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to make that movie, which you know, by anyone's standard, is still a good amount of money, but by Hollywood movie standards for a big
blockbuster movie is like what that's been on catering or something. Right, Like, it's not a lot of money. I mean by the end of it, like, I mean incredible, you know, being paid multimillions of dollars to make these movies. But they went and got Robert Downey Jr. But then they also went and cast some cheap guys to balance the budget.
You know, Yeah, yeah, yeah, all right, let's talk Princess Bryan. Princess Bright has come up many times. It's a much loved film. I have to say, I really like Princess Bryan. It doesn't for some reason, I think I saw it. I saw it in my twenties, so it didn't have the same impact on me in my life as it has so many of my contemporaries.
Yeah, I saw I remember where I saw it. I was at the Sales Cinema with my friend Sarah Bailey, and we both have younger sisters, and our younger sisters were of similar age and so I think. So Susie is like three years younger than I am, so three to four years younger than I am. So we had to pick a movie that we could all enjoy. Our
parents had tenters to the movies for the day. We're probably like fifteen year old boys, fourteen fifteen year old boys, and so we're going to the movies with some eleven year old girls. And so we had to pick a movie that sounded like a movie that the girls would like. So we had to go and see this movie called The Princess Bride. And I knew nothing about this film,
like you know it. You know, it probably wasn't directly out because it was at the sale cinema, so it was probably you know, it had been out in the city for a few months, I imagine, but it wasn't in the days of the internet or anything like that. So it's not like you would have buzz about whether
a movie was good or not. It just happened to be on at the sale cinema and it sounded like a kid's movie, and I went along, you know, resenting the fact that I was going to have to much like the little kid at the start of the Princess Bride sitting in the bed. I was realagejacked Fred Savage. That's right, Kevin Arnold? Is that who he was?
Yet?
And so we're sitting there with Colombo Peter Fork, and I was little Kevin Arnold sitting in the bed, just going, don't I don't want to watch this movie? You know this is not what is this some sort of kissing book?
What is this?
Are you trying to trick me?
Is this a kissing book?
Wait?
There's wait, when's the kick?
Good?
Keep your shirt on, let me read.
But instead I was just you know, I couldn't have laughed more. I just I probably watched that movie one hundred plus times in my life. If I couldn't recite it from you know, to start to finish to you now, But if the movie's on, I could do a pretty good recital, long version as it went along. I don't think there's a line in that movie that I've read all William Goldman's books. I've read the books of the Princess Bride, because you know, it's based on a book
that William Goldman wrote. They say William Goldman wrote this book that was allegedly based on this other book. It's so deep in the conceit of it. And I guess this is why I love it as well, because his book that he writes is allegedly based on this manuscript he's found that he's like adapted, but he has like he's made all this up. It's all part of the thing.
And he used to have like an address that people could write to at the back of the book that was like anyway, it's all very like he created this entire mythology behind this universe of the Princess Bright and made it all up. And I find all that stuff fascinating. And then he based the movie, of course, that he wrote on this book that he's written that was allegedly based on this thing that he just made up himself.
And I just think he was a great screenwriter. I mean, yeah, I loved you know books Cassette in the Sun, Dance Kid, obviously, but like I thought his script for Maverick's amazing. Like he was just a really great writer. And I think anyone who's interested in Hollywood movies has probably read his books, which are pretty much the best books you can read on what it's like to write movies in Hollywood.
You know, you're a good screenwriter when you write something like Maverick and it's it's one of those things that sits at the bottom of you, you know, that doesn't really get brought up. You know, it's because you've written prisons. Brian Bushcshi to the Sun Dance Ski, which I watched for the first time for this podcast with Bob Murphy and Ladie Hell.
What a great film that is.
And then just the performances, I mean, the iconic lines that you know have obviously become part of the general language of our society. But I just love the fact that it mostly stands up as well, Like I mean comedy, as you know, Pete, Like one of the ones I considered was Life of Brian because I think that, like when a comedy movie stands up to me, that is one of the all time great compliments that you can give a comedy, because comedy dates so quickly and so badly.
Like I was watching a Will Feral movie the other day that was released in like twenty sixteen or twenty seventeen, about him going to prison, and it feels like it was mate. Feels like it was made nineteen seventy or something nineteen fifty It's like so horribly dated already, that film, and yet you can watch something like The Princess Bride or Ground Whole Day or Life of Brian, these so of films and they feel fresh and relevant today, which is something that I love about it as well.
Let's talk the film that we have nominated. Are you nominated Contagion? I mean, where do we start? Where do you want to start? It's well, what do you think I'll to start with that?
I thought, well, firstly, I thought it was great. I thought it was really fantastic movie. I didn't realize how many big name actors were in it. I didn't realize that it was going to be so prescient about the current times that we were going through. But I found it a really compelling movie to watch. Regardless, I didn't know it was a Soderberg movie, so I didn't really know much about the movie at all. I found out a few things afterwards, but I went into it not really,
I'm not going to think about this too much. I'm just going to watch it, you know. And then since then, I've watched a few videos about the things that have got right, and I've you know, like watched an interview with the screenwriter about the six years of research that he did, and it was all based on that him and Soderberg had made the Informant together, I think, which
is the Matt Damon film. And there's a scene in that where Matt Damon's character is observing another character and the way that he's touching something in the germs that would be transferred in this touch. And this whole idea came from that scene that they'd written for this other movie that they thought, how about this if this became like a bigger idea, So I found the whole thing. I just thought it was a great movie, Like I thought from starting to finish, I was like, this is
a really compelling movie. I thought, the layers of complexity. I mean to skip right to the end, you know, but the idea of like when it's revealed without because maybe would I want to dive into what.
We get to the end of the well get at the end of the end, but without stopping what you're saying. We will do a big kind of chat about the end at the end. But if you want to bring up if you're talking about the connectivity of this world and how.
You know, some other films.
There are layers of connectivity at the end that I think I probably contrived because it's a movie, right, It's probably not going to work out that neatly, you know, in real life, unfortunately.
But it may have been so beautifully on film.
But as a movie, I thought it was a really beautifully made movie.
I remember watching it, yeah, when it came out, and I really I really enjoyed it.
And I was a big Soderberg fan.
So just to give you some context, So he makes the Informant, the film you mentioned written by Scott z Burns, who wrote Contagion. In two thousand and nine, he makes three films. In two thousand and eleven. He makes a docco about sporting Gray called and Everything Is Going Fine. He makes a great little action film called Haywire. I'm not sure if you saw Haywire. It's a little action film. It's got Fastbender and it's got you McGregor and Gina Carrano.
I think her name is like a rising Mma styles. She already was an MMA star. It's like a Black Ops kind of cool little action film.
And he makes Contagion.
Then he makes the following year Magic Mike, and another great little film.
Called side effects. Of course.
For those who don't know Steven Soderberg, he's known for his big his breakout film with Sexialize and Videotape, known for The Ocean's eleven franchise Traffic, Aeron Brockovich Out of Sight, which is one of the all time one of my time favorite films with Jennifer Blopez and George Clooney. So he does love this kind of connectivity thing that he does.
But I remember watching it and I remember like having an idea what it was about, and those early scenes where you see the glass at the bar and the credit card taken and then the screen and it swiped. I reckon when I was watching it ten years ago, I was thinking, oh, yeah, because the glass, the germs are on the glass, and then you see all these other because of what we're living through now have become so you know, knowledgeable, you know, and increasingly knowledgeable about
how germs spread. And there was a term that I actually haven't heard. And we'll get to the things that you recognize, maybe because of COVID and the things that you know were a bit foreign to us. But there was a term called fomtes that came up, which I had I haven't heard of, even in these COVID times, which refers to all these places of transfer of the virus such as door handles, elevator buttons, glasses, Yeah, the credit card or all those things. What's that for, mates,
It refers to transmission from surfaces. The average person touches their face two or three thousand times.
A day, two or three thousand times a day.
Three to five times every weeking minute in between, we're touching door knobs, water fountains, elevator buttons and each other.
Those things become film mates.
I got so much more out of it watching it, you know, two nights ago than I did. You know I was going to be grossed out, you know, ten years ago it felt like a even though we had SARS and I think we've had Zeka since. It kind of felt like a zombie movie to an extent. But as you mentioned in it in your opening comments, it's kind of a documentary.
Now you are stunned by the amount of times that you touch your face while you're watching the movie. It's one of those things where you're just like, you're so hyper aware of how often you like After Kate Winsley's character says you touch your face between one thousand and three thousand times a day or whatever it is, and you're like, that can't possibly be right. And then all you want to do is touch your face. Your nose is so itchy, and you just don't You just like,
I just need to scratch it. If only Amy will look away right now so I can scratch my fucking nose.
It is okay, let's go through some of the things. Yes, So I wrote a bit of a list, and these are some of the things that are in the film that I think we kind of know. You know, it was recognizable to me through through the COVID experience and the things you know that you know.
This is not they got right and they got wrong.
This is more that I can recognize and that rings true in the in the COVID age. So they got into the social distancing, they got onto that the R number came up.
I was almost proud of myself. I know what the R number is. I didn't know what that was ten years.
Ago, the or the.
I really refer to it now as the R number.
And on the project we speaking the epidem epidemiologists every night, and I've never heard of there's the r nor number, but i've they referred to it as the R number, the reproductive number, so I was pretty proud of that. Then there was the use of face masks. They're not as prevalent as they are, but I assume that was a filmmaking choice. Not to be covering up Matt Damon's face, Kate Winslet's face, Greta Poltro's face. You want, you want bang for your back, let's not put face masks on them.
Tom Hardy was on the phone every day going I could have done this as.
There. There was the panic buying.
That's what we don't know about this film. There's all the stars that we can see, but most of the other people in Mass all played by Tom Hardy.
Wasn't Cate Blancheting in Hot Fuzz in one of those has Matt donnod suits in one of those Mass Maybe Cape Kate Blanchett was in there as well. There was the panic buying was happening as well. No tallet paper. They went panic buying tallet paper, which I thought was interesting.
I don't think any of us thought it was going to go to toilet paper first. And foremost there has been different phases of what has been panic bought, Like there was a period of time where Pisada had a moment you know there this is a movie, but you would have loved to see if you saw like a
ten part series. You could almost make remake Contagion in our times and make it as a ten part or a twenty part season where you could draw out some of the things that they By the nature of making a movie you have to you know, kind of you know,
ramp up the time in between. But like you say, you see panic buying and then it goes to riots very quickly, whereas I would love to see where it was just like the first episode all the toilet paper goes and episode three is just Pisada, you know, like we don't have to get to the riots until episode seven or eight.
I'm in Victoria and where it's it's mandatory face masks at the moment, and I'm surprised breath mints haven't been panic brought to be honest, because when you when you have a coffee and then you put your face mask on, it's quite a treat. Will That's that's all ahead of you.
Like I mean again, like I'm this is a bit too graphic and not normally the area that I but it's late at night, Peter, we're having a wine via beverage.
You know, talking about movies is interesting that we don't like the smell of our own breath, but sometimes the smell of our own farts, which should actually be more unpleasant, have some sort of like pleasing aspect to your own body, Like you can be like you can handle your own fart, like in a way that you can't handle someone else's fart, but like your own breath is so toxic to yourself.
Yeah, that that's a it's a bloody I think bad breath on anyone isletally toxic. But I never I reckon The closest I get the feeling like I'm in some kind of scientific lab is when I fart in the shower. It's so, that's interesting, what's going on there? That's That's a scene I want to see in Contagion too. It's Matt Damon cutting one in the shower. The conspiracy theories come out in this. Jude Lord, do you want to chat about Jude Law for a second.
Yeah, So he's meant to be Australian, I believe.
Is he which I thought, well, you.
Wouldn't his accent that he's using during the film. But yes, apparently he's meant to be Australian.
Because I really thought, I thought, why is jud Law trying so hard to do an English accent?
He's English? Was he really meant to be Australian?
I thought at the start South Africa, and I was like, oh, he must be South African. But apparently he's meant to be an Australian. So I think at best he had one parent who was from Australia but had lived in England most of their life. I believe that is the accent that he was doing in this movie.
Most actors, they're not trying to go for the situation where the audience is filling in their backstory their accent that.
Who stands to gain from this? They're working hand in glove. I mean, he also has that wonky tooth. You know, he's got the chip tooth. So maybe his chip tooth was affecting the way that he was speaking. Maybe he was doing a very excellent Australian accent. But while it went through the chip tooth.
I did notice the chip tooth even weirdly halfway through. I think when he's in a TV interview, I thought, what's wrong with his tooth? And OK, he's got a chip tooth, Jude Law.
That's I think this is the bit that they probably underestimated. Like, I think this movie gets a lot of stuff right, and they got the idea of the conspiracy theorist right, but and the panic buying over the I mean, he's kind of a mix between you know, Pete Evans and you know, some sort of investigative reporter. But he's one of those people who has monetized the idea of being a contrarian, right. Like his whole thing is like, you know,
he's the Joe Rogan podcast of his day. He's got millions of subscribers to these ideas that he has, and they're all following him for ideas, and then you know, eventually he's going to obviously use that to monetize, you know something, whether it's you know, a true thing or in cause, panic buying and all these sort of things you can have parallels with Somewhere between what Pete Evans does and somewhere between what Joe Rogan does in today's society.
That character makes sense, but it's kind of him as a lone wolf a bit, whereas what we've discovered about the age we live in, whereas that's a predominant part of the narrative. I mean, do Law would be president in the remake that we make in twenty twenty, like Donald Trump is Jude Law in this scenario?
Yeah, so he would be, Yeah, the chief medical officer of Donald Trump.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
I do think I disagree slightly in that they got it wrong. I think the essence is really accurate. I just think social media wasn't It was still like you know, obviously Instagram and Twitter was around in twenty and eleven, but I think would be all very surprised to see how big and toxic those things have potentially grown since twenty eleven. I feel like it is that twenty eleven and even a few years before, bloggers were quite big to you know, represent on screen. That was how they
got their head around that. And I think I just saw that character as encompassing, you know, I thought it was quite prophetic, like a lot of the film that in science and he kind of.
I think I would say, I don't think they could have predicted. Yeah, I agree with all that, but I just don't think they could have predicted. It's not their fault. It's just that they got so much else right about the future that the thing that doesn't ring true about the future is that that thing that seemed like it was only going to be a small part of the national discourse would actually become a predominant part of the
national discourse. Like they weren't to know that the Jude Law blogger character was going to be the popular narrative at least by a third of the population during a time of crisis like this. It would be an interesting idea to explore in our remake that we're commissioning Pete Will and Steven Soderberg twenty part series Contagion. The series, we're just going to stop down on some smaller moments.
I mean, Jude Law's dodgy shouts accent doesn't help any of this.
The episodes, there's a flashback to his parents meeting her, going back to England with him, her accent eventually dissipating over the years. The young Jude Law is standing in front of Rolf Harris on the TV learn Me how to Speak.
Barry Crucker style character. One thing they weirdly got thissus. Listen, I imagine this is fluke.
I don't know, but the virus it starts in China and it's passed from animal to human. That doesn't happen with every kind of virus. But that is when I say we've got it right. That's what coronavirus appears to have done.
Yeah, So you know, one of the big ideas this film explores is the idea of patient zero. If you can find out where it started, you have a better chance of tracing it. And to our best estimations at the moment, patient zero might have been in a wet market in Wuhan, but we don't know for sure. I don't think we have the certainty of information that they have in this film about the current situation we're going through.
But if they're right, like this movie has a back to animal transmission, which might have been what has happened in this car, it certainly feels like it might have at least been a back to human transition of some kind. And apparently that's an incredible character incredible care areas of human diseases. So not all animals can carry human diseases, but apparently bats are quite good at carrying human viruses
and the viruses that can also work on humans. And the good thing about bats is they often live in areas with other food sources and animals, and they can really do what the movie showed, which is they're in those dark spaces and they can live in places that you don't know where they are, and they can transmit diseases. So yeah, I mean, they had evidence before this movie that that was something that could happen, and it was based on real things that have already happened. But certainly
it's very prophetic about what we're going through right now. Now. Look, the truth is in retrospect. I guess Batman was the real villain in The Dark Knight. The Joker was really just trying to stop the bat. We had it around the wrong way.
I was waiting for the mass Avenger to make his way into that conversation. So those are the things that I kind of picked up as as far as like the things I've learned. Also, the race with the vaccine has kind of mentioned that the idea that other countries may have the vaccine and be hiding it is an interesting idea that it kind of occasionally has popped its head up as far as even in conversation as far as well, who gets the vaccine If Australia finds the vaccine,
does that mean we get it first. That's not completely you know, you know what they're getting up here as far as hiding vaccines, but it's just that all eyes on the vaccine well.
And also the idea of that it might have been a biological weapon. That's certainly something that people have explored as an idea, and that's something that they talk about in the movie. And the idea of you know, when they do distribute a vaccine, that it takes about a year to get a vaccine to everybody who needs the vaccine.
So the idea that they might do a system where it's literally a lottery based on you know, what your birth date is, and everybody goes to get their vaccine on the birth date might be the sort of thing that we're facing in our future that might give us an insight into six months from now or eighteen months from now, when there is a vaccine. There's not suddenly going to be that everybody can pop down a chemist
warehouse and grab the vaccine. They're going to have to come up with some system to say, maybe the most vulnerable people get at first, but after that we're going
to do a lottery about birth dates. And then suddenly we're going to be living in the world like this movie where you're sitting around going, well, you're vaccinated, but I'm not yet, And you've got a little wristband on like they have in the movie that says I'm a vaccinated person and I can go here and here, but if you're not a vaccinated person, you can't go here and here. And in some ways that's almost as terrifying as what we're going through right now, isn't it.
Absolutely absolutely.
I've had that conversation before with a lad who works on the show they work on, and he's a much smarter dude than I am, and because he would have that idea, because I mean, when there was petrol shortages and you almost had to have that where you can only fill up your your your tank if your your number plate was ended with an even number or not number, and then that might be the kind of thing that
rolls out with a vaccine. The things I saw with another thing was mass graves in New York City, which was which was sad, the true but the things I've seen different that I hadn't kind of whether they got it wrong or whatever. But Kate Winslet seems to be trying to contract the contract trace the virus by herself.
Now whether that's just the one we're following, which it could be true, but she does seem to be doing a lot of the heavy lifting as far as even going out to that place, and I think it's in Minneapolis, the health center there. And you know, one of the most the most unenjoyable characters in any film is the character who has to form basically dramatic tension, basically be
a disagreeable shit. And there's that woman in when Kate wins are saying, this is what we have to do, and these are medical professionals and they're saying, is this going to come out.
Of your budget?
I hate I hate those characters. And the best example of one of those characters or a group of those characters. Have you seen the movie Sully with Tom Hanks, So, like, what an amazing thing that man did. He landed a plane in the Hudson River that would have, you know, either crashed into a building or just crashed into the Hudson River, killing everybody, but he crashed it and nobody died. What an amazing thing and one an amazing thing to
make a film about. But obviously when Clint Eastwood got onto that movie, he realized there was no dramatic tension because it's really all about a hero, and where's the tension in the hero? So they had to create this tension with this investigation, and these people were like dragon dragon, Sally across the hot coals for no reason.
And then like in the end, it's just like, Okay, yeah we were wrong, you were right.
And then like Sally makes a little joke at the end, or is you know he's copil makes a little joke. They all laugh like it's a sitcom, and that's the end. It's like, you could have done a documentary about Sally. If you couldn't find the film, don't do the film.
Here's what I would say is different about that. I agree with you on Sally correct answer lock it in absolutely true, But in this instance, I actually think that
there are people like that woman. Yes, she's shorthand for a larger group of people, but she's shorthand for the economists saying that it's worth the old people dying so the economy can get back to work, and she's shorthand for the politicians who sometimes have to make very difficult choices between the idea of keeping you know, business open or borders open and shutting down you know, society on the benefit of others, Like there are those arguments over
whether the people think we're going too far or not far enough, and arguing from an economic rationalist sort of point of view. So I think we are seeing that. I mean, yes, she is a one character, very shorthand for all those people, but I think in our twenty part series we're really going to explore those other voices.
Yeah, no, that's that's when we get.
I think twenty. I think the twenty yepp is just the first series as well.
By the way, no, the first half of the first series Game of Throne stuff. We're just going to split the first series into two. The first half is twenty and the second half is actually fifty fifty episodes.
One of the one of the I think the best scenes in the film is Kate Winslot's contract contact tracing and going to Matt Damon and having that awkward moment of having to basically reveal to him that his wife Gwenneth Poultrow or fucked another bloke in Chicago behind his back. John Neil, it's it's it's it's it's awkward, but it's it's you imagine that that shit happens like I imagine, and the film is quite The thing I like about the film is the virus is the main character. Like
everyone's serving like there's very little melodrama. Like the closest you get is kind of this scene and and even making Matt Damon Matt Damon's kid, because the first time I saw it, I remember thinking, and even when I was watching it back the other night, why does it Matt Damon? Why does Matt Damond get upset? But these kids dead? And then you really, like you realize that
it's it's his step kid. Now that's not saying I'm not saying that he wouldn't have those, you know, but I get the impression in that relationship that there were things happening that maybe he knew of out and he's dealing with that and he's in a bit of shock, and that it is his step kid, not his kid, which.
Serves two purposes.
It kind of slightly emotionally allows the audience to allow him to emotionally distance himself a little bit, but it also gives us the reason why maybe he didn't have contract the virus, and that.
I think, yeah, and that his daughter also, so I think Matt Damon like in this movie, like he doesn't have that much to do, but he does so much with what he has to do, like because he has to do a lot of stuff in this movie, like who is he? What was the nature of their relationship? You know what, what is the state of their marriage, What is the state of the relationship to the children? Why is there a difference in the relationship, What is the back history of this? You don't get time to
dig down in any of that. They just have to shorthand all of that incredible scene he has early on when they tell her that she's dead, when you know, she's just come back from a trip and everything should be fine, and suddenly his wife's dead and he just can't comprehend but yeah, but can I talk to her now? Like it's incredible, And then he has to go through his journey where he realizes that he might be immune to this disease that is killing everybody else in the world.
So there's seeds of him essentially walking the world as the only person who can freely walk the world. But at the same time he's dealing with the fact that he might just because he's immune and might not mean that his daughter is immune. Then it finds out that his daughter is probably you know, okay at the moment, but his stepson is dead. His wife is dead. Now they've revealed to him that the reason his wife is
dead is because she was having an affair. She's slept with somebody else, and now like she started a pandemic that's killing everybody, and he doesn't really have enough time to do all that, and manages to do all that in the time that he has.
Aim is the Richard Wilkins of this story.
Yeah, who can just walk through a global pandemic.
So this is seventy episodes, first season in Past twenty and fifty and the Matt Damon character is Richard Brooks.
And he kills Jeff Goldbloom at some point. But the I mean that that moment and I you know, how unlucky is Gwenneth Pultrow. I mean, it's almost the reverse sliding doors moment. Really, It's like it's like the horror version of Sliding Doors. So if Gwenneth Paltrow didn't stop in Chicago and have sex with that man, the pandemic still would have happened to an extent, I guess, because she kind of caught it in that restaurant in China,
but it would have been way less. So I think I think there's after seventy eight parts series, I think we can do a horror Sliding Doors Sliding Doors two set in Chicago. What would happen if Gwenneth Paltrow didn't have sex with John Neil?
Well? See, I think that this is the only aspect of the film that I feel uncomfortable with. It's clearly a shot. It's a massive slut shaming exercise.
Yeah, John Neil, here, you just had sexual with me in a hotel and left without saying goodbye.
Yeah, it ended up being delayed, so sorry, I'm anything well if.
I don't get to see you again.
I just wanted to say it was.
Nice to see you again.
I mean, how do you Steven Soderberg like, I mean, Whenneth Paltrow is a modern woman, she'd be able to sleep with her whatever she wants without causing a global pandemic just because she decided to exercise her own sexuality. You know what, maybe Matt Damon wasn't father and husband of the year. You didn't fuck and clearly love his steps as much as loved his real kid. So you know what, maybe things weren't great at home and she needed the release of another person. She's working very hard
for the fucking forestry company that she works for. You know, she barely has time to eat at a restaurant. She has to smile and have a photo take it with like this chef who probably hasn't even washed his hands. What does she know? But she's constantly on the road, providing for their family, and she finds some sweet relief in the arms of an ex lover. And of course she has to be damned. She has to damn all human kind to an unrelenting pandemic.
How dare you wrap it up by that? Will Anderson?
I think Steven Soderberg has represented that truly, and it's a lesson for all women. If you cheat on your partner, you will release a global pandemic.
Just take that on board everyone.
It's like the studio came from Sanderbrega. There. We don't really care what the idea is, Stevie. All we want is a movie where the key message is, don't look the head of the studio. His wife's just cheated on it. If you could make a movie the convinceers wives not to cheat on their husbands. Wrap it up in whatever you need to wrap it up in. But that is the core message. We'll sign your cheat it now.
That's the message Harvey really wants to get through. Hey did you did you? There's two Aussie connections here, and then they're more interesting than the usual Aussie connections in movies where it's like, oh, point break was in a talkie Bell's Beach, or there's a there's an Aussie actor actor.
There are two really interesting Aussie connections in this film.
Well, firstly, the Jude Law was Jude Law was an Australia.
Including jud Law.
In one of those connections, Geelong is mentioned in the film and I had to rewind it and then I had to google it. So they say something like they they regrew the the the the backpack in Geelong and I just kind of heard that. This is when they're in the lab. It's lone Fishburn and the other scientists actress name I'm not not aware of, and I rewounded.
I thought it's Geelong.
They say, I'm sure they say Geelong, And then I was aware because we've been covering COVID a lot on the project that we've crossed to the c s I r O who are in Geelong, So there is a connection. And weirdly in the COVID world there are scientists from Wuhann who have worked at a c s i r O. Not not casting any dispersions at all, but they said, there's that, and then there's a gentleman. But do you know a man by the name of doctor Barry Marshall. Have you ever heard of his story? I've got the
Barry Marshall. So when the doctor who mentions Geelong, she the one who injected herself herself with the vaccine, and apparently they had to reshoot that because originally she did over her clothes and they had the under the advice of the the medical advisor, that you can't do that, you need to do it on bare skin. So they went back and reshot it. So and she takes her to her dad and he mentioned she mentions Barry Marshall. So,
Barry Marshall is a doctor from Perth. Okay, So in the late seventies early eighties, stomach cancer is killing a shit ton of people. Stomach ulcers affect ten percent of all adults. People are having their stomachs removed, some of this bleeding out until that they die. He is sure that this can be treated through antibiotics. But the gastro enter my biologists, we're basically saying off doctor from Perth,
we know better. So he couldn't test it on mice because I think he needed primates which when available to him, and legally couldn't test it on other humans. So the only person he could do it ethically on was was himself. So he basically got a He got some bacteria from a patient, and I've written down the bacteria it's hello Helica bacteriori, which is not how you say it. Obviously, he got some from a patient. He stirred it into with some bacteria, into a broth and he drank it. Okay,
days later, he gets sick. He's vomiting, he's got ship breath, he's he's fighting in the shower. He's exhausted. He heads into the lap. He give himself. He gives himself a biopsy and he discovers. Basically, he cures himself. In the end, he cures himself using vaccines. Bang he cures stomach ulcers and stomach cancer. Is basically eradicated from the Western world. Wins a Nobel Prize in two thousand and five.
Never heard of him.
Because he's an Australian scientist. But you know who won the Brown Low in two thousand and five.
Barry Hall. Haven't heard of Barry Marshall.
Is that amazing? We haven't heard of that guy.
I mean he should be like on our money or something. Surely that is one of the most amazing stories of all time. And he was name checked in the movie Contage.
He's named in the movie Contagion.
He won a Nobel Prize, never won Australian of the e I imagine Damien Oliver want of that year, or Mark Taylor or somebody. But incredible, incredible story. So let's talk about let's talk about the end. Let's talk about the end.
Okay, Well, there's a couple of things. Firstly, I think three things. We have to give a shout out to the fact that a friend of ours in this movie, well comedian that we both know and worked with, Dimitri Martin, is that which was a lovely surprise. I was like, oh, Dmitry.
We tested all of Grand bardies. I didn't see much cross reactivity.
Her body had no idea what to do with it.
It just kept amplifying. Yeah, right. I wrote down the cast list.
Who was in this film, and these are the names I wrote Greene Poulster and Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Laurence Fishburne, Jude Law, John Hawks, Marion Courtyard, Elliot Good, Brian Cranston, and Dimitri Martin.
And introducing Dmitry Martin. I think Kate Winslet's character dying is something that just is one of them. So her buddy assistant, you know, the one who was all paranoid about, you know, the idea that you know, his wife was making him take off his clothes and wash his hands with soap and whatever when she got home, and you know, Kate Winsley's character was all like, you know, you're touching
your face this many times, Stop touching your face. And there's a scene in this film, because I watched it going how does she get it? Because they never really tell you how she gets it. But there's a scene where she's on the phone, and this is what we forget about touching your face, right, touching your face is also being on your phone. Being on your phone counters
touching your face. In fact, it's worse than just briefly touching your face, because it's holding your phone that you touch all day, you know, no matter what, to your face for an extended period of time. And there's a whole scene when she's on the phone. So I think maybe the movie gives us, like I'm not saying that's necessarily how she's caught it, but the movie. What I love about the movie is it doesn't explain it, but it gives you something that could be an explanation.
And so where's Wally of contagion? You have con trace the contract tracer?
Well? But what I also love about it is it shows that idea of she's the one who's most paranoid about the idea that you can't touch your face. She mentions it several times, right, touching your face. It's a thing that she says it several times. And then yet even she that character forgets and touches her face. And that's the thing that we're all facing at the moment, is we're constantly trying our best to stick to all these rules and then constantly doing things by accident or
without thinking or whatever that contravene the rules. And that's what we're all living in at the moment. So I thought that that character was fantastic, and then the fact that she dies halfway through the movie is I think a real compliment to the movie. Like I love a movie that kills off one of the people. I think it will be there at the end, you know, during the film.
And they cut off some genuine stars here.
I mean, you know, like back in twenty eleven, the idea that Grena Pultrow, you know, could die in opening minutes of a movie was stunning. And and also you know, he said Kate Winslet and like you, I watched a few videos YouTube videos afterwards, and there's a different opinion about Kate Winsar's character. There's one woman who said, you know, that wouldn't happen. You know, they're so good at protecting themselves. But I agree with you and other people well different points.
Your point is that even though you can be as well guarded as you are when you're in the front line, there can be things that you just slip up or something you just don't consider in a moment, and this is how dangerous this virus is.
The other point was that it's it's said to be.
Like almost a homage to front line workers, and in particular two doctors. One Carlo Barney, who was the Italian doctor who raised the alarm on Stars and he died after contracting SARS, but he was credited to kind of raising the alarm and you know, saving how many lives, you know, we'll never know. And then the other one was I wrote it down Lee when Liang, he was the eye doctor at the Wuhan Central Hospital.
This is obviously.
Contagion wasn't paying less home homage to Lee Willyang, But in hindsight, you know, he was the one who raised the alarm and issued emergency warnings to local hospitals in Wuhan, and was dragged across the coles was accused of making false statements brand of the whistleblower. Eventually he raised the alarm on December thirty. Contracted COVID nineteen died February seven, age thirty three. The Communist Party of China later issued an apology. But I love and kind of thinking of
it that way as well. And then the way you explained, I really love that idea that it is, you know, saying that the line workers, we kind of expect they know what they're doing, They've got all the protection and all that, but they are just putting their lives in the line, you know, every time they.
And the human being is facing something that none of us expected to face. I think what we're all realizing right now is regardless of whether you're a person who's completely lost your way of life and job and the normal way that you go about your business, through to the people who are suddenly thrust into the essential workers, the emergency workers, who are suddenly working at a rate and an intensity that they've never had to experience in
their life. Just because you've worked at Coles hasn't prepared you for a pandemic working at coals. And just because you work as a nurse or a doctor, which is already a really hard job, hasn't prepared you for suddenly working in the most hardcore conditions you've ever worked in your life, and unrelentingly for months at a time. It's not like you're pulling eighteen shifts for a week and
then you can have a week off. You're literally on the front lines at the moment, depending on everybody else's society. So everybody's in this state. If there are nurses and doctors who make mistakes along the way, then that is only to be expected because nobody knows how to deal with what we're doing going through. They're just doing their best. So I liked that that character didn't have some perfect
way of protecting themselves. In fact, Dude Law's character, the conspiracy theorist, in a way almost had a better way of protecting himself because he just walked around in a bubble boy out here, you know, everywhere, which in some ways would have been better for Kate's character.
Right, yeah, yeah, absolutely right.
I was again having this conversation tonight just of these people, like even the sea you know, the chief medical officers, you know, you know, Bret Sutton and Victoria you know, and you just think these guys just had no idea a year ago, you know, they was just you know, living their living their lives, doing their their their job at a obviously a high a high value and all of a sudden are the front of the faces of our fight against a global pandemic.
Like when people criticize these people, I just.
Don't understand the lack of empathy that people have towards these people.
I tell you, fucking dick jokes for a living, Like like I'm a professional fucking clown. Yeah, I mean award winning dick jokes, but sometimes political dick jokes sometimes, you know. But the point being that I've done that for a quarter of a century and suddenly it was all taken away,
and I don't know what to do. I'm taking a whole bunch of guesses at other things that I could do, or what my industry will look like when this comes back, or what I should be doing most effectively with my day to day when I can't do the thing that I have done, you know, for more than half of my life, I don't know what to do. And I'm a reasonably experienced person in my industry. I've got no idea what it's going to look like in three months or six months or eighteen months. I don't know if
the Melbourne Comedy Festival happened next next year. I can't tell you I've got no idea, and none of that has any stakes. These other people are having those same issues that they face, and they've got stakes involved in it. I think it's amazing. I think this idea that we are judging our politicians and our frontline workers by impossible standards. The least we could do, as the rest of them who don't have essential skills in these situations, is to
back them in. I think like we've got to allow them to get things wrong because we're all dealing with something that no one really knows what the right answer is.
I think anyone who's ever put themselves in charge of a committee, even if it's a school committee, imagine that. And I've heard horror stories. I must say I haven't been involved in those, but my wife has. I've heard horror stories. Time's at by a million, and you get the kind of the pressure of, you know, a premiere of a state, or a prime minister or a chief medical officer. But let's let's finish up by chatting about those how that I think brilliant end sequence and how
it plays out. So obviously, if you're listening to this, and you're still listening, you you've seen the film. So let's just go through how this virus gets out into the world. This is my recollection of how it happened. So the deforestation basically the places bats.
The bats are sad and.
Am I right in saying that it's deforestation by the company that Gwyneth Paltrow works for? Is there.
I suspect?
So?
I think it a weird CoInc It's a weird coincidence in reality. It'll be a weirder coincidence in filmmaking if you made Gweno Poultrow working for a forestry company and it's not responsible for this.
It's a bit it's almost a bit too neat obviously, but they're trying to make a point about, you know, where these things start, and that als always very accurate.
You know.
Deforestation is one of the big things that you know, it does displace you know, different species and leads to these sort of things. It's one of the things that they're really fearful about, you know, obviously, you know going forward as we continue to do that. So I thought that was really like a fun part of the story based in reality, but also obviously very good storytelling within the movie.
Yeah, So the that's are displaced, the bats are sad, So I got to find comfort in a banana.
Why wouldn't you? That's no longer have trees to hang off, so they hang off the rafters of.
Of a pig, a piggery. The silly bat drops a bit of banana. Or maybe this doesn't like the end of the banana. Some people don't like the end of the banana. Who can blame him? Banana falls. Pig does what a pig does. He is food on the floor. There's no three second rule for a pig. I'm eating the banana, eats the banana, and then the pig gets obviously taken away to be sold and cooked. The pig gets cooked in a Chinese restaurant.
The chef sixty fingers in the pig's mouth.
It really gets in there, doesn't it. Like that is one of my lasting memories of this film was like, what is the purpose of him so viciously fingering that pig's mouth, Like it's really in there. It's like real aggressive, it feels non consensual.
It's like it's like if he was it a one off kind of this, you know me he was making or is he is he fingering the pig's mouth that hard for every every pig meal he serves, every bit of pork he serves up.
It felt a bit full on.
And then just after her fingers the pig's mouth, he gets asked if he wants a photo of green of Poultrow. You would think Arthur just fingered the pig's mouth and somebody asked for photo green of Poultrow.
You might clean your hands, but he doesn't.
Want He wipes them on his apron.
He wipes it on his table.
That's nowhere near enough. You know, you're having a photo of grena pultrow. He's probably just had a vagina stems.
You know.
At least you can do is wash your hand, wash your hands. He doesn't wash his hands.
He goes out of green of Poultrow, you know, and you have a photo, a selfie is shaking hands in the photo.
Twenty five people twenty five million people die. That's that's how it happens.
It's it makes you never want to eat out in public again. That's one of the things that actual the movie is very big on because when you watch it, the bartender sort of like you know, cleaning the glass, you know, with the steam from his mouth, and you know, knives and forks and you know, nuts at the bar and all these things that are you just being touched and transmitted. It made me not want to get takeaway
or eat out at restaurants ever again. And I'm actually surprised how much we're still doing that as part of our lives. Like even in lockdown suburbs, people are still getting takeaway food. But when you watch Contagion, you're like, why would I ever eat anything that I haven't seen everybody who's touched this and prepared.
This after seeing it two nights ago. I'm in Victoria, which is we're experiencing strict lockdown for the next six weeks. I'm like, make make a ten weeks stand, Like, seriously, I don't I don't need to be back out in society for a long time. It's disgusting out there.
Yeah, it makes you never want to eat at a restaurant, never want to catch public transport, never want to leave your house, and.
Never have an extra marital affair. That's the key, Will, that's what.
And your husband you, ladies, well, I won't dictateor Dan come out in one of his press conferences and reveal that the real secret is too many bloody women having affairs behind their husband's backs.
Well, I've probably kept you too long, but thank you for watching this movie. And you know, I'm glad. I'm glad somebody stepped up to do it, and I'm glad you were the one.
I'd probably watch it again. That Honestly, I thought I was going to watch it for the fun of the podcast. I mean, you know, you rang me and said what about Contagion? And I was like, oh great, you know, it's of our times. It'll be an interesting and fun thing for us to be able to talk about. But
I genuinely enjoyed the movie. I would definitely watch it again, and I think there'd be stuff in it that i'd probably catch the second time around that I didn't catch the first time, you know, if once you were looking out for things. But there's there's great acting. It's a really well told story, a light that it doesn't get bogged down too much in like you said, the melodrama of people's lives. It just keeps moving and then it's
kind of over. Like there's part of that that I really enjoyed as well, where you were like, it doesn't build it necessarily some huge crescendo. It just kind of is suddenly over. And I hope maybe for our world that it feels like we're in the middle of the churn at the moment, but at some stage we're just going to go, ah, good, it's over.
Absolutely, But girls, don't cheat on your husband's.
Most importantly, can we just mention this contractorly one more time? Don't turn on your husband's. This episode of Ben Eliot's podcast brought to you by not cheating on your husband. Don't cause a pandemic.
Don't turn on your I was going to by Ashley Madison dot com.
Because I mean, there's the flip side is it's not quite anyway, it's horses for courses.
Anyway, let's go, thanks mate, and so
We leave old Pete save Fan Souf and to our friends of the radio audience, we've been a pleasant good night.