The Music Biopic Hall of Fame With Sean Fennessey

Sean Fennessey joins Yasi to build the Music Biopic Hall of Fame, from the 1940s to today. Along the way, they consider what makes a great music biopic, why rock and roll lends itself so well to the genre, and why a great central performance doesn’t always mean a great movie. Plus: Yasi’s cocurated Criterion Channel collection, the movies that belong in the trash, and the TV movie that ‘Odyssey’ star Matt Damon really deserved an Oscar for. Check out the curated Criterion Channel collection here. Plus: Yasi and Sean on 24 Hour Party People And the Top 20 on Letterboxd Subscribe on YouTube CREDITS:Host: Yasi Salek @yasisalekGuest: Sean Fennessey @seanfennesseyProducer: Rob SundermannEditor: Jon JonesAdditional Production Supervision: Justin SaylesTheme Song: Bethany Cosentino Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:59Speaker 01

  What's with this band anyway? I don't get it. Can you please explain? Wait, like, Bandplain? Never heard this band in my life. Oh, you haven't? I'd love that. Really? Why? Yeah, I love this song. Oh, I don't know that one. Bandplain, Bandplain, Bandplain. I really hate this band. Whatever. I'm their biggest fan. Bandplain, Bandplain, Bandplain, Bandplain. Bandplain.

• 1:39Yasi Salek?

  Hello and welcome to Bandplain. I am your host, Yasi Salek. This is usually a show where I invite an expert guest on to help me explain a cult band or iconic artist. But today, we're taking a page from the Big Picture Podcast and doing a Hall of Fame. A Hall of Fame of music biopics. It's been brought to my attention that some people don't say biopic. Did you know that they say biopic?

• 2:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, I don't believe in that.

• 2:02Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. My guest today, you guys, is celebrity film podcaster, best friend to Steven Spielberg,

• 2:10Yasi Salek?

  somewhat friend to me, Sean Finacy. Welcome to the program.

• 2:13Speaker 03

  Thank you. I like how you framed this by saying that usually you have an expert, but not today.

• 2:18Yasi Salek?

  It feels, it's not really the right wording and it offends every guest. They're like, oh, sorry, usually an expert. It's more that we're not doing the cult band or iconic artist, so perhaps I need to reword.

• 2:30Speaker 03

  Well, regardless.

• 2:31Yasi Salek?

  Diction is important.

• 2:31Speaker 03

  Regardless of my expertise, I'm happy to be here with you today.

• 2:34Yasi Salek?

  I'm thrilled to have you.

• 2:36Speaker 03

  What are we doing? How are we gonna do this?

• 2:37Yasi Salek?

  Hold on. Before we get into this, you guys, I wanted to mention, because you asked for it, at least a few, two to three of you asked for it. Bandplain is now on YouTube, so please get on there. Thank you so much. Get on there, like, all this makeup I've been schlacking on my face to come into this studio to record these video podcasts, you can now see them on your YouTube. Like, subscribe, comment. I don't know, what else do people do on YouTube?

• 3:07Speaker 03

  Unspeakable things.

• 3:07Yasi Salek?

  Unspeakable things, right. I'll be making a day in the life blog that will make your bones chilled.

• 3:12Speaker 03

  Wake up with Yasi.

• 3:14Yasi Salek?

  It's just me slamming Celsius's and like, at the Google Doc, like, increasingly disgusting. Sean, part of the reason that I've invited you here today to do this is because I have curated another collection for the Criterion Channel.

• 3:28Speaker 03

  Exciting.

• 3:29Yasi Salek?

  Of music biopics that don't suck. That's the title.

• 3:33Speaker 03

  Will all of those biopics just go in the canon?

• 3:36Yasi Salek?

  No.

• 3:38Speaker 03

  Intriguing.

• 3:38Yasi Salek?

  It was a co-curation, so I will, to peek behind the curtain. So there's a couple in there that I don't, with my whole chest cosign. And also, another peek behind the curtain of capitalism. There were ones I really wanted that are impossible, either impossible to license due to music rights, too expensive, whatever. I mean, this is, this is a business. So I don't think they'll all go in, and I think there will be others that go in that weren't part of the collection. But I still think, I still think the collection is really good and we got some really cool ones on there. And if you are interested, you can watch it on the Criterion Channel through, I think, the end of September.

• 4:14Speaker 03

  Exciting.

• 4:15Yasi Salek?

  Sean, what are we doing today? That's such a great question. Well, I was hoping that together we could do this in sort of a mutual helping each other.

• 4:23Speaker 03

  A collaboration.

• 4:24Yasi Salek?

  A collaboration. I've listened to multiple episodes of the Big Picture Podcast.

• 4:29Speaker 03

  Multiple meaning three?

• 4:30Yasi Salek?

  Listen, I listen to a lot.

• 4:32Speaker 03

  Okay, thank you.

• 4:33Yasi Salek?

  You're welcome. It's good stuff you're doing there.

• 4:35Speaker 03

  Thanks, we're trying, we're trying.

• 4:36Yasi Salek?

  And it's not even, I'm not contractually obligated. I just want you guys to know, they don't make you listen to the other Ringer podcasts, so.

• 4:41Speaker 03

  They don't. Well, they made me when I was forced to do that for a long time. And was very happy to, and I still do listen at 2X speed.

• 4:47Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, I listen to a lot of them. But, so I've listened to several Hall of Fames and you guys do such a great job. And I'm hoping that I can even get a 10% of a good job.

• 4:58Speaker 03

  Okay. Can I ask you a question about this? Because I've been thinking about this myself.

• 5:01Yasi Salek?

  Okay.

• 5:02Speaker 03

  Amanda recently did the 21st century rom-com canon.

• 5:05Yasi Salek?

  What is the difference between a canon and a Hall of Fame?

• 5:08Speaker 03

  So I think the Hall of Fame, I've broken this rule many times, but I think where it's settled in my head is the canon is for the genre and the Hall of Fame is for the person.

• 5:17Yasi Salek?

  So should this be a canon? Should we redo it?

• 5:19Speaker 03

  I don't want you to change anything, but it is how I have started thinking about it. I've gone back and forth over the years, but I just, I started using the canon nomenclature when talking about a genre. But is this even a genre, I guess, is a question.

• 5:31Yasi Salek?

  I think it's a genre. Do you not think so?

• 5:33Speaker 03

  It's just so loose.

• 5:35Yasi Salek?

  Maybe it's not a genre, rather, a type. Like, you know, like a taxonomical distinction rather than a genre distinction? Because their music biopics can be made up of different genres, right?

• 5:47Speaker 03

  Absolutely. Yeah, they could be thrillers, they could be romances. Yeah, you're right.

• 5:51Yasi Salek?

  So, so, okay, canon. It's gonna be a canon now, you guys, because Sean Finacy said. And also, I agree. And also, I don't care that much. So I think canon is, seems correct. Does canon have a similar numerical restriction? Because I know for Hall of Fame, you guys tend to cap at 10.

• 6:07Speaker 03

  We stick to 10. I think canon is good for 10 as well. 10 is a nice round number. I think it's coherent. This is a little more challenging, though, because you're talking about literally the beginning of classic Hollywood.

• 6:18Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 6:19Speaker 03

  All the way to today.

• 6:20Yasi Salek?

  Well, I was gonna ask you, because I'll be, I'll keep it 100 with you guys.

• 6:25Yasi Salek?

  Music biopics from the 40s and 50s, I don't know her. I've probably not seen any of them. It doesn't mean they're not good. That has nothing to do with me seeing them or not seeing them. It's a taste situation. So I don't know how many of those are gonna end up in the canon. I guess another question is, when you do the Big Picture Canon, is that, as, as you understand it, an objective canon of the world, or is that the canon through the lens of the big picture?

• 6:54Speaker 03

  It's certainly not an objective canon of the world.

• 6:56Yasi Salek?

  Well, is that what you're?

• 6:57Speaker 03

  Am I qualified to do, is anyone qualified to do that? That's a great question.

• 7:00Yasi Salek?

  It's a great question.

• 7:02Speaker 03

  It's strictly through the lens of the show.

• 7:03Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 7:04Speaker 03

  And the very subjective taste of whoever's on the episode.

• 7:06Yasi Salek?

  I think that's what we do here, too, because obviously bands. So I don't think the Ted Lewis, is everybody happy, 1943, classic Hollywood biopic will make our canon.

• 7:17Speaker 03

  Haven't seen that film.

• 7:18Yasi Salek?

  Me neither. And it might be good, but it's not really a Bandplain-y situation.

• 7:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, there's a couple of movies in the first 10 years or so of this style that I think are very well-known, almost iconic, American movies, not specifically because they're about musicians, but because of kind of what they mean to the culture at large. That's, they're very far away from where Bohemian Rhapsody is going, so.

• 7:41Yasi Salek?

  And thank God.

• 7:42Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. Well, like, I mean, we don't have to put this movie in, and I know you're gonna want to talk with some more depth around the idea, but like, Yankee Doodle Dandy is the first movie on the list that you made.

• 7:51Yasi Salek?

  Yes.

• 7:51Speaker 03

  The 1942 movie starring Jimmy Cagney, and it's one of his best performances. And it's a terrific song and dance movie, and it showed that Cagney wasn't just a gangster movie star, that he had a lot of range. And it was, I think it was in the AFI 100 Years, 100 Movies original list that came out. It's a very, it's canonically a very well-known and well-liked American movie. Is it like a great music biopic? I, I guess we, what does that mean?

• 8:17Yasi Salek?

  Why don't we, why don't we try to establish between the two of us, a little jury of two, what makes a great music biopic? And I, I fear we might differ on that.

• 8:28Speaker 03

  Great. That's what makes interesting conversation.

• 8:31Yasi Salek?

  Libelous debate. What do you think?

• 8:34Speaker 03

  I think it needs to be a portrait of a person who makes music.

• 8:37Yasi Salek?

  Okay, great.

• 8:38Speaker 03

  That's pretty much it.

• 8:40Yasi Salek?

  The actors are clearly visible and the language is understandable.

• 8:44Speaker 03

  There should be human beings. There should be, cameras should be used to capture their lives.

• 8:49Yasi Salek?

  There was, there was like, remember Cracked, the like humor website?

• 8:53Speaker 03

  Of course I did. I remember Cracked, the magazine.

• 8:55Yasi Salek?

  Yes, of course, of course. The Mad magazine sort of.

• 8:58Speaker 03

  It was a Reebok to Mad's Nike.

• 9:00Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. There was, there's an article from there that was burned in my brain that was like about dating and it was something about like, oh, this guy is nice to me. The person was like, that is rock bottom. Like, the guy is nice to me is like saying I went and saw a film and all the actors were clearly visible and it was in English.

• 9:20Speaker 03

  But don't you, don't you, don't you agree that so many people are just not nice to their partners?

• 9:25Yasi Salek?

  I agree, but I think that's like, shouldn't, I think the point the guy was making is like, that's not enough.

• 9:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, I agree.

• 9:32Yasi Salek?

  That is a requirement. I think the guy was like, there's also another nice guy who plays guitar.

• 9:39Speaker 03

  Two good things.

• 9:40Yasi Salek?

  Really, really stuck with me.

• 9:42Speaker 03

  Aren't both of those things exciting to you?

• 9:44Yasi Salek?

  Sure.

• 9:45Speaker 03

  And aren't they exciting to the film going audiences?

• 9:47Yasi Salek?

  Guitar a little, guitar a little more exciting to me than nice, which is probably why I ended up where I've ended up. And also, let's be real to music biopics. Nice not really a making of a great film.

• 9:59Speaker 03

  Guitar is a really interesting through line here because I feel like these movies really come to life when you start focusing on rock and roll figures.

• 10:07Yasi Salek?

  Do you think that's just because rock and roll is like so electric?

• 10:12Speaker 03

  It's thrilling.

• 10:12Yasi Salek?

  For lack of a, you know, that's a pun, but.

• 10:14Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 10:16Yasi Salek?

  I think it's even a little more than that, too. I think there's something about rock and roll that is not always, but can be campy. And one thing I really like in music biopics is camp. Because I think part of what is interesting to me about a lot of these figures is that they are, many of them are, and this, I say this with like love and respect, sort of ridiculous. Maybe not as actual people, but as the way they've been absorbed by the culture. And when, to, to get that ridiculousness on camera makes for me, like, that's an exciting way to watch something.

• 10:58Speaker 03

  I know what you mean. I think there's like a general theatricality to the history of rock and roll and the way that people present when they perform, maybe more so than a classical music composer.

• 11:08Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 11:09Speaker 03

  Who maybe isn't even necessarily seen in the public when presenting their work.

• 11:14Yasi Salek?

  Then there's on the dance. So there's ways to do it.

• 11:16Speaker 03

  Which is kind of a counterfactual and we can talk about that.

• 11:19Yasi Salek?

  Counterfactual also for me, yes. Love it.

• 11:22Speaker 03

  You like a counter, yeah. I, I do too. I like when something breaks the trend and, and redefines what a kind of movie is. The other thing about rock and roll is, um, it's not just a popular form of art. It's a very conquerable thing. Like, it's very easy to watch a person write a rock and roll song in a way that it's not easy to watch a person compose a grand opera.

• 11:43Yasi Salek?

  But you famously hate watching someone compose a rock and roll song.

• 11:47Speaker 03

  I do.

• 11:47Yasi Salek?

  I do too.

• 11:48Speaker 03

  I don't think it makes good cinema per se, but you can imagine, like, there's gonna be a Joni Mitchell biopic that Cameron Crowe is reportedly making.

• 11:55Yasi Salek?

  She's gonna be sitting, drinking red wine, smoking, blasting cigs, writing songs on an afghan.

• 12:01Speaker 03

  Or, you know, sitting at the piano and just banging out a tune.

• 12:04Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 12:05Speaker 03

  You know, and.

• 12:06Yasi Salek?

  I don't know why they think we need to see that.

• 12:09Speaker 03

  I do. I, it's because there is a real elusive magic to the act of creation and there's an, it's an attempt to narrativize it. But it can't really be done, right? Like, you can't show for real, you can't explain inspiration. I, we both, for a living, like, ask people, like, how'd you do that?

• 12:25Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 12:25Speaker 03

  How do you come up with something? Like, we're trying to figure it out because we don't do it. Like, what we make is stupid.

• 12:30Yasi Salek?

  Once again, I need you to speak for yourself.

• 12:32Speaker 03

  What I make is stupid. What you make.

• 12:34Yasi Salek?

  I am constantly inspired and I am an artist, so.

• 12:37Speaker 03

  Okay, well, I, I will let you.

• 12:39Yasi Salek?

  However you want to look at what you do, that's your business.

• 12:42Speaker 03

  Uh huh. Well, um, I have a lack of pride and I.

• 12:46Yasi Salek?

  I don't think that's true.

• 12:47Speaker 03

  I operate in self-loathing. Ego is different from pride.

• 12:50Yasi Salek?

  Oh, that's true. Okay, yeah.

• 12:51Speaker 03

  I'll just say, I do think that it is like an effort by filmmakers, actually, to try to like, help us better understand the act of creation.

• 13:00Yasi Salek?

  You would think a filmmaker of all people would understand how like, is ineffable the right word?

• 13:06Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think that's right.

• 13:07Yasi Salek?

  It is to, to like, capture that lightning in a bottle in like a literal way.

• 13:14Speaker 03

  I agree, and yet, people seem to enjoy it. These movies do, historically do pretty well.

• 13:19Yasi Salek?

  So we're back to the, is popular good?

• 13:23Speaker 03

  Sometimes.

• 13:24Yasi Salek?

  Sometimes, yeah. The twin can meet.

• 13:26Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 13:27Yasi Salek?

  I think, thinking back to all the ones I love, I, I can't think of one that actually depicts what we're talking about. The ones that are my favorites, I don't remember seeing someone sit down and write music.

• 13:42Yasi Salek?

  So that's my take on it. I just.

• 13:44Speaker 03

  I can think of a couple, but okay.

• 13:46Yasi Salek?

  My, I was thinking about it a lot this morning while I was watching Elvis at seven in the morning.

• 13:51Speaker 03

  John Carpenter's Elvis?

• 13:51Yasi Salek?

  No. Baz Luhrmann's Elvis.

• 13:53Speaker 03

  Oh, unfortunately, yeah.

• 13:55Yasi Salek?

  I loved it.

• 13:56Speaker 03

  That's great.

• 13:57Yasi Salek?

  I was, I really surprised myself because I actually completely skipped it because I was like, well, we already know what that's gonna be all about. And I did not know what it was gonna, well, we can talk about it when we get there. But I was like, okay, here is my tenet.

• 14:15Yasi Salek?

  You cannot capture a person's entire essence, life, you know, every facet of them in a film. And when you try, you fail. That's just like, period, end of sentence. And the films that I love the most are like, they come at it a little sideways. Or it's a little narrow. Or it's, it is Cradle of the Grave, but they do something, you know, unexpected with it. Or they only try to capture one, like Elvis is a good example, right? Elvis is like a fever dream. Like, it is the part of Elvis that is the part of him that was in culture that was like truly psychotic, like campy, over the top. And the whole film is kind of like that, you know?

• 14:59Yasi Salek?

  Doesn't mean I wouldn't watch another Elvis film that was like, a little more grave or serious or maybe focused more on his youth. I'm obsessed with the fact that he was so close with his mother and he's, they shared a bed till he was a teenager. Like, maybe if I made the film, I would have focused on that. That can also be a good biopic. But when you try to put it all in one thing, you just flatten the person, in my opinion.

• 15:22Speaker 03

  I don't, I don't disagree, although I, I really did not enjoy Elvis.

• 15:26Yasi Salek?

  That's okay.

• 15:27Speaker 03

  And, um, there are a variety of reasons why. I think I probably spent two or three episodes talking about it on the big picture. But I did just see epic Elvis Presley in concert.

• 15:36Yasi Salek?

  Which is also Baz Luhrmann.

• 15:38Speaker 03

  Which is Baz Luhrmann's second film about Elvis, which is a concert film and entirely using this sort of like, elevated, refined, restored footage.

• 15:46Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 15:47Speaker 03

  Over a couple of nights of performance and lots of background interview footage. And I just got way more out of that. I got way more out of who Elvis's essence was. I think my issue with Baz Luhrmann's movie is like, I wasn't really interested in his point of view on Elvis.

• 15:59Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 15:59Speaker 03

  And that is really what it boils down to with a lot of these films.

• 16:02Yasi Salek?

  And Baz Luhrmann is a carny in his heart.

• 16:05Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 16:06Yasi Salek?

  That movie is spiritually Australian in a way that you might not like because it does get a lot of things wrong in the way that is very Australian of it, which you think I wouldn't like.

• 16:16Speaker 03

  I thought specifically the notion of Elvis's relationship to race in America was just bizarre in that movie. I was like, this is clearly not a guy from America. Um, and his like, I'm just like, good pals with B.B. King and we just like hang out in Memphis and we chat every Saturday night. Like, that whole thing I just thought was so strange and so sort of like retro reimagined and like, here's how we can really admire and empathize with this figure. So, but that's interesting because like it is Baz's POV. And some of these movies, I think, have a really strong POV on an iconic figure. And some of them are about less well-known people, so they're attempting to narrativize them to get you interested in and understand.

• 16:53Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 16:53Speaker 03

  Why someone was great and underrated. And so there's like this kind of balancing act that happens across the history of the movies that is fun to go through.

• 17:00Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. Okay, great. Well, I don't know how much we established what we're looking for, but it's, again, like pornography, you'll know it when you see it. Well, you mentioned Ink Doodle Dandy.

• 17:09Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 17:10Yasi Salek?

  Do you think it goes in the canon?

• 17:12Speaker 03

  Um, I mean, in, in the, in the strategy that we apply.

• 17:16Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, when you do canon, is it still green, yellow, red?

• 17:19Speaker 03

  Not usually.

• 17:20Yasi Salek?

  Okay.

• 17:21Speaker 03

  Let's, let's do a band spleen thing. What do you want to do?

• 17:23Yasi Salek?

  I don't know. I'm, you know, historically, I don't do well with rules-based games.

• 17:28Speaker 03

  Five devil horns for.

• 17:30Yasi Salek?

  How dare you.

• 17:30Speaker 03

  Okay. What would be, what would be an indicative signature for, for band spleen? What could you say that would be like, this is a fuck yeah, this is a maybe, this is a no.

• 17:41Yasi Salek?

  Why on the big picture, it's simply something simple like green, red, yellow, and I have to do devil horns? Or like five guitars? Like, is that what you think of me?

• 17:49Speaker 03

  I'm just having fun at your expense, but.

• 17:51Yasi Salek?

  Three studded belts, four hot topics? Like, I don't understand.

• 17:55Speaker 03

  Now we're talking. You got big hoop earrings today?

• 17:57Yasi Salek?

  I always have big hoop earrings.

• 17:58Speaker 03

  Maybe the hoop earrings?

• 18:01Yasi Salek?

  That's rough what you're doing.

• 18:03Speaker 03

  What do you want it to be? Five Bjork t-shirts? What can we do?

• 18:08Yasi Salek?

  Are we? Well, how is a can it made?

• 18:13Speaker 03

  I think for the purposes of this conversation, it's just saying, we really like this and we want it to go in. I haven't seen Yankee Doodle Dandy in 25 years. You know, I

• 18:21Yasi Salek?

  I've never seen it.

• 18:22Speaker 03

  I genuinely can't recall components of the story, other than it's about George Cohen. And then Michael Curtis directed it, you know, and it's one of his first movies after Casablanca. And so like it fits the parameters. It has a great performance. It shows that person in performance. It shows what their art meant to their life.

• 18:43Yasi Salek?

  You know what we're gonna do? Yes, no, maybe.

• 18:45Speaker 03

  Yes, no, maybe.

• 18:46Yasi Salek?

  That's right.

• 18:47Speaker 03

  Okay, well, let's just say maybe then.

• 18:48Yasi Salek?

  Great.

• 18:49Speaker 03

  Now, do you want to go through every single one of these films?

• 18:51Yasi Salek?

  Well, I think we could like literally just like be like, okay, is everybody happy Ted Lasso? That's not going in. I don't even know what that is. Doesn't mean it's a bad movie.

• 18:58Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 18:58Yasi Salek?

  A Song to Remember, Chopin, have you seen that?

• 19:00Speaker 03

  Haven't seen it.

• 19:01Yasi Salek?

  Me neither. Rhapsody in Blue, that's very famous.

• 19:04Speaker 03

  It is, I have seen it. I don't feel that it's going in.

• 19:07Yasi Salek?

  Okay.

• 19:07Speaker 03

  The thing is with a lot of these 40s and 50s movies, and this will come up in the next film that we talk about. You know, they're made in the studio system and so they're not ultimately interested in exploring the psychology of these figures at the time. They're more interested in giving the audiences a kind of satisfying Wikipedia entry.

• 19:24Yasi Salek?

  Bit of a razzle dazzle.

• 19:25Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 19:26Yasi Salek?

  Showbiz.

• 19:26Speaker 03

  Yes. For example, in the next movie you have on the list, Night and Day, which is about Cole Porter stars Cary Grant. You know, Cole Porter was gay and he's not portrayed as gay in this film.

• 19:35Yasi Salek?

  Well, it was 1946.

• 19:36Speaker 03

  That's exactly my point. So it's sort of like Night and Day, also directed by Michael Curtis, is kind of an entertaining movie. And if you like to see Cole Porter writing Begin to Begin or whatever, like it is kind of fun. But it doesn't deeply explore his life. I don't know if you have the other Cole Porter movie that Kevin Kline stars in on this list. What is that movie called? Cole Porter?

• 19:59Yasi Salek?

  Yes, The Lovely.

• 20:00Speaker 03

  And is that on the list as well?

• 20:02Yasi Salek?

  You think that's a better?

• 20:03Speaker 03

  That's a more true representation of Cole Porter, but it's probably not as good a movie as Night and Day.

• 20:09Yasi Salek?

  Is that? And which one is more important?

• 20:11Speaker 03

  It's your show.

• 20:13Yasi Salek?

  I kind of think.

• 20:16Yasi Salek?

  Hard to say.

• 20:17Speaker 03

  I mean, I don't think either of them are going in on a list of 10. But it is an interesting question of sort of like, does the truth matter of their life?

• 20:23Yasi Salek?

  I think this is art. So I think ultimately being a better film matters.

• 20:27Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 20:30Speaker 03

  I think we should keep going.

• 20:30Yasi Salek?

  I reserve the right to change my mind.

• 20:34Yasi Salek?

  The Jolson Story? Don't know it.

• 20:36Speaker 03

  Haven't seen it.

• 20:37Yasi Salek?

  Song of Love?

• 20:39Speaker 03

  Haven't seen it.

• 20:40Yasi Salek?

  Luckily, probably all these directors are dead now, so they won't be offended by us going through this. The Fabulous Dorsey's?

• 20:45Speaker 03

  Haven't seen it.

• 20:46Yasi Salek?

  Me neither. Words and Music?

• 20:47Speaker 03

  Haven't seen it.

• 20:48Yasi Salek?

  Mickey Rooney?

• 20:49Speaker 03

  Yeah, Mickey Rooney and this is the story of Lorenz Hart and Richard Rogers. And which predates Blue Moon, of course.

• 20:57Yasi Salek?

  Which I loved.

• 20:58Speaker 03

  Which is a fabulous movie.

• 20:59Yasi Salek?

  Is that a music biopic?

• 21:00Speaker 03

  I think so.

• 21:01Yasi Salek?

  It's not on my list, but we could put it.

• 21:02Speaker 03

  I think so.

• 21:03Yasi Salek?

  I loved that. I mean, also, I think fundamentally, maybe, I can't speak for you, but fundamentally, my sensibilities are just not going to be in the 40s and 50s. It's not something, it's not a type of film that I connect with or I'm familiar with, you know?

• 21:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, most of these movies, I don't think.

• 21:18Yasi Salek?

  Should we just skip on ahead?

• 21:20Speaker 03

  Really worth spending a ton of time on. I mean, probably the most famous on the list that we have here is The Glenn Miller Story.

• 21:26Yasi Salek?

  Okay.

• 21:26Speaker 03

  Which is stars Jimmy Stewart as the trombone player who eventually starts his own band and becomes one of the most famous American musicians for a period of time. It's a very good movie. It's again, like very standard. But if you're trying to get a real snapshot of the way that famous musicians were being portrayed throughout the history of Hollywood, this is a big one.

• 21:46Yasi Salek?

  Right. I think it's interesting to point out, though, even though we're not, you know, probably gonna canonize, canonize many of these, is that how early on this has been a consideration and a preoccupation with Hollywood? Like, they're making almost as many music biopics in the 40s and 50s as they do in any other decade.

• 22:04Speaker 03

  I was gonna ask you about this.

• 22:05Yasi Salek?

  Isn't that interesting?

• 22:06Speaker 03

  It is really interesting, the fact that it was such a popular subgenre for 20 years. And then in the 1960s, it kind of just stops.

• 22:13Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 22:14Speaker 03

  And why does it stop? And is it because of what's happening with popular music at the time?

• 22:18Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, maybe popular music was so interesting that people didn't care to go see, you know? I'm not sure, this is maybe a little more your wheelhouse, but.

• 22:29Speaker 03

  Well, I have a theory.

• 22:30Yasi Salek?

  It also is like the hippie counterculture. Maybe they're not that interested in seeing fictionalized, because in the 60s, it would be about 50s or 40s artists, right? It's not going to be about contemporaneous artists.

• 22:41Speaker 03

  Well, all these movies in the 50s and 60s are about bandleaders and composers. And they're not inherently great performance figures.

• 22:52Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 22:52Speaker 03

  But what you have in the 60s is you have this explosion of rock and roll. And then all of those rock and roll stars, including Elvis, including the Beatles.

• 22:59Yasi Salek?

  They made their own movies. Right, like we have Beatles films, you have Beach Boys in the films. Yeah, that makes sense. So like, that is sort of being.

• 23:06Speaker 03

  String of 20 Elvis movies, you know, where he's like playing a GI or he's playing a guy in Hawaii.

• 23:11Yasi Salek?

  Beautiful, what a beautiful man.

• 23:12Speaker 03

  He is, and those movies all stink, and yet they're kind of fun to watch because he's such a laser beam of charisma that they're fun artifacts. But so I'm going through John Borman's work. And his first major feature film is a movie called Catch Us If You Can? Which was only made because the Dave Clark Five wanted to make a movie in swinging London in 1965. And this guy who eventually went on to make, you know, Deliverance and Excalibur and all these amazing movies, basically got launched into the world by this band trying to copy the Beatles. And so I think because of that, you get this thing that we see on this really long list you have. From 1964 to 1972, only about five movies like this are made.

• 23:54Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 23:55Speaker 03

  And it's because the whole industry has shifted towards just portraying the characters.

• 23:59Yasi Salek?

  And then that just goes away. Nobody wants that anymore.

• 24:02Speaker 03

  It's true. With some exceptions.

• 24:04Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 24:05Speaker 03

  We have Prince, you know, we have a couple of people.

• 24:07Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 24:07Speaker 03

  To fill the gaps.

• 24:08Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, but it's like rare.

• 24:10Speaker 03

  It is rare.

• 24:11Yasi Salek?

  And Purple Rain was like a fluke. Like, nobody wanted it. No one thought it was gonna be good and it just exploded against all odds.

• 24:17Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 24:18Yasi Salek?

  Because Prince is a genius. From the 60s, Funny Girl's pretty important.

• 24:23Speaker 03

  It is. Fanny Brice.

• 24:25Yasi Salek?

  Fanny Brice, a person that I'm not that familiar with.

• 24:28Speaker 03

  Have you seen the film?

• 24:29Yasi Salek?

  Yes.

• 24:29Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 24:29Yasi Salek?

  Great film. Is it a maybe? Is it an automatic yes because it's so amazing?

• 24:37Speaker 03

  So funny, because I didn't know anything about Fanny Brice when I sat down to watch it. So now, when you and I sit down to watch movies like Deliver Me From Nowhere, where we come with all this expectation about how is Bruce Springsteen gonna be portrayed?

• 24:48Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 24:49Speaker 03

  To me, that's a movie about Barbra Streisand as much as it is about Fanny Brice.

• 24:52Yasi Salek?

  I think you raise a really interesting point, because I do think that fortunately or unfortunately, when you approach a music biopic, you might be better off not knowing anything. You might, there's probably a sweet spot where you have like a vague familiarity, but are not an expert. Because when you're an expert, you're going to be, you know, wagging your finger or like.

• 25:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, the Emily Wilson, the Odyssey situation.

• 25:19Yasi Salek?

  Sure.

• 25:20Speaker 03

  How dare you, sir, not portray the gods?

• 25:22Yasi Salek?

  Right, or just like, you know, those people are very precious to you maybe, and you feel wronged by how they're portrayed.

• 25:30Yasi Salek?

  Or if you're willing to and able to, which I've been really trying to do, because I sometimes get in my Emily Wilson bag when I watch music biopics, given my work and how deeply connected I feel to some of these artists.

• 25:40Speaker 03

  Understandable.

• 25:41Yasi Salek?

  But I have tried to put my Sean Fennessey hat on. I don't often wear a hat. You have such a beautiful head of hair.

• 25:48Speaker 03

  I love wearing hats, but it's like, it would be like taking away my superpower. You know, it's like it's the only thing I have. It's really the only thing I have.

• 25:55Yasi Salek?

  Rocket while you have it. And just like be like, let me judge this on simply the merits of the film. Which is why I was able to enjoy Elvis, I think.

• 26:05Speaker 03

  I get that. I completely understand that.

• 26:08Yasi Salek?

  I'll put Funny Girl as a maybe.

• 26:09Speaker 03

  I think it's definitely a maybe.

• 26:11Yasi Salek?

  Definitely maybe.

• 26:12Speaker 03

  In the Oasis mode.

• 26:13Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, no Oasis, but yes Oasis. Is there anything else from the 60s that you feel? I mean, I guess the Hank Williams.

• 26:21Speaker 03

  You know, I've never seen Your Treatin' Heart.

• 26:23Yasi Salek?

  I haven't seen it either.

• 26:24Speaker 03

  And I love Hank Williams's music. I'm really interested in his life, so maybe I should just fill that blind spot.

• 26:29Yasi Salek?

  Fill that on your Letterboxd to watch list.

• 26:31Speaker 03

  You know what? I will, right now.

• 26:34Speaker 03

  So yeah, no, I don't think anything else slots in there. Wow, George Hamilton portrays Hank Williams? That is not ideal.

• 26:42Yasi Salek?

  Weird.

• 26:42Speaker 03

  That's not, no shots to George Hamilton.

• 26:45Yasi Salek?

  Was he already a real tan back then?

• 26:48Speaker 03

  Yeah, he looks pretty tan in this poster. Where's George Hamilton from originally? He's from Memphis, Tennessee.

• 26:55Yasi Salek?

  Oh, okay.

• 26:55Speaker 03

  So I stand corrected.

• 26:59Yasi Salek?

  They have a resemblance.

• 27:02Speaker 03

  Ish.

• 27:03Yasi Salek?

  If you like undo the pomp, pomp hair and the stuff, you know?

• 27:06Speaker 03

  Sure. Uh, Film Inc. argued that George Hamilton was, quote, "never convincing as a star singer, writer, or doomed person." Admittedly, he's not helped much by the slack direction or poor script, which consists of a lot of drunken acting and squabbles with his wife, played without much flair by Susan Oliver. The movie wasn't a blockbuster, but it became beloved.

• 27:26Yasi Salek?

  Like a cult classic.

• 27:27Speaker 03

  So.

• 27:27Yasi Salek?

  Okay.

• 27:27Speaker 03

  Not by me.

• 27:28Yasi Salek?

  I'll throw it on my, um, that is another, that raises another interesting question. This is fun that the questions come up while we're going through. How much do you feel the, uh, actor needs to resemble the, uh, titular character? Might not be a titular.

• 27:43Speaker 03

  I don't think they need to look exactly like them, but they need to be able to capture their energy.

• 27:46Yasi Salek?

  Embodied, yeah, yeah.

• 27:48Speaker 03

  And Austin Butler, I thought, was very interesting as Elvis.

• 27:51Yasi Salek?

  I thought he was phenomenal. By the end, I was like, that's Elvis.

• 27:54Speaker 03

  Yes, and he doesn't look like Elvis to me.

• 27:56Yasi Salek?

  No, I mean, he, he possesses some of the qualities, like he is incredibly beautiful in a lightly feminine way that Elvis, you know, like, I don't think they could have put like some, somebody else, I can't even grab, Tom Holland would not have worked, you know?

• 28:13Speaker 03

  He's short, yeah.

• 28:14Yasi Salek?

  Besides the, the shortness, he doesn't have the like pillowey, there's like something about, parts of Elvis's face that I think are like sensual in a way that made him who he is.

• 28:24Speaker 03

  I agree.

• 28:25Yasi Salek?

  Um, but yeah, you're right, they don't have a strong resemblance, but by the end, I was like, that's Elvis, especially with, what, sorry, I'm talking about Elvis so much just because I, there's a recency bias. Um, but he started to, which I loved, cut in actual Elvis at the end, and I was like, kind of like, I was like in it, I was like, that's Elvis, oh, that's Elvis too, that's Austin Butler.

• 28:43Speaker 03

  When he's wearing the makeup in the seventies period with the jowls, yeah, he looks a lot like him.

• 28:48Yasi Salek?

  Crazy. Um, it's also very funny because my best friend's boyfriend looks alarmingly like Austin Butler. And so.

• 28:55Speaker 03

  Must be nice.

• 28:56Yasi Salek?

  For her, yes. Um, and he's a wonderful person, but every time I watch a film with Austin Butler, I'm like, that's Hank. That's his name.

• 29:03Speaker 03

  His name's Hank.

• 29:04Yasi Salek?

  And I am, I'm like, why is Hank pretending to be Elvis? This is crazy. Why is Hank fat Elvis? Um, okay, seventies.

• 29:15Yasi Salek?

  Not many made.

• 29:17Speaker 03

  No, I think you've got a couple of historically significant ones.

• 29:22Yasi Salek?

  Have you seen Mahler? Because you're a Ken Russell head?

• 29:24Speaker 03

  Uh, I have seen Mahler and I have seen Listamania, both of which are a lot of fun.

• 29:30Yasi Salek?

  I love Listamania.

• 29:31Speaker 03

  I do too.

• 29:32Yasi Salek?

  It's in my Criterion Collection, I find it to be, uh, quite wonderful.

• 29:36Speaker 03

  I agree with you, it's very chaotic and very sexually and emotionally forward, as all Ken Russell stories are. Um, daltrey is awesome in it.

• 29:47Yasi Salek?

  So good.

• 29:48Speaker 03

  It's definitely on the long list for me. Mahler is a little bit more restrained, um, and a little bit different energy.

• 29:55Yasi Salek?

  Do you think it's because it's a, well, I guess they're both cult classic artists?

• 29:59Speaker 03

  Hmm, I, I, I feel like, so, Ken Russell made a series of films about composers throughout his career, he made shorter films for the BBC in the sixties, also about composers, it's obviously just an avenue of interest for him, and I think he sees these figures as like great ways to explore what he's interested in, in terms of like, physical expression is the thing that he's really into. Um, and the way that creativity often intersects with like desire. And.

• 30:26Yasi Salek?

  Both libidinal.

• 30:27Speaker 03

  I, but I think it would be a little redundant to put both of them on there, but I would put one of them on there.

• 30:31Yasi Salek?

  I heard, I, I love Listamania, it, it, it, uh, checks a lot of boxes for me, whereas it comes out sideways, it's a bizarre, fun psychedelic thing about, it's unexpected.

• 30:45Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 30:46Yasi Salek?

  So, I'll put it, let's give it a yes for now. We can always un-yes it later.

• 30:50Speaker 03

  I'm down.

• 30:50Yasi Salek?

  But I think it's a yes.

• 30:51Speaker 03

  Mahler is a much more restrained movie.

• 30:54Yasi Salek?

  Um, is, there was a Funny Lady, they made a second?

• 30:59Speaker 03

  They did.

• 30:59Yasi Salek?

  Didn't know about that.

• 31:00Speaker 03

  Um, it's also Streisand, is it not?

• 31:02Yasi Salek?

  Yes.

• 31:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, and it's, um, but it's, it's a sequel, and I think it's when she's like really famous, Fanny Bryce, so just like 10 years into the future of her life.

• 31:14Yasi Salek?

  Okay.

• 31:14Speaker 03

  I know James Caan is in it.

• 31:15Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 31:15Speaker 03

  I've seen it. I don't remember a single thing about it. It tells you what you need now.

• 31:20Yasi Salek?

  No canon for you. Um, Bound for Glory, Woody Guthrie, feels like something you would have seen, Howl Ashby, David Carradine.

• 31:27Speaker 03

  Two important facts about this movie. One, I think it is the first example of a music biopic that is not about how a person became a famous musician, but about what their life was that inspired their art.

• 31:41Yasi Salek?

  Okay.

• 31:42Speaker 03

  Which is a thing that you'll see, we'll, we'll talk about in some other films. Two, this is also the film, the first time Steadicam was ever used on a movie.

• 31:49Yasi Salek?

  Steadicam?

• 31:50Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 31:50Yasi Salek?

  Oh, that's incredible.

• 31:51Speaker 03

  You know, which if you've ever seen, like The Shining, and you see the way, you know, the Danny's on the roller, on the wheels is being.

• 31:56Yasi Salek?

  Punching or whatever.

• 31:57Speaker 03

  Yes, exactly.

• 31:57Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 31:57Speaker 03

  Um, which was a dramatic evolution in filmmaking style, but this is like probably on the, considered on the bottom tier, the Howl Ashby canon.

• 32:07Yasi Salek?

  Okay.

• 32:07Speaker 03

  But it's a very, very good film. A number of people were offered the part of Woody Guthrie, including, I think Bob Dylan, who of course was wildly inspired by Woody Guthrie, and Dustin Hoffman.

• 32:21Yasi Salek?

  Oh, wow.

• 32:21Speaker 03

  And so they, they went to Carradine as kind of a last resort, and he's amazing in it, and he was in very few films like this in his career, he was mostly in like, you know, Lone Wolf, McQuade, you know, stuff like, like action movies and, and exploitation movies. And he, it's a very, very underrated film, it's just a little quiet and slow, and it is about like observing America in the time when Guthrie was coming of age and realizing the way that downtrodden people were mistreated, and that there was really like no, not only no safety net, but no desire to help anybody who had less than. And that obviously informs like the way he writes music that, you know, I, I think legitimately

• 33:02Speaker 03

  changes the world, I mean, he's, he's, I think on the list of the 30 or 40 most significant American musicians.

• 33:08Yasi Salek?

  Sure. Is it, I haven't seen it, is it, does it like air, or like air on the side of like after-school special, heavy-handed, like?

• 33:17Speaker 03

  No, it's a very poetic movie.

• 33:18Yasi Salek?

  Okay, I'm gonna put it in a maybe, even though I haven't seen it.

• 33:21Speaker 03

  I, I would, I would maybe it for sure, because like when we start getting into movies that we like from the nineties, just because they're all in the pitch objects, like, they don't hold a candle to the filmmaking in Bound for Glory, they're just more fun. Bound for Glory is not a fun movie at all, it's a movie that shows like abject poverty.

• 33:38Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 33:39Speaker 03

  And, but I think it, it deserves some recognition.

• 33:42Yasi Salek?

  Okay, amazing. Um, didn't see Lad Belli?

• 33:46Speaker 03

  I haven't seen Lad Belli either, I would like to. Um, A Bit Lost to Time, but apparently very good, obviously portraying a very similar story as Bound for Glory.

• 33:54Yasi Salek?

  Scott Joplin, ragtime.

• 33:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, seen it.

• 33:58Yasi Salek?

  You have?

• 33:58Speaker 03

  Not going in.

• 33:59Yasi Salek?

  Okay, great. Um, now we're fucking cooking with gas, because it's time for the Buddy Holly story, which I absolutely love.

• 34:06Speaker 03

  Now, is this?

• 34:07Yasi Salek?

  This is Gary Busey.

• 34:07Speaker 03

  This is the Gary Busey film, yeah, so this movie is amazing.

• 34:10Yasi Salek?

  This movie is amazing. I watched it a long time ago, when I, I developed like a, a weird obsession with Buddy Holly, like maybe 12 years ago.

• 34:19Speaker 03

  12 years ago? I feel like he's one of those like.

• 34:21Yasi Salek?

  15 years ago or something.

• 34:22Speaker 03

  Portal people where you're like 14, and that leads you, maybe this is just me, but that like, listening to the Stand By Me soundtrack, and then you like, find out about 50's rock and roll, no, this didn't happen for you?

• 34:31Yasi Salek?

  No. I mean, I was, I was into 50's rock and roll, but I had never like, Buddy Holly not sex, you know Buddy Holly not like alluring to me?

• 34:38Speaker 03

  So ironic though, because every guy who's considered like cool in Brooklyn in 2007 dressed exactly like Buddy Holly.

• 34:44Yasi Salek?

  I know how I feel about 2007.

• 34:45Speaker 03

  Okay, just, just putting that out there.

• 34:48Yasi Salek?

  Um, yeah, I guess like, I mean, I love the, I love Buddy Holly's music, but I just never like been that interested, and then I got really deep, and then I was like, well, I need to see the film.

• 34:57Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 34:58Yasi Salek?

  I think I was going, I think I was going to Lubbock.

• 35:00Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 35:01Yasi Salek?

  There's a Buddy Holly museum there I went to.

• 35:04Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 35:04Yasi Salek?

  Um, anyways, blew, blew my socks off, like Gary Busey's amazing, it's so fun, the music is also just so good.

• 35:15Speaker 03

  Gary Busey's a kid when he makes the film, he's so young.

• 35:18Yasi Salek?

  One might have thought he would have had a different career based on his performance in this film.

• 35:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, I think an under-discussed aspect of it is just that like, he was obviously a bit of a eccentric character, but he got into a bad car accident, you can see like the before and after, his performance style, before and after the car accident, but he's electrifying on screen and this is, this is pre-accident. And yeah, I mean, this is like a huge announcement of a major American actor, Oscar nominated, Golden Globe nominated, like, you know, this movie, I think got multiple Oscar nominations.

• 35:47Yasi Salek?

  What else has Steve Rasch directed?

• 35:49Speaker 03

  Good question, let me look that up.

• 35:51Yasi Salek?

  Okay, I thought you, that might be one of your guys.

• 35:54Speaker 03

  The, uh, Paulie Shore classic Son-in-Law?

• 35:57Yasi Salek?

  Actually, I really liked that movie.

• 35:58Speaker 03

  Carlo Gugino?

• 35:59Yasi Salek?

  Great movie, really funny.

• 36:00Speaker 03

  The.

• 36:01Yasi Salek?

  It's weird to go from this to Son-in-Law, but.

• 36:03Speaker 03

  I agree, the historically relevant Can't Buy Me Love, starring Patrick Dempsey.

• 36:08Yasi Salek?

  I love that movie.

• 36:09Speaker 03

  It's a great movie, if you grew up watching television in the 1980s, as you and I did. Uh, he directed the utter fiasco called Under the Rainbow, which starred, uh, Chevy Chase and Carrie Fisher, one of the first true bombs of Chevy Chase's career.

• 36:24Yasi Salek?

  Okay.

• 36:25Speaker 03

  Uh, he also directed the 2006 sequel Bring It On, All or Nothing, followed by Bring It On, In It to Win It, in 2007.

• 36:32Yasi Salek?

  Hollywood is so weird.

• 36:34Speaker 03

  So Steve Rasch has had quite a career, his Wikipedia page is one sentence long.

• 36:39Yasi Salek?

  How dare they do Steve Rasch dirty like that? Um, well, for me, Buddy Holly story is a yes, it's going in.

• 36:45Speaker 03

  I agree, it's a great film.

• 36:46Yasi Salek?

  Okay. Um, I went back and forth on this, because I actually really love this Elvis, directed by obviously the goat, John Carpenter, but it's a TV movie.

• 36:54Speaker 03

  I don't usually put TV stuff in the movie halls of fame.

• 36:56Yasi Salek?

  I think it's worth mentioning, just because it's fucking amazing.

• 36:59Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 37:00Yasi Salek?

  And you should watch it.

• 37:01Speaker 03

  Kurt Russell plays Elvis, yes.

• 37:02Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, Kurt Russell plays Elvis, um, I think you have to buy the DVD, physical media, because I don't think it streams anywhere. I think it's another one of those things that perhaps.

• 37:10Speaker 03

  Music rights, maybe?

• 37:11Yasi Salek?

  I think so, because it was a TV film, so probably like secured differently.

• 37:14Speaker 03

  I have a Blu-ray.

• 37:15Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, I, I don't know if mine, you know, I don't know the nomenclature, but I bought, I bought a physical copy.

• 37:22Speaker 03

  So it was a Blu-ray and not a DVD?

• 37:24Yasi Salek?

  I think it was a Blu-ray.

• 37:25Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 37:25Yasi Salek?

  They don't sell DVDs anymore?

• 37:26Speaker 03

  They do, sure.

• 37:27Yasi Salek?

  Okay, well, whatever.

• 37:29Speaker 03

  eBay.

• 37:29Yasi Salek?

  Whatever Jeff Bezos brought to my house.

• 37:32Speaker 03

  Could have bought it from another distributor.

• 37:34Yasi Salek?

  I didn't.

• 37:34Speaker 03

  You should have asked me.

• 37:35Yasi Salek?

  Okay, well, I needed it in a pinch. Um, you know what, I like The Rose, 1979's, uh, Joplin-esque, again, this also begs the question, I'm, I'm on the side of like. Things that are not explicitly be about an artist, but are kind of clearly or semi clearly about the artist count. And I've done, people are a little mad at me at the Criterion comments because I put Velvet Goldmine in like every collection I do and I will continue to do so because I love that movie.

• 38:05Speaker 03

  I mean, let's talk about, let's talk about this movie.

• 38:09Yasi Salek?

  Okay.

• 38:10Speaker 03

  Round Midnight and Velvet Goldmine together. Because they are-

• 38:14Yasi Salek?

  And I'm not there.

• 38:16Speaker 03

  And I'm not there, though that to me is a little bit more direct.

• 38:19Yasi Salek?

  Doesn't ever say it.

• 38:20Speaker 03

  It doesn't say his name.

• 38:21Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, actually, they all have a different name, don't they? All the directors?

• 38:24Speaker 03

  They all have a different name. So. I view that as kind of a standalone, but I'm obsessed with that movie.

• 38:28Yasi Salek?

  Same. My king.

• 38:30Speaker 03

  I, I think that those three that I named, and I guess I'm not there to some extent, shouldn't really be eligible for this.

• 38:37Yasi Salek?

  Interesting, I feel like they really should be. Because I feel like that's one of the prime ways to handle a music biopic is to skirt the issue.

• 38:48Speaker 03

  But you could never sell a book adaptation of it as a biography. And it's a biopic. It's a biographical picture is the whole idea of the genre or of the category. And so you're, you're straining out the bio. Now, obviously, a lot of these movies that are meant to be true to people's experiences are riddled with lies, but once you change the name, the liberties that you can take are extravagant.

• 39:11Yasi Salek?

  So it's like a biopic. It's good, right?

• 39:15Speaker 03

  Yeah. Now, that to me is a whole other separate thing that you could do another episode about.

• 39:19Yasi Salek?

  That's so true. And another creation.

• 39:22Speaker 03

  That's true.

• 39:23Yasi Salek?

  Actually, Criterion, if you're watching and listening, I already know what I want to do for my next collection.

• 39:28Speaker 03

  You talk like there's like a Jim Criterion at home waiting for the new episode of Band Splay to pop up.

• 39:33Yasi Salek?

  Jim Criterion, he listens to every episode. Fictional bands.

• 39:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, there's a, there's a million you could do. I would start with Airheads.

• 39:43Yasi Salek?

  Airheads is top of my list.

• 39:44Speaker 03

  The Lone Rangers.

• 39:45Yasi Salek?

  Airheads is amazing, I mean, there's Almost Famous, Josie and the Pussycats, Fabulous Stains, that thing you do, The Commitment, there's the Blues Brothers.

• 39:53Speaker 03

  This is a great episode, we have to do this episode too.

• 39:54Yasi Salek?

  We'll do this, okay. Okay, anyways, so, well, back to The Rose. So you think it just doesn't, shouldn't count. You, you've put your foot down, biopic doesn't count.

• 40:01Speaker 03

  I mean, it's very Janis Joplin inspired, but Bette Midler is not a Joplin-esque figure to me.

• 40:06Yasi Salek?

  No.

• 40:06Speaker 03

  So, the movie is very cool.

• 40:08Yasi Salek?

  She has the pipes.

• 40:09Speaker 03

  She does, and it's cool that it shows the kind of the messiness-

• 40:12Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 40:12Speaker 03

  -of a Joplin-esque figure's life, but, and it would be, it's hard to do Janis, you know?

• 40:17Yasi Salek?

  There's a, there isn't one being made right now, right?

• 40:19Speaker 03

  But I thought that's been in the works for a long time.

• 40:21Yasi Salek?

  Who is it?

• 40:22Speaker 03

  I don't know.

• 40:25Speaker 03

  It's me.

• 40:26Yasi Salek?

  It's you.

• 40:26Speaker 03

  I'm playing her.

• 40:29Yasi Salek?

  Can you sing, Sean?

• 40:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, well enough.

• 40:32Yasi Salek?

  Really?

• 40:33Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 40:33Yasi Salek?

  I did not know this about you can carry a tune?

• 40:35Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 40:37Speaker 03

  We'll do karaoke sometime, you'll see.

• 40:39Yasi Salek?

  Can't wait, my dream. I can't, but I'm really good at karaoke. There's-

• 40:42Speaker 03

  I mean, I, I wouldn't-

• 40:42Yasi Salek?

  Two different ways to be good at karaoke.

• 40:43Speaker 03

  I wouldn't sing it like a funeral. You know?

• 40:47Yasi Salek?

  What if it was Chris Ryan's funeral? And his dying wish was that you sang Ave Maria? Or, or a Jeff Buckley-

• 40:56Speaker 03

  That's not in my range.

• 40:56Yasi Salek?

  Or a Jeff Buckley song at his funeral. You would say no to your best friend in life.

• 41:01Speaker 03

  I'm trying to think of what he would request me to sing. Maybe I Will Dare?

• 41:07Yasi Salek?

  Oh, The Replacements.

• 41:08Speaker 03

  I could see that.

• 41:08Yasi Salek?

  Meet Me Anyplace, Anywhere, Anytime.

• 41:10Speaker 03

  Wouldn't that be a beautiful tribute? Chris is gonna die one day.

• 41:15Yasi Salek?

  I know.

• 41:15Speaker 03

  You know, and so are you.

• 41:16Yasi Salek?

  I kind of feel-

• 41:17Speaker 03

  And so am I.

• 41:18Yasi Salek?

  Yes, thank you. I kind of feel like Chris might outlive us all. Like in a Keith Richards sense, you know?

• 41:24Speaker 03

  I think there's probably something to that.

• 41:25Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. Okay, so The Rose is not going in.

• 41:28Speaker 03

  I don't think so.

• 41:29Yasi Salek?

  Coal Miner's Daughter.

• 41:30Speaker 03

  I think it has to go in with a bullet.

• 41:32Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, that's, that's a yes for me, dog.

• 41:33Speaker 03

  Is this the single best version of this kind of movie? Baller, Baller Loretta Lynn has a Oscar-winning performance from Sissy Spacek, right?

• 41:45Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. I don't know. I say yeah, but I don't know. I'm not as familiar with the history of the Oscars as you are.

• 41:50Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 41:51Yasi Salek?

  I'm sorry.

• 41:52Speaker 03

  I think, you know, I'm not a massive Loretta Lynn fan or anything, but it-

• 41:56Yasi Salek?

  She's wonderful.

• 41:57Speaker 03

  It kind of serves everything that you need. Received, yes, Spacek won.

• 42:04Yasi Salek?

  Like the platonic ideal.

• 42:06Speaker 03

  I think so.

• 42:07Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, I don't know if it's the best version. It's very up there for me, but I don't know if it's the best, but it's certainly like, knocks it out of the park.

• 42:17Speaker 03

  Here's a, here's a couple things I like about it.

• 42:18Yasi Salek?

  I don't have any grievances.

• 42:21Speaker 03

  It's very faithful-

• 42:23Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 42:23Speaker 03

  -to her, it's based on Loretta Lynn's biography-

• 42:25Yasi Salek?

  Right, which helps.

• 42:26Speaker 03

  -or autobiography.

• 42:26Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 42:27Speaker 03

  Which is also called Coal Miner's Daughter. It's got a stellar cast.

• 42:30Yasi Salek?

  Okay, but again, it's very faithful to one person's version of that person.

• 42:37Speaker 03

  As are all stories.

• 42:38Yasi Salek?

  Exactly. Just because it's their own version doesn't mean it's more factually accurate.

• 42:43Speaker 03

  That's true. And I didn't live Loretta's life, so I don't really know how true or not. It feels true, right? That's something we're looking for is authenticity, right? Insanely good cast, including Tommy Lee Jones and Levon Helm.

• 42:55Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 42:56Speaker 03

  And it's directed by Michael Apted. That's important to me because, one, he's a documentarian-

• 43:01Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 43:01Speaker 03

  -who has a lot of experience with real-life storytelling.

• 43:04Yasi Salek?

  Telling facts.

• 43:05Speaker 03

  He's also not American, and he comes to it with a very different perspective, and this is a case where unlike Baz Luhrmann and Elvis-

• 43:11Yasi Salek?

  Not spiritually Australian.

• 43:12Speaker 03

  I, I really appreciate the desire to get things right from the perspective of the person who's telling the story.

• 43:20Yasi Salek?

  Is Michael Apted British?

• 43:21Speaker 03

  He's British.

• 43:21Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, they have a different sensibility.

• 43:23Speaker 03

  And he's made a whole wide variety. He, he made a Bond movie, he's made like Gorillaz in the Mist, he's made a whole kind of- Good film. Yeah.

• 43:32Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, this is phenomenal. If you haven't seen it, you need to rush, Run, Don't Walk.

• 43:37Yasi Salek?

  And then followed up by another absolute yes for me, dog.

• 43:42Yasi Salek?

  1984's Amadeus, directed by Milos Forman, The Goat, starring Affmarie Abraham and Tom Hulse?

• 43:49Speaker 03

  Hulse.

• 43:49Yasi Salek?

  Hulse. This is one of the best movies of all time.

• 43:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, I was just gonna say, five-star classic, right?

• 43:54Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 43:54Speaker 03

  It's phenomenal movie, one best picture. To this day, holds up. Magically entertaining and funny and sad and amazing portrait of jealousy.

• 44:05Speaker 03

  It takes a lot of liberties-

• 44:07Yasi Salek?

  I don't mind.

• 44:07Speaker 03

  -with the story and the perspective of Salieri.

• 44:10Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 44:11Speaker 03

  Does that not matter to you?

• 44:12Yasi Salek?

  No.

• 44:13Speaker 03

  Okay, then put it in.

• 44:14Yasi Salek?

  I don't think, I don't think faithful adaptation matters to me as much, except when they're trying, see, we'll get into it later, but The Bruce Springsteen Biopic. If you're gonna bore me to death with like a straight, like, this is a faithful adaptation and then get things wrong, you need to get the fuck out of my face. Do you know what I mean?

• 44:35Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 44:36Yasi Salek?

  But if you're gonna choose entertainment and choose something else, then yeah, take liberties.

• 44:42Speaker 03

  Got no quibbles with that.

• 44:45Yasi Salek?

  Courtney Love told me that when this came out, she went to the theater like every single day and went and saw it, and she was obsessed with it.

• 44:50Speaker 03

  Interesting.

• 44:51Yasi Salek?

  And then later?

• 44:52Speaker 03

  Worked with Milos Forman.

• 44:53Yasi Salek?

  Called Manifestation.

• 44:54Speaker 03

  Twice.

• 44:54Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 44:55Speaker 03

  I just this morning, no lie, received my 4K of The People vs. Larry Flynt, the male.

• 45:00Yasi Salek?

  Again, one of the greatest films of all time.

• 45:02Speaker 03

  I'm a huge fan.

• 45:03Yasi Salek?

  Her performance is bar none. I don't know what Sweet Dreams, Patsy Cline, starring like Jessica Lange and Ed Harris is, but that sounds like it could be good.

• 45:12Speaker 03

  I've seen it, it's pretty good. It's maybe doesn't totally live up to the expectations you'd have.

• 45:16Yasi Salek?

  Does she sing?

• 45:16Speaker 03

  It's a solid film, she does. I believe she, I believe it's her voice.

• 45:19Yasi Salek?

  Okay. That's also an interesting, raises another question. Do you prefer it, do you have an opinion? Should the actor sing or should they be dubbed?

• 45:27Speaker 03

  This is a very big thing for Amanda Dobbins, and she has swayed me to her point of view on this, which is that the actor has to sing, and if they don't, it's a mistake. Let me just make sure that Jessica Lange sings. You don't agree with that?

• 45:36Yasi Salek?

  I don't, I don't agree or disagree. I actually think it's more case by case. Like, we're gonna get to Back to Black, which I'm like, absolutely the fuck not. Do you know what I mean? Because nobody sounds-

• 45:46Speaker 03

  Lange did not do any of her singing in the film. Instead, the actress's lip sync declines original recordings to stand corrected.

• 45:51Yasi Salek?

  And I think that's probably right too, because Patsy Cline, much like Amy Winehouse, has an incredibly singular voice.

• 45:58Speaker 03

  Agreed.

• 45:59Yasi Salek?

  An actor will not, especially an actor with no feel, like, maybe Amanda Seyfried, maybe because she's a singer, there's some actors that have a musical background, but you just pluck an actress and you're like, here's a year of singing lessons, go sing like Amy Winehouse? No.

• 46:14Speaker 03

  Amanda Seyfried's a good shout, because you know, she did that performance on The Tonight Show of the Joni Mitchell-

• 46:18Yasi Salek?

  She's an incredible singer.

• 46:19Speaker 03

  And shit, I think she was up for that part and didn't get it.

• 46:23Yasi Salek?

  You famously still haven't seen out Mamma Mia? Is that-

• 46:25Speaker 03

  I have seen-

• 46:25Yasi Salek?

  An ongoing big-

• 46:26Speaker 03

  I've not seen Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again.

• 46:28Yasi Salek?

  Got it.

• 46:29Speaker 03

  But I did watch Mamma Mia for an episode of a podcast.

• 46:34Speaker 03

  So, okay, let me just ask you a question while we're in the middle of this, right? Because we're about to get to Sid and Nancy. So this is like, obviously Sid and Nancy, we both love. Amazing movie. Why are these movies good at this period of time? Why from 78 to 89 are these movies all really good?

• 46:52Yasi Salek?

  It's a good question. I wonder if part of it is that, while Amadeus notwithstanding, that more interesting figures have emerged, more interesting musical figures-

• 47:02Speaker 03

  More known to us.

• 47:03Yasi Salek?

  More known to us. It wasn't common, right, in the 50s to know much about your pop star, right? Everything was pretty played close to the vest, they were, you know, kind of predates like, I might be wrong with this, but like tabloid culture, like there was-

• 47:18Speaker 03

  No, that's absolutely right.

• 47:19Yasi Salek?

  Right? There was like Hollywood Star Magazine or whatever, but-

• 47:23Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 47:23Yasi Salek?

  Magazines, I don't know.

• 47:24Speaker 03

  But they were, those figures, this is true of sports as well, were often being protected by the media.

• 47:28Yasi Salek?

  Totally.

• 47:29Speaker 03

  You know, like the Joe DiMaggio's of the Mickey Mantle's of the world were famously, their antics were not portrayed, they were protected-

• 47:35Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 47:36Speaker 03

  -by the, the, the sources, the, the figures at newspapers and magazines back then. And, and now, I guess we're, the dam has burst on revealing people's sordid personal lives.

• 47:46Yasi Salek?

  And I guess like, this is a question for you, but like, the, the turn of filmmaking that happened in the 70s- -maybe also allowed for more interesting films to be made come 70s, 80s, 90s, you know?

• 48:00Yasi Salek?

  I think those are probably the two reasons.

• 48:02Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 48:02Yasi Salek?

  Do you have any other theories?

• 48:04Speaker 03

  No, I, I, I think maybe it's some of it is that we have some distance from some of these stories, you know, like, maybe it's a little easier to tell these stories with 10 or 20 years' distance from when they transpired, rather than 100 years or four years.

• 48:19Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 48:19Speaker 03

  You know?

• 48:20Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, because a lot of those 40s and 50s ones were like, this guy was from, from two years ago.

• 48:24Speaker 03

  Yes, exactly.

• 48:25Yasi Salek?

  Um, Sid and Nancy, 1986, directed by Alex Cox, starring Gary Oldman and Chloe Webb. What a film.

• 48:35Speaker 03

  Is this a movie about music?

• 48:38Yasi Salek?

  Do they have to be movies about music to be a music biopic?

• 48:40Speaker 03

  I'm asking you.

• 48:41Yasi Salek?

  No.

• 48:42Speaker 03

  Because it's not really a movie about music.

• 48:44Yasi Salek?

  No, it's a movie about a, sort of, chaotic and doomed couple, and it's a movie about punk.

• 48:51Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 48:52Yasi Salek?

  As a, perhaps, ideology is not the right word, but-

• 48:56Speaker 03

  Lifestyle.

• 48:57Yasi Salek?

  A lifestyle.

• 48:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, lifestyle and a tragic romance.

• 48:59Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, because, I mean, Sid Vicious famously could barely play his instrument, unplugged onstage, amp, the whole thing, so I don't know how much it's about music.

• 49:07Speaker 03

  Would you say you like Sid Vicious?

• 49:09Yasi Salek?

  I don't know him.

• 49:12Speaker 03

  Do you like his contribution to popular culture?

• 49:15Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, sure.

• 49:16Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 49:16Yasi Salek?

  I think that, I think the Sex Pistols were incredibly important, whether or not you think their music is particularly good or enduring, which I'm not sure that I do.

• 49:25Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 49:26Yasi Salek?

  Um, but I think culturally, you know, they were major.

• 49:32Speaker 03

  I won't disagree.

• 49:33Yasi Salek?

  And Sid Vicious, you know, he was cool.

• 49:36Speaker 03

  He was, but also-

• 49:38Yasi Salek?

  Troubled.

• 49:39Speaker 03

  But also annoying.

• 49:41Yasi Salek?

  In what sense?

• 49:42Speaker 03

  This movie goes out of its way to show just how annoying Sid and Nancy were.

• 49:44Yasi Salek?

  Right, yeah.

• 49:45Speaker 03

  You know, that like, drug addict wastrels-

• 49:48Yasi Salek?

  This movie is about drug addiction.

• 49:49Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 49:50Yasi Salek?

  You know, yeah.

• 49:52Speaker 03

  You know, that they're, they can be unpleasant to be around sometimes.

• 49:55Yasi Salek?

  Sure.

• 49:55Speaker 03

  You know, the movie does not glamorize them in any way.

• 49:59Yasi Salek?

  I'm gonna tell you a little secret.

• 50:02Yasi Salek?

  80% of musicians are annoying to be around.

• 50:05Speaker 03

  I don't know as many musicians as you do.

• 50:08Yasi Salek?

  75 to 80% are annoying to be around, so I don't think-

• 50:11Speaker 03

  You have more music critics than musicians at this point.

• 50:13Yasi Salek?

  Also probably similar numbers. Um, Alex Cox, I'm just saying, he knocked it out of the park with this.

• 50:18Speaker 03

  It's a great film.

• 50:19Yasi Salek?

  Um, bit part with Courtney Love, also.

• 50:21Speaker 03

  How many are in right now?

• 50:23Yasi Salek?

  Um, we have Coal Miner's Daughter, Listamania,

• 50:29Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 50:29Yasi Salek?

  The Buddy Holly Story, and Yankee Doodle Dandy, with a couple of other maybes. And Amadeus, did I say Amadeus?

• 50:37Speaker 03

  Uh, yes, that's right.

• 50:39Yasi Salek?

  One, two, three, four, five, six.

• 50:43Speaker 03

  Okay, so we-

• 50:43Yasi Salek?

  We're gonna, we're gonna have to make some tough calls coming up.

• 50:46Speaker 03

  Yes, we are, that's why I asked.

• 50:46Yasi Salek?

  Or we'll do 15.

• 50:47Speaker 03

  So we're starting to say, oh, these are good.

• 50:48Yasi Salek?

  I think a canon could be more than 10.

• 50:50Speaker 03

  I'll, I'll follow your lead.

• 50:51Yasi Salek?

  Okay, because I don't think we should cut deserving people because there's not a spot. I think we should just really choose the deserving people.

• 51:00Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 51:01Yasi Salek?

  Um, I've not seen Round Midnight.

• 51:06Speaker 03

  I've seen it. Um, Bertrand Tavany's sort of portrait of, it's like an agglomeration of a number of different jazz musicians, and Dexter Gordon portrays the jazz musician in the film.

• 51:16Yasi Salek?

  So then it is kind of biopic.

• 51:18Speaker 03

  It is truly biopic.

• 51:19Yasi Salek?

  Okay, so wait.

• 51:20Speaker 03

  Um, it's a great portrait of jazz music in that time, and it looks amazing. The film is shot beautifully.

• 51:29Speaker 03

  I don't really feel like it totally fits the mold here.

• 51:31Yasi Salek?

  Well, it doesn't qualify if it's biopic, as you said earlier.

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• 52:33Yasi Salek?

  Um, you know what does qualify, and I re-watched for this? 1987's La Bamba.

• 52:39Speaker 03

  It's been a really long time since I've seen this one. How was it?

• 52:42Yasi Salek?

  Awesome.

• 52:42Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, it's obviously a breakthrough for-

• 52:44Yasi Salek?

  Lou Diamond Phillips.

• 52:45Speaker 03

  For Lou Diamond Phillips. What, what, what was so special about it?

• 52:51Yasi Salek?

  I think the thing about what we were talking about, about rock and roll just being so cool.

• 52:56Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 52:57Yasi Salek?

  Um, it captures that really well. It also, like, I think Ritchie Valance has an incredible and incredibly short and tragic life story, which lends itself to a film. By nature, the scope is narrow, he died at 17.

• 53:13Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 53:13Yasi Salek?

  Um, I don't know if it's an immediate yes, but it's, I really love it.

• 53:17Speaker 03

  I haven't seen it in 20 some odd years.

• 53:20Yasi Salek?

  I think it's worth a re-watch, you, you would enjoy it.

• 53:22Speaker 03

  I'd love to.

• 53:23Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, we'll put it in a, in a maybe.

• 53:25Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 53:26Yasi Salek?

  Um, you know, it's 100% yes for me, and I'm interested to see what you're gonna say.

• 53:29Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 53:30Yasi Salek?

  1987's Superstar: Cole and the Karen Carpenter Story, which is 45 minutes long.

• 53:36Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 53:37Yasi Salek?

  Is Todd Haynes's very first film, a student film.

• 53:41Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 53:42Yasi Salek?

  Um, the cast is Barbie dolls.

• 53:46Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 53:48Yasi Salek?

  And some, uh, found, not found footage, but some, you know, actual footage of newsreels and stuff. Um, it's incredible.

• 53:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, I, I, I don't, I won't argue. I mean, I think it's a bit, it's an outlier structurally, and that it's a short film that was not commercially released and is hard to see, um, but-

• 54:09Yasi Salek?

  If you have a hacker roommate, you guys, you can see it, and if you don't care about, um, the quality, it is on YouTube.

• 54:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think it's evident that Haynes has, like, a lot of love and affection for Karen Carpenter, but also makes no bones about the fact that she struggled in her life.

• 54:26Yasi Salek?

  Um, to be a little serious about it, because obviously this movie is, like, quite funny in some ways. I mean, it's Barbie dolls and, and they're, you know, but there's very few films that deal head-on with anorexia.

• 54:39Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 54:40Yasi Salek?

  Very few, like, shockingly few.

• 54:42Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 54:43Yasi Salek?

  You know, we'll make movies about drug addicts and murderers all day long, but anorexia is kind of taboo still, which is really interesting to me, and this film really tackles the subject of anorexia in, in a really, um, head-on and literal way, and, and talks about, for the, for 87, it's an early time to, to deal with what kind of disease it was, how the death rate, how high it is, you know? I think that's part of the reason that I was so struck by it the second time, because I had watched it a long time ago, and probably was like, haha, Barbies or whatever, but this time I was like, this is quite a serious film.

• 55:24Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 55:25Yasi Salek?

  Wrapped up in Barbie dolls and jokes, you know?

• 55:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, almost all of Haynes's films have female protagonists, they all are often about women in pain.

• 55:32Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 55:33Speaker 03

  Um-

• 55:34Yasi Salek?

  Safe, what a fucking-

• 55:36Speaker 03

  Masterpiece.

• 55:36Yasi Salek?

  Nine-star classic.

• 55:37Speaker 03

  I love Haynes's work.

• 55:39Yasi Salek?

  Same.

• 55:40Speaker 03

  He's, he's, I, I'm probably near the top of directors I've had on the show the most number of times, um, since I've been in the big picture. I think this is an interesting one, because I would love to know what he would be able to do if he actually, like, properly had the rights to a figure like this.

• 55:54Yasi Salek?

  Totally.

• 55:54Speaker 03

  Like, it'll come up again, like, he's, he's a, one of the kings of this style of storytelling.

• 55:59Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 55:59Speaker 03

  He's done some of the most interesting work, because he loves music so much.

• 56:03Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 56:03Speaker 03

  Um, but maybe we should save that conversation until we get a little further along in his career.

• 56:08Yasi Salek?

  I think it's also worth noting, though, that, um, this film was co-written by a woman, Cynthia Schneider, and I think that's pretty important. Um, obviously, you know, I think a lot is made about, like, why didn't he secure the rights? And it's like, because this was a, a college film that nobody thought was ever gonna go anywhere. And also, past that, um, he burned a small bridge, um, by, uh, sort of heavily implying that Richard Carpenter was gay in the film, so Richard Carpenter hates this film. Um, so that's that.

• 56:39Speaker 03

  Is Richard Carpenter still alive?

• 56:41Yasi Salek?

  I think so.

• 56:41Speaker 03

  Wow, okay. Good to know.

• 56:44Yasi Salek?

  Um, my roommate always jokes with me that I think everyone's dead, that I'm constantly being like, well, he died, right? And my roommate's like, Dan Aykroyd's alive, and I'm like, oh.

• 56:52Speaker 03

  He's alive.

• 56:53Yasi Salek?

  Thank God.

• 56:53Speaker 03

  79 years old.

• 56:54Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, he's kicking. He's in a few of these films that I was really brought back to my love of Dan Aykroyd.

• 56:59Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 56:59Yasi Salek?

  Um, 1988's Bird, um, about Charlie Parker, directed by Clint Eastwood, starring Forest Whitaker.

• 57:07Speaker 03

  Nice, solid film.

• 57:08Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, I've seen this, it's good.

• 57:09Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's very good. I don't, it's, it's not a wow type of movie, it's also a real divergence for Eastwood in terms of most of the films that he directed, but a huge jazz fan.

• 57:18Yasi Salek?

  Um, yeah.

• 57:19Speaker 03

  And I think mostly faithful, but maybe just, like, lacking some of the soul necessary for a Charlie Parker movie.

• 57:25Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 57:26Speaker 03

  Um, but it's a good performance from Forest Whitaker. To me, it's a real, like, maybe, but probably not.

• 57:30Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, I mean, this is probably just my, not biased, but like, inexperience and like, un, unrefinedness, that I don't understand jazz that well, and jazz doesn't blow me away on screen the way maybe rock does, but also, rock has the benefit of familiarity, and there's, like, an echo in my heart that happens when I watch a movie about rock music.

• 57:54Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 57:54Yasi Salek?

  And while jazz is, like, awesome, it, it doesn't, like, play on the same heartstrings for me that perhaps a film about a musician, like, songs that I know and well.

• 58:07Speaker 03

  It's interesting, though, because I feel like it's just really, really hard to embody the most electrifying jazz musicians, like-

• 58:14Yasi Salek?

  Totally.

• 58:15Speaker 03

  There is, you know, there's been a Chet Baker movie, there's been a Miles Davis movie.

• 58:18Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 58:19Speaker 03

  I don't think there's ever been an attempt to put Coltrane on screen.

• 58:22Yasi Salek?

  Interesting.

• 58:22Speaker 03

  Um, but some of those figures, actually, there's a movie coming out later this year starring Anders Danielson Lee, uh, about Bill Evans, who is one of my favorite jazz musicians. And, you know, some of those figures are very kind of taciturn, quiet types, a lot of them were junkies.

• 58:38Yasi Salek?

  Sure.

• 58:39Speaker 03

  You know?

• 58:39Yasi Salek?

  Which does lend itself to good filmmaking.

• 58:41Speaker 03

  It does.

• 58:41Yasi Salek?

  Um, and they're cool as hell.

• 58:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, and there's something romantic about that, but there's also something really sad and devastating.

• 58:48Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 58:49Speaker 03

  So I, you know, for whatever, and also, you know, most of the musicians in, in jazz are black, and there's just not as many films made about black Americans, period.

• 58:57Yasi Salek?

  We're gonna get into this a little bit later, because there's a couple, at least one recent, semi-recent, in like, the last decade, music biopic that I feel was, like, completely slept on, and I hadn't even seen it, and I was like, why did no one, why did this person not win an Oscar, why didn't no one talk about this, but-

• 59:10Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 59:11Yasi Salek?

  Stay tuned. Um, okay, so Bird, no. Um-

• 59:16Yasi Salek?

  I absolutely love 1989's Great Balls of Fire about Jerry Lee Lewis, starring Dennis Quaid and Winona Ryder. It's wonderful.

• 59:24Speaker 03

  Kooky movie.

• 59:25Yasi Salek?

  It's a kooky movie.

• 59:26Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 59:27Yasi Salek?

  It's a difficult subject matter. This is one also we couldn't put in and it doesn't stream anywhere because I think the, the rights are not present. This one you also have to buy physically if you want to watch it.

• 59:40Speaker 03

  Sounds right.

• 59:42Yasi Salek?

  I don't know if it's an automatic yes, but I do think it's so good.

• 59:48Yasi Salek?

  Have you seen it semi recently? I haven't seen it in a while.

• 59:50Speaker 03

  No, I watched it on cable many times.

• 59:52Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 59:53Speaker 03

  You know, Jerry Lewis's story is so absurd, even by the standards of today's like shocking culture. His is pretty nutty marrying his teenage cousin.

• 1:00:04Yasi Salek?

  For 89 also to portray that.

• 1:00:06Speaker 03

  Yeah. Very unapologetic figure in American music history. Quaid's off the charts.

• 1:00:13Yasi Salek?

  He's incredible.

• 1:00:15Speaker 03

  It's definitely up there.

• 1:00:16Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:16Speaker 03

  I also feel like this movie is similarly to, um, to La Bamba and the Buddy Holly story, all of which are about these kind of foundational rock and roll figures. Felt very important when I was a kid and don't feel like as important. I don't feel like there's much interest in 1950s rock and roll amongst like millennials and Gen Z.

• 1:00:33Yasi Salek?

  No, I think, I guess the Beatles sort of supplanted them.

• 1:00:37Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:00:38Yasi Salek?

  And Rolling Stones as like the foundational figures, even though.

• 1:00:41Speaker 03

  They're not.

• 1:00:42Yasi Salek?

  These were the foundational figures. We won't even, I mean, we will get into it later, but like, do you know there's a Little Richard film?

• 1:00:49Speaker 03

  Little Richard, who's the star?

• 1:00:52Yasi Salek?

  Leon Russell, the man who played the saint in the Madonna video, Like a Prayer. It was from like.

• 1:00:59Speaker 03

  Leon, like the sing, the one, the mononymed Leon?

• 1:01:02Yasi Salek?

  I believe.

• 1:01:02Speaker 03

  Is his last name Russell?

• 1:01:03Yasi Salek?

  I think so.

• 1:01:04Speaker 03

  I didn't know that. Um, yeah, I mean, I know Leon very well, the actor. Yeah, he's a great actor.

• 1:01:07Yasi Salek?

  Is he?

• 1:01:08Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:01:09Yasi Salek?

  What else has he been in?

• 1:01:11Speaker 03

  Good question.

• 1:01:12Yasi Salek?

  He married one of the Real Housewives.

• 1:01:13Speaker 03

  He was in The Five Heartbeats, I think.

• 1:01:14Yasi Salek?

  Oh, sorry, not Russell, Leon Robinson is his name.

• 1:01:16Speaker 03

  Leon Robinson.

• 1:01:19Speaker 03

  Yeah, Leon Robinson.

• 1:01:20Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, Five Heartbeats, correct. And Cool Runnings, Above the Rim, The Temptations.

• 1:01:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, there you go.

• 1:01:25Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, it was the year 2000.

• 1:01:27Speaker 03

  Cliffhanger, he's played one of the villains. I think he's, uh,

• 1:01:32Speaker 03

  Sylvester Stallone, I think body presses him into a stalactite in, in Cliffhanger and that's how he dies, Leon. Great actor.

• 1:01:41Yasi Salek?

  I haven't seen the film, so I don't want to like.

• 1:01:43Speaker 03

  Stalagmite? Stalactite?

• 1:01:45Yasi Salek?

  I think there's two different ones.

• 1:01:47Speaker 03

  Stalactite.

• 1:01:47Yasi Salek?

  There's a stalactite and there's a stalagmite.

• 1:01:49Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:01:50Yasi Salek?

  I think.

• 1:01:50Speaker 03

  I think you're right.

• 1:01:51Yasi Salek?

  Okay.

• 1:01:53Yasi Salek?

  Have you, you haven't seen the Little Richard film then either?

• 1:01:55Speaker 03

  No, what, what's the movie called?

• 1:01:57Yasi Salek?

  I believe it's called Little Richard.

• 1:01:59Speaker 03

  Little Richard from 2000, a TV movie. Okay.

• 1:02:01Yasi Salek?

  Oh, it's a TV movie, yeah. But I.

• 1:02:02Speaker 03

  I haven't seen this.

• 1:02:03Yasi Salek?

  My guy deserves.

• 1:02:03Speaker 03

  Directed by Robert Townsend, who also directed The Five Heartbeats.

• 1:02:05Yasi Salek?

  Yes. And who's married to a woman that is on a show that me and Zach Baron love that got canceled called The Wheel of Time.

• 1:02:14Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, sure.

• 1:02:16Yasi Salek?

  I've, Little Richard Deserve Better is all I'm saying than a TV movie. Okay.

• 1:02:20Speaker 03

  Agreed.

• 1:02:20Yasi Salek?

  To our thing.

• 1:02:21Speaker 03

  He plays a big part in Elvis, does he not?

• 1:02:24Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:25Speaker 03

  Yeah. Cool.

• 1:02:26Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. But yeah, the 50s canon not as important. I did cry.

• 1:02:34Yasi Salek?

  Watching Great Ball, uh, La Bamba, thinking about how they all, how they died together.

• 1:02:41Speaker 03

  It's horrible.

• 1:02:41Yasi Salek?

  On a plane crash, the day the music died.

• 1:02:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, Don McLean wrote a song about it.

• 1:02:45Yasi Salek?

  He did. Bye bye, Miss American. Now we're in the 90s. This is sort of our sweet spot due to our age.

• 1:02:53Yasi Salek?

  For me,

• 1:02:55Yasi Salek?

  To Me You Are Perfect, Sign Outside of the Door, Love Actually Style, 1991's The Doors, directed by Oliver Stone. Cause it's.

• 1:03:04Speaker 03

  Why?

• 1:03:05Yasi Salek?

  Because it's so ridiculous. And I, again, I don't think this is what Jim Morrison was probably like all the time, or maybe any of the time. But I, I think The Doors occupy such an interesting place in culture, especially by the 1991, when they're absolute dorm room poster core. And there's just something so bizarre in camp about this movie. I love it.

• 1:03:32Speaker 03

  Uh, yeah, it's okay. I think it's really, really silly, but the scene near the end of the film, when Morrison's performing in Miami and like the real lizard king comes out. And he's doing five to one, that is maybe the best scene in any music biopic. Where he just transforms into Jim Morrison.

• 1:03:53Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:53Speaker 03

  And he has the, kind of the physical movements. He obviously looks just like him and he is, he turns his voice into Morrison's voice. And he just gets taken over by the presence and that scene is so electrifying. I love Oliver Stone's filmmaking at this time.

• 1:04:10Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:10Speaker 03

  I love all the movies he made in the late eighties and early nineties and they're very, they were very formative for me, falling in love with movies. This has always been one that I've never really been that into for Stone, but I, I know it has its major fans.

• 1:04:22Yasi Salek?

  I don't think it's like, you know, the coal miner's daughter, platonic ideal of a music biopic, but I, I just think it's, it's unusual, it's interesting. It, a lot of these films, like, there's a lot of these films that we've been talking about and been like, they're great, but like, low key, a little forgettable maybe, or a little less iconic. And I think the, these people are iconic and their films should be iconic.

• 1:04:45Speaker 03

  If you want to put it in, you absolutely should.

• 1:04:47Yasi Salek?

  It's definitely, at least a maybe.

• 1:04:50Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:04:52Speaker 03

  I, if you, if you want to put it in, you should.

• 1:04:54Yasi Salek?

  Okay.

• 1:04:54Speaker 03

  That's how I feel.

• 1:04:55Yasi Salek?

  It's in my collection on Criterion.

• 1:04:57Speaker 03

  Fabulous.

• 1:04:59Yasi Salek?

  I've not seen 1991's Impromptu about Chopin.

• 1:05:03Speaker 03

  I haven't seen it either.

• 1:05:05Yasi Salek?

  Hugh Grant, is it?

• 1:05:06Speaker 03

  No kidding.

• 1:05:09Yasi Salek?

  1993's Of What's Love Got To Do With It is, for me, an incredible film.

• 1:05:15Speaker 03

  Two powerhouse performances.

• 1:05:16Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:17Speaker 03

  That makes it, I think, worthy of going in.

• 1:05:19Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, I agree. It was, we also tried to get this one, but couldn't.

• 1:05:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, and this one has fallen a little bit by the wayside, but this was a very big Oscars film when I was a kid. I remember my mom loved this movie. My mom loved Tina Turner.

• 1:05:31Yasi Salek?

  My mom also. Angela Bassett is.

• 1:05:34Speaker 03

  And Laurence Fishburne as well is, is dynamite in this movie.

• 1:05:37Yasi Salek?

  Fantastic.

• 1:05:38Speaker 03

  I.

• 1:05:39Yasi Salek?

  I say yes.

• 1:05:40Speaker 03

  It's, but it's definitely on the shortlist.

• 1:05:43Speaker 03

  Ike Turner, pro or con?

• 1:05:45Yasi Salek?

  You know, I think he could have worked on himself a little more. I feel like he could have used some prayer.

• 1:05:52Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:05:52Yasi Salek?

  Some meditation. Perhaps some yoga.

• 1:05:55Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:05:56Yasi Salek?

  And he didn't, and I think that's bad.

• 1:05:58Speaker 03

  A lot of hate in his heart.

• 1:05:59Yasi Salek?

  What he did was bad.

• 1:06:00Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:06:00Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. 1993's 32 Short Films About Glenn Gould, don't know it. You know it?

• 1:06:06Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's in the Criterion Collection.

• 1:06:08Yasi Salek?

  I don't know every film the Criterion Collection, like you.

• 1:06:09Speaker 03

  Canadian film classic.

• 1:06:12Yasi Salek?

  As you mentioned it in your recent.

• 1:06:14Speaker 03

  Recently drafted by Amanda Dobbins.

• 1:06:15Yasi Salek?

  Okay, great.

• 1:06:16Speaker 03

  In that draft. As you say, formally unconventional here, the, the story style that it's told is sort of like a series of flashes on Gould's life.

• 1:06:25Speaker 03

  I don't know a whole lot about Gould as a composer, so I like the film, but I don't know that it necessarily is like, one of the great music biopics. I think it's a very interesting film experiment.

• 1:06:35Yasi Salek?

  Was Glenn Gould Canadian?

• 1:06:36Speaker 03

  I believe so.

• 1:06:37Yasi Salek?

  Is that why it's a Canadian?

• 1:06:38Speaker 03

  I believe so.

• 1:06:38Yasi Salek?

  Okay. Uh, we're not going to put that one in. I'm sorry, Amanda Dobbins. 1994's Backbeat, this movie is not good.

• 1:06:48Speaker 03

  Yeah, I haven't seen it in a long time. Saw it in the movie theater when it came out.

• 1:06:51Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, I did too. And I.

• 1:06:52Speaker 03

  It's about the Stuart Sutcliffe era?

• 1:06:54Yasi Salek?

  Correct.

• 1:06:54Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:06:55Yasi Salek?

  And I saw it recently and, um, it's not good.

• 1:06:59Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:07:00Yasi Salek?

  I love Steven Dorff, but it's not good.

• 1:07:03Yasi Salek?

  You know what? I forgot about 1994's Immortal Beloved.

• 1:07:07Speaker 03

  Gary Oldman as Beethoven.

• 1:07:08Yasi Salek?

  Who I love. And I do like this film. I'm not sure it's like a hundred percent yes for me, but it's, it's like a worth a watch film, but I wouldn't say it goes in the canon.

• 1:07:17Speaker 03

  Not, no, another movie I haven't seen since I rented it from Blockbuster in 1995.

• 1:07:22Yasi Salek?

  At that point I was like, if Gary Oldman's in it, it's coming into my house on the TV.

• 1:07:25Speaker 03

  What's your favorite Gary Oldman performance?

• 1:07:30Yasi Salek?

  I mean, I think it's Bram Sturco's Dracula.

• 1:07:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, he's really, he's a great Dracula.

• 1:07:33Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:34Speaker 03

  What about The Professional?

• 1:07:36Yasi Salek?

  I love that movie. I love that movie.

• 1:07:38Speaker 03

  What about, um, Romeo is Bleeding? Have you seen that?

• 1:07:42Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, it's not, I wouldn't, it doesn't, you know, supplant.

• 1:07:47Yasi Salek?

  Vampire.

• 1:07:47Speaker 03

  What about True Romance?

• 1:07:49Yasi Salek?

  Love True Romance. Uh, I dressed up as that for Halloween once.

• 1:07:53Speaker 03

  Drexel Spivey?

• 1:07:54Yasi Salek?

  That's right.

• 1:07:54Speaker 03

  No kidding.

• 1:07:55Yasi Salek?

  Well, what happened was.

• 1:07:55Speaker 03

  You must have thought it was White Boy Day.

• 1:07:57Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, I, I did think it was White Boy Day. What happened was I procured a dreadlock wig for my, or my main costume of Halloween, which was sexy Adam Duritz. And then I was like, well, I have this wig, I better use it. So I also dressed up as Lenny Kravitz with the giant scarf.

• 1:08:12Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:08:13Yasi Salek?

  And.

• 1:08:13Speaker 03

  I have a lot of Lenny Kravitz. When will you do Kravitz on the show?

• 1:08:16Yasi Salek?

  It's not high on the shortlist, but.

• 1:08:19Speaker 03

  Weird career, not a bad career.

• 1:08:21Yasi Salek?

  No, great.

• 1:08:22Speaker 03

  Lot, lot of jams.

• 1:08:24Yasi Salek?

  Great tunes.

• 1:08:25Speaker 03

  Not sure I understand his iconography very well. What does he stand for? I don't know if he stands for anything, but I like a lot of the songs.

• 1:08:32Yasi Salek?

  Remember when his penis fell out on stage?

• 1:08:34Speaker 03

  I don't. That sounds like it was a great moment for you.

• 1:08:38Yasi Salek?

  I, it was, it was a neutral moment for me, but I had it memorable. No, you're coming to do Beastie Boys.

• 1:08:45Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:08:45Yasi Salek?

  Clear your schedule?

• 1:08:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's a, that's a, that's a six hour.

• 1:08:49Yasi Salek?

  That's what's next, at least. That's what's next for you.

• 1:08:52Speaker 03

  Wow, shoot.

• 1:08:53Yasi Salek?

  I don't, I don't know about 1994's Farinelli.

• 1:08:56Speaker 03

  Never heard of it.

• 1:08:57Yasi Salek?

  Okay, we'll skip that. Damn, Shine, kind of.

• 1:09:01Speaker 03

  Not a bad film. I, I have a grudge against it because it took Tom Cruise's Oscar away from him.

• 1:09:05Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 1:09:06Speaker 03

  Which he should have won for Jerry Maguire and Geoffrey Rush won it and Geoffrey Rush kind of took over and it was a real artifact of the Miramax, the rise of Miramax style.

• 1:09:14Yasi Salek?

  I mean, Geoffrey Rush was good in it.

• 1:09:16Speaker 03

  Terrific performance, yes, as David Helfgott, pianist.

• 1:09:19Yasi Salek?

  But yeah, this is not in the, in the, um, Grace of My Heart is a biopic.

• 1:09:26Speaker 03

  Yes, that is loosely based on Carole King.

• 1:09:29Yasi Salek?

  I do love Alesand Anders.

• 1:09:30Speaker 03

  This is one of my mom's favorite movies of all time.

• 1:09:32Yasi Salek?

  Sounds huge.

• 1:09:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, and she was obsessed. I remember she, I remember her coming home from the movie theater after seeing it and recommending it to me vividly. And she's a huge Carole King, she was a huge Carole King fan, but, uh, yeah, it's obviously not eligible, but it's a cool snapshot, I think, of this era, much like all these other biopics are like, pretty interesting about, like, they get the milieu right.

• 1:09:53Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:55Speaker 03

  And yeah, Alesand Anders like didn't really make very many movies after this movie.

• 1:09:58Yasi Salek?

  Sucks. She's so talented.

• 1:10:04Yasi Salek?

  I think Selena is an automatic yes.

• 1:10:06Speaker 03

  It's one of the very best movies of this style.

• 1:10:08Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:09Speaker 03

  Uh, star making performance, great music.

• 1:10:12Yasi Salek?

  Great music.

• 1:10:13Speaker 03

  Filmmaking's good.

• 1:10:14Yasi Salek?

  Again,

• 1:10:17Yasi Salek?

  narrow lens because her life was ended premature.

• 1:10:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, but like a really cool portrait of her family and Tejano culture and all that stuff is, I think is really, really well done.

• 1:10:27Yasi Salek?

  It's a wonderful film.

• 1:10:28Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:10:28Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:29Speaker 03

  They showed it to us in high school.

• 1:10:30Yasi Salek?

  Did they? As like a educational?

• 1:10:32Speaker 03

  In Spanish class.

• 1:10:33Yasi Salek?

  Oh.

• 1:10:33Speaker 03

  Just like, this is a part of Hispanic culture.

• 1:10:36Yasi Salek?

  Okay, great. I mean, it is. Um, yeah, that's a, that's a hard yes for me. It's wonderful. Jennifer Lopez.

• 1:10:44Speaker 03

  One of the goats.

• 1:10:45Yasi Salek?

  So great. Um, my roommate had never seen Out of Sight.

• 1:10:50Speaker 03

  Well, we'll be screening it.

• 1:10:51Yasi Salek?

  I know.

• 1:10:51Speaker 03

  Here in Los Angeles.

• 1:10:52Yasi Salek?

  Great. I'll tell her to go because it's

• 1:10:56Yasi Salek?

  amazing.

• 1:10:57Speaker 03

  Will you come? Will you come to the screening?

• 1:10:58Yasi Salek?

  When is it?

• 1:10:59Speaker 03

  August 25th or 6th, I can't recall.

• 1:11:02Yasi Salek?

  I'm going to be in Scotland, but I will be loving you from afar.

• 1:11:06Speaker 03

  How wonderful for you.

• 1:11:08Yasi Salek?

  Thank you so much.

• 1:11:09Speaker 03

  What part of Scotland?

• 1:11:10Yasi Salek?

  Edinburgh.

• 1:11:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, the best part.

• 1:11:11Yasi Salek?

  I've never been there. Well, I'm lying. I went once when I was 18 and I don't really remember anything.

• 1:11:15Speaker 03

  Such a great town.

• 1:11:16Yasi Salek?

  I think I'm more of a Glasgow girly, but, um.

• 1:11:18Speaker 03

  I like Glasgow. Edinburgh, though, you got a scale Arthur's Seat. You go dine in the cottages in the, in the park.

• 1:11:24Yasi Salek?

  Okay.

• 1:11:24Speaker 03

  It's fucking awesome.

• 1:11:25Yasi Salek?

  I'm gonna see The Cure.

• 1:11:26Speaker 03

  Oh, that's suitable.

• 1:11:28Yasi Salek?

  Also, also something fun. Um, well, you've, you've put your foot down, so Velvet Goldmine will not be going into this, uh, collection.

• 1:11:39Speaker 03

  Do you think there's any regrets about not licensing these stories from the artists, the Bowie and Mark Bolins of the world, who didn't want their stories to be told by Todd Haynes?

• 1:11:52Yasi Salek?

  I just like, I'm not sure, this raises a great point that we haven't actually delved into, which is that more often than not, the involvement of the artist or the estate makes the movie worse.

• 1:12:06Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:12:07Yasi Salek?

  That is just,

• 1:12:10Yasi Salek?

  that is just fact. It's not their fault.

• 1:12:12Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:12:13Yasi Salek?

  You wanna control how you're portrayed, you know, you wanna rub off the hard corners. And I think we would have had a, a more boring movie.

• 1:12:25Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:12:25Yasi Salek?

  Would have had the music.

• 1:12:28Speaker 03

  I love Velvet Goldman.

• 1:12:29Yasi Salek?

  I love Velvet.

• 1:12:29Speaker 03

  Too bad it's not going in.

• 1:12:30Yasi Salek?

  It's a fic, yeah. Todd Haynes making. Um, okay, TV movie. We're not skipping that. Hillary and Jackie?

• 1:12:37Speaker 03

  Oh, another movie I haven't seen in forever.

• 1:12:39Yasi Salek?

  I have never seen that.

• 1:12:40Speaker 03

  It is about, is it about?

• 1:12:41Yasi Salek?

  Jacqueline Dupre.

• 1:12:41Speaker 03

  And two sisters, both of whom are cellists?

• 1:12:45Yasi Salek?

  Sure.

• 1:12:45Speaker 03

  Is that, do I have that correctly?

• 1:12:46Yasi Salek?

  I don't know.

• 1:12:47Speaker 03

  And it's Rachel Griffiths.

• 1:12:48Yasi Salek?

  Rachel Griffiths and Emily Watson, yeah.

• 1:12:50Speaker 03

  Um.

• 1:12:51Yasi Salek?

  I love Rachel Griffiths.

• 1:12:51Speaker 03

  And who's the director of this film?

• 1:12:53Yasi Salek?

  Anand Tucker.

• 1:12:55Speaker 03

  Oh, sure. Okay. Um, God, I don't, it's just not strong enough in my memory, which means it's probably not going in. Though we're not really representing classical music too tough here.

• 1:13:04Yasi Salek?

  I apologize for that. We have Amadeus and Listamania, so we are representing, that's two of.

• 1:13:09Speaker 03

  That's true.

• 1:13:10Yasi Salek?

  That's, that's quite a few.

• 1:13:11Speaker 03

  You're right. You're right. I got another one coming up that might go in.

• 1:13:14Yasi Salek?

  Topsy Turvy?

• 1:13:15Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:13:15Yasi Salek?

  Really good. I love, yeah, I love Mike Lee.

• 1:13:18Speaker 03

  Are you, how, how strong are you on Mike Lee?

• 1:13:20Yasi Salek?

  I love Mike Lee.

• 1:13:21Speaker 03

  Have you seen like the, the bulk of the work, all the work?

• 1:13:24Yasi Salek?

  I wouldn't, there's a, I think I have a couple holes, but almost all of it.

• 1:13:28Speaker 03

  I'm doing a Mike Lee episode and I, and Andy Greenwald asked if he could be on it, but would you be on it with Andy Greenwald?

• 1:13:33Yasi Salek?

  Oh, the two of us?

• 1:13:34Speaker 03

  Yeah, I've never had, I've never seen that combination in action before.

• 1:13:36Yasi Salek?

  Nobody has.

• 1:13:37Speaker 03

  Oh, I think it would be fun.

• 1:13:38Yasi Salek?

  Great. I'm, I'm so done.

• 1:13:40Speaker 03

  Because Mike has a new film coming out.

• 1:13:41Yasi Salek?

  I, I heard it. I had, it just got a release date.

• 1:13:44Speaker 03

  December 4th.

• 1:13:45Yasi Salek?

  Oh, I thought it was February in 2027 and maybe that's just in the UK.

• 1:13:49Speaker 03

  Maybe limited.

• 1:13:50Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. December 4th of, of.

• 1:13:52Speaker 03

  It's gonna be a long December. There's a reason to believe.

• 1:13:54Yasi Salek?

  There's a new Mike Lee movie coming. Um, can't wait. That's his last film sadly, right?

• 1:13:59Speaker 03

  That's what he says. That's why I'm doing the episode.

• 1:14:00Yasi Salek?

  Right. Love him.

• 1:14:02Speaker 03

  I, Topsy Turvy is as good as any movie we've talked about today.

• 1:14:04Yasi Salek?

  So true. So true.

• 1:14:06Speaker 03

  Is it really like a music biopic of Gilbert and Sullivan, or is it just the portrait of a show getting mounted? I guess is an interesting question, but it, it feels true to life.

• 1:14:16Yasi Salek?

  Still counts. Let's give it a yes.

• 1:14:18Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:14:19Yasi Salek?

  Out of love and respect for, for Mike Nichol, Mike Lee, not Mike Nichols, also a good person.

• 1:14:22Speaker 03

  We're gonna end up with like 20 in.

• 1:14:24Yasi Salek?

  Okay. We're doing all music biographies of all time. I think if there's 20 great ones, we should say there's 20 great ones.

• 1:14:31Speaker 03

  I can't disagree with you.

• 1:14:32Yasi Salek?

  Um, you already know 2002, 24 Hour Party People, which is my number one favorite in this genre.

• 1:14:40Speaker 03

  Yes, this is part of the collection that you curated.

• 1:14:42Yasi Salek?

  Yes.

• 1:14:43Speaker 03

  And a movie that we've talked about at length on the show.

• 1:14:45Yasi Salek?

  At length. Yeah, there's an episode. You guys can go listen to it. Um, I know that maybe formally doesn't, uh, fit into an actual music biopic, given that it's more a lens on a scene driven by a figure that wasn't a musician in Tony Wilson, but I think it does such a great job of capturing this scene, this label, this period of time. I love it. It's funny.

• 1:15:17Speaker 03

  He's a music executive.

• 1:15:18Yasi Salek?

  That's true.

• 1:15:19Speaker 03

  So I think it qualifies.

• 1:15:21Yasi Salek?

  Do you think they've ma, they're gonna make or have made, I'm not familiar, um, many movies about other music executives?

• 1:15:28Speaker 03

  I think there'd be a really good Barry Gordy movie that could be made.

• 1:15:30Yasi Salek?

  Right. Jimmy Iovine, maybe?

• 1:15:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, you probably need some distance. Um, but like Ahmet Ertegun, you know, like there are some pretty critical figures. Clive Davis just passed away.

• 1:15:39Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:40Speaker 03

  These are people who were in the room for some of the most significant moments in, uh, in music history. What is the name of the, uh, famed executive from Columbia who signed Bob Dylan?

• 1:15:48Yasi Salek?

  Oh, of course.

• 1:15:49Speaker 03

  Uh, whose name escapes me right now.

• 1:15:51Yasi Salek?

  I don't remember. And then I'll, oh, even like Walter, uh, Yenov, Yenov.

• 1:15:55Speaker 03

  Yenikov, yeah. Or at CBS, yeah.

• 1:15:57Yasi Salek?

  For me, number one would be Seymour Stein. I would love to see more Stein film because he was so interesting.

• 1:16:02Speaker 03

  Or, um, is it Chris Blackwell from I R Records? I mean, it's just some amazing figures in the history of the art form. Now, you have to be interested in, one, those people's lives have to be dramatic.

• 1:16:12Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 1:16:13Speaker 03

  And sometimes they're not. Sometimes they're just like people who get rich off of the work of other people, but sometimes they are. Like Chris Blackwell's life is fascinating. You know, the way that he threw himself into the cultures, the other musicians that he was interested in, the way that he shepherded like U2 and Bob Marley and all these other people.

• 1:16:25Yasi Salek?

  There is one other one that they did make a film.

• 1:16:28Speaker 03

  What is it?

• 1:16:28Yasi Salek?

  Alan McGee.

• 1:16:30Speaker 03

  Uh, you know, I've never seen that.

• 1:16:31Yasi Salek?

  Creation, sorry. It's not very good.

• 1:16:32Speaker 03

  Oh, no, we talked about it, but yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. That's right. That's right. I did see it. I did see it.

• 1:16:35Yasi Salek?

  But he is, I think he honestly, in many ways molded himself after Tony Wilson, which is why he's.

• 1:16:40Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:16:41Yasi Salek?

  But Tony Wilson is, I think, the most interesting because he was a fascinating person and he truly devoted his life to furthering the music that he thought was cool with really honestly, it was little regard for the financial aspect, which, you know, played out to the downfall of his label, but one of the best people that's ever existed. Um.

• 1:17:08Speaker 03

  Russell Simmons.

• 1:17:09Yasi Salek?

  Russell Simmons.

• 1:17:10Speaker 03

  Tragic fucked up story.

• 1:17:11Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, that's actually.

• 1:17:12Speaker 03

  But hugely important to the, to music history.

• 1:17:15Yasi Salek?

  Movie about him?

• 1:17:16Speaker 03

  He's still alive. I mean, he's been kinda Xed out.

• 1:17:18Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:19Speaker 03

  Of, of society, but.

• 1:17:20Yasi Salek?

  Oh, I, I mean, obviously, speaking of Russell Simmons.

• 1:17:24Speaker 03

  Rick Rubin.

• 1:17:25Yasi Salek?

  Rick Rubin.

• 1:17:26Speaker 03

  Yeah, the beard.

• 1:17:26Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. Um.

• 1:17:28Speaker 03

  Long Island Zone.

• 1:17:29Yasi Salek?

  Eight Mile is fictionalized.

• 1:17:31Speaker 03

  It is. It's about B. Rabbit, not Eminem.

• 1:17:34Yasi Salek?

  I had a thought watching the Elvis film this morning. Is Eminem the modern day Elvis?

• 1:17:41Speaker 03

  Uh, yes.

• 1:17:41Yasi Salek?

  Yes, right?

• 1:17:42Speaker 03

  Without question.

• 1:17:43Yasi Salek?

  Okay, cool. I thought I was right about that.

• 1:17:45Speaker 03

  And, I mean, we can explore that more deeply if you like. I've spent a lot of time thinking about Eminem as well.

• 1:17:49Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, I think it really, I mean, at the very least, in terms of the, uh, taking a, you know, traditionally black genre and becoming the star of it, you know, yeah.

• 1:18:01Speaker 03

  But all, I'm also having like undeniable skill and acuity with that music.

• 1:18:06Yasi Salek?

  Totally.

• 1:18:06Speaker 03

  And being recognized by the community that he is appropriating from as being worthy of appropriation.

• 1:18:12Yasi Salek?

  Yes, totally.

• 1:18:12Speaker 03

  I, I, you know, relative to anybody else who came before them and sort of like the, the, you know, the, the, the wrong that proves the right in a way.

• 1:18:22Yasi Salek?

  Did you write about this at, at Herb?

• 1:18:24Speaker 03

  I never wrote for Herb.

• 1:18:25Yasi Salek?

  At, at, uh.

• 1:18:26Speaker 03

  I always liked Em. I was not obsessed with Eminem. I was not, I, I thought, I really liked the first two albums and then I kind of like completely lost the plot for me. I always liked him as like a, like a horror movie figure.

• 1:18:37Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:37Speaker 03

  You know, somebody who was really outsized and absurd, but anytime he, as soon, and I like Eight Mile as a movie.

• 1:18:43Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, it's a good movie.

• 1:18:44Speaker 03

  I think it's very well made and performances are good, but this is pretty much exactly where I get off the train for that.

• 1:18:49Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. Um, for me, it's when he started dying his facial hair. Um.

• 1:18:53Speaker 03

  Tough.

• 1:18:55Yasi Salek?

  I guess, I hadn't thought about this, but I guess technically The Pianist from 2002 is a music biopic.

• 1:19:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think so.

• 1:19:01Yasi Salek?

  Directed by Roman Polanski, famously starring Adrian Brody, who won his Oscar for it.

• 1:19:06Speaker 03

  His first of two Oscars.

• 1:19:07Yasi Salek?

  First of two.

• 1:19:08Speaker 03

  Um, stunning performance. Uh, I think definitely a lesser Polanski movie, one that was really celebrated at the time.

• 1:19:16Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 1:19:16Speaker 03

  And we look back on that like, you know, the way that Polanski was being celebrated in America is very strange. Um, you know, to me, it's not among the best of the best that we're talking about here.

• 1:19:26Yasi Salek?

  Me neither. Um.

• 1:19:30Yasi Salek?

  I was not a huge Ray person.

• 1:19:33Speaker 03

  I wasn't either. This isn't.

• 1:19:34Yasi Salek?

  Two thousand and four starring Jamie Foxx.

• 1:19:36Speaker 03

  I think our snob will jump out a little bit here.

• 1:19:37Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 1:19:38Speaker 03

  Where, to me, this is one that really kind of set the template for the modern version of this kind of a story.

• 1:19:43Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:44Speaker 03

  And Ray Charles and what he means to music is very different than what a screenwriter can do to narrativize the beats of his life. And it felt very.

• 1:19:56Yasi Salek?

  It's corny.

• 1:19:57Speaker 03

  It felt very cheap.

• 1:19:58Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:58Speaker 03

  I think the way that they portrayed his drug use, his womanizing, his like, and, and his creative spirit, which is kind of hard to locate specifically. It's like, he's this great combination of blues and jazz and boogie woogie and all these different kinds of music that he made into a sound that sounds like America to people.

• 1:20:15Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:16Speaker 03

  You know, and he's such an iconic figure, but, and such a rascal as well. And Jamie Foxx is really good in the movie.

• 1:20:23Yasi Salek?

  What is it like being a hundred years old in your heart?

• 1:20:26Speaker 03

  I just have a, an affinity, I have an affinity for jargon from all periods.

• 1:20:31Yasi Salek?

  You're just a jargon head.

• 1:20:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think so. Not a jar head.

• 1:20:35Yasi Salek?

  Not a jar head.

• 1:20:36Speaker 03

  A jargon head.

• 1:20:36Yasi Salek?

  Jargon head. Um, did Jamie Foxx win an Oscar for this?

• 1:20:38Speaker 03

  He did, he did win an Oscar.

• 1:20:39Yasi Salek?

  It's unfortunate. Um, okay. We, we sort of brought this up earlier, um, but two thousand and four is De Lovely about Cole Porter, um, directed by Erwin Winkler, starring Kevin Kline and Ashley Judd.

• 1:20:51Speaker 03

  Not going.

• 1:20:52Yasi Salek?

  I haven't seen it.

• 1:20:53Speaker 03

  It's not, it's no great shakes.

• 1:20:54Yasi Salek?

  Okay. Um, two thousand and four is Beyond the Sea about Bobby Darin, directed by and starring Kevin Spacey and Kate Bosworth.

• 1:21:04Speaker 03

  Yeah, bad movie.

• 1:21:04Yasi Salek?

  I've not seen this.

• 1:21:05Speaker 03

  Vanity project for Kevin Spacey, who's way too old already at this point in the movie to be playing Bobby Darin, but he loved Bobby Darin and that's why he wanted to do the movie.

• 1:21:13Yasi Salek?

  Could have cast someone else.

• 1:21:14Speaker 03

  Well, that would have not served his purposes, but he's coming off of, he's got two Academy Awards at this point. He's really kind of at the center of Hollywood.

• 1:21:20Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. Um, rough. Okay. Funny one to bring up because of what it wrought, but Walk the Line Innocent, Walk the Line was a good movie.

• 1:21:32Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:21:32Yasi Salek?

  I thought.

• 1:21:33Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:21:34Yasi Salek?

  I don't know if it goes in canon.

• 1:21:35Speaker 03

  Hollywood entertainment.

• 1:21:36Yasi Salek?

  Yes, but.

• 1:21:38Speaker 03

  It's kind of similar.

• 1:21:38Yasi Salek?

  And we'll, and we'll talk about, it is a little.

• 1:21:41Speaker 03

  Johnny Cash is way more interesting than the movie Walk the Line.

• 1:21:43Yasi Salek?

  Yes.

• 1:21:44Speaker 03

  And same for June Carter.

• 1:21:44Yasi Salek?

  I think what maybe we'll talk about, I kind of maybe placed this in my mind with the Bob Dylan film that came out two, was it two years ago?

• 1:21:53Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm, A Complete Unknown, same director.

• 1:21:55Yasi Salek?

  Yes, which I liked. I thought it was a fun time with the movies.

• 1:21:59Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:21:59Yasi Salek?

  It's not going in my canon, but I wasn't, I didn't walk away going like, ugh, you know?

• 1:22:03Speaker 03

  I, yeah, I thought A Complete Unknown surprised me. I had very low expectations and I thought it was a little bit more

• 1:22:10Speaker 03

  spiritually curious about Bob.

• 1:22:11Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:12Speaker 03

  Than I was expecting. I was expecting more like Walk the Line.

• 1:22:14Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 1:22:14Speaker 03

  Where it's just kind of like.

• 1:22:15Yasi Salek?

  More straight ahead.

• 1:22:16Speaker 03

  Beat to beat.

• 1:22:17Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:17Speaker 03

  You know, like A, A, B, C of their lives. And there's some of that in A Complete Unknown, but there's some of it where I was like, oh, he's really trying to kind of get under the fingernails of what was going on with Dylan at that period of time. And it's such a short period of time that is portrayed. But yeah, I mean, they're the same directors and I think it's just hard to crunch somebody's life into two hours.

• 1:22:36Yasi Salek?

  You should do it.

• 1:22:36Speaker 03

  You should, probably should do it.

• 1:22:37Yasi Salek?

  Um, I'm excited to talk about this one, even though it's absolutely not going in the canon, because I'd never seen it. Two thousand and five's Stoned about Brian Jones.

• 1:22:44Speaker 03

  I've not seen it.

• 1:22:45Yasi Salek?

  Um, there's so much dick in this movie.

• 1:22:49Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 1:22:49Yasi Salek?

  Like so many penises.

• 1:22:52Speaker 03

  Okay. Is that good or was that exciting?

• 1:22:55Yasi Salek?

  It was unexpected.

• 1:22:56Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:22:57Yasi Salek?

  I don't know what the, why, why?

• 1:23:00Speaker 03

  Why they were there?

• 1:23:01Yasi Salek?

  Why they were there. They, they didn't really serve a narrative purpose. Yeah, there's a lot of films that don't have full frontal.

• 1:23:07Speaker 03

  When I think of The Stones, I think of dicks.

• 1:23:09Yasi Salek?

  Um, yeah, Ben Wishaw plays Keith Richards.

• 1:23:12Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 1:23:13Yasi Salek?

  See his dick.

• 1:23:14Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:23:14Yasi Salek?

  And Leo Gregory plays Brian Jones and Patty Considine, Considine?

• 1:23:20Speaker 03

  Considine, yeah.

• 1:23:20Yasi Salek?

  Considine, who was in Twenty Four Hour Party People, plays, uh, Rob Gretton. Um.

• 1:23:26Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 1:23:28Yasi Salek?

  This movie is one of the ones that I was a little sad about because it could have been good and maybe should have been better because it's a smart thing to do, right? It's like, it's not about the Rolling Stones, it's about Brian Jones.

• 1:23:39Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:23:40Yasi Salek?

  And they don't use Rolling Stones music. What they do is they use song, like, kind of like songs the Rolling Stones famously are associated with playing that they didn't write, which still kind of like works, you know, but the movie is just not very good.

• 1:23:57Speaker 03

  Isn't that the same tool that is used in Jimmy All Is By My Side?

• 1:24:00Yasi Salek?

  I think so, yeah.

• 1:24:01Speaker 03

  But they don't have any of the music, but they have the songs that he covered and that was the representation of the music.

• 1:24:05Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:05Speaker 03

  I mean, that's a, just a challenge with any of these movies is if you don't have the songs, you're not giving people what they really are coming to the movies for.

• 1:24:13Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:13Speaker 03

  They're coming to hear the movies, the songs loud.

• 1:24:15Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. I mean, I think you can get away with it. If, there's way, I think there's ways around it. I just don't think this one, it, it, it's kind of interesting because it's, it's about the like, I don't know, do you know much about how there's a whole, uh, this is, this is like a, almost like a thriller, like-esque thing. It's, it's bizarre. It's very druggy and it jumps around timelines, but it's about the like conceit that this, this like contractor builder guy killed Brian Jones. The Brian Jones didn't drown, that he was drowned by this man.

• 1:24:46Speaker 03

  That's what the film presupposes.

• 1:24:48Yasi Salek?

  Yes, and because, well, be, this is like apparently a real thing that.

• 1:24:53Speaker 03

  I didn't know that.

• 1:24:53Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, I guess the, the, the tour manager who kind of looked after Brian Jones said the builder told him on his deathbed that he did it.

• 1:25:05Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:25:07Yasi Salek?

  And there was, there was, there was some like weirdness. I don't, the family still thinks he was murdered and has been trying to get this. Anyways, that part is interesting, but I wouldn't say it's a good movie.

• 1:25:15Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:25:15Yasi Salek?

  Um, I've not seen two thousand and six Copying Beethoven starring Ed Harris, who I love. Um, have you seen it?

• 1:25:22Speaker 03

  Uh, no.

• 1:25:23Yasi Salek?

  Okay. Sorry, sorry to Ed Harris.

• 1:25:25Speaker 03

  You're, you're making me aware of movies I didn't know about.

• 1:25:28Yasi Salek?

  Maybe I made them up. What if, what if, I was just sneaking them until I try to catch you.

• 1:25:33Speaker 03

  Honestly.

• 1:25:33Yasi Salek?

  Copying Beethoven.

• 1:25:34Speaker 03

  That sounds fake.

• 1:25:35Yasi Salek?

  It sounds fake, but I think it's real. Um, this is a contentious one for me. Two thousand and seven's Control about Ian Curtis of Joy Division, starring, uh, directed by Anton Corbin. I famously don't like this movie. It is in the Criterion in my collection. Um, it was co-curated. Also, I know that many people love this movie and I, I had, I have to like step back and be like, is it just a taste situation? This is, movie is not my taste. I think it's too dour.

• 1:26:04Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:26:05Yasi Salek?

  I think it's too one dimensional portrait of a character. It's beautiful. Anton Corbin's an incredible photographer, so the imagery is beautiful.

• 1:26:17Yasi Salek?

  I don't think it goes in the canon.

• 1:26:19Speaker 03

  Uh.

• 1:26:19Yasi Salek?

  How do you feel about it?

• 1:26:20Speaker 03

  I really like it. And I always have. I've said to you on this show before that I really like.

• 1:26:24Yasi Salek?

  We sort of, we sort of, I think it's okay.

• 1:26:27Speaker 03

  I think it's very emotionally affecting and I, I was, I, I found it powerful.

• 1:26:31Yasi Salek?

  It might be one of those situations where I know too much about Ian Curtis and, and I also just like, I bristle at

• 1:26:39Yasi Salek?

  people who have been sort of sainted into, uh,

• 1:26:45Yasi Salek?

  like the suicide depression icons of our time, when they were probably a million other things, not even probably. Ian Curtis was very funny and I don't, I don't, I don't, again, I know I'm contradicting myself. I don't think you have to capture every aspect of the person and it, it just for whatever reason, I don't like this movie. Does, but I, I understand why people like it. I don't dislike it because it's corny and terrible. I just, it doesn't work for me, but I respect your opinion.

• 1:27:13Speaker 03

  Okay. Well, it's your show.

• 1:27:15Yasi Salek?

  Um, we'll give it a, we'll give it a, we'll give it a maybe. We could return. Um, La Vie en Rose.

• 1:27:23Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:27:24Yasi Salek?

  Two thousand and seven about Edith Piaf starring Marion Cotillard, a woman that you like.

• 1:27:29Speaker 03

  Do I?

• 1:27:30Yasi Salek?

  Do you like her?

• 1:27:32Speaker 03

  I think she has some charms.

• 1:27:33Yasi Salek?

  Okay.

• 1:27:33Speaker 03

  She seems like a kooky lady.

• 1:27:35Yasi Salek?

  Okay.

• 1:27:36Speaker 03

  Uh.

• 1:27:36Yasi Salek?

  Is it just because she's French?

• 1:27:37Speaker 03

  Nope.

• 1:27:38Yasi Salek?

  Okay.

• 1:27:38Speaker 03

  You don't know, she has some wild opinions about things.

• 1:27:40Yasi Salek?

  Oh, I didn't, I don't know about her political opinions.

• 1:27:42Speaker 03

  Okay, we can talk about those off mic.

• 1:27:43Yasi Salek?

  Okay.

• 1:27:44Speaker 03

  Um,

• 1:27:46Speaker 03

  Melted Beams, something she's made note of?

• 1:27:49Yasi Salek?

  Sorry?

• 1:27:50Speaker 03

  We'll talk about it later.

• 1:27:51Yasi Salek?

  Okay.

• 1:27:52Speaker 03

  Uh, yeah, this is fine. I, I think the performance is fantastic. It's a movie I'll never watch again.

• 1:27:57Yasi Salek?

  Did she win an Oscar?

• 1:27:58Speaker 03

  She did.

• 1:27:58Yasi Salek?

  Okay.

• 1:27:59Speaker 03

  Sort of announced her to American audiences.

• 1:28:01Yasi Salek?

  Got it. I've never seen it. She's very beautiful.

• 1:28:02Speaker 03

  She is. And had, makes, has a strike, a stunning kind of physical transformation in the Piaf and I, I don't, she doesn't sing, I don't think. She sing? I can't, I honestly can't recall. I'm terrible with that. Um, wouldn't go in for me.

• 1:28:16Yasi Salek?

  Okay. Me neither, because I haven't seen it. Um, two thousand and seven's I'm Not There, directed by Todd Haynes, formerly unconventional movie.

• 1:28:25Speaker 03

  Does the inclusion of Bob Dylan songs break the biopic rule?

• 1:28:29Yasi Salek?

  I wonder. That's a good question.

• 1:28:33Yasi Salek?

  I've, I, this movie is just a yes for me. I don't care what our rules are. It's going in because I think it's so amazing. And it does what I, not always, I don't think every music biopic has to be like, let's get Looney, you know? But I think what particularly, and I know, I don't want to retread, but I think we've probably talked about this, or you've talked about it on the big picture, maybe you and I have talked about it, but Bob Dylan specifically as a figure to cover is such a Hall of Mirrors and such like a winking trickster figure. So the genius of coming at him from whatever it is, five different angles, I think is, was so brilliant.

• 1:29:12Yasi Salek?

  And all the performances are wonderful. Cate Blanchett looks more like Bob Dylan than anyone. Sorry, Timmy, but Cate Blanchett, she's, she's the goat.

• 1:29:21Speaker 03

  She is her.

• 1:29:22Yasi Salek?

  Um, so for me, it's yes. What about you?

• 1:29:26Speaker 03

  I think the, the fact that the music is in the movie means yes.

• 1:29:29Yasi Salek?

  Okay. You're still hung up on the rules. How does your heart feel about the film?

• 1:29:34Speaker 03

  It's not not about Bob Dylan.

• 1:29:36Yasi Salek?

  No. Velvet Goldmine is not not about, uh.

• 1:29:40Speaker 03

  It's about a, it's.

• 1:29:40Yasi Salek?

  David Bowie. No, Eddie G. Pop. It's very much, those are the.

• 1:29:44Speaker 03

  I guess characters do all have names and I'm not there.

• 1:29:46Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, they have totally different names.

• 1:29:47Speaker 03

  They have totally different names. But, and those names are not names from songs. They're just, they're just made up names. That feel true to the, the actor and the folks, the Woody Guthrie-esque folk singer and the, you know, the, the Hobo and what are some, the Arthur Rambo figure.

• 1:30:02Yasi Salek?

  The Orphan?

• 1:30:03Speaker 03

  The Orphan, the.

• 1:30:04Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. Ben Wishaw, right? Is that's the Arthur Rambo figure?

• 1:30:07Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:30:07Yasi Salek?

  It's so great. Krishan Dhill.

• 1:30:09Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:30:09Yasi Salek?

  What a film.

• 1:30:10Speaker 03

  I love it. It's one of my favorite movies ever.

• 1:30:12Yasi Salek?

  Gear.

• 1:30:14Speaker 03

  I.

• 1:30:16Speaker 03

  It's still revealing itself to me.

• 1:30:18Yasi Salek?

  The cop inside you is truly, is truly rising up to tell you not to put this in the canon.

• 1:30:24Speaker 03

  That's funny. I, I'm trying to figure out, this is a movie that I think is so deep that it's like, and it is such a better expression of what we do for a living than we could ever make, that I'm, I'm really cowed by it.

• 1:30:37Yasi Salek?

  Then what, you mean, what we do for a living in terms of like trying to explain art?

• 1:30:41Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:30:42Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:43Speaker 03

  Yeah. And, and, and refracting your own interests and point of view through someone else's work, which is like that, I, that's really what we do. And I, I think it's a really, really profound act of that.

• 1:30:55Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:56Speaker 03

  And I love art that attempts to do that. And Haynes is like, he's such a perfect fusion of academic and, and, and passion, passionist, you know, like somebody who really goes with his heart.

• 1:31:09Yasi Salek?

  Jargon head strikes again.

• 1:31:11Speaker 03

  He really, he, he writes from such an emotional place.

• 1:31:14Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:14Speaker 03

  But he's so in the weeds on the details. There's so many like little choices that are made. And like even just the song, like I'm go, the cover of I'm Going to Acapulco in this is fucking unbelievable that Jim James does and Jim James is in the movie. And that's such a strong pull, you know? That's a real, that's a ball knowers choice.

• 1:31:33Yasi Salek?

  That's what I'm saying.

• 1:31:34Speaker 03

  Most of these movies are like, oh yeah, you know about Aretha Franklin? Here's respect. Like they're so boring. They're so obvious.

• 1:31:39Yasi Salek?

  They're broad. They're for the gen pop. You say they make sixty bazillion dollars or whatever. We'll get into the Michael, you know, when we get to the end of this, but I'm not there as for the heads, you know?

• 1:31:48Speaker 03

  It is.

• 1:31:48Yasi Salek?

  And I think, I think some of these films should be for the heads. I don't think everything should be made for maximum commercial impact.

• 1:31:53Speaker 03

  You're right.

• 1:31:54Yasi Salek?

  Sorry to take a stance. Sorry to marry on Cotillard with my outlandish opinions.

• 1:32:00Speaker 03

  Only one of us has an MBA here, so.

• 1:32:03Yasi Salek?

  Can you believe only one of us is an MBA? You wouldn't know it from listening to this podcast that it's me. Um, this doesn't count, but I wanted to put it into mention.

• 1:32:11Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:32:11Yasi Salek?

  Two thousand sevens, Walk Hard, The Dewey Cox Story. I just think it's worth mentioning that they pulled their fuck shit so many times that we had to make a, Jake Kasdan had to take a stand and make a film being like, please stop doing this. And they didn't, they didn't stop doing it.

• 1:32:26Speaker 03

  No, that, so that's the thing is the movie's very funny.

• 1:32:28Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:28Speaker 03

  Right? It looms large, but also like it didn't, it impacted nothing. Like it did nothing. Like these movies, like Michael just happened to made a billion dollars. We've learned nothing.

• 1:32:39Yasi Salek?

  No, but it's a really funny movie and you should watch it.

• 1:32:41Speaker 03

  It is.

• 1:32:42Yasi Salek?

  Um, I've not seen two thousand sevens, El Cantante, um, about Hector Laveaux.

• 1:32:47Speaker 03

  Oh yeah, with Marc Anthony. Yeah, I have seen this.

• 1:32:49Yasi Salek?

  Is it good?

• 1:32:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's fine.

• 1:32:51Yasi Salek?

  Okay. Is Marc Anthony a good actor?

• 1:32:54Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think so.

• 1:32:55Yasi Salek?

  Um, two thousand sevens crazy about Hank Garland.

• 1:33:00Speaker 03

  Haven't seen it.

• 1:33:00Yasi Salek?

  Don't know it. Um.

• 1:33:04Yasi Salek?

  Is Cadillac Records a music biopic?

• 1:33:06Speaker 03

  It is. It's about, um.

• 1:33:08Yasi Salek?

  Chess Records.

• 1:33:09Speaker 03

  Chess. Uh, Adrian Brody plays the founder of chess.

• 1:33:12Yasi Salek?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:33:13Speaker 03

  Uh, gosh, Beyonce plays which sixties Chantus who sing, oh my God. Her name is escaping me.

• 1:33:26Yasi Salek?

  You know, you know how sometimes you can really tell that you were a music writer?

• 1:33:29Speaker 03

  Is it Etta James?

• 1:33:30Yasi Salek?

  Um, I think so.

• 1:33:32Speaker 03

  I think it's Etta James.

• 1:33:32Yasi Salek?

  It is Etta James. And Jeffrey Wright plays Muddy Waters. And Mostef, AKA Yassin Bay plays Chuck Berry. I've not seen this film.

• 1:33:39Speaker 03

  Yeah, I've seen it. It's a kind of a stiff.

• 1:33:42Yasi Salek?

  I really would love to see Mostef playing Chuck Berry though, because that doesn't make any sense to me.

• 1:33:46Speaker 03

  Uh, yeah.

• 1:33:47Yasi Salek?

  Couldn't be a more opposite of a person than Chuck Berry.

• 1:33:49Speaker 03

  I mean, do you want to watch a movie where Adrian Brody and Beyonce are in love? Okay, well, case closed.

• 1:33:54Yasi Salek?

  Um, and again, love and respect in my heart for Beyonce. I don't think she's a good actress.

• 1:33:58Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:33:58Yasi Salek?

  Um, two thousand nine's The Soloist about Nathaniel Ayers. Do you think Jamie Foxx was like, did it once bitch, let's do it.

• 1:34:06Speaker 03

  A little bit.

• 1:34:06Yasi Salek?

  Let's, let's do it again.

• 1:34:08Speaker 03

  Yeah, I do think so.

• 1:34:09Yasi Salek?

  Um, I didn't see this.

• 1:34:10Speaker 03

  Um.

• 1:34:11Yasi Salek?

  I love Robert Downey Jr.

• 1:34:12Speaker 03

  Oscar bait. It's fine.

• 1:34:13Yasi Salek?

  Okay, yeah.

• 1:34:13Speaker 03

  Joe Wright coming off of, you know, Pride and Prejudice and the, and Right Before Atonement. It's okay.

• 1:34:20Yasi Salek?

  It's a weird one.

• 1:34:20Speaker 03

  It's based on an early times story that is pretty interesting.

• 1:34:23Yasi Salek?

  Okay. Not going in.

• 1:34:25Speaker 03

  No.

• 1:34:25Yasi Salek?

  Um, this is one I, I was sad I actually didn't have time to watch and I've not seen it. Um, because I, much like we, we kind of talked about earlier, but we're talking a bit more about jazz and rock. But there's not a lot of hip hop music biopics, even though arguably there definitely should be more. Um, have you seen Notorious? I assume you have.

• 1:34:45Speaker 03

  Of course I have, yeah.

• 1:34:46Yasi Salek?

  Is it wonderful?

• 1:34:47Speaker 03

  Uh, no.

• 1:34:47Yasi Salek?

  Okay.

• 1:34:48Speaker 03

  It's fine. Um, it's standard estate managed.

• 1:34:52Yasi Salek?

  Okay.

• 1:34:53Speaker 03

  Glorification of a great dead artist. Um.

• 1:34:57Yasi Salek?

  Is it like dicey, fun, cuddy?

• 1:35:00Speaker 03

  Uh, I mean, Jamal Wooler, AKA Gravy portrays Biggie and he's not bad.

• 1:35:08Yasi Salek?

  Okay.

• 1:35:08Speaker 03

  And there's a really, really fun performance from Notori Nodden as Lil Kim.

• 1:35:13Yasi Salek?

  Yes, that's what I heard. From Three L W.

• 1:35:16Speaker 03

  Yeah, she's awesome. Um, and Angela Bassett plays Valletta Wallace. So, you know, it's like, that's pretty good. You know, I think in the aftermath of all the Puff Daddy information that we have, Derek Luke's portrayal is a little complicated, you know? Um, I, this is for me, one where I was just like, I'm a little too close to this.

• 1:35:34Yasi Salek?

  Right. You're too much music journalist.

• 1:35:36Speaker 03

  Just too much like Biggie kid in the, in the nineties. Like Biggie was, if you were living in New York and loved rap, Biggie was the focal point of everything.

• 1:35:45Yasi Salek?

  I think, I'm gonna say something and I want to test, test it out with you. It's just a forming opinion in real time. I wonder if rap is honestly, or hip hop is the hardest to portray on screen? Because there's some, it, it's so about authenticity and there's something very real and gritty about a lot of rappers and their culture. And immediately just becomes fucking corny when it's on screen.

• 1:36:13Speaker 03

  So interesting though, because I think.

• 1:36:15Yasi Salek?

  The scene in Michael where he goes to talk to the, to the gang members to teach them how to dance, to do the crip walk?

• 1:36:21Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's a bad scene. It's all together. I, I've given this a lot of thought because I, I've covered rap for so long. I think a big part of it is that there's this weird collision that is not unlike someone like David Bowie, where you've got these often kind of very creative and internal people.

• 1:36:38Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 1:36:39Speaker 03

  Who know that, that a lot of the work that they have to do is about kind of myth making.

• 1:36:42Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:42Speaker 03

  And so they build their personas very dramatically, especially, you know, the East Coast superstars in the nineties.

• 1:36:47Yasi Salek?

  The Jay-Zs.

• 1:36:48Speaker 03

  Jay-Zs, Biggie, Nas, like all these figures, they, they kind of wrote fantastically.

• 1:36:52Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 1:36:52Speaker 03

  They used a lot of personal biographical detail, but they invented characters.

• 1:36:56Yasi Salek?

  For sure.

• 1:36:56Speaker 03

  And so they already made themselves cinematic.

• 1:37:01Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 1:37:02Speaker 03

  So it's like a little hard to try to like bridge the gap between who you created and who you are.

• 1:37:07Yasi Salek?

  Perhaps the film would have to like undo that, you know, and show who they really were.

• 1:37:10Speaker 03

  That's why I mean, like, we need like an artist like a Todd Haynes to kind of untangle some of those things. And like George Tillman Jr., who's not a bad director per se, but he directed Notorious. And it was like, it was given a proper studio treatment. It's like a Fox Searchlight movie. It's very, very professionally made. It's not like some dingy.

• 1:37:28Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:28Speaker 03

  You know, less than version of the movie. But I think in doing so, it just kind of reveals the failings and the trappings of these kinds of movies.

• 1:37:36Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 1:37:37Speaker 03

  So, I don't know. I'm sure there will be more as, I'm sure that when we're in our sixties, there's going to be a Kendrick Lamar movie. You know, it's going to win somebody an Oscar. There's going, there will be more stories like that about interesting figures who've come through that space.

• 1:37:49Yasi Salek?

  Todd Haynes make a Big L movie win.

• 1:37:53Speaker 03

  I don't know if Todd is the most well suited to that. Um, but you know, of course you could see somebody like Coogler.

• 1:38:00Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:01Speaker 03

  Like taking a long look at somebody like Kendrick.

• 1:38:03Yasi Salek?

  Coogler make a Tupac movie win and we just pretend the other one didn't happen.

• 1:38:05Speaker 03

  Hundred, that's even better. That's even better idea.

• 1:38:07Yasi Salek?

  I think I.

• 1:38:08Speaker 03

  The other one is not good.

• 1:38:08Yasi Salek?

  For me personally, I think Tupac is one of the most interesting figures in.

• 1:38:14Speaker 03

  You'll never be able to do Warts and All. That's the thing is because the estates control the music. And so like Tupac did some tough things. He did some hard things in the world.

• 1:38:22Yasi Salek?

  I know.

• 1:38:23Speaker 03

  And so how can you show those things honestly while getting sign off from the estate? Who is desperately trying to maintain the kind of emotional sanctity of those dead people?

• 1:38:32Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:33Speaker 03

  So they can continue to sell records forever.

• 1:38:34Yasi Salek?

  I wonder if what happens at a certain point, the estate is so far removed that it allows things to happen. I don't know. I mean, great example is Prince, which we haven't, that shit got buried.

• 1:38:45Speaker 03

  I think.

• 1:38:46Yasi Salek?

  That wasn't a biopic. That was a documentary.

• 1:38:47Speaker 03

  It was documentary. Yeah. I think that, I just think that this stuff needs to go into the public domain.

• 1:38:50Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. How long does that take?

• 1:38:51Speaker 03

  Hundred, hundred years. Like Mickey Mouse just went into the public domain.

• 1:38:56Yasi Salek?

  Love him. Mickey bi, Mickey Mouse biopic win. Um, I don't know if in a hundred years, kids are going to be like, I better fucking get to the theater to see the Tupac biopic. I hope so.

• 1:39:06Speaker 03

  You won't be alive for it.

• 1:39:07Yasi Salek?

  You don't know what I do with my biohacking. You don't know what, what, what methodologies I'm putting into place and how long I'm gonna live.

• 1:39:14Speaker 03

  Earliest twenty ninety-two.

• 1:39:18Yasi Salek?

  Don't threaten me with a good time.

• 1:39:19Speaker 03

  How old do you be in twenty ninety-two? You'll be ninety?

• 1:39:23Yasi Salek?

  I was born in nineteen eighty-two. I'll be a hundred and ten. That's doable.

• 1:39:26Speaker 03

  Hundred and ten.

• 1:39:27Yasi Salek?

  That's literally doable. That's possible. I will be a hundred and ten years old on my walker going to see the Tupac film.

• 1:39:35Speaker 03

  I'll put a proviso in my will that if you make it to one-ten, your family inherits half of my estate.

• 1:39:43Yasi Salek?

  No, the proviso I want is that you pre-record yourself singing Hallelujah. And that plays at my funeral.

• 1:39:52Speaker 03

  That's not in my range.

• 1:39:53Yasi Salek?

  Um, as a duet with Chris Ryan. Um, okay. Two thousand tens. Oh no, we, sorry, we have one more. Which for me, actually I really love.

• 1:40:01Speaker 03

  I've not seen this movie.

• 1:40:02Yasi Salek?

  It's really good.

• 1:40:04Speaker 03

  Nowhere Boy.

• 1:40:04Yasi Salek?

  Two thousand nine's Nowhere Boy, um, directed by Sam Taylor-Wood, starring, uh, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, I believe it's where they met. Um, because they're not married and Kristen Scott Thomas. Um, I don't, it's in my Criterion Collection because I do quite love it. It feel, clicks, hits a lot of boxes for me, which is, it comes at the story a bit sideways. It's about John Lennon's life basically leading up to The Beatles.

• 1:40:28Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:40:29Yasi Salek?

  Which is a smart way to do it. Again, it's not going to be as shiny and it's not going to grab as much money, right? Because there's probably, there's not really Beatles music in it.

• 1:40:37Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:40:37Yasi Salek?

  Um, but I think his, as, if you care about The Beatles and you care about John Lennon, and it's a very interesting portrait of his upbringing.

• 1:40:46Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:40:46Yasi Salek?

  And his relationship with his mother and his aunt who raised him. And Kristen Scott Thomas is fucking phenomenal. Aaron Taylor-Johnson is wonderful. It's beautifully shot. I, I quite liked it.

• 1:40:57Speaker 03

  I haven't seen it.

• 1:40:59Yasi Salek?

  I don't know if it should go in the canon. I'll put it as a maybe. I really like it. Um.

• 1:41:05Speaker 03

  Can I ask, just take a pause here?

• 1:41:06Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:07Speaker 03

  There, there are like fifty movies from twenty-ten to now that fit this bill.

• 1:41:12Yasi Salek?

  That are that good?

• 1:41:13Speaker 03

  No, that, no, that are just, that just were made.

• 1:41:16Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:16Speaker 03

  Like there were like ten in the seventies. There were six in the sixties.

• 1:41:19Yasi Salek?

  So many got made?

• 1:41:20Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:41:21Yasi Salek?

  Do you, don't you think it's kind of the same reason? There was more and more subject matter? And also more and more greedy? More and more of these movies make money?

• 1:41:28Speaker 03

  I think it's more that, yeah, I think it's more that.

• 1:41:33Speaker 03

  Stuff like Walk the Line and Ray proved that they could be commercially viable if done correctly.

• 1:41:38Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:39Speaker 03

  And so.

• 1:41:39Yasi Salek?

  Correctly, quote unquote.

• 1:41:41Speaker 03

  Satisfied audience expectation, right? So like, but I mean, just look at this list.

• 1:41:45Yasi Salek?

  They don't all, they don't all try to be that, which I think is cool. You know, as much as that did show commercial viability, I think it's more that like,

• 1:41:54Yasi Salek?

  the barrier to entry to making film gets lower and lower. I think you have more subject matter to pull from and

• 1:42:03Yasi Salek?

  I had to guess that's what it is.

• 1:42:04Speaker 03

  I think it's also a very gratifying space for actors to go because they don't have to expose themselves in the way they usually are asked to when you're creating a character. But when a person is a real person and you're.

• 1:42:15Yasi Salek?

  Embodding, you're mimicking a little bit.

• 1:42:18Speaker 03

  It's a, it's a, it's a risk, but it's a different kind of risk.

• 1:42:20Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 1:42:21Speaker 03

  And there's a kind of like, you know, how to hit your mark, like you know what you're going for.

• 1:42:24Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, interesting. I personally don't think The Runaways of 2010 is a great movie.

• 1:42:32Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 1:42:32Yasi Salek?

  It is in my criteria collection. Someone messaged me, he was like, but you said it was bad. This is a co-curation.

• 1:42:37Speaker 03

  I thought, I, I remember enjoying it.

• 1:42:39Yasi Salek?

  I think it's.

• 1:42:40Speaker 03

  Case two.

• 1:42:40Yasi Salek?

  I think it's fun.

• 1:42:42Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 1:42:42Yasi Salek?

  I think Flora Sigismandel is a good director and, and visually it's appealing. I just found the storytelling very weak.

• 1:42:52Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:42:53Yasi Salek?

  And again, I, you know, I know too much about The Runaways probably.

• 1:42:56Speaker 03

  Makes sense.

• 1:42:57Yasi Salek?

  There's two full characters that, that don't exist. There, there's a bassist who has no name and doesn't speak.

• 1:43:02Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 1:43:03Yasi Salek?

  That's weird because she didn't give up her life rights or whatever, or the drummer, I can't remember which one. So it doesn't have to be, listen, again, it doesn't have to be accurate, but you can't just be like, that person didn't exist and just hope that nobody notices that like, a main member of a four person band just doesn't speak the entire film.

• 1:43:19Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:43:20Yasi Salek?

  That's weird to me.

• 1:43:21Speaker 03

  Makes sense.

• 1:43:22Yasi Salek?

  Um, I didn't, I, I only watched a bit of this because I ran out of time. 2010's Gainsbourg, A Heroic Life.

• 1:43:30Speaker 03

  I did see this.

• 1:43:31Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, I had, it, uh, what's her name? Isn't it? Virgil's Victoria's Secret model, Letitia Costa.

• 1:43:36Speaker 03

  She stars in many films in France these days. Um.

• 1:43:41Yasi Salek?

  I heard it was not very good, but what, what did you think?

• 1:43:44Speaker 03

  Uh, I don't really remember it very well.

• 1:43:47Yasi Salek?

  He, he to me would be a prime candidate for a fantastic biopic. So I'm kind of surprised that maybe this one didn't land the plane.

• 1:43:55Speaker 03

  It was directed by French comic artist Yann Safar.

• 1:43:59Yasi Salek?

  Comic artist, like a clown?

• 1:44:00Speaker 03

  No, like he writes comics.

• 1:44:02Yasi Salek?

  Oh, like comic books?

• 1:44:03Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:44:03Yasi Salek?

  Oh.

• 1:44:05Speaker 03

  Unusual choice.

• 1:44:06Yasi Salek?

  It does have animation. I remember.

• 1:44:08Speaker 03

  There you go.

• 1:44:09Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:09Speaker 03

  That explains it.

• 1:44:10Yasi Salek?

  Um. I didn't see this and I'm now I'm kind of sad I didn't. I'm sure it wouldn't have been canonized, but it probably was probably good. Sex, Drugs and Rock and Roll from 2010 about Ian Dury starring Andy Serkis, AKA Gollum.

• 1:44:25Speaker 03

  Not an Ian Dury person. Don't really know the blockhead super well.

• 1:44:29Yasi Salek?

  They were, I'm not like musically very obsessed with them, but I, I found them to be an interesting artist in a time, like they were sort of like a bridge artist in

• 1:44:40Yasi Salek?

  post punky world.

• 1:44:41Speaker 03

  College rock, right? Like a leading point.

• 1:44:44Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, I mean, they're post punk. It's British. So it's like, yeah. Um, but I didn't see this, so I'm sorry. Apologies to Andy Serkis. Um, didn't see Who Do You Love about Leonard Chess starring Alessandro Nivola. Nope, you neither?

• 1:44:56Speaker 03

  Two movies about Leonard Chess.

• 1:44:58Yasi Salek?

  Weird, but cool. Maybe it was very iconic.

• 1:45:02Yasi Salek?

  Um, we've both seen Greetings from Tim Buckley.

• 1:45:04Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 1:45:05Yasi Salek?

  It's not going in.

• 1:45:06Speaker 03

  Nope.

• 1:45:06Yasi Salek?

  Nope.

• 1:45:09Speaker 00

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• 1:46:34Yasi Salek?

  Okay, now I'm so excited to talk about this because I had never seen this.

• 1:46:39Speaker 03

  Oh, okay.

• 1:46:40Yasi Salek?

  This is to me a five star masterpiece.

• 1:46:43Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:46:43Yasi Salek?

  It is 2013's Behind the Condolabra about Liberace, directed by Steven Soderbergh. Matt Damon should have won an Oscar for this. I know he wasn't eligible because they shoved this on HBO because probably it was too gay. Um, to be, put the studio to put.

• 1:46:58Speaker 03

  Just greenlit as a TV movie.

• 1:47:00Yasi Salek?

  Because it was too gay to be in theaters. Um, Matt Damon is phenomenal. When they give him an Oscar for The Odyssey, I want you to know that this was for Behind the Condolabra.

• 1:47:08Speaker 03

  I, I, I won't argue his performance is hilarious.

• 1:47:11Yasi Salek?

  But also really good, like actually, yes, hilarious. The whole movie is campy and hilarious. It's fucking about Liberace.

• 1:47:17Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:47:18Yasi Salek?

  But it's also quite emotionally resonant and moving. Soderbergh is incredible. The directing is amazing. It's visually gorgeous. Um, my man Rob Lowe.

• 1:47:28Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 1:47:29Yasi Salek?

  As the doctor.

• 1:47:30Speaker 03

  Yep, plastic surgeon.

• 1:47:32Yasi Salek?

  This movie is wonderful.

• 1:47:34Speaker 03

  I'm glad you found it. Yeah. I mean, I've been, I've been on this corner for years.

• 1:47:38Yasi Salek?

  And you know, I love Soderbergh and I don't know why, just maybe because it was a TV movie and there wasn't a lot of pomp and circumstance around it, or I guess there was, but I loved every minute of it. I mean, again, is it a music biopic? Yes.

• 1:47:50Speaker 03

  Yeah. Uh.

• 1:47:51Yasi Salek?

  Liberace not a traditionally.

• 1:47:54Speaker 03

  I think it's, I think it's eligible, assuming you're okay with a TV movie status. Now we, there was another TV movie we disqualified.

• 1:48:00Yasi Salek?

  I guess we can't put it in because it's a TV movie, because of the Elvis, but.

• 1:48:02Speaker 03

  There you go.

• 1:48:03Yasi Salek?

  I wanted to crow about it because I think this is an incredible film and probably I'm late and I know it's, it's, uh, deeply beloved by the gay community. But this movie is phenomenal. Michael Douglas?

• 1:48:17Speaker 03

  Can be seen on HBO Max right now.

• 1:48:18Yasi Salek?

  Right now. That's where I watched it. Um, I didn't see 2013's Jimmy All Is By My Side, directed by John Ridley, starring Andre 3000.

• 1:48:27Speaker 03

  I did, I did not think it worked.

• 1:48:29Yasi Salek?

  Okay. No music rights. Rough. Um, I'm surprised Andre 3000 agreed to do that without the music rights.

• 1:48:37Speaker 03

  I think he helped get the movie made just period.

• 1:48:39Yasi Salek?

  Just because he wanted.

• 1:48:40Speaker 03

  Passion project for John Ridley, longtime screenwriter in Hollywood.

• 1:48:43Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 1:48:43Speaker 03

  Um, but didn't totally come together.

• 1:48:46Yasi Salek?

  Um, okay, here's another one that, this is the one I was referring to earlier that I actually don't even remember this coming out and I didn't see it until this week. It's 2014's Get On Up, the James Brown biopic starring Chadwick Boseman. This movie is incredible.

• 1:49:00Speaker 03

  His performance is unreal.

• 1:49:02Yasi Salek?

  I, oh, he's.

• 1:49:03Speaker 03

  Unreal.

• 1:49:03Yasi Salek?

  He should have won an Oscar.

• 1:49:04Speaker 03

  It's, it's amazing.

• 1:49:06Yasi Salek?

  Ray?

• 1:49:09Yasi Salek?

  Compared to this?

• 1:49:10Speaker 03

  Yeah. I mean, this movie.

• 1:49:12Yasi Salek?

  I, I liked how.

• 1:49:13Speaker 03

  They're very similar movies. White filmmakers trying to tell the stories of some of the most significant black artists of all time. You've got these dynamic performances. I, it's a little like beat to beat for me as well.

• 1:49:22Yasi Salek?

  Really? Because I felt, I felt that there was a, there was a lot of interesting stuff done with like the sort of timeline jumping and like,

• 1:49:30Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 1:49:31Yasi Salek?

  And the way it was edited and things that like, I would expect him to show, him, the director, to show and milk for emotional resonance. He didn't like, there's the scene where it perhaps like his mother comes back from, after having abandoned him when he's famous, comes backstage. And instead of showing any sort of like actual confrontation, it just flashes back to like several really like kind of powerful moments of her rejecting. I thought, I really loved how the story was told. I don't know. I, I really thought this movie was great.

• 1:50:01Speaker 03

  Um, I think it's good, not great. It's a little weird. It's like, it's written by the Butterworths, these two British playwrights who are super talented, obviously.

• 1:50:10Yasi Salek?

  Watch, I'm watching The Agency right now.

• 1:50:12Speaker 03

  It's like produced by Brian Grazer and Mick Jagger. It's a little, it's still a little Hollywood pro forma. I think Chadwick Boseman is off the chain. He's so good. Um, and it like, it sort of reveals some of the kind of menace and mania of James Brown, but doesn't go all the way.

• 1:50:29Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:29Speaker 03

  It gets, it gives you all the drill instructor stuff, which is really good where it's like, he was such a harsh bandleader and that's part of what made them such a dynamic performance troupe, but.

• 1:50:38Yasi Salek?

  For you, for you know?

• 1:50:41Speaker 03

  For what?

• 1:50:42Yasi Salek?

  For you, it's no?

• 1:50:43Speaker 03

  It would be a no. It, it is, I agree with you about the performance though, like if, if Jamie Foxx can win for that, why can't he?

• 1:50:49Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:50Speaker 03

  Fucking dancing in the movie. Dancing is amazing.

• 1:50:52Yasi Salek?

  Also, it's just like he, he, he really becomes.

• 1:50:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:50:56Yasi Salek?

  James Brown, like his facial, like he's so electric.

• 1:50:59Speaker 03

  But a lot of this, the charts, check, uh, is chalked up to Ray was a big hit and this movie was not. This movie flopped.

• 1:51:05Yasi Salek?

  Why?

• 1:51:07Speaker 03

  I mean, James Brown is a confrontational figure in American culture. Ray is a very warm, he's a guy who sang America the Beautiful at the Super Bowl.

• 1:51:14Yasi Salek?

  Um, okay. Well, we'll put it as maybe just so my heart can be, um, left unchecked. I'll make a letterbox list for you guys, um, of the yes and the maybe, so you can check out the maybes if you want. Um, this is also a maybe. I put it in my criteria list because I just really like it, but Love and Mercy, the Brian Wilson, uh, biopic. I thought, I think I'm a real Paul Dano stan. I think he's really just amazing and everything. He's so good in this as young, uh, young Brian Wilson. John Cusack, I think pretty good. Some people are, are a little out on the half of the movie where it's John Cusack.

• 1:51:50Speaker 03

  I think Dano is, is exceptional.

• 1:51:52Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:52Speaker 03

  Um, and the scene when they're, are they writing Good Vibrations? I can't remember what song they're writing. And he's starting, really starting to kind of lose it, um, is extraordinary. It's like great filmmaking.

• 1:52:00Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:01Speaker 03

  Um, I think, I, to me it's automatically in.

• 1:52:03Yasi Salek?

  Okay, good.

• 1:52:04Speaker 03

  I think it's the, that, that split structure that it has is so original.

• 1:52:08Yasi Salek?

  I didn't know. I thought you were going to be like a media.

• 1:52:10Speaker 03

  No, no, I'm a big, I'm a big fan. Weird thing where like this movie is made by the guy, this guy named Bill Polad, who's the son of a very famous Minnesota billionaire.

• 1:52:18Yasi Salek?

  Okay.

• 1:52:18Speaker 03

  Who's like, I guess a nepo or whatever, but like has really used his powers for good. Like he makes mostly movies about musicians.

• 1:52:24Yasi Salek?

  What else has he directed?

• 1:52:25Speaker 03

  Another one of the movies on this list, which is kind of an interesting movie about the Emerson's. Um, Donnie and Billy Joe. Um, I, I, I'll, I'll look it up and I'll tell you about it.

• 1:52:35Yasi Salek?

  So he mostly makes music films?

• 1:52:38Speaker 03

  Um, yes. I mean, those are two of like only three or four movies that he's made, but he like, he produced, um.

• 1:52:46Speaker 03

  Uh, Brokeback Mountain and produced, um, The Runaways, actually. And he directed Love and Mercy. He directed, uh, Dream and Wild.

• 1:52:54Yasi Salek?

  Owned the Minnesota Twins.

• 1:52:56Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:52:56Yasi Salek?

  Um, yeah, this movie is great. I really, Elizabeth Banks plays his, uh, love interest wife. Later, older Brian Wilson. Um, yeah, I, I love it. And again, it kind of solves the problem of cradle to grave by just having these two timelines, you know? Okay. I'm glad we agree.

• 1:53:17Speaker 03

  Easy.

• 1:53:17Yasi Salek?

  2014 Lowdown, Joe Albany didn't see it. L. Fanning is in this movie?

• 1:53:23Speaker 03

  Haven't, uh, yes. Is this, is it, um, John Hawks?

• 1:53:28Yasi Salek?

  Yes.

• 1:53:28Speaker 03

  John Hawks as a strung out jazz musician.

• 1:53:31Yasi Salek?

  Joe Albany.

• 1:53:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, this is actually a very good film.

• 1:53:34Yasi Salek?

  Okay.

• 1:53:34Speaker 03

  It's independent film, small. I mean, I haven't seen it since he came out. I don't remember a lot of the details. But really, really strong John Hawks performance. It's not going in, but it's like, I would recommend people check it out.

• 1:53:42Yasi Salek?

  I'll maybe it. We'll put it on our maybe list. Um, I never saw Jersey Boys. I apologize. It's not of interest to me. I love the Four Seasons, but, um,

• 1:53:49Speaker 03

  Not a fan at all.

• 1:53:49Yasi Salek?

  That's the one they made, they made a big, the musical that's still going. Yeah. Um, okay, let's talk about 2015, Straight Outta Compton.

• 1:53:57Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:54:00Yasi Salek?

  Like, on one hand, yes.

• 1:54:02Speaker 03

  Very entertaining.

• 1:54:03Yasi Salek?

  Very entertaining. On the other hand, does it go in the canon?

• 1:54:08Speaker 03

  Huge hit.

• 1:54:09Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:11Speaker 03

  Strong performances.

• 1:54:12Yasi Salek?

  Strong performances.

• 1:54:13Speaker 03

  Um.

• 1:54:14Yasi Salek?

  I enjoy, I actually,

• 1:54:15Speaker 03

  Corey Hawkins, I think is quite good as Dr. Dre.

• 1:54:17Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, genuinely enjoyed watching it.

• 1:54:19Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:54:20Yasi Salek?

  It's a little near and dear to my heart because I grew up in Torrance and like Crenshaw and all that little various.

• 1:54:24Speaker 03

  Does O'Shea play his, his dad?

• 1:54:25Yasi Salek?

  Uh, yes.

• 1:54:26Speaker 03

  He does. And he's really good too, obviously.

• 1:54:27Yasi Salek?

  Looks just like him and.

• 1:54:30Speaker 03

  I, it allides a lot of the truth.

• 1:54:33Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:34Speaker 03

  It's not the most factually accurate portrayal of what was going on with these guys.

• 1:54:38Yasi Salek?

  And back to my point, it doesn't do that in service of being fantastical. It does it in service of not,

• 1:54:45Speaker 03

  Polishing their legacies.

• 1:54:47Yasi Salek?

  I don't like, I don't like that.

• 1:54:48Speaker 03

  Yeah. Um, there's no D. Barnes stuff in this movie, for example. I,

• 1:54:55Speaker 03

  I think it's important. I think it's the most, it's the, really the only major hip hop,

• 1:55:00Yasi Salek?

  Film, yeah.

• 1:55:01Speaker 03

  biopic that has broken through to the mainstream.

• 1:55:03Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. I mean, okay, but does breaking through the mainstream is that important, more important to you than being really good?

• 1:55:09Speaker 03

  It's up to you.

• 1:55:11Yasi Salek?

  I'm gonna put it on as a maybe.

• 1:55:12Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:55:12Yasi Salek?

  I think it should have been better.

• 1:55:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, you got, it's, you forget though, what a big hit it was. How, like this movie is very well marketed.

• 1:55:20Yasi Salek?

  I know you're the MBA here.

• 1:55:24Yasi Salek?

  In Ban's Plain Town, it doesn't matter how big of a hit things were. It matters how good it was.

• 1:55:28Speaker 03

  Good to know. I was just repping for Lowdown, which I did see when it came out in the movie theater.

• 1:55:32Yasi Salek?

  Of course you did.

• 1:55:33Speaker 03

  Before I had a movie podcast, I was like, I just want to see this John Hawks movie.

• 1:55:35Yasi Salek?

  You've always been a real one.

• 1:55:36Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 1:55:37Yasi Salek?

  And everyone knows that about you.

• 1:55:38Speaker 03

  Appreciate it.

• 1:55:39Yasi Salek?

  Um, didn't see Miles Ahead, the Miles Davis biopic directed by and starring Don Cheadle.

• 1:55:43Speaker 03

  I did.

• 1:55:44Yasi Salek?

  Good.

• 1:55:44Speaker 03

  You know, admirable act. Um, that doesn't really work.

• 1:55:49Yasi Salek?

  Okay. Um, Ewan McGregor, who does he play?

• 1:55:53Speaker 03

  I don't even remember.

• 1:55:54Yasi Salek?

  Okay, great.

• 1:55:55Speaker 03

  His manager, probably.

• 1:55:56Yasi Salek?

  Born to be Blue, the Chet Baker biopic, uh, starring Ethan Hawke.

• 1:56:00Speaker 03

  Good performance. Not a great film. Kind of similar to Miles Ahead.

• 1:56:03Yasi Salek?

  Okay. Is Ethan Hawke also a big jazz head?

• 1:56:07Speaker 03

  I think he's interested in American artists.

• 1:56:08Yasi Salek?

  Sure. Um, I Saw the Light, the Hank Williams movie starring Tom Hiddleston from 2015.

• 1:56:17Speaker 03

  Not bad.

• 1:56:19Yasi Salek?

  Tom Hiddleston, British.

• 1:56:20Speaker 03

  Yeah, you'd think this wouldn't work, but he's a pretty good.

• 1:56:22Yasi Salek?

  No, British people who really always can do American, no problem. It's the other way around. It doesn't work that well.

• 1:56:27Speaker 03

  Yeah. I don't, I don't think it's going in, but interesting.

• 1:56:30Yasi Salek?

  But it's good. Okay. Um, are you, are you guys the ones that are always talking about Florence Foster Jenkins? Is that an Amanda?

• 1:56:37Speaker 03

  Always talking.

• 1:56:38Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, I find that you're always talking about.

• 1:56:40Speaker 03

  We talked about it one time on the Meryl Streep Hall of Fame. So I don't know about always. Uh, it's not, not a good film.

• 1:56:45Yasi Salek?

  Okay.

• 1:56:47Speaker 03

  Should not go in. And we are not always talking about it.

• 1:56:50Yasi Salek?

  You don't want me going around town telling people that you're always talking about Florence Foster Jenkins.

• 1:56:54Speaker 03

  Newspaper that I'm always talking about Florence Foster Jenkins.

• 1:56:57Yasi Salek?

  Um, Nina from 2016 starring Zoe Saldana in what I believe was a bit of blackface.

• 1:57:05Speaker 03

  Yes. A choice she said she now regrets.

• 1:57:08Yasi Salek?

  We shouldn't do that.

• 1:57:09Speaker 03

  It's not something I would recommend.

• 1:57:12Yasi Salek?

  Sing Street is fictionalized, so I don't know why it's on this list, but it's a great movie.

• 1:57:16Speaker 03

  Very fun.

• 1:57:16Yasi Salek?

  Hard recommend from us, but it's not part of this canon.

• 1:57:19Speaker 03

  I own this film on steelbook.

• 1:57:20Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, okay. Well, that's not, that doesn't mean anything coming from you. I have to say, at this point, you owning a thing.

• 1:57:28Speaker 03

  Hmm, I still got a lot of holes.

• 1:57:30Yasi Salek?

  Okay.

• 1:57:31Speaker 03

  Trying to figure out how to film in every day.

• 1:57:35Yasi Salek?

  Um,

• 1:57:38Yasi Salek?

  All Eyes on Me, the Tupac story, very bad.

• 1:57:42Speaker 03

  Bad and out.

• 1:57:44Yasi Salek?

  Um, England is Mine, quite bad, quite poor. Yeah. Um, again, good idea in the similar to the Nowhere Boy structure. It's about Morrissey upbringing before, like it literally ends, which is kind of cool with Johnny Marr knocking on his door, you know? Um, and I love Jack Loudon, but it just doesn't really work that well.

• 1:58:03Speaker 03

  Okay, out.

• 1:58:04Yasi Salek?

  Morrissey is such a ridiculous figure that I think you have to, you, you have to go full Baz Luhrmann, you know? In order to like, you can't try to play it straight because he's so ridiculous.

• 1:58:15Speaker 03

  Who should play Morrissey? Like circa 1995 Morrissey.

• 1:58:18Yasi Salek?

  Oh, a, an, a current actor?

• 1:58:21Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:58:23Yasi Salek?

  Louis Pullman, maybe?

• 1:58:24Speaker 03

  Wow, but not British.

• 1:58:27Yasi Salek?

  Could, could he not act? Could he not do an accent?

• 1:58:31Speaker 03

  That's asking a lot.

• 1:58:32Yasi Salek?

  Um,

• 1:58:35Yasi Salek?

  I mean, I don't, I'm thinking.

• 1:58:36Speaker 03

  Jack O'Connell?

• 1:58:38Yasi Salek?

  Which one's Jack O'Connell?

• 1:58:40Speaker 03

  He's in Back to Black. He plays the, the husband.

• 1:58:46Speaker 03

  What's, what's his name? My?

• 1:58:47Yasi Salek?

  Jack O'Connell is like such a lad. He has such a thick neck. He doesn't look anything like he couldn't, I don't know if he can embody Morrissey.

• 1:58:54Speaker 03

  Ben, Ben Whishaw would have been an interesting choice like 10 years ago.

• 1:58:57Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. What about, um, your guy from,

• 1:59:03Yasi Salek?

  why do I want to call it, it's not demolition day?

• 1:59:06Speaker 03

  Disclosure Day? Oh, Josh O'Connell. Oh my god.

• 1:59:09Yasi Salek?

  I think he might be great.

• 1:59:10Speaker 03

  Good choice.

• 1:59:10Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:59:11Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:59:11Yasi Salek?

  He does not exactly the look, but I feel like he might be able to.

• 1:59:16Speaker 03

  The mood.

• 1:59:17Yasi Salek?

  The mood.

• 1:59:17Speaker 03

  He's got the mood.

• 1:59:18Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. Um, anyways. Oh, what about, um, Dua Lipa, Mr. Dua Lipa?

• 1:59:25Speaker 03

  Callum Turner?

• 1:59:26Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. He doesn't have the spirit, but he's an actor.

• 1:59:29Speaker 03

  He is an actor.

• 1:59:31Yasi Salek?

  Isn't that what you're supposed to do is act?

• 1:59:32Speaker 03

  How tall is Morrissey? I feel like he's a short man.

• 1:59:34Yasi Salek?

  No, Morrissey, I think is quite tall.

• 1:59:35Speaker 03

  Is that true? Okay.

• 1:59:38Speaker 03

  Morrissey height.

• 1:59:41Speaker 03

  He's.

• 1:59:41Yasi Salek?

  Five, 10 to six feet.

• 1:59:42Speaker 03

  Five, 10.

• 1:59:44Yasi Salek?

  Imperial, 5'11". What does imperial mean? I don't know. See, that's tall. Is that not tall?

• 1:59:49Speaker 03

  Five, 10?

• 1:59:50Yasi Salek?

  For a British man?

• 1:59:53Speaker 03

  Uh, I think Callum Turner is like 6'5".

• 1:59:55Yasi Salek?

  Okay, so hot. God really, God really gifted him with many.

• 1:59:59Speaker 03

  You like him too, huh?

• 2:00:00Yasi Salek?

  Um, I've not seen him in anything. I just like him because he's hot and he's married to Dua Lipa.

• 2:00:05Speaker 03

  It's interesting. Wow.

• 2:00:07Yasi Salek?

  I'm really excited for Neuromancer. That's a TV show, but.

• 2:00:10Speaker 03

  I am too.

• 2:00:11Yasi Salek?

  Can't wait.

• 2:00:12Speaker 03

  I'm someone who was a dork about Neuromancer 20 years ago.

• 2:00:15Yasi Salek?

  Same. I might reread in, in advance. Okay. Um, the next movie I'm very passionate about, and I think it definitely goes in. It is a, was not a commercially successful blockbuster. Have you seen this movie? I've recommended it to you, but I feel like you've, it's fallen on deaf ears.

• 2:00:30Speaker 03

  Nico 1988.

• 2:00:31Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 2:00:31Speaker 03

  I have not seen it.

• 2:00:32Yasi Salek?

  Um, it's quite cool. It's about Nico.

• 2:00:35Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:00:35Yasi Salek?

  Um, but it's about Nico in 1988, as the title implies. It's really dark. It's really gritty. It really doesn't pull punches. She's a drug addict. She's a has been. They, they're able to use her music. I don't know how any of this happened, but, it's, and it's, you know, she had a kind of complicated familial situation. She had a son with Alan, is it Alan Delon?

• 2:01:00Speaker 03

  Alan Delon, yeah.

• 2:01:01Yasi Salek?

  That, that he never, um, he never.

• 2:01:05Speaker 03

  Acknowledged.

• 2:01:05Yasi Salek?

  Acknowledged, but his parents raised him, so, um, it's, it's really good. Ben Gibber from Death Cabaret Cutie recommended this to me. Yeah, I think, I, I really think, I mean, it, yeah, it's not like a, bring your family to the theater and get some popcorn and have a laugh movie, but like, it's a really, really good music biopic.

• 2:01:26Speaker 03

  I'll add it to my list.

• 2:01:28Yasi Salek?

  Um, it's on the Criterion Channel right now.

• 2:01:30Speaker 03

  Oh, sweet.

• 2:01:30Yasi Salek?

  If you guys want to watch, yeah.

• 2:01:31Speaker 03

  Fantastic.

• 2:01:31Yasi Salek?

  Um, okay, this one, I had not seen and I watched for this. It's, I thought it was really good. Roxanne Roxanne from 2017. Was that a Netflix movie?

• 2:01:40Speaker 03

  It was.

• 2:01:41Yasi Salek?

  About Roxanne Shanté, one of the first, maybe the first, I don't know, commercially successful female rapper. Did you see this?

• 2:01:50Speaker 03

  I think so, but I honestly don't remember. So did you just revisit it?

• 2:01:53Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, I literally just watched it. Like, I had, I had never seen it. I, I, I genuinely liked it.

• 2:01:58Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was a Sundance movie in 17, and I feel like maybe Netflix picked it up out of Sundance?

• 2:02:03Yasi Salek?

  Sure.

• 2:02:03Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 2:02:04Yasi Salek?

  Um, I recommend it. I don't know if it goes in the canon, but like, in terms of what we're talking about, like not, there not being that many rap movies. This was one that I genuinely thought was good. Um, her life was interesting. Um, there's, there's like a young Nas in it.

• 2:02:21Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 2:02:21Yasi Salek?

  Because they, Queensbridge, yeah. Um, Mahershala is in this film and he's really great.

• 2:02:27Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 2:02:27Yasi Salek?

  And.

• 2:02:28Speaker 03

  Is he? Who does he play?

• 2:02:29Yasi Salek?

  He plays her, uh, like 14-year-old or husband. Um, it's, it's a, it's actually a good movie that's worth watching. And I'm, I'm surprised I didn't really hear much about it. Uh, maybe because it was a Netflix movie and because it's about a black woman. That wasn't that famous.

• 2:02:46Speaker 03

  If you want to drop it in, drop it in.

• 2:02:48Yasi Salek?

  Um, your favorite music biopic of all time, 2018's Bohemian Rhapsody, directed by Bryan Singer, starring Robbie Malick.

• 2:02:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, it stinks, obviously. It's really bad. And, you know, it's really bad for a variety of reasons. I think it's, it's misconceived, but it's also, it was a nightmare shooting the movie because Bryan Singer kept disappearing while they were making the movie.

• 2:03:08Yasi Salek?

  You mean by misconceived?

• 2:03:09Speaker 03

  Um.

• 2:03:12Speaker 03

  I think it's reliance on the tropes that are set by movies like Ray makes it just kind of a bit boring and predictable. And Freddie Mercury is one of those people who, like James Brown, like Ray Charles, like Johnny Cash, is like, um, belongs on the elemental table, you know, like, isn't something that you can really capture.

• 2:03:37Yasi Salek?

  Totally. Especially when you have a bitch in your ear saying, don't do that, um, which is his uh, long-term partner that I think holds the rights to the estate. Is that right?

• 2:03:47Speaker 03

  Is that true?

• 2:03:48Yasi Salek?

  Is that not true?

• 2:03:49Speaker 03

  It sounds right.

• 2:03:50Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, I mean, I might be wrong. I'm sorry, don't sue me, but.

• 2:03:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, and you know, Freddie Mercury was just a crazy person in the best way.

• 2:03:56Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 2:03:56Speaker 03

  And the movie is like, it shows some of his excesses, but not really, it's not as extravagant as it should be, you know? It's a movie that really wants to be like heartwarming at the end.

• 2:04:07Yasi Salek?

  Should have been more like behind the candelabra.

• 2:04:09Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:04:10Yasi Salek?

  Or Elvis.

• 2:04:11Speaker 03

  Probably, probably.

• 2:04:12Yasi Salek?

  Baz Luhrmann's Bohemian Rhapsody.

• 2:04:15Speaker 03

  It's also like, it's just, it's more of a villain now because it made 900 million dollars, which is crazy because people just love Queen and Queen's music is so.

• 2:04:23Yasi Salek?

  And still people to this day like comes to say to me, that movie is good. And I'm like, just.

• 2:04:27Speaker 03

  Everyone saw it.

• 2:04:27Yasi Salek?

  Loving Queen.

• 2:04:29Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:04:29Yasi Salek?

  And this movie being good are two different things and that's okay. It's okay to love Queen and not like this movie.

• 2:04:34Speaker 03

  And there's stuff in the movie that is so cool, like when they're recreating Live Aid and he's doing the like, day, you know, he's like doing the call and response with the crowd.

• 2:04:42Yasi Salek?

  They got me.

• 2:04:42Speaker 03

  It's awesome.

• 2:04:43Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 2:04:43Speaker 03

  It's awesome. It's totally fun and those songs totally hold up. I listen to Queen all the time, like Alice Loves Queen.

• 2:04:48Yasi Salek?

  Sure.

• 2:04:49Speaker 03

  So I get why it worked for so many people, but when you watch the movie, it's so badly edited. The screenwriting is so bad.

• 2:04:56Yasi Salek?

  Where was Brian Singer going? Do you know? To your house?

• 2:04:59Speaker 03

  Not, not, um, no gallivanting, I don't know, whatever the fuck he's doing. And so Dexter Lawrence had to kind of step in and like save the movie.

• 2:05:08Yasi Salek?

  That's why it says credited Dexter Fletcher.

• 2:05:11Speaker 03

  Fletcher, excuse me.

• 2:05:11Yasi Salek?

  Completed.

• 2:05:12Speaker 03

  Dexter Lawrence plays a defensive end for the Dallas Cowboys.

• 2:05:14Yasi Salek?

  Okay.

• 2:05:14Speaker 03

  Um, I.

• 2:05:17Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, it's, well, it's just a no, but it's, it's, I think it's worth talking about as like, what is a diff, what's the opposite of a platonic ideal?

• 2:05:25Speaker 03

  Hmm, movie from hell?

• 2:05:27Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, like egregious, egregious misuse of, don't do this.

• 2:05:31Speaker 03

  Should be destroyed.

• 2:05:32Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. Um, 2018's Blaze, uh, Blaze, this is a good movie. I don't know if it's canon good, but it's pretty good.

• 2:05:39Speaker 03

  I like it a lot. I had Ethan Hawke on the big picture to talk about it.

• 2:05:42Yasi Salek?

  You don't have to brag about that.

• 2:05:43Speaker 03

  Uh, I'm not bragging, I'm just sharing a piece of information and people are interested in Blaze, Blaze Foley, um, who I was not familiar with before I saw the movie and I really liked the way that this movie told his story.

• 2:05:53Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 2:05:53Speaker 03

  Um, especially how like his romance, his love story.

• 2:05:56Yasi Salek?

  Do you think it's canon?

• 2:05:59Speaker 03

  I think it'd be a cool choice. It's an outlier, but it's a cool choice.

• 2:06:02Yasi Salek?

  All right. I'm not precious about the canon.

• 2:06:04Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 2:06:04Yasi Salek?

  The more people see a good movie is the better, you know?

• 2:06:06Speaker 03

  I agree with that.

• 2:06:07Yasi Salek?

  Um, never saw Lido about Victor Soy.

• 2:06:12Yasi Salek?

  Don't know it, sorry.

• 2:06:12Speaker 03

  Nor I.

• 2:06:13Yasi Salek?

  Rocket Man, right in the trash.

• 2:06:16Speaker 03

  I'm not a fan.

• 2:06:17Yasi Salek?

  Right, wherever we put Bohemian, Bohemian Rhapsody, that belongs there as well.

• 2:06:21Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:06:22Yasi Salek?

  Um, I didn't see Judy.

• 2:06:25Speaker 03

  I did.

• 2:06:26Yasi Salek?

  She won an Oscar.

• 2:06:27Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:06:29Yasi Salek?

  That doesn't mean it's good. I've heard from members of the gay community that this was not a good movie.

• 2:06:35Speaker 03

  Yeah, and I think if, if those members were not a fan of it, it's pretty indicative because Garland isn't a gay icon.

• 2:06:41Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 2:06:42Speaker 03

  Um, I, I really didn't like the movie at all and I think that Seliger's performance is really over the top and I was annoyed the whole Academy Award season that she was the front, she was the front runner from the day the movie was screened, all the way until she won.

• 2:06:54Yasi Salek?

  Just because people loved Judy Garland.

• 2:06:56Speaker 03

  And she's like transforming.

• 2:06:58Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 2:06:58Speaker 03

  And it's a very tragic story that gets, it gets an act to play very big. And so the same way that like Rami Malek won best actor for Bohemian Rhapsody is very big and very gestural and, yeah.

• 2:07:09Yasi Salek?

  Never forget my theory that, um, Freddie Mercury pushed him off the Oscar stage when he won because he was so mad about the performance. You know, he fell.

• 2:07:16Speaker 03

  I do. Uh, so yeah, I don't like Judy.

• 2:07:20Yasi Salek?

  Okay. Um, was the Dirt a theatrical release?

• 2:07:24Speaker 03

  No, Netflix.

• 2:07:25Yasi Salek?

  Uh, also trash, doesn't matter, so the movie's terrible.

• 2:07:27Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 2:07:27Yasi Salek?

  Um, respect to Jeff Tremaine, who we love, but that movie is really bad.

• 2:07:30Speaker 03

  The Jackass films are masterpieces.

• 2:07:32Yasi Salek?

  This movie is absolute garbage. Um, Bolden, about Buddy Bolden, didn't see it.

• 2:07:36Speaker 03

  Nor I.

• 2:07:37Yasi Salek?

  Okay, Lords of Chaos.

• 2:07:38Speaker 03

  Is this, this is based on a real band, huh?

• 2:07:40Yasi Salek?

  Yes, so.

• 2:07:42Speaker 03

  I don't think I realized that.

• 2:07:43Yasi Salek?

  Have you seen it?

• 2:07:44Speaker 03

  I, yes, I think so.

• 2:07:45Yasi Salek?

  Well, it's.

• 2:07:47Speaker 03

  We're heading into COVID time where I was like, was like watching streaming movies, you know?

• 2:07:52Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. Um, Lords of Chaos is not a great movie, but I do, I do think it's interesting. I wish it was better. Here's why.

• 2:08:03Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 2:08:04Yasi Salek?

  The story is psychotic.

• 2:08:06Speaker 03

  It's about black metal.

• 2:08:07Yasi Salek?

  It's about Mayhem, who is, um, the, basically the first Norwegian black metal band and the, the guitarist, whose name I actually don't remember, um, Ifuri, they, they went by these like names, um, was murdered by the bassist, Varg.

• 2:08:27Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm, yes, I know that story.

• 2:08:29Yasi Salek?

  And prior to that, they had incited all these church burnings and they had incited some guy who was like in their circle who murdered a guy in a, it was, it's like, all the, the story is insane.

• 2:08:40Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 2:08:40Yasi Salek?

  And the movie is just like, doesn't, it's, it's Jonas Ackland, who's, it basically just feels really music video-y because he's such a great music video director.

• 2:08:51Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:08:52Yasi Salek?

  Um, like, uh, it's.

• 2:08:57Speaker 03

  Look at this cast.

• 2:08:58Yasi Salek?

  I know, it's, it's hard.

• 2:08:59Speaker 03

  A young Skarsgård, a young Kilmer, Sky Ferrera.

• 2:09:02Yasi Salek?

  It's, it's like the, the bonus Skarsgård, the one that, the, the youngest one.

• 2:09:06Speaker 03

  Yes, his name is Volter.

• 2:09:08Yasi Salek?

  Volter. Um, Rory Culkin.

• 2:09:10Speaker 03

  It's Oystein.

• 2:09:12Yasi Salek?

  Oystein, he's, he's the, the guy who gets murdered, the, um, yeah, Sky Ferrer.

• 2:09:16Speaker 03

  Maybe I didn't see this.

• 2:09:17Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, maybe you haven't. It's, it's honestly worth a watch because it's crazy, but I don't, it has the things that I would want it to have to be a great movie, like it's, it is campy.

• 2:09:28Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:09:28Yasi Salek?

  It, it doesn't do a heavy-handed murder Norwegian death metal story because Norwegian death metal is kind of ridiculous.

• 2:09:33Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:09:34Yasi Salek?

  But by and large, it's not a great movie.

• 2:09:36Speaker 03

  I'm gonna seek this out.

• 2:09:37Yasi Salek?

  You should see it, it's, it's worth seeing.

• 2:09:40Yasi Salek?

  The guy who plays Varg is quite good.

• 2:09:43Speaker 03

  Emery Cohen.

• 2:09:43Yasi Salek?

  Emery Cohen.

• 2:09:44Speaker 03

  Terrific actor.

• 2:09:44Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, he's incredible. He, he, I mean, and I like Rory Culkin quite a bit too, but the character of Varg is so psychotic and he does such a good job. Okay, next, um, Stardust from 2020, the David Bowie film.

• 2:09:58Speaker 03

  With no David Bowie music in it.

• 2:09:59Yasi Salek?

  No David Bowie music, uh, not good.

• 2:10:01Speaker 03

  Nope.

• 2:10:02Yasi Salek?

  I Am Woman, Helen, Helen Reddy, didn't see it.

• 2:10:04Speaker 03

  I haven't seen it because it was called I Am Woman.

• 2:10:07Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 2:10:07Speaker 03

  I've been, I passed, yeah.

• 2:10:08Yasi Salek?

  Um, or any feature films about women. Um, The United States versus Billie Holiday?

• 2:10:14Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:10:15Yasi Salek?

  I didn't see this one.

• 2:10:16Speaker 03

  I saw it, um, it.

• 2:10:17Yasi Salek?

  Starring Andra Day.

• 2:10:18Speaker 03

  It went straight to streaming because it was COVID.

• 2:10:21Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 2:10:22Speaker 03

  But Andra Day was nominated for an Academy Award for her performance.

• 2:10:24Yasi Salek?

  Oh, I like Lee Daniels.

• 2:10:26Speaker 03

  I do too.

• 2:10:27Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 2:10:27Speaker 03

  Um.

• 2:10:28Yasi Salek?

  Not canon though.

• 2:10:28Speaker 03

  It's okay, to me, it, it's another movie that's trying to capture.

• 2:10:32Yasi Salek?

  Ray.

• 2:10:32Speaker 03

  Billie Holiday's struggles with addiction and her inspiration, but just ultimately all kind of, it just kind of flattens everything, you know?

• 2:10:40Yasi Salek?

  It's my least favorite thing in a musical.

• 2:10:41Speaker 03

  Yeah. And, and you can see Lee Daniels trying to break convention because he's such an audacious filmmaker, but that doesn't really work.

• 2:10:47Yasi Salek?

  Um, 2021's Respect about Aretha Franklin starring Jennifer Hudson.

• 2:10:51Speaker 03

  Didn't think it was good.

• 2:10:52Yasi Salek?

  Okay.

• 2:10:53Speaker 03

  Did you see it?

• 2:10:53Yasi Salek?

  No.

• 2:10:54Speaker 03

  I think Amanda liked it.

• 2:10:56Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, I think Patrick Sandberg, my friend who, we have a 75% overlapping film taste system, often when he advises me, I agree, and then there's like 25% where I'm like, we diverge. He, he really liked it.

• 2:11:08Speaker 03

  Cool.

• 2:11:09Yasi Salek?

  Um.

• 2:11:09Speaker 03

  Jennifer Hudson's trying.

• 2:11:11Yasi Salek?

  Okay, it's great.

• 2:11:13Speaker 03

  Aretha Franklin is like, uh, on that list of those other people where I'm just like, there's just never going to be another person like this.

• 2:11:18Yasi Salek?

  No.

• 2:11:18Speaker 03

  They are complete, it's, there is no way to represent what they are.

• 2:11:22Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 2:11:22Speaker 03

  Um, in a meaningful, like narrativized way.

• 2:11:24Yasi Salek?

  Especially not, but it's someone like Jennifer Hudson who I do like, but she's, it's, she's so far away from like what Aretha Franklin was.

• 2:11:32Speaker 03

  There's also.

• 2:11:32Yasi Salek?

  No, I'm not talking about talent or anything.

• 2:11:34Speaker 03

  Aretha's power as an artist in the seventies is way more interesting to me than her like rise in the sixties.

• 2:11:41Yasi Salek?

  Totally.

• 2:11:41Speaker 03

  You know, when she's in total command of what she's doing and the albums that she's making, they're not the, the, I don't like the music as much as the music from like 65 to 72.

• 2:11:50Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 2:11:50Speaker 03

  But what she does from 72 to 79 is so fascinating and that's just the music nerdy thing, that's just my personal interest and the movie's not really interested in that at all.

• 2:11:59Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 2:11:59Speaker 03

  It's like, here's how, you know, she worked with Motown and became XYZ.

• 2:12:03Yasi Salek?

  It's to your point of like, it's the, I guess it hopefully would be what the filmmaker is interested in, that we would not be interested in.

• 2:12:10Speaker 03

  Correct.

• 2:12:11Yasi Salek?

  Um, we talked about creation stories, it's not good, it's not going in. Um, Tic Tic Boom, Jonathan Larson.

• 2:12:17Speaker 03

  Have you seen it?

• 2:12:18Yasi Salek?

  Nope.

• 2:12:18Speaker 03

  It's Lin-Manuel Miranda's directorial debut.

• 2:12:20Yasi Salek?

  Directing Andrew Garfield as a musical theater director? Who is Jonathan Larson?

• 2:12:25Speaker 03

  I think he's sort of like a Aspirin Sondheim-esque figure.

• 2:12:28Yasi Salek?

  Okay.

• 2:12:29Speaker 03

  Um, and it's a true story and it's, I think, pretty great.

• 2:12:35Yasi Salek?

  Okay.

• 2:12:36Speaker 03

  Um, I, I didn't see it in theaters, I wish I had, it was a Netflix film and it was meant to be like an awards player and it didn't totally take off. And I wonder if it was one of those movies where if, if it was just Fox Searchlight.

• 2:12:45Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 2:12:46Speaker 03

  It would have had a totally different identity, a totally different campaign behind it. Jonathan Groff's phenomenal in it. Is Jonathan Groff?

• 2:12:52Yasi Salek?

  Uh, Andrew Garfield.

• 2:12:52Speaker 03

  Andrew Garfield, maybe it's Jonathan Groff on stage. Um, but I, I remember really liking it quite a bit. Again, a little COVID brain though.

• 2:13:00Yasi Salek?

  Okay, I'll put it in the maybe list if people check it out, including myself. Um, okay, you did not like 2022's Elvis directed by Baz Luhrmann, spiritually Australian, starring Austin Butler.

• 2:13:10Speaker 03

  I didn't, but you did, so.

• 2:13:11Yasi Salek?

  I did, I mean, look, I think my expectations were like in hell.

• 2:13:15Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:13:16Yasi Salek?

  So take that with a grain of salt, you know, like I came to it being like.

• 2:13:19Speaker 03

  Why'd you skip it?

• 2:13:21Yasi Salek?

  Because by that point I was like, oh, this is gonna be bad. This is gonna be Bohemian Rhapsody, this is gonna be Rocket Man, there's no way they're making an Elvis movie that's cool and weird, like, so I was just like, I'm not wasting my time. And this is before The Ringer anointed me music biopic correspondent. So then I go see them now.

• 2:13:39Speaker 03

  I feel like you love Baz.

• 2:13:41Yasi Salek?

  I actually don't love Baz. I love Romeo and Juliet.

• 2:13:43Speaker 03

  Me too. I love that movie and I like Strictly Ballroom.

• 2:13:49Yasi Salek?

  Uh, yeah, okay. Strictly Ballroom is okay. I've never seen Moulin Rouge.

• 2:13:52Speaker 03

  I hate Moulin Rouge.

• 2:13:54Yasi Salek?

  My roommate loves it. Is it free? She's dying, just dying to get me to see it. She thinks now that I've told her I liked Elvis, she thinks I might like it. Cause I avoided it because it's just like, that's not my flavor of crisps.

• 2:14:05Speaker 03

  What about the film Australia?

• 2:14:07Yasi Salek?

  No.

• 2:14:09Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:14:09Yasi Salek?

  I'm famously also racist against Australians, so.

• 2:14:12Speaker 03

  Famously?

• 2:14:13Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 2:14:14Speaker 03

  Romeo and Juliet blew my head off.

• 2:14:17Yasi Salek?

  I think his like, again, I think Baz Luhrmann is spiritually a carny. And that works sometimes. Like it worked with Romeo and Juliet. That movie is like so over the top in a visually like saturated way. Like it's cool. And also you're dealing with theatrical subject matter. So it works. And I, that's kind of the same reason I thought Elvis, there's a, like I told you, there's a couple of things I don't like about Elvis. I don't need any fucking rap music. It, that's like so heavy handed and weird. And why did, okay, we get it like he took from black music. We don't need to have Doja Cat in this, you know, layered over this film. Tom Hanks is doing a lot.

• 2:14:54Speaker 03

  It's a bad performance.

• 2:14:56Yasi Salek?

  I don't really need an entire film narrated by a Dutch person with a Dutch accent. That's rough for me. It's a rough hang.

• 2:15:04Speaker 03

  He's kind of doing Goldmember.

• 2:15:06Yasi Salek?

  Doing Goldmember, that's Scottish, but, um, so that part didn't work for me. But like as a spectacle and as like the Vegas Elvis that people remember, I thought it was like, okay, this was like, at least visually and like, it was, it was very like sensational and campy and fun. I don't think it goes in canon, but I was surprised.

• 2:15:27Speaker 03

  You do what you want to do.

• 2:15:28Yasi Salek?

  I don't, I genuinely don't think it goes in canon. I was just expecting it to be more Bohemian Rhapsody. I was expecting it to be more ray and boring and I was just pleased that it wasn't boring.

• 2:15:43Yasi Salek?

  They made him look fat at the end. It was really funny. I can't believe Tom Hanks agreed to do this film and to wear that makeup and costume and.

• 2:15:50Speaker 03

  He's on a journey right now.

• 2:15:51Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, okay. Um, I didn't know this movie existed and I haven't seen it. 2022 is Whitney Houston. I want to dance with somebody.

• 2:15:58Speaker 03

  It's awful.

• 2:15:59Yasi Salek?

  Why would they do that to her? To my girl? How, she deserves, this is where I get really angry.

• 2:16:03Speaker 03

  Just trying to jump on the train of all these movies that are happening.

• 2:16:05Yasi Salek?

  But where's her estate? Where's the people protecting her?

• 2:16:08Speaker 03

  Allowing this movie to happen. I felt bad for Naomi, Naomi Aggie, who's a good actress, but is miscast as Whitney Houston. And if that part doesn't work, then it's not gonna work.

• 2:16:16Yasi Salek?

  Um, I'm just skipping that. Okay. Weird, weird that the Ali Yankovic story is good.

• 2:16:24Speaker 03

  It's funny. It's not a biopic.

• 2:16:26Yasi Salek?

  Well, okay. Yeah, it's, it's, yes, because.

• 2:16:30Speaker 03

  Fantasia of Weird Al representation.

• 2:16:32Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. I love it. Okay, yeah, be right. But Weird Al is a fantasia of musical representation.

• 2:16:39Speaker 03

  That's a good point. And in that way, it's spiritually true to.

• 2:16:41Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. Um, I'll put it on, I'm gonna give it a maybe.

• 2:16:43Speaker 03

  Is it Radcliffe? Yeah.

• 2:16:45Yasi Salek?

  It's in Radcliffe. Also on a journey, making interesting choices. Um, Spinning Gold.

• 2:16:51Speaker 03

  Haven't seen this.

• 2:16:51Yasi Salek?

  Don't know it. Dream and Wild, that's the one you were referring to before with Casey Affleck. Casey Affleck and Walter Goggins?

• 2:16:58Speaker 03

  Really good performances. It's coming in the, in the aftermath of people being like, I don't know about Casey Affleck, but the performances in the film are really good. And it's about these two brothers who were in a group together, um, in the seventies. And then like what happens to them much later in life.

• 2:17:12Yasi Salek?

  But you don't think it's even like maybe worthy?

• 2:17:14Speaker 03

  It's just a movie worth checking out.

• 2:17:15Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, okay. Your other favorite film, 2023 is Maestro, starring, directed by and starring Bradley Cooper and Carey Mulligan.

• 2:17:26Speaker 03

  Completely beguiling. I think a huge mistake for Bradley Cooper, but I'm fascinated by that mistake. My favorite mistake.

• 2:17:35Yasi Salek?

  Sheryl Crow? No, Sheryl Crow. Yes, Sheryl Crow.

• 2:17:39Speaker 03

  Is it a very good Leonard Bernstein movie? Like not really. Uh, it captures some great moments in his life, but, and it does something that I wish more movies like this would do, which is worry less about the biographical beats and focus more on critical moments. But it's so elliptical that you don't even really totally understand the point.

• 2:17:56Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 2:17:58Speaker 03

  His performance is wild.

• 2:18:00Yasi Salek?

  You think all actors should wear prosthetic noses?

• 2:18:04Speaker 03

  I didn't say that.

• 2:18:06Yasi Salek?

  You've said that in private company.

• 2:18:08Speaker 03

  To whom?

• 2:18:10Speaker 03

  Produce the tapes.

• 2:18:11Yasi Salek?

  There's no tapes because it's private company.

• 2:18:12Speaker 03

  I just looked up, what did I give, uh, Maestro on Letterboxd? I gave it four or five.

• 2:18:16Yasi Salek?

  Wow, that's a lot.

• 2:18:17Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:18:18Yasi Salek?

  That's a big, you, you.

• 2:18:20Speaker 03

  It's a lot. I, I, I was like blown away by the insane insanity of this movie.

• 2:18:26Yasi Salek?

  That's how I felt about all this.

• 2:18:28Speaker 03

  I get that. Okay. That's fair. That's, that's totally fair. I mean, A Star is Born to me is like an amazing movie.

• 2:18:34Yasi Salek?

  I love A Star is Born.

• 2:18:36Speaker 03

  Fan. We've been mocked over the years, Amanda and I, for our allegiance to that movie.

• 2:18:39Yasi Salek?

  It's a great movie.

• 2:18:41Speaker 03

  Cause we were just very over the top about it when it came out in 2018. It was a big ringer movie. Like a lot of us really liked it. Bill really liked it.

• 2:18:48Speaker 03

  And I'm very invested in him. He really let me down with Is This Thing On? Did you end up seeing that?

• 2:18:52Yasi Salek?

  No.

• 2:18:53Speaker 03

  I didn't think that movie worked at all. Um, and so I'm, I'm on a journey with Bradley.

• 2:18:58Yasi Salek?

  Okay. We're gonna not put this anywhere, but maybe we'll put it in the check it out if you're interested, although Sean gave it four stars. So that does feel quite high.

• 2:19:08Yasi Salek?

  I did not see the Milli Vanilli, Girl, You Know It's True movie, and I kind of wish I had.

• 2:19:13Speaker 03

  Neither did I. Was this a TV movie? I think it is.

• 2:19:17Yasi Salek?

  Oh yeah, maybe, maybe that's why I had to.

• 2:19:21Yasi Salek?

  Damn. See, that's an amazing topic for a film. Milli Vanilli is an amazing topic for a film.

• 2:19:28Speaker 03

  No, it came out, Vertical released it.

• 2:19:32Speaker 03

  It was directed by Simon Verhoeven, who is Paul Verhoeven's grandson, which I did not know. That's intriguing. Wow.

• 2:19:47Yasi Salek?

  He also wrote it.

• 2:19:49Speaker 03

  Very interesting.

• 2:19:50Yasi Salek?

  I guess he really loves Milli Vanilli. Well, we'll check it out and report back. I, I have a feeling even if we had watched it, it wouldn't be going in canon, but you never know.

• 2:19:58Speaker 03

  You never know.

• 2:19:59Yasi Salek?

  Um, Bob Marley, One Love, 2024. Didn't see it.

• 2:20:01Speaker 03

  I did. We did a whole episode about it on the big picture.

• 2:20:03Yasi Salek?

  You liked it?

• 2:20:04Speaker 03

  Nope.

• 2:20:04Yasi Salek?

  Okay.

• 2:20:05Speaker 03

  Wasn't good.

• 2:20:05Yasi Salek?

  Back to Black, um, An Abomination, bury it in the ground, put it wherever you put Bohemian Rhapsody and actually put it one level below.

• 2:20:14Speaker 03

  It's heartbreaking, you know, it sounds like you also love Amy Winehouse.

• 2:20:17Yasi Salek?

  I love Amy Winehouse. I actually love Marisa Bella too. I think she's an incredible actress. This was a very bizarre choice for her to make.

• 2:20:24Speaker 03

  Very bad.

• 2:20:24Yasi Salek?

  Like you said, I guess it's like, but it's bewitching for an actor to be like, I get to play this iconic person. I might win an Oscar, but like, no, you're not, honey.

• 2:20:32Speaker 03

  It was a big risk and she failed.

• 2:20:34Yasi Salek?

  It's bad. Yeah, it's really bad. Also, again, I, Amy Winehouse is another one that like, were I to make the film, I think it should be like crazy. Because she was a cartoonish figure. Tragic. And but those things are really interesting when they align, you know?

• 2:20:48Speaker 03

  I mean, the movie is so forgiving and accepting of her father because her father is controlling part of the estate.

• 2:20:56Yasi Salek?

  Garbage, yeah.

• 2:20:57Speaker 03

  And it's just, that's just not, that's not right.

• 2:20:59Yasi Salek?

  Better.

• 2:20:59Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:21:00Yasi Salek?

  A Couple Unknown, we talked about it already a little bit, the Bob Dylan 2024.

• 2:21:04Speaker 03

  I like it. I honestly think it has a place.

• 2:21:06Yasi Salek?

  I like it. I'll put it, I'll put it in the maybe.

• 2:21:08Speaker 03

  I think it's gonna age well.

• 2:21:10Yasi Salek?

  It was very fun. I do think, I'll, I, I thought this then and I still think it, I think it's five music videos in a trench coat.

• 2:21:19Speaker 03

  Interesting. I can't necessarily debate that.

• 2:21:22Yasi Salek?

  But doesn't mean it's not good. And to your point about how people want to go to the theater and hear their favorite songs, I do think Timothy Chalamet did a great job.

• 2:21:32Yasi Salek?

  I really enjoyed, um,

• 2:21:36Yasi Salek?

  who plays Johnny Cash?

• 2:21:39Speaker 03

  Uh, Garrett, no, not Garrett Hedlin.

• 2:21:41Yasi Salek?

  No, no, her favorite.

• 2:21:42Speaker 03

  CR's Boyd Holbrook.

• 2:21:43Yasi Salek?

  Boyd Holbrook, who was also in one of the other films I just watched that I was very surprised he had like a bit part in it and I was like, okay.

• 2:21:50Speaker 03

  I think there's a lot of things to recommend about it. I think Edward Norton is fantastic in it.

• 2:21:53Yasi Salek?

  He's really good.

• 2:21:54Speaker 03

  I thought Monica Barbaro is a total revelation as Joan Baez.

• 2:21:57Yasi Salek?

  You love her.

• 2:21:58Speaker 03

  Who doesn't love her?

• 2:21:59Yasi Salek?

  You loved the scene where they were writing music in a, in a hotel room.

• 2:22:03Speaker 03

  Yeah, speaking of bewitching, yeah.

• 2:22:06Yasi Salek?

  Um, okay. For you, I'll throw it on.

• 2:22:08Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 2:22:10Yasi Salek?

  For me, I will be putting this one immediate yes.

• 2:22:14Speaker 03

  Maria?

• 2:22:15Yasi Salek?

  No.

• 2:22:16Speaker 03

  Oh, I thought you were gonna say Maria.

• 2:22:17Yasi Salek?

  2024's Better Man. The Robbie Williams CGI chimpanzee film, which I think was a revelation. Speaking of revelations.

• 2:22:26Speaker 03

  It's got a lot of defenders. As you know, I thought it was just fine.

• 2:22:28Yasi Salek?

  No, it's great. It's wonderful. It's.

• 2:22:30Speaker 03

  I was all in. I was a millennium guy, you know, I, I believe in Robbie Williams. He had a strong showing at the World Cup this year.

• 2:22:36Yasi Salek?

  I, it's really, really funny. Um, I just think it's, I think it has a lot of merits. It's remarkably self-aware. It's very bizarre because it is a CGI chimpanzee. It's actually very emotionally moving. It's like a Jungian study of like what the self is. And using the CGI chimpanzee as that for the distance. I loved it. That's, that's a yes for me, dog.

• 2:23:00Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 2:23:01Yasi Salek?

  Do you think Randy Jackson biopic?

• 2:23:03Speaker 03

  Wouldn't watch it.

• 2:23:05Yasi Salek?

  Um, I didn't see Maria.

• 2:23:07Speaker 03

  I did. I liked it. Um.

• 2:23:10Yasi Salek?

  Do you think she was a bit robbed? Do you think people should have talked about it more?

• 2:23:14Speaker 03

  No, it's a bit of a, kind of an inert movie. It actually reminded me a little bit of Maestro.

• 2:23:18Yasi Salek?

  Okay.

• 2:23:18Speaker 03

  Um, in that it's sort of like a series of snapshots of a very famous person's life. In this case, one of the most famous people in the world, Marie Callas, opera singer.

• 2:23:27Yasi Salek?

  Is she one of the most famous people in the world?

• 2:23:28Speaker 03

  In her time, she was.

• 2:23:29Yasi Salek?

  In her time, yeah. Not now.

• 2:23:30Speaker 03

  No, not now. But in her time, she was extraordinarily famous.

• 2:23:35Speaker 03

  And, you know, it's very, it's late period regal Angelina Jolie.

• 2:23:41Yasi Salek?

  She's wonderful.

• 2:23:42Speaker 03

  And she, it's, the, the music is a combination of her singing with Callas's vocals.

• 2:23:46Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 2:23:47Speaker 03

  So it's not.

• 2:23:48Yasi Salek?

  Kind of what Elvis did, I think.

• 2:23:49Speaker 03

  Doesn't, yeah, doesn't totally cross that threshold of did the singing by herself, but she's trying. I mean, no, no one can sing like Maria Callas, so it's sort of a fool's errand to try.

• 2:23:58Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 2:23:58Speaker 03

  But I, I, it doesn't have to go in. It's a, it's a movie worth checking out though.

• 2:24:01Yasi Salek?

  I'm throwing it on the maybe list.

• 2:24:04Yasi Salek?

  Springsteen, Deliver Me From Nowhere. Despite the death threats that I received online, I still think this movie is not good.

• 2:24:11Speaker 03

  Death threats?

• 2:24:12Yasi Salek?

  There was a tant about to death threats. There are people saying I, I didn't respect, um, Bruce Springsteen's mental health.

• 2:24:21Speaker 03

  It's just an ex post facto movie. It's like a movie about a guy who like went to therapy and then made a movie about what he realized after going to therapy instead of making a representation of how he was feeling at that time. And so it's complicated because like we have, he had Bruce Springsteen has a lot of tools now to better understand himself, which I'm happy for him to have, to have had that. But it doesn't, it feels like a 2026 movie made about 19, whatever it was, 82. And that is what it is.

• 2:24:50Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 2:24:50Speaker 03

  It doesn't have the sensation of being in 1982 while you're watching it.

• 2:24:54Yasi Salek?

  I just thought it had so many like blue notes. It was just, there's so many times where we were watching it. Did we see that together too? And that was me and Ciar and Amanda.

• 2:25:02Speaker 03

  I saw it at Telluride.

• 2:25:03Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. And we just kept going.

• 2:25:06Yasi Salek?

  And then we laughed so much and then people were glaring at us for laughing because there's not supposed to be funny.

• 2:25:10Speaker 03

  So when I saw it, no one had seen it and it was like the world, I think it was a world premiere at Telluride. And you know, at these screenings at film festivals, there's like a lot of journalists and then all these publicists and folks who were like, what did you think? What did you think? Like Oscars, Oscars, you know, like that's the first thing that you hear as soon as you walk out of the screening. And then a couple of very polite journalists were like, oh yeah, very good performances. I could see this, this and this. And I was just, and I'm, I try to be polite in those circumstances. I was like, eh, like this is not, this is not going anywhere. I'm sorry. People are not gonna like this. Bruce Springsteen fans are gonna be bored by this. This isn't giving you anything that they're asking for. It doesn't give you the Bohemian Rhapsody thing of just like lizard brain, play the song for me, but it also is not artistically realized enough to gratify.

• 2:25:52Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 2:25:53Speaker 03

  The heads, you know?

• 2:25:53Yasi Salek?

  It missed everything. It tried to be like, we're not like other girls. We're doing Nebraska, but then it like didn't do Nebraska justice. And then it still had to put in, um, what's the, what's, is it?

• 2:26:04Speaker 03

  He was born in the USA.

• 2:26:05Yasi Salek?

  Born in the USA. And that's like the most exciting part of the entire movie. Jerry Malon, my God bless his heart and his brown contacts. It was not giving.

• 2:26:13Speaker 03

  He not Bruce.

• 2:26:14Yasi Salek?

  And he just, he had one emotion, the entire film. Composite Woman, my least favorite thing. It's a good band name.

• 2:26:22Speaker 03

  Tough one. I like that actress. Is it Odessa Young?

• 2:26:24Yasi Salek?

  She's great, but.

• 2:26:26Speaker 03

  She's tried, she's tried.

• 2:26:27Yasi Salek?

  She wasn't given a lot to do, given she's based on four random people. Um, okay. We're almost at the end. Can you believe it? And this time together?

• 2:26:33Speaker 03

  Let's go.

• 2:26:34Yasi Salek?

  Despite you guys actually talking about this movie all the time, like Florence Foster Jenkins.

• 2:26:40Speaker 03

  On one episode, but sure.

• 2:26:41Yasi Salek?

  I have not seen, uh, 2025's Song Sung Blue, but you said it was surprisingly good. Yeah.

• 2:26:48Speaker 03

  My big surprise of 2025. Really enjoyed it. And you know, I'm a Hugh Jackman guy.

• 2:26:53Yasi Salek?

  I love Hugh Jackman.

• 2:26:54Speaker 03

  So I, I, I loved his, his work. Kate Hudson was nominated for Academy Award. You know, it's about a tribute band. It's not about Neil Diamond.

• 2:27:01Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 2:27:01Speaker 03

  So.

• 2:27:02Yasi Salek?

  Does that count?

• 2:27:02Speaker 03

  I don't know. I mean, they are musicians.

• 2:27:04Yasi Salek?

  Sure.

• 2:27:05Speaker 03

  So yes.

• 2:27:06Yasi Salek?

  Okay.

• 2:27:07Speaker 03

  I wouldn't put it in the Hall of Fame, but I liked it.

• 2:27:08Yasi Salek?

  Okay. I'll check it out. I love Hugh Jackman.

• 2:27:11Speaker 03

  He's very special.

• 2:27:12Yasi Salek?

  Making, um, you like the, the Christopher Nolan magic movie?

• 2:27:18Speaker 03

  The Prestige, of course I do.

• 2:27:19Yasi Salek?

  Love that movie. So great.

• 2:27:20Speaker 03

  Terrific. No, the third best Christopher Nolan film.

• 2:27:23Yasi Salek?

  For you?

• 2:27:23Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:27:23Yasi Salek?

  Interesting.

• 2:27:24Speaker 03

  Third, fifth? Can't remember where I put it.

• 2:27:27Yasi Salek?

  I'm an inception number one person despite your six out of 10.

• 2:27:30Speaker 03

  Not me.

• 2:27:33Yasi Salek?

  2026, this is the most recent.

• 2:27:38Yasi Salek?

  Michael.

• 2:27:39Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 2:27:40Yasi Salek?

  About Michael Jackson.

• 2:27:41Speaker 03

  Yes. We saw it together.

• 2:27:42Yasi Salek?

  Directed by Antoine Fuqua, starring Jafar Jackson, Michael Jackson's nephew, Coleman Domingo.

• 2:27:50Yasi Salek?

  Neil Long, Mouse Teller, Laura Harrier. And we saw it together.

• 2:27:55Yasi Salek?

  What do you think?

• 2:27:56Speaker 03

  Nope.

• 2:27:57Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, we talked about it at length on the Big Picture Podcast. Um, this one was hard because there were so many good parts.

• 2:28:03Speaker 03

  Well, it's the same as most of these other films we've talked about that have come out in the last 10 years. When the Michael Jackson music is playing.

• 2:28:09Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. You can't help yourself, but it's really good.

• 2:28:12Speaker 03

  These songs are incredible.

• 2:28:14Yasi Salek?

  To Jafar Jackson's credit, he's phenomenal at moving.

• 2:28:17Speaker 03

  Gives a great performance.

• 2:28:18Yasi Salek?

  Like him. Um, but I think we said this on the Big Picture and I would say it again, like if, just make a documentary and put in all the original footage, it's gonna be better.

• 2:28:28Yasi Salek?

  We are, he did that. If, if the best parts of it are the things that we're watching that, that you're just recreating what already happened, just then show us.

• 2:28:34Speaker 03

  This is not, this movie's not for us. Like, no, general audiences do not want a nuanced exploration of Michael Jackson's legacy. They also don't want just a documentary of him doing performances. They wanna see recreated dramatically.

• 2:28:47Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 2:28:47Speaker 03

  The most enjoyable aspects of Michael Jackson's music and career. And I understand that. There's a reason why it's become so big. We're not the audience for that.

• 2:28:55Yasi Salek?

  Poor usage of CGI monkey though.

• 2:28:58Speaker 03

  Didn't think that was great.

• 2:28:59Yasi Salek?

  Best part of the movie?

• 2:29:01Speaker 03

  What was the best part of the movie?

• 2:29:02Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, for you.

• 2:29:09Speaker 03

  I don't know. I'm not, what was, I, I, it's not a movie that I've committed to memory.

• 2:29:14Yasi Salek?

  This is really niche and random, but I, I enjoyed how his nose kept getting smaller.

• 2:29:18Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:29:20Yasi Salek?

  I just thought that was.

• 2:29:21Speaker 03

  Skin color is changing.

• 2:29:22Yasi Salek?

  That was quite, at least, at least they were glancing at that without like, they didn't really talk about it. They talked about one nose job, but then it was very clear that his nose, his, his visage did keep changing as was true to what happened in real life, you know?

• 2:29:39Speaker 03

  Visage? Visage?

• 2:29:41Yasi Salek?

  Oh, is that how you say that? I famously, you know, you know, a thing about me is I mispronounce a lot of words.

• 2:29:46Speaker 03

  Is that true?

• 2:29:47Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, it's, it's a leftover thing of, and people, you say this in the comments, which I don't look at anymore. Um, I was a big reader as a kid and not a big friend have her. So, um, I didn't often ever hear the words said out loud and my parents are foreign. So, um, you know, they're not exactly throwing around big words at the house when I was growing up. So I just only read the words. I didn't know how they sounded.

• 2:30:12Speaker 03

  You make it sound like the wringer is not predicated on people who did a lot of reading as kids and didn't have a lot of friends, but that's the whole business model here.

• 2:30:19Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, but I, sure. But I think the added layer of being foreign and have, not even having parents that, you know, like it just like, I didn't, I just never.

• 2:30:28Speaker 03

  Maybe it is visage.

• 2:30:30Yasi Salek?

  It might. I don't think so. Maybe in French.

• 2:30:32Speaker 03

  Could be.

• 2:30:32Yasi Salek?

  Bonj. Um, any upcoming music biopics that you're looking forward to?

• 2:30:37Speaker 03

  Michael Part Two.

• 2:30:39Yasi Salek?

  That is coming.

• 2:30:39Speaker 03

  Apparently.

• 2:30:40Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. Michael Too Fast To Jackson.

• 2:30:43Speaker 03

  There's got, there's another one on the horizon. I can't remember what it, what it is, but yeah, there's more coming. I mean, I mentioned the Bill Evans one. Joni Mitchell. That's probably the biggest one. Cameron Crowe is directing that, stars Anya Teller-Joy, right? Isn't that the rumor?

• 2:30:55Yasi Salek?

  I don't love that casting.

• 2:30:56Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 2:30:57Yasi Salek?

  But, um,

• 2:31:00Yasi Salek?

  well, maybe. I mean, she does have sort of like a haunted doll look, the same way Joni Mitchell had a haunted doll look.

• 2:31:08Speaker 03

  The other rumor was Meryl Streep for Late, Late in Life.

• 2:31:12Yasi Salek?

  Oh, that's cool.

• 2:31:12Speaker 03

  And that would, that would give you that.

• 2:31:14Yasi Salek?

  How could we forget?

• 2:31:14Speaker 03

  Brian Wilson.

• 2:31:15Yasi Salek?

  This is, this is something you always talk about on the Big Picture.

• 2:31:17Speaker 03

  What's that?

• 2:31:18Yasi Salek?

  The upcoming Sam Mendes Beatles movies.

• 2:31:20Speaker 03

  Oy.

• 2:31:21Yasi Salek?

  How could we forget?

• 2:31:22Speaker 03

  Those will be our last episodes. The show is over after that.

• 2:31:24Yasi Salek?

  I am kind of excited about those.

• 2:31:28Yasi Salek?

  I like Sam Mendes.

• 2:31:29Speaker 03

  I'm excited about it in the way I'm excited about a bacon cheeseburger where I'm like, this is gonna taste so good and then I'm really gonna regret it.

• 2:31:35Yasi Salek?

  Oh, interesting. Okay. Did you see the photos that, of Harris Dickinson and John Lennon beard that were up online?

• 2:31:41Speaker 03

  Haven't seen that. Not sure I wanna see that.

• 2:31:44Yasi Salek?

  Okay.

• 2:31:45Speaker 03

  Tough one. I mean, I, you know.

• 2:31:46Yasi Salek?

  You're a huge Beatles fan.

• 2:31:48Speaker 03

  Huge, you know, which is the least interesting opinion of all time, but I am a huge Beatles fan. And they're, they're gonna do the same thing that they did all these movies.

• 2:31:57Yasi Salek?

  Maybe not.

• 2:31:58Speaker 03

  Maybe not. Maybe not.

• 2:32:00Yasi Salek?

  Sam Mendes is cool.

• 2:32:01Speaker 03

  Real coin flip director. Half the time, cool movie. The other half of the time, doesn't work at all. All the way down to his Bond movies being like one good and one not good.

• 2:32:10Yasi Salek?

  He made like one of the best ones, right? It's a star.

• 2:32:12Speaker 03

  Skyfall. Yeah. But he also made Spectre, which is awful.

• 2:32:14Yasi Salek?

  Um, I think it probably boils down to how cool Paul McCartney wants to be.

• 2:32:19Speaker 03

  Oh, such a good call.

• 2:32:20Yasi Salek?

  You know, like it's so, I mean, God bless, probably Ringo doesn't have a ton to say, but like, I think it's really, it really boils down to like, is, does Paul McCartney want to be loved or, or to be, like, for me?

• 2:32:35Yasi Salek?

  I would so much rather a great piece of art was made about me than something flattering.

• 2:32:42Yasi Salek?

  In, in, in ultimately at the end of my legacy. Not that anyone's gonna make a film about a music podcast.

• 2:32:47Speaker 03

  So hard to be perceived.

• 2:32:50Yasi Salek?

  Of course, but I mean, you're on, again, I don't wanna throw dirt on his grave, but like, you're on your way out, honey. You know, like we, we're at the, we're at the golden years. Cement your legacy with something awesome.

• 2:33:03Speaker 03

  This might be the last major piece of media made about him while he's alive.

• 2:33:08Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. He's had plenty.

• 2:33:10Speaker 03

  I, I, I agree, but that might be why he's not gonna break the curse.

• 2:33:14Yasi Salek?

  We'll see.

• 2:33:15Speaker 03

  I, I'm fascinated by him more than any other Beatle. His like, his drive, his motivation, his ambition, which I, I find so interesting because he presents as such a

• 2:33:27Speaker 03

  friendly, now avuncular kind of figure that sort of.

• 2:33:31Yasi Salek?

  How often have I thought avuncular meant you were much like an uncle?

• 2:33:34Speaker 03

  That is, that is.

• 2:33:35Yasi Salek?

  Is it?

• 2:33:35Speaker 03

  Yeah, that is what it means.

• 2:33:36Yasi Salek?

  Really?

• 2:33:37Speaker 03

  Yeah. That's what, that's, well, yeah, that's the warmness of, that an uncle might.

• 2:33:44Yasi Salek?

  Wait, I'm so happy. I thought, I thought I was being dumb because it just sounded like uncle.

• 2:33:50Speaker 03

  Friendly, kind, patient and generous.

• 2:33:52Yasi Salek?

  Yes, the ideal beaver, a classic uncle.

• 2:33:54Speaker 03

  Yeah, that is what it means.

• 2:33:55Yasi Salek?

  It's like being unc.

• 2:33:57Speaker 03

  Yeah. Damn, unc's still got it. That's what they say about me in pods all the time now.

• 2:34:00Yasi Salek?

  Do they?

• 2:34:01Speaker 03

  Yeah. Cause I'm just old as fuck.

• 2:34:03Yasi Salek?

  We're the same age, so I don't, I don't find that, um, to be true.

• 2:34:06Speaker 03

  Yeah, but I'm very gray.

• 2:34:08Yasi Salek?

  You're unc for sure.

• 2:34:08Speaker 03

  Getting grayer. Yes.

• 2:34:09Yasi Salek?

  I don't think I'm unc.

• 2:34:10Speaker 03

  Deep unc.

• 2:34:11Yasi Salek?

  You think I'm unc?

• 2:34:13Speaker 03

  Aunt, auntie?

• 2:34:14Yasi Salek?

  No.

• 2:34:16Speaker 03

  Mother?

• 2:34:17Yasi Salek?

  Yes. Um, should we do a quick recap?

• 2:34:20Speaker 03

  Please.

• 2:34:21Yasi Salek?

  Yankee Doodle Dandy.

• 2:34:23Speaker 03

  Is that going in?

• 2:34:25Yasi Salek?

  I think it has to.

• 2:34:25Speaker 03

  I like it.

• 2:34:26Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. I think we should be respectful of the forefathers.

• 2:34:29Speaker 03

  No doubt.

• 2:34:30Yasi Salek?

  Um, Listamania.

• 2:34:31Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 2:34:32Yasi Salek?

  The Buddy Holly Story from 1978.

• 2:34:34Speaker 03

  Bang on.

• 2:34:35Yasi Salek?

  Coal Miner's Daughter. Amadeus. Sid and Nancy. La Bamba.

• 2:34:42Yasi Salek?

  I'm gonna do it. It's my show. Superstar, The Karen Carpenter Story.

• 2:34:47Yasi Salek?

  The Doors.

• 2:34:50Yasi Salek?

  What's Love Got To Do With It? That's 10.

• 2:34:53Speaker 03

  Cooking right now. Keep going.

• 2:34:54Yasi Salek?

  We get to 20. Selena.

• 2:34:55Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 2:34:56Yasi Salek?

  Topsy Turvy.

• 2:34:57Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 2:34:58Yasi Salek?

  24 Hour Party People.

• 2:34:59Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 2:35:00Yasi Salek?

  Control.

• 2:35:02Yasi Salek?

  I'm Not There.

• 2:35:02Speaker 03

  Thank you for giving me Control. Yes, I'm not there.

• 2:35:04Yasi Salek?

  Nowhere Boy.

• 2:35:05Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 2:35:08Speaker 03

  Haven't seen Nora Boy, but I'll go with you on that.

• 2:35:10Yasi Salek?

  Um, Love and Mercy.

• 2:35:12Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:35:14Yasi Salek?

  Straight out of Compton, because you wanted it. Okay.

• 2:35:16Speaker 03

  I think it's probably important.

• 2:35:17Yasi Salek?

  Niko 1988.

• 2:35:18Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 2:35:21Yasi Salek?

  Better Man. That's exactly 20.

• 2:35:25Yasi Salek?

  We did it, Joe.

• 2:35:28Speaker 03

  Nice job.

• 2:35:28Yasi Salek?

  Was that fun for you?

• 2:35:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, I've seen more of these than I've realized.

• 2:35:33Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, well, I mean, you've seen a lot of films.

• 2:35:35Speaker 03

  Niko 1988, I gotta see that.

• 2:35:37Yasi Salek?

  I'm curious, I am really curious to see what you think. Um, I really, I really liked it. I mean, again, I think part of it is because it subverts the form. But, um, it's, I don't know any of the actors. It's kind of came and went, um, but.

• 2:35:53Speaker 03

  If I can recommend one movie that didn't go in.

• 2:35:55Yasi Salek?

  Sure.

• 2:35:56Speaker 03

  It would probably be Blaze, about Blaze Foley.

• 2:35:58Yasi Salek?

  About Blaze Foley?

• 2:35:59Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:35:59Yasi Salek?

  Okay. There was another one that you seemed really.

• 2:36:02Speaker 03

  I liked Low Down as well.

• 2:36:03Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, Low Down. Um, okay, great. Well, this was super fun. Um, thank you, Sean Venessi.

• 2:36:08Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 2:36:09Yasi Salek?

  Please, uh, like and subscribe on YouTube. And if you are interested in some of these films, you can see them on the Criterion Channel right now. Um.

• 2:36:20Speaker 03

  The best streaming service. That's what I say.

• 2:36:22Yasi Salek?

  It's hard, it's hard to argue with that.

• 2:36:23Speaker 03

  That's what I always say.

• 2:36:26Yasi Salek?

  It's tied with me with BritBox.

• 2:36:28Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 2:36:29Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 2:36:29Speaker 03

  Cool.

• 2:36:29Yasi Salek?

  Just found a new British detective show.

• 2:36:32Speaker 03

  What's it called?

• 2:36:33Yasi Salek?

  Ludwig.

• 2:36:34Speaker 03

  I'll bet it is.

• 2:36:35Yasi Salek?

  It has, um, David Mitchell from Peep Show in it, and it's phenomenal.

• 2:36:39Speaker 03

  Nice. Enjoy that.

• 2:36:40Yasi Salek?

  Um, okay, Sean, thank you so much.

• 2:36:43Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 2:36:44Yasi Salek?

  Come back next week for a new episode of Bandplain, and we'll see you next week.

• 2:36:50Yasi Salek?

  If you liked what you heard today, subscribe for more episodes of Bandplain. Our guest today was Sean Venessi. This episode was produced by Rob Sunderman and edited by John Jones, with help from Justin Sales. Video production by Donald Mobianco. Executive producers for Bandplain are Gina Dalvett and me, Yasi Salek. Our gorgeous and catchy theme song was composed and performed by Bethany Cosentino and Jennifer Clavon, and graciously recorded by Carlos De La Garza in Los Angeles, California. Special thanks to our producer emeritus, producer Dylan, AKA Dylan Tupper Rooker, and also BritBox, and in particular, the television program Ludwig. Come back every Thursday for a new episode of Bandplain on Spotify or wherever you listen to or watch your podcasts.

• 2:37:37Yasi Salek?

  Guy was like, he strikes up a conversation, right? And he was like, so do you work in Hollywood? And I was like, I work from home mostly. And he was like, oh, I was like, oh, you meant like the industry? And he was like, yeah, I was like, oh, I'm a podcaster. He was like, what's your podcast? And I told him, he was like, oh, The Ringer. Oh, yeah, Yasi, I've heard you. I'm like, I love The Ringer. I'm a big Ringer guy. And I was like.

• 2:37:59Speaker 03

  It's, it's a home field for us.

• 2:38:00Yasi Salek?

  Of course you are.

• 2:38:03Speaker 03

  Bill had been a very vocal advocate of the band for about 15 years.

• 2:38:06Yasi Salek?

  Same.

• 2:38:07Speaker 00

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