Blank Check with Griffin & David - Sweetie with Sarah-Violet Bliss

Episode Date: January 16, 2022

We’ve climbed up in our childhood treehouse and we’re not coming down! Sarah Violet Bliss (Search Party) joins us to talk about “Sweetie” - Jane Campion’s off-kilter meditation on suburbia and sibling rivalry. Revelations within the episode include the fact that David was part of the “Neighbours Society” at Uni (a group of students in favor of airing the Aussie soap in common areas twice daily); that one of the IMDB tags for this movie is “Rides A Man Like A Horse”; that Producer Ben has *definitely* known a few Sweetie-types in his life; and more!  Join our Patreon at patreon.com/blankcheck Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter and Instagram! Buy some real nerdy merch at shopblankcheckpod.myshopify.com

This movie has no quotes page and no tagline uh a new film by jane campion that's the tagline i'm seeing here on the uh yeah on the on the poster right and then there's a pull quote that says spectacular it's a movie quite unlike any other you're likely to see sweetie is an original it's from vincent camby vincent camby the legend he was right could i have taken an extra two minutes to look for other places where there's maybe a quote not on imdb yeah maybe i could have i don't know i don't know that's where it should be though yeah i'm not uh seeing any tags i mean this is the first time we've had a movie that has neither. We've had movies before with no quotes page, but very few.

Like two or three in total, I remember. Someone build out the quotes page. This movie's got lines. This movie's got lines. Yeah, official selection, Cannes, 1989. That's a tagline on one of these posters. Okay, I got one. This is from cinema-fanatic.com

and they do a movie quote of the day and here was their movie quote of the day uh at some point what if it does die what the podcast well we'll get another one. Yeah, but this is our podcast. Talking about the tree? Yeah, I don't know. Yeah. The accent was bad. I did a bad job. I wasn't prepped.

I don't know. I don't have to tell you. Great start to a great app, Griff. Look, it's a great app. Just got to keep on going. It's a killer movie, but an absolute failing of the IMDb community. A website that's never done anything wrong. No, and look, this podcast is not gonna die.

The roots grow really strong, they can split concrete. There you go. Hello, everybody. This is Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. I'm David. I'm realizing now, you know this thing where people are logging podcasts on imdb are they really like like what is that movies yeah okay yeah like a podcast is like a

tv show and then every episode is like an episode and they add them to people's imdb credits there's a blank check imdb page now and someone should start building out that quotes page oh god oh yeah here it is on my mdb page right you got the credit but i think they're the only singular episode listed anger praying with anger wide awake there no other episodes filled out well someone get on that not me though not me not me no thank you um this is a podcast about filmographies directors who have massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks make whatever crazy passion projects they want sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce sweetie very good that was a little That was a little joke. It's a miniseries on the films of Jane Campion.

It is called The Podcastiano. The Podcastiano. Oh, okay. Yeah. Okay. That's our guest's reaction. I only could hear it when David said it. Sorry.

I think it will work visually. I think visually it's gonna track um today we're talking about her second feature film her first one that was intended uh purely theatrical uh which is called sweetie uh and returning to the show uh co-creator of Search Party, Sarah Violet Bliss. Hi. Hi, Sarah Violet. I feel shy. All of a sudden, you feel shy? Yeah, this happened last time, I think, too.

Suddenly, when you introduced me, I was like, oh, no. Then you clam up. Right, the pressure's on. It's not like the Wild West of the first couple minutes where you haven't been introduced yet, you can say anything, but it doesn't count.

A little giggle here and there. A little giggle. Scattered giggles. Right off the bat, I just want to say there were two big texts that happened in the Blank Check text thread last night. One is David sent us a video of... I think just a picture.

Was it not like a live photo or something? Maybe it's a live photo. It might be a live photo. It might be a live photo. I don't want to tell tales out of school. It was a live photo of his daughter, the boss baby, watching Sweetie. She did.

I just had it on, and she was transfixed by it, I think because it's so colorful. She doesn't always pay attention if the TV is on, but I think because it's just such a, you know, vibrant, stark-looking movie, she could not stop looking at it. Transfixed by Sweetie. I mean, she's fully, like, locked in.

Yeah, you just said her name there which whatever oh bleep it out bleep it out bleep it out bleep it out boss baby boss baby um i saw this when i was a kid too clearly older than a baby but my mom was watching it and i too was transfixed in a way that uh that really got under my skin. Yeah, it's disturbing. If you're a kid especially. Yeah, super bleak and disturbing. But yeah, it's just funny to hear about your baby also having the same reaction I did as a child.

How old were you? I think that I was, i want to say i was nine like i don't know yeah something like that this movie has like the aesthetics of a children's film though like it feels like a wall doll adaptation or something you know yeah it's it's Yeah. It's weird. It's got that odd energy. Okay, so David sends us that text about the boss baby last night. And then this morning, Ben texts us. Do you want to read your text, Ben? Yeah, sure. I texted,

one of the best movies I've watched for this show. Well, you said, well, I get it, well i get it because sweetie fuck right right right because as we've said david's daughter the boss baby was transfixed by the movie and i said i got it because sweetie fucks and that so was the boss benny it was kind of the boss benny having a moment and I just, this is what I'll say. And we'll obviously get into it more. I like weird, abnormal characters. And I just like when shit's different. And this was fucking cool as hell.

And so refreshing. I just recently had watched back to back the new Marvel movies. And then also kind of had recently watched Dune and I was just like so samey and then I put this on last night and I was like, man, I don't know. This is just exciting

and refreshing. You know what's another thing this movie has in comparison to the movies you just mentioned? Colors. Oh, right. A lot of colors.

That's true. Yeah. It's all anyone can talk about in this movie is the colors but it is wild like you watch this and you're just like man everything looks so fucking boring now yeah um i also so i saw this when i was a kid and then and it stuck with me and then i believe that it was on the NYU list of movies to watch, like before you get there, you know,

like a very long list of movies that are like, these are, these are important films. Yes. Um, and I was like looking it up and I was like, Oh my God, that movie,

that's Jane Campion. Like, you know, it was just a child, you know, at the time didn't have any reference for the filmmakers and whatever um so yeah i just had to it was like a i've had a journey with the film i think so it's like a movie that transfixed you when you were nine watching it over your mother's shoulder then it kind of sticks in your craw. And then, like, decades later, you see it on a list

recontextualized as important film. Yes. And you realize that it's not like, oh, that's some odd movie that gave me a nightmare as a child. Right. That is actually a thing by a director I now know

is taken seriously. I mean, I think I mentioned this in the last episode, but my first time watching this movie, like, my awareness that this movie was, David, I want to imagine it was maybe a similar thing for you. But being like a criterion dork teenager. Right. Sure.

And this and Angel at My Table, I think we're both fairly early releases. And you're like charting what each month you know the new announcements are and a lot of times like that that was the first i'd heard of some movie especially if it was a more obscure an earlier film in a major director's career so it's like oh i know what the cover of that movie is but sometimes criterion has artistic interpretation does not necessarily convey the tone of a thing and then whatever the like short description is on the website, right? I just always assumed this movie, like, oh, Chaotic Sister takes over House and Life, was more similar in tone to later Jane Campion movies.

Like, I thought it was in that vein. A friend of the podcast, a past and future guest, Alex Ross Perry, and I went to see some movie at Lincoln Center. And this was playing right afterwards. And we were like, do you want to just stay for Sweetie? And he was like, yeah, that's Jane Camby. She's important. We should see this, right? And then like five minutes into it, turned to each other and said, I had no idea this was the tone of this thing.

Like even just the opening with the fucking psychic reading the tea leaves. Yeah. It was just like, this is what this movie is? And just being pretty, like, flummoxed by it in a good way. Yes. But it is bizarre to watch this now with, like, the rest of her career in the back of your mind i think versus like when this is her first major statement as a filmmaker uh that's yeah no i know what you're saying because she becomes more of a whatever lush and uh sort of prestige director although

she's always weird i don't actually know if i how to totally click claire it is unlike anything else she's made i suppose although i do think it's it's sort of of a piece with an angel at my table that's that's that's a much very different movie but they're both about um being a young woman in some way i guess but that's the sort of shared thing is this like her only movie that could be fairly categorized as a comedy? Yes. Well, it's an odd comedy. It's been a long... I think Holy Smoke is the other one.

Holy Smoke is the one that's sort of very heightened. That's the only reason I'm... Holy Smoke might have a lot of sweetie energy in a weird way. We'll get to holy smoke i don't know so sv like are you a campion fan in general like do you i realized i realized after um like because i was like how does this compare to her other movies and i i've seen the you know the piano the piano lesson um whatever uh, the piano lesson, um, whatever. Uh, and the piano lesson. And, um, and, but like, it's pretty vague in my head. And then I was like, wait a minute,

I haven't seen any of her other movies other than these two. Um, so, uh, and I like, again, knowing that Jane Campion is, is supposed to be important. I have yet not seen her movies except for this one that is stuck with me. And then when I think about the, the, the piano lesson, um, uh,

I, it's like the thing that really sticks with me from that is the weird sex scenes. And that kind of resonates in this, right? Absolutely. Um, and, and the non-sex scenes as well i like the sort of weird weird non-sex in this movie um yeah griff for me look jane campion came into my life because when i was uh seven or eight years old the piano came out right i probably just i was seven right and that was a movie where i was like vaguely aware of

grown-up movies at that point i'm watching the oscars there's this movie called the piano right and i'm like oh okay is that like it's like a movie about someone who plays the piano and that was a movie that all adults had to see right like that was like yes which is so funny to think about considering that this was a new zealand director of little you know like very arty note right like you know had suddenly made this big movie with american stars in it and it's like yeah well we're all gonna go see the piano and i just remember my mom being like yeah i yeah you know there's the piano on the beach and i you know what i can't explain the movie to you i i can't even begin yeah like and that that's how

i feel like jane campion goes for a lot of her movies yeah and as much as she is a major filmmaker and has been for decades she also has a filmography that's widely underseen because a lot of her movies come out and are greeted with like skepticism apart from the piano like and maybe bright star like those are and now the power of the dog i guess but even but bright star got a little bit um yeah it was not major like it was it was it should have been it was critically beloved but it did not break through in the oscar noms right not a lot of money right i'm a couple years younger than you and my distinct memory was like i think the english patient year was the first oscars that i watched live where it was the same thing where i'm like okay this is the grown-up movie this is the one

that every time they play a clip everyone goes like oh oh my god and that's like the year that the weinsteins finally pull off the thing they had been working towards with the piano and other movies where it's like now it's a blockbuster and it wins every category right versus like piano gets these three big wins it gets screenplay and the two actress wins but that movie more than anything it's like a it becomes one of the sort of totemic like art house oscar breakouts of the 90s and b it has these weird oscar stats to it which is like she's only the second woman nominated for Best Director ever. Anna Paquin's the second youngest person to ever win Best Supporting Actress.

That's that movie's kind of reputation more than anything. But I also saw, you know, Criterion's now finally releasing movies on 4K. 4K. And I saw someone online defending it being like, well, the thing that's great about Criterion is they're putting 4K releases out of movies that otherwise are really obscure and would have been forgotten, like the piano. And I was like, you don't understand how large the shadow was of the piano throughout the entire 90s. But it was and like her other movies couldn't come out from it, you know, but like it was it was a huge fucking deal. And as you said, Dave, it felt like a movie that was like mandatory viewing for all intellectual parents. Right.

Had to see the piano. So that's why it's funny to come back around, yes, to this early work. And you're like, oh, this is like having like, what if your big sister was this like horny poltergeist like that you couldn't get rid of? Right. And it's so audacious in a plot way as well, where like the movie is called Sweetie. It's ostensibly like, as you might,

maybe you read the back of the DVD box and it says like, oh, it's about her sister bothering her. And you watch it for like 25 minutes. You're like's her sister i don't get this right this is about like a mousy girl who's like steals away a sort of a dumb guy like i don't even know what you're you know like there's nothing about this movie that really obeys how movies are supposed to work and it's all the better for it i think to your, David, the first 25 minutes, I'm sitting there going, do I misremember what this movie's about?

I thought it's about a sister. Not only is the sister not entered, but so much has happened in the first 25 minutes. She has her fortune told. She realizes her co-worker who just got engaged is actually the man she's destined to love. She steals him, makes out with him under a car. Immediately. Their relationship goes cold.

Their tree is stolen. They're already in trouble right right by the time sweetie shows up there's sort of like a three-act story of their relationship before sweetie enters it's a lot of pressure to plant a tree like for your like relationship i relate to that especially because it was founded upon omens and sure it's like the first sign of the trina being healthy it's like how are they not going to get in their heads about it it's just it is wild how fast this movie moves and how much it goes through yeah i i watched uh i watched this movie twice in the last 24 hours because I watched it with commentary once oh sure cool I was just very curious to hear how she talks about this movie

is it just her or is it like her and Gerard Lee or something it's her and the DP and then Gerard Lee oh really shows up 30 minutes in like sweetie crashing the commentary and changes the whole flow of things I did like minimal minimal research but

she and gerard lee had been in a relationship before they wrote the movie which is yeah you know pretty pretty weird they had been in a relationship and the movie is based on his family but she kind of muddles that by dead dedicating it to her sister yeah which makes which makes you think it's about her, but she was like, no, my sister had just been going through a lot of shit, so I was kind of dedicating it to her. The thing she says in the commentary is,

Campion's mother has horrible depression. Yes. At the end of shooting this movie, in the last couple weeks, her mother has a suicide attempt. And her sister packs up her life and goes to tend, her mother has a suicide attempt. And her sister, like, packs up her life and goes to tend to her mother so that Campion can finish making the movie. So that's the main reason the sister gets the dedication. But it also makes me... But given the context of the movie...

Of course, of course. But then when you hear that, you also wonder, is the movie perhaps a little bit more about her relationship with her mother than it is about her relationship with her sister because she's like my sister is more gregarious than i am but both of us are pretty grounded pragmatic people but she does admit and there's this is in our dossier griff like she knows she's being a little cheeky with the dedication because she knows how people are going to take that like she knows how it's going to come off but i do think like this is obviously a heightened thing but it is something that happened to gerard that's his name right uh yeah gerard lee gerard lee but it's his brother and they changed the sex of the sibling or whatever like which something which is something campion didn't

want to do all everything you read about the development this movie does not conform with what you think watching the movie like at all did she want it to be two brothers i guess so i think she she was worried that it would come off odd to have it be about women but now she's like eh the movie's great so whatever yeah i mean and and like she becomes a fan of gerard lee through his writing he had already had some published work uh then they meet when she's in film school they link up they start dating pretty quickly uh they make the short film together, her second short, which, why am I forgetting the name? Passionless Moments, which is very much his sense of humor and is the one other thing in her body of work that I think is pretty similar to this. But it's like black and white, very voiceover heavy. It's a series of sort of vignettes of odd moments in people's lives, interactions and stuff.

So they make that together. They live together. She said their relationship progressed, like, very quickly. They moved in together almost immediately. And then it sort of, like, organically came to an end. Sure. He seems like an intense dude, like you're saying. But they seem to be on incredibly good terms. Yeah, they're buds.

Right. So that's her second short. Then she makes the third short, Girl's Own Story. Then those three shorts and two friends that her tv movie debut go to ken she's sort of anointed as like this is the next great director uh there's the quote i'm sure you want to read david uh gilles jacob said to philip adams head of the australian film commission you must give her lots of money so she'll be in competition with a feature film in two years he basically went to the head of australian movies and said like fund this woman's next movie and so she can come back it's it's

literally like the con film festival was like she is important if she does not that's how it works come back here it is is a societal failing um the wildest fucking thing is that her initial intent was for the piano to be her first movie which at the time sv was supposed to be called the piano lessons okay so you were right you were right so you were really that was you were right you were right all along you were right all along you know it's it's it's that i was like okay there's the piano, and then there's the, I was like, piano teacher, and then there's the pianist. There's so many different, that I was like, ah, the piano lesson. The trilogy. It's the piano trilogy.

Yeah, the Tinkling Keys trilogy. It's wild that it's like, that was her first idea. She has this incredibly like. Which are all very important films, sorry. Yeah, yeah. was her first idea she has this incredibly like which are all very important films sorry yeah yeah it's it's an odd like important for an art house trilogy yeah uh no it's just wild that she like out of the gate had that idea in her head and it was more that she was like there's that and then there's sort of like doing the early stages of what would become angel at my table right doing some sort of uh janet frame adaptation and those things were on

the table right right but she starts writing piano first piano lesson movie she's been working on absolutely she's noodling on janet frame she has this heat from con and her like logic to it is to some degree like i don't know if they'll let me make a movie like this later in my career i mean in different interviews she said different things that make it sound like there were a lot of different factors that went to decision but she was like this might be the one moment in my career where i can make a very strange low budget yeah totally off-putting comedy if i do the prestige movie now a i might not be ready for it and b it'll be harder for me to come back around and make this odd thing well also it's like people want a jane campion movie

they want to see a jane campion movie right now later she can be like okay you didn't like sweetie well i got a movie about you know janet frame is that interesting and they'd be like oh well sure i know who that you know like later you can hook them with a different hook but right now she's just like yeah i'm gonna make you a jane campion movie but but the two other people on the on the commentary are just like i cannot believe the foresight you had to like organize that in your brain and understand that many steps ahead, how to build your career. And Campion says this thing about how when she was a kid,

other kids would call her up and they'd be like, Jane, I could use your help. I want to go to the pool today. I have some homework to do. I want to go to the movies. And she'd be like, okay, this is the order in which you do things. That they would literally ask her for advice

on how to organize their lives. she's she's a smart lady um but uh yeah she's with gerard lee it's about being in a couple and the problem of being in love and not making able you know not having a relationship work that's how she puts it right like it's clearly they're clearly mining their own lives uh in this sort of weird love story and uh the tree is right from their relationship they had a tree growing in their backyard and he was obsessed over how they kept dying and she was like i don't care about that i'm like working on my movies and my stuff but i don't i don't give a shit about the tree. And that's why she like hits on the metaphor of like the strength of a tree, like this sort of, you know, and like the sort of frightening sight of a withering tree. The other thing that's really interesting in the commentary is she is so fucking goofy.

Like when she's chatting? Yeah, the whole time. And it doesn't feel like it's just because of this movie, but they keep on talking about how funny she is in general. What's Sally Bongers like? That's the director of photography who is kind of mysterious, only really shot this and disappeared. Was a film school compatriot of hers.

Right. Had a similar background, went to art school. This is a gorgeously photographed movie. It's sort of odd that she didn't really pursue that career and she does apparently shoot jane campion's publicity photos to this day yeah that's where you see her name but i just wonder what happened to her i mean they don't say she does talk about like she's a trivia fact as the first woman to shoot an Australian film. Oh, wow. Oh, there you go. Right.

And that Campion came to her and asked her to do it like it was a very natural thing. And she was like, I felt acutely aware of the fact that none of my male film school classmates ever would have even considered me for that. And that I wasn't thinking of myself that way either. But with Campion, it was like a very obvious, natural thing. There's a really interesting thing about the sort of development of her visual style here, where they're talking about how both of them really liked having lockdown shots without movement and loading as much into the frame as possible and having the frame change over you know as a long static time where through motion the the composition of the frame can change dramatically and they're talking about all the philosophical reasons they like that and whatever

but the other thing they said was that there was only like so much equipment and all the guys at their film school were very competitive about trying to like sign up for who can rent out the cranes or the dollies or any of the other things to do these like incredibly complex moving shots. And they were like, I don't want to fucking play that game. We're never going to beat them at that. We're never going to get our hands on the equipment. Let's figure out how to make the most out of doing the opposite of what everyone else is doing. out how to make the most out of doing the opposite of what everyone else is doing. And so I do think a lot of her being brought on to be the DP in this and everything is like sort of the two of them bonding in the foxhole, you know, to a certain extent.

And it also sounds like they were both similarly frustrated by how didactic so much of film school was and how much they were constantly being told, like have to do this you can never do this both in terms of the visual language in terms of screenwriting and everything and this movie is in many ways like them saying rebellion to all movies right it's a rebellion to all movies but it's also a movie about someone who refuses to conform to society yes and its rules which is the thing that campion says like in her mind all of her movies are about that she's fascinated by the idea of society and how we're told we're supposed to behave within it and how unnatural that is and when people push up against that in any way and this is the movie that is that both in in like sort of text and in actual form but it's it's a it's a very rich metaphor the whole idea of sweetie like is

is odd i i don't i don't know how else to put it like the idea of your your sister or your sibling or whoever like someone who you are like this person is a problem this person is messing with me and no one else being aware of it like i just love how outsized she is compared to everyone's reactions to her through most of them you know what i mean like yeah like that she's she's she's so wild and only one person seems to really be bothered by that until until the end then more people get bothered by it, I guess. But it's also, I think it's like, this movie is somewhat about the pains of trying to live in a society

as a quote-unquote logical person, right? Right, she's trying to live by rules. Right, she's trying to live by rules, but also the first act of this movie is her throwing herself out of her comfort zone and being like, what if I go to a psychic? What if I follow signs from the universe? And that's not totally working for her either.

You know? Something I loved is her relationship to her coworkers. Like, obviously, she steals the boyfriend away, her fiance. But even, like, in the beginning when they're like, do you want to look at the ring? She's like, I you want to look at the ring? She's like, I'm not interested in that. Like the way she says it, it is so abnormal and against societal rules.

I fucking, I'm like immediately in on this character. It's not really my thing. Yeah. I'm not really, that's not really my thing. Like that is such a funny answer to that question. She's as strange as sweetie just in a completely

different way yeah karen colston is the actress playing k she's so good she's in multiple uh camping movies as is genevieve lemon uh jean-vieve lemon sorry no no genevieve yeah i don't know genevieve lemon who is great and who i think a lot of people in australia know from other things as well she was like on neighbors which is a famous soap opera for you that was her sort of breakout and she'd done a lot of guest starring uh parts on australian sitcoms neighbors become good friends that's the uh the theme song to neighborsbors. You know the Neighbors theme song? Neighbors is a huge deal in Britain. But how would you know that?

I grew up in Britain. And beyond that, I was a member of the Neighbors Society, which was a university society that I belonged to. You paid five pounds to enter. Our only platform was that neighbors should be played in the student union any time that neighbors is on the air which was

like twice a day like 12 and 5 or something like that and uh we success we succeeded in that and then we had thousands of pounds because everyone decided to join the neighbor society and we there we threw a huge party on the beach. Wow. I mean, I was barely involved in any of this, but it did all happen. That's nice you didn't pocket it. You spread the love. You gave it back to your neighbors.

Right, yeah. Well, good neighbors become good friends. Neighbors, much like Home and Away is the other big Australian soap, but Neighbors is one of those soaps that it's like porn with the sex cutout. Like it's just, it's sort of this very strange heightened world.

The dialogue is very bizarre. You know, like it's just sort of a cult fascination in Britain. Yeah. Neighbors. Anyway, when else am I going to sing the Neighbors song on this podcast? SV.

Yes. You saw this movie as a child yes you re-watched this movie when you're going to myu or did you just note it on the list i'm pretty i i re i'm like did i re-watch it or did i just watch the trailer to be like what there were so i think i think this is what happened that i watched the trailer because i was like i can't i can't watch all these movies, and so let me see which ones, whatever. And then I watched the trailer, and I was like, oh, it's that movie.

And I think I was also like, I don't want to watch it again. And then I also think that scenes were brought up in classes at one point. I know that I've revisited it a couple of times, but not fully until watching it for again for this. And so what was it like? That was my big question,

right? Like how does this movie compare to your memory of it as a child as a thing that's kind of haunted you? Yeah, that's a, you know what? It's so, the movie is so primal that there are still things about it that affected me in the same way that it's like, it just gets in impossible to break and you know everyone's

sort of falling apart and that really touch on like the shadow of of of what families can become and be, and feeling just an ickiness again. Both times feeling icky. This time, I would say it was like, I don't think I'm actually enjoying watching this, but I'm feeling like I know that it's really good. It's like, I don't feel like I know that it's really good. It's like I don't feel like I want to necessarily recommend this to people, but it's definitely good

and moving in a way that has stuck with me both times or however many times I've watched it. It is an odd watch. Like, it does make you feel physically strange watching this movie. It's an uncomfortable movie. I found myself being like, how much more of this?

You know what I mean? Like, checking the timeline, even though I was fully appreciating it the whole time, just being like, uh. And the end is so particularly upsetting if you've seen it before you're kind of watching in dread knowing where you're gonna end up yeah even watching it the first first time as a kid i remember feeling dread like that that scene really stuck in me i was like and i was like oh my god it's like when i i when i like re-watched the trailer or whatever it was like for film school I was like oh it's

that movie where she's jumping up and down in the treehouse naked and covered in crap you know like it's just like oil yeah and like you know I picked up on like the weird sexual dynamics too between like you know how it's you know something that really disturbs me in any movie is like adults who are children or like like um toys really disturbs me like anything or like the adult is actually a child inside or like the child is an adult inside like you know the like the reveal is that the person you thought was a child is actually an adult or benjamin button or whatever that stuff really really disturbs me i'm kind of now just as i'm talking about i'm like i wonder if this was the origin of that but anyway she but like when she's like you

know uh bathing her father and you're like what what is this wait now you're throwing this at me you know i want to put a pin in the bathtub thing and circle back to that at some point because the campaign set in the commentary is really interesting about it. But I do think, yes, this movie has the vibe of movies that upset me as a child, but that I compulsively rewatch. Things that were in cable rotation. And I do think you're right that a lot of them have to do with why is this adult acting like a child?

Whether that's part of the premise of the movie or it's just sort of a miscalibration where you're like, this is broken. Like the tone of this is off. This should be for me and it's upsetting me. And Sweetie is the only one of the movies in that sort of zone with that feeling that actually isn't meant for children. But yet it like fucking captivates you and David's infant boss baby. Like there's there's something there. I mean, what's her name?

Genevieve Lemon, on top of doing Neighbors and these sitcoms and whatever, had done a play in which she played a child. And like that was the thing that sort of brought her to them, their attention and said like, oh, oh, if she could do that for the whole movie, that's what we need. And there's the story of like the first day she's working with the actor, the little boy, he goes up to her and asks her, so are you a grown-up or a kid?

Oh, wow. And not as like, what are you playing? But as a like, I don't understand you. Yeah. You are the size of a grown up. Yeah. But you so thoroughly seem to be a kid. It's like unnerving,

which is the whole central like conflict of the movie really. But like a movie I talk about way too much that I'm obsessed with is Sidney Lumet's The Wiz, which I had a very similar relationship to where I like watched that when i was a child and i was like why does this make me so uncomfortable and i felt very haunted by it and then like 12 years later or whatever i start watching all the new york 70s sydney lamette movies and i'm like this guy's the fucking best what else did he make in the 70s he made the whiz what the fuck are you talking about so then i re-watched the whiz to see how it fits into like my nightmare memories of it and then it's more confusing to

try to go like how is it possible this is the same person but also how did i not put together the weird connections between these things the way in which they do overlap, it's just this thing is so visually and tonally different than everything else this person's ever made. She talks about in the commentary this thing about how, like, so much of her visual style in this movie was not a deliberate thing, that it was sort of an organic process with her. And she keeps on saying, like, I have no idea why I did that that way. And then she goes, like, I guess I probably, if I'm looking at it now, I would say.

But she keeps on talking about how there was no sort of, like, intentionality behind it. She has this really interesting line, too, where she's talking about, like, the frustrations of thinking that everything needs to fit into a clean three-act structure and film school forcing her to read Sid Field and Robert McKee and shit like that. And she was saying Robert McKee apparently cites her movies often as a thing not to do. Right. Well, that makes sense. This movie does not obey anything about story structure,

like movie story structure like movies for story structure it is it is successful in spite of that or it's successful because of that like that's up to you like to decide i think it's successful either way but like it's certainly if i was like i'm thinking like a sweetie plot structure right i don't know if i could pull that off like for basically anything well this is the thing she said that i was really fascinated by so like gerard lee's kind of like saying that like and they talk about a lot how like campion seems very serious from her work but is in fact a pretty light funny goofy person and gerard lee mostly makes comedic things and is like a very sullen kind of morose guy and that like that's often the balance of

how artists work sometimes you know is there can be an interesting inverse from their personality to their sensibilities in their work and that's part of why they work so well together but um they're talking about the fact that rodley's like really hard on himself about the fact that this movie does not conform to a three-act structure. And she's like, A, I don't think that's necessary. And B, I think we write that way to some extent without

thinking about it. I think you're kind of fucked if you sit down and you outline it and you go, it has to do this and this has to happen by page 30 and whatever. I think if you watch a lot of stuff and you internalize it and you know the stories you want to tell and you let those stories guide you we do tend to organize things in this way and the analogy she comes up with is like when we speak we do not consciously think the next sentence i'm going to say needs to have

a verb it needs to have a subject you know i couldn't agree more i've had these thoughts myself you just kind of instinctually know how to make a story and literally when you're just telling retelling a story that happened to you you don't you self-edit very quickly you don't grammatically process or plan out things in advance of when you're saying them but you basically know how to speak as a person and more often than not say a correct sentence if unless you're saying them, but you basically know how to speak as a person and will more often than not say a correct sentence. Unless you're me, who fucking verbal diarrhea is all the time. But

she's saying that, like, right, if you've watched enough stuff and you've gone to film school and you've made your own shit and whatever, it's not really helpful to sit down and force your script to fit into that box. That stuff's gonna be in the back of your head to some degree and she was sort of arguing how the movie does fit into a three-act structure

i was gonna say it's like it's like it's not like you can't follow it or anything you know it's right right it's three it's like a nine-act structure but each act is right is is at least there's at least three acts if you want it's want. It's just the opening is... There's just two sort of sharp left turns in this movie. Yeah. And that's where the act breaks kind of are, I guess, if you want to think about it that way. I'm not too worried about it.

But this movie just sort of transforms a couple times. And that's as good a way as any to tell a story i think like and by when sweetie shows up as much as the first chunk of the film is sort of bewildering in its way like that it moves so fast and that so much is happening uh you're also very ensconced with k you're you're on her side like i think you need to be on her side when sweetie shows up because otherwise you it would not just seem as it would just be like well this is a family of weirdos you know what i also didn't like realize when i was first watching it or is like in the first in the first part before sweetie comes k is really childlike but i didn't i didn't recognize that until sweetie comes i was like oh

she's she's also like just has arrested development as well and i didn't realize that until now that i see sweetie when k is so disturbed by the tree with the yellow leaves that they planted and can't stop talking about it and can't stop asking questions about like, why, you know, like, is this a problem? And then her solution is to rip it up, rip it out of its roots and then hide it in her room. That is such a six year old decision.

Like, I feel like, you know what I mean? Like when you're six and you're like, I broke something, how am I going to deal with this? And it's not like, you know what,

let me like take it outside and put it in the trash. It's like, if I put it under my bed, no one's going to see it there for some reason. some reason like you know that's just logical when you're and if they ask you about it you should just go i don't know yeah i don't know why it's there i don't know why that happened huh yeah this movie has such a specific visual style that like i i was listening to this commentary assuming that she was going to break down, like, the math of everything she was doing, right? And she keeps on sort of, like, talking about how much of it was instinctual and then trying to sort of retroactively analyze what she must have been unconsciously doing at the time. But the couple things she keeps saying are like, A, right, the rebellion against film school and being taught there's a right way to do everything and trying to test whether that's bullshit or not, right? But then a lot of her decisions were just very broad, general things

where like, she's like, I didn't have a color palette for this movie. There wasn't some key for what colors represented what things. I just thought there should be a lot of color in it. key for what colors represented what things i just thought there should be a lot of color in it like i wanted that sort of like cartoonish energy throughout the whole thing and then the weird framing like the focus of the shot is never at the center of the frame and if there are multiple focuses they are at complete opposite ends of the frame and you have like shot reverse shot coverage where both characters in their coverage will be in like the lower right hand corner with all this negative space or some other weird object in the other quarter, all this sort of shit. And she was like, hey, I thought it was interesting. And if I were to look at it now and try to think about what I was doing, I think it was from the very beginning consistent throughout the entire movie trying to create a sense of unease.

So you have the color and the sort of energy and the poppiness making this movie feel like it's a comedy but i'm never gonna let you get comfortable because every single frame is kind of unbalanced and quote-unquote incorrect from how we're taught movies should look which is just such a simple but like obvious way to approach it you know yeah it's it honestly it's kind of like it's like a relief as a director being like you don't have to like over things like she's just like i don't know i just chose it this way and this is i guess my subconscious was doing the work for me to make it feel uneasy or whatever you know and like uh how as i was watching it when you're talking about like the character being in one side of the frame or whatever,

like, my film school, I was like, are they crossing the line here, or is he just in the other frame? Like, I can't tell. Dare they cross the line? Yeah, dare they? But it's like, I don't even think they're crossing the line. I don't think they are either.

It's just so opposite of the language we're sort of used to of how these things look and feel and whatever but it like fucking doesn't matter it achieves the effect she wants of putting you in the right headspace to watch this movie and i i do think so often like she says this thing too about how and this is part of her sort of philosophy of having the camera locked down and having as much happen in one or two shots as possible within a scene or whatever but that like she'd watch other film school people who would have like two really important shots in a sequence and then would

want to shoot like three or four other setups of coverage just for insurance right and she was like well then you're just, you don't have enough time for anything. The two shots that actually matter, you're rushing, you're not getting them right or the performances aren't right. And then you're getting a bunch of other shots that you don't need.

And I was like, what if I only spend my time on the shots that I actually do need and I take the time to make sure they're as good as they possibly could be in every sense? And she said, they do the dailies every day. And she had a lot of like female crew members on this, but it was still probably when you

say a lot of female crew members are probably 15 to 20 percent female. Right. Yeah. And they would do these screenings of the dailies at night and the crew and the men would like laugh really hard. They'd be like, this is great. Oh, my God, this is so good. Should have shot more coverage though like even when it was working they still acted like she was doing

something wrong by not giving herself the out to cut away from the weird thing she had chosen she was like but it's working like you it's you like it like it it fucking served its intent um but some and some of these shots like there's the where all the women are curling their hair at the same time i love that shot there's the two cowboys doing the weird dance together yeah that that scene is also so confused i'm like wait what this is the where did they go like i don't know she said this is a thing that she likes a lot that she did a lot in college dancing no to go to see the mounds oh sure sure which are those thing about new zealand right yeah you know there's a lot of weird shit going on in new zealand especially i keep thinking

about like pre-internet new zealand you know there's only so much you can fucking do like probably made it sound like it was a semi-widespread thing that she liked a lot that she would do very often and then i think oh go to see a big dirt mound that's what they do they're they're like we're going on a vacation without sweetie and that's what they do right that's right that's what that it's like you can't come to this weird thing like to the dirt mound hoedown i mean the mother in this movie is a country western singer who had never acted before and she's very good dad too dad had never acted right dad was like a background actor had never done like dialogue before yeah he like a background actor. Had never done dialogue before. She just loved his

eyebrows. He's got those nice dad brows. But she also said that he showed up on set and he had memorized all the dialogue and he was like, so am I supposed to say it like a poem? What? Like a poem? Right. He was like, how

am I supposed to say this? and it wasn't like he was looking for line readings he was like i don't know how people talk on camera fair i guess i wouldn't know and then the kid she said like he his parents worked so hard to get him memorized that he showed up on set and he knew every line backwards and forwards but only as one continuous chunk like he only learned his lines and she said like do you know your lines and he did the whole thing and she had to like work

to break it into pieces because he couldn't separate the lines in his mind well she did a fantastic job because I love this kid this kid was the best he was great he's the best he's like buy a truck he's just so rambunctious yeah there's a a really nice thing on the blu-ray too with uh the the two lead actresses who like have remained best friends to this day like met on this movie and love each other

uh uh jennifer lemon was saying that like she loved to sing on set and she would like do it in all the downtime and then uh campion started saying like while they were setting up shots like can you do another song for me can you do that one i'm just like stressed out can you do the song and would make her perform or perform for the entire crew like multiple times a day and the two of them would do these songs together. And it was like, Oh, she's like humoring me and how much of a ham I am that I like to do this.

And then like, whatever it is, four or five years later, they're doing the piano. Right. Both of them are working on that movie as well. And she noticed that like with Anna Paquin, who's what nine at the time while they're setting up

shot she keeps on saying like anna paquin can you like do a song can you like do a routine for everyone can you do like a handstand or something and then she was like oh i thought she was humoring me as a performer she was treating me the way she was later going to treat this child which is it is helpful to have them do a thing to get a lot of their energy out of their system and then make them focused right before the take starts that's a good trick should we talk the plot of yeah sweetie uh you know not not as we're saying not entirely conventional but this first chunk, I do find very winning. If not plot, there's a lot of story. Or winning is maybe not, but it's very engrossing watching this odd person, Kay,

navigate being a grown-up kind of badly, but sort of... You're still with her. Oh, wow. I'm looking at IMdb griffin the the story you know how imdb has those like um those those little keywords that they put for every movie yes yes so here are the top five for sweetie male full frontal nudity tree planting mouth to mouth death of sister riding man like a horse hell yeah okay that's a great tag man wait i'm gonna follow that i want to see where that leads me you want to see what else is under under that tag yeah uh two

things uh campion says very casually in the commentary one uh she likes to have characters take their clothes off in every movie possible uh because she she wants like vulnerability and she wants like people in their most awkward sort of open states with each other and two uh she likes if possible to fit in at least one moment of a main character going to the toilet in every movie for she just likes to keep it real she just keeps it real that's what it is right but her dp excuse me i keep forgetting her name she's got a great name and her name is sally bongers sally bongers was saying how radical radicalized like all the male crew members felt when this guy just casually takes his dick out on set and that all the female crew members were like do you understand how many times we see

female nudity in movies sure that this is like not a thing um that that it wasn't any sort of statement for her but i think after seeing how affected people were by it then she was like i'm gonna fucking do this in every movie it's gonna be in all the camps i mean every movie that because like that sequence that like sweetie hasn't even shown up yet at that point like that's about 20 minutes into the movie she's their relationship has gone cold right she steals this guy away because he's got a question mark on his forehead sort of which also by the way for some reason the question mark on yeah the sort of question mark on his forehead also for some reason really stuck with me when i was

a kid and being like oh yeah it's creepy i don't know i just didn't like it it's just a really like weird thing that i'm like one of these the things in this movie that i'm like i don't know why but that's making me uncomfortable right he's got a superman curl on his forehead and then a mole right right um and so that's the reason enough and they have this kind of hot encounter underneath a car in a parking lot but and then they move in together i guess but that by the time sweet before sweetie has shown up their relationship is has gone cold like you said griffin and they're like okay well what if we just like you know let's have sex tonight we'll like put it in the books we have to plan it we have to organize our sex right even though they're like like god knows

they're just like young people doing menial jobs basically but and so they're right that scene is them lying next to each other naked and she she she's like, you feel like my brother. Like, you know, it's just it's gone. Like whatever tension here is just completely gone. And he's like, yeah. And he's like, maybe it's more spiritual this way. Right. I love it.

It's just so it's funny that we're already there. That's all. That's I guess that's what. Yeah. Right. And that's also the state of her relationship with the guy she's co-writing this movie with at the time they're co-writing it. Where it's like, well, this was all the stuff leading up to us now working on this project. I moved in with you very quickly.

I thought we were madly in love. I realized it's maybe more of a friend collaborator thing than a sexual thing. And now let's figure out where we go from here. greater thing than a sexual thing and now let's figure out where we go from here and then like sweetie you know gropes him on the beach and they start making out and there's no consequences to that whatsoever while right she's doing she's doing a demonstration of how good she is at licking and it just within 35 seconds heightened to like full-on frenching on the beach yeah and well everything everything happens very quickly it's it's like no don't like don't marry her we're destined to be and flip these coins and then he's like okay right i mean it's funny because it's like the the k

character is trying to live like a reasonable logical reasonable, logical life, but I think is conscious, self-conscious about the fact that she is too beholden to the rules. Right. So she's, like, trying to find alternative rules to follow, whereas Sweetie just does not play by any rules whatsoever and gets to sort of kind of float through life largely unencumbered. Yes, she does. and gets to sort of kind of float through life largely unencumbered. Yes, she does. But she is self-destructive in her wanting to hurt other people because of whatever it is that she doesn't like about it. Like when she chews on the horses, which, again, I was like, why? As a kid, you don't know what what's happening when she spits them out and there's blood on the plate yeah it's just like but she doesn't i mean that's the problem

it's like sweetie that's the problem as if there's one a problem she has is that many of the rules she does not follow are the ones that keep her safe and alive it's tragic though because that keep her safe and alive. It's tragic though, because you're not really sure why she's doing it. I mean, she just loves, it's like she gets off on the chaos and I've known people kind of like sweetie before where they're just,

I don't know. They just have this like wild, chaotic, fucked up energy. You've definitely known some people. I feel like I've known people like sweetie i can't think of who they are honestly but i'm like but i know i know that energy and i don't know like and it's so frightening to me and like oppressive to me that i'm like i've

rejected it in my in my psyche of like i can't be around that kind of person i don't even remember the person that i'm thinking of you know but i have that feeling of like get this this energy out of my orbit so the the thing the bathtub scene that you mentioned earlier sv where she's like bathing her father and you see it only from behind but there's like a lot of time spent with her arms in front of his crotch right yeah and that when they screened it people read it as like an incest thing and that it was a sign that like they had some inappropriate sexual relationship when she was a child and that is why she's quote-unquote fucked up sure and campion was like that wasn't my intent at all my intent was she doesn't have

any boundaries. She does not understand what she should or shouldn't be doing in any moment. And the fact that he just kind of sits there passively is showing that the problem is less that he crossed lines with her as a child. It is more that he at no point ever established any boundaries for her whatsoever. Yeah, that makes sense to me like i when i watched it too i was like i was is it going in this way the direction and then it never and i was like no it was it like i didn't articulate it the way you just said that jane did but um like it it didn't have it didn't have a like oh she was sexually abused energy at the end of the day with it it was just like what is that? Right. I mean, I think

you have to think about Campion growing up with a clinically depressed mother and having to contend with behavior that perhaps is not exactly like this, is stuff that is sort of irrational, cannot be explained. But Campion

talks about her mother with a great amount of empathy, where it's just like it's this horrible fucking disease she has you have no idea how awful it is to watch someone suffer from that up close you know there's no easy answer there's not like a reason there's not an inciting incident um you know i mean she's talking about in a lot of ways how it's and this was her recording this commentary what like fucking 15 years ago or whatever so it was you know uh even worse than than it is now marginally but that like these things are just not treated like diseases which they are if you grew up as a child of someone in a household like that you understand this as a

disease not just like well she's a little kooky or like she has to get over it or whatever but we want there to be an explanation of course as there are as i feel like we always feel the way that way whenever we know someone who's sick or who's depressed or who behaves strangely or what right you're like well there's got to be a reason like i want to know why like you know because it makes it feel like it'll be easier to fix it. That's part of why this movie is uncomfortable. You want there to be a quick fix.

Well, here's the deal with Sweetie. Well, I think it's because she's really good at that chair trick. I think that's the problem. I think that's really where it all roots from. Yeah, that's also like the end of the movie is that flashback of her singing not well, you know, like,

so it's like, I know. The glimpse of her as a child, right? The glimpse of her as a child and like getting the attention of her father for that. it's, it's this like,

Oh, she's, they, they enabled this in each other in some way. It's like the, that I don't know. Yeah, and then doing the chair trick. And then like the father starts to try to do the chair trick.

Anyway. Ben, do you like her buddy? I feel like you must like her, sweetie's, you know, her guy. Yeah, Bob. Bob, Bob. I'm sorry, Bob. Yes. Bob.

Yeah, well, and that kind of like, I don't think we have to spend too much time on it, but the 90s of this. No, I think we have to spend 45 minutes on Bob. Yes. Bob. Yeah. Well, and that kind of like, I don't think we have to spend too much time on it, but the 90s. No, I think we have to spend 45 minutes on Bob. Sure. I mean, the 90s of this movie, to me, Bob feels so just like kind of pulled out of that time where he's like, got this weird rockabilly kind of like punk kind of vibe to how he's dressing.

Definitely, obviously a heroin user but again they are bringing out the worst but kind of you know it's so entertaining to me the way they are around each other just drunken fucking animals like i mean yeah the scene where bob the dad takes bob out for lunch and he fully nods off and drools on himself is like he's like still asking him questions while he's drooling. It's like, it's like, so is she going to make it? What do you like here?

It's played at the size of like a Farrelly brothers movie yet. It's still work. That's that whole thing is so fascinating too. We're like the dad keeps on, uh, sort of justifying to Kay that like, you don't understand, Sweetie's not like us. Like she's creative.

She's capable of doing all these things. There's this sort of like rationalization of like, we cannot fix her because she's operating a different level than the rest of us. There's a reason she's this way. And also, and they can't let go of the Sweetie you see at the end of the film,

the child that they remember as this cute little performer or whatever but like this scene where he takes bob out for lunch and you just assume this is gonna be a class of like overprotective dad thing where it's like who the fuck is this guy you've got her believing in some show business dreams we've been down this path before like i'm gonna lay down the law and then his end point he gets to is like so you really think she can make it huh like he's doing all the wind up of like you have to understand right you we've gone through this a lot you know she's been burned before but you think she's really got it and the guy's fucking drooling on himself also he's clearly like uh hooked up with the waitress and she hates his guts yes and the

dad is just kind of like it's not registering with him at all oh my god that scene's amazing i love how much you love this movie ben i never i didn't think about it i didn't think that this would be the ben movie but i should have of course it is it's so my energy like chaotic just weirdo people like my one of my favorite movies is Gummo. So it's like, you know what I mean? Like this is just, it's got that, like, I don't know, buzzy energy. It's funny to think about like this movie premiered, like she's the belle of the ball, right?

And she takes this movie to Cannes and like some people boo it, which like is obvious. And some people are like disgusted by it and i'm like you know i read that i'm like well yeah sweetie's a little polarizing i'm not stunned to hear that it didn't like go over with like gangbusters but i think for her it was kind of like what the fuck is this why are people mad like she naively said like she she said like we cried and cried like you know like that they were just gonna be like hailed as heroes um and maybe that's another reason she sort of ends up now like after this dusting off the slightly more prestigey stuff even though angel at my table on the piano are still you know very idiosyncratic. Like, they're very her. She does three more conventionally prestigey period films in a row.

Yes. And then her next two films after that are her only two other... Hot, weird American sex movies that rule! And her only, like, present-day films, which are very poorly received, both of them. True. That is true. And now she's back. back of course her last two movies have been uh period films although you know what's the top of the lake is that's uh that's

that's tv sure but yeah it is tv but it's highly acclaimed tv tv the plate at the can film festival yes um but uh yeah no it's just i i find this movie so transfixing but i it it makes me sad i mean like and that's not a complaint it but it definitely bums me out and i watched it last night and my wife was very unsettled but she was like again it just seems to be just sort of against the rules like what it's like you know it would be almost i think more easy to take if it was like about a person with a problem and you're dealing with the problem right right like you know here's sweetie and here's what's wrong with her and here's what she's dealing with but it's it never pins that down so instead you're just sort of constantly feeling like you're shifting uncomfortably in

your seat yeah also like when she dies no one's really sad and then and i also as the viewer was like relieved i was like thank you yeah there's some relief sweetie's out of my life you know especially since sweetie's final act is so chaotic that you're like i don't know how this is supposed to end like yeah the the herd jumping up and down in the tree house goes on for so fucking way long and you think the kidhouse goes on for so fucking long. It's way long. And you think the kid might get hurt. You know, like, obviously, you're a little worried about the kid.

Like, there's that sort of creepiness to what's happening. But they keep on doing that shot for underneath where you see sort of, like, the floorboards, like, creaking. They just string it up for so long that, yes, I do think there's a relief when it finally happens. You know, they, like, immediately cut to the kids safely grabbing onto the trunk of the tree like he caught himself and he doesn't have a scratch and then she's there dead she will not stop like coughing up strawberry syrup right it just like keeps on coming out of her mouth uh but there's the relief and there's also i think the sense of like sad inevitability from her family where they were just like,

well, it was a matter of time. Yeah. Also it's like call the police or call someone and they're just standing there and like, yeah. Like just let it be. Let this moment happen.

She feels, it feels like an animal a little bit. Yeah. You know, like they're like, she's so animalistic, but almost kind of the way that she's bit. Yeah. You know, like she's so animalistic, but almost kind of the way that she's treated in that moment, it feels like the passing of an animal,

like the stakes are lower. Yeah. That was the other thing that Lemon said, and the making of thing, is that she had done another play right before this where she had to be naked on stage the entire time so it was like right those are the two things i could be well not like i'm into it but it's like i've desensitized myself to this i could be naked for four days of filming

i can play a child the entire time i know how to do this uh jane please can i tell you one thing i have no problems being in the nude that's what she says uh when jane because jane was like campion was like look if because Jane was like if you want to wear clothes to the scene I will make a fuss and Lemon was like nah that's fine I get it even when she is wearing clothes though those clothes are like dress up clothes she's still like naked

and like how many scenes in this movie does she just like suddenly take off her shirt you know like she's usually she's in underwear for a good percentage of this movie i mean there's the thing in this as we like when it's right she doesn't know how to dress herself like or whatever she gets halfway done and then she's sort of like this is it right i i don't have to like button my shirt or put on it's like she also has like madonna gloves on you know right her look is so wild um there's the thing in this sv which like when i hear people talk about search party right

like so often they go like i like i have to like space episodes out because it makes me so uncomfortable but there's the thing I think you and Charles do incredibly well in like on an episode by episode basis, but especially on a season by season basis where it's like you, you, as opposed to, I think so much of prestige TV and streaming TV and whatever, where it's like things are sort of drawn out for as long as possible. You know, you're like prolonging the inevitable. i feel like the two of you and everyone else who works on the show with you uh will like write yourselves into corners of just going like what's the most extreme fascinating thing that could happen now and then we will solve what you

do after that rather than being worried about how do you go further from that point and and this movie has a lot of that energy and And I think similarly that thing of like. Watching people with incredibly complicated. Somewhat toxic codependent relationships. Put themselves in increasingly uncomfortable situations. But it does not feel like the movie is getting joy from that. Or that it's mocking it. Like there's a weird balance of like genuine.

Love for the characters. While also recognizing their failings. And being fascinated with watching them. that's mocking it like there's a weird balance of like genuine love for the characters while also recognizing their failings and being fascinated with watching them having to contend with more and more complicated situations of their own doing yeah it's funny because i forget that like often my work is hard to watch and that people don't are like oh and and how how much i felt that when watching this. Right. That's why I bring it up, because you were talking about watching this movie. I do hear it from people who will end up finishing all of Search Party and going, I'm glad I did that.

That was great. But it took me a while. Yeah. Yeah. No, I it's it's funny. Like that does tend to be my favorite stuff too, even though I wouldn't say that this is like my favorite movie, but I, I appreciate it so much for tapping into that. Cause this is just more unfamiliar to me than what, what like the dynamics between this in this family and the husband or it's like a little bit, it's not actually my territory, but it is,

it is like the, the, um, the uncomfortableness that I, um, am always like exploring. So it's, it's a, it's interesting that I've like, Oh yeah. I didn't even think about how that's how my, how my work tends to come across. Especially for something you watched at such a young age where most other movies you see that look like this and have this kind of comedic energy are not punishing you in the same way. There's an interesting thing, like, Chris Noonan is in the special thanks of this movie right chris noonan of babe fame the director of babe who uh weirdly only ever directs two feature films in

his entire career miss potter's chris noonan right he does babe and miss potter and gets like a best director nomination his first film out doesn doesn't make another movie for over 10 years. And then has once again receded. But he gets a lot of weird special thanks credits on things or consultant credit on things. And he started in Australian cinema in like the 70s. I mean, he made like a student film when he was like 16 that won festival awards. Yeah, worked on tv was deeply entrenched in the industry and and like babe is the movie coming years after this that i think has the closest vibe to this movie weirdly of anything else i've ever seen but there is some sort of shared like continuum between like this babe obviously the other uh george miller films but especially his earlier films the early peter jackson movies like there is some odd overcranked cartoonish but like quietly dark new zealand australian comedy vibe that i never really see in American films. And most of those filmmakers end up like,

as they get older, evolving that style a little bit and going out of it. But like, there's a very specific feel to these movies. And also, I guess most of those films I mentioned are all happening around the same time. I mean, those careers are all starting in the late 70s through the mid 80s that's when like australian cinema is revived and you're right like that's when it's there's serious investment again i guess right uh that's where you know all all this is coming from and maybe maybe they were film school contemporaries i don't know i just wonder what's culturally going on there there's this like very like down there these these dark looney tune movies you know yeah it's weird down there that's weird i don't know i

don't want to be stereotypical about australians but australians are all crazy it's the craziest country in the world uh i have like no concept of what day-to-day life is like in Australia. Every time I see a movie that takes place in Australia, I, I feel so like the environment feels so foreign to me. And, you know, literally like winter is summer and summer is winter.

You know, like Christmas and Christmas and summer. What? Um, yeah. And like, it just feels so. There,

there is something about a lot of Australian movies that I'm just like, have a sense of unease with, with them. And I like Muriel's wedding, which I love. Oh yeah. It just, there is also that same sort of like,

uh, discomfort. And I'm very curious what the, I don't know, literally just what it's like to live in Australia. Yeah, it's weird. I don't know. I've never been, and I'm super, I grew up in a country that is super biased and stereotypical about Australian people,

which is the country of Britain. America, I don't know why. America, we judge Australian people a lot. I think Americans, I think the country of Brits. I don't know why. We judge Australian people a lot. I think Americans... I think the American take on Australia is the Crocodile Dundee take, where it's like, oh yeah, those guys are like a good time. They drink beer,

they throw shrimps on Barbies, they wrestle crocodiles, right? That's what it's like down there. Whereas I think Brits are like, they're savages. They're crazy the they drink even more than we do and they you know i don't know there's there's this sort of like harsher edge because brits are so prejudiced about uh certain countries it's very funny i mean this is also classic dumb grift dumb brain shit but like i remember being a little kid in like elementary school

and a teacher telling me that she was from oregon and i was like with like covered wagons and shit because my frame of reference that's in my mind i was like this game represents what oregon is like right now right i was just like this is what oregon has always been and will always be and it's like i've been to sydney twice i still whenever i hear australia and will always be. And it's like, I've been to Sydney twice. I still, whenever I hear Australia, think of the outback. Like, it's hard for me to contend with the fact that there are, like, cities where people are wearing clothes and shoes. I started this, but, like, I really have to apologize to our Australian listeners. It's a very cosmopolitan country in so many ways.

I'm excusing. I'm apologizing for myself. Noing i'm apologizing for myself no i'm apologizing for myself here i'm acknowledging that i'm a fucking idiot and i've seen it for myself obviously but what i'm saying is more offensive role and new zealand is now just thought of as the shire i feel like in most american minds where it's like this idyllic fucking fantasy land. But I just, I don't understand culturally what's going on. And I hope fucking listeners at me and give me good links to read or someone explains or we find something later

in the other episodes here. But culturally what's going on where it's like, because Muriel's wedding is another one. Like the Jocelyn Moorhead PJ Hogan thing as well. It's like, there Muriel's Wedding is another one. Like the Jocelyn Moorhead, PJ Hogan thing as well. It's like there's some odd vibe to New Zealand and Australian comedy that is very unique, especially from like 1983 to 92 or something. There's also like, just thinking about these two movies, like their haircuts are like kind of off in a weird way.

Their style is... I don't even know if it's out of touch or if it's just doing its thing. I don't have a context of it other than watching these movies. So I'm like, what is it like living there? Because it also feels very quiet all the time. It's like in the houses, you don't hear anyone else outside. It kind of feels maybe a little bit like deserty Tucson or something. Like, I don't know.

I've always been kind of fascinated with what is it like to live in Australia? I guess this is an Australian film. I should take that back. Obviously, she's from New Zealand. This is fully an Australian film. Yes. After going to Australian film school, working with Australian people.

But there's that weird sort of manic, scary quality to Australian comedy at this point in time. And then I feel like when I see Australian comedy shit from the mid-'90s on, that's gone. It becomes gentler again. Sure. I mean, I do think there was also more crossover hits that were more gentle crowd pleasers coming out of australia in the 90s and 2000s the castle and

shit the castle the dish you know those sorts of movies that are more family front babe obviously um but you know yeah there's obviously there's a weird sort of you know there's weird humor and sort of avant-garde stuff always bubbling out over there so you know so it's at the ends of the earth and the sun is you know two inches from your face and uh you know there's scorpions and stuff oh sorry i'm slipping into stereotype again yeah there's like this doesn't weirdly like the movies almost feel todd solanzi in a way like in that era this one especially yeah it's like yeah so it's it's interesting todd solanzi is a good comparison for this movie like welcome to the dollhouse is a decent comparison for this movie welcome to the doll all houses more straightforward plot wise right like

you know it's uh yeah right but still but it's like if danny devito directed a todd salons script right it's it's more whimsical is they like it's a little less right sweetie isn't bleak exactly there's this weird like fable like quality to this movie i guess because it's so heightened that's that's their protection you have with sweetie right you're like this isn't real like like you know because again i i do think it's sort of like a haunting movie all like right like you could describe it that way like she really is kind of like a poltergeist everything she does is so weird yeah and uh she's this sort of problem they have to confront and weather and destroy and then they're free of her but they're still kind of haunted by it uh with you know because the last shot of the movie is like

haunting like you know the ghostly glimpse of her as a baby as a kid um but she this is what i keep i just keep like when you're when you if like this is not my situation but if like i had an older sibling or a younger sibling and we were all grown-ups but my parents were kind of still you know letting them off for being a fuck-up or being a weirdo or whatever and i was trying to be normal and like maybe you know that that sibling just kind of grows in your brain into this sort of like super chaotic person like beyond like they're taking maybe this story from gerald lee's life and they're just like what if we just inflate the personality to these like you know ridiculous proportions of of your your wild sibling who who everyone is indulging in a weird way.

Well, look, it reminded me, unfortunately, of the very dark period in my life a couple of years ago when I started obsessively watching Dr. Phil, because I could not get over... Your Dr. Phil face, yes. I could not get over the juice of those episodes where someone is like a maniac, and the rest of the family's on the pound. They're like, yeah, know what to do and dr phil's like come on i mean that that's the the worst thing that can happen to you is having someone like that be in your immediate family because you can't right you can't like you to an extent you can sort of like set boundaries that are like i'm not going to talk to you if you're talking that way but you can't be like you're out of my life i mean there are of

course situations where that happens but like generally with that especially if they are you know mentally um i don't know ill um then, you have to, you have to confront it constantly. And then in doing so, you're not actually confronting, you're just like disassociating. This is, this is where they're here right now, but hopefully I can, they'll leave my house and then I can go back to my other life. That's like not. That's right. That was the thing thing on your shoulder all the time the thing i could not fucking get my fill of watching dr phil was uh like i i don't know what to do and he'd be like look at everything you're you're enabling them this is all fucking terrible and they'd be like i don at everything you're enabling them. This is all fucking terrible. And they'd be like, I don't know.

Like just disassociating from it, creating this little bubble of deniability, right? To like keep themselves safe from having to acknowledge the reality of everything all the time. But then you also go like, how are you feeling? And you're like, terrible. My life's a mess. Like nothing's working. The woman whose son hasn't left bed for four years. And she's like, why won't he get out of bed?

And it's like, because his TV is right there. Who brought his TV in? She's like, well, I moved the TV in. But it was because he wouldn't get out of bed. What am I supposed to do? Who empties his urine jars? I mean, I do, but who else? If I don't do it, then who's going to do it? I tell him not to. Is this person The Rock working out?

Yeah. Sorry. I don't know. This thing with The Rock pees in bottles. Sorry. Oh, my God. I don't know. This thing where The Rock pees in bottles. I just can't get over it. Yeah, he pees in bottles while he's working out, and people are like, why? And he's like, well, the places I work at don't have bathrooms. And I'm like, why don't you go to a place that does have a bathroom?

It seems like a better way to do it, in my opinion. That's all. Yeah, let me just... He pees in bottles and then uh sells them as terramana tequila he's working out so much that you know when i go to the gym it's not like oh i've got to take a pee break in the middle of the gym right you're like every five minutes baby i gotta bust it out yeah get me that vososs bottle joyless it must be Voss

he's peeing in a Voss bottle is there anything else about Sweetie I'm looking at the any other scenes we're not thinking of what about the dream sequences because I feel like we touched on the last you know the last thing at the end there with like you know

the dream sequence of her as a girl but it's throughout the movie and I really love it and it's weird as hell and i can't even there's there's random images like it's very dreamlike it's hard to even like again very ben oh totally but like there's like a part where there's a dream sequence where it's kind of like a more to do with the tree and it being buried or rather not buried sorry under the bed and it's just like all these quick weird shots and it's like it's very emotional but like again it's hard to put your finger on what really it's trying to say well yeah i actually i actually was

like did she rip up the tree in her sleep or did or was there that not part of the tree you know like it's it's kind of edited in a strange way right the tree is very haunted i really i can't get over her putting the tree in the closet also it was i was just like okay so what's the uh the um emotional relevance of this tree like what is like roots okay like family roots you you know? The whole time I was just like, there's trying to decode what exactly they were getting at with the tree. And I wonder what Jane had to say about it

in her commentary. She's like, I don't know, the tree was interesting. Because then there's also like a root in her grave that has to be cut, you know? Oh, yeah. But that's the thing. Like, she's rarely one-to-one where she's like, and if you think about it, the tree is X. She's more like what you're saying, Griff.

She's like, yeah, that image really stirred something up in me. So I knew I had to get it into the movie. It happened with Gerard and me, and then I thought that would be good for the movie. And I love this quote about Sweetie coming out in America where she says I love comfy sofas not hardback chairs so I feel guilty when people say

I felt uncomfortable watching your movie she wants to make you a comfy sofa she just can't do it I guess she's just sort of like well it's another hardback chair i'm sorry i hope you like it i mean another thing that adds to just the weird vibe of this movie is that the score is all like gospel choir oh yeah which is just not what you're expecting to

go along with these images or vice versa you know everything that this movie is like out of 10 but each 10 is in a completely different direction um she got a lot of lynch comparisons when this movie came out which makes sense it's funny that that's where people started with her because i don't think it's where she goes no but i do obviously because this movie is sort of quasi kitsch and has a lot of like very stark you know imagey visual you know like i get why people made the lynch comparison like and she sort of rolls her eyes at it but she's like yeah we both like our art school people so like i i sort of get it um but uh but like you know obviously there's nothing else she makes that I would say really lines up closely to David Lynch at all. The goofiness of his interest in meditation feels Lynchian.

Yes, he loves meditation. And the way it's portrayed, though, even where the dad is like, what is he doing? I love that scene. The class. And then she tries to meditate yeah that class and she's like well i'm not gonna enjoy it oh i related to that so much like where you're like i can't do it i can't do this and then she has a profound experience yeah yeah it's sort of a scary experience i don't think it worked i just love how that guy just says like that's fine like that's yeah he just he only has the one answer for just fucking close your eye you're doing it any of you guys meditate anyone ever meditate everyone tells me to do it all the time

it's one of those things that anytime you do yeah but but i do guided meditations that are also sort of like hypnosis so oh that's interesting that might be better like i just i really struggle i much i much prefer guided meditations yeah i'm not i'm not very good at guiding myself in any way towards anything i can't sit still i can't like not think so exactly it's pretty hard i need a guide with like the little flag at the stick saying like over here over here but like i also very much appreciate the like torture of meditation and how it's like wait this is good for me how yeah exercise same deal just like yeah i know i know um i i've i would i would say that i've never had like some people who meditate regularly are like it changed my life and i'm like i don't know if it changed my life really

like it's like it kind of i don't know sure's fair i i guess that's my dubiousness it's like people tell me about it and they're like i think it would really do a lot for you and i'm like i agree you're probably right then they're like it fucking changed my life i i i'm i'm eight times more powerful than i was before and i'm like now you're making me not want to do i don't know if i believe that and they're like i'm looking at your life and i don't know if I believe that. And they're like, I'm looking at your life and I don't know. It doesn't seem that much different. Right. I'm like, I believe that it helped. Yeah.

Well, because I also feel like that's the kind of thing where people get into it and they're like, I teach it now. And I'm like, I teach it now. What do you mean? They're like, yeah, I'm a guru. I'm like, OK, cool, man. I mean, you're really into it. Did this movie get a proper american release david it did this movie was released in new york in 1990 uh january 1990 after playing the new york film festival uh and it was out in australia the year before september 89 i don't know if it had

like a much wider release than like sure you know uh big cities in america or whatever but it did get a little release um and it was a festival favorite you know a festival sweetie it was a bit of a festival sweetie it was a can it was a tiff it was in new york and then it you know went to some other places um and it made like 400 grand in australia which i have to imagine is is is about as much as anyone hoped for right like i mean i don't think anyone was that's a little bit of film that cost way less than a million dollars and then an angel at my table is basically you know in, in the works. Like that was that, that,

that comes out just a year later in Australia. Uh, so she's working fast. She's already getting to work on what she thinks people want out of a Jane Campion movie. She's like, okay, I got, I did that one.

Thank you for giving me the mulligan. Uh, so sweetie, do you want me to do the box office for january 19th 1990 because that's what i was gonna do i think it's time yeah all right okay look this movie came out early 1990 so number one is a a holdover from oscar season uh of 1989 it's been out for six weeks driving miss daisy um no driving miss daisy is in the top 10 it's a number eight okay but this is i you know what this was probably driving miss daisy's biggest

challenger because this movie wins best director at the uh oscars born on the fourth of july it's born on the fourth of july okay tom cruise is ron kovic. Yeah. An Oliver Stone film. Have you seen Born on the Fourth of July SV? No. I was going to say, isn't Do the Right Thing that same time or something? It is. But obviously that was not nominated for Best Picture. Oh, it wasn't nominated at all.

Okay. But it just didn't win. It got screenplay and supporting actor for The White Guy. Yeah. Right. Yeah. I have never seen Born on the Fourth of July either. It is funny when I watch obsessively the Siskel and Ebert Oscar specials from each year when I can't fall asleep.

That year they're talking about how they had been like very dismissive of Tom Cruise up until that point. And they were like, okay, fair enough. We're ready. Crow. Here's the movie. He finally proved that he's actually an actor and not just a movie star. He's like 29 in that film.

Uh, like when he made it, he's like third. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah. 29.

It is just wild that his career was so dominant so early on that by 29, he was having to prove to people like, yes, I know I've made six mega hits in a row. But now I'm going to slow down and do a serious searing drama with the man who just won Best Director to prove that I can really act. I love Tom Cruise. We've all got a soft spot for Tom Cruise on this podcast. He loses. He should have won. Not in terms of I think it's the best performance of the year. It's actually not my favorite Tom Cruise, although he's good.

It's a very committed performance. He's very in it. But he was viewed as being unbeatable. He was certainly the favorite, but he loses to Daniel Day-Lewis for My Left Foot, who not only is that performance obviously also insanely showy, but that movie became the kind of feel, that's the original Miramax feel good out of nowhere thing.

I'm kind of wondering if maybe when I saw Sweetie, it was like my mom was on some kick, because I'm like, oh, I also remember seeing my left foot really young and also disturbed. Also disturbing. She must have been been on a kick of like, what are all the important films this year

that I'm going to watch? The serious movies. No, my my left foot is like I feel like the first successful execution of like the Weinstein attack on the Oscars. And then by the piano, things are really up and running. And by English patient, they've perfected it. And they can sweep the whole board. It's like, little do they know, I guess. But they're going to have so many other chances to give Daniel Day-Lewis an Oscar.

Right. And it probably would have been good to just get the Cruise win done. But whatever. He wins. Cruise loses. Cruise doesn't have an Oscar. Daniel Day lewis danny day lewis dan lewis sorry ben has no please let's show some respect tom cruise has has no oscars no oscars three nominations uh my left foot has that incredible miramax poster because like the the painted post that looks like a stained glass window posters are like the stained glass painted poster and then there's the miramax one they put out later

where it's just uh fucking daniel day lewis's headshot it's him with like long hair looking super handsome smiling and then brenda fricker in the background like standing with her arms up like victory and it's in no way representative of how he looks in that movie or what the vibe of that movie is look it was a big deal i don't know i mean it's not a movie i love fricker is incredible in it though she is such a deserving winner anyway born of the foot lies number number one of the box. Number two is a buddy comedy, buddy cop movie. Kind of a classic of the genre, I would say. 89.

It's kind of a classic of the genre. You know, it's no lethal weapon in terms of success or whatever, but it's a pretty big hit that gets pretty good reviews with two big stars. And I just feel like it's one of those, you know, it's a good buddy cop movie. It's very, very energetic. So they're cops. Did it get a sequel?

No. Interesting. Should have. It's not Tango and Cash. It is Tango and Cash. Oh, okay. It is Tango and Cash. It sure is.

Yeah. Yeah. I think a very troubled production, but a pretty watchable movie. It is Tango and Cash. Oh, okay. It is Tango and Cash. It sure is. Yeah. Yeah. I think a very troubled production, but a pretty watchable movie. Yeah, agreed. I've never heard of it. Sylvester Stallone and Kurt Russell, SV.

Okay. They're rival detectives, but they got to work together because Jack Palance frames one of them for murder. I can't remember which one. Or maybe both of them. Maybe they're both framed for murder. And Stallone's like the button-down down one he's got glasses in this stallone

is the nerd he's tango and kurt is the cowboy and he is cash uh and terry hatcher is in it uh and it's pretty good um and it's directed by that Russian guy who made all these big Russian movies and then also a bunch of Hollywood stuff. Kuchelovsky. Yes. It's also just, I mean, it's the perfect name for a buddy cop movie. Tango and Cash.

Yeah. These two guys. I believe it's the last film of the 80s. I think it's the last film released in the 80s. Oh, really? Does that make sense? It's December 22nd, 1989 the 80s oh really it's december 22nd 1999 like it's like that was it goodbye 80s tango and cash is your salute uh and then number three at the box office griff is another cop drama but it's just a serious cop drama okay it's a serious

cop drama from 1989 underrated in my opinion directed by kind of an arty director hmm uh big star big star crooked crooked cop drama based on a real story or just no it's one of those big stars though that everyone forgets is a big star but he really was 80s and 90s he was a big star you struggle with him i feel like i feel like you haven't seen a lot of his movies oh okay um struggled with other of his others of his movies in the box office of guessing them yeah but you don't know what my opinion on the man is i don't know maybe you love him i can't remember i think you like him hmm he's a bit of a silver fox david was pointing at his head yeah he's you know he's a silver fox he was a big star of the 80s and

90s i struggle to remember it's not a it's not a clint uh no not clint no no right i'm trying to think who has a silver fox in the 80s and 90s you really struggle david keeps pulling at his hair i always he's got good hair is it um i mean i don't know the movie but are you talking about um god now i can't remember pretty woman guy it's richard gear himself yes i am i am talking about richard gear what's your opinion on richard gear griffin but uh okay i feel like you haven't seen the good gears no i haven't shifted into the right gear i mean i love days of heaven days of heaven's maybe one of my 10 favorite movies ever uh yeah and he's in that one i i generally struggle with gear a little bit okay this is

a crooked cop drama with richard gear and I just feel like I'm not going to pull the fucking name of this thing you're neutral on gear I just had to get that out yeah Ben great great great 200 comedy points great well done it's got a very generic name it's a Mike Figgis film and it's called Internal

Affairs right right and it also features Adam Garcia Nancy Travis Laurie metcalf and billy baldwin wow uh and it's a totally solid cop movie um uh but it's you know he's just got a lot of movies where you're like oh sure yeah that thing did okay you know he was plugging along uh posts like pretty woman and officer and a gentleman american gigolo like that's his like you know booming time it's a thing that doesn't exist anymore where it's like richard gear is an a-list leading man with him at the front of your picture you can guarantee it will open to eight million dollars and end up at 32 domestic like that used to be on hbo and

a viable model you didn't have to be a fucking half a billion dollar guy. Absolutely. He razzle dazzle them later though, Griffin. He did. He did in fact razzle dazzle them later. God, he made so many goddamn movies. I'm just looking at his. He's made a lot of good movies and a lot of nothing movies.

Number four at the box office, Griffin, is a film directed by a man you just in on this episode invoked as a director i invoked this director you invoked this director he directed this film but he's also in it it's a black comedy and he's on the poster like he's dreaming up the movie it's it's war of the roses it's the war of the roses directed by danny devito it's one of my favorite poster layouts ever because it's douglas and turner in bed and then devito's at the bottom of the poster like indicating up i think i feel like he's got a cigar in one hand he's he's got a cigarette or a cigar or something and there's smoke it's a cigarette and there's smoke coming out of it and the the picture is forming from the smoke right it's like he's created it out of his cigarette well he is the director of the picture you have to understand he's also in it i do like though it's one of the

the only posters that it feels like is physicalizing the idea of like danny devito presents here you are these two fucks are mad at each other here comes my fucking movie it's a good movie it's a very dark uh comedy have you seen the war of the roses it's it's oh i think you would love that movie you'd like it you'd like it okay yeah we've we've talked about this though where like devito was one of the only guys who was able it has been able to make pitch black comedies into like major hits and then it dropped off for him but he had a couple in a row where it was just like how was that

a blockbuster? His career man. Yeah. Like first him starring and then him directing and then he's just also in it as basically Danny DeVito. Yeah. It's such a funny career. Yeah. I love the man. Now number five is a cult movie I would say. Okay. Not a huge hit but like one a huge cable

hit like a a huge tale on this movie this was a real fun monster movie of the 90s that just whatever i guess played on vhs forever got a bunch of 80s my sequels okay get sequels in the 90s like video sequels right uh it gets video sequels it's a horror movie or is it a yeah but it's like a comic horror movie like it's like a fun is it an actual monster movie or it's a monster movie yes is is the monster the title no what the monster is making is the title what the monster is Making is the title. What the Monster is Making is the title? This film also stars my favorite actor alive. Oh, is this Tremors? It's Tremors.

Oh, I love Tremors. Tremors is so good. Tremors is great. What the Monster is Making. That's very tricky. They're making Tvors right but the bacon gave it away to me yeah kevin bacon in tremors and it's one of those classic kevin bacon things where he's like what the fuck i make a movie it's good yeah it's fun yeah it comes out everyone ignores it and then five years later everyone's coming up to me being like you know what's great is tremor yeah and he's like well i didn't hear that in 1990 that it was great

like where were you then it's like the classic kevin bacon situation anytime he leads a movie people later watch it on tape and are like yeah that was good yeah why didn't i see that in the theater yeah it's wild it's also fucking ron underwood one of the wildest careers that's his first movie then he makes city slickers which is a huge fucking hit but you would not expect that he's the guy hired to do that off of tremors then he does hearts and souls the weird robert downey jr ghost rom-com. Right, serious comedy, right. Right, Speechless, which is... Did that do well? That, no. Hearts and Souls?

Yeah. Uh, no, no, definitely not. Speechless is what, Diane Keaton? No, Michael Keaton, sorry. It's Michael Keaton and Geena Davis. The poster is just their lips, which is like, you're like, well, you did have the two most distinctive sets of lips

of the early 90s. You had some good mouths there. Yeah, he had good lips. That's true. That's a good point. Yeah, it's like fair enough but that's i think they're both speech writers for rival political campaigns then he makes mighty joe young uh yes right he makes monster i'm sorry gorilla you know right the fucking king kong rip rip off he does pluto nash oh god sure notorious disaster and then his final film ever is in the mix which we all remember as the usher chas palminteri crime comedy of 2005

uh absolutely a thanksgiving smash um you forget griffin that now he's working in the uh tv movie realm he made a movie called santa baby starring jenna mccarthy uh in which she plays uh santa and mrs claus's daughter and then there was a sequel called santa baby 2 colon christmas maybe he's he's made like six uh paul sorvino plays santa in these movies holiday and handcuffs deck the. He does a lot of Christmas TV movies. It's also wild that, like, Bacon does Tremors. People are like, is this low rent for Kevin Bacon to be doing this movie? It does not hit.

It grows in popularity years later. They do fucking eight sequels, right, direct-to-video and cable. And then they're like, we're ready to properly reboot Tremors. We're doing a proper Tremors TV series. Kevin Bacon is coming back. And people are like, fuck. They shoot a pilot, doesn't get picked up. Now, I'm about to change my background to Paul Sorvino as Santa Claus.

And Santa, maybe two Christmas, maybe. Please. Okay. Enjoy. Wow. What do we think that's not my vision of Santa that's not your Santa

he looks haggard he looks like Francis Ford Coppola he just looks like I'm not getting Santa I'm sorry there's another picture I have to do this again it's that good this one's even

worse i'm sorry paul i truly respect you as an actor i think you're so great but why did you play santa when you just were gonna look so tired all the time look at him look how grumpy he is who's mrs claus uh it's a good question there's only one way for me to find out uh santa baby two christmas maybe mrs claus is played by lynn griffin hey uh from black christmas wow okay fair enough yeah anyway uh so that's the box office game griffin uh you've also got always steven spielberg's. You have Steel Magnolias still chugging along along with Driving Miss Daisy. A lot of

sort of, you know, weepy type movies. Steel Magnolias is way better, though. The Little Mermaid. Yeah. And Back to the Future Part 2. Still sticking around. A couple of blank check films

have passed. Hanging on the outskirts of that tent. The only new movie this week back to the future part two still sticking around a couple couple blind check uh films of past hanging on the outskirts of that tent yeah the only new movie this week is tremors and of course sweetie if you live in whatever the upper side or wherever this man tremors wasn't even succeeding with a january release yeah it's not even succeeding against fucking the third week of internal affairs or whatever yeah that's wild it's. It's like, eat a toilet, Bacon. I'm still here. Right. Yeah.

SV, thank you so much for coming back on the show. Thank you, yes. Thanks for having me. You're one of a group of people who have recently told me how much you appreciate the show being long because it helped you kill time while doing long things. Some mundane task. Were you listening to it on a road trip? Yes, and I probably will do it.

I think, honestly, maybe we listened to it on the way to our wedding. But I think we'll also listen to it on the way to Thanksgiving, which is a long road trip. Right, you were like, it helps because we can get the whole road trip done in only three blank check episodes. Yes, exactly. That was like a full day? 24 hours on the road? Yeah.

Jesus. No, it is. It's like, okay, we won't even be done with this episode by the time we're there. So that's good. Right. I mean, if it's a bewitched,

you won't be finished. It's a great Joshua Tree, Palm Springs drive. Right. A final season of Search Party. We're recording this in low advance. I don't know if it's about to premiere or if it's just premiered.

This episode is coming out January 16th. So I think it will have just premiered. It will have just premiered, yes. So check it out on HBO. Is it week to week or is it all dropping at once? It's all dropping at once. Wow. I will say, as I was talking about earlier,

the thing I love that you and Charles do where you write yourselves into corners that you have to write past rather than like going for the obvious

A to B sort of plotting. Yeah. It makes it difficult, I would imagine, when you're ending a show to figure

out how to actually end it because you've set up this standard where anything that feels like it should be the end of another show,

you can get past. That being said, I know how the season ends and it's insane and you actually have come up with the thing that you cannot write past i know so i'm very impressed you know um oh god someone someone said to me once like when you when you end this show you have to be like i can't believe they went there and that really stuck in my head i think you do it yeah okay i hope this works out yeah i i am i am deeply impressed and i can't wait to to watch the whole thing oh man same so excited super excited and everyone watch yeah everyone watch everyone Everyone watch. Every single one of you.

And I want to thank everyone for listening and tell them to please remember to rate,iano, and J.J. Bursch for our research, Leigh Montgomery, and the Great American Album for our theme song. You can listen to their new album Extremely Loud and Incredibly Online wherever albums are found these days. Go to blankies.red.com for some real nerdy shit and you can go to patreon.com slash blank check for blank

check special features where we cover franchises and right now we are ghost busting we are in fact we are now the family that busts together hey if you haven't signed up for the patreon we're actually um every uh release uh day uh we'll also be offering from our archive the marvel commentary series so you you can check out past episodes if you... So this is now, yeah, our fourth year of the Patreon. And going forward, we're going to start taking things out from behind the paywall after three years. So on the 1st, 11th, and 21st of every month, if you're already a Patreon subscriber, you're going to get new episodes.

If you're not, you can go to our Patreon page and those episodes from three years earlier there'll be a new one dropped every 10 days that will unlock from behind the wall yeah so check it out there's some fun stuff marvel movies guys yeah uh you can listen to three-year-old uh marvel commentaries including the one where uh on-Man Far From Home, I say, wouldn't it just be cool if Marvel didn't release a movie for 18 months and then the world ended and they couldn't? They sure didn't. Tune in next

week for an angel at my table. Who's the guest? Or is that the movie? Okay. Ben. And as always... I'm completely blanking on the thing right here. The boss baby likes Sweetie? I don't know. Yeah, she does. She liked it.

She did. She liked it. She waggled. Okay.