Gallipoli with Jennifer Kent

From a place you've never heard of, a podcast you'll never forget.

Okay, for a guest, just for the context of what's happening. That's the tagline of a film, and he's put the word podcast. The American tagline. Now, I think it's an interesting marketing strategy. It's kind of a tagline saying, "Oh, Jesus, this is a hard one to market." We're a place you've never heard of.

You're leaving a place you've never heard of. Hey, guys, tagline. I know this title's going to make no sense to you. But if you watch the movie, you'll be happy about it after the fact. Right. You won't forget it. It's also, it's a poster that's the final image of the film.

That's what's happening. That's the final image, yeah. That is really bold. I thought it is. But it's out of context.

Yes, you don't know. Yeah, yeah.

“That's what's so interesting about it is, it's not obfuscating the ending at all,”

but it is not a context in a way where you don't read into it. And then when the movie hits that image, it's almost twice as devastating to now understand what that image was you were looking at. But he's shown to the same thing.

And this is a movie that reminded you, like platoonly sort of, is drafting off this movie. And that's another movie where they had the final image, basically, as the poster. But basically, final image. You're basically the actual final image, right?

Yeah, you're right. It's put through the year. No, it's 806. Yeah. When I was a kid,

we used to actually go to the cinema for school. And so this film was a film that we all went to see. And this was like a new release school field trip to the theater. Yes, exactly. And watching it again last night,

which is 45 years later, I could not believe that some images were emblazoned. Yeah, I saw. And one of them was that final image. I remembered that. I also remembered Jack's conversation with his uncle.

You know, that stuff about racing. I wrote it down, which is, you know, "What are your legs still springs?" What are they going to do? They're going to help me down the track.

How fast can you run as fast as a leopard?

“How fast are you going to run as fast as a leopard?”

Then let's see, you do it. And I was just like, as a kid, that really got to me. I remembered it. Yes, I do.

How old have you been when you saw it? About 10, around 10. But the thing that's so devastating for me last night is as a 10 year old. You see a film like this and you think, "What a terrible thing that happened in our history."

You know, that's terrible. But then, you know, as a woman in my 50s, looking at this and seeing nothing has changed, I just started howling. I was like, you know, seeing what just happened in Iran

and knowing that the human beings, the so-called forgettable masses,

are the ones that always suffer.

And just to know that nothing changes. This film, it gutted me last night. And I just felt, "Wow, this is a masterpiece." Hard agree. Jennifer, some lore on this podcast.

This is Blink Fake with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. The podcast about filmography is directors who have massive success early on in their careers. So it says, "Getting to make possibly the most expensive,

Australian film made up into this point, but possibly the world warrior beat it by a little bit." Okay, sure, sure. It was basically at that level of the industry rising to establish this is the new ceiling of what could be made.

And being given a series of Blink checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want and sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce. Baby, we are talking about the film Gallipoli. Yes.

And place you've never heard of.

podcast, you'll never forget. Hopefully. So this is Australia. The place you've never heard of. Oh, Gallipoli.

“That's why that's why the American tagline.”

It's the funny thing. Yeah, Australian tagline was just Peter Wears film of Gallipoli. Okay. Okay. Okay.

Okay. Yeah. One of our emerging filmmakers has made a film about a very important historic event in Australia. I guess it sold itself a more in that way.

Yes. This is a mini series on the film's Peter Wears. It's called Podnic at Hanging Cast. That's right. Our guest today to my great excitement is one of my favorite

modern filmmakers. Someone I've talked about so much. An our guest from the furthest away. This is true. This is true.

It could be broken. So I don't think we've ever had a guest from so far away moving on to the show. But furthest away geographically furthest away in time.

Yeah. It's tomorrow. Yeah. We're a day ahead. This like flying cars and shit around here.

Because I was our friend Rob Shiro, a mutual friend helped us. Yes. And we were going back and forth about what days and times to throw out. And I said Monday evening and he went and just to clarify by that, you mean her Tuesday. Right.

Yeah.

This is always I'm used to it.

I'm the master of okay see you realize I'm in the future. Right. You have to do this action. Yeah.

“You have to go ahead, but for the you know later in the next day, if that makes sense.”

But anyway. Yes. I'm here. We match the great Jennifer Kent. The filmmaker behind the Babadook and the Nightingale to my favorite movies of the last few years.

Yeah. Well, it was more than 10 years for Babadook. Babadook. It was just a 10th anniversary. It was just last year was 10 10 years, which is sort of unbelievable to me.

Often contend it is like one of the most influential films of this century. Wonderful. And I beyond just how much I love it and how exceptional I think it is. I do think there's a ripple effect across all of horror at a studio level at an independent level globally. Like I do think there was a turning point in that film.

And I've seen the entire language of horror change around it. Well, you know, not not we're not here to talk about me. In regards to that film, it was really hard to get made actually because there's a big snobbery within the Australian funding systems towards horror. Right. And so I said to them, it was Arthouse Horror and their response was.

You know, there's no such thing as that. But that's the way I sort of treated it. That it was, I mean, to call it elevated is it sort of is it's a disparaging term towards horror and cinema. I think all horror is elevated because it's just pure cinema. And that's why I'm with you.

And I've always found the elevated horror thing about it.

Right. Yeah. The fact that we had to call it arthouse horror and trying to get financing to make it shows that it was before the elevated horror conversation. Yeah. And now I think they're like, okay, bring us your horror. Right.

And that's good. I'm really happy that that means that other filmmakers who really care about the genre. And there are many, there are, you know, many of them in Australia that they can get their films made. But you know, finding a way to tell what is clearly like a story that personally means a lot to you that has big ideas and big emotions and big.

“It's like story notions to communicate that it's not just like, I'll make a horror movie because that's what can get sold.”

Or I'll take a different idea and I'll press it up in horror. When I saw a babbit took it felt like the atom was, yeah, of like, oh, this is a pathway for what this genre can be. And it has felt like I don't, I have found it entirely transformed of on like the landscape before as a movie I adore. Also, I've claimed the story before on the podcast, but I went to see it with my parents. And like 40 minutes in my mother was gasping. It was my second time seeing it. I dragged them to see it because I loved it so much.

And like 40 minutes in my mother was like covering her mouth with her hand. And I said, it's really scary, right? And she went, no, you don't understand. This is the only movie I've seen that depicts what it felt like to raise you as a child. Yeah, he was, he was, he was the doctor, boy, right here. Oh, well, me too. I mean, I used to like, you can go cut without breaks and you know, send them rolling down hills with me and them and yeah, I was pretty pretty.

Maybe I wasn't seeing the babbit looking every corner, but I relate, put it that way, Griffin. I don't know if I was seeing the babbit look literally, but yes, the movie, it's not only helped me a lot in terms of therapy, it unlocked a lot of things. Yeah, I mean, I had one guy who wrote to me and said that his, he lost his dad very young and his mum raised three boys. And he said he said he's an editor and he was just watching it late at night, like put it on half watching it. And he said that he, who's just sort of drawn in and by the end he said, thank you, you know, this was more valuable to me than 20 years of therapy.

“And as a filmmaker, I mean, that when you get that kind of, I mean, that's why I do it, you know, I, I've really turned people to make film set.”

Yeah, yes. And get a cut somehow, sent back to me.

But no, it means a lot to really reach people, you know, and you never know who you're going to reach.

I mean, this Peter we are know that, you know, someone's watching his film 45 years later and just ugly crying about, you know, the messages of the film.

What, what is your relationship to we are generally like, are you seeing most of his filmography? What, you know, did you, I guess you grew up with these movies as you just said. Yeah, well, the interesting thing about, you know, without giving you an lecture on it, but we didn't make it. You're invited to get, we can't, how are they just say here, well, you know, it's not really in film lecture, that would be just by school or asses. Well, okay, let me start way back in the beginning. My great great uncles were film producers great great in the silent era and that.

Okay, in Australia and Salem. Yeah, yeah. And so my dad being low key and sort of chill Australian as we all are just close to before he died.

“Did I ever tell you that your great great uncles were film producers?”

And I said no. And anyway, told me the story that, you know, they, they were also film distributors and they distributed the first film ever made, which is the history of the net, the net Kelly gang, the history of the Kelly gang.

It's the first film, how long was it?

It's the first film ever made, like hearing the world. Wow. Period, yeah. And that was, you know, as a feature length, but a lot, it's lost. There's only bits of it now.

But then they went and produced like a lot of silent films with Raymond Longford and Lotty Lion who were like big stars. And we had in Australia the most thriving film industry in the world. It surpassed Hollywood. So there were more bombs on seats to see our films than there was anywhere in the world, including America. And then the Americans saw that and came in and went, we want to, we want that.

So what they did was they, Muffy OSA style came in and would have stronghold on all of the Australian cinemas. So that Australian films could no longer be made because they wouldn't be screened. And so my great great uncles took these films that they were making and went round to town halls and public spaces and tried to screen them.

“And they fought it and fought it and fought it.”

And then they had to give up and they went into to live theater production. Right. And I feel it got straight into them a kind of atrophied. I mean, like, well, so that was in, that was in the 30s. And then for almost 40 years, we didn't make any films.

Right. Which is insane. Right. When you're reading about Peter Weir sort of coming up in the 70s, it's like there's really not much of an industry. There's a television industry, which is how he's getting started or over.

There's not much of a film industry. Well, in these interviews, we keep reading and quotes from him at the time, you know, talking about what the Australian new wave represented. Even though we've lacked this context, it's been very clear. They're not just saying, like, oh, and then a new movement or a new style came in. The new wave was starting up the machinery again.

That's right. That's right.

“And then, so it puts in into context, right?”

Because if you look at, okay, in 1969, we had zero again. I mean, there was one filmmaker Charles Chival, who made, like, Jedi, which is a very odd kind of intentionally. Good bit quite racist film. And we have none of those in America. Oh, no.

Yeah. But then, so you had nothing, and then you had Wake and Right, which is extraordinary. And walk about. Yeah. That's extraordinary. Yeah.

And they were both directed by, you know, non-Australians, but they're both masterpieces. But it was because the government of all places. And it was a bipartisan thing. There's both the right and left wing to, you know, two prime ministers said, well, we're going to invest in culture. Right.

We're going to, we're going to give you some culture. Yeah. Let's get some culture going. And, and what's extraordinary to me is it wasn't like Aussie Aussie Aussie. Yeah.

Aren't we good? Let's make sort of propaganda films about how great Australians are. These films were very, they sort of equaled American independence cinema.

And European new wave, you know, the French new wave, in that they were very critical of our society, our culture.

Very dark. Very dark. A lot of disturbing. Yeah. Like, we have a cinema tech here in Brisbane.

It's all free. Like, they play incredible films. And one of the films I had the other day was the cars that ate Paris. And, you know, even films like that, they're just subversive. Right.

Weird and brilliant. Right. Cars that ate Paris.

We've covered. Yeah. Right. Then, obviously, his first major film.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sort of strangely funny. Do you guys get that in terms of its humour? I found it very funny, but I don't know if I'm finding it funny for the reasons. What?

I think it's probably, it's making fun of a sort of small town, you know, mindset that I think we both.

On this sort of, like, small town mindset of the, you know, the 70s that, like, it's satirizing in Australia.

Yeah. It just felt sort of quintessentially Australian to me that film. And sort of bubbled up style humour as well. And then I realized, oh, there is such a thing as Australian humour. Why? It's just to clarify, in the 40 years where theaters are operating, but Australian films basically aren't getting made.

“Is it primarily American films that are playing there? Is it equal amounts of films from the UK?”

Right. And from other parts of the UK. Yeah, I think culture. I think we, yeah, I think, I mean, it wasn't around, but I, I, knowing from my mom, who was a big, you know, sort of, color of cinema, but she watched everything that came out.

And it was mainly Hollywood. I think that qualifies the cinema file. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Like unintentional, unintentional, sign of file. But we all, we had, we had a lot of British films made here. You know, the Sundomas and Chips Raffity was an Aussie star. He was an Australian actor.

But he was always starring as the token Aussie in British films that were made here.

Right. Yeah. And, you know, those early, weird films. I mean, depict like a hanging rock. I don't know if you have a particular impression of that one.

I don't know that is sort of, that's such a, you know, toe-temic one for Aussie cinema. I mean, yeah, it's, it's one of my favorites. I had to make a list for the age here. Just today actually of my 10 favorite Australian films. Wait, what are your 10 favorite, Australia?

Yeah, I want to hear it. This was unrelated to the show. You, you were doing it for something else? Yeah, yeah. So I, I had to make a list just because they're asking filmmakers what they're favorite.

I kind of hate making lists because it's filmmaking is not a horse race. Sure. It's exclusionary to make a list for this one. Yeah. It's fun too.

But I made it. Yeah. Yeah. So my favorite Australian films today were, um, way can fry, uh, walk about. Pickly at hanging rock.

Uh, the last wave. The chant of Jimmy Blacksmith. Oh, yeah. That's, uh, right, uh, Fred Chaps. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Skepsie. Yep. And he, yeah.

He's, that film made a huge impression on me, especially for the night in girl.

“I think, uh, Galliply, Mad Max, Snowtown, Ten Canoes and Chopper.”

I don't know. Ten canoes. I'm looking for that one either. But I mean, I got three out of ten slots was Peter weir. Yeah.

Right. You have three Peter weir. Yeah. That wave was a film we covered where I think we felt very out of our depth in terms of the sort of like the cultural stuff he's wrestling with there. I love to be able to sing movie, yeah.

But you're just kind of aware that there's a bunch of stuff underneath the surface that we don't have the ability to, uh, pick up on. But it was fantastic. Yeah. I think during the club in that it is, you know, it, it's a film about sort of, climate, not climate change, but it's an environmental film.

Yeah. And, you know, the Aboriginal presence in it, what I really admired that he did was just let them go. Right. So that's what the story was. And I mean, that's what I, we did in, in nightingale as well was, uh, you know, the script was made in full consultation with.

Paloa people, Tasmanian Aboriginal people.

“But that's what I think you probably, is that what you're finding a bit confounding?”

Like, oh my god, what is this? Not even concerned. I mean, last wave I would say, last wave is trying to confound. I mean, both wave and picnic and hanging rock are, are happy to leave you. You know, the doc.

Yes, a little unsatisfied in terms of explanations and ready to wrestle with it, which is, which is great. Gallipoli is not that at all. Gallipoli is a very sort of straightforward thing. It is, you know, punching the dog, which is fine. Like, I mean, that obviously works great.

I, I don't think it's that we've been confounded by these early ones, but there's almost like an anti-dunner Kruger, Dunning Kruger, a syndrome thing, or the more we try to do some research, either going into the movie or after the fact, then you start to become more aware of how much you don't know. Yeah, no. If that makes sense.

We're like, oh, let's say like a slow set of cultural context on this. I think that's why I do probably favor his earlier films that were made in Australia. And it's not because they were made in Australia, but there's a, there's a tone to them that's very unconventional. Yeah. And it's really purely from him.

And you really feel that. I mean, in the last wave, I love that section where the older Aboriginal characters just saying to Richard Chamberlain's character, who are you? Who are you? Yeah.

It keeps saying it over and over.

And the first time I watched it, I thought, oh my god.

Yeah. I'm absolutely worth. Who the hell am I?

“I want to walk to the kitchen, got a cup of tea and thought, oh, oh my, you know.”

But it's very Aboriginal.

It's very authentic in that way. And yeah, my memory of Gallipoli having not seen it again last night was that it's a very conventional film that I enjoyed as a kid. Right. That was my. So it was, you know, it is very conventional.

But I would argue that now. It's like the antithesis of saving private Ryan. Yes. Which starts off so gritty and confronting and horrific. And then kind of goes into a much more romantic.

Everything's going to be alright. We're going to save this one dude who, you know. But this film, Gallipoli is where mates, everything is going to be okay. Everything's going to be alright. And then nothing is alright.

And like if you look at the structure of the film, it's like an hour and 46 minutes.

And, and I just clocked at this time, you know that the first hour and 15 minutes.

You don't even sort of realize there's a war. I mean, you know there's a war because they tell you there's a war. And even when they're in Cairo, they're having fun and it's about their relationship. But it's in that last 30 minutes, right? Yeah, 30 minutes and then it gets serious all of a sudden.

And then in the last 20 minutes, you're like, oh my god. This is this is ridiculous. I mean, it's something. Yeah. And I, because Gallipoli is such a, you know, pivotal.

You know, I learned about that in school and like the bad thing. You know, they can't. David grew up in London. I grew up in England. So, you know, you know, we're one, we're all, you know, we were taught all this.

Like I think I thought of this movie as like a sort of definitive accounting of like, what happened to Gallipoli and what went wrong and what, you know, about the book. Yeah.

“And then that's what I love about the movies.”

It's not that at all. It's like they're like, you don't need to understand like what happened here, except that it was lunacy except that they were just throwing people, you know, over trenches. The point is that it was meaning.

Run that way. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And no one was, everyone was indispensable.

No one was going to survive that. I mean, it was an absolute failure in terms of, you know, if you look, I mean, I'm no Army historian, but any most Australians can tell you that that was a failure. And, you know, 130,000 plus lives were lost on both sides. And, and they didn't achieve anything.

I don't think that was a failure before they sent all these boys to die. Like it was already an inclusive failure. And then there was this completely unnecessary mass sacrifice pushed on top of it. Yeah. To establish some lore within the history of our show, Jennifer, when you were saying watching this,

you view this as a period piece. And then go, I can't believe this kind of stuff is still happening today.

You know, you were comparing it back to your experience of watching this for a first time as a 10 year old.

My relationship to war in movies is like perpetually frozen at the age of 10, where more so than any other type of film, war movies tend to just make my brain short circuit for that exact reason. And I just become a polyamorous child where I go, I don't understand how this is real. More so than any fantastical film, I just go like, I don't understand how this is still how things get settled. And I become so overwhelmed with anxiety that it's really hard for me to engage with them.

And I would say the war films I do like 10 to buy in large B movies that are not actually war films, quote unquote as a genre, they are films where war is a backdrop, and there is some emotional story being told in front of the war.

“I did not know what to expect from this film, and I think I expected much like David.”

This is more a conclusive kind of epic retelling of this important moment in Australia and history. And starting an immediately realizing 10 minutes in, oh, they find out the war is happening in the newspaper. There's just this kind of like, did you guys see the war happening? Right. And the fact that the movie is a lot of the guys kind of out in the middle of nowhere and says, oh, is there a war going on? Yeah. And this movie is really structured more as like a boys adventure film in the sense that it is like these guys going off to join the circus.

And the war is kind of like, friends, these guys are going to go be friends together. You know, it's like obstructed these boys are going off an address, but they could just as easy to be looking for like a hidden pirate ship. You know, it could be like a Goonies title adventure, and they were approaching it back and there's a word that we, it's very dated. No one says, lary can now, but it's a very Australian word that would would be to describe these guys is, you know, larycans that that they are up for a bit of fun.

And they're a bit naughty and you know, break the rules, but it's all, it's all going to end well with a beer and a joke.

And, and then to say, that's when I lost my shit last night watching it was when he was in the tent.

“He said, they're not, they're not giving me food or water, and I just broke down and from that point on, and even when I forget the actor's name, but the young guy at the beginning who's fighting Archie on the horse and Archie's running.”

And then they sort of see each other as the bully characters just about to go over the trench and he's an absolute mess. Harold Hopkins, that's that actor. Harold Hopkins, yeah, yeah, that's right. It's so well constructed, actually, as a script, I feel.

It is, yeah, it's brilliantly constructed. What also I basically from that moment, like just from the the tone and where the story was starting at the beginning, I went, oh, I see what this is.

And he is setting me up for like the grand tragedy of this movie, which is these guys aren't thinking of themselves as being in a war movie. They don't understand what war is.

“They exactly, the beginning of some rip-rowing adventure and some coming-of-age tale, which is story of war one, of course. This is a coming-of-age movie interrupted by the brutality of the world.”

Yes, and he delays it and delays it and delays it, until the absolute, till they can't delay it anymore. Even when they rip off all their clothes and they jump into the water and their shells firing off around. That's my feeling.

Oh, that's, I mean, you go, oh, I don't feel good here, because there's this sort of danger that's introduced underwater, so brilliantly like that.

But then when the guy comes up, he's only had his arm hit and not badly. Oh, good, you know, back to sort of laughing and having fun, but it's just like water ballet. Right, yeah, yeah, brilliant, brilliant.

“Right, because even until that guy is like nicked by the one bullet, even as their bullets floating past them, it feels like it's just adding to like the beauty in the ambiance.”

Right, you know, it's kind of this visually aesthetic thing. It's just the whole thing. Yes, they're at the beach and there's just like shelling going on. Yeah, and they're just kind of like, yeah, well, that's over there. You know, like, you know, like just that feeling of it's like, it's close, but it's our area. Yeah, until that night, until that night, until that night. Yeah, yeah, but like it's a sneakily sort of untraditional way to tell the story. Like it, you know, it is. Yeah, it's not milking the drama and the kind of excitement of war.

It's not milking. No, right. No, because when war hits, it hits. And that's Guy Myva. It's it. That's the end of them all. Well, not all of them, but all my soul. We're said that like part of the big inspiration for this film part of it was that he went to visit the site and he saw the bullet casings and such that we're still there. Well, but it wasn't just that he saw the case of the, it's Gibson's Mel Gibson's character gets it in the care package. The beverage. Yeah. Yeah. You know, he saw. I have to find it. Yeah. I will look at this.

You have some research we can know. Like he got, he got the bath salts and the, and the cookbook. It's the eno bottle. Yeah. So is that existing Australian brand? It's not anymore. Okay. But when I was a kid, it was, it was still a, it was still a thing. So people, so the audience is watching that would have gone. Oh, hi. Yeah. Okay. I know what that is. That was the big thing he said is he went to visit the site. There were still bullet casings there and then he saw an eno bottle and it was like immediately conjured the idea of, oh, these were just kids.

These were kids who were using the same products that I use today. Yeah. The penalty of needing to take like an ant acid in the middle of this thing made him conjured the whole thing, which is also weirdly similar to how last wave came about. He talked about envisioning seeing the object in the cave. Oh, sure. It's a two consecutive movies where he finds an object and is like, that's a good idea for movie. Wow. Wow.

And this mehamer interacted with them generally. I haven't unfortunately. I haven't had anything to do with Peter, but I, I mean, I feel I know him because not know kind of stalkery way, but just because as you know as a kid, I saw these films and they're like a dream. They're like a dream that I had and they're, and they're so important to our psyche as Australians, especially people in the arts and

I think that he's, yes, a little bit on that edge. It's part of where I really wanted to cover him. If he's made a lot of very, very well remembered films. Yes. He's doing linger in the cultural consciousness, but he's not thought of his, you know, turh. I mean, obviously by film fancies, well, regard it. But like, you know, in the, in the larger public. And he should be more, you know, in like an interesting, he's got such an interesting and varied fromography. And he worked in every genre.

And even when he came to Hollywood, he kind of never had one thing that he did. He kept kind of hopping between, you know, most storytelling, which was so interesting.

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“I think Jennifer, when my experience in telling people that we're about to cover weird, it's usually who is that.”

And then I can list a couple of films. I'll say picnic at hanging rock. I'll say witness. I'll say trim and shall say master and commander and they'll go, oh, I didn't know one guy made all of those. Yes, I say Peter weird, they repeat back those four movies. Those are probably. And then they go, what else did he make?

Right. And then on the other movies and they'll go, oh, I didn't realize the same person made all of those. It doesn't get what anyone has a very complete notion of him here, even if they know his movie. But I know in Australia, a picnic in hanging rock and globally, especially are those are very foundational movies to Australian movies. Yeah, and I mean, I think even your average, you know, mum and dad would know of gulliply.

It's like one, it's like a bit like Crocodile Dundee or, you know, it's the kind of film that everyone saw or even if they didn't see. They think they have that they feel they've seen it. I mean, I thought in school or something. Yeah, it does right. Yeah, I mean, and it's the Mel Gibson sort of breakout movie.

You know, it does a lot of, okay, before we get into the context and open up our research dossier here. Now, just only because you brought it off, I must ask Jennifer. We covered the three Crocodile Dundee movies. Oh, oh. In a deep pandemic, we were using our minds.

We had never seen them before.

And we were kind of fascinated by being a little too young for them and knowing that they were such a good cultural phenomenon. And there was one day where we watched all three of them in a row in like January, 2021, losing our minds. And started kind of like skeptical.

“What is this, what is this fad thing that was popular in the 80s?”

And then like 20 minutes into the first Crocodile Dundee. We were like, this fucking rule. I love this guy. I'd watch 80 of these movies. The drop off on 23, I found pretty severe.

Right. Yes. Yeah, right. I haven't seen 23. I've definitely seen one.

I mean, did you go into Paul Hogan's kind of history?

“Which is actually really, I mean, yeah, he's still sitting around, right?”

I mean, he's quite old at the point.

But yeah, when I was growing up, you know, as a kid of the 70s and 80s, he was this cultural icon.

“And he had, he was known as Hogs, you know, and he used to be a bit used.”

His claim to fame before he became a star was he helped work on the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Okay. So he was a real Aussie, you know, sort of laborer. Yeah. And but he was, he was a lyrical.

If ever there is a use for the word lyrical, that's him, you know, with a capital L. And he had a show called the Paul Hogan show. Right. And we know that. Yeah.

And it was funny. I mean, it was very Aussie. But, you know, he had a co-star, like, like, it was like sort of like the Benny Hill show. Or, you know, what's the American equivalent? I mean, what is the, it's sort of like a Carol Burnett or something.

But like, like, it's like, yeah, maybe laughing or yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's a poor person. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so then for him to make Crocodile Dundee, I have no idea how that could produce that film.

And then I'll be able to tell you, maybe, how it came about. Yeah. It's a really good question.

“Because my team prong question was like, how was it received in Australia at the time?”

And then how did Australians feel about Americans for the next three decades being like, oh, Carol, you're like Crocodile Dundee. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, I find it kind of hilarious how Americans view Australia anyway. You know, that you get off the plane and you grab your luggage and there's spiders all over it. Right. And you know, that's going to be the following from this guy.

And drop bear is going to, like, attack you. And you'll basically be dead before you get to the taxi. Yeah. And, you know, we play on that too. I mean, and there is some truth in it, like, my ex, his cousin came from Germany.

And we went to the sea and we went at an estuary and we're on this bridge. And this kid went to his dad. Dad looked down, looked down, there's a ray. And it was like a man to ray the size of a car.

And I've never seen that in my entire life.

But this poor German guy said, that's the first thing you see. That's right. I want to go home. Look, I mean, yes, we're talking. I can tell you that it was produced by John Cornell, who I think was his sort of,

Oh, yes. So that was the guy. Right. Strap is his side. Yeah.

Okay. Okay. Only produced by him must have been other people. He's the only one. He's the only one.

He's the only one. He's the only one. He's the only one. He's the only one. The distributor was called Holtz distribution.

Yeah, that's like the victim. It's like the victim. Yeah. Yeah. It's a swimmer.

Dream fire films was the production company.

“So then in that case, I think I'm funny.”

Yeah. Yeah, in that case, it must have come from, from hugs. Yeah. From those two. I mean, stroke of genius.

No. And isn't, isn't.

Hogan also have the cigarette campaign, where he would always say,

Anyhow, have a wind field, but that was his thing, right? Yeah. Oh, my God. And he did that Aussie laborer thing of like, having new cigs in your, in your, in your t-shirt.

Like, on your, on like, Yeah, you tuck the sleeve. Yeah, right. Yeah. Is a, is a masculine thing to do.

So funny that we're talking about Paul Hogan, because like, He used the, no, I know. No, I mean, we need to create a, what's the word I'm looking for? Tapestry between these two points. I'll just say the other thing about this movie is that the line

Jennifer already quoted the how fast you're going to run this fast. There's a leopard that. Yeah. Blue eat. Look, I have young children.

So I watch Blue eat all the time, which is now. Oh, Blue eat. Close connection to our sterling culture. The modern crock dundee. And there's that set in very close to where I live.

Right, right here, you're from apartment, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

And I lived in Sydney for many decades. And then came back here because I, because I want to be close to my family of origin. And I, I love it here. It's changed. It's not like Blue eat, but it's not like Blue eat.

I really was hoping it was exactly like the dog's tongue. Although there is a blue eat world or something that's been. Yeah. There's like a visible blue eat. Yeah.

Yeah. There's an episode of Blue eat called obstacle course. That's where he says how fast will you run as fast as a greyhound as the one they use.

The second in which it's an homage to.

Oh, really? Oh, I'm in Blue eat. Oh, that's so sweet. I didn't just said where I am now is the composer is next door to Blue eat. This is incredible.

The guys genius. Thanks, Jazz. Oh, woman. Oh, cool. Yeah.

I'll make the other connect a bridge. I guess I just forgot this. Russell Boyd shot crocodile dundee. Yeah. I noted that last night that Russell Boyd has done a lot.

I'd write down the films.

You have started on the second hanging rock.

And he did all of them through. He can hang it up. That's right. Yeah. And then did mastering commander.

He came up. John Seale was a camera operator on. Yeah. Gallipoli. And then did mastering commander.

He came up. John Seale was a camera operator on. Yeah. Gallipoli. And then he also did witness mosquito-coast.

Yeah. And he had a great Hollywood career. I mean he did like gorillas in the mist. Rain man. Children of a lesser god.

Mad Max Fury Road. So. Yeah. I think he's another genius. Yeah.

It's stuff like that that makes the Australian film world feel small. Like that. It's like, I mean, you know, you hook up with George Miller at the end. Yeah. Yeah.

I know it's bigger than it seems. It's just these names looms so large.

“I think for American viewers, like Peter Weir, George Miller.”

Yeah. I think we punch above our way to be honest. No. In terms of, you know, the size of the industry. Because when I was looking at making that list of 10 favorite films.

I got a bit depressed because I went on. I don't know. I checked a few sites including Wikipedia. But that was the one that had most of the films. And there's not a lot of films that have come out of Australia.

Right. Yeah. Yeah. It's also just fascinating though to what you were saying earlier that, you know, there's the American new wave happening in the French new wave happening.

And both of them are happening in response to what are, like, massive film industries. But industries that have started to become a little stayed and are dealing with the like, you know, coming out of decades of things. Like the Hayes code and like the Nazi occupation and all these things that were like, sure, really tightening and restricting movies.

And then the industry doesn't kind of know where it's at.

And then they finally empower this like younger group of film school graduates to start making whatever

the fuck they want. And they start making these films that are more wild and funny and out there. And genre films and political films and movies that are speaking to like the disenfranchisement and irritations of the moment. But that's like films that are made in response to what those filmmakers were frustrated.

Other films weren't tackling. Yes. The Australian new wave, as you're saying, were films made in response to what was going on in the culture. But they weren't responding to a deficit of those films in conversation. They were responding to a deficit of movies period.

Yes. So they were responding to a void, to an absolute void. But then to come out of that and have the films be kind of so strong minded and they're messaging and looking at the early, we are stuff and even watching like homesdale and the early shorts and whatever. Yeah.

It feels very, very concerned from the get go with trying to work through the kind of like politics of the young people of Australia at that moment. Yes. And also like constantly trying to reckon with the history of the land he lives on. I think he was a real mess of that. Yeah.

I think he was just really true to himself. That's the feeling I get just from his films, not from knowing him. But you know, that he had a certain kind of spiritual core that he wasn't afraid to kind of face and embrace.

“And that's what I'm feeling when I watch, especially those earlier films.”

I'm seeing that. I mean, even. Did you cover the plumber? Oh, yeah. Yeah, we did.

We did. Did you, are you a fan of the plumber? I love the plumber. I love, are you just did it? Yeah.

I mean, isn't it like, you know, when you get, I mean, when you get that is usually a guy, but when you get that person in your house. And they start asking questions about your life or, you know, I had one in the other day. Why are you an artist? And I didn't, like, he didn't know me anything about me. And I said, oh, and then I started offering up information.

I thought of the plumber.

It is maybe my second greatest anxiety trigger behind war is people in my own.

Plumber. Yeah. It's, it's a nice kind of very contained idea for whatever. But it's really a horror film, whatever you want to call the horror of the plumber. But also, I mean, a social comedy.

It's funny. It's funny. Yeah. It's funny.

“And I think he has this beautiful sense of humor.”

This very black Australian sense of humor. I don't know. It does that translate. I guess in green card, it's that's quite a funny film. Green card is very funny.

But green card is also so interesting. I'm a huge fan of green card, but it's, it's also very sincere. Yeah. It's also quite a bit of, you know, it is a straightforwardly romantic movie.

It's not just a rom-com. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No.

“And I think Gerald Dippa does fantastic in that.”

I mean, many is since I've seen that. But yeah. He is excellent in the movie. Yeah. I want to open up the dossier.

Yes. Okay. I'm going to, this is our research. Jennifer, I'm just going to take a look. So the last film he makes before this is, is the last wave.

Yeah. So after that, we are apparently takes a year off of filmmaking. Decides that he needs to watch more movies to teach himself to be a film maker. Right. So he calls himself sort of a primitive filmmaker.

And says, like, I just, I started with the W Griffith. I watched Russian silent movies. I watched Hitchcock movies. I watched Chaplin movies. I watched French cinema.

I watched, you know, whatever.

He's basically doing a sort of syllabus for himself in the 70s.

I guess. So he's probably doing mostly like, sort of pre-war cinema. Yeah. But he's going like chronologically region to region like filling in all the gaps of his understanding. And this final sentence.

So he said, I was astounded, astonished and fascinated with the great gift of these films. And so glad that I hadn't looked at them earlier. If I had, I don't think I would have made films because I was at the bottom of the hill. Oh, wow. Wow.

So when he says this whole primitive film thing and you do look at like picnic and hanging rock and the last wave and cars they appear. There's so accomplished and they're so clear in their vision, but they also do feel like outside or art in a certain way. I almost unravel what you're seeing Jennifer of like his spiritual connection, rather than them feeling like the conforming to the rhythms you know from other movies. And then he suddenly watches a bunch of other movies.

Realizes if he had known how differently he was doing things. He would have been too anxious to ever make anything. Right. I mean, thank God he didn't watch other films. Yeah, that was going to be.

Or even if it influenced those films and kind of polish the rough edges off them, I'd be disappointed in that. You know, it's going to be like three under his belt. Yeah. Then go through this whole.

Well, for if you count the plumber, which I know is like an hour. No, you should count the plumber. Yeah. I think the plumber happens right after the sabbatical of watching movies for a year.

“That's what he's in this state of what do I do next.”

And the next thing he was trying to do was you're living dangerously. Yeah. Which descended up jumping ahead of. Uh, yeah.

He's also he's quoted to by by Holly would for the first time to make the thorn birds.

Oh, which is, uh, yeah, which is obviously set in Australia, right? That's a basic book. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Uh, Herbert Ross had dropped out. Peter Weir is somewhat courted. Um, but he basically realizes he's not right for the movie. Yeah.

And um, he has this thing where he talks about how when he's trying it. When he's prepping to make a film, he gets this enormous collection of music that he has. And he sort of picks out the tapes that he wants to listen to. Yeah. And I do that now.

Right. Right. He just couldn't pick like the songs that were like really sort of speaking to him for the thorn birds. And he's thinking like, yeah, I'm not right for this, but I can fudge it. I'll do it.

And he's sitting at a bar afterwards and he's waiting for the writer to join him. Like, why can't I find the sound of this movie? Why can't I find the song that triggers the right feeling for this? And he says, and this is he gives such interesting quotes in these interviews. He says he puts a swizzle stick in his mouth.

How much is it? He starts making a buzzing noise with it basically. Peter, Peter, he does.

“He says, you know, that's what my films are.”

They have the sound of tension to them. That's the fundamental sound I want. And I'm just not feeling the thorn birds. You know, like, he's like, I'm not going to be making a movie that has that kind of quality to it. So he drops out.

That's how he describes dropping out of the project. It's very fantastic. And that was made into a mini series. Yeah. Right.

That's what we thought. Rachel, Rachel, Rachel, Rachel Chamberlain. Rachel Chamberlain. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. That's right. I mean, I've ever read a bit of an epic story, right? It's like a sort of generational, like an east of Eden type sort of like, you know, 40 years old. Yeah.

I think it was quite a pulpy. If I'm not doing this. I know. It's disparaging. But you know, it's a bit of a not quite a bodice riper.

But it's a priest from memory. I look. I don't even know. I've seen it. A priest who gets, you know, falls in love with Rachel.

It's character. Um, it's. Yeah. It's similar. It's for glory.

I mean, it may be. It's more. Maybe the book. I haven't read the book. Maybe the book is deeper than that.

But yeah, I can see why it wouldn't. It wouldn't have his name on it. I can see that. Yeah. Yeah.

The other crazy thing in this period of time is he almost makes what would become John Carpenter's. The thing. Yes. What?

I've never heard this book.

He's offered.

The short story. Yeah. Which you'd already been turned into thing from another world. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Then he sees Ridley Scott's alien. And he's kind of like, well, that's really good. And that kind of has a vibe. Beyond that, he was like, I feel like I'm close. But I can't quite pack the right way to dramatize this.

And then he sees alien.

“And he's like, well, that's what I should have done.”

Right. And then he's the thing. And he's like, that was also good. I don't think. You know, like, so, you know, that all works out.

Oh, my God. That's amazing. I didn't know that. The two big things. Yeah.

The plumber comes about basically because he's added dinner

with a bunch of people. And the story gets told of someone having a similar experience. And he's like, that's a good idea for a movie. A producer at the tables. Like, well, you should do it.

Right. And he just does it. I don't know if it's a full movie. And he goes, well, but there's this TV thing you could do it quickly. And I think in him trying to get out of his head after this movie

watching sabbatical year, he goes, I'll just make this. It'll be simple. I'll get it up on its feet. But then he makes this thing. We referenced in the plumber episode.

Yeah. Heart head in hand, which is a documentary about ceramicists. It's about a teacher called Peter Rushworth. I've never seen it. I don't know anything about it.

But it's sort of an actual documentary. Documentary. Documentary. It is an actual documentary. Yes.

Yeah. It's a short documentary. But the thing I got to find the quote here. The reason I bring it up and I haven't been able to find the thing to watch it

is that he basically changed his approach in terms of how he thought about how he

made films. Yes. He said he learned from watching the way that ceramics treated their work to apply this craft over art motto. Right.

And his quote is he said, "Glippily was another period where I turned away from any sort of style attempting to reinvent oneself properly." Yeah. Some people who didn't care for the film as much as earlier film said, "I missed your style or I preferred the earlier films."

And I said, "Well, style is just another tool for me. I don't ever want to be trapped by style." Yeah. Yeah.

“You know, I think watching it with such distance now, as in so long ago, since I saw it.”

Well, I do think his soul is in that film in Glippily. I mean, 100%. It's very intimate, actually. I mean, a lot of it is really about two people in a frame or four people in a frame. Yeah, sure there's some dance.

You know, there's like that tragic scene where Bill Hunter's character realises that they're going to war the next day. So he lets them have a drink. But it's not epic. I wouldn't call that film. There are some sort of crowd scenes that would have cost money.

But I feel it's still a very human intimate film. It's still, it's still him. I think it's an anti-epic in a really interesting way because it does have the scale and the production way of some scale. Yeah.

Yeah, some scale. And the big sweeping beast does it times and all of that. It's actually alluding all of the obvious storybeats you expect and a kind of epic tale set against the backdrop of a war. Yeah, I mean, it's nothing like come and see the Ellen Climoff film.

Yeah. But that is also an intimate to an anti-war, if you can call this film's anti-war. But you know, that is also two people in a scene. Mostly following one or two or three people. Yeah, I mean, common scene.

And that is also, I mean, Galipoli is it's, you know, it's a mundane thing in a way. Like the all these boys were just told, like go over the, you can't see, you know, right? It's about an atrocity. Like it's like it's a certain sort of watch. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, and like it's a surreal nightmare that film.

It's like, it from the first frame, you know, this boy is,

you're wondering what he's doing and he's pulling a gun out of the sand. I mean, it's one of my favorite films. I can see that it would be a film that had influenced some of this stuff you did. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. The big animating idea that I just got really hung up on here in the dossier is he said. And it's sort of what got him starting about the idea of how to make a war movie. A thing he hadn't considered before is he read an interview with Ignar Bergman, where he had said, you can do most anything on screen except kill somebody.

And that's where you can't suspend disbelief. And we're kind of took that as a challenge. Right. And you said, that wasn't a bad observation, but you can achieve everything with the suspension of disbelief, which is a Samuel Taylor call ofridge phrase.

In war films, you see all kinds of injuries, like arms and heads blown off, and people dying, the horror of war.

“But I thought, what if you didn't see much of that?”

What if you just killed one person who knew gotten to know and like? And that was part of my structure, apart from the key vision that these were young athletes at the peak of their condition.

And just kind of string along the tension of, okay, but when is when is everything going to get bad?

“And instead, you're going to end literally at the moment the guy dies, you know?”

Yeah, I mean, and it's so funny too. Yeah, just for a flight frame. Yeah, and you know what, like, it's such a, to me, like a lot of German films and on a freeze frame, and it really annoys me. Yeah, because it's a stylistic thing, but here is the only, I think, the only film I can think of, where I cannot think of a better ending, it's like a bullet to your own chest, that ending. Yeah.

It's, it's the thing, at 10 years old, I remember, yeah, I remember a phrase frame, and obviously not a filmmaker at that age, but it really worked on me.

It's also so funny for this film to come out of him being like, okay, challenge accepted. How do you put a realistic death on screen? Yeah. And yeah, he, he builds this movie that's a machine to narratively get to that point and earn it. But the movie doesn't end. And before you actually have to kind of watch the guy die, he does a veg showing you that in a way.

You know what I mean? Well, I mean, that's the thing. Yeah, that's the thing, and maybe it was just the mood I was in or whatever, but I really, I really, it took me an hour or more to really come out of that state of film.

“You know, really hit me hard, watching it. I just, I think I'd been watching news all day actually, and just feeling despairing.”

I was going to say it's probably, that's probably a bad way to pre-game Galiboli, is remind yourself what's going on in the world today. I watched it while my children were napping and I had to just turn on the music. I mean, go get 'em up. I think I had maybe seen it in school, truly. I could not remember this movie at all. Like, if I thought it was in high school, so I don't really remember. And I just sort of forgot, like the entire sort of storytelling approach you took, and that was kind of blown away by it.

I did keep thinking of Platoon, which I don't know how consciously stone is borrowing from it, but Platoon gets you into Vietnam fairly quickly. Yeah, Platoon is not mostly concerned with them, and where's this is the opposite?

This is basically the first battle that they're going to do is the last battle they're going to do, and it's the end of the film.

And I mean, this is sort of a random segue, but I think the film Wolf Creek actually does that to a very different effect. But you're, you know, you're, I mean, the slasher, if you call it, I'm not calling Wolf Creek necessarily a slasher, but you know, it's like a video game, normally that genre. You just go, oh, another one, another one.

“But here, I think it's like an hour in a fine way, like you're like, yeah, we can't wait to see what the next one is, right?”

Yeah, yeah, but with these three, yeah, you spend an hour with them, and you think are there idiots, but they're kind of enduring and charming, and then, you know, the shit hits the fan, and that's what makes that film terrifying is the emotional investment. And I think here as well, you, you invest, but I just want to ask you, what did Bergman mean by that? Because I don't quite understand what he's saying. So he felt that if you showed a death on the screen, people weren't going to believe it, is that is that what he was on?

My interpretation is that he was saying that it is the hardest thing for audiences to suspend their disbelief on because it is the thing that you can't really, there's no way to show an even partially real version of it in front of cameras, right? Is that because people are, like, looking for the flutter of the eye later, or the chest, I mean, it's hard to, I can't find whatever quote he's referenced. Well, because this is three years, right? But like, see it, as an actor, it's playing a thing you have no experience of actually living through.

Yeah, as an audience, you know it's kind of weirdly the fakest thing on screen, because, yes, yes, two main actors can kiss and they're not really in love, but they can go through the motion of kissing. Yeah, and I think we're as point was the way death usually is depicted on films is like in a war film, you show bloody squibs going off, you know, you show busy explosions and you don't get the intimacy of death, but you get the kind of like the viscera of death and to try to do that. That is really interesting, you know, because when I look at this film, everyone dies, but no one is shown dying.

Yeah, so Gibson's team, but that's it. Yeah, I mean, gives, yeah, so people, but the people who die die off screen, or it's like, they fall down. Yeah, like snowy, we know he's on the way out, and that's, but, you know, Mel Gibson's character Jack, is it?

He just, and that's devastating to hear that news, because that's how that's how people did hear it.

Right, right, right, rather than getting a big platoon style fault of your needs, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, just get it. Like I remember, like I remember my dad, who was too young for World War II, but his brothers weren't there quite a bit older, and I didn't know my granddad because he died before I was born, but my dad said to me that When subscription came around, my granddad would hide his sons in the cupboard. Well, so they wouldn't be taken away, and that to me is devastating. Yeah, and that's, that's the face of war, like at the beginning when his uncle says, I can't even remember what he, but his response almost made me,

I, I choked up at his uncle's response knowing that his, you know, this beloved nephew is going off to, off to war. And the things that that set up of the movie is that, like, this kid has a kind of future ahead of him that's clear. He has such an extraordinary ability.

“Well, the also, and this probably isn't maybe meaningful for audiences outside of Australia, but I think the uncertain hero in this movie is markedly like the actor.”

I think his performance is so beautiful and innocent, and there's something so real about it.

And, you know, he, he didn't go on to be Mel Gibson. He's, he's an Australian actor who, he's an Australian actor. Yeah, and I think, I don't think, I mean, look, he was on this show called the rest of his, while he was doing this, and then he went back to that. And that's kind of like, young and like, what are your shows? Like a soap opera, right?

Yeah, like a long running, you know, days of our lives kind of soap opera. So I think, but I also think his, his goal wasn't to conquer the world as a, as a, as a person. I saw him in a lot of stage plays when I was studying to be an actor at NIDER and, you know, I, he was around then doing, and a beautiful actor.

Like, it wasn't like he wasn't deserving of, of more.

See, in the 80s, I mean, because I, I graduated in the year above Kate Blanchett and S.E. Davis at NIDER. And if we said we were going to Hollywood to be, to be actors, we would have been laughed out of the room. You know, it was really only after that. That's, you know, when you came to Hollywood. Yeah, when Kate and Nicole and Russell Crowe, all these people, but it was, but at this stage when Glippley was made,

81, actors weren't actors weren't doing that.

“And I think if Mel Gibson didn't have that, uh, dual citizenship, he probably would not have either.”

Or, or he would, would have been much more difficult if he wasn't actually born in America. He's such a fascinating case, but I even think beyond that, there just was this energy around him of everyone going like holy shit. We have, we have discovered a new element. We need to figure out how to, like, build a series around this.

Yeah, Mel Gibson, yeah, yeah. I mean, it was a force of nature. It was kind of, you know, Mad Max. I mean, he's so wonderful in the original Mad Max. I mean, he's talking, Jennifer, about like, the small group of filmmakers punching above their weight class.

It is crazy not just like, we've already kind of established this thing where seeing the cars that it parishes, the thing that inspires George Miller to make Mad Max, Peter, we saw Mad Max, inspired him to go, fuck, I should make something for Mel Gibson. Well, let me tell you, let me tell you, yeah. It's a really interesting thing.

Because he meets with Mel Gibson, I think, for last wave or an earlier film. And when he meets him, he says, like, look, I don't think I'm going to cast you in this. I don't think he makes sense for it. You're not old enough, but I really wanted to meet you. And then so he brings him back for Glipple, and he says, look, I've cast Mark Lee,

“who's this like, angelic, Australian boy, like, and that's what he's playing.”

And I need someone who feels modern and you feel modern. Like, because I need someone who's going to resonate with contemporary viewers, you know, in Christ. Because Mark is this, you know, feels like he's from an angel. It feels like he's from decades ago, whereas you feel like a more real person.

But also, Jason is relating that, but I believe it completely. Because that is how he feels in the movie. You're like, this guy's a little out of, you know, out of the ordinary.

But he still feels time period, too. He still feels of the time, like, right. And the additional layer is this is the guy who survives, right? That this is so much an end of Innocence movie. Or we're through the prism of this specific character, but also that like,

this is a turning point in the history of Australia.

“That's what I wanted to ask you Jennifer, right? Like that.”

This is the context. I only have a little bit. But, collectively, is the moment we're not sterling. Why are we serving the British Empire, right? Like, you know, it's a very definitive sort of transformational moment for the country a little bit, in terms of like, why have we been shipped, you know,

a half way across the world to find more of the barely, you know,

and I think we've always had that towards the bridge.

I think there's, we were, especially in that period, seen as kind of like the scum in the face for the second class. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, my friend went to work in England as an actress. And one of the, and he's very famous by the white mention hoop.

But he said, oh, you're from the Antipadies to her, you know. And he mentioned her name and he said, ah, Susan, I had a child woman called Susan, that's a child. You know, it was sort of really playing on that class. System where as Australians, the brilliant thing about living in Australia

is we, we don't have an active class system, even though we came from this very sort of regimented class system. Yeah, no, I think that's right. That's one of the, you know, worst things about Britain is, I mean, which as living there, obviously, I was sort of outside the

class system because I was American, right?

So I wouldn't fall into the weird traps, but then I would see others. It was like, oh, yeah, if you, you know, the word you used to describe dinner or the back, like immediately slots you in, you know, to a sort of into a sort of social class for everybody else. Definitely.

I think it's gotten better.

“I think, you know, as you will, it becomes more.”

I would have summarized. But on that point, I actually felt sad last night watching it on some level beyond the tragedy of the film that I'm watching these iconic Australian actors who are really Aussie who are really Australian. Right.

And I'm seeing our history and this beautiful Australian culture. I mean, it's also, it's not perfect, like, I think, you know, I know that from the night and go. Yeah, but they're, but they're. You have confronted us truly.

Yeah. Yeah. But that there's an identity that I feel has been lost. And I would say that across the board. Right.

That kind of guys you're seeing in these movies. Yeah. Like it's just anymore. No, because now it's, you know, and no slight on you guys, but there's an Americanization of Australia and culture.

And, and it's sad. I feel it's sad because I want to say, I mean, I want to say Australian films about Australian concerns. But this is an interesting question.

“Like how much is Mel Gibson the Canary in the coal mine for that?”

Talking about his weird kind of like dual identity, right? Yeah. And that beyond just thinking he was a talented actor and, you know, seeing him in Mad Max and the fact that Mad Max have crossed over to the states more. One of the motivating things for we are in trying to find a project to do with Mel Gibson was an

understanding that the American studios were interested in Mel Gibson. Yeah.

Get some of all ready just from the first Mad Max and even more so after road warrior was like,

Hollywood is interested in the sky. Right. How do we have to build a bridge to him? The Australian's are making movies with him were more interested in importing them over here. And if anyone can help us figure out how to translate him into a Hollywood star,

that's infinitely valuable to us. Yeah. And it's this weird thing about him where he's like one foot in both worlds. Yeah. Yes.

And I think that I think he very quickly became, this is like absolutely no judgment because he was born in America. Yeah. And he's, I mean, there would be audience out there who don't even know he's Australian. I remember when he had any time in Australia.

Because he, you know. As a child, he had an accident. Right. And then he was in movies like The Patriot. I mean, he was like, he went full America.

Like he made a sort of war movies and like, you know, he really leaned into it. But then it also means that a lot of the other like, Australian exports who crossed over into Hollywood were guys where it was like, well, how good's your American accent?

Sure. Yes. The fact that like let Heath Ledger be Australian in 10 things, I hate about you is unusual because very often it was,

but can we add a little bit of like American Ura on top of it? Totally. And then totally let you think of the doors. Yeah. I mean, Mel was, you know, he was a pioneer in opening up the,

the talent pool of amazing actors that come out of this country.

Yeah. And it's just been an avalanche of the medicine. So I feel compared to our population size. There's so many beautiful actors here. So the other thing I don't know much about Jennifer is that like,

this is Western Australia, right? Like the start of the, you know, where he's from. Yeah.

“Which I feel like is a unique part of the country in and of itself, right?”

Because it's so massive and it's kind of, hugely underpopulated, it's mostly desert. I don't like does this capture the culture of that part of the country very, like deeply? Well, I think it's very true to the fact, like Perth is the most isolated city

in the world. It's the furthest away from any other major city. I think, yeah, I think it very beautifully demonstrated that, that you, you know, that, that great same way that we are mentioning before of the guy saying, oh, is there walk going on?

I can imagine that. I can imagine that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So I think that's very true. Just to be a little more research right. So we are done as we mentioned him. He goes to Turkey. He visits the beaches.

He's very stirred by it. He brings in David Williamson, who he is,

who is a sort of a playwright, you know, first and foremost,

who he talked about picnic and hanging rock, where they hadn't actually worked on it. Yeah. And, you know, first they're like, okay, do we do, you know, sort of full accounting of Gallipoli, like, you know,

enlistments, you know, the evacuation of Gallipoli,

“the whole, you know, do we try to do a sort of big thing?”

And then they, they just sort of narrow it down to make up a story about two men. Like it's not the true story, right? Right. Like everything like that.

They're like, let's just make this much more oblique. Well, it's also allegorical. Like this whole notion from this was a loss of innocence moment for the Australian identity, have character who represents that in a sense down to the point that he will die in the name of a meaningless cause

that he will go out and walk straight into his death to represent an ideal. They, I was, you know, Gallipoli Winston Churchill was very involved in Gallipoli. Like there were early traps that had Winston Churchill as a character. So they had a completely, you know, a wide aspect, you know, which can be a bit boring.

Yeah, it would be probably boring. I mean, it's, yeah, it would be an encyclopedia or whatever. Yeah, that immediately turns me off. Right. I need to, you like it.

Yes. I mean, it's an interesting historically, but when you, when you, when you take something down to the super personal and it becomes epic, actually, emotionally, there's room for it to be that, whereas if you've got, you know, all these scenes was like, masses of, I mean, there are battle scenes there, but it's not focused on that.

It's actually very intimately shot.

“Then it, it tells you the story of this whole battle that was pointless, I think.”

Yes. Yeah. And you go up with you. I'm with you, Griff. I, I feel, yeah.

Yeah. I feel like it, it showed in a nutshell how pointless the whole battle was with that show. I think our brains process these things in some lower ways, Jennifer. And it is that thing of like, if I just see a sprawling battle scene of 80, thousand people killing each other's.

My brain kind of turns off because I can't even calculate what I'm seeing. And I've lost the personal connection to that beyond just like ideologically, not understanding how anything could get to that place. Yeah. Yeah.

Once we've evolved into having conversation or other options, emails, other abilities to work out issues. Yeah. But, but yes, this is a movie that keeps everything framed through such a personal lens and such a tight kind of two-person story.

And even like the kind of biggest scenes you see are when they're doing like the the battleground training in the desert. Yes.

And it's just a country of always wrestling each other in a background.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, even that, how amazing how amazing was that scene where they were credible. All play acting, die? Yes.

It's, it's just so beautifully structured this film. And I think going back to that intimacy as a filmmaker, I am much more attracted to that style of filmmaking myself. You know, I'm working on a sci-fi that looks to be shooting this year. That is so cool.

Whoa. Yeah. And very exciting, that it's an adaptation of something. But even though the subject matter is huge, the film is kind of somewhat intimate.

Yeah. And I personally, I mean, big films can be amazing.

Oh, my God. Yes. Well, Ben Hurray is, you can't believe that they made it. It can't believe that it's a brilliant film. Yeah.

It's a brilliant film. And so I'm not saying, oh, I don't like those.

But to make them, I would never choose to make a big big film.

“So that's why I film like Gallipoli just is my happy place.”

Yeah. If you told me you were making like a gigantic action epic, I would be surprised, given the films of yours. I'd like seen so far. I would.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. I didn't know you were. Yeah. Yeah.

I'm sorry. I just need to call out. Yes. Truly two weeks ago, Jennifer David just texted apropos of nothing. You know what scene really pops in Ben Hurray?

I mean, it was a joke. Oh, my God. Yes. Of course. Were you rewatching it?

No. Someone else wanted someone else. You know what?

But you know what's amazing about that film.

And I look, maybe it's not true, but no one died. I think no one died. That's maybe a horse. I mean, not sure. No horses.

No horses. No horses. Unless they're telling us fives. They might tell me that. But, but, you know, unlike other productions of the period,

no one, no animal or human died on that film. That's amazing. And watching it, it's so dangerous, right? When you're watching it, you're thinking, this is going to someone's instantly,

like they're going to crash any second. And, you know, it's, I mean, for real. Yeah. Yeah. It's sort of like Mad Max is what I mean.

Like that's the magic of the Mad Max movies. Oh, yeah. David, yep, you don't have a lot of shared interests. Sure. Common interest film.

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David? Yes. I've been known to order products off the internet. Oh, dear, dear, dear. I sometimes like purchasing things and then receiving them and then placing them in our workspace.

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Yeah, right, right, right, yeah. This film is funded by Rupert Rardock. Yeah. Associated R&R. I know I saw that at the beginning and I was like, oh my god.

It basically was single-handedly funded by him. And Robert Stigwood, who's the guy who made Greece, produced Greece and it's Saturday night fever. Yes. And like, it's basically like, you know, let's make a movie in Australia. I mean, I don't know how it's described.

They formed this company. This ends up being the only film they ever make, but to your point Jennifer, they basically were like, it seems like something's going on in Australia. And they hire like an American film executive. And they're like, go there and like give us a run down scene.

And he's like, I've seen every Australian movie over the last two months. And they were like 12 extraordinary filmmakers here. There's absolutely a scene that's worth putting money into. And they were very committed to that as a long-term project. And then this ends up being a one-in-done.

Right. But Peter we're formed the idea first. Yes. Yes. Yeah, he's been trying to make it over a little while.

“I think like he spent a lot of 1979 trying to get it made.”

Some investors with Drew. through. He starts working on other stuff and then they come in and they fund it. It costs

$3 million Australian dollars, which was the most the highest budget in Australian movie

I've ever gotten at that point, but obviously not. -That's huge. -It's a pretty high budget. -No, no. And what's that probably about 25 now or something? -It's right. It's not. It's not. -It's not. -It's not. -It's not. It's not. -It's not. It's obviously what American films cost at the time. So yeah, as I said about Gibson, like he was basically like, you know, brought in because he already has a lot of heat. But also because we are loves the contrast

between him and us. -Yes, perfect gauze thing. -Right. Mark Lee was sort of something of an unknown. I think that they just sort of found doing like a photo call. -Well, he was on the show. -I think he started doing okay. -Yeah, he was on that show. -Yeah, so he wasn't, he wasn't a big star or anything, Michael. -Right. -Like the embarrassment of riches in this moment of this, like, generation of talent all coming up together, is that Russell Boyd's the DP, but John Seale is the

camera operator. -Yeah, yeah. -And John Seale basically had already ascended to being a DP. But everyone was like, this kind of feels like the big graduation movie for the Australian film industry. -Yeah. -So we'll all just jump on board and work on this one together. -Oh, but this is St. Jennifer. You'll be interested to hear this about Mark Lee. Apparently, while he's doing Gallipoli, he tells Peter Weir, Milish form and is offering the Mozart

in on my day. -Oh, my God. -And he says, like, "I'm not into it. I'm not going to do it." -Oh, my God." -Oh, my God. -And Weir says, like, "Look, he's saying Australia, he had kids.

yeah, it's not a Gibson. -Oh, Mel Gibson. Oh, Mel Gibson was offered.

-No, no, Mark Lee was offered. It Gibson just directly left him, basically saying, like, "Oh,

“I'm not going to do it." -See, that's what I mean about Mark. I just have this feeling that he,”

he wasn't, he didn't want to set the world on fire. I know that he is also a musician, like he had bands in Sydney for many years, you know, and would play life, his brothers, a musician, as well. It's just, you know, not everyone wants that life, right? Because it's not, it's not the greatest to be a star. I mean, they're fast enough, well, because this is coming from Gibson, who is recounting Mark Lee's experience. -Right, and it's not Gibson or someone who, I think,

even Mel Gibson, for his flaws, would admit, started made him insane. -Like, well, yes, it might be the course. And this is from a 2001 interview, Mel Gibson recounts the Amadeus thing, and he said, so it's a choice you make in a sense. I don't think the full consequences of it hit me till later, and I think Mark had more of an insight into it. He stayed in Australia, got married, had some kids, he wanted to keep it simple, didn't want it to get nuts, right? -For Mel Gibson to in 2000,

and once, I think I maybe had it figured out how to not get crazy. -Oh, my God. And what was Mel doing around that time? -I mean, that's interesting. -Like, kind of that page? -It's, it's when he's still a huge star, but his ideas are coming off pretty soon. -But that's like, like, signs in the Patriot. -Yeah, 2000 is Patriot Chicken Run, and what was like here? -Yeah, it was like top of the pile. -Yeah. -It's Hollywood. -He was the highest post actor in Hollywood, and he's like,

calling, like, hey, I guess maybe that guy kind of had a good idea. -Yeah. -But that's, I mean, you know, in this movie it's like this grand tragedy that this young man doesn't get to live. There is a similar thing, even though the outcomes are very different, of this guy kind of stayed true to his vision, of his notion, of what he wanted his career to be in Australia,

“and missing some sense of like saying it. -That's what I mean. -That's what I mean, yeah,”

that's what I'm talking about before of the resonance of this actor who kind of effectively disappeared. -Yeah, right, right, right, right. -I mean, of course he didn't. -No, without being in a full life. -There's like an innocent staff that he's preserved for many viewers, is just the guy in Galipoli. -That's right, and like, like, a mosquito in Amber, you know, he's like perfect angel. -It's all the counts. -It's also like happy and balanced, you know,

and then the Mel Gibson character in this movie, the whole film is like building to this guy seeing how bad things are about to go. -Right. -I mean, desperately, running in circles to do anything he can to stop it, and he is powerless, and all he can do is just choose to, as Mel Gibson put it, like, he has the power to be a coward in this moment, which is the smart thing to do. -Right. -But he doesn't save any one else. -But can you imagine like just on a level of

war trauma? -Yes. -If that character was real, like, you know, that's very good. -That's very good. -Greens, those grams of, you know, Mel Gibson's character towards the, at the very end, when he realizes he's missed, it's just blood curdling, you know, it's, it's horrible.

And that, that, that human would never get over that, never get over. Because it wasn't just one

man that went up over the trench, it was all of them. -It's completely cool stuff that only you can apply 40 years after knowing the brand has a question there careers, but it is like, right, there is, like, the kind of survivors guilt that you gain to push through whatever you need to push through to become the level of movie star that he did, which is interesting to say that you have to, like, throw people in front of a train to get $20 million of movie, but there is that kind of,

like, perseverance and pressure that does tend to break people. -Yeah, and it's interesting that they've gone similar ways to the, I mean, Marcus still alive, so he didn't die, but it's, it's, it's perfect casting, philosophically, it, we like, lines up, and then this is the movie on the precipice of weird, like, tentatively going like, do I go to Hollywood? -Yeah, I mean, the next film, you know, is live, you're living dangerously. -That's right, yeah. -Is an Australian American, sort of,

co-productive. -It's a hybrid, right, and then witness, is the film after that, in which he's basically, -which is a beautiful film. -Which is a beautiful film. -I would, in these, yeah, it's a

witnessed incredible film, I mean, it's one of my favorites. -Do you guys feel that there was

“something lost in that, in that migration? -I mean, I think that he's an incredible Hollywood filmmaker,”

and he made great movies here, but yes, there is, there is something very whole about the,

he made really good movies in Hollywood, but, like, you don't see it in the Hollywood movies in the

same way. There's a soulfulness to his Hollywood movie, so that, that never goes away. -Yeah,

yeah, I mean, even a film like Fielus has a date kind of spiritual. -Yeah, it does, and you know, I guess it's like, things like witness, fearless, green card, even dead posts, it's how he makes great movies about outsiders, like he makes great movies about feeling out of yourself. The Truman Show is, like, a masterpiece of that, right, like, in reality. -Well, yeah, I saw that recently against each other. -Right, right. -Yeah, yeah, I saw that. -So he's very good at that,

but he also, I mean, the stories you hear with the, you know, in our research about the Hollywood movies, it's like, he's just an extremely consummate professional, like, right, it's, you know, he's being handed out of the people's scripts, and he's coming in, and he's going, like, yeah,

“I think I know how to do this in a really good way. Like, it's a little less, the story of, like,”

oh, right, I had a weird dream and began to create a process, you know, like, you don't, yeah,

but you're right, that a few people have successfully, like, survived that transition better than him. -Yeah, he's right. -I mean, he had a fantastic career. -I mean, the people that I think thrived in the migration to America were the European Jewish community. I mean, they, you know, when a cross and created film noir in a way, right, of the back of German expressionism, it's kind of bleak way of looking at the world that I don't know if Hollywood would make films like

that anymore. -That's a great point, though. I think in a way, like, the way I look at his career in a smaller quantity is similar to Fritz Lang where, like, I love his German work so much. -Right, it means Americans are so, so interesting. -But it's not quite distinct factors of his career. They're both right. I would be more frustrated, I think if we were doing this series

“and you're like, oh, Peter, we are only made two Australian films before he jumped over to Hollywood.”

-Right. -And if the Hollywood films were of a lesser integrity, it would be more frustrating. The fact that he has kind of a whole proper career of Australian films, that he has this five film arc. -Right. -And I would have loved to seem to do more, but there's also enough there. And then when he goes to Hollywood, it's like Fritz Lang doing the war where it's like, well, this is not entirely driven by his personal motivation. -Yeah, sure, sure, sure, sure.

-He's going the way to add a thing to it to his stories and a minor key, and, like, Jennifer saying, like, that's so new, like, and feel so different. -And I maybe he would have made those kind of films here anyway. He would have graduated. -Yeah, I mean, I'm not saying he could have, because we don't have the money, we don't have the stars. But what I mean is, I don't think he was selling out, or, uh, not really, he doesn't. -No, he doesn't. True, no, just sort of. -Because, like,

you do see a lot of Australian and New Zealand filmmakers go to Hollywood and they make, like, genre movies.

“-And they're not bad. -Yeah. -You know, like, you're not, like, you know, but, like, I think of Jeff Murphy,”

right, like, who's, like, an incredible New Zealand filmmaker. -He's even Philip Noisah,

a son of Philip Noisah. -Oh, yeah, from, like, Noisah. -Oh, this guy makes great genre films too. -Yeah. -Oh, he's kind of doing paycheck-y stuff. -Right. -And then, when he does rabbit-py-than, so it's like, now he's getting back to what he cares about versus the pay-tracks. It didn't feel like there was a consistency across Wears' entire career. -Yeah, and I mean, I know, I know that personally, you know, having turned down many films.

-Right, I'm sure you got brought, or it cannot even imagine. -Yeah, but, you know, if it's true, because it's fine, like, it's fine, but it's, but you, but you'd also suffer by not accepting. -Right. -Because then they're like, well, you don't want to play the game, then what are we going to do for? -Well, then, you know, you're own, the investment in your own projects can mean that there's, like, longer years between. -Right. -So, I understand, when you get offered those types of things,

what was the kind of calculation you were doing in sort of, like, how, how to test if you felt like there was a worthwhile opportunity there versus, you know, the dangers. -I mean, I, I'm a writer, director, and I would love to direct other people's things that, but it's, unfortunately, it's just, I haven't had those scripts come that, um, that make me go, "Oh, you know, I get, like, the goose bump test, where I just dreamt."

-Yeah. -So, I have to, because I have to be deeply connected to something like on a very deep level, because you, you want, you're going to stick with this story for a number of years, so it has to be meaningful. And, you know, I didn't watch Marvel films, so why would I want to direct them? -Right, right. -Right, right. It's, it's not, it's no, it's no slide on that, but I mean, it's no, it's no, it's knowing, and I mean, you know, I have, like, six scripts piled up

that just no one wants to make, but no, I mean, that, that's not a scale of money.

they're actually, there's a few down, it's in investment, because there's a few now that are,

“that are backed up, and, but I, I'm very devoted to them, and I think, being a writer,”

director, I mean, these films actually, I don't know, if Peter wrote, did he write, in the Skido Coast? -He did, was he going to write it? -I was going to write it. -Once he goes to America. I feel like green card is the rare movie that he wrote himself. I am like, in America, he's making other people's scripts. Now he's working on the scripts or whatever, but it's just green cardimum master and commander are the, and then the way back his final film.

He wrote all of it. -Yes. -But obviously in America, he was, I mean, you know, Australia, he's, he's credit is a writer on, you know, -Colipoli, he has story, credit, but not screenplay. -Oh, last wave, cards, they pair, he's year-of-living dangerously his customer credit. -Oh, yeah. -But, you know, yeah,

yeah, work with, he would collaborate. I feel like he's always been a fairly sort of

he collaborates with other writers who, you know, but, but not strictly write a director. -He's not a useful sort of, yeah, proper, or type, you know, but that's not really easy. -Like, I'm very close mates with Justin Cousel, who, oh, yeah. -We covered his film, Assassin's Creed on this podcast. -Oh, okay. Oh, okay. -Yeah, he's probably a big, very, very, very love for that. -Yeah, a huge fan of the movie. Not so much the game.

-I really, oh, I'll tell him. I'll tell him that. -Please do, please do. -It's not his finest hour, from his perspective. -Sure.

“-Oh, that's perspective. -Oh, come on. I think that's so fun.”

-I've revisited what's next. -That's such a comfort watch for me. -Yeah, Jennifer, the reason we covered it on the show is that Ben had a period of months where he would watch it every night to try to fall asleep. And it wasn't as some backhanded this movie boars me way. It was that he found it so comforting. -I can't do it with the movie that comes from his anxieties. -I was in the back of the

relationship at the time. And I never played the game. I just was like assassins.

-I can't talk about that. But, wait, wait, Jennifer, why did you bring up Justin? I'm sorry. I wrote a real life. -Oh, the reason I brought him up is because he's a brilliant director. -He is. -And he's... -And he's a, I mean, nitroman, snow town. Like, snow towns are my, you know, top 10 list. But he's a terrible movie.

“-He is a great, I mean, he's also in there. I think a director who makes films with other”

people's scripts. -It's not like they just mail him the script and then he goes, okay. And now I ready to shoot. -What's your image? -My cloth feels very personal and individualistic. -He's very involved in script. But, you know, I'm impious because it means he can make more films. -Yeah, he can take on a project a little faster. -Yeah, and he may have for... I can't arrive right for a five. I can maybe write three scripts, maximum a year before I have to go on a holiday

and have a slate. But he can, you know, work on more. I think directors who don't necessarily write their own stuff or all of it can be more prolific. You know, I think even Tarantino has said that. He said, you know, I've got to write the same. -Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's actually producing the film that I'm making, so. -Oh, really? Justin. -Oh, Kersel. -Yeah, yeah. I am just realizing a real time Jennifer, just because Ben is behind the producer console and he's not on the computer screen.

I'm realizing just a paint a picture for you. Ben is kind of an American lyric in. -Wow. -Oh, really? -Yeah, a little bit. -A little bit. I'm from New Jersey, kind of the outback of the states. I was a smoker for many years. -Do you like being a fan of your voice dressed days? -I don't like to knock back a couple of cold ones from time to time. -The major, I don't know, David, what you would think here, but the major quality of America, and I think is to bullshit you. -Yeah, so like a trickster, right? Like, like, you're

kind of like a, you know. -No, Ben, you're very honest, but you also do love and glory. -I don't know. -Yeah. -And you make it all white doing a bit. -Only for a lot, only for a lot. -No, I'm also trying to say something. -Yeah, right. -I mean, I remember when I watched

Barry Lyndon for the first time, I was like, "Hm, I'm going to go to the leading to this Irish

scoundrel." -Yes. -Yes, it comes from, it actually comes from Ireland. I think it's, you know, we have a huge, so, Irish lineage here. So, yeah, it's probably an Irish thing, actually. It's all coming together. -The other word is mate ship, right? Which is sort of like, that's a very Australian word for like, kind of brotherhood or what, what? -Oh yeah, definitely. And that's, that's the essence of glipoli, right? -That's what we are says is the essence of that.

didn't have things like the rugby game. I would, sorry, Aussie rules football game, but, like,

“you guys start like that. -Yeah, and I think when I was younger, I was like, "Oh, buddy mate, you know, this right, this point, that's right."”

You know, it's, um, but I actually understand it, and I think, you know, I think that it's quite peculiar to Australian men. I mean, well, there's probably all forms of it in various cultures, but- -Right, there's versions of it, but mate ship does feel like this particularly Australian sort of stuff. -Yes. -Wait, men relate to each other. -I took them out. I can, uh, century to define the bromance. -Yeah, like, like, another word is Diga. I don't know if you can.

-Yes, absolutely. -Yeah, absolutely. -Yeah, absolutely. -Yeah, I don't know. -No, the only reason I know that is also blue. -He used that word a lot. -Oh, and blue. -Hey, today, what did I, uh, because I was just like, loving as dad is a classic digger. I feel like, and again, I'm only speaking to people. -Oh, that's so cute because they're dogs. -Yeah. -It's taking bones. -Oh, my god. I mean, I was like, you know, it was like,

“you know, blue. -Really? -You know. -I know them personally, but what do I know about that?”

-The joke is, you know, that the dad is an archeologist. So he's a dog. -Oh, and so they call my dog. -Oh, my god. -Wait, really? -Yeah. -It's a really good dog. -And they don't know about what it's on me. -What is the security, so she sniffs bad. It's like, that's the joke. They don't say it, but it's really fun. -It's so good. So cute. -Yeah, we blew it so brilliant. -And they really-- -Yeah. -And Jennifer, it really blew, he did really turn me on to Brisbane.

Like, I never thought much before before. I'd like I really like it as its own kind of

whatever, unique kind of climate and character and the it's so green and it's so beautiful and all. -Yeah. -Yeah. And those houses, like I live in a blue-y house. -You do, you live in one of those, it's like a sort of a three-decker or however, I've never seen David this excited. -Oh, it's a French colonial design. -Yeah, yeah, right. -Yeah, yeah, I live in like 120-year-old health. -Well, they're so beautiful, I mean, they-- -Yeah, they are. -Oh, they are. -Oh, they're so cool.

-They're wonderful. -Yeah, I mean, I've sort of-- they've part of the joke of Blue is that the house

“does sort of has like strange physics to it because it's like a kids view of a house, right?”

So I never can quite figure out the layout, but yeah. Anyway, is there anything else in Galipoli we need to touch on? I mean, I don't want to keep you here all day Jennifer, but like, are there seems we haven't talked about that we want to talk about it? -I thought the color palette was really interesting. It was almost, um, what are they called the original photography that had a, that there were some colors that were really vibrant. So what was the story? There was a

vibrancy to it, like especially in the the racing scenes when they were doing sprints and stuff, you know, there were pops of color. It wasn't just all sort of beige and gray and, and it got more de-saturated, like they took, they didn't take the color out of the frame and the gray, but they took the color obviously out of, you know, the costumes were no, there was no longer any vibrancy. -Yeah. -Yeah, so I think that is interesting and just beautifully shot.

I love the kind of formal quality of it as well. -And you have like the kind of natural

and paper saturation of like the early scenes, especially the one where they're finally running

off to try to join the war and they're going off into the horizon and it is just like a straight line. It is just like, you know, super bold orange sand and super blue sky. -Yeah, yeah, yeah, and it's just a flat line that they're walking towards. -Right. -Yeah, there was some sort of Lawrence of Arabia almost, kind of compositions as well. So yeah, there was something very formal, like I felt that he was, you know, not conventional, just formal and I dig that as a filmmaker.

I love that sort of photographic kind of beautifully composed frame. You know, you think of war films as all like handheld and chaotic and it really wasn't like that this film. -Yeah, no, it's not at all, right, it's very, and the most sort of distinctive stuff is stuff like the underwater scene, but that's like, you know, that's like a painting or, you know, like just these things. -Yeah, it's still even though it was handheld by necessity. -Yeah, body is right.

-But it didn't feel documentary, like I mean, talking about Bergman, you know, he famously says in his autobiography that film can be two things. It can be documentary or it can be dream. And I feel this film really still, it sits in the dream. It's not, it's not, even though the subject matter is very historically, it happened, but it's a dream when I watch this film. It's a sad dream. -Did it? -Yes. -Over-umpling Czech special features. -Yes. -Our Patreon feed.

Mortal Kombat movies. -Mortal Kombat. -Mortal Kombat annihilation. -The annihilation. -Mortal Kombat. -2021. -And Mortal Kombat? -To. That one's going to be- -I'll be not really interested. -Because that'll be a new release, yes. -We're going to talk about these movies. We're going to talk about fighting. We're going to talk about Jack's. His robot arms. We're going to talk

“about how Mortal Kombat fighters gimmicks relate to their genitalia a lot. -Yeah, I think there's a”

couple of rifts on that. -We got Mike Mitchell from the Dolboy's on the annihilation episode. -Yeah, Mitch is with us. -We're talking a lot about video games in general. David says some really

rude things about my favorite video games of all time. He's being Clayfighter 63 and a third

might as well take it a couple of hits. -A pretentious grump! -Why do they take it a couple of hits? -And it's taken a few therapy sessions to work through. The slanderist things he says in those episodes, but I think they're worth a listen. And then also we will be covering Peter Weir's the plumber and we will be covering Edge of Tomorrow as a Ben's choice. One time, Helia. So we're kicking off the commentary series today, March 21st, available over at patreon.com/blinkcheck.

-Are there any of us trailing actors I don't really know about here who are because it feels like some of these older guys. -Oh, Bill Hunter. -Bill, Bill Hunter, right? Like these are guys from

the sort of a long history in Australia. Bill Hunters this guy. -Oh, yeah, I mean, he was in

Muriel's wedding. He played this sort of bastard dad. But they all those faces are recognizable. In the man at the the jamboree, the kind of sprinting carnival that they had, who delivers the like Bill Kurt is, yeah, he was one of those faces. I was thinking how did these people, they must have come up in theater because they're old, they're older men by the time they're in this film. -Bill Kurt's interesting because he went to Britain and he did a lot of work in Britain

in the '50s and '60s before he came back to Australia. -Yeah, like a lot, a lot of them did. -Yeah. -And a lot of them, like Robert Grub, he was a staple on stage when I was studying at NID, I was just a wonderful character actor. Tim McKenzie, I tried to see what it like, I tried to find him. I don't know his. -Barn it, I've got it. -Yeah, I don't recognize him. David argues was constantly in film independent films and on stage he's sadly passed away

“quite recently. Red Jevon's is the guy, the athletics official. Do you remember him?”

-Oh, yeah, he's just a wonderful character. -The guy who takes the bribe at the beginning? -Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He's got a top hat and he's a staple in Australian cinema. So yeah, they're recognizable faces. It's very nostalgic for me watching that because the most of them have gone now, you know, not the younger guys, not the younger guys, but the older ones. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. -I swear circle back a lot, we don't have to go all the way in the

deep end, but this whole, like, our and our pictures thing is very fascinating to me, just for how much that, like, Rupert Murdoch has obviously become an evil goblin king or hoarding it over our media for decades. -Yeah, we did not enjoy the work of Rupert Murdoch. -This is when he has obviously, like, founded News Corp and made it into a massive company before News Corp has bought Fox and all of that, and this is basically his, like, first serious four-ray into movies. -This is

only four. -I mean, until he buys a fucking film studio. -Right, but he never

produces himself again. -They hired this guy Francis O'Brien, who was the guy I mentioned, who they sent to sort of investigate the landscape and say, do you think there's a good enough industry here? And he kept on publicly saying, like, this isn't some tax shelter thing. -This isn't some, like, weird, like, dodge. This is a real belief that there's money to be made and putting more into the Australian film industry. And, you know, it was just sort of scanning

for, like, who are the filmmakers who are ready for this level up, who has a project that seems appetizing to us, and that Murdoch's father was a journalist covering the first world war in Australia. -Right, and he has this strong attachment to this era and, like, trying to understand what his father lived through in sort of seeing all of this. And so they're, they're giving them a lot of money, but it's, like, not that much on a Hollywood scale. -Sure. -If he has a reasonable amount,

“and they're trying to understand, like, what's the right business practice for this? And I think”

because of Mad Max, they just thought, like, if we have Mel Gibson, it'll be an easy sell, domestically, they set it up at Paramount, they were ready to go. But they said, Francis O'Brien was there with him at the whole time, and we are came up with the idea of the big

like, a million production out there. -But where is basically, like, we need a break. Like, we need,

like, something before we're getting to the heart. -Yeah. -And he put it right before we go to war. And Francis O'Brien said, like, if I had been at a desk in Hollywood, and I got that call, I would have said, this guy's ego's out of fucking control. I'm not giving him $100,000 for dance sequence, but being there throughout the productions, what you're saying, Jennifer, underseeing the poetry of what he was doing. -Yeah, I mean, that scene was so essential,

“I think to put a hundred percent of, put a marker on the end of that beautiful,”

sort of period of innocence. It's like the loss of innocence. Because the next shot is there mole traveling in the dark. -Yes. -On those boats, you know, it's, it's like a, not a different film, but it's certainly, it's a point of no return. It's, yeah, yeah, the hard pivot into war. I just think the setup of this movie was so unique that the intimacy of the money men in this was so tight that even, like, that guy was sure, like, yeah, 100,000, right to check dance sequence,

not because he didn't care, but because they were actually paying attention to the vision of what was happening. -Yeah. -And it thought it was financially proved to investigate. -But I, but I also think, well, I mean, I can't speak for Rupert Murdoch, but obviously didn't continue to have interest in Australian film. -Yeah. -But so, you know, it must have been, like, okay, we can make some money, but we can't make the kind of money we can make in America.

“-I think what happens is the film comes out in Australia. It's a big hit. -Yeah, it's the biggest,”

yeah, because it's a million dollars, which is a lot for Australia. -Yeah. -Many multitudes of

it's budget. -Right. -And it makes its money back. -But then in America, it's like a modest sort of art house film that makes a few million dollars. And that's, that's the, you know, it gets good reviews. -But that's the end of it. And they probably were kind of like, right, yeah, that's sort of the ceiling of a movie at this movie. -And I imagine, I, I mean, I imagine it would have been seen as a rather sort of underwhelming film in terms of, you know, like, an action-packed war film.

-Right, I mean, it was sort of, you know, got a little bit of a, it played at the Venice Film Festival, like it was on the Golden Globe Foreign Film nomination, but it was, yeah, it was, it was not as resonant outside. -I mean, we were, we were said Paramount bought it and Paramount had that same season reds. And that was their big priority. And that was a series of big, sweeping, three-hour movie star romantic epic. That made sense to them. They didn't know what to do with Gallipoli and over

across the lot Warner Bros. has, uh, chariots of fire, which of course ends up beating reds for best picture. And we were saying, like, I kind of wish we were over there. -Right. -W Warner Bros. seems to understand they have the small movie that they need to, like, grab some of these pieces. -Yeah, but sure, it's a fire. -Yeah, it's a crowd-pleasing film. -Very different movie. -I am. -Yes. -And this is a movie that ends with the main character diet. -Yeah, yeah, this

is exactly the top of itself. -Yeah. -It's as dark as it gets. And also, it's like, I mean, Mel Gibson obviously

“became a huge star. It's like, who are all these foreign actors? We don't know any of them?”

-Yeah, and Gibson's not really that star yet. It's more than just a question. -No, it's a question. -The origin story. And this is part of that early, you know, it gets good reviews. -Yeah, and so it should. Oh my god. -We're in 86 called it his best film, although he also called it his least personally. He says, as least do it me, but I do think I have real confidence and craft and all that. I know if he continues to fill that way. Obviously, he made a lot of

Harry films after 1986. -Yeah, yeah, yeah. -This quote I love from the Francis O'Brien when they were trying to sell it before Paramount ultimately ends up buying it when he was showing it to American distributors. And he says three companies liked it. One said great, but would you go back and put a little more romance in it? Another aspect we would mind changing the ending. No problem, I told them. You give us three million will make a film like that, but this one

is already made. -Oh my god, God, God, it's just, isn't it just so dumb? Is there so dumb? -I do think, and it's so trite, but this is something we're says that he's also like, people couldn't pronounce gullipoli. -Yeah. -You know, like fundamentally, it's like, should have changed the title of an Australian, everyone knows how gallipoli is, but that's not true in America. -Oh, what are you about to say, Jim? -Oh, you know, we had investors in America who

was saying, yeah, like, you know, we want to, we want to finance the night and go, which, by the way,

would never get made in 2026. -No. -But in Masterpiece, but it's a great one of the biggest

films I've ever seen. -Yeah, and that said, but can she kill Hawkins? -Can it be a revenge movie? - Yeah, yeah. - And I said, well, she can, if you want her to die in the final scene, and they went, no, no, no, no, no, for that it will be no, I said, well, no.

Is that the film? - Yeah.

- Empty, revenge is ultimately.

- Right. - These aren't like small changes, like, what do you mind just putting, like, a little more garlic in the dish? - Right.

“- It's like, what if the base was lamb instead of chicken?”

And you're like, well, I've already cooked the lamb. - That's right. - I chose which thing. - It was me. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - But Tom, this is, I mean, hats off to Peter

for not even just going to say, I know. - I mean, you can't, like, that they are the guys going to have a love relationship. Is that what's going to happen? - Also, that's what you know, I mean,

in response to watching the final cut, it wasn't like them saying that it was script stage. They were like, we need the movie already. If this isn't what you want, then you don't have to buy it. - I actually feel it was a beautiful love story.

- Plotty great. - It is love story. - Yeah, I mean, right, the one last thing I want to highlight is that the music, the, the he's for the, you know, the B'sa piece, the Pearl Fissures was something

where he just went to the opera that was being performed and there's this duet of two male voices. And he's like, that's Frank and Archie. And he's like, I need to put it into, you know, into the movie and they have to invent like someone

having a record player so that he can kind of get it into the film, but he was like, it's spoke to him. - I thought the music was really beautiful. And even that, who's the composer? I was Brian May, who did that sort of quite Van jealous.

- Yes, yes. - That really stuck with me as a kid as well, like, as soon as I heard that music this time, I was like, oh, of course, that, you know, some people, I was reading reviews,

some people didn't like that, but I love, I thought, yeah. And there was that and the classical piece as well, and I can't. - It's a dasio and she minor. - Yeah, that's right.

Yeah. - It's right. - And it starts with that, right? The opening credits. - Yes.

- The opening credits say, this is, get ready. You know?

“So we kind of prep sauce with that opening title sequence, you know?”

- Yeah. - Yeah. - We're going to play the box office game Jennifer to wrap up, which is we look at the, the weekend the film came out in America,

'cause we, you know, the American box office is all I have here. And Griffin's going to try, guess the top five, if you can. - Oh, for late August 1982.

- Oh, I got it. - Oh, you're going to guess them without knowing what film. - I'm going to give him some clues, I'll give him some clues. - I'll give him some clues.

I'll give him some clues, I'll give him some clues. - Okay. - I'll give him some clues. - I don't know, if this is the 80s, it's not in the top 10, but, you know, my guess is it open for a limited?

- Yeah, it was a small article. - So, yeah. - So, is this the, sorry, is this the month that it opened, but we're looking down? - Yes, the month it opened, so it, you know, Australia,

it opened, it actually, it was also around the same time. - Yeah, it opened in 13th of August 1981, and it came out in America on the 28th of August. - Yeah. - Number one, Griffith's a, is a hit comedy,

one of the big comedies of the year. It got sequels, it was, I think we won an Oscar.

- This is the first, it gets sequels.

- It gets a sequel, I guess. - So, is it Arthur? - It's Arthur. - It's Arthur. - Oh, oh, wow.

- Yeah. - Yeah, okay, it got sequels. - It got one. - There's one sequel. - There's a rock.

- Yeah, yeah. - Yeah. - I think he loses all his money again. - Do you like Arthur, Jennifer, do you have any, take on Arthur?

- I, I saw it.

“That's what I, and I do love Dudley Moore.”

Like I, I thought he was wonderful in, you know, with earlier comedy stuff with Peter Cook. - I, I would. - Of course. - I mean, I think John, I remember John Gilbert saying,

would you like me to what should dick for you, sir? - And then you won an Oscar for saying that. - They basically should. - So I can be Oscar the second that line was the lips. - Yes.

- I have to bring that line. - I'd like to bring more. - I think that movie is perfectly pleasant enough. - Right. - I did have the experience watching it

of what I thought I was gonna feel watching

Crocodile Dundee for the first time.

- What? - I just love this guy, really. - No, watching Arthur, I was like, this is fine. This set like the world on fire.

- Yeah, that's correct. - That's the art or precedent. - Well, I mean, it's forgotten. Did that win Oscar's, did you say? - It was John Gilbert, one best of the game.

- Oh, John Gilbert. - It was a little bit of a career award, yes. - No, that makes sense, yeah, totally. - But it got a screenplay now. - I think it did.

- It was a humongous, yeah. - Yeah, yeah. - Yeah, yeah. - Number two also. - What else?

- Biggest movie of 1981, Griffin. - Biggest movie of 1984. - Biggest movie. - Of 1984. - What else?

- Biggest movie of 1981. - Oh, really, I mean, well, hats off. - Likes good shit. - Does it? - Yeah, that deserves it.

- Hats off, that's the last thing in the end of Jones wants to do. - He's a, he's a, he's a hat-alonga. - Number three of the box office is a comedy horror film. - Comedy is a very good film.

- Is it American Werewolf and London? - Yes, it is. - Oh, you know, I saw that film as a kid to, to young, and I had, I had such bad nightmares.

- 'Cause it's got some nightmares. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've got a poster of that, actually, on my wall.

“- My wife has, you know, Jennifer, how I knew”

that's what movie it was. - What, how? - Because David's voice was going up as he was anticipating how to talk about John Landes. - It's right.

- But it's a great film that I, I love that film. - I love that film. - It's a beautiful film. - It's a beautiful film.

- It's John Landes for me. - It's American Werewolf and London. - But it's a wonderful film. - That's a wonderful film. - It's a very impactful film.

- Yeah, it is. - Jenny Augusta is really good in that too. - She's so good. - Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

- All right, now number, so the first three I knew.

Number four is not a movie I know at all. It is a comedy drama. It's based on a play. - Based on a play. - Got some golden globes, nom.

- It's not like the dresser, isn't it? - No, that was it, that was it, hit that cop, that's picture. - Yeah. - It's a Supreme Court comedy. Supreme Court comedy.

- Yeah, I didn't need anyone.

“- It was, and this is the craziest part, so it's about”

a female justice being nominated to the Supreme Court. - Okay. - And it was supposed to come out the year later, and then Reagan nominated Sandra Day O'Connor to the Supreme Court and they brought up the release to, to like sort of her

- Just wearing in, to essentially write to, to review notes. - No, this doesn't even do. I'm sorry, we were like, let's just do it right now. - Do you have any idea what this is trying for?

- No, no, so that it's a based around the woman. - It's a fiction film, like it's not based about Sandra. - No, but I mean, is it a female lady? - Yes, so those the needs are water, math, ow, and Jill Clayberg.

- Oh, I love her, but I don't know what it is. - It's directed by Ralph. - Name Great British director who did, you know, works with David Lee and did a lot of really good movies, including a private mischeme, Brody.

- I feel like I can picture the poster. - I don't know what that film is. I don't know what it is. - Is it called Yerana? - No, it's called First Monday in October,

which is a very bland. - I would actually say quite a bad idea. - I don't even know that film. - I don't know it.

- I've never heard of it.

I didn't get great reviews. And the number five, another movie I don't know, let's see, is a American sex comedy. - Okay, I feel love it. - I feel love it.

- Come up before, it stars Sylvia Christel, who is Emmanuel, you know, he's best done is playing it in Emmanuel. - Yeah. - And it's one of her few American films.

And I feel like we've discussed this movie 'cause I don't know all the rings about, but I don't feel like you know this movie. It's an American sex comedy starring her. I mean, I don't have any more clues for you.

- You don't have any more clues. - I don't know how to do that. - I have to write time and watch it when we fight. - And begly juniors in it. - Okay, well that's helpful.

- Excuse me, did you have to tell us? - Is this a big explosion? - Okay, can I guess? - Yeah, sure. - Is it called Wauza?

- It's called Private Lessons. - I do know that type of thing. - Private Lessons. - Private Lessons. - Private Lessons of it.

- So see, little, double on time for a pause. - So, right, right, there you go. - There are other movies in the top 10. You've got a movie called Common Atia, which is like, oh, that's a 3D and crazy 3D Western.

- Oh, wow. - Oh, wow. - Oh, wow. - You've got a 3D blurring. - Oh, you've got heavy metal,

which I think like it's a ben favorite, the crazy animated, - Oh, for sure. - Anthology movie. - Yes.

- Great weed smoking. - Ruby, you've got a movie.

I've never heard of called Take This Job and Shove It.

- That's a great title. - I'm starring Robert Hayes. - Wow. - It's pretty fun. And then you have body heat.

- And one of my favorites. - Yeah. - And you've got the Bill Murray movie stripes. - Oh, yeah. - Oh, yeah.

- I have this opinion that no one remembers what happens in the second half of stripes. - You don't do this this way, I'm a slave in America. - Jennifer, Jennifer, would be remiss if I didn't ask because I've been so curious for so long.

- Yeah. - You, we've been doing the show for 11 years now. - What? - That's crazy. - I invoke your films a lot as a positive reference point

to other things I like in other movies. - Oh. - But you have come up once before on this podcast because of what you appeared in as an actress. - Oh, which, yeah.

“I think you, I think you're gonna tell me what it is,”

but I think I know what it is. - Can you guess? - Yeah. - Babe too. - Correct.

- Babe pig in the city. - I had, I had quite a large role in that, but as, I mean, before it ended up on the cutting room floor, I was thinking, and I said, you know, to people, this is not gonna end up in the film,

because we're experimenting on animals, and I was really evil in the film. - Right, you're in the film. - It's like a man's scientist and they were nightmares. - Yeah, and then when I saw it, I was like, yeah,

I was right, they cut almost my time. - But what was that fun to make? Was that, did they film that? - Oh, it was amazing.

- I love him, and yeah, it was fun, and the animatronics were crazy. And the pig training was crazy. They were so beautiful.

“You know, I remember one was called Erica,”

'cause they, they would get them young, you know, and they use clickers and go back, Erica, back, and little, little pig would kind of reverse, you know. And I meant big, animal, lava, I love animals, and so yeah, it was a big thing.

I knew, like as a kid, I always wanted to write,

direct an act, but I grew up in an era where little girls didn't direct films, you know. I didn't have any role models, really. I mean, Jane Camping was sort of just coming through. And yeah, so it was interesting.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, so here I am. - Well, I'm very eager for whatever you make next. I really excited to hear that you're working on something. It was so wonderful to have you on the show, and so good to have Australian persists.

- Yes, live on that show. - Likewise, guys. And I really thank you for this wonderful couple of hours, but also thank you for- - Couple of hours.

- Making me watch Gallipoli again, because I wouldn't have watched it, and I wouldn't have been so much- - I'm sorry, it was upsetting, but it does seem like rewarding. - Yeah, oh, totally, and it just makes me appreciate

our lineage of filmmakers here, and Peter Weir. He's a real master, and he deserves, you know, I'm glad you're doing this, 'cause he deserves more attention, and femphi younger people to get in and watch it,

all of his films. - I will also say, I imagine, almost all of our listeners are very familiar with Mr. Babadook and his work. - Yeah, it's great.

- But if people haven't seen the nine-gail, just 'cause we've invoked it a bunch here, I would say it is similar to Gallipoli,

“and that is a very devastating watch that I think,”

a very worthwhile watch. And if you've been following us along on these Peter Weir films, I think there's a lot of overlap in subject matter, and perspective, and working through

the kind of Australian diaspora. - Yeah, well, well, well, I'll put it this way, I think if Fred's Gapsy hadn't made a child of Jimmy Blacksmith, and if Peter Weir hadn't made his earlier Australian films,

I don't think I would have had the courage to make that film. So I'm very indebted to those pioneers, you know. I came out of zero films to, in the '70s,

to this incredible slate, so beautiful.

- That is just a, yeah. It is crazy to think about, you know? - Right, yeah. - It's like in the 1970s, America was like, what if we made movies again?

- Yeah, yeah, exactly, and we haven't made them for 40 years. What if we just, you know, flipped a switch and started making them again? - And we've all just been like sitting back, watching Australian films for the last three decades,

but we started making them again. - Yeah, exactly, exactly. - Thank you so much, Jennifer. - I like boys, thank you for inviting me on. - Yeah, thank you, and then bring it on.

- And thanks again to Rob Schier for making this. - Yes, thank you to Rob, Rob, Rob, a lot of time from the show, we love you. - Yeah, so yeah, thanks, Christian, thanks, David. I hope to see you again.

- Absolutely. - Yes. - Thank you all for listening.

“Please remember to rate, review, and subscribe,”

turn it, tune in next week for your living day, interestingly. - Yes, that's right. - With, we'll cut it out if it doesn't happen, but we'll trace you, let's, very excited.

- The King of Physical Media. - Right. - He looks surprised when our himself, Tracy Lats.

- Oh, I love Tracy, amazing.

- Yes, we're very excited about this. And as always, that is American-Larican. (laughs) - Hey.

- See you guys. - We'll bid you farewell, have a good day. - Have a good day. - Yes, we will go to sleep tonight. - We have a nice sleep.

(laughs) - Link check with Griffin and David is hosted by Griffin, Newman and David Sims. Our Executive Producer is me, Ben Hossley. Our Creative Producer is Marie Barty Salinas,

and our Associate Producer is AJ McKean. This show is mixed and edited by AJ McKean and Alan Smithy. Research by JJ Birch, our theme song is by Lane Montgomery in the Great American novel,

with additional music by Alex Mitchell, artwork by Joe Bowen, Holly Moss, and Pat Reynolds. Our production assistant is Mitic. Special thanks to David Cho, Jordan Fish, and Nate Patterson for their production help.

Head over to blankcheckpod.com for links to all of the real nerdy shit. Join our Patreon, Blankcheck Special Features, for exclusive franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. Follow us on social @Blankcheckpod.

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