Live From Dallas VideoFest 30

Bittersweet as we said earlier...
It is 638 on the East Coast.
It is 338 on the West Coast.
It is the 7th of October in the year of our Lord 2017.
It is time for season 8 episode 13, 416 times this voice has welcomed you to the Clubhouse
podcast.
Sounds a little bit different than normal, it's because we're not in studio, we're
going to talk about that here in just a moment.
My name is Rob, I am the executive producer of the Clubhouse Podcast and it is a beautiful,
beautiful day in the Dallas, Fort Worth area.
A lot of changes tonight, but only temporary changes.
You'll understand what I'm talking about here in just a minute because sitting to my
right normally would be Chad, today is his birthday, so he's out galloping while he
is still on assignment.
So happy birthday Chad, hope all is well with you.
Sitting in the co-host chair as she's been doing in the meantime is the Lady of the House
at her very first remote show.
Good day for her, it is Jen Rome, welcome friend.
Hello everyone.
We're going to be where we are, we are at Studio Movie Grill right off of Loop 12 Technology
Boulevard that area.
It is the first weekend of Dallas Video Fest 30.
Kind of where it all began for us from a remote standpoint.
The very first film festival that ever allowed us to do a live show was Dallas Video Fest.
This is our fifth one in a row.
I'm hoping we get to talk to Bart a little bit later, Bart Weiss, one of our favorite human
beings in the entire world.
We're going to have some dignitaries on, we're going to have some filmmakers things like
that.
But let's start as we always do with corrections from our last episode.
Remember last week we talked about me having to root for the jets from the Frito Lake
contest.
I did win, which is the good news.
What did you win?
I won from PepsiCo.
Huge corporation.
$10 off a $25 fat head purchase.
Really?
Wait, but is Brittany available as a fat head?
Brittany Palmer not available as a fat head.
If that was the case, that probably would have been a purchase.
But I got that going for me.
Also, we talked about the Minnesota twins last year being the first team to lose 100 games
in a season and then make the playoffs the next year.
Their exact record was 59 and 103.
Oh, wow.
But they are now out of the playoffs.
There was a one game playoff with the Yankees and they lost that game five to two or something
like that.
But they gave it their all.
But they were in it.
So that counts.
We've got a lot going on here at Dallas Video Fest 30.
We're going to get into some headlines while we're waiting for you.
We got some very interesting guests that are going to be joining us.
Oh, yes.
So let's get into some TV headlines real quick.
For those of you that have been waiting on the fight, what will be the final season of Star
Wars Rebels?
That's going to start on Monday because this past season, trying to avoid spoilers
in every way, shape or form, we established where they fit in the timeline in this past
season.
So we knew there was a fine nightness to it and that fine nightness comes this season
in the final season.
If you are a fan of Ash versus evil dead, I kind of bailed in the middle of season
too.
It was just getting a little too out there for me.
But it's third season is going to bow on February the 25th on stars.
If you are a fan of that show, I'm a fan of the actor.
Oh, yeah.
Always.
Big fan of the Bruce Campbell.
For those of you that have been watching the Marvel Cinematic Universe on Netflix, it
was verified this week that when season two of Luke Cage, I said, Nick Cage, completely
different.
Season two of Luke Cage begins, Iron Fist will be in it this year.
So they're going to finally start to cross them over because I was a big fan of them as
a team in the comics, Power Man and Iron Fist.
Are you a fan of the NCIS?
Oh, yes.
And I, yeah.
So you heard this news this week that Paulie Perrett, after 15 seasons, will be leaving
that show.
She plays, what's her character's name?
Abby.
She's the girl.
Abby Shootow.
Yes.
So she will be leaving.
I know.
We're trying to show Gotti's here.
He's very upset about that as well.
Some of our favorite people from Sealinger here.
We love those guys.
We're such fans.
Debbie Gotti are hanging out.
And they're so nice.
I feel like I haven't seen Gotti in forever.
It's been that long?
And so we usually, we always see Gotti when we do the theater stuff, too.
And we've missed him the last couple as well.
Fans of Bob's Burgers rejoice.
They're getting a movie in 2020.
But for fans of Bob's Burgers, I worry for you.
Because when we look at animated series that have had a theatrical release, The Simpsons
South Park, that's kind of where the shark lives, because when Chad, when he's usually
we talk about, especially when we talk about South Park bigger, longer, uncut, he says once
they did the movie and they did all the stuff they did in the movie, there was nothing
nowhere else for them to go.
And I kind of agree.
South Park kind of took a bit of a nose dive after the film.
The Simpsons to me hasn't been the same since they did the film.
I still watch.
Don't get me wrong.
But it's not the show is not what it was.
They had their season premiere of this past week, which I was very much looking forward
to.
And they did kind of a game of thrones, Lord of the Rings type, it's tribute and it kind
of fell flat for me.
The Halloween episode is the one I always wear.
Trass horse always good.
That's the one I have on that.
But as a whole, that shows kind of fall.
So for Bob's Burgers fans, if that's coming, if you're a fan, I worry for you, but I've
talked to a couple of Bob's Burgers fans that are kind of excited about this.
But maybe they're cookbook will save them.
Yeah, it could be.
Or maybe this is the one that breaks the cycle.
We don't know.
The first wives club, were you a fan of that film?
Yes.
The Paramount Network will be making that into a series next year.
Oh, nice.
So I'll be interested to see how that works and who they get to play the parts.
And last, television headline because we have a guest sitting with us, John Stamos, who
apparently doesn't ever have enough to do.
Oh, yes.
Apparently they're taking his early days as a soap opera actor.
They're turning that into a series and it's going to Amazon.
So Blackie from General Hospital or him is himself.
He's, it's based on his early days as a soap opera actor.
That's all I have.
So him is himself.
Oh, yes.
I don't know if he's going to do it or if it's going to, if he's going to be just based
on his experiences.
Okay.
I don't know if it's going to be like an episode's thing.
He needs to be involved and it will up the audience quotient because I mean, I am the age
I am and I remember Blackie and I remember we would videotape it and our VHS had a cord
that we would have to be careful not to step on to be able to fast forward and rewind
to watch scenes of the movie.
And let's be honest, father time has been inordinately kind to him.
He hasn't aged in like 30 years.
He's just, he's just young.
He's just yummy.
Uh, TV on DVD and Blu-ray this week, Justice League action season one.
I couldn't believe they'd done a whole season and it's gotten past me.
This new J.L.I. series.
I had no idea.
Uh, good which season three, uh, the final season and complete series for Rain did know
that was done.
Uh, season five of impractical jokers, Murdoch mysteries.
It's a British show once upon a, once upon a Murdoch Christmas and the complete series
of the original run of dynasty because the CW was bringing it back.
Oh, yeah.
So they're re-releasing the entire series on DVD this week.
Oh, that would make a good Christmas gift for some people I know.
You got that going for you, which is nice.
All right.
So we have people sitting in front of us and we want to complete the segment.
One of the people that's, that's the person that's sitting in front of me, we talk about
this all the time, but there are two people in the almost seven and a half year history
of this show now that you can basically call the Kevin Bacon's of this show, like everything
that we've been able to do in the last 416 episodes plus another 321 special editions
that we've done.
So almost 800 episodes creeping up on it.
There are two people in the history that without those two people, we don't get to where
we're at.
One of them, we miss very, very dearly, we talk about quite a bit, Gary Murray, who we
lost about a year and a half ago.
And the other person is sitting in front of me right now because the great Kelly Kitchens
joins us at this time.
Welcome, friend.
Hi.
It's good to see you.
I'm so happy to be here.
I mean, we shouldn't be surprised that you're at Dallas Video Fest, 30 because this was
the first festival that you said, you know what, you guys should come do this four years
ago now.
You can believe it.
But this is our fifth go-go round with it.
So this is the one that started the whole thing and thank you for having us again.
We love hanging out with you, but we're going to let you introduce our other guest because
I am very, very ready to talk about this.
Okay.
Great.
Hi.
Thank you for being at Dallas Video Fest, 30, doc you fast.
It's almost middle aged now.
It's gone through the phase of trying to figure out who it is and now it's into the phase
of we need to don't worry about who we are, we just do the thing.
That's right.
That's right.
Exactly.
And this is the first year that that Bart has bled it up and we're not doing 150 films
and talk right into that kind of thing.
And a short, in two way, short amount of time.
We are doing a couple of dozen films in a weekend and this weekend is doc you fast.
And first time at this venue, too, that studio movie girl off of North of Thailand in
the 12th.
Which is really nice.
Beautiful.
But we have a lounge all to ourselves, which is, which we're sitting right in front of.
Yeah.
Video Fest really has, you know, such accommodations, anyway, but it's so, so, it's very nice.
We'll take it.
Exactly.
So anyway, well, okay, first of all, can I just say that for doc you fast, which is this weekend,
through tomorrow, then through tomorrow Sunday, and then then for video Fest, we have
the Ernie Kovax Award, which will go to Dave Foley and Kevin McDonald with kids in the
hall.
That was my college.
Oh, me too.
Oh, it's told college.
Squishy your head.
Squishy your head.
I've got my money in this and I, oh, are you both poor?
Yeah.
Squishy your head.
If we do this for a month, we can live rent free.
So that is November the 14th.
And then the first weekend of, I'm sorry, October 14th, please let me get that right.
Right.
Yeah, that's next weekend, the Ernie Kovax Award.
Yes.
And then then on the first weekend of November is what we're calling all to fiction.
Third, fourth and fifth, I think, if I do my math correctly.
Second.
Halloween's on a Tuesday.
That means the first would be a Wednesday, which means the second would be the Thursday.
Yeah.
Yeah, so second through.
Public school math, ladies and gentlemen.
Yes.
It's got.
Anyway, so that is going to be called alt fiction.
And it's narratives and television oriented, but there will, there will also, I'm hoping
be some, some classic film oriented things in that.
And if you know anything about this festival, it's always cool stuff that you may not see anywhere
else.
Yes, absolutely.
So I'm going to turn this like this so I can see everybody.
Probably the most comfortable chairs we've ever had at the festival, too.
I'm not going to lie.
I'm enjoying these chairs very much.
So I mentioned the classic film connection because that is my personal passion.
Uh-huh.
As classic film, we go to the TCM classic film festival.
For those of you that know, the Turner classic movies film festival in Los Angeles.
Yeah.
Kelly and her husband, Mark, go every year.
And I always love it when you guys take your pictures and show everything.
Yeah.
Because we talked about that the last time.
Yeah, we did.
We kind of went a little overboard last time.
No such thing on the show.
No such thing.
We live for overboard.
Yeah.
So, um, anyway, so let me just tell you, let me just, let me just give you the background
of why this lovely lady is sending next to me.
Um, so this film called Saving Brinton.
B-R-I-N-T-O-N.
Which film showed here earlier today?
Yes.
Um, so it was the last film that was put into the schedule for doc, for doc you fast.
And so I, you know, busy, busy trying to get everything all, you know, going press wise
and see who's one standard of you and what's, you know, etc.
And I'm like, I've got to watch this film.
I've got to watch the film.
And I don't know much about it.
I know something about it guy finds film in a shed.
That's really kind of all I knew going into it.
And I'm like, uh, which usually is the beginning of like a horror film.
Right.
Right.
Right.
It depicts the murders of his grandparents 50 years ago.
But no.
Not in this case.
Not in this case.
Completely different in this case.
Not in this case.
And so I'm like, I've got to see this film.
I really want to see this film.
And I'm like, I'm like, Mark, my husband.
So we need to see this film.
So we sat down and watched it.
And I immediately, I mean, it's like 11.30 at night.
And I immediately call Ruck Hell, the managing director.
And I said, Ruck Hell.
Okay.
I think, what if we got, okay, there's a, there's a woman in the film.
And she's, she teaches at UT Austin.
What if we got her up here?
And she's like, oh, yeah, do it, do it, do it.
So I'm like going, oh, how can I find her?
Oh, okay, put her name in.
You know, no, no, no.
And then I, I found, I found her email.
And I, so he emailed her at almost midnight.
And then it was so surprised when I got every turn email.
Back from her at midnight.
We left her midnight going, sure, yes, we'll come up.
I'm like, so I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm thrilled.
I'm thrilled to have you here.
Well, let's say who she is now.
I guess we see her.
Other people don't see her.
So, do you go back happy fuller ceiling?
Yes.
Okay.
So the full, fuller, fuller dash ceiling.
So we'll call you Kathy.
Is it all right, Dr. Kathy?
Do we need to call you Dr. Kathy?
Okay.
So this is, this is Kathy.
She is a film historian and professor at UT in Austin.
Who came up on the right weekend so that we shouldn't have to be here for the madness of next weekend.
When everybody else at her school will be in town.
Yeah, exactly.
Or, yeah, Texas, so you weekend.
So anyway, they can, they drove up last night at midnight.
Friday night at midnight.
Her and her husband.
Probably may have passed Don on the road.
By the way, Don also not here tonight.
He didn't get home until 1.30 this morning.
He's been in Houston for a couple of weeks.
He works for the state.
And they've been helping people get benefits down there.
He's been out there for two weeks.
So he called me.
He's like, we got in at 1.30.
I, you know, he just got married like two months ago.
So he's like, I need to spend time with my wife.
We're going to the state fair.
I'm like, yes, you need to do that.
Yes, I'm so happy to do that.
But welcome to the show.
Welcome to our Fairburg.
I guess we, let's just start at the beginning.
When you got this email from Kelly, what were your thoughts?
Like, this is a film that you've been deeply involved with.
And I really want to get into what this film is because it's absolutely fascinating.
Thank you for absolutely delighted.
I'm doing anything I can to help the,
the filmmakers show this incredible documentary anywhere in the state of Texas that I can.
I'm, I'm, I'm rooting they've been submitting it to various festivals.
And I'm so gobsmacked happy that they got into the Dallas video fest with incredible other, you know, films.
What a lineup.
I know.
And we're going to have a special edition coming up very, very soon with the interview with the director of another film that was here.
The other couple of nights, although I can't wait to share with everybody.
So I'm absolutely thrilled by the company.
You know, that it's in and just the opportunity to even get to see it again.
You've seen it more than I.
The first time I saw the film was at its premiere at the AFI Doc Fest in Silver Spring, Maryland.
Oh, I know.
They hadn't told me that I was in it.
I mean, I've been involved.
That was my time up there first meeting Mike Zah.
Right.
I'm doing that.
I've forgotten they had their cameras were so small.
I had forgotten that they were actually filming me.
Oh, my God.
And they've given me no indication that I made the final print.
But you know, so it's like.
So you're in the theater and you wait a minute.
I know her.
Kind of.
This is vaguely familiar to me.
So let me make sure that I've got all my ducks in a row here.
Guy in Iowa has this stuff in his shed as Kelly alluded to.
Doesn't know what he has.
He's trying to like, he's trying to get ahold of people say, look, I don't know what this is.
I need you to tell me what this is.
How far down the rabbit hole do we really want to go?
Do we want to talk about what he actually has?
Do we want to?
Is that kind of a spoiler to it or?
Can I just say, can we start with just just a little bit of why?
Okay.
So it moved from the Brenton's house when Mrs. Brenton passed away into somebody else's house.
The lawyer who closed the estate.
They had no children.
Okay.
So the lawyer who closed the estate should and could have thrown her away like all the other junk in the house.
But just said, this is kind of interesting.
I'll hang on to it.
Because there were film canisters and projectors and boxes and boxes of papers.
There are boxes of ticket stubs.
2,000 of the 10,000 items are used ticket stubs to use ticket stubs.
I can't hate on that because I'm that guy too.
I have an entire section in a photo album of ticket stubs of movies that I wouldn't solve.
So I have my Batman 89 ticket stubs.
As a Batman fanatic, that was not going anywhere.
So yes, it was just a bunch of stuff.
And Mike, when he got it in the early, he was originally attracted to the films.
And what he had done then in the, sometime in the early 80s, was contact what was then the American Film Institute.
And said, hey, this is nitrate film.
Can you make me a copy of it?
I shouldn't these things might explode.
Yeah.
And people said, way, way back in the day.
And I don't know, again, I don't know if we want to put a timeframe on what you found,
because I don't know if that's a spoiler for the film or not.
I think we should.
But back in those times, that's how you did film.
And like you said, it's nitrate.
Nitrate explodes.
And so if I hear what you're saying, he's like, look, we have to find a way to preserve what's here before it does that.
So the back story is that apparently sometime in the early 80s, he had contacted the American Film Institute.
And said, hey, I found these films.
Can you make me a copy of them?
And so they made a, took the 35 millimeter nitrate films.
It made him a 16 millimeter black and white thing.
He had about 10 hours between five and 10 hours of films.
And then from the early 80s onward, because he was a middle school teacher in this small town in Iowa,
very connected to his community.
He just loved having weekend shows whenever he could get people together every year of just, you know,
I mean, just a couple of times a year of putting on these interesting films.
And then he watched them so often he got to know what was happening in them.
And he would, you know, riff over them in this, you know, funny kind of way.
But it was just this thing that this dear man did.
But all that time he said, do I really have something?
What is this stuff?
And he, the few times he had tried to ask anybody about it.
They go, you know, I mean, that's nothing, throw it out.
What are you doing?
That's just all this stuff.
And this fascinates me.
Because these are films, again, I don't really, I don't know if we want to give away the timeframe.
But these are films from before my great grandfather was born.
Not by much.
But right before my great grandfather entered this world.
I say, these were films that started in, okay, that ended in 1908.
Nice.
Yes.
Which would have put my great grandfather in the third grade.
Started.
You know?
Exactly.
In 1895.
Yes.
Well, that's, his earliest films, 1897.
And that was about the first year that anybody could have bought motion pictures to start showing.
And these films back in 1897 were 30 seconds long.
And 60 seconds long.
Right.
And, as I said, the fact that they exist at all, because if they didn't burn up or explode,
they literally became like jello.
And so, the fact that they were so well cared for while Britain owned them, the fact that he kept them instead of just throwing them out, like, or tape, you know.
And I feel like that's nothing short of providence.
Because, like you said, for all intents and purposes, by all logic, these things should be gone.
Exactly.
And that's why 99% of them are gone.
And so, that, ever so more amazing to find one.
And then in the, and the marvelous French films, if you don't mind.
Yeah.
I'm in the middle of Eastern Farm Iowa.
Well, it is it because, I mean, because if they had been in Texas, when they have just been destroyed.
Yeah, the elements of wood.
Yes.
Yes.
Night trait.
Night trait does.
Yes.
Night trait does not like heat.
They were.
Yeah.
So, oh my gosh.
Which is even, and it's not like, yes, you get that cold in Iowa.
I mean, I was born in Iowa.
Well, yes.
Oh, yeah.
The summers aren't exactly mild either.
No, no, no.
So the fact that they survived all of this time, three different, for lack of a better term, generations that had these things.
Yes.
So what brought you to it?
What I came in about halfway through is, I've really credit the filmmakers themselves.
Andrew and Tommy and John, who were, I'm graduates of the MFA program in filmmaking at University of Iowa.
And they were searching around for a project to do.
And someone introduced them to the idea of, hey, go meet this fellow 20, lives 20 miles from here.
His name is Mike Zaz and he's got some really interesting films that he shows at that little community center.
Go there.
They were looking for a story.
And somebody said, there's a story, maybe.
Go check it out.
And so they met him.
And so this documentary is falling into place as they met him as he's hauling stuff out of the, you know, the attic of his house and that barn.
They help arrange the introduction to that marvelous archivist, the special collections archivist at University of Iowa.
So it's the filmmakers are going, yeah, Mike, you might have something here.
Let's just introduce you to someone who might be able to tell you a little bit.
This is the word antebellum.
So the fascinating thing that they'd been at this for about a year before, or at least from that first snow and they first start filming here, I've got into the story about July.
They had already introduced a retired professor from the University of Iowa's department.
That's Rick Altman, the fellow who looked at the glass slides and eventually plays the piano.
He is a very much an expert on those visual and music aspects of silent film.
And when they, when the filmmakers asked Rick Altman, hey, are there any film historians out there who know anything about these exhibitors?
Who would go around from town to town?
He said, well, I know Kathy Fuller-Seely wrote a book on it.
That would be you.
So they contacted me and I was delighted because I only know of one other collection in all of America like this.
And I thought mine, the one I'd written the book about, I thought that was the only one.
And yet that it kept me from writing anything more about it because it was the only one.
Maybe they're freaks.
And to find, there's another collection that nobody knows about.
And they invited me to come up in early, sometime in early July and just be with them for three days.
And they just filmed that, was them following me around with a camera.
That's the first time I met Tuesday, the dog.
That's the first time I met Mike.
He shows me the, the, the, the, the little, a traveling itinerary book that Ina kept.
And I am literally, oh my god.
And that was a natural reaction to no one has documentation like this.
Because it's one thing to make these spectacular films.
And just as, yeah, just as Rick Altman was saying in the documentary, it's one thing to make these amazing films.
But if you can find out how they ever got around to small things.
Well, and people don't understand the word exhibitor comes from that.
And back in the day, and you can use like gone with the windows a prime example.
It's not like today where a film opens nationwide.
Literally, there'd be a handful of prints is what they called them back in the day.
That would go from city to city to city and maybe show for a week too if you were lucky.
And so that's why they were called exhibitors.
Because they would go from town to town and they would bring the film canisters with them.
And they'd find a local theater that would back then would only show one movie.
I mean, I remember the theater I saw Star Wars in in 77 when I still lived in Iowa.
And it was an event.
People would be dressed up and there would be people in the balcony and people on the floor.
And so that's the way it used to be.
And to have, if I'm not mistaken, if I heard you correctly, these were the itineraries of where the film would go from town to town.
Yes, and they able to see that.
And they took it because they had to purchase the prints.
It was if you had to pay $100,000 to buy that copy of Star Wars.
And then you had to make it back by going town to town.
Exactly, because you can't stay in one town forever and make your money back.
So these films, as I said, they were only 30 to 60 seconds long and they're incredibly expensive.
Especially if you have them hand painted by the little ladies in France with the world's tiniest paint brushes.
So they had to be able to make this work at all.
You had to take it from town to town to town to town.
Luckily, Frank Britain already did that.
But with such an entrepreneur, he had made a career for himself.
He'd been traveling for about, at least over 10 years already, with slides and music giving lectures about his trips to the Holy Land.
Travel logs of the world to farmers who'd never been anywhere.
He had pictures of camels.
So photographs turned into slides.
And he already knew how to make a 90-minute to two-hour show out of these little bits of things.
So for him, he was always looking for something new to add to the show.
He had added a phonograph.
When nobody owned a phonograph, he brought in one and the one record he added.
Ta-da, am I going to play it?
So he loved to play the slides and the motion pictures were a new attachment.
You could put on your slide projector.
But it made his business skyrocket because motion pictures were so amazing.
I mean, the slides were fantastic, but these things moved.
They're real people. It's the illusion of light.
And in small town, Iowa, you know, it wasn't like, oh, I live in New York City.
I can go see these things.
Right, exactly.
These were literally entertainment star towns.
And to bring this, like, that's your blowing their mind.
Right.
So you're saying that, like, earlier today, was this the second time you've seen the film?
Yes.
Yes, just a second.
So, can I borrow you?
No.
That's right.
Well, just going back to the family or people that you did the book about.
What was their name again?
Oh, their names were Bert and Fanny Cook and they lived in Cooperstown, New York.
Another very tiny town.
And the name of your book is what?
Oh, that book was called at the picture show.
And is it still on Amazon?
Yes, it is.
Because we are all about shameless self-promotion.
It's been out since 1997, so you can get it dirt cheap.
Or if you email me at khfulleradayol.com, I'll give it to you for free.
There you go.
I mean, I'll give you a scan of it for you.
Right.
Well, so when you discovered them, what kind of materials did they have?
Well, they didn't have films.
So here it's like the Yin and the Yang.
Bert and Fanny Cook left.
Yeah, it was a similar story.
Bert was a pack rat and kept everything scraps of paper.
Yeah.
He kept all his accounts and all his notes and all these things.
And he stuffed them in a traveling trunk.
And that traveling trunk went with them.
One night stands.
Place to place to place all over upstate New York and Northern New England.
What years?
This same year, sort of 1897 to about 1909.
Wow.
But they didn't have Frank Britain's money.
So they could only afford a few very old films.
So they padded their show out with more songs because he was a great singer.
And more slides and things like that.
But doing the same thing, Frank Britain and Frank and I had a beautiful show
because Frank was a gentleman farmer.
And he had investments from his parents.
And so he had the money to buy the newest, coolest film and to pay the extra money to have them.
So people are seeing an A number one class show in Iowa.
Wow.
Whereas my folks, Bert and Fanny Cook, are showing a year old films.
And so they're playing even tinier towns.
But still to them, this is still new because it's new and wonderful and exciting.
And they're able, as I said, they're having to go different towns, place to place to place.
Even the Britons, they could only last about a year in Iowa City.
But then Iowa City got its own stationary movie theater showing new films every day,
whereas Frank Britain might show up there twice a year.
So eventually, even Frank's circuit got into smaller and smaller towns.
He could not have played a Dallas.
He could not have played a large town.
So he gets down to like Des Moines.
Exactly.
From his geography.
Luckily, the people of Iowa were very well off.
Those farmers were earning good cash on their crops.
They owned their farms.
They were among the earliest to buy automobiles and tractors and things like that.
So they had the nickels and a good road crews to clear the road.
So they in the winter, when they're not harvesting crops, they could get in.
Now, versus in parts of Texas and the South, it was very hard to do the same thing
because people are sharecroppers.
They don't own their land.
They're working not for pay, but for selling the crop at the end of the year.
So they don't literally have the nickels and dime some pennies to pay to go.
And the distances between the towns.
So everything comes together for folks in Iowa and folks in upstate New York
to be able to make a living, getting these films, traveling from town to town,
having the entertainment chops to be able to sort of sing and dance and create an interesting show out of it.
It's kind of like Vodville.
Yes, yes it is.
But how much would be a lot lower overhead?
How much material did you have to go through for the cooks?
Oh, well, I knew every place they played.
I eventually had lists of the films they showed, but I didn't have the films.
And that the films they showed were not, because they used the same ones for a long time.
Right.
So the films they showed were not necessarily as important as what they did.
But the cooks went for family-friendly fare.
A whole lot of Christmas things, a lot more of the things like the song, the Charles,
that they were singing about, oh the little girl that I love.
So they never showed any of the trick films.
Right.
The trick films of Melias.
So they did a lot of cute things about teddy bears and ducks and little kids and light comedies.
But they never would have, they didn't do the travelogue stuff.
Right.
So Frank's got a particular show.
He wants to educate and enlighten.
He wants to be, you know, let into the church ladies are going to like him.
Right.
So.
In that section of the country, the church ladies like you, you're going to play more than once.
Oh yeah.
So, I mean, it's building those continuing connections, get you invited back the next time.
Because if you put on a rotten show, there's nobody's going to come.
You know, I mean, we're right.
I was so curious why he didn't go to the University of Iowa in the first place.
But I guess since the piece of puzzle with going to AFI first.
Yes, exactly.
AFI made the copies.
The film and then the AFI itself disappeared.
And so he didn't even know the films that gone to the library.
Congress just nobody cared.
And in the evolution of how the academics have built film history.
Yes.
It was nobody started paying attention to these exhibitors until the 1990s.
So it was 10 years, 10 to 15 years after he started my business.
And that's what's blowing my mind the most is that it's still endured and made it to that point.
I went fast forward a little bit because you are a film historian.
And we don't get very many of those on this show.
So I have so many questions.
Oh, boy.
Who in your opinion in the modern era gets it right?
Well, Martin Scorsese continues to get it.
The fact that he would make Hugo, not because he was anticipating making a whole lot of money.
But because his granddaughters loved the book.
And he wanted to sort of give back to the history of film culture that has done so well for him.
Right.
Oh, there are so many of people making marvelous movies.
Although the movie business is different from when we were kids.
Absolutely.
So today the money is all in blockbusters.
And blockbusters are made for 13 year old boys.
You know, that's and so.
I have been called worse, but yes.
Well, you know, and then and then the fact that it's Iron Man chapter 23.
You know, that everything is now a continuing part of a series because you can guarantee that.
Whereas the people in Hollywood in the movie industry are so frightened of going out on a limb.
If you dare to star an unknown.
If you dare to push something that's not already pre-sold, you might lose your shirt.
And so the way you were talking earlier about other things that are out there.
TV shows and things on Netflix and Amazon.
In kind of ways, we have to re-conceptualize or at least that's how I think of it.
Re-conceptualize what the entertainment media is.
The hard lines between film and television are really blurring.
This is a golden, new golden age.
It really is.
Of television.
Of all the things you can get on Netflix and Amazon and the networks and the cable.
These short form mini series.
Spectaculars.
There are five over five hundred scripted series on television today.
Television broadly.
Five hundred.
I can't keep up with more than three of them.
I know and I used to be.
You should see what my TVR looks like.
Yeah.
It's begging for mercy.
You used to get three channels if you were lucky.
And then you had the rabbit ears or maybe somebody was up on the roof.
And what was it, Jeff Foxworthy once said?
And if the president was on, your night was shot.
Yeah.
That's right.
Exactly.
Well, or somebody was running away in a white bronco.
Or I could do it some other times that, you know, everything was stilled for what was going on in the world.
So you're right.
So our, our, our desire to be entertained and fascinating stories and marvelous media making is out there.
It's just out there.
It may not be at the movie theater.
You know, I mean, it may not be the way it was.
You know, 50 years.
It changes.
But the stories and things are still out there.
And it's still always possible.
The movie industry, if we say, you know, that's the media makers are putting their films up online.
And you pay per view watch that way.
Or the way that I'm going to say Netflix and Amazon are paying for our sponsoring beautiful documentaries.
That how are they going to get made otherwise?
Right.
So I'm not so sure about that thing we called the Hollywood movie industry.
I'm not so sure about it's working model anymore.
But if we look larger into all the different ways that we can experience.
And I'm now, I'm going to realize in the last few years I've now gotten to the age where I'll seek out documentaries.
Yeah.
Because I'm finding some of these stories like the one that you're involved in.
These kinds of things are fascinating to me.
Absolutely.
And it's almost like real life to me has gotten more entertaining than the fiction.
Yes.
Because these stories are so amazing.
And you can make them quicker too.
Mm-hmm.
With the digital technology that you're able to tell these stories and get them to a mass audience quicker with things like Dallas video best.
Right.
And some of the other festivals that we are fortunate enough to be able to help cover.
Right.
Do you know where the film's going from here?
I think they're going to be on the circuit for a while.
They're in St. Louis.
They're here.
They're there.
I'm hoping to find any way to bring them down to Austin and San Antonio.
Whether I can get them in at the Bullock Museum, the Austin Film Society.
Yeah, right.
Show it on the UT campus.
Right.
I want my students to see us.
Oh, yes.
I want lots of people to see this.
And I hope they get a deal, you know, to get it up streaming someplace after.
Absolutely.
But I'm so thrilled for the opportunity here.
This is a beautiful theater to see it.
Well, and I wonder, I mean, does he take that show on the road,
like where he was sitting on the stage and their and their bench and the lamp?
Yes, yes.
Yes, he still does.
So it's not only they're taking this documentary to all the places he's been before.
Oh, wow.
He's at the Ainsworth Community Center where the people get to see themselves at that audience.
It had its premiere at the state theater.
Oh, nice.
I think it was like a couple of weeks ago.
So they were able to bring it back to Washington, Iowa, to all the local people and say,
this is part of your sort of heritage and current history.
Well, I want to see him do that whole show.
The whole show where he, I mean, you know, where they're singing the song.
Yeah.
I mean, when you're, I think I mentioned that we've been to the TCM Classic Film Festival.
You'll have to come next year.
Oh, they do it big out there, too.
Oh, yeah.
Her and Mark do it big when they go.
We don't have that.
It's so great.
Anyway, but one year they had a, some guys come out with a hand cranked projector
that they showed the films that would have played on that hand cranked projector.
They also had a, a man and two, two women, I think, on the piano and they had the slides
where we would sing the song.
Yes, it was the MTV of 1910.
Yes.
Yes.
Early karaoke.
Well, exactly.
Is that because there was no other way to, that's how you sold sheet music.
Was the, they, the music publishers put out those slides as a free, here was a,
they made them and gave them away for free or rented them for just a few dollars.
And it was a way again to pat out the movie show.
My folks in Cooperstown fell in love with in the shade of the old apple tree.
Oh, of course.
She said, you know, that's, she said, oh, this is a hot number.
Let's, let's get the slides to this one and really promote that song.
And to me, that's kind of a lost art form, too.
And I like that Pixar still does that where you have the short before the film.
Yes.
I miss those days, too, that we want to bog you down with 19 trailers.
And don't get me wrong.
I love movie trailers.
I'm a huge fan of the movie trailer.
But when you can throw me a little five minute short, the kind of, it gets my mind right for the film.
Right.
As well as the exhibitors back in the day said that your evening of entertainment shouldn't just be dominated by this one idea of the feature.
If it's a sad feature, you need a few happy things.
If it's a men, you know, they thought of their audience as the family audience.
And so they said for the women, we'll have this for the children.
We'll have that for the men.
We'll have some action.
We'll, you know, we'll have some comedy, some romance, a little, a little tear.
And so it was today we can atomize, you know, that's just, you know, what are we going to, how are we going to please these individuals?
And there was something about pleasing groups of people together.
I also love how things, the cycles coming around again with the resurgence of the drive-in.
Yes.
You know, we've got, we have three within shoot distance of where we are right now.
Yeah.
And they're all double features and they're all like five bucks a person.
Oh, that's green.
You know, there's one we have down south in Ennis where it's so old school.
They started with two screens and now they have like six and they have a miniature golf course and they have a playground for the kids.
But you can go into their concession stand with ten bucks, load down and have money left over.
Like that's how old school it is.
And I, I mean, I remember I saw Empire Strikes Back at a drive-in.
And my parents had a station wagon and they go to the drive-in and my sister and I would have our sleeping bags in the back.
They'd watch, I think it was a Superman and a James Bond.
And I can kind of remember some scenes from the movies, but we were watching the movie.
We were in the back sleeping because it was past bedtime.
And the fact that I can share that with my nieces and my nephews and my goddaughter, those experiences that are getting lost.
I love having a home theater system.
I truly do.
But it's not the same as sitting in an auditorium.
And I love the concept like we have here at Studio Movie Grill where you're combining that dinner in a movie concept.
And you can still have that experience with your family.
And that's why films like this are so important because we have to understand where we came from.
And we don't, you know, we don't have enough people taking classes like you teach and in film history.
And I don't know why listening to you speak.
I'm like, I want to go back to school and take her.
I know.
You have to go to UT to do it, but that's a whole different issue.
I'm a very lucky girl to get to teach something I love.
I have bad dreams that some of my department chairs going to meet me teach like biology labs.
And I'm going to have to cut up frogs.
I will start a letter writing campaign.
I have stamps.
I will start a letter writing.
No frog.
If that happens, I'm all over back in here.
But your students are like, you're passionate.
How did it do? Was there a Q and I after the screening?
Oh, just a little bit.
How'd that go?
It was mostly maybe.
Yeah.
Great question.
Well, and my other question that I didn't get to ask was, where from Texas are they from?
Do you know?
They said that they came from Texas to Iowa.
Did you cut?
Did you know that part?
Oh, I haven't quite found that part.
The Britons.
No, no, no, no.
For some, Frank Britons family owned some land in Texas.
And I don't know why.
If it was more of an investment.
Okay.
And so I don't think they came from Texas.
Okay.
Okay.
I may have missed that.
No, no.
They owned some land down south near Houston.
Okay.
And in 1907, they were able to bring the traveling show because it was a mom and pop operation.
He didn't have a boss to report to.
Right.
So they just took the show by train.
They played.
They'd stop every day or a couple of days and make an arrangement.
And so they, I know they played in Austin.
And I think they played in Victoria.
And then in a couple of places, he did his business.
And then he worked his way back to Iowa.
That's wonderful.
Yay, Texas.
So I know you've been going strong all day and you've been shaking hands and kissing babies and all that good stuff.
We want to let you go relax.
But before we do, we want to make sure we get all the plugs out.
Oh, I love you.
Any social media, I think, for the film that people can go check it out with.
They're on Facebook saving Britain.
There's a website.
Look for it coming to you.
I can't find, you know, wait until that it's not only see it in a theater if you possibly can.
It's beautiful.
But if not, make sure to see it.
I hope it will come to one of the, you know, to the HBO or Netflix or Amazon kind of websites.
It's an absolutely beautiful film.
It's called Saving Britain.
It showed here today at Dallas Video Fest 30 because we're all over the world.
Everybody, all of our listeners to be able to get a chance to, to interface with you and with the, with the filmmakers to get this thing out there.
Thank you so much for sitting with us.
Thank you so much.
And I did check Amazon.
There is a single copy of new at the picture show that has not been purchased from Amazon.
Then of course, there's the used copies, but there is still one.
Nobody has owned a copy available.
That's right.
And your personal plugs to put them out there.
And one personal plug, I just, my brand new book drops October 17th on Amazon.
It's called Jack Benny and the Golden Age of American Radio Comedy.
You have that young lady's attention.
I love Jack Benny too.
It's, it's a career study of an incredible entrepreneur, a genius at comedy, a genius at creating comedy.
I learned that previous books that are all over 25 years old just say, uh, everything was so easy for him.
He was fired by his first three sponsors.
But along the way, he virtually, uh, he virtually invented the situation comedy.
He virtually invented stand-up and late night talk show host comedy.
I could see that.
Johnny Carson, you know, that's swore by Jack Benny.
Right.
Um, he did more by involving Eddie Anderson as Rochester Van Jones.
He did, he did more to integrate commercial network broadcasting than anybody else.
The Rochester character was amazing.
He, um, uh, he said, uh, he also was the most, he had the biggest genius for, um, um, combining, uh, commercial advertising and comedy.
His ads for Jello and Lucky Strike made him the best salesman in all of broadcasting.
Wow.
And so I was fortunate enough to dive into Benny's own personal archives.
Wow.
I find amazing things that nobody, um, chose that nobody's heard since 1932.
Oh.
So there's tons of stuff.
Oh, my goodness.
And the release date again on that October 17th.
That's coming up.
Like right around the corner.
Yeah.
That's what a week and three week.
I don't know how many hours.
Yeah, yeah.
You know, I, um, I, um, was just saw, uh, at the, uh, our Dallas classic film group.
We saw, um, Buck Benny rides again.
The best.
Okay.
It's amazing.
And, and it never plays on Turner Classic movies.
And it's just the most alive.
It was the closest.
On the vein of it.
No, it's very, you can find it on archive.org.
It's in the free and the public domain.
Wow.
On archive.org.
So watch it there.
Where it's a beautiful print.
It's adorable.
And you know what?
Archive.org has a common with this show.
What?
It's, uh, our first four episodes are actually on archive.org.
Well, we didn't, we didn't know what to do.
We didn't know.
We didn't have you stream yet.
And somebody just said, you know, you just put it on archive.org for free.
And I'm like, let's do that.
You're on there with Jack Benny.
That's right.
I am, I am one step away from Jack Benny now.
That's fantastic.
But thank you so much for hanging out with us.
We're going to be hanging out here for just for a while longer.
We've got some more filmmakers coming up.
We're going to talk some movie headlines.
Did you hear what happened in Germany?
In Germany.
No.
So, uh, it opened in Germany this weekend.
And Friday, actually, I think it was Thursday night, Thursday here.
It would have been Friday there.
Burger King trolled the entire audience.
At a screening of it in Germany right before the end credits began.
They put a spotlight up on the screen that said moral of the story.
Never trust the clown.
And then the burger king logo came up.
Oh, my God.
You're going to stick around for a while if you want to.
But yeah, they did that.
And there's a YouTube video of Burger King trolled McDonald's at an it screening in Germany.
Holy cow, that was amazing.
I was like, kind of, kind of gutsy.
That's really, kind of gutsy.
That's really clever.
And I read that story yesterday and I was like, oh, that's going in the show because that's really clever.
We were earlier because we're here at Studio Movie Girl at Loop 12 in Northwest Highway doing a live show for Dallas Video Fest 30.
They have a huge screen in their lobby showing movie trailers.
And just a little while ago, they showed the trailer for the Bruce Willis remake of Death Wish from the concept of why do we need this.
But apparently that's been pushed back.
It was really supposed to open next month is now going to open in March.
Why are we messing with Charles Bronson?
I don't know.
Like, it was bad enough when we did the mechanic.
I don't know.
You're twin.
Which one?
I have so many.
From CS, or from SB, the...
We talk about Vincent Denoffer.
Yes, thank you.
I have people say I have a striking resemblance of Vincent Denoffer.
Sometimes I see it and sometimes I don't.
He speaks, Jenesh.
But no, it's been pushed back to March.
I just, you know, the original mechanic was such a great film, especially the ending to that film.
And if you haven't seen it, I'm not going to ruin it for you.
Go watch the original.
I didn't mind the Jason Statham thing.
It didn't bother me.
The fact that they did a second one was weird.
But the way the Charles Bronson film ends,
and the how that ending just carries all the way through the end credits for no apparent reason,
except that it's awesome.
Like, those, there are certain films that I don't think.
Like, Death Wish doesn't need to be remade.
No.
Didn't Canon do, like, seven of them anyway?
So why are we doing this?
Fast and furious nine speaking of things are continuing on.
It's actually now headed to his theaters Easter of 2020.
And apparently Tyrese Gibson had a meltdown over it the other day.
Yeah.
But there's also for 2019,
Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham's characters were going to have a spin-off film.
Oh.
Because Dwayne can't seem to say no.
And speaking of Dwayne is on the screen of Riju Mangi.
For the Jumanji reboot.
Again.
Why?
I don't know, but I'm tempted on it.
But you know what?
You're right.
It's guaranteed money.
It's guaranteed money.
But what I like is when you have people like Clooney that will do the big budget film
just so that he can get the money to do the independent films he wants to do.
I still think he's crazy as a Lou.
But I still like it.
And he did almost ruin Batman in the films.
But a sequel that I am actually looking forward to that is now set for Valentine's Day of 2020
is the sequel to Trolls.
Oh.
Because that's such a Valentine's Day movie.
Well, it's about love and singing and happiness.
But you know what?
Deadpool released on Valentine's Day.
And the first king's been released on Valentine's Day.
Sounds of the lambs released on Valentine's Day.
Are you kidding me?
No.
The first wave's released on Valentine's Day.
They're good date movies, though.
I mean, that's the thing.
I love Trolls so much.
I thought taking a movie out of Treasure Trolls was the dumbest thing ever.
And then I saw it and I was like, I could not love this movie more.
Plus Justin Timberlake runs the world and I have an unhealthy crush on Anna Kendrick.
But that's a whole different story for a whole different time.
And it's an amazing movie.
You can watch it and not worry about who walks into the room.
So the Hugh Hefner biopic has already got wheels underneath it.
Oh, yeah.
And we're surprised by this.
Have you heard who's being lobbied to play Hugh Hefner?
No, but if you say Bradley Cooper, I'm an old man.
No, Bradley Cooper's already in the ring to play Vince McMahon.
Which is already weird enough for me.
Jared Leto.
What?
No.
That's who's apparently playing Hugh Hefner in the biopic.
No.
What age?
I'm assuming the 60s.
Yeah.
I mean, Leto's methods.
So.
Wow.
You mentioned Scorsese earlier.
I don't know if you heard that he's producing a film, a Joker origin film.
Oh, interesting.
What does he need money for?
Yeah.
Scorsese.
Come on, man.
He doesn't need money.
Raging bull.
Seriously.
You saw Lamada passed away.
Yeah.
A couple of weeks ago.
The guy that was Raging Bull was about.
Interesting conflicting stories about the new bride of Frankenstein film.
What?
Universal is doing this dark universe.
I thought the mummy was good.
I thought it was enjoyable.
Is it going to win Tom Cruise and Oscar?
No.
But for what it was, it was entertaining.
I didn't mind the one with Brendan Frazier.
Oh, three of those were fun.
And if you ever want to have some fun, find the ultimate edition.
I think is what they called it of the first one, where he does a commentary track.
And he treats it like he's, yeah, he treats it like he's snuck into the studio.
And that's how he does the entire commentary track for it.
Oh, it's brilliant.
It's brilliant.
Oh, that's kind of cool.
But Brian Frankenstein was supposed to be the second film in this dark universe that was
supposed to be, they were going to do all the monsters leading up to an Avengers-type finale.
Earlier this week, the director said they were supposed to go and they're going in front of cameras
in February.
Friday, it's now reported, bride of Frankenstein off the release schedule.
So, I don't know what's going on there.
Again, I enjoyed the mummy.
I think it just got a bad rap.
It's, it's, don't expection, there's lists.
You know, it's not going to be that.
It's a monster movie.
It's an adventure film.
Leave your brain at the door.
Have fun for two hours.
And I like Sophia Boutella a lot who played the mummy in this.
She did a great job in Kingsman, the first Kingsman.
I don't know why people have such a problem.
Now, movie, I do have a problem with.
And we don't need another one, much less three more that are on the schedule.
Thunder Smurfs.
What?
Avatar.
I call it Thunder Smurfs.
I, we didn't want, I did not like.
Kate Winslet is going to be in the sequel.
She has joined the sequel.
I got 45 minutes into that film and clocked out.
I did not like.
The fact that my, my beloved Disney has taken up a real estate for this thing is, is upsetting.
Can I just say, you know, I mean, they go to this beautiful planet and all these beautiful plants.
And then every single animal on this planet is ugly.
Ugly.
Ladies and gentlemen, Kelly Kitchens, bring in the knowledge.
I only, I only said once.
So I don't really remember anything other than a lot of blue and some flying.
Thunder Smurfs.
That's all I remember.
Well, the horse with six legs.
Ugly.
And I don't remember that.
I mean, the flying thing bird.
I remember I was at a friend of mine's house.
It was on.
I was like, you know what?
I'm going to give this film a shot.
45 minutes.
I was like, ooh, the sand lot time.
Yeah.
And the kids hadn't seen it.
So my kids were going to have a little time together.
We're going to watch one of the greatest movies ever made.
We're going to watch it right now together.
It's just.
Yeah.
The venom film.
Jenny Slate has joined the cast of that.
And Tom Hardy playing venom.
I'm kind of okay with because I could watch Tom Hardy read the phone book.
Thank you so much for hanging out with us.
They're getting Kathy and her.
Did her handler.
I'm going to call her.
You're her handler.
That's what you are.
It's film.
It's film.
It's film.
So I'm her.
Well played.
I just Jenny Slate.
I liked her on Saturday Night Live.
I thought obvious child was a terrible film.
I don't know.
Yeah, we'll see what happens.
Judy Greer.
Yeah, I don't know if you heard a couple of weeks ago.
Jamie Lee Curtis put up a picture on her Twitter account.
Yes, I saw this.
With her dress in the same exact outfit she wore in the original Halloween.
They're going to go back one more time.
Judy Greer is in talks to play her daughter in the new Halloween film.
I like the Judy Greer.
Okay.
That's one.
No problem.
John Cena.
Now John Cena news.
And I know Don's upset that he's not here to talk John Cena.
You know, he's going.
I like John Cena.
I'm sorry.
Don.
I love you.
I love you.
We're a lot of different opinions.
That's what makes this show what it is.
Oh, I just saw Bart.
He is going to be in a buddy cop movie.
Who?
Makes sense.
With Kumel Nondani.
What do you think?
From Silicon Valley.
Also, the subject of the big sick.
Oh, I like him.
I like him.
But him.
And him in a box.
In a copy.
Body Cop movie with John Cena.
That's a little weird for me.
I think we've seen this before.
It's a little weird for me.
I'm just going to say it.
Uh, apparently Lucy too is happening.
Luke Bayson has said that they're going to do it.
And.
I'm not sure how a failure of Valerian.
Kind of motivated him to get this done.
I.
That is that I don't know how they're gonna do I haven't seen the first one. Oh, I have so but I've heard that we've given the ending of the first one
It's very difficult to do it's gonna be stranger things have happened so I'm saying down, but I don't know I just don't see
Speaking of sequels
This is another one that I don't know needs to be made, but I'm not saying I wouldn't go see it
Doug Lyman says that the script is done for the sequel to Edge of tomorrow
Groundhog Day with guns. Yeah, but it's it right now. It's just a matter of scheduling for him Tom Cruise and Emily Punt
Oh, well, there you go. I enjoyed the first one more than I thought I would
It's based on a Japanese graphic novel called all you need is kill
Yeah, it's and it's groundhog day with guns. That's what it is. Yeah, and I I waited for it on cable and I'm glad I did
Like I'm like, oh, I would have seen that in a theater again. I have a home theater system
So if I wait for it at home, it's still gonna be the same kind of experience. I
Enjoyed it and I'm not saying I wouldn't see this
Paramount has acquired the film rights to Sonic the Hedgehog
I don't know. I mean some 25 years ago, maybe now
well, but some of the movies that were
Based on video games some of them have been successful. Super Mario Brothers. Not so much have not
You know like the first Mortal Kombat. I enjoyed the first Mortal Kombat very much
I will I will watch it if it pops up. I will stop and I will watch
Oh, I have the soundtrack. Trust me. It I'm gonna be playing it
Annihilation not so much. Yeah, no, no, sometimes you only need
But I heard the TV series at TNT. It was really good. I never watched it never watched it either
But it would have been interesting and I did enjoy when they did that Mortal Kombat legacy on YouTube
That was a lot of fun. Yeah, I didn't watch the second season though
Oh, cool excellent because I really want to talk to him because we want to help him get his message out for sure
All right and
Apparently Netflix and new line are going to rebooting shaft again
I
Like the reboot in 2000. I enjoyed the Samuel Jackson version. I love the original films so much when I managed a blockbuster at one point
And I rented all three of them in a weekend shaft shaft in Africa and shafts big score. How can you reboot something that Samuel L
Jackson has done. I mean you can't that's kind of an impossible to Samuel Jackson still no rich around tree. Let's be honest
true, I mean, I enjoyed again. I enjoyed the 2000 film
I mean, I still to the stage I quote
Tiger who I have they said who's gonna either cast I've heard the name and I can't remember it off hand
Okay, that may make a break it for me
Moving new releases coming next week because we've already covered this week's on our show last week
Yes, so movies because we're not we're gonna be doing WWE hell in a cell tomorrow night
So we're not gonna be able to get to next week. So let's go ahead and talk about next week's now the foreigner
With Jackie Chan and Pierce Brosnan. Mm-hmm
I actually do there's a screening next week. I'm not gonna be able to go because it's on my wedding anniversary
Which is Wednesday and that's rather important. Congratulations. Thank you for ten years with the lovely and talented Mrs. Irvin 18 years
Total time served so we got that going for us
Happy death day, which Don will be screening on Tuesday night. This is Groundhog Day with knives. Yeah
There's this thing. You saw the trailer earlier here. Yes, let's add a Groundhog Day a Groundhog Day a ground
You know, how else can we groundhog Day things? Marshall, which is about the life of Thurgood Marshall when he was younger and the movie brothers are gonna have a
Review up for that next week. Oh excellent. I've seen that on the screen up here friends of the show the movie brothers BRUTH AS
Okay, oh, that was a mark just handed me something I didn't see mark yet
Come on have a seat
We're not particularly you want to sit down to a some sit down talk to her. Hello
There's if you've got headphones if you'd like them. I only have one pair for that side of the table, unfortunately
Oh, we just lose a mic. We have a microphone down
Go ahead and tell everybody who you are and then what you got going on
Hi, I'm Chris. Hi. I'm Christina pet them and I'm working on a biography of character actor Stelma Ritter
His first film was Miracle on 34th Street with John Payne and Moreno here
I and she's never had a biography written about her. I have access to some
Interesting archives where I'm getting lots of first-hand stories that have never been published before about
producer Joseph Manquitz
on the set of all about Eve
And several different movies. I've got an extensive interview with character child actor Maddie Hodges
Who was in hole in the head with Frank Sinatra?
So you got a lot going on. Yeah, it's very exciting and a already a connection to this show
Putnam is my mother's maiden name. Oh really so my mother's side of the family all putnam's oh
Yeah, and that came from England the putnam's yes
There yes, and my mom of the Jamestown New York putnam's that's where she was right
Well, they move that Florida later on it goes back to Israel putnam and that branch split off and then we had some come south and some go
North and some in the middle. So let's talk about I mean you know how you got a lot going on
So this is all print media though correct. Yeah, I'll be print media. It may be an audio book later on
I also do social media for Turner Classic Film Festivals in Los Angeles and I've been to McKinney Classic Film Festival
There's so much going on for classic film in Texas and LA all over the place and so you
Am I correct if I heard you cracking you have three different projects all going on at the same time now
It's just one book right now Thelma Ritter hollywoods
The one that's that I've gotten in front of me, okay, and that's gonna be published by the University Press of Mississippi and
The late fall of 2018
So how long did it take you to get that first draft done? Well, I'm still working on I'm
Oh, okay getting research and getting stories here and there and interviews with different people and historians
People like Robert Wagner who actually work with her on the set of Titanic and
In Robert Wagner's latest
Autobiography he wrote about how Thelma Ritter actually knew he was
Engaged in an affair with Barbara Stanwick on the set of Titanic and she was very discreet about it
What what made you choose Thelma Ritter?
Well, I just I always wanted to read a book about her and there wasn't one
Plus her characters on screen always reminded me of my mother's sisters and my mother's family
But all the women and my mother's family
Were smart Alex they had a snappy come back for everything except mainly they had southern accents and civil Brooklyn accent
So I related to Thelma and it changes the flavor of the humor a little bit telling it like it is every time
And I spoke to Thelma Ritter's son before he passed in 2014 and
He told me she was like that in world as she told it the way it was and that people loved her because she was like that
So
I got so engrossed about you were saying I forgot my next question
That's okay. So how long is it you said you're still working on it?
What did you start writing the book? I actually read a blog about it about 2013 2014
But I've been kind of collecting information and then
Somebody said you need to write a book about her nobody's ever written a book about her and
That's that's true nobody ever wrote a book about her. So you mentioned the Robert Wagner thing what kind of other things that you find out about her that surprised you
She she was
What what surprised me about her is this how many of her colleagues?
Absolutely adored her
Absolutely adored her. She wasn't necessarily a great cook
But she did enjoy making chicken for Cassie when she was having to
Live in California her family her husband son and daughter lived in New York and
What I found that was so interesting is that
She had a lot of friends all over Hollywood. She knew all the major character actors some of them from New York from when she worked in radio
She would stay at the old garden of all apartments in Hollywood
You know the reputation here
You wanted to be naughty you went to the garden of all but she was not that kind of person
She was somebody who would work very hard during the day come home
You know get something eat collapse study her lines get ready for the next day
So you say it's gonna be fall of 2018 so you another year till the book comes out probably yeah
I'm still working on photographs gathering information and research and interviews. Do you are you do you plan on doing the audio book yourself or you can have
Somebody else do it. I've got a couple of people in mind. I might do the audio book myself. You know
What do you think what do you think dear? I think you could pull it off
Are you wanting if people have pictures or anything to contact reach out?
Yeah, let's do a shameless self-promotion
Back to the one that has any information or interesting stories about Thelma Ritter or
Just why you think she's one of the best character actresses that ever own classic Hollywood screen please feel free to contact us
Absolutely. Where can they do that?
They can do that at my email. It's
Ready are we ready? Do we have our pencils?
Okay, it's
MS period instructor
2013 at gmail.com
I like that. Thank you
You're more than welcome to hang out because we have another joy I guess joining us
I just listened to all his wonderful stories about his dad and his project
He's working on first cowboys, and I'm gonna get out here and let him talk all right
Well, you know that started the intro you finished the intro
Thank you for that intro. Thank you so much for hanging out with us
We have headphones if you need them, but we only got one pair on that side of the table
So but it's kind of a community thing going on right now. I like it. I like it
Go ahead and tell everybody who you are my name is Michael Meredith
I'm working on a project called first cowboys, and
It has to do with my dad who was Don Meredith and some of his teammates and the city of Dallas at large
So there's a lot a lot of going on 1969 was the first year they were here from not mistaken
They were formed in 1960. Okay, but they were that when they were still in Kansas City
Yeah, well, it's it is it's confusing because you had in January in 1960
Guy named Clint Markinson got the franchise for the cowboys and
His neighbor was a guy named Lamar Hunt who was a little upset that he had been asking for a franchise
Also, and NFL was pretty particular about giving those out
So Lamar got a little upset and decided I'm going to start my own league
And he started the AFL and that's eight teams that we have today including big ones like the Patriots and
You know some major players as a dolphin. I have to say boo to that
We have nine nine NFL teams formed basically in a month in Dallas in 1960 and
That's just the beginning of the story
So your your story talks about the early daily say first cowboys. It's not like the guys that roam the range
It's like the first players for the team. Yeah, this is the Dallas cowboys the football team America's sweet hearts
Yeah, that's it. Yeah, some of them were actual cowboys
There's one of the players is Walt Garrison who is a buddy of my dad's and he signed and they said okay for your signing bonus
How much is it gonna be?
On the go sheet. He's like, I don't want to I don't want it cash. I just want a
Like goose next horse trailer. It carries like, you know, force. I think it was a four horse
Trailer that he got negotiated as his deal. So and he was a rodeo guy
So there were there were a couple of like bonafide cowboys, but yes, Dallas cowboys as in football players and
The first one ever was my dad
Who people? Yeah, a couple people might know who your dad is just, you know, you know, he knew a couple of people
so
If I'm not mistaken, this is a work in progress currently correct and so we we we there's a there's a you're putting basically putting a call out to people by showing the footage that you have here at Dallas video
Fess 30 and we want to help you get that word out
So talk about the quest up to this point and where the quest goes from here because it's not done yet
No, it's not we're actually literally right in the middle of it
Just prior to coming here and bringing the first footage that we've ever shown
I was on set and the last 24 hours. I've interviewed Lee Roy Jordan
Kill Brant who was one of the you know, he's the original scouter and kind of pioneered scouting in the combine we have today
Even packers like Jerry Kramer was the last interview I did and he's
Pretty famous guy wrote a book called instant replay
So in the last 24 hours that are viewed about six guys
We're filming at my childhood home right now as we speak. There's a camera crew over there
So kind of almost behind the scenes live
Which I've never done before and never shown this footage before and it's it's kind of cool
So I was it to sit in I mean, I'm sure it was a decent size auditorium. You were sitting in
Spending all this time like in little rooms with people and now seeing this on just such a huge
Huge screen and in a huge room. How is that feeling for you? It was it was a little
Taste or the little tease of what will come hopefully
Probably the first part of next year the first half of next year is when the film will come out
But seeing it on it on the on the big screen was I
Love you know, I come out of the cinema world. I usually do movies with actors. This is my first documentary
so
The theater screening is part of
The feel good at the end of a long journey usually so
Yeah, kind of got a little butterflies in my stomach and it's a
Precarcer or a little taste of what's gonna come so it was very cool
So as far as the from from what I've gathered because I've heard rumblings here and there because I don't know
You were talking to some friends of ours or it's sealing earlier before the screening
Talk about the things that you're asking people for because this is this is a big undertaking for you. Yeah, and
For what you're looking for some of our listeners probably will be able to at least get you in a direction to help you with that
Yeah, well, I'm I'm looking for
Stories I'm learning a lot that I didn't know about the journey of the team and my dad in the 60s
And people are emailing in or are walking up and telling me some amazing tales
We have a website which is first cowboys.com and you can send in you know if you have any
Kind of tips or stories or just want to talk to me and tell me some stuff
I would love to hear it and in addition to that we're building a home movie archival
Gathering initiative to ask folks if they have any old films from the 60s that's even loosely related to the cowboys
Clubs that they went to or love field stuff guys coming off the plane or I just found out my dad on the club called the Revolver's
Little Richard James Brown and really cool guys came and played there and Angus when took it over after he left and started Sun City and
Culturally, you know, there's some fascinating stuff. So if anybody has film then there's information on first cowboys.com
how to kind of
Send it in or drop it off or have us get it and we'll transfer it and clean it up
How long do people have until they need to get it to you like is there a deadline at this point right now?
It's the end of the year. So we're gonna run it through
Which would be the 50th anniversary of the ice bowl December 31st
And we have partnered with SMU and they're helping us. Oh nice. Yeah, do all the digitizing and cleaning and they have an amazing
Team and archival set up over there. So we'll really start pumping it up
Probably November 1st will be the big publicized launch
But we're sort of in a debate of phase right now getting some really cool stuff in so
During this process that because you're still going through the process, but the process up to this point
Have there been any moments where it's it's triggered something that maybe you hadn't thought about since you were a kid because I guess growing up around it
You just kind of become it's just that's your life
So it's not like it would be for somebody seeing it from the outside. Yeah, has anything triggered anything?
You're like, oh my god. I totally forgot that that happened. Yeah
Well, I I was really young when my dad retired from playing football
Then he went into the booth and started doing Monday night football and that's what I remember mostly
Growing up
Howard Coacel and Frank Gifford and going to a new city every Monday and doing the games, which was really exciting and
Fascinating way to
Grow up. Yeah, to me it was Monday. Yeah, we were in Green Bay or we were in Chicago
Yeah, I was and I would miss Monday in school with my dad always to tell the teachers. Well, this is part of his road scholarship
It just spelled R O A D
Yeah, not R O H D R O H O D. Yes, there you go. There you go
And it was you know, I learned a lot and I met a lot of people and saw a lot of different things and that I think helped me
Later in life when I decided to make films become you know writer. I guess the production part of that would be I
Mean that must have just lit a fire under you. It's like this is the coolest thing ever. Yeah production wise for sure like in the booth and the
Trailer the camera what they called it, but we had all the screens going and they're deciding to cut which camera and I even
Held the sound dish for a few games that when I got older. Oh, wow
Yeah, I started building the college fund
But then also just traveling and meeting new people going to new cities and I shot my first film in Cleveland
Because I remembered it, you know, and I fit the narrative that I was working on and I probably wouldn't have gone to Cleveland
At least when I was a young kid otherwise, so
Home of rock and roll. Yeah, I'm a rock overall. They have the rock and roll hall thing pretty cool
But as far as triggering stuff, I we just shot at my the my childhood home on handover and I don't know if it's
Photographs or false memories or maybe it's a blade runner kind of thing
I got in my replica and after all, but I did remember the stairwell and like this thing I used to slide down head first and
I had explained it
Do those things and it was okay. Yeah, actually my mom told me that the cartilage in my nose took a couple extra years
The farmers are flying down and smack that thing and then just it's a been a trip down memory lane the the neighbor of the house that I
Had been to for 45 years came over and said I'm Heather Gardier
I'm married to Pete Peter Gardier's brother and he was the QV when I was a receiver at the University of Texas and we
He has the claim to fame of being the only longhorn
Quarterback or we're the only longhorn team to beat Oklahoma four years in a row
So I got a I got a text from Pete Gardier today. Nice
That's that's cool. It's pretty cool just to be back in the city where I was born and
Re-living and learning new stuff
Are you hoping to get some more interviews maybe next weekend being the Red River rivalry?
Yeah, they're gonna be to come in the town that you're gonna try to get for that as well actually the interviews continue in the morning
I'll be on the field the packers are coming to town. Yes, they are tomorrow. Yeah, so we're gonna be out at the stadium and
There's some others Joe Buck is announcing the game of his father Jack Buck announced the ice bowl and
The you know
Dack and Aaron and I'm just gonna try to talk to a few guys and ask about modern day versus
You know back in the day. Oh, that's kind of cool cycles
You know 66 Packers took out the Cowboys on an elastman an amazing kind of deal like Aaron did to us last year and then
The following year was the ice bowl, so we're not gonna relive that
But the Packers and the Cowboys might end up in the playoffs again
You never know it'll be exactly the same as it was 50 years ago. So I'm trying to talk to guys about that saying this is your first documentary
How does that process like doing a documentary has it?
Does it give you a better perspective on doing a narrative film?
Would you want to do more documentaries or is this kind of where the road leads for you?
I started this documentary as a way to do research on a scripted feature. Okay, so that was kind of the idea
I
Needed to do all of the homework and do the research and learn I just thought
Why not
Record that and have two films. There you go. I mean, so you still want to use this elite into more of a narrative feature about the early days of the team
Yeah, absolutely or a scripted television show. Oh, okay
Yep, so that's kind of what we're really aiming for now because it's the golden age of TV
We were just talking about that a little while ago as well. Yeah, and the truth is there's so much grist for the mill
I've learned so much. It's really
Fascinating not just to me because I'm the kid
People that I you know test test it with that I don't think you can even fit in a two-hour film
So with a TV show if you got some luck you can get 13 hours or maybe another season or a hundred hours and I got I got plenty of stories so
If you had your brothers. Yeah, if this became a television series
Where do you think would be the best place for a series like you want to do to land would it be a Netflix?
Would it be an ABC? Would it be an Amazon? Would it be an HBO?
Well
To answer is that question physically land
Has to be Dallas because my dad played Mount Vernon played SMU played Cal boys his entire career was here
The city is a character in the story the world is a real important and the film industry here is growing so much
You have to play the plausible thing absolutely. Yeah, so I'm gonna push
Every way I can to shoot it here and then as far as what company or network
I just
Amazon just announced that they're done with pilots, which is the first episode right usually you have to shoot that
They test it with test audiences and if it does well then you can get the money to do the rest
They just say we're done with that if we like it will do the entire first season really. Yeah, so that's a bold move
Yeah, so I read that just a couple of you know weeks ago. I'm like, well, how about Amazon?
Well, they're already doing
Their own NFL series. Yeah, but they're they're kind of their own version of hard knocks
But it takes place in the regular season. Yeah, I believe they're doing the Rams this year. Yeah
That would be and that would be a perfect companion piece to that
Yeah, because they've already got the built-in audience and so I think that would be an amazing place for it to land
It could be and I don't want to you know say that's the only home for it
But when I read that I thought that would be kind of cool
Then you don't have to do you still want to helmet or would you rather just write it?
Well, the tele television
Series showrunner is kind of the one that does most of the work and I don't know
If I can drink that much coffee
They really work long long hours and they're sort of what I'm saying would you want to direct the series or would you want to be more involved in the writing it
So you would want to still direct it? Well, yeah, the the thing you go for is created by the created by credit
And that would mean I would write some of the episodes in a season direct some of the episodes
But not all of them and the the showrunner sort of the head writer
The kind of keeps the overall
Ark of the story in mind
But I would be the because the creator of it if things work out
Do you think you could keep everything intact or would you have to change names and things like that?
That's a good question and I don't know yet
With the teams and the the logos and the brands and marks and all this that
You have to work that out with the NFL and the Cowboys
So if it would actually be like I hope I really wanted to be the Cowboys and
Inevitably you have composite characters
Excuse me
You can't tell the story of every single person on the team is you know, they'd be boring
So you you truncate stuff and you do these composite characters and it's usually unfair
To use one person's name and it tribute stories from two or three other guys to that person and they're like way that was my quote
So you tend to just change the names not to hide or disguise stuff but just for storytelling purposes
So well, it sounds like you have a good relationship with the team now if you're gonna be able to talk to Dakin and all those guys as well
Yeah, so and they let us bring you know 20 of my dad team my dad's teammates on the field last Sunday
Oh, that's awesome during their Am's game is the first time they've been together in 45 years and
They had a ball and then we had a big reunion dinner and sort of party afterwards and I think some of them are still recovering
As we get older it does take longer
Yeah, I always tell people like I tell these kids you know you turn 30 the warranty runs out
You turn 40 the wheels fall off and they never believe me and of course we believe our parents and our kids aren't gonna leave their pits
Yeah, so yeah
Is there anything else that you have going that you're ready to do that you want to talk about or is this really the focus?
Right now because we're all about shameless self-promotion. Yeah, so
Well, this is kind of spiraled off into three different components one is a one-hour
Television show called that's on the ice bowl
So just the game between the Packers and the Cowboys for those of you that don't know that it's called that because it was at the
Fruits and Tundra of Lembo field
Where it is that that game is I love watching the footage from that game because she's like these guys like I
Can't even imagine the mind frame of those guys in that game. It's called the ice bowl because it was yeah
It was it was 13 below zero kickoff. I got colder and that's not wind chill
Yeah, yeah, actual temperature because that's green Bay. Yeah, the field is frozen over so it's solid ice
There's a lot of stories people don't know about it like a fan froze to death. Oh my god
I didn't know that I like to be fairly world-versed in these things
I mean you know had had a hard failure due to
Exposure to the conditions, but to me froze. That's a diehard van right there
Yeah, so but the game itself is pretty amazing and that is I'm the host of that show and
NFL Network is they have a TV series called timeline timeline series so that airs
November 16th. I believe 14th or 16th on NFL Network
First Cowboys, then I'm doing the two-hour doc or hour and a half doc will be the first half of next year
I don't have a exact release date on that and then knock on wood will start shooting the TV show
Next September here in Dallas. Are there any distribution that you can talk about for the documentary or is that all still up in the air or or I can't talk about it yet
It's exactly it's a lot. Okay fair enough. We get that a lot too at the film festival for me
It's more like I just don't want to jinx anything
Like it's we got it we got a really good team and a really good group that's that's on board and I feel
Very fortunate, but I just we got I do contracts and finish the the fine print, you know figure all that stuff out
So how did the the screening go of this footage that she showed today?
Well, what we had today was
actual raw footage that just came from the cameras that were like literally just brought it over wow and it was timecode and
Because you know, I mentioned we've interviewed six people in the last 12 hour, but 15 others so I just kind of almost like a
Ted talker
That played behind me answering tell us some stories and really answering some some great questions that that people had about
The process or the old days or the players and so it was just like red camera cool footage playing behind and that was like a
Did you get any questions that completely coffee off guard?
Like this one apparently
There were some there were some really good questions, and I like hesitated to answer, but uh, yeah, I guess the one
That I probably shouldn't have answered and probably shouldn't repeat but somebody said who has there ever been anybody who said no
Like you asked to interview them that's a fair question. Yeah. Yeah, you think you know, they'll be a part of it and I've been
The maize and pleasantly surprised that every single person that I've asked said yes
Without hesitation except one
So now I'm probably gonna get in a lot of trouble, but well you don't have to say who it was you don't have to say who okay
I mean if you want to go ahead, but I don't want to put you on the spot if you don't want to say it Tony rumble
Yeah, Tony
I don't know actually didn't hear it directly from him
I heard it from his PR person and it's been a while. He might not have known exactly what I was doing
You know, he may come back around now, though. Well, it's interesting because his career has been compared to my dad's a lot
Mm-hmm
And he now he's gone into announcing and that's kind of a you know, same thing my dad did so
And I'm hoping that maybe he just didn't know what what the heck I was doing very possible
I got miscommunicated or something, but that was that that question. I was like, hmm. All right. I'll do something
It's gonna answer it. So there you go, but really more a compliment or showing my appreciation for everybody else like
Jerry Jones
the mayor
Anybody I ask, you know, I asked mayor Rollins if he would come by the reunion dinner last Sunday and just say a few words
The players because he's
Very aware of the history and Eric Johnson and what the mayor back in the sixties did and he came
He showed up. Oh, he gave a very beautiful speech and um, I
Mean I don't know. Yes, the mayor to come to your reunion dinner and he does I
Feel pretty that's a good day. That's a dear diary kind of day. Yeah, so I
It's it's out of respect for the players and my dad and the guys that came before but still cool regardless
Regardless of the reasoning. I mean that shows respect and the respect is the most important thing
Yeah, so I know you've been going 90 to nothing all day. You've been shaking hands
You've been kissing babies trying to get this thing moving and we want to give you some some relaxed time
But before you do yeah, I want to recap what we've done because again
We're all about shameless self promotion on this show. All right
I know that you want people if you've got archive footage that you've been holding on to from the old days
That's gonna help this documentary out if you've got stories that you want told because everybody's got it
Especially in this town especially with this team give everybody websites social media everything
They need to know to get a hold of you about this film. Okay, so first cowboys.com and it's spelled out
FIRST
That has if you go to that site you'll get
All the info in the film and it'll have links that can you can send in a story
There's a contact link. There's links to the various press that we've been doing lately
And then we have first cowboys on Facebook at first cowboys Twitter, so hashtag first cowboys
The omnihotel downtown actually where we had the reunion dinner did the entire light-up digital marquee is
Hashtag first cowboys. Isn't that awesome? Yeah, so they they were I have to give a shout out to the omnih because they were amazing
Helping us put that together. They do such cool stuff on the outside of that building. Yeah
I remember the first time I saw it was like did the building just move? What happened there?
Very freaked me out the first time I saw it. Yeah, well, it's a giant digital screen just with every window
Oh, yeah, every light-up room, so
But yeah first cowboys.com that kind of has that'll lead you to all the other places
But we've got that sort of brand that name is what we're going for
So we can't thank you enough for sitting down with this and hopefully when you're ready to do the whole thing
We'd love to have you back
Maybe come come by the studio and hang out with this one sometime on a Sunday night and talk about everything
We'd love to have you this was this is so cool
And I really hope that you get everything you need not only from the people you get to interview
But from the people that hear this that want to be a part of it as well. Thank you
Thank you very much. Can I say one last thing? Please say whatever you want my friend the closing film of the festival here is called escapes
And it's a film by Michael Amlarator on a
Interesting individual named Hampton, Fancher and I look over here. They're selling tickets to Blade Runner
He wrote Blade Runner among many other things and
Bart Weiss
Who's one of our favorite human beings in the entire world? Yes, it has
graciously
Allow me to play a short film that I made
With Hampton, Fancher. Oh wow another friend of mine named Richard Edson
Who is an actor that you would recognize from everything from Ferris Bueller's day off. He's the guy who steals the Ferrari
Oh, the parking lot of 10 parking lot of tend to yes soon the strangers of the paradise
They were both buddies of mine for a long time and they never met each other
So I decided I'm gonna make a short film and have them meet for the first time on camera in character. So Hampton
Hampton plays as a kind of crotchety art critic and
Richard plays a painter and the art critic comes to the studio and kind of tries to size up his paintings and talk and it's a
Four and a half minute short film that will play before escapes. It's called hands-on-eyes
And I'm honored to have that would be tomorrow night correct to Sunday night
Is that tomorrow? Yes, yes, you made me think Saturday. Yes, it is Saturday. Yeah, gosh
It's been a long week. Yeah, the lat the closing film of the festival and they'll be a little short beforehand that I directed
Oh, that's awesome. Yeah, so hands-on-eyes followed by escapes tomorrow night and then anytime
I would love to come back and talk about
We'd love to have you anytime you want to come on
We actually have a studio out of my house that we use normally for the shows
So we'd love to have you on thank you so much guys help him out with this film
Because this film's gonna be awesome and you want to be a part of it first cowboys dot com and not just because we live in this town
Well, I love my Dallas cowboy cheerleaders. There you go. And they're that's part of the whole mystique of the whole thing
I wanted to be one until I realized I couldn't really dance
That is kind of a prerequisite. Yeah rhythm rhythm helps that I mean
I was cute in my 20s. I just didn't have the dancing skills a little CRD or a Caucasian rhythm deficiency
No, just didn't take the classes. Oh fair enough fair enough. What are you doing now? I am you are doing it now
I am I take my classes every week
Go relax, sir. You more than earned it
Michael Meredith we have Michael Meredith on the show. Yeah, that's a huge get my friend
That is a huge get you are listening to the clubhouse podcasts. We're normally live every Sunday night
Seven Eastern four Pacific you're one stop shop for all things pop culture
We had we have been having so much fun. This is our 50 year
And as you walk away, I gotta say he kind of looks like George Clooney
You got a Clooney vibe off of that. I got a Clooney vibe. Okay. That's for you know
He's got the ring on the left hand, but he kind of looks like George Clooney. So does Clooney has ring on the left hand too
Oh, I know. I'm just making it acknowledge that I was dad now. I was being appropriate. Okay. That's fair. That's fair
You're one stop shop for all things pop culture tomorrow night though tomorrow. It's gonna be our pre show for WWE hell in the cell
Our second of three paper views in five Sundays. Yeah, and I have to go do my research. So I have my picks tomorrow
Yes, you have to be ready for this. I gotta do my homework. Hopefully don't we're hoping Donald be on the show. I don't know
He may still be tired because he and faith went to the state fair today after he's been in Houston for two weeks
Yeah, he finally got back at dark 30. Yeah, one thirty in the morning. He got home this morning
And also happy birthday chat. It is his birthday today also the birthday of friend of the show
Ashley Marne
Yes, Phil's middle daughter and it's her birthday. They share a birthday and I've heard on
I've had my my niece and nephews actually my nephews have been playing Pokemon and Daytona Beach the video
Oh, yeah, they're in Daytona competing in video and apparently the oldest one came in first very nice
And I've got a I think the younger one also placed and I've got to get the phone to pull it back up because mom was
texting me
Jacob came in seventh
Oh, very nice. That's two top 10 finishes. Yeah, because they're of course trying to get places in worlds again
So go go guys for any of the show Steven Zimmerman who will probably be with us tomorrow night
He'll probably give us a little bit more insight on that as well because he's our Nintendo correspondent
He's big of the Pokemon and we have more people some of our favorite people as a matter of fact
One of whom I thought I was gonna miss because I saw him walk out the door when we got here
But he stuck around long enough to hang out with this well, can I just tell you this is Kelly Kitschens again. Hello
So my husband Mark O'Courisham you're a steam husband. Yes, he is
Dying to broadcast this joke. What's your central marital dispute for us? Okay, we can do that
Okay, we were at we were at the movies the other day at the at the Alamo Draft House one another one of my favorite places
Yes, which one there's two locations. Oh the one Richardson. Okay, good. That's the one closer to their house
And you're in a previews. I asked Kelly if she'd like to see it
to see it and
What did I say you said yes? I said yes
Because the preview was for murder on the Oriented Express
You trapped her in the movie. It's by baiting her
With although I am so in on murder on the
My mom is actually willing to go to a movie in the movie theater. She doesn't she doesn't do movie theaters anymore
This is once she wants to see you're putting Kenneth Brahna and Josh Gad in the same film. This is world's colliding
I love and it's an Agatha Christie. Oh, yeah, but I mean and he keeps saying
That when of course there are things that I want to see
And I wanted to ask you want to see murder on New York Express. I asked if you wanted to see it and you detail
That's a smart move sir
That is and I even if I wanted to see that film I might use that but I have noticed that I don't know we actually talked about that film early
I don't know if you heard we talked about it earlier
Burger King used it to troll McDonald's in Germany
They it opened in Germany this weekend and right before the end credits
They flashed up a spotlight on the screen that said moral never trust the clown and then the Burger King floco came
I was like wow
I mean, I mean, that's that's that's that's a mic drop moment because it's not like McDonald's can come back
I did I'm glad you guys are here though because there's we were talking about movie new releases coming out next week
There's one I wanted to talk to you specifically about that I that I'm very interested
It's a documentary called 78 52
Yes, that's all about the shower scene in psycho. Okay. Oh, okay. Yeah, I've heard a lot of yeah
Okay, this one might interest me. Okay during the summer
TCM did a special course on
Hitchcock and
If they went from the beginning of Hitchcock silent
Films all the way through to the end always there is cheesy 70s. We still have some of those films on our DVR
Because you know, we were like how in the world can we watch all these anyway?
So but the guy and Christy probably knows who the guy is
She's handing you a handwritten note
Dr
Richard Edwards
Ball State University. That's who did the wait but Christy don't go far
Christy is my my my google um anyway, uh, but so the guy who did
Christy the partner rejoining us the the guy marks tagged out
Because he broadcasts. He got his joking. That's what you got. What do you need it out of it? We love Mark
Yeah
Anyway
And Christy knows a lot more than I do on this
So anyway um
So during that summer when they were teaching that course, which is actually a free course that you take online
And it's called a moop
It's massive
Yeah, go ahead massive
Open online course, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, good. Well, if you're gonna do Hitchcock
Have to be huge. Oh, yes, it would. Yeah. Well, they've done they did film noir
Two two years two years ago and last year they did a scribble comedies
Flapsed it. Slaps that comedy. I'm sorry um and so in this year was was um Hitchcock
Well anyway, so that guy who wrote that that who did that movie
78 52 78 52
Was on T.C.M. Introducing all of the prime time
Hitchcock and it's called 78 52 and I hope I get this right
He did 52 different camera setups for that one scene
Yes, one and there was 78 hours of footage. He shot. Is that where the 78 comes from?
Is it is that it 78 comes from because I know the 52 is the number of camera setups
So I think it was 78 takes and 52 cameras. Okay. There you go. That's what it is
And it's just about that scene and they actually use for the blood they used
Chocolate syrup because he knew it was gonna be in black and white and wouldn't the map
Yes, and also in conjunction with the massive online course that they had at Ball State
conducted by Dr. Richard Edwards and his team
They also had
The actual director of that film and I've forgotten his name. It's Alex. I'll exchange or something
And
He was interviewed by Ben Mankowitz
All summer long when they showed all these Hitchcock films in conjunction with the massive online course
So yeah, I saw that and I was like that's got to go on the runchi because I know Kelly's going to talk about it
Now when we talk about DVD and Blu-ray new releases this week you've got three
Criterion collections this week
One is a movie from a couple of years ago called the lure
It's about two sisters that are mermaids
It's kind of an artsy film. Oh, that's the Criterion collection. So it's going to be artsy
But one of them kind of takes a passive approach to to living in man's world and the other one like
It's a little psychotic. What country is I want to say it's French
Okay, the director of 7852 is Alexandra O'Philippe. Yes, there's a box on a bitches in it
Yeah, okay
Also on Criterion collection the this week the Orson Wells version of Othello. Oh, yeah
Criterion and one of my favorite films from when I was a kid. It's a mad mad mad mad world
It's the Criterion collection treatment this week
Tell you that screened it. Yeah, they screened. Oh, did they really at the synoramidome for one of the
classic film festivals they created synoramidome the synoramidome for that film did not know that and oh my gosh, you know
Marvin Kaplan was there and and Marvin Kaplan also gave me a great interview for my film a writer
Hollywood really New Yorker body. He was in a film with film uh
Called a new kind of love with Paul Newman and Joanne would word about
Harris fashion and oh my god, Eva Gabore was in that after Shazza got fired
She slaps somebody
No, it had to do with the costume demands costume demands. I was I was in Florida on vacation a couple of weeks
And
Naked gun two and a half just happened to be on cable and one of my best friends and I were like put the remote down or watching this right now
Other also this week wish upon which is a horror film that I won't see
The house which I kind of actually want to see this was the
Amy Polar Will Ferrell film
Where they can't afford to send their daughter to college so they turn their house into an underground casino
This looks like it would be good for a rental
The baguiled the remake of the baguiled that just came out recently don saw that and one of my favorite films of the year is finally on blu-ray
This week if you have not seen baby driver
You see baby driver
Baby driver it's so good. Oh, that's what we heard
Like okay, it's brilliant. There's another
I have a quick playing the soundtrack when we drive it's a two-disk soundtrack and that's still not all the movie songs in the film. Oh my gosh
It's the way it's done
The concept for those you that don't know it's don't let the name fully because a lot of people heard me and I like that sound stupid
I'm like no his name is baby right he is a getaway driver for a mobster played by Kevin Spacey
I love and so basically he was busted as a kid trying to steal from him
And so the way he's working off his dead is by being a getaway driver wow
The way the film is done
Who directed it? I'm totally blanked out
Edgar Wright oh
Yeah, oh, Edgar Wright so the way Edgar Wright based this on a music video he did in the 90s
and so
The chase scenes everything is choreographed to the music because baby when he was a kid
He was in an auto accident with his parents and because of it
He has tenitis and the only way that he can drown out the tenitis is that he's constantly wearing ear ear buds
And he owns like 16 iPods
Wow, and so when he does a job for Kevin Spacey's character
He coordinates every piece of the operation to the music that he listens to
And so the chase scenes are choreographed to the music in the film
Oh how fun there's an entire sequence after the opening chase in the film
Kelly kitchens getting love that's nothing new to anybody because everybody loves Kelly
It's a random reading is by
So after the opening chase scene there's a scene where he's going to get coffee for everybody and as you're watching it
It's almost like a music video because the song he's listening to there's like flyers for bands that are actually lyrics from the song
Everything else. Oh cool. It's it's mind-blowingly good. It's visually choreographed to the music
Well, FYI Edgar Wright also did a presentation introduced a film at the Turner Classic Film Festival
So the folks there at the film festival try to get all kinds of
historians authors directors writers to absolutely to LA for that event in the spring and I'm telling you
This this movie is an experience. It's not just a film and I've got to find a way to find money in my budget to own that film
Oh my wedding anniversary is this week. I need to tell my wife and my understand score say he did that's the same thing on his like violent scenes
Mm-hmm that you know that the music you hear he's already thought of that music to use in the movie and he plays it
while he's holding and
Wright goes deep cuts on some things in this film so like there's there's a young MC track
That he uses from young MC's first album. Oh wow that actually samples theme from shaft
So the beginning of it you think you're hearing theme from shaft and then he starts wrapping on top of that
I'm like all right am I the only person in this room that knows that song because I mean it's
I heard good things going into this film like when we did the Garland high school film festival
There were almost every kid that we interviewed said that that was the movie they were looking forward to the most
And I was like okay, so I've heard good things but we went to the screening of it and it absolutely melted my brain
Wow, absolutely lots of my brain so that comes out on blu-ray this week. This is a must-own. This is yeah
This is one of my favorite films of the year right now and it's it's just it's 19 kinds of brilliant. It's some of the best work
I've seen John Hamdo
John Ham that's awesome. I love him and Jamie Foxx flirts with over the top in this
But it wasn't enough to take me out and we agreed to disagree on that one because I think that's how that character was supposed to be
Right, so it's a matter of an Ansel Elgort is a name. You're going to be hearing a lot
That kid is a may
Zang while we're talking about music
The 2018 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nominees came out this week some interesting names on the list for nominees this year
Well, let's go through the first time nominees first Kate Bush
Is up for the first time
Dire Straits kind of surprised there a first time
For those of you that don't know to qualify to be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
It must be at least 25 years since your first commercial release. That's the rule
Uh
You're with mix up for the first time this year
They have to be in first place or made of this
Here comes the rain again is my favorite song that there's ever
Because I just that song is just perfectly crafted
Doing it for themselves great song with her and I'll read the Franklin
Judas Priest up for the first time this year
Moody blues up for the first time this year which is on yeah, I find that on how are they not in 20 years ago?
Radiohead might be a little early for me
Maybe a little early, but they qualify rage against the machine
Tom Morello. Yes, Zach De La Roca. Yes. I don't know the band in general
I can get some others that need to go in first. Yeah, Nina Simone first time nominee
And gospel pioneer sister Rosetta tharp sister Rosetta tharp needs to go before
Anybody else repeat nominees this year Bon Jovi up again this year
The cars
De Pesh mode yeah, you know tying into a movie that played here two nights ago
J Giles band up again this year
L.O. Cool J up this year MC five are these guys ever gonna get in how are they not in now
How are the motor city five not in now because look at the others on the list that I just first time
The meters also up again this year link ray and the zombies
Yeah, the zombies not in that's surprising
So that that's the list of nominees. They look at the actual inductees later this year
And they're going back to Cleveland for the ceremony this year. How many how many do they actually get from those nominees?
I want to say some usually is between six and eight actually get in
Okay, got it
But the good news about the rock and roll hall of fame is there's not like a if you you only have this long and then you don't get it
You could be nominated forever. Okay, but I always love it when HBO does the induction ceremony
I DV art every year
Just because to see like when wouldn't uh
Rush got in food fighters inducted them and then food fighters dressed in the 2112 outfits and did the whole thing
Oh, yeah, it was great, and I'm a big food fighter fan. I think Dave rolls one of those guys that just gets it
Like that dude is a bona fide rock star if he gets it if you haven't seen
Uh sonic highways
They're they're last album
We talked about this the other night their last album was called sonic highways and every song was recorded in a different city
So what Dave girl did is when they went to the city to record the song
He did a one-hour documentary or an HBO about the history of rock music in that city
So there's one for Seattle. There's one for LA. There's one for Austin
There's one for Phoenix. There's one for New York. There's one for Chicago
And most of the cities that they did this in they actually did uh
Had people from that city like in Austin Gary Clark Jr. played on the song that they did in that city in Phoenix
They got Joe Walsh to come play on the song
It's I own that on de on blue right because it's a brilliant series
It's also on Netflix or Amazon. I was assuming it would be on Amazon. I don't know
Because it was an HBO series. I don't know that it would be on Netflix, but I'll guarantee you it's on each bill go
Uh, this has nothing to do with that list particularly but uh this year the east uh the last member of the east
Texas string on Sombal Stan Alexander passed away
And they had his memorial service at Threadgill's in Austin. Oh nice
And then we learned that uh, is it frank ones? No, what what was the barbecue place in Austin that just burned recently the big place down there
Yeah, I can't walk in but one of the big barbecue places they they lost their smokehouse and that just made me but they're they're working on getting it epic
Yes, they are they said the next day this they were already rebuilding
Uh, we're almost at the two-hour mark. Is there anything else you guys want to plug before we get out of here?
Thanks again to studio movie girl for having a sad as bark and it comes out with us
Or is he's shaking hands and kissing babies
Or watching movies could be please watch and maybe but Dallas video fest 30 are doing it a little bit different this year
You've got doc ufests happening this weekend and then the first weekend in November will be alt fiction
So they're kind of breaking it up a little bit, but we will always come and hang out for video fest because you dance with the ones that brung
Yeah, that's right, you know, and
You know kelly kitchens. She doesn't even have to say the word jump. She says
And I'm already in the air and once you meet
Because you realize you can't say no to her. She's infectious. She's adorable
You want to make her giggle more
And so kelly give us your plugs my friend
I'm gonna take it to the water while you do that. So yes, my name is kelly kitchens my
Um email is
And whatever you want to find man, this is your time. Yeah. Well, okay, so um you can find me at kelly at kelly kitchens
PR dot com so that's kello y at kello y k IT chns
PR dot com don't confuse it with kelly at kelly kitchen
spr dot com
People do that all the time kelly kitchens fabulously international publicist call this woman. We love her so much
And she does so much cool stuff that we get to do. I know I I think I'm the queen of quirky
But that's what makes it like the thing we had the other night for for dare to be different was amazing
I know oh my god
I can't wait to get that that ended up and end out so everybody can hear it
I got to interview the director slash producer like this lady did everything on the film. I'm so grateful to you
Oh she she was amazing and I couldn't have been happier to do it
I can't wait to get that out there for everybody to hear because this is another documentary
You need to check out if you know anything about eighties and the new wave and alt rock movement
This documentary is about
K-I-L-R in New York which was the station
W-I-L-R
K-I-L-R
Wester the Mississippi everything's K, Easton the Mississippi things W
W-I-L-R
This is the station that literally made you to in America
There's no other way to say it if it wasn't for this station
You two probably would never have made it to America
Right it's the music that we're up on
You're going to see people in this documentary like Joan Jett is in this
One of the guys from the Thompson twins is in this
Oh baby
Tom Bailey is in this Billy Idol is in this
Oh and Billy Idol says has some of the most profound
statements
about about the music and
and just what it what it means to actually
Actually for America what changes it it brought to America which is so cool and
The guy from flake of seagulls is in it
Yeah, I mean this is and when I got to sit down and talk to Mrs. Goldfarb
We had about a half an hour conversation and when I record our interviews on my phone
The app I use looks like a cassette recorder
So that's that sparked an entire other conversation about cassette tapes and and recording things off the radio
We talked about everything
Under the sun when it comes to this documentary and I told her that that this documentary
Has to have a mixed tape you have to for to have all the guardians of the galaxy showed us you can do it
Oh, yeah, oh yeah, I mean even if it doesn't isn't an actual
tape it needs to be called the mix but guardians did it
They did release the soundtrack on cassette and it basically revitalized the cassette industry
A lot more bands are doing cassette. There's a
Early this year at diff they had a thing called cassette a mixed tape documentary
They talked about it like they showed
Henry Rollins as an entire
Closet that's just cassette tapes that's amazing, you know, and so it's kind of the cassette tapes are making a comeback
So like final I
Within the next couple of weeks. I'll have that available for you guys to check out as well
Yes, websites social media all that other good stuff too. Okay, so Kelly kitchens
PR.com
You can find me on
Facebook which is where I
Situated mostly just because I've also got a TCM group on there
But it's it's if you do
Facebook.com slash Kelly kitchens. I'll one word you'll find me because I'm on Facebook
I'm actually Kelly kitchens wicker sham Kelly J kitchen to wicker sham
Um, and so that confuses people because there are other Kelly kitchens which I love
So much and there's one in Dallas too, which is funny
And then we're about a a year away from Thelma Ritter Hollywood's favorite New Yorker
Yes, I'm also can be found on Facebook. I'm Christy Putnam. I also have a very small
Turner classic film festival group
And I've just started a Facebook page fourth Thelma Ritter Hollywood's favorite New Yorker
So find me and any one of those three venues. Thank you. I appreciate it Robin. We're more than happy to have you
We love having people on the show because that way don't have to listen to me run my app for two hours
It's nobody we did that one time and it was a it was almost a disaster because nobody showed up to do the show
So it was just me for an hour and 45 minutes
That was the longest night of my life. Oh, and I've lived through a hurricane. So
All right, so shall we do the rest of the plugs and then take this thing to the house
Let me get right back to this place on my iPod where I need to be
I yes, I still have an iPod because it works for the show
So the only time I use it is when we're doing the show visit our website
www.theclubhousepodcast.com find out everything you need to know when some stuff you don't
You can follow us on social media twitter is at clubhouse show
Everything else is the clubhouse podcast all three words in that order or you will wind up somewhere else
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It is spelled E-R-V-I-N my normal co-host for this show. It is his birthday today Chad Womack. You can follow him
Happy birthday, Chad is Chad NPG69
I'm Jen Rome home on Instagram ROHM the official fact checker of this show who's spending the evening with his wife
Or happy he's home safe is Don Ford you can follow him at font F-A-N-D-O-N-G-O-O
Von Don go that's how you can find him you can also email him if you'd like I gave him that nickname
And sometimes I regret it you can email him for information how we can come do a live show for you
Just like we're doing tonight for Dallas video fest 30. We love doing live shows and hanging out with the Empire
He is done at the clubhousepodcast.com
You can email me questions comments concerns tell me to go pound sand
I am rob at the clubhousepodcast.com Chad is oddly enough
Chad at the clubhousepodcast.com
Charlotte Parker is on Pinterest because we are morally obligated to say that
Jewel's Womack is celebrating Chad's birthday with her husband
Faith Ford happy to have her husband home
We hope they had a great time with the state fair of Texas today
By the way check out Sunday's show because we talked a lot about the state fair of Texas
I've already had people calling me going where can I find this stuff? I don't know and I'm hearing your food recommendations are delicious
We talked about all the new state fair foods this week. There's some really cool stuff out that that bacon casso funnel cake burger is calling my name
Probably
I'm probably gonna be a coma if I eat that our normal show every Sunday night
Seven Eastern for Pacific is your one-stop shop for all things pop culture
Also remember you can subscribe to this show in your favorite podcast app
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So until next time for Jen for all of our guests and for the Empire
I'm Rob clubhouse is closed and can I get a documentary about Britney Palmer or go do I just have to do it myself
I'm probably gonna have to do it myself