iTunes Exclusive Episode The Gospel According To Andre

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My name is Rob, I'm the executive producer of the Clubhouse Podcast,
and I'd like to say I carry my own sense of fashion.
It may be Old Man's cheek, but I'm cool with it.
But I'm not alone for this particular episode because this is 389 for those of you playing the home game.
Do you remember me across the desk as he tends to do from time to time?
Did I get that right?
It's my co-host.
And a man who walks to his own fashion beat.
Because that's how we roll.
I'll never rock the black dress locks and sandals.
You can be assured.
Oh, no, that's never going to happen.
No, never.
Rounding out the day, this is the official fact checker of this show.
And a man who very rarely has a shirt that doesn't have a collar when I see him.
Because that's just how he gets down.
You may know him as fond Don Go, but his mama name is Don Ford.
I'm going to call him Don Ford.
Welcome, sir.
Well, I do have a bunch of like torn t-shirts with the STP and the oil stains and all that stuff.
I'm not going to judge you outwardly.
And they got a proper mammary of brother's t-shirt when it has no collar.
Or the shirt you got me.
Has no collar.
The clubhouse podcast.
That's true.
Yeah, that's true.
We got to switch it every once again.
Yeah, exactly.
Whatever we do, one of these things it is to review something.
This is no exception.
We're going to talk for the second time in a week about a documentary.
And it's called the Gospel according to Andre.
First or so thing.
Yes, sir.
We got to think Brad and everybody at FontsPR.
Hey, we're such fans of those guys.
Brad had a birthday recently.
Happy birthday, Brad.
So we love our vendors.
They give us the opportunity to see films in advance so that we can talk to them.
To you guys about them.
And you can make the best possible decision for your entertainment dollar.
I actually saw this one myself because we had to divide and conquer a little bit.
Yeah, and we had another engagement set night.
So let's talk about it.
Okay.
This is a documentary.
It runs about an hour 35.
All right.
About Andre Leon Talley.
Now Chad, did you know who he was before this?
No.
I had heard the name, but I am not fashion conscious as the kids.
I've never been somebody who, you know, looks for the latest trends.
I'm just not that guy.
I am.
But um.
I'm the power through that.
But Andre Leon Talley is a guy who is very, very well respected and well known in the fashion community.
He worked for Vogue magazine for years, both domestically and internationally.
He worked in Paris for a while.
Anybody who's anybody in a fashion world knows who he is.
He grew up in in Durham, North Carolina, in the Jim Crow South.
He is an African American gentleman.
And he, uh, this is just about his life and his experiences in the fashion industry.
And it's a thing.
I mean, that's really all I can say about it is it's a thing.
It's a movie.
It's a documentary.
And that's just kind of where I'm at with it.
I don't know if it's because I'm not somebody who is well rooted in fashion that this didn't really resonate with me.
I thought I think he has a fascinating story.
But you also know how I am with linear storytelling.
Yes.
This thing scatters shoots a lot.
And not in a way where it's like, okay, we're at this point, but we need to tell you this story to understand.
It just goes.
There's a lot of things that I thought maybe you could have kind of deeper into this part.
And because there's like, there's like an entire sub plot storyline because I hate to use plot in a documentary.
But because a lot of this takes place in the fall of 2016.
So it's leading up to the presidential election.
I kind of understood why it was there, but I don't know that it was necessary.
I felt like they were choosing a hot button topic to focus on.
I don't even know if that because they didn't really focus on it.
That was the thing.
But they kept going back to it.
There you go.
And I was just kind of like, you could have trimmed this out.
And I don't know that anybody would have missed it.
Now, unless there's something about his journey into that election that made it have to be there.
So that people that were more in the know would have been cool.
But for me, it was just, I was kind of like, why is this a thing right now?
And there's interviews like Woopy Goldberg.
They're close friends.
There's people that he knows in the community.
And they also interview some of his childhood friends.
People that he knows because he was raised by his grandmother.
His parents just kind of dropped him off there and just let his grandmother raise him.
Sounds like James Brown.
But the church played a very active role in his life.
He had a great story, but I don't know that they told it well enough.
That's unfortunate.
And again, I don't know if it's because I just didn't feel like I had an investment in it.
I mean, I'm sure that's got more than just a little bit to do with it.
But I mean, even a story can be told about a subject that you've got no stake in the game with.
And they can still make it an interesting engaging story.
And sometimes they just kind of miss the mark a little bit.
I kind of feel like that's what happened here.
And it's kind of sad for this guy because it's not like he's going to get multiple swings at the bat.
I don't think you're going to get another chance to tell your own story.
And then it just kind of seems derivative after that.
I mean, there were some really fascinating angles to it because at one point he was actually directing photo shoots for Vogue.
Like he did an entire spread that was the retelling of gone with the wind in reverse.
Oh, wow.
With Naomi Campbell is now Scarlet O'Hara.
Oh, geez, okay.
And it's a beautiful, it's a beautiful article.
But I wish they would and they kind of talked about it a little bit.
But it's stuff like that that I wish they would have gone into more.
Like more about his writing and why he was so influential and why he's always front row at Paris fashion shows.
And I feel like this people that know who he is and know a lot about him, I think, would get more out of it than I did.
Seems like it seems like a documentary for people that work in that industry.
Yeah, I think you're right there.
That it's more for people in the know.
Because I mean, I can't say that I regretted seeing it.
I mean, I thought it was really well done.
But I was just kind of like, yeah, okay.
It could have been done good on you.
It was well done, it could have been done better.
Did it seem like you needed to know a lot of the jargon of that industry in order to get much out of it?
Is it a jargon thing? I think it was just more of a story telling thing.
I mean, this is, this director's only done one other film and that was a documentary called Eat This New York.
I just, I don't know.
Well, it's a subject that you don't really have any passion for.
And I think that's part of it too.
I don't have a passion for fashion.
Oh, no.
No, I'm sorry. I regret everything.
But you know what?
I regret everything.
I can't say that in the film, too.
So, it's not just me.
And it is in my written review at www.theclasphousepodcast.com, which I do apologize for immediately after typing it.
It's not just a tag讚 in the back of one of my ties.
And for those of you wondering, no, that really happened.
We're not being facetious.
That's an actual story that we've probably told a thousand times.
I don't know if we're gonna do that.
But I don't know if it's...
For those of you that don't know, at one point,
Irvin had his own line of clothing and that was what the tag said football is my life but passion is my passion and we're like and you and I
laughed for about 10 minutes. No, we've been laughing for about eight years. That's fair. That's fair too. But this is by no means a bad film. It's just not a great film.
And I think it's an audience. And now that you said it, I think you hit the nail on the head. It's because I don't I don't have a stake in the game. I don't have
I hate to say I don't have a dog in the fight. I just don't. Yeah. And like you said, there are times where I've there's been subject matter that has pulled me in and this didn't do it. Yeah, but again, it's not a bad film. I mean, we recently reviewed another documentary that's that's due for release that everybody in this room was incredibly passionate. It's the episode before this one. Yeah. And I guess this is kind of like once you've seen that everything now you're unfortunately going to be kind of comparing every documentary
you see up to that one. And that sets the bar pretty unrealistically high for everything else. I mean, and there's some heavy hitters they review in this thing. Oh, of course, I mean, there's some big, big names. Manolo's in it. Oh, the guy that the very popular shoe designer. Okay.
Very, very, very heavy hitters that they're names that I knew. I was like, oh, like Manolo Blanek. Yeah. Yeah. And I was like, okay. I mean, this guy is obviously somebody because this person's talking about it. And there's a little montage. Yeah. And there's a montage in the end title sequence where he's talking to people of Diddy Daddy and and just sell and that guy she's married to and oh, that guy. Yeah, that guy.
So it's, it's, you know, it becomes kind of a whosove who you always see at these at the Met Gollum. And there's a lot of footage from the Met Gollum. Of course, because he wears like these big tapes over his suits. That's one of things he's known for.
But yeah. Yeah. It's a will I am's in it at one point.
But they have a very, very funny exchange between them. I will say that his exchange is a very in the very beginning. He's at a photo shoot with will I am and they have a very funny exchange back and forth. And he's very funny, very engaging man, very funny man.
And very, very honest and upfront without like I never thought at any point like like who that was mean like he's just very honest, but he has tacked to him. He's not brutally honest. Right. Okay.
I mean, he seems like a fascinating guy. I just wish that they would have I think they just didn't handle the subject matter as well as they probably could have. I think I'd be more interested if they did this. That's a documentary series. Maybe so. Maybe he had too much story to tell and they just didn't. That's very, very possible. You know, and they just did what they could with the time they had to work with it. I don't know. I just didn't make any sense that it would be this. Don questions. If you were the director, what would you have done different rearrange some stuff?
Again, the score, the story is told very scatter shottingly. Is that a word? I'm making it. It is now somebody wants to add that the urban dictionary to my name on this fine. It's just I feel like again, but maybe it's because I really, really prefer linear storytelling to over here. Now we're here. Oh, but I forgot to tell me this story. And then there were I prefer a more linear style that I think that would have served us better, especially especially in documentary form. Yeah.
That really does drive me crazy when they time jump in a documentary. There's no. And in some cases, it's necessary because you're like, oh, you know what? We're here, but let's reflect on this. Yeah, if that influenced here, something needs a little back story on the mind. Yeah, I didn't feel that way here.
But let's get to the final analysis. Maybe do the final analysis on the shows. We're not going to give you thumbs up, thumbs down. We're not going to give you letter grades, numbers, vogue, anything like that. Now I'm talking about the magazine, not the dance.
I don't know, you know, two questions.
The first question is, what I see this film again, if the answers know, then we're done here.
The answer is yes, then the follow question these boys are going to ask me, is how far do people want to go to see it?
From the best of the best of the worst of the best, here's how we roll.
Full price at a theater down to a twilight showing down to a matinee showing down to early morning on a weekend,
down to actually going to the second run for the dollar theater, down to actually leaving the house to get it from red box,
down to streaming on Netflix, down to cable.
Rob. Yes, sir. Cargamans want to know, of course they do.
Would you see this film again?
That's a really interesting question. You knew it was coming, right?
Oh, really? I personally would not see this again.
Yeah, that doesn't sound like it.
But that doesn't mean I wouldn't recommend it to a certain audience.
Oh, yeah.
And that's the thing. Again, it's like I said before, this isn't a bad film.
It just never, it just never got a hold of it.
It's not for you.
It wasn't for me.
But I'm always up to experiencing new things and checking out, because like I say, we don't just cover mainstream film.
We get invitations to see independent film or films that are maybe outside of our wheelhouse.
We're still going to do it because we do it for the empire.
And sometimes those wind up being really delightful.
Yeah, sometimes we get surprised.
And sometimes we don't. I mean, that's just a nature of the beast.
But we have great vendors who ask our honest opinions.
And so we're happy to give them.
So if you're somebody that is into this scene and you know who this dude is,
or you're intrigued by a certain by all means, check it out.
I just, it just didn't do anything for me.
Understandable.
It's just there.
It's informative, but it's like you think it, you guys better,
it should be in something like I'm the Discovery Channel or something or an A and E.
Like, or like the autobiography channel.
I think that will be a good place for it, too.
You could want it pretty well on E with all their stuff with project runway.
Yeah, it's not a bad idea either. Bravo.
Yeah, yeah.
I think, I think that's it. Bravo.
Better than total divas.
That's fair.
We're total bellas.
It is Kate Novak directing the gospel of Korean Andre.
We don't think Brad here by a fonts PR.
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