The Best Movies About Filmmakers, and ‘Boorman and the Devil’

Last week, we shared the exciting news that were coming to San Francisco next month for a live show on October 21st. And you were all just as excited as us because you sold that out. So we figured we'd make the most of our time in the Bay area and screen some movies while we're there. You can join us at the Balboa Theater on Tuesday, October 20th at 6pm for a double feature. We'll be screening the original Halloween. And then one of my favorites, Halloween 3 season of the witch and discussing both movies in between tickets go on sale tomorrow, September 24th at noon Pacific at BalboaMovies.com. Again, we'll be screening and discussing Halloween and Halloween 3 on Tuesday, October 20th at the Balboa in San Francisco tickets go on sale September 24th at noon Pacific. More information will be at BalboaMovies dot com soon. We hope to see you there. I'm Sean Fennice and this is the big picture a conversation show about Pazuzu, that voodoo that you do so well. On today's episode, Tracy Letts. And I will discuss the new documentary, "Bormin and the Devil," which tells the fascinating tale of director John Bormin and his misbegotten exorcist sequel, "The Heretic," which also serves as a portrait of an uncompromising and utterly unique artist. One of my favorite kinds of documentaries and a rich topic for both of us. Then Tracy and I will dig into other docs and other films that explore the life and work of film directors. We'll jump into it right after this. This episode is presented by State Farm. You know the feeling, long day, good meal, you finally sit down and now you're just staring at your screen. Slasher, romcom, period drama, psychological thriller. But some decisions don't have to be that hard. State Farm is here to help. When you choose to bundle and save with the personal price plan, bundling, just another way to save with the personal price plan, like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Covered options are selected by the customer, availability, amount of discounts and savings, and eligibility vary by state. Okay, Letts, you're here. Yeah. What's up? Hey, how you doing? Welcome back. Nice to be back. We saw each other at the Telered Film Festival. We did. We were, I was a civilian there. You were a celebrated artist. You were a man being fettied. Well, I was with my wife who was being fettied. What was it? Were you being fettied for? A movie that Carrie and I made called the Liberation, which had its premiere at Telered. And was that the number one thing that you were flagged down in the street about while you were at Telered? No, the number one thing I was flagged down in the street about was being third chair on this podcast. Many people, many, many more people than I can. Was it mostly men? Were there women involved in this as well? Men and women. No kidding. Yeah. What age range are we talking about here? Mostly younger than me. Okay. Maybe all younger than me. Okay. How does it feel to be discovered for this and not all of the actual good work you've done? It feels just. Okay. We have an interesting assignment today. Yeah. You know, you're out here because we have a long in the works, Jean Hacken Hall of Fame episode coming soon. Yeah. But we wanted to do something else. And this documentary hit the festival scene and has been much talked about in the cinephile worlds for a while, but Bournemon and the devil is finally out in the world. It's I think spreading across the country as we speak. Oh, I see. I wasn't sure of the release. It opened on Labor Day weekend and I think it is going from city to city. David Kitchert directed this movie. And as I said, it's a it's a new-ish kind of documentary about a film where they're exploring not just the life and work of an artist, but specifically a movie that is not a great big fat success. And a movie like this, I think, would have been inconceivable 40 years ago. Why would you spend lots of money and time and effort and the free moments of artists talking about something that most people don't like and isn't success? So let's start with the exorcist too, okay? Just because I want to know, did you see it when it was released? What was your relationship to it before you watched this movie? What do you make of there being an entire documentary about a movie that most people don't care for? I avoided exorcist too for a long time. I remember my older brother and friends going to see it in movie theaters. And I remember him coming back from seeing it saying that's the worst goddamn thing I've ever seen. I didn't believe it. I remember him narrating portions of the movie to me and like, would you believe that he just found it so ridiculous? Only in the last few years did I realize that my brother had never seen the exorcist, had missed the exorcist and only watched the exorcist five or six years ago and was blown away. It was like, I had no, he avoided it after exorcist too, assuming that exorcist too was just, you know, the continuation of more shit from the exorcist one. And then he went back and he watched the exorcist and it's like, that's a freaking masterpiece. How have I gone this long without seeing it? What would compel you to go see the exorcist too having not seen the exorcist? I'd probably just go out with buddies, I mean, high school or whatever. And I had a kind of reverse thing where I saw the exorcist early in film going life and had avoided the exorcist too for most of my life because of my brother's reaction to it. I also recall, you know, the medveds had a book about, about turkeys, about famous Hollywood bombs. And I remember this book and I think the exorcist too was maybe second all time on their list to plan nine from outer space. And some actually very funny writing about the movie, just what a ridiculous venture exorcist too was. So I only watched exorcist too for the first time in preparation for this podcast. Oh kidding. I had never seen it before. Wow. So I come to it very fresh. That's really interesting. I definitely knew that it was a turkey and I probably didn't see it until, I don't know, 15 years ago, kind of filling out the slate of, whoa, what filmmaker, what's their filmography, what are these unusual movies in history. It's not the kind of thing that they show you in film class. It's not the kind of thing that was prominently displayed in your local video store because it had such a bad reputation. But we're in this time now where, and we've talked about this with a lot of our physical media episodes, films that were considered unimportant or even disastrous, now have a comfortable home in the future of Sinophilia. They're everything is revived, everything is reclaimed, and this one is such an interesting example of that because you've got a lot of really decorated, thoughtful people working on this movie. This is not playing nine from outer space. This is not some junkie exploitation movie. This is a big time Warner Brothers film that cost a lot of money with a lot of serious people connected to it. I do remember watching it 15 years ago and not liking it and not getting it and maybe understanding and appreciating some of its ambition, but probably feeling in my heart the same thing that your brother or maybe at least your brother's friends who saw the original exorcist felt, which is, this isn't the exorcist. This has nothing to do really other than Linda Blair with what I enjoyed about the first film, but the movie poses this really interesting idea, which is, should all sequels, should all connective art, just gratify the same impulses that the original gave us. How do you think about that? I don't know that there's any hard and fast rule about it. We should be able to do whatever the hell we want to do. I think there is something kind of artistically bankrupt about revisiting a thing. Does the story really need continuation? The end of the Godfather kind of tells us what's going to happen to Michael. Now Godfather II gives us what does happen to Michael, but we understand at the end of Godfather from a character perspective, he's already lost at the end of the Godfather. He's already lost to this, to the dark side. The interesting part of Godfather Part II from a story perspective is veto story, right? The prequel part of Godfather Part II. I think, usually, and we'll talk more about Mr. Friedkin because, of course, he made the original exorcist, and he made the original French connection, which we're going to talk about French connection one and two on our Hackman pod. I think that Mr. Friedkin considered the idea of a sequel completely bankrupt, just completely a just a soulless money grab. Just purely for just artists saying, come on, we can get, we can make some more money off of this. That's the reason to do this. So do you ever need to continue the story? Now, Horman says in the documentary, I wasn't looking to continue the story. I didn't want to continue the story. He didn't even want to call it exorcist, too, right, that was a late breaking marketing decision to even call it exorcist, too. Just kind of strange for that to have been late breaking. Like you'd imagine that that was part of the deal from Sinon, right? But I would think that somebody at Warner Brothers was going, come on, you know when this comes out, it's going to be called exorcist, too. That's just not good business. Yeah, right. But it's interesting because Horman was approached to direct the original. and then he turned it down, or so he says, and he turned it down at a really interesting time in his career where he, let's talk about him, because we've not had reason to really discuss his work at all, I don't think on this show. And he's a really, really interesting filmmaker who's probably best known for deliverance, which is the film that sort of more or less put him on the map, he'd made some films in England in the '60s, he made a film with Dave Clark V, he very memorably made Point Blank, which kind of redefines a certain kind of noir crime movie, adds a layer of kind of abstraction and artistic style to it. But deliverance is like, you can kind of do whatever you want after that. He's approached to a blank check, truly. - Yeah. - And he caches his check right away on Zardos, - Yeah. - Which, you know, Zardos remains one of my, one of my physical media grills, I still don't have a copy of Zardos. - Really? - Yeah, and there's a Twilight Time and an Arrow edition, they're both like $500 on eBay. - They are, that's news to me. I bought that Zardos hot off the presses from Arrow, it's very good. - Yeah, I wish I had it. If you've not seen Zardos, I would encourage people to check out very unusual movie. Actually kind of puts the heretic to shame in terms of its oddity and strangeness. And so Sean Connery's science fiction, Fantasia of sorts about two sort of like, warring tribes and which side Connery's character will land on, he's memorably wearing a man, Keeney, in the film, looking quite strong. - Thick, he looks thick, doesn't he? - In more ways than one. And a bizarre movie that was not a huge success, though it was quite memorable in terms of cult classics. And you'd think that after something like that happened that he would be asked to take a step back from commercial cinema. But John Callie from Warner Brothers sought him out to make the exorcist too. And what he's chosen to do with it is so strange. How would you describe the exorcist too in terms of its relationship to the first film? - Well, it's hard to, I mean, I think it is awful. I just do think it's an awful, awful film. - It does not work. - It doesn't work. First and foremost, it's not scary. There's not a moment in it that is genuinely frightening or even suspenseful, really. It is not a scary film. - And coming on the heels of the original which I think has a claim for scariest film ever made. - Yeah, I mean, so there is a bit of hubris there on Mr. Bohrman's part to think I'm going to make a sequel to the scariest movie ever made and there's not gonna be anything scary in it. And I'm gonna be able to get away with that. I don't know why anybody thought they were gonna be able to get away with that. I don't know why anybody would look at the script on the page and think, oh, well, that's scary. That gives me a shiver. It doesn't, it's just not scary. And it just doesn't work. And Richard Burton is, I don't know what he's doing. I mean, the documentary reveals that he maybe was not completely, maybe he was just caching a paycheck and just kind of playing the Burton hits and relying on his voice to get him through, but it's a pretty dreadful performance. - He's terrible. - Yes. - When will you enter your Burton era? - Oh, I'm there, baby. I'm there. I don't think so. - Not like this. - He was, you know, he was very a severe alcoholic and he was drinking to great excess while they were making this film. And it feels like it and not in a way that is firing up his creative imagination just in a way that's making him very sodden and sweaty. And just he's not a compelling lead for this film. - He seems somewhat checked out during much of the movie, which is a movie that you probably shouldn't be checked out in because it is meant to be this kind of ecstatic intellectual exploration of some ideas that maybe you're underneath the exorcist and Bournemont's whole pitch on the film was, the original film is this bleak and destitute exploration of like a loss of faith and like the, you know, the depravity in our culture and a lot of other rich ideas. And this movie is meant to be more hopeful and more about transcendence and the flip side of the exorcist story. - He even says at some point that the exorcist, the original is about torturing a child, which is just ridiculous. That's not what the exorcist is about. The fact is that Mr. Friedkin and Mr. Bournemont just had such wildly different aesthetics, just a different approach to, well, different things that interested them, right? I mean, one of the things that's so terrifying about the exorcist is it's presented in this, well, Mr. Friedkin was a documentarian first and foremost. So it is intensely realistic. Everybody is playing the absolute realism of this. That's why the scenes at the doctor's office, you always forget about this before you watch the exorcist. When she goes, she does what my mother would do. I'm gonna run every possible physical test to see what's going on with my daughter. And all of that is presented with great realism, heavily researched, Billy researched the hell out of everything. He would have talked to all of the doctors who were running those tests. What are you looking for? What are you trying to find? - So I'm haunted by, is it like the needle in the back during the spinal tap is just awful? - Yeah. And so what happens when something supernatural occurs against this extremely realistic backdrop? It's scary as hell. Orman isn't interested. That's not his aesthetic at all. He's interested in flights of fantasy. He's interested in symbols. There's deep symbology and Zardaz, and he's interested in legends. - Yeah, myth transcendence, all the stuff. - All the stuff. - And all of his movies have that even deliverance, which is a fairly boots on the ground movie for him, is still about lost masculinity, the transition of a generation, like big, big, thematic ideas that are not meant to be realistic, that are meant to be very elevated, which I could kind of see the thinking of the executives who wanted to hire him for that. But he brings such a specific point of view. And he seems pretty unwavering about the kind of movie that he wants to make. And it's just all the wrong movie for the exorcist. But is there a world where you can dispense with that idea? 'Cause the movie's sort of attempts to interrogate this. Can we just throw the exorcist out? And can we look at the heretic as its own thing? As its own idea, as its own experiment. There are a lot of incredible, kind of physical filmmaking strategies in this movie that are really interesting to learn about. The ghost class, for example, is one of them that has explored the synchronizer and the way that that's used in the movie. Like, can you find value in these other things, even though it seems like a total rejection of an all-time classic that like, people still love to this day in the original exorcist movie. - So let's pretend the exorcist was never made. There is no movie called the exorcist. There's only the heretic. It's still a terrible movie. And the synchronizer still looks fucking stupid. - Yeah. - It still looks like a tape recorder with a light on it, yeah. - It still looks really stupid. And the ghost class, it's a fine technique and I understand it was sophisticated, a sophisticated use of it as the documentary shows us. But it's not used well. I mean, it's not used to good, it's not impactful. And in fact, it looks, again, kind of stupid, kind of cheesy, it just doesn't work. There are so many things about this movie that just don't work. James Earl Jones just doesn't work. There's imagery in here and it's like, what am I looking at? What were they thinking? What did they think the impact on an audience was gonna be? - What about the bug perspective? - Look, I like the idea of we're trying to get it something about the hive mind and a locust could be scary, but the way it's shot is not scary. It's a little cheesy. - Uh-huh. - I mean, let's face it, it just doesn't work. I will say I was quite struck by the influence exorcist too, must have had on Italian horror. There's a whole world of Italian horror that seems to borrow pretty heavily from this movie from exorcist too. - Well, what specifically are you thinking of? - Well, I'm thinking about the climax of exorcist too, primarily, the kind of grand, operatic gestures of the house breaking apart and the plagues of locusts and screaming into the wind. - Mm-hmm. - Yeah, which happens a lot in the stil. - Full Chi and the later Argento movies. - Argento and mother trilogy, right? And all that kind of, it's almost like these Italian filmmakers are horror nerds and they went to the video store and exorcist was checked out. So they just checked out exorcist too. - That's true. - That's it, that's the shit. That's what we want to do. - That's really funny. There's definitely something to that. And it's, that's a little ironic because one of the reasons why this movie was made and the documentary does a nice job of showing you this is that in the aftermath of the exorcist, the world. all these copycats, you know, like Abby, like Mario Bob is Lisa and the devil. Movies that are effectively just re-making in a different milieu, the exorcist. And so Warner Bros. realizes like, shoot, we gotta get on the gravy train here, where there's money on the floor. The one thing that struck me, and I wish Callie was alive to talk about this, is it just seemed like they left Bournemont alone. It doesn't seem like anybody fucked with him on this movie, which is maybe just a product of an utterly unique moment in movie history, where we are at the tail end, really, of this time, where a major otor, a big kind of ideas filmmaker, has been given a large budget on property that is very valuable, and not been messed with. And if this film is, you know, at 77, it comes out right around the same time as Star Wars. - Right. - Right around the same time as Sorcerer and other famous, you know, bomb at the box office that Friedkin makes that year. There's this great segment in the documentary where I'm, shoot, Jeff Canoe, the film director who was working as a trailer editor at the time, said he cut both the trailer for the heretic and Sorcerer at the same time, and they would run next to each other and both neither movie worked. But I don't know that this could ever happen again, this specifically. I think that there can be bad sequels. I think that there can be sequels that go way far afield of the original intention. In fact, the exorcist is, as a franchise, is the home of one of the more interesting sequels stories ever where you've got an exorcist prequel that was directed by two different men in Paul Schrader and Ronnie Harlan, some 25 years later. But this specifically, where you've got what otherwise seems like a very classy movie that has a ton of money behind it, and no one came to the set and said, "What the fuck are you doing?" Well, it was probably the documentary talks a bit about some of the other Hollywood disasters in which directors were really given free reign and given a lot of money and some of them went way over time and some of them went way over budget. And so right after Heaven's Gate, which we acknowledge is kind of the end of New Hollywood, all of that starts getting pulled back and it really becomes the time of the executive of the studio. And as far as I'm concerned, it's why 80s and 90s filmmaking, studio filmmaking starts to go in the shitter because you can watch some of those movies from that period and go, "That's not a filmmaker making that decision." That's a studio, that's a studio note. That's why that movie is ending that way in a way that doesn't make any sense. That's just a studio note. Right. Because I think you're right. I think they weren't paying attention to what Borman was doing because I know I think they thought we've got the sequel to the exorcist. It's directed by an acknowledged master. We've got Richard Burton. We've got the little girl from the first movie. We've got Academy Award winner Louise Fletcher. Yeah, Max von Siedau's back. Max von Siedau's back. Jason Jones, Oscar nominee. Jason Jones, take your hands off the wheel. He's got it. But you would think somebody is like looking at the daily's going. Well, this is, I bring this up with Amanda all the time on the show where I'm like, it's very easy to mock studio executives and say that these people don't know shit about art and they're ruining everything all the time. Sometimes you do need a person with a little bit of critical distance and they're good executives and bad executives. Just like they're good directors and bad directors. And Callie is one of those people. I keep saying his name because he is widely seen as one of the good guys of the Hollywood story for the most part. I'm sure some people had bad experiences with him, but he had taste. He always brought on a lot of interesting projects. He was in a seat of power during a glory period for Hollywood filmmaking. And this just kind of seems like negligence to me. And it's really interesting because sometimes there's something wonderful about letting an artist just go full bore on something and spend the money and pursue their dreams. And I think that's ultimately what's at the heart of this documentary is. This is a person with a singular point of view. And he somehow, right time, right place, right work ethic, right collaborators created this huge body of work that is so unusual. Borman, in general, like, do you consider yourself a big fan of his work? Do you feel like? I really do. I mean, I think there's the top, let's talk British filmmakers for a second. There's the, there's the foundational directors. Hitchcock, Michael Powell, David Lean, Chaplin. I mean, I suppose Chaplin and Kubrick, we're always gonna have a, even Hitchcock, we're always gonna have a discussion. Are they English or are they American? Carol Reed, there's a few more. Carol Reed, yeah. Those are the real foundational names. And then there's I think a second tier of just acknowledged great British directors, Mike Lee, Borman, Peter, whom I think enough, give me a last name. Peter, Peter Yeats. - We've talked about it more this. - Peter Yeats. - Yeah, Peter Yeats. - Yeah. - There's a, there's also like, Borman is coming right in the aftermath of the Tony Richardson, Carol Rice, like Kitchen Sync, group of filmmakers, and he's right behind them. And he, but he comes in, you know, in that Dave Clark V movie, grafting off of Beatle Mania, you know? And he's a little bit more of a fine artist. And that movie is really interesting because it's basically a satire of what it is. You know, it's about how a band can kind of get sucked into the corporate machine, media machine, and become kind of a parody of itself. So he's always got, there's always a little extra spit, I would say, on every movie that he makes. But his filmography is all over the place. Like, I'm still a little incomplete on his movies. I haven't seen everything he's ever made. - I haven't either, but if it were just point blank and deliverance, I mean, he's in that second tier. That alone puts him in that second tier. - Agreed. - Because those are, I mean, deliverance is a five star freaking masterpiece, man. That's an unbelievable movie. I showed it to the nanny, who, you know, again, I've mentioned her on this show. She's what, 35 years old, and she's an artist. She's an actor. She'd never seen it, never heard of it. - Wow. - Didn't know anything about it. I do feel that it is a little, the last 15 years it has fallen away a little bit as, and acknowledged all-time classic. It doesn't mean it's, like, lost its power in any way, but it doesn't feel like, when I was a kid, it was one of those movies that was like, you have to see this movie if you want to have a complete understanding of the American cinema. I don't know why it's fallen away a little bit, but what did she make of it? - She was blown away. She was like, why do I not know about this movie? This is, it's an extraordinary film. I heard Mr. Tarantino talking about it recently, feeling that the ending was fucked up, that they not cast James Dickie, the author of the book on which it's based as the sheriff, they might have had more suspenseful third act as the sheriff is trying to investigate what happened on the river. But I actually, I disagree with Mr. Tarantino on this. I think Boorman is going for bigger game than that. I think that Boorman and Dickie together are trying to talk about bigger things than just the suspense story, but rather masculinity and myth, right? They're getting into all of that mythic stuff. And there's a shot in that movie where John Voight, after what's happened on the river, and he's re-intering civilization. And he's going into this dinner, and this extraordinary dinner, played with some, clearly some non-actors and Ned Bady around the table. And it seems to me like Voight passes through like three different screens to get from outside to inside, to re-inter into civilized society. Like the shot is set up in a way that you keep seeing him walking through the screen doors. It's remarkable. - Such a big visual idea to communicate this. - Yeah. - How to find his way back to where he was based on what he had experienced. - It's deliverance. If you haven't seen deliverance, people. If you haven't seen, please see deliverance. It's deliverance is great. - Well, it's interesting you bring up Voight, because Voight was the actor that he wanted, that Bournemon wanted for the Burton part. - It's a much better- - It probably works a lot better. And the whole thing is that the Burton's character being older, this is cited in the documentary. It's absolutely true. It just makes less sense. You know, his sort of, his struggle with faith at that time is just less logical than it would be if he were 30 years old. As Voight was at the time. Also Voight, people forget that Voight was unbelievable, that he was maybe the best actor in the world for about three years there. - He's helped us forget. - I know, I know. Well, he did get that bill passed though. Didn't he get that Trump bill passed? And that was the one thing he's done. - He was an extraordinary actor and he's extraordinary in deliverance. Bert Reynolds best performance. - Yes. - Both Ned Bady and Ronny Cox, discovered by Boorman working in the theater in Washington, DC and making their film debuts and deliverance. It's remarkable. And Ned Bady then immediately becomes a really important part of New Hollywood, right? Some of the movies he makes during that time. All the presidents, men, network, it just goes on. - Absolutely. - Yeah, it's funny. I read Conclusions, which is one of Boorman's books. He wrote two books. This is more of his, Conclusions is more of his memoir slash series of. kind of personal essays about his time making movies. And he had some really interesting ideas about Reynolds because he said that there are actors who want to go inside and there are actors who want to stay outside. And that Bert never wanted to go inside. Right. That he was very comfortable staying on the surface, which if you look at his photography, you can kind of tell that and the deliverance is one of the very few movies that asks him to really struggle with the self. And that void is obviously the opposite. The void was in the 70s was the ultimate internal explorer. Right. Right. But he's like lamenting Reynolds's version of Stardom. And so it is interesting that the movies that he makes in the aftermath of that I would say his, they're thematically strong, but I don't know that he asks his actors to do quite the same thing. Yeah. You know, like Zardas and the heretic and then ex-caliber, which is his kind of great return to form after the heretic fails, those are big genre movies. And so I think I'm always a little bit confused by his filmography because like I failed to mention Helen the Pacific, which is also a really interesting movie he made, which is also a kind of war between men to share Mifone and Lee Marvin that he makes them immediately after point blank, which is it's great by the way. And it's also great now in our world of widescreen TVs, as well as physical media that we can finally see Helen the Pacific, the way it was meant to be seen. You know, when I grew up, Helen the Pacific was always shown in Pan and Scan versions in which to share Mifone and Lee Marvin are placed on opposite sides of the screen on purpose, right? They're on the opposite side of this Pan and Vision screen. And so the Pan and Scan is deciding which one of them you're going to look at as opposed to seeing them obviously together. Yeah, yeah. That kind of breaks the whole idea of the movie, right? Exactly does. And it's really fine movies, really good. Yeah. And even his work in the 80s and 90s is quite fascinating when speaking of Tarantino, when he and Roger Avery were on the show years ago now, we did a 1987 draft and Avery took Hope and Glory his film, which is a very personal autobiographical film that Borman made about his youth growing up in England and Avery went on at length about how much Borman matters to him and how he's a single favorite filmmaker. His thoughts are really interesting. And that might have been the time when I think it turned over in my head that I should dig into his work a little bit more, but the heretic is it sticks out in this filmography. It feels like it shouldn't have happened. It's just such a and the movie kind of circles that idea. Right. But he doesn't regret it. He's I think he's happy with the film, right? Is that where we basically get to know that he's happy with the film it. And I don't want to say that he's blaming the audience. He what what he seems to suggest is that he simply misjudged expectations. And again, there is some hubris in that. It's like, well, I decided not to do the first exorcist and it's a massive hit. Like an unbelievable hit. And yet he also didn't like the movie. But did he really not like the movie? Or did he just was it sour grapes? I mean, and is that why he decides to take on extraces too? Is there some hubris in that? I'll show him how it's done. Yeah. So I don't know if he likes the film or not. I do think and we'll probably talk about this with Hackman too. I do think that artists should be judged on their successes and not their failures. Okay. What makes you say that? That's interesting. Well, sometimes it takes a failure to get to a success. You know, we we don't we don't spoken like an artist. Well, we don't want to be judged on their failures. We don't we don't say about Rod Kuru. You know, he he made out 0.66 times at bat. You know, we we talk about the amazing Rod Kuru because how often he hit the ball. It's hard to make a good movie. It's hard to make good movies. It's hard to make good anything. It's hard to make a good meal. It's hard to make a good piece of art by yourself. It's certainly hard to make a good piece of art in collaboration with a lot of other people. It's very difficult. Do you feel that filmmakers should be judged in the same way that we judge baseball players in terms of success? No, I don't, but, you know, come on, we're on the ringer podcast network. We talked about where and my cubs had three out of 10 films, though. I think is not a terrible batting average. I don't either. If they're if you've got a hit, I don't think one out of 10 is is if you've got if you make one great movie and you make not so it took you nine bad movies to get to the one great one. Yeah. One of the things is wonderful. Wonderful about the documentary is, you know, Luis Fletcher spoke for the film. Linda Blair speaks for the speaks during the film. A lot of his collaborators, a lot of people who worked behind the scenes on the film, Roscoe Palinberger, his co-conspirator and a curious figure in movie history speaks for the film. Most people working on this movie seem to think this is not going well, that this is not what I'd hoped it would be. There's some regret and confusion about the approach. When you're on a movie and the movie is not working, does everyone know? Do you know? No. I don't, I mean, maybe others do. And I've never been in anything like Extracist 2. So I don't, but I can't necessarily tell. You know, some of the movies we'll talk about, not just Extracist 2, but some of these other examples. I mean, shit is going down, right? People are, people are going to the hospital, or you know, days, they're falling behind days or actors aren't coming to the set. Brando doesn't know his lines or Burton is drunk. I mean, there's shit going down. I haven't seen a lot of that. So maybe if I were in a movie where shit was going down like that, I'd say, well, this thing doesn't seem to be going well. But again, you never know. Sometimes, I mean, apocalypse now is a freaking masterpiece. So just because it's not good, you know, doesn't mean you're not making a great thing. So do you disagree with the idea that artists should only be judged by their successes? I do disagree with it. Yeah. Really? Yeah. Meaning you think they should be, I think all their work should be explored. I'm not saying it shouldn't be explored. Yeah. I think generally speaking, I think people who listen to the show know that I don't like to spend too much time on films that don't work. And then I'm one of those people that truly believes pulling off a movie is borderline miraculous because of how challenging it is, especially now. But, and I do think what you said is true, which is that the failures tend to inform the successes. But the failures are meaningful, especially when it comes to high-level filmmakers and high-level actors, which is what we spend a lot of time talking about on this show because they have agency, they have the ability to make choices. And sometimes those choices lead them to very bad work. And we should talk about why the work doesn't work. Like, I'm not saying you shouldn't. Do I think you should be judged? I do. I do think you should be. I don't know if to judge you harshly, but I'm not going to put you in that and send you to the hagg. But, yeah, I think it's important to understand, let me, I'm trying to think about what's a good example. This has been a year of Steven Spielberg. For me, you know, I've spent a little bit of time with him on the show. And I'm thinking about his work a lot. And I look at a movie like the BFG. And I'm just like, why? What, what, we should understand like why that movie doesn't work and why he chose it at that time. And was it a mixture of fascination and cynicism and what informed some of those things? I think that's valuable to the discussion of people's work. We'll talk about it with Hackman. I mean, he took movies for money, you know, and, and, and those movies, he talks about in the press. I knew I did the wrong thing because I took it for money. So I do think that kind of matters. And I think what it helps to do is it helps unflatten the history of movies. If everything is only the great work, then we don't understand why things don't work. So look, I don't mean to suggest that we shouldn't pay attention to the bad movies. We shouldn't discuss them. We shouldn't discuss why an artist fucked up by making something bad or what was going on with that person. I just mean in the sort of final estimation of John Boorman. I'm going to, you know, when I give the eulogy a John Boorman's funeral, I'm not going to talk about Extracist II. Will you be invited? Almost. I'm going to have my own service at my house. Boorman is, is, is, is still with us. Yeah. He's 93 years young. I think he stopped working finally or stopped trying to work. Yes. I think he's done. It does seem like the last few years has been a significant slowdown for him. In this film, I think believe he was filmed a few years ago for this documentary, which has been in the works for a very long time. That's an interesting question that you're posing there. And I think maybe part of my bucking against it is that I already know that what you said is true, which is that when the obituary comes out, forget about the funeral. When the obituary comes out, there'll be hardly any time spent on the things that didn't work. Right. Actually, it's the job of movie broadcasters to talk about some of the things that don't work. There'll be a paragraph saying, and his career did hit a couple of bumps with Extracist II, considered one of the worst movies ever made or whatever the hell. Yeah, but ultimately what they're going to do is they're going to celebrate point blank, which we haven't really talked about. I mean, Parker adaptations have come up a few times as we've talked, because we talked about it on the doval podcast. We're going to talk about it again. Just a new one. Yes. That's one of the best things I watched for that episode. So, you know, the, the, but point blank is a, is an absolute great crime movie and, and a game changer of a crime movie. It's, it's sort of prismatic view of Los Angeles. Oh, man, it's a great LA movie. It is. It is. It's a great LA movie. Yeah. That just that image of him moving through the airport, which is still excellent. Every time I walk through that airport, I think about point point. It makes you feel like an Angelino to be in that space. Yeah. I think he's a, he's obviously a great artist. I still have to see, I haven't seen many of these films from the 2000s. I haven't seen in my country or the Tiger's Tale or, you know, he, he was working all the way up until 2014, making movies. Right. Have you seen Taylor of Panama? I have. Yes. Which I quite, pretty good. I think it's pretty good. Jeffrey Russian Pierce Brosnan and Jamie Lee Curtis. Yes. Yes. It's John LaCarrie adaptation and I think it's really good spy movie. I think they changed the ending in the, in the novel. At the level. Okay. No, I think they shot a different ending. Oh. In fact, you can even see it on the special feature of Taylor of Panama. Okay. There's a, there's a character. Well, it's spoiler alert, Taylor of Panama. The Jeffrey Rush character kills Pierce Brosnan and they changed that ending. Speaking of your studio notes for happier endings. Yeah. There you go. Yeah. The credited screenwriters on that film are John LaCarrie, Andrew Davies and John Borman, so maybe that tells you all something, but it's a really terrific movie. And I hope in glory is a, is a, is a great, is a, is a kind of an essential part of his filmography, I think, in that he, he suddenly goes in a whole new direction to, to, to, to make something so autobiographical and self reflective and warm. It's a very warm film. It's not overly nostalgic. It is nostalgic, but I don't think overly so not too sentimental, a really beautiful movie. So there's a great work throughout the film. Yeah. I'm quite fond of the general as well, which is the general Irish crime movie that he made with Brendan Gleason and a reunion with John Voit in the late 90s about Martin K. Hill, who's just kind of infamous Irish figure, who found himself that kind of the epicenter of a lot of the struggles throughout that country in the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s. So yeah, he's got a ton of great movies. The doc in general, I think, is pretty cool. The one thing that I wanted to, and I would recommend anybody who's just likes podcasts like this. I mean, the, the documentary is just like catnip, you know? Well, that, that's the exact word I was going to use. I mean, if you're a baggage handler or you're a rodeo clown or you're a detective, maybe you're not going to enjoy that movie. But if you're a film dork, you have to see Bournemon and the devil. It is made for, for dudes like us. Yes. Yes. I'm just so delighted. Do you, do you subscribe at all to the so bad? It's a good theory of movies? No. I don't either. I think that's total bullshit. If it's bad, it's, that's just why we're friends. Before we talk about some other documentaries about directors, which there are great many, I was hoping you could demythologize the director for us. This is a very, a tour focused kind of show. Most of the guests on the show are filmmakers. I tend to see movie history through the prism of the, the driving artist, not all of it. Obviously, a lot of all films are collaborative, but that's, that's my interest set. But that's not always the case, and I'm, I'm wondering how you think about your life working in movies and specifically like what the directors, tell me what the director's job is. Well, again, with Duval, Duval and Hackman, who had pretty contentious relationships with a lot of directors, they came from a world where both of them sort of, I mean, first of all, their theater roots, but then a lot of TV before they started making films. And I think that they just came from a world where the director's job was to nowhere to put the camera into stage the action. And then everything else was up to the actor and they were going to give the director their best take first time out. And then everything else was just a technical adjustment. But this business of a director coming in and saying, okay, now why don't we try one where you've got a lot of variations for the editing room or getting into the psychology of the character. Those dudes didn't have much patience for that. Now I grew up in theater where psychological realism is our bread and butter. And I very much want to have a conversation with a director. I ask for notes. I want notes. I want to have that dialogue with a director. The directors, they work in different ways. They're not all cut from the same cloth and they all have different interests, different skill sets, different mindset about their approach to the work. I'm always fascinated by directors and in fact, the hardest thing about working in TV is that if you're working on a series, multiple directors come in to direct the series. And that dialogue I have with a director has to change from one director to another is the hardest thing about TV for me because I want to be involved in that dialogue. Director's job is to make the movie, is to get the movie made and to get their vision on the screen. And as an actor, I just feel like I'm there to help them facilitate that. What's the best way to tell the story? Have you ever been on a movie where the director didn't speak to the actors or wasn't good at speaking to the actors? Yeah, I've been on movies where the director was not good at speaking to actors. In fact, we just did a panel at Tell You Ride where they asked for, we were talking primarily about the difference between acting for stage and acting for film and they said, "What advice would you give?" I said, "Well, if you're a young director, my advice would be to take an acting class or do a play or just get some experience about what an actor's job is." A lot of times you're dealing with guys, men and women who have come up to the business thinking purely, visually and technically about how to get their pictures on the screen. But they don't necessarily know how to communicate their ideas to an actor. Some are better than others. Does a director need to be charismatic? No. Are they frequently? Yeah. But they don't need to be. Can there be a good film without a good director? Well, that's a good question in that I suppose you could have a bad director with a really good script. I don't know that I've seen that. I don't know that I've, I don't know that I could point to a movie where I thought that director was terrible, but that movie turned out all right. I don't know that I have a lot of those experiences. Do you think the way that the directorial POV is valorized in places like this and elsewhere is right? Yeah. Should be done. Yeah. I think the director is the author of the, I believe in the O tour theory and I believe in the theory. I believe that the, I believe that the director is responsible for the film ultimately. Okay. These failures that we'll talk about, you guys talked about some on the, your bombs podcast. I mean, the director has to answer for those. I, I think ultimately that a, a movie like Bournemon and the devil, as well as the ghosts of Peter Sellers. This is a movie we can talk about in terms of the, these other documentaries. This is a movie about the director, Peter Medak, who directed after the huge success of the ruling class, which is an absolute great film, starring Peter Sellers, starring Peter O'Toole. He then got a chance to work with Peter Sellers on a pirate comedy. And it was just a debacle. And there's, Medak himself has gone back to make a documentary about what that experience meant to him. And I think one of the things that Medak confronts in that documentary and one of the things that Bournemon is confronting in just in this conversation is maybe they have more responsibility for the failure than they ever, they, they, maybe the initial impulse of an artist is to say, well, that went wrong and that went wrong and that person fucked that up and this, these are the things out as opposed to saying, maybe it was me. Maybe I just fucked some things up. Maybe it wasn't the fact that Peter Sellers was a goddamn mad man or that Richard Berl was drunk. Do you think that's where Medak gets to at the end of the movie? You should. I do think so. I do think he's owning some responsibility for it. Well, it's weird because a lot of the behavior that Sellers, that Sellers is accused of in the film is something that you hear about Sellers on many movies. And yet he's a part of many beloved classics in the 50s, 60s and 70s. So it's one of those things where sometimes if you can't rise. is to the occasion of a difficult star or a difficult circumstance. Like, you know, one of them, you've already mentioned apocalypse now. I think apocalypse now, hearts of darkness and burden of dreams are probably the two, the alpha and the omega of the onset, everything is going wrong crisis documentary. - Yeah. - And those two, two great films. You know, I like apocalypse now more than Fitzgerald though, but Fitzgerald though, great film. - Yeah. - We're just talking about Herzog 'cause he's got a movie going into the criterion collection. And those are two movies where the filmmakers at the center of it, it feels as though there's a madness inside of them obviously, but it does feel like they do feel the burden, the weight, the sense of impending failure that is coming at them. - Yeah. - And I guess they're able to withstand it or transcend it or whatever, but it makes those movies so compelling because you know on the other side, there's something good, you know, it's not, whereas there are other movies that explore this idea where things are not so good. Do you have a preference in terms of which kind of story like this you want to see? - Well, let me say first of all, if you want to be a director, you know that the buck stops with you ultimately. So for both Herzog and Coppola, and let me just be clear about what we're talking about. So Francis Ford Coppola made apocalypse now and there's a documentary about the making of apocalypse now that his wife Eleanor Coppola made called Hearts of Darkness. And Werner Herzog made the movie Fits Corraldo and there's a documentary about the making of Fits Corraldo called "Birden of Dreams." - "Birden of Dreams," director by Les Blank. - Les Blank, directed "Birden of Dreams." You know, those are both guys who, they knew what the job was, they took that on. They said from the beginning, yeah, the buck stops with me. I want to be the movie director. You know that that's the gig. You want to be the one who's ultimately responsible. So when shit is going wrong, yeah, you take it on. You can't just sit there pointing your fingers at everybody else and saying it's all your fault that this thing is fucked up and you hear a lot of Coppola on the Hearts of Darkness documentary saying, no, it's me, I'm a failure. I'm failing. Yeah, pretty compelling. Yeah, there is this rise in covering proper failures, I'd say, that wasn't as common in the '60s and '70s, in '80s with these documentaries. But now you do see more movies that are akin to, well, there's a very interesting one about a movie that was never made called "Yodoraskis Dune," which is about Alejandro Yodoraski attempting-- - I haven't seen it to adapt to that. - I love the movie. It's all about the kind of, not unlike Borman's ideas about the heretic, this kind of phantasia of concepts that he wants to bring from the Frank Herbert novel to the screen, which if he were to pull it off, would have been, could have been magical, but are also impossible and speak to the inability to actually realize a dream. But then, there's a movie that I really enjoy. It isn't so much I'm making up, so much as it is about the cult of movies, which is called "Best Worst Movie." Have you ever seen the movie "Troll II?" - No. "Troll II" when I was a kid, was on HBO all the time. It was a frequently on television when I would get home from school. And it's meant to be sequel to a horror film called "Troll." - I remember the video covers in the video store. - Only, as far as I know, "Troll II" is not actually a sequel to "Troll." It is a movie that I think was meant to be called "Goblin," and it's about "Goblins," and it takes place in a town called "Nilbog," which is "Goblin Spelled Backwards." - And there's your first problem. - Yeah. And the movie is just a, you know, it's a fiasco. It's a really, it's a terrible movie, but it's a very lovable movie. It's a very lovable failure. And it went on to build this huge cult and this movie "Best Worst Movie" is about falling in love with something that doesn't work, and appreciating what doesn't work about it. And I think that this is a movie that kind of shifted the axis of what we expect from these kinds of movies. It's a small documentary that not many people have seen, but I also think it kind of shifted our brain chemistry on what we should be expecting, 'cause there are a great many movies. There are two different movies about "Hiamia Zaki" and his career in his filmmaking style. One is called "Kingdom of Dreams and Madness," which is about "Sudio Ghibli." The other is "Hiamia Zaki" and the "Haran," which came out when the boy and the "Haran" came out a few years ago. There's, you know, Ingmar Bergman makes a movie, which is about "Winter Light." Then there's "Lost in Lamancha," which is Terry Gilliam fucking up a Don Quixote movie or "Lost Souls," the Richard Stanley film about the making a violent of "Dr. Moro." Like, there's this cottage industry of this guy fucked up. Here's how interesting that is, which I find to be an interesting turn note in movie history. What do you make of that? - Well, I mean, they're also kind of what ifs, right? They're all sort of what if this gone a little bit differently? What if "Ritchard Stanley" had been allowed to finish his movie? Would Island of "Dr. Moro" had been any better? - Proper, probably not. - Who decided that putting Marlon Brando and Val Kilmer in a movie together on an island was a good idea? - I think Stanley was at least a part of that decision-making. - Again, he's an eager young filmmaker who's getting a chance to work with big movie stars and that's the thing that's gonna make his movie go. But nobody ever says to him, "No, you're never gonna get your movie made with these guys. These guys are maniacs and it's just not going to happen. You can maybe deal with one maniac. You sure as hell can't deal with two." - Have you ever been in an environment where there were forces like that that were making things difficult to make it work? - Not really, okay. You know, I remember when we were making the post and I asked Merrill Street, Merrill Freakin Street, the same question's like, "Have you ever seen this?" And she was like, "No, not really. It's not really common." That's probably why we make movies about it because it happens so uncommonly. - Oh, that's interesting. - I mean, see, I think that a lot of people, like I think a lot of people listening to this and think that there's this shadow world of all this untold truth. - Well, I don't know. I was just working with Matt Johnson in Canada, working on his film and he gave me a note about something we were doing and I said, "Okay." And he looked at me strangely and started laughing and I said, "What, what is it?" And he said, "You don't know how insecure most actors are." He said, "You take that and stride." And Karen, I always take this back to each other is like, "Are people really that badly behaved?" If they are, we don't see it. That's not us. It's just not my experience. And as far as long as I'm bringing up Merrill Streep, as long as I'm dropping that name, I will tell you that she's just an actor. Working real hard, trying to remember her lines, trying to, you know, she's deeply experienced in a great actress, obviously, but she's just, she's at work doing her job. There's nothing, there's no, it's not interesting in a way. And there's nothing interesting about it. - So there is no shadow world. There is a shadow world. I have an experience, there's a shadow world with Val Kilmer and Marlon Brando. I haven't experienced it. I do think a lot of times, right? Our business can be self-policing. We start to go, that's not worth it. It's not worth it to hire that guy. Is he good? Yeah, he's really good. He's really compelling. He's also a giant pain in the ass. And he doesn't come to the set. And he throws fits with the director. And so sometimes you go, is it worth it? Is it not worth it? Is it worth to get the performance out of them? I don't know. - What about if you're having a hard time? Is the director the first person that you go to? - Yeah, yeah. - What do you say? - Having a hard time. I don't understand this. Help me with this. - Did they ever get defensive? - No. If they do, it doesn't manifest as pure defensiveness. - Okay. - Normally they see it as their job to help. And I'm not a guy who asks for help unless I need it. So you've never asked me for help whilst potting. - Oh, will you help me right now? - No, you're doing great. You don't need me, you don't need my help. Would you rather watch a movie, a documentary about an individual film and a filmmaker making that film or a documentary about a filmmaker's entire body of work? - That's a good question because you know, in the physical media world, we have a lot of what we call special features. - These are, are we in the physical media world? This is sort of like the shadow world, but it exists. On our discs, our beloved Blu-rays and DVDs, they're often special features. And quite often those special features contain, well, a lot of it is propaganda about the making of the movie, right? It's publicity material that we create while making a movie. And it's about the making of the movie and it's all very polished. - Very polished and you would think there are no problems. Now on a criterion disc, I believe that Ingmar Bergman makes a movie is actually contained maybe in the trilogy and his, in the. - Through glass darkly, winter light and I can't remember what the third is. - The silence, and I think he made winter light and the silence in the same year. Oh, I don't want to get away from your original question. - And think of your Bergman point though. - Well, the Bergman point is that that was a remarkable year for Ingmar Bergman. he made winter light and silence. He directed, I believe, four, plays at the National Theatre, including who's afraid of Virginia Woolf, the Swedish premiere. He was just in an incredibly feckin' part of his life and career. And the making, the documentary shows him in the making of Winter Light. There's, he, he's not some mad monk. It's very workman-like. He's very much just a guy who's accomplishing, he's in the flow. He's famously always like to be working, Bergman. And he is, he's clearly just in the flow and he's able to answer questions pretty effectively. Again, I talked to Matt Johnson about this because I was just working with him and I said, "Seems like you're in the flow right now, in your life, right? Seems like things are going well." And he's like, "You get in these places as an artist. We're suddenly, you're just kind of tapped in and you, you, you have access to a lot of things. And things are flowing for you in a really good way." Yeah. How wonderful of you to compare Matt Johnson to. In Mark Bergman. That's, you're welcome. Good luck Matt. But anyway, it's, that documentary is a little dry. It's not for everybody. It's for hardcore. I think procedurally though, it's very interesting because you get to see him literally doing his job. And there's just not a lot of examples of that. There are not a lot of, there are, there's a lot of EPKs and there are some good special features. And, and special features for me, probably more so commentaries than the actual making of documentaries. But some making of documentaries were really portals of curiosity that got me, I think, to the place where I am with my film fandom. And listening to HTA talk about who he was stealing from on commentaries, expanded my mind. And then seeing, is it, is it that moment, the magnolia making of documentary? Which is it, I don't know if you've ever seen that before, but it's about a 45 minute film. And it shows a lot of very intimate moments, not quite on set, but in the surrounding moments while making a movie that I found to be really revelatory. But those are few and far between where you feel like the bonus material is an artistic act. Most of the time, it feels like it's something that is just made in support of a product. But answer the question, would you rather watch a documentary about a filmmaker in their work or a documentary about the making of one movie? Well, I'd rather watch a good documentary, regardless of the top. You know, Borrowman and the Devil is catnip. I don't, for us, doing what we do, I don't know that it's a great documentary. You know, it's mostly heads and clips and some animated recreations, some animated recreations to try to just like keep things moving and get out of the heads and clips. I find it's a little foe zippy at times in a way that I didn't really think it needed to be. Right. But ultimately, where it lands, the idea that Borrowman himself supports the idea and a couple of the talking heads do too, Karen Kusama and Bill Jibery, they make the point in there and say, look, I'd rather see a big swing. Yes. Right. I'd rather see an artist taking a big swing and failing than just see commercial shit, right? Just cranking out more commercial. Like the weapon for. Yeah. And I wholly support that idea and I think the documentary supports that idea. It doesn't make extrasis to any better in my mind. By the way, we didn't mention the Ennio Morricone score, which I think is remarkable score. I mean, we, you talked about the fact that extrasis to does have some, these are not, it's not plan nine, right? That there are real, real artists making this thing. William Fraker writes the cinematographer and Morricone with the score. I mean, they're, they're stuff going on in the movie. But the scores are really good example of a filmmaker making a decision, which is that Morricone turns in a score and Borrowman asks him to remove a component of the score. Yeah. So that it only gives you this incredible erratic, unusual, upsetting feeling because he's removed something that is more melodic from the original score. That's a great choice. That's a great artistic choice that makes it very memorable. So again, like even though the movie doesn't totally work, it's kind of similar to your question about how should you grade an artist's career, you know, what should they be, what standard should they be held to because I do think sometimes when you pull a movie apart and I find this with a lot of contemporary releases, like a contemporary release will come out and you'll text me. You'll be like, that movie wasn't good. What are you talking about? I am looking for things to appreciate or admire, like I think in order to enjoy this job, I actually can't go in with the expectation that everything is going to not be as good as the exorcist. That would make my life terrible. I admire that about you. And I told you, too, when we were in tell you, right, I'm trying to get out of this thing of just like, right, we all have the same grading system for a movie. And it's like, well, oh, well, that clearly didn't work because, you know, we all jump on them. Well, it's like, what do we embrace a world wherein some things don't conform, don't conform to the norm, right? Why not? That's your video podcaster now. That's, that was, you just crossed the threshold from audio to video. Well done. For those listening at home, I referenced my t-shirt, which is Bertolucci's The Conformist. Um, are there any full life director documentaries that you like? Let me consult my maps and charts, vamp for a second. So I, I mean, this is really kind of my favorite thing, you know, hanging out with my daughter, seeing a new movie I love for the first time. And then it's kind of this is, there's just a two hour movie and it's just about a director's whole career and it's just lots of smart people talking about their movies. Is, is it the most sophisticated work of art? No. Is it usually a great documentary? No. Does it show us? Is it truly revealing about the human soul and the act of creativity? Probably not. And yet a very happy place for me is a movie like Hal, which is just two hours of people talking about Hal Ashby, who he was, what he did, the work he made, clips from his films. I just find that tremendously satisfying and I think some of it is because I obviously, my favorite period and cinema history is a time when I was not alive. And so I am always trying to get to a place that I never got to experience. And I felt that very young watching the AFI 100 years, 100 movies, specials and learning about what my checklist ought to be and getting obsessed with this stuff. And we're still not totally in the place where we're getting documentaries made about filmmakers, whose movies I was seeing in movie theaters, but that's about to start. We are about to get to the place where, you know, Tarantino is very venerated, probably the most venerated from that generation and there have been some things about him, but they're not quite on the level of what we're talking about here. And you know, your fintures and your Soderbergs and your PTAs and your Sophia Coppola's, like, those people are all kind of entering their 50s and 60s when they start to be, they're concretized as part of the canon. And when you get into the canon, you get a two hour documentary about you. But that's different. I mean, a lot of the time when we've talked about on drafts and done these halls of fame together, you're like, I saw this movie in theaters for a lot of these people. Does that change your relationship to watching some of these docs? I'm sure it does. I'm sure it does certainly to get any sort of peak behind the curtain is always titillating and you know, right? It's always, that's always exciting to see. But again, the quality of the doc goes a long way, the quality of the documentary itself. And hearts of darkness, I mean, I think for me, the documentary has to be something about something more than just the thing it's about, right? There has to be a bigger idea at play. American movie, which is just one of my favorite movies, me too, is not just about a failed B movie being made for no money, Z movie being made for no money in Wisconsin. It's got much bigger ideas at work, directed by Chris Smith about the filmmaker Mark Borschart from Wisconsin. And some big ideas about family and found family and friendship and arts, the American artist. I mean, there are a lot of big ideas at play. So do I, do I enjoy watching things about the films and filmmakers that I love? Yeah, I love it. But give me a well made documentary any day of the week. If you haven't seen American movie, beautiful heart breaking and hilarious. The great one. I worked with Chris Smith a couple of years ago and I was, I fanned out in American movie. Filmmaker docs, George Stevens, a filmmaker's journey in the, in the world of like, heads and clips, documentaries. This is a mighty good one available in 4k. Why do you think that happened? I don't know. I saw that they made that one, Warner made that a 4k. I was like, of all the things to restore and upgrade this, which even the origins of that film. I'm like this. It's a very polished, shiny object. Is it directed by his son? I think it is directed by his son, George Stevens Jr. And I love George Stevens' films. But I found that to be a bit strange that it was upgraded. But a very good movie that is kind of, you know, an Enchomium of a great director's work and kind of shows you a little bit of kind of what the director does in that period and time in American movies. And I think answers a cool question, which is everyone's working in the studio system at the time that he is. There's not really an independent film scene, certainly in Hollywood, California in the 1940s, '50s, '60s. So why is he better than other people? That's a good question. I don't know that he is. And the movie kind of tries to explore that. But is it taste? Does he understand something about the American character? Does he understand his body of work as telling a broader story? Yes and no. I guess. I mean, do you rank him as high as John Ford or Howard Hawks? I mean, he made significantly fewer films than those guys. So it's, but his, his, his highs. I mean, he made Shane and giant and these huge epic, you know, classic American stories that I think are definitional to their genres. Yeah. So do I rank him as high? I don't know. No, but like John, there's still 20 John Ford movies I haven't seen. Have you seen the, the Bogdanovitch documentary directed by John Ford? I have. Yes, I own it on DVD. And I do love it because it is a portrait of an artist in resistance. Right. Because Ford is at least performing disinterest then participating in a documentary with Bogdanovitch. Which Bogdanovitch clearly loves, right? And he's, he finds that idea very funny. But it's also notable for interviews with John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart, and Henry Fonda, very informal style interviews, sort of you get the impression in their backyard. Yeah. I mean, they bothered to, to glue on their two pays. But they, not much more than that, to go out in the backyard and record their. Do you glue yours on today? No. That's why I'm wearing my cubs. Do you do a Jimmy Stewart? You mean impersonation? Yeah. Just in my essence. I had a, I had a director once tell me I was the next Jimmy Stewart. Turned out not to be true. No kidding. No kidding. What you're with that. Long time ago. Well, I think at this stage in your life, you do combine that very specific effervescence of bemused curmudgeon. All right. I'll take that. I'll take that. That is a zone of Stewart that I quite like. You know, Stewart when he is younger, he's very crabby. Yeah. And then he's older. He's like a little, a little slower, a little slower, a little more vuncular. Yeah. You do a little Jimmy. A little Jimmy. Anyway, that doc is very, well, it's striking to see those guys just talking about Ford. And yeah. I remember the Stewart interview is like he's like on a lawn somewhere and on the studio a lot or something. And it's very up close to him. Yeah. I haven't seen this movie a long time, but going through my Bogdanovitch obsession in the 2000s, I definitely went out and bought it. And unfortunately, Bogdanovitch went in and kind of upgraded the movie, right? There's the movie he made in the early 70s. I don't know if I've maybe have only seen the upgrade version. But then he made, he went back into it in the 80s with some video interviews, which are not as on point as those people. So as a doc, I don't know that it's wholly successful, but I mean, just the clips from the Ford movies are pretty staggered. Well, he's a really important figure, Bogdanovitch, in this thing that we're describing because he is one of the people who, I think, turned directors into kind of like baseball trading cards, you know, the books that he wrote and the way that he wrote about these filmmakers in magazines and the way that he befriended them and sought them out and then cast them in his films and talked about their work in the press all the time and you know, talked about Hawks and talked about Ford and talked about people like Alan Dwan, you know, like these film Raoul Walsh, who were young and filmmakers working in the studio system. And then he created a kind of mythology around them, which I think leads to like the kind of brain that I have about some of this stuff, which is like, completeism and organization in the sense that, you know, Bogdanovitch reviewed every movie he ever saw on a index card and he saved those index cards and some of those cards were converted into some of the books that he wrote. And there is something really interesting about him, you know, he really only made one filmmaker doc like that. He made a couple of other documentaries. He made one about Tom Petty. That's quite good. Right. But that movie, it's almost like he's racing to make a movie about Ford before he dies, you know, and not a lot of filmmakers agree to do that. You know, Friedkin, we didn't talk about Friedkin's relationship to the exorcist too. He is featured in this documentary in a memorable little segment. He hated it. He hated it. And he held Bournemon in some contempt for making it. Yes. I'm comfortable saying that. I don't feel like I'm betraying it because he's on the record saying it. And I really do feel that the ability just thought people were, people were caching in on the thing he had made. And I, I, I think he found that detestable. Have you seen Friedkin on Cut? I haven't seen it. I wasn't, they asked me to do an interview for it and I didn't do it. Was there a reason for that? I don't remember. Okay. I don't have it. Is this a shadow world thing? It's not a shadow world thing. You can tell me. It's just us. I just, I don't know that I was, I don't know why I wasn't comfortable with it. I wouldn't say it's the greatest documentary in the world, but it again just satisfies this thing where I just want to hear William Friedkin speaking for two hours and telling stories and being ordinary about things. And you know, he's famously very ordinary. He retells that story of the premier screening of Exorcist II where people are watching the film and they're becoming increasingly unhappy with the movie, realizing it is not really a very good sequel to the Exorcist. And then some guy turns around and points to executives in the audience and says, these are the people responsible for this movie and Friedkin kind of relish that story. And he tells stories like that throughout Friedkin on Cut. He also tells the story right of, he was at it in a, in a post production lab, probably working on sorcerer and somebody said, hey, we got Exorcist II in the room next door. Do you want to come over and see some of it? And he claims that as a bit of a lark, he went over and he sat down and he watched 10 minutes of it. And he found it incomprehensible and insulting, you know, and he left. And I think that's probably one of the things that fuels Boorman saying, well, the Exorcist was about a little girl being tortured. You know, I don't think there was any love lost, directors are the most competitive people of any of the jobs I've encountered in the business, they're, they're very competitive and they don't want to give it up for each other. That's interesting. Um, I'm quite fond of diploma, I haven't seen it. I think you should, okay, I'll tell you why, it's what I think every great director should be forced to do. I think if you decide to do this job, there should be a, a writ in the contract with the DGA to be a member of that, that union that says, when you reach 70 years old, you must sit down and you must speak one by one about each film you've made, because that's what the diploma is, it's just, it's no bomb back in Jake Paltrow with their cameras affixed on DiPolmas face, no other interviews going movie by movie through his entire career. And it is, it is, it's my, it's my night light, it's my greatest comfort. It's a, it's a, it's a, it's a big bowl of Oreos for me, really, really enjoyable piece of work. How are you? You're a diploma fan. Are you not? I mean, because I believe that we should judge an artist based on their successes and not their failures. Yes. Wow. What would you say is the poem is greatest success? Harry. How do you feel about Harry being remade as a television series? I'm against it. No, I shouldn't say that. I should say I won't watch it. Okay. I think I'm going to have to watch it as a king, completist, you are not a king, completist. What do you mean? Come on. There's, you haven't seen all the Stephen King things. Have you, have you seen all the Stephen King things? I know. Have you seen both TV versions of the stand or three version? Of course. Are you kidding me? One of my favorite novels of all time. You've seen both TV adaptations, oh, I touched the mic. Sorry. Yes. Yes. I've seen both TV adaptations. I watched the second TV adaptation during COVID, just absolutely bereft. Did they remake the shining as a TV thing? They did with Stephen Weber. Have you seen that? Of course I have. Stephen King is foundational for me as a person. It completely turned my light on his novels and then, and I take it back. You are a Stephen King completist. Why are we talking about Stephen Han can't even recall? Oh, Carrie, yes, of course. That's my favorite diploma. Good one. Should it be another one? Am I forgetting something? No, but you're, you know, you are intrigued by perversion. And so I was expecting, fair to say, who isn't? That's what I'd say. And I would, I, you know, I would have thought blow out or, or, or body double or, or, or, you know, dress to kill, or I like all those. I think I'd give it to Carrie before. Okay. I had to go with Scarface. Not as fond of it as the others. This has been good. Um, what else did you watch for this? Well, they'll love me when I'm dead, which is the documentary about, uh, Orson Wells. I think it's made for Netflix, actually, uh, about, uh, the making of the other side of the wind and Orson Wells last movie. It, it, it, it, it, it, in completed the time of his death and then completed many years later. Yes. Well, I am a Wells completist. And, uh, and I think he's one of the few, uh, really great American, I mean, genius American artists, I shouldn't say few. I'm sure they're plenty. He, he's one of my faves as maddening as he is and as, uh, frustrating as you might find him both as a viewer and apparently as collaborators found him as a person. He's also just, he's a genius, you know? So I haven't seen that movie in some years. I did have Morgan Neville on this show to talk about it. And can you remind me of how it's organized and like what is revealed? It's not, or, or it's organized in a very chaotic way. I think meant to reflect the kind of chaos of production, beginning production being canceled, going back to revisit a movie, something that's already been shot, going back to, to view Wells's history, uh, heads and clips, all of that stuff is in there. But it's, it's put together in a very chaotic way. It's a bit of a, uh, a mosaic, which the picture starts to emerge of this artist, uh, whatever, whatever Wells is doing, whatever that mad world is and the, and the people that he pulled into that world, including John Houston, right? And, yeah, big part of this, the, the lead in this movie, and Peter Bogdanovich, again, um, do you think it's important? I asked you if it's important for a director to be charismatic. Do you think it's important for a director to be charismatic, to be an interesting subject of one of these movies? Well, yeah, I don't, I don't want to see a movie about some boring technician putting together a film. I don't know that I would find that interesting. But I have to say, most, most director, not all directors are charismatic, but I'm, a lot of them I've worked with are James Mangold, uh, who I adore, it is very charismatic guy. You know, he chumps a big cigar and he screams on the set and he gets in a big fights with the school movie maker. He feels very old school and really gives the impression of a guy who's like, come up through the ranks, like he used to be a gaffer and then he got a job as an AD. And that's not his background at all. His dad was an important visual artist from upstate New York. And he went to school at Cal Arts and was, uh, Alexander McKendrick was his mentor. Yes. So he's a, he's an art school dude, but he's, he is that, he is a larger than life character and very charismatic on the set. Mm hmm. And very exacting in, the good ones are pretty exacting about what they're getting. There are a number of other movies like this that I really enjoy that I'll briefly cite. And most of them are of the talking head director speaks variety. For example, Billy Wilder speaks as an example of this, which I think is very entertaining. By Sydney Lumet is one we talked about when we did, when we did a Lumet episode a few years ago, there's one about John Millius. There's one about Nora Efron. The beaches of Agnes is sort of this kind of a movie with Agnes Varda. I just watched a bit last night of lightning over water. Have you seen that before? The Vim Vendors Nicholas Ray movie or Nicholas Ray at the end of his life. Vim Vendors comes to stay with him and they have a kind of, kind of a, kind of a pod to do about whether or not Nick Ray can make one more movie before Vim Vendors goes off to make Hammett. There's a really interesting. Because Nicholas Ray is an American friend, is it not? So is it documentary made around that time? Around that. I think it's just shortly after that. That's a very interesting movie that I think reveals a director near the end of their life, but is not showing them doing the work really, but still it shows the engine inside of Ray's mind of wanting to continue wanting to work. No matter what. I don't like this at all. I've very, very good films on the criterion channel right now that I would recommend people check out. Okay, before we move on to scripted films, before we move on, two more to talk about. Hitchcock Truffaut. If you're, there are documentaries about Orson Wells. There are documentaries about Alfred Hitchcock. You talked about documentaries about full careers. They're out there. Magician is the one about Orson Wells. Are they good? They're comprehensive, but a little dry. Yeah. Hitchcock Truffaut is about a very specific moment. But a book, right? Can Jones made the documentary? That's definitely worth seeing. One of my favorite things about that film is that Ken Jones has enlisted five or six of the best working filmmakers to talk about the impact that book in conversation and Hitchcock's work had on them. And if you watch it, you can see the ways in which the Finchers and James Gray's of the world have integrated what they learned from just reading a book into their actual work, which is something that I think a lot of people do with a lot of movies like this, is they watch these things and they learn. They were at least I think they're learning about how things are made, right? And is there a documentary about, is there a documentary purely about the shower scene? There is, 78, 52. They're right, right, right. Which is, I think, great fun. It's, I've seen it, yeah. Alexander O. Philippe is the name of the filmmaker and he's made a number of movies about these very specific moments in movie history. His most recent one is called Chain Reactions, which is four different people reflecting on their relationship with Texas Chainsaw Massacre. But I enjoy all of his movies. I think they all have something he made one about alien. He made another one about, oh, a terrific one that I really enjoyed about. David Lynch's relationship to The Wizard of Oz. Right. And I think those are all we're seeking out. They're not quite explorations of filmmakers. They're really more about film grammar and film ideas, but those are a good shout. And then five came back. I know this is made for a TV. It is, in fact, it was kind of mini-series. Yes, the documentation of Mark Harris's book. Yes. Mark Harris's terrific book about five filmmakers who were, five great American filmmakers who were tasked with documenting World War II. And the impact that that had on their lives and careers moving forward and the impact was not small, as you might imagine, on those fellows. And each director is assigned a different director, contemporary director. You might be able to pull that up. Steve Spielberg does William Weiler. Do you have it in front of you? Uh, I do not. Yeah. I'll bring grass. Francis Ford Coppola has John Houston. Guillermo del Toro has Frank Capra. Paul Greengrass has John Ford. And Lawrence Cazden has George Stevens. Yeah, the app we're mentioned. It's, it's on your Netflix app, which are three episodes. It's fairly comparable. It's, it's really, it's really compelling stuff. Um, anything else? No. Making movies about directors is an interesting fetish, very rarely commercially successful as a conceit. People do sometimes want to see movies about Hollywood. They even sometimes want to see movies about the making of a movie. But the movie about a film director is an unusual thing. Do you like them? Well, I like White Hunter Blackheart, very much, which is Clint Eastwood's movie about John Houston and the making of the African queen. Now, names are changed, right? He's not actually playing a character named John Houston. No, but he is performing as though he is John Houston. He's doing a John Houston impersonation. May or may not work for you. I think it's one of his, if not his most underrated movie. It is a movie that is not very widely seen. Yeah. And is in that interesting late 80s, early 90s period where he's kind of fishing around pre-unforgiven. Right. Where you've got heartbreak ridge and bird. And I think this movie comes after bird around that time. Yeah. And it's an interesting, it's a, it's a cool film. I like it. And he, he's giving a performance. He's not doing Clint, right? He's playing, I guess maybe what he remembers. of John Houston. And it's about making the of the African queen. And primarily about trying to shoot an elephant while in Africa making the African queen. It's really good movie. You know, Warner Brothers has released and re-released and re-released all of these. Usually when there's a physical media change in the physical media market, some of the first stuff to get out there is Eastwood stuff because men tend to drive the physical media market. And therefore, they put these Eastwood movies dirty Harry, Alujo, Z. Well, those are always some of the first things on a new format. For some reason, they have not done this with White Hunter Blackheart. Well, the NDVD. They've not given it any any respect. It's really compelling movie. Whenever I say something is under scene or underrated, it usually means it doesn't have a 4K. That's that's the synonym for that. You know, there is a different strain of this kind of movie. All that jazz is an interesting movie about a film director. It's a self-portrait, thinly veiled, I guess, not even thinly veiled barely. Why did he even change the name of the character from Bob Fossi? We'll never know. But Bob Fossi's story effectively about himself entering the creative depth, the creative death throws, I would say. That is in part also about working on the stage, and is not totally about filmmaking, but does feel like a portrait of a film director. This is one of the best movies ever made, but I feel like it's maybe not considered a movie about a director. What do you think? Well, I mean, his film directing is seen in all that jazz as a kind of sideline. It doesn't have his focus. He's mainly a Broadway guy. Yeah. And mainly a dancer, and that's what the film mostly concerns itself with. This movie thing is like a thing that keeps like bothering him on the schedule that he has to keep going in and working on Lenny. Lenny here is not Lenny Bruce. They've changed that to a different comedian. He's played by Cliff Gorman who played the role of Lenny in the Broadway production on which the movie Lenny is based, the great Cliff Gorman. Well, I mean, we could go on and on about all that jazz, but it's a great portrait of an artist and a kind of self-destructive slash self-destructive drive of Bob Fossy in particular. Okay. So I've got I haven't I've not mentioned this anymore. I'm just going to do it live on the show right now. Oh my god. To last, it's not that it's really not a revelation at all. So settle down. Two years ago to celebrate Altman's centenary. We did an episode about his career. We had a program on the criterion channel celebrating his work. This year, able for our turn 75 did his films on the channel, talked about it on the show. Next year, there's two candidates in my mind for who I interested in spending a lot of time on. One of them is Bob Fossy, who would turn 100 next year. And the other is Ken Russell. I'm just I'm always looking for excuses to to repel into the why Ken Russell to see have a they would have turned 100. I see next year. So those are the two people who's now Bob Fossy has a relatively modest film career. They get directly only six films. Yeah, really short. Did the choreography on maybe five or six proper Hollywood films like pajama games stuff like that. So that would be an easier package to conquer. Ken Russell, the lots put your arms around a lot of. Well, but still it's not it's what 40. That's a lot. Well, I've been doing Hackman in Duval. I know a lot to me. That's very true. I find the director packages are different because you have to it's more it's more studied. The actors are you can watch a bad movie and just look at what they're doing and reflect on that. But I don't know. What do you think would be more more interesting to spend time on? Look, I'm I'm just doing my duty as the third chair of this podcast. I'm asking your opinion as the third chair. If I had a vote, it would be Ken Russell. I mean, do you have a vote? I guess. I mean, because I because I judge an artist based on their successes and not their failures, they both have some unbelievable successes. A lot more. I don't know if Ken Russell has failures so much as unrealized dreams, you know, I mean, everything is a swing. Every movie he makes is a swing, which is fascinating. Well, he and Boorman kind of similar kind of cut from the same cloth. Yeah, regardless. Ken Russell certainly belongs in that second tier. Along with Boorman. He does. You know, there's some other more standard Hollywood versions of what we're describing. There's there's chaplain a movie about Charlie Chaplin. There's gods and monsters, you know, which is about James Whale at the near the end of his life. There's a Hitchcock biopic starring Anthony Hopkins. Isn't there a Hitchcock biopic with Toby Jones as well? Yeah. Yeah. There is Ed Wood. Right. Um, there's Steven Spielberg's The Fableman's sort of about the origins of arriving at directing. Have you ever seen the disaster artist? Nope. You know what that is? No. Do you know what the film The Room is? Yes. Now I know what you're talking about. Have you seen The Room? I haven't seen The Room. You never participated in that. I never, that was not, that was not, that ain't me, man. Is it because you feel you're above that? Didn't we just talk about movies that's so bad that they're good? That's the way The Room sounds to me. I think it's an, it enters a different stratosphere of so bad. It's good. It might be the earth so bad, it's good, but it's also, it's cult is an act of community, I would say. Are you suggesting that I should see The Room? Not alone. For this podcast on video. I think that would be a good experience. Room watch party. Room, what do you call it? Watch, watch along. Room watch along. I don't think you'd totally get the effect by having us nattering at you during it, but maybe you and Carrie and the Nanny could watch The Room? Is it on physical media? The room? I assume so. You don't own it. I don't own it. To me, it's only meant to be seen in a movie theater with a lot of people. Why are they holding plastic spoons? Throwing toast to screen sort of thing? There is an interactivity. There is. Yeah. It is, I think it is the millennial Rocky Horror, but it's a much less interesting movie than Rocky Horror. The disaster artist is about the making of the movie. Right. With James Franco, Dave Franco, Seth Rogan, a number of other people. I think a pretty interesting movie that came out right around the time when James Franco directed it and right around the time when he was kind of deleted from our culture. Anything else? Any other movies like to see you enjoy? Oh, you also mentioned Nouvelle Vogue. Nouvelle Vogue, of course. Just came out. I actually haven't seen yet. A movie that I enjoyed more about that crew of directors and the relationship that some of them had to the older French masters, the making of breathless stuff I found a little bit less compelling personally. I'll mention one more movie that doesn't belong on any of these lists. I've mentioned it on this podcast before and that's the stuntman starring Peter O'Toole. There's a kind of myth about the film director and certainly the stuntman explores the myth of the film director. It's a picture of a film director, a lot of us see when we talk about film directors. I think it's worth seeing just for a little context, even though it's not based on any one person necessarily. You mentioned Wells earlier and how you're a completist. Does that mean you've seen Mank and RKO 281 and me and Orson Wells? I have. I like them to varying degrees. It's interesting how frequently he has been portrayed. He's tough to get your arms around in every sense. That's true. Yeah. And he also appears. Well, he's famously the inspiration for the brain from Pinkie and the brain. Are you familiar with Pinkie and the brain? Vaguely. Animated, serious? Yeah. I don't think he would have been interested in a debut. What was it a play about Orson Wells? Oh, yeah. What was it called? Orson's Shadow, written by the actor Austin Pendleton. Oh. Yes, of course. It was about a moment in Wells's life when Lawrence Olivier, who was starting the national theater, hired Orson Wells to direct Olivier in a production of rhinoceros by Einesco. And Olivier was going to appear in it with his then-girlfriend, Joan Ploughwright, even though he was still married to Vivian Lane. And I played Ken Tainin, the critic, Kenneth Tainin, who Olivier very smartly pulled into the fold when he was starting the national theater, knowing that having a critic on his side was a good thing. I can't wait to be compromised in that way. And Tainin was friends with Wells and sort of bartered the introduction between them. And they What? bitterly, and Olivier fired him off of the production. And so it's a play about that. It's a beautiful play. And it's really about some of what we're talking about here, that Olivier was very much a traditionalist and was very concerned with the way he was going to appear and had a lot of insecurity. Why did he hire a Buccaneering Maverick, like Orson Wells, to direct his play? Because he knew it was a good idea, but he couldn't ultimately submit to Wells's genius and erasibility. Do you see yourself as more of a Wells or an Olivier? I don't see myself as worthy of that question. I was hoping you would take the ban on Bill. Is there anything else you'd like to say about these films, these worlds, the way that directors are portrayed on screen? I hope that people check out this. I hope that the people who are into this, and have listened this far in the discussion, will check out Bormin and the devil. It's great fun. And it is. It is. It may be even more fun if you watch Exorcist 2 shortly before watching Bormin and the devil. I mean, look, I think Exorcist 2 is just, as I said at the beginning, I think it's awful. But if you're a film fan, I think you should see it. It's a worthy curiosity, and I think in all likelihood, when the movie is over, if you watch Exorcist 2 first, the thing you will ask yourself is what the hell happened here? And the movie explores that, so it's a useful companion. All right, Tracy, where can we find you? What are you doing? I'm, you know, third chair of the big picture podcast, and occasional third chair of the blank check podcast. Congrats on the taxi driver episode. Greatly enjoyed that. Thanks. There was a discussion on the Midnight Boys podcast, which is another part we have here at the ringer about the third chair situation. Chris Ryan was a guest on that show. Van is one of the co-hosts of that show. Right. And there was some discussion about the third chair's teaming up to make a show called Third Chair as an offshoot, or as a separate enterprise, perhaps, your thoughts. When you're losing, you extend your hand and say, "Why don't we all join up together?" I mean, here's the thing. It's so over. Once Van entered the conversation, it was really over. Right? I mean, I accused Chris last time we were on here of being W. But now that he and Van are chopping it up with lioness, I mean, are you kidding? He's not W. Those guys are Lyndon LaRouche and Pat Buchanan. Okay, thank you, Tracy. Thanks to our producer, Jack Sanders, for his work on today's episode. Thanks to Lucas Kavanaugh for production support. We'll be back later this week to discuss Robert Pattinson in the film "Primetime." We'll see you then. Imagine setting your makeup, then forgetting it's even theirs. Meet new groupie setting mist from Mabelie, New York. 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