Bonus Episode: The Screening Room – Sex, Lies and Videotape
This week in the Screening Room we’re talking about a bad marriage, an affair, an old college friend with a collection of strange home movies, and the 1989 film ‘Sex, Lies and Videotape.’ Plus the mighty Hypothetical Theoretical Metaphorical Potentially Possible Mixtape with songs by The Knickerbockers, George Michael, Radiohead, and more. Become an All Access member and get ad-free listening by visiting disgracelandpod.com.
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Speaker 1: What's the good word, My good people of Hollywoodland. My
Speaker 1: name is Seth Lundy, writer, showrunner, and good doctor here
Speaker 1: at Double Elvis, and I'd like to welcome you to
Speaker 1: another installment of a little thing we like to call
Speaker 1: the Screening Room. This is our weekly episode of the
Speaker 1: podcast and which I take you on a deep dive
Speaker 1: into one movie that connects with our subject this week.
Speaker 1: This week our subject was Bob Crane, someone who was
Speaker 1: a bit lost to history. Honestly. His big claim to
Speaker 1: fame was playing the titular character of the old late
Speaker 1: nineteen sixties sitcom Hogan's Heroes, and before that he was
Speaker 1: known around Los Angeles as a radio DJ. But it
Speaker 1: was only later after his death, after his murder, that
Speaker 1: the true nature of Bob Crane was exposed. He had
Speaker 1: been living a life full of dark secrets and fantasies
Speaker 1: that he captured on videotape. All of this you can
Speaker 1: hear in our fully scripted episode from earlier this week,
Speaker 1: so I'm not gonna waste too much time here with
Speaker 1: that today. But this is all to say. On the
Speaker 1: one hand, the obvious film to cover here this week
Speaker 1: would be Auto Focus, the two thousand and two film
Speaker 1: about Bob Crane's dark past that stars Greg Kinnear. But
Speaker 1: that film was directed by Paul Schrader, and we just
Speaker 1: featured a Paul Schrader film here in the screening room,
Speaker 1: Blue Collar, just a few weeks ago. And honestly where
Speaker 1: my mind went immediately when I thought about Bob Crane,
Speaker 1: and especially the title of our episode on Bob Crane,
Speaker 1: which I believe is sex, Lies, Videotape and Murder, my
Speaker 1: mind immediately went to the film sex Lies and Videotape.
Speaker 1: I mean, come on, it's right there in the title.
Speaker 1: We've invoked this film before here in Hollywood Land. This is,
Speaker 1: of course, the nineteen eighty nine debut film by Steven Soderberg,
Speaker 1: who would go on to become one of the most
Speaker 1: prolific and important film directors of the twenty first century,
Speaker 1: and who even at this point seems to be this sage,
Speaker 1: you know, this cinematic stage sitting all in enlightened style
Speaker 1: at the top of a mountain somewhere. As recently as
Speaker 1: a few years back, David Fincher insinuated that he sent
Speaker 1: Soderberg an early cut of his latest film, The Killer
Speaker 1: because he needed some guidance, and Soderberg just kind of
Speaker 1: low key recut the movie for him, because that's what
Speaker 1: Soderbergh does. He's become known as a very efficient filmmaker,
Speaker 1: a guy who can juggle multiple projects at once and
Speaker 1: get things made quickly and cheaply, but does so while
Speaker 1: not making anything look cheap or look like it was
Speaker 1: quickly made, which is the mark of a true artist
Speaker 1: who just wants to create and just wants to continue
Speaker 1: to push the medium forward. He shoots a lot of
Speaker 1: his own movies himself. He's a cinematographer, he's his own editor.
Speaker 1: But back in nineteen eighty nine, Steven Soderberg was nobody.
Speaker 1: He'd worked some odd jobs on the sets of TV shows,
Speaker 1: holding Q cards for the host. He'd managed to direct
Speaker 1: a concert film for Yes, No Shit. He made a
Speaker 1: concert film for Yes, their nineteen eighty five film nine
Speaker 1: oh one to two Live, which documented their nineteen eighty
Speaker 1: four tour of their album nine oh two to one five. Sorry,
Speaker 1: nine oh one two five. All this I'm getting TV
Speaker 1: shows confused with my classic rock records. Here it's a
Speaker 1: It's tragedy, that's the record with Owner of a Lonely Heart.
Speaker 1: Well I think probably yes, his biggest hit, I'm Gonna
Speaker 1: Go Out in a limon say. And although Soderberg and
Speaker 1: the band were nominated for a Grammy Award for Best
Speaker 1: Music Video Lawn Form, Soderbergh remained an unknown in Hollywood
Speaker 1: at the time. Now, I do believe it's true that
Speaker 1: he wrote the script for Sex Lives and Videotape on
Speaker 1: a legal pad and eight days while on a cross
Speaker 1: country road trip, But people are quick to point out
Speaker 1: when mentioning this fact, that he'd been noodling on the
Speaker 1: movie for a lot longer than that. By the time
Speaker 1: he put pen to paper, he'd probably had all the
Speaker 1: characters down and he had the arc of the story
Speaker 1: in place. And though he's alluded to this being setting
Speaker 1: auto biographical before, he once made this statement about the
Speaker 1: film quote nothing in the movie actually happened, but I
Speaker 1: was riffing off a relationship that I destroyed through dishonesty
Speaker 1: and deception unquote, later adding that he basically cut himself
Speaker 1: up into four different characters, with each character having some
Speaker 1: trait that he possessed, and that's how this story began.
Speaker 1: He was about twenty six years old. He famously shot
Speaker 1: the film for one point two million dollars. He shot
Speaker 1: it on location in Baton Rouge, Louisiana for thirty days,
Speaker 1: because that's as many days as his budget would allow.
Speaker 1: And earlier I talked about how efficient and economic he is.
Speaker 1: Now he's commented recently that he can't believe he made
Speaker 1: this film thirty days, that if he made this today,
Speaker 1: he would have made it in ten days. That's how
Speaker 1: much that's how more efficiently he works now. And he
Speaker 1: took a lot of risks on this film. He took
Speaker 1: a risk on Andy McDowell, a model whose previous film
Speaker 1: to this, Gray Stroke, The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of
Speaker 1: the Apes, was infamous because the filmmakers had actually replaced
Speaker 1: her voice with the voice of Glenn Close in post production,
Speaker 1: the reason being not only her strong Southern accent, but
Speaker 1: that she hadn't really acted before and her line deliveries
Speaker 1: weren't strong, or so the story goes. Soderberg also took
Speaker 1: a chance on other up and coming actors like Peter Gallagher,
Speaker 1: Lauris Ann Giacomo, and also James Spader, who had small
Speaker 1: roles in Pretty and Pink Mannequin and Baby Boom at
Speaker 1: this time but never anything that demanded this much from him,
Speaker 1: and it was hard to get some of these actors
Speaker 1: to agree to be in this. Lauris and Giacomo, for one,
Speaker 1: she needed to be reassured that she would not be
Speaker 1: obligated to get nude in the film, since the very
Speaker 1: tight seemed to suggest that, in fact, Soderbergh had written
Speaker 1: the part of Anne for Elizabeth McGovern, the actress who
Speaker 1: was in She's Having a Baby Once Upon a Time
Speaker 1: in America, but McGovern's own agent refused to even show
Speaker 1: the actress the script because everyone just assumed that this
Speaker 1: was some sort of pervy, porn adjacent thing. I know
Speaker 1: that I had that sense as a kid when this
Speaker 1: came out. I remember reading about this, probably in Premier
Speaker 1: magazine in nineteen eighty nine, reading the title, seeing the
Speaker 1: promotional poster, an All Timer poster, by the way, the
Speaker 1: series of horizontal images separated by black bars. You see
Speaker 1: Peter Gallagher's eyes, and then you see James Spader and
Speaker 1: Anya McDowell's lips, and then there's a shot of Gallagher
Speaker 1: from behind with his fancy work clothes and his suspenders,
Speaker 1: standing in front of a flickering blue fuzz on the
Speaker 1: TV screen. The poster alone was incredibly evocative, and it
Speaker 1: made eleven twelve year old me feel very uncomfortable because
Speaker 1: it seems so adult and I don't I don't even
Speaker 1: mean sexy. It did not look sexy to me. It
Speaker 1: looked adult. It seemed illicit and unspeakable and just off
Speaker 1: limits to me. And for that reason, I kept this
Speaker 1: film at a distance for a very long time. Even
Speaker 1: as Soderberg became one of my favorite filmmakers, I didn't
Speaker 1: see this movie for quite a while. So anyways, Soderberg
Speaker 1: makes this movie right. He brings it to the Sundance
Speaker 1: Film Festival in January of nineteen eighty nine. This is
Speaker 1: when Sundance was still known as the US Film Festival.
Speaker 1: But okay, the screening happens in a small room. The
Speaker 1: audience is literally sitting there on these like folding chairs
Speaker 1: that have been arranged by volunteers or whatever. You know.
Speaker 1: My point here is that this isn't some huge theater
Speaker 1: and huge audience. It's still a very very small thing,
Speaker 1: even in the context of this film festival. Soderberg is there,
Speaker 1: he gives a little introduction, and he tells then, hey, listen,
Speaker 1: if you want to talk about distributing this film. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm here, I'm around, just come find me. After the screening, famously,
Speaker 1: Mirrimax Films winds up acquiring Sex Lies and Videotape just
Speaker 1: a few months later in April for one point one
Speaker 1: million dollars, which is funny because basically to Soderberg paying
Speaker 1: his debts back for making this film, and then just
Speaker 1: one month after that, at the can Film Festival, it
Speaker 1: wins the Palmdor, the festival's major award, making Steven Soderberg
Speaker 1: the youngest to ever do so. Eventually he'll get an
Speaker 1: Oscar nomination for Best Screenplay, and then he'll return to
Speaker 1: Sundance the following year, only this time to serve on
Speaker 1: the festival jury. Sex Lies and Videotape wanted to do
Speaker 1: something like thirty six million dollars internationally, which was huge.
Speaker 1: This small, intimate independent film about people and relationships and
Speaker 1: about needs and wants and above all else, Deception had
Speaker 1: resonated with audiences and made thirty six times its meager budget.
Speaker 1: This was a watershed moment. This is after a decade
Speaker 1: in which the studios have been calling the shots. You know,
Speaker 1: the nineteen eighties were tough for filmmakers because them that
Speaker 1: had been granted in the seventies had been taken away
Speaker 1: at the end of that decade, when it seemed in
Speaker 1: the eyes of those who made the money and who
Speaker 1: guarded the money, the too many risks were being taken,
Speaker 1: you know, Heaven's Gate and all that. But by nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty nine, thanks to sex lies and videotape, the studio
Speaker 1: execs were starting to see the light again, starting to
Speaker 1: realize that there was money to be made in independent cinema.
Speaker 1: The audiences would go to these movies, and thus we
Speaker 1: get this bounty of independent films that followed directly in
Speaker 1: sex lies and videotapes footsteps. But then the strangest thing happened.
Speaker 1: Soderbergh stumbled right after this commercially. That is, the five
Speaker 1: movies that followed were all very small, They were all
Speaker 1: very different, and many were downright experimental. There was Kafka
Speaker 1: with Jeremy Irons, which, apropos of its title, was very
Speaker 1: Kafka askue and very strange. There was King of the Hill,
Speaker 1: which was critically acclaimed but too dark for some audiences.
Speaker 1: There was The Underneath, which was an underseen noir. There
Speaker 1: was Schizopolis, which was this nonlinear experimental comedy with Soderberg starring.
Speaker 1: And then there was Grey's Anatomy, which was a dramatized
Speaker 1: monologue by the great monologuist Spaulden Gray. It wasn't until
Speaker 1: almost a decade later, nineteen eighty eight and Out of
Speaker 1: Sight with George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez, that Soderbergh corrected
Speaker 1: these so called commercial missteps, finding that sweet spot halfway
Speaker 1: between commercially viable and creatively exhilarating. Then came Aaron Brockovich
Speaker 1: and Traffic in Ocean's eleven. But you know, in between
Speaker 1: the big hits, he still satisfies the experimental, insatiable creative
Speaker 1: that's at the heart of what he does. So for
Speaker 1: every contagion or magic mic that he makes, there's also
Speaker 1: something like the informant or presence. This film Sex Live
Speaker 1: in Videotape is a film about couples in trouble. It's
Speaker 1: a movie about a bad marriage, an old friend. It's
Speaker 1: about secrets, about confessions recorded on videotape in private and
Speaker 1: we're going to get into it right after this, guys.
Speaker 1: I love how this film opens. The Highway is racing
Speaker 1: by all we see is asphalt. We're going fast. Then
Speaker 1: we see James Spader driving in a convertible tops down.
Speaker 1: This is all happening while an acoustic guitar plays fast
Speaker 1: on the soundtrack. And then we hear Anny McDowell's voice
Speaker 1: talking about garbage, about how all she's been thinking about
Speaker 1: all week is garbage. She's talking about this while James
Speaker 1: Spader slows down. The car pulls into a roadside araj
Speaker 1: and goes into the bathroom to shave and change his clothes.
Speaker 1: Annie McDowell's not there with him, we just hear her.
Speaker 1: Eventually we cut to Anny McDowell who is elsewhere in
Speaker 1: a room talking with her therapist, and right up top
Speaker 1: we get this disorienting introduction to these characters who could
Speaker 1: not be more different. The class difference here especially she's
Speaker 1: very uptight and sheltered while he is wild and free,
Speaker 1: and it gets us guessing as to what these two
Speaker 1: people have to do with each other and why we
Speaker 1: are being introduced to them in this way. Now I
Speaker 1: have a theory. I think this is Soderberg working with
Speaker 1: his limitations. He has a very small budget, he has
Speaker 1: a short amount of time in which to shoot and
Speaker 1: while he could have told this story in a straight style,
Speaker 1: which is to say, you know, show Annie McDowell's character
Speaker 1: and therapy establish who she is, and then someone mentions
Speaker 1: that the genius Spader character is on his way, and
Speaker 1: then we cut to him. But by the time she
Speaker 1: mentions that her husband's old college friend is coming to visit,
Speaker 1: we've already seen this guy. It's a deliberate visual language,
Speaker 1: meant to get your brain working up front, meant to
Speaker 1: distinguish this film from just any other film, which is
Speaker 1: the kind of thing that made this movie stand out
Speaker 1: when people first saw it at sun Dance, and why
Speaker 1: it went so against the grain of your typical Hollywood
Speaker 1: film circa nineteen eighty nine. But I'm getting ahead of
Speaker 1: myself here. What is Sex, Lies and Videotape about. Well,
Speaker 1: it's about a yuppie couple. There's a lawyer, John played
Speaker 1: by Peter Gallagher and his wife Anne played by Anny
Speaker 1: McDowell aka Margaret Qualley's mom. They don't really have sex.
Speaker 1: Anne says that she's not all that interested in sex.
Speaker 1: She tells her therapist this, and they aren't very happy.
Speaker 1: Anne even tells her shrink that she thinks being happy
Speaker 1: is overrated because the last time I was happy, I
Speaker 1: got so fat. Those are her words. Meanwhile, John is
Speaker 1: having an affair with Anne's sister, Cynthia, played by Lauras Angiocomo.
Speaker 1: Cynthia is the opposite of Anne in many ways, but
Speaker 1: for John's purposes, the opposite that he's attracted to is
Speaker 1: that she is sexually voracious. And into this dynamic comes
Speaker 1: this guy named Graham played by James Spader with his
Speaker 1: flowing golden god beach blonde locks at the time, the
Speaker 1: guy driving that car at the beginning. He's an old
Speaker 1: college friend of John's who is moving to town, and
Speaker 1: he plans to crash at John and Anne's for a
Speaker 1: bit until he can find his own place. Anne is
Speaker 1: not thrilled about this. She tells her therapist that John
Speaker 1: didn't even ask her if it was okay for Graham
Speaker 1: to come and stay, and while she doesn't mind, she
Speaker 1: just thought it would have been nice had he asked again.
Speaker 1: These two are not happy. They're not communicating. There is
Speaker 1: something strange and mysterious with Graham. You know, you look
Speaker 1: at him, and you just the way he talks, the
Speaker 1: way he looks people, You can just tell and meanwhile,
Speaker 1: you know, John is an open book. He's like this
Speaker 1: alpha male type, kind of douchey, very douchey. Actually, it's
Speaker 1: obvious from the jump that he and Graham aren't a
Speaker 1: close as they used to be, if they were ever
Speaker 1: that close at all. And since Anne doesn't really work,
Speaker 1: she agrees to take Graham out apartment hunting while John
Speaker 1: is at work or busy sleeping with her sister. So
Speaker 1: while they're out, they go out for lunch or for
Speaker 1: drinks or whatever, and slowly is you can see she's
Speaker 1: warming up to Graham. She's sort of getting over this
Speaker 1: being annoyed that he's there to visit, and is actually
Speaker 1: enjoying his company. I think maybe because he's just not John,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe he's more mysterious than John, or that
Speaker 1: he's actually paying attention to her and all that. But
Speaker 1: they start to have some very intimate conversations, and at
Speaker 1: some point Anne tells Graham that she thinks that sex
Speaker 1: is overrated, and then Graham confides in Anne that he
Speaker 1: is impotent, or more accurately, as he puts it, he
Speaker 1: is impotent in the presence of other people. Later, we
Speaker 1: see Graham hanging out at his new apartment and he's
Speaker 1: watching these videotapes on his TV set. He has all
Speaker 1: these small video cassettes in a camcorder and he's shot
Speaker 1: from the waist up, but you can tell that he's
Speaker 1: nude sitting on this chair watching it. He's not really
Speaker 1: doing anything, but he's just watching and you can hear
Speaker 1: his voice on the tape asking these questions, and then
Speaker 1: you can hear a woman describing answering his question, which is,
Speaker 1: you know, to describe the most unusual place that she's
Speaker 1: ever masturbated. Then there's a knock on the door. It's
Speaker 1: Anne visiting. Graham gets up. You know, this character is
Speaker 1: so fascinating because he's not like, oh my god. He
Speaker 1: doesn't like fly out from the chair and like hold on,
Speaker 1: hold on a second and get himself dressed and everything.
Speaker 1: He just tells her to come in, and he casually
Speaker 1: like drapes this blanket around his body and he walks
Speaker 1: into the other room just as she's walking into the apartment,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of just missing her, and he's casually
Speaker 1: getting dressed off camera while she's kind of starting to
Speaker 1: come in and look around to the apartment. And it
Speaker 1: just tells you so much about this character, this sort
Speaker 1: of like uh just how sort of like loose and
Speaker 1: free and laise fair he is, I guess. But when
Speaker 1: Ann comes in, she can't help but notice all these
Speaker 1: videotapes that are laid out there on the table. They're
Speaker 1: in this like carrying case, and the spines all have
Speaker 1: women's names written on them and dates. So she asked him, like,
Speaker 1: what are these and he says it's a personal project
Speaker 1: he's been working on, and she presses him on it,
Speaker 1: what kind of project is this? And finally he reveals
Speaker 1: that they are interviews with women about sex. Anne cannot
Speaker 1: get out of the apartment fast enough. She is so uptight,
Speaker 1: so repressed, so put together that this is hitting her
Speaker 1: like some fast and loose, weird, kinky shit, right. A
Speaker 1: guy who says he's impotent around other people, who records
Speaker 1: conversations with women in which they reveal their deepest and
Speaker 1: darkest sexual secrets and fantasies, and that's how he gets off, Like,
Speaker 1: she can't believe this. And Sister Cynthia, on the other hand,
Speaker 1: catches wind of this whole thing, and she can't help herself.
Speaker 1: She wants in, so she invites herself over in Graham's pla.
Speaker 1: She gets him to interview her. An can't believe it.
Speaker 1: Ann is shocked right, but soon Anne finds one of
Speaker 1: her sister's earrings in her house. While she's vacuuming, she
Speaker 1: puts two and two together. She figures out that John
Speaker 1: is sleeping with Cynthia, and feeling betrayed and hurt and distraught,
Speaker 1: she heads over to Graham's place, where she tells him
Speaker 1: that she wants him to film her. She wants to
Speaker 1: make a tape. She wants to feel something else. She
Speaker 1: wants to know if she can feel something else. Maybe
Speaker 1: it's been John all on that's been the problem, not
Speaker 1: her all right? Do you know where this is going?
Speaker 1: Do you know where the characters are heading? There's something
Speaker 1: so simple about this story. Four characters. Each character wants something.
Speaker 1: Two of them don't realize until the third act how
Speaker 1: they're going to get what they want, and the other
Speaker 1: two are gonna end up no longer getting what they've
Speaker 1: been getting the whole time, And in a way, how
Speaker 1: we feel about some of these people changes by the end.
Speaker 1: You know, James Spader is so good at playing the
Speaker 1: Skis that it's easy to assume that's his deal. But
Speaker 1: there's more depth here. The Mere Skis is a movie
Speaker 1: that is wise beyond the twenty six years of its creator.
Speaker 1: It's a movie that makes me want to make a mixtape.
Speaker 1: We're gonna do that right after this break. Hang tight,
Speaker 1: all right, gang, It's time to make a hypothetical, theoretical, metaphorical,
Speaker 1: potentially possible mixtape. Inspired by the nineteen eighty nine film
Speaker 1: Sex Lies and videotape Are You Ready? Are You Set?
Speaker 1: Let's Go? Song number one Lies by the Knickerbockers. This
Speaker 1: is from nineteen sixty five. This sounds like the best
Speaker 1: Beatles song the Beatles never made, all right. These guys
Speaker 1: were named after Knickerbocker Avenue in Bergenfield, New Jersey, where
Speaker 1: they came from. This song was cut out in West Hollywood.
Speaker 1: I've first heard this on the great The Indispensable Nuggets
Speaker 1: compilation Nuggets Original Artifacts from the first psychedelic era in
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty five to nineteen sixty eight. If you don't
Speaker 1: have this collection, you need it. You can buy a
Speaker 1: physical copy, or it's streaming everywhere. It's one of the
Speaker 1: greatest collections of seminal psychedelic rock, garage rock put together
Speaker 1: by Lenny Kay, who famously would go on to play
Speaker 1: guitar with Patty Smith Band. And this compilation is just
Speaker 1: it's an Alzheimer and look sure, Lies by the Knickerbockers
Speaker 1: sounds like the Beatles circa It won't be long or
Speaker 1: anytime at all? Right, but the Beatles, this is my
Speaker 1: hot take. The Beatles never rocked this hard. This is
Speaker 1: edgier than the Beatles. Can you imagine if the Beatles
Speaker 1: had gone as hard as the Knickerbockers go on Lies
Speaker 1: in the studio with Like I said, it won't be long.
Speaker 1: It won't be long is already it's breathless and it's
Speaker 1: super exhilarating. But if it had the extra that Lies
Speaker 1: has by the Knickerbockers, man, I mean, holy shit, we'd
Speaker 1: be in the stratosphere all right. Choosing the song for
Speaker 1: obvious reasons, Lies, We're gonna stay on the Lies theme
Speaker 1: here for our next song. A song called Little Lies
Speaker 1: by Flut and Mac from nineteen eighty seven from their
Speaker 1: album Tango in the Night. This record was everywhere in
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty seven. My family, we used to drive up
Speaker 1: the coast on some weekends as a family together and
Speaker 1: when when you know, my brother didn't have a hockey game,
Speaker 1: or when I didn't have a play that I was
Speaker 1: performing in. Back when I was younger, and we'd we'd
Speaker 1: swing by the beach or whatever. But we'd always hit
Speaker 1: up these flea markets on the way. There are all
Speaker 1: these flea markets that used to be on Route one
Speaker 1: in Maine. There still are some there're kind of shells
Speaker 1: of their former selves. I had this funny interaction with
Speaker 1: my dad once where I was like, you know, I
Speaker 1: took my kids out to all these flea markets when
Speaker 1: they were little, and I said, I was talking to
Speaker 1: my dad and I said, Dad, these flea markets they're
Speaker 1: all they're all like they're dumps now, Like my god,
Speaker 1: they're just like trash, you know. And my dad was like, Zeth,
Speaker 1: they were always dumbs. You just didn't realize it as
Speaker 1: a kid. But anyways, we'd hit these places up for like,
Speaker 1: you know, our brother and I would have like our
Speaker 1: allowance or actually no, we would have the money that
Speaker 1: we would collect. My brother and I used to We
Speaker 1: grew up in a college town, so we would go
Speaker 1: around on Saturday and Sunday mornings and we would collect
Speaker 1: returnables because all the college kids would just stick their
Speaker 1: their empty beer bottles out on the side of the
Speaker 1: road and in a bag, and we would just like
Speaker 1: get them all. We'd take them back to the returnable place,
Speaker 1: we'd get cash, and then we'd have that cash to well.
Speaker 1: My brother would save his money, but I would spend
Speaker 1: my money, so I'd spend it on comics, spend it
Speaker 1: on cassette tapes. And I just remember on these road
Speaker 1: trips listening to the American Top forty Countdown with Casey Kasem,
Speaker 1: and I feel like this summer, the summer of eighty seven,
Speaker 1: or maybe it was eighty eight, I don't know when
Speaker 1: the single came out. Little Lies was everywhere, like I
Speaker 1: heard it all the time, like on the hour, every hour.
Speaker 1: I used to hate this song. I used to hate
Speaker 1: this era of Fleetwood Mac so much. I thought it
Speaker 1: was too polished, had too much sheen, which is ironic
Speaker 1: because you know, Fleetwood Mac was all about the polish.
Speaker 1: But now I love it on ironically too Little Lies
Speaker 1: by Fleetwood Mac. All Right, the next song, thinking about
Speaker 1: the character of Anne, thinking that sex is overrated, I'm
Speaker 1: going to choose the song called Tired of Sex by
Speaker 1: Weezer from their sophomore album Pinkerton nineteen ninety six. I
Speaker 1: still remember buying this at the time and going, what
Speaker 1: the fuck is this? Weezer had shed the dorky thing.
Speaker 1: They'd gone full emo years before we even knew what
Speaker 1: the hell emo was, and here was Rivers saying the
Speaker 1: most unrockstar thing ever. I'm Tired of Sex was like
Speaker 1: one of my listens, and in two I did like
Speaker 1: El scorhow I did like the Good Life, Tired of
Speaker 1: Sex and Get You. I think I like those tracks too.
Speaker 1: But I got to make a confession, which is that
Speaker 1: I've always wanted to love this album as much as
Speaker 1: the Pinkerton stands do. But for me, it's always gonna
Speaker 1: be the blue album that's always my favorite Weezer album. Sorry, y'all,
Speaker 1: I just you know, that's just where I stand. Tired
Speaker 1: of Sex by Weezer, all right. Next track here on
Speaker 1: our mixtape is a song called I Want Your Sex.
Speaker 1: We're getting the duality of the sex thing here, guys. Okay,
Speaker 1: we're getting the I don't want sex now, I want sex, okay,
Speaker 1: because it's just, you know, we're all human beings, you know,
Speaker 1: sometimes yes, sometimes no, I don't know. I don't know
Speaker 1: what I'm talking about. Never mind. I Want Your Sex
Speaker 1: George Michael from his huge, huge record Faith, also same
Speaker 1: year as as Tango in the Night in nineteen eighty seven.
Speaker 1: But listen, here's the caveat. You gotta have parts one
Speaker 1: and two. Okay, I Want Your Sex Parts one and two.
Speaker 1: The single version parts one and two is basically it's
Speaker 1: the long version. It's over nine minutes long. It's on
Speaker 1: the album. If you don't know this version, it's the
Speaker 1: best version. It has this wicked, funky horn breakdown section
Speaker 1: slash New York dance section that happens. I think it's
Speaker 1: the part two of the thing. The part one is
Speaker 1: like the single that you know, and then part two
Speaker 1: is like this instrumental, heavy instrumental kind of groove jam thing.
Speaker 1: And if you were around when this came out, if
Speaker 1: you were like gen X like me, and you were younger,
Speaker 1: you know, I was ten when this song came out.
Speaker 1: This song was so fucking controversial, Like my mother would
Speaker 1: not let me listen to this song. That's how controversial
Speaker 1: this was. And god forbid, I got caught watching this
Speaker 1: or the Faith video with him shaking his ass on TV.
Speaker 1: It was like Elvis Presley all over again. But honestly,
Speaker 1: at the time, I kind of thought it was like
Speaker 1: a joke song, Like I thought it was dumb, like
Speaker 1: my Dingling or something, so I didn't really care to
Speaker 1: listen to it. But now that I'm older, you know
Speaker 1: this is the thing. You throw one that nine minute
Speaker 1: version and you're just like, fuck, it's an instant dance party.
Speaker 1: It's just the best. George Michael rules, all right, I
Speaker 1: want your sex, George Michael, nineteen eighty seven. I was
Speaker 1: thinking about Andy McDowell, how the first thing we hear
Speaker 1: in this movie is she's obsessed with trash and worried
Speaker 1: about trash. And I thought of the New York Dolls
Speaker 1: song titled Trash from their self titled nineteen seventy three debut,
Speaker 1: produced by Todd Runggren, who probably did not get along
Speaker 1: with him, just like he didn't get along with the
Speaker 1: band or XTC or anybody else that he's produced. I'm
Speaker 1: pretty sure that's the case. If there's anyone out there
Speaker 1: who's been produced by Todd Runggren and you guys got along,
Speaker 1: let us know this song is sunned by the somewhat
Speaker 1: recently Daily Departed. David Johansson Rip this kicks off side
Speaker 1: B of this incredible record. This needs to be filed
Speaker 1: under most auspicious debut albums of all time. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's just one of the best debut albums of all time.
Speaker 1: And it's just more proof that this early punk shit,
Speaker 1: this glam shit, this mold break in from Another Planet shit,
Speaker 1: it's really this old girl group and do wop music
Speaker 1: revitalized for a new set of ears. Right, That's all
Speaker 1: it is. You know. David Johansson's got his braying Braddy
Speaker 1: vocal thing going on, but Leslie Gore could be Brady too,
Speaker 1: you know. And this goes all the way up through
Speaker 1: like the B fifty two's and everything. It's just it's
Speaker 1: breaking the mold. But you know it's history repeating too.
Speaker 1: Baby Trash by the New York Dolls. Get this in
Speaker 1: your mix, all right. Next song on our mixtape is
Speaker 1: a track called Bust to Baton Rouge. This film takes
Speaker 1: place in Baton Rouge. It was shot in Baton Rouge,
Speaker 1: so I got Baton Rouge in the brain. Bust to
Speaker 1: Baton Rouge by Lucinda Williams from her two thousand and
Speaker 1: one record, Essence. This is a ballad. This record is
Speaker 1: a follow up to Car Wheels on a Gravel Road,
Speaker 1: which I think of as her breakthrough, but I think
Speaker 1: she had some big hits before that, like like Passionate
Speaker 1: Kisses was before that, And what was that song I
Speaker 1: Just wanted to See You So Bad? That was that
Speaker 1: a hit? That's one of my favorite Listen william song songs.
Speaker 1: So good. But the Car Wheels and the Gravel Road
Speaker 1: record was sort of like I think maybe it was
Speaker 1: the breakthrough because it sort of resonated with the, for
Speaker 1: lack of a better term, the alt country scene at
Speaker 1: the time, you know, like Uncle Tupelo, Whiskey Town, sun Bolt,
Speaker 1: Richard Buckner, all that stuff, right, So Car Wheels was
Speaker 1: kind of like a big record for that that sort
Speaker 1: of scene. And I remember thinking when Essence came out,
Speaker 1: and this is the follow up, so it's like what
Speaker 1: three or four years later. It was sort of heavily anticipated.
Speaker 1: But I found Essence to be like a lot more
Speaker 1: slick than that previous record, and I kind of rejected
Speaker 1: it for that. But again, you know, time is the healer,
Speaker 1: just like with I Want Your Sex and and Little Lies.
Speaker 1: I've come around to it and I love I love,
Speaker 1: I love the sound of this record. The guitars are
Speaker 1: so rich, drums are subtle, the harmonies on this chorus
Speaker 1: or just heavenly stuff like listen to his voices is amazing,
Speaker 1: So bust of Baton Rouge by listen to Williams and
Speaker 1: the next song I'm Gonna throw on here is totally obvious,
Speaker 1: just like you know Lies by the Knickerbockers was obvious,
Speaker 1: and I Want Your Sex by George Michael was obvious.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, this is just a this is sort of
Speaker 1: like a duh playlist here today, but I'm gonna include
Speaker 1: videotape by Radiohead from their two thousand and seven album
Speaker 1: In Rainbows. This is the piano ballad that ends that album.
Speaker 1: Originally this was supposed to be some hard driving track,
Speaker 1: I believe, like a faster like dance oriented kind of thing,
Speaker 1: and then they were gonna make a big rocker out
Speaker 1: of it before they stripped it all down, and it's
Speaker 1: just piano and tom Yorke. I think, right, that's it.
Speaker 1: Maybe there's like some like googlely legally electronics going on
Speaker 1: bubbling in the background somewhere. This is a song, another
Speaker 1: one that took a while to hit me. I love
Speaker 1: it now, I love, love, love it. But you know,
Speaker 1: I remember when In Rainbows came out, that whole pay
Speaker 1: what you want thing on their website, no record label. Remember,
Speaker 1: it was like, what the hell's going on? You can
Speaker 1: pay what you want for the new Radiohead and you
Speaker 1: download it, and that crazy business model ended up making
Speaker 1: them like the most money they ever made on a
Speaker 1: record ever. Just goes to show, right. I love the
Speaker 1: album when it came out, but I was just I
Speaker 1: was on videotape because it was slow, didn't have guitars,
Speaker 1: and I was like, get the fuck out of here
Speaker 1: with your melancholi shite, Tom York. But you know I
Speaker 1: could be melancholy too. You know I can go to
Speaker 1: that place, that raw, wounded place that Tom Yorke goes to.
Speaker 1: So it's grown on me and I love it. Videotape
Speaker 1: by Radiohead, So there you go. Lies by the Knickerbockers,
Speaker 1: Little Lies by Fleetwood Mac, Tired of Sex by Weezer,
Speaker 1: I Want Your Sex, Parts one and two by George Michael,
Speaker 1: Trash by New York Dolls, Bust to Baton Rouge by
Speaker 1: listen to Williams and videotape by Radiohead some songs to
Speaker 1: get this hypothetical, theoretical, metaphorically potentially possible mixt started. Let
Speaker 1: me know if you've got any additions for this one.
Speaker 1: Maybe a song about a bad marriage, a song about
Speaker 1: an affair, maybe even a song about an impotent dude
Speaker 1: who gets off videotaping women as they make their most
Speaker 1: secret sexual confessions. Get at me on the telephone, call
Speaker 1: or text six one seven nine oh six six six
Speaker 1: three eight. You can also email me at Disgrace lambpod
Speaker 1: at gmail dot com. And while you're doing that, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna pause real quick, but stay put. I'm gonna be
Speaker 1: rightpack my Hollywood Land peeps. I hope you dug that
Speaker 1: deep dive into sex, lies and videotape. Have you guys
Speaker 1: seen this before? Are you a fan of late eighties
Speaker 1: early nineties independent cinema? Are you a Soderberg fan? Where
Speaker 1: do you place this in your Sodaberg rankings? What are
Speaker 1: my top ten soda films? You ask? Why? I thought
Speaker 1: you'd never ask, but I'm prepared. I'm like one of
Speaker 1: those people who wins an Oscar Award and I'm like,
Speaker 1: I didn't think I was gonna win, but I do
Speaker 1: have a speech prepared. So here's my list, in reverse order,
Speaker 1: for my favorite Steven Soderberg films as of three twenty
Speaker 1: pm Eastern Time on Tuesday, June thirtieth. Okay, number ten,
Speaker 1: Sex Lies and Videotape, number nine, Contagion, number eight, No
Speaker 1: Sudden Move with Benzo Pnicio del Toro, who's in a
Speaker 1: number of Soderberg movies, so good in this one. Number seven,
Speaker 1: The Limey, number six, Aaron Brokovic. Number five. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: cheat here and do Black Bag and Presence together because
Speaker 1: they both came out in the same year. If that's
Speaker 1: happened numerous times with Soderberg where he puts out two
Speaker 1: movies in one year, but these two just kind of
Speaker 1: go together for me in my mind. So number five,
Speaker 1: Black Bag and Presence. Sorry, if I'm cheating, deal with it.
Speaker 1: Number four, Logan Lucky, number three, Ocean's eleven, number two, Traffic,
Speaker 1: and number one Out of Sight. Give me your top
Speaker 1: ten Steven Soderberg films, Your top five soda Berg films,
Speaker 1: I don't know your top twelve. Rank all of his
Speaker 1: films in order. I don't know. Just give me some lists, guys.
Speaker 1: I want your lists. I want your list. Doom Doom, Doom, Doom, Doom, Doom, Doom,
Speaker 1: doom doom. I want you a list. Thank you? All right,
Speaker 1: Crystal Ball time here, guys. Monday, coming at you Monday,
Speaker 1: fully scripted sound design episode all about James Dean. This
Speaker 1: is one of my favorite Hollywood and episodes that we
Speaker 1: ever produced. Written by my guy Bob Proll. Just totally
Speaker 1: crushed this one. Stuff about like haunted cars and ghosts
Speaker 1: in the studio, using James Dean's death to sell the
Speaker 1: two films that hadn't come out yet, and really like
Speaker 1: Dark and macab Ways. It's great. It's great. There's so
Speaker 1: much stuff here that was lost to history, guys, that
Speaker 1: we've reclaimed through our research and through our storytelling. It's
Speaker 1: not the same narrative you're gonna get in James Dean,
Speaker 1: I promise you. Okay, Hey, that's coming at you on Monday.
Speaker 1: On Wednesday in the rap party, I'm gonna be talking
Speaker 1: about rebels, rebels without a cause, rebels like James Dean.
Speaker 1: And I want to know, question of the week, what
Speaker 1: on screen character is your favorite rebel? Is it James
Speaker 1: Dean as Jim in Rebel Without a Cause? Is it
Speaker 1: Jack Nicholson as Randall McMurphy in One Flew Over the
Speaker 1: Kuka's Nest. Maybe it's Tyler Durdin from Fight Club. I
Speaker 1: don't know. Let me know. You got to tell me
Speaker 1: these things. I'm not a mind reader. Six one seven
Speaker 1: nine oh six six six three eight. You can call,
Speaker 1: you can text six one seven nine oh six six
Speaker 1: six three eight, email machine Disgrace Lampod at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: You can hit me up on the socials at Disgrace Lampod. Also,
Speaker 1: if you are a member of Disgrace lamb All Access
Speaker 1: over on Patreon, jump in the chat let me know there.
Speaker 1: Hit me up, guys, and perhaps I will read or
Speaker 1: play your response in the rap party next week Housekeeping
Speaker 1: before we get out of here, don't forget, Do not
Speaker 1: sleep on. Our brand new episode of this film should
Speaker 1: be played loud. This is our video podcast that is
Speaker 1: exclusive to Patreon Disgraceland All Access in Patreon. Once a month,
Speaker 1: the last Wednesday of the month, we drop a brand
Speaker 1: new episode, one hour video episode of this show in
Speaker 1: which Jake Brennan and I Jake Brennan from Disgraceland. We
Speaker 1: look at these soundtracks to some of our favorite movies.
Speaker 1: We just dropped an episode on Days to Confuse. We're
Speaker 1: talking about Black Oak, Arkansas. We're talking about Alice Cooper.
Speaker 1: We're talking about Bob Dylan's Hurricane. We're talking about Aerosmith.
Speaker 1: We're talking about Slow Ride foghat Lowrider War. All right,
Speaker 1: disgracelampod dot com. If you're not a member disgracelampod dot com,
Speaker 1: right there on the homepage is all the information you
Speaker 1: need in a little convenient button boop that you can
Speaker 1: click and sign up today. Also, don't sleep on our
Speaker 1: brand new episode over in the Disgraceland Feed this week,
Speaker 1: all about Wendy o' williams. Wendy O Williams was the
Speaker 1: lead singer of a band called the Plasmatics back in
Speaker 1: the late seventies in the punk scene in New York City.
Speaker 1: They've sort of been forgotten to time, but at the
Speaker 1: time when they were in New York City performing, they
Speaker 1: were one of the biggest draws in that city, Like
Speaker 1: lines wrapped around the block. They got too big to
Speaker 1: play CBGB's and a lot of it had to do
Speaker 1: with Wendy O. Williams and her shock Rock Front Woman's shenanigans.
Speaker 1: She would blow up cadillacs on stage, she would smash
Speaker 1: TVs with sledgehammers. She chainsaw Less Paul guitars in half.
Speaker 1: And she would do this with wearing like, you know,
Speaker 1: electrical tape on her nipples or shaving cream covering her
Speaker 1: bare breasts or whatever. Very provocative, very shocking happening at
Speaker 1: the time in the late seventies early eighties when rock
Speaker 1: and roll was being like demonized as porno graphic and
Speaker 1: at satanic. This led to a lot of really crazy
Speaker 1: shit in Wendy O. Williams life that you'll hear about
Speaker 1: in this episode that is in the disgrace Land feed.
Speaker 1: Go check that out. Wendy O. Williams in disgrace Land.
Speaker 1: All right now, then, guys, I'm gonna leave you guys
Speaker 1: here with this. Here's what America was watching at the
Speaker 1: movies in the month of August nineteen eighty nine, the
Speaker 1: month that Sex Lies and Videotape was released in theaters.
Speaker 1: Number one, Parenthood directed by Ron Howard, Number two, Turner
Speaker 1: and Hooch directed by Roger Spottiswood. Number three, when Harry
Speaker 1: met Sally, directed by Rob Ryan. Number seven number number fourth,
Speaker 1: Weapon two directed directed by Richard Donner. Eight number six,
Speaker 1: Number five The Abyss was directed by James Cameron. Seven
Speaker 1: number six Batman directed by Tim Burton, directed by Stan
Speaker 1: Number seven Ople Blacks directed by John himeson Quit Talking
Speaker 1: and Start Mixing It