The Director's Chair Network

brian DeAlma Brian DeAlma's a Brian DeAlma film Hello and welcome And today
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we're going to be doing something a little bit different than we've done on previous episodes This is going to be
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more of a full-fledged interview and I'm very excited about it because I love these types of shows And I'm here with
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author David Kano David welcome Yes And you pronounce it correctly How are you
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excellent No I I very good thank you Yeah I'm I'm always super aware of how to pronounce people's names to a fault
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sometimes I guess Um yeah So this is great David I know when I was starting to put this show together our mutual
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friend DX had said "Hey you should reach out to David He'd be a perfect person to talk to for this show." Yeah Cool Yeah
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DX is great And he's um he's done a lot of cool books and everything We've been friends for quite some time And um I
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don't I'm I'm trying to recall how much him and I have discussed the Palma but you know I've been a big fan of his
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actually since I was a kid practically Um I mean we'll we'll I'm sure we'll get to that in a minute but um yeah You know
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excellent And we're going to have save some time for the end of the discussion to talk about your books but yeah So do
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you want to sort of give me a little bit of your diploma history it sounds like if you discovered them when you were a
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kid you've been uh you know on the diploma train for a while Yes Well when my family moved to
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California we had uh the Z channel the late great Z channel and uh I remembered
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seeing bits and flashes of Obsession and The Fury on the Z channel And even
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though I didn't see the movies all the way through and saw a lot of weird stuff out of context I I found a lot of it to
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be really fascinating And I I guess it's one of those film buff kind of things where like you know you see a movie you
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really like and it's like oh what else has this person done i I don't think it was like that with me with the Palma as
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much Um I I guess like a big moment for me was not not just seeing Scarface on
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on cable and being a huge fan of it ever since probably about a year or so after
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it came out in theaters But um seeing Carrie with a friend of mine when I was like oh god like 12 or 13 or something
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like that when we rented it and we didn't see that ending time It it's fun to watch the uh reaction videos They
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that that gets them every time on YouTube Yeah Yeah So it's it's
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interesting uh and and you mentioned like uh how you know sometimes you'll see a film by a filmmaker and it will
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draw you to watch some of their other films And the interesting thing about DAMA is you mentioned Obsession and The
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Fury And those are two movies where if you watched Obsession and said "Hey I want to see what what else this DAMA guy
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is about." And then you know rented uh Body Double or Scarface or The
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Untouchables you'd be like "Wow this is a little bit different than than than I was expecting." Yeah You know it's
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interesting because um when I worked for a magazine called Creative Screenwriting I actually uh had the chance to
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interview Brian Dealma and Oh wow Yeah that was really cool And what was one thing he mentioned about that was that
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as far as like doing the Untouchables or Mission Impossible uh you know he he said you know I have a
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style that I can go in and out of the mainstream I have a style that works in the mainstream but I can do my my work
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as well So he was able to find a way that he could still bring his style
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technique artistic vision whatever you want to call it to you know more mainstream films like you know again
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like the Untouchables or uh you know there there's still a lot of Brian Dealma in The Untouchables It's it's a
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fairly bloody violent movie Oh absolutely And you get a lot of his techniques you get the split diopter you
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know you get a lot of the really you know sort of um advanced camera techniques and things like that And I
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would even say that for Mission Impossible David if you go and watch Mission Impossible it's a very very it
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it's very clearly a a deama movie in the way it looks and also in the sort of the
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way the story is executed Yeah Yeah I mean I haven't seen the Untouchables in a bit or Mission
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Impossible in a bit I saw it when it came out But yeah absolutely And there's also the homage cuz he has uh the homage
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to the Odessa steps in in the untouchables He did a great job with that Yeah Well and and that's another
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thing that I really really sort of love about Deama David is that he doesn't shy
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away from blatantly wearing his influences on his sleeves And if he thinks a filmmaker did something that
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was cool he's going to try it But he's going to try it the Brian De Palama way Yeah Yeah And he's gotten some flack for
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that But he always said you know I was I've always have been very open about my influences And when I spoke to him he
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said you know all the ground rules of suspenser and Hitchcock's work and if you watch it it's all there you know And
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he actually gave me a very good to to any screenwriters or budding filmmakers out there I once asked him he gave me a
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really good answer too about what what do you think is one of the the big keys to suspense he gave me a very good
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two-word answer withholding information So well that's interesting too because I
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kind of know that like Hitchcock's theory on thrillers was you know uh what
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suspense not surprise and you know the idea that either we know something the
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audience doesn't know or vice versa So that's that's really interesting and and I'm glad you sort of passed that along
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because it'll help understand the way that Depalama frames certain things in
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in some of his um more suspenseful movies So let's go a little
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bit back to you know those days where you kind of saw him on the Z channel and then rented Carrie Um and then like you
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said Scarface was kind of a staple Like at what point did you become aware that like the Palama was doing something that
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was different enough for you to take notice of and sort of go along for the ride yeah You know it's hard to pinpoint
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with him There's other directors that I can remember it a little more clearly You know when I became a big
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horror movie fan in the 80s you know you you saw a lot of crap like slasher films
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but you would also go back to things like Sisters and things like that cuz I remembered my mother seeing that when it came out and she could still remember
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how scary it was And I don't know at what point I got into like Phantom of the Paradise and things like that I
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probably did from uh the Danny Perryi books if you remember the books cult movies you know cuz that one's in there
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Uh the quite a few Dealma films are in there because a lot of his early stuff are kind of cult films And it's it's
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interesting because Phantom of the Paradise is now getting a bit of a revival with rock and roll guys Um
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there's a guy named uh Justin Hawkins who's the uh the darkness of the band The Darkness and he did a whole episode
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on YouTube He had just discovered Phantom of the Paradise and loves it and talked about "Oh the music on this is so
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great and blah blah blah." It's kind of like you know where's this movie been all my life yeah And it's funny too because it's like for years and years
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and years people have right rightfully talked about you know how great the Rocky Horror Picture Show is but Phantom
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of the Paradise was the rock and roll midnight movie before Rocky Horror Yeah
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And I think it's interesting cuz with some of the rock and roll films and and many of the great ones like that one and
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Rocky Horror and Spinal Tap those for some reason those always become cult films they're not like big hits right
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away but I think in the case of those three movies that I just mentioned I I
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think they were a little ahead of their time I think Spinal Tap it was right in there when Heavy Metal was becoming big
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again but it was a little bit ahead of its time at at the same time as well And I think Phantom of the Paradise might
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have been it It was on time but it was also a little bit ahead of its time because it's interesting because it came in the time when the music business had
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exploded And I think at that point that was the first time the music business had made over a billion dollars or
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something like that And like bands were finally headlining stadiums and all that And Brian De Palma very clearly saw in
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the rock and roll world how over the top it it is and how it's all about like blow yourself up and do it again do it
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more you know that kind of thing So he he caught on to that right away I don't I'm so I'm not sure why it wasn't a hit
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at the time but of course it's become a cult film and now even today people are rediscover I mean that's an interesting
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thing too with the Palmas He's had quite a few films like that that keep getting rediscovered like that Even the ones
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that were hits like Carrie I mean I think you know the hell of high school
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is something that's always going to be with us And if you show that to any high school kid that doesn't fit in or
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doesn't belong they can relate to that film You know stuff like Scarface that's that's been the theme of so many movies
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about you know for what profit a man who gains the world and loses his soul and becomes so obsessed with power that he
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loses sight of everything else I mean I think these are universal themes that are always going to be with us No
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absolutely Absolutely And to sort of get back to you know movies that are sort of ahead of their time I think it is true
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that there are movies that it just takes a while for audiences to catch up You know we famously had the summer of 82
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where we had ET which was this huge commercial sort of phenomenon But then that summer we also got Bladeunner and
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The Thing two movies that are very highly regarded now that it took a really long time for people you know a
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lot of you know the mainstream to get on board with And I think the other thing about cult films David is a lot of times
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they initially appeal to the weirdos in the world and I'm saying this as a weirdo I'm a self-professed you know
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weirdo I'm not ashamed to admit it but I think a lot of times weirdos get on the ground floor with lots of things that go
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on to be loved and respected Yeah Yeah I'm not sure And also um uh Tron in 82
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It's hard to believe this A lot of people don't realize that was a big flop when it came out Now it's a
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revered film from 82 as well So yeah I I mean it's it's a weird thing cuz I
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remembered reading I think it was in Jerry Winrop's book he talked about uh the movie Cruising which was way too
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dark of a movie to ever become a hit but he talked about how we were very ahead of our time with that film And he said
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you know we were ahead of our time It wasn't a hit He said "It's always better to be too late than too early." Yeah
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absolutely Am I incorrect in thinking that at some point Deama was potentially
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attached to that movie um maybe I don't know I mean that that's something that could be up his alley but I think Freed
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can kind of develop that himself if I'm not mistaken I'd have to look into that but I I wouldn't be surprised if he was
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up for it I mean a lot of dark gritty New York films I think he would be one of the first people you would you would
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have on a short list to do something like that He may have been I'm not sure But yeah it's the one thing with doing
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this podcast David is I've read and watched a lot of DAM stuff So uh I don't
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I'm not great at keeping track of where I' i've read things And also I'm sure that Frein was also
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probably offered things that Deama ended up doing So I did want to talk a little bit about you had mentioned carry and I
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want to sort of get your take on things because for me I think you know Deama's
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career can really be looked at you know sort of pre- carry and post carry and I was curious what your feelings were on
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you know the the stuff he did prior to Carrie because he he did a lot of you know um he did a you know the sisters
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which we mentioned but he did a lot of you know you know kind of small quirky comedies and then after Carrie he kind
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of focused a little bit more and and I think it's almost like a phase one and phase two part of a career Yeah I mean
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that definitely took him to another level and it's an interesting thing because you know I've talked to people who worked on Carrie and United Artists
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thought it was going to be their big movie that season Um they actually thought that was going to be their big
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hit and then this little movie called Rocky comes out of nowhere Although Carrie did just fine It did very well I
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mean Dealama felt they undersold it He he thought well you know horror films were always treated like you know
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mentally challenged stepchildren or whatever the phrase was But um but yeah
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I think that was um I I guess it's kind of like when Roman Palansky did Rosemary's Baby I think he
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said words to the effect of like I've been waiting for Rosemary's Baby my entire career and like this is like the
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perfect movie for me I think you know a lot of movies that become successful it's kind of like a perfect storm where
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it's like you got the right director the right material you know it's first Stephen King adaptation you know the
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Palma was you know the perfect guy to do that and also you had a young cast of a
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lot of people you know that were on the verge of breaking out like a lot of films in the 70s then so again it it's
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one of those things where the elements really came together like you look at Silence of the Lambs I mean every element on that movie came together That
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was absolutely a perfect storm And good luck repeating that you know Yeah Well
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and not to get and I and I mean I'm I'm I'm fine going down this road with you because you're an author that has you
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know written about horror films but one thing that's always funny to me David is how everybody gave The Silence of the
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Lambs a pass You know they they they fell over themselves to say it wasn't a horror movie Yeah Well that's and a lot
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of times they didn't use that term Kind of like when they were making Star Wars Nobody dared say the term science
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fiction cuz that was death in those days Um nobody working on The Exorcist considered it a horror film Nobody dared
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say the h word on that film And a lot of people were like if if it was pitched to
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us as a horror film we wouldn't have done it That kind of thing So I I think a lot of the really great stuff kind of
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transcends the genre in a way Like you look at Jaws I mean I I consider it a horror film but it's also action there's
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comedy drama it it encompasses a lot of things and kind of escapes genre But yeah I mean it's like horror films have
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always been kind of considered like low rent or that kind of thing but um somebody who worked at United Artist
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said to me it's it's really a movie about teen angst Mhm So I mean you can look at it however you want to but uh
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but it it is a horror film I mean Yeah So I've said on this show before that
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one of my my the biggest things I love about Dama is his ability to sort of work and master multiple
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genres Do you think the fact that Carrie wasn't branded like a for lack of a
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better word a hard hardcore horror film that it allowed to not get stuck making
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horror movies for the rest of his career um I'm not I'm not so sure about that I
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mean I I mean one thing that I remembered reading u they they did a really good oral history of Carrie and
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premieres written by a guy named Josh Rottenberg who I think wrote for the LA Times for a while He's he's done a lot
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of um he's worked for a lot of different places and if I remember correctly because back in those days you know
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everybody knew everybody like the Palama and Lucas were friends This is before everybody blew up and became huge and
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American Graffiti had come out and that was a big hit and the Palma was like you know that's not how I remember high
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school I want to do something a little more like that But I I I would think it could have very easily have trapped him
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in that genre And in fact the Fury was in a very similar vein to Carrie He
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could have been stuck in that And how he was able to move beyond that I'm not sure I mean he's actually pretty good at
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comedy too I mean I haven't seen uh what was a Wise Guys in forever I liked it when I was a kid I watched it about two
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weeks ago and it it is a very good comedy Yeah Yeah So I mean he's actually pretty adept at comedy as well So yeah I
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mean he can he can do a lot of different stuff with his style He even did as we all know a music video you know Yeah
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Yeah Dancing in the dark Yeah Also he kind of brought in the world of MTV a little bit in Body Double where all of a
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sudden the movie becomes a music video with Frankie goes to Hollywood which was kind of an interesting little idea in
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there So yeah David I have to say that in the past probably month and a half
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Body Double has shot up really really high on my list of favorite Talama films
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Yeah I still can't get past The Scene with The Drill though Oh yeah even by Dama standards that's pretty rough stuff
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I have to say I if I read correctly I think when it world premiered I think that scene got booed Really yeah that
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that was a big turd in the punch bowl with that that with that one But there's
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good stuff in it And again I thought it was really interesting how and that was in ' 84 when MTV was really really big
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That was the peak of it So that was kind of interesting how he took that was also when you know porno was really big and
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everybody was renting it So that was kind of an interesting little you know how he was
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able to incorporate those two elements together That was kind of an interesting experiment as well Yeah Well and it and
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it's funny because you know I I for some reason I group Dress to Kill and Body Double sort of together I guess because
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they're both you know you know they both involve women being
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murdered But um for the longest time I I thought Dress to Kill was the superior movie And they both have a very similar
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sequence where we're tracking uh a female protagonist And I just think the
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sequence in Body Double is is is executed better Yeah I mean yeah Dress Kell is a really
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good movie too And it's something that completely flew over my head until somebody pointed out to me is the Arento
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influence on that I was a big duh Why didn't I like with the elevator scene about how that was kind of like him
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doing his take on Arento which I didn't catch on to for a while Yeah Yeah Yeah
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No I mean there there's definitely u similarities you can see in their in their film making
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styles overall Is there a an opinion of where Deama sort of ended up after
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let's say fem fatal do you think he got tired of sort of the the Hollywood game
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or or did Hollywood get tired of Brian Dealma i'm not sure You know I mean it's
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like the last Depalma film that I really liked that I thought was really well done was Caro's Way Um did Raising Kane
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come after that no it was before Okay And Raising Kane it wasn't the greatest but it was still fine and an enjoyable
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watch Um I don't know I mean there sometimes it just comes a point with a lot of directors where I guess they just
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don't have it anymore or they're I don't know if that they're tired or whatever but you know I I would like to think
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that even if I haven't liked anything he's done since Caro's Way he's still had a hell of a a track record in my
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opinion I mean I would say he's made at least 10 very very good very solid
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movies and some genuine masterpieces And I think any director would kill for that you know and it's all about your batting
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average because nobody's filmography is perfect Everybody's going to have a bomb or a failure you know that's always
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going to be Oh no Absolutely And I mean the the whole premise of this podcast is I consider the Palama the greatest
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American director So um you don't have to convince me but I would say yeah that that 10 number is is pretty good out of
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out of what almost 30 films Yeah And I think you keyed in on the fact that he's
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made multiple masterpieces Most filmmakers are considered great if they have one masterpiece And again the thing
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that I really really love and appreciate and sort of would argue for DAMA is is
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that those masterpieces are in genres that are completely different from each other I mean Carito's Way is a
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masterpiece I would say it's one of the best films of the '9s but then he also makes a movie like Blowout which they're
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very very two different you know kinds of films Yeah And in fact um I forget
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the woman's name but there's a there's a film buff on YouTube um from Texas with
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brown hair Her name escapes me right now but she did a a thing on Blowout She actually considers it the Palmer's
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Masterpiece and that's a film that um you know I still think to this day hasn't totally gotten its due you know
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and that's that's overdue to be rediscovered as well And unfortunately you know that was when Filmways was
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going out of business and all that I'm not sure why it didn't connect but um
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you know Travolta said I think he said it in his Playboy interview or something like that he ran into Barry Diller who
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ran Paramount and he said "If we released that movie it would have been a hit."
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Yeah Well and I mean historically I would say that had Travolta not done
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Blowout he wouldn't have been in Pulp Fiction and then his career would have been very very different Yeah I think
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from what I remembered hearing or reading I think that was a big reason why he cast it was because of his role
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in Blowout And it's funny because um you know Sue Mangers the famous um talent agent said "Oh Paul Fixer was great I
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mean who would have thought to hire John Travolta playing in a punk killer while the Palma did you
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know i mean you know not like he he hired him to play a punk and Carrie and he killed the pig but you know I mean
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it's like you know he's done those kind of even though he's he he has that that real big screen charisma and that huge
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smile and those big blue eyes I mean he can play bad characters too you know so so it it wasn't totally without
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precedent Yeah And well it just took a filmmaker like I think Quenton Tarantino to be
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like I don't care where this guy's career is now He's good for the role And I mean something similar happened with
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Robert Forester for Jackie Brown Yes Or even you could even say Pam Greer I mean just because an actor isn't you know
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sort of in favor right now doesn't mean that they're still not the best person for the role Yeah Yeah Yeah And it's interesting because I think Travolta had
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enough goodwill with audiences and fans that when he was finally in the right movie again you know they were there
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I've often I I mean I know we're veering off topic a little bit I'm a huge John Belalushi fan and I was of the opinion
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that you know I mean I was a little kid when he died and I was still a huge fan of his but I was and what do I know but
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I was of the opinion that if he was in another big funny comedy again I think the audience would have been there for
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him you I mean we hadn't given up on him yet We were just waiting for him to be in another funny movie again you know
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Yeah It's it's interesting I've actually done a lot of John Belalushi watching in the last 6 months Uh I've read a couple
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of books and uh yeah it's it's interesting to think where his his career would have gone because it seemed
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like he was you know sort of venturing away from comedy a little bit But I'd imagine that you have to take those
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journeys away from your you know your bread and butter you know to you know before you can come back and sort of
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appreciate and excel what you did I'm of the opinion David that there's a there's
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going to be a time and a place I don't know when it's going to be but we're going to get a complete reassessment of
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Dan Akroyd and uh and how profound of a talent he was Oh yeah Yeah I mean Howard
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Stern thought he was a genius comedian I mean yes absolutely Yeah I would agree with that Okay Yeah
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That's the hard thing too is it's hard to you know it's very easy to get pigeonholed into things and that and I
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think this is where Diploma got very lucky was he was able to you know branch out and show to
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Hollywood he could do big blockbuster movies Although again you know like Carrie did fine and made made a lot of
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money but he showed that you know he could do stuff like the Untouchables and Mission Impossible A lot of times when
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you have a hit movie everyone just wants more of the same and it's hard to break out of that
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Yeah Yeah I mean it's definitely interesting to see how he's he was able to sort of you know play in in different
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worlds So David I want to make sure that we leave enough time to talk about your books and I think this was a great
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discussion about DAMA and I would love to continue talking with you about DAMA
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and maybe uh in the future we can have another extended discussion But I do know that you have a couple of books out
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there Do you want to talk a little bit about real terror yeah sure on In fact I
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believe maybe not an entire chapter but I do have a chapter on Carrie and um The
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Palm is in the book quite a bit Obviously I wrote a book called Real Terror Uh came out 2012 St Martins's
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Press and it's a history of the modern horror film and diplom in there along
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with John Carpenter Toby Hooper you know round up the usual suspects for movies
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you know everything from you know no feratu up to um I think I touched on
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torture porn briefly and that's probably all it deserves but you know like that
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you know George Romero all that stuff and and there's a whole thing in there with Carrie where you know I I did rely
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quite a bit on the premiere article on Carrie but I also found people who worked on it and had good stories to
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tell and all of that And um you know one thing one of my favorite stories that was in the Josh Rottenberg article that
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I included in the book was about how George Lucas thought the ending of Carrie was brilliant because you know we
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didn't have the multiplexes in those days So everyone's waiting outside for this movie to to let out and all of a
25:44
sudden the audience screams and then the movie lets out So everyone's like someone's like "What's coming at the end
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of this movie that we have to be on guard for?" You know oh yeah And it's funny Anna I I did a previous episode on
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Carrie and we talked about how like that ending I mean it was pretty much
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wholesale ripped off for the the jump scare at the end of Friday the 13th and has sort of become a staple of horror
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films Well and the funny thing is is um that was also inspired by Deliverance
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Yeah With the hand coming out of the out of the river and the story went that the Palma went to go see Deliverance and
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walking I said I can do that so much better Yeah So um and and Stephen King told the
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story I think it was in Fangoria I he went to a preview of Carrie where it's playing on a double bill with Norman Is
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that you the the Red Fox comedy Um did you know that movie uh just by name Yeah
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It's it's a comedy where Red Fox has to come to terms with his son being gay or something like that Okay Yeah Directed
26:47
by George Slaughter So it's playing on the double bill with that And I remember Stephen King said there were these two
26:53
big African-American guys sitting right in front of him You'd think would be scared of nothing And then you know the
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hand comes out of the grave and they both grab each other Oh my god But I'm saying she ain't never going
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to be right She ain't never going to be right Meaning the Amy Irving character Yeah So uh Real Terror Basically you
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break down the history of of horror over the last hundred years And then you also wrote a book Bang Your Head right about
27:19
heavy metal about heavy metal bands Yes Um there's nothing in there about Phantom of the Paradise but there is a
27:24
section on Spinal Tap which it is crucial to the the history of heavy metal whether heavy metal musicians want
27:31
to acknowledge that or not But yeah no I'm I'm a big metal fan and actually a
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lot of my offline discussions uh with DX have revolved around music and and
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heavier music I'll include links where people can find out more about you David and your books And I I want to thank you
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so much for taking the time out to to to have this discussion And I think uh it's going to be a really really great
27:56
episode because in previous episodes we've kind of focused on you know very scene specific moments in his
28:02
filmography and I think it was great to sort of talk about Deama's career overall Yeah And one last thing I can
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mention and this is something I was thinking about as well There's a lot of things that have popped up with me when
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I've watched his work Um like in Carrie like the bucket of blood Um I don't know
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if this ever you've ever thought this but that's the bomb theory that how Hitchcock came up with except it was up
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in the rafters instead under the table Yeah Yeah I didn't realize that but it's
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like oh that's what this is But you know an interesting thing about Scarface as well because Oliver Stone wrote the
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screenplay and it's very much an Oliver Stone story even though it's a remake of a classic 30s film but it's very much
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his theme of um the American dream really being the American nightmare but
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it also you know there's a big deala theme in it and it didn't dawn on me but you know a big theme in deba's work is
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no good deed goes unpunished right and that's how Tony Montana dies He does the
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right And I remembered asking Oliver Stone about that in creative screenwriting I said you know he does
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all these horrible things Nothing bad happens to him but when he tries to do the right thing that's what ends up
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getting him killed And I said was that intentional he said yeah it was That's excellent Um I'm a I'm a big uh fan of
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Oliver Stone's work And I think his work from the mid80s to the mid90s does not
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get the credit it deserves for how it altered the way people shot film I mean his use of different stocks and
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different media It's really underappreciated now And and it it's a shame that people don't respect the
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filmmaker that Oliver Stone was for Yeah No I I agree I think it's because he's just so over the top and so nuts and
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everything like that But there there is a real filmmaker there and a real and a very good screenwriter working there as
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well you know i mean it's uh Yeah I mean it's and it's I think it's like what Lawrence Grebell once said when he
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interviewed Oliver Stone for either Playboy or Movie Line or something like that Love him or hate him You can't
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ignore him you know Yeah that's excellent And I think the same thing could be said for Deama David Uh this
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was such an excellent discussion and I had a a blast and again I look forward to hopefully speaking to you uh to you
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again and yeah now that we have the technical problems just we'll just go through Gmail from here on out and we're
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we're good to go anytime Absolutely Thanks again My pleasure Thank you