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John Waters: Intrinsically Evil? · Movie Meltdown

0:16
Speaker 1: My name is Brad Dourif, and I'm listening to Movie Meltdown.
0:20
Speaker 2: Movie Meltdown.
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Speaker 3: It's showtime.
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Speaker 4: Picture Association of America.
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Speaker 3: It is intended for mature audiences and parental discretion is advised.
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Speaker 3: Our nuclear reactor pumping out one million.
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Speaker 5: Kilowatts of power.
1:08
Speaker 4: What's up and welcome to Movie Meltdown. I'm Brian and
1:10
Speaker 4: this week is a very special episode.
1:11
Speaker 1: An episode I've been working on putting together for years. Literally.
1:37
Speaker 1: I think it's been more than five years that I've
1:40
Speaker 1: been working to line up this week's guest. The one,
1:44
Speaker 1: the only, John Waters. Now, I've been a huge John
1:48
Speaker 1: Waters fan for a long time. I think I kind
1:51
Speaker 1: of knew him by reputation when I was coming up,
1:54
Speaker 1: but thinking back, I think my first actual viewing of
1:57
Speaker 1: one of John's movies was in the theater. If I
2:01
Speaker 1: remember correctly, my first introduction to John was, in fact,
2:05
Speaker 1: Pink Flamingo's And it was in an actual theater. We
2:09
Speaker 1: had a terrific classic old movie theater here in town.
2:13
Speaker 1: Regular listeners have, I'm sure, heard us talk about it before. Sadly,
2:16
Speaker 1: it's not around anymore. Which happens a lot to old theaters.
2:20
Speaker 1: But I believe it was in conjunction with the re-release
2:23
Speaker 1: many years ago. And they were doing a showing of
2:25
Speaker 1: the movie. And I went and I was not quite
2:28
Speaker 1: prepared for what I was going to see. I don't
2:31
Speaker 1: really know if I'd seen anything quite like that type
2:35
Speaker 1: of movie before. the weird cast of characters, and Divine.
2:39
Speaker 1: I mean, you just can't fight the allure of Divine.
2:43
Speaker 1: Even as the filthiest person alive, Divine has this amazing charisma.
2:47
Speaker 1: So I was kind of on board right from that
2:50
Speaker 1: point on, which is surprising considering some of the things
2:53
Speaker 1: that go on in that movie. I mean, everybody talks
2:55
Speaker 1: about the big finale scene. I won't go into what
2:59
Speaker 1: that is. You know, you've all seen it. But to me,
3:02
Speaker 1: the more... disturbing thing isn't so much the finale but
3:07
Speaker 1: midway in when we're at the party and we get
3:09
Speaker 1: to once again for the handful that haven't seen it
3:12
Speaker 1: I don't know why you're listening if you haven't but
3:15
Speaker 1: I won't spoil it we'll just say the surfing bird
3:19
Speaker 1: segment that's that yeah I mean again if you've made
3:24
Speaker 1: it through that scene you understand what you're dealing with.
3:28
Speaker 4: With John Waters movies.
3:30
Speaker 1: But seeing it in the theater like that and being
3:32
Speaker 1: on board, it definitely puts in perspective the type of
3:35
Speaker 1: person I am, and that I was drawn into that
3:38
Speaker 1: decadent little world. I was thinking, I think it also
3:41
Speaker 1: says a lot about me, that I took a date,
3:44
Speaker 1: kind of a first date, to a John Waters movie. Now,
3:48
Speaker 1: thankfully it wasn't that one, but I didn't really think
3:51
Speaker 1: anything about it at the time. It's only in recent
3:53
Speaker 1: years that I thought back on it and was like, wow,
3:56
Speaker 1: that could have really been a disaster. But luckily the
4:00
Speaker 1: girl was very cool and also a John Waters fan,
4:03
Speaker 1: and that's why we ended up going to see it.
4:06
Speaker 1: But still, stop and think about that. Sitting in a
4:10
Speaker 1: dark theater with a date, a person you essentially just met,
4:15
Speaker 1: watching A Dirty Shame. Yeah, that could make for an
4:19
Speaker 1: awkward setting. But luckily I hang out with weirdos and
4:22
Speaker 1: it all went fine. In fact, I still hang out
4:24
Speaker 1: with that girl to this day. So it's all good.
4:28
Speaker 1: You know what else is good? No, you know what
4:30
Speaker 1: is great? This conversation I had with John Waters. So
4:34
Speaker 1: I'm going to go ahead and roll into it right now.
4:37
Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen, John Waters. Well, thank you for talking
4:49
Speaker 1: with me today. I guess I wanted to... I mean,
4:52
Speaker 1: usually when I'll talk to someone, by the end I'll
4:55
Speaker 1: kind of wrap up and be like, okay, what new
4:57
Speaker 1: projects do you have coming out or in the works?
5:00
Speaker 1: I know you actually have several things, so I think
5:02
Speaker 1: I'm just going to address them as I go, and
5:04
Speaker 1: that'll kind of tie into everything as we go. One
5:09
Speaker 1: of the more recent ones, I know Criterion is doing
5:13
Speaker 1: a re-release on Multiple Maniacs.
5:16
Speaker 3: Yep.
5:16
Speaker 1: Guess how has it been dealing with them? And then
5:20
Speaker 1: I guess just.
5:21
Speaker 3: Oh, they've been great. Are you kidding? I mean, you know, they,
5:24
Speaker 3: you know, the very fact that Janice films distributed theatrically
5:28
Speaker 3: and criterion still in the DVD, Blu-ray releases, no far wrong.
5:32
Speaker 3: That kind of way. I've been a lifetime that's drowned
5:34
Speaker 3: in irony because, um, when I was really young, uh,
5:39
Speaker 3: in high school, I would go see the early Bergman
5:41
Speaker 3: movies and they would always be Janice films present. And
5:44
Speaker 3: we would, sip espresso coffee in the art theaters and
5:47
Speaker 3: watch Bergman and Criterion, you know, have such classy products.
5:52
Speaker 3: So they completely understood the irony and restored Multiple Maniacs
5:59
Speaker 3: with great respect in its ineptitude and in its teenage anger.
6:07
Speaker 3: And they were in the beginning just wanted to make
6:10
Speaker 3: sure that I wanted to restore it the way we
6:13
Speaker 3: did it, which was to make it look as best
6:15
Speaker 3: as we could, not keep every stretch, every dirt piece,
6:19
Speaker 3: every square 16 millimeter splice that showed. Because I didn't
6:24
Speaker 3: ever want it to look like that. That was just
6:26
Speaker 3: the best I could do at the time on $ 5, 000
6:29
Speaker 3: when I was learning how to make movies or what
6:31
Speaker 3: nobody taught me except one teenster guy that got us
6:35
Speaker 3: the equipment. So I was learning how to do that completely.
6:39
Speaker 3: I mean, I had never shot a lip-sync sound film
6:43
Speaker 3: in my life, except the Diane Linklater story that wasn't
6:46
Speaker 3: a movie at all. It was just, we rented the camera,
6:49
Speaker 3: but they had to test it, and that's what we
6:50
Speaker 3: shot to test the camera, basically. So, um, I look
6:54
Speaker 3: back on it, and I think, God, no wonder my
6:57
Speaker 3: parents were uptight.
6:59
Speaker 1: Weird. By the time you got to that movie, was
7:02
Speaker 1: that your camera? Had you gotten your own 16mm?
7:04
Speaker 3: No, that was a camera. I never, I still don't
7:06
Speaker 3: own a camera. Um, I, um... No, we rented. I'm
7:12
Speaker 3: somehow from the film lab where I got my black
7:16
Speaker 3: and white film developed always from under trash. There was
7:18
Speaker 3: only one place in town called Quality Film Labs. And
7:22
Speaker 3: he taught me kind of how to do stuff. And
7:24
Speaker 3: he knew somebody that I believed worked at a TV
7:29
Speaker 3: station that somehow I never asked, got the equipment they
7:33
Speaker 3: used to shoot the news out of there because this
7:36
Speaker 3: was before for videotape or anything. So they used 16mm
7:41
Speaker 3: with magnetic stripe sound on it to shoot the news
7:43
Speaker 3: every day. It was a big camera with those two
7:48
Speaker 3: big Mickey Mouse ears and a big brace you wore
7:52
Speaker 3: on your shoulder. You were like, ah, a Steadicam. Before Steadicam.
7:58
Speaker 3: And He would rent us the equipment. I don't know
8:03
Speaker 3: if the TV station knew that the camera was missing,
8:07
Speaker 3: but I didn't care.
8:09
Speaker 1: He taught me how to do it, really.
8:11
Speaker 3: It was really nice. It was just me and that
8:14
Speaker 3: other person. And then all the scenes in Multiple Maniacs
8:17
Speaker 3: that have voiceover or just music or shot silent with
8:21
Speaker 3: a bow and held a kind of coming up to
8:22
Speaker 3: wind up. And, um, and they would just, that was
8:25
Speaker 3: the same camera I shot Mondo Trash on, but I
8:27
Speaker 3: did own that camera. Yeah. So sitting in my office
8:30
Speaker 3: right now, I'm looking at it.
8:32
Speaker 1: Well, when you, when you started on those, you know,
8:34
Speaker 1: the early short films and then going into like multiple maniacs,
8:38
Speaker 1: how much were you like, again, I guess it comes
8:41
Speaker 1: from your, you know, you're watching films as a kid
8:43
Speaker 1: and growing up what you were into, but at the
8:45
Speaker 1: same time, how much were you, Like taking on some
8:49
Speaker 1: sort of film theory idea of, you know, how you
8:51
Speaker 1: wanted to shoot it, how you wanted to frame it,
8:53
Speaker 1: or was it more of, you know.
8:54
Speaker 3: I don't know that I thought that, but I just
8:56
Speaker 3: wanted to record it. I was amazed I got any
8:58
Speaker 3: of it. I was more interested in what we said,
9:01
Speaker 3: you know. I just wanted to get the dialogue down
9:04
Speaker 3: and the performances. I was always amazed when it turned out.
9:08
Speaker 3: I used to shoot stuff and it would come out
9:09
Speaker 3: black or you couldn't hear it or it would be
9:11
Speaker 3: completely screwed up. So I was just so thrilled you
9:14
Speaker 3: could see it and hear it. And then when Criterion
9:17
Speaker 3: completely restored it, I was so amazed because I saw
9:22
Speaker 3: details in it that I had never seen before. And
9:25
Speaker 3: I heard things that I had never heard before in
9:28
Speaker 3: my life. So it was amazing because it was shot Certainly,
9:34
Speaker 3: I mean, I wanted it to happen. You know, I
9:38
Speaker 3: was raised, it was a joke on an exploitation movie.
9:41
Speaker 3: So basically, Black and White was sort of all the
9:45
Speaker 3: tawdry kind of exploitation movies that we used to go
9:49
Speaker 3: see at the Rex Theater and at the drive-in and everything.
9:52
Speaker 3: And then at the same time, movies like I, a
9:54
Speaker 3: Woman and Swedish Sexploitation Shockers and Ingmar Bergman was all
10:00
Speaker 3: put together. But I don't know that I consciously tried
10:03
Speaker 3: to make it look like that. There is a shot.
10:06
Speaker 3: in Multiple Maniacs, where Mary Vivian Pierce is lying there
10:09
Speaker 3: moaning and sexual, and it's exactly the shot about a
10:13
Speaker 3: woman that made that a big hit exploitation movie at
10:16
Speaker 3: the same time, only she had black hair and Mary
10:18
Speaker 3: Vivian Pierce had bleached white hair. So it was definitely
10:22
Speaker 3: a reference to that, and I'm not sure anybody got
10:25
Speaker 3: it at the time except me.
10:26
Speaker 1: Well, that is, like, in re-watching it lately, it is
10:31
Speaker 1: interesting to watch because it does feel almost like home
10:35
Speaker 1: movies at times. Like, it really is just sort of
10:37
Speaker 1: you and your friends, which I'm sure it was to you, but.
10:39
Speaker 3: Yeah, but isn't that what every kid makes on his
10:42
Speaker 3: first movie? Now they use a cell phone. But it's
10:44
Speaker 3: the same thing. You use your friends. My friends are
10:47
Speaker 3: a little more extreme, but Divine's house in that movie
10:51
Speaker 3: was my apartment. That's exactly what my apartment looked like.
10:55
Speaker 3: There wasn't... Every one of those posters was really on
10:57
Speaker 3: the wall. It was... Nothing was changed in there. There
11:00
Speaker 3: was no art direction in there. The only art direction
11:03
Speaker 3: in Multiple Maniacs was... the tents that I rented for
11:07
Speaker 3: the cavalcade of perversion, and Lobstora, who Vince Perennial made,
11:12
Speaker 3: who went on to do all the production design for
11:14
Speaker 3: all my movies, and The Wire, and lots of other stuff.
11:16
Speaker 3: But we just shot on location, which was the real life, really,
11:21
Speaker 3: we were in. I mean, we didn't have permits, we
11:24
Speaker 3: didn't ask to shoot, we just hit and run, kind
11:27
Speaker 3: of like what Seth will be demanded to do.
11:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, that is one of the things I like about
11:32
Speaker 1: it so much, because it does capture that time and
11:35
Speaker 1: place more than anything in a way.
11:37
Speaker 3: Much like photos. It captures it so much that there's
11:39
Speaker 3: a shot of Edith Massey where you see her talking
11:42
Speaker 3: in the bar where she worked, which is really where
11:44
Speaker 3: she did work at the time. And you can see
11:47
Speaker 3: a calendar behind her that says November 1969. And I
11:50
Speaker 3: had never noticed that until I saw the restoration. I
11:53
Speaker 3: thought it was like a hostage video. It really is.
11:57
Speaker 3: It's showing proof that it really was made then.
12:02
Speaker 1: Well, and then especially going into, you know, it's you
12:06
Speaker 1: kind of hanging out with your friends. Where does this
12:09
Speaker 1: crew of people come from? As much as I've heard
12:11
Speaker 1: you talk about Divine over the years, I really don't
12:13
Speaker 1: think I've heard, how did you first come in contact
12:16
Speaker 1: with Divine in particular?
12:17
Speaker 3: I'm surprised because that's a story I've been asked a lot.
12:20
Speaker 3: I grew up in Lutherville. Marilyn Devine's family lived up
12:23
Speaker 3: the street, married Vivian Pierce's parents, and my parents were
12:27
Speaker 3: best friends. We were all kids that were in trouble
12:32
Speaker 3: in suburbia, smoking pot and taking asses, and we wanted
12:36
Speaker 3: to be hippies and beatniks, and so we all went
12:38
Speaker 3: downtown looking for trouble and found it, which was sort
12:42
Speaker 3: of the gay set and also... A lot of black people, too,
12:47
Speaker 3: and we all hung around together, which confused everybody, because
12:52
Speaker 3: you weren't supposed to all hang around together. You were
12:54
Speaker 3: all supposed to hang around. We were all gay. We
12:56
Speaker 3: were all hippies. We were all blacks, but not everybody together.
13:01
Speaker 1: Breaking the rules.
13:02
Speaker 3: Some were gay, some were straight, but nobody really cared,
13:05
Speaker 3: and we just completely mixed, which at that time was
13:09
Speaker 3: fairly radical, I think. Even today, and I guess it's
13:12
Speaker 3: less radical today, that's why gay bars are vanishing, because
13:16
Speaker 3: who wants to just go to a gay bar and
13:17
Speaker 3: do it with just gay people? Everybody wants to just
13:19
Speaker 3: hang around with everybody, which I think is healthy. I
13:22
Speaker 3: was always anti-separatist.
13:25
Speaker 1: Well, and then was the character of Divine already formed
13:29
Speaker 1: at that point?
13:31
Speaker 3: No, Divine in real life could not have been a
13:34
Speaker 3: more mild-mannered character. overweight, feminine man that got beat up
13:39
Speaker 3: every day in high school, and the teachers were equally
13:41
Speaker 3: as horrible to him. And so he was an incredibly
13:45
Speaker 3: bullied person who never really left his house until he
13:47
Speaker 3: was 16. And then his mother almost forced him to
13:51
Speaker 3: become a hairdresser. And he hated that, too. He used
13:55
Speaker 3: to steal things from the women's paga books and stuff
13:58
Speaker 3: when he was doing their hair. But he wasn't aggressive
14:03
Speaker 3: like that at all, actually. He was the opposite, almost.
14:07
Speaker 3: And all the people in the movies, we were playing characters.
14:11
Speaker 3: They weren't exactly like that. That's what people always thought.
14:13
Speaker 3: They were documentaries, and that's just because they were filmed
14:16
Speaker 3: so poorly. They looked like snuff movies. But we weren't
14:20
Speaker 3: really like that. But our humor was really like that.
14:24
Speaker 3: And so that is kind of our sense of humor
14:29
Speaker 3: during the time, which was at odds with the hippie...
14:35
Speaker 3: movement but however we were hippies in a way i
14:38
Speaker 3: mean but and we hung around with hippies and we
14:40
Speaker 3: made this movie to offend hippie audiences but they wanted
14:43
Speaker 3: to be offended and then everybody turned into punks but
14:46
Speaker 3: it hasn't.
14:47
Speaker 1: Happened yet well that's yeah watching it it's like there
14:50
Speaker 1: are moments when i'm like i could almost feel you
14:53
Speaker 1: like just pushing the buttons like knowingly like What can
14:58
Speaker 1: I do that's really going to push him over the edge?
15:00
Speaker 3: There's one thing in it that is so gratuitous that
15:03
Speaker 3: even I am shocked at it, where just after the
15:06
Speaker 3: rosary job, somebody shoots up on the altar. That has
15:09
Speaker 3: nothing to do with anything. That was a friend of
15:12
Speaker 3: mine who was a junkie, just died. And he just,
15:16
Speaker 3: that was real. He really shot it. I thought, what
15:18
Speaker 3: does that have to do with it? You know, it
15:20
Speaker 3: was just one extra outrage thrown in for no apparent reason.
15:25
Speaker 3: So every time I see that shot in the movie,
15:28
Speaker 3: that really should have been cut. But it's just a
15:31
Speaker 3: point of, either of the absurd was big to me
15:34
Speaker 3: at the time, and it was just another outrage to show,
15:38
Speaker 3: because of course, during the hippie years, Harold was, you know,
15:42
Speaker 3: definitely not cool.
15:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, I remember seeing that.
15:47
Speaker 3: And that person actually gave me heroin. The only time
15:51
Speaker 3: I ever shot up was with him. And it didn't work,
15:55
Speaker 3: and I puked and got an abscess in my arm.
15:58
Speaker 3: So I thought, this is not worth it just to
16:00
Speaker 3: listen to jazz.
16:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is not fun at all.
16:04
Speaker 3: No, it isn't fun to sit around and puke and nod.
16:06
Speaker 3: But other people obviously do think it's really fun. I
16:12
Speaker 3: wasn't one of them.
16:13
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, I remember seeing that shot going, I don't
16:15
Speaker 1: think he's mimicking anything. I feel like that was going on.
16:19
Speaker 3: But look how he looks really normal. That's the thing.
16:21
Speaker 3: He's the only person that looks normal.
16:24
Speaker 1: He was the one not acting.
16:25
Speaker 3: Well, he was there. I didn't even remember him being
16:29
Speaker 3: there that day. But he obviously was because he was
16:33
Speaker 3: in the church. We didn't go back, believe me.
16:36
Speaker 1: Well, you mentioned the rosary job. A lot of that
16:39
Speaker 1: stuff felt like, again, that's almost like going back a
16:41
Speaker 1: generation to, like, really just sort of thumb your nose
16:45
Speaker 1: at conventional religion.
16:46
Speaker 3: Well, all the surrealists always did anti-Catholic stuff. And I
16:51
Speaker 3: said I was raised Catholic. I always said that that
16:53
Speaker 3: should get Catholicism out of my system. I don't know
16:55
Speaker 3: that it did, but it was a good attempt to
16:58
Speaker 3: because I always rebelled against the Catholic church's censorship and
17:03
Speaker 3: we can't say these movies are condemned and all that.
17:06
Speaker 3: So that movie was made in a way, because we
17:11
Speaker 3: were joking on exploitation films, what is there no laws against?
17:17
Speaker 3: That's worse than obscenity. And there was no laws really
17:22
Speaker 3: against that. When we showed it to the censor, she
17:24
Speaker 3: was a Catholic, and she went and started sobbing and screaming.
17:27
Speaker 3: And she made this judge watch it, and he said
17:29
Speaker 3: his eyes had been salted for 90 minutes, but it
17:33
Speaker 3: wasn't illegal, which it was true. There weren't laws against that. So...
17:38
Speaker 3: they couldn't really do anything about it, which made them
17:41
Speaker 3: even madder. But I did send it to Canada to
17:45
Speaker 3: try to get it distributed, and it didn't come back,
17:47
Speaker 3: didn't come back, and I called them. And they just
17:49
Speaker 3: sent me a receipt from the Ontario Board of Censors
17:52
Speaker 3: that just said, destroy. So that was the, I guess
17:56
Speaker 3: that's either the worst or the best review I ever got.
18:00
Speaker 3: They didn't comment anything, they just burned it.
18:02
Speaker 4: Just destroy.
18:03
Speaker 3: And you think that's a joke, but it really did happen.
18:07
Speaker 3: And it wasn't funny because that print cost, I forget,
18:11
Speaker 3: $ 500 or something, which today is like $ 2, 500. So I
18:15
Speaker 3: certainly didn't have that amount of money then. It was
18:18
Speaker 3: a huge investment for me. It was the print I
18:20
Speaker 3: had to tour with.
18:22
Speaker 1: Well, were all those things that you were coming up with,
18:25
Speaker 1: especially the weird religious stuff, was any of that based? Again,
18:29
Speaker 1: I'm looking at some of it going, okay, was somebody
18:32
Speaker 1: out there into rosary jobs? Was somebody getting turned on
18:34
Speaker 1: by the Stations of the Cross?
18:36
Speaker 3: No. I didn't, but I had read the erotic minorities.
18:40
Speaker 3: That was a book about all sorts of fetishes. And
18:43
Speaker 3: I had read about Benoit balls, which I think is
18:46
Speaker 3: something you do put up your ass and pull them out.
18:48
Speaker 3: And I think it had to do with that. And plus,
18:51
Speaker 3: Mink used to dress kind of like that. She used
18:54
Speaker 3: to wear rosaries. She was kind of goth before there
18:57
Speaker 3: was such a thing. And she used to wear... black
19:00
Speaker 3: nail polish and black lipstick and rosaries around her neck
19:03
Speaker 3: and stuff. So we all used to wear religious items.
19:06
Speaker 3: I used to have a ring that was Jesus and Mary,
19:10
Speaker 3: the same head, but you looked at it and it
19:12
Speaker 3: was like 3D and, you know, the crown of thorns
19:15
Speaker 3: or Mary's veil would appear on the same face, kind of.
19:20
Speaker 3: And mink were with rosary beads. And so we had
19:23
Speaker 3: that fetish, kind of. Not divine. He wasn't raised Catholic.
19:26
Speaker 3: He didn't even know what it meant. And then in Baltimore,
19:29
Speaker 3: they always had the infant of Prague everywhere, that saint
19:32
Speaker 3: of that child. You changed his outfit a lot, which
19:35
Speaker 3: I liked. And he used to say, the more you
19:37
Speaker 3: honor me, the more I will bless you, which always seemed, well,
19:40
Speaker 3: that's fair, I guess, if you're a saint. The more
19:43
Speaker 3: you pray me, the more I'll give you miracles.
19:46
Speaker 4: So.
19:47
Speaker 3: That was part of our humor. But I think Mary
19:51
Speaker 3: Vivian Pierce and Ray's Catholic Link had, I had. They
19:55
Speaker 3: were the main ones, yes. But they didn't know. Divine
20:00
Speaker 3: didn't know. He used to think, should I be doing this?
20:03
Speaker 3: I don't know. He used to say that. But then
20:06
Speaker 3: he would see the audience respond so favorably to it
20:09
Speaker 3: that I think it confused him at first, and then
20:12
Speaker 3: he very much felt the power of what he got
20:15
Speaker 3: of playing that role.
20:16
Speaker 1: Well, Christianity in general has such a weird, you know,
20:19
Speaker 1: sadomasochistic ink, the, like, beating of Jesus. Like, it gets
20:23
Speaker 1: very odd and crosses some weird lines.
20:26
Speaker 3: Well, when you look at the stations of the cross,
20:28
Speaker 3: that's all that happens in it for real. Jesus pukes
20:31
Speaker 3: in mine. But if you get crucified, I bet you
20:33
Speaker 3: do puke if you're crucified. And I always think that,
20:36
Speaker 3: why do people take their children to kneel in front
20:39
Speaker 3: of a nude man tied to a cloth with blood
20:42
Speaker 3: all over them? That's like taking your child to the
20:45
Speaker 3: Eagle on, you know, fuck me night or something. I
20:48
Speaker 3: don't know. To me, it is shocking that, you know,
20:54
Speaker 3: I don't know. So I think it was a comment
20:56
Speaker 3: on that.
20:57
Speaker 5: It is, yeah.
20:57
Speaker 1: I mean, it is weird if you distance yourself. It's
20:59
Speaker 1: just one of those things we grow up in.
21:02
Speaker 3: Catholicism is an S & M relationship.
21:04
Speaker 1: It is.
21:04
Speaker 3: Mel Gibson made a whole S & M family movie
21:07
Speaker 3: about it, didn't he?
21:08
Speaker 1: And made a fortune of it.
21:10
Speaker 3: Yeah. When you think the Catholic Church, if you've ever
21:13
Speaker 3: been to Rome, the vow of poverty is not too
21:17
Speaker 3: evident when you're in Vatican City.
21:20
Speaker 1: When everything's encased in gold and shamed.
21:35
Speaker 2: A juvenile dealing man.
21:41
Speaker 1: Do the thing that's right.
21:43
Speaker 2: You'll do nothing wrong Life will be so nice Be
21:48
Speaker 2: in paradise I know Because I'm not a juvenile dealing man.
21:59
Speaker 5: Hurry, hurry, step right this way, folks, for the most
22:01
Speaker 5: extravagant array of refreshment goodies ever assembled under one roof.
22:05
Speaker 5: Enjoy breathtaking, taste-tempting candies of finest quality. Enjoy popcorn exploded
22:11
Speaker 5: into tender, delicious, crispy bites of crunchy goodness. Enjoy the
22:14
Speaker 5: tops in cool, refreshing soft drinks. If you want to
22:17
Speaker 5: enjoy some refreshments, this is your opportunity. There will now
22:21
Speaker 5: be a short intermission.
22:24
Speaker 6: Yes, folks, this isn't any cheap X-rated movie or any
22:27
Speaker 6: fifth-rate porno play. This is the show you want. Lady
22:31
Speaker 6: Divine's Cavalcade of Perversions. The silliest show on Earth.
22:37
Speaker 3: Not actors, not paid imposters, but real, actual filth.
22:41
Speaker 6: Who have been carefully screened in order to present to
22:44
Speaker 6: you the most flagrant violation of natural law known to man.
22:47
Speaker 2: .
22:52
Speaker 3: .
22:55
Speaker 2: Go fish.
22:56
Speaker 1: You're sick and repulsive! You, my.
23:04
Speaker 2: Dear, are dead! I am the vine! Salute the vine
23:12
Speaker 2: and hydrant.
23:26
Speaker 6: Hi, this is Rick from Southern Culture on the Skids,
23:28
Speaker 6: and you're listening to Movie Meltdown.
23:31
Speaker 1: I call you later, baby Maybe I'll.
23:35
Speaker 3: See you around I call you.
23:39
Speaker 1: Later, baby Later when the sun goes down You'll seem.
23:45
Speaker 2: To like me better When your friends say.
24:00
Speaker 1: So, I wasn't kidding, right? This is an amazing conversation
24:04
Speaker 1: with John. Well, now, keep in mind, back to the
24:07
Speaker 1: top of the show there, I've been working on putting
24:09
Speaker 1: this specific episode together for more than five years. That's
24:14
Speaker 1: not right, is it? I mean, if I were a
24:17
Speaker 1: normal person, I wouldn't devote five years of my life
24:20
Speaker 1: to this ongoing project to talk to a movie director.
24:23
Speaker 4: I mean.
24:24
Speaker 1: If I were normal, I wouldn't have devoted the past
24:28
Speaker 1: nine years to putting together these episodes week in and
24:30
Speaker 1: week out. In fact, if I were normal and smart,
24:34
Speaker 1: I'd have just spent that time working at a job
24:37
Speaker 1: that pays me. I'd take all that time I devoted
24:40
Speaker 1: to each show each week and go get a real job,
24:43
Speaker 1: another one, and hopefully continue work and get myself out
24:47
Speaker 1: of the hole that I've created funding a talk show
24:50
Speaker 1: about movies out of pocket. I mean, for all practical purposes,
24:53
Speaker 1: that's what I should do. But I'm not normal. You,
24:57
Speaker 1: those of you who've been listening to the show, I mean,
24:59
Speaker 1: you know I'm not normal. And if you tuned in
25:01
Speaker 1: to listen to me talk to John Waters, odds are
25:04
Speaker 1: you aren't normal either. But that's my point. We aren't normal.
25:08
Speaker 1: We're weirdos. Movie geeks and all-around weirdos. And we need
25:12
Speaker 1: to stick together. We need to support each other and
25:15
Speaker 1: our weird projects. And that's all I ask of you.
25:18
Speaker 1: If you appreciate the time, and once again, years spent
25:22
Speaker 1: on one episode... If you appreciate that time and effort
25:25
Speaker 1: put into each of these episodes, just help me support
25:29
Speaker 1: the show. Our new Patreon club is the one thing
25:32
Speaker 1: that can keep this show going. It can keep me
25:34
Speaker 1: off the street and focusing on bringing you more episodes.
25:38
Speaker 1: And all it takes is a couple of bucks to
25:40
Speaker 1: do it. Just go to our Patreon page and join
25:43
Speaker 1: the club. For as little as two bucks, you can
25:45
Speaker 1: join the club, become a Melketeer, and not just keep
25:49
Speaker 1: this show going... But you get exclusive episodes that are
25:53
Speaker 1: only going out to our Patreon members. Only they get
25:56
Speaker 1: to listen to those episodes because they support the show.
26:00
Speaker 1: And then you can keep this train running and keep
26:02
Speaker 1: it so I can devote another five years or so
26:04
Speaker 1: to talking with some other filmmaker. Any suggestions? Hey, join
26:08
Speaker 1: the club. Tell me who you'd like to hear on
26:10
Speaker 1: the show. I'll see what I can do. Obviously, I'm
26:13
Speaker 1: kind of persistent. In fact... I believe that's how John
26:16
Speaker 1: referred to it. Me and my persistence. But I will
26:20
Speaker 1: use that and continue to put it to good use
26:22
Speaker 1: for you. Just.
26:26
Speaker 1: Got a little ceremony there. Just go to patreon.com slash
26:30
Speaker 1: movie meltdown. Or if you can't remember to work that
26:33
Speaker 1: slash thing when you're typing, just go to movie meltdown.com.
26:36
Speaker 1: And there at the top of the page, there's a
26:38
Speaker 1: Patreon button waiting for you. Just click it. Kick in
26:42
Speaker 1: a couple of bucks and keep these awesome conversations coming
26:45
Speaker 1: your way. Speaking of which, let's get back to this
26:48
Speaker 1: awesome conversation right now. Well, that is after these rallying cries.
26:53
Speaker 1: Meltdown forever. Long live guerrilla filmmaking. Damn the man. Save
26:58
Speaker 1: the meltdown. Well, just because you think you've got something.
27:10
Speaker 1: Well, then again, looking at some of the specific, you know,
27:14
Speaker 1: scenes in those moments, as soon as we get into
27:18
Speaker 1: the movie, I'm just like, Where exactly did you shoot
27:40
Speaker 1: the tents? You said you rented those tents. Whose yard
27:43
Speaker 1: were you in at that point?
27:44
Speaker 3: My parents. That's my parents' house in the background. When
27:47
Speaker 3: you see them after it's over, when they're walking through
27:49
Speaker 3: the woods, going through the pocketbooks and shit, that's my
27:52
Speaker 3: parents' house in the background. Nice. So I filmed the
27:54
Speaker 3: cavalcade of perversion on their front lawn. And they never
27:57
Speaker 3: came down and looked.
27:58
Speaker 1: They were relatively supportive, I guess, if they turned the
28:01
Speaker 1: blind eye.
28:02
Speaker 3: They certainly were, yeah. They knew we were doing it,
28:05
Speaker 3: and they were impressed that I could get it together.
28:07
Speaker 3: They just wished they didn't know what it was about.
28:11
Speaker 3: And they never saw that movie. And when I saw
28:14
Speaker 3: it at the premiere in Provincetown when it came out,
28:16
Speaker 3: I thought, God, I'm glad they didn't.
28:18
Speaker 1: And were the people that wandered into the tent, were
28:21
Speaker 1: they other people?
28:23
Speaker 3: They were all my friends. That's Ming Stollmer. That's all
28:25
Speaker 3: Cookie Muller. That's all the people. dressed as, quote, straight people.
28:29
Speaker 3: And what straight people meant then was people that didn't
28:32
Speaker 3: take drugs or didn't mean heterosexual.
28:36
Speaker 1: Well, and then as you get further in, again, there's
28:39
Speaker 1: moments when it feels very specific to, you know, him
28:42
Speaker 1: sitting on the couch and, you know, I wish I
28:44
Speaker 1: had a movie camera. It's almost self-referential.
28:48
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah. my I don't know what you know that's
28:53
Speaker 3: a divine father or Jesus what are you thinking about
28:57
Speaker 3: and you know what were we all thinking about I
29:00
Speaker 3: don't know I'm trying to have a hit movie.
29:03
Speaker 1: Were you, I mean, again, you're the writer of it.
29:07
Speaker 1: How hardcore were you about, like, this is my story,
29:09
Speaker 1: these are my lines that I've written for you?
29:11
Speaker 3: Oh, I'm against ad-libbing.
29:14
Speaker 1: Oh, yeah.
29:15
Speaker 3: That was all rehearsed. And that's why they do forget
29:17
Speaker 3: the lines, because they had to do 12 pages of
29:20
Speaker 3: dialogue in one take. There's a lot of dialogue without
29:23
Speaker 3: any cutting away. No, that was all completely written. There
29:25
Speaker 3: was no ad-libbing in that movie.
29:28
Speaker 4: Interesting.
29:29
Speaker 3: The only one they had lived in was a Diane
29:31
Speaker 3: Linklater story.
29:32
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, that's one of those, like, especially with the, like,
29:36
Speaker 1: almost trying to see how far you can push it,
29:39
Speaker 1: especially those are days. You seem to have no problem
29:41
Speaker 1: with the too-soon moments. I think you've mentioned that in
29:47
Speaker 1: the short films you're shooting the Kennedy assassination, like, five
29:50
Speaker 1: years later, you're doing your version of it.
29:53
Speaker 3: I think the Kennedy assassination was maybe even less than
29:56
Speaker 3: five years after it happened. And I'm in November 63,
30:00
Speaker 3: and we shot it in 66. Yeah, three years.
30:05
Speaker 1: And even now.
30:05
Speaker 3: On my parents' street, right outside the pill, that same street.
30:09
Speaker 1: I mean, even now people get kind of weird about that.
30:12
Speaker 3: They do.
30:13
Speaker 1: That quickly.
30:15
Speaker 3: I entered it in the film festival. And they stopped
30:19
Speaker 3: it in the middle. This is when they were screening it,
30:21
Speaker 3: not even to show it. This is when they were
30:23
Speaker 3: picking what would be in the festival. And they stopped
30:26
Speaker 3: it in the middle and called the church where I
30:28
Speaker 3: was going to show it and then reported me to
30:30
Speaker 3: the IRS for charging. So we couldn't charge money, and
30:33
Speaker 3: they said it was pernicious. And I didn't even know
30:36
Speaker 3: what that word meant. I had to look it up,
30:38
Speaker 3: and it's a good word. intrinsically evil.
30:41
Speaker 1: Ooh, you definitely went back.
30:44
Speaker 3: It was just a parody, you know, because Jackie was... Well,
30:48
Speaker 3: the new movie that came out this year that got
30:50
Speaker 3: an Oscar nomination, that's a drag queen movie too, isn't it?
30:54
Speaker 1: I mean, it took that long for them to kind
30:56
Speaker 1: of be comfortable enough to.
30:57
Speaker 3: But it's the same movie. It's no different, really. Eat
31:01
Speaker 3: Your Makeup and Jackie are the same.
31:03
Speaker 1: And even Multiple Maniacs, you've got the references to Sharon
31:07
Speaker 1: Tate like a lot. Yeah. Once again, that's something.
31:11
Speaker 3: Because they had not caught Manson when we made that movie.
31:14
Speaker 3: Nobody knew who killed him. And the plot was that
31:17
Speaker 3: Devine had convinced her husband, David Lockhart, that he did it,
31:21
Speaker 3: even though he didn't. And then right as we were
31:23
Speaker 3: almost finished the film, they caught Manson, but no one
31:26
Speaker 3: knew who Charles Manson was. Nobody knew who was going
31:29
Speaker 3: to be famous or anybody would remember that name. And
31:32
Speaker 3: that scene where they find the newspaper was really almost
31:36
Speaker 3: when it happened. And so I just had to put
31:38
Speaker 3: that scene in to make the plot make sense.
31:40
Speaker 1: Well, even, I mean, it's, again, those moments are kind
31:43
Speaker 1: of interesting watching now because there are like, you know,
31:47
Speaker 1: you're making reference to that stuff. You're also referencing Ronald
31:50
Speaker 1: Reagan and his family. Well before he was governor.
31:53
Speaker 3: That's when he was governor, especially at his family.
31:57
Speaker 1: Little did you know.
31:59
Speaker 3: But that was illegal, wasn't it, to threaten the president? Well,
32:03
Speaker 3: he wasn't even the president.
32:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's just a governor. You might be able to
32:05
Speaker 1: skate by on the governor.
32:07
Speaker 3: I don't know. And Barbara Streisand. But then, and Margaret.
32:11
Speaker 3: I love him, Margaret. I don't know what I was
32:12
Speaker 3: thinking when I put her.
32:14
Speaker 1: Well, I like the some girl named Patricia line.
32:17
Speaker 3: I know. Because I know. Because we didn't know who
32:22
Speaker 3: they were. And no one knew then that that was
32:24
Speaker 3: ever going to be a famous case or anything. But, yes,
32:28
Speaker 3: and that's kind of very troubling to me today because
32:31
Speaker 3: I'm very serious when I say that. I really believe
32:34
Speaker 3: that Leslie Van Houten, who is my friend that I
32:36
Speaker 3: wrote about in Role Model, should be paroled. And she
32:39
Speaker 3: got a parole date last year for the first time,
32:40
Speaker 3: and I think she should be released. But yes, it's
32:44
Speaker 3: a very different thing, because when we made that movie,
32:46
Speaker 3: I certainly never thought any of this would ever happen,
32:51
Speaker 3: or that that case would become the most notorious case, really,
32:55
Speaker 3: in criminal history, practically. And so, yes, it is odd.
33:00
Speaker 3: I agree with that, that... 1969 was the year that
33:05
Speaker 3: Woodstock happened, Altamont, the Manson murders. I mean, it was,
33:08
Speaker 3: it was in my lifetime, probably the most insane year.
33:13
Speaker 5: Yeah.
33:14
Speaker 1: It's, it's an interesting time.
33:15
Speaker 3: What happened in history.
33:16
Speaker 1: Yeah.
33:17
Speaker 3: It might be this year.
33:18
Speaker 5: Well, yeah.
33:19
Speaker 1: Equally as odd would be this past year. Well then,
33:24
Speaker 1: especially when we get to the, like later in this movie,
33:27
Speaker 1: when we have, again, I feel like there's moments of
33:29
Speaker 1: your just like hardcore movie geek coming through. By the
33:32
Speaker 1: time we, We worked the giant monster in. Was that
33:36
Speaker 1: just because you wanted to work a monster in?
33:39
Speaker 3: No, I think I was always in there. And lobsters
33:41
Speaker 3: were always, it came from, because in Provincetown, there's even
33:45
Speaker 3: a picture of one of the postcards, I think, of
33:46
Speaker 3: the DVD of a lobster that we always used to
33:49
Speaker 3: take acid and always have that hanging around that poster
33:52
Speaker 3: and make us think, oh, a lobster's going to attack
33:54
Speaker 3: us on the beach. And, you know, Salvador Dali used
33:58
Speaker 3: lobsters on surrealism. I think lobsters are scary. They put
34:03
Speaker 3: them in a pot with a scream, and, you know,
34:05
Speaker 3: lobsters are bizarre. So, you know, to me, I was
34:10
Speaker 3: raised on the theater of the observed, which was in
34:12
Speaker 3: the late 50s and early 60s, and that was the
34:14
Speaker 3: first real experience I had Edward Albee and E.S. going on.
34:18
Speaker 3: So I think it came from that, actually. I think
34:21
Speaker 3: that it came from things... that made no sense on
34:25
Speaker 3: purpose using them. And oddly enough, in my blesty mind
34:30
Speaker 3: at the time, being raped by a lobster wasn't that
34:35
Speaker 3: implausible as a plot development. And that might push you
34:40
Speaker 3: over into being a final maniac that wanted to be
34:43
Speaker 3: killed by the National Guard.
34:46
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, as Devine's referencing.
34:48
Speaker 3: It's actually logical to me.
34:51
Speaker 1: Of course, that's where it has to go. But I
34:55
Speaker 1: like that even sitting there starts sort of describing a
34:58
Speaker 1: Godzilla movie, more or less, and then becomes one by
35:02
Speaker 1: the end.
35:02
Speaker 3: Certainly, I grew up with those movies, so yes, it
35:05
Speaker 3: was my monster movie, and Divine was the monster.
35:08
Speaker 1: I was hoping, yeah. I was like, at some point,
35:11
Speaker 1: if you had the budget, there would have been a
35:12
Speaker 1: giant smashing through the city, if you had the means
35:17
Speaker 1: to do that. But I like that we just get
35:20
Speaker 1: a normal version.
35:20
Speaker 3: The low-budget version of it was... kind of more touching
35:24
Speaker 3: to me in a way and even though you look
35:27
Speaker 3: at it now and it's such a low budget at
35:29
Speaker 3: the end that was a big scene for us to
35:31
Speaker 3: film at the time you know that was a big
35:33
Speaker 3: finale I had to rent all those uniforms for one
35:35
Speaker 3: thing that was a big expense And we had to
35:38
Speaker 3: get all the little guns at the Sonny's Surplus store. So, yeah,
35:42
Speaker 3: that was a big-budget scene for me.
35:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what I was going to ask, is, like,
35:47
Speaker 1: did you have to get clearance to shut down the street,
35:50
Speaker 1: or did you just do that totally on the fly?
35:51
Speaker 3: No, we didn't ask for clearance. We didn't know what
35:53
Speaker 3: that was. We just shot it and ran and hit
35:56
Speaker 3: and run. That was shot really early Sunday morning. You
35:59
Speaker 3: could see people coming out of their houses and then
36:01
Speaker 3: in the next shot, running with the crowd around the block. No,
36:06
Speaker 3: and the police didn't even come. And we were then
36:10
Speaker 3: notorious enough where they could have because the year before
36:13
Speaker 3: in Mondo Trash Show, we had been arrested for making
36:16
Speaker 3: a movie for conspiracy to commit indecent exposure. And it
36:19
Speaker 3: got national publicity. It was a huge deal. Some of
36:22
Speaker 3: the judges read us a poem and said, go behind
36:24
Speaker 3: the door and sin no more. And the ACLU handled
36:28
Speaker 3: that stuff. The cops knew about us. But, I don't know,
36:33
Speaker 3: just nothing happened. We just shot it. I'd say we
36:36
Speaker 3: were there all morning, three or four hours, probably.
36:40
Speaker 1: I wouldn't think you'd need to get actors to run away. Like,
36:43
Speaker 1: looking the way Divine does, it's just like, you see
36:45
Speaker 1: that coming, you just start running down the street.
36:48
Speaker 3: I think, you know, you're sitting around Sunday morning, nothing
36:51
Speaker 3: to do, and you open your front door, and somebody's
36:53
Speaker 3: making a movie, and you can be in it. Why
36:55
Speaker 3: not be in it?
36:57
Speaker 1: And then, I guess, on that one, just finally, whose
36:59
Speaker 1: car did you smash?
37:01
Speaker 3: That car we got from a junkyard, and it didn't
37:05
Speaker 3: even work. And that scene is also so ridiculous. She
37:09
Speaker 3: has to break every window, and you have to go
37:12
Speaker 3: all the way around. Even the mirror, I had to
37:14
Speaker 3: get my money's worth out of that prop. And that
37:18
Speaker 3: was in my parents' driveway. And, yeah, I don't remember.
37:23
Speaker 3: We got it from some junkyard. You know, it didn't run.
37:25
Speaker 3: We just had it towed there so we could break
37:27
Speaker 3: the windows, and then we towed it away. Another high-ticket
37:30
Speaker 3: item on the budget.
37:32
Speaker 1: No friend had to sacrifice their car to make the movie.
37:35
Speaker 3: No.
37:37
Speaker 1: Well, then, I guess jumping forward, oddly, quite a leap
37:41
Speaker 1: ahead in your career, but the next step, I guess,
37:44
Speaker 1: is Scream Factory is putting together a new re-release on
37:47
Speaker 1: Serial Mom. And that's, again, watching both of them almost
37:52
Speaker 1: back to back, it is such a different take on things.
37:56
Speaker 1: I guess, did you, I think that's what I was
37:58
Speaker 1: wondering is, did you find it harder to move into
38:01
Speaker 1: like then being backed by a studio and having to
38:04
Speaker 1: go through all the rigmarole that is involved in actually
38:07
Speaker 1: making a studio type film?
38:09
Speaker 4: Right.
38:10
Speaker 3: No, because it had been so gradual. Each time, we
38:12
Speaker 3: got a little more money. Each time, I went in
38:15
Speaker 3: through Hollywood and up through Hollywood. And Serial Mom was,
38:19
Speaker 3: I think, my best movie, actually. And I think it
38:21
Speaker 3: was the only time where we did have enough money,
38:23
Speaker 3: pretty much. We had $ 13 million to make it. All
38:26
Speaker 3: the sets inside were built. I mean, it was like
38:28
Speaker 3: making a Hollywood movie. And so... No, by then, it
38:33
Speaker 3: had been so gradual, my career. As I said, I
38:37
Speaker 3: started in the underground, went to independent, then made Hollywood,
38:41
Speaker 3: then independent. No, I would say it would go underground, midnight, independent, Hollywood,
38:49
Speaker 3: and then back down again.
38:52
Speaker 1: Then somewhere in the middle.
38:53
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I made every kind of movie, and you know...
38:58
Speaker 3: The algebra from that is always the more money they
39:01
Speaker 3: give you, the more they're going to have to say.
39:04
Speaker 3: That's just common sense. But I was treated fairly by Hollywood.
39:08
Speaker 3: I was treated fairly by all the people. But up
39:11
Speaker 3: to when I made Hollywood movies that I didn't own,
39:13
Speaker 3: when the studio did, every person that ever gave me
39:16
Speaker 3: money to make a movie got their money back and
39:18
Speaker 3: a little more. Nobody didn't make money. And so I'm
39:23
Speaker 3: proud of that. Now, my Hollywood movies didn't all make money,
39:26
Speaker 3: but you never know even with the Hollywood bookkeeping system.
39:31
Speaker 3: Who knows what makes money in Hollywood? that they blasted,
39:34
Speaker 3: they're still out there, they play on TV. Sometimes whoever
39:38
Speaker 3: would have imagined, I don't think multiple maniacs would play
39:41
Speaker 3: on TV.
39:41
Speaker 1: Probably not.
39:42
Speaker 3: The Pink Flamingos did, and I'm shocked that that ever did. How?
39:46
Speaker 1: Like on cable television? On cable, obviously. Like, how do you.
39:53
Speaker 3: But even cable, I'm kind of amazed at a play
39:57
Speaker 3: you're on.
39:57
Speaker 1: I was just trying to decide how much you're going
39:59
Speaker 1: to have to edit out. It's like a 20... No,
40:01
Speaker 1: they didn't cut anything out.
40:02
Speaker 3: The directors called me and said that they asked. It
40:05
Speaker 3: was the Sundance channel. And they asked if they could
40:07
Speaker 3: cut the blowjob and something else. And I said, yeah,
40:10
Speaker 3: but they forgot to. They didn't?
40:12
Speaker 1: Well, I guess you got more for your money's worth there.
40:15
Speaker 3: I guess.
40:16
Speaker 1: One more reason to subscribe and get yourself a Sundance.
40:20
Speaker 3: I guess.
40:21
Speaker 1: Well, then on Serial Mom, I guess, how early on
40:24
Speaker 1: was Kathleen Turner attached? Was it from the get-go?
40:27
Speaker 3: Right from the beginning, because you can't get the movie
40:29
Speaker 3: greenlit without, you know, whether it's a Hollywood movie, you
40:32
Speaker 3: have to have the star attached. So she was definitely
40:35
Speaker 3: lit from the beginning.
40:36
Speaker 1: And then, again, watching it, Chip, you know, Matthew Lillard,
40:41
Speaker 1: how close is he to, like, mimicking a version of
40:44
Speaker 1: you coming up?
40:46
Speaker 3: Well, I think he was very different, but he was certainly...
40:51
Speaker 3: I guess some based on, not that he was, that
40:53
Speaker 3: was one of his first movies, you know, he was
40:56
Speaker 3: a really good actor. I mean, we knew he was
40:58
Speaker 3: going to go somewhere. You could tell. And, um, was
41:01
Speaker 3: he like me? I guess a little bit, a little bit,
41:05
Speaker 3: you know, I like those kinds of movies and everything, but, um,
41:09
Speaker 3: you know, all the characters are a little bit me.
41:11
Speaker 3: I wrote them all. So there's a little bit of
41:13
Speaker 3: me in every character.
41:15
Speaker 1: It's just, especially growing up. Cause I, I fell into
41:17
Speaker 1: the same thing. It's like when that, is your interest,
41:21
Speaker 1: it almost becomes your identity. So you're that weird kid
41:24
Speaker 1: that likes weird movies.
41:25
Speaker 3: I did, but when I was in high school, did
41:30
Speaker 3: they even know that? I guess they did, but all
41:33
Speaker 3: my interest was so discouraged when I went to school,
41:35
Speaker 3: but basically I just had to get away. I was bored,
41:39
Speaker 3: and bored leads to anger, and anger leads to drugs.
41:42
Speaker 3: But I never had a bad experience with drugs, actually.
41:44
Speaker 3: I had all good ones.
41:47
Speaker 1: Just stay away from heroin.
41:49
Speaker 3: Well, I tried that. You know, I think you should
41:51
Speaker 3: try everything. I'm basically, and you can make mistakes when
41:56
Speaker 3: you're young. I think that's part of it. I always
41:59
Speaker 3: said I don't trust anybody that hasn't been to jail once,
42:02
Speaker 3: at least for a night or something.
42:05
Speaker 1: Well, then, looking at all the films, I mean, everything's
42:09
Speaker 1: pretty much written by you, and you've said you're pretty
42:11
Speaker 1: hardcore about sticking to it. Do you think you would
42:15
Speaker 1: work well as far as, like, trying to collaborate on
42:17
Speaker 1: a project?
42:19
Speaker 3: Meaning what? All films are collaborative.
42:21
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, I mean, I mean more of, like, from
42:22
Speaker 1: a writing standpoint.
42:24
Speaker 3: Oh, no, I would never make a movie I didn't write.
42:26
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah.
42:27
Speaker 3: And I would never write with somebody now. I mean, why?
42:30
Speaker 3: I mean, my whole life I've been a writer. It's
42:33
Speaker 3: a little late at 70. I think I'm pretty set
42:35
Speaker 3: in my ways.
42:38
Speaker 1: Well, then, to take it sort of the other way,
42:40
Speaker 1: I was wondering, what is your... Because, again, you've experienced
42:44
Speaker 1: now having someone take your property and do something else
42:47
Speaker 1: with it. So I wonder kind of what your take
42:50
Speaker 1: is on remakes, because you've seen not one, but two
42:53
Speaker 1: pretty big-budget, you know, versions of Pairs Brain.
42:56
Speaker 3: Well, they didn't remake the movie. They turned it into...
42:59
Speaker 3: They turned it into.
43:02
Speaker 3: Musicals that's different than a remake no one has remade
43:05
Speaker 3: my movies as a movie.
43:06
Speaker 1: But i mean hairspray they tried to get pretty close.
43:09
Speaker 3: I mean well they remade the musical yeah.
43:12
Speaker 1: Yeah but even then it's taking your idea and then
43:16
Speaker 1: kind of doing.
43:16
Speaker 3: Something else they added the music i didn't have i
43:19
Speaker 3: didn't like the music they did a great job and
43:21
Speaker 3: they changed it every time that's why i think um
43:25
Speaker 3: The last time was the one that probably didn't take
43:28
Speaker 3: it further because it didn't change it enough. It was
43:31
Speaker 3: almost exactly like what the musical was and what the
43:34
Speaker 3: musical movie was.
43:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's kind of what they've done with all these
43:37
Speaker 1: made-for-TV ones. They just sort of do a new big-budget
43:40
Speaker 1: version and add some new names to it, but they
43:42
Speaker 1: don't really seem like they.
43:43
Speaker 3: Yeah, but it can't hurt. The only thing that can kill...
43:45
Speaker 3: I just want the porn version, which would be hair pie.
43:48
Speaker 1: You know it's out. Or somebody's working on it right now.
43:52
Speaker 3: You know, Pecker even came out as a porn version,
43:54
Speaker 3: and they just called it Pecker. I thought, well, that's
43:56
Speaker 3: not funny.
43:57
Speaker 1: This isn't imaginative at all.
43:59
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was really, as a parody title, you could
44:02
Speaker 3: have done a little better than that.
44:05
Speaker 1: But yeah, I guess I also wanted to, you've been
44:09
Speaker 1: doing a lot of speaking over the years.
44:12
Speaker 3: Well, it's a comedy show, really. It's a spoken word act. Yeah,
44:16
Speaker 3: I guess in the old days you would call it
44:17
Speaker 3: a lecture, but... I do it constantly. I do it
44:20
Speaker 3: really well. I did two last week, two the week before,
44:22
Speaker 3: two next week. Yeah, I do it all the time.
44:24
Speaker 1: I was at one last week. Which one were you at?
44:28
Speaker 1: I was in Cincinnati.
44:30
Speaker 3: So you were in Cincinnati. Oh, you were at the
44:32
Speaker 3: horror one?
44:32
Speaker 4: Yes, yes.
44:34
Speaker 3: Okay, good. Well, did you have fun?
44:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was great. Again, I've seen it before. That's
44:39
Speaker 1: kind of what I appreciate is that it's a different thing.
44:42
Speaker 1: It really is just sort of, a different thing each
44:46
Speaker 1: time you sort of well.
44:47
Speaker 3: I keep trying to put new material in all the
44:50
Speaker 3: time which I certainly have I don't know how long
44:51
Speaker 3: ago you.
44:52
Speaker 1: Saw it it's a couple years ago and then I
44:56
Speaker 1: think like the first run too I think the very
44:58
Speaker 1: first time you started that specific tour I'd seen it
45:01
Speaker 1: and each time I feel like it's almost I mean
45:04
Speaker 1: you kind of revisit the movies thing but even then
45:06
Speaker 1: I feel like you have a different take on it
45:08
Speaker 1: because it's been so many.
45:09
Speaker 3: Years it's the same skeleton yeah But I use it
45:13
Speaker 3: to launch into ranting about other things.
45:16
Speaker 1: Well, and then they're also, I guess, maybe because of that,
45:20
Speaker 1: they've seen you do that and they're getting you to
45:22
Speaker 1: do commencement speeches now.
45:24
Speaker 3: Well, that's my new book that's coming out, Make Trouble,
45:27
Speaker 3: which is an illustrated version of the commencement speech I
45:30
Speaker 3: gave at RISD that went viral. That was such a
45:32
Speaker 3: big hit. So, yeah, yeah, I'm always branching out, you see.
45:36
Speaker 1: So people can still, like, hire you to come give
45:39
Speaker 1: their commencement speech?
45:41
Speaker 3: Yes, but I'd have to write a new one. That
45:42
Speaker 3: would be a challenge, yes. You know, it's weird, though.
45:47
Speaker 3: Once I did it, it was a success because it
45:50
Speaker 3: went viral. I got a book deal out of it. Obviously,
45:52
Speaker 3: the speech went over well. No one still ever asked
45:55
Speaker 3: me to do it again. I thought I'd get a
45:56
Speaker 3: lot of questions. I'd never got one more.
45:59
Speaker 1: I would think. I've seen a lot of people that
46:02
Speaker 1: do it.
46:02
Speaker 3: I thought I would get, you know, I thought it
46:04
Speaker 3: was a whole new racket I could get in.
46:06
Speaker 1: They always bring in, like, former politicians, and I'm like,
46:10
Speaker 1: these are the most lame people ever. Like, why would
46:12
Speaker 1: you not want you to come talk to them?
46:14
Speaker 3: Well, I don't know, but I haven't been asked since.
46:17
Speaker 1: Well, I think, again, even just watching you do the
46:20
Speaker 1: spoken word type thing, you do seem like you have
46:22
Speaker 1: a good amount of answers. Do you think, like, you
46:26
Speaker 1: have had that from the beginning? You felt like you
46:28
Speaker 1: had a handle on things? Or has it sort of
46:30
Speaker 1: come with years?
46:31
Speaker 3: My next book I'm writing is called Mr. Know-It-All.
46:33
Speaker 1: I guess so.
46:35
Speaker 3: I guess so. But I'm not sure everybody would agree
46:40
Speaker 3: with me, let's put it that way.
46:43
Speaker 1: Oh, well, I think that was a lot of it.
46:45
Speaker 1: So I guess everybody should find all of these things.
46:48
Speaker 1: You've got the book coming out and then both the
46:50
Speaker 1: re-release films.
46:52
Speaker 3: Well, good. I hope your podcast, who else have you
46:56
Speaker 3: had on it? Who's been your favorite cast?
46:58
Speaker 1: Oh, we've had I'm still kind of amazed how many people...
47:02
Speaker 1: I mean, I talked to Roger Corman at one point.
47:05
Speaker 1: We had Monty Hellman on, who's a legendary director as well.
47:09
Speaker 3: Yeah.
47:10
Speaker 1: I've lost track of this. There's so many people. So
47:13
Speaker 1: I'm always kind of amazed, and that's still my favorite thing,
47:16
Speaker 1: is just to sit down and kind of talk movies
47:18
Speaker 1: with people and just kind of get.
47:19
Speaker 5: Good, good.
47:19
Speaker 3: Well, it sounds good, and I'm glad you got to
47:21
Speaker 3: do it. You were very... you did a good job
47:25
Speaker 3: I appreciate it.
47:26
Speaker 1: Alright well we'll let you do it and thank you
47:29
Speaker 1: once again for joining alright thank you.
47:45
Speaker 5: Thank you.
47:50
Speaker 1: Alright so obviously a huge thank you to John He
47:54
Speaker 1: was great to work with me to make this episode
47:56
Speaker 1: come together, so a big thank you to him. He's
47:59
Speaker 1: very supportive of not just up-and-coming filmmakers, but also just
48:03
Speaker 1: people working on their own crazy projects, and I thank
48:06
Speaker 1: him for being part of mine. Also a big thank
48:09
Speaker 1: you to Susan, who works with John and has been
48:11
Speaker 1: a really big help and really nice to work with, lo,
48:15
Speaker 1: these many years. She's a real trooper to keep dealing
48:19
Speaker 1: with me all this time, and she's been very pleasant
48:22
Speaker 1: and supportive along the way. So this episode definitely would
48:25
Speaker 1: have never come together without her keeping the wheels in motion.
48:28
Speaker 1: So thank you so much to Susan. Also, hey, if
48:32
Speaker 1: you know any other John Waters fans out there, or
48:35
Speaker 1: just film fans in general, tell them to check out
48:38
Speaker 1: this show. Again, what's the point of doing this if
48:40
Speaker 1: it doesn't find its way to new weirdos out there
48:43
Speaker 1: who'll also enjoy it? So, think about the weirdos you
48:46
Speaker 1: know in your life, and send them the link to
48:49
Speaker 1: this episode. And in general, go support everything John's got
48:53
Speaker 1: in the works there. Go get the Criterion restored version
48:56
Speaker 1: of Multiple Maniacs. If you are, in fact, a fan
48:58
Speaker 1: of his earlier work, you will definitely enjoy it. And
49:01
Speaker 1: look for the Scream Factory upcoming release of the Blu-ray
49:04
Speaker 1: of Serial Mom, with lots of good extras. And, of course,
49:08
Speaker 1: that new book he was talking about is being released
49:10
Speaker 1: by Algonquin. It's called Make Trouble. Based on that commencement speech...
49:14
Speaker 1: And I also say if you're in a school or
49:17
Speaker 1: you went to a school or you occasionally... drive past
49:20
Speaker 1: a school, get a hold of them. Tell them you
49:23
Speaker 1: want John Waters to give this next year's commencement speech.
49:27
Speaker 1: I really think we need to send kids out into
49:29
Speaker 1: the world on the words of John Waters. Ah, what
49:35
Speaker 1: a world it would be. Think about it. All right, well,
49:39
Speaker 1: that about does it for this monumental episode. We will
49:42
Speaker 1: return next time, same geek feed.
49:44
Speaker 4: Thanks for listening.
49:52
Speaker 1: If you're looking for trouble, you came to the right place.
49:56
Speaker 2: If you're looking for trouble, just look right in my face.
50:03
Speaker 3: I was born standing up.
50:06
Speaker 1: And talking back.
50:08
Speaker 3: My daddy was a green-eyed mountain jack because I'm evil.
50:17
Speaker 2: My little name is Little Hillary. Well, I'm evil. So
50:29
Speaker 2: don't you mess around with me. I never looked for trouble,
50:40
Speaker 2: but I never ran.
50:42
Speaker 5: I don't take no.
50:43
Speaker 4: Orders, no kind of man.
50:47
Speaker 1: I'm only made out of.
50:50
Speaker 5: Flesh, blood, and bone.
50:52
Speaker 2: But if you're gonna start a rumble, don't you try at.
50:57
Speaker 3: All, because I know you.
51:20
Speaker 2: I'm evil, evil, evil like you. I'm evil, evil, evil
51:26
Speaker 2: like you. So don't mess around, don't mess around, don't
51:31
Speaker 2: mess around with me. I'm evil, I'm evil, evil, evil.
51:41
Speaker 2: So don't mess around.
51:50
Speaker 3: So your persistence paid off.
52:03
Speaker 4: This episode is a production of Movie Meltdown, produced and
52:06
Speaker 4: edited by the Auditude Studios, with opening music performed by
52:09
Speaker 4: the Empires. For more on how to sponsor or support
52:12
Speaker 4: the show, email producer at moviemeltdown.com.
52:15
Speaker 3: Talk hard!