Latest / MUBI Podcast / LA film fades out...and in (w/ THE STUDIO's Evan Goldberg)

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LA film fades out...and in (w/ THE STUDIO's Evan Goldberg) · MUBI Podcast

• 0:00
  Heads up, this episode includes adult language and spoilers.
• 0:07
  You might not think the Rust Belt town of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, has anything in common with Los Angeles, California.
• 0:14
  But let me tell you a story about when I moved to Pittsburgh, age 12, at the tail end of an era.
• 0:20
  Every day after joyful day, hundreds of thousands of men lay down the toolsof their work and come together for that one supreme moment:the beer after work. It was the mid 1980s.
• 0:33
  And there was evidence everywhere of Pittsburgh's proud history as the center of the US iron and steel industry.
• 0:39
  From the name of the local beer.
• 0:41
  Iron City Beer after work. To the name of the city's beloved football team, the Steelers, to longtime steelworker haunts like Kyoto's, a restaurant with a back patio that overlooked the Homestead steel mill, and where a big metal US steel logo, like five feet high, hung on a wall.
• 0:58
  <i: Iron City>once you get there, you'll never want to leave. But actually...
• 1:04
  <i: Iron City>the steel industry was almost gone.
• 1:08
  <i: Iron City>Competition from countries with super cheap labor, U.S. Factories failure to modernize, all sorts of causes.
• 1:14
  <i: Iron City>But bottom line, around 120,000 steel jobs had just gone away.
• 1:19
  <i: Iron City>That mill behind Kyoto's was empty.
• 1:23
  <i: Iron City>In fact, there were empty mills and boarded up industrial infrastructure all over the place.
• 1:28
  <i: Iron City>One night, some friends and I snuck into an abandoned train station.
• 1:31
  <i: Iron City>I remember barren loading docks and an office stripped bare, except for like, 50 ancient Underwood typewriters just piled in a corner, like bones.
• 1:44
  <i: Iron City>I remember wondering what it must have been like to live in Pittsburgh when the decline started.
• 1:48
  <i: Iron City>Watching a booming industry that gave your whole city its identity fade out.
• 1:52
  <i: Iron City>Well, it feels that way right now in my adopted hometown of Los Angeles.
• 1:58
  <i: Iron City>Except the industry is the movies.
• 2:11
  <i: Iron City>I'm Rico Gagliano, welcome back to the MUBI Podcast.
• 2:14
  <i: Iron City>MUBI's the streaming service that champions great cinema.
• 2:16
  <i: Iron City>On this show we tell you the stories behind great cinema.
• 2:19
  <i: Iron City>This is season eight, we're calling it Traveling Shots.
• 2:22
  <i: Iron City>Every episode I'm taking you along on a tour through the film culture in a different city to meet its best filmmakers, learn about the ways people there make and watch movies, and try to understand why they do it that way.
• 2:32
  <i: Iron City>And yeah, this week it's Los Angeles, a gorgeous, cool, infuriating, ridiculous city that I've called home for actually 30 years this month, where movies are such a part of the culture that basically everyone is Hollywood adjacent.
• 2:44
  <i: Iron City>The workaday lifestyle of the city is defined by this business.
• 2:49
  <i: Iron City>It's it's a working class town that just also happens to have the highest level of glamor imaginable.
• 2:54
  <i: Iron City>But where fewer and fewer movies are actually being shot.
• 2:57
  <i: Iron City>While the moneymen ask, does cinema have to be made in LA?
• 3:00
  <i: Iron City>It doesn't, but I feel like everyone agrees, shouldn't it?
• 3:04
  <i: Iron City>It just should.
• 3:05
  <i: Iron City>That is Evan Goldberg, co-creator with Seth Rogen of the hit Apple TV+ series The Studio.
• 3:10
  <i: Iron City>A send up and love letter to Hollywood.
• 3:12
  <i: Iron City>And I talked to him, Sean Fennessey of the cinema podcast The Big Picture, indie film legend Charles Burnett, and a red carpets worth of others about the fight to keep film making in LA and how, meanwhile, filmgoing in the city is booming.
• 3:25
  <i: Iron City>This has been the art form that survived the Great Depression because people need an outlet.
• 3:31
  <i: Iron City>They need to get the fuck out of their own heads.
• 3:34
  <i: Iron City>So fire up the GPS, We're going to navigate heavy traffic through the cinema scene, past and present of Los Angeles.
• 3:51
  <i: Iron City>So first of all, I should say LA's movie biz has fallen on hard times before, so I figured I'd start this tour with a trip to a symbol of Hollywood that has definitely had its own ups and downs.
• 4:03
  <i: Iron City>All right, and you want to introduce yourself and what we're doing?
• 4:06
  <i: Iron City>Sure, my name is Jeff Zarrinnam, and I'm the chairman of the Hollywood Sign Trust.
• 4:10
  <i: Iron City>And we're doing an interview today about the Hollywood sign, I guess.
• 4:13
  <i: Iron City>Yeah, and you're taking me there.
• 4:14
  <i: Iron City>I'm taking you right there.
• 4:14
  <i: Iron City>Right now we're in a truck...
• 4:17
  <i: Iron City>in my Ford F-150, and we're leaving from the Beachwood Market.
• 4:20
  <i: Iron City>The Beachwood Market sits in a neighborhood called Hollywoodland.
• 4:23
  <i: Iron City>The Hollywood sign sits high above it on Mount Lee at the end of a mile of steep, twisty road.
• 4:28
  <i: Iron City>And as we weave towards it, Jeff tells me its origin story,
• 4:34
  which combines two super LA things: advertising and real estate.
• 4:36
  which combines two super LA things: This was originally a land development, and they were selling plots of land back in the 20s, and they were trying to figure out, how do we get people up here?
• 4:45
  which combines two super LA things: I mean, you have to imagine this whole area was just barren hillside.
• 4:49
  which combines two super LA things: They said, well, why don't we build this big sign called Hollywoodland to attract people?
• 4:54
  which combines two super LA things: And then at night, they lit it up with about 3700 light bulbs, and they would blink 'Holly' and then 'wood' and then 'land' and altogether Hollywoodland.
• 5:04
  which combines two super LA things: In true Los Angeles fashion, very low key, very quiet, not glittery at all.
• 5:10
  which combines two super LA things: It's Hollywood.
• 5:12
  which combines two super LA things: He pauses the story as we pull into a little driveway at the top of the mountain and step out to a spectacular view over the city and a steep drop down.
• 5:21
  which combines two super LA things: It's only a 45 degree angle as you as you can see.
• 5:24
  which combines two super LA things: Wow, look at this view.
• 5:24
  which combines two super LA things: Oh, hey, here we are.
• 5:27
  which combines two super LA things: We are right behind, I didn't even realize because we were kind of walking up this driveway that right to my right, here's the H in the Hollywood sign.
• 5:35
  which combines two super LA things: We're behind it...
• 5:36
  which combines two super LA things: and above it we're so high, helicopters fly by at eye level.
• 5:42
  which combines two super LA things: As we clamber down to the letters, I can see they are huge.
• 5:45
  which combines two super LA things: Over 40ft tall each and super engineered big white riveted steel beams and sheet metal.
• 5:51
  which combines two super LA things: But Jeff says that wasn't always the case.
• 5:54
  which combines two super LA things: The original sign was only supposed to last 18 months.
• 5:58
  which combines two super LA things: Remember, it was an advertising gimmick to bring people up to the hillside to buy plots of land, right?
• 6:04
  which combines two super LA things: So they just put the sign up very inexpensively, tin sheets.
• 6:09
  which combines two super LA things: And they just nailed it onto these telephone pole wood posts.
• 6:12
  which combines two super LA things: And that's how the Hollywood sign was built.
• 6:14
  which combines two super LA things: By the 40s, Hollywood's movie industry was in full swing.
• 6:17
  which combines two super LA things: The sign had become its most visible symbol, but it was a wreck.
• 6:21
  which combines two super LA things: The H had actually fallen down on its face for about four years, the sign said'Ollywoodland', with a lot of panels missing from the other letters as well.
• 6:31
  which combines two super LA things: So the Chamber of Commerce eventually took it over, ripped down the 'L-A-N-D' and began decades of piecemeal patch up jobs on the other nine letters.
• 6:40
  which combines two super LA things: They came up with every kind of imaginable trick to keep these signs erect on the mountain.
• 6:45
  which combines two super LA things: There was cables holding it to the hillside because they kept falling down the panels would, you know, the wind would blow the panels off the structure.
• 6:53
  which combines two super LA things: They made a bunch of holes into the sign, literally thousands and thousands of holes so that the wind would pass through the tin panels.
• 7:01
  which combines two super LA things: Until in 1978, here comes my favorite part, an unlikely character chipped in to reinforce it like it is today.
• 7:08
  which combines two super LA things: The very first person up to the plate in April, I think, of 1978, was Alice Cooper, of all people.
• 7:17
  which combines two super LA things: And the reason was, was because it was the 75th anniversary of Hollywood.
• 7:22
  which combines two super LA things: The Hollywood sign was up there falling off the hill.
• 7:25
  which combines two super LA things: Yeah, in an interview posted on his YouTube channel, shock rock star Alice Cooper remembers he coughed up 27 grand to rehabilitate one of the O's in memory of his then recently deceased pal, Groucho Marx.
• 7:36
  which combines two super LA things: And the floodgates opened.
• 7:37
  which combines two super LA things: As soon as we did the publicity thing Hugh Hefner brought the H, Gene Autry bought a letter, Spielberg bought a letter because they're part of Hollywood.
• 7:45
  which combines two super LA things: That's where they made their money.
• 7:47
  which combines two super LA things: And they looked at the sign going,"That's a disgrace" Everybody then bought a letter and they redid the sign.
• 7:53
  which combines two super LA things: Now, it may be obvious to you by now, but I'm telling you this long story as a sort of hopeful metaphor.
• 7:58
  which combines two super LA things: Like the sign I want the LA film scene to end up standing strong against fierce headwinds.
• 8:04
  which combines two super LA things: Because right now it can feel like it's being held up with phone poles and cables.
• 8:09
  which combines two super LA things: What the Hollywood sign is known for is hopes and dreams.
• 8:12
  which combines two super LA things: And, you know, Hollywood has been resilient.
• 8:14
  which combines two super LA things: But, you know, lately... I don't know.
• 8:24
  which combines two super LA things: Movie and TV making is so woven into the fabric of LA that if you've lived here long enough, you can feel it when it's not there.
• 8:32
  which combines two super LA things: For me, my first inkling was when the yellow signs started vanishing.
• 8:37
  which combines two super LA things: They're usually put up at the crack of dawn by production assistants, plastic yellow signs zip tied to phone poles and lampposts, each with a cryptic code word printed on it in big black letters and an arrow.
• 8:48
  which combines two super LA things: They're there to direct film crews to shooting locations.
• 8:52
  which combines two super LA things: When I moved here in the 90s, just driving around, you would see those signs everywhere.
• 8:57
  which combines two super LA things: In fact, you'd see film crews everywhere shooting on some side street in the dead of night when you were walking home from a party.
• 9:02
  which combines two super LA things: Shooting in the restaurant, you wanted to hit up for dinner, but now you couldn't'cause they were shooting in there.
• 9:08
  which combines two super LA things: But slowly, those sightings got fewer and farther between.
• 9:12
  which combines two super LA things: It is true, I don't see the yellow signs as much and I because I when I am driving around and I see one, I'm like, oh my gosh, a yellow sign.
• 9:20
  which combines two super LA things: That's my friend Libby Minarik.
• 9:22
  which combines two super LA things: For the last 20 plus years, she's been an assistant director on prestige TV shows like True Blood.
• 9:26
  which combines two super LA things: She's noticed other omens around town.
• 9:29
  which combines two super LA things: I live in Burbank.
• 9:30
  which combines two super LA things: We're near a couple of studios, and there are restaurants that do a lunch heavy business.
• 9:35
  which combines two super LA things: And you, if you happen to go in there at lunch, you would see stacks of bulk orders for people in production offices who are ordering their like, afternoon lunch for a large group of people.
• 9:48
  which combines two super LA things: And I don't see those stacks anymore.
• 9:51
  which combines two super LA things: Which makes sense because in more and more of those offices, there aren't large groups of people anymore.
• 9:56
  which combines two super LA things: When we started the company,The Ringer that I worked for before we were acquired by Spotify, we worked at Sunset Gower Studios in Hollywood.
• 10:04
  which combines two super LA things: That is Sean Fennessey.
• 10:06
  which combines two super LA things: He is head of content at The Ringer and host of the podcast The Big Picture.
• 10:10
  which combines two super LA things: Time magazine just listed it as one of the 100 Best Podcasts Ever.
• 10:13
  which combines two super LA things: And this was 2015 when we took that space.
• 10:17
  which combines two super LA things: At that time, that studio lot was occupied by a lot of Shonda Rhimes oriented shows like Scandal, and Netflix was increasingly taking space there, in addition to the fortress that they had built down the block.
• 10:29
  which combines two super LA things: And we had to fight really hard to get space.
• 10:31
  which combines two super LA things: Cut to ten years later, The Ringer is looking to open up more studio space beyond the Arts District headquarters of Spotify, and we looked at the Sunset Gower space, and we had our pick of the litter to choose from, because no one's filming there.
• 10:45
  which combines two super LA things: So is that something that just happened this week?
• 10:49
  which combines two super LA things: But it tells you as much as you need to know, I think, about the particular issue that is happening right now with production.
• 10:55
  which combines two super LA things: What's happening is there's less of it.
• 10:57
  which combines two super LA things: A couple of weeks back, the outfit FilmLA released its quarterly report on how many days productions shoot in town.
• 11:03
  which combines two super LA things: Feature film shoots down over 21%.
• 11:05
  which combines two super LA things: Commercials down 15%, documentaries, industrial films all down since last year.
• 11:11
  which combines two super LA things: And last year's numbers were already some of the lowest ever.
• 11:14
  which combines two super LA things: Nearly 40% of studio soundstages are empty.
• 11:18
  which combines two super LA things: Sean says he can blame it on a lot of stuff, but it all really boils down to an old story.
• 11:22
  which combines two super LA things: Yeah, it's just profit margins.
• 11:24
  which combines two super LA things: It's just how much money can we make on this work because it's cheaper to make things elsewhere.
• 11:28
  which combines two super LA things: The series of events that collided included cresting realization amongst major studios that the spend against the streaming boom was unsustainable.
• 11:38
  which combines two super LA things: So a major pullback in that spending at the same time, two different unions demanding, better wage, coupled with the realization that the incentives overseas, especially in Europe, were significantly cheaper for the studios led to all of this production moving away.
• 11:56
  which combines two super LA things: Yeah, in the last few episodes of this show, we've heard a few times from Rich Peppiatt, director of the Northern Irish movie Kneecap.
• 12:02
  which combines two super LA things: He just started a production company in Belfast.
• 12:04
  which combines two super LA things: One of the many overseas cities where films and shows that used to shoot in Hollywood shoot now.
• 12:10
  which combines two super LA things: And he'll straight up tell you a big part of Belfast's allure is the bottom line.
• 12:14
  which combines two super LA things: We think that there's an opportunity here with the tax credits we have at 40%, that's as good as anywhere else in the world.
• 12:20
  which combines two super LA things: And you know, one thing as someone who's out in LA quite a lot and speaking to executives in America, no one wants to shoot in bloody LA anyway, right?
• 12:28
  which combines two super LA things: So it's like no one wants to shoot in America particularly.
• 12:31
  which combines two super LA things: It's too expensive.
• 12:32
  which combines two super LA things: There's good news, though.
• 12:32
  which combines two super LA things: When Rich says no one...
• 12:38
  which combines two super LA things: that's a little bit of an overstatement.
• 12:40
  which combines two super LA things: My name is Evan Goldberg, and I am a director, producer and writer of The Studio.
• 12:44
  which combines two super LA things: With his partner, Seth Rogen Evan Goldberg's also the co-creator of movies like Superbad, Pineapple Express, and a ton of other blockbuster comedies, and they insist on shooting in LA, which feels like kismet because he and Rogen are from a city that's like the poster child for poaching LA productions.
• 13:00
  which combines two super LA things: Vancouver was a film town, and so we grew up seeing people filming things around us.
• 13:05
  which combines two super LA things: It was a sight we were very used to.
• 13:07
  which combines two super LA things: Our high school is architecturally a very cool building, and so stuff would film there a lot.
• 13:12
  which combines two super LA things: The X-Files was always happening and Highlander and other TV shows.
• 13:15
  which combines two super LA things: So for them, the draw of LA wasn't the magic of being around the Hollywood Dream factory.
• 13:20
  which combines two super LA things: It was the city itself.
• 13:21
  which combines two super LA things: It was Los Angeles that really, like, landed with him and I in a big way.
• 13:26
  which combines two super LA things: You know, Vancouver's a proper city, but like this is 80 proper cities.
• 13:30
  which combines two super LA things: It is just like a city unlike anything I'd ever experienced.
• 13:34
  which combines two super LA things: And the size of it and the, like, myriad architectural elements.
• 13:39
  which combines two super LA things: Vancouver is like a planned city that like the downtown, like, clearly there's like palettes and materials you're allowed to use.
• 13:46
  which combines two super LA things: And in LA, it seems, from my humble Canadian perspective, coming down that like there were no rules and you have like a Lautner house and then you have like a Spanish house and then you have like a weird, like old wooden house that looks like a weird little hobbit house, like LA has more different things than any place I'd ever been and maybe does like period.
• 14:04
  which combines two super LA things: And for him, that's cool for reasons both esthetic and practical.
• 14:08
  which combines two super LA things: I always think when it comes to LA, it has everything if you know where to look, and I think that's one of the reasons why this is such a good film town is like, if you need a house that looks like a castle in Ireland, like there's one, I don't know where, but it's here.
• 14:21
  which combines two super LA things: People can just build the strangest things in the strangest places for the strangest reasons.
• 14:26
  which combines two super LA things: And those strange little things make really good film and television.
• 14:29
  which combines two super LA things: Is there one that you can think of that you might have just had in one of your movies where it's just like, what the hell is this?
• 14:35
  which combines two super LA things: - Where are we shooting today?
• 14:35
  which combines two super LA things: - I mean, I always go back to, Superbad.
• 14:38
  which combines two super LA things: We had a sequence where they get into, like, an adult party, and, Jonah ends up getting period blood on his leg.
• 14:44
  which combines two super LA things: That fucking stain on your pants, idiot.
• 14:44
  which combines two super LA things: What is that?- What are you talking about, man?
• 14:48
  which combines two super LA things: - Dude.Is that blood? And I just remember that was someone's house with barely any set decorating.
• 14:56
  which combines two super LA things: And the walls were covered in tiger art, like tiger painting and tiger cross stitch.
• 15:01
  which combines two super LA things: And it's just that kind of stuff where you're just like, who is this person?
• 15:04
  which combines two super LA things: Of course, they live in LA.
• 15:04
  which combines two super LA things: They're eccentric, uber specific and passionate about their weirdness.
• 15:09
  which combines two super LA things: And that's yeah, weirdos make good movies and LA's got a lot of weirdos.
• 15:14
  which combines two super LA things: This jerk offs got period blood on his pants.That's fucked up, man. Let me see. Evan's show The Studio takes full advantage of LA locations, too.
• 15:22
  which combines two super LA things: Maybe on the classier side.
• 15:24
  which combines two super LA things: Sleek 1950s pads designed by modernist John Lautner show up a lot.
• 15:28
  which combines two super LA things: But if the architecture is mid-century optimistic, the tone of the show isn't always.
• 15:34
  which combines two super LA things: Especially when the talk turns to moviemaking.
• 15:36
  which combines two super LA things: You know, I walked past the tour guide every morning, and they say that the office was built as a temple to cinema, but...
• 15:44
  which combines two super LA things: it feels much more like a tomb.
• 15:45
  which combines two super LA things: Like there's a scene where Seth Rogen's character, a studio boss, is standing on the lawn of one of Lautner's UFO shaped houses up in the Hollywood Hills, talking to his mentor.
• 15:54
  which combines two super LA things: Behind him LA stretches out to the horizon at Golden Hour.
• 15:58
  which combines two super LA things: And I got into all this because, you know, I love movies, but now I have this fear that my job is to ruin them.
• 16:08
  which combines two super LA things: There is this feeling like the glory days are over.
• 16:12
  which combines two super LA things: And do you feel that?
• 16:12
  which combines two super LA things: Do you feel like it's-- And if so, can it come back?
• 16:16
  which combines two super LA things: Seth and I don't really see it as like, the glory days are over.
• 16:19
  which combines two super LA things: If you really look at Hollywood, it's, I'm not sure the exact number, but 110 years old, that is incredibly young for a large industry.
• 16:28
  which combines two super LA things: Every 20 years or so, there's like a seismic shift that completely changes the way everything is done.
• 16:33
  which combines two super LA things: This is no crazier than other ships.
• 16:36
  which combines two super LA things: And there's a golden era of television happening.
• 16:38
  which combines two super LA things: - There's still giant movies happening--- What about LA, though?
• 16:42
  which combines two super LA things: Does it have to happen in LA now?
• 16:44
  which combines two super LA things: It doesn't, but I feel like everyone agrees.
• 16:47
  which combines two super LA things: Shouldn't it? Just shouldn't it?
• 16:49
  which combines two super LA things: It just should.
• 16:50
  which combines two super LA things: And I mean, as a local I agree, but it's not like there's a law.
• 16:54
  which combines two super LA things: Although just a few weeks back, the state government did pass a bill.
• 16:58
  which combines two super LA things: California lawmakers have approved a plan aimed at keeping Hollywood in Hollywoodby giving production companies more financial incentive to stay here. Yeah, when a production shoots in California, it can ask the state to basically refund a percentage of what they spend here.
• 17:13
  which combines two super LA things: They get it in the form of what are called tax credits.
• 17:16
  which combines two super LA things: Well, this bill boosted that percentage to 35% and more than doubled the amount of credits the state hands out.
• 17:22
  which combines two super LA things: From 330 million up to 750 million a year.
• 17:22
  which combines two super LA things: That's a big deal. Or at least it sounds like a big deal.
• 17:30
  which combines two super LA things: But Belfast offers a 40% tax credit with no annual limit.
• 17:35
  which combines two super LA things: So is it? or is this all just a big race to the bottom, where cities offer studios more and more rebates until at some point, LA'll have to promise to fund a movie's whole budget just to get a Hollywood studio to shoot in Hollywood.
• 17:48
  which combines two super LA things: I think there's a kind of mistrust that, you know, this is just putting money into the pockets of studios.
• 17:54
  which combines two super LA things: And I understand that fear.
• 17:57
  which combines two super LA things: But we're not asking for California to have the most competitive tax credit in the world and race to the bottom.
• 18:05
  which combines two super LA things: It just needs to be competitive enough.
• 18:08
  which combines two super LA things: That is filmmaker and activist Alexandra Peckman.
• 18:10
  which combines two super LA things: She co-founded an outfit called #StayinLA that lobbied hard for these incentives.
• 18:15
  which combines two super LA things: And she thinks LA actually doesn't have to totally outbid the Belfasts of the world, because there are so many movie and TV people here with some power who'd just rather not leave town all the freaking time.
• 18:26
  which combines two super LA things: They want to be home with their families.
• 18:28
  which combines two super LA things: You know, Sarah Adina Smith, my co-founder, she developed a show that was set in LA. And, you know, the opening scene was supposed to take place in Malibu, and she was told to choose between South Africa and Australia.
• 18:43
  which combines two super LA things: Like she has a toddler and would definitely like to stay home with her family.
• 18:48
  which combines two super LA things: So you're saying LA doesn't have to beat other cities incentives?
• 18:52
  which combines two super LA things: It's just got to get close enough that when you factor in quality of life, basically it makes sense to shoot here.
• 18:58
  which combines two super LA things: Exactly. I mean, we we've talked to showrunners, and if it's 5% difference, that can be a conversation with studios.
• 19:06
  which combines two super LA things: And there is hopeful stuff happening.
• 19:08
  which combines two super LA things: TV dramas are the one kind of production that's actually shooting a little more in LA since last year, thanks to shows like HBO's The Pitt, who star Noah Wylie actually appeared on Entertainment Tonight wearing a #StayinLA t shirt.
• 19:20
  which combines two super LA things: I haven't worked in this city since ER,wrapped 15 years ago.We would like to put a little bit more pressure on those streaming services andstudios to keeping work in the city. But I know folks who have doubts any of this will be enough.
• 19:33
  which combines two super LA things: I mean, I don't know, I guess I don't see, I don't...
• 19:39
  which combines two super LA things: feel really optimistic about it.
• 19:41
  which combines two super LA things: That's my friend Libby again, the assistant director.
• 19:43
  which combines two super LA things: She has reasons to be jaded.
• 19:45
  which combines two super LA things: Up 'til the strikes, she was working like eight months a year.
• 19:48
  which combines two super LA things: Could have done even more.
• 19:49
  which combines two super LA things: But she liked to take breaks from the 12 hour days to have time with her family.
• 19:53
  which combines two super LA things: But starting with the strike, you know, like spring 2023, I have worked five months total since then.
• 20:05
  which combines two super LA things: My life is full of people with these stories.
• 20:08
  which combines two super LA things: My pal Keith was working constantly as a prop maker.
• 20:11
  which combines two super LA things: This year he's worked three and a half months.
• 20:13
  which combines two super LA things: My friend Ted wrote for multiple seasons of franchise TV shows.
• 20:17
  which combines two super LA things: He hasn't had a staff gig since the strikes.
• 20:19
  which combines two super LA things: And Libby thinks the problem isn't mainly about tax credits.
• 20:23
  which combines two super LA things: It's cheap labor.
• 20:24
  which combines two super LA things: I think that there's going to be a small amount of shooting that continues to happen in the US, because some power brokers will keep it here.
• 20:32
  which combines two super LA things: A director who wants to work in LA and the producers will have to pay that cost.
• 20:37
  which combines two super LA things: But I don't think we've seen in history that when labor becomes exponentially cheaper overseas, that we are able to return those industries to the United States because we don't hold the corporations accountable.
• 20:56
  which combines two super LA things: We think it's okay for corporations to only maximize profit for those at the very top, and that's cultural and that's across all industries.
• 21:08
  which combines two super LA things: I just think it took longer to get to film and and here it is.
• 21:13
  which combines two super LA things: I hope she's wrong, but if she isn't and the film industry fades in LA, I can tell you the art form itself and the city's sense of its movie history isn't going anywhere.
• 21:22
  which combines two super LA things: The cinema bust gives way to a rep cinema's boom.
• 21:26
  which combines two super LA things: Coming up in just a minute. Stay with us.
• 21:33
  which combines two super LA things: All right, everybody, MUBI is the global film company that champions great cinema, bringing it to you wherever you are in as many ways as we possibly can.
• 21:41
  which combines two super LA things: We stream movies, we produce them.
• 21:43
  which combines two super LA things: We release them in theaters. Movies from any country, from legendary auteurs or brilliant first timers.
• 21:48
  which combines two super LA things: We have always got something new for you to discover.
• 21:50
  which combines two super LA things: And this month I got something for you to discover at your local cinema.
• 21:54
  which combines two super LA things: It is a cat and mouse thriller called Lurker.
• 21:57
  which combines two super LA things: Appropriately enough for this episode, it is set in the world of LA show business not the film industry though the music scene and the online influencer scene which, by the way, is blowing up in Los Angeles right now.
• 22:08
  which combines two super LA things: It is about an aimless 20 something who meets a rising pop star and edges his way into the guy's inner circle until slowly, the fine line between friend and fan blurs in scary ways.
• 22:19
  which combines two super LA things: Lurker is the directing debut of Alex Russell.
• 22:22
  which combines two super LA things: He wrote some of the best episodes of the TV series The Bear, so imagine that show's high tension.
• 22:27
  which combines two super LA things: It stars Théodore Pellerin and Archie Madekwe, best known for Saltburn, and you can see it in theaters starting August 22nd in the US and Canada.
• 22:35
  which combines two super LA things: Check out MUBI.com/lurker for showtimes.
• 22:38
  which combines two super LA things: Also, one more heads up for August if you happen to live here in LA first of all, hi, neighbor.
• 22:44
  which combines two super LA things: And second of all, mark your calendars for Sunday, August 24th at 3pm.
• 22:49
  which combines two super LA things: That's when I will be at the Aero Theater in Santa Monica to present a screening of the Breakthrough Irish IndieIntermission.
• 22:56
  which combines two super LA things: This was the debut of John Crowley, who went on to direct Brooklyn with Saoirse Ronan.
• 23:00
  which combines two super LA things: Way different kind of film, though it is the story of a bunch of Dubliners falling in and out of love and crime.
• 23:06
  which combines two super LA things: The cast includes a young Colin Farrell and Cillian Murphy, and it is a fun, acerbic ride.
• 23:09
  which combines two super LA things: That is Sunday, August 24th at 3pm at the Aero Theater.
• 23:15
  which combines two super LA things: Tickets are on sale now, and tip if you go back and listen to the first episode of this season of the podcast, you can hear John Crowley himself tell me what a huge hit this thing was in Ireland.
• 23:25
  which combines two super LA things: Meanwhile, for more of this kind of great cinema delivered right into your living room, subscribe to MUBI at MUBI.com As usual, you'll find all the links and info you need in the show notes of this episode.
• 23:36
  which combines two super LA things: Speaking of which, let's get back to the episode.
• 23:44
  which combines two super LA things: So here's a flashback.
• 23:45
  which combines two super LA things: In 2004, I was a public radio reporter living in the Fairfax district of LA.
• 23:50
  which combines two super LA things: And one night I visited the cramped projection booth at my charmingly shabby local movie house to interview a legend.
• 23:57
  which combines two super LA things: Yeah, my name is Sherman Torgan.
• 23:58
  which combines two super LA things: I manage and program the New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles, California.
• 24:03
  which combines two super LA things: I know it doesn't sound like the voice of a legend, but for LA film geeks, Sherman was it.
• 24:07
  which combines two super LA things: He had been running The New Bev as a repertory theater since 1978,
• 24:12
  doing basically everything: programing nightly double bills of classic cult and arthouse movies, running the box office, changing the marquee and occasionally serving as a first responder.
• 24:22
  doing basically everything: Talking about, you know, just crazy theater stories.
• 24:25
  doing basically everything: We were running a trailer show, a midnight trailer show, which was, you know, two hours of coming attractions, and we started the show late in the first trailer on was Up in Smoke, the Cheech and Chong film.
• 24:39
  doing basically everything: Just at that time the screen went dark.
• 24:42
  doing basically everything: I went running upstairs to see what happened, thinking that maybe, you know, the bulb went out.
• 24:47
  doing basically everything: Walk into the booth find the projectionist screaming that we have a fire, and one of the lamp houses on the projectors was spitting out flames, shooting about two feet into the air.
• 24:58
  doing basically everything: And it wasn't until about 5 or 10 minutes later when the fire was out, that the you know, that amazing irony hit me that the fire started just as Up in Smoke came onto the screen.
• 25:09
  doing basically everything: It's a great story and apt because in 2004, movie houses like his were also flaming out.
• 25:16
  doing basically everything: It seems as if we're if not, LA's last full time, independently owned revival theater we're probably one of the last revival theaters, you know, of this kind in the entire country.
• 25:28
  doing basically everything: Yeah, even LA, the town that practically created film history, was down to just a handful of places that screened it.
• 25:34
  doing basically everything: The New Bev, a couple theaters run by the American Cinematheque, the famed New Art Theater, with its midnightRocky Horror Picture Show freak outs.
• 25:41
  doing basically everything: In a city 30 miles across with a population bigger than most states there wasn't much.
• 25:46
  doing basically everything: There's a lot of, issues that didn't exist, you know, 10, 15 years ago.
• 25:52
  doing basically everything: Certainly when I opened the theater, we didn't have video, we didn't have cable television.
• 25:55
  doing basically everything: We certainly didn't have DVDs.
• 25:57
  doing basically everything: And running an eclectic mixture of older films, you know, you're running into a lot of competition, you know, from DVDs.
• 26:03
  doing basically everything: Sherman died in 2007.
• 26:06
  doing basically everything: Quentin Tarantino bought the New Bev and still runs it today, mostly showing his collection of 35mm prints.
• 26:11
  doing basically everything: But after a decade plus of a few new players like him adding some heat to LA's rep theater scene, what seemed like the final death blow hit.
• 26:21
  doing basically everything: The empty streets, and businesses tell the story of the precautions being taken toprevent the further spread of coronavirus.Today, a big decision by the L.A. County Board of Supervisors.They announced the closure of all bars, clubs, gyms and movie theatersuntil further notice. I thought I was out of a job.
• 26:39
  doing basically everything: That's Bret Berg.
• 26:40
  doing basically everything: He has been a film programmer and beloved movie advocate all over town for decades.
• 26:45
  doing basically everything: These days, he works for the American Genre Film Archive, distributing cult movies to rep theaters.
• 26:50
  doing basically everything: 2017, 18, 19 our business kept expanding year over year, and then in March 2020, boom! It immediately just cratered.
• 26:58
  doing basically everything: I thought, there's no way that we can come back from this.
• 27:01
  doing basically everything: And in 2022, the first burbles started...
• 27:06
  doing basically everything: popping up, bubbling up, and it was really the opening of WHAMMY! that made me think, there is something here.
• 27:13
  doing basically everything: This will come back.
• 27:14
  doing basically everything: WHAMMY's cool micro-cinema in the Echo Park neighborhood.
• 27:17
  doing basically everything: Just 35 seats, but it was a canary in a coal mine in a good way.
• 27:21
  doing basically everything: And sure enough, 23, 24, 25 more and more places opened.
• 27:26
  doing basically everything: More people reached out to me to say,"I'm starting my own place." I'm born and raised in LA.
• 27:30
  doing basically everything: I've lived here my whole life and right now is the single greatest moment I feel in repertory history in Los Angeles.
• 27:40
  doing basically everything: Certainly as long as I've been alive.
• 27:44
  doing basically everything: Yeah, I can tell you in my neighborhood at the American Cinematheque's Aero Theater, there are lines outside screenings of arthouse and classic movies almost every night.
• 27:52
  doing basically everything: But that's just the tip of the iceberg.
• 27:54
  doing basically everything: You've got UCLA at the Hammer, you've got USC, Academy Museum, Brain Dead Studios, New Beverly, Alamo Drafthouse in Downtown, 2220 Arts + Archives.
• 28:06
  doing basically everything: There's a new spot in Burbank called Killer Fitness, which is a half, fitness studio, half horror movie screening space.
• 28:15
  doing basically everything: It's a cool spot.
• 28:16
  doing basically everything: You've got, American Cinematheque's three different venues.
• 28:19
  doing basically everything: The Egyptian, the Aero, the Los Feliz 3.
• 28:21
  doing basically everything: You've got the reopened Vista, also in Burbank, there's Be Kind Video.
• 28:27
  doing basically everything: The Autry Museum out in Griffith Park shows Westerns.
• 28:30
  doing basically everything: It's really just this explosion that even I have a hard time staying on top of.
• 28:35
  doing basically everything: Sean Fennessey has been caught in the explosion too.
• 28:37
  doing basically everything: I mean, certainly like the New Beverly has always has been a landmark for this in Los Angeles for 50 years, but it was one of the only ones for the last 20 years.
• 28:46
  doing basically everything: In 2012, when I moved here, I was hunting for these screenings every night.
• 28:50
  doing basically everything: Now it's like overwhelming.
• 28:52
  doing basically everything: I mean, every day there's 3 or 4 options that are at least somewhat appealing to me.
• 28:56
  doing basically everything: And it's exciting to be in the room, too, because people are just pumped.
• 28:59
  doing basically everything: They're just fired up to see Thief on the big screen.
• 29:03
  doing basically everything: For those who don't know, Michael Mann, 1980s, unbelievable movie.
• 29:06
  doing basically everything: - Sure. Yeah.
• 29:06
  doing basically everything: - Heist film.
• 29:08
  doing basically everything: And this is my favorite thing that's happening in America right now.
• 29:14
  doing basically everything: And yes, the rep cinema revival is a nationwide thing that Sean thinks was at least partly fueled by the lockdown.
• 29:21
  doing basically everything: As someone who hosts a contemporary film podcast that had to pivot pretty aggressively to the history of movies during the pandemic when few new releases were coming out.
• 29:31
  doing basically everything: I know that there were just millions of other people who were going back into the history of movies while they were stuck in their homes.
• 29:38
  doing basically everything: But Bret Berg thinks LA's repertory boom is especially miraculous'cause it's had more hurdles to jump, ironically, because it's an industry town.
• 29:46
  doing basically everything: With New York, it was baked in that repertory film culture was just part of the scene. here in Los Angeles, you know, because of Hollywood, because of movie production...
• 29:55
  doing basically everything: the focus for decades had been new movies, shiny huge places to see, new movies.
• 30:02
  doing basically everything: And so repertory had always taken a back seat.
• 30:04
  doing basically everything: And also, I would say up until a few years ago, there was not even a way for us to compete with the New York repertory scene.
• 30:11
  doing basically everything: But now the amount of available real estate and storefront space, you know, post Covid lockdown, there are a lot of for lease signs all over the town.
• 30:21
  doing basically everything: There's never been a better time for someone who has a dream to open their own cinema to do it right here.
• 30:27
  doing basically everything: And maybe because so many places closed a sprawling city full of people that have always lived way apart from each other, are hungrier for spots to come together.
• 30:36
  doing basically everything: What they call the third space?
• 30:36
  doing basically everything: You know, shopping malls are gone.
• 30:40
  doing basically everything: You know, in Westwood, which used to be the epicenter of moviegoing when I was a kid, I was there in Westwood on opening night for so many blockbusters in the 90s, those theaters are gone, and we crave those kinds of spaces.
• 30:54
  doing basically everything: You know, there's fewer bookstores, video shops.
• 30:57
  doing basically everything: These are all disappearing.
• 30:58
  doing basically everything: So it's probably not a coincidence that the poster child for this wave of movie joints.
• 31:03
  doing basically everything: Hi, guys! Kind of combines all of the above.
• 31:06
  doing basically everything: So we're standing in Vidiots, in the video store, the beating heart of our new home here in Eagle Rock.
• 31:13
  doing basically everything: Amongst the racks, 70,000 titles on DVD and Blu ray.
• 31:17
  doing basically everything: That's Maggie Mackay and that video store is part of the cinema where she is executive director, Vidiots.
• 31:23
  doing basically everything: Step through the doors and it's like going 20 years back in time.
• 31:27
  doing basically everything: Racks of thin DVD boxes, mostly grouped by genre but also by fandom.
• 31:32
  doing basically everything: All right, take me to your favorite part of the store here.
• 31:35
  doing basically everything: My favorite part of the store.
• 31:35
  doing basically everything: That's really hard.
• 31:38
  doing basically everything: The Harry Dean section is a Harry Dean Stanton section, is a pretty important section for me personally.
• 31:45
  doing basically everything: - 'Cause you knew him?
• 31:45
  doing basically everything: - 'Cause I knew him.
• 31:47
  doing basically everything: And we loved him, and we were able to give him a really great tribute before he passed away.
• 31:52
  doing basically everything: Yeah, Vidiots has been pretty entwined with the hippest corners of the movie world, really, since 1985.
• 31:58
  doing basically everything: That's when founders Cathy Tauber and Patty Pollinger opened it as a video store on the other side of town in Santa Monica, and made it one of the coolest spots in L.A. County.
• 32:07
  doing basically everything: Because even at that time, when video stores were still plentiful, walking into Vidiots was not like walking into any other video store on the planet.
• 32:16
  doing basically everything: - How so?
• 32:16
  doing basically everything: - Just crazy shit everywhere.
• 32:19
  doing basically everything: And parties like, you know, throwing Les Blank a polka party for a birthday one year, or bringing Russ Meyer in for his birthday and baking him a boob cake, which I don't know how well that would go over these days, but they baked it.
• 32:33
  doing basically everything: - It was their idea.
• 32:33
  doing basically everything: - Just to be clear.
• 32:35
  doing basically everything: It was shaped like boobs.
• 32:35
  doing basically everything: It wasn't made of boobs.
• 32:37
  doing basically everything: It was a treat in the shape of a woman's upper torso.
• 32:45
  doing basically everything: But also, I mean, just the movies alone are endless.
• 32:48
  doing basically everything: I remember the first time I was coming to talk to them for the first time about possibly joining Vidiots, and I walked in and I looked over to my right, and I saw the documentary sign, and it was like, you know, a sign over, like two full wall racks.
• 33:02
  doing basically everything: And I thought, oh, they're a little light on documentary.
• 33:04
  doing basically everything: And then I turned around and the documentary section went the entire length of three walls.
• 33:09
  doing basically everything: Even so, the place couldn't survive the video biz version of a pandemic: movie streaming Vidiots closed in 2017, but Maggie and a bunch of well-connected fans dreamed of finding a new venue for it that could hold all those videos and parties and also screenings.
• 33:25
  doing basically everything: They looked at derelict gas stations an empty bread factory and definitely not cinemas.
• 33:31
  doing basically everything: It's so rare to think about getting an old movie theater and turning it back into an old movie theater, because most of them turn into churches, and churches are pretty immovable.
• 33:40
  doing basically everything: You know, they get tax dispensation, they tend to hunker down.
• 33:44
  doing basically everything: But one day in LA's Eagle Rock neighborhood, a cinema desert where there were no movie theaters...
• 33:51
  doing basically everything: the Lord provided.
• 33:54
  doing basically everything: My best friend and I had commuted to work for years and years.
• 33:57
  doing basically everything: He lived on a street called Yosemite.
• 33:59
  doing basically everything: The light at Yosemite that we would sit at looks directly at this basically repurposed movie theater marquee.
• 34:07
  doing basically everything: Once upon a time, the building was a 1930s era cinema called The Eagle because, you know, Eagle Rock.
• 34:12
  doing basically everything: But for years it had indeed been a church.
• 34:15
  doing basically everything: The long standing sign on the church was'Jesus Christ is the Lord, stop suffering.' So this space was known as the Stop Suffering Church.
• 34:23
  doing basically everything: And it had become like a joke.
• 34:23
  doing basically everything: It was like like a northeast LA meme.
• 34:27
  doing basically everything: You would say, like, I'm having a really bad day.
• 34:29
  doing basically everything: It's been like really rough, my kid, blah blah blah.
• 34:32
  doing basically everything: And someone would be like, you know what?
• 34:33
  doing basically everything: - Stop suffering...
• 34:33
  doing basically everything: - Suffering.
• 34:34
  doing basically everything: Exactly. It was a thing.
• 34:36
  doing basically everything: And one day, that building we looked at hundreds and hundreds of times, sitting in his car waiting for the light to change, a 'for lease' sign went up and our friend Noah Segan tweeted,"Make it a cinema again.
• 34:49
  doing basically everything: "#StopSuffering." And once she got a look inside the place.
• 34:52
  doing basically everything: It was like goosebumps.
• 34:54
  doing basically everything: You could see it, you could feel the history, and you could start seeing Vidiots as not only bringing itself back, but it's bringing back this historic theater in a really underserved part of Los Angeles.
• 35:08
  doing basically everything: In the shell of a 94 year old movie theaterin north east LA's Eagle Rock neighborhood.A merry band of hopeless optimists are mounting an unlikely comeback. Sure enough, in 2019, Maggie and crew fundraised from the Hollywood glitterati, formed a nonprofit foundation, then spent most of lockdown turning the Eagle back into a cinema and more.
• 35:28
  doing basically everything: The grand opening of a new video store at 270 seat movie theater, and a hungerfor the shared experiences of the past. That's a clip from the Today Show, by the way.
• 35:37
  doing basically everything: This reopening was literally national news.
• 35:40
  doing basically everything: Now Vidiots is the kind of place where, like when they screened the restoration of the Talking Heads movie,Stop Making Sense in 2023, the Talking Heads showed up for opening night.
• 35:49
  doing basically everything: Call it a Hollywood comeback, hoping to recapture that Friday night magic. But if this all sounds hipper than thou, it's just totally not.
• 35:57
  doing basically everything: In fact, to me, the vibe is more like a big neighborhood bar.
• 36:00
  doing basically everything: They actually have a full bar open to the public.
• 36:03
  doing basically everything: Or, I don't know, an ice cream joint.
• 36:06
  doing basically everything: A third place that feels like family.
• 36:11
  doing basically everything: One of the things I'm most proud of is that we are attracting the next generation of film lovers.
• 36:18
  doing basically everything: We've got like, a endless stream of little kids and teenagers getting dropped off.
• 36:24
  doing basically everything: It feels like the 1980s in here in the best possible way.
• 36:29
  doing basically everything: This is part of their world.
• 36:29
  doing basically everything: They have real ownership in this thing.
• 36:35
  doing basically everything: We have one little kid who calls it 'my Vidiots.' He thinks this place is his.
• 36:40
  doing basically everything: Bret Berg wonders if actually rep cinemas might be realigning goals for a certain kind of LA kid.
• 36:46
  doing basically everything: There's so many people who get into film making because they have a dream.
• 36:49
  doing basically everything: LA is a city of dreamers, and people are realizing now that another dream that they can have is film exhibition and curation and community building.
• 37:00
  doing basically everything: And it seems like a more viable dream than making a movie.
• 37:03
  doing basically everything: Which is both beautiful and to me, kind of sad.
• 37:07
  doing basically everything: Because, yeah, it's great to have an LA that gets kids into sharing great movies.
• 37:11
  doing basically everything: But what kind of film culture can LA really have if it's not viable for kids to make them?
• 37:19
  doing basically everything: Stop right here. Like this is the opening scene of a 1977 movie called Killer of Sheep.
• 37:25
  doing basically everything: The UCLA thesis film by this soft spoken guy: My name is Charles Burnett.
• 37:28
  doing basically everything: I try to write and direct.
• 37:31
  doing basically everything: A lot of people will tell you it's one of the most important films of the 70s.
• 37:35
  doing basically everything: Set in the LA area called Watts, where Charles Burnett grew up.
• 37:38
  doing basically everything: It's kind of about a guy who works in a slaughterhouse trying to get by, but it's also just a humane, neorealist slice of life in a black neighborhood where there's crime and desperation and also simple pleasures.
• 37:49
  doing basically everything: Kids play in vacant lots, swinging rocks at each other and at passing trains.
• 37:53
  doing basically everything: Just hanging.
• 37:54
  doing basically everything: Where you going?I'm going to get my BB gun. It's a world, Charles says back then, a lot of America had zero concept of.
• 38:02
  doing basically everything: You know, like you would always ask at the time, what do you think the black community needs?
• 38:07
  doing basically everything: What do you think?
• 38:07
  doing basically everything: How would you improve on this?
• 38:09
  doing basically everything: Well, the thing would be I couldn't tell them if you do ABC then this would happen.
• 38:13
  doing basically everything: But you say you make a film that shows everything that happened that you had witnessed and say, okay, now that you see how life is the same way I saw it, how would you solve the problem?
• 38:25
  doing basically everything: It's not some simple solution.
• 38:27
  doing basically everything: Hey! Stop!Can't you see the man's hurt? So one motivation for making it was political.
• 38:34
  doing basically everything: But another, even at the very start of Charles's own career, was to show other people like him that it could be done.
• 38:41
  doing basically everything: When I did Killer of Sheep, I wanted to have a production where kids could work on the film.
• 38:46
  doing basically everything: Young kids, people of colour where they won't be discriminated against, where they wouldn't be scared to touch things.
• 38:53
  doing basically everything: They helped with the lights.
• 38:54
  doing basically everything: They had to work on the sound and all that sort of thing.
• 38:56
  doing basically everything: You want to show them that look, go to school, this could be yours.
• 39:02
  doing basically everything: And the thing is, at that time in LA, that was way more possible.
• 39:06
  doing basically everything: Everything was inexpensive back then.
• 39:07
  doing basically everything: UCLA you could-- you didn't have to get a student loan.
• 39:10
  doing basically everything: Yeah. I mean, back then wasn't tuition free?
• 39:12
  doing basically everything: It's California state schools.
• 39:14
  doing basically everything: It was just like like a few hundred bucks for fees or something.
• 39:16
  doing basically everything: Yeah, it was just, I don't know, but it was so cheap that we stayed in school.
• 39:21
  doing basically everything: I stayed at UCLA 'til they kicked me out.
• 39:23
  doing basically everything: Meaning like you would just stay there all day.
• 39:25
  doing basically everything: Or you mean like you stayed extra years?
• 39:26
  doing basically everything: We stayed years because, I mean, you had hospitalization, you had all these other benefits.
• 39:31
  doing basically everything: Food was cheap, all these things that they give you.
• 39:34
  doing basically everything: But the idea was to make films and use films.
• 39:37
  doing basically everything: I mean, make as many films as you can.
• 39:39
  doing basically everything: Just stay there 'til they kick you out'til they said something.
• 39:41
  doing basically everything: Today, UCLA's film program costs 38 grand a year.
• 39:45
  doing basically everything: The median LA rent is 2800 a month.
• 39:48
  doing basically everything: Redfin just named this America's most expensive city.
• 39:52
  doing basically everything: So yeah, today you can shoot a film on a phone and there's way more diverse voices making movies.
• 39:57
  doing basically everything: But unless they're born rich, it's still harder and harder for them or any indie artist to do it in LA.
• 40:03
  doing basically everything: How many Killer of Sheeps aren't even getting made?
• 40:06
  doing basically everything: And how many kids don't get to learn this could be yours.
• 40:16
  doing basically everything: Reminds me of something I asked Jeff, standing with him in front of the H in the Hollywood sign, one of those letters that kept falling down for years'til Alice Cooper rode to the rescue.
• 40:25
  doing basically everything: One question though. They seriously just kept rebuilding this tin sign.
• 40:29
  doing basically everything: They tried to keep the original tin for decades and decades.
• 40:32
  doing basically everything: Decades and decades. They would they would have to replace some of them.
• 40:34
  doing basically everything: But for what is that?
• 40:34
  doing basically everything: 1923 to 1978 is what, 55 years?
• 40:39
  doing basically everything: Yeah. So 55 years.
• 40:41
  doing basically everything: They kept rebuilding this original structure that was built back then that.
• 40:46
  doing basically everything: - Was never built to last.
• 40:46
  doing basically everything: - That was never built to last.
• 40:52
  doing basically everything: In LA, movie making matters maybe more than anywhere else, but its foundations have been cracking for a while.
• 40:58
  doing basically everything: We've got some shiny new patches in place.
• 41:01
  doing basically everything: Now I'm hoping for some real structural reinforcement, maybe to the whole city, to brace it for a storm.
• 41:19
  doing basically everything: And that's the MUBI Podcast for this week.
• 41:21
  doing basically everything: Follow us to hear more of my travels through the world's film scenes.
• 41:24
  doing basically everything: We got one more episode of this season coming next time we are taking a break for a special episode.
• 41:30
  doing basically everything: It's my interview with director Alex Ross Perry who has made a totally unusual movie about a totally unusual band.
• 41:37
  doing basically everything: So you put on a Pavement album, it's a two minute pop song, it's a 90 second punk song, and then it's like a six and a half minute long free-form jam.
• 41:47
  doing basically everything: That's almost like a song you want to skip.
• 41:49
  doing basically everything: And I was like, the movie just has to be that feeling.
• 41:53
  doing basically everything: Alex Ross Perry on his modern-AF indie rock doc, Pavements.
• 41:57
  doing basically everything: Follow us so you don't miss it.
• 41:58
  doing basically everything: Meanwhile, if you love the show, leave a five star review wherever you listen.
• 42:01
  doing basically everything: Tell them we're not your standard movie chat show.
• 42:03
  doing basically everything: Also, if you've got questions, comments, or a secret shortcut from Santa Monica to anywhere during rush hour, please send immediately.
• 42:10
  doing basically everything: Our email is podcast@mubi.com And now let's roll credits.
• 42:15
  doing basically everything: The show is written, hosted, and edited by me, Rico Gagliano.
• 42:18
  doing basically everything: Ciara McEniff is our producer.
• 42:19
  doing basically everything: Michelle Lanz is our story editor.
• 42:19
  doing basically everything: Jackson Musker is our booking producer.
• 42:23
  doing basically everything: Our assistant producer is Kat Kowalcyk.
• 42:23
  doing basically everything: Steven Colon mastered this episode.
• 42:27
  doing basically everything: Martin Austwick composed our original music.
• 42:29
  doing basically everything: Thanks this week to Micah Gottlieb and Sarah Winchell of the Los Angeles Festival of Movies.
• 42:34
  doing basically everything: One of the places really championing new indie cinema from LA and everywhere.
• 42:38
  doing basically everything: Also, Bret Berg, whose delightful Museum of Home Video
• 42:42
  streams every Tuesday at 7: 30pm.
• 42:44
  streams every Tuesday at 7: He calls it "90 minutes of found footage for stoners, seekers,"archivists and drinkers." Hope one of those is you.
• 42:49
  streams every Tuesday at 7: Find it at museumofhomevideo.com And big thanks to every firefighter in California.
• 42:57
  streams every Tuesday at 7: This show is executive produced by me along with Efe Çakarel Daniel Kasman and Michael Tacca.
• 43:02
  streams every Tuesday at 7: And finally, to watch the best in cinema subscribe to MUBI at mubi.com Thanks for listening, go watch the movies.
• 43:09
  streams every Tuesday at 7: And travel tip for LA. I'm going to paraphrase something I saw a guy post on Threads.
• 43:14
  streams every Tuesday at 7: If you're eating the best taco you've ever had in LA, but you're not standing on a sidewalk eating it off a paper plate, it's probably not the best taco in LA.