Latest / Movie Meltdown / The Zen of Harry Dean Stanton Fest
Transcript
- 0:04Speaker 1: My name is Alex Cox, and you're listening to Movie Meltdown.
- 0:22Speaker 1: It's showtime.
- 0:23Speaker 2: The following feature has been rated R by the Motion
- 0:26Speaker 2: Picture Association of America.
- 0:28Speaker 1: It is intended for mature audiences and parental discretion is advised.
- 0:32Speaker 3: Our nuclear reactor pumping out one million kilowatts of power.
- 1:05Speaker 4: There are more than 20 vital bodily fluids, and I
- 1:10Speaker 4: am proud to say that I have tasted every one
- 1:14Speaker 4: of them.
- 1:23Speaker 5: What's up, and welcome to Movie Meltdown. I'm Brian.
- 1:25Speaker 6: I'm Lucy.
- 1:26Speaker 5: And we're coming to you live via digital recording from
- 1:28Speaker 5: Fred's house? Wait a minute. This is the Harry Dean
- 1:32Speaker 5: Stanton Festival special and, well, okay, we're going to get
- 1:35Speaker 5: to that. We will very soon be coming to you
- 1:37Speaker 5: live via digital recording from Harry Dean Stanton Fest. But
- 1:41Speaker 5: for now, we were trying to do wrap-ups and get
- 1:44Speaker 5: together and you have a lot of stuff going on
- 1:46Speaker 5: on that weekend. So we were like, how about we
- 1:50Speaker 5: just plan ahead and we'll sit down and we'll have
- 1:53Speaker 5: a nice discussion. And in a way, this is better
- 1:56Speaker 5: because this gives you a chance to sort of reflect
- 1:58Speaker 5: on the whole festival. As opposed to when you're usually
- 2:01Speaker 5: knee deep in it and you're like, I don't know,
- 2:03Speaker 5: I'm doing six things right now while we're talking. So
- 2:06Speaker 5: this gives you a chance to get a little distance
- 2:09Speaker 5: afterwards and be like, all right, what did happen that weekend?
- 2:12Speaker 1: Right.
- 2:12Speaker 6: I've had a whole week to process.
- 2:14Speaker 5: So. How's it going?
- 2:15Speaker 6: It's going great. I ran away, which is what I
- 2:19Speaker 6: always do after the festival. I realized that if I
- 2:21Speaker 6: stay in Lexington, I immediately, my brain processes stress in
- 2:26Speaker 6: a very unusual way where I don't have any anxiety
- 2:29Speaker 6: or issues before the festival. But after the festival, I
- 2:31Speaker 6: have a week of anxiety dreams.
- 2:34Speaker 5: Interesting. I would think that would go the other way.
- 2:37Speaker 5: Like the week before you'd be super stressed out. And
- 2:39Speaker 5: then like maybe you'd find a calm in the middle
- 2:42Speaker 5: of it because you don't have time to worry. And
- 2:44Speaker 5: then afterward, you'd be like, whew, done with that bullshit.
- 2:46Speaker 6: And by bullshit, you mean delightful experience that brings joy
- 2:51Speaker 6: to many.
- 2:51Speaker 5: All of the stress and juggling that you do for
- 2:55Speaker 5: months beforehand, I'm sure, that all culminates in one weekend
- 2:59Speaker 5: and would make most people keel over. But you power
- 3:02Speaker 5: through it, and I'm impressed every time.
- 3:05Speaker 6: Well, that's very kind, but here's the secret that I
- 3:07Speaker 6: figured out. And I think I've touched on this last year,
- 3:10Speaker 6: but I've had a whole other year to process that,
- 3:12Speaker 6: which is that you can't stress about Harry Dean Stanton
- 3:16Speaker 6: Fest because that's not the spirit of Harry Dean Stanton Fest.
- 3:19Speaker 6: It's what I would imagine Lebowski Fest to be. Like,
- 3:22Speaker 6: the dude is the dude. The dude abides. Like, you
- 3:24Speaker 6: just have to let Harry Dean Stanton Fest come at you.
- 3:29Speaker 6: This year I was getting so– I mean, I was
- 3:31Speaker 6: worried about Like, we were actually, okay, full disclosure, last
- 3:35Speaker 6: year was going to be the last year of the festival.
- 3:37Speaker 5: I think we even kind of discussed that at the festival.
- 3:39Speaker 4: Yeah, right.
- 3:40Speaker 6: And then Alison Anders was like, no, no, no, I'm
- 3:43Speaker 6: coming back next year. And Billy Swan was like, no, no, no,
- 3:45Speaker 6: I'm coming back next year. And everybody was like, we
- 3:47Speaker 6: have to do this. And there was this moment watching
- 3:48Speaker 6: Billy Swan. He wrote a song for Harry and he
- 3:50Speaker 6: played the song for Harry. And he cried and we
- 3:52Speaker 6: all cried. And I was like in tears. I was like,
- 3:55Speaker 6: as God is my witness, as long as there's one
- 3:57Speaker 6: sweet old fellow that has a story to tell about
- 3:59Speaker 6: Harry Dean, we're going to keep this thing going. And
- 4:01Speaker 6: then both of them were going to come. And then sadly,
- 4:04Speaker 6: both of them had to cancel for very legitimate, valid reasons.
- 4:07Speaker 6: And so then we found ourselves without any guests. And
- 4:11Speaker 6: we had a ton of guests. We had another guest
- 4:13Speaker 6: that also pulled out. And then we had no guests.
- 4:15Speaker 6: And so I was losing my mind. And I was
- 4:18Speaker 6: contacting everybody.
- 4:18Speaker 5: This is what I'm saying. Craziness. Months beforehand.
- 4:20Speaker 7: Yes.
- 4:20Speaker 5: Yes.
- 4:21Speaker 6: Well, weeks beforehand.
- 4:22Speaker 5: Even worse when it gets down to the wire.
- 4:24Speaker 6: And so then I got to a place where I
- 4:25Speaker 6: was just like, wait, what are you doing? Absolutely not.
- 4:28Speaker 6: This is not what Harry would want.
- 4:31Speaker 5: Harry didn't stress about anything.
- 4:32Speaker 6: This is not the embodiment of who he is. And
- 4:36Speaker 6: we are supposed to be representing him. So I said, okay,
- 4:38Speaker 6: here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to put
- 4:40Speaker 6: one more ask into the world. And Sean Young, for
- 4:43Speaker 6: a variety of reasons, had popped up into my consciousness.
- 4:46Speaker 6: I said, I'm going to reach out to Sean Young.
- 4:48Speaker 6: If she says yes, amazing. If she says no, we
- 4:52Speaker 6: just go through with the festival without a guest. And
- 4:54Speaker 6: this is our last year. And I sent an email
- 4:56Speaker 6: to what I thought was her agent. And then I
- 4:59Speaker 6: just got an email, a personal email response back that said, hey,
- 5:02Speaker 6: that sounds super fun. Let me see if I can
- 5:04Speaker 6: make it happen. And it did. So law of attraction.
- 5:08Speaker 6: Put it out there. Let it go. Let it come
- 5:10Speaker 6: back to you. And that's the way of Harry Dean Stanton.
- 5:13Speaker 5: It'll bounce around for a while and hopefully come back
- 5:16Speaker 5: to where you're at.
- 5:17Speaker 6: Yeah. And this, I think, for me personally, wound up
- 5:19Speaker 6: being one of my favorite festivals. I loved our guests.
- 5:22Speaker 6: We had so much fun. Yeah.
- 5:24Speaker 5: She was pretty amazing. Just in my window of viewing
- 5:29Speaker 5: and watching her and not knowing what to expect going in. Because, again,
- 5:34Speaker 5: she has stories built up around her. Right. Many of
- 5:38Speaker 5: which she is fully aware that she created herself. And so, yeah,
- 5:42Speaker 5: I didn't really know what to expect coming in. And
- 5:44Speaker 5: then once we got to that Q & A, I
- 5:47Speaker 5: was just like, this is very different than I expected
- 5:50Speaker 5: and like kind of amazing. And I'm like even more
- 5:54Speaker 5: interested in her as a person now. So it's yeah,
- 5:57Speaker 5: she was she was. Pretty phenomenal.
- 5:59Speaker 6: She's fascinating and she's brilliant. She's so smart. She's so funny.
- 6:03Speaker 6: She's so grounded. She's so cool. She's just fun to
- 6:06Speaker 6: be around. And you realize what all those stories were.
- 6:10Speaker 6: And those stories were her just not being willing to
- 6:13Speaker 6: play the game. And when women in Hollywood refused to
- 6:17Speaker 6: play the game in the 80s and 90s.
- 6:20Speaker 5: Or now.
- 6:21Speaker 6: Or fair.
- 6:22Speaker 5: Let's be real.
- 6:23Speaker 6: But especially then.
- 6:23Speaker 8: Especially.
- 6:24Speaker 6: I mean, it was an especially challenging time. And so,
- 6:27Speaker 6: I mean, the height of her career, it just really
- 6:30Speaker 6: all got taken away from her.
- 6:31Speaker 5: Yeah.
- 6:32Speaker 6: And she never stopped being beautiful or talented or incredible
- 6:36Speaker 6: in every way. She just got in trouble for not
- 6:40Speaker 6: being willing to play the game.
- 6:41Speaker 5: For being herself, which is fine, except when you're in
- 6:44Speaker 5: the middle of show business stuff. And the business aspect
- 6:48Speaker 5: makes you change.
- 6:49Speaker 6: What does even that mean? Like people reference the Catwoman
- 6:53Speaker 6: stuff like that is I find it charming. I honestly
- 6:57Speaker 6: like don't think it's that crazy.
- 6:58Speaker 5: I mean, she did it with a sense of humor. Yeah.
- 7:00Speaker 5: Think how many other people got the job they wanted
- 7:03Speaker 5: because they took a leap like that. this one just
- 7:06Speaker 5: sort of backfired on her and like why i don't
- 7:09Speaker 5: know because.
- 7:09Speaker 6: There was a powerful man in hollywood that was also
- 7:13Speaker 6: that was also i mean had personal reasons that he
- 7:17Speaker 6: was going after her and those two things combined um
- 7:21Speaker 6: were really i mean and now of course she's rebounded
- 7:23Speaker 6: she's continuing to have a career she's continuing to work
- 7:26Speaker 6: but i mean she did that that faded her star.
- 7:29Speaker 5: Yeah i mean it changed things a lot i'm sure
- 7:32Speaker 5: for her but Still stellar performances. I have watched a
- 7:37Speaker 5: lot of her stuff in weeks leading up to this
- 7:40Speaker 5: and stuff that I had seen a few that I hadn't.
- 7:43Speaker 5: And yeah, I was like, she, she was like at
- 7:46Speaker 5: that pinnacle. Like a lot of what I watched was
- 7:48Speaker 5: in that like 10 years or so where she like
- 7:51Speaker 5: just kind of hit. And I was like, she was
- 7:53Speaker 5: kind of like top of the list for female stars
- 7:56Speaker 5: in Hollywood. Like if you were casting somebody, she was
- 7:58Speaker 5: right there. She was one of the top.
- 8:00Speaker 9: So.
- 8:01Speaker 5: That's an impressive feat all its own. Even if, you know,
- 8:04Speaker 5: most people never get to that period, let alone to
- 8:06Speaker 5: get there and then by whatever circumstances, you know, not,
- 8:10Speaker 5: I mean, usually nobody stays there. I mean, you're lucky
- 8:12Speaker 5: if you ride that for 10 years, if you're one
- 8:14Speaker 5: of the biggest stars in the world. So the fact
- 8:17Speaker 5: that you ever get to that point is pretty impressive.
- 8:19Speaker 10: Fair.
- 8:20Speaker 5: Yeah. And shows how talented she is.
- 8:22Speaker 6: Yeah, I love what on her Instagram it says, and
- 8:26Speaker 6: I'm going to not quote it directly, and my apologies
- 8:29Speaker 6: to Sean Young, but it's something along the lines of
- 8:32Speaker 6: a happy person who used to be a famous actress
- 8:34Speaker 6: in the 80s. And I was like, right on.
- 8:36Speaker 5: That's how it should be. Certainly the first half of that.
- 8:39Speaker 5: And if you want to have the last one be
- 8:42Speaker 5: a thing, you know, with most people, it's like, you know,
- 8:45Speaker 5: this was my job. It's not always my job. That's
- 8:48Speaker 5: true with a lot of these people that you see
- 8:50Speaker 5: that are, Even working actors, it's like a lot of
- 8:53Speaker 5: them have a legit job and they go to it
- 8:55Speaker 5: every day and then every once in a while they're like,
- 8:57Speaker 5: oh yeah, and I also do this because you can't
- 9:00Speaker 5: afford to live like this now. Aside from the business
- 9:04Speaker 5: going on right now. Right. Under regular circumstances before that happened,
- 9:08Speaker 5: you couldn't afford to live, which is why the circumstances
- 9:10Speaker 5: have turned out like they have. So that was an
- 9:13Speaker 5: extra little snag for you as well. It's like suddenly
- 9:16Speaker 5: that kicked in almost during the weekend and you're like, oh, okay,
- 9:21Speaker 5: how much does that change everything?
- 9:23Speaker 6: And I just messaged her and said, hey, we understand.
- 9:26Speaker 6: What do you think? And I think it worked out
- 9:30Speaker 6: because she's there to talk about Harry. She's there to
- 9:32Speaker 6: talk about another actor. She's not there to promote anything.
- 9:35Speaker 6: She's certainly not there to promote Young Doctors in Love.
- 9:38Speaker 6: She should be because it's a magnificent film. I have
- 9:42Speaker 6: to say that movie, and this just goes to show
- 9:47Speaker 6: how important the communal cinematic experience is. I watched that
- 9:50Speaker 6: movie on my couch and I was like, well, you know,
- 9:53Speaker 6: we're going to show it and it's fine. And there's
- 9:56Speaker 6: some things that I enjoy about it.
- 9:58Speaker 5: Your message beforehand kind of put it in perspective because
- 10:01Speaker 5: you really did seem almost uncomfortable showing the movie that
- 10:05Speaker 5: you were showing.
- 10:07Speaker 6: But the audience responded in such a way that, I mean,
- 10:10Speaker 6: people were laughing uproariously to the point where she was
- 10:12Speaker 6: just like, wait, how was this not this big of
- 10:15Speaker 6: a success in 1981? How is it aging better?
- 10:16Speaker 4: Yeah.
- 10:18Speaker 5: You would think, really. Well, and that's the thing. It's
- 10:21Speaker 5: like I had seen it, you know, just on cable
- 10:23Speaker 5: growing up. Like it was one of those go-to kind
- 10:25Speaker 5: of comedies at the time. And then I don't think
- 10:29Speaker 5: I've seen it. I think I kind of remembered somebody. Truthfully,
- 10:32Speaker 5: I forgot the main male lead was Michael McKean.
- 10:36Speaker 6: He's kind of forgettable.
- 10:37Speaker 5: Well, I remembered him being in there, but I didn't
- 10:39Speaker 5: really remember him being the male lead. I couldn't have
- 10:42Speaker 5: placed the male lead if you asked me.
- 10:43Speaker 6: Oh, hilarious.
- 10:44Speaker 5: But I remembered like the infamous urine scene. I remember
- 10:48Speaker 5: that happening. I remember someone doing that, did not remember
- 10:51Speaker 5: it was him at all. I was like, oh, this
- 10:53Speaker 5: is weird having like a fractured version of it that
- 10:56Speaker 5: I'm like, I remember everything about this scene, except that
- 10:58Speaker 5: blind spot of a guy in the middle, no offense
- 11:00Speaker 5: to Michael McKean, like who is amazing in so many
- 11:03Speaker 5: other things, but he is obviously the most boring character
- 11:06Speaker 5: in this movie, which by design, he is the most
- 11:08Speaker 5: boring character. So yeah, it was interesting rewatching it. And again,
- 11:13Speaker 5: for 80s comedies? you could be looking at a lot
- 11:18Speaker 5: worse stuff. So there were things that I was like, ah, yeah, yeah,
- 11:23Speaker 5: that was certainly a thing that happened in 80s movies.
- 11:25Speaker 5: But there was many things that I was surprised how
- 11:30Speaker 5: well it kind of played out.
- 11:32Speaker 6: And that's what I said in my remarks beforehand. I mean,
- 11:34Speaker 6: there was some really interestingly progressive elements to the film.
- 11:38Speaker 6: There was a whole subplot with Hector Elizondo that could
- 11:40Speaker 6: have been played very insensitively for laughs and was played
- 11:44Speaker 6: and it came from such a true and sincere place
- 11:47Speaker 6: In his heart, bless that man. I mean, it is
- 11:50Speaker 6: such a sincere performance that it's really quite touching.
- 11:54Speaker 5: I was surprised it did what it did. Because again,
- 11:57Speaker 5: that part sort of fell away with a lot of
- 11:59Speaker 5: the other weird details in that movie. But I was
- 12:01Speaker 5: just like, as soon as the... I mean, that... That situation,
- 12:05Speaker 5: we won't spoil it for you guys that for some
- 12:07Speaker 5: reason you haven't seen this movie. I don't know what
- 12:09Speaker 5: you're thinking. Run out and find it now. Go to
- 12:11Speaker 5: a rental store. Right. Go get a VHS copy. And
- 12:13Speaker 5: rent a copy of it on VHS. But yeah, it's
- 12:16Speaker 5: like it kicks in pretty early in the movie. And
- 12:18Speaker 5: I'm like, okay. And then I'm like, I think I
- 12:21Speaker 5: see why this could be problematic. And then as it
- 12:23Speaker 5: plays out, I'm like, they're not doing what I would
- 12:26Speaker 5: expect in 1981. Right. And then as it went on,
- 12:29Speaker 5: I'm like, I also was like, okay, so they're going
- 12:32Speaker 5: to lean into this. No.
- 12:34Speaker 2: Huh.
- 12:35Speaker 5: So it's like, it's so interesting that they don't really
- 12:39Speaker 5: go down. Like you would expect them to go all
- 12:41Speaker 5: the way one direction or all the way the other.
- 12:43Speaker 5: And they kind of find this weird in between that's like, again,
- 12:47Speaker 5: sort of touching and sort of like a nice balance
- 12:51Speaker 5: that is shocking for 1981 comedy.
- 12:55Speaker 11: Truly.
- 12:56Speaker 5: Yeah. I was amazed at how that went. And how
- 12:59Speaker 5: do you not love Hector Elizondo?
- 13:00Speaker 9: Oh, so good.
- 13:01Speaker 5: I can't say his name anymore. At this point.
- 13:04Speaker 6: And he was in every Gary Marshall movie, right?
- 13:05Speaker 5: Well, that's what I was going to say. He didn't
- 13:07Speaker 5: even get the credit because it's like the first movie
- 13:10Speaker 5: he shows up in. But eventually he became, and as always,
- 13:13Speaker 5: he got his own goofy little end credit every time
- 13:17Speaker 5: because he was the go-to. watch those later movies of
- 13:20Speaker 5: Gary Marshall and he's just like and here he is
- 13:23Speaker 5: again Hector's back don't worry so I love that yeah
- 13:26Speaker 5: it was funny that he became sort of his his
- 13:29Speaker 5: go-to it's his Clint Howard he's like I'm gonna work
- 13:31Speaker 5: him in here somewhere don't you worry I'll find a
- 13:33Speaker 5: spot for him.
- 13:34Speaker 6: Well yeah if you can be paid to hang out
- 13:36Speaker 6: with your buddies on a set why not.
- 13:38Speaker 5: He does seem pretty awesome so I would hang out
- 13:39Speaker 5: with him in 1981 today whenever you know it's he
- 13:43Speaker 5: seems pretty awesome.
- 13:44Speaker 6: So Yeah, he would be a good future character fest actor.
- 13:49Speaker 5: We can get to that.
- 13:50Speaker 6: Oh, yes.
- 13:51Speaker 5: I'm assuming you'll want to tell people about that. But
- 13:54Speaker 5: you also had some other stuff before that. Like I said,
- 13:58Speaker 5: this gives you a chance to sort of go into
- 14:00Speaker 5: the whole festival. I was really upset that I couldn't
- 14:05Speaker 5: be there for opening night. I love the idea, so
- 14:08Speaker 5: I guess tell people about your opening kickoff to the festival.
- 14:11Speaker 4: Sure.
- 14:11Speaker 6: We were inspired by a Cinespia program at the Hollywood
- 14:15Speaker 6: Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles, which has been going on for, golly,
- 14:18Speaker 6: I mean, decades at this point. I think it started
- 14:21Speaker 6: when I lived there in the early aughts, as I recall.
- 14:26Speaker 6: And because there's so many people buried in the Hollywood
- 14:29Speaker 6: Forever Cemetery, they started doing screenings there and tying them
- 14:33Speaker 6: into the stars of a stars film with the star and,
- 14:39Speaker 6: and their intern state. Um, so we decided to do one, um,
- 14:43Speaker 6: at the, uh, at the bluegrass Memorial gardens. And I
- 14:46Speaker 6: was a little nervous at first that, Harry's family maybe
- 14:50Speaker 6: wouldn't be excited about the idea.
- 14:52Speaker 5: I can see some people having that. They take it
- 14:55Speaker 5: the wrong way.
- 14:56Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 14:56Speaker 6: Well, I wasn't sure if it was like a little macabre.
- 14:58Speaker 6: It was like slightly morbid.
- 14:59Speaker 5: That's what I would think a lot. Again, certain people.
- 15:02Speaker 5: I always love the idea, but I'm also kind of creepy.
- 15:04Speaker 5: So it's fine.
- 15:07Speaker 6: So I reached out to the family to get permission
- 15:08Speaker 6: before I reached out to the cemetery.
- 15:10Speaker 9: Okay.
- 15:10Speaker 6: And they loved the idea. They were so excited about it.
- 15:13Speaker 6: And then I reached out to the cemetery, and we
- 15:14Speaker 6: had a great cheerleader there who got it immediately and
- 15:18Speaker 6: just sent it up the flagpole. And it was actually
- 15:22Speaker 6: really cute because he started telling us. He was like, yeah,
- 15:24Speaker 6: we have a cemetery conference. They chat with the other
- 15:28Speaker 6: cemetery folks in other markets.
- 15:30Speaker 5: Cemetery festivals.
- 15:31Speaker 6: No, but he was like, everybody in Louisville is so
- 15:33Speaker 6: jealous that we get to do this in Lexington.
- 15:35Speaker 5: I believe it.
- 15:36Speaker 8: Yeah.
- 15:37Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 15:37Speaker 6: So I think it was ultimately good for everybody. I
- 15:39Speaker 6: was a little nervous because we played Lucky and I
- 15:41Speaker 6: forgot and I always forget. No, I didn't forget with
- 15:44Speaker 6: Young Doctors in Love, but that it's a little, there's
- 15:47Speaker 6: some language and it's a little raunchy at the beginning.
- 15:49Speaker 6: It's a very sweet movie. And I just, that's always
- 15:51Speaker 6: the takeaway for me is the sweetness, but I forget
- 15:53Speaker 6: that there is. So when that started, I was like,
- 15:55Speaker 6: oh no, are they going to invite us back? That's
- 15:57Speaker 6: a lot of fucks. That's so many fucks in a row.
- 16:00Speaker 6: But then, sure enough.
- 16:02Speaker 5: I mean, it's not like there's kids there. It's mostly
- 16:04Speaker 5: old people. And dead people. That are buried, you know.
- 16:07Speaker 5: They're well old when they get buried, most of the time.
- 16:10Speaker 5: They've heard those words.
- 16:13Speaker 6: But it was fun, and it worked out great, and
- 16:15Speaker 6: people got to pay their respects to Harry. And like
- 16:16Speaker 6: I was saying to you earlier, I mean, it's wild
- 16:18Speaker 6: that his grave is next to literally a football field-sized
- 16:24Speaker 6: open space that feels like it was just made to
- 16:27Speaker 6: have outdoor movies.
- 16:29Speaker 5: When did they plan that, I guess?
- 16:31Speaker 8: After?
- 16:32Speaker 5: Or is it something he had planned years before and
- 16:34Speaker 5: had that.
- 16:34Speaker 6: Spot no no no no they didn't have the spot
- 16:36Speaker 6: at all in fact there was a lot of sort
- 16:38Speaker 6: of discussion as to where he would be buried and
- 16:40Speaker 6: they wound up he had a favorite niece and so
- 16:42Speaker 6: they put him near the favorite niece and it was
- 16:44Speaker 6: just at the at the exterior of the family plot
- 16:48Speaker 6: and i guess the cemetery itself has a plan where
- 16:50Speaker 6: they're not going to be populating that field for the
- 16:53Speaker 6: next 50 years so for the next 50 years it's.
- 16:55Speaker 5: Just going to be a field It's just for movie showings.
- 16:57Speaker 6: It's just for movies.
- 16:59Speaker 5: The way Harry would like it to be.
- 17:01Speaker 6: And it's funny because a friend that night told me
- 17:03Speaker 6: that I hadn't been aware of this fact, but across
- 17:05Speaker 6: the street. So Harry's buried across from the Kroger and
- 17:08Speaker 6: the Goodwill. And apparently in that little parcel of land
- 17:12Speaker 6: used to be a drive-in theater. So people who went
- 17:17Speaker 6: to that drive-in, this was very evocative.
- 17:19Speaker 5: How far back are we talking?
- 17:22Speaker 6: I mean, this is a person of my generation, so
- 17:26Speaker 6: this would have been the 80s.
- 17:28Speaker 5: Yeah, okay, that's not bad. I was thinking, like, way
- 17:30Speaker 5: far back, but, you know, even the 80s, that's pretty awesome.
- 17:34Speaker 6: Yeah, and he was saying that, like, when they would
- 17:35Speaker 6: fly in, when they would fly home, like, I guess
- 17:38Speaker 6: their house was, like, behind the drive-in, so that was, like,
- 17:41Speaker 6: their reference point. They would see the screen. I can
- 17:43Speaker 6: see my house from here.
- 17:44Speaker 5: Exactly.
- 17:45Speaker 6: So we provided that for, yeah, one night.
- 17:48Speaker 5: Maybe at that drive-in they showed Young Doctors. Probably.
- 17:51Speaker 6: And it all came full circle. It all comes full circle. But, yeah,
- 17:56Speaker 6: so it was a really great event, and we loved that.
- 17:58Speaker 6: And then the next day, I know you spoke to
- 18:00Speaker 6: Susan Compo.
- 18:01Speaker 5: You can get to that as well.
- 18:03Speaker 6: Yeah.
- 18:04Speaker 5: I'll let you give her a little intro, and then
- 18:06Speaker 5: maybe we'll.
- 18:06Speaker 6: Go talk to her. Yeah, she wrote the book on
- 18:09Speaker 6: Warren Oates, and it's phenomenal, and she's phenomenal. And she
- 18:14Speaker 6: happened to be in town because she's researching a program–
- 18:17Speaker 6: She's researching a book about Sam Shepard that she's been
- 18:20Speaker 6: working on and will be working on for.
- 18:21Speaker 5: Quite some time. She mentioned that.
- 18:22Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 18:23Speaker 5: And I mentioned Paris, Texas.
- 18:26Speaker 6: And so all of her books seem to have a
- 18:27Speaker 6: Kentucky tie-in. I'm sure she mentioned the Walter Tevis book
- 18:30Speaker 6: as well. So she's kind of adopted Kentuckian now. And
- 18:35Speaker 6: so we said, sure, we should do a program of
- 18:37Speaker 6: War Notes films around this. And at the time, I
- 18:40Speaker 6: didn't know Sean Young was going to be here. And
- 18:41Speaker 6: even when I knew Sean Young was going to be here.
- 18:44Speaker 6: I didn't immediately put the pieces in place that, oh, wow,
- 18:47Speaker 6: we're celebrating three people who were born in Kentucky, all
- 18:50Speaker 6: of whom were in movies with each other. I mean,
- 18:53Speaker 6: it's wild that two of her earliest films, she did
- 18:55Speaker 6: Stripes with Warren Oates and then Young Doctors in Love
- 18:58Speaker 6: with Harry Dean.
- 18:59Speaker 5: That is interesting because we don't have that many people
- 19:02Speaker 5: in general from this area, you know, compared to the
- 19:05Speaker 5: entirety of the country. So the fact that as soon,
- 19:07Speaker 5: especially for John Young, who just started, to immediately work
- 19:11Speaker 5: with all these people from my general area, like that
- 19:14Speaker 5: is a little weird, I was thinking.
- 19:16Speaker 6: And in the area where she grew up, she was
- 19:18Speaker 6: talking about that, working at Fort Knox, where her dad
- 19:22Speaker 6: had been stationed because he lied about his age and
- 19:25Speaker 6: wound up enlisting at the age of 15.
- 19:27Speaker 5: Back when you used to do that sort of thing.
- 19:29Speaker 10: Right?
- 19:30Speaker 5: It just seemed to happen a lot, it seems like.
- 19:32Speaker 6: Yeah, and so she was spending time with her cousins
- 19:35Speaker 6: because they were filming up the street from her cousin.
- 19:36Speaker 6: I mean, it's just wild.
- 19:37Speaker 5: That's crazy. Well, then let's go talk with her right now.
- 19:46Speaker 10: Sitting here bending notes all the hipsters look like war
- 19:52Speaker 10: notes can't remember what i was on but for a
- 19:59Speaker 10: couple bucks i'll play you a song.
- 20:04Speaker 1: I'm Susan Comfo, I'm the author of Worn Oats of
- 20:07Speaker 1: Wildlife and a couple of other books.
- 20:11Speaker 5: And you are here with Harry Dean Stanton Fest That's
- 20:14Speaker 5: right You've got an extra tie-in for the Worn Oats
- 20:19Speaker 5: part I guess before we get to that, I usually
- 20:22Speaker 5: start at the beginning and kind of get a feel
- 20:24Speaker 5: for people when they're up and coming and kind of
- 20:27Speaker 5: what they were interested in when they were younger So,
- 20:30Speaker 5: if you believe things on the internet, which I don't,
- 20:32Speaker 5: were you from California originally?
- 20:34Speaker 1: I was actually born in New York City, and that's
- 20:36Speaker 1: what actually in a weird way led me to the
- 20:38Speaker 1: Worn Oats Project. But I grew up in Orange County, California.
- 20:44Speaker 5: And then what I've seen, you know, you eventually kind
- 20:47Speaker 5: of get to the character actors and all that, but
- 20:49Speaker 5: you seem like you had a lot of interest in
- 20:51Speaker 5: music early on.
- 20:52Speaker 1: Oh, definitely.
- 20:52Speaker 5: I started, yeah, as a music writer.
- 20:54Speaker 1: I did a fanzine in the punk days in 1977
- 20:57Speaker 1: called Blank Generation, and The Pause was meant to be
- 21:00Speaker 1: the title, and Very few people knew how to do.
- 21:03Speaker 8: Yeah.
- 21:03Speaker 5: Here's Susan.
- 21:04Speaker 1: She's from, you know, dead air.
- 21:06Speaker 5: Nobody knows how.
- 21:08Speaker 1: To work with that. Well, actually, Rodney Bingheimer. He was
- 21:11Speaker 1: one of the few people who got it. So, yeah,
- 21:14Speaker 1: quintessential Los Angeles personality.
- 21:17Speaker 5: Yeah.
- 21:17Speaker 1: So, yeah, that was my first thing.
- 21:19Speaker 5: So what were you, were you involved in music as
- 21:23Speaker 5: far as playing it originally or just drawn to it
- 21:25Speaker 5: as a fan?
- 21:26Speaker 1: Just drawn to it as a fan.
- 21:27Speaker 5: Yeah.
- 21:27Speaker 1: I mean, I was, I always loved music growing up,
- 21:29Speaker 1: like Crosby, Stills and Nash and that sort of thing.
- 21:32Speaker 1: Then Bowie came along, huge Bowie fan. Then punk, and
- 21:35Speaker 1: then goth, and then shoegazing, happy Mondays, and then I thought,
- 21:39Speaker 1: I think I'm too old for this.
- 21:40Speaker 5: There's still a lot of crazy stuff out there.
- 21:44Speaker 1: That's very true.
- 21:45Speaker 5: Now it's just, it's so fractured. Like, everybody does their
- 21:48Speaker 5: own thing, and you just have to... happen upon it
- 21:51Speaker 5: most of the.
- 21:51Speaker 1: Time i know it's fascinating a.
- 21:53Speaker 5: Handful of people that still get pushed from the industry
- 21:55Speaker 5: but everybody else is just here you're on your own
- 21:58Speaker 5: go make your.
- 21:58Speaker 1: Music i know how hard yeah yeah i mean.
- 22:00Speaker 5: It's free you just don't make money so it's very
- 22:03Speaker 5: different than.
- 22:05Speaker 1: I think that's yeah that's unfortunate yeah because you can't
- 22:07Speaker 1: sustain it it's yeah yeah it's it's much the same with.
- 22:10Speaker 5: Writing everybody continue working their day job, even when you're
- 22:14Speaker 5: in a successful band, more than likely.
- 22:16Speaker 1: When my first book, which was a novel, got accepted,
- 22:18Speaker 1: I told everyone at my job, this is it. I'm
- 22:20Speaker 1: quitting my job. I'll never work again. Everybody looked at
- 22:22Speaker 1: me like, huh, of course I was working again within
- 22:25Speaker 1: three months.
- 22:26Speaker 5: I've never stopped working another job. No surprise there.
- 22:29Speaker 1: Never stopped working a side job. Never.
- 22:31Speaker 8: That's crazy.
- 22:32Speaker 5: But I feel like everybody, even people with What used
- 22:35Speaker 5: to be normal, legitimate jobs are the side hustle term
- 22:39Speaker 5: didn't come out of nowhere.
- 22:40Speaker 1: Right. And even authors who are doing really well have
- 22:42Speaker 1: told me that you have to at least teach.
- 22:44Speaker 6: Yeah.
- 22:45Speaker 1: You can't just write.
- 22:46Speaker 5: That does give you an option.
- 22:47Speaker 1: Even at the really highest level of people I've met
- 22:49Speaker 1: at parties and whatnot, I'm like, really?
- 22:51Speaker 5: You know?
- 22:52Speaker 1: But always, yeah.
- 22:53Speaker 5: So how did you realize, you know, once you were
- 22:56Speaker 5: just a fan of music that I also want to
- 22:58Speaker 5: write about it and then that I can write about it?
- 23:01Speaker 1: I always wrote since I was little, little. I had a,
- 23:04Speaker 1: You know, kind of not troubled childhood, but my parents
- 23:06Speaker 1: died quite young. So I had to fix that somehow.
- 23:09Speaker 1: So I started writing. I was constantly writing. I can't
- 23:13Speaker 1: remember a time in my life when I didn't write.
- 23:15Speaker 5: And were people responsive to it early or you just
- 23:18Speaker 5: kept doing it and didn't care?
- 23:20Speaker 1: Teachers were.
- 23:21Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 23:21Speaker 7: Yeah.
- 23:21Speaker 1: And so very, very encouraged and, you know, all kinds
- 23:24Speaker 1: of stuff. So, yeah. So then I started writing about
- 23:27Speaker 1: music and, you know, got kind of somewhere with it.
- 23:30Speaker 1: I mean, I got to the point where I sent
- 23:32Speaker 1: a review of a Bowie album to Cream. And I
- 23:36Speaker 1: got a letter back saying, you know, Lester Banks wants
- 23:38Speaker 1: to talk to you. So I was in my little
- 23:41Speaker 1: childhood room with my rotary dial, and I kept dialing
- 23:43Speaker 1: the number, and I couldn't do it. So I think
- 23:45Speaker 1: my students at SC, because I taught at USC in
- 23:49Speaker 1: Los Angeles, said, you know, you're like the anti-Cameron Crowe
- 23:52Speaker 1: for doing that, for not being able to do it. Yeah,
- 23:56Speaker 1: but I think my life would have been different if
- 23:58Speaker 1: I weren't too scared.
- 23:59Speaker 5: Yeah.
- 24:00Speaker 1: Well, who knows, really.
- 24:01Speaker 5: Yeah, you never know. I mean, one thing leads to
- 24:04Speaker 5: another and sometimes you think it's for a reason that
- 24:06Speaker 5: you end up where you are. Exactly. You can never tell.
- 24:09Speaker 1: Exactly.
- 24:10Speaker 5: Well, then getting into it, it's like you do a
- 24:12Speaker 5: lot of straightforward reviewing and stuff about specific artists, but
- 24:18Speaker 5: then you also cross over into fiction. So is it
- 24:22Speaker 5: something that you specifically wanted to break free from that
- 24:26Speaker 5: and just sort of focus on your own stuff? Or
- 24:29Speaker 5: was it harder to do because you didn't have somebody's,
- 24:32Speaker 5: you know, when you're still following a person's story, it's
- 24:34Speaker 5: already kind of preset for you.
- 24:36Speaker 1: I did fiction and I think actually poetry was my
- 24:39Speaker 1: first love, but I thought I'll really start.
- 24:41Speaker 5: For sure I'll start. There is no successful poet.
- 24:44Speaker 1: So I changed my major from, you know, poetry to fiction.
- 24:49Speaker 1: And I think my, my thesis at USC was my
- 24:51Speaker 1: first book, became my first book. So, well, thanks to
- 24:54Speaker 1: teachers like Hubert Selby, John Reggie. I mean, I had
- 24:57Speaker 1: big help along the way. Um, So that was my
- 25:00Speaker 1: first love. And I did three books that were nicely reviewed,
- 25:04Speaker 1: but just didn't sell anything. Despite, you know, reviews by,
- 25:09Speaker 1: not very nice review by Brady Stinellas, but, you know,
- 25:11Speaker 1: people like that.
- 25:12Speaker 5: You got them.
- 25:13Speaker 1: Front page LA Times stuff where, you know, being called vapid.
- 25:16Speaker 1: You're like, thanks.
- 25:17Speaker 5: That's what I was going for. You don't understand. People
- 25:20Speaker 5: still called it and.
- 25:21Speaker 1: Said, congratulations, that's so cool.
- 25:23Speaker 7: And I thought.
- 25:23Speaker 5: I mean, that's a bonus as people probably don't know
- 25:25Speaker 5: what that means.
- 25:26Speaker 9: No, they don't.
- 25:27Speaker 5: Or they just did.
- 25:28Speaker 1: I'm sorry, but the head of my department called and said,
- 25:30Speaker 1: that's really great, Susan. And I thought, well, that's what
- 25:33Speaker 1: we were going for.
- 25:35Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 25:35Speaker 1: But again, it didn't, it didn't make a blind bit
- 25:37Speaker 1: of difference.
- 25:38Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 25:38Speaker 5: I mean, that is one of those you wonder, like,
- 25:40Speaker 5: at least when it's about a specific well-known person, like,
- 25:43Speaker 5: it's got an audience already.
- 25:45Speaker 1: Of some kind, yeah.
- 25:45Speaker 5: But just starting from nothing and, like, how does it
- 25:48Speaker 5: find people? Much like music now, it's like, how do
- 25:50Speaker 5: you find people?
- 25:50Speaker 1: Right, right.
- 25:51Speaker 5: How do they know to come find your book?
- 25:53Speaker 1: Right, right.
- 25:54Speaker 5: Yeah, it's an ordeal. Yeah. But then, yeah, getting into, like,
- 25:59Speaker 5: the different artists and doing more of a biography type
- 26:01Speaker 5: of thing. So was that more.
- 26:04Speaker 1: I always wanted to write a biography. I'd read Patricia Bosworth,
- 26:07Speaker 1: Montgomery cliff biography. And I thought, you know, people kept
- 26:10Speaker 1: saying that's the gold standard. I think I can do
- 26:12Speaker 1: better than that. Well, I'm not sure that I could,
- 26:14Speaker 1: but I really wanted to try.
- 26:15Speaker 5: Yeah.
- 26:16Speaker 1: And then I was, you know, in London with a
- 26:18Speaker 1: friend cause I worked, I lived there 10 years and
- 26:20Speaker 1: was working. And I thought, I said to my friend
- 26:23Speaker 1: over lunch, what, I just don't know who to write
- 26:25Speaker 1: a biography about. You said, why don't you write about
- 26:27Speaker 1: your favorite actor? And I thought, Oh, my favorite actor's
- 26:30Speaker 1: war notes. I don't think there is a book. And,
- 26:34Speaker 1: Lo and behold, there wasn't. So I tried everywhere, got
- 26:39Speaker 1: pretty much nowhere. And then I was actually reading a
- 26:41Speaker 1: book from University Press of Indiana on Carol Lombard, because
- 26:46Speaker 1: she was native Indianan. I thought, well, let me try Kentucky.
- 26:50Speaker 5: Just the fact that your favorite actor was worn out
- 26:52Speaker 5: is different than a lot of people.
- 26:54Speaker 1: I guess that's true.
- 26:55Speaker 5: That is sort of his thing, really. It's like everybody knows. Well,
- 26:59Speaker 5: if you're... of an age to have watched his films.
- 27:02Speaker 5: It's like, you're like, I know that guy. And then
- 27:03Speaker 5: there's other people that are big fans of his, but he's,
- 27:06Speaker 5: he never really broke through to being leading man, which
- 27:09Speaker 5: is not, you know, not really what some actors are
- 27:11Speaker 5: going for. So that's what we've kind of found, you know,
- 27:14Speaker 5: looking at this, you know, Harry Dean Stanton Fest over
- 27:16Speaker 5: the years, it's like some people are just working actors
- 27:19Speaker 5: and they like it that way. And they're focused on
- 27:21Speaker 5: what they're doing and not so much about stardom and,
- 27:24Speaker 5: you know, being a well beloved actor.
- 27:27Speaker 7: Right.
- 27:28Speaker 1: I think he would have, He would like to have
- 27:30Speaker 1: crept through the big stardom, but I don't think he
- 27:32Speaker 1: was that driven in that way.
- 27:34Speaker 5: Yeah.
- 27:35Speaker 1: He liked, yeah, roles, like working.
- 27:38Speaker 5: Well, and we'll definitely get to him, but I guess
- 27:40Speaker 5: I also kind of wonder looking at moving into doing biographies,
- 27:44Speaker 5: like what do you think, because you were even looking
- 27:47Speaker 5: at one that you liked, it's like you wanted to
- 27:48Speaker 5: do something better than that. What do you think you
- 27:50Speaker 5: were doing that was different from, than, you know, previous
- 27:54Speaker 5: writing and then from what other, you know, biographers did.
- 27:56Speaker 1: Even though it was fiction, it was all about me,
- 27:58Speaker 1: you know, even though it was thin and I was
- 28:00Speaker 1: so anxious to get out of myself.
- 28:02Speaker 6: I guess.
- 28:02Speaker 1: Yeah. I was so anxious to be able to get
- 28:04Speaker 1: away from myself.
- 28:05Speaker 5: Yeah.
- 28:05Speaker 1: And it, I, I have, but I noticed that you
- 28:09Speaker 1: still find time to write about what you like. So
- 28:12Speaker 1: for instance, I love going on road trips. If Warren
- 28:14Speaker 1: went on a few road trips, he went on a
- 28:16Speaker 1: million in my book just because I love writing about it.
- 28:19Speaker 5: So, you know, I, what little i've done writing that
- 28:23Speaker 5: became the only thing like mine was fanzine and it
- 28:26Speaker 5: was only things i cared and then like there were
- 28:28Speaker 5: a few times i was asked to do other stuff
- 28:30Speaker 5: and i didn't i was like well this is work
- 28:32Speaker 5: now yeah i.
- 28:33Speaker 1: Don't want to do work like and it's hard to
- 28:35Speaker 1: make it it's not.
- 28:36Speaker 5: Fun yeah so it's like when you write about stuff
- 28:38Speaker 5: you love it's not such a you know it's not
- 28:41Speaker 5: work anymore it's kind of fun still it's work in
- 28:43Speaker 5: a sense but it's still not yeah it's not like
- 28:46Speaker 5: the The nine to five it becomes when you, like,
- 28:48Speaker 5: get on at some paper and you're forced to write
- 28:50Speaker 5: about whatever comes up that week.
- 28:52Speaker 11: Yeah.
- 28:53Speaker 1: It's a strange thing to do, though, because biography, you
- 28:55Speaker 1: really don't have a life.
- 28:56Speaker 5: Yeah.
- 28:57Speaker 1: It's really gone.
- 28:57Speaker 9: Yeah.
- 28:58Speaker 1: For four years. I mean, your friends know it. Like, oh, no,
- 29:01Speaker 1: here she comes.
- 29:01Speaker 5: She's going to talk about that, you know? She'll end
- 29:03Speaker 5: up in some little town in Kentucky somewhere. Yeah.
- 29:06Speaker 1: Well, midway the other day.
- 29:08Speaker 5: Yeah.
- 29:10Speaker 1: So, I mean, yeah, it's kind of... I've gone to
- 29:13Speaker 1: a party one time that was just for biographers, and
- 29:15Speaker 1: I thought... Well, I wonder if people will talk about themselves,
- 29:18Speaker 1: you know, as we do at parties. They didn't, but
- 29:20Speaker 1: everybody talked about their subject.
- 29:22Speaker 5: That becomes you.
- 29:24Speaker 1: Yeah, it was the funniest thing. So you'd like wander
- 29:26Speaker 1: from person to person to talk about their subject.
- 29:29Speaker 5: You know, I'm no different.
- 29:30Speaker 1: Educational. I mean, you learn a lot of stuff. It
- 29:32Speaker 1: was actually more fun, you know, rather than, and then I,
- 29:35Speaker 1: you know.
- 29:37Speaker 5: I guess because most people probably aren't that interesting. Yeah.
- 29:40Speaker 5: when you pick these people that warrant their own biography,
- 29:42Speaker 5: they're probably pretty interesting.
- 29:43Speaker 1: Yeah, they've done something to get there.
- 29:46Speaker 5: Yeah. So along those lines, I guess once we get
- 29:48Speaker 5: into that, what... When you're knee deep in Warren Oates trivia,
- 29:52Speaker 5: like what were some of the stranger and more interesting
- 29:55Speaker 5: things you found out about him as you dug into it?
- 29:57Speaker 1: Well, that he loved road trips, that he was really
- 29:59Speaker 1: interested in Zen Buddhism. I didn't know that. I didn't
- 30:02Speaker 1: know that he had a real Zen approach.
- 30:03Speaker 5: Again, when you see some of his films, you wouldn't
- 30:05Speaker 5: necessarily think that.
- 30:06Speaker 1: And I think that people have asked him certain things like,
- 30:08Speaker 1: how did you do the Alfredo Garcia grave robbing scene? Well,
- 30:11Speaker 1: there's many reasons or ways, but he said, I use
- 30:13Speaker 1: my Zen, you know. That's interesting. Well, he used to
- 30:16Speaker 1: send us some mushrooms, but you know.
- 30:18Speaker 5: That's also not a shock.
- 30:19Speaker 1: Yeah, a fair few other additions. But that and that
- 30:25Speaker 1: he was so loved. I never saw people drop anything,
- 30:30Speaker 1: everything to talk about Warren.
- 30:32Speaker 5: And this was just people who knew him personally or
- 30:34Speaker 5: people that worked with him or everyone. Everyone, everyone, everyone.
- 30:38Speaker 1: I don't think anyone, well, Peter Fonda was a little bit.
- 30:41Speaker 1: He wanted to, but then he kept canceling, and I'm
- 30:44Speaker 1: not really sure what was going on there.
- 30:46Speaker 5: We hear weird stories about him.
- 30:47Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 30:47Speaker 5: He had a rough growing up, too.
- 30:49Speaker 4: He did, too.
- 30:49Speaker 6: He did, too.
- 30:50Speaker 5: He came from a strange family and was thrown into
- 30:52Speaker 5: stardom before he knew what to do with it.
- 30:54Speaker 2: So, yeah.
- 30:55Speaker 1: A good friend to warn, I would have loved to
- 30:56Speaker 1: have his input, but not after being stood up twice,
- 30:59Speaker 1: you know?
- 30:59Speaker 3: No.
- 30:59Speaker 1: Like, no, not doing it again.
- 31:00Speaker 5: Yeah.
- 31:01Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 31:02Speaker 5: Well, then, I guess, of crossovers there, I mean, he
- 31:05Speaker 5: and Harry Dean Stanton worked together several times.
- 31:07Speaker 2: Right.
- 31:07Speaker 5: And then, so I guess, what was the connection between
- 31:11Speaker 5: the two of them that you found?
- 31:12Speaker 1: Well, certainly Kentucky.
- 31:13Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 31:14Speaker 1: And just a love of a craft, and actually a
- 31:15Speaker 1: real competition, since they were up for a lot of
- 31:18Speaker 1: the same roles, and in a way occupied a similar
- 31:21Speaker 1: kind of character.
- 31:22Speaker 5: Yeah. I mean, Harry Dean always read older, you know?
- 31:26Speaker 5: It's like, even when he was young, he felt like...
- 31:28Speaker 5: He did read older, and he was.
- 31:30Speaker 1: I think four years older.
- 31:31Speaker 5: Yeah. But still, four years is nothing compared to on screen.
- 31:34Speaker 5: He could play 20 years older probably easy from the
- 31:37Speaker 5: time he was 30. He just always came off so
- 31:41Speaker 5: much older than he actually was. You're right.
- 31:44Speaker 1: I think they both had droll senses of humor, both
- 31:47Speaker 1: interested in deep conversation, drinking, pop, whatever else was going on.
- 31:52Speaker 5: None of that surprises me.
- 31:53Speaker 1: Running around with women, you know.
- 31:55Speaker 5: Interesting the... zen part of it too, because the more
- 31:58Speaker 5: you get into Harry Dean, the more like he has
- 32:00Speaker 5: this philosophy and his is almost nihilism at some points.
- 32:05Speaker 5: I mean, he gets so into like nothing matters, but
- 32:09Speaker 5: at the same time, I always, I always found fault
- 32:11Speaker 5: with that. I'm like, but a man who put together
- 32:13Speaker 5: such an amazing career and was so beloved by other people.
- 32:17Speaker 5: And like, I feel like, I don't know. I don't
- 32:20Speaker 5: see how that works.
- 32:21Speaker 4: Like, right.
- 32:23Speaker 5: He just seemed like he had so much pride in
- 32:25Speaker 5: what he did that I'm like, well, obviously your work
- 32:27Speaker 5: matters and the people you love matter. So I don't know.
- 32:29Speaker 5: I think that became more of a thing he liked
- 32:31Speaker 5: to throw out there. I always sort of questioned it
- 32:34Speaker 5: because I think he's so impressive as who he was.
- 32:37Speaker 1: Oh, sure. There's an F. Scott Fitzgerald saying that I
- 32:39Speaker 1: think I have as one of my Facebook, whatever these
- 32:42Speaker 1: things is. And he said, few things matter and nothing
- 32:45Speaker 1: matters very much. And when you think someone like, Scott Fitzgerald,
- 32:49Speaker 1: I think everything matters. You know, evidence from his work
- 32:52Speaker 1: and his life. I don't think few things matter to him.
- 32:54Speaker 5: Meticulous.
- 32:55Speaker 1: Yeah, everything matters. Everything. Yeah, yeah.
- 32:59Speaker 5: Well, and then I guess, you know, from both Warren
- 33:01Speaker 5: and Harry Dean Stanton, they're, again, very different in the
- 33:06Speaker 5: style of acting and the projects that they took on.
- 33:08Speaker 5: So what do you think was so different about those
- 33:11Speaker 5: type of actors and those men in particular, I suppose?
- 33:15Speaker 1: Well, I grew up in it. Well, let's see. It's
- 33:17Speaker 1: very different because Harry Dean came out west and trained
- 33:20Speaker 1: in the Presidium Playhouse and came up that route.
- 33:22Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 33:22Speaker 1: Warren went to New York and did early TV, not
- 33:27Speaker 1: really much Broadway, but a little bit.
- 33:29Speaker 5: Yeah.
- 33:29Speaker 1: And then came west when TV started getting hot. And
- 33:33Speaker 1: Harry Dean was more trained theatrically.
- 33:35Speaker 5: Yeah.
- 33:36Speaker 1: But they both deeply cared about their craft, even though
- 33:39Speaker 1: they didn't. well i don't know necessarily speak about acting
- 33:44Speaker 1: yeah how what acting called for but.
- 33:47Speaker 5: But they're both very committed to that level.
- 33:50Speaker 1: Yes and they both studied yeah it was not an accident.
- 33:53Speaker 5: They don't just show up like you know as much
- 33:56Speaker 5: as again certainly harry dean always came off like you
- 33:59Speaker 5: know he could just kind of roll in but he
- 34:01Speaker 5: you know if you if you find out more about
- 34:03Speaker 5: him he would prepare and he would work and like
- 34:06Speaker 5: he would put so much of himself into that role
- 34:09Speaker 5: and Warren I'm sure it was the same way.
- 34:11Speaker 2: Right.
- 34:12Speaker 5: But they're also very different from you know especially at
- 34:16Speaker 5: that time you know so many of the big movies
- 34:18Speaker 5: came from like the 70s.
- 34:20Speaker 6: Right.
- 34:20Speaker 5: So these type of you know real men, as they
- 34:24Speaker 5: used to throw around that term, like, they kind of
- 34:26Speaker 5: come across as, like, they're not your fancy Hollywood star. Like,
- 34:30Speaker 5: they really do seem like somebody that, you know, you'd
- 34:33Speaker 5: probably work with. If they weren't, you know, a movie star,
- 34:36Speaker 5: they would be working at a job with you.
- 34:38Speaker 1: Yeah, and they didn't have glamour Hollywood lives.
- 34:40Speaker 5: Yeah. They were pretty down-to-earth as people, but also sort
- 34:44Speaker 5: of brought that to the screen.
- 34:45Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. Realism.
- 34:48Speaker 5: Yeah. Well, then, I don't know. Were there any, like,
- 34:51Speaker 5: specific stories about Warren Oates that were something to throw
- 34:56Speaker 5: out there for people that ended up in the book?
- 34:58Speaker 1: Well, I mean, he had a thing called the Roach Coach,
- 35:01Speaker 1: which was his traveling RV for obvious names. And they
- 35:05Speaker 1: would take this thing everywhere. They'd take it out to
- 35:07Speaker 1: Joshua Tree to look for UFOs. They'd drive to locations
- 35:11Speaker 1: with this. Warren and his friend Bob Watkins would Drive
- 35:15Speaker 1: to Montana a lot to Livingston where they had their
- 35:17Speaker 1: little Montana mafia, you know, Hollywood on the Yellowstone. And
- 35:23Speaker 1: would do a thing called the cowboy change, which they
- 35:25Speaker 1: would change seats while the van was in motion.
- 35:29Speaker 5: That sounds safe.
- 35:30Speaker 1: Yeah, sounds safe.
- 35:30Speaker 5: I'm sure they weren't on anything either.
- 35:32Speaker 1: Oh, no, not at all.
- 35:34Speaker 5: No substances were involved.
- 35:35Speaker 1: Yeah, loads and loads of fun, you know, it seems
- 35:38Speaker 1: like doing that.
- 35:39Speaker 11: Definitely.
- 35:39Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 35:40Speaker 5: Well, I mean, we've definitely got the book we can
- 35:43Speaker 5: tell people about, but do you want to discuss anything else?
- 35:47Speaker 5: I mean, you mentioned you're working on other stuff. You're
- 35:50Speaker 5: free to throw that out there.
- 35:50Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I did a book on the making of
- 35:52Speaker 1: The Man Who Fell to Earth, which was interesting. So
- 35:54Speaker 1: Bowie Project. Yeah, so talk to Nick Rogue briefly. He
- 35:59Speaker 1: was end of his life, not doing so well. And
- 36:03Speaker 1: pretty much everyone involved with the film except Bowie, because
- 36:06Speaker 1: I thought I might get him, but then alas, you know.
- 36:08Speaker 5: It's an elusive character.
- 36:11Speaker 1: Interesting to do the life of a film because that
- 36:14Speaker 1: book was written by Walter Tavis, a Kentuckian, and set
- 36:17Speaker 1: in Kentucky, set to be filmed in Kentucky, but then
- 36:22Speaker 1: moved to New Mexico because they had a freer... Pricing.
- 36:26Speaker 5: That's usually what does it. Oh, absolutely.
- 36:28Speaker 1: And they could have an all-British crew.
- 36:29Speaker 5: Yeah.
- 36:30Speaker 1: But try to imagine the film without the landscape of
- 36:34Speaker 1: New Mexico.
- 36:34Speaker 5: Yeah. sometimes again sometimes things happen for a reason.
- 36:38Speaker 1: Yeah it really did so that was fun to do
- 36:41Speaker 1: and then now I'm working on a project about I'm
- 36:42Speaker 1: not the only one but Sam Shepard so yeah yet
- 36:45Speaker 1: another Sam Shepard book and it's.
- 36:46Speaker 5: It's crossover he yeah his his contribution to Paris Texas
- 36:51Speaker 5: is phenomenal so very true yeah he's he's got a
- 36:54Speaker 5: nice little connection to Harry Dean and of.
- 36:56Speaker 1: Course that yeah and the connection to Kentucky yeah yeah
- 36:59Speaker 1: yeah and that's that's it's it's fun but it's bittersweet
- 37:04Speaker 1: yeah this one it's a little bit harder.
- 37:08Speaker 5: He at least had a good run and got to
- 37:11Speaker 5: work on so many different projects over the years.
- 37:14Speaker 1: He really did. Oddly, I find a lot of.
- 37:18Speaker 1: It worked with Graham Clifford who edited The Man Who
- 37:20Speaker 1: Fell to Earth and also directed Francis, so brought Sam
- 37:24Speaker 1: and Jessica together. Anyway, he said that Sam reminded him
- 37:29Speaker 1: a lot of David Bowie. It's a funny sort of
- 37:31Speaker 1: way they have a lot in common.
- 37:32Speaker 5: It's interesting.
- 37:33Speaker 1: Like fear of flying, change names... getting their teeth fixed
- 37:37Speaker 1: and actually using their illnesses at the end of life
- 37:40Speaker 1: to create work.
- 37:41Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 37:41Speaker 1: And there's, there's more than that. And it's kind of
- 37:44Speaker 1: a strange thing to jump off and, but I'm doing it.
- 37:46Speaker 5: I'm creative people.
- 37:47Speaker 2: You know?
- 37:47Speaker 6: Yeah.
- 37:47Speaker 8: Yeah.
- 37:48Speaker 5: When you're super creative, even in totally different ways, I
- 37:51Speaker 5: think there is like a weird Venn diagram somewhere.
- 37:54Speaker 1: Exactly.
- 37:54Speaker 11: Yeah.
- 37:55Speaker 5: There's a crossover that like.
- 37:57Speaker 1: They were actually in the same place once. And I
- 37:59Speaker 1: wish they could have.
- 38:00Speaker 5: It seems like they would have hit it off.
- 38:02Speaker 1: I think they would have, they would have had things
- 38:03Speaker 1: in common regardless. Cause, Bowie went to see Sam play
- 38:06Speaker 1: A Lie of the Mind in New York. And his
- 38:09Speaker 1: sister told me they were both standing, leaning against the
- 38:11Speaker 1: wall in the lobby, not talking to anybody. And she said,
- 38:15Speaker 1: I really should go up to one and say, hey,
- 38:16Speaker 1: let me introduce you to my brother. It would be
- 38:20Speaker 1: fun to know what they were talking about. But again,
- 38:22Speaker 1: there's a period or a time where Sam meets Charles
- 38:25Speaker 1: Bukowski at the racetrack. And I think, oh, I'd love
- 38:28Speaker 1: to know what they're talking about.
- 38:29Speaker 5: I horses yeah it's probably not again not.
- 38:32Speaker 1: The state of the universe they're talking about who's you
- 38:35Speaker 1: know they're not that's it.
- 38:36Speaker 5: I think that's the that's the thing is instead of
- 38:39Speaker 5: the reality of it you you take that moment and
- 38:42Speaker 5: you write a story about it so you can create
- 38:44Speaker 5: a meeting of them yeah that would be way more
- 38:46Speaker 5: interesting wouldn't that.
- 38:47Speaker 1: Be great yeah and yeah like i said they definitely
- 38:49Speaker 1: had the high cheap bones market covered you know yeah
- 38:52Speaker 1: definitely kings of the high cheap bones.
- 38:54Speaker 5: Definitely yeah Well, any of these books, I guess what's
- 38:58Speaker 5: the best way for people to find them if they
- 38:59Speaker 5: want to pick up a version?
- 39:01Speaker 1: Amazon or, you know, bookshop.org, which is much more independent
- 39:04Speaker 1: bookstore friendly and, you know, gives back a bit more.
- 39:07Speaker 1: But probably anywhere.
- 39:10Speaker 8: Yeah.
- 39:11Speaker 1: Except probably not too many bookstores.
- 39:12Speaker 5: Yeah, they're hard to find. We have a few. Oh,
- 39:15Speaker 5: I was in one today. I was in Black Swan.
- 39:17Speaker 1: I got some Shepard. I got some Shepard in there.
- 39:20Speaker 5: There's a handful still hanging on in my town, and
- 39:22Speaker 5: I think Lexington's.
- 39:23Speaker 1: Got oh really yeah i should go.
- 39:25Speaker 5: I can yeah i can try to think of a
- 39:26Speaker 5: few for that.
- 39:27Speaker 1: Would be good that's something for maybe more shepherd definitely.
- 39:30Speaker 5: Yeah but yeah so i guess go look for those
- 39:33Speaker 5: and pick them up and thank you.
- 39:34Speaker 1: For talking okay well thanks for coming by.
- 39:36Speaker 5: No problem thank you you're welcome.
- 39:53Speaker 6: And you weren't in any scenes with Warren that I recall,
- 39:56Speaker 6: but you said that you did get to know him.
- 39:59Speaker 2: We were in some of the chase sequences. Remember when
- 40:02Speaker 2: we're in Russia and he's on top of the EM-50
- 40:08Speaker 2: and then they like blow it up and I think
- 40:10Speaker 2: his last line is, I'm getting.
- 40:11Speaker 1: Too old for this shit.
- 40:15Speaker 2: So we were all hanging around at that time when
- 40:17Speaker 2: we were in that area and that actual location was
- 40:20Speaker 2: the Jim Bean distillery in Kentucky. And the funny thing,
- 40:28Speaker 2: it was literally a block away from my first cousins.
- 40:31Speaker 2: So for lunch break, I used to go up to
- 40:34Speaker 2: my cousins, and then he'd let them come back down.
- 40:37Speaker 2: And it was just funny being able to work in Louisville.
- 40:41Speaker 1: During the weekends, I would go see my grandparents who.
- 40:43Speaker 2: Lived on 41st Street, near downtown Louisville. And it was... Yeah,
- 40:52Speaker 2: it was just, and it was my actually first big
- 40:56Speaker 2: budget Hollywood film.
- 40:57Speaker 1: The only one I had done, I can't remember if
- 41:00Speaker 1: I did.
- 41:01Speaker 9: Blade Runner first.
- 41:02Speaker 2: I guess I must have. So, Stripes was my first
- 41:04Speaker 2: big Hollywood film, then Blade Runner, then Young Doctors in Love.
- 41:07Speaker 9: Yeah.
- 41:08Speaker 1: That's quite a lineup.
- 41:10Speaker 9: It was.
- 41:11Speaker 2: It opened very quickly, and I think people forget that
- 41:13Speaker 2: I was actually pretty young when my star arose. And, yeah,
- 41:20Speaker 2: I had a not a lot of experience. So I
- 41:24Speaker 2: really had to learn quickly.
- 41:25Speaker 1: And with the dance background, I was lucky to be
- 41:29Speaker 1: able to move well.
- 41:30Speaker 2: I didn't have a lot of problems figuring out what.
- 41:34Speaker 1: To do because I could look at other people.
- 41:36Speaker 2: But getting comfortable talking, well, I personally can see that
- 41:40Speaker 2: in this film. I'm pretty self-conscious.
- 41:44Speaker 1: I can kind of pick it up and kind.
- 41:46Speaker 5: Of go like that voice. You know, that's what I'm saying.
- 41:53Speaker 11: I'm like, where am I going to get that?
- 41:56Speaker 1: I have no idea.
- 41:58Speaker 6: It totally works for the character because you're from a
- 42:00Speaker 6: rural community and you're kind of having.
- 42:02Speaker 5: Your eyes open to a bigger city.
- 42:04Speaker 1: If you say so.
- 42:05Speaker 2: I'll buy it.
- 42:06Speaker 1: I'll take it. It's my story and I'm sticking with it.
- 42:22Speaker 7: This is Hunter Carson, and you're listening to me have
- 42:26Speaker 7: a meltdown on Movie Meltdown.
- 42:34Speaker 5: I guess, do we round it out with rounding out
- 42:36Speaker 5: of the festival? Do we go to the closing night ceremonies?
- 42:40Speaker 4: Sure.
- 42:42Speaker 6: What would you like to know?
- 42:43Speaker 5: I don't know. I guess just give the rundown of
- 42:46Speaker 5: what you did on that last day and how you
- 42:48Speaker 5: kind of closed things out. Sure.
- 42:50Speaker 6: So we had two films that we have never shown before,
- 42:53Speaker 6: which is very exciting for us. One that I've been
- 42:55Speaker 6: wanting to show for a very long time, which is
- 42:57Speaker 6: one from the heart. Frederick Forrest, who I think is
- 43:00Speaker 6: one of the greatest character actors of all time, sadly
- 43:03Speaker 6: passed away in June. And we had already planned to
- 43:06Speaker 6: screen this. We obviously didn't want it to be a
- 43:08Speaker 6: memorial screening, but that's what it wound up being. His
- 43:11Speaker 6: friendship with Harry I find fascinating. I had the incredible
- 43:16Speaker 6: privilege to have a phone chat with him one time
- 43:19Speaker 6: Jamie James who I should also mention will be playing
- 43:22Speaker 6: in Lexington as sort of a epilogue to Harry Dean
- 43:24Speaker 6: Stanton Fest he was Harry's longtime guitar player and he
- 43:28Speaker 6: was very tight with Fred Forrest and so he gave
- 43:31Speaker 6: me his number and we got to chat for a
- 43:32Speaker 6: little while and I learned things about Harry that I
- 43:35Speaker 6: did not know that I have not read anywhere that
- 43:37Speaker 6: I've heard no one else report for instance that he
- 43:40Speaker 6: went and shot a scene for Apocalypse Now have we
- 43:43Speaker 6: talked about this?
- 43:43Speaker 5: I don't think so.
- 43:44Speaker 6: Harry was in Apocalypse Now, fully shot the scene, and
- 43:48Speaker 6: I'm really embarrassed because I can't remember the name of
- 43:50Speaker 6: the actor who wound up actually being in the movie
- 43:52Speaker 6: in Harry's role.
- 43:54Speaker 5: Martin Sheen.
- 43:56Speaker 8: Oh, my God.
- 43:56Speaker 6: That would be a very different movie.
- 43:58Speaker 5: What a movie that would be.
- 43:59Speaker 6: Marlon Brando.
- 44:01Speaker 5: Oh, what a crazy movie this is turning out to be.
- 44:05Speaker 5: Lawrence Fitch. Young Harry Dean somehow CGI'd him before that
- 44:11Speaker 5: technology existed.
- 44:12Speaker 6: But Frederick Forrest obviously played Chef, and he had flown
- 44:16Speaker 6: out with Harry to be on the set, and then apparently,
- 44:20Speaker 6: I guess, of all the many things that happened during
- 44:23Speaker 6: the course of the filming of Apocalypse Now, one of
- 44:25Speaker 6: the things was a bunch of lost footage due to
- 44:28Speaker 6: a storm, and that footage was lost, and then I
- 44:31Speaker 6: guess they said, you know, now that we have to
- 44:34Speaker 6: reshoot this, maybe we'll just go in a completely different direction.
- 44:37Speaker 5: Yeah. We don't even have that footage. Even if it
- 44:41Speaker 5: didn't end up in the.
- 44:41Speaker 6: Movie, the fact that we can't see it is just terrible.
- 44:44Speaker 5: Yeah, I hate that. Anytime that happens, which happens a
- 44:48Speaker 5: lot in movie history, and yeah, it's always kind of painful.
- 44:53Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 44:53Speaker 5: Just as a movie geek. But I want to see it,
- 44:55Speaker 5: even if it's not part of the movie.
- 44:57Speaker 6: But I had never heard that. And Fred wouldn't make
- 45:01Speaker 6: it up. So I believe Fred.
- 45:04Speaker 5: Well, and I believe everything went wrong with that movie.
- 45:07Speaker 5: So I can't question that, oh, something destroyed this footage.
- 45:11Speaker 5: Any number of things could have destroyed. From the cast
- 45:14Speaker 5: members to Storms. helicopters, take your pick. Like, who knows
- 45:19Speaker 5: what could have gone wrong in the making.
- 45:20Speaker 8: Of that film.
- 45:21Speaker 6: And I can see it being something that Harry wouldn't
- 45:23Speaker 6: talk about afterward, because I know he was sort of
- 45:25Speaker 6: sensitive about that sort of thing. He pretended to be
- 45:27Speaker 6: utterly without ego, but he was not.
- 45:29Speaker 5: I discussed that earlier as well.
- 45:32Speaker 6: Okay, interesting.
- 45:33Speaker 5: Well, I always have that, like... So complicated. The claiming that,
- 45:37Speaker 5: you know, nothing matters, but yet being so dedicated to
- 45:40Speaker 5: his craft and so beloved by... everyone around him. And
- 45:43Speaker 5: I'm like, all these things are obviously important. So it's
- 45:47Speaker 5: such a weird balance with him, but.
- 45:48Speaker 6: Well, it was very, and I think we've probably talked
- 45:50Speaker 6: about this before too, but Sophie Huber's sort of theory
- 45:53Speaker 6: on this and partly fiction was that he cared so
- 45:56Speaker 6: much that he had to get to a place in
- 45:59Speaker 6: his life where he tried to adopt this This veneer
- 46:04Speaker 6: of not caring.
- 46:06Speaker 5: So it didn't overwhelm him.
- 46:07Speaker 6: To sort of convince himself, but was probably not entirely successful.
- 46:13Speaker 5: I didn't buy it.
- 46:14Speaker 6: Yeah.
- 46:15Speaker 5: Every time I watched something where he talked about it,
- 46:18Speaker 5: I was like, different people, I might even buy this,
- 46:21Speaker 5: but not from you. There's too much awesome, amazing stuff
- 46:24Speaker 5: there and too much connecting with other human beings. I'm like,
- 46:28Speaker 5: I'm not buying it.
- 46:30Speaker 6: Yeah, and I get it. And then we showed The
- 46:33Speaker 6: Fourth War, which is a John Frankenheimer film from the
- 46:36Speaker 6: early 90s. Oh, I do want to mention there's something
- 46:38Speaker 6: very important that Young Doctors in Love and One from
- 46:42Speaker 6: the Heart were both films just sort of close together.
- 46:45Speaker 6: So they have one unifying Harry Dean characteristic, which is
- 46:50Speaker 6: that for a brief time, Harry Dean had the most
- 46:53Speaker 6: amazing early 80s permanent.
- 46:56Speaker 10: And.
- 46:56Speaker 5: I was going to say, his hair in Young Doctors
- 46:58Speaker 5: in Love is pretty epic. Yeah.
- 47:00Speaker 3: Well.
- 47:02Speaker 6: Watch One from the Heart. It's got nothing on One
- 47:04Speaker 6: from the Heart.
- 47:04Speaker 5: So this is a shared universe. Yes. Sort of its
- 47:07Speaker 5: own little Harry Dean has its own MCU.
- 47:09Speaker 6: The unifying, yes.
- 47:10Speaker 5: Not that he isn't also in the MCU. Because he is.
- 47:13Speaker 5: Because he is. But the Harry Dean universe is its
- 47:16Speaker 5: own thing that's bigger than that.
- 47:18Speaker 6: So, yeah. So, and then The Fourth War, we actually
- 47:22Speaker 6: had requests to screen that because recently Quentin Tarantino had
- 47:27Speaker 6: discussed that film on his podcast and everybody was like, wait,
- 47:29Speaker 6: what is this movie about?
- 47:32Speaker 5: That's what most movies he talks about.
- 47:34Speaker 6: It's fine. And it's actually, you know, it's not a
- 47:37Speaker 6: good movie. I'm not going to pretend it is. But
- 47:39Speaker 6: Harry's great in it. I mean, he plays a military
- 47:43Speaker 6: man and he is intense.
- 47:45Speaker 5: Which is interesting because that's not how you see him
- 47:47Speaker 5: most of the time. It's very off-brand.
- 47:50Speaker 6: Opposite of him, yeah. Very off-brand. And he also like
- 47:55Speaker 6: has the sort of the framing device of the whole movie.
- 47:57Speaker 6: He narrates it starting in the beginning and bookends it
- 48:01Speaker 6: and then has this incredible scene in the middle that
- 48:03Speaker 6: Quentin Tarantino talked about as just being the most absurd
- 48:06Speaker 6: example of just pure exposition. He just, I mean, you
- 48:09Speaker 6: don't have to watch the movie because the two minutes
- 48:12Speaker 6: of him explaining what the movie is about is the movie.
- 48:15Speaker 5: Just give us a Harry Dean super cut.
- 48:17Speaker 6: Yeah.
- 48:17Speaker 5: It's like all the stuff that we need about Harry
- 48:19Speaker 5: Dean and then we'll skip the rest of it.
- 48:20Speaker 8: Yeah, yeah.
- 48:21Speaker 6: But Tim Reed's great in it, so props to Tim Reed.
- 48:23Speaker 8: Yeah.
- 48:25Speaker 6: But it's fine.
- 48:29Speaker 5: Wait, there's a lot of movies. We've got to work
- 48:30Speaker 5: through all of them.
- 48:31Speaker 4: Yeah.
- 48:31Speaker 5: Gary Dean cranked out a lot of stuff over the years.
- 48:34Speaker 6: And I will say I was resistant to that for
- 48:36Speaker 6: a long time. I was like, well, there's some movies
- 48:38Speaker 6: we just can't show.
- 48:39Speaker 5: We can't show Young Doctors.
- 48:40Speaker 6: We can't show Dream a Little Dream, but we did.
- 48:43Speaker 5: And you did that. That was also Saturday night. You
- 48:46Speaker 5: had a packed Saturday.
- 48:47Speaker 6: Saturday was wild. And that is because initially Dream a
- 48:50Speaker 6: Little Dream was going to be the only Saturday night event.
- 48:53Speaker 6: And then Sean Young said, I can only do Saturday.
- 48:56Speaker 6: So we were like, okay, we'll do all the things. So,
- 49:00Speaker 6: and it worked out great.
- 49:01Speaker 5: And people enjoy Dream a Little Dream. They enjoy. What
- 49:06Speaker 5: is this word? I mean, I like a Corey. Not
- 49:09Speaker 5: necessarily both Corys. I'm favorable to one Cory, kind of
- 49:13Speaker 5: annoyed with another Cory.
- 49:15Speaker 8: Fair.
- 49:15Speaker 6: I actually love this movie. I think it's like a
- 49:18Speaker 6: Corey arthouse movie, which is so weird.
- 49:22Speaker 9: Why?
- 49:22Speaker 5: I remember watching it. I think Cable was the only time.
- 49:26Speaker 5: I skipped it at the theater because it seemed like
- 49:28Speaker 5: Corey's gone wrong. And then I remember seeing it and
- 49:30Speaker 5: I'm going, what is going on with this movie?
- 49:33Speaker 6: It was so designed to fail in a way that
- 49:36Speaker 6: I find really fun. Um, and I think, uh, obviously
- 49:40Speaker 6: Piper Laurie is always incredible. Like the cast, like you
- 49:43Speaker 6: can't even think of it as like a Corey's movie.
- 49:45Speaker 6: Cause it was like a Jason Robards, Piper Laurie movie.
- 49:48Speaker 6: Like anyway, I love this film.
- 49:50Speaker 5: Um, We'll be seeing more of this is what it
- 49:53Speaker 5: sounds like.
- 49:54Speaker 6: We had some audio issues. We had some technical issues.
- 49:57Speaker 6: And it was actually funny because we've never, I mean,
- 49:59Speaker 6: things go pretty seamlessly with Harry Dean Stanifest.
- 50:02Speaker 5: Surprisingly over the years, yeah.
- 50:03Speaker 6: I've always said that that's just because of the magic
- 50:05Speaker 6: and the energy that surrounded Harry. And that night, everything
- 50:08Speaker 6: was going wrong. And I was like, what the fuck
- 50:11Speaker 6: is happening? It's Harry Dean Stanifest. Everything's supposed to go right.
- 50:14Speaker 6: And I was like, oh, I forgot the curse of
- 50:17Speaker 6: the Corys. Is going to overwhelm the magic of Harry Dean.
- 50:22Speaker 6: These two forces.
- 50:23Speaker 5: Are diametrically opposed. Yeah.
- 50:26Speaker 6: So, so there it is. So we'll have to screen
- 50:29Speaker 6: it another time or I don't know. Do we mess with,
- 50:32Speaker 6: I don't know. We'll see.
- 50:33Speaker 5: I think, I think you can work with it.
- 50:35Speaker 6: Yeah. But yeah, that was, that was the weekend.
- 50:39Speaker 8: Awesome.
- 50:40Speaker 5: So is there a good, before we get to the
- 50:43Speaker 5: next phase, If people are interested in the next go-round,
- 50:46Speaker 5: is there a good place for just Harry Dean or
- 50:48Speaker 5: is it all becoming one big thing? No.
- 50:52Speaker 6: So we're going to keep– are you saying– Well, no.
- 50:54Speaker 5: As far as just finding out information, just go to
- 50:57Speaker 5: the website kind of thing.
- 50:57Speaker 6: HarryDeanStanFest.org.
- 50:58Speaker 5: Yes.
- 50:59Speaker 6: You can get all of your Harry Dean Fest information there.
- 51:02Speaker 11: All right.
- 51:02Speaker 5: So there's your plan for that.
- 51:04Speaker 8: Yes.
- 51:04Speaker 5: For when you're thinking this sounds super awesome. You're right.
- 51:07Speaker 5: And then you can start planning for next year. Yeah.
- 51:10Speaker 6: And we already have the dates because we always do
- 51:12Speaker 6: it around Harry's birthday. So 2024, it'll be July 12th
- 51:15Speaker 6: through the 14th.
- 51:16Speaker 8: There you go.
- 51:16Speaker 5: So mark your calendars. Start making your travel plans now.
- 51:20Speaker 5: Which people do.
- 51:21Speaker 6: They do.
- 51:22Speaker 5: The people I run into every year, both of which
- 51:25Speaker 5: don't live either in my town or your town, and
- 51:28Speaker 5: come into town for it. I mean, as this has
- 51:31Speaker 5: gone on, you've developed your own little, like, not just
- 51:34Speaker 5: fan base, but sort of family that, like, they're back
- 51:38Speaker 5: every year. And now like, that's kind of amazing for anything,
- 51:41Speaker 5: especially in your own town, but to travel to an
- 51:44Speaker 5: entire different place just to be part of this is,
- 51:46Speaker 5: I think that says a lot.
- 51:48Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 51:48Speaker 6: It's our family reunion.
- 51:49Speaker 8: Yeah.
- 51:50Speaker 5: It's pretty amazing. So you should be part of that
- 51:52Speaker 5: next time around. Yes, please. And then we know because
- 51:57Speaker 5: of last year, you've got an offshoot kind of new thing,
- 52:01Speaker 5: new compared to the Harry Dean that's been going on
- 52:04Speaker 5: for a while. So, Do you want to discuss, or
- 52:07Speaker 5: at least give a basic... teaser for the sure the
- 52:10Speaker 5: next and upcoming festival.
- 52:12Speaker 6: So as inspired by harry dean stanton despite the fact
- 52:14Speaker 6: that he did not like being called a character actor
- 52:17Speaker 6: um sorry lead in paris texas damn you people well
- 52:21Speaker 6: i think he always said like what what's the stupid
- 52:24Speaker 6: like a character you're always a character but i think
- 52:26Speaker 6: he didn't like.
- 52:27Speaker 5: He was definitely a character in whichever way you want
- 52:29Speaker 5: to phrase that but he's also yeah yeah bring an
- 52:32Speaker 5: amazing character to what you do if you're.
- 52:34Speaker 6: A good actor but we definitely want to we've Initially,
- 52:38Speaker 6: we were thinking that we would end Harry Dean Stanfest
- 52:41Speaker 6: at some point. Clearly, that's never going to happen. It's
- 52:42Speaker 6: going to go on as long as I have breath
- 52:44Speaker 6: in my lungs. But we decided that we also want
- 52:48Speaker 6: to honor living actors. And so we do a standalone
- 52:52Speaker 6: character fest this year. It is going to be in November.
- 52:56Speaker 6: Last year was in the summer right after Harry Dean Stanfest.
- 52:58Speaker 6: That was a terrible idea.
- 52:59Speaker 5: Because you were trying to kill yourself. Yes, basically.
- 53:02Speaker 6: But it didn't work.
- 53:04Speaker 5: So now you're going to... have a reasonable way to
- 53:07Speaker 5: deal with it yes and spread them out a little.
- 53:09Speaker 6: Bit yes so that's a that's a lexington film or
- 53:11Speaker 6: a harry dean stanfest kentucky theater co-production um and so
- 53:15Speaker 6: we'll all the events will be at the kentucky unlike
- 53:17Speaker 6: harry dean stanfest where we obviously jump around and do
- 53:20Speaker 6: a bunch of stuff yes sometimes literally yeah right from
- 53:22Speaker 6: one thing to the next um but uh the first
- 53:26Speaker 6: year we honored cy richardson who was the most amazing
- 53:29Speaker 6: guest and again that oh my gosh he was incredible
- 53:32Speaker 6: and that was another like weird everything comes back to
- 53:34Speaker 6: kentucky moment because we had no idea when we invited
- 53:37Speaker 6: him that his lovely wife theresa is from lexington and
- 53:40Speaker 6: so her whole family came and that wound up being
- 53:42Speaker 6: a family reunion for them and it was awesome.
- 53:44Speaker 5: That was pretty fun i remember just standing there watching
- 53:47Speaker 5: them just all these people and they were all just
- 53:50Speaker 5: Not near as thrilled that he was there as like
- 53:52Speaker 5: we were. It was just they were having family reunions,
- 53:55Speaker 5: talking to each other, just glad to be hanging out
- 53:57Speaker 5: at the theater and like having a good time together. Yes.
- 53:59Speaker 6: And they were so supportive of him. I talk about
- 54:01Speaker 6: this all the time because they're a church going family
- 54:05Speaker 6: and Cy and his wife are both people of faith.
- 54:08Speaker 6: And so they went to church on Sunday morning. And
- 54:11Speaker 6: then the first afternoon screening we had was Alex Cox's
- 54:14Speaker 6: Straight to Hell. Which I was sitting there for.
- 54:17Speaker 5: It is not necessarily what you would think of to
- 54:20Speaker 5: follow up your church ruins.
- 54:21Speaker 6: Yes, but they were so supportive of Psy that they
- 54:24Speaker 6: came and they watched it and they applauded appropriately.
- 54:28Speaker 5: It's amazing in its own right, but that's kind of
- 54:31Speaker 5: awesome for them.
- 54:32Speaker 6: Yes, Xander Berkley does play, well, no spoilers.
- 54:37Speaker 5: It's amazing. It's not what you would expect if you've
- 54:40Speaker 5: ever seen a movie. It's not like one of those.
- 54:44Speaker 5: It is its own weird thing. I remember the first
- 54:46Speaker 5: time I watched it going, I love this. And what
- 54:48Speaker 5: the hell is it? And I watched it again in
- 54:51Speaker 5: the theater. I was like, yep, still crazy as hell.
- 54:54Speaker 5: And yet I can't get enough of it. It's so weird.
- 54:58Speaker 5: And so terrific. And yeah, so I love that movie.
- 55:00Speaker 3: Yeah.
- 55:00Speaker 6: And it's another one that's a very good cinematic communal
- 55:04Speaker 6: experience because, yeah, the reaction.
- 55:07Speaker 5: The reaction of what? Why is this like that? And
- 55:12Speaker 5: I don't. Give me more. That's every moment of that movie.
- 55:17Speaker 6: But yeah, so we'll be having our second annual Character
- 55:19Speaker 6: Fest at the Kentucky Theater in November. We have not
- 55:22Speaker 6: announced who our guest is. Maybe we'll do that soon.
- 55:26Speaker 5: I'm just glad to know at least the ballpark. I
- 55:28Speaker 5: wasn't even sure when it was hitting. So I'm like,
- 55:30Speaker 5: all right, we'll at least try to narrow that down today.
- 55:33Speaker 5: So now you can start planning that. You only have
- 55:35Speaker 5: to wait till next year now. You can just start
- 55:37Speaker 5: a couple months out. Start piecing your plan together.
- 55:40Speaker 2: Yep.
- 55:42Speaker 5: That's how you'll kick off your holidays. You'll go to
- 55:43Speaker 5: Character Fest.
- 55:44Speaker 4: Exactly.
- 55:44Speaker 5: And then you'll start Christmas shopping.
- 55:46Speaker 8: So, you know.
- 55:46Speaker 6: Yeah, that's how you'll know from now on. It's Christmas
- 55:49Speaker 6: shopping season after Character Fest.
- 55:50Speaker 5: Everyone on your list gets, you know, swagged from Character Fest. Yes. Okay,
- 55:57Speaker 5: so is there a specific place for that or.
- 56:02Speaker 6: No, we do.
- 56:03Speaker 5: Because I know it goes through a lot of other people.
- 56:07Speaker 5: So that's why I didn't know what's the best place
- 56:08Speaker 5: to find it, if any.
- 56:10Speaker 6: Well, if there are any web designers listening, because we
- 56:14Speaker 6: do have a domain. And I tried to resuscitate my
- 56:20Speaker 6: already paltry design skills. And it didn't go great.
- 56:25Speaker 5: It's a lot to deal with.
- 56:26Speaker 6: There will be a characterfest.org. Not super active at the
- 56:30Speaker 6: moment or existent at all.
- 56:33Speaker 5: I'm looking at mine earlier today, and I'm like, yeah,
- 56:35Speaker 5: I need to fix that, too.
- 56:37Speaker 10: And that.
- 56:38Speaker 5: Like, there's stuff from so long ago that's still there that, like,
- 56:41Speaker 5: I need to fix that. But it takes so much time.
- 56:44Speaker 8: It's just.
- 56:46Speaker 5: Websites. It's a lot to deal with. But, yes. I
- 56:49Speaker 5: get it.
- 56:49Speaker 9: Yeah.
- 56:50Speaker 6: But yes, the Harry Dean Stanton Fest Facebook page. We
- 56:53Speaker 6: have a Character Fest Instagram, so you can follow that.
- 56:56Speaker 6: I think it's just called Character Fest. I'm not good
- 56:59Speaker 6: at this part.
- 57:01Speaker 5: Sorry. If you don't find it, message me. I'll find
- 57:03Speaker 5: it for you. Yeah, there you go.
- 57:04Speaker 2: Perfect.
- 57:04Speaker 5: And send it right to you. So sooner or later,
- 57:07Speaker 5: one way or another, we'll find what you need. Just
- 57:09Speaker 5: let us know. All right. Well, thank you for recapping.
- 57:13Speaker 8: Thank you.
- 57:14Speaker 5: And then throwing the heads up for the next thing
- 57:16Speaker 5: that's coming.
- 57:16Speaker 6: I appreciate you being part of the Harry Dean Stanfest family.
- 57:19Speaker 5: I thank you for letting me come back every year.
- 57:22Speaker 5: I asked you this year, I was like, do you
- 57:23Speaker 5: want me to come? Because at this point, I don't
- 57:25Speaker 5: assume anybody needs me anywhere. So I'm like, every event now,
- 57:29Speaker 5: I'm like, do you guys want.
- 57:30Speaker 8: To do this?
- 57:31Speaker 5: It's fine for me.
- 57:32Speaker 6: You're part of the team.
- 57:34Speaker 5: I appreciate that, but I don't assume anything. So I'm
- 57:39Speaker 5: glad to be part of the team. Thank you for
- 57:42Speaker 5: joining us for this episode. overview of Harry Dean and
- 57:45Speaker 5: celebration of everything that is Harry Dean. Otherwise that about
- 57:49Speaker 5: does it. We will return next time. Same geek feed.
- 57:51Speaker 5: Thanks for listening.
- 58:12Speaker 10: Hey, Hey, Hey.
- 58:14Speaker 11: Hey, hey, hey. Hey, hey, hey. Hey, hey, hey. I
- 58:44Speaker 11: think I'm gonna go You know I wanna live with
- 58:53Speaker 11: you Wanna be a little wild You know it's me,
- 59:03Speaker 11: you know it's true The time is right for us now.
- 59:07Speaker 3: So come along with me, babe.
- 59:10Speaker 11: Hey, hey, hey.
- 59:22Speaker 9: I want to gently touch your home. I wanna touch
- 59:26Speaker 9: your lego I want it to feel you close, oh
- 59:33Speaker 9: I want it to feel you close, oh.
- 59:37Speaker 3: Under the stars tonight Under the pale blue moon, yeah
- 59:44Speaker 3: And under the cool night breeze And into the cool
- 59:49Speaker 3: night glow.
- 1:00:08Speaker 8: Bye.
- 1:00:09Speaker 1: Bye.
- 1:00:57Speaker 12: They usually do, like, figures from history. But the problem
- 1:01:04Speaker 12: with that is we learn from history that we don't
- 1:01:07Speaker 12: learn from history.
- 1:01:09Speaker 5: That is true.
- 1:01:09Speaker 12: But we learn from Harry Dean Stanley. that we do
- 1:01:12Speaker 12: learn from Harry Dean Stanton.
- 1:01:14Speaker 6: Yeah, that's a good point.
- 1:01:15Speaker 8: This episode is a production of Movie Meltdown, produced and
- 1:01:18Speaker 8: edited by The Oddity Studios, with the opening music performed
- 1:01:21Speaker 8: by The Empires. For more on how to sponsor or
- 1:01:24Speaker 8: support the show, email producer at moviemeltdown.com.
- 1:01:27Speaker 1: Talk hard!
- 1:01:34Speaker 5: This program is a proud member of the Battleship Pretension Fleet.