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The wildest Oscar campaign in film history · The Front

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  Speaker 1: From the Australian. This is the weekend edition of The Front.
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  Speaker 1: I'm Claire Harvey. Marty Supreme has been labeled the cinematic
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  Speaker 1: event of the year by Jordie Gray, a writer at
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  Speaker 1: The Australian and my guest on today's show. The movie
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  Speaker 1: star Timothy Schallomey is up for a Best Actor Oscar
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  Speaker 1: in this frenetic nineteen fifties ping pong thriller, Chalomey plays
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  Speaker 1: a young Jewish New Yorker trying to make a life
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  Speaker 1: for himself in a community still reeling from the Holocaust
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  Speaker 1: and almost ready to laugh about it. Marty Supreme debut
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  Speaker 1: at number one in Australian cinemas and theaters are packed
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  Speaker 1: with young viewers, all creating the biggest buzz we've seen
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  Speaker 1: since Barbenheimer in July twenty twenty three. Today, Jeordie helps
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  Speaker 1: me unpack this bedazzling piece of cinema with some help
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  Speaker 1: from director Josh Safti. It's hard to nail down a
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  Speaker 1: genre for Marty Supreme.
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  Speaker 2: Discussing I'm back from my trip. This is over. I'm
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  Speaker 2: not coming back here and doing this. Speaking of which,
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  Speaker 2: we settle now. I gotta buy my plane.
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  Speaker 1: Things there are moments of levity my lunch break. You'll
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  Speaker 1: never come back after your lunch break.
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  Speaker 2: That's what you think of me? Yes, you think I
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  Speaker 2: would go.
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  Speaker 1: In it, but it's not a comedy. The lead character,
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  Speaker 1: Marty Mauser played by Timothy Shallomey, is a ping pong prodigy,
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  Speaker 1: but this is no Rocky N's winding out mister Mason.
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  Speaker 1: There's romance, sort of, but it's more sex as a
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  Speaker 1: means to an end than gone with the wind. Marty
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  Speaker 1: Mauser is similarly hard to pin down. He's selfish and charming.
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  Speaker 2: You knows something of a performer too, are you? Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: you don't believe me? Who are?
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  Speaker 1: He's handsome but completely untrustworthy that I'm telling you this
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  Speaker 1: game at fills stadiums overseas. Mausa is a dreamer and
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  Speaker 1: it's only a matter of time before I'm staring at
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  Speaker 1: you from the cover of a Wheaty's bus. And his
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  Speaker 1: life is a nightmare. He's Jordy Gray. In conversation with
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  Speaker 1: director Josh Safti.
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  Speaker 2: The thing that I love most about your movies is
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  Speaker 2: that your characters don't just make bad choices, they sort
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  Speaker 2: of double down on them.
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  Speaker 3: I think they're good choices. Really they're making a bad choice.
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  Speaker 3: Because no one makes a bad choice. It's perceived as
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  Speaker 3: bad or it ends up being bad. Sometimes he makes
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  Speaker 3: the best possible choice for his dream, which might be
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  Speaker 3: a bad choice for other people. Yeah, and consequences, and
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  Speaker 3: the movie is about consequence in general, and youth allows
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  Speaker 3: you to think that there are no such thing as consequences, Jeordie.
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  Speaker 1: I thought I would start this interview by reading you
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  Speaker 1: some of the comments on your story about Marty Supreme.
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  Speaker 1: This is always slightly dangerous territory. But Helen said, saw
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  Speaker 1: this movie last night, Absolutely fab messy. But that's the point.
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  Speaker 1: Surely a meditation on the Great American Dream. MG said,
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  Speaker 1: saw it yesterday. An absolute dog of a movie, with
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  Speaker 1: sincere apologies to dogs. It presents as a series of
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  Speaker 1: incoherent short stories loosely tied around one central character who
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  Speaker 1: is very easy to dislike. What did you think of
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  Speaker 1: Marty Supreme as a viewer?
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  Speaker 2: First, I absolutely loved it, but I am a fan
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  Speaker 2: of the Safti's really hectic, frantic filmmaking. I imagine for
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  Speaker 2: people that don't like to feel like they're being assaulted
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  Speaker 2: at the cinema, it's not fun. But if you want
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  Speaker 2: to feel something, in this case mostly anxiety, that is
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  Speaker 2: really fun.
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  Speaker 1: It is a very stress full watching experience because it's
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  Speaker 1: about a central character, Marty Mauser, a table tennis champ
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  Speaker 1: who's based on a real life character who is striving
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  Speaker 1: in the post war years in New York to make
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  Speaker 1: something of himself, to become a superstar. He is willing
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  Speaker 1: to do anything to meet that goal. Isn't here. It's
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  Speaker 1: tough to watch him.
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  Speaker 2: Still swindle, lie everything.
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  Speaker 1: Come onus, learn from me. The movie starts with him
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  Speaker 1: getting his girlfriend pregnant in a back room of the
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  Speaker 1: shoe shop where he's working.
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  Speaker 2: His girlfriend who hasn't actually his girlfriend, but a childhood
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  Speaker 2: sweetheart who is married to another man who is quite
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  Speaker 2: a brute. I wouldn't want a cross.
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  Speaker 1: No, there's a formula for how big studios promote giant movies,
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  Speaker 1: but for Marty Supreme, Timothy Challamey has rewritten it. He
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  Speaker 1: did the standard magazine covers and talk shows, but he
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  Speaker 1: also did viral video where he pretended to be a
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  Speaker 1: complete asshole in a zoom call.
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  Speaker 3: If I go on Jimmy Phone, I want to see
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  Speaker 3: Mardy Supreme Christmas Day on Mary Supreme Chrismas Day, Righty
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  Speaker 3: Supreme Christmas. Hey, Timothy's anything interesting.
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  Speaker 2: Happened to you in your life?
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  Speaker 3: The last complement Marty Supreme Christmas.
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  Speaker 1: Day giant orange ping pong ball stunts. They pulled an
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  Speaker 1: orange blimp up over Los Angeles. He roped in girlfriend
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  Speaker 1: cosmetics billionaire Kylie Jenner to wear matching bright orange outfits
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  Speaker 1: on a red carpet and check out. Chalame's bag is
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  Speaker 1: the shape of a ping pong cattle. YEA graysulation says,
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  Speaker 1: that is a great jacket you're wearing.
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  Speaker 3: Thank you, I think one of the best marketing jobs
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  Speaker 3: of any film I've ever seen.
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  Speaker 1: You've done a fantastic job with.
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  Speaker 3: This movie, man, I appreciate it, Jimmy, and honestly, just
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  Speaker 3: getting this platform for the.
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  Speaker 2: Movie, this specific promotional campaign has been so fun, crucially
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  Speaker 2: and also so culturally fluent. It's not just Timothy that's
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  Speaker 2: behind it, though. He tapped this Glaswegian director and photographer
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  Speaker 2: called Aidan Zamiri, who also works with Billie Eilish, Charlie
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  Speaker 2: XCX of The Globe Conquering Brat, and this Swedish rapper
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  Speaker 2: young Leen Sami and Schallomey started working together for Charala
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  Speaker 2: May's last movie, A Complete Unknown, the bubb Villain biopic,
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  Speaker 2: and he was responsible for the videos of like Timothy
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  Speaker 2: Shallomey dancing outside the Eiffel Tower and choreographed his arrival
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  Speaker 2: to the London premiere on an e bike. It's just
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  Speaker 2: these weird moments that are design to go viral.
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  Speaker 1: The Marty Supreme marketing just got so much crazier because
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  Speaker 1: Timothy Chalomey is the first person to ever be on
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  Speaker 1: the Las Vegas spear, Like, yeah, we got a watch?
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  Speaker 2: Are Supreme is an American film Christmas? It's just an
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  Speaker 2: interesting media study. But I also to that point, don't
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  Speaker 2: think that's the only reason the film was successful. Marty's
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  Speaker 2: Supreme is the perfect object for a kind of film
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  Speaker 2: culture that blossomed during the pandemic. Platforms, especially Letterboxed, which
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  Speaker 2: is like a New Zealand owned movie logging platform, took off.
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  Speaker 2: Excuse younger. I think eighteen to thirty four is the
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  Speaker 2: age bracket young, very online, very taste conscious, Like it
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  Speaker 2: became a place where you could flex the sort of
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  Speaker 2: niche movies you were into. So watching movies became not
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  Speaker 2: just like a comfort but also a sort of competition.
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  Speaker 2: In a sense, going to the movies has now been
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  Speaker 2: gamified because you are incentivized to sort of see it
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  Speaker 2: early and review it quickly and having a take on
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  Speaker 2: it is part of the fun, which I guess is
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  Speaker 2: why you see these movies and it's opening weeks and
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  Speaker 2: it's just packed with eighteen to thirty four year olds,
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  Speaker 2: because that they're all part of this culture.
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  Speaker 1: Marty Mauser is loosely based on real life Jewish table
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  Speaker 1: tennis champ Marty Reisman. Josh Safti is Jewish and so
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  Speaker 1: is Challa May. Marty Supreme is set less than a
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  Speaker 1: decade after World War Two, and Chalamae's character reckons that
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  Speaker 1: means it's okay to joke about the death camps. There's
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  Speaker 1: a scene where the main character Mighty Mouses Ping Pong
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  Speaker 1: rival another Jewish man from New York and a friend.
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  Speaker 1: They're talking about how he's going to crush him in
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  Speaker 1: the upcoming match, and he says, I'm going to do
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  Speaker 1: to him what Auschwitz couldn't achieve, and then the other
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  Speaker 1: character has a flashback of the Holocaust of himself as
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  Speaker 1: a prisoner in a German extermination camp. He goes out
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  Speaker 1: to dispose of a bomb with the permission of the SS,
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  Speaker 1: finds a beehive, covers himself in the honey from the beehive,
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  Speaker 1: and then goes back into the camp and allows the
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  Speaker 1: other inmates to lick the honey off him, which is
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  Speaker 1: as horrifying to watch as it sounds. And around me
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  Speaker 1: people did not know how to react to that. They
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  Speaker 1: were sort of sort of laughing, but aware that the
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  Speaker 1: Holocaust is rarely funny. What happened when you were at
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  Speaker 1: the cinema? How do people react to that scene?
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  Speaker 2: I do think it was a It was a laughter,
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  Speaker 2: but it's the kind of laugh you do when you
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  Speaker 2: don't know how to respond to what you're seeing. I
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  Speaker 2: know some people experience that at funerals. It's a very
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  Speaker 2: just like, I guess your body betraying you, stress response,
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  Speaker 2: stress response exactly. So, yeah, there was a little bit
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  Speaker 2: of that, and it does kind of come straight after
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  Speaker 2: that walloping Holocaust line that you just never ever hear
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  Speaker 2: lines like that in a movie. But yes, you mentioned
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  Speaker 2: people laughing the cinema, and I think that's because it
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  Speaker 2: is the most sincere and horrifying scene in what has
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  Speaker 2: ostensibly been to that point a comedy.
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  Speaker 1: Marty Supreme's script does a lot to establish time and place,
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  Speaker 1: but the casting really seals the deal. Here's Josh Saftie
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  Speaker 1: talking to Jordie Gray.
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  Speaker 3: Someone like Frand Dresher, for example.
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  Speaker 2: Well, we've got to make Magnie beautiful. Yeah, like that's
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  Speaker 2: going to happen.
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  Speaker 1: Hey, be nice to your sister. Why because we're a family.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, that's right.
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  Speaker 1: And someday your father's going to be old and sick,
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  Speaker 1: you're going to want him to live with.
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  Speaker 3: I wanted to cast somebody who immediately communicated New York Judaism,
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  Speaker 3: Jewish new Yorker and my youth and that voice. You
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  Speaker 3: also sometimes cast somebody for their voice, and the same
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  Speaker 3: thing can go with Sandra Bernhardt. You have these crackling women.
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  Speaker 3: I don't have to do anything. I'll have to do
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  Speaker 3: is just set them up and give them the scenario.
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  Speaker 3: I recently saw an interview with Matt Dillon where he
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  Speaker 3: said the face is the greatest location you can shoot in.
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  Speaker 3: And I think that that is really beautifully said. Because
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  Speaker 3: you're location scouting with a face, you understand where you
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  Speaker 3: are without saying it.
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  Speaker 1: There's been some reporting Beaswake a story that's been around
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  Speaker 1: for a while, brothers seem to have had a feud
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  Speaker 1: or certainly separated them making projects separately. The story this
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  Speaker 1: week was about an accusation from an underage actor who
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  Speaker 1: was in a movie that they'd made previously, that a
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  Speaker 1: non actor, someone who just recently got out of jail,
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  Speaker 1: exposed himself to her on set and left her feeling
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  Speaker 1: vulnerable and scared. Apparently that's the source of this feud
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  Speaker 1: between the Safety brothers. That seems to me like it
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  Speaker 1: might be an attempt to stop Josh Safty winning an
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  Speaker 1: Oscar or in an Oscar campaign season. What do you think?
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  Speaker 2: I wouldn't speculate on what is true or not, but
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  Speaker 2: it is interesting that the brothers then made another movie
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  Speaker 2: together after because it was for the movie Good Time,
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  Speaker 2: and then they made uncut jams. But what is interesting
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  Speaker 2: in the timing, You know, Oscar season has a long
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  Speaker 2: tradition of reputational sabotage films build momentum, they're tipped for
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  Speaker 2: Best Picture, and then suddenly a controversy emerges. Last year
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  Speaker 2: we had The Brutalist and its use of AI on
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  Speaker 2: Adrian Brady's Hungarian accent. I think the year before we
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: had The Holdovers, which was an Alexander Payne movie that
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  Speaker 2: was accused of plagiarism. This all stems back to Jump Scare,
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  Speaker 2: Harvey Weinstein and Miramax. In the nineties, his campaigning became
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  Speaker 2: ruthlessly strategic. You know, some people say that's why Gwyneth
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  Speaker 2: Paltrow won the Best Actress Award for Shakespeare.
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  Speaker 1: In Love over Saving Private Ryan.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, but whether or not this particular story is meaningful,
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  Speaker 2: it fits a familiar pattern. You know, once a film
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  Speaker 2: becomes a front runner, it also becomes vulnerable.
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  Speaker 1: Coming up. How do you even make a film like this?
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  Speaker 2: It's every man f himself where I come from.
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  Speaker 1: That's just how I grew up. Ambition, drive, self determination,
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  Speaker 1: They're all key to Marty Maus's character for better or worse.
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  Speaker 2: Let me ask you something, What do you plan to
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  Speaker 2: do if this whole dream of yours doesn't work? It?
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  Speaker 2: It doesn't even enter my consciousness?
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  Speaker 1: He's Josh Safety again.
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  Speaker 3: I'm a very very anxious person, but I am a
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  Speaker 3: dreamer and Marty's dream is different. He believes that if
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  Speaker 3: he can do this thing, he can change the world.
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  Speaker 3: He believes he has a purpose, and that conviction that
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  Speaker 3: you have to have in order to chase that dream.
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  Speaker 3: Is very similar to filmmaking. You know, I have to
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  Speaker 3: have a blind ambition. I have to otherwise, no one
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  Speaker 3: wants a movie to exist. You have to will it
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  Speaker 3: into the world.
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  Speaker 1: Timothy Schellum is missed out on Oscar twice before he's
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  Speaker 1: nominated for Best Actor for Marty Supreme. Do you think
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  Speaker 1: he deserves it?
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  Speaker 2: Absolutely? I think this particular best actor race is between
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  Speaker 2: him and Leonardo DiCaprio. Leonardo DiCaprio is predictably amazing, but
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  Speaker 2: one battle after another is an ensemble piece, and Marty
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  Speaker 2: Supreme is a vehicle for Timothy Chalmay to deliver the
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  Speaker 2: performance of a lifetime.
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  Speaker 1: Jordie Gray is an entertainment reporter with The Australian. You
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  Speaker 1: can read her story on Martysupreme at the Australian dot
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  Speaker 1: com dot a U slash culture. This episode of the
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  Speaker 1: Front was hosted by me Claire Harvey and produced by
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  Speaker 1: Jasper Leek. Thanks for joining us on the Front this week.
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  Speaker 1: Our team also includes Kristin amyot le At, Samaglue, Tiffany
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  Speaker 1: Yamac and Joshua Burton.