Latest / Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast / BPS 306: Making Quentin Tarantino's Lost First Feature Film with Andy Rausch

Transcript

BPS 306: Making Quentin Tarantino's Lost First Feature Film with Andy Rausch · Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast

0:03
You are listening to the IFH podcast Network. For more amazing filmmaking and screenwriting
0:08
podcasts, just go to IFAH podcast network dot com. Welcome to the Bulletproof
0:13
Screenwriting Podcast, episode number three oh six. When people ask me if I
0:17
went to film school, I tell them no, I went to films.
0:21
Quentin Tarantino broadcasting from a dark, windowless room in Hollywood when we really should
0:27
be working on that next draft. It's the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast, showing you
0:31
the craft and business of screenwriting while teaching you how to make your screenplay bulletproof.
0:36
And here's your host, Alex Ferrari. Welcome, Welcome to another episode
0:42
of the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast. I am your humble host Alex Ferrari. Now,
0:46
today's show is sponsored by Bulletproof script Coverage. Now. Unlike other script
0:52
coverage services, Bulletproof Script Coverage actually focuses on the kind of project you are
0:58
in the goals of the project are, so we actually break it down by
1:00
three categories micro budget, indie film, market, and studio film. There's
1:06
no reason to get coverage from a reader that used to reading tempole movies when
1:10
your movie is going to be done for one hundred thousand dollars and we wanted
1:12
to focus on that. At Bulletproof Script Coverage, our readers have worked with
1:17
Marvel Studios, CIA, WME, NBC, HBO, Disney, Scott Free,
1:23
Warner Brothers, The Blacklist, and many many more. So if you
1:26
need your screenplay or TV script covered by professional readers, head on over to
1:32
cover my Screenplay dot com. Well, guys, today, we have a
1:36
special episode we have on the show today author and journalist Andy Rausch, And
1:42
Andy's written a book about the making of Quentin Tarantino's technically first feature film that
1:53
never got released. That film is called My Best Friend's Birthday, and there
2:00
was a version of it floating around the internet. It's about twenty five thirty
2:04
minutes. And there's been a lot of myth around what actually happened to that
2:08
footage? Is there an existing cut somewhere? Somebody said, and I'm not
2:15
sure if it was Quentin or if it was somebody else, but said that
2:17
the film was burned up in a live accident, and most of that film
2:21
got burned up, and all there is is what was left. Well,
2:24
we find out the truth in this because Andy got to speak to a lot
2:30
of people that were involved in the making of that film, including Quinton,
2:35
and he has an hour and a half long conversation with Quinton where Quinton really
2:39
just lays it all out and he's really proud of that film and he would
2:44
like to see it come out one day, possibly just to kind of get
2:49
it out there, not to hide from its imperfections and its issues and sometimes
2:53
amateur nature because he was just starting out. He was just trying to figure
2:57
out the form. And even then, you could still here the Quentin Tarantino
3:01
we all know and love. You could see some of the visuals there.
3:05
You can see the beginnings of it, and it is so important in in
3:09
cinema history to know what exactly happened to that. And Andy spent years getting
3:15
all these interviews together and really talking to people and finding out what the truth
3:21
is. So in this episode, we are going to go deep down the
3:24
rabbit hole of Quentin Tarantino's first unreleased film, My Best Friend's Birthday. So,
3:30
without any further ado, please enjoy my entertaining conversation with Andy rausch I'd
3:38
like to welcome to the show, Andy Rauschman. How are you doing.
3:39
Andy, Hey, how's it going. Man, I'm good, man,
3:43
I'm good. Thank you so much for your patience on forgetting us on getting
3:47
us together. It's been it's been a minute, but we're here now.
3:52
It's been a it's been a little while, but all good things, you
3:54
know, okad things come for those who waits to get this thing together.
3:59
So we're all here. Um now. I was scanning the the the Worldwide
4:03
Web the other day and uh, I came across your book about the making
4:09
of Quentin Tarantino's first quote unquote feature, uh, And I was fascinated that
4:16
someone took the time to dig into the unreleased film My Best Friend's Birthday,
4:24
which I've spoken about a bit on the on the show, and I've also
4:28
you know, written a couple of articles about it and done and you know,
4:30
just and there's there's some of it available online for people to watch and
4:33
stuff. But I really love to get into the into the weeds on it.
4:39
So, um, for those who don't know, um, where Quentin
4:44
got his start, can you kind of talk a little bit about his origins
4:46
and getting into into this project. Okay. Well, one of the things
4:51
that the book focuses on is some of the the even earlier projects that Quinton
4:56
had worked done. My Best Friend's Birthday was the first one that he directed,
4:59
but he helped out and on some other films. It was basically the
5:02
essentially the same crew that worked on those and so really it evolved, so
5:08
he worked on it. These are no budget movies shot in people's backyards on
5:14
you know, basically on video and um, and these were in the early
5:18
eighties. And like there's one where you know, Quintin's the bad guy and
5:24
everybody talks about it, but there's no you know, they were like he's
5:27
great, but you know, there's no there's no footage left of it.
5:30
And you know, that was I believe directed by al Horrell, which is
5:34
a member of that group that everybody talks about Alice passed on now, but
5:40
um, you know, and I think that was kind of a mix of
5:44
as I'm trying to remember, it was kind of like a sault On Precinct
5:48
thirteen meet something else I can't even remember. But then like Quinton and I
5:56
think Craig Hammond, who co wrote My Best Friend's Birthday, were the bad
6:00
guys, if I remember correctly, in that movie, and they don't exist
6:03
any and they don't look, none of those footage exist anymore, no,
6:08
not as far as I know, And he worked on some other stuff here
6:11
and there. So he ends up getting them. We'll not really even getting
6:15
the money. He ends up getting the desire to make his own movie.
6:18
So he talks to his friend Craig Hammond. They come up with this idea.
6:23
So they're going to make a movie. They have no money. Quinton
6:26
works a minimum wage job, as everybody knows that video archives, and they
6:31
have no money, but they have this desire. So Crag writes a script
6:36
at the time for my best friend's birthday, which is very very short script
6:42
at the time, and it's a screwball comedy. Which that's one of the
6:47
things I find interesting here is it not only could I with this book chart
6:51
the evolution of Quinton as a filmmaker, as a writer, as you know,
6:56
a creative, but also it's interesting thing because we think of him as
7:01
mister Gunn. You know, he talked about that one time. Everybody thinks
7:04
of me as mister Gunn. He either does crime or he does western something
7:10
where you know, people are going to get shot and all that good stuff.
7:13
And but this was a screwball comedy. So then and so Craig writes
7:16
a script, Quentin comes in and expands it somewhat rewrites it. But then
7:23
they go out and they shoot, and they have to shoot piece by piece
7:25
by piece. They're out stealing shots because they can't afford, you know,
7:29
locations they can't and well, and what's funny I'm skipping around, but on
7:34
the film that they shot before that war zone, there was a time when
7:40
they were there that's detailed in the story in the book, and it's very
7:43
funny where they were stealing shots. And so they all have these guns and
7:47
they're you know, supposed to be tough guys, and there's a motorcycle and
7:53
the cops show up and aim their guns at everybody and make them lay down
7:57
on the ground. And what's really funny, and this is a great part
8:00
about an oral history, where it's all told in the dialogue, is that
8:03
some of the people are like, you know, um, like Quinton's like,
8:07
we weren't scared at all, and then someone else is like, we
8:09
were all crying, and you know, and it's just as completely different,
8:15
these different takes on it. And an oral history is great because it gives
8:18
you this Raschaman kind of story where you have all these different perspectives which which
8:22
are different generally, even if it's something that just happened. But when you
8:26
take a story that happened in the nineteen eighties and you tell it, you
8:31
know you're going to get different versions of that. So anyway, they're making
8:33
my best friend's birthday on Quinton's minimum wage salary, which says right on film.
8:43
Yes, they're shooting this one on film, And so they're just shooting
8:45
it little by little over time. I guess a lot of the scenes they
8:48
end up improvising, or they take a nugget of what was in the script
8:52
and they they come up with something new. So at the time, Quinton's
9:00
teacher was Alan Garfield, who's in a lot of great films like The stunt
9:03
Man and you know, things like Beverly Hills, Cop Too, all kinds
9:07
of stuff, and so he gets Alan Garfield to do a scene. He
9:11
gets um Brenda Hillhouse, who was one of his acting teachers from his first
9:16
acting school, to come and do this scene with Alan Garfield. And Brenda
9:22
people will remember from from dust Hill Dawn. She's the one that they kidnap
9:28
and Richie kind of gets a little creepy with her. And you know,
9:31
when George Clooney Seth comes back, there's blood everywhere and that's what's left ye
9:37
also in his er episode, and she's the mother of little Butch in the
9:45
famous Christopher walkin I had a watch in my ass scene. Yeah, and
9:50
so anyway he gets these This is one of the most telling representative scenes of
9:54
how they had to shoot with no budget. We'll be right back after a
10:00
word from our sponsor and now back to the show. So they needed for
10:09
this scene there's a bakery, but they don't have a bakery, so they
10:13
shoot it in video archives when nobody's around, so then it becomes a video
10:18
store slash bakery, which, no, that doesn't make any sense, but
10:22
it's funny because you know, and I've worked on micro films. I've worked
10:26
on some some shitty trauma movies, and you know this is a thing you
10:30
have to you know, adapt, improvise, make these things work. And
10:33
not only that, but they made Alan Garfield's character named Bill Smith after William
10:41
Smith, the great actor who was one of Quinn and he was sitting on
10:43
one of our movies. But he was one of Quentin's favorite actors. So
10:48
it becomes Bill Smith's video store slash bakery, and you know, and they
10:54
do this scene and again kind of representative. So Alan Garfield brings his dog.
11:00
He's and Quinton's quote that he tells me for the book was, he's
11:03
one of those guys. He's one of those bring your puppy around, you
11:05
know those guys. And and Quentin says it very respectfully because he loved Alan
11:11
Garfield. But the dog gets into the case and eats the cake while they're
11:16
they're doing the dialogue scene. Then when they need the cake, the cake's
11:20
eaten by the dog. And I mean it's just a kind of a comedy
11:24
of errors. Um, now you you interviewed you, you and you actually
11:28
interviewed Quentin for part of this book. But yeah, yeah, I had
11:33
tried to interview Quentin for years. I met him in nineteen when he used
11:37
to do the film festivals in Austin that Rick Linklater's um yeah thing. They're
11:43
at the first Alamo Drafthouse and I was working on my first book was supposed
11:48
to be about Quinton, and I think I kind of scared Quinton away at
11:52
that time because Jamie Bernard was writing the intro, and Quinton had a falling
11:58
out with Jamie Bernard, who wrote his first biography. So I kind of
12:03
think what happened was he associated me with her and he didn't want to be
12:07
involved. He was very nice, but all of a sudden people were calling
12:11
back saying, I'm not supposed to talk to you, and so I knew
12:15
kind of what was going on. I kept working on the book on and
12:18
off, did more books. I mean, I've got forty six books out
12:24
this year, I think, and God bless you life otherwise. But so
12:31
anyway, and I was going to do this book on all of Quentin's films
12:35
because at the time I started, there were two biographies. There was one
12:39
by Winsley Clarkson and there was the one by Jamie Bernard. But I wanted
12:41
to do a kind of a companion to the films, which is funny now
12:46
to think, because I started that in nineteen ninety seven when all there was
12:50
was, you know that he directed was Reservoir Dogs, pulp fiction, Jackie
12:54
Brown, and then you know it was also going into true romance, natural
12:58
Born Killers and God Born Killers and and you know, from Us Till Dawn
13:03
and true romance. So anyway, I worked on this book on and off
13:07
for a million years. I pick up this book called Quentin Tarantino. FAQ.
13:13
Well it is the same book. So I ended up just throwing that
13:16
book out, and I took the interviews I had done with a lot of
13:20
cool people like Montie Hellman and Roger Avery, Tom Savini. I went ahead
13:26
and I put it out a few years ago. That was my first book
13:30
on Tarantino. So that's called Conversations on Quentin Tarantino. Right, that came
13:35
out and I think twenty fifteen, twenty sixteen. Now we kept trudging forward
13:39
and and then it all came together. Man. So all right, so
13:46
you so they're starting to shoot this thing. And for my understanding, the
13:48
lore is that they shot this over like a year or something like that.
13:52
More it was several years. I don't remember specifically, it was a while.
13:58
It was like on the weekend whenever, whenever they can like grab enough
14:01
money to buy some film stock or some short ends to go shoot this thing
14:05
right well, and people's hair would change, it would become longer, shorter,
14:09
longer, you know, um, you know all of these different things.
14:13
Uh, you know, the lead actress, she moved away, and
14:18
then they had to have her come she was teaching, they had to have
14:20
her come back. So't I mean, I've heard this story a thousand times
14:26
from so many filmmakers that I've interviewed over the years. But peering at that
14:30
quint Tarantino started like that is so it's so much It's so much fun because
14:33
you know, in so many ways, you know, Quentin is arguably one
14:37
of these mythical filmmakers. He's he's one of the you know, he's he's
14:43
one of the most interesting filmmakers of his generation, let alone in all the
14:46
film history. So he's almost at that kind of like Mount Hollywood, a
14:50
god on Mount Hollywood. But to know that he started like us Mortals,
14:56
it's it's interesting too. It's always interesting to see how they got started,
15:01
because most people just think he just showed up with reservoir dogs and exploded and
15:05
that was the end of it. But it took a while to get there.
15:07
Now when he was putting this all together, So they basically were financing
15:11
this through Quintin's minimum wage job at a video store, right, and I
15:16
think some of the other people would occasionally chip in money, but it was
15:20
pretty much just with this minimum wage job and who and who was to save
15:24
up for a month or two to be able to rent the camera for a
15:28
night. Then they'd shoot for twenty four hours straight, you know, whatever
15:31
they could, right, you know, on short ends and right. And
15:35
now, how did they edit this or were they editing this on a flatbed?
15:39
Well that's part of the problem, you know. So Quinton waits a
15:41
long time to edit it because they had to they had to hire somebody to
15:46
edit. So they hire somebody to help edit it one point that didn't really
15:52
work out well. Quinton ends up renting a flatbed and finding out eventually that
15:58
the movie wasn't what he thought it was. And that's kind of the we'll
16:02
get there, I'm sure, but that's sort of the story of where the
16:04
movie ends up being. I wanted to say two things about this book.
16:10
One, I thought it was important because I wanted to show the evolution of
16:12
him as a filmmaker. People think, as you said, that you just
16:17
somebody that's that gifted just evolves from the you know, they just pop out
16:19
of the womb and they're fully formed. And that's not the case, you
16:23
know, with anybody I had seen. There was a lot of talk about
16:27
Stanley Kubrick's first film You're Desiring, Yeah, right, and you know,
16:33
and Stanley tried to suppress that coming out later on. But it's important because
16:38
again it's in a documentation of his like, it doesn't take away from the
16:42
things he did later on. It only helps us to see his evolution as
16:47
an artist. And so there was a time I'd tried to get Quentin for
16:51
this book. I couldn't get him. I made my last plea and I
16:56
said, I think you probably want to suppress this, but you shouldn't,
17:00
and here's why. YadA, YadA, YadA. But it was interesting when
17:03
I interviewed him and said, no, I don't want to suppress this.
17:06
Quintin still loves this movie. He knows it's problematic, but he loves it,
17:11
and he still has most of it. Um. The other thing I
17:15
wanted to get to was what this book is really about, because people think,
17:19
well, how can a whole book just be about this movie? And
17:22
that's true. So what this book actually is is it in three parts.
17:27
The first part is sort of the biggest thing we've seen on Quintin's life,
17:33
and all of those people in his sphere leading up to my best friend's birthday.
17:38
It's called I think it's it's been a while since I wrote it.
17:44
I think it's it's something like the players come together and what it is.
17:47
It's again the most detailed look at video archives, all of that Roger Avery,
17:53
and you know, I interviewed all of these people for the book,
17:56
including Avery, whom I've better read several times and it's a really cool book.
18:00
But it shows how they all met and then you know, how they
18:03
get to a place where they're going to make movies. Then the second part
18:08
is them making movies. So it starts out with all of the little movies
18:12
they work on and how they get to my best friend's birthday, and then
18:18
kind of just a blow by blow of its best anybody can reassemble what that
18:23
shoot was like as told by Craig Hammond, Quentin Tarantino, Roger Avery and
18:30
all of the cast that was still alive that I could find. And then
18:36
the third part looks at the existing script and it kind of with some running
18:41
commentary and it kind of shows us what that movie might have been. Now,
18:45
it's important to point out the script that is floating around everybody always thinks
18:49
when they find it, Oh, I found the script, you know.
18:52
And but the script that's floating around is not actually the script. It's the
18:57
closest Factsmo. Timiley there is. But what it actually is is when later
19:03
on, when Craig Hammon optioned the screenplay to Don Murphy, which is a
19:07
whole other mess that a lot of us probably know. Parts of this book
19:11
details that. What so what was that? So they optioned this script to
19:15
somebody else? Well, what happened was Don Murphy, who was Quinton's enemy,
19:21
who was the producer of Natural Born Killers. They had had that big
19:25
falling out over natural Born Killers. He's the guy that Quinton quote unquote bitch
19:30
slapped in a restaurant and again he ended up in a big lawsuit. So
19:33
so Don Murphy Murphy bitch slap Quinton. Quentin bitch slapped Don Murphy. That
19:40
makes everybody's consensus is is that the main reason Don Murphy wanted to option this
19:45
script was a piss Quinton off. So he goes to Quinton's old writing partner,
19:52
who loves Quinton to this day and never wanted his screwp Quinton over.
19:56
But he went to him and he dangled money over his head and we'll be
20:00
right back after a word from our sponsor. And now back to the show
20:08
Rock and Craig thought this was going to be great for everybody, thought it
20:11
was going to be great for him and Quinton, and it really didn't work
20:15
out that way. Quinton blew up and you know, they got into a
20:18
fight, and that's documented in the book too, but in everybody's words.
20:25
But at that time, what Craig did was essentially take all of the things
20:30
that they had improvised and wrote them into script form also, so it becomes
20:33
this script that is sort of a kind of a weird bastardization of all of
20:40
the forms of script that had existed, and also the improvised scenes, and
20:45
with Craig actually writing little things to kind of link some of the scenes together
20:48
that there was no link for because there were things that they ended up shooting
20:52
that weren't in the original script. So it's kind of it's interesting to imagine
20:59
what might have been, but we don't don't fully know what might have been.
21:00
So so then, but then eventually, obviously Don Murphy did so Don
21:04
Murphy did get the rights to the to the script. He did and there
21:08
was a time when I knew down a little and I had asked him about
21:11
the script, and he pretty much just admitted, I don't remember what his
21:15
words are, and I don't want to get sued because he is a letgious
21:19
guy, but he basically admitted to the effect that that was why he optioned
21:26
it. He'd said it was never gonna get made. And I think it
21:29
was known from the beginning it wasn't really gonna get made. So so then
21:33
just so in the in the in the in the in the timeline here when
21:37
my best friend's um my best friend's birthdays being shot. Quinn wrote True Omans
21:42
and Natural Point Killers during this time, right, and those were originally one
21:48
screenplay called The Open Road, which was something like a six hundred page five
21:52
hundred page script, and what it was was you had the characters. Both
21:59
of those are kind of similar thematically, right, like True Romance and Natural
22:03
Born Killers, where you have the man and the woman some kind of criminal
22:06
on the run. Okay, So in the original The Open Road script,
22:11
he has Clarence in Alabama. From True Romance, it's your story, but
22:18
in the middle of they're doing these things. But it's also writing a screenplay,
22:23
and that screenplay is Natural Born Killers. So it would go back and
22:27
forth between. As I'm told, I've not seen that. I have no
22:33
idea if it. You never really even know if these things really exist.
22:37
You get bits and pieces of different people's stories, but that's what it's supposed
22:41
to be. So so then natural Born Killers and True Romance we were together,
22:45
which I've never heard before. And by the way, I'm interested in
22:48
seeing that movie. I'd love to see this eight hour in mini series.
22:55
Essentially, that would be so. But then he broke those apart and sold
23:00
though separately, and he got some money for those if if I from what
23:02
understand like it was the most money he'd probably ever seen at that point,
23:04
right, And I would still contend True Romance is one of his. It's
23:08
one of my favorites of his. I love even though you know he would
23:11
have done different things than Tony Scott did. I still think it's brilliant in
23:15
its way. And you know, when I said thumps down to Natural Born
23:18
Killers, it's only because I think Quentin's original script for Natural Born Killers is
23:22
great. But the thing that Oliver Stone made is kind of a mess.
23:26
There are people that love it love aspect of it. I think it's a
23:30
huge mess. It's a big experimental student film with you know, several million
23:36
dollar budget. But yeah, no, exactly. Well I would have been
23:41
very interested to see the Quentin natural Born Killer script originally, but what Oliver
23:45
did was what Oliver did. But with that said, um Tru Romance.
23:52
When they released the like ten disc you know, master collection of Quentin's work,
23:57
they included True Romance as part of his filmography. That's how much love
24:03
he has for that film. And he actually does a commentary track on Entre
24:07
Romance talking about what he just loved what Tony did. And I mean the
24:11
scene between Walking and Hopper, I mean, this is probably one of the
24:15
best scenes in movie history. It's amazing. It's amazing. Yeah, it's
24:21
it's remarkable. I mean it was absolutely remarkable. So Jerry, so he's
24:23
making so during he's selling these scripts. So he's trying to get into Hollywood
24:27
and trying to make a name for himself, and he knows where he wants
24:32
to go, but he's trying, he's he's struggling. When when did he
24:34
actually how old was he when he actually finally did Reservoir Because he wasn't a
24:41
young guy at that I mean young he's in his thirties. I don't exactly,
24:45
he was in his early thirties, and I'm I don't even want to
24:48
say, I'm forty eight. So he's eight, and you know, and
24:52
so by that time, he's in his thirties, and I mean, God,
24:56
bless him. Good for him that, you know, he made that
24:59
breakthrough. You know, it's funny. Another thing to talk about real quick
25:03
is that True Romance went through a couple of hands too before it got made,
25:07
because Samuel had DIEDA was originally at the producer was going to make it
25:11
as a low budget film, and at one time, oh what is his
25:18
name, I can't think of his name, The director of Like Maniac and
25:22
Maniac Cop, William Lustig. William Lustig was going to direct it. At
25:26
one point I tried to get Lustig to talk for the book, but I
25:30
and I get it, he doesn't want to talk about it. I'm sure
25:33
that would have been interesting, becase that would have been a whole other level
25:36
of low budget. And you know, I think what that movie would have
25:40
been. Yeah, it's just it's always very it's kind of like, oh,
25:42
it's like going back to Kubricks and like, oh, it would have
25:45
been interesting to see his Holocaust film. It would have been interesting to see
25:49
his Napoleon Like you know, you see these amazing artists and you're like,
25:53
oh, those are the paintings that never got painted kind of thing. And
26:00
now, so what so with going back to my best friend's birthday. So
26:04
it's taken him a few years to get this thing together, he's edited it
26:07
together. Now where what happened to her? There was a fire that part
26:15
of it was lost? What was that story about? Okay, So the
26:19
story up until this book has always been that there was a fire, that
26:23
lab fire that destroyed significant parts of the film. Now, as I'm proud
26:29
of myself, I find out in this book that is not true and even
26:32
get Quinton to admit it. Okay, So what basically there was some stuff
26:37
destroyed, but it was so minimal that it didn't change the course of the
26:40
film. What actually kind of kills the film is it takes Quint in a
26:45
long time. He's starting to him when he's editing it, he sees what
26:48
he's got, you know, and he talks about it at length in the
26:51
book. It's not what he thought it was gonna be He thought it was
26:55
gonna be like She's got to have it or one of these, you know,
26:56
I yea Richard lank Later kind of movie, this low budget indie thing,
27:03
and it's kind of a mess, and he's heartbroken and he's devastated.
27:07
And he says that the writers of the Auto biographies kind of came up with
27:15
the story that there was a lab fire, But other people involved with the
27:19
movies say that he told them there was a fire kind of I think maybe
27:23
to just calm everybody down, get them off of the truth of the matter
27:27
is it went on for so long. He's starting to get some success.
27:32
I don't blame him for eventually, you know, shelving it, because even
27:36
at its best, this movie would have never stacked up. It would have
27:38
never fit on a shelf alongside you know, true romance, reservoir dogs,
27:45
pulp fiction, those movies. The script is brilliant. There are scenes of
27:48
brilliance that are written by both you know, Craig and Quinton together, each
27:53
of them separate. There are some brilliant moments in that script. The dialogue
27:56
is amazing. But what was being put on film was it? But when
28:00
learned from it. He learned how to direct actors. He learned these things.
28:04
And there's a line that Quinton says in the book, and I'm going
28:07
to screw it up, but we'll get to thedividual heart of it. Quinton
28:11
says very proudly of himself, and rightfully. So he says, I'm proud
28:15
of myself, and I'm proud of this movie because you know what, everyone
28:21
else who would have made this movie and seen what it was after all these
28:25
years, would have given up. And I didn't get I didn't give up.
28:29
I kept going and I let that fuel me instead of sitting around mourning
28:33
the loss of this movie. And and he's right, you know, he's
28:37
absolutely right. Yeah, I mean, because I mean, because I look,
28:41
I mean, I've been a filmmaker for twenty odd years. I completely
28:44
I compete. You feel them, I completely Like sometimes you look at stuff
28:47
and you're just like, oh, this is this is not what was in
28:48
my mind. I didn't get I didn't get the crew that I needed.
28:52
I didn't have the skill set, my tools were not prepared when I when
28:57
I had Richard on Richard link Letter on show, he said, one of
29:00
the best lines I've ever heard about filmmaking. He says, eventually, hopefully
29:07
your skill set will catch up to your ideas, and I was like,
29:12
oh. And he also said everything's gonna take twice as long, and twe
29:15
it's going to be twice as hard to both those are great, great,
29:19
great lines, but it's absolutely true because when you come out as a filmmaker,
29:22
you're just like all these ideas and yeah, we'll get a technic crane
29:26
here, and we'll swing the camera there, and we'll do this Corsese shot
29:29
here, and but you don't have the skill set, you don't have the
29:33
tools. And Quentin at that point in his life, he was basically a
29:36
video store clerk, honing his skills, honing what he had learned and taken
29:41
in all throughout his life. Well, and one thing that's cool about this
29:45
movie is that not only did he not go to film school, none of
29:49
the people involved in this movie went to film school. As they all say,
29:52
this was their film school. And I want to tell you how significant
29:56
this movie is when you think of it like this. We'll be right back
30:00
after a word from our sponsor, and now back to the show. Three.
30:10
You know, three movie directors come out of this little shitty movie.
30:14
You get Quinton obviously, Roger Avery goes on, Craig Hammond goes on,
30:18
he should have had a bigger career. But either way, he goes on.
30:22
He makes Moogie Boy, and he writes some action movies and stuff.
30:26
I mean, three people going to become professional filmmakers out of a five thousand
30:32
dollars movie shot over several years in people's houses. It's it's no, it's
30:37
it's insane. And now I have to ask, Now there is an existing
30:41
version of this floating around the internet. How did that think get out?
30:45
And what is that? Well, there are only it's not the whole movie
30:48
obviously starting But what's funny, there's two different versions. One has there's an
30:55
extra scene with Quinton and Greg talking, kind of a heart fell scene,
31:00
and it's in some of them and it's not in others. Um, this
31:04
was the exact version that they were showing around at one time to be there,
31:11
you know, kind of like a real they've cut it up, and
31:15
they were they were showing it around trying to get jobs. I've heard some
31:18
speculation that, you know, it might have been Russell Vossler, or not
31:25
Russell, but Rand they're brothers Rand Vosseler, who ended up being the associate
31:32
producer on Natural Born Killers and worked on some other stuff. But UM,
31:37
really don't know. I mean, I know that Rand has a lot of
31:41
this stuff at his house. I don't know. He took pictures of the
31:45
of the film reels to prove to me that it existed and send it to
31:48
me. Um, he has the film, we know, and it's interesting.
31:52
And Quintin holds no you know, grudge against whoever did release it.
31:56
I think he's kind of happy about it. Well yeah, I mean,
31:59
because got that at the point he isn't his like even when it was released,
32:02
he was he had already done reservoir talks and pulp fiction and Jackie Brown.
32:06
I'm like, you're great like that. You have nothing to be embarrassed
32:08
about by that point. Yeah, I mean, when you make pulp fiction,
32:12
you're pretty much you've got to pass for life. As far as like
32:15
other stuff that you might have done that's not particularly great because you are you
32:20
are who you are. But so then I have to ask who owns the
32:23
rights to this thing? Because people are putting it out there. I've seen
32:27
it for sale in some places. Obviously bootleg versions. It's definitely Quinton owns
32:32
the riots, but I don't know, I don't think anybody's actually, you
32:36
know, claimed it or anything. Quinn does say that he wants to maybe
32:39
one of these days. Who knows. Quinton comes up with a lot of
32:43
ideas of things he wants to do and make, and they often don't get
32:45
made. And I get it, you know, he's got big ideas.
32:47
But he talked about sometimes he thinks he'd like to have somebody edit this together,
32:52
just for him to just have a version of the whole movie edited together.
32:57
And and oh, I was gonna tell you this. There's this great
33:00
story where he talks about I don't he didn't say who the filmmaker was,
33:05
but he says he shows this famous filmmaker early on after Reservoir Dogs. He
33:09
shows him the footage of my best friend's birthday and the guy says, what
33:15
you should do, And it's a foreign filmmaker, and he says, what
33:17
you should do is you take this and you go out in a boat and
33:22
you wrap this film up in some kind of flament and you throw it as
33:25
far as you can into the ocean. And I mean, it's funny,
33:30
but Quinton is still proud of it, and he talks about how proud he
33:35
is of certain scenes, especially the one with Alan Garfield, which was why
33:39
I highlighted that one. But yeah, and I mean, this is a
33:44
perfect candidate for a Criterion collection one day, Like it's a perfect candidate for
33:50
a release through Criterion collect perfect as an extra. I'm one of those movies
33:53
I'd love to see that, you know, you know, the criterions come
33:55
out and they have all kinds of extras that would be perfect, right,
34:00
And it also needs to be properly remastered, properly edited, probably mixed,
34:04
all of these things. So so so the full movie exists in reels at
34:09
this point. I think it's something like enough that you could put something together,
34:17
but it's but it's never been cut together in a way. It's so
34:22
basically there's a row. So basically the only thing that we've seen online is
34:25
a demo reel that was cut together to kind of try to get gigs for
34:30
Quentin and the other filmmakers, and that's why that exists. But the raw
34:35
footage of that film sits in Quentin's vault somewhere where he could eventually if he
34:42
feels so inclined to be cut. What's interesting is, I'm not sure how
34:46
this works out because I believe Quinton has footage, but then Ran Vossler has
34:52
I believe all of the footage. So it's really confusing, is to and
34:57
they don't talk anymore. They most of these people had some sort of falling
35:00
out at some point, and I mean, it's just it happens, but
35:04
egos get involved. He goes, you know, and egos all of it.
35:07
Um. But you know, so it is curious. I don't really
35:12
know, you know, if there's two sets of that, I don't know.
35:15
That's really that's Quinn never talked about that when you talk to him,
35:19
not really, you know. Well, you know, it was great was
35:22
when I talked to Quentin. He was in the editing room of UM once
35:27
upon a time in Hollywood. He took a break and he calls and we
35:30
talked for an hour and a half and it's great. And I saved it
35:31
for the end because I don't want to make him mad, because you know,
35:35
I mean, I need this. So I get to the end and
35:37
I say, so, you know, I asked him about the fire,
35:42
and I tell him somebody's shown me a photo and stuff and and he says,
35:45
you know, um, well you know, and he kind of tells
35:49
me then he we we in the call. He calls me five minutes later
35:53
and he goes, Okay, let me tell you, and he's just,
35:57
uh, you know, the biographers made up that story. I didn't you
36:00
know. And so I mean I do love that. You know, he's
36:02
concerned about about the image stuff, but Quinn's got to know he's well beyond
36:07
that. No, it doesn't matter. He's secured his place no matter what.
36:12
Oh, in cinema history. Yeah, if you don't like him,
36:14
he's a legend. No, yeah, you could either. You could either
36:17
love him or hate him. But you can't come. You cannot say that
36:21
he's not a filmmaker. He cannot say that he's not an epic filmmaker,
36:23
and that there's massive people who love his work around the world. He's probably
36:29
one of them, I mean, other than I think he probably is more
36:31
recognizable in certain generations than Spielberg is now. But he's up there with Hitchcock
36:37
and Spielberg and Scorsese. And in fact that people that don't know movies know
36:42
his name, they might not know what he's done. But if you say
36:45
Quentin Charantine and they go, ah, you know, and like Spielberg and
36:47
Scorsese, they know these names, yes, like Hitchcock or Spielberg, Like
36:52
you know, you know, even my mother who's probably seen maybe one or
36:55
two of Spielberg's movies, knows who Spielberg is, right, you know,
36:59
things like that, that same thing for Tarantino, like oh, I've heard
37:00
that name. He's he's something, He's done something that's fact. That's absolutely
37:06
fascinating. It's really great to kind of just see the origin. And I'm
37:09
assuming the book goes in much greater detail in this. But now, how
37:14
the relationship with Roger Roger Avery, how was that that form? Because from
37:19
my understanding, and I know this is a different movie, but when he
37:22
came into um, pulp fiction, Roger obviously is the co writer of pulp
37:27
fiction, but he technically gets story credit but not screenplay credit. I think,
37:34
and again this is what I heard, because you know, we're all
37:37
all filmmakers are like gossip queens, were like a knitting circle. Um that
37:40
Quentin asked him, can I get the screenplay credit? You get the story
37:45
credit, but if we win something, you get and that's why he's up
37:47
there with him with the oscar. What do you know about that? And
37:50
how was and how did that relationship build up start? Did his start in
37:52
my best friend's birthday? Okay? Um, okay, So first they worked
37:57
in my best friends and sorry, they worked at Video Archives together. I
38:02
believe Roger worked at another video store previously and one of the owners of of
38:10
Video Archives. I'm trying to remember exactly how that works. It seemed like
38:15
somebody's bother owned it or something. I don't know, but he had worked
38:19
at the other one and ends up coming to this video store and and he
38:23
talks them into interviewing Quentin or you know, to giving Quenton the job,
38:28
and they talk about the interview in there where it's basically like he looks at
38:30
him and since you got the job, and you know, so they become
38:34
friends there. So they're making these movies, all these guys hanging out at
38:37
Video Archives, they become friends. These two are stuper tight. Then when
38:45
they make well so much so they're so tight and their voices at one time
38:51
are so much in sync. You know that Roger Avery was the one that
38:54
was brought in to rewrite the end of True Romance when Tony Scott did.
39:00
He wanted to make those characters live because they are at least Clarence dies in
39:04
the in Tarantino script. You know, he decides to make them live.
39:08
Quintin refuses to write that scene, so they bring in Roger Avery, and
39:13
you know, because they at that time are in sync. I believe Avery
39:19
gets brought in to write a scene for Natural Born Killers. They got cut.
39:22
It was the one with the with the big twin brother musclemen. You
39:28
know. So anyway, they're working on all these things together. This is
39:31
where I'm going to get in trouble, okay, because there's a lot of
39:37
talk about what they you know, Roger didn't deserve the credit in this and
39:40
that. If you see Roger's script, well was it Pendemonium Rains? You
39:47
see his script for Pandemonium Rains. It's almost word for word, verbatim for
39:52
the second act of Natural or of pulp fiction, which is the butch stuff,
39:58
all of the pawn shop stuff. We'll be right back after a word
40:02
from our sponsor and now back to the show. It's almost verbade him the
40:12
same stuff. Okay, So I mean he absolutely deserves the co writing credit.
40:16
He deserves the story credit. I like Quintin's mom a lot, you
40:22
know, and we're friends. She's actually the one that kind of set me
40:24
up with Quintin. But you know, she was telling me, oh,
40:29
Roger, you know, he doesn't deserve the credit, and look, it's
40:32
what my mom would say if I was you know. But look, I'm
40:36
not saying anything about about either of them. They're both brilliant. They're both
40:38
they're fantastic filmings. They did finally make up last year, okoup on that.
40:44
I did an article for Diaba League where Rogers says, we just connected
40:47
last week and so they are friends again. I don't know if they'll work
40:52
again, but they're friends. They were meeting up and stuff and you know
40:57
there. But again, there's no reason for either of them to be mad
41:00
at each other, and there's no reason for anybody to be mad at me
41:01
for telling it, because the truth of the matter is they're both brilliant.
41:05
They both had a hand in it. I love the movie. I love
41:07
both of their contributions. They do write, or at least at one time,
41:12
could write seamlessly, you know, kind of in the same voice mum,
41:17
which is which is very interesting because um, what was that Rules of
41:22
Its Rules of Attraction, right, yeah, which was which is a brilliant
41:25
film. I love Rules of Attraction. Uh and even Zoe was good too,
41:30
Yeah, I go yeah, yeah, I can't les all forgot about
41:32
that one. Yeah. Um, but but Roger Roger's dialogue is fantastic.
41:39
Quinn's dialogue is something so specific and it is it's more stylistic. It weaves
41:46
itself in a way that it's so that's why you could see that in My
41:50
Best Friends. It has a cadence to it. It's it is really a
41:54
remarkable like even in my best friend's birthday, you can start seeing sparks of
42:00
that. There are scenes of that. You're just going, oh, there
42:04
it is. I don't know what this other stuff is, but there's the
42:07
quintin that you could start seeing it coming out, uh in it it is
42:13
there was just nobody. It's like it's like listening to a Swerkin or Kaufman,
42:16
you know, their dialogue in the way they write their movies. It's
42:21
just so specific. Yeah, specific to them, mamm it exactly. Yeah,
42:28
yeah, you still black. Yeah, you started listening to the best
42:30
monologue to me in my in my Best Friend's birth There's so many of these
42:36
movies to keep together here, but um, the best dial there's a monologue
42:42
and my best Friend's Birthday that is just brilliant where and I think it's just
42:45
as good as his later stuff, where Quentin's giving this this long thing about
42:50
how when he was and it's absurd and it's so funny and weird, and
42:53
he's talking about it four years old. He got depressed and he was thinking
42:58
about suicide and he's like four years old. It's ridiculous, and I think
43:01
he was depressed because he found out Eddie Cochran died. It's just this ridiculous
43:06
thing. But he gives this long monologue about how he turned on the television
43:12
and there was a good episode of Partridge Family on and the episode of the
43:15
Partridge Family made him happy and he decided not to kill himself. And it's
43:21
it's absurd, but it's just the writing is brilliant. It's already got the
43:23
pop culture references from his early work. I mean, we noticed he's gotten
43:28
away from that some well I say that, but then Once upon a Time
43:32
in Hollywood just takes us right back to that. It's all pop culture.
43:36
But well, I mean like when you're when you I mean, you can't
43:37
do as much pop culture and jangle unchained in any glorious historical films, but
43:43
when he's in modern times or even not even modern times, like still in
43:47
Once upon Time in Hollywood was what the sixties? Right? Um, so
43:52
you could still do pop culture within it's it's thing, right, I mean,
43:55
yeah, it's I mean, it's what can we said that hasn't been
43:59
said up Quentin Tarantino and about his work. It's it's remarkable. And that's
44:02
why I wanted to kind of dig into the weeds about this book and about
44:06
his film, because there is so much misinformation about there, and there's not
44:08
really a lot of people a lot of information about the film because no one
44:12
has taken the time to go deep into it like you have. This is
44:15
the reference for this film. I will say, I'm incredibly proud of this,
44:20
and I'm not. I'm not somebody who's generally proud of their work,
44:22
but always in that way I should be, but I'm you know, but
44:25
I always wanted to write about Quentin, but he didn't want to do something
44:30
that had already been done ten times. One thing was was that you know,
44:35
in all of the other books, the biographies and stuff, it's like
44:37
two paragraphs about that movie. That's it, maybe two paragraphs, right,
44:43
right, right, And so I thought it was really fun to talk about
44:45
that, but also to have him have them talk about some of the other
44:50
early movie stuff. And that was kind of fun too, because I've never
44:53
heard much of anything about at all about those, you know, So that
44:59
was pretty you know, and I am excited to be able to contribute to
45:02
it, and and I think Quentin thought it was something special. And yeah,
45:07
Quinn likes Quentin likes the book. He likes the book, right,
45:09
yeah, yeah, because he got a yeah, I saw, he gave
45:13
it a nice little quote as well. The one thing I will say,
45:17
I messed up something. I made his mother Connie, kind of unhappy.
45:22
And it was a mix up. I took a piece of information, like
45:24
a little biographical detail, because I didn't want to reach out and bother people
45:29
all the time, and I assumed that things in other people's books are going
45:31
to be right. And again not a knock, but I took this little
45:37
thing about his family having these interesting hobbies and one of them was like carrier
45:46
pigeons or something, and archery and come to find out those were before Quentin
45:52
was born, and so they got it wrong in the other book too.
45:53
But you know, um now, all in all, I think it's pretty
45:59
you know, it's pretty good, and it shows us a real picture of
46:01
who Quinton was. There's a lot in it about acting school when they were
46:07
at the James Best Acting School when they Ian Craig met and we're taking acting
46:12
classes and we have you know, two of their acting teachers in it talking
46:16
about Quinn's acting and how Quinton started writing his own scenes for them to act
46:22
out. That was the beginning of Quinn the writer. And they said he
46:28
would go to the movies and he would take a little bit flashlight with him
46:32
in a pad and he would try to write the monologues down so they could
46:36
do them. And this is how they started. He would try to write
46:38
these monologues down out of these movies so they could you know, act them
46:43
out in their scenes for acting class. But he couldn't write fast enough,
46:47
so they would start as a monologue from a movie and he would just start
46:51
making up shit and he would become this really bastardized kind of cool monologue.
46:57
It like what it was a Patty Chiefs. He went from Marty, but
47:00
it just ends up with all kinds of wild shit and several people say,
47:05
you know, it was even better than Marty, which I mean, I
47:07
mean, it's just crazy. And that's what inspires him to become a writer,
47:12
which is fascinating now with why did he what was his fascination with being
47:16
an actor? Because he I mean, I've seen it's very well documented.
47:20
He wanted to be an actor. That was his He thought that was his
47:22
way in and he did get that little spot in The Golden Girls, which
47:27
was an elpless in person person here. Yeah, what did did he ever
47:32
talk to you a little bit about that? And you traveled to hear he
47:36
didn't really go much into it, but um, I mean we did talk
47:39
about the acting class and um. But you know, I think he I
47:44
don't know, you know, I think at the time he thought that's what
47:46
he could do. He maybe wanted to be an actor and a director.
47:50
I don't think. I don't think he just knew he could be a writer.
47:52
And I think the doors really opened up because of his writing. And
47:57
you know, once he found that, he was on fire. And I
48:00
will say this, everybody says you know, he's a bad actor and blah
48:01
blah blah. And I know at times his acting can be questionable, but
48:07
I don't give a fuck what anybody says. He's brilliant in from Dust till
48:10
Dawn. He's perfect. And I've heard people make shitty remarks. I don't
48:15
remember who it was. Somebody said, oh, well, he's he's perfect
48:17
when he plays a crazy manner, you know, is somebody trying to dissa
48:21
I don't remember. But the thing is he can really act. The thing
48:24
is, if you look at his own movies, and I contend that a
48:29
lot of times he's the worst thing in his own movies. He's acting,
48:32
but I think a lot of that comes from him taking away him trying to
48:36
direct and act at the same time. Generally, when he's acting, he's
48:38
directing other people's performances. He can look at them objectively, but you can't
48:44
really look at yourself objectively. That goes out the window. And I think
48:47
that's why you see him give better performances in other people's things than he gives
48:52
in his own. Yeah, and not that those are always perfect either,
48:54
but yeah, I think I saw a video where he was pitching. It
49:00
was like a small little video. I think he did forgot what it was
49:01
for, but he was pitching the Muppets a movie idea or something like that,
49:06
and I was like, wow, that's that's actually brilliant the way he
49:08
I mean, he's playing himself, but it was quite brilliant about it.
49:13
No his I mean, look when you because I know a lot of people
49:15
you know, say why did he cast himself in pulp fiction? I mean,
49:20
and arguably he's the worst actor in that group. I'm like, you've
49:22
got Sam Jackson, John Travolta, Harvey keitel tough, tough room. Most
49:29
people are going to be the worst person in that room. I mean,
49:31
it's a temper Harry. What I would have liked to have seen was it
49:35
one time Tony Scott and him were going to make a version of Elmore Leonard's
49:39
Kill Shot and it was going to have he was going it was going to
49:45
be him and de Niro, And if you read the novel, they're interesting
49:47
characters because de Niro is a hit man name. He would have been like
49:52
an Indian hit man. Would you be kind of interesting? We'll be right
49:55
back after a word from our sponsor, and now back to the show and
50:05
it named Rainbird, and then Karantino would have been this guy named Richie Nicks,
50:08
and I really think he could have played that role really well. The
50:13
project went by the wayside and will never know, but I think that would
50:15
have been really cool. Is there anything in the early in Quinn's early times
50:22
that he was starting to write or just never kind of like scripts that he
50:25
went that didn't get it or projects that you heard that he wanted to do
50:30
and couldn't get done. Early like early stuff, there were like little westerns,
50:35
and there was something about Elvis and there were, you know, things
50:37
that he wrote. There was a really neat I used to have it a
50:42
long time ago and I lost it in a blood, but there was He
50:45
had written a treatment early on before and it was like it was his version
50:50
of a John Wu movie and it was like about these guys robbing this hotel
50:55
like in the Hong Kong and then it ends up with all these these Mexican
51:00
standoffs and stuff, and it was neat um. A lot of stuff like
51:05
that, you know, like little odds and ends. In the book.
51:07
Linda Kay, who was one of the actresses in the movie and also has
51:12
these really two tiny parts in Reservoir Dogs and pulp Fiction. In one of
51:17
them she's shot woman, and Pulp Fiction she's shot woman like she's the one
51:22
that gets shot when in the middle of the street when Ranks is trying to
51:29
shoot Bruce Willis, and the other one she's shocked woman, and she's the
51:32
one that I think they steal her car. I can't. He's one of
51:37
the things after the robbery. And but anyway, she tells a story about
51:40
when she was typing up quintin scripts early on, and she talks about this
51:45
very hitchcocky and scene, which the way she describes it as brilliant that Quinton
51:50
had come up with and he didn't want to He didn't know how to show
51:52
this violence or make it look real. And so there there's people arguing and
52:00
the camera turns slowly and you can hear this record playing and I'm gonna screw
52:05
this up a little bit, and it just goes in this big three sixty
52:08
and you hear this a couple screaming at each other and fighting, and then
52:13
it stops, and then you just hear the middle of the record goes and
52:17
when it comes back around, there's just blood everywhere. And I mean it's
52:22
a a lot neater the way she describes it because you can get a visual
52:24
picture of it. So, I mean I think that he always had cool
52:28
ideas from the get go. Well, it was like Reservoir Dogs when he
52:31
just pans off the air cutting scene, oh right, right right, he
52:36
just pans off of that, and then he's like, Na, that's that's
52:38
the shot. Yeah, instead of actually us seeing it. It's much more
52:42
disturbing if we don't see it. But that's Hitscock. That was hit.
52:45
That was a hitscocking a tool, and it's it's it's pretty remarkable. Um,
52:51
you know, talking about Quinton and his early his early works, and
52:54
uh, you know, obviously I'm a fan, and I'm very grateful that
52:58
you actually sat down and how long take it to write this thing? Man,
53:00
I'm grateful. Man. I've been trying to get an interview since the
53:05
nineties with him, and he did some fact checking for the first book that
53:07
fell apart before he found out Jamie was involved and disappeared. But you know,
53:12
so it took a long time to get that, and then once we
53:15
did get it, I couldn't get a specific time. Then I like I
53:19
got a time because he was editing. He was wrapped up at this editing.
53:22
So he sets a time and I wait and he doesn't call. So
53:27
then the next day I go on a date and it's my first date with
53:30
the woman I end up marrying and becomes my wife. Now we're on our
53:34
first date. I'm on the how does it work out? It? No.
53:37
The first night, we go to this Italian restaurant. I've got my
53:40
phone turned off because I don't think anybody. I sure don't think Quintin's calling.
53:44
We hain't set anything up. Well, Quinton calls like three or four
53:46
times, which is great for him for persistence and not giving up, and
53:51
he was very nice. He's like this, Quintin Tarantino, I thought we
53:53
were you know, did you want to talk? And so then I'm thinking
53:58
it's never gonna happen now, so I'm still trying to set something up.
54:01
We go on another date the next night. We lived in separate towns.
54:06
I'm on the highway it's nighttime, and Quentin calls and I'm in the car
54:10
and I'm like, man, I'm so sorry. I really would like to
54:14
record this. And he's like, oh, it's okay, and I'm thinking,
54:19
this is not going to happen. I've just fucked this up. It's
54:21
just not going to happen. And then and he says, I might call
54:24
you later. So when I get there, me and my date are just
54:29
sitting there all night, just kind of waiting for Quinton the call, and
54:31
then he doesn't call, and then finally it happens, and it was just
54:36
like holy shit, you know, And it was the interview that you would
54:39
want to have with Quinton, you know, because sometimes they can go bad,
54:43
sometimes people make it mad and YadA YadA, or he can be unhappy.
54:47
It was the perfect interview. And people said afterward, when are you
54:51
going to interview him again? There's no need to interview him again. I
54:54
have the one perfect interview. And I found that sometimes. I mean,
54:59
I've interviewed or five hundred famous people in my life, and I found it
55:02
when you really enjoy somebody's work and you have a shitty experience with them,
55:07
you never look at that stuff in the same way. You never enjoy it
55:09
the same way. Tarantino's work means so much to me that I don't really
55:14
want to risk any kind of bad thing. Um, you hit, you
55:20
hit the amazing. He was very giving. I'm the biggest fan. I
55:22
love his work. I don't care. I love his work. I also
55:25
write nor fiction and he's been the biggest influence him and Elmore Leonard. I
55:30
mean, I love his work. Yeah, you hit, you hit,
55:34
you hit the ball, you hit, you hit the home run the first
55:36
time up the bat with him, And I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna
55:37
take another way. I'm good, I'm good. I'm gonna. I'm retiring
55:42
from that part. Right, I completely get it. Um, Now,
55:45
where can where can people find out more about you and and the work you're
55:50
doing? Where can they get the book? Um? The book is available.
55:53
The easiest place always to get it as Amazon. Um, you know,
55:58
I have to say it's through Bear Manner Media, which a lot of
56:00
those you're not going to generally find those in the bookstores. The film book
56:06
genres really changed in the twenty five years that I've been writing. It's used
56:10
to be they were everywhere, you know, and my earliest books were with
56:14
Kensington and Chronicled Books, and they were everywhere. I'd you know, walmart,
56:17
Hey, here's my book, and it was awesome, And that doesn't
56:21
really happen anymore, and so people think I'll just read on the internet and
56:24
even if it's wrong, that's all I need to know about that movie.
56:28
And so, you know, but bare Manner Media is great. Is just
56:31
they're one of the you know, these the ones that are left are mostly
56:34
smaller publishers. Amazon is always a good place where the Bear Manner Media website,
56:40
I don't remember, you know what the address is. We'll put it
56:45
in the books with them on everybody from ed would Quinta to Stephen king Um,
56:53
I'm really proud of this book and I hope people will go out and
56:57
read it, not because of me, but just because it's a good story.
57:00
You know, it's a good story and quin Quinton, as usual,
57:04
has a story to tell, as he always does. Now, I'm going
57:07
to ask you probably the most the most difficult question you've ever had about Quinton.
57:12
Three of your favorite Quinn films. Pulp Fiction is always going to be
57:19
my favorite. It's the one that I saw first and it just knocked me
57:22
on my ass. Get going to see it over and over it in the
57:24
theater. I would take everyone I could get to go see it. I'm
57:28
like, you got to see this movie, and everyone around me was sick
57:30
of hearing about it, sick of seeing it. But a mean thing was
57:34
every time you'd see it with a different audience, the experience would be different
57:37
because it's funny when you're with an audience. There are certain scenes where everybody
57:39
will laugh and sometimes nobody will laughs that same scene. So that's my number
57:45
one. I gotta tell you. Number two I think is I didn't I
57:50
got. I was really disappointed when Jackie Brown first came out because it wasn't
57:53
what we expected. But man, I've come to love that movie. I
57:58
think it is a masterpiece. It's because it's more quiet, it's more it's
58:01
just not where we expected. I think it holds up. I think it
58:04
looks better with every passing year. I think the performances are fucking amazing,
58:09
and they're wrong more and where people contend that say that it might actually be
58:14
his best movie, and that may be true. Pulpa will always be my
58:16
favorite, but no, I mean, and then thirty Roman really and really
58:23
pure romance of Jackie Brown. Their their neck and neck. Yeah, that's
58:28
a and for people who are young, because you and I are similar lintage.
58:31
Uh So people don't understand, you know, I saw Paul multiple times
58:37
in the theater. I was in film school when paulp came out, So
58:39
can you imagine. I was like down the street from my film school and
58:43
I went to the theater and I went remember seeing it the first time,
58:45
and I remember falling literally falling out of my chair, um laughing with some
58:50
of the things because the stuff that was being said on screen, it was
58:53
it was a nuclear bomb going off in cinema. It really, it really
58:58
was. I mean, it was just so undenied, liable. I've never
59:01
experienced. I mean, i'd imagine it'd be like I'd imagine it'd be watching
59:07
Clockwork Orange in the seventies or two thousand and one in the sixties, like
59:13
that, you know, like it's undeniable what you're seeing in front of you,
59:17
and it just doesn't. I don't think it's happened since pulp fiction.
59:22
Maybe with people can argue that there's been other films, but I don't remember
59:27
that. I mean, all of a sudden, you had all these people
59:29
imitating it, and it really odd. The rise of indie film really was
59:34
Quinton, it was, I mean, and I when I was talking to
59:37
Richard about that, I asked him about that, and he's like, look,
59:40
the independent film movement as we know, it started pretty much with Slacker
59:46
Um you know Slacker in ninety one and he and it was all about the
59:52
nineties Sundance films and that's when the market changed and there was the VHS has
59:55
started making it will be right back after a word from our sponsor, and
1:00:05
now back to the show. You know, a feasible option to make money
1:00:09
with these things. Reservoir showed up, and then Mariachi and Clerks and Brothers
1:00:15
McMullan and all those all every every month there was a new guy. It
1:00:19
was a new filmmaker that popped up. But Pulp Fiction was the first indie
1:00:22
that was a blockbuster. I mean it was a blockbuster and it was and
1:00:28
they released it twice because if you remember when it got nominated for Oscar,
1:00:30
they brought it back out. Oh of course it kept kept making money and
1:00:34
money. It was a seven million I mean it wasn't negotiate its more.
1:00:37
It was like a seven or eight million dollars film, So it wasn't a
1:00:40
huge budget. It was essentially an indie budget as as a Studio Coast because
1:00:45
it was released by by Mirramax, but it made hundreds of millions of dollars.
1:00:51
And you're right, like the ripoffs that came off of pip fiction.
1:00:53
There were so many of those movies. Everyone was trying to write like Quentin,
1:00:57
but nobody could. No one came and no one can write like him.
1:01:00
There's so many ripoffs. It launched. I mean, it was in
1:01:06
the zeitgeist almost immediately. Like it's just like I just remember before pulp fiction,
1:01:10
after pulp fic, it's kind of like there's certain movies that changed cinema,
1:01:15
and I felt like the Matrix. When the Matrix came out, it
1:01:16
just completely changed action movies forever. Is like before the Matrix, and like
1:01:22
so many people ripped that off, so many people try to imitate it.
1:01:24
And pulp was that as well. And there's there's like Star Wars is like
1:01:29
that. There's certain movies that come along, let's just do that. If
1:01:31
it hadn't been for putting in pulp fiction, I would have never written about
1:01:36
film. I mean, I liked movies like everybody, and I was still
1:01:39
watching the big tin pull shitty movies and thinking they were just as good as
1:01:44
everything else. You know, I would I didn't start learning about film,
1:01:47
studying about film, you know, really finding a passion for film. Until
1:01:52
that movie. I walked out of that movie stunned. I went on opening
1:01:57
night, if I'm not wrong, it was like what September, I don't
1:02:01
know, like ninth or something, nineteen ninety four, maybe it's twenty something
1:02:06
like that. And I walked down and it was just stunned. I couldn't
1:02:09
believe this thing I'd just seen. And I knew something had changed inside of
1:02:14
me, not only on the screen, but inside of me. And and
1:02:17
I just I thought, I want to write about film. And that was
1:02:22
that was started finding film books right after that. That was, you know
1:02:25
when I thought, man, I want to write about film. And I'll
1:02:29
leave you with a little story that I know about Quentin that I heard firsthand
1:02:34
from someone. I don't know if you know this, And I do know
1:02:36
the director Sheldon left it. Who let it Sheldon? Back in the day.
1:02:40
Yeah, yeah, the bloods boy. He wrote, he wrote blood
1:02:44
Sport and directed Lionheart and stuff. Well, he knew, he knew Quentin.
1:02:47
He was he was, I think from from my interest, either introduced
1:02:52
him to Lawrence or they they knew someone who knew it, but he knew
1:02:55
quintin somehow, like Scott Spiegel and Lawrence someone and Sheldon were in the same
1:03:01
circle and right, and that there was something there, right. But but
1:03:06
he told me a Quentin story and you might know this story, but um,
1:03:08
he's like he was he was working on was it Line Heart. I
1:03:13
don't know if he was on Line Heart or Rambo, but he was working
1:03:15
on a pre production in an office and right next to him. He walked
1:03:20
in the room and Quentin was there. And Quentin goes, oh my god,
1:03:23
it's Sheldon Lectic and He's like, holy cow, it's Sheldon. And
1:03:28
then he's And then of course Quentin, because he has that encyclopedic knowledge of
1:03:31
film, started nailing all his old films and stuff like that. And apparently
1:03:36
Quentin was he was a telemarketer on selling. Um, he was upselling video
1:03:44
stores around the country to buy more copies of certain films that were coming out
1:03:50
that week. He's like, you need five copies instead of three of of
1:03:52
you know, Assault of the Killer Bimbos. I mean, seriously, you
1:03:54
do need more. And that was that, and I was like, wow,
1:03:58
Quentin was calling, you know, video stories, trying to upsell videos
1:04:02
I gotta tell you for now and forever, probably one of the greatest experiences
1:04:08
of my life talking film was at that film festival in ninety nine. I
1:04:15
had a few minutes to just talk to Quentin about We talked about gangster movies.
1:04:19
There was a movie called He had a movie on there called The Debt
1:04:24
Collector and or the Death Collector. That's at the Death Collector and it was
1:04:28
an early movie with Joe Peshi and Frank Vincent before they had done Scorsese movies.
1:04:33
And we got to talk for a few minutes and he was just really
1:04:38
nice and let his guard down, and to hear him talk about movies,
1:04:42
it's amazing. And also I asked him about I had just seen The Apple,
1:04:46
which is that famous movie that Cannon put out that was supposed to be
1:04:50
so bad, and it was. It was awful. But I asked him
1:04:54
about it and Quintin said, oh, yeah, that was one of the
1:04:57
only movies I've ever walked out of, So it was up. It was
1:05:00
associating. Quentin walked out and wow, he watches everything money, he watches
1:05:03
everything right. And for the record, if you ever talked to Garamo del
1:05:08
Turo, he's just like Quinton. I mean, it's infectious. They both
1:05:12
know evid encyclopedic knowledge a film. I'd love to see those two guys talked
1:05:15
about film. I think that would be amazing. I wouldn't even have to
1:05:18
talk. I just sit back and watch that like a movie. No.
1:05:21
When I was talking to Richard, it was the same thing. Richard has
1:05:24
an encyclopedic knowledge of films. He was throwing out stuff that I'd either heard
1:05:29
of in film school or I'd just never heard of, and some filmmate I
1:05:31
was like, what is going And I thought I was a cinephile to a
1:05:34
certain extent, but they're at a whole other level. And I'm like,
1:05:39
Okay, I think Richard is probably up up in the same levels as as
1:05:43
Quinnon is. But I didn't. I've met I Make Again him a couple
1:05:45
of times, but I've never had the chance to really sit down and talk
1:05:48
to him. But I've heard that he has an encyclopedic knowledge of film as
1:05:53
well. It's insane, But man, thank you so much for being on
1:05:57
the show. Andy. I appreciate it. Brother. Thank you for writing
1:06:00
the book and being the historian that we needed for this film. So at
1:06:04
least now there's a record, a true record of what happens. Just so
1:06:09
you know, I'm editing a third book on Quinn. Okay, what's the
1:06:12
kind of It's called Pope Cinema and it's going to be a collection of essays
1:06:18
by different writers on different aspects of Quentin's films. And I'm doing that with
1:06:25
Iaran Fisher, who's a really talented writer from Australia. Nice, very cool.
1:06:30
Well, we'll keep an eye off for that man. But thank you
1:06:32
Andy again so much. I appreciate you and in all forty six plus books
1:06:38
that you have written about cinema, So thank you, my friend. Hey,
1:06:42
thank you. I want to thank Andy so much for not only coming
1:06:46
on the show, but for writing the book and taking the time to create
1:06:50
a record of what actually happened to Quentin Tarantino's first film, My Best Friend's
1:06:57
Birthday. Thank you so much. Andy. If you want to get links
1:07:00
to anything we spoke about in this episode, including how to get a copy
1:07:02
of the book, head over to the show notes at Bulletproof Screenwriting dot tv
1:07:06
forward slash three oh six, and if you haven't already, please head over
1:07:11
to Screenwriting podcast dot com subscribe and leave a good review for the show.
1:07:15
It really helps us out a lot. Thank you again so much for listening.
1:07:18
Guys, as always, keep on writing no matter what. I'll talk
1:07:23
to you soon. Thanks for listening to the Bulletproof Screenwriting podcast at Bulletproof Screenwriting
1:07:28
dot tv.