Starstruck

Yeah, weird wit. So it's not often that I do an episode of this show where I've never met the person before and they're they're coming into the show as as a guest of someone else, essentially. But the last time I did it, it was with a it was it was with a person who isn't as bodacious as they used to be as Oh my god, Yes, Well, I'm really excited because now I get to sit here and meet someone who I've never met and talked to before, which is Rachel mcpatt and who work works with Heather all the time. Apparent Heather's been keeping Rachel from this show and the insights that Rachel could bring. You've been You've been hiding Rachel in the corner.

I have not been hiding her. You've just been We've just been plotting, okay, like we have been parallel lines. And I'm so excited because this is this is Rachel. This is the first time I culture cast and I'm so excited because you know, all the listeners deserve well I don't they deserve it, But I hope you guys realize how lucky you have because Rachel is a bad ass. She's a badass writer.

She's a badass human. She is an amazing artist. She even like consculpt which phenomenal. Damn idn' man, that is Heather, I made an abstract piece of sculpture. I made an This is the quickest said.

I made an abstract piece of art as a kid, and my teacher looked at me. So that's the worst ash tray I've ever seen. And I that an as tray by the fucker. But uh but I'm so excited, and especially because this is a movie Rachel and I like me and you, Me and you. We have bonded over so many things over the years, but this movie is one of them.

And this is a cult movie. Died in the Wool, especially for us Yanks over here, for Americans, and Chris, thank you so much for giving us, you know, for joining us on our journey. Yeah, so uh yeah, I was to say, like, Heather, you just did a better job than I could have. So uh, Rachel, before we talk about Starstruck from nineteen eighty two, tell the listeners of the Culture cast a little bit more about yourself where people want to if they want to hear more of the things that you do and say and create where they can find you as well before we get into the movie as sure. Okay, So I'm Rachel mcpatten and I've been a culture writer for about thirty years.

I started out in zines. I write mainly about movies and music've I helped produce a couple books and have contributed to movie books and helped produce a couple of books written by my late husband, Mike mcpatten. So teen Movie Hell and heavy Metal, Heavy Metal Movies. Those are books that I worked heavily on and that I'm really proud of, and that are great film guides. I'm writing.

I'm currently writing a book about the up Philly rock star who happened to write girls Just Want to have Fun, and most people don't know that that was written by him or by a man. So that's kind of what I'm really engrossed and right now it's do at the end of the year my manuscript. So I like the laugh all the time. I like that laugh to do it the end of the year. It's a nice to take a break and be able to talk movies with you guys, for sure.

So I mean, I'm on regular social media. I'm on Instagram. You can find me on there later. Still I don't know why. Yeah, I'm not really while I'm writing a book, I'm not really putting out other stuff.

So put the Heather Patreon, you know. Oh yeah, no, Rachel. Rachel is phenomenal and her book is going to be I'm so fucking excited. And I could say that objectively because I know the subject because like in, the musician in question is Robert Hazzard, who I was like somebody I was already kind of a fan of that I didn't know his ex story history at all. Just hearing the little tiny nugget, I'm just getting like little tiny shrapnels, you know.

And I'm so so excited. And this is why we all do the things to be do, like Chris with your show, you know, with you know, our our writing and you know, just everything. It's all to explore and celebrate, you know, art and the creatives who are willing to kind of take a step outside the box and do something different and to make a difference in this crazy ass beautiful, toxic world we live in, which I think, yeah, and which I think a favorite is feeling the toxicity of life. I think the movie we're going into is a great kind of remedy, A little bomb for it, I would agree one hundred percent. I would also say, like I feel now more than ever, like I attempt to be like a good steward of the things that I care about and hope to share with other people and you know, not make them uncomfortable if they watch it and don't like it.

They don't have to feel bad in my presence to tell me, oh, I didn't like that. Like I always feel like that's part of being a good steward of things is being able to like share things with people, but also understand that some people you share things with aren't going to like it, so which is a hard thing to swallow for so many people, including the singular one star review for this podcast, which is predicated completely on the person not liking my opinion on the Snyder cut and Godzilla, which I mean, fine, if that's the hill you want to die on, be my guest, as they would say in a in a Disney movie. So yeah, I I I agree. You know, I'm I'm glad that y'all brought this, uh this movie to the to the Culture Cast, and yeah, on this episode of the Culture Cast, I am still your host Christachu, much the chagrin of many, and as you've already heard, I am joined by Mondoheather dot COM's Heather Drain and uh yeah, Rachel mcpatten, who's a whose qualifications precede her.

So there you go. Elly. Also, are we not talking about the Sider's Sorry, I might have saying the Snyder cat whoa? I mean, you know I have, And that doesn't make me lesser, I hope. But it was that for Justice.

Yeah, yeah, you're real good. You could watch this movie like two or three times and still not have seen that. I think that movie is like almost three and a half four hours or something. I don't know. That was a long time ago.

The only long movies we watched, Chris are Indian cinema. And you know that that's ow true role Sally Roll, that is very true. However, on this episode of the Culture Cast, we're not talking about Indian cinema. We're talking about nineteen eighty two's musical comedy Starstruck, from the director of My Brillian Career, a totally new kind of Australian film, Last Not of the Lizard Lande, Jackie Blue, the UFA, What with Hot Eh Star Cianna film Starlit. But my cousin name is he's reading this book sex Psychology and he reckons.

Guitars are like phelic symbols, and guitarists masturbate for living. Got bad, She's got so I'm telling your bad that I'm telling a trust cap. Why do you keep seeing these pointless blood and song? So I can I just close my eyes my sin and I feel like I'm above the crowd. Trust local, don't take It's that little something extra Stuck.

Star Struck an Australian musical comedy directed by Jillian Armstrong. Film is directed by Gillian Armstrong, written by Stephen McLean, and stars Joe Kennedy as Jackie, A, a burgeoning pop star who goes out of her way and tries to do everything she can to become a pop star, a rock star, and her her cousin helps her sort of maybe ross O'Donovan's Angus, who's definitely not the best part of this movie. He totally, at least for me, he is. I mean, I don't know, there's a lot of things. There's a lot of things in this movie one could say is their favorite thing.

I think we'll buy me going around the horn on that, but I am actually gonna kick it up to whichever one of you wants to answer first as to why we're talking about this movie, because, as you mentioned, Heather, I did not pick this. This is a a programming of the of y'all. So I will whichever one of you wants to answer first be my guest. Why are we talking about nineteen eighty two Starstruck? Am I?

Oh my gosh, okay, I feel I feel like I'm playing like like the twenty thousand dollars pyramid or something. Is Robert I get to Yeah, wait, Robert Conrad, No, I this movie because this is one of my favorite's just one of my favorite Australian movies or one of my favorite movies. It's one of my favorite musicals, and it's one that nobody ever really seems to talk about. Like I don't think I've ever seen, you know, another podcast cover it, at least of recent memory. I haven't seen a ton of like recent know, like newer cult writing about it, like it seems to be just kind of to me like still sort of a somewhat hidden gem.

And yeah, I think it's I think a lot of music's fantastic. I think that a photography is so gorgeous. I love the cast and and it also gave me an excuse to bring my my sister over here the Lovely Rachel Kids. It's a movie that she loves and this is something we always wanted to do. And you were you being open to the journey.

I was like, hey, I got a movie, and plus it's like, yeah, more people need to know about this movie because I think I think it's so much fun. Yeah, we've been conspiring. That's fine. Yeah, the world isn't the world isn't the best kind of danger it doesn't know about just yet. The pieces are moving.

My question though, is that, of course, Chris, this is your first exposure of the movie. I got this movie. I feel like I almost like did a blind buy and it got released on Blue Underground when they did their their DVD back in Let's it like A four, A four or five. Yeah, it was like rand a four. And because that's the kind of nerd I am, I just was like I need this and I watched it and I was like I was right, Uh, like Rachel, what was your like, what was your your your entrance to this to this movie?

Okay, So when I was it was a movie that I first sawned table, but it wasn't like and this was as a kid. This would have been the early early to mid early eighties, not I would say, maybe a couple of years after it came out. And I can't remember if it was like Night Flight or if it was something like that. It seems like it because they would always have the music themed film and with more, you know, like if they had some kind of like hunk Theater or whatever. Oh here puppy.

Yeah. Bertie Lee also has a maybe. But so what in like really good about it? Because I think a lot of those movies I was young, and they were kind of like they left it and they were just like impressionistic. You know.

It's like I kind of I liked what the what subculture and kind of music that it was exposing me to, but I didn't remember tons of details. And then I actually nineteen ninety three I saw the soundtrack and a used movie or a used record store in Saint Louis and it was a record exchange when they had a couple of locations that would be there all the time, and I actually, you I used to buy soundtracks, just even movies that I hadn't seen. But when so, I mean, because it'd be inexpensive. They weren't super super popular, and I would go buy what the album cover looked like, in the names of the songs and things like that, you know, but so I would I would always look in the soundtrack section, and and I found a copy of A Starstruck on, going, oh my god, I mean, and then it was and it still has the sticker on it record exchange six dollars.

So I bought it for six dollars, and I was like, I know that I've seen that movie. But then for another you know, ten or so years, I couldn't remember. It was just like the photos, the music, the music from the movie, and then the photos on the record were pretty much all that I could remember. I didn't remember much about it. So it was it was wild to have this, like I didn't even it's such a soundtrack.

I don't think it stands alone on its own. Is like, oh, this is my favorite record. You know, it definitely has the feeling of musical, right, but you know, but less or so you know, new wave musical, which was a is a weird concept, you know, at that point for me. And then it was I want to say that they showed it on like the TCM or something, you know, like as a two AM movie, probably like two thousand and eight or something, and I was able. I was like, oh my god, that's that movie, because then I knew the soundtrack so well and I was like, you know, putting it together.

So I got to watch it in the middle of the night in more modern times probably you know, a very probably the best version I had ever seen of it, I imagine, And it was probably after the release that you're talking about, Heather, like in some time they were able to play because I know they've done a different Blu Ray since, and I think there's like commentaries and so, I mean, I have a Blue Ray now. I don't think I've watched any of the extras or anything. But and as a teenager who grew up with you know, like Molly Ringwold movies and that kind of you know, like to me, it offered like around the same time to even be exposed to it the first time, it seemed like at that at the right when you're getting into like just reflective of my book, she is, She's like somewhere between Molly Ringwold and City Opera.

You know, she was kind of this like much more accessible team I end of a character. You know, It's like she was she was so weird and didn't care about being weird, Whereas you know, Molly Ringwold, she's so easily switched over to play the rich girl that you never really bought that. She was this kind of like the weirdo you're out, you know, like yeah, the out nass or ring Oh wait, y'all too. Yeah, it's I don't know, like I so many of those John Hughes movies just ring so hollow because it's like she's just not believable as a as that kind of character, right, And I grew I was living in the Chicago suburbs and was like a young teenager when those movies came out. They were for me, and I knew those kids, you know, and some of them actually are more feel more real when you grew up in that environment than you would say.

But still, you know, it's like that doesn't necessarily make it worthy of being a film, you know, but yeah, it was just so and I think Heather and I could have talked about that early on too. It's like it may not have been. Bring the Tea was marketed as a teen movie. I know when they the brief time that they marketed in the US, they kept trying to make people understand it wasn't a teen movie, which I see it as kind of an ideal teen movie. Oh totally yeah.

I mean it's I mean, our two protagonist Jackie's eighteen, yeah, and Angus is fourteen. I mean, that doesn't get much more teen. I mean, and that explains some of like the decision making because both of them make somemes. They do and say things for as an older like as an older adult, now you're kind of like, man, you're a little bit of a shit, but you know they're still likable. It's like, well, yeah, when you're a kid, like even the best kid is going to have like a few little like shitter kid moments, Like that's just part of groping, that's part of growing up.

Oh my god. The soundtrack I'm for People. When I got all excited and Chris went WHOA Rachel to explain the visual has the she's showing us the physical vinyl soundtrack that she bought, which looks like it's been amazing. You've taken exquisite care of that. So beautiful.

You need to put that on Instagram, like because that, oh my god, it's gorgeous. Oh man, it's oh and the inner sleeve is even glossy, and it's got this cool sort of negative like like reverse image of Joe Kennedy the Star Stars. That is nice. Man, talk a minute about the music or is that getting ahead of versus just in general? Like I was gonna say.

The thing that's cool to me too is when I got the soundtrack the song Body and Soul, which is she Got Bodies, She Got Soul as the split end song, and it was written by Tim Finn, who was in Split Ends. It would later go on with Neil Finn to Floor a Crowded House. So these were also Australian musicians that I knew. I knew Split Ends, and like listening to that again and realizing, oh my gosh, Body and Soul is a split end song, you know, and then looking at the soundtrack and seeing that Phil Judd wrote, Yeah, he was in Swingers at the time, and like he wrote half of those songs on the soundtrack. So these are these were like, you know, guys from Split Ends and also from several you know that went on to play in other Australian popular bands that might not have broken out to the US.

But it's pretty awesome that that's what the soundtrack is, is those guys. Oh completely yeah. And that was one of the things that hooks me with the movie is that I have such a love hate relationship with me. Is like, because I'm I'm such a music theend, and but I have so for me, like for musical to work, it's like I have to like the music, and I'm not the biggest fan of more traditional musicals. And because like I'm like, well that's the music, I'm like, they're really gonna listen to, you know.

And when I saw this movie, I was like, in the Swingers, oh my god, that's it's such an underrated band. By the way, for anybody who's wanting to go into some deep dive onto a more underrated New Zealand Australian early eighties music, as you all should, of course you should like Phil Judd has such a great presence in this movie too, because you even though he's not he's not really a character per se. And in fact, I think they renamed the band the Mainliners. In the actual movie, Yeah, that shot of him, like when they're in the Lizard Lounge, You're the beginning of the movie where Angus has gotten Jackie a gig playing at this little super stylized club, Like I kind of wish real life was lit like this.

Yeah, so the art direction just ruled. Oh it's so like, so gorgeous. And but that shot of his face as that red light on it right before he launches into one good reason. It's just it's so iconic for me that I I had forgotten this till recently. I I edited and made my own cable Axis show years ago, and I use parts of this movie and my intro and outro, like at the little intro at and that shot of Phil Judd is in there, like it's that there's the Sharks from Tough, which I know we'll get to later, which oh god, I love that.

I love that some love. There's so many things all of this movie I can just like go into right now. And that's and that's the thing. This film is like a really good mix of being very like very like modern and sort of almost postmodern with some of the set design and art design and the new wave music, but it also has that like I mean, the the core story is so classic, kind of like Hollywood. It sort of like Andy Hardy Meets Star Is Born a little bit, but it it works for it, like I don't think it works against it.

I like the musicals that I like, and that tends to not be like the usual stuff, which is fine. I mean, the usual things aren't bad. I mean that's not it's just the I don't go out of my way to watch things like Rent or which Le Miserab is something we're covering next year, so like I say, I'm not covering it, but we're covering it eventually next year in January. But like I tend to gravitate towards the things that are less mainstream, less kind of constantly being referenced and Redone. I mean, there was a time where Rocky Horror wasn't the thing that it is now where it's been Redone actually, which I kind of always forget, is a thing that has happened in the reality we live it.

Uh So I tend to like like the things that are less popular, not because I'm trying to be that guy, but because they tend to resonate with me more. And I can say that I enjoyed this a lot for the reasons that y'all are already kind of getting into, which is it is so much its own thing. It I can one hundred percent understand why this movie had a hard time finding its audience in the States, because I just I can see why. I don't agree with why that would would be the case. But this is a hard movie to sell because I don't think it's it is a teen movie, but like the message is so universal that for it to be a teen movie is like, well, I think you kind of put it in a little bit of a box, and some people may just be apprehensive to get near that box because it's a teen movie.

But I think to both of y'all's points, like what it's trying to do is more important, which is tell kind of that universal story of wanting to do this thing that is so hard to be successful at and somehow, some way by Hilper By Krook doing And there are so many things that have to fall into place that have to exist in this movie for our characters to get there. But it does happen against the odds of all of the odds because this is I don't know how to explain this other than like, becoming the most successful musician possible is fucking impossible. Yeah, it is, right, Like it just its like there's only so much room at the top and that spot at the top is being fought over forever, like and relevancy is only minutes long seconds really, like, you know, the most relevant bands of all time got part lucky, part skill, part god knows what else, Like the fact that a week and a half ago the Beatles are releasing a brand new song and like it doesn't move the needle more or less at all for anybody is a testament to like if relevancy really isn't something that people can even like measure anymore, because there's a time and a place where that happening would have been a thing that everybody would have gone ape shit about, but that's not the case anymore.

And it's like Starstruck, the movie and the message are like it's almost even hard to comprehend doing that thing now because this thing that she does in this movie, this isn't even the way you do it anymore. It's even more nebulous to be successful as it as a musician because all the there are so many paths now, it's not just the one path that you again, because this the way she becomes successful is kind of a little bit more traditional than I even thought it was going to be. But at the same time, like there's so many people now that have become successful through TikTok. It's like what wait, like what like okay, Like now you're a musician and you're a TikTok musician, Like that's a thing, Like Okay, sure, I'm glad that the path has been democratized, But at the same time, there's a lot of bad stuff that's come out of that, like a lot of really not subpar music.

But it's like this, I don't even know what you would call this, Like it's okay, well sticking to music. I kind of wonder if part of what hurt this film with like getting over to the us, who is I feel like and I maybe forgetting a really obvious title, So either one of you please feel free to be like you know, hey, you know, but I feel like a lot of the movies that have me music that either had light new waiver punk elements, at the best they ever did was being big cult successes and never were like huge breakthroughs because it's like Ladies and Gentlemen, the fabulous stains huge fan of that bomb app did not that didn't do well at all. Shock Treatment failed, and that's another that's another favorite of mine.

To be fair, Shock Treatment also failed because it's not Rocky Horror like well it also the US trailer for is dog shit, Like they you, they did not know how to promote that movie. The studio kind of fucked the pooch a little bit on that one too. But also I think the movie was just too I'll say that I can we dok too. I would love to redo those and I would love to redo Shock Treatment, Like what is there to say about Rocky Horror? Like that everybody else hasn't already said a million times.

With Shock Treatment on the other I'm so passionate, but like a lot, but like the problem really is like it is related to and it is a sequel to one of the most influential movies of all time, like Rocky Horror, Like I don't know, like it stands alone, like it's I don't know, it's a that's an uphill, that's an uphill, cliff face immediately, you know what I mean, Right, that didn't help. But it also a lot of the music has a lot more new wave elements where the soundtrack to the original one is kind of a cross between like old school rock and roll, a little bit of glam rock, a little bit you know, traditional. Yeah, yeah, there was rock and roll. U oh god was that rock and roll Hotel which I don't know how big of a release that got with Rachel Sweet which somebody plays release this so I could fucking see this because I've been tried to see every years it was shell.

It has had a screening. Oh my, that is awesome. Rat Our, Rachel has a Rachel Sweet pin that rolls. I love Rachel Sweet and I love Rachel. Yeah.

See, and there's I'm sure I know there are others Urga music War, which we will be talking about. We'll be recruiting that episode in December very soon. I was about to say, I recognized that name. Yeah, you know. So I kind of feel like the musicals or movies that were branded very heavily as kind of musical adjacent that were huge successes in the US were in the eighties were movies almost more like soundtrack kind of like like Footloose and flash Dance, and you know, I even know, like it was just a weird period of time, I think for musicals at that point, like after Greece, I'm not sure Streets of Fires another movie that should have been bigger that wasn't that had a really great and actually I had bore up rock soundtrack, But Forbidden Zone, Forbidden Zones, it's all other.

That movie was made to be a coal is its own and I love, I love, love love for Bidden Zone, but that's it's it's its own weird baby. For there is The Cruisers, which is also not like The Dogs, and I had read something in relation to that, them trying to kind of release this movie in the US, which it had a decent amount of success in New York and small run in LA and then kind of in the suburbs for a minute, but it really gave popularity and cable. But at the time, their argument versus it like wanting it to be more of an adult films. They were using Grease versus Saturday Night Teber as the example, where Greece would be for kids in a peper for adults, you know, And so it's like, what type of film is it.

It's so funny because it's literally neither. It's nuts. I don't think that I don't see it as the audience for either. I mean it is. I also don't see it as a mainstream movie.

And it was kind of you know, what else was going on at that time. It was probably like some of those early horror films. I mean, there were definitely lots of teen movies that were more that were so much more over the top. It didn't have I just think there was a different attitude about musicals too. It's so strange.

I mean, that's obviously why I caught my attention. Probably why I caught your attention, Heather, is that why is it a musical? You know? I mean other than that she's pursuing that. Like, there's plenty of movies that have bands in the background as part of the story, you know, whether it's a real or made up band, it's a part of the movie, and it'll have original music or whatever.

But this being where you just break out into song and you're doing like walking it type in the pub that you work at or whatever. You know, Like, it's just it is so strange. But something about Bed is like really satisfying as a like alternative culture, you know, like as a subculture to just be like, oh, they're just gonna sing. You know, I'm just gonna sing us through this. She's breaking into another song.

She's gonna have everybody start dance. Oh my god, to like half a busby Berkeley number right now. You know. Oh, it's so it's so good. Script you kind of to lots of different types of musicals, and I will say I'm a huge fan of the movie Umbrellas of Cherburg, which is oh yeah song, all of the everything is sung.

There's nothing is spoken, it's all sung, and it is I'm surprised it's as popular as it is, except for it's incredibly beautiful and the art direction of that is like maybe the best of all time, where you know, Katherine Dednov walks into a room, she matches the room she'll walk into the next take your phone off, and her clothes underneath will match the room that she's walked into, you know. I mean, it's just like a visual wonderment. And then it also happens to be a musical and all in French, so it's completely bizarre. But I feel like because of my experience with something like that and that being so satisfying and like not even a narrative way necessarily, but just all these elements to get your attention.

I think I'm more open to a film like Starstruck. Yeah, oh, same, same. I think it's kind of movies like this, and I would say, even on a bigger level, cult movies I think also tap into this innate kind of I think quest a lot of us have to see something a little different. You know, it's like you get tired. To me, I always like it the food analogies, like, you know, you get tired of eating the same thing all the time.

It's good to shake it up. And I and I think there's such a blandification with cinema, especially in America and especially mainstream cinema, that you know, seeing something you know like Starstruck and it's and it's definitely it's you know, it's unusual, it's not. It's especially because it's it's unusual enough to where the traditional like things about it make those stand out even more in a way because they're like, like Chris, you said, you were surprised, like the climax ends up being even more kind of old fashioned than you expect it and it and it is, but I kind of love that. It's kind of it's such a neat contrast as sort of all the very like very sort of like post punk, sort of like I hate saying new wave, but I mean, but I need a new wave in a positive I'm not using it as yeah, the Senate goal sort of industry term that was, you know, created back then.

But I love new wave. I'm not going to hit any definition of new wave is fun by me. I'm not gonna argue. I have very mixed feelings on new waves stuff. I guess I've literally never talked about it, and so this is the this is weird.

I mean, Heather, you know what I'm gonna mention. And this will come as a surprise to you, Rachel mcpatten and everybody else. Essentially, I actually spend a year and a half working on the podcast that's airing right now, Peter and the Acid King, all about Peter Ivers and his time on New Wave Theater and his murder. It was actually and I'm actually a producer and associate producer on that podcast. And that's all I can say, and that's all I will say.

And if you want to go check it out, listen to it. It is completely different than the show that I worked on. It is now hosted by Penelope Spherus and Alan Sachs makes a couple little forays into it, but at the time he was narrating the show in its entirety. So I have very weird feelings on new way, just to put it mildly, I don't know how I feel about new wave even now or any of like those topics. So just throwing that out there if anybody's interested.

Man, that is, I did know that it's cool to publicly it's crazy and yeah, no, new wave is a term now grown up for me, and as a teenager in my twenties, new wave just usually meant all me, this is gonna be something I'm me into, because it basically was a positive connotation for anything that's a lot that's that was basically different. It's not quite pop music. It's not like hard rock, though I love both and I always have. Yeah, it basically it's post punk. New wave is post punk.

It's kind of like the you know, it's a it's a sort of the logical offspring of the original punk movement where one can get mixed feelings about and I totally get it, especially the more of red over the years about the industry and is that a lot of musicians, especially at the time, kind of hated it, and some music writers, I know Luster Banks was one of them that because it felt like there were like very cynical like studio people or studio people, record company pressed people that were basically like, well punk punk doesn't make money, we'll call it new way and you know, we'll say yah know and and but I hate it though, because even when some musicians they'll say they'll mention other musicians that I like as seeing derogatory, like oh, Nick Clode, I'm like, well, wait, what's wrong with Nick clod?

They go love Nick Clode? I know, Nick close amazing. So you know what, Yeah, it's at the end of the day, music's like get anything else? Is it? Is it good?

Is it interesting? Is it made with somebody who's excited to do it? Are you excited to hear it? And that's alsoly what matters genre genre labels can get All of them are fucking ridiculous if you really break them down. I mean, you want to go into heavy metal or electronic music, I on said a guy argue with me about, well, that's not quite black metal.

It's more like this kind of black metal, and it's like, dude, you know that, are we going to break out the eight sided dice to roll on what genre? Like, yes, yes, we are. I mean, I guess they'll stay more specifically, yeah, exactly, more specifically on the topic of new Way. But since I am older than you guys, it was that was contemporary when I was very young, and it was with my pop you know, so when I was in when I was you know, young, grade school, that was what that was most of the music that I was exposed to. But also something that i've part of the deep research of doing the book that I'm working on right now is the Philly scene at that time in the early you know, late seventies, early eighties.

It's interesting to see because there's different categories. New wave was like the new wave of rock. You know, some of it was synthesizer beasts, some of it was definitely more just straightforward rock that had some of it was power pop. Some of it was really art like art experiment, you know, experimental bands that were more arty that were kind of less accessible. It really was an an umbrella.

So I think against I think it gets narrowly defined in the you know, as time goes by, but really it was actually like huge, a huge range of music was ended up under that umbrella. Maybe unfairly, but you know, everyone probably has an example of it that they don't like. But I think I was, you know, if I was like eight or nine years old, you know, it's like I loved almost everything that I was hearing. So but it is. It is interesting because when I was speaking to people that were in bands at that time too, they were saying like it was kind of the different factions they were, like it was split into kind of three categories, even though they were all kind of considered new waves.

They wouldn't have necessarily called themselves that, but that's just how panned out at that time. So oh that's an excellent point. Now. I love that, especially because I mean a lot of people now probably don't don't know this or couldn't remember because they weren't, but I mean, I remember, I would love to remember the delineation where it's like, say, Susane the Bansheese, like that's a band that some people would have put in a new way. Same with the cure.

Now people are like, oh, that's gothrock or dark wave, and it's like, but back then, people didn't really use the term goth like that with music. And then you had like, oh, this is college wrong. It didn't remember of the college right, like, oh, this is college radio rock, Like hell yeah, that was my jam. It was like just like Indian rock essentially exactly, it's indie rock. And then it's like, oh, wait and college radio so it with college rock, right, And and then I've ever been disappointed because then, like I was, I would actually listen to a real like to a local college rock radio, and I'm like like, and I didn't realize it was hard because I'm like, well, I like single music, but are they gonna play any are but fresh air?

You know? But you know, and then it becomes alternative. So but yeah, this is you know. And that's the thing is that, like with the music of Starstruck, it is kind of and this all beautifully ties together because like with uh, you know, with the Swingers, and you've got like Tim Fin, you have like that sort of like power pop kind of at times there's some good like a little bit of crunchiness. I just felt like the Swingers sound a little more crunchy than than say Split Ends and later on, but you know, obviously adjacent.

There's one band towards the end where they're doing the New Year's Eve gig. Yeah. I don't know if what if that band is, but their total power pop and it's and they're they're so good. I'm like, I need to redo deeper RESI to forgot who the arcs. I'm like, man, I like that song mental is Anything, which was an Australian band.

That's the thing is Australia in the eighties had such an amazing and fascinating cultural site guys going on with both music and cinema. Yes, Auzy cinema is why that is? That's my like reference point here. Coming into this movie was a couple Mike White marches Ago Mike Mike picked Ozzy movie and some of the stuff that we watched. I was like, why have I not seen more of this?

And I think I think we said at the time, like you could do a whole show just on Australian movies, like and absolutely we didn't. Obviously I ended up doing the Bollywood thing instead, but like I think still stands like I don't know, the common movie goer who watches Western cinema, specifically American cinema, is not going to go oh yeah on Australian musical. They're just I don't know, it's just weird, like and it's still a thing like having to overcome this stupid definition of international cinema not being fun, Like foreign cinema just is expected to be serious. And I mean it is like there's plenty of movies that are that have a message and they're trying to say something. They have something to say and I'm not saying this movie doesn't, but I think there's this weird expectation.

I mean we fight it constantly with the Indian movies, like Indian action movies are fucking awesome. Like there's Indian action movies like yes, because people in India want to watch movies where there's action, and they don't necessarily want it to be Will Smith and Arnold Schwarzenegger. They have actors of their own there. It's like, I don't know why I'm having to explain this to you at Rby's while I'm ordering my sandwich, but yet I am perfectly like, but it's that thing. It's like it's same with this movie.

It's that same idea of like I shouldn't have to tell you that they're there's Australian musicals, but yet here we are like, you know, it should have just this movie should have just easily slotted into so many other things that were coming out in this country in the eighties, and yet it being Australian seems to have been part of like the problem of selling it because it's like, well, it's already not a thing that's like recognizable for people here, and it's like why should that matter? Why should any of that matter? Because oh, because because again people here only want to see people I don't even know. I wonder if it's people don't want to watch movies with subtitles, or if it's even stupider than that they don't want to watch movies with people they don't recognize.

Well yeah, yeah, I mean now they're more inclined because we all put subtitles on everything and we're reading everything, shall you know, I can't hear my movie without it exactly, So you know, I think it's a little bit different now, but I think there probably were a few decades there where that was definitely it became more niche just because it's more of a challenge to watch it in general. Yeah, yeah, now this is on two on YouTube actually too. I mean, you know, it's maybe not the best, but it's complete and so that's pretty beautiful. But you can just see it on YouTube. But I was gonna say, too, I think that that trying to figure out.

I think there is a lack of puritanism in this bill that you get in American films, where you either have to make it really dirty or really clean they want to know, you know, it's like American team films or even kind of coming of age films or whatever. It's like they need a more you know, something more delineated where she she's like very pre sexually. She doesn't you know, it's not even introduced as anything that would be a hang up, you know, sexuality or you know, homosexuality is just like handled very smoothly, is kind of There's just there's a lot of things that I feel like are just kind of smoothly walked through that wouldn't have been so smoothly walked through. They would have had to be big punchlines or they would have avoided some of it completely.

You know, because we would know we would American films want to tell you like, well, is she good or is she bad? You know, oh god, you know. It's like they would have had to say like showing people judging her for what she you know, some of the things that happen, instead of being able to just really rereeze through her life, like we're raising through her life with her. And right off the bat, I love that he jumps you in it. They don't even really, they don't need to explain to you what her process is.

She's jumping in just being like, okay, well I want to try and get this. I want to try and get this. And then here's Angus is like, oh, all you have to do, Like he's basically talking about manifestation right off the bat, like, oh, if you want to Volksweg, you know, if you want Volkswagen, think about a Volkswagen, you'll get one. If you want to if you want to Jag, think about a Jag, you'll get one. She's like, I don't want either of those.

I want this, And it's like the kangaroo custom. And then they're immediately kind of into like a so there it's like they're both he is her little mini manager and she's so naturally you know, I think there's also people in life that that's how you get stars, you know, is there some people or just like they know they're going to get out, they don't feel they're you know, it's like she's bigger. She doesn't have to say that gonna be stuck in this place. You know. It's like I think she probably does say that calmly a few different times of the movie, but it's like she is just propelled forward by her own ambition, you know, and she's letting everyone else catch up to her, and as they can't bad like they're always on to the next thing.

And some of these publicity stunts, I mean they do it. That's one of my favorite parts in the movie, where she's hanging up the building and like the weird like a soft sculptural nude suit. I mean, you know, it's like really incredible, Like the costume designers outrageous in this whole thing, and some of the casual ut that she wears I still dress, you know, like they made a bigger impression on me than some of you know, the American youth culture or do waver punk culture, it's like, I really like her style. I still have her hair color, you know. I feel like they're her wearing tierras and stuff.

I was kind of doing that from the time I was a kid. It's like it's really accessible, fun type of personality. And it's and since they do present her in such a regular way, it's like she almost is like this pre pre you know, manic pixie dream girl, except it's a quirky character. We're in American films too. I feel like they almost have to be tragic character.

You know. These punk and new wave characters are more tragic. They're not as like, you know, it's like valley girls. The Valley girls are you know, they're like the good people and the punks are the bad people. You know.

It's like they don't have to make this definition. She's just herself. She just has this incredibly unique style and she's just weird and she's allowed to just be that. They don't hang a lantern on it. They don't have it's just we open with her and she is who she is already, and the journey that she's going on is to become who she is, but successful not becoming anybody else.

And like that would not have been the story if this had been made in the States, so it would have been a transformative journey a girl from the streets, from the other side of town. It's like, fuck, I don't care, Like people who come from the other side of the town don't necessarily focus on the fucking fact that they're from the other side of the town the entire time, because then you're just sad and boring. Like that's the Like I watched eight Mile recently, and that movie is so like eminem First off, I like him as an artist. As an actor, there leaves a lot to be desired in terms of natural delivery. But when I watched eight Mile, it was like, it's so sad.

It's it's so sad all the time, and it's like, but this guy had to have known he was gonna bust enough balls to get out of there. And I don't think he was just sad all the time about it, Like there was anger and frustration that motivated him to do better and want better, and I just never got the sense of that. And in this movie, I get the sense that, like she's frustrated with where she is, she wants to do more, and she does more and she has to enjoy doing that more because that's part of what makes her successful, is that infection. The effectiveness of her positivity and just wanting to be herself and do what she wants it comes through, and like that is something that if this movie had been made in the States, it would have lacked because, like you said, Rachel, there's no room for fun.

It's got these weird people are sad. Like the weird people are fun. They don't have to be sad. And if they are sad, they're not constantly talking about how fucking sad they are either, because if they were, they would be kind of a drag, like, well, that's why thing's Hollywood. One of the main things Levi tends to get wrong is just like if they try to even focus on especially you know, anybody who's grown up actually in the Midwest or the South, a few things will make you just want to start crying tears of blood.

Is seeing a Hollywood movie show like quote unquote working class or lower class families and people from these regions, and it's just like it's either the most offensive stereotype and yeah, combined with just like everybody's depressed, and it's like well, I guess if you're if you're not, if you're not upper middle class, might as well just kill yourself? Is the mess? Like it's so it's such a bull sit and Rachel, I love your point so much because you're right. If this they would have, if this had been made in the States, Angus would have been made a total per in this and this in the early eighties. They would have had him trying to check outop Steve Steiling, you know, like it would have they would have made him like the anti Michael Hall sixteen Candles proxy kind of character.

I feel like, if this was American, I thank god they got It's not so disappointed that it wasn't. Argument. I love it. I love us. I love Australians.

Even friendship, like they're friendship as cousins. They're almost like brother and sister. They're best friends. It's a really unique friendship relationship that they show between them because there is like you know, fourteen and eighteen, especially with the boy being the younger age friendship, you know, and he has that same kind of ambition that she does. It's like that's why they recognize something in each other and they've kind of brought it out in each other too, So it's really cool that they have each other because if you're going to be that weird with tell you know, it's super convenient if your cousin can be your sidekick.

Yeah, And I'm like all the characters like that that are part of sort of like the tableau of the Basically they all live in this like sort of like bed, this little like tavern that's also like a bed and breakfast, and and it is diner. That's one of the weird stuff things for me. It just looks like a diner. So they keep referring to it as a tavern or acting like it's a bar, and I'm like, it's lit like a diner, like a data diner. It's really hard to that's something as an American it's hard to wrap around.

But it's cool. Like even an interview, it's like the referring to her is a bar maid and she know how to be a bar maid. I was, Is she not just a diner waitress like that? They don't like it's a weird thing. It's cool.

I accept it as an australianism. I think it's the way that it's also set up, like the design of the place. It's just that like immediately walking in and there being that counter, that like hip waist counter, like I thought it was a diner as well. Like I was like, oh, looks weird, look at this weird diner that all these weird Australian I you know what, we haven't really mentioned it, Like, well, we've mentioned how much we love Australian cinema. But after watching something with Australian accents long enough, I start reading it in their accent because for whatever reason, like the Australian accent is just one that like I'm fascinated by because it's love so unique man nah man nah, like all like the way that they say just like the most casual words.

I love it because it's just I don't know, like after watching these things for a while, like over and over again, like so much of the australianism is just their language and their grasp of the English language. It's so unique and I love like, and I really love the accent so much. And they all they're all sporting them, they all have those very heavy Australian accents and I love it. I have a high school care and teenage confession that I feel like he is related to that. So I was accepted into a study abroad or like exchange students study abroad for my freshman year or high school that would have been in Australia, and I think, yeah, and it was like it was the most exciting thing that was happening in my life.

And I had a meeting with the high school with the I think like a guidance counselor at the high school that I would be returning to, So the high school that I mean the one I ended up going to, but in advance to kind of like discuss what the issue would be if I returned from my first year in Australia blah blah blah, and they basically told me that none of the credits would transfer and that I would have to have do five years of high school. And I and I was like inconsolable, and I did the study abroad because at that point, I mean actually ended up graduating high school a semester early. That's how much I didn't want to do high school, you know, So the idea of five years of high school and I was like a good student, you know, and it felt like punishment.

And now I was like I wish i'd just if I would have gone to Australia, I probably would not have come back. Yeah, I just would have figured out I run away at age fifteen or whatever and stay down there. But so yeah, I feel like I even in I've watched modern Australian reality TV and soap operas, like seven seasons of Australian soap Operas and things like this. Though I hear you, I'm way it's when I love it. I kind of can't believe that I've not been.

The Australian version of The Traders is the better version of The Traders. If you have seen that show, it is like a televised version of Werewolf or Mafia or any of those social deduction games. But the Australian version, they take it deathly serious because it is normal people trying to compete for money as opposed to celebrities, and the depths to which they backstab and fuck one another over makes even me queasy. So it's all on peacock. But there are three different versions.

There's the American version, which features of course D list celebrities because that is, you know, chum in the water for so many people of the States and the British one. I think the British one has like a mix, but the Australian one is just normal people competing for like one hundred thousand dollars and it's yeah, just the Australian mindset is I don't know, like there are there are different people and I'm I'm with you, Rachel, Like I have been to Australia, but it was so long ago. I was like a like twelve, so it's like, I'm sure I went to Australia, right, like I'm sure you did, so I don't know, like I'm lucky to have been, but it's not like it's not like I remember. So I would love to go back because I am enthralled with their cinema and definitely their like take on things and their attitude as a people.

I think is uh is one that like Americans obviously really resonate with that like do it your fucking self attitude is definitely like shared between our country and Australia. But just the Australian sentiment, I love it. It's just very like go fuck yourself. I don't know. They just they give no, they take no shit is clearly the way I perceive a lot of Australia they just don't fucking take any ship from anybody.

Well, I mean Australia's history is very similar to the American South because you know a lot of the you know European you know people that were put I mean they're basically like the people that the other countries didn't want. It's like religious zealots and criminals. And that's the same with the South. That's the American South was was basically which explains so much about and my family, you the South in general, I mean I've seen them. You haven't been to a train family union, but like, but there is like and especially this period of time part of that and I and I will admit this is something I need to and I will research more for like a future project.

But in the eighties there there was like something mandated by the government were to basically encourage and foster Australian cinema like made by Australian, like a peer cinema. And there was a shift where that went away in the late eighties and that's basically why you start seeing a lot less Australian out And actually my friend Morris from uh Love That Album podcast and Morris is a sweetheart, and yeah he's Austrian and he was able to explain some of this to me the les time we talked, but he was just saying, like a lot of like even like a lot of people like that he know, world be like they hit their like, ah, Australian films are terrible, Like I'd rather go see a Hollywood movie. And that was like so depressing and heartbreaking to me.

And I just like, like I need for a reason to bitch about Hollywood already. But you know, that's that's I think that's one of the kind of the more sort of like a pleasant and queasy things about American culture and cinema. It's just how like you know, it's been promoted and pimped out so much to other countries that you know, you end up having people putting it like as it because it's shinier or whatever, as a bar above something that's lobcal and homegrown. And I think that's terrible. I think I think every country, like if I had my brothers, every country, every region, like including the States, Like imagine if every region of an area basically not only encouraged but made it to where hey, you're an independent filmmaker.

Cool, here's here's a small element, here's a small grant that they're crazy makes some art, you know, and Chanda is not a really beautiful system of that, which is why so many movies got filmed in Canada and that same time period, and that may have been in Australia, it was like a similar type of system. But so you get this wave of you know, films that are financially backed in a way that they hadn't been and then it gets taken away. But when we're lucky to have what was produced during that time, oh hell yeah. And there's still a few like you know, there's still a few that definitely have like that great like independent spirit that are always going to make films and some like there's a filmmaker I've become a fan of reason Lading Hayden Keenan who made the incredible And this is the the most undiscovered gem because I actually have Australian president.

Everyone heard of. This movie came out eighty seven called Pandemonium also musical, also an Australian musical and starring David Argue, whom most people are probably familiar with us being in He's like one of the villains at BMX Bandits. He h Nicole Kidman's first movie. Yeah, he is in I Think Gallipoli. He's in Gosh Midnight Spars, which just got a really beautiful blu ray release with an essay by yours truly crazy.

He's in Razorback. Yeah. David Argue is fucking phenomenal. And he's on Facebook. So friend, you know, if you can't fight him and let him know it, because he's amazing.

He's a sweetheart, but he is Oh my god, this guy is a treasure. He's like the pandemonium, like just on the sidetrack. He plays a documentarian who falls in love with a dingo girl who also could be the I Think Coming to Christ. And there's musical numbers, there's Satanists, there's lesbian ancestuous Nazis. There's a member a minute work plays a magician.

Actually my second favorite member. It's Greg Ham the Saxophonis, because Colin Hay I'm a Colin Hay fav same but but Greg Ham r I p He's and he played and he's playing like a New Yorker magician. He's a kid like he's talking like that is oh my God, this movie, I just will save it for later. But but but we'll save it for when we cover it in the future. But Hayden Keenan is still around, and this is the guy that started as a student filmmaker.

Should do a Hayden Keenan retrospect? Wait, we should. I want to get more of his his his company's Smart Street Films is still around. I want to get more of his films. It's kind of pricey, just because like Australia also has changed something where if you mail a DVD or Blu ray, it's considered a big package.

So shipping so expensive. Oh my god, I mean everything's more expensive naeties. But he you know what's bad when the person you're buying from apolochucks. Yes, yeah, he felt like and I didn't even realize that I was ordering it for the director. That's how I got Pneumonium, because I just became obsessed with it after seeing the trailer.

And yeah, he was like, sent the sweetest email. He's like, I am so sorry, it's stupid that the film, but just the shipping right like four times as much as the item itself or something. I yeah, it's oh my god. But yeah, Hayden's still around and still kicking you know, still kicking ass and representing. But and actually with directors, I mean, this is Jillian Armstrong, who you know of that breed definitely got a lot of acclaim over here.

I think it's like basically when you think of like Australian directors that got like you know, that kind of made that crossover and got that notice. It was like her origin champion, George Miller. George Miller. I like, George Miller is the big one now that I think like most mainstream people would know just based on you know, Mad Maxim and your feet also, oh god, I always forget that right happy v one and happy feet to actually, which is even fucking nuttier, Like yeah, oh my god, is Babe Bence Babe and Babe too at least I believe yeah, Babe too. Pig in the City is a wild Uh.

I do love George Miller, oh my god. But uh I loant like because with and I haven't seen a tot of Jillian's burvies like true confession, yeah me either. But I love that this film that she did, this film because you look at some of the other films and particular I'm trying to like, what the big one that she is known for, Julian Armstrong. What am I blanking on this at my brilliant career with Judy Davis. Okay, she did Little Women, Yeah, she did that ninety three or was it ninety three?

Ninety four? Yeah, woman, and she had missus soapl I don't even know if that's how you say, it's soapled. That's always how I said it. Yeah, and oh give it so yeah, so just say but you can even just look at the poster art. Yeah, ninety four Lenona writer, Little Women, she did that one.

Oh god, this did this woman who did all this? Did starstruck? This? This like bright pink, glittery, shimmery neon red king ar room, I love the red cake of your costume. A musical to find even more fascinating, like because this isn't you know, I don't know it be like finding out that Jane Campion was actually the director of Rock and Roll Hotel, which I'm saying, well, you know, like it's so kind of bizarre, and but I know she They got her on the Blue Underground releast I have us have extras, and they got both her and Stephen uh, Stephen McLean, the writer, and and she just she sounded I love because of those things.

She clearly still had a lot of love for it and talked about she wrote that one shot it's such a beautiful shot of Joe Kennedy's face that she's descending from like the the rafters there's right, yeah, just like with her red hair and just that dress and just how gorgeous. And what's interesting was Stephen McLean is he had wanted uh, he did not want Joe Kennedy. He would have Neil Campbell, Like he wrote this film picturing Neil Campbell speaking a rocky horror and that's the rocky, rocky horror is all up in this movie. In a lot of ways, there's that you actually see, like the lips I believe in Angus's room at one point, like sort of on the wall. And there's so much great like teenager collage art O.

Yeah, that I the one I love Colaje right now, And and all of that is rooted to like when like when you're a teenager, it's almost like you're like you're on em fetimen, but instead of actual and fetiment, it's just that teenage hormone or yeah, and it's so you're just collauging, You're like, it's just made me think of that. But but yeah, he wanted little he wanted little Nell. And some of the songs like Sircie Tango, which she's on top of the Yeah, I love I love that little song. It's such a that one is like that one is so little Nell, And it does sound a lot like a song that she did do called do the Swim, which is such a cute, little little Nell song. And even like Joe Kennedy's kind of voice registers a little unusual and like now Nell has that up a lot too.

Yeah, like even her speaking at the beginning is much higher than like she definitely even her vocal her speaking vocal patterns, she kind of runs inoctive for you up totally totally. But I think the main reason was that now Nell was probably kind of like I hate this term so much, but she probably wasn't like she'd probably be kind of aged out of being able to be that just because I mean, the character's eighteen and this is eighty two. That's why I was wondering, like it would have been just a hair too. But like, but then the question that becomes like the story is still similar, you just have to age, like yeah, like age the characters up like that time, really you weren't gonna break, you know, it's like yeah, all you know it's again.

Yeah, it will be like past the point of being a little something, you know. I mean it's a little different now, but it is strange, like at least a few years it's like, oh, you would have been you know, they're looking for an eighteen year old and I think, like, uh, Joe Kennedy was twenty at the time, so I mean she's still is a little bit older than the character slightly. I think I think, uh, Ross O'Donovan was fourteen, you know, I mean he was fourteen playing fourteen. But yeah, that's that is wild. I also read that it was a contest that they did, like a castle contest, and that's how they ended up getting Joe Kennedy, which she had only worked at She worked in like an almost like a singing restaurant or some kind of you know, like something like this, I forget, like some kind of a she had very she was like a punk singer, so I think she had a band.

And then she had worked in like some restaurant where they not like a not like full dinner theater, but some kind of interesting something like that, and she ended up kind of winning the part. Or and if that's not entirely true, I think that's what they put in The Australian at the time, you know, like that they had they made her like a discovery, which is kind of brilliant to have a movie about someone being discovered who's ambitious, and then it's a contest won by a girl wants to be discovered and is ambitious. Oh god, that's brilliant either either way, Like if that's if that's all true, amazing, even if it's not the whole story. Yea the publicist idea fantastic even if it's true. Even better she Yeah, and she's great, like she really she has such a naturalism about her, but she's but there's also mixed up with her little like her own little sitt of quirky mannerisms.

It really does like flesh out this character. And she kind of has intimacy with a wallet, you know, that's the other It's like it's kind of inspiring in real life where she just walks. I feel like I lack a sense of hierarchy, and so I do speak to a lot of people just exactly the same you know, I don't bring And she kind of has that quality too, where no matter who she's talking to, it's not like she changes who she is. She's like very open and kind of just does have this comfortableness no matter what the situation that she's walking into, Like she just kind of talks to everyone like she knows them and they're her friend. These uniquely herself throughout and that for me is like that's how that was hard to look away from her performance because it was so good.

She was just so herself constantly to a fault, and there's nothing wrong with that obviously, Like it makes for compelling It makes her compelling entertainment when you have a character that refuses to be anything other than themselves. And I don't know, like her performance, like you mentioned Heather, it just seems so naturalistic, like she's just so fucking cute throughout the entire movie is really what it is, Like she's adorable throughout, like every time she's on Scream, she's adorable. But then you get that sense of autonomy, like she has her own autonomy throughout the entire movie, she is herself, and like there's something about that that, like she can be so cute and adorable, but also you know that she's not gonna take anybody else's bullshit and she wants to be herself as herself as a success.

And you see that scene where they kind of try to make her someone else, and how ill fitting that feels for And I love that scene only because she plays it so well even though everybody else is cheering and screaming and like raising her for how good she is and how talented she clearly is. She is not having a good time. I am not having a good time here, and again, like it's just that sense of like I am who I am and I will never be anything else. I really, as someone who feels the same way, I appreciate getting to see those stories being told of like at the end of the movie, they are still themselves, it's just now they're successful. Yeah.

Well, And like I keep thinking about this point Rachel that he brought up, is that like, especially in this time Perio, but I don't think things have changed that much either. Getting to see a movie where like a woman has complete agency of herself and it's just like, yeah, she's just a person and it's it's like god like and it makes me kind of it makes me sad because god, that's so raird to see, especially in like a teen movie, right, Like it's lots of consequences, you know, she kind of she gets to she has hijinks, you know, it's like they're always up to some hijinks, but it's it's more like good fun. Like there's not there's not a lot of bad consequences. You know, she's still able to keep propelling herself forward.

There's no like I mean like like you do doubt it. You don't know where she's coming from, and you are like you're really along for this ride of where she actually goes because you don't you are unfamiliar with what this you know, this little small tout Australian path, Like where is it going to go? You know? Oh my god? And and like okay, so we have to get because Chris, I'm trying to remember you alluded to either really loving this performance or not liking it.

But I ross O'Donovan is Angus. I like that's performance. I love the more I see it, you love him. I still he's great, Okay, who fakedness because you're eluded and it was one of those things where I'm like, wait, does that mean he really likes it or Chris is like, I think we both misinterpreted it, and he was saying he thinks Goalie from he kind of did it. He's so good Goalie.

I feel it's like, you know, they're co stars more than you would imagine, Like he's really really right up. He gets he gets an entire arc. I mean, we get to see where he ends up at the end, and it makes logical sense where he ends up, and he I don't know, like that character could have been immensely grading, and it probably would have been if it had been cast in the States as an Anthony Michael Hall type. But there's like a I don't know, like there's an irreverence to the way that he plays the character that feels real. Like you mentioned Heather, like he's halfway a shitter kid, but he's the kind of shitter kid that you could get behind because he's the kind of shitter kid that I would want to be where it's I'm being a shitter kid because I have a purpose in doing it.

There is a goal in mind. It's not just to be a little asshole and break someone's windows on their house or on their car, Like, yes, I'm being an asshole to this radio shock jockey or TV shock jockey, but like, I'm doing it because I'm trying to further my own professional career and my cousin's professional career. It's not just because I'm trying to get my yuck yucks like a Bart Simpson type. Like, it's not that like and there is a time and a place for that, and I'm not saying that that's not all also an interesting character, but it's a lot less of a nuanced character, that's for sure. Oh totally.

Yeah, and his like in his musical because he even gets his own musical number. Yes, it is one of my favorite songs and the entire soundtrack because it's like, you know, is that like what house? Then it's like and but who has it? Like I like, even not as a teen editor, as somebody who like maybe it's lived in a tiny apartment we're surrounded by, like you your privacy not that great because the walls are or whatever. It's like, yes, like I love this song.

I you know, I've related to this song on so many levels in my life and and he's like, yeah, he's I was kind of shocked to see that, like he didn't really he did a few more films, but I guess And at first I was bonded, like maybe he should have had a bigger career, but then it's like, oh, yeah, he's a big human rights division does like work for like indigenous rights in Australia, which that's unfortunately something Australia does have a common with hates. But even changing, you know, I feel like, I mean I don't know enough to be able to save the exact time period, but I feel like that's a huge part of waves of change in Australia, you know. Yeah, but so yeah, Russa Donovan paddicks like what a what a cool what a cool dude, and what a great And you're right, because god, teenage boy performances like kid performances and movies, I'm already on the fence.

You're you're already maybe gonna lose me typically because I'm like, oh god, and then you know, but yeah, they're like teenage boy. No, he's great. And it's such a like even in such because he really was fourteen, like Angus has this sort of like world weariness that you kind of see with kids that like because it's the thing his dad shows up for like a hot barely engages with the son. He engages them long enough to steal some money right from him and then bails on him again. His mother's completely absent, like, so he has this sort of like sometimes people are like of his kid's an old soul, and it's like, well, yeah, because nobody really like because he's been just ferreted around like he had to become in a bold soul, just a cow and right he has it.

He carries himself like a kid who's been through that. Like it's you know, it's such a smart such a smart performance. And also I love a lot of his fashion and this too. I definitely want to dress more like Jackie God that cape, like that sort of fish scale cape she's wearing you mentioned early when she's doing the tightrope is gorgeous. But that bright yellow harness that at the time I was just I would love to have something like that they now, but even then, I'm like, what would have been the circumstance that this bright yellow like bondage harness, you know, like truly how have been from a punk store.

Would it have been from a fetish part of them? It made like it's really fascinating to me because it's such a unique piece for you know, like, oh, you know, do you remember what I'm talking about trying to that outfit. It's the kind of like pillowy nude suit she has this Oh yeah, okay, yes, yes, Like it's super cool. I mean the costumes just kind of can't be beach. And I was definitely that type of kid where I would buy the fifties crinoline dresses and then pull the crinoline out and like safety pin it and wear it with T shirts and stuff, you know, like where it does the spik awesome And I feel like, I mean it probably you know, it's probably from watching people things like that and so great I think.

I think, what was I going to say about Angus? Oh so do you guys know the show? You can't do that on television? Oh my god? That was my wrider.

Die is a little kid, you see. The other thing is that he reminds me of Alistair. I feel like he's like, hell and you can't do that on television, And I love that. You know, It's like those are so those are like the weird parallel, I mean, completely different, yet there's something that they seem the same to me and that I have like a natural draw to just that type of you know, it's like kind of trouble maker, you know, but you like him, it's not you like very alike I think. I mean, I haven't done a side by side on the photos, but like just thinking of them, like I know, they remind me of each other.

And he seems really punk, like he really the English punk, and she's driving around on scooters like they you know what I mean. Like they I do feel like they express more so than even how music sounds or or the types of clubs that they're playing or whatever. It's like there's a I think because they are like lower class and we're working class, you know what I mean. It's like, yeah, you have to kind of like she's kind of raising him because he does have that crappy dad. You know.

It's their friendship is from because obviously she would like just let him tag along because he needed somebody, and so then they kind of showed up for each other because even she isn't it her? Isn't it her? It's not her. She was like her and Knuckle or something, doesn't she. I think they're both kind of like these abandoned kids who just like even more so, I think I think that's more that reminds me of like the Stains, how she's so young and she just lee, you know, her mom does as she leaves because she's like, all right, I'm gonna start living.

Luck. So they're fourteen and eighteen, but they're just like it's time to get out of here, because you know, it's like we've worn out and are welcome in whatever. This home situation is, like we're just gonna go be famous and move on to the yeah and the dynamic yeah, because it's like I think, I think her I think Pearl is her mom, but her dad is nowhere, and Pearl Pearl is such a has such an odd dynamic with Jackie that it's almost like at times, like there's been times where I'd like, is she the youth? Is she the aunt to both? Right?

Right? No, That's what I kind of think that might be. I know, it's kind of it is weird to figure out it was. I think a lot of the relationships, even with the tavern or whatever, you know, the bar. I think it was really hard to figure out.

But I love that they that essentially they just come together and they all want her to be a success. There's there's one guy in particular that we see in every almost every tavern scene. It's like the big burrillly kind of middle age guy. And at one point when she's like tight rope, she's like doing the tightrope walking in the diner and he's like, no, its eggs and and and pearl something like, yeah, they go all the way up to a bum, but that's not on the menus. But he being like such a bad ass and like you know, like he breaks up a fight and like at the end he's like that's our girl or something like he's like so sweet and I'm just so much natural dancing.

Which that was something else that I read that apparently they while they were waiting for maybe like the money to come through or something like, I think that they were kind of reversing these scenes. It took a while before they were actually filming, but they and it really was people that hung on that bar I think too, where there was like neighborhood people and they they kind of ale they either knew each other, or then bonded kind of in these rehearsals or waiting to start filling that they when you see them interacting and they just kind of start naturally dancing and all this stuff, it's like they're authentic. I love that. It feels it looks and feels so authentic. And also I don't know the origins.

Maybe you guys can help you late, but I've noticed in watching film for Australia and the UK, the Christmas tradition seems to evolve paper hats, yeah, Christmas crackers, the Christmas crackers? Yeah, can we can we have that in the States because I want to dress like the pope I have. You can get Christmas crackers. They have them for sure. I mean they're probably like I'm not even sure what stores would be home Goods still or not.

Yeah, there you go Home Goods. I saw them at Home Goods last week. Market, which I don't even know for with world markets still exists, Yeah it does. I actually got the reason I know. It's the last time I went to Independence, Missouri with my family.

You go see some wrestling, which is amazing. We dropped on him. My mom was like, world Market, what's that? And we went in. I have been to a world market.

I was more excited about half priced books though, but hey, now you're speaking my language. Got I got up to Alas, Dallas' own half Rice Books. Oh nice. Yeah, there's a half Rice Books in Dallas. That is the size of a Sam's Club.

That is a flag frying that I didn't go oh ship, yeah, oh my god. Yeah. It's on the Northwest Highway off of seventy five in Dallas and it is the size of Sam's Club. I mean fucking amazing. I had to drive ranked to Austin next morning.

I want to ask you all about There's an interesting bit of interaction between her mom and Angus's father. Yes, are they Is he trying to get with her mom? I think he babe. I shouldn't say pain. Sorry, I'm knowing they did.

I shouldn't. I feel like, wait a second, I feel like they made love. But she introduces it like when they get out of the camp. And this is against something I noticed more in a recent viewing that I did in my past. And I've seen this movie the whole times over the years.

But so this is my brother in law. So if Angus is the cousin right, Jackie, So is his dad's the something with his mom? Yeah, so I don't think it's like truly ancestuous, but it's weird then, Like Jackie specifically even says like, do you think the timing's weird of you, ye, showing up with what you know? It's like. And also I want to point out that when they have that scene that she actually sleeps in an inflatable baby pool, that's how far they took it.

Grove up in a row, that's her bent and round, you know. So it's like some of these things, I have to say, some of the things are so quirky that they're almost cringing to me. But I do like them as a detail, and I'm kind of glad they went over the top with them because honestly, it's it's not even all that like, you know, yeah, it's just it's an unconventional romance not often seen in cinema. Oh you're talking about those, Yeah, it's just kind of Yeah, he's such a loud money you know, it's like he's looking for money. So I think you get the impression that he's just a dirty dog, and lad there might be something romantic going on between the you know, their their parents or whatever, but really he's just trying to shake them down from it.

Yeah, he's a real piece of he's probably chissing ass. You know. It's like he comes in and tries he charms in whichever way that he can so that he can get money to leave again. So yeah, yeah, it's like cat port A ghosts like, I'm so glad that he's got Jackie and you know, but not like about not I. I'm the older the older woman who has psychic powers, and he gives her the most amazing christis gift of a trystall ball in a in a fortune teller shawl?

Is that at home? Good they have that? I wish I might have to make that for you. I've hold up with the clown. Oh yeah, nobody.

Nobody knows. This makes somebody's like we are they talking about I'm just gonna say nothing. I gave about Starstruck. You heard nothing. Also a character I really love, and especially because I feel like in a more traditional movie he would have been the main villain, and instead they go for more of a just sort of like, yeah, this is the guy is a person, and that is Terry played by John Omay who's like the big popular TV show host of course Jack.

He has each crush on him, and he's just like Yo, looks kind of like Shadow Stevens, Shadow Stevens adjacent. I love his performance. He's really likable and he never again a Hollywood movie either would have made him totally sleeks on kind of higher record style. I have a confession. I've only alli watched the first five minutes of that movie years ago, and I stopped.

I couldn't do it. I just some movies just you know, and it's like love and either it's a theory, doesn't. Father Malone's not a huge fan of that movie either. I get it. I mean I get it.

I love it. I'm not gonna it has its detractors and it has its fans. I totally get it. It's not for everybody, frankly kind of makes itself for everybody in a lot of ways. But yeah, it just wasn't weird enough.

I think the thing. That's the thing. Whenever cult movies are cult movies for normies, I shouldn't say normies over here with your normal cult movies, what's a normy movie? I'm gonna put you on the spot, Miss Andersons Anderson's enormy cult movie director doesn't. Yeah, that is a good answer.

That is like the answer of it. And again I'm actually maybe that likes it. Wait because Tarantino he we won't go, we won't. Is that not as fair as a good mood? I'm like, you BEU light about Stars Struck.

I don' want to talk about gross Footman. That's like cooking, you know, with his bro Eli Roth talking about you know who probably never even has a woman on the crew that whatever, I don't I'm in good clip of p t Anderson and Quentin Tarantino talking and Fiona Apple literally dissociating from her body. Will never not be funny. I don't know if you've ever seen that clip, but it's her sitting there listening to them talk and she's just like, I'm just yeah, boy, if anybody's talking about like, do you ever want to do cocaine again? And then you're in the room with the answer is no, that is a walking anti drug piace allegedly allegedly but no, I mean, but no, I mean like if PAA records me, like, I know a ton of people that love it, but I don't think I think like a lot of people wouldn't consider that like a huge, mainstream, massive success like Greece or whatever.

But but a lot of the people that I know it are people that are super into cult movies. Does that make sense? But it's like it's maybe this is kind of also a little bit like sat question. But I know some people that are into cold movies that do like it. I don't know, like what you like, don't be a dick.

I'm not gonna I'm not I've not watched You're good. Yeah good. I mean the thing is like I was a teenager when that came out, so I probably was the demographic, and I felt so alienated from the whole, like this is the alternative kid, you know, cause I'm like cause I'm like, no, I was a real weird kid, Like I was like cool weird. I was weird weird Aaron. I was like it just that shouldn't connect with me.

I'm like, this is you know, wow, wow, oh look you get to be Yeah, I don't like LIFTI you neil. But it's like women were not given any more autonomy then than they were in the eighties or seventies. It's just like, oh, we'll put her in a different top you know, except at least like women from like the past movies. Like one of the reasons I had to get two in the Weeds I got into like cult cinema at a young age is that you had more of a chance of seeing like strong female actresses and role models and and some that were very much like not a normal cookie cutter like Susan time brows my Goddess, you know, look at tourist Sitana, Pam Greer, you know, like, yeah, it's just impression of vampire records that it was like it's almost like a parody of subculture characters.

Yeah, they're very stereotypes. Yeah, yeah, which again like I get, Like I think for me it was like kind of like was starstruck, not to compare the movies, but more like the timing, like I saw it at the right time, Like I saw it at the right time. I saw it in the right headspace, and it resonated with me, and it hasn't unresonated, and there may come a time where it's like and now I don't like this anymore. But there's generational things too, you know, I mean, because it really is just like when you see it when you're a kid or you know, and it just has a different impression because you don't have all the baggage that we do. Yeah, I'm significantly older than Heather too, so you know, I'm not.

He knows a lot of my cultural touchstones and a lot of them better than I do. But a lot of them are things I was exposed to as a kid where I didn't necessarily even have like an adult perspective on them. I just had exposure, you know, which made me who I am. But it's you know, I definitely understand. I'm not here to criticize anyone who's younger because they don't appreciate the things I shouldn't have seen in the seventies and instead they like the things that came out in two thousand or what.

You know. It's like, we all have our own we find things in our own time, We have things that happened at the age that we are, and then we have a fun around And I think, obviously me, if we're into movies and you're into music, you're into whatever, It's like there's going to be overlapped or you're going to find your people regardless of the age. You know, absolutely the Internet, because then it's not is you know, we all kind of have the same it's an even playing field of being able to find things that interest us. So and there's yea of all ages that did also have those interests. I love that and I agree, and I think that's kind of to me.

That's one of the things I love about getting to do shows like this is that chance of somebody, just somebody who's you know, yeah, who didn't Yeah it's never maybe even heard of this movie, but they're curious because you know, it's shit. Maybe something like Empire Records, I mean, the times gateways come and you know, packages that you don't always see. Like it's like, wow, there's like generations of people that are now into Kate Bush because of stranger things and which is the same. It's insane. And I saw a few people when they came out and being actual keepers and I'm like, you know what, I don't give a shit how they found it.

It's like, wow, Yeah, I love Kate Bush too, and yeah, I you know, I've been listening to her music since you know, I was a teenager. And it trusts me, nobody in Arkansas listened to Kate Bush in the fucking nineties. Hate if they did that was a teenager at least they were like later on found like like one or two weird adults that were much older that were super fucking cool, and I was like, oh, thank god, including my late friend Bob, who also got me into shriek Back. I missed Bob, but I but yeah, I mean it's yeah, that's the ney thing about culture discussion and having things a podcast and you know, in blogs and even social media. I mean, you know, as long as the word's getting out, I think there's always good people that are like curious, and I mean it's crazy because like I'll see like on YouTube comments like something that came out in the eighties, like some obscure synth way at a video from like or something, and it'll be like somebody like, oh man, I wish I was born in the eighties, you know, and which is so sweet, even though I kind of want to take them aside and be like, oh, honey, the eighties were the eighties socks, just like any other decade, you know, it's just you know, there's always very cool Well now I'm saying Reagan's well, but me, but if, but if every decade has sucked then the human experience.

There are a few things that make me happier than anti Reagan sentiments. Oh my god, it's very anti Reagan punk and like, We'll always have a place in my heart because I feel like, wow, was it? It was dark? It was a dark touch. Most nostalgia that gets portrayed currently, you know, like in the last couple of decades, regarding the eighties, it doesn't really it doesn't show it.

You know, it wasn't all just like you know, new wave dancing to certain socks or what network. It's like there's a very narrow recollection of what what culture in the eighties, youth culture was like in the eighties. Well exactly, well, and that's what it could now. I don't mean I love yeah, but no, I mean my saying what I say every decade is that because Rachel, you just nailed this perfectly, nostalgia clouds reality, correct, And that could be nostalgia for a decade. It could be even nostalgia for like, oh, like there are people that are like, oh, I love being in school and they don't, which I don't trust those people for the fucking record.

Anybody that's like, oh, I love being in school. I'm like, get away from me because we are gonna have nothing in common. I don't wish it ill, but I wish you away. Okay, But but you know, but that's a it's a day. It's dangerous.

There's something wrong with having like affection. Affection and nostalgia, to me, are two very different things. Like nostalgia is something that blinds people to where they're like, oh, things were simpler then, and it's like that's a dangerous statement, as I think we all you know word. I mean, actually, a few years ago I did an article in a response kind of not direct, but because I about like nuclear war and images and messages about nuclear war and nineteen eighties music videos. And part of the reason I did that is because, like round after the twenty sixteen election, I kept having people in my life on I mean, they weren't intentionally trying to cast lightly, but I was like I made some I would make a joke like God, I thought the eighties were over, and they were like, oh, there wasn't any Cold war in the eighties.

There wasn't nuclear war. If you're in the eighties and I'm like, are you what are you? Are you fucking with me, are you? Yeah, it's so. And I was like, okay, I'm gonna take stuff that was played on MTV, arguably in some of its height as a music video network, and because I was like, I remember the eighties.

I was a kid, but I'm like, come on, like, of course there was likely affair was everywhere we had fucking break care. When I was in grade school, it was very much it was the end of the Cold War, but it was very much yeah wow. Like I in Illinois, they had told like, at one point they told us where the thirteen nuclear power plants were in Illinois, and they said there were missiles aimed directly at that. So that just so no matter what, we would be instantly dead if Russia attacked us. This is like what they told me in third grade or something, you know, like we would learn it would be very like that.

I feel like a lot of my young anxiety was based on it being the later dyes, the latter the days, whatever it is of the Cold War. You know, it was brutal being child and being like, oh, they're just going to blow up the whole world, like it's you know, yeah. So I wanted to ask y'all if if y'all speaking of the internet and frankly, shockingly, randomly ironically nuclear war. So there is a Starstruck fan website Starstruck nineteen eighty two dot weeble dot com. Yes, wait, and they have a trivia section.

And there are three fan theories regarding the film, and two of them will get to but the third one stuck out to me, and it seems like less of a fan theory. I don't know how to perceive it, but I want to run it by y'all because you all have seen this movie more times than I have, and y'all also again just to share this because it seems interesting and it has to do with nuclear war. Early on in the movie, she says, with my luck, I'll crack it, and then some nuclear holocaust will come along and ruin my career, so Jackie says early on in the movie. At the end of the movie, there is a sound of a bomb dropping and an explosion sound at the end of the film as well, to the point where there is a subtitle for it as the movie fades to black.

I know that the fan theory in question is does the film end with the nuclear holocaust? Three question marks. This is how mad Bax happen. Ever, it's real. I've never paid attention.

I mean maybe I heard the sound, I've never consciously put that together. I love it. I think that nothing would be more nineteen eighty two than that, Oh my god, the same Yeah, because same year, the day after it came out was that eighty two, Like that threads, what am I? I'm gonna be off a year team? This is the same era eighty two eighty three.

I thank you. Yeah, I don't know. I found it to be like this is that's pretty close. She's pretty punk of the fucking movie. Like, I mean, the character acknowledging it is one thing.

But then like literally because I went and rewatched it and like you can hear like the sure yeah you do, oh my god, And then there is like that explosion at the end. Wouldn't that have been the only thing they could have stopped her the way? Yeah, she was just propelled forward by her own ambition. That is that's really interesting. I mean that that seems like that's probably what happened.

Yeah, it's but it's fucking crazy because like I dark yoke, you know, yeah, I didn't catch it either. Until I went and read the fan website, so kudos to them for catching it. The other two are is Angus really Jackie's brother? And is Strictly Ballroom an unofficial sequel to Starstruck. I don't have no Strictly Ballroom.

I've never seen it. I've heard of it, I've never seen it. Now I kind of want to see it. Yeah, apparently it's the set design of her room and the character in Strictly Ballroom's room as well. So I don't know.

I mean, hey, this movie has a fan website, so brother, I mean, that's probably them trying to make that conclusion they were having an affair that you know that was happening has Oh but I don't think so. I know that's a I like that type of speculation though, but I don't think so. But I bet they really were implying. I feel like a nuclear bomb was popular ending and it's heard of topic, you know what I mean. It's like no just most had ended all because it was constively hanging over your head for decades.

Yeah, my favorite zombie movie ends that way. Return of the Living Dead sure goes out on a fucking high high. Oh my god, I love that and that's so weird because I was I was laughing. I've told the story today times, but I took you know, years ago, I did a personality test to see which character from that movie I was, and it was Suicide, who's like the really humorless punk that's like, you know, you guys think this is a fucking costume. It's a way alive.

And I'm like, but there is a part of me that is a hotter person like that, Like I know myself well enough to know my own my own ship, and I'm totally I'm totally like, oh, Suicide just so spooky. Fuck you guys like what, I'm like, it's me it, but no, that's your but think it forbidden Zone. It's at the giant explosion like a bomb. There's also a great Johnny Thunders album, this recitizement. This will be off my new my upcoming album.

That is, if there's the new album and the bomb about the bomb. That's why Johnny Thunder says the bomb, I mean likes this movie quintessentially eighties, right, like that ending. It's just I don't know, like when I think of things in the eighties and like a certain level of nihilism surrounding feelings on nuclear war. It's like, well, if it fucking happens, if fucking happens, and there will be zero we could do about it other than experience it all together. Like the fact that this movie just goes if it is, if that is what it is, which again the movies kind of would lead me to believe at least it's kind of tongue in cheek like if anything, it's at least re acknowledging, you know, it's reacknowledging the fact that they brought it up.

And she says it, but yeah, I uh, what a fucking eighties way to go. My god, that's I never and I never. I never early eighties too. Yeah, well yeah, because I mean think about like nineteen eighty two. That's Cape Flesh, and that's basically in a dystopian universe.

You know, that's post World War three, post you know, atomic more atomic damage. I mean, i'd see is thinking that anything would survive, like bless everyone made art that was like what happens after because I think essentially, and in a weird reverse psychology way, maybe it made people think that there was hope to live beyond the ball you know, like, yeah, the dark dystopian films. It's like we really did think that would just be it, you know that It's just like they can tell us to put our hands, fold our arms over our heads, sit cross legged under our desk, but we were going to be obliterated if there was actually a bomb, you know. And then to show these it's like, oh, well maybe a few people like cockroaches, human cockrows actually survivee And then what oh gosh, well the whole LM.

That's what stressed Donovan and Joe Kennedy coming out from underneath the rubble, looking around, standing and looking at the mushroom cloud and the distance. Yeah, that'd be something. Wow. Cast the movie in a real weird pallor at the end, and they're just like, what the fuck? I mean, they're both still with us.

Yeah, I'm just saying if there's I hate I'm not a big fan of sequels. Well, that's not true. It depends on this. Actually, just I wonder if we see weeblely too. But I'm actually seeing that Jeffrey Rush was a bit player in this movie, and I wanted the Yeah, he's one of the he's one of the he's like behind the camera trying to get her to like look at camera two or three because there's like a long skinny like this long skinny dude.

I get thinking like, yeah, this guy looks like Jeffrey Rush, and then it's like, oh shit, it is Jeffrey Rush. You You both mentioned Australian you know, cinema, and obviously I think Australian actors also. The other thing about like Australian cinema kind of not dwindling off, but it's just not as president as it used to be. So many Australian actors can work in the States as seemingly American actors because for whatever reason, the Australian accent does a really good American accent, like almost hard to suss that you're not. Like I was floored when I found out Tony Collette was Australian.

Oh wow, see that I don't know well, but that's in Australian films, I think probably first. So yeah, I did, Like the first thing I saw it was Murie Old's wedding, so yeah. But but but that's an age thing too, like when you were when you were an old person, you probably saw her in like what the sixth sense was she I saw in the United I saw her in the United States of Tara first, Oh wow, okay, yeah, or like like a Chris Hemsworth or even like a Nicole Kidman, like just characters dot to I forget, but I feel like there were There's a lot of people that you find out they're Australian or their English and they use such great American succession was filled with actors that I think were English or Australian and you just you just would never know, or maybe you'd hear it slightly on a certain word, but you're dealing with like the super rich who have affected accents and private school accents and all, you know, studying road, so you don't even think of about it twice if it's just on a word here or there, you know.

But yeah, there's definitely a lot of modern actors that are from Australia in the UK that you just wouldn't have a clue until you find out Hugh Laurie, Oh yeah, yeah, what was young Einstein? What was Yeah? Who's serious? Yeah? Who serious?

Yeah? Who serious? Also, I do want to thank you Heather for mentioning men at work. Uh A A a thing that I am a huge fan of obviously a lot of men at work. Oh my god.

Yeah, I really like tremendous speed. And I should say actually the bands that are oh sorry, the bands are involved in the soundtrack are actually from New Zealand. So but aside that we're talking about Australian bands, they don't want to do they get I feel like they get mixed up so easily, especially by me an America. It's, oh my god, we're going to get it where I get all the like it's like when you when you tell somebody that's from Jersey, it's like, oh, it's so you're from New York, right, and then like a knife comes out and it's like, oh damn, I'm sorry, dude. Wasn't intentional.

It wasn't intentional. Yeah, are you that's uh? I think I think it's okay. We mentioned actually I know what part you're talking and you said New Zealand and Australia and and his correct statement because some of the band late Mental as Anything is on the soundtrack and they're Australian down boots. I believe that's Saltons and and uh, the Swingers are definitely Kiwis.

Yes, yes, yes, yeah. Oh, because they they did the video with the certain they had been recording in Australia and so that's when they did that soundtrack stull if they work whoever the musical director was, and they kind of did all that stuff that was I guess was Starstar. Yeah. But I like I always keep I keep a tab saved on my computer for the how to move to New Zealand instructions because it's one of the easiest countries in the world. It's one of the simplest to be able to move.

So I always keep that as like it's like a paraschet, so it's an ejection hatch for me to be like, Okay, time to get serious and fill out my paperwork. Is the god New Zealand I would love. It's a beautiful country. Like they band assault weapons. Yeah.

So I know there's a goth, this amazing goth girl named Free I follow on YouTube that lives. I mean, I'm Dawn, I'm damn. That's you know. They got birds, they got cool they got cool birds. Me see.

I guess I don't know the swingers. I do want to stay real quick before we wrap it up. There is a music video for one good reason. Uh, that is amazing and I had it's on YouTube. I highly recommend it.

Phil and Rachel. I my brain is it's Phil Phil Judd. Yes, yeah, because I almost said Phil Red and that's a different musician. Jud Phil jud has. He has such a great presence and in the music video we see him heading to a very ceedy motel with this much older woman and the luck he gives the camera, like the smile is sound.

It warms my heart. It's sort of like somebody like imagine like if you're recently divorced mom, she's living her new cougar period and like the kids, like the kids like my childhood. This is yeah, and like some kid that's like two years older you, that's way cooler than you. And you always kind of hated him because he was in a band. It's like all me, he can plaitar.

The guy's you know, fuck him. But it's like, oh yeah, he's dating your mom now and he's like turning around to look at you, like I would have wrecked that, Like I'm totally it's that luck. He keeps that luck in the video and it is glorious. It's a great song. It's well and awfu.

As far as videos, the split DS version of Body and Soul, which is she got Bodies, she got sold. There's a there's a video on YouTube that's a performance from an Australian music TV show and it's phenomenal. Oh my god, really fun. So and maybe I mean I think I have posted in the past, but I have a quick thing that I would like to say too before since we have gone so far off. But what Joe Kennedy is doing today?

Have you guys looked this up? Have you looked into this at all? I did a tiny bit, but not nearly the man. Should I just say that she she directed and acted in a short called Vampirey. Could I be more of a cliche by the way, I swear?

I might as well be smoking clothes, like like like this goth girl, he gets you through the night. Yeah, I will say. The thing that distracted me is so I'm gonna be by old cliche because as she had founded this organization called Focusing Australia where she developed this like it's like this body where it's been you know, it's like it's like a healing type of thing where it's his body oriented process of self awareness and emotional healing and she and it's been going on for a long time. So there's a thing called focusing, which is on ahead of it, and then there's something that's called somatic experiencing, so she does. So it's a lot of it is based on the trauma that gets stored in your body and it's a it's like a meditative practice that that helps people, you know, get through PTSD and all this stuff.

So she that's what she does and and uh, I now can't think of it. Oh uh ross O'Donovan. He there was a quote more recently from him where he was saying she was always like even at eight, at twenty, you know, she was like a very spiritual person and lean towards that direction. So it's super interesting to me that she has this center focusing Australia. It's just like this spiritual healing practice.

Damn, that is so beautiful for her. I owe, I want to look at seriously study with Joe Kennedy. I'll break familia. In fact, if there's somebody that wants to sponsor the three of us to to we can relocate the podcasts relocate entirely to Australia. Yeah, that's well, I know it won't be cheap, but I promise you, the three of us we're worth it.

It is not cheap. Is the is the definite. That's the pure statement right there. Good cheap. If we're shipping ourselves to Australia, it's going to be really expensive there, even more expensive.

The cheapest way to get there is in a box of our own creation. Yeah. Uh, Heather, I guess, uh Heather and uh Rachel starting again, which every one if you wants to go first. Final thoughts on Starstruck. I love it.

I mean, it's such a classic. I love that I have such attachment to the soundtrack and I get to kind of experience that, like as a record. It's such a cool thing that I've then it gets to know the movie even better and see that it's it's it's so of my life. I feel like other people would see this movie and be like, I bet Rachel likes this one, you know, And so yeah, I hope more. I hope that more people see it and enjoy it.

And I like it as an old tative to what was being offered up along the same lines in the US, So I think it has tremendous value. That amen. I I I also clearly I love it. I just think it's a it's a fun movie. I think it adds, especially like if you're somebody who is like kind of looked at this early, if you're if you're having like, you know, just like a shitty time handling.

There's a lot in the world. There's always I mean there always is same as it is, it always, you know, same as it ever was, to quote David Byrne, but with human history. But sometimes you just need to watch something that kind of reminds you know, magic is still out there and you know, and this movie is a great way to do that. Cinematography is gorgeous, the art designed, the music's great, the cast is so charming. I love it.

I can't recommend it it up, and I would love to see more people talk about it because I think it's I think it's a gem that should be discovered by more people. And it's way better than Greece. Come on to me, if you people to have that grease, you know, Grace has had its day. It's fine, it's whatever. Come to starstruck.

I also like to point out that Grease is just mildly problematic with them. What I think the message of the movie is, which is it's okay to change for your partner. If not, you have to, Oh, don't even get me started on the movie. Not even mean, well, well we'll be here another fucking hour. Change everything about yourself, It's true.

Yeah, I hate that. I hate Greece for the record, but for a lot of reasons. But yeah, that's one of them. But I just it's weird to be how popular a movie like that is, is all I'm saying. I still like an ass britty like Cokee Fair.

I still like the opening song. I think Frankie Valley's opening song is pretty great. Like I love I love Starker Channing and Jeff caught Away in that movie. Yeah, you just like those actors, you know what I mean, Like, I mean, that's fair, if that's fair, that's like, that's like damning with fate praise if I remember I Yeah, I like them and everything else those roles, but you know what I mean, like they were always gonna be great role especially I'm I'm with y'all. I've enjoyed this movie a lot.

Thank you so much both of you for bringing it to my attention to wanting to share with me in a public forum, because, like you both have mentioned, this is not covered enough on the fan website. They have a link to the maybe one of the only other times, if not the only other time it's been covered by a podcast. That podcast was called a dingo ate my pod my movie podcast, which is fucking here I am with the title that I've got. I mean, I can't say that it's less creative than mine, but it's definitely more specifically created. That's a great title for a podcast essentially all about Australian movies as well.

So I don't have to start that podcast. Somebody else already did it so that there's a link to them. So they covered it about two mons. This this is fun. I had a good time with it, and I do have some of the songs stuck in my head already, so that that, for me is the sign of a quality musical if I can listen to the things outside of the sphere of it and still enjoy them.

And yeah, a lot of the music is really fun and the performances are fun, and it is it lacks that weird saccerin gloss that so much of the eighties stuff in this Country was just so replete. It's just so much just fake sentiment and saccer in and just no thanks. I'm good. This movie is uniquely its own thing, to the point where maybe it ends with the characters all getting turned into nuclear monsters. So you know, do I think that's what happened.

No, but it's pretty punk rock of the movie to even suggest it could end that way. So yeah, no, this was fun. This was a lot of fun. Thank you both for bringing it to the show. So, Rachel, I will give you the opportunity once again if you'd like to plug any any of your collected works where you can be found, if you want to be found, and anything like that.

So I'll just say Instagram. It's at Rach Underscore, Underscore, Mick p mcp rich mcpeete, double and underscore in between for no good reason. But that's pretty much probably where I'm the most active, and I'm just working on a book. So there's not other than some podcasts here and there, there's not a lot popping up. Heather, I love how I just did.

Just working on a fucking book. Hell yeah, is amazing. I am you can find not even not even sleep is hopping up at this point. You can find me at my website Motoheather dot com. You can also go to my linktree lake Tree dot com, ord slash h Mondo Heather and you'll there you'll find my patret, my Patreon.

My other podcasts have been on of churs. I am one of the hosts of Noise Junkies a lot with Father Malone and HP, which is also part of the Weirdingway Media and you know, various articles and all kinds of cultural sunderies. And as for me, you know the spiel culturecast dot com, Weirdingway Media, Patreon, all the good things that you can do to support the show financially, and then I'll like rate and review the show wherever you get it, more than likely iTunes at this point because that's the only place you can read podcast. So if you want to rate the show, do it there. Rachel Heather both thank you so much for joining me.

This has been a lot of fun. Thank you and so much great meeting you Chris likewise, and as always, we'll catch you on the next episode. M