We dig into Premiere Pick ‘Operation Varsity Blues’, the college admissions scandal, and juicy tales from first-year uni in this episode with Alexei Toliopoulos and Gen Fricker.
We dig into Premiere Pick ‘Operation Varsity Blues’, the college admissions scandal, and juicy tales from first-year uni in this episode with Alexei Toliopoulos and Gen Fricker.
Tell us your wildest uni story at @netflixanz on Instagram and Twitter, or tag #thebigfilmbuffet.
Gen Fricker:
Have you changed the way you talk on the phone after watching this?
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Absolutely. I'm more formal, less casual.
Gen Fricker:
I'm like directly acknowledged the FBI agent I assume is listening. Good evening to you, Alexei and good evening to whoever is listening.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Yes. To Agent Carter, I know you're out there.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Hello, I'm Alexei Toliopoulos.
Gen Fricker:
And I'm Gen Fricker.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
And welcome to The Big Film Buffet.
Gen Fricker:
A podcast for pop culture fans and people looking for what to watch recommendations.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Today, we're serving up our main course where we recommend you a Netflix film for you to watch this weekend.
Gen Fricker:
Then next Tuesday, we'll give you a little snack of a pop culture subject we're obsessed with.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
And of all the films out this weekend, this is what you should spend your time on. We're talking about Operation Varsity Blues: The College Admissions Scandal.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
This season on the podcast, I'm of course joined by one of my dearest friends in the world, Gen Fricker, how are you doing?
Gen Fricker:
I'm so excited to be here.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
I can't wait to just start talking film with you. You and I always go off keg about when we talk film.
Gen Fricker:
We do you always go off keg about film. So it's nice to be able to do it in like a kind of formal kind of format.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
It is only formal in that we are wearing tops, but no tails.
Gen Fricker:
No tails.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
No tails. I'm wearing a top hat, but I do not have a long jacket on.
Gen Fricker:
I've just got a top hat and a smile. That's it.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
I do think that the movie we're talking about today, Operation Varsity Blues: The College Admissions Scandal is a documentary. Something you and I both get really interested in.
Gen Fricker:
Yeah, I think because anyone who likes documentaries probably generally loves how film is made or how storytelling happens or works.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Absolutely. I do kind of think this is kind of like the perfect movie for us to kick things off with together.
Gen Fricker:
Why is that? Why do you think it's perfect for us?
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Well, I think partly it's about this major scandal, scandalous events that happened not too long ago, but the ramifications of it are still in the ether, but also offers this nice refreshing take on like what the heck this admission scandal all was about.
Gen Fricker:
Yeah. Alexei, you and I are social media queens, obviously.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Yes, exactly.
Gen Fricker:
So I love documentaries that kind of address that. Let's stop beating around the bush though. Let's talk about what this god damn documentary is about.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Yeah. Let's dive into it.
Operation Varsity Blues:
In America, we love the wealthy and we hate the wealthy. They disgust us and they fascinate us. This story was a perfect opportunity to see how rich people live and the realities of the system being exposed. And so there is something incredibly refreshing to have a little bit of justice being served, in a sea of injustice.
Alexei Toliopoulos: So Operation Varsity Blues: The College Admissions Scandal is exactly what it sounds like it's about. It's about the college admission scandal of 2019. Should we try and unpack what that even is?
Gen Fricker:
In a broad sense, basically, a bunch of rich people in America tried to buy their kids admissions into big American colleges and because there were celebrities involved, it was huge in the headlines and stuff. It was all documented on social media. This film is also directed by Chris Smith, who was the EP of Tiger King.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Yeah. Chris Smith is actually one of my favourite documentarians. He's a bit of a hero for me because he kind of started his career out and making this really weird, specific movie about outside art called American Movie about this independent filmmaker who is of that Tommy Wiseu vein of filmmaking, I would say. And he was making a movie called Cloven about witches. I don't know why he didn't call it Coven, but he called it Cloven. And it's always stuck with me my entire life.
Gen Fricker:
Cloven 19.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
And started working with Netflix in the last few years. He did one of my favourite movies called Jim and Andy, the Greg Beyond about Jim Carrey playing Andy Kaufman. And then he did the Fyre Festival documentary.
Gen Fricker:
Yeah, the good one.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
He did the good one and now he's got this and it's kind of interesting seeing how his career has progressed now that he's in this Netflix era of making movies more frequently that have a real sticky social currency to them. There's something so immediate about this film and his previous film Fyre Festival, where he's just making a film about something that is beyond belief that is happening right now, and his films captured that immediacy.
Gen Fricker:
I think also a thing that always pops up in Chris Smith films is that, you know how every single American just seems media ready? Like they're ready to have their own reality show.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Yes, absolutely. So different to Australians. Because if you just point a camera at any Australian, they're shy.
Gen Fricker:
That's why we run podcasts. All of his films are really about just how Americans want themselves to be perceived and then the reality of how they are actually perceived. And that's why this is so interesting. Especially for social media content, YouTube and Instagram and things like that. I don't even want to give away too much. I really do feel like it's going to be one of those things, like a Tiger King or that kind of stuff where it will be one of those documentaries that everyone will be watching and we'll be talking about.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
I do think so because this story is basically a class story. This is a story about the rich really capitalising on every ounce of privilege that they possess to give their children another leg up in life. And that's kind of what this whole thing really is about, but that's just one aspect of it. Then you get these moments of making this a human story from that perspective as well, where, well, if you've got everything in the world to give your child a better life, don't you feel a responsibility to do so? To give your child a great shot at a big future? And it kind of like plays with those ideas of, well, what's the right thing to do? Who is the victim in this whole scandal anyway?
Gen Fricker:
Yeah. I just love anything where rich people are clowning.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Absolutely.
Gen Fricker:
I think it's really important as well to kind of stress, especially in Australia, we don't necessarily have the same type of class anxiety the way that the American college system kind of has that. For a lot of people in America, getting into a good college, they really do see it as like this will be fundamentally life changing. I can finally move out of my hometown. I can finally meet people and all the people that I model myself on have gone to these universities. So there is such a desperation to go to handfuls of universities.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Yeah. The Ivy league.
Gen Fricker:
Rich people coming in on top of that. Some of them celebrities, some of them just powerful private citizens. You do sometimes find yourself empathising with them, which I think again is what's so great about this documentary.
Gen Fricker:
I really do think we need to talk about the way this documentary is made.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Oh, absolutely. Because it is a fascinating take on how to tell a story like this, that it feels like it's happening now. We've got Rick Singer who is the person at the centre of this scandal. He is basically someone that gives these rich, wealthy people what he calls, a side door into university.
Gen Fricker:
Yeah. He calls himself a college coach.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Yeah, he's a college coach. He'll coach your kid to definitely get into college because there's a backdoor, he says, which is basically making like a $20 million donation, and there's a side door, which is significantly less making a donation directly to some sort of a sports club like sailing, rafting. They don't say badminton, but I bet badminton is a way to get in.
Gen Fricker:
Are you just maligning badminton?
Alexei Toliopoulos:
It's one of the weirdest sports. What is it a shuttlecock?
Gen Fricker:
I don't know.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
It doesn't even bounce.
Gen Fricker:
I've not thought five minutes about it in my-
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Whereas I've thought of badminton far too long. It was the only sport I played in high school. And that's the truth.
Gen Fricker:
The specificity of the scam is kind of what makes this whole story so insidious because he really has this side door notion and it comes up a few times. It's really like he's paying off certain people, he's chatting up some people. And there is also this sense that, because he's getting all these rich people to go along with it, often their kids don't know that they're doing this for them, the way that they talk about it, so openly and so brazenly, really shows that they really don't think they're going to get caught or that fundamentally there's anything wrong with it.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
And the way that they bring that to the screen is through these recreations. They are magnificently played, like the great character actor, Matthew Modine, plays Rick Singer. And Matthew Modine, he's such a specific act. He has such a specific energy because he has this charisma, but he's also got this goofiness about him. To me, it's like genius casting to go this guy, let's get Matthew Modine to play him.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
And what these recreations are, it's not just like, well we guess this is how it went. These recreations are captured from transcribed, direct, verbatim phone calls that the FBI monitored, recorded, transcribed and will use as evidence. And so these actors are using verbatim transcripts.
Gen Fricker:
A really good way to compare this film is, consider The Social Network written by Aaron Sorkin. All of the dialogue in that is really punchy, really snappy and it's kind of like an economy of language in it.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Yes. It's very theatrical in that kind of sense.
Gen Fricker:
Yeah. But also the way it's shot is beautiful, kind of sweeping grounds of Ivy league universities, plus law firms and rich people on boats and things like that. So basically this documentary is shot like The Social Network, but the dialogue it doesn't have any of that word economy. It's clumsy and... Well, it's the way that people talk in real life. People repeat themselves and stumble and stutter and go off topic. And it's not at all focused. It is like elevated reality in the best way.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
In the best way. Because it's like an elevated presentation of reality.
Gen Fricker:
Yes.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
I think that works so well. And there's one scene you just brought to mind for me that I think is a great selling point for, if you want to watch this movie, what it really is. There's a scene where Rick Singer played by Matthew Modine is driving around London, calling this coach. They start talking about how they're going to sneak a kid in through this side door. And then he's like, "I'm lost. I don't know where I am in London." He's driving around. They start complaining about driving on the wrong side of the road overseas. And then they just start talking about chicks basically. So it's all about dating and dating life and it cuts to the female FBI agent transcribing their conversation, just like, what is wrong with these guys?
Speaker 3:
Now I'm on the main street again. I tell you what, I'm glad I live in the US.
Speaker 4:
It wouldn't be so bad if you were in Sweden.
Speaker 3:
Yeah. Well then I got to find myself a good Swedish girl then.
Speaker 4:
All right, well next time I'm in Sweden, I'll take a look.
Gen Fricker:
Have you changed the way you talk on the phone after watching this?
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Absolutely. I'm more formal, less casual.
Gen Fricker:
I'm like directly acknowledging the FBI agent I assume is listening. Good evening to you, Alexei and good evening to whoever is listening.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
To Agent Carter, I know you're out there. Agent Carter, don't put this down, okay. This is just us hanging out.
Gen Fricker:
Yeah. It's interesting because it's really covering something is quite in a way really dry. The idea that you can make a film out of essentially just transcripts of people, real life people talking, driving around the car, sitting on a bed, getting a coffee, whatever. It's not necessarily the most cinematic material, but the fact that he's made it so interesting.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Yeah.
Gen Fricker:
This is definitely a documentary for everyone really.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Absolutely.
Gen Fricker:
And there's quite a lot of heart to it. We're not giving too much away. There's an innocent character in this, someone who was in the wrong place at the wrong time and really shows the stakes of it because I think sometimes as well, it's very easy to be like, "Oh, this is a completely different dimension to the one I live in."
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Yeah. Exactly. And I think it's got like that kind of voyeuristic to it where you're just like, "Oh, we are getting a little glimpse into the Hills." Basically, the lifestyles of the rich and infamous.
Gen Fricker:
Oh, infamous.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
You thought I was going to say famous.
Gen Fricker:
I know.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
I said, infamous.
Gen Fricker:
Like Christmas subverting the documentary genre. You are subverting famous phrases.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Absolutely.
Gen Fricker:
You're the Chris Smith of podcasting. I already said it. I've always said it.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Get him a pod, get him on our pod, if anything.
Gen Fricker:
Get him on our pod, Chris.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Come on, get on our podcast, Chris. We love your work and we love you as a guy. I think it's so fascinating because we're watching this almost as voyeurs away here in Australia, because it's so different to what our entry into college is like, or even university. They don't even use the word college in my regular life. But I think that's what it's all about. It's like this sticky situation of capturing the intricacies of all of that. It's so weird and so different.
Gen Fricker:
Yeah. I was trying to talk to my boyfriend about it because he came from a country town. I'm like, "Did you ever have that anxiety about university? About like, I have to get into this university in order to be able to live my dream of X, Y, Z." And he was like, "It's more just like, you want to get out of your hometown." And he's from Queensland so all the universities in Queensland are looked down by universities in Victoria and New South Wales. And so it's like a very, very small scale thing. Whereas in America it's like, there are heaps of colleges in America but there's only a handful of these super elite ones.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Yeah. Name recognition colleges.
Gen Fricker:
Exactly. And they make this point in the film that there really are enough colleges in America for everyone who wants to apply to college. There just not enough spots at these super, super elite colleges.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Yeah. That prestige that just rips off your diploma or whatever.
Gen Fricker:
Yeah. So, it really kind of seems like, is it the rich people who are exploiting this? Are they the real villains of the piece or is it just that there's such a horrific system in America that exploits people's hopes and dreams for their children?
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Yeah. This is an interesting thing because I think the film captures it really well is like, who is the villain here? Who is ripping off who? Who is the victim here? And it kind of makes you question all those throughout in a way that I think is internally very satisfying and what makes this a very satisfying watch. And another thing that makes it so satisfying, that frickin' wig on Matthew Modine playing Rick Singer because you're watching this guy like, who's got hair like that? And then you see the real guy like, "Oh, okay, I get it."
Gen Fricker:
So I think it's like, the shortest review of his is watch for the rich people scandal, stay for Modine's wig.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
It's an iconic piece worn by Matthew Modine. An iconic piece.
Gen Fricker:
An iconic film with an iconic piece.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
But I think as well, what we're kind of getting into is there's a cinematic quality to this that is not unlike a thriller. It kind of captures this interesting, legal complexity, the way something like The Big Short would or The Social Network would, in the same way those movies do where they're gripping and thrilling, and it explains things to you in a really elegant and simple way in that it captures the emotion behind them all. And it's interesting the way those emotions are captured because we do see the recreations of people. Then we have these interviews with people like talking head interviews. And then we also have this sense of mixed media, which is just another thing I am obsessive in documentaries, when we've got things captured from real footage from somewhere or videos found online. And this makes a great use of that in that it captures all these two camera videos and YouTube videos of young people that are prospective university students talking about the scandal, or even more emotionally, finding out that they've been rejected from going to university from videos that they posted on social media.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
I think that just captures the broad range of what it feels because do you remember how stressed you were thinking about going to university when you were in high school?
Gen Fricker:
Yeah. When I was 17, everything really did feel like life or death. If you didn't get the certain grade that you wanted or you didn't get into a certain place, there was so much pressure. And I really feel like that's also why this film has such a punch to it is because, at the end of the day, these are just kids who are just trying to figure out what's going to happen next to them. And it really made me think about, would my parents do that?
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Yeah. Because they do capture that of going like, they've got it. Why shouldn't they use it? Are they a bad parent if they're not trying hard enough to make their kid happy and relieve that anxiety of trying to go to uni?
Gen Fricker:
Yeah. I don't know. My parents are still telling me to go back to uni.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Can you come study with me? You be a mature-aged student with me?
Gen Fricker:
Oh my God.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
I reckon my mom, a hundred percent would doctor photos of me whitewater rafting to get a backdoor into uni because I was so stressed during the HSC. I still have nightmares of sitting at that desk with a little pencil, writing down, getting so stressed about it and going like, "Oh, I hope this helps me get into uni." And I'll tell you what, not even once have I used the results of those exams. I went to frickin' art school where you just had to go, "I want to make movies and here's how I would do it." I still have that stress. So you feel so much for these kids.
Gen Fricker:
Yeah. I studied film studies at uni and that's because I did not get into what I wanted to do. This is literally the first time since I left uni 10 years ago-
Alexei Toliopoulos:
That you're using those skills?
Gen Fricker:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
This is a write off then. This is a tax write off.
Gen Fricker:
Hell, yeah.
Gen Fricker:
A lot of the conversations are wiretapped. And some of the stuff they say about their own kids made me so anxious. Like, wow, I really hope I never hear what my parents say about me.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
I would hate it for the opposite reason because, in the movie like, okay, this one is the smart kid, they're going to catch on. How do we even trick the kid taking part of this admission scheme? I would be so nosy to hear my mom wiretapped, because my mom, she has too much unconditional love for me. Like it overwhelms me. I think it's a Greek thing, where it's not just like, "Oh, I love them. They're wonderful." It's like, "I love them. I'm worried about you every frickin' second of every single day."
Gen Fricker:
What a terrible problem to have.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
She always explains to her friends the wrong things. She's like, "Oh, Alexei is working for Netflix. He's on Stranger Things." I'm like, what? That's not it. No, no, no, no.
Gen Fricker:
You and Matthew Modine.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
He's working with Matthew Modine on Stranger Things.
Gen Fricker:
I would be brutalised by boosting my parents wiretap because they would never talk about me.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Oh my gosh. Do you have siblings?
Gen Fricker:
Yeah. I've got a younger brother.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Do you think he would be the one-
Gen Fricker:
He would be. He's the baby boy.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Oh gosh.
Gen Fricker:
I'm the older sister. As if they give a shit. I moved out at 17. I was like done. You know what I mean? I might register every now and again in relation to Max, my younger brother, but they'd probably be like, "Max is doing really well. And his cat, Henry, and the other one, I think I've heard from her, I can't remember."
Alexei Toliopoulos:
The iconic Gen Fricker, Australian celebrity.
Gen Fricker:
Yeah. I'm a bribing to get my future children into [inaudible 00:19:03]
Alexei Toliopoulos:
I think that this movie has a really interesting score that helps build this thriller feeling.
Gen Fricker:
Yeah. I clocked it from the first go. The opening titles of the documentary are so reminiscent of Social Network. So then I was like, is it just The Social Network soundtrack? And it's one half of the team who did it, Atticus Ross who wrote the music, well, half of the music for The Social Network. [crosstalk 00:19:36] I forgot, yeah, Trent Resonant wrote every first note and Atticus Ross wrote every second note.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
So it's all about the notes you're not hearing in this one.
Gen Fricker:
Exactly. It's like jazz, baby.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Exactly.
Gen Fricker:
I love that that's his niche, is like, "I love composing music for films about rich people being despicable."
Alexei Toliopoulos:
It's going to be like those drones that somehow ratchet tension in a really interesting way. It's a cool movie. I really enjoy documentaries that understand genre. They're like, "Okay, we're actually a sports movie. We're telling the truth, but we're actually a horror movie." And this one's just like, "Okay, this is a documentary, but actually you're watching a corporate thriller." And it's so cool.
Gen Fricker:
That's what I love about... Because you know sometimes documentaries can just be visually hard to watch, whereas this is just slick and really brings you into the world. There's a real sense of alienation from the real world. I don't know. Yeah. And especially post-COVID as well. I was wondering whether they actually shot this during COVID or not.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Yeah. Because it could have been done because it's mainly one person in a room on a phone call or a couple of people. It's pretty cool. I'm into this movie a lot.
Gen Fricker:
Yeah. I'm going to be talking about this maybe for a long time. And yeah, you will be too if you watch it.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Absolutely. There's one detail I want to bring up because I think it's such an effective documentary technique, which is like those talking head interviews, which is in this film, straight down the barrel. It's filmed using a device, which is like a camera called an Interrotron, which is this really weird, interesting, kind of jerry rigged piece of technology that's basically a camera with a teleprompter attached to it. And so in effect, the person being interviewed is talking directly down a camera. But what they're seeing is a teleprompter with the director's face who's being filmed with another camera showing up on it. So it feels like they're talking to the director face to face, but behind that screen is actually the camera filming them. So that's how we see their closeup being pointed directly at us at home.
Gen Fricker:
Yeah. Like a really good example of Chris Smith using this is that iconic Fyre Festival documentary interview with the guy that gets sent down to the local police and the admissions that he makes. If you haven't watched it, then watch it.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
If you haven't seen it, the guy's basically desperate for a bottle of water.
Gen Fricker:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he will do anything to get a bottle of water, but because it's just so intimate, you can get people to pretty much open up about anything. It's so conversational, again, which brings you into the real heart and guts of this story, which is really like a lot of innocent kids, a lot of innocent people get pulled into this scam.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
So the movie is Operation Varsity Blues. It's a new documentary from Chris Smith. It is out on Netflix right now. And we recommend that you watch it this weekend.
Gen Fricker:
Yeah. I'd love to know what people think. If they're as passionate about Modine's wig as we are.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Gen, it's been so fun hanging out with you on the podcast.
Gen Fricker:
Thanks man.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
I'm so glad we're going to be talking about movies, week-in, week-out, henceforth.
Gen Fricker:
Heck yeah. And if you enjoyed this podcast, subscribe to The Big Film Buffet on Apple or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave us a nice comment.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Please, leave us a nice comment. We're going to be back with you next Tuesday for our snack episode, where we'll be unpacking something bizarre in the world of pop culture that we are obsessed with.
Gen Fricker:
And Alexei, this is something to do with Barbara Streisand and clones.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
What a tastable tease. You'll have to find out what that all is about next week.
Gen Fricker:
This episode was hosted by Alexei Toliopoulos and me, Gen Fricker.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Produced by Michael Sun and Anu Hasbold.
Gen Fricker:
Edited by Geoffrey O'Connor.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Executive produced by Tony Broderick and Melanie Mahony.