Lived It

Main: Who gets to be a cowboy?

Episode Summary

We feast on Premiere Pick ‘Concrete Cowboy’, Lil Nas X, and all things modern cowboy in this episode with Alexei Toliopoulos and Gen Fricker.

Episode Notes

We feast on Premiere Pick ‘Concrete Cowboy’, Lil Nas X, and all things modern cowboy in this episode with Alexei Toliopoulos and Gen Fricker.

Tell us whether you’re a cowboy or a horse girl at @netflixanz on Instagram and Twitter, or tag #thebigfilmbuffet.

Episode Transcription

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Have you ever ridden a horse?

Gen Fricker:

I have ridden a horse. I don't like them, but you know what? This movie actually did turn me around on horses.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Really? You now see them as a majestic beast.

Gen Fricker:

I'm less hateful of them. I don't know. I think maybe I was just surrounded by horse girls when I was growing up and I fear horse girl culture.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

You don't want to become one, you're scared of them?

Gen Fricker:

No. Yeah, exactly. I think it speaks to a darkness inside me-

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Exactly.

Gen Fricker:

... that I fear. Well, howdy there, I'm Gen Fricker.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Hey there partner, I'm Alexei Toliopoulos.

Gen Fricker:

Welcome to The Big Film Buffet.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

A rootin tootin podcast for pop culture fans and people looking for what to watch recommendation.

Gen Fricker:

Today it's our main course. We recommend you a Netflix film for you to watch this weekend.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

And of all the films out this weekend, this is what you should spend your time on. We're talking about Concrete Cowboy.

Gen Fricker:

And if I may say Alexei, Hee Haw and giddy up.

Speaker 3:

There's a horse in your house.

Speaker 3:

Oh yes, you're right.

Speaker 3:

I ain't staying here.

Speaker 3:

All right. Would you step out? That door stays locked until morning.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

It's all about Concrete Cowboy on the podcast today. It's a brand new premiere on Netflix. I really enjoyed this movie. Gen, you did as well, right?

Gen Fricker:

Yeah, loved it. I've never seen a movie like it, but then it's also drawing on a budget, really traditional kind of tropes of cinema. If you haven't seen, if you don't know what it's about, basically imagine a cowboy film, but set in the middle of a massive city.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Yeah. It's this whole new subculture that we're introduced to in this film. It's these modern, contemporary, urban cowboys, these black cowboys in modern day Philadelphia.

Gen Fricker:

Yeah. Basically what happens is Cole who is played by Caleb McLaughlin, you might know him from Stranger Things, reunites with his estranged father in Philadelphia. His father played by Idris Elba, happens to be a cowboy in the middle of Philadelphia. And if again you're trying to picture that, it's exactly what you think it is. It's horses on streets. It's horses in the middle of city blocks. It's horses on baseball fields. It's exactly what you think. It's horse has been shoved into tiny rental homes.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

It's so striking, because you have imagery of what is considered the genre of the Western, which is horses and boots and perhaps a hat or two.

Gen Fricker:

Love a hat, love a scarf.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Maybe a boot with the spur, that kind of thing.

Gen Fricker:

Oh my gosh.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

I've never wanted a boot with a spur because I fear it.

Gen Fricker:

I would impale myself or others.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

That's it. I'm more than we'd be like chopping up things on the ground with them. Because to be honest, I don't even know what a spur does. I just assume they're like little pizza cutters on the back of a shoe.

Gen Fricker:

That's exactly how I picture them.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

So I'm worried I'm going to put them on my foot and slice my calf up.

Gen Fricker:

Apologises to the cowboys and cowgirls listening, who are screaming at the podcast right now. They're like, "That's not what spurs are." We're so sorry.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Exactly. Sorry guys, we are urbanites. We don't know this kind of stuff. Ask me a 100 questions about sneakers, you get 103 answers. I know how they work. A boot, don't know it.

Gen Fricker:

But look, it's not a spur heavy movie.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Exactly. Even a couple of sneaker freaks like Jen and I really got into this picture.

Gen Fricker:

You know what? There are some great sneakers in this picture too.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Exactly If you-

Gen Fricker:

Cowboys can wear sneakers.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

If you've always want to see a sneaker on a saddle, this is the movie for you.

Gen Fricker:

And that's basically the like main image of this movie. It's a sneaker. It's a saddle. It's about when gentrification hits urban inner city people, generally minority neighbourhoods, black neighbourhoods in America. And the tension that creates. Put on top of that, there's a huge [inaudible 00:03:48] which I did not really understand or know about before I saw this film, black cowboys are like the original cowboys.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

I know, right?

Gen Fricker:

But the cinematic tradition has always white washed it.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Exactly.

Gen Fricker:

It's incredible this film.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

It's pretty singular, because it mixes a few things together, because he reminds me a lot of something like Do the Right Thing, which is like an urban film about gentrification, Spike Lee, one of my all time favourite films. And it also reminds me of a very specific kind of subgenre that I used to love as a kid, which is, I don't know the name, but I'm going to call it kid and creature movie where a kid befriends and grows with an animal. And they find a softness with each other, like Free Willy.

Gen Fricker:

I've seen Whale Rider on SOS.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

I love Whale Rider.

Gen Fricker:

Yeah. And just how a relationship with an animal can transform your relationship with yourself, with your family, with your culture etcetera.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

That's such a good comparison. I think Whale Rider in this definitely sing in harmony and of course they sing in the song of the sea.

Gen Fricker:

Do you want me to sing it?

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Yeah, please.

Gen Fricker:

The whale is the horse of the sea, I've always said. Seahorse-

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Exactly.

Gen Fricker:

It's just a glorified prawn.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

I know.

Gen Fricker:

And if you're listening and you're a seahorse, come from me.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Yeah come at us, dude. If you've got a spur, come at us twice.

Gen Fricker:

Yeah. But I'll run away from you if you've got a spur, because that's a deadly weapon in my-

Alexei Toliopoulos:

We're scared of them.

Gen Fricker:

We're very scared.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

We're very scared.

Gen Fricker:

Let's put on the record. Big Film Buffet, scared of spurs.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Exactly. We're not against them. We just don't understand them.

Gen Fricker:

But we are against seahorses.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Yeah, we hate them.

Gen Fricker:

Yeah. The other thing about this film is that it's based on a true story and in fact has real-life black urban Cowboys in the film.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

They like peppering out the cast. They're adding that authenticity, that idea of like an immersed authenticity. And I think that's a great thing that films can really do is like introduce you to this whole walk of life that you're not aware of it all. And I had some knowledge of the urban Cowboys. I think I listened to a podcast documentary about them years ago, but this is the first time I've ever understood what they are visually. And it's so striking.

Gen Fricker:

Yeah, it's centred around this group of Cowboys who are the Fletcher Street Cowboys in Philadelphia. And it has a lot of them in it, has a lot of them riding horses and I can't overstate just how striking this film is. First of all, it's shot beautifully. But also it is that contrast of kids joy riding through a massive city in a pretty beat up crappy car. There are also horse races in the middle of these kind of industrial parks and buildings and stuff. It feels almost surreal. And then, knowing that it's based in real life is even more powerful.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

And I think it captures all that power in the end by just bringing it home to even more reality. We've got those closing credits that is just like almost documentary footage talking heads with those actual cowboys.

Gen Fricker:

And don't get us started on documentaries.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Because we'll go on for days, dude.

Gen Fricker:

We pop off, we're a couple of DACA Queens.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

One thing that comes to mind when we're talking about this movie is it really re-contextualises and redefines what is the cowboy, who can even be a cowboy? And I think that's something like where we're at in the culture now where we're tackling those big icons of what once were like straight white man icons. Like your Clint Eastwoods, your John Waynes and redefining what they are for modern culture in the 21st century. I think pop culture is completely changing the idea of what a cowboy is now. The last concert I went to before we all went down to lockdown was a cowboy Western concert. It was Orville Peck. It's like a Queer icon bringing kind of sincerity and cant. Like what was once like very-

Gen Fricker:

Stiflingly hetero male why-

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Yeah.

Gen Fricker:

Yeah for sure. When I think about modern cowboys, the biggest image I can come up with is Lil Nas X.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Absolutely. Social media icon and singer of Old Town Road.

Gen Fricker:

Yeah, which was everywhere. I remember being in New Zealand in the middle of nowhere and we turned on the radio and Old Town Road was playing. And I was just like, "We're on the other side of the world." And my tiny little cousins are singing along to this song about being a cowboy. You know what I mean? It's weird that it's popped up at this moment. And I kind of wonder why that is? Why people are identifying with that cowboy thing? And then also rediscovering the origins of cowboy culture, which is what this movie is talking about. It's talking about the fact that cowboys, cowgirls, were traditionally black people.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Yeah. And there's even a moment in this where they're singing around a campfire and it feels like that classic homage to those scenes you see of cowboys out on the range and on a big hunt, trying to find someone and they start playing music. They sing around a fire and they even have a line that's like, "This is the original track music."

Gen Fricker:

Yeah, I think also cowboys to me represent freedom. It's always like this idea that you go out, you're alone in the world and you kind of make a nomadic lifestyle and you're defining something out of infinite freedom. I wonder what that's kind of saying about where we're at as a society.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Yeah, so I love hearing about society. But I think as well, it's interesting because this film is while simultaneously about that idea of a nomad lifestyle, like home is where you make it and where you find yourself. It's so much about community, which I think is something that while present in classic Westerns is something that is kind of new to this thing, like the way they bring it to this movie, you choose who you want to be. You find who you want to be. You find your own destiny and you find the people that are like you that want to be with you and want to live that same life as you.

Gen Fricker:

It becomes about choosing your family.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Absolutely.

Gen Fricker:

Also, cowboy ascetics, they're timeless for a reason. There's a horse rustling scene in this, which is such a lovely homage to the old Westerns. And Idris Elba's character Harp is wearing a neckerchief that he pulls over his mouth, like a little bandit mask. He's got the hat and it's just like it's cool as hell. It's timeless for a reason.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Have you ever rocked a cowboy outfit in any kind?

Gen Fricker:

You know, I have been known to wear cowboy boots to work.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Yeah.

Gen Fricker:

That was fun. That was a fun day.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Yeah, obviously with sand spur.

Gen Fricker:

Yeah, sand spur, safety first.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Have you worn a fringe?

Gen Fricker:

Oh, I love a fringe. I've got laced, like two outfits that are very fringe heavy, it's movement.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

I have started wearing a neckerchief and I'm like, "That's a lifelong goal met." I've always wanted to wear a neckerchief, but I never had the courage to do it. And now I say hee-haw I'm doing it.

Gen Fricker:

Hell yeah. I mean, jeans are kind of based on-

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Oh yeah, I'm a cowboy every day.

Gen Fricker:

Denim is cowboy culture. I know that whenever I watch any movie with Dolly Parton in it-

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Oh my word.

Gen Fricker:

... there is a good week afterwards where I'm full cowgirl. I've got a denim vest that ties up, like its crocked.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Oh my gosh, I can't even imagine it.

Gen Fricker:

I know, and I wear that, I wear a little skirt. I get my hair real big-

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Oh my gosh.

Gen Fricker:

... long nails. It's a look. It is weird in Australia to be doing it.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Yeah, especially just like in Sydney.

Gen Fricker:

Yeah. Just clip clopping around on the train.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Have you ever ridden a horse?

Gen Fricker:

I have ridden a horse, I don't like them. But you know what? This movie actually did turn me around on horses.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Really? You now see them as a majestic beast.

Gen Fricker:

I'm less hateful of them. I don't know. I think maybe I was just surrounded by horse girls when I was growing up. And I fear horse girl culture.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

You don't want to become one, you're scared of them.

Gen Fricker:

Yeah, exactly. I think it speaks to a darkness inside me that I fear.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Exactly. The moment you connect with the beast is the moment you change.

Gen Fricker:

I know. Maybe that's it, maybe I'm beginning of this movie Cole where I'm just like, "I know what I know-

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Exactly, like, "What is this?"

Gen Fricker:

I need to deal, these horses are dumb."

Alexei Toliopoulos:

I like my Game Boy, I like my PS5. I like my Xbox One or whatever they call it.

Gen Fricker:

Exactly.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

I like my games. I'm a video gamer. Is what I put on to this character at the start of the movie. But then you become one-

Gen Fricker:

Is this your gamer girl character?

Alexei Toliopoulos:

I'm a gamer girl and you're a horse girl, okay?

Gen Fricker:

Oh my God. I know. As soon as I get a good braid in my hair, I'm like, "Maybe I am a horse girl." I like wearing leggings every day.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Yeah, it's true.

Gen Fricker:

Maybe I am a horse girl.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

I would love to be one of those old school directors that you see in a parody of a classic movie where they've got riding boots, riding [inaudible 00:12:44], one of those little whips-

Gen Fricker:

Yeah. The jodhpurs with the big pads on the side of the hips-

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Yeah, where it look like a giant arse down at your knees, that's what I want.

Gen Fricker:

Yeah, and have original [inaudible 00:12:55]?

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Original [inaudible 00:12:55].

Gen Fricker:

Like directors from the 1930s, are they original Instagram thoughts? I forgot to ask you. Are you pro-horse? Have you ridden a horse or do you ride them?

Alexei Toliopoulos:

I've ridden a horse. I've been up close of a horse to having touched one. I have however ridden a donkey.

Gen Fricker:

What? Why?

Alexei Toliopoulos:

I've ridden a donkey. It's like a Greek horse.

Gen Fricker:

Oh, okay yeah.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

I've never ridden a horse, but I've touched donkeys. I've fed a donkey a thistle. I've been up close and personal with a donkey.

Gen Fricker:

How was your donkey experience?

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Oh, wonderful. What a beautiful mule.

Gen Fricker:

What were you doing? Where were you travelling?

Alexei Toliopoulos:

We were travelling around Greece.

Gen Fricker:

Off course.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

I was a young boy sitting on a donkey going up big-

Gen Fricker:

Oh my gosh.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

... steps because it was too much for my little legs. But the donkey had powerful bucking legs and it could carry me everywhere.

Gen Fricker:

Yeah, what's the difference between a donkey and a horse?

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Smaller and the donkey I think he had a nappy on or something.

Gen Fricker:

What?

Alexei Toliopoulos:

That's my main memory was the donkey wore a nappy.

Gen Fricker:

Is this like a cartoon version of a donkey?

Alexei Toliopoulos:

I think they poop. They poop a lot.

Gen Fricker:

There's something I really loved about this film, getting an insight into a culture that I'd never really seen before on screen.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Absolutely.

Gen Fricker:

And it kind of reminded me when I first saw Whale Rider. It's a Maori story. It's about Maori culture and me as a Maori person, it was the first time I ever saw my own culture on screen and Maori people on screen. And so I was like, "This is awesome and wild to me that such a rich culture that's steeped in storytelling inherently hasn't really been represented before." And I'm like, "Well, of course black cowboys, of course."

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Of course.

Gen Fricker:

It just makes sense. It's so cinematic.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Yeah, I think Whale Rider is such a good one too with this movie. And why I think this movie is singular and exciting and so worth your time watching. I remember seeing Whale Rider first time. I saw it three times in the cinema when I was a kid. I can see young people connecting with this movie in the same way. There's something really special in finding movies that are about something cultural, but also that idea of taming the beasts, if you will. And I think that there's this great scene in this film where they break a horse, where there's a horse, it's literally in a baseball diamond. It's such a great character moment for Caleb McLaughlin. I think it is such a phenomenal young performance from this young up and coming star who I've only seen him in Stranger Things.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

I always loved him in that show, he's one of my favourite characters. But seeing him bring these emotional gravitas and this hurt to this character, this hurt that desperately wants to heal. I haven't seen that before from him. And I think that it's maybe my favourite thing with this whole movie is how great he is.

Gen Fricker:

Yeah. And you know, it's not an overly wordy film either.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

No.

Gen Fricker:

It's not like they've got heaps of exposition and heaps of dialogue and that kind of thing. It's quiet, a quiet film really. So it kind of speaks to the strength of his performance that he can show that growth and show that development and bring that sense of deep hurt without really having to say much. That's just how good he is. I also will say there's so much heart in this film. I wouldn't say it's a kid's movie at all. It's not, but it's definitely a film that I feel like if I was a teenager or something, I was watching with my parents, I feel like everyone would get something out of it.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

I totally agree with that, because I think that this film from what I understand is based on why a young adult novel. So I think it captures so much broad and beautiful motion for the whole family to find something in, to be moved with this story together. But especially for young people, I would say for teenagers this is a really interesting one. And it centres around that relationship building, not just with Caleb McLaughlin's character and his community around him, but more specifically with his estranged father played by Idris Elba. I think as well this is a really great performance from him. I think if anything, he is the character that kind of symbolises that strong, silent type of your Clint Eastwoods or something-

Gen Fricker:

Strong, masculine. There's obviously something mercurial, like something going on underneath the surface, which in these films where the dialogue isn't overly explicit in terms of descriptive-

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Exposition and stuff.

Gen Fricker:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's kind of really hard to sell a character like that, but he probably already has two pages of dialogue.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Probably. But it just speaks to what casting a big star in a small movie like this, what it does with just the absolute, masculine presence that he brings to a film, and the way he introduce him is so cool because it's just got like this really weird score behind it. That's almost like a theremin into a Western score or something. And when I was watching this movie again, I just was swept up by how interesting the score was and how well it introduces this character and in the entire themes of the film with just him walking onto screen.

Gen Fricker:

Yeah. And on that, the sound design in this movie. Because you are literally talking about a community of cowboys with their horses, stables, in the middle of modern day Philadelphia. You can hear planes flying past, and the rumble of bass from cars that are driving by. And it is so you're always aware when you're watching this film that you are in the middle of a city. You're always aware that there's this pressure closing in on them. That the time that they are in this spot, the freedom that they feel is limited, which I also feel is quite a stab, an emotional kind of stab underneath everything.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Well, I think this is a wonderful directorial debut as well. This is the first feature film from Director Ricky Staub.

Gen Fricker:

Yeah, I was reading about him and his production crews and working on his productions he hires ex-prisoners as a way to get them retrained and get them back into the community, which I feel like again is really cool. It's like really acknowledging a history of cinema that often excludes voices and then is starting to bring them in. I also feel it's executive produced by Lee Daniels who in the last 10 years has contributed so much to cinema. So I don't know, it's a story with real hart, there's a real life impact. It's telling a real life story, but it is so inherently cinematic at the same time. So many reasons why people should watch this movie.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Absolutely agree. Check out Concrete Cowboy. It's coming out on Netflix for your viewing this weekend.

Gen Fricker:

And if you've already watched this movie, what other films should people get into Alexei?

Alexei Toliopoulos:

There's one that comes to mind. This is a Western from Australia from the last few years, Warwick Thornton's Sweet Country. It's also on Netflix. This is probably my favourite film in the last decade or so.

Gen Fricker:

Wow.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Warwick Thornton is my favourite Australian filmmaker.

Gen Fricker:

Yeah, me too.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Just absolutely inspired me so much. When Samson and Delilah came out, I was like, "I want to make Australian movies. I want to talk about Australian movies." It's such a great film, and so moving. And also it's a Western about the original gentrification colonisation.

Gen Fricker:

Yep.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

It's got such a great cast. You've got Sam Neill, Bryan Brown. And of course it is so visually stunning, there's places that I've never seen before filmed in Australia, like these amazing salt lakes in the desert that just are phenomenal. It's so deeply moving and I cannot recommend it enough. So check it out if you liked Concrete Cowboy and feel like more of an interesting Western fix.

Gen Fricker:

Yeah, you can spend the whole weekend on Netflix just living your cowboy fantasy essentially. I mean, the most obvious comparison here is the interactions of early indigenous people with early colonial settlers, like the interactions of trackers and the English settlers that landed here. Obviously I feel that would be quite similar the way that slavery and racism plays into that as well as quite a direct parallel to the way that black people have been excluded from the cowboy narrative.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Absolutely. It's so weird to think cowboy is such an American cultural icon, like the idea of the cowboy. And here in Australia I guess we've kind of got some of it. We're kind of a frontier country when we look back.

Gen Fricker:

Yeah. I mean, historically you could frame the history of Australia as some kind of Wild West frontier. Yeah, I'm trying to think, what would a similar subculture be here? Maybe bushrangers like Ned Kelly?

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Absolutely.

Gen Fricker:

Who are always like outlaws, in trouble with the law, shooting cops, et cetera.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Sheriff's going in on them, and also like the iconography of cowboys and bushrangers are nearly identical.

Gen Fricker:

Yeah, the lone figure on a horse with a gun, on the run from something, modern cowboys. I feel like maybe the Deni Ute Muster?

Alexei Toliopoulos:

What's the Deni Ute Muster?

Gen Fricker:

It's this annual event that's held in Deniliquin and people would bring their Utes and there's a community around it, you know?

Alexei Toliopoulos:

My God. It's like a rodeo, but people doing donuts in Utes?

Gen Fricker:

Yeah, pretty much.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Absolutely I'm there. I got to go.

Gen Fricker:

Yeah, oh man, let's go together. Lets book [inaudible 00:22:21].

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Let's do it our first trip together, going to the Deni Ute Muster festival.

Gen Fricker:

And we'll wear spurs.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

We're going to finally wear spurs.

Gen Fricker:

Yeah, much like the characters in Concrete Cowboys. We have grown.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Absolutely. And we're both crying right now talking about our own growth. And if you enjoyed this podcast, subscribe to the Big Film Buffet on Apple or wherever you get your podcasts, leave us a nicer review, babes.

Gen Fricker:

Babes, please leave us a nice review, babes, that's all we ask. Next Tuesday for our snack episode we want to know what annoys you the most when you watch a movie? What takes you out of it? And I don't even mean like it's a bad movie. I mean, watching an extra not drink a cup of coffee that they're holding, things like that. What's something that you notice and no one else does, and it takes you out of the film and you need a time to rant about it? That's Tuesday.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Yes, and we're talking pet peeves and freaking out about them on the podcast, So see you then, babes. This episode was hosted by me, Alexei Toliopoulos and Gen Fricker.

Gen Fricker:

Produced by Michael Sun and Anu Hasbold.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Edited by Geoffrey O'Connor.

Gen Fricker:

Executive produced by Tony Broderick and Melanie Mahony.