We talk about our biggest movie pet peeves: siblings calling each other “sibling”, The Clash, background extras, and more. All in this episode with Alexei Toliopoulos and Gen Fricker.
We talk about our biggest movie pet peeves: siblings calling each other “sibling”, The Clash, background extras, and more. All in this episode with Alexei Toliopoulos and Gen Fricker.
Tell us your biggest pet peeve at @netflixanz on Instagram and Twitter, or tag #thebigfilmbuffet.
Further reading:
London Calling in The Conjuring 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PVv497n0i4
London Calling in Billy Elliot
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUkIb9ZV9NQ&t=42s
London Calling in Die Another Day
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRbTQKh1RN8&ab_channel=MI5MI6GCHQ
London Calling in What A Girl Wants
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4HDAjcNi-o&ab_channel=RayannCox
Bad extras acting
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaGzxjGBCnA&ab_channel=Grunge
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Hello.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
It's me Alexei Toliopoulos from the Big Film Buffet. We're in our snack edition, and Gen Fricker has brought us a snack, baby.
Gen Fricker:
Yeah, it's a pop cultural obsession of mine. I want to talk about movie pet peeves. And I feel like you're the perfect person to talk about with this.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
You can just stop at, "You're the perfect person, full stop."
Gen Fricker:
You're the perfect person, full stop. And also...
Alexei Toliopoulos:
New sentence. And let's talk about something.
Gen Fricker:
And let's talk about this. Basically, what is it in movies that pulls you out of it, or that you just can't stop obsessing over. Very passionate opinions about very small and insignificant things. For me, one of my biggest pet peeves in a movie, is in the first scene of the movie, if there's too much exposition. And what I mean by exposition, is an explanation of who the characters are, why you should care about them, where they've come from, what their history is. An example of it is like, "Oh my God, Alexei, I can't believe we finally made it to this college that we've both been wanting to get into since we were both best friends at 11 years old, and also your mum's dead. And also I want to be a ballerina." And it cramps so much information in too early, and then I'm like, "Man, I'm tired. It's been five minutes."
Alexei Toliopoulos:
And there's like no natural to it. That doesn't make sense to any reality. The one in that realm that gets me is like, "Oh, hey brother." "Oh sister, great to see you." It's like, have you ever seen your sibling and got sibling title? "Sibling, how are you?"
Gen Fricker:
I call my brother broother sometimes.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Okay, sorry. I'm an only child, I don't get this stuff. I've never had a friend that's related to me, okay?
Gen Fricker:
Oh, I would say we're friends. But no, you know that meme that was like a few years ago. And it I was like, "Broother, may I have a loop?" That's why I call my brother, brother.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
And broother.
Gen Fricker:
I call him broother, I called him brohims.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Oh, I like bro him. I wish I had a brother so I could go, Hey brohim."
Gen Fricker:
I call him broseppi.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Broseppi. Wow, that is beautiful.
Gen Fricker:
And then I just go on around, broseppi, giuseppi, papeppi, mameppi. Yeah, this is fun stuff you can do with your sibling as well.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Yeah. See, this is the world that I don't know. I don't know a world with a sibling.
Gen Fricker:
We're brother and sister in the world of pod, the pod family.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Okay, that counts as much as a real family, is a pod family.
Gen Fricker:
Another pet peeve of mine is when you are watching a movie and then they've clearly had to change something or add in a piece of dialogue after they've shot it. It's called ADR, additional dialogue recording. It's always the most awkward and cumbersome thing. And I feel like my ears really pop out when I hear it. And then it takes me out of the film.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
You can tell if there's a... when a movie has needed like ADR of additional jokes.
Gen Fricker:
Yes.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
When there's like, "Oh, we've got to change the pun, it's not funny enough. So let's just... " And you've got a guy going, "Oh, that's got to hurt," just out of nowhere.
Gen Fricker:
Isn't it the main difference between like the Zack Snyder cut of Justice League and the Joss Wheden cut?
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Might be.
Gen Fricker:
Joss Wheden added in all these extra jokes, and then the Zack Snyder cut, cut them all out.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Cut the jokes out. Yeah, I want to do a Zack Sneider cut of this podcast where it's just us.
Gen Fricker:
No jokes.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
No jokes.
Gen Fricker:
Just me earnestly telling you're my brother.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
That's what I want, and I'll list to it over and over again. I got to tell you my biggest pet peeve, and it's so specific-
Gen Fricker:
Please, the more specific, the better, honestly.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
This is like a plus five or six movies, which is far too many movies. There was one movie that I watched on Netflix recently, it was Blade II, and it did this, and awakened me to my larger problem with it, is when we hit a location and it's an iconic and established location that you know... In Blade II they go to London, England.
Gen Fricker:
Heard of it.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
You see the whole title come up on the screen. And the shot that they show you, is Piccadilly Circus. There's a big bus going around, a double-decker bus. I'm like, "Okay, you don't need to show me the words. I think I know where the frick we are right now."
Gen Fricker:
Yep, yep.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
And then there's another one that's even beyond that. If anything, that's subtle, and I can live with it. The one that really gets me is so specific. It's when they play the clash London Calling to establish London. And they do it in so many movies, James Bond, Die Another Day, he does it. The one that really comes to me, is The Conjuring 2. I mean, I love The Conjuring, I love the Conjuring 2. I reviewed the Conjuring 2. I gave it five freaking stars. But it has my least favourite thing in it, and it's when they do London Calling. It's like, "We've got to go to London." And then they go to London, it's like dah, dah, dah, dah. And then you see them, they're on a big double-decker bus going down it.
Gen Fricker:
Yes. It's always the same. Oh my God. I'm getting like flashbacks. It's the same thing, every single time. "There's Buckingham Palace."
Alexei Toliopoulos:
"And there's Big Ben." And they're always on like the drum beat, the duh, duh, duh, duh. It's like a flash cut of like-
Gen Fricker:
Rapid cuts of different locations.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
... just little things that are going on, someone eating some fucking fish and chips out of a newspaper or something. Like there's all the typical English, London stuff. I was like, "Give me a break."
Gen Fricker:
I feel like a newer version of that, is movies and TV shows that use Taylor Swift's Welcome to New York.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Oh Okay. Already iconic song for me.
Gen Fricker:
Yes. It's going to be the new London Calling by The Clash. I also feel like The clash would not like that their music is being used as like establishing new shots.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Yeah. They're anti-establishment. I don't think there'd be up for establishment shots.
Gen Fricker:
They're anti-establishment shots. They want it anonymous interiors, or anonymous exteriors. They do not want to be tied to a specific place. And that's why they call it London Calling.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Yeah. It's London Calling on a fricking London Calling card. We don't even know what's happening on it.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Also in another movie, Girl Wants, the Amanda Bynes movie, and if you watch back to back the Conjuring scene with it, and the Amanda binds movie, they are, no shit, identical. The way they [crosstalk 00:06:04].
Gen Fricker:
Wow!
Alexei Toliopoulos:
... to it, it's identical. The duh, duh, duh, it's exactly in both of them... Drive me nutser. And there's one other movie they do it in, the movie Atomic Blonde.
Gen Fricker:
Yes!
Alexei Toliopoulos:
And then they use it to establish Berlin. They go to Berlin and the go, "London calling,"
Gen Fricker:
Oh my god!
Alexei Toliopoulos:
And I'm like, "I don't know if I love this or hate this," but it's been stuck in my head since I saw it.
Gen Fricker:
Do you ever think about the conversations that the music supervisor would have to have with the producer where they're like, "No, no, no, I get it. It's not London, but that would be cheesy of me to use it for London-
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Exactly.
Gen Fricker:
... so I'm using it for Berlin, but in the same time as The Clash, and that's why you should pay $50,000 for the use of the song."
Alexei Toliopoulos:
I can imagine The Clash being like, "You know what? Chuck it in there. We liked that one."
Gen Fricker:
"We like it. We don't like it."
Alexei Toliopoulos:
"This is anti what we've been put in. This is anti-establishment."
Gen Fricker:
"It's subverting people's expectations of films."
Alexei Toliopoulos:
"Exactly. When you go in, we're going London calling, there's the wall. Look at that guy, it's a statue of an angel." That's all I know about Berlin [crosstalk 00:07:06].
Gen Fricker:
Frankenfurters.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Frankenfurters, covered in curry. Eat it with chips, that's German cuisine.
Gen Fricker:
I feel like an obvious one, is when people don't say goodbye when they hang up the phone.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Oh my God.
Gen Fricker:
Could you imagine doing that in the real world?
Alexei Toliopoulos:
The rudeness of it.
Gen Fricker:
We'll play it out.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Okay.
Gen Fricker:
Bring, bring.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Hello, Alexei Toliopoulos speaking.
Gen Fricker:
Hey Alexei, it's me, your friend, Gen. How are you?
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Hey Gen. I'm really good. I've got a lot of stuff on at the moment.
Gen Fricker:
Okay, that's cool.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Here's my whole life story right now.
Gen Fricker:
Oh, some exposition in this as well.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Yeah, here's some exposition. I'm a young Greek guy trying to make my way in the world of Sydney, I don't have any siblings, I absolutely adore movies, I'm a bit of a film buff and I just love to live life. I love to hang out and wear tracksuits.
Gen Fricker:
Well this is all normal information in a regular conversation between two humans. And I get that. I just want to make sure we are on for the podcast recording.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Oh, absolutely. I can't wait to discuss it, as you're my friend.
Gen Fricker:
Click, hang up. Wouldn't that be crazy?
Alexei Toliopoulos:
I'd have a tear rolling down my chin right now.
Gen Fricker:
Exactly.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Imagine the tension, the next time I see you I go, "Okay, have you got a problem?"
Gen Fricker:
But could you imagine if you do that to your own parents, and they're like-
Alexei Toliopoulos:
I actually would do it to my mum.
Gen Fricker:
Really?
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Yeah, I would. I've got to get on with life. I actually empathise with the movie characters now.
Gen Fricker:
You're like, "This is the most realistic thing I've seen on screen in ages."
Alexei Toliopoulos:
What am I going to spend three seconds of my life saying, "Ciao Ma?"
Gen Fricker:
Is that how you say it?
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Yeah, that's how I would say it.
Gen Fricker:
Ciao Ma.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Ciao. Ciao Ma. It's like, "Ciao Mama." You know? [inaudible 00:08:42] saving one more syllable of my life.
Gen Fricker:
Ciao Mama.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Even easier in Greek, I just go, [foreign language 00:08:47]. That's like buy.
Gen Fricker:
Does that mean bye?
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Yeah, [foreign language 00:08:50]. It's one half of [foreign language 00:08:51].
Gen Fricker:
Well, before we say [foreign language 00:08:53] to our listeners, why don't you get in touch with us? Find us on Socials, Netflix NZ.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
And we want to hear your pet peeves.
Gen Fricker:
Yeah. What is something that you've noticed in movies that you're like, "That's crazy town. That's proper crazy."
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Yeah. That's one ticket to crazy town. And guess where crazy town's located.
Gen Fricker:
Where?
Alexei Toliopoulos:
In London. London calling on the underground.
Gen Fricker:
Here's our train.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Full of beans. It's a big breakfast. You've got beans, you've got eggs and you've a sausy.
Gen Fricker:
I'm one of them beef eaters. I'll do a front of Buckingham Palace.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
London calling, there's a guard. He don't move. You take a picture.
Gen Fricker:
London calling, [inaudible 00:09:45] footage of the queen, waving out the car with her little hands.