Featuring special dinner guest Rhys Nicholson, ‘Grease’, ‘The Prom’, and ‘Josie and the Pussycats’ make up a glitzy gala in this episode with Susie Youssef and Alexei Toliopoulos.
Featuring special dinner guest Rhys Nicholson, ‘Grease’, ‘The Prom’, and ‘Josie and the Pussycats’ make up a glitzy gala in this episode with Susie Youssef and Alexei Toliopoulos. Get ready to gown up and tux out!
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Susie Youssef:
I had watched Sliding Doors. There was that moment where Gwyneth Paltrow cuts her hair short and puts flowers in it for the opening of the restaurant-
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Gorg.
Susie Youssef:
Or the PR four and I was like, "Oh, that has to be me now." Even though we look nothing alike and have different hair colours. So I cut my hair, put little red flowers in the top and took a red feather boa.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
When do you think the last decade was that a feather boa wasn't a clear cry for help?
Susie Youssef:
I think the 20s.
Susie Youssef:
Hello, I'm Susie Youssef.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
And I'm Alexei Toliopoulos.
Susie Youssef:
Welcome to the Big Film Buffet.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
The film podcast for non-film nerds.
Susie Youssef:
But the kind of podcast that's going to make you sound way smarter when you talk about films, whether you've seen them or not.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
I've actually seen every single film.
Susie Youssef:
Quiet, nerd.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Oh, shhh. Sorry.
Susie Youssef:
Each episode, we'll be sharing with you a three-course feast of films inspired by the Netflix Premier Flick of the Week.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
We'll roll up in a stretch limo with a classic starter.
Susie Youssef:
Then we'll straighten your bow tie and freshen your breath for our main course, the Prom.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
And to finish it, we'll hand you a corsage as a delicate floral dessert of recommendations.
Susie Youssef:
If we're going to talk about The Prom, we have to talk about teen musicals.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Oh, we simply must. It's a really fun sub genre and I think the teen film really suits that musical format because when you're a teenager, the stakes are so high and the drama is so elevated. Every day feels like life or death to the max, which is perfect for a musical.
Susie Youssef:
And a little later, we're going to be joined by a very special dinner guest, the best dressed comedian in the world Rhys Nicholson.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Oh I love him. But first Grease is the word and the movie we're starting with today.
Audio:
I got a surprise for you.
Audio:
Oh yeah?
Audio:
Yeah.
Audio:
Sandy?
Audio:
Danny?
Audio:
What are you doing here? I thought you were going back to Australia.
Audio:
We had a change of plans.
Susie Youssef:
This is a classic. This is the story of Grease and Denny Zukor and Australian virginal mega babe Sandy Olson, who meet on the beach one summer and fall in love, but have to contend with the reality of the real world when they bump into each other again at Rydall High School.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
I love Grease. It's one of the most enduring classics of all time. It's still regularly played at sold-out theatres around the world with singalong screenings as well.
Susie Youssef:
And I think the Grease soundtrack has probably played at every wedding I have ever been to in my whole life, which is probably about 400 weddings. And even if you hate the part at the end of the night, when your DJ cousin plays Summer Loving, you can't help but join in that song. You can't help it.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
You can't help it. It's my karaoke mainstay.
Susie Youssef:
Is it?
Alexei Toliopoulos:
It's my excuse to get a friend up and we sing it together.
Susie Youssef:
Nice.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
There's also this huge Australian connection. Olivia Newton John, as Sandy, as this beachy blonde, Australian ex-pat good girl. Need we say more? It launches her career as this international star. And I truly deep down believe that in Australia, we think of this as part of our national identity.
Susie Youssef:
I mean, she literally led the way for all of us Australian blondes whether in our heart or in our hair, on to the world stage.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Absolutely. And we are kicking goals because of you Sandra Dee. I hadn't seen this movie in at least over a decade, but re-watching, I was so spellbound by it. I think it's so close to perfection. It captures everything about high school, the longing, the need to be cool, the horniness, everything. And they do it all with these actors all over the age of 27.
Susie Youssef:
Yeah. They're all way older than their age, but they kind of make it work.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Absolutely.
Susie Youssef:
I agree with you on one point more than any other point that I re-watched it and was like, this is the horniest movie in movie history. This is therefore one of the most accurate teenage films ever written. I remember those cartoons at the drive-in, where you got the hot dog jumping into the bun. Horny, it's so horny.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Absolutely.
Susie Youssef:
But Grease was basically for me, it was sex education.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Susie Youssef:
I hadn't heard any other film talk about sex as frankly, or as cheekily as Grease did. It was where I learned the most important lesson about sex that it only takes 15 minutes, which is true.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
That's where I heard that from. That's been in my head forever as well.
Susie Youssef:
That's where it's from.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
And it's so well cast. This is Travolta's first film since asending to super stardom in one of the greatest films of all time, Saturday Night Fever. And he really is this incredibly charismatic, fully grown movie star here.
Susie Youssef:
I adore John Travolta, but I've heard you talk about him on more than one occasion. I think it's safe to say that you are the leading John Travolta nerd of the world.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Oh, I hope that I'm up there because he's one of my heroes. I've been obsessed with him most of my life. He's an incredibly collaborative actor who usually has a say in casting the actors around him and that really starts on this film.
Susie Youssef:
So did he pick any of the actors in this film?
Alexei Toliopoulos:
He picked Olivia Newton John. He somehow knew and liked her country music and he was like, "She's got to be Sandy". And I think watching him and her work together captures that collaborative energy of him. He calibrates his performance with who he's with. I think he's so perfect at capturing this high camp blend of goofy machismo all over as a cover for this very sensitive soulful young man.
Susie Youssef:
And apparently he was in one of the early stage productions of Grease The Musical, but not as Danny Zukor, as like one of the other thugs, like he was cast as one of the random dude friends.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Isn't that crazy?
Susie Youssef:
Insane.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Imagine one of the hottest men in history, oozing that movie star charisma who just moves so cinematically and going, "Yeah, this guy should be cast as one of Danny's fricking weed friends. Like Nikki's cousin over here or some shit."
Susie Youssef:
Like Putzie or Sonny something like that.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
It's so weird.
Susie Youssef:
[crosstalk 00:05:27] I can't imagine it. I can't imagine anyone else doing this role mostly because of his chin. The Travolta Chin dimple is iconic. Like, remember this first time-
Alexei Toliopoulos:
I could swim in that dimple.
Susie Youssef:
You could! You could and you would be able to do laps basically. It's so beautiful and deep. Remember the first time that he turns around in the film-
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Susie Youssef:
... so the first time you ever meet Danny in the movie, he's standing with a bunch of girls at school, back to camera and the greasers yell out like, "Oh, Hey, there's Danny." And he turns around, cigarette in mouth, that chin, deep ass the ocean and flashes that Travolta smile. I'm pretty sure that's where I can pinpoint the moment.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
I think you've nailed something here in that. Grease has the best turns in cinematic history.
Susie Youssef:
Oh, they nail the turns.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
They nail the turns. Everyone is so perfect in this film. But to me beyond perfection is Stockard Channing as Rizzo.
Susie Youssef:
Oh yes.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
And hand on heart in the song, "Look at me, I'm Sandra D." When it starts and Rizzo turns around in that chair with the blonde wig on and transforms and belts out, "Look at me, I'm Sandra D"-
Susie Youssef:
What a voice.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
It is, in my not-so-humble opinion, the three greatest seconds of cinema. I watched that all the time. It turns bullying to the cinematic high art and she's 33 fricking years old playing, I guess a 16 year old.
Susie Youssef:
And she nails it.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Absolutely. I think that a younger person could never really capture the deep well of emotions that Stockard Channing accesses, especially to sell that big solo later on in There Are Worse Things I Could Do. I think this is one of the great performances.
Susie Youssef:
I could not agree with you more.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
And she hasn't even been a teenager for nearly two decades, at this point.
Susie Youssef:
Oh my gosh. The thing I'm curious about is, which character you wish you were, but which character you think actually are. I feel like I've had this discussion with a lot my close friends throughout history because I know that a lot of people would want to be Sandy, right?
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Absolutely.
Susie Youssef:
But I was definitely a Jan.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Wow.
Susie Youssef:
I wanted to be a Marty.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
I think you're wrong. I think you're Frenchy all over.
Susie Youssef:
Really?
Alexei Toliopoulos:
I see you as a Frenchy.
Susie Youssef:
Oh my gosh. That's the nicest thing anyone's ever said to me.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
You could drop out of beauty school in a heartbeat, darling. I mean it. It is so clear to me that I dream of being a Danny Zuko.
Susie Youssef:
Yeah, of course.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
But I'm completely Eugene, the nerd that gets pied in the face.
Susie Youssef:
You are not Eugene.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
I'm a Eugene. I know it. I'm a Eugene.
Susie Youssef:
No, I think you're a Zukor and you just got to accept it.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
I got chills and they're multiplying.
Susie Youssef:
I'm definitely a Jan who wants to be a Marty. I think Marty is the coolest character in this. She wears the hottest outfits. She's a devoted pen pal. She has all these lovers that she's constantly contacting. But she, for me, has the line of the film which is where Jan and her are like watching on thunder road before they're about to do the race and Cha-Cha grabs something out of her top and Jan says-
Audio:
What did she give him?
Audio:
A lock of hair from her chest?
Susie Youssef:
It's my favourite line.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
It's such a funny movie. For me this is a film of all bangers when it comes to the numbers. What is your favourite song?
Susie Youssef:
Well, that sound means not all bangers for me. You're The One That I Want, is my one of my absolute faves. I think also Just Like A Flying Car. It just does something for my heart. I love it. I'll ask you about your favourite song, but I want to know which songs you fast forwarded through? Because for me it was every other song in this.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Really. I think it's all bangers. I think as a kid I always fast forward through Hopelessly devoted to you, the Oscar nominated original number from this musical.
Susie Youssef:
Of course, yes. And I know that people love it, but at the time that was the one that I was like, "Ah, nah". No mopey love songs.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
I'm actually getting upset that you don't like some of the songs in the movie Grease.
Susie Youssef:
We could talk about this all day, but I think we've got to press on.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
We've covered Grease in its entirety all the way from fissile and Nikki down to Athens. We've covered all of Grease.
Susie Youssef:
Covered all of Grease. And now we come to our premier flick of the week, The Prom.
Audio:
Oh my gosh, check this out. She's from Edgewater, Indiana. She's a lesbian. She wanted to take her girlfriend to the high school prom and the PTA went ape shit and they cancelled it.
Audio:
They cancelled prom. Are they allowed to do that?
Alexei Toliopoulos:
A group of down-on-their luck Broadway stars shake up life in small town Indiana, as they rally behind a team fighting to bring her girlfriend to prom. This is The Prom.
Susie Youssef:
The Prom directed by Ryan Murphy, who we know from glee. It is obviously a star-studded lineup. Meryl Streep, all hail to you, queen of cinema and film forever. Nicole Kidman, James Corden, Kerry Washington, Keegan-Michael Key, Andrew Rannells. But it introduces us to Jo Ellen Pellman and Ariana Dubose who are both lovely.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
And hopefully it introduces teens to my beloved character actors, Mary Kay Place and Tracy Ormond. That's what I want most from this movie. I feel like Ryan Murphy always manages to assemble the wildest groups of high profile actors on any production. Look at a movie we talked about earlier in this season, when we're talking about The Boys in the Band, another Ryan Murphy production. And it is all headlined like you said, by the queen of all cinema, Meryl Streep. Is this very haughty narcissistic character called D.D. Allen, which makes me think of Gigi Allen, the punk rock superstar.
Susie Youssef:
Yep.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
And she does so well with so much high drama.
Susie Youssef:
For me, Meryl is everything. I can't look past Meryl in any moment. I am immediately disarmed by Meryl.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
You are disarmed.
Susie Youssef:
Her character D.D. talks at one stage about her ex-husband Eddy and the heartbreak that she's had through this breakup and I immediately started crying. That scene also has a clip from my Best Friend's Wedding, which is one of my favourite rom-coms. So I was a mess.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
You were poised to put the waterworks out at that moment.
Susie Youssef:
It's one of my absolute favourites.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
I love Meryl Streep and I think this is an interesting role for her because we've seen her career transformed so much over the years. And because she's one of those big movie stars and big prestige actors, it's so interesting to go through their career. And it all begins with her as like this transformative actor who like slips into roles and loses them like lots of great accent work. And she's seen as being very intense and not really having a sense of humour, which I think is very unfair. But then she makes this huge shift in her second act in her career with notable comedic performances with Death Becomes Her, Postcards from the Edge, Adaptation, lots of great fun, vibrant work. And now I think in this third act, is all this interesting free dynamic of switching between those two things of prestige work and comedic work interchangeably, and sometimes in the same role, which I think she does right here.
Susie Youssef:
Alexei, it might shock you for me to admit this to all of our beautiful listeners.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
I'm ready to be shocked.
Susie Youssef:
I think you and I tend to exaggerate. Every now and again, I think we might just lean on hyperbole. This is not one of those moments.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Absolutely.
Susie Youssef:
There is nothing she can't do and this is such a prime example of that. She's funny, she's transformative, she's dramatic. She can sing and dance.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Yeah.
Susie Youssef:
There's nothing Meryl Streep can't do. I adore her. I'm saying it. Good night. I also adore Nicole Kidman in this. I think that she's funny and she's got a lot of heart and if anything, I would have wanted to see more of her.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Oh, absolutely. I agree. I think she's super funny in this film. I think she has great comedic chops and I love it when she utilises them.
Susie Youssef:
Totally.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
I also love Andrew Rannells. I think that Ryan Murphy's made him this great on screen star, but I also love something about this cast that Ryan Murphy often does where he brings stars of theatre and that we do not see in like bigger roles like this into his films.
Susie Youssef:
I have to mention Kerry Washington as well. I adore her acting.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Yes.
Susie Youssef:
I think she's absolutely brilliant. I loved her in Little Fires Everywhere. Although I did find her very scary, but I think she's most terrifying in this role as the homophobic mother of the film. But that's not what people will walk away thinking about.In this particular movie, they're going to be talking about how she was dressed, but we'll chat more about that with our very special dinner guest.
Audio:
So the only nice stress I have is this.
Audio:
Wow. Okay. I mean. Yep. Yep. You could wear that to prom or keep it lying around in case there's a remake of Little House on the Prairie.
Audio:
Okay. That's it. I like him.
Audio:
Emma, please let me dress you for this prom.
Audio:
I don't know. This is all so crazy. What did you wear to your prom?
Susie Youssef:
Someone who is always prom-ready and I would say probably the best dress comedian in the world would be our very good friend, Rhys Nicholson, who's joining us remotely from Melbourne. Hello Rhysie.
Rhys Nicholson:
Oh, hello you sweet two friends of mine. I almost said sweet tooth then. This is the problem. When people that work in show business and media and for a little while there, we don't need to talk about it, let's not focus on it, but there weren't that many, those types of jobs around for a while. And now we've got to do it again quite suddenly. And I don't know how to talk anymore and say things like, "hello you sweet tooth".
Susie Youssef:
It's like those music boxes that have been really slow and rusted for about nine months and now someone's furiously trying to turn it again. And we're like, "I don't even know if I know this song"
Alexei Toliopoulos:
The monkeys are back to work with the organ grinder and we are so excited about it. It's a whole new world. And let me tell ya, I'm going to be the Prom King of it all.
Susie Youssef:
We are talking about proms today. Obviously in Australia, they're not proms, they're formals, but Rhysie did you have a formal at your school?
Rhys Nicholson:
Yeah. I went to a performing arts school, high school of performing arts and we had a year 10 formal.
Susie Youssef:
Yeah so did we.
Rhys Nicholson:
And then a year 12 formal. The year 12 one, I'd done textiles, the puzzle is starting to come together, and I made a jumpsuit like a formal jumpsuit.
Susie Youssef:
Oh wow. Do you remember the colour?
Rhys Nicholson:
It was red. You know that famously [crosstalk 00:15:01].
Alexei Toliopoulos:
...gorgeous colour red.
Rhys Nicholson:
Oh my God. The conversations the parents must've been having like, "Oh, look at that, look at that poor boy. The world's going to eat him up."
Susie Youssef:
Oh, I think my parents were going down the exact same thought path because for my year 10 formal, I insisted on taking a red feather boa, which I will never, not regret.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Oh my word.
Susie Youssef:
Never.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
A feather boa?
Susie Youssef:
Yeah, a red feather. In fairness, my dad helped me pick out my year 10 formal dress and it's gorgeous. It's just a little black cue number that I would want a hundred percent wear today if I still fit in it. But the red feather boa was just too much. I had watched Sliding Doors. There was that moment where Gwenyth Paltrow cuts her hair short and puts flowers in it for the opening of the restaurant, the PR for. And I was like, 'Oh, that has to be me now'. Even though we look nothing alike and have different hair colours. So I cut my hair, put little red flowers in the top and took a red feather boa.
Rhys Nicholson:
I think the last decade was that a feather boa wasn't a clear cry for help.
Susie Youssef:
I think the 20s.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Isn't it so funny to imagine, like a hundred years ago, a feather bow was considered erotic, be like, " Oh my word, she's got that gorgeous tickly rash style vest around her. All formed out of feathers. Let me see her swing it around her neck. I remember from my formal outfit, I took a picture of Dean Martin around go like, okay, I want this hair and I want this kind of suit. I want a gorgeous, like shark-skin style, shiny suit, like a mafioso. So I had like this like very reflective, shiny like silvery type suit, like a soprano would wear basically.
Rhys Nicholson:
Yeah.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
And I remember just like -
Rhys Nicholson:
And you took your goomar .
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Yeah I took my beautiful mistress to the Prom and I made sure that all my fellas had their mistresses as well. So the wives would never find out about this.
Rhys Nicholson:
Its a goomar night. It's just a night with the goomars.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Exactly. It would just be like this 16 year old chubby boy, like wearing like this silky shark skin suit. And then also was the first time I really got on the Beeros. I really put the Beeros away that night. And I got like so smashed. I remember coming home, like not even that late, it would have been midnight or something and just making so much noise, like crashing through the front door basically. And I just needed to absolutely upchuck. I needed to spew so bad. I just remember like just opening the bathroom door and then it's just go time and just spewed all over the place. And my mom and my yia yia like coming down to say like, "what's going on?", cause I'm not being quiet. It's so of loud. Just like, "are you okay? What's wrong?" I just, in my head, I'm like, "they can never know that I'd been drinking."
Alexei Toliopoulos:
So I just started yelling at them. I swear the pana cotta was off they didn't let the pana cotta set at the dinner. It was not made properly. They didn't know how to make it and just spewing. And then there's them rubbing my head and my hair going like, it's okay. Don't worry. I know that they didn't make good pana cotta. I know. Just pretending that I got poisoned.
Rhys Nicholson:
Oh my god. And the next day I had my internship with Legal Aid, which is like a legal defence thing. I was working with a criminal lawyer on a defence team, just observing.
Susie Youssef:
[crosstalk 00:18:05] traumatic moment for you wasn't it?
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Absolutely traumatic. Like this is so traumatic. So I'm like, they're in like a fricking Supreme court, like wearing my formal suit cause it was the only thing I had that was court ready. [crosstalk 00:18:19] And then like the family of the defendant would just like telling me, this is the secret for hangover. Have a Berocca before you go to bed the night before. And then still to this day I do that because of them.
Rhys Nicholson:
It's true!
Alexei Toliopoulos:
They watching like their family member go through the most traumatic experience of their life. And I'm just like sweating and disgusting in front of like all these barristers with their little white wigs on and stuff.
Rhys Nicholson:
I would love if you would've gotten into the legal, is that what you wanted to do?
Alexei Toliopoulos:
It's what my mother dreamed of me to do but [crosstalk 00:18:49].
Susie Youssef:
Do you know what his mom does?
Rhys Nicholson:
No.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
She wears a feather boa and sings in cabaret [crosstalk 00:18:55] No, my mom is a human rights lawyer.
Rhys Nicholson:
Oh this all makes sense now. That's why you're such a good boy.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
I'm too afraid of the law so I've never broken a single one of them.
Rhys Nicholson:
Wow.
Susie Youssef:
Well Rhys' parents are ceramicists.
Rhys Nicholson:
Ceramicists.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Wow.
Rhys Nicholson:
Which is why I've never broken a single plate.
Susie Youssef:
Not a single plate, a single [crosstalk 00:19:14]
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Wow, Rhys you shall never come to my wedding because I'll tell you, you'll freakout. We break a lot of plates at those things.
Rhys Nicholson:
I will stand up drunk at your wedding with a microphone and go, you're being disrespectful to my father's profession.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
We are ceramicists and this is not on. What is happening at this place?
Rhys Nicholson:
How could you? This is a waste of clay.
Susie Youssef:
...crawling around with a hot glue gun being like I can still fix it.
Audio:
Oh my God, that's [crosstalk 00:28:02]
Audio:
I want to tell the people of, whatever this town's called. I know what's going on here. And frankly, I'm appalled.
Susie Youssef:
Obviously, if you're a fan of musicals, you're going to love the Prom. It's very irreverent in the way that the lyric structure works. I know that sounds technical, but it's just a bit different to traditional musicals.
Rhys Nicholson:
Sorry if we're using lingo too hard for you guys. A little inside baseball there for you - lyrical.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
We love lyrics on this podcast and I love to hear songs.
Susie Youssef:
But the thing is, is that it is a little bit different. It's kind of pushing the envelope. It has to be a bit different in the way that they write songs and make songs. So if you love musicals, you're going to love this. So you're going to be excited by what they've done.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
I think this is a good like family viewing experience. I think that it's sweet. It's nice. You love to hear songs together. It's going to bring everyone together in a very nice and welcoming way.
Rhys Nicholson:
I would say if you love Hairspray and you love Mama Mia, but you hate Cats, this is the movie for you. This movie is not for me. And I think partly because I'm confident in my sexuality, but I think I would have been obsessed with it when I was 15. There's like little in jokes in it that especially like as a queer teen that you're like hungry for. There are queer characters in this that are completely fine with being queer or that have gone through some sort of struggle and they're completely fine with it. And even just seeing the strongest queer character is the teenage girl. And I think that is really great. If anything, the adults are kind of struggling with stuff and the child helps them.
Susie Youssef:
Which makes you feel kind of hopeful about like the next generation of kids growing up in a world where films aren't constantly apologising or struggling like where some of the queer characters are actually liberated already and are teaching the generation above them something about being queer and being confident. I totally agree. I don't think that this film was necessarily for me. I have a love hate relationship with musicals. I think that I hate them and then I start watching them and I'm crying and they really affecting me. But there were so many moments in this film where I was so positively affected by the music and the dancing and I couldn't help, but love those moments.
Rhys Nicholson:
There's a moment where, and I'm not giving anything away, kind of near the end of the movie. There's a moment where a lot of teenagers stream into a room and just by even the production design of those teenagers made me so excited.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
It's a very uplifting experience.
Rhys Nicholson:
Yeah. Yeah. It was really great. Really, really great.
Rhys Nicholson:
If you've fallen in love with the Big Film Buffet, follow it on Spotify and wherever you get your podcasts to make sure you get those new episodes. As soon as they drop every single Tuesday and comment, share that love rate and review it, tell a friend or a loved one or a potential loved one.
Susie Youssef:
Reece, every single week, we play a game called Film or Movie where we decide whether a motion picture title is either a film, which is...
Alexei Toliopoulos:
A film is art. It is experiential. It is going in and seeing the silver screen. But hang on a second. Silver screen also reflects it's not just the portal. It is about feeling experienced and seen in the world.
Susie Youssef:
As opposed to a movie, which is kind of like a blockbuster, high budgets, candy, popcorn, happiness, not a bad thing, just different to a film
Audio:
Just different. That's it. We're talking about things that are different, okay?
Susie Youssef:
So usually we would have produced a Michael come in here, but someone has given me a crown and the power has gone to my head. So I will be issuing the title today. I will be issuing the title for today. It is a motion picture that you may have seen before it is called High School Musical.
Rhys Nicholson:
I'm going to say openly. I'm very proudly. I'm going to say that high school musical is a movie, not even close to a film.
Susie Youssef:
I mean, apart from its blockbuster success, what makes you say that?
Rhys Nicholson:
It's the order that things go. Like I think you turn a film into a play, but I, I think you can't turn a film into a musical. I think you can turn a movie into a musical. Does that make sense?
Alexei Toliopoulos:
That makes absolute sense. But I must say that I think you are nuts. I think you're crazy. I think that high school musical is a film. Okay. It is all about finding oneself. It is all about these people that are just tragically. They feel like they're outsiders in their own world. They're wandering around wondering where they should belong. And then that they belong together.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Zac Efron believes that he should be a basketball player. He dreams of shooting hoops, but he is trapped in a minuscule body. And I think that this idea of Vanessa Hudgens, who is a film star, we know her from Spring Breakers, that's a film. And I think having them together in this, there is something so magical about their chemistry together. There is this electric eclectic feeling, and to have them be this real life couple that have gone through all these things in this real time, we're seeing them come to life in this. And I think what is most special about high school musical is that, sure it's about this straight couple coming together. But it's interesting in a filmic sense because it is also on the gayest movies ever made.
Susie Youssef:
I can't ignore the facts. These became not only a musical, a book, a series of comics, some live shows, video games and a television series.
Rhys Nicholson:
There's a video game and a comic book? What do you have to do? Try and find the nudes?
Susie Youssef:
There is no doubt in my mind that high school musical is a movie. Okay. Sorry Alexei, take off your crown. If you got yourself a taste of musical movies and you're like, ah, a little bit more please Susie and Alexei, then we suggest you catch up with the cult classic Josie and the Pussycats.
Audio:
Thank you guys. You're a great crowd.
Audio:
Okay girls we need the lane now. And your shoes.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Jose, Melody and Valerie are teens in a struggling rock band. But when Du Jour the boy band sensation of the day violently disappear Josie and the Pussycats are reshaped into a commercial band phenomenon in a government ploy to brainwash teens with subliminal messages promoting excessive materialist capitalism.
Susie Youssef:
Oh gosh. I've seen it once. I've seen it a million times.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
A story as old as time. A song as old as rhyme.
Susie Youssef:
So let's talk about this cast. First of all, this is an iconic late 90s, early noughties cast. This is Rachel Lee Cook famously from She's All That, the transformational rom com.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
And might I say she is all that in this movie.
Susie Youssef:
We've got Tara raid. We've got Rosario Dawson.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
One of the most underrated actors of all time, I adore Rosario Dawson.
Susie Youssef:
And then you've got this lineup that makeup Du Jour, you've got Seth Green, Can't Hardly Wait, which is the same director as Josie and the Pussycats.
Rhys Nicholson:
And writer, isn't it?
Susie Youssef:
Yeah, I think so. And then you've got Donald Faison from Scrubs fame, but also from Clueless, as well as Breckin Meyer.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
I love Breckin Meyer. I love him. I think he's super funny. And of course, two other old-time legends, Alan Cumming and Parker Posey.
Susie Youssef:
They are such brilliant villains in this. You hate them immediately, but you love to hate them.
Rhys Nicholson:
What is it with late nineties, early two thousands movies that are like, I know the joke is that there's a lot of product placement, but like there's movies that have a lot of cameos and some sort of government conspiracy.
Susie Youssef:
This one has a government conspiracy, but it also is for me a government conspiracy. Don't get me wrong. I loved this movie and I love late nineties, early noughties films, but this is product placement to the max. Like there is not a frame of this movie that doesn't have a brand like basically slapping you in the face. This also gave me so many flashbacks to the early noughties fashion. The handkerchief top and the hipster pant that just gave me an anxiety, kind of a happy anxiety. It was like, Oh, remember when you could wear that or you thought you could wear that. It just it's so nostalgic. And yeah, I totally loved it.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
I think as well, part of its charm is it looks really gorgeous. It's got those kind of like candy quality to its cinematography and its shot by Matthew Libatique, who went on to create like bombastic visual feasts, like Black Swan, A Star is Born, Mother, Requiem for a Dream, Birds of Prey, Ironman, but even a film that was our main course for today, The Prom. It's the same cinematographer.
Susie Youssef:
There you go. This has come back after not having critical acclaim. I think it was even slammed when it was when it first came up, but now people are loving it again. I think it's because it captures that teen romance, that like late nineties' vibe, teen romance, where the lead character is friends with the skinny white guy, and then they don't admit it for ages, but then they fall in love, which we all love.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
If you want a little bit more in this kind of realm, a movie that I know I love and Rhys loves is the Hairspray movie musical.
Rhys Nicholson:
I love it so much. I love it so much, that movie.
Susie Youssef:
And if you want something that's a little less pop and little more grunge, kind of in the Susie Youssef vain of growing up, then you can't go past Empire records, which I am saying is a musical teen movie that changed my life.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
It counts. It counts. Okay. So our menu for today, we had a starter of Grease. Then were joined by Rhys Nicholson to talk about The Prom. And then we closed things up with our dessert of Josie and those Pussycats.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
Rhys, thank you so much for joining us on the Big Film Buffet. We love you so much. One of our dearest friends.
Rhys Nicholson:
Oh, this is such a pleasure. There was no work involved in this. It was all pleasure.
Susie Youssef:
If you adore Rhys Nicolson, as much as we do and why would you not, then please check out his special that is on Netflix from the 20th of December. It is called Rhys Nicholson live at the Athenaeum. It is glorious.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
If want to hear more from me you can head on over to Total Reboot, the film podcast, where my friend Cameron and I go through reboots, remix, and rip offs in cinema.
Susie Youssef:
And if you want to hear more from Alexei and myself, then join us next week for our film, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, with very special dinner guest, Gen Fricker.
Alexei Toliopoulos:
This episode was written and hosted by me, Alexei Toliopoulos and my dear friend Susie Youssef, produced by Michael Sun and Anu Hasbold and edited by Geoffrey O'Connor and executive produced by Tony Broderick and Melanie Mahony.