Episode 20: “Thanks for the Fancy Feast, Catherine” (w/ MJ Bassett!)

*Today the Queerwolves are joined by writer/director MJ Bassett (SOLOMON KANE, STRIKE BACK, ASH VS. EVIL DEAD) to talk the Holy Grail of problematic masterpieces, 1991’s THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS!   If you thought there weren’t going to be Clarice Starling impressions, then you clearly haven’t listened to the show before. Also, buckle in for some HEATED discussion of 2001’s Hannibal.   Plus, in Tea Time we sip on SUPPORT THE GIRLS, the TWILIGHT franchise, BARRY, GREY’S ANATOMY, and YOU.[1]*

## **Trivia**

"This week we're comin' at ya from inside Rami Malek's brain. Where we found Queen lyrics and Bryan Singer allegations buried under an above-ground pool." Mark adds Gary Oldman as Mason Verger to his roster of impressions. Producer Brennan "quits" the show over a disagreement with Mark about *Jason Goes to Hell* being better or worse than *Hannibal Rising*. Nay declares MJ to be one of the show's top ten guests. Mark's Jodie Foster impression returns from episode 4.

Topics brought up during the episode: *Deathwatch*, *Wilderness*, *Solomon Kane*, *Silent Hill: Revelation*, *DaVinci's Demons, The Player* (TV series)*, Strike Back, Power, Marvel's Iron Fist, Ash Vs. Evil Dead,* Spike Lee's *Inside Man*, *Inside Man* sequel, *Altered Carbon*, *Spy*, *Can You Ever Forgive Me?*, Oscar nominations for 2019, Andrew Bujalski, Nicole Kidman, Karyn Kusama, Olivia Colman, Bill Hader, tactical weapons handing on *Barry*, *The To Do List*, Aubrey Plaza, Alia Shawkat, Ellen Pompeo, Ellen Pompeo using her power for good on *Grey's Anatomy*, Shonda Rhimes, movie with Halle Berry as a 911 operator, Halle Berry in *John Wick 3*, Ben Affleck in *Daredevil*, Jennifer Garner in *Elektra*, Whole Foods, Erewhon, *Manhunter*, Michael Mann, the big five at the Oscars, *One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest*, *It Happened One Night*, *Silence of the Lambs* theme, analysis of SOTL editing and cinematography, Anthony Hopkins on Lecter looking into the camera, Barney the guard, Frankie Faison being the only one in all three Lecter movies, French and Saunders parody of *Silence of the Lambs* with Dawn French as Lecter in the basement of the BBC and Jennifer Saunders as Clarice, Jodie Foster winning a (strike)BAFTER(/strike) BAFTA, how *Manhunter* bombing led to Dino De Laurentiis selling off the rights to *Silence of the Lambs*, Gene Hackman almost as Lecter, Michelle Pfeifer as Clarice, Popeye Doyle, *The Royal Tenenbaums*, Diane Butler, *Strait-Jacket*, Joan Crawford, Mahershala Ali for Best Supporting Actor in *Green Book*, Emma Stone in *The Favourite*, Olivia Colman in *The Favourite*

## **Tea Time**

Nay: All five *Twilight* movies

Mark: *Support the Girls*, *Destroyer* (2018)

MJ: bingeing *The Green Wing*, *Barry*

Michael: *Grey's Anatomy* winter premiere

Brennan: *You* season one

## **Shady Summaries**

**Nay:** Woman works with and for lots of men. How sad.

**MJ:** Lapidopterus gets wildly carried away

**Mark:** (sings to the tune of Vanessa Williams's "Save the Best for Last")

Multiple Miggs comes on your face,

Isn't this world a crazy place?

Starling and Lecter we'll--

**MJ:** I've got somewhere to be, actually. Is that the time?

**Mark:** Starling and Lecter we'll always stan, 'cause it's *The Silence of the Lambs*

**Michael:** Jodie makes the lambs stop screaming

## **Pride Float**

**Mark:** Does this movie get a Pride float?

**Michael:** Does it?

**Mark:** (non-committal noises) No

**Michael:** No, right?

**MJ:** Talk to me about the criteria for getting one

**Nay:** It's just your opinion

**MJ:** Oh, it's just, okay. It's not like…

**Michael:** Does it warrant a float in a Pride parade in 1991 or in present day?

**MJ:** Jesus, no!

**Michael:** See? Easy!

**Michael:** Sometimes we make films do community service

**MJ:** Right

**Michael:** Like *Sleepaway Camp*, that film has to do community service

**Mark:** Definitely has to. *Sleepaway Camp* is like in reform school forever

**Michael:** *Sleepaway Camp* had to do time first, and then community service

**Mark:** Well, that concludes…

**MJ:** I was gonna say, well that brought it to a grinding halt

## **Quotes**

**MJ:** That was a great introduction. Thank you very much. That reminded me how much I'd done. Like, "I have a career!"

**Michael:** Well, it's impressive, because when I was narrowing it down there was a lot to choose from

**MJ:** Good! That's good. Diversity in career

**Mark:** That wasn't even the whole bio

**Michael:** No

**MJ:** No, that isn't even highlights

**Mark:** Oh God, you must be exhausted

**MJ:** Oh, every day. But you mentioned some shit on there as well. I'd rather cut some of that out

**Michael:** You can note it after the show

**MJ:** I'm gonna, "Please don't mention that one ever again. Should've been a greater success, actually was a great failure."

**Nay:** Promise to be my friend, even after I tell you what I watched. Promise

**Michael:** Always. I promise

**Nay:** I watched all five *Twilight* movies

**MJ:** Oh, come on!

**Nay:** Which I had never, I was so late on that, I realize

**MJ:** That's like psychological self-flagellation

**Nay:** Yo. For real. I really- it took me so many different places. And here I am

**Michael:** I think I might have seen one of those

**MJ:** But did you always look like this though

**Nay:** Fortunately, yes

**Mark:** Which one was your, and giant air quotes, "favorite"?

**Nay:** Okay, I mean at the beginning I was totally weirded out by this one hundred year-old man being obsessed with this child. But once I moved past that, I actually...

**Brennan:** Four films in

**Nay:** Yeah. Literally four films in. I dunno, there was some like big vampire showdown and I'm telling you, that part of the movie, I was yelling. I was like, "**Yes**!" I was really-- it took me somewhere

**Michael:** My friend worked on those. He was part of the, he worked at Lionsgate so he was part of the production staff or something. But at the premiere, the last one, it was like fucking bonkers, the crowd

**Nay:** I bet

**Michael:** Yeah

**Nay:** 'Cause I lost *my* shit

**Michael:** People screaming and….

**Nay:** And also werewolves are one million times hotter than any of the vampires, so

**Michael:** Yeah

**Mark:** That's for fuckin' sure

**Michael:** Although, doesn't Lautner, Taylor Lautner, isn't his thing at the end that he's into like, a baby?

**Mark:** Yep

**Nay:** Yeah. I mean that's part of what the show is

**Mark:** Yep. He's into their baby. It's- the whole franchise is like Mormon NAMBLA shit. It's really so fuckin' spooky. Everything about it. And what I love about it is that Kristen Stewart's post-*Twilight* career seems to be like she's doing anything she can to run away from it. My favorite being *Personal Shopper*, where it's just literally, she's just atoning for *Twilight* movies. It's like literally she's trying to fuck a ghost and wearing the most amazing clothes and riding scooters in Paris and you just want her to like, hit you.

**Nay:** Wow

**Mark:** It's the greatest. Has anyone seen *Personal Shopper*?

**Nay:** Oh my God. I have not

**Michael:** I actually haven't, but I really love her

**MJ:** After that pitch, I'm gonna get my ass to the theater

**Nay:** Oh my God, same!

**Mark:** Oh my God! We have to do it for the pod!

**MJ:** She's trying to fuck a ghost

**Mark:** It's ***the best***. It's literally- Olivier Assayas. It's so- it's legitimately, like it was maybe my favorite movie of 2017

**Michael:** Amazing

**MJ:** You're not being deeply ironic here?

**Michael:** I've heard it's great

**Mark:** Oh my God, no.

**MJ:** Oh, okay

**Mark:** I'm being legitimately jokey about it, but it's a legitimately wonderful movie

**Michael:** I love her

**MJ:** She's a good actress.

**Michael:** Yes, she is

**MJ:** Apart from that gigantic bit of career where she made all her money and never needed to work again

**Mark:** I can't wait to see her play Savannah Knoop in that JT LeRoy movie she did with Laura Dern

**Michael:** I wanna see (Kristen Stewart) in a big broad comedy

**MJ:** She might have to move her face then, so I don't know

**Mark:** I saw her in that Woody Allen movie, that *Café Society*

**Michael:** Ehhh

**Mark:** Geeesh

**Michael:** I meant something like *Bridesmaids*

**Mark:** Oh!

**Michael:** Real broad

**Mark:** Oh wow

**Michael:** Yeah. I'd like to see if she could do it

**Mark:** I wonder who- I bet Melissa McCarthy could drag it out of her

**Michael:** Right? Or Rose Byrne?

**Mark:** (*Support the Girls*) is a fantastic movie. Regina Hall delivered, along with Melissa McCarthy and Toni Collette in *Hereditary*, delivered one of my favorite performance by far. And look, I'll be glad for Glenn (Close) when she walks away with it, which is, you know, she deserves it. Not for *The Wife*, 'cause it sucks, but she's great in *The Wife* because she's never less than great. [EN - Glenn Close lost to Olivia Colman in *The Favourite*] But Regina Hall does something that was so delicate and so… her performance sneaks up on you in such a way that you don't even realize that you're watching a *performance*

**Michael:** And correct me if I'm wrong, it's such a basic premise, right? She runs a bar

**Mark:** She runs a Hooters

**Michael:** Oh, okay. And it's about the crew, right?

**Mark:** She runs a low-rent Hooters and she kind of acts like a mother hen--

**Michael:** I love her

**Mark:** To all of these sort of messy, lovely crazy girls

**Nay:** My dream job

**Mark:** Who work at Hooters, and their boss is played by James LeGros, who's kind of like, I don't know, like Texas sleaze. Who's like, he's not gross...

**Brennan:** He's got a boat on the back of his truck

**Mark:** Exactly. He's not scary...

**Michael:** (to Brennan) You've seen it?

**Brennan:** Yeah. It's glorious

**Mark:** It's so good. And I dunno. I'm sort of loathe to say more about it, except that all the performances are spectacular. The rapper Junglepussy--

**Nay:** Yes!

**Mark:** Plays a probably second-ish--

**MJ:** I'm sorry to interrupt for a second, but the rapper who?

**Mark:** Junglepussy

**MJ:** Okay, cool!

**Mark:** She is equally wonderful in the movie and, I dunno. It's just the type of movie we don't deserve 'cause we don't give it enough attention. But oh my God you guys. *Support the Girls*. I know it's been in your queue, it's been in your Hulu queue

**Michael:** It's on Hulu?

**Mark:** Yeah, it's on Hulu.

**Michael:** Oh, great!

**Mark:** It's been in your queue for approximately two years or something and you keep meaning to watch it, but instead you watch some other garbage. Lemme tell you something: Just watch it. You're gonna love it

**MJ:** Couldn't get through *Destroyer*. Too much makeup, trying too hard. Just trying too hard

**Mark:** A lot of people- there's a lot of dissent

**MJ:** It's like (Nicole Kidman) has got to stick on a nose or do a thing all the time and it's like, "Ehhh." She's a fabulous actress, but all the prosthetics and the--

**Mark:** (softly) I love it so much!

**MJ:** It's like, "Ehhh. Stop!" There's (unintelligible) with her face!

**Mark:** I was like, "Oh my God." She looked like Freddy in one shot. In one shot. And I was just like, "I know I can't argue with you," and yet I was like, "I'm here for it."

**Michael:** Freddy gets some big hair?

**MJ:** Sometimes you get a performer and it's just like trying too damn hard. And that was a trying too hard performance for me. I'm not saying it was bad, just for me! I have to preface everything I say is, "This is my opinion." Every single word that comes out of my mouth this evening is just, "This is my opinion. I don't speak for anyone else but me."

**Mark:** I know. We should probably do a disclaimer before Queerwolf pods more often

**MJ:** I've gotta feel like we really should

**Michael:** We've made some people really disappointed with movies we hated

**MJ:** So this is a general disclaimer, "Everything I say (unintelligible) from me."

**Michael:** I watched a show (*Grey's Anatomy*) that has been on the air forever, and I still watch it live usually, every week. If it's not live, it's like within the minute it drops on Hulu at two o'clock in the morning

**Mark:** Am I gonna get mad about *Saturday Night Live* again?

**Michael:** Uh, no. We cut that out

**MJ:** Oh, so this isn't live?

**Michael:** I thought of it, I actually didn't know what I was going to talk about, but when you started talking about Kristen Stewart wanting to fuck a ghost in *Personal Shopper*, I thought of the season where Katherine Heigl actually fucks a ghost--

**Nay:** Yes

**Michael:** Because she has a brain tumor. And it just brought back a lot of wonderful memories of *Grey's Anatomy.* That was how, like, you know how she likes to talk shit about the show, right?

**Mark:** Yeah

**Michael:** Like the one year she won the Emmy and the next year she withdrew her name from contention and instead of just leaving it alone, she said it was because the writers weren't giving her anything worth being nominated for. So--

**MJ:** Does she work a lot now?

**Michael:** No

**Mark:** I think she took over Meghan Markle's trailer in *Suits*. I mean she took up- oh my God, you know what, we're gonna cut that out, that's like the meanest

**Michael:** *Woooooow. Love that drag!*

**MJ:** Don't cut that out! It's a good gag!

**Michael:** Leave it

**Mark:** Oh, no. I don't-- I'm really a very nice person

**MJ:** Nice isn't entertaining though

**Michael:** You *are* the nicest person!

**Nay:** Is he?

**Michael:** Awwwwww.

**Nay:** I'm kidding.

**Michael:** Mark's having a rough day

**Nay:** No, I know. And I just keep pouring salt on him. Why do I keep doing that?

**Mark:** To watch me squirm?

**Michael:** (haughtily) I'm talking about Katherine Heigl, okay?

**Mark:** Excuse me! I'm so sorry. Please continue

**Michael:** But the last thing they gave her on the show was ghost fucking before they fired her

**Mark:** Emmy material if I've ever heard of it

**Brennan:** Has anyone seen *You* yet on Netflix?

**Michael:** No, I hear it's bonkers

**Mark:** I hear it's wild

**Brennan:** It's nutty. First of all, Penn Badgley, like (sighs) it's just a thing

**Michael:** I'm a thing for that

**Brennan:** I don't know why it's very specific

**Mark:** I like him now more that I saw on Twitter people were like idolizing his scary character and he went on Twitter to be like, "Please don't say nice things about my character. My character's a stalker and dangerous and a murderer."

**Brennan:** Oh yeah yeah yeah. It's a show about a stalker and it's about the cognitive dissonance basically between your fantasies and reality and what people post on social media and that's really interesting. The girl has *no* curtains in her house, so he can just watch everything, including sexual liaisons just in front of an open bay window. And I'm gonna go ahead and say that is straight privilege right there, to feel comfortable enough to be seen and not immediately invoke anger in the people seeing you

**Mark:** That's true

**Brennan:** She's just like, "I guess this is fine."

**Michael:** Netflix released their numbers for that show last week...

**MJ:** Massive

**Michael:** Massive. Someone did a gif of Lifetime, 'cause that was a Lifetime show, and they got rid of it and Netflix picked it up for season two, and it was Halle Berry driving in a car and I forget what movie it is where her character's just like, "It's fine. It's fine. *It's fine*."

**Mark:** I believe that was *Kidnap*?

**Brennan:** Yes!

**Mark:** Which, I have to say. If you've never seen *Kidnap*…

**Michael:** It's great

**Mark:** It truly needs to be filed under Holy Fucking Shit.

**Michael:** Amazing

**Mark:** Halle Berry in a minivan. Losing **her** mind for ninety minutes and on a Georgia freeway. It's just truly, truly has to be seen to be believed

**Michael:** It's worth seeing

**MJ:** Now, is that ironic or not? I can't tell anymore

**Michael:** It is a riot

**Mark:** It *is* a riot, in the sense that the movie makes absolutely no sense and Halle Berry commits *so* deeply to the insanity that--

**MJ:** You have to admire that

**Mark:** You come away from the movie going, "Oh my God. Halle." And also admiring the fact that not for a second does she ever seem to be phoning it in

**Mark:** I love *Catwoman*

**MJ:** Oh, stop it

**Mark:** I do, too unabashedly love *Catwoman*

**MJ:** To that end, I was going to say, when *Catwoman* came out, there was a reveal of the costume and I just was like, "Oh, that's a joke. Somebody's just done a joke."

**Michael:** A bad Halloween costume?

**MJ:** "Someone's done a joke Catwoman costume because nothing's gonna be that bad ever."

**Mark:** I know, but she's a trooper. You know why? Because I know the producer of that movie, and he to this day-- once for my birthday he gave me a limited edition *Catwoman* figurine, 'coz he was like, "Here I don't want it in my office anymore." But he was also like-- apparently she got really mad about the costume. She ended up wearing it for whatever reason, because that's what like, she's a trooper, but like, oh my God. Also Sharon Stone is amazing

**MJ:** Hadn't (Halle) won an Oscar at that point?

**Mark:** Yes!

**Michael:** Yes! It was like right after

**MJ:** Okay, so she hated the costume, has an Oscar and still put the costume on

**Mark:** She had the bad luck of winning an Oscar, having all this power and doing a superhero movie before it seemed like Hollywood really figured out the machinery of the Marvel movie, I think. I dunno

**Michael:** I think you're right

**Mark:** Nay has that look like she has like the, "I have thoughts," face

**Nay:** It's okay. Like literally they're so late. I'm still thinking about Ellen Pompeo. It's okay

**Mark:** I really want to know what you wanted to share about Ellen

**Michael:** Yeah, I wanna know what you want to share about her, too

**Nay:** Sometimes white women who have children who aren't white say really ridiculous things

**Michael:** Oh! I mean bring it on

**Mark:** See, I don't know anything about this

**Nay:** And so, I think she was getting really lauded and applauded for just kind of doing some basic, good white people shit, you know?

**Michael:** Okay

**Nay:** And I also too naturally want to congratulate and appreciate white people that do things like all white people should be doing anyways, so if a white person is like, "No, this is my platform and I have too much privilege and I wanna leverage that in a way where y'all are like, 'Hell yeah! That's so rad!'" But sometimes I feel like people get too big of a cookie for that…

**Michael:** It's kind of like what we were talking about last week, with people being lauded for just accepting queer people

**Nay:** Yeah

**Michael:** Okay, I getcha. I'm glad you brought that up, 'cause I was kind of doing that

**Nay:** And I'm like, "I don't know her," so that's fine, we do that. And then I was thinking a lot about Halle Berry. I was thinking about *Losing Isaiah*, I was thinking about *Monster's Ball*…

**Mark:** She's so good in that, too

**Nay:** She's-- and even in *Kidnap* where it's like, this movie's absurd, I just, I'm so into *her* that--

**Mark:** Yeah. Because she's *in it*!

**Nay:** I don't need to say any of these things, just when I'm over here nodding while y'all are talking

**MJ:** I nearly directed a Halle Berry movie

**Michael:** Yeah?

**Mark:** Which one?

**MJ:** Yeah. The shark movie. I think it's called *Red Tide* or something

**Mark:** Oh, I don't know that one

**MJ:** Or *Black Tide* or *Dark Tide*. It was one of those low budget shark movies. So I was in negotiations to direct. I was sent the script, I like shark movies, so I thought, "Oh good, a shark movie." Go to the producers, they love me. All the kind of crap you have to go through when you're a low-to-mid-ranking director like me. So you have to go through the hoops all the time. And, "You just have to have a conversation with Halle, and she's gonna love you. So you can do the movie." I was like, "Great! I get to go to South Africa, and do a shark movie." I've always wanted to do one. And then they were like, "Oh, no. She doesn't want to have a conversation with you. She met a director friend of hers *in* the supermarket and offered him the job. And you're not doing it now."

**Michael:** Oh my God!

**Brennan:** Closing thoughts on *You*, before we wrap all of this up: Penn Badgley's chest hair is not in it enough.

**Michael:** Vital

**Brennan:** Right. There's a character named Peach Salinger. Great. And also the director in question of *Barry* is Maggie Carey

**Michael:** Before introducing this week's film, MJ actually had picked another film to discuss, and I don't think I told either one of you. And I thought it would be nice to bring it up because we couldn't find a copy of it

**MJ:** No, it's pretty obscure

**Michael:** I really wanna watch it. And I looked it up, I did some research on it. MJ came out as trans in 2016?

**MJ:** I guess, yeah. What year is it now?

**Michael:** Nineteen

**MJ:** Yeah, okay. That would make sense. I don't remember anything before so...

**Mark:** Like, "Where am I?' Where am I? Who are you?"

**MJ:** Exactly. It's like Year One

**Michael:** And the film you had initially picked seemed very close to you

**MJ:** Yes

**Michael:** And I just kind of wanted you to bring it up because A: The title's amazing, and B: It sounds fascinating but we couldn't find it

**MJ:** Okay, well I apologize for bringing up something obscure. First of all, I came out as trans in 2016, so I look like a girl but I sound like a dude. That's my problem right now, so I was nervous about doing a podcast 'cause I don't know what I sound like

**Michael:** I think you sound fabulous

**MJ:** Thank you

**Mark:** I think you sound classy

**MJ:** Well, 'cause I'm English, so by default I sound better than I am

**Mark:** Yeah. There you go

**MJ:** So the movie's called *Man on High Heels*. It's a Korean movie. I don't know what the actual Korean title is, but that's the title I was given. And it's about a badass cop in Seoul, it's an unnamed city, but it's clearly Seoul, who is the epitome of masculine power. He kicks ass, he takes out a gang, everybody reckons this is alpha male number one. But he's trans and he doesn't know how to get out of this male archetype stereotype he's created for himself. And carry on being a good person and being a good cop, and the sort of shame that he, she feels and the journey she goes on whilst kicking ass, spilling blood and doing all the very best action sequences I've seen in a long time. Kind of really spoke to me, so I've got the rights to it, I'm gonna remake it

**MJ:** A producer friend of mine called up, found out I was transitioning and said, "Hey congratulations MJ! Haven't spoken to you in years. I have a property here that I think you'd be interested in." And *Man on High Heels*, never heard of it. And I sort of looked and read the synopsis, and the synopsis I read wasn't nearly as eloquent or as deep as I just gave you. It was just like, "Trans cop." And I thought, 'Oh jeez, that's gonna be like that Walter Hill movie with Michelle Rodriguez. *Reassignment* or whatever that was called."

**Mark:** Yeah. Oh lord

**MJ:** It was horrible, right? As a trans person you watch that and you're like, "Shit! No, I don't wanna get involved in that kind of world." So I didn't watch it for months and months and months, and they kept nagging me and said, "Please watch it. I think it'll speak to you." And I finally watched it on a plane and I was like, "Shit. This is *me*. This is my story." 'Coz I traded in a certain level of masculinity and kickass-ness and alpha-ness. You know, beard and muscles and hanging out with fighters and soldiers and all that sort of thing. I still do, but created the super fictional version of what I thought the super alpha guy should be. And that's what this guy's story is, or this trans woman's story is.  I thought, "Okay, I can do that, 'coz I play in the genre space, which I love, which is action movies. And at the same time, a story of something that really matters to me and that's kind of, that's hopefully gonna be my one trans movie. I don't wanna get trapped in that world, but it's like, "Shit! I know the character."

**Michael:** What did you bring instead?

**MJ:** Ah, I brought *Silence of the Lambs*

**Michael:** Oh, that small film?

**Mark:** Oh you know. That one. That little ditty.

**MJ:** No one remembers that, you know

**Nay:** Yes

**MJ:** Another hard to get hold of piece. 'Coz I wanted to do something which *again* dealt with trans issues, but in *Silence of the Lambs*, it's much harder to talk about

**Mark:** (faux earnestly) What do you mean?

**MJ:** In a glib, offhand sort of way, that's a tough one. Particularly when I watched it, obviously before I came out, nobody knew how I felt. Only I knew how I felt, and there are certain scenes in that movie where you go, "I'm fucked." Because, you know, the temperature around trans issues kind of changed a little bit for awhile, and obviously the movie is an exemplary piece of filmmaking in every single way

**Mark:** Yes

**MJ:** And even his psychological profiling is correct, and all these issues, the approach to the killers and their pathology is correct. But it doesn't make it any easier as a trans person to watch it and see what you see

**Michael:** Yeah

**MJ:** (*Silence of the Lambs*) is twenty years old!

**Michael:** Twenty-seven. Oh, twenty-eight

**MJ:** Please don't say that.

**Mark:** Came out in ninety-one

**MJ:** That makes me the age I am

**Michael:** February ninety-one. So it'll be twenty-eight

**MJ:** These movies were a generation ago

**Mark:** I'm sure there's some monster Generation Z listener who's like, "I've never seen it!" I know you're out there listening. I hate you.

**MJ:** They're going, "Yeah, I like *Red Dragon* better."

**Michael:** Oh my God!

**Mark:** (as the Gen Z listener) "Oh, you mean *Red Dragon*? Yeah."

**Michael:** (after Mark's Shady Summary in song) Why do I go after him every week?!?!

**MJ:** You know what you could do, you could edit this so (Multiple Miggs) really does come last

**Mark:** You could

**Michael:** *Silence of the Lambs* was written by Ted Tally, based on the novel by Thomas Harris. Directed by the amazing Jonathan Demme. Starred Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins, Scott Glenn, Ted Levine, Anthony Heald, Kasi Lemmons and Brooke Smith. Music by Howard Shore, which I think is an important part of the movie

**MJ:** I used to have the (*Silence of the Lambs)* soundtrack, I used to listen to the soundtrack and it's way too disturbing to listen to as a piece of entertainment music. You're just like, "I can't write to this. I can't..."

**Michael:** You wanna listen and let it carry you…

**MJ:** To a very dark place

**Michael:** Starting it off by having (Jodie Foster) do an obstacle course. It made me realize that I feel like, and correct me if I'm wrong, it made me feel like Demme was trying to say, "It's 1991," right? "Your main character's gonna be a woman. She's gonna be, as Nay kinda said, working with all men. I'm showing you right away that she's tough, that she can do what all these men do…"

**Mark:** "She's focused"

**Michael:** "She's focused, she is strong." And I dunno if there's a conversation there. It just really hit me this time seeing it that it was more than just some cool opening

**Mark:** Well, one of the things that I love is that that sequence of, you know, demonstrating her power, demonstrating her focus is juxtaposed with when she's called to Crawford's office. There's a great shot of her getting into the elevator and everyone in it is so much taller than her

**Michael:** Yeah. They're all wearing red I believe, too

**Mark:** I believe so. And it's such a great moment that you sort of alluded to, like there's not a wasted moment in this movie, and every single scene offers some kind of insight into the humanity or the struggle of the people involved. Even the most horrific ones. *Silence of the Lambs* is brilliant for a lot of reasons but one of my favorite ones is when Starling finally gets into James Gumb's house and finds Catherine Martin and she's like, (as Jodie Foster) "FBI! You're safe!" She's like, "You stay, you be quiet. I'll be right back!" And Catherine Martin's like, "No you fuckin' bitch! Get back here! He's crazy! He's gonna kill you! Get back here!" The fact that the movie-- any other movie would have been like, "Oh thank God you're here! Please be careful!"

**Michael:** I love that line

**Mark:** And Catherine Martin is like, "No, fuck you! Get me out of this fucking well!"

**Michael:** "Get me the fuck out of this well!"

**Mark:** And the fact that the movie is willing to be that honest, it's such a throwaway thing and it's such a great tension reliever of that *incredibly* upsetting sequence

**Michael:** That line has always stood out to me and I love that line because it *is* a throwaway but it also clearly to me, the movie's so smart even in those moments. It's a true reaction. It's true to her character, because Catherine Martin is *really* strong I think, too, and she's outspoken even as you know she's, like, even a minute of her singing along to Tom Petty, alone. Just, you know she can tell she's a person that embraces herself

**Mark:** Exactly

**Michael:** I look at it as more than a throwaway line. I look at it as the movie knows the character and Demme knows what he's doing, and Ted Tally knew what he was writing and Brooks knew what the fuck she was portraying in that moment

**Mark:** We're gettin' all the good stuff out of the way is I guess what we're doing

**Michael:** Yeah. I bring that up because there's, you know, there's an interesting way to look at it is, you know, is the story about, you know, is there a way to look at it as, is there a lack of a female perspective because there's only one female the movie's really focusing on? Or is it a study in the lack of upward mobility for women in law enforcement? What is the movie saying there? You guys have any thoughts? I mean there's a moment in the funeral parlor where Crawford won't talk to her in front of the sheriff, you know? So.

**MJ:** You refer to a few visual motifs where she's always dwarfed by the men around her

**Michael:** Yes

**MJ:** And that recurs many many times in the whole thing. And I think to a certain extent, it's about somebody finding strength in the face of all those obstacles, you know? The obstacles of course being the beautiful illustration of that. But there's a way, I mean obviously Jodie Foster is *such* a strong actress and she brings so much depth to this whole thing and the journey of her psychological truth through the whole thing to a place where she can confront her *own* fears and put those to bed and in the face of Lecter and those things. Everybody has a truth. I think you've gotta go back to Thomas Harris's novel a little bit as well, because he nails the character- I mean Ted Tally does an amazing job of…

**Michael:** Yes. Condensing essentially

**MJ:** Condensing and adapting and taking. But Harris's stuff, he just kind of understands the nature of the pathologies of individual people, whether you're a serial killer or whether you're a cop, law enforcement or FBI or whatever it's gonna be. And I think Jodie Foster takes you on this journey in an extraordinary way. I think you're right. Is it, whether the thesis is, "Woman trying to find her strength in a man's world," you know, I don't know that that's an underlying thesis of the piece, but you can draw from it very easily. In lesser hands, it's just a scary serial killer movie, right? Of which there were *millions* subsequent to this

**Mark:** *Taking Lives*, starring Angelina Jolie

**MJ:** *Bone Collector*

**Mark:** *The Bone Collector*

**MJ:** *The Bone Collector*, right?

**Michael**: That's being made into a TV show

**MJ:** Which completely failed to understand…

**Mark:** There was a guy in my college dorm that we called the Bone Collector. Moving on…

**MJ:** Slightly different I suspect

**Mark:** He used to collect a different kind of bones

**Michael:** You don't say

**MJ:** There's a world of difference now between directing for theatrical and directing for TV and almost everybody now does it for Netflix or whatever and they go, "Oh, you've got big screen TVs." It's not the same

**Mark:** Nope

**MJ:** Framing for a thirty-five foot screen or whatever is actually difficult

**Mark:** I yelled at listeners a couple weeks ago because I said if you watch *Roma* on your fucking TV, you know, I will fucking come to your house and slap you. You *have* to watch it…

**MJ:** I'm surprised you have time for this conversation

**Mark:** I know. What am I doing here? I should be out slapping people

**MJ:** There's a whole list!

**MJ:** Is it completely heretical to say anything about Anthony Hopkins being wildly over the top as Hannibal Lecter?

**Michael:** I mean, he says he was channelling Katharine Hepburn, right?

**MJ:** Yeah

**Mark:** I buy it

**MJ:** I mean, it's fine and clearly everyone loves it, but gimme Brian Cox's Hannibal Lecktor

**Michael:** I mean yeah

**MJ:** A more mannered, a far more frightening, *mundane* serial killer, you know?

**Michael:** Very different

**Michael:** There's a little clip I wanna play that kind of touches on the theme or themes I brought up about Clarice looking so small. And I love this little moment in the car with Crawford where she kind of puts him in his place very subtly, but she also says exactly what she's thinking

**Crawford:** When I told that sheriff we shouldn't talk in front of a woman, that really burned you, didn't it? It was just smoke, Starling. I had to get rid of him.

**Starling:** It matters, Mister Crawford. Cops look at you to see how to act. It matters.

**Crawford:** Point taken.

**Mark:** Mmmm. Goddammit I love this movie

**Michael:** Nay? Your face is like-- what's that?

**Nay:** Point taken. Yeah I know that's right.

**Brennan:** He's listening. That's good, right?

**Nay:** Yes

**Brennan:** I mean look, it's…

**Nay:** Yes. Here's your cookie

**Michael:** I just like her...

**MJ:** Do you not think for 1991, that was pretty far ahead of its time?

**Nay:** Oh, absolutely. I mean, shit. I was like six years old so I ain't-- nobody was listening to me

**Michael:** I just like her, like, I think a lot of people, whether women, men, whoever in that situation would have been a little docile because that's your superior, and I kind of just love that she's like, "It matters what you say in front of me."

**Nay:** Absolutely. I mean, I think- well, what I was struck with *so* hard this time watching it; I don't think I've watched this movie since being a grownup with a job and realizing how much code-switching you do as an adult, depending on who you work with, you know? And so I was thinking, especially in the opening sequence, her in the elevator, her walking by men and they're all just like…

**Michael:** And they're all like doing guns and cleaning their guns and stuff?

**Nay:** Yeah. And I dunno. It made me feel like I can never have a job, because I don't wanna code-switch ever again. I was like, I don't want to have to walk on eggshells and tell someone, "Well, it matters," and that's it. I just wanna go straight the fuck off on people and I, yeah. So

**Michael:** No, I getcha

**Mark:** And scene

**Nay:** And scene. I will die poor. But I just, yeah, definitely for 1991, of course, that is a major, a brand new vibe. I think that even now it's scary to ever speak out in a way when you fear the people around you are not on the same page. Or like don't even know the book

**MJ:** Speaking to what the core of the movie is, and I'm sort of thinking about it on my feet a little bit. She's selected at the beginning *because* she's weak and vulnerable and supposedly not very good

**Michael:** Right

**MJ:** So that she would be an easy piece of prey for Lecter to play with. And it turns out she's much stronger and more capable and all the other things, so…

**Michael:** She's chosen for all the wrong reasons

**MJ:** She's chosen for the wrong reasons. And becomes absolutely the right person for reasons that only she knows about herself, what I think is a great journey for her

**Michael:** Actually Hannibal knows too

**MJ:** Well yeah. He identifies her pretty quickly

**Nay:** MJ knows everything

**Michael:** Isn't it great?

**MJ:** Well he…

**Mark:** He latches onto her like, there's a purity about her in the sense that, not in the typical dumb, "Purity." Like "Female purity"

**Michael:** No, no, no

**Mark:** But rather that there's a purity-- what I love about the writing is that I certainly understand if it irks you or makes you, reminds you of what annoys you in your life about that scene. But at the same time, I think in 1991 and certainly today still, the idea of a woman who's willing to just simply say to her boss, "No. No, that actually wasn't right." And him going, "Oh, okay. I understand what you mean." That's not--it's embarrassing, but I was listening to this clip and I was like, "I remember it but I forgot about it." Like, wow. That's not stuff you hear much in storytelling and it's so effortlessly weaved into the movie that I like almost take it for granted

**Michael:** I think I said earlier, every line and minute is just really thought out and that line of dialogue for me, you can see it being built to that forty minutes earlier. Just with her performance and the way it's written and how each scene builds off the last. It really is a true case-- I think whatever people personally think of the movie is one thing, but it really is a true case of technical perfection

**MJ:** In screenwriting?

**Michael:** Yes

**MJ:** Absolutely

**Michael:** The way no second, each scene, there's like no fat whatsoever in the meat of the movie

**MJ:** Because it plays, well it plays to the notion that every character, no matter how secondary has a journey. So Crawford's journey, his hopeful awakening of realizing that he made bad choices, that he's been treating people incorrectly, people and women under his command

**Michael:** That's a really good point that you made about each character. Ardelia's in three scenes. I watched it today, and forgot she's only in three scenes, because she's got such a presence to me, in my memory of this film. The science guys. They're in like two scenes, but everyone has a moment that really really matters

**MJ:** It's perfection in casting as well

**Michael:** It really is

**MJ:** There's nobody miscast in this movie, I'll go back and think Anthony Hopkins is a little bit hot

**Mark:** That is one hot take, by the way. To talk about *Silence of the Lambs* and be like, "I dunno. He's okay."

**Michael:** Jodie Foster's so perfect. I can't imagine anyone else, that's why *Hannibal* sucks, the movie. I mean, I love Julianne Moore...

**Mark:** (gasps in outrage) Rude! Really?

**MJ:** Oh, there's such a multitude of reasons, it doesn't come- there's so many

**Michael:** I mean there's many reasons, but I love Julianne Moore, but it's just not the same character

**MJ:** How did her agent say, "Hey, you do this role"?

**Mark:** I love the bananapants ratfuck that is *Hannibal*

**Michael:** I mean, yeah! "Bananapants ratfuck," is that what he said?

**Mark:** It is *insane*

**Michael:** Yes!

**Mark:** It is insane from beginning to end, and I ***LOVE*** it. I ***LOVE*** it

**Michael:** I mean I enjoy the shit out of it, it's not a good movie

**Mark:** I mean, it ends with like a Nancy Meyers movie gone berserk, where he's feeding Ray Liotta his own brain…

**Michael:** And there's food in the kitchen so it *is* like a Nancy Meyers movie

**Nay:** *Okay?*

**Mark:** Out of a Restoration Hardware vision…

**Michael:** They're at a fuckin'...

**Mark:** She's in Gucci! He's like, "I brought you Gucci to wear." It's crazy

**Michael:** They're at a fuckin' Pottery Barn

**MJ:** It is *not* Ridley Scott's finest hour

**Mark:** Listen. It also has Gary Oldman in a star performance as Mitch McConnell. It is, he is amazing. (as Gary Oldman as Mason Verger) "He speaks like…" (normal voice) How does he do it?

**Michael**: You're doing it!

**Mark:** He's so good! He's like (as Mason Verger) "I was asked would I like to top her and I was like, 'Would I?!'" (normal voice) He's so disgusting. He's so lecherous and so revolting

**Michael:** It is a creepy crawly like skin loosening movie

**Mark:** Everything! Ugh! It's revolting

**Brennan:** What's your opinion on the scene where (Hannibal) flips her hair from a carousel?

**Michael:** I mean, that's a little cool

**Brennan:** What? Come on. *Come on*

**Mark:** The whole movie is just crazy

**Michael:** It is! I'm not denying that. It's not a good movie

**MJ:** It sounds like you've watched it more than once

**Mark:** Oh, absolutely. Listen. When that movie comes on...

**MJ:** It's objectively terrible filmmaking in every way

**Mark:** But surely you have some guilty pleasures where you're like, "I know this movie is bad for me. I know that it's junk food, I'm gonna eat the whole bag "

**Michael:** Of course! Mark, no one's denying that.

**Mark:** I know! But MJ's looking at me like...

**MJ:** No, I only watch nourishing

**Mark:** Sure. Come on.

**MJ:** I've never seen a bad movie in my life. But for me, because *Manhunter*, *Silence of the Lambs*, and then you go, everything after that is shit. Because it seems like nobody understood why those two movies worked so well. Particularly *Silence of the Lambs*. Everyone's all, "It's all about Hannibal!" No, evil caged is more interesting than evil freed. The moment you let Hannibal out of the box, the end of the interesting character to me

**Mark:** They try to feed him to pigs! In *Hannibal*. Like that's crazy! That's so objectively insane

**MJ:** Give me Mister Wu's pigs in *Deadwood* any time. Those are the pigs I want eating me

**Brennan:** Have you read the book *Hannibal*, though? 'Coz...

**Mark:** It ends with (Hannibal and Clarice) together

**Brennan:** I will stand with you on the cuckoo go nuts of the book, because that's, it's glorious, it's lush, it's wonderful

**Mark:** *Hannibal Rising* is also cuckoo bananapants

**Brennan:** Okay…

**Mark:** But it has the delightful--

**MJ:** Which one is *Hannibal Rising*?

**Michael:** The prequel to *Red Dragon*

**MJ:** Oh my God!

**Brennan:** Look, you jumped on me for liking *Jason Goes to Hell* and we're gonna talk about *Hannibal Rising*?

**Mark:** Listen. *Jason Goes to Hell* had Gaspar Noe in it? I might like it a little better. But listen. You are not about to sit here and tell me that *Hannibal Rising* is as bad as *Jason Goes to Hell*

**Brennan:** I… I'm not here for this. I quit the show. Goodbye everybody

**Michael:** Wow

**Mark:** Wow

**Brennan:** No, I'm still here. See you next week. (starting to cry) It's all I have!

**MJ:** You needed a tiny bit of silence there to make that even begin to work, by the way

**Michael:** I wanted to (unintelligible) begin

**Brennan:** No

**MJ:** That gag didn't work because you said you were leaving and you carried on talking

**Brennan:** Mmm-hmm. That is my problem. Should I do some foley work as I get farther away from the microphone?

**MJ:** Yeah

**Brennan:** (away from the mic) Bye guys! Bye!

**MJ:** You know what? That's better. That would've been better.

**Brennan:** Okay

**Mark:** Look. You know those bad sequels in the Lecter-verse, okay, are like my *Children of the Corn* sequels, okay?

**Brennan:** I didn't *like* the *Children of the Corn* movies, I just *watched* them.

**Mark:** Well, they are a total guilty pleasure for me

**Michael:** Pod fight!

**Nay:** Our guest this week, top ten

**MJ:** Whoa, whoa! Just, you've only done twenty episodes!

**Michael:** And we only had eight guests

**MJ:** I've barely cracked fifty percent!

**Nay:** Yeah, I mean you're...

**Mark:** "You've only had eight guests!"

**MJ:** You sound like my school results!

**Brennan:** (mockingly) Top ten

**Nay:** I said what I said

**Mark:** Good for you

**MJ:** But it's like saying, "You're alive!"

**Michael:** "You did it!"

**MJ:** Thank you, 'cause whooo!

**Nay:** Yeah

**Michael:** I wanna be Nay's top ten anything. I'd take it if I were you

**Mark:** It's true

**Michael:** Yays. Nay's Yay or Nays?

**Nay:** Oh lord

**Mark:** Oh my God

**Mark:** We've literally been jerking off over this movie for a half hour, so…

**Nay:** Let's start it off. What's wrong with it?

**Mark:** Well, I, you know, (squeaky) um, the movie makes a half-hearted stab…

**Nay:** (imitates Mark's squeaky "Um")

**Mark:** What? What was that noise? You just literally- I was in the middle of a sentence and Nay just went, "Meow!" I'm like, "What?"

**Nay:** I said, "Um."

**Mark:** Oh! I thought it sounded…

**Nay:** I would never meow

**Mark:** To me it sounded like, "Meow."

**Michael:** No *Night Warning* meows

**Mark:** You know, it makes a halfhearted stab to differentiate between and they use the word "transsexual"

**MJ:** Mmm-hmm

**Mark:** (as Jodie Foster) "No. Transsexuals are passive. They're…"

**Brennan:** "They're docile, they're docile"

**Mark:** (as Jodie Foster) "They're docile. They're passive." (normal voice) But you know, of course, Jame Gumb is of course, anything but. And, you know, I guess I certainly want to hear what (to MJ) *you* would have to say as a clear fan of the film and the filmmaking, you know, I dunno. I just wanna hear you talk about it.

**MJ:** Yeah, well… backing this up a second. Jame Gumb as a character is an amalgamation of real-life serial killers

**Michael:** Yes. Ed Gein, um, Gacy, right? There's several

**MJ:** All those. Several of whom included clearly issues with gender and sexuality and those kinds of things, so you can't blame anybody for saying, "Okay, that's real."

**Mark:** Yeah

**MJ:** And particularly Thomas Harris because he researches the shit out of this stuff. You know, whether you like his writing or not, his research and his kind of psychological assessments and use of pathology is bang on the money.

**Michael:** Yes

**MJ:** So, much as one could say that the representation of a trans character in this is discomfiting and reprehensible in so many ways, to label Jame Gumb as trans in the way that we're politically comfortable with now…

**Mark:** Is faulty

**MJ:** Is faulty. Except that there are crazy people in every walks of life, right? Now unfortunately when you have, from my point of view, when I watched it as a very much still in trans person, you know, it made my skin crawl. Because it's like, "That's not me! That's not how I feel! I don't wanna go out killing anybody and wearing their skins," right? But people clearly do in this world, right? If *Silence of the Lambs* was about a character who didn't do that, there would be no conflict. So it's the filmmaking versus the social responsibility element, right? So it brought trans characters to the foreground in a negative way, right? Except that it goes out of its way, it *kind* of tries to say, "But no, no, this is just a particular pathology right now. We're not saying that trans people are bad. We're just saying that this crazy trans character," if indeed James Gumb was probably transgender, "is killing people." I don't-- I mean, it's an entertaining movie, and it's a fiction, and it's doing all of these things that it's trying to be responsible and not too damaging to a, again in 1991 a very small and little considered community. But it made me *very* unhappy for a long time. And those images, and I don't know whether they burned themselves so profoundly into everybody else's psyche as much as me, but when you see Ted Levine's performance is *fucking* amazing

**Michael:** It's bonkers. It's great

**MJ:** Did he get a nomination for Best Supporting Actor?

**Michael:** I don't think he did

**MJ:** 'Cause he should've got every damn- 'cause the *nuance* of what he's doing in terms of his, the agony within himself to a certain extent

**Michael:** The internal conflict

**MJ:** There's a couple of moments where you see, above the well and his friggin' dog and he's talking to her, you can see like, "I don't wanna do this but I have no choice." And *that* is amazing. And then there was a moment where he, it's a very showy moment where he's naked and tucks his penis between his legs and he does all that. Did I do that? You know, that's how you wanna visualize yourself in a way. But to have it committed to the screen in such a dark, negative way, sort of every time I did it after that I was like, "Oh crap I can't get this image out of my head and I'm definitely not a serial killer. I think. Yet."

**Michael:** Nay has brought up on the show before how representation matters, and Nay always just says everything better than I do…

**Mark:** That's true

**Michael:** But she mentioned how when the lone representation in a film is negative, then the film is problematic. Because your lone representation of a group of people is negative

**MJ:** Right. But that presupposes everything should have some kind of sanitized balance to it, you know?

**Michael:** Nay, tell me if I said it wrong, but….

**MJ:** I completely agree with you, because there was no other conversation around about trans people in 1991 to balance it out with

**Mark:** It was this and *Basic Instinct*

**Nay:** Yeah

**MJ:** Oh shit, I don't even remember the *Basic Instinct*

**Mark:** Oh God, it's *nuts*! It's so good. And wrong

**Nay:** Yeah. We talked about that a lot for sure. I don't think I said that it necessarily automatically makes a film problematic

**Michael:** Yeah. I don't mean to put words in your mouth. Again you say everything better

**Nay:** But in that same vein, absolutely we talk like if that's the *only* example we get, like that just *sucks*. Yeah. So it's like on one hand, it feels triumphant because it's like, "Oh! They're saying this out loud. They're committing this to the art and it's there forever." And on the other hand, it's like, "Well, this is the only trans person I've seen in a movie this year and they're a serial killer."

**MJ:** I'm not defending, I just want to have a discussion, but you know, Thomas Harris didn't make that character up, right? So it's not like he went out there and said, "What's the freakiest shit I can come up with?" Ed Gein and these guys *did* this stuff. And all the screenwriters and the filmmaker,  everybody involved *did*, Ted Levine as the performer as well, they kind of embodied in such a profoundly real and human way that it became indelible. And if the movie hadn't been successful, we wouldn't be having this conversation because of the resonance. And it still has resonance. And now thank God we're in a world where the conversation about trans people is very much in the air. Listen, if it's easy for me to come out two years ago, I wasn't brave enough to do it back then. Not because of *Silence of the Lambs*. It wasn't *entirely* that film's fault. But you know, it's based on a reality, and you know, I'm very interested in  psychology and criminality and things like that. So I'm going, "This is a fantastic representation of a person with a damaged psychology, who clearly isn't what they think they are, but is struggling to become something else. The dehumanization of women in the process of wanting to become a woman, if indeed that's what Jame Gumb wanted, you know, how fucked up is that?" And that's kind of the conversation. There's the scene at the end when she goes into his cellar and we see literally the kind of half-built women's...

**Michael:** Skin suit, I guess?

**MJ:** Oh, my God! When I was watching it again recently to talk about this, I was like, (deep gasp of shock) "I don't know what to do with that!" It's like it's worse for me now than it was then, you know?

**Mark:** Sometimes I think the *dream* in terms of representation of different identities is that there's enough out there that true equality will mean that you can have a representation like Jame Gumb in a film and it won't mean anything. In the sense that we *won't* have a conversation like this, *because* there'll be enough out there. Because I agree that I don't think necessarily that you need to have like…

**Michael:** The antidote like you said?

**Mark:** Well, for example, *Basic Instinct* is problematic as all get out in so many ways, and is fabulous in so many ways. But at the same time part of its strength is the fact that Catherine Trammell is fully bisexual and has-- there's no like sweet lesbian couple who live next door to be like, "Hi, we're just here to balance things out," you know what I mean? There's something bold about that. That she's willing, she's terrifying and alluring and fabulous and you know, so I guess…

**MJ:** 'Coz the temptation would've been in something like *Silence of the Lambs*, I guess maybe even if it was being done today the conversation in the writers room or the studio would be, "We've gotta put a good trans character in there as well."

**Mark:** Yeah. Exactly

**MJ:** "So maybe Jodie Foster should go and meet a *good* trans character to discuss the…"

**Michael:** The pathology of it?

**MJ:** "The pathology of it." And that person is great and balanced and you go, "Oh! Good people!"

**Mark:** Right. Because you feel as an audience, you know when you're being spoonfed, kind of something, most audiences I want to believe are intelligent enough to derive on their own, you know? I *want* to believe. Maybe I'm being wildly naive. But part of the power of *Silence* is that it's willing, or a movie like *Basic Instinct*, problems though they may have...

**MJ:** I wouldn't put these movies in the same spot

**Mark:** No. *No.* No, definitely not. One is like a legitimate…

**MJ:** Can you start a new paragraph when you talk about this?

**Mark:** Yes

**Mark:** Tab. Paragraph.

**MJ:** Thank you

**Mark:** But I think that sometimes it's why I treasure *Cruising* too, in a way, talk about the like, *daddy* of all problematic movies about gay men...

**MJ:** Okay. Yeah yeah

**Mark:** Is that it's *so* just unwilling to sanitize or soften or whatever that I just go, there's so many problems with this movie and yet I respect the living fuck out of it for being like, "Yup it just went there. It just decided to do its thing."

**MJ:** Because there's nothing wrong with that...

**Michael:** Well yeah, and there's something respectable about that because I don't wanna say they didn't give a shit what anybody thought, but they're doing what they felt, like you were just saying...

**MJ:** It was pure to itself, right?

**Michael:** Yes

**Mark:** Mmm-hmm

**MJ:** So from my take, as a filmmaker, as an audience member, as a trans person, there's nothing wrong with the representation of Jame Gumb in *Silence of the Lambs*. It's as good as it can ever be, right? Performance, writing, you know, creepiness, being a villain in a movie. It's perfect. Everything about it is perfect, right? It just upset me because it was speaking to something in me which I really didn't want to address. And was also like, that's a problem right there, right? But not for the movie. The problem is society's problem, and the fact that the movie's so *fucking* successful, right? And to the thirty, twenty-seven years, whatever it is, we're still talking about this damn thing, that's an indelible (unintelligible). And there are still jokes about you know, "Put the lotion in the thing," they're still, right? Even moreso than, and those are the creepy moments. Hannibal Lecter's character is such a pantomime villain, and such an unrealistic portrait of any human being, right? And Jame Gumb's is creepy and fucking real, right. That's much more frightening and I think Anthony Hopkins's performance is great...

**Michael:** And he's your neighbor, you know, living next to….

**MJ:** Yeah. Well, actually not my neighbor. My neighbor's really nice.

**Mark:** (haughtily) Well he's not *my* neighbor

**Michael:** James from *The Crown* is next door, you know?

**MJ:** I'm the scary transgender person  living next to that one, that's the problem

**Michael:** The thing that I really loved this last time that I saw the movie is that they go into the psychology of every character. And there's a psychological journey for *every* character. And to me, as a more mature person, that was the most fascinating aspect watching it this time. Was watching, really for the first time focusing on the psychology of Jodie's, Clarice's psychology throughout the film

**Mark:** (chuckling) Jodie's psychology

**Michael:** Jodie's psychology.

**Mark:** It's just Jodie

**MJ:** She really lost herself in that role, huh?

**Mark:** God she's good

**Michael:** You know, the fact that we are talking about it twenty-eight years later, and twenty-eight years later and probably a hundred viewings later, I watched it through a lens I've never watched it through before. It *is* a fucking powerful movie in that sense to me. Anyway. I'm an idiot. Nay, what do you think?

**Mark:** Thank you for coming to my TED Talk

**MJ:** For me as a filmmaker, I admire it-- I mean, just from the lenses and shots every time I watch it. Jonathan Demme was such a flexible filmmaker as well, because you look at the stuff he did prior to this, you never gonna go, "Oh, he's definitely gonna deliver with *Silence of the Lambs*." I remember reading, 'coz I liked the book first, and going, "Jonathan Demme's gonna do *Silence of the Lambs*. Oh, okay. That's… let's see what…" I mean, I liked his filmmaking, I just didn't see that progression

**Mark:** I think also to pour one out for Jonathan Demme, after *Silence of the Lambs* he was on top of the world. He could do *anything* he wanted. And he chose to do *Philadelphia*. Which is kind of unreal, I think, in a way, and also...

**MJ:** It's parlaying the power into doing something important

**Michael:** Yes

**Mark:** Such an important film. A movie that, you know, had been, I think Ron Nyswaner's script had kicked around for a little bit. Worked with a gay screenwriter, cast actual queer people around the film. There's like actual queer bodies and faces in that movie and of course, you know, of course they cast movie stars as, you know, fine. Yes, of course. And sometimes this conversation drives me crazy because, what do you think movies are- people are investing sixty, eighty million dollars into something. They're not gonna cast a fucking nobody. They want people to see it. Get over yourselves. I dunno. The fact that he parlayed his power from this movie into an act of generosity for a community that he genuinely cared about

**Michael:** Very important story.

**MJ:** Totally, yeah.

**Michael:** You and I had mentioned *Philadelphia* to each other in the past, Mark, and I think I told you…

**Mark:** "I know this falls under 'Okay, you get a cookie, I guess, whatever'." Nay is looking at me like...

**Nay:** I'm not looking at you any kind of way

**Mark:** You are totally giving me that, "These dumb boys are talking about cookie stuff."

**Michael:** (sotto voce) I'm sensitive today. (normal voice) But I what I was gonna say is that it was the first instance of me seeing a gay couple just being a *couple*

**Mark:** Yeah

**MJ:** Right

**Michael**: Like loving and supporting and just being there for each other. And yes there's a message at the heart of the film, and there's an important topic at the heart of the film. But at the same time I felt like it was just like, they're just a couple and they're there at the same time, too. And that was really important to me as a kid, just seeing two people love each other and like, standing by each other through the worst of it. So that's like the most important aspect of Jonathan Demme's choice to follow up *Silence of the Lambs*….

**MJ:** But it also speaks to the fact that knowing what he did with *Philadelphia*, and all throughout his career, you know that the choices he made on *Silence of the Lambs* were not glib or arbitrary. I *bet* he would've had a conversation about "How are we representing minorities in this movie?"

**Michael:** Absolutely

**Mark:** Oh, he was upset by the fact that the trans community *was* upset by *Silence of the Lambs*

**Michael:** It crushed him, right?

**Mark:** He was *horrified* by that and I think it made him redouble his efforts to get *Philadelphia* off the ground

**Michael:** The *procedural* element of *Silence of the Lambs* is un-fucking-real

**MJ:** I love it

**Mark:** Yeah

**MJ:** It grounds it. It makes it- in contrast to, say, *Manhunter*, which is all style

**Michael:** Very stylish

**MJ:** Very very slick and stylish, and more of a movie movie

**Michael:** Yeah, the lighting in that movie is amazing

**MJ:** That was amazing. It's beautiful to look at. And if you haven't seen it, it's worth digging out. And the soundtrack's great, Tangerine Dream

**Michael:** William Petersen gives a great performance

**MJ:** Amazing. From top to bottom, it's amazing

**Mark:** God, that score is so good

**MJ:** It's brilliant. But it's not, it's not real. You know it's a little creepy and kind of dreamlike so it gets under your skin in that way. But the gothic nature of *Silence of the Lambs* and the grounded nature, the glimpses you get of the true horror. Of what one human can do to another, driven by some pathology and compulsion, where what I need is more important than your life. And those kinds of conversations, that's terrifying

**Mark:** I remember the first time I saw it, the part where I was like, "I have to pause this and walk away," was when she's in the well and she just starts screaming and he looks at her and goes, "Ahhhhhrrrrrr." And it's so kind of banal and just, whatever…

**MJ:** But it's like, is he trying to mimic, that's the thing, it's horrifying

**Mark:** Yeah I know, exactly. You could read it in a lot of ways but I just remember being like, "Nope!" And I just paused it and I walked away. I think I was, I don't remember how old I was

**MJ:** Yeah. He's like, "What dress size are you?" Or something

**Michael:** (as Jame Gumb) "Are you about a size fourteen?"

**MJ:** We all need like a hot shower now

**Michael:** Her poor cat, too. Watching her being driven away

**Nay:** Oh, God!

**Michael:** That cat was like, "Where my momma go?"

**MJ:** Yeah. And I can never listen to Tom Petty

**Mark:** That cat was like, "Nobody moves furniture at night!"

**Nay:** I ain't helpin' out anybody ever

**Mark:** Yeah. *Never*

**Michael:** "I'm just gonna stay over here in my window."

**Mark:** Yeah. (sarcastically) "Thanks for the Fancy Feast, Catherine!"

**Michael:** What do we think about the girl power in this movie? We haven't brought that up in a discussion in a while

**Mark:** To me, it feels like it's a very sincere kind of story of empowerment in the sense that Clarice is a character who has such integrity, has such clarity of purpose and is, she's unflappable. There's nothing, there's no frills around it, she just leads. The example that she sets is the power. And watching her gain confidence as she goes along, I think, as a viewer, at least whenever I watched it that's always what I took away from her. And yeah, so. I would say I guess it rates high

**Michael:** Nay, any thoughts?

**Nay:** She reminds me of one of my aunts

**Michael:** Oh yeah?

**Nay:** Um, yeah. And so I really-- there is something so unflappable. And I think most of my life I've thought that was one of the, my life most sought after personality quality. Like, "Please. I just wanna look unflappable. I just wanna look unbothered."

**MJ:** In the midst of clearly being bothered is the great thing about the performance as well

**Nay:** Yes.

**MJ:** Like there's no way she's not being flapped

**Nay:** Right. Right. Like, "What's that on my face right now? I'm flapped."

**Michael:** Yeah, it's those quiet moments like when she's crying by the car right after that, you know?

**Nay:** Yeah. Ooof

**Michael:** Just the moments of her face, just when she's imagining her father, seeing little flashbacks of her life

**MJ:** Yeah. And just knowing she just has to keep moving forward because there's people's lives on the line. And that she-- whether it's a true interpretation or not, but a sense that she has a connection to a terrifying thing that no one else has. And every fiber of her being is saying, "Sever this connection, this is damaging to you in every single way. But yeah, I can do good by putting myself in this psychological harm's way." 'Coz you're always separated from Lecter by, mostly until the end...

**Michael:** By glass, yeah

**MJ:** By glass. yeah. But she'll go back down into the dungeon, she'll face the devil all the time, and that's far more frightening. And as you say, *clearly* being a turmoil of flapping and fear and being told that this is the way and to go, "No, I have to carry on what I'm doing."

**Michael:** And that's the brilliance of the performance too. When she's talking to him, at the end, their last essentially meet-n-greet, where he's in that weird cage…

**Mark:** (amused) Meet-and-greet

**Brennan:** M-e-a-t

**Michael:** I couldn't think of anything. But well, two things I want to bring up there. That was supposed to be, her whole monologue was initially a flashback. They actually filmed it

**MJ:** Really? That was a horrible idea. So (unintelligible)

**Michael:** Well, when (Jonathan Demme) saw the dailies of their performances he was like, "Just throw it away. We can't cut from her. We just gotta stay on her."

**MJ:** "Let's cut to a sheep!"

**Michael:** Yeah, like a little kid running with the sheep? But the thing I really-- she's so *good*. You can hear the quiver in her voice that *entire* scene. My favorite part of it, I listened to it, I was watching it today with headphones on, is when she's talking about running with the lamb, trying to run with the lamb, and it was so cold and she didn't have food or water. The score at that moment is plain wind. Like you could tell, it's just cold wind. That happened, I felt like thirty degree weather just like hit my entire body. Super cool. So I highly recommend watching the movie with a good pair of earbuds again, because the *sound* in that scene was unreal. I kept waiting to hear like a little (bleats softly like a lamb). But I appreciate the movie in that sense, she's the hero of course, but every key piece of information is figured out by her, or her and Ardelia together, which I think is great. They solve that. They're the ones to figure out that he knew the third victim found the first person killed. She figured out that *she* was at the right house, not Crawford and like an army of men who are in the wrong state, you know. She identified with Frederika. She identified with the way the bodies were torn up. She identified with Catherine Martin's mother. There's a really good exchange there, where they're watching the video of Senator Martin plead for her daughter's life and she keeps saying the name Catherine over and over again and I love this and it's so simple and Kasi Lemmons's character Ardelia is like, "Boy that's really smart. Jeez that's really smart." And then the dude in the scene is just like, (as a dumb straight guy) "Why does she keep sayin' her name?" (normal voice) And Clarice is like, "If he sees Catherine as a person and not just as an object, it's harder to tear up." I just love those subtle choices are so important because the women are booked in between the dude that's in their class and he's just like, "Why does she keep saying the name?" And I love that they both are like, "Dude. Seriously?" You know what I mean? Like in their own way they're like, "Seriously, dude?!" It's so… y'know. I just love it

**MJ:** See, to me, that's a little-- you're right, again it's used very well, but it's a little screenwriter-y for me

**Michael:** It is. It's very exposition-y

**MJ:** Because it's like someone had to have heard that piece of information and went, "Oh, there we go, let's put that in a movie one day."

**Michael:** Yeah. But I bet half the audience probably wouldn't understand it without (unintelligible) in there

**MJ:** Totally! And how do you use it? We'll make the guy dumb and the girl smart, which is what the movie's trying to do all the way along, which is fabulous

**Michael:** I love it

**MJ:** So as you're saying, speaking to the forensics of it as well, and the procedural element, it's bang on the money all the way through

**Mark:** (as Lecter) Love the suit

**Michael:** (as Lecter) By the way Senator, love the suit. Five foot ten, a hundred and forty-five pounds

**MJ:** Over the top theatrical villain, that's like I was saying

**Michael:** Oscar winner for sixteen minutes of screentime

**Mark:** Wow

**MJ:** Shows how easily manipulated people can be. I'm sorry, I love the movie. I'm just being a bitch

**Michael:** So, any final thoughts anybody?

(silence for a moment)

**MJ:** Oh, I think you're hearing the cold wind go through right now

**Mark:** (bleats like a lamb)

**MJ:** No, it's a great movie

**Mark:** I think my final thoughts are I love this movie, and I love the filmmaking, and I love so much about it. And now to juxtapose, I want to discuss Ridley Scott's *Hannibal* as psychotic gay fantasia

**MJ:** Last thought on *Silence of the Lambs*… We agree that it's a horror movie, okay? How often does a horror movie of this integrity and skill ever been delivered to a theatrical audience? Because horror movies are treated like chump movies a lot of the time

**Michael:** Yeah, I mean I think there's a bigger respect for them in the past couple years, but even then *Hereditary*, that should've been nominated, I think. There's still, it's still considered a less than genre. I mean *Get Out* is, I think it's close to being on the same level as far as story and the type of horror…

**Mark:** The execution of *Get Out* is perfect

**MJ:** Perfect?

**Mark:** Well, okay, fine. Being…

**MJ:** Being hyperbole to make a point?

**Mark:** I guess. I do love it. So much horror is-- I guess what frustrates me in the horror community a lot is that they will laud all kinds of-- if you spend any time on Twitter they'll be like, "This movie's so great!" And you're like, "No it's not. It's not. That's an actively bad movie. I'm not gonna call you out right now," but it's just part of the reason...

**MJ:** I've made one!

**Mark:** Listen. We've all made, you know. But part of the reason I sometimes think that horror has that sort of PR problem in terms of like, it's the space it *should* occupy, you know, come awards season or come your viewpoint is that sometimes I think we're a little too generous to our own output frankly, and you know. I dunno. I am not against a certain level of elitism within the horror community. So when something as *good* and as beautifully executed as *Get Out* does come along, it's like, "Well, yeah. Compared to like, the fifty other fucking horror movies that I was subjected to that year, yeah. It's fucking perfect in comparison."

**Michael:** What did I read in a script once? I think it might have been an early draft of *Scream 4*, but it was like, "For every *Dark Knight* there's fifty *Prom Night*s."

**MJ:** That's fucking filmmaking. You're making this film, I don't know if it's going to work in the U.S. You start off in the morning making *Ben-Hur* and in the evening you're making *Benny Hill*… It's like you go in with one intent and life kind of gets in the way and you end up doing something you didn't mean to do at all.

**Mark:** That's for sure

**Michael:** Oh, I have sat down to write like, my *Silence of the Lambs*, and within fifteen minutes I'm like, "Girl, you don't got it."

**MJ:** You've written *Bones* like that, every time

**Michael:** "You are writing *Taking Lives*. You are writing *Murder by Numbers*. This ain't it." And I just watched *Murder by Numbers* by the way. Fun film.

## **Previous Episode**

Episode 19: "Can You Feel It, the Warning of the Night?"

## **Next Episode**

Episode 21: "Sister Wives" (w/ Joelle Monique!)