The Letterboxd Show 3.11: Vagabon
[clip of Se7en plays]
SOMERSET You know, this isn’t gonna have a happy ending.
MILLS Hey man, we catch him and I’ll be happy enough.
SOMERSET If we catch John Doe, and he turns out to be the Devil—I mean, if he’s Satan himself, that might live up to our expectations. But... he’s not the Devil. He’s just a man...
MILLS You know? So you bitch and you complain, and you tell me these things. If you think you’re preparing me for hard times... Thank you, but...
SOMERSET But you got to be... a hero? You want to be a champion? Well, let me tell you—people don’t want to change. They want to eat cheeseburgers, play the lotto, and watch television.
MILLS Hey how’d you get like this? I want to know.
SOMERSET It wasn’t one thing, I can tell you that…
[The Letterboxd Show theme music Vampiros Dancoteque by Moniker fades in, plays alone, fades down]
SLIM Hello and welcome to Gemma, and today our guest is a very special musical artist whom we found lurking on Letterboxd.
GEMMA I’m so proud of quietly discovering Vagabon all by myself over on Bandcamp and then one day actually squealing out loud. And everyone in the office is like, “What? What’s wrong?” I was like, “I’ve just discovered that Vagabon is on Letterboxd!” Anyway, if you’ve been paying any attention to me, or Bandcamp, or NPR’s Tiny Desk concerts, or indie music in general over the past few years, you may have heard of Vagabon and the beauty that is songs like ‘Water Me Down’, or her stunning duet with Courtney Barnett on a cover of Rod Stewart’s ‘Reason to Believe’. Vagabond is the moniker of Laetitia Tamko. And her four Letterboxd faves are big ones this week: Pretty Woman, The Piano Teacher, The Worst Person in the World and Se7en. In the immortal words of Morgan Freeman, Laetitia, is this episode going to have a happy ending?
LAETITIA We’ll seeee... [Gemma & Slim laugh]
GEMMA I’m terrified!
SLIM Three bangers, at the very least, three bangers of movies. The Piano Teacher might be one that will surprise people this episode, but you got some great picks this week, Laetitia, some great picks! [Laetitia laughs] How’s it feel?
LAETITIA Thank you. I mean, I definitely think my four picks make me seem demented... [Slim & Gemma & Laetitia laugh] But it’s my true personality, so I feel represented.
GEMMA Your true personality—speaking of which, on Twitter, you write, “I make music for emo people who like to dance.” [Laetitia laughs]
LAETITIA Yes... Yes. Sad people who like being sad while dancing. You know?
[Water Me Down by Vagabon plays]
SLIM That’s the ideal pitch for people to check out your music. [Gemma & Laetitia laugh] And I feel like another important question is, have you managed to beat Elden Ring yet? What’s the status in your Elden Ring playthrough?
LAETITIA Oh my god... You know, I really think my job as a musician is impeding on my success as an Elden Ring master, because I’m working on an album so I’ve had to really cut down my gaming lately. So no, I have not beat it. But we’ll get there. I plan to take it on the road. So...
SLIM Ohhh nice.
GEMMA There are so many musicians secretly, or not so secretly, on Twitch, right?
LAETITIA Yeah...
GEMMA it’s just like, it’s this whole other world of—and I’m guessing is it like, because you’re on tour, and you need something to do between soundcheck and the show? Or is there some other thing about gaming that links into the musician brain?
LAETITIA Yeah, I’m curious about that. I think it’s both. I think it’s having an outlet that really is so different from what you do as a job but still is like a hobby and immersive—it’s as immersive as being an artist, being in the studio, being on tour playing shows, but it’s not so linked to your source of income. I think that’s definitely part of it.
GEMMA I just used to knit in the tour van. [Slim laughs] I just used to churn out scarf after scarf...
LAETITIA That works too. But yeah, you know, the Switch is so little, you can just be in the van just going crazy.
SLIM Letterboxd Show officially pivoting to a gaming podcast—will Gemma recover after this week? [Gemma & Laetitia laugh] So Pretty Woman is your number one currently in your four favorites on Letterboxd. 1990, 3.5 average on Letterboxd—I feel like that’s a little low to be honest.
LAETITIA Yeah...
SLIM Just about 2,000 fans on Letterboxd and the synopsis for those that don’t know—Gary Marshall directed: “Who knew it was so much fun to be a hooker? When a millionaire wheeler-dealer enters a business contract with a Hollywood hooker Vivian Ward, he loses his heart in the bargain.” Gemma, you didn’t come up with a better synopsis than that?
GEMMA I did not! No! [Slim & Gemma laugh] I was like, what else am I gonna write? I mean... all I was gonna say is, you know, in the latest remake of Pygmalion... [Gemma & Slim & Laetitia laugh] Which of course this is based on, you know, and also My Fair Lady. So basically what we’ve got is the very, very leggy Julia Roberts at I think the height off or just sort of coming into the height of her fame, right? And, yeah, this is—so what’s interesting to me—and so, Laetitia, you may not know this, but we have Jack listening in the background, and he’s otherwise known to listeners as “Jack’s Facts”. So he dives through the Letterboxd stats and prepares data of interest for us. And he writes that this is Garry Marshall’s second most popular and highest-rated film. Second most, I mean, Pretty Woman is huge. What could possibly be Garry Marshall’s highest-rated and most popular film?
LAETITIA I don’t know...
GEMMA The Princess Diaries.
LAETITIA Oh my god, another classic! Okay. [Gemma & Slim laugh] Wow. Okay, that’s... that’s iconic. [Laetitia & Gemma laugh]
GEMMA So I’m just gonna start out this conversation with a review from Sophie, which is, I completely identify with of Pretty Woman: “the way the feminism leaves my body for over two hours whenever i watch this movie.” Why is this in your top four, not only in your top four, but number one in your four faves?
LAETITIA Well, okay... okay. Pretty Woman is by far my favorite movie. If someone asks me, what’s my favorite—and it’s not based on maybe some other things people think. It’s just one of the first movies I fell in love with when my family and I moved to the US. And I just—and as soon as I signed up for Letterboxd, that was the one that came to mind immediately. Oh, there’s a top four? Pretty Woman is in it, of course. So it’s like probably the first movie I’ve ever logged as well. But I just love the—it’s so, it’s so funny. It’s comedic, you know, it’s fun. It’s like vintage. And it’s Julia Roberts and they’re trying to convince us that Julia Roberts is this raggedy, haggard... But it’s like, I can’t believe that Julia Roberts is ed up on in any world. But I kind of love that they’re going for that. It makes me laugh. And I love how she transforms and into rough around the edges, but she’s just like Julia Roberts with curly hair and then to straight hair. [Gemma & Slim laugh] Which is actually not unlike [The] Princess Diaries, where Anne Hathaway goes from curly hair to straight hair. So there’s a pattern here from haggard to beautiful. But I just loved everything about—I just love everything about the plot. I love the looks. I love the outfits. I love... just so many good scenes. It’s actually where I heard Prince for the first time. I didn’t know that that bathtub scene was Prince until like, that movie. I just didn’t know, I wasn’t aware. So it’s also cool because I learned a lot of songs through movies, and that was a huge one. And Roy Orbison! I’m a huge Roy Orbison fan and to find out that he made the Pretty Woman song. And, yeah...
GEMMA I was thinking that Edward Louis, Richard Gere’s character, I was like “This guy is an asshole...” [Laetitia laughs] Until that bathtub scene, where she’s like, “Don’t you just love Prince?”
[clip of Pretty Woman plays]
VIVIAN Don’t you just love Prince?
EDWARD More than life itself.
LAETITIA Yes!
GEMMA I was like, even if you don’t mean that, Edward Louis, that was the perfect reply.
SLIM The one review that was cracking me up today that I was reading on Letterboxd from Emma: “y’all on Letterboxd writing essays about the ethics of this movie, it’s a rom-com that came out 28 years ago honestly who even cares” [Gemma & Slim laugh]
LAETITIA Yeah! I don’t! I certainly do not... I do not!
GEMMA What is it? What is it about this film that makes us all forget our feminism for two hours? Why are we so onboard with this narrative? Is it that—I mean, this is definitely, as you say, one of those films where the wig-work is doing a lot of the work in of suspending our disbelief. But it’s the central couple, right? It’s the Richard Gere, Julia Roberts pairing...
LAETITIA Yeah... Yeah. I mean, I really don’t—I’ve rewatched it somewhat recently, and I didn’t cringe really at all. [Laetitia laughs] Like, I didn’t have any moments of like, “Ooh, that didn’t hold up.” Maybe there are moments but really, I think she’s so charming, like Vivian as a character is so charming. And she’s so endearing that it really is, I’m just rooting for her the whole movie. I’m like, “Yes, get paid!” [Gemma laughs]
GEMMA I was thinking, I was trying to figure out if there was a through-line in all of your film choices, and I think, I think I’ve figured it out—apart from The Worst Person in the World, maybe. But as I started watching them all, I was like, ah there’s a classical-music theme running through at least three of these films and Pretty Woman in particular, it’s that, you know, when he takes her to the opera, and she es the opera test. But he’s like, you know, people either completely fall for opera straightaway, or they slowly come to maybe appreciate it. And he’s kind of waiting to see which one she is, but also at the same time, the opera he’s making her watch is about a courtesan who ultimately dies. I’m like, “What is wrong with you, Richard Gere?” [Laetitia laughs] “You are sick! You are sick!”
LAETITIA Yeah, oh my god. That’s a good point. I love that scene.
SLIM Every time we talk about Richard Gere, I guess I sort of grew up during like Richard Gere’s heyday. But man, what a heyday he had, you know? He was just like this suave guy and all these movies, even the ones where he was the man of the night that we talked about for a recent episode.
GEMMA American Gigolo...
SLIM He’s got some kind of suave around—about him. That I don’t, I mean, I do think that that type of character has really gone out of fashion, right? They don’t really make movies with like this kind of Richard Gere, suave, rich guy because, probably because that character repulses people... [Slim & Gemma laugh] In a way back 28 years ago, you’re like, “Yeah, this is pretty fun.”
LAETITIA Right, you’re like, older guy with like gray hair, and it was a thing.
GEMMA I’m interested in Bethany’s list on Letterboxd: films that destigmatized sex + sexuality for me as a woman. And I think one of the things that potentially makes Pretty Woman kind of still work, like not make us cringe twenty-however many years on, is that Vivian, you know, you’re sort of waiting for the backstory of, you know, the trauma and the abject poverty and you know, all of the reasons that she became a sex worker. And while that story does come, it’s sort of not like, she was sex-trafficked into the job or—and it’s not like she doesn’t like the job. She’s quite proud of the job. And I feel like, you know, we had Karina Longworth on the show a couple of episodes ago, who does the You Must This podcast. Have you listened to that?
LAETITIA I have. Yes.
GEMMA Yeah. And this season is amazing for the, just the journey that she’s taking us on through sex in American films in the ’80s and ’90s and then the lack thereof. And I mean, even this one, that scene in the ballroom in the hotel on the piano? Oof.
SLIM I mean, how much cachet does he have in that hotel or whatever the hell that building that is? He just tells people to “Please leave, I’m about to have sex with this woman. You need to leave this building.” [Slim laughs]
GEMMA On this grand piano.
LAETITIA Yeah. Yeah, it’s really, it’s really interesting. I think that’s a good point about, you know, Vivian’s character doesn’t seem to hate it. Like she doesn’t seem—she’s not oppressed or you don’t get a like a certain pain. You just get kind of like, a very free person who’s just kind of going with the flow. So I think it is that’s part of the reason why it’s maybe not hard to watch, really.
GEMMA Yeah, she has agency. And I think specifically that scene, too. He’s going down. It’s about her pleasure as much as it is about his.
LAETITIA Right, yeah.
SLIM I think Barney is my breakout star of this movie, Barney the hotel manager.
LAETITIA Ah, yes!
SLIM I mean, what a sweetheart! Hotel manager with a heart of gold. They don’t exist in real life except for this movie. [Laetitia laughs]
LAETITIA Truly. Oh yeah, all the classes that she did, or the lessons on the silverware. The person, I think the villain, really, is Edward’s friend that—
GEMMA Oh, George Costanza?
LAETITIA Yeah!
GEMMA Phil and his miniature billiards table? Ugh.
LAETITIA Yeah, like that... he’s the gross character. [Gemma & Laetitia laugh]
SLIM My note for George is—I actually just call him George—“George is scum” in my notes.
LAETITIA Yeah! It that was the bulk of the movie, I think it would be harder to watch.
GEMMA If Laetitia, you were invited on a limitless credit-card shopping spree, would you go straight to Rodeo Drive? Or would you in fact, go straight to your nearest music-gear wholesale store? What would you do?
LAETITIA Hmm... Good question. I would probably, if those were my two options, I would probably go to Rodeo Drive because I... I can probably amass music gear just off of my job. Whereas going to Rodeo Drive doesn’t seem like something I would do unless someone gave me an unlimited credit card. You know? It seems like more of a novelty in my world than getting music gear, oddly enough.
GEMMA This is true. This is true. What is your favorite outfit... Slim? [Laetitia & Gemma & Slim laugh]
SLIM I don’t know, Richard wore some amazing suits in this movie. I gotta give some props. He looked great in those suits! That gray suit? Man alive. [Gemma & Laetitia laugh]
LAETITIA I loved so many of them. I love the one where they—is it called—it wasn’t the Kentucky Derby, right? But there was like horses...
GEMMA Yeah, the Polo—
LAETITIA The Polo! Yes. I loved that and I loved the opera look as well.
GEMMA The Polo, the brown dress, the brown polka dots?
LAETITIA Yeah.
GEMMA Yeah, that was my fave, my favorite outfit. The whole film. So banging. You know what you said about the music in the film, there’s a list on Letterboxd by Silent J called Films That Got You Addicted To Songs. And yeah, they’re absolutely right. ‘Pretty Woman’, Roy Orbison, ‘Must Have Been Love’, I mean, that is a massive hit. Who was that? Who was that?
LAETITIA ‘Must Have Been Love’...
GEMMA Roxette! [Gemma sings] Must have been love... but it’s over noow! Slim’s gonna edit that out.
SLIM Ohhhh.
LAETITIA Massive!
SLIM No, I’m leaving that in. That might start out the show now. [Gemma & Slim laugh]
LAETITIA That’s a massive tune.
GEMMA I need a Vagabon cover of it. [Laetitia laughs]
LAETITIA Oh boy.
GEMMA Now, in your second of your four favorites, Isabelle Huppert who plays the lead character says to one of her students—she’s a piano teacher, she is the titular of The Piano Teacher—she says to one of his students, “Schubert isn’t a walk in the park.” And frankly, neither is your second of your four favorites. The Piano Teacher, 2001, Michael Haneke. It has a four out of five star average on Letterboxd. It is a big, big film that won the Grand Prix at Cannes the year it came out. It won Best Actress and Best Actor for the two leads, Isabelle Huppert and lovely chap by the name of... Benoît, Benoît Magimel. And also stars the great French actress Annie Girardot as Mother, the mother in question of the sexually repressed piano teacher, who lives with a domineering mother and meets Benoît, who is known as Walter in the film, who starts romantically pursuing her. This synopsis does not at all get across that this is a psychosexual drama of epic proportions...
SLIM The amount of speed that I had to shut this movie off in my living room when my son walked in. [Gemma laughs]
LAETITIA I’m so sorry...
SLIM I almost hit the button right through the Roku remote. I was like “Oh god!”
GEMMA Laetitia, honestly, I when I put my very, very short review of this film, in which I said, “Well she said Schubert isn’t a walk in the park.” Someone posted “I have been waiting for this episode” because I tagged it “Letterboxd Show” and so now I’m scared. I’m like, the pressure is on. I mean, Michael Haneke is not for the faint of heart.
LAETITIA No...
GEMMA Tell us about The Piano Teacher and how it has landed in your top four.
LAETITIA Okay. So, Isabelle Huppert is like one of my favorite actresses. And I kind of went down—and I do this every so often, I kind of go down the list of watching like every movie that one actress has done. And I knew nothing about The Piano Teacher before, and I just kind of—and the way that I watch films is blindly, like I don’t look up trailers, I don’t read the synopsis. I just got into it, and wow, was this day a serious... [Slim & Gemma & Laetitia laugh] Like, I just walked right into this, you know, made dinner, set up my really nice projector. Just everything—and the whole time, I’m just like “What have I…”, and all my friends who were over, I was just like, “Yeah, I wanted to watch this movie, it has my favorite French actress in it.” And they’re like, “Yeah, let’s put it on.” And everyone’s like, “What are you doing to us? What is wrong with you?” And so this film is just... I actually want to rewatch it. It’s so sick and twisted and epic and amazing and... Oh god, it’s so twisted!
GEMMA And it’s a slow burn, right? I’d sort of, I’d forgotten that I’d seen it. I thought as I was watching it this past week, I thought, there’s moments in this that I recognize and I realized that it is, you know, I did see it first time round—probably suppressed a whole lot of the scenes in it. But I the pocket-in-the-coat scene, as soon as that was coming, I was like, “Oh my god, I everything now from here on in!” But it’s a real slow burn, because the character of Walter, of the synopsis, the young man who starts from romantically pursuing Erika, we don’t meet him for, you know, a good fifteen, twenty minutes.
LAETITIA Yes, yes.
GEMMA Nothing—well, nothing happens—everything happens. There’s lots of, you know, eye-acting between Isabelle and Benoît. But it’s, you know, it takes a long time. I mean, for the first fifteen minutes, it’s really about setting up our understanding of the relationship between Erika and her mother.
LAETITIA Yes!
GEMMA I mean, Isabelle was 48, I think, when she made this film. Looks amazing for 48...
LAETITIA Agh, yeah.
SLIM She looked incredible.
GEMAM God! And so what we’ve got here is this brilliant, brilliant musician, a brilliant and quite sort of brutal and cold teacher, who’s clearly not really been able to get it on with anyone ever anywhere on of living with this mother who’s... I don’t know, has issues with her daughter ever wearing anything nice or going anywhere... [Gemma laughs] You know, she’s quite—
LAETITIA Don’t they share a room at some point? Or like, share a bed?
SLIM Yeah, they share a bed too.
GEMMA Basically share a bed, yeah. But as Jack’s Facts writes... [Gemma laughs] He gave us notes to talk about this film with you and his first note is: “Have fun!” [Gemma & Laetitia laugh] I’m like, I don’t think anyone should ever say that to anyone watching Michael Haneke film. But yeah, so it transpires—without wanting to get too spoilery—that when Walter starts pursuing Erika, and including getting lessons from her, he’s got one idea of the relationship that he might want to have with her. She has quite a different idea...
SLIM How about Walter, my sweet summer child, you don’t know what you’re getting into. You young buck.
GEMMA Walter, when he’s at the recital, when he meets her, the night he meets her, which is at a recital in somebody’s beautiful home, and everybody’s clapping at the end of the recital. He’s clapping the longest, like he’s sitting there going, “Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!” To the point where his uncle kind of puts his hand on his arm. He’s like, “Whoa, there... Whoa there big boy.” [Gemma laughs]
SLIM I thought this was a gorgeous—this is the first time I’ve seen this—funnily enough, I’m not sure, Laetitia, if you’ve seen Elle that she was in as well.
LAETITIA No! But that has been on my list!
SLIM Add that to your list, move that to the top of your list. So those are the first two movies of hers that I’ve seen, and that can create just like, wow, she goes hard in her films. You know, taboo goes out the window. She doesn’t give a crap.
GEMMA Wikipedia describes Isabelle as “one of the best actresses in the world”. And also, “She is known for her portrayals of cold and disdainful characters devoid of morality...” [Slim laughs] If you—what would you want your ten word Wikipedia entry to say about you?
LAETITIA The same, I would do anything, I would do anything to be like Isabelle! [Laetitia & Gemma & Slim laugh]
SLIM There’s so many shots in this movie, so that recital you mentioned, I love the shots where it’s literally just one take on either character for what looks like three minutes. Like you don’t even get a shot of the other character even when they speak. I thought those were gorgeous. So I’m the same way. I love going into these movies just like completely blind, like this just looked like a love-story based on the cover like, oh, a fun little love story. Repressed love, a piano teacher, they need love. They probably only just practice piano twelve hours a day. It’s much more than that.
GEMMA It’s so much more. I mean, you should have known from Hari Nef’s Letterboxd review, where she writes: “The next time someone asks me if I’m a feminist, I’m just going to tell them to watch this movie.” [Laetitia laughs]
LAETITIA No, it’s true. I mean, there’s a whole, you know, I’ve thought about the whole etiquette around recommending this movie. I’ve given this thought because it changed my life. I love this movie so much. It’s one of my favorite. But then I, you know, went to my trusted group chat was like, you know, my friends, like artist Mitski, and I’m like, “You guys have to watch The Piano Teacher” And she’s like, “Oh... welcome.” She was like, “I didn’t know if it was okay to say “you should watch The Piano Teacher.” And I’ve recommended it to people and say, “Just don’t read anything, go in blind,” and people are always texting, “Why? Also, thank you. But why did you do this to me?” [Laetitia & Gemma laugh]
GEMMA Yeah, why and in what way did it change your life?
LAETITIA I mean, I think the cinematography is beautiful, like all of the scenes. And it’s one, I have so much respect for Isabelle’s acting. It’s so... I mean, you can really see her in her work. And as a non-actress, it’s cool to watch someone act, and be like, “Wow, I don’t know enough about this. But I know that this is masterful.” And I think that that’s like, it’s beyond talent. It’s just watching her—I just believe her in every role that she’s done. She’s like, an unbelievable actress. And watching that alone, and watching her portray this really twisted, but complex character. And the scene in the—and I don’t want to be spoiling at all because I want people to watch this. But the scene in the bathtub like wrecked my world, like it was just... [Laetitia sighs] You just can’t forget scenes like that with acting like that in a story like that. It was mind blowing. And I have been wanting to watch it again. But also, are we in the right headspace? I don’t know... [Gemma laughs]
GEMMA I was thinking, I love all of the scenes of when she’s teaching. And I love the way that she talks her students through what the pieces mean, what the intention of the composer was. And I was thinking, I just need Isabelle Huppert to talk me through every piece of music from now on. Like, I need to put Kendrick Lamar’s new album on and have Isabelle telling me what’s going on rather than Kendrick telling me what—or Twitter—telling me what’s going on with that album, you know? The way she’s like, “It’s cold...” and then demonstrates that on the piano. It’s like, ah, it’s so good! I also wondered if you love this film, because Walter is an engineer who was also a musician?
LAETITIA Maybe, I mean, you know, the whole musical aspect of it was certainly a drawing factor. You know, I was dating someone who was like a composer at the time. And we watched it together and I knew Schubert through that and like all this—so it felt like this whole world that just lumped in with everything. It contributes to the beauty of it for me.
GEMMA Yeah. But is it true that you studied engineering?
LAETITIA I did. Yeah. Yeah.
GEMMA And I was thinking about this character who is, you know, he’s almost too old to be a music student. And they say so in the film, they’re like, “Why does this guy want to come and study here? He’s way too old. He’s not going to have a career at this point.”
LAETITIA Right...
GEMMA Which I thought was a bit brutal, because you’re never too old to be a concert pianist. But, you know, the idea that there’s this person who’s got this whole other career, but he’s got this ion.
lAE Yeah, no, I mean, it’s brutal, but also really accurate, right? Because in classical music, especially it’s kind of this thing you do forever and that’s how you’re good at it. There may be five jobs for it. So to get started late in the game is almost like—but there is a parallel between Walter and I, in just I didn’t start making music until I graduated engineering school. So it was this thing of like, “Wow, I see myself in all these twisted people.”
SLIM Plus Walter thinks he can rock her world. Walter’s like, “Wait until she gets a load of me.” [Gemma & Laetitia laughs] And then it’s the total opposite, Walter. Walter, you don’t even know. You’re so young, Walter! You haven’t experienced life, my friend! My god. [Slim & Gemma & Laetitia laugh]
GEMMA What is that line she says to him? “Never hound the woman you claim to love...” Oof. I mean, I’m guessing you watched this in French, no need for subtitles. But there were lines like—what does he say to her? “You’ve been stuck on my mind like a nut on a bolt.” [Laetitia laughs] Like, ooh... Walter.
SLIM He also says one of the most telling lines I think in the movie, is I think something along the lines of, “What’s in this for me?” which I think is probably the most telling a line about how old he is and how like, he’s so far gone from how relationships work at this stage of the movie.
GEMMA Yeah, the whole “You can’t leave me like this.” Like, I don’t know, if I had a dollar for every time a dude said that to be in my twenties... Like, I can actually. I can. [Laetitia laughs] And you know what? So can Isabelle because otherwise, as Zach Hayes writes on Letterboxd: “I can’t wait for Isabelle Huppert appear to look at me once, killing me instantly.” [Slim & Laetitia & Gemma laugh]
GEMMA This is definitely me on this watch from Dead Ringer: “Why is Michael Haneke’s signature move making me so uncomfortable that I have to keep checking how much time is left in his movies?” [Gemma laughs]
LAETITIA It’s so true. I mean, I just know that I’ll love other—I’ll love Funny Games, but I haven’t been able to watch. I’m just like, how are we doing? You just have to go in, you know? You just have to go into it and it will rock your world. And it’s okay. You’ll process it for a while... And, you know... [Laetitia laughs]
GEMMA Speaking of rocking your world though, I just want to say, like I said in the opening, I squealed when I saw that you were on Letterboxd, because I felt so proud of myself for having quietly gone and discovered you...
LAETITIA Awww.
GEMMA On Bandcamp. And you were my little secret that I was, you know, when you talk about dropping in the group chat, “Have you seen The Piano Teacher?” for me, I’ve been dropping Vagabon in group chats all over town for the last several years. Like, get on board the Vagabon train! So I’m stoked to be talking to you. And you’re having a great start to the summer so far. You’ve got a few gigs under your belt already. You’ve got a Storm King Art Center show in June. How good does it feel to be back out on stage, back out on the road?
LAETITIA I mean, so good. This is what I love doing, you know, most of all. And I, unfortunately, put out an album right before Covid, and so everything was canceled.
GEMMA Unfortunately for you...
LAETITIA Yeah, unfortunately for me... [Laetitia laughs]
GEMMA Fortunately for those of us isolating at home, playing it on repeat every day. I didn’t even put the sweatshirt on—I bought your merch!
LAETITIA Aww, that makes me so happy. I mean, yeah, it’s exciting to be back on the road and to see that, you know, ‘Water Me Down’ has like ten million plays, which is crazy. And I’m like, “Who are these people? I want to see them!”
GEMMA Hi!
LAETITIA And so it’s nice to be back out and see people like singing the words and setting up the shows. And so I’m really looking forward to Storm King and it’s nice to play amongst the art, too. So that’ll be a special show.
GEMMA Have you ever been to Storm King, Slim?
SLIM No. I mean, it has the greatest name in history, I know that much. But I haven’t been there.
GEMMA It’s just a short drive from you. You gotta get out there!
SLIM After we record, I’m heading up there. Soon as we hit stop on this recording.
GEMMA No, no, no, go in June when Laetitia’s there.
SLIM I’m gonna stay there until June. [Gemma laughs]
GEMMA Do you want to be in movies? Do you have ambitions?
LAETITIA Oh, yeah! Oh my god, I’m not—so I have like, people have always told me that I need I need to do like voiceover work. “You need to do voiceover work. You need to do voiceover work.” And I love it. A lot of my friends are actors. But I just think that it’s in my pipeline. It’s only a matter of time. I don’t know if I’m a good actress, but someone will just write the thing that’s perfect for me. [Laetitia laughs]
GEMMA It’s only a matter of time until you’re in some feminists rom-com with Patti Harrison.
LAETITIA Exactly! Like nepotism will get me there and—[Gemma & Laetitia & Slim laugh]
SLIM An American version of The Piano Teacher coming in 2025, starring Leatitia.
LAETITIA My friend Patti will write a sick and demented script and let me be an extra, maybe. [Laetitia & Slim laugh]
GEMMA And you’ll score it. You’ll score that film.
LAETITIA That’s for sure. They better all have me score their projects. So... [Laetitia & Slim laugh]
GEMMA That needs to be in your future. You also, I mean, this is pretty exciting for me because I’m a massive Courtney Barnett fan as well. You opened for her in 2018 on a North American Summer Tour. First of all, how freaking awesome is CB?
LAETITIA Yeah, I mean, legend.
GEMMA We love her. And second of all, out of SXSW this year, I saw a Danny Cohen’s documentary Anonymous Club. I don’t know if you’ve seen it yet.
LAETITIA Ohhh, I haven’t seen it.
GEMMA It’s coming out in a couple of months, and I just want to get that on everyone’s watchlists. It follows Courtney in 16mm film, during that, you know, that period of time—
LAETITIA I this. Yeah, he was on the road back in 2018 filming everything. And in fact, he was also—I wonder if this made it into the film, but he was there when Courtney came over to my recording studio, which is just a garage that I call a recording studio in Los Angeles, and when we were recording ‘Reason to Believe’.
GEMMA Oh my god...
LAETITIA Yeah.
GEMMA I just want to say that Slim is in a basement that he also calls his recording studio. [Slim laughs]
SLIM I was about to make that exact joke. [Laetitia laughs] “Oh, that’s funny you say that because I call my basement a recording studio.” [Gemma laughs] It’s just this dank-ass basement that I’m in right now.
LAETITIA Hey, if it records and you put it out... it’s a studio.
SLIM Thank you. Thank you. I feel empowered right now. I’m gonna keep saying it.
LAETITIA No, I come from Bandcamp world, anything could be a studio.
GEMMA You’re fresh from a Disney Concert Hall show where Liz Phair headlined and Liz and friends, including you, reimagined—and I quote from the concert description—“the lamest hits of Gen X”. [Laetitia & Gemma laugh] What Gen X hit did you reimagine?
LAETITIA I did ‘Linger’ by The Cranberries.
SLIM Ohhhh.
GEMMA Ohhh... my god. I bet that was amazing!
LAETITIA Yeah, it was really special. It was cool. Because, you know, everyone did—I mean, the crowd went up for ‘If It Makes You Happy’, Sheryl Crow, that Best Coast did and Remi Wolf did ‘Loser’ by Beck, I did ‘Linger’ by The Cranberries. It was a whole thing.
GEMMA Are you gonna release that?
LAETITIA It’s funny, people have been like, “You need to release the cover.” I’m like, “Okay... I’m almost done with this album.” [Laetitia & Slim & Gemma laugh] It’s like, I just start putting out covers now.
SLIM Speaking of Gen X hit, I don’t know if there is a better one than Se7en from 1995. David Fincher, written by Andrew Kevin Walker. This is a 4.3 average on Letterboxd. This is like—is the Letterboxd Hall of Fame a thing? Should we coin the Letterboxd Hall of Fame? This is in there, officially.
GEMMA We’re doing it, we’re doing it right now. We’ve just officially opened the Letterboxd Hall of [Fame]. Laetitia, If you could cut the ribbon, we’d be so grateful... [Slim laughs]
LAETITIA Cutting...
SLIM A lot of good marketing opportunities with Hall of Frame. I feel like we need to mentally save that one for some kind of marketing meeting. But 16,000 fans—and this looks like a patented Gemma synopsis.
GEMMA It is.
SLIM I’m not sure if Gemma, you want to read this one or me?
GEMMA You go for it. I wrote it—you can read it.
SLIM Alright, let me let me see if I could do it justice. “In this post-Alien³, pre-Fight Club crime thriller, a soon-retiring homicide detective, the well-read and thoughtful William Somerset, is paired with an eager but far more novice transfer, David Mills, to solve one last gruesome case — of a serial killer whose crimes are based on the ‘seven deadly sins’.” This is the big one. I have vivid memories of this, getting that DVD case. I feel like the DVD probably ran out when I started watching this movie. What about you, Laetitia, how did this get into your top faves?
LAETITIA Yeah, I watched this for the first time in 2020.
GEMMA Whoa! In lockdown?
LAETITIA Yeah, in lockdown. Yeah, yeah, yeah. People were just like, “You would love David Fincher, you would love,” and I hadn’t seen anything. So this was the first one and then I started on a whole tirade. But it was just, I mean, the ending is insane. Just the whole—I just love when a movie has me interested for this long. And I’m in—you know, we can skip over the Kevin Spacey if at all, but it was—
GEMMA Actually, I’m just gonna jump in and read straight from Jack’s Facts description: “Thank god Kevin Spacey playing a total detestable creep here means he doesn’t retroactively ruin it.” And that’s exactly what I thought.
LAETITIA That’s true. That’s true.
SLIM As himself. So this movie is so memed, memeable, did any of that impact your viewing as for the first time in 2020? Or were you able to just kind of sit in and absorb everything for the first time?
LAETITIA Absorb everything for the first time. I’d never heard of this movie before. [Laetitia laughs]
SLIM Oh wow, okay.
LAETITIA I had never seen anything. Again, didn’t read description, didn’t see a trailer, hadn’t heard of it. All I heard was, you should get on David Fincher since you like twisted, weird, like, weird stuff. And I was like, okay cool! And I just got in, and similarly, I think, going into these, that’s the context behind all of my movies, too. It’s like, I’m going in completely out of, you know, I don’t know anything that’s going to happen in any of these four movies when I’m watching it for the first time. So I didn’t get any of it spoiled for me. I did watch it with a friend who had seen it before. And I would see his face, he like knew all the scenes and I would see him like, look at me reacting... [Laetitia & Slim laugh] to certain things. So it’s like, okay, you’re giving it away that something’s crazy is gonna happen. But, that’s about it.
GEMMA This film is in the Letterboxd Top 250 of all time it at number 95. And for very, very good reason. It’s his highest-rated film, Fincher’s highest-rated film. But of course, in of most popular it sits behind Fight Club, Gone Girl and The Social Network. But, wow... It is, it is a big, big film. And I just looked up that Kevin... [mumbles] Spacey stuff, and it seems that actually, the story around him is that he didn’t want his name listed in the opening credits or mentioned in any of the publicity, because he didn’t think that the film was gonna be any good. And also, withholding his name meant that he didn’t have to do any of the publicity around it.
SLIM Yeah, it’s a cool reveal when his character kind of does appear. And Jack mentions this is a formative film for him. I mean, countless white men probably can say the same thing around our age. But this movie, I think I’ve seen this maybe like hundreds of times, when I think back on like my earliest movie, like tapes or DVDs that I owned. But this was probably the first time I’ve seen it maybe like fifteen or twenty years, this viewing.
LAETITIA Wow!
SLIM So it was so fun to see like gritty, David Fincher, like noir, detective stuff. I’m like, “Oh my god, yeah, this movie is good.” [Slim laughs] I kind of like, in my head nowadays, it’s like, “Yeah, Se7en, Se7en, whatever, Fight Club, whatever.” But when you sit down and watch it, you’re like, “Okay, yeah, dummy. This really is a good movie.”
GEMMA I was trying to work out where it’s set, because they never say the name of the town or the name of this, they just talk about like—especially in the scenes with Gwyneth Paltrow’s character, she’s constantly talking about, you know, “Oh, you came here. Oh, David Mills, Brad Pitt, your partner made you move here to this town. I’m sorry about that.” And I was like, what is the city supposed to be? So I looked it up and all I know is that it was shot all over LA, but they just had the rain machines on. [Laetitia laughs]
SLIM God, the rain!
GEMMA The whole time to make it look like this kind of... I don’t know, is it Philly? Sorry Slim. [Laetitia & Gemma laugh]
SLIM But you could say it’s New York. I feel like he could say it’s New York as well. You know, with the amount of rain in there. I mean, the rain is just so suffocating in this movie!
GEMMA Totally! And as Sean writes on Letterboxd: “It’s not a David Fincher film unless there’s a thin layer of filth covering every frame.” Even the library felt a bit dirty...
SLIM No one has cleaned that library in thirty years. Morgan Freeman is sitting in that dirty-ass library.
GEMMA Those security guards are too busy playing cards or listening to Bach...
SLIM I was thinking of the DVD set that I had, I feel like I there being a collector’s box, but the case was one of those notebooks that they uncover. And that was kind of like part of the Collector’s Edition, it’s like a legit notebook almost. You were mentioning—so like thinking about this movie and you mentioned you love messed-up movies, have you seen Climax?
LAETITIA No...
SLIM You need to add Climax to your watchlist.
LAETITIA Wait... what is this? Okay... [Slim laughs]
GEMMA You need to drop that in the group chat.
LAETITIA I was literally—
SLIM Your friends probably have seen Climax, I feel like.
GEMMA Mitski has definitely seen Climax.
LAETITIA I mean... I wouldn’t be surprised... [Gemma laughs]
SLIM I mean, this is in French too!
LAETITIA Oh!
SLIM Gaspar Noé.
LAETITIA Okay, watching it tonight.
SLIM Gemma, what about you? How was your most recent Se7en viewing? How did it go for you?
GEMMA This was my most recent Se7en viewing was only my second Se7en viewing and I saw it first time round in cinemas in 1995. I think I went to like week three or week four of the theatrical because all the boys at the college radio station I was working at were talking about it. All those dang white boys. “Blah, blah, blah...” They were like the 1990s version of a meme. Yeah, and I going and watching it and feeling very, uh... let me describe the ’90s as someone watching movies it as a baby third-wave feminist, single white female. Se7en, like just lots of gruesome murders, loads and loads of, ah, just filth and grime... And I the feeling watching it going, “I know this is a good film. This is an excellent film. But I don’t like it. I don’t like any of this, like, seven deadly sins, gruesome-murder scenario.” [The] Silence of the Lambs, like all of them, you know? It was a very icky time to be going to the movies as a young woman. Watching it now, I’m kind of, it’s almost like—this is gonna sound really terrible. But it’s almost like Disney murders, you know? [Gemma laughs] It’s like—
SLIM It’s tame?
GEMMA Really theatrical, gruesome setups of serial killing that and in the sort of post-Saw franchise world, I’m kind of back on-board with.
SLIM Oh, okay!
GEMMA But what I really love about it, I just love a good reading montage. Like reading is not a very theatrical action, right? But I really, really love when there’s a library in a movie, when there’s someone like a Morgan Freeman sitting down doing a lot of reading and saying to his, you know, much younger, much worse-read partner, “Mills, you might want to read a book.” [Gemma laughs] And then to watch Mills reply—what did he say? “Just because the guy’s got a library card doesn’t make him Yoda.”
[clip of Se7en plays]
MILLS He’s a nut bag. And just because the fucker’s got a library card doesn’t make him Yoda.
SLIM Also, how about the Cliff Notes? Mills buys those Cliff Notes, you have that cop buying those Cliff Notes?
LAETITIA Oh right...
SLIM Amazingly dated reference.
GEMMA That is such a ’90s move, to get the Cliff Notes.
LAETITIA It’s true that you do have to feel kind of safe to watch some movies. You do have to feel kind of like, okay, I’m safe here. This is a movie. It can’t really be too—or at least for me—it can’t really be too real. You know?
GEMMA Yeah, at least in this we’re not seeing the—you know, a lot of movies since then, you see the perpetration of the crimes, but in this, you don’t see the perpetration, you see the, know, the aftermath. The discoveries of the bodies... and then the dicks, as John C. McGinley calls them during their investigating. And I sort of appreciate that. I feel like things have changed a lot. And each decade as filmmakers are trying to work out how to shock viewers even more. You know? So yeah, I’m really on board with that. And also, I think near the beginning, Morgan Freeman’s character Somerset—what a name though, William Somerset—says, “This isn’t going to have a happy ending...” and gets this new partner and then the great destroying of that character begins. It is, you know, a singular piece of filmmaking. It really is.
SLIM The one other thing too, I was going to say was, I always make this reference about how I go to my in-laws, they’re always watching TBS, and there’s like 90 different CSI shows on at any given time. They have like these elaborate, kind of like, evidence rooms, they got super-computers. But like 1995, Somerset, you know, these cops are gonna like the shittiest apartments. You know, it’s like their life sucks. He’s about to retire and it looks like he lives in a hotel room. And it’s like that kind of like, shitty life, dingy-city, dingy-house, and I feel like that doesn’t really happen anymore. It’s kind of like out of fashion. Everyone’s kind of like these amazing lofts, these amazing offices. So it was cool to sit back and kind of rewatch that kind of lifestyle for these cops.
GEMMA Well from one worst person in the world... [Laetitia & Slim laugh] One worst person in the world... the evil crime perpetrator in Se7en to The Worst Person in the World, which is one of the best films of 2022, 2021/2022. Joachim Trier, 4.2 average on Letterboxd. We love this film. We love it so much. “Chronicles four years in the life of Julie, a young woman who navigates the troubled waters of her love life and struggles to find her career path, leading her to take a realistic look at who she really is.” Yet another very boring synopsis that denies what this beautiful film actually is. And I love that you’ve got a really recent film in your top four. So tell us about it.
LAETITIA Yeah, I mean, that slot was empty for a long time. I just wasn’t sure what to put on there. And I saw this film, and I mean from the like, Scandinavian furniture and interiors, all the wood, to the real—a little too real... [Laetitia laughs] relationship, especially—I don’t know, I saw and after the movie just had to kind of sit there for a second. And there was like silence between me and the friend that I saw it. We were just kind of sitting there for a second, just like, “That was a bit too real...” [Laetitia laughs] It was a bit it too real. But yeah, I loved seeing like Julie kind of be a mess and chaotic. And it was frustrating to see a bit, you know? Because it’s almost like when you watch reality TV or something and you’re like, “Come on, there’s so many ways you could have done this. You could have done it this way, you could have done it—” You’re like talking to the person. But it was refreshing to see like such chaos, because it’s also really... it’s really relatable, at least to me... [Gemma & Laetitia laugh]
GEMMA Sydney has a list on Letterboxd titled Please god don’t make me turn 30.
LAETITIA Oh! [Gemma laughs]
GEMMA Which I’m sure you could possibly identify with. It’s got three films on it. It’s got The Worst Person in the World, tick, tick…BOOM! and Bo Burnham: Inside. And that feels accurate.
SLIM This is Neon’s third highest rated behind Parasite and Portrait of a Lady on Fire. This This movie is amazing. I mean, it’s getting Criterion release like next month... [Laetitia gasps] Oh my god. So well deserved. Every scene in this movie is like the most realistic relationship scene in history.
LAETITIAT Yes!
SLIM I mean, you could write a book about that scene where she goes to that party and meets him. And they just like flirt for like, six hours. Oh my god. Movie magic.
LAETITIA Yeah. It really is like, it’s almost like... it’s something that so many people can relate to, but you just like don’t want anyone to know. [Laetitia & Slim & Gemma laugh]
GEMMA Or as Lily writes on Letterboxd: “I’m in this photo and I don’t like it.” [Slim & Laetitia laugh]
LAETITIA Yes! Exactly. You just don’t want anyone to see you like this. But it’s very real! And it—oh boy... oh boy.
SLIM So many Letterboxd reviews to my friends and people that I know in Discords, their reviews came in and being like, “I had to think about this for like a week before I even wrote something,” because like, how do you express yourself with loving this movie without revealing that like, you see yourself in this movie? [Gemma laughs] Not that that’s a negative, really.
LAETITIA Totally.
SLIM But some people are just like, it’s almost like an uncomfortable realization for them. Like, oh... this is me!
LAETITIA This is me, yeah.
SLIM On film!
GEMMA Yeah. It’s sort of like, I was like, tag yourself: I’m the woman dancing at the catch-up and, you know, at the cabin. But I’m also the woman lying on the couch because she’s 40 and tired. But I’m also the guy who collects, you know, physical media. But I’m also that cartoon character with the X for a butt because he’s been censored... [Gemma laughs]
LAETITIA Right, right. I mean, I totally related to like, “Yeah, I want stability. No... I want chaos. No, stability is boring... No, but now I want stability again. I’m so sorry. I let go of stability. But no, I just want to like go crazy.” It’s like this—it’s so... yeah, it’s so good. It’s so good.
GEMMA One of the things I love about this film too, is that often when you are watching film, stories about, you know, people in their twenties, you don’t see a lot of parents, if ever, it’s about the friends, it’s about the roommates, it’s about the workmates. And, you know, our relationships with our parents are so important to who we are, and especially as we get into our twenties and really start to realize that our parents are real people and not just the people who feed and clothe us, you know, whose sole purpose is to look after us. But they were also real people who were also in their twenties once. And I love that, that is part of The Worst Person in the World and part of Julie’s journey is her relationship with her dad, her relationship with her mum, her relationship with her grandmother. It feels really important to have those scenes in there, only short, but they do so much heavy lifting in of who she is at that time in her life.
LAETITIA That’s a good point.
SLIM I also loved and appreciated the successful cartoonist. That’s never really in mainstream movies, like a cartoonist that is paying bills and successful and respected in certain circles, it’s like you never hear about that really.
LAETITIA Yeah, I mean, it was interesting with them both being artists too, and how that worked into their relationship and someone being successful and someone trying to figure it out. It was all just so real. [Laetitia laughs]
GEMMA Yeah, totally. There’s a funny thing that happens, you know, on Letterboxd. Funny—maybe annoying to a certain brand of white dude who often hits the, you know, “Report this review” button. Anyway, after watching Senior Year on Netflix this week, I thought men shouldn’t make movies. But then I ed this film. And of course, when it comes to The Worst Person in the World, men absolutely should make movies. [Gemma & Laetitia laugh] I think all I’m trying to say is, I felt very, very, very seen as a woman and this film made by Joachim and Eskil, you know, written and directed by a couple of blokes who just... get it. It felt—yeah, it just feels full and well-rounded. And a film that has—I don’t know how spoilery we get, how many people have seen The Worst Person in the World at this point. But you know, in a film that has some pretty intense fertility scenarios going on, it is just made so sensitively and so beautifully. But also you said it’s, you know, it’s so realistic, but there’s also a bit of touch of magical realism right in the center of it. That gorgeous scene that, you know, we shouldn’t tell anyone about.
LAETITIA Right, yes. The one.
GEMMA It’s the moment on the poster, it’s the one. Yeah, I’m all I’m all for a moment of magical realism like that.
LAETITIA Yeah!
SLIM So we talked about four movies, amazing films in your top four. But what are some movies that you would recommend to people that haven’t checked out yet? Off the top of your head, can you think of any?
LAETITIA Oh, that’s a good question. I love Pixar’s Inside Out.
SLIM Ohhhh.
LAETITIA I would love to recommend that. I’m trying to see what—
SLIM You just watched The Parent Trap.
LAETITIA Oh, yeah! Oh my god. I mean, okay, I’m a Nancy Meyers stan. So speaking of interiors, like beige, off-whites—
GEMMA Kitchens! Kitchens, kitchens, kitchens.
LAETITIA Kitchens, kitchen islands, marble. [Gemma laughs] It’s like, it’s a thing that just comforts me when I’ve had a bad day. It’s like Nancy Meyers. So I love The Parent Trap. There’s actually a clip of the Lindsay Lohan character, where she’s doing the British accent going viral on TikTok right now that I’m obsessed with. It’s like, “The problem is I have class and you don’t,” or something.
GEMMA Well, I’ve got a very specific question. You watched The Northman...
LAETITIA Oh my god.
GEMMA You write very accurately: “Everyone in this movie looked exhausted the whole time.” [Laetitia laughs] You also write: “I have critiques but you’ll have to call me personally for those.” Well, while we have you on the line...
SLIM On the hot seat.
GEMMA In the hot seat!
LAETITIA Ohhh. Yes, I mean, okay... well, I don’t know if you’d call this a critique. I’m being just a little bit cheeky. There was a lot of grunting... [Gemma & Slim laugh] And a lot of like, male grunting. It also looked like a metal video, which I was kind of into. I was into, but it was this—
GEMMA That scene when they’re in the hot, in the heated—
LAETITIA Yeah, the lava-looking thing.
GEMMA With the waterfall in the background and they’re like naked in the hot water. I was like, this is like some velvet painting! This is hardcore metal.
LAETITIA Yeah, it could have been a little it could have been a Slipknot video. [Slim laughs] But it was a whole thing. But I did think that all of that, there was so much to lead to that scene. And the scene just didn’t—like the final scene just didn’t fully, it wasn’t as rewarding as the journey there would kind of had me anticipating, you know?
SLIM On March fifth, you watched one of the greatest movies ever made. Tell us about Shrek.
LAETITIA Okay... See, when I watched Shrek I was bullied. I was bullied for not—
SLIM No!
LAETITIA I was bullied for not writing a proper review for Shrek. People were texting me—
GEMMA By whom? By whom? Who are these Letterboxd “friends” we should be following and bullying back on your behalf...
LAETITIA I will not reveal them but I will say they are probably musicians you know and love... [Slim laughs] That have bullied me for not writing a full review for Shrek!
GEMMAIt was Courtney Barnett, wasn’t it? Courtney Barnett needs your full thoughts on Shrek. [Laetitia laughs]
LAETITIA They were like, “You cannot just give a star rating to Shrek. You need to tell us what you think.” And so, you know, I did. I was like, I enjoyed it. It was great. I mean, it was my first time seeing Shrek, which is unbelievable. But I’ve been seeing a lot of people be like “Wow, they really chose being ogres over being white.” Which was—it’s just, I mean... [Gemma & Slim laugh]
SLIM That should’ve been your review. That should’ve been your review!
LAETITIA It was enough for me, like wow, yeah, Shrek is just canon. There are lessons to be learned here.
GEMMA Well maybe one day in Shrek 8: Return to the Swamp, they’ll be singing ‘Water Me Down’ as one of the great jukebox pop songs...
LAETITIA Maybe, that would be awesome.
[The Letterboxd Show theme music Vampiros Dancoteque by Moniker fades in, plays alone, fades down]
GEMMA Thanks so much to Sophie Shin for the episode transcript, Moniker for the theme music and Slim for editing out all my gaffs.
SLIM You can find links to all the s and lists and other things we mentioned in the episode notes. Be sure to queue up our other podcast, Weekend Watchlist, new episodes drop Thursdays with Mia and me. We’d love if you felt inspired to leave us a review or rating for our podcast. The Letterboxd Show is a Tapedeck production.
GEMMA That’s it... I’m off to read some Marquis de Sade... [Slim laughs]
[clip of Pretty Woman plays]
EDWARD Any questions?
VIVIAN Can I call you Eddie?
EDWARD Not if you expect me to answer.
VIVIAN I would have stayed for two thousand.
EDWARD I would have paid four. I’ll see you tonight.
VIVIAN Baby, I’m gonna treat you so nice, you’re never going to want to let me go.
EDWARD Three thousand, six days. And Vivian, I will let you go.
VIVIAN But I’m here now...
[Tapedeck bumper plays] This is a Tapedeck podcast.