Rental cars, MapQuest, and road trip disasters [00:00:00]

Nicky P: Welcome everyone to another episode of We Came From Celluloid. I'm Nicky P., here with the man, the myth, the legend. No, I am not talking about Sasquatch or even That person that you were thinking I was going to say. I'm talking about Mr. Brian Bridger. How are we doing today, Mr. Bridger?

Brian Pritchard: Sir, it's a, it's a lovely summer's eve, you know?

Is

Nicky P: That your, is that your way of calling me a douche?

Brian Pritchard: Is that a brand? Yeah, I don't know. No man, like, you know, it's, we, it-

Nicky P: Wouldn't be the first person, just saying.

Brian Pritchard: We're, we're slowly creeping into the handful of, of nice, nice days and nights that we get here in town,

Speaker 3: And,

Brian Pritchard: And so that's a helpful thing.

It's helpful. It's nice.

Nicky P: It was 80 degrees today, and I wanted to end my life Because anytime it's 80 degrees, that's about how I feel

I haven't even asked, so do we have AC in whatever vehicle we're gonna be touring in?

Brian Pritchard: I, assume it's standard issue, you know?

Nicky P: Well, maybe. Hopefully they have it charged

Brian Pritchard: Any rental car, I mean, like, yeah, like that's, you know, modern conveniences. I, I, I have to imagine Bluetooth. I have to imagine, air conditioning.

Right? Like, I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong. I

Nicky P: Haven't done a whole lot of, car rental myself in life, so I just kind of always assume terrible.

Brian Pritchard: No, they don't want stuff to break down on people.

Nicky P: Like they're trying to screw me some way or the other.

Brian Pritchard: I haven't done a lot. I, you know, I did more when I was younger.

I have a memory of, you know, that we would have... I was very lucky to have, you know, even a hand-me-down beater car to drive. But didn't wanna take that on long car trips. My, my grandma used to have a, you know, do the snowbird thing that they, a lot of people do out here and, and go down to Florida for the winter and, had like a A nice little trailer in, I wanna say it was like Winter Park, Florida maybe.

Orlando area. But I would rent cars for that. I remember early days of GPS, I remember plugging in and trying to go to like a Hard Rock Cafe that popped up on the menu, and taking this long drive, and then, just ending up in some weird cul-de-sac that it was like, "What, what is this place?" You know? But yeah, I mean, early, early road trip days, with MapQuest, early GPS, all that sort of stuff.

I mean, even at, at 43 now I'm, I'm, old enough to have gone through some, some transitions in that space.

Nicky's first trip to Cleveland (MapQuest, the Grog Shop, Superdrag, no good outcome) [00:03:30]

Nicky P: I remember coming out to Cleveland, my first time in Cleveland I think as a person, not, not like driving through with my parents for Cedar Point or something. I came out here from Edinburgh with some MapQuest directions looking for the Grog Shop so I could see Superdrag It was a harrowing experience and I never saw Superdrag and had a very bad time

Brian Pritchard: Yeah, like what, what's the drive, from your hometown in New York to Cleveland?

Nicky P: Like three and a half hours. This would've only been like two hours.

Brian Pritchard: Stayed at a sort of tree house hotel in, Syracuse area once. I liked that town. It was nice.

Nicky P: Yeah, Syracuse is an interesting place. My, my little brother lived in there, up in that area for a while. It's, very suburbs.

Brian Pritchard: I remember like from your origin story, like were high school shows part of your thing?

Wasn't it more in college that that really kicked into high gear for you playing with bands?

Nicky P: No. No, no, no. I've played, I've played like shows since I was 14 years old. Like I, I did a lot, like, I mean, did a lot of punk shows when I was 14, and then played bars with my like cover band in like high school.

Brian Pritchard: Are there venues in that, area that, and, and bands that you then still have relationships with?

Nicky P: I can book a show in like where I came up anytime I want Like, there's not, like, venues, venues. There's bars

Brian Pritchard: Are there band- bands and people that would come? Like, you know what I mean? Like, I suppose a venue is one thing, right?

Like, are there, are there still, are you in any way connected to a scene in this other town?

Nicky P: I know a guy who runs a show production company, like, that does the PA and stuff for all the big concerts. That we, we talked about it with Joe when we had, him on. Like, that band he was talking about, The Dreadnecks.

Like, I, I could probably put something together then pretty quickly just 'cause I, I don't talk to those guys, like, specifically, but I talk to people that they would... I c- I could be in touch with them pretty quickly, let's put it that way So, I mean, I don't know that it would be worth it to us necessarily to go through a town like that, but it'd be fun

Beetlejuice country, Escape from Dannemora, and touring as film tourism [00:05:57]

Brian Pritchard: Well, I like travel, Nick.

I like travel, and I'm increasingly intrigued with, you know, scenarios where as we get the hang of this, there's just that question of how, how interests could be combined. And Yeah, there's places like in Vermont, for example. Like I w- I wanna go to Beetlejuice Country, which is up in Vermont. There, there's that TV show that was, from true events.

I'm trying to remember the... Escape to Dannemora or Escape From Dannemora, it's one of the two, which was about like a prison break sort of thing. And, Ben Stiller directed it but isn't in it, before he started that, Apple TV show that he does now, but which I also haven't watched. The one with Adam Scott.

Nicky P: And we can go, we can go see A- we can go see Attica, Attica sometime.

Brian Pritchard: I don't know, other than the, the shout-out in Dog Day Afternoon and sort of broadly understanding the, the nature of the incident, like, yeah. Like what, but, but whatever the prison was from the Dannemora show, like the real prison, they, they did film there.

Nicky P: We, so it, it just, we played in high school, like my football team, like the, we had a JV football game at like Attica High School that overlooks the, the federal penitentiary. Like it's a, the, the high school's on a hill I think, and then down in the valley is the prison. But, essentially it is the site of the bloodiest prison riot in American history.

Attica: the bloodiest prison riot in American history, and JV football [00:07:40]

Brian Pritchard: Yeah. Yep, yep, yep, yep. Are you a Natural Born Killers fan? You like that movie?

Natural Born Killers and Oliver Stone [00:07:46]

Nicky P: I don't dislike the movie. It's a- It's, it's certainly fun, and definitely, like, for the time period in which it came out was, like, fucking way ahead of its time. At least in my opinion.

Brian Pritchard: Yeah, visually at the very least, you know what I'm saying?

Stylistically, it, it, I remember it, it, it felt very fresh and new, the mixing of black and white and animation and grain and, you know what I mean? Like, it was a wild ride, and I, I, I love that movie. But, great prison riot stuff.

Bob Richardson: the cinematographer connecting Natural Born Killers to Casino [00:08:22]

Nicky P: It's Oliver Stone, right?

Brian Pritchard: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's also Bob Richardson, right, who I, I may have talked about, you know, on or off mic, with you a- as far as the cinematographer, director of photography guy that, his lighting schemes and, like, the stuff that you see him experimenting with, 'cause he was Oliver Stone's guy, he at a certain b- point around then becomes Martin Scorsese's guy.

And, and so if you look at, like, 1994's Natural Born Killers right into 1995's Casino, you see visually, a tremendous amount of, of synergy, you know, between them. Sort of like what I was saying in that prior episode about watching, you know, composer Alice- Alan Silvestri do Back to the Future and Predator in the same year, right?

And, and go and, like... Yeah, so you're watching this other artist inside this other artist's work, you know what I mean? Like, I, I, I just, I, I, I like those layers, that you can come at something looking at, at one person's trajectory versus another versus another, you know?

Nicky's IMDb credit, film scoring, and the Sweetment disaster [00:09:31]

Nicky P: I will, hmm, I will speak to this just 'cause it is an actual thing that I've done.

Scoring a film is such a weird task because, you know, you're so used to kind of being in charge of and in control of the mood and the feeling that you're supposed to be evoking in the music that you're creating. So when you have to sit down and, like, do that for somebody else's art, and, like, help them achieve what you believe them to be feeling and trying to communicate in a scene, it is, it is a task like no other, I will say.

I have one IMDb credit to my name for the film Sweetment that one of my college friends directed, and he asked me to, to do the score for. And ultimately, we were doing th- doing this remote from where I lived, and, like- Some of the communication got messed up. He ac- so he kept asking me why all my music sounded like I was doing Quaaludes, and I'm like, "I don't know, man.

That's weird." And I couldn't figure out what the hell he was talking about. His, his engineer there didn't check to s- didn't check or ask me what rate I was recording my material at, and I was recording them at a higher sample rate than they were. And so when he put them into his system, it played everything at, like, half speed.

So, like, I go through the trouble of creating a score for this movie, and when it eventually gets kind of put into the movie, everything is, like, half as fast as it's supposed to be and just weird and trippy, and... And it's just, like, I was dealing with a guy in, like, Minnesota or something. I lived in Upstate New York, and, like, we only ever talked online and dealt with things in emails and stuff.

So it was just weird when I got the final copy of the movie. I'm like, "And that really isn't what I put in there, but, I mean, I guess it's cool that it worked."

The Terminator theme, broken loops, and intentionally annoying NIN songs [00:11:48]

Brian Pritchard: Dude, th- you know, that reminds me of the original, Terminator theme. I think Brad Fiedel is the composer from that movie. But, the original Terminator from, I guess, I think I- '84, something inside the loop, because looping technology was, like, you know, still being developed, it's like it's not in at any sort of actual correct meter.

You know what I mean? That, like-

Nicky P: Yeah, I remember.

Brian Pritchard: Yeah. I, you know, that it's, it's not any, like, actual time signature that makes sense. It's like it's missing a beat, and every time it loops, it's, like, getting more and more, like, out of step, you know? And I don't know.

Nicky P: Yeah.

Brian Pritchard: There's a really cool Nine Inch Nails song, where they did something similar.

It's, it's very annoying actually 'cause, I don't know, they, they, they, like, do, like, a five-minute loop at the end where they cut off the, like, last beat of, like, a four-measure phrase, you know what I mean? It's just, like, uh. Like, like, it's intentionally just, like, annoying, you know? I don't know. It's funny.

Beat-switching YouTube videos and why they make Nicky insane [00:13:02]

Nicky P: Dude, so y- you, maybe you can speak to this. So my daughter watches these videos, and they drive me bonkers as, like, a musician. But she watches a lot of music where they purposefully switch beats one and three with two and four. So they cut an entire song up and, like, every beat is... Cut about, put it before the beat that came before it.

Like, so it's... Oh my God, dude, it is the craziest cacophonous crap in the world, it drives me insane, and somehow she listens to this stuff. But it's like listen to the song All Star, but beats one and three and two and four are switched. And you're like, "Why would anyone subject themselves to this?"

Phone: Try again.

Speaker 3: Yeah,

Brian Pritchard: I mean, in, in the world of, like, mashups and other concepts, I, I get the game. It's... It doesn't grab me. You know? That's weird.

Crispin Glover's blacked-out text books and creative extraction [00:14:28]

Nicky P: It makes my head hurt. I can't-

Brian Pritchard: Yeah, no, it, it... I guess that's even why I'm, I'm turning it off, like, fairly quickly. I, I'm, I'm very much intrigued by the concept of being able to extract work from another piece of work.

Like, an example that, that I remember, I remember a creative writing class that I took in high school where they gave us, like, a poetry assignment, which was to take an existing poem, and they let you include song lyrics as poetry, which, you know, it was always fun when it... A class would be like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah.

We'll let you fucking pick your favorite song lyrics. Go ahead." but, but, but the idea was to, like, take the song lyrics and, like, highlight the words within it that then formed a new phrase or poem, you know, inside the existing thing. And, that's, you know, to, to, to me, like, there's, there's a similar game being played in th- in that example or in mashups where people are, are looking at the, like, raw ingredients of a thing and, and, and pulling them apart that way.

And, all that stuff is, is to me some of the, the, the great fun of the age that we're in. Have I ever talked to you about doing, like, mashups as far as, like, trying to make my own music videos and, and things like that? Did we ever talk about that stuff?

Brian's signed copy of Oak Mott [00:16:03]

Nicky P: Probably at some point. Before we get off topic, though, like, I- i- you're talking here, and-

Brian Pritchard: That's the topic

Nicky P: Have we ever talked about, those Crispin Glover books?

Brian Pritchard: Oh, th- you know what? That did pop into my mind, but I figured that's, that's such an obscure example. Like, like, you know what I mean? Like, not that my creative writing class is, like, everybody knows that technique. But, yes, years later I did go to one of Crispin Glover's slideshows.

I do have a signed book, where he was doing, like, a version of that where he's blacking out everything except certain words, and he was modifying the pictures. Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant stuff. I loved that series, yes

Nicky P: Well, I, to what I, to what I understood, there were actually, there were sections where, like, he, he'd, like, cross stuff out and then write in new stuff in its place, like, the, the sections that he'd add to.

The, the whole thing was just wild to me, just... Well, that's a really, really entertaining concept, like, taking somebody else's work and then just kind of pushing it to become something very different by just, like, extracting and adding your own stuff. So, and, and, and with his, with his weird mind too.

Brian Pritchard: It's one of those things now where I'm sitting there, like, going, "The moment this is over, I, I have to go, like, confirm that it is sitting where I think it is on my shelf upstairs in the movie room."

But yeah, I h- I have a copy of Oak Mott, I believe, was the title, and, the mixture of photographs and text and, and you're right, like, like, stuff that he would add in. And, there were several others, and I've... You know what, what's, what's wild to me is that to this day he will still send out the same email in the same, you know, old, old-looking format, that he's been sending out for the last 20 years.

And, and he's been, like, promising this movie, like, will be coming soon or whatever, that, that... It was a weird movie. Did you, did you ever go see his-

The Crispin Glover snail murder film [00:18:08]

Nicky P: The one that he filmed with, like, the autistic children?

Brian Pritchard: Yeah, and, like, pouring salt on s- snails. I, I, I, remember, I remember that, like, it was, it was filming m- snail murder, and, like, Fairuza Balk was voicing this snail, like, just to do, like, the screams and be like, "Please, please stop," you know?

And it was like, it was, it was, you know, it was kinda awful to be honest.

Psychotic or auteur? Trying to understand Crispin Glover [00:18:33]

Nicky P: He's one of those people that has always, he's always fascinated me in the world of Hollywood because, like, in a, in a place that is just so based on, like, you know, how pretty you are and nepotism to, like, the nth degree, he's existed, like, in this weird, like...

I'm never sure if he's not completely psychotic or if he's just truly an auteur and, like, the, the ar- artist of the highest order. And like, to the point where like he'll, he, he will make things more difficult for people around him, like as an actor, where he, he just, he, he has to have things his way, his particular way sometimes.

Or if it's just like him trying to make things difficult for people around him to be like the wrench in the machine because he just doesn't agree with like the machine. Like it's, I, trying to understand his mind is just always so weird.

The Letterman roundhouse kick story — from Glover's own mouth [00:19:39]

Brian Pritchard: There w- there, there was an aspect that came across to me as kind of sweetly naive.

Clearly he's sort of a mischievous type as well, but like a provocateur. But what I want to share that I remember from that, that event is he told a couple stories about, the '80s, and one of them was the David Letterman appearance, and he talked about how it's like he w- wasn't, like he's like, "Everybody's always accusing me of being like on drugs or out of control," and he's like, "To me, it absolutely was a performance art piece that like people did not understand and, and David did not enjoy.

I didn't let him in on what was gonna go on, and when I showed up and started doing roundhouse kicks, Letterman like was not happy and didn't want me back, and like I should've warned them about what I was gonna do, and I was just, I was young and I was trying to like do something cool." And I think about like 20 years later or whatever, 30 years later maybe, do you remember when Joaquin Phoenix went through the weird bearded rapper phase?

Yeah?

Joaquin Phoenix's bearded rapper phase as the same tradition [00:20:46]

Nicky P: I thought that was just to make a movie.

Brian Pritchard: But no, at first he was showing up on talk shows going, "This is just who I am." Like he l- he did it as performance art, absolutely before the movie was announced. It was first like a thing where people were, were going, "What? What is this? What's happening?" So I'm saying like, you know, and, and you've got Andy Kaufman, so it's like th- it, there's a tradition of that in the world that I feel like Crispin Glover was trying to plug into and, and it got sort of misconstrued.

And then the other thing I remember him sharing with Back to the Future that was, it, interesting was-

Nicky P: Do you think it's p- you think it's because he is just such a true eccentric that like even he doesn't necessarily get the real joke? He doesn't understand why it's funny because it's funny to him in a different way than it is everybody else.

Back to the Future 2, equal pay, and the decade Glover lost [00:21:38]

Brian Pritchard: Yeah, and, and, and to that end I suppose in some respects he, he, he, just to even finish the thought and spit it out, that he, he talked about feeling like an equal in Back to the Future's success, and that when they came back for part two, um- He wanted to, he, and, and asked for equal pay to, Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd, and they laughed him out of the room.

And so he was like, "Well, fuck you guys," and, and didn't do it. And, and they replaced him with s- that other actor, and then they still used footage of him without his permission, and so he sued them, and like other, other shit that, again, kind of contributed to wrecking his career and reputation as being difficult, right?

Yeah.

Charlie's Angels, McG, and Glover's career resurrection [00:22:31]

Nicky P: But it's not like he's ever stopped working. Like, even, what is it, you know, how many, however years ago was it they had the, the new, they did that f- TV version of American Gods, and he played one of the, one of the characters in that show.

Brian Pritchard: But it, it, it maybe put a 10-year pause on his career. I feel like Charlie's Angels is what brought him back, right?

Charlie's Angels, that thin man thing, s- whoever McG or whatever asshole gave him a fucking shot again in Charlie's Angels is the guy that swooped in and, and saved that guy. Yeah.

Nicky P: Do you know who, do you know who McG is?

Brian Pritchard: I, I was just even trying to remember if McG was the asshole that made Charlie's Angels.

I think he is. Didn't, isn't he another, like, Me Too creep?

Nicky P: He, he is He's super- he's from Supernatural. Like, pr- like, directed I think most of that series, all 15 seasons

Brian Pritchard: Didn't he's, ultimately though get, get, you know, isn't he another name of, of, like, a shitload of women coming out and being like, "Yeah, he kinda fucked me."

Nicky P: Well, I mean, here's part of the problem. Here's part of the thing, is that I would have no idea because after a while I kinda stopped giving a shit. Like, it was just everybody and everybody, and they're coming at you too fast. It's like I, I don't have the energy to care about all this. It's, on top of that it's like it's Hollywood drama type shit, so it's just like unfortunately I'd, I'd love to, to be the nice guy and say, "Oh, I care about everyone," but it's like f-

Brian Pritchard: I'm always laughing when I'm around, like, sports people.

And which, you know, it's rare that I'm watching a sports event with sports people, but when I am I realize that they do the same hero worship kind of thing and, and, and, and wanna be wrapped up in the narratives. That, like, there's been countless times where people wanna turn to me and start telling me why I should be emotionally invested in the story underneath the story.

Like, "It's not just the game, dude. It's that, like, those guys, they used to go to school together but now they're on op- opposite teams, man. And, like, this is a rivalry. Like, it goes way deeper than that, dude. Like, it goes..." You know.

Nicky P: It's all professional wrestling.

Brian Pritchard: To me, my point is just that, like, I think, you know, people are always attracted to, like, their stories, and that for some people sports are still their stories.

They th- they think that they don't like stories. It's like, "No, I don't care about, you know, TV's, like, stories." It's like-

Nicky P: Yeah, no, no, no, absolutely. Well, dude, like, we always used to joke. So, like, I'd play, go play Dungeons and Dragons and all that stuff, and that was always fun to me. And then, like, my roommates would pick on me and then rattle off fucking 300 different stats for every player on the field.

I'm like, "Oh." That's just your Dungeons and Dragons. Like, you've, you've memorized all the stat tables for something, just not something entertaining to me. I think dragons are cooler than guys in helmets.

Brian Pritchard: Exactly. And, and, and so in the same way that I'm able to rattle off like, Terminator 1 came out in 1984, Terminator 2 is 1991, Terminator 3 is '99, you know what I'm saying?

Like, I, you know, like, whatever. Like, yes, we all memorize our stats about the things we care about. I know I've talked on here about that old Movie Hound guide, Leonard Maltin's giant phone book, the original hard copy of IMDb, and I, I studied that thing, you know what I mean? Like, not quite cover to cover crazy, but like, not far off either, right?

So...

Nicky P: See, and for me, for me it was always music. Music was the thing that, like, I dug into. I wanted to be Matt Pinfield so bad as a kid. I w- I wanted to be a, a bald, chubby guy who knows everything there is possibly to know about music that's ever been. Could tell you who was in every band that's ever existed, even the ones that, like, you've never heard of because you're just that good.

Like, some hometown band for some k- like, this place in Minnesota nobody's ever heard of, and I know the three bands that, like, inspired this, this garage band that's d- led by some guy who works at the local brewery because I'm just that, that thorough.

Tarantino as the ultimate fan-turned-artist [00:26:58]

Brian Pritchard: And, and when I think about the attraction, like, Tarantino kind of feels like, my, my guy in that respect, growing up and, and to an extent to this day, you know?

Like, even as I've continued to discover other filmmakers, I f- I love revisiting his work and can't wait to see what he do, does next. And, you know, I, I, even as much as people have turned him into kinda clickbait and he, you know, kinda sticks his foot in his mouth a- anymore, but I, I, I love, I love that he doesn't even care about that stuff, you know what I mean?

But, I, I guess my, my point is more that, that the, the common ground between the two is just the idea of we, we grew up in a time where fans were be- were becoming artists, that, like, pop culture had a, a long enough tail that it was amongst the first round of that, you know? That it wasn't pioneers anymore exactly.

I mean, certainly to the extent that, like, the '70s, like, film brat generation was inspired by John Ford and Howard Hawks and Hitchcock and, and those. Still, by the time you're getting to the '90s, it's far expanded. And then, and then I love seeing that stuff today. I, I, I love seeing the way another 20 or 30 years of film stew gets, um- deconstructed and put back together to tie it back into the YouTube and mashup of it all, right?

Like that, that's the thing that all of us are doing, is we're taking our favorite stuff and we are saying like, "I'm a fan. What do I like? I wanna recreate the experience of, of what it is to love a work of art, and I wanna create that for other people." You know?

Fans becoming artists: pop culture's long tail [00:27:49]

Yes, and... Hollywood lost the plot when it lost lived experience [00:28:46]

Nicky P: Yes. Yes and no. So, no, th- to, to comment, to comment, I think the thing that everybody has always loved about Tarantino- "

Brian Pritchard: Yes, and" is how you do the improv game, not "yes and no."

Nicky P: Yeah, I'm not doing the improv thing. I'm, I'm not that. I'm not from that world. Never done a single improv, never intend on it. No, but the thing about Tarantino always was that Tarantino felt like a guy who just loved movies, and like that's why he was such a good avatar is because he was the guy. He, he was you.

Like, you know, he- someone who really appreciated that stuff and cared about it. So that's a great notion. However, like we've, we've, we've done something where we've moved past, and this is part of why I do think Hollywood mostly screws things up now, is because we have a generation of people that are disconnected from like real people.

Like, they're like movie fans that have never lived anything resembling a real life. Like, their entire lives have been centered around Hollywood. Like, they're related to somebody famous, they're know somebody, that's how they got into the industry, and they've never actually lived a life. They've never done the park and shop job like, you know, Kevin Smith.

They've never worked at the video store like, you know, Tarantino. All they've ever done is, you know, basically be part of Hollywood, like they leeched off their parents that were in part of the industry or wanted to be part of the industry. And there's so many people like that now that are like trying to write that have never lived anything, and that's why I think you're seeing like so many people...

Like what's that kid who just released Obsession? It's like one of the biggest movies in the w- in, in, in the, of the year that he recorded like for almost no money, and he was a YouTube guy. You've got, what's his, name? The guy who did that, video game. It was based on a vide- movie based on a video game where they're like in an ocean of blood on a planet or whatever.

He had like a, an, an, a, Amazon Prime special. The guys that did that movie, what was it? Uh- Talk to me. You know, they were YouTubers.

The YouTube-to-Hollywood pipeline (Talk to Me, Obsession, Markiplier) [00:31:08]

Brian Pritchard: Nick, I don't know, this is all Hollywood gossip to me.

Nicky P: No, no, that's the thing. Like, all this, your... These are people, they're- that's YouTube gossip in a way, but it's, like, people that, like, cut their teeth in a world completely outside of that system, and they're the ones, they're the only people making money in that system now.

You know? It's, it's people that-

Brian Pritchard: You know, I wish there was still a good movie magazine, 'cause I, I don't feel like I'm necessarily getting to know these people other than through their bonus features, which doesn't really always get into origin story stuff, you know? Like, my point is, like, in a way, like, when, when I hear what you're saying, the only name that comes to my mind, and I'm not sure without looking it up and googling it if it's even right, is, like, Josh O'Connor, or Josh Trask maybe was the dude's name.

Whoever did that Fantastic Four, one that was in between the '90s one and the new one with Pedro Pascal. There was another one that was Fan-4-stic. And, that guy I remember 'cause I heard him interviewed on Kevin Smith, was, definitely what you describe, where it was like his parents were corporate employees at some level within Fox.

And I remember being really struck by that notion of going, "Oh, that's interesting." The, the, th- those are corporations that have office buildings and they've got whole staffs of people, and like other types of networking, suddenly people are one degree of separation away from certain decision-makers. You know what I mean?

And, and access points. But I, I don't fundamentally fault anybody. I really think the nepo baby shit is, is an, a, such an eye roll in a world where everybody, like I'd say just without overthinking it, 50% of more of all human beings in America do what, whatever the fuck their parents do for a living ends up being what they do for a living.

So it's, you know what I mean? The idea of like a- an actor's kid-

Nicky P: No, no, but, but so you're m- I, not to misunderstand me. I don't care. I'm not mad at the people for doing it. By all means, that's kinda what happens. But I do think that it's caused a, like-

Brian Pritchard: No, but you're saying it impacts the product quality because they haven't lived a life to be telling a story anybody to, that would resonate with.

No, I get that. I understand that.

Nicky P: Yeah. I'm not mad at them for doing it. It's just a, it's just a sad byproduct of it. But like I feel, like I said, I do feel the change 'cause like Gen Alpha, like all the YouTubers that they watch, those people are like coming up and doing like actual stuff in, in Hollywood that's actually making money because it's so different from anything that's been done.

They've lived life in a lot of some ways. Like, they've done things. And even if it's like in a weird kind of pseudo-parasocial way, like- It's at least different, and so it registers in your brain different. It's, like, not just somebody rehashing all the same stuff over and over again.

Do you need to be old to make great art? [00:34:12]

Brian Pritchard: Yeah, I, I don't wanna rule out for, a, a 20-year-old or a 25-year-old to be able to make a masterpiece.

Like, you know what I mean? I, I... The idea of years lived in and of itself doesn't prevent, from my perspective, somebody from, making great, great resin in, in music or in film. It's not even purely age. So like, like, well, some of, some of these guys, like I said, like Backrooms, I think is, is maybe the one you're thinking of, unless Obsession is also a really young kid.

I haven't seen either one yet, but-

Nicky P: No, I... No, I'm, I'm saying there's been, like, there's been, like, seven or eight of these kids that have done this. Obsession is just the newest one because, like, it's out right now.

Brian Pritchard: Okay. Yeah, no, and I'm just saying good for them, and I don't know that all of them are rich kids that, you know, had it easy.

I have no idea if that's true across the board.

Nicky P: I don't think, I don't... That's what I'm saying. These guys, that's what I'm saying. These kids aren't. They're just people who became YouTubers and, like, managed to get the art out there, and, like, they're the break in the system.

Brian Pritchard: Well, yeah, I, I don't know. I'm sorry.

I guess I don't even know who you're thinking of. Who are you thinking of that falls into that example of, like, Hollywood, like, kids?

Nicky P: Yeah, Markiplier. That's the one I'm, like, the one I'm really thinking of. Well, no, what, there's, like, an... I said that. Who did, who did that movie Obsession? I've gotta look it up now because it's gonna bother me if I can't do it.

Um-

See here. Do you, have, have you ever heard about this movie Like the, the nerd makes a wish that, like, the girl, whatever he's into will love him whatever, forever

Oh yes, and yeah, and this, who's this kid? Curry Barker's the director of this movie, and this thing just did stupid good. And this kid, like I see in my reels on my, my phone all the time. He's like always working

Brian Pritchard: No, I'm gonna go s- I'm gonna go in cold to both of them. I actually don't really want to, want to know more.

My, my, my daughter saw Obsession. She wants to go back and see it again, so I'm gonna catch that with her this weekend. And, I think like Saturday or Sunday. Let

Nicky P: Me know what you think, 'cause I, that's one that I, I generally wanna see it. But it's like, it's for, for me, like I, I, because I've got a kid who watches, of the age to watch these people, and has seen them come up, I'm seeing so many of these people with really original ideas.

Like, I don't know if you ever watched, the, was it, Talk to Me? It was one of the most interesting horror movies I'd seen in years when it came out, and it was, when again, it was these two dude- I think they're Australian guys, that like came up making videos on YouTube, and eventually, like they kept escalating.

Like their channel would grow. They'd make, get more money to do bigger and bigger productions. And to the point where now these guys like are, you know, they'll get a couple million dollars, but they're making... Like I can't even remember. Like I, I wanna say like th- th- this was like a less than $20 million movie, and made like, over $138 million its first weekend or something like that.

Just something stupid.

Brian wants young filmmakers on the show [00:37:27]

Brian Pritchard: Well, I'd love to, you know, we should... I'd love to bring my son and some of his, young filmmaking community into the mix at some point. Ben, Ben has made his own stuff. He's also been an actor in, the work of another guy who's made like a Western and some horror movies and like, you know, has been building a body of work and, you know, might, might be fun to get some perspectives.

In the same way that I was looking forward to talking to Murder D- Drome, and still am about, about what stuff are, are you thinking about, you know, as a young 20s band right now, like how are... I, I'm curious. I, I, yeah, I'm curious about young people's perspectives. So in, in the future we will get them all.

Wrapping up; lots on the horizon [00:38:20]

Nicky P: 'Cause we're dads, everybody. Well, this episode got long in the tooth in a way I didn't expect it to, but I'm, I'm not mad. I'm in a better, a better mood than I was when we started, too. So thank you everyone for listening to us this week. We shall be back. Lots of things on the horizon for the show.

Hopefully you're prepared and ready. I, I, I see a lot of good things happening here, and I'd like every one of you to be a part of it. So have yourselves a good one.

Brian Pritchard: And we're turning it into music and podcast for you