The Big Picture · Discussion · Interview
April 11, 2019/ 57 min/ Sean Fennessey
Sean and Lindsay Zoladz work through what makes a rock movie work, biopic vs. invented world, before Sean sits down with Elisabeth Moss and Alex Ross Perry on their third film together, 'Her Smell.'
35 films across 2 segments.
AI-generated This episode was transcribed and analyzed with AI models. The matches aren't perfect — expect the occasional misheard title or a link to the wrong film.
What Makes a Rock Movie WorkSean Fennessey with Lindsay Zoladz
Elisabeth Moss and Alex Ross Perry's film about Becky Something, a rock star in the Courtney Love mold who isn't Courtney Love. The frame for the whole conversation: fictionalized-but-inspired-by vs. the Bohemian Rhapsody-style biopic.
Max Minghella's pop-star story, Elle Fanning in the lead, opening the same week.
The biopic Sean and Lindsay measure everything else against: a huge hit despite being, in their view, dull and Oscar-shaped.
Brady Corbet's Natalie Portman pop-stardom drama. Lindsay isn't a fan: she thinks Sia's songs for the film sound like Sia songs, not like 2001 pop.
Todd Haynes' glam-rock film, which Lindsay ranks well above Vox Lux: Christian Bale, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, and Ewan McGregor as an Iggy Pop type. Less about the David Bowie figure than about fandom itself.
Cited as the model for centering the fan rather than the star.
Not strictly rock and roll, but Sean likes it for the same reason: it's about the slow, failure-strewn construction of a musician, not just the glory.
Prince playing a version of himself under another name: the space between the movie's world and the real one it's clearly referencing.
Sean's pick for the one-hit-wonder rise-and-fall story; he credits the fact that the songs are genuinely good, not just plausible.
Brian De Palma's rock-opera horror-comedy with songs by Paul Williams. Lindsay's been thinking about it alongside Vox Lux and Her Smell for how early it cast the music business as literally demonic.
Comes up as the more famous cousin to Phantom of the Paradise, which actually predates it.
The historic example of straight satire still holding up.
The Lonely Island's pop-star spoof, a box-office failure that's built a strong cult afterlife.
One of the self-serious 'music of' movies Lindsay says hasn't aged well, alongside Tommy and The Wall.
Lindsay's case for why she doesn't love most rock biopics: this Who documentary already has the real performance footage a biopic can only approximate.
Lindsay's favorite biopic of the bunch. She credits the performances for elevating it.
Sean's favorite side-door biopic: about a record executive, so it gets close to the artists without being about them.
The Joy Division film. Sean calls it a beautiful, deeply dark movie, though he's not sure it's the movie he wants about Joy Division specifically.
The Elton John movie, still a month from release, raised as the next big communal-theater music event after Bohemian Rhapsody.
Gaspar Noé's dance-music freakout, another movie Sean and Lindsay talk about for how it lands as a physical, in-theater experience rather than for the story.
The Ramones movie. Lindsay loves it for capturing the band's spirit of youthful rebellion without taking itself seriously at all.
Sean's advance rec from CinemaCon: Jessie Buckley as a Scottish woman chasing a country career in Nashville.
Lindsay's closing pick and the segue into 'Her Smell': teenage Diane Lane and Laura Dern front a punk band. A cult movie she says helped seed the riot grrrl scene. Kathleen Hanna and Tobi Vail reportedly watched it together as teenagers.
In Conversation
Their third film together, and the longest shoot of the three: four weeks, each of the five acts rehearsed for a day and shot chronologically within itself, though the acts weren't shot in story order. Perry says the idea started in 2015 as a two-word text: 'rock star mother addict.' Moss studied guitar for five months to look like she could play, working from a script she calls note-perfect, with no improv, even in Becky's ranting.
Their prior collaboration, the one where the 'Her Smell' idea first occurred to Perry. He floats it, half-joking, as the ideal double feature partner.
Perry's dream-double-feature pick: Becky Something as 'the bride of Plainview.'
Perry calls it a direct influence on 'Her Smell,' both structured as discrete, theatrical acts: three for Danny Boyle's film, five for theirs.
Perry names it again as a visual and stylistic touchstone for the film, unprompted. It's the same pick Lindsay Zoladz closed the first segment with.
Not films filtered out: TV, games, ads
TV Mad MenThe Handmaid's Tale
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