February 20, 2025 • 26 mins
Aaron is joined by Chris Haskell from They Live by Film and Punk Vacation to talk about Miramax and how they laid the groundwork for A24 to become a major independent film player.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You are now listening to the Someone's Favorite Productions podcast network.
All right, I'm here with Chris Haskell. Chris, welcome to
the A twenty four New Wave. You are episode here
and have it going good? Episode five. I think I'm
already I'm losing count already.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
That's a good sign of.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
This new podcast. Thank you. So, Chris, We're on the
same podcast network together and I've been on one show
with you. But would you like to tell our audience
what you're about? What you do?
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (00:35):
How you nerd out? I guess whatever you want?
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Thanks. Funny enough. A lot of the stuff that Meer
Max and Sony Classics put out in the early two thousands,
late nineties was kind of my film school. That's really
when I started getting into movies a lot. And I've
told this story before, so sorry for people that have
heard it, But I worked at a Blockbuster and I
was the only person that wasn't a film mejor there.
(01:00):
So a combination of kind of being like the golden
age for indie studio production and then seven other film nerds.
That was my film school, and I came in through Criterion.
For the most part, everybody was super big on like
what you would typically learn about in film school, you know,
(01:22):
I say exactly exactly. And right around that time, Anchor
Base started producing these beautiful limited edition sets, and Blue
Underground had some. There was a company called Fantoma that
had some, and obviously Shout was around then too, and
so I just kind of got into collecting a little bit.
(01:43):
And I've always been interested in them more from like
a collection mindset, like something that would hold value, not
just like the five dollars bin at Walmart thing. I
have no issues with that. I'm just saying, like the
way my brain works, I've always kind of I would
rather save up and just get the collector's edition of it.
And as DVDs died down, I kind of got out
of the habit because I saw less and less of
(02:05):
those coming out. And then twenty nineteen, eighteen nineteen, I
just checked about how the industry was doing. I was like,
holy hell, like arrow was around and all of a sudden,
and vinegar syndrome was around, and Severn and blah blah blah,
you know all this. And so I've been really for
several years now again really diving deep into the collection side.
(02:25):
And during the pandemic, Adam Lundy and Zach Bryant and
I started a podcast just talking about watching movies and
interviewing a lot of the boutique labels called they Live
by Film. We're still doing that, and I have a
I love genre film and like exploitation film, and like
(02:46):
I have a particular interest in like the Vinegar Syndrome
and Severn World and seven already has a great podcast,
listen to it if you're not anybody who's listening, and
Vinegar Syndrome doesn't have one. And I was a subscriber
for several years, and I thought, hold on a minute,
there's like a huge community, like it's a it's a
(03:07):
degenerate but thriving discord. And I was like, I think
I'm just gonna do it and try to build a
community of people that may have an interest in like
the adult films. And so we have you know, different
hosts come on that have like they they love merch
or they love the adult films, or we bring like
a lot of people from Vinegar Syndrome in, or we
(03:29):
bring a lot of the special features, the people that
do a lot of special features with Vinegar Syndrome, we
bring them on, or other podcasters that talk about it
a lot and have it, you know, so they's just
become this fun sort of community of people that are
geeking out about these types of no budget or low
budget movies that have or weird studio films that got
buried because they got a three point zero one, you know,
(03:52):
rotten tomatoes, But if you watch them again, you're like,
holy hell, this is kind of fun. So yeah, that's
what Punk Vacation is the name of it, and that's
we've been doing. Thirteen episodes comes out twice a month,
and it's been fun. The reception has been great and
definitely feels long overdue, so nice.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
So for people that don't know, because our audience are
this is new too, but so far our audience seems
to be a mixture of all kinds of people, so
just ficionados that watch you know, Pearl or which Becky
had for her birthday that was awesome, or and there's
also collectors there, but there's also casual fans. But Nato
(04:31):
Syndrome is a label that has I guess you could
say they slant towards cult films, but they also do
some mainstreams. I mean, yeah, so like Bang the Drum
Slowly is a big film that's coming out in one
of the cinema cinemagraph and yeah, a few like that,
and oh The Keep was a big one or was that?
Severn right, You're right, yeah, I think yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
The way that I like to kind of sum them
up is they are a they started as an archive,
so they didn't start as a physical media house. They
started by acquiring thousands of films. I think it's around
ten thousand and so they're an archive first, and they
do a lot of preservation work and restoration work, and
(05:17):
at least three people on staff are actually have like
a degree in film restoration. So these are you know,
they're hardcore like librarian, preservationists, historians. But what their focus
is on just, you know, the kind of cinema that
a lot of other people aren't focusing on. So I
(05:39):
used to say they give genre films and exploitation movies
and like lower budget regional horror or shot on video
SolV I used to say they gave those movies the
criterion treatment, just to kind of put it in perspective.
I think that's fair, And now it's like debatable that
they might even be doing a better job than Criterion,
depending on who you ask, But the point is, like
(06:00):
both companies are necessary, right, because you know, I just
the one car Wise set. Although there are some issues
with the color grading, that set is beautiful.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
It's amazing. Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Criterion, like those are beautiful sets, and Vinegar Syndrome is
doing the same thing for exploitation movies, right, So yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
It's great stuff. So I often say, what a time
to be alive? You have all these And that's actually
that's a good segue into the book because part of
this whole New Aid premise is that people like us
have had access to libraries of films film archives that
previous generations didn't. So a lot of Gen X millennials even,
(06:39):
and now we're starting to see some gen Z actually
start making films. So and I've encountered a lot of
people that used to work at Blockbusters. So that's I
did not although I did buy a lot of those
previously used DVDs for like a dollar or something. But
but yeah, so we are going to talk about Mirrormax,
and I'll just tee you how I've kind of of
(07:01):
talked about them in the book. So the book is about,
of course, about A twenty four they started in twenty twelve.
They are I think easily unquestionably the anti film company,
a distributor, production company, that sort of thing. But they
weren't created in a vacuum. They just like I mean,
the cinema is now over one hundred years old, so
(07:23):
they had one hundred years to draw from. But they
also had a lot of independent movements to draw from.
And I do talk about a lot of those, you know,
American International pictures going back to the sixties, the American
New Wave John Cassavetti's is all over the place, lots
of nineties stuff, you know, mirr Max and elsewhere, Dogma
(07:43):
ninety five, a whole bunch of stuff. But Mirror Max.
You know, if there's a company, it's actually weird to
write a company, a book about a company, because you know,
most mostly you write about films or about directors, that
sort of thing. Movements that's you know, those new waves
are not commercial driven. But they did inherit a pretty
(08:07):
rich tradition, and I wouldn't say they copied Mirrormax, but
Mirror Max laid some groundwork in the nineties, established a
lot of huge filmmakers, many of which would go on
to make A twenty four films, quite a few actually,
and Kevin Smith is a big one. So and there's
also Mumblecore two, you know, Mira Max kind of duvetailed
(08:28):
into that, and I think in the two thousands when
you started kind of sounds like, well, that's when you
kind of started to get into film. Then we had
the labels were doing that, like Focus Features, Sony Pictures, Classics,
so and then all that sort of folded into A
twenty four, or at least that's who A twenty four
was competing with when they first. But of course A
(08:50):
twenty four is famous for awards campaigns now, you know,
getting art house films in the theaters, So that's very
much partart of I'd say in the Mirror Max playbook,
what good thing about A twenty four, at least as
far as we know is there are no sexual offenders.
I mean hopefully not, hopefully not, but and I hate
(09:16):
to laugh at that. The thing is we really didn't
know about Harvey for so long. I mean, he had
a reputation and we can get into that. But I
think that's an interesting topic too, because it's set in
the context for A twenty four so I'm guessing just
Blockbuster you were exposed to them through there. So do
(09:36):
you want to talk about just how you grew up
with Mirror Max.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
Yeah, and I do think it's important to kind of
talk about what you said. Look, we're going to be well,
I'm going to be praising Mirror Max a lot for
the next three and a half hours or however long
this goes.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
Everybody clicked a lot up.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
I know exactly. I'm going to be praising Mira Max
a lot. I am not praising Harvey. Weinstein documented that
he was a shitty person. And by the way, can
I cuss on the show? You can?
Speaker 1 (10:05):
You just did so? Yeah, of course, no, Yes, I
cuss a lot. People are used to that even in
the book. Yes, course you kind of kind of have to.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
There you go. Yeah, it's edu rate. He was not
a good person. We know that now. However, the confusing
thing is in this discussion is that him and his
brother Bob had amazing ability to understand a script that
would that could be made for two to five, two
(10:35):
to ten million dollars and make twenty to thirty million
dollars in the box office and then have a video
life on the back of it, and they built a
very successful business model honestly because they loved cinema, and like,
you know, that's the thing that I think there's a
good parallel between that and A twenty four. But just
staying on Merrimax for a moment, you know, I think
they did three things that Porman was doing actually before them,
(10:58):
but they took it to another level. They kind of
polished up what Corman was doing. Because a lot of
people don't know this about Corman, but he brought over
foreign films like he was he was bringing over Cursola
movies and Fellini movies, and like you know, he brought
these movies over into the US as one of the
things that he did. Even though he's known for like
a TNA low budget exploitation guy, but like he loved movies.
(11:21):
And even Lloyd Kaufman from Trauma, Like if you look
at some of the movies that he owns in his
catalog that he's a distributor for the dude, can he
can teach a film course, like he's an encyclopedia of
film history. And so this has always kind of been
there in the undercurrent, but we never really had a
system that would finance young filmmakers to go spend about
(11:43):
a million to ten million dollars was kind of the
average budget of a Mirrimax picture into a known distribution network,
into awards award cycle. Right. They really had a deep
connection with the Academy Awards, and they had an amazing
network of of cinematographers and grips and best buy but
(12:03):
boys and like like, they just had the crews that
could go make these movies and they all they knew
how to make a film like for for low Money.
Some of them had effects, but most of them were
pretty character and story driven movies that came out. Some
of them like Life is Beautiful, just absolutely swept like
every award imaginable and like captured magic in a bottle.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
The English patient, Yeah Shakespeare, oh, I said to the
English patient. Ye, Shakespeare in Love. A lot of those
are controversial, and that's a that's a big there. They're
a big player in Oscar history for that. But but yeah,
you're right. So the thing about Harvey, you know, I
don't you can't really take the sexual stuff out of context.
(12:48):
But obviously that's not the this is not the forum
to get into that, right, But it's not a good guy,
like you said, and he had the reputation he was
called Harvey Scissorhands, so there was a lot of resentment.
He did bring foreign movies in, and he would he
tried to make them appealing for a mass market. So
that's one thing A twenty four does that A twenty
(13:09):
four does try to market. In fact, they I think
they've gotten better at marketing movies, edgier movies. For sometimes
when people see the book, they'll get that. I kind
of have a little bit of humor about how A
twenty four tricks people into into theaters. Miror Max I
think Harvey Scissorhands was his nickname. So they tried to
(13:33):
make films that were not accessible more accessible. So this
is something that A twenty four is more respectful of
the director vision Mirror Maxiwell, they did have Tarantino and
people like Kevin Smith, so they let them do their thing.
But sometimes the cuts were not great, or they the
director's cut was the better film, but sometimes they were
(13:56):
actually good. Do you like cinema Parodiso.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
The Miramax cut is ten times better.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
It is great, it is great. So this is what
ninety two Italian film I think around ninety two. I
could have the year wrong, but Harvey made a cut.
I've seen the director's cut. I actually showed that to
my wife for the first time. That was her first
time seeing it. She's like, I thought this was a
brutal it's terrible. So so he did have You're right,
(14:26):
he had a sense of what would work. So do
you have any favorites of Mirrormax or Oh?
Speaker 2 (14:32):
Yeah, I mean Emily was a huge one for me.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
Yeah, speaking of accessible, Emily was a huge hit.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
Yeah, Mansfield Park was a big one for me. Dogma
was a big one. Yeah, I'm trying to go back
to the days of like you know, early days they did.
Melena was a huge one. Yeah. I learned who Monica
Bluchi was through that, and I'll forever be grateful.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
A lot of people did.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
Yes, not necessarily my style, but like we have to
give credit for Bridget Jones Diary, because I mean that
was that was a revolution when it came out. I
don't know if people understand how big that movie was
with women like that was.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
It was a massive message with women, but also just
generally that one was a huge hit. I like that
movie too.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
It's good, it's funny.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
Yeah. Yeah, and they had some more some I want
to say, more artistic pairs. So the piano is a
big one that I'm a fan of. I could see
that coming out now under the A twenty four banner,
and a lot of people think that they kind of
stopped like two thousand or two thousand and four, but
they actually did No Country for Old Men, So speaking
(15:48):
of Veggie, you know, that's uh. But I just looked
it up. They according to that this is technically AI,
so I was probably wrong. But according to the Google AI,
they they won sixty eight a cat of the awards,
So that's pretty impressive. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
Yeah, I mean Gangs of New York, right, you could
just go on and on. I mean they yeah, they
were talking of the studio. Yeah, exactly, Like that's if
you were if you had a mid budget as a
filmmaker and you wanted to get award recognition. They just
kind of had this system down, right, Iris.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
I'm just looking down the list, But one of the
I kind of remember, of course, Tarantino is edgie, Kevin
Smith is edgy. There are lots of edgy films, but
one thing I remember that was more of a criticism
of what they would put out was that they would
I think for them, the term oscar bait came into play,
(16:40):
so they would do a lot of biopicks. I mentioned Iris,
that's a biopick Ye, Shakespeare in Love, I actually shock
a lot. I don't like Chack a.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Lot of the movie.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
I think it's pretty saccharin, but it was very popular.
A Life is Beautiful, as you already mentioned, I don't
like that movie either. I think it's a that's maybe
a hot take, not like them that, but it was
very appealing to the masses. So does that is that?
Speaker 2 (17:09):
Yeah? I fully agree. I mean I think I Life
is Beautiful for me is a tough one because I
totally understand why coming into it now I would have
a different reaction to it. But I kind of saw
that write at that sweet spot when like Shashank Redemption
was my favorite movie, right, and it's a similar vibe
in the sense that they really hit those music in
(17:30):
that emotion, like they just beat you over the head
with it, right, And at the time I was, I
was all about it. I think I called Life is
Beautiful my favorite movie for years, So I kind of
always have a little bit of a.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
Sorry sorry oh god. It's one of my wife's favorite movies,
and so is The Shawshank Redemption. So yeah, maybe we
need to get her on the podcast.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
No. I but those movies if you watch them now,
like I wouldn't like them now if I saw it
like that, you know, I what was one recently I saw?
I just saw Driving Miss Daisy recently. Oh this was awful.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
Yeah, yeah, some of them don't age well. So I
actually watched Molena because I got the I think it
was an imprint that's an Australian label, and it did
not hold up. I did not think it was good,
so we know why that was popular. But they also
had like a so I'm actually looking at a list here,
(18:27):
So Delicatessen is a big.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
One, amazing movie.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
Yeah, and that one also just came out on video.
And yeah, the Piano. I already mentioned the Three Colors trilogy,
so if you don't know that that's Kislowski. That's a
very very much an art house trilogy that's not Criterion
right now.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
So yeah, no, I mean, they you could go you
could pretty much from I think their first movie was
in like nineteen eighty one or something. They've been around
for a while, but they didn't really like hit their
stride in a big way until the nineties. So starting
from the nineties, I mean, you could just pick a
year and you would see two or three movies you
(19:06):
either have definitely seen or at least have heard of
in film circles. For a long time, they were kind
of on top of the world. I mean, you know, whatever,
But there's something worth mentioning. I think that, you know,
the way people engage with theaters was different back then
as well, right right, you know, up until two thousand
(19:26):
and five or six or maybe seven, Netflix was a
thing you would get in the mail. It wasn't a
streaming service, right yeah, right. That was competition for Blockbuster,
but like Mirimax didn't care. They just had all their
movies to Netflix. And in fact, when Netflix first came out,
the funny thing is they were the home for like
(19:47):
they were saving cinema, Like that was where all the
art house stuff was was on Netflix, which is funny,
I think, I know. But they had licenses to all
that stuff already, right, so they just put it up
on streaming and I think they had a probably renegotiate
contracts or something. But anyways, my point is like, you know,
I remember, Okay, So just to put this in perspective,
(20:07):
I was in college from two thousand to two thousand
and five, and I was a forty minute drive from Dallas,
So I was like forty minutes north of Dallas, Okay.
So I would go in there on the weekends to
go see an art house or a foreign movie. And
there was twenty six screens to choose from. Wow. Yeah,
can you imagine, like I'm not even talking about guing
to see Kung Fu Panda four, right, and then like
(20:29):
there was like eight theaters to see Amie. Like. It
was just a very very different time culturally. And so
they could make a movie for two million bucks or
or distributed in the States by the rights for a
million bucks and distribute it and make their money back.
And they were killing it. I mean they were, you know,
printing cash for years printing cash.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
Yet now eventually that did not they had financial struggles.
But yeah, I'm just looking through the list. Chunking Express.
We already talked about long car. Why so a dead man,
So that's that's fair edgy Uh, train spotting, Yeah, you
could slink play of course was a big hit. So yeah,
they were really were on top of the world. So
(21:10):
so we'll wrap up here, but just if I could
ask you, are there any A twenty four films that
stand out that maybe feel like they have that Mirrormax
touch that maybe Harvey would have selected.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
I mean, I feel like it's worth calling out that.
You know, the very first year or two of A
twenty four included a movie from Roman Coppola one, Yeah, yeah, right,
Harmony Korean, Sophia Coppola, Dennis Philin Way. I mean, like
they went they hit it right at it. Like you know,
I was doing some research into who started Mirrormac A
(21:45):
twenty four. It's kind of cool because it's like the
Guggenheim Partners film distribution guy, one of the people that
started a solloscope and then one other persons. So these
were like film nerves.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
That started technology. Yeah, that's that's we'll talk about it.
There's gonna be a book about that.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
Awesome. But like that's so great, right because like that's
then you see it right out of the gate, like
they're choosing a tours they work with a tours. Under
the Skin came out, which is like this crazy movie,
like you know that mirra Max would have put out.
And then let's see what are some of the good
ones that there is an Adam Agoyan movie? Right, who
(22:23):
was I mean he's kind of always been around.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
The captive or remember Yeah, yeah, so yeah, no, well
you're right. They they all for the most part, even
the Goggenheim they they were they came up through the industry,
you're right, competing with Mirror Max and so yeah, so
let's go Magnolia Pictures, I believe is the third. I
do have a chapter on this, but I'm not gonna
(22:45):
not gonna research it, but I do believe you're correct
that they inherited and then perfected. So I think they've
taken taken Mirror Max. You know, Mirra Max didn't do
a lot with merch and now, of course it's a
different atmosphere. You know, online, you know they're or you
can shop online. Couldn't really do that in ninety four.
So well, yeah, very great brief discussion. So thanks for
(23:07):
bringing up these points. And yeah, I'll be talking about
a lot about Mirrormax in the book and how they
inherited that tradition. So so, Chris, where can people find
you online? You mentioned Pump Punk Vacation. They live by
film any social media.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
You know, I'm really bad about this, but honestly speaking,
like if you go to if you're on Instagram, super
easy punk Vacation, I'm the one that's posting erratically. If
you're on Reddit, what's my Reddit hand? I'm on Reddit
a lot. You'd think I would know my handle, but
I'll tell you right away because I like, if you
(23:45):
put a comment and read it, I'll respond like right away,
it's the username is of view to a thrill. I
have a The only reason I'll tell there's I mean, obviously,
you know no one is ever going to make any
money from Reddit, but I have it on going. Diary
of my reviews at Personal History of Film is one
of the subreddits I created, and I have probably I
(24:06):
don't know, twelve hundred reviews or something at this point.
I've been doing it for a few years. So that's
an easy place to engage if you want to just
chat about movies. I'm not selling anything like I have
a good job. I'm not for me like, I honestly
just want to geek out about movies, and so if
you want to anything, if you hate my opinion, like
I love talking about that too, because it's fascinating to me.
(24:28):
So I'm not I have a very thick skin, so
you can you can tell me I'm an idiot, you
can tell me you love me. I'll take them both
with good spirit.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
Yeah, Piskin's a good quality to have in this these circles.
So yeah, we'll put the link link to those in
the in the chat. And I did not know about
the subreddit, so I will definitely subscribe there. I've redd
it is a weird abyss for me. I would like
to post about the book there, but the thing is
it will not go anywhere if it's any sort of promotion,
(24:57):
so it's better for talking about films and whatever, you know, sports,
whatever you want. So well, thanks Chris for coming on.
And yeah, so we have a week left of the campaign,
so it's gonna be a fun last week. So all right,
thanks a bunch.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
I'm a promoter by the way, and anybody listening you
should be too. Aaron's doing good work supporting not.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
I appreciate that. Chris. Yes, support me. I am selling something.
Take care Chris.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
Hello, this is Chris Haskell from They Live by Film.
For those that don't know us, Adam Zach and I.
We built a podcast over the last two years that's
a combination of film discussion from three very different perspectives,
as well as industry interviews with the leaders in Boutique,
Blu Ray, and four K community. We started with dev Crocodile,
but over time we've been lucky enough to speak with
(25:46):
Aero Video, Severn, Mondo, Micabro, Vinegar Syndrome, Radiant Syndicator, most
of the OCN partner labels. It's been a blast. You
can find us wherever you podcast and also actually recently
as part of someone's favorite production podcast network. We hope
to see you online.
You are now listening to the Someone's Favorite Productions podcast network.
All right, I'm here with Chris Haskell. Chris, welcome to
the A twenty four New Wave. You are episode here
and have it going good? Episode five. I think I'm
already I'm losing count already.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
That's a good sign of.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
This new podcast. Thank you. So, Chris, We're on the
same podcast network together and I've been on one show
with you. But would you like to tell our audience
what you're about? What you do?
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (00:35):
How you nerd out? I guess whatever you want?
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Thanks. Funny enough. A lot of the stuff that Meer
Max and Sony Classics put out in the early two thousands,
late nineties was kind of my film school. That's really
when I started getting into movies a lot. And I've
told this story before, so sorry for people that have
heard it, But I worked at a Blockbuster and I
was the only person that wasn't a film mejor there.
(01:00):
So a combination of kind of being like the golden
age for indie studio production and then seven other film nerds.
That was my film school, and I came in through Criterion.
For the most part, everybody was super big on like
what you would typically learn about in film school, you know,
(01:22):
I say exactly exactly. And right around that time, Anchor
Base started producing these beautiful limited edition sets, and Blue
Underground had some. There was a company called Fantoma that
had some, and obviously Shout was around then too, and
so I just kind of got into collecting a little bit.
(01:43):
And I've always been interested in them more from like
a collection mindset, like something that would hold value, not
just like the five dollars bin at Walmart thing. I
have no issues with that. I'm just saying, like the
way my brain works, I've always kind of I would
rather save up and just get the collector's edition of it.
And as DVDs died down, I kind of got out
of the habit because I saw less and less of
(02:05):
those coming out. And then twenty nineteen, eighteen nineteen, I
just checked about how the industry was doing. I was like,
holy hell, like arrow was around and all of a sudden,
and vinegar syndrome was around, and Severn and blah blah blah,
you know all this. And so I've been really for
several years now again really diving deep into the collection side.
(02:25):
And during the pandemic, Adam Lundy and Zach Bryant and
I started a podcast just talking about watching movies and
interviewing a lot of the boutique labels called they Live
by Film. We're still doing that, and I have a
I love genre film and like exploitation film, and like
(02:46):
I have a particular interest in like the Vinegar Syndrome
and Severn World and seven already has a great podcast,
listen to it if you're not anybody who's listening, and
Vinegar Syndrome doesn't have one. And I was a subscriber
for several years, and I thought, hold on a minute,
there's like a huge community, like it's a it's a
(03:07):
degenerate but thriving discord. And I was like, I think
I'm just gonna do it and try to build a
community of people that may have an interest in like
the adult films. And so we have you know, different
hosts come on that have like they they love merch
or they love the adult films, or we bring like
a lot of people from Vinegar Syndrome in, or we
(03:29):
bring a lot of the special features, the people that
do a lot of special features with Vinegar Syndrome, we
bring them on, or other podcasters that talk about it
a lot and have it, you know, so they's just
become this fun sort of community of people that are
geeking out about these types of no budget or low
budget movies that have or weird studio films that got
buried because they got a three point zero one, you know,
(03:52):
rotten tomatoes, But if you watch them again, you're like,
holy hell, this is kind of fun. So yeah, that's
what Punk Vacation is the name of it, and that's
we've been doing. Thirteen episodes comes out twice a month,
and it's been fun. The reception has been great and
definitely feels long overdue, so nice.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
So for people that don't know, because our audience are
this is new too, but so far our audience seems
to be a mixture of all kinds of people, so
just ficionados that watch you know, Pearl or which Becky
had for her birthday that was awesome, or and there's
also collectors there, but there's also casual fans. But Nato
(04:31):
Syndrome is a label that has I guess you could
say they slant towards cult films, but they also do
some mainstreams. I mean, yeah, so like Bang the Drum
Slowly is a big film that's coming out in one
of the cinema cinemagraph and yeah, a few like that,
and oh The Keep was a big one or was that?
Severn right, You're right, yeah, I think yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
The way that I like to kind of sum them
up is they are a they started as an archive,
so they didn't start as a physical media house. They
started by acquiring thousands of films. I think it's around
ten thousand and so they're an archive first, and they
do a lot of preservation work and restoration work, and
(05:17):
at least three people on staff are actually have like
a degree in film restoration. So these are you know,
they're hardcore like librarian, preservationists, historians. But what their focus
is on just, you know, the kind of cinema that
a lot of other people aren't focusing on. So I
(05:39):
used to say they give genre films and exploitation movies
and like lower budget regional horror or shot on video
SolV I used to say they gave those movies the
criterion treatment, just to kind of put it in perspective.
I think that's fair, And now it's like debatable that
they might even be doing a better job than Criterion,
depending on who you ask, But the point is, like
(06:00):
both companies are necessary, right, because you know, I just
the one car Wise set. Although there are some issues
with the color grading, that set is beautiful.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
It's amazing. Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Criterion, like those are beautiful sets, and Vinegar Syndrome is
doing the same thing for exploitation movies, right, So yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
It's great stuff. So I often say, what a time
to be alive? You have all these And that's actually
that's a good segue into the book because part of
this whole New Aid premise is that people like us
have had access to libraries of films film archives that
previous generations didn't. So a lot of Gen X millennials even,
(06:39):
and now we're starting to see some gen Z actually
start making films. So and I've encountered a lot of
people that used to work at Blockbusters. So that's I
did not although I did buy a lot of those
previously used DVDs for like a dollar or something. But
but yeah, so we are going to talk about Mirrormax,
and I'll just tee you how I've kind of of
(07:01):
talked about them in the book. So the book is about,
of course, about A twenty four they started in twenty twelve.
They are I think easily unquestionably the anti film company,
a distributor, production company, that sort of thing. But they
weren't created in a vacuum. They just like I mean,
the cinema is now over one hundred years old, so
(07:23):
they had one hundred years to draw from. But they
also had a lot of independent movements to draw from.
And I do talk about a lot of those, you know,
American International pictures going back to the sixties, the American
New Wave John Cassavetti's is all over the place, lots
of nineties stuff, you know, mirr Max and elsewhere, Dogma
(07:43):
ninety five, a whole bunch of stuff. But Mirror Max.
You know, if there's a company, it's actually weird to
write a company, a book about a company, because you know,
most mostly you write about films or about directors, that
sort of thing. Movements that's you know, those new waves
are not commercial driven. But they did inherit a pretty
(08:07):
rich tradition, and I wouldn't say they copied Mirrormax, but
Mirror Max laid some groundwork in the nineties, established a
lot of huge filmmakers, many of which would go on
to make A twenty four films, quite a few actually,
and Kevin Smith is a big one. So and there's
also Mumblecore two, you know, Mira Max kind of duvetailed
(08:28):
into that, and I think in the two thousands when
you started kind of sounds like, well, that's when you
kind of started to get into film. Then we had
the labels were doing that, like Focus Features, Sony Pictures, Classics,
so and then all that sort of folded into A
twenty four, or at least that's who A twenty four
was competing with when they first. But of course A
(08:50):
twenty four is famous for awards campaigns now, you know,
getting art house films in the theaters, So that's very
much partart of I'd say in the Mirror Max playbook,
what good thing about A twenty four, at least as
far as we know is there are no sexual offenders.
I mean hopefully not, hopefully not, but and I hate
(09:16):
to laugh at that. The thing is we really didn't
know about Harvey for so long. I mean, he had
a reputation and we can get into that. But I
think that's an interesting topic too, because it's set in
the context for A twenty four so I'm guessing just
Blockbuster you were exposed to them through there. So do
(09:36):
you want to talk about just how you grew up
with Mirror Max.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
Yeah, and I do think it's important to kind of
talk about what you said. Look, we're going to be well,
I'm going to be praising Mirror Max a lot for
the next three and a half hours or however long
this goes.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
Everybody clicked a lot up.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
I know exactly. I'm going to be praising Mira Max
a lot. I am not praising Harvey. Weinstein documented that
he was a shitty person. And by the way, can
I cuss on the show? You can?
Speaker 1 (10:05):
You just did so? Yeah, of course, no, Yes, I
cuss a lot. People are used to that even in
the book. Yes, course you kind of kind of have to.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
There you go. Yeah, it's edu rate. He was not
a good person. We know that now. However, the confusing
thing is in this discussion is that him and his
brother Bob had amazing ability to understand a script that
would that could be made for two to five, two
(10:35):
to ten million dollars and make twenty to thirty million
dollars in the box office and then have a video
life on the back of it, and they built a
very successful business model honestly because they loved cinema, and like,
you know, that's the thing that I think there's a
good parallel between that and A twenty four. But just
staying on Merrimax for a moment, you know, I think
they did three things that Porman was doing actually before them,
(10:58):
but they took it to another level. They kind of
polished up what Corman was doing. Because a lot of
people don't know this about Corman, but he brought over
foreign films like he was he was bringing over Cursola
movies and Fellini movies, and like you know, he brought
these movies over into the US as one of the
things that he did. Even though he's known for like
a TNA low budget exploitation guy, but like he loved movies.
(11:21):
And even Lloyd Kaufman from Trauma, Like if you look
at some of the movies that he owns in his
catalog that he's a distributor for the dude, can he
can teach a film course, like he's an encyclopedia of
film history. And so this has always kind of been
there in the undercurrent, but we never really had a
system that would finance young filmmakers to go spend about
(11:43):
a million to ten million dollars was kind of the
average budget of a Mirrimax picture into a known distribution network,
into awards award cycle. Right. They really had a deep
connection with the Academy Awards, and they had an amazing
network of of cinematographers and grips and best buy but
(12:03):
boys and like like, they just had the crews that
could go make these movies and they all they knew
how to make a film like for for low Money.
Some of them had effects, but most of them were
pretty character and story driven movies that came out. Some
of them like Life is Beautiful, just absolutely swept like
every award imaginable and like captured magic in a bottle.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
The English patient, Yeah Shakespeare, oh, I said to the
English patient. Ye, Shakespeare in Love. A lot of those
are controversial, and that's a that's a big there. They're
a big player in Oscar history for that. But but yeah,
you're right. So the thing about Harvey, you know, I
don't you can't really take the sexual stuff out of context.
(12:48):
But obviously that's not the this is not the forum
to get into that, right, But it's not a good guy,
like you said, and he had the reputation he was
called Harvey Scissorhands, so there was a lot of resentment.
He did bring foreign movies in, and he would he
tried to make them appealing for a mass market. So
that's one thing A twenty four does that A twenty
(13:09):
four does try to market. In fact, they I think
they've gotten better at marketing movies, edgier movies. For sometimes
when people see the book, they'll get that. I kind
of have a little bit of humor about how A
twenty four tricks people into into theaters. Miror Max I
think Harvey Scissorhands was his nickname. So they tried to
(13:33):
make films that were not accessible more accessible. So this
is something that A twenty four is more respectful of
the director vision Mirror Maxiwell, they did have Tarantino and
people like Kevin Smith, so they let them do their thing.
But sometimes the cuts were not great, or they the
director's cut was the better film, but sometimes they were
(13:56):
actually good. Do you like cinema Parodiso.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
The Miramax cut is ten times better.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
It is great, it is great. So this is what
ninety two Italian film I think around ninety two. I
could have the year wrong, but Harvey made a cut.
I've seen the director's cut. I actually showed that to
my wife for the first time. That was her first
time seeing it. She's like, I thought this was a
brutal it's terrible. So so he did have You're right,
(14:26):
he had a sense of what would work. So do
you have any favorites of Mirrormax or Oh?
Speaker 2 (14:32):
Yeah, I mean Emily was a huge one for me.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
Yeah, speaking of accessible, Emily was a huge hit.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
Yeah, Mansfield Park was a big one for me. Dogma
was a big one. Yeah, I'm trying to go back
to the days of like you know, early days they did.
Melena was a huge one. Yeah. I learned who Monica
Bluchi was through that, and I'll forever be grateful.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
A lot of people did.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
Yes, not necessarily my style, but like we have to
give credit for Bridget Jones Diary, because I mean that
was that was a revolution when it came out. I
don't know if people understand how big that movie was
with women like that was.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
It was a massive message with women, but also just
generally that one was a huge hit. I like that
movie too.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
It's good, it's funny.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
Yeah. Yeah, and they had some more some I want
to say, more artistic pairs. So the piano is a
big one that I'm a fan of. I could see
that coming out now under the A twenty four banner,
and a lot of people think that they kind of
stopped like two thousand or two thousand and four, but
they actually did No Country for Old Men, So speaking
(15:48):
of Veggie, you know, that's uh. But I just looked
it up. They according to that this is technically AI,
so I was probably wrong. But according to the Google AI,
they they won sixty eight a cat of the awards,
So that's pretty impressive. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
Yeah, I mean Gangs of New York, right, you could
just go on and on. I mean they yeah, they
were talking of the studio. Yeah, exactly, Like that's if
you were if you had a mid budget as a
filmmaker and you wanted to get award recognition. They just
kind of had this system down, right, Iris.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
I'm just looking down the list, But one of the
I kind of remember, of course, Tarantino is edgie, Kevin
Smith is edgy. There are lots of edgy films, but
one thing I remember that was more of a criticism
of what they would put out was that they would
I think for them, the term oscar bait came into play,
(16:40):
so they would do a lot of biopicks. I mentioned Iris,
that's a biopick Ye, Shakespeare in Love, I actually shock
a lot. I don't like Chack a.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Lot of the movie.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
I think it's pretty saccharin, but it was very popular.
A Life is Beautiful, as you already mentioned, I don't
like that movie either. I think it's a that's maybe
a hot take, not like them that, but it was
very appealing to the masses. So does that is that?
Speaker 2 (17:09):
Yeah? I fully agree. I mean I think I Life
is Beautiful for me is a tough one because I
totally understand why coming into it now I would have
a different reaction to it. But I kind of saw
that write at that sweet spot when like Shashank Redemption
was my favorite movie, right, and it's a similar vibe
in the sense that they really hit those music in
(17:30):
that emotion, like they just beat you over the head
with it, right, And at the time I was, I
was all about it. I think I called Life is
Beautiful my favorite movie for years, So I kind of
always have a little bit of a.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
Sorry sorry oh god. It's one of my wife's favorite movies,
and so is The Shawshank Redemption. So yeah, maybe we
need to get her on the podcast.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
No. I but those movies if you watch them now,
like I wouldn't like them now if I saw it
like that, you know, I what was one recently I saw?
I just saw Driving Miss Daisy recently. Oh this was awful.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
Yeah, yeah, some of them don't age well. So I
actually watched Molena because I got the I think it
was an imprint that's an Australian label, and it did
not hold up. I did not think it was good,
so we know why that was popular. But they also
had like a so I'm actually looking at a list here,
(18:27):
So Delicatessen is a big.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
One, amazing movie.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
Yeah, and that one also just came out on video.
And yeah, the Piano. I already mentioned the Three Colors trilogy,
so if you don't know that that's Kislowski. That's a
very very much an art house trilogy that's not Criterion
right now.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
So yeah, no, I mean, they you could go you
could pretty much from I think their first movie was
in like nineteen eighty one or something. They've been around
for a while, but they didn't really like hit their
stride in a big way until the nineties. So starting
from the nineties, I mean, you could just pick a
year and you would see two or three movies you
(19:06):
either have definitely seen or at least have heard of
in film circles. For a long time, they were kind
of on top of the world. I mean, you know, whatever,
But there's something worth mentioning. I think that, you know,
the way people engage with theaters was different back then
as well, right right, you know, up until two thousand
(19:26):
and five or six or maybe seven, Netflix was a
thing you would get in the mail. It wasn't a
streaming service, right yeah, right. That was competition for Blockbuster,
but like Mirimax didn't care. They just had all their
movies to Netflix. And in fact, when Netflix first came out,
the funny thing is they were the home for like
(19:47):
they were saving cinema, Like that was where all the
art house stuff was was on Netflix, which is funny,
I think, I know. But they had licenses to all
that stuff already, right, so they just put it up
on streaming and I think they had a probably renegotiate
contracts or something. But anyways, my point is like, you know,
I remember, Okay, So just to put this in perspective,
(20:07):
I was in college from two thousand to two thousand
and five, and I was a forty minute drive from Dallas,
So I was like forty minutes north of Dallas, Okay.
So I would go in there on the weekends to
go see an art house or a foreign movie. And
there was twenty six screens to choose from. Wow. Yeah,
can you imagine, like I'm not even talking about guing
to see Kung Fu Panda four, right, and then like
(20:29):
there was like eight theaters to see Amie. Like. It
was just a very very different time culturally. And so
they could make a movie for two million bucks or
or distributed in the States by the rights for a
million bucks and distribute it and make their money back.
And they were killing it. I mean they were, you know,
printing cash for years printing cash.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
Yet now eventually that did not they had financial struggles.
But yeah, I'm just looking through the list. Chunking Express.
We already talked about long car. Why so a dead man,
So that's that's fair edgy Uh, train spotting, Yeah, you
could slink play of course was a big hit. So yeah,
they were really were on top of the world. So
(21:10):
so we'll wrap up here, but just if I could
ask you, are there any A twenty four films that
stand out that maybe feel like they have that Mirrormax
touch that maybe Harvey would have selected.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
I mean, I feel like it's worth calling out that.
You know, the very first year or two of A
twenty four included a movie from Roman Coppola one, Yeah, yeah, right,
Harmony Korean, Sophia Coppola, Dennis Philin Way. I mean, like
they went they hit it right at it. Like you know,
I was doing some research into who started Mirrormac A
(21:45):
twenty four. It's kind of cool because it's like the
Guggenheim Partners film distribution guy, one of the people that
started a solloscope and then one other persons. So these
were like film nerves.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
That started technology. Yeah, that's that's we'll talk about it.
There's gonna be a book about that.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
Awesome. But like that's so great, right because like that's
then you see it right out of the gate, like
they're choosing a tours they work with a tours. Under
the Skin came out, which is like this crazy movie,
like you know that mirra Max would have put out.
And then let's see what are some of the good
ones that there is an Adam Agoyan movie? Right, who
(22:23):
was I mean he's kind of always been around.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
The captive or remember Yeah, yeah, so yeah, no, well
you're right. They they all for the most part, even
the Goggenheim they they were they came up through the industry,
you're right, competing with Mirror Max and so yeah, so
let's go Magnolia Pictures, I believe is the third. I
do have a chapter on this, but I'm not gonna
(22:45):
not gonna research it, but I do believe you're correct
that they inherited and then perfected. So I think they've
taken taken Mirror Max. You know, Mirra Max didn't do
a lot with merch and now, of course it's a
different atmosphere. You know, online, you know they're or you
can shop online. Couldn't really do that in ninety four.
So well, yeah, very great brief discussion. So thanks for
(23:07):
bringing up these points. And yeah, I'll be talking about
a lot about Mirrormax in the book and how they
inherited that tradition. So so, Chris, where can people find
you online? You mentioned Pump Punk Vacation. They live by
film any social media.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
You know, I'm really bad about this, but honestly speaking,
like if you go to if you're on Instagram, super
easy punk Vacation, I'm the one that's posting erratically. If
you're on Reddit, what's my Reddit hand? I'm on Reddit
a lot. You'd think I would know my handle, but
I'll tell you right away because I like, if you
(23:45):
put a comment and read it, I'll respond like right away,
it's the username is of view to a thrill. I
have a The only reason I'll tell there's I mean, obviously,
you know no one is ever going to make any
money from Reddit, but I have it on going. Diary
of my reviews at Personal History of Film is one
of the subreddits I created, and I have probably I
(24:06):
don't know, twelve hundred reviews or something at this point.
I've been doing it for a few years. So that's
an easy place to engage if you want to just
chat about movies. I'm not selling anything like I have
a good job. I'm not for me like, I honestly
just want to geek out about movies, and so if
you want to anything, if you hate my opinion, like
I love talking about that too, because it's fascinating to me.
(24:28):
So I'm not I have a very thick skin, so
you can you can tell me I'm an idiot, you
can tell me you love me. I'll take them both
with good spirit.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
Yeah, Piskin's a good quality to have in this these circles.
So yeah, we'll put the link link to those in
the in the chat. And I did not know about
the subreddit, so I will definitely subscribe there. I've redd
it is a weird abyss for me. I would like
to post about the book there, but the thing is
it will not go anywhere if it's any sort of promotion,
(24:57):
so it's better for talking about films and whatever, you know, sports,
whatever you want. So well, thanks Chris for coming on.
And yeah, so we have a week left of the campaign,
so it's gonna be a fun last week. So all right,
thanks a bunch.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
I'm a promoter by the way, and anybody listening you
should be too. Aaron's doing good work supporting not.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
I appreciate that. Chris. Yes, support me. I am selling something.
Take care Chris.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
Hello, this is Chris Haskell from They Live by Film.
For those that don't know us, Adam Zach and I.
We built a podcast over the last two years that's
a combination of film discussion from three very different perspectives,
as well as industry interviews with the leaders in Boutique,
Blu Ray, and four K community. We started with dev Crocodile,
but over time we've been lucky enough to speak with
(25:46):
Aero Video, Severn, Mondo, Micabro, Vinegar Syndrome, Radiant Syndicator, most
of the OCN partner labels. It's been a blast. You
can find us wherever you podcast and also actually recently
as part of someone's favorite production podcast network. We hope
to see you online.
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