Tag Archives: kriv stenders

Everyone On Scorsese

Nine years. 108 episodes. 126 filmmakers. Lots of minutes.

It’s been a brilliant run, but it had to end at some point, and nine years feels like the right number. It’s a lot without dipping into double figures, which feels too many.

That said, there’s an important caveat: this is not necessarily the end of the show. What’s ending is Hyphenates as a monthly series. We’re leaving the door wide open for future episodes, standalone shows that may drop at any moment. You may hear one later this year. Or you might not hear it for a good couple of years. And we don’t even know what format it will take, who will be hosting, how it will sound. Your best bet is to remain subscribed, with an eye on our social media accounts, so you don’t miss out when we suddenly get, say, Quentin Tarantino on to talk about the films of Paul Anthony Nelson. (Watch Trench now on Amazon Prime!)

And we can’t imagine all of you have heard every single episode from our past, so feel free to click on the Index tab up the top of the page and browse our archives. See if there’s a filmmaker or guest you want to catch up. We’ve talked to a lot of cool people about a lot of other cool people, so there’s lots of gold in there.

But for now, let’s focus on this month’s episode. You may have noticed that our usually-militant one-hour running time has been blowing out a bit lately. We parted a bit too hard for our 100th episode, and it was hard to maintain the discipline in the months that followed. But for our last show, we really let it fly, with the show clocking in at an epic 222 minutes. That’s 3 hours and 42 minutes.

But fear not, because it’s not just three voices for all that time. We decided to end with a look at the films of Martin Scorsese, one of the few filmmakers who you could legitimately claim every film is somebody’s favourite. And although we didn’t find the person who wanted to spruik Boxcar Bertha above all others, we covered almost every one of his films, without giving any direction or influence to our guests.

A whole bunch of our alumni returned to talk about their favourite Scorsese thing, be it a film, a scene, a shot, or something entirely different. For this episode, we’re joined by Ian Barr, Michael Ian Black, David Caesar, Sarah Caldwell, Thomas Caldwell, Mel Campbell, Tom Clift, Perri Cummings, Guy Davis, Glenn Dunks, Tim Egan, Marc Fennell, Abe Forsythe, Garth Franklin, Rhys Graham, Richard Gray, Giles Hardie, Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, Zak Hepburn, Jon Hewitt, Tegan Higginbotham, Blake Howard, Cerise Howard, Hayley Inch, Briony Kidd, Maria Lewis, Alicia Malone, Shannon Marinko, So Mayer, Pollyanna McIntosh, Drew McWeeny, Simon Miraudo, Anthony Morris, Rhys Muldoon, Josh Nelson, Jennifer Reeder, Eloise Ross, Stephen A Russell, Jeremy Smith, Rohan Spong, Kriv Stenders, Chris Taylor, Brian Trenchard-Smith, Christos Tsiolkas, George Viscas, Andrew Kevin Walker, Sarah Ward, Scott Weinberg, Emma Westwood, and Cate Wolfe.

And, of course, Paul returns, joining Rochelle and Lee for the entire show to help see Hi4H off.

We hope you enjoy this episode. We hope you enjoyed the show. And we’ll see you when we see you.

Stenders On Weir

Stenders On Weir

This month's episode was a little tricky to record. With Kriv in Brisbane for pre-production on his movie Australia Day and Sophie on holiday in North America, scheduling proved difficult, and we were unable to find a time they were both available. So Lee - who had nothing of note going on in August - recorded separately with both of them, and the result was edited into the seamless episode you can now hear.

But we embraced the tumult, and threw our traditional reviews segment out the window. Ignoring the month's releases, Lee talks about all the best films he saw at the Melbourne International Film Festival, and Sophie talks about an incredible film she saw in a plane over the Atlantic.

After the review, we dive into the works of Peter Weir, and dig deep into what connects films like Picnic At Hanging Rock and Gallipoli to Dead Poets Society and The Truman Show. Is it possible he's exploring a single theme throughout these wildly different films? You'll have to listen to find out!

Outro music: “The Far Side of the World” from Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003), composed by Iva Davies, Christopher Gordon and Richard Tognetti

The latest episode of Hell Is For Hyphenates, featuring Kriv Stenders talking the films of Peter Weir, can be subscribed to via iTunes, heard at Stitcher Smart Radio, or downloaded/streamed directly from our website.

Hell Is For Hyphenates – August 2016

Director Kriv Stenders (Red DogKill Me Three Times) joins the Hyphenates for our August 2016 episode. Lee runs through some of the highlights from the Melbourne International Film Festival, including Pedro Almodovar’s Julieta, Ben Wheatley’s High-Rise, Sergei Loznitsa’s The Event, Kelly Reichardt’s Certain Women, Rohan Spong’s Winter At Westbeth, Asghar Farhadi’s The Salesman, Nicholas Winding Refn’s The Neon Demon and Oliver Assayas’s Personal Shopper, and Sophie talks about Patricia Rozema’s Into the Forest. Then Kriv takes us through the works and career of Australian New Wave pioneer and acclaimed filmmaker Peter Weir.

The Peter Weir Cheat Sheet

Peter Weir Directs

Want to become an instant expert in our filmmaker of the month without committing yourself to an entire filmography? Then you need the Hell Is For Hyphenates Cheat Sheet: we program you a double that will not only make for a great evening's viewing, but bring you suitably up-to-speed before our next episode lands…

Peter Weir Films

PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK (1975) and DEAD POETS SOCIETY (1989)

It's back-to-school this week so let's prep with two sad, strange and magical school stories from Peter Weir, a director who loves sad, strange communities and the weirdness that occurs therein. These are films that mark people's memories: if you saw either when you were a teenager, they will have lingered in how you think about the passions and persecutions of your schooldays. If you haven't, no worries, they'll haunt you now. Picnic at Hanging Rock, Weir's third full-length feature, is every bit as mysterious and daring as it was forty years ago: its central enigma (not based on a true story, despite rumours) remains unsolved (and unspoilered here). Filmmakers like Carol Morley (The Falling) and Lucile Hadzihalilovic (Innocence) have recently revisited its dreamy strangeness of Edgar Allen Poe-quoting girl crushes and fairy-tale references. Dead Poets Society reflects, likewise, that adolescence is no picnic - but for a brief moment, it can be painfully glorious, with Robin Williams channeling Walt Whitman at the front of the classroom. It jump-started the careers of Ethan Hawke, Robert Sean Leonard and Josh Charles as the hormonal hornets' nests given a jolt of inspiration by Williams' English teacher John Keating (named after Australia's then-Treasurer?), who tells them poetry was invented to woo women. These films will definitely seduce you.

Substitutions: If you can't get or have already seen Picnic at Hanging Rock, go for Gallipoli, which can't be held responsible for Mel Gibson. If you didn't watch it as part of the 100th anniversary of the battle of Gallipoli last year, watch it now. Brutal, moving, truthful, the film put this ANZAC story on the international map. If you can't get or have already seen Dead Poets Society, you must watch The Truman Show, which was pipped by Dead Poets to the Cheat Sheet post by the still-palpable loss of Robin Williams. Like an extended version and inversion of God calling to ask for girls at Helton, The Truman Show is a quintessentially Weir-ian film that starts out quiet and normal and ends up epically uncanny: a tale of an ordinary life that encounters the impossible. And that's just the idea that Laura Linney would really be married to Jim Carrey (as if)…

The Hidden Gem: Want something a little off the beaten path? Then you'll need to check out the 1979 telemovie The Plumber. One of the earliest examples of Weir finding the thrilling in the simple, the film follows the a woman as she is subjected to a series of mind games by a man claiming to be a plumber. If you think you know how the film will play out based on that premise, then you really need to seek out this film, which subverts its Hitchcockian premise at every turn.

The next episode of Hell Is For Hyphenates, featuring Kriv Stenders talking Peter Weir, will be released on the morning of August 31 (AEST).

Our Next Hyphenate Kriv Stenders

Kriv Stenders
Australian filmmaker and August 2016 Hyphenate Kriv Stenders

We are delighted to announce that this month our guest will be Australian director Kriv Stenders!

Whether you know him from 2011's smash hit Red Dog, or last year's critically lauded mini-series The Principal, or his 2005 debut The Illustrated Family Doctor, or 2014's Simon Pegg-as-hitman action-comedy Kill Me Three Times, or 2007's criminally underrated Boxing Day, you've certainly seen at least one thing he's made.

Given Kriv can comfortably switch between serious drama, family adventure and action comedy, which filmmaker is it that inspires him?

This month, Kriv will be joining us to talk about one of Australia's most beloved filmmakers: Peter Weir!

Directed by Peter WeirPeter Weir rose to prominence during the Australian New Wave movement with 1974's The Cars That Ate Paris and 1975's Picnic At Hanging Rock. He continued making films in Australia including 1977's The Last Wave, 1981's Gallipoli and 1982's The Year of Living Dangerously.

When he went to the USA, he continued his streak with 1985's Witness, 1989's Dead Poets Society, 1998's The Truman Show, and many others. Nearly every film he has made has slipped effortlessly into pop culture consciousness. But what is it about his films that Kriv enjoys so much?

Join us on August 30 when we find out!

Our next filmmaker of the month, Peter Weir