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The Bret Easton Ellis Podcast
The Bret Easton Ellis Podcast

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S8E32: Bret's Best of 2024 (so far) - Part 2

Bret continues rounding up his favorite movies, tv shows and books from the first half of 2024. Part 2 of 2.

S8E32: Bret's Best of 2024 (so far) - Part 2

Comments

So glad he liked Perfect Days. It’s SO GOOD.

Justin Ketrinchek

Excellent episode as always. Still love the music, intro and ending.

Sodaheiress

Really?? Pretending to be what she is not seems to be her whole entire thing. I’m such a nerd bookworm weirdo poet (who is dating a football player and flying in a fleet of private jets). You can tell Adam isn’t down

Happyhead

Glad he saved that for the end it was easy to skip

Happyhead

Yes easy to skip

Happyhead

is there a discord for this community? i return after a brief hiatus. nice to hear bret and david shields still bickering like old ninnies

Brian Rooney

Just a heads up to Adam or whoever reads these comments behind the scenes… Not sure if you’re already aware but I caught two references to BEE in one of the latest episodes of HBO’s Industry, specifically the second episode of season three. One is a direct reference to this podcast. There’s a scene in the latter half of the episode where the character Harper (played by Myha’la) has stayed late at work. She stumbles across two other young female employees doing coke (“woke coke” as they call it, in jest) before she intercepts the character Petra (played by Sarah Goldberg) as she’s leaving her office for the day. Petra asks Harper if she’ll walk her to her car. Harper agrees, and then out of nowhere Petra asks Harper “What do you think of the Eagles?” to which a confused Harper replies “You mean the football team?” The scene then immediately cuts to them in the parking garage, and no further context is given to this bizarre question. I can only assume this is a direct reference to the BEE podcast, especially since, as you know, Industry already referenced Bret once earlier in season one, when a character’s novel in progress was titled “This is Not An Exit”. The next reference is extremely subtle, and I was only able to catch it because I was watching the show with my Sony XM4 studio headphones. In the scene that follows Harper talking to Petra in the parking garage we see the character Yasmin (played by Marisa Abela) arrive at a restaurant where she is supposed to meet with Henry (played by Kit Harrington). Immediately after Yasmin’s quick exchange with the maitre d, as Yasmin starts walking towards Henry’s table, we can hear the garbled background chatter among the other diners in the restaurant. If you listen closely you can clearly hear a man say “Brett Easton Ellis said…” before he fades into the background noise. These Easter eggs may have already been brought to your attention, but I just thought I’d share here in case they hadn’t. Always great to see love for BEE in other mediums.

Leo Ashline

No worries, he's back. I was just holding down the fort.

pietro o.

Where is he?

Pp358

Thank goodness you left the Taylor Swift review at the end. Great podcast.

Stevan Popovic

Bret! Just tuned in to your show after reading the shards last fall. Lovely to hear you review 3h in a row! Especially the wim wenders part!

jooj

Please let’s keep this going. This is the quality we would love to hear in every episode. Just movies, books et alia.

Francesco Nucci

Regarding Spaghetti Westerns,: Sergio Corbuccis 'The Great Silence' with Trintignant and Kinski is also great movie. The last two episodes were great. In my opinion the podcast is at its best when Bret is discussing movies, literature and art.

Tim Seibel

I end up listening to the Bret solo episodes several times because his voice is the perfect lull for me at bedtime to fall asleep!

E

I can’t wait to play my ten year old daughter Bret’s gushing review of the Taylor concert movie. (She’s watched it 10x, I just can’t.) She loves that my favorite loves her favorite. And I like that too. 🙌

Patrick

I agree with you on everything. My friend bought us tickets to the eras tour but I had to drive us from Arizona to Los Angeles. It was horrible and exhausting, I couldn’t enjoy it because I was stressed from driving (my friend doesn’t drive). She’s a swiftie, im not. I just enjoy some of the music. This was not a regular concert. It’s just too much. I regretted doing the 5 hour drive. I need someone to drive me around for once. Basically that night taught me to have better boundaries and trust my intuition. To know when to say no to a friend. Can’t do everything for everyone. 😭

mia

The scene at the end where he talked about being whisked to a concert in a Rolls-Royce limousine and carried by stretcher to the seat made me laugh a lot. I can't wait for the day when AI can just have Bret Ellis following you around narrating your life with every mundane and banal thing you do stated in his amazing monotone prose.

Erick

Agree with the reptile comments. Also reminds me of a Barbie or action figure, like if they were naked it would just be smooth plastic with no genitalia. Also, she’s clearly a closeted lesbian right ? That’s what we are all picking up on subconsciously.

Keith campbell

He pronounced it Palme d’Or not Palme Dior and I was a little disappointed.

Keith campbell

Re Barbie: Bret’s got to be trolling us.

Romeo Delta Charlie

She looks like a reasonably attractive, vat-grown alien creation: human pop star.

Louis

Excellent episode. But I'll have to disagree about Unforgiven. The only way the film could be underwhelming is if you're not sufficiently familiar with westerns, and particularly spaghetti westerns, as a genre. It is ABOUT westerns and Eastwood's career in westerns. What an incredible script.

Louis

Unless a dad. There is something looming and reptilian, and undoubtedly impressive, about her.

Thomas Edwards

I agree. The way Bret and Nic Pizzolatto described Tom Cruise a few years ago as a supremely good-looking man with no eroticism is how I feel about Taylor. She's objectively pretty but has zero sex-appeal.

Trezerand

Great episode. I am still shocked that Bret has never seen THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY especially after his rave of ENNIO last week. I will defend this opinion to the death that despite Clint's impatience with Leone, he was never able to duplicate the brilliance in his own westerns of the Leone trilogy.

MisterBlasty

It’s hacky enough when he does it 😭

R. M.

Brilliant episode. Always great to hear Brett engaged in the pop culture that has piqued his interest.

Dan

I don’t know a single straight guy who gives her a moment’s thought.

Paul Richardson

My biggest gripe with the Q&As is, and I’m starting to sound like a broken record, people asking questions that Bret has ALREADY talked about. Like how many times do we need to hear him talk about “The Swimmer.” I think Adam really needs to review the questions beforehand and not read the ones that have been more or less covered.

Thomas Matich

sorry, but your younger straight male friends are not straight if they don't want to bang Taylor ffs!

Poetical Gore

and not everyone likes the same thing....

Poetical Gore

This episode is a perfect example of how it is so much more interesting to hear Bret talk about what genuinely interests him, rather than answering the queries of the platinum posse and Adam. But I understand the posse has earned$ the right.

Jim Weaver

Paris, Texas is a masterpiece. Wings of Desire is a good idea but dull and pretentious (ditto Million Dollar Hotel). Until the End of the World and The End of Violence are underrated. All of these films make me nostalgic for an era of independent art house films with reasonable budgets, shot (and projected) on 35mm film. I’m grateful I was there.

Paul Richardson

So glad Ripley has lost the lustre it first had for BEE and many others. I was genuinely concerned it had marred the wonderful Highsmith character for a new era. Ultimately Netflix's Ripley deserves to be relegated to another misstep in the growing list of Tom Ripley adaptations.

Vaughan Smith

Happy to hear that Bret enjoyed "Perfect Days". One of the remarkable aspects of this film is its being a solid "Japanese" film created by a non-Japanese director in the native language. Not sure that this has been done before. What's more, if you own a washlet, an unsung miracle of the modern age, the movie opens new vistas on care and cleaning.

Dave

"richard owen roberts would like to have a word with you..."

Dave

I may take Bret's approach to reading multi-hundred page memoirs. Pick out the most appealing periods, chapters and go from there. My queue of reading material is so dauntingly long.

Dave

I turned off Ripley after 3 episodes. Too slick and "Netflixy" for me. Love the Anthony Minghella film, and I definatley prefer Damon's boyish, needy and desperate portrayal over the seriousness of Scott's. Hearing Bret gush about The Good the Bad and the Ugly was pure pleasure. I'm glad he saved the Swift stuff for the end. Made it really easy to just tune out.

N.M. Janice.

In a Violent Nature?A correction: Zone won Sound.

LM

Really enjoyed this but I wish Bret put as much effort into pronouncing names as he does into crafting prose

Oscar

Don’t weasel in on his bit.

N.M. Janice.

am going to listen on my run. will say more later, after my run.

richard owain roberts

I hear the Streisand audio book version of her book is wild. She doesn't stick to the text and even reveals she did in fact sleep with Beatty.

Richard Raymond

Really enjoyed the list, especially the inclusion of "I'm Just Ken," and the high estimation of and observations about Taylor Swift. She doesn't pretend to be what she's not, and doesn't lead with sex. She is very, very smart. Is it still true that the highest paid, most powerful American actresses don't appear nude? What was that early Anne Hathaway film in which she is gang raped? It disappeared, scrubbed, when Hollywood started to model her after Julia Roberts.

Tracey Porter

Somebody's gotta say this: gonna say more, after my run.

pietro o.

I just downloaded the Babs book, I’ll probably die before listening to it all. My favorite short story book of all time is Capote’s Music For Chameleons. I highly recommend it. BEE talking about The Million Dollar cracked me up. White people loved Buena Vista Social Club when it came out. I worked at Virgin Megastore as a teen when it came out. It made my life hell.

M. Nero Nava

Morphic resonance between Capote's dust cover photo and BEE's.

Thomas Edwards

Wow -- an amazing episode. More of that please!!

Jerome Busca


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