The B.E.E. Podcast - 9/20/20 - Peter Bart - SILVER
Added 2020-09-21 00:20:39 +0000 UTCBret Easton Ellis returns to the desire and doom of 1981 in Part 2 of The Shards. Film Producer/Writer Peter Bart and Bret discuss turning genre fiction into elevated cinema, running Paramount Pictures with Robert Evans and clashing with Elaine May.
Comments
I loved hearing from Peter Bart. Great guest in my opinion. I did have to laugh though at the "only republican in Hollywood" rattling off the R presidential candidates he voted for and the list ended before Reagan. I guess that's the best we could hope for from somebody with real power in Hollywood.
Marque and D’Arrick
2023-06-05 11:11:52 +0000 UTCActing isn't modeling or The CW and their blandly attractive people would be at the pinnacle of theatrical presentation. Most of the great movie stars were so interesting looking they bordered on weird. Being hot is far from the most important thing to be as an actor.
Marque and D’Arrick
2023-06-04 23:04:36 +0000 UTCAs a french fan, it is so interesting to hear the author give a reading of a first draft before a translation is released on paper. Great experience.
Diego
2022-08-21 05:40:23 +0000 UTCThese mid budget Hollywood films from the 90’s are seriously better than anything out today! Working Girl is a staple for me and my mom, we have loved it ever since we saw it in the theatre
Seneca Garcia
2022-01-06 23:52:54 +0000 UTCIt is designed to crush your spirit and destroy beauty. The same people making these choices are the ones who invented Brutalism.
BrienPiechos
2021-11-22 02:02:04 +0000 UTCLol. You mean one acts as a "socially responsible" cover for the other to execute the actual mission? You can keep trying to fool people into thinking there are two entities with unrelated goals that just happen to keep fomenting the same acts and environments over and over but the truth is pretty obvious to anyone paying attention. Antifa and BLM are funded by the same people, and the terrorist Susan Rosenberg being a major player behind BLM is all anyone needs to know.
BrienPiechos
2021-11-22 02:01:04 +0000 UTCMcCarthy's staff was rife with seditionists of the typical persuasion as well.
BrienPiechos
2021-11-22 01:58:18 +0000 UTCThe beloved Robert Kennedy was one of McCarthy's butt-boys. NO ONE mentions this.
Antonio Primavera
2021-11-22 01:55:21 +0000 UTCQuit re-writing history for dumb-asses! Unless you do it where there is no "holocaust," Hitler is a hero, and the "allies" are drunk debauchees. That would be true, at least. Fuck! Charlie Manson was a hero! You're such a nerd douche bag!
Antonio Primavera
2021-11-22 01:48:00 +0000 UTCSounds like M.I.A. to me.
Antonio Primavera
2021-11-22 01:43:11 +0000 UTCI am SO sick of seeing ugly and fat people (or ugly skinny people like Adam Driver) in movies. I love that Robert Bresson called his actors "models." That's how he saw them, and they looked good. Who wants to look at an ugly painting? Is "diversity" served by making ugly paintings?
Antonio Primavera
2021-11-22 00:46:05 +0000 UTCIs this actually QT
Raffi N
2021-01-04 01:26:32 +0000 UTCBrett, An offhand remark -about when you went to see The Shining- reminds me of what the theater experience used to be: "Before the curtain rose." Curtains! A holdover from Vaudeville days, they literally shrouded the screen in mystery, so unlike the indifferent glare of the naked screen of now. They would rise (and sometimes part, too), those curtains, an almost titillating revelation. Sublimation or not, i always enjoyed that effect.
Michael Walsh
2020-10-20 17:18:14 +0000 UTCWhy do I let myself get behind on this podcast? The first two openings on the new book have been incredible.
Audrey Rouget
2020-10-16 12:54:19 +0000 UTCYeah, love Bret, but his lack of knowledge in the difference between Black Lives Matter as a whole and the ACAB, Antifa anarchists and opportunists that hijacked peaceful protest to grab Gucci belts is way off. That’s when his mid 50’s white man is exposed. Loved Peter Bart perspectives and how he subtly steered Bret off the deep end a few times. Pure grace.
Myron ward
2020-10-14 22:41:11 +0000 UTCBret also tweeted in 2013 something about a novel idea, featuring the character Richard Mallory as a high-school serial killer in 1981. It seems impossible that the Richard Mallory character invoked at the end of this week's monologue could also be the Trawler. And you're right, too many specific details that are found nowhere online... a girl propped up against a tennis court net, with her eyes gouged out, and not a single reference? Not being able to pin down what is nightmare and what is 'reality' is a dynamic in virtually every BEE novel too.. Regardless, the atmosphere created by that monologue was brilliant, that sense of LA's unfathomably dark underbelly - loved it.
Harman Virdee
2020-10-06 13:04:33 +0000 UTCHi friends. Just a reminder that we have a FB group for fans of the podcast! https://www.facebook.com/groups/BretEastonEllisPodcast
Chris Carroll
2020-10-05 16:17:46 +0000 UTCThis was a pretty good one, except for the part at the end where Bart starts talking about McCarthy and the "dark side" of the right wing. Is he not aware that McCarthy has recently been proven 100% correct by history and we would not be in this situation had McCarthy not been sabotaged by his own staff?
BrienPiechos
2020-10-05 15:42:41 +0000 UTCI also thought Bret has a sister, but who cares if it's true or not? Keep it up and I will keep listening. And buy the book as well. Also, is it me or does Peter Bart sound exactly like Anthony Fauci?
Phoenix
2020-10-04 22:27:17 +0000 UTCPart 2 is amazing..I want more!!!!!
Paul Francis Butler
2020-10-03 15:20:53 +0000 UTCAlso, i’m sure you don’t need unsolicited reading suggestions, but I think you would really like “Sleeveless” by Natasha Stagg. She is kind of like an Otessa Moshfegh, Eve Babitz, Anna Khachiyan blend.
Ashley
2020-10-02 09:25:17 +0000 UTCA future film review maybe... https://www.arrow-player.com/feature-presentations/videos/videoman
Kristian Söderström
2020-10-01 21:05:42 +0000 UTCI thought something similar. I wrote it on the gold comment section
Sebastian Mittelman
2020-10-01 09:40:13 +0000 UTCHey, Adam and/or Bret. Since we're all offering unsolicited advice, I have an idea that I know I'd be happy to see implemented. Would it make sense for you guys, as far as your schedules, to offer an approximate date at the top of the page for when you think the next podcast would appear? I know there isn't a big team putting together these shows and that even an "approximation" would be taken as a solemn vow by some of us members. No biggie. I bet some others of us would like it though. Bret, don't question yourself as far as what listeners would appreciate on the podcast in terms of your work. Even if I don't understand everything, I figure you're building towards something. We're getting to know the people and the world, at the risk of stating the obvious.
bpvalentine
2020-10-01 06:38:35 +0000 UTCYou audio person should check as to why the music before and after the interview was in mono. I would also have them adjust the settings on your de-sser for the story section. It was painful around 5-8k. It seemed fine for the interview which may have been recorded and processed differently.
Michael Patterson
2020-09-30 18:34:24 +0000 UTCThe second part of Ellis' novel/memoir I thought as fun as the first, I particularly liked the way the writer structured the chapter, moving back and forth between the development of late adolescence and and the crimes and murders and corpses--the effect being to turn the horrific events into morbid externalizations of the author's psyche and libido. This is almost his whole method of writing. The outside is always an ambiguous reflection of what's inside, too close and subjective to fully fathom. I particularly like the episode of the narrator's going to see The Shining and his first attempt at what the gays call cruising. This may be the best piece of his writing I've read. Too bad this hadn't happened at a showing of Dressed to Kill, ha. My only criticism is that you have a tendency to repeat points you've made, and already made well, somewhat flattening your description of friends and crushes to "types". But what you want is for the types to grow as the horror elements become more overwhelming and not have the events enact the emotion your people should be having. In any case, love it, keep going with it.
Joseph A Aisenberg
2020-09-29 23:10:52 +0000 UTCExcellent and entertaining podcast. Nice to finally have an anti Trumper who doesn’t have TDS. Enjoyed the talk about the Oscars.
David Willis
2020-09-29 13:08:36 +0000 UTCIt doesn’t matter if the story is fiction or not. It’s all about the mood and atmosphere and mystery and uneasy feeling it raises in the reader/listener. Confusion adds to the feel story. Time machine to early 80’s LA, from a writer who was actually there right in the center of it.
T
2020-09-29 05:30:01 +0000 UTCLoved it. And the talk with Peter Bart was wonderfully enlightning. Yes. Hollywood is dumb.
Kristian Rasmussen
2020-09-29 01:27:15 +0000 UTCYup, that's what I was thinking. And the instagram post I saw said parts one and two were up.
Thomas Rankin
2020-09-28 16:34:12 +0000 UTCI'm wondering this as well--unless the monologue of the Walter Kirn podcast was the first chapter? Though it seemed distinctly like an author talking about his next book, not reading from it.
Chris Boyland
2020-09-28 16:29:26 +0000 UTCUh oh, did I miss part one?
Thomas Rankin
2020-09-28 16:13:56 +0000 UTCWhere’s the thing with The Shining?
Adrian
2020-09-28 11:39:38 +0000 UTCBret at the beginning says “this part of the story might not be as interesting” then proceeds to be as interesting or more than the last. What a tease.
Anthony Giancola
2020-09-28 01:17:04 +0000 UTCI'm game for serialization, but hope you can also find a way to produce this as a book - even if you do have to change a few details.
Raymond Cummings
2020-09-28 00:01:18 +0000 UTCPlease do continue. This is giving me so much joy!
Felix Olsson
2020-09-26 21:44:09 +0000 UTCSuper excited by the last two monologues Bret has done and would love to have the book serialized. I’d like to have it in my hands as well. Totally mesmerizing to hear the story in his own voice too. I’m back in my childhood home in hollowed out Westwood after a death in the family, for the rest of the year, and have always enjoyed the detailed descriptions of his cinema going in Westwood Village at its youth recreation peak. This dark trip back to 1980 is especially haunting right now.
Bridget H Burns
2020-09-26 13:41:23 +0000 UTCIf there’s an Academy Awards for Podcasts submit this one. No joke, one of the all time best experiences I’ve had with art period. Stop searching for some outdated form. This is the way I want to experience your new book. To put it simply: I’m not sure I can wait two more weeks for the next chapter...
Matt Brown
2020-09-26 03:55:59 +0000 UTCA double bill of "High Heels" and "Let Him Have It" changed my life forever, and so I can believe that "The Shining" could touch him in such a way. Go for it.
Scott Chrabas
2020-09-26 03:45:21 +0000 UTCDefinitely no anti-climax. So intense and vivid. And another brilliant interview. BEE on an absolute roll here.
David
2020-09-25 22:41:27 +0000 UTCLove the memoir thus far
Andrew Hernandez
2020-09-25 21:13:24 +0000 UTCGet Ari Aster on the podcast, if at all possible.
Michael Walsh
2020-09-25 18:14:25 +0000 UTCLoved the back and forth with the guest on Hollywood and inclusivity and politics. Finally a guest who did not back down to Bret and was interested in a debate. Best part was when Bret spoke about people not qualified to be in the Academy and Bart then said he was woefully unqualified to be in the Academy. Just goes to show you it has been happening for some time. Anyways great Pod when you have guests that have their own thoughts and experiences and can actually participate in a debate.
Gregory Robey
2020-09-25 16:03:02 +0000 UTCi keep re-listening too, i feel like i keep catching new details i missed
Ashley
2020-09-25 04:36:30 +0000 UTCI have listened to the opening monologue 3 times. It is up there with the Lunar Park intro as the greatest thing Bret has written. I hope he keeps reading more of it each week!
Billy Vega
2020-09-24 20:51:57 +0000 UTCPsyched to hear more of this memoir. Great idea to release it serially.
Peter Kovic
2020-09-24 02:07:59 +0000 UTCI caught this and thought that he could be referring to the idea that his sisters weren't born yet, his sisters were too young to be a large part of his social life, or his sisters lived with his other parent (if the parents were separated at this point).
Keith V Whalen
2020-09-24 00:42:40 +0000 UTCI'll gladly take the doom of 1981 over the doom of 2020. And, Peter Bart was a great guest. I always love hearing stories from this film era.
Jonathan Davis
2020-09-23 23:33:32 +0000 UTCDear Mr. Ellis, I have enjoyed your podcast since its very beginnings on Podcast One, and I feel your storied telling of the emergence of "the trawler" represents the apex of your programming. I listened to it three times, on every occasion, more terrified than the previous one. What a great idea, what a great story, and a treat for all of us, Patreon members. Thank you, and please continue with the story! Best, Manny
Manny Ramos
2020-09-23 19:51:36 +0000 UTCYes, he does have sisters. I caught the elimination as well. I love whatever it is that is going on with this story so far.
Rachel Bartlett
2020-09-23 16:52:06 +0000 UTCDid anyone else catch that Bret said he and his friends didn’t have any siblings? Pretty sure Bret has mentioned having a sister in the past?
KC Sunshine
2020-09-23 15:26:11 +0000 UTCWhy would he lie?
Joe Paluck
2020-09-23 13:40:44 +0000 UTCNo way is it true but great writing
Billy Vega
2020-09-23 08:24:30 +0000 UTCWhy?
D Michael Hardy
2020-09-23 02:54:47 +0000 UTCWell, get back on the podcast and defend the 90s films, Quentin! Jackie Brown Forever!
Alex Waller
2020-09-23 01:59:03 +0000 UTCI'm not sure if Bret is trolling us a little, but I certainly want him to read out the rest of this new memoir/novel! I'm happy to buy a print copy (and ideally get it signed) when the time arises. I also loved Bart's anecdotes in the interview. His comments about he and Bob Evans dealing with Bluhdorn's blunders especially made me smile. One of the best episodes I've heard so far and well worth the impatient wait until it dropped for us silver tier types.
Shane James Bordas
2020-09-23 01:21:22 +0000 UTCI'm taking this as100% true, Bret. Why not? I have always pondered the reasons for developing such a dark view of humanity. I am glad that the style of writing that seemed to emerge during the 'virus monologues' is employed - no artifice, no adornment. I like the age of the protagonists - still young enough not to be boringly world-weary ... (so far)
JEREMY ROBERTS
2020-09-22 18:04:47 +0000 UTCBeen Listening to your podcast for years and holding my breath for the next novel, but being content with your monologues sufficing as your latest content. But of course I will look forward to each section of the new novel being read to me. I also looked at amazon hoping to see a pre order available, even with it being read on the podcast I will still buy the print version when ever it materializes.
Kerry
2020-09-22 17:51:36 +0000 UTCBret, it's funny that you would worry about listeners being bored by the novel involving a lot of reminiscences of cinema trips in the 70s/80s, when this is one of the reasons we've been listening to the podcast for so long 😂
Christopher Hooton
2020-09-22 15:54:04 +0000 UTCYeah, to be fair he's over an over 80 Hollywood millionaire and is beyond out of touch with the average American. His opinions on diversity, 🐶 woof. I don't need lectures and endless streams of blackity black blackness 24/7, it's fucking boring. I can go my entire life without another Green Book shittastic movie where each scene is by the numbers intended to hit every white man bad checkmark. Ohh your car broke down and the police are gonna come and be racist.... Wow, didn't see that coming.
Alexandru Constantin
2020-09-22 14:28:54 +0000 UTCLoved Bart's Hollywood anecdotes and industry musings, but his views on Biden and BLM show he's just another coastal media figure in denial about the country ready to blow chunks from being forced fed identity politics nonsense.
Billy Schafer
2020-09-22 14:20:39 +0000 UTCThe novel segment was absolutely wonderful and it's a very good idea to serialize -- there's a reason why a lot of great novels were serialized in the past, back when literary magazines still held sway. The talk show segment was great, too.
Jerome Busca
2020-09-22 12:42:31 +0000 UTCThe novel segment is fantastic. I'm looking forward to next week. The interview, not so much. Really out of touch executive boomer nonsense.
Alexandru Constantin
2020-09-22 09:49:54 +0000 UTCYep. You can just hear that jewish logic oozing out of your speakers.
Billy Vega
2020-09-22 06:01:03 +0000 UTCYour posts are the highlight of my podcast listening week. Thanks Bret!
HK
2020-09-22 03:46:30 +0000 UTCGreat episode, loved the guest and his insight on Hollywood, but he's now completely out of touch. He thinks Trump suffers from the same mental decline as Biden? That right there tells you that he's out of touch with reality.
Jett
2020-09-21 23:16:14 +0000 UTCPlease do serialise it, I’m hooked! Would be really exciting hearing more of the story read by Bret each podcast.
Will Cross
2020-09-21 22:30:32 +0000 UTCSerializing it would be great, looking forward to the next chapters.
Samuel Setenyi
2020-09-21 21:14:52 +0000 UTCFor me, the idea of each chapter unfolding with each podcast is the most exciting thing in entertainment since Game of Thrones ended.
Keith V Whalen
2020-09-21 20:55:43 +0000 UTCUpvoted for diving into JSTOR. Serializing this thing is a great idea, I've re listened to both opening monologues already.
Charlie C
2020-09-21 19:33:32 +0000 UTCAmazing
Christian
2020-09-21 18:55:12 +0000 UTCSerialize this!
Christian
2020-09-21 18:55:07 +0000 UTCNo idea how truthful this is; I suspect this is in the lunar park vein, but it’s great.
Chris coats
2020-09-21 18:44:26 +0000 UTCIt ain’t true but I truly enjoy it
Marresmarre2
2020-09-21 18:35:41 +0000 UTCThis is incredible. I am hooked.
Senseless
2020-09-21 18:29:11 +0000 UTCWho cares? Just let the story unfold the way Bret intends it.
Senseless
2020-09-21 18:28:14 +0000 UTCGreat interview! It was amazing to hear the history that Bart didn't want to go into too much. I like how you didn't back down as he praised BLM. I think he's spent too much time in Hollywood. I would love to hear you and Billy Friedkin talk. Would you do an interview with Milo?
Pablo Pappano
2020-09-21 17:06:29 +0000 UTCI thought about posting it to r/unsolvedmysteries but then I was worried I’d look truly deranged
Timothy
2020-09-21 16:47:14 +0000 UTCI'm not going to be able to do anything else until I find out who this killer is
Joe Paluck
2020-09-21 16:37:03 +0000 UTCI couldn't figure it out either. Someone will dig it up at some point though, I'm sure.
Joe Paluck
2020-09-21 13:48:41 +0000 UTCNo idea - I’ve been trying to figure it out too. In terms of MO, The Trawler sounds eerily similar to the Golden State Killer / ONS (prank calls, staking our properties, graduating from burglaries to more violent attacks). I’m sure there was plenty of similar types floating around California at that time...
P Smoke
2020-09-21 11:54:14 +0000 UTCThis is the sole highlight of my shitty day. Thank you!
Alex Dermer
2020-09-21 09:35:10 +0000 UTCThe movies of the nineties were bad? So says the out of touch old fuck Peter Bart who we never need pay attention to again. Brett, I can’t believe you let him get away with that?
Quentin Tarantino
2020-09-21 09:10:39 +0000 UTCDoes anyone belief that these opening monologues about "The Trawler" are based on truth? No matter what combination of words I put into google/JSTOR/LA-Times archive etc I don't get any hits back that fit what is being described remotely. I mean he talks about one of the girls being kidnapped outside a drug store and then the body being dumped in Simi Valley. Those are pretty specific details. Looking for any controversy involving a former Buckley student from the class of 80/81 doesn't throw up any results either. Conveniently the student is missing from the Buckley Yearbook due to the whatever transpired. I have no issue if this is all some sort of meta-fiction like Lunar Park. It just seems *too* neat that the writer of American Psycho experienced seemingly similar trauma at a pivotal age. Even the scenes set in the desert in Imperial Bedrooms take on different meaning now. These are just my thoughts and either way I don't really care. I got so freaked out last night listening to the opening monologue it felt like reading Stephen King for the first time. I love it!
Timothy
2020-09-21 09:08:16 +0000 UTCI believe it was made by Todd Michael Schultz, Bret's leftist Jewish boyfriend
David Morgan-Brown
2020-09-21 08:59:20 +0000 UTCThat just being a hypothesis to you antagonizing your bf over why there's no millennial epic novel or cinema. I fucking love to read!
Ashley
2020-09-21 06:55:49 +0000 UTCWe are so intoxicated with the ability to create our visual narratives via social media that we can consistently update in what we see as “real time” and get the feedback from our output just as instantaneously that there’s no need to write an epic fiction, it’s literally being written in posts that people are obsessed and subsumed by. They can’t understand that the image itself is a fiction, or separate themselves from it, you have your great novel in the form of everyone’s never-ending addiction to believing in the image world as relating a kind of realty to whoever is doing the looking. They’re showing you their visual literacy non-stop, and are engulfed by the idea of their power in being viewed that it dictates all action. It has affected attention span, so how could anyone sit and read to visualize?
Ashley
2020-09-21 06:28:46 +0000 UTCi've been curios about that too, it's good
Ashley
2020-09-21 04:22:57 +0000 UTCGreat get!
Eric M. Rhein
2020-09-21 04:08:30 +0000 UTCSo, the Soviet Comintern officials at the Academy Awards are killing artistry for a quota system. Good luck with that.
Benjamin Terpstra
2020-09-21 01:41:12 +0000 UTCWho wrote the BEE Podcast Theme Music?
Clive Desmond
2020-09-21 01:39:01 +0000 UTCDesire and doom!
Clive Desmond
2020-09-21 01:35:00 +0000 UTCyes!!!
Tom Kern
2020-09-21 00:21:35 +0000 UTC
