The podcast corpus
12,078 claims and 5,127 fun items from 206 episodes, about 7,690 films and 5,411 people, with 657 personality sketches. Search reads claims and fun items (SQLite full-text search).
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Showing 1–36 of 36 lines.
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fun, about
An Angel at My Table:
Griffin's best-line story: the film has no quotes page, so he scrubbed to the scene for the line about longing to be as full of secrets as she seemed to be.
“I long to be as full of secrets as she seemed to be”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · An Angel at My Table with Dana Stevens · 0:00:22 · Griffin Newman (0.60 sure it was them) -
unmapped (sister films):
An Angel at My Table → Bright Star.
Both are Campion biopics about writers made many years apart; Dana nearly picked Bright Star for the episode.
“They're kind of sister films in a way, right?”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · An Angel at My Table with Dana Stevens · 0:07:15 · David Sims (0.55 sure it was them) -
industry (festival rival):
An Angel at My Table → Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead.
At Venice, Angel won the runner-up prize and lost the Golden Lion to Stoppard's film.
“It actually lost the Golden Lion to Tom Stoppertz, Rosencrantz and Gildenster dead movie”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · An Angel at My Table with Dana Stevens · 0:12:58 · David Sims (0.50 sure it was them) -
career (career sequencing):
An Angel at My Table → The Piano.
The next film is The Piano, where Campion becomes the first woman to win the Palme d'Or.
“it's also the movie after this is, uh, the piano, where she becomes the 1st woman to win the palm door.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · An Angel at My Table with Dana Stevens · 0:13:46 · David Sims (0.50 sure it was them) -
fun, about
An Angel at My Table:
Made for TV as three episodes, but it conquered Venice: crowds chanted for the film for ten minutes, though it only won the runner-up prize.
“people were shouting angel, angel for 10 minutes”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · An Angel at My Table with Dana Stevens · 0:14:16 · David Sims (0.50 sure it was them) -
unmapped (genealogy):
An Angel at My Table → My Brilliant Career.
Dana confused the two for years; both are about a young woman growing into a writer.
“I even confused the movies for years afterwards probably was my brilliant career, right?”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · An Angel at My Table with Dana Stevens · 0:16:00 · Dana Stevens (0.90 sure it was them) -
craft (mood):
An Angel at My Table → Picnic at Hanging Rock.
The gauzy distance, fades to black and mystery of the childhood chapter recall Picnic at Hanging Rock.
“Peter Weir's picnic and Hanging Rock, which I think this movie has something in common with”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · An Angel at My Table with Dana Stevens · 0:16:07 · Dana Stevens (0.90 sure it was them) -
people (contrast (casting continuity)):
An Angel at My Table → Cinema Paradiso.
Dana praises Angel's continuity across three actresses, unlike Cinema Paradiso where the three actors never felt like one person.
“remember Cinema Paradiso, like how none of the 3 guys at the same, at different ages seemed like the same dude”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · An Angel at My Table with Dana Stevens · 0:17:47 · Dana Stevens (0.60 sure it was them) -
people (casting across ages):
An Angel at My Table → The Last Emperor.
Campion loved The Last Emperor, which shares the kid-to-adult actor handoff; she planned the switches to land in happy moments.
“Campion loved the last emperor, which has to pull the same trick, you know, going from kid to adolescent to grown up.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · An Angel at My Table with Dana Stevens · 0:18:55 · Griffin Newman (0.55 sure it was them) -
craft (structure):
An Angel at My Table → Moonlight.
Three-actor, three-part handoff with continuity of performance; Moonlight also made on a compressed schedule.
“there's a similar sort of handoff quality to it and a continuity of performance”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · An Angel at My Table with Dana Stevens · 0:19:54 · David Sims (0.45 sure it was them) -
lineage (possible influence):
Barry Jenkins → An Angel at My Table.
Speaker wonders whether Jenkins referenced Angel when making Moonlight.
“I wonder if Barry Jenkins, like references at all in working on Moonlight”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · An Angel at My Table with Dana Stevens · 0:19:54 · David Sims (0.45 sure it was them) -
career (career sequencing):
An Angel at My Table → Sweetie.
Frame approved the adaptation before Sweetie was made; Campion used early festival heat for a weird small comedy first.
“she gets the approval from frame to make this before sweetie's been made.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · An Angel at My Table with Dana Stevens · 0:25:21 · David Sims (0.50 sure it was them) -
what-if (what it could have been):
An Angel at My Table → Girl, Interrupted.
With a TV-miniseries approach it could have been a sensationalist mental-illness movie like Girl, Interrupted.
“Yeah, it could have been a girl interrupted.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · An Angel at My Table with Dana Stevens · 0:29:46 · Griffin Newman (0.40 sure it was them) -
what-if (what it could have been):
An Angel at My Table → One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
Dana says a cruder version could have resembled Cuckoo's Nest, whose portrait of mental illness she finds reductionist.
“its portrait of, you know, mental illness and mental illness treatment is is just really, really crude and reductionist.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · An Angel at My Table with Dana Stevens · 0:29:54 · Dana Stevens (0.60 sure it was them) -
what-if (what it could have been):
An Angel at My Table → Frances.
Another highbrow mental-illness biopic the film could have resembled.
“And I think it could have been Francis.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · An Angel at My Table with Dana Stevens · 0:30:02 · Dana Stevens (0.40 sure it was them) -
unmapped (feel):
An Angel at My Table → Terrence Malick.
The childhood section, with sparse dialogue and a baby's-eye first shot, recalls Malick.
“Yes, in in a way that almost at moments recalls Terrence Malik.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · An Angel at My Table with Dana Stevens · 0:30:52 · Dana Stevens (0.70 sure it was them) -
fun, about
An Angel at My Table:
The opening shot: a baby's feet walking through the grass and a mother's flowered dress looming overhead, an unusual way to begin a biopic.
“that very 1st shot of the baby's feet walking through the grass”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · An Angel at My Table with Dana Stevens · 0:30:56 · Dana Stevens (0.80 sure it was them) -
verdict (best literary biopics):
An Angel at My Table → Bright Star.
Dana calls them two of the best literary biopics ever, both avoiding the furrowed-brow-at-desk cliches.
“the same person, Jane Campion directed what I think are 2 of the best literary biopics ever made.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · An Angel at My Table with Dana Stevens · 0:31:10 · Dana Stevens (0.90 sure it was them) -
unmapped (biopic done right):
An Angel at My Table → Oscar Wilde trial biopic (unnamed; transcript says 'wild').
Speaker prefers biopics that focus on one conflict or period, like the Wilde film about only his trial.
“Like wild, that fantastic Oscar wild biography that's only about the trial”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · An Angel at My Table with Dana Stevens · 0:32:13 · David Sims (0.50 sure it was them) -
fun, about
An Angel at My Table:
Dana's favorite shot is an 8 to 9 second silent shot of Janet staring at a piece of chalk as she freezes while teaching.
“it's so cinematic to decide to look at someone looking at a piece of chalk”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · An Angel at My Table with Dana Stevens · 0:41:24 · Dana Stevens (0.85 sure it was them) -
unmapped (feel):
An Angel at My Table → Terrence Malick.
The train-and-asylum moment is called a Malick-like glimpse of a child sensing something wrong in the world.
“that's a really powerful, again, sort of Malikian moment, right?”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · An Angel at My Table with Dana Stevens · 0:45:30 · Dana Stevens (0.70 sure it was them) -
fun, about
An Angel at My Table:
The photograph sequence: a sister missing from the photo, her death, then the photo restored with an arm added; Janet watches and listens, a writer in the making.
“the photographer did this weird thing where he cut her out of this photo and made her her own photo and then added her arm there.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · An Angel at My Table with Dana Stevens · 0:48:27 · Griffin Newman (0.50 sure it was them) -
craft (visual resemblance):
Annie → An Angel at My Table.
Janet Frame, in her red cardigan and curly red hair, looks like Annie, which makes viewers root for her.
“she kind of looks like Australian little orphan Annie.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · An Angel at My Table with Dana Stevens · 0:52:10 · Dana Stevens (0.35 sure it was them) -
craft (aesthetic carryover):
An Angel at My Table → Sweetie.
Sweetie's saturated children's-film look survives in Angel only in the Janet character's costume and hair.
“it's like an adult film that has the aesthetics of a children's film.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · An Angel at My Table with Dana Stevens · 0:56:44 · Griffin Newman (0.40 sure it was them) -
craft (production design):
An Angel at My Table → The Power of the Dog.
Production design is a major part of Campion's project in both, communicating class without exposition.
“in power of the dog, this past year where production design is a huge part of what informs Campion's project.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · An Angel at My Table with Dana Stevens · 0:58:25 · Dana Stevens (0.50 sure it was them) -
unmapped (narrative strategy):
An Angel at My Table → The Power of the Dog.
Campion's films hold you without conventional narrative thrust, unlike the ensemble of Power of the Dog, this one is just Janet.
“in power of the dog, it's an ensemble of full characters.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · An Angel at My Table with Dana Stevens · 0:59:55 · Dana Stevens (0.50 sure it was them) -
craft (unconventional structure):
An Angel at My Table → Two Friends.
Speaker notes Campion films that do not operate like normal narratives, citing a backward-narrative film (transcribed 'Two friends').
“Two friends has this weird backward narrative?”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · An Angel at My Table with Dana Stevens · 1:01:31 · unknown (0.30 sure it was them) -
what-if (what it could have been):
An Angel at My Table → Angela's Ashes.
A more maudlin filmmaker would have turned Frame's working-class background into Angela's Ashes.
“could have been turned into like Angela's ashes or something”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · An Angel at My Table with Dana Stevens · 1:02:12 · Griffin Newman (0.50 sure it was them) -
fun, about
An Angel at My Table:
Fancy free, said by a boarding-house man warning her about men, becomes Griffin's life-changing discovery and a debate about whether it means single.
“Fancy free means single.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · An Angel at My Table with Dana Stevens · 1:14:49 · Griffin Newman (0.50 sure it was them) -
fun, about
An Angel at My Table:
Her lover interrupts sex to read his poem to her, a mansplaining moment where Fox withdraws under the bedsheets.
“The guy breaking off, the guy breaking off their sexual encounter to read his poem to her in bed.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · An Angel at My Table with Dana Stevens · 1:20:25 · Griffin Newman (0.50 sure it was them) -
fun, about
An Angel at My Table:
Non-American films show women topless in bed instead of the L-shaped bedsheet, crotch to neck.
“Oh, the LL shaped bedsheets.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · An Angel at My Table with Dana Stevens · 1:21:03 · David Sims (0.40 sure it was them) -
theme (recurring character type):
An Angel at My Table → Sweetie.
Both films have doofy, non-villainous, two-dimensional men and boys.
“both very good at those sorts of doofy men where they're not even villainous sort of, but they're just sort of like painfully, uh, awkward”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · An Angel at My Table with Dana Stevens · 1:21:11 · David Sims (0.40 sure it was them) -
fun, about
An Angel at My Table:
Menstruation scene: the mother pins on a rag and says she is lucky it did not start at 12.
“her mom's consolation is like, look, you're lucky.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · An Angel at My Table with Dana Stevens · 1:24:43 · Griffin Newman (0.40 sure it was them) -
fun, about
An Angel at My Table:
The ending: Janet twists to Chubby Checker, then the film fades to a girl dancing the twist in her writing trailer.
“she's twisting to chubby checker at the end”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · An Angel at My Table with Dana Stevens · 1:27:03 · Dana Stevens (0.50 sure it was them) -
fun, about
An Angel at My Table:
Callback: she wants an author photo on her first book and is hurt; the later photo, with photographers climbing a hill to reach her while she wrestles farm animals, is anything but glamorous.
“she's asking, where's my picture?”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · An Angel at My Table with Dana Stevens · 1:28:43 · Dana Stevens (0.60 sure it was them) -
career (career completeness):
An Angel at My Table → Top of the Lake.
Top of the Lake seasons are on Patreon as an important missing piece of Campion's filmography.
“too important a piece in the Campion philography.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · An Angel at My Table with Dana Stevens · 1:50:24 · Griffin Newman (0.50 sure it was them)