SOMETHING FISHY’S GOING ON: Join me and novelist, film enthusiast and podcaster, Heather Baxendale-Walsh, as we talk Lost in Translation/Toby Dammit, two fish out of water stories about actors in an existential crisis while visiting another country. What could go wrong?

It’s difficult to be a fish. It’s even more difficult to be a fish out of water. It’s even more difficult to be a fish out of water actor having a mid-life crisis on the verge of a breakdown suffering jet leg and not speaking the native language…Sounds like it’s time for Episode 84 of Pop Art, where we find the pop culture in art and the art in pop culture. It’s the podcast where my guest chooses a movie from popular culture, and I’ll select a film from the more art/classic/indie side of cinema with a connection to it. This time, I am happy to welcome as my guest, novelist, film enthusiast and podcaster, Heather Baxendale-Walsh, who has chosen as her film Sofia Coppola’s existential exploration of alienation, Lost in Translation, while I have chosen Federico Fellini’s surrealist classic Toby Dammit, both films about actors in crisis in a foreign country.  

And in this episode, we answer such questions as: Who is the part Anna Faris played not, definitely not, most definitely not, based on? Who was originally cast in the Terence Stamp? What is it about portmanteau films? Where did the idea for the Suntory commercial come from? Is there a Mandela effect here? What do the two Germans say in the sauna? Where does Silent Hill fit in? What did the elderly man in the hospital say?