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0:41

Hello everybody and welcome back to

0:43

Critically Acclaimed the movie review podcast where

0:46

the explosion won the poll. Yay! My

0:48

name is William Bibiani. I am a

0:50

film critic. I write for the rap

0:53

and everybody calls me Bebs. My name

0:55

is Whitney Seivold. I too am a

0:57

film critic. I'm senior staff writer of

1:00

its slash film. I don't have a

1:02

nickname. I don't need one. And if

1:04

you're wondering what the hell we're talking

1:07

about on the last proper episode of

1:09

critically acclaimed We we joked that maybe

1:11

after over a thousand episodes of our various

1:14

shows It was time to retire the explosion

1:16

sound effect at the beginning of every episode

1:18

and we we gave everyone Competing hashtags and

1:20

just like just put you can post it

1:22

in the comments on the patron you can

1:25

post it on our blue sky you can

1:27

whatever I don't think we got a

1:29

single vote against the explosion? No, ever,

1:31

anybody who voted voted to keep it.

1:33

So, okay, so the explosion, the explosion

1:35

is in. Is our unofficial third host?

1:37

When are these days we should properly

1:39

interview it? Every explosion. Yeah, like, yeah.

1:41

Excuse me, Mr. Explosion, how do you

1:43

feel about the state of the world

1:45

today? Mr. What lights your fire? What kind

1:48

of tree would you be? This is

1:50

a brand new year here critically acclaimed.

1:52

Normally we would have done more episodes

1:54

by now, but again, and I know

1:56

some people only listen to like certain

1:59

shows on the critically claimed network, so

2:01

if you've been listening to critically acclaimed

2:03

and you met some other stuff, the

2:05

Los Angeles fighters have been very devastating.

2:08

If you have any means to

2:10

help out there are various charities and

2:12

go fund me and donations you can

2:14

do really help a lot. Whitney and

2:16

I have been very lucky in that

2:18

we are situated. like well within the

2:20

concrete confines of Los Angeles County so

2:23

we weren't really close. Yeah we were

2:25

never in an evacuation zone we were

2:27

never close to the fires. I was

2:29

close to a fire there was a

2:31

brief fire on sunset. That's right. It

2:33

was like in the heart of Hollywood.

2:36

Right on the edge of having to

2:38

evacuate but they got right on top

2:40

of that one quickly. My mother had

2:42

to evacuate Pasadena but her house is

2:44

well didn't catch fire but we still

2:47

have to do some repairs. So because

2:49

it was still like a huge. giant

2:51

windstorm. But I digress, the long short

2:53

of it is for those who have

2:55

asked and maybe who have missed our

2:58

updates, we are okay. But the situation

3:00

is still pretty chaotic. It is complicated

3:02

to get to get to record lately

3:04

for a variety of reasons. They're all

3:07

practical. Yeah. Just so we've been haven't

3:09

been as productive as we wanted to

3:11

and we are we do apologize for

3:14

that. We're doing the best we can.

3:16

But on that note, we have a

3:18

lot of catching up to do here

3:20

at critically acclaimed. Right. And it's good

3:23

that we can catch up. in January.

3:25

Oh yeah, it's good that

3:27

you did that January. It's

3:30

real good. January is notoriously

3:32

when studios dump, famously critics

3:34

see it as the time

3:37

of the year when studios

3:39

dump garbage. For the rest of the

3:41

country, it's a great time of year because

3:44

it's when the limited release sort of Oscar

3:46

contenders finally make it to the public. In

3:48

like November and December, those were available here

3:50

in Los Angeles and maybe in New York

3:52

or Chicago. And it's not until January that

3:54

those go wide. And so a lot of

3:57

people can now finally see all of these

3:59

big awards content. Yeah, but we we reviewed

4:01

them already. Yeah, so all we have is

4:03

we have the new films that we have

4:05

to review and studios Know nobody's paying attention.

4:07

Yeah, it's only they only they only want

4:09

to talk about their Oscar movies And this

4:11

is a great time to just sort of

4:13

slip out some junk So we got some

4:16

junk, but we do some Oscar contenders as

4:18

well. That's right And it's it. Well, it's

4:20

a lot of movies. Let's let's run down

4:22

the list We're gonna be reviewing Lee Winnell's

4:24

new universal horror reboot Wolfman The

4:27

now this this only just came

4:29

out of Netflix proper right Emilia Perez

4:31

Okay, because it had been around

4:33

for a while and theaters

4:35

trying to get the Oscar by some boy did it

4:37

got some but yeah the new Musical

4:40

Emilia Perez the new Ardman

4:42

animated Wallace and Gromit movie Wallace

4:44

and Gromit vengeance most foul

4:46

A movie called wish you were

4:48

here a movie called I'm

4:50

still here. I assume one is

4:52

a prequel No, they're

4:54

quite different in fact. Okay,

4:56

that's interesting Whitney saw those. I

4:58

didn't Let's see. We've got

5:00

the Pamela Anderson drama the last

5:02

showgirl the new miglee drama

5:05

hard truths a Really

5:07

interesting documentary called grand theft hamlet about

5:09

a bunch of actors who stage the

5:11

production of hamlet inside grand theft auto

5:13

online and then finally a documentary about Quite

5:17

legendary songwriter Diane Warren

5:19

called Diane Warren

5:21

relentless Relentlessly

5:23

nominated. She is oh boy. Howdy.

5:25

Well, yeah, we'll talk about that I

5:27

I actually learned a lot about Diane

5:29

Warren this time. I'm actually really excited

5:31

to talk about some of that stuff

5:34

But we're gonna go In well we

5:36

talked about the biggest theatrical release

5:38

and I guess that's technically wolf man

5:40

It's it's the highest profile new release

5:42

of 2025. I think it's the first

5:44

2025 film. I've seen in theaters Anyway,

5:46

uh, yeah liwanel was back, uh liwanel

5:48

previously did Another universal sort of modern

5:51

reboot with invisible man a couple

5:53

years ago And this is after he had

5:55

spent like excuse me like well over

5:57

like 15 years. I think uh creating

6:00

a variety of hit movie

6:02

franchises, horror movie franchises, he co

6:04

-created Saw, he co -created Insidious.

6:06

And yeah, they gave him the

6:08

crack, came out

6:10

right at the beginning of

6:13

2020 at remaking The Invisible

6:15

Man, which is the

6:17

original Invisible Man directed by James Welle, is

6:19

still one of the great movies of

6:21

the 1930s. It's incredibly visually spectacular. The visual

6:23

effects hold up really good. Yeah, yeah,

6:25

for sure. But yeah, it's about a mad

6:27

scientist and he takes a potion and

6:29

it becomes invisible. And he realizes, oh my

6:31

God, I could do anything I want,

6:33

anything in the world as long as I'm

6:35

naked. And so he runs off naked

6:37

as a J -Bird and like sabotages trains

6:39

and does a lot of horrible things. And

6:41

It goes a little mad, partly because

6:43

of like the chemicals, but partly because of

6:45

- Mad power. Yeah, this new ability that

6:47

he has. Yeah, it's

6:49

fantastic. It's been remade ad nauseam. There

6:51

are many, many Invisible Man movies. I don't

6:54

know if it's been properly remade that often,

6:56

but just the concept of the Invisible Man

6:58

has been done many times. We had

7:00

Memoirs of Invisible Man, there was Invisible Man

7:02

TV series in the 70s with David McCallum.

7:05

I forgot who starred, but yeah, there

7:07

was Invisible Man TV series. Hollow Man

7:09

is practically a remake. Paul Verhoeven did

7:11

Invisible Man. But this is the Universal

7:13

Studios version of The Invisible Man and

7:16

Lee Willenel knocked that shit out of

7:18

the park. What Lee Willenel did with

7:20

both Invisible Man and with this Wolf

7:22

Man is he focused just as much

7:24

on the man part of the title

7:26

as he did the qualifiers because Invisible

7:28

Man is about a controlling man. It's

7:30

the protagonist who's played by Elizabeth Moss. One of

7:33

the great performances should have gotten awards is

7:36

being stalked by an abusive ex -boyfriend who

7:38

might be invisible. And so she's really

7:40

paranoid. And I think that film really

7:42

captures because something actually kind of went

7:44

through personally that fear of like being

7:46

stalked by an ex. Yeah, yeah. Cause

7:48

like, and everyone else things like, oh,

7:50

you're just being paranoid. And it's like,

7:52

no, they're everywhere. They're

7:54

watching me and you just don't

7:56

see them. You don't realize

7:58

what I would. their

8:01

presence is like she gets news like oh,

8:03

and it turns out he's dead and

8:05

but she doesn't trust that you know She's

8:07

like no he's still there somewhere and

8:09

that was a genius move because the thing

8:11

with a lot of these older monsters

8:13

Dracula Frankenstein the Wolfman mummy is Well

8:16

frankly we take every granted now don't wait like

8:18

they can be they can be kids shows

8:20

You know like we don't they don't have to

8:23

be truly terrifying and in order to get

8:25

back to what makes them terrifying You know the

8:27

critic isn't like we're gonna do Dracula 2000

8:29

and make it hip and now and wow It's

8:31

like no what at the root of this

8:33

is still frightening Mm -hmm, and I think Lee

8:35

Winnell really understood that with the invisible

8:37

man What what it would be terrifying about

8:39

having someone who is invisible stalking you

8:42

and just absolutely nailed it That's one of

8:44

the great horror movies of the 20th

8:46

century. We recently did a They

8:49

wouldn't do like an iron list

8:51

that was like the best remakes. Yeah,

8:53

and we forgot We forgot invisible

8:55

man. We fucked up. That's an error

8:57

on our part because invisible man

8:59

is terrific Yeah, but no Lee Winnell

9:01

is back with a remake of

9:03

the Wolfman George Wagner. I did the

9:06

original Wolfman in 1941 Nobody knows

9:08

about George Wagner that much. He's not

9:10

celebrated No, George

9:12

Wagner is the name of the director

9:14

of the 1941 Wolfman with two Gs But

9:17

yeah, I it started

9:20

long Cheney Jr. I there was

9:22

a lot of Between

9:25

that film and a film that preceded actually

9:27

called werewolf of London, which wasn't quite

9:29

as popular a wolf man really popularized it

9:33

They kind of invented modern

9:35

werewolf mythology Wrote it. Oh, that's

9:37

how I fucked that up.

9:39

Okay. I'm not I'm not not

9:43

a Fool I would just I

9:45

would just tell me what George

9:47

Wagner directed because he's not as

9:49

celebrate as some of us like

9:51

Todd browning I'm James whale known

9:53

for the wolf man and then

9:55

stuff you've never heard of He

9:57

directed man -made monster also in

9:59

1941. Okay lot of TV

10:01

towards the end of his career. Oh,

10:03

he did that Boris Karloff series, The

10:05

Veil that we tried to cover. Tried

10:07

to cover that one. That didn't quite

10:09

work out. But anyway, yeah, the original

10:11

Wolfman is really great, by the

10:13

way. Yeah, but what

10:15

I was gonna say is that

10:17

they, the werewolf mythology is pretty complicated

10:19

because there's a biological element you

10:21

get bitten by a werewolf. So there's

10:23

like a disease, something in the

10:25

saliva that's passing on to you. But

10:27

it's also linked to Romany magic

10:29

and all these weird kind of exotic

10:32

spells. Racism. Yeah,

10:34

there's, I was gonna say, there's this very

10:36

strong racist undercurrent with a lot of it.

10:39

And it's all connected to the full moon. That's a

10:41

big part of it. That was introduced in Werewolf

10:43

of London. The whole full moon thing is a very

10:45

recent addition to like, like, can't there

10:47

be myths? As is the silver thing, which

10:49

I think was invented for the Wolfman.

10:51

Yeah, a lot of it was invented for

10:54

the Wolfman. A lot of the stuff

10:56

that we were like, oh, all these ancient

10:58

legends about werewolves. Like, no shit, we

11:00

know the people who made that up were

11:02

alive, like when your parents were alive,

11:04

you know? I feel like werewolf movies, as

11:06

opposed, like you think of vampire movies,

11:08

you can probably list 20 or 30 great

11:10

vampire movies off the top of your

11:12

head. Lesso with Wolfman, like werewolves just don't

11:14

get the same kind of cred. They

11:17

don't frequently, they're not as frequently visited,

11:19

but there's only maybe like five or six

11:21

great werewolf movies. I mean, I think

11:24

the biggest reason for that, the reason why

11:26

we don't have as many great, and

11:28

there are great werewolf movies, the Howling, Miracle

11:30

Wolf of London, Ginger Snaps, but

11:34

it's difficult to make a Wolfman look

11:36

good on camera. Like a Frankenstein monster,

11:38

you make a dead guy who's stitched

11:40

up. Zombies, you make a dead guy. Ghosts,

11:43

you make them translucent. Vampire, teeth. Werewolf,

11:45

whole fucking makeup whole body thing or a

11:47

model, yeah, something. Yeah, and if you

11:49

don't have the chops, if you can't make

11:51

it look good, you're gonna make it

11:53

look silly, you're gonna make it look unconvincing,

11:55

and at that point, you might as

11:58

well make a serial killer movie because. that

12:00

is kind of the modern equivalent, though

12:02

there's a monster inside of me and

12:04

I'm fighting with them and nobody knows

12:06

my secret. I feel like that's what

12:08

a lot of werewolf movie stories kind

12:10

of just turned into, because it's cheaper

12:12

and it's easier and sadly they're real.

12:14

You can scare people with them. Well,

12:16

and also, but there's also other fantasy

12:18

versions of that. The Incredible Hulk is

12:20

a werewolf story. More or less, yeah.

12:23

In fact, there was even a knockoff

12:25

of the Incredible Hulk TV series called

12:27

Werewolf. And it was like the

12:29

same premise. I accidentally let someone borrow my

12:31

copy of that so we can never

12:33

cover it. I can't so too assumed. It

12:35

was like 30 episodes in their hour

12:37

long. That's hard for us. It's really hard

12:39

to get around to. I always wanted

12:41

to that. But Lee Winnell has made a

12:44

new wolf man and has removed all the

12:46

mysticism from it. It's almost like a

12:48

virus at this point. And it's also a

12:50

bit of a symbol and we'll get

12:52

into that in a minute. But his approach

12:54

to making a werewolf does

12:57

not incorporate that one key thing

12:59

that werewolf movie lovers love,

13:01

a really cool transformation sequence. There

13:03

isn't that in Wolfman. There's

13:05

a little bit of one. It's

13:07

brief and it's not dramatic.

13:09

How would I argue? No, I'm

13:11

gonna fight you on that

13:13

because I think the whole movie is

13:15

such a slow transformation sequence. You're thinking of

13:17

a transformation sequence that happens over a

13:19

couple of minutes. Your bones crack and throw

13:21

cops out of your body, your flesh

13:24

rips off. Face extends, that kind of stuff.

13:26

Yeah, all that shit's cool. How even

13:28

Van Helsing, when the vampires rip off their

13:30

human flesh and there's a monster underneath,

13:32

it's cool. I agree with that, but I

13:34

think what he's doing is actually slowing

13:36

that down. I thought you were gonna say

13:38

the version, the thing that he leaves

13:40

out that everyone loves in a wolf man

13:42

movie is the wolf part. Well,

13:45

what that? The wolf part is suspiciously absent

13:47

from this. He's trying to, what Lee

13:49

Winnell I suspect is trying to do was

13:51

make a wolf man that was realistic,

13:53

which is a weird approach to a wolf

13:55

man story. He didn't do that with

13:57

Invisible Man. It was all like, you know,

14:00

five optics and shit, more plausible than

14:02

a potion, I guess. I guess. So

14:04

the way Christopher Abbott plays the character

14:06

transforms and like his face swells and

14:08

his hair falls out. The only thing

14:10

that's like notably wolfish is the teeth.

14:12

The teeth. gets like the bottom row

14:14

of teeth in the fang. And eventually

14:16

his fingers a little bit. Like his

14:18

fingernails also grow into claws. But mostly

14:20

he's just sort of like a swollen

14:22

guy. He's a guy. Honestly, a lot

14:24

of this is, we'll talk about the

14:26

plot, but honestly this is the thing

14:28

that I think the movie fucks up. I

14:30

actually like a lot of this movie.

14:32

But the thing that it really messes up is, okay,

14:35

you do not have to go conventional wolfman. You

14:38

do not have to do the Lon Chaney

14:40

Jr. Wolfman. You do not have to do American

14:42

Werewolf in London Wolfman. You don't have to

14:44

do dog soldiers. You can totally do your own

14:46

thing and you can even like diminish the

14:48

wolf thing. That is, it's bold, but it's it's

14:50

not necessarily a bad thing. The makeup still

14:52

has to look good. And I'm sorry, I know

14:54

that what they're trying to do is let

14:56

the makeup get out of the way of Christopher

14:58

Abbott's performance so that you can see, because

15:00

here's a guy who is conscious that he is

15:02

losing his humanity very gradually. And I can

15:05

see his performance. I think he's giving a very good performance. But

15:08

a lot of the movie, he looks like

15:10

Christopher Abbott wearing makeup. Yeah, he doesn't

15:12

look like a monster. He doesn't look like

15:14

natural. He looks like he's wearing, he

15:16

looks like he's wearing, wearing movie makeup. Yeah.

15:18

Yeah. It's not convincing. Damn shame. And

15:20

I think when you compare this also to

15:22

Invisible Man, this one's not quite as

15:24

thematically rich. It's not as emotionally moving. Christopher

15:26

Abbott plays a character. We see him

15:28

flashback to him as a boy and he's

15:30

being raised in the woods by a

15:32

father who insists that he be ready at

15:34

all times. His father's like putting a

15:36

lot of fear into him. Yeah. Not an

15:38

abusive. He's not hitting the kid, but

15:40

he's psychologically abusive. Yeah. But he's also

15:43

like being raised in isolation in the woods

15:45

and he's being told there's monsters out

15:47

in the woods. There are. Yeah. So it's

15:49

actually kind of practical for the father

15:51

to treat him this way, but the implication

15:53

is the wolf man, the symbol of

15:55

it, is this kind of fear that your

15:57

parents give you. Yeah. Or the or

15:59

the. of a generational sort of trauma

16:02

like what your parents inflict on

16:04

you when because we see him

16:06

we cut to like 15 years

16:08

later and he is like he's

16:10

a young man 30 or something

16:12

like that he's married he's married

16:15

to Julia Garner an actress I

16:17

love who still comes across a

16:19

little young for this character she's

16:21

playing a mom yeah and I

16:23

just like she's I think you're

16:26

trying to give her this like

16:28

very uh She just looks a

16:30

little, she looks younger than Christopher Abbott

16:32

significantly and it just, it's kind of,

16:34

I mean, I really, she's 30, but

16:36

she's playing her age, but yeah. I

16:39

realize that, but you have to, and

16:41

listen, I'm, I'm not judging Julia Garnett,

16:43

she's a great actor, it's just a

16:45

little distracting and it feels like

16:47

that's something that, how did they meet?

16:49

What do they have in common? Because

16:51

their marriage is already kind of strained.

16:54

And so they just don't see the

16:56

connection. But anyway, he has a daughter.

16:58

They have a daughter. Before we get

17:00

to the present, all of these flashbacks

17:02

in the past I think are significant

17:05

because a lot of what's being set

17:07

up in those sequences are something that

17:09

I don't think they address or explore

17:11

very well. The idea that what the

17:13

father is giving to his son is

17:15

this notion of like a... drive to

17:18

be a patter familius, like to be

17:20

a protective male figure. There's this

17:22

kind of element of toxic masculinity

17:24

that I think they don't really

17:27

establish very well in those opening.

17:29

No, they really don't. Like, it's,

17:31

you get the impression. Because there's

17:33

an actual monster that they're fighting.

17:36

And there's not a lot of

17:38

dialogue about how you need to

17:40

be the man. And it's manly,

17:43

like, there's not a lot of

17:45

masculine language to incorporate. At the beginning

17:47

was they go off hunting and then they may see

17:49

a wolfman But that's off camera. It's off camera But

17:51

like it's setting up. There's a wolfman out there and

17:54

then we cut the years later But there's this bit

17:56

a little bit, but like they're walking past a bunch

17:58

of mushrooms and the kids looking at them Like,

18:00

don't touch those mushrooms. Those are death

18:02

cap mushrooms. Those will kill you. And

18:04

like, it's like, it's like, it's like

18:06

a 45 minute speech about how deadly

18:08

these mushrooms are. And so you know,

18:10

later in the movie, those will be

18:12

important, or that's how you become a

18:15

werewolf, or that's how you kill the

18:17

werewolf, or maybe the dad will eat

18:19

those so that he doesn't, you know, try

18:21

to kill his family. Never brought up

18:23

again. Yeah, it's a little weird. Lee

18:25

Winnell is a is knows how to

18:27

write a screenplay I feel like there

18:30

was a rewrite in there somewhere supposed

18:32

to be a payoff for like a

18:34

reshot ending or something. It just feels

18:36

weird. But anyway, 15 years later 20

18:38

years later. He's he's married. He has

18:40

a daughter and he loves his daughter.

18:42

They have a great relationship. But every

18:44

time she does something just a little

18:47

dangerous like walks on top of like

18:49

some tall stuff near traffic. His protectiveness

18:51

of her gets scary Yeah. It gets

18:53

very loud, gets very angry, why don't

18:55

you, you know, why don't you

18:57

listen to me? And he doesn't

18:59

like how that makes him feel.

19:01

It's like how that means him

19:03

become. He doesn't like how his

19:05

daughter looks at him when he's

19:07

like that, and he knows that's

19:09

from his father. He's a strange

19:11

from his wife a little bit,

19:13

but it's really not entirely clear

19:15

why other than just life career.

19:17

It's almost like a hallmark movie,

19:19

kind of. Yeah, you're too busy.

19:22

We need to do something. Because

19:24

the conflict is vague. Yeah, it's not

19:26

specific. And so we don't actually believe

19:28

it. We just understand it in premise.

19:30

Anyway, the block kicks in when he gets

19:32

a letter saying that his father who went

19:34

missing many years ago has been declared legally

19:36

dead because he never turned up. And what

19:38

that means is he now has to go

19:40

back to his dad's house in the middle

19:42

of the woods and take care of things.

19:44

It goes from San Francisco to the woods

19:46

of the woods of Oregon. Go back

19:48

to this cabin. The cabin, the

19:51

linoleum on the floor of the

19:53

kitchen in this cabin. Yeah. Was

19:55

this, it was also used in

19:58

the movie Annabel comes home. And

20:00

I know and I know this detail

20:02

very specific because it was the exact same

20:04

linoleum I learned to walk on as

20:06

a baby that was in my kitchen when

20:08

I was growing up So when I

20:10

saw it, it's like look like this weird

20:12

sort of bolt of nostalgia first night

20:14

But anyway, he takes his he takes his

20:16

wife and daughter and they drive up

20:18

They get a little lost and then they

20:20

don't even get to the cabin they

20:22

see a wolf man in the middle of

20:24

the road We know what it is

20:26

They don't and they veer off the road.

20:28

They get like almost like Jurassic Park like

20:30

hanging off of a thing I got the truck

20:32

like lands on a tree doesn't hit the ground

20:34

and the yeah, they're the climb off the truck

20:36

It's there's another character in there, but he doesn't

20:38

really matter Early so

20:41

that like we'll we'll be raised. Yeah,

20:43

it's a race. Anyway, they they run

20:45

off Run away from this creature in

20:47

the woods and the cabin and he

20:49

starts fortifying the place But he also

20:51

starts realizing something is wrong with him

20:53

because he got bitten during the conflagration

20:55

Yeah, and the conflagration interesting. Okay, I

20:57

would have gone confrontation, but whatever and

21:00

But and and not only is

21:02

he like gradually, you know changing But

21:04

I really like how Lee Winnell

21:06

handles this though because he doesn't just

21:08

Start getting angry or start getting

21:10

furry. He starts going non -verbal and

21:12

he starts not being able to understand

21:14

his own family He's coming alien

21:16

to them. Yeah, that's the coolest thing

21:18

There's this camera trick that Lee

21:20

Winnell does or he puts the camera

21:22

behind the wolf man and we

21:24

get to see his wolf vision Yeah,

21:27

it's you know, it's like Terminator vision or

21:29

robot vision. We see in other science fiction

21:31

movies and You

21:33

know things kind of brighten up you can see

21:35

things But yeah, what I find really interesting is

21:37

when people start talking to him his wife and

21:39

his daughter They start just sort of saying gibberish.

21:41

She can't understand what they're saying anymore and after

21:43

a while And I thought this was cool detail

21:45

their faces lose expression Yeah, after a while they

21:48

turn into like these kind of mass. He can't

21:50

read them at all. Yeah Yeah, they're just sort

21:52

of like pray to him. Yeah, and that's really

21:54

scary and I really like that I really like

21:56

that we're finally getting like a wolf man where

21:58

it's not just a physical thing. It's a mental thing

22:00

and we're actually kind of delving into

22:02

that in an interesting visual way. I

22:04

think that's really cool. Anyway, there's still

22:06

a wolfman out there. It's attacking him

22:08

and then the rest of the movie

22:10

is basically a siege picture. There's a

22:12

wolfman outside, but there's also a wolfman

22:14

inside and Julia Garner who admitted earlier

22:16

in the film she'd ever really hasn't

22:18

really felt like much of a mom has to

22:21

finally step up. That's a good pitch. It's

22:23

a good pitch. It's pretty basic. I feel

22:25

like a... You can have that same pitch

22:27

in some shitty B picture or like, like,

22:29

like, Tales from the Crypt episode. It's a

22:31

skeleton on which to hang. good stuff but

22:33

I think it's perfectly okay. I feel like

22:36

a lot of this could have been could

22:38

have been an hour long anthology series. There

22:40

are a lot of scenes of them running

22:42

from one location then back to the house

22:44

and then back to the house. It gets

22:46

a little repetitive after a while. I think

22:48

it becomes a siege picture too early. I

22:51

honestly think that like we really needed

22:53

because the thing with they needed to

22:55

establish what life is like in the

22:57

home. We also needed him. We need

22:59

the Christopher Rabbit Rabbit Character. they had

23:01

how he feels about his father and

23:03

why why it's significant that you know

23:05

this wolfman is sort of linked to

23:07

that I think we needed more from Julia

23:10

Garner's character in particular we have like one

23:12

line where she said she doesn't really feel

23:14

like she connects to her daughter as well

23:16

as her husband does that's it now there's

23:18

no scene of her like trying to connect

23:21

and failing yeah it doesn't really all of

23:23

the important character stuff that Lee Wendell is

23:25

clearly trying to lean into feels very perfunctory

23:27

and so moments that I know should hit

23:30

like this is clearly the moment where Julie

23:32

Garner steps up it does something really cool

23:34

this is clearly the moment where you know

23:36

dad gives into that monster he's always feared

23:39

he had within within him but then maybe

23:41

there's still a part of him that is

23:43

able to protect his family even as a

23:45

wolf there's a moment in this movie where

23:47

I thought was really cool where it's like okay

23:49

he's turning into a wolf man is

23:51

he tameable Yeah, right? I was

23:54

like, there's no reason to assume

23:56

he couldn't be. That's an interesting

23:58

wrinkle. I think of the move. he

24:00

had been taking place over a longer

24:02

period of time, we could, if it wasn't

24:04

so much. You have an epilogue, they

24:06

finally chased off the bad werewolf, but then

24:08

mom and daughter are living in the

24:10

cabin and dads just sort of like their

24:12

dog in the yard. Yeah, but he's

24:14

also, but it's protected. Yeah, he's their doggy

24:16

daddy. That

24:18

could have been really cool. There's so many

24:20

things that are brought up by this, but

24:22

because it just becomes this kind of pretty

24:24

straightforward, could have been even lower budget than

24:26

it was, just werewolf siege

24:29

picture, especially with

24:31

not very good makeup, it just doesn't amount

24:33

to as much as it should. And I

24:35

like the ideas. I think Christopher Abbott gives

24:37

a great performance. I really love seeing his

24:39

slow transformation as a wolf man. I feel

24:41

like I've seen a lot of that kind

24:43

of stuff before in vampire movies mostly, but

24:45

yeah. I think he does it well. I

24:47

think he deserves mentioning. It's

24:49

not as inspired, I

24:51

think, conceptually or in its

24:53

execution as the invisible

24:55

man. Yeah. It's pretty good.

24:58

It's pretty good. But

25:00

it's not great. I like the ideas they're

25:02

hinting at. I wish they were better

25:04

explored. Really, it just needs a better script.

25:06

I feel like there were scenes missing

25:08

from this one. I would be very surprised

25:10

if this wasn't tinkered with a lot,

25:12

either in post or development notes because it

25:14

just feels like the good stuff is

25:16

so obvious and yet it's so obviously

25:19

unexplored in a way

25:21

that's weird. All

25:23

right, bit of a bummer. Why don't

25:25

we talk about a movie everyone's

25:27

talking about? And you saw more recently,

25:30

because I saw this months ago.

25:32

You just saw it last week. Let's

25:34

talk about the new film Amelia

25:36

Perez, which

25:38

is a musical

25:41

Mexican drug

25:43

cartel trans

25:46

movie from

25:48

a white cisgender director who doesn't speak

25:50

Spanish and hasn't really

25:52

been to Mexico and doesn't

25:54

know anything about trans

25:57

people. And has said in

25:59

interviews, what sort of

26:01

research into Mexican culture did

26:03

you do? And he's... saying

26:05

frustrating things like, oh, I didn't bother. I didn't

26:07

look into it at all. It's Jacques Odillard is

26:10

the director, who's done films I like. He did

26:12

the sisters brothers, which is really fantastic. He did

26:14

that film unprofet, a couple years back. That one

26:16

was also really good. He also did

26:18

a couple others. I heard a lot

26:20

of good things about the beat that

26:22

my heart skipped, which was really good.

26:24

I never had one of that. And

26:26

he did the remake of District

26:28

13. Or we didn't. Or maybe

26:31

did the original. No we

26:33

didn't. The free original

26:35

was pure morale. He did

26:37

one of the District 13

26:40

movies. I don't think he

26:42

did, dude. Hold on, let

26:44

me look this up, because

26:46

I'm certain. I mean, I

26:48

mean, Paris 13th District. What? Oh,

26:50

well, sorry, that's not one of

26:53

the District 13 movies. Oh, okay.

26:55

I was about a little. Yeah,

26:58

no, he's he's not. I would

27:00

have had to have seen a film,

27:02

but okay. Okay, things are starting to

27:04

make more sense of my brain now.

27:06

Thought he would like. mixed it

27:09

up. You could see why I

27:11

would mix it. I know, I

27:13

get it, I get it. It's

27:15

an innocent mistake. Okay, Emily Perez

27:17

follows the main character who's a

27:20

lawyer, character, played by Zoe Saldana.

27:22

Yeah, she's, she's cisgender, and so

27:24

we're gonna see it through her

27:26

eyes as she finds out what

27:28

transgender people are like. Yeah, and

27:31

she meets a character who is

27:33

living as a man. Yeah,

27:35

they're, they're, they're, they're,

27:37

It's a sign mail at birth, yeah. Yeah,

27:39

a sign mail at birth, and has discovered

27:42

her own gender and wants to

27:44

transition. Yes. And this is also

27:46

an opportunity for her to get

27:49

out of the life. Yeah, she's

27:51

currently married to Selina Gomez, has

27:54

some kids. And not playing a

27:56

character, just Selina Gomez, which is

27:58

a bold choice. That movie,

28:00

that would have been. That would have

28:03

been pretty cool. Right? Like, yeah, she's

28:05

married to. Yeah. There's, and yeah, there's

28:07

a lot of songs about this. And

28:10

this cartel lord has asked the Zoe

28:12

Saldania character to look into the kinds

28:14

of surgery that need to be done,

28:16

the kinds of things that need to

28:19

be done to erase the old identity.

28:21

Yeah. So she can become. Amelia

28:23

Perez. Yes. And so the first

28:26

maybe 20 or 30 minutes of

28:28

this movie is that, exploring all

28:30

of that. And there's a lot

28:32

of songs devoted to it. The songs

28:34

are pretty much uniquely terrible. Is

28:36

it just me? I think some

28:38

of them are some of them

28:41

are okay. The one where there's

28:43

one later in the movie where

28:45

the Zoey Seline character goes to

28:47

this big ball and it's like...

28:49

populated by all these

28:51

oligarchs, and she kind of disappears

28:53

into her head and just sort

28:56

of says how horrible they are.

28:58

I think that's a pretty cool

29:00

song. I think if that song

29:02

works, it's because Zoe Saldana is

29:05

a really talented physical performer, and

29:07

that's like her showcase number. Yeah.

29:09

Because she's telling the story with

29:11

like interpretive dance, very, very forcefully.

29:14

She's getting a lot of Oscar

29:16

attention for this. So is Carla

29:18

Sophia Gaskin who plays Amelia Perez

29:20

I Get it. I get why they

29:22

are I I'm not and the thing

29:25

is a lot of people argue

29:27

that like Zoe Saldana is um

29:29

is a leap is a is supporting

29:32

and Gaskin is the leader vice versa

29:34

and the thing is that from a

29:36

First off, there is actually no rule

29:38

saying what differentiates a supporting an elite

29:41

performance. It's all vibes. Yeah. It's all

29:43

vibes. There's no actual like Academy rule

29:45

saying it's less screen time or whatever.

29:47

But Zoe still done is like,

29:49

she's the protagonist. She's the protagonist.

29:52

This is one of those movies about

29:54

people who the audience is going to

29:56

feel like divorce from like I don't

29:59

understand that experience. instead of just telling their

30:01

story, we have to tell it from the

30:03

perspective of a cisgender, like a quote unquote

30:05

normal person. Normalist

30:07

case, meaning cis and YA. Huge air quotes

30:09

in that shit, and she's not white, but

30:11

like still cis. Well,

30:14

I was thinking of other examples like Green

30:16

Book. Green Book is an obvious example of

30:18

this, but yeah, usually cis and YA. Going

30:20

back as far as something like wind talkers,

30:22

it's about the Navajo code speakers. It goes

30:24

back way further than that, but like, anyway,

30:26

the point is the movie is about her

30:28

learning about what it's like to be Amelia

30:30

Perez when we could have just made

30:32

it about Amelia Perez. And that would have

30:35

been fine. And the thing is that

30:37

in the second half of the movie, they

30:39

reconnect, and Amelia Perez brings her back

30:41

into her life because she wants

30:43

to bring back her

30:45

family and pretend to

30:47

be her own sister so

30:49

that she can infiltrate her own

30:51

family. She poses as her

30:53

children's aunt that they had never

30:55

known about, and has them

30:57

moved into her mansion. It seems

30:59

that she still has all

31:01

of her ill -gotten gains from

31:03

her previous criminal life. So she's

31:06

still very, very wealthy, but

31:08

had gone undercover. There's some dialogue

31:10

devoted to, but not a

31:12

lot of things on camera that

31:14

explain that Amelia Perez like

31:16

has set up charities and orphanages

31:18

or something. no, no, that's a

31:20

big part of it. She's

31:22

trying to, she realizes that what

31:24

she did when she was

31:26

a drug lord and what she

31:28

was participating in was despicable.

31:30

And she wants to try to

31:32

balance the books by

31:34

starting a charity. And what she does is

31:36

there's a lot of people who went missing.

31:40

They were kidnapped or murdered or whatever,

31:42

and people never found the bodies because

31:44

of all the criminality she was involved

31:46

in. And so her charities. not until

31:48

later in the movie. The second half,

31:50

but like regardless. They introduced that in

31:52

the second half. What she's been doing

31:54

since she disappeared until she contacts Zoe

31:56

Saldana. That's like a decade and nothing.

31:58

And we don't get to learn. We

32:00

know what she's been doing. That's what's her

32:02

doing, eat, pray, love, just fucking off,

32:04

having a great time. But like the second

32:06

half, it's her trying to make amends,

32:08

trying to help people second half is, the

32:10

elevator pitch of the second half is

32:12

Mrs. Doubtfire, more or

32:14

less. Yeah, with drug money With

32:16

drug money and Mrs. Doubtfire

32:18

is now a trans woman. Like

32:21

that's the pitch. Yeah, and

32:23

also there's an actual,

32:26

it's fucked up because like Mrs. Doubtfire is

32:28

always kind of a weird film, if you think

32:30

about it. Like the plot doesn't make sense.

32:33

Like the whole thing at Mrs. Doubtfire. He's getting

32:35

a divorce. He can't see his kids. Well,

32:37

he can't see his kids. he sneaks into his

32:39

ex -wife's house. But he dressed as Mrs. Doubtfire.

32:41

he can see his kids. The whole thing

32:43

is, he's an out -of -work actor and he's like,

32:45

oh listen, you need someone to see the

32:47

kids. Why don't I do it? He says, oh,

32:49

I'd rather get a nanny. So what he

32:51

does is he changes the phone number on the

32:53

want ad so that no one is actually

32:56

gonna call her number. He pretends to be a

32:58

bunch of different people and he makes himself sound

33:00

like every nanny in this town is a

33:02

danger to her kids. And then he calls her

33:04

up and instead of saying, hey honey, how's

33:06

the nanny thing going? Do you still need me

33:08

to take care of the kids? And then

33:10

being able to take care of the kids and

33:12

everything's fine, he decides for no fucking reason

33:15

to pretend to be an elderly woman. I'm pretty

33:17

sure there's a plot point in there that

33:19

they're getting a divorce and he's like not allowed

33:21

to see the kids. No, it's not, here's

33:23

the thing. She knows he's an okay dad. It

33:26

really isn't because if there

33:28

was, then the movie doesn't work

33:31

because he's questionable, right?

33:33

Oh, he's not allowed to see his kids. Oh,

33:35

what is he doing then? He's not allowed

33:37

to see his kids. Well, he's not allowed to

33:39

see his kids because typically when parents separate, moms

33:41

get custody more often than not. I realize that,

33:43

but that's the plot point in Mrs. I

33:45

get it, but there's actually nothing keeping him from

33:47

it. He goes out of his way. I don't

33:49

wanna talk about Mrs. Elgar. I do, but here's

33:51

the thing. Like when they're doing it in

33:53

Amelia Perez. They

33:55

also, like look, it treats...

34:00

this trans person as though like

34:02

they're this like insidious trickster. Yeah,

34:04

I was going to say there's

34:06

there's a villainous quality to the

34:08

Amelia Perez character that is very

34:10

retrograde. Yeah. And it goes beyond

34:12

the fact that she's a drug

34:14

lord, like beyond that. Like the

34:16

and if there was something along the line, if

34:18

there was like dialogue or songs where

34:20

they said, well, and there's like some

34:22

lines of dialogue early on, like you

34:24

can transition, but you know, you're not going

34:26

to change fundamentally as a person. You're going

34:29

to still have the same character flaws. Yeah.

34:31

But that person is a woman. So who

34:33

cares? Like is the answer to that? Yeah.

34:36

And I think it's perfectly all

34:38

right to have trans characters who

34:40

have character flaws or are still

34:42

wrestling with anger issues that they

34:44

had pre -transition. All of that

34:46

is completely legit. But this is

34:48

not what this movie is really

34:51

exploring. This movie is actually treating

34:53

transness as sort of like almost

34:55

like an extension of the character's

34:57

villainy or vice versa. At the

34:59

very least, that is, that is

35:01

a left to be a valid

35:03

interpretation. Yeah. Fucked up. And also,

35:06

I'm sorry. It's pretty fucking racist

35:08

as well to portray, frankly,

35:10

just all the Mexican characters as

35:13

I mean, as drug lords. And

35:15

even Zoe Saldania, you know, she

35:17

has that big song about all

35:19

these guys are corrupt. You're working

35:21

with them. I don't know. You

35:23

don't really get to to you only

35:25

get to judge so much. And if she

35:27

was like ever seen as like being morally

35:29

torn, like I need the money, I need

35:31

this. But so she's like drinking heavily or

35:34

something. That doesn't really come up at She

35:36

doesn't actually have her own plot. Her arc

35:38

is non -existent. There's a few interesting twists. There's

35:40

a twist at the end involving the Selena

35:42

Gomez character, like what how her character is

35:44

going to grow and what she wants out

35:46

of this life and how, you know, she

35:48

actually doesn't really care what Amelia Perez thinks

35:50

of like her personal life now. Yeah, you're

35:52

my you're my X slash possibly dead

35:54

husband sister. Yeah, what you've no

35:56

fucking right to tell me what

35:58

to do or talked about or custody

36:00

of my kids, fuck you, and she's

36:02

by her standards, by her knowledge, she's

36:05

right. And I think there's a fun

36:07

twist that could have turned some things

36:09

around, but I think they play it

36:12

so poorly that it eventually just turns

36:14

into a straight-up barrier gaze. Yeah, barrier

36:16

gaze is a term a lot of

36:19

critics have used to describe essentially homophobia

36:21

throughout cinema history, how queer characters are

36:23

typically treated as very depressed, kind of

36:26

wicked, very devious, and always doomed. They're

36:28

either going to, either they're either suicidal,

36:30

or they're going to get killed in

36:32

some way. Or they're going to, or

36:34

they're going to, are they going to

36:36

contract AIDS? Yeah, some kind of, and

36:39

so kind of, and once you start

36:41

looking, and once you start looking at

36:43

all these characters, Oh, you have a

36:45

gay character. Well, I guess they kind

36:47

of have to die. And there's and

36:49

there's so yeah, there becomes this kind

36:51

of like doom's quality to all queer

36:53

character. And again, it's not it's not

36:55

that you can't have characters who have

36:57

a tragic story. It's that when there

36:59

is a consistent pattern in which a

37:01

person or a type of person

37:03

is constantly portrayed the same way

37:05

and also that way has. Honestly,

37:07

even if it was always positive,

37:09

it's a little dehumanizing, but when

37:12

it's always negative or when their

37:14

death is always like held up

37:16

as like some important like platform,

37:18

like, ah, see, it's good that

37:20

they died. If you learn to

37:22

lesson. Oh, oh, queer people are

37:24

martyrs. Good to know. Yeah, do

37:26

things, fuck, oh, like, what the

37:28

hell. So, put that on the

37:30

poster. Emily press, thanks, fuck, fuck,

37:32

oh. And it's, and I understand

37:34

there's conflicts here because, and listen,

37:36

not everyone's on the same page,

37:38

a lot of queer critics. When

37:40

this movie came out of Can, one awards,

37:42

the critics of Can loved it, I didn't

37:45

see a lot of queer critics it can.

37:47

And then when it finally came out and

37:49

other people could see it, their exceptions,

37:51

but the majority of the queer critics

37:53

that I've read don't just like dislike

37:56

this movie. We were actively hate this

37:58

movie. It's not very terrible. It doesn't,

38:00

like there's like one or two songs

38:02

that almost work as camp, but like

38:04

the songs, even the songs aren't very

38:06

good. I don't think it's very well

38:09

photographed. I think it's actually kind of

38:11

murky and unclear. I feel like, uh,

38:13

Jacques-Dillard is passingly familiar with the works

38:15

of Pedro Elmer de Vavar. Oh, I

38:17

think you've seen one or two. Yeah,

38:19

maybe so. I'm an airplane. What if

38:21

El Motivar sucked? Yeah, woo! Have we

38:23

ever tried that? Maybe we should try

38:26

that. Even El Motivar's bad movies are

38:28

at least interesting. Yeah. And he hasn't

38:30

made too many bad ones. And

38:32

it's frustrating because, you know, Carl

38:34

Sophia Gaskan is most likely going

38:36

to be the first openly trans

38:39

person to be nominated for an

38:41

Academy Award for Best Actress at

38:43

least. Elliot Page wasn't out yet

38:46

when he was nominated for journal.

38:48

Never forgetting someone? From the crying game.

38:50

I forgot the actor's name. Was he Jay Davidson? Jay

38:52

Davidson, that's it. Were they, were they, are they, are

38:54

they trans? I thought they were, no, they were playing

38:56

trans. I don't know if they were. Okay, well, I'd

38:58

have to look up Jay Davidson. Regardless,

39:00

it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's seen

39:03

as like a potentially history making thing,

39:05

especially considering we're recording this on January

39:07

20th when an executive order just went

39:09

out saying that they're just went out

39:11

saying that they're only to saying that

39:13

they're only to fuck you. I mean

39:15

we're living in dark times right

39:17

now. This is this is this

39:19

is going to be heavily politicized.

39:21

Yeah, a thing. And honestly, you

39:23

know, girls have a good gun.

39:25

She gives a good performance. It's

39:27

just frustrating that it's in this

39:29

movie. And so there's a lot to

39:31

be very conflicted about that. And clearly,

39:33

you know, she's a trans actress, she

39:35

read the script. She's clearly okay with

39:37

this material. People are allowed to differ

39:39

on whether the material is good or

39:42

not. I mean, a lover in Cox

39:44

was in Uglies. She literally thought that

39:46

was a good idea and that and that

39:48

would be she plays a super villain who

39:50

tries to force just gender people to get

39:52

surgery to change what they are. And it's

39:54

like nobody think about the meaning of that.

39:57

To be fair Laverne Cox is is okay

39:59

with doing trash. Because Liverin Cox played

40:01

the cop in that movie Jolt.

40:03

Fair enough. I think that's, that's,

40:05

I think it's a really enjoyably

40:07

trashing movie. I didn't see Jolt.

40:09

I like to think Liverin Cox

40:11

thought that whoever directed Uglies would

40:13

understand like how campy that is

40:16

and how like and unfortunately McG

40:18

directed it. Oh no. She's not

40:20

known for their subtlety. So I

40:22

want to give her the benefit

40:24

of the doubt. My point is

40:27

this, you know, people are in

40:29

people are in movies that. aren't

40:31

necessarily great representation because they feel

40:33

like Harvey Firestein has said all

40:35

representation is good because we're putting

40:38

yourself in into the open. Some

40:40

people do it because they generally

40:42

think it's good material and they have

40:44

their tastes differ. Some people just

40:46

need the work. I can't speak

40:48

for why she took the role or she

40:51

seems to be you know, on board.

40:53

She isn't like being self-critical about it.

40:55

So listen, we're going to have... differences

40:57

of opinion on this. I know

40:59

some critics who enjoy it.

41:01

Not many. I know of many,

41:04

but I don't know many personally.

41:06

No, I think it's really morally

41:08

irresponsible. I think it's really sloppily

41:10

written. I think it's sloppily filmed.

41:12

I think it's not. I think

41:15

it's a, for a musical, the

41:17

music and overall like visual,

41:19

you know, impact of it is, it's

41:21

like a, I don't understand why we're

41:24

so eager to celebrate musicals

41:26

that Aren't very happy to

41:28

be musicals? I feel like Chicago,

41:30

I feel, is a pretty bad

41:32

rendition of Chicago. Yeah, I feel

41:35

like, and this is just because

41:37

I'm a theater brat, I think,

41:39

I saw a lot, I've seen

41:41

like Broadway shows, and I feel

41:44

like, you know, when you put

41:46

a musical on stage, there's a

41:48

certain kind of dazzle that Hollywood

41:50

so rarely knows what to do

41:52

with. Right. I feel like Chicago,

41:55

I feel is a pretty bad

41:57

rendition of Chicago. Yeah. and trying to

41:59

turn it. into glitz. Not all

42:01

musicals have to be glitzy,

42:04

and especially not Chicago. And

42:06

I wasn't even a big fan

42:08

of wicked, which I know is

42:10

kind of an unpopular view, but

42:12

I feel like there's a certain

42:14

kind of life and verve and

42:16

energy to even a show like

42:18

Wicked that is absent from the

42:20

feature film version. They're trying to

42:22

turn it into sort of like a big

42:24

movie movie movie. There's too few

42:27

filmmakers. I would think John M. True because he

42:29

can do it. I've seen him do it before

42:31

He did in the Heights. He did the step-up

42:33

movies. I feel like he didn't do it with

42:35

wicked for some reason He played it quite safe

42:37

with wicked I feel And I liked him more

42:39

than you I think I think it became a

42:42

studio monster is the problem. It was too big

42:44

for him. He couldn't he couldn't he couldn't pull

42:46

out the real razzled dazzled because he had to

42:48

appease he had to appease everybody he had to

42:50

appease everybody because he had to appease everybody. He

42:52

had to appease everybody to appease everybody doesn't know

42:54

what to do with musical material. I think he

42:57

does. I think Zoe sat on

42:59

yet knows better than he does

43:01

what to do with musical material.

43:03

She can dance. She's got the

43:05

physicality. She's got a good physicality.

43:07

Yeah, yeah. I feel like and she's, she and,

43:10

and Selena Gomez are, I think. I think

43:12

Selina Gomez specifically had to like relearn Spanish.

43:14

She grew up as a small child speaking

43:16

Spanish. Yeah. And then moved to the United

43:19

States and didn't use it for many years.

43:21

I don't speak a lot of Spanish, but

43:23

I have talked to people who have seen

43:25

the movie who are fluent and who were

43:27

raised in Spanish. And they say her accent

43:30

is just all over the place weird. Yeah.

43:32

Well, anyway. We should move on, I think

43:34

we've set our piece. Yeah. Why don't we,

43:36

why don't we, why don't we, why don't

43:39

we, why don't we skip

43:41

to a happy movie? Okay,

43:43

well, happy movie movie. We're

43:46

talking about Walsh and Gromit

43:48

Vengeance Most Fowl. Another Netflix

43:51

movie. Golly, I love Ardman.

43:53

I've loved Ardman since the

43:56

start, like even before they

43:58

started making movies. creature comforts.

44:00

Was the creature that was first I

44:02

thought grand day out was was it

44:05

the same year? Well in terms of

44:07

what put them on the map like

44:09

a kind of got them recognized by

44:11

I think a broader audience than just

44:13

the animation community was creature comforts and

44:16

what they did is they interviewed people

44:18

talking about in character as animals but

44:20

speaking very naturally they they I don't

44:22

think they interview people as animals they

44:25

they they I don't think they interview

44:27

people as animals they just talked to

44:29

people on the street about just

44:31

things yeah everyday things nothing and

44:33

then they took the audio on

44:36

the animated over it's yeah it's

44:38

really great So great. And then,

44:40

but their biggest most iconic work

44:42

was the creation of Wallace and

44:44

Gromit. And Wallace is a sort

44:47

of a dippy inventor lives alone

44:49

with his dog. His dog is,

44:51

he can't speak, but he is

44:53

very intelligent. He can walk around

44:56

on his hind legs. In

44:58

many respects, he's smarter than

45:00

Wallace, even though Wallace is

45:02

clearly a technical wizard. And

45:05

their first outing, they realize that

45:07

the moon is made of cheese,

45:09

and they love cheese. They love

45:11

cheese so much. So they decide

45:13

to build a spaceship and

45:15

go to the moon. And they go to

45:18

the moon, I love this, they land

45:20

on the moon, and then they walk

45:22

up to the nearest cheese vending machine. It's

45:24

just right there. They put it in. It's

45:26

so fucking whimsical like they die. And

45:28

they put it in a coin and nothing

45:31

happens for a moment. But then the

45:33

gears, once they walk away, the gears start

45:35

turning and it turns into a sentient machine

45:37

with arms, like arms spring out of

45:39

its side. Yeah. And it. clearly is an

45:41

extermination but and wants to kill Wallace

45:43

and Grohn. Oh, it's so good. But they

45:46

don't know that, but this thing's stalking them.

45:48

So yeah, it's, it's adorable. Was, uh, the

45:50

wrong trousers? The next one, right? The wrong trousers

45:52

is the second one. Yeah, yeah, the wrong trousers,

45:54

which is very relevant because the movie is actually

45:57

a sequel to the wrong trousers. But in that

45:59

one, Wallace and Grohn. they take on

46:01

a tenant, they rent out

46:03

one of their rooms to

46:05

a chicken. They think it's

46:08

a chicken. No, it's a

46:10

penguin. They don't think it's

46:13

a penguin. No, they

46:15

don't think it's a

46:17

penguin. No, they don't

46:19

think it's a penguin.

46:21

No, they don't think

46:23

it's a penguin. No,

46:25

they don't think it's

46:27

a penguin. No. No.

46:30

countryside house and in

46:32

Bristol in fact where

46:34

I think where Arndman

46:36

is located. Wallace has

46:38

built techno trousers as you do

46:40

which can take Gromit on walks

46:42

by themselves. This is a big

46:44

robotic pants. And this gives the

46:47

penguin, aka Feathers McGraw. We don't

46:49

know it's Feathers McGraw. Yeah, no,

46:51

but it gives him an idea.

46:53

And it turns out Feathers McGraw

46:55

is a wanted super thief. And

46:57

he's going to use the trousers

46:59

to steal a diamond. And his

47:01

disguise is, he puts a rubber

47:03

glove on his head and people

47:05

think he's a chicken. Yeah. It's good.

47:08

And there's a wonderful bit where

47:10

he's like he's wearing the the

47:12

Cox comb and he's using he's

47:15

using a remote control to control

47:17

the trousers and trying to steal

47:19

a diamond. It's all very complicated.

47:22

Oh, it's a darn. And he

47:24

finally like gets the diamond and

47:26

abscondes and Wallace doesn't know

47:29

what's going on. He's been asleep for

47:31

most of it. And Wallace goes, good

47:33

grief, it's you! Love

47:36

that moment. It's great. We'll move on.

47:38

The next short was called a close

47:40

shave, which was where they met Sean

47:42

the sheep. Sean the sheep. And I

47:44

honestly don't remember the plot as well

47:47

of this one. They found a sheep

47:49

and it's adorable and that's all kind

47:51

of all I got. They find a

47:53

sheep, but there's also been a wool

47:55

shortage. And it turns out there's been

47:58

some sort of sheep rustlers. around

48:00

through town. That's it. And the sheep

48:02

rustler turns out to be this woman

48:04

that Wallace is attracted to and she

48:06

has pressed in her own. Oh yes,

48:09

an evil version of ground. Yeah, adorable.

48:11

They figure out what's going to be

48:13

going on. I have to stop the

48:15

sheep rustlers. This led to the spin-off

48:18

Sean the Sheep, which is actually a

48:20

TV series that became one of the

48:22

funniest movies of all time. The Sean

48:24

the sheep movie is like not exaggerating

48:26

like Buster Keaton levels of... physical comedy.

48:29

Yeah, it's basically a silent movie about

48:31

the sheep and they decide to take

48:33

a day off, so they decide to

48:36

like sort of get the farmer out

48:38

of the way in a cute way,

48:40

but he ends up like rolling down

48:43

a hill and getting amnesia and all

48:45

of these sheep need to run into

48:47

the city to get him back and

48:49

it becomes just the most adorable hilarious

48:52

thing. There's a shot of a dog,

48:54

inched on the sheep movie, which

48:56

is maybe the funniest shot in

48:58

the dog. But eventually Hardman

49:01

moved into features. Their first feature

49:03

was chicken run, which is very

49:05

good. But shortly after... Chicken version

49:07

of The Great Escape, essentially. Brilliant

49:09

pitch. But eventually they did do

49:11

a Wallis &Gromit movie, called Wallis

49:13

&Gromit Curse of the Where Rabbit,

49:15

which we did a whole episode

49:17

on once. That is a great

49:20

werewolf movie. It's... I feel like

49:22

both Chicken Run and Curse of

49:24

the Where Rabbit did capture that

49:26

kind of... brisk light tweeness, a

49:28

very British quality, that I

49:30

think a lot of audiences

49:32

really admire about Wallace and

49:34

Gromis. There's a certain kind,

49:36

first of all, I love,

49:38

you know, Ardman's character design,

49:40

that your characters have like

49:42

little marble eyes, but gigantic

49:45

mouths and fuses. Like they

49:47

have, yeah, there's really great

49:49

looking character designs. But they

49:51

also have that kind of...

49:53

gentle politeness underneath everything yeah

49:55

because they are all said

49:57

in England and nothing there

49:59

even there's like threat, there's a

50:01

monster, there's a super criminal. nothing

50:04

really bad is going to happen.

50:06

Yeah, it's not that kind of

50:08

movie. You're not you're not terribly

50:11

worried. You know with them to

50:13

be inconvenienced. It's too bad. Yeah.

50:15

Yeah. Yeah. Um, because all on

50:18

Wallace is a simple guy. All

50:20

he wants is to have his

50:22

breakfast. He wants to eat cheeses

50:24

and just put his feet up

50:27

at the end of the night.

50:29

Yeah. Well, it took a long,

50:31

long time. But Jesus. Damn. vengeance

50:34

most foul with a W. Get

50:36

it? And Feathers McGraw. And

50:38

Feathers McGraw. Time has passed.

50:41

The computer technology has been

50:43

updated. And Feathers McGraw, now in

50:45

prison, at the zoo, is cute.

50:47

But they treat him like he's

50:50

Hannibal Lecter. Like he's got a

50:52

bone jar. Stone cell and bars

50:54

on the windows. He's like bouncing

50:57

balls and doing like one-handed push-ups

50:59

in his cell. figure out where

51:01

Wallace is living. Yes, and what

51:03

Wallace is up to you? Hack

51:06

into things. And at the same

51:08

time, Wallace, who is desperate for

51:10

money, new actor, Peter Salas, who played

51:12

Wallace, passed away a few years back.

51:15

He was a very old man. He

51:17

was in his mid-90s, and he was

51:19

still playing Wallace. And so there was

51:21

a concern, and I think a very

51:23

valid concern, that unless I'm fine with

51:25

recasting him, but can they recapture the

51:27

magic? New guys great. New guys great. Yeah,

51:30

honestly, like, honestly, and in a way

51:32

that doesn't feel, yeah, Ben Whitehead, it

51:34

doesn't feel like it's, he's doing Wallace,

51:36

he's not putting too much of his

51:38

own spin on it, but it doesn't just

51:40

feel like an imitation, he's just, it

51:43

just is just Wallace on camera, he's

51:45

great, good casting, well done indeed. But

51:47

yeah, no, Feddens McGraw, so Wallace has

51:49

decided to build a new invention. Yeah,

51:52

he's built a new invention. It's not

51:54

trousers. This time it's a garden dome.

51:56

He wants to help out, well, gromit

51:59

in the garden. it's a polymath who

52:01

reads sophisticated literature. And he loves

52:03

gardening as we learned in Curse of

52:05

the Wererabbit and he just loves

52:07

taking care of his garden. It's his

52:09

favorite thing. And so Wallah spills

52:11

a garden gnome to help with the

52:13

gardening and it does all the

52:15

gardening for him and rips out his

52:18

favorite flowers and it's awful. Robotic

52:20

garden gnome. And of course, just like

52:22

in that Simpsons episode with the

52:24

killer crusty doll, it has an evil

52:26

switch. So Feathers McGraw from prison

52:28

finds a way to hack into the

52:30

lawn gnome's memory banks and turn

52:32

them evil and the shenanigans

52:35

ensue from there. It's

52:38

not quite as good as Curse

52:40

of the Wererabbit. It's not as inspired

52:42

and the jokes don't come as

52:44

fast and furious. Yeah. It's actually a

52:46

lot gentler. If you like those

52:48

sort of gentle qualities, this has it

52:50

in spades. That tweeness is back.

52:52

I feel like Ardman for a second

52:54

there was trying to go a

52:56

little more hip and it was never

52:58

a good match for them flushed

53:00

away specifically. Oh, yeah, that was also

53:02

their first foray into CG animation.

53:04

Eventually they nailed it with Arthur Christmas.

53:06

But yeah, it just it wasn't great

53:08

on a technical level. And it's not

53:10

a very good movie. I feel like

53:12

they were trying to do something a

53:15

little bit more raucous and American. There's

53:17

the like minion like characters with their

53:19

slugs in that one. It's and they're

53:21

casting like big movie stars. This is

53:23

driving me nuts. The robot garden gnomes

53:25

are called Norbot Norbot. Yes. Yeah, that

53:27

just took me. I was like dying

53:29

trying to remember that it was killing

53:32

me in the ground. Yeah. So

53:34

when when they're trying to do that, it doesn't

53:36

work quite as well. I feel like when

53:38

they're sticking to sort of like their homey,

53:40

more British roots or trying to be a

53:42

little bit trying to be a little bit

53:44

more whimsical, things really work out well. So

53:47

flushed away kind of drove a lot of

53:49

people away from Ardman, because after that, they

53:51

never really picked up again. I think even

53:53

Arthur Christmas was a hit. I didn't do

53:55

as well as I should. That movie is

53:57

a classic, by the way, but no, it

53:59

was not a. it's hit much of a

54:01

hit as it should have been.

54:03

And then they did their chicken

54:05

run sequel which was only last

54:07

year the year before. Yeah. Which

54:09

is also for Netflix and that

54:11

came and went and that is

54:13

not a good movie. That's not

54:15

very good either. It's like it's

54:17

okay you can watch it. I

54:19

love it. Mel Gibson played the

54:21

chicken and the original. We can't

54:23

we can't hire Mel Gibson again.

54:25

He's not well liked anymore. It's

54:27

just too toxic. Oh my god,

54:29

that role is so fucking cursed.

54:32

It's cursed now. But in the

54:34

midst there, they actually did a

54:36

couple of very funny, very British

54:39

comedies. They did The Pirates Band

54:41

of Misfits. Oh, that movie is

54:43

brilliant. That's also one of the

54:46

funniest movies ever made. Yeah, pirates is

54:48

really fantastic. Yeah, they did early man,

54:50

which nobody saw I Like early man.

54:52

It's it's it's a sports movie about

54:55

cavemen versus people from the Iron Age

54:57

And there's like monster ducks and and

54:59

it sounds like something I'd enjoy. I

55:01

think you really like early man. It's

55:04

it's it's a sports movie about cave

55:06

men versus people from the sheet movie

55:08

and then they did a sequel called

55:10

farm again, which I didn't like a

55:13

sequel called And that's true. They use

55:15

up their inspiration. And that's true of

55:17

this Wallace and Gromit film as well. Not

55:19

as good. But still Wallace Gromit. Oh yeah.

55:21

The characters are there. They've still, they invented

55:24

these characters and they're still just as well

55:26

animated, still just as well designed. Some bits

55:28

of cleverness, not quite as like... that Kooky

55:30

Rube Goldberg quality isn't quite there. There

55:33

isn't like one joke in this movie

55:35

that I can point to and go,

55:37

that was a good one. There's stuff

55:39

I liked and I laughed, but there

55:41

isn't like one bit where I was

55:44

like, that is a brilliant joke, I

55:46

fucking love you for that joke. I

55:48

don't recall one, honestly. And that's a

55:50

shame, but yeah, it's not a grand

55:52

day out, it's a pleasant day out.

55:54

There you know, you know, it's a

55:57

perfectly nice movie, nice movie to watch

55:59

movie to watch. That's that's that's a perfect

56:01

assessment. Do you want to? Why don't we talk

56:03

about the last movie that we both saw

56:05

that we'll just we'll go back and forth from

56:07

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apply there. So tell me about Grand

56:42

Theft Hamlet. Oh, okay Grand Theft Hamlet

56:44

I'm glad I got to see this

56:46

one. I am just because I'm a

56:48

Shakespeare nerd Yeah, I'm during COVID a

56:50

bunch of people players of the game

56:52

Grand Theft Auto Online, which is one

56:54

of those games where like Many

56:56

thousands of people can log in and

56:58

interact in a simulated world and

57:00

there's not necessarily like levels or our

57:02

Goals if you don't want there

57:04

to be you can just you just

57:06

around and yell at people and

57:09

Grand Theft Auto is specifically is set

57:11

in like Especially essentially the movie

57:13

Scarface where everybody's encouraged to steal cars

57:15

and murder each other lesson and

57:17

and acquire a lot of wealth That's

57:19

the goal of the game It's

57:22

close enough. It's close enough close

57:24

enough. I'm not gonna it's close. Okay.

57:26

Yeah, but yeah, it

57:28

was Yeah

57:31

during lockdowns that some out of work

57:33

actors because you know, you can't

57:35

act when you can't be in the same

57:37

room together Yeah, especially when you do when

57:39

you when you specialize in live theater. Yeah,

57:41

that whole scene died for a while They

57:43

were just bumming around online playing Grand Theft

57:45

Auto and they discovered in this simulated city

57:47

There was a stage and they were just

57:49

sort of futzing around one day and they

57:51

decided to get up on stage and start

57:53

reading Shakespearean lines Just fun. They started with

57:55

Macbeth, but they said hey, wait a minute.

57:57

Actually We could do that We

58:00

could put on like get use our

58:02

avatars characters these digital characters and stage

58:04

a version inside Grand Theft Auto of

58:06

Hamlet. I mean it is they call

58:08

it a sandbox game. You can get

58:10

in there and do whatever you want.

58:12

They're their parameters, but like and you're

58:15

encouraged to certain things. But strictly speaking,

58:17

you can do whatever the fuck you

58:19

want in there. And so they decided,

58:21

yeah, let's stage Hamlet. And they also

58:23

one of them, his wife is a

58:25

documentary filmmaker. And so they enlist her

58:27

to help put on the production and

58:29

document them making it. And the cute thing

58:31

is that except for like one shot

58:33

in like the final credits, it's only

58:35

in the game. It's all game footage.

58:37

We never see them like clicking on

58:39

their computers. It's all in game footage.

58:41

And it really, really creates an interesting

58:43

world. And the characters like you can

58:46

customize your characters. So some of them

58:48

look like people, but some look like

58:50

space aliens. Some of them are wearing

58:52

stripper clothing. Some of them are like

58:54

part cat. You know, there's all of

58:56

these weird customizations. The documentary filmmaker, she's

58:58

like, I want to look like Tilda

59:00

Swinton, but oh, I can have

59:02

skeleton legs. Right. And when the

59:04

characters speak, like their lips

59:06

aren't going to match the words, but the

59:08

characters do like swivel their jaws like

59:10

puppets. It gives us a weird, eerie effect.

59:12

They have certain sort of gestures that

59:14

are allowed within the game. And as they,

59:16

as they progress and try to act

59:18

as their characters, they get a little bit

59:20

more control over that and get a

59:22

little bit more expressive. It was interesting. But

59:24

yeah, they, they send out a call.

59:26

Hmm. Anyone wants to try. And initially no,

59:28

it shows up. Or like what random

59:30

guy shows up and kills them. Yeah. At

59:32

first it's like, hey, oh, thanks for

59:34

coming to this audition. But because of the

59:37

nature of the game, they're just, people are

59:39

just killing them. Yeah. It's like, oh, there's

59:41

people sitting standing still. I'll just murder them

59:43

because that's the goal. Okay. Listen, we, listen,

59:45

that guy was annoying. We killed them. Oh,

59:47

the cops showed up. Okay. We have to

59:49

flee. We can't stay cops. They can't stand

59:51

the. It's a way

59:53

of trying to stage something within

59:55

this really strict, the strict parameters

59:57

of the game itself. Yeah. And

59:59

I. I feel like this is a

1:00:01

good way for these people to sort

1:00:04

of get a creative outlet during COVID,

1:00:06

but it's also an interesting way to

1:00:08

reinterpret Hamlet. And I feel like later

1:00:10

in the film after they've been working

1:00:13

on Hamlet for a while, they actually

1:00:15

start taking it really seriously. Well, they

1:00:17

start taking it seriously. They set up

1:00:20

like a safe place where nobody's gonna

1:00:22

get shot. At one point they enlist

1:00:24

a guy who doesn't want to act.

1:00:26

I was like, can you do security?

1:00:29

Is that true? Shouldn't it? That's pretty

1:00:31

great. That's delightful. But because of

1:00:33

the world that Grand Theft Auto

1:00:35

takes place in, this world of

1:00:37

acquisition, this world of greed and

1:00:39

corruption, you're killing people and getting

1:00:41

money and just stealing cars, it's

1:00:43

all about this kind of scarface

1:00:45

world where there's not a lot

1:00:47

of intellect. Wouldn't that be a

1:00:50

great place to have a corrupt royal

1:00:52

court where people are killing each other

1:00:54

and usurping the throne? It fits really

1:00:56

well, actually, to see Hamlet staged in

1:00:59

this way. And because of... the parameters

1:01:01

of the game, they're trying to think of

1:01:03

interesting places they could stage different kinds of

1:01:05

scenes. Like, okay, how do we do the

1:01:07

ghost scene? Okay, well, what if, what if

1:01:09

he shows up in like a scary mask

1:01:11

on top of a blimp, which we can't

1:01:13

get, and so there's a, and so we,

1:01:15

he does the whole scene where he meets

1:01:17

his dad on top of a blimp that's

1:01:19

like flying up into the clouds, and it's

1:01:21

like. You know, I haven't seen that

1:01:23

one before. I've seen a lot

1:01:25

of hamlets. There's a lot of,

1:01:27

there's a lot of things. I

1:01:29

love, there's a bit where first

1:01:31

blimp hamlet I've seen. I think

1:01:33

it is. There's this wonderful bit

1:01:35

where one of the guys is,

1:01:37

he's doing his, you know, to

1:01:39

be your not to be speech,

1:01:41

or he's trying to, and he

1:01:43

keeps getting shot. Just be random

1:01:45

guys. To be or not to

1:01:48

be. purpose and feeling like alone

1:01:50

in the universe and whether life

1:01:52

has any meaning and he's saying it

1:01:54

to a bunch of NPC's non-player

1:01:56

characters. These are these are

1:01:58

automatons who take on the

1:02:00

appearance of life and it starts

1:02:02

having real depth and meaning in a

1:02:05

new context and it's really fascinating and

1:02:07

at the end when he finishes giving

1:02:09

a speech and he's surrounded by some

1:02:12

of these NBC's one of them says

1:02:14

something to the effect of like yeah

1:02:16

I tried drinking motor oil and it

1:02:19

just gave me gas and it's like

1:02:21

okay you are still in PTA yeah

1:02:23

I love this movie I love the

1:02:25

juxtaposition between the art of Hamlet and

1:02:28

almost the deliberate artlessness of grand theft

1:02:30

auto, which is supposed to kind of

1:02:32

tap into your base or impulses, whereas

1:02:35

Hamlet is supposed to stimulate. I got

1:02:37

this vibe where like, you know, we've

1:02:39

all seen, I mean, none of us

1:02:41

were there, but we've all seen depictions

1:02:44

or read about how the crowd at

1:02:46

the Globe Theatre. when Shakespeare was putting

1:02:48

on his place. Oh, the groundlings. Yeah.

1:02:51

Was very rowdy. And they would like,

1:02:53

you know, yell and throw stuff and

1:02:55

get up on the stage and sort

1:02:57

fight the other actors. And I'm like,

1:02:59

this is that. The groundlings are mocked

1:03:01

in the text of Hamlet, by the

1:03:03

way. Oh, yeah. In the speak the

1:03:05

speech speech. Yeah, yeah, yeah. to split

1:03:07

the ears of the groundlings, they say.

1:03:09

Yeah, yeah, so it just feels like,

1:03:11

you know, when you can get randomly

1:03:13

killed, they even have to say like,

1:03:15

oh, listen, what if one of us

1:03:17

or one of the audience dies while

1:03:19

we perform? Do we just keep going?

1:03:22

Yeah, we just got to keep

1:03:24

going, I guess. But I also

1:03:26

love, because the parameters are so

1:03:28

strict, there's only certain ways they

1:03:30

can stage, like locations, the... whoever

1:03:32

is watching has to follow them

1:03:34

yeah like you can't just teleport

1:03:36

over there it's like a whole

1:03:38

thing and what I found most

1:03:40

hilarious was in the mouse trap

1:03:43

the play within the play there

1:03:45

was suppose there's a scene where

1:03:47

they'd stage the murder of Hamlet's

1:03:49

father right where Claudius the Claudius

1:03:51

avatar sneaks up and poisons and by

1:03:53

point poison his ear yeah they don't

1:03:55

have poison they can pour in someone's

1:03:58

ear in Grand Theft Auto but They

1:04:00

do have bazookas. So

1:04:02

in the Mousetrap, that one guy

1:04:05

gets blown away with a bazooka and

1:04:07

that's when Claudius leaves on stage.

1:04:09

I have one, it's not even a

1:04:11

critique, it's a regret about this

1:04:13

movie. There's not enough Hamlet. There's not

1:04:15

enough, yeah. We see the final production

1:04:18

of Hamlet but only in like,

1:04:20

you know, a tiny

1:04:22

fraction of it. Like we see pieces

1:04:24

of it throughout and there's this

1:04:26

one hilarious bit where everything goes wrong,

1:04:28

but yeah. I want to see

1:04:30

their Hamlet and I

1:04:32

realize that might make it a five hour movie.

1:04:34

Yeah. But at the same time, I really

1:04:36

hope that when this comes out on home video

1:04:38

that that's included. You can see the whole

1:04:40

version Because clearly they recorded it. So I mean,

1:04:43

maybe they didn't get all of it, I

1:04:45

don't know but like they clearly wanted to, they

1:04:47

were planning to, they were working on this

1:04:49

documentary, they talk about it. This is a great

1:04:51

bit where one of the actors is spending so much

1:04:53

time in -game preparing for this Hamlet thing that his

1:04:55

wife, the documentarian is like, I just never see you

1:04:57

anymore, man. You're just doing this all the time. And

1:04:59

he's like, I know it's kind of falling down a

1:05:01

rabbit hole. I wish I could give you a hug. We

1:05:04

live in the same house. You can.

1:05:06

Oh, okay, I'll see you. And

1:05:08

that's kind of like the big telling

1:05:10

moment. And I think that's sort

1:05:12

of like, might give people with memories

1:05:14

of COVID some pretty vicious flashbacks

1:05:17

about sort of this feeling of being

1:05:19

trapped and alienated and alone in

1:05:21

a world where everybody's feeling that. We're

1:05:23

starting to reach the end, I

1:05:25

think, of a wave of films that

1:05:27

were produced and or in production

1:05:29

during COVID that reflected COVID. And we started

1:05:31

getting them in the middle of COVID. We

1:05:34

had the host. Or was it just host?

1:05:36

It was just host. Yeah, which I still

1:05:38

think is one of the classics of the

1:05:40

sort of the COVID wave of filmmaking. But

1:05:42

I really do think with Grants Have Hamlet

1:05:45

and plenty of other movies, besides some

1:05:47

really good, some fucking terrible, we

1:05:50

need to have like a

1:05:52

proper retrospective of how

1:05:54

cinema reflected COVID because once

1:05:56

the lockdown like concluded, you

1:05:59

know, or not it should

1:06:01

have or happened too fast, you know,

1:06:03

that's a whole thing. But like,

1:06:05

once people were able to get

1:06:07

back to work, people were really

1:06:09

quick to start making movies about

1:06:11

how that never happened. Like, they

1:06:13

take place in reality in which

1:06:15

that is barely, if ever mentioned. Like,

1:06:18

the first couple of years of

1:06:20

the 2020s. Oh, yeah, that was

1:06:22

the whole thing, wasn't it? Anyway,

1:06:24

moving on. About our love triangle.

1:06:26

Yeah. It was really frustrating. I

1:06:28

mean, one of my biggest complaints

1:06:30

about like sort of the big

1:06:32

ascending like genre films like the

1:06:35

superhero films was that they were

1:06:37

like frustratingly apolitical or at least

1:06:39

they were striving to be. Yeah.

1:06:41

When we're in a world where we need

1:06:43

heroes to address real world problems. Yeah. I

1:06:46

remember there was a line in one of

1:06:48

the Ant Man films about how. the universe

1:06:50

was wiped out and then resurrected and that

1:06:52

caused a huge homelessness problem on earth like

1:06:55

all across the planet and the heroes did

1:06:57

nothing to address that they barely even mention

1:06:59

it yeah they're too busy in other dimensions

1:07:01

fighting super villains there are a few versions

1:07:04

or like TV shows or whatever that did

1:07:06

address some of that directly but yeah it

1:07:08

feels like that whole blip like oh that

1:07:10

five-year stretch I mean, it came kind of,

1:07:13

the plot point came before COVID, but it

1:07:15

really feels like we could have used

1:07:17

that. It's a great way to

1:07:19

express what was going on. But

1:07:21

anyway, Grand Theft Hamlet is a

1:07:23

great film that actually engages with

1:07:25

what it was like. Well, also

1:07:27

like... Well also reflecting on like

1:07:29

just analyzing what Hamlet is. Very

1:07:31

true. Very true. Yeah, I know

1:07:33

it's a beautiful film and I

1:07:35

really like a lot. It's a

1:07:38

great new angle on Hamlet that

1:07:40

uses modern tech and modern sort

1:07:42

of interactive technologies to explore this

1:07:45

ancient art in a new and

1:07:47

exciting way. And it just more

1:07:49

proof that Hamlet is kind

1:07:51

of a As Harold Bloom said, a poem

1:07:54

unlimited. It can fit into any framework.

1:07:56

We were just talking about when we

1:07:58

were doing our David Lynch tribute. had

1:08:00

something similar about Twin Peaks,

1:08:02

the return of all things. Anyway,

1:08:06

we should move on. So I've seen three other movies

1:08:08

and you've seen two, so I'll just do one and

1:08:10

then we'll alternate. Let's talk

1:08:12

about The Last Showgirl. Tell me about The Last

1:08:14

Showgirl. I am so glad I saw The Last

1:08:16

Showgirl. It was almost the movie I didn't get

1:08:18

to see in time for award season. And

1:08:21

then I ran into people who were like, no, you

1:08:23

have to see this movie. I'm like, okay, I'll make it

1:08:25

a priority. And I'm so glad I did. This is

1:08:27

a movie from Gia Coppola. And it

1:08:29

stars Pamela Anderson, known

1:08:32

best for Baywatch,

1:08:34

Barbed Wire, the

1:08:37

notorious and frankly repugnant sex

1:08:39

tape that people stole from her

1:08:41

and put out online. It's

1:08:43

really just cruel how that all

1:08:45

went down. Invaded her privacy

1:08:47

and can still watch it online

1:08:49

like she's trying to have

1:08:51

it taken down. It's tragic. Pamela

1:08:56

Anderson has, it's

1:08:58

interesting because she's known for being very

1:09:00

beautiful and she had a lot of modeling.

1:09:02

Yeah, just as much a model as

1:09:05

she was an actress. But the thing is

1:09:07

that the reason why Baywatch kind of

1:09:09

peaked when she was on it, she

1:09:11

had charisma. She's really funny. She's really

1:09:13

funny. She's got, she just commands the

1:09:15

screen. It seemed like she was destined

1:09:17

to be some kind of movie star,

1:09:19

you know, maybe they're different kinds. But

1:09:22

it seemed like, you know, she was

1:09:24

going to have a good or at

1:09:26

least consistent career. And then she left

1:09:28

Baywatch, honestly, fine. It wasn't a great

1:09:30

show. It was very popular. It wasn't

1:09:32

a great show. Hugely popular. Yeah, oh

1:09:34

my god. was like 12 seasons or

1:09:37

something. Yeah, it was huge. And,

1:09:39

you know, she had a spinoff called,

1:09:41

it wasn't a spinoff. It was a

1:09:43

similar show called VIP that was all

1:09:45

hers. And she had Barbed Wire, which

1:09:47

was a big comic book movie, which

1:09:49

is not very good. It's the Casablanca

1:09:51

story. It is Casablanca. It's like, it's

1:09:53

like post -apocalypse Casablanca. It's Mad Max Casablanca

1:09:55

and she's Humphrey Bogart. No, granted, that's

1:09:57

a good bitch. It's not very good.

1:10:00

It's not her fault, but it's

1:10:02

not a very good movie. And

1:10:04

so her acting career kind of

1:10:07

hit the skids. And she really

1:10:09

hasn't done a lot of acting

1:10:11

since. And she's finally got

1:10:13

a great role. And this

1:10:15

movie, The Last Showgirl, where she

1:10:18

plays, she's been a showgirl

1:10:20

at this one Las Vegas

1:10:22

review for decades. She's been

1:10:24

there for a long time. She's

1:10:26

been there since the beginning and

1:10:29

it's just been one of those

1:10:31

like old standards everyone goes to

1:10:33

this and it's one of those

1:10:35

ones with like glittery Tiaras The

1:10:38

big headdress yeah yeah yeah like

1:10:40

the gold standard classic Idea

1:10:42

of like the sexy Vegas

1:10:44

show of which we see very very

1:10:47

little And she's getting on

1:10:49

in years. She's no longer a

1:10:51

headliner. She's been pushed further and

1:10:53

further back into the chorus She

1:10:56

is constantly, you know, things keep

1:10:58

constantly screwing up. Like she rips

1:11:01

her costume because of a door handle.

1:11:03

She can never remember where it is.

1:11:05

And well, that comes out of your

1:11:07

paycheck. So now she has to stay

1:11:09

up late and try to fix it

1:11:12

herself. And it's just, she doesn't have

1:11:14

a life. She has a best friend

1:11:16

played by Jamie Lee Curtis, who used

1:11:18

to be a showgirl, and now is

1:11:20

a way, like a server at a,

1:11:23

at a, at a casino. Okay. Wandering

1:11:25

around the floor, like, oh, here's your

1:11:27

here's your gin and tonic, don't leave.

1:11:29

It's keep, keep shoving money into

1:11:31

that, into that one-arm monster.

1:11:34

And, and also, she's kind of a

1:11:36

mentor figure to some of the younger

1:11:38

show girls, one's one's one's one's

1:11:40

played by Kiernan Shipka. Okay. But

1:11:42

at the beginning of the movie,

1:11:45

she finds out from the

1:11:47

production manager, the stage manager.

1:11:49

played by Dave Battista who's

1:11:51

giving a great performance, that

1:11:54

after all these years the show

1:11:56

is going to shut down. Okay,

1:11:58

which is true. The, the, the, uh, I think

1:12:00

it was called Not Crazy

1:12:02

Girls. Another long-running Vegas review

1:12:04

with the show Girls with the big

1:12:07

headdresses did shut down. Yeah. And it

1:12:09

was an end of an era, you

1:12:11

know, and I don't have a lot

1:12:13

of attachment to that because I actually

1:12:15

never actually saw one of those. But

1:12:17

it isn't an era. There's a wistfulness

1:12:20

to it, but we see it from

1:12:22

this perspective of someone who has just

1:12:24

been working it. This has been her

1:12:26

job. This has been her

1:12:28

life. This has been what

1:12:30

she clung to. This is

1:12:32

what she did when she

1:12:34

wasn't being a very good

1:12:36

mom. This was her like,

1:12:38

this was her fame. What is

1:12:41

she now? What is she gonna

1:12:43

do? She's supposed to

1:12:45

like get another job?

1:12:47

She's supposed to move?

1:12:49

She gonna try to like

1:12:51

settle down and get married?

1:12:53

Is it too late for

1:12:56

that? And that's kind of

1:12:58

the whole movie. Okay. It's

1:13:00

just this, it's just this

1:13:02

almost kind of death of

1:13:04

a salesman kind of thing where

1:13:06

it's like, it's not that

1:13:08

tragic, but like, who am? What

1:13:11

if I dedicated my life to?

1:13:13

Yeah, now that I'm retiring, what

1:13:15

if I brought to the world?

1:13:17

Yeah, like, is it, is there

1:13:19

more nobility in maybe realizing

1:13:21

that you might have

1:13:23

wasted your life? Yeah. And that

1:13:26

is a very complicated, that's

1:13:28

a lot for one performance.

1:13:30

Like, you know, a lot of movies,

1:13:32

what do they ask you to be?

1:13:34

Okay, you're a grizzled tough guy who's

1:13:36

brought back in for one last

1:13:38

job and you got a divorce and

1:13:41

it hurts. Okay, I think I can

1:13:43

play that. There's not a lot to

1:13:45

that. That's a cliche character.

1:13:47

It's a cliche. A lot of

1:13:49

people who are played by actors

1:13:51

or cliches. It's not a horrible

1:13:53

thing, but it is. This kind

1:13:55

of role actually demands a lot

1:13:57

of an actor it involves a

1:14:00

of internality. It involves a

1:14:02

lot of externality because she's

1:14:04

playing a showgirl. Like, this is

1:14:06

a hard role for any actor.

1:14:08

And Pamela Anderson fucking nails it.

1:14:10

Well, that's great. Yeah. And you might

1:14:13

think to yourself, oh, is she kind

1:14:15

of playing yourself? I mean, maybe,

1:14:17

I'm sure she's culling from her experiences.

1:14:19

But it doesn't feel like this

1:14:21

is like a thinly veiled Pamela Anderson.

1:14:24

Well, no, but I feel like if...

1:14:26

There's a definite prejudice in Hollywood

1:14:28

for the phrases women of a

1:14:30

certain age. Yeah. This is also

1:14:32

what the substance is all about.

1:14:34

Yeah. The Demi Moore character turned

1:14:36

50 and like she's been being

1:14:38

told very directly to her face

1:14:40

in that movie that like she's

1:14:42

just sort of out like aged

1:14:44

out of her useful. Yeah, you're

1:14:46

done. Please leave. Here's the door.

1:14:48

Yeah, exactly. I got you a

1:14:50

book. Yeah, she's oh no, 50.

1:14:52

God. It's like. Yeah. How decrepit

1:14:54

you are at age 50, come

1:14:57

on. And I feel like Hollywood

1:14:59

very much mistreats women

1:15:01

like that. Women start getting

1:15:04

less and less certain kinds

1:15:06

of roles after a while.

1:15:08

Yeah, opportunities dry up because

1:15:11

they just, movies or women

1:15:13

are used as commodities and

1:15:16

for men and entertainment, like

1:15:18

males. You'll notice like. We

1:15:21

always talk about how like there's

1:15:23

a lot of the sex has

1:15:25

been removed from a lot of

1:15:27

mainstream cinema, but you'll notice in

1:15:29

most like mainstream movie trailers, they

1:15:31

always try to shoehorn in one

1:15:33

shot of like a woman putting on her

1:15:35

shirt. Or like, you know, someone in a

1:15:37

bikini, a little bit, yeah. So it's

1:15:39

like, it was just like one shot,

1:15:41

just like, hey, remember, I know you

1:15:44

have a libido, we haven't forgotten about

1:15:46

it. There might be something in here

1:15:48

for you, but we don't really do

1:15:50

that anymore. But regardless, it's still there.

1:15:52

The commodification of a woman's body, and

1:15:54

particularly woman's young body, and then once

1:15:56

that body is seen as not good

1:15:59

for marketing. which is actually a

1:16:01

plot point in this movie when she

1:16:03

was part of the market and then

1:16:05

she wasn't part of the marketing.

1:16:07

Yeah. Yeah, it's hard. But yeah, this is

1:16:09

a really, really good movie about that.

1:16:11

This is a really great character study.

1:16:13

Jamie Lee Curtis is getting a lot

1:16:15

of attention for this. Frankly, she's

1:16:18

good, but I don't think she's doing...

1:16:20

Actually, I think the supporting role

1:16:22

who's just fantastic, and this is

1:16:24

Dave Battista. He gets to play a

1:16:27

very mild-mannered character, but when he finally

1:16:29

has like one really long scene with

1:16:31

Pamela Anderson, you realize how much more

1:16:33

has been going on with this guy, and

1:16:35

it's a lot more complicated than that. He

1:16:38

nails it. He's a really good actor. I

1:16:40

think when you get him in a good

1:16:42

sort of like quiet role, Davidista is really

1:16:44

good. He wants to be a real actor.

1:16:46

Yeah. And he... gets to which is great

1:16:49

yeah i i feel like um he he

1:16:51

he actually seems a lot less comfortable these

1:16:53

days in like he's lost a lot of

1:16:55

weight like i've seen in that movie my

1:16:57

spy where has to play this kind of

1:17:00

like two spy guys like the kindergarten cop

1:17:02

thing yeah he's not in his element there

1:17:04

but you get him in something like um I hate the

1:17:06

movie, but Knock at the Cabin. He's great in that movie.

1:17:08

Yeah, he gives a good performance. It's a despicable film, but

1:17:10

he gives a good performance. I maintain that he's going to

1:17:12

get an Oscar nomination. Maybe even for this, the weirder things

1:17:14

have happened. He's not really in the conversation, but every once

1:17:17

in a while, like someone just kind of sneaks in, like

1:17:19

we weren't really talking about the movie, but we're going to

1:17:21

talk about that performance. He could get in there, I don't there,

1:17:23

I don't know. Anyway, I don't want to talk about it, I don't want

1:17:25

to talk about it, I don't want to talk about it, I don't. Anyway,

1:17:27

I don't want to talk about it, I don't going

1:17:29

to talk about it, I don't, I

1:17:31

don't. Anyway, I don't want to talk

1:17:33

about it, I don't want to talk

1:17:35

about it, I don't want to talk

1:17:37

about it, I think. Well, how about

1:17:40

I talk to you about I'm still

1:17:42

here? Because that's the better of the

1:17:44

films. This is a Brazilian film from

1:17:46

the director Walter Salas, who did the

1:17:48

motorcycle diaries and the film version of

1:17:50

On the Road. And it's a

1:17:53

biography of, let me look

1:17:55

at the actual people's

1:17:57

names. It's about Rubens

1:17:59

Paiva. who in the

1:18:01

70s was infamously disappeared

1:18:03

by the Brazilian dictatorship.

1:18:06

And this is told

1:18:08

from the perspective of

1:18:10

Eunice Paiva, played by

1:18:12

Fernanda Torres, who is

1:18:15

Fernanda, or yeah, Fernanda

1:18:17

Montenegro's daughter. She

1:18:20

plays Ruben's wife, who

1:18:22

wrote the biography of his

1:18:24

disappearance. Okay. So

1:18:27

it takes place in Brazil in

1:18:29

the 1970s. And there is so

1:18:31

much, even though I didn't live

1:18:33

in Brazil in the 1970s, I

1:18:35

could tell that it was accurate.

1:18:37

There's so much attention to the

1:18:39

textures and the details, the light,

1:18:41

the things that the people are

1:18:43

touching, the technologies they're using. It

1:18:45

doesn't feel like some European guy

1:18:47

felt like he got the gist

1:18:49

of it. No, it doesn't. It

1:18:51

feels like they actually paid attention.

1:18:53

There's a lot of attention to

1:18:55

paid to the kinds of records people

1:18:57

are listening to, the kinds of clothes they're

1:19:00

wearing, the concerns they have. And we

1:19:02

have a chance to live in all

1:19:04

of that because the first 30 minutes or

1:19:06

so of this film is just their

1:19:08

life at home. The Paivas live in

1:19:10

this house that is literally two blocks from

1:19:12

the beach. And they're constantly having nice

1:19:14

dinners and friends are coming over. Occasionally, some

1:19:16

of the adults will abscond to a

1:19:19

separate room and talk about how the dictatorship

1:19:21

is not treating people well and they're

1:19:23

disappearing people and they're trying to do what they

1:19:25

can to protest it. But the kids don't care, they're

1:19:27

just sort of wandering through, they live kind of

1:19:29

carefree lives. The older daughter is going to go

1:19:31

on a study abroad program to England and she's

1:19:33

bringing extra money so she can buy records while

1:19:35

she's there. I'm

1:19:38

not sure if you can recall like a

1:19:40

childhood of kids constantly coming in and out

1:19:42

of your house, but I did have a

1:19:44

childhood kind of like that and a lot

1:19:46

of friends over all the time. So it

1:19:48

has that kind of energy, this very kind

1:19:51

of almost blissful suburban life that these people live.

1:19:53

Yeah, I was always the youngest kid anywhere

1:19:55

I went and my neighborhood never had anyone

1:19:57

my age, so I've never really had to

1:19:59

think. But yeah. Rubens Paiva was retired

1:20:01

now but was a left -wing

1:20:03

politician and one day Goons

1:20:05

show up and they just say

1:20:07

come with us and he

1:20:09

has time to put on a

1:20:11

suit tell the people who

1:20:13

are there like some of his

1:20:15

kids around the house I'm

1:20:17

gonna I'm gonna go with these

1:20:19

people sit tight and we'll see

1:20:21

what happens the Goons stay at the

1:20:23

house to keep an eye on

1:20:25

people they start eating their food eventually

1:20:27

Eunice is taken also to the

1:20:30

police station where she and one of

1:20:32

her teenage daughters are essentially tortured

1:20:34

and you look up the history of

1:20:36

Brazil at this time and what

1:20:38

the dictatorship was doing and this is

1:20:40

like right at the height of

1:20:42

the atrocities and how people were being

1:20:44

spirited away and killed and how

1:20:46

a lot of people were being tortured

1:20:48

for I guess communism or something like

1:20:51

there's they're looking for enemies it's

1:20:53

an excuse yeah they just need

1:20:55

to kill off their enemies because

1:20:57

they want to stay threatening I

1:20:59

understand that's a simplification of things

1:21:02

but that isn't that what all

1:21:04

dictators it's a core tenant of

1:21:06

fascism yeah and the frustrating part

1:21:08

of all of this is how little

1:21:10

information Eunice is given in all of

1:21:12

this why am I here where is

1:21:14

my husband what can I do years pass

1:21:16

and they don't know what happened

1:21:19

and it becomes about her investigation

1:21:21

into what happened to this guy

1:21:23

and it does eventually catch up

1:21:25

to the present and we if

1:21:27

you know anything about Brazilian history

1:21:29

and they do explain a little

1:21:32

bit of this in the movie

1:21:34

is that her husband became kind

1:21:36

of a symbol for the evils

1:21:38

of the dictatorship he was like

1:21:40

one one of their more notable

1:21:42

victims so it was sort of

1:21:45

about eventually that her quest turns

1:21:47

into something not just to keep

1:21:49

the households together to keep her

1:21:51

children spirits up she has four

1:21:53

daughters and a son and eventually

1:21:57

though it becomes about not necessarily

1:21:59

finding what happened, but trying

1:22:01

in a little way, in

1:22:03

the smallest possible way, to

1:22:05

get the government to admit

1:22:08

that he's even dead. And

1:22:10

her eventual goal is just

1:22:12

to get a death certificate,

1:22:14

showing that he has died. Good

1:22:16

one to watch today of all

1:22:18

days, isn't it? No, I'm just

1:22:20

going to depress us. The last

1:22:22

couple of years on planet Earth,

1:22:25

we've seen a rise of authoritarian

1:22:27

rulers all over the planet. And

1:22:29

it's happening here in the United

1:22:31

States. It's happened in multiple countries.

1:22:33

And because there are so many

1:22:35

of them, and because so many

1:22:37

of these extreme right-wing governments are

1:22:39

coming into power, it feels like

1:22:42

they're winning. Yeah. We're not doing

1:22:44

a great job of stopping them.

1:22:46

No. What I'll say about

1:22:48

dictators is they can do

1:22:50

all of their atrocities, but

1:22:53

we live on You can

1:22:55

get that first yeah, I

1:22:57

suppose so I don't know

1:23:00

I mean though with perseverance

1:23:02

and we're all gonna all

1:23:04

that's true, but Fuckin damn

1:23:07

it. Yeah, yeah So there's

1:23:09

a lot It's an impeccably

1:23:11

made movie. I'm still here. It's

1:23:13

really fantastic. The lead actress is

1:23:16

so so good. Fernando Torres has been

1:23:18

winning awards and rightly so because she

1:23:20

brings so much not just that kind

1:23:23

of political anger, but just gentle everyday

1:23:25

humanity to this role and so much

1:23:27

of this movie is about these people

1:23:30

sort of just con conversing and these

1:23:32

kids playing and these you know, the

1:23:34

games that they play and the in

1:23:37

jokes they have as a family. One

1:23:39

of the something I really appreciate is

1:23:41

when the older daughter is abroad she

1:23:44

sends eight millimeter film back instead of

1:23:46

just a letter and she says watch this

1:23:48

film I've timed it out with this letter

1:23:50

so if you read it out loud it'll

1:23:53

match up to the film and they take

1:23:55

turns reading the letter and re-watching the real

1:23:57

so there's like little warm so many little

1:23:59

warm moments like that, it

1:24:01

really actually hurts when

1:24:03

the separation happens. This

1:24:07

is going to be a very strange

1:24:09

comparison, but in the Fly 2,

1:24:11

there was a scene because he's working

1:24:13

on this teleporter machine and it

1:24:15

turns animals inside out. And there's a

1:24:17

scene where the Eric Stoltz character

1:24:19

has a kitten and he gives it

1:24:21

to Daphne Zuniga and has her

1:24:23

pet it and cut it and she

1:24:25

kind of bonds with the kitten

1:24:27

and then he throws it in the

1:24:29

teleporter and she says, what the

1:24:31

fuck are you doing? Why did you

1:24:33

introduce me to that kitten? You're

1:24:35

just gonna kill it and I'm like, yeah,

1:24:37

that's mean. If you're gonna kill

1:24:39

a kitten, don't make me bond with it

1:24:41

first. Also, I'd prefer if you just didn't.

1:24:43

The kitten's okay. I know

1:24:45

it's a movie. Yeah. The cat's

1:24:47

fine. Probably not anymore. It's been like

1:24:49

40 years. I'm sure that cat

1:24:52

had lived a very long gratifying life.

1:24:54

But point being, there's something, it's

1:24:56

gonna be more painful if you're attached

1:24:58

to something. And I feel like

1:25:00

those first 30 minutes is vital to

1:25:02

this movie because we do become

1:25:04

attached to this family and we don't

1:25:07

want bad things to happen to

1:25:09

them. And of course, things bad things

1:25:11

do happen to them. I

1:25:14

didn't know a lot about the history of this

1:25:16

person until I saw this movie, but I

1:25:18

started reading a lot about it. I feel like

1:25:20

I know a little bit more about the Brazilian

1:25:23

dictatorship

1:25:25

and the way it

1:25:27

just sort of ripped the

1:25:29

world asunder and changed the direction

1:25:31

of a family, like what

1:25:34

they lived for and what they

1:25:36

thought of and what their

1:25:38

home dynamic was and how that

1:25:40

was all wiped out by

1:25:42

this brazen act of

1:25:44

violence. So depressing. It's

1:25:50

a new film from Mike

1:25:52

Lee. Okay. It's called Hard

1:25:54

Truths. It stars Mary Ann

1:25:56

Jean -Baptiste who, you know,

1:25:59

it's been around. line of everything,

1:26:01

her big breakout role was actually

1:26:03

in Mike Lee's Secrets and Lies,

1:26:05

which we learned an Oscar nomination

1:26:07

for back in the mid-90s. They

1:26:10

have re-teemed. And it is another

1:26:12

like intimate character study, but this

1:26:14

one is depressing as fuck. Like

1:26:16

the last showgirl's kind of a

1:26:19

can be a downer too, but

1:26:21

this one's just emotionally

1:26:23

and psychologically bleak. Marian

1:26:25

Jean Batiz plays a woman

1:26:27

named Pansy. Who can say?

1:26:30

She is deeply troubled.

1:26:32

Because the character hasn't

1:26:35

pursued anything to that

1:26:37

regard, so it would

1:26:40

be probably too easy

1:26:42

for me to suggest...

1:26:45

Excuse me. What a

1:26:47

problem is, manic-depressive

1:26:50

bipolar. Who

1:26:52

can say? She is deeply

1:26:55

troubled. She is angry all

1:26:57

the time. Every time she wakes

1:26:59

up, like someone's like, hey mom,

1:27:02

she wakes up screaming bloody murder,

1:27:04

like she's terrified that something might

1:27:06

happen to her. She goes out into

1:27:08

the world to do her shopping

1:27:11

or go to the dentist, and

1:27:13

every interaction with another human being

1:27:15

is a fight. And she is

1:27:17

looking for slights, she is looking

1:27:20

for people who are trying to

1:27:22

hurt her, and when they're not,

1:27:24

she goads them until they do

1:27:26

until they do. which justifies her

1:27:29

worldview. And then when she tells

1:27:31

her family what happened today, she

1:27:33

tells that version. Yeah. Because that's

1:27:36

her reality. She is profoundly

1:27:38

unhappy. She is profoundly angry

1:27:41

and it is affecting everyone

1:27:43

in her life. She is

1:27:45

married to a plumber. He is

1:27:48

beaten down. He has... He just

1:27:50

kind of glides through everything and

1:27:52

just like just hopes today is

1:27:54

a good day with Pansy She

1:27:56

has a son who Seems like a nice

1:27:58

enough guy, but he He's afraid to

1:28:00

talk. He goes out on walks. And

1:28:02

she says, don't go out on

1:28:05

walks. People will say you're loitering.

1:28:07

You'll get arrested. Stay home. So

1:28:09

it's happy go angry. Kinda. Yeah. This

1:28:11

is the cat. Mike Lee made Happy

1:28:13

Go Lucky. Which is a very cheerful

1:28:16

film. Yeah. This is the counterpoint

1:28:18

of this is her sister

1:28:20

played by Michelle Austin who

1:28:22

is a hairdresser and she

1:28:24

has two grown-up daughters who

1:28:26

are living pretty decent lives

1:28:28

you know they have struggles

1:28:30

and there's this one particularly

1:28:32

a fucking I've been in similar situations

1:28:34

bit where one of the one

1:28:37

of the daughters is trying to

1:28:39

pitch an idea to like the

1:28:41

company she works for that's

1:28:43

been enlisted. I think she's, especially I

1:28:46

do with the company she works for,

1:28:48

it's like a cosmetics company, and she

1:28:50

says, listen, if we do this and

1:28:52

we just advertise, hey, we don't use

1:28:54

this product, that actually turns out isn't

1:28:56

very good for you. And if people who

1:28:58

don't even know that we've changed the product

1:29:01

have said that our products have improved if

1:29:03

we take it out, so all we've got

1:29:05

to do is just spend less money and

1:29:07

advertise that we're even better for you and

1:29:09

we'll make a lot of money. And this

1:29:12

executives looks like it and go. How

1:29:14

fucking dare you! I trusted

1:29:16

you! And you want us

1:29:18

to not put coconut and

1:29:20

shit? Get out! Like it's

1:29:22

just this... The obtuseness

1:29:25

is frustrating. We don't

1:29:27

really find out a lot

1:29:29

about what happened with Pansy.

1:29:32

Her mother's dead. Okay.

1:29:34

There's a scene where she

1:29:36

goes very begrudgingly with

1:29:38

her sister to the

1:29:40

grave. And it's

1:29:42

abundantly clear at this point

1:29:44

when they finally start spending

1:29:47

some time together on Mother's Day.

1:29:49

Panty has gone through some things

1:29:51

that her sister hasn't. It's hard

1:29:53

to say if it's all internal

1:29:55

or if there was some abuse

1:29:58

or traumatic incident or what. But

1:30:00

they don't know each other. They don't

1:30:03

understand how they see the

1:30:05

world. And there's a moment

1:30:07

where you think maybe this is

1:30:09

the moment where Pansy's gonna

1:30:12

like realize that she's been

1:30:14

pushing people away. And I'm

1:30:16

not gonna tell you how it

1:30:18

ends, but it's not a happy ending.

1:30:20

It's not it's not ending we're like

1:30:22

oh we figured our shit out like

1:30:24

no it's unfortunately it's more sad and

1:30:26

complicated than that it's a really it's

1:30:28

a really bleak tragic movie and I

1:30:30

cried and I was kind of mad

1:30:32

at the movie because it made me

1:30:34

cry that way by just in putting

1:30:36

putting me in the middle of this

1:30:39

suffering that sadly I am familiar with

1:30:41

similar situations that have happened in

1:30:43

my life and people around me

1:30:45

And it's accurate, it hit really

1:30:47

close to home though, and I'm

1:30:50

not sure I enjoyed it, but

1:30:52

it is great. It's one of

1:30:54

those. I'm frustrated with these

1:30:57

kinds of reviews of films

1:30:59

that deal with rough subject matter because

1:31:01

I feel like being put through something rough and being

1:31:03

angered and depressed is certainly an exhilarating. form of entertainment.

1:31:05

I'm not denying that. I think it's a great movie.

1:31:07

I'm saying it's just it but I think it's fair

1:31:09

to say it's also unpleasant and I think you should

1:31:12

and again I think part of our job is to

1:31:14

prepare people for the movie they're gonna get. I suppose

1:31:16

so. You know this sounds great. This is right up

1:31:18

my alley. Oh it's very up your alley. You would

1:31:20

love this movie. I'm also frustrated that I didn't see

1:31:22

this because I'm a huge Mike Lee fan. I've. I've

1:31:24

seen most of most of most of most of his

1:31:26

work on your radar. Yeah, I mentioned it. I said

1:31:28

like, oh, yeah, there's a new Mike Lee movie. There's

1:31:30

a new Mike Lee movie. Like, I missed that. I

1:31:32

love Mike Lee, yeah. Mary and Jean Batiste is getting

1:31:34

some big awards attention, but other than that, I mean,

1:31:36

they offered this to like, Can and Venice, they turned

1:31:38

it down. So weird. I don't know, they, they, they,

1:31:41

they, there was an interview, Mike Lee was like, yeah,

1:31:43

I thought maybe, we made a bad movie, we made

1:31:45

a bad movie. And then a show to Toronto and

1:31:47

then a Toronto and everyone, and everyone, and everyone, and

1:31:49

everyone loved it, and everyone loved it, and everyone loved

1:31:51

it, and everyone loved it, and everyone loved it, and,

1:31:53

and, and, and, and, you know, and, and, you know,

1:31:55

and, and, you know, and, and, and, you know, and,

1:31:57

you know, and, and, you know, and, and, and, you

1:31:59

know, and Right, Barry and Tom Dease is

1:32:01

brilliant in it. And I think Michelle

1:32:04

Austin is too. She's not getting as

1:32:06

much attention. Well, Mike Lee is, I

1:32:08

feel like he might be a bit