Speaker 1: On the Doodcast, the questions asked if movies have women
Speaker 1: in them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands
Speaker 1: or do they have individualism? The patriarchy? Zef and best
Speaker 1: start changing it with the beck Del Cast. Hey, Jamie,
Speaker 1: Hey Caitlin, you know how our husbands died in a
Speaker 1: botched podcast episode? Or did they? Well we don't know
Speaker 1: just yet, but let's assume that they did. Okay, okay,
Speaker 1: do you want to maybe start our own podcast together? Wow?
Speaker 1: But but not because we want our own podcast to
Speaker 1: sort of like finish their unfinished podcast business. Right, we're
Speaker 1: finishing their podcast. We're finishing their last podcast episode there,
Speaker 1: and we have some people after us that if we
Speaker 1: don't finish their podcast, they're gonna kill us. Sophie. If
Speaker 1: we don't finish the podcast, she finds us and she
Speaker 1: hunts us. But if we do successfully finish it, we're
Speaker 1: going to be so rich. Oh well, obviously all podcasters
Speaker 1: are extremely rich. Well, I feel pretty good about that intro.
Speaker 1: I feel I thank you. I hope that I hope
Speaker 1: everyone had a great time listening to it, because I
Speaker 1: had a great time participating. Yeah, you're welcome, everybody. Hello,
Speaker 1: and welcome to very diplomatic Welcome to the Bechdel coust
Speaker 1: My name is Caitlin Darante. My name is Jamie Loftus,
Speaker 1: And this is our podcast about ruining movies that you
Speaker 1: previously really enjoyed using an intersectional feminist lance, or in
Speaker 1: some cases, celebrating pretty good movies. That's true. I guess
Speaker 1: that that would have been a more appropriate setup for
Speaker 1: this particular episode. But yeah, this is uh, this is
Speaker 1: this is our damn podcast. You know, if you're if
Speaker 1: you're just getting here, welcome, if you've been here for
Speaker 1: a while, kick your feet up, baby, get comfortable. Because
Speaker 1: it's the Widows episode. We've gotten a lot of requests
Speaker 1: for I feel like we've been getting requests for this
Speaker 1: episode since the movie came out almost three years ago now,
Speaker 1: so it's been a long time coming and I'm so
Speaker 1: excited to cover it. Same but hold on, what is
Speaker 1: our podcast? Oh gee whiz. It's an examination of film
Speaker 1: through an intersectional feminist lens, right where we use the
Speaker 1: Bechtel test simply as a jumping off point to initiate
Speaker 1: a larger conversation. And the Bechtel test, of course, is
Speaker 1: a media metric created by queer cartoonist Alison Bechtel, sometimes
Speaker 1: called the Bechtel Wallace test that requires our variation on
Speaker 1: the test is that two people of any marginalized gender
Speaker 1: have to have names, they must speak to each other,
Speaker 1: and their conversation has to be about something other than
Speaker 1: a man. Ideally it is a meaningful, plot relevant conversation,
Speaker 1: but if it's a two line exchange, we will consider it.
Speaker 1: We go case by case. I don't think it's a
Speaker 1: huge issue for this particular movie, but we've we've had
Speaker 1: to really get in the weeds in the past, Caitlin.
Speaker 1: I was realizing the other day that we've been on
Speaker 1: this podcast longer than we were in high school. WHOA
Speaker 1: how wild? And I feel like I've learned way more same.
Speaker 1: So we're like I did in high school. We're like
Speaker 1: super seniors because this is our fifth year of doing
Speaker 1: the podcast. Yeah, with no end in sight, we're never
Speaker 1: going to graduate. Uh fine, by me, Let's get our
Speaker 1: guests in here, shall we. Let's do it. She is
Speaker 1: a freelance journalist. She's had work published in Harper's Bazaar.
Speaker 1: She's also a film student and aspiring filmmaker. It's Michael
Speaker 1: Michelle Pratt. Hello and welcome, holcome, Hi, thank you for
Speaker 1: having me. Know I'm a huge fan, and I'm really
Speaker 1: excited h to be here, and I like, I love
Speaker 1: this movie. So I'm very excited. We're so happy to
Speaker 1: have you. We're so psyched. Uh So we're covering Widows.
Speaker 1: It's a movie directed by Steve McQueen, screenplay by Steve
Speaker 1: McQueen and Jillian's God damn it, I am a misogynist,
Speaker 1: which is why I didn't double check her name before.
Speaker 1: But either way, uh so, so Michael Michelle to get
Speaker 1: stuff started. What is your history with this movie? Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I wanted to go see in theaters. Uh. I
Speaker 1: think it might have been I don't know it was
Speaker 1: the opening weekend or the weekend after opening weekend. By
Speaker 1: I thought with my mom, Um, I I like, I like,
Speaker 1: I really like the late night shoving because I love
Speaker 1: the trailer. Um, I think why all Davis is just
Speaker 1: you know her existence, I just all the reformances if
Speaker 1: for everything, I love her. Um, I'm not a huge
Speaker 1: told me to Slafe you have, but I love everything
Speaker 1: else take me. I think he's also really brilliant. Um.
Speaker 1: And so I was just like I was like really
Speaker 1: psyched for this and so I love the trailer and
Speaker 1: when to go see it? Um and then it was
Speaker 1: really mad. It was like me and my mom and
Speaker 1: like one one other guy in the corner. I was like,
Speaker 1: this is oh no one else was there. No, it
Speaker 1: was like three of us just at this like awkwards
Speaker 1: like eleven Black Night screening, and I was like, wow, okay.
Speaker 1: I was like, I was like, what did your mom think?
Speaker 1: So she she liked it, but she didn't like the
Speaker 1: ending because she my mom hated like in being its endings.
Speaker 1: And I was like, that's the fun of it because
Speaker 1: they're like maybe they've become friends who don't know and
Speaker 1: they've been like this whole this really tumultuous, traumatic future,
Speaker 1: but they're kind a friend and it's cool and I
Speaker 1: love it being the new films. That's like my thing.
Speaker 1: But she was like, but she was like I wanted
Speaker 1: like more closure of but that wasn't the point. But fine.
Speaker 1: I was like you. I was like, you know, fine,
Speaker 1: but yeah, she wouldn't and she wasn't really a fan
Speaker 1: of the of the ending. But other than that, I
Speaker 1: think I think she liked this. Yeah, nice Jamie, what
Speaker 1: about you what's your relationship with the movie. Not too much.
Speaker 1: I had seen it. I think I hadn't. I hadn't
Speaker 1: seen it until Quarantine last year, but I had a
Speaker 1: copy of it at my house. My my boyfriend's a
Speaker 1: huge fan of this movie. He seen it like ten times.
Speaker 1: It's like one of his comfort movies or even though
Speaker 1: it's like not even that old of a movie, so
Speaker 1: he was like, you're going to sit down with me
Speaker 1: and watch it. Not very comforting either, No, it's kind
Speaker 1: of stressful, but I have I don't know, I feel
Speaker 1: like everyone has a stressful comfort movie where it's like
Speaker 1: I can't exactly put my finger on why this would
Speaker 1: bring me peace, but for some reason it does. I mean,
Speaker 1: Titanic is definitely one of my comfort movies and also
Speaker 1: not comforting at all and bodies are hitting the floor
Speaker 1: the whole time. Um, but yes, I I just saw
Speaker 1: it last year and now I think I've seen it
Speaker 1: three times. And it's so it's already so interesting where
Speaker 1: this movie is three years old, but I feel like
Speaker 1: already having a little bit of distance from it. It's
Speaker 1: really interesting to watch back because this was like immediately
Speaker 1: after the Me Too movement started. Movie and I feel
Speaker 1: like that is very present and how it was marketed
Speaker 1: and already just with a couple of years of distance
Speaker 1: from it. I really enjoyed the movie. It's like such
Speaker 1: a blast. The cast is like, I can't think of
Speaker 1: a more fun cast for a movie. And yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't know, I feel like there's so much to talk about.
Speaker 1: It's uh, it's it's a goddamn romp. Uh. What about you, Caitlin,
Speaker 1: what's your history with this? I didn't see it in theaters,
Speaker 1: but I saw it a few months later. You know,
Speaker 1: I remember there being quite a bit of buzz about it,
Speaker 1: and it won some awards, I think some BAFTA's, I believe.
Speaker 1: Um so I this is a very British movie for
Speaker 1: a movie that takes place in Chicago. I did not
Speaker 1: know Steve McQueen was English until I really started reading
Speaker 1: some stuff about him. Yeah. I don't know how I
Speaker 1: missed that detail, but I did make the kind of
Speaker 1: stray observation that there are a lot of British and
Speaker 1: Irish actors in this movie playing Americans, between Colin Farrell,
Speaker 1: Liam Neeson and Daniel Coloya. Yeah, like, once you know
Speaker 1: Steve McQueen is from the UK. You're like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's why half of this cast is very much not
Speaker 1: from Chicago. Yeah. Um so, anyway, I saw the movie.
Speaker 1: I love a good heist movie, and Cynthia Arriva too
Speaker 1: is British, I believe. Sorry, oh she Okay, I got it.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I thought it was a really well crafted
Speaker 1: movie and I was excited to watch it again and
Speaker 1: to discuss it right here on this EPISODEEP. Should we
Speaker 1: get into the recamp, let's do it. Okay. So the
Speaker 1: movie begins with a robbery that is taking place by
Speaker 1: a team of four men. We also cut to like
Speaker 1: quick glimpses of their home lives and we see them
Speaker 1: with their wives, their wives, their wives. The ringleader is
Speaker 1: Harry Rawlings. That's Liam Neeson. He is married to Veronica
Speaker 1: Rawlings that is Viola Davis. The other other wives are
Speaker 1: This is gonna be very hard for me to not
Speaker 1: constantly do this. I mean that's literally the premise of
Speaker 1: the movie. Like, I've their wives their dead husband's exactly
Speaker 1: every first seconds, just they have to remind they're dead, right.
Speaker 1: Uh So the other wives are Linda that's Michelle Rodriguez,
Speaker 1: Alice that's Elizabeth DEBICKI, and I think of her as
Speaker 1: Mrs Tennant. That's the only other thing I know her from.
Speaker 1: She's really tall. She's really tall, and she was in Tennant.
Speaker 1: I did not realize that was her, Yes, Tenant. I mean,
Speaker 1: I feel like I blacked it all out, but she
Speaker 1: was definitely in it. Good to know. I didn't see that.
Speaker 1: How did that turn out? I know? Assaulted? How did
Speaker 1: that know? How did that go? I don't know. I
Speaker 1: feel like I would have had more fun if, like
Speaker 1: if they had just like held onto it and released
Speaker 1: it when people could go to theaters. But because it
Speaker 1: was like I watched it at a drive in and
Speaker 1: I had no idea what was happening. And I tried
Speaker 1: to watch it on streaming and I was like, I
Speaker 1: still have no idea, Like, I don't know. I saw
Speaker 1: it in the comfort of my own home. Granted it
Speaker 1: was in the middle of the night and I was
Speaker 1: tired and falling asleep, but I didn't follow the story
Speaker 1: at all. I think the world building is really confusing
Speaker 1: and like not set up very well. But again, it
Speaker 1: could have been that I was asleep, if hard Christopher Nolan, Okay,
Speaker 1: here's my here's my hot take if Christopher Nolan is
Speaker 1: so interested in time, why he has he wasted so
Speaker 1: much of mine? And then imagine me dunking a basketball
Speaker 1: and then not not just dropping a microphone, but like
Speaker 1: throwing it across the room. The microphone explodes. Um, okay,
Speaker 1: so we've met the other wife, so it's Linda Ellis
Speaker 1: and then Amanda, also played by Carry Coon. Then we
Speaker 1: see the robbery go all wrong. The men are shot
Speaker 1: and killed and also exploded by cops. Yeah. I kind
Speaker 1: of appreciated that they triple killed the guy. I was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: so there's or at least I thought spoiler ahead, but
Speaker 1: I was like, Wow, these guys are super dead. They
Speaker 1: couldn't be deader just and they keep saying over and
Speaker 1: over like they're just ye, just shot everywhere, just they
Speaker 1: were on the ground. They keep reiterating to let you know,
Speaker 1: like they're super dead, like they have to keep reiterating
Speaker 1: it could not be less alive, to the point that
Speaker 1: like later later when it's like the the big Gillian
Speaker 1: Flynn style to whist comes up, you're kind of like, oh,
Speaker 1: I guess that they like almost lay it on too
Speaker 1: thick that they're super dead. You're like, oh, okay, I
Speaker 1: fell for I totally fell for it. The first time
Speaker 1: I saw this movie, I did not see the twist
Speaker 1: coming at all. There Oh, no, me neither. I was
Speaker 1: like what I was, I can't excuse me. I was like,
Speaker 1: I was in the doorway. What right? Yeah, it was
Speaker 1: a it was a solid twist. I feel like there's
Speaker 1: so many twists, are so easy to predict. But gone
Speaker 1: girl got us, Baby, she got us again, Gone girl,
Speaker 1: Gillian gets us again. Wow, the alliteration is astounding, incredible. Headline. Okay,
Speaker 1: so the men are shot and killed and exploded, meaning
Speaker 1: the wives are now widows. That's the name of the movie. Okay.
Speaker 1: Then we meet Jack Mulligan that's Colin Farrell, and we
Speaker 1: meet Jamal Manning that's Brian Tyree Henry. They are both
Speaker 1: politicians running for alderman of Chicago's eighteenth ward. I had
Speaker 1: to look up what that was, and now I know
Speaker 1: it's basically like a city council member. Right. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: never I never figured out with the actual office. What's
Speaker 1: Every time I watched it, I'm like, you know, it's
Speaker 1: some kind of political thing. I don't know exactly, but
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna I'm just like, something this up. You know,
Speaker 1: there's some kind of office going on. I had to
Speaker 1: read that elsewhere. I did not figure this out on
Speaker 1: my own. I kind of wish they told you in
Speaker 1: the movie because it's like, yeah, because it's not clear.
Speaker 1: It is just like a city council and position. I
Speaker 1: felt so I when I realized that both of their
Speaker 1: initials were j M, I was like, oh, wow, makes
Speaker 1: you think I got really excited. What does it mean?
Speaker 1: I don't know, but I was just like that has
Speaker 1: to be on purpose, right, Yeah, not not sure. So
Speaker 1: they're running for Chicago's eighteenth Ward, which is a predominantly
Speaker 1: low income black neighborhood. Jack is trying to get Jamal
Speaker 1: to drop out of the race, but he refuses. We
Speaker 1: also meet Jamal's brother, Ja Tem that's Daniel Coloya, and
Speaker 1: we at some point around this time also meet Jack
Speaker 1: Mulligan's father, Tom Mulligan, who is a career politician, full
Speaker 1: on evil Robert. So we meet these politicians and then
Speaker 1: some of their family. Right, So the Mulligan's are this
Speaker 1: almost like Chicago Kennedy's, like just clinging to power but
Speaker 1: don't actually care about anybody. Sort of family and then
Speaker 1: Jamal is kind of like a I heard Steve McQueen
Speaker 1: in an interview be like he's my Michael Corleone, and
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, that kind of does make sense.
Speaker 1: Like he's he's like a Godfather style guy, and it's
Speaker 1: like the I don't know, Daniel Klliya, it seems like
Speaker 1: is having so much fun in this movie, Like he's
Speaker 1: having a blast his care he's scary. Yeah, yeah, what's
Speaker 1: he made to be? He's so scart, He's so scart
Speaker 1: with such little dialogue and it's all like the Pasha
Speaker 1: and the shoulders and and you're so frightened. But when
Speaker 1: he's doing all of his in commanding such space and
Speaker 1: was staying that's a little I'm just every time I watched,
Speaker 1: I'm like, but and you can tell he's enjoying all
Speaker 1: of it, and it's just it's a great performance. And
Speaker 1: he's such a talented actor. He's so good and it's
Speaker 1: so fun to watch actors having fun, especially in sequences
Speaker 1: like I mean, so many of his sequences are and
Speaker 1: like mob movies are like has never really been my genre.
Speaker 1: But it's like when someone is like, you know, Daniel
Speaker 1: Khalia comes in the room. You're like, oh, he's going
Speaker 1: to kill someone in a way that's really interesting to watch,
Speaker 1: and it keeps happening. It's oh my god when he
Speaker 1: kills the guy, and then he watches football when he
Speaker 1: kills the guy while he's singing You're wild love it
Speaker 1: um okay. So then we learn that the botched robbery
Speaker 1: that we saw was Harry Rawlings and his team stealing
Speaker 1: two million dollars from Jamal Manning, and that that money
Speaker 1: burnt up in the explosion. Then we cut back to
Speaker 1: the wives, the widows of the robbers morning their late husbands.
Speaker 1: We meet Bash, that's Harry's driver. He gives Veronica a
Speaker 1: key to a safety deposit box. This is something that
Speaker 1: Harry wanted her to have if anything ever happened to him.
Speaker 1: Then Jamal approaches Veronica. He knows that her husband stole
Speaker 1: from him and he wants the two million dollars back.
Speaker 1: He says that she has a month to liquidate her
Speaker 1: assets and get that money to him. We've also, by
Speaker 1: this point seen Jetam murder a couple of people, so
Speaker 1: we know that these guys mean business and that the
Speaker 1: stakes are very high for Veronica. She then goes to
Speaker 1: the safety deposit box and inside is a notebook that
Speaker 1: details Harry's next job, a five million dollar robbery. Um
Speaker 1: So then Veronica contact the other widows. She has the
Speaker 1: idea to work with them to pull off this five
Speaker 1: million dollar heist so that she can take some of
Speaker 1: that money and pay Jamal back and then they will
Speaker 1: split the rest. So Linda and Alice show up, but
Speaker 1: the other widow, Amanda, does not, so Veronica convinces Linda
Speaker 1: and Alice to do this. It's established that they are
Speaker 1: both struggling financially after the death of their husband's right,
Speaker 1: they're not like as in immediate danger as Veronica. It
Speaker 1: doesn't seem like which was one of my story issues
Speaker 1: where I'm like, hmmm, if I were Michelle Rodriguez, i
Speaker 1: might say no, thank you, I'm not interested. But I
Speaker 1: was like the all time, I can't think. I was like,
Speaker 1: does that seem like as pressing for you? So I
Speaker 1: was like, I can't, Like if I could like not that,
Speaker 1: I'd be like, you know, good financial security. I feel
Speaker 1: like that like that is enough to like get you
Speaker 1: into the premise and all of that. But but yeah,
Speaker 1: as the movie was going on, and it was like
Speaker 1: Oh my god, all these women cut Like. I know
Speaker 1: that they're not going to die because movie, but like
Speaker 1: the stakes are extremely high for what kind of is
Speaker 1: Like Michelle Rodriguez is like, well, I don't want to
Speaker 1: say I didn't do this because feminism. I was like,
Speaker 1: but then your kids wouldn't have a parent. She does
Speaker 1: have children, which you would think maybe she'd be like,
Speaker 1: I can't get into this very risky, dangerous heist because
Speaker 1: I might die. But I did buy that that she
Speaker 1: and Alice were motivated enough to do it because of
Speaker 1: their very precurious financial situation, So I don't know, know
Speaker 1: that makes sense. Yeah, So anyway, the three of them
Speaker 1: get to work on planning the heist. They need guns,
Speaker 1: they need a van, They have a blueprint, but they
Speaker 1: don't know where this house is, so there's a lot
Speaker 1: that they have to acquire and figure out. So they
Speaker 1: get to work on that. Meanwhile, the Manning's intimidate some
Speaker 1: people that Veronica knows, basically trying to figure out what
Speaker 1: she's up to. They kill bash her driver. So now
Speaker 1: they have to find the football murder scene. That's a
Speaker 1: football murder scene. I think that was my favorite. Daniel
Speaker 1: Kolea can't be murder scene. I have a like a
Speaker 1: whole kind of spiel about that, which we'll get to.
Speaker 1: But um, yeah, interesting choices were made. Um. But the
Speaker 1: bottom line is that they now have to find a
Speaker 1: new getaway driver, which, um, Jamie you pointed out it's
Speaker 1: Michelle Rodriguez. Yeah, so take it away. I was laughing
Speaker 1: my head off when Michelle Rodriguez enters the scene and
Speaker 1: she's like, we need a new driver. I was like,
Speaker 1: speaking of people who would know a thing or two
Speaker 1: about driving, Mrs Fast and Furious, I was, And then
Speaker 1: they have her character. I feel like they like that
Speaker 1: had to have been intentional that whenever someone is like
Speaker 1: we need a driver, it's only Michelle Rodriguez being like
Speaker 1: we needed drivers and cars. I'm like, yeah, exactly. We
Speaker 1: love an Internet to neverdic universe. She is car Cannon.
Speaker 1: They need a crossover film to bring these two worlds together.
Speaker 1: The Widows would fit right in in the Fast and
Speaker 1: Furious Expanded Universe. I feel I think Rodriguez Universe, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that could be a thing. Okay, So then we get
Speaker 1: a reveal that Harry Rawlings is still alive. He had
Speaker 1: faked his death and it turns out that he's been
Speaker 1: having an affair with Amanda, the widow who hasn't been
Speaker 1: showing up, and he is sticking around for now to
Speaker 1: I think, take the money that Veronica is planning to
Speaker 1: steal that? What's that? I think? So that was a
Speaker 1: little camp like where there were that twist was I
Speaker 1: was very impressed with the twist. I just didn't see
Speaker 1: it coming. But then I was like, wait a second,
Speaker 1: huh where like Jack Mulligan is involved there on a boat,
Speaker 1: Carrie Coon's involved, You're like, wait a second, what's the
Speaker 1: end goal here? And then and then it didn't really
Speaker 1: become story relevant. I was like at first when I
Speaker 1: was like okay, I was like I was surprised. But
Speaker 1: then they after the boat and I was like, how
Speaker 1: no one so no one's aware of this? How is
Speaker 1: how was he able to get him just? I was like,
Speaker 1: that was right. I was like, this is a little
Speaker 1: distant now. Yeah, I also am unclear about So the
Speaker 1: initial job that goes wrong is them stealing from Jamal
Speaker 1: Manning like on behalf of Jack Mulligan, But then Harry's
Speaker 1: next job was stealing from Jack Mulligan on behalf of
Speaker 1: someone I don't know. Yeah, I feel like Harry. Harry
Speaker 1: doesn't vote, Like I feel like he doesn't care who
Speaker 1: wins or who loses. But yeah, like I don't know.
Speaker 1: Maybe a listener will like point something out and there's
Speaker 1: something very clear that I wasn't seeing, but involving the politicians.
Speaker 1: On top of like that, I just felt like a
Speaker 1: hat on top of a hat, and I got confused.
Speaker 1: And then again it's like, all I guess technically, all
Speaker 1: you really need to know is that Harry is alive
Speaker 1: and he was cheating on Veronica. But it was, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was a little confusing. We also get a flashback
Speaker 1: where we learn about Harry and Veronica's son Marcus, and
Speaker 1: we learned that he was pulled over and then shot
Speaker 1: to death by cops. We cut back to the President.
Speaker 1: The widows figure out where the blueprints are four a
Speaker 1: K the house that they plan to break into, and
Speaker 1: it turns out to be Jack Mulligan's house. Then Linda A. K.
Speaker 1: Michelle Rodriguez, She's like, we need a driver, and then
Speaker 1: she finds a driver. Well, I mean, who else is
Speaker 1: gonna do it? In Diesel, He's not in the movie.
Speaker 1: She recruits her babysitter Belle played by Cynthia Arrivo to
Speaker 1: be their getaway driver, and she and Veronica scope out
Speaker 1: Jack's house. Um. They do a little reconnaissance type stuff.
Speaker 1: Then it is time for the heist. Is the same
Speaker 1: night as the debate between Jack Mulligan and Jamal Manning.
Speaker 1: The women get to the house, they make their way in,
Speaker 1: they grabbed the five million dollars. Tom Mulligan a k.
Speaker 1: Robert Duval tries to stop them. They shoot him and
Speaker 1: kill him in a death that no one has ever
Speaker 1: cared about less than the entire right. We're like, good ridden,
Speaker 1: You're like I was okay, Yeah, You're like, you raise
Speaker 1: this piece of ship. It's just a fringe benefit to
Speaker 1: this highest is that we killed the worst characters. Yeah.
Speaker 1: She's like, oh yeah, by um. So they kill him,
Speaker 1: but then Alice gets shot in the process. They have
Speaker 1: to kind of scramble to get away to tem hijacks
Speaker 1: their van as they're getting away, but then they follow
Speaker 1: him in another vehicle they crashed into him. They get
Speaker 1: the money back and it seems like they've successfully pulled
Speaker 1: off the heist. They drop Alice off at the er
Speaker 1: and then Veronica goes back to like whatever garage warehouse
Speaker 1: place is their rendezvous point. But who shows up but
Speaker 1: Harry Rawlings and he's there to take the money she stole,
Speaker 1: and she's like, you fucking bastard, and he's about to
Speaker 1: shoot her, but she shoots and kills him first. Great moment. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then we tie up some loose ends with Belle
Speaker 1: and Linda, and then the movie ends with Veronica running
Speaker 1: into Alice, who survived her gunshot. It's implied that it's
Speaker 1: several weeks or months later. They share a little moment
Speaker 1: where Veronica is like, how are you doing? Cinema? And
Speaker 1: also Alice has learned to drive at that point, because
Speaker 1: we learned earlier in the movie that she didn't know
Speaker 1: how to drive, But then we see her getting into
Speaker 1: the driver's seat of a car, so it's like, I
Speaker 1: guess Alice learned to drive. Good for her full arc
Speaker 1: of an amazing arc. That's the story. So let's take
Speaker 1: a quick break and then we will come right back
Speaker 1: to discuss. And we're back. Where shall we start. I
Speaker 1: kind of want to get I'm tempted to get the
Speaker 1: stuff that we didn't like out of the way first,
Speaker 1: or the more critical elements and then we can kind
Speaker 1: of move into the stuff that was fine. Can I start, yes,
Speaker 1: please go ahead, I have a gripe. I think it's
Speaker 1: the second act where Michelarity gets character of Linda. She's
Speaker 1: she's going she's going to go and she's kind of um,
Speaker 1: she's going to go visit the man to go to
Speaker 1: go steal the the prince kind of she's so she's
Speaker 1: pretending basically, UMA know this man's wife, and then he
Speaker 1: kind of and then he kind of figured out that
Speaker 1: that she doesn't um, and then she kind of reveals,
Speaker 1: you know, that she has lost her husband. And then
Speaker 1: they like odd they like to make out, and I
Speaker 1: was like, how did this? This isn't really this is
Speaker 1: an advanced in the plot. I don't I first said.
Speaker 1: I was like, I was like, oh, she's doing this
Speaker 1: like fake him out to get the blueprint. But then
Speaker 1: I realized, wait, or is it like phase value? And
Speaker 1: they just like awkwardly made out, and then it kind
Speaker 1: of seen out of character because I was like, what
Speaker 1: did she do that? And I was like and I
Speaker 1: was like, how I just didn't do anything going forward?
Speaker 1: So we're just sitting here and this is awkward and
Speaker 1: I was like, this is always so time. I almost
Speaker 1: forgot that that even happened. Yeah, that was an interesting
Speaker 1: moment that I felt like that could have been something
Speaker 1: more exploratory of like grief and all this other stuff,
Speaker 1: but then it just kind of ended up being confusing
Speaker 1: and like whatever. It's it's not like people don't trauma
Speaker 1: bond over certain life events and things get weird sometimes
Speaker 1: like that definitely happens. I'm not opposed to seeing that
Speaker 1: in a movie, but you're totally right, Michael Mitchelle where
Speaker 1: it's like it didn't advance the plot at all, and
Speaker 1: then it to me kind of came off as like
Speaker 1: they were just having Michelle Rodriguez's character like use her
Speaker 1: like womanly Wiles so like advance the plot. And I
Speaker 1: don't know, I feel like, yeah, there there were I
Speaker 1: feel like there were better options there on how to
Speaker 1: or it's like if you're going to make that choice,
Speaker 1: then like like you're saying, like, have it have more
Speaker 1: consequence and actually explore it versus like just this very
Speaker 1: bizarre I mean, it's like it didn't even come up
Speaker 1: in the summary because it's so kind of like that
Speaker 1: could have end on point, could have happened in so
Speaker 1: many different ways. Yeah. Yeah. Every time I've seen this movie,
Speaker 1: my reaction is always like huh, because then I expected
Speaker 1: seemed to keep going a little bit and then for
Speaker 1: him to be like, okay, here, I'll we kissed, so
Speaker 1: I'll help you out, which also I guess that would
Speaker 1: have weird implications to probably be kind of lazy too, Yeah,
Speaker 1: kind of just bizarre. Yeah, so I guess I'm more
Speaker 1: find that it cut well narratively. It's weird that it
Speaker 1: doesn't go anywhere. But if it was that she was like, well,
Speaker 1: I'm going to seduce, like basically exploit the grief I
Speaker 1: feel about my husband to manipulate and seduce this man,
Speaker 1: like that would also have been weird and probably not great.
Speaker 1: It's like who among us hasn't made out with a
Speaker 1: Rando when they were sad about something. But it was
Speaker 1: just like the way it was introduced was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I felt that say way, Kaitlin, where you're like huh,
Speaker 1: but then it never comes back, so I don't know shrug.
Speaker 1: One thing that stuck out to me. I had a
Speaker 1: few things with this movie that felt just I don't know,
Speaker 1: and it's like it is nippicky because over all the
Speaker 1: movies super enjoyable. I'm so glad, like I will absolutely
Speaker 1: be watching it again. Um. In terms of like the
Speaker 1: the political side of it, there were some parts of
Speaker 1: the Jack Mulligan jamal Man in conflict that I thought
Speaker 1: were like so well executed and so well done, and
Speaker 1: a lot of it was like in the photography where
Speaker 1: there's that amazing shot where you're watching Jack Mulligan leave
Speaker 1: the eighteenth District and drive to his fucking McMansion talking
Speaker 1: about how little he cares, Like that's so that's brilliant,
Speaker 1: Like that might be that might be my favorite team
Speaker 1: in the movie. I think it's that tracking shot and
Speaker 1: you can't see them and you're just hearing the dialogue
Speaker 1: as they're moving forward. I just I was like, it's brilliant. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And it's like once you realize where that's going, it's amazing.
Speaker 1: And it's like, so you know, obviously like such so
Speaker 1: unfortunately something that happens in local like in local and
Speaker 1: national politics constantly, and I thought it was so well executed.
Speaker 1: I guess the thing that I that kind of chafed
Speaker 1: me with that plotline was I appreciate and I totally
Speaker 1: like how the movie and the script really gets into
Speaker 1: this whatever Kennedy asked, Chicago family that are just like
Speaker 1: these rich white guy that are clinging onto power. And
Speaker 1: I mean the Robert Duval character in some ways is
Speaker 1: like a cartoonist example of of the like extreme lengths
Speaker 1: that these kind of legacy white families what they'll do
Speaker 1: to hold onto power. And I wish that we got
Speaker 1: that same amount of attention to detail with the Mannings,
Speaker 1: because I feel like we got a lot of information
Speaker 1: about the Mulligan's. I felt like you really understood what
Speaker 1: the movie was trying to say about that, like that
Speaker 1: kind of political dynasty, and I wish that there was
Speaker 1: because we spend a lot of time with Jamal Manning
Speaker 1: and with is to Tim to time, I think I
Speaker 1: just kept being like dlue, yeah, but but but with
Speaker 1: with those brothers, But I feel like you don't find
Speaker 1: out as much about them as you do. Like I
Speaker 1: felt like I knew way more about the Mulligan's than
Speaker 1: I did about the Mannings, and I wish that that
Speaker 1: had been more of and even handed plotline because I
Speaker 1: loved I mean, I'm very interested in your thoughts on
Speaker 1: the the murder scenes that kind of are taken out
Speaker 1: because at first I wasn't sure where to fall in it,
Speaker 1: and I went to watch just some interviews with Steve
Speaker 1: McQueen to see like what his kind of motivation was
Speaker 1: with those, and once it became clear that he's like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm doing like these are Godfather, this is my Godfather scene,
Speaker 1: I was like, Okay, Like once I made that connection,
Speaker 1: it made more sense to me. But I still feel like,
Speaker 1: you know, with The Godfather, you know a shipload about
Speaker 1: that family, and so it's like when those murder scenes
Speaker 1: take place, you thoroughly know who those characters are, what
Speaker 1: their motivations are, and then you see something really fucked up,
Speaker 1: and I feel like the Mannings didn't get that. I
Speaker 1: don't know what what what did y'all think? I felt
Speaker 1: like a lot of the impact of that it's a
Speaker 1: lot has a lot to do with with Daniel's performance,
Speaker 1: but but it's not necessarily because of the writing, and
Speaker 1: so I don't feel like I feel I feel like
Speaker 1: it could have been more impactful if, like you said,
Speaker 1: if you knew, if he knew about their motives, and
Speaker 1: I thought about I feel like after the first scene,
Speaker 1: after we first meet him. When he first meeting Um character,
Speaker 1: you don't he kind of said a little bit beforehand,
Speaker 1: after him Indiana's character Kum talking about his motivation to
Speaker 1: kind out front, But after that, you don't really see
Speaker 1: or hear a lot about about how about how he's
Speaker 1: kind of feeling at the works, prograssing really or really
Speaker 1: like anything about his back story. And so I was
Speaker 1: I was like, visually, that's great, but I don't feel
Speaker 1: as connectical as I could if I knew why that's
Speaker 1: what's happening totally. Yeah. There's a scene pretty early on
Speaker 1: between the two brothers where jattem which, by the way,
Speaker 1: there's a funny joke, where isn't that like French for
Speaker 1: I love you? Yeah? I guess it would be more
Speaker 1: pronounced like Tim. But that's what that's what Jack Mulligan
Speaker 1: thinks Jatima is saying when he's introducing himself, because then
Speaker 1: he says, I love you too. I didn't even pick
Speaker 1: up on that, And then Daniel Killerya is just like
Speaker 1: what but um, anyway, j Tim is talking to his
Speaker 1: brother and he's like, why do you even want to
Speaker 1: get into politics? And then Jamal sites, well, yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: an alderman makes whatever salary per year and a times like,
Speaker 1: well we make that in a week, implied that like
Speaker 1: they're kind of like criminal activity was way more lucrative.
Speaker 1: And then he's saying, well, yeah, but you stand to
Speaker 1: make a lot more money with different contracts and you know,
Speaker 1: like building developments and blah blah blah this stuff. And
Speaker 1: when that happens, people come after you with cameras and
Speaker 1: microphones versus before when when we were doing what we
Speaker 1: were doing, people were coming after us with guns and
Speaker 1: I'm thirty seven, Like, I don't want that life anymore.
Speaker 1: So it's established that part of Jamala's motivation is he
Speaker 1: kind of like wants to quote unquote straighten out um
Speaker 1: or like you know, live a more virtuous life, I guess,
Speaker 1: which is hilarious to think of as a politician. Um right,
Speaker 1: if you're like, yeah, sure, the city council really doing
Speaker 1: the good work, right, but um, I mean, and that's
Speaker 1: like really interesting insight. And I wish we then got
Speaker 1: more information like that, But as far as I can remember,
Speaker 1: there wasn't much else in the way of that type
Speaker 1: of characterization for the Mannings. No, And I was kind
Speaker 1: of surprised because it's like it is such a rich
Speaker 1: set up and I feel like, especially like Jamal and
Speaker 1: Jettam are such compelling characters and both played by fucking
Speaker 1: unbelievable actors, and then there's not enough backstory given to
Speaker 1: really like, I felt like, bring those characters to have
Speaker 1: the impact that they could have and should have. The
Speaker 1: other main gripe I had with this movie revolves around
Speaker 1: the character of Bobby Welsh. He is the character who
Speaker 1: owns the Bowling Alley. He is a friend slash associate
Speaker 1: of Harry Rawlings. He seems to know about the like
Speaker 1: various robberies that he pulls off. The character uses a wheelchair,
Speaker 1: but the actor Kevin J O'Connor does not, So another
Speaker 1: example of a able bodied actor playing a disabled character.
Speaker 1: Just how disabled at it? Just they exist there there.
Speaker 1: It can't be a little struggle. I just why it's
Speaker 1: not hard, couldn't be easier. They're out there. And then
Speaker 1: the other thing with this character is that we see
Speaker 1: him being brutalized in a way that is very specific
Speaker 1: to the character's disability because he is shoved out of
Speaker 1: his wheelchair. He is then stabbed in the legs several
Speaker 1: times by j Tem because ja Tem knows that he
Speaker 1: can't feel it because he's paralyzed from his waist down.
Speaker 1: It's a very long, drawn out scene, and I guess
Speaker 1: the function of the scene is to just show how
Speaker 1: relentless and dangerous Jettem is. But we already know that
Speaker 1: because we've seen him a people He made yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean he was making those two guys freestyle and then
Speaker 1: killed the mid freestyle, like we know that he is
Speaker 1: d t K. He's down to kill. It felt unnecessarily long,
Speaker 1: and every time I watched it, I have to just
Speaker 1: give it. I'm like, I can't it just it feels
Speaker 1: unnecessarily cool, and I'm like, I'm not I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: sit here and I'm not gonna see her here, and
Speaker 1: and watched this, I can't. Yeah, I can't do it totally.
Speaker 1: Especially it feels I think it might be a trope
Speaker 1: at this point in media, where a disabled character is
Speaker 1: very unnecessarily brutalized. And then I was foreshadowing this earlier,
Speaker 1: but the scene where Jamal comes in and like his
Speaker 1: guys kill bash. Compare this scene with the way that
Speaker 1: the Bobby Welsh character is brutalized to the Bash scene,
Speaker 1: because all the violence in the Bash getting killed scene
Speaker 1: is implied off screen. It happens off screen because then
Speaker 1: you pan over to which attem watching football and you
Speaker 1: only like hear the violence but you don't see it.
Speaker 1: So like just that dichotomy of like we see a
Speaker 1: long scene of a character with a disability being brutalized
Speaker 1: versus in that very specific way, yes, yeah, versus the
Speaker 1: able bodied character that happens off screen, and that just
Speaker 1: felt very unnecessary and gross and didn't like it. I
Speaker 1: think also if it felt like the attack for the
Speaker 1: diity of character felt felt very specific to that disability,
Speaker 1: and then and then to keep showing it over and
Speaker 1: over on camera, it felt like it's kind of taking
Speaker 1: away the dignity from the character as opposed to say,
Speaker 1: a body character and giving him the dignity. I'm not
Speaker 1: having us watch it. I was just like that was
Speaker 1: really unnecessary, right, yeah, And I mean and it's even
Speaker 1: from I mean, I feel like the more you get
Speaker 1: into it is like, even from a story perspective, those
Speaker 1: two choices feel very pointed because you would think Bash
Speaker 1: is a character that we know much better, So the
Speaker 1: impact of seeing him get killed on screen would theoretically
Speaker 1: be greater than watching Bobby, a character we barely know,
Speaker 1: be brutalized for in a much longer scene, like you
Speaker 1: were both saying, and so it does kind of come
Speaker 1: down to I don't know. I mean, it's I it's
Speaker 1: hard because it's like I don't want to come down
Speaker 1: hard on this movie. But like that choice, You're totally right.
Speaker 1: I mean it's it's very, very pointed, and it doesn't
Speaker 1: even make it. It makes no story sense. There's no
Speaker 1: there's no real argument for any of it to happen. Yeah,
Speaker 1: my last Okay, so this is kind of, I guess
Speaker 1: gets us into what we will probably be talking about
Speaker 1: a lot more, which is the Widows. So let's let's
Speaker 1: get into Widows. I okay, I was genuinely I I
Speaker 1: read um, I watched the whole movie through, was taken
Speaker 1: my little notes and by the end of the movie.
Speaker 1: Let me know if I'm off here from being like
Speaker 1: overly picky, I felt like the widows did not know
Speaker 1: each other well enough. I was not like they weren't
Speaker 1: friends ever. And that is not really a Bechtel Cast
Speaker 1: style criticism. I feel like it's more of a story
Speaker 1: criticism for me where I read a really good piece
Speaker 1: from a Vice writer named Amor Mercer who did kind
Speaker 1: of a comparative study between Widows and set it Off,
Speaker 1: a movie that we've covered on the show and is
Speaker 1: so good and it it's, you know, an all female
Speaker 1: highst It's it's incredible and is dealing with some I mean,
Speaker 1: it's definitely not a one to one comparison, but I
Speaker 1: don't know. As I was just reading her kind of
Speaker 1: comparative essay between the two movies, I was like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: part of I mean, there's so many things that makes
Speaker 1: Set It Off a compelling movie to watch, but a
Speaker 1: lot of it is like the relationships between the women
Speaker 1: performing the highest and how their relationships grow and change
Speaker 1: over the movie. I felt like it's just like so
Speaker 1: well done and so when as things continue to happen,
Speaker 1: you really feel it. And I didn't quite feel that
Speaker 1: kind of like connection between the widows where they're definitely
Speaker 1: like their relationships develop, but then there were some relationships
Speaker 1: that felt kind of forced to me or like they
Speaker 1: didn't totally make sense or I don't know, I just
Speaker 1: I this is maybe just like a personal taste thing
Speaker 1: but I'm like, I wish that I understood how they
Speaker 1: felt about each other a little more. It felt a
Speaker 1: little vague to me. No, I I feel the same
Speaker 1: way in that. Yeah, I agree that one of the
Speaker 1: most compelling things about Set It Off is the relationship.
Speaker 1: And honestly, any kind of like get the team together
Speaker 1: and pull law job kind of movie, you usually get
Speaker 1: a lot of tension and intrigue and theme and comic
Speaker 1: relief and a lot of the things that like make
Speaker 1: a story great from the relationship between the characters, and
Speaker 1: we obviously see them interact quite a bit, although there
Speaker 1: is an awful lot of screen time dedicated to like
Speaker 1: Jack Mulligan and other characters I don't care about and
Speaker 1: I hate. But I was like, yeah, I would have
Speaker 1: liked to see more interaction between the widows and just
Speaker 1: more screen time dedicated to the way those relationships develop up.
Speaker 1: And yeah, it felt like there was a lot of
Speaker 1: like I mean, and again it's like it's a romp,
Speaker 1: it's a movie, Like I get it, But but there
Speaker 1: was a lot of like, I feel like, the main
Speaker 1: thing you got out of them talking was kind of
Speaker 1: surface level class discussion, which is which is worthwhile and
Speaker 1: I'm glad that it happened, but it sort of just
Speaker 1: felt like some of the only interactions between certain pairs
Speaker 1: in the um in the Widows universe was like, oh, okay,
Speaker 1: so Alice and Linda they're both working class, and so
Speaker 1: they're going to have a three line exchange about how
Speaker 1: they're working class and they feel like Veronica doesn't get it,
Speaker 1: and then you don't really get much more with those characters.
Speaker 1: They just sort of established, like we have this thing
Speaker 1: in common, but then it doesn't really I don't know,
Speaker 1: I just wish that like some of those issues got
Speaker 1: more explored, and it felt like some things were like
Speaker 1: stated but then not really followed through on. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I feel like I feel like a lot of the classes,
Speaker 1: I feel like we're discussed more. What's the political storyline?
Speaker 1: I feel like Widows and I was like, oh, I
Speaker 1: thought it was interesting. I like to be able to
Speaker 1: handle both. But I was like, but the primary story
Speaker 1: is the Widow, so why not or why not have
Speaker 1: them converge more. That's a great point. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: because it's like I mean, it's not like the characters
Speaker 1: that are established wouldn't be able to like very easily
Speaker 1: have those conversation. But You're totally right. It's like we
Speaker 1: see Jack and Jamal have those discussions more in depth
Speaker 1: than we see some of the widows have those. I
Speaker 1: totally agree with that, and I feel like there were
Speaker 1: I feel like we got to know Veronica and Alice well,
Speaker 1: and then the other two women we did not really
Speaker 1: find very much out about, to the point where it
Speaker 1: was like their arcs weren't didn't feel like they were
Speaker 1: as impactful, because I mean, it's like, what do we
Speaker 1: really know about Michelle Rodriguez's character other than she's now
Speaker 1: a single mom of two who used to own a
Speaker 1: business but now it doesn't like that's kind of it.
Speaker 1: She doesn't really have any depth beyond that, And it
Speaker 1: would almost it would almost kind of sees what if
Speaker 1: she maybe maybe if she want to mention but but
Speaker 1: was still kind of more involved and had screen time,
Speaker 1: but she doesn't really have preetime either, and then they
Speaker 1: kind of have her bringing another character, Valdas, also doesn't
Speaker 1: really get dimensions, So I'm like, you had I want
Speaker 1: a character that doesn't get dimention thing they get to mention,
Speaker 1: and so they just kind of just kind of floating
Speaker 1: and I thought it was interesting the way that they
Speaker 1: had bell and and Ronda kind of face off to
Speaker 1: it when she's introduced and she kind of asserts herself
Speaker 1: and is like freaking directly off, like okay, it's interesting
Speaker 1: like contrast. But but then she gets at the car
Speaker 1: and just kind of leaves, and I was like, she's
Speaker 1: so you're just so we're just we're not going to
Speaker 1: explore okay, all right, right, It's like Cynthia Rivo is
Speaker 1: like so unbelievably talented, and but like her character comes
Speaker 1: in forty five minutes into the movie, I think, and
Speaker 1: then it's like, oh, we're gonna have to play catch up.
Speaker 1: We've got to like we've got to get her really
Speaker 1: involved if she's gonna you know. But but then it's
Speaker 1: like they don't really follow through on that where I
Speaker 1: really liked how that sequence with her getting to the
Speaker 1: second job was composed, and like that was another really
Speaker 1: cool cinematography moment where she gets home and she sees
Speaker 1: her daughter for a second, but then she gets a
Speaker 1: call from it turns out Michelle Rodriguez saying, Hey, I
Speaker 1: need a sitter, and she's in such financial straits that
Speaker 1: she has to run to catch the bus to get
Speaker 1: to a second job, and I was like, that was
Speaker 1: such a well executed sequence and sets her character and
Speaker 1: her kind of predicament up, But then where does it go?
Speaker 1: Like I feel like, yeah, her character deserved a more
Speaker 1: complete arc and like more relations chips with the women
Speaker 1: she was around, and it just felt like, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess that there are kind of two
Speaker 1: movies going on inside of this movie, which I'm not
Speaker 1: opposed to, but it's like the movie is called Widows.
Speaker 1: I would like to know about the widow Widows. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I have to imagine that part of that is a
Speaker 1: byproduct of the movie being adapted from a TV series.
Speaker 1: It's adapted from a nineteen eight three British TV series
Speaker 1: also called Widows from I think like writer creator Linda
Speaker 1: la Plant and that was a several episode narrative. I
Speaker 1: haven't seen it, and I don't know much about the series,
Speaker 1: so I don't know exactly what was like lifted from
Speaker 1: that and put into this adaptation, or you know, what
Speaker 1: was left out. But I I wonder if some of
Speaker 1: what feels kind of condensed and it's just like thoroughly developed,
Speaker 1: is because there's like actually more story than a feature
Speaker 1: length film has time to tell. I don't know, I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna let them quite get away with that. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't think it's an excuse, but I think it's
Speaker 1: maybe like a reason. I did a little bit of
Speaker 1: research on it. I did not watch the series. I
Speaker 1: was unable to find it, but um I did. I
Speaker 1: watched a bunch of interviews with Steve McQueen, and I
Speaker 1: guess that he had really wanted to adapt this series specifically.
Speaker 1: I guess it's something he saw when he was a
Speaker 1: kid and he was like really into it, and he
Speaker 1: gave we can link to this interview, but um, he
Speaker 1: was really compelled by the mini series when he was
Speaker 1: a kid, because I think it's like equally hit upon
Speaker 1: in that eighties mini series that a lot of the
Speaker 1: reason that the widows are able to get away with
Speaker 1: this heist is because they're underestimated by everyone around them,
Speaker 1: because they're women, because they're women. And Steve McQueen gave
Speaker 1: an interview where he was like, and I really connected
Speaker 1: to that because I was a young black kid growing
Speaker 1: up in London and I felt like I was also
Speaker 1: constantly underestimated and so it was a story that really
Speaker 1: resonated with me, even though it wasn't like a one
Speaker 1: to one thing, And so I thought like his connection
Speaker 1: to the story was really cool, and that Gillian Flynn
Speaker 1: was brought in was like also interesting. And but I
Speaker 1: don't really like, yeah, I don't, I don't know. I
Speaker 1: it seems like, I mean, the original source material seems
Speaker 1: pretty different in that, like the basic premise is the same,
Speaker 1: but Steve McQueen and Jillian and Gillian Flynn have changed
Speaker 1: the setting, they have changed the time period, They've changed
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff. So I feel like they had
Speaker 1: already taken enough creative updating and liberties to kind of
Speaker 1: course correct some of this stuff that And I mean
Speaker 1: it's like we don't who knows the kind of studio
Speaker 1: notes movies like highst movies go through and in any
Speaker 1: movies go through. So I'm not saying it's like all
Speaker 1: on them, but there were certain things that was like
Speaker 1: they've already changed a lot about the source material, so
Speaker 1: why not give half of the widows a story? Like
Speaker 1: I don't know, Yeah, I don't know. Um, let's take
Speaker 1: a quick break and then we'll come back for more
Speaker 1: discussion and we're back. Um, should we get into what
Speaker 1: works more effectively in this movie, such as it's fun
Speaker 1: and I like it this I suppose it is a romp,
Speaker 1: but it's more it's a way darker, more serious romp
Speaker 1: than I usually associate with romps. It's a serious romp.
Speaker 1: It's a heavy romp. Yeah, yeah, But I mean I
Speaker 1: find it really cool and compelling that there's a lot
Speaker 1: of commentary being made throughout the movie on things like class, race,
Speaker 1: and gender, because a lot of heist movies do not
Speaker 1: bother with any kind of social commentary. It's usually just
Speaker 1: a bunch of white guys who decide to steal money
Speaker 1: for sometimes no reason, or sometimes it's because, you know,
Speaker 1: George Clooney wants to have a dick measuring contest with
Speaker 1: Andy Garcia for example. That is I mean, I am
Speaker 1: still waiting for that movie where a diverse group of
Speaker 1: women steal a bunch of ships for no reason, Like
Speaker 1: I feel like that is deserved because it's like I
Speaker 1: was thinking about, like this movie and Oceans eight, where
Speaker 1: it's like their reasons for stealing are still virtuous enough
Speaker 1: that they're not like evil people, or it's like what
Speaker 1: let the women be evil, just like no one asks
Speaker 1: why George Clooney wants this money. Can't Viola Davis just
Speaker 1: steal two million dollars, just let her do it. But this,
Speaker 1: I like that this movie does what it does. I
Speaker 1: totally agree, and I think also I think what I say,
Speaker 1: I do kind of like that they're not friends in
Speaker 1: a way. I kind of what does when I think
Speaker 1: I thought was school, I felt I feel like a
Speaker 1: lot of I feel like a lot of temo the fact.
Speaker 1: Now it's like, oh, they're all somehow interconnected and they're
Speaker 1: all friends. But I do kind of like, I think
Speaker 1: I like that this I felt like what was the
Speaker 1: most ground in reality? I felt like and I felt
Speaker 1: that these women just aren't friends, but they did come
Speaker 1: together in the for survival. That what I got? What
Speaker 1: do you like? And then and then I do other things.
Speaker 1: I do think. I do think the crime was kind
Speaker 1: of heavy butody, but I do feel he's able to
Speaker 1: hand on the boat without dropping the ball on either
Speaker 1: really so at the run times, I feel those are
Speaker 1: definitely my favorite's my favorite aspect. Yeah, yeah, absolutely yeah.
Speaker 1: And then we also like see them fumble and they
Speaker 1: you know, Michelle rock Riguez is like, what the hell
Speaker 1: am I supposed to do with this blueprint? And Veronica
Speaker 1: is like, by being smarter than you are being right now.
Speaker 1: So it's it's cool that like we see them come
Speaker 1: together under these high stakes circumstances and have to figure
Speaker 1: it out along the way, right, and have like realistic conflict,
Speaker 1: right because like even though this is what like their
Speaker 1: husbands did professionally, like they are not trained skilled high stirs, thieves, etcetera.
Speaker 1: That training was also one of my favorite parts of
Speaker 1: the movie because she just Veronic could just sounds like
Speaker 1: this really I like Jim Teacher and they're just like,
Speaker 1: we hate you, and I'm just like there was some
Speaker 1: I don't know if either of you watched. I didn't.
Speaker 1: I watched like the first two or three seasons, but
Speaker 1: How to Get Away with Murder, But there were some
Speaker 1: moments in this movie that I was like, oh, this
Speaker 1: is like full on Analy's keating moments where it's just
Speaker 1: like Viola Davis is like, why are you incompetent? Which
Speaker 1: is basically that entire show. Oh my god. My favorite.
Speaker 1: One of my favorite exchanges is when Veronica is like,
Speaker 1: here's two thousand dollars, get some guns, and Alice is like, guns,
Speaker 1: where am I going to get guns? And Veronica was like,
Speaker 1: this is America, a k you can get guns like
Speaker 1: everywhere out literally. That was also also one of my
Speaker 1: favorite things I think was the gun things I got. Also,
Speaker 1: it was really um interesting kind of like to square
Speaker 1: Alf's character. I think also was really when she approaches
Speaker 1: that woman and like pretends to be I think a
Speaker 1: mail order bride, and the little girl is like, Mommy,
Speaker 1: you always said a gun is a girl's best friend,
Speaker 1: and You're like, oh no, this woman is like indoctrinating
Speaker 1: her young daughter into like toxic gun culture already. But
Speaker 1: then also you think about, like, well, what is their
Speaker 1: background in personal history, and like what motivations would that
Speaker 1: mother have for her daughter to want to be able
Speaker 1: to defend herself. Like It's which I feel like also
Speaker 1: connects directly to Alice's character, who is like there's so
Speaker 1: much time put into like the various ways in which
Speaker 1: Alice has been traumatized to the point where it's like
Speaker 1: I felt I felt a lot of Gillian Flynn coming
Speaker 1: through with that Alice character, where and this isn't even
Speaker 1: really a criticism, but just like this is a subject
Speaker 1: matter that Gillian Flynn seems to take on frequently in
Speaker 1: her work, which is like mother daughter trauma and like
Speaker 1: toxic cycles between mothers and daughters specifically, which I think
Speaker 1: is kind of an under explored topic in media in general,
Speaker 1: where it's like we make the joke on this show
Speaker 1: that like every movie is about fathers and sons. But
Speaker 1: with Alice, it's like the the kind of like core
Speaker 1: of her character is that she was abused and manipulated
Speaker 1: by her mother and also by her husband, and like
Speaker 1: has this gigantic kind of crisis of self esteem and
Speaker 1: confidence in sense of self because she has been so
Speaker 1: controlled for her entire life in a way that is
Speaker 1: like I mean, it's it's almost like so much that
Speaker 1: I'm like, do we have enough time in this movie
Speaker 1: to really address all of this? Like that scene with
Speaker 1: her mother was fucking brutal, but yeah, I mean it's
Speaker 1: so this is like kind of where in this movie,
Speaker 1: I I get to another point where it's like this
Speaker 1: was going somewhere, but it felt like there wasn't enough
Speaker 1: time or whatever it was to like follow through on
Speaker 1: the seriousness of what was set up where I guess
Speaker 1: like it's it almost felt like, I don't know, like
Speaker 1: almost like a little bit girl power feminism for Alice
Speaker 1: by the end to be like I'm my own woman
Speaker 1: now and I'm at school and everything is great, and
Speaker 1: it just I mean, it's very movie I guess because
Speaker 1: if they set her up with severe trauma and then
Speaker 1: they're like and then she went to college and made
Speaker 1: one friend and you're like, well that okay, like it
Speaker 1: it feels a little undercooked to me. But I don't know,
Speaker 1: I I appreciate again, like you're saying, Caitlin, like the
Speaker 1: fact that this was even tackled in the highest genre
Speaker 1: is huge. Yeah, I think a lot of the effective commentary.
Speaker 1: I mean I actually kind of appreciated that it it
Speaker 1: didn't dwell on the whole, like, well where women but
Speaker 1: we can still do this. There's only one There's a
Speaker 1: very trailer scene where Viola Davis is like, we have
Speaker 1: the balls. They don't think we have the balls to
Speaker 1: do this. You're like, alright, alright, we get it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: She says like we have to move and think like
Speaker 1: a team of men. The best thing we have going
Speaker 1: for us is being what we are, implied women, because
Speaker 1: no one thinks we have the balls to pull this off,
Speaker 1: which I think is like an appropriate amount of discussion
Speaker 1: about that. If it had gone much more beyond that,
Speaker 1: I would have, um, like, that would be a little
Speaker 1: eye rolly to me. It's like, yeah, we know, that
Speaker 1: would almost feel it was like a movie directed at
Speaker 1: men to like remind men, yes, women are capable, Yes
Speaker 1: we can do ship like look at her with a
Speaker 1: gun and kicking like, But because the movie doesn't dwell
Speaker 1: on that, it just to me made it more accessible
Speaker 1: for me at least, right you know, I was like, okay, this,
Speaker 1: you're you're speaking my language. Um. And then I wanted
Speaker 1: to share a quote from Viola Davis from that same interview.
Speaker 1: I think that you were referencing Jamie from The New
Speaker 1: York Times right by Reggie Gogo, who says Viola Davis
Speaker 1: says about the movie quote, this movie is a realistic
Speaker 1: journey into women gaining ownership of their of their lives,
Speaker 1: and not at the expense of who they are. The
Speaker 1: feminine energy and the vulnerability are still there, but I
Speaker 1: think it's a fantasy and every woman to do something
Speaker 1: bold and brash and not nice, to bust out of
Speaker 1: themselves and this and social norms to get at some
Speaker 1: level of authenticity. I think that's what attracts people. I know,
Speaker 1: that's what attracts me. End quote. I know, ah, and
Speaker 1: that is largely what attracts me to this movie as well,
Speaker 1: like what compels me about it. Um. Yeah. And then
Speaker 1: in addition to that kind of like that gender commentary, UM,
Speaker 1: I think there's also effective class commentary and race commentary
Speaker 1: embodied a lot in the particularly like the race conversation
Speaker 1: in like the Jack Mulligan versus them All Manning, And
Speaker 1: that was another thing also. I also I also kind
Speaker 1: of thought about kind of when you're looking at the race,
Speaker 1: if you look at kind of conversation between Jack and
Speaker 1: his dad, he's he's he comes off as the more moral,
Speaker 1: better human kind of um, the more moral between the two,
Speaker 1: and then you kind of opposed with him and jam
Speaker 1: All and then he's kind of and and then he's
Speaker 1: the kind of the last moral, the more evil, I guess,
Speaker 1: I guess. But but also um, but also neither of
Speaker 1: them are also like morally right, and so I love
Speaker 1: that the phone both both comments. I love that it
Speaker 1: comes on a couple of things. One kind of um
Speaker 1: kind of because then then it also gives Jack kind
Speaker 1: of credit, I guess, for being like a kind of
Speaker 1: basic um we're not going for like basic um basic
Speaker 1: beauty as a white man as opposed to kind of
Speaker 1: his more cotween his father, but within they're both kind
Speaker 1: of more wrally wrong totally I guess if that makes sense. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I thought that that, uh, one of the things that
Speaker 1: that storyline got too. Pretty effectively, it's like some I mean,
Speaker 1: it's not like dwelled on in any significant way, but
Speaker 1: like almost generational commentary where I feel like it's pretty
Speaker 1: clearly telegraphed that the Mulligan's the father and the son.
Speaker 1: No one gives a ship about the people in the
Speaker 1: eighteenth district there. They don't care. They're more obsessed with
Speaker 1: keeping power than anything else, Like they don't give a fuck,
Speaker 1: But the ways that they don't give a funk are
Speaker 1: very indicative of their generation. Where Robert Duval's character is
Speaker 1: just openly racist, like completely mask off, horrifying to watch
Speaker 1: and listen to, and then Colin Ferrell's character is almost
Speaker 1: like this more gen x iteration of that same racism
Speaker 1: and classism and dismissal of his constituents, but he's like
Speaker 1: more polite about it, and he doesn't say the quiet
Speaker 1: part loud, like it's it's very I don't know, like
Speaker 1: there were moments in that story and that we're really
Speaker 1: difficult to watch, but in a way that it's like
Speaker 1: they were being pretty effective in the way that it's like,
Speaker 1: well and the and the bleakest part of it is
Speaker 1: by the end whatever I mean, Jack Mulligan wins on
Speaker 1: the sympathy vote because Robert daval was murdered, and so
Speaker 1: if you look at it one way, it's like we
Speaker 1: know that Jack Mulligan doesn't actually want this job, he
Speaker 1: doesn't care, he feels so bad for himself and he
Speaker 1: feels cursed by having to do this job. But ultimately
Speaker 1: it's the eighteenth district who loses because they're subjected to
Speaker 1: yet another term of uh nepotism, white guy who doesn't
Speaker 1: give a ship and is just completely phoning it in,
Speaker 1: And it's like that political cycle is I don't I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it's such a real thing and very I don't know,
Speaker 1: like I feel like there are some ways where like
Speaker 1: that area of the story was so effectively done, and
Speaker 1: then it was like, but I wish that I don't know.
Speaker 1: I was trying to think of was like I wish
Speaker 1: that like one of the widows worked in politics more meaningfully,
Speaker 1: or there was more connection between those two storylines that
Speaker 1: like fused them together, because at different times it felt
Speaker 1: like it was separate. That was what I remember kind
Speaker 1: of in that scene between Jack and Ronica, what would
Speaker 1: you kind of go then? And I kind of pretend
Speaker 1: that it's kind of something to do with school digit
Speaker 1: and actually kind of asking for help. I wish I
Speaker 1: said her job had said some how been ebolding, maybe
Speaker 1: working with him in some way, because if you can
Speaker 1: make her the main character half a direct have that
Speaker 1: been the direct link? I feel like that would have
Speaker 1: been more effective. Yeah, I because Veronica teachers, like a
Speaker 1: former member of the teachers union. Yeah, some something along
Speaker 1: those lines, which we only learn about through dialogue, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, that would have been interesting to explore more.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I'm just like, maybe there's movie would have worked
Speaker 1: better if it was also just a readapted TV series
Speaker 1: and that way we would like get more of us,
Speaker 1: more time to explore. Yeah. Yeah, but remember I remember
Speaker 1: the first time I was I remember thinking I was like,
Speaker 1: this would be a really good, like two part pilot
Speaker 1: for this would work really well. Yeah, as as a pilot, Yeah,
Speaker 1: because I guess it's like our main criticisms are like
Speaker 1: things that we wish we had more time to explore,
Speaker 1: but they just made the cuts they made. Yeah. Another
Speaker 1: one of another example of that is the kind of
Speaker 1: I wouldn't even call it a storyline because it's so fleeting,
Speaker 1: but the detail you learn about Veronica and Harry's son, Marcus,
Speaker 1: who was shot and killed by cops because they racially
Speaker 1: profiled him, and that is then kind of followed up
Speaker 1: on because there's this kind of ongoing in flashbacks between
Speaker 1: Veronica and Harry where she says, he you know, He's like,
Speaker 1: don't make me feel like my only regret is having
Speaker 1: a child with you, and she responds with, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe you should have had a child with someone else,
Speaker 1: because then he would still be alive, which when we
Speaker 1: get the flashback of his murder, we realized, oh, he
Speaker 1: was killed because of the color of his skin, and
Speaker 1: had he been a white man, that wouldn't have happened.
Speaker 1: And so like Veronica is harboring, seems to be harboring
Speaker 1: this guilt revolving around that and then later when Harry
Speaker 1: shows up at the very end, she calls him out.
Speaker 1: She's like, you're such a coward, like you've been having
Speaker 1: this affair and now you have this son, your new
Speaker 1: your new son, your new white happy family. And it's
Speaker 1: this like undercurrent in the movie. But I feel like
Speaker 1: that could have been something that was explored further, and
Speaker 1: I would have liked to have just like kind of
Speaker 1: learned more about that and how that's affecting Aronica. I agree,
Speaker 1: and I sh'll think about I thought it was because
Speaker 1: I feel like that pop Win comes with a lot
Speaker 1: of his history kind of with with feminity and and
Speaker 1: and the kind of the digitalvantages and the way the
Speaker 1: black women, black women aren't offered that kind of feminity,
Speaker 1: and the way that what women are kind of are
Speaker 1: the ideal of femininity, and the way that the world
Speaker 1: that we're often not not teenage women or um or
Speaker 1: not often not offered as a kind of advantage or
Speaker 1: safety um the other one we get because of feminity
Speaker 1: um and and and and then and and then and
Speaker 1: then and then and then having it in your head
Speaker 1: and and and and and then seeing your husband then
Speaker 1: move on and then saying yours move on with the women,
Speaker 1: which is if you are being bad enough, but but
Speaker 1: but then to see him, you know, choose choose that
Speaker 1: over you and and and to have and really kind
Speaker 1: of makes the deal even worse. I feel like that
Speaker 1: was a really interesting pot point. It could have been
Speaker 1: expanded a lot more than it was, because there's because
Speaker 1: there's so much history with that. Absolutely, Yeah, I was
Speaker 1: sort of wondering what the script and the story gained
Speaker 1: by withholding that information for so long, because it seemed like,
Speaker 1: like you're saying, Michael Michel, like there there is so
Speaker 1: much historically and story wise to explore there, But by
Speaker 1: the time you learn what their history is and who
Speaker 1: their son was and what actually happened, there's almost no
Speaker 1: run time left to do anything but kill Liam Neeson,
Speaker 1: which is like I'm I feel great about like great
Speaker 1: kill Liam Neeson all day long. But but yeah, it
Speaker 1: felt like, yeah, that the movie didn't give enough time
Speaker 1: to effectively explore what you were describing. And it feels
Speaker 1: like that character like Veronica is so well set up
Speaker 1: that too, withhold that information for so long, I feel
Speaker 1: like it almost does a disservice to her character. And
Speaker 1: then um, kind of back to your point, mean about
Speaker 1: like kind of the generational differences between Jack Mulligan and
Speaker 1: his father. I think another example of that is that
Speaker 1: programmed that initiative that Jack Mulligan started, the m WOW,
Speaker 1: the Minority Women Owned Work initiative, where it seems, based
Speaker 1: on what you know about him, it's obviously an extremely
Speaker 1: performative thing. That also he is he's basically exploiting the
Speaker 1: people of this district because you find out that they
Speaker 1: loaned money to these black women to like start their
Speaker 1: own businesses. But then these women are now like beholden
Speaker 1: to these loans that they're clearly struggling to pay back.
Speaker 1: Because that's something that we see in the hair salon
Speaker 1: that Bell works in, because her her boss, the owner
Speaker 1: of the salon, is having confrontations in and our humans
Speaker 1: with this man who we understand is coming to collect
Speaker 1: on this debt. And so basically it's like this, you know,
Speaker 1: this Jack Mulligan guy being like, look at me, Look
Speaker 1: what I'm doing. I'm empowering these women of color to
Speaker 1: be business owners, and that's generating revenue, and that revenue
Speaker 1: is going back into the neighborhood. But then when you
Speaker 1: actually learn about the real circumstances of that initiative where
Speaker 1: it's all about you know, this performative gesture, this exploitation
Speaker 1: that he's making money off of two. So yeah, I
Speaker 1: thought that was all an effective examination of that just
Speaker 1: type of very corrupt, performative political whatever dealings that might
Speaker 1: seem like they're helping marginalized communities but is actually exploitative.
Speaker 1: I thought that was effective. Yeah, and I liked that. Again,
Speaker 1: it's just like, yeah, the more we talk about this,
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, there's so much like really timely and
Speaker 1: like well set up premises here that we just don't
Speaker 1: have enough time to explore where it's like not even
Speaker 1: as much a criticism of the movie of like, I
Speaker 1: think the more we talk about it, the more I
Speaker 1: think you're right, Michael Michelburg. It's like this should be
Speaker 1: just like a limited series where we have the real
Speaker 1: estate to like like really examine this. I would have
Speaker 1: loved it, Yeah, it would, And I like, I mean
Speaker 1: it's they I feel like the screenwriters are doing their
Speaker 1: best there where it's like you do see like there's
Speaker 1: that one reporter who I appreciate, see like him just
Speaker 1: I don't know, I've seen stuff like this happen in
Speaker 1: real time where it's like a city councilor is spewing
Speaker 1: campaign point bullshit. Everyone knows he's full of ship, but
Speaker 1: there's only like one reporter who's like, wait, what uh
Speaker 1: just watching the city councilor ignore them and be like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is so annoying when people acknowledge that I'm a liar,
Speaker 1: like that whole thing, it's like it's so uh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know, it's it's good. And then but then
Speaker 1: it's also like we don't get quite enough of it
Speaker 1: because I like that. I mean that was another great
Speaker 1: scene for Cynthia Arrivo's character where she's talking with um,
Speaker 1: I need to remember the name of the character who
Speaker 1: owns the hair salon, and and she's pushing back and
Speaker 1: being like, well that doesn't sound right, Like this isn't
Speaker 1: you know He's he's basically profiting off of pretending to
Speaker 1: help us when he's not helping us, he's helping himself.
Speaker 1: And the owner of the salon kind of replies with like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I know, but what else am I supposed to do?
Speaker 1: Like what other options are available to me? Which is
Speaker 1: a huge conversation that again, it's like it's so wild
Speaker 1: in a positive way that this conversation is being had
Speaker 1: in a heist movie. And I also wish that there
Speaker 1: was more time to explore it, and also, you know,
Speaker 1: just get to know Cynthia Arriva's character better in general totally.
Speaker 1: I mean the catharsis of that salon owner struggling and
Speaker 1: acknowledging like, well, I couldn't have gone a bank, wouldn't
Speaker 1: have given me the loan to start my own business,
Speaker 1: you know, and then to have money paid back to
Speaker 1: her because Belle takes a part of her split from
Speaker 1: the heist and gives it to the salon owner. So
Speaker 1: like just the catharsis of having that debt paid back
Speaker 1: to her, or like getting that money to start a
Speaker 1: business without you know, having these loan sharks basically like
Speaker 1: breathing down her neck, you know, putting her in a
Speaker 1: position of being more financially secure, and that money coming
Speaker 1: from the very man who exploited her to begin with,
Speaker 1: is very cathartic. Yeah, Um, does anyone have any other
Speaker 1: thoughts about the phil Um? What were you always thoughts
Speaker 1: kind of about his kind of relations relationship kind of
Speaker 1: just that's working and all of that. Oh, that's a
Speaker 1: that's an excellent question. I would be curious. I almost
Speaker 1: want I wasn't able to find I was because so
Speaker 1: this I don't think came up a lot in the summary,
Speaker 1: but um for listener reference if you have not seen
Speaker 1: the movie yet, Alice is pressured by her mother to
Speaker 1: become a sugar baby in order to financially sustain herself
Speaker 1: and also presumably her mother to an extent after her
Speaker 1: husband dies in the heist, and so for much of
Speaker 1: the movie we see Alice is in a transactional sugar
Speaker 1: baby relationship with this business guy. So I was I
Speaker 1: was hoping to be able. I was looking for a
Speaker 1: sex worker perspective on this storyline, and I wasn't able
Speaker 1: to find one. So if I mean, if we do
Speaker 1: have any listeners who have insights into that, we would
Speaker 1: love we were totally open to hearing it, and I wasn't.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean, my instinct there was that
Speaker 1: it was well intentioned but possibly a little undercooked. I
Speaker 1: felt like there there was kind of an element in
Speaker 1: at least with that guy, Dave David vague rich guy,
Speaker 1: where he was pretty emotionally volatile towards Alice, where there
Speaker 1: were moments where he was very affectionate towards her and
Speaker 1: she seemed to think that there might be a real
Speaker 1: relationship developing, and then he would turn on her and
Speaker 1: be like, this is a transaction for me and grows
Speaker 1: more and more volatile as the story goes on, and
Speaker 1: it feels like, I don't know, I would be curious
Speaker 1: to know how much when Steve McQueen and Gillian flam
Speaker 1: were collaborating on this, how much they spoke to sex
Speaker 1: workers versus used the idea of sugar baby to advance
Speaker 1: the character and get her to where they wanted her
Speaker 1: to be. Because I I sort of felt like, and
Speaker 1: again it's like I don't have experience in this realm,
Speaker 1: but it almost it did feel to me a little
Speaker 1: bit like they were commenting more on the idea of
Speaker 1: a sugar baby as a means to an end, versus
Speaker 1: any actual insight into sex work. It felt it felt
Speaker 1: kind of dragmental to me. Um kind of both both
Speaker 1: both to the filmmakers and kind of and also and
Speaker 1: also all the kid goes around her, It just kind
Speaker 1: of felt like everyone was kind of um. It just
Speaker 1: kept being a plot point of basically her for either
Speaker 1: not having a real job or not really being intelligent
Speaker 1: because as a reflector of being a sugar baby. And
Speaker 1: I was like, this bear is a little off base here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I have two thoughts about this. Number one is ready um.
Speaker 1: Number one is I was trying to figure out if
Speaker 1: there was a distinction between the movie whether or not
Speaker 1: it was passing judgment about this versus other characters in
Speaker 1: the narrative passing judgment, because I mean, Veronica certainly is
Speaker 1: passing judgment as a character, definitely. Yeah, And I think
Speaker 1: maybe even correct me if I'm wrong, But I I
Speaker 1: feel like Michelle Rodriguez's character might also make some comment.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's just like about something she's wearing. I think
Speaker 1: that there's comments. It's not just I mean, but with like, yeah,
Speaker 1: with Veronica, I mean it's like a physical altercation. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that everyone is a little bit judge e
Speaker 1: about Alice's job. Right, So that's happening without question as
Speaker 1: far as the movie and the crafters of this story
Speaker 1: passing judgment, I feel like that was happening to a
Speaker 1: definitely lesser extent than some of the other characters passing judgment.
Speaker 1: But I feel like it would have been more effective
Speaker 1: if the movie is actually coming at it completely objectively.
Speaker 1: I think it would have been helpful to have a
Speaker 1: different character, maybe Michelle Rodriguez's character, to say, like, do
Speaker 1: whatever you want, it's your life, your choice. Yeah, good point. Yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know. And it also sort of sets up
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Debicky as an actor to be the most heavily
Speaker 1: sexualized character in the movie, where I mean, she is
Speaker 1: the only white woman of the widows, right, and and
Speaker 1: she's also the only woman that has a like long
Speaker 1: lingering sex scene and these scenes of her and all
Speaker 1: these gowns, and it just I don't know. I it
Speaker 1: wasn't my biggest issue with the movie, but it also
Speaker 1: just there were some lingering like why was this? And
Speaker 1: I am curious of like how much of that storyline
Speaker 1: was carried on from the mini series or if this
Speaker 1: was completely an invention of these two writers. I don't
Speaker 1: really know. Yeah, and we'll never know because we simply
Speaker 1: won't and maybe even can't. Where do you find British
Speaker 1: from the eighties? I tried, I really did try, and
Speaker 1: I couldn't find it. Yeah, but yeah, I'm a little
Speaker 1: wary of that. But my second thought about this is
Speaker 1: that it is a reminder to me that all of
Speaker 1: the men in the story are framed as being obstacles
Speaker 1: and or antagonistic forces for the widows, which I think
Speaker 1: is an interesting flip considering that in your average heist movie,
Speaker 1: which is again a bunch of men doing heists for reasons, um,
Speaker 1: women are often framed as obstacles. Like just again, to
Speaker 1: refer back to Oceans eleven, Julia Roberts, Brad Pitts all
Speaker 1: like she's a distraction, Danny Ocean stopped being distracted, blah
Speaker 1: blah blah. I still can't get over the fact that
Speaker 1: his name is Danny Ocean. Act movie so many times,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, what the fuck his name is Danny Ocean.
Speaker 1: I can't think of it's ludicrous, But um, yeah, so
Speaker 1: I think it was. I mean, I don't hate the
Speaker 1: choice that I mean. And again I'm not saying like
Speaker 1: all men hashtag, not all men are bad and obstacles,
Speaker 1: but um, between, like this David guy who Alice gets
Speaker 1: involved with, he, like you said, Jamie gets increasingly like
Speaker 1: more and more volatile. Her deceased husband was physically abusive.
Speaker 1: Linda's husband was gambling away all of her money that
Speaker 1: she earned from running this gown store boutique, yah, causing
Speaker 1: her to lose her business. Obviously, we talked about how
Speaker 1: Veronica's husband, Harry was, you know, cheating on her. He's lying,
Speaker 1: he's faking his death, he tries to kill her, etcetera.
Speaker 1: Name a thing he didn't do wrong. He really did
Speaker 1: every single thing. He fucked up real bad um. The
Speaker 1: men in the Manning family, the men and the Mulligan family,
Speaker 1: they are all posed as being antagonistic forces to the women.
Speaker 1: I would say the only exception is Bash the driver,
Speaker 1: like he's he seems okay, good friend as far as
Speaker 1: I can tell, and then he isn't okay because you know,
Speaker 1: he's just yeah that that's a really good point that
Speaker 1: I don't know, I have such complicated feelings about it's
Speaker 1: not even specific to this movie, but movies that it's
Speaker 1: so bizarre because it's just like whatever, the past five
Speaker 1: to seven years feel like it's been forever. It feels
Speaker 1: like such a long time. And so this movie is
Speaker 1: less than three years old, but there are already elements
Speaker 1: of it that not even in a way that I'm
Speaker 1: being super critical of but that feel a little bit dated,
Speaker 1: of like the feeling and the sort of like movie
Speaker 1: energy that was coming to screens in the year after
Speaker 1: the Me Too movements started going, versus being three years
Speaker 1: out and knowing kind of a little more about how
Speaker 1: that actually bore out, and like the successes and failures
Speaker 1: that that movement has had. It like, watching this movie
Speaker 1: now is like and watching the trailer, especially Michael Mitchell.
Speaker 1: You mentioned the trailer, and I remember being so fucking
Speaker 1: hyped on the trailer. I love. It's like the most
Speaker 1: me too trailer ever where it's like, we're going to
Speaker 1: do it now, and like it's very cathartic and exciting
Speaker 1: and and then but but then there's also like I
Speaker 1: can't quite describe what the feeling is, but there's it
Speaker 1: makes me like a little bit sad and discouraged to
Speaker 1: watch that trailers out because it felt like there was
Speaker 1: all this positive energy, and like with so many movements,
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, yeah, we didn't solve that in a year.
Speaker 1: What were we thinking? Like it was? I don't it's
Speaker 1: hard to just I don't. I don't really know exactly
Speaker 1: what I'm getting at here, but I guess just the
Speaker 1: idea of like, there have been so many reversals of
Speaker 1: mail driven plots, which this movie is in many ways,
Speaker 1: And I think that the ways that it does it
Speaker 1: and the subject matter it chooses to tackle is really smart.
Speaker 1: It's well written, it's certainly well acted, like it's really cool.
Speaker 1: And then there's also I don't know, I mean, there's
Speaker 1: certainly room for both of these sorts of movies, But
Speaker 1: then there's sometimes where it's like, is the only option
Speaker 1: to just flip it? Because I don't know in this
Speaker 1: ice piece that Again, I want to shout out the
Speaker 1: writer Amior Mercer. She was pointing out, like, with kind
Speaker 1: of the exception of set it off, most women driven
Speaker 1: heist movies are reversals of mail plots, and she pointed out,
Speaker 1: and I've only seen Oceans eight once and I didn't
Speaker 1: really like it very much, but how the women in
Speaker 1: Oceans eight are very defined in relation to characters who
Speaker 1: existed in Danny Ocean's life and like age my little
Speaker 1: sister and this is bu and it's all they exist
Speaker 1: in relation to men. And that is true of the way.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's like widows, like the title implies proximity
Speaker 1: to men, which is a very true you know that
Speaker 1: it's like a reality that exists. And then I also
Speaker 1: I'm just I don't know, I want us to get
Speaker 1: to a point where it doesn't need to be a
Speaker 1: flip of a movie we've seen before, like like it
Speaker 1: should just be a story on its own. It also
Speaker 1: kind of makes you think about that. There was this
Speaker 1: video I've watched the other day. I don't know, I
Speaker 1: think it might have been the take, but they're talking
Speaker 1: about how how often things in the female gage or
Speaker 1: just kind of flipping I just kind of flipping the
Speaker 1: mail gage but updractifying men. And so how do we
Speaker 1: get past just the flipping had what is film beyond that?
Speaker 1: And how do we get to a space of just
Speaker 1: a completely new space of just creating content that isn't
Speaker 1: that's beyond the flap of flipping? And how do we
Speaker 1: create it? And and what is that content? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's so well put. Yeah, where it's just like, at
Speaker 1: what point with like flipping that gaze is like it was,
Speaker 1: I don't know, I like almost go back to my
Speaker 1: twenty eight teen SEWT were like all I wanted to
Speaker 1: see was like in movies women doing two oppressors? What
Speaker 1: oppressors had done to them, and like that was really
Speaker 1: cathartic and exciting and like I felt like a release
Speaker 1: that was like needed. But at some point it's like,
Speaker 1: but that can't be the end game. You can't just
Speaker 1: flip patriarchy. That's ridiculous. Like there's like I don't know,
Speaker 1: I just like I don't know. I've well, I've been
Speaker 1: doing my feelings this summer. Well that we talked about
Speaker 1: this a lot, where I mean, progress is a process, right,
Speaker 1: and that where's the merch where's the T shirt? But
Speaker 1: it means that there are stepping stones, and we've covered
Speaker 1: a lot of movies on the show that we have
Speaker 1: commented that this feels like a stepping stone movie. This
Speaker 1: is like a step in the right direction. It's not perfect,
Speaker 1: it's not nearly as like amazingly intersectionally feminist as we
Speaker 1: are hoping it is, but it was very progressive for
Speaker 1: the time that movie came out, or you know, whatever
Speaker 1: the case. So, yeah, I think it's I don't think
Speaker 1: it's the end game. Is just like a gender flip,
Speaker 1: but it is like one of the steps in the
Speaker 1: process or like just like process. Yeah, where it's like
Speaker 1: Widows does feel very much like how eighteen felt in
Speaker 1: a lot of ways words, which is wild to say
Speaker 1: because it's so recent, but it's like it is capturing
Speaker 1: so many ideas and catharsis and and just like beginning
Speaker 1: to discuss serious societal issues in a genre where you
Speaker 1: wouldn't normally even think about seeing that. Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think I think that year specifically. I think I
Speaker 1: think we're like halfway through tough presidency and everyone kind
Speaker 1: of wanted and it was it was like it was
Speaker 1: like it was the year of of of representation mattering,
Speaker 1: and everyone was so want to grab Ronnie to grab
Speaker 1: and feel kind of aspirational and it definitely feels staved
Speaker 1: in that. Yeah. Yeah, it's it's so like even just yeah,
Speaker 1: like context historically was like, oh this this movie makes
Speaker 1: exact sense for the moment that it came out in
Speaker 1: and it's it is it's like so well done. I mean,
Speaker 1: and Steve McQueen and Gillian Flynn, like that's such a
Speaker 1: cool collaboration to have even happened, Like it's awesome. I
Speaker 1: think that Gillian Flynn, if I'm not mistaken, I believe
Speaker 1: that she is from Chicago, which is I think why
Speaker 1: the setting was shifted there. Um, I'm pretty yes, Okay,
Speaker 1: so yeah, she is. She has lived in Chicago for
Speaker 1: many years, so I think that that was why between
Speaker 1: her and Steve McQueen that it was like a British
Speaker 1: mini series that Steve McQueen loved, and then they said
Speaker 1: it where Gillian Flynn lived, and like it just it's cool.
Speaker 1: It's a really cool collaboration, really totally. But what other
Speaker 1: questions was also kind of because I don't think we
Speaker 1: talked about it. What was um was I guess Day's
Speaker 1: his too, his too kind of the the other kill
Speaker 1: the other killing scenes, the one with Bash kind of
Speaker 1: as wanting football, and then also and and and then
Speaker 1: also the freestyle raps he and I was wondering, kind of,
Speaker 1: what y'all what about those? I mean, just from a
Speaker 1: cinematic point of view, I'm always so shocked that it
Speaker 1: happens because we don't know who those characters are when
Speaker 1: they're first introduced, because we hadn't seen them before. We
Speaker 1: don't really understand the context that they like exist in
Speaker 1: the story or what their role is. And it's not
Speaker 1: until part way into the conversation that jam is having
Speaker 1: I think with other characters. Is it that they are
Speaker 1: the ones who kind of let the robbers get away
Speaker 1: with the money, or they were supposed to be like
Speaker 1: keeping an eye on the money and then they sucked
Speaker 1: up and that's why they were able to steal it.
Speaker 1: I think it was something along those lines, if I'm
Speaker 1: not mistaken. Um, yeah, that was my understanding of it.
Speaker 1: So they had like messed up and then they get
Speaker 1: punished for it by being shot and really brutal, especially
Speaker 1: the first shooting, right, Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: was curious when everyone thought about that. I feel like
Speaker 1: those kinds of scenes are like you're saying that, they're
Speaker 1: always shocking to me because it's just like it's not
Speaker 1: a genre that I've ever been extremely invested in, and
Speaker 1: it does like these godfathery scenes where it's just like
Speaker 1: very dramatic executions has never really been for me, but
Speaker 1: I do. I yeah, I feel like the fact that
Speaker 1: these executions are done by a character who the movie
Speaker 1: isn't really letting us get to know makes watching it
Speaker 1: feel worse or like more exploitative, where it does sort
Speaker 1: of just feel like a torture porn situation because I
Speaker 1: feel like Daniel Clia, like you were saying earlier, Michael Michelle,
Speaker 1: like Daniel Clia's performance is doing the heavy lifting there
Speaker 1: where like you can tell like he's trying my And
Speaker 1: then I watched an interview with him to sort of
Speaker 1: make sure that this was what he would he like
Speaker 1: he was trying to performance always come from a place
Speaker 1: of like this is how he shows love and loyalty
Speaker 1: to his brother is by doing this, which is like, wow,
Speaker 1: Daniel Clia is so smart like that totally like hearing
Speaker 1: that was like that totally comes through, But that isn't
Speaker 1: really in the writing like he does that, he brings that,
Speaker 1: but and it does feel it feels kind of grow
Speaker 1: especially concerning the conversation we had earlier, where the way
Speaker 1: that these scenes are shot is very telling of it.
Speaker 1: Really it seems to really the camera work kind of
Speaker 1: dwells more on the brutal murder of a disabled man.
Speaker 1: We see the two black men in this first scene
Speaker 1: to be executed very much on screen, like there's nothing
Speaker 1: held back in that. And then with white characters that
Speaker 1: we know, all of a sudden, the cameras a little shyer,
Speaker 1: and and and the fact that we don't really get
Speaker 1: the information we need with gamalogy attempt seems to make
Speaker 1: it harder. I don't know, what did you think, Michael Mitchelle,
Speaker 1: even I was telling me, I was even thinking a
Speaker 1: lot about what I think. I also love. I do think.
Speaker 1: I think the sound of sound is also really interesting,
Speaker 1: and a lot of even certain scenes, um, the certain
Speaker 1: depths seem moore see loud, rent and kind of more
Speaker 1: goals when it comes to the other stable characters, for
Speaker 1: the black characters, and and then and and and then
Speaker 1: and then and then music kind of swelling kind of
Speaker 1: you know, in a softer way when it came to
Speaker 1: like cares of something. I also noticed, um so and
Speaker 1: so I would also and so I feel like both
Speaker 1: the camera work and then the town designed together kind
Speaker 1: of um there, they're as already there West. But that
Speaker 1: was probably I do think that was a high point
Speaker 1: for me. Didn't know I think that that this undersigned
Speaker 1: what was really was the highpoint by But I do
Speaker 1: think there were certain spots where I was like, this
Speaker 1: could have been handled a little better. Yeah, yeah, because
Speaker 1: it's like, I mean, best case scenario, those scenes could
Speaker 1: have I mean just been like holy sh it mob scenes,
Speaker 1: which I think is like what they were trying to be,
Speaker 1: but they were like, yeah, the details in the cinematography
Speaker 1: and like the character development or like lack thereof, I
Speaker 1: guess made it a little tougher. I don't know. I
Speaker 1: also don't unders and mob movies, so I could be
Speaker 1: so very wrong either way. It's uh, that scene is
Speaker 1: always extremely jarring for me. But um, yeah, because that's
Speaker 1: like the first because you get the you get the
Speaker 1: big explosion pretty early on with the van explodes, but
Speaker 1: that's the first moment of like really brutal, like happening
Speaker 1: right in your face violence, graphic violence kind of things.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's it's always like, oh god, Daniel Khaluja,
Speaker 1: oh my stars, and so my stars, why are you
Speaker 1: so mean? But does anyone have any other thoughts about
Speaker 1: the movie? I also, Sally, I really want to knowledge
Speaker 1: the true star of this film, this Olivia. I just
Speaker 1: feel like a true star. She you know, you know,
Speaker 1: she helped find you know, help find Harry. Really Veronica's
Speaker 1: motivation just a star, love her, adorable an icon. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: Um does the movie pass the Bechdel test? Yes, yes, yes, yes,
Speaker 1: here's my favorite pass. Well, well it's not. We'll we'll
Speaker 1: discuss how it's not quite a pass. But Alice said,
Speaker 1: why are you being such a bitch. You're being a sword. Veronica,
Speaker 1: don't say that word to me, Alice, it's appropriate, you're
Speaker 1: being a sword. And then Veronica is like, you're just
Speaker 1: a stupid girl with nothing in your head. And then
Speaker 1: they slap each other and they sure do. Yeah, we
Speaker 1: love Melo drama. But I would argue that that conversation
Speaker 1: does not pass because this is Veronica slut shaming Alice
Speaker 1: for having sex with a guy only one month after
Speaker 1: her husband died, so the context is still all about
Speaker 1: her husband. This new guy. Yes, but it is an
Speaker 1: interaction between women. There's no denying that. But no, it does.
Speaker 1: It does pass a lot. The widows are planning the
Speaker 1: heist together, talking a lot of like logistics stuff, things
Speaker 1: that don't have anything to do with men. Shall we
Speaker 1: get to our ratings on the nipple scale? Let's do it.
Speaker 1: Our nipple scale is zero to five nipples, based on
Speaker 1: how the movie fares from an intersectional feminist lens. I
Speaker 1: would give this I think four nipples. It's gonna get
Speaker 1: some points docked simply because of a lot of what
Speaker 1: we talked about in terms of things that the movie
Speaker 1: starts to examine or starts to explore that it doesn't
Speaker 1: there's not quite enough time to fully explore it, and
Speaker 1: then I feel like we're kind of like robbed of opportunity,
Speaker 1: used for more interesting commentary or yeah, just a closer
Speaker 1: examination of what I think this movie is trying to do. Again,
Speaker 1: it probably should have just been readapted, revitalized as another series.
Speaker 1: It's not that it doesn't work as a movie, but
Speaker 1: I think it doesn't work quite as well, just because
Speaker 1: there's it feels like there's so much crammed into this
Speaker 1: already pretty long movie. It's over two hours long. But um, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's just there's different bits of like characterization and commentary
Speaker 1: that I feel could have been handled more effectively had
Speaker 1: we been given more time with it, especially the relationships
Speaker 1: between the widows and how those grow and develop over
Speaker 1: the course of the story, especially with a character like
Speaker 1: Bell who gets introduced so late into the game and
Speaker 1: we don't really learn anything about her. So yeah, that's uh,
Speaker 1: that's my main grape with the movie. So four nipples,
Speaker 1: and I'll give one to each of the widows. Wow,
Speaker 1: I'll meet you there. I'll meet you there like three
Speaker 1: point seven five or four. This movie is really fun
Speaker 1: to watch, and it also is it's a it's a
Speaker 1: heavy romp, it's a tone poem, and yet it's a
Speaker 1: it's interesting. I would call it hetty and heavy. Yes,
Speaker 1: every h e a blank y uh, substitute any consonant.
Speaker 1: It's that. But yeah, I I really like this update
Speaker 1: on the format. I love a Steve McQueen Gillian Flynn
Speaker 1: collaboration that was really cool. I that the performances in
Speaker 1: this movie are like incorrect, like the cast, Like just
Speaker 1: watched a couple of round tables with the cast and
Speaker 1: you're like, hold on, this cast is ridiculous. Like it's
Speaker 1: so I like, I feel like we didn't get to
Speaker 1: talk about Brian Tyree Henry very much, and I just
Speaker 1: like he's incredible. He's so good. I know he's not
Speaker 1: one of the widows and all the widows are incredible,
Speaker 1: but I was like, Brian Tyree Henry doesn't need an
Speaker 1: oscar like yesterday anyway, he had an incredible year right
Speaker 1: yere He's yeah, yeah, he's like he had like a
Speaker 1: wild eighteen. He was in like everything that year because
Speaker 1: he was also he's he's in Um was into this
Speaker 1: Better Verse that year because he voices Miles, his dad
Speaker 1: in that movie. Yes, yes, he was Real Street that
Speaker 1: year as well. Yeah, he's Oh my god, I really
Speaker 1: like him. What else was he in that year? He
Speaker 1: was in? Oh, I have no idea what that movie
Speaker 1: he is. He was in a movie called Hotel Artemis.
Speaker 1: Oh I remember that coming out? Yeah, well he was
Speaker 1: in it. Whatever. Anyway, it's good for so. Yes, I like,
Speaker 1: I totally agree with what you were just saying, Caitlin,
Speaker 1: and what you were saying earlier, Michael Michelle. Where this
Speaker 1: movie you could argue, maybe like bites off a little
Speaker 1: more than it can chew with the sheer number of
Speaker 1: issues it's trying to address where I don't know. I mean, ultimately,
Speaker 1: I'm glad that it tries it. We don't quite have
Speaker 1: the run time to meet every single arc, but I
Speaker 1: mean the fact that it's a heist movie that addresses
Speaker 1: racial injustice and class injustice and misogyny. It tackles a
Speaker 1: hell of a lot in two hours, and it all
Speaker 1: makes sense in the story and it's just it it
Speaker 1: comes together. It's it's really good. Um, most of the
Speaker 1: issues I have with this movie is just stories that
Speaker 1: it doesn't quite have the time to follow through on.
Speaker 1: It's not really what they do that I have an
Speaker 1: issue with. That's what they didn't have time to do.
Speaker 1: I wish. I mean, we should have known more about
Speaker 1: the Mannings, We should have known more about Michelle read
Speaker 1: Egas and Cynthia Rivo, et cetera. Yeah, so yeah, I'll
Speaker 1: let's go for it. And I will also give a
Speaker 1: nipple a piece to the widows. Nice Michael, Michelle, what
Speaker 1: about you? I am also going to give it for um,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of like you all said everything, everything
Speaker 1: that they attempted. I really I really appreciate and enjoyed it,
Speaker 1: and pretty I loved it as a work. It's I'm
Speaker 1: pretty be honest. I think it was my favorite of
Speaker 1: that year and I think also my personal favorite hist movie. Um.
Speaker 1: I just I think it's it's just it's it's really grounded.
Speaker 1: I think I think all the women feel like real
Speaker 1: women and they don't feel like our types of women
Speaker 1: for the sake of like woman hasn't been a movie,
Speaker 1: which is nice. Um totally, and I love I love
Speaker 1: the all four of them are soul specific in each
Speaker 1: of their bast wood and and and that they're all
Speaker 1: dealing with with with with very specific marital problems. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, my graphs are the same that you all have.
Speaker 1: You know that I wish that the great thing that
Speaker 1: they that they had given us kind of head head
Speaker 1: any more time to be able to kind of kind
Speaker 1: of blosom kind of um with the run time. But
Speaker 1: I'm so glad that it's a second tone, you know,
Speaker 1: and then and then and then it exists, and um,
Speaker 1: and I'm also really pissed that it didn't get more
Speaker 1: more than Awards season. Um, yes, absolutely, because I got
Speaker 1: completely snubbed by the Golden Globes and the Academy, right,
Speaker 1: is that remembering it? Right? Yeah? Completely. I was just
Speaker 1: I was like, so, we're just not going to acknowledge
Speaker 1: that this magic. It's fine. I'm not better at five
Speaker 1: okay over it kind of But yeah, So I love
Speaker 1: this movie. I wish it could have given us more,
Speaker 1: but um, I kind of explored more and kind of
Speaker 1: given us more death. But I'm glad to existed. So
Speaker 1: I'll give it four stars. Nice, amazing, Well, thank you
Speaker 1: so much for joining us. Yeah, thank you. This was
Speaker 1: such a blast. Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1: I love you. I really appreciate your working. It was
Speaker 1: really fun to talk to you all. Likewise, thanks for
Speaker 1: bringing us this movie. This was so fun. Where can
Speaker 1: we find more of your work? Where can we follow you?
Speaker 1: Plug away? Yeah, so I am. You can follow me
Speaker 1: on Twitter and Instagram, on on on Twitter, on films
Speaker 1: and films, fe m M E s N Films, and
Speaker 1: then on Twitter, I'm Michael Michelle. So I'm Michael Michelle,
Speaker 1: and then with three e's at the end, um, and
Speaker 1: then I've worked in teen, Vogue and Vogue and L
Speaker 1: and Harvard Bazaar, UM and Nylon, and you can just
Speaker 1: I'm Michael Michelle at all of those sites. And I'm
Speaker 1: just feeling up thing around the internet, you know, and
Speaker 1: um in school, uh, trying to get a film degree
Speaker 1: and yep, so very relatable stuff. So we're just here
Speaker 1: trying to make art, review art. I'm just here on
Speaker 1: in this hell. Yes, And you can find us in
Speaker 1: all the usual places. You can find us on Instagram
Speaker 1: and Twitter, at bachtel cast, you can find us on
Speaker 1: our Patreon ak Matreon at patreon dot com, slash backtel Cast,
Speaker 1: where you get to bonus episodes a month for simply
Speaker 1: five dollars a month. Wow, in addition to our almost
Speaker 1: one hundred episode back catalog. Wow. Incredible, brave of us.
Speaker 1: And you can also grab some merch at our merch store,
Speaker 1: t public dot com slash the Bechtel Cast. There's all
Speaker 1: kinds of good ease, so go grab them. I haven't
Speaker 1: heard the word goodies used in casual conversation and many moods.
Speaker 1: Thank you for that any time. And uh, Jamie, we've
Speaker 1: successfully pulled off this podcast that we've all done together.
Speaker 1: So now come we kill Liam Neeson. So we can
Speaker 1: kill Liam Neeson and now we have five million dollars
Speaker 1: with Bay