Speaker 1: On the Bell Cast, the questions asked if movies have
Speaker 1: women and um are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands,
Speaker 1: or do they have individualism? The patriarchy? Zef in best
Speaker 1: start changing it with the bel Cast. Hey, Jamie, Yeah, Caitlin,
Speaker 1: you're the perfect combination of sexy and cute? Can I
Speaker 1: buy you a drink? Yeah? Wait, I'm sorry. All my
Speaker 1: judgment just went out the window because you said that.
Speaker 1: I'm what, You're the perfect combination of sexy and cute.
Speaker 1: Do you want to get out of here? Do you
Speaker 1: want to go home and have sex with me right now?
Speaker 1: Only if you lift me up like a scene. And
Speaker 1: I can't even do I can't even I can't even
Speaker 1: keep up with this charade. Oh my gosh, today today's episode.
Speaker 1: I we were just having this is the Betel Cast Comma.
Speaker 1: We were just having a conversation off Mike, the three
Speaker 1: of us. I what do you mean the Comma Bechdel
Speaker 1: Comma cast period? Exactly? Exactly. Oh my god, there's so
Speaker 1: many I have a list of like things that every
Speaker 1: movie in two thousand eleven did that. I'm just so
Speaker 1: glad that we're just out of the woods. There punctuation
Speaker 1: in the movie title is one of one of those
Speaker 1: things that you're just like, oh my god, you really
Speaker 1: think that you're doing something here, You think you're being
Speaker 1: so serious. Anyways, I initially went in, I think reasonably,
Speaker 1: assuming that our our guest today, a returning guest, brought
Speaker 1: this movie to us, because that's how our show works,
Speaker 1: that's how it's worked for almost five years now. And
Speaker 1: then I learned that it was you. It was my idea.
Speaker 1: But you're the spy, You're you're how do you say
Speaker 1: his name? I'm not all listen, I'm not all listen?
Speaker 1: Is that it? I struggled with his name, like I
Speaker 1: struggled with I can't do it well. What happened? What
Speaker 1: had happened is that, um, we've we've been wanting to
Speaker 1: get our guests back on the podcast. It's a secret.
Speaker 1: Even though it's a secret, their name is in the
Speaker 1: title there. We've been wanting to get Sammy back on
Speaker 1: the podcast, and we'll Sammy will let you talk in
Speaker 1: a minute. No, Caitlyn's dombing this episode. He's wearing a
Speaker 1: suit instead of forty. Yeah. I bought new shoes and
Speaker 1: I'm so confident now because Ryan Gosling tossed your ship, like,
Speaker 1: oh my god. That was one of the cutaway shots
Speaker 1: from this movie. Is I wish you could seen Steve
Speaker 1: Carrell's stinky new Balance just like knocking a twelve year
Speaker 1: old unconscious and at the bottom of that mall. I
Speaker 1: was like, that's so, that's such reckless behavior to throw
Speaker 1: a midlife crisis person's new balance off away. But we've
Speaker 1: been wanting to get Sammy back on the podcast for
Speaker 1: a while, um, but the movie wasn't. It didn't come
Speaker 1: into focus what movie it was going to be until
Speaker 1: recently this movie came up in conversation between Sammy and
Speaker 1: I and I was like, oh, this is the one,
Speaker 1: let's do it on the podcast. So yes, it was
Speaker 1: my idea. And I'm sorry everyone, I'm so sorry cruel
Speaker 1: and unusual of you, but it's it is a pretty
Speaker 1: commonly requested episode, Yeah it is. And it's one of
Speaker 1: those commonly requested episodes that I'm like, to what end?
Speaker 1: Sometimes we just we get these requests and I'm just like,
Speaker 1: do you wanted me to watch that? If you wanted
Speaker 1: us to um evisceraate it, then you're in for a treat.
Speaker 1: That's what we're about to do. He requested this movie.
Speaker 1: We're fighting right now. I cannot believe. Yeah. Well, okay,
Speaker 1: So this is the Bectel Cast. This is our podcast
Speaker 1: where we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens, using
Speaker 1: the Bechtel test as a jumping off point, which is
Speaker 1: a media metric created by queer cartoonist Alison Bechdel that
Speaker 1: is sometimes called the Bechtel Wallace test, and it requires,
Speaker 1: for our our rendition of the test, two people of
Speaker 1: a marginalized gender have names speak to each other about
Speaker 1: something other than a man for a two line exchange
Speaker 1: of dialogue. I can it be done? Honestly hard to say.
Speaker 1: I couldn't reach a conclusion for this movie. Maybe it did,
Speaker 1: I don't even I don't. I don't think so, I
Speaker 1: don't think. Okay, I don't think like, did I miss
Speaker 1: a rogue exchange? Like? I don't think it that, which
Speaker 1: is ridiculous. It's ridiculous. Oh god. Anyway, So today's movie
Speaker 1: is crazy Comma stupid, Comma love period. So already we're
Speaker 1: off to a bad start. Let's bring in our amazing
Speaker 1: guest that i'd like to follow eyes to an advance. Yes,
Speaker 1: we are so say we are so sorry, Sammy say introduced. Sorry, sorry, sorry, Okay.
Speaker 1: They are a producer. They're a writer on Let's Gots
Speaker 1: Go and Ohio And you remember them from our episode
Speaker 1: on She's the Man. It's Sammy Junio. Welcome back. Thank
Speaker 1: you for inviting me for this episode on He's the Man.
Speaker 1: Am I right? Wow? It makes you think that was
Speaker 1: a joke that I texted you about. Also, we should mention,
Speaker 1: I mean your your name gets brought up a lot
Speaker 1: in many episodes because you're also our road dog when
Speaker 1: we when we go on tour, you often check our shows.
Speaker 1: Another major credit for you. It's huge. It's actually on
Speaker 1: the top of my resume. I don't even put my name.
Speaker 1: I just put road dog in all caps. Oh my god. Okay,
Speaker 1: what a time to be alive. Sammy. What is your
Speaker 1: relationship with this movie? I have it on DVD and
Speaker 1: I bought it recently, not maybe in the past three years.
Speaker 1: I am not embarrassed about it, but also deeply embarrassed
Speaker 1: about it. Um. I think that's appropriate. Yes, I understand,
Speaker 1: I understand why it's I I'm so sorry everyone, Jamie.
Speaker 1: What's your history what's your relationship? I didn't see this one.
Speaker 1: I feel like I saw a lot of movies like
Speaker 1: this when it came out, Like the really two thousand
Speaker 1: tens were like just there were so many movies like
Speaker 1: this where it's like, Okay, here's my pitch. It's a
Speaker 1: really famous comedian, but they're not. But you'll never laugh.
Speaker 1: It's two hours long and there's a ton of improv.
Speaker 1: How dare this movie be two hours long? Two hours long? There?
Speaker 1: The movie poster has a disembodied woman's leg on it.
Speaker 1: Headless women of Hollywood shout out, I just I just
Speaker 1: at oh and the clincher brought to you by the
Speaker 1: writer of Cars. You're just like what? There were so
Speaker 1: many like Midlife. I was talking about this with my
Speaker 1: boyfriend recently. Of like Steve Carrell went through this phase
Speaker 1: where he's like, I'm just going to be in a
Speaker 1: bunch of movies that say they're funny but they're not
Speaker 1: and they're really long. It's like this Dan in real
Speaker 1: life like there and Kristen Wig went through a similar
Speaker 1: phase where it's just in a bunch of expensive indie
Speaker 1: movies that sucked and we're long, and you're just like
Speaker 1: why are you making me see these? They make me
Speaker 1: they you know, we were we were there, we were there.
Speaker 1: It wasn't good, and now it's over. This is weird.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's kind of interesting to me. I've never
Speaker 1: seen this movie, is the answer to the question. But
Speaker 1: even like I don't know, it's watching movies that are
Speaker 1: like ten years old. Is always like oh, wild Zone
Speaker 1: because it looks dated, but it feels familiar enough. Like
Speaker 1: phones in this movie wild blackberries, so many blackberries, miss I,
Speaker 1: miss I wish I had had a BlackBerry? There are
Speaker 1: they just gone? They're never coming back. They're trying. There's
Speaker 1: like a version of it where it's still the little typer,
Speaker 1: but then also it's touch screen, but like the touch
Speaker 1: screen is like two point five inches. It's wild. Why
Speaker 1: did they do that? Um? This? Yeah, this, this movie
Speaker 1: is really encapsulated a very particular moment. What's your history
Speaker 1: of the Caitlin? My history is that I saw it
Speaker 1: maybe like a year after it came out or so.
Speaker 1: This this is not the type of movie that would
Speaker 1: have drawn me to the theaters. But I like people
Speaker 1: were like, oh, it's good, it's so it's fun. You'll
Speaker 1: like a hundred almost a hundred fifty million dollars, but
Speaker 1: also it cost fifty million dollars, which is like what
Speaker 1: I'm guessing the budget went to like Steve Correll and
Speaker 1: Ryan Wardrobe, and also the insurance for the shoe toss right,
Speaker 1: there were there were actual casualties for that. It was
Speaker 1: not good well. And and then going back to the
Speaker 1: length of the movie, which again is two hours for
Speaker 1: what's supposed to be a rom com, way too long,
Speaker 1: but I read according to our favorite scholarly journal, Wikipedia,
Speaker 1: the original cut of this movie was three hours long
Speaker 1: and they had to edit out an entire hour. There.
Speaker 1: My favorite Wikipedia detail for this movie is that is
Speaker 1: this Uh. The film was developed under the working title
Speaker 1: untitled Marital Crisis Comedy. I think they should have stuck
Speaker 1: with that. They should have stuck with it because the
Speaker 1: title of the movie is using a bunch of dated
Speaker 1: words that we're trying not to use anymore. Uh. And
Speaker 1: and oh, a fun, fun twist was in the middle
Speaker 1: of the movie because there's a young daughter in this movie.
Speaker 1: The daughter that isn't the twist, which is like, I
Speaker 1: don't want to twist daughter anyways. The young daughter is
Speaker 1: Joey King kissing booz. Amazing twist. That was the best
Speaker 1: twist of the movie for me, the twist that was
Speaker 1: there the whole entire time. It took me a while
Speaker 1: to figure it out because I was like, because you
Speaker 1: don't see her face really for a long time, and
Speaker 1: then you get a glimpse of her, like I don't know,
Speaker 1: three quarters of the way through the movie, and you're like,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, is that young Joey King? And sure
Speaker 1: enough it is. She's iconic, She's great, Go Joey King. Yeah. So, anyway,
Speaker 1: my history with this movie, I saw it like a
Speaker 1: year or so after it came out. I was ambivalent
Speaker 1: toward it, but I remember at the time thinking like, wow,
Speaker 1: running Gosling is cool and what a good job he
Speaker 1: does and making Steve Correll cool also. And I can't
Speaker 1: believe I ever had those thoughts because looking back at
Speaker 1: it now, we wash our hands of it. We live,
Speaker 1: we learn, we live, and we learn. Yeah, so I
Speaker 1: guess should I just get into the recap. Yeah, let's
Speaker 1: party in the recap. I'm excited. I'm excited to really
Speaker 1: just take out my pool floaty is and float around
Speaker 1: in this recap. This Oh my god. Also I just
Speaker 1: wanted to shout out the other child actor who is
Speaker 1: We're not going to blame the child actor, but oh
Speaker 1: my god, the kid who plays Robbie. His name is
Speaker 1: Jonah Bobo, and you gotta admit that's a funny name.
Speaker 1: Just wanted to shout out Jonah Bobo. Shout out. Okay.
Speaker 1: So the movie opens on a married couple Cal that's
Speaker 1: Steve Carrell and Emily that's Julianne Moore. And Emily announces
Speaker 1: that she wants a divorce, and she also tells Cal
Speaker 1: that she had sex with someone else, her co worker,
Speaker 1: David Lyndhagen, David Linnagen. We learned that Cal and Emily
Speaker 1: have two kids, or so we think it's only two kids,
Speaker 1: but wait for it. Oh my god, this twist when
Speaker 1: it's like they're using the same hair straightener and Julianne
Speaker 1: Moore and emastone the whole time. It's like, come on, anyways.
Speaker 1: One of the kids is Joey King. The other one
Speaker 1: is thirteen year old Robbie Jonah Bobo Jonah Bobo. He
Speaker 1: is in love with his babysitter, Jessica, who is seventeen
Speaker 1: years old. Who does anyone remember her? From America's Next
Speaker 1: Top Model. Oh yeah, she like was I don't know.
Speaker 1: I didn't watch many seasons of that show, but she
Speaker 1: was on one of the seasons I did watch. I
Speaker 1: saw her in a piano bar when I was first
Speaker 1: in l A and I passed away. She was so cool,
Speaker 1: I like freaked out. Also, she is the same age
Speaker 1: as Emma Stone. Oh, but playing a seventeen year old
Speaker 1: I feel like Emma Stone is. I don't know how
Speaker 1: old Emma Stones character is really supposed to be because
Speaker 1: and also I liked, I liked. I enjoyed suspending my
Speaker 1: disbelief that Steve Correll is only seventeen years older than
Speaker 1: Emma Stone. That was fun for me. Right, that's a lie.
Speaker 1: That's that is a lie. Um. I think she's twenty
Speaker 1: five because they said that they've been married for twenty
Speaker 1: five years and that they got married because they were
Speaker 1: pregnant with her. So she's are you doing this movie?
Speaker 1: Who cares? Um? So Robbie is in love with Jessica,
Speaker 1: but Jessica is in love with cal Steve Carrell. Then
Speaker 1: we cut to Hannah. That's im a Stone at a
Speaker 1: bar with a friend Liz. Yes, love Liz wanted more
Speaker 1: for Liz truly as the only person of color in
Speaker 1: the movie I and she's so horny. I do feel represented.
Speaker 1: I'll say it this kidding. It's really solid and responsible
Speaker 1: representation to Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. I remember her
Speaker 1: from This is I'm I remember that actor Liza Lapira
Speaker 1: from Don't Trust the be An Apartment twenty three, which
Speaker 1: I like show. I liked that show too. Doesn't James
Speaker 1: Vanderbeek play himself in that show? Am I remembering that correctly? Yeah?
Speaker 1: It was. I'm sure that if you go back, it's
Speaker 1: probably super dated, but I liked it when it was happening.
Speaker 1: She was on it. Shout out, who care? Anyway, she
Speaker 1: and Emma Stone are talking, and this is when Jacob
Speaker 1: Ryan Gosling approaches Hannah and aggressively starts hitting on her.
Speaker 1: Test this honey, like no, no, no no, But she
Speaker 1: rejects him and leaves. So meanwhile Cal and Emily separate
Speaker 1: and he goes to a bar to drown his sorrows
Speaker 1: and he's loudly carrying on about having been cheated on
Speaker 1: by his wife with David Lindhagen, and then Jacob is
Speaker 1: also there, and Jacob is like sir, stop your whining,
Speaker 1: stop being a loser. You look like shit. Here's what
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do. I'm gonna help you rediscover your manhood,
Speaker 1: and your wife will rue the day she left you.
Speaker 1: He literally like holds out the red pill and it's
Speaker 1: like take it, I dare you. Oh my goodness that
Speaker 1: I did not realize. I didn't. I knew very I
Speaker 1: thought this was just a really long early rom com.
Speaker 1: I didn't realize that it was pick up artistry the movie. Yep, seriously,
Speaker 1: what a move? What do you move to play a
Speaker 1: pickup artistry story? Basically completely straight, like well, right right.
Speaker 1: So then Jacob tells cal to meet him at the
Speaker 1: Century City Mall food Court, which is neither the Glendale
Speaker 1: Galleria nor the Americana, So like, why even fucking bother going? Wow,
Speaker 1: I've I went to that mall to see Santa Oh.
Speaker 1: One of the best, um, one of the best dated
Speaker 1: shots in the movie is when Ryan Gosling is standing
Speaker 1: in front of a gigantic Borders bookstore. You're like two eleven,
Speaker 1: we were all there. Meanwhile, Hannah is celebrating something. I'm
Speaker 1: not really sure she's celebrating. Lawyer, no, no, I think
Speaker 1: that's correct because they were celebrating her beginning of studying
Speaker 1: the book. Right. Yeah. They also call it a goodbye party,
Speaker 1: but she doesn't to study. I think, yeah, she's leaving
Speaker 1: to go study. Yeah, it's not clear, um, but she's
Speaker 1: with a few friends, including her boyfriend Richard a k a.
Speaker 1: Josh Grobin. Whatever. This his first role in a movie. Wow,
Speaker 1: wild sha grow grow. I mean, okay, I take it back.
Speaker 1: Good for him if this is his first role, he
Speaker 1: did pretty good. Even though it's not no saying he's
Speaker 1: in makes any human sense. That's not his fault, right,
Speaker 1: that's that's the writing. Um. But Hannah thinks that he
Speaker 1: might be proposing soon. Um. Cal. Then go to meet
Speaker 1: Jacob at the mall q a shopping and make over montage,
Speaker 1: which I mean, we can talk about this, but I
Speaker 1: guess we get like a gender swapped makeover montage. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just to just prove the gender swapping something doesn't make
Speaker 1: it interesting or good. It is something that can be done.
Speaker 1: And I like how they try to make it hyper
Speaker 1: vasculine by just slapping each other. I'm like, what it's
Speaker 1: like every shopping montage you've ever seen in your life,
Speaker 1: except they can't stop hitting each other and throwing shoes
Speaker 1: arm and then Jacob tries to teach Cal how to
Speaker 1: pick up women at bars. Cal is terrible at it
Speaker 1: at first. Then we see Emily at work. David Lyndhagen
Speaker 1: shows up in the Flesh and it's Kevin Bacon did
Speaker 1: not remember that I want to treat except he's awful.
Speaker 1: He's not great. He professes his feelings for Emily, but
Speaker 1: she's not really into it, and it seems like she
Speaker 1: might be having second thoughts about leaving Cal. Robbie also
Speaker 1: has professed his feelings for Jessica the babysitter um, but
Speaker 1: she tells him to stop and that he's making her uncomfortable,
Speaker 1: but don't worry, he doesn't stop. Then we cut back
Speaker 1: to Cal and Jacob. Jacob thinks Cal is finally ready
Speaker 1: to start picking up women and encourages him to hit
Speaker 1: on this woman across the bar, Kate A K. Marissa Tomay,
Speaker 1: and she ends up going home with him, and this
Speaker 1: gives him the confidence boost that he needed and he
Speaker 1: starts having sex with a lot of women after this.
Speaker 1: This Marissa Tomy character is also like a very stock
Speaker 1: character that I feel like appears in many movies of
Speaker 1: this era. I was thinking of like Leslie Man in
Speaker 1: the forty year Old Virgin. I was thinking Jennifer Anniston
Speaker 1: and horror bosses. Like it's like there's so many. I mean,
Speaker 1: we'll we'll talk about it, but it's it was like
Speaker 1: a trope character of this era was like woman who's
Speaker 1: horny and mad and a cartoon character, and they always
Speaker 1: would get like a great actress to like do whatever
Speaker 1: the funk that is. It's annoying. Mm hmm. Absolutely. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So then Cal and Emily go to a parent teacher
Speaker 1: conference about Robbie and they're like, again, they're reconnecting a
Speaker 1: little bit, but oh, Robbie's teacher is Marissa Tomai. The
Speaker 1: first of many twists, and Emily somebody inconsequential You're just like,
Speaker 1: oh so what like that? Because we did you guys
Speaker 1: like I don't. Oh my gosh. She the teacher in
Speaker 1: this scene behaves so unprofessionally. But um, Emily finds out
Speaker 1: that the two of them slept together, and now she's
Speaker 1: really really mad at Cal, especially because he used the
Speaker 1: line that he used to use on her. You're the
Speaker 1: perfect combination of sexy and cute honestly, I do love
Speaker 1: to hear it, but it's a very contrived line. Oh yeah.
Speaker 1: So then there's the scene where Hannah thinks that Josh
Speaker 1: Grobin is going to propose to her, but he doesn't,
Speaker 1: so she is just so caught off guard that she
Speaker 1: runs away finds Jacob at the one bar that he
Speaker 1: seems to go to every night of his life. I
Speaker 1: was like, does he they? Eventually the twist is that
Speaker 1: he's a trust fund glorified date rapist. But but for
Speaker 1: a long time in the movie, you're like, is this
Speaker 1: his job? You have a job because what he's doing,
Speaker 1: And also, I mean we'll get to like what a
Speaker 1: horrible father Kell is, but like what he's doing has
Speaker 1: to be so expensive, Like he that is like a
Speaker 1: nice looking bar, Like he has to be dropping hundreds,
Speaker 1: if not thousands of dollars a night trying to coerce
Speaker 1: women into coming home to his house, which is clean
Speaker 1: mansion with a swimming pool. He has a five thousand
Speaker 1: dollar vibrating chair, like it looks like the house from
Speaker 1: um at the beginning of Invisible Man. It's very sinister. Yeah. Anyway,
Speaker 1: so Hannah, you know, stomps up to him, surprise kisses him,
Speaker 1: and then they go home together, but they stay up
Speaker 1: all night talking and this is the beginning of them
Speaker 1: being in a relationship because she's not like the other girls.
Speaker 1: She's worth actually talking to. That remains up for discussion.
Speaker 1: They they they do have um good chemistry, but there's
Speaker 1: there's also this like, I'm a huge Emma Stone fan,
Speaker 1: but there are like parts in again, like this era
Speaker 1: of Emma Stone, where I feel like they're like, oh,
Speaker 1: we're not gonna really write her a character. We're just
Speaker 1: gonna make her talk really fast, and that's the character,
Speaker 1: not her fault. But so Jacob is now so busy
Speaker 1: with his new girlfriend that he stops answering Cal's calls,
Speaker 1: which you realize is just like a convenient plot device
Speaker 1: so that Hannah doesn't find out that her new boyfriend's
Speaker 1: best friend is her dad. But anyway, so meanwhile, Jessica
Speaker 1: the babysitter, is trying to figure out how to get
Speaker 1: Cal interested in her, and at the advice of one
Speaker 1: of her classmates, she takes nude pictures of herself with
Speaker 1: the intent to give them to Cal. But oh, her
Speaker 1: parents find them and think that Cal is preying on Jessica. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll talk all about this. Um, we just have to
Speaker 1: we just have to move on for now. H was
Speaker 1: like the fact that fucked up things were happening that
Speaker 1: late in the movie. I was like, are you kidding me?
Speaker 1: You just can't catch a break with this story. Wow
Speaker 1: wow wow. Yeah. But so meanwhile Cal and Emily they're connecting,
Speaker 1: reconnecting more and more, and then he orchestrates this big
Speaker 1: romantic gesture for her in her backyard. But this is
Speaker 1: when a few different things happen kind of all at once.
Speaker 1: One Cal and Emily's other daughter that you didn't know
Speaker 1: that they had is Hannah, a k Emma Stone. She
Speaker 1: comes home with her new boyfriend, Jacob, and Cal realizes
Speaker 1: this sleazy guy is now dating his daughter, and Cal
Speaker 1: is furious at both of them. Uh. This is also
Speaker 1: when Jessica's dad comes barreling in and attacks Cal. And
Speaker 1: this is also when David Lyndhagen shows up and it's like,
Speaker 1: here's your sweater, Emily. But basically all the men then
Speaker 1: get in a huge fight, which ends in everyone being
Speaker 1: very mad at everyone else. Another scene that you would
Speaker 1: think would be really fun because we're like, oh, look
Speaker 1: at all these famous people and you know, in a
Speaker 1: fist fight, but it's still manages to be really boring,
Speaker 1: you know, like oh yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. And then
Speaker 1: later a little later, Jacob tries to talk to Cal,
Speaker 1: but Cal refuses to give his approval for Jacob and
Speaker 1: Hannah's relationship. But then it's Robbie's eighth grade graduation and
Speaker 1: Robbie starts to give a speech about how love is
Speaker 1: a scam, but Cal interrupts and gives his own speech
Speaker 1: about how Emily is his soul mate and he's not
Speaker 1: going to give up. He's going to keep fighting for her,
Speaker 1: and she's like, oh la la la uh. And then
Speaker 1: Cal finally gives his blessing to Jacob and Hannah, and
Speaker 1: then Jessica gives her naked photos to Robbie, and then
Speaker 1: the movie ends with it seeming like Cal and Emily
Speaker 1: will get back together the end. God, let's take a
Speaker 1: quick break and then we'll come right back to discuss. Okay,
Speaker 1: and we're back, Okay. Can we start with like what
Speaker 1: the perceived like? There's so many specifics to talk about here,
Speaker 1: but the overall takeaway from this movie I thought, and
Speaker 1: let me if you disagree, is they have this whole like,
Speaker 1: if you believe that someone is your true love, you
Speaker 1: are not just like encouraged. You are required to harass
Speaker 1: that person until they reciprocate, and if they don't, just
Speaker 1: keep harassing them. And like the foundation of this movie
Speaker 1: is so fucked up, and the way the logic goes
Speaker 1: is like because it's so poorly written, sorry Mr Cars,
Speaker 1: but like it it's like men are doing the same
Speaker 1: thing over and over and over and over and over,
Speaker 1: and then just at some point in the plot it
Speaker 1: stops bothering the women in the movie, and then they
Speaker 1: get rewarded for their behavior, their incessant harassing behavior. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they everyone gets what they want. So um the message,
Speaker 1: it's just a disaster. I'm also not rooting You're just
Speaker 1: You're not. I'm not rooting for any relationship in this movie.
Speaker 1: I'm not rooting for any character in this movie except
Speaker 1: for maybe like for just all of the women to
Speaker 1: get away from all of the men. That's what I'm
Speaker 1: rooting for. But that doesn't end up happening, so no,
Speaker 1: they just get entrapped again. So I did not know
Speaker 1: how to organize my notes for this because like all
Speaker 1: it's like an ensemble cast and like all of the
Speaker 1: characters have a relationship with all of the other characters.
Speaker 1: So I was like, but don't worry that there's no
Speaker 1: meaningful relationship between two women and the entire maybe, and
Speaker 1: they're correct, yes there. I love how when we see
Speaker 1: Julianne Moore and Emma Stone on screen together for the
Speaker 1: first time, Julianne Moore is blindfolded and it's like hi, honey,
Speaker 1: and it's like, this is this is how I feel
Speaker 1: about how the women in this movie interact just so
Speaker 1: dissonant and bizarre. And then I guess another just kind
Speaker 1: of general statement before we get into more specifics, would
Speaker 1: just be that the way and we already hinted at this,
Speaker 1: but the way women are written in this movie is
Speaker 1: just like so cartoonish, and they're all framed as being
Speaker 1: very like reactionary. They seem to not know what they want.
Speaker 1: They're like fickle, they are often, for lack of a
Speaker 1: better word, they are like presented as being quote hysterical.
Speaker 1: This applies to basically every woman is some combination of
Speaker 1: these traits in this movie. So that's what we're working
Speaker 1: with for the women. I just feel like most of
Speaker 1: the female characters were just like not really written, like
Speaker 1: they're like, well that they're just they're like they're just
Speaker 1: kind of they're there Hannah's If you like try to
Speaker 1: figure out what is going on in Hannah's life, it's
Speaker 1: literally impossible. Like you don't understand why she thinks that
Speaker 1: Josh Groban is about to marry her. Like that was
Speaker 1: really confused to me. I don't understand what's going on
Speaker 1: with her job. No one seems to care what's going
Speaker 1: on with her job. She doesn't seem to care what's
Speaker 1: going on with her job. I don't know why she
Speaker 1: knows she can find Ryan Gosling at this bar. They're
Speaker 1: like and I don't really under like just if you
Speaker 1: like put any like if you try to piece together
Speaker 1: even a synopsis of some of the female characters, Whore
Speaker 1: just like, I don't I don't know, they didn't care.
Speaker 1: I think the closest you can get to somebody having
Speaker 1: a story, or a woman character having a story is
Speaker 1: Julianne Moore because she does try to explain herself. I yeah,
Speaker 1: I think she may have the most story and all
Speaker 1: of this, I like, yeah, I think of all the
Speaker 1: I tried to rank my character that these characters by
Speaker 1: how little I liked them, And I feel like Julianne
Speaker 1: Moore's character was the one that I ended up liking
Speaker 1: the best, which isn't saying much, but it's like, first
Speaker 1: of all, like I understood why she wanted to leave
Speaker 1: Steve Carrell, Like you're like, yeah, this marriage seems really
Speaker 1: dead in the water, obviously, like cheating on your spouse
Speaker 1: is not the best thing to do in your life.
Speaker 1: But like her being like I've been with you and
Speaker 1: you fucking suck for so long, Like I just need
Speaker 1: to move on with my life. And like she's a
Speaker 1: good she's a good mom, she's a fun mom, like
Speaker 1: you get like a little more with her. And I
Speaker 1: also feel like it's Julianne Morris, so she can just
Speaker 1: make a meal of anything. But it's still like it's just, oh,
Speaker 1: it's just beneath her this story because it's like she's
Speaker 1: the I totally agree, Sammy, like she's the woman that
Speaker 1: you know the most about, but it's still like not much,
Speaker 1: it's still and yeah, and she just ends up getting
Speaker 1: worn down like every other woman I would cheat on
Speaker 1: cow Well, yeah, that's the thing. Like the reasons that
Speaker 1: they split up, is that he has stopped putting effort
Speaker 1: into their relationship. She does not feel that her needs
Speaker 1: are met, so she seeks affection elsewhere with Kevin Bacon.
Speaker 1: But that's like the only thing that cal focuses on
Speaker 1: at like the beginning of their break where he's like,
Speaker 1: oh you slept with another man. I've been cuck holded.
Speaker 1: And there's that scene where like she's he did get
Speaker 1: he got to he got to the word cock Cock's
Speaker 1: resurgence early y. I was like, wow, okay, ahead of
Speaker 1: the curve, right, But there's that scene and I think, Sammy,
Speaker 1: you brought this up. But she's like trying to talk
Speaker 1: about like he's like getting into the U haul, and
Speaker 1: Julianne Moore is like, you know, I think I might
Speaker 1: be having a midlife crisis. Like she's expressing her doubts
Speaker 1: and frustration shout out to the movie doubt um, doubts
Speaker 1: and frustrations and insecurities. But he's like he refuses to listen,
Speaker 1: he refuses to like talk this out like a real adult.
Speaker 1: He's being a huge baby about it. He just keeps
Speaker 1: talking about like landscaping, and then he later starts just
Speaker 1: stalking her at night doing her landscaping, and then also
Speaker 1: sometimes just like watching her through her window. Isaac and
Speaker 1: I were dying at that scene at the end where
Speaker 1: he is once again out on the on spying on
Speaker 1: his family and she calls because like it's supposed to
Speaker 1: be like again, it's just like, oh, they really thought
Speaker 1: they were creating this beautiful moment where it's like she
Speaker 1: just wanted to hear his voice, she didn't actually need
Speaker 1: help with the pilot light, and like they're both crying
Speaker 1: in the scene is forty minutes long, and we were
Speaker 1: just cackling. We're like, God, this is really supposed to
Speaker 1: be a moment, but it's just this movie. It feels
Speaker 1: so long and so long. The movie frames that moment
Speaker 1: as being so romantic, but it's like he's stuck in
Speaker 1: her right now, shouldn't know that she's not actually letting
Speaker 1: the pilot light. He's he loves to come back at night. Cal,
Speaker 1: I feel like, yeah, like Julianne Moore's perspective makes a
Speaker 1: ton of sense, because like Cal spends the whole movie
Speaker 1: approving to you why he's an unfit husband, parent, member
Speaker 1: of society. There I will say that you also don't
Speaker 1: like you can see cal at work once, but I'm
Speaker 1: also like, what does he do, Like, how does is
Speaker 1: he like just blowing his like children's college money on
Speaker 1: becoming a pickup artist? He's I it was unclear, like
Speaker 1: can you afford to be And on top of that,
Speaker 1: he's just aggressively not parenting his children. So it's very
Speaker 1: bizarre later when Jessica is like, you know, his kids
Speaker 1: love him so much, and you kind of like why
Speaker 1: I've only seen him interact with him when he's like,
Speaker 1: I'm off to go hang out with my pickup artist friend.
Speaker 1: Like that's not It's so like you keep being told
Speaker 1: that he's a good person with a good heart, but
Speaker 1: then you just kind of like rarely see that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's negligent in a lot of areas of his life.
Speaker 1: And then so basically he starts to fill the void
Speaker 1: of not being married to Emily anymore with becoming a
Speaker 1: pickup artist. At the instruction of Jacob, I wish they
Speaker 1: were a little clearer about like the fact that this
Speaker 1: is pickup artist, because they kind of like dodge saying it.
Speaker 1: They're like, oh, no, you just aggressively nagged women, And
Speaker 1: it's like Ryan Gosling makes it sound like this was
Speaker 1: all his idea and not that there was like infrastructure
Speaker 1: for this. He's like, I, I wrote the game, I
Speaker 1: invented this, I invented going to bars wearing suits. And
Speaker 1: she's like, no, that's not okay, sir, I can't do
Speaker 1: all that. So I guess, like for the Cal and
Speaker 1: Jacob friendship, I mean, I do slap all of my
Speaker 1: friends all the time, so I feel like I can confirm,
Speaker 1: so that didn't feel weird to me. So we are
Speaker 1: feeling seen here to an extent. This is why I
Speaker 1: like the movie. Actually, I've represented in Liz and Jacob
Speaker 1: slaps and now I get it. Now I get it.
Speaker 1: Um okay. So yeah, Jacob is not that the movie
Speaker 1: wants you to think this, because the movie wants you
Speaker 1: to think that. I think the movie wants you to
Speaker 1: think that, Like he just needs to grow up a
Speaker 1: little bit. He needs to find the right woman who
Speaker 1: will like, who will let him just kind of like
Speaker 1: settle down and learn that, like love is real. He
Speaker 1: just needs to find it. But even so, the movie
Speaker 1: like condones his pickup artistry, his like very sleazy misogynists creepy,
Speaker 1: like he literally says the first, the first like rule
Speaker 1: of his. He's reciting the game like he's there's a book.
Speaker 1: There's a book. It's bad. But like he said, the
Speaker 1: first rule is to like get her really drunk. Like
Speaker 1: this is like, I'm glad that you don't like really
Speaker 1: but it's like, this goes into very dark territory. I
Speaker 1: just am not convinced that this character is not a
Speaker 1: date rapist. Very well could be. He also gives a
Speaker 1: monologue to Cow where he says, the war between the
Speaker 1: sexes is over, and we won, meaning men won the war.
Speaker 1: We won the second women started doing pole dancing for exercise, which, like,
Speaker 1: I mean, the implications, just the sham nous of all
Speaker 1: of that is horrendous. And then he says, even though yeah,
Speaker 1: I want to take some, I feel like I've won
Speaker 1: when I take exactly It continues to say, but even
Speaker 1: though we won, they still deserve our respect, meaning women
Speaker 1: deserve our respect. We make them feel beautiful, actually listen
Speaker 1: to their problems, open the door for them. And then
Speaker 1: he says, you've got to take control of your manhood.
Speaker 1: You want something, you take it. You don't like something,
Speaker 1: you say it. I take what I want. So that
Speaker 1: is his wisdom that he's imparting to cow. This is
Speaker 1: such this whole friendship is so fucked up, like and
Speaker 1: it sucks too, because it's like anytime you see like
Speaker 1: a male friendship on screen, you're like, oh, this is
Speaker 1: you know, like there's such a traceable history of you know,
Speaker 1: like men not knowing how to like bond and express
Speaker 1: emotion with each other. Um, but this relationship is just
Speaker 1: so toxic. It's just so toxic. And then the twist
Speaker 1: with Jacob being that he's really rich and his dad
Speaker 1: was too nice and then his mom was so cold,
Speaker 1: both of which are like these are very relative terms
Speaker 1: you're using because you're a misogynist, so she could just
Speaker 1: be a person like but the and we're supposed to
Speaker 1: like feel like I'm supposed to feel bad for you
Speaker 1: because your dad was so nice. That it's so it's
Speaker 1: so just like I don't even know what they were
Speaker 1: trying to. Yeah, I'm like, a, is this meant to
Speaker 1: endear us too? I'm not sure I think it is.
Speaker 1: But because it's like, oh, he's being emotionally raw with her.
Speaker 1: He said that his rich dad was really nice, You're like, okay,
Speaker 1: So then there's a scene where Jacob is like, okay, Cal,
Speaker 1: you're ready go hit on Marissa Tomay, and then Cal
Speaker 1: calls him out on his like behavior. He's like, you know,
Speaker 1: you buy women a drink even if they don't want one.
Speaker 1: You insist. It's a big game, a creepy, creepy game.
Speaker 1: And right when you think that, like Cal has come
Speaker 1: to his senses and is like, oh, wow, you know
Speaker 1: this guy is a creep. He then says, wow, Jacob,
Speaker 1: you're such a wise teacher. You've taught me so well.
Speaker 1: And then he goes over and tries Jacob's creepy technique
Speaker 1: on Marissa Tomay, which I guess we can just talk
Speaker 1: about that really quickly. Marissa Tomay being done such a
Speaker 1: wild dissurface, the the Radiant Marissa Tomay. I hope, I
Speaker 1: hope she made five hundred trillion dollars to have to
Speaker 1: do this, because that was the whole fifty million dollar budget.
Speaker 1: They were just like, please, Marissa Tomay, do this. Absolutely
Speaker 1: like miserable part for us because there first of all,
Speaker 1: like again, just the logic of it is so bizarre,
Speaker 1: where they make fun of the fact that she's a
Speaker 1: recovering alcoholic and several points in the movie and she's
Speaker 1: just like this, and we started talking about it, but
Speaker 1: like she's just this like broad stereotype of like a
Speaker 1: desperate woman who like she'll take anything, she'll take the
Speaker 1: first person who gives her the smallest amount of attention.
Speaker 1: And it's and I think it's just shorthand for like
Speaker 1: single women over thirty, Like is that what the what
Speaker 1: is this? Right? And then and then later if she
Speaker 1: feels rejected, she you know, goes nuclear and it's like
Speaker 1: her whole life is concern zoomed by revenge. And and
Speaker 1: we're supposed to like be siding with Steve Carrell will
Speaker 1: be like, Wow, she's being a bit much, don't you think.
Speaker 1: Like it's just such an exhausting troupe that I feel
Speaker 1: like was like extremely active in this time when every
Speaker 1: comedy movie was like four hours long and had shitty
Speaker 1: improv Right. And then during the scene where he's like
Speaker 1: trying to pick her up, and then he at first
Speaker 1: he's like nagging, but he's really bad at it. Not
Speaker 1: that there's a way to be good at it, like
Speaker 1: it's a thing that shouldn't be done, but anyway, it's
Speaker 1: not effective. But then he starts being real and honest,
Speaker 1: and because he says you're the perfect combination of sexy
Speaker 1: and cute, she is now dripping her just she's she's
Speaker 1: like so ready to just like jump on his dick.
Speaker 1: And then there's a bad Aige joke that gets made
Speaker 1: while they're like for playing with each other. But it's
Speaker 1: this weird thing where she likes that he's being honest
Speaker 1: and open, which is like a good thing, like men
Speaker 1: people should be honest and open, but that is like
Speaker 1: her liking that is like part of what makes her
Speaker 1: seem so like outlandish, and it's just just so like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's I mean, I feel like it is like one
Speaker 1: of the broader stereotypes of women of this era is just, yeah,
Speaker 1: portraying any woman who is not like married over at
Speaker 1: a certain age as like as having to be so
Speaker 1: desperate for any sort of validation that and then also
Speaker 1: so immediately attached if she receives any validation that. It's
Speaker 1: just like a way of like making women look irrational
Speaker 1: and like inherently like if you have it's like your
Speaker 1: iconic stand up joke, Caitlin, It's like if you have
Speaker 1: sex with someone, you're you are you have to marry
Speaker 1: them and like you are like chemically bound to them
Speaker 1: until you die. And there's just like scenes with Morrissa
Speaker 1: Tomay where the button on the scene is just her screeching,
Speaker 1: like that was one of the scene ended and it
Speaker 1: echoed into the next scene. I was like, what kind
Speaker 1: of this is wild sound editing? Like it's just so
Speaker 1: aggressively underthought, because it's also it's not even like an
Speaker 1: original thing in this movie. It's just like copy pasting
Speaker 1: the Leslie Man character from a different Steve Correll movie
Speaker 1: into but this time it's oh, sorry, let's take a
Speaker 1: quick break and then we'll come back to discuss more
Speaker 1: and we're back. I will say though, that after the
Speaker 1: scene where cal hooks up with Marissa Tomay, there is
Speaker 1: another sign that this movie is a sequel to She's
Speaker 1: the Man. Do you guys remember please? It is after
Speaker 1: he has intercourse with Massa Tomay, they play the song
Speaker 1: that they play at the carnival, which is goldfraps la
Speaker 1: la Oh only true. She's the Man has Well Know,
Speaker 1: which is just me I saw it. I love that,
Speaker 1: But I mean it's very clearly a spiritual sequel, if
Speaker 1: nothing else sequels, they're really not better. They're really just
Speaker 1: not better usually except Paddington too. But anyway, there. I
Speaker 1: so that's like, that's Kate. I guess I just want
Speaker 1: to leave Kate in the in the past. Um. And
Speaker 1: then she continues to hold the grudge into like she's
Speaker 1: like flipping off Steve Carrell at the eighth grade graduation.
Speaker 1: And it's like, but if you were ghosted that way
Speaker 1: by somebody who you were very excited about telling you
Speaker 1: the truth and that's why you were screeching during intercourse,
Speaker 1: Like I feel like you probably would flick them off
Speaker 1: if you had to be exposed to them later on
Speaker 1: in a public space. I mean, to be perfectly fair, Yes,
Speaker 1: Steve Carrell did a not nice thing by discarding her,
Speaker 1: because and that's the whole like pickup artist thing, right,
Speaker 1: It's like you objectify women, you use them, and then
Speaker 1: you discard them. And that's what he does to like
Speaker 1: eight different women or something like that. Um. So she
Speaker 1: has every right to be upset and mad because he
Speaker 1: treats her like an object. But I think it's more
Speaker 1: that the way that she is characterized with her like
Speaker 1: irrationality and can't let it go. Write is what informs
Speaker 1: her behavior, not the fact that she like has a
Speaker 1: legitimate reason to be mad. The eighth grade graduation. I
Speaker 1: don't know, it's just my half of my organs started
Speaker 1: shutting down at that point. It's like he'sa, well we'll
Speaker 1: get there, but yeah, like Kate is really underthought the
Speaker 1: It's very bizarre to be how they kept bringing up
Speaker 1: that she was five years sober as a negative, Like
Speaker 1: it was just like, what do you think you're saying here?
Speaker 1: It is just very bizarre. And then we have where
Speaker 1: do we I'm saving the children for last because it's
Speaker 1: just like I don't even want to go there. I guess.
Speaker 1: Jacob and Hannah, well, I wanted to just, um give
Speaker 1: some context for pickup artistry really quick, um because this
Speaker 1: there's just so much here and I feel like this movie,
Speaker 1: I mean, they couldn't have known in I mean, you
Speaker 1: everyone who pick up artistry was bad, but they couldn't
Speaker 1: have known where it led and kind of I don't know,
Speaker 1: I've spent a lot of time thinking about this because um,
Speaker 1: I hate myself, I guess, but there is like pickup
Speaker 1: artistry is such a demonstrable gateway to darker, worse behavior,
Speaker 1: which became clear soon after this movie came out. So
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that this movie is like ignoring things
Speaker 1: that had already happened outside of like how fucking ludicrous
Speaker 1: it is to be like, let's make a movie about
Speaker 1: pickup artistry that's kind of like pro But there there's
Speaker 1: like there's an article that kind of like lays out
Speaker 1: this pipeline where essentially, like pickup artistry can lead to
Speaker 1: you becoming a far right extremist right because it's built
Speaker 1: on the same Um, I don't know. I mean it
Speaker 1: is like mental logic too to an extent. Uh where
Speaker 1: I'm going to just pull from it. It's by Miles
Speaker 1: Clee of mal magazine Love Miles is where, but he's
Speaker 1: kind of tracing how to pick up artists on like
Speaker 1: YouTube ended up at the Capital Insurrection and like it
Speaker 1: is it is a wild there's all sorts of bizarro online,
Speaker 1: you know, pipelines built on entitlement, like whether it's entitlement
Speaker 1: to women, to money, to power, to whatever like it. Um,
Speaker 1: there's all of these pipelines, and so he kind of traces, oh,
Speaker 1: these guys were pick up artists on YouTube in the
Speaker 1: early and now they're full Q and On like old
Speaker 1: right superstars who were like arrested for being at the
Speaker 1: fucking insurrection. So I I'll send you the links because
Speaker 1: it's like it gets so dark and they're still there's
Speaker 1: a great Dan Olson video about um, how flat earthers
Speaker 1: all went to Q and On as well, and just
Speaker 1: this movie is not like doesn't know that that stuff
Speaker 1: is going to happen ibviously, but I just think it's
Speaker 1: so bizarre and sinister that it's like presented as like,
Speaker 1: oh ha ha, look at this clearly misogynoust thing that's
Speaker 1: like built on all of the built on entitlement, which
Speaker 1: every man in this movie and boy is extremely entitled,
Speaker 1: where you're just like this, it's just so fucking dark,
Speaker 1: and um, I think it's like also weirdly avoidant that
Speaker 1: they don't say what it is and like what they're
Speaker 1: doing for half of the movie, because they're literally doing
Speaker 1: play by play the game, but they're acting like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's just this thing. I don't know, it's just the
Speaker 1: thing that I'm doing and it works, and but it's
Speaker 1: like pick up artistry demonstrably does not work. People don't
Speaker 1: like it. Most women don't like being spoken to that
Speaker 1: way and then like yourselves. But like what Miles kind
Speaker 1: of lays out in this piece is like it it's
Speaker 1: sort of built to like push you into darker ideology
Speaker 1: because you're given this horrible system. Uh, you go out
Speaker 1: to a bar, you aggressively next next someone. They don't
Speaker 1: like it, and then they're like, well, something's wrong with
Speaker 1: you because I was told that this fucking system works,
Speaker 1: and so like this is your problem, and then it
Speaker 1: just developed like it just I mean you can literally
Speaker 1: trace it to like Elliott Roger stuff like and then
Speaker 1: when you're rejected by this shitty system that's based on
Speaker 1: dehumanizing people and they don't like that, then it just
Speaker 1: turns into anger, which leads to all of these other
Speaker 1: horrible places. So I just I hate this movie. I
Speaker 1: hate this movie. Okay, we can move to other characters. Sorry, no,
Speaker 1: but thank you. That is helpful context. And I mean
Speaker 1: the takeaway from the for me is this movie is
Speaker 1: like it's glorifying. It's making pick up artistry seem cool.
Speaker 1: And even though the characters at the end like they
Speaker 1: stray away from that lifestyle because they have relationships, they've
Speaker 1: aggressively pursued their one true love through a series of
Speaker 1: right they picked up their soul mate and now they
Speaker 1: don't need to pick up any more people. It's still
Speaker 1: there's a large chunk of the movie that makes you,
Speaker 1: as an audience member think like, oh wow, what a
Speaker 1: what a huge improvement Steve Carrell's character like underwent with
Speaker 1: his makeover and in his more Now he has more confidence,
Speaker 1: and now he's more experienced sexually, and like it's yeah,
Speaker 1: you as the audience, are meant to I think that
Speaker 1: that was all pretty okay, and that that was like
Speaker 1: what led him to being able to win his wife,
Speaker 1: but his wife back, like he just needed to learn
Speaker 1: how to put in some effort and try and like
Speaker 1: wear better shoes and she and she rude the day
Speaker 1: he rediscovered his quote unquote rediscovered his manhood, and she
Speaker 1: indeed rude the day that she left him, because the
Speaker 1: movie ends with her being like, oh my gosh, he's
Speaker 1: he's trying again. He's he's new and improved, and I
Speaker 1: should be with him, so aggressively strongholded eighth grade graduation.
Speaker 1: God damn seene. So yeah, I just the pickup artistry
Speaker 1: stuff is really dark. I feel like they're like I
Speaker 1: get that they move on from it, but it is yeah,
Speaker 1: just like, oh, well I picked picked up my one
Speaker 1: true love. Uh. And then that's like the other very
Speaker 1: sexist thing that's going on in this movie. So there's
Speaker 1: just two sexist ideologies and both of them are successful. Yes,
Speaker 1: oh yikes. Um. So yeah with with Jacob and Hannah,
Speaker 1: you know we mentioned how they meet because he aggressively
Speaker 1: hits on her, she keeps saying no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: thank you. She leaves, but then later because she is
Speaker 1: furious that her boyfriend Josh Grobin didn't propose to her,
Speaker 1: which like we've all been there. We've all been there
Speaker 1: every party that I go to, that's a celebration of
Speaker 1: question mark. I'm furious when someone doesn't propose to It
Speaker 1: is so unclear in that scene why she thinks he's
Speaker 1: going to propose, Like because not to side with Josh Grobin.
Speaker 1: But I don't understand why she thinks he's going to propose.
Speaker 1: They like don't aren't even sitting next to each other.
Speaker 1: You don't interact unless he's like directing his speech towards her.
Speaker 1: But like when he sits down in the earlier scene,
Speaker 1: he sits with his friend like he does not interact
Speaker 1: with her at all, and then like, yeah, she expects
Speaker 1: him to be proposing because of the other party they
Speaker 1: were at where she told Liz I think he's going
Speaker 1: to propose to me, and then just decides it like
Speaker 1: she's going to hold on to that until the next
Speaker 1: party that they have. I don't. I mean I did. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: when Josh Groban was like, oh, um, sorry, you thought
Speaker 1: I was going to propose to you, I was kind
Speaker 1: of like, I'm kind of with him there. I don't
Speaker 1: know why why that was something that we were supposed
Speaker 1: to think was going to happen. And then when Liz,
Speaker 1: her friend who is in like three scenes, is like, really,
Speaker 1: why him, Like why why do you want him to
Speaker 1: propose that? Hannah's response is like, well, he's nice, and
Speaker 1: it's like that's that might be true, I guess, but
Speaker 1: like that's not enough of a reason to want to
Speaker 1: marry him. Like she doesn't say like I love him,
Speaker 1: he's my soul mate, like I want to spend our
Speaker 1: lives together. She's just like, well, he's nice, don't you think.
Speaker 1: I'm like, it's so funny because you can just tell
Speaker 1: that like some some guy wrote this movie by the
Speaker 1: way that it's just like, well, two women are sitting
Speaker 1: next to each other, okay, okay, okay, so one is
Speaker 1: probably about to get proposed to, Like it's just so bleak.
Speaker 1: And also like I mean, Liz embodies the the Best
Speaker 1: Friend character where she's so invested in Emma Stone getting
Speaker 1: funk funk funk funck fucked. That is what she lives for.
Speaker 1: She where I assumed that she works in lawyer also
Speaker 1: but I don't actually I can't actually confirm that. Also,
Speaker 1: I like, there's so that is like another recognizable dynamic
Speaker 1: that we know. And also it's the only non white
Speaker 1: character in the entire movie, um with any sort of
Speaker 1: like with I think more than one, you know, appearing
Speaker 1: in more than one scene. But then also it's like
Speaker 1: why is Okay, I was trying to connect the dots here,
Speaker 1: Jacob is obsessed with Steve Correll having sex? Why for
Speaker 1: a questions? Like also just for he reminded I wrote down, Um,
Speaker 1: Jacob is obsessed with Steve Carrell having sex the way
Speaker 1: that Mary Kay and Ashley are obsessed with their widowed
Speaker 1: father having sex in every movie. Like it's just so,
Speaker 1: but like I don't know, like and then I I
Speaker 1: what he gives a one where or like a one
Speaker 1: line explanation where he's like, you remind me of someone,
Speaker 1: And I think the application is like his nice, rich
Speaker 1: dad who died. No, I think it's he reminds Steve Carrell,
Speaker 1: reminds him of like who Jacob used to be before
Speaker 1: he learned to be cool and pick up artist. Y.
Speaker 1: I'm guessing his daddy dad. Yeah, his dead dad. I
Speaker 1: thought he was like my I wish I could get
Speaker 1: my nice dead dad laid but you'll do because my
Speaker 1: mom was such a like. I think he really does
Speaker 1: think like my mom was a shrew and I wish
Speaker 1: I could have gotten daddy laid back when he was
Speaker 1: not dead. The logic is so I can't I can't
Speaker 1: get there, but he was. He was so like so
Speaker 1: much time and money. And also I'm like, I guess
Speaker 1: he also just sort of doesn't need a job and
Speaker 1: needs something to do, which is really sad. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: it's like take a night class, Ryan Gosli, what are
Speaker 1: you doing in this movie? Yeah? How invested he is
Speaker 1: in cal becoming just like him is very bizarre. It's confusing.
Speaker 1: It does not track who who has that relationship dynamic
Speaker 1: who what man? Who is like busy trying to manipulate women?
Speaker 1: Is it the type of thing where like, deep down,
Speaker 1: you know what you're doing is fucked up, so you
Speaker 1: want other you want to bring other people into what
Speaker 1: you're doing so that you're not alone in your fucked
Speaker 1: up behavior. Is that it? This is going to go
Speaker 1: into my bigger thought of the movie and the general
Speaker 1: world and its thoughts on love and romance and stuff.
Speaker 1: But I think that specifically Jacob's obsession with Cal, aside
Speaker 1: from like why does he want to help him, is
Speaker 1: that like, you know, you're not a person unless you
Speaker 1: are with another person and what you like, we're supposed
Speaker 1: to think that he's like doing a good guy thing
Speaker 1: by helping out someone else, trick another person into it,
Speaker 1: and like that's like the thing that we're like, okay,
Speaker 1: like he's a good guy. He's he's gonna try to
Speaker 1: get his friend, you know, relevant by having his wife
Speaker 1: bag or some of the ship like that. They're just
Speaker 1: so it's such it's such a bizarre dynamic, and it's like,
Speaker 1: I don't know that whole montage where it begins to
Speaker 1: work for Steve Carrell too, I was like what am
Speaker 1: I supposed to be feeling right now? I'm really unclear.
Speaker 1: And what if I'm supposed to be like yeah, amazing,
Speaker 1: or if I'm supposed to be like nasty, like I
Speaker 1: just I don't know. It was hard to put myself
Speaker 1: in brain. But the way, like the music, the camera work,
Speaker 1: like the movie I'm pretty sure wants you to think, wow, awesome,
Speaker 1: he finally got it. He finally clicked, you know, the
Speaker 1: student has become the teacher kind of like he's doing
Speaker 1: it and you're supposed to be like rooting for it.
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure that was another thing that with just
Speaker 1: for how like I think all the female characters in
Speaker 1: this movie are like written pretty badly, but Hannah's like
Speaker 1: I just don't think she was written at all because
Speaker 1: I was so like, why doesn't she? I understand that. Like,
Speaker 1: so when the twist is Emma Stone is Steve Carell's daughter,
Speaker 1: he immediately like, all of a sudden, it's nineteen fifty
Speaker 1: four and she needs her father's approval to date someone,
Speaker 1: which is like, okay, whatever, and Steve Carell's like, you
Speaker 1: will never get my approval and you're like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: please give your approval. So the movie can end. But like,
Speaker 1: but I also don't really understand why, Like if Emma
Speaker 1: Stone fully understands the extent to which Jacob like was
Speaker 1: trying to turn her father into a pickup artist, and
Speaker 1: if so, why doesn't I would feel weird about that.
Speaker 1: I feel like that would be at least that at
Speaker 1: least warrants a scene and a conversation of like, why
Speaker 1: doesn't this bother her? It would really bother me if
Speaker 1: I thought I had met the love of my life
Speaker 1: and he had spent every night for the past three
Speaker 1: months trying to get my father laid under nefarious pretenses,
Speaker 1: Like that's really that's like a that's a big reveal
Speaker 1: breaking up for sure. If he ever tells her the
Speaker 1: truth about that, there's like no way but that like
Speaker 1: that's a that's a that's a revelation. Yeah, I have
Speaker 1: to imagine that she's just sort of left in the
Speaker 1: dark about that. That's so fucked up. I hope they're
Speaker 1: way is in shambles after the movie, and I truly
Speaker 1: hope that. Oh my god, I like, yeah, that whole
Speaker 1: I was just like why, like because she she was
Speaker 1: like daddy also, daddy, daddy, daddy, it's okay, and and
Speaker 1: I'm like, why is it okay with you? Or I
Speaker 1: just wasn't clear, and like if she knew and didn't
Speaker 1: care for some reason, or if just no one had
Speaker 1: told her and she was living in the dark in
Speaker 1: terms of Ryan Gosling's weird past, because I know that
Speaker 1: she she knows that he tries to get women really
Speaker 1: drunk and treats them like their machines, but she I
Speaker 1: don't think she knows his history with Daddy. But I
Speaker 1: have no idea either one would be grounds if if
Speaker 1: I just found out, oh, you used to be a
Speaker 1: unrepentant pickup artist and you did this what seems to
Speaker 1: be every night of your life, I would just need
Speaker 1: some real I would need some real progress reports. I
Speaker 1: would feel like, Okay, how long have you not been
Speaker 1: a pickup artist? Forty five minutes? Okay? Like yeah, But
Speaker 1: it goes back to the reason that he stops is because, like,
Speaker 1: he found a girl who's not like the other girls.
Speaker 1: He found someone who he can goof with. And the
Speaker 1: chemistry between Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling, it's electric. It's
Speaker 1: it's not the press. I just I hate that aspect
Speaker 1: of it and then yeah, when the big reveal happens
Speaker 1: and Cal finds out that his daughter's daughter is dating
Speaker 1: this guy who he knows to be this like sleazy womanizer,
Speaker 1: he like gets mad at Hannah. He gets mad at Jacob,
Speaker 1: but he's also like he refuses to like he doesn't
Speaker 1: respect her autonomy or her decisions. He won't talk to
Speaker 1: her unless she breaks up with him, like he's placing
Speaker 1: a lot of blame on her. And then what he's
Speaker 1: also not doing is noticing the like staggering hypocrisy of
Speaker 1: his situation where he hates Jacob for being a pickup
Speaker 1: art like a womanizer, but that's what he was just
Speaker 1: doing with like eight different women nine Like a, wait,
Speaker 1: it's nine, but I thought it was nine women eight
Speaker 1: plus Julian Moore. I think it's nine. Oh is it
Speaker 1: nine total or nine plus Julianne Moore. I hesitate to
Speaker 1: believe that Dan Fogelman and John Requa really did that
Speaker 1: accurate math, So I'm not sure. I mean, ultimately, it
Speaker 1: was like Jacob ends up getting this like little redemption
Speaker 1: arc which is totally unearned and doesn't really make any sense,
Speaker 1: and Cal is a hypocrite and he's he's he's like
Speaker 1: berating his daughter for having autonomy over her own life. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: also she's wrong and she isn't a real person. She's like,
Speaker 1: so that's excusing. But then even so, like he if
Speaker 1: we just look at it, like he is not respecting
Speaker 1: his daughter's choice. It's like the whole like eight simple
Speaker 1: Rules of Daring Martoonage daughter thing, where like he thinks
Speaker 1: that he just can control his daughter's life. But if
Speaker 1: he really wanted to do something, he would just have
Speaker 1: to be totally honest with her. Maybe this is in
Speaker 1: the fifty hour cut of the movie, but like he
Speaker 1: would have to be honest with her and be like,
Speaker 1: because he's being really vague, he's like, he's not a
Speaker 1: good guy. He's not a good guy, which could just
Speaker 1: be an overprotective father like trope thing. But he also
Speaker 1: like if he I don't know, I would like understand
Speaker 1: the storyline a little better if he went to her
Speaker 1: and was like, look, he's not a good guy. I
Speaker 1: have I have receipts. I could be specific. Here's how
Speaker 1: I know. He taught me how to be a really
Speaker 1: like an even worse guy, and I regret it and
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, and like this is why I have all
Speaker 1: this information, and that like that would have been at
Speaker 1: least something that you're like, oh, this character has grown,
Speaker 1: But he doesn't do that. He's just like he's bad.
Speaker 1: I can't get more specific because it will make me
Speaker 1: look bad. You're like really okay, and then again and
Speaker 1: he's like, I have nothing more to say to you
Speaker 1: if you're going to keep dating him. Meanwhile, his son
Speaker 1: is harassing the babysitter relentlessly and he's not doing anything
Speaker 1: about that. But he's like, but my daughter, she's dating someone,
Speaker 1: and I'm furious about it. Okay, let's just get to
Speaker 1: the sun. I Robbie is I think the most problematic
Speaker 1: character in the movie. He's right up there. What the
Speaker 1: fuck is going on here? This is like again just
Speaker 1: like embodies so many shitty tropes all at once. Like
Speaker 1: he's just a because he's precocious child trope, like wise
Speaker 1: beyond his years, giving Shakespearean soliloquies that you're just like
Speaker 1: get his thirteen he would be like like where are
Speaker 1: my Naruto cards? Like like the so he but he's
Speaker 1: also like hyper sexualized, which is which is a choice,
Speaker 1: but also like he's both really immature and really mature
Speaker 1: at the same time, like it it seemed to see
Speaker 1: he varies. You don't know which Robbie you're going to get,
Speaker 1: but I hate them all. Also, I think we are
Speaker 1: introduced to him while he's jacking off. I think that's
Speaker 1: the first here, our first reaction with Robbie. I think
Speaker 1: that I don't know. Yeah, so we're introduced to him
Speaker 1: when he is mass reading. The scene immediately after is
Speaker 1: the first of many times that he's aggressively harassing his babysitter. Um.
Speaker 1: I feel like his entire character is summed up in
Speaker 1: the line I'm not gonna stop sending Jessica text messages
Speaker 1: that make her feel uncomfortable, just literally a line of dialogue,
Speaker 1: he says, and and to Kevin Bacon, to Kevin Bacon,
Speaker 1: poor Kevin Bacon, have even listen to Jonah Bobos about
Speaker 1: this toxic rhetoric. Um, But that's like his entire character,
Speaker 1: Like he is constantly and I hate this so much.
Speaker 1: Probably it's a personal thing because it makes me extremely uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: But like the whole idea of like if you are
Speaker 1: rejected explicitly, not even like, oh, I don't think she
Speaker 1: likes me, She sends him a text saying stop this,
Speaker 1: you are making me uncomfortable, and then he doubles and
Speaker 1: triples down and the whole like grand, I hate the
Speaker 1: whole Grand Jessicing. I think it's like the cringe eest was.
Speaker 1: I know some people like grand gestures. They make me
Speaker 1: so uncomfortable, hat and so many So Yeah, like so
Speaker 1: much of this movie is and I feel like there's
Speaker 1: an element of that um with when Emmastone meets Ryan
Speaker 1: Gosling of like no means yes, of like she's like, no,
Speaker 1: I don't like you know, I'm not. And it's kind
Speaker 1: of similar with this Robbie Jessica storyline where she's like,
Speaker 1: I don't want you to do this does make me uncomfortable,
Speaker 1: and then he will like he does this weird thing
Speaker 1: with the scarlet letter, he does this, he just keeps
Speaker 1: doing ship, He's showing up at her house, He's doing
Speaker 1: all this stuff. And then eventually she's like, I love it,
Speaker 1: I love it, and actually I love you. He's rewarded
Speaker 1: when she gives him her nude photos, which we will
Speaker 1: get to why she has those in a in a second.
Speaker 1: But yeah, like it's this like war of attrition that
Speaker 1: all the men in this movie are doing where they
Speaker 1: are wearing these women down until they relent for question
Speaker 1: mark reasons because these these women are written so poorly.
Speaker 1: I mean, yes, they are written poorly, but I feel
Speaker 1: like in general, we are taught to believe that you
Speaker 1: have to pursue a person until they fold. Like that's
Speaker 1: the whole entire thing about love and how like the
Speaker 1: whole like marriage and soulmates ship is just like if
Speaker 1: you find somebody really really like, you better dig your
Speaker 1: heels in because someday they all say yes. And like
Speaker 1: that's like the grossest part of some of this stuff
Speaker 1: in the movie is that it is like it's accurate
Speaker 1: to how people behave Yeah right, I mean it just
Speaker 1: it reinforced. It like takes behavior that like people have
Speaker 1: been conditioned with thinking is like the right way to
Speaker 1: do it, and then it just like reinforces it rather
Speaker 1: than like examining, Hey, maybe that's not the way to
Speaker 1: do it. Maybe this is like getting like a little dark.
Speaker 1: But even how like, I mean, the way that the
Speaker 1: Robbie Jessica thing resolves is just like uh like, but
Speaker 1: I I do like there were times when it seems
Speaker 1: like she was really in a way that I'm like,
Speaker 1: I don't even know if this was written intentionally or
Speaker 1: if the like the actors playing Jessica was like doing
Speaker 1: a subtle thing, but it seems like, you know, we're
Speaker 1: also often taught like it's easier to like let someone
Speaker 1: down easy. It's easier to be very gentle and coddleman's
Speaker 1: feelings literally for safety purposes, Like if you don't, like,
Speaker 1: you know, engage with someone who's making you very uncomfortable
Speaker 1: in a way that is very like accommodating to them,
Speaker 1: you could get harmed. And that was like there were
Speaker 1: moments that I'm like, oh, I don't think that they
Speaker 1: were trying to say that, But if I were Jessica
Speaker 1: and the same boy was escalating behavior that I didn't
Speaker 1: like treating me, you know, like in more and more
Speaker 1: bizarre ways, I feel like there is like a place
Speaker 1: in my head, especially when I was younger, that I
Speaker 1: would be like, oh, i'd better like kind of coddle
Speaker 1: and protect this person's feelings because they're behaving really scary
Speaker 1: and like, you don't know what someone will do if
Speaker 1: you just keep like so I appreciate that we did
Speaker 1: see her reject him outright several times and say stop, stop, stop,
Speaker 1: But then it's like, I don't know. I I think
Speaker 1: that like in a real life situation, like we are
Speaker 1: kind of taught for our own safety to to not
Speaker 1: be like quite so direct constantly, which is so depressing
Speaker 1: because it's like, well, you never know when someone's gonna
Speaker 1: murder you, like right, and like and Sammy, like you're saying,
Speaker 1: the behavior that's on display here in this movie is
Speaker 1: reflective of this era that the movie comes out inn
Speaker 1: Like it's wild to think that ten years ago, which
Speaker 1: doesn't feel like that long ago, but like that was
Speaker 1: still very much the attitude that people had that you,
Speaker 1: if you really like someone, you aggressively pursue them until
Speaker 1: they have no choice but to relent. And that is
Speaker 1: actually awesome and romantic and not creepy and harassy and stockery.
Speaker 1: That yeah, that was that we were all still very
Speaker 1: much subscribing to that magazine. I mean, unfortunately, I feel
Speaker 1: like it's still what people are striving for, is that
Speaker 1: like the whole thing of like relationships, in the beginning
Speaker 1: of relationship, like there needs to be a little bit
Speaker 1: of drama. There needs to be somebody like pretending or
Speaker 1: playing a game, and like I feel like that's just
Speaker 1: such ship and even like the whole like soulmate thing
Speaker 1: is like ridiculous, is like that doesn't even make sense
Speaker 1: because if you look at most of the people who
Speaker 1: are married, they're married to people who they work with,
Speaker 1: and you're definitely probably not going to find your soul
Speaker 1: mate at your job. Sorry, God Willing. It's so yeah,
Speaker 1: like and and that whole I mean, the whole idea
Speaker 1: of how soulmates are presented is so manipulative because it's
Speaker 1: like the whole Okay, the eighth grade graduation when Jonah
Speaker 1: Bobo is making a speech, he's like love sucks love
Speaker 1: like love's and then and then Steve Carrell stands up
Speaker 1: like wait, and you're like, oh my god. If you're
Speaker 1: just like a parent at this, You're like, what is
Speaker 1: going on? Who is this man? I need to go home.
Speaker 1: I have to pee, Like why is Steve Carrell standing
Speaker 1: up here? But Steve Carrell goes down and gives the
Speaker 1: most toxic speech of all time where he's like, my
Speaker 1: son doesn't mean what he says. I think my son
Speaker 1: is not very smart anyways, uh like, and then he
Speaker 1: goes into like my son believes in soulmates and just
Speaker 1: the whole where is the line that absolutely maybe want
Speaker 1: to die. That's a lot of them, But there there
Speaker 1: was a line where he basically says that like, oh,
Speaker 1: my son believes in grand romantic gestures, which is code
Speaker 1: for harassing women until they give into what you want,
Speaker 1: and invokes this idea of soulmates as something that like,
Speaker 1: you know, it's like, oh, just keep bothering your soulmate
Speaker 1: until they talk to you. It's like, no, if your
Speaker 1: soulmate was your soulmate, they would want to talk to you.
Speaker 1: That is the basic dissidence of like, they're not your
Speaker 1: soul mate if they don't want to be around you
Speaker 1: or speak to you. Like, that's not how that works.
Speaker 1: Like it's just such a basic thing that he's presenting
Speaker 1: as like keep going, keep going, and and she'll change
Speaker 1: your mind eventually. But apparently screenwriter Dan Fogelman nor directors
Speaker 1: Glenn or John Requa know this. Oh my god. Their
Speaker 1: their resume is funny too. Well, yeah, bad Santas in
Speaker 1: their Bad Santas in Their Cats and Dogs, a movie
Speaker 1: that may be so scared I cried when I was
Speaker 1: a kid. Um and the upcoming Jungle Cruise movie. Oh,
Speaker 1: starring the Rock, starring the Rock. They wrote a trailer
Speaker 1: they also okay to their credit they're only like credits
Speaker 1: that are like, oh are the first ones they did? Um,
Speaker 1: they did right on the Wild thorn Berries and the
Speaker 1: Angry Beavers. Good for them. Uh. They also are uncredited
Speaker 1: on Looney Tunes Back in Action starring Brendan Fraser. So
Speaker 1: you know, they clearly deserved to make a fifty million
Speaker 1: dollar five hour rom com. It makes total sense to me.
Speaker 1: M hm um also is produced by Denise dano Vi. Yeah,
Speaker 1: who is who we've spoken about on the show before.
Speaker 1: She's kind of an iconic producer who has really championed
Speaker 1: a lot of amazing movies, very often champions movies that
Speaker 1: are um driven and run by women. Um we I
Speaker 1: think we talked about her most Indie Little Women episode
Speaker 1: because she um, she got both the nineties and the
Speaker 1: two thousand tens one made. Um, She's just behind a
Speaker 1: lot of cool movies and um, but this isn't one
Speaker 1: of them. No, No it's not. I should we talk
Speaker 1: about Jessica the Babysitter being in love with cow yes,
Speaker 1: and then I need to shove my head into the
Speaker 1: garbage disposal, so we'd better get to it. Okay, So
Speaker 1: it's established that she is in love with Steve Carrell,
Speaker 1: and I guess we just have to suspend our disbelief
Speaker 1: for that. That. Yeah, it's like this is this is
Speaker 1: a setup we've seen before. I don't think it's the
Speaker 1: like if it's handled well, this isn't always the worst setup.
Speaker 1: It's like, you know a teenager who has a crush
Speaker 1: on someone older. It's like, Okay, it's happy, how it goes,
Speaker 1: let's see what they do. But then this happens so
Speaker 1: um basically her, a classmate of hers, who is presumably
Speaker 1: another seventeen year old, is said to be having sex
Speaker 1: with a lot of older men all the time. This
Speaker 1: is one of the least realistically written teen characters. I'm
Speaker 1: like Dan Fog imagine Dan Folg woman sitting in his
Speaker 1: car's mansion trying to imagine how seventeen year old girls
Speaker 1: talk to each other, and then writing that scene awful, ridiculous.
Speaker 1: He also wrote Tangled, which like, now I have to
Speaker 1: go back and rewatch Tangled to be like, no, don't
Speaker 1: take Tangled from me. Got to cover that someday soon. Anyway,
Speaker 1: fred claws cars to oh car cars, you know, I
Speaker 1: will say, haunt cars too, better than cars one anyway,
Speaker 1: So this classmate of Jessica's says, well, if you want
Speaker 1: an older man to be interested in you, you have
Speaker 1: to send him a message, send him pictures that let
Speaker 1: him know. So Jessica proceeds to take nude photos of herself,
Speaker 1: which this actor was not underage when this movie was shot.
Speaker 1: I checked because she and Amazon are the same age.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's implied child pornography and we're supposed to
Speaker 1: be like ha ha, she okay, So that's what they do.
Speaker 1: So she prints them out because it's and we all
Speaker 1: had photo printers, I guess, and with the intent of
Speaker 1: giving them to cal But before she can, Jessica's mother
Speaker 1: finds these photos and then shows them to her dad,
Speaker 1: which is like, in what fucking world, what of her daughter?
Speaker 1: You would go and talk to your daughter for right?
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess, I guess, I mean it is
Speaker 1: like she it's not inconceivable to be that a bad
Speaker 1: parent would do that, And every parent in this movie
Speaker 1: is a bad parent, except for Julianne Moore sometimes. But
Speaker 1: it's so and it's played so jokey. I also like
Speaker 1: John Carol Lynch a lot, and I don't like when
Speaker 1: he's misused in movies. He's a character actor icon. Come on,
Speaker 1: you're gonna treat Mr Fargo like that? I mean, I
Speaker 1: think it's house I think it completely stands to reason
Speaker 1: that Jessica's mom would tell her dad about but to
Speaker 1: show them show him the photos. Yeah, I feel like
Speaker 1: as a mother, you destroy the photos or I don't know,
Speaker 1: I don't know what you do. I don't want to
Speaker 1: think of I don't want to be in this situation.
Speaker 1: Why why is this happening at the end of the movie. Yeah? What?
Speaker 1: I yeah? What I what? What happened? I don't know
Speaker 1: exactly the best way to handle it. I know the
Speaker 1: worst way to handle it, which is to show nude
Speaker 1: photos of a teenage girl. She's sitting right there too.
Speaker 1: Like it's just horrifying, yucky, yucky. Yeah that I mean,
Speaker 1: Like I want to be clear, Like I don't blame
Speaker 1: the girls, neither Jessica nor this classmate of hers, Like
Speaker 1: I blame the adult filmmakers who put these scenes into
Speaker 1: this movie. Yeah, these people are not real And like
Speaker 1: this writer cannot write a female character like to save
Speaker 1: his life. He also made This is Us apparently anyways. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like the way that the teenage girls are written
Speaker 1: is like pretty unrealistic, and the way that this like
Speaker 1: you know, like really serious thing is treated is as
Speaker 1: a quick joke to get us to the scene where
Speaker 1: all the men fite each other. Yeah, it's just like
Speaker 1: I just like if you're if you as a writer
Speaker 1: or not like equipped to like deal with a storyline
Speaker 1: like that responsibly, just like find another way to get
Speaker 1: John Carroll Lynch to punch Steve Carrell in the face.
Speaker 1: Like there's so many other ways to get there, and
Speaker 1: like if you need to get there, but like putting
Speaker 1: that level of like those are like gigantic steaks to
Speaker 1: put if you don't know how to write a storyline
Speaker 1: like that, and you don't know how to write a
Speaker 1: teenage girl character, Like I I just don't even understand
Speaker 1: why the writer would put that in there, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, Like it's just an it's an easy,
Speaker 1: bad plot point to get to without that level of seriousness.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I feel like the whole entire, like
Speaker 1: Jessica being in love with cal does not even need
Speaker 1: to be in the movie whatsoever. No, it doesn't make
Speaker 1: sense to me. She could have just been a normal babysitter.
Speaker 1: These perverts wanted that in there. So weird and it's
Speaker 1: like also, I yeah, I guess I don't understand the
Speaker 1: plot relevance it has either, because it's like are we
Speaker 1: supposed to think? Like, oh, no, Steve Carrell is a
Speaker 1: really viable guy, like what what? What are we being? Uh?
Speaker 1: And which? So it doesn't go anywhere. I mean, I'm glad, obviously,
Speaker 1: I'm glad it doesn't go anywhere, but it's just like,
Speaker 1: why is it there? I guess like the theme of
Speaker 1: the movie is everyone's in love with somebody who who
Speaker 1: is near them. I'm just so glad Steve Carrell, Like Steve,
Speaker 1: that's a shirt, that's a T shirt. I'm just glad
Speaker 1: Steve Carrell like finally stopped doing these midlife Crisis five
Speaker 1: movies because Okay, I'm gonna just like list some because
Speaker 1: there were so many. Um there was Dan in real life.
Speaker 1: That was one of them. I think that was be
Speaker 1: the first one where his head's on the pancakes and
Speaker 1: it was and it's boring. Um there was um this movie.
Speaker 1: There was the next year seeking a friend for the
Speaker 1: end of the world. Uh, there was the Way Way Back,
Speaker 1: which I fun facted one day of paying on because
Speaker 1: he shot at in Massachusetts. Um. And then and then
Speaker 1: I think that this, um, this ends in when he
Speaker 1: successfully plays a dramatic role in Fox Catcher. But that's
Speaker 1: like five movies where he's playing the same midlife crisis guy. Um.
Speaker 1: And oh, I guess you could maybe argue it started
Speaker 1: with Little Miss Sunshine, which it like starts on a
Speaker 1: high note because it's like an indie Darling where he
Speaker 1: has a serious you know, like it's like I'm in
Speaker 1: middle aged man in crisis. But then he keeps playing
Speaker 1: that role, and then eventually he gets the Fox Catcher
Speaker 1: and now and he's like, Okay, I got my nominations
Speaker 1: for things, and now I can go back to being
Speaker 1: a great comedian. Why was he doing these movies? It's
Speaker 1: just confusing his range, probably on the I guess, but
Speaker 1: it's like, is he good in this movie? Not like
Speaker 1: he could be Steve Carrell could be anyone in this movie.
Speaker 1: Any man could be this man. But I read the
Speaker 1: screenwriter wrote this script with Steve Carrell in mind, so
Speaker 1: he was like writing it for him specifically, I wonder
Speaker 1: if he did the same thing with Lightning McQueen. I wonder,
Speaker 1: I wonder if he was like, so yeah, I really
Speaker 1: couldn't imagine anyone but Owen Wilson as Lightning, and it
Speaker 1: really informed my process. Like I honestly, I guess Larry
Speaker 1: the cable guide that what's his name made her Maybe
Speaker 1: that was written for him. That might have been the
Speaker 1: Fogelman technique choose the actor first. Anyways, what's funny to
Speaker 1: me is that, like, Steve Carrell is actually incredibly handsome,
Speaker 1: and they could have made him as handsome or more
Speaker 1: handsome than and Ryan Gosling, but they chose to give
Speaker 1: him this like very weird, like seven layer middle aged
Speaker 1: man outfit rather than like leveling him up to be
Speaker 1: like as hot as he is in real life, which
Speaker 1: is interesting. Yeah, because like Steve Curl isn't attract I mean,
Speaker 1: he's an attractive man. And I also feel like it's
Speaker 1: like the way that the coding that movies used to
Speaker 1: tell you who's attractive and who isn't is always just
Speaker 1: so dissonant and just bizarre. And a couple last things
Speaker 1: I wanted to bring up this is obviously a very
Speaker 1: hetero movie. Everyone is in love with you know, men
Speaker 1: are in love with women, women are in love with men.
Speaker 1: There's everyone's white and has plenty of money, like, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, all that kind of stuff. Um. In addition
Speaker 1: to that, there are a few homophobic jokes that get made,
Speaker 1: where the first time Cal sees Jacob across the bar,
Speaker 1: he just looks at him and says gay because he's
Speaker 1: homophobic and awful. There's an AIDS Jokes joke a few
Speaker 1: scenes later, um at the same again, the same bar,
Speaker 1: when Cal and Jacob actually talked for the first time,
Speaker 1: Jacob comments on how Cal drinking a drink through a
Speaker 1: straw makes him look like he's sucking on a tiny penis.
Speaker 1: But he's also used I guess is his character supposed
Speaker 1: to be? Is Jacob supposed to be Jewish? Because he
Speaker 1: keeps saying either like Hebrew or Yiddish words throughout the movie.
Speaker 1: Maybe that's in the director's cut, that that when you've
Speaker 1: got a whole explanation about Jacob's upbringing outside of mean mommy,
Speaker 1: nice daddy. Right. Um. And then there's a I guess
Speaker 1: what's meant to be a visual joke when Cal passes
Speaker 1: out in a sauna into Jacob's good crotch. And that's comedy,
Speaker 1: baby man. I h I just I like want better
Speaker 1: for basically every actor in this except for Jonah Bubo unfortunately,
Speaker 1: who has since retired. He's he's done so he's writing
Speaker 1: folk music anywhere. Statement hats I checked. Okay, wow, thanks
Speaker 1: for doing that important research. That's the real that, That's
Speaker 1: what I'm here for. And then the other thing we're
Speaker 1: bringing up is the title of this movie crazy Comma,
Speaker 1: stupid comma, love period. And this this is a conversation
Speaker 1: that's happening, not a lot, but more and more. And
Speaker 1: you know, we on the podcast, we're trying to help
Speaker 1: spread the word regarding the use of certain words and
Speaker 1: certain language choices too, of which are in the title
Speaker 1: of this movie. Right, yes, and they might seem pretty harmless,
Speaker 1: but in reality they are ablest because this type of
Speaker 1: language disparages physical and intellectual disabilities and further's this stigma
Speaker 1: of mental illness. And this includes words like crazy, stupid, dumb, lame, insane,
Speaker 1: et cetera, because, like you know, these words have often
Speaker 1: been used to other and to demonize people with disabilities
Speaker 1: and mental illness, and these words are also often used
Speaker 1: in just like everyday colloquial language in the context of
Speaker 1: like disparaging. This thing is bad, this thing is wrong.
Speaker 1: So our brains make these connections and it just perpetuates
Speaker 1: these ablest ideas. So we are actively working on eliminating
Speaker 1: this type of language from our vocabulary. We encourage others
Speaker 1: to do the same. To read up about it, Will
Speaker 1: will include some links in the show notes. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's it's. If this is the first time you're hearing
Speaker 1: about something like this, just begin to educate yourself. That
Speaker 1: is the step you can take today. And it's it's
Speaker 1: just a thing you should do. We we used to
Speaker 1: use words like that on the show, not realizing the
Speaker 1: potential harm that they have to cause. UM. And then
Speaker 1: we learned better, and then we did better, and there
Speaker 1: you go, and we'll yeah, we'll, we'll have there's a
Speaker 1: number of great resources about this kind of ongoing discussion,
Speaker 1: as well as alternative words you can use, um to
Speaker 1: kind of rewire your brain a little bit. Uh. In conclusion,
Speaker 1: the title of this movie stinks, So I think we
Speaker 1: can all agree that they should have stuck with their
Speaker 1: original title, which was untitled marital crisis comedy, yes, untitled
Speaker 1: commas comedy yes, period yeah so yeah. On top of that, uh,
Speaker 1: to tie little bow in it the title and I
Speaker 1: don't want to talk about this movie anymore. Does it
Speaker 1: pass the Bechtel test? I don't think it does because
Speaker 1: there are a couple of conversation a few conversations where
Speaker 1: women interact. For example, Hannah and her friend Liz talk
Speaker 1: about Conan O'Brien, they talk about Jacob, they talk about
Speaker 1: Josh Grobin. None of those scenes passed. Jessica and her classmate,
Speaker 1: who is named Madison, I think, talk about how to
Speaker 1: get older men to sleep with them horrifying. Um. Jessica
Speaker 1: and Emily talk about cal and also Jessica's really really
Speaker 1: mean to Emilyson. Then she says I won't take your
Speaker 1: slutty money and run the way, which, um, I don't
Speaker 1: like the scene it's in, but I'm like, that's maybe
Speaker 1: I'll use that line every the next time we're splitting
Speaker 1: up Patreon money, of like, I don't want your um
Speaker 1: and this doesn't This doesn't, of course pass, but um.
Speaker 1: Emily says to David Lyndhagen, I'm saving you from disaster
Speaker 1: because you're about to preboard the Titanic. Love that. Also,
Speaker 1: we didn't get into David Lynd Hoggan because literally who
Speaker 1: cares um, But but he also was sort of like
Speaker 1: that in that one scene. She's like, look, this isn't
Speaker 1: gonna work out, and he's like, it's going to work out.
Speaker 1: But I like you, so I need to keep talking
Speaker 1: to you even if you don't want me to. I
Speaker 1: decided your vice soul mate, so I'm that gives me
Speaker 1: a license to her wrath you until one of us die.
Speaker 1: Like God. The thesis statement of the movie, Uh so,
Speaker 1: let's rate it on our nipple scale zero to five
Speaker 1: nipples based on an examination of intersectional feminism. I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna go ahead and give this zero nipples. Yeah, none, none,
Speaker 1: And I feel like we've really if we we've really
Speaker 1: said it all none. If I had a nipple, I
Speaker 1: would give it to baby Joey King, but I don't
Speaker 1: have one. I have none thoughts, zero nipples. Um. I
Speaker 1: think that my favorite part of this movie is there
Speaker 1: is a behind the scene story that I think Ryan
Speaker 1: and Emma talk about on Graham Norton Um where they
Speaker 1: were talking about the terribly boring dirty dancing scene. Actually,
Speaker 1: my note in my notes my note on my notes
Speaker 1: says dirty dancing hyphen Clearly a boring person wrote this movie.
Speaker 1: Um but so uh the scene where Ryan lifts Emma up,
Speaker 1: apparently she was very, very very scared to do this scene.
Speaker 1: She did try it, though, and apparently claude at Ryan
Speaker 1: Gosling's head like a raccoon when she was up, so
Speaker 1: so they did have to go with a dot person
Speaker 1: for it. I love Emma Stone, she really is. Oh.
Speaker 1: I had my my last note that I haven't marked off.
Speaker 1: This was just a passing thought because I was trying
Speaker 1: so hard to make sense of this. There was a
Speaker 1: good ten minutes of watching this movie where I thought
Speaker 1: that Ryan Gosling was possibly dead, like Six Cents style,
Speaker 1: because he's just that whole montage where he's like training
Speaker 1: Steve Garrel. I'm like, what if this is like the
Speaker 1: sixth Cents and Steve girls actually alone because he's just
Speaker 1: sitting at a bar with Ryan, And I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: it makes sense because I have no idea why Ryan
Speaker 1: Goslink is so interested in Steve Garrell. I don't know
Speaker 1: why they're in all these locations. I don't know how
Speaker 1: they can afford this. Maybe he's dead, Maybe he's like
Speaker 1: this ghost. I love that theory. Let's stick with that.
Speaker 1: There's long parts of the movie where Ryan Gosling could
Speaker 1: very well be dead, and that would make more sense
Speaker 1: if he was like either a ghost or if he
Speaker 1: was like a projection of cow. Yeah, that makes more
Speaker 1: sense than like Fight Club exactly. That makes more sense
Speaker 1: than Jacob for no reason taking so much time out
Speaker 1: of his day to quote fix Steve Carrell, because that
Speaker 1: doesn't track at all. I was like, only a ghost
Speaker 1: would be having this much free time. So also Cal,
Speaker 1: I forgot to mention this, but Cal is very cruel
Speaker 1: to several people who work in the service industry. Throughout
Speaker 1: the movie, he's really yeah, awful, and then he always
Speaker 1: just goes he's I feel like this is like a
Speaker 1: Steve Carrell in prop. Then he'll just be like, sorry,
Speaker 1: that was a little that We're like, come on, come on,
Speaker 1: I love Steve Grel so much, but this era of
Speaker 1: Steve Carell is tough. So this movie does not do
Speaker 1: justice to any of the actors in it. Yeah, anyway,
Speaker 1: Sammy wait, I forgot to shout this out, but please,
Speaker 1: you guys think that they intended for Ryan Gosling to
Speaker 1: be eating that Sabarrow when they I don't think I
Speaker 1: really don't think that that was I think that that
Speaker 1: was like a Ryan Gosling improv Oh if that was
Speaker 1: just like what they had for like crafts are like
Speaker 1: lunch that day on Stay he probably they have probably
Speaker 1: made like a pi a, go get a fucking slice
Speaker 1: of pizza because Ryan had an idea that day and
Speaker 1: then they're like, Okay, we're gonna roll with it. I like,
Speaker 1: I couldn't believe that. Yeah, Ryan Gosling seems like those
Speaker 1: one of those guys that's like because he's so famous
Speaker 1: that if he thinks an idea is kind of funny,
Speaker 1: probably no one's going to be like, that's not very funny.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm by that, especially because it doesn't
Speaker 1: really track for his character. His character would be the
Speaker 1: type of person who's like eating caviare and like patta
Speaker 1: and stuff like that, and not like Sabarrow. I feel
Speaker 1: like because he's just so like he's anti poor people,
Speaker 1: things like don't you dare wear balance sneakers around him?
Speaker 1: He will throw from he killed someone with that new
Speaker 1: Balance sneaker. Um. Yeah, Ryan Gosling character. I think if
Speaker 1: you do need to watch Crazy Stupid Love, you should
Speaker 1: do so thinking that Ryan Gosling's character is dead the
Speaker 1: whole time, and it's a more rewarding experience. Thank you
Speaker 1: for putting that in my brain. Um, Sammy, thank you
Speaker 1: for joining us. Thank you for having me. What a thrill. Indeed,
Speaker 1: I just get so drunk off of Ryan Gosling and
Speaker 1: Emastone's chemistry that I don't understand what happens. Sorry, I'm
Speaker 1: so sorry. It is intoxicating. No. We we had to
Speaker 1: cover this movie eventually, and what better person to do
Speaker 1: it than you? Thank you, Thank you, thank you for
Speaker 1: coming back. Thank you. What would you like to plug?
Speaker 1: Where can people follow you on social media? Etcetera? Um? Oh,
Speaker 1: find me on Instagram? It underscore your underscore, Sam And
Speaker 1: I'm already sorry, don't be so. It's it's a You've
Speaker 1: got great content there, okay. Um you can follow us
Speaker 1: on Instagram as well as Twitter. At Bechtel Cast, you
Speaker 1: can and should subscribe to our Patreon aka Matreon at
Speaker 1: patreon dot com slash Beechtel Cast. You get to bonus
Speaker 1: episodes every month, plus access to the entire back catalog,
Speaker 1: which is upwards of a D bonuses. So if you've
Speaker 1: run out of main feed episodes, screwed on over to
Speaker 1: the to the Matreon, why don't you and you can
Speaker 1: get our our merch at dot com. Slash the Battel
Speaker 1: Cast hell yeah, and uh I say we. Since we're
Speaker 1: all the perfect combination of sexy and cute, let's just
Speaker 1: go outside and show the world that all. Let's do it.
Speaker 1: Bye bye ye