Speaker 1: Welcome to Movie Crush, a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey Everybody, and welcome to Movie Crush Friday Interview Edition.
Speaker 1: The last one, Oh everybody. It makes me so sad.
Speaker 1: This will be the last regular weekly Friday Interview a
Speaker 1: dish for Movie Crush. I do already have a guest
Speaker 1: lined up for August, and maybe I'll try and put
Speaker 1: out like one a month or something, but this is
Speaker 1: going to be the last one, and we are going
Speaker 1: to finish like we started with my friend, the great
Speaker 1: Janet Barney. She's wonderful, she's funny, she's kind, and she
Speaker 1: is supportive, and she is encouraging, and she's super talented
Speaker 1: and she's just the best. And so Janet agreed to
Speaker 1: come back to kind of book in Movie Crush and
Speaker 1: talk about Spirited Away. We uh, we get into some
Speaker 1: anime talk here. It's all new to me, but it's
Speaker 1: something that Janet knows quite a bit more than I
Speaker 1: do about um because she voiced Cora, and uh, any
Speaker 1: fans of Cora know that that's that's Janet's voice there.
Speaker 1: So we talked about that a little bit. We talked
Speaker 1: about her new podcast project where she talks anime and
Speaker 1: Cora and among other things. And we talked about Spirited Away,
Speaker 1: and it was a great talk with my old friend.
Speaker 1: And we also talk a little bit about the show ending.
Speaker 1: It's a very better, sweet episode you guys, So I
Speaker 1: hope you enjoy it. So here we go with Janet
Speaker 1: Barney on Spirited Away. How are you I? I'm doing
Speaker 1: all right. I'm doing all right. I feel like my
Speaker 1: voice has gotten less shrill when I answer that question,
Speaker 1: which is a good sign, you know, like the higher.
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's true for you or other people,
Speaker 1: you know, but I do feel like, Yeah, the more
Speaker 1: the more people like how are you doing, You're like,
Speaker 1: I mean that pretty good. I feel like that's a
Speaker 1: dead a dead give away. Unfortunately, I always I also
Speaker 1: use that voice comedically, so maybe it's a little confusing,
Speaker 1: but usually when someone sincerely asked me how I am,
Speaker 1: if i'm if I'm up in that register, I'm hiding
Speaker 1: a lot. There's a lot of deep pain that has
Speaker 1: pushed it's it's put the pain has pushed so high
Speaker 1: up in my body that my vocal cords have been condensed,
Speaker 1: just a tiny whistle of a noise. Yeah, how about you,
Speaker 1: I'm oh ship, we are in trouble. This is going
Speaker 1: to be a rough ride. Uh, you look great. I
Speaker 1: like your pink hair. Thank you, I um good. Thanks.
Speaker 1: I really like it. And I feel like people are
Speaker 1: nicer to me when I have pink hair. And I
Speaker 1: don't feel like people are not nice to me. In general,
Speaker 1: they are all people are nice. But there's something about
Speaker 1: my experience of having pink hair is that when people
Speaker 1: see you from Afar, they've already decided that you're fun, right,
Speaker 1: maybe that you have a little bit of a like
Speaker 1: it's a little punk rock. But it's like also when
Speaker 1: you see what I wear, it's like I'm wearing a
Speaker 1: child's T shirt basically. So it's not like I'm like,
Speaker 1: I don't have like a you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: I don't have like I wish I had a sleeve.
Speaker 1: I would be so cool if I had a tattoo sleeve.
Speaker 1: But so when you put all those things together, I
Speaker 1: feel like initial, just any initial meeting with people, I
Speaker 1: feel that the niceness and familiarity level is it has
Speaker 1: is vastly improved from what I just have, like blond
Speaker 1: hair or whatever. I only wish now that you had
Speaker 1: duped to me with fake tattoo sleeves cool because I
Speaker 1: would be and you were just like cool about it
Speaker 1: or whatever, because I I would swear to God, I
Speaker 1: would sit here and the first thing that I would
Speaker 1: think is have I ever seen Janet's arms? I feel
Speaker 1: like I've seen her arms before? Why that would be?
Speaker 1: I mean, there's a there's a I really understand the
Speaker 1: level of like when you start realizing that you're getting
Speaker 1: so old that you don't really want to maintain yourself
Speaker 1: in a certain way for acting jobs like that is
Speaker 1: you know, there's there really starts to be the sense
Speaker 1: of like I just you know, I just don't care.
Speaker 1: I like I don't care and they'll have to work
Speaker 1: around it or whatever. Um. And there's something very liberating
Speaker 1: about that. But it's also like, or is that just
Speaker 1: you're you're accepting that you're going to go into your
Speaker 1: retirement from that business because you know, I don't know
Speaker 1: that all of a sudden people are going to turn
Speaker 1: around be like you know what, I love your sleeve. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're gonna start giving you sleeve roles. I just turned
Speaker 1: fifty a couple of months ago, Janet, so I know
Speaker 1: that's a big one. Every birthday, I said, every birthday.
Speaker 1: Day of I don't let let the record show. I
Speaker 1: said it day of you did. I was just recording
Speaker 1: with John Hodgman, actually literally eighty seconds before you jumped on,
Speaker 1: and he said, uh, he was talking about you with
Speaker 1: someone else, about something like a role, and he said, well,
Speaker 1: why not, Janet? And then he said he realized that's
Speaker 1: a great sitcom starring you, called why not Janet? And
Speaker 1: he said it's up to you, now, me to go
Speaker 1: pitch this to you, come up with a premise, and
Speaker 1: then that's the show. It feels like I wish that
Speaker 1: One Division hadn't all due respect to one Division, which
Speaker 1: I wasn't maybe not a huge fan of, but but
Speaker 1: they worked real hard on it, and there was a
Speaker 1: lot about it that I appreciated. Um, but that had
Speaker 1: they not just recently revisited the sort of old timey sitcom,
Speaker 1: I would say, why not Janet? Definitely seems like it
Speaker 1: was you out competing And I use that term loosely
Speaker 1: because no one had ever heard of it. But it
Speaker 1: was competing against Mary Tyler Moore, you know, but no
Speaker 1: one was watching it because Mary Tyler War was a
Speaker 1: great show. I guess the premise would be someone like
Speaker 1: the character Janet, would be someone who was a jack
Speaker 1: of all trades and kind of like pretty good at everything.
Speaker 1: So anytime something comes up, they go, why not Janet?
Speaker 1: Sometimes insulted? Wait, I don't have to think about this
Speaker 1: that hard. I fully know what it's insulting. It's a
Speaker 1: TV show, it's fiction. This is all well and good.
Speaker 1: I need to go because I gotta call Hodgman and
Speaker 1: find out if I have a chance or whatever this
Speaker 1: thing is. I gotta get and if a sleeve is
Speaker 1: going to be a problem because I have a lot
Speaker 1: of work. I gotta get downe in my arm with
Speaker 1: so in your mind, the rewrite is the show is
Speaker 1: called of course it's Janet. Yeah, where it's got to
Speaker 1: be Janet? Yeah, gotta be imperially Janet. PERI that sounds
Speaker 1: like a little indie movie. Here's the thing, why not Janet? Sure,
Speaker 1: that's fine, maybe that's season one, But how do you
Speaker 1: keep refresh? Throw a comma in there? Why not Janet?
Speaker 1: And that's what the next season is about her taking
Speaker 1: chances that she wouldn't ordinarily take, living a little, living
Speaker 1: a little larger, you know what I mean, take a chance,
Speaker 1: why not Janet? And then it could just be why
Speaker 1: question mark and then not Janet exclamation. I don't even
Speaker 1: know what that means. I'm just going to move the
Speaker 1: comma again and say why not Janet? But then that
Speaker 1: doesn't really that's that's about that. That years was better.
Speaker 1: I mean it was terrible, but it was still better
Speaker 1: than why comma not Janet? Janet? That I think this
Speaker 1: is all about beating the dead horse anyway, and we've
Speaker 1: done that. What is that background you've got there? Is
Speaker 1: that real? Or is that? No? This is ah, this
Speaker 1: is just a a tapestry. I mean, yes, I realized
Speaker 1: that you're saying are You're not saying are you in
Speaker 1: the mountains? Are you in the mountains? I wondered if
Speaker 1: it was a screen. It's not a blue screen, it is.
Speaker 1: That's nice. Yeah, I got a bunch of these Society six.
Speaker 1: It's just a place where you can get various and
Speaker 1: sundry goods that are being produced. As you know, pillows, artworks,
Speaker 1: floor mats, and tapestry is among the options. Do a
Speaker 1: little landscape photography filter and I now have a curtain
Speaker 1: next to the One of these is hung next to
Speaker 1: our bed that's like a desert, you know, Sonoran dessert
Speaker 1: looks like my where I'm from, Tucson, Um, you know,
Speaker 1: storm clouds, arrows, very pleasant. It turned out to be
Speaker 1: a real like everything I've done, I think during the pandemic,
Speaker 1: and also every dream I've had during the pandemic has
Speaker 1: been like transparently like textbook embarrassingly a two B do
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? Like, oh, how to dream?
Speaker 1: The I was telling my therapist I had a dream
Speaker 1: about I think I'm having some like you know, like reintegration, anxiety, reopening,
Speaker 1: all that. And and then on a separate subject later
Speaker 1: in therapy, I was complaining about a disturbing dream I
Speaker 1: had had and as I was saying and then all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, I was in like it was almost
Speaker 1: like a fabric womb, and I was like trying to
Speaker 1: get out of the whole. She was like, oh, gee,
Speaker 1: I wonder I want very direct short line we could
Speaker 1: draw to another part of the conversation. We found I
Speaker 1: was like, God, damn it. Everything I do is like
Speaker 1: just teach it in the pre count Yeah whatever. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's so that's having having like fabric tapestries that represent
Speaker 1: places I'm not traveling during the pandemic. It's just so like, yeah, okay, sure,
Speaker 1: super creative, Dan a great job. Those are kind of
Speaker 1: fun though. I've had those dreams. I had one when
Speaker 1: I moved to New Jersey from college. And I moved
Speaker 1: because my roommate in college, his parents were these, you know,
Speaker 1: I had, like corporate CEO types that had this big
Speaker 1: house in New Jersey and they were getting transferred to Australia,
Speaker 1: and they said, why don't you come up here and
Speaker 1: live for a few years rent free, And so I
Speaker 1: followed him up there. But there was also, uh, I
Speaker 1: hate to say this, it was a girl I was
Speaker 1: trying to get away from in college that was It
Speaker 1: wasn't like stalker territory, but it was just it's gotten
Speaker 1: a little weird. And so I was like, perfect time
Speaker 1: to move to New Jersey. So I moved to New
Speaker 1: Jersey and literally the maybe the first night or two
Speaker 1: that I was there, I had this dream that there
Speaker 1: was a bear that like came out of the woods
Speaker 1: and in a dress and was and beat down the
Speaker 1: door of the house and was and was chasing me
Speaker 1: around the house to kill me. And I woke up
Speaker 1: and I was like, I wonder who the bear was.
Speaker 1: That's amazing and it does not help that her name
Speaker 1: was Stephanie Grizzle, right, she did it so easy. It's
Speaker 1: uh so, I want to talk a little bit about
Speaker 1: the new project that you've been working on because it
Speaker 1: kind of takes us into the movie that we'll discuss. Sure, uh,
Speaker 1: I want to hear all about it. Well, So it
Speaker 1: is a I always feel like hesitant to say it's
Speaker 1: a rewatch podcast because that's kind of not really how
Speaker 1: I pitched it to Nickelodeon, But certainly that is something
Speaker 1: that Dante Bosco and I are doing together, which is,
Speaker 1: you know, we're not It's not like a watch along
Speaker 1: where you know you have to do you have to
Speaker 1: synchronize it and listen, which I guess there are some
Speaker 1: that do that, but you know, it's it's you know,
Speaker 1: we talk about everything that's happening in each episode of
Speaker 1: Avatar the Last Airbender to start. But Nickelodeon's intention is
Speaker 1: for us to do that with you know, all three
Speaker 1: seasons of Avatar and then all four seasons of Cora
Speaker 1: and then sort of if if we can and if
Speaker 1: it's doing well enough, like to just sort of always
Speaker 1: be doing this because there are all these you know,
Speaker 1: Avatar books and comics and um at Our studios which
Speaker 1: Mike DiMartino and Brian knets Go have founded, and it's
Speaker 1: living under the umbrella of Nickelodeon where they get to
Speaker 1: sort of make a jillian projects over the next like series.
Speaker 1: I think it's like twenty years um, as they kind
Speaker 1: of grow out this universe. Um. You know I I
Speaker 1: I'm such a fan of them and would be a
Speaker 1: fan if I had nothing to do with the shows,
Speaker 1: So having any kind of credibility at all to talk
Speaker 1: about doing the show with Nickelodeon and have them get
Speaker 1: excited about it. And then we brought Dante on who
Speaker 1: plays Prince Zuko in Avatar the Last Airbender and general
Speaker 1: I wrote in the Legend of Cora um and as
Speaker 1: a friend of mine who have done many cons with
Speaker 1: and really love being with. And we're very very different. Um.
Speaker 1: It's it's a great dynamic and it's been so fun.
Speaker 1: We've recorded. Must say, we've probably recorded like sixteen episodes,
Speaker 1: but we've only we've just now launched last week and
Speaker 1: have released three. So um, it's that space of like,
Speaker 1: well I hope he but like what we've done, because
Speaker 1: we've already done all of those and we're not going
Speaker 1: to go back and change them. So I was so good.
Speaker 1: Let's back up a little bit, like where, uh where
Speaker 1: did you? Where were you situated when it comes to
Speaker 1: these original uh The Last Airbender and stuff like that,
Speaker 1: Like were you a big fan? Was this something you
Speaker 1: had always been into? And it's like that was at
Speaker 1: the seed of it all. Yeah. Well, so when I
Speaker 1: auditioned for the Legend of Cora, I was a fan
Speaker 1: of The Last Airbender. I was a fan of Avatar,
Speaker 1: but was a recent fan of it. I came to
Speaker 1: it as a an adult um just through so many
Speaker 1: friends of mine who were like, you have to watch
Speaker 1: our show, and then I as as I was watching it,
Speaker 1: this audition came through for the sequel series, and I
Speaker 1: was so freaked out that I tried to emotionally separate
Speaker 1: myself from it. I actually had the thought like, oh,
Speaker 1: I wish I didn't know how great this is, because
Speaker 1: I know how great this second series is probably going
Speaker 1: to be, and I stopped. I sort of put a
Speaker 1: I put the kai bosh on watching it until I
Speaker 1: was fairly confident that I had not gotten a part
Speaker 1: on the Legend of Cora because it takes so long
Speaker 1: to find out for some animation projects. UM, I'm not
Speaker 1: sure why, but for some reason, the casting process for
Speaker 1: animation just tends to be much more. It's like luxuriously long.
Speaker 1: I mean, I want to say and I'll have to ask, uh,
Speaker 1: I'll have to ask. I mean, the guys won't remember.
Speaker 1: But maybe like the Glodeon casting will, I feel like
Speaker 1: months and months passed. I mean I really felt like.
Speaker 1: I feel like it was a long period of time
Speaker 1: from when I did the very first audition to when
Speaker 1: I remember when I got a call back I said
Speaker 1: the words like, oh, that's not cast yet, and then
Speaker 1: from that to like a chemistry test again, I was like,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, I have long since thought this job
Speaker 1: was went to someone else, and then and so so that,
Speaker 1: and whereas with casting in live action, for the most part,
Speaker 1: you know, it's like we're shooting next week. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of kind of like this is and this is
Speaker 1: the last piece is finding this person and then we
Speaker 1: immediately start shooting. UH and so UM I had returned
Speaker 1: to UH to the last Airbender, and then I found
Speaker 1: out I got the job. Um, and just lost my mind. Yeah,
Speaker 1: completely lost my mind. And it was immediately terrified, as
Speaker 1: we've been trained to be in Hollywood, and uh, like,
Speaker 1: how can this go wrong? When will I be fired?
Speaker 1: This is too good to be true, all of that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. And so I absolutely love it and
Speaker 1: it has been it's just been a great opportunity when
Speaker 1: it dropped on Netflix, and both shows dropped last summer
Speaker 1: during the pandemic on Netflix, and immediately just we're at
Speaker 1: the top of Netflix UM chart. I don't even know
Speaker 1: what that means, but yeah, uh they were. They were
Speaker 1: just sort of consistently like, oh, this is you know,
Speaker 1: in in all over the world on Netflix, these two
Speaker 1: shows were yeah and and um And so I thought,
Speaker 1: because I had talked about doing something like this, because
Speaker 1: I do have a lot of experience in podcasting, um,
Speaker 1: having done the j V Club for nine years, over
Speaker 1: nine years and uh and I thank you. That's the
Speaker 1: first time a smattering of applause has really felt fantastic.
Speaker 1: Uh and uh And you know, I that was a
Speaker 1: real situation where a few years ago I thought, Wow,
Speaker 1: if I could combine those two things and get to
Speaker 1: do something kind of meta about these shows, I would
Speaker 1: love that and I had mentioned it to Mike and Brian,
Speaker 1: but they were sort of off starting the Netflix live
Speaker 1: action thing. Um, and that was sort of it was
Speaker 1: like nebulous because it was like, well, yes, they have
Speaker 1: a relationship to Nickelodeon, but now they're working on this
Speaker 1: other thing, and Nickelodeon hadn't licensed. Like it's just all
Speaker 1: that sort of where does this belong kind of conversation
Speaker 1: and but when it when it landed on Netflix, I
Speaker 1: was like, I gotta I'm gonna have to try and
Speaker 1: pursue this again. And so I did reach out this
Speaker 1: time to Nickelodeon, and um, the timing was was right
Speaker 1: for them as well, and they were like, yeah, we
Speaker 1: want to, We absolutely want to do this. We want
Speaker 1: to we're building you know, out our podcasting world and um.
Speaker 1: And so I've been working on it for a really
Speaker 1: really long time. It's been you know, like almost a year,
Speaker 1: and it's it's just been amazing. It's been amazing. It's
Speaker 1: it's just a show that both shows are you know,
Speaker 1: they just there's just nothing about it that feels like
Speaker 1: limited or you know, I mean, yeah, like there's this
Speaker 1: there's also a SpongeBob SquarePants uh. Podcast. I love everyone
Speaker 1: who did SpongeBob I as people. I love the host, um,
Speaker 1: I love Nickelodeon. They are treasure to work with, at
Speaker 1: least in my personal experience. I don't know how I
Speaker 1: would do a podcast about SpongeBob, Like, I'm not sure
Speaker 1: what I would and I'm sure tone only they're very different.
Speaker 1: But with Avatar Lost Airbender, we're talking about you know,
Speaker 1: we're laughing and talking about like the silly childlike adorable stuff.
Speaker 1: We're talking about the quality of animation, but we're also
Speaker 1: talking about you know, genocide and you know children having
Speaker 1: more responsibility than they're ready for, and you know parental
Speaker 1: frankly abuse and you know, it's just it's very very dense.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of layers to it. And so it's
Speaker 1: just not something I've ever gotten tired of watching or
Speaker 1: thinking about. And um, and that's born out in in
Speaker 1: doing the podcast. It's a blast, that's awesome. So this
Speaker 1: all makes sense to me now. I purposely didn't like
Speaker 1: look into a bunch of stuff. I know you've been
Speaker 1: posting a lot of stuff on your social meds, uh,
Speaker 1: And I was like, purposely like, I don't want to
Speaker 1: know what's going on, because I just want to talk
Speaker 1: to Janet about it in person. Uh, So I get
Speaker 1: it now, is it? Are you going episode by episode?
Speaker 1: Is it one of those? We are? But there's I mean,
Speaker 1: for example, there's at least forty episodes to the first
Speaker 1: season of our podcast, and there are only twenties episodes
Speaker 1: of the first season of The Last Airbender. So the
Speaker 1: three episodes we've released so far, we started, yes with
Speaker 1: the very first episode, which is called The Boy in
Speaker 1: the Iceberg. We started with episode one, uh, and we
Speaker 1: recap that. We also talked about kind of what we were,
Speaker 1: what our own experiences, we're working on the shows, and
Speaker 1: what to expect from the podcast. But then the very
Speaker 1: next one is a is a sort of deep dive
Speaker 1: conversation with Mike and Brian who created the show, UM
Speaker 1: talking to them about the mythology, about their relationship, how
Speaker 1: they met at risdy UM. And then that conversation went
Speaker 1: on so long that it's a two parter, so that
Speaker 1: just got released. And then the next episode that's coming
Speaker 1: out next Tuesday is episode is Us recapping Episode two,
Speaker 1: And then we have episodes where we're just hanging with
Speaker 1: cast members UM and in reviewing them and talking about
Speaker 1: stuff we're talking to, um, you know, like let's talk
Speaker 1: about the martial arts techniques, let's talk about this South
Speaker 1: Korean animation with an animator, let's talk about the music composition.
Speaker 1: Because the fan base, my experience with them has always
Speaker 1: been that they have a really really uh deep interest
Speaker 1: in appreciation for the craft of the making of the show.
Speaker 1: Um opposed to maybe you know, I'm sure there are
Speaker 1: some fandoms that are more about like, you know, this
Speaker 1: funny thing happens on the show, or I want it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's right, that's right. Uh So, so there's that, and
Speaker 1: again that feels unlimited, like we're having a problem that
Speaker 1: we have so many people that we wanted to fit
Speaker 1: into the first season that we're having. We're like, oh no,
Speaker 1: we're not gonna have enough episodes? Can we Maybe we
Speaker 1: can add some more? And then you know, um, it's
Speaker 1: it's great, it's great. It's great to nerd out on.
Speaker 1: That's awesome. What about what is it about voice work
Speaker 1: for you? Is it is it your kind of I
Speaker 1: don't want to say favorite kind of work to do?
Speaker 1: I know, you know a lot of actors talk about
Speaker 1: how great it is to just go in there and
Speaker 1: your sweatpants and not have to go through hair and
Speaker 1: make I don't think I've ever in a single recording
Speaker 1: seen anyone in sweatpants. I hate to out us all
Speaker 1: because I've also joked that, but I mean, yeah, everyone
Speaker 1: I know, everyone I know looks like they mind as
Speaker 1: well be going to a fancy dinner. But is it?
Speaker 1: Is that true? Though? As far as kind of shedding
Speaker 1: away some of the things that you need to do
Speaker 1: for camera, is that a big part of it? In
Speaker 1: a big relief, It is? It is. And you know,
Speaker 1: when I started doing it, I think I was less conscious,
Speaker 1: but still a little conscious because I was looking around
Speaker 1: at all of these heroes of mine who have been
Speaker 1: doing it forever. You know, when like being friends with
Speaker 1: someone like Lorraine Newman. You know, she does a ton
Speaker 1: of kids voices on cartoons, and I feel like she's like,
Speaker 1: you know, put her arm around my shoulder and was like,
Speaker 1: You're going to be grateful you have these voice over
Speaker 1: jobs when you're sixty, you know, Like so that I
Speaker 1: think that feels really good. That being said, I'm not,
Speaker 1: you know, a prolific voice over actor like someone like her,
Speaker 1: or like someone like you know, Tara Strong or somebody
Speaker 1: who's just it does everything all the time, is always working. Um,
Speaker 1: because you know what, I'm a jack of all trades,
Speaker 1: master of none. Why not Janet? Why not Janet? She's
Speaker 1: producing a comedy festival. She's she doesn't have time to
Speaker 1: audition right now? Why not Janet? Yeah? I just found
Speaker 1: out about Tara Strong. Whose voice did she do? That?
Speaker 1: I just she does a voice on Loki? She does
Speaker 1: like a that's what I had just looked up. You're
Speaker 1: totally right. And then I realized that she's you know,
Speaker 1: and she does a voice in and she does a
Speaker 1: voice and spirited away, So not to worry. She does
Speaker 1: a voice and spirited away. Yeah, she's the baby. Oh
Speaker 1: my god, that funny. I'm not ready to talk about
Speaker 1: that yet. Great, Like you said that, you really said
Speaker 1: that in a too soon kind of way, like I'm
Speaker 1: not ready, I'm afrad. I'm not ready to talk about that.
Speaker 1: I'm not emotionally ready to talk about that yet. When
Speaker 1: does your podcast? Do you say? Just launched the first
Speaker 1: couple of episodes. It launched last Tuesday. Today is the
Speaker 1: whenever we're recording this. I don't know if you're I
Speaker 1: don't know if you want people that's going to ruin.
Speaker 1: The will be a couple of weeks old. So mid
Speaker 1: June we launched. We launched the podcast in mid June,
Speaker 1: and uh and we are. We dropped every week. The
Speaker 1: only reason that we have three out now is that
Speaker 1: we did, you know, sort of a bonus on our
Speaker 1: opening week, and did dropped another one on Friday. But
Speaker 1: in general, every Tuesday, that's great. I bet that's so
Speaker 1: much fun. I love it. I love it, and I'm
Speaker 1: sure people are gonna love it. Super fans from other communities.
Speaker 1: We want to have them come in and talk about
Speaker 1: what it means to them, so you have time to
Speaker 1: become an expert in you know, in that world, and
Speaker 1: then you can come and talk about why you like it.
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess we can go ahead and start
Speaker 1: talking about Spirited Away a little bit because I my
Speaker 1: background with anime uh is not was not strong at all.
Speaker 1: I didn't ever watch any of it, did never read
Speaker 1: any of the the comics, and it's just not something
Speaker 1: I was ever I think maybe I was a little
Speaker 1: too old. Well, but yeah, came around. I was going
Speaker 1: to say that the same is true for me in
Speaker 1: the sense that like, no one was telling me about
Speaker 1: anime being I knew it existed because I lived in
Speaker 1: San Francisco and when you go to you know, spend
Speaker 1: time in Japantown, as I did because I worked right
Speaker 1: near there. Um. I would always go into these like
Speaker 1: I'm sure I'm gonna butcher this word, but kinokunia these
Speaker 1: the books Japanese bookstores, and they have you know, manga,
Speaker 1: and they have like animy that you could buy on
Speaker 1: a DVD. But that seemed like something that people who
Speaker 1: knew about it already knew everything about it and it
Speaker 1: belonged to them, and no one was saying, like, come
Speaker 1: over to my house and let's watch this show and
Speaker 1: so and and because um, because it didn't become as
Speaker 1: as widely available until much later. I think you're right.
Speaker 1: I think there are people younger than us who were
Speaker 1: right there for like Crunchy Role, which you know is streaming,
Speaker 1: and like is just all kinds of exposure to anime.
Speaker 1: And then you know, I waffle between saying anime and anime, um,
Speaker 1: depending on like how seasoned the person as I'm talking to.
Speaker 1: I feel like I have to say it the right way.
Speaker 1: It's like it's like going in being like I would
Speaker 1: like to order Ashila and totacos Um. Which where do
Speaker 1: I fall on the seasoning scale? I mean zero, you
Speaker 1: fall in. Yeah, I'm saying it anime for you, and
Speaker 1: then for any listener who is seasoned, I am also
Speaker 1: I want to make sure they know it's like a
Speaker 1: secret secret word only slightly different. Yeah, because I'm a zero.
Speaker 1: You would say anime and I'm like, what do you quote?
Speaker 1: Brian Can Let's go one of the creators of Avatar,
Speaker 1: as he sort of talked about their influence and vice versa,
Speaker 1: he was like, he pointed out, he was like, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's just short for animation, like they're they're the same thing.
Speaker 1: It's it's really okay. Um, but uh but yeah, So
Speaker 1: there's tons of stuff that I didn't get and that
Speaker 1: I still haven't seen because now the library of of options,
Speaker 1: even just on Netflix alone is just endless. There are
Speaker 1: people who only watch who are American, who only watch anyway. Um,
Speaker 1: and when I go to conventions that are that are
Speaker 1: heavily on that side, like rather than on the kind
Speaker 1: of pop culture like oh look, there's an actor from
Speaker 1: Guardians of the Galaxy to like that's not Um. I
Speaker 1: always feel like wildly intimidated because there's always a ton
Speaker 1: of costplay that I just don't recognize, and I have
Speaker 1: to be like, tell me, tell me what you're dressed as.
Speaker 1: And you can see the look of disappointment cross over
Speaker 1: their eyes, like, Oh, I thought you were cool enough
Speaker 1: to know what this was, Janet, thanks a lot for
Speaker 1: not knowing. You know. Um so, but but these are
Speaker 1: but but these movies are are sort of the most
Speaker 1: excess of the they to me, they be they were,
Speaker 1: I think, and and it's true for a lot of people.
Speaker 1: Um that's the first exposure to what you consider uh,
Speaker 1: Miyazaki is like the first you know, anime. I can't
Speaker 1: I really can't decide it's terrible. I'm say anime. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna say anime. Uh. That that that many people ever
Speaker 1: saw because it was you know, Spirit Away in particular,
Speaker 1: was you know, an Academy Award winner, and it was
Speaker 1: uh it did very very well worldwide, and and so
Speaker 1: I think it was kind of a gateway, whereas like Avatar,
Speaker 1: the Last Airbender and Legend of Kora are kind of
Speaker 1: a gateway um animation to anime for some people. Uh,
Speaker 1: so so is and and for much longer and deservedly
Speaker 1: so is is Miyazaki. Yeah. The other thing that happened
Speaker 1: to was, um, you know my adopted daughter Ruby. I
Speaker 1: was gonna say, how are you feeling about her being
Speaker 1: the right age to watch something like this or this is?
Speaker 1: But I'll get to that in a second. This is
Speaker 1: I'm not ready to talk about yet. Jane, by the way,
Speaker 1: just fully put her hand in front of the camera.
Speaker 1: Uh stop in the name of love fashion. Um. So
Speaker 1: the reason I said my adopted daughter Ruby because I'm
Speaker 1: not like uh Royal Tannenbaum and like, that's how we
Speaker 1: introduced her to people, but it's it's purtned into the story.
Speaker 1: So when we adopted her, we went out to um
Speaker 1: to where we adopted her from, and uh, there's this
Speaker 1: process of getting to know birth mom, and so we're
Speaker 1: getting to know uh you know, I'm not going to
Speaker 1: say her name just because I want to protect her
Speaker 1: identity and stuff. But we were getting to know her.
Speaker 1: And she's a kid, you know, who's who's giving us
Speaker 1: a child and very young and um was way way
Speaker 1: way into anime. It was one of her passions and
Speaker 1: I didn't know anything about it, and I'm so you're
Speaker 1: in a situation where you're trying to connect a little bit,
Speaker 1: and because you're also even though they've decided, you also
Speaker 1: always feel like you're sort of auditioning to be like,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm gonna be a good dad and stuff
Speaker 1: like that, and so I was sort of not faking interests,
Speaker 1: but like, oh, yeah, that sounds so cool, you know,
Speaker 1: like blah blah blah, tell me about it. And through
Speaker 1: those conversations it really became clear what it meant to her,
Speaker 1: and it wasn't just these cartoons that she was watching.
Speaker 1: And I realized for the first time speaking to her,
Speaker 1: how much meat on the bone there was, because she
Speaker 1: was really into it and really got into telling me
Speaker 1: about how it's not like what you might think it is.
Speaker 1: And so flash forward to a year ago now that
Speaker 1: Ruby is she's almost six and at the time like
Speaker 1: five ish, getting to the point where she can watch
Speaker 1: some of the stuff. I thought, you know what this is,
Speaker 1: I think in a way sort of honoring the birth
Speaker 1: mom to try and turn Ruby onto some of this
Speaker 1: stuff and and hopefully they will meet one day and
Speaker 1: they can have, you know, something sort of in common
Speaker 1: like this and so we watched uh my neighbor Totorow
Speaker 1: to start her out, and Emily and I and Ruby
Speaker 1: watch it and we were all just like completely charmed
Speaker 1: and entranced by how wonderful that movie is. And got
Speaker 1: her a tote robe stuffy a lovey and she sleeps
Speaker 1: with it and it's just it was so wonderful. And
Speaker 1: then moved on to Spirited Away, which for her age
Speaker 1: was a little bit more intense. It's scary. It is scary,
Speaker 1: isn't it all right? I was going to ask if
Speaker 1: I'm wrong? She was She was fine. She's always been
Speaker 1: able to separate fact from fiction. And if she gets
Speaker 1: a little scared and a thing, she'll just like snuggle
Speaker 1: up a little tighter. But she's never it never freaks
Speaker 1: her out. Later, she never has nightmares. He's always been
Speaker 1: able to punch a buy her class. And you got
Speaker 1: to start watching The Last Airbender with her, because if
Speaker 1: she if she was fine with Spirited Away, she's going
Speaker 1: to be totally fine with The Last Airbender. And it
Speaker 1: is so adorable. It's just wonderful. And I want to
Speaker 1: watch so I can tell, but you gotta watch my order.
Speaker 1: And Cora is scarier so she can age up into Cora.
Speaker 1: So you need to watch Airbender before Cora. I mean
Speaker 1: many people don't know you don't have to watch them
Speaker 1: in that order to get it um at all. There
Speaker 1: are definitely people who watched Cora first and then who
Speaker 1: watched the Last Airbender. I'm sure there are Last Airbender
Speaker 1: fans who are like, I can't believe you just said that, Janet.
Speaker 1: But from Mike and Bryan's own lips, absolutely, you can
Speaker 1: watch one before the other. Um. That being said, certainly
Speaker 1: chronologically like the like the Last Airbender takes place seventy
Speaker 1: years before the legend of course, so there are absolutely
Speaker 1: there's a value inherent to watching The Last Airbender first.
Speaker 1: And uh, it's just it's just better for younger kids.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it's it's there are sometimes there
Speaker 1: are people who bring up their kids who are like four,
Speaker 1: and they say, she's obsessed with Cora, And in my mind,
Speaker 1: I'm like, I would not have been able to handle
Speaker 1: the legend of four when I was four. I mean,
Speaker 1: I couldn't handle you know, Bambi when I was four.
Speaker 1: So I'm trying to handle it out and barely handle
Speaker 1: it now. Yeah, she has a hard time with all
Speaker 1: those Disney movies because she's like, why is always someone's
Speaker 1: always sucking dying in these movies? And she should not
Speaker 1: be saying why is someone always fucking dying with that
Speaker 1: much vehemence in public? In public, people are going to
Speaker 1: think that's a little weird. I'm trying to watch your
Speaker 1: core show, though, and you're pushing me away from it.
Speaker 1: I'm pushing away because why not, Janet? Because you because
Speaker 1: you will not regret watching the last year of wnder
Speaker 1: first Okay, you won't regret it. And it flies by,
Speaker 1: and there's and it's almost sad how fast it flies by,
Speaker 1: because it's so good. I just realized I have my
Speaker 1: notes on my phone for this, so I'm gonna email
Speaker 1: those while we keep talking for Spirited Away. I'm just
Speaker 1: I'm I'm stuck on the idea and how charmed I
Speaker 1: am by the idea of you, you know, still feeling
Speaker 1: like you wanted to impress the the mother Ruby's mom.
Speaker 1: I think that's so lovely. But I was sort of
Speaker 1: a man having being like, let's talk more bad enemy. Here.
Speaker 1: Hold this baseball? Mit uh, grab this tr let me
Speaker 1: this princes us tr a child size Hold on to
Speaker 1: that for a second, Like, how else are you trying
Speaker 1: to you know, what, how do how does one other
Speaker 1: than just to try to telegraph as many ways as
Speaker 1: possible what a great person you are? Like, that's that's
Speaker 1: just that's such a specific experience that we don't hear
Speaker 1: about very often. You know, the experience I mean surely right,
Speaker 1: there's the experience. I'm not making you talk about it,
Speaker 1: but the experience of of your I'm going to be
Speaker 1: adopting your child. Yeah, yeah, it's very intense. And here's
Speaker 1: and here's how I want you to feel about that
Speaker 1: and feel about me is very intense. It is very intense. Uh,
Speaker 1: one of these days I'm gonna do I don't know
Speaker 1: if it's would be on stuff you should know, because
Speaker 1: we may do a show on adoption, but I'd probably
Speaker 1: refrain from getting super personal there. But at some point
Speaker 1: I feel like I want to like talk about that
Speaker 1: a lot, like to the people on the internet personal
Speaker 1: way I do because I have got to share it
Speaker 1: with nameless, faceless strangers. Well, for the reason why is
Speaker 1: not to do anything for me. But I think that
Speaker 1: there's so much I think so many people are scared
Speaker 1: of something like adoption because it's super, super fucking scary
Speaker 1: that they might shy away from it. And I think,
Speaker 1: I think more people need to tell their story because
Speaker 1: it is fraught with many, many complications, but it's it's
Speaker 1: worth it because you know, and I would say, you know,
Speaker 1: without I'm speaking directly out of to quote Ira Glass
Speaker 1: Modern Jackass Magazine, But I feel like as people, as
Speaker 1: more and more people of this generation of future generations
Speaker 1: wait to have kids, perhaps adoption will become even more prolific,
Speaker 1: just because it's just, yeah, it's a better choice for
Speaker 1: all kinds of reasons, within the context of like, well,
Speaker 1: I'm forty eight and I've decided that it's really important
Speaker 1: to me to be a mom. You know how what's
Speaker 1: that going to look like? The more that's out there
Speaker 1: supporting that as a viable choice, if you know, if
Speaker 1: that's if that's right for somebody, the more the better.
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, totally, I love it. Maybe I'll do
Speaker 1: that one day, share it with the internet. It's not
Speaker 1: even a person. So when we had heard a lot
Speaker 1: about I had heard a lot about Spirited Away, obviously
Speaker 1: because it's just such a huge movie and a big
Speaker 1: award winner, and what are you drinking? What is that?
Speaker 1: I'm sorry to say, it's a much a it's a
Speaker 1: ice much a latte, that's right, but it's also did
Speaker 1: you say that in a dumb down way? For me?
Speaker 1: How's it really pronounced? Mata? Uh? It's a spirited away
Speaker 1: is something I knew about because even though I wasn't
Speaker 1: a fan. You can't be just a fan of movies
Speaker 1: and watch the Scars and stuff like that not know
Speaker 1: about it. But it was always in that category of like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm not into anime, so I'm not going to watch
Speaker 1: that like a dummy, Like what a closed minded way
Speaker 1: to think. And when we finally watched it, I didn't
Speaker 1: know what to expect because Totoro was so just such
Speaker 1: a simple story and so lovely and spirited Away was
Speaker 1: just so like druggie mind bending and out there and
Speaker 1: grotesque and scary, and uh, I was just like what
Speaker 1: the At times I was like, what am I watching?
Speaker 1: Is like it blew me away? Yeah, well that's one
Speaker 1: of the reasons that I am so fascinated by it
Speaker 1: and why I think it's so it's so interesting to
Speaker 1: talk about because this is a very very bad comparison.
Speaker 1: So I should probably shouldn't even be doing it. But
Speaker 1: you know how like they are like, this is a
Speaker 1: very bad example, and it's of course I'm like, I'm
Speaker 1: whitewashing everything in americanizing it. But because I'm American, bear
Speaker 1: with me. Radiohead is not a band I would have
Speaker 1: ever thought would have become a huge band all over
Speaker 1: the world, because you know, Tom York is interested in
Speaker 1: making more like his music was just becoming more and
Speaker 1: more experimental, and the more experimental became and the less
Speaker 1: sort of mass appeal you would think it had their
Speaker 1: star continued to rise. And that's not always the case. Um,
Speaker 1: because you know, there's all you can snob out in
Speaker 1: pop culture and go like, oh the you know, a
Speaker 1: lot of the time really popular stuff is not necessarily
Speaker 1: great because it's been watered down, or it's doesn't have
Speaker 1: as unique voice or whatever. Um. And so the fact
Speaker 1: that something like this cross so many cultures and and
Speaker 1: was beloved to so many people in so many different
Speaker 1: age groups and is still so strange, I think it's
Speaker 1: really cool and and worth noting. You know, I think
Speaker 1: that's a great comparison. Actually, Okay, well that's not bad.
Speaker 1: The two white people are great it's an Internet first
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, I mean it. I think as Emili and
Speaker 1: I were both watching it. Of course with Ruby, we
Speaker 1: were both a little bit uh not thinking I should
Speaker 1: we turn this off because she was really loving it.
Speaker 1: But I think we were just I didn't know it
Speaker 1: was so kind of batshit crazy right until we started
Speaker 1: getting into it. And it's one of those that I
Speaker 1: watched it again, like just finished right before I recorded
Speaker 1: with Hodgment again for the second time. And I know
Speaker 1: it's a movie I'll revisit because it's one that I
Speaker 1: know you could probably see twenty times and just visually
Speaker 1: still find new things that just blow your mind somewhere
Speaker 1: in the frame. Yeah, absolutely, And I will say, I
Speaker 1: mean that's the feeling that I have watching it, is
Speaker 1: it taps so quickly into the being a kid and
Speaker 1: feeling out of your elements somewhere, even if it's everything
Speaker 1: I say is so American, even if it's them all,
Speaker 1: uh like I keep getting awesome them all, but you know,
Speaker 1: just that feeling of homesickness. I mean, I felt it
Speaker 1: activates my feeling of homesickness immediately because it's so it
Speaker 1: is so strange, and she's transported so quickly and she's
Speaker 1: so adorable, and the sense of like loneliness of feeling
Speaker 1: like I don't have anything to hang onto, I've got
Speaker 1: no sort of touchstone. I don't know what's happening to me.
Speaker 1: Uh for it doesn't pull its punches on that, to
Speaker 1: be sure. And I completely understand why you would be
Speaker 1: watching with Ruby and going like sort of constantly just
Speaker 1: then watching realize you, oh, I'm just watching her. I'm
Speaker 1: not even watching the screen. I just want to make sure, however,
Speaker 1: she's responding to this, because I promise you, if I
Speaker 1: was four or five, six seven, possibly, there were so
Speaker 1: many movies that my dad thought I was ready for
Speaker 1: that he would turn have to turn off because I
Speaker 1: would just be sobbing, sobbing. And it's those freaking mirror neurons,
Speaker 1: like when when a child would be afraid in in
Speaker 1: a in a moment in a movie, or even an adult,
Speaker 1: I would just be racked with like fear and sadness
Speaker 1: and I would have to take a break. Would be like, okay,
Speaker 1: j do you want it now here? There's all here
Speaker 1: are the categories. Do you want to stop watching it
Speaker 1: and never come back to it? Do you want to
Speaker 1: keep watching it and power through the international breakdown you're having,
Speaker 1: or do you want to maybe we just take a break.
Speaker 1: Why don't we stop playing it and then we'll come
Speaker 1: back to it. I had to do that with a
Speaker 1: Life of Pie. Like the year that came out. I
Speaker 1: knew I couldn't see it in the theater. I was like, Nope,
Speaker 1: not going to see in the theater. Finally got around
Speaker 1: to it and I and I was like, I got
Speaker 1: you know, forty minutes in and I was crying so
Speaker 1: hard that I was like, I'm gonna have to walk
Speaker 1: away from this, Mike, get a cup of tea, like,
Speaker 1: get myself back together. I know I'm going to finish it,
Speaker 1: but I cannot do it in one sitting. Um And
Speaker 1: this absolutely would have been the case for me. I
Speaker 1: would have the minute she's scared, the first time it
Speaker 1: starts crying, I would have been like, Okay, why don't
Speaker 1: we stop this, why don't we bike ride? And then
Speaker 1: we'll come back and we'll be ready, will be stronger
Speaker 1: and tougher. We will have processed the first few minutes, right,
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah. The good thing about kids, or at
Speaker 1: least my experience with Ruby, is that they're they're so
Speaker 1: just brutally honest and like she'll let us know. First
Speaker 1: of all, we don't even have to check in um.
Speaker 1: And also like just the little things that you find
Speaker 1: a five and a half year old saying watching a
Speaker 1: movie like Spirited Away along the way, you know the
Speaker 1: running commentary, which is, I wish I could have heard it.
Speaker 1: It's the sweetest thing because it's the basest, most honest
Speaker 1: take on something. Yeah, through those little eyes like um,
Speaker 1: it really helps you point because it can seem like
Speaker 1: a convoluted story when you read a plot summary of it.
Speaker 1: It sounds crazy and hard to follow. And it is,
Speaker 1: like you said, as you're watching it, you're going, like,
Speaker 1: I am so engrossed in this. But if you asked
Speaker 1: me what is this movie about? Out, I would give
Speaker 1: the most cursory answer, knowing it was a waste of
Speaker 1: time because no one will get the sense of what
Speaker 1: it is just by saying, like a little girl gets
Speaker 1: lost in a bistical bathhouse, Like right, it's over. You
Speaker 1: can't talk about it, you know, but it is about
Speaker 1: Like it's one of those movies that an adult can
Speaker 1: go and research afterwards, which is what I did. What's
Speaker 1: it about? And they're all these I know, I'm excited
Speaker 1: to talk about those themes because I too had to
Speaker 1: be like, okay, I I know I'm missing stuff. It
Speaker 1: was that feeling, and even that is a little kid feeling,
Speaker 1: right of being like, I know this represents something specific
Speaker 1: and I cannot look I can't eyeball it and say, well, clearly,
Speaker 1: that's the difference between the working class and capital, like
Speaker 1: you quite able to fudget A little bit of this
Speaker 1: stuff is sort of obvious, But it's a movie that
Speaker 1: you can research and dive into. But the beauty of
Speaker 1: it is it's also a movie that can exist in
Speaker 1: so simplistically for a five and a half year old. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: and she scared, she wants her parents. She loves Haku. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we all love HACKU. We all love hack. He's a dreamboat.
Speaker 1: First of all. I think him, I love him or
Speaker 1: be him. I'm not sure a handsome little Japanese dragon
Speaker 1: boy in our life to take care of things, that's right.
Speaker 1: Oh he's such what a splendid dragon he becomes, yeah,
Speaker 1: very splendid dragon. Um. But let's talk about some of
Speaker 1: those themes because I did some research, and you know,
Speaker 1: some of the more obvious things is the class distinction,
Speaker 1: and like you know, obviously these parents literally become pigs
Speaker 1: after they drive up in their autie. And then at
Speaker 1: first you're like cash and credit cards and you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's pretty black and white. But as the
Speaker 1: movie goes on, there's there's so much going on that
Speaker 1: I found myself wondering, all right, the three green heads, um,
Speaker 1: one of them has a full mustache and the other
Speaker 1: two do not, Like what is that? Like? Okay, one
Speaker 1: of these mustaches is different. If I activate that one,
Speaker 1: I will get out of the escape room faster. Uh,
Speaker 1: It's true, It's true. We think everything, which is a
Speaker 1: testament to it. I think absolutely, What are the themes
Speaker 1: have you found? Janney, I was setting up to go, Well,
Speaker 1: there's also and who could forget? She said, hope, holding
Speaker 1: up her face. Well, I think the other another really
Speaker 1: big one is no face, right, Like wondering, like trying
Speaker 1: to understand, especially from you know, the sense you get
Speaker 1: of that character before he kind of transforms um and
Speaker 1: trying to sort of understand like, okay, is he something
Speaker 1: it's it feels like he's mirroring his environment. But is
Speaker 1: that a very specific reference or is it just the
Speaker 1: sort of idea of how malleable we all are and
Speaker 1: how we need you know, some we we do need
Speaker 1: that touchdown, We do need that guide that who is
Speaker 1: going to remind us, you know, what the who we
Speaker 1: are or or what the best version of ourselves might be. Um,
Speaker 1: which actually don't know if that's like fully answered. I think.
Speaker 1: I mean it's talks talks about the idea of him
Speaker 1: being you know, like reflecting the characters who surrounds him
Speaker 1: like and then becoming the things you consume, which makes
Speaker 1: you become even more of the thing that you've consumed,
Speaker 1: like if you sort of uh, it becomes this kind
Speaker 1: of cycle. Um. But that's such an interesting character. And
Speaker 1: I will also say that that is an oft cosplayed
Speaker 1: character because when you look at the characters and spirited
Speaker 1: Away are like, oh, a lot of these would be
Speaker 1: a real challenge to pull off and pay homage to.
Speaker 1: If you're like trying to get around in a convention center,
Speaker 1: you put on your black cloak and you paint a
Speaker 1: beautiful no face mask. You have anonymity and you you know,
Speaker 1: provided you're not eating people, um, you stay pretty small
Speaker 1: and you can you can navigate yourself across the coun floor. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and what was the magic trick that Miyazaki uses to
Speaker 1: somehow get different emotions out of no face and almost
Speaker 1: seemingly expression. But it doesn't change. I mean, it's all
Speaker 1: it's all in our own heads. As a viewer, I think, yeah,
Speaker 1: and this and just the I mean I I realized
Speaker 1: that I was leaning forward so hard when he's just
Speaker 1: going uh huh huh, like you really are like I'm
Speaker 1: with you, I'm with you, I'm okay, I'm right here,
Speaker 1: like I'm trying to understand. I want to understand. Um
Speaker 1: that that that that could have such a strong effect
Speaker 1: and be so simple. You could say that for the
Speaker 1: whole movie. But that's definitely an example of like, oh,
Speaker 1: how do I help you? What do I do you
Speaker 1: need from me? You know, there's a lot of that
Speaker 1: in this movie. I think because you identify so strongly
Speaker 1: with all of the characters to want to jump through
Speaker 1: the screen and lend a hand. Yeah. Um, And and
Speaker 1: it's hard as a person of my age coming into
Speaker 1: this stuff at the first time. I can't not compare
Speaker 1: it to Disney. And that's totally fair. Well, look, Disney
Speaker 1: had to, I mean, they that was like Pixar who
Speaker 1: kind of helped Shepherd in the movie on the American side.
Speaker 1: So were you thinking of the brooms the brooms uh
Speaker 1: and the little set care Well, I just mean sort
Speaker 1: of period, like just the different different animation styles, the
Speaker 1: fact that there's and you know, I love the Disney stuff.
Speaker 1: I love the Pixar stuff, and there they do have substance,
Speaker 1: but there's so much more meat on the bone with
Speaker 1: this stuff than your typical Disney thing. And I think
Speaker 1: part of that is all the symbolism that you may
Speaker 1: not quite have it with the Disney movies. Part of
Speaker 1: it is it's not wall to wall pop music. Um,
Speaker 1: you don't always know, you don't know to look for
Speaker 1: the pidd and penises and the Little Mermaid. And I
Speaker 1: love the music of all. I mean, I can listen
Speaker 1: to and now I have to and have enjoyed listening
Speaker 1: to Frozen and and uh and Frozen two and uh,
Speaker 1: what's the one on the Island with the girl? It
Speaker 1: was so great Mowanna, Like, I love all those songs.
Speaker 1: But there's something really refreshing about seeing a movie like
Speaker 1: this with just that wonderful score and not feeling like
Speaker 1: they're trying to sell a soundtrack on top of it. Well,
Speaker 1: it's funny because there are elements of it. I brought
Speaker 1: up the brooms um from Fantasia with a little soot creatures,
Speaker 1: because there are some sort of like you could compare
Speaker 1: some of it to Fantasia, which is, you know, not
Speaker 1: something that Disney continuously repeated. But it was this very strange,
Speaker 1: special experiment that did have all of these different styles
Speaker 1: and all of these and was you know, so largely
Speaker 1: based in the music. And it was entirely based in
Speaker 1: the music and and some you know, more mature sort
Speaker 1: of themes um. But I'm sure he did. I'm sure
Speaker 1: he did. I have absolutely Again, modern Jackass magazine do
Speaker 1: not know what I'm talking about. It seems unlikely that
Speaker 1: he wouldn't have been exposed to that. But I mean,
Speaker 1: that's the thing where it's like, well, if that was
Speaker 1: a mild influence or inspiray, shin, you've taken it to
Speaker 1: the nth level and so far out, you know, just
Speaker 1: surpassed whatever your influence was profoundly um. And I realized
Speaker 1: also by the way that I was lying, this was
Speaker 1: not the first anime that I ever saw. I did
Speaker 1: I I saw, I saw. I know that there's something
Speaker 1: else that I saw, in addition to having seen something
Speaker 1: called Barefoot Gen which is UM anime that I watched
Speaker 1: in an ethics in film class when I was in college.
Speaker 1: And it is a horrifying, heartbreaking, shattering as it should
Speaker 1: be UH anime about a little boy and uh in
Speaker 1: the bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and it is fucking horrible.
Speaker 1: It will haunt you forever. I there are things in
Speaker 1: that movie I can't unsee and it is chilling, And
Speaker 1: it was definitely something that you know, it's so well done,
Speaker 1: but boy is it. I mean, it's like, you know,
Speaker 1: the only comparison is the Wall I guess you know,
Speaker 1: and that it's just you're like, oh, yes, the things
Speaker 1: that can be achieved through anime in terms of depicting
Speaker 1: human horrors that we put each other through no no bounds.
Speaker 1: So if anybody wants to see something that will shatter
Speaker 1: their soul and make them never question whether Americans should
Speaker 1: be hated by other countries for decisions they've made through time.
Speaker 1: It's it's really something, It's really something well anime definitely
Speaker 1: feels like it's much more willing to walk through the
Speaker 1: door of of making a movie that really teaches kids
Speaker 1: something much more deeply than sort of the Disney stuff.
Speaker 1: I mean, there are plenty of less Every Disney movie
Speaker 1: has it's lesson, But I don't think they're dumbed down.
Speaker 1: They're just very sort of down here and basic. I
Speaker 1: can't wait to have this conversation after you've watched The
Speaker 1: Last Bender, because you're twirling your hair. Guess what you
Speaker 1: will not say that about those Oh okay, you will
Speaker 1: be like, wow, I can't believe Ruby loved it for this.
Speaker 1: But the whole time during that episode, I kept thinking, God,
Speaker 1: this is so you know, there's some deep, deep stuff
Speaker 1: in there. I guess one of the big themes is
Speaker 1: that's sort of talked about the parents feeding their faces,
Speaker 1: and there's so much grotesque sort of what was it
Speaker 1: called the stink distinct distinc spirit. There's so there's so
Speaker 1: much over consumption and purging. Were so the theme of
Speaker 1: regurgitation and like X explanation, I guess so, I mean
Speaker 1: it just that happens over and over and over. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of puking, like the idea of being
Speaker 1: like I'm gonna sit down with a you know, bag
Speaker 1: of pop corn and some snickers and just you know,
Speaker 1: it'll drive you towards vegetarian is well, I don't know
Speaker 1: if that was any of the point of it. Um.
Speaker 1: I love the Uh. Just that whole first bathing sequence. Uh,
Speaker 1: from the moment it started till the moment it ended
Speaker 1: was just so fucking weird, amazing. Yeah. Uh, because you're
Speaker 1: trying to figure out, as the first time watcher, like
Speaker 1: what even is what is going on at this bathhouse?
Speaker 1: And like I think you spend most of the movie
Speaker 1: trying to figure this out, and and you think, boy,
Speaker 1: this is nuts. And that's in the first third ish
Speaker 1: of the movie, and it just gets crazier and crazy.
Speaker 1: Yeah it doesn't. It's so unapologetically bizarre and it's not
Speaker 1: like things get wrapped up in a way that that like,
Speaker 1: using just this as one example, you know, the main
Speaker 1: character Yukuba, right is or you, Bubba. I don't want
Speaker 1: to say that wrong, So I hope that you can
Speaker 1: edit that out. Um yeah, no, I beg you, I
Speaker 1: beg you. I don't need the hate mail. I do
Speaker 1: not need the hate mail. Um yeah, yeah, Bubba, thank you.
Speaker 1: But the fact that she has we find out, you know,
Speaker 1: towards the end of the movie, while not really maybe
Speaker 1: it's halfway through, but that she apparently has a twin sister,
Speaker 1: and yeah, and and a twin sister, Zeniba. And then
Speaker 1: when we meet we go to and then Zeniba says,
Speaker 1: it has this wonderful she has this uh they all
Speaker 1: have this kind of wonderful experience with her, and she
Speaker 1: call me, call me granny. Then when sen goes back
Speaker 1: to see she calls her granny. And that's right at
Speaker 1: the end, and you're and you're like, oh, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: and but nothing is that's it, that's your that's your
Speaker 1: your experience of is that is she is she one?
Speaker 1: And the same is is there's nothing helping you along
Speaker 1: other than that she calls granny. And then you sort
Speaker 1: of project back and go, well, it does fly away
Speaker 1: every day. Where is she going? I need it? Well
Speaker 1: year old to explain it to me. Yeah, exactly, like
Speaker 1: for real. But I mean, but that's the other ideas,
Speaker 1: like there's no one is ever any one thing. And
Speaker 1: I mean, as much as you would think, oh, this
Speaker 1: person stands for this, so this person represents this. Everyone's
Speaker 1: constantly transforming. People have more than one name. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: So there's like, I mean, there's as much transformative stuff
Speaker 1: that just keeps happening over and over as there is puking, yeah,
Speaker 1: as there is barfing out sludge uh in. In my research,
Speaker 1: I did find that u shape shifting is such a
Speaker 1: big thing in Japanese culture, So I mean this movie
Speaker 1: is just full of it, like things morphing into different
Speaker 1: things all over the place. Yeah. I don't know that
Speaker 1: I've ever seen a movie with so many original looking creatures.
Speaker 1: It's you know, when you're used to when you're raised
Speaker 1: an America and you're you've seen only Disney, you see
Speaker 1: kids and adults and like a talking animal, one talking
Speaker 1: parrot or something right, right, And that's sort of the
Speaker 1: extent of it. Maybe some of them get a little
Speaker 1: more creative than that, but like, nothing that comes close
Speaker 1: to touching this. And also why when you're watching it,
Speaker 1: why why are some people presenting as human? Why are
Speaker 1: some people? Why are some creatures sort of human what
Speaker 1: you know? And then other creatures nothing like them? The
Speaker 1: big giant baby. You know, some things are have almost
Speaker 1: no shape at all and just totally just sort of
Speaker 1: shadows with like a little bit of a hint of
Speaker 1: maybe two eyes. And then some are fully articulated and
Speaker 1: have giant bushy mustaches and multiple arms and little claw
Speaker 1: nails and they're the good right, or they're the tiny
Speaker 1: little black little little guys are so cute, little city
Speaker 1: dusk guys. Yeah, I think you know, there's so many
Speaker 1: little things about the movie that make it stand out
Speaker 1: above the rest. Like one of my favorite sequences at
Speaker 1: the end, when she's taking the train with no phase
Speaker 1: and instead of just having the train on the tracks,
Speaker 1: the tracks are underwater and that just like all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, everything is reflected and it's just a little
Speaker 1: decision like that where you know, whereas it could have
Speaker 1: just been a train track is just it's amazing. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And those all the backdrop painting is just yeah, so stunning.
Speaker 1: I mean it hurts your heart how beautiful some of
Speaker 1: those renderings are. And um, you know, I had that
Speaker 1: there are these moments where I would be like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm going to look away to you know, pick up
Speaker 1: my glass of water, and then I would go what wait,
Speaker 1: and then you would and then I would rewind. And
Speaker 1: it was like on that, especially specifically on the train,
Speaker 1: it was like, oh, the blank space quote quotes that
Speaker 1: they're that they're going through. You don't want to miss
Speaker 1: that because there's this sort of open landscape that's just
Speaker 1: might as well be an abstract painting. But it's just beautiful.
Speaker 1: It's just beautiful to the eye. Yeah. I mean, the
Speaker 1: whole third act is just full of so much emotion
Speaker 1: and heart. I think there's a lot of like sort
Speaker 1: of figuring it out of the story and a lot
Speaker 1: of fear of what's going on through the first two thirds,
Speaker 1: and then that last third it really goes into much
Speaker 1: more as far as if you're used to watching Disney
Speaker 1: and more traditionally able to digest it thing like linear
Speaker 1: even it's just like a sense of was a standard
Speaker 1: linear storytelling style sort of Yeah. And then like oh
Speaker 1: my god, when she's flying with Haku and she remembers
Speaker 1: the story about the shoe, yeah, and he turned and
Speaker 1: she remembers that he was the spirit of the river
Speaker 1: and he changes back, it's just like the music swelling
Speaker 1: and oh, I'm like getting choked up just thinking. I know,
Speaker 1: I'm like crying in my house at a on a
Speaker 1: what's this a Wednesday at noon? About to record Ricogman
Speaker 1: and I'm finishing up that movie. I'm like, I gotta
Speaker 1: pull it together. Yeah, And you know, Ruby's like, why
Speaker 1: are you guys crying? Like this is very sad to
Speaker 1: remember he was a river and She's like, but that's happy,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, oh, so simple. It really active. That
Speaker 1: was That was another thing that I was not expecting
Speaker 1: was um and this is you know, perhaps speaking of
Speaker 1: going deeper than necessary for movie crush, but uh it
Speaker 1: I felt I'm I'm so used to crying during movies.
Speaker 1: It's it's a non issue. I mean, that's that's that's expected. Um.
Speaker 1: But I had the the feeling that for those of
Speaker 1: you who have experienced a loss that has resulted in
Speaker 1: tremendous grief of some kind, I had that like you
Speaker 1: can't take a deep enough breath kind of feeling where
Speaker 1: grief is like, oh I don't have lungs anymore, only grief,
Speaker 1: and it just there's a sense of there's a really scary,
Speaker 1: out of control role feeling about grief sometimes and crying
Speaker 1: and feeling like, you know, you really understand why there
Speaker 1: are cultures that that have keening and that wail and
Speaker 1: and that that that that is a necessary part of
Speaker 1: of grieving because they're speaking of regurgitating. There is a
Speaker 1: sense of needing to get something foreign that's lodged inside
Speaker 1: of you out so that you can continue to be
Speaker 1: a person and survive. And that started bubbling up in me,
Speaker 1: and I was so unprepared for it. And it like
Speaker 1: everything with this movie not like everything you can definitely draw,
Speaker 1: as we said, we're identifying certain themes, but at the
Speaker 1: same time, it's just abstract enough that you can't necessarily
Speaker 1: you don't have to necessarily point to any one thing
Speaker 1: because it's just this feelings are just being washed over you.
Speaker 1: And then and the music and the visuals and the
Speaker 1: sense of emotion even not expressed through this specific fick
Speaker 1: experience of a character um that I was like I
Speaker 1: couldn't necessarily say, you know, because Brandon was like I
Speaker 1: was like, oh no, like like, oh, this has become
Speaker 1: something else now for you, and sort of like how
Speaker 1: what what was what was there a trigger? And I
Speaker 1: was like no, I don't know. It was almost like
Speaker 1: a sneeze, you know what I mean. It was just
Speaker 1: like this is just happening to me. I'm just it's
Speaker 1: just happening, and I can't say, oh, I it was
Speaker 1: that moment. This moment reminded me of my mom dying,
Speaker 1: Like not at all, but it has just been. It
Speaker 1: was just down there. I was like, I'm ready here,
Speaker 1: I come. Guess what I really I really was like, God,
Speaker 1: I gotta I gotta get this under control. Like I
Speaker 1: have to sort of tell myself, like you can breathe,
Speaker 1: you can breathe. You know, it's okay to have this ceiling.
Speaker 1: It feels good, absolutely, I mean it always feels better,
Speaker 1: like throwing up. The moment when the nausea stops and
Speaker 1: you've realized that you have you fear body feels amazing.
Speaker 1: Going from feeling so intensely difficult on some level, Is
Speaker 1: it is that's its own high of just saying, oh,
Speaker 1: I feel so much better, this is amazing. Yes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've had those moments through movies, specifically where it I
Speaker 1: don't even know and if it, like you were saying,
Speaker 1: if it was something specific that was inside me that
Speaker 1: I clearly needed to get out but I wasn't in
Speaker 1: touch with. But where I had found myself just un
Speaker 1: inconsolable and and just in a different state of upset
Speaker 1: than I had ever been at the at the end
Speaker 1: of a movie or something, and it happened a couple
Speaker 1: of years ago, and I can't remember the movie, so like,
Speaker 1: that's not even the important part. It's this. It's this
Speaker 1: literal physical reaction that happens. Like we said, there are
Speaker 1: no lungs anymore. It's like your your throat closes, and
Speaker 1: it's uh, it's very cathartic feeling. I always wondered if
Speaker 1: like primal screen therapy would be something that would benefit me.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's you, I get it. There are cree
Speaker 1: creepy seventies therapy that you see in like cult documentaries.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry to say, I'm like, now this I don't
Speaker 1: have a problem with. It's like, wait a minute, that
Speaker 1: that's the thing that most people are pointing to, going like,
Speaker 1: well that's wrong, and it looks very healing actually exactly.
Speaker 1: Oh goodness, um the I'm surprised Disney didn't try to
Speaker 1: rip this off at some point, not this movie specifically,
Speaker 1: but after Spirited Away. I'm surprised they didn't say, well,
Speaker 1: let's try our hand at anime, or maybe they did
Speaker 1: and I wasn't aware of it. I don't even know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't. I mean I think you know, like Big
Speaker 1: Hero six sort of again, now I'm sort of conflating
Speaker 1: Pixar and Disney, and that's not fair to Pixar into sense, um,
Speaker 1: it's not fair to either. Look is that fair to either? Um?
Speaker 1: I have I I feel the same way about Disney
Speaker 1: stuff as as you do anything. I still want to
Speaker 1: do voice work for both, and I'm and I am available,
Speaker 1: and I do and I am a princess. I'm a princess,
Speaker 1: princess princess. Uh No, I mean, it's just it's just
Speaker 1: a different The experience that you expect to have is different.
Speaker 1: And that's not to say that there aren't Disney movies
Speaker 1: that have had um, really lasting impacts on me, and
Speaker 1: that I absolutely cherish an adore. I think to some
Speaker 1: degree there is a sense of I don't want to
Speaker 1: fetishize the otherness of being from a different culture, but
Speaker 1: the experience of of watching, you know, I mean, even
Speaker 1: like something like Aladdin is still told through the lens
Speaker 1: of American storytelling, Like that's okay, this is how we
Speaker 1: understand this is this is the Disney way of understanding
Speaker 1: this thing that you know is now like problematic yet
Speaker 1: also very beloved and important. For other reasons to people,
Speaker 1: and I get all of that, um, but I think
Speaker 1: there there's you know, there's just something to be said
Speaker 1: for like we should all like we should all be
Speaker 1: so lucky as to have the opportunity to see art
Speaker 1: from all over the world that just feels really important
Speaker 1: and um, and it might connect you with something inside
Speaker 1: yourself that you haven't had access to through art because
Speaker 1: some some some way in which you've you've digested it,
Speaker 1: like there, it hasn't touched a certain part, you know,
Speaker 1: um that maybe something else will. Yeah. I mean anytime
Speaker 1: I'm traveling or here in Atlanta at the High Museum,
Speaker 1: anytime I see like something, you know, the art of
Speaker 1: Zimbabwe coming for two weeks whatever, whatever, I always try
Speaker 1: and go because you know, and a lot of times
Speaker 1: it's not something that resonates with me, but sometimes it is.
Speaker 1: But it's just like, well, you know, now I know
Speaker 1: what that's like. Now now I know what that country
Speaker 1: is putting out there, absolutely, and and that definitely goes
Speaker 1: I think for my Unsurprisingly, things that maybe would be
Speaker 1: more accessible or thought of as children's entertainment on some
Speaker 1: level if they are like Miyazaki or if they are
Speaker 1: like you know Hungarian like puppetry or I mean pupp
Speaker 1: treat to great example, speaking of the Center for Puppetry.
Speaker 1: You see the way, if you see the way all
Speaker 1: these different cultures handle the same idea of like a
Speaker 1: doll that's moving on behalf of a person, like it
Speaker 1: has some sort of human traits and characteristics. Um, it's
Speaker 1: it's amazing what you can what you find is universal.
Speaker 1: And then also those moments that you feel like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm seeing something that comes from some totally other place
Speaker 1: in terms of you know, like literally and and metaphorically,
Speaker 1: and that's it's you know, it's exciting and it is uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: It can be uncomfortable. Yeah, and it doesn't even have
Speaker 1: to be another culture or country. Sometimes it can just
Speaker 1: be something and there's a little off track, but it
Speaker 1: can be something that you just never previously were turned onto. Yeah.
Speaker 1: That One of the maybe top two three museum exhibits
Speaker 1: I've ever seen was the Alexander McQueen one in New
Speaker 1: York that I was like, I don't know anything about
Speaker 1: fashion and how fashion and couture and I know nothing
Speaker 1: about that stuff. So I go to the show and
Speaker 1: I'm just like blown away and then all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: I'm not all of a sudden some huge fashion guy,
Speaker 1: but I wanted to watch the documentary about this guy,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to know more about his life. And
Speaker 1: it's like, you know, Emily and I went to the
Speaker 1: opera once in l A. We've never been in the opera.
Speaker 1: It turns out we don't like the opera. Fair enough,
Speaker 1: fair you gotta you gotta try that chip. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: got a couple of operas of it. You would like,
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I don't know, being like a weird opera dealer,
Speaker 1: all of a Sunnen got a couple of I got
Speaker 1: a couple of operas. I think you met. Like we
Speaker 1: went to see La bo M that Bas Lorman put
Speaker 1: on stage in l A when I lived there. I
Speaker 1: was like, this is gonna be the one. It's bos Lorman,
Speaker 1: it's operads, and we just couldn't get into it. There's
Speaker 1: a there's a German opera company um that did a
Speaker 1: version of the Magic Flute that was like, um, Tim
Speaker 1: Burton nineteen like Tim Burton meets the nineteen twenties meets opera.
Speaker 1: It's they used a bunch of film projection and um,
Speaker 1: and it's just strange and dark and unlike anything I
Speaker 1: had ever seen before, and I was like, oh, I
Speaker 1: love opera. And then I went and saw something more
Speaker 1: convention I was like, oh, no, I appreciate opera. I
Speaker 1: appreciate opera. I just love that opera in that specific way,
Speaker 1: and says Janet, you need to take a little break.
Speaker 1: Do you need to finish this later? Do you want
Speaker 1: to power through? Oh, that's what intermissions are for got it,
Speaker 1: gotta gotta got it. It's your opportunity to leave with grace. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's your opportunity to realize you left the stove on
Speaker 1: and that's fine. Um. Well, just to wrap up Spirited Away,
Speaker 1: I think the ending with um it kind of struck
Speaker 1: me today. Well, like the supposed goal is for her
Speaker 1: to be reunited with her parents, but it's not. Um,
Speaker 1: it's not one that if you grew up on Disney,
Speaker 1: your conditioned that that is like the end all be all.
Speaker 1: Like as a viewer, you're not like, you're kind of like,
Speaker 1: do you really want her to go back to Yes?
Speaker 1: The movie yeah, And it pays off in exactly that way,
Speaker 1: like its ending is so abrupt you don't go to
Speaker 1: see started very quickly and yeah, like I don't know
Speaker 1: where she hero was going to live she see the
Speaker 1: new home. I feel sorry for her that she is
Speaker 1: back with the parents that were greedy enough that they
Speaker 1: I mean, because at the end of the day, they
Speaker 1: were the ones who made the decision to you know,
Speaker 1: we don't have an understanding of them having been magic
Speaker 1: into gorging themselves on this food. Um, that seems to
Speaker 1: be a decision that they fully made on their own.
Speaker 1: And um, and it's yeah, it's so funny, Like here,
Speaker 1: I immediately Michael Chicklist just says one of those voices
Speaker 1: that I just, you know, immediately know it's him. And
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, that's Checklist. That is full on Checklist,
Speaker 1: Like they're really they really did it because they picked
Speaker 1: this like just very like I'm just a regular guy,
Speaker 1: you know voice as his. Yeah, and and and then
Speaker 1: I had to look up that it was Lauren Holly
Speaker 1: who did the female voice, because it wasn't quite as
Speaker 1: iconic sounding. But yeah, but and Suzanne Plushchett is the ISA,
Speaker 1: which is like, you have to smoke a lifetime. She
Speaker 1: had to. She really devoted a lifetime of smoking to
Speaker 1: that role. Um, with her incredibly raspy boys, but of
Speaker 1: course it was perfect. Um but yeah, she's she comes
Speaker 1: back and you really have a sense of like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: the regular world cool, cool, cool, and you know as
Speaker 1: she's going through that, and then they're like, well, you're
Speaker 1: gonna be going to do school and she's like, I
Speaker 1: think I'll be okay. Credits it's just very over, yeah,
Speaker 1: not a lot of sentiment attached, like you're used to
Speaker 1: hear in the States, Um, well in fact, and she's
Speaker 1: like she's so she's feeling emotional in her mom's like
Speaker 1: don't stop clinging, like oh boy, okay. Yeah, it's like
Speaker 1: can we go back to the to the spirit world
Speaker 1: to Yeah, it's a little bit of the Goonies effect
Speaker 1: of like the kid has this big adventure and then
Speaker 1: as reunited with the parents and then it's kind of like, oh,
Speaker 1: adventure Land was so much better. Yeah. Yeah, I think, um,
Speaker 1: we are and we are. Yeah, you're right. We're conditioned
Speaker 1: to feel like if it's a it's a movie we
Speaker 1: think of for young people, there's more a sense of
Speaker 1: like I have to be taken care of all the
Speaker 1: way through, and part of being taken care of all
Speaker 1: the way through means that there's something beautiful and wonderful
Speaker 1: and and uh and and safe and great about being
Speaker 1: back with your parents and yeah, I think he wanted
Speaker 1: the parents to be different or like, if they were
Speaker 1: here in the United States, the parents would have transformed
Speaker 1: somehow and been different. And then you know, but this
Speaker 1: means accuses like nah, yeah, back to it. Yeah, kid,
Speaker 1: they wish they could have eaten more of the those
Speaker 1: beautiful dumplings. I know, those dumplings that they eventually probably
Speaker 1: threw up. Well, Janet, this was great. I think we
Speaker 1: were going to record a separate thing to go into
Speaker 1: the final mini Crush, but I think since we're here
Speaker 1: and we're just chatting, uh, this is the last Movie
Speaker 1: Crush episode officially. Uh. You started the show off with
Speaker 1: show number one, and everyone was like, oh, you started
Speaker 1: with Tron the best movies of all time. You can't listen.
Speaker 1: You came around, did you? I don't know, but you you,
Speaker 1: if I recall correctly, you begrudgingly acknowledged that there was
Speaker 1: personal history that made my choice really justifiable. Have you
Speaker 1: been hanging on to this for three and a half years?
Speaker 1: I am this is a reckoning, Mr, this is a reckoning.
Speaker 1: Now it's not even about the movies. It's about having
Speaker 1: these great conversations with with people who are friends of
Speaker 1: mine sometimes and people who I don't know that I
Speaker 1: can connect with about movies and art and culture. And um,
Speaker 1: you were the first person to have on because it
Speaker 1: was it was just a no brainer for me to
Speaker 1: have someone on who has done a lot for me
Speaker 1: and my personal creative life. And I know I've told
Speaker 1: you that before, but you have always challenged me to
Speaker 1: do things I didn't think I could do. And uh,
Speaker 1: I know that will continue through the years with um
Speaker 1: sketch Fest coming back back, which I'm so excited about.
Speaker 1: But I wanted to have you on here is the
Speaker 1: last guest, and that you were actually the fact you
Speaker 1: were already scheduled. And then it's kind of been in
Speaker 1: the back of my head about ending the show, and
Speaker 1: then it kind of hit me out of the blue.
Speaker 1: I was like, wait a minute, Janet's coming on. It's like,
Speaker 1: I think this is it, Like this is a sign
Speaker 1: you'll just bookend it. An I can't thank you for that.
Speaker 1: That means so much to me. I I can't even
Speaker 1: tell you why. Um, I that means that just means
Speaker 1: the world to me, chuck, um, because I've been wanting
Speaker 1: to do the show again and um and then dem
Speaker 1: old Cole like became you know the guy who comes
Speaker 1: on the show. So oh, I goes, he's you do
Speaker 1: He's gonna talk about defending your life. Great, now I
Speaker 1: can't talk about defending your life either, Thanks, Cole. Let's
Speaker 1: just keep cross him off all my favorite movies off less.
Speaker 1: Uh no, it's and it and it really you know,
Speaker 1: as you know, we were going to record earlier than this,
Speaker 1: and my mom passed away, and I was just sort
Speaker 1: of take, you know, pulling back because at any moment,
Speaker 1: I didn't know when that feeling was going to bubble up,
Speaker 1: and it felt very very unpredictable, and it felt like
Speaker 1: a lot to put another person through. If I understand now,
Speaker 1: you know, you could have had the juicy your episode.
Speaker 1: If if we've done it, then uh and so and
Speaker 1: and so I'm really really glad that it that it
Speaker 1: did work out, because I don't know that you would
Speaker 1: necessarily have have thought, you know, oh right, I you know,
Speaker 1: Jan is probably wondering why I didn't follow up with
Speaker 1: her after her mom died to say are you ready yet?
Speaker 1: Are you ready yet. Um, well, i'd certainly is trying
Speaker 1: to give you space, and I knew it would come
Speaker 1: around at some point. Well, I just and then too,
Speaker 1: you know, I I just miss you guys. I can't
Speaker 1: believe of how much love I have and such a
Speaker 1: deep connection I have with friends that I mean, I
Speaker 1: can but um, you know I I I love you
Speaker 1: guys like you're my next door neighbors and we've lived
Speaker 1: next to each other for ten years. I it's so
Speaker 1: insane how much I would yeah, and and so you know,
Speaker 1: my it really it's very touching to me that you
Speaker 1: would that you would have me on and have it
Speaker 1: be the last episode. I don't I thank you and
Speaker 1: and and if you're and and if it's and if
Speaker 1: it feels good and like, yes, I'm I was ready
Speaker 1: to be do you know it's not like that. Obviously,
Speaker 1: no one's saying it's not a show that you that
Speaker 1: you would have done forever that someone else was like,
Speaker 1: we're a Paula blug buddy. Sorry, you know, to feel
Speaker 1: like that's the nice thing that's sort of representative of
Speaker 1: one of the nice things about podcasting is that you
Speaker 1: can go I think I'm good like this was great.
Speaker 1: This was great. On your terms, I'll probably do some
Speaker 1: episodes here and there when I feel like it. No,
Speaker 1: this is the last episode. What are you talking about?
Speaker 1: Don't undo what it? Asshole. I can't believe I did that. No,
Speaker 1: I've told people that I will do one off episodes
Speaker 1: here and there. But how about this. Of course, after
Speaker 1: every one of those potential last episodes, I will have
Speaker 1: you on to get and we'll have this moment again.
Speaker 1: Won't beat contrived? Mean a lot to me? You know what.
Speaker 1: I'll even watch whatever movie it was that your other
Speaker 1: guests wanted to talk about, and you just tag me
Speaker 1: on and we'll just do one minute's worth where I
Speaker 1: tell you my opinion of the movie, and then we
Speaker 1: spend the rest of the time saying, well, right, you're wonderful,
Speaker 1: this is great. What a run? Can you believe it? Uh? So,
Speaker 1: thank you, Janet Barney. Where what's what's the name of
Speaker 1: your podcast? Where can people find it? Uh? The Avatar
Speaker 1: podcast is Avatar Braving the Elements. Uh. It is available
Speaker 1: anywhere you get podcasts. It is an I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: UH partnered presentation. But you can find it anywhere Stitcher, Apple,
Speaker 1: all that good stuff and it comes out every Tuesday,
Speaker 1: and I do that again with Dante Bosco and uh.
Speaker 1: And then obviously the j V Club has been around,
Speaker 1: Chuck's been on it more than once. I talked to
Speaker 1: people about their awkward teenage years. UM one of my
Speaker 1: favorite shows. It's a very it's very very fun again
Speaker 1: like movie Crush, It's like, yeah, the premises, we talked
Speaker 1: about this, but it's really just about getting to know
Speaker 1: someone and getting a chance to hang out. Um. And
Speaker 1: then and then I do an improvised space comedy podcast
Speaker 1: called Voyage to the Stars with Kirsten vangs Nous from
Speaker 1: Criminal Minds, Felicia Day, Colton Dunne, Steve Berg and oh
Speaker 1: you didn't. Oh we've been like, we've just finished recording
Speaker 1: our third season, but only two seasons I think are out. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we were on a We're on a mad cap adventure,
Speaker 1: a bunch of people thrown together. I am not even
Speaker 1: a person. I'm an AI on a ship that eventually
Speaker 1: gets a robot body. Uh and uh, and have a
Speaker 1: bunch of uncomfortable space missive tuers that UM most often
Speaker 1: results in as accidentally destroying a planet as we try
Speaker 1: to navigate back to Earth. I got to check that out.
Speaker 1: You should look because it's of course a ton of
Speaker 1: your favorite people are the guests of it too. All right, Janet, Well,
Speaker 1: I can't wait to see you hopefully next January sketch
Speaker 1: Fest and hug your neck and get Brandon and Emily
Speaker 1: and all of us together again. Yes, please, I need it.
Speaker 1: My soul needs it. My soul needs it too, And
Speaker 1: I'm so glad again to have been the very very final,
Speaker 1: final final episode of the movie Crush. Final episode. All right,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna let you have the last even word, So
Speaker 1: go ahead, what's your final word? Final episode? One word
Speaker 1: by Janet? All right, everybody, that was it. I hope
Speaker 1: you like that as much as I did. I had
Speaker 1: such a good time talking to Janet. She's just you know,
Speaker 1: she's she's the best. I've said it before. I know
Speaker 1: you're tired of me saying that she's the best, but
Speaker 1: she really is. If you knew her, you'd say the
Speaker 1: same thing. So big thanks to Janet for for coming
Speaker 1: back and wrapping up the regular weekly interview editions with me.
Speaker 1: Thanks to Janet for kicking off the show three and
Speaker 1: a half years ago with Tron and uh boy, It's
Speaker 1: It's been a lot of fun in between, and book
Speaker 1: ending this with Janet means a lot to me, so
Speaker 1: big thanks to her. So I hope you all enjoyed it,
Speaker 1: and I hope you take care of yourselves. This is
Speaker 1: not the end. Look for episodes here and there, everyone,
Speaker 1: They'll be coming at you with some regularity. But I
Speaker 1: love you all and I thank you all. Look for
Speaker 1: a very special supersized mini crush coming up soon as
Speaker 1: soon as I can lick this covid and get everybody
Speaker 1: in the can that I wanted to And you're really
Speaker 1: gonna enjoy that. One's a lot of fun. So be well,
Speaker 1: take care of yourselves, get backs, and continue to wear
Speaker 1: those masks everyone. Movie Crash is produced and written by
Speaker 1: Charles Bryant and Meel Brown, edited and engineered by Seth
Speaker 1: Nicholas Johnson, and scored by Noel Brown here in our
Speaker 1: home studio at Pontsty Market, Atlanta, Georgia. For iHeart Radio.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit the iHeart
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your
Speaker 1: favorite shows.