Speaker 1: On the Bechdel Cast, the questions asked if movies have
Speaker 1: women and them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands,
Speaker 1: or do they have individualism the patriarchy? Zeph and bast
Speaker 1: start changing it with the Bechdel Cast.
Speaker 2: Honey, I shrunk the cast, the pod, shrink the cast,
Speaker 2: the podcast that is okay, I was gonna go with pot.
Speaker 3: I shrunk the cast. Oh but there's there's we'll we'll
Speaker 3: keep finding it. I think we'll keep finding it. There's
Speaker 3: so many. This is maybe one of the most iconic
Speaker 3: movie titles of its generation.
Speaker 2: Probably truly. It really is just want to know the
Speaker 2: plot of the movie.
Speaker 3: And he's and he says it. I also, I came
Speaker 3: to appreciate the title of this movie even more when
Speaker 3: I learned what it could have been called. There was
Speaker 3: a lot of weird uh, Like, this movie was originally
Speaker 3: being shopped around under the title teeny weenie. Originally you're
Speaker 3: like in a world where this movie was called teeny weenies.
Speaker 3: I just don't think it's as successful teeny weenies. And
Speaker 3: then they later were like, as the Wikipedia explains it,
Speaker 3: teeny weenies seem to appeal to a more child demographic.
Speaker 3: Which I don't necessarily think is the reason that title
Speaker 3: doesn't work, but not at all teeny weenies, the name
Speaker 3: was changed to grounded to appeal to a more mature audience,
Speaker 3: also not seeing the logic. I mean that one makes.
Speaker 2: More sense because first of all, they're on the ground. Yeah,
Speaker 2: they're so close to the ground. But grounded implies that
Speaker 2: they've misbehaved and they're grounded, but that's not really what happens.
Speaker 3: Well, then it changed again to the big backyard, which
Speaker 3: sounds I think more childish than ever. Yes, and then
Speaker 3: finally they were like, let's just take the line of
Speaker 3: dialogue out of Rick Moranis's beautiful lips, those big juicy lips.
Speaker 3: Rick moran I am going to be objectifying NAS's lips today,
Speaker 3: buckle in.
Speaker 2: I mean, what else is news?
Speaker 3: As with every other time we've discussed, he's got perfect lips.
Speaker 3: Welcome to the Bechtel Cast. My name's Jamie.
Speaker 2: Lofts Us talking about Rick Moranis's big, juicy lips does
Speaker 2: pass the Bechdel test somehow?
Speaker 3: Yeah, unless unless he who I'm sure as a listener, objects.
Speaker 2: I will stop. But I Betty likes I think he's
Speaker 2: into it. Yeah, anyway, my name's Caitlin Dernte.
Speaker 3: My name is Jamie Loftus, and this is our podcast
Speaker 3: where we discuss your favorite movies, using the Bechdel Test
Speaker 3: as a jumping off point and using an intersectional feminist lens.
Speaker 3: But Caitlin, what is the Bechdel Test, because this movie's
Speaker 3: gonna struggle with it?
Speaker 2: It really is. It is a media metric created by
Speaker 2: a dear friend of ours, friend of the pod, Alison Bechdel.
Speaker 2: There are many versions of it. The one that we
Speaker 2: use is do two characters of a marginalized gender speak
Speaker 2: to each other? Do those characters have names? And is
Speaker 2: there conversation about something other than a man? Also, we
Speaker 2: particularly like it when it is a narratively meaningful and
Speaker 2: relevant conversation and not just throw away dialogue that could
Speaker 2: be cut out of the movie and it would change
Speaker 2: nothing to the narrative. And as you said, this movie's
Speaker 2: gonna really struggle despite there being several characters who are
Speaker 2: women and girls in this story, but.
Speaker 3: You won't catch them not being blonde, and you won't
Speaker 3: catch them not being in relation to a weird guy.
Speaker 2: We have a wonderful guest with us to discuss this movie.
Speaker 2: She's a comedian and writer. You've seen her on Reservation
Speaker 2: Dogs and Rutherford Falls. You remember her from our episodes
Speaker 2: on the Vivich and Never Ending Story. It's Janish meeting Welcome.
Speaker 3: Back, Welcome back. I love hearing guests past episodes because
Speaker 3: you're just like, what a journey we've been on. What
Speaker 3: is a podcast if not a never ending story?
Speaker 4: Truly, truly, and this one just kind of continues the
Speaker 4: story in such a weird way. I think maybe you
Speaker 4: can see from the pattern of my choices in movies
Speaker 4: to discuss with you. I love a practical effect of
Speaker 4: any kind. I love sort of a puppetry vibe. I
Speaker 4: love the films of the like the kind of creepy
Speaker 4: films of the nineteen eighties that were geared towards children,
Speaker 4: that were sort of adult themes. This one not so.
Speaker 2: Much, but there's like scary imagery and yeah, there's.
Speaker 4: Like sci fi kind of fantasy vibes going on. And also,
Speaker 4: you know, the creepiness of white people, which is something
Speaker 4: I love to talk about, but yeah, this one is
Speaker 4: sort of That's all it.
Speaker 2: Is, in my opinion, creepy wait through creepy white people,
Speaker 2: and its creepy.
Speaker 3: Dads and it's creepy white people creepy each other out
Speaker 3: and then deciding it's actually fine, which is we could
Speaker 3: get into whatever that is supposed to be.
Speaker 4: Huh.
Speaker 3: But I we're so excited to have you back. What
Speaker 3: is your history with Honey I Shrunk the Kids. And
Speaker 3: because there's so much that the Honey I Shrunk the
Speaker 3: Kids expanded universe.
Speaker 4: Oh, I'm so glad you asked, Jamie, because I was
Speaker 4: sort of a child of the eighties. I was. I
Speaker 4: was nine years old when Honey I Shrunk the Kids
Speaker 4: came out in nineteen eighty nine, so I did sort
Speaker 4: of have I was like marketed heavily too by Honey
Speaker 4: I Shrunk the Kids and you know, the entire Disney
Speaker 4: cinematic universe of the eighties. So I was like, I
Speaker 4: was on that. I was on the fucking tip with
Speaker 4: with Honey I Shrunk Choo Kids. I was like, I
Speaker 4: can't wait for this shit to come out.
Speaker 2: Your finger was on the pulse.
Speaker 4: I was really and you know what they released in
Speaker 4: quick succession, so Honey I Shrunk the Kids. I feel
Speaker 4: like it was like kind of a breakout Disney live
Speaker 4: action in the eighties. It was kind of like, hey,
Speaker 4: we're doing this theatrical release, made for TV movie. I
Speaker 4: think I didn't get a theatrical release. I swear it did.
Speaker 3: Oh it did, and it was it was. It made
Speaker 3: the Yes, I think the current equivalent of half a
Speaker 3: billion dollars.
Speaker 4: That's insane.
Speaker 3: Made so much money. There was no person, it seems
Speaker 3: on Earth who didn't. It's doing almost Avatar numbers.
Speaker 4: Truly, and it kind of was in that that very
Speaker 4: quick moment of nineteen eighties, like Disney History. It really
Speaker 4: had a fucking moment and and it I watched the
Speaker 4: making up, which I actually think I kind of like
Speaker 4: more than the than the movie. They have a making
Speaker 4: of that.
Speaker 3: Is like I've seen it, or you can see how
Speaker 3: the effects are done.
Speaker 4: You know, I bet it's somewhere on YouTube. I thought
Speaker 4: about this last night while I was watching it. I
Speaker 4: was like, I wonder if the YouTube, if YouTube has
Speaker 4: the making of because the making of was fucking sick.
Speaker 4: But we can get into that later. But yeah, I
Speaker 4: didn't love the second Honey, I Shrunk the Kids or
Speaker 4: any consecutive ones. I was really just sort of like
Speaker 4: in that childhood like Disney watching moment where I was
Speaker 4: like the target audience for Honey I shrunk the kids,
Speaker 4: and you know my taste. I love. I love a stunt,
Speaker 4: a practical effect, like any kind of slapstick bullshit, a giant,
Speaker 4: a weird set like, and they showed it, they showed
Speaker 4: how they made it all. It was so cool.
Speaker 3: That's so cool. Yeah, when I started watching this movie,
Speaker 3: I was like, oh, no, I understand why Jenna was
Speaker 3: this because it is. It makes sense and it's awesome.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's wild. How I mean, I'm sure we
Speaker 3: will get into it a lot today, but just the
Speaker 3: lost art of practical effects, it is just such a
Speaker 3: damn show.
Speaker 4: Aren't we doing it?
Speaker 3: And not lost? Disinvested, Yes, disinvested.
Speaker 4: We could easily have movies with this level of practical effects.
Speaker 4: It's creepy. It's terrifying.
Speaker 3: It's terrifying.
Speaker 4: Like everything was so slimy and goofy and like it
Speaker 4: was giving sort of Nickelodeon. Also, like there was like
Speaker 4: some elements of like kind of gross out elements in
Speaker 4: the in the movie that I'm like these the eighties
Speaker 4: was perfect for kids films because it scares kids and
Speaker 4: it's always some sci fi weird thing that is like
Speaker 4: completely like not scientifically, we are not able to do it,
Speaker 4: but like we were just dreaming so big in the eighties.
Speaker 4: We were just saying, whatever the weak do that.
Speaker 2: I miss movies like this. They just don't make them
Speaker 2: like this too.
Speaker 3: Yeah, where you're like, it's incredibly weird. But the scope,
Speaker 3: the scope of it is both very large and very small.
Speaker 3: It's really satisfying totally.
Speaker 4: I mean, the story is absolute trash. And my boyfriend
Speaker 4: who watched it with me, did fall asleep half way through,
Speaker 4: and I sort of had to smoke a lot of
Speaker 4: weed to sort of keep the interest alive.
Speaker 2: I kept falling asleep during both watches of this, and
Speaker 2: then I had to wake up and then be like, oh,
Speaker 2: how how much did I miss?
Speaker 4: It?
Speaker 2: Was wind?
Speaker 3: I was wide awake. I'm like, I'm realizing walked in.
Speaker 3: I'm realizing that I hadn't seen this movie before. I'm
Speaker 3: pretty sure I should have texted my mom about it.
Speaker 3: But there were certain things in movies that were just
Speaker 3: total non starters from me when I was little, one
Speaker 3: that I talk about on the shows all the time,
Speaker 3: or the talking animals where it's a real animal and
Speaker 3: the mouth is digitally manipulated, and then it's like Ja
Speaker 3: Ja Gabor's voice. I can't do that. It scared me
Speaker 3: so much. The non blinking animals, I didn't like that.
Speaker 4: Yikes.
Speaker 3: The other thing was giant insects, which I learned when
Speaker 3: one of the the first movie I remember seeing when
Speaker 3: I was really little is James and the Giant Peach
Speaker 3: couldn't do the bugs. And I have a feeling that's
Speaker 3: why this movie was kept from me, because it was
Speaker 3: it was it's really doing the bugs.
Speaker 4: It is.
Speaker 2: Oh yes, yeah.
Speaker 4: It's sort of like when when a Bug's Life came out.
Speaker 4: I was like, you guys already did that. It's called
Speaker 4: honey Trunk the kids.
Speaker 3: But I was. I was quite moved when I I
Speaker 3: will say another thing that doesn't happen really in children's
Speaker 3: movies that and I say this, I'm like, I don't
Speaker 3: have kids. I don't know what I'm talking about, but
Speaker 3: I don't think it happens as much. Is that characters
Speaker 3: that we love die? Yeah, I was. I was moved
Speaker 3: when the ant died. I was very sad.
Speaker 2: It's the low point of the movie.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, it's like the big It's a fucking crisis
Speaker 4: for these kids. I can't. Also, I don't want to
Speaker 4: like break into the plot, but like, can you imagine
Speaker 4: getting shrunked, getting shrunk that bad? Can you imagine getting
Speaker 4: shrunk like that? How fucking traumatizing it would be. You
Speaker 4: would have the craziest CPTSD, like for the rest of
Speaker 4: your life.
Speaker 3: No one would know how to talk to you, no
Speaker 3: see any therapist.
Speaker 4: You would be committed immediately, and like rightfully, so like
Speaker 4: I just I can't even imagine what these kids adult lies.
Speaker 3: We're like that's my main I mean again, it's like
Speaker 3: a suspension of disbelief thing, but like, my main thing
Speaker 3: with this movie is, amongst other things, how it seems
Speaker 3: like literally everyone is severely underreacting. Oh my yes, the shrinking.
Speaker 3: The shrunk are like, oh god, I'm not going to
Speaker 3: make it to the mall. And then the parent, the parents,
Speaker 3: I'm like, what.
Speaker 2: Is They don't seem to give a single shit about
Speaker 2: what's going on.
Speaker 3: They're like eating cereal, They're going to bed at nine pm.
Speaker 3: I'm like, what the hell?
Speaker 4: And you know what, That's the other beauty about eighties
Speaker 4: movies is it's saying something about our parents and how
Speaker 4: they kind of don't give a shit. They're up their
Speaker 4: own asses. They're not really paying attention to what we're doing,
Speaker 4: so we can kind of go and have our own
Speaker 4: adventures on our own. It's giving, latch key, it's giving
Speaker 4: like I'm watching soap operas after school because my mom
Speaker 4: is at home. Like it's it's it's one hundred percent
Speaker 4: of the time of its time.
Speaker 3: Yes, you cannot accuse these parents of being helicopter parents.
Speaker 4: They've really not a nineteen eighties parent, absolutely not. They
Speaker 4: couldn't be them.
Speaker 3: They're like, oh, yeah, you have to clean the entire house, girl.
Speaker 3: And if I shrink you, well maybe I'll learn something
Speaker 3: about me at the end of the movie.
Speaker 2: Maybe, but kind of not really gotta help God help you.
Speaker 4: If you shrink my couch, I gotta help you.
Speaker 3: The couch is a bigger concern at multiple points in
Speaker 3: the plot. Kate Caitlyn, what's your history with this movie?
Speaker 2: I saw this quite a few times as a kid,
Speaker 2: but I have not seen it in probably around thirty
Speaker 2: years or more. So a lot of the details were
Speaker 2: pretty foggy for me, though I do remember specific moments.
Speaker 2: I remembered various moments with the giant aunt. I remember
Speaker 2: just a little bits and pieces of them, like navigating
Speaker 2: through the grass, and then I remembered the cheerios at
Speaker 2: the very end.
Speaker 3: The cheerios are such a highlight that is wild.
Speaker 4: It maybe is saying something also, uh, Caitlin, perhaps are
Speaker 4: your different the differences that you and I have, which
Speaker 4: is I remember the fucking French Kiss? So I was like, oh,
Speaker 4: like when I was a kid, I was like, oh
Speaker 4: my god, this movie is so horny.
Speaker 3: Wow, wow, wow.
Speaker 4: I was into it.
Speaker 3: Sure, I mean, it's certainly we'll talk about it, but
Speaker 3: like it's not. There are certainly worst teen romances and
Speaker 3: you know what, Well, no, I'm realizing this is incorrect.
Speaker 3: I was gonna say, what sustains a relationship but shared trauma?
Speaker 2: That's not true, but shouldn't be.
Speaker 3: But it's it's a foundation. We got shrunk together, and
Speaker 3: I believe you.
Speaker 4: It's right.
Speaker 3: Your shrinking story is valid.
Speaker 2: In any case. Yes, I saw this movie quite a bit.
Speaker 2: I don't think we had it on VHS. I was
Speaker 2: three when it came out, so I wouldn't have seen
Speaker 2: it until the early nineties, but it was in the
Speaker 2: rotation for a while. I think we probably rented it
Speaker 2: from the video store quite a bit, but after that
Speaker 2: I kind of grew out of it and haven't seen
Speaker 2: it in several decades. But rewatching it for this, I
Speaker 2: was like, Ooh, these practical effects, Ooh this these wild
Speaker 2: parents who don't give a shit that their kids are missing.
Speaker 3: I also didn't know much about or it had been
Speaker 3: a long time since I had read anything about Joe Johnston,
Speaker 3: who we've covered his work before because he also directed Jumanji,
Speaker 3: but I didn't realize that he It totally makes sense.
Speaker 3: Got started as an effects guy and an art director,
Speaker 3: and he literally designed like the Millennium Falcon and Boba
Speaker 3: fet like he's a bit of a legend. And then
Speaker 3: he was like, I'm going to be a director and
Speaker 3: I know just the project. And he was right. It
Speaker 3: made a bajillion nineteen eighty nine dollars.
Speaker 2: Yes, and Jamie, you said you had not seen this.
Speaker 3: Before, right, I hadn't seen it. I did, And I
Speaker 3: guess this I found fell into because even though it's
Speaker 3: the oldest of the type of movie I'm going to describe,
Speaker 3: it does feel like there was a very like late
Speaker 3: eighties into the nineties early two thousand's plot that boils
Speaker 3: down to father and or husband whose special interest is
Speaker 3: ruining his family's life. Now this I would include, and please,
Speaker 3: I was like, I know I'm missing stuff. I would
Speaker 3: include Flubber flubber, and this Flubber is ruining his marriage,
Speaker 3: Doctor Dolittle, the animals, it's becoming too much for the family.
Speaker 3: The Santa Claus clause. He's already divorced, but it is
Speaker 3: ruining his son's life. Casper wife is dead, but the
Speaker 3: ghost thing destroying Christina Ricci's life.
Speaker 4: Yes, damn.
Speaker 2: There's also Jack frost.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, how could I forget Jack frost.
Speaker 2: Yep, Michael Keaton loves his band too much or something,
Speaker 2: and then he turns into a snowman about it.
Speaker 3: They do imply that being a father in a cover
Speaker 3: band could kill you.
Speaker 4: It turns into a snowman about it is the funniest.
Speaker 4: So I hate my life and my family.
Speaker 3: But yeah, no, Jamie, you're right.
Speaker 2: There's so many movies like this from this era.
Speaker 3: This plot pay and I was trying to figure out
Speaker 3: and this and Missus Doubtfire isn't quite this because I
Speaker 3: wouldn't say being missus doubtfire's his special interest. But it
Speaker 3: has the same energy, right, Like, this big thing that
Speaker 3: the dad is doing is irreparably harming the lives of
Speaker 3: his family. And all of these movies, if they do
Speaker 3: involve divorce, have a different perspective on it. This movie
Speaker 3: comes down on don't do it. Yeah, and actually the
Speaker 3: dad should maybe not even change what he's doing.
Speaker 4: But mom needs to kind of come around.
Speaker 3: Exactly, and that's what's for the best of all. I
Speaker 3: guess at least in the Santa Claus they stay divorced. Yes,
Speaker 3: Because I don't know, Judge reinholds love is too powerful.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: I was just thinking thinking a lot about this plot.
Speaker 3: I'm like, I wonder why it was just coming up
Speaker 3: so much.
Speaker 4: Oh.
Speaker 2: Also, I think, liar, liar, you could put into this category. Oh,
Speaker 2: I've ever seen a special interest is more it's like
Speaker 2: his job, but his job as a lawyer, and then
Speaker 2: it ruins his son's life. I think. I don't know.
Speaker 2: I haven't seen that movie since I was twelve.
Speaker 3: So listeners please weigh in, either with more examples or
Speaker 3: why the hell this was happening other than we are
Speaker 3: supposed to think that fathers are more interesting. But it's
Speaker 3: like a subthing going on here. Anyways, I hadn't seen it,
Speaker 3: but it's a rich text.
Speaker 2: Sure is, Let's take a quick break and then we'll
Speaker 2: come back for the recap. Okay, here's the recap. We
Speaker 2: meet two kids. Amy is a teen girl who's talking
Speaker 2: on the phone with her friends about her crush and
Speaker 2: she's making plans to go to the mall. You know,
Speaker 2: teen girl stuff it is.
Speaker 3: It feels like very specifically like eighties teen girl too.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And we also meet her younger brother, Nick, who I
Speaker 2: think is like eight years old. He likes science stuff
Speaker 2: because he's a boy and science is for boys according
Speaker 2: to this movie. He takes after their dad, Wayne Zelenski,
Speaker 2: who was a scientist slash inventor who is busy building
Speaker 2: this elaborate shrinking machine in the attic that is supposed
Speaker 2: to significantly shrink whatever object you put in front of it,
Speaker 2: but it also has the power to reverse that if
Speaker 2: the plot requires that.
Speaker 3: I was trying to think. I was like, what would honestly,
Speaker 3: later on when Amy is like, this shrinking machine is
Speaker 3: going to make my father rich and famous, and I
Speaker 3: was like, what would they use it for? And I
Speaker 3: was like, honestly, the fucking military would figure something out.
Speaker 4: Military industrial complex is the answer.
Speaker 3: Like like Rick moranis would sell this technology for billions
Speaker 3: of dollars to the military.
Speaker 4: He would be I don't think so, because isn't the
Speaker 4: sequel like Kids, I Shrunk Honey or.
Speaker 3: Honey I blew up the kid.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, Honey, I blew up.
Speaker 3: I can, but but I blew up it means large, right, yeah,
Speaker 3: not explode. That is a confusing time. Honey, I blew
Speaker 3: up the kid. We need a second pass on that, yeah, yes.
Speaker 2: And then the third one is Honey, we shrunk ourselves
Speaker 2: and the parents get shrunk.
Speaker 3: And then there was also a TV show and then
Speaker 3: there was almost.
Speaker 2: A reboot called Shrunk.
Speaker 3: I remember, Oh, I think that my closest encounter with
Speaker 3: Honey Shrunk the Kids would have been the first time.
Speaker 3: Unless I'm projecting this memory on myself. I went to
Speaker 3: Disney World when I was like thirteen, and they used
Speaker 3: to have a ride called Honey, I Shrunk the audience,
Speaker 3: And I'm pretty sure I went on that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Okay, I was like saying to my boyfriend last night,
Speaker 4: I was like, I know that they had a ride
Speaker 4: at Disneyland, Like there was something it was a big
Speaker 4: deal at Disneyland, and I remember being like, God, I
Speaker 4: just want to go to Disneyland so bad. Organ, I
Speaker 4: just want to Disneyland and go to Honey. I Shrunk
Speaker 4: the Kid's Ride. I was so in on this, fucking
Speaker 4: you i'd I don't know why.
Speaker 3: I gotta get shrunk.
Speaker 4: I want to get shrunk.
Speaker 3: Wait, Honey, I blew up The Kid Is Okay came
Speaker 3: out in nineteen eighty two, Everyone comes Back. In the film,
Speaker 3: Wayne succeeds in enlarging his two year old's son to
Speaker 3: gigantic proportions as one of his size changing experiments goes awry. Okay,
Speaker 3: So he doesn't sell it to the military, and he's
Speaker 3: just experimented on his family, which is evil in a
Speaker 3: different way. It's interesting. And then in nineteen ninety seven
Speaker 3: in Honey We Frank Ourselves, everyone is gone except for
Speaker 3: Rick moranis. Everyone is like recast. Oh yes, yes, you
Speaker 3: hate to see that.
Speaker 2: You hate to see it? Yeah, In any case, So
Speaker 2: Wayne is working on this machine in his attic, except
Speaker 2: he has not gotten it to properly function yet he
Speaker 2: keeps just exploding apples, which is also making a bunch
Speaker 2: of noise. Which pisss off his next door neighbor, Russell.
Speaker 2: And we also meet Russell's his wife, May.
Speaker 3: A very confusing character to me, Oh, I cannot pin
Speaker 3: this lady down.
Speaker 2: No, we'll talk about her. But her name is May,
Speaker 2: and she's played by Christine Sutherland, who people probably recognize
Speaker 2: from Buffy. She played Buffy Summers's mom. Anyway, they have
Speaker 2: two sons, Russ Junior and Ron, and Russell Senior is
Speaker 2: trying to get his elder son, Russ Junior into fishing
Speaker 2: and football and weightlifting, but Russ isn't interested in any
Speaker 2: of that. He's busy leering at Amy through the window.
Speaker 3: I the thing with Russ, it's so like I like
Speaker 3: in theory that he's like pushing back on his father's
Speaker 3: stuff and he's like, you can't tell me what to like.
Speaker 3: I'll tell me what to like. And then his dad
Speaker 3: is like, Okay, what do you like? And he's like,
Speaker 3: I don't know. We never really find out, and although.
Speaker 4: Although we do sort of see that he maybe gets
Speaker 4: a little boner while he's watching Amy dance in the kitchen.
Speaker 4: And so I thought last night, as I was watching it,
Speaker 4: I was like, Dad, I just want to stay home
Speaker 4: and jerk, which just let me and stay at home
Speaker 4: and watch porn. That's all I want to do.
Speaker 3: Dad, which like, it doesn't seem like his dad character
Speaker 3: would like receive that poorly.
Speaker 2: No, he's probably like, I'm doing the same thing.
Speaker 4: Buddy, exactly. That guy was weird. Oh. I do not
Speaker 4: like the dad.
Speaker 3: I do not get what they were going for with
Speaker 3: that character. I had never I wasn't familiar with this guy,
Speaker 3: Matt Frewer, but he's been on everything. But he I
Speaker 3: think most famously was Max Headroom.
Speaker 4: That like Max Headroom.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I did not. I mean I guess I was like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 3: that was a guy, not a computer. So I guess
Speaker 3: he did a good job at that. I mean, he's
Speaker 3: I don't know. That character is so bizarre. I do
Speaker 3: think it's interesting that they're like, Okay, our movie is
Speaker 3: about two sets of kookie neighbors who are convinced they
Speaker 3: are not the kookie neighbors.
Speaker 2: There's all these moments where they'll look at each other
Speaker 2: across the fence or whatever through the window and be like,
Speaker 2: what a weirdo. Okay. Meanwhile, Wayne leaves the house, He
Speaker 2: leaves his children unattended to head to a conference where
Speaker 2: he's like talking to a group of scientists about his machine.
Speaker 3: Well, he leaves the house after being like, it's unclear
Speaker 3: to me at the top of the movie what the
Speaker 3: state of the marriage is. It seems like mom is
Speaker 3: like not currently, like is taking a break.
Speaker 2: It seems very temporary because they say that she's they
Speaker 2: had a fight the night before and so she went
Speaker 2: to stay at her mother's house, but that she'll be
Speaker 2: back that afternoon.
Speaker 3: Right, But the kids are stressed, understandably, they're confused, yes,
Speaker 3: and Rick Moranis replies by being like, it's all good, guys,
Speaker 3: but the house needs to be clean when your mother
Speaker 3: gets home. So you guys are gonna have to do that,
Speaker 3: and specifically, Amy, you're gonna have to do that.
Speaker 2: Yeah. He gives his kids very gendered chores where he's like, oh, Amy,
Speaker 2: you're a girl, so you clean, and Nick, you're a boy.
Speaker 2: Even though you're a small child and you're like eight
Speaker 2: years old, you should mow the lawn. We'll get we'll
Speaker 2: get into.
Speaker 3: That, but there are eight year olds that are told
Speaker 3: to mow the lawn. I'm not endorsing it either way,
Speaker 3: but I've seen it with mine own eyes.
Speaker 2: That seems very dangerous to me, but yeah, I'm sure
Speaker 2: it happens anyway. So he leaves for this conference. While
Speaker 2: he's gone, the younger neighbor kid Ron, accidentally hits a
Speaker 2: baseball into the Selensky's attic. It strikes the shrinking machine
Speaker 2: and turns it on and makes it start working because
Speaker 2: it shrinks an armchair and a couches.
Speaker 3: The couch. Rick Moranis's favorite child in the movie is
Speaker 3: thinking couch.
Speaker 2: Yes, his thinking couch that he's obsessed with. Meanwhile, Russ
Speaker 2: sees that his brother Ron had smashed this window, so
Speaker 2: he drags Ron over to the Selensky house to tell
Speaker 2: them what happened, and Nick takes Ron up to the
Speaker 2: attic to retrieve the baseball, but oh no, the machine
Speaker 2: shrink the two of them, and then it shrinks Amy
Speaker 2: and Russ Junior when they go upstairs to check on
Speaker 2: the other kids. So now they're all tiny. They're like
Speaker 2: a quarter of an inch tall. They're about the same
Speaker 2: size as like a house fly. They're freaking out. Wayne
Speaker 2: comes home, He's like, where are my kids, TIHI.
Speaker 3: But then he's kind of like whatever, whatever. They're probably
Speaker 3: at the ball yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: So he goes up to the attic. The kids are
Speaker 2: trying to get his attention, but they're so small their
Speaker 2: voices can't carry he can't hear them. And he's frustrated
Speaker 2: about his machine because he was just humiliated at this conference.
Speaker 2: So he trashes this machine, beats it with a bat, yes,
Speaker 2: just pretty much destroys it.
Speaker 4: There's like debris wing and it's like threatening to hit
Speaker 4: the shrunk people. He goes on a basically abusive rampage
Speaker 4: against his machine for humiliating him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, rage against the machine.
Speaker 3: I really I thought that the guy that like nags
Speaker 3: him does he ever come back? The guy and the
Speaker 3: guy who's like, oh hahu, will no? I think the
Speaker 3: shrinking machine sucks. And you're just like, well, Sureley, we'll
Speaker 3: see this guy again. And we just don't. We do not,
Speaker 3: We just don't.
Speaker 2: But Wayne does trash his own invention and then sweeps
Speaker 2: up the debris as well as these four children unknowingly.
Speaker 3: And to me, I'm like, okay, so you can clean
Speaker 3: the house when it suits you. Yes, interesting, And.
Speaker 2: He sweeps them all up into a dust pan, throws
Speaker 2: them in the trash, and then takes the trash bag
Speaker 2: out to the curb. Now the kids manage to cut
Speaker 2: the trash bag open and escape, but now they have
Speaker 2: to get back to the house through the yard, walking
Speaker 2: a distance that's the equivalent of over three miles because
Speaker 2: of how small they are, So they embark on this journey.
Speaker 2: Their mom, Diane, meanwhile, returns home and she's like, Wayne,
Speaker 2: where are the kids, And he's like, hah, I don't know,
Speaker 2: and they're both like, shrug, it's the nineteen eighties. Doesn't
Speaker 2: matter where our kids are.
Speaker 3: They're somewhere, yes, yeah.
Speaker 4: We're cool with them not being around whatever.
Speaker 2: And that's the attitude at first, But then eventually they
Speaker 2: make some phone calls to other parents they realize that
Speaker 2: their children are like low key missing, and then Russ
Speaker 2: and Ron's mom may also notices that her kids are
Speaker 2: nowhere to be found. But again, the urgency just isn't
Speaker 2: quite there.
Speaker 3: To be fair, the urgency is there for the kids.
Speaker 3: Sometimes I'm wondering if that was like just to make
Speaker 3: it the whole predicament a little less scary to the
Speaker 3: audience of like they're not constantly saying we're going to die,
Speaker 3: We're going to die, We're going to die because that's scary,
Speaker 3: but there's only a couple moments it's where you're like, oh,
Speaker 3: this is this is really serious to them, they're very
Speaker 3: convinced this is going to be fine by five pm.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 4: Also, so is the score, so is the music composition.
Speaker 4: It's very like it's giving you know, home alone. It's
Speaker 4: very much like comedy. It's really uplifting. We are so
Speaker 4: assured when this happens that there will be a happy ending.
Speaker 4: And I do want to say on the parents' negligent
Speaker 4: parents or like them not really caring. This is the
Speaker 4: beauty of the nineteen eighties that I really want the
Speaker 4: audience to understand. In the nineteen eighties, in the suburbs,
Speaker 4: you get on your bike with the neighborhood kids and
Speaker 4: you fucking you're from morning till sundown. You're out and
Speaker 4: about no care in the world. The parents couldn't be happy.
Speaker 4: Or you're out of the house, get the hell out
Speaker 4: of here. You you have a day off from school,
Speaker 4: get out of here. It was just like playing out
Speaker 4: outside doing kids stuff. I feel like our current culture,
Speaker 4: like our streets are too dangerous to do that. Now
Speaker 4: you can't you can't do it as much.
Speaker 3: And it's and it's also depressing because I feel like
Speaker 3: the internet has become a version of being left loose,
Speaker 3: but not in a way that seems quite as enriching
Speaker 3: or fun, so really depressing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they weren't scrolling, they weren't busy on the computer
Speaker 4: at home. They you know, these kids are like we
Speaker 4: go to the mall when we want to have a
Speaker 4: good time, when we want to hang out.
Speaker 3: That's such a good point, Like I don't know this,
Speaker 3: this movie's attitude towards missing children is very interesting, and
Speaker 3: they and they kind of call out one of the
Speaker 3: factors that like was very influential, regardless of like how
Speaker 3: true it was of like last key Kid culture going Away,
Speaker 3: which was Milk Curtain Kids, where I think it's like
Speaker 3: the mean little brother that's like I help you end
Speaker 3: up on a milk carton and I was like, yeah,
Speaker 3: you need you need an aunt to your life, my boy.
Speaker 4: I do think it's also part and parcel not to
Speaker 4: like break into the plot Caitlin and talk about like
Speaker 4: the context. But we're in the nineteen eighties, we're kind
Speaker 4: of like post space race, like Cold War Reagan into Clinton,
Speaker 4: Like we're still in this era of we are the
Speaker 4: leaders in space travel, in space exploration, and you know
Speaker 4: we beat the Russians ass and we are like top
Speaker 4: of our game scientifically, like the STEM is popping off
Speaker 4: in the States and elsewhere. But it's like the political
Speaker 4: foundations behind all of that is this Reagan era family values.
Speaker 4: You know, it's ten pm, do you know where your
Speaker 4: kids are? Commercials are coming on TV. You know it's
Speaker 4: like like like Barbara Bush kind of like education, family values,
Speaker 4: parents involved. You know, like it's just like this toxic
Speaker 4: culture of like moving from latch key to like it's
Speaker 4: a response to our need to have two parents in
Speaker 4: the working.
Speaker 5: World, nuclear family, yes, yes, yeah, which I do feel
Speaker 5: like there's like a vibe to this movie that feels
Speaker 5: not like, Okay, the mother should quit her job, but
Speaker 5: it's like, well, if she's going to have a job,
Speaker 5: she's going to have to emotionally compromise severely yea, to
Speaker 5: like cohere to what the expectation is.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is a rich text, a rich text text,
Speaker 3: so rich.
Speaker 2: And then there are bees, not the bees, not the bees,
Speaker 2: these come and they are swarming around and somehow Russ
Speaker 2: and Nick end up on a bee and the bees
Speaker 2: flying them all over the yard. Wayne is trying to
Speaker 2: swat at the bee with a baseball bat, and then
Speaker 2: he looks down. He's like, wait a minute, why do
Speaker 2: I have a baseball bat? My son doesn't play baseball.
Speaker 2: And then he sees the shattered attic window. He goes upstairs.
Speaker 2: He finds the shrunken armchair in the shrunken couch in
Speaker 2: the attic, and he puts two and two together and
Speaker 2: realizes that the machine does work, and it shrunk all
Speaker 2: the kids.
Speaker 3: It was really fun. Now that we all have knowledge
Speaker 3: of more knowledge of production than when we last saw
Speaker 3: this movie, I'm assuming of like, what a lightlift this
Speaker 3: movie is for all of the adults versus the children. Truly,
Speaker 3: children are like wet and in combat. The whole movie.
Speaker 4: They had those kids doing their own stunts. It was
Speaker 4: I'm telling you, and I just linked in the chat.
Speaker 4: I just linked the part one of the making up
Speaker 4: because it is on YouTube. But yeah, the way that
Speaker 4: they put these kids through the damn Disney ringer, it
Speaker 4: was like, it.
Speaker 3: Is so funny, being like, oh, and then we cut
Speaker 3: to a shot that we know now is just Rick
Speaker 3: moranis sweeping something up into a little dust pan. That's
Speaker 3: an easy day at worked for Rick moranis Meanwhile, the
Speaker 3: children are soaking and they have to go to school anyways. Yeah,
Speaker 3: blew my mind.
Speaker 4: Yes, I also do want to say I think that
Speaker 4: my my, my whole like theme on this episode is
Speaker 4: going to be like nineteen eighties and like the ethos
Speaker 4: of the eighties. But Rick moranis a scientist, a physicist,
Speaker 4: or you know, like, yeah, I assume he's a physicist,
Speaker 4: a very intense scientist. Swinging a bat at a bee,
Speaker 4: swinging a baseball bat at a bee. You know, in
Speaker 4: the eighties, we weren't worried about the honey bees disappearing.
Speaker 3: True, we weren't.
Speaker 4: We weren't concerned about the extinction of the bees.
Speaker 2: Nope, it's true.
Speaker 3: No, yeah, we were swinging back.
Speaker 4: That's the truly a scientist trying to kill a bee
Speaker 4: could never I did.
Speaker 3: I did appreciate the this movie's commitment to YadA YadA science.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, they don't even try to give us an
Speaker 3: explanation of how this shit works. It's like computer, computer, molecule.
Speaker 3: Now they're shrunk.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it's the same junk science that like
Speaker 2: Back to the Future is based on like the eighties
Speaker 2: movies were just like let's just say some words and
Speaker 2: then that's the movie.
Speaker 3: It's kind of fun because it's like I know that,
Speaker 3: like whatever the famous example is, like after Jurassic Park,
Speaker 3: children's interests in palaeontology went through the roof. I'm guessing
Speaker 3: this movie. Maybe I'd be curious. Did this movie move
Speaker 3: the needle for physics? I don't think there's enough info
Speaker 3: there to be like when I grow up, I want
Speaker 3: to shrink? Yeah, what is what is the itch being scratched?
Speaker 3: I don't think maybe it moved the needle very much.
Speaker 4: Yeah, because it didn't pause like an exist I mean,
Speaker 4: you know, Jurassic Park had such a deeper thematic message,
Speaker 4: like the the morality of science, but the uh, this
Speaker 4: was just like guess what, we shrunk our kids and
Speaker 4: the neighbor's kids, and uh, it's actually pretty rad.
Speaker 3: So yeah, like what a shrink.
Speaker 2: They actually sort of had some fun while they were shrunken,
Speaker 2: and they someone even kissed.
Speaker 3: The kids fell in love. They fell offunk, so bizarre.
Speaker 3: There's a very specific line I'm excited to get to
Speaker 3: with regards to the kids being shrunk and falling in
Speaker 3: love just this movie.
Speaker 4: Oh baby, yeah.
Speaker 2: Wait, okay, So Wayne has figured out that his machine
Speaker 2: shrunk these four children, so he starts freaking out, remembering
Speaker 2: that he was stomping around sweeping the floor. He realizes
Speaker 2: he probably threw his tiny children in the trash and
Speaker 2: that they're probably somewhere in the yard now, so he
Speaker 2: starts searching the yard for the kids. Meanwhile, Russ and
Speaker 2: Nick tumble off the bumble the bean. Thank you, thank you,
Speaker 2: I just improve that on the spot huge. They tumble
Speaker 2: back into the yard, but now they are separated from
Speaker 2: Amy and Ron, who are not getting along because Ron
Speaker 2: hates girls. He has some sexism that he's going to
Speaker 2: have to overcome throughout the story, which he does sort
Speaker 2: of kind of.
Speaker 4: Goes through Amy's grace.
Speaker 2: The arcs for these children are so weird.
Speaker 3: It's true. I really thought, like even by like eighty standards,
Speaker 3: I was like, the Aunt's gonna be a girl. The
Speaker 3: Aunt's going to be a girl. And that's how he's
Speaker 3: gonna learn how to respect women is by meeting a
Speaker 3: woman aunt. I think big opportunity that an ant cured
Speaker 3: his misogyny. It would have worked, It would have worked,
Speaker 3: but they didn't do it?
Speaker 2: They did not. Oh anyway, so Wayne, who is now
Speaker 2: on a pair of stilts searching for the children, Because
Speaker 2: I'm guessing the logic here is that the surface area
Speaker 2: of like the bottom of the stilt that would be
Speaker 2: on the grass is smaller than a human foot, but
Speaker 2: a stilt could still easily crush the children. So I
Speaker 2: don't know what the.
Speaker 3: Rules of when he is trying to not squish the
Speaker 3: kids versus when he isn't. There are a few times
Speaker 3: where he kind of clumps into the yard and you're like, well.
Speaker 4: Fully tumbles off. They both tumble off. They like squat
Speaker 4: the way that the entire movie. I was like, can
Speaker 4: you imagine if Rick moranis just he beats the shit
Speaker 4: out of his machine and then he goes over to sweep.
Speaker 4: He realizes just then and there, oh my god, I
Speaker 4: shrunk the kids. He lifts up his shoe and there
Speaker 4: are just like four squished children on the bottom of
Speaker 4: his shoe. Can you This.
Speaker 3: Is a story of a deeply traumatized father and like.
Speaker 4: Does he tell? Does he tell the wife? Does he
Speaker 4: tell the neighbors?
Speaker 2: Because he could probably pretty easily get rid of the evidence.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's like a sun Dance movie.
Speaker 4: Honey, I shrunk the kids and then I murdered them
Speaker 4: on accident.
Speaker 2: And then I didn't tell anyone. Wait, where's that movie?
Speaker 4: And I'm living with the grief and guilt for the
Speaker 4: rest of my days.
Speaker 3: That's kind of awesome, as maybe that was going to
Speaker 3: be the reboot, like.
Speaker 4: A villain Ogers Georgian story. Honey, I can't stop shrinking
Speaker 4: kids and then stepping up.
Speaker 2: Whoa, Well, maybe we'll see that one day. In the meantime,
Speaker 2: that's what Rick moranis is going to come out of retirement.
Speaker 2: Oh God, just kidding Spaceballs too yesterday? Yes, yeah, maybe
Speaker 2: I'll cover Spaceballs for my birthday this year. Anyway, Okay, Wayne,
Speaker 2: he's on the stilts. He accidentally turns the sprinklers on
Speaker 2: because he's like falling all over the place on the stilts.
Speaker 2: So now these enormous drops of water start raining down
Speaker 2: around the kids, which the practical effects here are pretty fun.
Speaker 2: But also the water is very like viscous.
Speaker 3: It's gooey, it's pretty thick water, it's thick. I was
Speaker 3: just sort of like, I guess that's what water was
Speaker 3: like in nineteen eighty nine. Maybe they were just putting
Speaker 3: corn syrup into the water back then. I don't know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I bet the making up tells us the water,
Speaker 4: the sequence and how they sort of did the water
Speaker 4: special effects. But I think what they were going for
Speaker 4: was optimizing it for splash content, Like they really needed
Speaker 4: it to be heavy water so it could be like, yeah,
Speaker 4: you know, gloopy, gloppy. And then it turns sort of
Speaker 4: into quote unquote munth, which I was like, no, that
Speaker 4: looks like sewage.
Speaker 3: It's pretty gross what it turns into. I was kind
Speaker 3: of shocked, especially because that's the source of the first
Speaker 3: quote unquote romantic moment in the movie. That's where the
Speaker 3: French comes from. The children are ostensibly covered in shit
Speaker 3: like it's it's wild.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so what happens here and we'll talk more about
Speaker 2: it later, but the water is sprinkling down on them.
Speaker 2: Amy falls into a puddle and Russ has to save
Speaker 2: her and gives her mouth to mouth and then she
Speaker 2: wakes up and she's like, wow, thanks, that was amazing.
Speaker 4: It's this very emotional moment.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And then there's a joke that is set up that
Speaker 3: takes a full forty five minutes to pay off, which
Speaker 3: I was pretty impressed.
Speaker 2: Right, yeah, the whole friend, Oh where did you learn
Speaker 2: how to do mouth to mouth French class? But Nick
Speaker 2: is too young to understand what that means at first,
Speaker 2: and he went sort.
Speaker 3: Of his arc at the end. He's traumatized from the shrinking.
Speaker 3: But but what French French kissing is?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Okay. So the four kids continue onward toward the house.
Speaker 2: They come upon a discarded oatmeal cream pie cookie and
Speaker 2: start eating it.
Speaker 3: Great product placement, Yeah, great product placement. I was genuinely impressed, truly.
Speaker 4: The best product placement. The only product placement in the
Speaker 4: whole movie. I think, well, there's Lego, that's right, leg
Speaker 4: But there is like the slamming of the oatmeal pie
Speaker 4: the little debbies right on the counter by oh baby mcmranis.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, Yeah it's great.
Speaker 4: And I love those shits. Oh my god. I was like,
Speaker 4: good choice of something to eat because I loved those
Speaker 4: as a kid.
Speaker 3: They still hit they're like if recently because I keep
Speaker 3: up with these things. Uh, they they recently have been
Speaker 3: putting them into like ice cream flavors, and.
Speaker 4: I, oh my god.
Speaker 6: Highly recommend the oatmeal cream pie ice cream. It is
Speaker 6: so they're doing it for all of them, but like
Speaker 6: the Oatmeal Cream Pie one is uh yeah. My fiance
Speaker 6: and I've been trying them one by one and so
Speaker 6: far the feedback is Oatmeal cream Pie takes it.
Speaker 3: It's so good. Whoa they're at the grocery store.
Speaker 4: My mind is blown all of a sudden, because I
Speaker 4: also remember in the Oatmeal Cream Pie when they find
Speaker 4: a cookie on the ground in the movie and they're like,
Speaker 4: let's go fucking crazy. I was like, goals, dude, I
Speaker 4: got Can you imagine being a kid on set and
Speaker 4: being like, okay, now just dive into this giant whipped
Speaker 4: cream wall and go ham.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I was just truly stunned.
Speaker 3: It is amazing how many like set pieces they do
Speaker 3: with the kids, and how like how well they do
Speaker 3: like the scariest thing you can imagine and then the
Speaker 3: coolest thing you can imagine, back to back to back
Speaker 3: to back. It's so cool.
Speaker 4: Well, and they make the scary things cool too, you know.
Speaker 4: It's like, yeah, it's all so cool to me as
Speaker 4: an eight year old, I was like, this is my dream.
Speaker 3: I've didn't wrap it up well.
Speaker 2: This especially this part reminded me of there's a Matt
Speaker 2: Damon movie, and I just had to look up what
Speaker 2: it was called, because I forget and I've never seen it,
Speaker 2: but a twenty seventeen movie called Downsizing, And I think
Speaker 2: the premise of this movie is that in order to
Speaker 2: make resources such as food go farther and last longer,
Speaker 2: people can opt to downsize themselves, shrink themselves so that
Speaker 2: the cost of living is much less. Because when you're tiny,
Speaker 2: an oatmeal cream pie cookie is enormous and that could
Speaker 2: last you years.
Speaker 3: Yeah, if you figure out how to protect it from ants, right.
Speaker 2: Right, And so I was like, hu, there, maybe there
Speaker 2: is something to this. Maybe we need to all shrink
Speaker 2: in order to get the most out of our resources,
Speaker 2: which we are wasting and exploiting by and large. Anyway,
Speaker 2: I don't.
Speaker 3: Think that this movie is really operating on that level. No, No,
Speaker 3: it would be wild if it were.
Speaker 2: Though.
Speaker 4: I think it's presenting a counterpoint, which is, let's just
Speaker 4: all invest in little debbies. It lasts forever. Even if
Speaker 4: it's a flake, a chunk of little debbies in the grass,
Speaker 4: you can still eat it and it's fresh as day one.
Speaker 3: I will say it did get me. I was hungry
Speaker 3: for one the same way that every time I watch ET,
Speaker 3: I'm like, you know what, I could go for some
Speaker 3: RECs PCs.
Speaker 4: Right. That shit works on me, it does.
Speaker 3: It does. If one of my little treats appears in
Speaker 3: a movie, I'm like, pause, I have to go.
Speaker 4: I have to go, and that's on my eating disorder.
Speaker 3: But that's time we watch movies at home, so we
Speaker 3: can pause, fulfill the product placement thirty full years later,
Speaker 3: and then return make a.
Speaker 4: Vaughn's Instacart order for little debbies, which is probably the
Speaker 4: only store that has them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, oh well that's where that is where you get
Speaker 3: the ice cream, I can say for sure.
Speaker 2: And then the Instacart employees like, someone's watching honey shrunk
Speaker 2: the kids again?
Speaker 3: Oh the honey, iye shrunk the kid's special.
Speaker 2: Got in cheerios because oh that's the other product, ceios.
Speaker 2: It's true. Yeah anyway, So, yes, the cookie has attracted
Speaker 2: an ant but it's a nice aunt and the kids befriended.
Speaker 2: I think Ron names it either Andy or Antie. I
Speaker 2: think they were calling it both things. I couldn't get
Speaker 2: a handle on its name.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of adr with the kids, but in
Speaker 3: their defense, they were soaking wet children.
Speaker 2: They probably had hypothermia the whole shoot. Yeah. Anyway, so
Speaker 2: they ride the ant part of the way back to
Speaker 2: the house because they're like, wow, antswer fast and strong
Speaker 2: and we can take advantage of that. Meanwhile, Wayne confesses
Speaker 2: to his wife Diane that honey, I shrunk the kids,
Speaker 2: and she faints because women be fainting, but she regains
Speaker 2: consciousness and then starts helping Wayne scour the yard for
Speaker 2: the kids, but it has gotten dark outside and searching
Speaker 2: for them is much harder. The kids use a cigarette
Speaker 2: that Russell Senior has flicked into the yard to light
Speaker 2: some torches so that they can see where they're going.
Speaker 2: Then Wayne gets to work on repairing the shrinking machine
Speaker 2: so that he can return the children to their normal
Speaker 2: size if they ever find them. He has a moment
Speaker 2: where he's like, oh, this is all my fault. I
Speaker 2: was so focused on my machine that I forgot to
Speaker 2: be a father, And Diane is like, oh, well, it
Speaker 2: doesn't matter what our jobs are. We just have to
Speaker 2: get this family back together.
Speaker 3: We'll get into that because this is like, I think,
Speaker 3: a variation on arriving at this conclusion that I haven't
Speaker 3: seen where he does apologize, but she's like, no, no.
Speaker 2: You don't apologize.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you're like, because I was fully expecting the classic,
Speaker 3: which is no acknowledgmental fault and no apology. But he
Speaker 3: does acknowledge fault. And she's like, whatever, we'll circle back
Speaker 3: to that, which would have made sense for me if
Speaker 3: she was like, we need to focus on unshrinking the kids,
Speaker 3: but that's not what she says. We need to focus
Speaker 3: on not getting divorced. That scene, I don't know what
Speaker 3: time it's supposed to take place at, but it feels
Speaker 3: like seven thirty. I'm like, keep looking at you guys.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they are truly just taking their sweet fucking time.
Speaker 4: I mean, at one point, Rick Morana's like falls asleep.
Speaker 4: He's just like I'm so exhausted from looking that. I
Speaker 4: just I have to take a nap at my computer,
Speaker 4: and it's like, wake, wake up, bitch.
Speaker 3: That scene is so funny because then she walks upstairs
Speaker 3: looks at her husband, who has fallen asleep after three
Speaker 3: minutes of searching, and she says, I love you, and
Speaker 3: you're like what, just.
Speaker 4: I love you, Wayne Zelenski.
Speaker 3: Maybe you deserve each other. I don't know.
Speaker 4: I would be like, get your fucking ass up. Are
Speaker 4: you serious right now? You have time to nap?
Speaker 3: Ugh, yeah, I would have. I mean that's maybe where
Speaker 3: the baseball bat comes in. I just like, get up,
Speaker 3: may be napping me napping, man be taken a little
Speaker 3: dybe napping on the job.
Speaker 2: Anyway, So the parents also tell the neighbor parents about
Speaker 2: the shrinking machine, but Russell is like, I don't believe you,
Speaker 2: you weirdo. Back in the yard, the kids set up
Speaker 2: camp in one of Nick's discarded legos, and this is
Speaker 2: when Amy and Russ they're really vibing and then they
Speaker 2: kiss on the lips, but they're interrupted when a giant
Speaker 2: scorpion shows up and starts terrorizing them. But Ron's aunt
Speaker 2: friend Auntie or Andy whatever its name is, helps them
Speaker 2: fight off the scorpion, but it gets injured and passes away.
Speaker 3: It's so sad. I was really struck by how sad
Speaker 3: I was.
Speaker 4: I mean, the war between the score and the ant
Speaker 4: was so epic because I think you're dealing with close up.
Speaker 4: Here's what I know. They definitely used like a bull
Speaker 4: riding machine with an ant paper mache some kind of
Speaker 4: ants attached to it. Okay, so we know that that
Speaker 4: is the thing. And then the Scorpion is never irl like,
Speaker 4: it's never like a practical effect. The scorpion is sort
Speaker 4: of a slimy looking Did you either of you ever
Speaker 4: watched the old like nineteen sixties or seventies Clash of
Speaker 4: the Titans with like claymation Odyssey care like beasts and
Speaker 4: stuff like the Kracken is cool, It's like stop motion,
Speaker 4: which is what this Scorpion is. It's like a stop motion, large,
Speaker 4: slimy looking model. And to me it looked like Clash
Speaker 4: of the Titans, old clamation stop motion Clash of the Titans,
Speaker 4: And I was like, this is such a stupid bad
Speaker 4: mix of effects, practical, CG, stop motion. It's like they
Speaker 4: are using green screens. They're literally throwing every tech both
Speaker 4: fold and new at this movie at the same time
Speaker 4: and trying to make it work. And I want to say,
Speaker 4: like fifty percent of it looks like the kids are
Speaker 4: just tramping back and forth through a giant hangar like
Speaker 4: Stage eleven on the Warner lat you know, it's like, yeah,
Speaker 4: it's giving a hangar decorated hanger.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: And I've learned in that in the fight between the
Speaker 4: Scorpion and the ant I went straight to the IMDb
Speaker 4: into the art department and learned that the art department
Speaker 4: person who like was the head of the art department
Speaker 4: also worked on Critters.
Speaker 2: Interesting, Okay, what a wild movie that one is.
Speaker 4: Why You're So Weird another eighties classic but very weird,
Speaker 4: and it's called Critters, And I was like, of course
Speaker 4: they got the Critters person for all these Critters.
Speaker 3: Obviously, this does feel like a lot of like, especially
Speaker 3: now knowing what Joe Johnston's background was and that this
Speaker 3: was his first movie he directed, You're like, oh, he's
Speaker 3: very much like both playing to his strengths and also
Speaker 3: it just seems like he's taking advantage of having a
Speaker 3: budget to be like Big Aunt. What do we think
Speaker 3: about Big Aunt? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, but no, the visual dissonance between all the different
Speaker 2: types of effects in this sequence is really kind of disturbing.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah.
Speaker 2: And also disturbing is the ant dying. And if that
Speaker 2: wasn't enough, the next morning, this neighborhood kid named Tommy
Speaker 2: comes over to mow the Selensky's lawn, which means that
Speaker 2: the kids might get mangled in the lawnmower.
Speaker 4: Terrifying.
Speaker 2: It's so scary they almost do get mangled, but they
Speaker 2: somehow managed to avoid it, and then Wayne and Diane
Speaker 2: run out of the house to stop Tommy from mowing
Speaker 2: the lawn. The rest of the lawn.
Speaker 4: They've like awoken from their nightly slumber. They're peaceful sleep.
Speaker 2: They've gotten twelve hours so wild.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they got all their rem cycles up. She went
Speaker 3: to yoga like they've had a full day.
Speaker 2: And then they spend two more seconds searching for the kids.
Speaker 2: They don't find them, so then Wayne goes inside to
Speaker 2: have his casual cheerios breakfast. But luckily, the family dog
Speaker 2: named Cork approaches the kids and he's sniffing around, and
Speaker 2: so the kids all grab onto his fur and hitch
Speaker 2: a ride into the house. Cork jumps up on the
Speaker 2: table where Wayne is eating his casual cheerio breakfast, and
Speaker 2: then Nick falls into the bowl of cheerios, which of
Speaker 2: course Wayne does not notice because Nick is so small,
Speaker 2: and he almost eats Nick several times until he finally
Speaker 2: notices all of the kids, and then again his reaction
Speaker 2: is just like, wow, I found the kids, honey. That's
Speaker 2: pretty cool.
Speaker 4: Honey, I found the kids. And she's like.
Speaker 3: Wow, wow, nice awsome, good job.
Speaker 2: Interesting, Yes, and so Wayne goes up to the attic
Speaker 2: turns on the machine, but he can't get it to
Speaker 2: work again. But with the help of the kids and
Speaker 2: especially Nick, because Nick has figured out that the baseball
Speaker 2: is a key component for this machine to work. How
Speaker 2: I don't have any fucking idea, but the baseball is necessary,
Speaker 2: they get the machine to work. They tested on Russell Senior,
Speaker 2: and then they enlarge all the kids to their regular size.
Speaker 3: Even though there's like a very like inserted, weird like
Speaker 3: last minute obstacle where we're supposed to think the neighbor
Speaker 3: is brave or something and he's like, no, I'll do it,
Speaker 3: and you're like, oh, yeah, yes, that's not what this
Speaker 3: character would do.
Speaker 4: No, Like I was an asshole.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Like there was nothing to suggest that he would
Speaker 3: have changed that way. I also think that like I
Speaker 3: don't know, like I think that he that Rick moranis
Speaker 3: would be like in custody, if if the neighbor had
Speaker 3: like he's taking the first opportunity possible to be like
Speaker 3: get this guy out, but no, instead he goes on
Speaker 3: a journey of the soul ye off screen and comes
Speaker 3: back courageous.
Speaker 4: Yes, he's like you know what actually I'm not a
Speaker 4: weird asshole. I love my life, I love my wife,
Speaker 4: and I do kind of love my kids. So you
Speaker 4: know what, shrink me, Rick Moran, shrink.
Speaker 3: I know that statistically I'm about to blow up, but yeah,
Speaker 3: all good.
Speaker 2: But I'm brave and I've learned that my son doesn't
Speaker 2: need to play football in order for me to love him, right, And.
Speaker 3: I've learned this off screen.
Speaker 2: Yes, And so the parents reunite with and embrace their kids,
Speaker 2: and then the two sets of neighbors become best friends,
Speaker 2: and the movie ends with them eating a giant turkey
Speaker 2: together because apparently Wayne uses his machine to enlarge food
Speaker 2: so there's more to go around. And then the final
Speaker 2: beat is Nick finally understanding what French kissing is.
Speaker 3: What are they eating?
Speaker 2: I think it's a turkey.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, for a second, I thought it was an aunt.
Speaker 3: And I was like, that is ghoulish.
Speaker 4: Because it looks the skin of the same looks like
Speaker 4: the skin of the turkey, and the skin and also
Speaker 4: the skin of the scorpion. It all looks like shiny,
Speaker 4: like window leathery meat.
Speaker 3: So I wasn't being like out of my because I
Speaker 3: was like, it looks like they're eating an ant and
Speaker 3: I was like, Ron's right there, He's that's his best friend.
Speaker 4: One. They're like, yeah, this ant is good. Ron yum yum.
Speaker 2: Anti and or Andy tastes so yummy.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Meanwhile, Ron is like so traumatized. He's in like
Speaker 4: therapy three times a week. He is a vegan. Now
Speaker 4: he like can't handle going to school. Yeah, his whole
Speaker 4: life has completely changed.
Speaker 3: He's unraveled.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, and he's like, oh great, now our parents
Speaker 4: are friends. I'm never gonna forget about this as long as.
Speaker 2: I Anyway, that's the movie, So let's take another quick break.
Speaker 2: I will come back to discuss, and we're back.
Speaker 3: I mean, I for one, was not able to contain
Speaker 3: myself for much of the much of the recap. There's
Speaker 3: a lot of table seting we've done already, but I mean,
Speaker 3: this movie is was a lot of what I expected
Speaker 3: and some of what I didn't like.
Speaker 4: We have.
Speaker 3: Like mom dot jpeg and teen daughter dot jpeg. Here.
Speaker 3: All the women that we see or have like any
Speaker 3: narrative meaning to the plot are white blonde women who are,
Speaker 3: if they're adult women, pretty deferential to their husbands, even
Speaker 3: if they get a sassy one linery in here and there.
Speaker 3: But there were moments where I was like, oh, that
Speaker 3: could be something, and then it just doesn't turn into something.
Speaker 2: For example, it seems like Diane, who we learn what
Speaker 2: her job is. She's a real estate agent, which it.
Speaker 3: Does seem like she is like the breadwinner of the family,
Speaker 3: or it does seem like.
Speaker 4: That, right, Yeah, she's holding everything together Diane. Without Diane,
Speaker 4: this family is in shambles, truly suffering.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, I.
Speaker 3: Mean she leaves for it seems like twelve hours and
Speaker 3: the house is a disaster.
Speaker 2: Yes, the way domestic labor exists in this household, in
Speaker 2: this world. So, like you were saying, Jamie, there's a
Speaker 2: lot of what you would expect from this movie. There's
Speaker 2: a lot of like very traditional gender roles present here.
Speaker 2: There are slight subversions here or there, but for the
Speaker 2: most part, it is like men equals this, women equals this.
Speaker 2: And we see this in the way domestic labor is
Speaker 2: distributed and done. Where again, Wayne stays home. He seems
Speaker 2: to have lost his job or quit it or something,
Speaker 2: but the work that he is doing is building this
Speaker 2: machine in the attic, while his wife Diane goes out
Speaker 2: into the world and works there. And you might think
Speaker 2: that because Wayne is home, he would be doing some
Speaker 2: of the domestic labor, but that does not happen. He
Speaker 2: has his daughter clean the house. She also cooks breakfast.
Speaker 2: He also delegates mowing the lawn to his son Nick,
Speaker 2: So again there's very like gendered lawn work and landscaping
Speaker 2: and that kind of stuff. Outside work is for boys,
Speaker 2: and inside work like cleaning and cooking is for girls. Also,
Speaker 2: Nick doesn't even mow the lawn. He delegates it to
Speaker 2: some other kid, and not that anyone would have to
Speaker 2: do anything anyway, because the lawnmower is remote controlled. So
Speaker 2: basically Nick does no chores. Meanwhile, Amy is cooking, she's cleaning,
Speaker 2: She's not doing it.
Speaker 3: When we cut to the house, I mean we see
Speaker 3: her dancing, which I thought was like a kind of
Speaker 3: direct ripoff of that sequence from Adventures and babysitting. Oh.
Speaker 4: I was also getting a lot of don't tell mom
Speaker 4: the babysitter's dad.
Speaker 3: But yes, oh my gosh, yes, yeah, this is a
Speaker 3: very eighties thing for a blonde teenager to be doing.
Speaker 3: But you know, even though you know she she plays
Speaker 3: hard and she works hard, because cut to the house,
Speaker 3: it is clean. She has executed the task. Because by
Speaker 3: the time the mom gets home, I think she even
Speaker 3: like comments on oh.
Speaker 2: Wow, No, it's the opposite because it.
Speaker 4: Got dirty again.
Speaker 3: Oh because the daughter left the house for a second.
Speaker 4: Yeah, she got shrunk.
Speaker 3: She got shrunk, and.
Speaker 4: She didn't do her duties before she got shrunk. So
Speaker 4: it was a fucking mess. And the mom comes home
Speaker 4: and he's like, oh, you know, Amy was supposed to
Speaker 4: finish the housework. And the mom looks around like, great,
Speaker 4: nothing's fucking finished. My ment. He load of that capacity.
Speaker 4: I should be spending the afternoon celebrating that I just
Speaker 4: sold a house, but instead I have to deal with
Speaker 4: this man's bullshit who let our kids go missing, and
Speaker 4: nobody knows how to clean this place.
Speaker 2: No, but Nick does vacuum the yard. He doesn't mow
Speaker 2: the lawn, but he does have this like handheld vacuum.
Speaker 4: It's an invention. Carry sorry, sorry.
Speaker 3: Boy, and stem default setting this.
Speaker 2: This movie is so ripe for the classic Rube Goldberg
Speaker 2: breakfast machine, which we see in so many movies. This
Speaker 2: is not here.
Speaker 3: I was so ready for it. I was so ready
Speaker 3: for it because he's like faxing the children from the attic. Yeah,
Speaker 3: like I I was, I was like, whoa, is this
Speaker 3: a breakfast machine? We haven't covered but but it it isn't.
Speaker 3: He's still It's like, at this point it's almost sadistic
Speaker 3: that he's making his daughter, who doesn't know how to cook.
Speaker 2: It burns everything to a crisp.
Speaker 3: And then they make fun of her for not knowing
Speaker 3: how to cook, and you're like, this is a twisted
Speaker 3: I think that. Like, honestly, with with the women in
Speaker 3: this movie, it's there's pretty like rigid gender dynamic set up,
Speaker 3: but it's more like the non reactions to things that
Speaker 3: are weird to me, especially on Diane's end, but also
Speaker 3: on like it feels like the gender performance are like
Speaker 3: fitting the role is more important than what's happening in
Speaker 3: the plot, because even after they get shrunk, Amy's just
Speaker 3: like I have to get to the mall to see
Speaker 3: my boyfriend, and you're like, yeah, you're gonna die. You're
Speaker 3: gonna die. Your dad's gonna step on you, and you're
Speaker 3: gonna die.
Speaker 4: Her big goal in life is to get asked to
Speaker 4: the dance, and that's all she fucking cares about. And
Speaker 4: it's like, girl, your life is in pair role the steaks,
Speaker 4: you're gonna get stepped on by your father's crutch, which.
Speaker 3: Would hurt worse than a foot, I'm sure.
Speaker 4: Yeah, at least with the foot you have ridges you
Speaker 4: can don't in the ridge then the crutch is going straight.
Speaker 2: It's like when a cat steps on your boob.
Speaker 3: Yes, oh my god, yes, oh yeah, well I could
Speaker 3: feel that. I felt that. Yeah, it's I don't know,
Speaker 3: it's it's very weird what she doesn't react to. And
Speaker 3: we'll get to like where she ends up, because it
Speaker 3: just feels like another very sort of eighties like the
Speaker 3: popular girl should be dating the dork who who leers
Speaker 3: in her eyes.
Speaker 4: Oh my god. Remember the point when they are in
Speaker 4: the lego and they're about to kiss and he goes,
Speaker 4: she goes, why haven't you ever come over and say? Said?
Speaker 4: She says to the neighbor Russ Junior. Right, She goes,
Speaker 4: why haven't you ever come over before, like stopped over?
Speaker 4: And he's like, I don't know, you just seem like
Speaker 4: you're too popular to notice me. And she goes, I
Speaker 4: am too popular and I can't believe I haven't noticed you.
Speaker 4: And then they go in for o cast she like
Speaker 4: admit she's like.
Speaker 2: It's true, I do think I'm too good for you.
Speaker 4: I am so popular.
Speaker 3: Anyway, want to make out, But then she negs herself.
Speaker 3: She says I was too popular to notice.
Speaker 2: I was stupid.
Speaker 4: I was stupid.
Speaker 3: And then she kisses him, and You're like, no, you weren't, Amy,
Speaker 3: You're you're big, forced you're you're doing a lot of labor,
Speaker 3: you know, Like I just wish that I knew a
Speaker 3: single interest of yours. But other than that, you're doing great.
Speaker 4: Girl. Girl. You're a lesbian. We are it's giving lesbian
Speaker 4: Amy kiss.
Speaker 3: A girl I would love. And then of course I
Speaker 3: mean this movie weirdly. Okay, So this is one of
Speaker 3: the things where I'm like, I don't really understand what's
Speaker 3: going on here, because, as we talk about on the
Speaker 3: Bechdel Cast constantly, ninety percent of movies are about fathers
Speaker 3: and sons. Some are good, some are not. This movie
Speaker 3: is about fathers and sons. But I feel like it's
Speaker 3: more like The Neighbor, about the neighbor and his eldest
Speaker 3: son than it is about Rick Morana's and his kid.
Speaker 3: Like there is a like, oh, he's also interested in science,
Speaker 3: but like there's not really a tension between it. See
Speaker 3: it Like the tension is very much between Max's headroom
Speaker 3: and his son, which just feels weird. You're like, who
Speaker 3: is the protagonist of this movie?
Speaker 2: Well, the movie does start to try to set up
Speaker 2: something between Wayne and his son Nick, where Nick comes
Speaker 2: upstairs He's like, look, Dad, I made a miniature replica
Speaker 2: of your machine. Wanna help me with it? Or wanna
Speaker 2: play or da And Wayne is like, no, I'm too busy,
Speaker 2: shrink building a machine that's gonna commit war crimes probably,
Speaker 2: so go away. And Nick hangs his head. Oh okay,
Speaker 2: so you later, Dad, And that seems like it's setting
Speaker 2: up that classic you know, the Santa Claus dynamic where
Speaker 2: the dad is too busy for the sun and the
Speaker 2: dad has to realize he needs to do something to
Speaker 2: reconnect with his kids and be there and be present
Speaker 2: blah blah blah blah.
Speaker 3: And by his kids we do mean his son, his
Speaker 3: son specifically, right exactly while his daughter cleans the house.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but then that gets dropped and that arc that
Speaker 2: they're trying to set up goes nowhere.
Speaker 3: I'm wondering how much it was rewritten, because you're just like, yeah,
Speaker 3: that was set up and then never paid off. What
Speaker 3: is for sure as this movie is not about mothers
Speaker 3: and daughters, because it is, I mean, you get again,
Speaker 3: there's some like I think, if you really wanted to
Speaker 3: go to bat for this movie, you could maybe say
Speaker 3: there's barely passes when they greet each other on the phone,
Speaker 3: but it immediate. The subject immediately switches to so you're
Speaker 3: meeting your boyfriend at the mall today, right, and she's like, yeah,
Speaker 3: hope he invites me to the dance. The only other
Speaker 3: conversation they have is at the end where she's like,
Speaker 3: so you're not divorcing dad, right, and she's like, nope,
Speaker 3: everything is fine. And then there's a third they're not talking,
Speaker 3: but this is the line I was really excited to
Speaker 3: get to, where Diane, they're going to bed right after sundown,
Speaker 3: even though the children are shrunk, and there's like there
Speaker 3: could be coyotes in this neighborhood. But let's not think.
Speaker 2: There's scorpions' there's other dangers.
Speaker 3: Let's not think about what could happen at night. We
Speaker 3: need to get our beauty rest, right. They talk like
Speaker 3: she's just had this conversation with Rick moranis where She's like,
Speaker 3: we don't need to focus on you apologizing for the
Speaker 3: horrific thing you've done. We need to focus on not
Speaker 3: getting divorced. And then the last thing she says as
Speaker 3: a button to the scene is weirdly slut shavy towards
Speaker 3: her daughter. She's like, what I'm mostly worried about is
Speaker 3: Amy and that boy next door in the dark. They
Speaker 3: better not do anything better but drive, they better behave.
Speaker 3: She was like, so I'm like, look for her. Oh
Speaker 3: my god, She's saying, shans her daughter, and then Sleep
Speaker 3: goes to bed for ten hours. Was this what the
Speaker 3: eighties was like? Yes?
Speaker 4: A million times. Yes. I was just looking at Amy's IMDb.
Speaker 4: Her name is Amy Amy O'Neill, because I'm like, Also,
Speaker 4: when I was watching last night, I was like, I
Speaker 4: remember being really attracted to Amy, like as a character
Speaker 4: and as an actor, Like I remember as a girl
Speaker 4: watching her and being like she is so cool and beautiful,
Speaker 4: like nobody sees her. And then also like also being like,
Speaker 4: this lady's a great actor, Like I hope she Like
Speaker 4: even in my eight year old mind, I was like,
Speaker 4: I hope she has a career ahead of her. She's
Speaker 4: she slays like, but I was I remember as a
Speaker 4: kid being like she's gonna be the boss. Bit she's
Speaker 4: obviously like an outdoorsy She's dressed like she's in Jurassic Park,
Speaker 4: like this chick is going to take us all the way,
Speaker 4: But she isn't really. She is kind of like the
Speaker 4: leader of the pack, like the babysitter, but it doesn't
Speaker 4: really go further than that. She isn't actually the powerhouse
Speaker 4: hero of the kid groom like it ends up being
Speaker 4: fucking kind of Russ Junior. Even though he's a douchebag
Speaker 4: who literally says and does nothing, he saves her life.
Speaker 4: It's like, no, she would be the one who had
Speaker 4: to save everybody's ass in this situation. Not a single
Speaker 4: one of these doors would know what to do.
Speaker 2: No, But okay, can we talk about the scene where
Speaker 2: she has to be saved because there's so much to
Speaker 2: unpack here. So it's already established that Russ has a
Speaker 2: crush on Amy. We see him leering at her through
Speaker 2: the window. He tells her about it then, and she's
Speaker 2: visibly weirded out, like, oh, you could see me, you
Speaker 2: were watching me dancing And he's like, I don't know,
Speaker 2: shut up, then the kids get shrunk. They're going around together,
Speaker 2: blah blah blah. This stuff happens. Then the rain drops
Speaker 2: or the spring the water from the sprinkler starts raining
Speaker 2: down on them. Amy she is knocked unconscious question mark.
Speaker 2: Suddenly she's unconscious and has fallen into a puddle.
Speaker 7: She doesn't know how to swim, doesn't know how to swim.
Speaker 2: Why is she unconscious? What even happened there? I was
Speaker 2: getting that idea of like, women and girls are so
Speaker 2: delicate and fragile, they're always fainting and passing out. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but she is now drowning. Russ jumps into the very
Speaker 2: viscous water, pulls her out. She's still unconscious. He gives
Speaker 2: her mouth to mouth, which revives her and now she's fine,
Speaker 2: which like, great, if someone needs the life saving technique
Speaker 2: that is CPR, you should administer it to them.
Speaker 3: But it's played it's plot CPR, and.
Speaker 2: It's played as he didn't do that because he was
Speaker 2: actually really trying to save her life. He did that
Speaker 2: because he wanted to kiss her parentheses while she was unconscious.
Speaker 2: And that's the whole running joke through the rest of
Speaker 2: the movie where it's like he frenched her ha ha ha.
Speaker 3: And you're like, I certainly hope he didn't use tongue
Speaker 3: during CPR right praying.
Speaker 4: But also when they do eventually kiss consensually, mm hmmm,
Speaker 4: are they using tongue?
Speaker 2: They are for sure?
Speaker 4: I was like distney, whoa, And now I remember why
Speaker 4: I was like so horned up about that one stupid kiss.
Speaker 4: I was just like, no, they're fully They're kissing like
Speaker 4: middle schoolers who have never kissed in their life. There
Speaker 4: is no passion. It is simply mechanics because they are
Speaker 4: having to They're having these children French kiss.
Speaker 3: Correct, they're having the children French and we don't have
Speaker 3: to feel good about it.
Speaker 2: We don't.
Speaker 3: These they were all kids when this was I was like,
Speaker 3: is there any chance that like one of them is
Speaker 3: secretly twenty but they were all in fact kids.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: When this was filmed, I don't know that it would
Speaker 3: go down like this now, but uh but there it
Speaker 3: is plot CPR plot French. Uh. I agree. I think
Speaker 3: the Amy performance is like really like, I just wish
Speaker 3: she had like more to her, but it's the movie
Speaker 3: maybe to no whens surprise is written by two men,
Speaker 3: you know, pushing forty so I don't think they really
Speaker 3: had any insight on a girl of this age. No
Speaker 3: insight and perhaps no interest. We don't know, right well,
Speaker 3: they're like, what do teen girls like? What do they do?
Speaker 2: They like the mall, they like talking on the phone,
Speaker 2: they like their crushes on their on boys, and nothing else.
Speaker 3: And it's the eighties, so they're like, we have to
Speaker 3: make her realize that. Again. It just feels like in
Speaker 3: these kinds of stories it's such creepy adult male writer
Speaker 3: total projection, where it's just like, ooh, she should have
Speaker 3: ended up with me. I'm like, no, she shouldn't have door.
Speaker 3: I feel bad for whoever ended up with you.
Speaker 4: I'm that crazy ass mullet. The way that they're skating
Speaker 4: on Russ Junior's like smoldering sort of mystery boy. I
Speaker 4: wasn't fooled when I was a kid, and I said
Speaker 4: to this day, I remember thinking, first of all, she
Speaker 4: is like ten years older than him. She's gotta be
Speaker 4: He looks like a child, and she looks like kind
Speaker 4: of a young woman. She also is miles beyond him intellectually,
Speaker 4: so this is this is not a good match at all.
Speaker 4: And also I say it again, Amy the character is gay.
Speaker 4: And the way that they cast and they.
Speaker 3: Dressed her inner lore, I mean she is where she's
Speaker 3: wearing a lot of highwaisted babe, it's.
Speaker 4: Giving hipsters in Bushwick. All of their costumes were hipster Bushwick,
Speaker 4: early days, Brooklyn gentrification.
Speaker 3: And kind of Catherine Hepburn need too.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I was like, yeah, she's like she put her
Speaker 4: in Jurassic Park.
Speaker 2: She is like a young she looks like a young
Speaker 2: doctor Sadler.
Speaker 3: She does so.
Speaker 4: She's also wearing like kind of a chunky watch. She's
Speaker 4: a science She's a scientist's daughter. If anybody knows women
Speaker 4: of any kind just the smallest hint of science into
Speaker 4: our lives as young people, we are we're rabbit holing
Speaker 4: the fuck out of science. Young girls, we're going in.
Speaker 2: But despite her dad being a scientist, and despite her
Speaker 2: younger brother taking an interest in science, Amy has no
Speaker 2: interest in science. She has no knowledge, nothing she's picked
Speaker 2: up from school or her dad or anything.
Speaker 4: She can't even cook a piece of toast.
Speaker 2: Nope.
Speaker 3: And at very least, because I was struggling with that,
Speaker 3: where it's like she doesn't have an interest, I guess
Speaker 3: also her love interest doesn't have an interest and so
Speaker 3: this couple is maybe just not very intesting or interested. Well,
Speaker 3: but and I also thought it was not pointed, but like,
Speaker 3: maybe maybe go on this journey with me. In these
Speaker 3: kinds of movies where the dad has a kooky like
Speaker 3: job or passion, if his wife does have a job,
Speaker 3: it is not a job that requires the same focus
Speaker 3: and passion like she has been written as a realtor,
Speaker 3: and if you're a passionate realtor, that's none of my business.
Speaker 3: But like a job that isn't quite as like all
Speaker 3: consuming and creative right as what the husband is doing.
Speaker 3: And I don't know what that is. I was like,
Speaker 3: I would I think that it would make you know
Speaker 3: Diane's character a lot more of a character if she
Speaker 3: was also doing something that she cared about and was
Speaker 3: expected to take care of the entire family. And she
Speaker 3: is clearly working hard and as successful at what she does.
Speaker 3: But it makes it feel like there's only room for
Speaker 3: like one passionate person in a marriage, and I don't
Speaker 3: love that.
Speaker 4: And I also don't love that it's given to the
Speaker 4: given to the man Rick moranis because I'm like, always, yeah,
Speaker 4: sure that that's the dynamic.
Speaker 3: Are you sure, right I did. I will say there
Speaker 3: is something like inside of me that really is activated
Speaker 3: every time. The most subversive thing about this movie is
Speaker 3: the first time you see the parents together and she's taller,
Speaker 3: and I'm.
Speaker 2: Like, oh my god.
Speaker 3: That representation matter. I love seeing Rick moranis with a
Speaker 3: tall wife. It's awesome.
Speaker 2: Of course, Well you're a fantasy I want to be.
Speaker 2: But it is always and this kind of goes back
Speaker 2: to the the point you were making earlier, Jamie, as
Speaker 2: far as like movies about a man's special interest that
Speaker 2: is ruining his family, because it's always the man's job
Speaker 2: or hobby or project or whatever. That is the thing
Speaker 2: that is crucial to the plot versus whatever the wife
Speaker 2: slash mother's job. If she is even given a job
Speaker 2: that we know what it is, it has no bearing
Speaker 2: on this story whatsoever. Usually, and especially in this movie,
Speaker 2: we do know what she does, but it could have
Speaker 2: been anything. It doesn't matter what her job is, and
Speaker 2: not that like a person's job defines them, of course,
Speaker 2: but when it's always a man's work is seen as
Speaker 2: more important. It is the thing that impacts the plot.
Speaker 2: It is the thing that is like basically the narrative
Speaker 2: thrust of the entire movie. You know, not great. I
Speaker 2: don't love that. And meanwhile, both moms May and Diane
Speaker 2: are seen in two different scenes putting away groceries. God,
Speaker 2: I know, because that's the limit of this movie's imagination
Speaker 2: of what adult women would be doing at any given moment.
Speaker 3: Well generally while advising their husband, while putting their husband
Speaker 3: at ease. May especially, she is an interesting character because
Speaker 3: I feel like they do a few girl boss feminism moments,
Speaker 3: but it always happens behind closed doors, where a lot
Speaker 3: of it is like she's de escalating her husband's anger
Speaker 3: towards her son, so she's protecting her children from her
Speaker 3: husband's anger at many points, but it's made to seem
Speaker 3: like cute and like this is our relationship, ha ha,
Speaker 3: where at one point she's like, you know, lightly negs him,
Speaker 3: where he's like rubbing at his head because he got
Speaker 3: bonked because he's the neighbor, and she's like, don't you
Speaker 3: know you only got so many brain cells up there, honey,
Speaker 3: you gotta be careful. And it seems like he's less
Speaker 3: hostile to her than he is to their children, but
Speaker 3: she spends a lot of time having to de escalate
Speaker 3: his anger towards the kids towards the cops, to which are.
Speaker 2: Jain Zelinsky, and all the noise that he's making.
Speaker 3: Towards the cops is more warranted because why aren't they
Speaker 3: looking for the children? But it's because cops don't do anything. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Also, the way that the movie opens up, I'm sort
Speaker 4: of like, wait, as an adult, I'm watching it thinking,
Speaker 4: is this a movie about domestic violence and neglect? It's
Speaker 4: kind of like the neighbor dad seems like he's unhinged.
Speaker 4: He's like a Jim Carrey sort of. It's like, yeah,
Speaker 4: it's like what I imagine Jim Carrey is like irl, like
Speaker 4: not in character, he's like sort of a Jim Carrey ripoff.
Speaker 2: I had the same thought.
Speaker 4: He's very big and clownish, but also like un fucking hinged.
Speaker 4: This man is not a good father. He should not
Speaker 4: be around children. He certainly should not have attracted a wife.
Speaker 3: And I feel for her.
Speaker 4: I know, I'm like, this poor woman, she is in
Speaker 4: an abusive situation. Get her out of there right now,
Speaker 4: and those children as well.
Speaker 3: But it's framed as a joke, and all.
Speaker 4: Of these boys are gonna grow up to be maga.
Speaker 3: Yes, oh my god, the boys, they're especially ron. I
Speaker 3: mean maybe maybe if the antid pulled through it, it
Speaker 3: would be it would be a different story. But buts
Speaker 3: as things stand, I think he's I think he's pretty
Speaker 3: squarely going to be fascist, yes, as also Rick Morana's son.
Speaker 2: Yes, he's going to be grew up to be Mark
Speaker 2: Zuckerberg or something.
Speaker 4: Because also Rick Morana's character is clearly being funded by
Speaker 4: Mark Andresen and is building a war machine that is
Speaker 4: going to be turned into AI someday.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: It all goes so deep, yeah, down to like even
Speaker 3: the there are little interactions between the neighbor parents that
Speaker 3: is supposed to I think, be like funny and affectionate,
Speaker 3: but he reads very dark. Where there's another time where
Speaker 3: she's saying something. I think this is in the scene
Speaker 3: where they're talking to the cops about the kids being missing,
Speaker 3: and she says, I'm and he says no, no, no,
Speaker 3: no no, and then he says the same thing. And
Speaker 3: the joke is that he says what she just said
Speaker 3: and takes credit for it, and she puts up with it,
Speaker 3: and that's so funny and I'm laughing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the two of them are confronting the Celenskis May says,
Speaker 2: how did this happen? How did you shrink our kids?
Speaker 2: And Russell's like, I'll handle this, May, how did this happen?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: Every time we see them on screen together, she's always yeah,
Speaker 2: like you said, trying to de escalate. She's always like, oh,
Speaker 2: give the guy a break, honey, I'll give your son
Speaker 2: a chance, honey. Oh lighten up. But it is a
Speaker 2: really bizarre dynamic. I mean, obviously they're both like caricatures
Speaker 2: of purple, but like the dynamic is very bizarre and unsettling.
Speaker 2: And then you have Russell being obsessed with his son
Speaker 2: Russ Junior being into fishing and being into football and
Speaker 2: making him lift weight.
Speaker 4: Being super masculine exactly.
Speaker 3: And no offense to this actor, no offense to Max Headroom.
Speaker 3: But it felt weird because I was like, this is
Speaker 3: not the guy you cast as like jock father, Like
Speaker 3: he's too weird, you know whatever, But like just the
Speaker 3: character choice is being made, Like I'm like, I don't
Speaker 3: believe this guy was a quarterback. Like it's it feels
Speaker 3: like the character must have changed a lot because what
Speaker 3: we see visually and then when we randomly see Kimmy
Speaker 3: Robertson from Twin Peaks and you're like, well, that's fun.
Speaker 3: It's mostly her getting yelled at and disbelieve.
Speaker 2: Always nice to see her down and Gloria appearance.
Speaker 3: Don also, so I was like, this movie needed me.
Speaker 3: I could have helped. I like the fact that there's
Speaker 3: a character named Don and a character named Ron. I'm like,
Speaker 3: come on, guys.
Speaker 2: Come on, second draft.
Speaker 3: Someone has to have eyes on this.
Speaker 2: No, but back to the I mean, there could have
Speaker 2: been something interesting about if a father is pressuring his
Speaker 2: son with taking an interest in these traditionally masculine activities,
Speaker 2: there's an opportunity for that to be examined. And we
Speaker 2: do see Russ Junior push back on that and say
Speaker 2: those are your interests, Dad, not mine. But as we've
Speaker 2: already talked about, the movie squanders this opportunity to be like, no,
Speaker 2: I don't I like reading or I like science, or
Speaker 2: I like like I don't know what I like.
Speaker 4: Well, what do you like, son? I don't know, I
Speaker 4: don't know.
Speaker 3: I'll let you know, he says, like he says it
Speaker 3: all like smarmy too, in this weird way where he's like,
Speaker 3: I'll let you get I'll update you when I know
Speaker 3: what my character is, and you're like, yeah, let us
Speaker 3: know too. We'd like to know what the hell's going
Speaker 3: on with you.
Speaker 4: You couldn't just invent one thing that he's into.
Speaker 2: Yeah, comic books, I don't know anything.
Speaker 4: What would be great is if it was like, I
Speaker 4: just want to be a lifeguard, and then it justifies
Speaker 4: him saving Amy.
Speaker 3: Oh right, yes, yeah, I also didn't think. I mean
Speaker 3: I guess that like Nick's interest in science becomes plot
Speaker 3: relevant a few times, but not as much as you
Speaker 3: would think. He figures out that they're three miles away.
Speaker 3: I appreciated the detail or continuity error that his calculator
Speaker 3: also struck shruck because he's able to use it. I
Speaker 3: thought that was really cute.
Speaker 4: It's like every I guess everything that's on you is
Speaker 4: also shrunk.
Speaker 3: So I'm down for.
Speaker 4: That science works on whatever.
Speaker 3: Good thing he kept that calculator on him, or that
Speaker 3: would have been an issue. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, like,
Speaker 3: it's so exciting to watch the kid and I'm sure
Speaker 3: like if you're a kid, especially, like it's so exciting
Speaker 3: to watch the kids like survive all of these travails
Speaker 3: that you don't really think about, like the fact that
Speaker 3: the ways that they're active are not really grounded and
Speaker 3: what the characters are. It just sort of is like
Speaker 3: what the plot requires, and that involves, like we talked about,
Speaker 3: a lot of damseling off Amy. Really the most active
Speaker 3: Amy gets in these situations are there is one point
Speaker 3: where she's like assisting in rankling the future dead aunt,
Speaker 3: but it's basically against her will, and that presents, like
Speaker 3: Ron the opportunity to be like, she's pretty good for
Speaker 3: a girl, of course. And then Nick says, oh, yeah,
Speaker 3: for a girl, of course. I was like, you agree,
Speaker 3: what there is so weird?
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's their friendship. The moment that their friendship is
Speaker 4: solidified as just being like girls fucking sucks, like yeah.
Speaker 2: And then I mean earlier in the movie, Ron is
Speaker 2: being like, we need to get back home because I
Speaker 2: want to go fishing, and Russ is like, no, we
Speaker 2: should go to the Selenski's house because they have a
Speaker 2: machine that will fix us. Per Amy's suggestion, She's like no, Like,
Speaker 2: my dad can fix this, right Nick, and Ron is like.
Speaker 3: What are you gonna let a girl tell you what
Speaker 3: to do? Someone's got to make a decision here. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and it's like that is technically a win for Amy,
Speaker 3: but it's such a small.
Speaker 2: Win, and Russ doesn't even push back on that. He's
Speaker 2: not even like, yeah, we should listen to to Amy.
Speaker 2: She made a good point.
Speaker 4: Because obviously she's the only one in this group of
Speaker 4: four who can get us through this.
Speaker 2: It's clear as day, right, Yeah, and then yeah, Russ
Speaker 2: just responds with something like, you know, you'll do as
Speaker 2: I say when we're down here, younger brother, Like weird dynamic,
Speaker 2: but yeah, this is all kind of I guess setting
Speaker 2: up Ron's arc, which is that he hates girls and
Speaker 2: doesn't respect them at first, but after traversing through the
Speaker 2: yard he comes to respect one girl exactly.
Speaker 4: It's just your casual nineteen eighty sexism. It's bare, you know.
Speaker 4: It's sort of launching us into the early nineties where
Speaker 4: we have Alanis Morissett coming out and saying.
Speaker 3: No, no more, no more. And she fixed it, she
Speaker 3: fixed it, and here we are good for her. Yeah.
Speaker 3: It is as like it's like this this movie is
Speaker 3: doing some like it's doing stuff we've talked about before
Speaker 3: in slightly different ways, but it's like very clear the
Speaker 3: playbook they're pulling from Oh absolutely, yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and then realizing that it's kind of just a
Speaker 4: bunch of like horror nineteen eighties, like the horror writers
Speaker 4: directors that are like, you know, they're not really grappling
Speaker 4: with giant content. This is mostly a movie about the
Speaker 4: effects and what they can do with a green screen
Speaker 4: and this new technology that they're kind of playing around with.
Speaker 4: We don't the characters could who cares? Who cares?
Speaker 7: They're sort of ancillary to as long as we can
Speaker 7: rig them to a gigantic broom and sort of risk
Speaker 7: them around in all of these different cool like stunt ways.
Speaker 4: It doesn't. We don't care.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And that does seem to be Joe Johnston's whole deal.
Speaker 3: He's like, let's get the stunt, let's get the because
Speaker 3: he goes on to do well. He did one of
Speaker 3: my favorite childhood movies, The Page Master. I love.
Speaker 2: I've never seen this.
Speaker 3: One of my favorite vhs is growing up. It's It's
Speaker 3: that is my mcaulay culkin movie for some reason. Oh
Speaker 3: my god, it's really fun and it teaches you three
Speaker 3: genres of book. But he did The Page Master. He
Speaker 3: did Jumanji, like he did, you know, it. I think
Speaker 3: that like with it seems like with his movies, it
Speaker 3: really depends on like the quality of the script, because
Speaker 3: that's not why he's there. He's there for Giant Aunt,
Speaker 3: he's there for Jumanji stunts. He randomly did direct October Sky,
Speaker 3: not a big stunt movie, but then he did Jurassic
Speaker 3: Park three, he did Captain America the First Avenger. Like
Speaker 3: he does big, gigantic movies, and if the script is good,
Speaker 3: the movie is good. And if the script isn't good,
Speaker 3: then there will be a gigantic insect. But that's about
Speaker 3: all you can be guaranteed.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I do feel like, you know, the scripts
Speaker 4: weren't the movies of the nineteen eighties, especially the children's movies.
Speaker 4: They were inspiring to me as a child, as a
Speaker 4: young entertainer wanting to get into the industry, I thought,
Speaker 4: oh I could do that. Yeah, I mean, script wise,
Speaker 4: I was like, oh, oh, this is all you have
Speaker 4: to do, have to do right, sign me up?
Speaker 3: Yeah, Yeah, it's true, it's true. Yeah, it's I mean,
Speaker 3: I I enjoyed the movie. I'll say it. It's like
Speaker 3: for the Bexel cast, it is it is. It was
Speaker 3: never gonna farewell.
Speaker 2: No, but on the rumpometer, I'd say a ten out
Speaker 2: of ten. It's also ninety minutes long. It's so it's
Speaker 2: such a nice length.
Speaker 4: It's such a nice length and almost felt a little
Speaker 4: too long in my opinion.
Speaker 3: I was like, well, because every almost every one too
Speaker 3: many obstacles in the yard maybe, and they're way too
Speaker 3: insect oriented or but what bugs. It's clear that Joe
Speaker 3: Johnson's like, how many big insects will you buy me?
Speaker 3: And that's how many big insects will be in the movie.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they needed some diversity in the types of obstacles
Speaker 2: that they encounter.
Speaker 3: Eco diversity. I thought that like a nighttime travail would
Speaker 3: I mean, that might have been just really hard and
Speaker 3: expensive to shoot. And like I wanted a coyote in
Speaker 3: the yard, you know, like I mean, or what else
Speaker 3: could happen at night?
Speaker 2: I think there just needs to be something besides wildlife
Speaker 2: that they run into, Like surely it's just like a
Speaker 2: bunch of different.
Speaker 3: Types I want to run into like a fairy. Well,
Speaker 3: that's a totally different movie. I like that this movie.
Speaker 3: In this movie, magic is not real. Magic is not real.
Speaker 3: But the kids are shrunk.
Speaker 2: Yes, beautiful because science did the magic. Science, not magic
Speaker 2: did the magic.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was the opposite of magic. It was science.
Speaker 3: The science is magic. But wow, no it isn't.
Speaker 4: And it's kind of magic when you fall into a
Speaker 4: flower and you get the pallen chunks all over your
Speaker 4: body and they won't get off. Yes, yes they're sticky.
Speaker 2: That was fun.
Speaker 4: It's magical.
Speaker 3: It is.
Speaker 2: Does anyone have anything else they want to talk about?
Speaker 3: I don't think so. I'm glad this movie isn't called
Speaker 3: teeny Weenies? But does it pass the Bechdel test?
Speaker 2: I think spirit.
Speaker 4: Absolutely not.
Speaker 3: I'm going I'm going to no, because there is there
Speaker 3: The other interaction, Oh this I was going to bring
Speaker 3: this up, was between the two moms, but they are
Speaker 3: talking about either their husband or their I mean technically
Speaker 3: amy their children, but their majority son's children for most
Speaker 3: of that time. I don't know about you guys, but
Speaker 3: like there is like an underlying sense of hostility to
Speaker 3: this one interaction we get between these women that I
Speaker 3: think is like cut around to make it seem like
Speaker 3: it's about the baseball through the window, But I just
Speaker 3: felt like May and Diane were randomly being like a
Speaker 3: little hostile to each other, well.
Speaker 2: Because May is like, we haven't seen you around that much,
Speaker 2: with like kind of a weird tone, and then in
Speaker 2: a similarly sort of like defensive tone, Diane is like, well, yeah,
Speaker 2: I've been working a lot.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I wonder if there was like another scene that, like,
Speaker 3: I don't know, it just felt like a very hostile
Speaker 3: dynamic to establish and then be like and that's just
Speaker 3: kind of what these women are like, and you're like,
Speaker 3: all right, so we have no women who can be friends,
Speaker 3: got it.
Speaker 4: I do feel like it's sort of, yeah, like the
Speaker 4: classic neighbors scenario where you just hate your neighbors.
Speaker 2: Well, the husbands don't like each other, and the women
Speaker 2: are just gonna go along with whatever the husband so
Speaker 2: doing and feeling Maybe was that I don't know.
Speaker 3: That wasn't how my neighborhood worked. It was like, if
Speaker 3: husbands hated each other, that was not going to interrupt
Speaker 3: wine mom time.
Speaker 2: Truly, that's beautiful wine mom.
Speaker 3: Time exceeded the husband.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean this is just very much a
Speaker 2: byproduct of the culture of the eighties, it is, and
Speaker 2: the sexism and the centering of whiteness that was inherent
Speaker 2: to that time. And oops, it's still happening.
Speaker 4: Oops.
Speaker 2: But yeah, that was all I had to say about
Speaker 2: the movie.
Speaker 3: So let's see how it fares on the Bechdel cast
Speaker 3: iconic nipple scale five nipples based on how the movie
Speaker 3: fares with an intersectional feminist lens.
Speaker 2: Yeah, zero to five nipples. I'm gonna give it a
Speaker 2: half nipple because there was potential. I guess it was
Speaker 2: all it was all squandered, But you know, there was
Speaker 2: potential in the character of Amy. At least there was
Speaker 2: one girl who got to like go on the big
Speaker 2: adventure through the yard. There was potential that could have
Speaker 2: been explored with Diane being the bread winner. But again,
Speaker 2: none of these opportunities are capitalized on. Everything is just
Speaker 2: very very status quo, very gendered dynamics across the entire movie.
Speaker 2: And it's not it's not doing really anything interesting in
Speaker 2: that regard. So half nipple, and I'm going to give
Speaker 2: it to Anti the ant rip May he or she
Speaker 2: rest in peace.
Speaker 3: Rip. I'm also gonna do I think half a nipple.
Speaker 3: You know, all of the hahollmarks of an eighties family
Speaker 3: movie are here. It is extremely white, it happens in
Speaker 3: an upper middle class suburb. There are only blonde women
Speaker 3: and they are not allowed to be interesting past a
Speaker 3: very specific point. So sounds like a movie from nineteen
Speaker 3: eighty nine to me, But most movies from nineteen eighty nine, counterpoint,
Speaker 3: don't have gigantic ants. And so I did enjoy it.
Speaker 3: And I also I feel like if I had seen
Speaker 3: this movie when I was a kid, I would have
Speaker 3: been very attached to Amy and like wanted more for her.
Speaker 3: And yeah, I again she is now that. Now that
Speaker 3: I see her as little Ellie Sadler, I can't unsee it.
Speaker 3: And it would have It would have been so easy
Speaker 3: and helpful to a weird plot to have her interested,
Speaker 3: to be the older sibling interested in science. It would
Speaker 3: have helped. But that we could not We could conceive
Speaker 3: of a shrink Ray. What we could not conceive of
Speaker 3: is a young woman with an interest. And so levlaf
Speaker 3: love half a nipple. I am giving it too. I'm
Speaker 3: gonna give it to Amy. She deserves it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, and more, Jenna, how about you.
Speaker 4: I'm also doing half nipple and I'm giving it to Amy.
Speaker 4: She was the only one with any kind of feminist potential.
Speaker 4: I think she grows up, you know, to be a scholar.
Speaker 4: She gets a PhD at Harvard for physics. She's a palaeontologist.
Speaker 4: I don't know, she does something in the sciences. She's
Speaker 4: a woman in stem who has been sort of written
Speaker 4: to only want to go to the mall, but she's
Speaker 4: dressing the part. She was cast in that way. This
Speaker 4: movie is, unfortunately was written by men, as was every
Speaker 4: Disney movie. And I do think that as a child,
Speaker 4: because I was so moved by this film and the
Speaker 4: making of it truly just what they wanted us to see,
Speaker 4: which was the technical aspects of it. You know, I
Speaker 4: have to give it some credit because it did. It
Speaker 4: did capture my special effects loving heart. And but that's
Speaker 4: about it.
Speaker 2: That's about it. Well, thank you so much for joining
Speaker 2: us once again.
Speaker 4: Oh my god, I love being on this pod.
Speaker 3: We love you so much. Bring us another practical effects
Speaker 3: any anything, anything and everything.
Speaker 4: God, I will, I will. I have so many eighties
Speaker 4: movies that are in the zeitgeist that are perfect for
Speaker 4: this podcast. Hell yeah, thanks for having me, of course.
Speaker 2: And tell us where people can find you on social media,
Speaker 2: fund your work, plug anything you want to plug.
Speaker 4: You can follow me at Janna Unplugged. I don't really
Speaker 4: have anything big to plug right now, but I do
Speaker 4: have my own podcast where two Native American medians, myself
Speaker 4: and Brian Bohi give advice to listeners who call in
Speaker 4: and ask for it, called Stage Based Wisdom. It's so funny,
Speaker 4: very dirty and weird.
Speaker 3: You and Brian are unhinged together, I really love and
Speaker 3: you can find us in all the normal places, and
Speaker 3: by that we mean Instagram and our Patreon aka Maatreon.
Speaker 3: We're for five dollars a month. You can get two
Speaker 3: bonus episodes with Caitlin and myself on a theme of
Speaker 3: hours or you're choosing depending on how well behaved the
Speaker 3: Patreon masses are being this. We were in dispute anyways,
Speaker 3: Join debate. It's really fun over there, and there's also
Speaker 3: a back catalog of over two hundred episodes to enjoy.
Speaker 2: Indeed, and with that, should we all get shrunk, let's
Speaker 2: be let's all get randomly unshrunk, because it turns out
Speaker 2: there's a reverse button of this, of course, obviously, yes,
Speaker 2: all machines have that. Okay, let's do that. Bye bye Hello.
Speaker 3: The Bechdel Cast is a production of iHeartMedia, hosted and
Speaker 3: produced by me Jamie Loftus.
Speaker 2: And Me Caitlyn Dorante. The podcast is also produced by
Speaker 2: Sophie Lichtermann and.
Speaker 3: Edited by Caitlyn Durrante. Ever heard of Them? That's Me
Speaker 3: and our logo and merch and all of our artwork
Speaker 3: in fact are designed by Jamie Loftus, Ever heard of her?
Speaker 3: Oh My God? And our theme song, by the way,
Speaker 3: was composed by Mike Kaplan.
Speaker 2: With vocals by Katherine Voskrasinski.
Speaker 3: Iconic and a special thanks to the one and only
Speaker 3: Aristotle Acevedo.
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