Speaker 1: On the Dog Cast, the questions asked if movies have
Speaker 1: women in um, are all their discussions just boyfriends and
Speaker 1: husbands or do they have individualism the patriarchy? Zef and
Speaker 1: best start changing it with the Bell Cast. Jamie, I've
Speaker 1: got the eyes, I've got the teeth, I've got Look
Speaker 1: out the window, I've got the car, Look at the
Speaker 1: look at the window of the basement. I just dragged
Speaker 1: you into to yell at you in after nearly trying
Speaker 1: to suffocate you to death. It's me, Nicholas Cage. I'm
Speaker 1: just in my uncle's movie right now and one of
Speaker 1: my most dialed back performances of my career. Oddly enough,
Speaker 1: isn't that? I thought that too, And I was like,
Speaker 1: that is shocking because he is being so weird. Well, Caitlin,
Speaker 1: now that you have yelled all of your qualifications of
Speaker 1: why I should marry you, I guess I will settle
Speaker 1: for you, not once, but twice. To you so much.
Speaker 1: I love that love our future together. Hello and welcome
Speaker 1: to the Bechtel Cast. My name is Caitlin Darante, my
Speaker 1: name is Jamie Loftus, and this is our podcast where
Speaker 1: we take a look at your favorite movies using an
Speaker 1: intersectional feminist lens, using the Bechdel Test as a jumping
Speaker 1: off point for a discussion. Caitlin, what is I mean?
Speaker 1: You got the eyes, you've got the teeth, you get
Speaker 1: the hair, you get the car, which is true, I
Speaker 1: don't have the car. You do have the car, and
Speaker 1: you always have. You really rely on me. I kind
Speaker 1: of do to get from point A to point beat.
Speaker 1: Sometimes they do art imitating life. Yeah, you're the knick
Speaker 1: cage in our relationship, which I don't know what that says.
Speaker 1: I'm honored. So we use the Becktel test as a
Speaker 1: jumping off point for discussion. But Caitlin, what is that anyways?
Speaker 1: The Bechtel test is a media metric created by queer
Speaker 1: cartoonist Alison Bechtel, sometimes called the Bechtel Wallace Test. There
Speaker 1: are many different variations of the test. The one that
Speaker 1: we use is that two people of any marginalized gender
Speaker 1: have to have names, and they must speak to each
Speaker 1: other about something other than a man for at least
Speaker 1: two lines of dialogue, and ideally for us, it's maybe
Speaker 1: more meaningful conversation to the narrative. If that happens, we
Speaker 1: are cheering. We are clapping, we're celebrating, we're saying we
Speaker 1: love it. Yes, Queen go girl boss. Way to have
Speaker 1: a conversation. Yeah, especially if it's in a movie that
Speaker 1: is directed by a man, because you just don't see
Speaker 1: it coming. Oh my gosh, I cannot believe Francis Ford
Speaker 1: Coppola directed this movie. What a weird choice. He really
Speaker 1: pulled this one out. I wouldn't. There are a few
Speaker 1: we were talking about this earlier. There's like a few
Speaker 1: shots in this movie that you're like, oh, yeah, this
Speaker 1: is a Coppola movie where like when the cake is
Speaker 1: rushing towards her, You're like, oh right, that guy that
Speaker 1: first mirrorsing. Yeah, scene that is supposedly in a mirror
Speaker 1: that is not a mirror. Not a mirror? Right? Okay.
Speaker 1: I was like, are my eyes just failing me right now?
Speaker 1: Or is this two actors who are pretending to mirror
Speaker 1: each other? Okay? Good. There's so much going on. We're
Speaker 1: covering Peggy Sue got married today, and we have a
Speaker 1: returning guest that we're so thrilled to have back. Let's
Speaker 1: let's get her in the mix. Baby. She's a comedian,
Speaker 1: she's got a new special coming out and a new album,
Speaker 1: both called stay Cation. You remember her from our episode
Speaker 1: on Groundhog Day. It's Jacky Cation. Yeah, it's me. I
Speaker 1: feel welcome, we welcome love having you here. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: Staycations out. It's so out. It's been out for like
Speaker 1: three weeks. It is out currently. Okay, but it's super fun.
Speaker 1: It's free. Find it. My last name, stay the words
Speaker 1: stay cation, K S H I and do whatever you want.
Speaker 1: But incredible. Yeah, it's out there. It's in the world.
Speaker 1: There's no excuse not to listen to it. Watch it.
Speaker 1: It's free, Jackie. What is your relationship with Peggy Sue
Speaker 1: got married? My relationship is a little complicated. My brother
Speaker 1: Russ is a delightful human being in many ways and
Speaker 1: a button bush or in other ways because he's my brother.
Speaker 1: But he loves movies and honestly loves some terrible movies.
Speaker 1: He has been known to say out loud, if it
Speaker 1: has one good scene, I'll watch it, and you're like,
Speaker 1: that is a low bar, my friend. But he is
Speaker 1: an econ professor. He did an episode of The Dork
Speaker 1: Forest about Hallmark movies where he showed me his spreadsheets
Speaker 1: last Christmas. His spreadsheet. Yeah, yeah, he did a great
Speaker 1: spreadsheet about how much they cost to make, who got
Speaker 1: most of the money, who were the recurring directors and
Speaker 1: actors and actresses, and uh, yeah, it's pretty outstanding, and
Speaker 1: this is one of his favorite movies. Really, how weird
Speaker 1: is that stand? He says that he calls it an
Speaker 1: adult back to the future. Okay, that's interesting. I would
Speaker 1: call it a less fun back to the future, right,
Speaker 1: which is a way of saying adults, right, And it
Speaker 1: has I mean the thing about this movie that was fascinating.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's so many things that are fascinating about
Speaker 1: this movie, but those tiny scenes of the powerlessness and
Speaker 1: the repetition of women in this thing. He's like he
Speaker 1: also called it sort of he said it was like diner,
Speaker 1: but it was only about the women. Yeah, I can
Speaker 1: see that. There's so much about this movie that's fascinating too,
Speaker 1: because it does take like such a high concept premise
Speaker 1: and focus it so much, and it like chooses to
Speaker 1: focus on things that are pretty like pragmatic and mundane.
Speaker 1: It's very interesting because a movie like Back to the
Speaker 1: Future is largely focused on the external goal of trying
Speaker 1: to get Marty McFly back to his timeline in so
Speaker 1: it's very like rompy and plotty, whereas this movie takes
Speaker 1: that high concept like you said, Jamie, but it's like,
Speaker 1: but let's explore the character arc. It's more of a
Speaker 1: character studying than anything. I love. I kind of love it,
Speaker 1: Like yeah, by the time he was to talking about it,
Speaker 1: I was like, yeah, no, it is kind of a
Speaker 1: great movie. I mean just because she goes into this
Speaker 1: thing and you can't change time, so she's going to
Speaker 1: make this mistake again, but the character herself has changed
Speaker 1: fundamentally because of whatever time travel coma whatever, this was right,
Speaker 1: and she comes out of it more in charge, like
Speaker 1: because she went in going I feel humility. Remember that
Speaker 1: line it was do you feel humiliated? Do you feel
Speaker 1: less than? Do you feel worseless? And good? Good because
Speaker 1: that's how she felt when when Nicholas Cage went with
Speaker 1: Janet and and she comes out of it with more power.
Speaker 1: I think that's an interesting argument. I would argue the
Speaker 1: other the opposite, or really I think there's so many ways.
Speaker 1: I'm still kind of figuring out how I feel about
Speaker 1: how this movie goes, because I feel like there is
Speaker 1: a way to read it where you're like, oh, this
Speaker 1: is the first time I saw it, it made me
Speaker 1: sad at the end, But then the second time I
Speaker 1: saw it, it didn't make me as like, it's just
Speaker 1: I don't know. I really like taking a huge premise
Speaker 1: and then taking it in a weird direction, because this
Speaker 1: is just like a woman in her early forties taking
Speaker 1: a look at the choices she's made in her life
Speaker 1: so far in a back to the future style premise,
Speaker 1: which is like so weird, but it's but it's I've
Speaker 1: never seen anything like it. And I saw this movie.
Speaker 1: I saw this movie in nine in the movie theater,
Speaker 1: and I was infuriated. It was sad, it was it
Speaker 1: was I found her kind of pathetic and irritata and
Speaker 1: I was like, why did you make these choices? But
Speaker 1: watching it again, I was like every single person in
Speaker 1: that in that timeline, we're like, we'll marry me and
Speaker 1: go work at this chicken farm for me so that
Speaker 1: I could write, Marry me and support me while I'm
Speaker 1: a musician, Marry me and give me great tech ideas
Speaker 1: so that we could be billionaires, and which that would
Speaker 1: have been the option I would have gone with. It's
Speaker 1: like I'm going with panty hose guy exactly. And then
Speaker 1: every like her parents and her and her mom and
Speaker 1: her grandmother, and you know, there was nobody who's who
Speaker 1: said don't get married, nobody who said are you going
Speaker 1: to go to college? Nobody said what do you want
Speaker 1: to do? Ever? Right, So I left that movie the
Speaker 1: first time going you And the second time I watched
Speaker 1: it last night, I was like, this is a real
Speaker 1: slice of life of some Americana here, because it was
Speaker 1: n right. Her dad is in the fucking hat business.
Speaker 1: Do you know when men stopped wearing hats nineteen sixty one?
Speaker 1: So fucked? He is so fucked And he just bought
Speaker 1: an etzel because they stopped wearing hats because John John
Speaker 1: Kennedy did wear hats, So hats went completely out. So
Speaker 1: if you owned a hat business, you were for cutted.
Speaker 1: Flowing my mind, that is so like there, I'm excited
Speaker 1: to kind of dig into that side of it and
Speaker 1: like kind of the historical because that was something that
Speaker 1: stood out to me as well of like something that
Speaker 1: is frustrating to witness but also seems authentic to that
Speaker 1: time of like she and it made me wish ultimately
Speaker 1: that we had spent a little more time in the
Speaker 1: eighties with her because I feel like the movie started
Speaker 1: in such a cool, strong place where it's like she's,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of torn between this you know, middle
Speaker 1: class white woman eighties paradigm of like do I want
Speaker 1: to be a liberated woman? Do I want to strike
Speaker 1: out on my own? Or do I want to stay
Speaker 1: in this domestic situation and figure out who I am? There?
Speaker 1: And she has one friend on each side, and right
Speaker 1: with Nicolas Cage in a wig, who's like, I think
Speaker 1: twenty two in this movie, but he's playing whatever, Like,
Speaker 1: but I I like that pushing Paul and Sophia Coppola. Yeah, Baby.
Speaker 1: Sophia played her younger sister. Jim Carrie's in it. Helen Hunt.
Speaker 1: Isn't it? Helen Hot? Joan Allen? Isn't it? Yeah? Was
Speaker 1: that Wilford Brimley wasn't Maybe? Maybe I might be wrong.
Speaker 1: I played her grandfather, who had that great line, why
Speaker 1: have a lodge if you can't have funny hats or something?
Speaker 1: That was a great they're obsessed with hats? Um. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I just like, there's there's so much going on. I'm
Speaker 1: excited to get into it because this My history with
Speaker 1: this movie is that I had never seen it before.
Speaker 1: I just knew that I liked Kathleen Turner and that
Speaker 1: I was going to like it based on the fact
Speaker 1: that I liked Kathleen Turner, which did bear out as expected.
Speaker 1: She's so amazing. But I I, yeah, I knew very
Speaker 1: very little about this movie. I feel like it's a
Speaker 1: movie that's maybe, um, I don't know, if it's like
Speaker 1: you know, under it's not very discussed. I don't think true,
Speaker 1: but I think it's very worthy of discussion. Like once
Speaker 1: I watched it was like, oh, there's a there's a
Speaker 1: lot of there's a lot of ship to chew on
Speaker 1: in this one. I'm very excited to talk about it.
Speaker 1: And I even though so much of it made me sad,
Speaker 1: I liked the movie and I'm glad that it exists,
Speaker 1: and it exists kind of the way that it does
Speaker 1: because it feels like such a almost like a weird
Speaker 1: kind of like little historical document of taking a woman
Speaker 1: who you meet her at this crossroads and then you
Speaker 1: go back and get context for like, well how do
Speaker 1: you get there? Which is cool, and I'm like, you
Speaker 1: don't especially, I mean, I just don't expect that in
Speaker 1: a Francis for a couple of movie is to get
Speaker 1: like a deep character study of a middle aged woman.
Speaker 1: Didn't know. I didn't know, didn't yet, did not call
Speaker 1: it and everybody, And I thought the depiction of what
Speaker 1: seventeen year olds are kind of like was kind of
Speaker 1: great too. In the fact of all this emotion and
Speaker 1: all this angst, I was like, yeah, not not for
Speaker 1: a hundred dollars. When I go back, they were real horny.
Speaker 1: It was stressful to watch, sup horny, super emotional. Confused Cait,
Speaker 1: what's your history with this movie? I had also never
Speaker 1: seen it. I was a big fan of again Back
Speaker 1: to the Future throughout my whole life and still today,
Speaker 1: But for some reason, a similar movie with a similar
Speaker 1: premise that came out one year later I didn't see.
Speaker 1: It's a very different movie. I mean, I think the
Speaker 1: main plot of Back to the Future is don't be
Speaker 1: attracted to your son, and like the main thing is like,
Speaker 1: don't do it. It's it's like that. That is the
Speaker 1: message is that you know, it's weird, it's not okay,
Speaker 1: be careful who you fall in love with in high
Speaker 1: school because it might be your time traveling son, which is,
Speaker 1: you know, a very specific and not very relatable theme
Speaker 1: but hilarious weird plu hilarious, weird. It's very very strange
Speaker 1: and yeah, this movie, this movie explores a far more
Speaker 1: in theory compelling character arc. But again, the way her
Speaker 1: art still kind of pans out is up for debate.
Speaker 1: I think it is compelling. I think it's something can
Speaker 1: be depressing and compelling at the same time. Absolutely, it
Speaker 1: just made me sad the way it pans out. But well,
Speaker 1: we'll get we'll get there. In the meantime, I will
Speaker 1: do the recap. Okay, Jackie for to jump in at
Speaker 1: any time. Yes, okay, So it is nineteen again. This
Speaker 1: movie comes out in but we open its we meet
Speaker 1: Peggy Sue. That's Kathleen Turner. She is getting ready for
Speaker 1: her of your high school reunion. She and her I
Speaker 1: guess early twenties daughter, Beth Helen Hunt are talking about
Speaker 1: best dad slash Peggy Sue's ex husband or soon to
Speaker 1: be ex husband, Charlie. I went into this movie completely cold,
Speaker 1: and so at the first scene I didn't note that
Speaker 1: she travels back in time in it, So I was like,
Speaker 1: why do these people keep saying that they're forty five?
Speaker 1: They're very obviously not um, but I did like that. UM.
Speaker 1: I feel like there are so many movies that, um,
Speaker 1: there are so many movies that if there's a time jump,
Speaker 1: like the facial changes will be so distractingly large that
Speaker 1: you can't even really engage with the movie. But instead,
Speaker 1: I like that the casting split the difference and they're like, well,
Speaker 1: we're going to cast people in their late twenties early thirties,
Speaker 1: so they kind of don't look like a teenager and
Speaker 1: they kind of don't look like a forty five year old.
Speaker 1: But like you could buy into either and it's fine.
Speaker 1: It's like it's a very community theater approach, and I
Speaker 1: think it works right. So Peggy Sue and her daughter
Speaker 1: are talking about Charlie, who we see on a commercial
Speaker 1: on TV. He is played by Nicholas Cage. Peggy Sue
Speaker 1: hates and resents him because he was cheating on her
Speaker 1: throughout their marriage, which has led to them getting divorced.
Speaker 1: Then she heads to the reunion and we meet a
Speaker 1: lot of her friends from when she was in high school,
Speaker 1: such as Carol Maddie. Maddie is Joan Allen Walter played
Speaker 1: by Jim Carey. Also this guy Richard Norvik who used
Speaker 1: to be a nerd, and now he's a millionaire. I
Speaker 1: sort of forgot that when a nerd becomes a millionaire
Speaker 1: that didn't used to be a scary thing in a movie.
Speaker 1: It used to just be like a thing that happened,
Speaker 1: where now you're like, oh no, Elon Musk, you have
Speaker 1: to get away from this person. But at this time
Speaker 1: it was like, oh no, he's lovable, right, right, He's
Speaker 1: he's just he's the lovable UM six US guy who
Speaker 1: got pushed around in high school. Right. Reminds me of
Speaker 1: Alan Cummings character in Romeo Michelle's High School Reunion. Yeah,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, exactly, also directed by Coppola. Yes, could you imagine?
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness. So, Peggy Sue is talking to her friends.
Speaker 1: She tells them about how her marriage fell apart. She
Speaker 1: explains that she and Charlie got married too young, and
Speaker 1: they ended up presenting each other for all the things
Speaker 1: they feel they missed out on. Peggy Sue never even
Speaker 1: dated anybody else. She mentions this guy, Michael fitz Simmons,
Speaker 1: who she wishes she had gone to bed with in
Speaker 1: high school when she had the chance. She says, if
Speaker 1: she knew then what she knows now she do things
Speaker 1: a lot differently, is so self aware from the moment
Speaker 1: one she knows exactly why her divorces. I'm like, are
Speaker 1: you in therapy? Like you're killing and she's like, I
Speaker 1: know exactly why. She's like, I hold anger for him,
Speaker 1: but also, you know, neither of us got to explore
Speaker 1: lives before we settled down. She's emotionally intelligent, that Peggy su.
Speaker 1: I like her. Truly, I wish she'd had a better husband, right,
Speaker 1: I wish she had chosen such a mess of a kid.
Speaker 1: You know, it is in some ways it is a
Speaker 1: Shakespearean tragedy because imagine picking the same loser twice frustrating,
Speaker 1: and that loser is Charlie, who right then shows up
Speaker 1: at the reunion. It's awkward between him and Peggy Sue.
Speaker 1: Then the reunion Alexa King and Queen. Richard Norvik is
Speaker 1: the King and Peggy Sue is the Queen. But as
Speaker 1: she's giving her acceptance speech, she faints because women be fainting.
Speaker 1: And then I know that women be fainting, women be fainting,
Speaker 1: But I liked this faint. I don't know what it
Speaker 1: was about this, I mean, I do know what it was.
Speaker 1: It was like it was just scary for him for
Speaker 1: a minute. Like, I feel like that scene did a
Speaker 1: good job of putting you in her head of like,
Speaker 1: because times women be fainting and a void. But I
Speaker 1: was like, at least in this I understood why she
Speaker 1: was faint. It worked for me too. Yeah. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: you got to move the plot forward, so good for
Speaker 1: her them faint, The plot must go on, that's true.
Speaker 1: She got a bonker head, or the movie can't start,
Speaker 1: can't happen. So when she wakes up, it is nineteen sixty.
Speaker 1: She is in high school again. Her friends are there,
Speaker 1: Charlie is there. She has the memories and consciousness of
Speaker 1: her fully adult self, but everyone perceives her as her
Speaker 1: high school self, even though she is visibly in her thirties. Right,
Speaker 1: And he has always looked forty always, Yes, I don't
Speaker 1: care if he was twenty years old. He has always
Speaker 1: looked forward to even though he's twenty two. In this
Speaker 1: he did. Yeah, what a goony looking dude, man, he
Speaker 1: I was. I mean, I will get into this a
Speaker 1: little later, but there was a lot of like sparring
Speaker 1: about how the production of this movie went, and like
Speaker 1: Kathleen Turner and Nicholas Cage ended up getting into a
Speaker 1: lawsuit over stet like there was some interesting stuff going on.
Speaker 1: It sounds like everyone was being messy. This is just
Speaker 1: a messy. Yeah. So then Peggy Sue's friends take her home.
Speaker 1: She reconnects with her mom, her younger sister Nancy played
Speaker 1: by Sofia Coppola. Because nepotism, she reconnects with her dad,
Speaker 1: who also gets her in trouble for getting drunk because
Speaker 1: she's like, I'm forty three. I can drink whiskey straight
Speaker 1: from the bottle and he's like, no, you're a teenager. Anyway.
Speaker 1: The next day, Charlie picks her up to go to
Speaker 1: school and he's like, hey, remember how we talked about
Speaker 1: how we should see other people. I think it's a
Speaker 1: good idea to do after graduation. That way I can
Speaker 1: focus on my music for a while and then we
Speaker 1: can settle down and get married. And she's like, fuck it,
Speaker 1: let's break up now. And it's the best line because
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, good, good, She's not gonna do this again,
Speaker 1: right right right, which makes it so I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: you're so close. It's so like and I get it
Speaker 1: because sometimes you you you break up with someone, you're like,
Speaker 1: this isn't right, and then you date a different person
Speaker 1: and you're like, oh, this sucks in a totally different way.
Speaker 1: But then date a third person. Don't go back to
Speaker 1: the first person. There's always a third person out there
Speaker 1: that's going to hurt you in a in a new
Speaker 1: and interesting way. If you're gonna build and then and
Speaker 1: then a fourth person, and then a fifth person, and
Speaker 1: so on and so and it'll go on and you'll
Speaker 1: never find someone the literal story of my life. So
Speaker 1: then she is not dating Charlie anymore. So she's kind
Speaker 1: of like focusing on school for some reason. She's uh,
Speaker 1: she flunks an algebra test. She admires that classmate Michael
Speaker 1: fitz Simmons, who she wanted to bang back in high school.
Speaker 1: He has some hot takes on literature, and she's like, wow,
Speaker 1: he's so intellectual. Well it's Caraway. Oh my god, You're
Speaker 1: just like I don't like kemming Way. Like Carraway. I
Speaker 1: was like, they're the same guy. One has bowls and
Speaker 1: the other one is like the Roadman and LSD. And
Speaker 1: you're like, shut it's so, I mean, it's Kevin j O'Connor. Right, Yes,
Speaker 1: it's so funny because I feel like the movie has
Speaker 1: to keep telling you he's a good writer, because when
Speaker 1: you hear him talk, you're like, this sucks. They also
Speaker 1: have to tell you that he's good looking. And because
Speaker 1: you're like that guy, like the picture of him running,
Speaker 1: You're like, what is with his face anyway? So, I
Speaker 1: mean there's classically good looking, and then there's Nicolas Cage
Speaker 1: movie good looking, so you gotta have some. I mean,
Speaker 1: Jim Carrey's in this thing, So Jim Carrey is looking
Speaker 1: beautiful as usual. Nicolas Cage, it's really actively distancing himself
Speaker 1: from how he looks in this movie, which I also
Speaker 1: is reading production notes about where he's like whatever, uncle,
Speaker 1: uncle Daddy, Like I want to wear a wig and
Speaker 1: fake teeth and talk like Gumby And he was like,
Speaker 1: oky dog, Nick, do whatever you want, have a career
Speaker 1: on me. And Kathleen Turner was fuming, right, She's like,
Speaker 1: there's not a chance she would go with this guy
Speaker 1: ever anybody. He's such a dweep. Wait, Jamie real quick, Yeah,
Speaker 1: Jim Carrey hot, you say question mark? I was gonna
Speaker 1: I was gonna let it go, But I are you kidna?
Speaker 1: I'm sorry? Are we not all on the same page
Speaker 1: about Jim Carrey hot and interesting? I feel like if
Speaker 1: you saw young Jim Carey and you didn't know he
Speaker 1: was Jim Carey, you would say hot. That's my opinion.
Speaker 1: Not for me. There might have been a window when
Speaker 1: you saw Jim Carrey and you're like, that guy has
Speaker 1: given me the Peter Tingles and then that's enough. But look,
Speaker 1: I've been known to have eccentric tastes. But I say
Speaker 1: I've I've said it before. I don't know if I've
Speaker 1: ever said it on the show, but I'm glad we're
Speaker 1: putting out on wax. Jim Carrey hot. Okay, you're alone there,
Speaker 1: so sorry, sorry call um. Anyway, so we're we're told
Speaker 1: that this Michael fitz Simmons guy is brilliant and hot
Speaker 1: and Kathleen Turner likes him, so we're like, okay, I guess.
Speaker 1: Then Peggy Sue approaches Richard Norfolk, the current NERD future millionaire.
Speaker 1: She asks him if time travel is possible, and then
Speaker 1: she convinces him that she has time traveled from twenty
Speaker 1: five years in the future. I like that he believes her.
Speaker 1: That's so sweet in such a nice moment. I do
Speaker 1: wish there are multiple moments in the we'll get into this,
Speaker 1: but in the flashback, I feel like the eighties premise
Speaker 1: sets you up for a movie that's going to be
Speaker 1: about her relationships with her female friends, but then once
Speaker 1: you go back to the sixties, it's all about these
Speaker 1: three guys. I was hoping you had spend more time
Speaker 1: with the with with the three friends here, but I
Speaker 1: also like that Richard believes her, yeah yeah, and then
Speaker 1: one friend disappears entirely. There's a character named Rosalie who
Speaker 1: will also discuss, but she appears in the flash forward
Speaker 1: and it's kind of introduces like a close friend of hers,
Speaker 1: and then she's like not there in there she married to, right,
Speaker 1: because the movie keeps defining women by who they are
Speaker 1: or who will they will be married to, but we
Speaker 1: don't know anything about her character named Rosalie Testa, but
Speaker 1: then she like doesn't appear at all in the flash
Speaker 1: I don't know that was I think that was like
Speaker 1: my my actual like writing disappointment. It was like that
Speaker 1: you were just focusing on like kind of Richard, Michael,
Speaker 1: and Charlie. I mean and you do get the relationship
Speaker 1: with her mother and her sister, like it's it's not
Speaker 1: just them, but in terms of like at school, it
Speaker 1: kind of was like mar Carol more Maddie, that relationship
Speaker 1: with her sister was kind of cool, you know where
Speaker 1: I was just like where She's like, I regret You're like,
Speaker 1: I wanted to know, how did you break that? What
Speaker 1: did you do to Nancy? Right that you don't hang
Speaker 1: out with her anymore, You're busy hanging out with Charlie.
Speaker 1: I thought that maybe Nancy had died, like the way
Speaker 1: that she's so excited to see Nancy, and like what
Speaker 1: happened to Nancy and the current the current time? Do
Speaker 1: we know? Do we ever find out? I would like
Speaker 1: to know. I think a more interesting version of this
Speaker 1: movie would be you spend more time in learning about
Speaker 1: Peggy Sue's kind of broken life and failed relationships and
Speaker 1: then her traveling back. One of them can be a
Speaker 1: romantic relationship, fine, but it should be like a bunch
Speaker 1: of different areas of her life and a bunch of
Speaker 1: different relationships that like she has to with all of
Speaker 1: this hindsight, she can now figure out like how to
Speaker 1: repair this or how to not make the mistakes in
Speaker 1: the first place, you know, stuff like that. But instead
Speaker 1: it's just like I'm going to date one guy and
Speaker 1: then kind of another guy, and then be friends with
Speaker 1: a third guy and give him give him a bunch
Speaker 1: of million dollar tech ideas, and then the end anyway,
Speaker 1: Um okay, So she has convinced Richard Norvik that she's
Speaker 1: a time traveler and this is the beginning of a
Speaker 1: friendship with him. Meanwhile, Charlie is trying to win Peggy
Speaker 1: Sue back. He takes her to a party. She sees
Speaker 1: him perform music, and she's kind of smitten again, even
Speaker 1: though she's like, his music ambitions are going nowhere because
Speaker 1: he's an appliance salesman in twenty five years. Um well,
Speaker 1: I thought that that seed did his when he's um
Speaker 1: he works at a record store and she's like, do
Speaker 1: you know anything about classical music and he's like, nope,
Speaker 1: sales a sales right, you know, essentially he's a salesman.
Speaker 1: Yeah he is not a musician, which is like tells
Speaker 1: you everything you need to know about him. But but
Speaker 1: his life story is so sad too, where it's his
Speaker 1: God where that scene at the end when we get
Speaker 1: to the end of this movie. The last ten minutes
Speaker 1: of this movie are such whiplash. Like I watched the
Speaker 1: last ten movie minutes back a few times because I
Speaker 1: was like, is there any world where I can interpret
Speaker 1: this as like good for them? I just couldn't get there.
Speaker 1: What we know is that they all lived, and Helen
Speaker 1: Hunt seems to ever shipped together. But the thing is
Speaker 1: is it's so weird because to back up a little bit,
Speaker 1: when she drinks all that whiskey and then finds out
Speaker 1: that he's and we find out he buys an ed
Speaker 1: sol and then we find out that he's in the
Speaker 1: head industry and um, and then like a couple of
Speaker 1: scenes later, she comes home and her mom is selling
Speaker 1: her jewelry. Oh I missed that. Oh there's this tiny
Speaker 1: scene where she's like, I'm gonna vote Democrat. Don't tell
Speaker 1: your dad. She was talking to a pawnbroker, right, So
Speaker 1: her dad is a guy who cannot get his act
Speaker 1: together either. It's the all the men in this thing
Speaker 1: except for Wilford Brimley, if that was um, seemed like
Speaker 1: just not really great dudes, right, who have these grandiose
Speaker 1: ideas of themselves that never manifest and the women around
Speaker 1: them are picking up like she's always done for Charley,
Speaker 1: I thought that that was I totally agree, like that
Speaker 1: setting up. Her dad is like this guy that obviously
Speaker 1: she loves very much, and like even when he like
Speaker 1: makes the reckless purchase that clearly puts the family into
Speaker 1: debt of getting this car, she's like, Oh, you always
Speaker 1: do stuff like this, and like when you're it's so interesting.
Speaker 1: Just like the little moments in this movie that I
Speaker 1: really like, a lot of them are with her family
Speaker 1: and maybe wish that you saw her family in the
Speaker 1: eighties or at least knew what sort of became of them,
Speaker 1: right right, because she has a son right where is
Speaker 1: he at? Scott was not named after Wilford Brimley, but
Speaker 1: the daughter named after the grand God. But it's like,
Speaker 1: you see, you see why she's kind of attracted to
Speaker 1: I mean whatever, it's kind of an hereditary thing. She's
Speaker 1: used to a guy who really puts on a show
Speaker 1: and then has the woman in his life pick up
Speaker 1: and tolerate stuff after him. And I like that little
Speaker 1: moment with her mom that I think might be in
Speaker 1: that same scene or in a similar scene where her
Speaker 1: mom is sort of gently warning her against this personality
Speaker 1: type where she's like, you have to learn how to
Speaker 1: stand up to Charlie because we've just seen a scene
Speaker 1: where she is quietly cleaning up her husband's mess, and
Speaker 1: it's clear she doesn't want that for her daughter. And
Speaker 1: that's such a generational thing, I feel like, especially for
Speaker 1: these two generations of you can't fix this problem loudly
Speaker 1: or that's not customary, but she wants a better relationship
Speaker 1: for her daughter than she had for herself, and then
Speaker 1: it doesn't happen, and it's so sad, Like it's just
Speaker 1: so sad. But there is a recurring theme that does
Speaker 1: sort of sell the fact that we all just go
Speaker 1: through life and then at the end of it, you
Speaker 1: can't really change anything, so you have to be psyched
Speaker 1: about the things that you do still love like that
Speaker 1: that you did, right, And she always talks about missing
Speaker 1: your kids. Yes, I do like that. Yeah, And that
Speaker 1: was kind of beautiful, and it was just it was
Speaker 1: also in the moment, like in the time, it made
Speaker 1: you go, yeah, you know, of course, that's all you're accomplishing,
Speaker 1: is you you brought a couple of kids and and
Speaker 1: they aren't a mess. I guess, right, And that's like,
Speaker 1: I hope Scott doesn't work for Crazy Charley. I hope
Speaker 1: Scott has a music career. Yeah, it's I was. There's
Speaker 1: so much about Peggy too that it's like we are
Speaker 1: never and I wonder how, I guess, I'm curious of
Speaker 1: what you both think of. Like, she's never presented as
Speaker 1: someone who is particularly ambitious. That's that's strictly attributed to
Speaker 1: her husband, who had a huge ambition and failed in
Speaker 1: a spectacul other way and took out his anger at
Speaker 1: failing on Peggy sue. We're never told that she has
Speaker 1: a particular ambition, but she's also very emotionally intelligent and
Speaker 1: highly motivated to understand the choices she's made in her life,
Speaker 1: but none of them are in relation to her work
Speaker 1: or like we're told that she I think owns a
Speaker 1: baker question right, Yeah, that's right, she owned a bakery, right,
Speaker 1: we know nothing about that. I forgot about that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I feel like it's a little complicated because it's like not,
Speaker 1: not everyone has huge career ambitions and that's not like
Speaker 1: a prerequisite for being a person, And that's like okay
Speaker 1: to see reflected on screen. For someone that isn't like
Speaker 1: I want to have this huge fucking career and do this,
Speaker 1: this and this. But I was I was kind of like,
Speaker 1: but like, nothing, you know nothing outside of your romantic
Speaker 1: relationship you want to examine. Yeah, it was jarring that
Speaker 1: nobody asked her right, that she never said anything like
Speaker 1: there's a scene where she's with Michael and they're gonna
Speaker 1: have sex and she's like, all right, I want to
Speaker 1: be a dancer, and then he's like, let's go to
Speaker 1: Utah and you can raise chickens for me, and she's
Speaker 1: and you're like, you want to dance? Counter offer? Yeah,
Speaker 1: since Wind does that? Is that if she does want
Speaker 1: to dance, I would love that. But is that true
Speaker 1: or is that just like her being like silly in
Speaker 1: the moment we know nothing about just don't ye right right,
Speaker 1: Like we don't know enough about her kind of backstory
Speaker 1: or like any of her her ambitions or or just interests.
Speaker 1: It would have it would have been cool to just
Speaker 1: explicitly know, you know, because it's like, even if the
Speaker 1: answer to that question is like, what I want in
Speaker 1: life is to enjoy my family and my friends and
Speaker 1: to like work as much as I need to but
Speaker 1: like work isn't the most important thing to me. But
Speaker 1: it's just like, tell us, what does she want besides
Speaker 1: to understand Charlie who sucks? Because there are some genuine
Speaker 1: beautiful moments in this movie, and some real cool nuggets
Speaker 1: and some revelatory moments of of of stuff. But this
Speaker 1: movie genuinely feels like I'm watching real time someone make
Speaker 1: bad life decisions. Yeah, it feels like a real slice
Speaker 1: of life where you're like, this is a life I
Speaker 1: didn't want to see a slice of and parts of
Speaker 1: it are very beautiful. And so I get why my
Speaker 1: brother loves this movie because he has such eclectic taste,
Speaker 1: Like he loves every kind of movie from Hallmark Movies,
Speaker 1: two like Cinema, pair of Dees, like foreign films, and
Speaker 1: he likes right now he's into German musicals whatever from
Speaker 1: the sixties. Anyway, Um, but I will say that, yeah,
Speaker 1: I just I do want it to have a good ending, though.
Speaker 1: I want her to come back and be able to
Speaker 1: say to Charlie, I need some time. I don't want
Speaker 1: to be with you. You could come over on Sunday
Speaker 1: for lunch with your kids in the house you paid for.
Speaker 1: It's so like yeah, it's so I think that you say,
Speaker 1: maybe I'm trying to, you know, overly empathize with this
Speaker 1: person who doesn't exist, which I've been known to do.
Speaker 1: But um, but yeah, like a slice of life from
Speaker 1: a life you don't necessarily want to see a slice
Speaker 1: of I feel like sums up this entire movie in
Speaker 1: a in a way where you're where even and it's
Speaker 1: like you see these kind of close brushes that she
Speaker 1: has with something more, but then she has no interest
Speaker 1: in it, like even there. Oh, I wrote at some
Speaker 1: point in my notes, like that thing about her giving
Speaker 1: Richard the idea for pantyhose and then her becoming like
Speaker 1: the like he has the science and she could have
Speaker 1: the business acumen, and he literally says to her like,
Speaker 1: you're amazing, you could do this, We could do this.
Speaker 1: You're like, That's the whole movie that I would want
Speaker 1: to watch, is them stealing the idea for pantyhose and
Speaker 1: like seeing how that affected the few your timeline. But
Speaker 1: it is like the way that even the way that
Speaker 1: time is treated in this movie is kind of depressing
Speaker 1: because it's treated like, well, no matter what she does
Speaker 1: differently here, this is an exercise for her internally, it's
Speaker 1: not going to affect anything in her future. It's never
Speaker 1: even suggested that it might change anything in her future,
Speaker 1: well in the existing timeline. But I would posit that
Speaker 1: she comes back stronger. I would positive that she has
Speaker 1: learned from this history and has come back stronger. But
Speaker 1: she does look at the end of the movie like
Speaker 1: she's going to make the same mistake. Right she is.
Speaker 1: I think she comes back with more, I guess, just
Speaker 1: like a clearer understanding and more. She comes back wiser.
Speaker 1: But the choice that she makes is what makes me
Speaker 1: argue that she's kind of succumbing to I don't even know,
Speaker 1: like cultural expectations or something. It's so it's like, I
Speaker 1: don't know what. Maybe there's a maybe there's a German
Speaker 1: word for this where it's like she goes back, gets
Speaker 1: so much more information, really really thinks about it, and
Speaker 1: then makes the same bed. So she's making a more
Speaker 1: informed version of it's more sympathetic the first time when
Speaker 1: she's a kid and she doesn't know any better, but
Speaker 1: she's like, no, I'm forty two years old and I've
Speaker 1: really looked at all of my choices and I've decided
Speaker 1: that this fucking guy is all that I'm going to Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you're like, goodness, let me finish the recap really quick.
Speaker 1: We've had half the discussion already. That's true. That's true.
Speaker 1: It will make our jobs easier later. Okay, So where
Speaker 1: was I? Um, Charlie is charming her, she's getting horny
Speaker 1: about it. There's a scene where she suggests they have sex.
Speaker 1: He's like, what I thought we were going to wait
Speaker 1: till marriage and we are like, wait, this character is
Speaker 1: a teenager and her characters and her forties and it's
Speaker 1: absolutely not okay either way. He freaks out and takes
Speaker 1: her home. So then Peggy starts to pursue Michael fitz
Speaker 1: Simmons the like I love Jack Caroat guy and Jack
Speaker 1: Carroak fanboy. They bond, they smoke pot, they kiss, and
Speaker 1: then do they have sex or is it implied that
Speaker 1: they see It's implied that the one starry night, right, okay, Yeah,
Speaker 1: they have so much sex she gets a whole book
Speaker 1: about it. Yes, right, yikes, he loved that night. Yeah
Speaker 1: he really. It's it's stuck with him. Yeah, that's the
Speaker 1: only thing that it changes in the timeline. Isn't it
Speaker 1: that the Starry Night gets that reminded me. Maybe this
Speaker 1: is a reference for no one. Um. There was an
Speaker 1: Aaron Carter music video and Aaron Carter Carter song called
Speaker 1: how I Beat Shack? Do you remember this song, Caitlin,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, okay. It's Aaron Carter. Nick Carter's little brother
Speaker 1: from the Bacty Boys. He's probably nine or ten. He
Speaker 1: made a little song, a little song, a great song
Speaker 1: called how I Beat Shack. It was about him having
Speaker 1: a dream about beating Shaquille O'Neil and basketball. There's a
Speaker 1: fun twist at the end of the music video and
Speaker 1: song where he wakes up. He's like, it was all
Speaker 1: a dream. I can't believe it. I didn't. I a tiny,
Speaker 1: little nine year old boy didn't beat Seaquille O'Neil at basketball.
Speaker 1: But then he wakes up in a jersey that says
Speaker 1: Shaquille O'Neil, suggesting that perhaps he did beat shack. The
Speaker 1: Starry Night dedication is for me, the inspiration for the
Speaker 1: music video for How I Beat Shack by Aaron Carter.
Speaker 1: I'll link it in the description. It's a delight. Have
Speaker 1: you guys seen the Katie Perry Pokemon song called Electric
Speaker 1: Yes Wait, Yes, Yes, yes, yes, man. There's It's also
Speaker 1: music is magic Wow. And then there's Katie Perry saking
Speaker 1: electric and it is I mean she loves Pokemon. I'm
Speaker 1: not going to say she should anyway, She's really pressing
Speaker 1: it in the most interesting ways she could think of. Okay,
Speaker 1: So the Peggy Sue keeps hanging out with Richard. She
Speaker 1: helps him invent some stuff that she knows will be
Speaker 1: popular in the eighties, and then she also boxes spoon boxes.
Speaker 1: She also gets the idea to invent pantyhose. Then Charlie
Speaker 1: comes around and apologizes for freaking out the night before,
Speaker 1: so she's kind of like, do I take him back
Speaker 1: or not. Her friends and her talk about their futures
Speaker 1: and who they might marry, and they're supposed to grow
Speaker 1: up on our cul de sac with their kids growing
Speaker 1: up next to each other. But when when in the
Speaker 1: beginning of the movie she goes to the reunion, it
Speaker 1: doesn't feel like she has spent twenty five years with
Speaker 1: these people. No doesn't. She hasn't seen it doesn't, which
Speaker 1: I think it's kind of a fun detail. Is like,
Speaker 1: of course, the way you say things are going to
Speaker 1: be when you're seventeen with your best friends is unfortunately
Speaker 1: famously never how it goes. You felt like, what was
Speaker 1: it the hell and Hunt character who's like, I'm sucking
Speaker 1: off to New York or wherever and I'm having a
Speaker 1: whole sex in the city side quest like everyone's going
Speaker 1: to go off and do their own things. And then
Speaker 1: you're I don't know, I am still pretty close with
Speaker 1: my friends from high school, but not like, you know,
Speaker 1: living on the same street clothes. Oh sure, I talked
Speaker 1: to one friend from high school, and the rest I
Speaker 1: know nothing about what their current situation is. They come
Speaker 1: out after about twenty five years, you meet them again,
Speaker 1: and then you're like, oh, you're okay, you grew up
Speaker 1: in the ensuing twenty five years, you're no longer that jackass.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know that I would ever want
Speaker 1: to see Vicky Emberts again. That's because she made me
Speaker 1: eat dirt junior High. So God should beat the hell
Speaker 1: out of me and jam my face into the munth
Speaker 1: is an anti Vicky podcast. Fuck Vicky ended up at
Speaker 1: the cop shop you guys anyway, Um, it was the
Speaker 1: it was the seventies. It was the seventies, we said,
Speaker 1: cop shop. Lord anyway, anyway, how does it end well?
Speaker 1: Speaking of violence? Um, and then then there's a scene
Speaker 1: where Charlie considers smothering Piggy Sue with her pillow while
Speaker 1: she's sleeping because he is upset that she was hanging
Speaker 1: out with Michael fitz Simmons. They have a fight. She
Speaker 1: tries to break it off again, knowing it doesn't work
Speaker 1: out for them in the future, but he's like, I
Speaker 1: love you, but then he storms off. The weird thing
Speaker 1: is when he shakes her when they're in the basement.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, that's set felt actually very much more violent.
Speaker 1: I thought that the pillow might a been a joke,
Speaker 1: but the shaky hard to say as dangerous. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: was like, that was a very scary thing to do.
Speaker 1: I was like, is there violence in their future relationship?
Speaker 1: If this guy is gonna shake her? Well, it's like,
Speaker 1: I mean, I might be extrapolating. The second he asked
Speaker 1: her to go to the basement, It's like, this is
Speaker 1: where I'm gonna lose the body, right right? Yeah, that
Speaker 1: I mean that there are so many reasons for the
Speaker 1: odds to be stacked against Charlie is like a viable
Speaker 1: I mean, there's so many reasons for her to break
Speaker 1: up with Charlie before we even go to nineteen sixty.
Speaker 1: But that one I was just like, this is if
Speaker 1: she ends up with him, which I was convinced for
Speaker 1: most of the movie that she would not. I thought
Speaker 1: that she would do. Uh, you know, I'm going to
Speaker 1: be single for a while. I'm going to figure something.
Speaker 1: I'm going to figure myself out. I'm gonna take some
Speaker 1: time and not and not less than twenty seconds. Yeah yeah, wait,
Speaker 1: fresh out of a concussion and you're like, yeah, this
Speaker 1: is a great time to agree to go back with
Speaker 1: your piece of shit husband. Give her a day, Charlie,
Speaker 1: come on, Yeah, we're almost there. First, there needs to
Speaker 1: be Freemasons and their time trouble ritual um while hats
Speaker 1: lots and lots of hats. So weird, Okay. So then
Speaker 1: Peggy Soup bakes things off with Michael Fitzsimmons and goes
Speaker 1: back to Charlie and they talk about his musical ambitions
Speaker 1: and she seems to be warming up to him again,
Speaker 1: but she's also freaking out about still being stuck in
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty. So then Richard Norvik is like, well, you
Speaker 1: can change your destiny and marry me, and she's like, now, yeah,
Speaker 1: which is fair enough, A right fair. Then Peggy Sue
Speaker 1: visits her grandparents because made me cry, right because in
Speaker 1: her present they have died long ago, and her parents
Speaker 1: everybody it seems that way. Yeah, and maybe Nancy, maybe Nancy.
Speaker 1: We're not sure. Either she's on the outsit Nancy or
Speaker 1: Nancy died. I'm like, what was there a fire? Like,
Speaker 1: I think she's just maybe estranged from Nancy. But anyway,
Speaker 1: she tells her grandparents that she time traveled and they
Speaker 1: also believe her. She's like, I miss my children. There's
Speaker 1: also this locket that she has that has pictures of
Speaker 1: her children as babies or so she inks, question Mark, Um,
Speaker 1: well no, no, because the locket in the beginning of
Speaker 1: the movie, they were color pictures of her babies. When
Speaker 1: he actually gives her the locket, it's black and white
Speaker 1: pictures and them as babies. Yeah, they just looked the
Speaker 1: same because once a boy was a girl and they
Speaker 1: are breeding and whatever. Okay, yeah, that was confusing to me,
Speaker 1: super creader breeder logic. But it turns out that Peggy
Speaker 1: Sue's grandpa is in a Masonic cult. In the Freemasons films,
Speaker 1: and America, and they they perform this ritual to send
Speaker 1: her back to her present, but before that can happen,
Speaker 1: Charlie comes in and snatches her away and they all
Speaker 1: just go get the cards. It worked, right, as far
Speaker 1: as they're concerned. They helped a teen woman who's actually
Speaker 1: in her thirties time travel that didn't happen. Instead, Charlie
Speaker 1: is still like, hey, marry me. I can support you.
Speaker 1: My dad gave me ten percent of his business. And
Speaker 1: she's like, no way, I'm not, you know, out of
Speaker 1: my mind enough to to marry you twice. But then
Speaker 1: he gives her her beloved locket and then he's like,
Speaker 1: I love you and she's like, wait, I love you too, Charlie.
Speaker 1: You're like, na, no, I know. And then she wakes
Speaker 1: back up and you know what sends her back in time?
Speaker 1: That Dick sends her back in time? Because isn't that
Speaker 1: the like Greenhouse? She gets fucking pregnant in right, does she? Like?
Speaker 1: I think I think Nick Cage is Dick sends her
Speaker 1: catapulting through time and space, which I would believe. God, yeah, um.
Speaker 1: So then she wakes up in like in a hospital bed.
Speaker 1: Charlie is there professing his love for her, and she's like, wow,
Speaker 1: you never gave up on me. And then she invites
Speaker 1: him over for dinner and it seems like they're going
Speaker 1: to get back together. She is literally all he has.
Speaker 1: She is literally the only constant in his life. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she deserves better. We did miss We did miss uh.
Speaker 1: When she goes with Michael to the R and B
Speaker 1: to the black club and sees the him singing R
Speaker 1: and B and then she wrote a hit song that
Speaker 1: was I was like, is it the Beatles? What does
Speaker 1: she stealing? It sounded like she was trying to write
Speaker 1: the Beatles and he couldn't execute it, and she's like,
Speaker 1: musician right, And he changed all the ouze to yeahs
Speaker 1: or all the yeahs touz I love you, yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: and he changed him to ouze and you're like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, no instincts. At least Richard took her word
Speaker 1: for it and invented pantyhose or whatever. So, yes, my
Speaker 1: favorite invention from history, um, the legs egg it might
Speaker 1: have been him. Let's take a quick break and then
Speaker 1: we will come back to continue discussing. And we are back,
Speaker 1: all right, So we have already discussed a good chunk
Speaker 1: of the movie. I guess, since we've already discussed it
Speaker 1: so much, let's let's put a little bow on this
Speaker 1: discussion about her marriage, maybe because I think we've we've
Speaker 1: been discussing it throughout the recap. I did find, I mean,
Speaker 1: the last ten minutes of this movie, where you're spending
Speaker 1: half of it with her and Charlie in the sixties
Speaker 1: at half of it with her and Charlie in the eighties,
Speaker 1: just made me so profoundly sad for her, and in
Speaker 1: a way that it's like, I'm so sad about what happens,
Speaker 1: but I don't think that it makes it, you know,
Speaker 1: a bad movie. It's just like, wow, what a bleak,
Speaker 1: you know, this is something that happens. I mean, of course,
Speaker 1: like particularly women who grew up in the environment that
Speaker 1: we're seeing her grow up in, where the idea that
Speaker 1: she could do something on her own is never floated, suggested,
Speaker 1: encouraged in any way shape or for him. The only
Speaker 1: way that she is like, uh, you know, spoken to,
Speaker 1: is like, well, who are you going to marry? And
Speaker 1: how are you going to survive? Basically, and and so
Speaker 1: you're given the context of why she makes these really
Speaker 1: sad choices. But this first scene where I mean it's
Speaker 1: just so sad for both of them, where you're like,
Speaker 1: oh god, you guys are both just like such a
Speaker 1: prisoner of this era where Nick Cage comes into the
Speaker 1: greenhouse after yeah, like smuggling her out and like physically
Speaker 1: like he's too. I don't like how he is touching
Speaker 1: her the whole movie. I don't like it smuggles are
Speaker 1: into this greenhouse and then says some of the most
Speaker 1: depressing should've ever heard. He's like, look, I just decided today,
Speaker 1: I'm going to give up on my dream. My dream
Speaker 1: is dead. The dream is dead, and I'll get you
Speaker 1: pregnant right now, and then the dream will be double dead.
Speaker 1: What do you say? Like, it's what if? What if
Speaker 1: I just gave up on fucking everything right now? Is
Speaker 1: that sexy to you? Yes? Or no? And that's and
Speaker 1: then and then you flash forward and then and then
Speaker 1: it's like it's almost scary where she's like she says
Speaker 1: in both of these scenes, she says no, and then
Speaker 1: she thinks about it for one second, and then she
Speaker 1: says yes, Okay, that happens in the sixties, and then
Speaker 1: the dick catapults her, and then she's in the hospital
Speaker 1: room and the same thing happens again, where he's like,
Speaker 1: I love you, You're the best. What do you say, like,
Speaker 1: let's try it again, and she says yeah. She basically
Speaker 1: says like I need some time. I want to think
Speaker 1: about it, and then he like kind of pouts in
Speaker 1: the same way he did in nineteen sixty, and then
Speaker 1: she says, Okay, fine, actually you can come over tomorrow.
Speaker 1: And it's implied that they're going to get back together,
Speaker 1: and it's like, oh, so you learned nothing, Peggy, Sue,
Speaker 1: you learned nothing. Well, the weirdest thing for me was
Speaker 1: that she he asked her to marry her in nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty and she goes, no, you gave up your dreams.
Speaker 1: You're gonna resent me for it, and it's gonna poison
Speaker 1: our entire relationship. And then you're gonna get with Janet
Speaker 1: And he's like, you're nuts. You're a hysterical woman saying
Speaker 1: things that aren't true, and she was like, am I
Speaker 1: And then she's like, all right, I guess we'll get together.
Speaker 1: But I do think that the locket thing triggered that
Speaker 1: thing that is that is reiterated through the entire movie
Speaker 1: where the only thing she's proud of are those two kids,
Speaker 1: and that I think it's that more than the dick
Speaker 1: that catapults her back into that relationship. Yeah, that was
Speaker 1: my read as well. I have this question if there
Speaker 1: had been different casting. Wipe your mind of Nicholas Cage
Speaker 1: and his weird hair and teeth issues, and it's Tom
Speaker 1: Cruise and they cast Tom Cruise or Michael J. Box,
Speaker 1: I think it would be a little different. I mean,
Speaker 1: I still, ultimately the way it's written, I can't see
Speaker 1: myself ever being like she should end up with Charlie.
Speaker 1: I do think that if it was perform I don't
Speaker 1: think Nicolas Cage's performance really helps you in endearing your
Speaker 1: self to this character in any way. Like, it's more
Speaker 1: he's impossible to root for. He's impossible, he's unlikable. It
Speaker 1: is ridiculous. Well, this is something we notice on the
Speaker 1: show a lot, where like if and we have formerly
Speaker 1: called it the Steve Bushemy test. You know, we're tweaking
Speaker 1: the the name, but let me inside, that's not nice,
Speaker 1: change it. But the idea is that if usually a
Speaker 1: male character is exhibiting creepy stoker ish predatory behavior. A
Speaker 1: lot of times a movie will present that behavior as
Speaker 1: being actually cute and charming as long as it's a
Speaker 1: classically handsome man who is doing it. But if you,
Speaker 1: you know, plug in right, then it's more noticeable for
Speaker 1: people to see that it is actually the creepy stoker
Speaker 1: ish behavior that it is no matter who is displaying it.
Speaker 1: But the movie is trying to suggest that, oh no,
Speaker 1: it's actually charming when Ryan Gosling threatens to jump off
Speaker 1: a ferris wheel in the Notebook to try to get
Speaker 1: Rachel McAdams to go out with him, etcetera. So it's
Speaker 1: like this movie doesn't maybe doesn't recognize because it's like, such,
Speaker 1: I mean, and I like Nick Cage a lot, but
Speaker 1: like it is such a nepotism casting choice to do
Speaker 1: um that maybe the movie doesn't recognize that they're actively
Speaker 1: demonstrating this test that we've been talking about for years
Speaker 1: of like what if we did put someone deeply unlikable
Speaker 1: in the romantic hero position, how do you feel? And
Speaker 1: the answer is not great not wanting Kathleen to end
Speaker 1: up with them, because conversely, she's in Romancing the Stone
Speaker 1: with Michael Douglas and Michael Douglas is not, oh you
Speaker 1: haven't seen Romancing the Stone, well, that that would be
Speaker 1: an excellent choice, because it's he's not great either, He's
Speaker 1: a mess, right yeah, And they spend most the movie
Speaker 1: hating each other, but then, of course what happens at
Speaker 1: the end They fall in love and kiss, so the
Speaker 1: classic Hollywood formula. But for me, the big thing with
Speaker 1: this movie is setting up this idea that she feels
Speaker 1: she missed out on some stuff and it led to
Speaker 1: resentment in her marriage, which for Charlie manifests as him
Speaker 1: having affairs. And she even says, you know, if I
Speaker 1: knew then what I know now, I'd have done things differently.
Speaker 1: But then she doesn't do things differently. She makes the
Speaker 1: same mistake. But and then she's given this second chance
Speaker 1: where she time travels back to her high school self,
Speaker 1: and then she uses it to make out and have
Speaker 1: sex with a teenager. Like let's not forget that that
Speaker 1: is that's to but it's like, but I mean, just
Speaker 1: like the core thing of like everyone is like, oh,
Speaker 1: what if I could do this over? But if I
Speaker 1: have a second chance, and it's like, but what if
Speaker 1: you just fucked up in the exact same way like
Speaker 1: that is, But I don't think that's what the movie
Speaker 1: is saying. Though I don't think the movie but that's
Speaker 1: what's happening. The movie is positing like, oh, but there's
Speaker 1: such a good match and it just took her needing
Speaker 1: to go to travel back through time and see how
Speaker 1: devoted he was to her for her to realize that
Speaker 1: they should be together. I think that's like what the
Speaker 1: movie is saying. I think, yeah, we're watching this and
Speaker 1: just like noticing this missed opportunity for her to go
Speaker 1: back and like learn things about herself and to discover
Speaker 1: new interests and discover things that she did miss out
Speaker 1: on and then she can actually pursue now, but instead
Speaker 1: is just like, no, she should make this horrible mistake twice.
Speaker 1: And and the weird thing is she said is is
Speaker 1: she's a forty two year old woman and we see
Speaker 1: her using her knowledge of psychology and and maturity and
Speaker 1: growth to shut down the asshole woman, the woman who's yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: but she's she's an asshole in the eighties and she's
Speaker 1: an asshole in the six so she never gets better.
Speaker 1: But Peggy Sho uses her her maturity and and her
Speaker 1: the knowledge of being a forty two year old woman
Speaker 1: to shut her down in high school and the bad teacher.
Speaker 1: But she also uses that same forty two year olderness
Speaker 1: to get to sleep with Michael what's his face? And
Speaker 1: he's creepy, and that's creepy. And I don't think I
Speaker 1: really thought about that until you said that that was creepy, Caitlin,
Speaker 1: So I think you're right. But well, the movie doesn't
Speaker 1: present it that way at all. But again, because she's
Speaker 1: in her like forty three, forty two whatever year old consciousness,
Speaker 1: that she has all of those memories, all that wisdom,
Speaker 1: she's has the mind of a forty three year old
Speaker 1: and she's having sex with a teenager and that it's gross,
Speaker 1: and she does that with two different characters because it's
Speaker 1: not and it's like, even if it's consent legal, it's
Speaker 1: fucking weird. And I think that's the thing that we've
Speaker 1: we've talked about that in so many episodes because it's
Speaker 1: just like this little sneaky Hollywood trick that is used constantly.
Speaker 1: It's like in this movie, it also is downplayed by
Speaker 1: the casting choice, which is like both of these actors
Speaker 1: are in their late twenties early thirties, so it looks
Speaker 1: completely above board consent wise, it looks okay, right, consent wise,
Speaker 1: and it's a woman doing it to a man, which
Speaker 1: I don't know, I mean, as it's become because it
Speaker 1: was never it used to. I remember when I was
Speaker 1: a kid, guys been like, if I could get some
Speaker 1: older woman, you know what it means, that would be great,
Speaker 1: and you're just like, no, no, it's still not okay.
Speaker 1: And then and then sometimes in the eighties or late
Speaker 1: eighties or the nineties, it started coming out with women
Speaker 1: teachers sleeping with their boys students and adult men going no,
Speaker 1: that's that's the rite of passage, such a thing, And
Speaker 1: it's become more and more like, no, it's still in
Speaker 1: a predatory it's super predatory. And but yeah, it is
Speaker 1: this Hollywood trick that they're playing in because it's a
Speaker 1: woman and it's somehow okay. And there's so many yeah,
Speaker 1: so many like media I mean that, I mean, we
Speaker 1: we don't even have time to get fully into it.
Speaker 1: But the whole you know, like long and media tale
Speaker 1: of like tolerating that and presenting it as a right
Speaker 1: of passage. I feel like that has so much to
Speaker 1: do with it is like, because you know, media of
Speaker 1: all times presented this as like, oh well, in certain cases, um,
Speaker 1: it can be predatory. But but when it's an older
Speaker 1: woman praying on younger boy, generally, well that's just a
Speaker 1: rite of passage and you should be grateful that it's happening.
Speaker 1: Or if it's an older man in Gigi, I don't
Speaker 1: know if you ever so musical, but um, it's an
Speaker 1: older man without with a girl who's twelve eleven years
Speaker 1: old when he meets her and he essentially is she's
Speaker 1: being groomed for a guy just like him, and then
Speaker 1: they get married and then it's this the greatest love
Speaker 1: story in the world. My four year old great aunt
Speaker 1: was just talking to me last weekend about how much
Speaker 1: she loved that movie. Such a beautiful story, and I
Speaker 1: was like, run it back, we'll link podcast in the description.
Speaker 1: You know that I have a historical note that I
Speaker 1: don't know if it'll derail us from the actual back dol,
Speaker 1: But um, it's you know, it's nineteen sixty, he's seventeen
Speaker 1: years old. Why doesn't he go to Vietnam? He doesn't
Speaker 1: go to college? Interesting, Charlie, Yeah, whoa is he a
Speaker 1: draft dodger on top of everything. Yeah, he dodged the draft.
Speaker 1: I mean, not the worst thing, but yeah, hard hard
Speaker 1: to say. Well, I had a historical note as well.
Speaker 1: I mean this, this movie clearly is making the choice
Speaker 1: to I mean, it's so hyper focused on Peggy Sue's
Speaker 1: a very specific corner of Peggy Sue's life that I
Speaker 1: feel like, you know, you're given this something that we
Speaker 1: see in a lot of movies. It's very like rosy
Speaker 1: look at the past, especially with this era. I feel
Speaker 1: like you get it a lot with the fifties. This
Speaker 1: is technically nine, but it looks like the fifties where
Speaker 1: there's no real acknowledgment of like social upheaval, like you're
Speaker 1: just saying, Jackie, like there's all of these you know,
Speaker 1: it's you're in an American white suburb and it's presented
Speaker 1: as like now these were the days, which always when
Speaker 1: when I see this now, it always feels a little
Speaker 1: insidious because it's like, well, it's so much has to
Speaker 1: be raised for us to just like live in this
Speaker 1: basically like poster this kind of like false version of reality.
Speaker 1: Um that again, it's like this movie has it's it's
Speaker 1: so bizarre to me that I can, Like, it's just
Speaker 1: bizarre to me the direction this movie chooses to go,
Speaker 1: because it's so like specific where it goes that and
Speaker 1: it feels like kind of a lot of these stories
Speaker 1: opportunities are left along the way because it's so focused
Speaker 1: on Peggy sus How like why Peggy Sue got married?
Speaker 1: That is, the movies only int mentioned that that is
Speaker 1: its mission? Why did she get married? When it's like
Speaker 1: there is like I mean, there's a ton of stuff
Speaker 1: going on that could have been integrated into the story
Speaker 1: in a more interesting way. I was honestly surprised that
Speaker 1: because it did feel like there was room for commentary
Speaker 1: on the values of the sixties and how maybe those
Speaker 1: values clash with the more modern values of the eighties,
Speaker 1: or like you know, how Peggy Sue with her knowledge
Speaker 1: of history, how you know she could have some takes
Speaker 1: right something like that. But the movie doesn't bother to
Speaker 1: go in that direction at all. And not to say
Speaker 1: that like every movie has to have like biting socio
Speaker 1: political commentary or something like that, but the movie just
Speaker 1: completely ignores it. And the only for example, the only
Speaker 1: people of color in the entire movie, which takes place
Speaker 1: during the civil rights movement are kind of in the
Speaker 1: background seen on stage with Nick Cage because he's secretly
Speaker 1: he secretly performs at like an R and B club sometimes,
Speaker 1: which is just presented as like something that makes him
Speaker 1: quote unquote cool because of his proximity to black culture,
Speaker 1: and then it's just dropped. Would have been cool for
Speaker 1: the movie to explore and comment on the cultural landscape
Speaker 1: of the sixties and how it compares to the culture
Speaker 1: of the mid eighties, especially since Peggy Sue would be
Speaker 1: viewing the sixties that she's in right now through this
Speaker 1: more modern eighties lens that she just came from. But
Speaker 1: that's not what the movie is about. I guess, uh,
Speaker 1: let's take a quick break and we'll be right back
Speaker 1: with more discussion. I just want to like close out
Speaker 1: my thoughts on the just bizarro direction of this movie takes,
Speaker 1: especially because again, what's what to me feels like is
Speaker 1: being said up is her being given this second chance
Speaker 1: to discover some interests, discover some ambitions, to learn about herself,
Speaker 1: to not make the same mistake over again with Charlie,
Speaker 1: And it feels like that's really the direction it's going
Speaker 1: to go in. When she's giving this speech too. I
Speaker 1: think it's Richard when he proposes to her and he's like,
Speaker 1: you know, you can change your destiny and you know,
Speaker 1: marry me instead, and she's just like, no, Peggy Sue
Speaker 1: got married case close. And then she says, I don't
Speaker 1: want to marry anyone I know, as if to say,
Speaker 1: like she has been defined by the fact that she
Speaker 1: got married very young, and she doesn't want to be
Speaker 1: defined that way anymore. The movie is like setting up
Speaker 1: this arc where Peggy Sue realizes that her value has
Speaker 1: more than just her relationship with Charlie and that she's
Speaker 1: like gonna discover all this stuff about herself. But then
Speaker 1: it just ends with her realizing that she's actually loved
Speaker 1: Charlie this whole time and that she should get back
Speaker 1: together with him, right, and how is anything going to change? Right? Right?
Speaker 1: I mean it felt like a haze Code moment almost
Speaker 1: at the end where where like he and she invites
Speaker 1: him over to the house. Right, It's either that or
Speaker 1: it's like is this an existential piece? You're like, you can,
Speaker 1: you can search the world for answers, but but you
Speaker 1: know you're you're fucked, baby, You're fucked, Like you're just like,
Speaker 1: this is your destiny. It's so bleak, And I want
Speaker 1: to be clear that, like, as we've always said, a
Speaker 1: woman having a hetero relationship with a man is not
Speaker 1: anti feminist, Like we are just simply commenting on the
Speaker 1: cultural expectation that a woman should get married to a
Speaker 1: man or must be married to a man. Well, and
Speaker 1: I think it's the lack of anything else is what
Speaker 1: I'm concerned with here. It's like, you know, whatever, a
Speaker 1: relationship is a wonderful part of any life if it's
Speaker 1: if it's good, and it's what you want. But it's like,
Speaker 1: but this is the defining event of her life, and
Speaker 1: she resents that, she seems to resent that, but then
Speaker 1: the movie has her continued to be defined by it
Speaker 1: at the end, and it just like it's so dissonant
Speaker 1: and weird. It's so weird. It makes me so sad
Speaker 1: for her, right, it makes it weird. It makes it
Speaker 1: weird and sad. Even if there are some amazing filmmaking,
Speaker 1: there's some really cool storytelling within it that that really
Speaker 1: does an amazing job showing us some depth to these characters.
Speaker 1: Like I I don't want to watch it, but I'm
Speaker 1: more interested in a movie about her mother, you know,
Speaker 1: like her mother just making ends meet, chipped beef with
Speaker 1: Ruda Vegas, her father's favorite that that you know what
Speaker 1: it feels. It feels like she's making ends meet, and
Speaker 1: she's convinced Peggy Sue his dad that that's his favorite,
Speaker 1: and right, I can't. It's very Yeah, it is like
Speaker 1: a very very strange I mean, I've just never seen
Speaker 1: a movie like it. It's so high concept and yet
Speaker 1: so preoccupied with something, and the ending is so like,
Speaker 1: you just don't expect a Back to the Future style premise.
Speaker 1: They came out right after Back to of the Future
Speaker 1: to end in this kind of sad way, like why
Speaker 1: has it ended? So say, I know that the movie
Speaker 1: doesn't want you to think it's sad, but even if
Speaker 1: even if you don't think it's sad, it's a very
Speaker 1: quiet ending to a very high concept story. There's no
Speaker 1: like Deloreans, there's no end, the loop is closed, there's
Speaker 1: not gonna be Peggy's got married to, Like I'm trying
Speaker 1: to imagine what a Peggy's got married too. She goes
Speaker 1: back in time it's actually now the seventies, and she
Speaker 1: just thinks everything's going great, but he's sleeping with Janet.
Speaker 1: And then at the end she's like, well, I guess
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna stay married to him again, and then
Speaker 1: it'll just keep happening and happening. God, it's so depressing,
Speaker 1: poor Peggy sus. A few stray because I know we're
Speaker 1: running short on time, a few straight things that I
Speaker 1: wanted to note. Um, so, I think we're already kind
Speaker 1: of touched on this, but I felt like the beginning
Speaker 1: of the movie gave her a pretty interesting connection to
Speaker 1: the women she went to school with, and then that
Speaker 1: kind of went under examined in the sixties. They to
Speaker 1: the point where there's a joke made about it, like
Speaker 1: she Peggy Sue asks her friends to spend a night
Speaker 1: with her, some time with her, and they're like ha
Speaker 1: ha ha no, And then you never get that scene
Speaker 1: of them talking to each other really like so that
Speaker 1: was a bummer. Literally, they're sitting in three chairs going
Speaker 1: did you screw Michael? And that's the only real moment
Speaker 1: they have. And then it's it's date night. Walter is
Speaker 1: coming over and you're like and she's like, let's have
Speaker 1: a sleepover, let's hang out, and they're like, grow up,
Speaker 1: grow up, and then that's it, like, which is like
Speaker 1: a funny joke, but I was like, oh, we're and
Speaker 1: then we're just never going to see them talk again. Interesting.
Speaker 1: It makes me want to see Diner because if if
Speaker 1: this is like my brother thinks, this is the woman
Speaker 1: version of Diner, I've never seen Dinner. I've never seen Diner.
Speaker 1: But but this movie, I feel like this movie doesn't
Speaker 1: deliver on the relationships with women that are set up,
Speaker 1: because I really liked that when she goes to the
Speaker 1: high school reunion, she goes to her female friends right
Speaker 1: away and they start gassing her up there like, Oh,
Speaker 1: that's great that you're getting a divorce, do you blah
Speaker 1: blah blah. It's really nice. And then also when she
Speaker 1: goes back to the sixties, the first people she wants
Speaker 1: to see are her mother and her sister, and like
Speaker 1: she you know, kind of blows Charlie off at first.
Speaker 1: She's like, I don't want to see you. I see
Speaker 1: you all the time. I want to see my mom
Speaker 1: and I want to see my sister, and I want
Speaker 1: to have like this bond and like the same thing
Speaker 1: with her grandma. Like she has very very strong connections
Speaker 1: to the women in the story, but you just don't
Speaker 1: really get to see they don't play out or have
Speaker 1: an arc with them. You only see the ark with Charlie, right,
Speaker 1: So that was a big bummer. Um. Yeah, does anyone
Speaker 1: have any other thoughts about the movie? I like that
Speaker 1: it has a quiet ending. I like that that feels
Speaker 1: more cheerful than more of the same. Yeah, I like
Speaker 1: to think. But I'm a lady in the Tiger catec
Speaker 1: person and where I want I wanted to be the
Speaker 1: lady I want her to have. Like what she's learned
Speaker 1: is she's got better boundaries now with Charlie. That's what
Speaker 1: I hope happens when when we stop watching. I mean,
Speaker 1: I hope, I hope that at least there's an adjustment made.
Speaker 1: I mean, if she really wants to stay that relationship.
Speaker 1: But I just we'll know if it's going to happen here.
Speaker 1: I love that she loves her kids though that it
Speaker 1: is nice, and she seems to have a really good
Speaker 1: relationship with her daughter, and we see that actually on screen.
Speaker 1: Yeah her Oh I love that first scene where her
Speaker 1: daughter is like, Mom, you've got this, You're hot, wear
Speaker 1: your weird dress, and she's like, all right, I'll do
Speaker 1: It's cute. I take comfort in this since the ending
Speaker 1: it's kind of ambiguous. We don't know for sure if
Speaker 1: they will get back together, even though the movie is
Speaker 1: clearly heavily in playing that. But because it doesn't explicitly
Speaker 1: state that, and we don't like see like a scene
Speaker 1: where they are renewing their wedding vowels or something like that,
Speaker 1: or they don't sign the divorce papers. Maybe it is
Speaker 1: just that she's like, Okay, you can come hang out
Speaker 1: with our children and we can try to like be
Speaker 1: on friendly terms. But I'm gonna go I'm gonna turn
Speaker 1: this bakery into a into a awesome gig. What about
Speaker 1: the bakery? Where does this fucking bakery come from? Sho
Speaker 1: And then they take time out in the like they
Speaker 1: make a point in the eighties for her to say, oh,
Speaker 1: are you the manager? No, I own the bakery, and
Speaker 1: you're like, so you own a bakery, Like, why couldn't
Speaker 1: that be something that you always wanted from the sixties?
Speaker 1: So we can give this woman something that she wants
Speaker 1: to own a bakery. It's the most rom com thing
Speaker 1: in the world, but fucking whatever, give her bakery. Have
Speaker 1: her want that, Like jeez. Anyways, Yes, such a bizarre ending,
Speaker 1: and the freaking weird like eleventh hour Freemason's time travel
Speaker 1: ritual they perform is not even the weirdest part. Okay,
Speaker 1: I thought that was that was I mean, Freemasons are
Speaker 1: like chaotic evil, but I thought that was a very
Speaker 1: fun I mean, that was another thing that I was like, Oh,
Speaker 1: couple of movie. Okay, I guess, but maybe this is
Speaker 1: where does it come from? It feels so out of
Speaker 1: place in this movie. I mean, I didn't hate it.
Speaker 1: I think it's very funny that this is randomly at
Speaker 1: the end of the movie, but totally another dissonant thing.
Speaker 1: The movie does pass the Bechtel test. We see Peggy
Speaker 1: Sue talking to her sister about board games. We see
Speaker 1: her talking to her mom about different things like her
Speaker 1: hair and her clothes and her grandma. I think most
Speaker 1: of the conversations she has with her friends don't pass
Speaker 1: because they're always talking about boys. My favorite scene that
Speaker 1: does not pass the Bechtel test is when her mom
Speaker 1: is like, have you ever heard of a penis? And
Speaker 1: Pekysu was like yeah, and her mom was like, well,
Speaker 1: stay away from them, right, iconic Hilary. But even though
Speaker 1: a lot of scenes between women they are talking about men,
Speaker 1: there are a fair number that do pass the Bechdel test.
Speaker 1: So yes, there's that. It ain't nothing. Ain't nothing. As
Speaker 1: far as our scale, the nipple scale, in which we
Speaker 1: evaluate the movie from an intersectional feminist lens zero to
Speaker 1: five nipples, I would give this. Oh gosh, I'll give
Speaker 1: it a one and a half. What what's gotten the five?
Speaker 1: Very few things? Almost nothing And we don't even stand
Speaker 1: by all of our fives over time, I think like, mo,
Speaker 1: wanna got a five? Have they gotten zeros? We've given zeros,
Speaker 1: We've given negative nipples. Um, if you can do free
Speaker 1: form jazz on the I mean it's on the scale. Yes,
Speaker 1: I'm giving it a one and a half because I
Speaker 1: like Peggy Stu as a character. I like that we
Speaker 1: see this emotionally intelligent woman who is confident in herself,
Speaker 1: and it's just that all of her potential is squandered
Speaker 1: because the movie has her make choices that don't even
Speaker 1: align with the character that they developed for her. It
Speaker 1: doesn't make sense, Like I feel like there's another twenty
Speaker 1: minutes of this movie. Yeah, maybe there is. Maybe there is.
Speaker 1: I read that there was a lot of this movie
Speaker 1: that didn't it was shot very quickly, and that it
Speaker 1: sounds like there were there was stuff that either wasn't
Speaker 1: shot or didn't make the movie, including the character. And
Speaker 1: I think also the only disabled character we see in
Speaker 1: the movie Rosalie, who was in the beginning and then
Speaker 1: it's cut from I think that she was supposed to
Speaker 1: be in the whole movie. I read, but there wasn't
Speaker 1: time or I got cut. I mean, and again it's like,
Speaker 1: and I don't believe that that character is played by
Speaker 1: a disabled actor. And yeah, I don't know. There there
Speaker 1: were threads that you're just like, well, where did that
Speaker 1: person go? Where did that story go? Right? I want
Speaker 1: to believe that there was more, but I don't know.
Speaker 1: Right there, there's got to be, but what with what
Speaker 1: we're given, it's dissonant and it doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 1: And like Peggy, Sue is a level headed character who
Speaker 1: seems to understand herself very well and understand her surroundings,
Speaker 1: and yet the movie makes her make this choice to
Speaker 1: get back with Charlie, even though it doesn't seem like
Speaker 1: that character would make that choice. But Hollywood is like
Speaker 1: we need a happy ending, and a happy ending is
Speaker 1: when two hetero people kiss and are in love, even
Speaker 1: if the man is terrible, even if we've been spending
Speaker 1: two hours realizing why this is a bad idea for
Speaker 1: both of them. What a treat. So yeah, it feels
Speaker 1: like a very like of the era. I think if
Speaker 1: like this were to me remade today, it would be
Speaker 1: like again the thing that I pitched, like Peggy Sue
Speaker 1: being like, wow, hindsight is and that guy sucks and
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna get back with him and I'm gonna
Speaker 1: learn how to invent boom boxes myself. I don't need
Speaker 1: a man. Interesting because it could have been that in
Speaker 1: eight six to like it kind of could have gone
Speaker 1: either way in that era, and this this one uh
Speaker 1: just does not. It didn't. I was thinking of my
Speaker 1: mom the whole time, and I'm like, well, at least
Speaker 1: my mom made a different choice in her one timeline
Speaker 1: at some point, you know, she actually did do the divorce. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she actually made a divorce, like like, was the right idea? Yea,
Speaker 1: she was, Yeah, Peggy, she was right from the get go,
Speaker 1: get out. Yeah, you still do have your kids, right, right,
Speaker 1: you don't lose your kids, if you get it, if
Speaker 1: you divorce Nicholas Cage. That is just famously a truth
Speaker 1: of this world. Right, look at it. Look at Elvis
Speaker 1: Presley's daughter exactly. Oh right, I forgot about that. Gosh
Speaker 1: so too. Nipples or sorry, nipple and half nipples. I'll
Speaker 1: give one to Kathleen Turner and I will give the
Speaker 1: half nipple to Helen Hunt, her daughter who's in the
Speaker 1: movie for four minutes. I'm gonna do. I think I'll
Speaker 1: go to for this. We didn't get to talk much
Speaker 1: about the production, but this movie was written by a
Speaker 1: married couple, one of us, so there there is a
Speaker 1: woman co writer on this movie. I think that it is,
Speaker 1: you know, unique, that there is a Francis Ford Copela
Speaker 1: movie that's the character study of a woman in her forties. Uh,
Speaker 1: that is scraps, but I do think it is. It
Speaker 1: is interesting. I I am so depressed by what happens
Speaker 1: to be yous. Do I want better for her? Um?
Speaker 1: But I do appreciate that, you know, she is the
Speaker 1: character that we learn inside and out, even when we
Speaker 1: find her frustrating, even when we're like, you're fucking up
Speaker 1: so bad. I feel like the reason that we're so
Speaker 1: frustrated that she's sucking up so bad. Is because we
Speaker 1: really get to know her, We get to like see
Speaker 1: I feel like there's often in stories like this it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: she's the protagonist, but then you spend the whole movie
Speaker 1: learning about like her boyfriend's family for some reason, and
Speaker 1: this movie does not go that way. You really do
Speaker 1: learn who Peggy Sue is, where she comes from, the
Speaker 1: culture she came up in, and why that culture, you know,
Speaker 1: motivated her to funk her life up with Nicolas Cage.
Speaker 1: It's not a happy story. I know we're supposed to
Speaker 1: think it is. I don't think it is, but I
Speaker 1: but I was really I don't know. I mean, I
Speaker 1: feel like this movie has to be doing something right
Speaker 1: if I'm so sad for Peggy Sue at the end
Speaker 1: of the movie. Right. So a uniquely bleak take on
Speaker 1: a time traveling movie. I don't know that I will
Speaker 1: want to watch it again soon. But I love Kathleen Turner.
Speaker 1: I liked seeing her in a role like this. Just
Speaker 1: watch Romancing the Stone with Me or More of the
Speaker 1: Roses where they kill each other and she throws Michael
Speaker 1: Douglas's hand off of her dying body, like, holy shit,
Speaker 1: part of the Roses is brutal. Actually, I don't recommend it.
Speaker 1: Danny DeVito directed it, oh right, I did know, Okay, okay,
Speaker 1: so I haven't seen it, but I didn't know that
Speaker 1: he directed it because I think that Polly Platt was
Speaker 1: supposed to direct it originally. Um okay, So so yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll go to I think it's an interesting character study
Speaker 1: that made me want to die. Um so. And also,
Speaker 1: you know, Super White movie didn't need to be. There
Speaker 1: were story opportunities to, you know, do other stuff than
Speaker 1: this movie just didn't do. I'm gonna give one nipple
Speaker 1: to Kathleen Turner and then I'm gonna give the other
Speaker 1: nipple to Penny Marshall, who almost directed this movie. And
Speaker 1: I would have loved to see the Penny Marshall version
Speaker 1: of this movie same too. Smokes. What a different movie
Speaker 1: that would have been, and it would have done. It
Speaker 1: would have solved my problem, which is Nicholas Cage being
Speaker 1: in it at all? Right, right, yeah, I just because
Speaker 1: of how beautifully some of it was and and how
Speaker 1: these there were these nuggets in it that kind of
Speaker 1: reminded me of Jaws in the way that it has
Speaker 1: these background stories, these complete stories that are in the background.
Speaker 1: The hat thing I didn't notice until my brother told
Speaker 1: me about it, But I'll tell you that hat thing.
Speaker 1: The fact that the guys in the freaking hat business
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty and buys an Edzel and she sells
Speaker 1: his jewelry, this jewelry business, and that sort of that
Speaker 1: tiny plot of that, and the and the you know,
Speaker 1: just sort of these like really weird kind of and
Speaker 1: the and the the draft thing, and they were just
Speaker 1: sort of there were interesting parts of the movie that
Speaker 1: that I liked it. I'm gonna give it two and
Speaker 1: a half nipples. I'm gonna go halfway because I'm glad
Speaker 1: I watched it again because I had such a visceral
Speaker 1: when I saw it on the list of possible movies
Speaker 1: to watch, I was like, that damn movie. But so
Speaker 1: who might give the nipples to? I guess I'm giving
Speaker 1: him to Kathleen Turn And then I have to give
Speaker 1: it to I gotta give it to the mom, the
Speaker 1: actress who played the momb And I think I'm going
Speaker 1: to do kind of a trifecta. I liked, I'd like,
Speaker 1: uh Sofia Coppola sure I did. I thought she did
Speaker 1: a good job. I'm gonna give it to the to
Speaker 1: the generations. I almost would grandmother, gonna go, little sister, Yeah,
Speaker 1: go a little Sophia. Well, Jackie, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for coming back and discussing this movie with us. What
Speaker 1: a treat it's It was so fun. What a deep dive.
Speaker 1: You guys do it every movie. I love it. Thank
Speaker 1: you for coming on, come back any time, bring us,
Speaker 1: bring us another wild card. We're ready. And if either
Speaker 1: of you want to be on the dork Forest, you're
Speaker 1: always welcome to be on the dork Forest. Gosh, speaking
Speaker 1: of the dork Forest, tell us about your podcasts, tell
Speaker 1: us about your special in your album and and all
Speaker 1: that stuff. I have a podcast called the dork Forest.
Speaker 1: We're our sixteenth year of of of different episodes where
Speaker 1: people talk about they love the dork Forest. Could be
Speaker 1: about anything. It could be about bees, It could be
Speaker 1: about Canada, it could be about Bob Dylan. We I
Speaker 1: just did a Sandman LARPing. It could be so nerdy.
Speaker 1: It's a live action role playing uh five games covering
Speaker 1: Neil game in Sandman over fifteen twenty years and it
Speaker 1: was amazing, so we ever done Chuck e Cheese? No,
Speaker 1: but I would love to do Chuck e Cheese. Caitlin,
Speaker 1: what would you? What might you? What do you got?
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, Paddington Bearing, Paddington Bear. Yes, I would
Speaker 1: love that. I didn't have not seen either of the movies.
Speaker 1: She'll sit you down, She'll sit you down, all right?
Speaker 1: Hooked me up? And then so that's the dork Forest.
Speaker 1: And then I do a podcast with Lori Kilmartin every
Speaker 1: week where we discuss stand up comedy and we celebrate
Speaker 1: and bitch about it. And so we do a little
Speaker 1: we do our own little Beckel test with it, and
Speaker 1: it turns out stand up comedy fails it on a
Speaker 1: regular And then I have yeah, five albums out there,
Speaker 1: all streaming on Pandora, Amazon iTunes, They're playing on siries
Speaker 1: x am uh. Spotify just took him down because of
Speaker 1: some sort of I wanted more than four hundreds of
Speaker 1: a cent for every spin, well as how Dare I
Speaker 1: and so? But the new Special and then the album
Speaker 1: which is of the same name is called Staycation Get It.
Speaker 1: We were all home for a little bit and my
Speaker 1: last name is Cation and it's a mask that it
Speaker 1: was and it did did good on the list, and
Speaker 1: it's super fun and it's free, So YouTube google staycation
Speaker 1: s t A y K S h I N and
Speaker 1: you can watch for free on YouTube or you can
Speaker 1: listen to it wherever you like. And thank you very
Speaker 1: much for having me on the best. Thank you so
Speaker 1: much for coming back. You can find us online cross
Speaker 1: platforms except for Facebook Facebook. You can find us at
Speaker 1: Bechdel Cast on Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, but
Speaker 1: you can also find us on Twitter, which also sucks. Uh.
Speaker 1: You can also join our patreon ak Matreon, where we
Speaker 1: for five dollars a month you can get to bonus
Speaker 1: episodes based on a theme that we choose or you
Speaker 1: choose and we ignore. So we're we're finally going to
Speaker 1: get around to covering those Jane Austen movies. Just you
Speaker 1: wait any day? Now? Do you wait for austin August?
Speaker 1: Which couldn't happen anytime? And that's at patreon dot com
Speaker 1: slash spectol Cast. You can go to t public dot
Speaker 1: com slash the pectol cast to rob some merch and um,
Speaker 1: I guess let's all time travel back in time to
Speaker 1: our senior year in high school and see what lessons
Speaker 1: we might learn. You couldn't pay me to do it.
Speaker 1: Bye bye bye,