172. The Day the Earth Caught Testament

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It's see is the world love the World's love the world? Nice. Welcome to another episode of the Feminine Critique. I'm Emily, I'm Christine and on this special criterion sponsored but not because it's not like it was given to us. We're just picking two movies from the Criterion collection episode we are We're at the End of the World, Christine.

Truly, in more ways than one, it is the nuclear apocalypse. Bad things have happened, Somebody on this planet has made very bad mistakes, and the world is dying, is it not? In two very different films from very different eras, and yet and yet they share so many things in common, do they not? They do? That is true, lots of parallels.

Now, tell me what the movies we're talking about today are, so it would be I think nineteen sixty one The Day the Earth Earth Caught Fire and then nineteen eighty three's Testament. M hmm. Now had you seen either film before? Absolutely not. Okay, I had seen Testament.

I had not seen The Day of the Earth Caught Fire. And that was one of the things that excited me because I think, at my age of almost forty two and having spent a good chunk of that time period watching post apocalyptic nuclear films, I thought I've seen most of them, but it's always exciting when I find some that I haven't, and Daily Earth Caught Fire was a new one for me. Yeah, I knew that, and I'm very much looking forward to your take, considering I think you're a little bit more well first than I am. Why don't we talk about our own history and experiences with the nuclear apocalypse? When did you discuss I think this is really I was thinking about this, especially with Testament, which came out in nineteen eighty three.

You and I were both born in eighty two, and in a way we kind of missed the Cold War, right, Like, do you remember the Cold War? Do you remember being scared of the Soviets and scared of nuclear testing? No? Same it? When did?

I wish I should know these things? But Cold War ended what like eighty nine something? I thought it was eighty eight, but I hear somewhere around there. And even though like we both grew up probably with like war games and some other kind of popular entertainment, that was still like in you know very much about that, that's not what was being made for us when we were kind of of the age to consume the stuff. Yes, so I kind of had a discovery.

I remember this really distinctly because it was kind of like one of those kind of personal pop culture moments in life that really took me down a different direction. I wish I remembered what year it was. It had to be early mid nineties. I want to say it was about thirteen, Maybe it was like ninety five, somewhere around there. The Sci Fi Channel, which at the time did not have Wy's in the name.

It was like PI sci Fi Fi Channel, Notify, not the Sify channel. Yes, this is way before it got really cool and hit with the kids it was doing. It would air a lot of older stuff any At one point, I don't remember why I thought to watch this because I had never heard of it, but I remember distinctly I must have turned it on ten minutes into it and I saw like John Lithgow and Jason Robards and thought, oh, I don't know what this movie is, but I like these actors. What is this? And it was The Day After?

Have you seen The Day After? I have not, Ah, so the Day After I think, I think you'll see a theme yeah, and the Guard reverse for me if you don't know. The Day After was a think around also around eighty three, and it was a made for TV mini series about a sort of fictional daily fictional history where America gets bombed by the Soviets and for all we know the Soviets also got bombed, but the day after is all about different parts of the United States and just people dealing with the aftermath, and basically it's people dying of nuclear radiation poisoning. It's really effective, it's really powerful. The next year, Threads came out in England, which I didn't see for a very long time, and Threads makes the day after it look like like very like PG rated, whereas Threads is just an absolute nightmare.

But the day after, for me, being thirteen and never really having experience with this, it was really effective. I remember then like asking my parents about it, and both of them kind of not realizing that because I'm the youngest in my family, so like they probably went through all these conversations with my older siblings during like different stuff on the Cold War and like trying to probably constantly saying like, no, we'll be okay, the Sophiets aren't gonna kill us. But then there was me who didn't go through this, and they had to sort of like go through it with me again of like no, we're okay now, but yeah, this is what we really thought would happen, And we thought the same thing in the fifties sixties, and it just from that point on, I was like obsessed with nuclear apocalypses and and I've carried that through my entire life.

So yeah, so I am one of those people that just finds the apocalypse of any sort. And before then I had been a zombie fan, so I had already had like in my head, would play games of don to the Dead and like what would happen if zombies were outside? Like would be how long would we survive in the basement? That kind of thing. But nuclear war takes it to a very different place.

But so with you, was it just a kind of still not something you actively participate in. It's active avoidance. I would say, I don't like it. It's too incomprehensible and yet to real it causes an existential spiral that I struggled to get out of. The fallout from radiation is is terrifying to me, as the concept of drowning.

I cannot comprehend it, and yet it is too real. I hate it. I'm very sorry for I didn't necessarily know, but like I know, I've this is not it's not something you can avoid because to your point, it absolutely dominated a culture multiple times. Yeah, so like, you can't avoid it, and now it's back in conversation, it's it's not avoidable, so to it's just I guess for me media wise, there are some places that I just don't go, like kids being like in peril and like in people's hair falling out and fingernails falling out and basically melting from the inside is something that is too akin to incomprehensible body horror that I don't want to approach it. Emily quickly scratches off threads on her assignment for next week's episode.

I don't, I don't like, I don't know like, and I will say that both of these were fine. Like I didn't, it didn't trigger some kind of unraveling in me. But like I, I have feelings and opinions that are larger than the subject matter, which I'm really proud of myself forgetting there able to critique these as actual movies and not just emotional exploitation. Well, you said something in many things, but you said one thing in particular that I think is really interesting that I wasn't thinking about until kind of now when we start talking about both of these, is that there really were two distinct eras of this that the day of the Earth Earth caught fire as nineteen sixty one. And again, forgive me for not having a good history date, but what was it late?

I know my mom was a duck and cover kid. My mom would talk about this, and I can't remember I've ever said this here, but for those who don't know, I taught ESL and Russia for a year back in two thousand and seven, and I was living in Moscow, teaching primarily adults, and my mom came to visit and she came to one of my classes, and it was really fun because it was, you know, my mother, a New Yorker through and through talking to you know, these Russians. And one of the things that came up was my mom started talking about, like, you know, what it was like for her growing up when Russia was the enemy, and you know, she was telling these people who were all about in their twenties early thirties about duck and cover and they were so just like flabbergas did it, Like wait, they thought you would hide under the desk and you'd be protected.

And of course as they're saying this, my mom is looking at them and having this realization of like, oh my god, what were they teaching us? And it was obviously a very different experience than what people in the eighties grew up with, which wasn't quite bad. It was more okay, now we know a little bit more about what you would do, so you find a fallout shelter and do this and that. But still you had two very different you know, a good twenty year gap between this being something that was kind of at the forefront of this constant nagging fear, and I mean today it's kind of been sort of I think brewing in the undercurrent of things. It hasn't been you know, I don't think it's the number one fear that most of us have in terms of world conflicts right now.

But it's one of those things where you know, I don't know about you. For me, it's like, Okay, I live close enough to the city that I'm dying right away and that's the best way to handle this. Yeah, Or are you a survivor? Christine? Are you going to be the one leading everybody in that bunker?

I'm just really tired, honestly, I like not. I think it's best to just deal with this. Early in the episode, I have a very bleak outlook on the future. I am so tired and so sick of trying to puzzle out what the best way to die is. Sure, I don't care anymore, So what can I counter that with something annoyingly positive?

I do love that about you, so please well. I think both of these films actually are end on lessons of upbeatness, even though spoiler alert, at least to the second of the films, they don't necessarily end it happy in a traditional sense. I think both of these films, in particular Testament, which is the more devastating of the two, I think are very much about the positives of humanity and the good that comes out of disaster. And again I said this when we talked a couple of weeks ago about Aniara and Lockdown Tower, two movies that are kind of about the end of the world in a sense that any to me, I think something And again this is like a new realization for me. Any story about the end of the world is a story about today's world.

And I think the other side of that is we are all going to die. Death is something that is inevitable. So the difference between it being everybody at one time or you know sooner than you think. It's all about what you make of it. And I think that's something that testament for me on this viewing.

Maybe because I knew what was coming, so I was prepared for some of the devastation. I was able to watch it in this kind of rosier glasses of no. But it's it's there's something very powerful about about how they face this. Yeah I didn't. I didn't.

I didn't like that movie. But yeah, I know, it's fine. This is just gonna be a weird episode, I think. So that's okay. I'm a weird person.

That's what the people came for. My undying positivity and your tell it like it is. All right? So what I want to go chronologically and talk about Day the Earth Caught Fire first. Sure, it might work out better that way, just on account of the fact that I think it's interesting to see the science change.

True. True, that's a very good point. We'll probably be spoiling both of these, So to everybody who wants to be fresh, don't listen. Both of them are are streaming on Criterion, so that's so where you can find them all right, Day the Earth crud Fire. Why don't you give us a little storytelling synopsis there.

Okay, so Dayly Earth Caught fire is very big Twilight Zone energy to me, but but not like in you know, Twilight Zone. There's the Twilight Zone episode where it's super duper hot. At the end you realize it's actually super duper cold, like that's you know, it's it's got that energy, but yet without the twist. So essentially the US in Russia accidentally set off bombs at the same or like around the same time. Yeah, and it tests it, so it's not attacks, but they are doing nuclear testing.

They're testing it. So it shifts the Earth off it off its axis, like it changes the rotation of the Earth and in it, and it changes natural events like weather changes, like all that type of thing. And uh, it's basically from the perspective of like a newspaper figuring that out, which is extremely interesting framing to me. Yeah, I really liked that aspect of it me too. Yeah.

It's like your typical fast talking newsroom where everybody talks really quickly, and everybody has a nickname, and they call this guy the boy, and they call this guy the drunk and this and that, and it's like a little bit annoying, but once you get into the rhythm of it, it's I like it I dug that aspect. Yeah, it was, it was. It's definitely like a very it's it's it's also this story, but it's a really like good snapshot of like a specific time and what like the perception of like men's jobs were y. Yeah, there's some weird gender things going on here. Uh huh.

And I kept thinking like at one point, I just want to be a man in the in the early sixth printing press. I know it's not romantic and it's probably a terrible, backbreaking job, but like there was a dude just tying up newspapers with twine. Yeah, And I went like, yeah, I could have done I could have been Yeah, but yeah, so's it's a big thing is happening. But we get, similar to the other movie, like a microcosmic view of it, Like we're just dealing with these people breaking this story and figuring out what's happening on a global scale. But because it is so because it is centered in a newsroom, you do have a little bit of a better ear towards what's really happening.

And you can't trust all of it and they don't. And there's something. We finished The Wire recently, and so season five is all about the newsroom. And it's funny because the season five of The Wire kind of is aged really poorly because it just feels so angry at the time of what a newsroom was, and it's so out of date now. But yet that was two thousand and what two thousand and seven, and that felt exactly like this newsroom in nineteen sixty one, Like in a way, how different how from nineteen sixty one to two thousand and seven newsroom ran the same way, with that same energy of you don't print it until we fact check it twice, you don't put it in there if you don't have a quote.

All that to how you know by twenty ten how different that was because of the Internet, because of cable and everything else. But that this does feel it is a classic newsroom. So you do you're hearing rumors, but you're hearing some factual stuff and it's not like nobody confirms it until they can confirm it, which is kind of cool because it just gives you this You start to get suspicious, but you can't, you know, not to buy anything as fact until you really know it's a fact, until the characters do. Yeah, And it's cool to watch them, you know, like research and guess and come up with theories and like ah my theory was right, you know it's yeah, it's like cool. So that does underscore something because you look at these things and you're like, how would this play out?

Now? At least that's my feeling. And something that really struck me about this movie is the lack of infrastructure we have. We don't have reporting like this, We don't have news gathering like this, and we also don't have wired telephones the way they seem to and this film, So it made me very worried like okay, they're able to keep some level of like communication, oh but we don't have any of that stuff anymore. And it made me super bummed out.

That's fair. Yeah, it is like some of the little things that you don't think about of when he when he's on the road, right when he is out there researching story, he has to stop somewhere so that his office can contact him if they need to. So he has to you know, go to somebody who's apartment and say like, okay, this is the number you're calling, and that does It's a different situation today where everything would be cell phones and such. Yeah, we should talk about the central relationship, because you do get romance, and it is I went on a wild ride with this one. I am curious where you fell on it.

I it was very of a time, the courtship. It's I liked her a lot. What is her character name, yeah, Janet Monroe. She I liked her a lot. She was very sassy and and like stood up for herself and like had a moral compass and principles and like a clear character thrust.

I was very witty too. She could reputate with him and serve him every time. I thought. I thought it was great, But I do wish maybe it was a little like lighter on the trying to like force her into sexual situation. The coercion was a little high.

But like I again, it's sixty one, so like that is kind of the way that I guess it is. And having her be sassy and have agency, I guess was like the feminist slant that we could hope for. Yeah, and I guess it's sixty one. So it's his coat is just gone right, And because it does feel it's a little bit more pushing a line than it would have been probably like just a year or two earlier. And the scene where she's in her like he's come to her apartment.

They're kind of stuck there for different reasons, and like she's basically topless but not and he's like in the room. The flirting in that scene, the kind of constant like I'm gonn kiss you, I'm not. I thought that was wildly sexy. Yeah, you mean, like when she was washing her hair and she had like the towel around her neck. Yeah, and like they keep kind of coming close to each other, like at that point, like you know, they want each other, but there there's other things that keep kind of calling them apart.

But it was like right where, like right before they do bone, like we see that they're about to but it's like before that, there's like a good like scene of them talking back and forth and getting interrupted that I thought was really really sexy. Yeah, it was good. I liked I liked them. I didn't. It didn't feel like ham handed, it didn't feel out of out of the blue.

It was it was an effective part of the story and and stuff, and the relationship so it made the relationship like mean something. And it's good too, because it's like there's a little bit of a relationship in the other one. But it's it's one of those things you see in a lot of movies like this, like the Dawn of the Dead remake, just people kind of getting mashed together because of the trauma or the fear of the end type of stuff. And I always find it effective. It's fun.

Yeah, And I think they give him enough of it's Peter Stennings as a character Stenning, they give him enough of a personality and backstory to wear. I mean, he's he's kind of an asshole, but he's an alcoholic and he seems to be acknowledging that and goes dry during the film and has him passed, and he like owns up to the fact that, like, you know, these are his mistakes, and it just makes it more interesting that you have a very flawed character as your compass. Just keeps it a little more dynamic. So it's not this, you know, I feel like more and more today you need that person to be very much more of a cipher and here he's not. He you cannot like him for a lot of this movie until you realize you're on his side.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a really good point. I agree with that completely. And he also is a father. We meet his son, so towards the end of the movie, when like you start to realize that everybody is sort of going places because they think the world's going to end and he's not going to be with his son. Did you have the same realization that I did of Oh, thank god, because if I was with this kid, I would probably want the world to end.

Oh you didn't like that kid? That kid drove me crazy. I like that scene. I actually wrote down quotes from this movie. I really like this movie.

Okay, I like that scene because so they they like the kid in the main character, dad like to go to the funfair, and so they go to the funfair at the end and like they're saying goodbye, which is actually really heartbreaking because the mother and him and the mother aren't together. He just sees the kid they're remarried to some rich guy. So he's like, basically just this movie reminded me a lot of twenty twelve. Don't worry, I'll go into it. But so though they're they're talking him in the in the new the husband and he's like to just you know, just take care, take care of the boy, and the fucking new husband looks at him and he says, it all seems pretty ridiculous now, and it was like, yeah, asshold everyone, what the fuck are we doing?

Yeah, it made me very like upset and also sixty one. Yeah, like, guys, we're telling the same story over and over over again, and it was very frustrating. But there was some beautiful lines like that and some really fun storytelling devices. This movie is really welcome instructive. It is, and even like there's one thing I noted when there's obviously there's a lot of exposition in this movie because you're talking about the world ending.

There's science, there's a little bit of politics. There's all these different things that have to go on a page to get things done like this. This movie is you know, ninety minutes. The script was probably two hundred pages because it's very fast talking. Yeah, but it's also it's vow guest who made it.

The choices in how things are stage are really dynamic. There's a scene where Peter and Jeanie like they're meeting again after they haven't met in a while because she's kind of given him in tell that you shouldn't have given him, but also it's kind of important for the world to know. And so they have to meet like somewhere where people won't see them, and they end up at the same funfair and they go on a ride, so they're just talking. It is a pure exposition of them talking back and forth, but they're on a ferris feel while it's happening, which now admitted for me, who does get a little nauseous on rides, that it was a little bit nauseating, but also really dynamic, and I appreciated that, like the there was a way for things to move even when it was just pure dialogue.

Yep, I know that scene. I love it because when they chose to cut away, I made a note of I was like, this is such good storytelling because like they don't they continue to like keep things from the audience as well, so and the way they choose to do that is really fun. And they use a lot of techniques that you still see in movies, like they kind of tell it out of order. They start, yeah, oh yeah, we start within the at the end, we start in a different color scheme as well. And so that's interesting and very very modern storytelling technique.

And I thought that the Ferris Wheel was like that was some really classic storytelling, and I thought it was really good. I'm glad you called that out because I would have forgotten. Other notes I had was there's a lot of fast talking, as we as we said, it's very like it's nineteen sixty one, but it feels very like his girl Friday ask in terms of how quickly they talk. And there's a scene where like they're kind of picnicking, they're outside, they're in a date and there's a big fog that comes over, so emergency bells go off and everybody is kind of running to their cars, and they find a kid who can't find their parents, and they like and so, you know, like good people. They pick up the kid.

They're like, hey, where's your mom, where's your dad? Will help you, and they talk. But they talk so much to the kid that like they're like, yeah, the kid won't talk. I was like, no, no, no, you're talking so fast that you didn't give the kid a minute to say, my name's Jenny, I'm looking for my mother. Yeah.

They chill out, guys, Right, I'm like they're kidnapping this child. She does talk immediately to the fog like, Hi, what's her name? Like, oh my God, get me away from these people that won't show God, blah blah blah. These two right, all they're doing is is flirting and not fucking come on wa. I think I thought that was very funny and cute.

And he's very cute with that girl and stuff too. Yes, And it's this like, I mean, I know there was always, at least like when I was younger, there was a thing that was like, oh, it's very sexy to see a man who's good with kids, and like this movie does that in a way that's very appropriate because it also then like it's a really good storytelling because that's when the the statement comes out of like oh yeah, I'm a dad, I have a kid like Fred that didn't come up otherwise, and it comes up organically in this conversation that makes perfect sense for this these this couple of this juncture. Did you catch the before he was famous? I U? Yes, Now how did you catch it?

Did you hear it? And go, oh I heard it? Yeah? Brandon did? Brandon walked in He's like, that's Michael Kane.

That's so funny. Zach walked in the second he started talking and we both looked at each other, and then the second we look back to the screen, they did enough of like a side profile close up. Yea ye, there we go. It is it is. Yeah, yeah, I said, he's like nobody else sounds like that.

That's Michael Kaine. Michael Kaine, Yeah, I heard. It was very fun. It was nice to see him very young, very daffer. I mean I didn't really see him.

I didn't think I could see his face at all. I just went by the voice. I see that body zoom enhance enhance. Well, he was just tall and lean, and I don't know. I was like, good for Michael Kaine.

The So there's so I guess one thing I think that is worth talking about because it also flows into Testament a little bit, is you know, this movie is very much centered on this character in this newsroom, but you get enough of how at least they're in I guess they're in London, They're in England. I assume London, how society is sort of reacting to everything, and so you do get some of these you know, wild kids looting and kind of partying. Where are your thoughts on that? I love that. So one of my thoughts was, and again, this is the sixties.

It's a different time, and it's also the filmic representation of London in the sixties, so it's not accurate. Right, There were a lot of Matt paintings, for one thing, So yeah, well that's true. There were. I don't think there were so many just on the streets back, but like I did think, like, oh, everybody is being absurdly well behaved, like the whole time, like everybody's being real chill and really listening to authority, which I think would have been true, but also was probably played up because it's a movie, so it was it was welcome for me to see kind of like an like it, like it's falling apart, kind of like the first two weeks of the Pandemic versus the second two weeks of the Pandemic, because it's just kind of like I think that I think that there would be some people saying fuck it, because the movie does get to a point where it's kind of like, well, we have a few months, maybe we can fix it, or maybe we have a few months.

So to think that some people kind of wouldn't fly off the handle or use it as like a hedonistic like this is it kind of thing is silly. So I thought it was great that they finally chose to show it. I did think it was weird that it was right towards the end. It was only for a couple seconds, and I guess people broke into her house and tried to drown her. I don't really understand.

I can't fully understand that either. Yeah, it was kind of like a sexual assault, but like then it also was just like it seemed like childlike and innocent. I didn't understand. It seemed like more hey, if you're not partying, you're not cool, Like more that than yeah, because at this point, she in some ways it sort of like should be considered a bit of a hero because she has you know, she's the whistleblower of being the one to give the intel of oh no, like this shit's bad, and her name is out there in the public. People know she's I think she's in prison and at one point in the movie, so you would think like, oh, she's got she occupies a certain place in society in this part, and like, I guess, I don't think anybody, like, I don't think the movie treats it as if she is a celebrity, So yeah, I didn't fully understand.

Was it just like everybody partying and like if you're not partying, we're gonna kill you kind of what I can look from that? Yeah, Yeah, I kind of felt the same way, like maybe that was code for like just general drug fueled mayhem and like I wasn't supposed to understand. Yeah, and it reminded me a little bit. I wondered if one of my favorite end of the World movies last night, which did I make you watch that? Did you see that with me?

Don Na Keller, Sandra Oh, David, I don't think so. I can't believe I haven't made me watched that. But it's so good. It is it's it's just a beautiful it's the it's a movie that is about it is very similar to Seeking a Friend at the End of the World in terms of the setup, Yeah, where it's the everybody knows the world is going to end, like there's no question about it. So it's just basically how do you spend your tit chiller last night?

And it's it's wonderful if anybody hasn't seen it, please watch it. It is a beautiful, beautiful movie. And there is the opening of the movie is like characters just kind of partying and flipping over a car, which is what you would probably do in this scenario. But it made me wonder if, like very specific visually, if that was a reference to this movie or not. No, I definitely have not watched this.

It looks really good. It's so good, Christine, it is so good. If you want to do it an episode on it, I would do it in a heartbeat. Also, Don mckeller didn't know that that's what that man's name was. Look at Foxy in this picture.

See he writes and directs it, and he's in it and he starts it. I did see that, Christine. David Cronenberg is in this movie. I know I won't watch Cronenberg movies, but I will watch movies. Cronenberg's ice cream in this movie.

I don't. I don't want to give you too many things to think about tonight when you go to bed, But David Carniberg eating ice cream, Sarah pay the cast, I'll think about it. Okay, Okay, it's again. It's one of those movies that I don't know, I'm not the best barometer, because to me, it is both uplifting and beautiful and also a little sad, you know, because the world ends. It's not a spoiler.

It's what the movie's about. That's a good thing with most of these it's not a spoiler. Well, and now, on that note, yes, what are your thoughts on the ending of this movie? I liked it. What do you think?

What what happens? Like? Where do you think we're left at the end of this movie? I think maybe my previous statement is a little bit more true than I thought. I am too tired to care.

I don't care. I didn't it didn't make me upset, and everybody seemed like they were in a good place, so I was just kind of like, all right, yep, it is very ambit I love the ambiguity. Ambiguity of it. I just too Yeah, I definitely didn't feel like I needed to be told, like. I don't feel like real knowing changed my experience with the movie, which is good.

I feel like the right decision was to have us not know. Ye. Now here's something very interesting because to me, I watched this movie on Criterion same as you, and I felt it ended with me not knowing. I felt the whole point was, we have taken this gamble. We don't know if this is the end of the world or the beginning of a new world.

We don't know. We're going to find out, We're going to find out. You're we're leaving you now so you won't find out. But it's going one way or another. And I loved that.

Apparently, according to the trivia, the American ending adds church bells to signal that the world has been saved, but this is not stated not to have. But this was not the original ending. Now I went back and because I thought, I'm like, did I I don't remember if there were tors And I rewatched the very ending on criterion, and there are church bells, like it ends, he gives his speech, it's a very beautiful speech, and there are church bells at the end. I did not make a connection of oh that means we're okay. So to me, that didn't take anything away because I just didn't interpret it the way I the Americans wanted me to.

Well, also, again a different time, I don't know that we think church of church bells is like a universally hopeful symbol. That's a very good point, I know now that you're saying it. I think maybe I did have a little bit of hopefulness, and maybe the bells did inform that a little bit, but it was still like a melancholy hopefulness. It wasn't like a like a this is definitely going great feeling. So still ambiguity.

Yeah, yeah, I think. Yeah, it's interesting because it never those the church bells never to me meant anything. Uh, because if the world was gonna blow up and you have church bells in place, they're probably gonna ding because it's not gonna change. Yeah, things are gonna move. Yeah, that's how I wonder if it's if that's us, that's because of the time we live, if that's because of modern movies.

But yeah, it didn't. It didn't feel like it was like a nice clean button on it. Mm hmm. Yeah, I agreed. Yeah, I love we've talked about this.

I think you're the same as me. I love a good ambiguous, ambiguous ending. Yeah me too. Yeah. If it's if it's not gonna be the big twilight zone.

Fuck you guess what, it's the reverse of what you thought. Then I do want an ambiguous ending, especially about speculative stuff like this. Yeah, because part of the reason why it's so interesting is because you get to see like these little like character stories play out, like what ifs play out. I don't necessarily know that I need a definitive ending when you're clearly making things up. This didn't happen.

That's a good point. It's it's something that always bothers me when, like, I watch a movie that is not based on a real story that then gives me like a text coda toeing me what happened to characters in the movie. I'm like, why are you doing this? Like you don't have to do that, Like you're not It doesn't make any sense. I think that you feel that.

Uh. Something else I think on that note is the like you're very much centered on Peter and Jeanie, but you have a lot of these other side characters that are really that little boy who ends up getting sick. He wasn't a little boy, he was a grown man. But that I loved him too, so helpful, and he did such hard work. It used to take so many people to do things.

You're right, I kind of miss it, honestly, like I kind of missed the thoughtfulness involved in like people having to go and look something up. Now we just I don't know, I do. I'm not going to say I don't appreciate modern convenience and technology. I just do think we lost something when we lost that tactile thing so so quickly. I mean again, like I can rant about AI and chatch t technology all day long, it isn't.

There's the reasons I am scared of it. Aside from like the you know, stealing people's intellectual output, it's the there's two big parts of it. One all of this takes jobs away. No matter how you cut it, it's taking jobs away. And it's just putting this bigger distance between every individual and every other individual mm hmm.

Because we don't have to look something up now or like really go ask somebody. We just ask a robot, and we believe the robot, even though we have no real reason to really believe the robot. That it's robot's just regurgitating other things that have been said to it. And it terrifies me so much. But and this is this is what I'm saying.

Yes, it's it's like I don't I don't have a problem with modern convenience and technology, but there was like a way that you were interacting with the data and with the people behind the data that is lost. It's the same as the telephones, like if cell service, if something happened to cell phone towers like or like, we wouldn't be able to talk to each other. We don't have these landlines. Yeah, we don't even know anybody's numbers. That is such a good point.

And again I'm not a luddite. I'm not like fighting against it, but I think it happened really fast, and I don't think we fully assessed what we were losing. Yeah, And it's one of those things that I think you think about when you watch an End of the World movie because so much of it is the first thing that's going to happen is you're going to lose cell service, You're going to lose internet, And that's something we didn't talk about it, but we had kind of talked off Mike a little bit about Leave the World Behind, which is a movie that came on Netflix with Julia Roberts. It's another End of the World movie, and one of like the main nagging things of that is how completely inapt Ethan Hawk's character, who's a you know, educated guide in early fifties and he's a gout of family.

He's pretty well off, and how as soon as you take away his cell phone, he cannot drive two miles without getting lost, Like and it's very hard, you know, on the nose, but it's also you step back and you think, oh my god, is that me, Like if this happens, yeah, having any skills and the same time, the odds of this happening are hopefully so minute that well it doesn't matter, Like I don't know, like if it happens, is that gonna be the thing that destroys me or something else? And I don't know. It's just a question on where you put your skills in your time and all that. And then you have the you know, old guy at the at the paper who you know, kind of the sweaty older guy who's got heart problems and all that, and he's the one who knows everything.

Mm hmm. I like time. I mean, but it's cool to have I like that character, like to this style of story or not. I think maybe it's easy to vilify like a know it all kind of blow hard guy like old guy type because like most of those now kind of suck, but like, if presented a certain way, I love that. I love this like walking talking resource, so it's always like a really satisfying, fun character, and I liked him a lot in this agreed.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I enjoyed this one. I'm really glad you did. Yeah. I really really liked it, like big, I think I gave it like four and a half on soth then loved it very nice. Yeah, and also real real quick, very much like twenty twelve.

If you're oh, yeah, so tell me I have not seen twenty twelve. Believe it or not. If you can, I know it's hard to believe. I don't know why. I really like twenty twelve.

I think it's the perfect modern disaster movie. It does all disaster movie stuff, but like really well but anyways, the fact that like this is a so Twenty twelve mainly follows Cusack John Cusack as he kind of seems to be on the front line of finding out that we're headed towards a cataclysmic event, and he has a kind of a broken family. His wife, Amanda Pete, is remarried to a surgeon, and he has two little kids that he's kind of on the ounce with, so a part of it is like redefining family, accepting people, bringing family back together. So there's elements of that with his kid and I thought that was really interesting. And the inciting event in twenty twelve is that the core of the Earth heats up so much that it like like starts to make like the tectonic plates or whatever like spins free spin, so everything like shifts and moves on Earth.

And it reminded me very much of just the concept of like, oh, bombs shook the earth, like it's not so much. Oh it's not hot because the climate change, or we did a nuclear bomb and now everyone's dying, like Testament, it's just like, oh, we rocked it a little bit. So there was something kind of innocent about that that reminded me of twenty tweolve well in twenty twelve opens, I mean and kind of hopefully with like, well we some people are still alive, and look, we saved three big boats full of people and everything's calmed down and will be okay. And there are elements of that there too. Obviously, if you choose to hear the bells, is like hopeful and shit, yeah, this is definitely a you can decide how this movie ends for you and I that.

Yeah, I don't know. I liked it a lot, and it did remind me of that. So maybe Emeric is a fan of the Day the Earth Caught Fire. I would be surprised, I think, even though, again, like I was not overly familiar with this, I'm sure this had its influences. Oh yeah, definitely, I mean it has to.

It's a very specific feeling of this kind of movie, so I'm sure people latched onto it. Yep, all right, so that is the Day the Earth Caught Fire. I don't know why I find it so hard to say those words together today, The Day the Earth got fire. It's very evocative of other sentence kind of titles, So I get it. Maybe maybe that's it.

All right, We'll take a quick break and come back and talk about Testament. Eastern World. It is exploding, violence, flaring bullets loading, you're old enough to kill, but not for voting. You don't believe in war Bard's that gun, you're soldain, and even the Jordan River has bodies floating. But you tell me over and over again, my friends, I you don't believe we're on the devolved this drug shore.

We are back to talk about another version of the End of the World, one I really like and I don't think Christina does. It's nineteen eighty Three's Testament. Yeah, it is indeed. All right again, we will spoil this movie. You already know.

It's pretty damn dark and it's going in a certain direction. But tell everybody. Chrismine directed by Linley lynch Min based on a bless You based on a short story by Carol Amen, which you can read. I found online pretty easily. Oh, I was curious if maybe it would solidify some feelings for me dark.

Yeah, just google it, you'll find it in PDF. It's eleven pages. It was originally published in Miss magazine. Uh it is, I will say it's it's really it's an interesting read. It's written as if it is just journal entries.

It's her, you know, just writing it that way. It is very close to the movie. It kind of the move. The screenplay follows it very closely. There are certain lines because it's eleven pages, so it's very short, so there are a lot of lines of dialogue that are then taken verbatim into it.

But it's very interesting and funny. Fun fact about it is, so the short story ran in Miss magazine. Lynn Littmann read it and immediately secured the rights to it because she said, I want to make a movie of this, And it was a couple of years later that she she did. And then she was really pissed because Miss Magazine because she thought like, oh, maybe they'll do like a feature on it, because they did it like it'd be a good, good content for their paper, for their magazine. They didn't, and they gave the movie like a one paragraph bad review, and she was pissed off understandably.

Wow, wow, they way to play ball, I know, right, But nineteen eighty three very low budget, so a weird production history. So it was going to be done as a like television for the American Playhouse I think, which is the same thing that like Rod Serling used to do back in the sixth Yeah. What happened basically was like at every stage everybody kept saying, wait, no, this is really good, we can do more with it. So it was gonna be an hour long, and when the screenwriter turned in the treatment and it was like a standard ninety minutes, they said no, no, no, we can do this, We'll do it as a ninety minute television movie. And then I think it's after they filmed it.

I think is when they decided, oh, no, this is good enough that we can put it in theaters. And then there was a little bit of an issue because the cast was like, hey, wait, you didn't pay us for that. You paid us for TV, not for film. So they eventually got more money, but still it was just a funny story on that and it was a very little movie. It's a very low budget.

Did go on to Gaddy kind of surprise Oscar nomination for Jane Alexander, and it's something I love because this is the kind of look Oscar nominations just came out. Everybody always has strong opinions on them. Yes, the Oscars say everything you want about them. They have a lot of problems, they always do. But at the end of the day, what they also do is they get people to see movies that they might not have already always seen.

And I am sure many more people saw Testament because it had an Oscar nomination than they would have otherwise. And IOP will always love that. So ah, that's some background. But Christine have off tell us the plot of Testament. I didn't hate this movie.

I just didn't find it effective. And if you don't find it effective, I think it loses its point fascinating. So anyways, it's basically just a slice of life family nuclear bombs, the plural go off across the country. I have no real idea scope. Yeah, I think there's there's heavily implied, I think, but I don't think we know the full scope.

So it's very much like more so than Day the Earth Caught Fire, very much a small community look at little suburb. Yeah, it's a it's a very community centric exploration of a nuclear attack or blast or whatever. And it opens very idyllic eighties. It feels like Poultergeist. Yes it does.

And I was thinking Et, but yeah, same thing. Well, I mean sister movie. For real, there's an Et sticker in this Oh it said it said I love Et, and I was like, you know what, I love Et too. I wouldn't be surprised if half of that cast audition for Et and poulterergrest But for real, it has that big polteric ice energy. It's like the eldest, like the daughter.

There's only one daughter, and this one has an eating disorder. It seems, you know, like your classic eighties eating disorder, where we don't we only have celery and we only two on ice cubes, real relatable stuff. And I was like, yeah, let's fucking go. This is my ship. Like I recognize this, I know this language.

It helps me so much of my family, Like just the dynamic of mom, like mom who stay at home, Mom who's doing everything, who's feeding three kids in this case four kids in my family, like running around and also doing school activities, knows everybody in town. Dad who goes to work, who absolutely adores his family but has to work really hard in order to get them to life. So when he sees them, it's this exciting thing. But then he's not there for other things and mom gets tired of it. Like the first like five minutes, I was like, oh, I never realized how much of my family this was.

Yeah, that's that's really interesting, and I think so it had me. I just want to make that very clear. Had me. And then even once the blast happens, which is horrifying and chilling scene, either this is this is a movie that has like zero special effects whatsoever. Lights flash and that tells us everything we need to know.

Hated it. I think it's everything after okay that that I didn't like it. I will just say it felt sanitized, It felt hollow, It felt like play act what somebody thinks might be what. It just felt weird and really really disingenuous to me. Huh, I don't.

I can't really explain it. It will like try to be ugly while also refusing to be ugly and see I'm I mean, I'm on the reverse because I find it very affecting. I like that it. It is very much like they're in a society. They're in, you know, a little community.

There is certainly some negative things that are happening. There are people behaving badly, but we don't really see them because we're not focused on that. This is very much about this family kind of protecting itself and going about its life. And so there are bad things happening. We know people are dying, we know there is probably you know, looting and other things going on as well.

I I to me, this works because it's not about seeing that. It is about you could tell that movie, that movie is a day after that movie is threads. This movie is not that this movie is the family, the one family who tries to make the best of it and are still on the you know, they're they're losing the battle. They cannot beat nuclear radiation. But we don't need to see, you know, the actual everybody's hair falling out and teeth falling out, but we do.

It teases a lot of that, but it doesn't show it. To me, that felt cowardly. I do understand just enough of it well, and I can completely relate to that. But I will counter with if you're not emotionally involved in it, then it doesn't work at all. Like that, that skirting the line it requires me, I feel like an asshole.

And I did not dislike this movie, and I'm not trying to talk a lot of liking it, but you won't. No, no, I know I'm not even tempting. I wouldn't dare. But for me, it's like, if you don't buy into these characters, then what story are you telling me? And I didn't think you were telling me a story that was unique or particularly interesting.

It it felt like like was I not supposed to like them? That's a genuine question. If I wasn't supposed to like them, then I think the movie worked, But if I was supposed to like really relate to them, they kept making weird choices that didn't seem backed up by reality, and it was just weird and I struggled to find a port in the storm. Well, what what did you not like about them? What are some of the choices they made that that bothered you?

It just seemed like they they decided to stay in their community to foster community, but then I didn't witness them fostering community. Well, I think part of it in the beginning is that they don't know if Dad's coming home because it's a few weeks before she hears the message that no, he definite died in San Francisco, So she never heard that message. That was a question I genuinely had. She didn't hear that message before we heard it? Correct, okay, because I wasn't sure if she like knew and that was no.

I think she hears. There's two messages early on where it's him calling and saying I'm coming home. Then it's him calling and saying I got delayed. And she thinks early on from where it cuts off is that he's in Chicago, because that's why later they ask like, have you heard about Chicago yet, because they think that's where he left off. And then later at this point, it's probably like two three weeks into it, where she's looking for a battery at night and she takes it out of the answering machine, but before she does, she realizes there's a message there because again like old school answering machines were totally different back then, and she plays it and that is the first time she hears it and realizes he is dead.

He died in San Francisco. So that and if you write it all down on paper, I completely understand, right, but you didn't understand that was not communicated to you watching it. But and even even that aside, like so okay, they were just staying because they didn't know about the dad, and that's fair. I just think maybe I wanted more. There's a lot of weight behind that decision, and we didn't sit with that weight.

We didn't she didn't say to us. And the thing, maybe I made a mistake, am I could if we had left, would my kids not be dying in front of me? It just felt like there was like a lack of weight given to these decisions, and we just had to be okay with the fact that it didn't seem like from the outside viewing perspective, she she was doing much for the situation, and I get that. Then the argument is, well, what can you do? The futility is the point?

Okay, Well, then explore that because I don't necessarily know that. I felt that way. Well, I think early on there's I mean, you have the school play. Yes, I found the school play exceptionally poignant. Yeah, I really did.

It felt very covid to me. This switch of like we have to pretend everything regulars felt really chilling, and like, I get this, And yet even when you're doing that, you have to stand up and say, oh, the this girl is homesick so she can't do this part, and kind of course you're thinking, oh, this girl's dead. Yep, yeah, yep, fully and I like that. I think that was my last positive note. And then the movie doesn't say anything about it, Like it shows everybody in the audience crying, and you know that they're seeing this as this is the last time we get this, but he doesn't make a point of saying that, which I really respect.

If they had done that like once or twice more, I think I would have had a completely different feeling because that shows the what the weight of this breakdown. It's not just community breakdown, it's a world break How do we cope with that? Is? How do we comprehend that? And then I just feel like when we boiled it down to these quieter moments, we lost that weight.

Like the gas line was terrifying. I loved that, Yeah, but then again we start to lose that, and as we burn bodies, it's just I don't I don't know what I'm getting out of it anymore, you know, Yeah, And for me, and again, part of it might be because I have seen a lot of these kinds of movies. So I have seen the movie where it's all about the gas line or it's all about you know, getting rid of the bodies, and like there's a movie there for every more graphic depiction of what's going on in this situation and what I take this as, very much of this is all And maybe it's because you know, knowing like American playhouse presents, like this could be a play, this could be done on stage. This is just one family with no knowledge of what's going on, which again, in reality, could very well be what happens if this ever happens, and it's just okay, you're a mom, you have three fairly young kids.

You don't know what to do. You are not the decision maker in the house, and now you have to make its decision, still not knowing if your partner is coming home, and now it is probably too late to make that decision, even though now you know your porkers at home. So what do you? What do you do? You just you keep trying to raise your kids.

You and you're aware, and I think so to me, this is what that's a This is a movie about that kind of smallness of the individual in this situation. And you know, nobody in this movie is going to make a difference in the world, but they do within their own world and maybe to other people, because there are you know, some of the other characters in that let's let's talk about babyfaces. We have some before they were famous eighties heart throbs. Here do we not? Well, Lucas hass Oh well, I mean I wasn't gonna say him just yet.

I was thinking on the older side. But yeah, but he and I are essentially the same age, so it's not it's not weird. Yes, and he would be in this movie because I'm the youngest. So yeah, and it's like it's so very big introducing Lucas Hawk. Yeah, and he's he's adorable in this and very cute.

Perfect. Yeah, but I think you might be talking about was it Kevin Coster? Kevin cost and and and his wife? So I shout, is that Morne for completely? Just Kevin Coster's right there, and I'm like, he's got weird hair.

He's got like a mushroom cut in this movie. That's kind of very very unflattering. I didn't notice it was him until I think maybe the second time, okay, maybe when I started talking. Yeah, he showed up and I was like, oh my gosh, very very exciting. Yeah, it was very exciting to see them, for sure.

And they, I mean they have their own, you know, very big, small story, which is they she has a newborn and the first the very like first night after or of the attack of the attack, you know, they all kind of do a town meeting and she asked the doctor, you know, my my baby's not taking my milk. Is that is that a problem? And the doctor won't say anything. The doctor or just sits down and you know. Shortly thereafter, you see Kevin Costner walking with a so did this work for you?

Kevin Costner is walking with a like drawer, a wooden drawer from an armoiir and uh, Carol Jane Alexander says like, oh, kind of what's this for? And you realize immediately what that's for that the baby has died. I don't know that to me, like, I don't need to see the baby dying. Like that was enough of telling me exactly what happened there. So can I explain to you why that didn't work for me?

And maybe you can help me understand what my problem is? Yes, okay, So the second I saw him crying, I said, oh, the baby died, not like in a happy way. I wasn't happy about it, so barring though Christine baby Giller, I was, And I actually thought that conceptually that was really effective. I thought like, okay, we're stepping things up where no holds bar the gloves are off. Got it.

So he is upset, well, I mean his child died, but also he has a drawer and he's gonna put the baby in a drawer to bury it, which is horrifying and upsetting and the reason is because they can't waste the wood. So then why for the next like seven or eight people that die, are they like chillin in coffins? Like why is this baby in a drawer? But like other people are just in coffins. That didn't that broke it for me, Like why you have to So you're trying to manipulate me by telling me how terrible it is for this little dead baby and they're very upset young parents, but like, it's not really because that guy's in a coffin, So you're lying to me.

The movie's trying to manipulate me. I don't know that I noticed the coffin after, because there are a lot of times it's just his bodies, but that's that's well after. So maybe it's edited out of order. Maybe the baby dies, but maybe the baby's because it feels in the film that maybe the baby is one of the first, if not be first early, but maybe it's not really that way, and like the way it was filmed or the way that it was originally constructed, and they felt like they needed to do that early to like make a point or something. But in the movie they tell me they don't have resources and it's supposed to be heartbreaking, and then they have resources.

So it's kind of like, is this I don't okay, whatever, I guess interesting you cold hearted? I'm not, but but like because I want I wanted to be there with it. It's just it kept doing things where it felt like a half step, and that felt like a half step to me, like, oh, I'm super bummed that this baby's dead and it's so tragic. It has to be buried in a drawer. That's how bad things are.

Except they don't because that guy is literally in a well constructed coughin. I can see it. Interesting. I don't know. Maybe I'm being too redundant to try to protect myself from getting upset.

Possibly, but I mean also very value because that is something I don't remember the coffins, but I know there. I mean, there are a lot of scenes the cemetery is there's a lot of scenes of bodies and bags there are I mean because the kids, the kids start dying after that, right Yeah, And we see Lucas Haws, who's the first to go is I don't think he's because he's buried in their yard, right, Yeah, he's in cloth, he's like in a right cloth, I believe. Yeah, yeah, man, that's obviously heartbreaking and sad and disturbing. But again, I know that things don't need to be gross or explicit to be disturbing. But they made a point to show explicit stuff but not really be truthful about it.

That's kind of my problem, Like I don't really need to know that's how it's going down with Lucas has if you're not gonna be honest about how awful it really would be. Huh see. And I guess I'm of the camp that I think of, And maybe I don't know. Maybe it's in part that this movie feels and it's nineteen eighty three, it is female directed based on a story from this magazine? Is am I asking for too much?

Emily No, no, no no. And I want to be careful what I say because I don't want to like, I don't want this just this to come out sounding a weird gender thing. But I feel like you have a lot of different ways to tell stories about the end of the world and ask all the questions I come up with that. And there are many people who will watch the zombie version, who will watch the you know, the the eighties video nasty street trashy version of this story. There are people who want the seeking a friend at the end of the world type story, Like there's different ways of doing it, And in a way this feels like it is like who is this meant to really affect?

I feel like this is very much intended to get to parents, to get too much. Like I don't just want to say like, oh, this is the housewife version of the End of the World. No, but I think it is not wrong, and I think that version of early eighties, late seventies really yeah, femininity is not something that I think I can jive with. And I write that I did wonder that myself too, like because I usually use like female directed or written as like my rallying cry to see something, but I think the opposite happened in this, Like I found this depiction so removed from anything I'm interested in that it was like, oh, this is not for me. I don't think fair.

And I mean you and I are both not parents. Yeah, yeah, And you know there are some there are some stories I can read or watch and say I can get that this would be more effective if I was a mother, Like, plain and simple, this is a story made from others, and again this one does work for me for different reasons. But I do think that that's to me, where the validity of the way this film tells the story. I have not seen it told this way. I think it is very centered on this very very realistic, not exceptional you know, you know Jane Alexander in this movie, she is she's a mom.

She is not clearly the most resourceful, like even I think something that we haven't talked about yet, but how as much as she is very much clearly like in this household, like okay, she's handling all the kids stuff, She's probably the one that handles like the bills, but this is very much a family where like dad makes the decisions. You can feel that early on dad is you know, the kids like absolutely like fall in line to dad, and when he is gone, she doesn't know what to do. And that is not a fault to this character. I think that's very believable for a mother of three in nineteen eighty three. And it kind of then like it's it's again a way something that you wouldn't a story that you wouldn't maybe tell this way today because you don't usually want to like give a woman less authority, especially in a family, and instead, very quickly in this movie, the oldest, the middle child, the oldest son.

What is the character's name is Brad Rossy Harris from Airplane. He's the like you like Gloody in her movies. He's that kid I recognize. Yes, yes, I couldn't place it and I didn't look it up for some reason. Yes, he, you know, very quickly becomes the man of the house.

And she acknowledges it very quickly, you know, she realizes that, like as the next day when they're eating breakfast and he's the one saying, I don't think we should be eating this. I think, like if this doesn't taste right, and I think nuclear stuff can get into milk and get into water like and she just looks at him. She's like, you're right, Okay, what do we do? And and throughout the film, he is the kid that steps up. He is the one who starts kind of like he's the one that becomes a man.

He's the one that decides what can I do. I can go help the old guy on his radio. I can go give messages. I have a bike, I can go to liver things I can go help people like and he really does take on that role and grow up, and I really like what the film does with him, and that even early on, like the second day, stuff is happening when people are bringing like electronics to one spot to all share things, he sees like the bully, like the kind of jerky kid stealing stuff, and he calls him out on it. And there's something I think I really like when a film gives a child a moral compass that's very clear, and I think it does that here and then throughout the film he does grow into that part even more.

And it also very much puts Jane Alexander's character as somebody who is not there for herself. She is there for her children to have them become who they're going to be, and they don't obviously get to become that person. I mean, there's like that devastating conversation where the daughter says, what's it like to make love? She's like, and she doesn't say, you know, it's because I'm never gonna get to like it's this really really tragic thing. But that Gene Alexander exists for her kids, and I think that is hard to fully latch onto for some people.

And at the same time, I think, if you showed this movie at a PTA meeting, I think you would have people walking out sobbing. And I don't know, I find that I don't think I had to think about that before, because this movie just worked on me from the beginning. But the more seeing how it really didn't work on you just makes me think, like it's really I don't know that it was made for that audience. But like the closing of this movie is that is from Lyn Litman. This film is dedicated to my family, and it feels like, yes, this is a mother's film aimed at mothers.

Yeah, and and and it's reflective of a certain time. Yeah, for sure, it's Yeah. I just I guess it just didn't. It didn't fire for me, which I think is fine. It's and I think to your to your point, I am probably a little bit too cynical and stuff.

But like you, if you showed it, no, but if you showed it to a PTA group or whatever, they'd leave crying. Like I don't like to be emotionally manipulated, okay, And it felt it felt emotionally manipulative to me and I and and that that's me being cynical, because I'll I'll yell that at Disney movies, don't emotionally manipulate me. Wish. I'm not gonna be emotionally emotionally manipulated by you. Wally, don't fucking try.

I don't like it. It does. I can't watch up. But these are things I know, and I just don't want things to wiggle in there and try to jerk loose a response that I'm not really feeling that's fair. And it felt like it was getting dangerously close to there are like there's a scene or like the very first scene of the movie is Brad and Dad and they go on bike rides together and Brad can never make it over the hill and Dad always like you know, kind of bugs him on it.

And then like near the end of the movie, Brad can make it up that hill and his dad's bike, and like, yes, there's some very simple symbolism here. It works for me, but I can see that. Do you want to know who's whose side you'd be on for this movie? Your surprise? Ally?

Okay? Who? Okay? So here's a quote from I think this was IMDb or from from the Trivia so early In the pre production stage, Lynn Littman was trying to figure out who she wanted to cast, and the first person she thought of was Julie Christie. Uh So she sent her the short story, not the screenplay, but the actual short story, and Julie Christie replied back declining the role, saying in her letter to Litman that the and I quote the night I can never say this word naivete of the story made it uniquely American, and she was not the right choice for the heart.

Oh my gosh, me and Julie Christie. Jus, Julie Christian, don't look now. That's a story of childhood loss that I can fucking get by. So you know what you need raincoats. It's actually like comforting in a way to hear somebody express that, because I I felt kind of like an asshole after I watched this like it.

I know that you like it. I liked it, and I really felt like, am I building a wall so that I don't get upset? But I sat and I sobbed through a big part of the day. The earth caught fire, So I think that that wasn't it? Yeah?

No, I perfectly okay for a movie that I really love for you to dislike perfectly comfortable. I don't know how it's fine, No, it's again. I think it makes for a more interesting discussion. In some ways, I'm glad that I watched it, though I won't say that I'm not because it it's to your earlier point. It's always really interesting to see different stories take on similar, if not the exact same subject matter, like what do what are we focused on?

What are we worried about? What are our problems? That is interesting? So this is just it's just interesting. I just sadly didn't like didn't connect And this is an emotional movie.

So if you're not connecting, then it's not going to work for you. Really, I will say I made notes. I literally said, it's even scarier now because we lack community. And then my next note is we can't run radios. L O L O L L learn radio, learn radio, so I have to learn radio.

Excellent, I'll learn them too. Is that we you and I can at least radio each other. We can talk, so like a couple of us need to radios or else there's no point well, because we need to so you and I could podcast by crank radio, but if we need people to listen, presumably maybe maybe it doesn't matter. As long as you can do it, it's fine, it's fine. We're on different sides of the country, so it kind of works out.

But I'm probably dying in the blast right away. I'm pretty close to Manhattan, but I am going to go further up, so I don't know, don't count me out. I'm gonna get radiation. You. I don't know about you, because you're gonna be How close are you to LA?

Two and a half? Three hours? Okay? Would they bomb La? I don't know right now, I'm fucked.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a good hub, good port. I don't think I'm doing well, but you know, the desert maybe yeah? All right, So do you want to end on a happy note or like, so something more positive? Did you have something well? I was doing a little bit of googling on Gene Alexander, who again star of this movie, nominated for an oscar for it, and I found an interview with her from twenty twenty one, so it was during pandemic and she had just done like a part on Broadway and it was just this lovely article about her.

An interview with her from the Washington Post and just like a reminder of like how great she is. And she has been an activist her entire life. She like even like she would choose very political part. She was in, you know, she played a lesbian when she was very young. She did like a movie where she was in an interracial relationship before that was okay to do.

Has spent like after this movie, she became very like politically environmentally minded. She's been apparently like she's been honored by like the Illinois Bird Society for saving birds. Like she's just amazing and puts her you know, like learned a lot and does good with all of her power. And so the interview is like talking a lot about COVID, kind of about like the state of the world. And so she had a statement that I thought was just very beautiful that I wanted to share.

So this is Jane Alexander speaking, not me. And Jane Alexander spoke in twenty twenty one and said, this is not the scariest time to be alive. It is the most extraordinary time to be alive. Look at the infrastructure focus and in otherwise chaotic Congress and how people are recognizing the connectivity between the environment, economics, race, and justice. Yes, the world is in peril, but the world is always ending.

In a way, the world of your childhood was never going to last. The world of your children will fall away too. This is the way of life. New wonders replace old wonders. One problem is solved in time to tackle the next one.

We adapt, we age, we breathe, we remember, We do our best. We don't give up that lovely I mean, it's to me, it's similar the end of Testament, when you know, we don't know that everybody's dying, but they will die soon. Is you know, they say, like, okay, what is what do we wish? What do we need to remember? And it's that we remember at all the good, the awful, the way we finally live, that we never gave up.

I don't know that she kind of took that this role clearly meant a lot to her and kind of stayed in her bones, and that you know, she looks at the world. I think in any similar way of yeah, it's it's fucked, but we can try to do what we can to at least have our part means something. Yeah, I completely agree. I am extremely negative and cynical and sad, and I'm a doomer. I think it's all awful, But I don't stop trying.

I I you know, shake off chip bags and I recycle them in a thing that I pay to do. Like, I'm still fucking trying. So being sad doesn't mean you stop trying. I wish I hope more people know that. Yeah, So yeah, I hope is hope is what you make of it.

It can be as big or as small as you need it to be. Yeah, And that's I think why I have changed over the years from finding, you know, nuclear terror movies being kind of exciting and sort of fun what if scenarios to being weirdly peaceful in a way that just makes me think, Okay, well, you know my world is ending every day because you know, I'm every day, I'm closer to death than true of this planet. Probably you will die after I do, but who knows, it might not. And Okay, I'm gonna make the most of my life the same way we're gonna make the most of this world. So I you know, to me, that's where there's something very evocative and very kind of inspiring about these kinds of stories.

Is you know we're at the end. It's gonna end one way or another. We're gonna end, and just make what you can out of it. Be pretty happy with who you are and what you've done. Yep, I agree.

Well, good, even if you didn't agree on the movie, that's okay. Oh well, I'm still glad I watched it. Good, wonderful. I think our next episode will likely be a catch up. I feel like we're due for one.

Yeah, I think so, that's probably a fair assessment. I'll have to watch some fun stuff to talk about. It's been a little uh dry lately. Well, I've been trying to go on like the Oscar plunge of catching up on some things. Oh, you'll have to let me know if there's stuff worth looking at.

Okay, I'm trying to remember what I've watched so far, and already I can't remember, so that tell us something. But that's why I got to get some good stuff in there too, because I'm kind of the same vote. I haven't really seen anything worth talking about recently. All right, Well, we will hopefully have on that great note of our preview next episode where we say, ye, I don't really have anything, Hopefully we'll have stuff by then, don't worry. I'll make a point.

That's right, that's right, all right. Well I am Emily, you're Christine. You can find us on Twitter x whatever sometimes at Feminine Podcast, on Facebook at the Feminine Critique group, and on Instagram at Feminine Underscore, Critique Underscore Pod. And you can buy Christine's books at Christine make Me Stuck you can, yes, all right. Folks.

On that note, if the world ends before we talk to you next, we hope you've made the most out of it. Yeah, everybody, be kind to each other, foster community, don't be weird. There you go. What more do you need? Such deep in your thoughts and kind of open close within your eyes.

I'll place this guy within your eating some fat and such a huge change. I love the clubs within your heart. It's the moon, the new that's the thing to us through miss sense for you, everything else it's gone s good boys until that spot, Oh what buy that for you? You? That's the world.

Gos