191. The Ugly Him

We are you meet him Salah the doulamented Gaboola boo, put them together and what have you got? Hello and welcome to another episode of the Feminine Critique. I'm Emily von Stepsister. I'm Christine. That's it.

You don't have like eight last names. No, because I'm gonna say here now at the beginning that I refuse to participate in this nonsense. Oh my, what I'm a ball. Are you Alma the sister who wants to stay home with the horses or are you anti Stepsister? I'm Alma, the one with any sense in their head that doesn't do things that upset me.

Look, I don't know which one we're talking about first, but if you hang around for The Stepsister, check strap in, strap in to hear. What I mean. I say. Anybody watching that movie is team Alma. You have to I have a lot of emotions.

Oh boy, Okay, So today we're talking about, as we said, the Oscar nominated The Stepsister along with another movie from this year that I think has a lot of odd similarities in many different ways. That is him. Him Him Him Him. Him, Which did you see him in the theater? Where you saw him?

Done? Television? Somewhere. No, I I we just I was looking forward to it, especially because people seemed like super divisive, so like we rented it right when it was nice. Nice, nice, yeah him.

When it came out, I was intrigued because I'm like, that's I don't I remember seeing the trailer. I'm like, oh, I like the idea that that's a horror movie I've never seen. And then I heard nothing good about it, including from like the horror community, like just occasionally somebody be. Like, yeah, it was a good idea, but and so I do. I was like, I guess I'll catch it when it streams eventually, and it is streaming now, it's on Peacock.

And then you spoke highly of it, and I've heard a. Few other like now I'm hearing a couple of voices be like, no, what are people talking about? So I think both of these movies are very needy, and I am happy to do an episode of both of them. So do you have a preference on where we start? I honestly don't.

Okay, we can if you think we should frontload the more popular of the two. I don't even know what the more popular is. I mean him technically was a big screen release for his Ugly Stepsister was a little shutter watch. Well, I think that, I think The Ugly Stepsister at this point I have heard by far more positive things about and like when I check my letterboxed everybody I know has seen it. I could see that.

Yeah. Yeah. And also again, like I know we say this every year, how oscars, you know, don't define a movie. They don't mean much to a lot of people. But like, I was just at my best friend's house and she keeps a list of every like her goal every year to see everything nominated, including the shorts, including the documentaries.

And I see her list and she's got like all the checkmarks. I'm like, woo, you get to watch The Ugly step Sister soon. And it's not a movie she'd ever watch, but she will because of the Oscars. And there's people out there that do that. And again, so it's it's nice when when like a crossover happens, any movie rightfully is honored for its craft.

Uh And so yeah, all right, why don't. We start with The Ugly Stepsister, which of course is directed by somebody's name who I am not going to be able to pronounce because I mean, it's an Emily, but it's probably not pronounced Emily. It's probably like Emily, right. Yes, the fancy pronunciations. The annunciation of Emily.

Yeah. Yeah. I have a currently I have a project where I want to watch one hundred female directed movie nice here. So this helped add to my list. I'm thankful for that.

Thankful for that. I will say this might have been. Aside from a weirdly this is like out of the last like seven movies I've watched, I think four or five of them have been directed by women. Yeah, and not like out of like you know, making a list. It just happened by coincidence.

I saw if I had like I'd Kick You in the Theater, which also has a weird thing in common maybe with Ugly Steps Sister. At least one sequence, I saw a testament of Amiley in the theater. That's another one. I just watched a Russian horror movie that I thought was gonna be really dumb because the title was evil Boy. I'm like, oh good, it's gonna be like a dumb killer kid film.

Fine, and then I started it. I'm like, oh damn it, this is a good movie. I thought we were gonna okay, And then at the end I realized it was directed by a woman, which I was like, oh wow, that's cool, and this one so yeah, like five out of the last six I think that I watched. I love that. I think that's great.

And this is one of those movies too that I think is I mean, this is what I said on our last episode when we talked about it, of how this is the kind of movie like I I wish I had thought to want and make, and it feels so much like I know, if I sat down with this director, I would probably have like so much to say an ask, but it would just be a lot of me nodding of like oh yeah, yeah. Me too, Yeah, no, I know, I know, yes, yes. But now this was your first time watching it, so I had watched it a few months ago, really couldn't stop thinking about it, really loved what it did. This was your first So we're gonna spoil this movie. We're to spoil him as well, because we have to in order to talk about them.

But give give everybody a quick overview of what this movie is. It's so it's basically just a body horror kind of retelling, but like perspective inversion of a classic Cinderella tale. I'm I'm gonna say right off the bat because I don't want to get any shit from anybody. It's a great movie. It's it's a phenomenal film.

I know art when I see it. This is high art. It's absolutely phenomenal. It's just really well filmed, really well performed, what just packed with talent. I hated this movie.

I will never watch it again. I have so many notes that are I can't believe Emily did this to me. I can't believe she thought I would be okay with this over and over again. I just kept writing it so I could look down and like, I guess maybe we can just say like I'm squeamish. I guess it's the easiest way.

But like, I really I have another observation before I just start talking till the end of time. So, like I don't like body horror, and I've been kind of clear about that, but there I do know that there are levels of body horror. And I don't like to look when like somebody's fingernail bends back, like I look away, but like I do recognize that like some body horror is just essentially extended sequences of fingernails popping off. Like, I can handle that, but I think some when you give that subject to the right person, and I'm gonna say specifically in this case a woman, what they come back with is so viscerally horrifying that to experience it is so fucking triggering that I would rather walk into the ocean.

And that that was my experience with this film. It was it was. It was an onslaught of hair falling out, digestive issues, hating one's viscera. It was awful, and I get that it was the point, But my god, as a forty three year old woman, do I not need to live that? That?

That's all fair I for me? Like I so. I love to hear your perspective. Well, it's interesting because I'm first trying to think how I feel about body horror because it's not something I like, actively seek out or actively turn away from. Yeah, I think I am.

I watch so many movies that it takes a lot to like make me go well like, and there are things that will get me absolutely, but generally, like, I think, there's it's hard for me ever to be liked. There's a part of me that's always wondering, oh, how they do that? Like it does it? It's hard to ever kind of really like have to turn away because I've seen some messed. Up stuff in this world.

And I think where I don't like it is when and I can't think of any good examples, but when it feels very much like it is style over substance, when it's there just to get. That reaction, as to be there for a reason. And I think, yes, this movie is an onslaught of it because it is piling up and piling up and piling up. It is first I'm going to get a nose job. Well, actually, no, now that I you want to walk back to it.

It starts with the very first thing that physically happens to her is getting her braces ripped off. And I'll tell you I remember being fourteen and going to the orthodontist and getting things put on, and being sixteen and getting them ripped off, and even that was like that was like the thing probably that hurt me the most because I went through that. I remember that pain. So I don't want to cut you off at all. But this is actually something that I was thinking during it because so Zach and I both couldn't stand it.

We're very similar people, though, and I know that we all have our bodily issues. But I do self classify as chronically ill and I have had a lot of problems. So I also had my braces on and off. But I also had a tooth pulled while completely awake. Oh god, probably just about eleven years ago.

So as an adult, Yeah, I have a lot of mouth trauma. I have. My hair has fallen out to the point where I considered shaving my head. I have a lot of trauma around that. I also have had so many digestive issues.

I've gone to many gis, like so like I do. And Zach has such bad issues with his feet. We'll get into that. Oh yeah, So I do kind of. Wonder if having such a an illness forward relationship with some of the specifics really did impact how hard.

It hit well. And it seems I apologize very targeted to you. Hey man. It's like when we watch safe, Safe made me feel like an hour. And a half yep, And for me safe it's like I'm safe.

We're talking about the because I feel like there's other movies being called safe. Yeah, where to me it's like something not like very like just very outside of me, Like that is not something I've ever felt or gone through. And so I was riveted by it. But I could understand, like, Okay, if you identify with this at all, this is hitting a nerve that nobody else is telling that story. Yeah, and I think that's something about this movie that also really to me was like we've seen bad fairy tales, we've seen body horror.

This that like there's a lot in this movie that is not necessarily new, but the fact that it comes so much from I think again, a woman's is the camera, she's the writer, she's everything here. It feels like, oh no, I know this is like all been out there, but now I'm seeing it filtered through the right gaze, like it's the person telling the story, is the person that I want to tell this story. And so it's not I'm even like, yes, I guess like the tapeworm thing goes on a little long, like it is a you know, a tape worm. But it was I was out before that though. I'm yeah, I don't, I don't care that the existence of the tape worm sure for me, and and and and look, I have it written down.

I just want to say it because it's funny. It's fucking Chekhov's tapeworm. I'm I'm waiting the entire time for this worm to rear its head, so to speak. So like even if they and I will say, I glanced that while it was happening. I didn't watch it, but I glanced at it.

I get it. It. It was like like an exorcism, like a possession movie. I understand, like how powerful and fucking amazing that performance in that setup was Oh yeah, oh baby, I don't need that. I don't need that.

In my head. Fair And I think for me watching it, I was like because because I. Mean, so we grew up in the the renaissance of kind of Disney animated Princess. Oh yeah, right, so we both I'm sure watched Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty on VHS. You know, whether it was at school, whether your babysitter had it, like even before they started making them again, like that image of fairy tale was always there, right, And so when you were little, like did you think about those like did you want to be Cinderella?

Did you like were you like one of the cool kids that was like stepsisters, are cool, Like, what did you have a relationship to those kinds of fairy tales? So I will say. No. But then when my sister was little, we got the Little Mermaid VHS and that was very much present. But I will tell you a very quick anecdote.

In eighth grade, I tell the story a lot, so apologies if it's happened already. In eighth grade, I wrote a paper. This is eighth grade, Christine. I wrote a paper on how damaging the disness vacation of fairy tales work. And I got an awful grade because the teacher said I didn't cite my source, and I said, I don't understand what you mean.

I listed all the fairy tales I talk about and he was like, no, where'd you get all these? Where'd you get this? And I said my head? And he like, wouldn't he gave me a grade? This man?

Because I would like to send some strongly worded emails to him. But like I, it was frustrating, right, So I guess, like what was I thirteen? So thirteen year old me was recognized it like, hey, these stories existed to tell well, they were cautionary tales or they were parables or fables, they like wanted to relate a message. So when you pervert that message into this happily ever after, like things like Ariel wanting legs when she's got all her stuff, and like you missed the message of like how dangerous that mentality can be, right, So like, yeah, it's there, and I had a big problem with it. And I never fetishized that princess thing.

But I was never like a highem kid, So like, I don't think that means I'm necessarily smart more so than you were. You were smarter and more observant, I. Think because for me, like I always, I think I could have struggled with it because I didn't want Like I knew these fairy tales were silly. I knew these were very I don't know that I thought about it then as being like, gee, why were all the fat characters the evil ones? Like I don't think I ever put all that together or.

Even then, but I knew, like I knew I was not going to be Bell or Ariel, but boy did I still want to be And I know I was supposed to, but I by the time I was probably let's say thirteen, was about when I thought to myself. Gee, why it's kind of silly that I felt that, Like why didn't I think outside the box? Like why did I insist. On being like Cinderella and not the evil Queen for Christmas that or the evil Stepsister for Christmas that year? And so I feel like it it worked on me the way it was supposed to work on me, And later in life I got very angry at that when I realized like I had been fooled like.

A little Mermaid. I could I could read that entire movie to you still today, because I watched that movie so many times as a child. I mean most people in our particular age bracket really did, because it was it was the movie you saw if you were a little girl at that time. And it took me a. Really like many years to kind of realize, like, fuck, that shouldn't have felt that way and ugly Stepsister to me?

Is this like it is that it is the. Inversion of Okay, we're just gonna we're telling the exact same story, right, This is your Disney Cinderella, except and greted this isn't like the first Like I mean, I will always also praise ever after as a great Cinderella, spin and so on. But there is something about the way this is so. The way she looks at it through Elvira's eyes, of Elvira being kind of be the kid who deep like who just wants it so bad. She wants to be beautiful, she wants to be the princess.

Why shouldn't she be able to she can, well, now you really can't. Like, just because you want something doesn't mean you're you you deserve it, or that you're going to get it because others are better at it than you. And in this case, that the it is just being pretty, Like you. Can't just will and will and will yourself to be the pretty in this scenario. But she did to an extent.

No, but but like, and that's why that line from the teacher or the prep teacher, however, that thing is called that awful situation that finishing school there. Oh yeah, yeah, that lady. She says, you're very brave. You want to make your insides match your outsides, And she was right, and that is a brave thing to do. And either but it is also like this kind of the statement that lacks judgment at the time.

Yeah, in the movie, we don't know yet, but like she does get everything she wants, she does, but she doesn't know when to stop, and she doesn't like with anything, like with the food, she doesn't know when to stop. So it's not necessarily about getting or not getting or being or not being. It's just that she can't take control of herself in a way where she can maintain anything. And and I found that character. Was she supposed to be like an anti hero?

Or was she or we were we supposed to hate her feel bad for her? I'm not quite or the no Elvira, I Cinderella was great, lover her thumbs up, Agnes, I guess. Yeah, even Cinderella. At times you're like, it isn't it isn't your perfect Cinderella, right, Like, yeah, she was. A rad slut.

No, fine with her being a slut, like that's great, but the kind of way like she's she's kind of she's a little mean to Elvira and the family at times, but then you get it like she's just not I guess I think she. I think it's more interesting the way she's written. But yes, she could have been even a little bit more angelic in a way that we didn't need, which is yeah, but. Like I think I think I would overall, I get what you're saying and she but they did suck, like especially, Yeah, the mom was awful. So the mom is the villain of the piece, obviously, yes, And I.

Kind of wish for me because it was. You know what society is the villain. Society. Society is the villain because society makes the mother the villain, which is also the answer in any if anybody taking like an English class, and you ever need like an answer and nobody's answering it, raise your hand to just say society, and you're usually right. That was my issue with the first time I watched the movie.

The one nagging thing to me. By the end of the movie, I thought to myself, like, I feel like we this movie was ultimately not about the mother, but it's more about the mother than I think you realize. Until oh, yeah, absolutely, well because Alvira whether so we know that that Alma is young, and so we know that Alvira is a marrying age, but that doesn't mean she's not young. Right in this era, she's probably like fifteen maybe, yeah. I had assumed sixteen.

So we were kind of, you know, in the same area but like I've been sixteen, You've been sixteen. This this girl is not responsible for herself at that. She can't be. She's she's just hormones and emotions and just unfocused. He's reading bad poetry and it's rejecting, and so.

Like all of those bad attitudes are just instilled and then reinforced by these other toxic women who are only toxic because you cannot exist in this society without being something of worth to men, and that meant a very specific thing. So you have to become a very specific thing. And I know that argument is obviously there to be made, and I'll be the first to make it. We'll look at Alma. Almah made a different choice.

She was free thinking, but that would have othered her in a different way. And it is kind of brave and weird to be so willing to be othered well. And Almah's also a little bit privileged to be able to do that because she's gotten she's the youngest she has Exactly if Almah was older, or if Almah was an only child, she wouldn't have that choice. It's a really solid point. But I think the way that the piece ends, where she essentially rescues her sister, shows that she was always going to kind of be prone to show that level of autonomy, that she wasn't going to be willing to entertain it because I think the real driver is that these people want to be a part of good society, high society.

They but like, I don't know that Almah the weirdo really cared oh completely. And it's it's funny because rewatching it, that was one of the things I watched for it was just to pay a little more attention to her this time around. And you do it for like and I mean that. Actress is such a great face. Like she doesn't say much in the movie.

It's just shots of her. And I mean one of the funniest shots is early on when Milvia is getting the nose job, and you just cut cut away to like blood and almost face and then cut to the sound of her nose being broken, and Vera's mother is just like nodding along and just every shot you keep going back to alm face looking more and more horrified, and it's very funny. She's the greatest because she's about yeah, because she's the old she says, to not take the fucking tape worm, And that's when it really hit for me when she was like, you listen to whatever she tells you to do, being like, oh, well, she really does see what's going going on here. Yeah, and then she straight up leaves her in the woods.

And you know what, hindsight being twenty twenty, I believe she left her in the woods because she probably had the fucking thought, you know, I'm gonna have to deal with this. This is gonna be my problem. Yeah, yeah, it was. It was a problem. But I mean, my you know, not to jump to the ending, but you said, we're spoiling.

I love the ending of this movie so much. I love a happy Hags ending, and it's a happy Hags ending it. Was, but it was giving death becomes her right, Yeah, like it really was, And I did appreciate that it was like comedically like mean at the end. Yes, oh yeah, just. How much uglier can we get Elvier?

How you're gonna break her nose? We're gonna chip or. Two, you're gonna I get it back? Whatever I get her? Yeah, I get it.

And I knew what was happening, and I honestly didn't even you know, I complain about mean movies or moves. Really mean, I don't really feel like the movie was like being cruel to this character. The story was one of cruelty. But I think you know, we're've established at every place it's self inflicted. Like yeah, like it's her, Joe, it's always her.

Choice because Alma made THEO. That's why. I mean, they know their kids. But like I I have to remind myself of the autonomy like Alma to chose not to do this, And you're right, like Elvira has different pressure on her, but like at any point she could have opted out, like after she lost weight, she could have gotten rid of that fucking worm. Like she didn't have to keep on with the fucking worm.

But at the same time, like she probably did if she actually wanted to stay that shape based on the way things work, Like. No, totally, but like like she even after the ball, she kept going with the fucking worm. Man, she could have gotten rid of I'm just saying, after you vomit up worms, maybe like just think. And yet like you know not to uh make such like obvious comparisons, But how many people do you know who've gone on diets where they hit a point where they just cannot eat solid food or they cannot think about bread because it you know, like there's so many you know, as somebody who's like I've always been heavy, has been a big girl, and I have all like like most women have always been like, oh yeah, I'd like to be healthier.

I'd like to be and not healthier like I am healthy. I'd like to be skinnier because that's what every woman in the world that I know feels. And I have never like, I've just never had the what I call it willpower like. To do something extreme. It to me is terrifying and gross and deadly because it's all of these things are stuff that you will have to do the rest of your life if you want to maintain whatever it's doing to you.

And so as much as like, yeah, like she hit the point right, she's got her pretty eyelashes, she's got a good wig. She reached her her goal weight. But if she wants to maintain that, she's got to still do all this car out And then I love at. The ending, you chip away at every piece of it so. That yes, it is I think mean in the way of you continuously like one more thing chip or tooth, one more thing, her eyelashes fall out.

But I think like she gets to that extreme where it's the only way for her to let go and be like, fuck it, it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter. I'm never getting to that point again. And oh my god, why did I ever get there? I never have to worry about this again. No, totally.

I mean I know that she has, like it's an eating disorder. I have, you know, the owner of quite a few myself. You don't grow up in the early two thousands. Oh yep, getting a nice healthy ed. So like I get it.

But like as a film viewer, I'm just saying, I feel like, again Chekhov's Worm, I just really wish the worm had been more of like the parasitic worm, had been more of a concerned her. It's just personally, I get it was like a as like in the story her ed and her dysmorphia. Again, very relatable, probably why this movie was so hard, But like its just pleased with the worms. I will say though, this was the battle of the worm, because we also had good worms. And I did have oh good observation.

I so much worm in this but and I'm pro worm. I will just say, I know you were, like, you know, Cinderella, We've seen that story a lot. Maybe I'm in the minority here, but I would like to see this Cinderella movie, like how well, like her fairy godmother was like like an angelic visit from her mother that was like the Virgin Mary, and then like literal worms fixed her dress yep, And then there was heavy insinuation that there was a little mouse that helped her out, Like I would like to see that. Yeah, it's it's like the one thing I don't fully grasp in this movie, I think because well, because this is not super I wouldn't if you took that element out. This is not a supernatural movie, correct, right, Everything that happens is a realistic thing that could happen, Like plastic surgeons in the eighteenth century would break your nose and would you know so eyelashes on you and I don't, I'm sure not.

Like I think a lot of the body stuff was probably somewhat accurate to the time period or like around the time period, but not entirely. I mean, the tapeworm doesn't work that way. I know that that was. Certainly a you know, a step too far, but it's playing it very straight. There is no.

It feels like a very you know, non supernatural story until you get to that element of Cinderella getting that second chance to go to the ball with the help of Angel Mom and and I think there is something to of she's because that's what she's, which I think is funny every time, I don't know, I love a rotting body storyline. It's something that amuses me. So every time we go back to the father's corpse just rotting away in that root cellar, like I wonder, I'm like, oh, is it supposed to be that, like there's sumes in here and she's a loosethatic. Well, I would say so as far as like, it's not a supernatural movie unless maybe you look at those elements, I would counter and say the Cinderella story isn't supernatural from the stepsister's point of view.

In the Disney version, from the stepsister's point of view, certainly, But this movie is essentially from the stepsister's point of view other than when we see Cinderella get her worm dress. And I honestly do wonder if there were versions of this script or if it was discussed to remove that because we don't stick with just her perspective that much, especially as I mean there's stuff with her and like the horse kids having an affair with and stuff, but like it is mostly Elvira's movie. So that is an interesting call out because like, yeah, it is, so I do I stand by that it's not a supernatural story from the mom and the steps, it's just perspective in the Disney one. But also why this wasn't just Elvira's perspective?

True, I don't know, I can talk myself out of out of its placement, but I liked it so much those little words you. Know, oh it also I like the idea. One could argue that like, oh, maybe that's it. It is such a. Like to Elvira, you understand why she hates Agnes because she doesn't at first like she's in awe of her.

It's like, oh, you big sister who's so. Pretty and has pretty things and can you know, can probably like show me how to do my makeup. And it's not until like right now, suddenly she is a barrier to what Elvira wants that she becomes. And even then, like it's not she's not overtly cruel to her the way you think of the sisters being until you get to the point of Elvira sitting there, be like I have a tape room in my stomach, I had my nose broken, I had my braces ripped off, I have done everything, and I'm. Still gonna lose.

And it I. Almost wonder if you could think of it as like, oh, that's the way she would even imagine Agnes being able to do this is like, oh, of course there's a magical theory for Agnes. There's no magical theory for me. That's that's honestly a rad perspective. And I if if oh, I wish we could have gotten more of that, were that were that what it was, because I love that that like this this person, But I will say to not undercut, like oh, she's just so great, she has fairies coming out to help her.

But like also she is nice, like Elvira is nothing but a shithead to her, Like she gets her own wicked trouble, she gets her turned into a slave, and then bitch is sitting in the fucking fridge looking for food and she gives her cake. She's still nice to her, So I get that she wasn't like cartoonish playing with animals. But I get that she wasn't cartoonishly nice Cinderella, but she still was way nicer than she had any need to be. That's true, So like she to say, but then like you get into it like even more and like the prince sucked. Oh thank you, Yes, yes, I wanted to make sure we did not not talk about that the prince.

His life after this, like because to me, I took it out. Oh, she has to marry him because she knows she has no money and the only way she can bury her father is to marry the prince and have money and like, but then the very ending of the movie, I don't know if you watched past the credits, Uh, there is a post credits shot. Not even a sequence. The very end of the credits. You just get a shot of a rotting corpse still in the same place.

Oh no, I guess I didn't let it play. Yeah, so just you just understand that the dad is still rot like Agnes probably is like peace, I'm gone and it's gone forever for the Dad's still rotting there. Yeah, And I guess too, if you really wanted to lean into like the this is kind of Elvira's perspective on it. She would view Agnes is marrying the prince is like a big victory, whereas Agnes might not, yes, view it that way herself. So there's a and I think that's another reason why obviously this is a great movie.

And I guess I'm happier I watched it, but like, it's obviously fantastic, like the I mean, this is a. First movie, this is her first full length film. It's it's really and I and to talk about it visually and stuff. It's a visual feat It's it's sumptuous. The juxtaposition of like of the decay and the decadence is beautiful and well done.

It's like super high fem but also really gross and grimy. The duality. I love something I never think about a lot, but when I see it, I realize so much. I love it. Is when you have a story set in you know, this kind of time period, and you have the sort of that like weird mix of property.

So you have essentially a castle, right, you have this giant estate, but they are dirt tour they have no money. So it's that mix of. Like, oh yeah, there's jewels, but also everything is dusty, and there's no servants and so on. Like, I just it's something I always like when I see it, and when I like spot it, I find very, very visually fascinating. Yeah, there's a lot for my taste.

It was not what I wanted. I would like this story given to me differently. I don't know what. I don't know. I don't know what my deal is.

I don't like things that feel violent or mean. I don't sometimes guns and television shows make me uncomfortable. I'm just a precious little baby angel, and. I don't know. They're just a sweet little silk worm.

Yeah, the world is hot enough, but. Sitting here and showed this pretty blue dress. Yeah, I liked the mouse. This is where I'm at, females. Yeah, I promise I'm a really edgy, tough gal.

But like, the little worms were so pretty and the little mouse. Oh but yeah, I liked it. I loved it. Obviously. I like a good story, and this is like, I'm glad people are seeing it.

I'm so sorry to your friend. I hope that she's okay. If I was a regular person and saw this movie, I would probably throw up or shut it off. I think I would just shut it off. I don't think I would make it.

Well, I'm trying to think how far you get before it starts. Getting Oh, it's pretty soon. It's pretty early. I'm axing with that. Well.

I mean, even with the dad dying and just like death vomiting on his daughter's. Face, that was fine. See that's when when I say, like the body horror akin to just popping off a fingernail every now and then, I can hint like that was fine. Although I will say this is funny. We didn't purposely watch this, Like I purposely didn't watch this movie because I knew it would be like this.

So we're watching it and Zach was like oh, and I was like what. And he's like, oh, it's gonna be like that. And I said, yeah, that's literally why we haven't watched it, gonna it's gonna be awful. And his entire disposition changed. He sat different on the pouch.

He's like, he's making me all the face. Yeah, And I was like, oh, baby Strappin, I thought you remembered why we had put this off. But I think also he can acknowledge it's a good like everybody who says this, If anybody said this wasn't a good movie. I think that's not true. But if someone were to say, oh, it's not for me, I can't handle that, Like, oh boy, this one it was legitimately tough for me.

I'm just to get through. It's okay. I think it's so interesting that it didn't even phase you. You are building stronger stuff. It really didn't.

I mean I knew going in roughly what I was getting. Oh yeah, Like even. Just the poster, right, the poster is just her with the whether it's the shoe, there's a lot of different poster art for it, or her. With the the device. That to me, that tells you like, okay, yeah, we're gonna get like fucked up, you know, face stuff and everything.

But I think, because this is so like, why do I say it? If this if this style right, If this director had the same budget and the same cast, but was telling a. Was I don't know, doing a remake of. Deep Red or or just some was making Scream like was just telling a completely different thing. But because this is.

I was a big fairy tale just person in general, like I you know, loved like Wicked was my favorite book for a very long time before well before the musical was a thing, like just that whole thing, like you and I are Labyrinth kids, right. Like that, Like that is just a place that I have. Lived in and a well that I constantly have gone back to in my life. So to see it feels so specifically made for me in that Oh yeah, we're in that world, a world you know really well, but we're coming at it from an angle that really we don't see often. Oh, and we're telling it from the point of view of somebody that could have been you, like somebody that you probably like in some ways.

And I mean I was again never somebody that would do any of this stuff to myself. I would have been Alma in. The end, sitting there and being like to my sister like, hey, di am, like you don't have to do this. But it still meant I understood where this movie and this director came from. Like it was so much easier for me to put myself in here than so many other genre films like this.

Right, as much as I adore Cronenberg, I think David Kronenberger is a genius and a master filmmaker. I don't know that with any of his films that I've ever been able to say, oh, yeah, there I am here, Like, here's where I could easily take it from this point of view because. I've lived this, Like where is this? It feels closer to something I understand because I've watched my friends live this so orre I've watched you know, like I've grown up. If you have female roommates at any point in your life, at some point you look at them and say, you know you don't have to do that, right, like.

And that's so. I think that's where so much of it came as this, Like fundamentally, I feel the bones of this movie in a way that I don't often get to do. Yeah, I totally get it. It's great. I I'm glad people can watch this and not get triggered.

I guess I don't have an Oscar nomination. No, well, it's it's it really is amazing. So I guess if anybody's listening to this and you suggest a body horror movie to me and I say is it going to make me upset? And you say no, please know that this was this was probably my my ceiling understood. But when I say, like, oh, is the substance going to make me upset.

He's like no, and then I'll see something and I'll be like, boy, I guess you don't realize. And I still maintain that you will find a lot in the Substance of Interest. But after this conversation, I'm gonna. Say, wait, like five years, like, I don't know that you are in a place to watch Substance. And in some ways, I think this.

Movie is rougher, just fundamentally because of the age of the character, because of like other aspects of it. But saying all of that, like, you are going to feel a lot of to me in that movie, and I don't think you should watch it immediately. Yeah, I need a break after after this. But I will say I was very brave and it is okay to look away if you don't want to see something Like I got the gist. I know that they're pulling out a worm.

The tapperm's got a while to go. It's okay, Okay, we don't need to stare at it. Yeah, good folly work in this movie, though. Yeah. So if you're a so I did almost throw up during it.

I'm a go I'm a reflexive gagger. If somebody starts like heaving on TV or in front of me. God forbid, I will heave as well. Do you know how. Imparable of the sower?

She's like has that crazy injury. Right where if somebody, what is it like right near her gets she feels their injuries. She can feel the injuries. So like if someone gets knocked out with her, she'll. Right, she'll pass out.

Yeah. So like I'm like that with with vomiting noises. So I did. I did look away, but I kind of had to cover my ears too, because I kept wretching. The only time that happens to me is if I have like vomited within a wind.

And I rarely vomit, so that's good. But if it was like within a week or something where it's still stretching in my head and I hear a noise, I'm like, oh no, no, that's what it will get me. It's not my natural thing. But like every now and then, it's like, oh no, your body is primed for it. But that's that's the problem.

That's so funny. I love talking to you about stuff. It's like it's a nice to see perspectives, right. I appreciate it. Ye's see, all right, why don't we take a quick break and come back to talk about.

M Why you would a fellow want a girl like her? Afrail and fluffy beauty? Why can't a fellow ever once free for a solid girl life seat. She's a frowdy little buble with a flimsy kind of charm and with very little trouble. I'm a breaker.

Let all up. You would a fellow wanted girl like her so obviously unusual? Well, I can't a fellow ever wants prefer her usual girl life seat. Her cheeks are a pretty shade of pink, but. Not any pinker than a roses.

Her skin maybe delicate of. Salt, but not any softer than a DONI. Than a She's only a saty has a daisy. She's only as peaceful as a bird. So much is the fellow going craily?

Okay, So flip of the last one where I had seen it before and you hadn't. Now you had seen him and I had not. Ye so. Him. I just ran into a rabbit hole of trying to understand Marlon, like trying to remember where Marlon Wayans was in the Waynes family.

He's so I guess he's the youngest of the original Wayans right of the in Living Color Wayans, he was the baby. I think, so, yeah, way I'm not looking at anything but that if you if you think that, then I. Would I need to go away because if I keep looking at this, I'm just gonna end up down like a rabbit hole of remember of like I mean again, like we keep like dating ourselves this week, but like in Living Color was of like did you watch a Living Color? Oh? Yeah, everybody?

Yeah, And just like that was always for me, like what I thought of all of the Wayans And so I missed some of like Marlon Wayne's I guess early. I still have never seen White Chicks. He was White Chicks, right, Yeah, I've never seen it either. One of these days we're doing White Chicks. But anyway, but before we go on to the fact that he was raised in the housing projects of New York City, he's the youngest of ten, he went to the Fame High School, we can move on and talk about him.

So again, we're gonna spoil the movie because we have to, because there's a lot to say about the ending, of which apparently was one of several. Yeah, so I really wanted to do research, but I kind of had a weird week and didn't I have, so if you know stuff, I'm glad reshoots multiple versions. What we got is not what I feel like we needed. I'm excited to talk about it. Yeah, So the I didn't get to spend a long amount of time researching.

I know. The main thing was that this was a Blacklist script. The script was going around considered like one of the best unproduced scripts, which isn't surprising to me because I again, I'm just gonna say at the top, I really liked this movie. I'm I'm so glad this movie exists. I don't think it's perfect, I think it does not fully work, but I'm so excited by this movie, and I wish people had been more enthusiastic when it came out, even if it didn't meet everything they wanted it to, because I think, like I want movies like this.

I want weird, ambitious movies that have a lot to say, even if they don't quite know what to make out of what they're saying, which I feel like is kind of this movie. But so Blacklist travels around. I'm not familiar with this director at all, so justin tipping ends up, he made a movie called Kicks, which I knew nothing about, and the original So there's the I think there's like the original ending, which I kind of had to find on Reddit from Reddit threads, and then there's at least two alternate endings that I. Think were filmed. So the way you want to give a quick synopsis.

Of this movie, yeah, sure. So it's essentially about a football player that basically lives his whole life designed with the intention of going pro. He gets the chance to, but then gets a terrible injury and he has to kind of decide where to go next with this. But then he gets the opportunity to essentially get drafted into the NFL if he doesn't have to go through the stuff that they're scared will hurt him because of his head injury. He just has to go hang out with like his hero, who's like the most important football player currently, the biggest deal.

He has to go do like a training camp with him, and that's basically what it is. So I forget. I forgot this was a Blacklist script, so it should be pretty easy to find that Blacklist version around. So I think the concept is fucking amazing, But like you, there's some periods in here where I feel like we lose sight of something and this could for me be a perfect movie, but it falls flat in a couple of areas. So I'm curious to see what worked for you and what didn't.

The style of this movie I. Loved, Yeah, me too. I loved the performances. I thought Marlon Wayins was great. I did too.

I'm so glad you did. He was fair. I mean, he's playing a very like and again, these are there's something I've seen like arguments of like there aren't surprises in. This movie, and like, yes there are. I mean, first of.

All, they're yeah, like what movie are you watching? But also like yeah, I get it, like you kind of understand these characters very quickly. But because right like there and that is the whole thing, Like Marlon Wayans is, yes, foot life is what is it? Football family god or football god family? And he's It's something I always like, again, like watching a lot of the Olympics right now, as I do, and I always have to remind myself to like generally not listen to interviews with the athletes because you watch these these people do extraordinary things with their bodies and sometimes it's more than that.

Right, like figure stating, especially where they are telling they are making art on ice and they are also doing it while doing triple axles, and it's so like grossing, and I just end up like having all this respect and admiration for these people, and then they have to give an interview, you know, right after doing the skate where they're. Out of breath, and it's just like, so, how'd you feel out there? Good? And that's it because they're like seventeen, and they spend twelve hours a day on an ice rink and they don't often get to read books like a lot of that of like sometimes you remembering great athletes. Sometimes they are, but like they're not always the most interesting people because to be that good.

At this thing, it means you were spending to be a whole lot of your life to it. Yeah. So I mean he is Marlon Wayns is the you know, the football goat, and there isn't much to him, but I think but yet there is because you understand that he knows what like the price he's paid for this. I mean obviously there is a lot here, and I think the. Movie could have been I mean, it could have gone deeper on it, but Also I feel like it could have done it very If it did it poorly, it would have I think, really heard it of just the very idea of like, look, there's a lot of weird racial human ownership things going on in major league sports, particularly football, where you often have black men who are let's face it, like sold and traded and so on, and their value is their body and there is a way to be successful by following rules and not speaking up and playing games and so on, and so there's that here.

The characters themselves kind of acknowledge it, but can only like that's not I think what the movie is ultimately going through. And so there is like stuff within it of like who is in charge of this complex? And yes, like at the top of it probably is a whole lot of rich white people, which you do see, and some of that I think is very I mean, the ending as it is in this movie is very funny, but I don't feel like it's the right ending for this movie, and I don't know how i'd end it. The way this movie ends is you find out. Obviously that like, yeah, of course it's a cult and it's a supernatural thing.

And in order to be the best you are basically selling your soul, and so now it's Cam's turn to sell his soul, and I think in the way we say it is he refuses to and he just kills everybody and then he walks away, and we don't know what that means. We don't know if that means he's going to keep playing football, if he's going to run in hiding. We have no idea alternate ending, so I'm just reading the ones that are on Wikipedia listing. Okay, Alternate ending one reveals that Isaiah the Marlin Wayne's character survives his beating and you see him watching on TV as Cam is shown to have won the Super Bowl for the Savers, which suggests that Cam did sign the contract and sell his soul, and that frees Marlon Wayns the There's that's.

I think the ending that was close to the one that was in the script based on what I saw on Reddit was it was described as you see him with his family at. Like a pizza place watching the Super Bowl. So yes, Cam ends up signing the contract, but also Isaiah gets to actually live with his family, which is something otherwise he wasn't getting. And then alternate ending too reveals that Cam joins another football team and managed to win the championship with them, seemingly without the help of any rituals or outside demonic forces. The film ends with Cam staring at a spinning football, hinting that despite not selling his soul, the unknown entities are still following him.

I'm not mad at that. Yeah, they're all okay. I guess it's one of those Like I think if it ended the first way, I think, if it did end with clearly he signs the contract, that's kind of what how I would have expected it to end. That might have been the most appropriate ending for what we saw. Alternate ending two feels a little bit like cheery in a way that I don't know that the movie earns.

But then the ending we get is just bonkers. Right, I So I have my issue with the end isn't like I guess literally the end. I like the end. I think it's great. Toe My issue is before he comes outside, before he comes out of the tunnel, when he's with Wayne's the last time that whole Like, I'm gonna go watch the watch tape, watch the game footage.

I hated that scene, Like, I don't like to use that it's a big word, but I really didn't like it both times I watched it when that is where the movie lost me. Both times, it felt like it felt very small when the rest of the movie had been big in scope. I could see the argument for that was on purpose. It was just about these two guys and these two guys showing down, But then it also did something weird with like the camera shaking. That to me all felt added.

So to hear you not address that at all, that felt like rewrite stuff, Like two actors in a tiny room talking a lot, felt like like, oh, we need to do reshoots. So I don't know, maybe that's still in play, but I felt like that specifically was incongruous to the very end. I didn't actually care what happened after, like I was fine with it. It was like already or not ending. That's how it felt to me.

It felt very ready ready or not like right, but which kind of ends up just as abruptly. That was cool. It just didn't match up with what we had just seen, and that kind of bummed me out, And it bothered me again this time. So I don't know if I'm ever gonna get over it. I'd be curious to see if if I could find the Blacklist script, if I could figure out if that was originally intended, because it just didn't feel right to me.

So because now I'm going back because I am like try because at first when you were saying that, I'm like, I don't even remember which part you're talking about, but I feel like it makes sense what you're saying because I feel like that's the end of that act and clearly where the where the movie diverged to the different endings. It's so true something's going on there because it's for like their force to fight, right, no, no, when they're forced to fight, Oh yeah, it's extremely like low it feels low stakes considering. And then like it doesn't seem like when the room shook, it didn't seem like anything was shaking. They just moved the camera, which was like felt like low effort compared to the rest of the movie.

Like making a movie's hard. So I'm trying not to like say mean things about it because it's still a great movie. I just felt like that didn't match like the what what I had come to respect from it, because it's like you're essentially you're like his your Foil dies and we don't really react. It's like when when Cyclops dies at X Men and you're like did Cyclopsis die? Because they don't make a big deal it.

It was just kind of like, wait a second, did wait, is Wayne's not in this movie anymore? Is this done well? And that makes sense because like is he still in the movie after that? That's it's a really good point because I thought he's one of them. I thought because I couldn't write, isn't he one of the mascots?

Like when in The Big Family, right when it's it's right daylight, we're on the football field and uh Cam comes out and there's like the cheerleaders and there's this and there's that when right because there's like that line like what's the opposite like what basically like what's the worst thing or what's. The opposite of a goat? And it's a mascot and then he like he also kills the mascot, Like I thought that was supposed to be Isaiah. Oh no, I thought that was just the other guy. Oh maybe, so like I feel I.

Thought like he killed Marlon Wayin's in the in the his viewing room, right, And also that's like the first time we see that room in the movie, it just felt very reshooty to me. And what do I know, what do I know? I think it absolutely was reshoots. But it bummed me out because it felt like it was like a so to Julia Fox is in this movie and she's doing like this straight up like white witch bullshit. It's amazing.

And and then like whatever, Jim Jeffery's head gets cut off. It's like some full on a cult shit. And then like the end is like some full on a cult shit with some wild like Americana visuals with like a cult shit and like football and America, and it's like, what the fuck are we doing? Jim Jeffries got his head cut off and he's throwing up diamonds and now there's America shit. And in the middle of that, it's just like I'm I'm get in a quiet fight with you in a room.

And it just made me sad. Yeah, it's it's messy. It is, but like that, so much of it is like look at this fucking movie. Yeah, And and I mean I love a movie that again takes it for a point of view and perspective of characters that we just never think about being the stars of movies. I think the actor playing Isaiah so Tyreek, whither is I think he's fantastic, Like he doesn't get to on one hand, he doesn't it seemingly he doesn't do much right, Like he is a very stoic blank of a person because obviously because yeah, of course he is, like he was raised football his dad, clearly, and you find out and again this is where another like oh look, connection to stepsister right another like overbearing parent trying to doing the wrong.

Thing and raising their child thinking that they're doing the right thing. Like you get the sense that, like this, this guy has never had like an original thought in his head because he never had to like this is what he was born to do and groomed to do. Really but and I think that is not an easy It's a much harder thing to hold interest than it seems like this, even though like this is not a performance that like has a lot of levels, at first glance, it's I'm glued to it. I'm glued to him. Like Cam, Yeah, yeah, so what I think is interesting?

So that actor was in I don't you probably noticed, No, I know what you did last summer The New One I. Still haven't seen it. Oh I thought you did. Damn Okay, he's in it and I found him so like blah yeah. And then I watched this and I was like, wait a second, that whole movie was blaw then because this kid's great.

Right, and he's playing a character that could come off as bla no. It's he does it with nuance though. Yeah, and did you notice that his dad was from America's Next Next Top Model? Wait? Wait wait wait wait what.

His dad was on America's Next Top Model right as a model? Yeah, in the not his not his dad in real life. His dad in. The movie was. Oh he was been in like the last few seasons when they did co ed.

Yeah, yeah, I think it goes. I did watch those, so he was very familiar and I and that's when I saw it. I stopped the because again, my antim trivia knowledge goes really deep, Like I could, I could win a lot of contests, so long as we stopped with the college season. That's when I gave up, because they had so for those who don't know, and there's gonna be a real there's gonna be a Netflix documentary about the American six Stop Model coming out soon. Oh really, And so a lot of people know now like.

Oh yeah, like like a lot of reality shows in the early two thousands, this was a problematic thing. But for me, the thing that actually broke broke it for me was they did a season called the College Season where it was like all. The girls on the show were. In college, and you're like, Okay, that's an interesting choice because you're kind of taking them away from college to do this show and have a model career, but okay, sure, And there was like the one the. Woman who should have won was I can't remember.

She went to like Howard, like like she was clearly somebody that was like like played college basketball, like was president of college, like somebody that you were like, oh yeah, this is like the person like when you think of like over at cheaters in college, like yeah, I want her to win, and instead, like it was ended up being like a NEPO baby winning. I can't remember her name, but like her father was an actor. But the whole thing was every time they did mini Challenge and one would win, they would get like they would call it scholarship account where it'd be like that was ten thousand dollars going into your scholarship account, and so by the end, this woman who ended up coming in second had like eighty thousand dollars in your scholarship account and then guess what.

Oh no, you only get the scholarship if you win. If you win. Yeah, so I was. Like, wait, so I just watched like six months of them take girls out of college, pay them, probably very little, dangle all of this cash above them, and have them work to earn it, and then take it away at the last minute. Like, no, this is this just feels wrong.

And that was when my morals finally kicked in. I walked away from it. I totally get that it's a It's an absolute garbage jump of a show. For sure, and I could take it when like I was like, it's fine, that's getting hurt, and then it's like, oh no, these girls actually did commit to something, and then that was very bad for their futures. Probably.

Yeah. We watched a wild thing about Tyra Semi recently and it showed clips from her show, and one of the clips is when she like pretended to have rabies, and like, man, that was a wild time. Yes it was. I went to one of her tapings. Did she pretend to have rabies.

Oh no, it was Actually we got so lucky. It ended up being well first because she was wearing this like satin lime green jumpsuit that I will never forget. But it ended up being a top model episode, so they had like a mini reunion of three different models, and it was like a mini contest to win to get to do like sponsorship for I remember the brand because it was Carol's daughter. My mother was Carol, so I'm like, oh, it's but it's like a makeup company. And I it was Renee, who I think has gone on to like prison, maybe has had a complicated life.

I forget the other two, but it was just like top models on it. And even then there was drama because the girl who didn't win ran. Up and had to get stopped, and she was like sitting sitting in the aisle right next to us, and we're looking at her sitting there crying, thinking like oh God, this is uncomfortable. So even that was crazy, but which has nothing to do with him, except it kind of does. I feel like there are Talians here.

There are certainly Tians, So I think what we're seeing in our themes of just discussion this week is just like, you know what, ambition is great, but maybe sometimes you should stop at your own for your own benefit. There is And it's funny too that we're recording this during the Olympics. It's true because this is that you know, right now you have at least two stories in the news of Olympians who are are severely injured and like are ready to put their bodies to a crazy test. You have Lindsay Vaughn who just tore her acl and she's in her forties and it's like, oh no, she can do It's only ninety seconds. I can do this, Like, Okay, you might never never walk again, but I get it.

You've trained your entire life for this. And then the other My favorite storyline of the Olympics, which is going to be a tragedy and I'm embracing myself for it. Is It all ties up to figure skating. Obviously. There is a figure skater named Diana Stilato do Deck, and that's quite the name.

Quite the name. Deanna Stilato do Deck grew up in the United States. She was a single skater. When she like she was doing well. When she was about seventeen, she had won some Grand Prix and then she had an injury.

I forget what it was, but like it was a really bad injury, and she decided, Okay, I'm done. I'm walking away from figure skating. Then she lived a life, She went to college, she got a job, she was like a running a business and so on, and she was in her mid thirties when she went to like a work conference and they did an icebreaker and it was like, right down, something you would something crazy, you would do if you knew you couldn't fail. And she wrote down, go to the Olympic skates and win an Olympic figure skating metal and like realized afterwards of like, oh my god, I haven't put my skates on in like fifteen years, but what would it be like if I tried? And just out of nowhere be decided I'm gonna try it, and rerouted her entire life and moved and moved to Canada and became a Canadian citizen in order to represent Canada, and became a pair skater.

And if you've ever watched Paris, Paris is insane. They're throwing women twelve feet across that it's insane, and but yet like she did it she was world champion two years ago, and Olympics are every four years, so it's always still like your window is so small, especially in figure skating, and especially at the age of forty three, which is what she is. But she made it. She made it to the Olympics, and last week she got a concussion, and we don't know yet if she's gonna be able to actually to the Olympics because you might not be legally cleared to go. On a plane.

But you wonder, like if you were told, hey, you have a concussion, it's really dangerous for you to do this. You're gonna get thrown across the ice and you might hit your head again and you might have brain damaged. But when you think about how much work this person has put into their body, to their life, how they've changed everything about how they live for the last ten years to get up at four am and stretch, you're like, I would understand somebody doing this. I think that's interesting because because I frankly don't, and I think that's illustrated by a lot of things, one of them being my reaction to the film we watch, but another of them not to bring it down. But I still mask one hundred percent of the time when I go out in public, because I have been again sorry, so close to dying, Like my body has failed in ways that I am not willing because being alive and being able to function in a not chronically ill, chronically disabled way means more to me than anything at this point.

And so I made the decision. And when I see people faced with the same I understand that their decision making is gonna be different, but I wish that I could maybe give them a glimpse into what me and other people like me have experienced and see that it's not that cut and dry, like not being able to sleep because you can't stop vomiting isn't really like a good trade off because you trained real hard, you know what I mean. So, like it's it's really hard to watch the Olympics, the stories like that because I feel for that forty three year old woman obviously, like look, who are we like forty three year old women? But like then you also see a lot of the athletes like aren't masking and stuff, and it like makes me really sad, like your bodies are the only thing that you have to take around with you.

Like I get that training is important, but also like I don't know, man, maybe other people don't want to. Live eighty years. I maybe I know it's true, this really sucks. I've been here for forty something and I'm actually ready to check out. So you are, You are living it correctly, like you are one hundred percent doing the right thing, and I would be too, Like I am not an elite at anything, and there's nothing I would give up my entire body for to be great at.

But I think there is. And it's not even like, oh, these people are champions, are better like no, no, no, it is a different mindset and different person and different mentality. The same way to tie things together, Elira right is willing to I don't need to be able to breathe. I just need I need to wear the corset. Right.

It's so true, and I think it's it's so frustrating, like because I know that's where like you can lead a horse to water, and like people have to experience things for themselves come from. But like, as someone who did once think it was better to not breathe, you want to shake someone like that and be like, please let me try to save you from that awful mistakes that I've made, but you can't. You know. That's just people need to experience things. I guess you need to maybe some people need to experience losing something to understand the value of this.

Yeah. Well I think the different like for Cam in this case right where it's like, no, I've lived my life for twenty years, right because he's young. He's young, Yeah, for twenty years, like this is what I need to do and to get this far. And then in his work, in his view like wimp out or not make that last sacrifice. I think that the question always is like, Okay, in five years, what are you going to regret?

Are you gonna regret not not pushing that one extra mile that seemed not that far at the time, although in hindsight in this case, like I don't know, selling your soul probably not great us. That's an but that's an interesting tie in because you can go literal like the toll on your body, but like that movie gets into like the toll on your soul, right like and also because you just so effortlessly brought Cam back up, Like these movies both look at that kind of thing in a very interestingly gendered way, Like Elvira has to is like being pressured to perform this toxic femininity, and he's being pressured to perform this toxic masculinity. This his dad basically said, you don't have value as a man unless you can accomplish this well.

And that's something that I think is great for both of them because and that's the difference to me, the difference between Cam's decision and Tianna Stilato Ddex's decision is Deanna Stilato is a was a thirty something year old woman who. Said, this is what I want to do with my life. This is the most important thing. And I am going to give up drinking wine because I can't when I'm training, right, because this is my plory. This is what I am living for now.

And Cam and real il Vira never had these aren't their decisions. They might be like they might walk away and come back and say, oh, yeah, no, this is actually my dad was right, this is what I was meant to do. But Cam has never had the chance to do this for himself. His father was pushing him towards it. His father, I guess we find out, like right, like sold his own soul for it.

And now Cam also is saddled with, well, I'm taking care of my sister and my mother and my girlfriend, and like it's not his choice at all, Like he does not get to until that, And I think that is something I'm kind of working my way back to liking banding is it does feel like, oh, this is kind of the first chance he gets to make his own decision. But the movie kind of leaves you with such a place where you're like, but what the hell does it mean after that? Yeah, I do understand that seeing that there were like like it expanded to like what happened after? Like that was even in the cards, I never personally thought like, I wonder what happens when he leaves here? Right?

Like, I get that why you would want to continue to let because it was it wasn't just a story about the time he went to his to Isaiah's house. It was a story about him getting or not getting into the NFL. So I could see why you would want to let me know at the end what. Happened, Like, imagine, there's there's more to this supernatural contingent than just who was ever in that room, right, Like, surely there's somebody else who's like, oh wait, so did you kill all those people? It's like does he because he also missed his chance to do like the show off for the NFL.

So you know, like you just you you wonder I'm just. Saying, but yeah, so and again, I am not advocating that anybody sells their soul or their their body's future. I don't know, but I am somebody. Who loves sport and loves the glory of certain athletics where like it, you know, and I remember like thinking this a lot, and I'm talking a lot with a couple of my friends about it during the Simone Biles Olympics, when you kind of like suddenly were forced to really think of Olympians as people. And that's a terrible thing to say because like, of course they've always been.

Of course athletes are people. Yeah, but there is something too that that like, you get to this elite level and you're doing this and yes, like you are in one you An argument could be made that a professional. Athlete is. Working for the fans, working for the organization like whatever it is, and like, oh, do they owe fans? Like no, they don't, actually they don't owe fans anything.

But yet it's very hard to understand that when you when you are a sports fan, I think there's and it's so toxic and there's a lot of things that are bad about it. And yet I say this with somebody who who who is a sports fan and struggles with that sometimes. Yeah, this wasn't unintentionally I think, really interesting pairing. Oh completely, No. I was excited because I didn't know much about him.

I just thought to myself, like, oh, I think it's a movie about like a man like masculinity the way Ugly Stepsister is about femininity. But there's a lot more to both of them. And yeah, this was a really interesting double bill. Yeah. I enjoyed it quite a bit, even though it was really hard.

And I did say I can't believe Emily did this to me, like a hundred times time. I believe he did say what about me? But I'm glad I watched it. I really am, like, I genuinely understand why it's getting attention, and I think it should. I'm just a little baby.

And I and I hope more people watch him. Yeah, I feel like you said, it's on Peacock. It's on Peacock, Okay, so it's out there. It's one that I like, I don't know, maybe people will come back to this. In a couple of years with very different eyes.

I'm curious, I think, And again for both of these filmmakers, I can't wait to see what they do next, because clearly, even if Flake for him, I think, especially like the material wasn't one hundred percent, what this director did with it is riveting and exciting. Yeah, and I'm. Very curious to see what else he can do. But yeah, it's I hope. I would heartily recommend people watch it because it's it's not boring and it's not quite like anything you've seen, and that's really exciting, even if it didn't fully fully work in the end, I agree, all right, Well, we'll be back at some point with something else.

I don't know what yet. You have an ideas, who knows why? How excited? I don't throw it at you like that something? All right?

Well, in the meantime, the Olympics are on, So I'm gonna go back and watch some figure skating. How about you. I'm not yes you are, because I'm gonna say us of different of skates that you should watch that are camping in. That's true. Emily is going to curate a skating playlist for me, and I'm gonna get real into it.

Oh yeah yeah, just you wait, just you wait, And now Zach can thank me for this. He will too. We like watching dance routines and stuff. We're a step up family. I mean, because you're the right kind of family's It's true.

There are rap families and then there are a step up families. And I mean there's really no reason why you wouldn't be a step up family unless you've never seen a. Step up movie or you're a terrible person with bad. Dayste So that's true. All right, Well take care of everybody, goodbye.

Look at me now. Four years of college, famous professors. To the scholarship kid. Everything paid for, food and vacations. All of it free.

Day that I left, everyone gathered. The cheering still rings in my ees. Raw Reck Ray Ray Reck Rah Raw wreck reck ra raw wreck w A c R E k R E you wreck. We love you because I could pass that football like nothing you have ever seen. Couldn't spell a lick, couldn't do arithmetic one in one mate three thought the dog was eighteen.

But I could pass that football like nothing you have ever seen. Couldn't write my couldn't translate Javu sing, never learned to read mother Goose, sair andrajed. But I could passed football like nothing you have ever seen. Couldn't figure riddles, puzzles made me palk Where the hell was Moses with the white