196. Back to the Charlie's Angels Beach

We are you, we meet you. See dragon, take your blanket fortune. Now that's a game for me and you. Now, yeah, let's gig. Welcome to the Feminine Critique.

I'm Emily, I'm Christine, and we are here today for a summer blockbuster spectacular, are we not? If you could, you could call it that? Yeah, sure, okay, So this is a very I feel like this is like a pure summer episode. And you know me, I love summer and I love like doing summer in summer, if that makes sense. Like, last week was fourth of July, and I will tell you I made sure that that weekend I went to the beach, I went to a pool, I went to the movies.

I saw I ate a hot dog, I saw fireworks on my way driving home. Like I crammed everything summer of that weekend in like in the course of like thirty six hours. Because I think summer is fleeting and there is something very joyous about it. So summer, it's all I have to stop about summer. I mean, it's definitely a time of the year for me.

Summer is about eight months long. Feel as fleeting. You made your life choices, I I look, I did, and I don't regret it, but also it does not be fleeting. I I do like. To celebrate it though, And for Fourth of July I watched I Know What You Did Last Summer Nice, the Ultimate Fourth of July movie.

But yeah, I think there's something important about like marking the passage of time. I'm not a Christmas person or a bit holiday person, but I like, you know, doing things that mark that time period. Yes, a girl for all seasons, if you will, from Greece. And that's exactly it. You really captured me.

But I think that watching you know, summery shit during summer is cool, right yeah. I think last time we talked, I was like, sometimes I like to do the opposite and watch wintery stuff, but then the wintery stuff's gone by the time winter's around, So like, let's do summer stuff. And we really picked two good ones. Oh boy did we. I am wildly excited.

So I'll tell you what we're covering this week and then we'll figure out how we're gonna do this. So I think it started with you saying you were watching the Beach Blanket movies, right yeah, yeah, okay, And I had never seen any of them, and I had always intended to. And I feel like we had this exact conversation years ago when we did a psycho beach party. Uh huh. I'm like, okay, that's it.

This is the time, I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna watch some of these beaches. But more importantly, we decided we would do nineteen eighty seven's Back to the Beach. Yes, best decision of our lives spoiler arch Yeah. I think what's fun about Back to the Beach We'll get into it is that it's it's a modern beach party movie.

But at this point, there is nothing modern about this movie. It's beautiful, it is joyous, and I can't wait to talk about it. So since that was like, okay, we're gonna do that one, so I was like, all right, what can we do with that? And this is where my brain goes into a million different Like if you can picture like a gosh, what is it like a picturing like the graphic design graphic of like a nerve going in fifty directions and then splintering off everywhere. That's what happens with my brain when I try to figure out what we should pay a movie with, and I like found a path I liked, which was okay, Back to the Beach was a like nostalgic.

We're going to take an existing property from twenty plus years earlier and put it into our time period and make it. So what are other examples of that? And obviously my brain goes to the best movie of the nineteen nineties, which is apparently it's Charlie's Angels. No, no, no, for well, first of all, Charlie's Angels is two thousand. Second of all, no, Christine, Christine.

The best movie of the nineteen nineties is obviously the Brady Bunch movie. Oh it is. The Brady Bunch movie is really good. That's true. I like both of them.

So, yeah, you're right, you're right. I'm sorry I was you were and I don't appreciate that. No, But in all honesty, yes, the Brady Bunch movie is is truly the height of comedy, right. And the problem is, if we did the Brady Munch movie, it would just be like that of us talking for an hour. It would be me doing the entire movie.

It would be me talking about how like this movie defined by middle school life and I was Jan Brady for Halloween, and then we had to do a like like perform a play in health class. I took the music of the Brady Bunch movie and like redid it to be about jan getting tempted by drugs? But it just seemed like too much, like I just I can't. It's just gonna be me praising the Brady Bunch movie, which is a perfect movie. So like, all right, well, we could do a very Brady sequel, which is more summer movie anyway and has more peage elements.

But it didn't feel right to do a very Brady sequel, and we didn't do the Pretty Bunch movie. So I kept moving along and thought, well, there were a lot of other things in the nineties of like you had the Avengers, you had some other things like this, And then thought, well, you know what, I have never seen two thousands charlie sangels. So that's how we got to Charlie's Angels. I didn't realize there was so much. There was a lot behind this scene.

There was so much I didn't know, A rich tapestry that I was not aware of always. But I'm glad you picked it because I have the second one logged on my letter box. But as we were watching the first one I thought I too had never seen it. I am now convinced I watched it like kind of early pandemic, like twenty twenty, so it fully is not in my brain anymore. Okay, good, It was dumped out and it felt like the first time this time.

Yeah, And it's weird because I feel like, I mean, it's a twenty six year old movie at this point, which makes you feel very old, but also like it just seems like the kind of movie I would have it watched in passing, like it's it's a movie that should have been like a college roommates movie that they would have on and I'd walk in on. But somehow it just never entered me. And I know it's one of oh gosh, is it that one or is it Full Throttle? That is one of Jason's our dear friend Fozzy Jason's favorite movies. I'm not sure I like Full Throttle though, so if it is Full Throttle, I could totally get that this one.

This one's more fun, though, I think, hmm, this one is very silly, and I think that's why it fits so well in this like summer package very. Much, and why I think watching because I did watch the two kind of acted up. I watched Charlie's Angels on a Friday night. I watched Back to the Beach Saturday afternoon, and it felt like, oh, yeah, this would be if I was doing like a film festival for like a two week period, I would put these two on the same bill. Oh totally.

They feel like soul sisters for sure, like they're there. When you picked Charlie's Angels, I was kind of like, I see what she's doing, but this feels subversive. And then when I when I watched it, I was like. No, no, squares can be now, it's the same. It's the same, the same, it's a square.

No it is. Because I coming out of Back to the Beach, I had a lot of feelings, but one of them was what the amount of culture on display? And I felt the same walking away from Charlie's Ages, like it was it's such an over the top encapsulation of the culture of that time. Yes, and and and like this weird diluted way because we both lived through both of those periods and they that's not how it was at all. Well, it's heightened and corny and sanitized, but also like that was what it was like because we lived it.

Well, It's funny because when you said culture, at first met in my brain I was thinking you meant like cultural appropriation, Oh no, which we'll talk about because it's certainly there. But then I'm like, oh no, like totally. Back to the Beach is a late eighties California like beach movie, which we had so many, which had such an aesthetic and such like a feeling of that time, except it's also referencing the sixties, which is obviously an era we didn't experience directly, and even pop culture wise, probably both you and I didn't. Like there's elements of that that we certainly grew up with because our parents were boomers, so they would have had some of that. But it's like funny in that way, we're similar.

Charlie's Angels is such a two thousand movie, Like it is so clearly that time period. You can look at that clothing, you can listen to that dialogue and say, oh yeah, this is like somewhere between ninety eight and two thousand and four. But yet it's also, you know, a inspired by something from the seventies, so it's just a I don't know, they're really cool when you look at them together in different ways and how they speak, what they're saying. You know, they're really deep movies. That's true cultural moments.

So which one do we start with? We can go chronological. Personally, I don't think it matters, but if you have a strong feeling, no. That's fine with me. All right.

So back to the Beach, directed by Lindell Hobbes, who is a lady yep, who was an Australian director who had done some shorts. I think this was might still be her only film unfortunately, because it's so fun and as she says, it was apparently. I'll give you a little bit of background because I did do like a cause I watched this yesterday and I was so happily delighted by it that I ended up doing a bit of reading on some things that can get my hands on my how did this come to be? Because it feels in a lot of ways very Brady Bunch movie, except this was before Brady Bunch movie. This was before anybody was really doing that, and so it was a like Frankie Avalon I think kind of was the starting point on it where he was like, yeah, this would be cool to do to do a reunion type movie.

I got shuffled around a lot. Noe Studio really wanted to do it. And then, as luck would have it, Frankie Avalon had dinner with the paramount executive and the paramount executive's wife was like Frankie Avalon, he brought me on stage when I was twelve. I loved him. So then suddenly it was like, all right, I guess we're gonna make this movie.

So we have back to the Beach the background of this. Of course, in between the course of three years there were in the early sixties, there were six Beach Blanket movies released over the course of three years. They did two, they did won the first year, and then they had three come out, No. Seven in total, three movies a year of this franchise. That's the way to do it.

That is insane. H And what is your relationship with those Beach Blanket movies? Had you you watched them first time now or you'd seen them before. I hadn't seen them before. No, there weren't something that like it seems like no one in my family was nostalgic for yep.

So like it was just like I know it as a reference because it is in reference in pop culture. Right, So the real reason I know it you sent me an email before this. I didn't need to look at that email. I didn't need to watch that clip. They net Funacello obviously a Mousketeer was on Full House with Frankie Avalon.

I would not miss an episode of Full House. The Frankie and Annette into full House is like the reason why I have any semblance of knowledge these people. Oh, mine comes a year later. Mine was the Peewe's Christmas Special. I've never seen the Peewe Christmas Swatch.

Oh no, I don't. I know, I know, I know what, I know what I know. I have watched it every Christmas for the last like twenty seven years. I don't I'm not a hewe complete as. I don't care but that you're not caring about pee Wee.

Dot your face and go watch that right now. It's only forty eight minutes, is it? Is it? The pee Wee Christmas Special? Can I watch it at Christmas?

Though? Only if you absolutely do, because otherwise I will never talk to you again. Well, yeah, if on January first you have still not witnessed it, it's over. No, I'll watch it. Okay, it looks good.

I'm looking at it right now. It's fucking amazing. I believe you. I'm just I am. I thought everybody in my life that I respected.

He was also a fan of The Pee's Christmas Special. So to hear somebody out whose opinions I respect and admire so much say she's never fit, I just it's a lot, right now, it's a lot. I'm sorry. Yeah. I I might have seen it like back in like like eighty eight when it came out, but like I had, I don't know what it's about, or I don't.

It's I will say no more. I'm just gonna wait in for another or what four months for you to sit down and watch it, and then we'll reconvey and we'll see if we're still friends. Yeah, I will. I would love to watch it. Mm hmm.

Yeah yeah. So yeah, no, this is really going back. Yeah, this has really turn things around. I'll say. The other way I always knew them was my like every man that came of age in that era.

My one of my father's first crushes was an at Funicella. Yeah, I feel like that was that was super common. Yeah, that's it's very funny and cute and like wholesome. Yeah, and it was. Very it was I mean, I guess the equivalent today like if you look at like, Okay, who was that then in different times?

Like it was kind of a Britney Spears in some ways of being like oh, you you know, like saw this person young as a kid, you know, go through puberty and come out the other side of it. And in net Foodchello had such a fascinating placement in pop culture on where was it that I saw this described? And I'm like this is so icky to in some ways, but I understand what it was, which was she was described as the first pin up for boys under twelve. That's literally in this movie. Yeah, and like I guess, like, yeah, that's that's what it is, and it is innocent.

So the idea that then she ended up doing these beach Blanket movies, which are fascinating. I watched two of them ahead of this. We watched Beach Blanket Bingo and Muscle Beach. Have you now seen all of them? Alsoeven no, no, I've seen hold on, I'm looking at it right now.

Beach Blanket Bingo and what was the other one you said, you just want muscle Beach. I have not seen Muscle Beach. Okay, we watched Beach Blanket Bingo because it was the one i'd heard the most of, so like, that's probably the one one to start with, and it's it has no story, so it goes on forever because there's just no like driving plot. But it also we finish it and I'm like that was fun. I'm like, I'd watch more of these.

And then Brandon made a really important point, which was the rest of them aren't going to have Paul Lint. It's like, oh, that's that's another thing. Yeah, So with those, I feel and this could just be me. I'm not really there for Frankie and Annette. I there for the set pieces, the bathing suits and whoever is surrounding them, which.

Exit. But but it can make or break it right to me because I I have nothing against Frankie Internet. It's just they are so like accessible quote unquote that they become inaccessible to me because they're every man quality is like I don't I don't care. Just like in this one, I'm like, what's what's what's Gillian up to? Is he okay?

Does he need anything? I just want to know. What the other characters are doing. Fair, fair, but they but they're like they're very much a vibe. And I mean that in the least like now time to say that like vibe in the sense like, yeah, there is really no plot and you're just kind of like having fun with these people and like I'm okay with that.

Yeah, I mean that's what I want from like that, like that like frothy. And again, it's why I always think of it as a summertime thing where you can put these on in the background and probably not it's okay if you don't follow the plot, because there's really not much of one. And so Back to the Beach, which is similar in that in some regards, like there isn't really a driving you know, we have a competition at the end of this or anything like that. Things come up so at a certain point you feel like you're going towards a direction, but it's still loose. Something that both Back to the Beach and Charlie's Angels have in common is that they had a lot of different screenwriters at one point.

Both of them were scripts that just got like thrown around to dozens of and like literally over a dozen Charlie's angels. I think the number clocked at eighteen. Back to the Beach the number is listed at seventeen. It took a lot of people to figure out how to tell me a story, but. In that's such a shame too, and you can kind of tell because it does feel like loose sometimes, like loose vignette.

It's kind of narratively strung together. Like at one point it feels like Back to the Beach ends and everybody is like this, this is all done now, and then they're like, let's do a separate thing with all of us. It makes the pacing. Feel very strange, yeah, because every thing comes to this natural conclusion within the film, and then we start like a new journey and it's like, but wait, there's like twenty minutes left, how are we going to accomplish anything else? And they find a way.

They do, They absolutely do, because you do, like, all right, talk to me about the plot of Back to the Beach. Okay, So Back to the Beach is very convoluted, and Frankie and Annette are Frankie in Anette, but they aren't famous anymore or doing movies. They have regular lives and whatever whatever, it's very campy and cute. And they have these kids, and one of them is Lori Laughlin. And it's really tough to look at ri Laughlin and not see like college admission scandal when you.

Look at her. Oh that's a shame. Well, I'll give you two things about her. That's because you have not seen her in Hallmark movies where she actually like it's weird to watch them because you realize, like, oh, she she actually is a really good actress. Because when you watch so many of those Hallmark movies, you see like actresses who just aren't as experienced, but she is so experienced in that exact film that she ends up being like better than average in them.

The other thing, when I was a child, I feel like my tad fixed her copier and she was very nice. So I've always given her like a slight ass for also being a horrible rich woman. I mean, look, don't do that, Laura Laughlin. But it definitely colors the way. It's not just like oh, Becky, it's like thanks, But there she is for some reason, because it's nineteen eighty seven, by way of nineteen sixty hiding a very committed relationship from her parents so there's a lot of strife there, and then she gets in a fight with that Beyonce.

Why are you hiding your fiance, girl, you're an adult. Your boyfriend's one thing. But supposedly they're engaged. It's awkward. So they get in a fight and then they kind of sort of split up.

But like Frankie and Annette also kind of get in a fight and they kind of go their separate ways. So like it's the girls are separate for a while and the boys are separate for a while, and then they they realize that all of that is dumb, because it was, and then they just all are okay again. But then there's also these bad guys on the beach who now they have to do a surf contest again against and now also, don't forget that it's a musical as well. Also, you did forget one character. It's okay.

The movie forgets him a lot too. Connie Stevens. I did not forget her. Oh god, it's the best part of this movie. This movie.

I was gonna say the Sun, Oh yeah, I mean I think I hinted that they had two kids. The Sun is like a like a bad boy, but like in a really like and he joins this bad boy group. What's up happening? How come? Oh?

Because we're so okay. So Bobby is kind of if you've seen Beach Blanket Bingo, Bobby is sort of cause playing as the villain in Beach Blanket Bingo because he's also wearing like black leather and hat and has like the knife comb. Totally yeah, very very that, but like what happens to him in this okay? So remember because throughout the movie every night, because the movie opens and he's narrating, like he's straight to the camera telling you about his life and at a certain point for like for a long period of time. The best part is when Laura Laughlin makes up with her fiance and Annette's like, Oh, don't worry, I'll stay somewhere else tonight, and you're like, what about the sun?

Like are you gonna find your son? Where is your son sleeping? In all of this, he's only eleven. Uh, so he's taking out with the bad boys, and the bad boys you know they're bad because they wear black leather and have mohawks, but they also are on the beach, which seems like all of that is very funny. So at the end of the movie, because the other big because the like we start the movie and Frankie Annett, Frankie was a champion surfer, but he stopped surfing after he got injured on the Big Kahuna Giant surf wave, and so he hasn't surfed again since then.

So of course in the movie you're like, well, of course you're gonna get frank Yavalon on a surfboard. To remember, at the end, when they have the competition to see who owns the beach, if it's like the cheery people in bright colors or the bad guys in black, and when Frankie goes out on the water and wins the competition, the sun is like, I'm gonna be a surfer. Like the basically that was like the sun, that's all okay. It was so such a flash in the pain slat like, oh, we just switched. I kind of forget that that happened.

And also again it is very hard to pay attention to the end because it felt like the movie already ended. So now I'm like, oh, and the fact that the end is like mostly pee wee yelling about the bird being the word. That's the end that you still have like forty minutes after there's. No way forty minutes after that. Okay, doesn't he do that right right at the end?

You know, I know what You're right? Right? Okay, Oh, Emily, No, that happens at night. And the end is the day. At the end is the whole next day.

Yeah, that's why I. Really didn't care for the tail end of this. I think. Wow. So I watched it on So because it's most of the Beach movies are streaming on Amazon, this one is not.

It's a different studio also, which is why they're not the same character. Like, there's a lot they couldn't use from the Beach Movies because they didn't own it. So Annette's Annette, She's not d ed Frankie. They actually never say his name in the movie. They could have said.

They could have said it because he's frank Gambalon that I don't just think he like doesn't have a name. But the But so it's it's rentable on Amazon. It was streaming on Pluto, which just watch did not tell me, So anybody whoses just watch for some reason, they don't recognize Pluto. Pluto might not be a planet, but it is a legitimate streaming service, so you can watch it there, but because of their commercials, it like throws off me understanding the timeframe of the movie. But yes, I'm right about no.

No is it mess? And he has a song It's great. No, I really in my head it's the end of the movie, you know. And this could also speak to how I would watch it when it was on TV, because there's no way I actually liked this movie. I probably just liked a couple things about it and latch onto that.

So I had a real hard time staying like dialed into this. I didn't. I didn't like it at all. What it was. It was too corny, it was too sexist, it was too much.

I watch a lot of like like boob movies, like girls wearing bikinis and then you see their boobs. It's like a Sidarius movie, I guess, but not always snarious. There is less less sexism in those movies than in this movie. This movie like kind of made me uncomfortable sometimes. Where are where did you find it overly sexist?

The jokes were all about women's bodies and touching them and boobs, and it was just like weird, and it was like a kid's movie, but all the humor was about like boobs and naked women and touching women. Like I didn't get it. It was felt weird to me, like and everybody and I don't know, it just didn't feel good watching it all. No, but it was fine. I wanted to revisit it, and it just it just struck me as strange that there's just like this, this feel this like sexist are undercar and it's cool.

Nobody else feels it or vibes with it, Like it could just be me or I could be way too tapped into these things, like I could be looking for it, is what I'm saying, So like if it didn't read for anybody else, it's more on me than the person. But like it just made me go like I don't know if this is for me interesting Like to me, I mean there is a very and this is true of the sixties movies too, a very you know, girls wear pink and drink champagne, boys wear blue and drink beer type attitude to it of like very quickly, you know, it's always like they split up and Frankie is hanging out with his the daughter's fiance. Who he hates because he's it has that old like that very old school I'm a man, and therefore nobody is touching my daughter Like that part doesn't age well.

But I've seen that in so many movies that it's not like it feels of its time and expected that a net is a very much a like I mean very much defined as being a you know, a home rate maker. In this movie the opening of Them, Like, I loved the opening, just this idea that these two people who represented youth and like free spirit and just that like beach blanket attitude. Here they are now in their presumably early fifties, and they live in Ohio, and they are living a very sad life and they're kind of finding different ways to not acknowledge how sad it is. It's cute because Anette Funuchello, like her big thing in the post film career was that she was the like s folks one for Skip E Peanut Butter, which is why that's like an ongoing joke in the movie.

And so there is very much that like, Like I don't know what Laurie Laughlin does in this movie because there's a little bit now I might be mixing up the different beach blanket movies. But there's a little bit of like, oh, my fiance is just a surfer, right, how is he gonna provide? What does he want in life? Well? What do you want in life?

Lady? Like what are you doing? Like there's certainly some of that that feels very gendered that you know, Connie Stevens is there and only his eyes for Frankie. It's more I meant, like the Connie Stephens stuff as well as just the constant throwaway jokes that seem to be harassing women sexually. I don't care that, Like a net doesn't have a job, Like I get a homemaker, and I thought, like women can be homemakers.

Fuck, I'm a homemaker at this point. Like, and I liked like when all the girls did like the pajama party. I thought that was. Love the pajama party. And then later later at the movie by step My favorite part of this movie, the thing that made me laughed out loud was towards the end when they're like talking about the surf competition.

They're like really fighting with the bad guys, and they're like, we know the only way to solve this, and you here and very very quietly, somebody shouts the jama party. Yeah, yeah, the pajama party was like a highlight. I thought, so, Like, I don't think like classic femininity is inherently sexist, but there clearly this was from a male tone, Like it was every like yeah, the like when a guy was into a net, he like sexually harassed her, and when a girl was into Frankie she adored him. Like, it's just like that's not cute. That's not like say me, that's like we harass women when we like them, and we revere men when we like them.

That sucks, and the all the Connie Stephens stuff. At one point she was like, they could have just been like, we're good friends. But it's still like, ah, if my wife wasn't around, I date you, Like what that's a wild thing to say. I wouldn't be. Cool with somebody saying that.

Again, Yes, but Frankie Avalon is a man of nineteen eighty seven who feels like it feels like that is what. I don't know. It seems so correct of its time. I know. My only counterpoint was that I watched movies from this exact time period that show ladies boobies that are less sexist.

That was what I just thought was weird, because this is like a kid's movie and it still has that very heavy undercurrent of like, this is how we treat women, This is the types of jokes we make, this is how we touched them, and and like other movies that literally show female sexuality explicitly don't do that. And I thought it was strange, like ah eighty seven. Weird time, A weird time, a time where no matter what your movie was, you had to include a scene. Well, particularly if your movie had any moment on a beach, you had to have a limbo scene. There's just so much stuff in this that I remember watching and being like, is this how life really is?

Like it's so organized and everybody's so like gung ho and on the same page, and it's like I wish real life was like this, that you could just be out in a group and be like, you know what, let's settle this with a surf contest. Let's settle this with a limbo contest, and then like everybody would be game and follow the outcome. Well, and that again, this is just the me and my own lived experience, Like I love the beach, I feel great, at the beach. Do you know how much work it is to go to the beach. Do you know how much sunscreen I have to put on?

And then if I go into water, how much sunscreen have to How I have to drive so I can put more sunscreen on and I have to cover myself. I will do one of two things. Either I am I am like completely slathered in sunscreen and then I kind of can't touch anything and sand just sticks to every part of me. Or I do the full doctor Moreau as I call it, where I just I have the big, the big straw hat, and I have like a long sleeve shirt, and I put my towel over my legs, and I wear my sunglasses and I just basically like I'm like the invisible man on the beach. It's one of the two.

It's a lot of Either way, it's a lot of work. That's how I drive to the store. I put on a long sleeve shirt and I put a towel over my lap so that it doesn't blest the tops of my legs. Yeah. Yeah, the sun is not your friend, people, No.

It's it's rough. And I know that you have very you have very fair scary I know, I know it's something you struggle with as well, so me too. It's so for real, and I think that is a testament to how much you truly do love the beach, because I won't I won't deal with that. I just don't go, yeah, you're you're, you're wise. It's it's satisfying, but it's so much work.

So it's it's so pretty though, and all the limbo contests. You just have so many limbo contests, like just it was a thing that like you had to know how to limbo if you were ever gonna go on a California beach in the nineteen eighties. It's it's truly as wild, I do have to say, and I would be remiss if I didn't mention it. Did you notice the sheer volume of amazing body glove outfits in the background here? It's not what do you glove?

My god? Okay. So, one of the main reasons, in case anybody's curious that I am hyper fixated on beach movies, is because I kind of have found that I have a fixation on vintage swimwear. I can't explain it. It's just so fascinating to me, Like what materials.

We used to make it out of the shape. The shape right, So like. Eight the eighties is a really big point for me. I love sixties and I love eighties eighties bathing suits wild. So you probably are familiar with bodyglove.

Wait, no, so okay, but body gloves you keep keep going. I'm not fully gonna have to google this exactly what you mean. So bodyglove is a is A is a swimmer company that I think probably mostly did wetsuits like surfing, but they also got big into like fashion pieces. And speaking of scenarios movies, if you if you watch a couple of anti scenaris movies, you'll probably see some really cool like bodyglove tops or like wild bodyglove skirts. And usually of the time they're like like a black bass, like a neoprene almost like a black bass with like a hot pink up the side, or it'll be lime green or yellow and they're common and like eighties beachy movies.

To see this movie has it's like they it's like the Bodyglove Company gave back to the beach their entire nineteen eighty seven, like like package every piece that they put out for not even just women. There were men's amazing men's pieces I've never seen either. They had skirts with like this is body Glove, a swimwear company, skirts with lace and like boned tops, like corseted tops. What the fuck were they doing the best part of this movie it was was the body. Glove that does not seem practical, practical for swimming.

No, see, I think that's the thing. I think at this point they had so you know how like California you mentioned it with like the limbo California beach culture was that thing, right, So I think Bodyglove truly at that point was like, oh, we just make we make fashion pieces as well, like you're not supposed to go in the water wearing this. Yeah, I get that. I get that because there was one that was a skirt with like ruffles and lace like a petticoat. Oh most well, it's also like you can't swim in that.

No. No, But when you watch the sixties movies sometimes you know something similar, like the character of Candy she shows up in a few she's in Muscle Beach where she is always in like the complete fringe pants and top. Yes, yeah, right, drives are pretty crazy, but like you can't swimming that you're. Not going swimming in that. It's fascinating to me because then there's that line of like truly beach culture, like this is beachwere but not swimwear.

But yeah, yeah, it's so this was like a fine display of that. Yeah. Asthetically, this is a fun movie just because it's so colorful, like every shot has every color of the rainbow, like just bursting. Even the posters like wild and like hip. And yeah, that's the thing that confuses me.

It perpetrates to be a hit movie and then isn't. And I don't think of this as hip at all, Like elements of it seem hip, though, I mean, I guess it's like kind of it. It is not quite as smart as the Brain. And again I'm just gonna all things roads lead back to the Brady Bunch movie. It is not quite as smart as that.

Where the Brady Bunch movie has perfect from the beginning to end, has such a clear point of view and aesthetic that then works so well when you take the Brady Bunch aesthetic of that movie and put it in the real world, it's like, it's beautiful to see Christine Christina, at least Christine Taylor as Marcia in the Deep Purple with the little skirt standing next to like somebody in grunge. Like all of that works, and the point of view there is very very clear on our characters in this one, Like I do think a Net and Frankie are a Net and Frankie of the sixties movies placed in a nineteen eighties environment. Like it does feel like they kind of approached it as we want, like the elements of who you were in the sixties of like that dynamic, but there is this sort of out of time aspect to it that like where they play like they kind of play it.

It's not that they play it straight like kind of like in the Brady Bunch movie the way they do where they're like they are they don't belong in this world, yeah, but they but they interact with it. And the way people interact with them then is funny because it's like when you're speaking different languages and I think, again, yeah, it doesn't ultimately have anything to say in that regard. I think there is an element of, oh, like midlife crisis, a couple who've kind of lost their magic, rediscovering their youth and remembering like the reason they fell in love and the things they used to love about, like who they were. Like that's there, certainly, but yeah, it's not progressive in any way. But I found it so fun.

I think for me it was just a little too a little too corny for the time, like I can't watch Full House now I find out. Oh I couldn't watch Full House then, Oh I loved it. I tg if Baby every every night, every. Friday night, I was I were telling about my the pen pal program they tried to have at school once, where it was I don't remember who our pen pals were, but it was like you write a letter and then you're gonna get a letter back, and that's gonna be your pen pal. And it was like the first round of pen pals weren't like we didn't read their letter before they got our letter, and vice versa.

So for my my letter, it was like I don't know. Of course it was me saying. Whenever I was saying it was like I like a lot of TV. The only show I don't like and I hate and I think it's really stupid it's Full House. And I get the letter back from my pen pal and it's like my favorite.

It's so like, yeah, I when we were watching this, I was like, Zach was like, how did you He used to watch it. He's a little older than me. He used to watch it. It was on cable. I saw on TV two.

That has to be how I saw this movie. And then he's like, well, how did you even know about Frankie Internet? And I was like, well, they were on Full House and he just kind of looked at me. I was like, you don't remember that episode when Joey gets that TV show and he gets to be on set with them and he brings the whole family and when he gets knocked over, Michelle stands up because she's really worried, and she goes up to a net Fooachello and calls her a net funny Jello. You don't remember that.

He's like no, and Dan Tanner, like every man of his generation is obsessed with a net to Mitchello. But I really found her extremely charming in that OH show. She didn't work for me in this movie. There was just something about her delivery that was a little like too on, like not present, like I. Mean, yeah, she is stilted.

I think it. I think it's a style choice that makes sense to me, but it feels sometimes like again like, uh, were this maid today? We're this maid even twenty years ago. Rup Paul would have had a cameo, and it feels a bit more sketching that way for sure. Yeah, And I, you know what, I'm not that into being like I guess cringey corny stuff is just like to me and I just because there's like a self awareness to the Brady Bunch that that I think there is a self awareness here, but it doesn't it doesn't go far enough for me.

And and that's probably maybe because it's not really made for a forty year old woman in twenty twenty six. It's it's a kid's movie, like a fun light child's movie. And the only way that I know that that's true because there's a song in it about SKA that doesn't actually explo do the ska? Emily so confused by that song? Have you ever done ska?

I? I was so because at first I didn't have the subtitles on when I watched this, and I was like, do you not know what they were saying? I did, but I was like, are they saying, Scott is this song about? I'm like the guy's got a trombone, so it must be ska. But it feels really weird to have a song in a Back to the Beach movie from nineteen eighty seven about SKA.

So it just threw me off completely. I was very I did not know how to handle that, but I kind of love. They were they were I mean, you gotta give him credit early, they were early. Yeah, because I didn't feel ahead of its time. Scott didn't hit big until mid nineties as far as I knew.

And I loved seeing Fishbone High, Fishbone. Great to see, but it it's so it's such a strange interpretation of the of the genre because they literally say if you did don't know and you didn't see this movie yet, because you should watch it because it's weird. They enough. Flo Cello says, do the ska Scott Scott Scott over and over again, and it's like, but what, and then she describes how to do it, and it's like, I still don't know. Oh, But it also kind of is fitting that, like I don't know those songs in the in the Beach Blanket movies so true.

They are so similar where every now and then there's like a special guest star in those movies the or Muscle Beach has Stevie Want like little Stephen Wonder just shows up and sings a song and it's my like the highlight of the movie. But for the most part, the rest of the songs are just like usually it's like one ballad by each of them, and then there's just songs that are nonsense but that have words like beach blanket bingo in there and just bodies. Have you have you been doing the beach blanket bingo dance since watching these movies like I have. I it's kind of impossible to not start picking up weird stuff from them, right because there I think part of it is there there and they feel infectious, yes, and and the and this movie does too, like the ska scuscu, which which I've been doing non sense sku.

Yeah, I'm dancing to it right now, yep. But it is an and I think that's what's so interesting about this genre, as like as like light and I don't want to say empty, but that's kind of what I'm saying, but not in the mean way. As like light and like fluffy as they are, they are, they get inside you in this weird way, and it's it's just strange. I can see why people were overtaken by them back in the day. Yeah, this one did not have a big good reception.

Wasn't that it wasn't reviewed. Well, the problem was it was barely reviewed because Paramount just did not think it had anything. So Paramount basically dumped it. Did not do critic screenings of it, which is always like a sign of oh no, it's gonna be bad movie. I went back and watched the Ciscal and Ebert review for it, because they did it on their show.

It's on the same episode with Dirty Dancing, which is interesting. Oh wow, yeah, talk about like summer, right, summer in eighty seven, You've got Dirty Dancing and Back to the Beach together, Like what a year. And this came out apparently the same weekend as Living Daylights the James Bond, like the first James Bond film at that point in a while. So it tanked at the box office. Paramountain didn't promote it at all.

Siskel and Ebert loved it, and it's really fun to watch their review because they're both like, I don't know, I was dreading seeing it because they didn't do a screening but there was so much fun, Like they both really got it and enjoyed it, but it just didn't have much of a life, but then ended up on cable where I think a lot of people watched it. The director did not have much of a career after it. Sounds like she she says, like the movie about like two weeks before they started filming it, they said, she was like, it needs to be a musical, so they kind of had to throw the songs in there very quickly, and as she said, they didn't increase the budget or filming time at all after that decision was made, and they still ended up finishing it on time.

So somebody that I wish had a bigger career, but who knows why didn't get along with the studio guy probably didn't speak well of her and so on. Oh and one other thing we didn't mention was the first cameo of this movie at the airport. That'd you feel seeing o jasonson? Oh my gosh, I had completely forgotten, right because at that point, where do I know him from naked gud So like I fully the second I saw him was like, oh my gosh, yes, fully fully remembered it all. But yeah, of the time, definitely, definitely of the time.

I thought all the cameos were fun, Like I definitely excitedly got excited to see people pop up and that that was fun because that's like some Muppet movie shit, right, totally, all these older famous people you recognize. And like, people that make sense in this universe, like we have Bob Denver from Island yep, like it's it's it feels right like and I don't know, it's kind of a shame we didn't get like one more of these. I feel like if you could have had one more, maybe fifteen years later, where you could have had a little more time and distance from it to come back and like have it be a little smarter, have more to say. But who knows what if one day we could get well at this point, not with like the original people in it or anything to that effect.

But I'm saying I liked this movie and what more like it? No, I think that I think that the beach party kind of style of movie is like we nothing filled its spot, right, Like there's nothing modern that is the same. And I think my again, my only complaint is because it's so cheesy and corny and like innocent seeming. I wish that it felt more innocent to watch. I know that I'm splitting hairs.

This is just we were talking about ready or not before we started this podcast, But I had problems with the way I felt quote unquote female bodies were treated in that movie. Like, and I know that's not a complaint that a lot of other people have, it's just something that sticks in my head. Suh. So, like, I don't know, I don't if something's going to be innocent, it's cool to look at it and be like, oh, this really was kind of harmless and innocent. But I saw things that made me feel a little icky.

But other than that, I mean, if you're into something corny and like throwbacky and weird, if you liked Full House, there's no no reason to not watch this, Like. But if you didn't like full House like me, you might also find a reason to watch this. I find that so interesting that you didn't like full House like I. E. So I would say, one thing to keep in mind is that I am the youngest child in my family.

This is so true. Yeah, and I think this makes a huge difference because Full House was aimed at such a young demographic that my friends all liked Full House, my friends who were the oldest or who had like older sisters, whereas me having older brothers. It just felt like something that from the first episode we all were making fun of it, and then it was like, oh, this is never gonna be cool in minad house. And I also just I you know, so I'm sure I was like geared towards not liking it because of that, but it just it never caught up with me. And I never was like, oh, no, I was wrong about that, Like it just was it.

I was it. It felt too young for me, even though it wasn't. It just was for my household. No, I totally you're we I it was quite corny. I can't look at it now.

It gives me a cavity. We we had been talking about like shows to just throw on in the background, like while we're doing stuff, and I was like, well, she should be like trying to get cheap Full House DVDs or something that that. And then and then I was like, actually, I watched a clip somewhere and I was like, you know what, never mind, let's do that because I don't think I could seriously because in my head. It's like it was fun and easy and silly, and then you watch it and it's like, oh, this is like intolerable. It was great.

It sets my teeth on edge. Yep, I get it though, because I was the oldest, so I had nobody to sour me on it or to point out how silly it was. So like I was just a kid watching kid TV. Yeah. It was similar with like Nickelodeon in that era where when you had the nineties Nickelodeon of all that and Keenan and Call and stuff like that.

It just it wasn't watched in my house, so I would see it occasionally at friends' houses and I'm like, this feels so like young It was weird to watch content like aimed and created by in part people our age. It felt to me silly, But yet I understand completely why it was appealed to most people in my demographic. I just had a different like view into that. I guess that made me more bitter as a teenager. And yet here I am today at forty four, saying Back to the Beach is the best movie I've watched all year?

So is it really? Oh? Not the best? I'd have to remember what I've actually watched in any recent time, But this is going to be one that, like, I will watch this again in the future. Oh I love that.

Yeah yeah, No, I feel like my life has been enriched by watching this one. So I'm so glad me too because of all the body glove on display. But you know, we got different things out of it. No, but that's part of the reason why I watched the Beach movies is to see cool beach where so I get it. I mission accomplished on this one.

We both win. So why don't we take a break and come back and talk about Charlie's angels? Ow? Do you girls know how to Jamaica? Ska Jamaica?

What? Yeah? Sure that it's a. Required course in our college. Well do you know how to Jamaica?

Skagcotts gots go? Do not many people? And chatty? Not everybody? And do the twist everybody Dandiescott says gas go, and we are back.

The year was two thousand. Uh. There had been much about this movie in the tabloids ahead of time, because me, as a savvy eighteen year old, was reading the National Inquirer and remember all the rumors flooding around sept. But Charlie's Angels comes out. It's a huge hit.

I don't see it. Twenty six years goes by and I finally do you maybe also didn't see it then? Do you remember why? Like, was it just not on your radar as a movie? Well it didn't.

Ironically, it didn't feel like it was marketed to me. No, not at all. Yeah, but was this movie marketed to come on? Well it was. It feels like it was.

It's so hard, right, so let's be so for real. I feel like it was marketed to men. Yeah, but but that's not one the movie it is. And like then they had like the Beyonce ah the waymen Like, yeah, girl, I didn't know you could get down like that, Charlie, how your angels get down like that? We all know.

But like, it still didn't feel like it was marketed to me, even though that song is a song that I could probably sing asleep. I don't know why it didn't feel that way. Well, because it was marketed to an energy drink. Like I think, not so much remembering the marketing, but just thinking through what has what happens in movies since then and before then? Studios do not think like, it's the old saying in Hollywood that I think still rings true today.

The thought behind studios releasing films and when they're deciding how to market them is that a female will go see a movie that a male wants to see, but a male will not go see the movie that the female wants to see. So it's like, it's the old theory of its state night, you're gonna go to a movie, what are you gonna see it? Well, he wants to see bad boys, and I want to see a good girl, So I guess we're gonna go see bad boys. Like it's it's that idea, and it's what I hate more than anything in the world, is to say in some cases that's sometimes true, I think not with kids films, and I think Disney has made a lot of mistakes in thinking that. If you remember, like I mean, we grew up on Disney princesses, right, that was these movies were very, very like a Disney animated movie meant you were going to see a princess.

And in the mid nineties it Disney tried after Pocahontas, Disney really tried to get a boy audience. If you remember, they had Treasure Island. They had oh geez, like three more movies like that. None of them did well. Uh, And it was this kind of like seeing that they just were so intent on getting a boy audience for their movies.

They even did it a bit with Pixar when like Cars was defiantly, look, we made a movie for boys. When this is not Disney. This is Disney too. John Mars one of the most infamous flops of the I guess that is based on a book that has the word princess and the title. And well, this is why they acquire They were so keen to acquire Marvel and Lucasfilm because they this is this is a string of failures.

They couldn't seem to get it right. Yep, so they had to go and acquire other ip in order to like get a foothold in that. It's like, we forget about it now, but it's super relevant. To bring up right, Yeah, And they he also went two rounds without making a movie starring a woman in that whole Marvel domination. So it is like it's a belief of studios.

Occasionally it's like it's not not true in some regard, but it is fascinating because this movie and to me, I not that I knew nothing about it going in, but like I really had never watched it, so I knew it was successful. I knew it had a multitude of fans of people I respected, so it wasn't just like, oh yeah, like guys love it or like whatever that was. And watching it, like I can see where that theory made sense because when, for example, the Elizabeth Banks Christian Stewart one came out a few years ago, which I know you're a big fan of I have not watched yet, I will that was in part marketed as it's Charlie's Angels with from a female gaze, right, and it did not do well, and not to it's still Apples and Oranges, because it's a different time period, it's a different audience, it's a different box office.

But there is this sort of like almost Trojan horseness about this movie in that it's very much a we're gonna get your butts and seeds because we have three of the hottest actresses and they're doing like cool sexy action things and secretly like as soon as you're in there, we're gonna also like actually make a movie about that has a lot of positivity about women. Yeah, like it's it's a fucking female friendship movie, totally. Yeah, it's like a cross Yeah, yeah, it really is. And so yeah, I get why you don't market it that way, right, but like also, especially at the time we in two thousand, we were like eighteen, that was like maybe one of the worst time periods. Yeah, this was not the movie I was gonna go see even with my friends, Like no.

Because they like looked at you, they grabbed you by the shoulders, looked you in the eyes and said, this isn't for you, and it was like, Okay, well, I guess I'll believe you. And that is a movie about how hot Cameron Diaz is and you are three feet shorter and one hundred pounds heavier than Cameron Diaz. Yeah, sorry, this one's for the boys. Ladies step aside, and it's it's really and I mean that's why it did well, because they and why the newer one didn't Because you're right, I will say, as someone who is very obsessed with the new Charlie's Angels, it is extremely sexy. Everybody looks phenomenal.

Kristen Stewart's asses out through half of it, Like you cannot say it's not like a hot, sexy, adventurous movie. But you're right, it was a girl power movie. So why can't we just do it non gendered? Why can't we just do the good, exciting action adventure movies where all the guys look hot and all the girls look hot and everybody's hot and it's fun and not have it be this weird thing where it's either for the boys or for the girls, Like what are we doing well? And I think a good reason this movie is ultimate, like secretly for the girls is that, uh, this movie was made because of Drew Barrymore yep.

And she's all over it. Yeah, she is twenty four years old when she makes this movie good. And she pitched this movie like she was the one who put together the deck and walked to the studio and said, here's what we should make. Like I'm not directing it, but I am here to tell you we can make this movie. I will do it.

You can pay other people more than me to do it, but I am gonna help pick the people. I am involved in this. I'm producing this, and we're gonna make this like it very like it's you know. Again, she is not the only voice in it by far, but she was very very involved in making this. The style and like the attitude.

I think that ends up being the thing that the he's in this movie does last for twenty plus years, because you do watch this, you're like, oh no, this these women are awesome, They are smart and they are friends. It goes such a. Long way, it does, and I think, like, it's tough because I just said it, But the enduring power of this movie is because it was secretly that. And that's so sad because if it was outwardly that, it would be like Josie and the Pussy Kids, Like we'd just be like, oh, remember this movie's actually good. Right, Yeah, it's so transgressive.

Yeah, we didn't do well, but now it's kind of like the backwards way where we late have to be like, oh, Charlie Sangels is pretty lit. This is a pretty good Hey everybody, this is about feemo friendship. Did you know that? But like, do you realize the men are idiots and the women are really smart? It's it's such a fu Oh my gosh.

And Luke Wilson in this movie, he's so like it's adorable, harmless and adorable. And then I don't like Tom Green, He's a to me. But the fact that, like Drew Barrymore's paramour in this is is Tom Green, that that weirdo that not Hollywood weirdo, is so cute and it's just like girls, just like regular guys. And it's like, yeah, this is so good. And the the other part of that something you said, it was something I wanted to say and I've forgotten it already.

Was it about? Wasn't Tom Green, It wasn't Sam Rockwell? Was something else about? The Oh? No, just the the like under this the way in this movie, like, yes, the women are put on display, right, yes, these women are wearing outfits that are not any outfit that any woman would ever wear really for her, if you will, But the fact that the women are always smarter than the men and they are absolutely you using their body because it's so easy for them to do and get exactly what they need out of them.

And the scene like my husband's favorite seeing the Drew Barrymore in the car when she has to distract the driver as Lucy Lou like playing something in there so funny and it's just because it's so dumb, Like it's just her with her booves out, just sitting there like saying like I like cars, and the guy just like well, like it's and it's it is like one of those jokes that is so dumb that it's so smart and it works. Yeah, it's it. And I God blessed Drew Barrymore. I know, like it's famous people all the time, wealthy that but like the gifts that she's given us cinematically, because like it is such an informed position this movie takes, like to still be provocative and be like, but that's kind of at your expense is really fun and I don't I think it's I think it was it's smart, and I think she's one of the only people that can get away with stuff like that.

Well it's it's funny because I was thinking about this today, how there are or at least at the time, she was one of the only people that could. There are two female actresses that I will always kind of give a pass to for almost anything because I think of what they went through in life and I'm like, you know what, Like like Jodie Foster is one, Like when everybody was hounding Jody Foster to come out publicly and like she just wouldn't. I was, like, dude, Jodi Foster had a man assassed like a man assassinated, tried to assassinate a president because of Jodi Foster when she was a teenager. Let Jody Foster do whatever the fuck she wants. She doesn't owe anything to anybody.

And I feel the same at about Drew Barrymore, who I know has made some mistake, like has just like done some dumb things in life, but like Drew Barrymore was a absolutely abused child. Like I mean she when you like read the details between her life at the age of four to age of nine when she went to rehab for fuck's sake, Like this is a woman who had such a ridiculously irresponsible childhood and that was not her fault. And the fact that by the age of like sixteen, she had gone through enough and was able to like pull back and say, Okay, I have to take control of my life in my career and I'm making my own decisions and from there makes some really great decisions. And she is only twenty fucking four.

When she says, I want to spearhead making a big budget Charlie's Angels movie because it's going to be a giant action movie starring women about female friendship. Because I loved the series as a kid, and I want to hit on what worked about that series, Like and I am going to do everything I can to make this work. And she was the one. She picked McGee to direct it. She had seen his videos.

I don't think he was a first choice. I think like this is a movie that notoriously went around Hollywood a lot, like basically every woman in Hollywood at one point was rumored to have been one of the Angels. But like she was absolutely the one to say, I am gonna make I need Cameron DA's in this movie. I am gonna call her and get her to do this movie. And here's what you're if she asked for this much money, you were paying her this much money.

And Cameron dea Is made more from I think her like she had like an eleven million salary, You berrymore had a nine million like and but this was like the sign of a producer saying I know what this movie needs and I'm gonna make sure it gets it. And it really does feel like and I one of my other like favorite it's not a guilty pleasure because I think it's fantastic, but it's like one of my favorite specifically like mushy movies that I will die defending is ever After with Drew Barrymore. Oh my god, Yeah that's what I mean. And then with It, like yeah, talks about ever After, But like I have feelings about whipp It, like she she like she showed up in like the way that like a lot of oh my god, I never been kissed, Like a lot of women's lives, like especially our age, would be different if she had not chosen to be the person that she was, because she kind of was, like I said, like the only one doing it like that, like yeah, trying to It seems like she learned what she learned that terribly young age, and then she did, you know, the movies that she did to try to break out of that hold the.

Way people. And like and poison Ivy and like and and and then I feel like she took all of that and like mushed it up and like was like and now this is who I really am. And that's so admirable because it's so hard to feel like and now I'm a full person. I'm ready to present to you like I'm not even there yet. So and then she gave us things like ever After, which is this like perfectly measured, beautiful, sweeping, fantastical romance that also doesn't make you devalue yourself.

It's one of the most feminist movies of that type of movie. Yeah, and then she does Whip It, which is the sports version of that exactly, and it's so like, oh, and it's not a perfect movie, Like structurally there's some issues with it, but like spiritually it is, it's like a perfect movie. And she's a wonder and and and and yeah, you know, I'm just grateful for her. Now, what is your experience with Charlie's Angels the show show? Did you ever watch any of it?

No? It is onto me. So I tried to watch a little bit of it after I watched the movie. I threw on an episode, uh, or like an episode and a half I watched, uh, And the one I watched happened to have a mustacheless Tom Selick. Oh weird?

Weird? Are you okay? It was no, No, I was not. Actually it was very unnerving because he shows up and I'm like, is that it looks like it sounds like Tom Selick. And then Brannon walks in.

He's like, whoa, I never saw himou a mustache. I was like, oh god, it is him, And it was like I kind of lost track of what was happening on the episode because of that. But just the little bit I watched for the show, I was actually surprised it went better than I thought, because I had assumed it was very just like ahha women DNA and look at them holding guns, but they like this movie. They are smart, they are capable, they are friends with each other, they all have like their own like lives and romances, but then are really good at their jobs. And I was like, again, this was one and a half episode, so I have no idea.

I'm sure there are episodes that are, you know, run the gauntlet between feminism point A two point z, but it did feel like one of those things were like spiritually, it's like, okay, the good of Charlie's Angels, a series, which was that it was about these badass, beautiful, smart women who could kind of do anything. That's what I want to bring back to two thousand year two thousand and so that was interesting and something I would I mean throw it on. You're talking about background series, try that one. It's on two BP. Yeah, I've seen clips and stuff because it's kind of, you know, it's part of pop culture.

But I've never like really sat down and committed to a full episode, I don't think. And so what I think is interesting you say that this movie really captures that the original, which now having seen this movie, I guess twice it really hit me this time watching it though, how similar structurally and thematically it is to the new New One. Okay, Elizabeth, thanks one. So there are things in this one that they we just straight up are doing in the new one. So I think, in if if that's the vibe, Hey, if if you like the two thousands Charlie's Angels and you haven't hit the newer one, do it, because I feel like it really does have that same feeling to it, Like it does all that same it's all about female friendship, and like the way that they kind of handle certain situations feels directly informed by this movie.

Justeistically this movie does that include the awkward cultural appropriation stuff in the beginning. I don't think there is actually any cultural appropriation stuff in the New One, which is good. Oh no, I might have lost internet. No, I still hear you. Okay, Well one of my things is blinking, so if I go away, I'm sorry.

No, you're still good now? Hello? Yeah, that okay, So correct me if I'm wrong, though, you're talking about the very opening. Is that that's the only part honestly, No. I think that's fine.

I think the idea of her like in a because it's oh god, I can't believe I'm gonna say this out loud. Is it not black face if it's an entire body suit, but about it? It is literally him though it's a little cool J dressed in like full kind of African garb on a plane and immediately like I knew. I don't know how I knew, but I'm like, I bet that's I bet that's one of the angels. Yeah, because I feel like we did a lot of that like face pulling back.

Then that to me didn't bother me because that was purely like, oh, it's like this like mission impossible type thing where you're wearing like a face mask of someone. It was more about ten minutes later we had a lot of Okay, we have like a massage partier where Lucy lou is giving a massage, and then it's then they play Turning Japanese, so it's you're like, wait, but she's the Chinese or Jimpanese. And then there's that, and then there's the belly dancing scene where Drew Barrymore is definitely in brown face. Yes, I'm I, I don't know what this says about me. I high key already put that out of my head.

I'm I really just kind of. It's very fleeting, like it doesn't last long, no, but it's super. Ill advised, and it's like two thousands. So come on later than we should still have been doing that. What are we doing?

I it is. It is so fleeting that I wonder if somebody knew better, like right right, Like I wish it wasn't there at all. Yeah, and it again, I'm sure that is something that happened a lot on the seventies show because you do constantly have them like basically be going under cover constantly. So one of the episodes I was watching, like one of them was was a tennis instructor, so she has to like a flirt with all of the old gross men at the tennis courts and then one of them is giving a massaw is a mesuse in it. So like again like it's very much of like, oh yeah, what they did, but I just could have been a little more thoughtful some of that stuff.

No, I know, the the like blanket Asian stuff is always weird, like well, Lucy Lou's some kind of Asian. Then this song's about Asian, and mean it works Asian and it's like, guys, what are we doing? This is all very muddled and strange, but you know, I hate doing the Well, it was twenty six years ago, but the reality is it was twenty six years ago. Same yeah, same with like Back to the Beach, there were different sensibilities at play and scasca, so like, you gotta be forgiving to some degree, but I will and I stand by this. I think that the goods this movie do greatly outweigh the bads, of which some do clearly exist.

Yeah, I mean there was This was again a Drew Barrymore thing was that the Angels would not use guns. That there are guns in the movie, but that the Angels are not armed, And that was Drew Marymore saying, I don't think we should be using guns. Love it, which is great the the like I guess the decision, like the casting decision, because I think I think Drew Barrymore was always going to be in there. I think again, Cameron Diaz was always like, this is who we want for that part, and then the third part was kind of like the wild card up in Hollywood of who's gonna be it? And Lucy Lou was so I forgot, like how how knew she was at that time because she'd only been on Ali McBeal I guess at that point, like she'd been in little things but was not a name at all.

And even Alian McBeal was one of those things where like she came into audition for a part and didn't get that part, but they wrote apart for her and it was not going to be irregular. But people realize like how good she was, and that was something watching this and I think I had forgotten was like, oh God, Lucy LOUI is so great. I so big, Lucy loofam lover, lover, lover. She is the high point in this for me. She has such range, she's such a phenomenal action.

Speaking the screen so well by doing so little. It's so true, like she flips her hair so much. All of their hair are so good and that scene is so cute when they're when Cameron Diaz is flirting with Luke Wilson and they're all on like little microphones talking to each other, and the way they're all like both of them are giving her advice and of course is conflicting, but just flip your hair. It's it's so cute. It's so cute, and yeah, it's She's really tremendous in it.

And every time I watch it, well her. I watched the second one semi recently, so it was her again. Every time I see her in this role, I guess it's like, why isn't Lucy Lewin everything? Yeah, I have that feeling because watching the second one, I was like, why isn't Lucy Lewin just absolutely everything? And I did say during this so I'm gonna say it so there's a record of it.

I think that I one hundred percent gas lit myself into thinking I liked the kill Bill movies just because of Lucy. Look interesting because I can't remember one thing that happens in those movies that's not her, but the highlight, I mean the highlights to me of those movies are basically the two is the first film and the fights that book nd it. It's the Vivica Fox fight. And so she's just she really is just a bright spot in any things she's in, and here it's cool to see her like really shine but also be such like a great part of this like clearly fun ensemble. They're having so much fun and it's just a really satisfying watch.

I did find myself thinking Cameron Diaz is dancing, was like, has she been watching all the beach blanket movies too? I know, because she was doing that crazy hip thing. Little we're like you just you bend your knees, but you keep So the trick is okay for Beach Blanket and Go dancing is that your feet don't move right, but you bend your knees a lot, and your hips are all of the movement comes from your hips, which then might move your arms. So your arms might move up ard they might move down. They're kind of like loose elbows.

But the trick is like hips and like stick your butt out because it's all you're like whatever your hips are doing. And watching it, I was like, she's kind of doing the beach blanket to bingo dance. It's kind of my favorite dance style. But she she dances so much in this and I think to myself, do you think Cameron dias so she danced in the Mask that's like, you know, the movie that launched at on the Map, And it's like, so do you think she they want her to dance because she's not like it's it's a self fulfilling prophecy, or do you think she really likes to dance like in movies? Do you think she like brings that to the characters.

That's you know, I always trying to figure out. I'm like, because I always think I love dancers. I always talk about it like I'm fascinated by how dancers are different people to me, like their their bodies speak a different language than mine does. And I find it beautiful to watch a dancer do anything. And I was watching as I'm like, is Cameron dy has an actual dancer?

Like, No, she's not right, And I don't think she is. I don't think she really has like much formal training and dance, but she has. I think also because she's tall and long, which helps because then you can her limbs can look more interesting than somebody who's a different shape. Yeah, but I think it's just that she is such a good physical comedian that her whole body will go into something and sometimes it's dancing, and it works out when it's that. It's it's it seems to be a through line in a lot of her movies, and I really appreciate it.

Like it's like when I started to notice Sandra Bullock seems to really like to do pratfalls and she likes silly physical comedy. So then I start noticing it in movies where I never saw it before. It's now, this is camer Diaz with dancing. Now, like is she dancing in that? I think I can think of other things she's dancing.

It's a silly thing that makes the character like, of course the statuesque, beautiful, impossible woman, and now she's a goofy dancer. Yeah, And I don't want to be like I'm I'm charmed by it. Though it worked. I gave it it is like because I think it's clearly because you're you're casting like three absolutely beautiful women obviously to play these parts, and they are supposed to be like physical specimens because of the nature of their job. And so on, and there is a like really fine line when you are going to try to make them girl next door because like Cameron Diaz is nobody's girl next door.

But like I think the there's like two things at play that make a lot that work for what they're doing. One is that they like she is the like that thing that I think we finally come to accept is really hard, so much harder to do than it looks, which is playing the smart, dumb blonde who is actually smart, like because we'd see from the very beginning, like in the montage opening, we know she's a genius, like we see her on Jeopardy. We know Cameron Diaz in this movie is absolutely very intelligent. And it's not that she is airheaded, is that, oh, but she just seems to like be really awkward where she has no people smart. So that's why she's awkward at dating.

And they're so like when she gets out of bed and like she's you know, she's having her dream where she's like the big fancy dancer. She gets out of bed where sar it's like doing this goofy dance and like unflattering underwear. But of course you're like she's Cameron Diaz. Her ass still looks great, but you get like what it's like, You're like, you're trying to pander to me. You're trying to be like, oh see, like, isn't she like goofy, But you're like, yeah, but she is, and she's.

Great at it feels instead of just being told we're supposed to feel away like, it feels authentic, which is like the whole instead of like this movie never, this movie is telling you, oh, this is a movie about three film female friends, and that's what I thought it was gonna do, like when it wasn't marketed to me in my mind. But then you watch it and it actually is a movie about three female friends, and you're like, oh, okay, well I didn't expect any of this to really pay off. Yeah, and it's it's weird. Yeah, Mick G had as a that's had a strange career. Mick g is a really strange director, so I simultaneously love and hate him because this movie is the suicide squad of Charlie's Angels movies.

It's just the constant needle drops. They'll play literally thirty. Five seconds of the songs of this movie are also in the wedding singer, which is very confusing to me. Oh, that's fun. Yeah, I didn't notice no one of them.

I did. Yeah, I didn't really notice that. Huh. But it it's so yeah. But that is to say, it's like all hits, oops, all hits.

Yeah. So like you play thirty five seconds of one song, and that a recognizable song, and then you tumble into sixty seconds of another recognizable song, which then fades into thirty seconds of a different red and make sure. Every song with the word angel in its title, Oh, like, make sure we pull that because we're gonna use all of them. Yep. Just I don't know, figure it out.

Does it say angel? It's appropriate? And and I but I'm not complaining though, because I love Suicide Squad and I love needle drops like I love movies full of music, and Mick g can do it really well. M m yeah he, I mean he did this. He did the next Charlie's Angels We Are Marshall Terminator Salvation, which of course is really more famous than anything for the Christian belle yelling at the pay and yelling to Mickgi about it.

Migi seems to also have like a history because apparently Bill Murray was insufferable on this movie. Yeah, I do remember, like, uh yeah, and then Lucy did Lucy Louie actually talk about it? So the the quote on IMDb in the trivia there is a quote. I don't know if it's attributed to her, but it's like the anecdote of basically that he said at one point he was sitting like he was sitting in the room and he and he points to Cameron Diaz and points to Drew Barr says, I get why or here. I get worry you're here.

I don't get why you were here who. He has disputed that and said, no, it was just a really tense shoot because they kept rewrite doing rewrites, and that he hated that he thought it was a bad script and was constantly complaining about it and couldn't understand how nobody else was complaining about script. Well, Bill Murray, you're a Bill Murray. You complain about a script. Your Lucy lou making your first big film.

You cannot complain about a script. You're there to do your job. So who knows. It's there's a lot of different things out there, but it sounds like by most accounts he was an asshole on this film. He's great in the movie.

He's Bill Murray, He's great in everything, but he's the more we learn about on the more we learn he was also kind of a shit to work with, especially if you're a woman. It seems like it does cast a bit of a shadow on it. Knowing that for me, one of the brightest shining things in the movie was made to feel less than welcome by that old man makes me mad. Now looking back, it's hard for me to not see it when I'm looking at them all three together. But like, yeah, I mean it sucks.

I wish everybody could just be way nicer so in hindsight, we wouldn't have to find out. Stuff like this, I wish. Yeah, this was as fun to shoot as it was to watch for real, because it's also a really physical film and apparently the women did a lot of their own stunts. They did a lot of that wire work well and that big that big fight sequence, like the Crispin Glover big I know, you can you can really tell it's them a lot of the time. Yeah, it's I mean, the action in this movie is done really well.

Like it it's funny because I'm like mc gee has had I mean, he's done a lot of TV and he's produced a lot of TV, so I think his career was kind of like spread out in a bunch of different places, which is why, like for films, he does not really have that same uh like film success that I think you would expect, like after this, he's never hurt, he's done again. He's probably made a lot of money doing a lot of different things, but it does seem like there would have been like a bigger career for him in some ways, but it might entirely be like he is somebody that needs a good script and because he has I think sensibility is that if he leans towards them, they can not work, right, Because you're talking about needle drops.

He's also the guy who made both of the Babysitter movies, which are needle drop after needle drop. It's true. So we both come from the time period, the MTV time period where you know, I'm kind of like hyper obsessed with video directors of that time, right, like like Fincher and romantic and like Flori Sigismondi I said her name wrong, sorry, but like I've always been really into that and a lot of them, like the ones I just said made the jump to movies. Nick G is one of them too, but the videos he directed are some of the most seminal music videos like Smash mounts uh many of them, but also Walking on the Sun, Bare Naked Ladies. One week he he directed the Gap Country commercial, which might be the Gap commercial with crazy little thing called Love This guy.

This guy knows how to film people moving around. He knows he can do shortstorm. Uh. Wait, Zach just messaged me and said he wrote Walking on the Sun. So maybe Mick G wrote Walking on the Sun.

Yeah. He was like the producer for Shore. Him and Mark McGrath were best friends, and he was the sugar he was going to be in Sugar Ray. He was like a musician but wasn't good enough, and he's like, now I'll just produce for you and write stuff. I almost feel like that was when Mick G was the most MICKG that I want to see that like, I'm making a four minute video.

I'm writing you an earworm. That's my Mick G. When you put him like when you're like, all right, now do this for two and a half flowers, it's like oh yeah, yeah, yeah, but his just his his his video filmography. It's clear that he's good at short shirty short form form storytelling, and he can really like get stuff on screen right, and and that's so clear in this movie. But then sometimes it does just feel like loosely connected vignettes.

Do you think we would like him more if his name wasn't mick Gie, like, if his name was actual like and apparently Mitgi was his nickname growing up because he had an uncle. Like if he actually went by Joseph McGinty Nichol or Joseph Nicol, would we be so prone to just think fuck that guy? I paused. There was a deep pause for me because I was really thinking about it. And I'm gonna say, at this point in my life, probably not.

But when I first found out who he was, absolutely yeah. If it had been just oh yeah, that's whatever, whatever, Oh okay, cool. Well, I mean he was a good video director. I hope he tightens up his movies a little bit. But when somebody's like, no, I'm Mick g I'm like, oh are you what do I so?

Is it mister like? If I'm gonna refer to as mister like do I call you mister G? Are you mister mick G? Like, how does how does that work? Yeah?

I feel like that really he did a disservice to himself by naming himself that publicly kind of but. Like I don't know if he was going for like his career ain't her So like maybe it did actually appeal to the right kind of people. I guess some people were like, oh, that doesn't sound douchey at all. Well they're in Hollywood, so I kinda like, So I like that he directed this movie, and I like what he gets to direct movies. But like, and the babysitter ones are obviously like more dialed in than this is, because this is like a bit of a there's some floppiness to it.

Yeah, this is it is about two hours. It's not like again, I feel like this was made today, it would probably be two and a half completely right, but it definitely feels like, yeah, this probably had a lot of screenwriters and again, but the tally I saw was eighteen. Ed Solomon is one of the ones who were credited, and he's the Bill and Ted Men and black guy like so they I'm guessing this went around and around and around until they got to a draft and then probably they still probably were rewriting on set here and there. It's like some of that you see. I think it's just you know, it feels like a bloated action movie for summer, but there's so much there.

We get baby Melissa McCarthy. Oh, yeah, so exciting to see. Yeah. And Crispin Glover. I am glad you brought him up because I was worried we'd forget about him.

Oh never, never forget gee, I am. So. My theory is that he just stayed in character of the entire shoot because I or that, like, that's just Chris Finngler. Maybe I he's doing his thing right and and like he's in a slasher, a weird slasher called Simon says. Oh, I thought in this movie.

I'm like, yeah, different movie. It's literally that character, but he's that same character and I and and that's what I kept thinking of. So I don't know. I guess maybe he has like this arch thing that he does and that's why you put him in your movie to do that, right. Yeah.

Well, I like when you have a movie that is designed to appeal to the broadest audience possible, and you find ways to make it weird. Oh totally. Well, what's fun too, is because Crispin Glover is this way in this movie. In the newer one, Jonathan Tucker gets to be fucking weird as shit in that movie because he's the silent, heavy okay, and the nice one and which now now that I know, is a direct mirror of the Crispin Glover thing. It's exciting.

Which is interesting. What they kept, what they what they what they lifted from this structure is interesting because I do think having him be he was. He's very like Bond villain in this, but like maybe Bond henchmen, not like real Bond villain. But like which is usually the more interesting role in a Bond film. Yeah, like quiet and like pointy and like like sharp and unsafe.

Yep. And he definitely brought that nice. Yeah, it was a joy to see. Oh he's gonna be in this nice Yeah, definitely. Yeah.

So I'm glad I finally watched it. It was it again. I would put it now on that same shelf of the Spice Girl's movie and Josie and the Pussycats and Romie and Michelle, because I think they are all kind of of this era of when like Hollywood kind of figured out how to make these like female driven comedies that are really clever and ultimately understand that like, oh what's the No matter who you're ultimate marketing to, the best way to tell these stories is to have it be about female friendship. It's it's really true because you said this was successful, right, I mean they made Oh yeah, this was a big hit. I thought so.

So, I mean people went in to see it. Yeah, like it worked. And I looked at Letterboxed and the overwhelming reviews are positive, So I guess. I mean this is a It's a real testament to what you can do with like a summer blockbuster. Yeah, there's ways you can make it interesting and transgressive and important.

It doesn't always work out that way more often than not. But I'm and again probably because they don't all have Dr Barrymore as a producer. And and and that's really why I will sing her praises because I think the things you can't necessarily see with that she did makes this movie special in a way that you know, we don't get that often. I have to ask you, though, what was your favorite outfit in this if you remember oh wow. Okay, all right, I'm trying to like walk through all of them because I feel like there were so many so ving Rams in the you know, the full garb that's I've said ving Rams.

The reason I said that was because there is an IMDb PISO bit of trivia that I don't think is correct saying ll cool j is dressed as ving Rams and the people under the stairs, and that that is deliberate because Sean Whalen is playing his scene partner and Sean Whalen is Roach and people in herstairs. I don't think that's deliberate. I think that is pure coincidence because it is not the same outfit at all. It just happens to be a similar hat and a similar pattern. But so you got hell culture in that.

You've got Lucy low in the leather just looks really good. Yep, with the glasses the blackout, Oh my god, that yes, and again like that that's my favorite. That scene is also like she's so good in that scene and it is such a joke of just like oh, hot woman in leather comes in and all the men drew and fall down. But it's it works because she is so commanding and I love that all she has to do is a tiny little thing, like with her finger, and you believe that every man in that room falls on himself to watch it. Yeah, the trying to remember when they're like in gowns, when they're dressed just like they are wearing gowns.

At one point in the party, at. One point, Drew has on this like off the shoulder like black, tight, like sparkly dress and it's like a barbied all dress, and I was like, whoa, I wonder if they had any she produced it. I was like, if I produce this movie, that's the dress I want to pick too, So good for her. And then at one point they're dressed like the the like the barmaids. Yes, yes, that's so goofy and stupid.

Oh it is, it is. But they all look fabulous the entire time, so good and so silly. And I think that's what's fun too. Like I love like this, like my bathing suit project. I love outfits and costumes like I love especially and I don't I mean this in the most Christine way.

I love to see beautiful women in beautiful outfits so like, and there's a way to present that where we don't all feel icky and like this is such like the just a parade. Of outfits and I love it. No, I agree that that to me is the most appealing thing often about like a Bond film or any kind of like that kind of action film where you're going you you were going to have beautiful people in beautiful clothing. I love. Yes, I want that.

Yeah, yeah, so it was really fun and I think it was, Uh, there was, and I think that captured from what I understand the original show a lot, because they're very like costume undercover Q outfits in that show. Yeah, they all look great. None of them were in bras, which seems very There's a lot of nippling going on, and it just seems to me like uncomfort well because like I mean, I don't know, there's this Okay, it's the same thing. I'm sure we've talked about this where something I get very annoyed by in film is a lot of times the way the films will establish that a woman is uptight is that she wears her hair back and she relaxes when she takes her hair down. Yes, in real I don't know if you feel this way in real life.

If my hair is down, it is on my neck, it is touching things, it's in my way. It's making me up. Whereas if I am like, great, I'm gonna do stuff, I am going to put my hair back because then it is not in my way. I am freer when my hair is tied back. And similarly, right this idea of like burning your broth, like see how free you feel?

Okay, yes, but now do you have to walk at a brisk case, because then give me that braback. It's gonna be very uncomfortable. It's It's very true. I appreciate as a larger chested woman myself, I appreciate the sentiment of the bralliss bra. What are represents of taking it off and throwing it?

Sure, but now give it back to me because now I. Have to Yes, I am not going to go to the grocery stores until you hand me by bra back. So please. But I will admit though as far as like I cannot wear bras just dig in so much. I can't wear them to be comfortable like around the house.

Yeah, I know that some people sleep in a bra, and like that is your journey and I love it for you, But that would hurt me very bad. No, no, yeah, my favorite time of day is like when that comes off, and that is because okay, I'm not doing any strenuous activity anymore. If I have to do it means back on. Yeah, yep, that's a good point. I agree with you.

I agree with you. I will burn my bro and symbolically but not literally. No, not literally. Also, I don't know. Mine are very extensive, so yeah, I need those things.

They're costly. Yeah, yeah, I don't grow in trees. But if all the science in the world has figured out all these great things for people and we've still yet to figure out how to make that work, So there, so there, all right twelve. That was our very summer episode. We'll be back at some point with something else.

Yeah sure, yeah, of course, unless you don't like Peavi's Christmas Special, and then I'll never talk to you again. Oh I promise I'll like it. Okay, all right, Well, on that note, goodbye everybody. Goodbye Christmas. Gonna have a lot, very griffend everybody, very brid