Practical Magic

We so, Mike, we don't talk about our personal lives on the show for good reason. I don't think people don't even know we're real people. We might just be AI voices. Well, and in this day and age, that very well could be the case. Who knows anymore, Hey, let's take some calls from the audience.

I'd like to hear some audience listener notes, also fake and created by AI. We don't talk about our personal lives very often on this show or any of the shows that we work on, because that's not why you're here. That's not the kind of shows that we do. But I will say that this month and January of this year were two of the months this year that I had not programmed on my own. Initially, I turned those opportunities to programmed over to other people, as I tend to do sometimes with you, Mike White, May or March, depending on the year.

Father Malone programmed last month September. So I gave those two months this year over to people that I don't work with, but people in my life, as it were, And then those relationships changed. Since those movies had been programmed January, I was able to pivot a little bit harder. If you're wondering why we covered lay mid Are, why we didn't cover Lameiz, it's because of that. That's why we covered cats instead and took that bullet for everybody.

And then this month, unfortunately, I decided it's probably best to not change things because this month's theme still keeps in tone with what this month is all about, which is spooky stuff. Though I guess the stuff we're talking about this month is a little less high intensity than normal. I think it's even less high intensity than the stuff you're talking about this month on your show, Mike. This is this October is pretty I mean practical magic, not exactly a movie where people are like, ah, this is an intense film. Well, you know what, it's a it's a pretty cozy movie in a lot of ways.

I think it's probably one of the words I would use to describe it. But this October I did not program, So I'm not throwing anyone under the bus. I'm merely just saying that I'm having to temper my expectations with some of these movies and definitely be a little bit more reserved than I normally would be, because if I were to be honest, about my feelings on Practical Magic. This movie I have no interest in ever watching again for a whole host of reasons, and I can't do anything about that, so I rewatched it for this episode, but just letting everyone else out there know that we're not going to be doing a Practical Magic follow up episode anytime soon. So you know, just I guess what is it?

Some sort of two and a half minute disclaimer eye. So on this episode of the Culture Cast, I am still your host, Christashoo, much to the chagrin of at least two people out there in the world, and I'm joined by my good friend all the way from the projection booth. It is the Internet's best movie podcast, as far as I'm concerned, and as far as you're concerned, your friend and mine, Mike. White something something, Midnight Mercury. Does something something stock or Channing something something, Sandy b.

Yes, that's right. On this episode of the Culture Cast, we are taking a look at a film. If you've clicked on the link for this episode, you know what it is. But we're kicking off Horror Tober the tenth year. It's been ten years since I started this show.

Jesus heh to Christ, What in the actual fuck am I doing with my life? We are kicking off horror Tober with a look at nineteen ninety eight's Griffin Dunn, of all people directed Practical Magic. They're enchanting, breathtaking, bewitching sisters. Magic isn't just spells. Us now, it will take all the power to make love come alive, Sandra Bullock, Nicole Kidman.

Did you ever put your arms out and spin? Spin? Spin? Oh? That's what love is like.

Practical magic. So, like I mentioned, the film is directed by Griffin Dunn, based on the book by Alice Hoffman of the same name. Film stars the aforementioned Sandy b Nicole Kidman, Stocker Channing, Diane West, who we were just talking about recently. Oh yeah, Evan rachel Wood, Aiden, Quinn Goren Vishnik. Though I'm sure I destroyed that gentleman's name, Margot Martindale.

There's a lot of people, a very young Evan rachel Wood, I might even add. And the film is about two witch sisters, one who moves away to la the other one who stays home, and a curse is put upon the one who stays home. She gets married and her husband dies and she must move on with her life, and there's a lot that There's a lot going on. Actually, there's so much going on in this movie, and there's like a whole fifteen minute prologue. Exposition dump is what it feels like, even to just get the ball rolling.

There's a lot going on. We are going to spoil the movie if you've never seen it. It's been out since nineteen ninety eight, So go check it out. Come back. We'll still be here, Mike.

I'm gonna kick it to you first. I know you did a lot of preparation for this episode, reading the book, reading the script, doing all the legwork, as did I. So tell me what do you think of Practical Magic? When did you see it for the first time. If this was the first time, great, If not, when was it and what do you think now?

Are rewatching for the culture? So the first time I watched this was actually just a few months ago. It was on an international flight that didn't have that many movies. I don't think I would have picked this had there been a larger selection, but I had always been kind of curious about this movie, so finally had an opportunity indeed to watch it, and as I watched the movie, I just kept thinking to myself, something is missing from this movie. It just feels really incredibly shoppy to me.

And there are moments where I'm like, well, wait, how did that happen? And wait, how did that happen? And I thought that maybe it was a victim of studio interference, or maybe it was a really dark movie at one point. I think there were some darker moments, like there's a resurrection scene that I think went on for longer, but it really wasn't that. It was I think a poor adaptation.

And it's very odd because I did track down and early script that was out there. I don't remember what the date was on it ivid had a date, but it was just credited to Robin Swycord, who is a very pretty darn competent writer. But then it looks like she got rewritten by Adam Broke and Akiva Goldsman. And Akiva Goldsman, I really just don't know how he manages to have a career other than he has been working and fucking stuff up for so long that they might as well just let him continue. He does things that some people love, Beautiful minds Cinderellaman, Batman, Robin, you know, and then he does some bad movies too, But it's just how is this guy still working?

And I'm thinking, having read that earlier draft, which was one hundred and twenty four pages, a little long for this, the prologue, like you mentioned, echoes on for quite a while, but you get a lot more, and you get a lot closer to Hoffman's book, which was a pretty big hit when it came out, and she's done so many like sequels and prequels now to it made a whole cottage industry out of practical magic that I think that, Yeah, I think they kind of sabotaged that earlier draft, cut it down quite a bit and just didn't know how to handle this ad atation. They just kind of took an X to it that way, at least that's my impression. So, yeah, this was very much a curiosity thing for me. So when you announced that you had this on your schedule, I leaped at it because I said, I want to find out more.

Because I had only just seen the movie. I hadn't done this dive into it. I had listened to the book, I hadn't read the script that hadn't heard the commentary. Paid my four dollars and forty four cents to buy this on Prime dvdover at Barnest and Noble. So I invested a lot of time and money into this statue.

Oh said, it chill up my spine right, Oh yeah, before we even talk about practical magic. And I think that this is the thing that it is. Now having done this for so long and having looked back on the things that I saw before I ever did this, and again having spent ten years now doing this, but having spent a lifetime watching movies, there are certain movies that just stick out to me in my lifetime. Is like things that if I like mention to the people I went and saw with, will all be like, oh that fucking thing, that fucking evening. One of those films is a film that Akiva Goldsman wrote in two thousand and seven, I went saw with my friends in theaters.

I am legend. Oh boy, I fucking hate that movie. I remember I went saw with my friends in theaters when I was in high school. I remember leaving the theater, being in my car driving home from the movie theater and just repeatedly saying, I fucking hated that movie. That movie was awful.

It was a waste of fucking time, and it is a waste of time. I would then subsequently go on to read the book that or the novella. It's a book, right, it's more of a novella. It's a book. Yeah, that the one hundred and forty five pages something like that.

Yeah. So I would go on to read the Matheson book that it was based on, and I put if you could see me, dear listener, based on in quotations, because the no adaptation of that story has ever even gotten to the fucking point of the title of the story. I think the last time we talked about I am legend, I said it. I will say it again. Nobody has an addressed the name of the goddamn story in the context of the story the way it's being told, because there's a payoff in the story there.

I say all of this because to come back to Akiva Goldsman, who loves to adapt things, go and look at how much of his career is just adapting other people's stuff. This all the Dan Brown books were adapted by Akiva golds Rings that sequel to The Ring that came out way after the fact. Another little another little series that's totally not a little series, but you would have thought it was given how poorly it was adapted in twenty seventeen by Akiva Goldsman The Dark Tower, Remember that? Remember that fucking mess backle Yeah, And that has come out since I've been doing this, since I have been doing this podcast. The only thing that has come out of his that I have covered that has been new was The Dark Tower.

And that was one of the worst movies I had ever gone in theaters to see for this show, I believe, I say it then on that episode, I'll say it again here The Dark Tower, a movie that wastes everybody's time. And the leads in that movie are Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey. Holy shit, Like that movie failed in spite of literally everything is what it feels like and definitely not the casting is why it failed. All that. To say, practical magic shares a lot in common with everything I've just mentioned.

Good actors, competent actors, great actors, even Academy Award winning actors in some of their cases, Sandra Bullet being one of them. And yet here we are a movie that wastes all of their talents because the script has no idea how to introduce characters, how to get the story moving in a competent way, and the movie seems to think that exposition in the first fifteen minutes is enough for us to understand everything else that's going on in the movie. You could have just sprinkled it in throughout the film, and frankly, ultimately this story should have been adapted into a TV show or a mini series or a series on HBO. Look, they're talking about a practical Magic sequel right now. Sandra Bullocks recently is like a month ago, or Nicole Kidman right was essentially asked about it, and they're like, we'll do it, because of course you will.

At this point, it's kind of a cultural touchstone for a whole lot of people. And I'm not gonna say women, because I think that's unfair. I think plenty of men like this movie, just like I think plenty of men like hocus Pocus. The problem is similarly to our dear friend Father Malone, who we recorded an episode before this one with. I have a very complicated history with this movie because a lot of my feelings towards this movie are tied up in the people who I saw with initially and the people who liked this movie and who picked this movie.

All that being said, I actually kind of liked this movie. I think Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman's chemistry is great. I think amazing. Their chemistry is the best part of the goddamn movie. And then Stocker Channing in West.

The four of them together is great, Like they're great. The four of them together is the best part of them. Then you have Evan Rachel Wood and there as well, Camilla Bell and there as well, like you know, and those are competent child actors as well, I mean, all all great character actors, all great child actors. You have young Sandra Bullock, then you have her kid I mean there's a there's a lot going on, and I think it's all well cast. I just think the script fails this movie so hard.

And I'm just gonna blame Akiva Goldsman out right, because Akiva Goldsman is the one who his name's on this and I know his track record has bared out. Oh yeah, Robin Swichordz does not. Alice Hoffman's does not. They're both well regarded more than competent writers. Akiva Goldsman, Like you said, I genuinely don't know how this guy still is able to sniff at such high profile projects.

Really like he's a writer on Star Trek. Really cool. I wish I could write on Star Trek and my track record is zero, And I would think a track record of zero is better than a guy who's out there going and making bombs out of some of the biggest like pop culture things possible, like The Dark Tower. Jesus, people are waiting for years for that movie to come out, and then and then that's what we got. Really wow.

Okay, yeah, I. Remember when that movie came out. I just heard a big ol' wet fart and a lot of disappointed Stephen King fans. I've never read the Gunslinger series, so one of these days I will, and then I'll watch the movie and I'll be mad. So you can count on me in the future future, Mike will be very angry about The Dark Tower.

I read the first book. I was disappointed by the movie, But the movie's bad in its own right. It really has very little to do with it being a bad adaptation. Like it's just kind of a bad movie. And similarly to this, like this is not a great movie, even if it's not a great adaptation, Like it's a muddled movie that really struggles to tell a coherent story.

Yeah, well it is interesting because it keeps a lot of the pillars of the book. It moves them around in a lot of interesting ways. Like so in the intro you said that she lives in La and I didn't get La. I am not sure where she lives at, where Nicole Kidman's Jillian Owens character lives at. She's definitely far away from Sandra Bullock Sally Owen's character, but I don't know exactly where they're at.

I kept thinking New England. Yeah, somewhere in the northeast, right, Yeah. Though the whole movie was shot in the Northwest. That was all shot shot outside of Seattle or in Washington on like this island there. So I'm like, okay, so it's an island.

And she even says like, oh, come out to the island. So when she said the island, I was like, are we a long island? Where are we at this stuff? And like how long does it take? Like where is Jillian?

Like there's that whole driving all night scene, which is pretty dar and cool. I like the special effects for that scene where you get to see Nicole Kidman just in one time and then the rest of the world is in another time and we see the sun rise from it being a nighttime scene. I thought that looked really cool. I thought a lot of this special effects worked a lot. But yeah, like the stuff with Jimmy just Is, it comes at a weird place, like this whole thing of we have to murder him and they murder him twice, whereas the guy just died in the book, I mean he did die because of Bella Donna, or at least they thought that he died of Bella Donna.

Later on you find out from Detective Gary that he didn't die at Belladonna, and they don't even know why he died. The whole thing with the ants too. The answer is such wonderful characters. I love Diane West, I love Soccer Channing. It's interesting because the movie is smart enough to know we need to keep these characters around a little bit longer than they are in the book, because they are right bastly the book ends in the book right.

It's wild to me the way they're treated in the book comparatively to the movie. Oh yeah, and like, oh well, we got to go to the Ants House and this stuff, like when they go to the Ants House, we don't really get what they do at the Ants House, but yeah, it's uh yeah. And just the appearance of Detective Gary is a weird spot in this one as well. It comes in like around like forty five minutes or so, which is this movie's an hour and forty four minutes, So it just feels pretty early, you know, feels a lot earlier than it should though in the book. He comes in, Like the book is about eight hours to listen to.

He comes in, I want to say, what two hours to go? He just kind of shows up. But there's a lot of other things that are going on. I understand we're going to collapse those for the movie and just try to keep the most important parts. I don't know if they do.

And like they really build up the Jimmy thing to be a lot more and this whole thing of the community and getting all of these other women on the school called round Robin thing that's nowhere to be found, Like they couldn't give a shit about any of their neighbors, really like, right, Sally does a good job of blending in. She doesn't have a potion shop with you know, these two other women and stuff. She's just a normal everyday person. I mean really, It's kind of The interesting thing to me is in the book she just rejects magic almost completely, and so to have her stirring her coffee cup with magic in this movie, I was like, no, no, that's not sadly, like, one of these two characters has to reject magic and then find that it's going to help her in the end, and neither of them do.

So that's the other thing that's interesting. And so later this month, I'm going to be talking about Halloween Town, which the mom in Halloween Town is is that character the way that Sally is in the book where it's like, yeah, you are the one who is apprehensive of this because you understand what that means. I mean, that's you know, ultimately, that's the thing here, right, And that's the thing we haven't talked about is the Mike, the Mark Firesteam character who is the initial Sandra Bullock husband who and we haven't mentioned the Beatle, the death Beatle, because there's a death Beatle in this movie that makes noise and it's a curse. So their mom heard the death beatle and then their dad died.

Yeah, and then she hears this, So the death beatle means that when you hear it, your significant other is going to die or you're gonna be fall tragedy. And so there's a scene early on where she's trying to find the beatle in her house and then her husband, like fake out, gets almost hit by bicyclers and then gets hit by a car, and that's what initially sets the movie into motion. But it almost feels like that's a different movie, like that could have been its own movie, Like that should have been its own movie, or at least the first third of this movie. Give this movie another twenty minutes and make a two hour movie out of it, but don't put it all in. Like the prologue of the movie.

It is very lazy. It's very like, and it robs us of like essentially caring about Mark Feierstein's character at all. He doesn't even get any lines. He gets sound but very few, and this whole thing of you know, when he dies, Jilling goes into a depression that lasts a year, and like in this one, it's what a scene. Yeah, she's very sad for not very long.

And also, to mind you, the aunts are the ones who make the romance happen on top of everything else. Which I don't remember that being in the book. No I don't either, which I really don't think that was the case. And that doesn't really work here because if that's the case, then how can there be a so there's a curse built into them using magic. Initially, like it almost seemed like it was more about, well, he's gonna he's gonna die, or you're gonna find somebody.

It's like, well she finds somebody because of them, and then he dies. Anyways, Like wait a second here, like none of the magic matters, is kind of what it feels like, and again Sally not and Sally believing in the magic and using the magic doesn't make any sense because again, the way the story is played, she would reject the magic because the magic is the reason he's going to die. Curses are magic, right, Like. Yeah, well and yeah she does that, like it really the whole thing of her casting the spell and saying I'm only gonna fall in love with the man who can flip pancake in mid air and has one blue eye and one brown eye and YadA, YadA, YadA, the Adrian why am I forgetting a say, Aiden Aiden Quinn character Dad is not there in the book and we don't really need that, like and also sorry to just keep comparing against the book, but in that early drafter the script, the Ben character is there.

So they keep this guy because really, this movie's kind of really sprews over Nicole Kidman's character because she's just a loser who goes out, fucks a bunch of guys, ends up with Goron Johnny Angel Love, and it's like she never gets a boyfriend, she never finds her romance, never finds her true love. Meanwhile, Sandra Bulloch gets two true loves. So it's like, all right, you know, like bring in that Ben character who was so important to the book and I loved him and I love that he was a magician, so you've got him doing all the parlor tricks, then you've got the magic. I thought that was a really nice contrast to have that character in there, and that he's kind of on the ounce with the ants. They're not sure what to think about this guy, but eventually proves himself and he's just such a lovable character and he robbed us of this guy.

Completely completely, and he's not in the movie at all, and it makes no it makes no sense. And why is Nicole Kidman's character Sideline like that? It's almost like it's it's almost like it's a Sandra Bullock romance film with Nicole Kidman as like a you know, as I her wingman, you know, her flucky sidekick, Lucky. I mean, it's plucky. It's just there's no I don't know, like as good as their chemistry is, it is definitely Sandra Bullock's movie.

And the book is not that way. It's their book, it's the sister's book. And I think that that's like, for me, the biggest failing of the movie is just not understanding the source material at its base core level, because, like you mentioned, Hell's Hoffman's written, how many books now practical back like this is kind of all she does. And okay, I don't blame her. Like when you're having your stuff adapted into movies and then people are begging for a sequel to the movie years later, to the point where we're still talking about a potential sequel happening in twenty twenty four, you know, twenty six years since this movie came out.

Yeah, there must have been something, and Alice Hoffman gets it. But I feel like the failure of this movie does come from it being just a very poor adaptation that again, Akiva Goldsman, his name's on it. It's not Nicole Kidman, it's not Sandra Bullock, that's for shirt. Yeah. Well, I mean the book is really a story of three sisters, three sets of sisters, I should say, between the aunts who are sisters, you know, Jillian and Sally, Sally, and then Jillian's daughters, so you can get like in Jillian's daughters kind of again barely in this and because because you see Jillian and Sally as young girls and then you see Sally's daughters later on, it is almost the same age.

I'm just like, are these the same girls? What? It's like? It was very confusing for me while I was watching this the first time. I was just like, did they use the same actresses?

Because they probably could have. I mean, really, they're just kind of placing these girls at almost the exact same age, so it feels like almost this movie now it's very it's like poetry or rhymes. It's very circular in the way that we go through these generations. But I you know, like we don't get that third generation. Really, those two girls are just met, they're just around.

It really doesn't matter. And the whole thing too of like the woman coming in and getting the love spell and all that, and killing the dove with the pins through the dove and all that. I'm just like, yeah, you got to show the consequence because they say, like, be careful what you wish for deer and the way that. So in the in the in the book, that woman is there, she works at a drug store. She wants this guy who's married to another woman, cast this love spell.

With the help of the odds. The guy becomes so enamored. It's one of those you know Genie curses where the guy becomes so enamored that she can't do anything. You know, she's just completely like, this guy will keep his hands off of me. I can't go to work, like it's just he is so infatuated with her that it's just a total pain in the ass.

And then you get this movie where Jimmy shows up and he can't keep his hands off of Salad. I mean, I couldn't either. It's the col Kidman in nineteen ninety eight, even Nicole Kidman, you know, twenty twenty four, Nicole Kidman twenty fifty four. You know, I'm going to be all about but it's just like he can't keep his hands off of her. And I was like, Oh, did he get this love spell?

Is there a love spell on him? Because he's just overly romantic? You don't really get this idea that he's such a prick right off the bat, and we really needed that. And like I just was like, oh, did they cast a spell on him? Because it was like too much, the performance was too much.

Yeah, I uh, I wish they had addressed that, but it doesn't seem like it. Yeah, but yeah, show me too that the there are consequences to these things, because really, I think that the husband who, yeah, like you said, barely gets any lines. I think we're mostly in voiceover from letters from Sally to Jillian, you know, other than than a few lines here and there. Yeah, he's dead, and I'm just like, Okay, I think they would have he always would have been faded to die pretty young, regardless of the curve of the spell. Well, and that's and that's the other thing is we never get the sense like I guess the curse or the spell just kind of works on its own time because the kids, their kids are like ten years old, like they're like kids like I have a perfect life.

And it's like wait a second here, like what when does the curse take when? What when does this take place? Like when when does anything happen here? It's just very convenient per the kind of construct of the story, and and and that and that's I think the other issue is like things just happen in this movie with not a lot of explanation. I mean, again, we don't really understand the rules of the magic, like you just alluded to, there's not any real repercussions for abusing the magic.

The sisters bring Goren back to life and then they kill him again, and so what. Not there in the book either not to be that guy, but that. Scene why added to a movie? If it doesn't add anything to the narrative. You can continue to be that guy all you like.

At the end of the day, the source the source material was a better version of the story. Well even Griffin Dunn. It is in the commentary, and the commentary is kind of interesting because it's Alan Silvestri the composer, it's Gryffin Done, and then it's Denise Danovi and Sandra Bullock. It's really oddly mixed though, because whenever Danovi and Bullock are on screen I can barely hear them over the sound of the movie. Hopefully, if they release This Side of Blue ray one of these days, so'll fix that.

But Done is like, well, you know, maybe I should have just gone from them, you know, killing him in the car to burying him in the garden and not had the whole resurrection thing. And I'm like, yeah, yes, that would have been better. That would have moved it along a little bit more, give me more time for other things that are more important. And I just the I guess it, is it supposed to be a sexual thing, or just that they don't have whatever they need so they use whipped cream on him. I'm like, that seems really in bad taste.

I was it supposed to be a sex thing? I don't know. I'm guessing that. But the way that she she puts her finger in the whipped cream and licks it off, I'm. Like, ew off of this dead guy.

Yeah, that's pretty gross, Sandy, what are you doing? Yeah? I don't know. It's that's the one weirdest scene in the whole movie. I'm like, why ish, what is?

Yeah? Yeah, I do like a good chain smoking a Cole Kidman though, Oh yeah, smoking kills, smoking kills. According to slot lights, done that, smoking kills. Jesus Christ, that's a that's a deep references for any of you real pieces of shit out there like that. Well, I think anybody who watches Indian films as seeing that quite a bad.

Oh. Yeah, but we're not talking about Indians, We're not. We're talking about Nicole Kibben nineteen ninety eight, Nicole Kidman, who apparently is fresh off a flight from Eyes Wide Shut. For whatever reason, I always put this movie in like nineteen ninety two territory, so that it's a nineteen ninety eight movie always throws me. And does it throw you even more that apparently Nicole Kidman couldn't handle that they were only doing like three or four takes because she had worked with Kubrick was seventy take man.

Yeah, Oh my god, good. Old Griffin Dunn just wants to do one or two takes we need to do twenty more. We're good. Yeah, she probably had PTSD. Yeah she has been over again for years.

At that point, I think, yep, yep, uh yeah, yeah, what a different movie from Eyes Wide Shut? I know, right, God, And she's and like you've already alluded to, like, Nicole Kidman is so good in everything right like and I'm you know, I'm not saying I'm a huge Nicole Kidman fan, but the things that I haven't seen her enough stuff to really have an opinion, she's good in this. I mean she's playing that like character perfectly, that character that she needs to play is perfectly written. Now Here's the thing is that the character the way I read her on the page, not really I didn't see her as Nicole Kidman. Really.

Sandra Bullock I could see as Sally, but Nicole Kidman I really couldn't see as the sister. Well in the I don't know, because I read or listened to the book after I saw the movie, so I kind of was putting her in there. But just the way that Hawkman is describing much all the women other than maybe the aunts, as being just dropped dead gorgeous, you know, especially like to think that Sally's gawky daughter who blossoms into this absolute gorgeous beauty. I kept thinking, like, oh, well, if her aunt is Nicole Kidman, she's gonna look a lot like Nicole Kidman. Evan rachel would apparently here.

Yeah, yeah, who. I still don't know all the details of the stuff that went down when she was a kid, but I think she went through a lot of hell, a lot. Of abuse Marilyn Manson. Was it just Marilyn or I don't, I mean a lot. I don't know beyond that that was the only thing I had ever heard.

I like Evan rachel Wood a lot. I mean, I know that you and I have our disagreements on Westworld, but. I thought she was great in West World. Yeah, she's, like I mean, of a show that has amazing actors. She's up there and she's sharing the screen with Anthony Hopkins and Jeffrey Wright in that show.

So yeah, she's great. Yeah, they don't give her enough to do. I don't think they don't give any of the child actors enough to do. And the child actors here are like good child actors, like I would almost even say like they're some of them are still working, so they've gone from being child actors to actor actors even so, Yeah, I. Mean it's great too, because you know, Diane West is still working and I haven't seen Stockard Channing in a little bit, but I know West was just in that prequel to Rosemary's.

Baby Apartment seven. A Wow, that you could remember that is pretty great. Yeah, sure, well I've seen plenty of ads for it because it looks just like Rosemary's Baby, but yeah, like a prequel. You know, well, if we're just gonna do it again, we'll just do it before and pretend that it happened once before and just don't interact with it all cares. And will know that the dancer kills herself because that's what we heard in Rosemary's Baby.

Yeah, well that you ruined the movie for me already. Mind. Oh god, dare you let me ask you something? What are you? Because I don't think we've ever covered one of her movies at least together, and I don't even all on this show if we've covered it.

Sandra Bullock thoughts. Yeah, I think she is a very solid actress, and I think that she's great because she can do drama very well. She can get that quiver in her voice very very well. And then she's just so frickin funny too. I mean some of the thrillers that she was in the early part of her career, like The Net that's pretty laughable.

Yeah, I love that. Yeah, I love the book, but at the movie leaves a lot to beate his lot here. I mean I even like some of the shitty things she was in, like Murdered by Numbers. Oh my God, is that the one with the gauze? Is that the Gosling movie?

I think it is. Yeah, I really like those miscongeniality movies. I really liked The Proposal. I kind of actually liked Bird Box, though I haven't ever watched it a second time. What's the one with her and Melissa McCarthy.

Oh, the Heat, The Heat. I thought that she was really freaking funny in there. And then I've even seen like some of those cheesy ones like The blind Side. I thought you was She handled the entire movie of Gravity incredibly well. Yeah.

I think she's very solid, and I like this whole kind of weird relationship she's gotten out with Pitt where she's like showing up in like cameo roles and like bullet Train and stuff. I'm like, Okay, that's cool. I don't know if it's like an Ocean's crossover or something, but yeah, I'm there for it. How about you? What are your thoughts on her?

I think she's Yeah, I think she's fine. I like her in most things I've seen her in. Miss Congeniality is pretty great. Yeah. Her early nineties stuff, I think, to your point, pretty bizarre all over the place.

Inconsistent is a nice way of putting it. I saw The Lost City, which was kind of fun. I think that's her in Channing set her in Channing Tatum. That's a lot of fun. Yeah, yeah, that's that's fun.

I mean she can be funny. I mean, look, there's a reason they cast her as the George Clooney opposite in that Ocean's eight movie that I believe is getting a sequel. Is it going to be nine? I don't know. They've got like two numbers until they run into the other series.

Yeah. Well, and I'm waiting for Danny Ocean to be alive because that's also what was hinted at in that movie. So, and look, I think that she's remarkably charismatic as an actress, and I like her a lot. All About Steve, though, is pretty rough as a watch. Yeah, yeah, there's definitely rough ones in there, you know.

Even as recently as two thousand and nine, like that movie is you know, that movie is a fucking rough watch. She essentially plays like a mentally disabled person, which is in bad taste now if it was ever in good taste then, And Bradley Cooper is like being stalked by her. It's it's fucking horrifying. But other than things like that, I think Sandra Bullock's fine. It's just don't don't watch that movie expecting anything other than like an hour and a half of just cringing.

What's someone called again? All about Steve? Yeah, Bradley Cooper plays like a weather man, I think, and she's like stalking him. With a title like that, I would have thought it was absolutely hilarious. Yeah, totally.

It's like Bradley Cooper Ken Geong Thomas Hayden Church like from one of the producers of Miscongeniality, I'm pretty sure is like the tagline the movie. Even so you didn't tell me. DJ Qualis is on. This Oh the new guy The New Guys. Oh, I've seen that movie.

I love The New Guy That's a good movie. That's a good movie. Yes, Sandra Bulle's fine. I think Sandra Bullock is one of those actresses who, as as we've already like clearly talked about, like, she can move within several kinds of genres. She can be serious, I mean, she's an Academy Award winning actress, and then she can be funny, and then she can kind of do other things, utilitarian things, like you know, horror movies.

I think it's Birdbox. I have yet to see bird Box. I didn't get swept up in the hype of bird Box. But Ocean's movies are kind of thriller, actiony movies, and she was fun in that. So yeah, I think she's great.

I don't think that this movie gives anyone enough to do, but I think if it gives well, I think it gives everyone but one person not enough to do. I think it gives Sandra Bullock the bulk majority of the movie, frankly, which I think is fine. I think to your point though already, and I would further hammer it home. The version of the character as she appears on screen is not like the version of the character in the book, And the version of the character in the book is a lot more interesting and nuanced than the version that we see in the movie. And that's because the version that we see in the movie just doesn't have that internal conflict that the one in the book does.

And she needed something because she's not even, like you said, she's not even sad enough about her husband for very long, and she's literally talking in the missives to her sister about how perfect her life is, and then all of a sudden, her perfect life is ruined and she's just sad for like a day. Yeah, yeah, I mean, I guess she's dropping the girls off with the ants because she's so depressed. But it really doesn't. That doesn't come across very well. This movie lacks the ability to show us periods of time passing.

This movie has a hard time establishing how long things are taking, because there's a point where it seems like Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kimman are time traveling, like across the United States. It's magic, but they're driving cars. Magic in cars. You say it, I completely agree, because I'm like, oh, like, even when she shows up at Sally's place and we've seen the driving sequence. I was still like, is she really there or is Sally dreaming?

Because you see the part where she's like holding her hand and touching the scar and the other one's touching her scar and they say each other's names, like okay, well, if they are magic, which they are, why are they you know, they should just be able to collapse that space and like they have a conversation under sheets here at one point I was like, well, this is perfect. And then when she comes up from under the sheet, her sister's gone, like it was just an astral projection type of. Thing, like in Star Wars with the Kylo Rennety. Exactly, yeah, exactly, or you know Luke Skywalker being able to take on the entire Imperial Army as a as an astral projection. Right, anything like that, you know from those good Star Wars movies that we love to the one the best ones, yes, yeah, the ones that we love.

Yeah, yeah. I don't I don't understand why these missed opportunities weren't taken advantage of because the script doesn't serve the plot of the book, even like it's just it's it's not concerned with what the book is concerned with. And I think Alice Hoffman's book, you know, I read it, say read it last year towards the end of the year, Like I was like, Wow, the movie is kind of a pale comparison even to this. And the movie has its problems. I mean, the movie is kind of like paste, really weird, and it has no ability to kind of set its characters in reality in terms of like ground them somewhere for more than five minutes.

Please, movie, I think you're having a hard time with giving us like a sense of time and space here. But I don't think Griffin Dunn did a poor job directing. No, I don't think so either. It's just a shame because it's not that this is the most high profile thing he's worked on, but this is definitely a thing that, like, I think a lot of people have a lot of fondness for, and I think for a lot of people this might be like this probably is the biggest thing he's directed, I guess in my approximation. Unless I don't know something that people really love addicted.

To love, they may I don't know if I've ever seen that. Was that like Matthew Broderick and Meg Ryan. What I really think they love is Movie forty three. Oh right, yes, that's what it is, the movie where Hugh Jackman has a ball sack on his chin exactly exactly. God, I think I watch one of his called Fierce People at a film festival.

If that's the same one. Nah, No, I didn't see this. Why, I saw another one that he directed at a film festival, And yeah, I mean and he's very competent director, lovely guy. Yeah, one of the best fucking After Hours for fuck's sake, like one of my absolute favorite movies. He is the star of that movie, and he's the best part of that movie because he's so good in it, Like.

And hey, if anybody ever gives me their time for an interview like he did, it's like, yeah, great, fantastic person, because I appreciate it, even though he was in a cab and talking to me that way. Well, better than not at all, better than not. At all exactly better than using the bathroom at Starbucks in Manhattan, which one a actor from the thing did to me once, so oh nice. Oh yeah, yeah, but yeah, no, I thought it was very competently directed. I think it looks gorgeous, you know, like.

A great cozy movie. Oh yeah, I mentioned the drive all Night sequence. I thought that looked good. I kind of touched on the Goren ghost. I think that looked really good as well.

It almost reminded me a little bit of The Frighten Nurse, which was interesting. Did that come out That came out right before, well, a couple of years before this. Yeah, but they weren't using a wetta. For this, I don't think now, but it has that same feel, right, Yeah, it's the glow, right. Yeah.

I don't think the ghost stuff was really that necessary, and especially to have it happen twice with the possession. The possession happens twice, right, and then he's kind of not necessarily possessing them but influencing them when they're having the midnight mark aritas and they start ripping at each other and then they start to sing the same song that he was singing the night he died. So I was like, okay, you know, I thought that was really nice, that kind of subtle influence. But I don't think we needed the ghost and the whole thing of him coming up and stuff. I liked that the ghost in the book was just out in the garden and by those lilacs, and then they chopped down the lilacs, which become roses here and then eventually grows back as like these incredible thorns that grow like two feet every hour or something.

I was like, Yeah, that's dangerous. That that's really cool that it's in your own garden. You have to take care of this stuff. No, instead, we just have to have the most obvious choice. Yeah, in that way too.

Gary gets to see it and experience it and then says that the girls are innocent as opposed to like doing detective work. Well, he can't be that smart of a character. No. And then I still don't know if they actually conjured him up, you know in the book. No, he wasn't conjured.

He wasn't part of a spell in the movie. I honestly don't know if Dayan Weist and Stocker Cheney didn't conjure him. It didn't put some sort of spell on him, because he is everything that she said in that spell earlier in the movie. Interesting, I had never even thought about it there, huh uh. I mean after that happened once, I would probably never trust those ants again.

Well that okay, So that's the other thing, right, And that's the weird kind of relationship that the movie doesn't like you just kind of alluded to. The movie doesn't really acknowledge that. Like there again, I kind of tried to allude to it earlier. They're the reason she meets this guy and then he died because they know it's going to hand curse. Yeah, and they let it happen, like I don't.

I mean again, I understand why she's maybe not that upset, but like they kind of let all this happen to you, and they kind of in a lot of ways like enabled it to happen if not caught. Like again, we don't even know caused it to happen out right, because Yeah, the Aiden Quinn character doesn't even seem like a real person in a lot of ways. No, the way he shows up, and I found it interesting that he actually goes away in the in the book that he leaves for a while and he actually gives the case to somebody else who he knows is not going to be as competent, and then he actually even covers for them. It's like, okay, yeah, that's quite a bit different than this where he's not going to cover for her, and he's not.

They're not nearly as love struck, you know, like he has just completely decided himself. And that's also in the book. Why I'm like, well, was he you know, like, did they cast a spell on him just because he reads that letter and just immediately fall in love with our But yeah, I don't know, big time debate with that one, but yeah, it's just I don't see him being nearly the detective that he is even in the book. And I love his backstory too, the whole thing of like his grandfather being hit by lightning and all this stuff and how he almost gets hit by lightning because there's this big reunion and a storm. None of that.

I mean, this is like prime romance type reading stuff where he's you know, running through like she's in the rain and running over to his car at the hotel and like watches him come back from the Fried Chicken place and they sit in the car forever and then you know, it's just like, yes, this is great. Like the lights the rain, I mean, the whole end of the book takes place during this massive deluge where they're gonna get you know, flooded out and everything and That's one of the problems too, is that Jimmy's body is starting to come up from the ground because of all the. Rain, right, But I think it's more important to just forego all of that. Yeah, who cares? Really?

By the way, when she receives the letter at the end of the movie, it says that they are on Maria's Island, Maine. So they are they are in Maine. I mean, well, where else do you set a story with witches. You're gonna set it in the Northeast, right, If not Massachusetts, then Maine, right, or Maine or I guess Maine solely. You set all stories about witches in Maine or Massachusetts, right, Like, yes, I guess so, or just maybe just Maine, I guess.

I don't know, Like yeah, yeah. At the end when they it's so the end, I really the end of the movie is so cutesy, right where they're all standing on top of the house. Huh yeah, yeah, wearing the actual witch's outfits. And they all and then they all fly away, right. It's yeah, they just jump off and then they.

Lamp so everybody now knows they're witches, right. Yeah, I guess so. I mean, because she comes out. That's an interesting thing how they use the gay terminology for her admitting that she's a witch. Thank you for mentioning that.

I was gonna if you weren't gonna mention it, I was what a weird co opting? Huh? Yeah? Yeah. And this is the late nineties, like In and Out has come out already, right.

Uh yeah, yeah, I want to say that was like ninety four, ninety five something like that. Yeah, to call it like coming out about being a witch, I don't think that's what that means. I don't think that's what that means. Andre look like Yeah. Again, not in the book, created solely for the movie, right, I don't think they use that.

That's that's the thing. I mean, so much of what Alice Hoffman does in the book is just giving us reasons why the characters are doing what they're doing in the movie, which in the movie we're given no explanation. So it's like, why are they doing this? Oh, well, you have to read the book. Well I don't need to read the book.

I shouldn't have to read the book. The movie should stand on its own as its own thing. And that's I mean, that's the thing I feel like ultimately about this movie that I think the movie kind of gets away with is the setting is so good the film, Like the quality of the film at least, like I'm talking about, like the fact that it's filmed on film, it has that nice glae to it, It's it's filmed in the Northeast, and it has two really charismatic leads. Like, the movie gets away with a lot. It really does.

Like for as kind of lackluster as I think most of the movie is in terms of like the plot, the specifics of the plot, it really gets a lot out of its two leads. And I think that that's you know, I think that if you're Griffin Dunne, you're thinking, well, Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman, this is a layup, and in a lot of ways it was. I mean, the movie is getting a sequel at some point. It's still rather well regarded, even if the movie itself doesn't necessarily live up to I think the way people remember this movie even as it were. But you know, I think you could do worse at Halloween time.

It really could. I mean, the movie didn't make a lot of money in theaters with seventy five million dollar budget, which where did that money go? Yeah, Nicole Kidman may get paid twenty five million dollars to be in this movie, Like holy shit for real. Like building that huge facade maybe, and that I mean the sense the interior sets look fantastic. The exterior with that house and garden looks amazing.

Yeah. And I didn't realize there was such a cult around this. Like, as I was doing my research, I just kept coming across these articles like you know, things that you missed in Practical Magic when you saw it as a kid, and all the End'm like, oh, people watch this as a kid, okay, And then as it goes on, I'm like, oh, okay, I can see now. I could see people getting into this movie. I could see people really liking it.

I could see people, you know, oh, Midnight Margerita, mid Night Margarita's It's like, okay, yeah, we get it, you know. But yeah, I didn't realize that there was that cult around it. And for whatever reason you mentioned hocus Pocus earlier. Seeing those little girls at the end and their witch's hats in this so remind me of who is it thora birch in right, hocus Pocus with her like witchy outfit and stuff. I'm like, Okay, Witch came first, and I think it was hocus Pocus.

So that's that's the other thing. I love hocus Pocus more than I love this now, Oh, I can understand that. And because I think that hocus Pocus actually like is a horror movie for kids, and I actually think it's it's a horror I actually think it's a horror movie that kids can watch. I'm not sure it's a horror movie for kids. Like, I think they toned that movie down sufficiently to make it for the for the right crowd.

But directed by Mick Garris, right like or is it written by Mick Garris's either written? I think it's either written by Mick Gerris or directed by Mick Garris. Or no, I think it's directed by Kenny or Taga. Maybe I forget who it is. But Mick Grris is involved directly in it.

And that's always one of those things where it's like, this is not for kids, Like it's you know, they tone it down enough and they kind of pull back at the right times, and this movie could have used some of that. Actually, Like, this movie could have used a little restraint. You'll be happy to know, though, I'm assuming you saw this while doing your research, that Kiva Goldsman returning to write the script for Practical Magic too. Yeah, isn't that a good thing that you wanted to know and hear. That's something that I just was hoping against hope that he would be back to weave some more of his magic.

Hokus Pokus was directed by Kenny Ortega, with a screenplay by Mick Garris, so story by Mick Garris as well. Even so, it may sound like I'm coming down on this movie and I kind of ahim, but I can definitely see why people would like it and why they would forgive it. It's flaws. I don't think any of these flaws are like glaring kind of thing, you know. I just I think it could have been a little bit better paced.

I don't think it could have been better acted, because I think that all the performances in here are very solid. I really genuinely don't like Goren, but that's mostly just because of like the other rules that he played. Wasn't he on er and he was like such a dreamy doctor and stuff. I have no idea. I've seen him in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo where he plays like live Solander's boss, lys Lander's boss.

That's it. He is a fucking just gorgeous man, just fucking as beautiful as these women are in here. He is as gorgeous and and Quinn has nothing to sneeze at either. This is probably one of the best looking casts that you get in a movie. Oh yeah, it's kind of like nineteen ninety nine's The Mummy, Like, for the most part, everybody's good looking, unfairly so.

I mean even Mark Fire's team, Like good looking guy would go on to be the lead of his own show for like a decade. Was that Royal Royal Pains? Is that what it was called or whatever the hell? That was like an FX show that was on there with burn Notice speaking of shows that just existed for a decade that people watched. Yeah, I watched it every episode.

Really, Yeah, I'm a huge bird notice guy. Yeah, but like that, I mean, you're right, everybody in this everybody in this cast is good looking. Everybody in this cast is well casts. It's just you have a Kiva Goldsman's name on the screenplay, You're not going to get very far. And I wonder if the upcoming sequel, which is more than likely happening.

I wonder if it's going to suffer similarly because it's being based on a more recent book of hers, on top of everything else, being based on a book that she wrote like three years ago. Interesting, it's almost then. I mean, I have too many things to read. If I didn't have too many things to read, I would actually be interested in carrying on with these sisters and reading that next book. Well this, yeah, so the book that is being adapted is the fourth book in the series for the next movie.

Even so, yeah, there's been three books since the first one came out, So yeah, I would be as well, Like like you said, like, there's other things I want to do and other things I want to read and watch. So this is in at the top of my list. But the book versions of these characters and the book story as it were, I think is more compelling for me than this is. And that's just because again, like I think it's focused on something else. I don't know what this movie's focused on, other than giving Sandra Bullock plenty of time to be cute.

Like I just Sandra Bullock is, like I don't know, like her character is so kind of flat in this movie. I just keep coming back to how flat her character is, which is a shame because Sandra Bullock rarely known for playing flat characters. Like, that's not why you hire someone like Sandra Bullock, even in nineteen ninety eight. Yeah, I agree, but hey, you know what, I think it's still a movie worth checking out. There's not anything else like it, at least not for a while until there's another one.

But you know, Griffin Dunn won't direct it, so there'll be that Stockard Channing and Dian Weist. Maybe they'll come back. I guess they probably will, Nicole Kiedman and Sandra Bullock probably. I mean, just get everybody back, right, God, bring Goren back, just for shits and giggles, right, Who cares? Yeah, who cares?

The ghost of Jimmy? The ghost of Jimmy who's hanging out outside and slowly makes his way inside the house, which I just love the whole metaphor of that. Well, and again, like if the movie was more interested in actually looking at the things that Alice Hoffman was getting at in the book, I think the movie would have reflected it. I just think Akiva Goldsman just takes it all out of the script because there's no subtlety with this man's work. I mean again, to go back to the I am legend of it all.

That story is like one of the most poorly adapted things I've ever read, Like it is such a bad way of adapting that story, and that goes directly to Akiva Goldsman. So everything's based on a book with Akiva Goldsman, even the things, though he's right every now and then there you go, cool, take Damon Lindelof, Right, would you take Damon lindel Off or Akiva Goldsman if you if you have someone writing a script. For you, that's a real tough nut. Wow, right, I know. I've seen a Kiva Goldsman's name on far more unproduced things.

But then again, his career has been going on for quite a long time. It's like he wrote Hanktock fuck no, or he produced Hanktock. I don't know if he wrote it, damn it. He's in behind some real shitty thanks. And then he did something really good, like fucking Constantine.

I love Constant Tine. Well, Damon Lindeloff did something I like Prometheus, which I know no one else is a big fan of and I would actually take Prometheus over anything. Akiva Goldsman is done, period, How was it? Aliens ain't great? No, it's actually pretty Baday, Cowboys and Aliens is so bad it almost might just completely disregard my quality statement about Prometheus because man.

Fuck Theaman foreverman a Robin. I Robots. I actually, if we're talking, if we're talking Will Smith movies between I Robot and I am legend. I will take Eye Robot robot every day. Yes, yes, I still own a pair of leather Converse because of I Robot.

I like Eye Robot a fair amount. Actually, Alan Tudgik, the voice of the robot in that movie. Yeah, yeah, that's a good movie. And he also wrote a lot of Fringe, which I like a lot too. Yeah, me too.

He has his moments. Let's say that, but then Winter's Tale, but then the Dark Tower. Yeah, let's go back to the Dark Tower. I mean that's just like and that's one of those things where it's like we've been waiting so long and then you just fart that out. But hey, Constantine's sequel coming soon, supposedly keeve A Goldsman.

Involved, Yeah, are boy, Keanu coming back. It's gotta be right. Sure, hope. So don't don't take that guy from the TV show. Don't tempt me with a good time.

I know you're gonna make a fucking Constantine movie. You better give us Keanu Reeves. Otherwise, don't make the damn thing. Shia better be back. And we saw him at the very end of that movie Matilda Black Angel Wings.

Matilda come back or no? Is she dead? I don't remember? No, she's there? Please John, show me your anger.

I've been so bright. I want to rewatch that movie. I haven't seen that movie in a while. Jam and Hans sus in there. Oh yeah, oh yeah.

What a goodie. And Peter Stormer as the devil. Oh yes, oh I got no eyebrows. He just looks yeah god walking around with this like weird white suit with his like black dripping goo yeah yeah, beerfooted. Yeah.

Yeah. I wish we were I mean, I wish I kind of wish we were talking about that right now. What about Dylan Dogg. You'd rather talk abou Dylan Dogg. Sure that we got that episode.

We sure did a very long time, many moons agos and it feels like, you know, that's the thing. Practical Magic is kind of in that same vein of these other like Halloween or Halloween adjacent movies that they have their fan bases, and I don't blame them, Like there has not been another movie like this. It is a witchy movie. That is the reason the person who I let program this month picked it is because they're into witches and black cats and familiars and all that stuff. And this movie is kind of like fucking inject that shit right into my veins.

It's like a distill lid of that And so I totally get it. Will I ever watch this movie again? No, But I can objectively sit here and say that I understand why when the Halloween season comes around, or anytime you want to put yourself in a little bit of that mood. This is kind of up there in that class of movies to watch, right, Like, I totally get it. Yeah, that doesn't mean it's a good movie.

It just means it makes you feel a certain way, which in a lot of ways that means it's probably not a good movie. That means it's a great movie at doing one specific thing. It doesn't have to be a technically good movie to make you feel strongly a certain way every time you watch it, because there are plenty of great movies out there that don't make me feel a goddamn thing. So you know this movie. I understand if you want to put it on to put yourself in the season, but I am done watching Practical Magic unfortunately, other than maybe the sequel, which I think I will check out just on the off chance that it actually does happen.

Yeah, I can see myself donating the DVD that I've paid four forty four to four well. A good cause, maybe your local good will somebody will enjoy it, you know. There you go. Yeah, exactly. And as far as I know, it's not out on Blu Ray, which is very odd.

Maybe it is I just didn't see it, or maybe it doesn't have the special features that the DVD had. I don't think it's out on Blu Ray. Really. That's very surprising, because like I said, there's a big fan base for this. Well give it time.

If a sequel comes out, you'll be getting that. Blu Ray baby, so yeah, and then you'll get the double pack. That's right, maybe even get a new commentary, new features making Practical Magic. Oh boy, good lord. Well we'll get funkal pops and everything.

When the new movie comes out, it'll be it'll be a marketing blitz krieg. Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice. It looks like it's out on Blu Ray in Italy, but does. That technically count from one Italian to a bunch of. Others Antes and Testiny.

Yes, yeah, great, that's why we should have watched the Italian dub of Practical Magic. Oh there you go, Beli Belie. Comedy double feature Practical Magic and which is a Bastwick. So yeah, I just I got hung up on that DVD. So there is a Blu Ray, but it's a double feature Blu Ray.

Yeah, it doesn't look like it's a very good Blu Ray. But well, I mean it has never been up. It has been never given a conversion to Blu Ray that it probably deserves, is a better way of putting it. There you go, Yeah, well it's been it's not and that's the thing. It'll probably be given a proper release by somebody if the sequel comes out more.

I mean, I wouldn't be surprised. So so Mike. Final thoughts on Practical Magic. Yeah, it was very interesting to go in and kind of figure out more about this movie, why it was the way that it was, some great talents behind it, some not so great talents behind it, and a lot of greats in front of the camera. If you like this movie, I hope you don't hate us for not liking it as much as you did.

But hey, you know, everybody's got different tastes, and I can again, I can really see where this might hit with a lot of people. Just didn't hit for me. How about you, Chris? Yeah, I you know, if not for if not for my life taking some turns that I could not have expected, I probably would be watching this movie every year until the day that there's very little left of my ability to comprehend what I'm watching. But that is not the case, folks.

So this is probably, in a cathartic way, the last time I ever need to watch it. And now I have the recording of how I felt about it, so I can always encapsulate that like a sports card forever kept in a space that has no oxygen. So yeah, I don't know. I mean, like I said, you kind of alluded to it's it is a perfectly competent film. I think it is well acted.

I think it is well made. I think the people that are involved in the movie clearly enjoyed themselves making it. I can tell that the cast enjoyed working with one another. Everybody seems like their chemistry was palpable and real. But yeah, I mean, I like yourself, I understand why people like this movie.

I similarly probably have no need to ever rewatch it, but I can understand. Like I said before, when the spooky season comes around, there are worse movies that you could put on than this one. And I think, you know, maybe if you're looking to show your kids something that's maybe a little horror adjacent, maybe to kind of test the waters, you could do worse than something like this. I'm not sure how much kids would be into this movie. You might be biting an uphill battle, but you know, you could do worse, I think.

But they're more kid leaning things horror wise, even better than this in my opinion. But if you want to see Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman together, you can't do it anywhere else, which is a pretty big plus. So on that note, we'll take a break and we'll play a preview for the next Culture Cast. From weirding Way Media, Cambridge and with Shawn is a podcast about two guys obsessions, passions and hobbies. Those two guys are.

Mark Bigley, host of Wick Up Heavy Recollections of Horror. And Ronald Zuriggian, host of the Skelevator YouTube channel. Each month, we talk about the toys, comics, movies, books, TV shows, and other cultural phenomena that captured our imaginations and helped shape who we are today. From Masters of the Universe to Saturday Night Live Star Wars, to Harry Houdini The Muppets to The Elephant Man. Ronnie and Mark dive deep into the recesses of their minds to pull out treasured memories of things lost but never forgotten.

Join us on the first Tuesday of each month over at Weirdingwaymedia dot com or wherever you listen to podcasts. Join me Jamie Benning on the Filmmentaries podcast, particularly if you enjoy stories like designer Nilo Rhodis Jamiro convincing George Lucas to push him around to help gain the support of his crew on the Ailing Howard the Duck. Plam, The Door opens, It's George, Everybody Gas. George makes a bee line to me, I'm literally back against the wall or here puppeteer Tim Rose's emotional story behind that iconic amerl acbar shot in Return of the Jedi. I believe it or something to be proud of, not to celebrate.

Or how star was. Editor Paul Hirsch tackled cutting so many successful films. The thing that I learned from work with the Palm is that tension depends on a clock. You need to have the sense that time is running out. Maybe Oscar winning sound designer Mark Manginie's insightful chat about his work on Blade Runner twenty forty nine.

Not a single sound from the original Blade Runner in the new film, A great deal of inspiration. That's the film Youmentary's podcast with me Jamie Benning. Hello, Twisted Humans. Do you find yourself wanting to know more about the latest murder, conspiracy, cult or haunting. Than this is the podcast for you.

In nineteen fifty two, there was a record high of UFOs reported fifteen hundred sightings. There has been evidence of human sacrifice, double worship, and it is haunted by more spirits than can be counted. A family of two adults and two kids reportedly saw a giant flying thing with glowing red eyes. And meanwhile, the family's nanny that helped Veronica to care for her and Lucian's children, was found bludgeon to death in the basement of their family home. I'm Alicia and I'm Sierra and this is twisted and uncorked.

Marney Cram's family can't be normal. Grandmother is a witch totally and she lives in Halloween Town. We're Halloween all the time. Halloween it's cool. Well battling and evil shadow creature is not normal.

It's normally exactly overrated. I not more about Marty Kromwell's family Straight Powers, Powers Power. In the Saturday premiere of Busineys, the origin of a movie, Halloween towns right out of the Next Culture, guess we're gonna be talking about yet another semi family Halloween movie. We're gonna be talking about Halloween Town, which is a Disney Channel original movie also featuring a family of which is in magicians, so very similar to this. I'm going to be joined by our dear friend from disc Connected, mister Ryan Barrow Unterer.

Then where can people find you and the things that you work on? Mister Mike White. Just about everything that I work on Chris is available at Weirderwaymedia dot com. That's everything other than Rank and on Bond, which is a show that is available on your Patreon at Patreon dot com. Slash Culture Cast in my Patreon, which is available at patreon dot com, slash Projection booth, that's where we talk about James Bond with our dear friend, mister Richard had him once a month every well, yeah, every thirty ish days.

You know, if we meet every month twenty eight days, we wouldn't have to worry about all this shit. We would just have It would be perfect, it would work out so well. But we can't do that. It's like making it difficult to type out a keep on a typewriter. You know, you got to throw some some blockers in there.

But yes, go on over listen to us talk about James Bond every month, day in, month in month out. As Mike just said, Patreon dot com is where you can find the content that you can't find it. Weirdingwaymedia dot com. Culture Cast on Patreon, Projection Booth on Patreon, Father Malone on Patreon. We'll throw him in there.

You should support any any one of us who you get content from financially. If you can't do it financially because times is hard, I get it, you can always head on over to iTunes like rate and review any of the Weirdingway media shows. That helps all of us out, I promise, And yeah, Mike, thank you so much for joining me. This has been great. I mean, you know, a little bit of a catharsis never hurt anybody, and you know, kind of I'm due for it, I guess, but I'm glad that you were motivated to pick this because otherwise I don't I didn't see anybody else jumping in the line as it were, to rock their body in time to some practical magic.

So yeah, thank you for joining me. This is you know, I think I think that if Beetlejuices is is the movie that guys can get behind, this might be the female Beetlejuice in a way, you know, kind of got that vibe to it, right, like it's fun, spooky, but it doesn't try to do much. And we're getting a sequel thirty years later, so jokes on us. So as always, we'll catch you on the next episode.