The Princess Diaries

Weird, weir. I'm excited to talk about Princess Diaries, but and and what's funny is I guess I realized I had seen this movie a lot growing up, but not in a way that like I was sitting and watching it, but more to the idea that in my family's house, the kitchen and the living room is open floor planned, so if you were in the kitchen and someone had something on in the TV in the living room, you would hear it or see it. And so I feel like my sister must have watched this movie a lot, because there are parts of this movie that I distinctly remember, and as I rewatched it for the episode, I was like, oh my god, I remember so much more of this than I really remembered, like or even anticipating, because I don't know, like this movie came out when I was eleven.

I'm thirty four now, so that's a long time. It's been at least twenty years since I've seen this movie, so it's pretty long time. It's been a long time since I've seen it. And I realized as I was watching it that most when I would think of this movie, I would be thinking of things. Perhaps it happened in the second one and not on the first one.

It was so interesting as we went through it. So yeah, yeah, I worked on this movie. I was at Disney when this movie came out and I was in marketing, so uh, I created the website for this movie. That's amazing. Wow, see if it's still out there, it is gone.

I looked on the way back machine. Didn't naive it well because all of those websites at the time, everybody was building websites and flash because that was what we built to make them look flashy, and that was the standard for movie websites. And they're almost all gone now because they just don't hold up to updates because nobody uses flash anymore. It's it's kind of a I mean, it's kind of a shame that the like the age of the movie website has gone away too, because I remember plenty of movie websites that had all kinds of wild shit, like like games, you could play Easter egg type stuff, and like now it's like, man, we don't care. And it's not that I don't care, but I think they're they're much more interested in spending money elsewhere.

I guess, like paying influencers to show up at things. I guess that's the kind of replace the The website is just the social media of it all. Yeah, the website is the social media, and I was it was interesting to be there when you know, MySpace was definitely had had become the power player in the space social media wise, but Facebook had just when I was leaving, Facebook was basically taking over and was about to kill my Space, so like two thousand and seven, two thousand and eight. Yeah, So I never really I never really visited the websites for movies or TV shows when that was when that was the thing. I just didn't for whatever reason.

I guess I just figured they were still out there, that there still were pages set up for things. And I mentioned I just finished rewatching Showgun, and apparently there is a website with all sorts of great content that I have yet to visit, but still supposedly it exists. But they still typically do stuff for franchise like there's Star Wars dot Com and there's and they become when they moved to franchises like the One of the last big jobs I did was for DreamWorks on Dragons Too, to create the Dragons franchise site and I was sort of brought in because they were moving to a franchise model and had not done that before, and so we built a site to last for basically, they wanted to last for three years.

I said, you can't promise three years on the internet, but I can give you two for sure. And and it's was around. It may still be around. Actually it was around for a long time, and that model was used for some of their other trolls and things like that in the early days. I don't know that it's still up because again that was Dragons two times.

So it's a long time in the world of digital media. I'm I just pulled up the show that the Shogun web site. It's on the FX Networks site. It's I guess a subset of that, and it's got all kinds of stuff here that I may spend some time, not today than tomorrow, diving deep into because I'm obsessed. I have to admit it.

It's it's it just it just completely has took over my life for a few weeks, and certainly over the weekend. I think it's been like a month. Held Moost because last time I talked to you, you were talking about it. Well, they were dropping it one episode a week, and it's it aired, began airing end of February, and they just aired the final episode last week, and it's it's for me a perfect example of why I like the weekly release as opposed to the big drop, because my life would have stopped if I if all ten episodes were out there and I had things other things to do. I wasn't at a time when I really could have my life stop so I could watch this like I wanted to.

But and you don't have time to to think about it, absorb and all that other kind of stuff that you do when it's a weekly thing for something like this, in particular with the richness that it has. So anyway, I love I love that I had to give eight hours of my life immediately to fall out on Amazon Crime because they just dropped all eight episodes. Now I'm with you. I think that like even to just talk about like the way you advertise things like It's to bring it back, like kind of towards the movie we're talking about, the idea of dropping something all at once and then not being able to capitalize on the advertising for eight weeks is kind of insane because like we've kind of already alluded to they don't really make movie websites anymore, but for the longest time, for what like a decade, that was the premier way to advertise your movie or your TV show or whatever is sort of project you were working on it in this space.

And now now I think everything is exactly that. It's like fx dot com and then you can go to the page. So it all feels kind of of a piece. It's not its own thing anymore. And so much is now on social So the the instead of trying to get people to a destination site, because you lose on every clique right right, if you're trying to get people somewhere every clinic, you lose half your people.

They just just do because people are busy. So you know when now you can look up showtimes too, I mean get buying tickets and showtimes and all that stuff is super easy to do now if the internet was working, you know, correctly, it should be super easy to do. It used to be super easy to do about five years ago, but it just is a different time. But it was such an interesting time to be at Disney, to be in digital marketing, which was then called internet marketing but had many names. It was like new media, but it was the time where you were you know, you spent a good portion of your day building decks to prove that advertising on the internet and spending money on the Internet was valuable and was important.

And the Princess Diaries was such an interesting time for Disney because it was back when they made very charming live action films that were in kind of an old school way, and they did a lot of them, and they did were very successful with it. They were these were not super expensive films, but they all almost all did very well. Susan, you brought us all that. You beat me to it. The transition on this episode of the Culture Cast.

If you've clicked on it, you know that we're talking about the Princess Diaries, but you may not know who these two are. This is Sharon and Susan from Eighties TV ladies. Hi, this is Sharon and this is Susan. It sounds like a ad for your show. It almost sounds like an ad for your I've heard that ad before.

I almost said welcome to Eighties two, and I was like, I'm just gonna go there. Before we talk about Princess Diaries. If the listeners of this show, for some reason, having found y'all show, what would they find on eighties TV ladies if they were to go looking at eighties TV ladies. We look back at female driven television shows from the nineteen eighties from a modern feminist perspective. We do also sometimes cover the seventies and nineties, and we have on a lot of guests, and sometimes it's just Sharon and I talking and giving you information about the films or mostly our opinion about the TV shows that we watched and how they look now.

But we also have amazing guests on from these shows, either in front of or behind the camera, and modern television makers talking about the shows that inspired them. The first season we cover Scercronis Is King, Remington, Steele, and Cagney and Lacey. Second season it was It's a Living otherwise known as Making a Living. We also covered Moonlighting, and we're in the process of finishing up our coverage of our starting our coverage actually of a Different World. Yes, we have almost finished recording it, so that's why we but we haven't dropped it yet.

So we're starting a Different World and soon. And we also covered designing women, and now we're crafting season three trying to figure out what we're going to cover. I knew i'd forgotten something, but for the life of me, forgetting designing Women. Really, Sharon, I know, that's that's a you, Sharon. I mean, I can't believe it.

So I was actually looking through where I take my notes and I last night, and I came upon the notes from the first time you and I talked about eighties TV ladies three years ago now almost, and it was crazy because I was like, oh my god, like, look look at how much of this was there even then. So I'm I'm always very proud of y'all's show, and we're, you know, being nominated for awards and such. So hopefully y'all won the Webby. I don't know, we didn't win the win. We didn't.

We were nominated. You came in second, right, I mean, well, we were coming in second in the People's voice. We don't know what we came in final because they turn off. Oh sure right before. But I think we were second because we were one second the whole time.

Yeah, the whole time. Hey, you know what second is that there's only one other better than second. That's first, so you know, yeah, we'll take it absolutely. It's nice to be nominated. And we were nominated in a different category, but on the same press release as you know, Michelle Obama and huge people, Taylor Swift and all sorts of crazy, very big stars.

So I think the Kelsey Brothers Show got nominated for a Webbie Again, I think they won. I think so too. I think they were. Here's the problem you're in if you're in that category, even as a star, you're like, yeah, what the fuck are we supposed to do? Like they're they're associated with the biggest person on the planet, bigger than Jesus at this point, like if not as big as Jesus.

So he's not saying it, but I will. I will give them. I will give them a little credit though, in that they had started their media rise before the Taylor Swift of it all began. That's true because the brothers played against each other or their teams played against each other in the Super Bowl the year before, so that kind of started the whole thing. Philadelphia versus Kansas City.

Kansas City won their Their mother was famously wearing a jersey that had half one son half the other, so you know, did Kelsey also have a show on Peacock like and like a kind of bachelor like bachelor show like the like I'm pretty sure it's like one of those like Travis Kelce tries to meet a suitor. I'm pretty sure maybe a nice girl. Yeah, but surprised me in the last right, he found one. I guess must be nice to be have been the one he found. Jeez, Luise, I mean to be fair, I have to.

I don't know to give him credit or not. But now he's known as Taylor Swift's boyfriend. He is, that's where I heard of him. That's true as not being a super sportsperson, but he's a huge star in the sports world. But yeah, the Swift's kind of a huge star everywhere.

Yeah, and biance, I can just be yes, I gotta give you credit. There was a dating show called Catching Kelsey Seek. I was like, I know, I've heard of this, and it was like a long time ago because he looks like a fucking baby in the show trying to twenty and sixteen, almost a decade ago at this point. Oh wow, wow. Yeah, I tend to ignore a dating show, so I if I heard about it, I must have if he raised it from my mind.

So do you think Taylor, Him and Taylors have sat and watched the show together and they're just like, ha, that's weird. Maybe that's where she was now. He's cute doing the research. She put him on the list, and she took her ten years to get there. Yeah, speaking of people who have taken ten years to come back, let's talk about The Princess Diaries, which is Anne Hathaway's first movie.

Lea Thermopolis is a little clumsy and totally unnoticed. Somebody sat on me again August third. All that's going to change? You are princess, O me. Wow, Fait made it possible.

I can teach her to walk talk like a princess, but only she can make it happen. I think you'd make a very fine princess. The Princess Diaries starts August third. It's kind of weird. I guess Anne Hathway kind of disappeared for like a decade is kind of what I've read.

I guess post Everything, where she hosted the Oscars with James Franco. I guess for whatever reason, she has had a tough time since then, finding work in the industry up until like recently. Yeah, I don't know what the deal is, but it's weird to kind of think about that in perspective of this is her first movie, because wouldn't you love for this to be your first movie opposite Julie Andrews, Like, yeah, what's not to like? What's Julie Andrews. Yeah, yeah, I I've always been a big fan of hers, I think since this, this and the TV show she did before that.

And I don't understand to this day why the Internet turned on her after she won her Academy Award. It rebalbly did, though, right, like, yeah, I know what I'm talking about. It oh wild, I don't understand, Like most, like many things, I don't understand what because it wasn't it wasn't like she said something, No, it wasn't some like oh and then she turns out she you know, punched somebody. No, she just they just you know, she did. She was around in New York a lot during I think that time, so I don't know if she was doing theater or not.

But here's the thing. I kind of do think it. If Anna Hathaway wants to work, she works, But what she works on and maybe she just didn't like anything that was coming our way. I also think there's like a perception of Anne Hathaway that she's always fighting, which is she is snooty. I guess, like I don't get it, Like she holds herself in a certain way that I think maybe could be off putting for some people, and I don't get I mean, I get it, but I don't feel that way about Anne Hathaway.

I think for the most part, the things I've seen her and I've enjoyed, but I could see that perception working against her because someone like Catherine Heigel also has that problem where people are like, well, she's kind of the way she holds herself is off putting. It's like, that's not really a problem with them as much as a problem with you. Catherine Heigel after she won an Emmy, was was a bit kind of oh, what's the word I'm looking for? Ungrateful. Let's say the next year when she talked about how I just don't have work this year that I feel is worthy of being nominated, so I'm not submitting myself for an Emmy.

I don't know what the hell is going on behind the theenes there, but a lot of people, myself included, did not take kindly to that, you know, that that was a bit much. I think you could probably point to some things in the industry about Catherine Heikeel that I'm not sure you can point to about Anne Hathway exactly in terms of what I've seen and heard, but that you know, and I'm what I'm getting at is, I think it's unfair to associate the two because I don't think Anne Hathaway's really done anything like it's you know, the Internet turned on lyn Manuel Miranda too, Like they seemingly have no kind of internal locus of control when it comes to who they attack. At some point, they just kind of go and they don't stop.

So I think, I mean, here's the thing. She did some really interesting work that's weird, Like she did this film called Colossal in twenty sixteen that is insane. That's where she is that the one where she like controls the like Kay, yes, yeah, I mean who does that except for somebody who's like, I want to do something interesting and can't. I'm going to challenge that. Maybe again, she didn't just want to play a princess for a while now she does because she's like, well, we've all been you know, it's been a while.

I want to get back to work and I'd like to give a paycheck. But uh yeah, I I she's so delightful. I mean, like such a debut. And you know, we talked with the interview but haven't aired the Marsha Ross, the casting director for The Princess Diaries and a ton of Disney stuff because she was also in casting in the eighties. So uh, she talked about she was really known for finding pretty amazing talent and this was one of the big big gets for her because it was such a successful launch of a person who held her own against Julie Andrews.

And clearly, you know, there's a there was a lot of like, you know, a lot of comparisons to Julia Roberts because the director was Gary Marshall and so, which I think was kind of unfair. Although she does have sort of this ridiculous smile that also young Julia Roberts has, or now Julia Roberts has. Uh so uh, it's just it's pretty interesting to rewatch this movie because I have not watched it since I since it came out, and and I watched it in pieces when I was working on it, so it was like, oh my god, this type of movie does not maybe exist somewhere on Netflix, like it may exist in streaming, but in terms of a big studio doing something like this, which and like all the movies they were making during that time in two thousand and one, they were really making a lot of this kind of film, which was family film for every everybody general audience.

Is a g rated film, and Gary Marshall was taped with making it as funny as possible as a g rated film. And I didn't remember it being a g rated film until after I watched it and then did a little reading about it, that there were so many things about this movie that surprised me when I went back and started reading about it that either I didn't know or just had completely forgotten about. To your point, Susan Disney doesn't even make movies like this anymore, like not for theatrical release. That's oh sure no, and it's I mean, I'm not gonna say it's a shame, but I also I also don't I'm not gonna say that I don't know this movie deserved to be in theaters, but if this movie had come out when streaming was a thing, it might have just gone on to streaming too.

That's the that's the thing that's hard to know, given how much the model has changed, given how much change there is with how people consume media. I don't know if this had come out on streaming if it would have a bigger audience than it got in theaters. But that's the thing. This movie was immensely successful. Immensely successful, not just in terms of critically, but in terms of launching Ann Hathaway's career, kind of showing a new generation of people Julie Andrews, which I'm assuming then led people to watch Mary Poppins again, and probably the sound of music and so many other things.

But the movie it being a success the way it is like it, Like you said, Susan, it just doesn't happen this way anymore, because these kinds of movies don't get a studio putting any amount of push behind it. They'll just go, oh, just it's a it's a comedy. Put it on streaming. And I think because of the subject matter it's it's it's about a teenage girl, and because it's g rated, I think that there's almost no chance that this goes into theaters. In today's climate, it would definitely go straight to streaming and hopefully be really successful.

But I can't I can't imagine that any any studio would put the money behind that they'd need to put behind something like this to get to get people to go see it in a theater. And what's interesting and because we actually have talked about this and I'm trying to remember the context, oh, the Princess Switch films. So these are on Netflix. There, it's a franchise. I really hadn't heard of it, but it's basically the streaming version of The Princess Diaries, except that they're twins.

So it's also parent Trap meets the Princess Diaries. And uh, it's a Vanessa Hudgens and and they're hugely successful. They were netflixes really in some ways first franchise. And there's three of them. Is that right?

Yeah? I think so there sure are. You really haven't heard of them, but I'm telling you there's one of Netflix's most successful original movies. Is it like a Hallmark movie type thing? It, I mean, like elevated a little bit more because it has Vanessa Hudgens in it, and it's on Flix sort of which you know in theory, you know, Richardon's kind of a hallmark kind of thing.

Yeah, that very well produced. Definitely not g rated, Yes, definitely not g rated, that's true. Whereas The Princess Witch are I imagine PG rated, no more than PG rated. It's insane to me that this movie has a G rating, Like a G rating is not easy to get, Like it's it's not easy. It's it's actually pretty hard to get for a live action movie in the early two thousands, right, I can't imagine.

I don't it's weird to be like, it's weird that it's a G rated movie, a live action g rated movie that came out in two thousand and one. Like that's I thought g rated is normally solely for animated stuff. But even then, Shrek is PG. I'm pretty sure. Well, but Shrek, I think that was a big deal that Shrek was PG.

It was one of the early PG animated films. Like it was like people were upset because that was when people cared about I don't know what they should their kids. But here's the thing again, I just I have to go back to I was like, what what movies was I working on during this time? Okay, this is what came out out from Disney, and they're various, like through Mirramax or Touchstone, Spy Kids, live action kids film. I think that was PG thirteen h Spy Kids is PG, I mean I was sorry PG.

Okay, yeah, I'm pretty sure it's PG. Yeah. Bridget Jones's Diary definitely not g rated, but a live action, like medium budget film, right, Pearl Harbor, Giant Ruckheimer, right, and I'm sort of skipping some of the little lesser known ones. Atlantis was their big The Lost Empire was a big animation, crazy beautiful. This was Kirsten Duntz and Jay Hernandez and it was basically this sort of tortured romance, young romance.

Again, it was a weird film for Disney to release, even under the Touchstone label. It was more of an indie movie. And then The Princess Diaries the others was related in a dimension which is Miramax, so that doesn't really cont but here's the ELSWS thing. That same year they released Bubble Boy John Travolta No, Well, the Gellen Hall like comedy inspired by the Boy in the plastic bubble but is I know the writers of this movie, and it was insane that this movie got picked up and made because it's so goofy and it's actually now a musical, uh, because those writers are also super theaters. But it was so that Bubble Boy was such a weird movie for us to release.

Uh, nobody knew how to market it at Disney and because it was sort of it was in the between. It really wasn't for little kids because there was a lot of ridiculous humor, but it was for high school kids anyway. But also like uh, a quirky Romano. Uh. We just talked about that movie on an episode of The Shabby Detective because it has Peter Falk in it, and I low key love that movie.

Chris was originally supposed to be in Bubble Boy, and that role went to Jake jill and Hall instead, which totally makes sense if you think about Bubble Boy, because Chris Catan would have a little old for the role, not such a boy but a man. But yeah, yeah, that would have been a very different yeah. And yeah, Monsters Inc. Was the big fall Pixar, and yeah, so it's an interesting and then Royal Tannembaumbs was sort of the big Oscar bait. I found a list of box office performance for g rated movies in two thousand and one.

Now, some of these were re releases and such, but just in terms of just to give you an idea other than what Susan has mentioned, I'm not seeing Oh, I'm not gonna count that one. I'm not really seeing anything else that was released that year. Down from the Mountain. I don't know what that is released that year. The Trumpet of the Swan.

I have no idea what that is. I think that was an animated The Trumpet of the Swan. But there's non Disney. Yeah, but there's really these are these are really not movies necessarily that that are not animated. I mean, Princess Diaries is the really the of this category is really the only one that's that's there that's a g rated movie.

Most of the rest of them are truly truly like kid kid focused, like you know, grade school kind of kids. It seems there was a real challenge going on at Disney for this time because there was a real challenge of how how much do we honor Walt and Walt's vision for the company and how much do we do what we think we have to do to move into the twenty first century. And I think this movie was was definitely trying to sort of honor those classic Disney movies in a lot of ways of being four everyone the four quadrant movie because people cared. Also would I mean a PG rated film would actually sometimes do better than an R rated film because it had a bigger audience to go see it, right, and people would take their kids, and they wouldn't take their kids to R rated movies.

That doesn't necessarily stop people. I mean, now nobody goes to the movies, so I don't know, but that's a true statement that nobody does go to the movies. But I think one of the things that's a little bit sad is Princess Diaries was a little bit of a shared experience. I think even if you it was of the time when movies could be could be cultural touchstones and be affecting. And if you were a young person, you know, maybe a young woman more than a young man, but if that you, this was a very important movie for you.

This was a movie that everybody knew about, was very successful, and I think would have been like a beloved movie, and we just don't have as many beloved movies that people know about that. Everyone knows about Princess, which is a beloved movie franchise for a certain class of people, but it's not a general audience class. And Princess Diaries was. And the minute they got Julie Andrews to be it, that was when it became I think, more than you know, a smaller movie. I mean like it just when they got Julie Andrews, I'd probably you know, put it over the top.

But there just start those kind of cultural We don't touchstones anymore, we don't where everything is so fragmented, people are so there's so much. It's a combination of so much and really hard the quantity making it so much harder for something to pierce through and become something that everybody not only is aware of but is seen. It takes something like you know, the Taylor Swift concert movie or something like that. Barbie, I think, yeah, that we talked about was. You know.

So it's interesting because I swear there are there are parents who are showing Princess Diaries to their kids. I believe it. Why I wouldn't and I don't know what these kids are going to show to their kid The Princess Diaries. I think that. I mean, I genuine like, I went and saw The Mummy from nineteen ninety nine last week in the movie theaters.

That movie came out when I was nine years old. The people that were in the theater were people around my age, because it clearly made an impact on them when it was my age. And this is the same. I see this to be the same kind of movie for a certain group of people that are gonna have kids, if they haven't already, that are gonna then show it to their kids. Because this They don't make these kinds of movies anymore.

You said it yourself, Susan. They just don't, and if they do, they make it on streaming. But when the pipe was only one pipe for the longest time, and now it's like a million pipes, not everybody's going to stand in front of the same pipe to get waters kind of what it feels like, and like you alluded to, Sharon, get and how much it's been split. Now people can literally not watch anything new that comes out in theaters, but still watch new things everywhere else, and still watch a whole host of new things. It's just I'm not going to theaters to see the new stuff because plenty of new stuff comes out every week on Hulu, Peacock, Netflix, HBO Max.

There. They've gotten to the point where they have to release something new every week to compete with people going to the movies or thinking about going to the movies. Oh, instead of going to the movies on a Friday night, we can stay in and watch a three hour long Netflix documentary. Okay, let's do that instead. That's the competition now.

I mean, I watch this on Disney Plus. I watch this the way they probably wanted me to watch it, which is on streaming. But I wouldn't be surprised if this gets a theatrical release, a re release, given Disney has been doing all kinds of other things. And you know what's funny is, for a lot of people, the Princess Diaries is probably the Disney movie that they remember as a kid. But the one that I remember is actually the Parent Trap from ninety eight, which with Liz with Lindsay lohand Lina Lowhand one yep, which this movie doesn't exist without that movie being successful because that movie kind of sparked this idea of let's go back to making kind of old school live action movies and the Princess Diaries.

It feels like it is kind of a remake of something else. It's not, it's based off of a book, but it does kind of feel like, oh, how is it that Disney hasn't told this story already? At some point the company known for having princesses is part of part of their whole shtick as Disney, as Disney Princesses. So yeah, it kind of just works part and parcel with what Disney kind of is, I think now for a lot of people. Yeah, the whole idea of just this average little this average girl doesn't know that she's a prince, an actual princess.

I'm Harry Potter right Like, it's also you know, it's it's but even better because there tir is involved here. That's yeah. And it's Julie Andrews exactly. And it is Julie Andrews. I mean she had sort of semi I mean she was still in stuff, but she had sort of semi retired, and she had because she had had some voice issues, and so I think it was a big deal for them to get her and get her back.

And I have to say this was also a film I got to meet Gary Marshall on I was on the set of The Princess Diaries and talking with Gary Marshall and his son who was working on the film as well, and he was amazing, super nice guy, great interview. I was interviewing him, were behind the scenes stuff. And I did not meet Anne Hathaway. She wasn't there. And I was on the set when Julie Andrews was there, but I did not meet her.

I wasn't on the set when she was shooting. She was coming in to look at things. I guess I don't know, but she was there in the stage. That was about as close as I got. But from all indications, Gary Marshall seems to have been one of those people who believed that you needed to have a good time if you were making a movie.

What's the point otherwise you get to make a movie. I mean, I, unlike you, have never met him, but I have read and heard many stories about what joy there was on his sets, you know, primarily so yeah, it's such a fun movie. It really is. I was really happy to go back and rewatch it and we haven't really talked about the not yet. Not yet.

I'm curious Chris, what you thought of it on a rewatch. I think it's interesting. I mean, look, I you know, maybe to kind of your point from before, Susan, what are people you know that have kids now? What are their kids going to show their kids? I do wonder if something like this would play for that audience of, you know, or if it would even play for an audience of, like, you know, people in their like early teens.

Right now, I do feel like the movie for me has aged perfectly fine. I don't know for people the significant younger than me read that is like ten to like not ten, but twenty years younger than me. So people kind of in middle school in high school right now probably in that range. I don't know if they would even care about watching movies, let alone this one, because I think part of the reason people don't go to movies is because kids in high school aren't telling their parents I want to go see a movie on Friday, or I want to go to the movies with my friends. I just don't think that's part of it anymore so in terms of how I feel it's aged and kind of where it lands for me.

I still think this movie works like fucking Gangbusters. I think that Julie Andrews is fantastic. If you told me that this wasn't Anne Hathaway's first role, I wouldn't believe you. Anyways. She doesn't seem like someone who's never done this before.

And I know it wasn't that she'd never done it before, but at the level she's doing it in this movie, she had never done it before. And that is again, there are so many people that, you know, their first movie, nobody wants to talk about it. You know, I don't talk about Tag of the Killer Tomatoes too, which George Clooney was in, Like, let's not talk talk about those movies. Talk about the things I'm in. Now.

Can you imagine this being your first thing? Like, of course you want to fucking talk about it. You're probably And I know it's kind of the truth. Anne Hathaway's continually being pestered about a third one of these movies still to this day. Recently, I think as recently as twenty twenty two, they were like it might still happen.

It's like, who is that movie for? In twenty twenty five, twenty six, twenty seven were it to ever come out people my age. But I think the thing that would be smart if they were to make something else would be too obviously you would have it be Ann Hathaway's daughter in the movie or something to that effect, so you can kind of bridge the gap. And I think to your point Susan about Barbie, making it something like Barbie where we can try to bring as many people in as possible, because there are groups of people who have seen this movie that are disparate from one another that if you found a way to kind of bridge the gap, you might get more out of this. I would say film franchise, but there are two of the movies you would get more out of it in the long term as opposed to just oh, it's these two movies.

I'm sure they'll do something, But I think the reason they're even contemplating is because this movie is so successful and still works. It feels like this could have been an animated Disney movie. Really, like the just the way the story is being told and the way it's I think it's the quintessential Disney Princess story. Frankly, in terms of the way I interpret the story and where we're supposed to be if you have it, be a normal person. Again, We've you've alluded to the Harry potterness of it all.

A normal person finding out that they're not in fact as normal as they appear. That is again like there's something so universal about it that there was no way this movie wasn't going to work. I just I don't even think Disney expected it to work as well as it did because it made a lot of money. And Anne Hathaway and Julie Andrews are both very successful, not just because of how good they are, but because of how successful this movie was. Absolutely, and the whole cast I'm going to say is pretty pretty fun nomenal.

I mean, it's got all the great Gary Marshall people, Hector Elizondo, Hector, Hector Elizondo, but the entire cat Mandy Moore, Sandra Oh. Here's the funny thing. So they really were seriously talking in like twenty fifteen, twenty sixteen, about three, and then Gary Marshall died and so then things got put on hold. But they're still talking about it like last week, like yesterday, Sandra Oh apparently introduced Anne Hathaway on the Kelly Clarkson Show by re enacting one of her phone scene from the Princess Diaries see even in twenty twenty four, still has yesterday? Yeah heard twenty twenty four.

And then the People article goes on to Doug about what will there be a third And here's what Julie Andrews has said about it, which is basically like, probably not, but I think we should all move on and you know, but you know, you never know, and then uh, and then Anne Hathaway said, well, having a lot of dialogue, I think we're getting close, and yeah, so, but if you got Julie Andrews for one scene, one scene right exactly exactly, we don't don't give me no cgi Julie Andrews believe No, you need actual Julia Andrews to be the grand Queen mother, and you need uh Anne Hathaway for four or five scenes, and then you circle it around her daughter or you know whoever the new how will they live on?

Do you need Chris Pine? It ostensibly is the you know what's I do carry Chris Pine? So and that's the thing. For some reason in my head I also conflated the two and I thought Chris Pine showed up at the end of Princess Diarus. I'm just like, oh, of course you did, now, I was sort of.

I was leaving Disney around two thousand and four, so I worked a little bit on Princess Diaries too, but not for the whole whole thing because so so I didn't. So it was it was funny. I was just like, well, Chris Pine was in the first one, right, but he wasn't. He was in the second one. And it was his debut as well, right, like it was his big I think it was his big breakout at least I did well interesting, yeah, I think.

And that was the time also where Disney was doing that. Yeah, no, you were right, by the way, that was Chris Pine's film debut. No shit, straight up. That's kind of crazy. That's what That's what Disney really liked doing, both with their own pipeline of Disney Channel to movies, right, which is Lindsay Lohan for sure, and and and all the music started like like they were they had created a pipeline to sort of craft stars and then launched them into movies for young adult movies, and it was working.

It was pretty good at it. And they also liked finding stars, and I think that was why, you know, I definitely think that was one of Marcia Ross's. She found Heath Ledger for Ten Things I Hate About You. I mean, he was known in Australia, but it was his first American film, and so that's that was Again, it was such a time when movies were crafted and because of how there really is no studio system anymore. Their giant conglomerate studios, but there's no studio system.

There's no studio system for developing talent, for crafting story and for really long term thinking about how are we going to continue to tell stories that invite people in and make us money. But it started with how are we going to entertain people so we can make money? It didn't start with how can we make money? And in there and that's where I think it starts and ends now. And you can do that, and you can sometimes make cool, cool, cool stuff, but it's not the goal anymore.

The goal of those corporations, it's not their goal is to just make more. And if they can do it by you know, cutting some line of code, they'll do that, you know. And if they can do it by just raising the price, uh, you know, till people stop subscribing, they'll do that, and they'll do that before they go. Maybe we should make some really, really really good content and think about what we're gonna make now and three years from now. I mean, Marvel is sort of and Disney is sort of doing it, but they're sort of kind of killing their golden gooses, you know, like they just and so it's really it's weird to feel, like to feel nostalgic for the time that I was at Disney, because at the time I was like, oh, this Disney stuff.

Yeah, you know, it was already pretty cynical, and I loved some of the stuff we worked on and I thought it was very charming. But I also felt like that Disney cared too much about chaste box office and that was a joke that was I was there when we got the first We were the first studio to ever cross a billion dollar, one billion dollars in annual box off for the whole studio, the whole studio release. We were the first studio to do that, I believe with Pirates the Year of Pirates, and it came out it's a big, you know, banner headline on Variety. Oh my god, Disney had a billion dollar movie year. How quaint?

How quaen? How quaint? Really? And I should have seen the writing on the wall when the next day we had a big meeting and they're like, congratulations, that's great. We have to beat it.

Yeah they didn't. We didn't. They didn't been like, oh, maybe we'll get a cake. We didn't get a cake. They just were like.

It was almost like, what have we done? Because now is the bar you will not feed it. Yeah. Anyway, but back to the Princess Diaries, here's what I will say on my rewatch. It was longer than I thought it was going to be.

Yeah, it's almost two hours long. It took a long time to get started. You would not have that much time now in a movie a lot of that character stuff, because there's just not a lot happening. In the first twenty five minutes of that movie. You're setting her up character and again it's all charming.

She's you know, she's afraid of speaking, she's you know, very dorky. She's got very bushy eyebrows, and Hathaway would ever be called dorky and her it's it's almost like when Anne Hathaway transforms on screen. She transformed permanently, you know what I mean. Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, there's never once that hair gets straightened. We never ever see her have to straighten it again.

It's just like that for the rest of her life. Yeah, but I don't know it's and yet it's very, very charming. But there's so many goofy things in this like Fat Louie the cat. I've forgotten how much screen time and a plot point Fat Louie gets. I've forgotten Fat Low even existed.

There are at least there are at least eleven reaction shots of the cat in this movie, and I think there's more because I only started counting after or I began to notice it now. I hear what you're saying though, about the amount of time that they took with the setup. I was not. I I hadn't really pinged on it, I guess because I was just enjoying it. I get, but it's not the way that storytelling is done on screen.

Now. You get maybe five minutes and then you know you're off to whatever is happening next. People are so I kind of liked wallowing in some of that and really getting to know her and getting to know her world. So I hadn't really thought about it that way, but I appreciated it, appreciated the time they took well. And I think it's because it's Anne Hathaway that it works so well, because she's just so charming on her own, effortlessly charming, be it as kind of the dorky version of herself or then the version you know more towards the end of the film.

But it's not that I don't think this movie would have worked with anybody else. But if you, you know, in doing the research, come across some of the other names, including the initial name that the role was offered to, which was Juliet Lewis, who was almost thirty at the time that this movie would have come out. Uh, would not have worked. I mean it, honestly, it honestly barely works with Anne Hathaway. Once she's no longer dorky looking, she looks like more of an adult than anybody else does at that school.

So them kind of frizzing her hair up and giving her glasses probably cut five years off of her age, and given where the movie's trying to kind of put her, I think that works. But yeah, Juliet Lewis just such a I couldn't see this movie being a massive success with Juliet Lewis as the lead. Now because I don't like Juliet Lewis, but I couldn't see it, not the way that this movie plays the character and not the way I don't know. I couldn't even imagine Juliet Lewis and Julie Andrews interacting. Yeah, I mean she was a different I mean, juliette Lewis was, you know, would have been a different take and very yeah.

Uh, and she would have been pretty old for this part. Yeah, not halfway is almost too old for the part. Really like, she's what she meant to be sixteen, seventeen, Well she says fifteen, she doesn't have her license. Okay, well she's nineteen in real it's I mean, it's I was also surprised that the movie isn't like, oh, she's a senior in high school and she's finding this out. I was like, no, she's meant to be like kid.

And it's like Anne Hathaway doesn't look like a kid. The moment those glasses come off and her hair is straight and she looks like she actually looks just like the way she looks now Like. Anne Hathaway is aged immensely well for someone who's in the industry, obviously, but she doesn't look the age of the character at all. But I think it it kind of just works because again, anne Hathaway just is too charming to let anything else be the focus, because in her performance, she brings out that fifteen year old energy, that fifteen year old, fifteen year oldness that makes you believe that this is a this is a fifteen year old girl that's still finding her way and trying to figure out to find herself and all of this having I will say though, that I had to just sort of let go of my feelings about how how she didn't know about this.

She seemed to know something about her father that he existed, but apparently didn't know that he was a friend of some sort, didn't know her grandma was queen either, Like what the heck, yeah it was. But I was like, Okay, I'm just gonna because I'm I'd forgotten how they had set all this up because they sort of seemed to gloss over the whole Yeah, yeah, yeah, we kept this from you, but we're all good now right, But which as you do in a movie like this, she can't really think about those kinds of things too long lastic Disney parent trapping because what we call it. Anne Hathaway doesn't talk about all the therapy she has to go to because her mom lied to her entire life. Is that what you're saying.

There's none of that here. Oh, I forgive you mom, because rich now right? And I have a father who sends me gifts on my birthday but has never visited me ever. Is that how it works to be in charge of a country you're not allowed to leave or you can't take two weeks. Yeah, give me who he was, or that he's overrunning a country?

Nobody nobody thought that. Yeah again, I I just I just said, let it go. It's fine. That's that's that's a fairy tale. This is not anything remotely real.

So yeah, on it's Cinderella. So uh And and again, I just want to point out that the parent Trap is about two people who divorce and they each take a child, one of the twins, and never see each other or their other child. Again, this was before the Internet, Susan. They didn't know how to get a hold of each other. You know, once someone leaves your life and the internet doesn't exist, you can't find them anymore.

Right, is that how it works? No, which we like, oddly enough, makes more sense to me than what happened in this movie in terms of her father, because at least she knew the existed but again didn't show up. But not saying parent trap makes sense of that yard, but it makes more sense. Yes, this, I mean what's funny is and I think I've brought it up before when we've done an episode. But have either of you seen Halloween Town.

It's a Disney Channel original movie from the mid nineties, have not so in Halloween Town, it's similar to the setup here where the family and the woman who's their mom is the normal one and the father was the son of oh god, Debbie Reynoldsbbie Reynolds. Right, So it's that thing of well, Debbie Reynolds lives in Halloween Town and we don't realize that she's coming to the real world to spend time with us, and we've never asked why it only happens on Halloween once a year. It's like this movie tries to thread that needle and being like, well, he's not he's your dad, but he's not here. But we can't really explain why he's not here. But he's just dead now too, like on top of everything else that the disney of it all, of course, the dad has to be dead or and I love that there's a moment where they hang a lantern on it's like, get over Heather Monoroza goes, get over your dad being dead.

It's only it's been two months. Like it's only been two months, and they're this way, like, for fuck's sake, I talk about parts of the movie that didn't age well. That was just like, get over it. Your dad's been dead for two months, Holy shit. And that's her best friend.

Yeah, well yeah, I mean you know, and then yeah, yeah friend. It's a very challenging role, uh because they there must be a scene missing where she's ignoring her best friend. Her best friend to be so incredibly mean when she shows up looking clearly beautiful and uh uh and then awful, and then you kind of get later at the end of the scene that she has a been telling her what's going on, but we don't. We don't see the part where her best friend is missing her, and we see it later, but in that fight where her best friend is really awful, like terrible to her, like mean girl level even worse because that's your best friend that you're like, what is happening? And I there must have been other shots or a scene where the character who I'm plaking on Lily, Lily, Lily would Lily be I feel like Lily got cut out of the there were probably other Lily scenes.

Well, I would assume she doesn't come back for the second one, because she's she does oh for the whole movie? Yeah, Oh okay, because I mean, I mean, I know she's there in the second one. And again, I don't know that I've ever seen the second one. I have seen the second one relatively recently. I don't remember the circumstances, but I want to say like within the last few year.

But she's definitely back in two. She says it in this movie. It's such a bizarre character to write that way, because you're not endearing her to the audience by treating the main character by like garbage in a scene where that character should be like, Wow, you look really different, not you look like shit, Like what what the it's so? I don't she's such a bizarre character in the movie because she doesn't play the role of the friend the way you would expect, because if you had friends that treated you that way, I don't think it would be your friends very long. She's like gatekeeping her own friend.

And that's why I think, because at the end they're resolving where she's like, I'm sorry, I haven't told you what was going on. So it really does read like a scene where there was a previous scene that got cut from the movie that was, you know, Lily needing something from her and her being like, I gotta go and and basically hurting her because that all of that scene feels like a you've let me down so much, and yet we haven't seen that, we've seen her doing this other thing. But anyway, it was a very It was a little startling because I had remembered the part of Hector Alzando saying you know, here's what you need to do and being amazing and great and like the best you know, uncle Dad security guide driver in the world, and I just assumed it was in response to one of the mean girls being awful to her, and it was in response to her best friend being awful to her.

See It's interesting because I think when I was watching that section, I think I reacted very differently than the two of you in that I think what was going through my mind is that Mia was keeping this from her friend, possibly because she was told to and she couldn't tell anybody. And at least that was the impression that I got, and so I could certainly understand her also fifteen year old friend maybe not responding very maturely to finding out what was actually going on that supposedly her best friend had not been telling her about I I could, I could totally understand that and see that because when you're fifteen, you're not rational, you're not reasonable, you're not you know, your your emotions are all over the place.

And so I guess I basically I just reacted a little differently than the two of you did to that that it didn't it didn't read as harsh as it did. No, it really didn't, because they both were I don't know, because because I think underneath it, there there was that connection that they had. Lily was not, you know, one of the mean girls, and so there was they felt like, you know, felt like she could be honest and say what's going you know what the heck's going on in her own way. So I I guess I took it as as as I'm thinking about it now, as as being an indication of how close they were that they could just honestly say what they were thinking to each other or whatever that's worth. I mean, and again I I I think so, but it and I think again, And it's sort of that weird thing of like we don't see characters like that.

I mean, you know where you know, it's like, oh, if you're going to be the best friend, you have to act like the best friend. And here's the best friend acting like a fifteen year old girl who got her feelings hurt. And so she's a petulant teenager in the movement and going, well, I think I think you look terrible. That's ridiculous. But yeah, yeah, and that could be a response to, oh my gosh, you look so different as what she's probably thinking, what happened to my friend?

What happened to the girl that's my best friend? That this person doesn't look like her, looks like the mean girls, you know. And here's the part I did not remember. And when the credits first came up, I was like, what that Whitney Houston produced this, Yes, and the second one for that matter, yes, well, I mean wrote the second one. For God's sake, I didn't know any of this.

I'm like, I was like, I totally did not know that, and I was on the movie. Nobody, you know, nobody let me in those meetings. They were just like, you know, can you sell some tickets? But well, clearly it wasn't something that they wanted to use in terms of marketing for this movie for some strange and odd reason, perhaps because I don't think I think it was at that time where she was starting to produce all kinds of things, you know, I mean, she's uh, you know, she had a production company and she was producing a lot of stuff like did she do the she did the Cheetah Girls, the Cheetah Girls. Yeah, So uh, this clearly was something that she developed, her company developed, and then went on.

But uh, and so it was under her banner. But I don't know that she produced the same way. I think some of the ones that she started, because I think she was also producers on The Preacher's Wife, I think that was to her company, and that's Cinderella TV movies. She did yeah, well with Brandy yes whatever, her name is not Raven Simone, that was Teitah Girls, Yes, correct, yeah, correct. But yeah, I didn't either didn't know or just didn't remember that Whitney Houston was involved in any way, shape or form with this movie.

That was quite a surprise. That was quite a surprise, and apparently there was. I came across an article about that hit the internet a few years back when since Twitter's been around, and people were also losing their minds when they realized it because they didn't know either. It just wasn't something that was really out there, which again really surprises me. Why wouldn't they have made that part of the marketing of this movie.

Maybe they felt they didn't need to because they had Julie Andrews. I don't know, but it still seems a little surprising, like given that they go from the producers of from fucking Whitney Houston, I mean, there you go. Does that name not carry any weight? Because it should you would think, yeah, well, I think because she probably because she wasn't in it, and if and I think if they had pushed it more, they would have people would have assumed she was going to be in it, that's fair. I'm curious if at some point she was supposed to be the queen.

Well, that's well, And that's what I was wondering because again, like the movie kind of checks all the boxes, especially some I mean there's there are a couple of boxes that the movie checks that I don't think it would anymore. Like like the Robert Schwartzman character needing to be there, who I always look at him like, that's not Jason Schwartzman. I know it's not Jason Schwartzman, but it looks just like Jason Schwartzman. But his character kind of unnecessary. The Eric von Detten character kind of unnecessary.

I don't know if they would even be in a version of this movie if it was done today. Where probably not. Yeah, we're where the lead character needs to be, you know, antagonized by a male character, but then fall into the arms of her her sister's friend or brother. I guess, yeah, which is just so we're all clear, that's not something that any of those people would be okay with. Heather Matterazzo and that's not how that works to me.

Oh great, my best friend's dating my brother. Cool. I don't think that's how that works. Like I I, you know, just out out at least out of pocket. I don't know.

I feel like that's kind of a kind of happened a lot in these kind of movies where he's got the brother who's you know who, who's who's sweet on, the sister's best friend or whatever that does that does that happens? Yeah, No, No, I I agree. I'm saying I don't think it would be a thing now. I just I think I think now if you made this movie, it would be much more of a focus on Anne Hathaway's character, and I think that they would even kind of because that's the other thing that I think is I would say odd about this movie, but it does kind of add a wrinkle to what I would say maybe the film's message or politics is it? I think with when you were talking about it, sharing the way that you reacted to that scene where her friend is kind of freaking out to her appearance, I think the movie does everything in its power to avoid doing the thing that a lot of these movies do where oh they she took her glasses off and straightened her hair, and now she has the confidence of a queen, or of a princess, and I think the movie tries to and bristles at that idea being associated with this movie, because I think that this movie's much better written than those kinds of movies, like what is What's the movie?

It's got Freddy Prince Junior and it's you know, it's literally that movie where it's like, I dare you to take the ugliest girl in school and turn her beautiful, and they literally just take her glasses off and do her hair, and like, that's kind of a complicated message to have, because your personal appearance should not affect your confidence level or the way you feel about yourself. And I think that's a message that would be part of the movie now, but it's kind of a complicated thing in two thousand and one because the movie tries to step out of the way of it, because I mean, again, it's it's a positive, feel good message. That message, though, can kind of be interpreted negatively, and it's not like you have to try very hard interpret it negatively.

It's those kinds of movies are dragged now now because of how kind of backwards and pedantic to take someone's glasses and hair down and that makes them beautiful. That that sentiment is not one that I think is widely accepted, if anybody even cares about telling those kinds of stories anymore. Well, you know interesting that when you know, I was, as I was this time was approaching before we started this podcast, I was thinking that that that sort of thing, this whole makeover thing, was something that I found as I was watching it, I was a little a little put off by. But the more I think about it, they no matter how her appearance transformed, she was still the same girl underneath it all she was.

It didn't solve all of her problems back to created a whole new slew of problems, and she was not treated any better by the mean girls. And you know, the boys weren't falling all over her. They were the one guy who who she kind of had a crush on, was only interested in her because he wanted to be famous. It had nothing to do with her. So I think they treated it as best they could in a in a movie U two thousand and one that was g rated as The more I think about it, well and I agree with you, Sharon.

I think what's interesting to you is so much of that makeovers. Also, we need to teach you. It's it's a little Eliza uh Doolittle, like, we've got to teach you how to be a real princess. So it's in the guise of you need to be able to present yourself more royalty, you know. And I still love where she falls off the chair when she's like you need to like like she just don't.

Like on one hand, you're like, it's really beautifully done, and I'm hand, you're like, she doesn't know how to cross her legs. She's such a great physical comedian. I mean, she is so good in those moments and and a lot of the physical stuff that they have her do. She's just so great. Statue I'd forgotten the statue bit and I had forgotten which I had loved where she breaks the finger off of the statue.

And I also love the oh the fall on the leechers, which totally I was like, did she hurt herself? It looked like that didn't look intentional, like that looked like a genuine like they just caught that moment, but they used that moment in the trailer for the movie. That moment shows up everywhere in the marketing for the movie. For whatever reason. I read that that was not supposed to happen, but she just kind of tripped and then just kept on going with whatever she was supposed to be saying, and they were they were just amazed that she was able to be to just continue, you know, just move on with it and and continue on with the scene without without breaking.

So, yeah, she's her. Ann Hathaway's performance in this is really great. You know, she's really great in this, especially for being so young and for it being her first movie. She was very lucky that she had. I think Gary Marshall is her her director in this, because you've probably made things very easy in that way for her.

And oh my god, you're acting opposite Julie Andrews with the with the trolley edge the car. I was just like, this is great. I want to see more Julie Andrews. Yeah, it still was a little bit weird that that she was illegally driving a car. Again.

One you're like, okay, well she's with an adult, but that adult doesn't have a license and she doesn't have a license on her but that's still okay. But then when she's like, oh, my big plan is to get to the ball in the rain in my car that barely works and doesn't have a top, and I'm not legally allowed to drive by myself. I'm like, there is public transportation, and she does have a scooter, like you know, when she literally crashes into public transportation, I think, what'sy is that scene? It plays really well, but you could see that not playing well at all in a similar kind of movie played a different angle, because again it's like, oh look it. I like, that's the thing.

I think, because it's Julie Andrews, this movie has aged so well that none of the things that could be off putting in a day and age where people theoretically like this doing things theoretically like the things that she does in the scene would be like, uh, oh, don't you know who I am? You know, you know kind of scenario that would be realistic, But Julie Andrews just plays it so perfectly that it it doesn't matter. And that's probably I think for me, the thing that I appreciated the most about this movie is the story kind of being what it is, of like, oh, you know this, let's just say it. This white girl who gets found out that she's rich and powerful, and she becomes rich and powerful. That story doesn't play well anymore for a whole host of reasons.

But for this movie's benefit, you have two actors who are so effortlessly charming it doesn't matter when she's knighting people with a fucking umbrella. It's like, okay, fine, Like I give in to this movie and the kind of fantastical fairy tale world that it created, because it's it's enchanted adjacent. I mean, it's the real world, but it's not really the real world at all, like not in the way that the movie is kind of pretending it is. But that's okay, it's a modern day fairy tale. Yeah, it's a Gary Marshall world, right, yeah, it really is.

And yeah, just in the way that we don't talk about how in Pretty Woman that Julie Roberts character is basically prostitute. Nobody talks about that. It's charming, not even basically she is totally protect Yeah, but don't let the movie tell you that, because it's said, that's not what the movie is interested in doing. And like, I only say this because a couple months ago, I watched for the first time Oliver the Musical, and I was put off by it because it's a little blonde haired, blue eyed, white kid who gets everything he wants and more. And it's like that message does not play well anymore, like for a whole host of reasons, but here it works because it's truly Andrews and Anne Hathaway.

It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter how kind of poorly the message may have aged. It's perfectly fine here because again, we live in a time of royals still. I mean, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. Oh my god, that Prince William moment was really upsetting.

You're like, oh, by the way, I think she's dead, because I think she's dead. I think she's in the coma, by the way, just def way. I oh, the real the princess that's in English. Interesting, I have not seen for five months. She did a video, yes, but they all know one else there they went to like a farmer's market, and that's not her, that's not her, that's debunked.

That is totally not her. I'm telling you, and I don't care about royals. It is so weird, which is so freaked down, because I'm like, that is that he's driving the conversations Richard to day watch no He's appalled that I care. Okay, now I can see it. He's like, what is where is this coming from.

I'm like, listen, no woman should be able to disappear and not actually be seen. That's fair for five months, particularly one whose job it is to be out in the world, to be see daddy with his sea is being out in the world. She cannot. I don't know why she cannot, but that video, why was he not sitting next to her? Sitting next to her on the bench?

Who on the bench? Here's my Oh? Oh, I have cancer and I have support of my family, except none of them are here. Only only the one child has been seen. I am very concerned.

Wait are you? Are you so? Are are you positing? Then that it is what like like a body double with like a CGI like face superimposed on top of it. It is not that hard.

Oh, I know it's not. That's what I'm saying, Like, that's not that hard. Even like that, I've Oh. People are very sure that that video is not It has been affected as much as the photograph. So the first photograph that gets put out, they're like, oh, William took this, and then and then it gets in trouble and then they're like, well, oh, Kate manipulated it by you know, just like a mom would do.

They threw her under the bus for that photo that supposedly William took that was completely manipulated. That has been rejected as being like, this is so manipulated, we don't trust it. The AP is now saying this is not a legit photograph that we will accept. I didn't I that this was still going on. Yeah, see, I have a totally different take on this.

Okay. I think they're in the process separating, getting a divorce for maybe trying to fix it, fix the marriage whatever, and she is using not as an excuse. But she had surgery, they found cancer. I'm okay, I can't. I can't imagine they would not they would lie about that cancer, right, yeah, exactly.

So even before that, they were kind of already sort of negotiating what the going forward was going to be. And I think she's using this as an opportunity to just say peace out. I'm just gonna sit at home until this all gets worked out, because there's really no excuse for her not to be working. There's no excuse or not just to show up. I'm telling you I truly believe if she wants, if she's in negotiations, wouldn't it be better to show up at East No?

No, no, no, absolutely not. This is her, This is her only, this is her. This can't believe we're going into this. I know it speaks to the way that the real royal in our country would be received. I think is the point no very disturbing to me.

I just think that if it is in fact that the marriage is on the verge of breaking up or has broken up, that her best move is to, I think, is to disappear, because otherwise it just makes it that much if she comes back, they have to make it look like everything's fine, and if everything's not fine between them, then she will become the bad person for I mean, right now, everybody's you know, people are like, oh, poor Kate. You know we're covering et cetera. Now, you know, obviously we don't know what the you know, all the details about her condition. But as a cancer survivor myself who went back to work and worked hours and during chemo and during radiation, et cetera, et cetera, I don't understand why she can't work considering what she does for quote unquote work.

So it's fired. I mean, I'm with you, though, Like I mean, I think any way you look at it, the way everything went down with Princess Diana with the dress with the one black sheep on it, like that was her ability to kind of cry out as loudly as one can and that in those circumstances. But I think, whatever the reason is, I think she has more power now than she would if she was just just divorcing him and leaving. She's doing something either way, and if she is in a coma, that fucking sucks obviously for everybody, herself included, because in a lot of ways, the last people I'd want in charge of taking care of me are the British Royal family. Yeah, fucking people.

I mean, I wouldn't want them booking me a taxi. I wouldn't want them taking care of me in a hospital, you know, I wouldn't want them doing anything. So yeah, well, it is her advantage that she's got parents that give a damn and that's true, but nevertheless, which Diana really didn't have. But that's another story. I don't know that's gonna be Princess Bride three.

That's what I was, so that's what I was actually thinking. Would it be too dark to have Princess Bride three be Chris Pine and his daughter and Anne Hathaway is dead, Like at the beginning of the movie, she she dies. Why, I mean, why her dad's not in this movie. It could be the inverse of what we get in this movie. The Princess Bride three is taking the scenario of oh, she's she doesn't know that her mom is Anne Hathaway.

For whatever reason, you figure out a way to make that work. I don't know how you do that in twenty twenty four, but realistically you make it where she doesn't know who her mom is and her dad is Chris Pine. But I guess that doesn't work because Chris Pine is a royal himself. So maybe you have to have If you don't have Anne Hathaway in the movie, she has to be dead before the movie starts. No, no, you have you have to have Anne Hathaway in the movie.

If you can, If you have to have Julie Andrews in the movie again, you just yeah, one scene and what you have is her daughter is like abolish the Royals. Oh he's dead and I am out of here, and you guys are crazy. There you go, that's all. That's the there it is, Thank you, you're welcome. How does Chris Pine factor into this is my question.

And and they've been and they've been living separately. They've been doing the thing of like we're pretending we're together, but we're growing apart because there's too much pressure on us. And now we have to come together to find and bring back our daughter. So you don't like my darkest timeline of Van Hathaway's dead, I'm sorry, I just I was just trading in typical Disney tropes. How many Disney animated movies open with the one of the parents not there and dead off screen?

A lot of them, well, almost all of them. There's that great scene in the second Record Ralph movie with all the princesses and and they're they're all talking about how they've got a dead parent. I haven't seen that. It's absolutely hilarious. It's the best scene in the whole movie, in my opinion.

But those two steps further and kills both the fucking parents. Both of the parents are going. I don't so dark If Chris Pine isn't willing to do this and I can't imagine he would be put him in a coma. At least he's not dead. Put him in a coma, God, don't.

I don't know how that's better. I think it's there's at least a possibility he could wake up. That's fair, you know, and they anyway, But at least he's not. At least he's not. I guess.

I guess I was fantasy writing the version of Princess Diaries if it was on Disney Plus as like a TV as opposed to like an actual movie. But I mean, I would Anne Hathaway do a Disney Plus limited series called The Princess Diaries, just called the Princess Diaries? Would she do that in This Day and a series? Yeah? Doubt that's what it would be, right.

It would be like a limited series. It'd be like four episodes, four to five episodes. They I mean, they did that Santa Claus thing and that they brought like everybody back. I can't believe Tim Allan, well, I can't believe Tim Allan's cashing a paycheck on Santa Claus. Still Plus be nice, But I mean, that's that's kind of the way Disney does these kinds of things.

Now, National Treasure didn't get a third movie. It got a limited series run on Disney Plus. Like that's what I would imagine it would be, would be like a limited series, which I don't know. You said, hey, Anne Hathaway, you want to do four thirty minute episodes. She might acquiesce to that more than like an actual, you know, movie movie.

Well maybe because I just want another movie. I've got to say no to that. I've gotta say no. Anne is holding out for theatrical release. It's Julianrows.

She deserves it. She deserves the theatrical release. I mean, that's the thing. Even the second movie, even the sequel to this film, made a bunch of money on a small budget, not as small of a budget as the first film, but almost tripled the budget of the of the film. Like that.

That is because of the success of these movies and Julie Andrews and Anne Hathaway mm hmm, absolutely and Shonda Rhime's apparently, which is which is crazy that Shonda Rhimes wrote the story and screenplay so well before Gray's Anatomy. She also wrote a Disney movie that Britney start in that I Can Cross Roads. Yes, yeah, what a movie. Have not seen it? I have a Britney Spears vehicle, Phil, I mean, have you seen it.

It's not great, it's not I mean it's not great, but it's also not terrible. Like the thing that's kind of fucked up about it is knowing what we know now about Britney Spears, like her real life, Like the movie is just it's just kind of sad because it's just one more like thing that she talks about in her book as like I was doing it, but I wasn't getting to do it the way I wanted to do it. Like, but she's actually she's probably the best part of the entire movie. She's not bad. And Zoe sal Donna is in that movie as well, and I think, oh wow, the chick from Orange is the new Black, the one that plays like the the meth head Taryn Manning.

I think she's alsoeels like dan Ackroyd in it. Yeah, it's not terrible enough. Yeah, it's like I'll end it again written by Shonda Rhyme, So it can't be that, Like, you know, she she knows what she's doing as a as a screenwriter, so true, true. I mean, she created Grey's Anatomy and uh Scandal and How to Get Away? Like, how many things has Shonda Rhyme's done at this point?

She's she's she said about a half a dozen series, a couple that didn't last that long. But but yeah, she's she's she's doing all right. Good for her. Yeah, I mean that's the thing. You bring her back to write the third one.

There you go, right, I mean, I mean, there you go. I mean Shonda Rhimes is still kicking it, like she's still doing it. She's still working. I mean, that's the thing. Everybody who is in this series is still working in Hollywood.

Like even I guess you could say Julie Andrews's retire, she's so tired, but you know, inasmuch as anybody's retired, right, like yeah, for the right price. Even Harrison's Ford came back, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. Harrison Ford said he didn't want to do Han solo again, and they how many times they got out of him? Two more times? So I'm not sure that Shonda would come back, considering the antipathy that existed when she left.

But you never know, like you said, you know, I know, Netflix's bang or a boatload of money so maybe it would take an equal boatload of money to get her to come back and do another script for Princess Bride, but I'd love to see that. Yeah, that'd be great. Well, I will say I'm not going to be surprised if a third movie ends up coming out in the next five years, nor am I. Yeah, And I think it really is based on the success of this this movie specifically. I mean, the sequel obviously helps, but this movie is just it's a charming movie.

Even now, even even as you, even as we the three of us have kind of picked apart some of the more contrived bits that wouldn't work in twenty twenty four, it still works because it doesn't feel like it's really trying to be reality anyways, like the would these would would anybody in the real world of San Francisco two thousand and in one care about some teenage royal and be like having Papa Razzi out the ass following them, Like, we just don't think so. But if you're talking, I do really well in this in this world of social media, Are you kidding me all that? Well, That's what I'm saying, Like now it makes perfect sense. But like in two was the one that's like eh, but like again, it feels like see, it feels just high end Megan, like everything all everybody wants to do is get a picture of them.

I guess I'm more speaking to the idea that she's like a teenager in like high school if at the point where the movie would have to be now it makes total sense. But I'm more saying, like, I understand why they're doing it because it has to be this heightened reality where like she is the center of the world and everybody is watching a high school public access show, like that's a thing that actually matters in this universe, if she's on it or not. So that's more what I'm getting at. Like the fact that it is kind of this heightened fairy tale reality but meant to be the real world. I think is why this movie works, because it does doesn't necessarily feel like it's set in two thousand and one.

It just kind of feels timeless. And when it's set, it's set in Gary Marshall's Disneyland. Yeah, yeah, pretty much. I mean Gary Marshall. I mean Gary Marshall, just I think his direction is obviously what really puts this movie over the top.

Yeah, yeah, I mean, and and just again, I'm just gonna say, Julie Andrews, Hector Aleensando, and Anne Hathaway, like they're just so each of them super watchable, just super watchable. Yeah, I mean, Julie Andrews ends up having of not I mean, she doesn't come back and make a movie every year for the next ten years. But this is this also brings her kind of back into the fold of working again in Hollywood, and in a substantial way, so that in and of itself, I think Is is pretty important as a movie because given the amount of Julieandrews stuff we watched the two or three of Us, now, like it's interesting to see that, oh, she had kind of been done doing things, but here she comes back and it's like, why did she ever leave?

She's so fucking charming, Like Jesus. I mean, we know why she left because of a number of reasons, including health reasons, but like she didn't lose a step, I guess, is my point. And what's amazing is to watch Anne Hathaway, who is not Julie Andrews, hold her own with Julie Andrews, and now we see where Anne Hathaway has gone as an actress, and it makes total sense because Anne Hathway has won an Academy Award of her own, and she is considered to be one of Hollywood's leading ladies who she is cast in high profile stuff all the time. But if she's in your film, that kind of makes it a high profile movie because she's in it. So and this, I mean this being the start of that, it's obvious from the moment she's on screen who the people in this movie that are going to be stars going forward are.

And it's like Anne Hathway can't take your eyes, can't take your eyes off of her at all. But all the cast, I mean, you know, delightful seeing Mandy Moore there, Sandra Oh is just having a blast. Uh and uh, Heather matter Oz So, I mean again, she's super fun. I think there's some challenging scenes because she doesn't get to do much of the fun stuff. But yeah, and if I had not known that was Mandy Moore, I don't know that I would have recognized her.

Yeah, so it was really great to see her. I think this was her first, her first movie role too, but she was great. Yeah, and then they just give her a song and then they right, that was the moment where you're like, this does she sing in a profession? In another profession? And I always forget how good of an actress Mandy Moore is.

My My wife watched This is Us, which is a Mandy Moore show, to mean, she's really good in the show, and I you know, here you here, it's it's not Mandy Moore the actress, it's Mandy Moore the singer, because this is in her like you know, I say talking about Britney Spears, her Britney Spears era of being you know, eighteen idol. So she's great playing I mean, kind of the thankless role, but that's fine. Every every teen movie needs a dickhead to antagonize, and you know, the female dick head characters are always of a piece. But Mandy Moore seems to be having a good time playing it. So yeah, it's it's a It was a delightful rewatch and it took me back.

Yeah, sweet, the sweet Innocent years of two thousand and one. This movie really feels pre nine to eleven, doesn't it. That's that's the that's the ultimate takeaway. Is it pre you know July of two thousand and one was a much different time or I guess this movie came out technically in August, so, which is crazy twenty three years old this year. Wow.

Yeah, yeah, man, it really was right right in the sweet part of our innocence. Yeah, like this really how how how fun this movie feels, you know, and how quaint? So anything else we want to talk about with The Princess Diaries exactly that? Yeah, I mean just that, you know, Fat Louis man, I know Fat Louie. Also that cat is working hard and uh and and definitely comes back in two played by the same cat act probably probably not probably not four years later, probably not four years later.

That Louie apparently the real name of said cat, because he is playing himself for the credits. So in case anybody was wondering, oh my gosh, so I'll kick it to Sharon then Susan. Final thoughts on The Princess Diaries. It's a lovely, delightful movie from what feels like almost a different era, with a magnificent first film performance by Anne Hathaway and a welcome return to the silver screen by Julie Andrews. Wow that's beautiful, you said it perfectly.

I got nothing to add except that we have not seen that woman in like four months. I'm back at it again, Where is the Princess of Wales? Because I think this seems to be a roaming This needs to be a rolling part of anytime you're on the show, we'll just ask you, Susan, where is she? Where is Kate Middleton? She has not been legitimately seen, I believed since December twenty fifth.

If you hadn't seen me since December of last year, you would have gotten worried within like a week, right, you would have been like, where is Chris? Did he die? No? How is the Princess of Wales able to disappear for five months? I mean we've got basically one video and then these three very not approved photos.

I would say the photos are not legit, and the oh the and the video in the store that's that's not her, that's not her at all period. But the video on the bench there's that. So either she is very very ill or worse, or she is a really really powerful manipulator and is pulling out all the steps to the control of their separation and split. Yeah. I get what she wants.

I don't blame her for a bit. And cancer may be in there all of it, but I think there's nefarious things afoot. I'm not buying it. Princess scene. That's a job.

That's their job on occasion in person, by more than one person, by real people in the world, not just that they need to show themselves for goodness sake, just just a little like, hey, it was just their anniversary, Like the twenty ninth was their anniversary and they released an unseen picture from their wedding. Not on the picture of the two of them. Just how hard would it be the two of them holding hands looking saduse she has cancer. Wouldn't that be what a normal royals would do or even normal people. I think it reinforces my feeling that the negotiations behind the scenes of her trying to get what she wants, what she needs out of their impending separation slash divorce, or gets what she wants she would in agreeing to stay with him, that that that's that is still underway.

Okay. I hope, I hope you're maybe they're going to intense comples outsling for goodness, I hope so, I hope that this is involving serious therapy where they are working on themselves in their marriage and taking care of their children. What if that's the plot of The Princess Diaries three. They just take this moment Anne Hathaway disappears and Chris Pine's like, I don't know where she went, and it's like a national treasure type thing. They have to find her.

She would miss it. But then it turns out she's just been ten the whole time. Oh god, are you guys said, I mean, Susan. I don't know what you're alluding to. She's either dead in a coma, or hiding.

But dead is one of the options, Isn't it Like you're you're saying it no uncertain terms. But I'm just gonna outright say it. I am just saying this is what I've read in the internet, mostly Twitter spear uh uh. And I have now become concerned because this woman has not legitimately been seen for a long long time, and no woman should be able to disappear. And apparently I am reading and reading about this stuff in the wrong places because I have not heard or seen any speculation about that.

Yeah, I be concerned. That's probably I don't go to Twitter. I don't go to Twitter, so maybe that's that's the problem for me. I thought that this. I thought that after that video came out, that the discourse was over and everybody was like, oh, she just has cancer.

I didn't realize people were still going, that's fun, that's fun. It's the Internet. Of course, of course, of course right at knowledge and some people stopped and some people just kept going. We're in the age of what is reality, and we I have really have to question because you know, things can be manipulated. Now again, I hope that she is okay and just recovering from cancer and it all is what it what they are telling us it is, or that they are just negotiating whatever the state of their relationship is.

However, I am very concerned about women in the world these days, and it is not unheard of of that uh uh women going through a separation end up dead sometimes or yeah, I'm not. I am not worried about that, just because of what I said earlier about her family and her parents, who I think are very very that they are she is very close to, and I don't think they'd have a problem marching out in front of whatever camera and telling the world, what what is happening to their daughter? If if it was something nefarious and if she is unfortunately iller than they have let on, it would be up to her to say what she wants the world to know. And I think, but if it's anything, and if it's but if it's anything nefarious, anything, I can't imagine her parents not being her advocate to the world.

There They seem savvy enough to be able to handle that. So and and I think she would let them. Can't wait to watch the documentary about all this in like five years, once we figure out what the deal was, Well, we'll have a documentary and everything. It's gonna be well, I have to have an emergency podcast to discuss the bunk. I read at this point, at this point like it's it's too funny to me that, Uh yeah, I like I said, I thought all this shit was over with.

I thought I thought that it was. I thought it was done. Have we seen her since the window? No, that's fair, that's fair, we haven't. You are correct, It has been what six weeks or so, maybe longer.

She was supposed to, you know, be after after Easter, and it's after Easter their anniversary would have been the perfect time for just a beautiful picture together if that's what they're even beautiful family picture. Yeah, you're right, you know, something to mark the day, and one that the news news media could would feel comfortable publishing that it doesn't have some of the issues that the last photograph did, So well, why haven't they, right, that's the question. If it is that easy, it is that easy, just take a pay that hard. Yeah, yeah, ain't that the truth? Yeah?

Boy, no, we aren't. We're gonna have to address this again in the future because you've brought it up. Well, when the Princess Diaries three comes out, you know, be like, oh, what ended up happening with Kate Middleton? Oh they ended up replacing with a robot, don't you remember. Yeah, I'm glad that we went off on some interesting tangents because we would have never talked about some of these things otherwise.

But to bring it all the way back to something about the royals, Yeah, Princess Diaries is pretty good. And I can say that as a as a millennial, so I might be a little bit biased because this movie resonates with people my age, because it was made for people my age at the time. So look, you could be in a worst movie as your first role or a worst movie as your role. Back to prominence for both Julie Andrews and Hathaway, who I mean, they're both great in this movie and neither one of them leave anything up to question. They put everything on the table.

They're both fantastic and this movie and they're kind of respective rules. And yeah, I mean, Gary Marshall makes it a movie worth talking about. Still, I don't know if this. I mean, there are a couple other directors who would have had that kind of ability to craft a timeless tale, but Gary Marshall seems to be able to do it better than most. So yeah, this is a I see why they're still talking about doing a third one in twenty twenty four, and I don't think that it's out of the question.

If not, we'll have to cover it at some point, the three of us, because that's how this works. We've volunteered ourselves to cover a third one should it happened. So until that day possibly happens. Where can people find what y'all do our aforementioned podcast, Eighties TV Ladies, You can find us. Our website is eightiestv Ladies dot com and we're on all social media Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, et cetera.

Come and check us out. We're even on TikTok now, but we only TikTok about once every week or ten days. Yeah, well we might not have TikTok for that much longer anyway, So you know, it's not going anywhere. It's not going anywhere. It's somebody else.

Maybe maybe name will be on the at the top of the list, but it's not going anywhere. I don't think. Yeah, I would be inclined to agree with you, given how much everybody seemingly as for ourselves. Weirdingway Media is where you can find everything that I work on or I don't work on, which includes eighties TV Ladies, the award winning podcast, and the Projection Booth. The Feminine Critique twisted and uncorked a whole lot of things, including stuff that I work on, but you can find it Weirdingwaymedia dot com.

Aside from one thing which you can find at Patreon dot com, slash culture Cast, which is the podcast ranking on Bond, which I do with Susan's husband, the host of Richard Hadam's paranormal Bookshelf. Richard HadAM ooh see see he's got his own show now too, and the projection booths Mike White. We talk about James Bond once a month, and we had y'all on for Honor Magic d Secret Service, which is coming out I think in two months from now, so not immediately. This month is Goldfinger, which is just the three of us chatting, but yeah, you can find that at the ten dollars level and up on Patreon. Susan Shearon, thank you both so much for joining me.

This was fun. We went all over the place places I did not expect with something so innocuous as the Princess Diaries. Thank you, Chris. This has been, as always, lots of fun, so much fun. Thank you, and as always, we'll catch you on the next episode.