The Bechdel Cast - Atomic Blonde with Vanessa Guerrero

Episode Date: July 8, 2021

International spies Caitlin, Jamie, and special guest Vanessa Guerrero go on a secret mission to discuss Atomic Blonde. (This episode contains spoilers)For Bechdel bonuses, sign up for our Patreon at patreon.com/bechdelcast.Follow @nessguerrero on Twitter. While you're there, you should also follow @BechdelCast, @caitlindurante and @jamieloftusHELP Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th 2017 was assassinated. Crooks Everywhere unearthed the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. To listen to new episodes one week early and 100% ad-free, subscribe to the iHeart True Crime Plus channel, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. I'm NK, and this is Basket Case. What is wrong with me? A show about the ways that mental illness is shaped by not just biology.

Swaps of different meds. But by culture and society. By looking closely at the conditions that cause mental distress, I find out why so many of us are struggling to feel sane, what we can do about it, and why we should care. Oh, look at you giving me therapy, girl. Listen to Basket Case every Tuesday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

In California during the summer of 1975, within the span of 17 days and less than 90 miles, two women did something no other woman had done before, tried to assassinate the President of the United States. One was the protege of Charles Manson. 26-year-old Lynette Fromm, nicknamed Squeaky. The other, a middle-aged housewife working undercover for the FBI. Identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore. The story of one strange and violent summer, this season on the new podcast, Rip Current.

Hear episodes of Rip Current early and completely ad-free and receive exclusive bonus content by subscribing to iHeartTrue Crime Plus only on Apple Podcasts. On the Bechdel cast, the questions asked if movies have women in them. Are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands or do they have individualism? The patriarchy's effing vast. Start changing it with the bechdel cast hey jamie hey caitlin i have a secret

okay do you know how you think that i'm your co-host of the bechdel cast? Yes. Well, I'm actually a spy and I'm really from the Daily Zeitgeist. Oh my God, you've infiltrated. But wait a minute. Wait, is there more? Wait a minute. At the end? I'm double crossing the Daily Zeitgeist

and I'm actually from Behind the Bastards. And then at the end, you get on a plane and Robert Evans is sitting on the plane and he at the end you get on a plane and robert evans is sitting on the plane and he goes you're back oh my god what a twist yes what a twist i know that was honestly a less confused that would be less confusing to me than the ending of atomic bomb yeah if you just got on a plane and robert was there and he said ha ha ha i can't believe you called me a name you little scamp and you said it's all a part of the job better go back to cleveland or wherever the cia is located where's the cia oh gosh i don't even know i was

langley langley yes my boyfriend knew that and he's like everybody knows that CIA is at Langley I was like I don't know the CIA is at Langley I don't even know what Langley is where is it what is Langley is that a city Virginia I only know this because of the American dad uh I don't know if it's in the intro or if like they just say it all the time but yeah whoa yeah I had no I was like Langley could be a person, could be a place, could be an idea. Langley, apparently, there's so much in this movie that they think is common knowledge, but it's not for me.

You and Robert have to get back to Langley. Yes, we do. And we're on our way. Welcome to the Bechdel cast. Yeah, which I am not actually a part of and and I'm I can't say anything because I'm dead you killed me and then got on Robert's plane yeah um anyway this is the Bechtel cast which I I am loyal to it so for now. For now. Yeah. But this is our show where we analyze movies from an intersectional feminist lens using the Bechdel test simply as a jumping off point.

Jamie, explain the Bechdel test to me in the most confusing way possible in the spirit of atomic blonde okay so the bechdel test is allegedly a media metric invented by queer cartoonist allison bechdel sometimes called the bechdel wallace test in which theoretically you would think that two named characters of a marginalized gender talk about something other than a man for two lines of dialogue or more. Unless, at the end, it turns out they talk about men the whole time and then they get on a plane and John Goodman's on the plane and then they go to Langley.

Okay, I don't think I followed that. The Bechdel test could be double crossing itself. And it's actually men. It's actually been about men this whole time. It's actually been about men the whole time. And then it's triple crossed. And it's actually been about, I don't know. I don't know.

And I think we've brought this up here and there on the podcast. But the Bechdel test is still about men because it's about how women are not are not talking about men. But it is thereby still men are still part of the equation at the center of the test. Yeah. You can't explain the Bechdel test when talking about the Bechdel test. Well, anyways, we're talking about Atomic Blonde today. That's just the truth. Yes. And we have an amazing guest. We sure do. She is the host of Kicking and Screaming podcast. She's a host at El Rey Network.

And you remember her from our Made in Manhattan episode. It's Vanessa Guerrera. Hello. Hello. Thank you for having me back. I loved that Made in Manhattan episode so much because it was the first time I discovered the power of a Four Loko on an empty stomach. where did i didn't even know you could still buy four locos i remember because i had beforehand run into jamie at a gas station and i was like oh that sounds delicious that will happen so i got a four loco and i got a hot dog and i was just like having both too quickly backstage and like the second i came out and like heard the audience i was like oh no i have a buzz going uh and then uh by the end of it i just remember getting to the conclusion of uh made in manhattan is the case for communism uh

it'll be way easier to get to that conclusion in this episode yeah it's built in here versus in uh how j-lo and ray fine are the least sexy couple that's ever existed oh my gosh god it does make me want to go back and re-watch maiden manhattan in in solidarity with j-lo as she traverses this breakup, you know? Yeah. Oh, right. What are we talking about? Atomic Blonde. Yes.

I was actually pretty hyped to talk about something action and fighting related since that's just most of what I, half of what I talk about these days. So what's your relationship and history with atomic blonde so i'm actually really excited to talk about specifically what happened the day i went to go see it because it just boils down my like general frustration with just trying to enjoy this movie in peace around men but my like general history is i i was very excited to watch it because I am a big fan of the director whose last name I can never figure out how to pronounce. David Leitch. Leitch Licht.

I'm going with Licht because I like it. But having been a big fan of his and in general, just whenever a stunt coordinator takes the director helm for an action movie, because that's typically where you're going to see that action look good uh especially considering he made his debut as a co-director for john wick and that was gorgeous and basically like brought back the action star and where the genre had been like pretty dead because uh like the born identity and taken had killed it. Cause you just had these movies with like dudes that don't know how to move and like shaky handheld cameras. And it was just basically sucking the fun out of action that like had existed during like the Jean-Claude Van Damme era. And so like when they announced atomic blonde,

I was just like, hell yeah. Charlize has been wanting to do actions since like Eon flux. Cause I know like when that was a thing she was like learning kaipo era and saying that she wanted to like be a martial arts star and uh when I went to go see atomic blonde I remember I went with like a couple women in my life that are also like huge like action martial arts like spy fans um one who was a fan of none of them uh but was just extremely queer and like thirsty for Charlize

and we went with like our token dude friend and the second we left the theater we were like talking about like oh that fight scene was fun oh this was cool this was interesting not like you know that was amazing because like there's a lot of convoluted plot stuff but like when you watch action you're watching

like the great choreography and then there's some stuff in the middle as with like the great choreography and then there's some stuff in the middle. As with like any great action movie. Like I dare you to tell me the plot of like Police Story. Nobody remembers and nobody cares because you're there for the punching. But the dude that we were with could not stop analyzing every single scene based on what he thought we thought of it. Whoa. analyzing every single scene based on what he thought we thought of it. So he kept giving like his like, you know, like this is me being like the woke good guy reads of everything. And so in the middle of our enjoyment, it kept being like, well, was it like a Jane Wick or is it like a Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy?

Or is it supposed to be like a bond thing and every time i've ever tried to have a conversation about this movie anywhere it just becomes men comparing it to things that exist that can't just let it be love when they do that and is my like general frustration about like just talking about women in action in general that's so interesting because we haven't done a ton of action movies on this show we've done we've done several but yeah there is always that tendency i mean just it's like such a male saturated genre that do you do you have a favorite action movie with with a female lead there's a few um especially when you go towards like shaw brothers martial arts movies so like less action

but like you know still on the martial arts vein uh you have my young auntie which is a it's basically like kung fu pride and prejudice oh hell yeah okay which is amazing there's a huge like fleet of just women that were like incredible in like the shaw brothers library or you have like a lot of like cynthia rothrock work or mich Yeoh because you know she's mostly known for like Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and then uh what was the one that she did recently uh Crazy Rich Asians but you know she already had this like amazing lineup but it's interesting because I feel like action for how much it's like talked about as male-saturated, in the 70s and 80s, there were a lot of female action stars that don't really get their flowers. And then now, when we're having the same conversations, it's usually because it's just actors that can't really fight.

And they're replaced by a celebrity like these incredible stunt women that are still working and performing and that are good actors honestly it's there's i don't know that much about the history of the genre and that gives me a lot of peace to know that there are there are eras of this genre that are like really female dominated but it's it's i feel like you know when we were growing up there was not that much in the mainstream at least yeah yeah it's i feel like you know when we were growing up there was not that much in the mainstream at least yeah yeah it's kind of like how it's kind of like how a lot of women found themselves in horror where it like double backed on something that was for men but women were like no this is mine now with like the final girl thing right except action and martial arts version of

that was the girls with guns genre where like, there's an entire, like if you look up girls with guns, it's like, especially in like Japan, there is a big like genre push of just like, here's three ladies and they're just an elite action team. And it was one of those things where it's like,

yeah, it was originally created for men. And then women were like, this is mine. Yoink. Love when they do that oh i'm so excited to learn more about the drug because i know like you're an expert and you know a ton about it i'm very excited to learn more today because this is this is in terms of just general knowledge i am weak on action and physically weak oh god same i the amount of jars that i have to like request

and then like for me i'm a big fan of this genre but almost all of my favorite action movies are male driven stories starring you know male action heroes so i i am not well enough versed in more like female centric action movies so i was excited about this movie when it came out for that reason and i remember like seeing the trailers for it and i already love charlize so i was like i can't wait for this. And then I saw it in theaters and was confused by the plot. But I was like, holy shit. Charlize as an action movie star is undeniable. Just so awesome. And she's doing a lot of her own stunts in this movie.

I was just like blown away by the action sequences and the fight choreography and like what she's capable of because like again i hadn't seen that much especially fighting like that because you see you see like and we'll talk about this but like the fight choreography that women are often made to do in action movies is they wrap their legs around a man's face and then pussy slam them to the floor yep and there's like none of that in this movie and yeah so i was just like i was blown away by the action scenes um yeah and confused by the narrative so that's my relationship with this movie jamie what about you I had never seen this movie uh I remember being excited I remember the trailer for this movie was a big deal because it

was like I think that the trailer for this movie was mostly just a fight scene to be like it's a movie about Charlize Theron kicking the shit out of people which was thrilling for me i didn't see it when it came out and then i just i i feel like this movie kind of like it didn't do super well at the box office i feel like it didn't pop the way that you would think it would but then watching it i mean it's the action is fucking incredible it's terrifying it's so and then reading about like i'm the relationship i'm rooting for in this movie is charlie's theron in the action genre um more so than the characters i don't know what's going on with them i had to google atomic blonde ending explained it was confusing to me oh yeah but the action was great and i am excited to talk about it dude like charlize

theron needed to get like dental surgery in the middle of this production because she just was like kicking ass so much she was literally clenching her jaw so hard and like if you look at every production she's ever done action wise like she's like keanu in the sense of like those are actors that what you wouldn't like call them martial arts stars the way you would call like somebody that's in the genre like Iko Owais or I'm trying to name remember the name of the woman uh who's getting her own sequel from The Night Comes for Us uh but she's there's a lot of women in The Night Comes for Us that have like some of the best action martial arts sequences.

And like, I want to see them getting more work. But like in terms of like actors that actually like give a shit about martial arts, like every production Charlize is like, I want to learn judo. I want to learn Kaipo era. I want to learn, you know, she was actually training with John Wick since the John Wick with Keanu since John Wick 2 was in production around the time. I loved that fact that they were training together and were friends I was like oh that's so beautiful and wholesome yeah and like the director himself who was a stunt choreographer so he's worked with everyone has said Charlize Theron is in the top one percent of actors that want to like do their

own stunts and stunt work because she did have a stunt double for like certain scenes where it was just completely like out of her skill set like jumping out of a window i believe it was a woman named monique uh i can't remember her name but her experience with it was also like because there's this thing that i like to call the tom cruise effect in action where an actor insists on doing his own stunts. But if it's something that can like get him hurt, set production back. Doesn't matter if it's him that can't see his face. That can like take a million takes, set a crew back and won't look any different other than just the ego of saying I've done my own stunts.

And like if you listen to any of Charlize's stunt doubles, they're like, yeah, she knows when to call us in and be like, I'm not doing this one. Someone else should. Because I'm not going to do that in the amount of takes that it needs to be. But if it's, you know, my face and if you're seeing it, then I'm going to be there to sell it.

And that's why her stunt doubles have such a better experience with her than like a lot of men that are insistent on doing all their own stunts and instead just set production back. Hearing stories about Charlize Theron always like is I feel like there's a lot of stories like that with her because she with Mad Max. The thing that always stuck with me was that. What's his name? Tom Hardy. Is that a man's name?

Yes. Tom Hardy. Oh, my God. Tom Hardy for the life of me. I just can't remember him. People say he's talented. I just can't remember who the man is. So but on the set of Mad Max, Tom Hardy was like, going super method. You know, he was just he was just being Mad Max. Whereas Charlie's Throne who stole that movie right out from under him um yeah would just uh act when the camera was on and then because it was like most male method actors Tom Hardy was like using this to be a fucking asshole to everyone working with him and Charlize was like I think she was asked about it and she's like no I just do the job when the camera's on

and then I stop and then I'm nice to people like yeah exactly i love if you're a good actor that's possible and if you're not a good actor and then i'm like whatever i mean like if you want to do method for you know your craft or whatever like but don't i just hate when it's used as an excuse to be a dick to people because it feels like that's where it usually goes what about yelling at a pa is gonna make this movie better for you right right yeah the only actor who should be going method and like staying in that character all the time is ben wishaw as paddington yeah or alfred molina with doc ock i'd let him kill me so it's just spitballing um but yeah charlie's is great i feel like for i mean we're gonna be talking about her a lot today i'm so interested caitlin

to hear what your plot summary of this movie is going to be because i think honestly i'll learn i well let me just give this disclaimer this recap might not make any sense because again i'm not sure how clearly i understand this movie but i did i did watch it twice to prep for this episode i really did my best to make this recap as clear as possible but shrug who knows how it's gonna go um so yes here's the recap okay uh we are in berlin it's november 1989 right before the fall of the berlin war wall yep let me try that again everything's going great right before the fall of the berlin wall we see a man james gas coin get murdered by a kgb agent named bachden then we cut to lorraine that's charlie sterron uh earth the ron i everyone's name in this episode is just gonna really trip me. It has a little bit of accent on everything.

So that's why I'm always like, ehhh. Charlize is in London. She's in London. She's all bunged up. She's drinking vodka on ice, which, gross. And her hair is atomic blonde. She's British intelligence. so like mi6 i had to google mi6 is it is that i think that's roughly equivalent to like american cia okay that's what i learned julia child was in an early version of that right okay if once it becomes Julia Child trivia, then I'm like, oh, wait, now we're speaking my language.

And she goes to a debriefing where Toby Jones is there. And so is John Goodman from the CIA. And they're like, hey, Lorraine, what happened in Berlin? And then the movie cuts back and forth between this like debriefing and flashbacks of like what's actually happening in the story. What would have been really helpful is if Toby Jones and John Goodman turned to camera and recapped the Cold War. It would have been super nice because this plot requires that you have a pretty thorough understanding of the Cold War. The allegiances and exactly what was going on at the end of 1989. Yes, I admittedly know so little about the Cold War

that I am embarrassed to admit how little I know about it. I know that it was something about communism. And I know a little bit more now because I found a website that is the Cold War explained for children. So I found this really helpful resource that explains to children what the Cold War was. Link it in the description. And now I have a slightly better understanding but um yeah i just i did not learn about this in history class and i don't know anything about it iconic thank you so much um okay so then we flash back to 10 days earlier where toby jones is explaining to Lorraine that immunity has been promised to a Stasi officer

codenamed Spyglass in exchange for a document aka The List, which is hidden in a wristwatch, which contains names of every active clandestine officer currently in Berlin and all of the shady things that they're into. I do kind of love that. I love the riddle inside of a riddle. It's all very, I was like, ooh, I feel smart. It's like national treasure. There's a clue inside a clue inside a clue. It's like the Da Vinci code, Caitlin.

And then you put the word apple in and it goes guess what that's the da vinci code good grief okay so this is and then they say like that this is information if it falls into the wrong hands will extend the cold war for another 40 years it's like the stakes are high really high stake groundhog's day yeah so they think the man who killed gas going at the beginning of the movie now has this list and everyone's looking for him including percival that's james mcavoy who is in berlin and then i think it's a flashback, flashback to him talking to Spyglass, telling him that Gascoigne never showed up with the list. But Spyglass is like, hey, don't worry, I memorized it. So then Lorraine heads to Berlin to link up with Percival there's a mysterious woman who is following her there's a

few fight scenes where like the kgb pretending to be british intelligence show up and try to trick her but she beats the shit out of them with a shoe it's so good um meanwhile bakhtin the guy with the list didn't report to his like soviet pals the main guy there being bremovich um and they realize that he's going to basically betray them and sell it on the black market yes then we cut back to lorraine she's trying to find this list but there's also this traitorous double agent with code name Satchel who is on the list and who Lorraine is trying to expose or keep hidden I don't know and it's at this point in the movie where I'm like oh there's too many there's too many MacGuffins and I'm gonna get confused really soon what one of those like okay there's a there's a list inside of a watch but now there's satchel and i'm gonna get lost i think i was already pretty lost by this point

at least on my the first time watching this movie also and like wait what is the cold war right i have no idea i've it's been explained to me and like basketball, I haven't retained it. Yeah. I've like, I've definitely read about it. I've like read the Cold War Wikipedia page, but it's like one of those things that like the second, like I hit X on the Wikipedia page, I've forgotten everything I just learned. So. Gone.

Do you want to know what's really embarrassing? Yes. I took a two year course in high school on the cold war i don't know what it is i don't know i don't know i didn't retain any of it yeah i was too busy having crushes right all i know is there's a piece of it in a vegas bathroom yeah oh yeah i think it's a urinal in a vegas bathroom i can't remember like what hotel has it but that's exciting i love a cold war artifact right um yeah so for anyone who's like listening to this episode and like hoping to get some context for the cold war don't yell at us this is a not a cold war podcast okay geez yeah anyway so lorraine goes somewhere to find answers and this woman who has been following her approaches lorraine her name is delphine lascelles. And she's like, hey, meet me at this club tomorrow night.

And we're like, ooh, they're vibing. Ooh, they're vibing. Yeah. Then there's something with a watchmaker and a watch, but not the watch with the list on it. It's a different watch. Uh-huh. And Lorraine is given a new contact to pursue in East Berlin, like an ally that she can trust because she does not trust Percival's contacts. And so she goes to East Berlin and meets with this contact, Merkel, a.k.a. Bill Skarsgård, who looks to me a lot like Steve Buscemi.

Was anyone else getting that? Oh, I don't know. He does. And that makes sense as to why I find him attractive. Cause I'm like, I shamelessly am hella into like the, the big guy thing. And I've always like had a long time, like Buscemi thing.

And I couldn't figure out why Skarsgård was like the most appealing of the Skarsgårds to me, uh, Bill. I mean, and the Buscemi thing makes sense now. That he, he is kind of serving some young buscemi i have such a crush on bill skarsgård i'm like even as pennywise not as pennywise it doesn't matter yeah it doesn't matter like in this movie specifically he looks the most like

berlin punk kid in the way that like you'd meet somewhere and just be like ha ha ha i'm gonna ignore all my friends to talk to you just let him like ruin your life for a couple of weeks yeah drop everything and then be like wow my life's in shambles and but here's bill skarsgård he has that face oh wow he does bill anyway so then Anyway, so then Lorraine goes to this club that Delphine told her about. And Lorraine and Delphine start making out. But, oh, wait. Delphine works for French intelligence. And I'm like, whose side are they on in the Cold War?

How would I know that? They're, from what I could gather, like the US, England, West Germany, and French were all allied together. Okay, so they're all on the, okay. So the French, I just was like, is France randomly going rogue and they're with East Berlin? So then, okay, sorry, I'm going to stop.

But so yeah, she's an ally. So that's like kind of a point of contention for a moment. But then they're like, well, let's just keep kissing. And then they have sex. And then Delphine tells Lorraine some secret information about Percival, which I think we never find out what it was by the end of the movie. So question mark. I was trying to figure that out too. Vanessa, do of the movie so question mark i was trying to figure that out too vanessa do you know yeah i've been trying to figure it out i have a theory because

like by this point she hasn't taken that photo yet i think because later on there's that photo she takes of percival yeah so my theory is either like she was following him or percival hired her to follow l Lorraine because why else would like an agent as novice as Delphine, who's only been doing it for like a year and like, you know, she like makes a lot of like rookie mistakes. So why else would someone like her like catch on to where Lorraine is and

who she is unless she was like tipped off. Interesting. Okay. That's what I think. I think personal might've like hired her. Cause she's there at the airport when Lororraine arrives yeah in berlin yeah that makes sense oh poor i i wish that we got uh more delphine just i i liked how she was like yeah i thought i would like spy for a couple years after college but i'm kind of in over my head it's like she's

treating being an international spy like it's teach for America I'm like what are you doing what are you doing you don't you're not suited to this job oh I'm like there's a whole there's a whole slapstick comedy in that sentence alone yeah I know basically spy 2 i want her character in spy 2 yeah where's like where's the rom-com version of this where it's just like lorraine and delphine having a comedy of errors falling in love and not knowing who's who there's a lot of stuff there because it's like oh if a if a if an experienced spy falls in love with a rookie spy, that's such a bad look for her. And like, oh, how embarrassing. Oh my God. I love, okay.

Wood watch. Let's write it. Yeah. So into this. Okay. So meanwhile, Percival finds Bakhtin, kills him and takes the watch with the list on it. But he doesn't tell Lorraine that he has it

when they like meet up to make arrangements to escort spyglass to west berlin because they're providing like safe passage to him and his family to the west and then shortly after that this is when we also see percival colluding with the soviets he's to, what's the guy's name? Bremovich. And so things seem pretty shady there. The more last names that get introduced to stuff, the harder of a time I have,

which is why I never got into Game of Thrones. Right? Yeah. In general, anything that has a lot of names is a tough one for me. Especially because there's so many like code names too or like names of people who you don't know what code name applies to what person and it's why I've never been sober for a Bond film I just let it take me you need it's so like yeah and then if and then

the answer to your question of like who is that is always like oh it's the guy with the beard and then you're like well that's actually really not helpful. There's 40 of them. Because they just come on and off wherever they want. I also didn't. Okay, this was like a totally stray observation. But the moment where John Goodman shows up at the top of the Berlin Wall and he's wearing a hat, I almost didn't recognize him. I'm like, have I ever seen John Goodman in a hat? He was unrecognizable to me

in that hat interesting does he wear hats listeners sound off in the comments i don't know that i've ever seen the man wear a hat maybe an inside luland davis oh i haven't seen that i think i distinctly think in the back seat of a car he might be wearing a hat but also that character has like i'm wearing a hat energy right i'm just like god I feel like I just John Goodman is so and he's like amazing but he's so John Goodman in all of his roles and I was just completely thrown by seeing him in a winter hat and I was like that's not the man I've come to love I knew the shape of his head yeah I was like where's the top of that head John anyways a lot of brilliant observations. Yeah.

Oh, keep them coming, Jamie. John Goodman hat, three question marks. I'll mark that off. I think I've made my point. Oh, God. Okay. So, meanwhile, Percival and Lorraine go to East Berlin to meet up with Spyglass to get him safely to the West. Except there are a bunch of Soviet snipers targeting Spyglass. They are unsuccessful, but Percival shoots Spyglass, which no one sees.

So now we're like, yeah, definitely Percival is maybe not a good guy here right that guy we keep hearing is the bad guy he might be the bad guy he might be the bad guy yeah so then following that is when they we get this like huge like 10 minute long amazingly choreographed fight sequence where I love it so much she finds the, kicks the shit out of them for 10 minutes. She and Spyglass escape temporarily, but then Spyglass is killed when their car is kind of thrown into a river and he drowns. So now Lorraine believes Percival to be a double agent. This is even more confirmed when he goes and kills Delphine. Which Lorraine finds out about right away. She's sad.

She then finds and kills Percival. And it seems like Percival is like this codename double agent satchel. But wait. But then we see Lorraine editing various audio recordings. She's like cutting things together to make it seem like I was, I wrote down Caitlin editing the Bechdel cast every week, cutting out all the stuff. That's like,

Ooh, no one wants to hear that. This is going to come out and I'm going to be admitting to so many crimes. Yeah. Sorry, Vanessa, but I'm really going to implicate you for some messed up stuff here. Brutal stuff. I'm the one that burned down.

I'm the reason the Hindenburg crashed. I mean, you said it during the recording. I love the evidence show. Oh, goodness. Okay, so she's like, yeah, she's cutting things together to make it seem like Percival was a traitor when it seems like Lorraine was Satchel all along. What?

But then we cut to a few days later in Paris. Lorraine, as Satchel meets with the main Soviet bad guy, Bromovich, who's about to kill her, but she kills him and all of his cronies because wait, she's not a traitor. She's still loyal to the British crown. Oh, wait. No, she isn't. Because she's been an American spy this whole time, working for the CIA. And John Goodman is her boss. She's not British intelligence at all. Whoa.

That was, I, oh, God. When the movie ended for the fourth time i was like what hello there and then she's like i just want my life back and i'm like well what do you mean by that because i don't know a damn thing about you i it seems like this movie is setting up more they're like oh we'll tell you more about her later yeah there is a sequel in development so maybe we will find out more information about Lorraine. In the meantime, let's take a quick break and then we'll come right back to discuss. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who, on October 16, 2017, was murdered.

There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate. My name is Manuel Delia. I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere, a podcast that unhurts the plot to murder a one-woman Wikileaks. Tizia is a journalist who has been working on the podcast for over a decade. Tiffany exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country

into a mafia state. And she paid the ultimate price. Listen to Crooks everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. To listen to new episodes one week early and 100% ad-free, subscribe to the iHeart True Crime Plus channel, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. I want you back in my life. It's too late for that. I have a proposal for you.

Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do. One session. 24 hours. BPM 110. 120. She's terrified. Should we wake her up?

Absolutely not. What was that? You didn't figure it out? I think I need to hear you say it. That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. This machine is approved and everything? You're allowed to be doing this? We passed the review board a year ago.

We're not hurting people. There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I felt too seen. Dragged. I'm N.K., and this is Basket Case.

So I basically had what back in the day they would call a nervous breakdown. I was crying and I was inconsolable. It was just very big, sudden swaps of different meds. What is wrong with me? Oh, look at you giving me therapy, girl. Finally, a show for the mentally ill girlies. On Basket Case, I talk to people about what happens when what we call mental health is shaped by the conditions of the world we live in.

Because if you haven't noticed, we are experiencing some kind of conditions that are pretty hard to live with. But if you struggle to cope, the society that created the conditions in the first place will tell you there's something wrong with you. And it will call you a basket case. Listen to Basket Case every Tuesday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

And we're back, baby. Where do we want to start? Should we start by talking about the action in in the movie because yeah there's so much to love here i um yeah i mean vanessa you're you're the expert what was your what was your take on the action in this movie oh my god i loved it i loved it so much i the last few years and like continuing onward we're watching action and martial arts movies have their renaissance again like we're we're watching people actually like give a shit about good choreo and also filming good choreo because for a long time the way we were shooting it wasn't

doing it justice it was that like shaky handy cam that's like why would you go through of, you know, training these actors and these stuntmen through these amazing pieces of choreography akin to like Gene Kelly dance sequences. And then we shoot it like shit, which is like very much like a Western thing, because like Indonesia, Korea and everywhere else was like way ahead of us on the action end there. Like just watch anything they were doing like 10 years before we started getting good again uh but like specifically where i started noticing people like paying attention to action choreo getting good again was like birds of prey where it was like oh wow you can like get characterization through like good action sequences and the choreo in this does a lot of that like when percival gets stabbed in the back when he's like trying to kill Delphine and he's like he can't reach the knife and you have that almost like comical like slapstick moment

or really thinking about like the stairwell scene and how it's all this really great one take but everyone like is getting progressively exhausted and you're having those moments where they're like hitting the ground and taking a breather or like stumbling back and it feels so much more grounded considering like the plot gets a little wonky because it it has that like curse of being something that's like based on a graphic novel so it's like what do we keep and what do we not keep that and just like spy movies in general i struggle to follow there are like two of the four daniel craig bond movies that have come out to date i could not even begin to explain the plot to two of them i like i'm just like they're what was one quantum of solace like yeah forget about it i don't know what that movie's about

i've seen it like three times and i can't tell you what happened so i think that's just sort of like a trademark of the genre is that a spy like espionage movie is just going to be kind of confusing it's confusing and action really shines its best when you just do like a real just like simple like this is the plot and and we're just going with this one i like i bring it up again and i remembered the name of the sequel it's night of the operator with this amazing actress named Julia Stell. That's the sequel that they're planning. But The Night Comes for Us is a perfect action movie

because the plot could just be summed up as, like, a former triad member is protecting a young girl. That's it. Keep it simple. It's super simple, and then just action sequences play out the rest of it. Because that's when it works the best the second you try and do something else people are lost because they're paying attention to these great long sequences and then there's some shit in the middle and they're lost but like the choreography in this does the thing that i really love where it thinks

about how each person would fight in a situation because like in a lot of this like you know Charlize is still like smaller stature than a lot of the people that she comes up against so she uses her environment she's really good at like figuring out where she can get these like physical advantages advantages on them but like also doesn't get that thing that you saw in like a lot of earlier action movies with women in them where it's like but they're also inhumanly strong yeah yeah yeah and also like so and like i mentioned this earlier but like a lot of earlier action movies starring women were really grossly sexualizing the fight choreography and like making them just like horny fight and like oh mr and mrs smith slam you down with my

pussy and that's gonna be my big signature move and like yeah yeah this just felt so much more grounded and authentic and there wasn't any sort of like meal made of charlize's body as she was fighting in in the action sequences though it's like right i feel like for me talking about the action sequences of this movie and then talking about the other parts of the movie it's like oh it was like i don't know i was having some dissonance with like the action sequences are so incredible and so well done and i mean like you're saying vanessa like she's using her body in a really powerful but realistic way. She's like dressed in a way that makes human sense for what she's doing. And like, it's just really fucking cool.

And but then outside of that, I feel like her body is treated completely differently. It's just so it was like kind of dissonant for me in terms of like the action is so good. But then the way that the camera treats her body at other points. And I don't know how much of this is pulling from the graphic novel. I'm sure a lot of it is, but the way the camera treats her body when she's outside of those action sequences feels more intentionally sexualized. And yeah, the action sequences and the rest of the movie, I was like, oh, it almost feels like two different units or something. Yeah. I was excited to talk to you

about this because I've also like I've had some interesting mental back and forth with it where it's just something that I like never just have like a straight answer for how I feel about it because like it is treated differently from the fight sequences because the fight sequences are very much just like it's how a lot of like martial artists and action stars are treated as like you know their body is like this weapon in this tool and on one hand there's also like the elements of like it feels overly sexualized but then I also like grew up watching a lot of Jean-Claude Van Damme movies where he's like oiled up and like doing the splits and like very much like posing like this is my ass and like the hallmark of the action star where the men are like flexing and like that first scene where like before we even see her tits it's

like the flexing of her back muscles and so like there are those moments of me being like what for me is like the amount that you expect from an action star as like what has been standard and then what feels ick for me and I'm trying to find those lines because then I have this other layer of like this general frustration and I've talked to other queer women about this this like general frustration of just like when am I getting an action star that I get to lust over that isn't just a guy and when can I like have that framed for me sure because I also like want that I want my like sexy bond lady I like I want my you know Gordon Liu like glistening in the sun moment but then you also have to like have that conversation

of just like who is the target audience? What am I gleaning off of this? Like, how is it presented? And like, when am I like going to get it? And it goes straight back to that. Why can't I have something and let it be? But then I have the conversation of like how men are viewing it, too. And I'm like, fuck. yeah my impression of it was her body was not treated that much differently than the way

a man's body would be treated in an action movie where a man is the action hero of the story where like there is still some degree of sexualization of a male action hero like you said with like a focus on like glistening muscles or there's some kind of like raw sexualization to like a strong rugged male action hero and while there is some kind of gazey camera work happening on charlize's body and there's scenes where she's nude where she didn't necessarily have to be seen nude like narratively speaking I feel like the same kinds of things happen in yeah just like any action movie not to say that that's like an excuse or that makes it okay yeah but it was to me because there are action movies starring women that way more sexualize like the female subject i'm thinking of like

angelina jolie in laura croft tomb raider sure salt that oh yeah i i still haven't seen salt but like yeah women's bodies will just be more sexualized than what I saw in Atomic Blonde. Not to say that there was no sexualization happening. It was kind of like somewhere in the middle, I guess. It's that messy, messy middle. Right. Yeah. And again, this is like not my genre.

So I totally hear what you're saying in terms of like men are. This is just a very sexualized genre it's a genre that hinges on bodies working at peak physical performance and like you're gonna want to see that there was just I think for this one in particular I kind of like I did some research on the team and obviously like this is a team that knows action and knows stunts but i was also like this is also a team of men who never seem to work with women behind the scenes very frequently and i i did feel like with with certain shots and certain scenes there was stuff that felt like it felt just kind of like if there was a woman in the room or if there was a woman in a high creative position would this scene had to happen this way would this costume choice have

gone through because I feel like kind of the difference with other action movies that I'm familiar with and again it's not a ton but I was you know usually in action movies you have you know a male hero who is presented pretty sexually but you also have these side female characters who are presented hyper sexually and they're basically useless to the plot this movie presents its hero sexually and that's kind of it there is you don't have that like oh and here's the like a sexy male sidekick this time or i don't know it just felt I think it stuck out to me because the only characters I felt like were being kind of sexualized were the female characters like that those other elements were missing and I think that's why it kind of popped for me in like that very bond way yeah and then I was like oh and it's the cinematographer for Transformers so like I

just don't know I just don't know how like i guess my i'm extremely jaded in this department but particularly with cinematographers i'm like i just don't know that they were thinking of or asking these questions just based on kind of the team assembled yeah it's it's a probably not situation because of just like how like especially like 2017 we were like on the precipice of getting more. But like at the time there are so few women not like working because they've been there. But like that were being hired, financed and like put in these positions to make these calls. Totally. But then you also get on the weird end of just like because you're like mixing

genres where you also have like the spy thriller it's like ah but then there's always that like honeypot situation uh but again because it was because i know the suggestion to like add bisexuality into it was charlie's oh cool yeah she was that wasn't in the graphic novel but she wanted that element to it uh where she's just like i wanted to have like my bond girl moment but then the moments where she's with gas coin we don't really get to have those moments with him we don't really get to like lust with him and give him like the equal bond girl moment that we get with delphine i think i would have like kind of maybe this is like nonsensical

but I would have like been less kind of like pinged by it happening with Charlize and with Delphine if that moment did exist for the side characters because you're yeah it's like it's a hypersexual genre regardless of gender normally but it felt like it was still kind of like the hypersexualization and not even like hyper, but the sexualization really only happened for female characters. Yeah. And it just felt like kind of off.

Yeah. I'm picturing a scene where Charlize is taping like a microphone or like a bug to herself and the camera starts on her like pelvis and then kind of like just slowly tilts up her body as she's like taping the wire all the way up. And then like she's wearing a bra, but like it lingers on her breasts for a moment. And then that shot is used in the trailer. And we can talk about the trailer a little bit, but it's basically like whatever is going to make a an audience want to see a movie which is usually like sex and violence and rock and roll and this movie has got it all

oh the soundtrack for this movie is so fun it's all diegetic too yeah before baby driver oh right yeah yeah yeah hell yeah but yeah so there's there's like these kind of lingering kind of males gazey shots that exist in the movie are just plucked out and put into the trailer to get people to be like oh this is gonna be a re this is a really sexy movie i have to go see it and it's like i'm never upset to see charlize like it's not that's not the issue for me like I'm in love with her it's great but yeah you have James McAvoy in a mesh tank top why not him too yeah exactly I'm like there should

be equal opportunity lusting if we're lusting in the movie like James McAvoy's right there Bill Skarsgård give me some of that Bill Skarsgård baby I'll even take it from John Goodman because I've had a long time thing for him. It's like, yeah, it's like you have all,

I mean, you have, it would be easier to tell the male characters apart if one were naked. But yeah, so it's like, there were some shots, like that shot you're describing, Caitlin, I'm like, ooh, the Transformers Dark of the Moon is jumping out for me here yeah a little bit but i never felt that watching the action sequences so that's why

it was just felt like different i don't know yeah like that that sexualization isn't present there for sure i had a couple other observations about the different fight sequences um where i think it's just like worth noting that we see very little in the way of male heroes or characters that we're meant to be like we are meant to side with fighting it's all lorraine fighting men who are like framed as being bad guys so like it's just such a rare thing to see in a mainstream American contemporary movie that in general is cool there was a moment where we talked about the shoe the and that happens pretty early on and I didn't totally remember a lot of details about this movie after having seen it in theaters so the scene where she like pulls off her candy apple red three or four inch stiletto and like uses it as a weapon for a moment I was like oh no is this going to be one of those movies where like

women like they're using their shoes and like their lipstick is actually like a tracking device and like things like that. And that didn't happen after this one moment with the shoe, which I was like thankful for. Which was really cool. I mean, that moment with the shoe is fucking. And I mean, it does make a good weapon. She's got other weapons. She's got other. Yes.

Most of the time you see her fighting with her fists or kicking people or shooting guns. So keys, lamps. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Sections of hose. But not like frying pans, which is a thing we talk about all the time. We're like, oh, if a woman fights, then she has to fight with cookware. No, she's like she's like fucking good at what she does, which is, I'm like, her job is just, that, I mean, I don't even want to get into the plot stuff too much, because I'm like,

what, what does the CIA want, in this situation? I don't know. Couldn't tell you, Yeah. what her true goal is. Everyone's motivations are so weird.

So, I'm like, what is John Goodman, aren't the CIA and MI6, theoretically on the same side? Right? Right. I don't understand. I don't know. Are't know I don't know oh god there's so much I don't know about the cold war and also the general wants of what covert operations need I have no idea right yeah but like speaking to like Lorraine's character I mean she's definitely I I feel like and again, you both know way better than me.

I feel like spy characters are often kind of blank slates because they have to have all these secrets kind of deal. And that's kind of that is her deal, because otherwise, if you I mean, if you find out she's American, then the plane scene at the end means nothing. But I like that. I felt like, yeah, like Lorraine is just like a full on fucking action hero. She looks cool all the time, regardless of what she's doing. Oh, she's drinking vodka on the rocks. She's drunk all the time.

Yeah, she's drunk all the time. She's chain smoking. She's saying fuck all the time. She's a certified badass. She's like quippy in the interview she's always firing off these one-liner like it just felt so like in a really fun way like oh yeah this is like an action movie this person is just like a career cool person yeah right but yeah we don't we don't learn much about her character. Nor anybody. Aside from that.

Yeah. And this type of movie doesn't call for like really meaningful character development. Like that's not why we go to watch an action movie. Yeah. I dare anybody to give me like five character traits of John Wick. Like give me five other than like he likes dogs. Give me four more than that because like even the third movie had like a weird side plot where he like went to egypt and cut off his own finger for like no goddamn reason uh and again these are movies i adore but i like with with so many like action heroes i'm like give me five each i dare you truly impossible for most of them yeah we don't really come to the genre for character development yeah the last observation i want to make about just

sort of like the action of it all is that um i just appreciate that between atomic blonde between mad max fury road between i didn't see this movie yet, but I know that it's another action movie, The Old Guard on Netflix. Charlize Theron has proven herself to be an impressive action movie star. Not that she's necessarily known only for that, because she spans many genres. She can do it all. She can do it all. She was in Tully.

She was in Tully? She was in Tully. She was in Monster. She was in a bunch of young adult. Mighty Joe Young. Remember that one? Oh my God. I had that on VHS. I watched it until it like just got all the little fuzzy lines because I kept rewinding it. Anyway, so she's very versatile, but she's kind of one of a few women in Hollywood who are being cast in these very action centric roles, which I think is just like a really cool thing that I would like to see more of, especially because it's not something that a lot of women have been able to achieve just because of like the limitations of who they let be in action movies yeah but there are dozens of men who have made entire careers as very bankable action stars and you could like tom cruise bruce willis the rock jason statham keanu reeves arnold schwarzenegger like the list goes on and on and on so I just I appreciate that like Charlize Theron this is part of her career now because I love watching her fight and just

and I really like that she like got this movie made too I feel like that's a lot of especially when you hear about um like so many good movies with female protagonists only happened because there was like a woman with power who was like, we're doing this. Yeah. And it seems like this movie is no exception that like Charlize was like found the book and she's like, I want the director of John Wick to do this. And this is the team I want. And this is how I want to fight. And, you know, she like got it made. And she's in her 40s in this movie, too, which isn't, you know, which isn't nothing in Hollywood ever.

Yeah. And I know she's producing the sequel, too, which is fantastic. Nice. Love it. Also, for anybody that's just like looking for a lot of like dope scenes with women in action now, like look to Indonesia. Indonesia, like currently has been doing amazing like if you just look up an actress named julia stell like the amount of fights that she has under her belt right now that are all all of them are like iconic scenes in action like if somebody did like a top 20 from the last decade a big chunk would be Julia Stell. Awesome. That's so cool.

Okay. Yeah, I got to check her out. Nice. Let's take a quick break and then we'll come back for more discussion. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017, was murdered. There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate. My name is Manuel Delia. I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere,

a podcast that unhurts the plot to murder a one-woman Wikileaks. Daphne exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. And she paid the ultimate price. Listen to Crooks everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. To listen to new episodes one week early and 100% ad-free, subscribe to the iHeart True Crime Plus channel, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts.

I've been thinking about you. I want you back in my life. It's too late for that. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project. All you need to for that. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do. One session.

24 hours. BPM 110. 120. She's terrified. Should we wake her up? Absolutely not. What was that? You didn't figure it out? I think I need to hear you say it that was live audio of a woman's nightmare this machine is approved and everything you're allowed to be doing this we passed the review board a year ago we're not hurting people there's nothing dangerous about

what you're doing they They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. I felt too seen. Dragged. I'm N.K., and this is Basket Case. So I basically had what back in the day they would call a nervous breakdown. I was crying and I was inconsolable.

It was just very big, sudden swaps of different meds. What is wrong with me? Oh, look at you giving me therapy, girl. Finally, a show for the mentally ill girlies. On Basket Case, I talk to people about what happens when what we call mental health is shaped by the conditions of the world we live in. Because if you haven't noticed, we are experiencing some kind of conditions that are pretty hard to live with.

But if you struggle to cope, the society that created the conditions in the first place will tell you there's something wrong with you. And it will call you a basket case. Listen to Basket Case every Tuesday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. All right, should we talk about the romantic subplot? Let's talk about the romantic subplot, baby. So, it's between Lorraine and Delphine Teach for America, Bad Spy. Yup. And this is, like, I think that actress's second, like, spy type movie as well. Oh, really?

Yeah, I forgot to look her up. Because she did Kingsman. Oh, she, yes. She was the girl with the sword feet oh like the uh the henchman with the sword feet i have wait i haven't seen kings but i didn't know there was sword feet in that movie yeah so sophia boutel i believe is her last name uh her background is also dance that's why she was in that movie, that director I hate, Gaspar Noé, Climax. Oh, yes. Not a fan. Yeah.

So her background is mostly dance stuff. So I'm surprised that she didn't get a ton of choreo in this movie because she had a bit in Kingsman as the main baddies henchman. So when I saw her in this, I was like, oh, cool. They brought her in because she did a a bond homage already you know she like has that background and she didn't really get a ton of choreo which was a bummer for me yeah yeah i felt like she was set up i i i really enjoyed the way that her character was set up and i enjoyed how that relationship was set up and then she kind of disappeared and then she came back and then she was killed it uh reminded me a little bit of the girlfriend character in have either of you seen i care a lot oh not yet yes there's

another like a cool relationship that is set up and you're like oh this is like love is i you know i'm i'm kind of a sucker for like my only weakness is love oh god same and then you get like a cool a cool character and then you're like oh this is gonna be the movie but then it kind of isn't and then the character dies and you're sad yeah sorry for spoiling i care a lot for you it's fine no it's the same kind of deal that i've seen before because it's just like i don't know there's like there isn't like a ton of space to development but also like i've seen other movies give me that development faster so i know it's possible it's not something that's like undoable and impossible and like delphine had

all of the makings of you know having like one or two really great fight scenes like she had a little bit of that moment with that like knife work but again not that much and like you said jamie i really liked their back and forth in terms of just like her being a novice and like this thing that like reflects that to lorraine and i just i wanted a little bit more i wanted just at least just a sequence of not so much like how she got into it like those photos we get like such a throwaway moment of her taking those photos but we didn't get like a a throwaway moment of her taking those photos but we didn't get like a three minute spy scene or something right I'm like why wouldn't you have

shown that like and why could I mean I know that like the center of the action is going to be around Lorraine and that totally makes sense but it's like there was room for that and it would have been fun to watch and it seems like um sophia butella is able to do it so yeah just do it yeah i felt like she kind of faded she just kind of faded out of the movie over time i don't know yeah so here here are my thoughts on all this so it would have been like the easy the expected the common choice to have this romantic subplot be between like Lorraine and Percival sure instead it's a queer romance the character in the source material in the graphic novel is basically the same character but they gender swapped it so what happened there

was basically Charlize Theron was like, okay, we're developing this for the screen. We're adapting this. How can we make it different though than like your typical spy action movie? And then the screenwriter, Kurt Johnstead, suggested, quote, in the graphic novel, the LaSalle character, the French agent is actually a man. I said, I think it's cool if we gender flip this and make it a woman. End quote. And then Charlize was all for it. So we have a few things here now.

So we get some bi visibility because it's implied that Lorraine was in a relationship with James Gascoigne before he was killed. And then she begins this relationship with Delphine. So, you know, it's not something we've actually talked that much about on the show. and even media featuring queer characters tends not to include bisexual or pansexual people, or, I mean, really anyone on the sexual spectrum who is not hetero or a gay man or lesbian woman. The sexual spectrum that tends to get represented in media still seems to be quite binary and erases a large number of people. so this movie does give us some bisexual inclusion and visibility however this movie received backlash from a lot of viewers for the use of the bury your gaze trope which is uh if anyone's not familiar, in media, a disproportionate number of queer characters will

be killed off, often in the name of advancing a hetero leading character's storyline. When it does happen, it's often like very kind of random or needlessly, or it like kind of doesn't really have anything to do with the plot, or it like didn't need to happen narratively. So that's kind of part of this trope. And it means that queer characters don't get a happy ending, or like that the queer couple doesn't get to end up together. So a lot of people saw this movie and were really disappointed by the use of this trope and then like learning that the screenwriter was like hey let's just make this a queer relationship instead of a straight relationship then uses that trope to me is just sort of indicative of like okay the choice wasn't

necessarily made for it wasn't made maliciously but like it wasn't made in an informed way i feel like that again speaks to like the the like team that is assembled here are a great action team but that but there's like needs to be some other voices in the room yeah because it's like this guy wrote 300 you know like is he do we really trust him with this storyline i don't know you know i don't know yeah i'm gonna bring a kind of left field example in terms of just like when i'm like comfy in a death and versus when i'm like not because like i've had this conversation a zillion times with other queers where it's like there's barrier gates and then there's just when a plot like lends itself to like this character will die or everybody dies

or there's no happy ending and often the time the thing that changes it is if the writer's straight or not and also like is the character experiencing like some kind of retribution and like the first time i saw a queer death on screen where i like didn't feel weird was because the writer himself was gay and that was the movie bride of chucky um so amazing example fuck yeah oh it's like where where is this going i love it it's a big left field one so if you watch specifically the child's play series it gets really queer uh the second like don mancini starts to gain more control because like first of all he's the reason why the script worked initially um there's a real mess first and then he went in and fixed it and then he basically has been like the same writer for everything and then

took more creative control on once bride of chucky came out and that was like if you watch it it's very like especially for like young me as like a closeted bisexual woman, like it had all of my like little flags of just like, hey, I know you're watching this because like it's very campy. You know, there's a very deliberate casting and like Jennifer Tilly. The sequel after that has John Waters in it. Like it knows. And like Bride of Chucky was also the first time I saw a gay character in horror that was just gay like it's he's the best friend but he's not even the sassy best friend he's just the best friend that is also gay and like you know is just there and like everyone dies in in a Chucky movie because

that's what it is you know yeah you have this irredeemable irredeemable slasher everyone dies and the way slashers are set up like you're fully expecting any character that's introduced to be queered to be like the one that gets like the most brutal punishment it's usually when they're middle of like doing something gay uh and it's just like a little bit more cruel and often sexualized than it is in other places and david is just david until he inevitably gets hit by a truck because he's like, you know, in the middle of a standoff. And yes, he gets hit by a truck, but he dies like the same way everyone else does. And it's just being a character. And I know that like Don Mancini, when he wrote that, wasn't like, I'm punishing David.

David's just David. Versus when like if a straight guy wrote that exact scene i feel weirder because he doesn't have that like intent knowledge and like he doesn't have that informed decision and right you could do it's like if a gay person wrote this i wouldn't feel the same and it doesn't help that delphine is killed in lingerie for some reason yep yes like come on how many her death scene feels really exploitative in that way. And then I also pulled a quote from the director, David Leitch. It's just a lot of consonants all at once.

But he said about this relationship, quote, The relationship was flipped before I came on board it was a great idea you always have to find ways to contemporize these stories reach bigger audiences and be provocative in your storytelling end quote provocative okay that's interesting in in citing the word provocative right yeah so the the intent there with like the direction and again with the writing choice and again like i if it's a matter of if this writing choice is made responsibly and that character is given more just like thought and care and development and she isn't like fridged for no reason it's just not like it's just i don't know it's like

with all due respect to this team these are like you know collaborators of michael bay and zach snyder they're not gonna they're ill-equipped right to to make what i think is like a good idea here but they're ill-equipped to give it the breathing room and the you know just kind of like respect that any storyline deserves yeah to make that informed decision because the thing is like all right let's say delphine has to die because you know it's a spy movie and you know it's like you play the spy game you die whatever she could have been like dispatched the way any of the men in the movie had been like very much just like so many dudes are like shot through their coat they're thrown down a

flight of stairs it's treated so much differently where like you know they're not they're not pretty during any of that because you never are when you're being shot in the back right yet like even like the manner of this where it's like there was no knife and bullet involved because in strangulation you keep a pretty body it's the kind of choices that are made where it's like well she still has to be beautiful and it's like why she's a spy she's a spy like everyone else has yeah she could have just had a spy death yeah right if she has to die for whatever reason i would have preferred i guess like for genre reasons i get why she dies but it was the way that she died was like well okay there were too many deliberate

choices in like over killing a woman an attractive woman right like do any other character death delphine could have had that yeah yeah right yeah and then adding the bury your gaze trope on top of that is just like none of this is working and then another aspect of it is that a lot of viewers of this movie accused it of of queer baiting especially because the queer sex scene is featured very heavily in the trailer in the marketing again it's the other thing where it's like and in fact like i re-watched the trailer just to just to see it with my own eyes and basically the entire sex scene that is in the movie is also in the trailer they barely even edited it down oh because the the sex scene in the movie isn't that long but they include almost all of it in the trailer right implying that this

romantic subplot takes up way more real estate in the movie than it actually does because it's very little of the movie they should have explained the cold war in the trailer that would have been um and then just like in addition to to the queer baiting conversation a lot of people just noted that this sex scene between the two women is framed in such a way to appeal to the male gaze which kind of harkens back to the conversation we were having earlier I I'm curious about everyone's takes on that because again it's like this is not my genre so I'm like when I think of action movie sex scene I don't really know what to think so I I saw that uh many people had that issue with the

scene and it is definitely like a gazey as hell scene like it feels music video-y in the way it shot my question is is that how a sex scene in an action movie would normally be shot is this normal for the genre like I didn't know where to like where to kind of fall there because I was out of my element genre wise I think it looks like a you know a softcore like music video but I'm like maybe that happens in this genre exclusively I don't know so a little I hate using the words hot take, but like I personally, like I enjoy it because it's very much just one of those just like, hell yeah, I love watching girls make out. And it is like super stylized, but I was like sitting here thinking about it and I was just like, what would this look like in a different era with a different star? And I was just like, let's do Schwarzenegger, Stallone, any of those guys. There would have been like a long scene where he's sitting on a bed

or sitting in a chair and she's like doing a coy little striptease and it's just like a lot of him like fully dressed but she's naked and it's the whole walk to the bed and then they're having sex and he's on the bottom and we only see his chest um and it's just her bouncing on top and it's boobs so like the second i put someone else in it i'm like yeah the entire thing like hits differently because like in my head i also remembered it as far more gratuitous because of the conversation around it and then like re-watching it now and i was just like yeah that's just kind of a few seconds and we're kind of far away and they're both like equally naked and just both participants in this versus like the way i usually

see it where it's just like the girl performing for the guy and then they have sex and then i'm only it's it's just her boob and her boob. There's two of them. Her boobs and her butt the whole time. So like that was one thing that I was like thinking about it. Because I'm like place it anywhere else. And we're getting like a full striptease. Sure.

Yeah. It does feel less, again, like hyper-sexualized and exploitative of if it were like a heterosex sex scene i just was like i i was like i wrote down like i'm assuming that all sex scenes in all action movies are kind of corny yeah and kind of like very like like which is what it felt i don't't I don't know. I I was kind of like I I'm in the same sort of vibe as you've been. I'm like, I want to see women making out like I'm I'm all for it. And you don't normally see it in this genre, especially with a woman as the protagonist. And in some ways you're like, oh, OK, so it's a queer couple getting the like corny horny action movie treatment but i also can see why people would be frustrated with it yeah it's it's very much like both stances make sense and it's

it's the 80s the 80s had so many like bonkers stylized sex scenes like all a top gun with like the silhouetted bodies right right where you're like this is just a goofy sex genre i don't know i mean my personal use in its horniness it is it's like i'm like oh i'm embarrassed for everybody but i'm also like horny for everybody so it's confusing well yeah i mean that's the thing like my personal opinion on it if i'm like taking off my Bechdel goggles and just like watching it as a sex scene, I was like, damn, this is hot. These two hot people are rubbing up on each other and it's really hot to look at. And is it inherently male gaze because it's a male director, a male cinematographer, etc.? I can't explain why I knew it was shot by a man when i saw

it but i i mean i feel like it is like no yeah you know but it also like i think that there is like this kind of discussion to be had about like feminist movies should you know be inclusive of women having sex and like enjoying sex and like showing that like i feel like there's kind of this like a good well shot sex scene like that can be really great and like i feel like there's this kind of common stereotype of like feminists don't want to see women have sex in movies at all and it's like no no no i just i just want it to be like shot well i want it to like make sense and not be like pandering to like horny teen boys yeah exactly yeah something i actually really appreciated which like again this is bare minimum stuff here, but when you're so starved for particular representations, you're like, oh my gosh, I can't believe I saw this.

They're like on a bed, making out, kissing, fooling around. You see, I think it's Charlize's hand go in between Delphine's legs to like stimulate her clitoris. Guess what I've never fucking seen in a heterosex scene in an action movie is a man stimulating a woman's knowing where the clitoris is knowing where or what it is yeah exactly or doing anything before entering first like yeah i brought it up before but like i go back to bound for like sex between women so much because like yeah the wachowski sisters were so fucking smart in that they were like we're bringing a like

feminist sex expert onto set who's gonna like help consult on like the best way that we can do this and also just like how lesbians like touch each other and like how they're going to do this and it's like a it's like a long gratuitous sex scene but it's so like not under that gaze because it's so informed and they really did think about like a bringing in consult and b like both actresses in that scene are so comfortable and so like we are actresses that are being directed and like we have a lot of control of the situation that the end product is really hot that scene is very important to me i still have to watch i have not seen bound but it's my favorite noir movie oh it's really really good come back on the show and

talk about it with us yes yeah yeah yeah i guess it's i guess where i fell in the sex scene is i understand where the criticism was coming from but it was corny and horny in a way that felt true to the genre not to i mean it's like i'm in no way handing it to the cinematographer of transformers dark of the moon don't get me wrong this was not like yeah it didn't feel like a i don't know like a watershed moment of like wow but it was like it was a hot scene with sex i feel like yeah like i almost object more to how much the the trailer you know made it seem like this is the movie than than the actual scene in the actual movie yeah because it's such a blip right yeah such a blip i'm way more kind of annoyed that delphine ended up being such a kind of like

nothing of a character when she should have been a something of a character than the sex scene yeah she had so much built up she there's like both unlike what the actress could do and also what they like put into the movie like those little bits of dialogue we get out of her like we deserved more from delphine agree yeah i agree but that's what you get when you have a movie directed by a man a screenplay written by a man adapted from a graphic novel by a man who didn't even include that character as a woman to begin with so so that's that's the thing that ultimately is frustrating for me about this movie is like i enjoyed it and the i mean the action alone makes this movie worth watching if you're going for the plot probably skip it because the plot makes no fucking sense unless you're a cold war scholar

and even then and even then maybe it's wrong I have no idea we can't we couldn't tell you but like the action is so good and it's so clear that you're in the hands of experts in terms of shooting and executing a really really cool action movie but it's so like boys boys boys boys boys boys boys and if you look at their background what do they do they work with other boys and it's just like yeah yeah this director also directed deadpool deadpool two deadpool two fast and furious hobson shaw i as well as enjoyed that Deadpool 2 Deadpool 2 Fast and the Furious Hobbs and Shaw as well as enjoyed that movie the music video

for Ashes by Celine Dion what I know okay I mean I'm very fascinated

by David Luke I mean he seems like I mean what a story what a life he's done so much shit yeah he has an incredibly cool and kind of like pretty singular career yeah I just I don't I mean I guess in this

situation I I wonder why and it's kind of a non-issue because it's like well Charlize chose her director she chose the team she wanted. So who are we, right? Like, there is a woman at the top of this production. But I do wish that there were more women included in meaningful roles. There are several female producers on the project. But I just, I guess my, I don't see why this screenplay needed to be written by a guy. Like, I don't, there's certain things where i'm like for action purposes i understand why she chose who she chose i feel like this movie really would have benefited from a female writer working on it oh yeah female writer female cinematographer

uh this movie was edited by a woman yeah which is pretty cool uh and this is an icelandic name that i will almost certainly absolutely butcher but um but try elizabeth ronald schott elizabeth ronald schotter i feel like with a lot of icelandic names the e does more than i expect it to do so i always botch it yeah we also can't say David Leitch. Yeah, I was struggling on that one. But yeah, like, the second you have more women involved, like, making some of these choices, it's how, I know I said it once before,

but it's how we get Birds of Prey. It's how we get that hair tie moment. It's how we get something where it's just like, all right, this feels more informed. It's like the night and day difference in Harley's, like, costuming to informed it's like the night and day difference in harley's like costuming to where it's like you know she still gets to be like cute and thotty but it's like in a way that makes sense to her right because she's wearing like sneakers where like one of the things

i did note about this movie like the wardrobing is lorraine is wearing high heels in almost every scene and it's like you can't fight in the what come on so i was like that's a little i'm not sure about that but um i mean it looks cool but it's also not practical nor realistic but it's like don't tell me there were only white people living in berlin don't tell me you couldn't have like diversified the agents like there's no reason that both of the agents interviewing charlize had to be white like it's just it's one of those things where it's just like, and you know there's always going to be some words like,

oh, it was Europe. But like, we could suspend our disbelief that like all of the diagenic music is playing simultaneously and just like this really weird week that she's having. We can't like throw in someone else. And it's like, there's always been people who aren't white in Berlin. Like Berlin is a super diverse city. someone else and it's like there's always been people who aren't white in berlin like berlin is a super diverse city like it's ah it's it's really annoying yeah there's no need does anyone have any

other thoughts about the film does anyone notice when john goodman was wearing a hat i'm kidding i don't have anything else honestly i would just say i just want more of charlie's doing this forever like clearly it's what she wants to do she like her affinity for martial arts is one of my favorite things because she's just slowly like picking up all of these different skills that makes her both an incredible performer but just like good god how intimidating could someone be where it's just like i know kaipo i don't know if she knows kaipo era but i'm gonna assume that she does probably but i just i want more western action stars i want more women in action i want more people that actually like learn and like their own fight choreo and i also want more like

older actors to be able to because it's such a bummer that like a lot of these actors have been around forever doing direct-to-video and now that they're actually like starting to like get their flowers and they're older I'm like I still want them to be involved their 40s 50s I don't care totally yeah god I was like Charlize is like Charlize should be an action star into her like 70s and 80s if she wants to. Certainly hasn't stopped American action stars being like, yeah, look at Bruce Willis. Look at the Expendables. Right.

And also none of the fighting is good in the Expendables. No. So I would be very excited to i also saw that um atomic blonde or lorraine might enter the john wick universe at some point and that the two might intersect i'm like oh that would be kind of cool i don't know i i would be stoked to see a sequel for this and i would honestly i mean i would love to see a action charlie's in a movie directed and written by women who excel in the action genre that would be like god tear because she's fucking yes yes please oh my last thought was um the title of this movie which is reducing a woman to her hair color um well isn't it an existing term is it i don't know i'm not sure

isn't it is it or is it a play on like atomic bomb yeah yeah i get my thing was like uh i mean john wick wasn't called john wick has dark brown hair yeah or it's maybe it should have been maybe it should have been it would have been especially because like the graphic novel was based that this movie was based on is called the coldest city so it's it's changing it to from what i can tell the color of the hair of the protagonist but yeah and it had the same name as the graphic novel for a while i'm wondering when in development it changed because you even see a nod to it at the end credits where it like comes up and it goes password and it types in like the coldest war and like it unlocks the credits and that's because that was like the original name for like however long before some producer was like i want this that does sound

like something a studio would do yeah to be like wait a second look at her pretty hair yeah it's very studio note yeah yeah anyway that was just my final thought does it pass the Bechdel test it does between Delphine and Lorraine yeah um yeah yeah they do talk about Percival and maybe some other men but uh yeah there's there's a pretty long conversation where Delphine's like, I don't even know what I'm doing. How do you spy? She's talking about how little she wants to be a spy. And like the overarching story is just Lorraine talking about her day. Yeah.

Yeah. Love that. Yeah. Listen to women talk about their days and how they don't think they actually want to be spies after all too late uh rip let's let's go to the nipple scale oh yes our nipple scale 025 nipples based on an examination of intersectional feminism i think I'll give this two and a half or a three. Maybe that's too harsh. Maybe that's too generous. I truly never know what to rate any

movie on our scale. But I mean, I think it's really cool that you have this, what was like a box office success. A lot of people saw this movie female driven action movie with really really cool fight choreography and really really cool action and just like solidifying Charlize as a legitimate action movie star um some you know missteps were i just i think while it's a step forward to include a queer character as the hero of an action movie it doesn't necessarily mean that that representation was like the most responsible especially with like the use of the different tropes and yeah things like that um there's still a ways to go but the fact that it is there it feels like a you know we talk about this a lot where there's a an unfortunate need for like

stepping stone movies that like pave the way for more responsible and inclusive representation so that's what this feels like i think that there definitely could have been any diversity and instead it's just a bunch of white people so you know there's some some things that uh i would change to improve this movie but uh and i mean gosh someone take another pass at the script and make it less confusing please yeah do some streamlining y'all yeah like let's cut out a couple character a couple bearded guys i was getting so i did not okay another thing i had no idea who she was killing in that last scene i was like who is this huh that was the main soviet bad guy but he's only in a couple scenes before that pretty briefly and then there's another soviet bad guy who then dies halfway through and it's like can't you just combine those two characters yeah i thought it was him and i was like i thought he was dead

and when i looked it up it was like oh no she could he was at a restaurant earlier i was like yes huh yeah but but i was like i was supposed to care like about that that was confusing too many people to look after truly there's too many men to keep i mean i guess i can um you know empathize with lorraine too because she was able to keep all these men you know like straight in her head i couldn't couldn't do the job no wonder she needed the list she was like who the fuck are all these people? Who are these fucking people? But yeah, so, you know, that has nothing to do with, you know, how we examine the movie.

But I still, well, it kind of does because I'm like, I wish there were just like better movies that are going to like stand the test of time and that people are going to like watch over and over and over again because they're just like such good movies that star women. I don't know how like how much the stories that are being told are like good and like that people will like them and want to keep rewatching them so that we just like have those movies to revisit and connect with as audiences. So with all that in mind, I'll still give it three nipples and I'll give one to Charlize. I will give one to Delphine because she deserved more. And, you know, I'll give one to John Goodman's hat. Yeah. That was doing some real acting. Yeah. It really stole the show.

It really did. I'll go. I guess I'll go three as well i'm tempted to go a little lower but i can't fully articulate why so i won't um yeah i i think that the action in this movie is fucking incredible charlize carries it the action sequences for the most part except how delphine is killed um i thought were like really really cool and just like in like America movies like you just don't get a lot of that and it and and I loved that Charlize was like the driving force behind getting this project made and getting it made the way she wanted it like those stories are

always so cool and like give you hope even though the you know precedent of all you know having to already be ridiculously successful in order to get a movie the way you want it made is frustrating and not always i mean i love using that little wes anderson anecdote of like someone just being like here's 10 million dollars see what you've come up with um but she you know she she got it made she got it made the way she wanted to and she kicks fucking ass in it uh and i'm deducting for i i didn't like how delphine's character was kind of like slowly scaled down scaled down and then killed in lingerie um in a way that would you know keep her looking a very particular way when the body was found and it's just kind of a such a sausage party on the on the production side and and in terms of i think particularly

with the writer where uh like like we're talking about i just i a straight guy being like would it be cool like is just yeah you can tell i don't know that is literally what they did they're like oh yeah this is gonna be hot and cool and provocative if we make women kiss each other yeah the word provocative you're like okay so they just like we just need other voices in the room here like uh so yeah i i'll go i'll go with three it was a a fun movie. Fucking confusing as hell. But in terms of the action, it's unbelievable. So I will give a nipple to Charlize. And I will give a nipple to Bill Skarsgård. And I'll give a nipple to Delphine.

Nice. Vanessa, what about you? I mean, y'all covered a lot of the same reasons for like the reading i want to give it um although i am i'm giving it a three and a half nipples and there's a there's a specific reason for the half and that's because anybody that's ever just like watched a lot of like action martial arts punching knows that like a lot of like male action stars get to have their like direct to video movies where like the action is dope but the story stinks and it's kind of middling and uh you know what i want female

action stars to also be able to comfortably live and just like mediocre and meh because totally we either have to be incredible or we don't exist and like honestly if charlize does a million movies where it's just like uh are we there yet but with punching because you know she just decides to do the direct-to-video action thing then like cool i want that for women too so uh the half star is because i want i i i love any opportunity in which uh women just get to have an thing and that's fine. Yes. That's very true. Yeah.

Getting mediocrity accessible to everyone should be a priority. Dudes get to do it all the time. Yeah. Too much. Amazing. Well, thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much. Come back anytime.

I would love to. This is so fun. Yay. And tell us about the podcast. Come back anytime. I would love to. This is so fun. And tell us about the podcast. Oh, yeah. Kicking and Screaming is a podcast I co-host with my husband. I actually came in as the screaming and because he was the one with the martial arts background and like loved it. But then I ended up just falling deeply in love with both genres but basically what we do is uh we take either a horror movie or an action martial arts movie and uh one of us picks one and then the other one has to counter with one of the other genre to make a double feature because frequently if you like one you're gonna like the other one a lot of horror people don't realize

they love martial arts yet and a lot of people that are like into kung fu movies don't realize that they like horror yet. So for example, like there was one week where I did pick Bride of Chucky and he picked a movie, Heroes of the East, which is another really good one with a female action star at the helm, which was like a marriage-based one.

But I ended up finding out stuff I didn't know that I'd love yet or just examining stuff that I already dug and it's just a fun little genre party so awesome cool thank you amazing and then where can people follow you online your social media anything else you want to plug oh yeah you can find me under at ness gritton it's still my uh ex-husband's name n-E-S-G-R-I-T-T-O-N on all forms of social media. You can find the actual podcast, Kick Scream Pod, under Kick Scream Pod on all forms of social media. And if you're into horror, I just did a series where I interviewed some incredible women filmmakers in horror for a women in horror series.

And it's one of my favorite series of interviews I've ever done. You can watch me slowly fall in love with every single one of these filmmakers. That's awesome. Oh, that's so cool. And then you can follow us on Twitter and Instagram at Bechtelcast. You can subscribe to our matrion at patrion.com slash Bechtelcast.

It gets you two bonus episodes a month. It's $5. And then there's also our entire back catalog of bonuses. So scoot on over to Patreon and subscribe. Scoot, scoot. Just a reminder, Jamie, that I am defecting from the Bechtelcast. You can find us on at Behind the Bastards. That's where our podcast is now

okay bye everyone bye Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th 2017 was assassinated crooks everywhere

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