The Bechdel Cast - Crazy, Stupid, Love. with Samee Junio

Episode Date: May 20, 2021

This week, Caitlin, Jamie, and special guest Samee Junio get really cool makeovers and discuss Crazy, Stupid, Love.(This episode contains spoilers)For Bechdel bonuses, sign up for our Patreon at patreon.com/bechdelcast.Follow @Samee_Junio 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. 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, try 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.

How do you feel about biscuits? Hi, I'm Akilah Hughes, and I'm so excited about my new podcast, Rebel Spirit, where I head back to my hometown in Kentucky and try to convince my high school to change their racist mascot, the Rebels, into something everyone in the South loves, the biscuits. I was a lady rebel. Like, what does that even mean? It's right here in black and white in print. It's bigger than a flag or mascot.

Listen to Rebel Spirit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On the Bechdelcast, 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. Yeah, Caitlin? You're the perfect combination of sexy and cute. Can I buy you a drink? Yeah, wait, I'm sorry. All my judgment just went out the window because you said that. I'm what? You're the perfect combination of sexy and cute do you want to get out of here do you want to go home and have sex with me right now only if you lift me up like

a scene and i can't even do i can't even i can't even keep up with this charade oh my gosh today today's episode i we were just having this is the bechdel cast comma we were just having, this is the Bechdel cast, comma. We were just having a conversation off mic, the three of us. Wait, do you mean the, comma, Bechdel, comma, cast, period? Exactly. Exactly. Oh my God. There's so many.

I have a list of things that every movie in 2011 did that I'm just so glad that we're just out of the woods there. Punctuation in the movie title is one of those things that you're just like, oh my God, you really think that you're doing something here. You think you're being so serious. Anyways, I initially went in, I think reasonably, that our our guest today a returning guest brought this movie to us because that's how our show works that's how it's worked for almost five years now and then i learned that it was you it was my idea but you're the spy you're you're how do you say his name dom domnol gleason domnol gleason is that it i struggle with his name? Domhnall Gleeson. Domhnall Gleeson. Is that it?

I struggle with his name like I struggle with Ewan McGregor. Can't do it. Well, what had happened is that we've been wanting to get our guest back on the podcast. I love that we're like, it's a secret, even though

it's a secret. Their name is in the title. We've been wanting to get sammy back on the podcast and we'll sammy we'll let you talk in a minute no caitlin's doming this episode she's wearing a 42 suit instead of a 44 yeah i bought new shoes and i'm so confident now it's because ryan gosling tossed your shit oh my god that was one of the cutaway shots from this movie is i wish you had seen steve carell's stinky new balance just like knocking a 12 year old unconscious at the bottom of that mall i was like that's so that's such reckless behavior to throw a midlife crisis person's new balance off a wedge but no we've

been wanting to get sammy back on the podcast for a while um but the movie wasn't it didn't come into focus what movie it was going to be until recently this movie came up in conversation between sammy and i and i was like oh this is the one let's do it on the podcast so yes it was my idea and i'm sorry everyone i'm so sorry cruel and unusual of you but it's it is a pretty commonly requested episode so yeah i it is and it's one of those commonly requested episodes that i'm like to what end well sometimes we just we get these requests and i'm just like do you want me to watch that if you wanted us to um eviscerate it then you're in for a treat that's what we're about to do if you requested this movie we're fighting right now i

cannot believe yeah well okay so this is the bechtel cast this is our podcast where we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens using the bechtel test as a jumping off point which is a media metric created by queer cartoonist allison bechtel oh yeah that is sometimes called the bechtel wallace test and it requires for our our rendition of the test two people of a marginalized gender have names speak to each other about something other than a man for a two-line exchange of dialogue i can it be done honestly hard to say i couldn't reach a conclusion for this movie. Maybe it does? I don't even. I don't.

I don't think so. I don't think. Okay. I don't think it does. Because I was like, did I miss a rogue exchange? Like, I don't think it does, which is ridiculous. It's ridiculous. This, oh God.

This movie really. Anyway, so today's movie is Crazy, Stupid, Love, Period. So already we're off to a bad start. Let's bring in our amazing guest that I'd like to apologize to in advance. Yes, we are so Sammy. We are so Sammy. We are so Sammy. Please introduce...

Sorry. Sorry, who knew they are a producer they are a writer on let's go otsuko and ohio and you remember them from our episode on she's the man it's sammy junio hello welcome back thank you for inviting me for this episode on he's the man am i right wow it makes you think that was the joke that i texted you about also we should mention i mean your your name gets brought up a lot in many episodes because you're also our road dog. Road dog. When we go on tour, you often tech our shows. Thank you.

So another major credit for you. It's huge. It's actually on the top of my resume. I don't even put my name. I just put road dog in all caps. It says it all. Oh, my God. Okay okay what a time to be alive sammy what is your relationship with this movie i have it on dvd and i bought it recently not

maybe in the past three years i am not about it, but also deeply embarrassed about it. I think that's appropriate. Yes, I understand. I understand why. I'm so sorry, everyone. Jamie, what's your history? What's your relationship? I didn't see this one.

I feel like I saw a lot of movies like this when it came out. The early 2010s were like, there were so many movies like this where it's like, okay, here's my pitch. It's a really famous comedian, but you'll never laugh. It's two hours long and there's a ton of improv how dare this movie be two hours long two hours long there i the movie poster has a disembodied woman's leg on it uh-huh headless woman of hollywood shout out i just i just and oh and the clincher brought to you by the writer of Cars. You're just like, what?

There were so many midlife. I was talking about this with my boyfriend recently. Steve Carell went through this phase where he's like, I'm just going to be in a bunch of movies that say they're funny, but they're not. And they're really long. It was like this, dan in real life like there and kristin wigg went through a similar phase where it's just in a bunch of expensive indie movies that sucked and were long and you're just like why are you making me see these if they make me they you know we were we were there we were there it wasn't good and now it's over this is weird i mean it's kind of interesting to me i'd

never seen this movie is the answer to the question uh but even like i don't know it's over this is weird i mean it's kind of interesting to me i'd never seen this movie is the answer to the question uh but even like i don't know it's watching movies that are like 10 years old is always like a wild zone because it looks dated but it feels familiar enough like yeah phones in this movie wild blackberries so many blackberries i miss them i miss i wish i had had a blackberry there are they just gone they're never coming back they're trying there's like a version of it where it's still the little typer but then also it's touchscreen but like the touchscreen is like 2.5 inches it's wild why did they do that that? Yeah, this movie was really encapsulated a very particular moment. What's your history with it, Caitlin? My history is that I saw it maybe like a year after it came out or so.

This is not the type of movie that would have drawn me to the theaters. But people were like, oh, it's good. It's fun. you'll like it a hundred almost 150 million dollars yeah but also it cost 50 million dollars which is like what i'm guessing the budget went to like steve carell and ryan gosling's wardrobe and also the insurance for the shoe toss. Right. There were actual casualties for that. It was not good.

Well, and then going back to the length of the movie, which again is two hours for what's supposed to be a rom-com, way too long. But I read, according to our favorite scholarly journal, Wikipedia, the original cut of this movie was three hours long and they had to edit out an entire hour. My favorite Wikipedia detail for this movie is that is this. The film was developed under the working title Untitled Marital Crisis Comedy. I think they should have stuck with that they should have stuck with it uh because

the title of the movie is using a bunch of dated words that we're trying not to use anymore yes and and oh a fun a fun twist was in the middle of the movie because there's a young daughter in this movie the daughter that isn't the twist which is like right i don't want a twist daughter who gives a anyways uh the young daughter is joey king i know the kissing booth yeah amazing twist that was the best twist of the movie for me the twist that was there the whole entire time yeah it took me a while to figure it out because i was like because you don't see her face really for a long time and then you get a glimpse of her like I don't know three quarters of the way through the movie and you're like wait a minute is that young Joey King and sure enough it is

she's iconic she's great go Joey King yeah so anyway my history with this movie I saw it like a year or so after it came out I was ambivalent toward it but I remember at the time thinking like wow Ryan Gosling is cool and what a good job he does and making Steve Carell cool also and I can't believe I ever had those thoughts because looking back at it now we wash our hands of it we live we learn we live and we learn so i guess should i just get into the recap yeah let's party in the recap i'm excited i'm excited to really just take out my pool floaties and float around in this recap this oh my god also oh i just wanted to shout out the other child actor who is we're not gonna blame the child actor but oh my god the kid who plays robbie um his name is jonah bobo and no you

gotta admit that's a funny name i just wanted to shout out jonaho. Shout out. Okay. So the movie opens on a married couple, Cal, that's Steve Carell, and Emily, that's Julianne Moore. And Emily announces that she wants a divorce. And she also tells Cal that she had sex with someone else, her co-worker, David Lindhagen. David Lindhagen. David Lindhagen. We learn that Cal and Emily have two kids, or so we think it's only two kids, but wait for it. This twist, oh my god, this twist. When it's like they're using the same hair straightener on Julia and Warren Emma Stone the whole time.

It's like, come on. Anyways. One of the kids is Joey King. The other one is 13 year old robbie jonah bobo jonah bobo he is in love with his babysitter jessica who is 17 years old who does anyone remember her from america's next top model yeah oh yeah yeah she like was on i don't. I didn't watch many seasons of that show, but she was on one of the seasons I did watch. I saw her in a piano bar when I was first in LA and I passed away. She was so cool. I freaked out.

Also, she is the same age as Emma Stone. Really? Oh, but playing a 17-year-old? Yeah. I feel like Emma Stone is, I don't know how old Emma Stone's character is really supposed to be because, and also I, I liked, I liked to, I enjoyed suspending my disbelief that Steve Carell is only 17 years older than Emma Stone. That was fun for me. Right. That's a lie. That is a lie. I think she's 25 because they said that they've been married for

25 years and that they got married because they were pregnant with her so but she's 22 in this movie who cares um so robbie is in love with jessica but jessica is in love with cal steve with Cal, Steve Carell. Then we cut to Hannah, that's Emma Stone, at a bar with a friend. Liz. Liz, yes. Love Liz. Wanted more for Liz. Truly, as the only person of color in the movie, and she's so horny, I do feel represented. I'll say it. Just kidding. It's really solid and responsible representation too. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. just kidding it's really solid and responsible representation too yeah yeah yeah yeah absolutely i remember her from this is i'm i remember that actor uh liza lapira from don't trust the b in apartment 23 which i liked show i liked that show too doesn't james vanderbeek play himself in that show am i remembering that correctly yeah it was i'm i'm sure that if you go back it's probably super dated but i liked it when it was happening she was on it shout out anyway who cares anyway she and emma stone are talking and this is when Jacob Ryan Gosling approaches Hannah and aggressively starts hitting on her oh Buscemi tested this honey like no no no no but she rejects him and leaves so meanwhile Cal and Emily separate and he goes to a bar to like drown his sorrows and he's loudly carrying on about having been cheated on

by his wife with David Lindhagen. And then Jacob is also there. And Jacob is like, Sir, stop your whining. Stop being a loser. You look like shit. Here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to help you rediscover your manhood

and your wife will rue the day she left you. He literally holds out the red pill and it's like take it i dare you oh my goodness that yeah i did not realize i didn't i knew very i thought this was just a really long early 2010s rom-com i didn't realize that it was pickup artistry the movie yep seriously what a move what a move to play a pickup artistry story basically completely straight like right right wild so then jacob tells cal to meet him at the century city mall food, which is neither the Glendale Galleria nor the Americana. So like, why even fucking bother going? Oh, wow.

I went to that mall to see Santa. Oh, one of the best dated shots in the movie is when Ryan Gosling is standing in front of a gigantic Borders bookstore. You're like, oh, 2011. We were all there. R.E.P. Meanwhile, Hannah is celebrating something. I'm not really sure what. She's celebrating lawyer. No, no. I think that's correct because they were celebrating her beginning of studying the bar. Right. Yeah. they also call it a goodbye party but she doesn't seem to be leaving right to study i think oh yeah she's leaving to go study yeah it's

not clear um but she's with a few friends including her boyfriend richard aka josh groban whatever i can't deal with this it's his first role in a movie oh wow wild josh jay grogro i mean okay i take it back good for him if this is his first role he did pretty good even though no scene he's in makes any human sense that's not his fault right Right. That's the writing. But Hannah thinks that he might be proposing soon. Cal then goes to meet Jacob at the mall, cue a shopping and makeover montage, which, I mean, we can talk about this, but I guess we get like a gender swapped makeover montage. Yeah. Just proof that gender swapping something doesn't make it interesting or good it is something that can be done i like how they try to make it hyper masculine by just slapping each other i'm like what it's like every shopping

montage you've ever seen in your life except they can't stop hitting each other and throwing shoes. Very bizarre. And then Jacob tries to teach Cal how to pick up women at bars. Cal is terrible at it at first. Then we see Emily at work. David Lindhagen shows up in the flesh and it's Kevin Bacon. Fun. Did not remember that.

What a treat. Except he's awful he's not great he professes his feelings for emily but she's not really into it and it seems like she might be having second thoughts about leaving cal robbie also has professed his feelings for jessica the babysitter but she tells him to stop and that he's making her uncomfortable. But don't worry, he doesn't stop. Then we cut back to Cal and Jacob. Jacob thinks Cal is finally ready to start picking up women

and encourages him to hit on this woman across the bar, Kate, aka Marissa Tomei. And she ends up going home with him and this gives him the confidence boost that he needed and he starts having sex with a lot of women after this this Marissa Tomei character is also like a very stock character that I feel like appears in many movies of this era. I was thinking of like Leslie Mann in the 40 year old virgin. I was thinking Jennifer Aniston and horrible bosses. Like it's like there's so many. I mean, we'll talk about it, but it's it was like a trope character of this era.

It was like woman who's horny and mad and a cartoon character and they always would get like a great actress to like do whatever the fuck that is it's annoying absolutely yeah so then cal and emily go to a parent teacher conference about robbie and they're like, they're reconnecting a little bit. But uh-oh, Robbie's teacher is Marissa Tomei. Boing. The first of many twists. And Emily. So many inconsequential. You're just like, oh, so what?

Guess what we did, you guys. I don't need this. Oh my gosh. The teacher in this scene behaves so unprofessionally. But Emily finds out that the two of them slept together. And now she's really, really mad at Cal. Especially because he used the line that he used to use on her. You're the perfect combination of sexy and cute.

Honestly, I do love to hear it. but it's a very contrived line. Yeah. So then there's the scene where Hannah thinks that Josh Groban is going to propose to her, but he doesn't. So she is just so caught off guard that she runs away, finds Jacob at the one bar that he seems to go to every night of his life i was like does he i they eventually the twist is that he's a trust fund glorified date rapist but but for a long time in the movie you're like is this his job yeah does he have a job because what he's doing and also i mean we'll get to like what a horrible father cal is but like what he's doing it has to be so expensive like he that is like a nice looking bar like he has

to be dropping hundreds if not thousands of dollars a night trying to coerce women into coming home to his house which is. A mansion with a swimming pool. He has a $5,000 vibrating chair. It looks like the house from at the beginning of Invisible Man. It's very sinister. Ooh, yeah. Anyway, so Hannah stomps up to him, surprise kisses him, and then they go home together together but they stay up all night talking and this is the beginning of them being in a relationship because she's not like the other

girls she's worth actually talking to that remains up for discussion they they they do have um good chemistry but there's there's also this like i i'm a huge emma stone fan but there are like parts in again like this era of emma stone where i feel like they're like oh we're not gonna really write her a character we're just gonna make her talk really fast and that's the character right not her fault but so jacob is now so busy with his new girlfriend that he stops answering Cal's calls, which you realize is just like a convenient plot device so that Hannah doesn't find out that her new boyfriend's best friend is her dad. But anyway. So meanwhile, Jessica, the babysitter, is trying to figure out how to get Cal interested in her. And at the advice of one of her classmates, she takes nude pictures of herself with the intent to give them to Cal.

But, uh-oh, her parents find them and think that Cal is preying on Jessica. Yeah. We'll talk all about this. We just have to we just have to move on for now the fact that fucked up things were happening that late in the movie i was like are you kidding me you just can't catch a break with this story wow wow wow yeah but uh so meanwhile cal and emily they're connecting reconnecting more and more and then he orchestrates this big romantic gesture for her in her backyard but this is when a few different things happen kind of all at once one cal and emily's other daughter that you didn't know that they had is Hannah, a.k.a. Emma Stone. She comes home with her new boyfriend, Jacob, and Cal realizes this sleazy guy is now dating his daughter and Cal is furious at both of them.

This is also when Jessica's dad comes barreling in and attacks Cal and this is also when David Lindhagen shows up and is like here's your sweater Emily but basically all the men then get in a huge fight which ends in everyone being very mad at everyone else another scene that you would think would be really fun because you're like, oh, look at all these famous people, you know, in a fistfight, but it still manages to be really boring. I don't like. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then later, a little later, Jacob tries to talk to Cal, but Cal refuses to give his approval for Jacob and Hannah's relationship. But then it's Robbie's eighth grade graduation. And Robbie starts to give a speech about how love is a scam. But Cal interrupts and gives his own speech about how Emily is his soulmate,

and he's not going to give up. He's going to keep fighting for her. And she's like, Ooh, and then Cal finally gives his blessing to Jacob and Hannah. And then Jessica gives her naked photos to Robbie. And then the movie ends with it seeming like Cal and Emily will get back together. The end. Oh my God. 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 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 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. This summer, the nation watched as the Republican nominee for president was the target of two assassination attempts, separated by two months. These events were mirrored nearly 50 years ago, when President Gerald Ford faced two attempts on his life in less than three weeks. President Gerald R. Ford came stunningly close to being the victim of an assassin today. And these are the only two times we know of that a woman has tried to assassinate a U.S.

president. One was the protege of infamous cult leader Charles Manson. I always felt like Lynette was kind of his right-hand woman. The other, a middle-aged housewife working undercover for the FBI in a violent revolutionary underground. Identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore. The story of one strange and violent summer. This is Rip Current. Available now with new episodes every Thursday.

Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, and we're back. Okay. Can we start with what the perceived... there's so many specifics to talk about here but the overall takeaway from this movie i thought and let me know if you disagree is they have this whole like if you believe that someone is your true love you are not just like encouraged you are required to harass that person until they reciprocate and if they don't just keep harassing them and like the foundation of this movie is so fucked up yeah and the way the logic goes is like because it's so poorly written sorry mr cars but like it it's like men are doing the same thing

over and over and over and over and over and then just at some point in the plot it stops bothering the women in the movie yeah and then they get rewarded for their behavior yeah their incessant harassing behavior yeah they everyone gets what they want uh-huh so um the the message it's just a disaster i'm also not rooting i you're just you're not i'm not rooting for any relationship in this movie i'm not rooting for any character in this movie except for maybe like for just all of the women to get away from all of the men that's what i'm rooting for but that doesn't end up happening so no they just get entrapped again oh yeah so i did not know how to organize my notes for this because like all it's like an ensemble cast and like all of the characters have a relationship with

all of the other characters so i was like but don't worry there's no meaningful relationship between two women in the entire movie in there correct yes there i love how when we see julianne moore and emma stone on screen together for the first time julianne moore is blindfolded and is like hi honey and i'm like this is this is how i feel about how the women in this movie interact. Just so dissonant and bizarre. And then I guess another just kind of general statement before we get into more specifics would just be that the way, and we already hinted at this, but the way women are written in this movie is just like so cartoonish and they're all framed as being very like reactionary. They seem to not know what they want. They're like fickle. They are often, for lack of a better word, they are like presented as being quote hysterical. This applies to basically every woman is some combination of

these traits in this movie so that's what we're working with for the women i just feel like most of the female characters were just like not really written like they're like well that yeah they're just there like they're just kind of there they're hannah's if you like try to figure out what is going on in hannah's life it's literally impossible like you don't understand why she thinks that josh groban is about to marry her like i that was really confusing to me you i don't understand what's going on with her job no one seems to care what's going on with her job she doesn't seem to care what's going on with her job i don't know why she knows she can find ryan gosling at this bar they're like and i don't really under like it just if you like put any like if you try to piece together even a synopsis of some of the female characters you're just like i don't know i don't know they they didn't care

right i think the closest you can get to somebody having a story or a woman character having a story is julianne moore because she does try to explain herself i think yeah i think she may have the most story in all of this i like yeah i think of all the i tried to like rank my character that these characters by how little i liked them and i feel like Julia and Moore's character was the one that I ended up liking the best which isn't saying much but it's like first of all like I understood why she wanted to leave Steve Carell like you're like yeah this marriage seems really dead in the water obviously like cheating on your spouse is not um the best

thing to do in your life but like her being like i've like been with you and you fucking suck for so long like i just need to move on with my life and like she's a good she's a good mom she's a fun mom like you get like a little more with her and i also feel like it's julianne more so she can just make a meal of anything but it's still like it's just oh it's just beneath her, this story. Because it's like, she's the, I totally agree, Sammy. Like, she's the woman that you know the most about, but it's still like, not much. It's still, and yeah, and she just ends up getting worn down like every other woman.

I would cheat on Cal. Well, yeah, that's the thing like the reasons that they split up is that he has stopped putting effort into their relationship she does not feel that her needs are met so she seeks affection elsewhere with kevin bacon but that's like the only thing that cal focuses on at like the beginning of their break where he's like oh you slept with another man i've been cuckolded and there's that scene where like she's he did get early he got to he got to the word cuck uh cucks resurgence early yeah i was like wow okay ahead of the curve right but there's that scene. And I think, Sammy, you brought this up, but she's like trying to talk about like he's like getting into the U-Haul.

And Julianne Moore is like, you know, I think I might be having a midlife crisis. Like she's expressing her doubts and frustration. Shout out to the movie Doubt. Doubts and frustrations and insecurities. But he's like he refuses to listen he refuses to like talk this out like a real adult he's being a huge baby about it yeah he just keeps talking about like landscaping and then he later starts just stalking her at night doing her landscaping and then also sometimes just like watching her through her window isaac and i were dying at that scene at the end where he is once again out on the lawn

spying on his family and she calls because like it's supposed to be like again it's just like oh they really thought they were creating this beautiful moment where it's like she just wanted to hear his voice she didn't actually need help with the pilot light and like they're both crying and the scene is 40 minutes long and we were just cackling we're like god this is really supposed to be a moment but it's just this movie it feels so long it's so long the movie frames that moment as being so romantic but it's like he's stalking her right now you shouldn't know that she's not actually letting the pilot light he's he loves to come back at night cal i feel like yeah like julianne moore's perspective makes a ton of sense because like cal spends the whole movie proving to you why he's an unfit husband, parent, member of society.

I will say that you also don't, like, you could see Cal at work once, but I'm also like, what does he do? Is he just blowing his children's college money on becoming a pickup artist? It was unclear. I'm like, can you afford to be and and on top of that he's just aggressively not parenting his children so it's very bizarre later when Jessica's like you know his kids love him so much and you're kind of like why I've only seen him interact with him when he's like I'm off to go hang out with my pickup artist friend. Like, that's not, it's so, like, you keep being told that he's a good person with a good heart, but then you just kind of, like, rarely see that. Yeah, he's negligent in void of not being married to Emily anymore with becoming a pickup artist at the instruction of Jacob.

I wish they were a little clearer about, like, the fact that this is pickup artistry. Because they kind of, like, dodge saying it. They're like, oh, no, you just aggressively neg women and it like ryan gosling makes it sound like this was all his idea and not that there was like infrastructure for this right you know he's like i i wrote the game i invented this i invented going into bars wearing suits and she's like no that's not okay sir i I can't deal with that. So I guess like for the Cal and Jacob friendship. It's a bummer.

I mean, I do slap all of my friends all the time. So I feel like. Can confirm. Can confirm. So that didn't feel weird to me. So we are feeling seen here to an extent. This is why I like the movie actually i'm represented in liz and jacob slaps and now i get it now i get it um okay so yeah jacob is not that the movie

wants you to think this because the movie wants you to think that i think the movie wants you to think that like he just needs to grow up a little bit he needs to find the right woman who will like who will let him just kind of like settle down and learn that like love is real yeah he just needs to find it yeah but even so the movie like condones his pickup artistry his like very sleazy misogynist creepy well it's like he literally says the first the first like rule of his he's reciting the game like he's there's a book there's a book it's bad but like he said the first rule is to like get her really drunk like this is like i'm glad that you don't like really but it's like this goes into very dark territory. I just am not convinced that this character is not a date rapist. Very well could be.

He also gives a monologue to Cal where he says, the war between the sexes is over and we won, meaning men won the war. We won the second women started doing pole dancing for exercise, which like, I mean, the implications, just the shaminess of all of that is horrendous. Yeah. And then he says even those classes are fun. Yeah. I want to take some. I feel like I've won when I take the classes. Exactly. He continues to say, but even though we won, they still deserve our respect. Meaning women deserve our respect.

We make them feel beautiful. Actually listen to their problems. Open the door for them. And then he says, you got to take control of your manhood. You want something? You take it. You don't like something? You say it.

I take what I want. So that is his wisdom that he's imparting to cow this is such this whole friendship is so fucked up like and it sucks too because it's like i anytime you see like a male friendship on screen you're like oh this is you know like i there's such a traceable history of you know like men not knowing how to like bond and express emotion with each other um but this relationship is just so toxic it's just so toxic and then the twist with jacob being that he's really rich and his dad was too nice and that his mom was so cold both of which i'm like these are very relative terms you're using because you're a misogynist so she could just be a person like but the twit they were supposed to like feel like i'm supposed to feel bad for you because your dad was so nice that was it it's so it's so just like

i don't even know what they were trying to yeah i'm like is this meant to endear us to him i'm not sure i think it is like but because it's like oh he's being emotionally raw with her he said that his rich dad was really nice you're like okay so then there's a scene where jacob is like okay cal you're ready go hit on marissa tomei and then cal calls him out on his like behavior he's like you know you buy women a drink even if they don't want one you insist it's a big game a creepy creepy game and right when you think that like cal has come to his senses and is like, oh, wow, you know, this guy is a creep. He then says, wow, Jacob, you're such a wise teacher. You've taught me so well. And then he goes over and tries Jacob's creepy technique on Marissa Tomei, which I guess we can just talk about that really quickly marissa

tomei being done such a wild disservice the yeah the radiant marissa tomei i hope i hope she made 500 trillion dollars to to have to do this because that was the whole 50 million dollar budget they were just like please marissa tomei, do this absolutely miserable part for us. Because they're, first of all, like, again, just the logic of it is so bizarre. Where they make fun of the fact that she's a recovering alcoholic at several points in the movie. And she's just like this, I mean, we started talking about it, but but like she's just this like broad stereotype of like a desperate woman yes who like she'll take anything she'll take the first person who gives her the smallest amount of attention and it's and and i think it's just shorthand for like

single women over 30 like is that what the what is this right Right. And then and then later, if she feels rejected, she, you know, goes nuclear and is like her whole life is consumed by revenge. And and we're supposed to like be siding with Steve Carell, be like, wow, she's being a bit much, don't you think? Like, it's just such an exhausting trope that I feel like was, like, extremely active in this time when every comedy movie was, like, four hours long and had shitty improv. Sorry.

Right. And then during the scene where he's, like, trying to pick her up, and then he, at first he's, like, negging, but he's really bad at it. Not that there's a way to be good at it. Like it's a thing that shouldn't be done. But anyway, it's not effective. But then he starts being real and honest.

And because he says, you're the perfect combination of sexy and cute. She is now dripping her just she's she's like so ready to just like jump on his dick and then there's a bad aids joke that gets made while they're like foreplaying with each other but it's this weird thing where she likes that he's being honest and open which is like a good thing like men people should be honest and open but that is like her liking that is like part of what makes her seem so like outlandish and it's just so like yeah it's i mean i feel like it is like one of the broader stereotypes of women of this era is just, yeah, portraying any woman who is not like married over a certain age as like as having to be so desperate for any sort of validation that and then also so immediately attached if she receives any validation that is just like a way of like making women look irrational and like inherently like if you have it's like your iconic stand-up joke caitlin it's like if you have sex with someone you're you are you have to marry them and like you are like

chemically bound to them until you die and there's just like scenes where marissa tome where the button on the scene is just her screeching like that was how one of the scene ended and it echoed into the next scene yeah i was like what kind of this is wild sound editing like it's just so aggressively under thought because it's also it's not even like an original thing in this movie it's just like copy pasting the leslie mann character from a different steve carell movie into but this time it's marissa tomei oh sorry uh let's take a quick break and then we'll come back to discuss more 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 unhearts 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 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. This summer, the nation watched as the Republican nominee for president was the target of two assassination attempts separated by two months. These events were mirrored nearly 50 years ago when President Gerald Ford faced two attempts on his life in less than three weeks. President Gerald R. Ford came stunningly close to being the victim of an assassin today. And these are the only two times we know of that a woman has tried to assassinate a U.S. president. One was the protege of infamous cult leader Charles Manson. I always felt like Lynette was kind of his right-hand woman.

The other, a middle-aged housewife working undercover for the FBI in a violent, revolutionary underground. Identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore. The story of one strange and violent summer. This is Rip Current. Available now with new episodes every Thursday.

Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. I will say, though, that after the scene where Cal hooks up with Marissa Tomei, there is another sign that this movie is a sequel to She's the Man. Do you guys remember what it is? Oh, please.

It is after he has intercourse with Marissa Tomei. They play the song that they play at the carnival, which is Goldfrapp's Ooh La La. Oh. Wow. Only true She's the man heads will know. Which is just me. I saw it. I love that

but I mean it's very clearly a spiritual sequel if nothing else truly sequels they're really not better they're really just not better usually except Paddington too but anyway so that's

like that's Kate I guess I just want to leave kate in the in the past um and then she continues to hold the grudge into like she's like flipping off steve carell at the eighth grade graduation and it's like but if you were ghosted that way by somebody who you were very excited about telling you the truth and that's why you were screeching during intercourse like i feel like you probably would flick them off if you had to be exposed to them later on in a public space i mean to be perfectly fair yes steve carell did a not nice thing by discarding her because and that's the whole like pickup artist thing right it's like you objectify women you use them and then you discard them and that's what he does to like eight different women or something

like that um so she has every right to be upset and mad um because he treats her like an object but i think it's more that the way that she is characterized with her like irrationality and she can't let it go right is what informs her behavior not the fact that she like has a legitimate reason to be mad the eighth grade graduation I don't know it's just my half of my organs started shutting down at that point it's like i need to well we'll get there but yeah like kate is really under thought the i it's very bizarre to me how they kept bringing up that she was five years sober as a negative like it was just like what do you think you're saying here it's just very bizarre and then we have where do we oh i'm saving the children for last because it's just like

i don't even want to go there i guess jacob and hannah well i wanted to just um give some context for pickup artistry really quick yes um because this there is just so much here and i feel like this movie i mean they couldn't have known in 2011 I mean you everyone knew pickup artistry was bad uh but they couldn't have known where it led and kind of I don't know I've spent a lot of time thinking about this because um I hate myself I guess but there is like uh pickup artistry is such a demonstrable gateway to darker, worse behavior, which became clear soon after this movie came out. So I'm not saying that this movie is like ignoring things that had already happened outside of like how fucking ludicrous it is to be like, let's make a movie about pickup artistry. That's kind of like pro but there there's like there's a an article that kind of like lays out this pipeline

where essentially like pickup artistry can lead to you becoming a far-right extremist right because it's built on the same um i don't know i mean it is like mental logic to to an extent where I'm going to just pull from it. It's by Miles Klee of Mel Magazine. Love Miles's work. But he's kind of tracing how to pick up artists on like YouTube ended up at the Capitol insurrection. And like it is it is a wild there's all sorts of bizarro online, you know, pipelines built on entitlement, like alt-right superstars who were like arrested for being at the fucking insurrection. So I, uh,

I'll, I'll send you the links because it's like you, it gets so dark and there's still, there's a great Dan Olson video about, um, how flat earthers all went to QAnon as well. And just the, this movie is not like, about how flat earthers all went to QAnon as well. And just this movie is not like,

doesn't know that that stuff's going to happen, obviously. But I just think it's so bizarre and sinister that it's like presented as like, oh, ha ha, look at this clearly misogynist thing that's like built on all of, built on entitlement, which every man in this movie and boy is extremely entitled where you're just like this it's it's just so fucking dark and um i think it's like also weirdly avoidant that they don't say what it is and like what they're doing for half of the movie because they're literally doing play by play the game but they're acting like oh it's just this thing

i don't know it's just a thing that i'm doing and it works and but it's like pickup artistry demonstrably does not work people don't like it uh most women don't like being spoken to that way and then like but like what miles kind of lays out in this piece is like it it's sort of built to like push you into darker ideology because you're given this horrible system uh you go out to a bar you aggressively negs neg someone. They don't like it. And then they're like, well, something's wrong with you because I was told that this fucking system works. And so, like, this is your problem.

And then it just developed. Like, it just I mean, you can literally trace it to like Elliot Rogers stuff like and then when you're rejected by this shitty system that's based on dehumanizing people and they don't like that then it just turns into anger which leads to all of these other horrible places so I just uh I hate this movie I hate this movie okay we can move to other characters sorry no but thank you that is helpful context and i mean the takeaway from that for me is this movie is like it's glorifying it's making pickup artistry seem cool and even though the characters at the end like they stray away from that lifestyle because they have relationships. They've aggressively pursued their one true love through a series of...

Right. They picked up their soulmate and now they don't need to pick up any more people. It's still, there's a large chunk of the movie that makes you as an audience member think like oh wow what an what a huge improvement steve carell's character like under went with his makeover and in his more now he has more confidence and now he's more experienced sexually and like it's yeah you as the audience are meant to think that that was all pretty okay and that that was like what led him to being able to win his wife his wife back like he just needed to learn how to put in some effort and try and like wear better shoes and she and she rued the day he rediscovered his quote-unquote rediscovered his manhood and she indeed rued the day that she left him because the movie ends with her being like oh my gosh he's he's trying again he's he's new and improved and i should be with him

so he aggressively strongholded an eighth grade graduation for god damn scene so yeah i just the pickup artistry stuff is is really dark i feel like they're like i get that they move on from it but it is yeah just like oh well i picked picked up my one true love uh and then that's like the other very sexist thing that's going on in this movie so there's's just two sexist ideologies and both of them are successful. Yes. Yikes. So, yeah, with with Jacob and Hannah, you know, we mentioned how they meet because he aggressively hits on her. She keeps saying, no, no saying no no no no thank you she leaves but then later because

she is furious that her boyfriend josh groban didn't propose to her which like we've all been there we've all been there every party that i go to that's a celebration of question mark i'm furious when someone doesn't propose to me it is so unclear in that scene why she thinks he's going to propose like because not to side with josh groban but i don't understand why she thinks he's going to propose they like don't aren't even sitting next to each other right they don't interact unless he's like directing his speech towards her but like when he sits down in the earlier scene he sits with his friend like he does not interact with her at all. And then like, yeah, she expects him to be proposing because of the other party they were at where she told Liz, I think he's going to propose to me.

And then just decides that like she's going to hold on to that until the next party that they have. Right. I don't I mean, I did. Unfortunately, when Josh Groban was like, oh, I like oh um sorry you thought i was gonna propose to you i was kind of like i'm kind of with him there i don't know why why that was something that we were supposed to think was gonna happen and then when liz her friend who is in like three scenes is like really why him like why why do you want him to propose love that hannah's response is like well he's nice and it's like that's that might be true i guess but like that's not enough of a reason to want to marry him like she doesn't say like i love him he's my

soulmate like i want to spend our lives together she She's just like, well, he's nice, don't you think? And I'm like, it's so funny because you can just tell that like some some guy wrote this movie, by the way, that it's like, well, two women are sitting next to each other. OK, OK, OK. So one is probably about to get proposed to. Like, it's just so bleak. And also, like, I mean, Liz emb the um the best friend character where she's so invested in emma stone getting fuck fuck fuck fuck fucked that is what she lives for she where i assume that she works in lawyer also but i don't actually i can't actually confirm that also i like there's so that is like another recognizable dynamic that

we know and also it's the only non-white character in the entire movie um with any sort of like with i think more than one you know appearing in more than one scene but then also it's like why is okay i was trying to like connect the dots here jacob is obsessed with steve carell having sex why for question like also just for he reminded i wrote down um jacob is obsessed with steve carell having sex the way that mary-kate and ashley are obsessed with their widowed father having sex in every movie like it's just so but like i don't know like and then i i what he gives a one word or like a one-line explanation where he's like you remind me of someone and i think the application is like his nice rich dad who died

no i think it's he reminds steve carell reminds him of like who jacob used to be before he like learned to be cool and pickup artisty i'm guessing i thought it was daddy yeah his dead dad oh i thought he was like my i wish i could get my nice dead dad laid but you'll do unfortunately because my mom was such a like i think he really does think like my mom was a shrew and i wish my i could have gotten daddy laid back when he was not dead the logic is so i can't i can't get there yeah but he was he was so like so much time and money and also i'm like i guess he also just sort of doesn't need a job and needs something to do which is really sad yeah you know it's like take a night class ryan gosling what are you doing in this movie yeah how invested he is in Cal becoming just like him is very bizarre.

It's confusing. It does not track. Who has that relationship dynamic? Who, what man who is like busy trying to manipulate women? Is it the type of thing where like deep down, you know what you're doing is fucked up. So you want other, you want to bring other people into what you're doing so that you're not alone in your fucked up behavior is that it this is going to go

into my bigger thought of the movie and the general world and its thoughts on love and romance and stuff but i think that specifically jacob's obsession with cal aside from like why does he want to help him is that like you know you're not a person unless you are with another person and what in like we're supposed to think that he's like doing a good guy thing by helping out someone else trick another person into being and like that's like the thing we're like oh okay like he's a good guy he's gonna try to get his friend you know relevant by having a his wife back or something like that they're just so it's such it's such a bizarre dynamic and it's like i don't know that whole montage where it begins to work for Steve Carell too I was like what am

I supposed to be feeling right now I'm really unclear on what if I'm supposed to be like yeah amazing or if I'm supposed to be like nasty like I I just I don't know it was hard to put myself in 2011 brain but the way like the music the, like the movie, I'm pretty sure wants you to think, wow, awesome. He finally got it. He finally clicked. You know, the student has become the teacher kind of like he's doing it and you're supposed to be like rooting for it. Right. I'm pretty sure. That was another thing that with just for how like I think all the female characters in this movie are like written pretty badly but Hannah's like I just don't think she was written at all because I was so like why doesn't

she I I understand that like so when the twist is Emma Stone is Steve Carell's daughter he immediately like all of a sudden it's 1954 and she needs her father's approval to date someone which is like okay whatever and steve crowell's like you will never get my approval and you're like oh my god please give your approval so the movie can end but like but i also don't really understand what like if emma stone fully understands the extent to which Jacob like was trying to turn her father into a pickup artist and if so why doesn't I would feel weird about that I feel like that would be at least that at least warrants a scene and a conversation of like why doesn't this bother her it would really bother me if I thought I had met the love of my life and he had spent every night for the past three months trying to get my father laid under nefarious pretenses like that's really that's like a that's

a big reveal right breaking up for sure if he ever tells me the truth about that there's like no way but how is there no consequence for that like that's a that's a that's a revelation yeah I have to imagine that she's just sort of left in the dark about that. Yeah. That's so fucked up. I hope their family is in shambles after the movie ends. I truly hope that. Oh, my God.

Like, yeah, that whole, I was just like, why? Like, because she was like, Daddy. Also, Daddy. Daddy. Daddy, it's okay and and i'm like why is it okay with you or or i just wasn't clear on like if she knew and didn't care for some reason or if just no one had told her and she was living in the dark in terms of ryan gosling's weird past because i know that she she knows that he tries to get women really drunk and treats them like they're machines.

But I don't think she knows his history with Daddy. But I have no idea. Either one would be grounds. If I just found out, oh, you used to be a unrepentant pickup artist and you did this what seems to be every night of your life i would just need some real i would need some real progress reports i would be like okay how long have you not been a pickup artist 45 minutes okay like yeah but it goes back to the reason that he stops is because like he found a girl who's not like the other girls. He found someone who he can goof with.

And the chemistry between Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling. It's electric. It's. Stop the presses. Do, do, do, do. I just I hate that aspect of it. And then, yeah, when the big reveal happens and Cal finds out that his daughter, his daughter is dating's also like he refuses to like he doesn't respect her autonomy or her decisions. He won't talk to her unless she breaks up with him. Like he's placing a lot of blame on her.

And then what he's also not doing is noticing the like staggering hypocrisy of his situation where he hates Jacob for being a pickup art, like a womanizer. But that's what he was just doing with like eight different women. Like, wait, it's nine, but I thought it was nine women,

eight plus Julianne Moore. I think it's nine. Oh, is it nine total or nine plus julianne moore i hesitate to believe that dan fogelman and john requa really did that accurate math so i'm not sure i i mean ultimately it was like jacob ends up getting this like little redemption arc which is totally unearned and doesn't really make any sense and cal is a hypocrite and he's a hypocrite he's he's like berating his daughter for having autonomy over

her own life meanwhile but also she's wrong and she isn't a real person she's like so that's confusing but then even so like he if we just look at it like he is not respecting his daughter's choice it's like the whole like eight simple rules of dating my teenage daughter thing where like he thinks that he just can control his daughter's life but then if he really like wanted to do something, he would just have to be totally honest with her. Maybe this is in the 50 hour cut of the movie. But like he would have to be honest with her and be like because he's being really vague. He's like, right. He's not a good guy.

He's not a good guy, which could just be an overprotective father like trope thing. But he also like if he I don't know i would like understand the storyline a little better if he went to her and was like look he's not a good guy i have i have receipts i could be specific here's how i know he taught me how to be a really like an even worse guy and i regret it and i'm sorry and like this is why i have all this information. And that like, that would have been at least something that you're like, oh, this character has grown, but he doesn't do that. He's just like, he's bad. I can't get more specific because it will make me look bad. You're like, I have nothing more to say to you if you're going to keep dating him. Meanwhile, his son is harassing the babysitter relentlessly. And he's not doing anything about that. But he's like, but my daughter, she's dating someone. And I'm furious about it.

Okay, let's just get to the son. Robbie is, I think, the most problematic character in the movie he's right up there bobo what the fuck is going on here this is like again just like embodies so many shitty tropes all at once like he's just a pot because he is precocious child trope like wise beyond his years giving shakespearean soliloquies that you're just like this kid is 13 he would be like like where are my naruto cards like like the so he but he's also like hyper sexualized which is which is a choice and but also like he's both really immature and really mature at the same time like it yeah it it scene to scene he his he varies right you don't know which robbie you're gonna get uh but i hate them all i hate this child also i think we are introduced to him

while he's jacking off i think that's the first he is our first interaction with robbie i think that i don't know yeah so we're introduced to him when he is masturbating the scene immediately after is the first of many times that he's aggressively harassing his babysitter um i feel like his entire character is summed up in the line i'm not gonna stop sending jessica text messages that make her feel uncomfortable just literally a line of dialogue he says and and to kevin bacon to kevin bacon poor kevin bacon having to listen to jonah bobo spout this toxic rhetoric um but that's like his entire character like he is constantly and i hate this so much probably it's a personal thing because it makes me extremely uncomfortable but like the whole idea of like

if you are rejected explicitly not even like oh i don't think she likes me she sends him a text saying stop this you are making me uncomfortable yeah and then he doubles and triples down and the whole like grand i hate the whole grand gesture thing i think it's like the cringiest was i i know some people like grand gestures i they make me so uncomfortable hate it and so many so yeah like so much of this movie is and i feel like there's an element of that um with when emma stone meets ryan gosling of like no means yes of like she's like no i don't like you know i'm not attracted to him like right and it's kind of similar with this robbie jessica storyline where she's like i don't want you to do this this is making me uncomfortable and then he will like he does this weird thing

with the scarlet letter he does this he just keeps doing shit he's showing up at her house he's doing all this stuff and then eventually she's like i love it i love it and actually i love you he's rewarded when she gives him her nude photos which we will get there get to why she has those in a in a second but yeah like it's this like war of attrition that all the men in this movie are doing where they are wearing these women down till they relent for question mark reasons because these these women are written so poorly i mean yes they are written poorly but i like in general, we are taught to believe that you have to pursue a person until they fold. Like that's the whole entire thing about love and how like the whole like marriage and soulmates shit is just like, oh, if you find somebody you really you really really like you better dig your heels in because someday they'll say yes and like that's like the the grossest part of some of the stuff

in the movie is that it is like it's accurate to how people behave yeah right i mean it just it reinforced it like takes behavior that like people have been conditioned with thinking is like the right way to do it and then it just like reinforces it rather than like examining hey maybe that's not the way to do it maybe this is like getting like a little dark but even how like i mean the way that the robbie jessica thing resolves is just like like but i i do like there were times when it seems like she was really in a way that i'm like i don't even know if this was written intentionally or if the like the actress playing jessica was like doing a subtle thing but it seems like you know we're also often taught like it's easier to like let someone down easy it's easier to like be very

gentle and coddle men's feelings literally for safety purposes right like if you don't like you know engage with someone who's making you very uncomfortable in a way that is very like accommodating to them you could get harmed and that was like there were moments that I'm like, Oh, I don't think that they were trying to say that. But if I were Jessica, and the same boy was escalating behavior that I didn't like treating me, you know, like in more and more bizarre ways, I feel like there is like a place in my head, especially when I was younger, that I would be like, Oh, I'd better like, kind of coddle and protect this person's feelings because they're behaving really scary and like you don't

know what someone will do if you just keep like so I appreciate that we did see her reject him outright several times and say stop stop stop but then it's like i don't know i i think that like in a real life situation like we are kind of taught for our own safety to to not be like quite so direct constantly which is so depressing because it's like well you never know when someone's gonna murder you like right and like and sammy like you're saying the behavior that's on display here in this movie is reflective of this era that the movie comes out in 2011 like it's wild to think that 10 years ago which doesn't feel like that long ago but like that was still very much the attitude that people had that you, if you really like someone,

you aggressively pursue them until they have no choice but to relent. And that is actually awesome and romantic and not creepy and harassy and stalkery that, yeah, that was that 2011. We were all still very much subscribing to that magazine i mean unfortunately i feel like it's still what people are striving for is that like whole thing of like relationships in the beginning of a relationship like there needs to be a little bit of drama there needs to be somebody like pretending or playing a game and like i feel like that's just such shit and even like the whole like soulmate thing is like

ridiculous like that doesn't even make sense because if you look at most of the people who are married they're married to people who they work with and you're definitely probably not going at your job sorry god willing uh it's so yeah like and and that whole i mean the whole like idea of how soulmates are presented is so manipulative because it's like the whole okay the eighth grade graduation when jonah bobo is making a speech he's like love sucks i hate love like love is and then and then steve carell stands up like wait and you're like oh my god if you're just like a parent at this you're like what is going on who is this man i need to go home i have to pee like why is steve carell standing up here but ste Steve Carell goes down and gives the most toxic speech of all time where he's like my son doesn't mean what he says I think my son is not very smart

anyways uh like and then he goes into like my son believes in soul mates and just the whole where is the line that absolutely made me want to die that's a lot of them but there there was a line where he basically says that like oh my son believes in grand romantic gestures which is a code for harassing women until they give in to what you want and invokes this idea of soulmates as something that like you know it's like oh just keep bothering your soulmate until they talk to you it's like no if your soulmate was your soulmate they would want to talk to you right that is the basic dissonance of like you're they're not your soulmate if they don't want to be around you or speak to you like that's not how that works like it's just such a basic thing

that he's presenting as like keep going keep going and she'll change her mind eventually but uh apparently screenwriter dan fogelman nor directors glenn ficara or john requa know this oh my god their their resume is funny too well Yeah, Bad Santa's in there. Bad Santa's in there. Cats and Dogs, a movie that made me so scared I cried when I was a kid. And the upcoming Jungle Cruise movie. Oh, starring The Rock? Starring The Rock. They wrote it.

I saw a trailer. Wow. They also, okay, to their credit, their only only like credits that are like oh are the the first ones they did um they did right on the wild thor berries and the angry beavers good for them they also are uncredited on looney tunes back in action starring brendan fraser so you know they clearly deserved to make a 50 million dollar 500-hour rom-com. It makes total sense to me. Also, this is produced by Denise Denovi, who we've spoken about on the show before. She's kind of an iconic producer who has really championed a lot of amazing movies,

very often champions movies that are um driven and run by women um we i think we talked about her most in the little women episode because she um she got both the 90s and the 2010s one made um she's just behind a lot of cool movies and um but this isn't one of them no no it's not um i should we talk about jessica the babysitter being in love with cal yes and then i need to shove my head into the garbage disposal so we'd better get to it um okay so it's established that she is in love with steve carell and i guess we just have to suspend our disbelief for that that uh we yeah it's like this is this is a setup we've seen before i don't think it's the like if it's handled well this isn't always the worst setup it's like you know a teenager who has a crush on someone older it's like okay it happens how it goes

let's see what they do uh but then this happens yeah so um basically her a classmate of hers who is presumably an another 17 year old is said to be having sex with a lot of older men all the time. This is one of the least realistically written teen characters. I'm like Dan Fogelman. Imagine Dan Fogelman sitting in his car's mansion, trying to imagine how 17 year old girls talk to each other and then writing that scene. Awful. Ridiculous.

He also wrote Tangled, which like now I have to go back and re-watch tangled to be like no don't take tangled from me we gotta cover that someday soon well anyway fred claws cars too oh cars cars you know i will say hontag cars too better than cars one wow i liked cars two anyway so this classmate of jessica's says well if you want an older man to be interested in you you have to send him a message send him pictures that let him know so jessica proceeds to take nude photos of herself which this actor was not underage when this movie was shot i checked because she and emma are the same age but yeah it's implied child pornography and we're supposed to be like

ha ha she okay right so that's what they do so she prints them out because it's 2011 and we all had photo printers i guess and uh with the intent of giving them to Cal. But before she can, Jessica's mother finds these photos and then shows them to her dad. Which is like. In what fucking world would a mother. In front of her daughter. You would go and talk to your daughter for. Right.

I mean, I guess. I guess. I mean, it is like she it's not inconceivable to me that a bad parent would do that and every parent in this movie is a bad parent except for julianne moore sometimes but it's so and it's played so jokey i also like john carroll lynch a lot and i don't like when he's misused in movies. He's a character actor icon. Come on. You're going to treat Mr. Fargo like that?

I mean, I think it's... Not in my house. I think it completely stands to reason that Jessica's mom would tell her dad about this. But to show them? In front of her? Show him the photos? Yeah. I feel like as a mother, you destroy the photos.

I don't know what you... I don't want destroy the photos or i don't i don't know i don't know what you i don't want to think about i don't want to be in this situation why are they why is this happening at the end of the movie yeah what i yeah what i what what happened i don't know exactly the best way to handle it i know the worst way to handle it which is to show nude photos of a teenage girl to her dad she's sitting right there too like it's just horrifying yucky yucky yeah that i mean like i want to be clear like i don't blame the the girls neither jessica nor this no classmate of hers like i blame the adult filmmakers who put these scenes into this movie yeah these people are not real and like this writer cannot write a female character like to save his life he also made this is us apparently

anyways yeah it's like the way that the teenage girls are written is like pretty unrealistic and the way that this like you know like really serious thing is treated is as a quick joke to like get us to the scene where all the men fight each other yeah it's just like i just feel like if you're if you as a writer are not like equipped to like deal with a storyline like that responsibly just like find another way to get john carroll lynch to to punch Steve Carell in the face like there's so many other ways to get there and like if you need to get there but like putting that level of like those are like gigantic stakes to put if you don't know how to write a storyline like that and you don't know how to write a teenage girl character like right I just don't even understand why the

writer would put that in there you know what i mean like it's just an it's an easy bad plot point to get to without that level of seriousness i don't know i feel like the whole entire like jessica being in love with cal does not even need to be in the movie whatsoever. No, it doesn't make sense to me. She could have just been a normal babysitter. But these perverts wanted that in there. It's so weird. And it's like also, yeah,

I guess I don't understand the plot relevance it has either because it's like, are we supposed to think like, oh, no, Steve carell is a really viable guy i like what it what it what are we being oh god and it's so it doesn't go anywhere i mean i'm glad it obviously i'm glad it doesn't go anywhere but it's just like why is it there yeah why did i guess like the theme of the movie is everyone's in love with somebody who is near them. I'm just so glad Steve Carell like... That's a shirt. That's a t-shirt.

I'm just glad Steve Carell like finally stopped doing these midlife crisis 500 hour movies. Because, okay, I'm going to just like list some because there were so many um there was dan in real life that was one of them i think that was maybe the first one where his head's on the pancakes and it was and it's boring yeah um there was um this movie there was the next year seeking a friend for the end of the world uh there was the way way back uh which i fun fact did one day of pa-ing on because he shot it in massachusetts um and then and then i think that this um this ends in 2014 when he successfully plays a dramatic role in foxcatcher but that's like five movies where he's playing the same midlife crisis guy.

And I guess you could maybe argue it started with Little Miss Sunshine, which it like starts on a high note because it's like an indie darling where he has a serious, you know, like it's like I'm a middle aged man in crisis. But then he keeps playing that role. And then eventually he gets the Foxcatcher. And now he's like, OK, I got my nominations for things. And now i can go back to being a great comedian why was he doing these movies it's just confusing he's showing his range probably on the i guess but it's like is he good in this movie not like he could be steve

carell could be anyone in this movie any man could be this man but i read that uh the screenwriter wrote this script with steve carell in mind so he was like writing it for him specifically i wonder if he did the same thing with lightning mcqueen i wonder i wonder if he was like so yeah i really couldn't imagine anyone but owen wilson as lightning and it really informed my process like oh goodness I honestly I guess Larry the Cable Guy that what's his name Mater Mater maybe that was written for him that might have been the Fogelman technique choose the actor first anyways um what's funny to me is that, Steve Carell is actually incredibly handsome. And they could have made him as handsome or more handsome than Ryan Gosling. But they chose to give him this, like, very weird, like, seven-layer middle-aged man outfit.

Rather than, like, leveling him up to be, like, as hot as he is in real life. Which is interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Because, like, Steve Carell is an is an attract i mean he's an attractive man and i also feel like it's like the way that the coding that movies use to tell you who's attractive and who isn't is always just so dissonant and and just bizarre and um couple last things i wanted to bring up this is obviously a very hetero movie everyone is in love with you know men are in love with women women are in love with men there's everyone's white and has plenty of money like yeah oh yeah yeah all that kind of

stuff um in addition to that there are a few um homophobic jokes that get made where the first time Cal sees Jacob across the bar, he just like looks at him and says gay because he's homophobic and awful. There's an AIDS joke. joke a few scenes later um at the same again the same bar when cal and jacob actually talk for the first time jacob comments on how cal drinking a drink through a straw makes him look like he's sucking on a tiny penis but he's also using i guess is his character supposed to be bizarre is jacob supposed to be jewish because he keeps saying either like Hebrew or Yiddish words throughout the movie. Maybe that's in the director's cut that you get a whole explanation about Jacob's upbringing outside of mean mommy, nice daddy. Right. right um and then there's a i guess what's meant to be a visual joke when cal passes out in a sauna into jacob's naked crotch and that's comedy baby man i i just i like want better for

basically every actor in this except for jonah bobo unfortunately who has since retired he's he's done so he's writing folk music and he wears statement hats i checked oh okay wow thanks for doing that important research that's the real yeah that's what i'm here for and then the other thing worth bringing up is the title of this movie, Crazy, Stupid, Love, period. And this is a conversation that's happening, not a lot, but more and more. And, you know, we on the podcast, we're trying to help spread the word regarding the use of certain words and certain language choices. Two of which are in the title of this movie. Right.

Yes. And they might seem pretty harmless, but in reality, they are ableist because this type of language disparages physical and intellectual disabilities and furthers the stigma of mental illness. And this includes words like crazy, stupid, dumb, lame, insane, etc. Because like, you know, these words have often been used to other and to demonize people with disabilities and mental illness. And these words are also often used in just like everyday colloquial language in the context of like disparaging. This thing is bad. This thing is wrong. So our brains make these connections and it just perpetuates these ableist ideas.

So we are actively working on eliminating this type of language from our vocabulary. We encourage others to do the same, to read up about it. We'll include some links in the show notes. Yeah. If this is the first time you're hearing about something like this, just begin to educate yourself. That is the step you can take today. And it's just a thing you should do. we used to use words like that on the show

not realizing the potential harm that they have to cause um and then we learned better and then we did better and there you go and well yeah we'll have there's a number of great resources about this kind of ongoing discussion as well as alternative words you can use to kind of rewire your brain a little bit uh in conclusion the title of this movie stinks so i i think we can all agree that they should have stuck with their original title which was untitled marital crisis comedy yes untitled, comma, marital, comma, comedy. Yes. Period. Yeah.

So, yeah. On top of that, to tie a little bow in it, the title is ableist. And I don't want to talk about this movie anymore. Does it pass the Bechdel test? I don't think it does. Okay. Because there are a couple conversations, a few conversations where women interact. For example, Hannah and her friend Liz talk about Conan O'Brien. They talk about Jacob. They talk about Josh Groban. None of those scenes pass. Jessica and her classmate, who is named Madison, I think, talk about how to get older men to sleep with them. Horrifying. Jessica and Emily talk about Cal.

And also Jessica is really, really mean to Emily. And then she says, I won't take your slutty money and run away. Which I don't like the scene it's in. But I'm like, maybe I'll use that line. Slutty money. It's so funny. I don't like the scene it's in, but I'm like, maybe I'll use that line. Slutty money. Someday. The next time we're splitting up Patriot money, I'm like, I don't want your slutty money. And this doesn't, of course, pass, but Emily says to David Lindhagen, I'm saving you from disaster because you're about to pre-board the titanic

love that also we didn't get into david lindhagen because literally who cares um but but he also was sort of like that in that one scene she's like look this isn't gonna work out and he's like it's going to work out but i like you so i need to keep talking to you even if you don't want me to i decided you're my my soulmate, so that gives me a license to harass you until one of us dies. Like, God. The thesis statement of the movie. So let's rate it on our nipple scale, 0 to 5 nipples based on an examination of intersectional feminism. I'm just going to go ahead and give this zero nipples.

Yeah. None, none. And I feel like we've really, if we've really said it all, none. If I had a nipple, I would give it to baby Joey King,

but I don't have one. I have none. Sammy thoughts. Zero nipples. I think that my favorite part of this movie is there is a behind the scenes story that uh i think ryan and emma talk about on graham norton um where they were talking about the terribly boring dirty dancing scene actually my note in my notes my note on my notes says dirty dancing hyphen clearly a boring person wrote this movie.

But so the, the scene where Ryan lifts Emma up, apparently she was very, very, very scared to do this scene. She did try it though. And apparently clawed at Ryan Gosling's head, like a raccoon when she was up so so they did have to go

with a stunt person for it whoa I love Emma Stone oh she's so great she really is oh I had oh my my last note that I haven't marked off this was just a passing thought because I was trying so hard to make sense of this there was a good 10 minutes of watching this movie where I thought that Ryan Gosling was possibly dead like Sixth Sense style because he's just that whole montage where he's like training Steve Carell I'm like what if this is like the Sixth Sense and Steve Carell's actually alone because he's just sitting at a bar with Ryan and I'm like well it it makes sense because I have no idea why Ryan Gosling is so interested in Steve Carell. I don't know why they're in all these locations.

I don't know how they can afford this. Maybe he's dead. Maybe he's like this ghost. I love that theory. Let's stick with that. There's long parts of the movie where Ryan Gosling could very well be dead. And that would make more sense

if he was like either a ghost or if he was like a projection of Cal. Yeah. That make more sense if he was like either a ghost or if he was like a projection of cal yeah that makes more sense than like fight club exactly that makes more sense than jacob for no reason taking so much time out of his day to quote fix steve carell because that doesn't track at all i was like only a ghost would be having this much free time um so also cal i forgot to mention this but cal is very cruel to several people who work in the service industry throughout the movie he's really aggressive yeah awful and then he always just goes he's i feel like this is like a steve carell improv thing then he'll just be like sorry that wasn't nice but we're like come on come on i love steve carell so much but this era of steve carell is tough so no nipples this movie does not do justice to any of the actors in it yeah

anyway sammy hi wait i forgot to shout this out but oh please do you guys think that uh they intended for ryan gosling to be eating that sabaro when they i don't think i i really don't think that that was i think that that was like a ryan gosling improv oh if that was just like what they had for like craft like lunch that day on set he probably they had probably made like a pa go get a fucking slice of pizza because ryan had an idea that day and then they're like okay we're gonna roll with it i like i just believe that yeah it seems ryan gosling seems like those one of those guys that's like because he's so famous that if he thinks an idea is kind of funny probably no one's gonna going to be like, that's not very funny.

I don't know. I buy that. Especially because it doesn't really track for his character. His character would be the type of person who's, like, eating caviar and, like, pate and stuff like that. And not, like, Sbarro, I feel like. Because he's just so, like. He's anti-poor people things like yeah don't you dare wear new balance sneakers around him he will throw them he killed someone

with that new balance sneaker um yeah ryan gosling character i think if you do need to watch crazy stupid love you should do so thinking that ryan Ryan Gosling's character is dead the whole time and it's a more rewarding experience. Thank you for putting that in my brain. Sammy. Hi. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for having me. What a thrill.

What a thrill indeed. I just get so drunk off of Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone's chemistry that I don't understand what happens. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. It is intoxicating. No, we had to cover this movie eventually. And what better person to do it than you? Thank you. So thank you.

Thank you for coming back. Thanks, guys. Thank you. Thank you for coming back. What would you like to plug? Where can people follow you on social media, et cetera? Oh, find me on Instagram. It underscore your underscore Sam. And I'm already sorry.

Don't be sorry. It's it's a, you've got great content there. You can follow us on Instagram as well as Twitter at Bechtelcast. You can and should subscribe to our Patreon, aka Matreon, at patreon.com slash Bechtelcast. You get two bonus episodes every month, plus access to the entire back catalog,

which is upwards of 80 bonuses. So if you've run out of main feed episodes, scoot on over to the to the Matreon. Why don't you? And you can get our our merch at tpublix.com slash the Bechtel cast. Hell yeah. And I say we since we're all the perfect combination of sexy and cute, let's just go outside and show the world that, shall we?

Let's do it. Bye. Bye. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017 was assassinated. Crooks everywhere unearths 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 iHeartTrue Crime Plus channel, available exclusively on Apple 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, try 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 iHeart True Crime Plus

only 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.