The Bechdel Cast - Now and Then with Callie Biggerstaff

Episode Date: January 9, 2020

25 years ago, Caitlin and Jamie made a vow to meet up with special guest Callie Biggerstaff and discuss Now and Then.(This episode contains spoilers)For Bechdel bonuses, sign up for our Patreon at patreon.com/bechdelcast.Follow @calliebphoto on Instagram. Follow@BechdelCast, @caitlindurante and @jamieloftusHELP on Twitter. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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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. 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 iHeart True Crime Plus channel, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Fantasy football fans, the NFL season is here and now is the time to do your homework. The best way to do that homework is to listen to the NFL Fantasy Football Podcast. Come hang out with me, Marcus Grant, as well as my pal Michael F. Florio, as we give you all the insight you need to set the best lineups each week. For a smart, fun, and entertaining path to league domination,

the NFL Fantasy Football Podcast is the show for you. Subscribe now and listen to the NFL Fantasy Football Podcast is the show for you. Subscribe now and listen to the NFL Fantasy Football Podcast on the iHeartRadio app, on 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 effin' vast. Start changing it with the Bechdel Cast. My name is Caitlin Durante. My name is Jamie Loftus.

And we talk about the representation of women in films. Yeah, what if this started 25 years from now and we were reflecting on how we used to do The Bechdel Cast and then we always promised that we're going to continue doing. To come back and have a reunion. Anytime there was discourse to be had, that we would show up and start doing it. Jamie, let's make that pact right now. Truth or dare? Truth.

Are you happy? No. Not really. All right. I guess we're done here. This is our Fam movie podcast we use the bechdel test as our jumping out point for discussion bechdel test sometimes called the bechdel wallace test is a media metric invented by cartoonist allison bechdel that requires that there be two female identifying characters in a piece of media with names that talk to each

other about something other than a man for more than two lines of dialogue can it be done sometimes sometimes in this movie yeah quite a bit i was i was i thought you were about to be like it doesn't i was like oh my god i was like wait a second no did we see the same movie oh you're spoiling it at the top but but I mean. I still think that it's really funny whenever someone is like, so do you just talk about the Bechdel test? I'm like, what would that conversation even sound like? For an hour and a half. We just argue with each other, like one takes pro, one takes con when it's an indisputable

thing. Through every single line of dialogue in the movie and be like, does that one pass? No, it doesn't because Michael Shannon said it. Moving on. Like, it's just like, what? I think I'm getting into Michael Shannon. Oh, well, Knives Out is a great film. He's good in it.

I confused him with many other Michaels and you can't blame me. But I think I'm getting into Michael Shannon. This doesn't pass the dialogue. It does not. But I'm surprised you weren't into him starting with Shape of Water. I know. Well because I kept confusing him with Michael Stolbarg because it's too close. Oh sure. It's too close in name.

Too much Michael representation in that movie. Just a note from me. So yeah. This is the Bechdelcast. And as always we have a wonderful guest with us. Certainly do. Today. She's one of my dearest friends.

She's a photographer extraordinaire. She's a circus historian. She's the absolute best. It's Callie Biggerstaff. Hello. Hi. Welcome. Hi.

We're so excited to have you. Yeah. Thanks for having me. Well, we're doing a movie that you were very, very passionate about recommending. And I was like, well, just come on and talk about it. Because you were like, when are you going to do a Now and Then episode? So have all of our fans. Everyone.

I did not know that this thing existed. And I will disappoint in this episode. So, Callie, what's your history with Now and Then? 1995 movie. I think I watched it in the theaters and I think and I told you this that I remember watching it and Demi Moore

was smoking and I was like oh that is cool and re-watching it I was like I definitely started smoking because of this one which is horrible but cool at the time but yeah I think to me it seemed like because of this one. Wow. Which is horrible. Influential. Mediable. Oh, my God. But cool at the time.

Sure. But, yeah, I think, to me, it seemed like the Sandlot-Stand By Me merge for ladies. I don't know. But it was a sweet teenage film for me. Yeah. I think it's cute. I mean, it has its moments

and it has its, like, camaraderie thing. There's a personality for everyone in there, I think. Yeah. And problematic parts. Oh, yeah. We'll talk about it. What?

What? Some B-frade. Brendan Fraser also is not credited in the movie. I watched it all the way through with the credits. I paused because I'm like, how? Because I was playing this game I play with myself sometimes called, how high in the credits is Brendan Fraser? Because depending on the year, it really fluctuates, right?

And in this movie, he's not credited at all. Incredible. I know. Caitlin, what's your history on that? I grew up with this movie, although I will say that I have not seen it in probably 20 or more years, not unlike the span of time between when we see them as girls and when we see them as adults. You're now and thenning now and then. Exactly. That is true. So I hadn't rewatched it probably since I was around the age of the characters, which is 12. But prior to that, it wasn't a movie that we ever had, like on VHS at my house or anything,

but it is a huge like girl sleepover staple movie. So I would go to sleepovers and it would be on all the time. So I would watch this movie often at sleepovers. Interesting. And I always rather enjoyed it. But again, haven't seen it in many, many years. What's your history, Jamie? I think this is one of those weird movies that it came out. It's like our age gap is not large, but it is felt here. It makes all the difference. I did not know this movie existed. Wow. That's a shame.

Until Callie told me it was on Netflix. I didn't know that it existed. I did not know it was the genre of movie it was. I didn't know who was in it. Yeah, I was, I mean, I was like two when it came out, so I didn't see it. It just missed me. So I watched it to prepare for this episode. And, you know, I love female representation.

I feel bad because I did the same thing on the Little Women episode. And you're like, it's wonderful. Coming of age i love it but coming of age for anyone of any gender it can be kind of boring not always the most fun thing to watch especially when like this group of young women they don't have actual i mean well i would say maybe one of them has problems that are significant, but most of them are like, Oh no. Like,

it's just very, you're like, Oh, okay. They're going to be fine. And then we see that. Guess what? They're fine. They're fine.

They're fine. Everyone's fine. Sure. I mean, the stakes don't feel high. Yeah. No, but they rarely are in coming of age stories.

Right. That just comes with the territory. It's just not my genre. I see. But, uh, yeah. So,

uh, my history is I watched it. Good, great, great, good history. But this is a widely beloved movie. It is. I would say one of our top requests of all time. We've gotten this request more frequently than almost any movie. So let's dive in, shall we? Let's do it. I've got the recap recap here we meet the four main characters who are roberta she is played by christina ricci as a youth and by rosie o'donnell as an adult teeny is thora birch and melanie griffith samantha is gabby hoffman and demi moore and chrissy is ashley aston moore and rita wilson it's crazy that everyone like hitters hitters hitters And Chrissy is Ashley Aston Moore and Rita Wilson.

It's crazy that everyone, like hitters, hitters, hitters. All stars. In the youth cast. Cast. But you couldn't have known that the child stars were here. They are. There they were. I mean, yeah. Every person in this movie delivers a pretty phenomenal performance, I would say.

Especially Brendan Fraser. person in this movie delivers a pretty phenomenal performance i would say especially brandon fraser i could go on about that for hours there there's so many what is what is this trope of because we just covered it in home alone as well of like you know that neighbor that you get bad energy from who's terrifying to you you should talk to them i'm like what kind of lesson is that it's i know what they're going for yeah but it could lead to death potentially yeah it's the uh it's the boo radley trope exactly it is yeah yeah so with this movie it is present i know i'm like i don't want to discourage people from talking to their elders. Talking to people and being empathetic. Right.

But in the same token, there is a actually do talk to strangers. Especially if they are going to save your life. I also, what do they call the neighbor in this movie? Crazy Pete. Okay. I think he killed his family. That's my hottest take about now and then the rest of the day.

I think that Dear Johnny is the new his wife in terms of gravestone literature. And I think that Pete killed his family and feels really bad. I did have that thought as well. Really? Yes.

The way he's presented, I mean, he has a heroic moment. He saves Christina Ricci from the gutter that she jumped in. It's Gabby Hoffman. But Gabby, I also struggled with that because they look very similar as children. I think Pete killed his family for sure. Not a doubt in my mind. He's living with the, I'm like, what about, okay.

It makes it sound like he was a suspect in the murder because he says to them, oh, I don't like seeing people and people don't like seeing me i was like because you went to trial like i think that maybe they should have looked at more microfiche and figured out like was he a top suspect for this because they don't say who killed they don't they don't ever find out who killed but they but he was the one to discover the bodies and i don't remember what movie it is that i just saw and it actually might be the staircase out that a character says you always look at the person who found the body as a suspect yes is it is that knives out i think it's that in like other stuff yeah but like i was thinking of the staircase

because i was always thinking about the staircase. Classic. Yeah. In the 1940s, way easier to cover up a murder also. And when he was like, I shouldn't have been at that bar. I was like, oh, you killed your family. In a drunken frenzy. And Melanie Griffith is sending him money for years. This murderer.

That is a pretty hot take. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Anyways. What is the movie about? So we first see these characters as girls in 1970 in Shelby, Indiana. They're best friends. We see them playing Red Rover.

Then we cut to them as adults. They are getting together because they had made a pact that whenever they needed each other, they would be there for each other. And right now, Chrissy needs them to be around because she is about to have a baby. So we see Teenie. That is, again, Melanie Griffith. She is a famous actress. Roberta is Rosie O'Donnell. She's an OBGYN. And Samantha Demeanor is a sci-fi novelist and also the narrator of the movie.

So then we cut back to them in the summer of 1970 when they are 12. We get little glimpses of their lives, like Samantha's parents are fighting a lot and then her dad will eventually leave. Roberta doesn't like how big her boobs are getting, so she tapes them down. She lives with her dad and brothers because her mom died when she was four Tina is the only child she has rich parents who are never around she likes to dress up and be glamorous and Chrissy whose mom is played by Bonnie Hunt comes in and gives her the sex talk, but she uses very coded language about flowers and watering cans. Then we meet the Wormers,

this group of... Devon Sawa. Peak Devon Sawa. Devon Sawa. This is the same year that Casper comes out, which is another romance between Devon Sawa and Christina Ricci. No coincidence there. Casting. Lazy casting out which is another romance between devin sawa and christina ritchie wow no coincidence casting lazy casting alert christina ritchie rules yes i like her a lot but they are this group of i think

brothers who tease and torment the girls uh they're throwing water balloons full of green jello at them the leader is is Scott, Devin Sawa. And the girls, they're saving up money to buy a treehouse. They're $23 away. We see them at a diner reading Cosmo. Their server is Willadean, Janine Garofalo. Great, bizarre role. I loved it.

You're like, yep, the two scenes feels about right for this character. What is going on love it so then the girls are like let's do a seance they go to the cemetery they see the grave of dear johnny or dear johnny dear johnny his wife dear johnny large font large large font because we find out the character's real name or the the boy's real name, which is Jonathan Sims, but that is not what's on his gravestone. On his gravestone says, Dear Johnny. All caps. And this, I will say, predates The Rock by a year.

So whose idea was it? Literally, Michael Bay saw Now and Then and stole. There's no way Michael Bay saw now and then and stole there's no way michael bay saw now and then he was like more than one woman's in it and she's clothed skipping it like there's no way he saw but i like this theory dear johnny it's such a a child in the 1940s and they think they've conjured up his spirit i also believed that they had conjured up his spirit it was pretty convincing like lightning strikes a nearby tree and getting the craft energy from it yeah wind is blowing it's very spooky no tractor did you i thought no I thought the tractor was a cop-out.

My guess was that he came later that night after they had left and then broke the gravestone. So they were both right. I think so. I thought there was real magic afoot and I was disappointed when it was revealed to us. They were like, anyways, magic isn't real.

Fast forward 25 years. You're like, anyways, magic isn't real. Fast forward 25 years. You're like, oh, that sucks. That's so disappointing. And then they also see Crazy Pete, as they call him, and he's riding around

on his bicycle and they freak out and they run away. Yes. And then I think it's later that night or maybe the following night, but what seems like

a ghostly presence comes into Samantha's room. So she rounds up the girls and they go back to the cemetery. And this is when they find out that Dear Johnny's grave has been smashed. And they think that he's definitely out and about just hanging around town. Hanging around town. As ghosts do. Sure, sure.

And they want to learn more about Dear Johnny's death. But they have to ride their bikes to the nearby town of Greenfield to go through their old newspaper archives. On the way, they stop for some lunch. They play truth or dare. They talk about sex. Chrissy, again, doesn't really know how sex works because she's talking about flowers and watering cans. And they kind of they laugh at her. It's cute.

Yeah. Then a bird shits on Chrissy's head. So they go to a pond to wash it off. They go swimming. Roberta fakes her death as a joke. Chrissy gets really mad at her and punches her in the face. There's a lot of punching. A lot of punching.

I can't wait to talk about all the punching. I'm not even kidding. Yeah. And then they see the Wormers skinny dipping nearby. So they steal their clothes as payback from the jello attack they finally make their way to the library they go through the old newspapers roberta sees a clipping about her mother's car accident that caused her death and discovers that it was more painful and prolonged than her dad had led her to believe

oh so sad really she is amazing in those scenes yes it's like how old is she she's like 11 and giving that kind of i think she's actually like 15 when this movie was filmed yeah she's a little bit older than her character i might be a little off but i think she's older than 12 14 okay okay and then they do find something about jonathan sims in the newspapers but a lot of the pages have been torn out. Jonathan Sims? Do you mean? Johnny.

Johnny. And so they're like, oh, someone wanted to keep this information a secret. On their way home from the library, they run into Brendan Fraser, who is a Vietnam War vet. Jeez Louise. This scene is a lot. It's a lot. This is like it's going for something

and then it takes you're just like don't give them cigarettes Brendan Fraser. What are you doing? He's a hippie though. How do you start smoking cigarettes?

Yeah I was like he yeah if he's doing it Demi Moore's doing it I'm gonna do it. It's bad. It's bad. So they're still curious

about dear Johnny dear Johnny. so they go to willa dean who is witchy and she does a tarot reading and the results of which imply that dear johnny was murdered then there's the softball game i want to talk all about this scene there's more punching girls are punching some more it's a a good punch, too. I like those punches. Yeah. They're good. They're good punches. Totally. It's like everything that I didn't like about the Sandlot, the opposite happens in this scene.

It's great. Love it. It's a very satisfying child baseball scene. Yes. Yeah. And then Samantha and Teenie have a heart-to-heart in their new treehouse, which they now have. We didn't see them getting it. It's huge.

Yeah, they made the $23. Yeah. Yeah. And then Teenie gives Samantha a friendship bracelet. But on their ride home, it falls off and goes down a storm drain. And this is when Samantha goes into the sewer to retrieve it. But she gets stuck because it starts raining really hard. But luckily, Crazy Pete shows up and saves her.

And then they interact with him a little bit. This is kind of a side note, but the treehouse they wanted to buy was $129. Adjusted for inflation, that is an $850 treehouse that they were saving up for. No wonder it took so long. Yeah. Yeah. $850. I mean, it was a nice treehouse. That's a really wonder it took so long. Yeah. Yeah. $850. I mean, it was a nice treehouse.

That's a really nice. Oh, my God. That's rent. Yeah. Anyways, we should all live in a treehouse. You don't really need to pay once. That was a super nice treehouse, too. You really need to pay once.

I would live in that treehouse. It's lovely. They brought an infant into that treehouse at the end. You're like, okay. Blasting it around. It's very sturdy. It's still there 25 years later. Yeah.

How did they get that baby up there? How did they get the treehouse up there? Also that. There would have had to have been a crane or something. And it must have taken days. I don't know. Were parents involved? We don't know. Are parents involved in this movie?

Not a ton. They're occasionally, but parents are not painted in a very good light in this movie. In general. That is kind of the crux. Which I don't mind. So speaking of parents, we see the girls going to Samantha's grandmother's house to look through her attic. Cloris Leachman.

I love her. I'm gambling. Cloris Leachman. She loves poker and she wears a wild hairpiece. She is making toys. It's a wig hat. That's her classic wig hat. Love it.

That scene was both not necessary and really fun. I don't think anything happens in that scene really. She was like, oh, well, she sort of says like, oh, I know about Dear Johnny, but I can't tell you about it. Anyways, gotta go go and that's basically the same but then they sneak into they sneak into the attic and then find out more information about dear johnny which is that he and his mother had indeed been murdered and they were just the bodies were discovered by jonathan's father peter sims um but we don't make the connection quite yet. And then Roberta, who had been

keeping the grief about her mother kind of bottled up, lets it all out and starts crying. Another great performance. Samantha's grandma's mirror. Oh yeah, that's Chloris Leachman is going to find that. Like probably not that day, but at some point.

And I would be scared if I were her. I wouldn't guess it was Christina Ricci. Chloris Leachman is going to find that. Like, probably not that day. But at some point. Yeah. And I would be scared if I were her. I wouldn't guess it was Christina Ricci. No. She's like, how did this mirror get shattered? I know. Ghosts. Ghosts. That's what you got to say.

Heavy ghost themes. It was Dear Johnny. She upset Dear Johnny. And this is when they make the pact that they will always be there for each other. It's nice. It is nice. And then they have another seance to put dear johnny back to rest and then we see like his headstone is floating toward them but it turns out

it's just the graveyard worker installing the new headstone after he had knocked it over with his tractor and then the girls leave um but samantha sees crazy pete goes back in and talks to him and then she realizes that he is p Sims, the father of Dear Johnny. And he's always in the cemetery because he's, like, paying his respects to his family that he may or may not have murdered. I think he's kind of, like, kind of getting off on it a little bit. Yeah, you revisit. Yeah, yeah. You know.

And then he's, like, it's crazy. He goes there every night, like, crazy. I got away with that. And just says it to the grave. I can't believe I got away with that. And just says it to the gravestone. I can't believe I got away with this. I can't. Dear Johnny, I can't believe I got away with it. Also, never visiting his wife's gravestone.

Yeah, where is his wife? Right. No, his wife. Just dear Johnny. There can only be one. And then we cut to the present with the adults. And Chrissy's in labor. They go to the hospital.

She has the baby. And then afterwards, they're all in the treehouse. Yes. And they're talking about, you know, whether or not they're happy with their lives. They're talking about the struggles that they're. Well, OK. The ending questions, the series of questions is fascinating because we find out, we ask Demi Moore if she's happy. She's like, no.

We ask Rita Wilson if she's happy. She is. We ask Rosie O'Donnell how big her boobs are. She doesn't answer. We ask Melanie Griffith nothing. She tells us she has a boob job. Yes. That's the check inin 25 years later.

Good roundup, huh? You're like, sure. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, I guess we know what characters we were supposed to care about the whole time. I was surprised that we didn't revisit Rosie O'Donnell's character because in the flashbacks, or I mean most of the movie is the flash but like, I feel like we spend a lot of time with her character as a kid and then don't really have any interest in her as an adult. Like, they're just sort of like, yeah, she's dating someone and she's happy. How big are her boobs, though?

And you're like, what? Here's my guess. I learned through my research that her character was written as an out lesbian, but it didn't test well with audiences. So I'm guessing any part about that was cut. If there were other scenes, this is like part speculation, but if there were other scenes where we like got to know her more as an adult, they may have been cut for that reason that's such a bummer i found i found an interview with the writer i'm marlene king aka mrs pretty little liars herself saying stuff to that effect and it's like a bummer i mean i hope that those scenes existed and and it kind of and not including it kind of makes some of the coding that they try to do with varying degrees of success i think ring in this kind of bizarre way because then you flash forward and they're like she's with someone don't worry about it how big are your boobs okay bye is she a nurse in the future um no she's an obgyn she's an obgyn okay because i was just like should she be delivering the baby okay she should have been yeah she's a medical doctor that's legal

that's good they were at a hospital like your end. You're friends. You can do it. It's fine. Was that a hospital? I don't know. I was like, it didn't really look like a hospital. It looked kind of like a house. Also, final note on the birth scene, I didn't need to see that realistic of a freshly born baby. It was covered in blood. Rosie O'Donnell, also covered in blood.

I know that that's what it is. but i watch movies for a reason and it's to not see bloody babies i like to see babies born uh fresh and clean fresh at three months old do you ever wonder who gives their baby for that role and it's like cover it in fake blood baby someone on the production i feel like it's like a production baby oftentimes two week old baby cover it up with yeah no it's insane you know what we should do cover it in fake blood we almost can't breathe and it's freezing on that set you know it's just handed to rita i mean honestly i would love to be handed to rita wilson yeah as an adult and have that story for your whole life. That's me.

She seems lovely. I'm two weeks old. That's me. Anyhow, so they do their truth or dare questions. And then they make another pact to see more of each other. And then they play Red Rover with some neighborhood kids. Which is weird. It is a bit weird. Who are those kids?

Nobody knows. Who's taking care of the baby? Where's the baby at? Is it with that creepy... Daddy? Yeah, the creepy boy from their childhood. Right, because he's a dentist and he's busy. But anyway, that's the movie.

Let's take a quick break and then we'll be right back. 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 iHeartTrue Crime Plus channel, available exclusively on Apple 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,

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listen to dream sequence on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts and we're back and we're back as much as i i was saying that this movie was a little boring to me it reminds me a lot i mean it's interesting it seems like it is pulling from movies that existed at that time and you can also see kind of its lineage as it goes down because there were a lot of parts of this movie where i'm like oh sisterhood of the traveling pants stealing from now and then at this moment where like a lot of the scenes where it's the four of them together in a secret location making a pact. You're like, oh, I see. The production team behind this movie is pretty cool. Yep. Pretty legendary.

Directed by a woman, famous director Leslie Linka Glatter, who is directed, I think, primarily in TV. But she's directed everything. She's directing on Twin Peaks. She is most famous, I think, for Homeland, but she directed episodes of Gilmore Girls. She did Grey. She did West Wing. She did Weeds.

She did True Blood. She did Pretty Little Liars because I'm Marlene King, they're friends. She did a ton. I mean, she's like a legendary director who is still working all the time. Yay. And it's written by i marlene king who her

actual name is aina marlene king i think this was her big break at the time uh this was her first uh screenplay that was produced and i think now she's most famous for pretty little liars which is really funny because it is like, so like, there was something in Now and Then where I'm like, oh, I'm Marlene King loves writing scenes where four teenage or four girls are in a graveyard planning something. Because that's every scene in Pretty Little Liars for 10 years. Wow. But Pretty Little Liars, I don't necessarily know that it's a feminist text, but I have seen every episode.

I have not seen a single episode. Neither have I. You can skip it. I can guess what it's like. It's so funny. I mean, like this is I I had no idea this was written by her. And I, gun to my head, never would guess that Pretty Little Liars and Now and Then were written by one in the same. Other than if I saw Pound saw pound for pound the graveyard scenes. But Pretty Little Liars are usually burying a teacher's body. Like they're not. Oh, but it sounds like a good show. Yeah.

Everything that Now and Then girls want to happen, the Pretty Little Liars do every single week. Okay. They're killing people. They're conjuring people from the dead. They're doing everything. Wow. Okay. Yeah. And then also the credited producers are mostly women. they're killing people they're conjuring people from the dead they're doing everything wow okay

yeah and then also the credited producers are mostly women uh it's also i marlene king as well as demi moore jennifer todd and suzanne todd and then eric mcleod yeah we got a man in there who knows token yeah token male producer um so yeah it's largely women behind the scenes in the major creative roles in this movie. So that's something we do not see very often at all. Yes. So we love that. And it shows. It shows.

In the way that the movie is written and frames. I mean, it was not a female cinematographer. I checked. But the way it's directed is very respectful to its subjects. And the way it's written is very respectful to its subjects, too. Yes. Okay. So, well, there's a lot to talk about, as per usual.

I wanted to start by just kind of talking about how this is one of very few stories we get to see about young girls. Yes. A group of young girls having fun and living life and being like tween girls. It's really not something that's been explored very much. There are a fair number of like coming of age stories about women, but they're usually a little bit older. And I think a lot of the time and this movie sort of includes this, but doesn't really harp on it too much. But I feel like a lot of times you see movies about young girls.

It is focused specifically on like an extreme trauma and that like young girls are not often allowed to just be, like you said, like, having fun and, like, living life. And there's problems. There always are. But, like, I feel like there, yeah, there is a large amount of teen girl movies where it's strictly focused on, especially, like, of this age. Like, 12, 13. Because once you get to teenagers, then. It's all about sex and boys. They get objectified a lot.

Yeah. But in this age age i feel like sometimes you just have like an extreme trauma harped on the entire i remember the movie 13 oh yeah i mean like movies like that where it was like oh my god where they're like hey young girls the world is out to kill you and so it is like it is kind of nice to just see girls growing up yeah being yeah people they're like yeah they're turning into who they want to be or they're finding themselves so it's like this weird in between time where they're like it seems like they're friends because of their location they're all neighbors right and then they're all like kind of branching out and finding what they

like and who they are and it's nice it's cute i think it's sweet right because it's also a very relatable realistic experience for a lot of people yeah um four very different characters my only confusion the whole movie was i kept mixing up christina ricci and gabby hoffman it got hard for me i might do it during the podcast too that's okay yeah i'll be here to set everything straight thank you so much um but i just wanted to kind of talk a little bit about some of the things we see them doing because girls in movies usually we see them doing pretty traditionally feminine things or not doing anything at all but in this movie and there is some like you know traditionally feminine stuff we see them doing but a lot of it is just pretty neutral because we see them like riding bikes, swimming, saving up to buy a tree house.

$850. So much money. They're rich. They're doing seances. They're hanging out at a diner. They sometimes are, you know, like talking about boys and sex and they're reading cosmo they're exchanging friendship bracelets but then we see them like painting a garage door so we see like this whole array of just like very normal stuff stuff that i did pre-teen stuff at that age

exactly and it was just really refreshing to see girls doing normal things right Right. And in what felt like a pretty realistic way. I mean, there was more that happened in this movie that I didn't expect. I mean, you saw them hurting each other's feelings sometimes. You saw them in ways that weren't positive

but were realistic of how kids that age make fun of each other. They were teasing each other. You could see moments where they wanted to understand each other but were realistic of like how kids that age make fun of each other. They were teasing each other. You could see moments where they wanted to understand each other, but were not equipped to understand each other quite yet. Like just there were all these really cool, like well-written moments of like, oh, I think maybe I blocked that out for like when that, but it felt, yeah, it all felt pretty genuine.

Again, because a lot of what we see in, if there is like a 12-year-old girl in a movie, she's doing the thing that we hate, which is the precocious child trope where she's like wise beyond her years and just somehow knows everything about everything but here we see like very realistic age-appropriate depictions of these girls like and yeah they're not always right sometimes they behave shitty a lot of times they're being mean to each other. But that is kind of the human experience, especially when you're that age. And they're like dealing with, yeah, like how she fakes her own death and she just doesn't know how to deal with it.

And they're just like, don't be an asshole. Right. But they don't know how to communicate that quite. And I love the scenes when they're on their bikes. So I think that's so cute. I love that. It's, yeah, music it's yeah the music's great and I grew up in like a suburban town I guess even though it was kind of in LA adjacent but I we would do that stuff all the time when I was like 12 like there'd be like a crew of girls because you know it wasn't shitty where I lived yet and it was it was awesome there

was like nobody around there was no Brendanndan frazier's yet but you know no one comes so sorry but there definitely was people that bought us cigarettes which is awful yeah whatever um one of the first things you see in the movie is they're all playing red rover on their side it's just the four of them and uh they call over a little boy. I forget his name. But he can't break their bond, symbolizing the friendship that can't be broken. And then also it's like, oh, these girls are triumphing over a boy in a game that tests physical strength. And then we're just like, strong female protagonists. We got them. Doesn't ring with the same message when they do it again as adults 25 years

later still with a 12 year old boy but you know i get what they were going for i would have loved if they brought back like devin saw a 25 years later oh sure to be like run at our arms and he's like no you just you just gave birth i'm not gonna run at you um yeah i mean another thing i really like about this movie is that as you said said, Jamie, like they're characterized very differently. They have very different personalities, which is kind of remarkable because usually a movie doesn't allow more than one woman to be in it. And if there are more than one woman, it's kind of hard to differentiate them because they're not characterized very well. But in this movie, you get such strong characterizations of all of them. And we get to know

quite a bit about each one yeah i think the character we learn least about is teeny yeah i would say that's fair yeah i think she which i think again is i mean and this is a very very very very very white movie oh man i think the only like one of the only people of color we see is just kicked out of his own limo and left in the dust. I was like, limo driver? They don't even let him drive his limo. He's not even allowed to drive his own damn limo. So this is a small victory.

But I think that a lesser movie would strictly focus on teeny and focus on the most like the most hyper feminine um of like i feel like there's a tendency of of movies to focus on the most hyper feminine and sideline characters who are not that yeah we're in this one it's the exact opposite where it's kind of i think that we're supposed to believe i mean if demi more's wardrobe is to be believed she's supposed to be a weird girl which is like i'm She's supposed to be a weird girl, which is like I'm never buying Demi Moore as a weird girl, but like I get it. I saw the sunglasses.

But like it focuses, I think, on two, like the quote-unquote weird girls. True. And you see there's a little bit of body diversity, especially when they're kids where Chrissy is uh bigger and she is in a way that like almost turned my my stomach a little bit because you're like oh I you know like you see kids be treated like that yeah when you're a kid like and and and because at first when I was watching the scenes with Chrissy as an adult I'm like she's she's like kind of like

being pretty hard on them and then you flash back and see how they used as an adult I'm like she's like kind of like being pretty hard on them and then you flash back and see how they used to treat her I'm like oh she's right Rita Wilson's totally right to be dumping on them they she's just getting uh worthy revenge years I feel like my cousins and I still do that to each other sometimes we're like I'm like why was she just mean to me and I'm like oh probably because of that thing i did with the like a thumbprint pad in 2000 i was just i just had an our uh my cousin bring up an argument we had when we were six years old about one of those ink pads yeah anyways did you get in call over her no i poured water on her ink pad by mistake and then there was no more ink left in it and i denied

denied denied oh i see and then she got in trouble with her mom and because she had to get a new ink pad and it was a whole thing we're still talking about it today apparently i'm a liar but i did like how chrissy's like i'm not fat and like she sticks up for herself even though they kind of raz her she's kind of just like yeah i'm not i like how she's just like i'm not painting that i'm like i have to eat every two hours i love her character she's the best she's great okay her friends are pretty cruel to her and behind her back as well that was the one that made me the most mad yeah likewise when teeny and samantha samantha they're like making fun of chrissy behind her back as well i'm like get over it the scene where they're talking about like if you were on an island and there was nothing to eat who of us would you eat that was a bummer and she says chrissy because she would

feed more people yeah yeah there's quite a few scenes like this um it's so like cringy to watch but you're like oh but but it's like not like i'm earlene king's like making something up it's just it's real yeah it's weird it's it is conflicting because it's on one hand she's like depicting something that for sure happens and probably i would guess happened more in the 70s than it would in like 2019 because i think i'm hoping kids are brought up to be a little bit more accepting than they were back in the day yeah um much more but you know woke kids out there but um shout out woke kids yeah shout out my woke kids um i don't have any children of my own obviously none of us do but i mean there's a lot of scenes like that where it's not only the characters targeting her and being cruel to her

because of her weight but it also is the movie the narrative makes some choices yeah which are that like she when they're like bicycling to greenfield which is nine nine miles away, by the way, we see on a little sign that like she's the one who like needs to stop for a break. She's the one who like doesn't want to participate in the painting of the garage door because she has to eat when the girls are saving or like swimming really fast because they think Roberta is dead in the water. She's like struggling really hard to swim and keep up. She's always just kind of lagging behind. Well, they make her have a head start when they steal the boys' blood.

Oh, that too? Yeah, they're like, you better go. You literally need to go. Yeah, I think that it's not as sensitively written as it should be, which is a bummer, because that would be, if it were a little more thoughtfully written, it would be like that is something that happens with kids and i think is like worthy of exploring but yeah i don't think she really ever got the chance to like stand up for herself in a really meaningful

way about it she's the butt of a joke she's the jerry o'connell you know to me and stand by me yeah she very much is that we had a discussion similar to this on Booksmart. But what I think a movie like Booksmart course corrects is that like we do have a plus size character in the Beanie Feldstein character in that movie. And it's never her weight and size is never called attention to. It's never made fun of. And I think if this if now and then were like remade today, her size would be treated very differently. Yeah. But because it came out in the mid 90s, though it got you know taken out which is very 90s you know i wonder if there was a draft where that was like dealt with more thoughtfully and then they're like no it's 1995 body standards are still extremely rigid can't do it could be i don't know but yeah i just

i don't love the way that the the movie frames it in flashback i am glad to see her uh kind of like subtly dump on her friends in the future because they were assholes to her. Right. Yeah. We got to take another quick break, but then we'll come right back. 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.

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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?

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differentiates her from her friends and that we see all these different personality types is that Chrissy has some somewhat regressive ideas and she really subscribes to traditional feminine norms. Like Roberta is splashing around in some puddles and then like chrissy says like roberta why can't you just act like a girl and then later during the softball fight which i want to talk all about she's like remember you're a lady when she's about to go like punch a dude yeah i mean i was like i noticed but it's for me i'm like okay first of all it's 1970 second of all there are enough diversities of opinions on what womanhood is i feel like that's almost like what the whole flashback is about is like about each of them defining like who am i and like what is womanhood right to me

because they all sort of have like a different and then at the end they're like you know we were all trying to be the same person, but we're very different. So, I mean, just the fact that you see like one of the characters like taping down her boobs and then another one trying to augment them. It's like really just telling again of like a very like human. Would it be not the same person?

But Chrissy's characters, like really, they really go for it. She's like brushing her hair. She's counting how many times. And like Chrissy's characters, they really go for it. She's brushing her hair. She's counting how many times. And Chrissy. Her mom is so just like, put this thing down. Oh, yeah.

Bonnie Hunt. And when she says that thing about, oh, I can't French kiss a guy because they'll want everything. Oh, yeah. It's the male curse. That's such a 12-year-old thing to say. My mom told me when I was i think about that age she told me and my friend lindsey that i don't know why she would lie about this but it was i so believed her for so long she was just like because i think i read in a magazine about french kissing and i must have just like said it and she

was like i've never french kissed anyone before i was like what and she's like it's gross there's germs don't do it i would never like she was like it was such a weird lie but i like until i was like at french kissing level myself and i was like wait there's no way she was telling the truth about never having but what if she was telling the truth you know my mom has never kissed with tongue chill i think she'll probably listen to this and i i never talked to her about it but later i just was like oh what a weird lie uh jill tweet at us what's the truth truth or dare jill truth or dare do you kiss did you ever did you oh that would be such a cool fact about how are you and she's like two children i've never kissed

with tom um that reminds me kind of of one of my favorite scenes in the movie when they have discovered the wormers skinny dipping which seeing boys their naked butts their naked bodies minus we don't see their penises but like i don't know it's weird it's weird but um they're watching the wormers skinny dipping which is like a rare example of like a female gaze moment in a movie and then teeny's like i saw scott's penis and then roberta and samantha are like they also sneak a peek and then chrissy, great. Now I'm the only one who hasn't seen it. It'll be the topic of conversation and I'll be left out. So I better see it.

But only because you're forcing me. And I do this out of protest. And they're all like, we're not forcing you. And she's like, fine, I'll do it. You're forcing my eyes. And then it's like, you just wanted to see a boy's dick. And it's not that big, she says. Yeah, she's like, it's not that big.

And then Sarah Birch is like, yeah yeah he has to have a hard-on and then she like puts her hands out as if like a hard-on is like a foot and a half long like it's two subway sandwiches it's adorable oh i love it it's adorable i'm like wondering like how much did the i mean i guess the actors are the actors are like a year or two older than their parts. I'm like, how much do they know that this is a joke? Oh, true. We don't know. Because they're still quite young.

They're very young. But they're actors. They're so old in their brains. That's true. They've lived many lives. They have. They've grown up fast. I wanted to talk about another thing I really like about this movie, which is that you see a lot of moments where boys are underestimating girls.

We see the like jello balloon fight and then Roberta's like chasing after them and is like, we owe you, Wormers, and we always pay our debts. And then Devin Sawa's character responds and he says, says yeah like we're really afraid of a bunch of girls and she's like yeah you should be and then later they do enact revenge which is like sweet revenge by stealing their clothes again i don't want to see naked boys didn't need that shot but i like to send they are right babies they are little yeah it's, it's not okay. The 90s. Right, the 90s. What are you going to do? And then the Red Rover thing when the little boy can't break through their unbreakable friendship.

The metaphor! Dear Johnny! And then the softball game. Softball game scene is brutal. Can I go beat by beat with what happens here because I love it so much. Everything except the creepy little future husband being like, I'm getting

on you. She's like, get lost loser. And then he's like, no, you're going to be my wife. And you're like, ooh, hand persistence. It's everything. Wear her down. No means yes. Everything else is great. Everything is great and here's here's what happens almost perfect the girls hear about a softball game happening off in the distance and

roberta's like let's go and it's roberta's turn to bat and then devin saw was like all right everybody move in because they are not anticipating that she will hit the ball very hard or far. And then feminist icon little boy who we have never seen before and we will never see again, I don't think. It is weird that they don't just have one of the Wormer brothers say it, but they just choose a random kid. He's a pretty good performance. He's sitting on top of a fence with his arms crossed like, Hey! Oh, no, I'm not even talking about him. Oh, you're not even not him? No, okay. performance yeah he's like sitting on top of like a fence with his arms crossed like hey oh no i'm

not even talking about him oh you're not even not sorry no okay so true feminist icon little boy in the outfield who says come on roberta yes hit it over their heads and then another kid's like shut up he's doing the bare minimum i don't think he's a feminist. Okay. A fair, fair, fair. Donate to Rain. And then Roberta, she hits the ball. First one's a foul ball. And then shitty boy, not feminist icon. Not playing also. Who literally came out of... What a piece of shit.

Yeah, he's not even playing. He had extreme resting bully face. The kid just looked like a bully. And then he went, hey! And you're like, oh no. He's like, who are who you kidding girls can't play softball and then she says what did you say and he says i said girls can't play softball and then she throws down her bat and storms toward him and this is when chrissy's like remember you're a

lady yeah and then he's like why don't you go home and play with your dolls? And then Chrissy says, the only doll Roberta has is a G.I. Joe. Voting. Right. And then Roberta punches him in the face. He falls down. She starts wailing on him. It's great. Her friends pull her off of him.

He calls Roberta a crazy bitch. And then Samantha says, how does it feel to get the crap kicked out of you by a girl which i don't necessarily know how i feel about that but he says too bad your mother's dead somebody needs to teach you how to act like a girl you're like who is this right some how does he know so much about live in this city who is he he doesn't even go here exactly exactly and then samantha tackles him and then another fight ensues. It's great. Love it.

And you've all felt that feeling, right? Where you're like, I'm going to fight for my friend. I mean, not physically, but whatever. Every actor involved in this scene is wonderful. I also want to shout out whoever edited in the sound effects because it makes the fight sound so brutal. Like when Christina Ricci throws the first punch you hear it connect it's like but you're like oh my god she like broke his nose like it's so brutal it's really good so just to kind of continue off of that sentiment what i another thing i really

like about this movie is that you get to see girls kind of misbehaving not being like the prim and proper societal expectation of what girls are supposed to be because you see them throwing punches you see them smoking cigarettes and perhaps that was too influential and it made people start smoking but you know you see them like sneaking out at night being wrong yeah. You get to see them make mistakes. And they all make mistakes in different ways. And then you sort of get enough background on each character to understand why they are making these specific mistakes. I mean, I think Roberta is probably the easiest example to draw from there of sometimes you see her act out and it's confusing to her friends. But it is rooted in this trauma

she has with what happened with her mother and like you just you get to see a wide range of emotions and reactions and most of them don't seem like rooted in any stereotype because you just know the character well enough to understand why they would do it truly that simple. Yeah. It's almost as if when you try hard at writing a female character, we get a sense of who they are. I will come across. Go figure. Surprise. Go figure. Can we talk about Roberta a little bit?

Yes. So I really liked that this, I think the heaviest thing this movie really tackles is her grief right and i think that they kind of want you to be equally sad about gabby hoffman's parents divorce even though i'm kind of like whatever but although it is like it does seem like it's the kind of divorce like a very 1970 like dad leaves for milk and doesn't come back kind of divorce which is awful especially because like divorce wasn't as popular back then because they even say like no other it's so hot right now um no other families on the block were uh like that was the first family that like got a divorce kind of thing absolutely i mean but but

i think in terms of like lifelong trauma i mean roberta takes the cake right in the trauma wars of this movie. Because women be in competition. Women be competing with each other over who's the most traumatized. I liked that this movie, and I feel like it dealt with it pretty responsibly, tried to handle child grieving. I feel like that's not something you see a lot really ever in a way that is. I mean, I kind of i'm curious i'm like what kind of research did i'm arlene king do when she was writing this because it seemed pretty grounded in like you know she would act out you would see she was trying to like when she would fake her own death it was like trying to normalize it for herself trying to have a sense of humor

about it right and then having like these really emotional moments it was just like i thought it was really like well done and beautiful and especially because roberta's character and and now like knowing that roberta who grows up to be rosie o'donnell yes was supposed to be kind of this queer coded character that they later kind of undo that work and then they're like okay now devin saw whaton Sawa is here. There's a lot going on with her character. I don't know. Like Roberta's just, she's such a rich character. And I wish that the Devon Sawa thing was like,

I wish she could just be out. But the taping down her breasts thing when she was younger, I thought was like, I was like, oh, what is, what are they trying to say here? And I feel like that kind of gets a little bit muddled but it was i mean it was interesting to see that period you don't see that a lot in movies especially movies that are like directed at children i don't know i just really like her but it's just particularly pertaining to how the movie tackles the idea of grief with kids and doesn't ever really cut away to an adult explaining her own grief to her it's her

figuring out her grief with the kids that she knows and them all working it out kind of together as well as they can i thought it was like it was beautiful and i think it's it's like suggested that no one is helping her deal with it she's in a 1970s house full of boys and a dad. Probably like all emotionally repressed. Like, yeah, we're like, duh, I don't know what to do. I mean, yeah. And it's like, and seeing her, I mean, God, I can't imagine how much that day the library fucked her up in the years that followed.

Because I'm like, of course her dad wouldn't tell her. Yeah, it was awful. So it's like, that's not a fault of her dad it just seems like her dad's got you know a lot on his plate and she just is like trained to suppress it's like right shitty to see but sad but it's really nice to see her get like support from her friends and kind of that like 12 year old thing of like they're trying to relate with each other they're like i get it and they don't but they want to and that's enough and kind of the same thing with the divorce narrative I guess I have a question about one of the things that felt a little weird to me in this movie was how

Samantha's mother was treated I didn't really like how they treated Samantha's mother it's one of those things I feel like it almost is like I understand what they were going for but the movie seems to side with the child a little too much in kind of the same way where they almost side with the kids that are making fun of young Chrissy's body a little too much where Samantha is not happy that her you know her parents are split up. Yeah. Obviously most kids aren't happy when that happens especially in 1970 right but then the way that we see samantha's mother in a different scene where it just all felt a little weird and unrealistic where the mother is inviting a first date over to their house for dinner for dinner and then like let it's it's the writing is weird in this scene because i think we're supposed to like interpret interpret Samantha's mother as kind of like this irresponsible villain for bringing home a first date to meet her kids.

I kind of saw it as like she has good intentions but like doesn't really know how to execute them adequately or something like that. And what adult brings a first date home to meet their children, you know? That's true. I mean, it was 1970. Everyone's fucked up. And I kind of appreciate that this movie doesn't focus on the parents significantly at all. And it's mostly about the relationship between the girls. But, yeah, I just felt like it's a very small gripe.

But I felt like Samantha's mom kind of got a raw deal. A bit of the shaft, yeah. And no real opportunity to explain, you to explain where she was coming from. But also, I'm sure parents weren't talking to their kids about the details of their divorce as much in these days. She had a lot of wigs, though. She had good wigs. I liked her wigs. And good outfits.

And that poor guy on the first date was really doing everything he could. Oh, Hank Azaria. Why did Hank Azaria accept that invitation? What was 1970 like? Listeners, if you were alive and, like, cognizant during this time, please tell us. Does this track for you at all? Like, did this happen? I feel like it's not that unrealistic.

I don't know. I was not alive, but, like, I just think times were really wacky back then. Yeah, they just moved a little. Hank Azaria could just come to your house and wear your dad's clothes. I mean, that was whenever he wanted. I think so. Wild. What I do like about that storyline with like the divorced parents and everything.

Cloris Leachman shows up at Samantha's house and she's like banging on the doors and stuff like that and um samantha's mom is like i could not deal with her right now and then samantha says like why is she coming here let grandma yell at him meaning like her dad he's the one who left so she's like she wants the man to be accountable in this situation because the grandmother is like mad at her mom for like being left. She's like, go to him. She's like yelling. And it's like, no, yell at the man. He's the one who abandoned his family.

And then there's a few, even though like parents aren't the focus of this movie. And I am, again, I'm also fine with that. We get like a few glimpses or a few like lines of dialogue where the girls are learning things like. And I think this is one of Brendan Fraser's lines. But the lesson that he teaches them is that, you know, your parents aren't always right. I wish someone had taught me that when I was your age. Here's a bunch of cigarettes. Here's a bunch of cigarettes.

I'm going to drink all of your Fanta. I know. And kind of flirt with you a little bit. It was a little of cigarettes. I'm going to drink all of your Fanta. And kind of flirt with you a little bit. It was a little sketchy. I'm like, how much of that is the performance and how much of that is what's on the page? What is that scene? I don't know. It's so weird.

It could easily be cut. Listeners who were alive in 1970, did this happen to you as a child? Again, I think it very easily could just give you cigarettes. Because girls would go hitchhiking and do all manner of very dangerous things. This was like pre-Milk Carton

kids. But then there's also that scene where Teenie and Samantha are talking because Teenie has pretty absentee parents. Samantha's parents are getting divorced. They're citing all these TV families who are like widowers and stuff like that

and she's just like you know there are no perfect families it's you know it's normal for things to be shitty I loved that they use I was like oh this scene was written for our podcast because they're trying to normalize her experience based on things they've seen in media yeah and they're not quite able

to do it because they can only name widowers. Yeah. Because you couldn't be divorced on TV at this time. But I thought that that was, I was like, oh, that's like the perfect Bechdel cast example of like they're trying to be like, it's okay because the Beverly Hillbillies did it. But I guess they didn't. Right. But they got kind of close.

Yeah. That was a great interaction. Can we talk about the Devin Sawa and Roberta kiss? The consent kiss? Yes. He asked for consent several times. I mean, first of all, I think we all agree that Roberta should have just been allowed to be gay. Well, here's the thing.

I think Rosie O'Donnell definitely should have been out as a lesbian or a queer woman in the now part of the now and then storyline. I think... I'm like, what if I was like, that's what the title is.

Okay. And I would love our queer listeners to weigh in here. But I think it is perfectly in the realm of possibility where Roberta, who is 12 and only just starting to discover her sexuality at all, would, because it's the norm, especially of 1970,

that she would be like, oh, well, I'm a girl, so I'm supposed to be attracted to boys. Yes. I get that. So, like, I should kiss this boy. I get, I guess my curiosity there because it's like i don't object to i'm just i just wouldn't it would be cool to see uh and it just

is not going to happen in 95 but you know a young girl recognize her sexuality and discuss it definitely in any way but i'm i guess i'm just curious more from like a production standpoint of like was that added after i'm rolling king, listen, we are not going to have an out character in this movie. Like, was that my theory? No. And here's why. OK, I want to go another kind of beat by beat analysis of this scene. And my theory comes at what happens at the end of this scene.

So Roberta is shooting hoops. The oldest wormer boy, a.k.a. Devon Sawa, shows up, and she misses a shot. He says, you're not following through, so he's mansplaining to her. And then she says, who asked you? So applause for that. And then they start playing one-on-one basketball. She makes two shots.

He makes zero shots. And then he's like's like hey you're pretty good at basketball and not just for a girl which is not a compliment but you don't realize that when you're 12 years old right and then she just goes like thank you yeah she's like thanks and i feel like if she was be just based on how we've seen her act already if she was in a less forgiving mood, she would have yelled at him. Right. She'd be like, fuck off. She's just like, I'm not choosing this battle. Right.

That was a buyback. Yeah. And then they sit down together and he's like, I think you're a really nice girl. And she's like, I thought you always hated me. And he's like, so did I. And then he turns toward her and says, can I kiss you? And she says, what are you mumbling? And he says, can I kiss you? So says what are you mumbling and he says can i kiss you so he's

again asking for consent we do not often see this yes i think three times total like right now yeah and then because she says i guess and then he zooms toward her says great are you ready and then she's like oh you want to do it now he He's like, sure. I mean, if you want to. She says, OK. And then they kiss. And then he pulls away. He's exhilarated. He's like, that was great. And she says it was OK.

Yeah, she's underwhelmed. And that's why I think she was written as like a queer young girl who doesn't totally know her sexuality yet. But again, because of societal norms, she thinks she's supposed to be kissing boys. And then she says, Scott. And he turns toward her like rapidly ready for another kiss and he's like yeah and she says if you mention this to anyone especially your brothers i will beat the shit out of you yes um i hope so i mean that would be that would be cool i liked i mean i did like that scene i do agree with you that's real because and especially in 1970, like, they wouldn't portray, I don't think, you know, a woman or, you know, someone that's 12, like, exploring that. The small town of Shelby, Indiana, in 1970, I'm guessing, again, I was not alive, but to be like an out queer teen or preteen would not have gone over well for sure community i know but i

just i just think you know it's it's it's a movie and we could have explored i mean but it becomes a null choice because they wouldn't allow it to appear in 1995 so why would that's what's very frustrating to me about this yeah i mean Even in 1995, they wouldn't. No. They wouldn't. Right. But then again, another thing that a movie like Booksmart kind of course corrects is that we do, and those characters are a little bit older, but we have, and I don't remember

the actor's name. Caitlin Deaver. Yes. Well done. Nailed it. But that was like a big deal, right? Like to portray, not a big deal, but it was like refreshing to see someone in high school being like, this is not a big deal.

Right. It was extremely normalized. Yes. Yes. Which was so nice. And that's the difference between, you know, 2019 and 1995. Exactly. Yeah.

Something interesting I thought about this movie is it's a cult classic now. Yes. But it was not received well at all when it came out. It was very, very, very poorly reviewed. I mean, we've got some pull quotes here. I think the most common criticism is people are like, the vibe is kind of like all female reboot of Stand By Me. Oh, yes. No, thank you. And this is, you know, 95,

so it's basically all white male reviewers who are basically saying, like, I've already seen this with boys, so I like it better. And, like, boyhood and girlhood, same diff to me, because I only care about boys. Your boy, Roger Ebert,

who I think we came on the Matreon, I think we came across the first thing that Roger Ebert said I think we came on our on the matriarch I think we came across the first thing that Roger Ebert said that we've ever liked and it was about Jack Frost just saying how scary the puppet is yes but he he has to say on this the adult actresses are completely superfluous to the movie which is a fully contrived stand by me kind of story like he's just dismissive of literally every part of the movie and it's just contempt disinterest why why is this movie made who is it for which is the vibe you get from a lot of this you know period of a hundred years that there were basically only male reviewers of like you get that like who is this for when it's very clear that it's for

for me and little girls yes obviously well i'm bored yeah media for girls and women i have an even more frustrating quote from this same review by roger ebert um what distinguished stand by me was the psychological soundness of the story. We could believe it and care about it. Now and then is made of artificial bits and pieces. The director, Leslie Linga Glatter, says in the press notes that she started crying when she first read the script. Quote, because it captured that delicate evolution from girlhood to womanhood. And you so rarely find that. End quote. hood to womanhood and you so rarely find that end quote i guess you didn't see man in the moon

which has so much more truth and tenderness how are we talking that it exposes now and then for what it is a gimmicky sitcom end quote can you imagine a review aging worse they're like it's so frustrating because it's so clear like what he's Right. And he is so blissfully unaware of what he's missing. I can't believe he's comparing. That's a dumb comparison. I really hate that. Yeah, I am not familiar with that movie. But, you know, Roger Ebert, again, safe to assume everything he says is basically wrong.

It's a terrible take. As it pertains to gender. We found him to be universally correct about Jack Frost. But all of his takes on gender, like, it's not even that he has takes on gender. He just is blissfully unaware that movies are made for people other than him. Anyways. But, yeah, this movie was definitely not recognized in its time. But it was financially successful.

Great. Not gigantically financially successful. But it did, you know, it turned a profit. I think it, you know, helped to continue to launch this new generation of young actresses' careers. And I mean, girls were starved for media for them at this time and always. And still, yeah, just if you look on Rotten on rotten tomatoes right now it only has a 28 fresh rating but an 83 audience score yes which indicates cult classic the reviewers didn't understand it yep exactly um i just wanted to quickly shout out rumor willis is in this adorable um as the little sister uh to samantha samantha gabby you'll get it you'll get it by

the end i was like fuck fuck fuck um brendan frazier is accredited we don't know why what would be his credit creepy hippie yeah like it literally says on the wikipedia page brendan frazier as vietnam veteran parentheses uncredited. And you're just like, what? He informs them that although their parents are adults, they're not always right. And that is his narrative purpose. And we do not see him again. But shout out to Brennan. Brennan.

The actor who played young Chrissy unfortunately passed away in 2007. So R.I.P. Yeah. She was so good in this movie. Such a good performance. I wish that there was a little more of the older group of women.

I like the framing device but as adults it felt like a few things kind of fell a little short for me. More now, less then. No, same amount of then, but more now. I would have fell a little short for me yeah more now less than no same amount of them i would more now i would have watched a little more movie to see a little more now to quite because you're sort of like given this barrage of information at the end or in the case of

roberta and teeny non-information yeah i don't know pitch okay ready for this go we get and unfortunately there'll have to be some slight recasting with the actor who played young chrissy but we get thora birch gabby hoffman and christina ricci yes to play the adult versions in a reboot of this film and then we say and then we cast a new squad of young child actors to play the young counterparts of those characters. And we update the, not that there are a ton, but some of the problematic things that are in this movie. We can let Roberta be out now. Yes, exactly. We can have more characters of color, which brings me to, I wanted to read a quote from an essay by zoe samudzi i might have very badly butchered the pronunciation of that but in a broadly article entitled what

white girl coming of age movies don't do for a black girl yeah quote these films about white female adolescence and teenhood revolve around particular experiences of and meditations on dissatisfaction and boredom using nostalgia as their primary pull. That would make them relatable to white audiences, which is kind of the thing with almost every coming of age movie ever. Yeah. Yeah. So that is something that I will continue to be mindful of. Yes. And unfortunately, it's like progress is still extremely slow on representing black girlhood at all which is still very very frustrating i think that there's also something to be said for class as well where definitely we're we're given a very

i mean and it's not it's not even anything against the movie it's just what we don't get in media at all like because we're seeing a solidly middle class, maybe even a little upper middle class. The scenic Americana, la la la, we love it. They have problems, but it's not the kind of problems that poor kids have. And you don't really see kids from lower classes ever really represented in movies like this, which is unfortunate. Because guess what? They are also children. Yeah.

What, Jamie? They are children, yes. movies like this which is unfortunate because guess what they are also children yeah um they're watching me but yeah i mean there there should i hope that we will continue to progress and get to see more reflections of of black girlhood of of girlhood from different uh you know from all walks of life yeah of not of like a gender discovery and like exploring your gender and learning about your gender as your kid there's there's a lot of work to be done definitely yeah um does anyone have any other thoughts about the movie i thought it was interesting that and maybe either of you have experienced this where you have a you know a circle of friends when you're younger and then a few stay back at like the original city Keep living. And a few don't. And that's very, I think, eccentric situation there where it was like two of them were like, we got out of here.

And then the other two were like, we love it here. And that was very funny to me. I really liked that, especially because it seems like even though this wasn't quite their relationship when they were like Roberta and Chrissy become very codependent as adults. Like they seem, which definitely is something that happens i liked how they were written as adults where like you kind of get the vibe from samantha of like oh it's so weird here i'm so glad i don't live here and then you get the vibe from chrissy of like she's so weird like yeah everyone like everyone is like i am normal everyone else is freak, which is how everyone feels. Right. Right. And it was nice to see everyone get their moment in of like when Chrissy's just like, what are you wearing?

What are you doing? What is like, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I like it. It's lovely. I also liked how, just like a line I liked was how they described Teenie's parents. They basically are, you know, explaining what Teenie's deal is.

She's hyper feminine. She wants to be be an actor she wants to be a performer and samantha says this is a typical upbringing for actors and pathological liars i'm like oh shit yep teeny who by the way has a very fluffy white cat and i just want this to serve as a reminder that cats do have eight nipples and that's cat facts with caitlin alfred molina could have yes tell me he should i i won't take this role from brendan frazier because he needs it he needed it he needs it because he always needs it but like it's also weirdly a very brendan frazier role where you're just like yeah brendan frazier could just wander in here like that's his vibe is he could just wander in. Oh, he rolled on set and was ready to rock.

I'm like, was this scripted? Like, did he just come on and improvise and was like, don't credit me. I don't want to be paid for this. He like threw the script away. He's like, I don't need it. I'm doing it. Love Brendan Fraser. Maybe Alfred Molina could have been Pete.

I think he should have played the... He could have played Pete with a lot more pathos. I think that Alfred Molina would have really been like... If you need an actor who could convince us that Pete didn't kill his family, you gotta bring in Molina. See, I think Alfred Molina should have played the youngest wormer boy. Oh my god! They just have a 40-year-old man in their crew. Like Pen15 style. boy oh my god they just have a 40 year old man in their group like like pen 15 style yeah he just plays devin saw his best friend oh i love it i love all those girls can't play softball you're like is that alfred marlena oh my god he's hit it over my head. Oh, okay. Well, this movie is a treat.

It is. It really is. And for 1995, it's doing a whole lot of things right. Indeed. Indeed it is. And as we hinted at before, it absolutely passes the Bechdel test almost constantly. I don't think you ever see two men or two boys talking to each other, really. Or if they do, it's only for a very small amount of time on screen.

But it is mostly girls and women interacting with each other. So not something you see very much. But now and then delivers. It was fun. I think I just like sometimes I'm just like, you know what? Coming of age age i did it i don't need to see it again i understand but i'm glad it exists and i'm especially glad that it existed in its time for for like just like girls getting to see themselves on screen in any way

shape or form yeah it's positive although it did make callie a smoker but but she looked really cool i mean the intro it's like she's smoking with the windows up, okay? And then there's like, it points to like a map. Yeah. And there's a carton of Marlboros. I'm just like, I know the product. And she's just constantly smoking. Yeah.

Her like ashtray has like 40 butts in it. And she's like, I chose a bad week to stop smoking. And she is like the cool one of the adults. They're both smoking in the backyard with their pregnant friend. I'm just like, you're like 1995, baby. I also just, this is like a very like side thought, but when they were in the limo driving to, also it's like, could you reunite these women over a more stereotypical woman thing other than like, she's about to give birth that's true which was something that i was like ding but this movie

does so much right that i gave it a pass yeah but when they're in the stolen limo going to somewhere i'm not totally sure where they are in that birth maybe it was like a midwifery something like that because she has like an i midwives. There's an IV. So they're not just like anywhere. And Rosie O'Donnell's wearing scrubs. So I'm like, but I'm like, where? Yeah, maybe it's just a very comfortable hospital. Maybe she owns the hospital. Maybe it's her own hospital.

Oh, her home hospital. It's a small town. You never know. But I liked just that I thought the scene of them in the limo was really funny. Where it seems like Rosie O'Donnell sort of improvised part where she's like, hey, look, it's your uncle. Just kidding. No, it's not. I was like, what was that?

It was just like really. And Rita Wilson is great. She's like, a VCR. Look. She's so fun. I know. I was just like, what are they? Are they going to watch something?

I'd be impressed by a VCR in a limo, too. I wouldn't be surprised if Rita Wilson and Rosie O'Donnell are just like friends because it seemed like they were sometimes talking about stuff that had nothing to do with anything she's like it's a VCR and she's like is there a remote they're just like what are you guys talking about it was yeah

a great passing of the Bechdel test I think it was great while she's in labor too giving birth to a bloody placenta baby and there is like four people in that delivery room and no husband yeah right i'm just cool we don't need it yeah well that was like maybe that was my other thing i was like it didn't look like a hospital room and it's very rare that there's just one person attending a birth it's usually like two or three yeah as far as like you mean like medical professionals right not just like friends people yeah you got

this rosie right like i'm like usually it's you know like there's a few people she's just that good she is she doesn't need anybody else like maybe they just ran out of budget at the end they're like just reuse the house set no one know. You only have one set of scrubs. This is it. This is all we got. Shall we rate the movie on a nipple scale? Sure. Okay, so 0 to 5 nipples based on its representation of women.

I will give this a solid 4. I have to deduct some nipplage based on the fact that it makes absolutely no attempt whatsoever to meaningfully include any people of color. It did make an attempt to meaningfully include queerness, but because of homophobia in the 90s, audiences were like, boo.

So that had to be removed from the story. And the narrative making the choice to characterize Chrissy in such a way that it is often fat shaming her is not something we like to see. But overall, I think it does a pretty spectacular job, especially for 95 in showing a coming of age story of tween girls and their lives and the issues that they would face. It's so relatable, so much realism in the way they're characterized and their friendships. I love that you never see like they have conflict within their group sometimes, but it's never about anything like petty or anything like that, the way that we see like girls hating each other for no reason. And it feels realistic for the age

to the reasons they have problems with each other seem both realistic and age appropriate. Exactly. Yeah, that's what I'm trying to say. Yeah. Yeah. It's just a really wonderful female driven story that, you know, has some issues that have been kind of i think course corrected in comparable coming of age stories since this came out even sisters of the traveling pants i feel like course corrects a few things that happen here that don't happen in there and that's like 10 years later right so incremental progress exactly um but yeah four nipples and i'll just make it easy give one to each of the four characters i'm gonna go four nipples too um yeah i think that it's just for

all the reasons you just described i think it's like a really not just like a movie that made progress but move a movie you can trace being used as a template in future movies and being updated for times as things become less societally taboo i appreciate that i'm arlene king wanted to include a queer storyline in here she does that and pretty little liars oh good is every relationship of regardless of gender and pretty little liars deeply toxic yes but there are there's also every kind of toxic relationship is explored on that show. Yeah, I think that it's like a huge step. I'm glad that it sort of stood the test of time.

And, you know, male critics very often don't get it. It's really nice seeing. I mean, it's a very like solid middle class white girlhood that's reflected yes um but unfortunately that tends to be where um at least right now where people start with like it's always the first thing that they're comfortable even seeing reflected so it's you know progress will continue to be built upon the work that this movie did and so and it's just it's it's i really i really liked it i like that scene in the limo a lot. Four nippies. I'm going to give one to each two. Now they both got a full set.

Or all four of them do. Callie. I agree. Four nipples for all the reasons that you guys listed. I really hate that there's no people of color, basically, except for them stealing that gentleman's fucking car. Yeah. Why couldn't he? They've just let him drive his own limo to he

offer he's like couldn't he have been involved there and they're like no it's his car man he knows the ins and outs yeah um that was very frustrating but i i want to give a nipple to johnny's mom because like where the fuck is she oh dear john dear johnny right johnny yeah why don't they care about her murder? Nobody cares about her. But honorable mention nipple to her, but four for all the ladies, each one. Okay, great. Oh my God.

Yes, she deserves nipples, at the very least, after her husband killed her like that. Yeah, and then went out drinking all night. What a dick. The reboot also has to address what actually happened. Yeah, true. Ghost ghosts are real in the reboot too no no tractor no none of that no big gosh of wind spinning your telescope that's another thing i'm really in king of course corrects on she's like you know what i i was hesitant on the supernatural in now and then i've really got to let it loose. Spirits are among us. I guess I've got to watch Pretty Little Liars.

I would be fascinated. You will hate it. But I would be fascinated to live tweet, to hear you live tweet an episode. I'll watch the pilot. I'll live tweet. That's the show. Student hooks up with a teacher.

It's illegal, and it is statutory. Oh, no. First episode. I always confuse that show and Big Little Lies. So, no. Pretty Little Liars is like a CW style. It was ABC Family, I think, technically, or Freeform, whatever the fuck they're calling it. Yeah. It's like it's a teen teen.

Like, it's like toxic teenage content. The channel. Great. I love it. The channel. The channel. Yeah. Incredible.

Well, Kelly, thank you so much for being here. Thank you. Thanks for joining us. Where can people follow your work, follow you online? I have my photography Instagram, which is at CallieBPhoto. Yes. And I have a circus archive Instagram that's just a collection of my grandpa's photos and my mom's photos and my own photos. And you could read more about it on there, but it's at circus.stories.

It's awesome. And it's really cool. Yeah, it's just a bunch of old film circus photos. And then they get newer as we age, me and my mom. Now and then. It is like now and then. Wow. Time.

Who knew? It's a circle. It's a circus. It's a circle and a circus ring. The circus of life. Okay. Thank you again so much for joining us. You can follow us at Bechtelcast on the social media places you can subscribe to our

patreon aka our matreon it's five dollars a month and it gets you two bonus episodes every month plus our entire backlog of bonus episodes so now it's the best time to check out our patreon i love you guys now and when this is then uh-huh 25 years from now we come back okay yeah get in the limo no one has to give birth but one of us does have to pretend okay that's the right volunteers tribute okay i'll be the vcr treehouse yes oh yes we all have to get a treehouse that treehouse was gigantic gigantic. Yeah. We'll time share it. Okay. We'll rent it out. Perfect.

We love you. I love you. Bye. 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.

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