The Big Picture - ‘The Beekeeper,’ ‘Madame Web,’ and a Dumpuary Extravaganza

Episode Date: February 16, 2024

It’s the most wonderful time of the year: Dumpuary! Sean and Amanda are joined by Chris Ryan to discuss the box office sensation of the year thus far, David Ayer’s politically charged action romp ‘The Beekeeper,’ starring Jason Statham (1:00). Then, conversely, Sean and Amanda dive (surprisingly) deep into what may be the worst movie of the year, the Dakota Johnson and Sydney Sweeney superhero vehicle ‘Madame Web’ (31:00). They wrap up by running through some other dumpuary movies, including J.Lo’s ‘This Is Me ... Now: A Love Story’ (1:15:00). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guest: Chris Ryan Senior Producer: Bobby Wagner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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I'm Amanda Dobbins. And this is the Big Picture Conversation show about Dumpuary. It's that marvelous time of the year. The studios try to trick us into believing

that their mishandled wares are worth our time. But somehow, magically, sometimes they are. Last week, we discussed Argyle on the pod, which I would say are worth our time, but somehow, magically, sometimes they are. Last week, we discussed Argyle on the pod, which I would say not worth our time. Today, we're talking about a couple of big ones. One of them we know for sure is worth our time, and that movie is The Beekeeper.

And joining us to talk about it, the king of Dumpuary, Chris Ryan. That's right. I am the hive protector, and I am here. Thank you for your service. This film came out almost over a month ago, and frankly, it's the movie sensation of 2024. People are, they cannot stop talking about this man who keeps bees. It is just remarkable.

That's only the tip of the iceberg, or the tip of the honeycomb, really, with what that guy does. So it's directed by David Ayer, long-time action filmmaker, a filmmaker who Chris and I, Amanda, have had quite a bit of time for. I would say he has not draped himself in glory in the last five years

in the aftermath of the failure of his Suicide Squad movie. Oh, I forgot about that, yeah. Give me a Street Kings. Give me a Harsh Times. Give me Fury. Give me Fury. I'm down with those movies.

I don't think I fully clocked before digging into the Beekeeper. End of Watch. Absolutely. This was an air joint. Did he direct bright uh he did direct and that was the netflix film that came out like right after christmas well didn't it come out after was that yeah it was like 2018 i want to say yeah i you just like you turned it on in palm springs one year uh and just like put it on in the living this is before children thankfully um but as like as we went about our days it was just like bright was on the tv screen i watched the entire film and um well it wasn't good so david air it's a

coin flip for him these days you never know and somehow he's made one of the more critical cinematic texts of the year uh cr i'm gonna start with you okay this is a new jason statham vehicle what'd you think of it uh i was deeply deeply entertained by this movie as were the 80 capacity of a tuesday night in february screening at burbank which this movie is speaking to people people People are coming back to the hive, which is the theater, and they are pollinating it. They are pollinating it with Diet Dr. Peppers and large popcorns. And when certain things happen in this film, they clap, they applaud. Now, whether it's ironic, like there's a little bit of the like, has the Nicole Kidman AMC intro now permeated all film and we are all ironically

laughing at everything? It's a great question. Or does this movie tap into something very deep and powerful about what it means to be alive right now? Is that something? What if Q Shaman was a trained assassin? Here's it. It's not, man.

Here it's not. It's not. It's not. It's not it's not wow i found this movie so you want to do any setup of like what it so um jason statham's character adam clay is a beekeeper living on an elderly woman's estate a literal beekeeper he's a literal beekeeper he's taking care of bees and the honeycombs and making honey he's making honey. He's making honey. And he learns that his landlady has committed suicide because she has been taken for a large sum of money. All of her money. By an international ring of online digital con artists who talk her into giving up not just her personal fortune, but the charity foundation that she manages as well in its fortune.

In what I felt was an absolutely harrowing 10-minute opening sequence starring Felicia Rashad as the woman who is scammed. Felicia Rashad, the first of many talented actors who show up in the film The Beekeeper. And they walk you step by step through it. She's entering the passwords and you're just like no don't i mean this was you know cyber crimes as that's a horror film people are really afraid of that all people i know are afraid of this happening to them i would say that some of the things that her character does wouldn't recommend yeah wouldn't recommend letting people take over but i thought about my mom i it as well. This is exactly it. Yes. I think that every generation gets the vengeance movie they deserve.

And we happen to be living in a time of scams. We happen to be living in a time where I don't think that our faith in law and law enforcement is at its highest. And the fantasy that there is some sort of extrajudicial justice agent out there, like Justice capital J, like real moral justice, that could correct these wrongs that seemingly go unpunished in society is actually super powerful. It's actually like watching this movie, I was like, this is ridiculous bullshit. But if somebody did this to my mom, I'd be pretty mad.

And it's like, there's like a 60% chance this could definitely happen to my mom, I'd be pretty mad. And it's like, there's like a 60% chance this could definitely happen to my mom. So the Death Wish style seeking vengeance aspect of the movie, I think is very straightforward and very well done. It's pretty clear that this guy who is a quote unquote beekeeper

is enraged, frustrated, and just sort of like almost confused by the evilness of this corporation that is scamming older people. And so Adam Clay goes off on a vengeance tour to find the people who did this. He goes to the headquarters, this neon lit, absurd marketplace of financial chicanery. Everything is happening within a 75 mile per hour mile radius in Massachusetts for some reason. And somehow he's able to find this location and he wreaks

vengeance on these mothers. He absolutely goes haywire and is killing security guards and burning buildings down and what slowly becomes clear is that he is not just a lone man but he is a trained agent who is a member of a super

duper secret organization known as the Beekeepers. The duper is when you know. Yeah. You really got to. It's super secret. It's really taking it seriously. Only the head of the CIA and the president are read in on this. And the head of the FBI, I think.

Happening simultaneous to this is we learn that the man who owns this sort of digital chop shop played by Josh Hutcherson is deeply upset by news that a beekeeper has come to town and is burning shit up. And in fact, he doesn't know

what a beekeeper is. But very quickly, thanks to the help of his head of security, who's portrayed by Jeremy Irons. The first British man to lead our

Central Intelligence Agency. Making no effort to hide his accent. What a beekeeper is, what he does. Statham's character is a retired beekeeper. He's been deactivated, but he's still got all the tools. And he has the phone number where he can dial in to the actual hive. Yeah, and they can... And they can say, I thought you were tired,

but here's everything that you need to know. Here's all this personal information for the person you're going to kill. Pretty confusing state of play on the beekeepers. Yeah. Because within 20 minutes of that moment happening, the beekeepers have sent someone, the active beekeeper? Well, no. It's really crucial to not skip a step here.

Okay. Okay. So, Jeremy Irons discovers that a beekeeper is after young Mr. Danforth. Yeah, his ward. His ward. Not really. He's just like, he's being prepared. Not his technical ward, but his charge. Yeah. The nepo baby of this giant corporate organization. He calls in a favor of sorts.

He calls up the current head of the CIA, which is played by Minnie Driver. Oh, yeah. Minnie Driver. Minnie. Sorry, Minnie Driver. Minnie. Minnie Driver is in this film for 93 seconds.

Yeah. She picks up a phone, and then in another scene, she's wearing a gown, and she picks up the phone again, and she goes, I can't help you with this one. What does it say on the phone?

It says alpha. It's the alpha one. I don't know why. Don't know what that means. When she answers it, she's like, why are you calling this phone? You're not supposed to be calling. And so the beekeepers do send the current. So apparently, I read a little bit about this.

Okay, good. Yeah. There's only ever. Where'd you read it? There's only ever one beekeeper. Right. The beekeeper retires, a new beekeeper comes in. It's not like an army of beekeepers. There's only ever... Where'd you read it? There's only ever one beekeeper. Right. The beekeeper retires, a new beekeeper comes in. It's not like an army of beekeepers.

There's just one. So Jason Statham's retirement causes this new woman, who's basically a cyberpunk kind of tank girl deal, to get nominated or promoted into the beekeeper position. And apparently all you need to access any beekeeper stash is the fingerprint of the current beekeeper position. And apparently, all you need to access any beekeeper like sort of stash is the fingerprint

of the current beekeeper, which is convenient because Jason Statham's really into cutting people's fingers off. I have an important question before we go any further. Chris,

were you attracted to the beekeeper? The current... I thought that was like a super fun splash of color in this movie. Yeah. Was to have like a techno fun splash of color in this movie. Yeah.

Was to have like a techno punk purple haired Lady Gaga all of a sudden just shooting like a 50 cow out of the back of a truck. Yeah. Let's circle back to my question. Were you attracted to that woman? I wasn't. I will tell you the character I was attracted to. Okay. I'm looking forward to it.

Oh, that's really exciting. Oh my God. Now I'm guessing. I'm trying to guess who it is. One of the things that we haven't mentioned is that the daughter of Felicia Rashad's character is also an FBI agent. And while she is grieving for the death of her mother, she also has become involved in the investigation around who this beekeeper figure is.

And also the larger fraud rank. Yes, exactly. That Josh Hutcherson is running. Kind of happening in tandem. And who is on the side of right and who is on the side of wrong. She's portrayed by Emmy Raverman Lantman. Never seen her before. Apparently she's a TV star on the Umbrella Academy.

Quite simply, one of the most illogical characters in recent movie history. Yeah. Swears constantly. It's not her fault. It's not the actress's fault. I have no idea what they were thinking with this character. The character made absolutely no sense. If one of your parents took their own life, maybe sit down for a while.

Have a glass of water. Relax. Stop trying to unearth this ring. Additionally, she's... And it's not just like she's going rogue to do it. She's also meeting with the head of the FBI, who's just like, blank check for however many agents you need to like, what? There are so many meetings with powerful people that are absurd. Now, the reason I make the Q Shaman joke is I think that there is a-

There's a turn in this film. To this film. So the, there is a version of this movie where Jason Statham simply goes up the, the ladder of this corporation that's scamming the elderly, which he does more or less, but you could have stretched that out for 95 minutes. And then at the end,

he finally kills the person who runs the company. And you're like, yes, finally, you know, and maybe he redistributes the wealth back to all the elderly people who've been scammed. And you're like,

fuck yeah. Yeah. Instead, a land of milk and honey. Thanks to the beekeeper. Midway through this movie, And maybe he redistributes the wealth back to all the elderly people who've been scammed. And you're like, fuck yeah. Instead. A land of milk and honey, thanks to the beekeeper. Midway through this movie, we find out that Josh Hutcherson, his mother, is the president of the United States. And when that is revealed, the enthusiasm for the crowd in our theater was palpable. Where it was just like, yes! Yes! Where it was just like, we are Yes! Where it was just like,

we are going to the White House to keep bees. Let's go. So, how did you read that character? I'll tell you quite simply that it was pretty amazing

that we were just making a movie about Hillary Clinton and Hunter Biden. Yeah, of course. It's hilarious. But, so, but it's like,

it's like, almost not subtext. Yeah. Like, they don't say Hunter Biden, but it's in the text of the movie. Is the film's political valence that the true demons of our culture are Hillary Clinton and Hunter Biden? I think that it's... Because the Josh Hutcherson character is vile. He's not a good guy.

Yeah. No. He's not just like some guy who went you know, went to China and, you know, had affairs with prostitutes. It turns out that he funded his mother's presidential campaign with funds scraped from scamming the elderly. The Danforth Corporation is, in fact, like, basically a front for these behaviors. Can I read you guys a Hillary Clinton tweet?

I saw it. Congratulations to Taylor's boyfriend and the entire Kansas City Chiefs community. I'm not doing it again. You can't bait me again. That's not my concern. Do you think that Hillary Clinton has seen The Beekeeper? Do you think she's ever seen a Jason Statham film? She might have.

Do you know she wrote a political thriller with Louise Penny called State of Terror, which I read. Statham of Terror. Yeah. And it's really pretty trashy. Louise Penny called State of Terror, which I read. State them of terror. Yeah. So like, and it's like really pretty trashy. So I think that she is more aware of this, like this genre than you might expect. Should David Ayer adapt State of Terror?

Is it about Benghazi? Is it like a thinly veiled Benghazi? I think that there is like a thinly veiled, but it is like basically like high, like to even invoke Tom Clancy is like disrespectful to Tom Clancy. And by the way, I like the mystery novels

of Louise Penny, but it's like high trash political thriller defense of everything that Hillary Clinton ever did in office or, you know, adjacent to office. I think it's very funny that they've chosen to make Hillary Clinton and Hunter Biden the

arch villains of this story. On the other hand, I don't really feel like it has any political point of view. Yeah, it's like you could say that that is Jessica Danforth, President Danforth, who's quite striking. I think I knew that as soon as you said deeply in the cr as soon as you said there's someone else who i found attractive i was like oh it's a nervy blonde with a lot of power my goodness she uh i think that there is definitely like it's a wink but the the the emergence of president danforth also signals this film's complete departure from quote-unquote reality,

which is that President Danforth has a beach estate where she seems to be holding a rave and also employing a South African kill squad. Who is that guy in the kill squad in the last half of the film? Don't tell me there's a beekeeping hit, bro! That guy is a fucking legend. Who is that? Hold on,

I'm going to find out who that guy is. I saw a beekeeper once, man. And he fucking lost his leg? It takes that guy like 19 rounds

to the heart to die die too. He puts up an incredible fight against Statham. This is such a silly, ridiculous movie. And I kept trying to figure out what it was trying to say, which of course is the dumbest thing you can do while watching The Beekeeper. Because it's not really trying to say anything. I do think that you could be like,

you could read it that the world needs a check on even the highest levels of power but there needs to be it's fucking taxi driver there needs to be a great rain come through it is it is very taxi driver it is a little bit

Jan 6 it's extremely Jan 6 yeah I didn't write it I just said fun watching you just came in here and were like

no no no no no this is there's like a scene where Jeremy Irons is like informing some other like secret squad, but like CAA sanctioned secret squad about the beekeeper and what they have to do that is just like reverse QAnon.

To be fair, those guys don't follow his instructions. He's like, if you stay stay far away from him with rifles, you can probably get him, but don't come into contact with him. And they all try to fist fight him. But the mythology around the beekeeper is like, his one noble goal is to protect the order of society. And so he's going to kill.

And then there's some stuff about bees, how people will kill bees. Did you read about bees before this? No. You want to share anymore? But there's a moment where the FBI agent is like, bees are really interesting. Yeah, because she's reading like a very,

very thin factoid book, you know, like she bought at Urban Outfitters. She found it in the truck of the techno girl. I mean, it's not like an encyclopedia of bees you know it's the highlights and so he's killing everyone he's like killing all of the leaders who have failed society in order to protect society yeah as an outsider which i just you know that's what that movie is about i just want to point out that the the south african's name is taylor james uh-huh he plays a character named lazarus he's incredible uh he was born in seven oaks england but he moved to south africa where he was schooled and then

moved back to kent okay so you're getting this very particular blend of like Cockney South African. Kind of, yeah. But also like the best part about it is that his crew looks like they are being pulled out of like a late period John Carpenter movie. Yeah. Even though like the president is present

at this like beach estate and is also like there's a high security risk but she's like what we're gonna do is throw a rave during the day. Josh Hutcherson is throwing the rave.

Oh that's right because he's like can I bring some of my tech friends over? And she was like yeah but no drugs and that doesn't work. But then she walks in

on him doing coke and she's just like light my cigarette for me. Do you think that they knew that this movie was gonna make like 150 million dollars? I don't.

Like, if you told me this was just a straight-to-VOD movie, I'd be like, cool. It happens, you know? Like, Jeremy Irons is sometimes in a straight-to-VOD movie. On the flip side, this is, I think,

the biggest movie of 2024 so far. Yeah. And is it because we all have like a bloodlust for Hunter Biden? Because, like, can you, how many, how many of the last 10 Jason Statham movies can you name? Quite a few.

Fire away. I mean, the mechanic. That's, that was not 10 years ago. The, the Wrath of Man. Wrath of Man.

That's one. A couple of Fast and Furious movies and Hobbs and Shaw movies. You got F9, Fast X, Hobbs and Shaw. That's four. I don't know. Like, I just feel like they're all the same movie they're all like the mechanic you know like so that's the thing is he had been doing only those movies he had been doing only movies where he just was like throat

punching guys for four hours and then he pivoted to the meg and fast and the furious all right so he's basically got the Meg and the Meg 2, but before that, he had Mechanic Resurrection, Wild Card, Homefront, Hummingbird, Parker,

Safe, Killer Elite, Blitz. Killer Elite, I saw that. The Mechanic. Well, that's a remake of a great movie. Yeah. You know, the Crank movies,

the Transporter trilogy, like, he's made 20-plus movies that are just like this movie. Some of those movies were hits. Most of them were not. Most of them were kind of like mid-tier, like $40 million movies that Lionsgate put out. But this movie, for some reason, has really taken off.

Now, some of it might be what we talked about earlier in the week, that there's just a dearth of material this year. Yeah. And so this is filling a gap of some kind. I have one other theory about this. Okay. If I told you, if you were sitting in the theater

and you watched the Beekeeper trailer, I'd say that there's a better than 50% chance you're like, I gotta see this. I gotta see how this guy keeps bees. I gotta see what he does to these people. Because they give away the Felicia Rashad piece in the trailer. So you're like, I gotta see what he does. The Felicia Rashad piece in the trailer. So you're like, I got to see what he does.

The Felicia Rashad piece, eh? Sorry. And so there's like a baseline of interest in just like, oh, fuck, man, they killed Mrs. Cosby. We got to go get it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Then there's also an element of just like, yeah, there's nothing else out. It's like, what are you going to go see?

Would you rather see Beekeeper or One Love right? Let me tell you you would rather see Beekeeper. On top of that like this is why they should make

original movies is because if I told you this was Beekeeper 2 or 3 and you really needed to have seen the other Beekeeper movies to understand the

intricacies of like the Beekeeper organization and Jeremy Irons like hasn't been killed yet so you have to keep him in like mind this is original movies to understand the intricacies of like oh yeah the beekeeper organization and jeremy irons like hasn't been killed yet so you have to keep him in like my it's like this is original storytelling salvation but it's original but not because here's the thing like i you know it's cyber crimes and and hunter biden and all this stuff but it is also like jason statham needs to get revenge on someone you know like you under it is original but also you know exactly what it

is but it's the same thing with wick when wick came out people were like holy shit they killed his dog i don't care about anything else but him fucking up the russian mob for killing his dog wick three and four it's like what's the continental what's like the rules of like the the french oversea site board like i love those movies but I'm just saying like, I can see like Joe average, I see five movies a year, goes and sees like Oppenheimer and then the beekeeper runs before the Oppenheimer.

Do you think that's happening? And he's just like, I'm going to go see this. Let's unpack it a little bit more though. Because like the premise of the beekeeper is literally somebody ripped off this guy's landlady. Yeah. And he got super mad.

Well, I think he's recovering. But she was emotional. He says that she was the only person who saw him as a real person and gave him a real chance. And he's probably- Except for the beekeeper organization, which gave him a career. Well, yeah, but I think they exploited him, you know? Well, that may be true. And so he didn't get to be himself

and now he's just a man making bees. What's amazing is that the beekeeper is a canvas that you can paint with your own psychology. You're worried about land ownership. You're thinking like

this company took advantage of him. I'm thinking just like he seemed like a pretty happy retired guy, but like was into being invited over to dinner. What do you think the beekeeper's 401k is like?

Like what percentage are they matching? I think it's outrageously. Are they matching at like 28%? Like, how high? I think he has a Swiss account that's just like compound interest, you know? Okay. Here's one thing I would say about the beekeeper. Not a lot of bees in this movie.

Because Josh Hutcherson blows them all up. Yeah, but I know, but it's just like not. We are the bees. No, I mean mean i understand that yeah right and then he has to kill the queen right because the queen isn't producing the right type of air to no i thought it's that if the if basically if the queen has too many fail sons then they kill the queen that's right because she's responsible for the fail sons which is an interesting sociological thing to

unpack at a later date. As a mother of a son, how do you feel? This is complicated stuff. That is not on me. It's a very surprising kind of funny callback to just what movies were 25 years ago, where a movie like this comes out

in January and everybody's like, okay, I guess I'll go see that. And then they all went and they're like, oh, yeah, stupid, but I had fun. Yeah. And maybe it's definitely about

how Democrats are dumbasses, but maybe not. I think it's also about how much people probably feel like an ambient level of fear about like getting ripped off. The cybercrime aspect is very successful yeah it really works well and it's like there i think there was all i mean like i think that the internet is

just really like magnified like our neurosis about like everywhere i go for like a little bit of convenience i also go to get like ripped off a little bit so everything that's cool about the internet that you can just like buy something and it shows up at your house but it's just like now my number my card number is out there. You know what I mean? Like there's like this, this dark side of it. And I think, uh, I think it's, it's very effective in that way. And I just, I think it would be interesting to chart vengeance movies since death wish

over like what was actually happening in society and to the degree to which the successful ones corresponded with that. I feel like we did do a revenge movies episode, but I can't recall. I'd like to do something about Kill Bill in the near future too, or in the 20th anniversary of Kill Bill. Yeah, but like when Taken came out, was it just simply that like,

it was like Liam Neeson's turn? Like people were just like, this is incredible. He's got a special set of skills. I think that there was, this is an odd thing to say, but I think that there was like a human trafficking fear at that time

and that it kind of leveraged that. Whatever is like the- Speaking of QAnon. Well, exactly. I mean, these things all come back. Obviously, we're just, we're six months removed from Sound of Freedom

being one of the biggest movies of the year. Like, I think there's a little bit of that going on. It's really kind of nice. The way you say QAnon shows that you don't really think about QAnon that much.

Because you're like QAnon. I don't know. QAnon. QAnon. I don't really think. I don't think about it that much. Those're like QAnon. QAnon. QAnon. I don't know. I don't really. I don't think about it that much.

Those people need some help. From scratch, why don't you give us the entire answer? Any other thoughts about the beekeeper? Do you want a beekeeper too? We're going to get one.

Yeah. I'm not sure if I feel as excited. I did want to ask you, you know, sometimes you say you go to a movie like this and you feel a little bored

by just the kind of oncoming waves of action. But if done well, you can be interested in it. Where does this fall then on sort of like the John Wick scale of interested or not interested in terms of watching those sequences in the movie? Oh, the action itself? Oh, it's pretty fun because it's creative. I mean, this is simplistic, but like the fewer guns and the more choreography they have to do, the more exciting it is for me. Did you like it when he tied the guy to the pickup truck and drove the pickup truck off the bridge?

My favorite part by far is when he wanders into a crowd of FBI agents outside of the building. He's trying to penetrate and just beats the shit out of 15 guys in one minute. I was like, this beatkeeper. Really, he's on one. Well, Chris, thanks so much for sharing your thoughts here. Okay. Did you want to say anything about Madam Web?

I'm really looking forward to this episode of the podcast and hearing you guys talk about it. Are you going to come with us to see it? I'm on the fence about Madam Web. Okay. I am.

I think, I guess, can I just, have you guys talked about Dakota yet? So you haven't done this part of the episode yet. Yeah, and we haven't seen it as of the recording of this. Are we allowed to say that? Are you mad?

Is it too much behind the curtain? Is what Dakota Johnson has done to promote this film, which has given so many people so much joy, is it actually promoting the film? It is for me. I want to explore that after seeing the movie. And I think that we're in a kind of Apple Vision pro of marketing around movies. Yeah.

You know, sort of like everything is in the metaverse. I know you're not actually there, but like, you're right. The marketing of movies has gone to a new level of irony that is making it challenging to know what anybody thinks about what anything anyone is doing. What do you think? I'm so excited to go ironically participate in this experience because of Dakota Johnson. And I love her. And last on the episode that we just recorded that ran last week, I was just talking about how she is like officially my new queen. Because just like she's the only I don't give a fuck celebrity that we have. She still surprises me. Like I don't know how she's going only I don't give a fuck celebrity that we have. It's I she still surprises me.

Like, I don't know how she's going to be weird, you know, and I just and funny and I love it. Do you think that just devil's advocate? Yeah. She is someone who operates from an attitude as if she has contributed somehow to cinema at all. But she, in fact, has not. I have a whole a whole thought process about this. Okay. Because she just made

three independent movies, all of which were very not well received and or didn't even get distributed. Just this cha-cha real smooth. Cha-cha real smooth. And then there's a movie called I'm Okay that premiered at Sundance 2022 that got acquired by Max,

but has still not been seen. Okay. And then she was just in this film, Daddy-O, with Sean Penn that premiered at Telluride that I think also still

does not have distribution. Is that the ambulance movie? No. I don't know the premise. I haven't seen it. So those three movies have all kind of come and gone and she was trying

to make movies with young filmmakers that are supposed to be interesting and she's trying to evolve her career away from Fifty Shades and this franchise stuff but she's like, you know, you got to make movies with young filmmakers that are supposed to be interesting and she's trying to evolve her career away from 50 shades and this franchise stuff but she's like you know you got to make movies for money and none of those movies really worked or at least nobody got a chance to see them and now everybody is talking about madam fucking web and she's like i did this because my

agency was like you'll get nine million dollars for this movie or whatever it was and everybody is like dakota johnson is my new queen okay you you know like Amanda is like this is this is mother and I'm no I'm not like that as a mother I don't think I can all

I don't know that that's how the hierarchy works I honestly haven't investigated it but I just I really like her I also I think she's finally

cementing her status as my queen but I've been a fan for a long time she's I mean the architectural digest she has a unique energy yeah cementing her status as my queen but I've been a fan for a long time. She's a very entertaining celebrity. She has a unique energy. Yeah.

I'm not totally sure I understand her talents and so I'm still I'm holding I'm holding my my powder dry here. Okay. Okay.

Well this is what a segue into our next segment. Momentarily we will discuss Madam Web. Thanks CR. You got it. From bees to spiders, it's time to talk about Madam Web. We've now seen Madam Web. We've seen Madam Web. On the previous segment, we hadn't yet seen Madam Web, and now we have. So why don't you describe for the listeners the manner in which we saw the film?

So after many scheduling adjustments, you informed me that you would be seeing Madam Web at 2 p.m. on Valentine's Day, opening day, at a theater near our home. And I was also going to need to find a way to see Madame Webb on Valentine's Day. And the theater was already near our home. So I thought, sure, well, I guess I'll go with Sean. You didn't offer the opportunity to purchase the tickets together. No, I already had bought the tickets. I also was not invited to the screening of this film for reasons that are still mysterious to me. Nor was I. the opportunity to purchase the tickets together no i already had bought the tickets and so i also

was not invited to the screening of this film for reasons that are still mysterious nor was i i didn't even know there was one um i you purchased a ticket and so i logged on to fandango to then learn that of course you had chosen the time to be able to see madame webb in dolby cinema i mean of course because yeah why why skimp on quality of course uh i identified your seat because it was the only one on the aisle purchased the seat next to you and then we attended madame webb at 2 p.m with a one-third full theater um you could hear a pin drop during the entire entire film despite the Dolby surround. So Madam Web is the directorial debut of S.J. Clarkson, who's a British TV film director.

She'd been trying to get some big projects off the ground in the last few years. This is the one she got signed up for. It is a part of the Sony Spider-Man Expanded Universe, which we will talk about a little bit in depth. Let me just read you the plot description for Madam Web. Cassandra Webb is a New York City paramedic who starts the show Signs of Clairvoyance. Forced to confront revelations about her past, she must protect three young women from a mysterious adversary who wants them dead. Now, many people are aware of Madam Web because of the remarkable press tour that Dakota Johnson has embarked upon to either sell or anti-sell this movie in which she plays a kind of newfangled spider-inflected superhero.

This is quite simply one of the worst movies of the year. It is one of the worst movies of the decade. I was trying to think of what is the short list, and we will get into some serious questions about this movie as we talk through it. Of the worst studio movies of the decade. Here's the problem with it. Hold on, can I sag a little? Of course, absolutely. Is it like that bad?

I want to talk about it. I'm glad you put it that way. You know, it's really bad. Really bad. Which is really like silly. Okay, so. And delivers on nothing that you would want from, I guess, a superhero movie, a Spider-Man movie, or a Spider-Person movie, an extended universe movie, a Marvel movie, or frankly, a Dakota Johnson movie, with the exception of one scene at a baby shower, which I did think was very funny, and I'll think about for some time. Spoiler alert!

It's a baby shower for some time. Spoiler alert. It's a baby shower for Peter Parker. Crazy. Just one of many Easter eggs dropped in the direction of the Spider-Man story. So like, it's really, really bad. Terrible script. Like. Wooden acting.

People are not in the same room together. Incoherent. It just, it's really bad. But like, I don't know. I've seen a lot of these at this point. It just kind of, it just rolled off me.

You know? Yes. I think that's a testimony to your strength. You know, you have like iguana skin when it comes to this kind of thing. Put me in the hot blazing sun

and I will persist. Do things roll off iguanas? I thought they had like quite scaly skin. Well, just that you're, you can't be pierced, you know, that you have a strength.

I have no idea about iguana skin. I'm just, I'm riffing. I mean, and also they have like a lot of ridges. So I think it's, there are like a lot of obstacles to whatever liquid

rolling off an iguana. If you could be a superhero, would you be the iguana? No. Okay. On the one hand, you're right right we've seen a lot of bad movies like this i think people have made this comparison but what it actually feels more like is the early fantastic four movies or the ben affleck daredevil movies when sort of like before kevin feige had

come along and kind of taught us what our modern superhero movie was in terms of tone in terms of execution that there could be like such varying levels of quality with the acting with the way of taught us what our modern superhero movie was in terms of tone, in terms of execution, that there could be like such varying levels of quality with the acting, with the way that the script is written, with the way that it's filmed, that once in a while you'd get one. Like sometimes you'd get Blade and you'd be like, wow, pretty cool, like vampire, you know, kung fu movie. And then sometimes you'd get Elektra starring Jennifer Garner and you'd be like, whoa, this is really one of the worst movies of the year. Still love Jennifer Garner.

She's great. And she's not a bad electorate, but it's a terrible movie. Nevertheless, I think, would you be asking that question about its terribleness and whether it is actually that terrible if we did not have the Dakota Johnson press tour? And if we did not have the humor derived from the meme of the line in the trailer. Would you... So if there just weren't all the fanfare before Madam Web. Amanda is...

If I weren't bringing my knowledge to Madam Web. You're born on Mars. Okay, or I'm born in the Amazon. But in the human society. Okay. You're not born in the Amazon, trust me. In this particular case, you're not born in the Amazon. You're born on Mars, but we've colonized Mars. Surprisingly stress-free water birth, given the circumstances. Very quiet throughout. There are actually two

women in labor in this movie. Yes. And neither of them speaks above a whisper. So you'd say that's not accurate. Yeah. This is. This is a film, you know, directed by a woman, starring women. You know what I'll never forget is like the night I got to the hospital to give birth. And you know,

they're like hooking me up to all the monitors. I was hoping we'd get here on the podcast. And then you hear from, you hear a scream from down the hall that is like literally out of a horror movie. It's just like someone is absolutely getting murdered down that hall and i'll never forget the nurse just like whispering to me like sort

of timidly and she was like she's not on any pain medication like as trying to make me feel better about the fact of like what's going down the hall and what's coming for me um people are loud people are having problems and neither of these women had access to epidurals, um, as in their circumstances. Well, well. Well, oh, that's interesting. I think, I think. Interesting. Madam Webb's mom.

I like that. I like that theory. Received a kind of epidural. Yeah. By way of this. Yeah. Extraordinarily unique spider. Let me just say, epidurals in any form are amazing.

Um. If you want it and if you don't, you don't. Listen, once again, it's your choice. I'm very grateful that I had mine. Yeah, yeah. I'm not going to share any personal experience on this podcast, but I just want everybody to be safe and happy. That's my message.

I wanted Madam Web's mom to be safe and happy, but unfortunately she wasn't because she encountered a man in the Peruvian jungle in 1973. And I'll let the listeners know that Madam Web is a period piece set during 2003, but it opens on a flashback in 1973. Great year for cinema, great year for rock and roll music, as I recall. But she's down in Peru and she's looking for a spider. She finds the spider and then there's a guy there played by Tahar Rahim, who's like, I'm going to need that spider. And he shoots a pregnant woman to get the spider. Very upsetting sequence. Yeah.

But then some arañas, some spider men of the Peruvian jungle save her. Spider people. Spider humans. Spider persons. I'm not sure what the nomenclature is. They rescue her and take her to a magical pool where a spider bites her in a cave a spider bites her and that spider i guess grants powers to her then being birthed daughter right but then she dies in the act of childbirth after that right

due to a gunshot wound from a man who stole a spider from her. Right. This is the first thing you see in the movie. And also maybe like bleeding into water, you know? Is that bad? It's not good, right? I think getting shot is not good in this particular case. So that's the setup for this movie,

which then ultimately becomes a story about a very blank, affected paramedic who has a hard time relating to people, but then increasingly sees the future. And her name is Cassandra. Why is her name Cassandra? Because Cassandra sees the future. Yeah. So why is, so her last name is Webb. With two Bs. W-E-B-B, but the film is called Madam Webb.

I've constructed a series of questions about the film Madam Webb. Thank you. I thought that would be the best way to kind of talk through this film. I didn't add this question, but it occurred to me. I added it. Oh, you did? Yeah, in a sub category so that we didn't tip over from 15. Let's just...

Okay, you've got 15 questions here. 15 questions about Madam Webb. And this is something I'd like to do in the future when we encounter a film that is as befuddling as this. Remember when we did 100 Things That We Love about Top Gun Maverick? That was really good podcasting. Yeah. Well, as someone who's just seen Dune Part 2, perhaps we shall return to that convention. Oh, that's exciting.

Yes. Okay. Number one, what happened here? Like, what happened? This is a movie made by a major studio with a very seasoned filmmaker and big stars. You know, obviously, Sidney Sweeney is in this movie, which we'll get into momentarily. You know, Tahar Rahim is a wonderful actor

who's been in some great films over the last 15 years, most recently seen in Napoleon. Dakota Johnson, you know, is not Ingrid Bergman, but she's alive. She's got presence. She does. It's a unique presence. Yes.

Is it well-suited to Madam Web, would you say? Well, to the part where she's a paramedic who can't connect with people, sure. I thought that was good. Did you see the clip of her driving, like doing the stunt driving? No. She can drive relatively fast and take turns. Relative to normal episodes of this show, would you say you did significantly more research in sort of looking into how this film was made? Because you seem to know a lot about it.

Like, Instagram Explore tab has been working hard to share these clips with me. So she can drive and she can, you know, roll her eyes at a baby shower. We're getting into the Dakota Johnson question. So I don't want to get into that yet. What happened here? Like, what do you think happened? Was it a bad script? I mean, I do think it was a bad concept and a bad script

because what is this? This is a prequel for... Genuinely, I don't know whether this is a prequel for genuinely i don't know whether this is a prequel for madam webb a character who i don't know anything about even after having seen the movie or whether it's a prequel intended prequel by the way because who knows that doesn't seem like there will not be any more of this um for three different spider girls only one of whom you told me is actually named spider girl i believe that's right i'm not an expert on this part of the canon and then also how it's a prequel for the birth of spider-man and in a way maybe the way that spider girl and spider-man are related even though they're not in a way that is the case okay we'll get to some of that but i don't understand you've got this incredibly valuable ip right but so basically my point is

like what is this is the first problem like no that's, like, a preposterous diagram that even if, like, there were a completed diagram and someone could tell you, yes, this is a prequel for how Spider-Girl met her two best friends and then, like, imported the spider

that someone else turned, set loose on Peter Parker or whatever, like, that's really stupid. But, so that's problem number one. Problem number two is that you can't, there is actually no real answer to that diagram. There's no sense of purpose.

And then, of course, three, that yields like a preposterous script. It's very confusing. I can understand how they got to the point where they thought that they should make a Madam Web movie that previews for- Who is Madam Web? Well, she's the woman played by Dakota Johnson named Cassandra Webb. Right. But like in your little spider world, who is Madame Webb? I don't know. So does anyone know? Yes. She

is a canonical character. She's not a character that I'm up on. Okay. Well, maybe you should have done that research before this podcast. It's actually much funnier if I don't. Okay. So I'm up on. Okay. Well, maybe you should have done that research before this podcast. It's actually much funnier if I don't. Okay. So I'm just Googling Madam Web now? She's kind of like the... Madam Web character. She's kind of like the Professor X

of the Spider Universe. And that's... Which one is Professor X? He's the telepath who... Actor names. Patrick Stewart. Okay, thank you. James McAvoy.

Thank you. Does that. Okay, thank you. James McAvoy. Thank you. Does that work? Yes! Okay. She's someone who sort of, like, uses her mind, like, her clairvoyant abilities to help guide,

and she helps Spider-Man... Yeah, I'm reading the third sentence of Wikipedia. She is usually depicted as a supporting character in the Spider-Man comic book series where she appears as an elderly woman with myasthenia gravis sorry for that connected to a life support system resembling a spider web wow okay and that's it oh interesting so the um condition that I couldn't pronounce is a neuromuscular disease, which does figure prominently

in this story. Put a note in that for the story. Okay. She's a clairvoyant and precognitive mutant, of course. Yes. And you know what mutants are? X-Men? Those are the X-Men. Yeah. Now, I don't think there was an intention to bring the mutants to the Sony Spider-Man universe purposefully, but because the Tom Holland films have been so successful, because Venom has been so successful, because Spider-Verse has been so successful, Sony, which has the rights to the Spider-Universe,

is attempting to adapt other characters into stories. We saw, I think El Muerto was the film that Bad Bunny had gotten into development, and that they were going to make that, which would have been one of the first, before Blue Beetle would have been one of the first Latin superheroes that we had seen. I think that movie went into turnaround and now isn't happening,

but it was announced around the same time as this Madam Web movie. But Madam Web is not, it's not like when they were like, we're going to do a Wolverine movie after X-Men. It's like Wolverine is one of the most popular and coolest characters in comic book history. I don't know anything about Madam Web, and I read comic books for 15 years. So it was a very weird choice,

but you could see because they're just desperate to make something. But once they got to that point, they really needed to have something solid if they were going to make a movie around this fairly obscure character. They simply did not do that. Okay, next question. Is Dakota Johnson a good actor? Yes. You just got gotta put her in

the right position, you know? What has been the best use of her thus far? Very good in the social network. Okay, she's in one scene. She's very good in five-year engagement. Okay, I'll go with that. She steals that movie, honestly, from everybody else. Okay.

She wasn't right for the Fifty Shades of Grey movies, but that's okay. You win some, you lose some. You know what she's wonderful in? What? One of my favorite movies of the 21st century, which I think was my number one movie for the year that it came out, 2015, A Bigger Splash. Oh, fantastic. The Luca Guadagnino movie.

Yeah. She's really good in that. Right. The Fifty Shades movie can kind of take it or leave it, personally. I don't hate them, but they're just not for me. She was really good in Lost Daughter. She was. Yeah.

She was. So she has a place. And by the way, those are both dramatic roles and comedic roles. You're right. We talked about how she is attempting to navigate a modern movie star career, which is very hard. And we talk about it on the show all the time. I guess you could have made the case that we should have done a movie star playbook for Dakota here. On the other hand, she's only gotten more famous.

Yeah. At least on the internet. Yeah. Over the course of the last month. Because of the way that she has engaged in every interview regarding this film. Maybe like more famous to the people at large. I mean, this is, she's been powerful for a very long time. Remember when she like went on Ellen and was like, you didn't invite me to your birthday

party, Ellen. Yeah. Like, and she is, she has had those, the architectural digest tour. I know that I have talked about it many times, but it's really one of those, you got to see it for yourself moments. Then the revelation that she was just like making weird stuff up in that because she didn't know what to say because they just set dressed it with all these limes and she hates limes. You know, it's it's powerful stuff that doesn't come around that often. OK, so then a follow up question to is she a good actor?

Is she a genius? Yes. Like, do you think that she is orchestrating these moves? Or is she a kind of zealot figure who finds herself in remarkable circumstances? Because she could potentially have an incredibly wry and amusing sense of humor. Or she could be a little checked out on stuff. Why can't it be both? Well, that's interesting. Yeah.

Maybe that's the answer. I think she's just special, you know, special in that way. If you watch her in the Please Don't Destroy sketch from SNL a few weeks ago, she's obviously got great comic timing. If you watch her being interviewed,

did you see the clip of her trying to name the three Spider-Man movies? Yeah. Which, like, she has far superseded Gwyneth Paltrow forgetting what movie she was in. But do you know

who Dakota Johnson is in a long-term relationship with? Chris Martin. Yes. Yes. And do you know that she is regularly featured on Gwyneth's Instagram? They all spend Thanksgiving together. Oh, that's nice.

And they're like buds. How simple. And it's really galaxy brain amazing stuff that's happening. Were you out on Coldplay these days? Haven't. What are they up to? Touring the world. Are they still?

Just delighting audiences, I think. Do they have new music? I think in the last couple of years, yeah. I kind of lost touch. I haven't what are they up to uh touring the world are they still delighting audiences i think uh i think in the last couple years yeah i kind of lost touch i haven't heard it but i like i'm first 2.5 albums bangers yeah i like i'm i'm pro the good cold play don't know what's up with them now but i don't really know what's up with new music i just learned about jack harlow so from a dunkin just learned about from a dunkin donuts commercial he's rolling with your man yeah no i know that's that's why i googled we'll get to him in a minute uh so i asked is this the worst studio movie of the decade you think it is i i thought fast x was like really really bad and really worse than this because there was something about the

cravenness combined with the bad acting and just the absolutely terrible cgi like this just looks uninspired bad it doesn't look like we spent 500 million dollars to try to convince you that computer pixels are beautiful bad you know so i'm a little less offended by it yeah i i i agree i agree is it is it the biggest joke of the decade maybe because every like almost everyone's in on the joke okay at this point so question number four then except except for i guess the people who released it but like dakota johnson is like out here being like, I haven't seen it. I don't know when I'll see it. Which I find very amusing.

Yeah. Even though she did attend the premiere, which means she walked the red carpet and just bailed. Many people do that. So no party afterwards or anything? I mean, she could have gone to dinner and then gone to the party. That's nice. People do that. Where was the premiere?

I don't know. Okay. I think it was in the Peruvian jungle. Okay. So probably somewhere around there uh why is the line from the trailer which is quote he was in the amazon with my mom when she was researching spiders right before she died not in this movie so here is my been my theory about that line from the beginning which is that it like it is actually ai that that they put in the and that and that sounds weird that they

put in the trailer to cover some like expository trailer problems you know um so that in the span of so you think it was never in the movie yeah you don't think it was cut after they learned no that the the internet had been making fun of this line no this overly expository line no you don't think it was adr'd after the fact by Dakota Johnson? She says incredibly dumb stuff similar to this, you know? I did feel like some of that was in the delivery.

Okay. Which is why I still think it was AI. Or, I mean, it could have been ADR'd like from her car, you know? I find this to be a curious choice because at a minimum, People would like cheer

Nicole Kidman style? You have an opportunity for like a little bit of like a minimum people would like cheer nicole kidman style you have a you have an opportunity for like a little bit of like a rocky horror the room kind of situation where we can all participate in this moment when the line happens so to just be sitting in this 116 minute movie that is so bland and boring and not even get the line i don't know it diminishes the experience. I agree. But I... They didn't want to give us the satisfaction? Do you think that's what was going on? They're not that quick on the uptake.

When I said everyone is in on the joke, I think I meant everybody, but the people in charge of editing this trailer and movie. You know? Okay. So we sort of addressed this already, but I need to just enunciate it one more time. Why did they make a superhero prequel

for superheroes no one knows about or cares about? To try to make money? But if you were going to do that. To try to make girl money? I love girl money. Yeah, me too. I love when there's money that girls are getting. I wish that I could spend more of my girl boss money, but they never give me the chance.

What currency is girl boss money? What's pink, obviously. Okay. You want to say anything is it lira what is it it could be right that still doesn't exist yeah but the inflation like i like to be holding your lira though just in case it comes back like literally buckets of it to be able to buy like one donut yeah that actually that is how girl boss conversions rates work yes 70 on the 100%. Of course, we all understand that. No offense to the great people of Italy. So there's just no superhero stuff in this movie.

There's one big final battle sequence between the Tahari and the character. She holds a piece of rubble like a shield. Which is amusing, but it's like, is this like a Captain America callback? Like, is this in the Madame Web canon that she's good at grabbing a shard of metal as a shield? I don't know. Maybe if you'd done that research you would know. I know.

I failed today. I apologize. I find the decision making to make this a prequel rather than a movie that is actually about a team of young women who all have spider-like abilities

genuinely weird. Kind of mystifying. Yeah. They don't really do anything except sometimes sometimes Dakota Johnson aka Cassandra Webb aka Cassie

aka Madam Web Madam Web Madam Web sees the future but honestly the editing in this movie is so confusing

that it takes a while for you to understand whether she's seeing the future or the past and it's not actually really clear this movie is so confusing that it takes a while for you to understand whether she's seeing the future or the past. And it's not actually really clear what her like telekinetic abilities actually are. I rarely, well, I have a question about that. I rarely say this though, but I genuinely found that particular aspect of the movie, just annoying, just the inability to understand what was precognitive and what had already happened and the way that it was cut together.

Unpleasant to watch. And I'm usually really willing to roll with it with these kinds of movies. You also weren't really willing to roll with that in Argyle. That's true. That's true. Well, these things have something in common. So maybe the problem is with you. They are in a death duel to be the worst movie of the year so far.

Oh, I was going to say also. They were paid for with girl lyrics. So maybe the problem is you. Is that in the credits at the end of a movie? Paid for by girl lyric? Yeah. And all proceeds go to the girl bosses of the United States of girl Boston. So what's the deal with Tahar Rahim's ADR performance in the movie? This is, like, you turn to me 30 minutes in,

and as I was having the same thought of, like, he's not actually saying any of these words. Like, his whole performance is ADR'd. You see his mouth saying words, like, four times total. And they don't match. And then all the other times it's on Zosia Mamet's face as she's looking at a bunch of TV screens. Or, you know, he's racing down the street or he's wearing a mask or he's in a car and we see his head at a weird angle. Like, we're seeing the back of his head while he's talking.

It's just bizarre. Like, was this character completely different? Was it because Tahar Rahim's accent during his performance wasn't right? Like, what happened here? I think they must have rewritten every single bit of what was going on with him, which is maybe also why they had to add in lines to the trailer to explain him that don't exist. It seems like everything about him was changed. It it's it's terribly terribly confusing watching the movie and executed quite poorly like it is this movie is dire at times when you're watching something like this even a common moviegoer who doesn't really think about how things are made ever is going to be like why

is this character like this anyhow next question so as i said the movie is set in 2003 but was it actually meant to be set in the 90s but they changed it to 2003 midway through to fit the tom holland spider-man chronology and i ask this because one it was suggested by a couple of reporters that it was originally set in the 90s and two there are just all kinds of 90s references a bunch of needle drops in the movie we hear the cranberries we hear four non-blondes. We hear Meredith Brooks. And the energy is very... No cell phones. No cell phones.

The energy is very like Gwen Stefani from a style perspective. Oh, she looks so good. I mean, I was bored, so I spent 20 minutes trying to figure out who makes those jeans that she's making.

But you're right. They're all wearing Docs. They're all... Yeah. Yeah. So, Sidney Sweeney, Celeste O'Connor, and Isabella Merced play this trio of young women these teenage girls who are imperiled by the spider guy that tahar rahim plays because

he's has a precognition that they're going to kill him and so he's got to take them out before they can take him out this is the kind of organizing conflict of the movie dakota johnson intersects because she is also having precognitions and she encounters them and she sees what's happening to them. So she has to intervene. But it feels very similarly to me to Captain Marvel which looks like it's this kind of like prefab, remember the 90s were so

cool, girl power, tank girl, Gwen Stefani kind of energy. The Celeste O'Connor character has her hair done up almost the way that Gwen Stefani does. That's true. There's a lot of mid-riff exposure. But then there are also

key needle drops like the present day circumstances in 2003 opens with a great yay-ay-ay-ass needle drop. Toxic plays a role in the movie,

the Britney Spears song, which we'll get to in a moment. So I was just confused. Now, S.J. Clarkson was interviewed about this and she said the script that she saw was always 2003. But it just feels it's a tiny bit of that salt burn thing where I'm like, what? What are we supposed to take away from this with all this diegetic music that feels like it was from 1994 and not from 2003? I don't know. I'm just throwing it out there. You don't have an answer. I mean, when Toxic showed up,

people are going to get mad at me but like this it was like fucking madame webb and no one was sitting next to us so i did and i turned my brightness down but i did get out my phone to google and make sure the toxic was 2003 because i like anticipated your salt burn anxiety and i was like wait a second i need to make sure that's right now that's do you think madame webb is an unreliable narrator and that's why all the dates are wrong on all the stuff no Well, no. What I was going to say is when I was Googling it, I was like wait a second. Is Toxic

2003 or is it later because in my mind as a young woman with her Lyra, you know you catch up to things like a little bit so i have vivid memories

of listening to toxic like later in college so which was like later than 2003 so sometimes when you're young you're not like at the forefront of things you're catching up you know so maybe they're just younger and they're catching up to all of this cool music. Okay, that could be the case. That's a nice explanation. Related to Toxic, why does this movie tease, and in teasing has a disc jockey come on and say, this song is going to be a big hit. Here comes Toxic by Britney Spears.

Tease, a superwoman team-up fight set to Britney Spears' Toxic, which is a pretty good idea for a superhero movie. Yeah, I would have enjoyed it. And then just turns out to be yet another sequence in which Madam Web just, like, grabs the girls and they run away.

Well, she crashes a taxi into a diner. But then just runs away. Like, this movie is just a series of them running away from stuff. I mean, I agree. Bewildering.

I don't get it. What are Madam Web's superpowers? Now, you mentioned that she's a precognitive mutant. I mean, isn't that also Mr. X-Man's power? His name is Professor X. He's a professor. I believe he has his PhD in mutant genealogy, among other things. Okay.

No, he's a telepath. He can make things move with his mind. He can read people's minds she can see the future maybe she can get there don't they say at some point she's only beginning to understand her powers it's a very good point yeah so uh at a certain point we see throughout the film that she can see into the future very briefly into the future like 30 seconds a minute into the future later in the film during the big battle sequence, and I love how much of this I've retained. I feel really good about how my life is going.

As core memories slide out of my left ear, I have Madam Web plot intricacies in my right. They're on this big Pepsi-Cola sign fighting evil spider guy. Yeah, by the way, that is absolutely a product placement. Pepsi is featured throughout the film yes um after dakota johnson almost like drowns and goes into cardiac arrest

and then less than 24 hours later she goes to the baby shower and she wants a beer but they offer her a pepsi instead because she says ah i love pepsi do Do you like Pepsi? I'll drink it. Okay. I grew up in Atlanta, which is the Coca-Cola town. So there was a time when, you know, when I ordered the regional. You were in a land war with Pepsi. Well, no, like the regional, you'd ask for a Coke, not a soda, not anything you want. Like, I'd like a Coke, please. And there was a time when they said it's Pepsi. I would say, no, thank you.

But now I say, sure, thank you. Well, thank you for that. You know what? You asked. During this battle sequence on this Pepsi-Cola sign, it appears that Madam Webb, her spirit leaves her body and it then extends to the three other women who are imperiled during this fight

and that she is going to reach out to save them. But before we see what she can actually do as her body multiplies, she gets punched in the chest by evil spider guy. And then so we never actually see what else she can do besides see the future and hold that metal shield so that she blocks fireworks from blasting in her face. This movie is insanely bad. I assume she'll be able to move things around, right? It's like the mind is limitless we only use like 10 of our minds what movie is that from that i had to watch recently no i mean yeah that obviously and then you take the pill but there's another

movie oh it was when i was re-watching defending your life for the 1991 oscars and what percent yeah what percentage of your brain is very funny yeah that's a good how much do you use? Yeah, what percentage of your brain do you use? Very funny. Yeah. That's a good one. How much do you think I'm using? 17. Like, is it possible that I'm at 98? No. But that this is the best I can do at 98? Like, I'm actually not very impressive and developed, but I've harnessed as much power as I can while everyone else is at 10% and they're doing better than me. I've gotten like a lot of feedback in my personal life about you not going to the dinner at Telluride.

As have I. And that to me suggests, if you're using more of your brain power or you're using it on the wrong stuff. Let it not be said that I am not a humble man. Yeah. Because I'm willing to share that kind of information about what a fucking idiot I am. Okay. So Madam Web superpowers, we don't totally understand them. We have a rough understanding of them. And you've added a useful corollary question here which is why is she a madam

i was really hoping that she would like wake up in france at the end of the movie and then it would set up like you know madam webb's like adventures as like the french spider superhero is the impression there that she is like like the leader of the harem of young women? Like, is she running a brothel? Like, what is going on here? I don't know. And everyone who signed on was like, absolutely, Madame Web. Let's talk to Madame Moselle Web, you know?

Well, that would be interesting. That would be more of a... That's the musical adaptation. Okay, that's mystifying. So an important part of this movie, you mentioned that there were some Spider-Man Easter eggs so Adam Scott is in this film

love Adam Scott wonderful actor Severance coming back soon one of my favorite shows the last few years in this film he plays as you alluded to with your Spider-Man

Easter eggs note Ben Parker aka Uncle Ben aka the man who is murdered who inspires the Spider-Man story. Is Uncle Ben a paramedic? Is that canon? I don't remember.

Because he is also Madam Web's paramedic partner. Yes. I don't remember what his job is. If you just Google Uncle Ben, it says Uncle Ben Wild Rice and then Uncle Ben What Happened to Him. Okay. So I'll look at that after we finish recording. So in this universe, does this mean that Adam Scott, who indicates to Cassandra Webb early in the film that he's met someone special, does that mean that in this timeline he's going to marry Marissa Tomei? I asked you that during this film.

So what do you think now that you've seen the film? Which I think that you need to give me some credit for. Because as soon as they said Ben Parker, I was like, oh, that must be Uncle Ben. And then I said, is he going to marry Marissa Tomei? So that's like three characters that I was able to connect. The only superhero franchise that neither you nor I have given up on is Spider-Man. And so we'll have that forever. And your deep knowledge of Spider-Man canon and your continued research into the story of Madam Web, I think is a boon to the show. Listen, if, if Madam Web takes up residence in France

and just does French superhero stuff, like I'll, I'm there opening day for every movie. Okay. Good to know. Um, I'll I'm there opening day for every movie okay good to know um I'll bring my friends question number 11 yeah did you picture Emma Roberts as Spider-Man's mom no and I wasn't paying attention when that got dropped I don't know what I was doing I wasn't looking at my phone I think I was thinking about what I was going to have for dinner. But then you elbowed me and you were like, that's Spider-Man's mom. And then I put it all together. Spider-Man's mom, I think her name is Mary in the comic books and maybe in this movie as well. Canonically not blonde.

Okay. I believe brunette, short-haired brunette. So anyway, they're breaking canon there. Notable. We should alert Oscar Isaac in the Spider-Verse films. The baby shower scene was really funny. That's what it's like to be at a baby shower and they make dakota johnson like play games and she's really what's your favorite shower game i hate all of them one time our very like my best

friend who was the first to have kids stephanie you know stephanie um the first of many kids yeah she has she's a lot of children um i love them all. So we all went to her baby shower in the game, but we're like 25. We're very young. None of the rest of us have kids, and we're all asked to give parenting advice. And we were also really hungover because we had a party the night before. So that was good. My one friend, my doctor friend, just wrote, like, vaccine save lives, which I thought was good i my one um friend my doctor friend just wrote like vaccine save lives which i thought was good parenting advice yeah okay but um that was funny just

because it failed entirely i i haven't really played well we played jeopardy at at your baby shower uh the baby shower that for aileen yeah um I can't remember that, but that sounds right. I lost that core memory because I saw it on the web, unfortunately for me. That was fun. I'm not really a shower person. Pro babies freaked out by showers. So I appreciated this representation. Question 12.

If a spider bite would grant you superpowers, would you let it bite you? So my initial answer to this was yes. I'm not really that afraid of spiders. So that would be fine. Okay. And then I would have superpowers. Yes. But it does seem like once you have superpowers,

people are always trying to kill you. And that... Good note. That is not the kind of life that I'm trying to live. Perfect answer. Thank you. What's your answer? It's a real what are the powers situation.

You know? What powers do you not want? I definitely do not want precognition. That sounds like an absolute nightmare for me. Yeah, that's true. You already think you have it. Well, I have enough of it. Okay.

I have it in the ways that I need. I would love to fly. Yeah, it does seem fun. You know, even more so, teleportation. Oh, amazing. Yes. I fucking hate traffic. Yeah.

Just hate it. I fucking hate sitting in my car waiting for somebody to turn left in the middle of a busy thoroughfare. So, yeah, teleportation would be a good one. Yeah, I mean, you just save a lot of time that way. For me, the number one thing I'd like is the mary poppins just snap your fingers and everything's clean oh elite i mean i just like yeah that's truly we would be some of the worst superheroes imaginable uh okay question number 13 and i say this with a couple of caveats one is that there's a new film called immaculate coming out on march 22nd starring this person and that this person has

appeared in five films in the last 12 months. Why did Sidney Sweeney sign up for this movie? Because they told her that she would get to be Spider-Girl in another movie. And that was something she wanted to do for financial reasons. But based on what anyone but you did at the box office, which is to say, as we mentioned earlier this week, extraordinarily well. Right. She could be Jean Grey in the X-Men if she wanted to be.

Well, number one. She could be the next Wonder Woman if she wanted to be. Okay. But when you're signing up for these movies, you don't know that. In fact, the expectation has probably flipped. I would also point out, Anyone But You, also a Sony movie. So maybe the reason that she did this is because they were like, hey, would you like to make this movie?

Would you also like to do this? I believe that is the answer. Yeah, there you go. I believe there is a little bit of a double-double on this one. And you know what? Worked out great. And once upon a time on this podcast, I said, how could they possibly release Anyone But You over Christmas?

And how could they release this movie over Valentine's Day? Yeah, we were wrong. We have our answer. Yeah. Our answer is that this movie is a fucking turkey and that they were trying to bury it in the biggest time of the year to bury a movie. And they felt like anyone but you had commercial potential at a time when a lot of people go to the movies and they were right. So well done by Sony, at least in that respect.

Okay. Give me an honest reaction to this. But as I said, this reminded me of Captain Marvel, a movie that I thought was not very good. I did not think the Marvels was very good. I'm very mixed on the Wonder Woman movies. Some parts of it I think are great. Some of it I think are not so great. There's just not a lot

of good female superhero movies like at all. And we're really down the line now with this. Like we're basically at the end of this

and we're looking for whatever we're looking what the new phase is going to be. But even in the new phases not a lot of female led titles.

So why? Why are there not good female superhero movies? Look within, Sean. Because of awful men like me? I mean, I don't know.

I like the first Wonder Woman a lot. Yeah. I mean, you know, Up until the third act, yes. Yeah, but like, I mean, that's true of literally every single one of these movies, even the good ones.

Like, I don't, I don't know what's happening and they're all just like smashing things against each other. There's a gradation issue, in my opinion,. Like, I don't know what's happening, and they're all just, like, smashing things against each other. There's a gradation issue, in my opinion, that, like, the final act of Wonder Woman is uniquely bad and ugly relative to a movie that otherwise looks pretty good.

Yeah, that's true. I think they all look pretty bad. So I liked Wonder Woman. I, hand to God, do not remember anything about Captain Marvel, a movie that I saw with you for this podcast. I thought it was pretty rough. I liked the young woman from the Marvels and her family.

Sure. Miss Marvel. Yeah. She was great. That was a good, that was a pretty good TV show. What are the, so which are the other bad ones?

I mean, we can go down the, I mean, you know, famously there's like the Electra's and the Catwoman's of the world. Sure. I mean, have can go down the, I mean, you know, famously there's like the Electras and the Catwomans of the world. Sure. Um, I mean, have there been any other female led? I guess Black Widow was okay.

Oh yeah. The whole Russian spy thing. It was okay. And that's really, it's, it's Electra, Wonder Woman, Black Widow, the Marvel's Catwoman. Birds of Prey. That was, that was, I liked that. I liked Birds of Prey. Oh I liked that I liked Birds of Prey oh I like the

roller skating sequence I mean you know the very basic answer is that they're always tacked on afterwards

is like and now we'll do this but like but for women and are carrying like not whatever burden

that is but it's just like they have to do all of this stuff while meeting some made up expectations

of what you would want to see from a woman superhero. Right. More of a structural issue. Yeah. I generally agree. And I think that if they had made a Black Widow movie earlier in the Marvel story, that it actually would have made it. It would have made more sense. It could have been better.

You probably could have gotten a better filmmaker to make it. It wouldn't have been released during COVID, which would have helped. I would have liked to have known what that movie would have been like in theaters and not during the COVID experience. Nevertheless, last question, number 15. Speaking of comic book stories, can we just talk about the Sony Spider-Man thing and what's going on with it? That's just the question is, let's just have a final conversation. So the context. Let me spin it into a question for you.

Okay. Why did we sit in the theater through the entire credits waiting for a stinger that never appeared? Sean, go. It's a great, great question. And you say what? Obviously, well, Charlie Rose,

we're conditioned to expect that in a film particularly in films that are not terribly good that they'll leave us walking out the door

wanting more and the best way to do that obviously is to attach a stinger to the end of these movies it's a sad thing with they've poisoned us the Sony films in particular have this very awkward balance

where they've made three mega successful Tom Holland Spider-Man movies very awkward balance where they've made three mega successful Tom Holland Spider-Man movies in the last decade. They've made two unusually successful Venom movies. They've made Morbius, which was a dud, but I believe did have a stinger on it. They made two animated Spider-Verse films, which I love. I just absolutely adore both of those movies. And then later this year, we're also getting an addition to Madam Web, Craven the Hunter and Venom 3.

Oh, Craven the Hunter is a Spider-Man thing? It is. How is he related to Spider-Man? He is a signature villain in the Spider-Man story. What's his issue? That Dan's spider won't let me hunt the way that I want to hunt or whatever. You know, who knows? What's he hunting?

A game. The world's most dangerous game. This shows that it's best when you're asking me stupid questions. I really feel that way. So anyway, I mean, those movies, Venom 3 will be my favorite movie of the year, but it might be absolutely abysmal. Kraven the Hunter looks not great.

I got to say, it looks not great. No, it doesn't. And Madam Web was a nightmare. And is this like mismanagement? Does it not matter? Is it all a tax write-off? I mean, you know, we stuck around for The Stinger because 13-year-old boy living inside me was like, when will they show me the next Sinister Six preview?

Because there is a movie that they've been leading to here which is the sinister six which is like the six big villains in the spider-man universe team up together and they all like try to fight spider-man didn't they all didn't they do that in the last one in which one what was the one with the three spider-man yeah sort of not really a little bit but they're they're all in those cages next to each other right right? Yes, it's not exactly all of the characters that we're talking about. I don't really know

whether they're a cage. But like, for example, Mysterio is in the Sinister Six, the Jake Gyllenhaal character from the second Spider-Man movie, but he didn't appear in No Way Home. So like,

and this is a movie that has been long threatened. I think Drew Goddard was attached to write and direct it many years ago. And it is like, in theory, one of the only kind of villain movies

that you could make that would actually work because those were big characters if you cared about Spider-Man. So that's one that they're probably going to make at some point. But aside from that, you don't look at the Spider-Man world and be like, there's just,

there's 300 movies here. There's not. It's like, show me Spider-Man. I want to hang out with Spider-Man. Even Venom is supposed to be much more intrinsically connected to Spider-Man than it actually is based on where that character came from.

So I just don't know what they're doing. I think this is a really weird way to go about this process. Then again, I don't work in a studio and I'm just a guy in front of a microphone. So I want to thank you for your patience as we worked through Madam Web. You're so welcome. We had a lovely time together. I hope you had an otherwise romantic and thoughtful Valentine's Day. I did.

Okay, great. Thank you to the people at Sticky Rice Highland Park for all that you do. Wow. Day. I did. Okay, great. Thank you to the people at Sticky Rice Highland Park for all that you do. Wow. Yeah. Spawn. I would love to be sponsored by Sticky Rice. Speaking of Spawn,

let's talk about the most sponsored content. It was self-funded, okay? Well. Jennifer Lopez spent $20 million of her own money on thisisme.com. Dot, dot, dot. Nowdot now colon a love story. Who owns it now, Amanda? Amazon does.

They paid an undisclosed sum, according to Variety. What do you think it was? I don't know. So they paid for thisisme.dot.dot. No, I'm sorry. Thisisme.dot.dot now colon a love story and the just released just announced to be released documentary about the making of this album this is me now visual film okay and whatever else she's doing that's called the greatest love story never told ben affleck is featured prominently and it will

be released on february 27th also on Amazon Prime so I haven't seen this and you have sure you've seen the love story I have I've you know I saw it from afar the first time around I lived the 20 years in between I saw it from afar and in the much documented updates on Jennifer Lopez's blog and in the tabloid media the second time around. And now I've seen the musical film. Did you own the album This Is Me now on CD? So This Is Me Then? This Is Me Then, excuse me. I do not think that I did. Okay. Do you own any Jennifer Lopez albums? I didn't really own albums like that, Sean. You know? Not a collector of physical media. Well, I was a Napster generation child.

Sorry. Okay. So you advocate stealing. I mean, I just didn't have any of those days. How will Jennifer Lopez earn the funds to fund this $20 million spectacle? From Delola, her orange soda cocktail, and her very successful beauty line. Okay. And I don't know whether she has fashion right now.

I'm sure she does. Since our movie star taste test, have you had any Delola? I haven't personally, but I had friends who tried a different one. And they liked it more than we liked Delola. This Is Me Then is the album. What if I was just like, yeah, I have some of my water bottle right now. I would be like,

that's sick, but maybe not the most professional choice at 12.05 p.m. So, This Is Me Then is, was released

in the throes of the tabloid scandal when she was dating Ben Affleck in the aftermath of her relationship with Sean P. Diddy Combs. That's the album

that has Jenny from the Block on it. It is like, it's the Ur-Lopez moment, right? It's after Out of Sight. She's a movie star. She's a recording artist. She's beloved.

She's a tabloid fixture. 20 years have gone by. She's become enormously wealthy. She's had great success. She's been reunited with her lost love, Ben. What is this movie about? So this is a musical visual album basically of this is me now which is like the sequel album she's also releasing right

now right so sort of like lemonade uh maybe in format slightly okay i don't want to make any more comparisons not artistically as i would say that the film like in in terms of visuals the reference that popped into my mind the most was ava duvernay is a wrinkle in time um and not in a great way that's the visual palette it's like there is a lot of fantastical stuff going on here so it there is a narrative which is that there is a jennifer lopez like figure played by jennifer lopez who has been unlucky in love and it is about her however many years journey through several divorces and like hoping for love and feedback from the public from the people in her life and is she a love addict and how is like is she silly to believe in true love and then

at the very end they're like one third of ben affleck's face is shown in the very last frame coming to get her as because she has finally found true love again yeah i have an important question yeah do you think of yourself as a love addict no but there is a major um zodiac element of this film okay so that because that was the zodiac killer no No, I mean, really who could say no, like the Zodiac signs, right?

So that David Fincher direct this. That is the plot point. No, uh, David, my Dave Myers director, long time music video director, long time collaborator.

Right. This is like five or six, like pretty like opulent music videos strung together with this narrative element. So that's the narrative. But I need to tell you, like, the various scenes. And this is not comprehensive, by the way. So the first one is a dance sequence set.

Like, basically, it's like a cyberpunk factory. Okay. And there's a giant mechanical heart at the middle of it that they have to keep pumping by feeding it flowers but then all the gardens are dead so it runs out of flower petals and so the heart stops okay so that and that turns out to just be like a dream that jennifer lopez is having i'm sorry like the jennifer lopez character she's unnamed in the film i see and that's a dream that she's recounting to fat Joe, who's her therapist. He's pretty concerned about her addiction tendencies when it comes to love.

They have a lot of sessions. At one point, he fires her as his client. She finds her way back to him. Was his doctorly advice to lean back? I don't think so at any point while they're having therapy or maybe just after she's in this glass like house that comes crashing down on her at one point just to give you an idea of some of the metaphors that are at work here if the mechanical heart wasn't enough but so in that glass house which is really more like a glass penthouse in an apartment and like future new york there's a tv screen playing with like a like a cable news anchor

like all right more like o'reilly than tucker carlson as far as i can tell but that's just because of the styling because it's ben affleck with like a tremendous amount of prosthetics and a wig okay and he's playing it's he's hosting The Truth Report with Rex Stone. And throughout the... I'm so intrigued by this. ...the musical film, he's just, like, saying, like, honestly, kind of funny bullshit

cable news stuff. And a lot of this is, like, mocking media coverage of them and media coverage of stuff or whatever. Okay. So it's, like,

not totally divorced from reality. But then at the end, he gets gets like, he has a credit sequence. And so the very last thing you see after all the credits are him doing like a little report straight to camera. And then the last thing he says, only you can let the love in your heart die and you should never let it die. And then cut. So that's what Ben Affleck's up to. Also, he does drive a motorcycle in like an important motif.

And like I said, he's there at the very end. Okay, the Zodiac Council. So another thing that's happening, and what brought me to all this, is that there is like a council of sort of godlike beings. You know, it looks like a leftover Marvel set, like astral plane situation. And one person to represent each sign. And they're there just like watching what's going on with Jennifer Lopez. And they have, they have a lot of concerns about the decisions that she's making. And she's, you know, and she's like, she's a Leo and she's like with a Libra and that's not gonna work or something

I don't know so you asked whether I consider myself an addict to love I don't but I watched this as a fellow Leo

you know so that because there was such an emphasis on the signs I was like oh no so J-Lo is a Leo she is a Leo

she and Ben are both Leos oh it makes so much sense yeah wow they don't talk about a Leo-Leo pairing in this have we discussed this wow you've just unlocked something oh yeah yeah yeah it's very powerful stuff can i tell you who's on the zodiac council please do jane fonda trevor noah kim petris kiki palmer post malone neil degrasse tyson sophia vergara jennifer lewis and jay shetty Who's Jennifer Lewis?

You would recognize her, an older actress. Okay. And I don't remember who... Oh, yeah, I know Jennifer Lewis. Yeah, she's great. From Black-ish. The only thing I remember is that Post Malone is Leo on the council. So, again, I just had a lot of conflicts about my own sign. Post Malone is the Leo?

Yes. God. That's what i'm saying there's a lot going on here and they're also making like vanderpump rules jokes like it's it's really like they're sort of a narrow device it keeps flashing back to them at some point after fat joe fires her she goes to love addicts anonymous and there's a big dance sequence so love at it that's another music video um she also there gives honestly like one of two maybe three like like totally gripping jlo monologues about the power of love and i was just like that right there is my girl like she still has it and this could be the climax of a rom-com and like i i would buy it every time unfortunately it's like in a like random gym like funded by a billionaire that's where love addicts anonymous is happening she also at one point lies on the couch watching the way we were i told you this yes yesterday and mouthing like all of barbara's dialogue along which i thought was wonderful and then at the very end she does like

a full singing on the rain like i guess homage um she's like on a set in the rain with an umbrella doing not gene kelly stuff but do you think i should watch this i don't know i like it's it's not the worst thing i've seen okay and. And it's so just weird, but clearly something that was in her mind and she wanted to make happen. And she made it happen. So in 1980, Billy Joel, after a series of six very successful albums that were also critically panned, released an album called Glass Houses. The cover of the album is Billy Joel looking at a giant glass house while aiming to throw a rock at it. And the whole album is about how nobody understands what a great and sincere artist he is.

Frankly, the album rocks. It is a wonderful Billy Joel album. So I'm not against this kind of material. Yeah. wonderful billy joe album so i'm not against this kind of material yeah this kind of self-mythologizing self-flagellating self-analyzing it's going for it and i obviously like that it is very aware of the public narrative around them and responding to it with ambition and wild weird weird J-Lo taste. Uh-huh. It's like, I mean, it's very specifically

only one person could have wanted to do it this way. Well, that's art. Yeah. She's an auteur. And I do also think, I haven't listened to the full album yet. Mm-hmm. One of the songs was kind of catchy,

but I think this is probably enhancing the musical experience. Certainly. If you will. So I got handed to her. I'm really excited for the documentary, as you know. What did you think of La Fere d'Ayo, in which Ayo, Debra, needed to apologize? To apologize.

And then J-Lo told Variety she came in with tears in her eyes. She was so mortified. I mean, I think Tina Fey had the right advice on Las Culturistas, which is don't say stuff on a podcast. Yeah. Authenticity is expensive and dangerous. Yes. Is that how you feel? I would say, but I would say that's not your brand. Oh, you mean I just say shit? I think you're authentic. Um, oh, do you? I do. I certainly do. Thanks do i don't know whether i think that's a compliment i know that or do i yeah i think many people would think that it is but i am sort of jaded

i you're right that i just say what i want to say but i don't really have any interest and then like meeting up with people afterwards you know right so this is your superpower yeah i'm content to be in fact you don't want to i fact, you don't want to. I really don't want to. Yeah. Okay. That's interesting. So I don't, the consequences aren't the same. Okay. Well, do you feel like we're having a good dumpuary? Like I have a bunch of other films that I could talk about, but I don't really want to waste our time by talking about movies that aren't very good. Like was this relative to previous dumpuaries? Did this go well?

Yeah. We learned about Hunter Biden. We did. So, you know what? I wish Chris were here because one thing I've been thinking about since we did Beekeeper is like, what's the right way to say QAnon? You know? Because he told me. QAnon. QAnon?

Like, what? What is wrong with you? I don't. I'm not hearing what you're hearing. Slow down. Slow down. Take a deep breath through the nose, out through the mouth. QAnon.

QAnon. You got it. That's it. Okay. You did it. What was I saying that was different? So I'm really glad that the machines have heard you use that phrase. Because much like that line from Madam Web, it will be used against you at a certain point. I can't confirm that the Beat Keeper

was influenced by that movement or Jan Six or Hunter Biden or Hillary Clinton, but it's one reading of the film. Yeah. Do you think there's a Jan Six

reading of Madam Webb? All right. Let's see if we can do this. Let's work really hard. We've made it far enough just for the free JMO sample. Okay. So,

let's see. Cassandra Webb is a paramedic right once upon a time and so she's looking out for the greater good even when the the system is not yep she operates outside of law enforcement right but she is also empowered to enter complicated circumstances. She's got a siren. Right. She's creating a found family because the normal institutions of family have failed her and those around her. The United States of America has left her behind. Yeah. Product of the foster care system.

And the three super girls. Yes. They're all orphans of a kind. And so they, and they like diner food, you know? I know no idea what that has to do with they're just simple you know they're like they're not fancy oh i see they're salt of the earth they just want some more cherry pie yeah um and what why do they raid that thing again why what why did why is the third act happen because the spider man is trying to kill? Why is the third act happened? Because the Spider-Man is trying to kill them?

Why is the third act? I mean, that is the right question about Madam Web. I can't believe we did 40 minutes on Madam Web and we've returned to Madam Web. The Beekeeper is a good example

of a bad movie that is really good. Madam Web is a good example of a bad movie that is really bad. I agree. And such a delineation exists and Madam Web wasn't fun.

It sounds like you had a lot of fun with the J-Lo film. Oh, sure. And that's really what we're looking for in our bad movies. You know, we're looking for an opportunity to celebrate some of the silliness. As opposed to the silliness curdling and then effectively making fun of how we've chosen to use our time. Especially staying through the end credits, which was a colossal mistake. That was really tough. I want to send my thanks

to our very own Hunter Biden, Chris Ryan, for his contributions to this episode. Thanks to our producer, Bobby Wagner. Well, next week on the show, we're going to be

talking about a good movie. We'll see you then. Thank you.