Did you ever see Before Sunrise?
Yes.Yes.I was going to say, it's closer to Before Sunrise than it is anything else.
Yes.Yeah.It's Before Sunrise with monsters.And Richard Linklater actually praised the movie, Spring, as did Del Toro.
This is Del Toro's jam, absolutely.
If you combine Before Sunrise and Shape of Water, you get this movie.A joke I will repeat.
That's like a great way of putting it.
It is a great way of putting it, which is why I'm going to repeat this joke when we start recording.
All right.Get my volume turned up a little bit here.
Good evening and welcome to Progressively Horrified, the show where we hold horror to standards it absolutely never
Good evening, and welcome to Progressively Horrified, the podcast where we hold order to progressive standards that never agreed to.
Tonight, we're talking about the incredibly strange, incredibly fascinating, I don't know how to categorize it really, a horror romance, I think, spring.I am your host, Jeremy Whitley, and with me tonight, I have a panel of cinephiles and cenobites.
First, they're here to challenge the sexy werewolf, sexy vampire binary, my co-host, Ben Kahn.Ben, how are you tonight?
I'm so glad they made a movie that combines Shape of Water with Before Sunrise.
You don't think they're going to go together until, you know.It's a real interesting comp on that pitch, I feel like.
It's an interesting movie.
It's a good movie, but an interesting one.
And the cinnamon roll of Cenobites, our co-host Emily Martin.Emily, how are you tonight?
I'm glad they made a movie about the origin story of Minona.So, I mean, I guess that's out now.But good news, we figured out how to avoid the tentacle thing.
It's always good news unless you don't want to avoid the tentacle thing.
I definitely have a bone to pick. with their whole evolutionary ancestors.Anything with the suction cups and the tentacles branched off long ago.
And at no point did- She's gonna pick plenty of bones as well.
At no point did we get octopus and then the octopus decided to veer back into primate.That didn't happen.
In my family, we never tried to make it sound scientific.We're just like, if you become aware of everything, it's okay.
Yes, and our guest, professional horror writer for the last 20 years.He has a new book coming out this year called Daughter of the Wormwood Star, and next year, Cancer Eats the Heart.Paul Jessup.Paul, welcome.
Hello, I'm happy to be here.Happy to talk about one of my favorite movies.
Yeah, you brought this one to us.This is an interesting one.Tell us, I guess, what it is that made you recommend this one.
Well, I mean, once I was listening to some of the, your past podcasts and I knew it was a progressive podcast.Let's talk about like progressive things at work.
And for me, that is something that's very dear to my own heart is the disability and, you know, fighting for disabled people's rights, that sort of thing.Cause I, I myself am disabled.
I've got multiple sclerosis and diabetes as well as, um, Oh, several other things that are no fun to work with.And so like, I've dealt with a lot of these issues personally.
And so the first movie I just thought of, the first horror movie I thought of was Spring, because even though it is horror romance, it does have this subtext and theme about disability and being in a relationship with somebody who has a disability, which really struck really close to my heart, I thought.
Yeah, I think it's incredible to me.
I think it's interesting because we talk about it as disability and mental health and mental illness is something that pops up a lot on here, but I think it's often something that's sort of left out of the idea of progressive and identity stuff, especially in
science fiction, comics, stuff like that is people often are like, all right, we're going to talk about race and gender and sexuality.But yeah, they believe that out.
Yeah, horror is pretty traditionally like about ableism, you know, and the romance element worked because it would have been a little hard trying to make the gorgeous Italian countryside spooky.
I don't know.A lot of films have been doing it since the 60s.
It's all about framing.If you haven't seen any Mario Bava, you would understand.Yeah.
And I would say it's interesting to me because I wasn't viewing it through that frame of disability at first going in.And then there's a point Emily was talking about when we were coming up to the run up on this, how punchable the lead is.Yeah.
How far into the movie were you when you said that, Emily?
Okay.Yeah.That checks out.Yeah.Yeah.
I was going to say there's for a good chunk.That's right.I don't love this guy.I feel pretty, you know, I feel for him, but I think he's also very much a dude.
And then there's a point where he does something that I think even sitting here in my house, I was like, yeah, dude, like, good job.
Well, the right thing that people never do in horror movies appreciate is that he feels kind of just like a guy. He's not on any kind of hero's journey.He doesn't really feel like a film protagonist.
He just feels normal and relatable in a way I really appreciated.
Both like a chip on his shoulder, but I think that's more like what just happened.I don't know if he's kind of that violent until that point.
Well, he's violent, but we also get, and maybe this is a Greedo, who shot first hunter Greedo moment, but he's in all this trouble for punching that dude, but it's like, that guy was about to grab a glass bottle and smash it over his friend's head.
And Evan never brings that up.That's like one hell of a mitigating factor.He committed violence explicitly in defense to protect his friend from bodily harm with a greater weapon.
That feels like a very mitigating factor that he just chooses to never bring up.
Yeah, like in that scenario, when he was at the bar and he's just lost his mom in the funeral and he was kind of off kilter, but I was with him there because he had a lot of very understandable conditions going on.
Look, in terms of days where it's societally acceptable to punch a motherfucker, I feel like your mom's funeral has to be like top three.
Yeah, and I feel like the cops were less of a concern for him.
The cops should have given him a mom's funeral mulligan.
Yeah, but I think for him, it was more like this guy that was going to kill him, basically.Kill him, yeah.
Yeah, I think, like, he never does actually talk to the cops, so who knows, like, what's actually going on.
He assumes things are bad and gets the hell out before ever talking to the police, which, depending on what the police are planning to do, may or may not be a great idea. So let's get into it a little bit.
It is directed by Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead.They are a team that work on a lot of different stuff together, including several other horror movies, as well as season two of Loki and a lot of other projects over the years.
This is written by Justin Benson.It stars almost exclusively, because everybody else is really only in this for a few minutes here and there, Lou Taylor Pucci, Nadia Hilker, and Francesco Carnaluti. We've got some incredible, but very little acting.
He's just sort of, he's so good.
He's the best actor in the movie.Best actor in the movie.Cause like everyone else is like, they're very, you could tell amateur and then you get to him and he's just kind of like acting circles around them.
Yeah, it's like, he's very late.He's so Italian.He's just like, whatever, it's fine.
I love the scene where it's like Italian women are the best and Evan's like, Have you even left Italy?"And it's like, I went to France once.
Yeah, that's the only other place that you'd find anything close.
There's only two types of women, Italian and French.Those are the two sub-genders.Feels like the most European.
Yeah, Angelo Angelo is aspirational for me when you know he's he's able to drive a truck and dig at his age, whatever that is, you know, he's old enough.
I'm gonna say, you can also drive a truck and dig.Those are achievable goals for you, Emily.I'm happy to say.
I mean, like, at that age.Because I can do those things now.
When you're an old Italian man, you also want to be able to dig.
And be as self-assured as this gentleman is.
Look, if I stay in New York long enough, I might grow up to be an old Italian man.We don't know.
He always has his hat kind of rakishly on the side too, throughout the movie.
I feel like that's the only, like it was, like that hat is somehow trick fitted to fit on the side of his head.He was born with that hat on.
Maybe he did like Raiders of the Lost Ark and stapled it to his head.
I was going to say, I'm going to let Ben do the recap on this, but I'm curious whether anybody else, was puzzled with the timetable in this movie, because late in the movie, they're like, hey, this all happens over the course of a week.
And I was like, it felt like months.It felt like there was a whole like summer gone on in the background of this movie.
Yeah, Italian immigration police does not fuck around.
I think there was a time gap, like there was a significant time gap between when he's like, hey, I you know, when when they had the heart to heart about his mom dying.
But no, we know it's a week from when they have sex without a condom.And that is early in the movie.
Yeah, that was one thing that, I don't know, surprised me as I was watching it and I was like, I don't know.
And you mentioned the Italian police and the implication that he's given by the old man, that they are there to get him because of immigration.I was under the impression that that's bullshit. Yes, because they are.
Yeah, they are after like, they're investigating the murder of the other American guy there.And they're just sort of like, going around checking on stuff.And they do not follow him when he runs and jumps over the wall.
I think the old man is just fucking with him.But he is.He is too dumb to pick up.
I'm wondering if the season was over and he didn't need to hire him anymore.So it's like, yeah, just go ahead, Ron.
I think he was also a little bit sad because he was sort of like, yeah, you know, he's like, fine, go.Yeah, that's immigration.
Also, how would fucking Angelo know that there's been a murder in town?He just sees that there's cops coming up and he's like, yeah, probably immigration.I can't think of why else they'd be coming here.
I don't think Italian immigration do that.Italian everything is very like, hey, what's up?
Amazingly on the ball for Italian bureaucrats, civil servants, I gotta say.Defying stereotypes left and right, this movie.
I don't think that those cops were there to talk to him.They were there to just say hi, I'm pretty sure, because there's like 18 discreet people in that town.
They were there for the free olives.
Unless so because somebody like the old lady, the blind old lady in the alleyway, I think she had one blind I saw her like, eat the other guy killed American.I'm wondering if all the cops like described her before she became a monster.
And somehow they were able to connect it to him because he's seen around town with her.
If I'm that old lady, I didn't see shit.Yeah, I think you're blind.
I think that is certainly what her understanding is of it with the our monster girlfriend's understanding of it is that they are after her.And when he's like, yeah, it's immigration, they're after me.She's like, sure, fine.Run away with me.
Yeah, it's a it's a real Aladdin and Jasmine.They're after you.They're after me.
I wonder if Angela was just trying to get rid of him, too, because that's when he was dressed in the suit to go see his wife's grave, too, later in the movie.
That's right.That's right.Yeah.
I wonder if he was like that.She realized she was idiot sexual.
It comes for us all every so often.
All right.Ben, let's go ahead and do the recap here.
Yes.Welcome to our quick and dirty recap.We got Evan. He's got a shaved head, and he's American.We have a dude who looks remarkably like Eminem, and 8 Mile is mentioned in this movie, but no Eminem songs play.
Thankfully, I'm not sure where you fit in without me. And as he said, he's got a dead mom, and he just got fired, and he, you know, might be wanted for assault.So, you know, no parents, no job, and Johnny Law on his trail.
Now's a great time for an Italian vacation.Italy, never a bad time for a vacation.Except the 1930s.
Yeah, I will say being wanted for assault is probably pretty bad when you're a sous chef.
Is it?I assume anybody who worked in a kitchen that long had a criminal record.
I'm talking about like, you know, assault or assault or like the.Oh, you're making a pun.
Ooh, I just feel like I need to say, Alicia, cut this, cut this, cut this.
It went down like a lead balloon.Anyway, continue.We get some scenes fucking around, Evan fucking around with the most obnoxious as Englanders you'll find pre-Brexit.
enjoying that, you know, enjoying that free travel that they no longer have access to.But he ditches them.Oh my god, they suck.They just suck.
But he ditches them after like two scenes because he decides to stay in this Italian tourist town, break his visa, work on the farm, and try to have a relationship with Louise, a flirtatious Italian woman with a sexy secret. He meets at a bar.
She wants a one night stand, but he's in love and wants a relationship.
and i love his like horror movie expertise here that she's like hey come away with me and uh you know don't ask any questions and he's like are you trying to kill me like yeah that is the right call murder this dude is seen hostile or at least read the wikipedia article for oh i'm an american you're gonna murder me
He displays an incredibly justified level of caution around her.
Evan's a hostile three times in theaters.That's the kind of guy he is.
Well, I feel like he has to have launched it as research before he goes overseas and stays in hostiles.Because he's like, what's the worst thing can... Oh, that is the worst thing that can happen.Okay.
Although leaving his backpack on the stool behind his bed while he's sleeping in a room with other people, I was like, what is he?Bad choices.Yeah.
He's just glad that he has.
Go ahead.I think at that point he still is just completely, because he's so numb and given up on life and doesn't care about anything until he meets her.So I think he probably doesn't care about his possessions or anything.
I think that's why I went with the Brits for a while, even though they're obnoxious as all get out.But you could tell too, you're just like, why am I with these people?Why am I here?It's so numb.
Oh, he has that moment where he's just like, I hate that, I hate you.Yeah.Oh God, I was very glad when they left the movie and didn't come back.
You guys are about to go listen to so much Fatboy Slim.
Those dudes are somewhere spending money they don't have on Oasis reunion concert tickets.
I'm pretty sure their names were Chumba and Wumba.
I'm pretty sure those guys died in at least three other horror movies.I've seen.
Yeah, I mean for them.There's no way those dudes realistically survived past like David Cameron, right?
I mean, they probably died of alcohol poisoning.
Oh, yeah.I'm betting they died in a football brawl.
No, they have bonuses to their constitution when it comes to footballing.
They just kept drinking and traveling until they accidentally wound up on the beach that makes you old.
They weren't part of any pharmaceutical experiments.They just ended up there.
They just stayed on the beach forever until they got old. Oh, okay.
So cuz it Yeah, if you stay on it long enough, any beach can be the beach that makes you old.Right?Exactly.
I feel like these guys being on it would age the beach prematurely.
The beach would make me feel so old.
Yeah, the beach should be like, I'm just gonna crumble under you.
Oh, yeah. God, Evan eventually works that white boy legitimately trying energy and wears her down slash charms her enough for her to sleep with him without condom for plot reasons. And then during the night Louis ain't looking to what's the word?
Human human.So she bounces, kills a cat during a walk of shame.And while we never condone cat killing on this podcast, at least in this case, we've all had those moments.I'm with you, girl.
At least we've all made this scenario.We've all made the regrettable snack on the walk, like purchase on the walk of shame.
Yeah, and I have some thoughts, but no, I agree with the gist of what you're communicating here, especially when you're in Italy and everything is fucking delicious.
There's no wah-wah in Italy.You can't just stumble in and know that you're going to find a place of people as hungover, actively drunk, or at least as ashamed as you are.
Wait, have you been to Italy?
Yeah, I was going to say.
Yeah, they're not known.They worship the God of wine.I mean,
Oh, you'll find drunk people, but not that special type of wah-wah, 7-Eleven, 4, like 3.30 a.m.in the morning type of like.
No, that's Uncle Giovanni's house.Like, that's the guy that lives on the street.And he, like, just sits there in front of his house all night and eats his pasta.
Oh, 100% a guy.But I'm talking, look, I can't just, like you said, everything's too delicious.I can't. I don't know where I go in Italy to get a week old taquitos and physically internalize my self-loathing.Okay, yeah, okay.
Yeah, like, the regret that I'm referring to is the regret of eating like 8,000 pounds of pasta. as opposed to like finding a, you know, an equalized sandwich.
Yeah, no, I'm talking about like, you know, that snack you get in the depths of the night when it's just like, you're ashamed.It's like, yeah, but yeah, through four packets of powdered doughnuts.Let's do this.When it's just me and God and my shame.
I'm already going to hell.Let's get back to the recap here.
That's about my life.Right, yeah.And then we get most of the movie, which is them going on dates and like talking and getting to know each other over the course of the week with Luis occasionally turning into a monster and killing something.
I know I'm making it sound like it doesn't work, but it does.It's actually quite charming and romantic and endearing. At one point, Luis asks Evan his deal, and he's like, my family's dead, and she's like, cool, so you're like Batman.
And I'm like, that's charming, I like that.Yeah, and you know, and since he told her about his dead parents, she tells him about his different colored eyes, and not to ask any more questions.
But later on, her transformations are getting so bad that she has to just like flee from her date and she accidentally murders an American tourist, which seems bad, but he's a rapist, so it's actually good.
They didn't even have to have the rape part because that guy was just so annoying.
Yeah, I would have been fine.The rape part seems to make you go, look, you do not have to think any worse of Louise.There is zero moral quandary going on in how you, the audience, should feel about Louise.
This death will move the plot along, but we don't want you to feel any differently about her.
also we should mention that you know it's the opposite of save the cat it's part of this i have the most questions about is not her murdering him but apparently her then dragging his body out to the edge of the sea and throwing it on a rock or i guess maybe she threw it into the sea and he washed back up on the rock he's
perched on this rock in a way that seems very deliberate.
She definitely ate him dick first.Like that seems to be where the wounds originate is like the groin, like the crotchal area is just gone.
I mean, if I was her, I would want to I want to make an example out of him.
It's just it's like when you fold up a bologna slice and you eat a corner and then you unfold it and you made a big hole in the bologna.
But she is displaying that to the world.
Are we comparing that to a penis, particularly, or just to this?To her process.
I think just the concept of eating from the middle out.This is a bad metaphor.
Don't think about this too much.Let's move on.Maybe cut this.I really want to mention.
that he is working for an olive orchard guy.That is Angelo, the perfect Italian old man.
And he, because he has decided- Are you telling me that he works at a literal olive garden?And that when he's there, he's family?
Oh my god.Yeah, he finds a flyer that says, basically, you work here, you can live here.And he's like, cool, that'll give me a chance to lock down this chick.
So he decides to live and work in Italy at an olive farm so that he can continue to charmingly stalk this woman.
Ben is 100% right, and I'm angry.Because that is an olive garden, and when he's there, he is family.And he gets free breadsticks.
Don't know about the soup and salad.
No, but we do see the bread.
We see the bread.We see the pizza the dude made.We see him like shave the bread and the cheese and stuff.And I'm like, and he's like perfect little gem displays of the tomatoes.
That's the most believable part of the movie, because I do feel like a week with Angela would fix me.
Yeah, it's really nice after all the stuff he goes through up until that point, it's actually like a calming presence.And you're like, oh, he's not just in bad situations.It's kind of a calming movie.
He can have his own distant Italian father.It's a very soothing film in a strange way.
it's really funny like you're there all of these really ominous shots of like caterpillars and him playing with the kitten and i was like that's where i was like i went over to does a dog die.com because i was like that one cat okay that was quick that was you know unfortunate but like you know in the narrative sure this kitten is cute as fuck i'm gonna be really mad and then it's fine well i think one of my favorite
The fake outs in the movie is when they're inspecting the trees and Angela's just like, oh, root rot.And Evan's just like, oh, so something like deep is wrong, like something like dark and fucked up in the land.
And Angela's just like, nah, I got a thing for it in the shed.
Like it was going to be full core.
yeah yeah yeah you guys bury lambskulls to like fix all of trees it's just like that i got like i got like like fungicide yeah oh i was gonna i was gonna say the moral of the story is that you can have both it can be a cult and just a thing that happens
There you go.That's true.
Well, I think it just shows that you don't have to choose between pageantry and reasonable state of like farm practices.
Yes, you can do both.Yes.
No, I did.That's some part of the movie where he was looking at the trees that were being crossbred, like they had the lime and the app are the lime and the apples together and stuff because that kind of merges into her like her issues.
That was good symbolism.The old tree uses the new tree.I'm like, you're right.
I hadn't thought about that line, but when he said that line, I'm going to be like, I better remember this line because I bet it's going to end up being really thematically relevant. And it is.
Although, I mean, I guess that's a way you can describe grafting, you know?I mean, like, but it's just a really interesting way to describe grafting.Like, I mean, it's a thing that happens, but I just love that Evan's like, whoa, it's a lemon orange.
It's like a lemon and orange.Wowie zowie.And the guy's like, yeah, it's people do it all the time.I thought you were from California, idiot.
Yep, that's where Angela does his best acting chops when he's looking at him like he's insane.
I love Luis's credulousness that Evan's never been to New York.
Because when I lived in London, I absolutely experienced that the average European's conception of American geography is it's New York at one end, LA on the other, and Texas everywhere in between.
They don't get how big America is though.
It's very hard. Yeah, like it's really hard to make somebody that's never experienced it understand just the sheer size of America.
Well, yeah, I was talking about doing a book signing tour and going to places within driving distance for me.So I was going to go up to Canada to Little Ghost Books, which is like a like a good horror bookstore.
And a friend of mine from England is like, Oh, why don't you go to ghoulish books?I'm like, because they're in Austin, Texas.I was like, Yeah, that's not too far, right?No, it's on the complete other side of the country.
We're talking like, at least a day's worth of travel.He's like a day.How big is I'm like, yeah, it's like, why don't you just go to Russia?
i'm gonna say kenya figure out a way to cross like make a land bridge to algeria and then drive through that and we're like like he seriously had no idea he's just like oh i thought large you know it was you know it was like no it's it's yeah it would it would take me all day at least yeah it'd be like driving to the czech republic from england
Yeah, not that look, not that there isn't a lot of America worth complaining about, but I am a little tired of hearing.Why don't you just do a general strike from people in a country the size from?Yeah, yeah.
And I am a little tired of getting lecture like, why do you just do a general strike from people in a country the size of Pennsylvania, where 80 percent of the population lives in one goddamn city? Yeah.Yeah.
Like it would be so hard to do a general strike in the US.Yeah.
Like I don't I think you understand how the how the fuck are we supposed to coordinate between Miami and Montana?
Oh, my.That would be something else.
You can't, we're too weird and nonsensical a country.If you really laid out the history of American immigration, but you made it like fantasy terms, you would look at that and be like, this is nonsense world building.
Why would you ever make a fictional country this nonsensical?
That is 100% true.You're like, I can't believe America's falling apart.
I can't believe we lasted this long.Right?Oh my God.
Can you imagine how long the George R. R. Martin book would be that took place in the United States?Like, how long they'd have to be walking in between important scenes?
Like, holy fuck.They would never.Yeah.It'd be the Oregon Trail. It died of diphtheria.
Like, this isn't a unique observation.
Many a stand-up has made this observation, but man, the fact that, like, people were born and died, like, on their way to, like, Portland, Oregon, a trip that recently took me the span of a Gummy and a couple Modern Family episodes.Drive.
It's okay, I think it's all right if it's not unique, because I don't think any of those comics have podcasts, so it'll be all right.Comics notoriously don't have podcasts.
Yes, stand-up comedy and podcasts, a Venn diagram where the circles are just so far apart.
Yeah, you don't stand in podcasts, for starters.
I do like this sitting. Yeah, Sydney's great.So now the cops are after, they don't know who they're after, but they're after someone because of the murder.Louise knows why they're there.
And Evan thinks it's because they already know he's broken his visa after like six days, which the only possible explanation is that Angelo knocked him out.
I think that might've been the case.I think the season is over and he didn't meet him anymore.And she's like, all right, I'm done with you.
That's so funny that Angelo needed like five days of mediocre labor.
I think like he tells Angelo he's getting ready to leave and then like they have the conversation where the police walk up during it.And I think, I think Angelo, I choose to believe Angelo was just fucking with him.
Like that he's like, Oh yeah, it's the immigration.You better run.
And it's I do have to see.Say, oh, yeah.No, that's 100 percent what he's doing.Like, I have seen Italian poppers do this to people or they just go see like if they just go away.What's that?Is that is there a disaster?Yeah.Yeah.Yeah.
We're all going to die.Should I leave?Yep.Save yourself.
cuz he has fuck else to do, goes to Louise's house, where he finds her as a full-on octopus lady, full shape of water shit, and he sees a syringe on the floor and decides to stab first and ask questions later, and thankfully this returns Louise to human form.
She explains her whole deal about how she's 2,000 years old and, uh, Do we want to get into the explanation in science now?Should I do the recap?
I think it's, I think we can just say she explains it to him and he has to walk around and punch a wall for a little while because he's that kind of guy before he can be like, all right, like explain it one more time and then be okay with it.
I do my favorite part is this is the point where where Evan turned a corner for me because like he walks in and finds her like laid out obviously monstrous like she's got tentacles and everything else and in a lot of movies like this is the part where the guy freaks out and is like oh no fuck this my my girlfriend's a monster I'm getting the fuck out of here and he goes like obviously she is in distress I have seen her inject herself before so like
I'm going to help the person I care about, and then we'll sort out the rest of this shit.And I was like, yeah, okay.Evan.All right.Up to this point, I didn't know if I, if I gave a shit about you, but now you're a good boy.You can, you can live.
But I do like that she hurts him too.When, when that's going on, because she's just in so much pain and she's lashing out and you know. Yeah.
It says a lot of interesting things, because I haven't done something like that myself, but I know a lot of people who care for people with very severe disabilities.
And when they're in the middle of their most painful episodes and stuff, they're not human.They're not themselves.They're lashing out.And the person who loves them, they deal with it and help them.And it's a very complicated situation, I think.
I like that they showed that and didn't shy away from that.
What I did like is that he punches the wall with the same hand that he punched the guy with and injured his hand on earlier in the movie.And literally the millisecond after he makes contact with the wall, you can see the instantaneous regret.
I felt like that was pretty real though.
It's very real.As somebody who has angrily punched a wall and then regretted it a millisecond later, I very much empathize with Evan.Again, this is where I turn the corner, but specifically in the wall punching.
I have been in that, I'm so overwhelmed, I need to just like, hit something inanimate instantaneously should not have done that.Mistakes were made.
Yeah, yeah.I feel like in that, like the punching- Adrenaline being replaced with pain.
And the, yeah, like, well, I mean, that's real, but like in Evan's whole situation with the punching and everything, the way that that's depicted, I feel is because it's kind of a small thing in the scope of like horror fantasy, you know, a punch, but it really, like his knuckles are fucked up for like weeks.
And that's, I appreciate when movies will take that time to really commit to consequences like that, especially in something that is kind of casual like this movie is.
The explanation is because the guy he punched had like a gold tooth grill.And so like he punched that out, but like the metal hurt more to punch.
I mean, punching somebody in the face hurts, both of you.Yes.
Regardless.Especially if you don't do it very often.
There's a reason bare-knuckle boxing is more of a body blow type of game.
Yeah, and- Which is much safer long-term.
I'm just saying, you don't get CTE from being punched in the gut.Tell that to Houdini.
No, he didn't get CTE.It's true.Houdini did not get CTE.
I just want to say, self-defense- If you take nothing away from this pod- Can I finish?Yes, I'm sorry. If you take nothing away from this podcast, one thing that you need to know is that in self-defense, you do not punch.
Punching is not a self-defense move because it will fuck up your knuckles, especially if you do the art or the writing or the things with your hands, you know?Star Trek is right.Palm heel.The end.
I mean, or, you know, pro wrestling, theoretically, you're not supposed to like, it's illegal to punch people with a closed fist.And even in pro wrestling, that's why you do the arm strikes, you know?
Look, everybody knows that if you find yourself in a dangerous situation, you gotta juke out your attacker, wall jump over them, get them from behind, choke hold, put them in a sleeper hold.You got them.
Just like Mega Man X. Works 10 out of 10 times.
All right, so I just turn a corner and get under a cardboard box.
That's I mean, it depends on the box.
Yeah.This feels like 2011.Were we still talking about stem cells in 2011?
I really don't want to talk dwell on this movie's biggest weakness, which is the stem cell bullshit.
Yeah, let's let's finish the recap first.
Okay.There is this interesting side note here, because around that time, yeah, the stem cell bullshit was pretty big because there was
this thing where they would plastic surgeons, not actual like, you know, immunologist or anything like that, we're trying to heal like autoimmune deficiencies, including multiple sclerosis, by putting your own taking your stem cells out and putting them in a bag and injecting them back into you.
And they're saying this would cure all sorts of stuff.And obviously, it was an FDA approved.So they're charging people like 10 to 20 grand.
and I had people that tried to get me to do it, they tried to do a Kickstarter for me, and I'm like, no thanks, or Indiegogo.This sounds like bullshit science, I do not want to do this.
And years later, NPR did a whole thing on it, and it caused people to go blind and shit.I didn't know that.
I didn't know that.I mean, I've heard about some of those, in passing, some of those, like the bullshit snake oil shit, but I didn't know that that was specific to that time.So that's really valuable for you to mention that.
All around that time, yeah.
I think it might even be, I saw a recent report where they looked into all the, you know, that was an area where, oh, these pockets of the earth where people, where there's a high collection of people living, like over 100 living a very long time.
And they found it was like, oh, the thing that really connects them is their areas with poor birth certificate records and good incentives for lying about the retirement age.
so real that's really funny yeah i mean that's beautiful they don't want to scam the government i mean this is half of this shit is just how you communicated it yeah i mean i cannot blame any of these people for just being like
Well, World War II destroyed all my birth certificates.Time to start collecting Italian Social Security eight years early.How old is he?Old.I don't know.Yeah.A hundred.He looks like a hundred.Old enough to get whatever money you're giving out.
Also like I can say about Italy is that there is a there is a like a it's like an anime how you have like hot hot hot hot like youthful hot and then like weird little shrunken person that knows everything like that's it's the same in Italy you know it's like you have people who are so fucking stunning you know even when they're like in the middle age and then
They become a Nona and they know everything and they can do magic at you.And like, you know, elevate you.
Italy is full.You go instantly from young Sophie to old Sophie.
Not gonna lie, I'm pretty proud of myself for that Miyazaki reference.That's good, that's solid.Feel like it worked?Was it timely?Yes.What movie are we talking about?Right, Spring!Yeah, Spring.
Yeah, so the gist of it, after explaining her deal, which we will get into,
Luis explains that she'll either have a Doctor Who-style regeneration if she doesn't love him, or if she does love him, she'll say the same, give up her immortality, and become pregnant.Evan is like, bet.
And wants to put a ring on that tentacle.
All of this is theory, by the way. which she is guessing from the remnants of her own mother, who she was able to test because she died in Pompeii and the explosion there.
And well, I figured her mother probably also told her this is what happened to me.
Those last 10 minutes where they were like, actually, I'm from Pompeii.It was a wild turn in this movie.It was a beautiful scene, Bob.
Oh, yeah.Oh, great scene.I love it.
Yeah, I did have to also think, I'm like, it could be so easy for her to be lying to you.She lies all the time.How could you possibly prove that this is her actual backstory?
I mean, she does say that she never lied to him, but that I think she did actually quite a few times in the movie.
Yeah.One of us always lies and one of us always tells the truth.
No, obviously, you can't pay times not knowing about stem cells and genetics and all that.But I find it very easy to be for
The mother to have explained to her like, oh, I was immortal for a long time, but then I fell in love with your father and I had you and your brother.
She says she doesn't know that.It's just like a guess.Like, yeah, she's hypothesized all of this from her mother's remains.
It's highly likely that she is, you know, she's like, if I'm going to like. Doctor Who, this shit, I want to do it in Pompeii.And so I'm going to sit like, feed you this line of shit of like, this is my mom, and that's my dog.
And I don't know, that's my brother.Like, how old is she?I mean, I like the idea that she is old.And she doesn't know how old.But we'll get we'll get to that.
So we get we get a Over 2000 is the closest like is the closest we get to an exact age Yeah, doesn't break anybody's I mean again if we're going by Pompeii eruption that happened in 79 ad so she was probably around like less than 20 or so.
So she was probably born, I don't know, between 50 and 60 A.D.or wait.No, that.Yes.Fifteen sixty.
She's actually Jesus.And that's why I came back to.Well, because I just got pregnant.
Yeah.He was on stem cell, baby.Yeah.No, that's.
The real reason the church doesn't want us to do that is themselves.God, that Arnold Schwarzenegger movie, that was the real Da Vinci Code.Tom Hanks tried warning us all along.God, is Da Vinci Code a horror?
Can we stretch that bullshit to cover that one day?Holy fuck.
It's legacy is pretty horrifying.
Right?But anyway, they don't embarrass me, so they got a day to kill before she regenerates.So they're like, weee, let's go to Naples.They go to church because Sure, I guess that's romantic.
We get a very funny line about zombies doing heroin from a weirded out Italian lady.It's a funny joke.Again, this movie's good.This movie gives me nothing to make fun of.For now. I mean, there's a lot of things.
We get our beautiful data Pompeii, where it's very moving.She tells him her backstory.Evan decides he's going to stay with her no matter whether she's in love with him or not.And at this point, she doesn't know what's going to happen.
And he's going to stay with her.And she asked him to tell him about mortality and why a finite life is good.
And we get this very romantic moment of, while he's talking, we get the gross, crunchy, transforming sounds, but he just keeps holding her and talking, and it's very beautiful and romantic.And he looks down, and she's still the same.
She's fallen in love with him, and she's going to stay who she is.
But then also, Mount Vesuvius erupts again! It's a little hiccup.
He starts making some noise.Enough that I would be nervous if I were him.
I don't know if it was actually erupting or it was doing the things that like some of those volcanoes do where they just spit the ash clouds in the sky.
Yeah, it's just a little hiccup.
Yeah, or they might- Okay, so the implication isn't now that they've fallen in love and decided to be together, they are going to immediately be killed by lava.
No, I mean, unless it's like a very, I don't think that's what the movie was trying to tell us.
Well, maybe they're trying to say like it's just the same thing again.
I don't know why you would make a volcano where like, I can't figure out what the meaning of the volcano is.Is it lore?
Is she tied to the volcano where like every, no, that doesn't make sense because her mom didn't, because it didn't erupt when her mom didn't regenerate, if that's what happened.
I'm wondering if she like knew the volcano was going to erupt, was kind of sick of this life and decided to go back to her original home to find a way to die.It just kind of like brought him along for the ride.
I they so I have an interpretation of this from like the the the way that the movie presents her and a lot of the things that they say and the film about like her and women being like the jewels of the world and I feel
that was the yeah angelo says some pretty objectifying shit that he gets away with by being a charming old italian man that's how they do it and i've i've encountered them and i'm saying shit like that to me and i'm like they're creepy
It is creepy and wrong, but they're just so folksy.They're so charming.
And they're not going to like in a lot of cases, they're not going to touch you.
They're just going to be like, oh, yeah, that's like blow a kiss and go like.
Yeah.Yeah.But my my interpretation, especially with all of the the cutaways to various nature things happening. is that her whole existence is that she is some kind of like avatar of this land, right?
That she is a person, she grew up in, or she was from Pompeii, sure.Whether she, that was actually her family, whatever.But like, you know, she also said she didn't survive Pompeii.So I kind of feel like she is sort of this
this representation of natural chaos.
She's very clear that she's not supernatural.She's very insistent on that.
Yeah, which is the, I think, the weakest part of that.But I also think that she doesn't really understand
We get hints and stuff where it's like there's one scene where she's like recoiling in sunlight.One scene where she's turning into like a furry beast monster.One scene where she's doing like this ritual rabbit sacrifice.
And it's all like red herrings to make us think she could be any of these traditional horror things.And she's very insistent.She's like, no, whatever I am, it's something scientific.
She's hardcore on the magic is just science we don't understand yet side of things.
To the point that she's willing to be like, let's try this scientific ritual of sacrificing a buddy and seeing what happens.Maybe it'll work.
She does not understand what she's doing, but I feel like she's sort of, I mean, she is this power that doesn't quite understand itself.And so she's trying to use language that this meager human white American man
can understand you know and also maybe she's this is like the research she's like trying to understand herself so like the closest thing that she can define as what she is is like i don't know stem cells i like eat brains and i eat you know hearts and i eat
people and I regenerate, you know, and then I like, you know, when I get pregnant, I essentially like become the new being because she also warned Evan that she was going to be the sharpest, scariest thing when she transformed and that he should run as fast as possible.
And that's only if she doesn't fall in love, if she's not in love.
yeah and but i feel like the the mountain erupting is not just emblematic but like a her power kind of shifting as she is decided making this decision to remain human or in human form for this guy you know it's very it reminds me a lot of like the classics tales of
The selkie or the mermaid or the, um, yeah, the dry.
It represents sex because I don't know.Most things end up representing sex.
I don't know.I think this movie just showed sex and didn't talk about it symbolically.
No, yeah, I think that, yeah, this is one of those movies.It's like sex happens.
And I have opinions about like the romance element, but a lot of that is is colored by how romance and love this discussion of relationships has evolved over the years and how like, you know, I want to dive into that.
I mean, we pretty much we're done with the recap.I feel like that is the major element is. this romance and this couple.So do we want to talk about our feelings on their dynamics and how we feel it was handled?
Before we get into the romance that actually works out, I do want to talk about what I feel like is the saddest thing in this movie, which is not his mom dying, but then him calling up a booty call for pity sex and her being like, you're too sad for me.
This is too sad and too pathetic.I'm not going to fuck you.That's real.
Good for her.Good for her.And I love that she was pretty far into it.Titties were out in the air.Yeah, they were flopping.Clothes were off.And she made the conscious decision, even that far into it, to be like, a line of sadness has been crossed.
Yeah, I'm old mom sad.And then there's you.
We are not falling prey to the sunk cost fallacy tonight.
Which good for her because that's a really like I feel like that moment in itself is also some good representation of like, you know, the ladies and anyone who's involved in a sexual encounter, you know, that's valid.
Like if you suddenly are like, oh, I can't do this.It's fine.Say it, you know.And yeah, the dude's like, Please?I mean, what do you want to do?But he's just, you know, he kind of rolls with it.
It is a positive in his column as well that when that happens, he does not react violently or angrily.He doesn't, like, try to force himself on her or anything like that.He's like, but I'm so sad.My take on Evan.I could really use this.
is that he's not an inherently good guy, but he is trying to be a good guy.
He's the guy that chooses to be good.
Yeah.I think that him in the first half of the movie, like he is definitely the kind of guy that is easily he can easily be bad depending on the the people around him.He's very impressionable. that way, but he is trying his best.
And, you know, and the movie seems to also understand how the cards are stacked against him in terms of being like a cis white dude from America that, like, doesn't really know how to talk about his feelings.
It's a very interesting masculinity he embodies where it's not this, it's not fully, it might be almost like median, like this median level masculinity, like,
Like still sensitive, but he still has that chip on his shoulder.
Yeah.Like he has it on his shoulder.He's like, dude, think about sex.Like, and that's what we want.
But at the same time, he clearly does like, he is more emotionally developed and understands that he's dealing with stuff and wants deeper relationships.Like he's a dude bro with like, or not even a full dude, bro.
Like I said earlier, there's something very normal.
About him like I think we've all known guys like him who weren't the you know the best nicest guy who got it but who weren't like a toxic asshole either and maybe were in a place in their lives where they could go either way towards one end of that or the other.
Yeah, and he doesn't come up with the idea of having a sad, my mom died booty call, like his his dumb friend comes up with that idea.And he's like, I do wish we got more fucking need something like I do wish.
Look, it would have added an extra 20 minutes to the movie.But I do wish every now and then we just cut off to like some sort of like wacky stoner comedy that Tommy was in.
I love how Tommy is deployed at the end of this movie, which is like he is having a crisis of conscience.
He doesn't know what to do about the fact that his girlfriend has turned out to be a primordial monster and that he's not sure what he should do.And so he goes and calls Tommy and explains the whole thing to him.
And we don't even hear Tommy's side of it, but Tommy apparently just tells him that he's just smoked a bowl and he is way too high to understand this.And he's like, wait, yeah, I guess that's valid.I'll call you back.
if you if any of you called me up being my partner turned out to be a primordial like monster thing i don't care how many bowls i smoked or how big they were we're gonna hash this shit out no i think tommy was just making excuses because my girlfriend monster i want to talk about my feelings and tommy's like yeah is she hot like he fully
Yeah, like that was the second thing out of- Evan's mouth is like, yeah, she's hot.
I desperately hope that Tommy hung up the phone, rolled his eyes, made a jerk off motion and turned to a friend and went like, Italy, am I right?
Yeah, monster women.Yeah, they're hot.I don't know.Everybody's a selkie.I yeah, I think Evan is definitely like, he is relatable in that way that he is not like the worst person.But you know, again, like,
the way that that Louise handles him and the way that she's always like your your masculine fantasy is just ruined because you know love is not finding a way here like this is not this is a crazy situation that you don't understand and there's a interesting kind of pragmatism to that i kind of wish that they weren't like if you love me you'll be a real person or whatever yeah but i mean there's not a lot of other ways that are as poetic to express that
That is where it gets difficult, is that he's not just asking her to be with him and to take a chance on a relationship.He's asking her to give up immortality.Yeah.And I don't think he takes the time to fully- And raise a baby.Yeah.Yeah.
Which he is an illegal migrant.He is an illegal farm worker. But then again, she apparently has apartments and shit all over the place.She's loaded.They're fine.She has a contingency.
I think she could forge him documents.I mean, she does it for herself every 20 years.I think she'd be like, now you're a legal immigrant.
I love that she was just like, it's such a pain in the ass to fake my own death.It's so much work.There's so much stuff involved.It really sucks.I appreciate the general
pragmatism of of Louise generally just that she is like on top of everything else that she's like I don't really get to attach to people because like you die and then I have to you know figure out other stuff or you know I'll regenerate in 20 years and I have a different personality then and I might not like you anymore so like it's better if I don't try and
Make this work.I feel like they could have just as easily gone with the like, oh, you know, when she regenerates, will she still care about him bit and gone with that?I think they really wanted to make it dramatic.
I'm I'm glad that they brought up. the, like, why they couldn't still be together after she regenerates.
I'm glad they brought up the incest inherent with their explanation, that he, that like, she would be, that like, half of her DNA would now be him.Like, she would become their child.
Okay, yeah, I was gonna say, first of all, is that incest?Well, yeah, but if it's her, yeah.
Well, no, yeah, it would be incest if she regenerated to being half him.
And then they then got, yeah, I'm like, that's freaky.If they then had a kid, that kid would be three quarters him, and that feels...
Yeah, a lot of that was not very well explained or handled, because the way that she was explaining it, she's like, okay, well, I would become half you.And I mean, like, if she becomes a child, sure.
She regenerates to 20, like she stays the same age.
Yeah.From what I've heard, there's been some studies that pregnant women actually get some of the father's DNA and their system from their children, and it changes their genetic code.
I, yeah, I assumed it was like a magical to be like, I break the baby down and take its DNA into my DNA, which like in malignant.Yeah.Which, but which then like replenishes my telomeres or whatever.
Am I, am I wrong, Jeremy?
I do think you're wrong.I don't think it's a malignant.I don't think it's a malignant.
I don't know.She's just a giant parasitic twin.
I'm saying that like, you have to say, like, even if it weren't incest, a woman that's three quarters Evan is probably doomed.
Yeah, that's not a really much Evan.Well, well, stuffed basket there.
Like the explanation to that. she didn't spend 2,000 years intentionally never falling in love.She has just spent multiple millennia having absolute dog shit choice in men and just having a terrible dating history for 2,000 years.
I really want to see her regenerate half Evan and just become less intelligent when she regenerates.That would be hilarious to me.
Less intelligent, more nihilistic and uncaring, you know?
Blonde now, looking like Eminem.
Fucking, she regenerates.With an American accent.And it's suddenly like my own private Idaho.Like, it's a totally different movie.
Feminem.I was so mad because I was like, kind of looks like Eminem sometimes.And then when they talked about The 8 Mile, I made him like him less.It was like, the fact that you guys are leaning into this is, you know, please stop.Please stop.
Yeah.I mean, it wasn't just that.It was just like, I want to not remember that Eminem exists in this film.And I'm already like, this guy's on thin ice for me.
And now you're comparing him to a person that is also has now frozen in the depths of the Arctic because all of that ice is definitely melted.
I did feel these characters had some real fun chemistry. Like, again, when she was saying, like, I'm not a sociopath, I just date terrible men.Like, they're very charming back and forth.
When he tells her about his dead parents, and she says, like, you're like Batman, and then she describes her dead family, and he's like, well, you're like Harry Potter.Which, sure, that hasn't aged well, but it's 2011.
The movie didn't know how that shit was gonna go.
yeah yeah this is before as far as i know before that this is before twitter black mold and rank i also love
that Doctor Who is a much better point of reference, but there's no way that Evan has ever seen an episode of Doctor Who.
In 2011, not a goddamn chance.
Even though that was, I believe, 2011.Who was the doctor at that point?Was that Matt Smith?
It was either Smith or Tennant by that point.That would have either been David Tennant or Matt Smith at that point.
Yeah, he might have said it because they're actually showing that in theaters for a while.
OK, but but did Evan see it?Evan is like, that's, you know, well, Evan, Evan does not have BBC America in 2011.
in 2014.Evan has a performative masculinity thing where his friends, he knows his friends would make fun of him if he said that he was interested in watching Star Trek or Doctor Who.
And, you know, he knows that it's not bad, but he's also like, I'm afraid of getting invested in this show because then I'm going to need to find somebody to talk about it.And that is impossible in this town.
I feel like that's how Evan feels and grew up believing.Meanwhile, Tommy is just like fucking getting high every night watching TNG episodes.
Oh, yeah, but he doesn't remember any of them.God, he's like, I had this cool dream about a about like a bald guy and he saved everybody and everything was beige.
I think I think that Dr. Milf lit a candle and then fucked a ghost.That's pretty late.Yeah, it's like season seven. It is, but I'm always gonna bring up the Crusher Fucked Ghost episode.It's the go-to episode to reference.
I don't know, there's a lot of good- I mean, I can't get started.
I can't get- I have to put myself on- And do any of them contain fuckable candle ghosts?I think not.Well, listen.
Look, we don't- Maybe three others.This isn't supernatural.Not everything is a fuckable candle ghost.But everything is fuckable.I rest my case. Well, not everything, you know what I mean?
I mean, the Enterprise is fuckable, especially with like the armor and they do the like the Orient Murder on the Orient Express, but it's like the Enterprise and it's alive and they go on the Polydeck and they have to like talk to all the different programs that definitely would have fucked the Enterprise if he could.
Kirk fucked the Enterprise every night.Stardate 1723457.2.This time I came in this many minutes.
Anyway, this movie, the romance of it, did it work for y'all?Did y'all find yourself kind of rooting for this couple, getting swept away in it?
Because especially that ending, like I definitely found myself rooting for them and wanting her to, you know, wanting them to be together at the end.
It was the repartee, like the back and forth they had, I think, that did it for me.It just felt so adhering, like listening to them talk.You want the, you know, they just sound like they're just compatible.
He felt on in a way that felt very relatable.And the way she picked at and poked his performative masculinity, it all felt, it all felt very real and relatable to me.
I felt like that's where the magic of the movie or the science fiction or stem cell bullshit got really problematic for me because I feel like the whole thing where they're defining love as this chemical reaction
is very cold and like I get I get it for coming from her because she's trying to like scientifically define as many things as possible but I feel like that they juxtaposing that with like the meaningful relationship element really kind of took the wind out of those sails for me and I did want to see them coexist.
I didn't want to see this like big, you know, him.I mean, I mean, that that didn't really detracted for me.
I mean, brain chemicals exist.
There's just I think there's a seesaw here of like how much needs to be explained.And yeah, like with with any sci fi or horror thing, there's like there's a way.
Yeah, there's a point at which you start explaining too much and it becomes less, less probable, less fun.
Yeah, I think for me, I would have been just fine with it not having to be at her like necessarily having to give up her immortality to be with him.I feel like that was a little strong for what the rest of the movie had been up to that point.
That made me think of, oh shoot, what was the name of the movie?It was based on the story of death coming down and becoming human once in so many years.
Would that be Meet Joe Black?
No, no, there's one where Brad Pitt gets hit by all the cars. I've never actually seen Joe Black, but there is another one.I think Sam ended an episode of it, too.Yeah.
Well, as death becomes her, yeah.
Yeah, and chooses to become immortal at the end to stay with the human or whatever.I think that was the plot of that, too.
I think that's a Terry Pratchett book.
Probably, also.I think it might have been a story that's been reviewed a lot.
This is sounding like the Discworld novel Mort.
Yeah, but there's also Wings of Desire was the black and white movie that also had a similar.
Oh, it was like an angel, but he's like the angel of death.
Yeah.We're all kind of angel.Yeah, coming down once.Yeah.
Yeah, I was Wings of Desire is much better than what I was thinking, which is the Nicolas Cage film City of Angels, which is an adaptation of of Wings of Desire.
It's supposed I mean, it was supposed to be.But one thing I did want to mention about the explanation, especially when she's talking about like chemical hormones that make make women, quote, unquote, make women fall in love and be maternal.
I don't think at the time it was as associated and fraught with like the bio truth.
kind of argument that you get with, like, a lot of, you know, men's right activists, whatever, that irks me, you know, I feel like him accepting her was more important to me than her sacrificing for him.
If it read more to me as her being like, I'll let you take care of me for a while, I'll trust you enough that I can depend on you,
which I think is a little bit more salient to the whole allegory of disability where like she's trying to distance herself from him because she has this condition and that she doesn't want to like a doesn't want to hurt him physically but also she is looking at this very very real possibility that he will
reject her.I feel like, especially now, with the shifting definitions of what defines intimacy in an intimate relationship and like a partnership, there are so many other different kinds of successful intimate partnership, marriage, whatever.
kind of form it takes that is more than sexual.
It's more than the kind of romance that you see, which is very like they kiss and they have a lot of sex and, you know, and they pursue each other and they, you know, don't communicate very well because everybody expects the other person to, like, know what to do.
And I feel like some of that, you know, with Evans not knowing how to deal with her, some of that is addressed.And I think that that's cool, especially with Evan being as incapable as he is.
And the fact that he's able to move forward with that, I think is... And that's where he becomes not punchable as much.
I find myself very empathetic towards Evan.It's... It sounds like they don't give you a guide on how to do this, especially it sounds like he didn't grow up in a particularly well-off like environment.
I mean, he had his parents, but then who died on him very suddenly.You know, he talks about feeling stuck at the bar he grew up promising himself he wouldn't get stuck at. Which he's now fired from.
Again, he's surrounded by people like the asshole Britons, like Tommy.There's so much influence in his life.
That could push him towards this more toxic direction like he has no model for empathy and good communication and it's him and I feel like the movie does a good job showing him. struggling with how to establish that bond.
Well, no, because I think at the beginning with his mom, that showed him like the empathy towards her and taking care of her and stuff, which I think also prepared him for what he's going to do later when he starts taking care of Monster Girl.
Right.But I mean, at that point though, when she dies, that's his last, I think that's why he becomes numb and he loses a lot of his empathy is because like that was, you know, that was where his empathy was coming from and stuff.
You know, he lost his last family connection.So I see what you're saying.Yeah.
Yeah.I think also he gets like, I think he changes completely when he starts working for Angelo though.Like he becomes almost a different person for a little while.
Yeah, he's now- Because of Angelo.Angelo, he acknowledges that Angelo is- That's the real love story is him and Angelo.Honestly, listen, okay, so real quick, I was fully expecting her to become like,
50% Angelo because he was the one that she was actually in love with because they kept talking about his wife.And then I kept calling with Cohen back and forth to them.
Oh, like it was going to be the reveal, like, like there's going to be a reveal, though, like that she was his wife.
That was the first time I watched it.I actually thought that.
But then, like, after you watch it one time, you're like, oh, OK, that's not good.But they did feel like it was leading that way.
Oh, that would have been interesting.
I think that was showing him, this is what Angelo had and this is what he really wanted.I think it was more like just driving it home that he should go and take care of Monster Girl.
Yeah, and also knowing that he can be confident in himself and also caring.And Angelo kind of taught him to listen, I think.
And I think the language barrier thing was a part of that, where he was really trying to learn the language, which is not... In the beginning of the movie, he was kind of dismissing that.
Which is, again, another line that I think would have worked better, like, your language is improving. if the movie had taken place over a longer time span than six days.
I'm wondering if it was originally supposed to and then they did research and found out, oh shit, it only lasts six days, the visa.We got to change this.
I'm going to have to look that up.It definitely feels like he's supposed to be there for at least a month.
I think it was later on in the filming, they're like, oh crap, we just talked to somebody and yeah, that's not going to work.
They're like, oh, it's the start of the season, which I guess it wasn't two days ago.
I feel like they, it seemed more like they imposed the limit on themselves with like how long this pregnancy thing takes.And then they were like, all right, well, I guess this all has to happen in this time limit.That makes sense.Yeah.
But yeah, and I don't know, maybe some of that is them, you know, emulating the before sunset or before sunrise, this kind of setup, rather than having a summer, a romance that lasts a whole summer.
They do bring it up that like, this is a very whirlwind romance.This is very fast.They've only known each other a few days, but I don't know.I feel like you can have them date a few weeks and still have it feel very fast.
Yeah.Well, I mean, when you're on vacation, the first Thor movie where Thor is like, in my thousands of years of life, this is my ultimate love.And it's like, man, you knew her for like a long weekend.
Yeah.And that's another reason that like, I'm not.
as sold on the romance element on the you know the way that they define the romance like I don't know if it was more of him accepting her like I know he accepts her but if it was it was more of a sacrifice that he made like if he became a monster to or something like you know this is kind of the sacrifice is just to take care of her even though she becomes monstrous yeah and I think the science is the weakest part of the movie
Absolutely.I fully agree.
You mean you don't like where we just wander through a church and then just give bullshit out a whole fucking science class for 15 minutes?
All their movies are like that, though.It's best when they definitely don't explain the science.In The Endless, they don't explain it, thank God.But then other ones...
And it's like, and then something in the dirt, they kind of make fun of themselves and their bullshit explanations, which is, that's fun, but.
I like as part of Louise's character that she's so, or that she's taking such an active role in trying to discover an explanation for herself, trying to understand her.So, cause I totally agree with you.
The actual explanation is bullshit nonsense, techno babble. But I do like where it comes from in terms of Louise's characterization.
It would be funny if she just said to him, like, look, you would never understand this.It took me two thousand years to even figure this out.And you don't have that time.That would have been a good way to kind of dance around it.
So, yeah, I do think, like, dummy, he says a thousand years.Yeah.
She barely has no problem calling him dumb in this movie.I feel like that's true.
You had him on the head.Oh, honey, you will never get this.
Yeah.I do feel like. Talking about Louisa's characterization, and then sort of also pulling in one of our questions that we usually ask here, I feel like she is a disappointingly hetero eternal monster.Yeah.
Never even implied that she has had a relationship with anything but a man in this entire movie.She doesn't love any of these men, but...
This movie gives us nothing to hang our hats on.
Like, this movie's conception of romance, and again, and in that sense of so much of it coming from this guy who means well but has a chip on his shoulder, learning, you know, deciding, you know, essentially being saved by his capacity to be supportive.
Yeah, it's a very, it's a very straight.It's his best.
Yeah, but I think he saves her, though, too.I mean, I think that happens the other way around.I mean, they come about in a very clunky way at the end.
Well, I mean, he is spirit, like, he is, his character is Sailor.Like, he is, like, he is not even redeemed, but just, like, made a whole as a person through his capacity to care for her.
Yeah, more of a spiritual saving than a physical saving.Yeah.
Yeah.And the heteroness on like the pregnancy element, I feel I it's not like I don't like having that just be also defined within the love that they're talking about.You know, it's it's very transactional.
It's very reductive, you know, and at the time was probably not as like, yeah, 2011 was a different time.
Heteronormativity is normal.
I mean, I feel like 2011 doesn't really get that excuse with eternal monster.They've been having queer vampire stories for decades by then.That's true.
And even Virginia Woolf had her whole shape-changing man-woman long epic story that had definitely deafened sexualities and everything else.
Yeah, I think like they they do a gender essentialism and that she has to be she has to get pregnant to keep living forever.So she can't change gender for this explanation to work like. Or at least I don't think so.
But yeah, like if she like clearly she doesn't she says she doesn't care about any of the men that she slept with previous to this point.
And she has bad luck with it would make perfect sense for her to have had a girlfriend in here at some point or at least, you know, just not like a break.
Yeah, I got it.Yeah.Just to have fun.Because it's not like every time she's having sex.Hey, guys, having sex isn't about getting pregnant all the time. That's not like...
A negative of the movie, though.The movie is not a worse movie because it's about straight people.
I mean, I feel like it is a worse movie that doesn't seem to consider the idea.You know, I don't know.
Straight people do exist.I know this is going to shock a good chunk of our audience, but they are out there.
It's a very uber straight of a movie, too, just because of the way the men act, for the most part, you know, and the women.
it's not the straightness, because it's the pregnancy thing.It's the chemical thing.If that wasn't an issue, and if it was just like, hey, it's a trust thing, I think that would be more meaningful, no matter how these characters identify.
Well, the chemical element of it does raise a question, because it's like, Because there's nothing about falling in love that says you have to fall in love with the guy you slept with.
Like, what happens if she just got, like, so into beanie babies in the 90s?Like, she just loved beanie babies and that fucked up her immortality.
Yeah, I mean, for me, it's just like... Or she did MDMA. Yeah.Yeah.
Yeah.Exactly.Yeah.Yeah.It's like Molly's effect on immortality.
But like, it's it's so obvious Molly Watson is fucked.
Right.But like, but that's the thing is that it's it is essentially defining love as a sexual interaction because of that.It's interesting.I get you there.I get I got you there.
I understand where you're coming from.
I think it seems to go against that, even though it says it. because it doesn't actually seem like they're in a romance until they're conversing all the time and finding out about each other.And it's not about the sex and the intimacy quite as much.
And she basically says, previous to this, every time I had sex with somebody, I got pregnant, I just fucked off and I didn't care about them.
I mean, you see her strategy at the beginning of the movie was find this tourist, have sex, leave.
I think the thing about the queerness that bothers me is that this is a world in which queerness does not seem to be an option or exist in any capacity, that it spends a lot of time talking about, like, what a great bond between men and women is and all that stuff.
And like this, you know, this woman lives has lived 2000 years.She lived through ancient Rome like she's never been to Rome. Yeah, she's never thought of even conceptually like kissing a girl at this point.
Like, I don't know if it's only 20 years to that.She needs to get impregnated.So she could have lots of planes with women in between that time.Yeah.I'm sorry.I just got with the woman and then getting pregnant with the guy at the same time.
It's not mutually exclusive.
I'm sorry, again, I always like it when things are queer.I wish there was queerness, but I just cannot treat the existence of straight people as a negative on this movie's track record.
No, that's true, because it's trying to do something, and it's inspired by Before Sunset, which is very much a heterosexual romance movie.
I don't know.I do just have to, I understand, you know, the existence of straight people in the world is not a negative, but also that all this, this movie is straighter than Twilight.This is wild to me.And that is like a true fact.
This movie is straighter than Twilight.
Well, that's what I'm saying.This movie is so straight and written so clearly from a straight man's point of view.I don't trust him not to fuck up queer men and not to objectify queer women.
Like I said, it's not the straightness that bothers me.
No, what you're talking about with the chemicalness of it leading towards essentialism, towards sexual, and it's like, no, I am with you 100%. I think you're absolutely onto something there.No, totally agree.
I was going to say, I also want to mention that these are the same guys who did After Midnight, which they were producers on After Midnight, but they but they're involved.Right.
Which is, again, another very messy, straight relationship.
But I felt like that movie had some cool things to say, and it was about this straight relationship, and it was about masculinity.
And I feel like there's some elements to that and how they talk about masculinity and the struggle of a dude who is expected to be a certain number of things.And that's really relatable to me.That's a story that's told a lot, but I think that
It's really nice when something new is said with that.Because you can't say new things about the struggle of a man trying to deal with toxic masculinity.
And God knows a lot of men need to hear that as they're growing up in various parts of this country especially.
And the fact that Evan went from being, you know, one of the fucking Chumbawambas to being fully willing to devote his life to take care of his monster girlfriend who turns into a scorpion octopus.Like, you know, I think that that's meaningful.
It is meaningful.Where I absolutely, because I have been kind of the Evan Stan on the episode tonight.
Where I did find Evan difficult to root for is there are several times where Louise does try to set boundaries and communicates what she wants the relationship to be, and Evan does not respect those boundaries.
I think that's why the ending doesn't work for me.Yeah.He keeps
Pushing for a full on romantic relationship to a degree that I did find like, you know, that he wasn't fully listening to her in a way that I would have liked.
It's like 500 rules of summer.
You know, that's it.Exactly.Where he was like, he has this idea about what he wants the relationship to be.And he feels like he can charm he through time and charm.He can make her want what he wants.And in the movie, he has proved right.
And yeah, and the movie rewards that, which is where I definitely find their romance difficult.Yeah, that's well said.
For me, the ending would have been better and more towards disability representation, too, because it is very good representation, I think, through the movie, even though we're not seeing it from her eyes, but from his.
is if the ending was that she did turn into some sort of monster thing, but she's able to pull it back.And he's with her so that she's fighting not to kill him and eat him.And he's there taking care of her and try and he's not disgusted by it.
They both come at like a halfway point, you know?
going.And that would be a more meaningful romance to me, I think, if they edit on that, because that's where the crux of the story is.
The immortality thing, yeah, it feels like they're trying to do, like, even though I hated the movie, Mecho Blast, Four Wings of Desire, any of the other, you know, the other countless stories or a Selkie myth and things like that.
Although with the Selkie stories, the jerk guy is like, he does the one thing she asked him not to do.And then she's like, all right, see you later.
Yeah.I do think as disability representation, the ending really doesn't work because essentially she gives up, not her disability necessarily, but her independence.
Yeah.Which is a bad thing for disability representation.I'm going to love you, so I'm just going to give up all my freedoms.
Yeah, not keen on that.I do have to say, on some of her other stuff, I don't think this movie had a ton to say about race, mostly because there wasn't any non-white people in it.There's Italians and Americans.
Although the joke at the beginning is great.Italy, that's where all the white people want to go.
yeah i mean i think that in that they were at least self-aware enough to address the you know the whiteness of i think the whiteness and the americanness of evan was definitely like showcased enough in a way that was understood how
you know, problematic that white American tourists can be.
We're still a lot closer to eat, pray, love at that point, you know?
Yeah.So, yeah, not a lot of race or social justice.Class-wise, I think they get away with not doing much with it once they leave the U.S.because they're like, oh, it's this sheltered little village where everybody's basically on the same level.
I think- We literally go from shameless to Mamma Mia 2.
Yeah.I feel like his 100% true portrayal of this poor ass white trash dude living in this rundown Southern California neighborhood.It looks like where a lot of people like that.Yeah.
A lot of the neighborhoods around where my uncle lives in Southern California, like it feels authentic to that.
Yeah.And then they just ditch that.
Yeah.The first 15 minutes of the movie could have been directed by David Ayer. That's how white boy and run down Southern LA it is.
Yeah.I'm glad that they move on from that.But I mean, like, that's the point is to move on from that.
I mean, they they eat the scenery.There is a lot of just they are in Italy and the land of scenery is beautiful and they are filming the shit out of it.
Whenever I watch the movie, I keep forgetting about the first maybe half hour or so.I keep remembering all the conversations he has with her and her meeting the woman.So I think it's more like before sunrise in that way.
And then I watch him like, oh yeah, we've got all this stuff that's like a completely different movie leading up to it.
Yeah.It's fascinating the pace that that first half hour of the movie takes.But I feel like any writing class, they would be like, you start as far forward as possible into the story.
And you would just cut at least 15 minutes out of the front of that movie.And I don't know.I don't know if it works because of the genre of
walking around talking movie it ends up being but like a lot of that stuff is is pretty unnecessary to the story so i i don't know especially the two breaths there they could have you could cut that and lose nothing yeah other than i guess example to play him against to show like like oh look he's not quite as much of a sexist toxic masculinity as these guys are
Yeah, although, I mean, you could have done that with Tommy.Yeah, you know, the Brit guys were funny.But yeah, I don't think they needed quite as much of the Brit guys.
And they also they didn't sing Come on Eileen, which I felt was a missed opportunity.
They couldn't afford, they couldn't afford to put that in this movie. I mean, and I do want to say, Ben, I mean, I don't know if you've seen The Beekeeper yet, but David Ayer made the finest film of 2024.Sorry.
The Beekeeper is the best version of a very dumb concept.
I really want to see it.I watched The Crow 2024.
why the beekeeper actually has the same problem as this movie which is like they keep explaining things that should not be explained yeah it's very much like whenever louise tries to say something scientific in this movie i'm just like don't just
You don't have to, now you're over explaining it.Now I'm doubting you even more because you're over.You beautiful monster.You're over explaining this to me.
I am, you know, this is definitely one of those things where like, she shows up and she's like, look, I can explain.So, you know, this is too much information.I'm like, it's okay.You're a monster.
Like, obviously you don't know how the fuck this works.You just know that these things happen.
You know, which is kind of how a lot of people like or a lot of doctors really understand a lot of disabilities, especially when they are neurological, because like they don't know how the fucking brain works.They just throw chemicals at it.
And that's just that's how it is.
You know, like we can say, look, it's a it's an it's a supercomputer made out of fats and salt.
Yeah.When I was diagnosed, my neurologist actually said, we have no idea. We don't know what's going on.
We can tell you what the symptoms are because that's what we would name the disease after the symptoms, but we can't tell you how it's happening or why.And that was like almost 20 years ago.
So, I mean, they've made a lot of great advances since then, but at that time it was very much...
Not to get on my high horse, but that to me is why the idea that we're making any kind of AI is so laughable, that we're going to figure out how to digitally simulate sentience before we have any true understanding of what the fuck sentience is or how it works.
Oh, AGI is just around the corner.Any day now, any day now.Yeah, no, no.
If you care about creating AI, you are putting, you are sinking every dollar of research into neuroscience right now.
Yeah.I wanted to ask, I mean, Paul, you mentioned, we talked a little bit about how it sort of intersects with disability and stuff.How do you feel like overall this does with that?
I mean, we talked about the ending not sort of landing as well, but what do you think does work about it?
Oh, I think a lot of it, just the fact that it physically alters her and stuff too, in a way that's visible to other people, because that happens a lot with a lot of physical disabilities.
I mean, not always though, because mine right now isn't very noticeable, but I know some people who have been, and it's a very, where she gets very frustrated and ashamed and wants to be away from people when it's happening.
That's very, I've known people like that.And it's like with skin disorders. because that's what it appears as at first.It's like a skin disorder and she's always hiding it.
Whenever she sees it happening, she's like hides and then runs away to take her medication.The fact that she always needs to be taking it or else the symptoms come back.
That's very, when I was first diagnosed with MS, one of the medications they had me on was called Copaxone.And it was one I had to inject daily, like in different areas of my body.
And that was very much like, if I didn't do that, it would like act up and I'd start having issues and problems.And so that was very relatable to me. And like I said, I've not been in quite a lot of pain and things like that.
Some people get, so I don't really lash out and things like that.But I've known people that have been caregivers for family members who they love, like parents or like husbands and wives, and they are in so much pain and just so inconsolable.
They lash out, they call them names, they say things they don't mean at all.And that seemed relatable to me. as a caregiver, they had to put up with this because they knew that wasn't the person and they loved him enough to set that aside.
And I think that was more the message in the movie than her giving up immortality.That just felt like a strange, I'm not sure why they added, that was unnecessary, really.
yeah that's well said because like there is a consistency of her condition and there is she there is a complexity of her her identifying with it and that struggle for the status quo that you know and adopting a new status quo i also think that i mean it applies to a lot of things like
especially things like dementia or bipolar or various conditions of the brain and the body chemicals that do affect you in ways that make you unrecognizable to people.
And so I think that that's a really, really interesting metaphor.And I think it has, and this is something that is made into horror so often. You know, or used as a, you know, core is an allegory for this.
But I think in this case, you know, she still knows who she is.And like, she also like with her regeneration, she says that she loses her personality, you know, and that's where I think that.
just not her staying in her form, her hot, sexy lady form, being a pregnant woman, but like, you know, her still loving him even though she's a different person, you know, and him being able to love her as a different person would be a lot more meaningful in this case.
And like, also that just, you know, I think that in that, I think that the pseudosciences can work, like her scientific attempts at explanation, if she was less committed to that explanation.
I feel like that would have worked better, especially in the definition of this as a condition rather than, you know, a supernatural thing.I still think that she's representative of some kind of natural chaos in the way that, like, cancer is.
But, you know, especially how she, like, makes shit bloom And stuff was really cool.Yeah.Yeah.
Explain that.That that is some shit.
I was just got to be tied to the volcano eruption.Right.
That's what I'm saying.That's what I'm saying.And then the other thing is that this movie is called Spring.And there is a story about life and death. that comes from like the Italian area about Persephone.
And so I kind of felt like there was a little bit of that hinted and it wasn't obvious, which I thought was cool.And I think that's where these guys, the directors really excel is when they're sort of really painting over this sort of magical idea.
but then applying like real life gritty characters to it and and funny characters you know like this is sort of steven soderbergh quirk to these characters maybe not that cartoony but yeah i really i felt like and i think this is sort of what it comes down to is it could have used one more pass like some of the ideas are there and like they didn't
I don't know if they didn't quite know what they had or they were just so married to sort of the ending that everything sort of gets pushed into that, but I think it feels like they came up with the ending very early in the process and then worked around it.
Like they had an idea for like the science and it was like, okay, let's just, you know, build a story around it.
Yeah.Now, a big question here.It's our last one.Do we feel like this movie is feminist?
So-so.I do like Louise and I do like her agency.She does feel like a very realized three-dimensional character. In that, to me, the most ever representation goes back to the disability representation that she embodies.
And again, I do appreciate this movie coming at it from a place of such traditional, straight masculinity, because honestly, it's not something you get a ton of.Usually, they're trying to make your guy seem a little better and more heroic.
But it does mean that in exploring that so thoroughly, I'm not sure I can really call this movie feminist.
I think it's interesting to me in that we see so many movies in this podcast in which there is a feminist concept or a feminist overtone, but the individual interactions are not there.They don't know how to write women, the women are not good.
They're not, there's nothing of interest there.
And I feel like this is sort of the opposite in that, like, there's some of the conceptual framework of this movie that just doesn't work from a like feminist perspective in that it is so tied to her getting pregnant.
There's so much of the, like, there's so much of her monster hood that is like gender essentialist.Um, and
yeah but they do an interestingly good job of her like being a smarter more together and just generally like funny and likable female character in a way that a lot of those a lot of movies that want to have strong female characters seem incapable of
Yeah, she is definitely an entry into the support of women's wrongs.
Yes, and we and Evan support those wrongs.
Yeah, I'm, I almost like, there's a part of me that almost wanted this to go sort of, uh, but before they started explaining the science, I almost wanted it to go a little bit of a, like little shop of horror direction where like he has to start killing people for her or, or hellraiser covering up her, covering up her, you know, monstrous murders and stuff like that.
Yeah.Up until that point, the plot of this movie really follows the plot of the song, Olivia.
Yeah.So I guess all that really leaves is, would we recommend this movie?
I would for the, the just weirdness of it.
Yeah.I would definitely recommend this movie.I definitely enjoyed it.It's not a perfect movie, but I found it to be a, very much a breath of fresh air in our horror feeling.
Yeah, I feel like I really appreciate, I really like the movie.I like a lot of things about it.
The landing is a bit rough, like it, you know, as as it's just as it's landing, the plane sort of twists and takes off away and there's a little bit of a fire.But like everybody survives the landing.It's not cataclysmic, but it's not like
It was enough of it with the ending that at the end I was like, I don't know.I was there for a lot of it.I think the movie
had to win me over and got me on its side when he sees her monstrous and injects her and makes that decision to continue this relationship with her to get over himself.
But then once we get past that point and where the movie is going changes, I was less keen on it.
but I do enjoy the vibes of it.So Paul, obviously you would.
Yeah, I was gonna say, I did recommend the movie.
Yeah, and thank you for that.
Yeah, it really, it's one of the ones I show people for disability representation, cause it's so, there's so little of it, especially in horror, but generally overall, like when you look, when you look for like that sort of thing, we do see some more of it lately with like mental health issues and depression and things like that, that's becoming more, they've got more representation for that, but actual like,
physical disabilities, chronic illnesses, things like that, it's still kind of a new thing.So that's why when I first saw this, it shocked me in a good way.Like, I really felt for the character in that aspect.
But again, like the same problems you guys had, I did too.
Like, but the ending, the psycho babble for the tech stuff, but I read a lot of sci-fi and that's, there's so much like, I mean, Dr. Who probably said a lot of the same gibberish at some point and just added a timey-wimey into it somewhere. Yeah.
It's a hundred percent just like.
Yeah.I watched enough Star Trek to be, to accept a high degree of techno babble bullshit.Yeah.
I was just like, all right.Stem cells, stem cells and essentialism is where I'm like.
No, you're right.It's where they get a little tripped up in the techno babble that it leads to some not great implications.
Yeah.Especially nowadays looking at the whole like, oh, she's going to become mortal and have his baby.I'm like, did Elon Musk write this? Is he going to look after her cats too?
Just, you know, but I mean, other than that, like if we take that, those, that bit out, I think it's still a solid watch for most people.
And I guess that leads to asking, recommendations, Paul, do you have anything you would recommend people check out coming out of this?
So like, in a similar way, I think Shape of Water is kind of like a gender reversal of this, because he too is disabled in his merman-ness. and similar ways that they have to come in.And she also, the female leader of that, is deaf.
So that also has some really good disability representation.I actually went back and forth between the two of them.But Spring is more horror, I think. Then, then that one, which it is really good.
The other one I was thinking too, was someone to build a nest in.Oh crap.And now of course I'm blanking on his name, the writer's name.I know him not personally, but I know, you know what I mean?
I talked to him on the, you know, that matters, but like, yeah, it's. Yeah, it's a fantastic book, also disability representation, but also ace representation.Nice.And in this one, the monster falls in love with a monster hunter.
Basically, when she falls in love, she lays her eggs in people, and that's her form of love.But she has to figure out if she loves this human being where that's considered abhorrent and terrible.She has to figure out a new way to love.
And it's interesting and it's really well done.And so I would definitely suggest that one too.That's a more cozy horror.That's also somewhat fantasy.So.
Nice.John Wiswell, right?
John Wiswell.Yes.Why?Oh gosh.He's going to listen to this and be like, oh my God, Paul, what is wrong with you?Why can you not remember my name?
Emily, what about you?What'd you guys recommend?
so endless the endless definitely also if you want to learn about actual like brain science that's going on right now that is terrifying there is a great and i'm gonna say it i know it's it sounds when i say the word tick tock
It's a yikesy kind of thing, but no, there's a TikTok channel by an actual scientist called Bearbait Official.And they have a channel called Man Made Horror.
And they, you know, these are, these are stories that are referenced and cited, you know, they cite their sources.And it is about the growth of brains from stem cells in Petri dishes that have grown their own eyes.
That is amazing.And I want to Yeah, I'm gonna go to that.That's Yeah, that's some stuff.I love it.
They and they also have a whole story about how the brains have learned how to play pong.
Yeah, no, this is this is and then you know, and they also talk about the morality of that, you know, and then what is the morality of that?
Oh, my God, I'm gonna have to look at this.
It's, you know, question mark. We don't know how sentient these brains are, but they're brain organelles that they're basically like little mini brains that are made from human brain tissue, essentially, that they've grown in Petri dishes.
Anyway, so check that out and look at our brain organoids.Look up brain organoids and make sure that your source is a vetted scientific source.Yeah, but it's real and it's terrifying.
Yeah, I'm going to keep the romance and pain train going and recommend Cyberpunk Edgerunners.
I started that and I never finished it.I'm glad that you're recommending it so I can have, I can feel good about getting back into it.
Oh, if you want to feel good, I would not recommend cyberpunk edgerunners.No, I don't watch cyberpunk.It'll make you feel, but not good.
Cyberpunk, not traditionally a part of a genre in which people feel good.
I'm prepared for sad cyber death.Don't go into edgerunners expecting a happy ending.
Oh yeah, no, I've read Battle Angel.
Yeah, I recommend that.That's just good as fuck.No, not not the remake.Not Battle Angel Last Order.The original Battle Angel, just the manga, especially.
What about the live action movie?
It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.
No, it wasn't terrible.It wasn't good, but it wasn't terrible.
Yeah, I play better than the Goats in the Shell remake.
Yes.No, it was much better than live action Goats in the Shell. I will say that the- I got all the way through Alita Battle Angel.
If that helps you understand how much better it is than live action Ghost in the Shell.
Yeah.So check that out.There's actually stuff about brains in that too, but you know, and what it is to be human.
There is.That is what it's about.Yeah.As for me- The answer is Jai Courtney.Being human is about being Jai Courtney.
As for me, I want to recommend a horror film that I watched the other day just on a whim because it was on a list or somebody had recommended it.It's a movie called Luz, L-U-Z.It is on Shudder, among other things.
It is in a combination of Spanish and German, and it is about a woman who's a cab driver who stumbles into this police station and claims that there is a demon that has been chasing her.And it gets wild from there.It has some incredible performances.
It's It's so, so heavy on the acting and you can clearly tell it's made for like a buck fifty because there's so little setting.They use sort of an intentionally grainy quality of film, but it is incredible.
It is also a movie where my wife walked in, I think, 30 minutes into it.And she was like, What the hell is going on?And I was like, I could explain it to you.But the movie would be over by the time I managed to explain it.
Like my cup of tea right there.
Yeah, because it's it's it's complicated.And I wouldn't want to get too deep into explaining what happens just because it is so It is so inventively told and so interesting.
I love a movie that starts off with like a really tense two person just dialogue scene where you don't know what the fuck's going on, but you're like, wow, this is like this is really intense, guys.This is one of those.And I think it's like.
It's like 82 minutes, like it gets in and out.It's a great movie.And yeah, I would absolutely recommend people check it out.Sure.We'll talk about it at some point on here.All right, that that does it for us.
Paul, do you want to let people know where they can find you online and what to look for as far as like your new upcoming stuff?
Sure.Sure.Um, you can find me online at most places.I don't really go on Twitter much since, uh, most kind of.Just completely destroyed it, but I do have an account at Paul Jessup.If you go to blue sky, I'm at pauljessup.com.
My website is pauljessup.com.I'm also on Facebook as Paul Jessup.I, on Instagram, I, somebody already took my name, the bastards.Um, so I'm the awesome Paul Jessup on Instagram, which I've just started using that.
So that's, that's a fairly recent one for me.
So as for books, yeah, so last year I had my first book through Underland, my first novel, because before that I was mostly known for short stories and short story collections, that sort of thing, called Glass House.It was a haunted house novel.
but very surreal and strange.It's like basically The Haunting of Hill House meets Possession.So nice, the movie Possession.
So then earlier this year, I had my short story collection that pretty much gathered all my past 20 years worth of show stories called Skinless Man Counts to Five and Other Tales of the Macabre.
In a few weeks, I'm going to have my novel for this year, which is Daughter of the Wyrmwood Star.It's about basically
The Antichrist is a disabled woman and she gets a cult that starts surrounding her of college students who worship her because she's awesome.And they're being hunted by serial killers with keyhole tattoos on their hand.
And the book is basically them basically going on a road trip journey to find out who they are and what the heck's going on.And then next year, I've got Cancer Eats the Heart, which is my disabled vampires book.
Fantastic.That's all.Yeah, that's exciting.There's a lot for people to check out there.
And just two years, two years I've got like, yeah, I might have a secret book coming out in the summer, but I can't talk about that yet.
Ben, any secret books you got coming up to talk about?
Just make sure to pre-order Mr. Muffins coming out in January, but also got a Monster High Holiday Haunt coming out as part of the new ScareMaster series from IDW.So yeah, make sure to take a look at those.
Fantastic.And Emily, what about you?
I've got a lot of secret books.They're secret to me.Yeah, I don't even know.But, you know, follow me on Instagram, Meg underscore Moth, Megamoth.net, Megamoth on Patreon.
If you want to find out more about with me on my journey to find out about the secret projects that I'm working on and will work on.So I appreciate that because I'd love for people to know.
Maybe they can tell you what you're working on.
Yeah, maybe you can come and talk to me about working on stuff and I might do it.No promises.
OK, I was going to say, as for me, I just had my graphic novel navigating with you came out.It is a romance.It is also features a disabled lead in there.So definitely check that out.
And it's also about falling in love over the shared love of obscure manga.So If you're listening to this, you may just be the target audience for that book as well.
In addition to that, if you were the sort of person that cares about My Little Pony things, I have a mini series that'll be coming out when this comes out.It's called The Storm in Zephyr Heights.It may be the last
miniseries with this current generation of pony stuff because the tv series is gone now so this is this might be your last chance to enjoy the people like zip storm and pit pedals before whatever comes next for for ponies happens so go check that out obviously if you've listened to any of the other stuff you know about dog night school for extraterrestrial girls all that stuff you can find me at jeremywhitley.com
And on mostly Blue Sky at this point.I'm just Jeremy Whitley there.And anywhere else, either that or J-Rome 5-8.And yeah, come talk to me about scary movies and comic books.That about does it for us.Paul, thank you so much for joining us.
This was a ball.It was a fun movie that I didn't know anything about.
Yeah, great.I love being on this.This was fantastic.
I feel like a better person for watching this movie.
And thanks to all of you for listening.Thank you, Ben and Emily, for being here, as always.And until next time, stay horrified.
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