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1995 - To Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything! Julie Newmar
63 Plays1 year ago
The long awaited return! Wherein your hosts explore the acting chops of John Leguizamo, creating your own family, how easy it is to cause Beth to have a public meltdown, and the existence of someone known as Rachel Tensions.
Music by oji.
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Transcript
Introduction and Overview of 'Two Wong Fu'
00:00:19
Speaker
Welcome to another episode of We're Spanning Time. This is a podcast in which we explore the films of a particular year. This season's year is 1995. I am Bud Catino. And I'm Beth Martini.
00:00:31
Speaker
For today's episode, we are covering Two Wong Fu, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar. Gosh, what a lovely film. Did you enjoy this? I really did. I really did. I think I texted you at the three-quarter of the way mark that was just like, I love this movie. Yeah, you said this is a wonderful film. Yeah. Yeah, I really did. For anybody who's not familiar,
00:00:59
Speaker
It essentially chronicles the road trip of three fairly fabulous drag queens from New York to California. That's like, that is the basic root of the story, right? Yeah. Hijinks and Sue, magical realism takes over and you know, it's just like a, it's just a movie that feels really nice.
00:01:27
Speaker
There's little things that I think are, would it fly today? Sure, for sure. But beyond that, I really, really enjoyed it. Yeah, I mean, it's a Cinderella Western fairy tale. A little bit, yeah. Pretty much. There's a literal glass slipper that one character is trying to find the owner of.
Fashion, Lifestyle, and Cultural Anecdotes
00:01:57
Speaker
Oh, what's the shitty sheriff? Sheriff Dollard. Dollard, but his badge is misprinted, dullard. Dullard. Uh-huh. Yeah. Well, we could get into talking about the movie and the plot synopsis, but what's your occupations these days? What's been keeping you occupied? School. School. Yeah, you're fucking busy with school right now. Yeah, school's a lot right now. What else?
00:02:28
Speaker
Oh, I've kind of, what? Have you seen anything good recently? Watch anything? I finally got to see four things. Oh, nice. Yeah. Yeah, we went and saw four things in the theater before it left. And it was in like, the, I'm not kidding you, the last possible movie theater in the building. So there was a moment where I was like, I have to pee.
00:02:57
Speaker
And I literally ran. And it felt like an eighth of a mile to run to the restroom. It was so far. Ran holding my keys, because I wear my keys on my belt and I sound like a janitor when I walk down the hallway. Is that a San Diego thing? Or is that just like a scene kid from the 2000s bike culture thing? Is that what that is?
00:03:27
Speaker
I don't know where it came from. Like, I don't know how it started, but I did start doing it when I was in high school. Oh, in high school. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I started wearing my keys on my belt, like in my early like Che Cafe leftist screamo hardcore days.
Discussion on 'Poor Things' and Feminist Themes
00:03:51
Speaker
Yeah. And then now it's just like.
00:03:56
Speaker
Pretty much every industrial design instructor at UIC also does it. And I was like, oh, these are my people. Now it's kind of just like, I don't know, people who do it tend to be chill. There's like a level of nonchalance involved with wearing your keys on your hip.
00:04:20
Speaker
Yeah. It's a fabricator thing. It's like a maintenance guy thing. Yeah. Yeah. For me, I think I started doing it, um, as like a, like a bike culture thing. Cause it's just, you know, all those tight skin, tight pants I was always wearing and riding my bike. It just is not as comfortable to have your keys on the inside. You also want like quick access to your bike key. Exactly. I'm trying to lock up. Yeah. And I keep like a small, like six bit measuring tape on my keys now too. Oh, wow.
00:04:48
Speaker
Yeah. Well, it's, I'll tell you how many times it has come in very handy. Like literally at least once a day. That's sick. At least once a day. I'm like, what, how big is this thing? And then I can just fucking stop and measure it. And I don't have to think about wondering how big the thing is, you know? I mean, you are day in and day out, like an industrial design practitioner and student, right? Yeah, exactly. Um,
00:05:13
Speaker
But Poor Things was awesome. I loved it. I saw someone somewhere had like, somebody wrote an article that was like, poor things, not the feminist masterpiece people are claiming it to be. And I was like, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, but you went wrong. I loved it. Everything, even down to the fact that they get into drinking gin,
00:05:41
Speaker
speaks to feminist history. Gin used to be a feminist woman's drink back in the era that this movie is sort of emulating in a sense.
00:05:56
Speaker
I mean, there's like fantastical other Victorian reality, basically. Yeah. Also like talking about being a sex worker as a means of just going back to what you're talking about 10 minutes ago, but can, you know, taking control of the means of production, right? Like almost pretty much just paraphrase don't align in the movie. Yeah. I mean, being like it being a sex worker is truly one of the most Marxist things you can do because you are.
00:06:25
Speaker
you are using your own resources to generate your own existence, essentially. Like it is, it's great. I love it. I loved the movie. I thought it was fantastic. There were several little edit moments, edit montage moments where I was just like this fun slaps. Emma Stone has great tits. So that was like a big,
00:06:54
Speaker
Like plus. Got to see a lot of naked and fucking Emma Stone shots. Yeah. Not mad about that at all. No, no. She's very, very attractive person. Yeah. And I just like loved the arc. I just loved the arc. The the the interest in, you know, really exploring her own
00:07:23
Speaker
existence and like you know kind of this like this like way that you know she's like you're to the man that like she was like engaged to or whatever she was like you're very reasonable and you bring me much joy i don't see a problem with spending time with you for the rest of my life and then her body hosts husband shows up and she's like well
00:07:51
Speaker
I don't care for this. I'm going to do something about it. You know, like, I don't know. I just, I really loved it. And you know, people are like, oh, but the implications. And I'm like, dude, it's not real. Get out of here.
00:08:08
Speaker
I mean, it's, it's, yeah, it has cool messages. Like the, the ethical sluttiness of it is wonderful. You know, the revenge, uh, just the fun body horror, you know, all that stuff is great.
Exploration of 'Mr. & Mrs. Smith' Series
00:08:23
Speaker
And then Treven surprised me with tickets to go to see Amelie on the big screen for Valentine's day at Elmo draft house. Fun. It was so fun and it was so cute. And I had a very real realization that
00:08:38
Speaker
I'm pretty sure that character jump-started my lawful pettiness because the way that she like punishes people who are shitty is like so good and it is so like
00:09:02
Speaker
like my own ways of devising revenge plots are very similar. I think I've talked about this before, but my friends had a friend who married someone who was very boring and shitty. And that- Boring and shitty. Boring and shitty. That's terrible. Truly, could you imagine? Yeah, one or the other, please.
00:09:32
Speaker
the friend, the husband, got the cancer. And the boring and shitty wife bailed on the husband and the two kids and she just bounced. What? Uh-huh. That is shitty. I'm like not even friends with this husband. I only know of his existence through this intermediate friendship that I have that we share basically.
00:10:01
Speaker
Yeah. So I sat on the phone for I kid you not like 35 minutes devising all of the things I could imagine that would make the ex-wife's life really fucking annoying, but not actually like harm her. For example, I hope that a dog would shit in just one of her shoes at least once a month and never the same shoe. Okay.
00:10:31
Speaker
I hoped that all of her plants would die no matter how well she tried to keep care of them. Any house plant that she purchased would just die. Another really great example is like a friend's employer was being a piece of shit. And I was like, you need to go into their house and you need to rip the stitches in their winter coat pockets, but just a little bit so that at some point during the winter,
00:11:01
Speaker
their coat pockets will tear all the way through. So this is how I think. And I'm watching Amelie and she's like putting salt in the decanter and swapping the toothpaste in the footpaste and replacing the slippers with two sizes too small and like reprogramming the phone number for the mom to go to the like mental health hotline. And I'm like,
00:11:31
Speaker
Yeah. So this is where your, your penchant for twee acts of vengeance come from? Yep. Okay. That's good. That's also what's been occupying my mind lately. Nice. Uh, I have been, I've been, it's been slow. It's been like a slow six weeks at work. So I've been home a lot. It's been great. I've been doing these weird, like, I'll just go on a jaunt to like fucking.
00:12:01
Speaker
I'll go somewhere for like two days. Like on Tuesday, I'm going to Pennsylvania again for like two days for like not even a problem that something's broken. It's just like literally like preventative maintenance, like annual maintenance. So that's chill. So I've been home a lot. I've been able to watch, you know, watch stuff, read stuff. I started reading the John Le Carre books.
00:12:21
Speaker
I'm not familiar. John Lakera, he's a British spy from, you know, like World War II. And he just started writing novels about British spies. So Tinker, Taylor, Soldier, Spy. That's one of his things, like all those books. So they're highly readable. I would highly recommend them to anyone who
00:12:42
Speaker
You know, like you could call it a beach book. It's kind of like an elevated beach book. They're well written because to be a spy, you're constantly filling out reports and shit. The first two ones are kind of like murder mysteries. I'm on the second one currently. And then I guess they all just become espionage thriller novels. I do love a good spy story and a good heist story.
00:13:06
Speaker
That does sound quite entertaining. To that end, I just watched the new series, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, that came out on Amazon with Maya Erskine and Donald Glover, created and directed and produced and written by Donald Glover, in part among with other people.
00:13:28
Speaker
I was a fan of the Brad Pitt Angelina Jolene movie. It was okay. It was fine. It's like because you know, dumb, dumb, watchable action movie. But the show is great. It's I highly recommend that as well. Really? Fucking fun. Yes. Okay. It's really fun. So I, I almost like wasn't gonna watch it because I really love Phoebe Waller Bridge. Sure. Bridge? Is it Phoebe Waller Bridge or Bridger? These are two separate people.
00:13:54
Speaker
Am I combining names? I know that her first name is Phoebe. There's Phoebe Bridgers and there's also Phoebe Waller Bridge. Okay, Phoebe Waller Bridge was the original co-creator slash co-star with Donald Glover. Oh, I see that. And they had what they refer to as a Hollywood divorce. What does that mean?
00:14:23
Speaker
It means that they had irreconcilable creative differences. Okay. And Donald Glover got the show in the divorce, basically. Oh, Jesus. Interesting. And so like, you know, it was like a stupid Hollywood article that I read about it. But I, I love her. But he was like, basically, Donald Glover was like, Yeah, man, like, you put too highly creative.
00:14:54
Speaker
highly control oriented people in a room together who have very different perspectives of how something, like the POV of something, there's gonna be friction. And eventually the friction was just like too much. You know, he also kind of low key claimed that like he didn't think she cared as much about making the show as he did.
00:15:24
Speaker
But then she was like, I fucking love this show. It was my baby. And so it's like weird. And like, they kept some of the dialogue that she wrote for herself in the show. And so like, I don't know. It's just like, there's like a funny little twingy bit about it for me. But if you say it's good, I'll watch it.
00:15:45
Speaker
It's definitely worth a watch. It's really fun. It's super immersive and I just kept on being like, I want to spend more time with these fucking freaks. And I do think that Donald Glover is a fucking freak. I think in a large way this show is like him exploring how fucking weird he is and how he probably doesn't get along well with other people.
00:16:07
Speaker
Yeah, because it's about two people who are like, just like, dramatically maladjusted and cannot really make it work in the normal world. So they have to become spies and assassins. Pretty much. Yeah, that tracks the tracks. I think like, I think Atlanta was his first for foyer into exploring just how fucking weird he is. A foyer is a part of your house where you take your shoes off. No, that's a foyer.
00:16:33
Speaker
Well, no, it's the same word but pronounced differently depending on what regional dialect you have, but a foray is, you know. That's the word. Well, I almost said foray and I was like, no, that's wrong. That's going to be the clip that I'm going to put out. Yeah, I almost said foray, but no, yeah. So, yeah.
Performances and Themes in 'Two Wong Fu'
00:17:02
Speaker
Nice boy. Oh, it's worth a watch. I would highly recommend it. Yeah, let's get on to this movie.
00:17:11
Speaker
Two Wong Fu things for everything in Julian Omar. Director, Bibin Kidron, aka the right honorable Bibin Taniya Kidron, Baroness Kidron, Order of the British Empire. Did you know this about the director? She's like fucking English Baroness. Pretty wild. Writer, Douglas Carter Bean. This guy's like a playwright. He's queer. He did like the Xanadu stage adaptation, adapted from the film.
00:17:41
Speaker
He was also like a script doctor for Sister Act, the stage adaptation. For more, if anyone wants to hear a review of that, you can see my old podcast, season one episodes three and four of the normal theater podcast.
00:17:59
Speaker
which the just our review on the fucking Sister X stage adaptation was just so long and grueling because it's such an insane fucking play that I had to do two episodes of it with Jordan Lopez. It's just like a, I won't even get into it here, but it's just kind of like a, it's out of control and it's a very shocking play.
00:18:24
Speaker
Costume designer Marlene Stewart, who also did, like, Terminator 2, Judgment Day, JFK, falling down. Starring Wesley Snipes, Athmoxima Jackson, Patrick Swayze, his BWM, John Leguizamo, Chichi Rodriguez, Stalker Chani, his Carol Anne, Blythe Den, or his Beatrice. Arliss Howard, as Virgil, the sort of shitty husband of Carol Anne. And you will also remember him as the tech douche client from The Killer that came out this year, last year.
00:18:53
Speaker
And of course, Chris Penn, the Sheriff Dollard on a mission to find these drag queens that knocked his ass out on that side of the road. Also featured in the opening act is a lot of New York drag queens, RuPaul, Joey Arias, Lady Bunny, Misunderstood, Candace Kane, Flotilla DeBarge, Miss Coco Peru, and Lady Kateria.
00:19:17
Speaker
Um, yeah, you said this is just pretty much the quick synopsis is this is just a movie about three drag queens that are driving from New York to Hollywood. And they, they buy like, it looks like a shitty Cadillac. And in fact, it is a shitty Cadillac. Um, the man's at the, at the, at the car dealership is like, please, this will not get you to California. Ladies, please, please take.
00:19:46
Speaker
the Toyota Corolla, the reliable vehicle, please. And they're like, we just got to do it. And I love, I love the tawdry nature of, you know, the Cadillac. It's, it looks like shit. Like it's, it's got like aftermarket, just like crappy print, um, cloth over the seats. And like gnarly rust all along the wheel wells. Absolutely. Yeah. Um,
00:20:14
Speaker
But style over, style over function. Style over substance. Yup. That's the quote. Yeah. So, so yeah, the premise is that.
00:20:26
Speaker
VWM, Patrick Swayze and Nagzema Jackson played by Wednesday Snipes. They tie in a contest and they win, they both win tickets to Los Angeles to do, what is it, the Miss America Drag Queen contest? It's like the, yeah, America's best drag queen.
00:20:45
Speaker
And they're all set and they come across Chi Chi Rodriguez, played by Donna Gazzamo, and she's just really sad because she's a really compelling character in Chi Chi Rodriguez. She's just this drag queen from, I'm going to assume the Bronx, and
00:21:07
Speaker
She just kind of gets shit on and she kind of feels like she's a loser and she just wants something nice to happen to her. You can kind of tell that she kind of lives this trans life where she's like a lot of young trans people. She has kind of like unfortunate like street hustler vibes. So you can tell that she does like sex work and just as having not an easy time in life and winning this competition would have been a really great way for her to like a garnish some self-esteem.
00:21:35
Speaker
and you know accomplish something and feel take pride but also to like maybe get out of you know the situation she's stuck in. Yeah potentially changing her life circumstances in a major way which you know for anyone trapped in a cycle of poverty like things like this are those things they're like sometimes the only things that can help change the cycle of like being stuck you know. Absolutely.
00:22:03
Speaker
So they get out, so they're like, okay, well let's, you know, they meet Robin Williams at the restaurant and they're like, can we just sell you our plane tickets, give us some money, and then like maybe we'll just buy this shitty Cadillac and just drive. So they're driving. One thing I'd like to say, there's, okay, actually, first of all, I stan John Leguizamo. Like I don't give a fuck. So many people are like, he's a bad actor, he's annoying. He is not a bad actor.
00:22:32
Speaker
He can do Shakespeare and he can do a compelling like young queer drag queen, potentially trans person. And he can do like the grotesque comedy of like the pest. Like, come on. Like he's not a bad actor at all. I think he's a great actor. I have heard from so many people. Oh, Jill, no, who's almost annoying.
00:23:03
Speaker
So whatever, that's my first thing. Second thing is Robin Williams. I mean, come on. Like, I love him. I love how fast he's talking. I love how he's like, just on it. And he's like, for you, go to this car lot, $50, any car.
00:23:27
Speaker
And that's how they're able to afford it. It's crazy. This is a hot take. I don't actually like Robin Williams that much. And yeah, I don't really think he's that funny. I don't really find him that compelling as an actor.
00:23:44
Speaker
Because he's always doing his Robin Williams thing, I'm like, okay, all right. And I would have to say, I didn't really need him in that role necessarily.
Comparison with 'Priscilla, Queen of the Desert'
00:23:53
Speaker
It's always fun. He always brings high energy to any role he's in. So I can see...
00:24:00
Speaker
why you would put him in. Also, he needed a cameo, because he helped get this film produced one way or another. Right. But, oh, just going back to Donald Mazzama, I think I agree with you. I think he's a really good actor. But I saw his most recent stand-up thing. I think it's called teaching Latin American history to white people or something. And I was kind of disappointed by it. I think he's not that funny. He's just like a middle-aged guy, you know?
00:24:28
Speaker
he's kind of okay funny and also he still does the like uh queer coding voices like gay lesbian voice as like a joke which i just like cannot abide by yeah that's fair um can we say though that the birdcage is actually just the sequel to
00:24:48
Speaker
Tewang Fu, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar, starring Robin Williams, his character. Pretty much. Yeah, I think it's just, yeah, it's a spin-off. I mean, it's obviously not. It's obviously like a well-established French play. Right. Those adapting to a film, but yeah. But no, I thought that actually everyone's performances in this film were just like,
00:25:16
Speaker
Great, at least the three main actors. Yes. Swayze was great, but Wesley Snipes, I don't know that you ever see him be funny in films, and he's really fucking hilarious all throughout. He was really channeling something special.
00:25:35
Speaker
Well, I think that there was like a, and this is, this is one of the things that like, I'm like, could this even fly today? But there was something to me that was like really like thoughtful and really like heartfelt by like the earnestness, which with which these three presumably straight male actors portrayed these characters.
00:26:01
Speaker
And it was like, very, very, like, there was no condescension. There was no, like, there was no, you know, putting on, like putting on a mask or like a character, like,
00:26:18
Speaker
the portrayals felt really true and earnest. And I think like that is something that is extraordinary. And why I think I connected so much with watching it was because like, you know, you put straight people, quote unquote, however you wanna like, like cisgender people in a role that is traditionally meant for a queer person. It can go horribly wrong and it has, right?
00:26:49
Speaker
Yeah. But like Patrick Swayze's portrayal and Wesley Snipes's portrayal and John like they are, it's so true feeling. Yeah. And that's, it was like, I didn't feel like I was watching three famous Hollywood actors play drag queens. I felt like I was watching drag queens living their lives. Yeah. Yeah. You know?
00:27:18
Speaker
or like the weird thing about this movie is like especially now with like our kind of our understanding of these topics right it's like yeah this is this is a trend this is really a trans film it's kind of sort of couched as being like a film about drag queens but that's not
00:27:38
Speaker
more functionally like trans women, right? And especially if you look at the Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, which comes out the year before it's an Australian film.
00:27:51
Speaker
It's pretty much the same idea, but it's two drag queens and a trans woman driving across the desert, and their bus breaks down. Well, their bus doesn't break down. It breaks down in certain places. It's a lot more of a drawn out story, but they just kind of float around and go to different places.
00:28:12
Speaker
And the drag queens don't always, they don't spend the entire movie in drag. They, you know, they dress in their, just their everyday clothes. Right. And like these, these ladies are never not in full face. Exactly. The only moment that we see anyone not in full face is the very opening scene.
00:28:37
Speaker
And that's largely logistical because like you can't really effectively shower in a wig and like with your makeup on, like that's the point of showering, right? Like none of us look our best when we go into the shower. And otherwise, like.
00:28:56
Speaker
There's no misgendering. There's no, there's never a moment where they're not completely beautiful. There is a lot of like big feminine energy. There's a lot of like, you know, just like vulnerability. It's really, I was really really surprised and impressed how not
00:29:24
Speaker
stereotypically campy it was, if that makes sense. There was campy aspects of it for sure, but almost almost in like just paying homage to the campy nature of
00:29:40
Speaker
awareness and the drag culture for sure. But yeah, not, I mean, it's kind of interesting. I'm going to keep comparing it to Priscilla Queen in the Desert because they're very similar films that came out like one after the other. I feel like Too Long Fu starts
00:30:00
Speaker
almost like a John Waters film it has that vibe of like a old queer movie from like the 80s or the 90s right it's like you're seeing them all put their makeup on and getting dressed and and
00:30:15
Speaker
especially when they get to the club and they're all doing like all the drag queens are doing their makeup altogether like just feels like it feels like a John Waters film you know totally um and then like when they're doing their performances uh that's like it feels like one of those those older like gay movies um
00:30:32
Speaker
And then it just it sort of peters off and becomes more of like a mainstream film, mainstream like road trip film. Whereas Brazil Queen of the Desert is like more kind of like mainstream at first and then it just like the gayness like ratchets up like throughout the movie to like a fever pitch at the end. And I kind of liked that better than this way. I would have liked to see it
00:30:54
Speaker
kind of carry that drag queen energy more throughout, as far as the construction and production vibe of the film itself. Of course, the rest of the film takes place in a fucking dusty-ass town in the middle of nowhere. Yeah, in a dusty-ass town in the middle of nowhere with all of the trappings of prejudice.
00:31:17
Speaker
Like written all over it, like I'm like, Oh my God, is this going to take like a dark turn? I was not prepared for that movie to take a dark turn at all. And like, I really didn't want it to happen. And it didn't, in my opinion.
00:31:34
Speaker
But like, I don't know, I think they did kind of hold on to that. Like when they're decorating the room and things are just like flying onto the walls and like the lights are turning on and sachets are hanging and like all these things.
00:31:50
Speaker
Yeah, and they're doing this like, I dream of genie shit where they're like, it does like slipping, yeah, crossing arms and, and, and winking and wiggling their noses to like turn on lights and stuff. Exactly. It does, it does pull some of that, like a magical realism that you mentioned. And like, you know, the, the fashion show at the general store and like, the, the, like,
00:32:15
Speaker
the old lady who everybody thinks is like, deaf, because she just doesn't want to talk to these idiots. You know, and it's just like, I just think like, you know, and okay, and also like, where the fuck did all the people come from? For the strawberry fest? Like, are they from other towns? Like,
00:32:36
Speaker
where did these children get better getting thrown up into the air come from? That's that to me like kind of is this thing and it's like I get it like the camp of John Waters is something that's like so fun and so like great but I feel like this was like kind of more of like a you know it had a more of like a coming of age story to it than like just like
00:33:07
Speaker
you know, being fabulous in the middle of nowhere. There was like a lot of like reconciling your identity and like standing up for who you are and what you believe
Character Journeys and Themes of Acceptance
00:33:18
Speaker
in. And like, I think that that was treated really thoughtfully.
00:33:24
Speaker
I agree. I completely agree. Like there is proper character arcs for all the main characters and as well as some of the side characters. And the town itself as a character grows and changes over time and is literally transformed by the end of the film. Yeah. Yeah. I thought it was really
00:33:47
Speaker
interesting in the Chichi Rodriguez as the apprentice. By the way, just to note, John Leguizamo is actually older than Wesley Snipes.
00:33:57
Speaker
So it's funny that they're just like, oh, this little boy, like little boy in a dress. Like they absolutely refer to her as like just a little Latin boy in a dress. And like, yeah, he's literally like three years older than Wesley Snipes is. But I mean, speaking to what you're saying earlier about like how great of an actor he is, he, he could play like young. I mean, he doesn't even really look all that young. Like he has like a middle-aged man's body, for sure.
00:34:21
Speaker
But yeah, he did play like the ingenue, you know, the young, young woman's kind of a, it's weird because she is the most like hardcore seasoned, you know,
00:34:36
Speaker
character of the three of them having lived like this kind of rough like sex worker life where she just gets shit on by everyone in life and yet she's still the apprentice and she's still kind of the babe in the woods who's who's supposed to be like learning how to become a drag queen but like at the same time she's teaching them ways to like navigate the world just like her not like naivete but her sort of like happy go lucky
00:35:04
Speaker
stance to existing in the world where she's like well and maybe because she's probably just been like traumatized and victimized constantly it's easier for her to take risks and and because she's able to take those risks like that facilitates them going to like the ladies basketball league at the hotel like party at the hotel so they stay in and
00:35:28
Speaker
and get picked up by Bobby Ray in the truck when their car breaks down and that's how they get introduced to the town of Snyderville. So yeah, I like that. It was thoughtful. It was thoughtful writing, script writing. Yeah. And I just thought like, I don't know.
00:35:51
Speaker
Miss Noxzema had some very excellent one-liners in her, like throughout everything. And she just was like, you know, she's very quick and they, they like show that in like a number of ways. Like, you know, when they're saying like,
00:36:16
Speaker
Um, like, cause Vida is about to grow upstairs and beat the shit out of the husband, you know, when he's beating on Stalker Chaining's character, Carol Anne. And like, uh, Chi Chi is about, is like, there, uh, there's, there's something you need to know about Vida. And then, uh, Naga Siva is like,
00:36:40
Speaker
Vito works out, like worked out. You don't have to worry about anything on that side. And like the Minuto line in the very beginning where she's like, maybe she just found out that Minuto broke up. And I was like, that is such a read and a burn. Yeah.
00:37:07
Speaker
There's a number of problematic one-liners in this film, but being that it's a movie from the mid-90s, no surprise. At the same time, it is in the form of classic queer cinema, low-budget queer cinema. That's to be expected, and that's part of the process.
00:37:32
Speaker
RuPaul showing up in the opening scene, a couple opening scenes, floating down from the ceiling, you know, as a character called Rachel Tensions, and she's wearing a Confederate flag dress. I'm obsessed, I loved it so much. That was fucking fantastic. Rachel Tensions, I'm like, how is that not someone today? Like how are we not truly incredible?
00:38:03
Speaker
like, absolutely fantastic. And you know, go ahead. I was just gonna say, yeah, but going back to what you're saying about like, yeah, just the fantastic job that Wesley Snipes says, he really did such a great job of like portraying like, like,
00:38:22
Speaker
queer people that I know can be like really fucking fast and really smart and just about like just ironic truths about life. And like middle-aged black women are also like super fucking quick and sharp and spicy and like, you know, are tapped into like kind of like, you know, very funny truths about life and like how to navigate things.
00:38:49
Speaker
And so I thought that like, including that character in the story is just really great. Like, not exactly when Jackson is like always just like kind of worried. Like, she's like, this could be really bad. Like, this could get violent. Like, you know, this could be she's always concerned with like, safety. Which is what, which is they start to really get balanced with that because that that could have been done too much and it could have been too heavy handed. Right. Right. But
00:39:19
Speaker
And nothing like there are no homophobic things that happen.
00:39:26
Speaker
at all, per se. I mean, there's plenty of homophobic. I mean, sure, the whole Sheriff Dollar thing is like just one giant like homophobic thing, although it's quite playful, which is really funny.
Comedic Elements and Memorable Moments
00:39:37
Speaker
It was subtle, like all every time that Noxema Jackson was like touching on like, oh, wish we maybe shouldn't go here because this isn't gonna be safe. Like, right. Yeah, it was it was quite subtle and quite effective. Yeah. And like just like the just like the the there's a comment where she's like,
00:39:57
Speaker
She, like speaking about Gigi, like she's going to get herself killed. Like this, this behavior isn't safe because in the time, not only like in the nineties, but also in all of the time leading up to then and until much, much later, just being gay, period.
00:40:22
Speaker
could be a death sentence. Then to add on to the fact that like two of the three people involved in the situation are people of color. They are extremely vulnerable members of the community. And then to have like, you know, just kind of like the tension of that
00:40:49
Speaker
being sort of held at the forefront of every interaction by just these like little things that Chi Chi says or does or like that Maxima says or does or even in some ways like that Vida says or does but like Vida's like sort of aloofness kind of high like reinforces the danger of the thing you know and like
00:41:16
Speaker
Yeah, it's, it's really interesting. And, you know, sheriff dollars, dollars, um, keys. That's dollars. His like whole thing and like the monologue at the bar. So good. So uncomfortable. I'm just like, my dude, you are so repressed. Yeah, it's, it's so funny because like,
00:41:45
Speaker
He's doing this, I'm gonna do the monologue at the end, cause I just, I can't, I can't not do the monologue. But he is just doing this monologue about he's envisioning two men having sex. And he's talking out everything that's going on in his head. And he's just sitting there at a bar by himself, but talking out loud and like the bartender and the other patrons are just like sitting there being like, dude, this guy, they're not even like,
00:42:11
Speaker
bro shut the fuck up like you're gay they're just like this guy is going through something right now like yeah they're just kind of like looking at him they're not like disgusted or anything by by what he's talking about they're just sort of like a little concerned because this guy is like clearly like having like a moment of crisis
00:42:29
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Uh, yeah. The, the, another, another like incredible one-liner, like just zinger, but from Chi Chi is like when they first arrived in the town and everybody's like lined up to like meet them essentially. Like when they, it's the next morning they've dropped the car off at the mechanic and the gals are coming out of the inn.
00:42:58
Speaker
the house of Carol Anne that they sometimes rent rooms out of, I guess. And Nagzima Jackson says, why do I feel like I'm in the tournament of roses parade? And then Chi Chi's like, because you're as big as a float. And her response is your mother and then Chi Chi's just like, thank you. Thank you. It's like, it's pretty, it's pretty fun. It's pretty fun.
00:43:25
Speaker
She has a couple of really good one-liners. When they're looking at the car, and I think Vida is just like, oh my god, I'm going to feel like Jane Mansfield. And Noxie was like, oh, that's kind of a bad car reference. But that's OK. Because, of course, that's how Jane Mansfield dies in the car crash.
00:43:52
Speaker
I think her children, she was like in a car with her three children, her manager, and like four dachshunds, like four dogs or something, and they just like crashed, and I think the children survived, but all the adults died, pretty much. There's a lot of really fun references that bear research peppered throughout this film that I really liked.
00:44:20
Speaker
Um, yeah, I, okay. I did not, and have never known that Julie Newmar was a real person until I saw Julie Newmar's name in the opening credits underneath RuPaul's name. And I was like.
00:44:37
Speaker
Wait, what? And then I had to like do a search. And she was like, you know, a screen vixen. Yeah, right up there with Jane's man, Jane Mansfield right up there with Marilyn Monroe. Like, yeah. And I had no idea. I was so ignorant to that fact. And I was like, that was one of the only times in the film
00:45:00
Speaker
that I actually kind of pulled out for a second was to look that up. I actually was trying to do homework while I was watching the movie, and I literally kept finding myself just sitting with my laptop on my lap, not doing anything but watching the movie.
00:45:17
Speaker
Okay, so you're totally transfixed by this movie. I really, really loved it. It's it's really fun. It's the pace is great. And you know, I was like, I kind of miss we need more of these fucking dumb comedies that like, that are just comprised of like 90 second fucking like vignettes of like characters between shenanigans. You know,
00:45:40
Speaker
And that's like the first half of this movie is just like these women just going around doing crazy shit in 90 second scenes. And it's it's really fun. It's yeah, it's highly entertaining. I think like, you know, there's like more than a couple of moments where I was just like,
00:46:05
Speaker
you know, to sort of echo Naxima's one-liner of sometimes it just takes a ferry. There's these moments of like, joy, like really birthing more joy, right? Like, these women are career women from New York City. Career girls who are like all in their mid thirties. Yeah. Or actually Swayze is in his early forties.
00:46:32
Speaker
Yes. Yeah, they're constantly like, Oh, we're just some, we're just young career girls. That's all they're like, all middle aged men. Yeah, exactly. And there's just like this, there's just like, this reminder kind of that like, joy begets joy. And like, earnestness and honesty, like they bring out the best in people and like,
00:46:57
Speaker
You know, I loved that the shop owner and the nosy busy body lady ended up finally like getting together at, you know, like having the courage to like break down social stereotypes or whatever. And like even the interaction between Carol Ann and Vida at the end after they fixed the like
00:47:23
Speaker
after they fixed the Cadillac, like, you know, Carol Ann is skewing gender stereotypes in a way by like saying, fuck it. I'm just going to fix this car myself. Cause I know how, and like, I'm going to take care of my kids. And when Vida's like, well, if we're truly going to be friends, you know, there's something you need to know about me. And she's just like, Adam's apple. And Vida's like, I'm sorry, what? Yeah. It's just like the very first night that I met you.
00:47:53
Speaker
I noticed that you have an Adam's apple and there's no woman alive who has an Adam's apple. And Vito was like so shocked about this, which I too was shocked earlier in the movie because I was like
00:48:07
Speaker
Has no one noticed? Like are these people just so oblivious? And then it turns out that no, not one single one of them was so oblivious. It was that they just didn't care because these women were kind and gracious and supportive and like a breath of fresh air in a tired little town, you know? And that was like, I was like, okay,
00:48:36
Speaker
Thank you. Thank you for acknowledging this. Because I was like, if they're going to get through this whole, this entire damn movie without at least acknowledging that they know what the situation is and have chosen to accept them for who they are, regardless, I was going to be a little disappointed.
Production Design and Cinematic Techniques
00:48:59
Speaker
I love that scene when Caroline first shows them into their hotel room and she's like, Oh, here's the light. She turns the like overhead light on and they're like, Oh, go turn off the light right now. Cause they've just been like driving around all day or like for multiple days. And they're just like, yeah. Well, also everyone knows that overhead flat overhead lighting is the least flattering lighting. That's super flattering. Yeah. No, not at all.
00:49:25
Speaker
Yeah, it was wonderful. And she was like, well, this is the presidential suite. And she's like, I guess it must have been one of those not so good presidents. Yeah. It was just like, I don't know. It was just it was clippy. It was it was sweet. It was, you know, it dealt with some very real things.
00:49:45
Speaker
you know, around, like, fear of being who you are. And I just, I don't know. I really loved it. I really loved it. That's, yeah, it dealt with these things really well. Like, just the whole impetus of them getting lost is BWM drives by her childhood home. And like, don't like
00:50:11
Speaker
And you're just like, why, why do you need to do this? You know, but like, she sees her mother walk out onto the front doorstep. Her mother looks at her and, you know, she's this fabulous looking woman. You know, Vito Bullam is this fabulous looking drag queen who's in this like ridiculous car that no one, no one in the mid nineties would ever drive anymore. It's like already a good 25, 30 years old car.
00:50:35
Speaker
And her mother just gets this crestfallen look at her face and turns around and goes back inside the house. Right. But it's also a look of disgust. It's crestfallen and disgust. And that was just like... I love that as a motivator for the rest of the film because she is confronting her traumatic past and...
00:51:02
Speaker
She's hoping it would get better. It would be better and it's just worse. And so it causes her to tear up the map for some reason. She says maps are cheating. And so that's how they get completely lost. And that's how, you know, they're, they're just, every single main character is just forced to confront their demons and their past and, and ultimately grow through the process. Yes. And that's just a great theme. Like that's fucking wonderful. Yeah. A hundred percent.
00:51:35
Speaker
100%. I feel like we're getting better at this, honestly. Yeah, of course. I think we are. Do you have any things that like didn't work for you? Um, yeah, I mean, probably sort of like the problematic jokes, like I didn't really appreciate the like,
00:51:58
Speaker
jokes about Latin American culture that they were tying to Chichi Rodriguez, kind of putting her down for that. I'm not sure like what else didn't work. Oh, I mean, just like the gratuitous like green screen work that we're constantly seeing in these movies from this year. It was like the hot new thing. Like, especially it's the kind of that scene right before Vita beats up Virgil.
00:52:25
Speaker
there are all three of the main characters are having an argument in our hotel room. And kind of the same thing that we saw with Winnie the Exhale, when Angela Bassett's having a conversation with someone and you could see them in the mirror next to her. It's kind of the same thing because you have both Vida and Chi Chi in focus, even though Chi Chi's in the background. And that was clearly on the green screen. And because you can tell that she's lit a little bit differently. Yeah.
00:52:55
Speaker
That kind of stuck out to me, but I can't depict that. It's still shot nice. It is a beautiful film. I thought the lighting and movies from this era is just really fun. The color palettes from films in this area are really fucking fun. They're so bold.
00:53:13
Speaker
but like, what didn't work? Yeah, Robin Williams, probably my least favorite character in the film. Good, you know what, you and I never have arguments on this show and I was really, you know, we've known each other for a long time, always been hoping that we'd get into some sort of beef. We still haven't yet and this isn't really an argument, but yeah, I didn't really enjoy Robin Williams.
00:53:32
Speaker
in this movie, but I get it. I mean, he brings something great to the film. I mean, I can see, I can objectively see how it's successful and fun to have him in a little cameo. So, okay, here's the thing. I didn't give, I didn't give a shit about Robin Williams pretty much at all. I kind of thought he was like, you know, some sort of process between hokey and like over every, like just too much.
00:54:01
Speaker
And then, you know, I saw him in like a semi dramatic role in World's Greatest Dad, where he is absolutely not the world's greatest dad, he's almost exactly the opposite of the world's greatest dad. And that was like, you know, kind of like a Jim Carrey in
00:54:21
Speaker
Eternal Sunshine moment where it's like, oh, this comedic actor is actually capable of harnessing some other kind of personality. And then after he died, a lot of stories started coming out about his journey and where his mind was while he was doing all of these super funny roles. And then
00:54:50
Speaker
how he responded to fans like I guess he was like he had like a letter like a pen pal club or something that like kids could like write him letters and shit and like he would actually respond to their letters and he actually like they were really meaningful for him
00:55:13
Speaker
And I think, you know, I, I gave, I started giving his character work a little bit more slack and then started kind of seeing like the underlying humor, the like underlying pain that was fueling the humor.
00:55:33
Speaker
And as a person who has struggled with mental illness, as a person who has had very close people to them commit suicide, there's something that I see a little bit differently in his character work now. And so I don't know. I don't necessarily think he's the best actor ever. I'm not a fucking Robin Williams.
00:56:00
Speaker
person. But I think that his there's always like a little bit of darkness in all of his characters that gets really overlooked. And I think that that's what makes it so funny to me. And this character in particular is so funny to me because like,
00:56:21
Speaker
He clearly knows how to play the game. That is what his character is. He is the game, right? He is the moneymaker. He is the fixer. He is this sort of specific character. And I just thought he did it so well. I can't imagine another actor fulfilling that role. I think you're right.
00:56:45
Speaker
think you're right yeah it is a compelling character like who the fuck is this person like he calls himself John Jacob Jingleheimer Smith and like
00:56:55
Speaker
Uh, like he just speaks like three different languages and he's just like, he can hustle anything for you. And Noxie is like, his name is my name too. And then without a fucking, without a drop in the conversation, he's like, and people always say that. And then it just keeps going. And I'm just like, it was just, it was just good. It was like an electric little moment. Yeah.
00:57:21
Speaker
And he could have had a shitty cameo. He could have just been like a guy, you know, like, but his it was like there was like a power behind the performance.
Character Analysis: Sheriff Dollard
00:57:28
Speaker
So I like how our little, quote unquote, disagreement just kind of turned into like a thoughtful discussion on the merits of him as an actor. Someday when we get really good at this will be we can start like yelling at each other. That's that's my I don't think we've ever really been people who yelled at each other.
00:57:51
Speaker
We've gotten into obnoxious, stupid debates, largely because you went through a phase where you felt the need to be the devil's advocate on every idea. Well, sure. We've grown. We've grown as people. Yeah, we're fucking adults. And I certainly know how to
00:58:16
Speaker
Exasperate you and I think I truly love to see you get exasperated then push your buttons. Who doesn't? Who fucking doesn't? Definitely seeing you lose your shit throughout the years. Comment, like, and subscribe if you've seen me lose my shit before. Literally everyone who knows me. Yeah. God.
00:58:45
Speaker
That is my least favorite personality trait about myself. Just losing your fucking temper out there in the world. It is that, but it is also the fact that like
00:59:01
Speaker
I'm such, like, I'm such a sensitive person and I'm so, I wear everything on my sleeve that it's so easy for people to do. That's the part that's so fucking irritating.
00:59:16
Speaker
is that people see it, and they're like, here we go. Let's fucking go. Let's just fucking dig in. And I've tried to not be that person. I've tried to shield that part of me somehow. And I'm going on 39 years of absolute fucking failure.
00:59:43
Speaker
And it's just like, and people are like, I just love seeing you get riled up. And I'm like, what is it about me? What is it that's so entertaining for people to get riled up? Like what, like. It's like your nostrils flare, but they flare inwards somehow. They're just like, I don't know. Like you put all the bread in the base. I think last time I, or,
01:00:13
Speaker
When Rachel and I saw you in Chicago, Rachel's birthday, we were like,
01:00:21
Speaker
sitting around just like drinking in the middle of the day somewhere. And I think I said something, I always say this, and it's really like a metaphor for like, well, just like, I don't know, shit just happens naturally or whatever, but I was like, oh, well, like, you know, luckily, that's why God gave us bike locks. Or I said like, I said something, oh, or I said like, you know, the rats are God's children also, something like that. I like talk about, I'm a hardcore atheist, but I still talk about God like, like as though God did something for us or created something for us.
01:00:52
Speaker
like yeah you did that your your nostrils flared it you're like you like took a sharp breath inwards it's like gotcha okay gotcha so one day one day we can have a salty debate
01:01:11
Speaker
Yeah, but no, I mean we're we yeah, I thought well we started the show I thought that we might have like we might have disagreements about aspects of film But I think you know like because well we're friends that we like the same sort of shit, right? And so we kind of naturally agree on a lot of this stuff Yeah, we're gonna have to start proposing movies that the other person absolutely just does not want to watch Well, maybe that was season two like Empire Records. Oh
01:01:37
Speaker
I mean, you still watch it. We still read on a bunch of shit. Yeah, we did, actually. Is there anything else you want to talk about about this film? I have like another thing I want to say about it. Oh, well, I was just going to I mean, I was just going to say, like, you know, I could have done without like dullard just because
01:02:05
Speaker
That's the one character that didn't feel fully fleshed out. That's the one story arc, the one B story that just kind of felt like, oh, what if we have this dopey cop who might be closeted going through these trials, quote unquote, to find these people? And it's just like,
01:02:33
Speaker
It just was so like, it was just like so dopey and like, I guess like I get it. Like they were trying to show like, you know, this is the other side of not being respected and not being accepted for who you are. You could turn into a cop and like, I suppose that that's true. Like, but like, you know,
01:02:57
Speaker
They couldn't have had their Spartacus moment at the end of the film if it weren't for his character. And I get that, but like, I don't know. I just wish it, I just wish that there had been like, I just, I don't know. There was something about it and maybe it was the actor, like that actor wasn't
01:03:24
Speaker
He was like the lowest caliber actor of everyone in the film. Literally everyone else did a better job portraying who they were supposed to portray. Even like the dirt bagged teenagers in the town were more compelling as actors than fucking sheriff's dollars.
01:03:48
Speaker
See, I have to agree. I have to disagree with you on this point because I think that he is a very one note character. He's written to be very one note. Right. And so I think if the performance suffers, it's just from that. But at the same time, I I I kind of agree with you that it's kind of annoying, but that also it's his his role is necessary to, you know, to further, you know,
01:04:15
Speaker
to further the plot along, right? And yeah, they have to have that Spartacus, I am Spartacus, which is very funny for them to do in a movie about drag queens. But I mean, I found his performance, I was just like, he's having such a good time. Like Chris Penn is like a classic, like, losing my shit sort of actor. Like if you saw him in like Reservoir Dogs, I don't really know him from very many other things. He's like in other period pieces and stuff, but
01:04:41
Speaker
Like he just, he's good at just like losing his fucking mind, like high blood pressure, just like screaming. But like that scene when he's in the bar and he's just like, he's monologuing about men having sex with each other. And then when you come back to him and he's still in the bar and Virgil shows up and he's just like kind of like googly eyed looking at Virgil just being like, yeah, I'm okay actually. And just like he's kind of relaxed a little bit. He's just beginning shit faced. I felt that performance like quite compelling.
01:05:11
Speaker
Um, so, I mean, one of my favorite lines in the film was because of his character. So like.
01:05:21
Speaker
You know, I'll I'll give him that the whole like, you know, when the founding fathers first first came here and wrote the Declaration of Independence and all that, you know, this isn't this isn't who they were talking about protecting. And then that fucking random ass guy with the dog just walks up and he's like, yeah, but they sure did have fabulous wigs. I was like dead. I was like, this is.
01:05:48
Speaker
That is true. They had a fantastic way. They were all in drag all the time. I love that he's like, so he gets knocked out and then he wakes up and his coworkers were just like, hooraying him and talking shit. Cause he like, you know, got beat up by a girl. Well, those weren't even his coworkers. Those were cops and he's a sheriff and then like, you know, so like he was in the city being. Oh, that's right. Yeah.
01:06:17
Speaker
That's right. And so he's just like kind of brainstorming where he'd find these these boys and girls dresses. He refers to the drag queens as boys or girls, which is very like very juvenile. It goes to speak towards like his sort of like emotionally stunted nature. Right. But he he makes this list and it's just like gay places.
01:06:41
Speaker
No, the list is called places for homos. And it's flower shops, ballet schools, flight attendant lounges, restaurants for brunch, and antique stores are all places for homos in this man's mind. I mean, show me the lie. Yeah. True.
01:07:07
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, a queer like loves a brunch. I can relate to that. Like, you know, we love a daytime drinking. We love, um, we love taking flights places. Um, I see a lot of, yeah. I feel like I see a lot of what I perceive to be queer men working a slight attendance. There's, you know, uh, a lot of antiquing can be done. You know, the straights love it too, but I feel like.
01:07:37
Speaker
You know, the gays have the market cornered in the antiquing world. They know where all the sweet, sweet deals are. I had a friend of the family, Bill, who owned an antique store. So like, he's not wrong. He's not wrong.
01:07:54
Speaker
I have another note right here. This is, this is tangential, but, uh, when they're, they're talking, uh, Vida and, uh, Noxie and we were talking to the women in the bar about, uh, the strawberry social that they have. And they're like, yeah, it's, we make these strawberry pies and then we eat them. I'm just kind of like, that's it. Yeah. And they're like, you don't do any like.
01:08:20
Speaker
music or dancing or anything, and then one woman just goes, we used to have a hollering contest, but then people said that was just too much. Like, you're from the Midwest, what the fuck is a hollering contest? Is that a thing? Have you ever come across this? No, no. No, but like. What the fuck is that? I mean, sometimes you just got a holler. Sure. You can, you.
01:08:48
Speaker
You know, it's like a different kind of chirping, but I feel like it's also a farm thing because like there's like a certain kind of hollering that you do on farms to like call animals and shit. So like could be like a yodeling contest. Similarly, like everybody has their own kind of like holler. An annual fair established in Spivey's Corner in 1969 celebrated the art of hollering.
01:09:18
Speaker
which before the telephone was an essential means of communicating for people in the rural area of areas of North Carolina. People use a repertoire of hollers to communicate with each other over long distance, from simple good mornings to messages alerting neighbors of an ongoing or impending emergency. Holleran. Hot shit. Yep. The first Holleran contest winner 70 year old Dewey Jackson hollered a rendition of
01:09:46
Speaker
What a friend we have in Jesus who sent a letter of congratulations from President Richard Nixon. I think we can wrap up this movie. I think so too. Nice. You want to rate it? Yes. What's your take for enjoyability? Dog. This is like a high 450. I'm going to say 459.
01:10:12
Speaker
459. Yeah. This is a fucking enjoyable movie. It really was. Yeah, I'm going to say the same. I'm going to say like 465. Yeah. It's funny that I have to take time to deliberate on these like totally, totally, totally non-numeric values. Um, veracity.
01:10:42
Speaker
It's really, this is like a kind of like a waiting to exhale sort of thing for me because it's like, I'm not a gay man who's the drag queen who may also be trans, which is kind of unclear. But the portrayals had a level of veracity to them that I really appreciated. Like the,
01:11:11
Speaker
And I spoke to this in the beginning, just like the way that the characters were not worn, they were like embodied, felt really truthful to me. So like, that's why I think it's successful. So I feel like I'm gonna give this one like a 4.13. 4.13.
01:11:42
Speaker
I think that's fair. I'm gonna go below 400. I'm gonna say 395. Because I guess that is part of what didn't work for me at times was like that they never were out of drag. And the town is just like
01:12:08
Speaker
Yeah, I guess that's true. Cause like the reality of the situation is like, would that have ever even could it had like, I think I used the phrase fantastical realism in the beginning. And like, it was that it was like, you know, this, this idealized response to these people coming into their town. So in a way that's like extremely unrealistic, right? Like.
01:12:35
Speaker
Yeah, the town itself doesn't feel very realistic to me. I know that there are places out there that have this sort of culture and lack of, I don't know, lack of anything going on and an incredibly deep level of poverty. But places like that, and I do visit places like that fairly regularly. Don't respond the way that these people respond. Yeah, they're not that chill. And there was like, you know,
01:13:05
Speaker
It's like, okay, this group of seemingly these men in their early 20s who seem to be unemployed and apparently just go around raping people, that feels kind of real, I suppose, but still incongruous with the rest of the town. I'm just like, who the fuck are these guys? Why are there not equal amounts of women in their 20s? Yeah, why, yes, these mare-do-wells. Yeah, total mare-do-wells.
01:13:33
Speaker
So stuff like that so the town feels like
01:13:40
Speaker
out of time, but also Vida Boem also feels like a woman out of time. And she's obsessed with these iconic female figures of yesteryear from the silver screen. And she herself doesn't look like anyone in existence in the mid-90s, I don't think. And she also, this is the way she introduces herself as like, oh, I'm Vida Boem of the Manhattan Boems. I don't even think that people
01:14:10
Speaker
were that snobby and cultured and pretentious, even getting on to 30 years ago.
01:14:26
Speaker
B to Bo M was like, very much her identity was probably rooted in like, the identity of her mother when her mother was young, right? The woman that she was raised to emulate, right in a way. And so like, or the woman that she wanted to emulate, but people just shamed her into not being able to exactly. Okay, so I'm gonna I'm striking back my veracity. I think I'm gonna I think I'm gonna like half it. Oh, shit. Okay. Because
01:14:57
Speaker
Whilst the portrayals of the characters felt extremely earnest on behalf of, you know, Snipes and John Leguizamo and Patrick Swayze, you know, I, the whole damned story is just far, it's like a far fetched
01:15:19
Speaker
fairy tale no pun intended situation yeah i mean it's it's quite farcical right um i i do think that the the themes with the manic elements are very real like you know and just the whole thing of like
01:15:36
Speaker
searching for yourself and having to do the hard work and take risks in order to like really be who you are. That's quite real. And that really speaks especially like to people in the queer community. I totally get that. I think that's why it still gets like a reasonably middling score for me. Gotcha. So you're at 206.5. I did math. I did math in my head. Nice. Quite proud of that.
01:16:04
Speaker
So yeah, I did 395. Yeah, just like to your point, the Sheriff Dollar thing is just like, okay, I got it. This is really ridiculous, but it is a farce. Immersiveness, pretty immersive. Completely immersed. I was so immersed in this movie. I tried to not be immersed in this movie multiple times and I couldn't stop, like I couldn't split my attention.
01:16:30
Speaker
I'm gonna say 500. I'm gonna say 500 because I like literally was trying to be half in half out of it and I couldn't. Yeah I'm gonna say 500 also there is like the production design I mean that that town felt like they just constructed it just for
01:16:50
Speaker
Um, this movie, although I don't think that's the case. I think that is a real town in Nebraska, but, but just like those nighttime summer scenes, summery nighttime scenes where like they, when
01:17:05
Speaker
Chi Chi Rodriguez is talking to Bobby Ray who is like courting her. And they're blowing, they have a fan slightly blowing her hair and her hair was kind of like swaying in the wind. Like it's so evocative of what it feels like to just be like wearing a dress on a hot summer night and talking to a boy that you're kind of in love with. Although that character is probably like, Bobby Ray is probably like 14. John Lemme then was like 35 in this film.
01:17:35
Speaker
It's kind of, it's kind of funny. I want to say that the wig for Chi Chi Rodriguez in the summer night scene with the white dress was easily the best wig that they had for her the entire film. Yeah. With the little tendrils, like, yeah. She always had very, yeah, she
01:17:59
Speaker
She looked at least like a drag queen. She looked- They were all beautiful. Yeah, of course. Yeah, absolutely. Like absolutely fucking gorge. But yes, Kiki Rodriguez looked the most like a female-bodied person out of the three of them. Yeah. And that's something that I really love. This is a bit tangential, but in the opening scene when you see Patrick Swayze in
01:18:29
Speaker
the male gender form coming out of the, step out of the shower and he's just like barely holding a towel in front of his dick. I was just like, what? I was like, who is this for? And what I really loved about the thought that was put into this film is like,
01:18:46
Speaker
Naked Patrick Swayze coming out of the shower like who is that for? Is that for the men? Is that for the women? You have these two like big masculine action stars playing these like sexy female roles. And I really love that right off the bat, right out of the gate.
01:19:07
Speaker
they're using the male, like the director is using the male gaze to subvert, like, and sort of, you know, send up kind of like straight men's adherence to how straight they are. Because deep down straight men are just incredibly gay. Like a lot of the things that they like and cherish and the way that they interact with each other
01:19:37
Speaker
And I just really love that subversion. Just the lingering camera angles on Patrick Swayze and Wesley Snipes putting on their lipstick, doing their makeup, posing for the camera was incredibly erotic. And I just love...
01:19:55
Speaker
that risk that the filmmakers took to be like, I'll use straight guys that are obsessed with these guys every day and obsessed with what the beautiful and glorious things that they do with their bodies. You're all kind of gay for these guys and this is proof. I just fucking love that. But yeah, I was fully immersed in this movie. Where would you watch this again?
01:20:23
Speaker
Um, probably a lot of places. Yeah. Um, I would definitely stream it on purpose. I would certainly go to a revival theater showing of it. Um, I would, you know, I don't, I will not, I won't watch anything on TV with commercials. That's just like a no go for me.
01:20:48
Speaker
It's just that's a fact of the podcast. Yeah, I just won't fucking do it. I would rather sit in silence and watch TV with commercials. Yeah, I would stream on purpose for sure. I would love to see this in a theater again. I'm sure I'm sure it'll come out next year. Yeah. Trevor was like, Oh, interesting. Would have been really good idea to perhaps do your 1994 for your podcast.
01:21:18
Speaker
that is going to fall over into 1994, the 30th anniversary, because we were in the fucking theater for Amelie and Alamo Drafthouse is doing a 1994 movie series. And I was like, fuck. That would have been good. Yep. I think that we started this podcast in 2022. No.
01:21:44
Speaker
Yes. Really? I think we did our first episode, Christmas of 2022, like December of 2022. You heard it here first. We are fucking procrastinators. No, we're fucking busy. We are busy. Also, yeah, a vicious procrastinator on my part, for sure. And also on my part. Are you kidding me? I didn't even know it was 4 o'clock and you called me and I was like,
01:22:15
Speaker
I'm eating a sandwich. It's okay. That's fine. All right, we can wrap up this film, I think. So yes, that is another episode of We're Spanning Time. Thank you. Thank you for joining us. Since you made it so far, you might as well comment, rate, subscribe.
01:22:34
Speaker
Let us know if you've personally gotten under my skin and why it was so fun for you. Yeah, leave a comment if I was really pretentious and pushy about something. Leave a comment if Beth was also pretentious and pushy about something and then you kept on pushing her and she got really pissed off and started screaming at you. Yeah. And in case you need to be reminded, men acting like women
01:23:04
Speaker
men wanting to be with one another, and touching each other. Their stubbly chins rubbing up against one another, touching each other, manly hands touching swirls of chest hair, occasional whiff of rugged aftershave, their low baritone voices sighing, grunting.
01:23:34
Speaker
hold one another, and manly masculine arms hold another, hold one another tight.
01:24:24
Speaker
I'm missing tonight
01:25:06
Speaker
Wow.
01:26:01
Speaker
Such a minute where the fill goes Darling strings to make a sound You will save your time, you will save your life