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The Mummy- Something for Everyone and Everything for Some of Us
29 Plays4 months ago
We all know why this was such a formative movie for a lot of people, do we really have to spell it out? Beyond the beautiful (H O T) and charming cast, there is sadly a lot to unpack here regarding colonization, culture appropriation, and exoticization in Hollywood. And we examine how our education system set us up to recognize and question none of this at all. But at least we got to dress up like Roman Senators and Cave Men at school! Join us in the sandy snow globe that is this tale of adventure.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120616/?ref_=tt_mv_close
http://www.filmscouts.com/scripts/matinee.cfm?Film=mummy&File=look#google_vignette
Music: Cassette Deck by Basketcase
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Transcript
Introduction to Hot Set and Theme
00:00:00
Speaker
I'm Melinda. I'm Ariel. This is Hot Set, the movie podcast about costume design.
Millennial Nostalgia and The Mummy
00:00:21
Speaker
Hello and welcome back to another episode of Hot Set. We are here today continuing our journey through millennial nostalgia. It's probably keeping us both kind of sane at this point to escape back to a time before now, even though it might not be psychologically healthy to do so. We all have our own coping mechanisms. We do. We all have to figure it out somehow.
Focus on Costume Design in The Mummy
00:00:51
Speaker
Today, we're here to talk about the 1999 film, The Mummy, directed and written by Stephen Summers with costumes by John Bloomfield. This movie is sort of a reinterpretation, reboot, remake of the universal horror property of The Mummy.
00:01:14
Speaker
ah with ah Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz and a whole mess of other people in this particular movie. For anyone who maybe hasn't seen it or hasn't seen it in a long time, the premise of the movie is that Evie, our heroine, is an, I guess, I mean, she's a librarian. I guess maybe she would be considered an amateur Egyptologists, I don't know that she has any particular like experience before hand. Yeah, I feel like she's just like a lady academic. A scholar. Yeah, an academic. A lady scholar. A lady from a family with money and they're like, well, this will be busy and we'll let you do this until someday you marry the young lord of our chosen. A second viscount of blah, blah, blah, whatever the... Yeah, but she's very well versed in sort of Egyptian history, but also the sort of maybe more lore, like unconfirmed stories and things about the past that maybe people consider to be not true.
00:02:26
Speaker
She discovers that this mythical lost city of Hamunaptra is actually real and she enlists Brendan Fraser to help her find it because he has been there when he was ah involved in like a military service of some kind. ah She brings her brother along. There's also a rival group of ah explorers, mostly American, accompanied by a lot of
00:02:58
Speaker
ah unexplored and ah disrespected workers that seem to be Egyptian people. and the name is We'll get into that some more. I think um both groups make it to the city. They're digging around in foolish ways in doing things they
Plot and Character Dynamics in The Mummy
00:03:22
Speaker
shouldn't do. And Evie accidentally read as the Rex Prince Imhotep, who is ah very cursed, and he is hell-bent on bringing his dead girlfriend back to life, Anaxina Moon, and he's got mythical powers, so they have a hard time stopping him, but ah it's a movie, so obviously they figure it out in the end.
00:03:48
Speaker
and the heroes prevail and society is once again safe from this gorge of ancient Egyptian curses. So that's the movie.
00:04:03
Speaker
Yes. um For me personally, I've seen this movie probably like 25 times. I've seen this movie so much. Yeah. Did you have it? I had it on VHS. I did not have it, but it was one that I would rent. And it was also on TV a ton. All the time. So it was definitely one that I could watch. And like going over to friends' houses or whatever, it was an easy bet to rent and watch as a group because like it has a little something for everybody.
00:04:35
Speaker
Oh, so this movie. i just like it even start I mean, I still have to come down a little bit from my like millennial fury about all the commercials that I was just punished by. Yeah, we were both watching this movie on like a free streaming service that had commercials like every 10 minutes. But in that way, it felt ah an authentic experience to watch the movie. It did. It felt like I was 12 again. And I was just like, oh, come on.
00:05:04
Speaker
This time I was filled with the righteous fury of like the god of thunder.
John Bloomfield's Costume Design Legacy
00:05:10
Speaker
It's like just burn. I just can't handle commercials anymore. And it like took me three hours to watch this dang movie. its Yeah, this two hour movie took three hours to watch. It was so much.
00:05:27
Speaker
Oh my God, this movie. Okay. There are two things that I can start with. Well, actually three. Please. So the first one is definitely giving a shout out to the costume designer, ah again, by the name of John Bloomfield. I did not know his name before this watch, and yet he has shaped quite a few things, ah including water rolled.
00:05:51
Speaker
Yes. Have you ever seen? Okay. I'm just like going through his IMDB right now and I was not going to mention this, but I have to because I can't help myself because I'm all about impulses. Have you ever watched the postman? No. Kevin Costner.
00:06:05
Speaker
I have not. Just a quick aside, y'all, if you want to feel like you're dying and watch, like, like you have no control over your life, even though we feel like that normally and shit, like if you want to feel like you are being sucked into the core of the earth and you can't fight your way out of it, you should watch this flip it movie. I somebody put oh of a movie on once when I was stuck on a mountaintop working a summer gig. And it it just never ended. I don't even know if I've seen the whole thing. It's so, her I don't even know how to describe it. I don't think I can watch that. It's like an existential crisis. Oh my God. And it' it has nothing to do with the plot. I'm not even talking about the plot. I'm just talking about these spirits. I have homegrown existential crisis. I don't need store-bought.
00:07:00
Speaker
I've got plenty. Yeah, if in any case you're feeling light on the existential crisis, you should just put this on and then be like, why am I, why am I here? Why are you here? Why are we here? So our illustrious costume designer, water roll postman, so has worked with Kevin Costner a few times. Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves, yet another Kevin Costner.
00:07:23
Speaker
wow so much oh my god that's so interesting superman 4 the quest for peace konan the destroyer the bounty konan the barbarian so there are like a lot of things here that are that are pretty recognizable that are not like small gig things um and so thank you for your work sir Yeah, and he would go on to do, he would do the entire like Brendan Fraser mummy trilogy. He does the sequel and he does the Scorpion King with Dwayne The Rock Johnson, which I don't think I've ever actually seen the Scorpion King. I think it's the first thing I ever saw Dwayne Johnson in
00:08:07
Speaker
after being aware of him as a wrestler. I was like, Oh, he's on big screen. Oh, yeah. A while. A wild movie. A wild time. Okay. So so that was yeah number two. That was number one. Thank you. john to Beautiful work.
Historical and Cultural Critiques
00:08:25
Speaker
Number two. I just want to put this demon out of the way.
00:08:30
Speaker
We are totally aware of the issues with Egyptology and the colonialism that is on display in this movie, and we should call it out for what it is.
00:08:41
Speaker
We have a lot of white people causing a lot of trouble in Egypt. and um joe we do we put any ha elves lot is yeah We have a lot of cast members playing Egyptian people that are you know nowhere near Egyptian people. they are not like like There's a lot of weird casting choices for a movie that has a lot of Egyptian characters. And I did even less research on this one than I normally do because I was so furious at the commercials, I think. But also I was like trying to look for some costume stuff and it was all about cosplay and I was like, this is really cool, gonna bookmark this, but it's not gonna help me at this moment because I want the sources. No. Yeah.
00:09:28
Speaker
But I feel like I heard somewhere that the language that Aung San Amun and Imhotep are speaking to each other is like pretty accurate and I could be wrong but like that they actually did try to That's what I I didn't investigate that any further, but that is the readily available information was that they they at least like tried to develop something you know based on facts to what it might sound like. Although I think there maybe are some like questions about whether things were
00:10:06
Speaker
Translated correctly from like hierogic hieroglyphic I don't know yeah I don't know at all I think at the time there was an attempt made and whether or not that still holds true that it was a good attempt I'm not quite sure but but um i it's fascinating to me like where people like put.
00:10:26
Speaker
effort for historical accuracy in this age where like that doesn't translate to casting. And it's like certain things people are like, well, we want this to be realistic. And other things people are just like, what are you talking about? like Why shouldn't we cast this, you know. The category of exotification, of being like, well, you look not white, so we'll put you in, is just crazy. So that said- And there's something, like, there's also, there's just like a kind of weird his precedent of like very much like whitewashing Egyptian- Yeah.
00:11:04
Speaker
characters in general even in terms of like what like features people are like there's just a lot of weird stuff that I think people don't really like to think too hard about and don't necessarily really want to talk about even now for real and so like the second part of that is like that that's a whole conversation that I'm not qualified to have because I don't know enough about any of these things I just do know that there has been significant Tom Fuckery that has been put on Egypt with all of the Egyptology. And there is there are so many Egyptologists who are Egyptian like that in the study that it is being led now, especially by actual Egyptian folk. But this movie takes place in a time where it's like, ooh, the ancient Egypt, ooh. And where a lot of things were being done that were not
00:11:56
Speaker
ethical at all and um this is like a fun romp with like you could have a real serious conversation about it and this we're not going to have the deep serious conversation because we don't feel qualified to have that but we do want to put a little footnote that it is there and if you don't know about that stuff I highly suggest that you read up on it and um There are tons of people who actually study these things and study like the decolonization of of the subject. And it's very interesting. And i the the second part of that is that I do want to say that we as teenagers, because we were 12, 12 or 13, I'm not going to do actual math. and yeah Call out a number, man. about but like
00:12:39
Speaker
we were like babies. And we had been primed for these things by Indiana Jones, like 100%. Absolutely. To not think too hard about the ethical stuff or the morality of it and just to look at the adventure of it all and like romancing the stone, like all these different things where it's just the adventure. And so that's how we saw it when we were younger. And that's how it made an impression on us with this romance. And the third thing Whoo, did this movie cause so much by panic for so many people?
Personal Connections and Viewer Experiences
00:13:18
Speaker
Let's just call it out. I've seen it so many times, just like anecdotally online of people being like, whoo, let's just make a list of some of these characters, Rick, Evie, Aung San Amun, Imhotep, Ardeth Bay, come on.
00:13:30
Speaker
our death bay come on. Come out. like let's Let's be so for real right now. like Regardless of how you roll, this was a beautiful lineup of people. This movie has something for everyone. It has something for everyone and something for just a little bit of something to eat with your eyes. And everything for some people. There you go. It was pretty perfect. And so I was watching this and I was just like, oh my God, so many people have been shaped by Brendan Pracer and his shoulders this as Rick and these stupid shoulder holsters. Oh my God, the shoulder holsters. The like one quote that I found from the costume designer was him talking about the shoulder holsters.
00:14:20
Speaker
because they're not practical at all. I mean, it's like they're ridiculous, but they're ridiculous. Like the placement is nuts. But like, I was just like, I just, I would lose my mind at the sensory whackadooness of where they are, like the placement, because it would keep hitting my arms and my armpit like all the time without a jacket on. And that's how we're seeing Rick is just like, it's like pistol.
00:14:44
Speaker
and miserable like tight pants like the Oh my god. Okay. Everybody in this movie is a trope. Every single person, it's the whole movie is just a trope where it's like enemies to lovers, but it's not really enemies. It's like snarky.
00:15:00
Speaker
to lovers and it's like the the buttoned up librarian in the rap scallion adventure or like oh my god like so rap scallion that she goes to save his life and he's like totally unkempt and she's like god you're disgusting but you have the knowledge that i need and then he takes a bath and she's like oh She's like, She puts on a jacket. Let me unbutton the top button on this blouse.
00:15:29
Speaker
And then our buttoned up librarian over the course of the movie, because of story, but also because of wink, wink, audience, I guess, she becomes way less buttoned up.
00:15:40
Speaker
and is like literally kidnapped in her nightgown with like a little lacy robe number. Significant portions of the movie in a nightgown. With her hair down and just like these the tiny little eyebrows and the eyeliner. I know. I was really admiring her eyebrows this times the one time. it's one of sorry It's the one of the only examples of thin eyebrow where I'm like, okay, I see it.
00:16:06
Speaker
That said, let's not go back. when hes yeah Let's not go back. please please but like If you're going to do the whole aesthetic of the 20s, then rock it. That's a pain. It's a lot of pain. It's annoying.
00:16:21
Speaker
it's annoy yeah
00:16:24
Speaker
But I was like, i i it was sort of fascinating to just stare at her eyebrows in this movie because it's what was popular in 1999 and also what was popular in 1926. So it was sort of like double whammy. And trying to make any kind of connection fashion-wise from the 90s to the 20s is like painful like in my brain where it's like, yeah Let's not do that. i yeah And so it is weird to look back and be like, there was eyebrow overlap and it was strong and also strong lip colors, brown lip. It's like a real crossover. Real mocha lip color explosion. so Yeah. Okay. So I do have an admission and that is that there are so few notes taken and there are two reasons for that. One, cat on my lap. Yeah. Number two,
00:17:12
Speaker
cat on my lap, that was it. The laptop was two feet away from me, nothing than I could do. I had a cat on notebook for part of the movie, so there was no notes for that section. So no notes. My notes are are more concentrated toward the end of the movie. They're really vibe-based. They're just like tihi-hi. I think I have more for the beginning. So between the two of us, we have one complete set of notes for this movie. Yeah, this is this is me flying in real real wild.
00:17:46
Speaker
But also at the same time, like I feel like both of us could have recorded this episode without watching the movie. because Oh, 100%. I mean, come on. We wouldn't have had super specifics, but don't need them, nor costing podcasts. right specific The thing that I was really looking at a lot this time that you can only like experience with the hindsight of watching a movie 25 years later is the quality of the computer graphics in this movie. oh They were so cool at the time, but now look like a cutscene from a PlayStation game. It really does. Like Prince of Persia. Yeah, it really does. um Even though Persia and Egypt are two very different things, come on now. They are very different and we recognize that. and we It's just like graphics wise, I think is the comparison that I'm making here. It was startling. I was shook.
00:18:40
Speaker
like wait It's been a minute since I've seen this long enough that I'm like, oh, oh, yeah. see And it's kind of like amazing to watch it because like, you know, you you remember watching it when it was new and just being like,
00:18:56
Speaker
Yeah, that's what that's what it looks like. it It doesn't stand out because there wasn't anything better to compare it to. So it just was sort of like, yeah, that's what the water would look like if there was a bunch of like creepy dead faces coming out of it. I'm sure that's fine. It doesn't look like a weird like music video from 1997. Watching it on the old TVs and watching it on VHS would be a different experience because everything would actually be film and it would be, prepped for that and like I didn't change the settings on my phone which are meant to be like cinema or vivid or whatever the hell which is like makes your eyes all buggy and like so it was like too clear it was telling me too much of the truth about the mummy I was like no no let's let's take it down about 28% like
00:19:45
Speaker
We need that greeniness of the film.
Practical Aspects of Costume Design
00:19:48
Speaker
read The texture, the texture. texture Oh my goodness. there There were quite a few times where I was noting some textural things in this movie. And ah one of them was like my eyeballs thinking about hand feel of like shirts and socks, because there were a lot, like this is a very dusty, dusty is not the right word, sandy place.
00:20:13
Speaker
These are people who are getting into the dirt and the sand, also dust when they're underground, etc. They're getting places, and I felt like there were moments where I was like, how come we're we're really neat? like There's distressing, but like we would be sweating our balls off, and where's that at? You can see that in a white shirt with like some yellow, but I guess we're not going to do that to Brendan Fraser until the very end when he looks like rugged.
00:20:42
Speaker
But at the same time, agree about that. But like there was also like a lived-in quality to the way that people were styling their clothes. I feel like I don't see as much now when watching the type of movie that this would be now, which would be like a giant, like $250 million blockbuster extravaganza. I feel like there was a little bit of like a rumbled quality to people's clothes in this movie that you don't get anymore. The rumbled is the perfect word. Rumbled is the word because we do see, I'm being dramatic, we do see distressing, 100%. It's there. Yes, but it's like long term. Yes. And there's also some that's like finer and because it's film, it's like finer, but there's just like, it was specifically Rick that I was like, you're sure it has been white for too long, sir. too long, but like, um, we definitely see it like in the beginning and at the end, but, uh, rumpled is like the perfect word because yes, everybody does look lived in. And also the fact that everybody has very specific accessories that are for them. And like, there are some people with ties that are really short, like the tie falls at the waist versus like no tie or whatever, like just the things that people are choosing to wear. Yeah. Yeah.
00:22:09
Speaker
is like each one has their own thing going and it looks like, like Rick's kerchief around his neck could have been tighter. It could have been, which would have made it look more like, you know, millennial. scar yeah Yeah. But instead it's like really loose because the purpose is not to choke out his neck, which is sweating. It's to like be there so he can cover his face when it's necessary. So it needs to be loose enough that he can pull it up over his face at a moment's notice.
00:22:38
Speaker
And it's like a practical thing that he has. And so it's just like, there are things that a lot of thought was put into. There are like very specific items of clothing, like these boots that um I'm so bad, but I'm already forgetting character names, but the guy who dies in the hotel room, like. Oh, yeah. the Oh, I mean, like, I'm sorry to the, I'm sorry to my American brethren, but I don't know any of those characters by name.
00:23:05
Speaker
Not one. I don't need to. You're just so sorry. You're just a fella, you know, you're just a you're just a guy, a little guy, just like a weird cowboy. Like, I don't. Yeah. Sorry. and You had a story and it ended sadly. But are you talking about the guy who loses his eyes? The blonde one? So I think so. ah he's like in the He's in the hotel room, the guy with the little short tie leaves. He's like, I can't take this, which by the way yeah is a trope that drives me nuts. Like you're being hunted and you're like, I can't wait here anymore. I have to go to the bar. Okay, buddy.
00:23:39
Speaker
such a horror movie thing to do, to be like, oh my God, I'm so scared. Actually, you know what, I'm bored and I'm gonna leave and go by myself. I'm bored, I gotta go. And then all the windows are wide open, so he leaves his friend behind, Mr. Bourbon on Bourbon on Bourbon, and his friend's picking out his pistol and he's like,
00:23:56
Speaker
but you And then here's something out of the wide open windows. I'm like, sir, you don't even want to try to close those. It'll be stuffy. There is a supernatural immortal mummy after you specifically pull yourself together. Oh my goodness. But while I was having those thoughts, no, don't go investigate the sound outside that window. You know, it's bad news. Run. yeah ah While I was having those thoughts, I was like, but look at those boots though.
00:24:27
Speaker
They're pretty good. They're great. Yeah. I don't think I ever like consciously or like intellectually thought about how tight the color palette is in this movie before watching it today. like i'm yeah like I noticed it, but I never like actually spent time considering that we really only have like white shades of tan and brown, black, and then like the occasional like
00:24:58
Speaker
very occasional like color punctuation, like the red fez. Yeah. And like the blue that Imhotep is yeah in. Yeah. In that in that robe cape situation. Right. Right. And it's like even that's like very like deep indigo color. But like the there is so little color in this movie and there is actually like relatively like few costumes in the movie because even though we have like a pretty like decent sized like cast of characters,
00:25:29
Speaker
They don't change very much. Yeah. It's really like Evie has changes. And that's from like being buttoned up lady to, uh-oh, I wasn't prepared to wear this with an audience. Um, then, then we have Aung San Amun, who is mostly wearing paint and yeah good for her. You know what I'm saying? I mean, she looks incredible.
00:25:56
Speaker
Well, well, yeah. tro And hats off to the makeup artists who painted her. She looks oh great. She looks great. Like all of those things look great. All of Imhotep's priests, because I think that he was a priest or like, yeah you're right. word But he was like a spiritual person advisor and all of his priests who were under him all have this like amazing color that that of body paint. That's kind of like a,
00:26:25
Speaker
not like a burnished, but almost like a when copper turns green, except it's not copper, it's gold that it's attached to. Like there's this weird, really great color effect happening that they're like burnished in. And that was very interesting for the eyes, for the eyeballs.
00:26:44
Speaker
Yeah, there's not a million costumes per ecare each character. Like there are a lot of costumes in front of us because there are a ton of extras. But yeah, our main folks are like, they're there to work. They're there to figure something out so that they can. um What is it that Rick says? I'm here to save the damsel, kill the bad guys, save the world. Yeah.
00:27:05
Speaker
And hopefully you find some treasure. and Yeah, you know, just like his little bonus, like F. Benny. I mean, something for his efforts. It's very, it's very like Han Solo of him to be like, I'm just here for my paycheck. I'm just here for the glory. I mean, he's totally the the Han Solo of the desert. Like, we can't fight that. He's just like, I do my thing. And then he's like, oh, you got me. I love you. I my know. And like literally teamed up with like a brother sister team. So really.
00:27:34
Speaker
100%. And speaking of Han Solo, according to IMDB, the rental company that a lot of costumes for extras ah were rented from called Angels, which is a British company. Apparently one of the items that was rented for an extra to wear in the movie is Obi-Wan's cloak from the original Star Wars. So it's somewhere. That was pretty great.
00:28:04
Speaker
Now, the next time I watch that, I'm going to have that flagged in there so I can look for it because that's pretty great. it's like oh my god I love, by the way, anybody who can track costumes from production to production to production, like movie to movie to movie, who isn't you know like necessarily looking at the history of the rental history.
00:28:26
Speaker
But instead it's just like, yeah, I've seen these things and that thing moved there and they altered it this way and then it went there and they turned it back, and etc. Like, that's great. I love that. I know, it's amazing. And it's like, um you know, obviously something that we're very used to that practice working in theater because we like reuse and repurpose stuff all the time because unless you're doing like basically a Broadway show, the likelihood that everything in your show comes from like your mind, ah like a blank sheet of paper is zero. Like that doesn't happen. Yeah, it has to be a very small show and you have to get very creative or honestly,
00:29:13
Speaker
donate stuff, which is one of the first things that I was taught not to do, which is donate your time or donate materials, because then you're not actually getting the paycheck. No, like smart, smart. I know. And it's just like really perpe perpetuates these really like toxic mindsets about Yeah, what you should be willing to do to make art that I don't agree with you know, we can talk about his hat um Yeah, yeah yeah love yeah ah but yeah, I know like I love looking at things where people have tracked like how pieces have been like used and reused in different productions and sometimes it'll be like
00:29:52
Speaker
something that was like clearly like made because it's for like the lead of like a costume you know drama or something. and Then 10 years later, it's like on an extra on like a TV show in the background. and It's just like someone happens to spot it and like recognize it. It's so crazy. um so yeah Whoever figured out that Obi-Wan's cloak got rented and used on an extra in this movie, like hats off to you because that is an incredible thing to know.
00:30:21
Speaker
And I would not have ever known that. No. I don't know if I saw this movie in the theater. I think I must have. It definitely seems like the type of movie that I would have wanted to see in the theater, but I definitely had it on VHS and I could not tell you how many times I watched this movie. Like it was just like, I don't know, it's a Saturday afternoon and I have nothing better to do. Pop in the mummy. Let's watch it. Pop that mummy in there. I absolutely saw this in theaters and was like,
00:30:50
Speaker
Hmm. Put a note on that one because I am enjoying this very much. It was also like the height of Brendan Fraser and his powers and like Georgia, of the jungle, this like so many other things. And it was just like, yep, I'm here. Take me on this journey, sir. You're running around the desert. Me too, dude. Me too. Oh, I can't run like that. Carry me. Oh no. Drag me if you have to. Where are we going? And it was like,
00:31:19
Speaker
It was like a ah kind of like how I'm saying it, but not really kind of like a soap opera-y version of an Indiana Jones, where it's like Indiana Jones is like super moody and all of that. And it's like, it was something that we were watching because Steven Spielberg, but it was like a very youth friendly Indiana Jones, where it was like Indiana Jones liked Indiana Jones with like city yakety sacks.
00:31:46
Speaker
I'm playing over much stuff. Agatha Christie-ish, in the neighborhood you know of like Death on the Nile. and gee so It had a lot of visual things that that were present and things that I'd seen, and it was just like a silly, goofy, good time. yeah i just I loved that so many of the characters are just wearing so many pieces.
00:32:12
Speaker
all throughout the movie. There's so much to look at, so many details. I think we bring up cosplay a lot for people who don't cosplay, but costume and cosplay are hand in hand. They are the same thing, just different goals, putting on stage or putting on yourself. But this is a perfect movie for cosplay. Come on, there's so many characters that you could choose to to look at all the details and you would have so many projects to learn new skills on um in order to be that thing. And like the mummy himself, Imhotep, it's kind of great watching like the CG journey throughout the movie because we have the actor
00:32:57
Speaker
for part of it. But part of it, he's just CG and he's like killing all these people so that he can basically go grocery shopping for body parts. And like um and he's played by Arnold Vaslu. Sorry if I'm pronouncing that wrong.
00:33:14
Speaker
He is just so straight faced, like the whole time. Just like, yeah, I'm getting my girlfriend back. That's the end of the story. But he yeah he is just like wearing the hell out of the things that he's given, which are very, yeah drapey and like he's just got this like presence and the balance that he and um the actress playing Aung San Amun have with each other where she's always wearing so much less, but like they both have this gravity to them. I
Character Portrayals and Themes
00:33:47
Speaker
don't know. Like it's, yeah they're just fantastic.
00:33:52
Speaker
I think, so I read that that that actor that plays Imhotep, I think he had like a background doing a stage and in particular doing like Shakespeare at the National Theater in South Africa, because that's where he's from. Interesting.
00:34:08
Speaker
And assuming that what I read is truthful, he basically said that his intention in taking the role for the movie was to play it as if he was basically in Romeo and Juliet, because that's how his character felt about his situation. And I think that that really plays out. He is not winking at the camera. He is serious. This is not a comedy for him. No, no. very serious. Because like everybody else, like the character Ardeth Bay is acting as one of these guardians of the desert who sees Rick and company coming and it's like, get out of here you guys. And they're like, listen, we want to play. And he's like, this is going to go wrong with get out of here. And he's like part of this group that is like always
00:34:59
Speaker
like, generationally keeping people away from Hamanabtra, which is this temple where Imhotep has been buried. And, like, there's all these parts that have been spread across the world and have, like, they've lost essentially because they've been taken. And they're like, no, this is messed up. but Things are coming if you mess around in this.
00:35:19
Speaker
and rick and everybody's like that's fine and like what we're so cute and charming yeah i think that is the artist bay has this like. I mean in my head it makes sense i could i could argue my way to get to it to a yoda or obi one can no be position where he is the person who has the knowledge.
00:35:38
Speaker
And the other people, he's not telling them necessarily everything at once, but he's like, this is bad news, you guys. And he's like, I'm going to guide you to not fuck this up. And yet everybody's like, and he's like, Oh, you guys. Um, that's me also like, I'm so tired. It's like, yeah, he's just like, you, you are messing up everything we've been trying to maintain. And then like,
00:36:06
Speaker
just his seriousness still has a little bit of that like twinkle of like, yes, I'm aware that this is, I'm playing a trope. But yeah, Imhotep is like, nope, this is the most real thing in the world. This is a documentary about the tragedy of me and my, my partner who murdered our pharaoh and then were murdered in turn. And, um or she stabbed herself, but still, um, I mean, she wouldn't have done it. She got pushed into, ah she got pushed into a corner and that was like the way out. So we know who's really to blame. Okay.
00:36:44
Speaker
the prear Like literally. So something that I was thinking about when I was watching this movie is that every yeah class on clothing history that I've taken and every sort of like general clothing history book that I've ever looked in always starts with ancient Egypt clothing. And it was, I was just thinking about the fact that I've never been like, I've never needed that
00:37:21
Speaker
and like I've never needed that for a show that I've worked on. I've never worked on a show where I needed anything from ancient Egypt to be like explicitly part of it. I couldn't think of very many so like stage plays where you would you where you would need to use ancient Egyptian clothing of unless you were doing like Shakespeare's like Antony and Cleopatra.
00:37:48
Speaker
Aida. Aida, thank you. Okay. Maybe like a little bit in like Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Yeah. Um, so there are some where it's like they, they borrow or they have like little walk across the stage references, but yeah, I'm not, I'm not going to be able to remember like anything else. No, no, I mean like, but it's fascinating to me. It's not like a thing that we often do no and no but that you and I have have done. Right. I've not. Yeah, I've not needed to. I also would like probably not be super comfortable taking on a project involving that unless I had a lot of time to like research and like learn about, yeah you know, it's hard, but yeah. What I always think about when I think about, okay,
00:38:38
Speaker
before I get to what I was actually saying. yeah There's an argument that I have been kind of watching happen in places where I i understand what people are saying, where we use the term costume um to mean two things. We use it to mean something that you are putting on to become someone who is not you and to represent a different person, a different identity to tell a story as a tool. um And the the other definition or the other way that it is used is kind of in an academic way where we refer to clothing worn by people of the past anywhere in the world as costume.
00:39:22
Speaker
And it does not necessarily have the same definition. It's like there are two definitions. And I, God forbid, I actually look it up and see if there are actually two definitions. But contextually, that is how the term is used. Yeah, that's how it's used in society. So like in society. And so there are people rightfully so saying, do not wear my hair, like my my heritage as costume because it is not costume. And that is very often because of how people misappropriate and misuse so clothing for yeah Halloween and are disrespectful and all of these things. And so in a language way, I do use the word, the term costume to describe old clothing because I don't
00:40:13
Speaker
um have a replacement term at hand to like collectively speak about old, except aside from like old clothing. um yeah just Just in case that like it hits anybody, but also it's a thing that I've noticed a lot about.
00:40:30
Speaker
like when you're talking about ancient Egypt, as well as like other things, but ancient Egypt, it's like, we're not talking about costume solely as it goes on stage or on film. We're also talking about actual clothes.
Impact of Period Films on Costume Accuracy
00:40:43
Speaker
And yeah, those clothing pieces. Yeah. And like what's interesting is where those two things collide. So like in the twenties, there are some very famous Cleopatra films, right? So like there's yeah Liz Taylor,
00:40:57
Speaker
That massive friggin movie. Yeah, that one's like 60 in the 60s and there's also one I can't remember who it is in the 20s I think in the 20s or the 30s. So this was like at the height of American and ah European fascination with Egypt yeah and Egyptology. And which was like literally happening for those people, like there were archaeologists, I guess you want to call them, in Egypt, literally excavating and taking artifacts at that time. So people like it was a it was like a worldwide fascination because it was what was happening for those people, like yes, in the world.
00:41:40
Speaker
So the one that I'm thinking of is 1934 Cecil B. DeMille starring Claudette Colbert. um I remember learning about this in school because there was an argument that the costumes in that film are more accurate to ancient Egyptian clothing than basically anything that's come later because it was so close to the time of things being discovered. So this was when they were actually able to see stuff and be like, oh, well, we're going to make this. And so it's like kind of crazy because when people for a very long time in like film history thought about it, they, they thought about, you know,
00:42:19
Speaker
Uh, live, not live. tyler let listen Taylor, which like her costumes are like, whoa, her costumes are, uh, they are costumes that were made for Elizabeth Taylor. They are, what they are Hollywood, like they are hundred percent very different. And so seeing the mummy and not having been looking at research materials or studying, you know, being exposed to this stuff like in an academic yeah way in quite a yeah minute because we're not using this knowledge regularly in what you and I do for the jobs that we're hired for that we we're working. A lot of my Egyptian clothing knowledge is like
00:43:06
Speaker
Yeah, oh, it's all gone. It's it's I would not rearview mirror and like terminology terminology like it's gone. I don't know. Yes. And like there are very fascinating things that I've seen with my own eyes in exhibits, in lectures, in school, like that kind of thing about style. so like And the way that the body was decorated and displayed was very fascinating. like The way that wigs were worn is amazing. like There's so much that is very rich in that history. I don't really know what I'm trying to say.
00:43:46
Speaker
But basically, I'm trying to get to this place where we see the mummy, the movie, and I'm not quite sure how much of reality is there. Yeah, I don't know. And it's like it's like I'm automatically suspicious. I i am too. Yeah, because too because like I see the wigs and the wigs get it. You know, those are yeah recognizable. Those are iconic. The the blunt bang, the blunt, you know,
00:44:15
Speaker
Yeah, the like braiding and all that kind of stuff. The eye makeup, onks, like all these kind of like adornment on the the sort of like yes the skullcap kind of hanging things. Like certain head pieces, certain yeah pieces of jewelry, certain collars, like there are certain things that we're were attuned to recognize. But like when we see onks in the moon wearing essentially just paint and chains, I don't know.
00:44:44
Speaker
I do think, and this is again, me just plucking through the wreckage of my memories. I do think that there were fabrics that were so diaphanous that you could see through them. yeah And like those have been present throughout human history and most famously, and like I i think you like linen and like all the, like the, the fabric,
00:45:12
Speaker
and the Dai world in ancient Egypt. I went to school, you guys. I was in an academic place where we actually talked about these things, but God forbid when I'm called to talk about it that I can actually do it. But um that was a but it was many years ago.
00:45:29
Speaker
It's hard when you don't use it, when you don't use that knowledge later. It's like it would be cool to be able to have an experience where we get to do this research again for something that we're, I mean, technically we could have done it for the podcast, but this is not going to be my podcast so many times we have to tell you. We're watching the movie as people watching the movie, you know what I mean? We are consuming and then going wait.
00:45:54
Speaker
I think it's important to talk about the movie based on what we see on screen. I think that's what we're here to do. Just in case anyone is jumping in here, has never listened to anything we've done and has never read any of the irreverent things that we post online. I think there's something to be said for just reacting to the art on screen. Yes.
00:46:20
Speaker
Because that is the final product. like And that's what we claim to do. That is the result. I think where I'm headed with this is that we see the beginning of this movie. We see ancient Egypt, we see Aung San Amun, we see Imhotep, we see all of these priests, the Pharaoh, all of these people.
00:46:40
Speaker
in this ancient culture and we're seeing bodies, right? We're seeing bodies yeah in a way that the rest of the film, we're not seeing bodies. The closest we get is when Imhotep steals, not steals. She's not a bottle. Kidnaps. And yeah even who he's like fat. He's like into her, but he's into her because he's like, I like your body. I'm going to put my girlfriend in it. Yeah.
00:47:06
Speaker
or I'm gonna suck the life out of it for my girlfriend. Yeah, like like, okay, thanks for picking me out of the crowd. You look really great for me to like ritualistically sacrifice in order to raise my girlfriend. And so I'm gonna like, I'm not gonna tell you that though for a while. You'll, you'll hear it, but not for me. And she figures, I think she's smart. I think she knows what's going on.
00:47:26
Speaker
it's It's like said explicitly at one point and everybody's like what? I do feel obligated, like we've we've talked about these things, but I do feel obligated to mention something that really goes unexplored in the movie and that is that Evie explicitly states that her mother is Egyptian in the movie and this actress, God love her, is not at all. No, she is not.
00:47:55
Speaker
It's such an interesting thing that didn't have to be said if you want to. Like, it didn't need to be part of the story if you want to cast a white British actress to play this part. But they did make the choice to include that as part of the character. And then it goes absolutely nowhere and does absolutely nothing in the movie. And I just find it weird. So I'm just pointing it out. Yeah. But I mean, it's pretty wild.
00:48:23
Speaker
It's a really weird thing to do if you're not going to like you it's not going to have anything to do with anything. it's like I guess the only reason to do it if we're going by like romance novel tropes is just a reason for her to be there.
00:48:38
Speaker
is because she has some like emotional connection to her past. What we know about like the history of the British Empire, like they didn't need that excuse. We did not. And we could fill in the blanks. like We could do that pretty easy. And we could do that when we were 12. Because did you have to... This episode's everywhere. I'm responsible for this. But like in middle school, did you have to do an Egypt project? Ooh.
00:49:05
Speaker
I don't recall anything specific. It's possible and I just completely don't remember it. I'm going to say no for the purpose of this conversation. It would have been in the sixth grade. In our district at least, but we're both in California for our illustrious listeners. There are certain things that are required in your schools and usually they're not great.
00:49:33
Speaker
and they there're and They're not great because they're taught poorly and incorrectly. One is that we have a mission project, and I missed that because I was in A, a private school at the time, and then when I went to a public school, they had already done it. Did you have to do that? We had mission day where we had like where you go to a bunch of parents. We went to a mission, and then we also had a separate day.
00:49:59
Speaker
where like we had they set up like different activity stations around like the school and we had to like travel to the different stations and like ah make an adobe brick, make a tortilla. like We used a really whack basket. like It was really weird. It's a very crazy way of of just watching Eurasia happen and that's its own, it's it's so crazy. So I just bring it up because these are things that I remember from us being kids that were part of our educational system and for our district at least, like my area in Northern California, there was the mission project and there was a lot of people who had to do an Egypt project.
00:50:46
Speaker
Okay, so here's something that we did in the sixth grade that I've never heard of anyone else I've ever spoken to having done and it was something that every class did. Did you in your sixth grade class have caveman day? No, but we did have something else.
00:51:05
Speaker
we ah I can't even tell you what it was called, but okay. My middle school, when I switched out to public school, it was across the street from the grocery store. And so I just have a specific memory of us leaving at lunch and going across the street and going to the grocery store in Toga.
00:51:26
Speaker
because we had to go get grapes. And I literally don't remember the theme of this, but everybody, God, it might've just been toga day. Like I don't understand what anything had to do with anything. And there were like different setups where it was like you were just like really, it was crazy. We and had to dress up like cavemen on cavemen day.
00:51:50
Speaker
We went to, we spent the whole day at like the city park under the oak trees, i like studying caveman culture. Okay. Do you have to kill some squirrels? Just like give new names to the stars? like i I do know that that city park had like these giant like built in like huge barbecues that were like eight feet long, like brick built it. I won i don't remember, but i I bet you so much money that we had like barbecued food that day.
00:52:26
Speaker
yeah just' like Okay. Now we're just going on a total aside. That has nothing to do with the mummy. And I'm so here for it, but it does have to do with the mummy because it's, this is the, like, this is the, the exposure to like history and like other things that we had that were just like crazy. It's so crazy. And it was so crazy because it was like, where's the seriousness? You know what I mean? Like the Egypt project that we did. Listen, my mom was She loved certain periods of history and she would have like, I think in another life, have loved to have been an academic and not one that was extractive, but that was actually interested in the sociology of things and interested in the people who exist even in a modern sense.
00:53:13
Speaker
um because that's how she talked about stuff. And that's how she talked about it to me. And that's, that's her, like, it was pretty cool. But like, she loved, um, certain parts of pharaonic history. And she had like a bunch of stuff just like tapped locked away in there where she just knew so much stuff. She, I should have used her more as like a source for my Egypt project because I ADHD'd the hell out of my And it was like, I couldn't come up with a subject. and you had You had like six months to work on this. It was like day one. They were like, this is what we're doing at the end of the year. You're going to have like 10 minutes to present.
00:54:01
Speaker
Oh, that is so long when you're that young. I know, it was crazy. And it was like, I i i might not be exactly correct on that duration, but it was a long time to present. And you were supposed to have built a model of something to like bring in.
00:54:18
Speaker
I was just talking about pyramids and like as an archaeological, like, not archaeological. That seems like the right topic. But the word and When you're building something architectural, uh, like the architecture, the engineering, and I had enough to talk about for about 20 seconds. They have slope size and there's a point on the top and they're meeting right here is what these stones are called. Here's how they moved like bang, bang, bang done. And like, I had like eight index cards because I worked on it the day before. And I just remember my teacher.
00:54:58
Speaker
giving me, ah you can just imagine in that silence, the eyeballs, the gimlet eyes where she's looking into your assault. And she's like, I'm going to stop you right there. Where's the rest of it? And I was like, what do you mean?
00:55:09
Speaker
yeah It's just like, I don't believe this took you so much. This is all I have, so sorry. like We're 12 years old and you did not give us a framework in which to talk about an extraordinarily complex civilization. You told us to go do it on our own. Are you out of your goddamn mind? That is just like irresponsible.
00:55:31
Speaker
Because that's how we were taught this kind of history, like it's bonkers. Listen, if you want to talk about like the unseriousness of ah of the public school education, I think it was like the fourth grade, like our whole like history year was just like the history of the United States, which like, I mean, it was fourth grade. So, you know, but we are no, maybe it was just the history of California.
00:55:53
Speaker
But we had to do like a a diorama project where everybody picked like a different historical thing to do. That's what the mission project was down here. Okay. Yeah, it was the diorama. So it's a California history diorama project and in some districts it was specifically a mission. Yeah. s Ask me, ask me why I decided, and my teacher let me do my diorama on the Donner party.
00:56:16
Speaker
who
00:56:20
Speaker
Like, why was I allowed to do that? That was a tragedy, but that is hilarious. And it was like, I mean, you know, it's like fourth grade, so you don't even learn like the real... No, you don't. You don't don't know actual the actual... You know that people ate people, but you that's like where you stop. It's the novelty of it. that's That's what's crazy, right? Is that the way that we're taught these points of history is from a point of view of novelty, not of depth.
00:56:51
Speaker
And that is why I'm so frustrated that I can't actually name anything in actual Egyptian costume history at this moment, because it's in there. The one thing that I can get is that for a certain period in human history, and I think that went into Egyptian history, maybe is when it started to change, was that humans couldn't see blue or Egyptians didn't see blue. Like there's something there where like for a long time they didn't, people didn't see that blue. that color and that wasn't Yeah, the color just wasn't present in the visual like yeah sphere. It was something that developed. And I think that during pharaonic history, there's there's an association there that I can't remember specifically what it is, but it might be during the Egyptian civilization that you start to see that exist in dye and in paints.
00:57:41
Speaker
And it's because that development was happening. And so it's just like, okay. Okay. Well, that explains the limited color palette of the film that we are here to discuss. Exactly. It all comes back around. Beige, black, their natural tones.
00:58:02
Speaker
yeah I'm not intending to spread misinformation here. It's all just horrible recollection. It's all just really back memory. But, um, yeah yeah man, like, should I have taken better notes? Maybe, but I didn't. And so I'm not even going to apologize for it because this movie is really just, it's like a snow globe of a period of time where it's not complicated the way that they're telling it to you. And everything that you bring in that has further context is coming from the outside because they are not doing that for you at all. They're just like, this is a romance in the sense of yes, there is romance, but it's romantic where everything is like capital R. Yeah. Yes. Yeah, the adventure of it all. that yeah You shake up the sand in the snow globe and when it settles from being Imhotep's angry mouth, then you get like muscled Rick, like holding Evie.
00:59:03
Speaker
There's literally a moment in the movie where like there's a moment where they are frozen for a few seconds in a pose that literally is like the cover of a romance novel yes where she's got like her hands on his chest and he's like ah holding her and you're just like, okay, we all know what's happening here. We understand. They knew what they were doing.
00:59:24
Speaker
And they were making just like a wink, wink, this is for you. XOXO. Like, interestingly, at the same time, there's like a quality to the costumes that Evie wears in this movie that I don't think would be replicated now. There's just like, she's beautiful. She's a beautiful woman. And but there's, there's like,
00:59:49
Speaker
Like, ah I don't even know how to describe it, but there there's a certain sort of like hard-edged sexualization to her clothes that would, I think, happen now that doesn't happen in the same way in this movie. Do you know what I'm trying to say? So, what I noted is that... So this, of course, by panic, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Beautiful people all around, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
01:00:17
Speaker
This movie does not rely on showing you skin yeah sexually. yeah When we see Aung San Amun and Imhotep in ancient Egypt, this is just ceremonial because Aung San Amun is naked and painted with some chains because she is the pharaoh's mistress and the paint has a purpose which is to show if anyone has touched her.
01:00:46
Speaker
yeah and so it's it's about her her method of control exactly and so the chains you could argue like the decorative chains are a part of that and exactly and Imhotep is wearing Like we see a lot of a lot of flesh, a lot of legs, a lot of skin, but that's also how we're familiar with hieroglyphs and representations. Yeah, when you look at historical like, or what's the word, contemporaneous art from that time, art that was made in that time, about that time.
01:01:20
Speaker
That is, you know, there there is like they're replicating those like 2D images. So that there are there's a lot of like bare chest for men. There's a lot of leg like that's just what you are art from that period. Right. And it's also because that place, that that area of the world was hot as hell. And so it's like you are dressing for the world that you live
Visual Aesthetics and Modern Comparisons
01:01:43
Speaker
in. And then all of these people have very fine um linens and things because they are ah ah stary people. And so um that's where the skin comes from. the most like sex like And it's beautiful because people's bodies are beautiful, but like it's not solely meant to be sexual.
01:02:06
Speaker
right for Like for us, it's from a character's point of view, like I'm going to control you through this because this is what you are to me. But it's not just for um titillation for the audience. it It has that result, I'm sure, but it wasn't just like solely you for that maybe. There could be an argument made for both, but still.
01:02:29
Speaker
And then refreshing that like we don't get to see like we barely get to see an oxygen moon before yeah in that scene. She doesn't get very much screen time. But like one thing that we know about her from that one scene is that she does not appreciate that that is what's happening to her and she's willing to die to get out of it like yes.
01:02:47
Speaker
So there's like a statement there where she understands what's happening. And so it's not like a rollicking good time. And then when we see Evie, who's our other woman in this movie, um the the most sexy, the most like titillating to to use that word again, thing that we see, the most risque thing that we see is that her night dress has this like gap of the buttons, like in the middle of her torso. So you see a little bit of flesh under there.
01:03:17
Speaker
but we're not looking at her like completely undressed. We're looking at her undressed in the context of the time, which is like, you saw my shoulder, yeah yeah my kneecap. And so people are very dressed in this movie. So like there were moments where I was like, ooh, Aung San Amun and ooh, Imhotep. Like when he finally has his flesh that he's stolen from all of these colonizers and he's like full flesh again. And he,
01:03:47
Speaker
walks in between Benny and Evie towards Hamunaptra and he's like in the background like controlling the sandstorm. the It's just this like glorious shot of this like very attractive human person with this yeah glorious robe walking and you're just like whew.
01:04:06
Speaker
And then you look over at Rick and you look at our death Bay and they're also super gorgeous human beings, right? Excuse you, Aida. Aida, I love you so much. She's just gonna keep yelling. So yeah heads up.
01:04:21
Speaker
Yeah, she knows what she wants and she knows how to say what she wants. Okay, so talking about the sexualization of the bodies, like Ardeth, Bey and Rick are constantly in full dress. And so it's like they're using clothing to heighten and not using it to like reveal throughout the movie. And that's yeah pretty amazing because now it's more common to do the reveal.
01:04:47
Speaker
And not necessarily like maintain all the layers like it's about what you can show it there would be a sex scene if this were made now like yeah. And it's like we don't we don't need it like this is kind of like a paperback romance novel without. The extras and that's okay like it yeah also just makes it a fun romp without it having to be any any deeper.
01:05:09
Speaker
um It's also like there's a lot of violence in the movie but it's not super explicit and gory and that's something that I just personally have like not really appreciated with like the trend of movies now to have this like hyper not realistic, but like hyper gory, super cartoonish violence. Yeah, I don't really appreciate it. I don't think that it makes your movie better. Yeah, I think that it has its place and its time, but it doesn't need to be necessarily in everything. And that's every okay. You know, like I think that horror is a very amazing genre of thing, but it doesn't like the gore doesn't have to be everywhere. And I think there are places where it's totally effective and you know,
01:05:56
Speaker
totally does all these things, but like this is just like such a light surface level thing not that yeah that it feels like it doesn't need any of that. Like now the gratuitousness is almost on the same level as um Mr. Darcy's hand touch. pride prejudice you know where it's like oh and so i It's very much a level of like, oh my goodness. And so that's, that's where this movie's rocking. I also was aware watching this, this time that when, uh, when an oxygen, a moon is like her, her mummied body is like reanimated and then eventually, uh, killed.
01:06:38
Speaker
that she's killed in, like, off-screen shadow, which very much, like, hearkens back to the, like, kind of, like, 30s, like, you know, mummy, like, references, but it's also the only female character that gets, like, murdered in the movie and that we don't see it. And I kind of appreciated that it was done that way. Well, in the beginning, when she first dies, when she stops herself, she's kind of in the distance, right? Like, we see her through the curtain from back like we see her hold the knife and go down and then we cut yeah to behind the curtain with Imhotep watching her from a distance and looking away. So it's like it is really holding that 30s like we're not going to show you up close. It's also like a stage conceit right like to just like show you the shadow play and instead of the actual thing and
01:07:28
Speaker
I don't know, I just, I really loved Aung San Moon being like this rabid, like, zombie in wrappings. Like, there's, yeah she's just the horror of her and the fact that like, if she and like, to go straight from costumes again, if she and Evie were contemporaries, they would probably actually have an understanding of each other. But like, Aung San Moon is so hardcore from a time where she's like fighting for survival that she's like, I couldn't give a shit about it.
01:08:00
Speaker
It's about me. She's also like, she's, when she's mummified, she's more like traditional movie mummy look with like the bandage like rapping. And I did, I did read that it was sort of like, oh yeah, the title is kind of a misnomer because Imhotep's not really mummified. like He's ritualistically killed, but he's not a mummy in the traditional sense of like preserved and wrapped up. like He's thrown in that sarcophagus alive with a bunch of scarab beetles and slowly eaten over time. And his his wrappings don't survive because the beetles are too thin.
01:08:41
Speaker
And so, yeah, you could argue that the mummy in the title is not able to help. It's actually not him. Yeah, the goal is long cinnamon. But like, um man, the brutality, the stages.
01:08:55
Speaker
of design of Imhotep throughout this movie are fantastic like yeah as he come is reanimated and he's like for like to so c she so CG. But he's just like... I mean, like graphics quality aside. I mean, it's 25 years old. But like, that he is just like gummy, if you will, at the beginning is just like... who and then like leathery and gummy, and then slowly things are being filled in. and then like But he still is just like this monster. Yeah. and like Even when like his face is mostly together and he like moves his cheeks side to side, like the flesh like rips back open and it's like decayed underneath. like There's so much going on. ah and So much going on. and It's like watching him yeah change as he gets as he like steals clothing.
01:09:49
Speaker
throughout the movie. Messi's like prowling around. I don't know, man. this this It's like I don't have a ton to say. I don't have as much to say about the costumes in this movie as we would say about other things like when it comes to piece by piece by piece. I think that a lot of these shapes on these actors are really handsome.
01:10:11
Speaker
Yeah, it just looks good. Everybody looks great and everybody's wearing things that are, I'm gonna use my word that I always bring up, utilitarian. But they're all dressed, especially in the 20s portion or 30s portion of the movie.
01:10:28
Speaker
um, the mudrin portion of the movie. Uh, they're all dressed to, to purpose. Like they're all working. They're all out to do something. And like Evie standing out in parts because she's in a night dress or she's like really dressed to be inside working in a library, like speaks to everybody's roles and like what they're anticipating.
01:10:51
Speaker
They're gonna be doing and I I just like really love that where it's not like hyper sexualizing anybody It's it's all to purpose and then it's like the character and the actor are working to make those things Be something else instead of yeah I don't know. and My words are mad today. There's also like, I think sometimes um an impulse to, you know, when you want to convey that a character is sort of like a fish out of water situation, like they're somewhere that they're not really equipped to be or they don't really belong or like any of that, which we have a lot of characters like that. And it's like all the Americans are portrayed as like, they don't really know what they're doing.
01:11:30
Speaker
they're not really like they don't really have any knowledge or expertise like they should probably shouldn't be there and their clothes are super clean there's no whole yeah no nothing like they look.
01:11:42
Speaker
like they've been wearing the clothes, but they don't look as aged because they're new. Right. Right. Evie is like an academic. She's not an explorer. Like in theory, you know, she is not really, she's kind of out of place, like in the middle of the desert when they go look for the city. But so I think sometimes there's like an impulse to, to really like heighten certain things costume wise to be like, this person has no idea what to wear and lay like what they're wearing makes no sense. Yeah. And like,
01:12:12
Speaker
Um, you know, they don't really do that. Like, like our, our designer John doesn't really do that in this movie, but yeah like not in a super over the top way. Like everything's very is, is just, I think more subtle and, uh, has more nuance. And I think that that really works for this project. hu And I think that like the subtle ways that they make fun of Jonathan Evie's brother. because he is that character too. Like Evie's adaptable and Jonathan's like, I'm on an adventure. And he doesn't take anything seriously. He's the one where I think they would have pointed to that more. And it was pretty subtle. You know, it wasn't yeah just like, you're an idiot because you're wearing silk pants, you know? like Right. Or like, you know, you didn't bring like anything until you're like super sunburned because you're like, just stupid to wear a scarf. Like whatever, like.
01:13:08
Speaker
Like, you know, and there's there's certain little things like with the Americans, like they have like a cowboy hat, they have like six shooters, like they have... um I feel like one of the guys in particular, I don't even know what about it, but like something about the quality of his costume kind of makes me think of like Teddy Roosevelt, like it's that era. Yeah, it is. It's that it's that colonial fantasy of being an outdoorsman.
01:13:33
Speaker
is what it is and it's like yeah regardless of whether or not you're competent outdoors it's not a skill that is really. How deep do I wanna get here? It's like an entertainment for you and not a part of your culture or a part of your survival. And so that's what makes you stand out like a sore thumb is that you're there to like prove. As a tourist. Yeah, as a tourist and also to prove that you're somehow stronger than the world around you instead of trying to integrate into it or learn about it. Which is very American of him. I mean, the way that this ensemble is dressed is so much like the ensemble in Bram Stoker's Dracula, which we will talk about at some time. But there's a lot that reminds me of them.
01:14:25
Speaker
Very much. um Yeah, I think that this movie is like, you can look at it through a very serious lens and take it apart, justifiably so, because of the lens that is being told through is very ignorant, et cetera, et cetera. And not to be disrespectful, but the et cetera, et cetera is, I have harangued us both about it a little bit in a very poor way.
01:14:47
Speaker
before, but like you can also acknowledge as we have that this was made for an audience that was raised on Steven Spielberg, Indiana Jones. and Right.
01:14:59
Speaker
ah that understanding and that viewpoint of something and so seeing it and acknowledging that it was made with that and seeing who it was made for and how it was made for them as like a little silly thing. It's like it's kind of a beloved movie because it's it's not so deep.
01:15:18
Speaker
Right. It's just when you think of an adventure, this ticks that box. It's an adventure. It's an adventure. Yeah. Because it's like, unfortunately, we see the populace, you know, people who are native to the area that they're in in Egypt as just like these workers kind of in the background.
01:15:44
Speaker
And it's like a lot of background costume where it's meant to kind of fade and it's in the same color palette as everybody else. But like it's not meant to stand out and it's not really meant to be like, ooh, look at that.
01:16:00
Speaker
extreme example of cultural dress. Like, yeah, the only time if i like further it doesn it doesn't like further scrutiny for their interests. Like it's just it's not meant to that's not the only time that we get that for background is in the beginning in Egypt. Yeah. um Yeah. And also arguably when their mummies at the very end, but like at the very beginning, you're meant to take everything in the opulence, the the glory of it all, the colors, everything. And then everybody's supposed to kind of fade into the background except for your primary characters. And the costumes work very effectively in this movie to make that happen. Yeah, they do. So that's the mummy. Yeah, this is the mummy. I don't i don't ah love where they where our conversations go. I mean, it's always crazy. And it's like, listen.
01:16:53
Speaker
if If I'd watched this movie today without all those commercials, I think I would have been able to hold on to one single thought. But like for real, watching it broken up like that and then talking about it, I...
01:17:08
Speaker
my focus can't focus like that anymore. I mean, my attention span is already like hanging on by a fucking thread. is So so it it was a little bit hard. And I think that I would have been far more like, Oh my God, gosh, gosh, gosh. If it had just been like a straightforward to end watch. So I don't recommend, but it's also nice to not have to pay for a rental. So if you have it, or if you want to get it from a library, please do.
01:17:35
Speaker
But i I think that it's a very it's a very fun movie. And it's also like, truly, it made a lot of millennials go, who whoa. Yeah, like it was, you know, it was like, at the time, because we weren't, we were not like thinking about it critically, it was just like, a perfect little summer blockbuster, super fun, sleepover movie, yeah the video store, like, it was perfect. It was perfect for that.
01:18:07
Speaker
And it was just like it was also because everybody wasn't hyper sexualized. Like it was a thing that you could watch, but still be like, you you know, like, yeah, like your parents aren't going to be like, you can't watch the mummy. yeah Like there's nothing in it that's like super objectionable from that, like 90s parent point of view. yeah I was actually a lot i was reading a little bit about it on Reddit where people were like,
01:18:35
Speaker
Oh, it's just such a fun movie. It's such an adventure. God, I used to love this all the time. And then people were like, this movie scarred me for life because people keep talking about how it's like just a fun little movie, but like people get their faces ripped off and like get like plucked so that they're being used for parts like an old car. like Yeah, that is true. There is a horror there, but we were also totally exposed to a bunch of stuff. yeah and I think like for me personally, as we learned from previous films in this season, you know I was not concerned about actually being attacked by a mummy in my life. like That wasn't something that I thought was going to happen to me personally, so it didn't seem scary to me to watch that happen to other people because I was like, my my risk level is low here. i read I mean, for me, it was like 70-30.
01:19:32
Speaker
So I was never scared by this movie. I think i think it was like effective like ah jump scare movie audience kind of thing at the time because especially watching it in theaters, come on. But like, but because that's how my brain works. I was like, I don't know. I feel like at all times we have a 30% chance.
01:19:50
Speaker
We have to stay vigilant. Don't get complacent. You never know. Where's the Rick? Where's the RFA? Artist knows the rules. Honestly, he's the person to have around. Like, if people would just have listened to him, I mean, first of all, nothing, the movie would not have existed, because nothing would have happened. But I do think that people- Nothing would have happened. Could you imagine if he just, like, rose up from a sand dune? He was like, don't. And they went, okay. Okay. Credits roll.
01:20:21
Speaker
He's like, I'll show you where to get a good cup of coffee. And they're like, oh, okay. That sounds great. Okay, amazing. Okay, we did it. We did it. What are we watching next time? Thank you so much for joining us on this episode of The Mummy, which we have, of course, very incredible coverage over. um Please come back for our next episode in which we will be talking about. I'm so excited for this one.
01:20:49
Speaker
10 things I hate about you starring, starring Heath Ledger and Julia Stiles. I'm so, and many, many other familiar faces. Like, um, this movie, this movie was like, it became my personality at least for five minutes. oh but i mean me where it's like I cannot wait to talk about it. And this I think is going to be,
01:21:17
Speaker
a movie where we have the most like modern clothing really that's not like super hyper designed like Romeo and Juliet. um 10 things I hate about you, 10 things I love about this movie. So excited.
01:21:34
Speaker
me So yeah, I think that um I'm going to watch it in a way that doesn't have commercials, so I won't be pissy about it. And then I'll be able to like really squeak and have some like good notes. um I believe for for anyone with access, I believe that it is on Disney+. OK, OK, OK. Yeah, I don't have access, so I will find an alternative.
01:21:57
Speaker
but And I can't wait to talk about how many movies in the 90s, early 2000s, Julia Stiles had to do some really terrible dancing, but that was prevalent. There was a moment. You know what? And God love her, she did it all. it at all she She never let us down.
01:22:17
Speaker
but Did not let us down in that regard. Oh my god oh ah i can't ironic love I have for this movie. So yeah really long intro. Hope to see you there. Thanks for listening. Yeah