Rob Zombie With An Ombre

Summary

Dear Movies, I Love You: Episode Summary – "Rob Zombie With An Ombre"

Episode Overview In the October 29, 2024 episode of Dear Movies, I Love You, hosts Millie De Chirico and Danielle Henderson delve into a series of engaging discussions centered around music, personal anecdotes, and an in-depth analysis of two compelling films. Embracing their signature blend of humor and critical insight, Millie and Danielle explore the complexities of teenage struggles portrayed in cinema, all while maintaining an entertaining and relatable atmosphere for their listeners.

1. DJing at Nursing Homes The episode kicks off with Millie and Danielle sharing their experiences and thoughts on unconventional DJ gigs, specifically focusing on the idea of DJing at nursing homes. Danielle expresses enthusiasm about the concept, saying, “I will set it up for you. I think you would have a fucking blast” ([02:43]). Millie reflects on her challenges with selecting appropriate music for children, questioning, “Do kids listen to Kidz Bop? Are kids into Kidz Bop?” ([04:42]).

Notable Quotes:

• Danielle: “Don’t be square. Be round and soft and at our show” ([00:00]).
• Millie: “Do kids listen to Kidz Bop? Are kids into Kidz Bop?” ([04:42]).

2. Listener's Halloween-Themed FMK Transitioning into a Halloween theme, the hosts introduce a listener’s email from Chris S., who presents a Halloween-themed FMK (Fuck, Marry, Kill) challenge. Millie reveals her choices with confidence: “Fuck Peter Steele, Marry Nick Cave, Kill Rob Zombie” ([18:13]). Danielle humorously counters by eliminating Rob Zombie due to personal preferences, stating, “Or I was like, I don’t know what kids like” ([04:42]).

Notable Quotes:

• Millie: “Fuck Peter Steele, Marry Nick Cave, Kill Rob Zombie” ([18:13]).
• Danielle: “Kill Rob Zombie because we are too similar” ([27:07]).

3. In-Depth Film Analysis: "Fish Tank" The conversation shifts to their weekly theme—teenage girls trying to change their lives—with Millie presenting Fish Tank, directed by Andrea Arnold. She lauds the film’s authentic portrayal of a volatile 15-year-old girl navigating life in English council housing. Millie highlights Arnold's unique directing style, emphasizing the film’s emphasis on continuity and spontaneous performances: “She did something filmed in a way that was, I believe is referred to as continuity” ([42:11]).

Key Points:

• Character Study: Mia, the protagonist, uses hip-hop dancing as an escape from her turbulent home life.
• Directing Technique: Andrea Arnold’s method fosters deep emotional connections between actors and the narrative.
• Themes: Struggle for identity, familial tensions, and the quest for hope amid despair.

Notable Quotes:

• Millie: “She clearly needs her guidance” ([48:22]).
• Danielle: “It’s a truly wonderful movie in that it is surprising and shocking” ([71:30]).

4. Comparative Analysis: "Out of the Blue" Danielle introduces the second film, Out of the Blue, directed by Dennis Hopper. She contrasts its dark portrayal of teenage life with Arnold’s Fish Tank, noting Hopper’s transition from cult classic director to mainstream filmmaker. The film explores themes of punk rock obsession, addiction, and the struggle for normalcy within a broken family structure.

Key Points:

• Plot Overview: CB, a teenage girl dealing with her father's incarceration following a tragic accident, seeks solace in punk rock music.
• Character Dynamics: The tumultuous relationship between CB, her mother, and her mother's boyfriend, highlighting issues of abuse and neglect.
• Cinematic Style: Raw portrayal of teenage angst and the harsh realities of CB’s environment.

Notable Quotes:

• Millie: “It was like, you know, I just want to date somebody that likes everything that I like” ([80:44]).
• Danielle: “CB is that she's, you know, basically, like, asserting her dominance over her, like, the kids in her school” ([90:03]).

5. Themes and Reflections Both films underscore the protagonists' attempts to navigate and escape their oppressive environments through music and personal relationships. Millie and Danielle discuss the portrayal of class structures, the impact of socioeconomic factors on teenage behavior, and the absence of positive role models. They reflect on their personal connections to the characters, emphasizing the universality of struggle and the search for identity.

Notable Quotes:

• Millie: “We’re all headed for one. We are all headed for a nursing home” ([08:15]).
• Danielle: “You want to be like this, you know, the devil type mindset that comes with late adolescence” ([90:03]).

6. Closing Remarks and Next Episode Teasers As the episode wraps up, the hosts encourage listeners to engage with them through social media and email. They tease the next week’s films—Away from Her (2007) and Only Lovers Left Alive (2013)—hinting at a continued exploration of complex character-driven narratives.

Notable Quotes:

• Millie: “Our movies for next week are Away from Her from 2007 and Only Lovers Left Alive from 2013” ([99:16]).
• Danielle: “Listen, as always, it’s a pleasure doing this podcast with you” ([99:33]).

Concluding Thoughts This episode of Dear Movies, I Love You beautifully balances personal anecdotes with critical film analysis, offering listeners both entertainment and thoughtful commentary. Millie and Danielle’s passionate discussions illuminate the nuanced portrayals of teenage girls in challenging circumstances, providing deep insights into the films’ thematic cores. Their candid conversations and relatable humor make complex topics accessible, ensuring that both seasoned film enthusiasts and casual listeners find value in their discourse.

Follow & Engage Stay connected with Dear Movies, I Love You on Instagram @dearmoviesiloveyou, Twitter, and Facebook. For more insightful discussions and updates on upcoming episodes, follow the podcast across all social media platforms.

Next Week’s Theme: Prepare for another thought-provoking episode as Millie and Danielle explore Away from Her and Only Lovers Left Alive, delving into themes of love, loss, and the intertwining of life and art.

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Episode Credits:

• Hosts: Millie De Chirico and Danielle Henderson
• Producer: Casey O'Brien
• Mixing & Theme Music: Tom Bryfogel
• Artwork: Garrett Ross
• Executive Producers: Georgia Hardstark, Karen Kilgariff, and Danielle Kramer

This episode is part of the Exactly Right podcast network, bringing bold and creative voices to audiences everywhere.

Transcript

[A]

Hey, guys. Just a reminder that we are doing our first ever live show at the Tara theater in Atlanta, Georgia, on November 7th. Ticket information is available at all of our social media sites. We are at. I saw POD on Instagram, Blue Sky, Twitter, and Facebook. Be there. Don't be square. Be round and soft and at our show.

[B]

Hey, everybody. Welcome to another episode. Episode of I saw what you did. My name is Millie de Chirico.

[A]

I'm Danielle Henderson, and we are the.

[B]

Spookiest film podcast you've ever heard in all of your days and nights.

[A]

I even changed my voice for this episode to be lower.

[B]

Yeah. Are you feeling okay?

[A]

No, I'm on the tail end of a intense bronchial event.

[B]

Oh, it's not Covid. It's just a bronchial event.

[A]

I just had bronchitis. I made it sound as dramatic as possible, but I just have bronchitis.

[B]

Oh, my God.

[A]

Or I had it. So I'm like. But this lingering. It's like the cough has been lingering, and I don't get sick anymore. Like, I usually don't get colds or anything. So if I do get something, it usually, like, hangs out for a while, and then I'm not sick for, like, seven years.

[B]

Yeah. You think it's a change of the season influence?

[A]

I think it's change of seasons. I think it's like. I just think it's. It's. I got. I got a cold. I was hanging out with my grandma.

[B]

Oh, yeah.

[A]

And when the seasons change at a nursing home, everybody gets sick.

[B]

Does her. Nursing home. Do they do anything for Halloween or anything?

[A]

Is there a party?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Oh, they go fucking balls out.

[B]

Ooh. What? Like how.

[A]

It's costumes. They have, like, a DJ come in. They have little. Like, the local boy and girl scouts come by and do a little costume parade for the. For all the people, the residents, and they hand out candy, and it's just. It's very, very funny and very cute. But, yeah, they go. And some people go real ham. Like my grandma. She wanted to be Freddy Krueger last year.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And I was like, I feel like that mask is too scary. Like, you have people here who are on oxygen having heart issues on a regular day. Let's not have you roll around the corner in a fucking Freddy Krueger mask and genuinely kill people. Why not? So she. So I got her a compromise mask, which is just like kind of a. A spooky skeleton mask.

[B]

Oh, gosh, that's sweet. Yeah. You don't want to be causing any, you know, Cardiac events with the costumes at that place, man.

[A]

Not need it on my conscience.

[B]

I. I've never DJed a nursing home. Now I want. Kind of want to.

[A]

I not only highly recommend it, I will set it up for you. I think you would have a fucking blast.

[B]

I DJed a. Like an after school. It was like, for, I guess, elementary, maybe middle school kids. It was kind of like their after school high achiever hang place. I don't know what you call these businesses. They're not like Montessori schools, but it's basically like a place where like, smart kids go and hang out with other smart kids after school. If you're like an elementary school, middle school daycare. I guess it is. Maybe it's called daycare. But yeah, it sounds like.

[A]

Like babysitting for precocious little pricks.

[B]

Yeah. Yes.

[A]

I say, as a former precocious little prick.

[B]

Yeah, I was gonna say you. You were the one to. To join that club. For sure.

[A]

I would love that shit. Are you fucking kidding me? I would have loved to just go, actually. Maybe I would have hated it. Maybe my life just turned how it was supposed to. Maybe if I hung out with too many kids who were super smart after school when I was a kid, it would have changed me. But I think you should 100% find any place that is outside of the norm.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

For DJs, and yes, go for it.

[B]

Sometimes you get. Sometimes you get weird requests. I've DJed, like, fundraisers for, you know, nonprofits and stuff. And that's not even really weird. But, you know, like this after school thing, this daycare place was. I had such trouble trying to figure out what to play because it's the thing where I'm like, this was many, many years ago. So it wasn't like I would even say that these kids are not. They're probably millennials now or something. But, like, at the time I was like, I don't know what kids like. And then I was like, should I just play Kidz Bop? Which is like, you know, I was like, do kids listen to Kidz Bop? Are kids into Kidz Bop?

[A]

Nope.

[B]

Or is this what we think they're into?

[A]

Yep.

[B]

Yeah. And then I was like, that I. Then I'd have to go out and buy kids bop records, which is like, I don't want to do that. Right. But then I was like, well, then what do I play? Do I play, like, Push it by Salt and Pepper? Like, what is the. How do you DJ for kids?

[A]

Also, are there boundaries now? Because, like, you know, we listened to any and everything. Nobody cared. But now people are like, that's too sexual or that's too political or that's too, like. I don't want to freak kids out, but I also think they're already listening to this shit. You just don't know it.

[B]

Yeah, I know. I mean, it would be different if they were in high school. I think that was the age was what was really throwing me. Cause I was like, oh, if they're in high school, then I'd just be playing like Nicki Minaj and stuff or whatever.

[A]

Exactly.

[B]

You know, but like, it was weird because they're kind of little. And so I don't really know. And so now I'm thinking, what if I did get a gig at a nursing home? What would I play?

[A]

Here's what I would suggest. There's always a crowd pleaser, right? Cause these are folks that are accustomed to dancing. Like, they used to go to parties and actually dance and go out. And actually there's always crowd pleasers. There's always like, you know, I will survive. There's, you know, fucking Bee Gees. Like, they'll dance. They will dance to shit. But I would say, and this is purely selfish. Cause I often think about who I'm going to be as an older person in a nursing home. Nobody is going to play Sepultura for me. Nobody's going to play, like, Radiohead or anything that I actually listen to. They go for the. For the baseline. They go for the least offensive baseline. Freak them out. Play some shit. Play some, like fucking Echo and the Bunnymen for them.

[B]

Were you thinking that people that like Echo and the Bunnymen are in nursing homes now?

[A]

Absolutely.

[B]

You think any of those people.

[A]

Do you think any of those people plan to get old or retire or die? 100%. Play some fucking psychedelic furs and watch who dances around. And those are the coolest people in the nursing home.

[B]

But I like psychedelic furs, so that means I would be in the nursing home. Whatever. Yes. I'm freaked out by this.

[A]

We're all headed for one. We are all headed for a nursing home. And just think about, like, even when they play movies, it's like the Bucket List. It's like always, you know, while you were sleeping. No one is going to show you a fucking giallo movie in a nursing home. But if you are in. When you are in a nursing home one day and you're going to be like, yeah, I'm doing the activities. All these activities are catered to the kind of people I would Never have hung out with in my actual life.

[B]

I guess what I'm saying is that I'm trying to tell myself that I'm still young enough to just DJ a nursing home, not be in one to.

[A]

Enjoy the DJ I instantly went to. No, you're gonna be in one. Play what you want just. Just left over it, like, fucking Flo Jo.

[B]

You're like, bitch, you're locked in there. They're gonna find out you're a DJ and they're gonna make you DJ for your fucking roommates. No, I'm talking about I'm young and I can still play for people who are in there.

[A]

But it's sad. It's true. It's truly. It's truly the same, though. What I mean is the thought process should be the same of, I can play what I think is cool because somebody will be into it. Like, somebody who's currently 90 might not know that. You might not know that they're into it because all they ever get is the baseline.

[B]

Yeah, but you want to hear metal is what you're saying.

[A]

If. And I'm saying this to the. To the listenership at large and to you, because I do not have children. I have. I have a will. I have a trust. Like, I know who is going to be responsible for me when I'm older and should I be in care. But I just want this known and remembered. If I'm ever in a nursing home or retirement community of any kind and you expect me to show up to a activity, you better be playing some of the weirdest shit possible. I. Or just for me, just come visit me and be like, here, I'm playing Pulp for you. Like, I'm playing what you actually used to listen to.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. I. I keep thinking that things are gonna change for us. Like, maybe it's not. Like, obviously the music is gonna be different. Obviously the movies are gonna be different. I feel like the food would be different.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Like, I mean, as much as, like, it's probably, like, the wisest to serve soft foods in. In a assisted living or nursing home scenario. I mean, I feel like all the motherfuckers that I know are these, like, stupid foodies that are, like, really into, like, you know, artisanally crafted fucking food stubs. So it's like, oh, no, we're gonna get, like, the asparagus. One asparagus and some kind of sauce with a squiggle on top.

[A]

And, like, there are different. I've. Because I've been visiting for so long, and I've seen how this looks. There are definitely different dietary options. And also my grandma's in a very good home. Like, they're fantastic. I know a lot of them are not, but she is in a very good one. So there are different dietary options. Some of it is for texture, so you got your soft chewers, and some of it is just preference. So if you still got your teeth or you got some good dentures and you could still chew, they'll give you a fucking hoagie if that's what you want. You can make your own menu for lunch. But the food is really good. But it is not going to be at all artistic. And also, imagine so you're sitting in a fucking retirement community and they bring around dinner and you're peeing in your own pants, and they bring you a fucking curried butternut squash orzo with a squiggle of adobo sauce and green onions on top. You ain't eating that shit. That would be the most annoying fucking nursing home on the planet. Because this is the other option. I'm like, what's going to happen? I can see it coming a mile and a half away. What is going to happen for our generation is someone is going to say at some point, we need to make nursing homes cooler.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And then that's the shit we're going to be dealing with.

[B]

Well, the first thing that screams out to me is that nobody's. Nobody from our generation is trying to eat that American food.

[A]

Sorry.

[B]

Everyone's gonna be like, I want Korean barbecue.

[A]

Absolutely.

[B]

For lunch today, and then for dinner, I want Peruvian. Like. Like, when I think about, like, oh, what. What have I seen in either hospitals or I said hospitals, like a person. I don't know why I said it like that.

[A]

In hospital.

[B]

In hospital. Whatever. Whatever I've seen in these establishments thus far has basically been like, American food. Like meatloaf.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

You know, Mac and cheese, potatoes, this type affair. And I'm saying that people our age, when we get old, it's not going to be that. They're not going to want that stuff. They're going to want, like, ramen.

[A]

We want taquitos. We want a bucket of Trader Joe's cookies.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Or like, I guarantee someone's gonna be like, can I have. Can I order out some insomnia cookies? You know, the like. Again, we're just. We're too specific. Because we've taken food to such a degree, it's. It's kind of a stark reminder to visit. I. I encourage people to visit retirement homes if they can and nursing homes if they can. Because it's a really stark reminder that we don't always get to do whatever the fuck we want. Like that's the goal. That's what we're working for now. But occasionally someone's going to take over your most basic needs.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And they are not giving you taquitos.

[B]

I know. We're not going to get falafel with a side of hot sauce and seltzer. Yeah. Side of baba ganoush.

[A]

No. So, yeah, I think it's, it's go DJ1 and then stay for dinner and then maybe you'll be the person who comes up with the cool retirement home for us. Because also it's going to take, it's going to cost a million and a half dollars to feed Gen X, Gen Y, Gen Z and beyond. Because everyone's going to want a different meal every day. Like no big bucket strike and nona size pots of stew are coming out of our kitchens. Like, I can't eat that. I'm gluten free. I can't eat that. I'm allergic to salt. Like it's going to be a fucking nightmare.

[B]

I love how this went from, hey, I want to kind of DJ a nursing home sometime to having a full on panic attack about what it's going to be like when we're in one and how we're never going to get our foods and our heavy metal music. This is what, this is what happened in the past 15 years.

[A]

I am, you know, I'm a dour bitch. I'll bring it down in a heartbeat. I'll bring any conversation down in 10 seconds flat. The joy of DJing at a retirement community. Oh shit, we're going to be in one one day. But this is also why this house is gonna be a commune. Cause you know my plan already. Yes, you, me, anyone who wants to move in, who is either single, childless, any of our friends who just have no plan, they get a room in the house or the barn or the silo. Or maybe I'll build a tiny house out in the back somewhere too. We can accommodate all of our, of our friends. And then we pool our Social Security checks in retirement, we hire a driver and we hire a chef.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

The fuck, dude. Eat whatever we want. Listen to Slayer all day long.

[B]

Yeah, no, I like this plan better. I don't, I don't know if I want to be in the, in the home.

[A]

No, we'll do, we'll do a tiny retirement community. It'll just be like one house.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

That to me seems like a better plan for autonomy because I cannot go into the sweet slumber of my end days with absolutely nobody suggesting that I watch Chernobyl. Yeah, they ain't showing Chernobyl at these.

[B]

Fucking retirement villages, no way. They're not going to. It's not going to be, you know, a bespoke experience, I'll tell you that much.

[A]

So no, we're going to hire a chef and a driver. The driver will take us to all our doctor's appointments and take us into the city and do whatever the fuck we want.

[B]

Okay?

[A]

Pull those checks, man. Live free.

[B]

I'm extremely down. I will DJ and I don't do Spotify. I do actual vinyl, so there's no Kidz Bop.

[A]

Or maybe you will buy a kid's bop and we'll all fucking laugh our asses off at Back that Ass up done by a group of nine year olds who can't say the word ass for kids. Bop 99 kids bop 99.

[B]

Okay, so speaking of metal, perhaps music, maybe Kidz Bop, I don't know. We have a. A letter from a listener that I wanted to read to you. Is that okay?

[A]

Always.

[B]

Okay. Since it's Halloween. It's a Halloween themed email, so. So here it goes. This is from Chris S. He him pronouns. The title of the email is called Halloween fmk. Hey movie queens. Greetings from the uk. I always thought I didn't like movies, but after listening to you and reexamining my thoughts, it turns out I'm just particular about the kind of films I like and do actually enjoy the right films. Anyway, to the point at hand, as we're inspired, spooky season, and you clearly love music, I thought a Halloween themed FMK would be appropriate. Can't wait to hear the answers on this one. Keep up your amazing work, Chris S. And we have an FMK that is. I don't know, it seems like it's right up your alley. It's definitely mine. Okay.

[A]

Oh, it's right up both of our alleys. I also am so curious to know how we have influenced Chris to watch certain kinds of movies that are considered the right films. I want to know what Chris thinks are the right films.

[B]

Yes. Chris didn't like movies at all, apparently. Until us. Until us.

[A]

Scary. I'm loving this. I've been waiting for this email my whole fucking life. Are you kidding me?

[B]

You really turned him out, Danielle. He didn't even like movies before you came along, girl. What?

[A]

What did it for you? Was it. Was it possession? Was. It was a border.

[B]

Be honest. Okay. Are you ready for this fmk?

[A]

I'm so ready for this. Fmk.

[B]

All right, Halloween. FMK from Chris S. Your choices are Pete Steele, who I'm assuming is Peter Steele from Typo Negative.

[A]

Don't give them a cheat sheet. Let them look their Googles.

[B]

All right, fine. Rob Zombie. I won't tell you what band he's in. And Nick Cave. Wow.

[A]

All right. I'm going to give you my answers in rapid succession because this is so easy for me, and then I will explain the answer.

[B]

Oh, absolutely. Go ahead.

[A]

Okay. Fuck Peter Steel Marin. Nick Cave. Kill Rob Zombie.

[B]

Very interesting. Let's go.

[A]

Did you ever see Peter Steele on Jerry Springer?

[B]

Yes, I did. That shows up on TikTok once in a while.

[A]

Every time it does, I'm like, what? How are these people? How are the children getting to this? What was the exact search function that brought you to Pete Steele on Jerry springer in the 90s? I'm fucking him. He's tall. He's super tall. He's got that voice.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

He's like, just creepy enough. Again, weirdly, I'm into it. I'll give it a shot. He's got that long ass hair, like, bring it the fuck on. He seems like he's kind of built underneath all the, you know, the goth stuff.

[B]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

I'm fucking beat Steel. Absolutely.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Marrying Nick Cave because his music is eternal in my life.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Through every season of life. Nick Cave has shown up. Yes, absolutely.

[B]

Today.

[A]

I know. I told you. I don't know if I told the listeners that I saw him in Los Feliz once.

[B]

No. Oh, wait, no, you did. Like, maybe very, very early days of the podcast.

[A]

Yeah. And he was just like a dad with his kid walking around and I'm like, I could have that afternoon with him. That could be a marriage.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Just walking around, looking at bookstores, having a little diner food at Fred 62.

[B]

Yes. That sounds lovely.

[A]

I'm into that. And then he got in. I think I did talk about it because I expected him to get into a hearse and he got into, like a pickup truck.

[B]

Oh, right, right. And you were like, what? Yeah, I think we ended up talking about, like, famous people's cars.

[A]

Yeah. Like, it was like a new pickup truck and like, what's happening in here? But, yeah, that seems like a nice little day. And again, he's Nick Cavey in my face all the time.

[B]

Yeah. He's a world traveling musician. He will not be home hanging around.

[A]

Bye. Love you. See when you get here. Bye. Goodbye. Goodbye. And then Rob Zombie. I mean, look, I am a person who used to have dreadlocks. I had dreadlocks for about 10 years and frequently got complimented on them because I took very good care of my dreadlocks. So we're talking tea tree oil shampoo, shea butter.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Like, shit was tight, scalp was clean. I do not know what's crawling out of Rob Zombie's head or that hat. Yeah, so he gotta go. And I'm not a fan of his films, so he gotta go.

[B]

Remember what he wore that like, did he used to wear like kind of those like court jester hats or am I thinking of what he called those hats?

[A]

The court jester hat is the one that arcs out with bells on the end. I would have loved that season for him.

[B]

What it's like he wore. It's like the hat. It's not a beret, but it, it. Yeah, it's like a very 90s hat to me. Like Jeff Almond from Pearl Jam wore a lot. Wore it a lot.

[A]

Is that style the, the exaggerated beret of the 90s? I know I could picture exactly what you're talking about like that.

[B]

A lot of patchwork patterns. Sometimes I.

[A]

And I kind of confused it in my mind just now for Al Jorgensen's hat.

[B]

He wore like a wide headband a lot.

[A]

Well, he wore a wide headband, but then didn't he occasionally have that like real tall Abraham Lincoln looking top half thing, stove pipe hat, but it was like a dusty stove pipe with like goggles on the outside.

[B]

Yeah, it was like steampunk. It was proto steampunk.

[A]

That protozine bunk hat. I thought maybe, maybe Rob Zombie had touched upon that at one point in his life.

[B]

Wow. It's like the big mountain dreads, right? The snake eating the, the tail or.

[A]

What is a snake eating? A mouse dread.

[B]

A mouse dread.

[A]

Like I used to, I used to be on a dreadlock forum, like community, real early days. Like, like we're talking over 20 years ago. Early Internet.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

It was pretty hilarious because I just like twirled my hair once and let it do its thing and then I had dreadlocks.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

But the forum was like a lot of white people being like, how do I do dreadlocks? And they were talking to each other about how to start them.

[B]

Oh, wow.

[A]

And so many people were like, you gotta use beeswax. You gotta use like all this stuff to kind of build it up. And then they would do that and years later come back and Be like, hey, I cut off my dreadlocks. And they would show the cut dreadlocks and the inside. You know how instead of looking like a tree with the rings that indicate years of life, it was just a dreadlock with the rings that indicated layers of filth. It was just like beeswax. Beeswax and dust. Like actual dust. Like branches and twigs and leaves. Like, these are like a compost pile.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

And they. I'm like, that was on your head for how many years? Like, this is why appropriation does not work for everyone. If your hair, regardless of your race, if your hair does not naturally dread, maybe it ain't for you.

[B]

Yeah, I feel like. Okay, I just googled a picture of Rob Zombie now.

[A]

Oh, I. This is also the thing. I'm thinking Rob zombie, 90s. So.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. No, that's why I was wondering if he still had the dreadlocks. That's why I was like, has he kept that look? I mean, it seems like. I can't tell if this is just extremely tangled long hair or a dreadlock. It's like dancing on the line.

[A]

I am looking at a current picture of Rob Zombie and it just looks like I've been electrocuted. And it changed the texture of my hair to straw. I don't know why I'm going so hard on this man's hair.

[B]

No, no, no. I mean, listen, this is part. Part of the, you know, the discursive nature of the fmk. We're talking about this shit. Actually, there was a period, I think, where he had just long hair.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Where he looks fucking great.

[A]

Yeah. He just had like. Like an ombre going on an upreach. It looked good. Rob Zombie in an ombre, yo.

[B]

Like, the dark beard, pretty good.

[A]

But I could get with that. If that was the norm, he'd be. I would boot whoever I needed to boot to change this list to fuckable, at least.

[B]

Well, and then. But then there is. He's got a gray beard, so this might be more current where it is dreads. It looks like actual dreads, so. Yikes. Yeah. Okay, well, this is. This is all good intel for me, for my choices.

[A]

Yeah, that was. That was easy for me. I'm also looking at a picture of Rob Zombie with dreads in a trilby hat.

[B]

What's a trilby?

[A]

Like, don't be getting. Let me see if I could put it in the chat. Like, don't be getting all fucking cute with your hats. Hang on, let me put this in the chat. Yeah, you gotta see this.

[B]

We need, like, a chart of annoying men's rock and roll hats. Because I don't know what to call them.

[A]

Here's the chart. All of them. Get off your head.

[B]

I don't know what the Jeff Ahmet hat was called. I mean, this is annoying. I need to know.

[A]

The Jeff Ahmet hat was also, like the. Like the 1970s what's Happening rerun hat.

[B]

Yes. Oh, yeah. He looks like. This is. I think he's wearing, like, a Rastafarian hat. Why is he doing that?

[A]

Yeah, the fuzzy.

[B]

The fuzzy kangal. There's a fuzzy kangal. Ooh.

[A]

When it comes to hats, I think everyone should err on the try of. Maybe I won't try it.

[B]

I just wear what they call dad caps.

[A]

I'm cool with a dad cat, a beanie. Like, I'm actually cool with anything. I don't care what people choose for themselves.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Day to day. But I will judge it in my head.

[B]

I like talking about it. I'm not saying I'm judging. I just like the discourse. Oh, I see. Yeah. It's kind of like a fedora with the bill flattened. Why would he do that?

[A]

Also, his name is Robert Bartley Cummings.

[B]

Of course it is.

[A]

That is. And he was. He's from Haverhill, Massachusetts.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, just to knock this. Just to knock this out finally, with this FMK for our Halloween season and.

[A]

To get me off of this Rob Zombie image page. No.

[B]

Because we're about to return to it.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Here are my answers. My answers are as follows. For this Halloween fmk, I am going to fuck Nick Cave. I'm going to marry Peter Steele, and I am killing Rob Zombie as well.

[A]

Sorry, Rob Zombie. So sorry.

[B]

I'll go in reverse order. Cause we're already on the subject. The reason why I'm killing Rob Zombie is that I feel like we're very close in interests. Right. And as much as I was like, oh, I would love to date a guy who likes cult movies and probably knows everything that I know, I can just see it being a fight. I can just see him being like, actually, Barbara Steele wasn't in that movie she was in. You know? And I'd just be like, I'm gonna punch you in a dreadlock.

[A]

So you have to kill Rob Zombie in the fmk because if you were with Rob Zombie in real life, you would actually murder him.

[B]

Yes. Because we're too similar, I think is what would happen. And I won't go beyond that. I mean, I've actually, like, I've been around Him. I've worked with him before and we actually, I know people that are friends with him. It would just be like dating myself.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Do I really want to do that? I don't think so.

[A]

I don't think that's what is cracked. Everyone points to dating yourself as a mark of self esteem. I think it's quite the opposite.

[B]

Well, I think instinctually you're like, oh, I just want to date somebody that likes everything that I like. But then you're like, but then you have to, you know, there's a power struggle and what's that gonna be like? So that's who I'm killing. I am going to actually, I'm gonna go in weird order. So I killed Rom Zombie. I'm gonna fuck Nick Cave because I think ultimately the reason why I want to fuck him is just really. Because I feel like it would just be like a really romantic weekend. Like we could do the thing where we're like in Romania and we have this like wonderful like wine infused romantic weekend where we're, you know, hanging out in a castle and wearing velvet clothes.

[A]

If you're fucking Nick Cave for even one night, you're absolutely going to a castle at some point.

[B]

Exactly. I just see it being a romantic weekend because ultimately I want to marry Peter Steele because he is probably my shitty little vampire. Like that's a good candidate for my shitty little vampire.

[A]

He'd be in that bunker with you doing some, some spooky shit with like skull rings on.

[B]

Well, and like here, here's the weird thing about him and I, I want to put this out here. I don't know any of these men. Okay. So like, this is just a game we play. We don't know who they are in real life. When I was watching the interviews with him in his heyday, the Jerry Springer, I feel like he was on Jenny Jones too or something.

[A]

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[B]

He was doing like a whole talk show show tour. Everybody was horny for him. Because he was in Playgirl.

[A]

Right, exactly. Which I didn't see.

[B]

Yeah, I, I never saw him in Playgirl. I mean, I've seen like pictures like online with like something, you know, glazed over the you know what. But like that was his claim to fame. For people who don't even know who the fuck this guy is, he was the lead singer of a band called Typo Negative. They actually rule. I love Typo. They're fudgeing great. But he was like, he was famous for Big and Playgirl because he had a big schlong and whatnot.

[A]

Do they show Schlong and they, they show Dong and Playgirl?

[B]

Yes.

[A]

I guess that shouldn't be a surprise to me.

[B]

No, no. Oh, they, they do for sure.

[A]

Well, he's like 7ft tall. Of course he's got a big dong. He would be doing Playgirl if he didn't.

[B]

Well, that's the thing is that like, they probably would have put more famous people in. Like it. It felt like not a lot of famous people wanted to do Playgirl. I wonder why. But. So he was the one who was bold enough to be like, yo, I'm gonna do it.

[A]

He's like, I know what I'm working with.

[B]

Cause I can.

[A]

Cause I can fuck off. Also, just for everyone out there. I'm sure everyone knows this or most people do, but we weirdly have a lot of young listeners. It ain't the size of the boat, it's the motion of the ocean. Sometimes you don't need all that.

[B]

You know.

[A]

Sometimes it's literally too much.

[B]

Yeah. You don't need all that. Are we like. We're not. I don't know. Maybe it's just cuz I'm old. I don't care about anything. I care about little to nothing. At this point.

[A]

You could show up with.

[B]

Got no rules.

[A]

You can show up, take off your pants and I'm just looking at like the oracle at Delphi between your legs. I don't care. Like you drop trout and it's just like a bunch of mice playing saxophone. I don't care.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, I, I care about little to nothing. I want to emphasize that. Come on. Like we're too old to be like parson shit like this out. Like I will say that Peter Steele, Pete Steele was like, that was his claim to fame. Right. Even though his band was great. And. But here's what we'll say. And this is the reason why I was like, I kind of want to marry this guy. When I was watching the interviews, like many fucking dark goth guys, he was kind of dorky. Like, you can kind of tell. There was like a thin veneer of dork dorkiness under his, you know, I don't know, like big dick energy. I suppose.

[A]

Absolutely. He's one of those goth guys that I absolutely live for.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Where they present one way in a way that is meant or was in the past meant to discourage and frighten most people.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And then underneath they are D and D playing Rhodes scholars.

[B]

Yeah. And puppy dogs, like love that shit to it. That's. That's my Thing. And that's why I love a shitty little vampire, is because I'm like, yo, you look like you're about to kill somebody. But when. When I know you, when we go home, when you come off the set of Jerry Springer, you're a huge fucking dork. And you're sweet and nice and. And loyal and all of those things. So that's. That's what I mean. And that's why I thought, okay, I would marry him, because I got a vibe that he was kind of a dork. And again, I don't know him in real life. Don't send me your stories about how you hung out with Pete Steele back in the 90s and he was this and that.

[A]

No. And he's dead, so we. We don't need to go there.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Because we'll never know.

[B]

But anyway, so that's my. That's. This is my list for FMK this week.

[A]

Oh, my God, I love this list. I love this list so much. I love this email so much. Again, Chris S. You don't have to write back in. I just love that you have found some right films through the mayhem that we have presented, enough to give us this. This perfectly crafted fmk. So thank you.

[B]

Yeah. I didn't think I liked any of these men until you wrote in.

[A]

I thought I had zero thoughts about all of these dudes except Nick Cave. I'm like, yeah, I listen to Nick Cave all the time. He's constantly on the rotation. He's in heavy rotation. But I had no thoughts about fucking marrying or killing any of these guys.

[B]

Yes. So you changed our lives to Chris. We appreciate it.

[A]

I got to see a picture of Rob Zombie with an ombre. I cannot point to anything that has changed a facet of my existence more in the last five years.

[B]

So these films this week.

[A]

Holy fucking shit.

[B]

Oh, my God.

[A]

I. To both of us. To both of us.

[B]

We always talk about how this might be the most depressing week. This is the most depressing double feature. This is. This is pretty bad. This is very depressing.

[A]

I. I will even go so far as to say that your film, which I had never seen before, is easily the most disturbing thing you have ever chosen for us to watch.

[B]

Interesting. Interesting. You know, I wondered that when I chose it. I was like, I wonder what people think about this movie.

[A]

So disturbing. And in general, the week. The movies this week, I think put me in a particular place because it's about people we used to be or could have been.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So I'm just. I'll Tell you the theme, just because. So we can really get into it. Our theme this week is teenage girls trying to change their lives.

[B]

That's right.

[A]

And. Oh, my God. Yeah, your. Your movie. Your movie is interesting, too, because I. I went on one of these, you know, a streaming service, and bought it. And then it just was. And it was a little expensive because I'm like, oh, why? Maybe it's just because, you know, it's a hard to find film, a little expensive, bought it, and it was the commentary. Someone doing full commentary over the film.

[B]

Oh, wow, weird.

[A]

So then I had to go and buy it or, you know, rent it again to see the actual film. But then I went back and watched the one that I first bought with the commentary. Cause after I watched your movie, I was like, somebody gotta bring me down and explain this shit to me.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Who did the commentary? Do you remember?

[A]

I don't even remember.

[B]

Wow. Interesting.

[A]

I needed. I needed help. I needed a hand holding. I needed. You know, Carrot was not interested in shepherding me through this experience.

[B]

Well, all that to say your film was a stone cold bummer, too. You think your film was fucking 13 going on 30 or some shit? Like, man, I love.

[A]

I love a stone cold bummer. You know that I'm a downer bitch.

[B]

I have not cracked this movie open since 2009. Is that when it came out? 2009, man, I was like, I. There's a. There's one scene we were going to talk about in just a second. Well, there's multiple scenes, but never have I been. I swear to God, I was thinking this as I was rewatching it. I have never been more disappointed in a male character ever.

[A]

Huh. This is the. The worst of what men have to offer is on constant display in this movie.

[B]

And it happens to be an actor who I feel affection for, and I'm trying to not let it ruin my. My view of him because he's also been in other movies where he's looked like shit and. And felt like shit.

[A]

So movies that I've brought to this very podcast.

[B]

You love making this guy into a motherfucker. This.

[A]

He loves it. I make it. He's for him on screen, and he loves disappointing the shit out of you.

[B]

Is there ever. Is there a movie that he's been in where he's been like a fucking peach? No, I don't think so. Has he always been a piece of shit?

[A]

Is this the trajectory of your fucking career? I'm always going to be a little bit of a piece of Shit, he was.

[B]

Was he okay in Inglorious Bastards? God, like, give me something.

[A]

Nobody was okay in that movie. They were all fucking night.

[B]

Well, you're going first this week. I can't wait to talk about this movie because.

[A]

Oh, I sure the am. My movie, as Millie said, was released in 2009. It was written and directed by Andrea Arnold. And my film is Fish Tank.

[B]

You need sort know what you do.

[A]

So you keep saying, but you don't know nothing, so why should I listen? This is the first movie that I thought of when, you know, considering teenage girls who are, you know, trying to change their lives. And I really think the theme was born out of my desire to bring this film to the podcast, because I just think it's fucking phenomenal. And from. It's one of those movies. The first time I saw it, it just stayed with me. It felt like the most real portrayal of teen girl, modern, ish teen girldom that I'd seen in a long time or ever. And I just fucking loved it. Yeah, I fucking loved it. So. Movie is written and directed by Andrea Arnold, who's fantastic. Total G. She's, you know, gone to Cannes Film Festival a lot, has had a lot of, you know, she's done a lot of short. A couple. Few short films. Some tv. She. She directed some tv. She actually directed a lot of Big Little Lies, which I thought was interesting because she has a good eye. Like, she has such a fantastic eye. And then a lot of films. So she's. Maybe you've seen American Honey. Maybe you've seen her version of Wuthering Heights. Maybe you've seen Red Road. She's just fantastic. And she's just this wonderful British director who I just have always loved. This is not her first film, but it was the first film of hers that I saw. And I thought, what a way to come out of the gate with something so fantastic. And she's really cool. I watched a lot of interviews about this film in particular, and she loves dance in real life. Dance plays heavily into our film. She loves dancing in real life. One thing I thought was really interesting about this movie is that usually when you're filming TV or film, you have a script that everyone gets, and you just give them the script and let them look at their parts on the day of filming. You might get something called Sides, which is where they'll print out scene by scene if there are any changes or if you need to memorize something new, or if you just want to focus on what's being done for that day. That will be printed out and available to you. Andrea Arnold did none of that. She did something filmed in a way that was, I believe is referred to as continuity. So the actors who are not in a scene didn't get to read those scenes. So they were. Their emotion for their characters and their character thrust came from a lot of discussion with the director and the writer. For example, there was a moment in this film who's played by Kirsten Waring, and she has an interview where she was talking about how when she first saw the film because it premiered at Cannes and when she first saw the film, she didn't realize what was happening to the girl and between the girl and Connor, essentially she was really surprised by that scene.

[B]

Oh, wow.

[A]

Yeah. And yeah, so there were just moments where if you're not in the actual scene, a lot of the actors didn't know what was going on with the rest of the film. So it's an interesting way to direct and I think it brings a different emotion out of the story. But it also is great for a director who wants to have, who wants to have that kind of deep connection to the actors in their film because it is so conversational. It's very much, oh, well, this scene is. This is how you should be feeling, this is how you should be acting. Try it this way, try it that way. It just gives a little bit more creativity and spontaneity to these scenes. So my one sentence synopsis of Fish tank, a volatile 15 year old girl in English council housing trying to use hip hop dancing as a way to enhance her life, encounters the ultimate roadblock. And her mom's new boyfriend.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So this film stars Katie Jarvis, who prior to this had not acted before. The way that her audition came about or the way that she got the role is very funny. You should go look that up. Basically, it was like Andrea Arnold kind of saw her and was like, hey, do you want to be in movie? In a movie? And she was like, yeah, fuck off. Like, she basically was like, I don't fucking. What are you fucking talking about? Get in my face.

[B]

Just wish people would like. It's kind of like the Matt Dillon thing where when we talk about over the edge, it's like people just like. Like kids walking around being bad kids. And then somebody's like, hey, you want to be in my movie? I'm like, how come that ever happened to us?

[A]

We weren't bad enough, Millie. We were not bad enough.

[B]

Oh, no, you seemed bad. You've dated assassin assassins and prisoners and things.

[A]

I was Definitely a badass little kid in a lot of ways, but not that. Not bad enough to be like, huh, she's got something going on. I was bad in a worrisome way where it's like, what the is gonna happen to her if she doesn't straighten up and fly right?

[B]

You weren't like, knocking girls in the nose with your skull is what you're saying.

[A]

Absolutely not headbutting anybody on purpose. Okay, yeah.

[B]

Maybe also different then.

[A]

Also not having sex. I did not lose my virginity until I was 21.

[B]

Right, right.

[A]

So, like, I was. I was. Which isn't to say that sex is bad. I'm just saying that I think a lot of the reason people act poorly in their teen years is because they are super hormonal and very horny, and they have nowhere to put those emotions, so they end up acting out.

[B]

Sure. Yeah.

[A]

Whereas, you know, I just wanted a boyfriend and couldn't get one and just read books. Me too.

[B]

So that I just watched Untamed Heart. That's all I did.

[A]

So that. That prevented me from becoming a straight up sociopath. I was pretty bad, though. You're right. I was a pretty bad little kid. In. In a lot of ways, I was. Put it this way, I was a reckless, adventurous child.

[B]

That's. That's what I think it's more about. It's really just like a. Maybe it's more of a joie de vivre. You weren't like a juvenile delinquent necessarily.

[A]

I was a reckless, adventurous child who became a terrible adult at certain. A certain point in my life. I saved my bad shit for my 20s, where I did in fact, date men with John Wick assassin level tattoos.

[B]

You dated a murderer?

[A]

We know that I dated an actual murderer. Someone who went on to kill someone jumping off speaker stacks. Yeah, I dated a Scottish guy who jizzed in my fucking eyeball. It was. It was bad.

[B]

I just scared my dog screaming at that.

[A]

I had some experiences.

[B]

Yo, yo.

[A]

I had some experiences, man.

[B]

Jesus Christ.

[A]

Let me let her cover. I don't know what else I should reveal.

[B]

You.

[A]

I mean, that. I don't know if you can handle what else I have to reveal.

[B]

I don't know. That felt like a big piece of information. I think you're. I think you've really showed yourself.

[A]

It happened one time. He swore it was by accident, and I genuinely wanted to rip his dick off his body. Like, the feminism that came out of me in that moment was like, what kind of depraved. The fuck? This was an undiscussed this is not like a kink. What the fuck are you doing? You can't just go from zero to jizzing in someone's eyeball with no conversation in between.

[B]

Holy fucking shit.

[A]

Also, it's like, do I now have to Worry about ocular STIs? It's the fucking 90s. Like, we are a condom heavy relationship and you're doing that shit.

[B]

Yo, my mind is blown.

[A]

Change my life. Change my fucking life. I was like, I need to straighten up and fly. Right. I got married a couple years later. I couldn't handle it.

[B]

Right, right.

[A]

But, yeah, I was a reckless and adventurous child who became a bad 20 year old for a while and then. Yeah, but I could have been Mia. Mia is our main character in this film and she has it real fucking rough. I think that was kind of this connective point that I felt with her too, is that when you're watching this film, you're watching someone trying to access hope. There is no hope in her life. And she's fighting so hard to access these tiny glimpses of hope that she could have a different life. And that was me to a fucking T where I'm like, what is it that's going to get me out of this situation? This feeling, this family, whatever it is? I feel like, yeah, I felt that as a kid and I'd never seen that so effortlessly represented on film.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. There's this kind of running storyline of she sees this horse that's in like a parking lot basically tied up with a chain to, you know, some concrete little post or whatever. And I always thought, you know, I mean, it's obvious. It's not. I'm like a genius for. For figuring this out, but it's like, you know, sort of an allegory for. For her. It's like she is trying. She just jumps the fence. She sees this horse and she's like, why is this horse tied up? So she just wants to free this horse. And so she does it the first time. She just tries to, like, bash the chain with a rock. But then she comes back every so often and she's like, it's still tied up. It's still tied up. I want to free it. I want to free it. And then she realizes that it does have owners. And it's like some guys that are like, kind of living. I don't know, like, they're kind of in. Living in these kind of like, trailers and they own the horse technically. But I think that's the thing is that I think that is like the story. The part of the story that reminds you of, like, what she actually wants was that she wants freedom and she wants to get away from this extreme. Right, absolutely.

[A]

And in order for her to keep going back and trying to free this horse, she puts herself in more precarious and dangerous situations every time.

[B]

Right, exactly.

[A]

So even the act of trying to access freedom is dangerous and could have severe consequences for her.

[B]

Right, right.

[A]

So it's very interesting. And she lives in English council housing, which is the American version of. The American version would be the projects, essentially. And so she's living with a single mom. She has, you know, a dog that she loves. His name is Tenance, which I love. T E N N A N T S and she has a little sister, Tyler. But it's clear from her living situation that she doesn't receive a lot of care or attention. And when we first meet her in the film, she's already had a fight with her best friend Keely, who is a piece of work to see Keely. Keely again represented on stage. Excuse me, on screen. So interesting to see how a small thing, a minor shift of we got into a fight and now you're literally never gonna be my friend again. Like, when we meet Keely, she has moved on with another group of friends, a whole different group of girls, and has essentially left Mia alone. That loneliness that Mia is feeling is so palpable from the minute the movie starts. And she's not going gently into that good night. She's not accepting it lying down. She is a fucking fighter. So she's definitely, you know, giving people money to buy her booze. She's getting in fights with the girls. When she first encounters Keely and is like, what the fuck's going on? Why are you hanging out with these girls? They start fighting and she headbutts a girl in the fucking face. She's. She's a scrapper. She's gonna fight for kind of what she believes in, even though. Even if it's misguided and even if it doesn't ultimately give her what she wants. But even just looking at the way that she is, like those first couple of opening scenes. And there's something that Andrea Arnold does, which I love. It's not exactly like a soft gaze lens, but it's the way that she films sometimes it's truly beautiful. There's a crispness to how she focuses in on people and tries to kind of blend out the background so that you can really focus on the characters. But then there is the background is also such a part of who the characters are and how they move through the world. So it's kind of an interesting, kind of gentle, almost Merchant Ivory look at the world, but it's modern, so it feels kind of delicate and harsh at the same time. I love it. So we're seeing these. These girls, and they congregate around dancing. So it's set in a time where hip hop reigns supreme. Right. And Mia, especially, is trying to use dance as a way to kind of deal with her emotional life, but also to connect with people. Now, when you first meet Keely and her new friends, they are clearly dancing for the male gaze. Right. They're dancing to be seen. They're dancing to kind of promote their, like, nascent sexuality they're feeling themselves, but also it's very performative. Whereas for Mia, who's wearing, conversely, you know, not wearing what these other group of girls are wearing, Mia's wearing sweatpants, big hoodies, oversized stuff.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Not trying to be seen. Genuinely loves dancing as a way to perform for herself. So she kind of, like, goes into an abandoned apartment with her speaker and her. You know, she dances even when no one else is watching.

[B]

Yeah. She wants to be more of like a B girl or something versus, like, her friends who want to be like the Spice Girls or something.

[A]

Completely. Completely. And so there's this real disconnect for her because, again, like you said, she's seeing that freedom and care and attention. And in a lot of ways, love is not accessible to her. But she has something that she loves, that she puts so much effort into as a way to give her, again, that hope that is just not guaranteed or there's not that implicit assumption that her life will get better than what it is right at that moment. I also really love. Andrea Arnold. Does this. This thing in this film where you usually see Mia from a. She's looking down on people, so she's usually on a higher plane looking down at the world. And I think that, you know, like, metaphorically, it's not meant to. It's not meant to insinuate that Mia is contemptuous of the people she sees and not in, like, an uptight way, but just that she is above the fray and does not want. It's a way of kind of displacing her and indicating that she doesn't really belong in her world. Like, when you see her on the same level as everyone that is in her world, it's a really fraught experience for her. And the only time she gets peace is when she's above it and she's elevated when she's looking at it from the outside in. So I just again, Andrea Arnold is just such a fascinating director to me in that way. But yeah, Mia is a fucking. A character I've never seen before. And she also has a really fraught relationship with her mother. So at first it kind of feels like typical mom, daughter, teenager acting out shit. But there's something really deep happening in the small moves that you're seeing in this relationship. One is that it becomes obvious very early on that Mia's mom is very young. So mia's mom is 15. And you get the feeling that her mom had her when she was around the same age, that she and her sister have different fathers, that again, they're living in council housing, that she doesn't seem to work. Her mom doesn't seem to, you know, go out and work. But her mom is also very pretty. And so there's this competitiveness coming from the mother, from this, you know, this character of Joanne that Mia feels and is trying to rail against and push back on, but doesn't quite understand because she wants her mother's love. She clearly needs her guidance. But then the more you realize this relationship, it's clear also that Mia's mother is very immature and sees her as competition in a lot of ways. She's competing with Mia in a way that Mia's never going to compete with her mother and doesn't even want to. That she's kind of. It's that interesting. It's a very interesting angle to play for a woman who possibly had children young and didn't get to fully live out her teenage dreams or access that hope or access what Mia's trying to access. So instead of encouraging her children towards the thing that she is missing, she's deeply resentful of the fact that Mia gets to be a teenage girl in the way that she never was. But there's also something at play there about femininity. Because it's clear throughout the film that Mia is starting to explore sexuality and explore femininity and is not sure how to access things like wearing makeup and dancing. There's a really intri. Really beautiful and interesting scene where Mia's dancing in the kitchen, making breakfast. She meets Connor, who is her mother's soon to be boyfriend, but at the time is just like kind of a one night stand played by Michael Fassbender. And he comes downstairs and he sees Mia dancing. And she's again, not used to being viewed by men, seen by Men. The only example we've had up to this point is when she tries to set the horse free and a couple of the young boys, the teenage boys that live there, are joking around about sexually assaulting her. Like they're kind of holding her and trying to pull her pants off and she breaks free. But there's a real threat to being seen by men and boys up to that point. So when Connor's looking at her, she's embarrassed. Not just because she's, you know, has been caught in a private moment, but. But she thinks he's kind of cute. You can tell right away she thinks he's kind of cute and he's looking at her in a very adult way, which is where the problems of this film begin. But then there's again the comparative scene is that shortly after when Connor leaves and her mom comes downstairs, her mom is dancing in the kitchen and she's just got this real ease to her sexuality in the way that she dances. And Mia's kind of watching her and you can tell she's wondering, like, how do I do that? Like, how do I get to that place where I can. My body and mind are aligned and how I'm presenting myself to people. Very, very fascinating. But yeah, there's just. There's a lot going on with the mother daughter relationship in this movie that I just again, have not really seen portrayed. So it seems effortless. It absolutely is not. But just so in a way that feels so real that I've either seen in my own life or seen in the lives of people that are close to me. And Tyler, this little sister. If you think Mia and her mom are having problems, Tyler is the most ragged little sister I've ever seen on film. Tyler is a fucking beast. She's got to be around seven years old. She does not give a single fuck about anyone. She is just pure active ego. Just non stop id. She is just. Just says whatever comes to her mind, right? At one point, her mom tries to get her out of the kitchen and she's. Because she's like her mom. When her mom comes downstairs in her underwear and is dancing, Mia's watching her, but Tyler is standing right next to her and says, you look like a tramp. And then when she pushes her out of the kitchen, she's like, you fucking bitch. Like, she shouts at this woman and then stomps up. She is. There's a scene where she and Mia are in. Or they're in Mia's room. Tyler is watching TV on the floor with one of her Friends. And they're smoking a cigarette and drinking a beer.

[B]

She's seven years old. And then they're. Yeah.

[A]

Yelling at the tv, like, look at this. And look at, like, this is a feral child. This child is feral. At one point she's talking to Connor and she said, and he says, you know, they're having this little funny exchange about her pretending to be a gate and not letting him out of the front door. And then she looks at him and she says, I like you, I'll let you live. And you kind of believe her. Like, has this seven year old committed felonious assault at this. I would believe it if you told me that. But in the same way, she's a little kid. Like, she has not been protected enough to learn that there are other ways to be in the world besides ravenously feral as a way to protect yourself. And she hasn't really learned how to express herself outside of that or to tame that side of herself. So there's just no, there's no care. You don't see the mother. Like, Joanne doesn't hug them or care for them or clean or any. She just kind of always pushes them to the side. The house is always, you know, dirty plates are everywhere and everything's kind of all over the place. So then enter Connor. Connor is dubious from jump. He's this hot little guy, Michael Fassbender, who shows up one night, comes back to party a couple of times and then just moves the fuck in. Right. He doesn't mind the presence of the children. He's really tender to them. Like at one point, Mia's been, you know, both of the girls have been pushed to their room so her mom could have a party with her friends downstairs, Mia falls asleep on her mom's bed and Connor, very tenderly, kind of picks up this 15 year old girl and carries her to bed. So it's kind of introduced as a mark of a sign of tenderness, but she's also way too old for this kind of tenderness, which is exacerbated when he takes off her shoes and her pants before covering her up with a sheet.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And like Mia pretends to be asleep during this, but it's hard to imagine that he does not know this is not right.

[B]

Yeah. Oh my God. I mean, this is like what I was going back and forth about again when I was watching this movie. It's like, it's hard to tell like, whose perspective we're seeing this from.

[A]

Right, right.

[B]

Because you've got this girl, 15 years old, no dad, she experiences little to no tenderness or niceness in her life, honestly. And then she's kind of being taken care of by this new boyfriend of her mom's and there's like two things going on. So there's her wanting parental tenderness, but then also she's sort of, you know, trying to figure out boys too. And here's this boy in her life. I mean, he's not a boy, he's a man. Let's get serious. But like, it's so. It's kind of that double sided thing of like, I need a parent and I need a boyfriend. Right. But then you're not really sure what, whose perspective it's from. Because then from the other side of it, because this is again, I think why I felt so disappointed by. Because I was giving him the benefit of the doubt. For the first big chunk of the film, you want to believe that he's going to be this parent and he's encouraging her to do dancing and he's supportive and all this stuff. And that these like moments where it maybe flirts with like an inappropriateness maybe is actually just him, you know, being a young person expressing love for a platonic love. Right, right. But so it's really hard because you're just like, are we thinking about her? Are we thinking about him? What is he thinking? What is she thinking? Because there's, it's very layered and I mean, that's part of why this film is so brilliant. But also it's very hard to watch as a viewer. You're like, I don't know what to think about any of this.

[A]

Yeah. And it's again that what you just mentioned is that point of confusion that Mia feels that we as the viewer also feel because we know she hasn't ever really experienced care before.

[B]

Right.

[A]

So she must be so confused about is this the kind of care and attention a parent would show or is this my burgeoning sexuality?

[B]

Exactly. Perfect. Yeah.

[A]

And it's so devastating and scary to see how quickly she can go from a place of care to a place of harm.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Because she doesn't know where that line is. So she's trying to figure out where that line is at the same time. And one of the ways that she's doing that, aside from Connor, she kind of meets this. This guy. So one of the guys who owns the horse, these younger teen dudes, is named Billy. And she comes back to get her stuff because she at one point runs away and leaves her bag with her speaker and all of her CDs in it to kind of save her own life. But she comes back and she wants her shit and she kind of sparks up this relationship with Billy, who, by the way, is also the actor who played the super stoned guy in Attack the Block.

[B]

Oh, wow, funny.

[A]

So she comes back and they start kind of hanging out. And it's a true teenage relationship in that it's not overtly sexual right away. They're not explicitly dating, but she likes being around him. This is the first guy that she kind of has chosen to be around that she likes. And it seems less harmful than the other boys and men in her life, right? And far less harmful than actual boys to mention the group. So Billie kind of enters her life in a way that allows her to play out her feelings in what would be considered a traditional or normal relationship. But she's not as interested in him. You can see it on her face. She's not as interested in him as she is in Connor. So at the same time, she sees this flyer for female dancers, which she again, in her mind takes as hip hop crew, like a B girl. And she's thinking, well, this is a way out. I can get this job. She's been kicked out of school. She has been sent to, like, there's a social worker that comes to the house at one point and she's being sent to this referral unit, which in the UK is kind of an alt education program. And she gets to live there, but she doesn't want to go. She's like, this is not my fucking. Why am I being sent away? So she's looking for pathways to her own success and thinks that this dance job could be one of them. So as she's preparing her routine, as she's in this burgeoning relationship with Billi, as her mom is pushing her further and further away emotionally, and with this introduction of this reform school, essentially literally pushing her further and further away. She has a night where she's at home, her mom comes home super drunk. Connor less so. Connor puts her mom to bed. He hangs out downstairs on the couch drinking. And Mia comes downstairs to spend some time with Connor, and they're sharing alcohol and she's still 15 the whole time, and he wants to see her routine. So she shows him and he calls her over next to him and gives her a hug, which again, very paternal at first, but then he starts kissing her and then they have sex. And I almost didn't want to explain that part. I didn't want to reveal that. But so much more happens in the film after this that I Won't reveal. And this is a crucial point of understanding for this film that, again, Andrea Arnold is walking this line very well because it is definitely consensual, even though this girl is underage. And I know that, you know, the party line is kind of if you're underage, you can't consent. But at the time this film was made, that was not even part of social discussion. And she's really playing with the idea that this is a young girl who has chosen to have a sexual experience. A very. A very awful, inappropriate, deeply harmful sexual experience. But the sex is not the harm for her. For Mia, in my experience, in my viewing.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

The harmfulness is all. With Connor, who is saying some of the wildest shit while they are having sex that indicates his jealousy of Billy.

[B]

Yes. Oh, my God.

[A]

So you're like, wait, has he been planning this? Has he been this lecherous ghoul this whole time? Like he's been inappropriate with her. We've seen it. We know that. But it was put in such a framing of paternalism.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

That it was easy to want to give him the benefit of the doubt until this happens.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And you're, like, rocked to your fucking core. And again, it's not her. She's not being harmed by this experience, but it's her first sexual experience.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And she's having sex with her mother's boyfriend, who has been kind of grooming her.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

To this point is. That's what I realized in this scene is like, oh, he has been grooming her this whole time.

[B]

Yeah. And that's the thing that's so hard because you're just like, God, you just really wanted it to not happen. Like, you're just. In my mind, I was like, God, can he just, like, be, like, kind of a father figure and be cool? Please don't do this. Please don't go here. And yet.

[A]

But that's just it. Like, he. If you want it to be, you're in Mia's point of view fully in that moment, in a way that, again, to me, is a masterful way of writing and directing. Because you're fully in Mia's point of view at that point where, oh, I didn't want it. It's not that she didn't want to have sex with him. She wasn't sure whether she wanted him to be a father figure or a romantic figure.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And now there's no turning back. Now you're in it. There's no turning back. And you, as a viewer are put exactly in that Space. And again, I wish that there was more because there's a lot more that happens that I will not ruin. After this, it goes into wild places.

[B]

You.

[A]

I wanted to see more of her reaction to this because after this happens, literally the next morning. So after the. After they have sex on the couch, Connor pretends he's been drunk. Like, oh, my God, I can't believe I did that. I'm so wasted. Right. And even though she's not upset, this is wrong on so many levels for this to have happened. Literally the next morning, Connor leaves. He has moved out. And her mom is like, depressed and devastated. She doesn't know why he's left. You have a feeling that Tyler knows why because they heard a little creek on the steps at one point and you're like, oh, Tyler might know what's going on, but he's gone. He's out of her life. So the rest of the film is this kind of. This exploration of her looking for him, not knowing if she wants to find him. Does she find him? What happens if she finds him? A lot happens. A lot happens after this moment. So this is a jarring point in this two hour film, but so much more happens after it. That really makes you feel simultaneously awful for Mia but also a little bit upset with her.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

She does things that make me as a viewer really scared for her. And question, what kind of person is she going to become as a result of this experience? Has it made her softer? Has it made her harder? Has it made her crueler? So a lot happens after this, but I think it's just, it's a truly wonderful movie in that it is surprising and shocking and will have you tapping into emotions that you thought were dormant for a long time about growing up and trying to become a person. I think the ending, a lot of what I've read, and at the time I saw it talked about with friends and a lot of people were very. Saw the ending of the film as very hopeful. I have never thought that. I think the ending feels a little bit more fraught to me and much scarier to me in terms of what's going to happen to Mia also. She's kind of set up to replicate a lot of family patterns.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

I'll leave it at that. But there is a moment where towards the end of the film, you get to see a glimpse of Joanne as a different person, her mother, in two different ways. One is slightly more loving. One is Joanne saying, you know, I almost had you aborted. I made the appointment and everything. So there's I don't know, there's just, there's not for me a hopefulness at the end of this movie. The way that is built into other people's viewing of this film. I want there to be. I want to feel hopeful for this girl, but I'm really, at the end of this film, I'm very scared for her. More scared than I am hopeful, which again is her own experience of her own life. So masterfully done. Andrea Arnold is the best at this and I just highly recommend if you can stomach it, watching this film.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, it's. I mean, no doubt it's bleak. No doubt. But I also. Yeah, your specialty. And I love, I love a bleak film too. I mean, it's. No, no doubt about that. I mean my. This is, I think maybe potentially why we sometimes do themes like this about teenage girls, like movies about teenage girls in this way. Because I feel like, you know, I, I think part of like the reality of teenagers is that, you know, especially with teenage girls, it's like a lot of times you don't see them in these, in like in films. I mean, you just don't really see them much in these situations where they're in peril and they are self sabotaging. Right, right. Because you know, Hollywood is, is much more interested in like making them into little princesses. And you know, I think anytime you do have a film where this happens and there is a lot now there has been many more complicated portrayals of teenage girls, but it's hard to watch because you do. And like a lot of, just like you, I start thinking about the things that I have done and, and I was never in her economic situation gratefully for that. But it's that thing of like, oh my God, like what is she gonna do? Like, is she making the right decisions? You really want her to succeed. But then also, you know, I don't think she even knows how exactly.

[A]

She has no map, no model.

[B]

Yeah. But that's what makes it bleak is that you're just like, okay, these are people who are up against a wall and this is, is all they know. And you hope for the best, but it's, it's really tough. And that's how. You know what's weird. Like, I feel like our movies are very similar in that way. Like, I gotta say, I think our movies are a lot more similar than I even thought before we picked them. I think that they end differently though. Right?

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

There's like your way and then there's my way. So it's either like, yeah, a little bit vague as to what will happen, and then there's the nuclear option.

[A]

Exactly. But it's also. It's very interesting that in both of our films, class structure plays so heavily into the options that these girls have or think that they have, and how the class structure that they live in dictates who they are to people before they even open their mouths. But then they also very much live up to those. Those preposterous stereotypes sometimes because they feel like, well, fuck it, if you already think this way about me, why not do it in that teenage way? So, yeah, I just. Just love this movie. I really love this movie. I think that it's. It speaks to me on a personal level in so many ways. Just have. Not just in terms of how this. This particular teen girl is. Is represented and the. The horrors that are facing her in her life, but your movie. Let's get into it.

[B]

So my movie for the theme. Teenage girls trying to change their lives. Or are they? It's from 1980. It was written by Leonard Yakir and Brenda Nielsen, directed by Dennis Hopper, and it's called out of the Blue.

[A]

Why do you make things so difficult for yourself?

[B]

It's my life. I could do what I want with it. Just give a tiny bit of background information about this movie. So this was the first film that Dennis Hopper, the actor, slash director Dennis Hopper, directed since his movie the Last Movie, which is from 1971. Now, the trajectory of. Of these films sort of happened like this. So, you know, you've got Easy Rider, which we've discussed on this podcast. Go back and listen to that episode. You know, Dennis Hopper became this, like, countercultural hero for that movie, right? Like, the thing was, like, a huge success, changed Hollywood changed, you know, the public consciousness about hippies and counterculture and all that stuff, right? So, of course, this. This movie was popular enough to where they said, hey, you want to make a new another movie? So Dennis Hopper decides then to make this movie called the Last Movie. Looks fantastic, by the way. I don't know if you've seen the new restoration of the last movie that came out, like, fairly recently, but, man, super weird and artsy, okay? Like, Dennis Hopper was definitely on drugs when he made it, like, to a fault, I think. I think it suffered a lot because of it, but that was it. So basically, he has Easy Rider, then he makes the Last Movie, and then Hollywood was like, okay, enough of this, enough of this. So, like, you made this one thing that we really like, and we thought we could make More money off of it. Then. Then you went and made the weirdest movie possible after, so.

[A]

And that's how you're a stone freak.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Actually, it's kind of my favorite thing that happens sometimes in Hollywood where Hollywood decides to give an outsider or somebody like a chance to make a movie. They make a hugely popular movie and then they're like, you want some more money? And they're like, well, let me tell you how weird I actually am.

[A]

I'm thinking instantly of Boots Riley, for example.

[B]

I mean, it's happened so many times. Right. I think it's kind of fucking punk rock. I love it.

[A]

Yeah, it's great. It's so fudgeing punk. I love it so much.

[B]

So, so speaking of punk. So essentially the last movie was the last movie that Dennis Hopper had made until this movie. And he was actually hired as an actor for out of the Blue. Initially he was, he had, he wasn't hired to direct it. He ended up stepping in at the last minute because I believe the, the one of this screenwriters, Leonard Yir, I think that's how you say his name, he was going to direct it, but then at the last minute they swapped him out with Dennis Hopper. Now, from what I've read, initially the movie was supposed to be a little bit more of like an After School Special type of thing. Like, it was essentially about a psychologist who was sort of working with like a troubled young girl. I'm assuming kind of in the vein of like Ordinary People or, you know, Raymond Burr plays the psychologist in the film. And I think it was more about that. It was supposed to be more of kind of like a character study drama, teen drama. But then of course, when Dennis Hopper got involved, it became much darker.

[A]

You know, have you ever seen that video where somebody takes the Shining trailer and sets it to Salisbury Hill?

[B]

Oh, yeah, of course, of course.

[A]

I feel like that's what the movie was supposed to be, the Salisbury Hill version. And then the actual Shining came out of it.

[B]

Yeah, it was like, I'm assuming that like, you know, the Linda man's character was supposed to look like Ali McGraw love story with like her knee high socks and her like, you know, peacoat. And then they just took a sharp turn.

[A]

They're like, you remember, you know, ever seen Lemmy from Motorhead? Let's do the, the teen girl version of that.

[B]

God, be still my beating heart there. Well, and like, I want to talk about Linda Manns because I think she, I mean, first of all, she's a cinematic hero of Mine for sure. She passed away a few years ago now. But, you know, she was hired to do this movie because Dennis Hopper was like, really into the idea that she was in a punk rock. And again, this is like late 70s, early 80s is like the absolute era for it. So she. So Linda Manns made her feature film debut when she was only 15 years old. She was in Days of Heaven by Terrence Malick, which had only come out a few years prior. So that was kind of her first film. And in that movie she's very memorable. She does the voiceover for it and she's just kind of like. But this is her vibe. And this is like why I love Linda Mance is that she's sort of in line with. With all the like, little tough girls that I loved in movies.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Like Robin Johnson in Times Square, which we've also talked about on the podcast. Christy McNichol and Little Darlings, which we've talked about. Like these kind of tough, streetwise, cigarette smoking teen girls. Obsessed. Like, how could you not be obsessed with them? They're so cool. And like, that's who Linda Manns was at this time, you know, on screen. And then at some point in the 80s, after she had made a few films, she decided to leave the business and she wanted to like, raise her kids and get married. And then the next time, at least the next time I saw her was when she was in Gummo, the Harmony Crin film. And she was the mom of the little kid Solomon. You know, the kid that eats spaghetti in the bathtub.

[A]

How can you fucking forget, Solomon?

[B]

How could you forget? And like, the scene that I remember her in the most was when Solomon is in the basement and do, you know, remember he's like shirtless and he's working out in front of a mirror and he's got two handfuls of silverware that he's taped up and he's using them as like hand weights.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And then she comes down and pulls out a. Like, starts tap dancing. She pulls out a pair of tap shoes and starts like, performing. It's like such a. Such a wild scene. But that is like, what. When I was. Oh, that's the little girl from Days of Heaven. Or out of the Blue, you know, so it was a long time between those two things.

[A]

She's got this like, New York, thick New York accent.

[B]

Yeah, she's from New York for sure, but. And just, yeah, very, you know, that kind of gruff, like, knows a thing or two little girl, which is so, I mean, to me, again, like, I. I just like gravitated towards those types of. Of characters in films. So once it's in. Synopsis of out of the Blue, A teenage girl living in the Pacific Northwest who is obsessed with punk rock and Elvis Presley struggles to find normalcy within her broken, addicted family. So this movie was shot in Vancouver, so, yeah, very Pacific Northwest. Y like flannels and, you know, trees, a lot of outdoorsy stuff. The title of this movie comes from a Neil Young song, which they actually play multiple times in the film. So there's kind of that vibe of like the Neil Young vibe. So this movie is about. Linda Manns plays this girl named Cindy who is called cb. She is, again, kind of like a tough actin tomboyish character. Wears a lot of denim and that kind of stuff, smoking cigarettes. She's being raised by her single mom, who's named Kathy, and she's played by Sharon Farrell. And here's the general gist of the story. Cause there's really. It's really like, not there's things happening, but it's really more of like a slice of life type of film at the end of the day. So CB's father, Dawn, who is played by Dennis Hopper, he. At the beginning of the film, they show this horrific accident, right? Where CB and her father are driving around in his semi truck. He's drunk, right? And then they basically crash into a school bus full of kids. It's crazy when they show it. I mean, the. There's a couple. I mean, you see a couple of like, you know, kind of bad props floating around, but it's like they show it. I mean, they show the action of it and it's really, really disturbing. And then this becomes the first, the flashpoint for the rest of the film, which is that dawn, her father, goes to jail because of it. You know, she is sort of like constantly reminded of it. She's got a scar on her face from the event. And then the truck, the cab of the truck is now in their front yard and is like grown over, you know, trees and branches and stuff. And then this is like a place.

[A]

Where she sits, she hangs like a hangout, like a fort.

[B]

For her, it's like a fort. And this is like the site of one of the most tragic accidents you can even imagine, right? So it's set up in this way where it's just sort of like, yeah, the dad's in jail, you know, her mom, meanwhile, has been having an affair with like, I guess the owner of the diner where she works. And she is a Heroin addict and will do heroin with Don's best friend, Charlie, who is a total fucking creep. From the annals of creepy guys that hang out at bowling alleys, this is.

[A]

The worst character I've ever seen on film. In so many ways. He's so bad news.

[B]

Yes. Like, just a fucking creep lech. Like, you know, again, like, sort of. This is Don's best friend on the outside, and he's just sort of like, trying to, you know, have sex with a mom and with CB at one point and is just sort of like, you know, not a good. Not a good guy. So essentially, if you. As you can imagine, so much trauma in CB's life, she's trying to find escapism. And this is the way she does it is through music. Right. I think that's a very common thing. I mean, it certainly was for me. And, like, I used music as an escape as a teenager, like you wouldn't believe. And still do. Still do. I mean, again, I did not have anything close to the scenarios that CB was going through in this film. But, like, this, like, I idolized musicians in the same way that she did. And this is what she does, is that she, like, loves punk rock. She loves Sid Vicious and Johnny Rotten from the Sex Pistols, and she fudgeing, loves Elvis, and she uses Elvis as a way to kind of escape herself. There are times in the movie where she starts to dress like him and she sings, like, is it Teddy Bear? I think it's the song Teddy Bear. And it always feels like she's singing that song when something bad is about to happen.

[A]

Absolutely right. And she's also, like, just such a little kid still. There's so many moments where she's, you know, in the fetal position, sucking her thumb.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

And, like, holding a teddy bear. Holding an actual teddy bear. So, like, when she sings that song and then you see her in these moments, it's just. That juxtaposition is insanely poignant.

[B]

Yeah. And just like Mia in Fish Tank in your film, like, CB is that she's, you know, basically, like, asserting her dominance over, like, her, like, the kids in her school. She doesn't even like going to school. She's got, like, a couple of girlfriends and they just kind of hang out. But, you know, she's, like a tough. A tough chick. She's, you know, basically mia. They're very, very similar in that way. Meaning that they get into fights with other girls, which I never did. I. I always avoided physical conflict, if at all possible.

[A]

But although I will say my former best Friend. I write about this in my book, but my former best friend used to constantly want to physically fight me as, like, a show of her own strength.

[B]

Jesus.

[A]

And so I, I charged her. We were playing kickball one day in my backyard, and she kept changing all the rules.

[B]

Oh, boy.

[A]

To benefit her and her team. And I charged the mound and popped her in the face, and her nose started bleeding. And I ran into my house crying, oh, my God.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Like, I, I, I'm not. In that moment, I was like, I'm not this. I don't want to fight. I'm not this bitch. I can't do it. It was too tender. It was too devastating for me.

[B]

Yeah. But so basically, you know, Stevie's trying to just, like, escape this shitty life of hers. And, you know, she loves punk rock. There's this really, really great scene where she goes into the city and she sees this band, and there's actually like, a real band. At the time, they were called Pointed Sticks. And she goes to see their show and she, like, meets the band backstage, and then the drummer kind of comes along and takes her under his wing and, like, allows her to get on stage and drum for a song. It's so cute.

[A]

Like, so cute. She's really so happy.

[B]

Yeah, she's so happy. She's, like, totally in her own world there and loves it. And, you know, this movie, again, gets really, really dark at times. I mean, I won't. I don't feel like giving these moments away because, again, I feel like it contributes to the end of the story, which is very shocking. But it deals with, like, addiction and sexual abuse and poverty, and it's just dark. It's another bleak film. And the thing that I think is really interesting about this era, too, is, like, in the, like, out of the Blue is a. Is a huge cult film at this point. I think a lot of people. You know, it was basically restored in, I think it was, like, 2018 or 2019 by Natasha Leone and Chloe Sevigny. Weirdly enough, they were huge fans of the film, and they helped, you know, organize a kind of fundraiser to restore it. And that's the version, I think, that we saw for this episode. So there's a huge cult following for this film. Obviously, Linda Manns is absolutely part of it. You know, but then there's also the Dennis Hopper mythology, generally. I feel like in the early 80s, there were movies again, like, I talked about, like, Times Square, Little Darlings, stuff like Christian F. Which, if you've never seen, is a movie from 1980. One. But also like Foxes with Jodie Foster from 1980. Like, these are dark, very real depictions of teenage girls. And they're smoking and they're drinking and they're having sex and they're streetwise. And, you know, this is like pre Molly Ringwald, pre. Even like Ali Sheedy and the Breakfast Club, where it was kind of this, like, you've got this like the, you know, the weird girl, the Ali Sheedy and Breakfast Club girl, where, you know, she was kind of seen as a bad kid. Right. And then. But yet, prior to these films, I mean, you got these really, really dark teenage films and over the Edge, again, like another movie we've talked about where I'm just like, even before the John Hughes era, there, there was. There were some bold teenage films.

[A]

Well, and I also wonder how much of that was fueled by, you know, satanic panic and parents just really. Or people really needing to place teenagers or preteens as dangerous people in society if left unchecked because it was a part of being a teenager that no one had seen. That level of, you know, violence and wandering and just kind of, you know, drugs and, you know, you know, post 60s, I think that it was just scary for a lot of people. And they were trying to make people scared in their films is like, look, this is what they really like. Or I just wonder how much of that was a part of it.

[B]

Is that right? Oh, absolutely. I mean, you have to think. I mean, you have to think that that, like the PRMC and the Satanic Panic, all that stuff that came later in the 80s. I mean, part of me wonders if it was informed a little bit about this era, which to me, it feels like these early 80s teenage films were very much more informed by 70s than 80s. And then, you know, of course, again, you get the John Hughes films where it's more about suburban kids, less about kind of city wise, streetwise, or even like rural kids. Okay. So at the end of the day, though, this film takes a very dark turn, even darker than anything that we've discussed. There are moments where the information is revealed that will make you. You're going to have the same feeling as you had about Michael Fassbender. You're just going to be like, why is this happening? And then it kind of ends in a much different way than I think your film does, as I alluded to. And it really is sort of like a. A desperation or just a perhaps like. Like a nihilism, like a punk nihilism or something that happens. And I don't know at the. It doesn't feel good. Like, this movie doesn't feel good either. Both these movies are bleak. This bleak week here. But I do think what's what I love about these films is that again, it is not these, like, perfect portrayals of teenage girls. They are, you know, making bad choices for themselves, but they're also trying to escape their situations in their own ways that they can. They just don't have the resources to leave bad scenarios. Right. And they're trying their best. They're young, they're, you know, they don't have good role models. And then they're just like, economically barren. So it's like they are trying the best that they can, I think, at.

[A]

The end of the day, and that's almost more interesting to me is to explore when people explore that time of life, when you are too young to do anything about your situation, even as you're living it. So we're seeing a lot of that desperation and that clawing nature come out of almost feral nature come out because they literally can't do anything about what's happening to them.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, for sure. And even in spite of the darkness of my movie this week, I mean, there's a couple of amazing scenes, like the scene of Dennis Hopper in the landfill with all the birds everywhere. I mean, that's a great looking scene. And then my favorite is really, really short and kind of almost like a throwaway scene. But there's a. There's one where CBs on the street and she's kind of like walking down the street. And there's a street performer. Performer. It's kind of a guy who's just singing and it sort of breaks the fourth wall. Like, you can tell that they edited in, you know, basically the filming of it so that, you know, you hear people in the background going, thank you, we appreciate it. This kind of stuff, I love that it kind of takes you out of the intensity for just a brief moment and it kind of reminds you. It's like they're making a movie, you.

[A]

Know, and it introduces the possibility of some levity.

[B]

Yes, agreed. Because it is. It is really hardcore. But. But yeah, this movie is a gem. I mean, it is hard to watch, but honestly, like, Linda Mann's is incredible. It looks great. The restoration that they did was great too. So, yeah, that's it. That's my movie.

[A]

What a week. And with that, go have a happy Halloween. No, we're kidding.

[B]

Happy Halloween. Yeah. So, okay, if you want to email us, we are at. I saw what you did. Pot.gmail.com Send us questions for bonus episodes, of course. And we also have that P.O. box if you want to write to us.

[A]

And you can send us things in our PO Box, the address of which is on our social media. You can find us Saw Pod on Instagram, Blue sky, and Twitter. And you can always also leave us a voicemail to play on the show. All you have to do is record a voice memo on your phone and email it to. I saw what you did. Podmail.com make it 60 seconds or less and record it in a quiet space.

[B]

That's right. And if you want merch, we have.

[A]

[e-mail] and we have bonus episodes that drop on the main feed every third Thursday of the month. Millie.

[B]

Yes?

[A]

Do you want to tell them our movies for next week?

[B]

Hell, yeah. Hell, yeah. Okay, so our movies for next week are Away from her from 2007 and only lovers left alive from 2013.

[A]

O try to guess the theme. I apologize for everything I revealed this week.

[B]

Listen, as always, it's a pleasure doing this podcast with you.

[A]

Always. I apologize for it, but what are you going to do? That's. I'm. I'm just like this. This is how I am.

[B]

I. I'm. I'm a fan. Don't worry.

[A]

Bye, guys. This has been an exactly right production. Our senior producer is Casey O'Brien. Episode mixing and theme music by Tom Bryfogel. Artwork by Garrett Ross. Our executive producers are Georgia Hardstart, Karen Kilgariff, and Danielle Kramer. You can follow us on Instagram and Twitter. Saw Pod and you can email us @isawwhatyou did. Podmail.