100: Spring Break Forever

and Lambert. This month's theme is spring Break, and tonight we'll be talking about the movie spring Breakers, as well as taking calls from listeners with our special guest, Samara Bank. Samara is a speech coach who's worked on campaign trail stump speeches, awards shows, and you and addresses, and as a dialect coach on TV and film sets. Her new show on I Heart Radio, Permission to Speak, welcomes guests ranging from actors to activists, exploring the question of what

defines a powerful voice and what that means today. Hi, Samarah, Hello, Welcome to Nichol. What if that's how I sounded? Hello, this is fire, this is I'm not dr. I mean, you know you're in the podcast industry now you have to do a radio voice. I've actually been like very very curious about that. Yeah, because I'm trying to not just fall into some sort of like hackey thing that we all grew up with. It comes very naturally to

some people. I'm always impressed and I go on to somebody else's podcast and they have their podcast voice down, I'm like, I want one of those. I would I would almost argue the opposite that, like, the whole point is that we should sound the same as we do. All right, we're just hanging out with our friends. My dad was a DJ, and people would always be like, do your DJ voice, and you'd be like, I'm doing it. That's the dream. Yeah, I like a conversational podcast, as

you can tell. I used to get so many complaints and I used to be a DJ at Kicks Tell You because I would just sound like so checked out, Like I would just sound because it was two in the morning. These kicks now you have to be like, UM just played some um filling the blank of a ball. My favorite is the is the teenage boy with the voice cracking on Kicks Tell You where It's it's like a little like late so actually just sent us a little message about show that is on Kicks Sell You

that is about mushrooms and music. Oh awesome. There's been a lot of long running like psychedelia type shows on there that I've been around since I was on It's for those who don't know. Kicks Tell You is basically the college radio station of Los Angeles because the other college radio stations are like MPR stations, um, but Kicks Tell You is the true like spirit of college RD that we have here in Los Angeles and at Nightcall. Have you ever listened? No, I've never heard of it

until this one. I was glad for your never heard until like a year and a half ago, and everyone was like, yes, of course, cakes all you and I was like, right, I've only lived here for most of my life and had no idea this exists all the way on the left. The spirit, the spirit of college radio kicks here on Nightcall, the spirit of spring break is alive for March. Uh. We're not getting brought down by no coronavirus. We're gonna talking about the coronavirus as

it is an appropriately post apocalyptic nightcall type topic. But Emily is wearing like a very nice tropical shirt today. Test is wearing like some some cheetahs. The cheetahs. I got some I got some cut offs. Yeah, you go. Shirt. It feels like spring. I have a tank top. Well, it feels like spring outside. Right now I have like a new burst of energy because it actually feels a little summary. I'm worried about the weather. I don't like this weather. It's too hot. It went from being cold

too hot. It's like eighties six right now it's too hot, too soon. Apocalyptic. Yeah, it's like someone just turned a Swiss. That's how it is in Los Angeles. But it's like disease germinating story. I think Richard rush Field said something point pandemic weathers, pandemic season in Los Angeles. Well, before we get into pandemics, let's take a quick nightcall. Last week we covered um wellness and this kind of bridges.

This was a nightcall coming from Linda. Hey, I am halfway through your latest podcast where y'all are discussing the film Cocoon in relation to wellness. I immediately thought you were going to introduce the comedy drama The Road to Wellville. It's all about creepy wellness slash scams and has an all star nineties cast. We should do that movie for the Movie Club because I've never seen any there, none of us have. So it doesn't get very good reviews.

It's loosely based I think on John Harvey Kellogg, the Kellogg serial guy, isn't the night called Protocol? Doesn't get very good reviews, but sounds very strange. Well, later we're talking about spring Breakers, which I forgot didn't get great reviews. Is that true? I think, well, it got like a fifty six percent. I think just make didn't it make a lot of money? It made a ton of money. I think we can talk about this later, but I think it really did Mark Attorney and point both in

terms of film and film criticism. Yeah, criticism was intense. People didn't know it. Yeah, yeah, there were a lot of think yeah. Um. But with John Harvey Kellogg, like he is kind of this example. I think of somebody who got rich off of something, in this case cereal, and then went down a path of one pre date the other. He had a really just very strange, like childhoo an upbringing. He came from a very religious family. I believe they were preppers um. And at some point

he he was a doctor. He ran a sanitary him like he did a lot of good stuff in his life. Um, he was an early adopter of the clean living movement. No smoking, no drinking, just crea which, by the way, you can prep really well. Oh that's the thing is it's like you, it's a shelf stable thing unless you get cereal moss very serious cereal moss um. But he was on the colony. Yeah, he was very he was like your gut flora. He was one of the first

people who knew about Governor was an anti masturbation act. Well, that's the thing. So besides like inventing peanut butter, he was also like if you masturbate, you're like you're just destroying or related to the Graham crackers, Yes, it is. It's all of the cereal products along with Graham crackers. We're supposed to be anti masturbation tools and also yeah tools, they're so delicious. Never want to drop off again if you're Yeah, I think it's all part of just eating

like a plain cardboardy diet was supposed to suppress. It's very pitic. Yeah, like if we just eat like wheat paste, like the opposite of an oyster. How is this graham crime? What is the blandest food yeah, the most like, yeah, a depressionaire, although this is pre depressionaire. Yeah, this is like healthy. Try it also to be like Bland food is, but it's sugary. That's not healthy. Corn flakes, Yeah, that's frosted flakes. But Graham crackers are sugary. Graham crackers are

delicious recipe. That's true. It could have been like the bad Graham Bland. It happens in the movie. That's a good question. I have a conspiracy theory. Yeah, is that why they give s'mores to Scouts? Oh that's very extra man. But then there's goo. Yeah, the chocolate completely. Grands can pass over. You make a sandwich with the crackers and like the bitter thing and the sweet thing. But it's all to be like here's what you have to repress

your feeling. Right about this, I really really appreciate that analogy. I see you with us. You keep it all in with the Bland crackers on the outside of the land, like, don't enjoy life too much. I would love to put together a program of wellness themed movies. It seems like there are more of them than we previously. We just hit on. Yeah, I think wellness and doomsday cult is the ven diagram of nightcall, so it seems like that would fit right in tomorrow. What are your thoughts on wellness? Um?

I feel like it can be exploited way too easily, um and turned into something to just make people feel like they're doing another thing wrong. Yeah, guilt mechanism. And on the other hand, if by wellness we don't mean the corrupted form, then I think we can see it as a call to arms. I'm like literally thinking about

Audre Lord right now. It can be a call to arms about the kind of self care that actually is like being in touch with your body and remembering that your body is where all your best decisions get made. And so yeah, I think it's a complicated, Uh, it is. It's interesting. It was interesting to talk to January. She she had a lot of opinions about Goop and Gwyneth Paltrow that I feel like, I now, I'm like, I'm like, oh,

I don't know, I don't, I don't. I think I have to take back every nice thing I ever said about about Goop. She made a strong case, but I mean, I thought that was fascinating because she did sort of be like she can do all that other stuff just don't sell, just don't sell. But I saw the skill. I did see something also on the go Instagram that was like a makeup free dinner, which is, I believe a concept I first saw in the Real Housewives of Atlanta.

But I was like, that's only those things time. I'm just like, what is this accomplished? Like you're going to feel better about how you look without makeup because you're like around other people. It's just like, I don't know, it feels it seems like the whole thing could be so easily destroyed if just one person cheated a I need it. That's what happened. MAP believe that's what happened on Real Housewives of Atlanta. They were like, you're wearing concealer.

Like I can tell um some of these people were probably wearing a concealer. But yeah, I was just like, what does this even mean? Like how does this relate in any way to like wellness or feminism. It's just like it made me sad. I was like, You've gone your whole life feeling uncomfortable without makeup. Like Gras Paltrow take an improv class. That's what she said, apparently on her own podcast, that she felt bad she hadn't done now that she was retired Danddario was posting this, he

was like, it's really sad. She's like talking to Julia Louis Dreyfust and she's like, I really regret never taking an improv class and now I'm retired late for me take the improv class any selling the eggs where she would not be able to fit into an improv class eight one, but you maybe she made some intensive accent

training for that. That's right, that's right. I can tell that that was what I was thinking for what she would love that actually, because she seems like such a type a person to where it's like she wants to be like rewarded for being good at things. She was like very famous for being a fake British person for a while. Okay, she can sing, she should train with you for My Fair Lady on Broadway? Her face? Which sum Do you have any recollection or opinions about Gwyneth

Paltrow's famous British accent? Are you talking about um? Shakespeare in Love? Yeah, Shakespeare Love Emma? There was okay, like really I have a really annoying um answer to that, which is no, um. And secondarily that there's sort of like a thing among dialect coaches that you don't talk about other dialect coaches work, and I'm sure she has worked with other dialect This is like a whole world

because here's the here's the reasoning is. Just like you know there's a gag order, because there's no gag order. The reasoning is. And I know this from being on sets myself. No one knows except the creatives involved, me, the act or the creative team whatever, what story we're actually trying to tell with the accent. So it isn't just like there's a good accent and there's a bad accent. It's like, who is this human being and what is she?

I mean, obviously this sounds very generous, but it is true. Who is this human being? And what has she been through? And how much of an accent does she have? You know, all of us sound different from every been What about accent coaches that are dead? Can you talk talk? I'm like, I'm like, what's the worst accent? You want? That? Like mean dish? I'm just say I just rewatched Mary Poppins this weekend with my kid, and it wasn't as bad as everybody think the original or the new one. The

original I have not yet. I have not yet dipped my tone into I would be interested to see what you Manel is very much not dead. Whereas I was also said that his bad Cockney accent was like in the spirit of Dick van Dyke bad Cockney. I would not I would give him all the all the credits saying that Dick van Dyke's a Cockney accent and in Mary Poppins is so like it's something I never remember not being exposed to. So for me, it's never been bad because it's just like, it's what he it's what

that character said. We didn't have much of like a real Cockney accent to compare it again, and to be fair additionally, I mean my my agent, who is the one who sort of represents all the dialect coaches who do this stuff. She always started doing this in the eighties, Like there weren't dialect coaches before that. Really, it wasn't a thing like if you think back to the early eighties to whatever prior to that, there's like people who

were German sounded British because British equaled elsewhere. That is true. I have been watching a lot of Hitchcock movies, and there's definitely just like European all over the place, mixed in with American like Atlantic accent, rich people voice, and it's very very hard to tell who's from where. Um, that's exactly right, the rich people voice. I read things about how he trained himself to do that voice because

he was actually working class. It's elocution. Elocution which is also like the old timey term that because they wouldn't have at the time used what I'm about to say, which is white supremacy. It is fully that that accent of like this is what educated sounds like. It was taught to people. No one was born with that accent. Catherine Hepburn didn't come out saying, y'are We'll take a break and be back with smart Welcome back to nightcall.

You're just talking about accent, coach, how would you the technical thing was dialectic dialect, coach, Smart b You're sitting here and tomorrow and I have the sniffles, and it is I have to say, the worst point in time of my life to have been inflicted with sniffles, because we are in the middle of a coronavirus outbreak. I feel like I remember the exact day that, like, earlier in the day you were like, oh, I think I have allergies, and by that even you're like, nope, I

have a cold. And it was like the same day that's suddenly all of the news about coronavirus was just red flag all are you seeing? I'm patient zero. Yeah you are, Gwyneth Paltrow. But I feel like you and I like an opposite ends of the extreme because it did not occur to me at all coronavirus and you're like, just like, it's not I keep telling I've mentioned today to six people, seven people. I'm like, hello, I don't

have coronavirus. I merely have a cold. But it's like I'm not a sure symptoms are not on paranoid high and it is such a weird mood. Especially it's just like a very nice day out. Um. But I did see like somebody cough and everybody everyone freaked out turned away, and I was like, oh no, like this is bad.

We were on this is actually like wait. But when I was in New York a couple of weeks ago, and there was this girl who I think had just been drinking water and it went down the wrong pipe and she started coughing and hacking, like you know, she couldn't stop coughing. It was just one of those things where you just like really went down the wrong pipe. But everybody was looking around and looking at her. She was like, guys, guys, I don't have the coronavirus. I

felt so bad for her. It was very Yeah, so that it's it's, you know, conveniently a great time for us to be in spring break month here. Did you see um? Did you guys see the akira meme going around today? Well, I forget how many days it is before the Olympics in Tokyo that might get canceled because

of the coronavirus um. And there's like a thing in a cira whether like a hundred and forty nine days before the Olympics um, and somebody has like tagged the sign with like just canceled them good, So it was going viral. Just canceled them because everybody was like, it's that many days now before the Tokyo Olympics. Just canceled them, like it's not worth it. Yeah, it is a weird

on the nose, it's very weird. I think the thing that I keep kind of calming down about it, and then there will be another wave of things that kind of illustrate how it would just be so disruptive. The media is doing a terrible job because they're both like the government is probably misreporting it to try and like not scare people, because that's what they already did in China. That's what they were doing in China, and that's probably what a lot of the governments are going to do.

I mean, I think like one of the things that's kind of terrifying you Molly mentioned, so they've they've called off school for a month in both China and Japan. I believe in Germany. I but I've certainly heard Germany for school closes, so that that was interesting. We've I've gotten communications from both of my kids schools they're in preschool and elementary school about like the measures that they're

taking to try and keep everyone healthy. Their gymnastics class was like, just please keep your kids home if they're sick. So it's like, even when you can kind of tune out the panic, it like just arrives in your inbox, Like I feel bad that Steven Soderberg always goes viral for all the wrong reasons, you know, like it is like a lot of Americans only reference point for something like this is the movie Contagion, for sure, and that's

people's only reference point for anything is a movie. When nine eleven happened, I was like, this is just like the movie Independence Day. That was like, yes, she's good in Contagion. She's been doing jokes about it, which again is like she's so bad at being self aware of funny. She's the improv class. I don't know, I have been like kind of interested by some of the sub stories around I think I think still for us here, it's

like it's still pretty abstract. We can only see numbers, and I feel like there's going to be some threshold of number of like you know, reported cases where we're going to be like, oh, ship, it is probably going to be like actually realistically well below what the number

actually is because of people reporting it. But like, I don't know, did you guys see this thing about because everybody's still on quarantine in in or just lockdown and general in um China, but like in Wuhan they're doing all these um like live streamed underground like punk shows and stuff. Yeah, and then like all these people are just like doing shows in their living rooms because they can't go anywhere and because nobody else can go anywhere.

And it's actually like kind of it's like again, this is very like dystopian circumstance. Dystopian. Yeah, it's like it's like the human spirit years. It's like super will find

a way. Yeah, totally. I like that because that feels like a weird countermeasure to these Netflix shows now that are like people between a wall and like yeah, yeah, well it's just it's just like I think that there is obviously, maybe reasonably, a desire to not report accurate numbers are not send people into a panic, but also like the country where they're already not allowed to go out, people are coping, and people are finding a way to like still you know, yeah, that's to communicate with each

other and not have a complete shutdown society, and Americ comedian narrative has been so racist about oh yeah, it's insane there. I mean, I just heard from people here in l A that like people weren't going to certain Chinese restaurants and like freaking Silver Lake. How about the people not drinking Corona beer, which is like the strangest thing that story was planted by a pr flak where it was like a real like you know, show your metal drink a corrona. It was. I would totally believe

it was fake because it made me. I was I panicked again, Like when people are so dumb and they're not even drinking beer, what's going on? Funny how people do get to like absurdism really fast, which feels like sort of just the state of everything all the time.

Now it's like everything so insane, like it couldn't just like the events of Akira, like actually taking place in real time, like a few months after the Blade Runner sort of felt like we had caught up to Blue, like the Carson Plan exploded the other day and went virals. People are like, oh, it's play Runner anyway. Yeah, it just feels like what are you gonna do but laugh about it? I mean, there's not much. Have any of

you guys read the book Station eleven? I haven't. My husband read it, but yeah, okay, well and then if we're not worth we don't need to bring it up. I've heard it, but maybe don't read it right now is what I've heard as a TV version. But um, but Station eleven is one of the few novels have actually made time for in the last few years. But

here's what I want to say. It takes place in all different times, but one of the sort of like primary time it keeps going to is like twenty years, I want to say, after a massive pandemic wipes out like ninety something percent. But it actually left me kind of hopeful because I'm the only thinking about people who made it, and I'm like, I'm gonna make it or not. But so every time I think about these pandemics, I'm always like, those people will still be like doing their

cool stuff twenty years. That's the problem that is that all of our reference onints for this and movies are like cozy catastrophe movies, where like a group of survivors banded together and like fight against whatever the thing is. If it's like zombies or a disease or like a you know, earthquake that kills everybody, but there's always someone who survives. This might be like maybe just like what if no one survives, No, but it's it's supposed to

be ninety percent. Everyone's okay, so it's just two percent, which just amounts to like what a hundred and fifty really violent. Yeah, it's a really terrible, but it's going to kill off like a substantial number of people that don't have good health care or I mean it's it's so yeah, yeah, this is just more immediate. I mean,

I think this could like the worst case scenarios. It's like when you talk about people banding together and like, oh, because I immediately think of the stand to fight that's split into two teams. That's people's point of view reference point is the stand Um. I have to say that of all the like kind of sub stories of coronavirus, the one that I really just really I can't think about too hard because it feels like a nightmare is the Japanese cruise ship like that. And we still don't

really know. I guess, like we also just talked about the love but yeah, for people who were this might have gotten buried by next week, do you have like, like briefly, can you explain it? Because I just saw snippets but I didn't piece it together. Yeah, so apparently I need to double check on this. But I was I think I had heard from somebody that it was

this Holland America cruise ship that I had been on before. Um, as we have established on this podcause I have been on a cruise Well, all cruise ships they know that they're huge disease vector ships are haunted. Well yes that too, but like also all cruise ships, it's kind of insane

when you get on. It takes some of the romanticism out of it because you have cure all stations, like every single thorway, because even without a pandemic going on, they know that like if things are not spit spot ship shape, one might say, um, it's really going back that it's really easy for it to be, you know,

for a disease is to break out. I think it's also like people don't ever think about this stuff unless it's bad, and so when it is bad and you think about incubation chambers, as every crowd is a potential incubation chamber, and especially a cruise ship. Um. I think, like a lot of the big disasters recently, what's scary about this is like it's not the disaster itself necessarily, it's that the human failure in the response is terrifying.

They fucked up with the cruise ship. That was the whole thing and then there was a thing yesterday about how Trump sent people in like without the proper protective gear, just like Katrina or anything. It's like the thing but over and scaled up. Yeah, it's just like there is no infrastructure for something like this. And even in America especially, and even in places like China and Japan where there is better and more infrastructure, like, they can't handle it

necessarily either. The tiny little bugs will take us down. So I just did my second round of fact checking, and I was on a cruise ship that has been corny. It's not the Japanese when it's the one that's in Cambodia. So they're quarantining multiple cruise There are multiple cruise and a jungle cruise boat forever and never. I just started a story about a jungle cruise boat in Disney World that sprang a leak, oh dear, and that water supposedly has leeches in it. Before we let tomorrow, I go,

let's take one last night email. Okay, So this night email comes to us from John, and John writes, last follow When my cat was around two years old, she started having seizures. We controlled for different causes we thought might be the reason for them not letting her downstairs in the evenings, thinking maybe it was the headlights of passing cars and so on. After her fifth or sixth seizure that we witnessed, my parents decided to take her

to the vet. They packed her up and the vet did all the possible tests they could to identify a cause for the seizures. They all came back normal, and the last resort was just to give her cats an X so she'd be too lupy to have any My parents said thanks and left the vet, and just like any other PhD having couple, they decided to take the cat to a witch doctor because she was already in her carriage and doesn't like to leave the house. They found someone outside the city and said that the cat

had caught some evil eye. Nasar said it was either directed at the cat or more likely at the household, and it was then absorbed by the cat. My parents live in Turkey, so this kind of thing is not unheard of. The person that then gave the cat a little necklace with a small soil her coin and an amber beat on it for protection. I was so ready to roast my parents for their decisions. Soon as the next inevitable seizure hit. However, it's been over six months

now and she has yet to have another one. Here's and then he sent a couple of pictures of his cat, who's all better enjoying her juju necklace wibbling. It is a very cute cat as a calico looks like my mom's calicos um. I guess I think that's a calico, right, let me see. No, that's a coronavirus art. That's cute. That's a calico. Calicos are only ladies, right, Calico corona. I think calicos are only female cats, but I might be making that up. And here she is. She has

her little necklace on. Oh, she's a hext um. I has anybody tried any alternative approaches to pet care? I'm very interested in using CBD. We have a vet friend who we know through a mom group, and she is a arey wise. She's like a veterinarian and offers advice like sometimes if people have questions about pets, and so she's been interesting to talk to you about CBD for pets because it's largely untested and you don't know the source of the CBD or how period is or whatever.

But I I love CBD, which is very cliche. But I'm like, I have a I have a CBD sponsors on this post. It's true. I love stage the naturals and that is they've already une they're ad. This is a non ad. I have to say this so ties in with um, like what I do for a living, but also um, I got to work in the Souden House, which I don't know. Yeah, that's house. It's on Franklins the Frank Lloyd right Son's house, so it like has a franklod Right quality, but also like has kind of

I want to be quality. But famously in the fifties there were some murders, some some unsolved murders there and there's like a lower chamber, etcetera. I did a I did a TV show. I diale coached a TV show that was about that and about the Black Dollar murder. The gentleman who rents out that house because he lives in it now that is his job CBD for dogs that actually I said it was dog food. I heard

that it was dog food. Well it's dog food laced then, Because I have like you know, when you're on set, you're like twelve hours to pass the time when when nothing's happening and they're like lighting ship and I was like, let's look for this brochure like a CBD for dogs. Like doing that great, you can rent. I mean people say a side hustle because he doesn't need it. Yeah, but you know what, who am I to say? I was really like, who should I get the same booming biz?

I mean, because I think it's like when you're making the CBD, you can market it for dogs or people as long as you're not making who works out was like, you should try to see b D for one of my cats that's really uh neurotic. Molly is a very neurotic cat. It's been discussed on the pod before. I mean, if you try to um a an anti hex necklace, no I have, it's very cute. But today I gave one. I thought about trying to get one of them on a leash, and I got it a harness that is

like a little orange safety vest. Wasn't immediately like, no, take this off. I did it once to my cat and he's he like let out a scream, So I was like, I guess not, that's not for you. Yeah, he he tolerated. It really is good. Yeah, cats will tolerate a hat. I feel like we need Jane Mary's blessing to promote CBD for animals. But I'm I think that CBD a lot of it's not real, but when it is real, I think it does work. I mean, it's nice to toss a little THHC in the mix.

I guess you can't really do that to a pet, but that does like boost thing natural made her neck feel better. No, it's true. I really like. I mean, I genuinely liked it. I had on I'd used a CBD bomb before, um that I thought was just okay, but this I was like, also because you know we

got freebies, that was like, just slap it on. Great. Well, if you have ever given wed to your cat CBD, or if you have tried any alternative approaches to pet care, give us a night call at one to four oh four six night, and you can also give us a night email at nightcall podcasts at gmail dot com. Also, if your pet is haunted or has been hexed, I want to hear that too. My favorite part of the whole letter is that is that they thought that the cat was the one that was absorbing the curse for

the entire household. It was taking one for the team. There. Wouldn't that be awful if you like, went to the trouble to hex someone's household and the cat was the one who got hecks. That's just awful to think about all the ways they could inconvenience your enemy's son. That's true, asking for constant Yeah, peeing on the floor, It's true. Cats. Cats are powerful beings. Well, Samara, thank you so much

for joining us on the podcast. Would you like to tell people where they can find you on social media and or your podcast? Oh my god, why, I would be happy to. Um. Yes, I just launched this podcast. It's called Permission to Speak, and it's on my heart and elsewhere, and um the website is Permission to Speak pod dot com and the Instagram is Permission to Speak pod. I would love to hear from people about their voices.

I mean, everyone's got an opinion about their voice. So is it about people's voices or is it about your dialect coach career? Or is it both? It's actually the dialect coaching is a minor jumping off point for much larger conversation about the intersection of our voices and power in society. And by our I don't even just mean women. I mean anybody who feels like they've been shut out

of power for one reason or another. Because I coach people who are politicians and entrepreneurs and people who are pitching for the first time. It's really not just about your accent. It's about like, how do we scale up the version of ourselves that we really love? Yeah? When are their new episodes every single Wednesday? Wednesday's Baby, That's great? Wait to listen. Yeah, it's right here on iHeart Podcast.

So check it out. Thanks again for joining us tomorrow and we will be back after the break with spring Breakers. Take it all. Welcome back to Nightcall. So. I don't know if you can see this on the title of this week's episode, but this is the one hundred episode of Nightcall. Somehow we made it to one hundred episode. Guys. I feel like we need to have like Avusla and here we need to drop the spring Breakers music, and I know we need Toscar licks Um for our hundredth episode.

And because we are kicking off springbreak week here, we thought it was only appropriate to go back to one of our inspiring sources vision board items. Uh, what have you from? From Girls in Hoodies? From the Girls in Hoodies Days back in Grantland And that is Harmony Cream's spring Breakers from twelve Slash Theatrical released but one of the most important movies of the decade. Maybe we can get into its legacy a little bit later. But so much has happened since this movie came out to affect

one's opinion of spring Breakers. Yeah, it is really um. I don't know if stands the test of time is the right word for it, but I think it like it has been refracted through the test of time. I think, um, which makes it even more interesting to talk about. I think, I mean, I think when we all discussed it on Girls in Hoodies, we were mostly of the opinion that

this was a delicious film. I think back then we kind of thought of it as being more feminist than not in most ways, Like we didn't feel like it was horribly sexist and clueless and tone deaf, and I don't think it necessarily is. But a lot of the people involved in this movie, even if I'm also referring to Riff Rap, who was not technically involved in this movie Yeah, I have have had some semi too and issues of that ILK I think I did and still

consider this movie like a curio. UM, I forgot it was. It was one of the first Was this one of the first four movies? Um, it was, And it was one of the first Annapurna movies too. I feel like it was like this in Zero Dark thirty, which really tells you where we were at in UM. But yeah, and and and both of those Ultimate Girl Boss movies.

I had such a probably wrong interpretation of that movie always, which is that I thought it was like, maybe it can be my interpretation is right, but I thought Zero Dark thirty was a movie about like a woman who becomes like as evil as the most evil men in the world in order to become like to succeed, and that my reading of it was like at the end when she's in the plane and they're just like looking

at her face, She's like, what have I done? But then I think that's not what it was at I think it was just straight propagandia and I was just projecting my own stuff on top of it. Yeah, it's been a long time since I saw that one, because it wasn't like the most macho phase of directors, she became a successful, powerful director, Like, how does a woman achieve that in nineteen eighties Hollywood especially, You have to like turn off all of your emotions and morals um um.

But yeah, I mean I think spring Breakers, the performances by the girls, I'll hold up grade. Oh oh okay, well, um, so here's to me. I remember and rewatching this this week. I remember it all flooded back to me. How watching this in the theater, especially in a dark room where you know you're you're really in the film. I was just like, I would be miserable if I was stuck around these girls. And I think that I recognize a lot of the ticks of a just do stuff and

I'll film you improvisational type film. And I think that some people are very good at that, and some people are less good at that. I would put them like firmly in the middle in this one. I think, like, I think that there's a lot of just like there's only a certain amount of times when people are just like lolling around and parking lots and doing handstands and

stuff from like okay, okay, okay, I got it. You guys are friends like, but I mean that that I think though more so than maybe watching it in I definitely feel like we are meant to think they are assholes, um, more so than than than I think, well, they're assholes except for Selena Gomez. She represents the girl that wants

to go home, which is apparently all of us. I think we thought at the time also, we were like we'd all go, oh yeah, no, I fully, I fully, and especially now like that scene where I just think Selena Gomez is so good in this movie, I agree, and the voice like she sings her songs and yeah. Well, for those who have not seen Spring Breakers and missed out on an entire cinematic revolution of the twenty times, uh, do one of you guys want to just go over

what it is? Real quick? It takes like one second. It's the dubstep movie. Yeah, it is the skirl x movie. It's about a group of college girls who rob a fast food place, Chicken Chicken Shack for money and then use it to go on a spring break trip to Florida. They meet James Franco Alien, a guy named Alien based on riff raff, and he takes them deeper into a Flirty and Underworld of Crime, also again based on Dangerous with two s s and you in There, but riff

Raff clearly also an inspiration for this movie. I went into like a whole Wikipedia spiral over that because I remembered it as like, of course it was riff Raff. But in the time since the movie was released and now, um, riff Raff tried to sue the movie for stealing his life as inspiration. Then he promoted it across his social media, and then um, I believe he was accused of rape. And at the time I remember being like riff Raff.

This was an ongoing theme of the two thousands was people that we now know better and being like, oh, that's scamp, that love camp, just scamping around, and now you know, you kind of have to see it a little more. Some of these people, though, like Kevin Spacey, always seemed like a huge creep. So then when it came out like that Kevin Spacey was a huge creep,

I was like, that does not seem super surprising. And I felt a little bit that way about Franco, especially when he started being like, also I'm a poet, and also I run an acting school. You know, just like, yeah, there's something about trying to be a literary figure like immediately squeezes me out ten times more than trying to be an actor or like you're not actually that's smart, right shows and all your writing, but people like publish

it anyway because you're famous. I mean, well, I was just I think it's very funny that he is like like like Alien is a poet in this movie and like composes some poems over the course of the film, and I'm pretty sure that James Franco probably composed it, which is a very funny legacy for the era of James Franco poet. Um it's like this was the most probably well seen and um yeah, like the most high

profile poetry that he will be remembered for. Like The Four Little Chickens Down on the Beach, I mean, the movie still feels actually like because it's nothing bad it happened, like nothing really bad happens to them until the very end right now, unlike other spring Break movies where it's like the girls are punished for like wanting to have fun and be sexual, as in another spring Break movie we'll watch soon called Where the Boys Are. That's very

good original spring Breakers. It was the original spring Breakers, but with song. Yeah, like these like these girls it's not like something. They don't get assaulted sexually in the movie, which is what makes it feel light. Oh see, I see my feeling about it, and I had this inkling about it just because a lot of the race stuff in it really kind of you're like, that's a choice, and I think, I think, well, now, I think it's

actually more intentional than maybe. I think that it was something that was discussed and criticized a lot of the time, and I think with more and more hindsight, it feels

super intentional to me. And it does feel like a story about hot girl white feminism, and it is like, you know, taking the worst lessons from like white males and the violence and the greed and uh and then claiming that is your own and then murdering black and brown people like that feels that feels like what this movie encapsulates to me now, which is why I say that these girls all feel like assholes to me. Do

you think Harmony Current thinks that's what it's about. I do, yeah, I And I think I would have said maybe not. Maybe that's something we're projecting onto it, but I think

watching it this time around, it feels so unmistakable. Um, I don't think he's thinking about it in such academic terms, but I don't think that The casting and like the depiction of the different sides of this Florida underbelly, like one side being represented by James Franco and the other side being represented by Gucci Maine, Like, I feel like they are very intentionally Uh there's like a line drawn there. Yeah, I mean, Vanessa Hudgens is not white. She's also great

in this movie. I mean, I think what I liked about it at the time that I still like about it was the fact that like it took Selena Gomez and Vanessa Hudgens seriously as actresses, the way that like a young dude might get to be in an indie movie and be like, look, he's playing a heroin Addict. He's dark. Like they gave very good performances because nobody expects anything have teen actresses, um for them to be good at all. And I do just think Selena Gomez

has like a sort of soulfulness I love. I think she's just sadness to her. The monologue stuff, like the messages she's over the phone, conversation she's having with her grandma, or just like you need her to deliver that because it's it's very stuff about the like just the Bible study. Like I like that whole part to a lot. Well, I think when Emily was also talking about how it's kind of white feminism, I think for me it was definite that I you know, it did seem more intentional.

It seemed like there was a more of a message than I saw the first time. But to me, I saw it really as like a class thing. I mean, I think that that was like, that's a very and I think that I got the sense of that when I first watched the movie, But I think now in it's much easier to kind of pull it together into a narrative because I think that initially um Harmony Kuran and kind of like pitched this as just a mood piece and just like a like sensory attactile kind of movie,

and that the plot was almost secondary to that. And also I think um he said that he had missed out on spring Breaks as a way of kind of like experiencing what he thought it would be like, but

then twisting it into this kind of nightmare. But I think, like you know, when you do kind of see like the power dynamic flipped in the way that it is, that's really striking, and then you notice how it's like but it's also the same power dynamic that, yeah, it as always existed, and it obviously treats like the movie treats Gucci Maine as like a figure of reverence, which I don't think everybody thought was what it did big art. Yeah, I don't know if you need the outside context of

knowing about Gucci Maine to like enjoy this movie. But I like that he cast some non actors. Again, I feel like it does just kind of feel like a natural semi naturalistic teen exploitation movie. Yeah. Yeah, I mean I think that there's there's definite nods too, Like I mean the whole stretch from when they get arrested to when they get bailed out and they're just like in their bikinis the entire time, and it just feels like very much a nod to like the kind of exploitation

movie that it could be. And I think that it's like very knowing and like funny in that way. Um. Yeah, I just think like I think the stuff that's interesting to matter. I mean, these are not complaints. Like what I am like saying I'm noticing this time around is

not a complaint. Like I feel like I appreciate movie more because I think, like the times the most interesting moments in the movie to me now, like and one of them was my original favorite part of the movie, which is when they make James Franco fullate the gun. Definitely part it still is because you're like, yeah, but like even before then, there are all these moments where they just like turn on a dime and kind of become these like appetite driven monsters, and it's really scary.

It's like it's like very um. I think it feels like a really evocative encapsulation, maybe not of like how a real person would be, but kind of like what young people are subjected to and like how they are like driven to have these like violent appetites for like money and escape and like very fleeting you know, pleasures and stuff like that, which I think, like, I think

we can all identify with some of that. But I think seeing in this like hyper neon very extreme version is like it's very striking, like and I think that's really well done. That's it's well directed and it's well acted by them. Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of beach towns have like a seedy underside. There's something that goes along with being a tourist place that does breathe this sort of weird uh economy. Oh it's so true. I mean, I I that's something that I in retrospect

feel almost guilty about, just in terms of participating. Like I know, but you know, I love Sweet Break just the way that you treat a town that, in your mind is intended to be a playground, you know what I mean. It's you there's a point in your life when you really have no concept. It's not that you're going in and being an asshole to everybody. It's just that by kind of like descending upon a place, acting as if you know, it's that this is how life

always is here, and you displace people. I mean in a way like when you talk about the Olympics, like on a much smaller and different scale, it plays out in a similar way, like the onomy is just completely shifted for a season and then abandoned, you know what I mean. And and it's I think that there are probably some realities to that that you would only know if you lived in a place like Panama City Beach or St. Petersburg Um. And it's and it also seems in a way to be like, I don't know, not

unique to Florida. Obviously, this this is you know, any kind of place with like a large tourism draw, but Florida. It's interesting, like how kind of emblematic of the spring right culture and just of of tourism and vacation culture.

And also when we were talking about sort of pandemic fears earlier, to tie it back in, you think about like when a place is so dependent on tourism for the economy, it's like then if something like a like a illness, like you know, stops the normal cycle of things from happening, like those people don't get paid and it's not their fault, I wonder how it will affect like Las Vegas as well. I mean that's when you

start thinking about how this could play out. That's when it starts to get terrified, because you're like, well, you have to shut down public transport people like avoid crowds. I was like, how can you avoid crowds and crowds? Crowds it's and it also and then when you start seeing the adjustments that could be made if this became like a real like a real threat, you just have

no sense of when it would end. And and then if you have very little faith in our administration, as I think a lot of people do, Uh, there's the sense that that can be used to manipulate you. I went on a thing about you, guys. I'm sorry, I went in the darkest place I just read. I just wrote a thing about tiki culture where I learned everything

about tiki bar culture. And one of the things I learned was that it came up during the Great Depression because it was people's like idealized fantasy of visiting the South Seas and the Polynesian islands. Um. But it wasn't actually about going. It was just like this fantasy of going to the tropical place. And then they're like, we're going to work sure it with this drink. They're also such good drinks, and it's so much fun to have

a tiny toy. And it was also at the end of prohibition, so it was like a double barrel of like you can drink again. And also everyone's broke. It's healthy, it has juice in it. I can put corn flakes in it. But I feel like that's also how spring break and just like the concept of vacation operates in

like the imagination of the average person. Yeah yeah, there's like a Baudriyard essay that's all about just how like the idea of vacation just like is what people use to mark how good of a time they think they're having. I mean, that's why I like the Selena Gomez voiceover stuff, because it's not though, who who spring break, let's go

get fucked up thing that she's expressing. It's like a much deeper kind of sentiment that I think anybody, even people who have just been on a normal vacation, can identify with, which is just like I don't want to see the same things every single day. I want to go someplace and like really understand myself there. And it's very like it's sort of like Winky doing it over these shots of you know, people just like wiggling their bare breasts around and like jacking off beers into each

other's mouth. Um, but I think like, but it also is like kind of very touching because it's like, yeah, I mean, there is a kind of humanity to even this ship at a certain point, and people are only doing this people need to release well yeah, well yeah, and people are only doing this like because of a series of like cultural cues that tells them they should do this and that they are going to find those things if they do that. And like, I think that

some people obviously have great transcendent experiences. I'm sure we'll hear about tests at some point this time, and some people don't. Some people are Selena Gomez is. But it's like you still go out with the optimism that you are going to like connect with other people and like

have some sort of new transformative experience. I think experienced one really great one and two not so good ones to be but I'll spill the beans in our Patreon com I mean, I think that's the other thing obviously about vacation, but in spring break in particular, I think, um, when you have a plan to drink as much as possible, like it's hard because you can go into it with the intentions of having it like the voice over, where it's like it doesn't have to be the way that

it always ends up being. I mean, and that also like kind of speaks to like an alcoholic mindset of just like you, in your mind, it's going to be this, and then like the reality is so not that you're chasing this like ideal five hours of like perfect abriation where nothing bad happening. And I think there's like the gap between people's expectations of their vacation and like what

it's actually like. It's such an interesting thing because it's like people, that is how people sort of motivate themselves to keep going. It's like and that I get to my vacation, afford to go on a vacation and better be the best. Yeah, And a spring break particularly, like

what's specific about springbreak. It's like a lot of people's first time going on vacation without their family exactly, and so it is like a very you know, big first experience to go out in the world and do something just with friends as an adult, being treated like an adult, like buying your own tickets to go do something. And um, yeah, I think, I mean I haven't. I have never done a spring breaks still time a break, yeah, And I

think people have various versions of it. The Florida going to Florida is the classic, but you know, I'm sure there's other people who are like, you went to Montreal, Mollie. I did go to Montreal for my spring breaks. That story yeah at some point to is it like a Vice themed spring No, but it's silly so it'll fit on our podcast. Well, before we wrap up today, should we take one last night call a spring break? Night call? Do it? Okay? II night call? This is Leah. I'm

calling him with my spooky spring break story. So. When I was in high school, I was friends with someone. His name was Ryan, and he was a year younger than me, and he was like the total goof class clown um, sort of like punk kid everybody loved and Um. When I was a senior and he was a junior, towards the end of the year, he got into a horrific skateboarding accident. Um. I promised, this is not this,

this has to do a spring break. Um. He was in a coma for a really long time and then he came out of in you know, sort of okay. But by that time I went off to college. So my freshman year of college, I drove with my best friend Alex down to Rocky Point, Mexico, which is um. I grew up in Tucson, Arizona, and Rocky Point is like this sort of sleepy beach town that is, UM has like disgustings for a grade full of people from high school. Um, it's like a four hour dry the

two sons. So um, I get there. We get there. Where at the spot, I was like, you know, just the grossest version of spring break. And I see my friend Ryan, who I haven't seen since he came out of the coma, and he just really has this days completely the little look on his days. And you know, I was like, oh my god, Ryan, how are you do? You do? You want to shot um like an apple that I am? And he was just like, I, UM,

could we go outside for a minute. So we went outside and he just basically looked at me and was like, I don't know who I am anymore. I don't know who I'm supposed to be and was essentially having a very intense identity crisis because of the coma and was saying to me that he kept saying, I knew, I know the part I'm supposed to play, um, but I

don't know how to do it anymore. And meanwhile, like people, if I are screaming, I am also hammered of course really UM not equipped to provide the emotional support that this person really needed. I think a couple came out and we're like making out really close to us, UM and uh, it was very intense, and I think it's just sort of ended with like I gave him a hug and was like, you'll get there like that, and then UM, I went back inside and um finished spring break.

And also I remember taking a car home that a friend of ours drove very irresponsibly, and my other friend Alex thought we had stolen a taxi. That's it. Um, I love you, I love night column and I call head happy, Thank you, le, thank you so much. Yeah. I think that really gets at the heart of the existential reckoning within the very idea of spring break itself. Yeah, because you can't escape like being a human. You think you can and just go for the fun, but then

there's the inconvenience of being a human in a human society. Also, there's tons of ways to dissociate and feel like another person other than drinking copious amounts of alcohol. Turns out you can just get a coma. In a coma, I forget how long did she say he'd been in a coma. Did she say, I don't know. She said, can you imagine? No, I cannot imagine. I don't know what I would say to that person either, especially if you know them and

you're like, I don't know what that must be. I mean, it's it's hard to interesting more alienated and yeah, you don't know what to say that person. Yeah, I hope they have found peace. Yeah they figured it out. Um horrible. Definitely don't go to a spring like a trashy's drink break hang out if that's where you are. But maybe he thought he could escape from It's probably so hard to even leave the house. It's like you eventually you

just have to try and throw yourself into it. And especially I mean if you isolate yourself, and I'm imagining this is probably back. I mean when we were in high school there wasn't like that much internet, so you're so isolated unless you go to where your friends are and they're the people who have like the missing pieces of who you are that your family would. I'm now I'm obsessed with this because it's fascinating. It's like you

would need your friends to tell you. But if you don't know how you are You wouldn't know how to act for them at all. Yeah, if your friends are like, hey, here's what you used to be like, that would also be so now pretend to be that way. Oh weird? Well, Brian, Um, it's okay. Now, please give us your spring break stories at two four oh four six night They can be horror stories or not, that's right, good stories, bad stories,

scary stories, haunted susion theories. Yeah, we're gonna be doing Springbreak Month all March here on Nightcall, so we've got time for all of them. And you can also give us an email and Night Called Podcasts at gmail dot com. And that does it for this week. We'll be back next week more spring break stories and the meantime. You can follow us on social media. We are on Twitter and I called Pod Instagram, and Night Called Podcast on

Facebook and I called Podcast. You can also follow our Patreon where at patreon dot com slash Nightcall and please, as always great review and subscribe for a show on iTunes or whatever wherever you listen to the podcasts. We'll see you next week. Nightcall is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.