86: Baby Yoda Needs To Fly

Why I don't want it like a fictional maps. They're actually maddeningly few maps in the Star Wars universe. It actually makes it really easy for them to bullshit and add new places all the time. Tonight, Tonight, tonight, we're going to talk about Well, first we'll talk about we did last night. Yeah, we had a live show. Yeah, it just me and Emily. Why my voice might be feeling a little rough right now. We led the crowd

in Too Many Chance. Yes, yeah, it was great. We had our second annual nights Giving party at gold Diggers. We've had a bunch of fun every time we've done d day nights at gold Diggers if you are in the area. I was just proud we got to two of something that's a big deal, really great about it. But Emily couldn't make it last year, Tess couldn't make it this year, So by the law of threes, I'll have to you have to drop out some reason next year. But it was really fun. Our special guest was Amy Man.

She shared a ghost story with us, which was so good. And I mean, I think the thing that I like about our events and not to like plug our next event TVD, but that we tend to get like fun people on. But I like that we don't say who it is ahead of time. I mean, I mean that because then it's just like it kind of feels like a very special little fireside chat with whoever happens to. It's very intimate and we never prepare them particularly so they feel very vulnerable and we don't record it, so

you have to be there, yeah for the happening. Yeah, she told some great, great g story. We should have her on the pod for real something. She was really funny. Yeah, So thank you to Amy. Yeah, thank you Amy, and thank you to everybody who came out and ate the pumpkin pies and listen to me and Emily play music. Not to sound like too much of a mom, but I think it's kind of lame that people didn't finish the pies. And next time, I think people need to try harder to eat us on the plate and finish

your pie. I was actually kind of shocked. I mean, these were these are Traitor Joe's pumpkin pies, which are notably really amazing, pretty good and like shelf Stable, do you think that people are worried that we might like dose them or something? Talked about that during I knew, yeah, well it doesn't help. But like whenever we have a pie, Molly scratches a pentagram and to the top of it,

so it's like Christine pie. I want to credit that idea to Amy Nicholson, who I went to a Halloween party hosted by her and her boyfriend Adam where there was a pentagram on a pizza drawn in Sri racha nice and that was what I was like, Oh, you can drop pagrams on anything, any round food any wouldn't that not taste great? To put saracha gay It's spicy and has garlic in it. It's not. I don't think it pairs. I like hot sauce on a pizza, I like a different kind of hot sauce on a pizza.

I think that just doesn't. I don't think it goes. But that's okay. I'd still eat it anyway, because I do my job and eat my food. The food that's presented to you. What you get, you don't get upset. Um. So I don't have you guys watched The Mandalorian yet, know, but we have to talk about But we have to talk about Baby Yoda. Baby Yoda has taken this nation by storm, and I am happy to be caught up

in it. I was saying that, like, what I love about this is like the Marvel versus you know, Scorsese film, Nerd discourse had reached this fever pitch and then it was like Verner Hertzog came in with the Lake postmodernist like sweet Baby Yoda. Yeah. I mean, if the show was actually just Verner Hertzog and Baby Yoda, it would

be I think, unanimously critically adored. It's actually not that great of a show so far, there are only two episodes out, but I think that the degree to which it's like really leaned into feat your stuff and cute Baby Yoda. Also, just between this, I was, I tweeted this, but like between this and Detective Pikachu this year, cute tech like c g I. Cute Tech has gotten so good that I don't know where we go from here, Like, how do you make a thing that's cuter than them? Well?

I thought it was funny because it's like, I obviously don't care about Star Wars lore, but just the idea that everybody was like criticizing Disney for being the Borg and then it was like, look, it's Yoda, but we made it small and everybody was like, ah, oh, look at it. It's small. It's just wild to me that, like it's their first ever Star Wars TV series, like

counting the Christmas Special, that's not a series. I mean, well, well, the series does actually make the Christmas Special cannon because they mentioned Life Day in the first episode, which is the holiday that the Cookies are celebrating in the Christmas special um where they have a hologram of difference star ship. Wow,

that sounds like something I enjoy. What's this? You guys haven't watched the Star Wars Christmas specials like famous among Star Wars nerds for being a thing they like pretended didn't happen because it's just the seventies variety show. It's not good Arthur in it. It is, yes, it is. No. This is what happens to every single person who hears about the Star Wars Christmas special. They're like Jefferson Starship like a story that's just Wookie is like b Arthur

shows up. Uh, sounds great, sounds so fun and silly and like a very like great seventies time capsule. It is mostly unwatchable. Like it is, it is maddening to watch. But have you seen Star Wars? Well, that brings me to my favorite Star Wars movie, which I found out are not on Disney Plus yet. Emily and I were talking about wanting to do an episode about it, but I don't think we can until Disney Plus makes them available. The Ewalk Adventure, yeah, man, I haven't seen it in

so long. Freaked me out so much as it freaked me out so much as a kid, and therefore it was the best. Um Well, I feel like Mandalorian is a encouraging sign that Disney is willing to embrace the dorky, kind of weird side of Star Wars. It's like you Walk Adventures TV movies. Yes they're TV, or no, they're straight to video. That's what they were. They're straight to video. But yeah, like the fact that I mean, the Mandalorian is basically so far just lone Wolf and Cub but

with baby Yoda like lone Wolf and Baby Yoda. Um does Baby Yoda talk like Yoda? Or is it too too baby baby doing? All it does is go, It makes actual baby noises, it has like human baby noises. And then it's like spoilers. It uses the force in the last episode and it puts out its little hand. And the thing about like Yoda is so much cuter than ET. Yes, you know if ET looked like Yoda, I wouldn't have such a problem with each would with e T like flesh colored, it looks like a ball sack.

You know what, I'm gonna stand up for ET here and just say that on different planets we shouldn't project our beauty standards onto extraterrestrials. It's unfair. Also, there's do you think that e T on his home planet if there's just different barometric pressure on it and maybe he's not wrinkly on his planet, like he becomes more like full, he's got for his collagen is restored. What would he look what would a kind of well hydrated et because

he was he was sick. That's the other thing is he was very sick on Earth, you know, very sick. So I don't think so tried out dehydrate. I mean, like whatever was water on his planet he was. You know what if it's the same species is Yoda, because we don't know what Yoda is. We were just saying, yeah, nobody knows what Yoda is. Yoda is Yoda's species according to Wikipedia. I don't think Yoda as an adult is

very attractive, but I do. I mean, obviously I love baby Yoda, but I wouldn't say, like, you know, Yoda is not winning any beauty pageants either. It's also confusing to me because I feel like they tried to market the porks is like the cute return to cute Star Wars creatures, and like it didn't catch on in the same way. All they had to do was make it a character that already exists in the universe, and everybody's like, it's baby Yoda, but his baby I've seen some pork backpacks.

I think porks have found their way into I think the problem is that they're called porks porties of the new walks. People. People who love porks love them the most. At some point, I'm gonna be on this podcast talking about Return of the Jedi and and and vehemently defending the e walks. So, um, yeah, we're very pro e walk on this PODCT. Yeah. I mean, I'm I consider myself a serious Star Wars fan or whatever, but like that includes e walks. That's not like oh, but except

the e walks. Like no, that is why Star Wars is good, because there's a planet full of teddy bears. That is why Disney Plus Night All commands you. We compel you, compel you, The power compels you, compels you to put the Ewok Adventure movie on Disney Plus for old millennials, for whom that is the touchstone of Star Wars. Just bring back more like non market tested children's fair

that makes makes kids cry. Have you seen it, Tess Ever, I've I've always been really uninterested in Star Wars, and I've kept it a secret except on podcasts that we do were every so often I tell you, guys, but then you refuse to let it sink. As a person who doesn't like Star Wars, I feel like it's like if you like other eighties dark fantasy, puppet heavy movies. Well you know, I don't actually like love puppet heavy movies in general, but I do make some exceptions, which

is why we're going to force you to watch Labyrinth. Yes, Labyrinth Puppet Puppet, December Puppet December Fantasy puppet Eighties, like pre c g I I've like dabbled in some star I know that my time is coming for a full deep dive into Star Wars because my kids are older now and are more kind of like into that book. I want to go to the Star Wars land. Emily and I went to the Star Wars bar in Hollywood,

so jealous of this. It was the greatest Hollywood experience because we were the only people in it and our bartender was Harley Quinn. It's a very jumbled It's like, you know, in the exterior it is a Star Wars bar, it's called scumm and Villany Cantina, But inside and on the menu it is just like a jumbled It's like a comic compar it's the job of the French. But then there's like a drink called Karis, Like it's like if thrown stuff. They've got marvel stec. It's just a

fandom theme. But it was like but we were the only people, and which made it really interesting. And Harley Quinn was like, what do you want, honey. I wish she would have done it an impression. I don't remember wearing like a full on great Harley. It was impressive. I hope she gets really good tips too. Um. But it was also great because it felt like what you

imagine the Star Wars Cantina would really be like. Because people were like, is that the one in Disneyland and I was like, no, no, it's the one on Hollywood Boulevard. So it is like a meeting point between the worlds. It feels like it's like tourists and weird nerds like us. We're going to take a break real quick and we'll be back in just a moment. Welcome back tonight. Call guys. Did you see the rollout of the cybertruck? Oh? It

was so funny. I had to piece it together because I just saw everybody tweeting pictures of it and I was like, what was this a movie? Like, what's what is this? The movie is robocon Yeah, no serious. The car, it is a car that Elon Musk and Tesla unveil old at the It's like a pickup truck. It's supposedly a pickup truck, but it looks like if RoboCop was a car. Yes, yeah, Tess, would you like to give us the cliff notes? Yes? So the Guardian this is from the Guardian. Um they quote Musk is saying we

created an exo skeleton. He said, to rapturous whoops from those attending the l A line. It is literally bulletproof to a nine millimeter handgun. France von Holshausen, Tesla's chief designer, asked Musk if he could lob a metal ball at the window of the vehicle. Really, said Musk. The window smashed. Oh my fucking god, said Musk. Maybe that was a little hard, showing confidence in the vehicle. Von Holtthhausen then

suggested he should love it at a second window. Try that one, really, asked Musk, moments before the rear window was also smashed. It didn't go through, though, that's the plus side. A stunned Musk said, guys, yike, guys, yikes. Um. My favorite reaction to this was from Max Read. And this is also before I knew it was going on. So I just saw the picture of this. It looks like a low rez computer generated car because it's just it's like a polygon um and it has the two

like smashed windows in it. And he said, not for nothing, but the smashed windows actually complete the whole driving my luxury armored command unit through the violent slumps to Elysium transfer station for my off world vacation. Yum, yeah, that's the vibe. That's the vibe. What's really weird is to present this car and like seemingly Musk if he didn't plan to have that happen, It's like, what did he plan to demonstrate? So it just seems like such a

stupid error, you know. I mean, it's also stupid to strow a bunch of car. Thing is so dumb. The font that they put Cybertruck in was like just the funniest bad funt. The whole thing was like self parodic

to the extreme. And then on Jack Am Today Kate and Kate was saying that it was all like Magic's Biggest Secrets revealed Yes it was the fib She made a video where she cut it together with magic space, like she's like the masked magician, right, it's like Piro And like even the fans and the audience were like, huh yeah, I mean I really I like electric cars. It's Tesla is just so it's hard, guys. It sucks. It sucks, I have whatever. I've made this argument many

many times. I like, I'm not as mad at a Tesla on the road as I am at any other luxury car. And I'm not against electric car being like a status symbol for people who have money. Like sure, Like status symbols are gross. It's part of the culture that we live in. But if it's for an electric car, okay, fine, Like here's what I'm going to say, those people are the worst drivers. Well, that is also true is that they have replaced the other luxury car drivers as the

worst drivers. Tesla drivers do tend to be bad drivers, but there are also so many of them that it's hard to even say. But it comes with like this narcissistic self confidence that's possible you rule the road. I like the idea of a leaf Nissan sponsor night cough Nissan sponsor. I have a hybrid that I really like, but it's ten years old and it's starting to be creaky. And Nissan give us the electric vehicles. Yeah, yeah, we're pro electric vehicle, but also like it shouldn't be for

rich people. Wasn't that the whole thing that it was going to be like a cheap model of the Tesla eventually and then it didn't really ever happen. It's cheaper. I mean there's different tiers, but none of them are affordable. But also for the no no, the Tesla UM yeah, I mean there are other electric cars. It's just like, do you need that name brand to be your thing? I don't know. I was looking at this because I I don't know anything about stocks, but I was like

looking at the whole Tesla or the Tesla. What's it called cyber cyber truck. Cyber truck cyber the tongue doesn't it on? Um Grimes came up with that name. But I was like, that feels like the kind of thing that you could watch in real time, like watch stock, just like it like bumps down and then the second baseball is loved at a rock or whatever, and I just see a little bit of action, but I don't also know how to I don't know anything about stocks,

So I'm going to close this tabu. Yeah, I don't know. I'm not going to get I mean they're saying it like like Max, You're just saying it looks like you can see the graffiti sprayed on it in the mad Max world, right. Yeah. The thing is that, like I I don't know in what form like somebody who's going to actually make innovations that lead us to greener transportation and transit, Like what form that comes in right now?

Like it has to be public. I mean that that I have no idea like in what like in our current reality, how that happens. Because it's just like I can't just be at the whims insane billions. I know, That's what I'm saying. It's just like it's like, why is this only happening in this private Why is the bulletproof? Like who needs that? It's just to be really cool? Well,

also because this truck is hard. Jenny Faberman was saying on the Twitter that it's like the car for the creepy tech bros who are like it's time to start carrying guns in San Francisco, you know, protect ourselves and Dotham like it's a fortified car for like the water Wars, like it's super creepy. Like my cousin is um she just started go fund me for a company that would take if you have like a non hybrid, non electric vehicle, you give it to them and they give you an

electric vehicle, like an inexpensive electric vehicle. And I was like, that sounds great, But then I also was like, what do they do with the car that they like? They then you just have like this giant piece of waste. So maybe the thing is I think that there are companies that are retrofitting, like they take old cars and kind of like retrofit them to be electric. Do you guys want a car to look like? I mean, I

love eighties Mercedes. You like the boxing Mercedes boxing taking out the like the hope, like none of us should have cars, but if you have to have one, okay, we'll have them. Though. I mean, so there's this car that parks um like near my house and it has a vanity. I think I may have talked to you guys about this car. It's its name is Surfing Mountain because it's license plate is Surfing Mountain and it's a

sea foam green Bronco. And if there were a way to make that an electric car, that might be my favorite. But I also really liked the eighties Volvo station. You guys all like a box frame. I kind of take boxy car, and I just like the new Like the new Toyota camera, for instance, looks like a matchbox car. Like it's too streamlined and it looks kind of like just plastic e to me. So I like fins really. Oh yeah, I know that you You do have like a car fetish on your listagrams time, like a sixties

seventies carre. I just don't feel like they're that practical. That's why this is in the world where we can have any car, Okay, because the Bronco, I'm like, I could dry if that were not like if it were a green Bronco, a c foam green Bronco, Like I could live my life with that car. I'd have a lot of fun in that car. It looks so cute in that car. I have a question for you, if you could have that car like your dream sixties like flashy car with fins and it had an electric engine,

but it was a Tesla engine. Would you take that car? Good question? No? Really otherwise not at all, not at all identifiable as a no, because it would catch on fire. Molly really distrusted that. I really distrusted the products from that company. And also I had a friend who bought a really great car, my friend John, who fend too, but an amazing throwback car when we first moved to l a and it became such a pain in the ask for him, so that I was like, oh, the

reality of your fantasy car. Oh, you mean like a like an old car, Yeah, like a low rider. And then I was like, no, I couldn't drive it anywhere. Peter had an eighties Mercedes that was great, but it was diesel and that sucked. And then eventually it was so expensive to maintain that it was like and you never got it transferred to the French fry oil. He tried.

I think it was like one of those things where you bringing in there like we could do it if you did this, this, this, this, and he was like, uh, Like I feel like I could be a tiny car person. But I'm very disappointed that Toyota is not adhering to the California guidelines and they're going to the federal guidelines, the Mission guidelines. I was like shocking to me. Yeah, look at us talking about cars for so long. Car Talk is one of the biggest podcast inspiration. I love

car talk. I love car talk. Everybody just secretly wishes that they hosted car talk. Yeah, are you kidding me? Those guys know a trade and they get to talk about it on a radio shop. It's very one and

they have a good rapport like all podcasts. Shit, um, Molly, you speaking of driving around l A. You drove around and ended up going up Beechwood to a little place called the Minimus pronounce it crow Tona Toona, And then Emily said she had also just driven pastor it's like up from one oh one, and that is where I was going driving around. Yeah. It was a former Theosophist retreat in what the early like the twenties, I think

earlier than that. Yeah, yeah, um, and now it's an apartment complex, but I guess they have rehabbed it and there are some like I don't I don't know, I don't know how much of the original structure or like interiors are the same. So yeah, it was built on I think ten acres of the former Charles Hastings ranch up there, and it was this this guy who got

really into theosophy. It was him and a bunch of his like kind of wealthy like you know, dreamy wealthy people, and he wanted it to be the next Garden of Eden where people could get into like kind of diet, occult stuff and meditation. So um. They hired a bunch of really famous architects and they built this like it had the Katona in which is now an apartment building, and then a bunch of meeting halls and kind of like meditation spaces and I think one of them was

um profiled in Architectural Digest. This couple was renting one of the buildings that had been turned into an apartment. It was like a studio apartment with a domed ceiling with like a star cutout. Was so cool, very very impractical, but very cool. Um, but it's super beautiful. They had like a Koi pond, and I guess the Theosophus eventually moved Kreatona to Ohi because Ohi is also like very haunted and yeah, and the building there is also very cool.

It's just in a very different style like Krytona Modernist building. It's like this building that has like two arms that wrap around and like the buildings very neat like World's Fair. Well, it's like a totally when like Moorish was everybody wanted, which there are so many cool I feel like I've seen not just in l A, but like like in Portugal and stuff. They're like these revival like Moorish kind.

They're just like fantageous of like what people imagine like the East be like it's like problematic of course, but some of these buildings are so incredible to those two an I was going to say, it's very the architecture is very rare. That person did design a World's Fair. Oh, I guess that was influential. The brand park was influential on other people building like fake Moorish. It's very pretty. Yeah. Well, we got a tip from Instagram account takes on Set, who is a real turn Rob deals in a lot

of like amazing l A houses. Historic Houses sent me some info about the Krytona comp lex, saying that that property is just one of many that are all connected in that area and that we're all originally part of the Krytona because it was on ten Acas Settlement Um. One of them is now owned by Joanna knew so

many Andy Samberg. I knew that they lived in one of the um and have you seen pictures of there when they whenever they moved into their house, there were photos, pictures, And now I know that it's like a former like esoteric, an insane house, Like it's gorgeous, it's also like I can't imagine living there um. And then the the ones that are rented out. I guess a woman rents them out now. And one was designed by Richard Neutra. I

wonder which one. But yeah, I mean I looked a little bit more into the history of Krytona and I guess it was sort of an amalgam of world religions. And there was a guy named Krishna Murty who they wanted to be the leader of it, and he was like, no, it shouldn't have a leader. But I think there are some times between theosophy and scientology. Oh really, at least as like an inspiration for scientology, that makes sense. Yeah, I feel like they were all dabbling in that, all

the all the folks and the Jack Parson circle. But these guys did not drink or smoke, and most of them were vegetarian and that was like and also you could have your They did like a lot of aura readings, but it was like only if you're a really experienced and you know what you're doing with that aura, but we read it. Yeah, it was a lot of like they would host these sort of open um like forums and stuff and and and lectures and everything about all

their or reading other other supernatural studies. I suppose, um, there's a lot of that esoteric stuff like right between kind of like silver Lake and beech Wood, because there's also I don't know what it's like a similar kind of like religion ish thing that's um, I can't remember the name of it, but it is on loose feel as both of our like kind of self realization, the self realization fellowship. There's a lot of those things going on in that area. Yeah, as always, LA continues to

be a fertile ground for experimental religion. I still want to go to the Four Square Heritage Museum. Yeah, let's go. I also then went to the Philosophical Research Society, not like purposely, I just like drove past it and was like, oh, another weird place. I should check it out. I've never been in. Um. I didn't know that it was related to other theosophy stuff. But it's also manly. P Hall founded it. Who's another weird person. We should do more

pods about. That's a funny name. It's a super funny name. And then um, like it was he was like like how to win friends and influence people kind of like you know, self improvement, weird esoteric new ag stuff. Um, but apparently Reagan was really into him him. Really, huh did he he predated Reagan though he was, Yeah, but teaching like Reagan read all his teachings and was very

influenced by them. Interesting. Well, if you have a favorite hidden experimental religion or esoteric facility in your town, let us know about it. Give us a night call at one for six night or a night email at Night Call podcast at gmail dot com. We're going to take another break. We'll be right back to talk about this week's movie. Welcome back to night Call. Um. I made Test and Emily consume another really long thing after a gigantic book. I said, hey, please watch a four hour movie.

That movie is Warren Batties Reds three hours and fifteen minutes long. Yeah, it's not four hours. It's three hours and fifteen minutes, but it feels like four. Look, you can't tell anyone how long it is before you have them watch it. I warned you it moves though. Having just watched another three plus hour movie, I had a very different experience watching this. Wait which other three hour movie? Did you watch The Irish Man? Oh right, Yeah, I thought that was so long. I think I should be

illegal Irish. Um. Yeah, no, I I had never seen it. I didn't even really know what it was about. I mean, I knew it was about like American communist, but I didn't know what time period. I assumed it was like in the fifties. Um, but I did not know that it was World War One era. So I mean I thought it. I thought it moved Warren Baty direct. It was like his passion project for so many years, and um, it was insanely expensive. I think it took like a year to shoot. Yeah. They thought it was going to

take like sixteen weeks and took a year. Yeah. Um, I didn't know when you go to Russia, I thought I was going to take Yeah, they didn't shoot in Russia though I think they shot him Finland, I believe. And so he produced, co wrote, and start in this movie. He was very passionate about it. Um test, how do you feel about Well? I don't I okay, I didn't like.

I didn't really hate hate to hate it. But I knew it was going to be difficult because I was talking with my parents, for whom I think they would be like Reds intended like very enthusiastic audience, you know, because they're like lefties from you know, who lived in New York and our theater nerds and like it. Just

they love Diane Keith. Like everything lined up and I was like, we have to watch Reds for the podcast, and they were like the whole thing, and I was I was like, yeah, that's we have to watch the movie the movie rights and they were like, oh, you'll never get through it, and they were right, but I made it almost all the way through. But they were just like, oh my god, it's like it is a really long movie. I recommend breaking it up over two days.

I don't see how you possibly could, though, Like where is the remission? There's an intermission? It just doesn't It's like you just want to At that point, you're like, I can push through. I watched the whole thing in one city, and except for the last like fifteen minutes, that's what I did. But then I didn't come back because I was like, I know what happens. I can see the writing on the wall. You know, he doesn't

seem well he did. It made me realize that I like, it's it's very few and far between you see a story that is like centrally a love story, like an adult uh. And I'm not talking about like the the erotic fillers and stuff that we watched where it's like it's a big, sweeping drama, but it's like mostly about like people like who are in love with each other and trying to negotiate that. That feels actually kind of

anti created at this time right now. Um, And that was sort of well, it's like he knew no one would care about the movie, or he would have he would have a Really it's hard to find an entry point unless it becomes kind of a romantic drama. My issue with it is I found everybody so unlikable and the only time I really enjoyed them was when they were all dressed up in bear costumes and stuff doing Eugene O'Neil's play. And where was that Provincetown or something? Um,

it looked like Cape Cod. I think it's Province Town, but I'm not sure. And they were all hold up and all of these people who just like wouldn't stop talking over each other, and then they're putting on a play and Warren Badies like wearing a bear costume, drinking like so drinking who knows what, and you know, and it was also I really appreciated Jack Nicholson's commitment to making his face like very slack um for the role

of Eugene O'Neil. But I was telling Molly and Emily outside that I was like very surprised, So I guess he really wanted Jack Nicholson for this role. But they also considered James Taylor and Sam Shepherd, who look much more like Eugene O'Neill, and I guess Nicholson was so much older than O'Neill was supposed to be, and I'm sure Beatty was much older than John Ligow to play.

But then he was like, I have to do it myself, I know, but he John red Jack read Jack is his given name in the film, but he died when he was thirty three, and we actually like go back and just explain what this movie is for people who don't know what it is. It's a three hour it's

been established about um, some people in the American Communist gang. Okay, they were part of the Socialist Party UH in the States and then like become involved in global communist politics at the time that Russias, like the bullshe Communists in America around the time of the Bolshevik Revolution. Well, and it's obviously based on real people Jack Reads, based on Jack read about Ten Days That Shook the World. He was the only American journalist in Russia at the time.

And Diane Keaton plays Louise Bryant, who was a writer, feminist person of interest who had lots and lots of affairs and had a bunch of horrible diseases later that are not covered in this movie, but that I researched deeply sexual disease. No, it's like there's she suffered from something. So she was apparently never a big drinker, which is kind of lines up with what happens in the movie

where she's usually like pouring other people drinks. At one point, someone's like, oh, you're not drinking your beard, Like do you want wine? She was like no, but they don't really go into it. But she had a period of like very intense alcoholism after she married her second husband, because she got this disease that is it just sounds like the worst thing ever. And I spent a long

time looking at Wikipedia. She found love again, she knows apparently a really really bad I mean basically what happened is so she married this really wealthy guy whose last name was bullet Um, and she got a terrible disease that affects adipo tissues, so you just get like huge fat deposits. It's bad. So then she became an alcoholic. She also had a daughter, and I think they adopted another child, but because of her alcoholism, she lost custody

of the kids. He got custody of the kids, and her daughter, Anne bullet became then a horse breeder, socialite and model. Very interestingly to me, she passed away. Um. I went on a deep Wikipedia dive. This was like around the time when I was like I cannot look at the screen for being like, it's just really like the historically inaccurate and you know it's historic. Just wanted to deposits. I just felt as though it was it was a very romanticized things that I didn't find to

be romantic. And I was frustrated knowing that she was never recognized as a good writer, because I wanted her to be a good writer. I mean, that's part of the crux of the movie is that she really wants to be this like ambitious writer, but that she's never actually writing anything, and she keeps being like, I can't work because there's all these people in your house all the time. Uh, And so she never gets it done. And when people ask what she writes about, she goes

nothing and everything it's very vague. So then you kind of want, like I was nursing this hope that she would kind of like really come into her own and be really like a child in the movie, well only a little bit. There's only one thing she's known for. No. But then she like goes with him to Europe and she like finds like like he finally respects her because

she stops writing about dumb bullshit. But isn't it super boring in a way to think of don't you wish that it could have been tweaked that she was actually so much more talented than any of these men who were always it was about it was about how like women get marginalized in movements that are supposed to be like avant garde always, and it was about to me, it's about the nineteen teen z's through the lens of the nineteen sixties as this like old experiment and idealism.

But then it also it's like I just felt like now to me, I was like, these are all the same things people still argue about, and it's about just sort of like the way that like human flaws get in the way of your big ideals. I feel like less than the issue of whether or not she ends up being like a great writer or like goes down

in history as a great writer. I think one thing that contrasts her um with Jack Read or John reid Um is that she actually sticks to journalism and sticks to writing, and he gets so caught up and like actually trying to be a politician, which is like the whole kind of last third of the movie is he's also writing poetry because everyone knows is bad, right, not a strong sits so hot that everyone's afraid to tell him.

But I think, like, but I think that that's really interesting, is like, and I think, you know, it's obviously very instructive that it's the man who's the person who gets pulled into actually being a political figure and like being the figurehead of this movement as opposed to having what's ultimately kind of the humility to be just the like document or of it and to you know, take all of it in and to be the person who's out

there and the trenches reporting, which she sticks to. And you know, they keep kind of running into each other in Russia and sort of like having dramatic meetings, and it's always it always has this tone of like she's sticking to the thing that she said she wanted to do um, which I thought was really interesting. She's like trying to prove to him always that she's like a serious person or like as serious as he is, because it's like everybody automatically treats him like the smart one.

But the movie doesn't. The movies like they're equals, and this movie is about two people that are intellectual equals trying to like navigate the world. But there's so much hypocrisy in those characters. I mean, he's a socialist, right has a sign on his door that said, um, property is theft, come in. But his parents are extremely wealthy and presumably he's asked at one point who's paying your rent? Or how are paying your rent? And it's presumably his

parents are paying his rent. Apparently, Um, the real Jack Read grew up tremendously wealthy in a mansion, and his parents really wanted him to go to Harvard because his dad was like this industrial you know, success, but had never graduated from college, and they made him keep applying to Harvard. And then he got into a second try and ended up writing for the Lampoon or maybe he was the editor, and he led a very very privileged life. Then.

I believe he even went back on his socialism and communism later in life in real life, but I'm not a percent sure about that. But I mean there's like a certain amount of Obviously, Louise Bryant's character is extremely hypocritical as well, because she wants like a no strings attached relationship, but then she gets very jealous. It's funny, it's about human follies. I think it can just be tedious because it is such a passion project, and it's so it really dwells on like you know, it dwells

on everything. That's why it's three hours and fifteen minutes. But you, I think, are a stand How is it funny though? Like I mean, I think it's because it doesn't portray them as heroic. It portrays them as like deeply flawed. And that's like it tries to do both. Yeah, it's like it's important to have like something you believe in, it's the point. But if you're a total hypocrite and you believe it makes it extremely the only book about

the Bolshevik Revolution, and that was great. But he kind of built like it's easy to be It's easy to say, you know, property is theft. Come in if you can afford ran On a beautiful brownstone in Greenwich Village, right, But at least he let everybody come in, like rich people can disavow being rich. I don't know, man, it didn't that seemed as though it was being framed as being a virtue, and I found it kind of not. Yeah, I didn't have as much of a problem with that.

I didn't actually catch on that his parents are rich. But it's also just like he's a white man, Like it's why, like he's kind of protected, like a hot white man. Yeah, and they're hanging around with like Emma Goldman, who like they very adorably amazing. Didn't you think she was amazing? I thought a lot of the performances were amazing. Se Maureen Stapleton player. I think she won the Academy Awards.

She's the idea of making like a three hour movie that is a character driven movie with like a lot of amazing actors in it. That's like George Plimpton about something interesting that people don't know that much about. I thought it was just it was very like we've always lived in the same moment, like people have the same foibles always, Like you didn't find it a little indulgent when people took turns, both the witnesses and the actors.

The witnesses we should probably justus. I love the witnesses were my favorite. So it's like the movie is sort of punctuated by these UM kind of talking head interviews with a lot of people who were contemporary with UM, with Jack Reed and Louise Bryant and kind of knew them were in their circles or were also you know in the social socialist movement, and they're all like in their nineties at this point, and some of them are a hoot. Honestly, it was so funny because yeah, it

was great. Who are the two women? There's like these two ladies who talked about are British and one of them has like enormous glasses. Yes, I was just like, she's I want to be her when one of them I know that one of the women was the was a relative of Louise Bryant's first husband, who was the dentist in Portland. And so she she's the one who was like she always struck me as an exhibition I think so. And she wanted my coat. Yeah, oh the coat,

so sad a woman. I was like, Louise sucks. She was like, Louise wanted this coat that I had that I had brought back from Germany, and she kept asking for it and I kept saying, but I also want my coat also, like side note, Emily and I are both very attached to the coats that we have. Right now,

I'll talk we've been talking about coats. But she she started, this woman the witness started shaking when she was talking about it, like she was still kind of really traumatized, and she was like I eventually just had to give it to her because she just wouldn't give up. Because that was Louise. She just got what she wanted. I was like, funk that one. OK, I had other code. Yeah. I think the shagginess of it is to me at least part of its charms. It's not it's not shaggy.

It was shotted by Dee d Allen, who's like a famous New Hollywood editor, and just I mean just the fact that it opens with you know that it has the interviews woven in, but it's not it does not strike me. I mean, it is a studio film, and I think like much it was Paramount I believe, who put it out, and like I think, much to their chagrin by the time it was finally a Good Doctor. I mean, it was won a lot of Academy Award

but it won. He won for Best Director, but it lost in two categories, including Best Picture Two Chariots of Fire. I just showed it to Reagan at the Reagan White House. I'm sure Warren Batty is extremely proud of what he did with Reds and I think it is of a time, but watching it now you can see parallel but it's very dated. No, it's not dated at all. I don't. Yeah, I don't think it seems dated. I think the production

value on it is actually. This is why I say that doesn't feel shaggy to me, Like it's actually like, I mean, it's beautifully shot, it's very Victoria sto, but like it doesn't have a lot of the markers that like would give it away as picture, like all of the location shooting, all of the natural light shooting, and just like it doesn't feel like a new Hollywood picture.

I guess because it's the eighties right now, they're kind of we're kind of out of that to make a classic romance, right And it's a big budget ding I mean it was million dollars or something, and apparently the financial a lot for issues with it were caused a huge strain in Warren Batties romantic relationship with Sci five

editors working. Yes, it was a troubled production, but I mean, I don't mean it was dated in terms of how I think it is beautiful and especially I mean some of the shots in Provincetown, which like I enjoyed a lot Androtten croton On Hudson Croton On Hudson Hudson's It is so just funny because I feel like that's like a huge Republican, Like I think it is weird to think about these socialists like chilling and they're a little

croton On Hudson Cabin. It's more just I think they're like talk Oh the dogs see Okay, My favorite part of this movie is when he gives He gives Louise a Golden Retriever in a box and then then they have to That dog's name is Jesse, which is the weirdest name for a dog I've ever. She grew up with a dog named Jason, and I was like, there you go, can't beat Jason. That's the top dog name. Is A popular dog name is Lola. I had a dog named you did. I'm sure even that, Yeah, I

must have erased it. I love the name Lola so good? But movie is it? Your fa I think it's the best movie. When was the first time you saw it? I saw it? Okay, the first time I saw it was in college, and I was like, why isn't everybody talking about this all the time? It's so good? But the first time I saw it, I definitely thought that it was about like a folly, about like pursuing a folly to your detriment, like over in her Talk movie. And then the next time I watched it, I was like, no,

this movie rules. It's about having principles that you stick to and things that matter in your life, and not just like you know, I will say, I think it's very easy for somebody like Warren Beatty to romanticize the plight of the like starving revolutionary and a very romanticize that. The whole second act is about, like we don't see the beans that they're eating, you know, I can. They go to the w and it goes to the like the royal palace or whatever, and they're eating like onions

for dinner. And he's like, it's about the disillusioned, but it's it's not him. It's like the Russians cushion. I mean, I would be so much to have a cushion. When he's in Russia, in Russia and he has to be like the real proletariat and he's like, wait, this isn't like I can't handle this. I'm too soft for this.

I'm American. That's like the movie doesn't like say like and it all worked out great for everybody, But it doesn't say like, don't try anything different because like it will never work out, which is what like history wants you to think. Well, it did make me think that I think many people, I would say many American people probably like grow up sort of wishing they had the guts to be like an artist or an entertainer, an actor or something like that, you know, even if it's

not the thing, they actually pursue it. Like a lot of people have that sort of romantic notion in their heads just because of what Hollywood does to us. But I think that like if you're actually in Hollywood, you just romanticize like being like revolutionary or being like you know, well, I think it was also are in Beatty trying to prove himself to his ex girlfriend Julie Christie, who was like a real leftist and being like, look, I'm just as serious as you actually, So he's like the Louise.

But I also do think he does such a good job playing like a really pompous, self absorbed man in a way. That's why could that be? But played But it's like the movies make fun of him you know, like that's why Shampoo is so good too. It's like it's not he's not heroic at all. It's like from the women's point of view is like equally important in the movie. Well, I would say in this movie, the women's point of view is more important, which is like

one of the things. And and I mean it goes without saying, but I mean dan Ken is so charmie and she's so good in this yeah, I mean, you know, I think also this movie was like supposedly super Ghost rewritten by a lot of people, including no Elaine May and Robert Town and my like crypto read on this movie has always been that it's about Elane May working through her relationship with Mike Nichols, about being in like a partnership of like two people where the guy is

getting gassed up all the time and told he's a genius and you're like, but I'm a genius, and also like, but I mean she doesn't write anything for two thirds of the movie. But I think he has the good point when he's like, you're writing about an art show that happened three years ago the Armory. That's why it's good because it's like he doesn't respect her as a person. Why does she have so much? But she does pretend to take herself here, I mean she I think she

does take herself extremely seriously. It's just that there's nothing to back it up. And that's just I'm like, well, it's also like this thing of like the world where like men and women are promising to take each other, you know, as equals, but then it's like, what is actually happening? You know, who's actually getting the the um

microphone all the time? And that to me is why it felt like it was about the sixties and seventies, you know, which is like it actually feels more like at least in the film, like women had more of

a chance to have a have a platform. The idea of all these the sixties or you know, any other like even then now, I mean to bring it up for the fifty millions time, but an easy writer's raging bulls, Like the great betrayal of the book is that like the women are all expecting the men to like treat them as equals because they are, you know, they're in all these partnerships that are like these seventies equal partnerships between people that are like artists that want to get

into the movies. And then with like George Lucas and Marshall Lucas, and with like Peter Bogdanovich and Polly Platt, there's all these like partnerships that fracture because the man becomes really powerful and immediately screws over the woman who's like, wait, I was like here for you and like doing all the stuff, and we thought we were in this together,

but like we're clearly not. And so just like bringing things like the invention of polyamory into that is so funny too, just the idea of like people using free love as an excuse to do whatever they want. Um. But the fact that it's like her doing it is unexpected. I think they're they're both day but she does it with Eugene O'Neill because she knows it's going to hurt him. Also, I think Eugene O'Neill he like reads her to fill to the end he's you people are idiots, and then

she calls him a drunk. It's like, I think the movie is critical of the people in the movie. Yeah, I don't think it's uncritical of them. I mean, I I just think it has an easy time romanticize it a lot of it too, but I don't think it's unanimously and one I think that it's romantic. That what Warren Beatty clearly thinks is romantic is like an equal partnership between a man and a woman. You know, he wants to be in love with a woman that he respects.

And I feel like that comes across in the movie, and that's what makes it different from a lot of movies that are like famous Hollywood romances. To me makes me feel, yeah, that's the thing is that like in this story, it's not like the romance is the break from the work or the obstacle that they have to overcome. It's like all woven into it, which I think what

makes it feel really interesting to watch. And like, I think it would be really hard to write something like this because you've so used to kind of balance like contrasting a romantic relationship with whatever the problem where the action is, but like to make it all like there are no boundaries between like the work that they're doing, how they're trying to better themselves as people, and how they're trying to like maintain their relationship and make it work.

And I think that that's like that task of writing that I actually really admire in the movie a lot. That's a that's a great point. And I did enjoy I mean there were things I enjoyed. I think if it had been a shorter movie, I would have given it much more of a pass. But I think that the problem is how high of a tolerance you have for people like that who are just they talk like so much over each other, so many ideas, they have ideas, and they've had a lot of coffee and started with

a coffee starting really stressed out. I was like, they can't possibly that's not a good idea. Like the King Coffee always talks about the coffee houses starting the Great Enlightenment, you know, because everybody he was drinking so much coffee. They had lots of ideas. It's true. I think that's what it was. Sure, I'll take it. I'll believe the more ideas in the day. Well, thanks for making us watch I will say thank you for making us watch this because I hadn't seen it and I was glad

to have. Yeah, it's on Hulu. It's my duty to tell everybody to watch it. I mean, maybe it's not for everybody but it's a good thing to see so that you can decide for yourself if you can't finish it. I think I'm going to say that's okay. I think you've made three hours almost. I respect that kind of

ambitiousness in a movie, and I think it succeeds. I think it is a kind of movie that it needs to be that long, even if it doesn't need to be that long, if you know what I mean, Like, there's something about something that has the scope of this

that you kind of get. You get, especially when it starts with the dr to like like, I mean, sure, I believe definitely some of us manipulative, intern but like, what is that manipulative in a romantic movie when people come off trains at the station and you're not expecting it. I like that. Did you cry? Yes? You cried? Did you cry Emily? No, I did not cry. But whatever, the important thing is, I just have to because if you have a movie makes you cry, you're gonna stand

up for it no matter what. I admire that it's the train scene. I don't know. I if I were going to make it a little shorter, I would have just taken out a lot of the dancing. I don't think the movie would have suffered. But it was like they had a dancing sequence where everyone was wearing different outfits and it was like it was to show the passage of time. No I know this, Molly, but it didn't all have to be dancing. It was like like fifteen minute block of just dancing that's like three months.

It's just so it's so much dancing thing because I was like, oh, parties, parties in the nineteen TENSI it's like fun. Also, the outfits were great. Speaking of the butt chev address, now we know where it came from. I mean, I don't even like that style at all. I don't want to dress like this at all. It's pretty to look at it, you just don't want to dress like that because it looks horrible to wear. Sure, it's about the petty struggles of a bunch of white people,

sort of like the Big Chill. Maybe that's you should like it more because of that. I find them too obnoxious. There's not a great enough array of personalities that you focus on your stuck with trapped in the gulag together at a reunion. It's I look, first of all, at least in the Big Chill. Everyone seemed to have their own bedrooms, and the blinds weren't all crooked and stuff. Is this because you don't like the idea of communal living? Because I love the Big Chill? But are you stressed?

Are you stressed out by the idea of somebody being like anyone can come into my house? Totally stressed out about that. But it's really that I wouldn't want any of them coming into my house because they all were so they were like, Hey, what are you working on? Hey, what are you working on? Hey? What are you working on? More coffee? More coffee? Morkff, And I'm like, get stop it. Well, they did a good job of showing how annoying that was for his girlfriend who was trying to work. Yes,

they did, but she was equally annoying. And when they played all of her letters to him so that they overlapped. I hated it. I hated that the movie. I did not like the movie, but I didn't hate it, And because I hate most things, I'd consider that a win.

But anyway, we accept good. Maybe if it had a little more Baby Yoda, if everything needs baby Yoda at this point, well, we're gonna be back two weeks from now with a new podcast, Turn Me Off one week, but we're gonna be rerunning one of our Patreon book club episodes, taking it out from behind the paywalls, so taking it and making it um like hot and ready. So so please enjoy that next week and we'll be back in a couple of weeks with more Nightcall, more

spirited discussions, spirited debate, spirited women yep um. Also, if you have any thoughts on reds, or if you have any thoughts on movies that were too long for you or too short for you, give us a night call at too four oh four six night. We're also always happy to hear your stories of ghosts, your stories of conspiracies. If you think baby yodas sigh up, I mean that's not it's not up for debate, give us a night call. And if you're enjoying the show, please remember to review

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