95: Spe-Shes

This is my early prediction. But um. We got an email from Dawn Um just you know, looking back at the career of selfcope, and it says, hello, night Call. April is the twentieth anniversary of Virgin Suicides, and I thought it would be a good occasion to talk about Sofia Coppola's debut. Do you have any connection or fond memories with the Virgin Suicides book, film, or soundtrack. Was it a part of your teenage years or did you find it later on as a guy. I'm curious what

a group of women think about it. I didn't watch it until I was in my twenties, but the dreaminess and dull nostalgia hypnotized me to the point where I immediately read the book down. Thanks for the email. Down. Um what what when did you guys see Virgin Susie? Do you see you when it came out or not in the theater? Yeah? I think I saw it right when it was released on video. I had read um the books book. You had read it before it came out. Um, I think I probably read it like after the movie

was released, but before I saw it it. And I'm not the hugest fan. I think Emily is a fan of What the Virgen Suicide. It's like the most tolerable of Sofia Copolist movies. I mean, if anybody doesn't know, I'm the number one Sofia Coppola hater. So I come into this with a bit of I guess I'm like, I can't be as much of a hater as Emily, so I'm like trying to think of something part of

my brand. I think it's hard to separate one's feelings about Sofia Coppola from the fact that she's like the only female filmmaker of that era and that class of directors that got anything made so well. She wasn't the only female filmmaker of that era. There was Jane Campion. No, no, I know, but I mean like of the like Spike Jones, like of the music video crew. She was, you know, so I think she definitely, uh is not my favorite director,

but I think she gets probably I don't know. I mean, I think she's just she's kind of a visual stylist more than a plot and dialogue person um. I also don't like Antonioni movies, right because the same you know, I just I don't love moping around fashion e movies. I don't mind fashion e movies, but I think like as a purely stylistic exercise and like as a debut,

as a like very memorable, like visual debut. I think that Virgin Suicides like creates a lot of the Sofia Coppela mythology that lasts and like gives her like there's a lot of charitable feelings towards her. I think largely because of this film, because it was such a like it looked it didn't really look like anything else at the time, and it didn't really feel I think I was probably also like a teenager at that time and like too aware of being marketed to as a teenager.

There's that for sure. See I was I was between so it was all like very cool. I think I was more like a rest I think I also just was like, why is this like more interesting looking woman, like just because became a theme in her work as it went on, like why is she is so obsessed with like marian blondness. But then I'm like, again, that's

like what all male directors make movies about. That's like the whole like Hitchcock thing, and like species which we're going to talk about writer is very much about that. But I feel bad for her in a weird way, if that makes sense, like so sad. He was always like why is she so sad? Like she has everything, and all her movies are about like how like you can have all this material wealth and it doesn't make you happy, which is like not the least interesting thing

for movies to be about. Sure, it's just over and over and over again. I mean, like, this is the last time she'll do middle class until Lingering, I'm going to say again. Though, then I read Easy Rider's Raging Bulls and I was like man does seem like difficult pair to have and like stressful to have parents that

are like to have a dad that's so famous. Like I think there's something about the people that you have envy before because you're like their lives are so charmed, everything must be so great, and like, well maybe that's why she made the virgin suicides? Is it someone being like their lives are so charmed, everything must be so Also, her brother like died in a boat accident. You know,

like her life is not without tragedy. And obviously when I think about it, I'm like a lot of the rich kids that I knew growing up had like really horrible family lives and like a lot of inner conflict and trauma. And it did seem like, oh, they have all these material things, but like it doesn't seem fun. Sure, I did you guys all read the book? Have you guys all read I have not read the book. I read the other Jeff for Ugenityes book, The marriage Plot.

Oh god, woof, woof you guys? Are you guys went to Brown? Um? Yeah, it's just because you're like you're gonna lose in the love triangle to of it posture Wallace I mean, I think I read a lot of Jeffrey eugenitys and was never was never like wow, this is my author, but was like, what you must keep going.

And I'm not sure why I did that myself. I think for whatever reason, he was very much pitched as like if you're young and you are interested in literature, then like Jeffrey, yeah, and it's like it feels youthful. So it's like, I don't know. I I did read Virgin Suicides, and I think I liked the books, but I was very interested to know what I thought about it now, and I make it very into the liked Middlesex. Yeah, I never read Middlesex. I only read this one and

marriage plot. I guess, I don't know. There was something like I don't inherently think like, oh, it must be bad because it was told from the point of view of these boys, Like I don't know that it would be more interesting if it was told from the point of view of the girls, especially if a guy wrote it,

you know, like I don't know. I I am all conjecturing because I haven't read it since I was a very INTERNETI movie in a way too, because it was like a perfect movie for getting condensed down to jips and things for Tumbler. I mean, that's all Tumbler is. So I think also we're probably like maybe a little burnt out on it because of Tumbler in a way that might not be totally fair to it. I think

it has its moments and Kirsten Dunst is great. It also introduced I feel like it was early on the wave of the big two thousands esthetic trend of like handwritten kind of scrawl as like a design it's a graphic designers movie. Absolutely, yeah, like whatever, it was like ahead of its time in some ways on that regard, so like I don't hate it for that. And again it did begin the long amazing string of performances by Kirsten Dunces, like really depressed girls that we love yea

culminating in Melancholia so which also I hated by the way. Really, yes, we should do a whole Kursten Dunce. We could do a large Von Tree or I would well it's spoilers alert. We might have a Patreon mini series, uh coming or not mini series but ongoing series where we might be able to explore such things. So if you have any thoughts about Sofia Coppola will take them for all time. I'm always here. It's about Sofia Coppola. Um, yeah, I'm I'm like kind of waiting with bated breath about whatever

this movie. The best thing about this movie so far the new movie with Bill Murray and it uh whatever. That doesn't narrow it down at all, but Bill Berry plays a guy who's based on her dad supposedly, and Rashida Jones plays a character who's based on her. It's it's about like having a fucked up dad. Yeah, I mean I'll see it. Have you seen Somewhere right? Is Somewhere secretly good? That's the one I feel like people are like, Somewhere is real bad. I kind of liked something,

but I like parts like the whole thing. I thought that ice skating with the cool with cool. I think I've said this before, but my parents were watching The Newsy and a True Detective and they were like, who

is this actor Stephen Dorff? Is this fresh young face? Yeah? Um. The one thing about Somewhere that I'll always remember, and it's also like one of my many pet peeves with Lost in Translation, is that like she either needs to go to a strip club or stop doing scenes with strippers in them because she does not know what whip.

That could be said of a lot of directors. It's true. Well, I mean some people do it for readings reasons or like TV reasons, but like, have you ever seen a Michael Bay movie, Like those strippers are just like wall to wall just to be there. Yeah. Um, well, the only true depiction is the bottoming booming, truly realistic depiction of like the day shift, yes, of anything, just like

standing around kind of overly air conditioned room. To me, it looks really sweaty and oh no, its like it would be kind of drafty and just smell like kind of stale. Like I agree with the smell for sure. The bottoming smell is we've all experienced the bottom bottoming. We should do a Sopranos, Paul, Oh, we should do

a Sopranos. Get to that later in future episode. Um, but we'll be right back with more talk about the fancier Sofia Coppola, The Children of Hollywood Royalty, Daughters of Hollywood. We are back. Hello. Um, it is Friday, January. This is the day Emily has been waiting for her whole life. It is the official premiere of the group Lab on Netflix. Um. I did get up at seven o'clock to watch just

two episodes. It's like where the Gwyneth Paltrow We don't have to do anything, you do it for exactly just like in the show. Yeah, you just sit back and get all the experiences secondhand. Um. Although I think she eventually like does something and she talks about doing like M D M A and Mexico and one of the episodes,

I'm like to see the anniversary party. Um. Yeah. So Goop, which is Gwyneth Paltrow's lifestyle brand which she has had since two thousand eight, uh, is now they now have a show on Netflix which is just like six episodes. It's not very extensive. I was actually surprised how few episodes they did where they kind of just like field test all the wacky wellness uh treatments and experimental whatevers

that they kind of hype on the site. Although it's way more I think it's the site and the newsletter tends to be more about like food and like objects like do dads like health. Do you remember it being a lot of like the hotels you stay at when you're in London for a few months. There is that. Yeah, there's that as back to it too. I mean the chill turned firehouse is great. You have to be a member, but of course I am. Don't you have a pizza oven in your backyard? Yeah, that was one of the

early things she got shipped for. It was the pizza oven. She's trolling now, she is, well, that's the thing about the show. Johanna Candle was trolling and like this whole show is going to be a troll. It is, well, it's it's definitely trafficking in the more extreme aspects of group. The things that she gets more like flak four. I feel like, here's what I think Goop is the Joe Rogan for women, because she's like, oh, I'm not saying I approve or disapprove. I'm just like letting you see

this insane thing. It's offensive, but not it's not that offensive. Yeah, I think, like you don't think she's like endorsing snake oil or like, I really don't there is, in fact, I need to get it off of my phone. But there is a disclaimer at the beginning of each episode that basically says like this is not actual medical advice lease consult with the doctor, which is always funny whenever I see those, which it's like a kind of blanket disclaimer that's used for a lot of things. I'm like,

who has a doctor? Um, because most people don't because insurance is insane in America. But UM, it's definitely more on the like more experiential, and I guess because it's a show that's just stuff that films better and it feels like an infomercial. No, no, not at all. UM. It feels Mr Rogers in a weird way, just because it's just like we're gonna sit and we're gonna learn about something. And I think I don't know the first one that I watched, which I think is the first

episode and whatever, there's no real order to them. But the first one is about um therapeutic uses of psilocybin mushrooms. UM. I was sort of surprised that they did mushrooms instead of ayahuasca. Um because they don't want to show people vomiting. I guess so well. Her assistant is one of the people who goes on this trek to go, um do the mushrooms, and he had our aready done ayahuasca before and had like a really bad experience on it. So he was sort of talking about like wanting to have

a more gentle trip or whatever. But um, where did he go to do the mushrooms? Peru? Just asking the mushrooms? They went to Jamaica. And there's this group that she talks to costrooms legal in Jamaica, yes apparently, or it's like unregulated right night. Called Jamaica sounds like something everybody will come home from very alive and us feeling great our summer super thriller special. That's the Patreon goal. Yeah,

called Jamaica. We'll go to Jamaica and just do mushrooms forever and uh yeah, if you pay for us well, um yeah. So she talks to this group called Maps, which is uh they do like um kind of very regulated therapeutic applications of like m D M A and mushrooms, And I don't know, they didn't mentioned ayahuasca, but I feel like that has to be a part of it

as well. I'm just like it feels ahuasca is the elephant in the room of this episode, because that is, to me, like the bougie lady thing that you do to like. But maybe they've moved on to microdocing. I honestly have heard that what the really bougie New age yuppies do right now is to vape d MT. That's so stupid, doesn't sound like a nightmare, sounds so dumb. I don't know what, Like I I have not done any I have not done d m T here Ahuaska, but I feel like it's it's not out of the

question for me. And I'm just like, why would you just want to be chilling around, like driving your car going to work on d m T. That's horrible, um, because like micro docing is just like, oh, you can live your life. They did talk to a lady who has been micro docen mushrooms for I think she said six years. And I don't think it's micro at that point. No, it still is. You you take tripping, you take like

a hundred of what you would take normally. So it feels, I have read, it feels as though you are like you can drive, you can do whatever. You're not tripping, you're not hallucinating. It's just kind of like a mood elevator. And then you do that on like day one, and then you don't do it for another three days. I think, and then you do it again. So like it's this very specific prescribed thing, but it sounds like with the therapeutic kind of prescription that would have actually not been

a micro dose. Is that right? That she had someone who was like she So in her case, they kind of they do a thing where they talked to like two experts and then they do a bunch of like just interviews with people who have had different experiences. So they talked to a guy who had like PTSD after being in Afghanistan and did and did a therapeutic trial with m d m A and it like changed his life.

And then they talked to this this other lady who had been micro docing on mushrooms did it, as far as I could tell, completely just like on her own. She just kind of did it and um because she had been suicidal for years and um and then kind of, you know, I guess it just basically cured her of that. That's what she said. UM. And so it's like kind of a range of experiences. It's it's very much just like, let's hear what this person has to say. That's what is like Joe Rogan is to just be like, I'm

not taking a stand. I'm just letting this person say what they think about things. And like with Joe Rogan, it's like quite genocide, but with Goop, You're right, it's much It's just like doing like just tripping in Jamaica.

I'm like fine and like and the people who like the maps people that she talked to actually seemed like super knowledgeable and like down to earth, and like they were really stressing, like, you know, you want to do this stuff in a control setting if you're trying to do it for therapy, like I'm doing air quotes right now, but it's like then you know, you need to make sure that you know what you're doing first. I was

engineered for therapy originally. Yeah. Yeah, and they kind of talk about they kind of glide through the history of that a little bit, so like I don't know, I was like very compelled by that. I like watching people like trip. It's just like kind of fun I watch all the dumb, like cheesy documentaries on d MT and stuff like that, like I'm into it. Um and the Arrow wid Cinema, Oh definitely. Um. Yeah. It was just

like her staff. It was funny because it's like all the senior staff of GUP going to Jamaica and then like lying around on yoga mats and crying like it's just like, all of a sudden, I'm going to watch the goople. It's like very it's fun viewing, I will say. I was like, I was like, how much longer is this going to be? Like, like how far is this going to go? Like, um, that's when she commands them

to do the blood ritual. Well, the funny thing is so that one, so I think throughout she's kind of using the staff of Group as like her guinea pigs. I only watched two episodes, but the second one was sort of interesting because that was the orgasm episode. This isn't the second. I skipped ahead because I wanted to go to the two juiciest ones UM. And that one was interesting because all the staffers on that one that had apparently like volunteered to be a part of this episode.

We're all on the younger side and like Junior and one of the main people they focused on was like an accountant at Group UM and they was she having a ton of orgasms or no she was not, And she was like very afraid of intimacy and didn't want to be touched and stuff. So she went to this like hardcore. This this woman Betty Dodson who's like ninety years old. Ye, she's famous. Yeah, she's been like a sex therapist forever and does these workshops where like sounds

like my personal nightmare. But it's just like women sit around in a circle naked and like basically like spread their legs for each other and they all admire each other's bechas full of us I should say, um, yeah, this is classic. Yeah, like yeah, um so they she does that. Um. And then there's this other, much more stupid seeming workshops. Sorry, I don't want to judge. It just seemed very that's what you're here to do with

good lab I'm fine. I didn't I didn't remember the name of the lady who did this other one that was like the light version of that, But it was just like we're going to get in touch with their sensuality and like take selfies of each other with flowers. Are you telling Are you telling me that Gwyneth Paltrow made HBO is real sex? I mean this episode is basically like a real sex episode had that vibe, and I will give her credit. There was a lot in

a weird way. There's a lot of vol the shots in this episode, Like there's full on nudity in the episode and like like close ups. Yeah yeah. Um. I was like not expecting that, and I was like kind of like good on you, Like I was grateful that. Like it wasn't like, oh, we're going to get in touch with her bodies, but it's all going to be like we're gonna look like at a model of acclitist or whatever. Um. Again, I couldn't find anything to hate. It didn't feel like I was being sold anything. It

was more like, let's let's look at this thing. Like I kind of just had this. I'm interested in this, let's look at this. I'm gonna send my staff out to do it. And I don't know. I think, as I said before on the podcast, like I think that people project a lot more onto Gwyneth Paltrow's celebrity personality than it is actually they're like I think she doesn't take herself nearly as seriously as as like jokes about her and groups seemed to imply. So, I don't know,

it seems very good nature. Like it's like, again, I

find it impossible to hate. There's something about her for me where it's like, even when she's trying to make fun of herself, she's like, oh, I'm making fun of myself for all having a laugh at my expect it feels like it doesn't feel like to go back to where we were talking about with Sophia Coppola, Like, I mean, a lot of the stuff she was talking about was just like this whole thing of just like because people assume that you're, you know, rich and successful and stuff

like that, that you don't have trauma, that you don't have like depression and stuff like that, and that that's actually kind of a super capitalist way of thinking of things, Like it's just like, oh, if you have money, then you're happy. And I don't know. It's like I don't I didn't exactly like cry river for her at that moment, but I think that like there's something somewhat sympathetic there. Yeah. I mean, it's interesting that all these older actresses want

to like transition into lifestyle brands rather than being actors. Yikes. I don't think we need to call her an older actress, a normal aged a normal aged actress. What I mean, It's like, I don't know, I'm not like, she's not like the greatest actress in the world either necessarily, so the like line I draw is selling people things, and so I'm much more sympathetic to the idea of this TV show because also, I I too love to watch people tripping out. And honestly, I used to watch I'm

Talk Sex with Sue. I don't know if you guys have watched the Talk Sex with Sue didn't well she was of an Also, I don't know if she's still alive, but I was watching this back in two thousand and six, and I forget what channel it was even on. But Sue is a Canadian sex therapist and she was probably in her late seventies or early eighties at that time, and she would just take calls. It was like sexy night calls, but it's only her um and she could

take calls and demonstrate cock rings and stuff. But there's something really great about seeing like an ancient feminist. He's just like, yeah, let's take a look in there. Oh it looks great. You should be so glad, and it's like, okay, I'm just like that's I didn't know that was what

Gwyneth Paltrow wanted for herself. Yeah, well she didn't know. Um, this was sort of like one of these things that came out before the series debut, Like she didn't know the difference between a vulva and a vagina, and like and like and like is interchanging it in front of this sexologist and then she's like, wait, you're talking about the vulva though right now you're not talking. She's like,

what's the difference? Like, you know, a lot of ladies get through life without knowing, so I'm you know again, Props for her for being curious and wanting to her. There was a very good blind item about her in Pop Bitch, which still comes out and it's amazing this week. Um that said in the nineties she had a different phone for each boyfriend that she was dating at the time. Seems smart. That made me like her. She's a spy. Yeah,

you should approach dating always like Espiona. Absolutely. Um. Well, talking about kind of selling snake oil even though this show is not that. Um. We did want to talk for a second about Jane Ree's podcast The Dream, which is in its second season, because it is so good. This is I don't know if I mentioned that when I was getting my cavity filled. I listened to the dream. It was the perfect thing to listen to when you're in pain and afraid about people ingesting essential oils, which

is not something you should do. Well at least you were getting like a time tested procedure are done. But are you saying there's no ingesting essential oils type things in the group show you don't think her general brand promotes like tri alternative medicine, but that's very different things.

Some alternative medicine is proven to work, and the thing about essentially essential oils I have a deep interest in because I was targeted, as many mothers are, by a number of Facebook people who are called Hans in the multilevel marketing industry, and they are people and like Atillo of the hunh Yeah, well Hans because they're like, hey, Hans, but it is spelled Hans. It's not spelled homes um.

But yeah, I got all of these and this was a while ago, so I at first wasn't even sure what to make of it, and was like they seem like they're really excited about what I'm doing with my career, which is nothing, and they want to bring me into this entrepreneur opportunity based on me having done nothing for a while because they just had a baby. Like, great, they see my potential. But then very quickly I was like, oh shit, it's a pyramid scheme. Um. And yeah, the

second season of this podcast is amazing. Yeah, the first one was mostly it was all about lm MLMs and and things. She could not actually say pyramid schemes without the risk of getting sued. But we can say pyramid schemes here on our public can say what ever we won? Yeah, an old ponzi um. And this current season is about the wellness industry, which has like a lot of intersectors

so much overlap. Yeah, because she starts off talking about the essential oils, thaying I did not realize I learned from the first episode about the essential oils that the reason they're supposed to work is because of vibrations, is because of frequency. But that's what's interesting is that there's a section of people who believe that there's there are

a million different justifications. But when jam Rae was interviewing some of her relatives in this and they were speaking very you know, passionately about the vibrations of each different and and saying, like, you know right that your body has vibrations. You know that there are vibrations that are in these elements, and like it's similar with crystal. I mean that's there's really no difference between essential oils and crystals in terms of their applications. Well that is that

that would be the different size of those people. In crystals, you can slight powder that ship. Yeah, I think people um like that. There's skincare that involved. Yeah, yeah, I was gonna say I had a friend who was selling in a semi type thing. Well, you can also put a crystal in your water bottle and have it infused the water with the vibrations, but that's harmless. I think. I don't think that the vibrations could get passed on?

Is that? How does that? I mean, I know it's all fake something, it's electrical, saying where do you draw the line? Like, obviously I do think that, like psilocybin therapy is a real thing. But who's going to be like, yeah, yeah, and I believe essential oil is a real thing, and I'm allowed to believe what I Belie's like anti vactor's it's like arguing with them makes you go crazy. You certainly are allowed to use essential oils however you want. I mean, tea tree oil is common in skincare, and

that's fine. You can you know, if you're in a pinch, I'm sure you could put clary sage on something and it would do some thing there stranded with oils to your inside. I mean, do you ingest that, like I doesn't do anything bad? Yes, yes it does, it does bads not too much of it, we can't. I don't think you can. I mean, in any like minuscule amount, I doubt any of it would hurt you. I mean obviously, like you could get lemon oil from lemon peel and

like ingest it. But it's the question is these things are not food grade. And that's the other I mean, that's really the distinction is that you could I'm sure integrate like a certain oil into like something if it were tested and made sure that it was safe. But some of these there's one brand, in particular, Young Living, that markets itself as the brand of essential oils that are so pure that you can ingest them, but nobody's

making sure that that's correct. Siler alert it is not correct. Yeah, I mean I kind know went into this season of the Dream feeling like I'm less of like a hardline

person about this stuff with crystals. I'm just like, you know, if something makes you feel good and you buy it, I mean it's just like you could buy a pain for you know, a comparable amount of money as a crystal, and like if it if you put it in your home and it makes you feel good, who's to say like it's bullshit, Like whatever you do, whatever makes you

feel good. Um, But I think like when it gets into the substituting it for actual medicine and healthcare, that's that's and I think that there are plenty of people who do market this stuff and don't market it as a substitute for actual healthcare, where it's just like this is just like addition on to like, you know, your normal way of caring for you take your crystals. How does spiritual experience recently with a crystal? What your cat? Oh? Okay,

well that's yeah, that was really intense. I don't know if we have enough time, I think you should share because I was like, wow, that's a great example of what crystals are for. Well, first of all, I have to shout out everyone in the night Colors Facebook group who some of you have shared stories. Well, first of all, we actually got a prompt to talk about pet grieving rituals,

which I think will take at a later point. But um sometimes people come on and they share, like, you know, their feelings, and they someone had lost a cat, their cat had died. My cat was in the process of dying at that point. And also someone mentioned that maybe it was Emily. There were there were like a bunch of cats. I knew so many people whose cats died around the time that your cat. It was super really weird. So did I and like, yeah, someone in the Facebook group.

But um my, so we we do have some crystals at my house, the mostly the very cheap and small kind. But when my father in law died, he gave us a big geo that had been cut in half. So there were like these two like three foot tall geode has in our living room. Haven't found their real home in there yet, but we're working on that. So my

cat died. He was Ventina. He was really old. It was a super horrible and depressing thing to see because he was my kiddie, but he was we were We had an appointment to have him be euthanized because he was in such bad health, and he like he was a very smart cat, and he kind of like said his goodbyes before the euthanasia appointment, and he ended up dying the night before the that was going to come. But he'd always he had his like hang out spots, as many cats do, and none of them were in

the living room. But then when he was very sick, he started hanging out in this like little spot in the living room. So he got him a little bed, and but he never moved from that spot. And when he died, he went over to the geode and like wrapped himself around the geode and that's where we found him, and we were he had never gone near those things, and we were like, what is it mean? Was he

like drawn many different theories? When I bring this up, people were like, oh, he was like drawn to kind of like the earth elements because he wanted to go outside to die, as all hats do, but we don't let them outside because there are coyotes. So I think I was like, I could read this either as like perhaps my father in law was like in the spiritual realm and like he was going to something that he had given us or that he like maybe felt a vibration.

And I don't totally believe any of this. In fact, I hardly believe it, but that's what makes it cool. But when you're like really sad, it kind of gives you, like I mean, and and that's also on the flip side. The bad thing about crystals and you know, oils and stuff like that is that people tend to cling to those things when they are very sad or very desperate, like even because they have no medical care that they need, or because they're just feeling have anxiety or they're isolated

or whatever. And people rely on a lot of confirmation bias around that stuff too, exactly. I mean. And there's a lot of fund up things about the health care system and thought especially about mental health care well, and

women's health care too. I mean, that's like the point that's really underlined in the first episode the dream is just like that women's health has been so understudied compared to men's health that like a lot of times, like far more often, like women will have the experience of going to the doctor because something's wrong, and like it's never diagnosed correctly because it's just been it hasn't been studied well enough, and so like then you have women

who like can't get the help that they need from a traditional health system, so they end up turning into crystals. And essentially it was or whatever, and it's like the blame is all over the place, like the people who are taking advantage of people, but also just like the system that is not working for those people to totally. And I think also with reproductive and maternal health that there's this, you know, sense that doctors don't believe women

about those things. And I mean, I don't remember if it was pro Publica or um the New York Times he did this series on maternal death rates in the US, I think like last year, UM. But an underlying thing is that a lot of women who have post birth

complications are so quickly dismissed. And in my experience, even you know, having great insurance and great doctors, there were times when I felt as though my concerns about my body were totally dismissed because people are really quick to write concerns off as hormonal or you know, you're struggling, you're figuring it out, and so I think, like, you know, there is this sense of like you know your body and no one else believes you so like at a certain point. And I think that's also why a lot

of this is marketed from women to other women. It's you feel like, okay, well they understand, so it's super dangerous. Yeah, you have to listen to the episode about the birth, like do uh at home birth type thing. It's like it's a lot um speaking of at home births. We'll be right, bad species, we are back, we are continuing

our track. We're actually concluding our trek. This is the final episode of Unnerving c g I January, which is not bad c g I. It's early c g I. It's like c g I Finding It's footing and also the movie Cats thrown in there. Um. We have a nightcall related to computer animation from listener Christina. Hello, nightcall, thanks to your unsettling c g I January idea. I'm about to rent the director's cut of The lawnmower Man tonight.

Against my better judgment, I'd like to be a massive nerd and discuss Canadian short film called Tony to Peltry, in which an abject potato man plays the piano for seven hours. It's deal is that it's the first computer animation to depict a human character expressing emotion, which I guess is probably true. At the time of its release, it was considered a tremendous achievement and it's insane that it was made in the early eight However, this hardly

needs to be said. It's also a fucking nightmare. It's crazy that, despite whatever technological advances we've made in the intervening years, every movie still looks like this To me, every time I go to the movies, I settled into my seat after getting high in the bathroom, and I'm basically forced to watch Tony to Peltry and its entirely six to eight between six to eight times. Is it just me, your friend, Christina? Um, we highly recommend that you look up Tony to Peltry. It's only six minutes.

It's so good. It really does change the way you think of watching anything at all. To be honest with you, Um, so, why do you think they settled on his face looking like that? Like it's an animation, you can make anything look however you wanted to look. They did not know that yet. This was from It's Canadian and it is the first animated human character to express emotions. I think it was it was a claim mold um that they then like mapped, Yeah, they mapped it um. It won

a ton of awards. John Lasseter loved it um. But yeah, it's he he's a very fascinatingly, he looks like he's had bad fillers. It looks like it's like it's like, yeah, like it looks okay. It does look like panos um. It is a very like it's a meditation. It's very Canadian. Yes, it's extremely Canadian. It is about a piano player who is like thinking about when he was popular while he's playing the piano. I'm going to say it's French Canadian. It is French and he is French Canadian. It feels

French Canadian. There's no one in it but here La Chapelle, Philippe bergeron Daniel langueop because it's like when you think about what we use c g I for now, it's not generally like interiority. I guess in Pixar Move it tries, but this is actually there's something about how he's isolated and also like how the piano kind of plays itself like he's playing piano and then it's like playing itself. But I won't spoil the ending, but the ending really

worked for me. Guys. It's certainly did. It is sad. It's a bittersweet melancholia. It's not horribly manipulative other than it's trying like it is. It was created to manipulate you, but the way it does it, it seems like a genuine effort is so powerful. Um that the fact that in America we don't use it that much for things for adults is kind of like extremely to our detriment obviously, but also it's because it's so scary. Yeah, it's too powerful.

Having having endless possibilities for your characters that you care about is a horrifying prospect. It's like they used to call animators like you know, some something early Disney guys stuff.

They were like actors with pencils. Like that's a phrase that was used a lot because like you have to be able to draw emotion, like to be a good animator, you have to know like what your face looks like and like how the human face works with emotion or like, yeah, you can't be at least you can't be a character

animator without that. And yeah, it feels like that's sort of let I don't know, maybe it's just gotten to such a science now that people like, there's just a handbook at Pixar that tells you how to do it and you don't actually have to have any empathy or something. If you make fun of the Dreamwork style where you got the arched eyebrow, you know, like the B with it B movie, it was like, don't don't you sorry? How dare I not get B movies? Title correct? B movie?

But you know it's like an arched eyebrow and everything. Yeah, m but the DreamWorks is much more like cynical yeah, less about a little touchy feeling, a little shittier looking. Yeah. And the Pixar is like too, it's like a two overproduced you know song. It's just like everything is like plusciously beautiful. I mean, ironically, Wally ended up being the most kind of like emotionally affective without a yeah dystopian.

Oh I I well, when I first watched Wally, it had been built up so much that I really didn't vibe with it. And then later when it was kind of introduced as like, there's nothing to watch, maybe let's just put this on I was like, you know what, I think, I love Wally. It was by that point no longer cool to like Wally, so I felt like it was an open door for me to like Wally. Wally is part of my robots don't have gender's crusade. What do you mean like Wal like Wally and the like?

I didn't. Yeah, I thought it was I was like, why are people gendering these robots? We don't know what robots don't have genders. It's never specifically laid out, is it. Did they ever refer to Wally as a boy? I think maybe in Disney? Well, I don't know. Actually, should look up the Wikipedia and see if they refer to Wally as an it or a he. I'm going but

who would refer to Wally? I mean the people in the It would be like only in like a Wikipedia article, like some official record that describes it as a heat. I had been under the impression, like always the B B A, one of my favorite fictional robots from the Walt Disney Company, was a girl because I had I guess I had assumed it was like a male gendered robot because all of them are in Star Wars. But then somebody was like, no, bb, it is actually like female.

General is like oh cute, is voluptuous curves and apparently it's a heat like somebody refers to Yeah, it was a heat. And in the most recently I got mad about that too, like that don't have genders. That's their robots, Um, Wally and EV don't have gender, as it says for sure because the whole Wikipedia article they call them by their whole names each time they refer to them. Nice alright, somebody's looking out. I don't necessarily I never got the vibe.

It was like implied because he had like a slightly lower robot. It was just like, why does the male themed robot get to be the junkie robot and the female robot has to be like the sleek ipototuristic robot. Well, speaking of in human beings that are definitely gender, we watched the nine nine Wait five five? Why Why do I feel like this movie is so much older than that species, which is concluding our our c G I series. Um, none of us have ever seen it before. It seems crazy.

We were just talking about this about how we mentioned that we were watching it to some men who all said, what do you mean, you haven't seen it. You're a girl. You didn't see it at like a sleepover where everyone watched it because this movie is famous for having tits on an alien, lots of tits, for being right at the event horizon when you still needed to go to the movies for something like that. Yeah, it very much has an early kind of maxim magazine feel to it.

The star Natasha Henstridge, I think it was like heavily featured in lad Mags at the time, lad mag lad Mags, which I guess helps the box office. And yeah, it's like that whole that like the wild Things thing of like, well you got to go to the theater to see tits, like like, I don't know, it feels very queen. They that's what's so great about it is they lure you in with tits and then they they keep you forever

with cinema. And I just can't imagine being like a ten year old boy watching this, like how does that affect you sexuality for the rest of your hunting you they're hunting near they want to kill you. This movie has the most amazing cast. It's an incredible This is a stacked and it starts with just like all of these names. And I think it's too bad we weren't watching it together because I think we all have the same reaction to being like, they're in this, let's do

them too. And they do the very old school thing of like starring in alphabetical order. So even in alphabetical order, it goes like Ben Kingsley, Michael Madison, Alfred Moulina, Forest Whittaker, like just up top, and they're basically like the don't leave off March. Well, yeah, March Helgenburger. She's she's not seven of nine, but is she from a sci fi franchise? She has a real shining star trek. She has like a she's in She's in c S I the UM

yeah she uh. And also Michelle Williams. Yeah, a little Michelle Williams. And I saw Michelle Williams in the front and I was like, that's not it's baby Michelle Williams, like pre Dawson's Creek Michelle Williams. This movie fucking rules. It loved it. You know what else it is. It's a great l A movie here that was a bonus. The Millennium built More Hotel is UM featured frequently. UM that's where the cool club is, the Sahara Motor Hotel, which we shouted out in the intro. There's a great line.

So the movie is about. Let's explain what the movie is about. In case you haven't seen Species. Some scientists are got some alien DNA with instructions. With instructions, it's basically contact. Like at the beginning, it starts with the shot of the r c BO radio telescope, so you're like, oh, this is hard sci fi. We're watching some hard sci fi. But um, yeah, Ben Kingsley is kind of like this

power hungry scientist who's like I will. They decide to like use the the alien DNA to create a female because they think it'll be easier to control and manage. And so Michelle Williams is baby alien and she's really cute and she's in like a little bubble. And then they noticed that she gets like cranky in her sleep and seems like scary, so they think like, okay, we should kill her with cyanide. They also she grows really fast.

She looks like she looks like a tween at the beginning of it, and but she's apparently just like a few weeks old. Or something or like a month old or something. So she's growing really rapidly. Uh, and then breaks out of her bubble when they try to poison her because also she can lip read and so and she just looks at things and she's like, I get it. So like she'll later she'll kind of look, she's on a train, like, so she escapes and she just kind of picks up how to do things just by seeing

it once. So she's like, right, okay, like I just while I grab a bag and I look like a person who's walking onto a train. And they're like, oh, she's a kid. I'm not going to hassle her. And later when she well, we should say that she transforms in a very brutal, credible It's like we're talking about this ostensibly because of the c g I, but the practical effects again, like this are incredible. Use of slime, there's so much like there's like really it's like very

good kind of dark. It's like Hrar did like the design of the alien that she becomes, and but like all of it has that kind of gross, dark kind of slim. There's a shot of some regular worms that's really effective. Well, so she she has a human form, but her true form is like a gray tentacle writhing mass of stuff. Like also she can like shoot tentacles out of her nipples. Oh yeah, such a cool trick. Whish I could do. Cannot, but yeah, so she Michelle

Williams on the train. I guess that she just realizes at a certain point that she needs to function up. And also she's like maturing into a woman, so she goes into an alien and then she's having like nightmares

about transforming further. She's going, yeah, she's having and then Natasha Henstridge is born naked, covered in slime with boobs right out front from the aliens drop out of this like it's like basically she builds a cocoon for herself and the like I guess, like a bathroom stall on the train, and like descends out of it, like falls out and like kind of this you know, goop, like this sort of amniotic group, and it's just it's like, I know it's supposed to be sexy because it's like

a naked lady, but I'm just like it's so gross. I really admired it. Yeah, I'm very I'm very happy about how gross the whole movie is just supposed to make you feel horrible about the feelings that you're having while watching it. And that's an interesting sensation to be, like,

do you think that this movie? Because while I was like reveling and how gross it was and how much I liked it and how like vaginal the thing that she comes out of isa that I watched draw Delaneys Jackie, which explains what and I thought it was a cloak because it's also in a children's book bizarrely, but it is the whole that a bird has that everything comes out of. Oh yeah, clo waca, just like a berthing. It's birthing and doing everything else one does out of that.

It's a it's a whole. Okay, yeah, well she yeah, she falls out of this thing and it's very vaginal. And and I had this thought, even while I was very happy about what I was seeing, I was like, this is meant to make you terrified of women? Is it like inherently misogynistic to have it be like so like so many fluids and so many empowering I mean, that's how I feel. But I was like, because it obviously obviously a bunch of men made this movie, and so I was like, what did they think they were doing?

Because I know how I received it. The reviews dunked it, I think for being super misogynistic, but and I do think but watching it as a woman, you definitely feel that it's kind of subtly feminist, but by accident, you know, it's it's like anti human, which is amazing, but it it's sort of like it's I don't know if it meant to be about stuff this much, but it's definitely like this, this super airy and looking woman coming and like destroying the world that all these like male scientists

and Mark Helgenberger, who's a tough chick, are trying to make and they all kind of like are too dumb not to like fall for it, you know, like they're very smart technically, but they also are like, but I like, she's so hot, What am I gonna do? Not have sex with alien? So she also has only one motivation once she has grown, and that is to breathe, and she she goes to a glove and just says to guys, I want to have a baby, give me a baby.

And she can like weirdly screen them with her eyes to see if they have things like diabetes, and if they do, she's like, no way, I gotta find someone else. There's totally like a pre Me Too scene, except that's just that she doesn't want to do this guy because he has diabetes, and she's like sussed that out with her like super Center. She kills him in his sweet glass bricks may and Chin yeah, because he's like trying to her into having secks and it's just like, Okay,

this is great. Um. And she kills people by like putting her tongue through their skull, which I that I remembered seeing because they did it. Uh they won Best Kiss at the MTV before. Oh that's great. I love that. Yeah. I My my boyfriend was like, oh, this movie reminds me of Where's Jolne the short that I just made. And I was like, that's great because the only direction I gave my friend was like act like you've never seen Earth before and everything is new. And Natasha is

very good. She's like basically silent except for when she says I want to have your baby right now people at a club. But it's like she picks everything up from television at the hotel and then she does everything that she picked up from television, including dyeing her hair. I would venture to say that, like it's an actually really tough and good performance, like it's like the naivete of it and is like very funny and very like precise. Yeah, I just assumed that she was like actually from Europe

or something because of her name, but she's Canadian. Well then she was method acting when she yells at the guy in the club, I'm boring. Yeah, it's really funny. Like I think it's a very funny. It is funny when she goes when they're like she's going to l a like a mobile population. Nobody knows each other and this possibility old so hard at that it was amazing. So Alfred Molina, it's very cute. I said, he looks

like Oscar Isaac. He has like but you know, the I read that there was an initial criticism was like everybody hated his hair and he has Hugh Grant hair. That thing wrong with that man's hair. Also funny to be firmly back in like the Michael Madsen era, because also I just rewatched Free Willie when I was there. Michael was really he is the like really he's the mean but card of go old Foster Dad kind of yeah, And I totally didn't remember Michael Matt's Free Will. How

does Free Willy hold up? Just out of curiosity? For me really well, for my children not so much. I read that. I read that Michael Madson and Mark Helgenberger got to improvise their sex scene. I love. Yeah, it's a very like it feels like an obligatory like two people on the team are going to get together, but it's like feels very believable in adult and being like you're a piece of ship it. I like that. He's like, you know it, Yeah, that works for all of us. Um. Yeah,

I had very little to complain about in this. I did think like it once it kind of gets into like the the climax aspect of it. It just like it does feel like, oh, this is just feels like every movie in the nineties, like if you remember seeing a movie at a sleepover, like the lay the lighting works, like the music, the fact that like their explosions sometimes and you don't know where they came from suddenly underground

for finale, Yeah, it doesn't make any sense. And he's like, but I guess I'm watching a movie, so I guess this was bound to happen. As reminded me a little bit of the finale of It, the TV miniseries of It, where it's like the thing is like the thing is that's scary is Tim Curry and clown makeup, or like a scary hot blonde woman that's an alien When they become their like final form, it's supposed to be scarier. It's like way less scary. Yeah, yeah, because she like

fully transforms and she has a baby. Oh yeah, oh yeah, and she has a baby when she's like dying. It's Alfred Molina's character's baby. Correct. Yeah, yeah, she she sicks, that'sfully copulates with Alfred Molina. He has the good d and then like so totally kills him. That was Yeah, that was sad. Sorry spoiler. Um, I don't know. I feel like most people. We're probably the last people. Did

you guys? Read in Wikipedia the chupacabra connection? Oh and I quote a five year investigation into accounts of the chupacabra, a well known cryptid revealed that the original sighting report of the creature in Puerto Rico by Madeleine Tolentino may have been inspired by the character Sill, who's the alien in this movie. This was detailed in paranormal investigator and

skeptic Benjamin Radford's book Tracking the chip A Cabra. According to Virginia Fuguerino of Memorial University of Newfoundland, writing for the Journal of Folklore Research, Radford found a link between the original eyewitness report and the design of Sill in her alien form and hypothesized that species which Tolentino did see before her, citing influence that she believes she saw of the pcabra. Right, Yeah, I mean I think, uh, what I really agreed with about this movie was the

idea that like humans are the invasive species. Is that the wait, what is that the moral of the movie? To me? Yeah, it's like humans are the most invasive species and so they get taken out by whatever the next invasive species is inevitably, sure, I guess. I mean, if somebody comes and does to humans what alien humans, what humans did to all the other animals. But we're not mating with other animals though, that's it seems like a difference. Are the animals she wants to create like

an alien human hybrid. She has baby rabies for those human alien babies. But I feel like it is sort of like a maybe a shadow like low birthrate scare movie, because it's just like we're not horny enough, Like look at this lady, she's so horny. Yeah, I thought it was like, whatever's horny er than us, we'll just like replicate the way that we did. And it's it's that's evolution. But I think isn't the point that she's it's the

hybrid component is its own freaky thing. It's like you're going to have a baby with this thing and you can't help it because you didn't know. And now a race of like that's the last phase of humanity and the hybrid, the hybrid, and it's like she was sent you know, if humans are too stupid not to put the d n A in the person in the first place, they deserve everything that's coming to them. Huh. Human extinctions

can take forever. For me, it's a pro human extinction movie. Okay, um, I now want to see the sequel because we're actually you want to read the fan fiction. Maybe that would be a good bonus episode. Yeah, there was a species too, and ninety eight and a species the people had direct to sci fi to people have said they're not very good, but people have said the lawnmower Man too is watchable worth watching because it's also weird. Lawn mower Man was

a really good one too. Who have known the unnerving c G I month what it introduced us to movies? We actually really really also Emily saw cats. Let's end with Emily. I haven't even talked about my cats experience because I was still like trying to make sense of it.

I mean, the experience, what do you want? I mean, it was like a very fun theatrical experience because it was actually we thought that there was going to be nobody seeing cats, but it was actually about a half full theater and everybody was just i think on the same wavelength where they were there to just like like have their jaws drop at how insane cats is. It's a fun group experience. Nobody prepared me. People prepared me for a lot of things about cats. Nobody prepared me

for inter c Elba's um disrobing. Speaking of human animal hybrids like big sexual energy, made such all over the place decisions like some of them have brass, but nobody has male genitals like a male cat would. Nobody either you would think they would seem more prominence in the cat What what's the deal with Idra Salva disrobing? Well, it just hope it's a very cavity as a very mr Cat. Mystery Cat is a very Wait is he

the mystery cat? Yeah, he's a mster cat. He's called the hidden Paw because the magic cat is mr a magic cat, mry cat, magic cat. Okay, but he's he's a very short haired, brown, very shorthad. Does he have a lion cut? I don't know what that is. It's a shamed Oh no, no, he's not shaped. And he's like as close as he could be a shaved and he wears a big fur coat like a pimp coote. Basically, it's sort of implied that he is a pimp, like and that like he has enlisted all these various cats

to like sex work. Like that's like, did you get yes, you think he's Grizabella's pimp. Yes, she went over with with the cavity and now she's like a disgraced woman like and but she's not a woman, she's a cat. She's just cats, female cat. But it's all about Victorian morality cats. But wait, he disrobes. Well, yeah, he has a big musical number with Taylor, Yes, musical number with Taylor's swift as his hype man and um, and then he takes off his coat and he's just like it's

just just el but naked, like he's tooral definition. Yeah, I feel like and my immediate it was like this is in yourself was called because he got an amazing shape for cats, and it's like, I'm not going to do all this and have it covered up by like digital fur. I want everybody to see my body, my

cat's body. All of the cats bodies are very sense you know, because they're like dancers, but that is like Cats was all Leotard's and this is just like digital form, which is just like fake for on top of someone's body, but you can see their green screen, which again, you know, what I was thinking is you know what would be like more horrifying than Cats is dogs. Yeah you know, but but like as Cats was done, there's versus Dogs.

That was one of the songs that was cut. But just imagine, like I'm just thinking of like you know, Judy Dench, like as a dog. Do you know about the Starlight Express for their trains their trains. Um you want to say agelical thanks to Taylor Swift for she stuck up for stuck up for Calts. She owned up to it. She said that she was happy. She said she would never regret experience being participating in such a weird ass movie. And she was friends with Andrew Lloyd

Webber now, so she has no regrets. She has no regrets, so shellychall. Thank you Taylor Swift, you will be remembered on the right side of Cat's history. Um well, thanks everybody for hanging with us through Unnerving c g I January. This was fun. We got to do more more movie series on our soon to come Movies Club bonus episodes that will be coming to Patreon and we'll be back in February with some movies about spooky romance, weird love, weird love. We're not going at it's straight, it's funny,

weird love Love All Love dot Org. We'll see you all next week. By thank you for listening this week. Subscribes to us on iTunes if you haven't already, or wherever you get your podcast, and you can follow us on social media. We are on Twitter at nightcall pod and Instagram and Facebook at at Nightcall podcast and you can also join our Patreon at patreon dot com slash Nightcall, where we have also to bonus episodes, newsletters, all sorts of fun stuff for you. So please's there and we

will see everybody 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.