Big Daddy Data with Karina Longworth

been long overdue. Yes. Absolutely, And for those of you who do not know, who have been living in a cave Karina hosts, you must remember this a really, really great podcast about Hollywood history and scandal and all sorts of juicy stuff that is, uh, it's on hiatus right now, correct, But yeah, but if you haven't listened to it, you can go back and discover a whole wealth of podcast

episodes past. You should also read her books. Her newest one, I believe is Seduction, Sex, Lives and Stardom and Howard Hughes Hollywood and it's amazing, so you should definitely get that. But yeah, I think you must remember this is definitely like Night Call adjacent. We've all been big fans for a long time. So we're really happy to have Greena here. Thank you. I'm happy to be here. I'm a fan of Night Call Boy. Thank you. I'm so excited to

talk about erratic thrillers. Oh yeah, it's like, it's really It's really great how much this series of ours has brought people out of the woodwork, Like there are a lot of kind of secret enthusiasts who are like, oh,

when are you gonna do mine? Like my favorite. Um, we wanted to start off real quick just to acknowledge our new superstar, the literally the black hole that was imaged, i should say, for the first time last week, So this is sort of old news by the time you're hearing this, but we just wanted to give it a little bit of a shout out. Where were you when you saw the black hole for the first time? The

black hole blip? Yeah, where were you, Karina? I think I like was I had just turned on the shower and I was waiting for it to heat up and I was looking at it on my phone. Nice, oh dangerous, dangerous. I live that way too. This black hole has a name, and it's what has a couple of names. Actually, it just got a Hawaiian name, but it's um, it was originally m S. Star. You know how it took me to realize that m AD three the musical act slash band was named after a star system. I oh, it

took me until I was today years old. Wherever. Well, it's a really beautiful one, so he puts a good one. But it's very appropriate once you think about it, because it's a very galactic music, Like you feel very starry eyed when you're listening to it. But I had no idea until like a year ago. So um, but yeah, M eight seven is the new, the new hot galaxy

in town. I know that there's been a lot of little mini stories coming out about it, and like the the the woman who actually was kind of spearheading the entire project too, was kind of credited later on down the road. Of course, we tend to lose credit for our women in stem and astronomy and stuff like that. But that was interesting. But I think, like, I like just reading what people felt seeing it for the first time. What kind of reactions did you see? I missed this.

I think Jezebel had a good post where it was just like they just opened up the comments and said, like, tell us how you feel about the black hole. And of course a lot of it is jokes, Like a lot of people had a lot of good jokes about

the black hole. But I think, I think it's interesting because it's something that you know, you feel like you've seen a billion times because we've seen like recreations of them in sci fi movies or you know, in in you know, a time life science book or something like that. Like you kind of know what a black hole is supposed to look like, but actually seeing an actual is very It is an interesting feeling. I like it. I like I like to ponder the black hole. It kind

of looks like like an ultrasound image of an eyeball. Yeah, a little bit, you know, with like all that kind of strata and the like orange e kind of background. It's a little bit too much for me. I think we've we've now been talking about the the ultra black holes on the floor, you know, and now black hole. Like there's been a whole kind of broadcast holes, art holes, black holes, Molly's fear of holes, little holes, the little holes. Um, after we finished the Erotic Thrillers, we should just do

holes and then we could do the movie holes. Um, well, please give us a night call at one two four oh four six night and tell us how the black hole made you feel, or any other thoughts you might have about the black hole. We welcome them all. The black hole is evergreen content. I feel like it is literally I mean yeah, it's time less literally yes, yeah, and spatially expanding. Eight twelve. This week's episode of Nightcall is brought to you by Cheers Health. So it is spring.

It's time for everybody to come out of their hibernation holes and socialize again and remember what it feels like to have human contact. I know that I've been doing a lot of that recently. It's weird, it's uncomfortable. It also involves a drink or two every now and then. Everybody likes a good spring rose here and there waiting seasons coming up, you might want to tie one or two on. Do people say taie one on anymore? It's very old. I sound like an old old lady, which

I am. I am an old lady who UH used to be able to, you know, have a few drinks and wake up the next morning and feel more or less fine. But I have experienced in my um elderly age as I'm sure that many of you have that sometimes it's a little harder to bounce back from two or three or four or five drinks in a night, uh the way that you used to. And that is where Cheers Health is here to save the day. Cheers Health is the product for responsible drinking and drinkers like

an ant acid for alcohol. Cheers neutralizis alcohol's negative effects that you can wake up feeling great after a night of drinking. I now actively swear by it, not just on ads here a night call, but in person with other people. It really doesn't make a huge difference. You feel up to fifty percent better the next morning than you would otherwise without Cheers Health, and it's healthy for your liver, and it really helps you just get the day back when you might otherwise feel a little sluggish

or under the weather the next day. To use Cheers you simply take two to four capsules after your last alcohol beverage or before you go to bed, and if you don't wake up feeling at least fifty percent better the next day, you get your money back guaranteed. So night call listeners get your day back after an evening of responsible adult beverage drinking. To order, go to Cheers health dot com. Enter the promo code nightcall all one word at checkout to get ten percent off of your

first order and a free gift. That is Cheers Health dot com promo code Nightcall and I G H T C A L L for ten percent off and a free gift with your first order. With Cheers, You're going to start feeling better when you wake up, and your liver is going to thank you. Cheers the best thing to happen to alcohol since Alcohol twelve nine eight. Guys, we are on our way to wrapping up our erotic thriller odyssey. We are we are going to be speaking about Liver, film by Phil Noise. I love the last

name Noise. Yeah, it's really appropriate for this movie. It is. Yeah, we're gonna get to that in the second half because oddly, uh, some some recent interesting stories of fit right into our wheelhouse. UM, namely the Bloomberg article that came out last week about Alexa and other home I guess, wait, what's what's the general term smart smart home device? Smart home devices? Um? Apparently there's an Apple one I've never heard of, so I guess they're not doing a very good job with

that one called home Pod. But um, but there's also the Google home but Alexa. I feel like it is the one that everybody has in the Echo. Um do I have if you have an Alexa or Echo? No? But my phone like always thinks I'm talking to yes like serious series, always trying to just like wedge her

away into my conversations. I'm surprised she didn't just say something, but I like, I had dental work done last week, and for some reason, Siri kept thinking I was saying her name more than usual because I was like mumbling, so any time I would say anything that with an S sound, she would be like, I don't understand. See, I thought I had the serie thing turned because I can actually see some use for that if I am, you know, washing the dishes or cooking something, and I

just need like to to know what time. It never works. It never were what you want. Like, she never is actually helpful. She's never able to like find like the contact you wanted to find, or put on the podcast you wanted to put on. Whenever I'm like, tell me how long it's going to take to get to blank place, She's like, do you want me to make you a

reservation about what I asked wants to smart things. I don't like the smart I turned Siri off and I thought she was completely off, and then she was like hello, and I was like, no, you're off. But I got really creeped out about privacy. Not that I really have any secrets, but um I tried to like lock everything down a while ago. But a friend of mine just said that she that Alexa. She's a teacher and Alexa was like chiming in in her classroom with like some

racy content. Yeah, I mean, it's just Alexa. None of them have any tact terrible. So this article that came out, it was it was by a team of people at Bloomberg, Matt Day, Giles Turner, and Italia Drosdiac. The difference between like having Syria on the phone, it's like you're going to get a phone anyway, and it's like a piece of software that comes on the phone that you theoretically can disable. But Alexa is expressly for the purpose of having a robot that listens to you and takes your

data and uses it to quote get smarter. And so this was a report they did where they talked to a lot of people who worked at these centers somewhere within Amazon itself, and some of them are outsourced to other companies where in a way, I feel like we've seen a lot of stories similar to this in recent years.

There are people whose job it is to just listen to your recordings, like listen to the stuff that UM all these alexis pick up, because it's not just a robot that is artificial intelligencing its way to tell you about a restaurant that you might want, may or may not want to go to. A lot of times these are going to actual humans who then UM figure out what to do with that data or try to get better at recognizing what you're saying and why you're asking

certain questions and stuff like that. But like in the meantime, of course, they pick up all sorts of stuff that uh, you might not actually want anybody to hear, such as uh in one case in the report a sexual assault or probable sexual assault UM, and it talks about the people who work at these centers picking up on this stuff and sharing it with everybody, and I guess like a slack channel or something, but it's not like for means of reporting it it's like they just talk about like, yeah,

you're stressed out because you heard this, so you want to share it with people, or like you want to make fun of somebody singing in the shower that it picked up or something, which is like really creepy. I don't know, Like it would be one thing if it was like, oh, we heard this and we need to figure out what legally were you know, what we need to do around what we think we're hearing right now. But a lot of times it feels like it's just like l O l um or oh my god, isn't

this creepy? And and nothing being done, Not that I think nothing. You necessarily want the authorities to come in Russian help you or something because your robot heard you. But I don't know it was I'm sure the robot is not that great at like determining concerns. No, not at all. But like you know, the robot picks it up and then the humans hear it, and then you have a morality question where before there perhaps it was

a different morality question. Yeah, yeah, I don't know. I mean, I just think it's wild that anybody paid to put these in their how like you're like doing the work for like you're paying where wire it's just um. There were a couple of other articles this week too, which will now be a week old for listeners, but you can I'm sure there will be three more articles about

the exact same thing. Um. One of them was How Capitalism Betrayed Privacy by Tim Wou in The New York Times, which kind of talked about how privacy was initially thought of as being kind of like a rich person's you know, only rich people had access to it, and you know, poorer people lived in more of like a communal living with less expectation of privacy, and then gradually how the rise of the middle class afforded more people the right

to privacy, and now because the gatekeepers are all interested in our data and behavior, that it's kind of turning around where the expectation of privacy is no longer like,

you know, it's being kind of eroded. And then there was also a really scary article CNBC I think reported that organizations are starting to track and movement and Amazon and Walmart of both, yeah, they have like the patents on the kind of um, their censors that track both movement and are listening for like the rustling of bags and conversations between the cashiers and the customers and the

bat scanner. Yea, I hate Yes, it's horrible. Um, it's very interesting because these things are all so terrifying when you kind of come across them and they've been going on. I mean, if you start to look up about how long people have been saying like, oh, I think my phone is listening to me, despite the denials of these companies. We started talking about it a few years ago. It

had already been a discussion for years before that. But it's just bizarre how little there is to grab onto even now in terms of, you know, like a really trustworthy conversation about whether or not that's true. Um. Yeah, I mean I feel like everybody's opinion now about whether or not their phone is listening to them, especially Karina.

Where do you fall? Oh, definitely, my devices are absolutely you know, I know because of the ads I get stuff right, like it will be extremely bizarre of almost even like not saying things out loud, just feeling like did I say that out loud? Like I thought I just thought that, and then it's like, well, you know, you could buy a you know, steampunk laundry hamper. It's like you've done enough other actions that like algorithmically would lead you to the steampunk laundry hamper, Yeah, which I

did buy. What is that? Like? What is that? The aesthetic is more like it's like what would be in the Orphanage and return to Oz. It's like like a metal sort of wire thing with wheels and then like a big canvas bag inside and no gargoyles or no, Okay, I mean I could I guess I could attach me like umbrella, like like really like fire like umbrella. Yeah,

not a bad idea. Yeah, I I feel like I remember me into so much resistance about this, or people really acting as if I was a conspiracy theorist, like that was the only thing I really seriously, I think honestly believed something kind of in that realm that felt conspiracy ish and was not universally met with people being like, oh yeah, though, that's definitely happening. Like when I was working at a tech side, a lot of people were like, that's a common uh crack pot conspiracy and you are

dumb for thinking that. But now I mean I don't know, like I don't know where the consensus is on it now because I feel like more and more people are just like reporting these things. You see it like every single day. Um, why do you think people get defensive as if it's not a thing. It seems as obviously

a thing. It's obviously a thing, and yet people are like, no, no, no, you have to believe it's not a thing, which seems to me to be a very crazy stance because they see people who have bought in so much to like overall tech culture, where they've they have put enough of the chips on the thing of like I am going to get into the lifestyle where I do get all the things. I'm an early adopter and everything. I'm going to put all my dad on the cloud and it's

owned by Google or Apple or whoever. Um. And this is like not just a choice of convenience or something. This is kind of like a it's like a principle. It's like it's like it's like a lifestyle choice. It's like a set of beliefs. And so if you're if somebody questions the I don't know practicality or you know, how how wise it is to actually do all of this stuff, that it does start to feel personal. I

think for people. Yeah, I think. I mean, at one point it was all of that stuff was like viably utopian, and now it just seems like there's no way you could not see it as dystopian. R Yeah, it's like it's like like new codes or something, like you've created this thing that you know is now potentially much more could if if it were to follow in the wrong hands. If it's not all get the wrong it's already in

the wrong hands. Whose hands could be worse? There's no there's no right hands and any late capitalism there's This is like tangentially related because one of the things I also always would pick up on is that, um, I would talk about something like a place or a business, and then it would pop up on my Google Maps. Um. Yeah, it wouldn't be a place I had gone. It was just a place maybe I was talking about with somebody.

And now Google Maps, when you're doing directions on it, it will I don't think this is like the same phenomenon, but it's just like it just sucks. It'll say like take a right, not at the street that you're at now. Yeah. Yeah, it's so I hate it's so much. It's very strange. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, but are those placements that are being bought. I think I think they have to be right, because I mean, we I'm getting ones that are like really inconsistent with any place I go, like Armies.

I guess it's front of RV and I'm just like, I don't know. I've like totally blocked out Arby's in my field of vision, like I don't see them. And then it's like, where's the I don't know where the Arby's just told me where to take a right. It's very frustrating. Um Oney, hat you can't miss it. It's true, It's true. It was my grandmother's favorite restaurant, our love

an ary. Um. Yeah, servisive topic, honestly. Um There was a quote, and I think it was the New York Times um op ed and it said that once you I'm not going to read it, but I'll just summarize because it was kind of long. But once you realize that you're being watched or that you're being surveiled, you

can't continue to act authentically. You can't shake that feeling, and it it totally changes, like your behavior in general, So like what you've really lost once you acknowledge that you're being surveilled all the time is your soul and that's what slipper slippers, and that's what exactly before we get to Slipper, do you guys want to take a night Let's take a nightcall. Hey, nightcall. My name is Bree. I'm calling from Alisa via Hot, California and it is

sixty four A m Um. I heard you guys on this week's episode talking about to be Head Grins Big Cat Preserve and I've actually been there. Um. I was in junior college and I randomly took a it was a wild animal class something a wild animal handling something like that, and we actually took a field trip to the preserve and it was actually really cool. They had

a lot of interesting things there. One of them they talked about was a three legged cheetah, so they said could still run, you know, about thirty miles per hour even with three legs. Um. There was also they talked about how they had a a tiger, which is a tiger father Liger Mom and the the Liger Mob gave birth to a Thai Tai god, which is when it's a Thai god who has now for us with a tiger Dad. So that was pretty cool. It was a

definitely an interesting experience. But I'm all for, you know, people helping out these big casts that have either been abandoned by to which or by weird people who think that they should probably have a tiger in their house. You know, there's lost rage people out there. All right, night call, have great day. You know what's funny, just as a side note, is how often we get that we get are all of our calls through Google Voice

and it automatically transcribes it. And half the time when people say hi, night call, it transcribes is high Michael all the time, Like our podcast is now Michael, our pudonym is Michael as yes, absolutely as a trio um. I didn't realize that different species of wildcats could diversify like that. No, I did not know about a tig on. It sounds like Game of Thrones. It's good to know they're all horny for each other exactly. Maybe it's just

the sanctuary lifestyle. It's like, yeah, have either of you have been to the Tippy Hydron Preserve? I just I know one person who has, I think for a story U a profile of her, But it seems it seems pretty wild. I can't believe it's still there. And I've never seen roar either, which, like I guess I don't know, I'm saving it for the right moment or something. But I've always wanted to, Oh, we should cover that. Yeah,

I haven't either. I have mixed feelings about about I mean, I'm glad the sanctuaries exists, but it's just I find it increasingly difficult to like just look at animals in cages. Yeah, well they're not I know, but it's like they're just kind of I mean, it's it's probably enclosed in some way, but it's like it's just odd to me. It just doesn't like it doesn't really no thrill for me, like sadness, a little layer of sadness, and just like worrying about

the world. There is something interesting about the fact that Tippy Hedren like has her cat thing, and then Doris Day has gone into seclusion like with her animals. She doesn't have like a public place where you can visit them. She just like supposedly collects sort of stray animals. I didn't know the pythons in her house or something, or I don't know if they're exotic at all. It might just be like cats and dogs. But she, you know, she's kind of like disappeared from the public eye over

the past twenty years or so. She doesn't give any interviews or anything, but like the only sort of public stuff she does is animal rescue initiatives. And she supposedly like lives on a ranch somewhere like and it's just her and her animals. She's outlived like her whole when she ever knew. So um only barely related to this. I was looking at um yelled reviews for the Bunny Museum. Have you guys ever been to the museum? It's a

it's a museum. I think it used to be in like a little house and is now has now moved. But um, I went there once in high school, and it's like it's just basically a bunch of like bunny memorabilia and then a few bunnies in a very very close quarters and you don't know what it is, and you make a long drive to get there, and then it's like it's just a very intense experience that I would say probably ten percent of the people who go

there respond well to. Yeah, there's are like what if I die like the cafe for bunnies, because I've done that before. Now it is it is like you're not really encouraged to interact with the live bunnies. You're encouraged to like take in the stuffed bunnies and the bunny kind of like if I get a panic attack talking about it, I just had to like in myself. But you can just read the ALP reviews and get a

really really good sense of what it is. I was looking into it recently because I was like, funny, museum sounds familiar, but I'm sure it's not the same one I went to. Maybe I want to go, Oh no, it is the same one, and I'm not going to go to that. You know, it's a it's a mixed bag when you when you go into the place where there are a lot of animals, it is really really weird. Like there. I watched this some actually really great short film um that I was when I was in injury

and a festival in Italy. Force was this film about these like this group of old Italian men who are all like hunting for this mythical panther that's been seen by people like and occasionally will like eat a sheep or something, but apparently was owned, like I guess by somebody in the sixties or seventies or something when it was like I guess that was a trend again in Italy, like among the rich people to have, you know, these exotic pets that then they grew, would get big and

they couldn't take care of anymore. So I guess it's somewhat common for these like others and cheetahs and stuff to just be like hanging out, uh, you know, in Tuscany or whatever. It was a fascinating short. Um, I will see that. Yeah, I wonder if it's if it's available to screen anywhere or stream. I will put a link somewhere for it because it's great. Excellent, guys, we have to talk about Slipper. I'm really excited to talk about this movie. It made. It makes no sense, it

makes no sense. It's a proto cyber thriller. I love it. But it took me a really it was a long journey for me erotic Odessey exactly. Um, for those of you who don't know, because I really have to talk about the end. You have to talk about the ending. You have to talk about the ending that almost was, um, this is a movie based on an eye a love and novel, who did he did? Separate Wives? And Rosemary's Baby? Directed by Philip Nois, as we said, and of course

it's Joe Esterhouse. So let's let's go. First of all, Karina, this was a pick of yours. This is when we had wanted to do. But then we we asked you if you want to be on the show, and if you wanted to talk about an erotic thriller, and we were also kind of talking about what you felt like maybe the original erotic thriller was, or the history at

least of the of the genre. But then we were like, oh, we just want to watch Sliver because but what And I know you said that this was a particular favorite of yours, So what when did you first see it and why did you respond to it? Do you think? So? I saw this movie in the theater when I was in seventh grade. I don't know how that was possible. I don't remember there being any trouble buying a ticket to it. I know I went with a girlfriend of mine,

like after school on a Friday afternoon at Universal CityWalk. Um, and I just remember like really loving it. At age twelve and a half off UM, and part of it

was like it had a big hit soundtrack. It had that UB forty I think there's like a couple of other sort of hit songs, and so it just felt like so hip, an adult and sexy, and I like, I mean, I was sort of a fledgling goth and I was wearing a lot of black chokers and Sharon Stone wears a choker, and like three scenes of this movie well also kind of pioneering at leisure in these incredible like leggings and like Kashmir coat looks straight from the gym like to the bedroom. Look. Yeah, But then

I saw it a lot after that. Um, I think it was on TV a lot. And then there was a period around two thousand three where I was I'd been living in San Francisco and I was going to move to New York, but I was still hanging around after I had to give up my apartment, and so I was staying with a friend of mine who had like a big, like Victorian apartment in sort of on the border of Chinatown in San Francisco, and she was on disability for being depressed, and so she didn't have

to go to a job. She just was able to live in this Victorian apartment and paint all day. And she liked to paint with movies on in the background, and her favorite thing to put on was Vertigo, but sometimes she'd alternate it with Sliver and she would just watch the two of those movies, like over and over again. And I remember sitting there for like three days reading the book that that guy Steve Hoddell wrote about how his dad killed the black Dahlia while this woman was

watching Sliver over and over again. Yeah, it's not not depressing. So that was August two three for me. Wow, Um, it's funny because I was talking about like real estate horror and I feel like there should be more of it. And then yes, it's like, well, this feels like maybe one of five movies I can think of off the top of my and I would consider real estate horror. Parina read the book, and I think the book is way more about the physical place the apartment, and kind

of like less about whatever these socials like. I mean, I haven't read the book since, like because I love the movie so much as a twelve and a half year old. And then like I was like I need more and so I read the book then, so I don't remember it that well, but I do remember that there was more of this element of kind of like corporate satire, you know, and there I mean, I guess we should talk about what the plot of the movie is, but there are conversations in the movie where at first

they're like who even owns this building? Could it be?

And then it turns out it's just Billy Baldwin. Yeah, Billy Baldwin an interesting choice just like yeah, I mean, he makes much more sense as the guy with the manga posters and like three different screensavers like going on and like some weird um fiber optic sculpture in his apartment than like the sexy like the sexy boyer, Like I don't one half of those works more for me than the and as and as great as Sharon Stone's wardrobe was in this movie, like his was just a

really old, really strange choice of the graphic T shirt with rold sleep into the gene like he lives like he looks like a guy in Brooklyn. Now though that's the crazy thing. It's like it's come, it's come full circle. I know it's true. Well a lot about this movie is like more timely than like it was in ninety three. But yeah, we should talk briefly about the plot, which

let's let's untangle it. Um. So we have Carly Sharon Stone and she is I forget she's executive or something like that hot, but she's working on a James Dean biography that she has to like edit really fast, and I wish she had edited it and published it because there are no good James. It's true. It sounded I mean, it sounded like she was you know that she was she had a good repertoire, and that that was slumming

it a little bit, so it would have been great. Um. Then she is moving into an apartment which is known as one thirteen UM. The Wikipedia for this film says that it's the building is located at one East thirty eight Street, but the actual building used in the movie UM was Morgan Court, which is a couple of blocks

away on Madison. Um. It is a the sliver building because it looks like a little slice and apparently those were like you couldn't build those for a while, I guess before or after like this big boom of them. But now I feel like they're they're they've come back, baby, um and like bigger and more obtrusive form um. But I like that it was like considered. I guess it was like a very like Okoran architectural style to like frame a horror movie or like a suspense movie around

or something. But yeah, it's you know, it's this very desirable exclusive building. And she applies and she gets in, and you know, very shortly after she moves in, she realizes that the previous tenant was murdered, Yes, Naomi Singer. And she meets some of the people who live in the building, and one of them happens to be this author, this like crime author played by Tom Berenger, who I guess her company is like trying to get her to work with but she's just super creepy and yeah um.

And then also Billy Paldwin, who is uh not creepy, No, he's so so creepy too. The video game designer. He's a computer video game designer. I'll have you, yes, yes, okay fair and his like signature flirtation move is to like hack into people's desktop computers and be like hello, I love you. Send them clip art of a flower flower the Rose clip right is incredible. So nobody in

this movie has a sense of humor. And also, um, I have to shout out Sharon Stone's office mate, her coworker, who is like so off the rails and I'm constantly talking about vibrators and a really unrealistic there's a realistic way to do it, but it's not not being not happening in this movie, played by the great Colleen Camp. Yes, Colleen Camp. Yeah, a bunch of like great talent in this movie. Like it's, you know, just like weird weird cat.

I was like, where's Michael Douglas for this way? But Alec Baldwin would have been better casting because I feel like Alec Baldwin's the only Baldwin who is like legitimately scary and yessing um, Whereas Billy Baldwin, It's like it would just be so easy to be like, you know what, I'm just not going to hang out with you anymore, like just I'm not worried about repercussions of that. He can't really get his hooks in. I feel like a

ruper Everett. I would like in that role better, Like I would want like a really gorgeous possibly British person who's like, yeah, British would have been better, who feels like a pasty indoor kid, but it's also beautiful, Like I don't know. Also, there's just something really confusing about the character's seduction of like approaching her with a very aggressive listen, do you work out, and like, come on,

you're gonna and she was like what treadmills? He was like, no, we're gonna lift weights, and then like drags her down to the gym where she just like watches him lift weights. That when I realized that they were going to go to the gym, I was like, yes, Jim scene in three Baby, No Mirrors, No Mirrors. I was going to do this piece about Equinox at one point. So I was doing all this research, and there's a piece about like when Equinox is having its boom in the early nineties.

It's like just a wonderful slice of New York in So I was I was into that. Oh, she also gets a telescope or yeah, a telescope, one of those spyglass type things in her window. Somebody gives it. I mean it's later an admirer. Yeah, it's later revealed that it was Billy Baldwin. But she just thinks the secret admyer dropped it off, and so she's like also staring, like spying on her neighbors a little bit. She has a cocktail party and they watched the neighbors have sex,

and it's like, oh, she's into the voyeur thing. But in the meantime, another person dies in the building, the the n y U film professor guy. Oh right, yeah he dies. Yeah, the film professor dies. The cokey fashion designer dies. Vida played by Polly Walker, who's really good in things and it's kind of good in this but also like a very strange character. I thought, um, just

sort of the like very high strung artist. I feel like there's a lot in this movie where I mean I think that at one point it had an n C seventeen rating and then they cut it. But the big thing they cut was naked Billy Baldwin. But it also just feels like they cut out a lot of sort of narrative contest, Like it is apparent that the Vidic character is a prostitute really only if you like

really listen to one of her phone conversation. And then like there's all this stuff where it's sort of hinted that Sharon Stone has just left a marriage that was abusive in some seven years. Seven years and she is she pregnant, okay, thank you. There's a part pretty early on in the movie where she it's before she gets um. She takes the bath, the bath, good bath, a really great bath. She starts like stroking her stomach and like looking depressed in the mirror, and I was like, oh,

she's pregnant. And she's also been looking at the party across the way, and she's like very obviously not partying, and so I was like, yeah, she's like not drinking, but then she's drinking later at her own cocktail party. So I don't know, I saw that more as like she's already said she's thirty five, she's been in this marriage for seven years, she didn't have a baby, and she's just like, you know, regretting that she's not pregnant,

as we all got by holding. I don't know. I mean, there's you know, there's a lot of stuff in this movie that's clumsy, and I don't know if it's because of like the necessity to edit it for censorship or for as we'll get to like test screening reasons. But then there's a lot of stuff that I think feel like I appreciate the subtlety and I don't know if it's intentional or not. But first of all, like the first hour of this movie is incredibly slow. It's almost

like a European movie. And you're just kind of watching this like, you know, not middle age but like slightly older than on genue age woman like kind of living her life and like exploring like what kind of person she's going to be. Like there's like creepy men everywhere, but she's like kind of willing to hear them out in a way that's interesting and exposes who they are

more than it exposes who she is. And there's just like some interesting stuff with where it really does feel like it's it's kind of like a post European update on Hitchcock. And then there's also you know, like wacky sexy. I mean, I really like her character in this. It

isn't just one thing. It's like she is just a gal who is like works a lot, and it's sort of interested in dating, but not in like the super like all consuming like it's her whole reason for being that she needs to find a man, Like she's not going to go to a Pavarotti concerts. Really long scene about yeah again that's the officer where on the erotic thriller Bingo Um. But yeah, Like it seems like she

likes her job. It seems like she's pretty successful. She like wants to be dating, but she's not really It's not like she's going to just jump into bed with whoever until she meets Billy Baldwin. Like their relationship is sort of interesting in that in that kind of nine and a half week's way where it's like something you're kind of through the relationship, you're watching somebody figure out

like what they're into. But I think, like obviously it's it leans a little it's a little less up for interpretation, uh in in this film than in nine and a half weeks. But I mean, the thing that we haven't said is that Billy Baldwin like he owns the building.

And the reason why that's important is because he has cameras in every single room and he has like a control room, which he brags cost six million dollars for him to build in Osaka, and he's just able to watch every apartment in every room and every apartment at

any time. And so after he started having sex with Sharon Stone, he like reveals this to her and at first she's fascinated by it, and she sits there for like apparently twenty four hours at a time just watching the video, like it's like all all consuming and I feel like that just felt me, like, oh, this is when somebody like discovers the Internet for the first time. Yes, it is totally like it completely changes your perspective on

you know, or I I don't know. It's like it's it's addictive because it's new, and it's it's a new way of getting information and information that you never had access to before, and so it's just like you have no way to stop yourself. You don't have any Also, her reaction to seeing this is so impassive, which is really surprising because you would think that she would be. I mean, she it's revealed that like he has tapes of you know, the two of them having sex and

he plays it for her. He also later we find out, has taped himself having sex with a bunch of other people. He has those um tapes underneath his shoes in a little trapdoor thing, and like some of the stories, like we get like a little kind of like plot diversion into a uh, you know, incest kind of thing that's

going on. It's like, you know, she just her reactions are really subtle to the fact that these like while she's watching all of these different tapes, you would expect her to be more upset at Zeke or want to do something more, which is much like we watched you know, like taking a news on the internet or just like watching rolling through people's lives. It's like this hypnotic thing.

I just don't really react. Yeah, like they really I mean, they really oversell it, think, but like doing this thing where she is just instantly she does have a first reaction of being horrified and disgusted by this and try and it's about to walk out and then turns around. It's like she stares at the screen five seconds too long and then it's like, oh, yeah, I must watch more, which is very I mean, yeah, it feels it feels understandable.

And I wonder like the reception of this film, I mean the negative reception and right now it's gotten eleven percent on Rotten Tomatoes or something like that. But is that I mean about the far fetchedness of it or something, because I feel like that is less of a problem now than maybe it was. Yeah, I don't I don't really remember what the reception was like, like amongst me and like my middle school, Like the reception was very high, like maybe maybe thirteen year old or the idea for

this movie. But um, also I think it was just like it was post Basic Instinct, and I think people were expecting kind of a higher level of sophistication in terms of storytelling. Yeah, Basic Instinct was a year before I think maybe two years before. Um. I read like a couple of old reviews of it, um, and I my main problem. So the crazy thing about this movie is that the ending was changed. An original ending was shot,

it didn't test well. Um. There was also a horrible accident that was um, you know, involved in the shooting of the first siding. So the original ending and kind of and this is the big spoiler, is that Zeke has been killing the people. There are you know, three or four people who have died in one thirteen and he has killed them. And he confesses this to Carlie while they're in a helicopter in Hawaii over a volcano. And then he flies the helicopter into the volcano. Yes, yes,

you don't know. You don't know whether or not they survived. So basically this was This was scrapped for two reasons, I guess, number one being that the actual helicopter crashed during the film and so and the pilot's license was revoked. I don't know if anyone was hurt or killed, Like, it just seems like a mess, and they destroyed the footage. So and I guess audience has also had a problem with the fact that they were like, oh, Carly like

forgives the killer. That makes her so, you know, unlikable. I just you know, now I hate everyone in the movie. So they're like, okay, like, let's figure out something else. Now we'll make Tom Berenger the murderer, which makes sense and to some extent because he's just creepy, like he's

never anything but creepy. But here's my issue, and I pressed Greena on this earlier, but if Zeke Billy Baldwin has been watching these tapes of people and he claims at one point he's like, I never saw anyone die. One the Naomi singer was pushed off her balcony you know, it's like maybe they frame it as like a suicide, but it seems obvious that everyone's suspicious. The man is it two people all in the shower, one person falls in the shower. Well, the old man, yeah, he falls

in the shower. But I get the feeling that that was just like he just had a heart attack or something. But the police are suspicious, like they're questioning everyone because he keep dying in that building, but it could be at coincidence. But then the the Cookey Models prostitute. Well, it's just interesting to me that Zeke could be the kind of character who's like, people keep dying mysteriously and I have footage of like the entire building. Isn't that weird?

But if there were some way because like, no, I'm not going to pursue because he never he doesn't even his interest isn't even piqued. And the other reason that that's weird is that he had been having an affair with Naomi Singer, who had also been sleeping with Tom Berenger's character, So there was like this weird love triangle, and you would think that Zeke would have a suspicion that Tom Berenger had killed her, right, because he probably has some insight into her psyche, And yet he never

brings up like is Tom Beranger super creepy weirdo? That's never a scene, it's just doesn't he talk to Sharon Stone about that though, he's like, I don't like that guy. I think he says I don't like that, but a lot about about I think it was after tom Beranger was like he's so sick. Yeah, yeah, but so my. The only thing I can say in defense of this is that I don't think that Billy Baldwin's character would

want anyone to know about his video room. So he would never want to produce these tapes because like his whole life is about like watching the people in this building, right, And so if he had to admit how he had this footage, like he would probably go to jail, like he'd lose the building. But couldn't he be sneaky and be like, oh, I see what happened, and now I'm going to like figure out how to build a case against Tom Beranger. I don't know. I think I don't know.

We could write a remake. The whole idea of it is that like that the access to all this stuff that he's bringing recording makes him like completely a more role or like yeah, yeah, like he he doesn't think

about things in that an't way anymore. It all becomes entertainment to him, or he has this sort of alternate morality like he's the whole thing about like the he's watching this father Molista's daughter, and he like figures out a way to like confront the father and then he tells Sharon Stone like like we'll use we'll use our voyeurism for good, right, yeah, right, which is like I don't know, I mean, he's just represents like all of tech culture. Now, Yeah, we don't need to bring okay

law and worsome or anything. We'll just have a very questionable moderation system in place that may or may not work depending on the whims of the people who are in control of it. Uh right. And I find this like that aspect of the movie to be absolutely fascilating. And the way that it ties like sort of his perpendicular and like hits up with this stuff of like a woman trying to find herself sexually. I think really good. It's a story of falling in love with with big

Daddy data. Yeah, I mean that. Yeah. The ending, the alternate ending thing is is like, I don't know, it doesn't really work for me. I was I was totally expecting it to be a switchery where it's like the guy, do you think it's creepy? All along? Wasn't that creepy? I was expecting to. I mean, I was like, they wouldn't set up Tom Berenger's character as being this unlikable and then have him be the person who was doing this, like he has to be a Red Harry. I should

know that. What actually happens in the movie that was released is that Sharon Stone like Quasi, accidentally kills Tom Berenger, and then in the video room, she like basically is like, hey, Billy Baldwin, like I haven't eden could you go get take out? And then he leaves her alone and she goes into his closet and finds his tapes that like showed that Tom Berenger was the real killer. But then she takes a gun and shoots all the TV monitors and she's really Baldwin six million dollars set up what

is her last life? Because it's one of those things where cattle, she says, and then hard carpet. Yes, it's amazing, I laughed out loud. I how that that's one of the best going back, because I was like, is that really what she said? It's astounding that it plays out that way. It's just funny because that is the most nineties thing about it. I think like that's the one

thing that does that feels old. Is that, like that kind of like get a life about anybody who's like like into video games or into like the Internet or anything like that, Like computers are from nerds a little did we know? Um? I mean, like I kind of want to watch it again because I feel like I feel like it's got such an odd balance, and I think a lot of it is probably because of that

changed ending. Like I mean, I wrote down the thing about the volcano because he does mention to her that he has always wanted to fly into a volcano when she's at his apartment that Zeke does he has this like creepy glass phalic a volcano on his coffee. It's like, without knowing that that's the that was the original ending, it just sounds like a really really strange double entendre,

like I'd love to. Uh, And yeah, there's all the like do you have Like I wrote down all of his messages like do you do you have any body parts that hurt? I miss you? I can still smell you, like, and then the and then the clip art of the

Rose clip art of the Rose God. Yeah. No, it's the stuff with the surveillance comes so late in it that I think, like, if I was to remix this movie, that would come at least halfway through, like where she would get involved in it and become the person who's watching stuff, because then that feels like what the movie is actually about in a way. It feels like it takes a really long time to get there, and then once you get there, like, oh okay, I see what

this has all been about. But um, yeah, but I thought it wasn't I liked it. Yeah, I was into it. It was it definitely belonged in the disgust of the erotic thriller. Before we wrap up, I wanted to ask Garna like how she felt the kind of erotic thriller boom like has its place in this history, because I

didn't realize how many erotic thrillers just exploded after fatal attraction. Um. But again repping that erotic thriller Wikipedia, that something did the Lord's work on, I was like, nice, over three hundred and maybe closer to five hundred um erotic thrillers produced in the nineties, which is like, it just seems we have a lot of work to do you guys, to see all of you, and there's all there's there's

levels of highbrow and lowbrow. Uh yeah, but why do you think, like what besides the kind of like VHS direct to video kind of you know, making that a good movie to watch at home. Um, that's definitely part of it. I mean, I think that if you talk about this sort of the historical trajectory on that Wikipedia pH it says that the first erotic thriller was Double Indemnity, which I think is incorrect, Like I certainly couldn't think

of movies that would qualify that came earlier. And also I feel like the problem with calling Double Indemnity an Eurotic thriller is that, like it begins with Fred McMurray being like, I know, like everything's over and I'm fucked now, but let me explain to you what happened, and so you know, like it's a bad idea for him to

hook up with Barbara Standwick. And I feel like part of the thing about erotic thrillers is that you have to like suspend disbelief and you have there has to be like a portion of the movie where you're like, this is hot, like maybe this will work out so nine and a half, but is like wildly sexy too, Like I was very I saw it somewhat recently, and I was like, it's very like like not at all veiled in its sexuality, and like, you know, all these

ladies thrones themselves at Fred McMurray. It's right, right, right, But I mean, I think that the reason why they're obviously like weren't as many erotic thrillers until you know, let's say the late sixties into the seventies, is because of the censorship. You know, there was coded literally coded ways in which you could have sexuality in films, and especially the way that you'd have to have somebody be punished if they were having like pre marital or extra

maritals too. They always get punished, and you don't have a success, can't play right, right, right, So and that stuff starts to breakdown in the sixties, and then you also have this wave of filmmakers like Brian to Palmer.

There the first generation of like film school or cinephile American filmmakers who have grown up watching Hitchcock, grown up watching films like you know, these proto erotic thrillers like film noirs, the Postman Always Rings twice, things like this, and then Bob Rayfulson like remakes the Postman Always Rings twice, like you know, even something like Chinatown is like int is like a kind of sexier update of these previous

genre films. And then moving into the eighties and nineties, um, you have the explosion of the home video market, the ex ocean of cable TV, and the possibility of being able to get around the rating system by releasing directors cuts and unrated versions of films, and so you have an incentive to like have a movie that like can be released theatrically as an R and then have a separate version to get people to pay for it twice. Yeah, it works perfect genre for that stage exactly. So is

this your favorite one in the in the cannon? Would you say? Or do you have any other other favor I mean this is kind of a sentimental favorite, I would say. And another one that I also remember seeing in the movie theater at too young an age and went to by myself was in Decent Proposal. I really like Adrian Adrian Lines movies. I wish he'd make another one. A few years ago he announced that he was making a movie with Nicole Kidman and I, Oh, my god, I hope that happens. Put it out. We'll put it

out into the on the airway. We're officially like, this is an Adrian in this house. We respect like that is our big time. That between Fatal Attraction and and a half weeks, it's like we're all in. Yeah, yeah, I love nine and a half weeks. I love Unfaithful. Um, you feel so good. I feel like we might have to talk about that if this erotic Odyssey deep into

the future. And another one I just wanted to mention a movie that I didn't really like it first but has really grown on me over time is in the cut. That's when I hear in the cut really like grows on people. They can't really let it go and then

come fond of it. I wrote like a big thing in graduate school about it and Meg Ryan and like her kind of using the erotic thriller as a way of changing her persona and kind of like comparing that movie to when Harry met Sally, where like that persona was like I like fake orgasms, like I don't have I don't have genuine sexual pleasure. And then in the cut is like, you know, she's just like naked with Mark Ruffalo in a very exciting way. Um. Yeah, no,

this has been great. I'm really I'm really glad to hear by. I talked to us about this and yes, thank you so much. It was really fun. You are the original original podcast girl in Hoodie, a Jason person. So we and also we have to shout out Kreena. I don't know if we mentioned that she was at the first Night Call Night event um where we summoned Satan at history of that night. Yes, so we're forever indebted to Karina. Thank you so much for coming by.

And where can we Where can people follow you online? I'm on Twitter at Karina Longworth and you can find my podcast you must remember this um on iTunes or wherever you get podcasts. There's a hundred forty five episodes and hopefully someday there will be more. It's like not quite plenty to get, it's like enough to keep you busy for a long time, and it's really really great. It's always a good listen. Um, well, thank you everybody.

We're listening to Night Call this week. Be sure to subscribe to us on iTunes and give us a rain and a review. You can also follow us on Twitter at Night Call Podu, Instagram at Night Called Podcast, and Facebook at Night Called Podcast. We will be back in two weeks. We were taking a week off and we'll have Molly back the whole game. We'll be back together, so we will see you then, hie bye bye Okay,