The Parent Trap - Isolation Cabins, Wolves & a Speedo King

You know you go to you go to like a doctor's office or a dentist's office, and that they'll have you sometimes I'll have you fill out a questionnaire.

Yeah, no, not sometimes, fall every.

Time every time I say the same one.

That I have to keep filling this way, and then sorry, I know you wanted to talk about this thing, but I'm.

Gonna I've triggered you.

I apologize me because I will fill out the thing ahead of time online.

To save time, forty.

Eight hours in advance, and they still have me fill out the goddamn like paper for when I get there. Do you think I have my insurance information memorized? Oh all right, sorry to answer your question.

Yes, yes, a lot of people just felt seen by that. But I went to the dentist for my annual checkup. And I've been going to the dentist by the way for a decade, like a long time, and there's a new questionnaire suddenly, and I have to fill out this questionnaire and I'm like, this is weird. My insurance information hasn't changed. Everything is fine. And then one of the questions is what do you look for in a dental visit?

Oh, and I'm like.

Speed and numbness Like that is what I look for a dental visit, Like I want to be in and out and feel nothing.

That's hilarious. What are you looking for? And how do they pay?

Dental encounter and a dental encounter would be even better.

It would be amazing dental visit or dental.

Experience, particularly because the dentist set my office I got I kind of got shifted to a new guy and.

And he's cute.

Oh well, there you go.

Like I'm telling you, I'm looking at during my dental visit.

That's a good doctor to be cute. You don't want your proctologists to be cute. You want your dentist to be cute.

Yeah, especially because let me tell you something, my mouth is clean. He is impressed every time he goes looks in there.

Yeah, she is sparkling.

I have a whole fucking routine. There are there are implements.

Paul, I bet your asshole is beautiful.

Also sparkling.

Also sparkling. Hey, I'm Paul America.

And this is that aged Well.

Yesterday's pop culture.

Today and it's a new month, so it's a new theme Erica and the theme.

Is ooh is it hot in here, Paul. That made it sound sexier than I've mended to And this is not This is not sexy hot, this is hold on, let me do that again. Yeah, oh boy, these dog days of summer sure are hot.

I'm in my tank top and and I got my towel here again because it's sweaty. We are doing summer vacation. We're just vacation movies for all of August. And the reason we are doing this Erica is twofold. One we thought it would be fun, which is the most important reason. But two, we are going on vacation in September, and we want to tell everyone that right now. So come September, there will be no new episodes of that age well on the main feed or the Patreon it's going to

We're we charging, We're going on Vaca.

We're going on Vaca. We're gathering stories, We're gonna be thinking about you. If I have some time, maybe I'll make some bonus content for the patrons. But just so you know, oh he will, you know he will you guys.

You know I won't, well, Paul does that. I'll be out eating and shopping.

But we want it.

We're going to tell you this every week this month, so you know it's coming up. You could always download some back episodes.

We listen.

We will be back with you in October four fright month, Halloween month, everyone but Paul's favorite month.

All right, Erica.

So before we get to our first summer vacation movie, we do have a five star Apple podcast review.

Would you like to read? Or shall I read?

Oh? Can I read this one?

Please? You sound excited?

Well, because the title has me excited.

Okay, okay.

Today's review comes from Joe Anne Rose and the title is you had Me at Psycho. Oh that's gonna be the first line of my marriage moouse.

You had me at Psycho and the and the diarrhea attack, in the bathroom attack.

I do, all right? Title is you had Me at Psycho. I stumbled across this podcast a few months ago, and I'm so glad I did. All other podcasts are dead to me, as dead dead, I say, as I worked through the extensive back catalog. I love that I can equally enjoy coverage of movies I've both seen and never seen. Okay, Erica and Paul pulled me in with Psycho, and I've been openly cackling ever since. Oh, Joe and Rose, a person after.

My own heart, absolutely openly cackling. It might should be maybe like the next tagline for our show that aged well.

Openly cackling, cackling like a freak.

I like that.

Joanne notes that you can you can enjoy coverage of movies you've both seen and have not seen. That's right, that's part of that. It's part of the magic potion of this podcast. They'll tell you what happened in the movie. Don't worry about it.

Don't worry about if you've never seen The Last Unicorn.

Yeah, we got you.

Yeah.

I mean, we may not be able to tell you exactly what happened in the movie because it is an LSD trip, but we'll.

Do our best.

Ghost is humanly possible.

Joe Anne Rose, thank you so much for this review. We loved it.

If you would like at Dindel Tope Bag, all you have to do is go ahead and email us or contact us on social media and let us know where to send it and I'll send it off for you, Erica, What is this the first? The first film of Vacation Month two thousand and four.

Today's film is the nineteen ninety eight comedy The Parent Trap.

All Right.

The Parent Trap was requested by Fay Sidney, Mara, Sawthena, Justine, jan Kessler, Jenny and still more of those peoples whose names are simply not in their social media profiles. I'm on the verge of doing a deep dive on these people. I'm just going to I'm going to get really personal looking.

Around, maybe find out someone really random or like like like like Carl Rove our show, and you're like, huh, Karl.

Rove is an incredible pull for that.

That's a weird one.

Yeah, that's a weird fit.

But you know what, people like what they like.

People have layers. Actually, I don't think Karl Rove has layers. I think he is just shit all the way down.

We are for everyone, even war criminals.

That's right.

We are for everybody, all right. So The Parent Trap was written by Nancy Meyers, David Swift, and Charles Schier, based on the nineteen sixty one film of the same name, which was in turn based upon the novel Lisa and Latti by Eric Kostner.

The fact that this is based on a German novel, a German novel, makes this all makes sense. Oh my god, that novel was written in nineteen forty nine.

Oh no, post war.

Germy Okay, okay, okay, I'm getting.

Making more sense, making more sense.

The pieces are coming together now I understand where this comes from.

The film was directed by Nancy Myers and stars Lindsay Lohan, Dennis Quaid, Natasha Richardson, Lisa and Walter, Simon Kunz and Elaine Hendrix.

The parent Trap is Lindsay Lohan's feature film debut, as well as Nancy myers Is directorial debut.

Wow wow.

I will say that I think, upon viewing it going forward, I would have had more confidence in Lindsay Lohan's career longevity than maybe Nancy Myers.

No shade.

I love Nancy meyers movies, but I don't know that the direction of this really really covers all the holes up.

Oh.

I have one major complaint about the direction of the film, and that is only that the back half is too long.

Like see, I think the front half is too long.

This movie shouldn't be two hours long.

No, it should be ninety minutes, maybe eighty.

It is a two hour in like five minute.

Movie, and it's way too long.

Like, I know, look spoilers, I know these parents are getting back together. Call the parent trap.

We know they're twins. They're played by the same actress. It's not a reveal, you know what.

We can speed some of this ship up. The fact the amount of time these two spend not acknowledging the fact that they are identical, unhinged. The adults around them, not a single adult around them. I'm looking at you Jannis from Friends.

I'm looking at you Polly Holiday like kiss migrets.

To like look at these girls and be like, we have to call your parents. Something is something.

Is happening, Something truly odd is going on here.

I look, I don't want to I don't want to say your parents are at fault here. Maybe there was a there was a sperm bank issue. We need to but somehow we have to figure this ship out.

Yeah.

Are these the worst parents in recorded cinematic history?

Oh? Good question, Paul, No, I'm sure, No, there are worse ones. I'm sure Roll Dahl has worse ones.

Sure, sure, All right, Erica, this next point has nothing to do with anything. But during research for this, I found out that Dennis Quaid at least at one point had a podcast called The Denissance. And if I have to know that, you and everyone else listening have to know it too.

Dennisance, please tell me it was him talking about the Renaissance.

I did zero research on it. It was so upsetting to me that I even know it. I'm sure it's about him and his career, Like I'm googling it.

I'm googling it. You think I'm not going to google that pole and so you tell me that information, Dennisance.

Oh, it's it's just Dennis a a nce. It's there's none of the fancy AI stuff that's in the actual world Renaissance.

Okay, well I've misspelled it terribly. And you know what's coming up for me is the Dennis System from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Oh here it is introducing the Dennissance with Dennis Quaid and Jared Gustat. Okay, it is actually about his interests. He is a jet pilot, a low handicapped golfer, an armchair historian. He has powered a NASCAR around him.

Is an armchair historian that sounds like someone who doesn't fucking believe actual historians.

I don't care for that at all. Also, now they know he's a jet pilot.

We do know how Dennis quad will eventually die, So I guess that's something we can cross off our Yeah, are wondering list.

The middleweight boxer. It keeps going and can change a diaper in twenty seconds according.

To this guess what, guess what? No, you can't, No, you can't. I have changed many diapers. It is not possible to clean a child and change a diaper in twenty seconds. That's bullshit and I don't believe it.

But he has one with Anthony Fauci.

Oh my god, I'm looking it is.

Oh oh he has one with the MyPillow guy.

Oh see.

Yeah, remember when Dennis Quaid was kind of like cool and we thought he was the same Quaid And as he's gotten older, he's he's starting to pickle his brain.

A little bit.

Oh No, I don't know anything about him except that I will admit to finding him very attractive.

Well, of course he's Dennis fucking Quaid. Is he our hottest Dennis?

Good question? Again I'm thinking of It's always funny in Philadelphia and that Dennis. But that's a fictional Dennis is hotter. I think Glenn Howardton is perhaps hotter than the current day Dennis Quaid, the Dennis Quaid who was in the film The Big Easy, which is a huge part of my burgeoning sexuality. That Dennis Quaid has a place in my heart and in my libido forever. He has one with Gary Busey, Paul, he hated Gary Bucy.

Wait, I have another hot Dennis. Dennis Haysburg.

Oh, Dennis Haysberg is hot.

That's good. That's a hot Dennisnis.

We have gone way off track.

Hey, stay here for the hot Dennis.

Watch talk about a dennisance.

I can't believe he has a podcast, genuinely, Paul, there's only like twelve episodes. He just fucking lost interest in me. The Parent has an eighty seven percent critical rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a seventy percent audience score. It has a seventy six percent rating on cherry Picks.

I'm basically fine with that. Look. Look.

Unlike last week's movie, which was a movie with children that was really four tweens and adults, this is a kid's movie. It is one hundred percent pitched at like I would say eight to eleven year old girls, which is fine. That's not a criticism at all. I'm just saying that, like for a kids movie. Yeah, I think eighty seven percent is fine. Lindsay Lohan is as good as I think any literal twelve year old actor could

Yes, movie like this is this is the best I've ever seen Lindsay Lohan.

Yeah, there are moments of just like the child acting kind of thing of like like hitting the stressed words too hard.

That's that's my only criticism.

But she's better in this than she is in Mean Girls and This than she is in anything I've ever seen her.

In Herbie the love Bug Slander here on this podcast.

This is the Canyons. By the way, I did watch.

That movie I Know Who Killed Me where she also plays identical twins spoiler for I Know Who Killed Me?

That's right, she does. She's an identical twin setish Yeah, I know, Honestly, I'm not kidding. This is I saw her in this and I was like, holy shit, you're great in like, this is the best I've ever seen her be.

You can see why she why she popped, why she became big.

She's incredible.

Some of the audience feels low unless you're showing this to people for whom the movie is simply not four.

I was thinking the same thing, like, look, I really enjoyed this movie, Paul. I cried like twice.

Uh huh.

Yeah, I may have cried like.

Three times watching this, Like this movie got to me.

I did see Inside Out two this week, and I actually can't remember anything but crying during Inside Out Too.

Yeah, I haven't seen Inside Out Too. You and I saw Inside Out one together and we were we were a disaster. Yeah.

If you want to hear more about my thoughts on Inside Out Too, subscribe to the Patreon. But I had a couple tears during this, a couple a couple teary eyed moments, nothing compared to the full sobbing session.

Agreed, Inside Out Too.

Agreed, no ugly crying during this, but like, yeah, no, I definitely every single time these girls were reunited with their parents for the first time. So I was just like, I know, this is all shades of wrong, but I really love it.

Yeah, it's so sweet, all right?

Erica? When did you first see The Parent Trap?

Last night? Around ten pm? Which is why I come complaining so much about it being too long because I did not get to bed till late, because I was, like, Jesus fucking christis, movie's over two hours?

God damn it.

I should have started earlier. How about you, Paul, when did you first see The Parent Trap?

I had never seen this one. I did see the nineteen sixty one one growing up.

You saw the Hailey Mills one.

I saw the Haley Mills one.

I remember. I genuinely don't remember anything outside of a general like like enjoyment of the film. Yeah, but I saw this one this week.

I should say I've never seen the Haley Mills one. This is my very first parent trap situation.

Yeah, you were a parent trap, Virgin, I was.

It was a parent trap. Virgin and Lindsay Lohan double team me.

She sure did, she sure did, She got it done.

Nancy Myers has this gift for making unbelievably cheesy things.

Yeah, like sincere and also wealth porn.

And wealth poor. The wealth porn in this movie is excellent.

It's insane, excellent Erica. The tagline the tagline for the Parent Trap was twice the fun, double the trouble.

It sounds like a gum commercial.

I was gonna say, it feels like double mint may have a may have a case here.

Maybe remember those double man conversionals. I think it's fine.

It's fine. Shall I read the iTunes synopsis?

Sure?

In this update of a nineteen.

Sixty one film, twins Annie and Halle, both played by Lindsay Lohan, are strangers until happenstance unites them.

Just that right there? Like wait, what?

Until happenstance unites them?

The preteen girls, divorced parents Nick played by Dennis Quaid and Elizabeth Natasha Richardson, are living on opposite sides of the Atlantic, each with one child. After meeting at Camp American Halle and British raised Annie engineer and identity swap, giving both the chance to spend time with the parent they've missed. If the scheme works, it might just make the family whole again. We make the family whole for the first time. Let's be clear about.

That, Paul, Do you have an actual synopsis for the Barent Trap?

The actual synopsis is where is the settlement? I want to I want to know who the judge was. I want to know what cases were cited in the past to allow this to happen.

And I want that.

So I can bring a case. I can sue the whatever state allowed this, California, I supposed to be. This can never happen to another set of children.

It might have been British law. For all we know, they could have been. We don't know if they were on their way to New York or on their way to London when they met.

Well, we know that she left, which implies they were in the States.

Ah, they were in the States. A good call.

Yeah call.

Oh, then it's our fault. Then we did this.

Yeah.

And it also implies that in the movie, it's clear that she left on a whim. So was she pregnant when that happened. The whole timeline makes no sense.

You know, she definitely gave birth in the States, because Chessie knows that there's two kids.

Well, everybody knows there's two kids, apparently except the kids.

I don't know. I don't do you think the British butler knows. I don't think the British butler knows.

He is not confused when he finds out he is overcome.

Look, my speedo king rolls with the punches.

He is a speedo king. You're straight speedo king by.

The right, great speedo king rolls with the punches. My glorious leather clad butler is like, oh, there's two of you. Fine, I'm cool with it. I'm like, let's go. Let's do this.

All right, everyone stick around. We are gonna come right back after a couple messages. For all non patrons. If you don't want any ads, all you gotta do is go sign up for our Patreon at three, five or ten dollars level and you will get ad free episodes. For the rest of you, We love you too. Just sit here and listen to these ads. By the way, I got an ad last week served to me on our own podcast for the number one imported Italian charcuterie board, and I was like, yes.

Yes, that is it.

The algorithm has you figured.

Me out, So stick around.

We're gonna come right back and take you through the parent trap, and we're back. The Parent Trap opens over scenes of a wedding on the Queen Elizabeth two Nat King Coles l is for the Way You Look Me. He plays and we see two people getting married. Did you notice so this is canonically nineteen eighty six. None of these outfits look like they're from nineteen eighty six. The main woman that's dancing on the floor looks like she's wearing Baby's costume from the end of Dirty Dancing.

It is peach and flowy.

It is very like nineteen forties. Yeah, again, because I haven't seen the original, maybe they're like doing something reminiscent of the first film if it's a callback. The funny thing about this whole sequence to me is you can't see their faces, which means at one point they get like just enough of the face where I'm like, I'm ninety percent sure that it really is Dennis Quaid. Yeah,

She was in rehearsals for Cabaret.

Oh is that it? No?

No, No, I'm just making it up.

I would have been really funny. I was like, wait a minute, why, Like why aren't they showing their faces. My theory, and I'm pretty sure I'm right, is that is only occasionally Dennis Quaid. I'm definitely never in a Tasha Rigitson in any of those ship sequences.

All right, So we see the bride in the groom signing the marriage license, Vito culturalist Nick James, and artist Elizabeth Parker?

Which of those is more embarrassing? You know? Like sometimes like for example, when you're at the goddamn doctor's office and they're like, what is your job? And I'm like, why do you care? You're fixing my teeth?

Does it matter?

Unless I'm Joey Chestnut, you shouldn't give a shit with my job?

Is? I think I think Vito culturalist is more embarrassing because from what I can tell, they misspelled it in the movie and it should be Viti culturist. Culturalist that oh should be an eye. I really tried to do a deep dive on this. I don't know why it bothered me so much.

Just like Winemaker or something. Vintner I actually Vintner, I actually think artist is more embarrassing, just to be like, ah, I'm an artist, Like no, honey, no, you're.

Not has anything ever been more true that these two come from like long old family money than the fact that they're getting married at this wedding and they are a vital culturalist and an artist.

They're the worst people.

They're the worst people.

Natasha Richardson does so much work to make this person lovable. Yeah, and it works. Love I love her in this She's so lovely in this film. But if you really just look at the facts, this woman is a fucking monster.

And the problem with Nick is that everything he sucks.

He's somewhat charming, but he's deeply, deeply, clinically moronically stupid. He maybe the stupidest character we've ever encountered.

He just follows his dick around and that's like all he does. Look again, charming because he's played by Dennis Quaid, who I find very charming. Despite I feel like we're gonna stop recording this and Paul's gonna be like googled this quad.

I really don't think there's anything that bad. It's just like he's he's getting that famous crazy going.

Well, yeah, he's still the less crazy of the Quaids.

So fair, he's still way out ahead.

Way Yeah, Randy, Randy's got this one in a lot. Randy's got the gold medal five years running.

So eventually we see a photo of Nick played by Dennis Quaid and Elizabeth played by Natasha Richardson, and they clink champagne flutes and smile at each other. It's the photo from their wedding.

By the way, according to this film, I don't know if you get into this later in the recap, they met on that cruise ship on day one. They were sat next to each other at dinner, and they decided to get married. I haven't really looked this up, but I'm ninety percent sure because I think I did look this up years ago because I thought it would be fun to travel on the Q two. I think it only takes five days to get from New York to London or seven days.

Yeah, Well, here's the real kicker, Erica, And this is what I looked up. So the next thing that's gonna happen is we're going to smash cut to eleven years and nine months later in let's say early July, because all the kids are arriving at camp after school. We will later find out that the twins that they have are eleven years and nine months old. Because it's July, and they say that they are turning twelve in October,

Paul, those girls six months early. Yeah, they came six months early. That's why her hair is red. Okay, that's why this this ashy brunette and this blonde gave birth to two ginger queens.

I just have to say, like I thought that the first second I saw it, I was like eleven years nine months.

So they're eleven. They're eleven years old, and she's like, no, I'm turning twelve and three months. It's like, no, you're not. That's impossible.

Maybe that's why they don't show her face because they can't show her front either. They're like, she's heavily pregnant. Yeah, no, these two bastards me. I. By the way, while you were talking, I did look it up cue too. Voyage takes seven days. In seven days, these two met, got married, got pregnant, and then in like nine months, decided to break it off.

Yeah okay, So as I was saying, we smashed got to eleven years nine months later, buses are arriving at Camp Walden in Maine. The camp directors Marva Kulp Senior and Marva Culp Junior, played by Polly Holliday and Maggie Wheeler. Some of the best mother daughter casting I've ever seen. Yes, those two look alike.

Also, the name Marva tickled me every time someone said it.

I think this name is a reference to the sixty one movie. Oh probably, I'm not one hundred percent short, I think so.

I'm going to go right out on a limb and say Marva is the original name of someone in that nineteen nine novel.

So the Marva's culp are trying to manage the chaos. As we meet eleven year old Hallie Parker played by Lindsay Lawn. She's trying to retrieve her bag from this ever growing pile of duffolds that keep getting thrown onto this big like this big pile that keeps building up. She quickly manages to make a couple of friends and tells him that she lives in Napa on a vineyard, and they all head off to their cabin as Hallie asks her new friends if anyone knows how to play poker?

Is Halle coated is queer. The two girls approach her and she becomes fast friends with them, like right away, and one of them is a girl, like a very very cute girl and tied die and she goes, now, that's my kind of woman, literally says that, and I get it. They're twelve, so she probably means something or eleven. She probably means something to the fact of like, oh,

Yep, that's me.

I will die on that hill. Halle is gay, work or queer in some way.

I I'm totally with you.

So Halle has barely cleared the scene when a limo pulls up and discharges eleven year old very posh Annie James, played also by Lindsay Lohan with a sometimes wonderful, sometimes middling English act, and it comes and ghosts.

I can't believe they made her do this. This is so mean.

It's not bad though she's good.

No, she's not bad, but like it's it's like I was like, maybe they wanted to like make a really easy way to delineate between the two characters, but like then they switch almost immediately, so it doesn't it doesn't even work. And I'm like, just have Natasha Richardson have moved to New York to be a fashion designer. There are plenty of British people who live in New York. And then Lindsay Lohan can just speak in her normal

But Paul, she fucking nails it. She does sometimes the accent drops, but literally the greatest actors we have working their accent drops. Yeah, I've been rewatching Game of Thrones and like I love Peter Dingklich. Peter Dingklish is an amazing actor. Cannot do a British accent like he can sometimes for like fifteen street minutes will have a perfect British accent, and then it's clear that the scene was cut and they broke for lunch.

And he came back and he lost it.

He needs to wind back up into it because he just totally doesn't have an English accent. For the rest of the team. So Annie is very posh.

The first one is butch, the second one is lipstick.

His lipstick.

Yeah, but not just.

She's dressed like a grandmother. She's wearing like a Chanelle suit. She's wearing like sensible heels.

I'm like, and you're going to camp wearing.

Sensible heels and a pearl necklace. She's been brought to camp by her butler, Martin, played by Simon Kuntz. My favorite character in this movie.

My favorite character is Chessie, but Martin is my second.

They're so great. Both of them are fantastic. Both of fantastic. Martin and Annie are obviously extraordinarily close. I love this actor so much in this performance, so much because everything he does in this scene should creep the shit out of me. Yes, they have their own secret handshake. He drops her off at camp. He says, I'm gonna miss you so much. He gives you a kiss on the forehead. He actually has this line that's very sweet. It was like a parent, but a little creepy because he's like

Oh, I agree, he really he takes all that.

Because I wrote that line down, I was like, that is just a weird line to write, but he manages to make it okay.

It's so sweet. I love this actor so much. He's so good.

Yeah.

So, because her mom can't fucking be bothered, she's dropped off by her butler, I'm gonna build a case here that Natasha Richardson is the worst of the two. I know Dennis quite is terrible, but I think Natasha Richardson is actually perhaps the worst parent of all time, Ladies and gentlemen of the jury. She couldn't fucking be bothered to drop her kid off.

To be fair, it seems like he put Hallie on a plane and then had she had to get her own bus to go more than three thousand miles away, and he was like, see ya.

That's true.

He didn't even send their butler akhss to drop her off.

He was just like, you're good, right, Hallie.

That's because Halle is wiley. That's because Halle is smart. She has to be because she has a clinically stupid father. Yeah, so she has to be the smart one. She's like, no, no, no, don't try to drive me. You'll just get us lost. We'll end up in Canada.

Yeah.

I'll find my way to Maine on my own, thank you, sir. She hitchhiked there, Paul, She didn't take a plane.

If Halle hooked up with Billy from Big, the two of them would take over the world.

Oh my god. She and Billy from Big stole a car. They hitchhiked a little bit of the way, and they were like, you know what this is dodgy, let's just steal a car. And then they stole a car and just drove across the country on their own.

We can only hope they hook up with Benjamin Franklin Rodriguez so he can like keep their criminal tendencies to a minimum.

So he gives her the butler gives her Annie the British One a new deck of cards, says, hey, maybe you'll find someone at Camp Walden who can actually whip your tush at poker. So these girls have a preternatural gift for poker.

That's not the only preternatural gift they have, Erica the other one.

Makes sense, though, this one makes note like like you know what, keep going? I can't. I can't.

So seemingly days pass with no one in camp ever noticing that there are carbon copy children lying around, So eventually we find Halle that's the American one, the one who had checked across America with Billy from Big dominating a fencing class run by Marva Culp Junior. That's Janis

I'll I'll take a whack at it.

At defeating the champ, they both get their face masks on. They swash buckle their way all over the campgrounds until finally Annie that's the British one, manages to knock Halle over a porch railing into a trough of water. She immediately apologizes and holds out her hand say oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to do that to her opponent, and Hallie yanks her into the water.

Yeah.

In the aftermath of the fight, they take off their masks and fine. Since they are standing directly next to each other, everyone notices that they are identical. However, they both, particularly Halle the American one, quickly take offense at the suggestion that they look anything alike. What is it, Erica, It's loathing, unadultrated loathing.

I don't get that reference, Paul, what is that?

That is a Wicked reference?

Okay?

We are mere months away from Wicked Part one being released into theaters.

Oh I saw that musical one time, one thousand years ago. Do do I have to listen to it again?

Do I have to get Tom back on here to talk about Wicked with me?

Yes? Frankly, yes.

Okay, So the two girls stock off. Halle is intent on revenge after losing the fencing match. It seems like maybe she's been the fencing champion of Camp Walden for three or four years.

This is quite the upset.

Whoever they have in those little like whoever they have pretending to be the girls fencing each other, they're good Erica.

That is, Lindsay Lohana, I don't know what.

It's definitely not two fencing experts who also can somehow pass for like four foot ten in height. Yeah, so far, Paul, I'm all in on this stupid movie. Sure, even this scene where like the Adult where Maggie Wheeler's character is looking right at them and is like, wow, you too, sure do look alike? And I'm like, you mean identical? They're identical except one of them is British and one of them is American, and one of them has shorter.

Hair like down to the freckles on their face. Identical.

Identical. So we cut to Annie's cabin later that night, British one, and she's running an off the grade poker game, because of course.

She is just fleecing all of her new friends for all their work.

I buy them both as good at fencing. I don't buy that that little miss grows up in Mayfair it knows about poker. I'm sorry, No, No, where does she learn did her mother send her off to Monaco for by herself, like on vacation.

I think the implication is that her grandfather she has a grandfather in England who I essentially cut of the recap because he does nothing plot important. I buy that her grandfather taught her. What I don't buy is that any child can play poker. I have played poker so many times with my nephews and none of them can keep it together. Yeah, you can read them like a book.

Also, this makes it seem like they're both like, like genius is a poker instead of just insanely.

Lucky, right poker? Like there is skill involved in poker, but you can't you can't guarantee something.

Yeah, which is what it is, which is what is about to happen. Right, Okay, So British one is rending an off the grid poker game. Just as she fully bankrupts them all, Hallie enters with her own set of friends, her posse, including her girl friend Tydeye Girl. She's swinging a sock full of quarters and I'm like, that is she gonna hurt someone?

It's a little black Jackie, right, but.

You know what I'm into it. I really like Kelly.

It's a little bit nylon full of lemons and I'm going to beat you with.

She challenges Annie to a game. The stakes escalate until it is agreed that the loser will have to dive naked into the lake. Annie is so confident She's like, yes, let's do that, and she shows her cards. She has a straight flush. Suck it, loser, get naked. What if they got naked and then they were both like, we look identical naked too.

You have the same birthmart Ah, we both.

Have ginger bushes. Of course. Though, when it's time for Halle to show her cards, she has a royal flush.

Okay, so I looked this up. I don't know if this is accurate, but this is the best information I could find. The odds of a straight flush are seventy two thousand to one. The odds of a royal flush are six hundred and fifty thousand to one.

Yeah.

The odds of these two having the hands at the same time forty six point eight billion to one.

Oh, that's how good they are.

The odds of winning the lottery are fourteen million to one.

I mean, if Halle and Annie don't go out and buy lottery tickets that night, they're frankly losing money.

They're frankly idiots.

Yeah. So, Annie, true to her word, heads out and jumps into the lake, which only gives Hallie and her friends a chance to steal her clothes, which is real dick move.

It's a real dick move. But also they went into Annie's cabin. You would presume that her cabin mates would be about and able to stop this theft of clothing.

Right, were her cabin mats like, we don't want to see you naked. That's a good violation. We're gonna stay in here.

Or is it just Erica what you've always said? No honor amongst tween girls. Are they starting to get that savagery?

Eleven is still too young, eleven is still too innocent. It comes about a year and a half later. We just wake up one day and you were like, I'm going to burn down the world. How do I do that?

Where is the kerosene and a match?

How do I make everyone in the world as miserable as I feel in this moment. I can't do it with Mike. That's how boys do it, and I've seen them fail too many times. I have to do it with my cunning and I will you know what that person, see that random adult over there, I'm going to destroy them.

To you, I have found the weakest la.

See that poor man just trying to sell newspapers. I'm going to burn him so hard that he is going to rethink his whole life.

Inside every tween Girl are two wolves, and both wolves are hungry and psychotic.

Yeah, Inside every tween Girl are two wolves, and they're being written by a miniature rapt and a miniature Adolf Hitler.

All right.

So Annie responds by putting all of Halle's cabin's furniture on the roof, which I can't even get into the logistics of how this could possibly happen.

But I don't understand. I don't understand.

Was there a police system where there are adult men drafted?

Did she? Did she hire people? What happened?

Did she? She is rich canonically right, and like cell phones did exist back then, so maybe she called she called mover, she called men with van.

Yeah, man of the van, that's what we want to do. Okay, So Halle goes nuclear. Oh, by the way, the Annie c where she sees she's the camera. I just have to point this out really quickly. This is one of

That's all I'm yeah, this makes no sense.

Like I'm willing to go with a lot of the stuff that happens in this movie, like a lot of the crazy, stupid things. This is the one thing where I was like, no, no, these are children, these are small children. And they lifted, they horked a bed up on the roof of a.

Cabin and balanced it or did they nail it in?

They biled it in because the roof is raked, yes, said, the thing is not a flat roof, it's raked. They must have nailed it in somehow. Okay, you know what, Halle not Hallie. Annie definitely called someone to have.

Them do it, all right, So Halle goes nuclear. In response to this, she enlists her cabin to booby trap Annie's cabin to within an inch of its life. There is shaving cream, honey, water balloons, a basketball, vegetable oil, chocolate sauce.

Yeah, it's like a Rube Goldberg machine, but for destruction.

It actually mostly goes off without a hitch. Unfortunately, before the final trap can be sprung, the Marva's Culp arrive for a sneak inspection, and despite Halle's best efforts to not let them walk into the cabin, Annie figures out that she's trying to stop them, and she's like, oh no, come on in, and the Marva's Culp get caught. In the final stage. They wind up covered in chocolate sauce and feathers, and they are not amused, and they decide that both Annie and Halle must head to the quote

I need to know because I did not go to camp when I was a kid. If you are a listener and you went.

To camp, how do you know I didn't go to camp.

That's a good question. How did you go to camp?

Of course not you knew I didn't.

Of course, not theater camp maybe, but not camp camp. I went to theater camp actually, but it was not sleep away. They dropped me off in the morning and pick me up in the evening. Yeah, I've never been to camp. If you have, let us know. Is this a thing, because it's not just in this movie. It shows up at Adam's family values too. Oh, this seems illegal at best, illegal at worst extremely negligent and dangerous.

Yes, agreed.

Also, are there only two adults in this entire camp full of children?

You do see a couple other counselors when people arrive, but only the culps speak speak.

There's also a little boy played by Lindsay Lohan's brother, Yeah, accidentally gets dropped off of the girls camp, and like it's a runner throughout the movie that he is just there the whole time because his parents don't come to pick him up, which is very Dina Lohan frankly.

Very But okay, so since you brought that up here, what he says is I thought this was a boys camp, which begs the question of did he book himself into it, because the way he makes it sound, it's like he was in charge of all of them.

Maybe these parents aren't the worst parents. Yeah, if we pulled these campers and we're like, so these two twins parents split them up at birth. Yeah, like didn't let them know about each other. How about you, guys, what do you got?

And this kid is like, my parents told me I was going to a boys camp. They brought me here under completely false pretenses and have changed their number.

I cannot get a hold of them.

Ah, my parents just dropped me off in Maine. And figure it out and find your way to camp.

Any child of ours would know how to survive in the wilderness anyway, You'll be fine.

You'd be fine. So Halle and Annie take up residence in this one cabin by themselves, seemingly for the remainder of camp.

There, yeah, which is like another seven weeks or something.

Left to their own devices. At first, they made like they maintain an icy distance, but a storm blows in one day and they have to like batten down the hatches, like close the windows and stuff. And Annie helps Halle close a window that's stuck to prevent her pictures from blowing through the room. There's a funny moment here where

No, no, no, no, Why would that they're not?

Why Paul this is? Is this film about body dys morphia? Is this a movie about two teenage girls with such deep, deeply entrenched body dysmorphia that they don't know what they look like and they can't recognize themselves and other I wonder about.

That sometimes much than we think.

If I saw my identical twin walking down the street, would I be like, I don't recognize her because that's not what I see when I look in the mirror.

Oh you know what I mean?

Like that that sounds like a real a real pitch for a next David Cronenberg film, Like that is.

In the original German novel I'm convinced. I'm convinced. So the two girls start to bond, and Hallie says that she only has a father. By the way, the parents told them enough to let them know that there is a parent out there. There. You have a mom out there. She just doesn't care to be involved in your life. I really wish one of them had been like, they're dead.

Really really make this stick.

The knife in just makes us so much worse. So and Annie's like, that's funny. You only have a father. I only have a mother. And then they realize they have the same birthday. They're both going to be twelve on October eleventh, with which Paul points out is actually impossible. But we're gonna move on.

We're gonna it's also National coming out Day, which might be significant for.

Hall He Hallie, Hallie girl, you are seen.

Yeah.

They also each only have a photo of their missing parent that's been ripped down the middle. They put the pictures together to form the photo we saw at the beginning of the film of Nick and Elizabeth's wedding, and low and behold, these two Jabbroni's finally figure it out. They're sisters. Not just sisters, they're twins.

The upsetting part is that they are the most intelligent people depicted in the movie.

Oh Bye by William I'm telling you, this is a film about body just morphing. These two don't know what they look like in real life.

Yeah.

Annie thinks she's blonde. Hallie thinks she's a brunette.

Annie has like an idea. Halle is all kinds of messed up about what she looks like. She has no concepts. As much as I'm making fun of this, though, Paul, and this is where I was like, tuck, Lindsay Lohan is so goddamn good. I cried at the scene. Really, they're so good, she I say, they like it's two fucking girls. She's so good. She's so good at playing both these parts that when they when they're like we're sisters, like, oh god, I'm choking up.

I'm choking up.

The British one is like, we're not just sisters, we're twins, and they hug and I'm like, oh god, oh god.

I'm good.

Oh my god.

That's so funny because I think I feel like I'm usually the easier target and that this did not make me tier up.

This was not a Tierra moment for me.

You are hopeless, my friend. This is so.

Sweet, all right, So the two fill each other in on the parent they haven't met. Elizabeth is now an in demand wedding dress designer, while Nick runs a successful vineyard, perhaps the most successful vineyard ever in the history of time based on the amount of money he seems to have.

But sure.

Neither have ever gotten remarried. And then the twins have an idea. They should just swap places at the end of summer and give themselves a chance to spend time with the dead beat, I mean parent that they haven't met.

I think dead beat's too good for these too. These two have a case. If these two wants to emancipate themselves and just live by themselves in a fucking penthouse in New York, they have a case.

They have a case.

Our parents decided that not only were we going to live apart, we were going to be lied to about the very existence of our idea, twin for a decade plus of our lives.

They need to get Macaulay Culkin's lawyer. They need to emancipate Chessie and Martin can live with them and take care of them.

That sounds perfect.

We just cut out these two assholes. These two fucking monsters ripped us apart as children for apparently no reason because the movie. I get it, it's a kid's movie. They don't want to get deep into it. Ye. Yeah, there's no fight, there's no thing of like I had to go back to London for my job and I had to stay in California for mine, literally anything, And you're a degenerate gambler and that's why your kid knows

I'm out, all right.

So if they do this swap, the twins say eventually they'll have to switch back, which will let their parents meet again, because they already have this idea that their parents are actually each other's one true love. Right they split up at a They made a mistake splitting up, so Annie and Hallie devote the rest of the summer to giving each other crash courses in their home lives.

Oh yeah, definitely, way worse.

Way worse, because she's the only person on staff.

She has to do at the job of a butler, a housekeeper, everything now nanny, she says, everything.

She has to be the mom. How's that?

How's that? Well? But then again, Martin does have to be the daddy and the mom because Natasha Richardson is checked out.

Natasha Richardson is the is the fun aunt, she's the fante, She's the money.

That's all she is. Later in the film, I'm sorry, I'm just gonna cut ahead, when when the kid who goes back to London let's just call let's just say Hallie because that's who it is, shows up at the house. She's like, hello, Hello, is anyone hear And I'm like, you were gone for eight weeks, your mom didn't meet you at the airport. Your mom didn't meet you at the door.

Your butler did.

Also. The butler pieced out, okay, I'm sorry, I'm cutting ahead, I'm cutting ahead. They get to this girl's house in London. The girl goes up the walk and enters through the front door. The two servants that came with her do not I in my head. They went around the back and went in through the servant.

Entrance as they should have.

As they should no servant will go through the front door in this house. And then the girl wanders through the house. Do you know how long I was waiting for the reveal that she walked into the wrong house by accident because the house is hers perfect? How long I was waiting for that to happen. And then she sees the grandfather first, and then minutes later the mom deigns to come down stair and it's like, hey, girl, I missed you.

I was on a phone call. I care far more about my career than you.

Just see. You know, she's the worst.

Okay, all right, back to this moment in the movie, though, we'll get there. So we're almost there. So Hallie and Annie are giving each other crash courses on how to be how to disguise themselves. Right, This culminates in an unwanted haircut and ear piercing for poor Annie. You could think you could, you could have given won the ear piercing and won the haircut, but they both land on the British one.

Well, no, because the American can't grow her hair.

She is the short Well right, I just mean to say, like, if she has the shorter hair, then make her be the one who has to get her ears pierced.

She already has her ears pierced.

Right, Wait, I'm missing out.

I'm just saying, why does Annie have to go through two tortures if she has to cut her hair? Just write in the script that Hallie is the one who doesn't have You're fixing.

The movie from the other side, gotcha? Hey, you're right? Do they have to pierce your ears? All? You think Dennis Quaid is going to be like, hey, what happened to your pierce?

Yeah, pierced ears.

You know what, though Chessie might now now that I know where this movie is, Chessie, the heartbeat would be like your ears closed up? What the happens?

Yeah, chess But Chessie is like that anyway. Chessie knows almost immediately she gets away with it for hours.

Chessie A Chessie is canonically the best parent in this film. Martin comes a very close second.

Yeah, and then after that it's the dog Sam.

Yeah, well, you know what, I'm gonna give it to Meredith. Give it to Meredith after this because okay, yeah, she's substant at least.

She's disciplinary, and at least she's honest.

These could use some fucking discipline. Okay, So the end of camp arrives, the twins go through with their plan. Holle heads off first to London and that dystopian scene that I described earlier, where like Martin lovingly meets her at the airport, she successfully completes the secret handshake, the like eleven step secret handshake that she Yeah, Annie and Martin have so but Martin does not get suspicious about anything.

And also she is fighting through one of the worst haircuts I've ever seen on anybody.

It's a nineteen ninety eight haircut, my friend.

It is the same haircut that that doctor therape Melissa Reeves played by Jamie Gertz hasn't twist her. Only it looks way better on Jamie Gertz. This is awful on Natasha richard Sidy.

He is late nineties Meg Ryan, who was by the way, at the time married to Dennis Quay's haircut, Like, yeah, it is. It is that pixie cut, but.

Like outgrown Hillary Clinton.

And didn't look good at anyone. Google Gwyneth Paltrow with this haircut. Ooh, no mistake, that was a mistake. The only person I said this before, and I maintained this that makes his haircut work when on a writer. She's the only person that was it. So Elizabeth, being being a terrible parent, is completely taken in by the rus immediately doesn't recognize that this isn't her kid.

Gotta say one bit of comedy gold that was absolutely left on the field here was making Hallie as Annie try British food beans on toast and blood sausage should absolutely have been.

Served and vice versa, and like make Annie do some like super California woo woo stuff. She's like, wait, what are these crystals for? Are you fucking kidding me? So Elizabeth, because she's the worst, gets a phone call from her job. It's a photo shoot gone wrong, and she's like, would you mind terribly going to work with me to her daughter who she hasn't seen in two months, and the daughter is like yes, because it's Hallie and she's coolest shit.

Yeah.

They live in a mansion in London. The mom's a famous fashion designer. They're friends with models, They're friends with like it's very fucking cool. If I had to pick, I'd pick this one of the two lives.

I think I would actually pick California.

That makes sense with the two of us, Paul, Yeah, it makes sense.

But I get bored in Napa.

You're right, No, No, maybe it would be London, but it would be it would be hard.

Did the beauty of the California Probably?

Yeah, it's so beautiful.

Napa's pretty.

Napa has stuff, though, I'm sure, like.

You're close to say, in Francisco doesn't have the West End though you're close.

To the culture. Yeah, they have the West End like they have London. They have London.

Yeah.

So anyway, and so she starts to bring up her father and Elizabeth tells Halle the story. She's I'm shocked. I was expecting her to be more like, No, I don't want to talk about that, but she's like, well we met on the Qui two blah blah blah. This is when we find out they met on the first day of a seven day cruise and got married by the end of it.

Yep.

We cut to Napa Airport where Nick is waiting to greet Halle, who is of course really.

In Nick, being canonically the better parent, actually fucking picks his kid up at the airport.

Annie is not as smooth as her sister. She can barely keep it together as she's talking to Nick. She's saying Britishism is like, oh, it was horrid, you know, and he's like horrid? Does he need a finishing school?

You look different, you seem different.

Yeah, where do you think the name Chessie came from? What's your real name?

Duchess Chesterton, Chesterton.

Chester Chester. Her real name is Chester.

Her name is Chester.

Yeah, her name is Chesty. But she's like, you know what, if I'm going to be a professional nanny, I should probably take the tea out.

Yeah.

One thing I did notice about this scene is that Annie is informed that she will be participating in the unpacking, whereas in Britain, Martin just unpacks for Hallie. Yeah, don't have servants do shit for children. It will make them assholes.

I don't care. I want it. I want that life.

You can have it now. Now you're not an asshole.

You have to fully form into a non asshole before the stuff like this could happen. Their family dog, Sammy, who's this beautiful golden lab or golden retriever, is not fooled at all.

He barks it.

He barks it Annie right away, not aggressively, just like hey, stupid, that's not Hallie, right, that kind of thing.

Yeah.

Nick tells Annie that he has someone he wants her to meet when she's done unpacking, And we see her father talking to this woman outside, and Annie and Chessie go upstairs to unpack, and she pumps Chessie for information and Chessie dishes with almost no.

You know what, I'm starting to go back to Martin being the better parent because everything Chessie does here is shady as fuck.

It's shady as fuck. But you know what, she I believe she did that to protect Nick. She was like, I don't have the power or standing in this family to derail this relationship.

So I'm gonna put it on an eleven year old.

I'm gonna play my trump card.

I don't know. I don't like that. I don't like this. She sticks with the onus of this on that kid, all right.

So Chessie tells Annie, who she thinks is Hallie, that the woman is Meredith Blake. She's a publicist from Sam Prance Cisco who Nick hired to help with the vineyard, and basically all but says that she's a gold digger.

She when she says the word publicist, she makes it sound like she's saying sex worker. Yeah, She's like she's a publicist if you know what I mean. I'm like, you made a publicist.

I think you mean a publicist.

We're running a multimillion dollar business here, we're selling goods and services to the public. We should probably have a publicist. So Annie heads downstairs and we meet Meredith, played by the great.

Elaine Hendrix, another famous lesbian from another movie, Lisa Lutner from Roman Michell's High School Union. That's right, that's all lesbian extraordinaire.

This is who went Okay, you know how I said. Hallie has body dysmorphia. When she looks in the mirror, she thinks she looks like Elaine Hendrix, but not this version. She thinks she looks like Lisa Lutner from Rome and Michell's High School Reunion in the in the fucking power suit with the hot lesbian haircut. That's who she thinks she is. Yeah, Meredith is very smarmy, Like really, Elaine Hendricks plays bitch so well. It's like she's the subtle

She's studied up with Hallie, she did her homework.

Yeah, of course. Nick comes out and he's like, I got a bottle from my special Vintage for everyone, and Annie like winks at Meredith, like block sister.

So Annie manages to get Halle on the phone. She reports on Meredith, but Halle doesn't believe her about the seriousness of the situation, and she tells Annie just sabotage the relationship and refuses to bring Elizabeth to California immediately. She's like, no, I've had one day with Mom. I'm staying here, Like, deal with this situation, okay, Erica, I have an alternate I have an alternate film to.

Pitch for you.

Oh okay, what if Hallie just like single white females. Annie, so like she's like, I'm doubling down. When when she tries to switch back, I was gonna be like, well, I don't know who this person is. I'm Annie, I belong in London, and she tries to steal her life.

She steals her life.

I'm telling you.

It has like remember the good Son.

Remember that there was like a there was a series of like evil children movies in the nineties.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that would.

Fit so beautifully in that genre of like a little girl who's Oh paul I love this idea.

Yeah, this is a great idea.

That is a pitch, that is a Yes, it is a parent trap, but it goes horribly wrong.

Yes, yes, Nick ends up married to Meredith. Meredith really does ship that girl off to like some boding school somewhere.

And it's the proper nice British one, whereas the American one is like, it's just like living her best life in London.

Yes, she's like, you mean my mom, not our mom.

And she just hangs up the phone.

Yeah, oh I love it, paul I love it, except probably she would have to kill Martin because Martin, you figure it out that because these movies have to get dark, right, So Martin figures it out somehow.

But that's a great third act twist.

Yeah, Martin figures it out, and Hallie has to kill Martin to keep her secret from coming out. But she's not Annie. Oh she throws him down the stairs.

Yeah, or she poisons him.

She poisons his crumpets. Oh my god, Paul like this movie.

She pushes him off of big bed, she gets him on the eye and then just yes, defenestrates him off of the eye of the eye.

She tosses him in the Thames. She locks him in the dungeon part of the Tower of London and throws away the key.

She starts just a slow psychological torture of him, where she keeps taking his shoes and she makes them half a size smaller every three days.

Oh yes, but it's with his speedo.

We are gonna get to the Martin speedo moment, and we're gonna celebrate Martin full throatedly.

Oh my god, this you know what, Let's stop talking about this stupid hoofy and write our own guys, we gotta go.

We're busy, all right.

Back in California, Jesse continues to notice changes in quote unquote Halle.

She calls out her lack of appetite.

She calls out her phoning someone at like midnight the night before Annie manages to put her off again. She goes on a horseback ride with Nick. She's quizzing him about her mother, and she's basically like, oh, you know, I'm gonna be thirteen soon.

I need a mom.

And he's like, I was wondering, what do you think of Meredith as a person, and Annie very rightfully points out that the woman is a stranger and then takes off on a horse before Nick can say anything crazy, like I'm engaged to Meredith.

That is how rich these bitches are. Both these girls, doesn't matter where they're from. Both of them are expert horse riders.

Yeah, no problem.

That would have been another great twist to throw in. One of them's afraid of horses and you're like, I can't get on a horse, But no, they're both expert horse riders. That's not even a question.

Expert poker players, world class horseback riders, and Olympic medalists in EPI.

By the way, did I did you think the fencing was going to come back, because I sure as shit did, and I was really disappointed when it did.

I thought the fencing was coming back. I thought the poker was coming back. I thought the turning down the charity without telling him was coming back. I thought the horseback riding was coming back. None of this comes back.

None of this comes back. So back of the house, Annie is starting to panic. Poor Annie, he really has been put in a tricky situation.

After getting her hair chopped off and her ears pierced by an eleven year old, she's really had the rougher go of it.

That ear piercing scene is insane, by the way.

We did not really like, we didn't dwell.

We didn't dwell. That is like body horror. So she's like walking around panicking. She's talking to herself, right, and she thinks she's by herself, so she drops the accent. She starts to speak in her British accent. She's like, what am I gonna do? How do I fix this? Not realizing that Chessie is sitting in an armchair not far away like and she can't see her. Chessie turns around, she turns out of the armchair and she's like, what's going on. She doesn't come clean right away. She's like,

I know, Bigan. I'm like, what, yeah, what everyone knows? Everyone knows.

And this was the moment where I teared up because Lisa Ann Walter just fucking owns this moment.

Every single time someone meets one of the twins in the movie, I fucking lose my shit. And this is again, Yeah, this was another one for me where she's like, oh my god, you're Annie and they hug. Oh it's so sweet. Nick peers Chessie like being the fucking best being, like an a class lady, does not give Annie up. She just hugs her again and she's like, I'm gonna make you something special. I'm gonna cook everything in the kitchen

Saying an idiot.

He is, by the film's own admission, the better of the two parents, the more active of the two parents. He and Hallie spend every day together. They do everything together. They're best friends. We know why Elizabeth doesn't recognize when she comes home, because she's like, oh you, it's you again. Were you always a girl?

A fully different person could have walked Keky Palmer could have walked through, and Elizabeth wouldn't have noticed a difference.

She would have been like, well, welcome back. That's something me to come home from camp. I really expect you to stay there anyway, gotta go. Nick is supposed to be the good parent, and he still does not realize it's not his kid. Yeah, and he asks Annie, what do you think about making a Meredith a part of this family? Annie, knowing full well she's doing here, pretends to be thrilled. She's like, oh, my god, dad, that would be incredible. I've always wanted a big sister.

That was fucking funny.

That was Matthew Avellian, will your dad an old sick fuck? Absolutely way to call him a cradle robbing creak, pervert, pervert to his face without actually calling him this. She's like, I've always wanted a big sister, and he's like, wait what. She's like, You're gonna adopt Meredith. That's wonderful. I love this for all of us.

I hope you put on sunblock before going horseback riding because he can get it burnt.

That fucking burn that is. Annie should work for the CIA. Honestly, Hallie should be an international spy and Annie should be her handler at the CIA too. You need to run the fucking world.

It would be awesome.

They were. They're so evil. I love it. So Nick's like, no, no, no, no, no, I'm not going to adopt Meredith. I'm going to marry her because you can't fuck someone you've adopted. I've looked into it.

Now. Did they change or is that you know what? I believe it.

Was legal in New York until that, and then they were like, no, well, we didn't think we had to write this law.

But I guess we do.

It's like one of those old laws where you're like, oh, that sex with a horse and you're like, yeah, yeah, I guess someone had to write it down and make it a law because too many people were doing it. So Annie gets so upset at this revelation that's not really a revelation that she starts ranting in French because she forgets that Hallie does not speak French. And Nick is like, hey, calm down, Everything's gonna be okay, it'll be fine. Hey were you just speaking French with the

I want to make them say thank you after I do it. Yeah, all right, So Meredith appears. She assures Nick that she'll talk to Halle and iron things out and she finds her sitting Annie actually but she thinks she's Halle. She finds her sitting in a gazebo and the two finally just take the gloves off. Annie tells Meredith that marriage is based on more than just sex appeals. She's like, you're beautiful, but that's all you got, and Meredith insists that she adores Nick and nothing that Hallie

Is this the scene where we meet Meredith's gay assistant or has that already happened?

That's already happened.

By the way, it's not just Halle. There's other gay representation in this film, which I thought might be Martin at first. It turns out it's not Mark, which is I'm flying.

It's saying that it's not Martin.

But yes, I'm fine with it not being Martin because I do love the way that turns out. But we do have more gay representation in this film because an absolute gay icon is meredith assistant. He's the flatsam and jetsam to merediths ursula he is here for it.

Meredith says she's on a little go kart right, and this is right before they go off on their horseback ride. She gets back in the golf cart with her gay assistant and she says, first change I'm going to make is to send that two faced brat off to boarding school in Timbuckto and he says, oof Ice woman.

Love you. I don't know who you are. One you one line character who does not even get named in this film, but I fucking love you. I see you, and I love you.

His name is definitely Caden.

His he is definitely Caiden.

Yeah, kay d e n.

She met him in a leather bar and where she was doing pr work and he was like, you are stunning, and she's like, I need an assistant, come with me.

So Annie fax is a message to London. It's a picture of a dog barking nine to one to one, and Halle spots it. She rushes out to a phone booth to call California. Annie picks up right away and tells Halle, look, our father is engaged.

She's engaged.

This woman, I need help and Halle finally believes that the situation is dire and agrees to tell their mother and get the plan for them to meet again. Up, up and running. Okay, fine, fine, fine, I won't stop. I'll stop stalling. We have to get her back to California.

So back at the house in London, we're still in London. Hallie climbs into bed with Elizabeth and tells you the truth about what's going on. Elizabeth has overcome at being confronted with the daughter she abandoned, rather than making a single compromise in order to keep both her daughters in her life again. Though, because Sasha Richardson is a goddamn genius or was a goddamn genius, Mama Erica wept wept. I didn't weep. I did tear up a little bit.

Though.

They almost make it sound like this this decision was like the court did it.

They're like, this was the decision of the court.

We couldn't do anything about it, Like, yes, you could, you have agency.

It was it was justice King Solomon. He told us to switch the swet these girls up. Nothing we could do about it. There's a sweet moment here too, where Hallie' is like I just really wanted you to like me, and like, I just wanted to get to know you again. Hallie is given more to do in a way her way, Like I know, it's the same actress, but she's given more to do when she's playing Hallie. And it's just just a sweet scene because Elizabeth's like, I love I've

It's so much easier to love someone when they're far away, you know what I mean? Yeah, Oh my god, yeah, particularly children.

Oh absolutely, you know I love I love both these girls, but I've never met them, never met them. Elizabeth then explains the divorce settlement. I got to keep Anny, your father got to keep you, and we agreed to never see each other ever, ever again, because we can't be in the same room together. Right, Apparently these two are so opposed to each other, they hate each other so much, so toxic, that they simply cannot be in the same room together. The movie will not bear that at all. Literally,

She gets stigmatized.

Yeah, she gets digmatized by Nick and like they both quote unquote have tempers, which again the movie has not shown, oh once that either of these people have any kind of temper.

Yeah, She calmly.

Agrees to fly back to NAPA, speak with Nick, figure this all out, figure out a way. The two girls and spitting each other's lives, She's like, don't worry, we will fix this. Smash cut to Elizabeth smoking, freaking out in her in her giant bedroom and through her walking closet, asking Martin to come on the trip with them. She's like, not as a butler, just as a friend, as an emotional support butler, if you will, because I don't know what to do here. I haven't seen that man in

Yep, we cut to the Stafford Hotel in San Francisco. Meredith is excited to introduce her parents to Nick. Both of her parents, by the way, are thrilled that she's landed a rich old man like but her mother and father clearly taught her you hook, you hook a big one, and you stick with it.

Yeah, she comes from a long line of gold diggers.

Yeah, this is the family business. She's less excited when Nick appears with Annie, Chessie and Sammy, all of whom universally despised Meredith. And just the idea that a hotel would allow a dog just come in and this is a carpeted hotel, by the way, this is like a this is a high class hotel that a dog of not even a guest could come in and just wander about insane.

So, after a brief.

Tour of the hotel as a potential wedding venue, Meredith dismisses her parents for a few hours. They says, when you go to the pool, and she said, suggests to Nick that they go check out the Honeymoon Sweet in this way that sounds like they're gonna fuck in the honeymoon swee, which don't do that.

Don't do that.

Well, what's weird is like, do you have the honeymoon sweet or is it a couple currently in there right now? That's not how things work, Nancy Meyers. No.

Meanwhile, the British contingent arrives at the Stafford, but Elizabeth has decided to hit the sauce in the flight and is completely schnockered. She is making good decision after good decision. She cannot stop making the good decisions.

How much do you have to drink on a twelve hour flight to get that drunk?

A lot? Which I will say.

You know, what I will say about the film is that Natasha Richardson gets to have a lot more fun than Dennis Quaid. She gets to act a clown. So, as Nick and Meredith neck in the elevator, he sees Elizabeth, who smiles and waves. He shocked, and Elizabeth, who we must remember thinks he's expecting her, is quite confused at his reaction. So she heads upstairs and she gets both of her daughters in one room, and she is none too happy when she figures out that Nick had absolutely

The scene, the best part of the scene, Paul.

The important part of the scene is that Martin walks out. He does one of those doo like he's so excited he's on vacation re member.

He's not.

There's a butler's there's a friend in a speedo. And when I tell you, I did not expect Simon Kohons to look as good an a Speito as.

He looks Ospeito's so tight it's almost inappropriate for a children's movie.

You shouldn't be walking around in front of girls in that outfit. Like, but he's European. They have different states European.

And also I did notice the movie has him like put a towel in front of his junk, so that like it's not like so awkward that he's like in a room with an eleven year old. Yeah, by the way, he's in a butler's uniform all the way up until the moment when she's like, you're coming as our friend, you are not our butler on this trip. And then he wears what I presume is his normal everyday clothes, which is top to bottom black with a black leather jacket. I love everything about this man.

He's a fan of the clash on his normal days, but he's a high end butler.

I feels like one of those guys who's like on the weekends, rides a bike, like rides a motorcycle through the countryside.

He's a lothario.

You know, by the way, we have seen this actor before. Do you recognize him? No?

Actually it is a small.

But crucial role in Four Weddings in a funeral. He is the man who Hugh Grant accidentally tells that his wife has been cheating on him for years.

Oh right, all right, So Martin bops out in his speedo. He runs right into Chessie. The attraction is immediate. The two servants must also get together, and he tells Elizabeth the truth. Nick is engaged and they brought her here to stop the wedding and to get their parents back together. And Elizabeth says, look, I'm here for one thing, and one thing only. We are swapping the two of you

That's it heartbreaking. Yeah, honestly, the fact that this movie does not include a prolonged scene of these two girls crying and begging her parents to keep them together is shocking because it would not be undeserved. We cut to Nick heading downstairs to look for Elizabeth because he saw her in the elevator and he's like, wait, was that my ex wife down there? He runs into both of his daughters separately, who both pretend to be Hallie when they see him or well, one is Halle. One is

That's fair weddings and kitchens.

Nancy Myers is the kind of woman who knows how long a bespoke wedding dress takes to make, and Elizabeth actually agrees to it because she's still so drunk.

I guess she is like, Oh my god, stop squawking at me, Why are you so loud?

I'll make you a dress. It's fine, it's fine. Meanwhile, Nick continues to search for Elizabeth around the pool, and all of our characters converge until he sees Elizabeth across the way. She's walking on the other side of the pool. Elizabeth cleans up extremely well. For a woman who is.

That hangover youre worked.

Yeah, for a woman who is dressed in all white and in like a very wrinklable outfit who just got off a twelve hour flight and is canonically drunk and or hungover, she looks incredible. He sees her across the way, he gets flustered. He ends up falling after a series of mishaps, ends up falling into the pool. He emerges in front of her, sopping wet, and the twins appear and finally clue their dumbass father and as to what's going on. What if she like somehow, through some way,

That's good.

That's another good villain story. We can we can, we can cook up later. So both the girls make a plea that they need both of their parents. I need a dad so I know how to how to behave around men because Martin's not gonna cut it. I need a mom to teach me how to do things because fucking Meredith hates me, and Nick and Elizabeth tell them, okay, adults need to talk. What don't you two girls leave us alone for a few minutes.

Adults quo Martin fucking quotation.

And meanwhile, Hallie's like, let me go do your taxes because I don't think you neither of you know what you're doing. Uh. Meredith I appears at the pool and she's like, hey, you've met our wedding dress designer. And of course everyone is clued in, clues Meredith in to what's going on, and she freaks out. She's like, I don't like this at all. I don't like your ex wife is in your life. And now it's not just

That night, the twins, with the help of their grandfather's credit card, I suppose, charter a ship and make their best attempt to recreate the night their parents were married, with Simon and Chessie serving them dinner on a romantic on a romantic cruise. While Elizabeth and Nick are charmed and happy for the other one that their career dreams came true, it's loosely implied that it was their careers that got in the way, but it's really never defined.

I mean, it's clear they got pregnant immediately.

Yeah, so fast that she just stated two babies in the space of like two weeks. So she says they were both young and said stupid things. She packed and got on a plane and he didn't come after her, and he says he didn't know she wanted him to.

I hate this.

I hate this.

I hate this. I'm leaving and I want you to follow me. I hate that.

It doesn't have to make I don't need it to make sense. I just needed to not be so cringey that I want to murder both of you, that I want these two girls to sink this ship with their parents on them and like run away with Martin and Chessie and just live happily ever after with their parents, with their real parents, with their.

Real parents who have actually helped them through their childhoods. So the two decided time just get the show on the road head home with their respective twin and allow the girls to spend some holidays together. You know, we'll spend Easter and Christmas will alternate sea.

That is so cruel. I know you have a twin sister that you now adore, and you've met your other parent who you've never met before. And for Hallie, this is a big fucking deal. Annie seems less into Nick. If I'm being on.

There, Well, she's she met Nick when he was under the sway of Meredith. So your opinion of the person is like, you're dating this person's the.

Best version of Nick alagery. But I feel like Annie could take, take or leave Nick. Annie. He's like, you know what I find you wanting. Martin is a better dad than.

You are one hundred percent.

Meanwhile, to rip Halle away from Elizabeth at this point is just fucking cruel. And they're like, yeah, you'll see each other every six months, don't worry about it.

Yeah.

So the twins, because they're not assholes like their parents, are like, no, we're not having it and we are not going to let you know which one of us is which until you figure out a better solution than this nonsense. So they refuse to be clear as to

It shows agreed.

This is why I think Meredith isn't maybe the worst thing that's.

Ever happened with the at least they put at least she'll put a scare into them. She'll they'll understand that there may be opponents in life.

She'll show them what a consequence looks like.

We're shaping little Rory Gilmore's right now. This is what's happening.

So we cut to NAPA and Meredith is none too pleased about this plan, and that's before she even learns that Elizabeth is also going. So Elizabeth appears and she says, you know what, Meredith should come as well. Of course you're upset. I want you to understand that I have no designs on your fiance. You come on this trip. Then when it's time to leave, Elizabeth just bows out and sends Meredith off camping with Nick and the two girls. And Meredith's like, well, if you're not going, I don't

Elizabeth is really like, now we know where Annie and Howie get it from. Because Nick, he is truly stupid, because he's so dumb. Jill doesn't figure out he is. I don't think he gets what Elizabeth is doing here.

He absolutely doesn't. What an idiot if he got it he would already have broken up with Meredith.

So the twins are extremely put out at this change of plans, and they set out to torture Meredith as much as possible. While they're hiking. They load up her backpack with rocks. They call her Cruella sort of behind her back, but she can hear them, and they put a lizard on her water bottle and in her hair. The lizard, Paul writes, in an extremely upsetting turn of events, winds up halfway in Meredith's mouth. How did they film this?

It was? It's a CGI lizard? Is it?

It's it's real some of the time, but that's CGI, Okay.

I was curious because it gets on our heads, on Elizabeth Hendrick, Elizabeth no Elesa Drigs's head, and then it runs down her face and into her mouth and then she kind of sucks it in by accident while she's screaming, and it looks so real.

I recoiled from this.

Is that real? Is that? Like? How did they train this lizard to do that?

How much did they pay Elaine Hendrix to do that? I hope it was four billion dollars.

At the campsite that night, Meredith is complaining about the food. All there is to eat is trout. The girls give her something to like use his mosquito repellent. Being a fucking idiot, she takes it and starts using it, even though she knows these kids are out to get her, and it turns out it's sugar water, which draws all the mosquitos right to her. She's like, fine, I'm going to take the world's largest sleeping pill and forget this

By this, No, he's not at all.

He's like, you know, what I really want to do is make out in front of my two twin daughters, one of them I met yesterday.

And he keeps telling them to be nice.

He's the worst. He does not know how to like. He sees what they're doing, and at best he's like, guys, he rolls his eyes at them. Yeah, but most of the time he kind of smiles behind Meredith's back and he's like, that was fucking funny, you guys, well done, well done to the woman I'm supposed to love. He really sucks. Now that I'm saying it out loud, he might suck more than Elizabeth. There's a real race to the bottom with.

These sprint to the basement.

So as Meredith goes to sleep, of course, she's knocked out from her giant sleeping pill. She does not hear or see the twins as they unzip the tent. They drag Meredith's inflatable mattress out onto the lake and let her float off like a Viking funeral. She wakes up the next morning in the water. There's a bird like land that landed on her chest. She panics, she screams, She winds up in the water. Nick comes out of his tent and instead of being like, what the fuck

Come on, come on, guys, be nice. Just like they said in Roadhouse, be nice.

Not nice, you kids. Come on, Come on, we could have had a Friday the thirteenth happening here. We could have had that woman die in the lake and then murder people for generations to come. This could have been Camp Crystal Lake. She luckily did none of that happens. She doesn't die. She's like swims the shore. She like trudges up to Nick, and she's like, it's them or me.

We cut back to Napa.

The girls report to their mother they've been punished, even though Nick doesn't seem to be even remotely disappointed about the end of his engagement.

I'm surprised they knew how to how to pronounce the word punished. They were like, we were what's the word punch?

We were? We were granded, grnded.

The con consequences. Conquences are conquences for our actions. We'd never heard that word. So we we don't know. We don't know anything about this.

This might be what the Isolation Cabin was trying to teach us. But that was awesome, so that couldn't have been it. So Nick and Elizabeth have dinner together and Nick shows her his private wine collection in the wine cellar, and he brings her to the bottle of wine they had at their wedding, and he tells her that he owns every single bottle of it that exists.

Can I tell you that's what romantic as?

Oh, yeah, that's good, that'll work.

As soon as he said that, I was like, well, my pants just came off. Which one of these wine racks do you want to do me on?

Elizabeth is far more restrained that she is from Iland after all. She just asks if they can open one, and he says she's the only one he would drink it with.

Now, my pants are off.

To which one of these do you want to bend me over them? Let's do this, Nick, let's do this.

There's some nonsense about how she doesn't have to be brave anymore. It doesn't make any sense. But then they hear CHESSI arrive and and she breaks the moment, and these two do not go to Poundtown, even though it is clear that they belong together. The next day, it is a down poor Erica. Everybody says they're goodbyes. Elizabeth and Annie head back to London. They enter their empty house.

Was there a concord from San Francisco to love It? Maybe Los Angeles. Let's say there was a concord from Los Angeles. They flew at to La caught the concord. That's it. That's fine, that's how he did it.

That's fine, we'll take it. Hallie tells them that about thirty seconds after they left, we realized we didn't want to lose you two again. And Elizabeth says we and Hallie is.

Like, no, bitch, I flew the concord by myself.

I literally flew it. I piloted the concord. Here keep going, so Nick appears and says, we I made the mistake of not coming after you once, Lizzie. I'm not going to do that again, And they kiss and the twins rejoice and they say we did it, and that's the end of the movie. They are quite literally not citizens of the same country.

Yeah, I don't know. One of them clearly goes to like an amazing school in London, and the other one just like lives on her by.

Her wits, gets home schooled by CHESSI yes, I don't know.

I don't just like flies to Vegas every weekend for a tournament and then comes home with like like twenty thousand dollars richer. So I don't know how they're gonna survive.

Yeah, that is the end of the parent Trap. So stick around.

We will come right back and we'll give you our random observations and final rankings.

And we're back. Paul, who's your favorite twin? Let me start, There's start.

My favorite twin.

Yeah, I feel like Hallie is the obvious answer, but I think I'm gonna go with Annie because I'm telling you Annie, Annie was the one who I had to deal with all the shit Hallie got to go to have a beautiful London vacation. Basically, have nothing bad happened for like three days. Annie had to get her hair cut that she didn't want, she got her ears pierced, and then she went home to a fucking disaster that she had to deal with.

Oh, you're right, I keep forgetting what the ears piercing that really is intense. You're absolutely right. They really should have switched the twins up.

Yeah.

I see your points. I see all of your points, and they're all valid. I'm gonna go Halle. So I'm gonna go to Halle, who I do believe flew the concord by herself. Yea, from from la to London. At the end of the film, all right, what are your random observations?

Okay, this is a very like, uh, geographical stupid thing. But in the beginning, when when Halle is telling all of her new friends that she's from Napa, and she's like, it's in northern California, and I'm like, every single person I know that comes from that area is like, it's not northern California. It's like it's like in New York when anything even three feet outside of the Bronx is upstate. Yeah, it's like like there's Napa is like halfway up California.

No one. I've never heard anyone be like, we're in mid California.

Well no, but it's it's like it's just north of La that's all.

It is. Northern California.

There's there's a whole nother like third of California above Napa Valley.

Oh. I know because I drew. I once was in a car that drove three hours north of Yeah, we weren't even close to being out of California. I was like, how fucking big is this state?

Too big? Frankly too big.

I also have a geographic one. When Martin drops Annie off at camp, he says goodbye to her, they do their little handshake. He gets in the limo, and then you hear him very clearly, go all right, take me to the airport to the driver, and I'm like, buddy, you're in Maine. It's beautiful here by a lobster roll. Go go go see the.

Ocean, see the sights.

Don't go straight to the airport. That sucks, That really sucks.

He has to fly right back to make sure that Elizabeth doesn't burn down the house because she's not paying attention any It's like, I'm the last line of defense between this idiot and a conflagration to rival the Great London Fire. Like we have to we have to keep

There are days for donuts.

The gays get a whole month.

There is a National donut Day.

It's not a real proof point for you the way you're treating it.

Ah. There's one bit of nineties ephemera in the film that tickles me. Tickled me so much when Mary at what point Mary it is is driving up to the house and she's blasting her music in her car and she's of course driving like a convertible because she's that kind of gal. This as long as she's blasting as parents just don't understand. There's so many levels to this. Is it ant a joke about how parents just don't understand like the parents in this movie? Is it that

Is is it her attempt at bonding with the kid that she might be the stepmother too?

I have more questions than answers, frankly, but I don't know. I don't care. It's it tickled me so much that she's listening to parents just don't understand.

There is a Brie.

There's a scene after Nick tells whichever daughter is there that he's engaged to Meredith, and she comes up and she's like, oh, what's wrong And she starts to kind of like be all sexy with him, and he explains to her. She gets out a bell and rings the bell for Chessie, and Chessie arrives with the correct expression on her face that is the moment you dump her. Yeah, that is the moment that you're like, Nope, you're a

So would you mind like putting up with her for a little while?

For me, I'm very curious as to how this marriage is gonna work out because we have two people who are like meaning Elizabeth and Nick, because we have two people who are so spineless and in every way like the two most fucking spineless human beings on the planet, and then these two very willful little girls who basically have to like do everything for their parents. Yeah, I think a sequel would get dark, would get real dark, or real quick.

I think we have yet another horror movie to propose, in which they simply take over the finances for their parents, yeah, and start running their lives.

Yeah, they pull a gaslight, they put their parents away in an insane asylum, and they just run the businesses together. They turn that vineyard into a billion dollar that's right. They become the nixt Dom Perignon. Like that's how big they fucking get.

And if you think they're not allowing tracking on their property, you are sadly mistaken.

My friend, Ah, I just have one more. And when the girls are at camp, one of the things they bond over is they both like to eat Oreo cookies with peanut butter. And the one who says it first is like, I know a lot of people think that's disgusting, and the other one's like, no, it sounds it's great. And I was like, I've never done it, yeah, but I don't think that sounds disgusting. In fact, that sounds incredible.

That was my last one. That's the thing.

I was like, what like say, like, I like, you know, I like Oreos and jelly, right, that's weird. Oreos and peanut butter. Nothing could seem more like two great tastes that taste great together.

As soon as the movie said it, I was like, can I go? Do I have time? And I'm like, no, it's twelve fucking thirty because I started watching this too late. Tomorrow I will get peanut butter and Oreos.

I remember when I was a kid, my mom used to get these chocolate covered gram crackers and I would dip them in peanut butter. To this day, one of the most delicious things I've ever eaten in my entire goddamn life.

Oh are those grand crackers still around or are they discontinued.

I don't know if they're still around, but I now, because I'm fancy, I get these, like I get these kind of fancy ones that are just dark chocolate covered ground crackers and with peanut butter on them.

Oh, the next time I come to your house, we're doing or that's what we're doing. We're doing that for days when You're like, do you want to have lunch and I'm like, no, I want to gorge myself on peanut butter covered grand crackers. Is with chocolate? Please please, and thank you?

Yes?

All right, Erica, how are we gonna How are we gonna rank the Parent Trap one to ten?

Speedo Kings.

The great thing about the Speedo King in this movie is that it was an unexpected speedo king. I didn't expect. I didn't expect the speedo. I didn't expect the ability to pull off the speedo. I didn't expect the Insussians with which it was pulled off.

Good like, perfectly put, perfectly put The jaunty little dance in which he came out in front of his employer and an eleven year old girl and was absolutely living my best life.

I'm going to the pool, see you later. One to ten criminally terrible parents.

Truly like yeah, like the courts should get.

Involved, Yeah yeah, yeah, or another court because the court they apparently went to drop the ball.

What about that grandfather? Can't that grandfather just raised both those girls on his own.

Although didn't Jesse and Martin have anything to say about this?

Yeah, I was gonna say, now that I think about it, that grandfather is complicit too.

I suppose everyone is complicit.

You have a theory that Martin didn't know. I don't believe it Martin knew.

I don't think Martin new. I want I don't want to believe Martin knew. Martin to be innocent in all of this. One to ten children with body dysmorphia and or face blindness where they don't see themselves in the world.

Yeah, Hallie just goes to the world. She sees a mirror. She just sees Brandy. Carlyle's like, yes, yeah.

She just sees lydia tar right when she looks at herself. That's all she sees Annie. Annie sees Queen.

Victoria yea, Annie sees Dame Maggie Smith. At like twenty seven, Annie.

Sees Vanessa Redgrave, which actually does work.

In the film.

Yeah.

That tracks all tracks, that all tracks.

Yeah.

Yeah. One to ten Punishment Cabin.

I went to the Punishment Cabin. Yeah, it's in that area of Tribeca that's still lawless by the tunnel.

Yeah, but this is slightly different.

How about one to ten tween girls that wake up one day and there's two wolves sitting inside them. One is being written by Attila the Hunt and the other one is being written by Eleanor of Aquitaine.

One is being written by Thanos and one is being written by Magneto.

One is being written by Bloody Mary Tudor and the other one is being written by Napoleon.

One's being written by Jaafar and the other one's being written by Ursula.

How about this one, Let's do this, this one, fun with this one, this one?

Do you want to go first? Or shall I go first?

I'll go first on this one. It's a Nancy Myers film. M I don't think I have to tell anyone. Mary a person of color. Yeah, entirely white. I don't even think there were black kids at that camp.

There were there were, oh yeah.

The reason I know is because one of Annie's friends was played by Kat Graham, who grew up to become like a CW actress. Ye, and so I recognized her. That's the only reason I'm one hundred percent positive that there was at least one little black girl.

There was one little girl of color at the camp. And Meredith is listening to parents just don't understand. You know what, Let's give this film an n double ACP Award right now, right now. I love Nancy Myers. I do enjoy her films. They are by white people for white people.

It's true.

I actually think in most cases is fine. Like I don't think I don't think something's got to give needs people of color in it.

Nancy Myers makes white nonsense films. Yeah, I say that with deep love, with love and respect, I have a one.

Hundred percent agree. I don't think Baby Boom needs a lot of diversity. I don't think it's complicated requires a lot of diversity. So that's fine. But this one, because it's about kids, four kids, and it's nineteen ninety eight, it's a little late for the white blindness to be on so hard, Like a little more diversity would have been would have been great.

Wemake this movie with an interracial couple.

Cast, cast Constance Woo and and and Paul mescal.

As the parents.

Twist. She's the vintner, he's the fashion designer.

That's right.

He lives in.

Dublin and still does wedding dresses.

Yeah, still does wedding dresses and wear short shorts all the time.

Straight as an arrow, straight as a narrow, Straight as an arrow.

He's not even a bisexual king in this He's straight in this movie.

No, his best friend is played by Andrew Scott though, that's right, they're Butler. They're Butler is played by Andrew Scott Cannon.

That is a great movie. That is a fucking great movie.

Who plays the himbo who's trying to steal Constant Woo's money. He's trying to gold dig Constance Woo.

Then Alan Richson done so.

Yeah, no diversity. In most cases, I would give Nancy Meyer movies passes because, as Paul says, and he's not wrong, they are white nonsense movies.

They're white no sense of the highest order, and like, you know what, some.

Like white nonsense needs needs to need some representation too.

Sure needs to be aired out.

Sometimes sometimes you just want to see a white lady dancing in her million dollar kitchen. You know what I'm saying. Yeah, would have loved more gay representation than the one the one assistant who is clearly supposed to be gay. The messaging is not great, like, but I don't think kids are going to take anything from it. I don't. It's not the kind of kids movie where the messaging isn't great, and I think it's detrimental to kids in their development.

No, because it's so even kids would know this is silly.

Good roles for women. I'm gonna give it a six. He was six out of ten tween girls with wolves dire wolves inside of them. Sure one is written by Aria, the other one is written by Sansa.

Okay, yeah, all right, how about you, Paul?

Uh? Yeah, I think that's it. Like the movie is the very definition of like harmless. Like it's so silly, it's so over the top. I think more diversity would have been welcome. I will say there is one moment where Lindsay Lohan does say a word that we don't use anymore. She says, we are being jipped, which is generally considered a faux pas.

Oh right, totally.

That not a huge one, but like it just stuck out because I'm like, wow, I haven't heard someone say that in a long time, because we don't say that anymore.

It's not polite. Yes, by the way, One thing I do want to mention this has nothing to do with my rating of the film though, but like the CGI is seamless.

Yeah, it's pretty good.

It's so seamless that I genuinely had moments where I thought it was too like it feels like you're watching two different girls.

Yeah.

I don't really have any complaints about the movie. It's charming, it's fun, it is four kids, it is I don't know that like it's something I'm going to watch again because it is not for me, although I had a perfectly good time watching it. The gay assistant is very clearly coded as gay. I actually really like I didn't think. I kind of had an idea, but I hadn't really formed it in my head about Halle being kind of coded as a little queer.

Oh, I wasn't kidding about that. I think that's part of it.

I think that's there, and I think it's I don't even necessarily know if Nancy Myers thought that, And I don't mean that as an insult to her at all. I just mean, like, you could very easily say this girl is being brought up by her London fashion designer mother, and this girl is being brought up by her rancher father, and so like that could be all that was thought of to try to differentiate.

The two characters.

But it does come off as a little queer, and I think that's cool. And I wouldn't be surprised if, like you said, I if some little queer girl out there saw this and was like, I am hallie, you know, like that kind of thing. I'll give the movie some credit for that. I'll give it a six. I'll agree

Oo. You get out of that kid's way.

This way, you.

Fucking run, do not look directly in her eyes. Just don't do it.

That kid is Medusa, that's right.

So I don't.

Feel the need to offer a palate cleanser on this one, do you No, I.

Didn't see the original. I'm sure it's charming. This one I found very charming, if not a little too long. Honestly, once the kids go get reunited with their parents, if you're an adult watching this, just bow out there. Just once you see the speedo. Frankly, once you see the speedo scene.

Thispato is the most important scene in movie.

You've seen everything you need to see. You're done, You're good, just because these two fucking parents figuring out like their nonsense. It's it goes on for way too long.

Way too long, particularly because it's so obvious how much they love each other.

It's so clear. And they suck.

Yeah, they just suck.

All right, Erica. So that is the end of our show. Everyone listening can follow us on social media. We are on Instagram, we are on Twitter, we are on threads. We have a tea public shop where you can pick up podcast swag, and if you're a Spotify user, keep a lookout for questions and polls about each episode, I'm just thinking about the tea public shop. Do we want can we get can we get two wolves?

Somehow girls?

Tween girls?

Yeah, yeah, we'll think about that.

We would love it if you would leave a five star of you on Apple Podcasts or any podcasting platform that you use. If you do that, just like Joe Ann Rose from the top of this episode, you let us know that you did it, we will send you at that Age Well tote bag, any any podcasting app that you do it on. Just let me know I did it on this app. You know, email me, I'll send you the tote bag. We don't discriminate here about podcasting providers platforms.

We're platform polyamorous over here.

We're pan podcatcher here haha.

That Aged Well is produced and edited by Paul Kayola. We would like to thank Faye, Sydney, Mara, Sephina, Justine, Jan Kessler, Jenny and some of those people whose name is Paul simply could not identify from their social media profiles. He is going to start deep dive, He's going to start looking into it, and that's how we discover that one of our biggest fans.

Is Norman Schwartz cough Storman Norman himself.

Huge fan of the pod. Anyone under forty has no idea who we're talking to me nothing.

That was a real deep dive for our younger listeners.

Ah. So thank you all for reaching out, especially you Norman. We love you.

We love you, Norman, We love you Norman.

Thank you all for reaching out and letting us know what you want to hear. If you want to have a say in the topics we discussed, you can join our patreon. Every patron gets to vote in an exclusive monthly poll to determine one of our subjects. So head on over to patreon dot com slash that Aged Well podcast to find out more.

Speaking of which, some tears in our Patreon come with a thanks for a podcast character. And today we're hearing, Oh, we're hearing from She's She's a true favorite.

She's a pure delight.

Just just make sure you don't call her a black widow, because the bite a black widow is rarely fatal in real life.

It's missus White from Glue.

Don't flatter me with your introductions after sending me yet another one of your passive, aggressive, threatening invitations. I nearly threw it in the fire. And covered it in frame flames.

Flames, Missus White, I'm terribly sorry.

I genuinely don't know what you're referring to.

Oh don't you, don't you. I've never been so clearly blackmailed. I have what you wrote right here, dear missus White. I would love to have you back to thank Teresa Liptak for being a patron of that that aged dwell liptac lip my lips tack like tacky sticky. I know what you're doing.

I believe that is our patron's name.

Why well you thought I wouldn't hear the threat you expect me to believe it's a coincidence that the so called patron's name is Liptack and has nothing to do with the slow, spine tingling death of my twelfth husband, Bert Bartholomew the Fourth, in a horrifying fiasco involving his lips and a tube of super glue disguised this chapstick that has never been located by the authorities.

You were married to someone named Bert Bartholomew the Fourth.

Of course I was. He was the heir to the Bert's Bees personal care product fortune. And there's no person on earth I care for than more than myself, except, of course, for this Teresa Liptak, who I am here to think. Thank you Teresa, is that as your real name?

Well, I'm really very sorry to hear of your husband's passing and having your lips glued shut.

What a terrible way to die.

Yes, well it would be, though Darling Bert was also found under a gimp mask with a smile on his face, so perhaps it wasn't so terrible for him at the end. I always say a widow's greatest joy is that her husband died rich happy, happy. Her husband died richly happy, that one thank you goodbye.

Well she you know, she's not great at covering up her crimes, but she does keep getting away with them.

You know what, These men have it coming. Frankly, if you're number twelve, Yeah, there's a history there. I don't mean to victim blame here, but maybe that was his whole thing.

Yeah, you're walking right into it at that point.

Yeah, I believe that's his whole Like those people who find cannibals to eat them online, it's one of those situations.

It's an army hammer situation, all right, Erica, any final thoughts on the parent trap.

Am I Erica? Or was I Jericha the whole time? Oh no, it's Jericha, my evil British twin.

Do you know that is the actual ending of Pretty Little Liars?

What? No?

So this is so off topic and I'm going to keep it in. Pretty Little Liars ends with like the whole concept of the shows. These girls have been blackmailed for years about like from this person who knows. I didn't even know what they did. I'd never watched an episode. But the actual ending is that one of them has an evil British twin that's been torturing them.

Love Well, now I got to watch Pretty Little Liars now I'm in. I would watch this for the house porn. I really, I really, the first time they go to that NAPA house, I'd be like, show me the house.

I think if I was going to watch Nancy Myers movie for house porn, I think it's it's complicated.

I want to watch.

I want to see Meryl Streep's kitchen all the time.

Oh that's a good one. I'm going to go with with something's got to give with the house in the Hampton's Sure, it's a race to the top as far as House porn goes with Nancy Myers films