On the Dog Cast. The questions asked, movies have wenenuum? Are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands do? And that start changing it? Come on, Welcome to the back Dodecasts. Yay, my name is Jamie, my name is Caitlin, and this is our second Seattle live episode of the back Gas. A lot of familiar faces. Thank you. I changed velvet suits because I care and I do have many velvet suits. Gotta get airtime for all of them on our audio podcast.
I'm in the same outfit, so I'm in the same crocks, so we choices were made. Welcome to the show. Yes, welcome, Um clap if you are a listener of the Bechtel Cast, and uh yeah, is there anyone here who came with a friend and who hasn't heard the show before? Okay, we go one A shaking hand rose in the audience. This is okay. So Caitlin and I when we go to do live shows in various cities, we have so far never done a movie that takes place in the city.
In fact, we always do movies that take place in the absolute wrong city, and people are how you say, angry about this movie? We did? This did Princess Diaries in New York. That's a movie about San Francisco. Correct, we did in San Francisco. We did the Breakfast Club takes place in a suburb of Chicago. I think the easiest way to get us to do the correct movie in the correct city is to put the name of the city in the title, although we could have done
this movie be in New York. So it's Sleepless in Seattle. Is the name of the mover doing my rond of applause? Who has seen the movie? And? Uh? Which which Seattle? Light? Is that? Right? That's fun to say, Uh which Seattle? I is the holdout and has not seen Sleepless in Seattle. We've got some edgeloords and the crawd I love it when you think about it, Caitlin, and I feel like I'm about to really polarize the audience. But when you think about it canonically, is Seattle a spinoff of Boston? Um?
Because that's what I'm I don't mean like culturally, Jesus, I mean Frasier spun off Cheers, Seattle spun off Boston. It's cannon. I see. That's just my hot take for the evening. Well, I'm sure we'll talk about this. But despite this movie taking place at least partly in Seattle, this movie barely is about Seattle. Like it. She seems to be mostly Sleepless in Baltimore in New York. Yeah, shall we bring our guests, Yes, we should. Our guest
is awesome. She is a local Seattle comedian. She runs a weekly show at this very space, the Rendezvous called Comedy Nest, and she recently opened for Cameron Esposito. Give it up for Andy. I want Ceo, I want CEO, want I packed it up. I want Ceo. Lookome Hi to be here. To make it very you actually have to pass a test to begin speaking. I thought you were gonna like ask to play the piano, kind of Billy Joel's situation. Suddenly pianos wheeled up and you're we're
going to see if you're on the pod. Well, thank you so much for being here. Tell us about your history and your relationship with Sleepless in Seattle. Historically, I've lived in Baltimore as well as Seattle, and this biopic kind of it kind of works out if you think about it as gender, but the other one. Anyway, I worked on the harbor right where she like sulks on a bench for most of the movie. Sure, romantically, it's
one of the postcard she stares, Wow, Okay. And then I worked on a ferry that went around that harbor, and so you'd give like a fake tour to people to get tips. And so they had installed these lamp posts that weren't really ever there, but they saw them for the movie. Yeah, install them there in the movie. You can see them. They look old timey and stuff. When people have budgets, they just do like funked up
random things. Right now, when they were shooting the wire in Baltimore actually had to install dilapidated houses because like not all the neighborhoods had them, or like they created bus stops. It was pretty hilarious. They did everything the city couldn't do. But my partner pointed out that he worked on the same ferry and then he was working on some pirate ship that went around Seattle's harbor, and then he realized he spent most of his summer meaning
out the house from Sleepless since Seattle. So he's really got the connection. I I sleep next to him, so that's like contacts. Yeah, that's the transitive reperty. Next to someone who has the info, you also have the info. That's how it works. We're both trans so we just it just happens. Yeah, it's it's like a vulturoun of ambiguity. Well, to bring up the fight Club episode, which we recently did, it's like Tyler knows this, so I know this. Yeah,
that's the same thing. When did you first see list? I honestly seen bits and pieces of it at like family gatherings for a long time. It wasn't until it like really sat down to watch it a couple of weeks ago that I really like sat through the whole thing. Yeah, it was very interesting. You're not wrong, I have I have no notes for I had never seen it. Um. Sorry, I can feel myself getting sick currently. That's my fault.
And also I'm better. Oh no, I had never seen this movie before until like a week ago when we started prepping for this tour. Yeah, it just it's not the type of movie that I would ever seek out.
Our friend Katherine, I know. I'm so sorry. Our friend Catherine, who I watch a lot of movies with, had been trying to get me to watch this movie for like a year, and meanwhile I was like making her watch Paddington and stuff, and I kept refusing, but I did often posit theories as to what the movie might be about.
UM So I was like, Yeah, it's about how Meg Ryan owns a bookstore in Seattle and Tom Hanks Ellen's a bigger bookstore called Amazon, and and they are fighting about it, but then they start emailing and they're falling in love over email. Well I know that now because I had also never seen You've Got Mail, and Catherine was always trying to get me to watch that, but they called You've Got Email. That's my only note for that movie. Otherwise, perfect piece of feminist text. What's your
history with Sleepless in Seattle? Um? I kept sort of came to this movie in a in a bizarre reverse way. I before I saw any of Nora Fron's movies. I saw the documentary about her That Everything Is Copied documentary, which was really good, and she's like a fascinating figure with some serious blind spots. But I first like became interested in Nora Fron and then went back maybe about a year or two ago, and like started watching back all of her movies. We did when Harry met Sally
on the podcast. I had to watch it then, and I watched sleep List in Seattle for the first time, maybe a year or two ago, and I was like, oh, no, you know, because I very much love Nora Fron and yet this movie Oh no, you know, yeah, so you know it was It was weird because it was like like falling in love with an artist and then two days later being like, what have you done to me? It was a real fling I had with Nora f Bron, and she let me down almost immediately. Sorry, it's okay,
you know she's dead son in power. So I showed her I'm alive. Oh okay, that's one way to look at her. Okay. So oh yeah, this is now the roast of Nora Affront. Is this a normal part of the show where you say whether or not you've beaten somebody. No, But it's now a part of the show where I roast everyone who can't roast me back because I'm a coward. I'm still somewhat of a Nora Affront stand and I like, I like a lot of what she represents, and she did pave a lot of paths for future female writers
and filmmakers, and I don't want to disk. I mean, I have a whole thing, but I love Nora upfront. This movie is yikes. Yes, well let's jump in with the recap. Okay, So this movie starts out basically the same exact way that the movie The Rock starts out, because it's Tom Hanks staring at a gravestone that might as well say his wife Key has just died. And he's more much like The Rock when Ed Harris, he's
sort of yelling at the grave. Yeah, why do these men yell at the gravestones of their recently diseased and Edwards this case, it's raining heavily, so he's yelling through the weather to the grave. This is where you can start the drinking game of like if you take a shot every time you see something famous that should be on a postcard. Like the entire movie is just shots of stuff. Even Chicago seems to raise up like it's
trying to check out what's happening. The buildings come up over the hill like wood go Away, sis right, the movie having a moment here there's this weird reveal that doesn't need to happen where it seems like they're in like just a grassy, rural grave yard, and then there's like a tilt that's like, wait a minute, they're near city, and it's like, who, people in cities aren't supposed to die. They were like, wait a second, so in this universe people who live in cities die. It's almost like, well,
there's two ways we can do it. We could just put Chicago at the bone of the screen. No, that's not good enough. It needs to t open the entire skyline here, like a musical number from Chicago, a full on Dutch ankle. Uh. They do introduce it basically, like Tom Hanks is like, so, Torecap, my wife is dead and and the kids like why and he's like that just happens sometimes. And the kids like, oh, thank you, And that's the first thing. Yes, why are they yelling?
I don't know, but Tom Hanks spends almost the rest of the movie yelling still he's an America sweetheart, are really fucking creepy and mean in this movie. So he is his wife has just died of cancer, and he is heartbroken because they were very much in love. Yeah, and he decides that he needs a change of scenery because everything in Chicago reminds him of his wife, and again it's another famous part of Chicago. It's them going into Wriggley Stadium. It's just another postcard that Oprah is
throwing a pitch, like why is this happening? So he takes his young son, Jonah, and they moved to Seattle. I ever heard of it. The cast member of Fraser in this movie lives in Baltimore, which is But then here's my theory. They heard David Hyde Pierce say utter the words Seattle and they're like, now, hold on a second. We've got to get this guy in a Seattle based piece of media, and that's why he won all those Emmy's. Yeah, good theory, thank you. Okay. So we cut to eighteen
months later, we are in Baltimore. We meet Annie, that's Meg Ryan's character. Also Tom Hanks is His character's name is Sam, so probably going to call him Tom Hanks. So Annie ak Meg Ryan has just gotten engaged to Walter. That's built maman. But he is a dweeb who is allergic to everything, so we don't like him. We give we can get into this Nora Fron school of man who is addicted to you and faithful to you above all others. Yet he has an allergy is repulsive. Oh no,
he's into a roma therapy. Dear Lord, our bedroom is so moist at night, at comfortable, it smells like lavender. I need to divorce this man, this sexy man who doesn't care when I'm essentially cheating on him. She is driving in her car and she's flipping through the radio and she hears a kid she's yelling. She's yelling at the radio. Oh true, Yeah, She's like, better change the channel, Like, what is who's the sound guy on this There's no
rhythm in this movie. If you watch The Christmas Care because I was literally watching it before it came here, and she does not sound like she's ever saying a Christmas carol before. She's like ging tone deaf Meg Ryan, Well, she's if she's yelling at radio, she's kind of like us, like we're always, you know, criticizing media. So she sucks in this movie though, and we're cool good yeah. Yeah. So she's driving in a car, she is listening to the radio and she here's a kid call into a
radio show. This kid being Jonah Sam's son, and he speaks with Dr Marcia who's like an advice radio host person, and he's like, my Christmas wish is for my dad to have a new his wife wife. So then Jonah puts his dad on the phone and they talked to Dr Marcia about his wife. Yeah. But then also like Tom Hanks is back and forth in this movie, and like he's either very endearing on the radio or yelling at his son on the radio, which is like read the room, dumbass, Like why are you yelling at your
son on national radio. It doesn't stop like two thousand women from being like he seems like the greatest I in the world. I mean, speaks to their judgment of character, because Jesus Christ, he's yelling at his son the whole I'm gonna get your David. He's so dreamy. So he's talking to the lady and he's like, I can't sleep at night. I am sleepless. I live in Seattle. And that's where we get the Dr Marcia. Annie, who is listening, is like, Wow, this guy seems nice. She's like she
as wrecks her car. She says like three or four words at the same time as him, and she thinks he's kids met like this whole movie is like, is love connected to the power of coincidence? And that is I'm just like, no, it's it's much in the same way that like, it's the least common denominator of things happening in the world. It's like if you pick up a paper clip and you think somewhere else in the world, somebody's picking up a paper clip, and I'm like, I'm
supposed to be with that person. It's just such a low bar for connection in the world. It's like Magrin, if you want to break up with Bill Palman, many people would be honored to have him, So just break up with him, not go through this insane Oh god, I can't wait to apply the bush Em test to this movie. Although in this case it's a female character, I's gonna call it the Stevia. Stevie is still a woman's name, so you could be this. It's going to be the Stevie Stevia because it's a what is it.
It's a sugar substitute. Okay, I don't know, I might be poisoned. Who knows. So she's like, yeah, this guy seems great, and then she goes into a diner and they're all like Wow, he seems right. And then there are like many women calling into the radio show and they're like, wow, he seems great. And then she gets very emotionally invested in this story his story, which is
not interesting. It's like pretty normal. He's yeah, he's a grieving husband who is not dealing with it well via screaming at his son all the time, So not inspiring, actually quite sad, and someone should call and be like, should be checking on the sun. Like right, I feel like if you play the movie Big before this, it feels like a weird sequel. Love this theory. And then like, except for the Zoltar things kind of like make sure my dad meet someone else they can kiss. This is
a perfect fan theory. And she's a she's one of mcgriyan has one of the only jobs women are lawed to have in this genre, which is journalist. So she goes to work with her friend and colleague, Becky played by Rosie o'donnald, and everyone's like, you should turn this into a story. This is interesting. There's nothing happening in Baltimore right now. So she's like, yeah, this guy seems great.
I'm going to write a story about him, and then meanwhile, Sam gets a bunch of letters from horny women who have heard his story and want to be his wife, and he's not interested in any of them. So then Annie goes to her brother Nile Crane a k a. David Hyde Peers. There's not really much to talk about Niles's character, so I'll just say here this character's office that she goes into at some point, what is his job?
Because there's so many wild pis in his office while he's like love is a construct, but he there's an oversized typewriter. What says there? There's just a piano and a harp. There's a large harp, There's there's a grandma phone. Like I mean that most of the time, when you have David Hyde Pierce in a movie or TV show, you just want him flustered in front of antiques, and
this movie delivers on every level. David Hyde Pierce is in just a room full of Central Casting antiques, and he's all like, I'm having these fantasies about this guy who lives in Seattle who I've never met. I'm like questioning whether or not I want to marry Bill Pullman, and Niles is just like, do whatever you want love is a lie and she's like, Okay, you're right, I just have cold feet and I'm gonna move on. But the fact that he's like love is a lie and
she's like, Okay, I will get married. Like. Meanwhile, Sam is talking to his friend I think his name is Jay Rob Reiner, and Rob Reiner is encouraging him him to like get back out into the dating. Yeah. He's like, you've got a nice butt, Tom Hanks, and and they're talking about dating and how like, you know, Sam should get back out there, but it's been so long since
he's dated he doesn't know this like changing landscape. And then Rob Briners are like, well, there's this decorator woman, Victoria. You should ask her out, so he does. Meanwhile, this is where it gets really fun. Annie starts to cyberstock and then really stock Sam, which is ten times it's hard to do in the sere stalking a special a lot of large hardware. So I will say there's more female hacking in this movie. In the nineties. There is nobody says I'm in which I was going to say,
representation wise is piss poor for the hackers. She needs to say she dares well she's in, is she not? That's a consent thing. You gotta say it. First of all, Hacker should have designy to computers. May I enter, and if the computer enthusiastically consents, they can say I'm in. Well, it acted like it was like print yes or her factors. I think we've all we've all met somebody off a
Craigslist and gone, what's your factors? So Annie is like, I can't get this guy out of my mind, and she writes him a letter to both Sam and Jonah and she's like, hey, let's meet on Valentine's Day in New York City at the Empire's Day Building. On the top of it, she proposes the third act of the movie Yes, And then Jonah reads a letter and he's like, wow, I really like the sound of her. But Sam is like, but Rosie o'donald sends it. Meg Ryan's like, right, because
it's scary. Right, we've all written a scary letter and then not sent it. That's relatable. I've done that many times. That's the whole premise of To All the Boys I've Loved Before. Everyone's written a scary letter and then read it back and then been like, hold on, have I become a person I hate. But Rosie o'donald sends Rosio donald sends it, and then Sam reads it, but he dismisses her as a romantic option because she lives in
Baltimore and it's too far away from Seattle. Out of all the many examples there are to reject her as a romantic option in that letter, he chooses distance. Well, he doesn't know that she is stalking him, which she starts to really double down on because first of all, she hires a detective, very unsubtle detective, yeah, to like take photos of him and like spy on him on
his date with Victoria. So Sam starts dating Victoria, which upsets Jonah because he's all about your new his wife should be Annie, this random lady who I read a terrifying letter from, like says, oh my god. Oh but and and also the reason we're not supposed to like Victoria is because she laughs. Yeah, she has a sense
of humor. She is too expressive, and Jonah likes his mother's silent and meg Ryan Again, when you see the private detective like lean over the balcony at them, and he's like zooming in the cameras so loud it sounds like a car back ago. It's like and also that shot zooming in. Tom Hanks is acting wild on this first day. He's like moving his head around. It's like, what are you talking about? And then he feeds her, which you're like, okay, okay, setting a weird president for
this relationship. Everything about that reads like a child in a man's body. Yes, right, he wouldn't know a grown woman. Yeah, this is this is a good theory. If someone tried to fade me on a first date, I would commit arson be very upset. So meanwhile, Annie is like, well, if I'm going to write this story that I think is interesting, I better go to Seattle. So she this
is funding from work, I guess. And then she's getting off her plane at the airport, just as coincidentally, Sam is seeing off Victoria for a trip that she's going on. And so Sam sees Annie and he's like, hubba, hubba, who is that? And then Annie proceeds to follow him to the beach, follow him to another beach, spy on him, lurk around standing house. She has found out his address. She goes to his house and then sees him like playing with his son, and then she's like, what a
nice guy. I love him. She's too far away to see that Tom Hanks is probably yelling at that's what's making the boat show. And then they do come face to face and they say hello to each other, but she has just seen him be really excited to see his friends. Susie played by Rita Wilson, Tom Hanks's real life his wife and then his sister and not no, I'm not saying his wife is his sister. Oh my god. Isn't Susy supposed to be his sister or maybe his friends.
I think he's supposed to be sister. I didn't realize that, and that's why it's like double ridiculous. And it's like you thought his sister was his wife. But but it also like he does hug her like it's his wife, yes, and that's why Annie is confused. So she's like, oh, man, he's got a girlfriend. I'm just gonna go back to
Baltimore and forget all about this Sleepless in Seattle. But then Jonah buys a flight to New York with the help of tiny Gabby Hoffman, and he goes to the Empire State Building to look for Annie and like waits around, and then Sam realizes that his son is missing because he's a bad father and he does not keepings like I'm yelling and no one is crying. He is my son. This is how I find out if my son's homes. You let me down. That's sun sonar. So he goes
chasing after him, goes to New York City. Meanwhile, Annie and Walter are having like Valentine's dinner and she's just like, we gotta break up because you have allergies and and he's like okay, he's so chill about so he takes it. I'm like, what is going on with Bill Palm? It's his allergy medication. It's affecting his emotional response. So then she goes to the Empire State Building and then Sam is arriving there around the same time to get Jonah,
but they like just miss each other. But wait, Jonah left his backpack, so he and Sam go back and then they see Annie rand M lady who could be anyone, but they're like, are you Annie, and she's like yeah, So then they hold hands and are in love, and then there's a bad c g I shot of the Empire staple day, it's so bad, it's really funny. And then we're like, and that is sleepless in Seattle. It ends in New York. Why couldn't they have chosen a
building in Seattle is a good question. Yea, the space Needle. Realistically, this movie would have ended with Jonah being kidnapped and Tom Hanks living out the rest of his days wishing he hadn't yelled at his son so much. This was more of a take into the situation than anything. But okay, so here's the thing with this movie. It's an all
female reboot of The Stalking Trip. I think it's great. Yes, it feels like a pretty standard you know, nineties rom com, you know, upon first glance, but with with a few exceptions. Which is that unlike a lot of movies where a woman feels like she needs a man to feel complete or other people are telling her that she needs a man to be complete, this right, well, this movie is about a boy telling a man that he needs a wife.
So that's like sort of a subversion of I mean, in in in Jona's case, it's a cry for help because he's like, my dad, can we get anyone else in this house? Like that? Used to me what he's asking, did y'all have his much fun with how that kid is like his roommate and every Nora f from maybe one of the Nora Front troupes that is so annoying and it's like just a little wise child trope. I'm so am like this kid would be sneezing on things,
he would be sticky, right. There are a number of scenes where he's like, yeah, women scratch up men's backs during sex. I've seen it on cable and then and the message of that is like, whoa Nora f Fron just roasted cable? You're like And then Tom Hanks is like mumbling to himself and he's like, I've fun six, no, seven women in college and then he sees it as Sanders right there and he's like, how long have you been there? And he's like, I've heard you had sex
with seven women and he's like it was eight. Actually I remembered another one. So you screaming about all the women's college. Also, he has that a whole storyline is like, son, get out of my way so I can fuck someone. He's so annoyed with his son. He's like son, it's almost like he could set up boundary. He makes no effort. Yeah, I mean to like, there's nothing good about this movie, but also there's everything good about this So it's it's confusing, but that it's like, we do get to see a
male character grieve to some extent. The way he grieves is very toxic and mostly by yelling at his son um. There is at least a grieving narrative. I feel like a lot of the time men are not like part of word to believe the reason that women are attracted to him is because he is grieving his wife at all. Yeah, Like she's like, oh, I've got to be with him.
If I eyed, he'd be piste. So the real big subversion, the actual huge subversion of this movie when it comes to like, you know, the romcom genre, is that it's the woman stalking the man this time, which we've painted at already. But do not stalk, Just do not unless it's just on Instagram on a fake account that you have and then stuck away. Baby sixty seven. I just made like a quick list of all the things that she does. She calls around to figure out how to
get in touch with the radio show. Then she calls the radio show to get his phone number. She calls his phone number, it gets his last name, does a very old Google search slash like hacker thing to search for him, figures out that he's an architect because computer it right, and then hires someone to do the background check and to take photos of him. Then she flies to Seattle, shows up at his house. He's not there.
She follows him on his boat, lurks around nearby, you know, watches him a day passes, does the exact same thing where she follows him on a boat. So what I'm hearing is she has a lot of agency, so it's very independent. She's a very aspective character. Yeah, and and and the subtext to why women are lusting after Tom Hanks, a man who is truly doing the bare minimum of grieving his wife, is that women. I mean, there's this whole sub text to this movie that women would do
anything to be shown genuine love from a man. Because it's like we see even though Meg Ryan's character is receiving that for most of the movie, and then she's like, nah, I want a man, I know, yells at his son. Right. The idea is that like all women, no matter what their circumstances are are just like desperate and like horny and just like need a man that they'll like send
letters to a man they've never met. Something that has brought up a lot in this movie, and I wanted to give some hot context for us, is there is a statistic that has cited several points in this movie, uh saying that you know, it's easier to get killed by a terrorist and get married after forty So does anyone know the backstory for this? Oh? Mensa? All right?
So Nora, So this was a story that was published in Newsweek magazine, where Nora Ffron worked for a long time and successfully sued at one point because they were sexist, which there is a terrible Amazon Prime series about if anyone cares. But there was a cover story that I believe is in the mid seventies published in Newsweek that I think Nora Efron is trying to comment on the in this movie because she hates Newsweek magazine because she
sued them. But they published a cover story about how women over forty were fucked like that was what the story was. It was all false statistics. There was like Newsweek later had to retract the story, but even so because the story came out and came out at a time where apparently everyone was reading Newsweek, there were charts. It was written by wait for it all men, and it was saying that like single women after a certain
point in their life just basically become defunct. And there was this chart that said, like, you're more likely for this to happen, You're more likely for this to happen, and the more likely to be killed by a terrorist thing was the thing everyone remembered. So what Nora Fron is trying to do is roast Newsweek Because Nora Fron, if you're a fan of hers, is notoriously very petty, which is why I love her. If you watch if you learn anything about her, and then watch one of
her movies, you're like, there she goes again. She can't let anything go, which I can relate with um in in any case. That's why that is like cited in this script over and over, even though they don't make that clear. It's weird because it's like we first hear that statistics said by Meg Ryan's male co workers, right, and then Megrian every time it said. The woman in this scene says that's not true because they're supposed to be Nora Ffron's pettiness, and they're right, it's not true.
But I feel like there's a lot of there's a few different male characters written into this script that are like cartoonishly misogynist so that Meg Ryan will look chill, which she's not. Yeah, I feel like the movie makes an attempt to show any man who says this statistic to show them to be stupid, stupid, you know, and like Victor Garber, who Titanic Connection is so handsome, well,
like Rerida Wilson's character is like, that's not true. That's statistic, it is not true, and then he's just like yeah, okay. And my read was like the movie is trying to make them seem like idiot assholes, but I don't know, it felt like it wasn't because even so, like every time it's employed, the female character is like, that's not true, but she's still made out to look ridiculous because the scene where Rita Wilson's like, that's not true, she's still
sobbing about what sounds like a very troubling movie. Right, Yeah, Yeah, the men there may just seem like idiots, but at the same time, the women in the movie are all portrayed to be like, I need love from a man, or more love from a man, because we've got Meg Ryan's character, who is in a committed relationship that seems to be caring, but then she's like, but he's not
good enough, and I need more romance from God. The in most Nora Ron movies, her vibe is very much like, I'm going to make men and women equally irrational and neurotic and impossible to understand their rationale for everything, And that's true. Equality is everyone's out of their minds. That's true. Everyone's yelling at their sun. Just Tom Hanks is yelling at his son. Okay, he's since fence time yelling at hair. It suns a roommate. Son is not his son. It's
not his forty son is forty. They're like sitting in an egg shaped you're listening to the Beatles back courts.
Do you like glance over most of the things that like a fifty year old would do with the person he met from a record store, because that's a I do like that Jonah's best friend is a girl, because I feel like there's not that much representation on screen of like you know, a young boy and young girl being friends and she and she also is like smart and you know, although she also sobs at this this troubling movie, she's she's a hacker as well. Yeah, where
she and she knows how to get the tickets. She's basically like ninety three StubHub like she knows how to get the tickets and how to get him on the plane, and she sets up the whole itinerary and then she's like, okay, time to die probably like and then she withholds information about where he is so that he certainly does. But the movie has a happy ending. One of the big things I noticed about this movie is that the characters within Sleepless in Seattle are very influenced by other media
and other movies. And you know, the carry Grant version of a fair Remember gets referenced a lot. Annie says something like, you know, she's watching it and she's like, those were the days when people knew how to be in love. And Rosier Donald's like, you're you're crazy. It's a movie. Like that's your problem. You don't want to be in love. You want to be in love in a movie. But this movie Sleep listens Seattle is still
it's like the exact same thing. It's still like a romance movie where you're all we're all tricked into thinking that love is real watching this dark Caitlin, Oh my god, so unfair to Remember? I did it deep dive on So when A Fair to Remember is an important part of this movie. It's like where the construct of the empire, state building and the Valentine state comes from. But also like it turns out there's a lot of stuff that's from the movie, including like somebody being creepy and taking
pictures of them. It doesn't pass the back tail test. Surprise from doesn't pass the backdel test, and it's made. It's actually a remake of another movie called Love Affair thirty nine. Okay, so we got it's a star is born basically just that he's remaking it. But here's the important part. So the important part is in the movie, the women to cry over it, and then the men mock the women for crying over the movie and A Fair to Remember. I get teary eyed and fake upset
about the movie. Dirty dozen. Yes, So I take hormones and there becomes a period between my dosages of hormones when I have the most amount of testosterone. So I'm manned up. I had a beer, I watched football, I ate a pizza. Then I watched Dirty Dusn't and it was all right, yeah, this is gonna be another's chuck. It doesn't pass to me. I know it doesn't. Not all women. The longest a woman's on screen is someone getting stabbed. Cool, cool, cool, you know, feminist text. But
then to try and again with a hypothesis. I had my dosage of estrogen, and then I watched an Affair to Remember, okay, and I think I timed it wrong. It just like put me to sleep. It was just there's a couple kind of there's a couple like musical numbers. There's musical numbers and all the other Affair to Remember remakes and it's quasi racist. But the only other thing that you know is there's another remake of an Affair
to Remember that's in Indian one. So there's a Ballywood version of an Affair to Remember called Man and that was three hours long. I watched that one sober. It has four dance numbers. All good, it passed the back. But then then I have a new test, which is finding the movies that are three hours long but still somehow don't pass the back like there are so there are more than a few. But I was, yeah, that's
so that was my research. Oh my god, thank you so and a fair Remember did not make you cry like it does all of the women in this movie. You know, I mistimed it because I ended up like watching My roommates were watching like Stephen Universe the next day, and I was like in tears, like I was in I get in tears over the most ridiculous things, like when I have a head full of Astarton, thank you for the steep dive that you have. This this is why,
this is why this didn't help you at all. No, this is this is very good context for the conversation we're gonna have is content content content. I loved it.
I just don't understand in movies so often that are like referencing older movies, they kind of keep continually saying like this is when love was real, back when women couldn't vote, Like they're like, it's like we see all these female characters longing for a time when they had less rites, and and then this movie kind of reinforces the idea that like, there are certain movies that are women's movies, and there are certain movies the guys movies,
because like the women are all crying over, including like Cabby Hoffman are crying over and a fair to remember, the men are making fun of them. They're saying dirty doesen't is what I like to watch, Like dirty Doesn't? Incoming my Name is Victor Garber. It was like Victor Garber is this is the only role I've ever seen him? And then I was like, oh, how could you? Like? He legally blonde? What he's hot in the movie though,
it's like he's not, so I forgive anything. Um. In this movie he was wearing an outfit that no I was. I was like, I could take your leave this look, and he was being horrible. So I did like the constant acronyms from the kids, like h why didn't that stick? And then there's the weird part where like Jonah is talking about reincarnation and the possibility reincarnation and how he could be reincarnated from another another plane, like this kid
is on mushrooms. He's listening to Penles records backwards and talking about reincarnation. It's it's probably that we like find out that he's thirty six and adopted and we're just seeing him from an outside person. One more thing where there is a character is influenced by movie is Sam talks about fatal Attraction and how it scared the ship
out of him. He's like scared the shot out of me and every man in America, and he cites that as a reason to not go and meet Annie in New York City, which doesn't make sense because it has nothing to do with fatal attraction. And you can literally it was just so dumb of like a line that it's like remember that movie that's semi recent, and so the movie practically like pauses for laughs. Everyone could be like fatal attraction, women who want careers are scary, like um,
but it has nothing to do with fatal attraction. It's the same punchline that's like this is at a time when the crying game is still used as a punch line for reveal about a trans Yeah, like this is this is a big time like Craig game and like we're supposed to laugh. There were so many it was like, yeah, there were so many like transplanic movies from the like uh, silence of the Lambs, and then earlier was Sleepaway Camp. Like there's a line where Rosie O'Donnell says the falling
the guy could be a crackhead, a transvestay. Yeah, that'd be trouble. Oh no, there's more work to do. Yeah. This is still in the middle of like trans women are dangerous. This is like the hot part of the nineties. Yeah, we're now we're in danger. How progressive can we talk about the map graphic that seems to happen. It's like you can go to the you can go to the bathroom and then come back. I know it's still going across.
I like I think that that was like, first of all, this movie, it does take place in too many things, so I found it helpful. Um, and I kind of like when movies are like, let's assume everyone seeing this movie is an absolute idiot and they like can't remember that because I am that viewer and it was helpful
for me. I don't know how how worth it is to talk about this, but there is discussion of like the changing landscape of dating that the Sam character has to deal with, because like Tom Hanks and Rob Brenner's characters are talking about you know, like Sam's got to
get back out there. Boys are getting some bruise, and they're talking about it's there is a moment where we we alluded to this earlier, but they talk about Tom Hanks's but and I feel like a lot of movies would, like especially from this era, would have taken that opportunity to do like no homo, I don't know if you're attractive or not, like but Rob Briners like, I think it's a good butt and say thanks. I thought that was genuinely cute. Even upon rewatching, I thought it was
very cute. It was like, all right, you get me right, But then Rob Brener is like, well, nowadays you split the check with your day. And then Sam's like, I don't think I could ever let a woman pay for dinner. So he is not a feminist icon. But also if a man is like that, like take his money you like, so like if a guy gets all fucking scary white and I was like no, but Tom I was like,
all right, man, I will get more like dipshit. And then he works up the nerve to call Victoria, who is called a hoe in this movie, like time like treated so terrible. She did nothing wrong. No, she did is enjoy herself. She just giggled here and there when Tom Hanks made a goof It's it's the same like treatment. If you like go back and watch an episode at Steinfeld, You're like, that person just has one thing that makes them quirky and they're exaggerate so much as a reason
to like break up with that. Yeah, And that's like one of the things that I saw that Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan's character actually had in common is that they would write off what seems like a positive relationship based on one thing such as laughing or allergies. Yeah, I'm like, oh, they deserve each other. They're horrible. They're both basically George Costanza. Yes, like I'm fine sleeping in a room with a humidifier. That's kind, that can be
rather nice. Who doesn't like a rainforest? Yeah? If I feel I feel for Victoria in this movie, because she truly seems like she really likes him. For quite some time, it seems like he likes her as well. But it's like Jonah just goes rogue, like he's just he hates her. It is so unclear. He just is like, no, I want scary lady. Now and like he just goes totally rogue.
He's on mushrooms. Then the kid goes full in so because then whenever he does work up the nerve to call Victoria and like ask her out that phone conversation we only hear sam side of it, but it's clear that like she's calling all the shots, like she's deciding where to go to dinner, what time they're gonna go, they're going to meet there, rather than like him picking her up, and like her being just a decisive woman who knows what she wants is framed by the movie
is being like, oh, no, she's scary and weird, so I didn't like to but she Yeah, It's like she's truly just out here trying to have a job in a relationship. Okay, leave Victoria alone. And she says like, I'm so glad you called me. I thought night you were never going to call. And it's like, I call him. I hope she and Bill Pullman met each other, because that's a lovely story, isn't me? Or is Bill Pullman looked like face from the A team for most of them?
Don't I don't know? I this is peek Bill Pullman for metely. I mean, he's firing on all cylinders here. He's about to reach week Bill Pullman, which canonically is Daddy and Casper, that is he his character. I it sucks because he truly did nothing wrong, but it's just like any I don't know. In some ways, I feel like it's punishing him for any sort of gentleness and like making out gentleness and a man to be emasculating
and a weakness. And something that Meg Ryan seems to find completely repulsive is that when he is affectionate towards her, she's like, oh, and she gets in the closet with her radio and or you know, the fact that he has any illness makes her you know, and and I don't know. It's it's just so bizarre the way this character is treated. But Victoria's treated much the same way of like she's doing nothing wrong. She seems to be invested in the relationship, and they're just both treated like dogshit.
But the thing that Bill Pullman's character is that scene at the end where Meg Ryan, can you imagine someone you are about to marry? Sits you down and says, okay, So there's this radio show on Valentine's day. It's literally like if someone in this audience, like if there's a couple here who's about to get married, and then one of you sat the other one down, and it was like, so there's this podcast called the Backdoorcast. I was gonna
update it further. It's like, so I met somebody on Snapchat or Okay, It's like, okay, if I say I'm getting married, I sit the person I'm getting married down and I'm like, listen, I heard this show called The Joe Rogan Experience, and I have to marry Joe Rogan today and and and my partner was like, I totally interested. We've already figured out the wedding favor is going to be a d MT. Yeah. His reaction is so accommodating. That is he on mushrooms. I just feel so badly
for for him. There could be a super cut of all of the partners of the different main couples across these movies, just totally piecing out from the relationship totally amicably, and it was ridiculous. It's third different levels of like, no, go ahead, I just want you to be happy, like no one wants Meg Ryan to be happy. Alternative he like captured her and he's like, you're mine. No, No, I think the alternative is like, Okay, this fucking sucks. But if this is what you have to do, I
guess fuck off. Like he could speak to her as if he were frustrated, but she's doing is obnoxious and unhinged. So there is a weird trope that I need. If you have more examples of this trope, please shout it out. But ghost of his Wife trope appears in this movie. It also happens in Casper with ghost Daddy Bill Pullman, the only person hotter in Caspar. Then Bull Pullman is Bill Pullman's ghost during the part where Bill Hallman's a ghost.
But yeah, Tom Hanks's wife comes over. She's in a nightgown, she's got a glass of wine, like, and Tom Hanks is just like, I miss you, my wife, and she's like it's okay. But we agree that they're like in Seattle by that point, right, Yes, the ghost had to get on a plane, Like the ghost came with them, Like there's an old chest of she guided and you're like, I know this fella killed her. Well let's just keep it around. That was just like a weird extension of
his wife. Trope is like she just came to deposit a piece of wisdom and to basically give him permission to fuck Meg Ryan at some point, um, which is you know, I mean she was already her headstone has already been yelled at by Tom hankson to add insult to injury, they got a flyer ghost out to Seattle to say it's okay to hook up with Meg Ryan. I don't find that trope to be that troubling. I just think it's bad writing. Yeah, sure, sure, but there
are certainly more regressive tropes around. I think. I think it's um, it's it. I think it works in movies that are like super natural, I guess. But then again, like you end up with something where a wife has to die to be some sort of mechanism for the movie moving forward, like woman has to die. True, it's and and I mean Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan both need kind of just to continue acting as they're acting
throughout the movie, which is irrationally. I feel like they add in characters to give them permission to act that way. I think Rosie o'donald's character is seems like that a lot, where sometimes Meg Ryan will call her and just be like, is what I'm doing unsafe and irrational? And there's like a scene for Rosie o'donald's like somehow no and Groads like sounds good. Hear that audience, it's fine. Click like
it's just so fucking weak. I will say, Rosie o'donald is like she's almost cast like a quasi Ricky Lake in the role, and she nails Baltimore like that is a Baltimore attitude in a kind of curt way. And I give them props for that. But then again, like that newspaper would just be covering murders. There's more going on in Baltimore. No, No, there's a lonely man in Seattle. Sorry, this corpse just washed up in front of your house,
because we've found corpses in front of our house. We're I've worked right there, and they would just like have to shut off our work because just find bodies, not not necessarily murders, just like you know, a corpse sure of course died of natural you know, a drug person falls in Yeah, I mean, as we know from the that corpse that washes up that was Robert Durst self defending himself. Yeah, you dismember your neighbors in self defense anyway.
And then our other female character that we see semi frequently is Sam's sister, played by his wife, and we don't really know that much about her except that she I mean she sort of used as like an exposition machine basically to be like, hey, you should move to I don't know Seattle. I mean, she just sort of functions in relations. Yeah. The first thing that she says
is here's how to make food because women, uh. And then later that long scene where she is recapping the movie of an Affair to Remember and crying during it. So at least I don't do that as I'm recapping movies on the podcast, but I am Victor garbering the whole time. Is there a movie you would cry as you recite back Paddington too? Maybe I'm just like an emotional robot, But describing a movie doesn't make me cry. Does that happen? Do people cry when you describe a movie?
I don't think people describe movies to each other very much. I think we just do that. But I think that's one of that's one of the things that this movie, like women are just shown as being so emotional that like the thought of a romantic story will make you just cry for a while. Yeah, and that's stupid. Yeah so, but also I cry constantly at the drop of a hat about many things. However, the description of that movie
sounds just like, oh, no, I will say. In the middle of mon the three hour Bollywood version essentially of this movie, there becomes a part where the female lead starts washing the feet of the grandmother in the temple, and uh, I got Syria eyed during that. Okay, that's that's where the two. I mean, crying during a movie I think is normal, But crying while describing yeah that I don't know. Not to shame anyone who does that, but I feel like that just doesn't happen very often.
But all the women shown in this movie are constantly talking about and affair to remember, even like the the security guard at the end, it's like, oh, yeah, I'm at the Empire State Building and you're trying to go up to the roof, just like that movie. It's my wife's favorite, Like, yeah, you could have easily been like written at that so that he was his favorite of that. Nope,
there are boy movies and there are girl movies. I mean, well, boys, as we all know, should be listening to Beatles records backwards and being yelled at by their fops. Do we have any other final thoughts? Uh no, this movie absolutely blows. Don't watch him? Should we take some questions comments from the crowd Q and went, oh yeah, come come on down,
so that you're talking into my guest you. Yeah. I just wanted to mention my favorite scene in the movie where half the cast is yelling at Gabby Hoffman about where that annoying kid is and her father walks up and introduces himself, saying, this is your father speaking like explaining who he is to I just wanted to know your thoughts on that. I hope that that was them meeting for the first time. He's like, listen, I was called in after nine years. How old are those kids?
Like eight? Nine? Yeah? Yeah, I think that that was them meeting Cannon. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yes, I thought it was interesting. I don't want to know your thoughts on this that the only attribute that the child Jonah gets to learn about his mom is that she could peel an apple, like in one whole strip, and that somehow is the like I don't know that was just weird. Is thank you for bringing that up, because that is first of all, so specific that hearing it said out loud,
you're like you. And then, just to be sure, you also see Meg Ryan do it, and then you're like you, no one would do that you. Why is she so handy with a knife? Why it's like seeing this stalker character use a knife handily is like, yikes, that's like in all action movies when somebody's like peeling like an apple with a bowie knife, right, like that seems like it's an oh man when she's like listening to him on the radio, and it was like it's like she's
thinking of that as like his skin. And she's crying during that scene too, because women be crying all the time, but not so hard they can't see their knife. Like when I thank you for that happen when I couldn't sleep, Mom would split wood with a hatchet. She showed then on your foot any other questions comments, Yeah, So I just need to get this off my chest because I'm super embarrassed about this. I've seen this movie once years ago.
I remember nothing about it before coming to the show, but this was like my partner in my movie that we watched on our first date, and I guess we found this like romantic enough to like still be dating like four years later, but we started like, oh sleep List in Seattle, and I'm like, oh my god, brave for sharing. Let's applaud this bravery because thank you, thank
you're here. Do you have any couple movies like the movies you have as a in your relationships or I think I've told this anecdote on the podcast before, but in one of my worst relationships ever, but it's started with the gentleman if you can call him that, okay. I whenever to his apartment. I was like nineteen or twenty, and he was just like, I love Drive. Ever seen it? And I was like no, and he was like, let's watch it. I have it in the DVD player already. Yeah,
Drive cute up. And then we were watching it. I personally think that movie is a fucking drag. Was not enjoying it. And then he was just like, there's a scorpion jacket in the movie and he kept looking over. He's just like that jackets cool, right, And I was like, I guess twenty minutes later he was like, I have that check Okay, but that's also the jacket. They what is it is? Somebody helped me out here, he said, jacket also in a gay cruising movie. Yeah, it's a
really famous jacket, like a scorpio rising jacket. I'm forgetting the name of it, but it's from a reference to something. Yeah, that's a a cruise name jacket. Hell yeah. So he's like, I have the jacket. He pulls the jacket out of his closet and just leaves it next to me suggestively, and then twenty minutes later he's like, I've always wanted to make out while a girl's wearing that jacket, and then I did for three years. That's I'm a feminist.
I've never been in a relationship, so I have no movies and I'm in a relationship with myself and our movie is Paddington. Yeah, oh, I know. I'm sorry. Do you think I didn't know Paddington two was better? I I still haven't seen Paddington. Caitlin made me watch it on Christmas. I saw the first one by myself and
I enjoyed it. It's so I think we me and my partner ours is just the It's really just the seventh season of Simpsons, because you like, you have to decide, if you're in a long enough relationship, you have to decide which season of the Simpsons you agree is the best. I can tell you right now, it will help you. We've been together for seventeen years, so yeah, we find this season that we liked Season seven. Okay, beautiful, it's a beautiful love story. Gang. Does this movie pass the
Betel test? Well? I there is a quick exchange towards the beginning where Annie's mom is holding up a dress, and so they talk about this dress back and forth for a couple lines, but the rest of the conversation is about Walter and about Annie's dad, and the context is like, here, take this dress so that you can marry a man, right, so you can marry Bill Pullman. Yeah, I don't feel like it at all. Yeah, every other
exchange either. There. I thought there was an exchange between Meg and Rosie where they're talking about a Polaroid commercial and there's something about a refrigerator. I wasn't fully listening. This movie is very boring, but yeah, I know they're not talking about a man. They're talking about some commercial. I missed that one. But there are a number of exchanges.
There aren't as many as you would think. I guess, but because there are a lot of female characters in this movie, they're just they're not really frequently seen interacting, with the exception of like Meg Ryan and Rosie o'donald right. Yeah, and almost all of their conversations are about a man in Seattle that she's never met or Walter. Does it count as a conversation if she's yelling at the radio
where Dr Mark I don't do. I think if she's yelling at Dr Marcia, uh no, but also a compelling argument. Does it pass the Backtel test if Tom Hanks's yelling at a child? Yes, Um, I think Alfred Molina could have played Jonah. You stepped on my I think he could have played Jonah. And I think he could have played Jonah well. And I think if Tom Hanks is yelling at Alfred Molina, who's playing a nine year old, we've got a psychological thriller on her and I would
love it. So that's yeah. Also, it tragically passes the Bechtel test. Yeah. I've seen two different readings where it like did or didn't pass the test. Yeah, it's I I will say I did think that that exchange with my gain Rosie did pass. Yeah, that I totally forgotten. So that's says something about that conversation. I've seen this movie three times in the past week, and I don't remember that conversation. Still don't work. Yeah, but I guess
it passes, so hooray. So yeah it did. So female talking is fine and back well with that, let's rated on our nipple scales. Nipples based on his portrayal of women. I think that it gets like a half nipple. Women are portrayed as just being these like blubbering, like always crying, like hyper emotional, like no matter what, I need more men in my life. Yeah. The fact that she is stalking and that's not addressed in any way, and it's
actually seen as being very cool and romantic. She's given permission to do it by multiple characters, so like when you do it, it's okay, right right. The movie subverts the trope of men's talking women, but that's also not good. So yeah, I guess a half nipple because Gabby Hoffman, are you giving your nippt to? I'll give my nipple to I guess to Nora Affron. Yeah, because she did right and direct it. So I mean, we've got a female phonemaker, but she didn't do a very good job.
I'm gonna give this movie a nipple and a half because I am Anora affront stand even though she you know, mistakes are made, but um, she did marry Carl Bernstein and then they got divorced and then she roasted him NonStop until she died, which was fucking incredible. And I I just I love Nora a Fron so much. Um, and it has nothing to do with this movie, although you know she's clearly the person driving it. But it's
weird there. I think the kind of a recurring problem throughout her movies is that she kind of tries to have it both ways a lot of time, where all her female characters are very active, but what they're active doing you're like, oh no, like there, I mean, we can't deny me. Bryant's character is active as fuck because she is committing crimes like she is. She's actively talking
someone the whole movie. Uh, She's trying to subvert things at times that I think missed the mark with like every time a woman you know, refutes like no, that terroristatistic is wrong. But then she's also kind of made to look dumb in the same scene women being blubbering dummies, but they're also hackers, so you know she there. There's a there's a lot of mixed bagginess to to this movie that doesn't I don't even think that, like the female stalker thing is an issue of its time. It's
just like weird. Okay, But I'll go nipple and a half and I'll give one to Nora and I'll give the other half to Rosie. All Right, I'm gonna give it. Uh Well, considering I've watched all of the other Love Affair, there's a fair to remember. There's the other Love Affair from four, there's the Bollywood movie, and then this. I think in the uber of all it's the only one more woman doesn't get struck down in traffic. So can I give it at least one nipple for that? Yeah?
And I'll give another nipple for the for the girl Jessica um and also for the I'll cross both those nipples too for the hopeful sequel that follows Jonah and Jessica, as Jonah was on to and create Instagram and Jessica invents the first Himalayan Salt Lamp compelling. I like that movie. So yeah, this movie, he's boring and I don't like it. Um. Thanks for kesn uh Andy, Where can people follow you online? Why would you like to plug? Yeah? I do the
comedy nest downstairs here in the grotto every Tuesday. It's an awesome hate free female focus showing room. Great. All right, thank you so much for joining us. Yes, give it up for Andy. Oh my, uh, my co workers are probably listening to this right now. I'm probably on break. Hell yeah, thank you for coming. Give up for yourselves. Thank you. There you have it. That was the last of the live shows that we recorded on our West Coast tour. Thanks again to our guest Andy I Wantio
for joining us. Thank you to the Jewel Box Theater at the Rendezvous in Seattle and all of their staff for helping us to put on the various shows that we did there in Seattle. Thanks again to Sam Junio for recording the show and being our road dog for the West Coast tour. Uh And speaking of tours, we've got another one coming up in the Northeast. We will be in New York, Philadelphia, Washington, d C. And Boston
at the end of April and beginning of May. So check out our website bechtel cast dot com and click on live appearances for all of the dates, venues and other details for those shows. And if you live in or near any of those places, we hope to see you there and then all the usual stuff. Follow us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook at bechtel Cast right and review us on iTunes. That helps us out a lot.
Subscribe to our matren at patreon dot com slash spectel Cast, where we do to bonus episodes every single month and it's only five dollars. What a damn good special. Uh. And then we've also got merch at t public dot com slash the backtel Cast, including a few new designs by our very own Jamie Loftus like Woman in Stem and Rise of the Matriarchy. And that about does it for this episode, So thanks as always for listening. And this is Sleepless in Seattle signing off just kidding, it's Caitlin by