Latest / History Harpies: Pop Culture, Past and Present / Yes, Nicole Kidman Has Always Been a Sexy Bold Queen (Ft. Dead Calm, To Die For, Eyes Wide Shut, and Babygirl)

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Yes, Nicole Kidman Has Always Been a Sexy Bold Queen (Ft. Dead Calm, To Die For, Eyes Wide Shut, and Babygirl) · History Harpies: Pop Culture, Past and Present

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  They say we're loud, opinionated, afraid Telling
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  us to hush, dim our historical light But darlings,
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  we're the Harpies, sharp and keen Unveiling the
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  truth behind the silver screen History Harpies
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  hear us roar And this is episode 13, which will
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  be focusing on the illustrious and erotic career
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  of Nicole Kidman. And the reason why, of course,
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  we are looking at Nicole, who is my queen, the
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  reason why we are looking at Nicole is because
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  of the shocking news of the breakup of her marriage
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  with Keith. Urban, which just broke a few days
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  ago and really was a surprise, I think, to everybody,
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  except perhaps Nicole and Keith themselves. It
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  was almost the level of shock of when she broke
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  up with Tom Cruise. Yes. And although there were
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  always speculations, particularly during the
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  filming of Eyes Wide Shut, that things were rocky,
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  rocky among between the two of them. It seemed
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  like Nicole and Keith were copacetic. It did
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  seem that way. And certainly it was always easy
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  to identify some perhaps strange in the marriage
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  between Nicole and Tom, precisely that she never
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  seemed really comfortable with Scientology. Right.
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  But there weren't those kinds of dynamics as
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  far as the public could tell about the marriage
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  of Nicole and Keith. They were always seen together.
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  Right. Red carpets. Award shows. She supported
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  him at the country music awards. He supported
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  her at the Oscars. They had two children. Affectionate.
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  the social media messages to each other. Very
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  supportive and very good looking together. As
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  of course, Tom was too, but it was a very attractive
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  and you know, endearing couple and everybody
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  was rooting for them. Rooting for them. And especially,
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  of course, have been sympathetic that everyone
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  knew that the marriage had started in a kind
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  of rocky way that Keith Urban had to go to rehab
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  very soon after the marriage with Nicole. Nicole
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  was also very open about the fact that when they
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  met about 20 years ago that they were both in
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  vulnerable places, they were both lonely. It
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  really seemed to be this moment of kismet that
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  they found each other and had this family, especially
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  because, again, that everyone knew that her children
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  with Tom Cruise apparently had cut her out as
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  not being a Scientologist and that there had
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  been that rockiness. One of the things that I
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  think was most upsetting about the news the other
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  day about Keith and Nicole was that Nicole was,
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  the word that some presses used was blindsided.
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  That is the exact same word, if we can remember,
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  that was used about the breakup with Tom Cruise.
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  Interesting. But that was also something that
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  Nicole was... expecting it, that she also in
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  that case wanted to work on the marriage. So
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  Lauren and I thought that not only would we look
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  at Nicole this time around, but that particularly
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  we would look at the films that she has done
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  in her long and super varied career, films that
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  are more erotic, that lean more on her power,
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  her sexuality, her beauty. And then also focus
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  around the theme of marriage. Of marriage, absolutely.
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  Most of the films that or all of the films that
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  we're talking about today, deal with Nicole in
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  marital situations, one case with her actual
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  husband at this time. And she's made many films
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  and TV shows and stuff on Netflix or HBO. And
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  she has a long career and a very, very varied
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  and diverse career in terms of roles. but the
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  films today are really around the marriage and
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  erotic genre. And it does seem to be the case
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  if rumor holds that making these films has been
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  a point of contention in both of her marriages.
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  There is the rumor that it was Keith Urban's
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  reaction against disapproval of the film Baby
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  Girl that perhaps spurred a separation. Obviously
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  we don't know, but that was the rumor. There
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  was a rumor with the breakup of the Tom marriage
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  that she had had an affair with Ewan McGregor
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  during the making of Moulin Rouge. Okay, who
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  knows? Who knows? But obviously there are lots
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  of ways in which her work as an artist, as an
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  actor in these films seems to be bleeding into
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  real life and vice versa. At least again that
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  is the rumor we should stress. Yes, absolutely,
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  absolutely. So... Where do you think we should
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  start Christine in? discussing this if we think
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  about the chronology of these films We're talking
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  about dead calm. We're talking about to die for
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  we're talking about eyes wide shut and we're
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  talking about baby girl and again one could argue
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  that it all started with with dead calm and That
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  we see how sort of fresh -faced, very young Nicole
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  Kidman. So beautiful. So beautiful in dead calm
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  with her Aussie accent. With her Aussie accent,
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  which we don't often hear during her career.
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  No, no. And that that film, again about a marriage
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  and about a tragedy. Multiple tragedies. Multiple
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  tragedies. But a tragedy that led to this alienation
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  of the two of them on this. This boat. Right.
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  Which then led to chaos and violence. And potentially
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  murder. And murder. So for those who haven't
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  watched this film, this is absolutely one of
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  my favorite Nicole Kidman films. Yes. And what
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  is remarkable about it is that she is so young
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  when this movie comes out. It's 1989. She's what?
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  21, 22. Right. And it really is an Australian
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  film. Almost nobody is in this film. There's
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  basically three people and a handful of cops
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  and doctors at the beginning. And Nicole stars
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  opposite Sam Neill, a huge star in Australia,
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  who then also transitioned to American films
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  and was very, very successful. Directed by Philip
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  Noyce, who was a very successful Australian film
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  director, who also then did a lot of mainstream
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  films. And the setup is a really painful one
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  that this is a couple who have lost their toddler
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  child in a terrible car accident. We even see
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  the child fly through the windshield. It's really
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  terrible. And so we have this couple that goes
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  off on a yachting trip in order to get over this
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  grief. And so one thing that is interesting to
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  me about this, and I don't know if you would
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  agree, thinking about all films, this is a film
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  where we have a married couple at the beginning,
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  right? As strange as that sounds, that seems
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  abnormal to me, right? There's no struggle really
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  between the couple, right? There's no sense that
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  it's two people who need to find each other.
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  There's not even really a sense that it's two
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  people who need to recover each other, right?
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  It is a unified married couple who are struggling
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  with grief, this unimaginable grief of having
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  lost this child. And part of the reason for that,
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  I suspect, this film is an hour and 30 minutes
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  long and the Billy Zane of it all happens quickly.
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  Quickly. And so there can't be too much, you
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  know, talky talky marital strife because Billy
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  Zane is going to come and terrorize them very
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  quickly. So it's this interesting fusion of genres
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  of of a sort of marriage and trauma within the
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  marriage genre, but then you have a sort of serial
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  killer genre as well, horror genre, thriller,
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  whatever. However, we want to think of it in
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  the Billy Zane character who comes on board literally,
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  literally very, very quickly into the film. So
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  we do see Nicole have the nightmare and we see
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  Sam Neill comforting her. And obviously she hasn't
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  gotten over that, but now she's going to have
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  a lot more. to get over. And certainly the way
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  that the film is framed, right, is that this
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  is an episode, this terrible episode with murderer
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  Billy Zane getting on the boat and Sam Neill
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  being away from the boat, and we'll talk about
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  that more in a second. But this is framed as
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  a therapeutic... event for them as horrific and
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  nightmarish and traumatizing. Yes, it is. The
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  Billy Zane -ness is so awful, but nevertheless,
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  this is something that helps, we are meant to
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  think, right? I believe that this is something
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  that helps pull them out of that. Helps them
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  rebuild. Helps them rebuild because in part both
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  of them, but especially Nicole's character, Ray,
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  has to be so... active right so powerful and
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  one of the things i love about this film and
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  i i really really love it is that we have it's
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  not just a cliche of saying we don't have a woman
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  who's a victim but nicole she's not a victim
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  in this film at all right she suffers things
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  she saw of course but also by the same token,
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  right? It's 1989. We don't have this kind of
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  cliched girl boss, right? Like she's not like
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  karate chopping him, right? Or I did my self
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  -defense training, you know, my problem of God.
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  It is this almost kind of homespun, right? I'm
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  on this yacht. I am using the tools that I have.
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  Improvisation. Improvisation. And you get the
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  sense that this is a normal woman who is trying
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  to fight off this killer. But again, in a very
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  realistic way. It's almost sort of Jamie Lee
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  Curtis in Halloween. Do you know what I mean?
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  And I find that refreshing. I agree. It's a normal
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  woman, a woman who's been married to a man in
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  the Navy for a long time who obviously has these
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  nautical skills that is very important to the
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  storyline and to her own survival. Nonetheless,
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  she's not some sort of superhero. She is a normal
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  woman. who is in many ways overpowered by Billy
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  Zane in much of the film, who can't get away
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  from him in much of the film, but nonetheless
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  is able to, you know, take him out. Take him
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  out eventually. Eventually take him out and to
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  outsmart him and to find ways to survive alone
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  on the boat with Billy Zane. You know what? I
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  just I'm not. We won't get off on this tangent,
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  I promise. But in some ways, and I hadn't really
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  thought of this before, the film reminds me so
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  much of this classic Audrey Hepburn film, Wait
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  Until Dark, where Audrey Hepburn plays a blind
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  woman who is alone in her apartment, right? Alan
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  Arkin is the evil villain who has to come and
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  get the heroin that's hidden in the apartment.
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  And the entire thing is how this blind woman
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  who has not felt particularly independent, she's
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  recently blinded in the film, that she is able
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  again to use both her ingenuity and her sort
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  of of natural, use her blindness in effect against
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  him. And Nicole's character in Dead Calm really
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  reminds me of that, where we're given this exceptionally
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  realistic in the sense of where she is on this
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  boat, these particular tools, her own knowledge.
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  She is able to use her sedatives against him.
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  She's able to use the fantastic harpoon gun,
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  right, the gun. And so I think that that's, what's
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  great about that is we keep cutting right back
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  and forth between, as you said, Sam Neal's character
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  has these skills that he is using at the same
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  time on the other boat to try to get back to
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  her. And so we also then don't, she is neither
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  super vulnerable, but it's also not the case
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  that he is helpless either, right? They both
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  are incredibly able people. They're both very
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  resourceful people. And she most importantly
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  is able to use her sexuality. in a way that will,
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  you know, make him, Billy Zane the Hymn, very,
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  very vulnerable. And she's able to read him in
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  certain ways, but also know that if she resists
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  him, that's going nowhere. And she has much more
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  power if she works with him, if you want to use
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  that, but works with him for a while and then
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  can gain his trust and then can sedate him. Harpoon
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  him and take him out. Hot tie him when he's unconscious.
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  Right, right. And take him out in all kinds of
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  ways. And again, the interesting thing for me
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  about both Dead Calm and To Die For, the short
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  time of both of them. Yes, absolutely. Both of
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  these films are under, I mean, they're an hour
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  and a half, an hour and 40 tops. The pacing is
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  starting. And the pacing is quick. the writing
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  is tight yes absolutely a lot of things happen
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  uh and what's interesting is that the storytelling
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  in both of them is one in which you see the empowerment
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  of Nicole's character really kind of come to
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  fruition very quickly but that she is adapting
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  in both situations actually and that she is able
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  to manipulate people but there is also this real
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  arc right there's the arc of And we can get to
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  die for it in a minute. But in Dead Calm, the
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  arc of Billy Zane coming on and Sam Neill and
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  Nicole trusting him for a minute. For a minute,
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  a literal minute. Until they find out that, you
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  know, terrible things happened on this other
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  boat and he is not who he seems. And obviously
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  they can't trust him and that he is out to, you
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  know, do no good. And that that ability to shift
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  gear so quickly is really admirable in the film.
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  I agree. It's really remarkable. And again, I
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  mean, Philip Noyce went on to do all of these
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  action films. He did like all the Harrison Ford,
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  Jack Ryan films. And I think that it's the economy
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  is so great because we also feel like we have
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  a great sense of their marriage so quickly. Right.
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  A sense of the both of them so quickly. And as
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  you say, Billy Zane is incredible in this movie.
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  He's so frightening, genuinely frightening. And
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  he's frightening in a way that's just so funny
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  because he's shirtless and just walking around
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  and he doesn't have a gun. There's nothing about
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  him ostensibly that you would think would make
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  him frightening, but he is. But he is frightening.
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  He is frightening and especially the idea of
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  this. vulnerable you think she's vulnerable in
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  the beginning and she is vulnerable because of
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  the grief from her son and also just a woman
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  alone on a boat and that this man who you now
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  know has you know maybe murdered dismembered
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  people dismembered and murdered people on this
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  other boat is now taking her captive and you
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  don't know what he's capable of but he's just
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  standing there like a bathing suit and not dancing.
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  That's what's just so crazy about it is there's
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  nothing on this and he's so good -looking. Yes.
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  And there's nothing about him that is frightening.
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  on the surface, which is why they take him in,
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  of course, but then he turns so quickly. So quickly.
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  And I do think one of the great, great suspenseful
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  scenes, again, even though it's so simple, is
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  when Sam Neill is... rowing the boat, right,
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  back to his boat. And he's shouting to Nicole
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  Kidman's character to jump off the boat. Because
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  he knows now that Billy Zane is a murderer. And
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  again, you're like, how do you get so much suspense
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  out of this incredibly, this man is simply rowing
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  a boat, shouting at his wife. And it's incredibly
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  suspenseful. It's incredibly just so dramatic.
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  But we do, I think, have to talk about... a little
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  bit more about how Rey does use her sexuality.
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  Okay. Because I think that what's, I was actually
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  looking at the Wikipedia and the Wikipedia about
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  the film, which I think is, I don't know if I
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  agree. I just want to know what you think about
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  this. So it says, all right, Ray uses her sexuality,
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  right? She does start to kiss because she needs,
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  we should make clear, she needs to buy time because
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  she needs to return. She needs to get her boat
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  back to where Sam Neill is. And Sam Neill tells
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  her the boat is sinking. I have about six hours.
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  And so she then has to basically keep herself
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  alive, right? And find a way to get her boat
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  back. to where Samuel is, which Billy Zane doesn't
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  want to happen. And so she does start to kiss
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  him. They do start to take their clothes off.
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  This is a ruse because then she got, by the way,
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  I'm really glad the dog dies in this film. Because
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  the dog like basically stymies her at every turn.
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  There are many, many examples. And the dog gets
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  the key to the motor. Gets the key to the motor.
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  The dog again is sitting there. The dog is not
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  in her corner. He's barking when she tries to
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  get the gun. And so, but we do have, and this
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  is, I thought it was interesting, Wikipedia says,
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  oh, she goes back. and she is coerced to have
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  sex with him. And I would not describe it that
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  way. I think that that's really what she's doing
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  is so much more complex. She's willingly having
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  sex with him. But again, as a means to an end.
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  She's buying time. She's gaining his trust. She's
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  trying to... establish a scenario where she can
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  then later, again, she doesn't know she's gonna
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  drug him, but where she can put him in a situation
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  where she has the upper hand. And that if it
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  were just a flat -out rape scene, she would never
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  be able to accomplish the things that happened
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  next. And even her saying, well, I'm going to
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  get these cigarettes for afterwards, tells him,
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  okay, she's... in it she's yeah she's up for
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  this and we're going to then run off together
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  right this is this husband is now dead he's on
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  the sinking boat and we will go have this life
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  together murdering people are doing whatever
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  they're going to do right um and that he has
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  a certain comfort level with her after the sex
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  that again makes and again the economy i don't
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  think can be underscored enough because after
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  the sex happens right the time between his Demise
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  is pretty quick. It is it is running all over
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  the boat and she's starting to shoot And we see
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  of course Sam Neill trying to struggle out of
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  his predicament, but There just isn't that much
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  time. And so I think the sex scene is used in
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  a very, very effective way. I agree. I mean,
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  it certainly isn't romantic. I mean, you see
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  her. It's not romantic. You see her face. She
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  is just plotting in effect. Yes. It's not exploitative.
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  There's no nudity. You see her disgusted by it.
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  But at the same time, you see her empowered by
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  it. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I really think
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  it's a remarkable scene. And so we have then,
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  if we can sort of sum up, right? Dead Calm, I
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  think is remarkable for so many reasons, right?
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  We see this strong marriage. They are so charismatic.
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  I've always wondered why they didn't make another
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  film together because they have so much chemistry.
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  And again, Sam Neill is just so handsome. He
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  is so handsome. So he's so handsome. She's so
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  beautiful. Again, their chemistry is wonderful.
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  You do believe that they are a... deeply in love
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  couple. You do. You want them to go on and have
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  a wonderful life together. You do. And as we
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  talked about before, there absolutely is the
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  sense that they are equal partners, right? Equal
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  in resourcefulness, equal in their partnership,
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  and lots of flare guns are shot at the end. And
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  again, there's no more dog, which I think is
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  a good thing. So what had Billy Zane's head?
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  It blows off. I will say, and then maybe we should
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  start talking about to die for, I do wonder,
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  seriously, I'm not kidding, if in 1989, James
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  Cameron sees dead calm and he says, all right,
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  both that is sinking, a guy on this little piece
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  of wood out in the ocean, Billy Zane, Titanic.
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  Yes. Who knows? Who knows? I will say, one of
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  my favorite scenes in this film, and a very,
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  very memorable, probably the thing that sticks
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  with me, is that hair washing scene at the end.
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  Oh, it's beautiful. But then creepy. Well, again,
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  when he comes back with his bloody hands and
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  the blood in her hair, that to me is just priceless.
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  It is priceless. But again, we have this very
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  tender scene when it starts with Sam Neill washing
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  her hair, and then he goes to get her breakfast,
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  and you're like, Sam Neill's so fantastic. But
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  so it's interesting though because of course
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  dead calm we have Nicole's character using her
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  sexuality in order to stymie a murderer but then
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  of course we have a very different use of her
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  sexuality in To Die For where she is trying to
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  get someone murdered using her sexuality. So
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  do you want to tell our audience a little bit
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  about To Die For for those who haven't seen it?
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  So To Die For, when did To Die For come out?
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  1995 okay okay so to die for is we have American
• 21:04
  Nicole American Nicole a much blonder Nicole
• 21:08
  she's not quite fully blonde but she is not core
• 21:12
  redhead Nicole. Not redhead curly Nicole. No,
• 21:15
  not. Sadly. She has straight haired Nicole. Straight
• 21:16
  hair. And American Nicole. Jane Pauli hair Nicole.
• 21:20
  Yes, yes. So Jedi 4 is about a very, very ambitious
• 21:25
  young woman named Suzanne Stone who marries a
• 21:30
  Matt Dillon. Matt Dillon. Who is again another
• 21:33
  gorgeous man. who is part of this Italian family.
• 21:37
  They own a restaurant. They're in New Hampshire.
• 21:40
  And she marries him. It appears they're in love.
• 21:45
  It's unclear. It's a little unclear. But she
• 21:49
  is going to be using him for something. It's
• 21:53
  clear she's going to be manipulating him for
• 21:55
  something. The film is told... Sort of as a flashback,
• 22:00
  a sort of over narration of Kidman's character
• 22:03
  and later you sort of find out why but she's
• 22:07
  really telling the whole story. The two are married,
• 22:13
  and then her ambitions to become basically the
• 22:16
  next Barbara Walters, Jane Pauli, any major kind
• 22:20
  of - Wants to be on television. Broadcast person.
• 22:22
  And even in a sensational way, it doesn't matter.
• 22:25
  She wants to be on TV. She wants to be famous.
• 22:27
  And she sees herself as much better than Dylan
• 22:33
  and Dylan's character and just using him basically
• 22:38
  to get ahead. And so over the span of the film
• 22:43
  she Does get a job at a sort of local TV network
• 22:48
  and they're sort of bunch of nobodies and she's
• 22:51
  still a nobody but she thinks she's a somebody
• 22:54
  and she goes into a high school to film a kind
• 22:59
  of quasi documentary or what she thinks is a
• 23:02
  documentary Anyway, which is going to be like
• 23:04
  the next great who knows what exploration into
• 23:08
  on I don't know Dateline or something. Yes, and
• 23:11
  she meets these three young people played Joaquin
• 23:16
  Phoenix and Casey Affleck. And I can't remember
• 23:19
  the actress. Alison something. The woman, Lydia.
• 23:22
  But anyway, she quickly gets into a romantic
• 23:27
  relationship with Joaquin Phoenix. They're having
• 23:30
  sex all over the place. He is hot and heavy for
• 23:33
  her. And she manipulates him and Affleck and
• 23:37
  Lydia, the other character to murder Matt Dillon.
• 23:41
  Now, Why does she want to murder Matt Dillon?
• 23:43
  Because Matt Dillon and his family are saying,
• 23:47
  Hey, you know, you're, you're too ambitious and
• 23:50
  settle down. We want you to run the restaurant
• 23:52
  with us and have babies. And we're not on board
• 23:55
  with you trying to like move to New York or LA.
• 23:58
  And we just want to stay here. And we want you
• 24:01
  to be basically a housewife. And she is not about
• 24:05
  that. She is not about that. And there very much
• 24:08
  is the sense that the reason why she starts the
• 24:10
  sexual really with Joaquin Phoenix's character
• 24:12
  is because she wants to manipulate him, right?
• 24:15
  There's no sense of like, I'm just doing this
• 24:17
  for kicks, right? Even sexual kicks that absolutely,
• 24:20
  this is the best way to get this 15 year old
• 24:23
  kid or whoever old he's supposed to be to murder
• 24:25
  my husband. And one thing that the movie doesn't
• 24:29
  really make super clear, although it kind of
• 24:31
  alludes to it, is why she doesn't just want to
• 24:33
  get a divorce. She's like, you're gonna take
• 24:35
  my dog away. You know, I won't get condo in the
• 24:38
  car. And so the... the art but of course what
• 24:41
  she tells Joaquin Phoenix and the other kids
• 24:43
  is that her husband is abusing her that she's
• 24:45
  being beaten and this is basically the hook that
• 24:47
  she uses to persuade them to or him to murder
• 24:51
  Matt Dillon's character. Right. The other thing
• 24:54
  about the divorce is that it's never made entirely
• 24:58
  clear that this couple although we know her motivations
• 25:01
  that they're fundamentally unhappy. Yes. I mean
• 25:03
  there is this point of contention between them.
• 25:07
  Absolutely. He wants kids. She doesn't want kids.
• 25:08
  She wants to be famous. We never see them blowing
• 25:11
  up. We never see them, you know, in some kind
• 25:14
  of heated, really heated argument. And so the
• 25:17
  film never gets to a point where you could see
• 25:20
  divorce as a sort of rational end to this. Yes.
• 25:24
  And they've only been married for a year. Right.
• 25:26
  When this whole murder plot begins. Right. And
• 25:29
  they are, I guess from his perspective, a seemingly
• 25:32
  happy couple. Yes. I mean, she may be a little
• 25:35
  off the rails in terms of wanting to be on TV,
• 25:38
  but he also is so enamored of her. He keeps telling
• 25:41
  his family, his sister. He wants to watch her
• 25:44
  broadcast every night. She's doing the weather
• 25:47
  and he's like, oh, she's so smart. She knows
• 25:49
  everything. She's going to be a superstar. And
• 25:52
  he's very encouraging of her in the beginning
• 25:54
  of the film. Yes, absolutely. But then it changes
• 25:57
  when it becomes clear to him that her ambitions
• 26:00
  are getting in the way of what he sees as a normal
• 26:03
  family. family life. Right. So we do have, I
• 26:05
  would say in some ways, I don't know if you would
• 26:07
  agree with me, to me, this is absolutely not,
• 26:11
  ironically, this is not Nicole's sexiest role
• 26:14
  in some way. Maybe it's because the sexuality,
• 26:18
  the sexual relationship is so instrumental and
• 26:22
  because the character herself is so unappealing.
• 26:24
  We're not supposed to like Suzanne. No. At all.
• 26:28
  No. She's not a villain, but she of course is
• 26:30
  a villain. She's not a villain in the sense that
• 26:32
  Billy Zane is a villain. No. But she is. She's
• 26:36
  the most manipulative person in the film by far.
• 26:40
  Yes. Unless we consider at the end, you know,
• 26:43
  the mafia person was going to murder her. Right.
• 26:47
  But she is certainly unlikable and she is and
• 26:52
  she's definitely portrayed as somebody who's
• 26:54
  conniving and taking advantage of these high
• 26:56
  school kids in a very obvious way. Including
• 27:01
  Lydia, who seems to have kind of half, I have
• 27:04
  a crush on you and half I want to, I look up
• 27:07
  to you and I want to be like you. Right. And
• 27:09
  this is something of course that Suzanne mocks
• 27:11
  Lydia for, right? Your quote unquote lesbian
• 27:13
  tendencies. She sort of throws this at Lydia
• 27:15
  at the end. And so we have sort of back and forth,
• 27:19
  right? This idea that Suzanne does pose as being
• 27:23
  sort of a friend, someone who's finally listening
• 27:25
  to these very kind of disadvantaged, even abused
• 27:28
  kids we have Lydia admit that she was sexually
• 27:31
  molested by what her stepfather or her mother's
• 27:33
  boyfriend and this is something that Suzanne
• 27:36
  knows about and really again uses in order to
• 27:38
  pursue her own ends. She also again by the end
• 27:42
  of the film says look I come from a good family
• 27:44
  I've gone to college even if it was junior college
• 27:47
  like who's gonna believe you yes basically dirtball
• 27:51
  white trash yeah yeah totally trash over me I
• 27:55
  am a member of the community married to this
• 27:58
  established family now and so there there is
• 28:02
  a kind of class dynamic as well in terms of her
• 28:04
  saying I'm going places and and maybe not to
• 28:09
  somebody on the outside or a real real broadcasters
• 28:12
  right she's a nobody but In this community, she's
• 28:15
  a somebody. She's a somebody, yes. And she's
• 28:17
  doing the weather, and especially when they start
• 28:21
  interviewing more people, more people that knew
• 28:23
  her, and even the Wayne Knight character, who
• 28:27
  is terrific in this film. He really is, yeah.
• 28:31
  he becomes kind of enamored with her too. All
• 28:34
  the gumption, all the like pushiness. This is
• 28:37
  so admirable, right? That she's just kind of,
• 28:39
  she's a train, right? You kind of get out of
• 28:41
  her way or you don't as the case may be and as
• 28:44
  Matt Dylan finds out. And one thing I do really
• 28:46
  like about it, but it's also disturbing is that
• 28:48
  as you say, it is about class. We very, again,
• 28:51
  the whole sort of like New England sort of white
• 28:54
  trash working class stuff, you know, in some
• 28:56
  ways it's a little too close to home, right?
• 28:58
  I feel like I know all of those people. And,
• 29:01
  but we absolutely have, I have to say, I think
• 29:04
  Joaquin Phoenix is so unbelievable in this. Again,
• 29:08
  Billy Zane is so good in Ted Con. Joaquin Phoenix
• 29:10
  is spectacular. He is spectacular in this. And
• 29:14
  so, I mean, just so believable. And I think everyone
• 29:18
  at some point knew a high school kid. Yeah, absolutely.
• 29:21
  And that would become so sort of ensnared with
• 29:25
  Nicole Kinman. You understand why he's willing
• 29:27
  to kill her husband. Yes, you do. You understand
• 29:30
  why he believes he's going to run away with her,
• 29:33
  and everything she promises him, of course, you
• 29:36
  know, is a lie. But you understand where he's
• 29:39
  coming from. Where he's coming from. He's basically,
• 29:41
  he is a much, much, much less intelligent John
• 29:45
  Bender, right? No, seriously, right? Yes. But
• 29:48
  someone who has... sort of no paths, right? No
• 29:51
  pathways out of what he sees of this particular
• 29:53
  town, right? In this family and his own socioeconomic
• 29:57
  class. And yes, and she really manipulates it.
• 29:59
  And so that's what I think is so in some ways
• 30:01
  kind of weird about the film and Nicole in it.
• 30:05
  So Gus Van Zandt, right? Gus Van Zandt, he films
• 30:08
  Joaquin Phoenix. I don't know if you agree with
• 30:09
  me on this. He films Joaquin Phoenix as if basically
• 30:13
  Joaquin Phoenix is the object of his own desire.
• 30:17
  I think that's true, right? He films him as if
• 30:20
  he is sort of the kind of hustler that Gus Van
• 30:23
  Zant had River Phoenix be in my own private Idaho,
• 30:25
  right? If that made any sense. And so I do think
• 30:27
  that when we see... Joaquin Phoenix, you know,
• 30:30
  sort of shirtless with his little necklace on.
• 30:32
  That reads to me as like, Gus Van Zant wants
• 30:36
  to depict him as a sexual object, right? Not
• 30:38
  in a negative way. No, I understand. But then,
• 30:41
  but then I also think that the sex scenes, of
• 30:43
  course, with them, they're so disturbing and
• 30:46
  not erotic in the sense that because we do know
• 30:49
  her motivation is so venal, so awful, so manipulative.
• 30:53
  And that's, I think it's really hard, again,
• 30:55
  to read her sexuality in the film. Not that Nicole
• 30:59
  isn't fantastic, Nicole is fantastic. But her
• 31:01
  sexuality is what... attracts all of these people
• 31:06
  to her. And there's no question that, I mean,
• 31:10
  the guys are like, you know, their mouths are
• 31:12
  hanging open. Yeah, of course. Trying to look
• 31:14
  up her skirt. Right. Of course, Matt Dillon,
• 31:16
  you know, just like she's the sexiest thing ever.
• 31:21
  And she's hot in the film. Yeah, she's beautiful.
• 31:23
  I mean, she's gorgeous in the film. She's beautiful.
• 31:24
  She's super sexy. Her body is absolutely rocking.
• 31:27
  The costume is incredible. Her hair and makeup,
• 31:30
  even though it's supposed to be kind of gaudy,
• 31:32
  is still fantastic. It looks amazing. And so
• 31:36
  again, the interesting thing about Joaquin Phoenix
• 31:38
  is that he is so vulnerable, but at the same
• 31:41
  time, he is very sexual. And you wonder like,
• 31:46
  well, was he a virgin, right? Maybe not. I mean,
• 31:50
  because he is such a sexual being, but he's also
• 31:53
  just like a horny teenager. And that part of
• 31:57
  it, that part of just, she took this very naive
• 32:03
  and maybe stupid horny teenager and manipulated
• 32:08
  him and Casey Affleck who isn't much smarter
• 32:11
  to do this thing. is again it's it's it's really
• 32:17
  really interesting and that her sexuality while
• 32:19
  it it is conniving and it's manipulative and
• 32:23
  you know that scene where she's like giving him
• 32:25
  the blowjob and then she like keeps stopping
• 32:27
  keep stopping it's awful it's awful it is awful
• 32:30
  and then and then she finishes that by saying
• 32:32
  oh well maybe Russell is just more of a man than
• 32:34
  you are And presumably I'm just gonna do this
• 32:37
  with him instead. But it's a brilliant scene.
• 32:40
  It is a brilliant scene. We are always focused
• 32:43
  on Joaquin Phoenix. The shirtless Joaquin Phoenix.
• 32:45
  We just keep seeing her head move down. And then
• 32:48
  back up and did the shot. It's filmed in an incredible
• 32:51
  way. It really is. And again, he is a phenomenal
• 32:55
  actor in this film. And especially, again, when
• 32:57
  you think, you know, I just... You know, obviously
• 33:00
  for people our age, right? Who saw River Phoenix
• 33:03
  in films, right? And really can remember when
• 33:06
  River Phoenix was like the it guy. And all those
• 33:09
  siblings around River Phoenix were like a non
• 33:12
  -entity. And you really how, and it's so remarkable
• 33:14
  to me that if you're someone like Gus Van Zandt
• 33:16
  who got worked with River Phoenix and River Phoenix
• 33:19
  then tragically dies and you're like, well, okay,
• 33:21
  I'm going to put his brother in this film. And
• 33:23
  his brother is incredible. Amazing. And it must've
• 33:26
  just been like, who knew, right? He's just so,
• 33:29
  so remarkable in this, in this film. So we do
• 33:33
  have then again, so Nicole is. sexy, right? But
• 33:36
  I do think, right, with this edge that really
• 33:39
  is repellent at the same time, which is supposed
• 33:41
  to be the case, right? And so I think that you're
• 33:43
  right, that we are supposed to be treading this
• 33:45
  really weird line whereby we are repelled by
• 33:49
  her, but we are also supposed to understand and
• 33:51
  really sympathize with this attraction, right,
• 33:55
  that she exudes for other people, which is a
• 33:58
  really, really hard thing to do in a film. And
• 34:00
  in a satirical way. Yes, absolutely. Because
• 34:03
  the film is... satire yes it is and so that's
• 34:07
  another level of it where you're not really supposed
• 34:10
  to take this character seriously because she
• 34:13
  is so outlandish and she does seem, and again,
• 34:18
  the Ileana Douglas character, which is sort of
• 34:20
  the foil to Nicole Kidman, right? And it's a
• 34:23
  wonderful character, especially at the very end.
• 34:26
  It's brilliant. But the Ileana Douglas is like,
• 34:29
  I'm a real woman. I live in reality, right? This
• 34:32
  is what was going on. And Nicole is just in la
• 34:35
  la land, but in a way that's also, again, very
• 34:38
  convincing to everyone around her, even though
• 34:41
  she - is in La La Land by thinking she's going
• 34:44
  to be the next Jane Paul or whatever other people
• 34:49
  sort of bite into it yeah and again I love that
• 34:53
  scene where she's with um well what's his name
• 34:56
  the guy who was on I don't remember what it's
• 35:00
  on, but they'll see it about the letter where
• 35:02
  she goes to the hotel and he tells her about
• 35:05
  that letter that a famous person wrote. It's
• 35:09
  George Segal. George Segal. And in his cameo.
• 35:12
  A great George Segal. moment. Yeah. Okay. And
• 35:16
  I get George Siegel, actually, and Sydney Pollack
• 35:19
  kind of confused. Yeah. Understand. Okay. Yes.
• 35:22
  But when George Siegel tells her, oh, there was
• 35:24
  this famous person who, you know, everybody watches
• 35:28
  who basically said, you know, I just like Give
• 35:32
  the best blow jobs ever and that's why you should
• 35:34
  hire me and it turns out she was the one that
• 35:36
  wrote that letter Rather than the station manager.
• 35:39
  Yes, and if you haven't seen the film this probably
• 35:41
  makes no sense But it's but it's showing up Nicole's
• 35:45
  stupidity. The character does not understand
• 35:47
  what is happening and has to keep asking and
• 35:50
  so there is the sense that she she simply can't
• 35:53
  swim in the big leagues i think i just mixed
• 35:55
  my metaphors but no no and i think that's yeah
• 35:59
  that's right she's really not that smart yeah
• 36:01
  and that's the that's the i think it's a brilliant
• 36:05
  scene where you can yeah it can it conveys she
• 36:07
  doesn't she doesn't have the kind of sophistication
• 36:11
  to understand what George Siegel is saying to
• 36:15
  her, right? And somebody who is that manipulative
• 36:18
  in terms of writing the letter themselves and
• 36:21
  saying it was written by somebody else. And Nicole
• 36:23
  can't understand that. So for her, it's like,
• 36:28
  here's some dumb kids, and I'll get them to murder
• 36:31
  my husband. But they'll be so bad at it that
• 36:33
  they will leave clues all over the place. And
• 36:35
  they will tell everyone about it. And tell everyone
• 36:36
  about it, and then everything just completely
• 36:38
  falls apart. And we should probably mention that
• 36:40
  this, of course, is based on the Pamela Smart
• 36:43
  case in New Hampshire, where Pamela Smart, who
• 36:45
  I think that was much younger, did exactly this,
• 36:48
  started having a relationship, a sexual relationship
• 36:50
  with a 15 -year -old boy, and got him and his
• 36:53
  friends to murder her. And it was the same sort
• 36:56
  of thing, right? Does it incredibly badly, ineptly?
• 36:59
  And she is, I think, still in prison, actually,
• 37:03
  today. And I wonder, though, about the 15 -year
• 37:05
  -old who actually did the murder. I don't know.
• 37:07
  I'm sure someone knows. But so we have, then,
• 37:11
  a still sexual Nicole, but in a way that, as
• 37:14
  you say, is very satirical. It is interesting
• 37:17
  to me to think about... Because of course that
• 37:20
  is still in a world right of the big three networks
• 37:23
  It's in a world of the big three networks of
• 37:25
  things like Inside Edition like those kind of
• 37:28
  sort of true crime no internet no internet and
• 37:31
  so of course Gus Van De Zandt is saying in not
• 37:33
  a subtle way at all right that TV is not just
• 37:36
  this sort of addiction for the people who watched
• 37:38
  it but that people are willing to do anything
• 37:39
  to get onto TV and their five minutes of TV fame
• 37:42
  and Of course, it would be a very different kind
• 37:45
  of film now, in terms of social media or whatever.
• 37:50
  And she could be famous in five seconds on TikTok.
• 37:52
  She could, right? And basically just, you know,
• 37:55
  join OnlyFans or whatever and become super famous
• 37:57
  at OnlyFans. OK, so now maybe it's time. I mean,
• 38:02
  it's time chronologically in terms of order of
• 38:05
  film to talk about Eyes Wide Shut, a film which,
• 38:11
  as I think you pointed out, Nicole is actually
• 38:13
  not in Eyes Wide Shut very much. It really is
• 38:17
  the Tom show in terms of actual screen time.
• 38:20
  For sure. It is his journey. It is two hours
• 38:23
  and 32 minutes and I would clock Nicole's presence
• 38:27
  in the film at 40 minutes at most. That's a generous
• 38:31
  read of the Nicole screen time. She is bookending
• 38:35
  his particular journey. We see her at the beginning
• 38:38
  and we see her then again at the end. And in
• 38:41
  his fantasies... or however you want to think
• 38:45
  about them, or nightmares. Nightmares. And we
• 38:49
  see her on the phone or something like that,
• 38:52
  but as just a touch point. Yes. Not having...
• 38:55
  Active partner doing stuff. No, no, no, no. So
• 38:58
  very, very famously, as some of you may remember,
• 39:04
  this was Stanley Kubrick's last film. He died,
• 39:08
  I think, what, when they were in post -production
• 39:10
  or something, soon before it was going to be
• 39:12
  released. Also famous, of course, because this
• 39:14
  is the film that everyone was waiting to see,
• 39:17
  Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, together again,
• 39:19
  after what, far and away, Days of Thunder, films
• 39:22
  that were not super, super successful in lots
• 39:25
  of ways. So this was a big prestige film, working
• 39:28
  with Kubrick. And also, Kubrick had only made
• 39:30
  what, like, five films total. And wasn't someone
• 39:34
  who was super productive during the 1980s, that's
• 39:37
  for sure. And so lots of reasons. And famously
• 39:41
  also it took forever to make, right? It was something
• 39:44
  like a two year shoot. And the fact that it is
• 39:48
  about a, in some ways disintegrating married
• 39:50
  couple or married couple that has issues surrounding
• 39:52
  sort of sexuality and commitment and infidelity.
• 39:55
  And then Tom and Nicole ended up getting a divorce.
• 39:57
  in its immediate wake, got tons of press. But
• 40:02
  it was also a film that I think, if you would
• 40:05
  agree with me, when it first came out, people
• 40:07
  really were waiting for, I think this is fair
• 40:10
  to say, they were waiting for hot scenes of Tom
• 40:14
  and Nicole doing it in this movie. And we were
• 40:18
  all disappointed. Yes, the film was billed, or
• 40:23
  at least the clips, the trailers, however you
• 40:25
  want to think about it, as this super hot sex,
• 40:29
  almost a sex tape, of Tom and Nicole. And potentially
• 40:35
  also others. Because we saw some, again, if I'm
• 40:39
  remembering the trailer right, which I saw a
• 40:41
  million years ago, we also saw little clips of
• 40:44
  the orgy scenes or little clips of the... Like
• 40:47
  Lili Sobieski with the businessmen. We see that
• 40:50
  things are tantalizing them and that maybe Tom
• 40:54
  and Nicole will have sex with other people. Yes,
• 40:57
  yes. And again, with Kubrick, you just never
• 41:01
  know. You just never know. So because he wasn't
• 41:03
  he was not a filmmaker who was known for being
• 41:06
  a particularly erotic filmmaker right again had
• 41:08
  done several of course like super huge films
• 41:11
  very influential throughout the 1960s and 1970s
• 41:14
  but yes this was not Kubrick wheelhouse. Even,
• 41:17
  I mean, obviously A Clockwork Orange, not an
• 41:20
  erotic film, but a disturbing one in a lot of
• 41:23
  ways. The Shining also, not a film known for
• 41:25
  its, even though it has nudity, right? Not a
• 41:28
  film, certainly, that anyone would ever, I hope,
• 41:31
  describe as an erotic film or a film dealing
• 41:33
  with sexuality in any way. And so this was really
• 41:36
  a surprise. Everyone was so excited. Everyone
• 41:39
  was so disappointed. But we do have, we do have,
• 41:44
  Tom's character, I don't even remember his name,
• 41:46
  Doctor whatever, Bill, thank you, who ends up
• 41:50
  on this weird sort of sexual journey after he
• 41:53
  has had this conversation with his wife, Nicole,
• 41:56
  who admits that at a dinner party, wait, no,
• 41:59
  not a dinner party, they were on vacation. They
• 42:01
  were on vacation. She sees a man at the hotel.
• 42:03
  Another, a naval man, interestingly, harping
• 42:06
  back to Sam. A naval, interesting, dead calm,
• 42:09
  yes. Right, right? and that their sexual attraction
• 42:12
  is so immediate, so overwhelming that she is
• 42:15
  prepared to leave Tom Cruise and their daughter
• 42:18
  forever just to basically go spend one night
• 42:21
  with this man. And I will say, I have always
• 42:25
  thought that Tom's reaction shots in when obviously
• 42:30
  Nicole has this amazing monologue, but the reaction
• 42:33
  shot when we go back to Tom, I actually think
• 42:35
  that's like Tom's best acting. Ever. Maybe not.
• 42:38
  I mean, I do love Frank T .J. Mackie in Magnolia,
• 42:41
  and I mean, that's a fantastic girl. But the
• 42:43
  fact that Tom is able, I think, really to convey
• 42:47
  this incredible shock. Right in the sexual jealousy
• 42:50
  and this because of course doesn't he start remind
• 42:53
  me doesn't he kind of start at the conversation
• 42:55
  and sort of this light hearted. They just smoked
• 42:58
  pot yeah they maybe had sex I mean we we don't
• 43:01
  know because again this this kind of cuts off
• 43:04
  of another scene of them having sex but she's
• 43:06
  she's in like her underwear and they're smoking
• 43:09
  pot and. He's sort of like, oh, you're so high.
• 43:12
  Like, what are you talking about? And it starts
• 43:14
  out by him basically saying, you know, men have
• 43:17
  a sex drive and women do not. Oh, yes. And that's
• 43:20
  where it all comes from. She's sort of like,
• 43:22
  oh, we went to this party last night hosted by
• 43:25
  Sidney Pollock and he was with these two women
• 43:28
  just kind of casually flirting and she was with
• 43:31
  this Hungarian guy, again, who very much wanted
• 43:34
  to sleep with her. And he's like, well, you're
• 43:37
  never going to do that because it's just not
• 43:39
  in you. Like I trust you you're you know your
• 43:42
  mother you're a wife and you he basically implies
• 43:47
  that she doesn't have the sexual motivation or
• 43:51
  the sexual inclinations to be unfaithful to him.
• 43:54
  And that also she just doesn't even have the
• 43:56
  sex drive to do it. He basically makes a generalization
• 43:59
  about all women. And she's like, what are you
• 44:02
  talking about? And there was this time where
• 44:04
  I basically like almost slept with this other
• 44:08
  guy. And of course it doesn't happen. And she's
• 44:11
  like, well, when he left I was relieved, but
• 44:12
  I almost did this. Or I thought about. doing
• 44:15
  it. And this tends, Tom, on a journey. A nighttime
• 44:21
  journey. Throughout the village, or the fake
• 44:23
  village, I should say, in New York City, because
• 44:25
  it was not filmed in New York. But throughout
• 44:28
  the village, where basically everyone who encounters
• 44:31
  him is sexually, like, all over him. All over
• 44:36
  him. I mean, from the... Daughter of a patient
• 44:41
  who has just died who's making out with him This
• 44:45
  sex worker he meets on the street who is inviting
• 44:48
  him up The temptation is everywhere and it is
• 44:52
  almost I mean I was laughing because it's just
• 44:54
  so ridiculous that everyone who meets Tom Cruise
• 44:57
  is just throwing themselves at him He is Tom
• 45:00
  Cruise. Yeah, but also in non -organic ways.
• 45:04
  In a non -organic way. He's walking around and
• 45:06
  all of a sudden all these people are throwing
• 45:08
  themselves. Anyway, he meets, or he re -meets
• 45:12
  rather, a guy that he knew in med school whose
• 45:16
  name is Nick Nightingale who tells him about
• 45:20
  this party that he'll, he's a piano player now,
• 45:23
  he's not a doctor, that Nick Nightingale will
• 45:25
  be... playing the piano at a later hour. By the
• 45:30
  way, can I jump in? Yes. And this is Todd Field.
• 45:32
  Yes. The director of In the Bedroom, which we
• 45:35
  talked about a few episodes ago. Yes, yes. Okay,
• 45:37
  right. So Todd Field tells him that he will be
• 45:42
  playing the piano at this very, very secretive
• 45:46
  and... Out in the country mansion. And that he's
• 45:51
  blindfolded when he plays the piano. but the
• 45:54
  blindfold wasn't on so tight the last time he
• 45:57
  played and so he saw insane things happening
• 46:01
  and these amazing women and tantalizes Tom Cruise
• 46:04
  enough to make him want to go. and he has to
• 46:08
  rent a tuxedo in order to go. And take a cab
• 46:12
  out to the - And a mask. And a mask out to the
• 46:14
  boondocks. And so we have this element of mystery.
• 46:17
  Again, are these women being sacrificed to these
• 46:20
  sexually licentious elites? They're wearing these
• 46:22
  cloaks, they're in these masks. It's like satanic,
• 46:26
  right? Is it a black mask? And basically, as
• 46:29
  far as we know in the film, or what the film
• 46:30
  argues, is that it's pretty much a whole bunch
• 46:32
  of nothing. This is what Sidney Pollock's character
• 46:34
  says, that it's just this play, it's cosplay,
• 46:37
  and that there is basically an orgy going on,
• 46:40
  or at least a gangbang. But nobody's getting
• 46:43
  murdered, there's no ritual sacrifice, it's a
• 46:45
  bunch of basically sex workers having sex with
• 46:49
  all these prominent people from New York and
• 46:52
  maybe elsewhere. And getting great tips. Right.
• 46:54
  And getting great tips. Right. and so but then
• 46:56
  we we do have then this sort of turnaround to
• 46:59
  the end where Nicole's character comes back and
• 47:03
  this attempt at sort of this return to what she's
• 47:07
  resistant to the idea. He wants, right, this
• 47:09
  kind of emotional security from her, right? This
• 47:13
  promise of sexual fidelity. At the end of the
• 47:15
  film when they're kind of walking around, right,
• 47:17
  before Christmas. When they're in FAO shorts.
• 47:19
  Or what's supposed to be FAO shorts. Looking
• 47:22
  at the toys with their daughter. And she is not
• 47:25
  willing, right, we have the exchange where he's
• 47:27
  like, oh, forever. And she says no. And so there
• 47:30
  is then this sense that certainly they are still,
• 47:35
  that they're their sexual life has been maybe
• 47:38
  reinvigorated, right? Of course, very famously,
• 47:41
  the last word of the film is fuck, but still
• 47:46
  this sense of kind of tension and dissension
• 47:49
  under the surface. Would you agree with that?
• 47:52
  Yes. There's definitely like... the message,
• 47:57
  this may have made our marriage hotter. Yes.
• 48:00
  And again, a kind of strange way because when
• 48:05
  he confesses to her that all of this has happened
• 48:09
  and that he was tempted, she's crying and she
• 48:12
  has to make sense of it. But then she's just
• 48:14
  like, well, you know, you were tempted. I was
• 48:17
  tempted. Sometimes there's fantasies. Sometimes
• 48:19
  there's realities. You've sort of made it through
• 48:21
  it. And now, yeah, let's just like get it on.
• 48:25
  In our incredible New York apartment. Right.
• 48:27
  Right. And we're so rich and you're just like
• 48:31
  a basic doctor. That's the other thing. I mean,
• 48:33
  he's just like a basic like house call doctor.
• 48:36
  He's not like the chief of, I don't know, whatever
• 48:39
  neurosurgery at Beth Israel or something. No,
• 48:42
  he's just like a basic doctor that makes house
• 48:44
  calls and has this incredible apartment on Central
• 48:46
  Park West. She doesn't work. OK, so there's all
• 48:51
  that. Well, and then we do have this kind of
• 48:53
  class moment where it's made very clear. Right.
• 48:56
  Because, again, Sidney Pollock's You had the
• 48:58
  rental tag for the tuxedo in your pocket or whatever.
• 49:01
  And you took the cab. And basically, you're not
• 49:04
  at this level of elite. And nor are you somebody
• 49:08
  famous or important. You're just this lackey
• 49:12
  that make house calls. We call up with drug overdoses
• 49:15
  and stuff, like with the women at the beginning
• 49:17
  of the party. So this, again... the film is closely
• 49:23
  followed by their divorce. There is also the
• 49:26
  conspiracy theory, I don't know if you've ever
• 49:28
  heard this one, that Stanley Kubrick is murdered
• 49:32
  because the elites are really having these sex
• 49:36
  parties where they're murdering people. And this
• 49:39
  is an exposé. Exposé, right, he uncovers this
• 49:42
  dark secret world. But I do have to tell you.
• 49:44
  Christine okay, because I was underwhelmed by
• 49:46
  eyes always shut. I was too. Okay, and here's
• 49:49
  the thing having seen it now last night. Yeah
• 49:51
  After Eyes Wide Shut, I watched SVU, in which
• 49:56
  the second episode of the new season actually
• 49:59
  has a sex orgy club. And one of the reasons why
• 50:03
  Eyes Wide Shut seemed underwhelming is because
• 50:06
  now it's just like, what? We see this all the
• 50:10
  time. We see this all the time now. I mean, not
• 50:13
  me personally, but these ideas of people going
• 50:17
  into these sort of secret, maybe satanic, ritual.
• 50:21
  It is a cliche above cliches. And so while that
• 50:26
  may have been shocking at the time, and certainly
• 50:29
  with Tom and Nicole in it, it upped the ante,
• 50:32
  watching it again, the SVU episode was more suspenseful.
• 50:38
  And the other thing about the film that was underwhelming
• 50:41
  to me watching it now in the... as I said, post
• 50:45
  -dance average or whoever, right? Is the idea
• 50:48
  that Nicole's like, well, I thought about another
• 50:50
  guy. I thought about having sex with another
• 50:53
  guy. And he just goes, he goes on this like crazy
• 50:57
  journey because his wife is like, yeah, I'm attracted
• 50:59
  to other people sometimes. That just felt like
• 51:03
  it was so hollow to me. Although I understand
• 51:06
  that's the point of the film. Again, later, now
• 51:10
  that we're talking about, again, all kinds of
• 51:13
  arrangements and there are, you know, all kinds
• 51:16
  of marriages and all kinds of marriages that
• 51:18
  are depicted on film or on serial prestige dramas,
• 51:24
  however you want to think about it, that the
• 51:27
  impetus for the journey to me isn't as believable.
• 51:33
  I agree, I agree with that. But I also think
• 51:36
  it's in such a weird, I mean, you're absolutely
• 51:38
  right, right? That we don't have sort of, I don't
• 51:40
  know, when Kubrick is making this film, we don't
• 51:43
  have national newspapers talking about polygamy
• 51:46
  or whatever, or open poly relationships or whatever.
• 51:50
  So we're not in that moment yet, right? But we
• 51:53
  are in a moment, right? When Eyes Wide Shut comes
• 51:56
  out. So obviously we have Sex and the City, right?
• 51:59
  We've had also that whole span of 1970s films
• 52:02
  that - ruined sex scenes when they didn't even
• 52:04
  need to exist. The whole idea of every single
• 52:06
  1970s film is that someone is having an affair.
• 52:09
  Maybe they're trying to hide it. But they are
• 52:11
  having affairs. We have this kind of whole post
• 52:13
  John Updike, right? Erica Jong moment. And Kubrick
• 52:16
  is coming out of, he's that generation. He's
• 52:19
  that generation. And so that's what I do, I agree
• 52:22
  with you. That's what's kind of funny is that
• 52:24
  we are presented with a scenario in Eyes Wide
• 52:27
  Shut that actually doesn't seem that shocking.
• 52:30
  I mean, the sex, the murder part, notwithstanding.
• 52:33
  But the idea that, as you say, this confession,
• 52:36
  I wanted to sleep with this other person, that
• 52:39
  it's presented to us as so destabilizing for
• 52:42
  Tom Cruise's character. And in a sense, you're
• 52:45
  kind of like, well, did Kubrick really think
• 52:48
  that? That that is a reasonable, and if Kubrick
• 52:51
  did think that. Again, he's not, I mean, even
• 52:55
  though Kubrick started making films so young,
• 52:57
  but we're not in 1945. And we're not in an Adrian
• 53:00
  Lin - No, no. Sex thriller. And we're not in
• 53:05
  Indecent Proposal. Yes, exactly. Which, of course,
• 53:08
  she does have sex with him. And then you have
• 53:11
  to deal with the ramifications of that. this
• 53:14
  is about a kernel of an idea. And I think, again,
• 53:19
  what we were all teased by was that it was going
• 53:23
  to turn into, hey, Nicole is part of the orgy,
• 53:25
  right? Like, he's going to go there and she's
• 53:28
  going to see her and she is going to be one of
• 53:30
  those masked women. And of course, that is not
• 53:32
  the case. It's not the case. But that's when
• 53:34
  I think, when I think back to that rumor, and
• 53:38
  maybe more than a rumor, who knows, that... Kubrick
• 53:42
  is mining their own marital difficulties, right?
• 53:45
  And on top of that, the totally unproven rumor,
• 53:48
  right? That she had an affair with Ewan McGregor.
• 53:50
  And so that makes some kind of sense, right?
• 53:52
  If it becomes not a cultural moment thing, but
• 53:55
  it becomes a much more zeroed in Tom and Nicole,
• 53:58
  right? That Tom Cruise as a person is like, what?
• 54:02
  You are possibly sexually attracted to someone
• 54:04
  else who's not me, Tom Cruise. And so that is
• 54:06
  what makes more sense to me. It does, it does.
• 54:09
  It also, as I said, before, maybe not on the
• 54:11
  pod, but Kubrick's kind of fascination with Nicole
• 54:16
  and his zooming in on her body, on her face,
• 54:20
  the voyeuristic viewpoint of Kubrick on Nicole.
• 54:25
  I mean, it's clear that he is infested in her.
• 54:29
  Even though she is not in most of the film, the
• 54:33
  scenes that do have Nicole, I mean, he is...
• 54:36
  into her. She's naked and of course I mean this
• 54:38
  is the first scene of the film is her naked.
• 54:40
  Yes and this is something of course I mean just
• 54:42
  in terms of her career right this is something
• 54:44
  that her she has always been comfortable with
• 54:47
  nudity right very famously did a play where she
• 54:49
  was naked on stage right every single night and
• 54:53
  so and we have sort of again she's not nude in
• 54:56
  dead com but we see her back right sort of we
• 54:59
  see sort of she is taken off her top um we don't
• 55:01
  see her from the front right and so and there's
• 55:04
  not a ton of nudity in to die for if i remember
• 55:07
  correctly right we have all those scenes of walking
• 55:09
  phoenix's bare chest that right that gust van
• 55:12
  sent clearly loves but She's always been comfortable
• 55:15
  with that. And so, I mean, I agree with you,
• 55:18
  Kubrick does seem very infested, right? But again,
• 55:22
  not in this kind of sense that she is this unfeeling
• 55:25
  statue, right? That's what Tom Cruise's character,
• 55:28
  in a sense, might think about her, right? That
• 55:30
  she is this object of beauty. But of course,
• 55:32
  the whole point of that film is that she is not
• 55:35
  that, right? She is, in fact, has this sexual
• 55:38
  imagination, this sexual life, apart from her
• 55:41
  husband. Okay, so. Uh, we only have a little
• 55:44
  bit of time left. Okay, but in some ways, we
• 55:46
  don't need a whole lot. We don't. We don't. We
• 55:49
  don't. And it suffice to say, we hated Baby Girl.
• 55:51
  Hated it. Hated it. And I would much rather spend
• 55:54
  an hour talking about these other three films.
• 55:57
  Yes. Although, again, underwhelmed by Eyes Wide
• 55:59
  Shut. But it, Kubrick is worth spending the time
• 56:02
  on. It is. Yes. Yes. And, again, the historical
• 56:05
  resonance of that film. Yes. All of it is worth
• 56:08
  talking about. Absolutely. Absolutely. Baby Girl
• 56:10
  was a piece of shit. Dunk. Total junk. And again
• 56:13
  Nicole... has recently also, one of the theories
• 56:16
  behind the breakup too is that she's just been
• 56:18
  working too much. She's in everything now. TV
• 56:21
  series, terrible series, all this stuff. Terrible
• 56:24
  things, good things, everything in between, she's
• 56:27
  in it now. And so baby girl to me falls into
• 56:32
  one of those scripts that who knows who put it
• 56:34
  on her desk and she's like, this seems kind of
• 56:37
  cool and this seems kind of subversive and it
• 56:40
  can be like this BDSM thing. Taboo. I'm up for
• 56:44
  it. I'm up for it. And I'm up for like being
• 56:47
  naked again and like short. Looking amazing.
• 56:50
  I'm looking amazing. Looking amazing. But the
• 56:53
  problem with baby girl, which again, I mean,
• 56:56
  do we need to summarize baby girl? No, not really.
• 56:58
  She has a woman, she's married to Antonio Banderas,
• 57:02
  theater director. She is un -orgasmic. She cannot
• 57:05
  experience orgasm with her. Totally hot husband
• 57:09
  that she's been married to for 20 years, right?
• 57:11
  Masturbates to porn on the internet. She ends
• 57:13
  up having a sexual relationship with a much much
• 57:15
  much younger intern She's like a head honcho
• 57:18
  at some company and he is her Dom, I guess. Yeah,
• 57:25
  he is her Dom. Yeah, okay and she is his sub
• 57:30
  and they have the most uninteresting, dumb sub
• 57:35
  -relationship that I have ever seen. Totally
• 57:37
  boring. Totally boring. And they have, as far
• 57:40
  as I'm concerned, they have... little to no chemistry,
• 57:43
  the characters are completely undrawn. He isn't
• 57:48
  even, I mean, he's very handsome, right? But
• 57:51
  we don't have enough of a sense of him as a character
• 57:53
  to understand his sexual appeal, other than the
• 57:56
  fact that he puts himself immediately in the
• 58:00
  position of bossing her around, basically. And
• 58:03
  with fearlessly, right? Fearlessly. And that
• 58:05
  this is so upside down, right? This is so almost
• 58:08
  like carnival, right? We are upending these particular
• 58:11
  norms of the workplace, that it's such a shock
• 58:14
  that this is his appeal, simply that he dares
• 58:17
  to do these things. Right, right. We're also
• 58:19
  supposed to have some sort of political takeaway
• 58:23
  here about... you know, sexual harassment in
• 58:27
  the workplace and power dynamics. Dominant women
• 58:29
  who just want to be bossed around at home. I
• 58:32
  don't know exactly what, but we're supposed to
• 58:34
  have some kind of takeaway about, you know, a
• 58:37
  reverse me too, or I don't know. It's unclear.
• 58:41
  It's unclear. And this is also, I mean, it really,
• 58:44
  much like Eyes Wide Shut, it's a film that...
• 58:48
  claims to be daring. Yes. And obviously this
• 58:50
  director is not Kubrick. No. But it's a film
• 58:52
  that claims to be daring but is so unerotic,
• 58:56
  right, we actually we have what just maybe a
• 58:58
  couple perhaps the best scene in the entire film
• 59:01
  is when they're dancing to Father Figure by George
• 59:05
  Michael. And it's kind of the only moment where
• 59:07
  we have, and again, it's never clear in terms
• 59:09
  of their kind of compatibility, I mean, as people,
• 59:13
  right? Because we do have a scene like that that
• 59:14
  looks kind of tender, but then we have other
• 59:17
  scenes and then she's kind of, I don't know,
• 59:19
  I don't want you to see other women. It's completely
• 59:21
  unclear. But the big mystery, of course, that
• 59:23
  we've talked so much about Baby Girl is... why
• 59:27
  isn't she sexually satisfied with her husband?
• 59:30
  Not just because he's Antonio Banderas, but we
• 59:32
  are supposed to think that a Spanish theater
• 59:35
  director is himself completely closed up in terms
• 59:40
  of sexuality. She cannot speak to him openly
• 59:42
  about it. When she does try to kind of playfully
• 59:46
  talk to him and say, this is kind of what I want,
• 59:49
  he's like, why are you doing that weirdo thing?
• 59:52
  What's wrong with you? She's not married to an
• 59:55
  accountant, you know, an evangelical Christian
• 59:57
  account from Ohio. No. She's married to a Spanish
• 1:00:00
  theater director. Right. In New York City. Played
• 1:00:02
  by Antonio. Played by Antonio Banderas. And that
• 1:00:06
  is never answered, right? No. Why is their sexual
• 1:00:11
  relationship the way that it is? And so we do
• 1:00:14
  have a very different dynamic as in Eyes Wide
• 1:00:16
  Shut, right? Eyes Wide Shut, we're supposed to
• 1:00:18
  think they are banging. They're banging, they're
• 1:00:21
  doing it, they have an active sex life. There
• 1:00:23
  just is, again, this current. And actually, in
• 1:00:25
  the other two films as well, I mean, we don't
• 1:00:29
  get any sense in the other two films that those
• 1:00:32
  characters also aren't having a very healthy
• 1:00:35
  sex life. This is the first one where you're
• 1:00:37
  seeing her as... Again, having these expectations
• 1:00:40
  or having these wants and needs that can be unfulfilled
• 1:00:43
  by this kind of, I don't know, buttoned up husband
• 1:00:47
  that can't communicate with her, but seemingly
• 1:00:51
  can communicate on all other levels or I don't
• 1:00:54
  know. I mean, there's just not enough information
• 1:00:56
  in this film about, from my recollection of it,
• 1:00:59
  which I cannot watch it again. Which I did do.
• 1:01:01
  I don't know, you watched it again. You watched
• 1:01:03
  it again. And I won't say that I, the only thing
• 1:01:06
  that made me like it a tiny bit more, is that,
• 1:01:08
  of course, again, much like Eyes Wide Shut, you
• 1:01:11
  walk into baby girl thinking that you were going
• 1:01:13
  to get a sort of 1980s era, right? This kind
• 1:01:17
  of sex thriller, nine and a half weeks, again,
• 1:01:19
  indecent proposal, right? All of this stuff.
• 1:01:22
  And it's not that, right? But I do think when
• 1:01:26
  you sort of compartmentalize that and say, this
• 1:01:29
  is just not that film, the film thinks it's super
• 1:01:31
  erotic and sexy, and it's just not. But when
• 1:01:33
  you kind of get over that, you can say, okay,
• 1:01:35
  is this offering me anything else? And it's still
• 1:01:37
  really not, but at least you don't experience
• 1:01:40
  that. You know what you're getting. You know
• 1:01:44
  you're getting her on the floor, on all fours,
• 1:01:47
  and then that's it. And that's it. And we talked
• 1:01:51
  at the time when we saw it, the obvious comparison
• 1:01:55
  is Nine and a Half Weeks. Sure. Right. A film
• 1:01:57
  that came out, what, 40 years ago? that is so
• 1:02:01
  interesting in terms of a woman who does not
• 1:02:05
  think that she is interested in BDSM. This man
• 1:02:09
  drags her into it. She becomes his sub. They
• 1:02:11
  have this incredibly charged sexual relationship
• 1:02:14
  that is very damaging in a lot of ways to her.
• 1:02:16
  She doesn't really flourish because of it. And
• 1:02:19
  in some ways you want baby girl to be sort of
• 1:02:21
  like that. But the only thing we learn in the
• 1:02:26
  film is that Antonio Banderas learns how to use
• 1:02:28
  his hand. And that's it. That's it. That's the
• 1:02:32
  happy ending. So correct me if I'm wrong again.
• 1:02:34
  We saw it a while ago. The end, the guy that
• 1:02:38
  she's having the affair with comes to their house.
• 1:02:40
  So that's sort of in the middle of the film,
• 1:02:43
  right? So he comes to the house to return her
• 1:02:45
  laptop, her country house, right? The beautiful,
• 1:02:47
  gorgeous country house. And it really is when
• 1:02:50
  she freaks out that he is having a sexual relationship,
• 1:02:54
  right, with her... kind of underling remember
• 1:02:57
  and the underling then threatens her right and
• 1:03:00
  so and that's when it becomes workplace drama
• 1:03:04
  whatever but not much happens with that right
• 1:03:06
  because in effect the only thing that happens
• 1:03:09
  is that they Antonio Banderas finds out about
• 1:03:12
  the affair because she tells him right right
• 1:03:14
  he has a heart attack or a quasi heart attack
• 1:03:17
  or panic attack and so that's pretty much it
• 1:03:21
  the Samuel the young intern character he gets
• 1:03:24
  a job and like The Netherlands or someplace.
• 1:03:27
  And the only thing is that we have the scene
• 1:03:29
  where one of her employees, sort of a hype executive,
• 1:03:33
  basically says to her, well, I hear you're hot
• 1:03:35
  to trot in effect and we should have sex. And
• 1:03:37
  she shuts him down. And that's it. Right. That's
• 1:03:40
  it. That's literally it. So we never get a sense
• 1:03:43
  of her sort of sexual evolution or revelations
• 1:03:48
  based on this relationship or the ways in which
• 1:03:50
  it's changed her or... Well, the only thing is
• 1:03:53
  that at the very end, the last scene, her husband
• 1:03:55
  is able to bring her to orgasm. Because yes,
• 1:03:58
  because he has, again, discovered the use of
• 1:04:00
  his hand. Which apparently in 20 years, she has
• 1:04:03
  never once thought, maybe I should have an honest
• 1:04:05
  conversation with my incredibly sexy and handsome
• 1:04:08
  husband. He still looks amazing at like 60. He
• 1:04:11
  does, he does. Like gorgeous, gorgeous man. Yes.
• 1:04:13
  And so that's the only sense, right? That her
• 1:04:16
  having... But it didn't, of course, need to be
• 1:04:18
  a BDSM affair in order for her... No, it was
• 1:04:22
  never that she wanted to have a BDSM relationship
• 1:04:25
  with Antonio Banderas. No, not at all. She just
• 1:04:27
  wanted to have an orgasm. Yes. And so we table
• 1:04:31
  all of that, right? Because there's no indication
• 1:04:33
  that she's going to have that kind of relationship
• 1:04:35
  with Antonio Banderas. Just that he now says,
• 1:04:38
  oh, wait a minute, my wife had an affair and
• 1:04:39
  so maybe we should have a frank talk about our
• 1:04:41
  own sex life. And so it's a mystery. It is a
• 1:04:44
  mystery. And a real injustice to Antonio Banderas,
• 1:04:48
  I will say. I mean, who really, one does not
• 1:04:53
  have to imagine. a bridge too far and getting
• 1:04:55
  Antonio Banderas to be up for whatever. Well,
• 1:05:00
  and of course, it's so remarkable. I mean, for
• 1:05:01
  anyone who saw sort of the Almodovar films, right,
• 1:05:04
  that he did in the 1980s and 90s, where it's
• 1:05:06
  like... You know, these absolutely sort of, again,
• 1:05:09
  I don't know, frontier jumping, right, counter
• 1:05:11
  -cultural, just absolutely over -the -top, you
• 1:05:14
  know, films, and then, I don't know. It is the
• 1:05:17
  oddest casting ever. It is the oddest casting.
• 1:05:19
  It should have been, I hate to impugn accountants
• 1:05:22
  from Ohio who are, you know, Mormons or whatever,
• 1:05:24
  but it's just, it made absolutely no sense. So,
• 1:05:28
  we would say, and we probably should wrap up
• 1:05:31
  very soon, But to go back to the beginning, this
• 1:05:37
  supposedly is the film. that Keith Urban objects
• 1:05:41
  to, of all the things, right? He objects to baby
• 1:05:44
  girl, that it's too frank in its sexuality, too
• 1:05:47
  many orgasm scenes. Or that she was so method,
• 1:05:49
  that was the thing that I, she could never get
• 1:05:51
  out of that character and wanted to, I guess,
• 1:05:55
  like drink milk off the floor, who knows, all
• 1:05:59
  the time. And that that was problematic for him.
• 1:06:04
  Again, it's very unclear about, what exactly
• 1:06:09
  is going on. I mean, again the idea of her, I
• 1:06:12
  can see... You know, just as a spouse, why it
• 1:06:17
  would be hard to watch your spouse. But I mean,
• 1:06:19
  she is, but she is an actress. She's an actress.
• 1:06:21
  She's been doing this in a million. What's the
• 1:06:22
  surprise? She's been doing this with Hugh Grant
• 1:06:24
  and Lee Shriver recently, and a million other
• 1:06:29
  people in other films. And this is like, again,
• 1:06:32
  she's always been an incredibly bold actress.
• 1:06:34
  Yes. Again, as we said, frank with nudity, frank
• 1:06:37
  with sex scenes. And the idea that you're married
• 1:06:39
  to someone for 20 years and after 20 years, you're
• 1:06:42
  like, oh, wait a minute. I have a problem with
• 1:06:45
  this one. That just seems very odd to me. She's
• 1:06:48
  also an experimental actress. She's in a lot
• 1:06:51
  of different kinds of films. She's willing to
• 1:06:54
  go for it. And some of her films are better than
• 1:06:56
  others. But again, if you're married to Nicole
• 1:06:59
  Kidman, you would think, yes, this is somebody
• 1:07:02
  who is... Makes lots of choices. Yes, and there's
• 1:07:06
  no problem Sarah Jessica Parker. No, no This
• 1:07:09
  is somebody who is comfortable with their body
• 1:07:11
  who's a great body. Yes, I got beautiful exquisitely
• 1:07:15
  beautiful Yeah, and and who is willing to kind
• 1:07:18
  of up for anything up for anything interesting
• 1:07:21
  up for interesting upper And again, this is we
• 1:07:23
  didn't even talk about dog about no, right? No,
• 1:07:25
  and but then also I think the movie that she
• 1:07:28
  made What is it called birth where she plays
• 1:07:29
  the woman right? Who's she's in a? bathtub with
• 1:07:32
  like a 10 -year -old boy who supposedly is like
• 1:07:34
  the reincarnation of our husband. These are bold,
• 1:07:37
  bold choices. And again, choices having to do
• 1:07:39
  with eroticism, with nudity. Yes, and it's just
• 1:07:42
  so amazing to me, and I think probably amazing
• 1:07:46
  to most people, that this is, as you say, this
• 1:07:48
  isn't Sarah Jessica Parker. Not to appear in
• 1:07:50
  SJP. No, but we know that very, very famously
• 1:07:53
  she has a nudity clause. Wearing the bras and
• 1:07:56
  the sex scenes, the whole shebang. She's uncomfortable
• 1:07:59
  with it. The whole shebang, no pun intended.
• 1:08:01
  So, but the last thing I think I do want to say
• 1:08:03
  about Nicole before we leave is that, so we do
• 1:08:06
  have, I mean, she really is, she's maybe the
• 1:08:09
  first superstar Australian actress. And as you
• 1:08:13
  say, has made so many varied films. We do maybe,
• 1:08:17
  I think we're going to talk next time about Diane
• 1:08:19
  Keaton, who also in some ways has a very similar
• 1:08:22
  profile of making these radically, as much as
• 1:08:25
  someone might think of Diane Keaton as making
• 1:08:26
  those sort of, I don't know. like House, not
• 1:08:29
  Housewife, the Nancy Meyers sort of films, right?
• 1:08:33
  Her films in the 1970s and 1980s so different.
• 1:08:36
  And I think that Nicole really has that kind
• 1:08:38
  of palette in terms of her films, which is so
• 1:08:41
  incredibly rewarding. I mean, I think she's so
• 1:08:43
  remarkable. And again, we didn't even talk about
• 1:08:45
  the hours where she wins an Oscar for best actress
• 1:08:49
  and wears a prosthetic. Yes. But although, of
• 1:08:52
  course, if I remember correctly, the only sort
• 1:08:54
  of sexy thing in the hours is where she kisses
• 1:08:56
  her own sister. It's been a while for me with
• 1:08:59
  the hours. I'm never going to watch it again.
• 1:09:03
  That's a no for me. And as fantastic as Nicole
• 1:09:06
  is. And again, she's a queen and we certainly
• 1:09:09
  hope that she moves through this. Todd might
• 1:09:13
  be single now. Well, the other thing about Nicole,
• 1:09:16
  which we haven't talked about, but I'll just
• 1:09:18
  bring up because we're... it would be remiss
• 1:09:22
  to leave this out, is that Nicole not only became
• 1:09:24
  a superstar for her roles, but also for her fashion.
• 1:09:29
  Yes, absolutely. And Nicole is, I would say,
• 1:09:31
  as well known for her choices in roles as for
• 1:09:35
  her choices of red carpet outfits and wearing
• 1:09:39
  some of the most iconic red carpet outfits ever.
• 1:09:41
  And because she has such a beautiful figure,
• 1:09:43
  right? So tall, so exquisite. She can pull off
• 1:09:45
  anything. Anything. Anything. And I think the
• 1:09:48
  one thing I would wish for Nicole, if she moves
• 1:09:50
  on to husband number three, she needs someone
• 1:09:52
  who is tall. I think we can agree. I think we
• 1:09:55
  as a nation can agree with that. She should move
• 1:09:58
  beyond five foot six, five foot seven, aspirationally.
• 1:10:03
  I want like a six, four athlete or actor for
• 1:10:07
  Nicole. Like an A -Rod or something. Yeah. Well,
• 1:10:09
  not because I... Right, right, right. But yes.
• 1:10:13
  But yes. Okay. Well, I think that's all the time
• 1:10:14
  that we have, Lauren. Okay, Christine. But I
• 1:10:16
  could talk about Nicole for hours more. And there
• 1:10:18
  are so many more films and maybe she will, and
• 1:10:21
  TV and all of it, and maybe she will return in
• 1:10:24
  another podcast. But until then... Until then,
• 1:10:27
  Harpies out.