Latest / The Bechdel Cast / Spy Kids with Katherine Leon
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: On the Beck dol Cast, the questions asked if movies
- 0:03Speaker 1: have woum Are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands?
- 0:07Speaker 1: Do they have individualism? The patriarchy? Zef and best start
- 0:12Speaker 1: changing it with the bec del Cast du Dantana. Welcome
- 0:22Speaker 1: to the Bedel Cat. Should you cheese to accept this
- 0:26Speaker 1: mission for kids? My name is Jamie Lawton and my
- 0:32Speaker 1: name is Caitlin Darante, and this is our feminist podcast
- 0:37Speaker 1: about movies, about spies and about kids. We're pivotingly just
- 0:43Speaker 1: those things. It's Caitlyn the podcast Bubble his Burst. You
- 0:46Speaker 1: have to be more niche than ever. It's too broad.
- 0:51Speaker 1: We can only talk about spies who are also kids
- 0:55Speaker 1: and the media therein directed at them, So that means
- 1:01Speaker 1: we can talk about agent Cody Banks too and one Oh,
- 1:07Speaker 1: I mean I like t o as well. Yeah, I
- 1:09Speaker 1: guess that that is. Is there any other kids who
- 1:12Speaker 1: are is possible as girl kids? Who is spies? Well? Harry, Harry,
- 1:17Speaker 1: Oh my god, there's actually quite a lot of media
- 1:19Speaker 1: in this sub sub sub genre. We should have done
- 1:22Speaker 1: Spy September. There's so many spy movies for kids. I
- 1:28Speaker 1: like that. Also. Nancy Drew is kind of a spy. Absolutely, yeah, yeah,
- 1:33Speaker 1: she I love I loved Nancy Drew's in Barbed Nancy Drew.
- 1:38Speaker 1: Now there's a new Nancy Drew and now it's Barbed
- 1:40Speaker 1: from Stranger Things? Am I making this up? Oh? I
- 1:42Speaker 1: didn't think it was bar but there didn't. There was
- 1:44Speaker 1: a movie that came out that was in theaters for
- 1:47Speaker 1: I think two days and Starrying Emma Roberts or was
- 1:50Speaker 1: that a different that was a different one that that
- 1:53Speaker 1: was my I think that was my era Nancy Drew
- 1:55Speaker 1: two thousand seven. When they came out in twenty nineteen,
- 1:58Speaker 1: there was okay, I'm not got like brushed under the rug.
- 2:02Speaker 1: I know, unbelievable anyway, So we talk about the representation
- 2:08Speaker 1: of yes, yes, yes, and we use something called the
- 2:15Speaker 1: spy test to determine whether or not the kids in
- 2:18Speaker 1: the movie are watching our spies test. It's this is
- 2:25Speaker 1: our wildest episode yet. Hopefully this isn't your first episode. Yeah.
- 2:32Speaker 1: We talked about the betrayal women in movies, especially when
- 2:35Speaker 1: there's both spies and children, and then we use the
- 2:38Speaker 1: Becktel test as a jumping off point, and that, of course,
- 2:41Speaker 1: is a media metric created by cartoonist Alison Becktel. Also
- 2:45Speaker 1: it's known as the Becktel Wallace test, and it requires
- 2:49Speaker 1: that two female identifying characters or two spies in a
- 2:55Speaker 1: movie as any general talked to talk to each other
- 3:00Speaker 1: about something other than a man or a spy man, right,
- 3:03Speaker 1: a man who's spying. Alison Bechdel, you know, is she
- 3:07Speaker 1: is spy? Not that we know of, or maybe she's
- 3:10Speaker 1: just that I hadn't considered what if we found out?
- 3:13Speaker 1: Alison Bechdel was both a great cartoonist and icon and
- 3:18Speaker 1: in the CIA that mean, did you want to cover
- 3:22Speaker 1: she's got? I used to want my parents to be
- 3:24Speaker 1: spies so bad because of this movie. Yeah, oh my god,
- 3:28Speaker 1: I got so into spy culture after this. I'm so excited. Okay,
- 3:32Speaker 1: so well, let's get into and we have a guest,
- 3:35Speaker 1: as we always do. She is a dear friend of ours.
- 3:39Speaker 1: She is a photographer. She's a producer of many comedy
- 3:43Speaker 1: shows around Los Angeles. She's helped out at various of
- 3:46Speaker 1: our live shows, including the show we did at San
- 3:50Speaker 1: Francisco Sketch Fest and the New York Comedy Festival. People
- 3:53Speaker 1: often confused her for our super producer Sophie, when it
- 3:57Speaker 1: is actually Catherine Leon. I loved getting mistaken for Sophie.
- 4:04Speaker 1: It wasn't honor, it wasn't welcome. This episode has truly
- 4:08Speaker 1: been I think years in the making. I think before
- 4:11Speaker 1: you established you were having a podcast where we were
- 4:14Speaker 1: even friends, the only thing I knew about you is
- 4:18Speaker 1: that you love SPI's the only thing I needed you
- 4:20Speaker 1: to know. That's a good spy. Wow, it's really throwing
- 4:26Speaker 1: me off. You know, a real a spy probably wouldn't
- 4:30Speaker 1: love a spy movie so much because it would you know,
- 4:34Speaker 1: it would be a dead giveaway. But they're kids. I'm
- 4:38Speaker 1: not a kid. We're not kids. But are you a spy?
- 4:42Speaker 1: Maybe that's what that was my way of telling you
- 4:45Speaker 1: there should have been a spy There should be a
- 4:47Speaker 1: spy adults spinoff. I agree. Well, there's sort of a
- 4:50Speaker 1: spinoff called Machete starring Danny Trejo. I don't think it's
- 4:56Speaker 1: not a real spinoff, but it isn't. There's a whole
- 4:58Speaker 1: Machete series directed by the same director as My Kids,
- 5:02Speaker 1: Robert Rodriguez, a movie franchise starring Danny trey Hoo playing
- 5:07Speaker 1: a character and I think named Machete, who was also
- 5:10Speaker 1: his character's name. In Spiks. We all wanted to be
- 5:14Speaker 1: a spinoff of Spikes, but we can't be sure. Actually,
- 5:18Speaker 1: if anyone in I would I wouldn't be surprised if
- 5:21Speaker 1: Robert Rodriguez like snuck in a little reference in Machete
- 5:25Speaker 1: just just for people's head Cannon, just because that is
- 5:28Speaker 1: his code name. So in that series, is that his
- 5:32Speaker 1: real name or is that a code name? I don't know.
- 5:34Speaker 1: No one's ever seen, So it's like we're just really guessing.
- 5:38Speaker 1: Maybe it's a direct spinoff. It's really clearly established at
- 5:42Speaker 1: the beginning, and we just don't know. We just truly
- 5:44Speaker 1: don't because we did not watch it right. But this
- 5:47Speaker 1: is I mean, this was my intro to Danny Treho
- 5:50Speaker 1: for this is my intro to a lot of actors.
- 5:53Speaker 1: So we were like watching. When we were watching it
- 5:55Speaker 1: back as a group last night, I didn't realize how
- 6:00Speaker 1: many like I recognized Tony Shliu, but I didn't. Like
- 6:03Speaker 1: when I was a kid, I was just like, oh,
- 6:05Speaker 1: that's Alexander Minion. Yeah, I didn't know who Allan Cumming was.
- 6:12Speaker 1: I was like, that's that's just was this everyone's first
- 6:16Speaker 1: Allan Cumming movie, isn't It was definitely mine. No, I
- 6:20Speaker 1: saw this movie for the first time when I was
- 6:22Speaker 1: thirty true and so No, my first ellen coming was
- 6:26Speaker 1: Josie and the Pussycats. I think that's I mean, there's
- 6:28Speaker 1: no bad way to be introduced. Absolutely not. He's the
- 6:32Speaker 1: greatest of all time. And I think this was the
- 6:34Speaker 1: first time unless I had already seen Yeah, I'm pretty
- 6:38Speaker 1: sure this would have been the first time I had
- 6:39Speaker 1: seen Antonio ben Daris, although maybe it had seen Zoro.
- 6:42Speaker 1: I'm not sure. I probably saw Zoro, like I'm sure
- 6:45Speaker 1: I've seen Zorow either the first or tie. I don't
- 6:47Speaker 1: know if the second one had come out yet, but
- 6:49Speaker 1: I definitely saw the first one. I don't know, I
- 6:50Speaker 1: don't remember the order, but there's so many famous Terry
- 6:53Speaker 1: Hatcher is in this. I probably didn't even know who
- 6:56Speaker 1: Cheech and Chong were definitely judges in this. Yeah, I
- 7:02Speaker 1: definitely didn't know who my judge was. All I cared
- 7:07Speaker 1: about was Carmen and like, I just wanted to be
- 7:11Speaker 1: Carmen and Juny I think, really an iconic siblings. That
- 7:16Speaker 1: was my whole thing with Caitlin, was trying to prove
- 7:18Speaker 1: to her that My Kids was a perfect movie was that.
- 7:21Speaker 1: I was like, this is the most accurate representation of
- 7:24Speaker 1: me and my brother in any movie depicted anywhere. Was
- 7:29Speaker 1: your age gap similar with your brother? I think so
- 7:32Speaker 1: it was four years, which seems kind of similar. Yeah, yeah,
- 7:36Speaker 1: my brother and I. This was I remember seeing this
- 7:38Speaker 1: movie and maybe this is bad, but like the kids
- 7:41Speaker 1: in this movie, it is like very realistic how much
- 7:44Speaker 1: they beat the ship out of each other, Like you
- 7:46Speaker 1: don't usually see that in movies. You see maybe a
- 7:49Speaker 1: light verbal argument. The Carmen and Judy throws a dumbbell
- 7:54Speaker 1: at his sister after she kicks him off of a
- 7:58Speaker 1: jungle jack like she him off of a jungle gym.
- 8:01Speaker 1: He falls to the ground, she plays on like hard
- 8:03Speaker 1: like conte, she like swings off, and then when she
- 8:07Speaker 1: turns around, he picks up a weight and tries to
- 8:10Speaker 1: throw it at her and hits a plant or something,
- 8:12Speaker 1: which I don't know. I remember seeing this movie and
- 8:15Speaker 1: being like, oh my god, kids are supposed to hit
- 8:17Speaker 1: each other. Thank god, I've been doing this to my brother.
- 8:21Speaker 1: But it was like this would probably have been two
- 8:23Speaker 1: thousand one, would have been around the time because my
- 8:26Speaker 1: brother and I have like the same age gap where
- 8:28Speaker 1: my brother got mad at me, and this is when
- 8:31Speaker 1: I was like losing teeth left and right, and he
- 8:33Speaker 1: planned a sting operation. Well, he's definitely he's no, he's
- 8:40Speaker 1: just a devious young man. Where he he must have
- 8:43Speaker 1: been like four or five, and he like crawled up
- 8:46Speaker 1: into my bed and he slammed his butt onto my head.
- 8:50Speaker 1: And I lost two teens because I because I didn't
- 8:54Speaker 1: forget what he's like. You just told my Pokemon card
- 8:56Speaker 1: and then like but slammed my head and then I
- 9:00Speaker 1: got ten dollars from the tooth Fairies. Maybe your brother
- 9:04Speaker 1: was the tooth fair He was so mad and my
- 9:08Speaker 1: parents thought it was really like we got in trouble.
- 9:11Speaker 1: But there my dad was like, so you sat on
- 9:13Speaker 1: Jamie's head, He's like really hard. Yeah. I would have
- 9:18Speaker 1: been in like second, second or third grade or something
- 9:21Speaker 1: when this movie came out, So you guys were the
- 9:23Speaker 1: target demo the right. So officially, Catherine, what is your
- 9:27Speaker 1: history with this, your relationship, etcetera. I can't remember seeing
- 9:32Speaker 1: it in theaters. I know that, like, I don't recall
- 9:35Speaker 1: seeing it in theaters, but I definitely have the VHS.
- 9:38Speaker 1: It is currently on my dining room table because I
- 9:40Speaker 1: tried to give it to keep. I tried to give
- 9:42Speaker 1: it to you. Um, but I just watched it a
- 9:46Speaker 1: lot as a kid, and like a big thing for me,
- 9:48Speaker 1: I think was being able to see like Hispanic representation
- 9:52Speaker 1: and I was like, oh, these kids are like they
- 9:54Speaker 1: kind of look like like I guess Judia doesn't look
- 9:56Speaker 1: like my brother. But I was like, Carmen kind of
- 9:58Speaker 1: looks like me as like a child old and I
- 10:00Speaker 1: kind of saw a lot of my family and like
- 10:03Speaker 1: their family and that was like cool. And that was
- 10:05Speaker 1: probably one of my first earliest movies. Uncle, I have
- 10:10Speaker 1: an uncle that is Danny and Cheech Marin and Antonio
- 10:15Speaker 1: and Alan Cumming, Antony, my mom's Terry Hatcher. It's a
- 10:20Speaker 1: whole thing. Um. Spy Kids was based off of my
- 10:25Speaker 1: way of telling you, there's a lot of secrets you're
- 10:28Speaker 1: revealing to me as if you are. Um No, I
- 10:32Speaker 1: think I just watched it a lot when I was
- 10:34Speaker 1: a kid, Like it was just I found it enjoyable.
- 10:36Speaker 1: I thought it was super funny, and I think, like
- 10:39Speaker 1: Jamie was saying, like, I was like, oh, I think
- 10:41Speaker 1: I want to be a spy, like I got into
- 10:44Speaker 1: I remember Scholassic book Fair stuff had like spy books
- 10:48Speaker 1: and spike here that you would like order and I
- 10:51Speaker 1: can't remember anything I bought. But there was nothing really
- 10:53Speaker 1: to it other than the fact that we just liked
- 10:55Speaker 1: it as a family. And I think because my parents
- 10:58Speaker 1: knew who like Antonio Benderis was, they were like, oh, yeah,
- 11:01Speaker 1: we like this movie too because we know these actors,
- 11:04Speaker 1: which is a big thing because my parents don't really
- 11:06Speaker 1: know They don't really watch movies and they only really
- 11:08Speaker 1: know like big name people, and I think Antono Bendaris
- 11:12Speaker 1: was like clearly a person that they were like, we
- 11:13Speaker 1: know him. This movie is allowed, Jamie, what about your
- 11:21Speaker 1: relationship to this movie. I love this movie. I remember
- 11:25Speaker 1: seeing it in UM theaters with my cousins very occasionally.
- 11:32Speaker 1: There's like a few movies I remember seeing with all
- 11:35Speaker 1: kinds of my cousins very clearly UM and this was
- 11:39Speaker 1: one of them. Were just so many children heard of
- 11:43Speaker 1: sounds like my family too. Yeah, just like a heard
- 11:45Speaker 1: of sweaty kids and like to adult, not enough adults
- 11:50Speaker 1: to adults. But I remember this. My Auntie Bunny brought
- 11:52Speaker 1: us because she had a huge crush on Antonio Benderis
- 11:55Speaker 1: and she was like she was like just like a
- 11:58Speaker 1: weird aunt thing where she was remember being in like
- 12:01Speaker 1: the van and being like, there's something for everyone in
- 12:04Speaker 1: this movie, and you're like, you, this is a movie
- 12:08Speaker 1: where we had like we were still like poor. So
- 12:11Speaker 1: it's like for ten of us we had like a
- 12:14Speaker 1: tube of starburst and we would pass them down to
- 12:18Speaker 1: each other. But I thought, for some reason this was
- 12:21Speaker 1: like an embarrassing moment. I know this story, yeah, where
- 12:26Speaker 1: like they were passing them down the row and for
- 12:28Speaker 1: some reason I thought my cousins were unwrapping them for
- 12:31Speaker 1: me was eating them with the paper on, and I
- 12:34Speaker 1: was like, why is it taste weird? And they were
- 12:36Speaker 1: just like you suck and I got junium. But I
- 12:43Speaker 1: loved this, Like it also got me really really interested
- 12:46Speaker 1: in spying. And I never I didn't see Harriet the
- 12:49Speaker 1: Spy when I was a kid. I don't think I
- 12:50Speaker 1: said that was my that was my like I want
- 12:53Speaker 1: to be a spy because I've seen Harriet the Spy.
- 12:55Speaker 1: I don't. I don't know, but yeah, And this was
- 12:57Speaker 1: definitely the first movie about spiking that I've seen. And
- 13:01Speaker 1: like I had like a picture of Alexa Vega in
- 13:04Speaker 1: my room, like I just I love I loved it,
- 13:06Speaker 1: and I remember I think that we saw two and
- 13:08Speaker 1: three in theaters too. Definitely three because you had three
- 13:11Speaker 1: D glasses. Yes, maybe I did to the three D glasses.
- 13:16Speaker 1: Definitely sounds familiar, but I couldn't tell you what the
- 13:18Speaker 1: plot was of three. Three. I remember three better than
- 13:22Speaker 1: two because three takes place inside of a video virtually. Yeah,
- 13:27Speaker 1: is that the Sylvester Salone one? I think so that. Actually,
- 13:32Speaker 1: I'm so excited. It's a it's a really good and
- 13:36Speaker 1: all three of them around Netflix too. There's those four
- 13:39Speaker 1: to with Joe McCann Alba weird. I don't think any
- 13:44Speaker 1: of the original people are in it, but I think
- 13:46Speaker 1: the second one is about Donnegan, who's the guy that
- 13:50Speaker 1: gets kidnapped, and the first one way Judge. I think
- 13:55Speaker 1: judges in the second one, yeah, because he's the main
- 13:57Speaker 1: like bad guy thing because his kids kids start becoming
- 14:02Speaker 1: because like they're like, okay, spy kids are okay. Now
- 14:04Speaker 1: Now it's like a weird family competition between Donagan's family
- 14:07Speaker 1: and the Cortez family because I think they're just remember
- 14:11Speaker 1: one scene in particular where they're at like a banquet
- 14:15Speaker 1: and all of the parents get poisoned. And they're like
- 14:19Speaker 1: the kids have to save that. Whoever's the best spy
- 14:22Speaker 1: kid becomes like the spy kid or something like that. Incredible, incredible, Arisubtle,
- 14:30Speaker 1: you've been nodding along. Are you also a huge fan
- 14:32Speaker 1: of these? I'm not on arizontal. I was like going
- 14:36Speaker 1: into it being like Hill at least are we all this?
- 14:41Speaker 1: Are the three of us the same age, we're all okay?
- 14:43Speaker 1: So yeah, just truly like one of those like prim downbies.
- 14:52Speaker 1: I'm an eighties six baby, and that's why I've never
- 14:55Speaker 1: seen it. Is so weird, like when we covered this
- 14:59Speaker 1: like cific like run of ten years that like being
- 15:02Speaker 1: born even a couple of years apart, like will decide
- 15:06Speaker 1: whether you've seen it or not, like someone born in
- 15:08Speaker 1: like maybe night, Like I don't know, Like, yeah, my
- 15:11Speaker 1: younger brother, he probably doesn't remember seeing this movie for
- 15:15Speaker 1: the first time or anyways, Spies kids, I love it.
- 15:20Speaker 1: Should I jump into the recap? Yes? Okay, so um
- 15:25Speaker 1: there are two kids. They're not spies yet, don't worry.
- 15:31Speaker 1: Junie and Carmen. Carmen wants her mom to tell her
- 15:34Speaker 1: bedtime story about two spies who fell in love. She
- 15:38Speaker 1: tells the story the lady spies mission was to kill
- 15:41Speaker 1: the man spy and his mission was to kill her.
- 15:45Speaker 1: But instead of killing each other, they fall in love
- 15:49Speaker 1: and they get married. And it turns out that those
- 15:52Speaker 1: two spies are Carmen and Junie's spy mom and spy dad,
- 15:58Speaker 1: but they've retired from being spies, they're not consultants, and
- 16:02Speaker 1: they've started a family. Their names are Gregorio Cortez that's
- 16:07Speaker 1: Antonio Pinderes and Ingrid the mom played by what is
- 16:12Speaker 1: her name? Carla Gugina. So meanwhile, Juni, the little boy,
- 16:16Speaker 1: he loves this TV show called Floops. You say that,
- 16:26Speaker 1: like we haven't been saying that over and over again.
- 16:31Speaker 1: Floops Figi is such a tongue twister. Okay, even now
- 16:35Speaker 1: watching now, Floops, I would say is scarier than when
- 16:38Speaker 1: I first saw it. There's like body horror in this
- 16:41Speaker 1: show I have now in the graphics are wild. Now
- 16:46Speaker 1: I'm wondering like maybe this was like the first movie
- 16:48Speaker 1: where I'd seen like body horror, and maybe because it's
- 16:52Speaker 1: now one of my favorite things, I'm like, maybe maybe
- 16:55Speaker 1: I'm not giving spy kids, like I forgot how much
- 16:57Speaker 1: of it, Like it was an impressionable film. The Tony
- 17:00Speaker 1: Schlub at the druple head at the end and his hands.
- 17:04Speaker 1: For some reason, the thumb people the thumb. Also, Katherine
- 17:12Speaker 1: You pointed out that on Netflix the thumbnail for this
- 17:16Speaker 1: movie is a thumb thumb. So it's a thumbsumb thumbnail
- 17:19Speaker 1: someone that Netflix has. Okay, So Junie watches this the
- 17:26Speaker 1: show Floop's Fog lease Uh. We see a scene where
- 17:31Speaker 1: we meet Mr Flup played by Alan Cumming, my king
- 17:36Speaker 1: in his layer. And then the bad Terminator from Terminator
- 17:39Speaker 1: Too is also there and he's giving a lot of exposition.
- 17:44Speaker 1: His name is Mr Lisp sure that I never understood.
- 17:48Speaker 1: But and then Tony Shaloub is also there as Flop's
- 17:52Speaker 1: minion named Alexander Minion. That's a reveal that you don't
- 17:59Speaker 1: find out till later on. To take his glasses off before,
- 18:03Speaker 1: I mean, Alan Cumming is subscribing to like she's all
- 18:06Speaker 1: that logic, where like Tony Sheli takes off his glasses
- 18:10Speaker 1: and Alan commings like, oh my god, I know you,
- 18:16Speaker 1: I've seen you before. We're enemies. I don't like the
- 18:20Speaker 1: implication that in order to become powerful, Tony Schlup has
- 18:25Speaker 1: to take his glasses off as a frequent glasses wearer.
- 18:29Speaker 1: That's fair. To be fair, you're not wearing them now
- 18:32Speaker 1: only because I messed with the headphones. It's a whole thing.
- 18:36Speaker 1: But I will say it was I don't even think
- 18:38Speaker 1: this was done intentionally, but like it was fun to
- 18:40Speaker 1: see that trope inverted for once, Like it's never uh
- 18:45Speaker 1: man who takes off his glasses and then everyone's like,
- 18:50Speaker 1: you're our bus now. Alexander Minion, Oh, such a goofy name,
- 18:57Speaker 1: because Alan Cumming and Antonio bander Us have to say
- 19:00Speaker 1: that name dead serious. It's a very serious situation. He
- 19:05Speaker 1: is the bad guy, like he's the deep seated villain
- 19:08Speaker 1: in this movie, and both of them do have to
- 19:11Speaker 1: say it in such like oh way where you're like, oh,
- 19:14Speaker 1: I'm scared. I have to be scared of this. But
- 19:16Speaker 1: Fantonio Vanderis Reid was like pretty's like Alexanderminian and then
- 19:23Speaker 1: Tony she lives like, yes, it's me great. Okay. So
- 19:28Speaker 1: before all that happens, we learned that Flop is both
- 19:32Speaker 1: I guess, the host and executive producer of his own
- 19:36Speaker 1: children's show and an inventor. Oh sure what you mean? Yea?
- 19:41Speaker 1: So Flop is also an inventor who we learned has
- 19:44Speaker 1: been trying to make an army of super secret agents,
- 19:50Speaker 1: but they turned out all weird and mutated, and now
- 19:53Speaker 1: the only use he has for them is to put
- 19:55Speaker 1: them as characters on his show, which sounds like it's
- 20:00Speaker 1: almost saying something else that is like m that should
- 20:03Speaker 1: that word shouldn't be in a children's movie. Oh, I
- 20:07Speaker 1: think I know what you mean. A junior high in
- 20:11Speaker 1: salt that hurt my feelings. One. Yeah, a lot of
- 20:16Speaker 1: weird choices in this movie overall. But so Floop also
- 20:20Speaker 1: has this army of thumb thumb robots, which are like
- 20:24Speaker 1: sort of useless, and then he also has these highly
- 20:29Speaker 1: trained killer robots that are designed to look exactly like
- 20:33Speaker 1: specific children, which Floop calls spy kids with jazz hands
- 20:40Speaker 1: when he says it, stare called spike comics. Performance in
- 20:45Speaker 1: this movie is the best part of this movie. It's
- 20:47Speaker 1: so good. And and in that scene, I think between
- 20:51Speaker 1: the two of them, they say spy kids four or
- 20:53Speaker 1: five picks, and so tell me more about these spi
- 20:56Speaker 1: kids like Robert Rodriguez, you you goof Uh. The only
- 21:01Speaker 1: problem with these spy kid robots, though, is that they
- 21:04Speaker 1: can't talk and they don't have brains. Meanwhile, spy Daddy
- 21:09Speaker 1: gets called on a mission because several OSS agents have
- 21:15Speaker 1: disappeared in OSS is like the secret spy agency that
- 21:19Speaker 1: they used to work for the spy parents. So spy
- 21:22Speaker 1: Mom decides to go with spy Dad. We'll talk about
- 21:29Speaker 1: that scene, okay. So they call uncle Felix played by
- 21:34Speaker 1: cheech marin two Babies at the kids, but a bunch
- 21:38Speaker 1: of bad guys show up, and then Felix is like,
- 21:40Speaker 1: by the way, your parents are spies, I'm not your
- 21:43Speaker 1: real uncle, and you need to deliver a message to
- 21:45Speaker 1: the OSS, tell them that the third brain lives. Felix
- 21:50Speaker 1: fights off the bad guys and then the not yet
- 21:53Speaker 1: spy kids escape in a spy vehicle to a safe house. Meanwhile,
- 22:00Speaker 1: the spy parents get captured by Floop, and we learn
- 22:03Speaker 1: that Floop is after something that he thinks the OSS
- 22:06Speaker 1: destroyed and he wants spy Daddy to rebuild it for him. Uh.
- 22:12Speaker 1: And then the not yet spy kids have equipped themselves
- 22:16Speaker 1: with some spy years, so they're getting a little closer
- 22:18Speaker 1: to becoming spy kids. They're training themselves, they're training them taking,
- 22:24Speaker 1: they're being proactive in training themselves to be spies. And
- 22:28Speaker 1: then Terry Hatcher shows up. Never a good sign, never
- 22:34Speaker 1: the but I forgot about the Terry Hatchery body horror
- 22:37Speaker 1: scene and that, like because I haven't seen this movie
- 22:39Speaker 1: and maybe like five years at least, and I was like,
- 22:44Speaker 1: oh my god, like they really do her dirty in
- 22:47Speaker 1: this anyways, Yeah, it's wild. She shows up pretending to
- 22:51Speaker 1: be Oss, but it turns out that she and all
- 22:54Speaker 1: the people she's with are also bad guys, and they
- 22:56Speaker 1: tricked the kids into giving them the Third Brain, which
- 22:59Speaker 1: is the thing that spy Dad had created that Flop
- 23:03Speaker 1: is after. So the kids chased after the bad guys
- 23:06Speaker 1: and they get the Third Brain back and now they're
- 23:09Speaker 1: even closer to becoming actual official spy kids. But meanwhile,
- 23:13Speaker 1: back at the Flupe House flu Flop Minions. Flope also
- 23:19Speaker 1: lives in a really cool it's a boot shape. The
- 23:24Speaker 1: castle on the top flop House is so silly. So
- 23:29Speaker 1: Floup's minion, named Alexander Minion is like, hey, I made
- 23:34Speaker 1: your spy kid robots look like Carmen and Junie, and
- 23:37Speaker 1: then those evil doppelgangers go after the real Carmen and
- 23:41Speaker 1: Junie and steal the Third Brain back. Uh. And then
- 23:46Speaker 1: the kids go to this guy Machette as we discussed
- 23:50Speaker 1: as Danny Treo's character, for help and that they learned
- 23:54Speaker 1: that he is their actual uncle. But he's like, I
- 23:57Speaker 1: don't want to help you because I hate my brother.
- 23:59Speaker 1: So they his spy plane and fly it to his
- 24:02Speaker 1: spy plane Flupe House. But Danny Trejo is also like,
- 24:06Speaker 1: fine with it. I think he set it up. Yeah,
- 24:10Speaker 1: and then he's like, ha ha ha, you you guys
- 24:13Speaker 1: are wild. I love seeing Danny Trejo smile. It's always
- 24:17Speaker 1: so disarming, sweet man. So they're at the Flue House now,
- 24:24Speaker 1: where Tony Shaloub has promoted himself to to the evil
- 24:31Speaker 1: mastermind behind this whole plan, and he's making copies of
- 24:34Speaker 1: the Third Brain and putting it into the army of
- 24:37Speaker 1: spy kid robots. And then Alexander Minion turns Spy Daddy
- 24:42Speaker 1: into a Fogli and then Carmen and Junie rescue their
- 24:46Speaker 1: parents with the help of Flupe, who is now a
- 24:50Speaker 1: good guy because he cares more about his TV show
- 24:52Speaker 1: than about building an army, which what a wild precedent
- 24:57Speaker 1: that I can't quite at my head around that one.
- 25:01Speaker 1: But I love that conversation that and Katherine, you're saying
- 25:05Speaker 1: the like that shot where Floop is like in the
- 25:09Speaker 1: clouds and he's huge for some reason and Junie is
- 25:13Speaker 1: so little, and then it cuts back and at one
- 25:15Speaker 1: point he's like sitting cross legged, just like totally thinks
- 25:19Speaker 1: that this is real. That shot is so funny because
- 25:22Speaker 1: first it's like standing because he's supposed to be scary,
- 25:25Speaker 1: and then he gets closer to Junie and then he's
- 25:27Speaker 1: like just lounging in the clouds. They're like talking about
- 25:30Speaker 1: their feel having little therapy said, they really are, they
- 25:33Speaker 1: really are, and Junie is the one that makes him
- 25:35Speaker 1: realize that he's good inside. He doesn't need an army
- 25:38Speaker 1: of robots. It's so that's you know, I mean rewatching it.
- 25:42Speaker 1: I was just like, oh wow, like Junie harnessed the
- 25:45Speaker 1: power of like Sensi boy to save the day. It
- 25:51Speaker 1: was like his superspy power was expressing his feelings. It's true.
- 25:56Speaker 1: It's true. So now that Floop is a good guy
- 25:59Speaker 1: with his hell they all turn Minion into a Fogli.
- 26:05Speaker 1: But he's like, he's like I like it. He has
- 26:09Speaker 1: five heads and he's having a great time uh. And
- 26:12Speaker 1: then the Spy family they're about to fight the evil
- 26:16Speaker 1: Robot doppelgang or spy kid children, but then Flop has
- 26:21Speaker 1: reprogrammed them all to be philanthropic or something. He's switches
- 26:28Speaker 1: their brain to think that what's right is wrong, what's wrong,
- 26:31Speaker 1: he's right apparently. So then they go after like Minion
- 26:38Speaker 1: and Terry Hatcher and the evil Terminator from Terminator to
- 26:41Speaker 1: and then they're like, where is spy family now? And
- 26:45Speaker 1: then they live happily ever after, there's that great Alexa
- 26:51Speaker 1: Vega who Miles went to high school with. I just
- 26:54Speaker 1: found out to high school with. Goddamn everyone. It's and there,
- 27:00Speaker 1: but Alexa beg it gives that powerful speech to camera
- 27:05Speaker 1: to close that the movie where she's like, there's listen,
- 27:08Speaker 1: there's spies and there's kids. There's sometimes spies should be
- 27:14Speaker 1: a part of a spy family if your family is
- 27:16Speaker 1: the most important spy kit of all and turns the
- 27:20Speaker 1: TV right. And so that's the story. Let's take a
- 27:25Speaker 1: quick break and then we will come right back to discuss.
- 27:33Speaker 1: And we're back. It's time to get into deep cannon.
- 27:37Speaker 1: I mean this is requires analysis. Yes, yes it does.
- 27:42Speaker 1: For me, having never seen this movie, having not grown
- 27:45Speaker 1: up with it seeing it through the adult eyes that
- 27:48Speaker 1: I saw it through. You know, an objective observer will
- 27:52Speaker 1: say to me, it seemed like the female characters and
- 27:55Speaker 1: the male characters are presented as being generally eat really
- 28:00Speaker 1: competent and smart and good at their jobs. And I
- 28:05Speaker 1: think it's mostly because Carmen is older, but she is
- 28:09Speaker 1: presentative as being far more competent than her little brother JUNI.
- 28:13Speaker 1: So we see this a lot. This is like a
- 28:15Speaker 1: thing and we talked about a little bit in Jurassic Park.
- 28:18Speaker 1: This is something we've seen in a lot of movies
- 28:21Speaker 1: where it's like an older sister younger brother, and the
- 28:24Speaker 1: older sister is presentatives being more competent, which I guess
- 28:29Speaker 1: makes sense for their age, but it's also good for
- 28:33Speaker 1: us because we too often see women who are not competent. Yes,
- 28:38Speaker 1: I I mean, I love I still stand Carmen to
- 28:42Speaker 1: this day, like there's there and and like like something
- 28:45Speaker 1: that I mean, it is like a more realistic sibling
- 28:49Speaker 1: portrayal than you see in most kids movies, especially in
- 28:51Speaker 1: a movie there's otherwise fucking crazy. Um Like I I
- 28:56Speaker 1: really liked the sibling relationship and also that you see
- 28:59Speaker 1: Carmen be moody and like kind of means sometimes, but
- 29:04Speaker 1: it's not like the movie is never like and you
- 29:07Speaker 1: should be like, it's she's being a kid. She's being
- 29:11Speaker 1: a really smart kid. And I really like capable kid
- 29:14Speaker 1: and a really spy kids and really spying, and she's
- 29:17Speaker 1: spying the whole time, and and like even when she's
- 29:21Speaker 1: mean to her brother, like it's she cares about him
- 29:24Speaker 1: and she protects him and he helps her, and I
- 29:26Speaker 1: just I don't know, I really like they didn't do anything.
- 29:32Speaker 1: I didn't think to make her the girl spy, like
- 29:36Speaker 1: she was just one of the spies, which I love,
- 29:39Speaker 1: big sister energy love it. Yeah, that was great. I
- 29:41Speaker 1: also enjoyed that you get to see a little boy
- 29:45Speaker 1: expressing fear, being afraid, kind of being sort of the
- 29:50Speaker 1: more sensitive one, and then the little girl being brave
- 29:54Speaker 1: and like kind of taking initiative, because you usually don't
- 29:58Speaker 1: see either of those things, or the roles will be
- 30:00Speaker 1: reversed where it's like the boy gets to be brave,
- 30:03Speaker 1: the girl is scared. So it's nice that you see
- 30:06Speaker 1: that little flip and juny child warts I was thinking
- 30:11Speaker 1: a little cousin the whole time. I was like child warts,
- 30:14Speaker 1: visibility man and his little neon band, So it's my
- 30:20Speaker 1: little cousin. Uh. And then I liked that they both had.
- 30:24Speaker 1: For Juny, it's his his warts, and then for Carmen
- 30:28Speaker 1: it becomes a critical plat point that she wears a
- 30:31Speaker 1: diaper at night and like has bed wedding issues, which
- 30:35Speaker 1: is just like something you never see in a movie
- 30:38Speaker 1: from a kid who's also really cool and you're supposed
- 30:41Speaker 1: to like them. So I was like, you know, like
- 30:44Speaker 1: power to the child bed wetters, there's such but there is.
- 30:49Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's like there is such a stigma,
- 30:51Speaker 1: especially when you're a kid of like, you know, this
- 30:53Speaker 1: kid still what's the bed? And like the hero of
- 30:56Speaker 1: our movie still what's the bed? And yeah, her brother
- 30:58Speaker 1: makes fun of root for it. But then they also
- 31:01Speaker 1: land a submarine into Exa like moments later, so I'm like, well,
- 31:08Speaker 1: I guess the bed wedding is kind of a wash.
- 31:10Speaker 1: I don't know. That was a cool and that was
- 31:12Speaker 1: also I thought that that was going to be a
- 31:14Speaker 1: one off joke because it's said between the parents one
- 31:17Speaker 1: of the many times they're trapped, and I like, I
- 31:22Speaker 1: don't know if this was but I assumed it was
- 31:24Speaker 1: Juny because he was younger and had warts or something.
- 31:28Speaker 1: I don't know. But but then you find out later
- 31:30Speaker 1: that it's Karmen and it's actually an important plot point
- 31:33Speaker 1: because it makes them crash the submarine because she's like
- 31:36Speaker 1: she's mad, AT's at him. Yeah, I don't know, like
- 31:41Speaker 1: those like little details that like would I remember that
- 31:45Speaker 1: from being a kid, because you're like, oh, bed wedders
- 31:49Speaker 1: is not being made fun of, like sick I make
- 31:52Speaker 1: I'm making it sound and now I'm like in a
- 31:54Speaker 1: double dick, like I didn't actually wet the bed, Okay, Jamie,
- 31:58Speaker 1: sounds like you did. Actually it wasn't wedding the bed
- 32:01Speaker 1: in two thousand one. I didn't did only two when
- 32:05Speaker 1: I skipped over that year. But back in business pp
- 32:11Speaker 1: every night. Did you ever wet the bed as a teenager? No,
- 32:18Speaker 1: I did, Guys, I've peed in my pants like at
- 32:22Speaker 1: the door as an adult totally. Like I got so
- 32:27Speaker 1: used to not when I would drive an hour each
- 32:29Speaker 1: way to go to work, Like I just would get
- 32:32Speaker 1: into habit of not peeing before I drove. So when
- 32:35Speaker 1: I'm at the door, I'm like, I'm going to pee
- 32:37Speaker 1: if I don't open this door. And I've done it
- 32:39Speaker 1: countless times. I can't even I don't even know anymore.
- 32:41Speaker 1: Remember my first breakup in high school, I was being
- 32:45Speaker 1: so dramatic that I just wet the bed one day.
- 32:48Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm not leaving my bed. I'm I'm too depressed.
- 32:54Speaker 1: I just pissed myself, and I was like, that was
- 32:56Speaker 1: a bad idea. This has been a nice sharing time anyway.
- 33:04Speaker 1: So yeah, I think this movie, which is clearly directed
- 33:07Speaker 1: towards like children and like families, uh, does a lot
- 33:11Speaker 1: of good things in terms of representation that so many
- 33:16Speaker 1: kids movies, many of which we've discussed on the podcast,
- 33:19Speaker 1: do not do, and in fact, a lot of them
- 33:21Speaker 1: have done more harm than good. But yeah, this one,
- 33:25Speaker 1: as we said, normalizes bad wedding and warts. It shows
- 33:30Speaker 1: girls and women being just as competent and smart as
- 33:33Speaker 1: the boys and men. It shows Katherine, you touched on this.
- 33:37Speaker 1: But so we're trying to figure out where this takes
- 33:40Speaker 1: place and what exactly ethnicity this family might be because
- 33:48Speaker 1: it's not specified, but we think it might be Mexico
- 33:52Speaker 1: that it takes place, because I was saying that growing up,
- 33:55Speaker 1: I just assumed it was California. I don't know it's
- 33:57Speaker 1: because I'm from here, and I was like, oh, that
- 33:59Speaker 1: could be in San Diego or like a coastal part
- 34:02Speaker 1: like up north. Like it just never occurred to me
- 34:05Speaker 1: to think of where they were. But we were talking,
- 34:09Speaker 1: we were trying to figure out, like, oh, you brought
- 34:11Speaker 1: it up, or you're like, do you think they're in
- 34:12Speaker 1: a different country? And I was like, I never thought
- 34:14Speaker 1: about that, And then rewatching it, we found so many
- 34:17Speaker 1: context clues that it was like, Oh, they're definitely in
- 34:19Speaker 1: a different country. Like how in the beginning, Spy Mom
- 34:23Speaker 1: and Spy Dad say how they were from two different
- 34:26Speaker 1: countries and now they're in one. So we're going to
- 34:30Speaker 1: assume that maybe Spy Mom is from the United States
- 34:33Speaker 1: because she's got an American act because she's I think
- 34:36Speaker 1: either ambiguous or like she's supposed to be American. And
- 34:39Speaker 1: then like throughout the movie, all the text that we
- 34:43Speaker 1: see is in Spanish, and like and we've seen various
- 34:47Speaker 1: characters speaking speaking of Spanish, which and like the school,
- 34:50Speaker 1: there's like that scene in the school where you're like, well,
- 34:53Speaker 1: none of the kids are speaking Spanish, and like, I
- 34:56Speaker 1: can't really tell it could be like an easily in
- 34:58Speaker 1: American school. But there's a scene where he almost hits
- 35:01Speaker 1: he like breaks the car really hard on the lady
- 35:04Speaker 1: holding the stop signs yells in Spanish. But like I
- 35:07Speaker 1: think it was mostly the text on like the wart
- 35:10Speaker 1: remover bottle, the text was in Spanish. One of the billboards,
- 35:13Speaker 1: it was all in Spanish. All the stores were like
- 35:16Speaker 1: they go into that clothing store and it says like
- 35:18Speaker 1: neinos and babies, like it's all the Texas in Spanish.
- 35:21Speaker 1: And then when they're at the park as well, there's
- 35:24Speaker 1: everyone in the background is speaking in Spanish, so it's
- 35:28Speaker 1: a Spanish speaking country. We can assume we there's no
- 35:31Speaker 1: necessarily clear identifiers specifically what country it is. There was
- 35:36Speaker 1: also that clue when the wedding scene, you're saying, how
- 35:40Speaker 1: on the cake they have like the diodelus more at
- 35:42Speaker 1: those like skeletons, and I'm I might be wrong, but
- 35:45Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure that's like clearly Mexican of Mexican culture. Yeah,
- 35:49Speaker 1: I think so for that specific imagery, and Robert Rodriguez
- 35:53Speaker 1: is Mexican, so like you can kind of assume that.
- 35:57Speaker 1: And a lot of these movies take place in Mexican
- 36:00Speaker 1: trying to figure out where this movie was shot, and
- 36:01Speaker 1: I don't have much Do you say Santa Don't they
- 36:05Speaker 1: say Santa Cecilia or something, And that's a place in
- 36:07Speaker 1: Mexico we looked up, but like Antonia still and then
- 36:12Speaker 1: but I think that iurposefully trying to be vague, and
- 36:15Speaker 1: it's like, this is a Hispanic culture that we're like
- 36:19Speaker 1: trying to show and we're intentionally trying to be because
- 36:21Speaker 1: anton Brass is from Spain. But then like Danny Trejo
- 36:26Speaker 1: and Cheech Marin, who they're all Hispanic, the two of
- 36:29Speaker 1: them are in Mexican, so at least, at the very least,
- 36:32Speaker 1: it's an ethnically ambiguous family, a mixed family. We're not
- 36:38Speaker 1: sure exactly where Antonio Bander is supposed to be from
- 36:41Speaker 1: or what ethnic group he belongs to, but it's some
- 36:45Speaker 1: like Latin X or Hispanic. We can safely say that
- 36:47Speaker 1: it's like Hispanic. Yeah, and a huge movie like taking
- 36:50Speaker 1: place outside of America, um in a non English speaking
- 36:54Speaker 1: country is like a big deal. Yeah, for sure, Katherine,
- 36:58Speaker 1: you were saying that to be able to like see
- 37:00Speaker 1: yourself representati or feel as though you're represented, that's like
- 37:04Speaker 1: a huge thing because so many kids maybes you're just
- 37:06Speaker 1: like white kids, white kids, white kids, and like, as
- 37:09Speaker 1: a kid, you don't realize that that's what what's happening
- 37:12Speaker 1: until you grow up, and so to be able to
- 37:15Speaker 1: be like, yeah, Spike Kids, I saw myself and Spike
- 37:17Speaker 1: Kids like that's how I was with all those Disney movies.
- 37:20Speaker 1: It's like I could only be Pocahonest because she had
- 37:23Speaker 1: brown hair. I can only be Mulan because she had
- 37:25Speaker 1: black hair. So it's like, but you don't think about
- 37:28Speaker 1: that context as a child, You're just like, well, she
- 37:31Speaker 1: kind of looks like me. I guess that's who. That's
- 37:33Speaker 1: the princess that I have to pretend to be or whatever,
- 37:36Speaker 1: which is cool. Yeah, another point for Spike Kids love it.
- 37:42Speaker 1: I guess this kind of ties into Carmen. But um,
- 37:45Speaker 1: we were talking about this last night as well. Of
- 37:48Speaker 1: the way I really liked how the fighting works in
- 37:51Speaker 1: this movie, because this is like there's there's a lot
- 37:54Speaker 1: of action elements to this movie, some that got more
- 37:58Speaker 1: violent than I remembered. Terry how Watcher's head gets basically
- 38:02Speaker 1: burned off, but then later that her wig is just
- 38:04Speaker 1: kind of damnit, she's well, she becomes like the baldest
- 38:07Speaker 1: woman in charge because she's like mostly bald, but and
- 38:10Speaker 1: then she's got some like long straggly hairs, and she
- 38:12Speaker 1: doesn't seem to have more power once she is Balder's true.
- 38:17Speaker 1: But but one of the cool things is, like I
- 38:20Speaker 1: think we see very often in action movies, especially action
- 38:23Speaker 1: movies of this era, that women are only all had
- 38:25Speaker 1: to fight women and men are really all had to
- 38:27Speaker 1: fight man. And that is not a rule that applies
- 38:30Speaker 1: to this world. We see Ingrid fighting hand to hand
- 38:34Speaker 1: with guys. I don't remember. Do we see Antonio banderas
- 38:38Speaker 1: fighting women at any point? I don't, just because I
- 38:41Speaker 1: don't think so, but just because there aren't any other
- 38:43Speaker 1: like women spy. I think the only other adult is
- 38:47Speaker 1: Terry Hatcher woman. Yeah, that's true, I think, right, because
- 38:51Speaker 1: all of the like food like agents who got turned
- 38:53Speaker 1: into food leis, those were all yeah, those are all men,
- 38:57Speaker 1: and so I think it truly is just Grid and
- 39:01Speaker 1: Terry Hatcher's character. And then but then Carmen also uh
- 39:04Speaker 1: fights her brother, a multiple robo brother, and there I
- 39:09Speaker 1: don't know, like it's it is like kind of rare
- 39:11Speaker 1: to see just there seems to be parody in in
- 39:16Speaker 1: fighting in this movie too, Like it doesn't seem like
- 39:19Speaker 1: like you were saying, Katherine, like the I think the
- 39:21Speaker 1: only reason Antonio benders Uh doesn't end up fighting a
- 39:25Speaker 1: female spies because there's not enough female spies in the movie.
- 39:28Speaker 1: But I mean it, it is cool that it's not
- 39:31Speaker 1: like I feel like it's always like the guys are
- 39:34Speaker 1: fighting and this is the big part, and then we
- 39:35Speaker 1: cut too. Also there's some women fighting over here. It
- 39:39Speaker 1: would have been a very easy choice for when the
- 39:41Speaker 1: two evil doppelgangers show up for it would have been
- 39:45Speaker 1: an easy narrative choice for the girl to fight the
- 39:47Speaker 1: girl and the boy to fight the boy. I think
- 39:50Speaker 1: here's my best guest. I think that they probably didn't
- 39:53Speaker 1: do that because it would have been much easier to
- 39:55Speaker 1: shoot if the girl and the boy fight each other,
- 39:58Speaker 1: and then the girl and the boy fight each other.
- 40:00Speaker 1: It just probably would have been too hard to coordinate,
- 40:02Speaker 1: like parent trap style exactly, fighting like a kid fight
- 40:07Speaker 1: choreography would have been nearly impossible. But a catharsis like
- 40:12Speaker 1: you were saying, you always wanted to fight your sibling.
- 40:15Speaker 1: There's like a whole scene where they're in the Park
- 40:17Speaker 1: when they first meet the robot doppelgangers, and she's like,
- 40:21Speaker 1: I've always wanted to do this, and she like punches
- 40:23Speaker 1: him in the face, which is not saying that, like,
- 40:26Speaker 1: obviously that's not great, But there's like a sibling thing
- 40:30Speaker 1: in you where you're just like, man, sometimes we just
- 40:34Speaker 1: wanted to as a as a sibling. This movie appeals
- 40:39Speaker 1: to my worst instincts as an older specifically as an
- 40:43Speaker 1: older sister with younger brother. That was like the worst pairing.
- 40:51Speaker 1: But and and then the other thing that I think.
- 40:53Speaker 1: I think that in a lesser movie, Carmen, I think
- 40:56Speaker 1: she's supposed to be like maybe nine or time. Yeah,
- 41:01Speaker 1: because Junie, what is our best guest for these ages?
- 41:05Speaker 1: I think, yeah, I think Carmen's like maybe ten, June's
- 41:09Speaker 1: like seven. I feel like Carmen maybe like closer to
- 41:13Speaker 1: junior high almost she might even be like twelve thirteen.
- 41:17Speaker 1: And I feel like June is probably in like second grade.
- 41:20Speaker 1: Alexa yeah is like I would guess older, No, I
- 41:24Speaker 1: guess like fourth grade, fourth fifth grade. So Alexa Vega
- 41:28Speaker 1: was twelve when this movie came out, and Darryl Sabara
- 41:32Speaker 1: ak Mr. Megan Trainer was nine so yeah, that's about Yeah.
- 41:38Speaker 1: So I think that anyways, in a lesser movie, especially
- 41:40Speaker 1: if she is aged up to be eleven or twelve, um,
- 41:43Speaker 1: I feel like they would have like tossed in some
- 41:46Speaker 1: love interest for her too, because that's about the age
- 41:49Speaker 1: where you're like, oh, I mean, if we got a
- 41:51Speaker 1: female character, we gonna you know, we've got to be
- 41:53Speaker 1: a boy for her to um. But this movie also
- 41:56Speaker 1: opts out of that and just gives you five hundred
- 41:58Speaker 1: more scenes of Tomy Shaloub, which I'm fine with. Better
- 42:04Speaker 1: used of time. Sure, there's a nice little moment, and Catherine,
- 42:08Speaker 1: you pointed this out when we were watching it, But
- 42:10Speaker 1: as as they are taking the initiative, and it's mostly
- 42:12Speaker 1: I would say, Carmen, who's taking the initiative to train
- 42:16Speaker 1: themselves to be spies. Yeah, she picks up a spy
- 42:19Speaker 1: manual by unknown author, very funny. She's reading from it
- 42:23Speaker 1: and says, a good spy puts himself and then she
- 42:26Speaker 1: adds into the text herself in the mindset of the opponents.
- 42:30Speaker 1: So she's reading this patriarchal text that's excluding women all together,
- 42:36Speaker 1: and she's like, it's not just himself, it's herself too. Yeah,
- 42:40Speaker 1: she has to like self correct through the whole thing.
- 42:42Speaker 1: She's also the I mean she I like that. They
- 42:45Speaker 1: both have moments where they figure out what's going on. Um,
- 42:48Speaker 1: but I think Carmen does get a few more of
- 42:50Speaker 1: those moments because she's more motivated, less emotional than Juny
- 42:56Speaker 1: and just like generally more bad as because she's all
- 43:00Speaker 1: then he's nine, right, Okay, So I just thought of another.
- 43:04Speaker 1: So compare this movie to Jumanji, the first one where
- 43:08Speaker 1: Kirsen Dunnes is the older sister and then she's got
- 43:12Speaker 1: a younger brother and then all of the like emotional
- 43:14Speaker 1: weight and all that, like the kids figuring things out,
- 43:17Speaker 1: that's all given to the boy. So but it's like
- 43:20Speaker 1: Carmen figures out who Danny Trejo is through like context clues,
- 43:26Speaker 1: and then like Junie is the one that is like,
- 43:28Speaker 1: you're it's a tracking device, and then Carmen, you're right,
- 43:31Speaker 1: She's like blank, blank it is and she goes, I
- 43:35Speaker 1: hate that, and she just throws the tracking in the park.
- 43:39Speaker 1: I just I just love that. And then she saves
- 43:42Speaker 1: him several times. She has to save him when the
- 43:45Speaker 1: drops him and she dropped him, but then saves him
- 43:48Speaker 1: again that was a really scary shot. I don't know
- 43:53Speaker 1: how to describe the cinematography in this movie, but it
- 43:56Speaker 1: is insane. Love it so much. Shoutout to gear Ema Navarro,
- 44:01Speaker 1: who is a cinematographer in this movie. It's like there
- 44:03Speaker 1: are times that it's all live action, but it looks
- 44:05Speaker 1: like a cartoon sometimes, like when she drops Juni like
- 44:09Speaker 1: to his death, it looks like a cartoon, but it's
- 44:13Speaker 1: still like really intense and scary and oh it's just
- 44:15Speaker 1: so cool. Yeah, that's cinematographer. He's worked a lot with
- 44:18Speaker 1: Giarmlo do Toro and like does some really cool stuff.
- 44:21Speaker 1: Oh he did pants laber got kind of got uh,
- 44:24Speaker 1: we got to take another quick break, but come right back,
- 44:27Speaker 1: don't you worry. Also didn't know at the museum and
- 44:35Speaker 1: we're back. When eclectic, I'm sorry, I'm still thinking of it, cinematographer,
- 44:41Speaker 1: when an eclectic body of work. Um, here's a couple
- 44:45Speaker 1: of things that I didn't like as much or that
- 44:49Speaker 1: I found a little like. Okay, first one, whenever the
- 44:54Speaker 1: mom is retelling the story of spy mom and spy
- 44:58Speaker 1: dad meeting and Antonio panderis like they come to face
- 45:03Speaker 1: to face when they were like about to supposedly kill
- 45:06Speaker 1: each other. He reaches in to her top and pulls
- 45:11Speaker 1: out the photo of him to be like, oh, I
- 45:13Speaker 1: was your target. But it's like, okay, why are you
- 45:16Speaker 1: reaching into her clothes right near her boobs? Not okay
- 45:23Speaker 1: to show children anyone. I keep forgetting it just just
- 45:30Speaker 1: I don't think we've even said the character's name yet.
- 45:32Speaker 1: Antonio and Dari's name is supposed to be Gregorio, but
- 45:36Speaker 1: we've just been calling him Antonia spied daddy, spies Daddy.
- 45:41Speaker 1: There is a scene also where Ms. Gridenko, that's Terry
- 45:46Speaker 1: Hatcher's character. She comes into the safe house. She says
- 45:50Speaker 1: she's with the OSS, and then she and Carmen have
- 45:53Speaker 1: this sort of like bonding moment where Carmen gives her
- 45:57Speaker 1: the information she wanted and she's like, oh, you've just
- 46:00Speaker 1: in the league of like awesome women spies. You know.
- 46:03Speaker 1: It's like this like women got to stick together moment.
- 46:06Speaker 1: But then it turns out that she cannot be trusted.
- 46:09Speaker 1: She's working with the enemy, So this like what otherwise
- 46:12Speaker 1: could be like a nice like yeah, women do have
- 46:14Speaker 1: to stick together moment is completely nullified because she is
- 46:18Speaker 1: an evil, devious woman right, which again it's like and
- 46:22Speaker 1: there are I think that that issue more speaks to
- 46:25Speaker 1: the lack of female characters in the movie in general,
- 46:27Speaker 1: because they really have Carmen, Ingrid and Ms. Gradenko and
- 46:31Speaker 1: that's basically it. Because there there are a ton of
- 46:33Speaker 1: male characters and it's just like kids. There's like girls,
- 46:37Speaker 1: but they don't do anything. And there are like characters
- 46:42Speaker 1: similar to Ms. Gredenka, who are men, like Alexander Minion
- 46:47Speaker 1: who turns out to be this double agent. But there's
- 46:49Speaker 1: enough male characters that it's not your general impression, but
- 46:54Speaker 1: because you only have three one coming in and being
- 46:57Speaker 1: like girl power and then being like just kidding bit
- 46:59Speaker 1: like that doesn't maybe um and something there there are
- 47:06Speaker 1: a few things with Ingrid that, um, I felt like
- 47:10Speaker 1: her character like was I don't know, like in general
- 47:15Speaker 1: there there we we touched on this before, but there's
- 47:18Speaker 1: that moment um when Spy Daddy is wanting to take
- 47:23Speaker 1: on this this mission right to save my judge or whatever,
- 47:27Speaker 1: and um he's kind of been working on it behind
- 47:30Speaker 1: her back and then he's like, oh, I gotta go
- 47:32Speaker 1: save my judge, and you know, spy Mommy comes in
- 47:36Speaker 1: and and he's he's pretty dismissive of her, and he's like, no, no, no,
- 47:40Speaker 1: like you stay. She's like, I want to go with you,
- 47:42Speaker 1: Like I'm like raring to go on another adventure. She's
- 47:46Speaker 1: all about going and becoming a spy again. And he says, no,
- 47:49Speaker 1: you are mom. You stay at home. And then the
- 47:51Speaker 1: way she convinces him is she has to like seduce him,
- 47:56Speaker 1: which and then it works is that You're just like
- 47:59Speaker 1: that was pretty lazy writing. Yeah, I mean Gregorio, spy
- 48:04Speaker 1: Daddy is not a feminist icon. He just wants he
- 48:09Speaker 1: thinks women should stay home in the kitchen taking care
- 48:12Speaker 1: of the kids, and that is not okay spy Daddy.
- 48:16Speaker 1: But when they are working together, it's equal. But I
- 48:18Speaker 1: just that that scene, I was just like, man, come
- 48:20Speaker 1: on right, because like shortly after that, they've been captured
- 48:24Speaker 1: and they're tied up in like the Flupe house and
- 48:27Speaker 1: she uses her ring. She uses her ring to like
- 48:31Speaker 1: laser the ropes off of them, and like so she's
- 48:34Speaker 1: the one who kind of saves them and like releases them.
- 48:37Speaker 1: And then they immediately first of all, they go into
- 48:39Speaker 1: the reality room or whatever or the virtual I don't know,
- 48:42Speaker 1: some weird like augmented reality place like cloud room, and
- 48:50Speaker 1: then it is always revealed to be a green screen.
- 48:55Speaker 1: And then they end up in the Flue House dining
- 48:58Speaker 1: room where Mr Plup himself is eating this like green
- 49:04Speaker 1: sludge basically with a spoon very slowly, and he expects
- 49:13Speaker 1: them to eat it also land on the table onto
- 49:19Speaker 1: like a pile of gummy word. Yes, very weird. The
- 49:24Speaker 1: other thing with with Ingrid that this is like more
- 49:27Speaker 1: of a story thing versus like how she's treated. But
- 49:30Speaker 1: it is like, I mean, I can see I can
- 49:33Speaker 1: see this both ways. But you do get a lot
- 49:35Speaker 1: more information about um spy Daddy's background then you get
- 49:38Speaker 1: about her. And we find out about Danny Treho and
- 49:42Speaker 1: where I'm thrilled to find out about the Danny Treho secret, right,
- 49:46Speaker 1: But we find out like his family background and then
- 49:49Speaker 1: we also find out about his secret scientist background in
- 49:53Speaker 1: a room full of all male scientists. Um, and so,
- 49:57Speaker 1: like his character gets a couple of subplots, and we
- 50:01Speaker 1: don't really get that for Ingrid, um we get that
- 50:05Speaker 1: the way she relates to it is she's like, you
- 50:07Speaker 1: didn't tell me, Like she doesn't really have the upper
- 50:10Speaker 1: hand in their relationship and he is then made kind
- 50:14Speaker 1: of more important to the story because he was the
- 50:16Speaker 1: one who developed the third Brain. He's the one who
- 50:19Speaker 1: didn't destroy it, so like he's why they are the
- 50:22Speaker 1: target of Flope and later Minion, just making him more
- 50:27Speaker 1: integral to the story, whereas she's just essentially tagging along
- 50:31Speaker 1: because they're married and she's by So yeah, it would
- 50:38Speaker 1: have been nice like if we do learn more about
- 50:41Speaker 1: maybe his backstory in terms of like his family history
- 50:44Speaker 1: and connections and stuff like that, yeah, keep that, but
- 50:48Speaker 1: then make her the one who was developing the third
- 50:51Speaker 1: brain and like give her that integral component to the story.
- 50:56Speaker 1: Like it's it is like way imbalanced of what we
- 51:00Speaker 1: know about him versus what we know about her, which
- 51:02Speaker 1: is yeah, and it's a yeah, it's it's a bummer,
- 51:06Speaker 1: but it's like I wouldn't remove any of the spy
- 51:09Speaker 1: daddy backstory for the world. It's all great, but it's
- 51:12Speaker 1: it's like there she could have been included more meaningfully
- 51:15Speaker 1: in that story or or like you said, like if
- 51:18Speaker 1: she's involved in the Third Brain, then they kind of
- 51:20Speaker 1: have an equal subplot power and for sure, then then
- 51:24Speaker 1: we would have had a woman and stand which shit,
- 51:27Speaker 1: you know, important. You hate to see it. I wonder
- 51:29Speaker 1: if that imbalance is due to how famous either of
- 51:33Speaker 1: them were, because Jamie you brought up a good point
- 51:35Speaker 1: about like what level of fame was Antnio Benderis during
- 51:39Speaker 1: this movie? Was he like too famous to be doing
- 51:41Speaker 1: this or I'm just curious about like what level of
- 51:45Speaker 1: like they maybe put more on into an Binders because
- 51:48Speaker 1: he was like the recognizable face. But I don't, I
- 51:51Speaker 1: truly don't know. I can't I feel what anyone's fame
- 51:54Speaker 1: level was at that point, Like what did Alan coming
- 51:56Speaker 1: through at that point? What was Tony? Was Tony Shaloub monkey? Yet,
- 51:59Speaker 1: like there's no way to know, that's an actionable question.
- 52:03Speaker 1: I like, it is so hard to be Like when
- 52:05Speaker 1: was peque Antonio Benderis? I think it was like late nineties,
- 52:10Speaker 1: although who can say we've accidentally thought that Tom Hanks
- 52:15Speaker 1: wasn't famous before he was cast in Toy Stories, So
- 52:19Speaker 1: we don't know anything. We didn't. I think we were
- 52:22Speaker 1: just tired that day. But that and I had were
- 52:26Speaker 1: any of those This is the year before Monks, so
- 52:31Speaker 1: I think made him get There are people who are
- 52:37Speaker 1: I mean the George Clooney cameo. I think is treated
- 52:39Speaker 1: as if he is blatantly too famous to be And
- 52:43Speaker 1: did you also know Richard Linklater is in this movie?
- 52:45Speaker 1: For a second, Oh yeah, they're really good friends because
- 52:47Speaker 1: they're both from Texas. Wait what is he? Is he
- 52:50Speaker 1: like one of the bodyguards. He was credited as cool spy.
- 52:54Speaker 1: He's probably one of the guys that like attacks the
- 52:56Speaker 1: safe house or yeah, there is like a yeah, that's funny. Well,
- 53:00Speaker 1: I mean Riguez must be an awesome friend, because I
- 53:03Speaker 1: feel like everyone always like, yeah, like he he must
- 53:08Speaker 1: just be like a really cool, nice guy or I hope,
- 53:11Speaker 1: and it seems that way. I know very limited information
- 53:14Speaker 1: about Robert Rodriguez except that he made Spike. Um. I've
- 53:17Speaker 1: still quite of his movies. I've seen the like um
- 53:20Speaker 1: Desperado trilogy. I've seen since that. He is I think
- 53:24Speaker 1: still one of my favorite movies. I don't know, I
- 53:27Speaker 1: haven't seen in a while. But Mike, I'm sorry. I'm
- 53:30Speaker 1: just like looking at the credited character names to see
- 53:32Speaker 1: if there's any female characters that we we didn't talk about.
- 53:35Speaker 1: But there's so many male characters, but they all have
- 53:39Speaker 1: such silly names. Alexander Minion Donegan giggles, what I didn't
- 53:44Speaker 1: realize Mike Judge's character's last name is giggles Cheaches, Felix Gum,
- 53:50Speaker 1: Mr Liss cool spy agent Johnny, Like, who are these
- 53:56Speaker 1: who wrote this movie? It was Robert Rodriguez. Well to
- 54:01Speaker 1: what you were saying, Catherine about like, um, did the
- 54:04Speaker 1: like the level of the actor's fame play into like
- 54:08Speaker 1: how important their character was? I mean maybe, but also
- 54:11Speaker 1: like it just tends to be the default for especially
- 54:14Speaker 1: male writers, and just I mean, especially at this time
- 54:17Speaker 1: where the men were just given more important things to do,
- 54:21Speaker 1: we know more about their characters. That's just been the
- 54:24Speaker 1: default throughout all of history. So that's not great. Also,
- 54:31Speaker 1: I think Carla Giugino is she's only twenty nine in
- 54:35Speaker 1: this movie too. Yeah, she's only um so they really
- 54:39Speaker 1: pushed her into mom roles kind of early because saying
- 54:43Speaker 1: but yeah when this when this movie was released, she
- 54:46Speaker 1: was only twenty nine years old, no kidding, Yeah, And
- 54:48Speaker 1: Antonio Benders was like, okay, well that checks out standard
- 54:52Speaker 1: Hollywood age gap. Love it at it again. We we've
- 54:56Speaker 1: been talking about how there aren't that many female characters,
- 54:58Speaker 1: but we're forgetting about the female coated thumb thumb. I
- 55:03Speaker 1: was wearing a sexy nurse outfit. She has like very
- 55:09Speaker 1: fem fingernails and they're painted, and she has like a
- 55:12Speaker 1: very like the other thumb sums are like these like
- 55:15Speaker 1: oh fish shapes. And then but the female thumbthumb was
- 55:20Speaker 1: like a very like curvy, sexy shape. I want to
- 55:26Speaker 1: I guess in general, I would say the sumptumbs are genderless,
- 55:30Speaker 1: but then there was such a clear gender signifier of
- 55:34Speaker 1: lady finger finger, lady lady finger that I'm like, maybe
- 55:40Speaker 1: they are supposed to be male coated because they're unpainted
- 55:43Speaker 1: thumb thumbs. I choose to interpret them as genderless, but
- 55:47Speaker 1: I not me. I think that because of that clear
- 55:50Speaker 1: indication we've got, the male symptoms are allowed to be
- 55:55Speaker 1: like the soldiers, the spies, and then the the only
- 55:58Speaker 1: female thumbthumb we see is thrust into this like caregiver
- 56:03Speaker 1: nurse role so and like made to be sexy. There. Yes,
- 56:10Speaker 1: I agree. I think I'm just like going with my
- 56:12Speaker 1: own headcanon on this one. Even if Robert Rodriguez doesn't
- 56:16Speaker 1: understand that the thumb thumbs are doing their own things.
- 56:18Speaker 1: They're identifying as they choose. That's how I feel. I
- 56:25Speaker 1: just have a several very quick notes things I noticed
- 56:29Speaker 1: about the movie. Uh. One, Carmen in this movie looks
- 56:35Speaker 1: exactly like how Joseph Gordon Levitt looked in Third Rock
- 56:38Speaker 1: from the Sun. They should have cast him as her
- 56:42Speaker 1: evil doctor Ganger. The sound effects in this movie are wild. Okay.
- 56:53Speaker 1: The music. There is a song that Flope sings toward
- 56:58Speaker 1: the middle of the movie, and You're like, did this
- 57:00Speaker 1: get cut from Nightmare before Christmas? Like it is such
- 57:03Speaker 1: a like Danny Alfman, Tim burtony And then big reveal
- 57:10Speaker 1: it is Danny And then we learned that Danny Elfman
- 57:13Speaker 1: did write some of the music for this movie. Man.
- 57:15Speaker 1: And then I was like, now I'm gonna like question
- 57:18Speaker 1: what I'm thinking about when I say this seems like
- 57:20Speaker 1: a Tim Burton movie, Like maybe it just sounds like
- 57:23Speaker 1: a Danny Elfman movie. And I'm not giving Mr elf
- 57:26Speaker 1: his his Someone was saying, I'm just on such a
- 57:31Speaker 1: Will Palter kick that if someone makes a movie about
- 57:35Speaker 1: Oingo Boingo that Will Palter should play Danny Elfman. I'm
- 57:39Speaker 1: just putting that out into the world to all of
- 57:41Speaker 1: our listeners who are developing the ongo Bo movie, which
- 57:44Speaker 1: is all of them, all of them yeah, incredible. Uh.
- 57:47Speaker 1: Speaking of a sound effect, my favorite sound effect in
- 57:50Speaker 1: the entire movie is Flop's cape. You hear it does?
- 57:54Speaker 1: It sounds distinct sound and he does it so drastically.
- 58:00Speaker 1: He like every time he gets up, he like sweeps
- 58:03Speaker 1: it back and it's the loudest sound of I love
- 58:06Speaker 1: his care I love him so much. I think Comic
- 58:10Speaker 1: is my favorite actor of all time. He's terrific. He's
- 58:14Speaker 1: my offer Molina. This is like I also think, no
- 58:18Speaker 1: disrespect to Shalou that Alfred really couldn't knocked that part um,
- 58:24Speaker 1: but you know he was busy being in Chuck a lot. Also,
- 58:30Speaker 1: Floop is trying to figure out what's missing from his
- 58:32Speaker 1: children's show because it's it's rated number two and he
- 58:35Speaker 1: wants to be number one. And he keeps pondering this,
- 58:39Speaker 1: and I think the answer is probably a few women
- 58:41Speaker 1: in your writer's room, buddy, I'm guessing you don't have any.
- 58:45Speaker 1: That's what's missing from your show, Mr Floop. And we
- 58:49Speaker 1: did touch on this briefly before, but I really I
- 58:52Speaker 1: thought it was so I kind of forgot this. I
- 58:55Speaker 1: remember the vision how that scene with Floop and Junie
- 58:58Speaker 1: looks visually because its blazoned onto my brain forever. But
- 59:03Speaker 1: the fact that like a young boy expressing his feelings
- 59:07Speaker 1: and trying to empathize with an adult and the adult
- 59:11Speaker 1: being responsive to that, like solves a major plot thing.
- 59:15Speaker 1: You're just like, oh wow, we're like because I feel
- 59:19Speaker 1: like we were sort of saying like that is normally
- 59:21Speaker 1: would be like the girl's role is to use the
- 59:25Speaker 1: power of feelings, and if that had happened with Carmen,
- 59:28Speaker 1: I would have been like rolling my eyes at it.
- 59:31Speaker 1: But because it's Juny and he is kind of like
- 59:35Speaker 1: even towards the beginning, Spy Daddy is kind of like
- 59:38Speaker 1: Juny or too soft, stop drawing, stop watching Alan coming
- 59:42Speaker 1: on TV. And and Johnny is like, I like it,
- 59:45Speaker 1: and then like later, I mean, he proves himself that,
- 59:48Speaker 1: like empathy is a good thing to have, And you know,
- 59:52Speaker 1: Spy Daddy, he's he's got to untangle some of his
- 59:55Speaker 1: you know, toxic masculinity and he can learn from his son.
- 59:58Speaker 1: Hopefully he does that. In Spy Kids two through four,
- 1:00:02Speaker 1: or whichever one season is, Antonio Antonio Vendors, isn't two
- 1:00:07Speaker 1: write I don't remember. Aristotle confirms, yes, kids, But is
- 1:00:12Speaker 1: he in three? I don't think I know Junasm he
- 1:00:15Speaker 1: is in three. Everyone's in three when it goes crazy
- 1:00:22Speaker 1: phase two of Kids. One of my favorite parts in
- 1:00:29Speaker 1: the movie is when they go to the safe house
- 1:00:32Speaker 1: and Carmen finds the drawer of like the stash of
- 1:00:35Speaker 1: emergency cash, and then she's like, wow, emergency cash from
- 1:00:40Speaker 1: every country and there are tens of cash, and it's like, yes,
- 1:00:44Speaker 1: all ten countries in the world. I did look very
- 1:00:48Speaker 1: hard and studied the flags and figured out that the
- 1:00:51Speaker 1: country's represented are Canada, Germany, Mexico, Guatemala, Colombia, the UK,
- 1:00:58Speaker 1: the US, South Korea, It'll and Argentina. Fredriguez just pick
- 1:01:03Speaker 1: his top ten. He's like, these are my favorite travel destination. Um.
- 1:01:09Speaker 1: Just getting into the trilogy a little bit. I'm just
- 1:01:11Speaker 1: looking at the list of names. So I guess in
- 1:01:13Speaker 1: three and I have no recollection besides video game of
- 1:01:16Speaker 1: what happens in three, But apparently we meet Mike Judges,
- 1:01:19Speaker 1: Donnegan Giggles his whole family, and Emily Osmond plays his
- 1:01:23Speaker 1: daughter Gertie Giggles, Um Matt O'Leary, and Salmahaiak plays his
- 1:01:30Speaker 1: wife Francesca Giggles and the third which I'm like a
- 1:01:34Speaker 1: weirder couple than Mike Judge and Salmahaak. I cannot think
- 1:01:39Speaker 1: of in my brain, Like what did they talk about?
- 1:01:42Speaker 1: I don't know. Wait, okay, but isn't Shark Boy and
- 1:01:45Speaker 1: Lava Girl like a spinoff of something has to do
- 1:01:49Speaker 1: with spy kids. I feel like it's stylistically. Isn't the
- 1:01:54Speaker 1: girl like the two characters in the game for the
- 1:01:58Speaker 1: third one? And then there's a spin off right and
- 1:02:04Speaker 1: lounge regularly? Well, why did docs Taylor Lottner? I saw
- 1:02:08Speaker 1: him there twice two years ago, and now I just
- 1:02:10Speaker 1: say he lives there and he works there. Oh. I
- 1:02:15Speaker 1: had one last thing. The Terry Hatcher's scene when they
- 1:02:19Speaker 1: when she comes into the safe house makes no sense.
- 1:02:24Speaker 1: Here's why. So she finds out that the third Brain
- 1:02:27Speaker 1: exists only after Carmen tells her this. Up to that point,
- 1:02:32Speaker 1: all the bad guys think that the third Brain had
- 1:02:34Speaker 1: been destroyed. Whenever we see the flashback of Antonio Bender
- 1:02:39Speaker 1: is crushing a walnut instead of the Third brain. So
- 1:02:44Speaker 1: Carmen's like, no, the third Brain lives, and then Terry
- 1:02:48Speaker 1: Hatcher says, oh, well, it must be here then, because
- 1:02:51Speaker 1: it wasn't at the Corte's house. Why were they searching
- 1:02:54Speaker 1: for something that they think was destroyed? Huh? I should
- 1:02:59Speaker 1: be a spa when you should be the spy when
- 1:03:02Speaker 1: you think about it. Anyway, Does anyone have any other
- 1:03:09Speaker 1: thoughts about the film? I am just impressed of a
- 1:03:14Speaker 1: lot of the comedic physical gags in this movie for
- 1:03:17Speaker 1: being an insane movie. There's a lot like geared towards kids,
- 1:03:22Speaker 1: but I feel like a lot of the like weird
- 1:03:24Speaker 1: comedic writing things, and a lot of the jokes are
- 1:03:27Speaker 1: like for adults or like kids won't understand. Almost I
- 1:03:30Speaker 1: don't know. It was just like a good example of
- 1:03:33Speaker 1: like gags I was saying in the film, like visual gags,
- 1:03:36Speaker 1: and I was like, oh, I didn't know that you
- 1:03:38Speaker 1: could do this and move like the George Clooney like
- 1:03:45Speaker 1: off the eye thing and then puts it back on.
- 1:03:48Speaker 1: I don't know, I really, I was just so impressed
- 1:03:52Speaker 1: with a lot of those silly, I mean things. I'm like,
- 1:03:55Speaker 1: really am Robert Rodriguez for making something so like extremely
- 1:04:01Speaker 1: still like that just feels like using all the cloud
- 1:04:03Speaker 1: he built up to this point because this was his
- 1:04:07Speaker 1: uh seventh movie. Post from Dusk Till Dawn like he
- 1:04:11Speaker 1: was a well established director at this point and just
- 1:04:13Speaker 1: like went for it. We don't make a movie spy
- 1:04:16Speaker 1: kid like kids movie, body horror spy kids movie. I
- 1:04:23Speaker 1: just I'm like, man, that is that is a responsible
- 1:04:25Speaker 1: use of power. I really like that's the cool because
- 1:04:27Speaker 1: it's so different from most of his other work, which
- 1:04:30Speaker 1: is like pretty like I mean, some of it's pretty
- 1:04:33Speaker 1: like can't be violence, but like he's like Tarantino and
- 1:04:38Speaker 1: that like a lot of his movies are just like this,
- 1:04:40Speaker 1: like wild chopping of heads and blood squirting everywhere and
- 1:04:45Speaker 1: just like crazy violence. And then he made Spy Kids,
- 1:04:49Speaker 1: and incidentally, Spy Kids three D Game Over, which he
- 1:04:53Speaker 1: did direct, comes out the same year as Once upon
- 1:04:56Speaker 1: a Time in Mexico, so it contains most working Man,
- 1:05:00Speaker 1: a movie where Johnny Depp's eyes get gouged out and
- 1:05:05Speaker 1: kiss came over. Yes, but I mean, I just think
- 1:05:09Speaker 1: it's like really cool and like, even though these aren't
- 1:05:12Speaker 1: the movies he's like primarily remembered for by most people
- 1:05:15Speaker 1: except for the Three of Us. Um, it's like he
- 1:05:19Speaker 1: developed like this really distinct visual style for kids movies
- 1:05:22Speaker 1: that no one else has ever done. It's just it's
- 1:05:25Speaker 1: so cool, and he directed all four Spy Kids movies
- 1:05:28Speaker 1: and Shark Boy and Love a Girl Commitment and the
- 1:05:31Speaker 1: whole Machete and I Mean, and also the spinoff by
- 1:05:37Speaker 1: kids called I Just I don't know this rewatching this, Uh,
- 1:05:42Speaker 1: I was like, just increased my rabbit Riguez Rodriguez respect
- 1:05:47Speaker 1: by even more than I already need it. He's pretty dope,
- 1:05:50Speaker 1: He's cool. Does this movie pass the bacteal test or
- 1:05:55Speaker 1: the spy test? It does both passes both of them.
- 1:05:58Speaker 1: I had it passing at least twice. There's the opening
- 1:06:03Speaker 1: scene with Carmen and Ingrid, and there's a moment where
- 1:06:08Speaker 1: Junie is off covering his warts and they have a
- 1:06:11Speaker 1: brief conversation about like, are they going to better than
- 1:06:13Speaker 1: not going to bed? Did you brush your teeth already?
- 1:06:15Speaker 1: I did? Yeah? Everything okay? At school? It's fine. And
- 1:06:18Speaker 1: then this is kind of a duplicitous pass, but it
- 1:06:21Speaker 1: does pass between Carmen and Miss h Griddenko as well,
- 1:06:26Speaker 1: even though they're talking about girl power, but the subtext
- 1:06:29Speaker 1: is girl power is fake. Um so, but it does past.
- 1:06:36Speaker 1: Does it pass again at all? I forgot to pay
- 1:06:38Speaker 1: his close attention as I should. Toward the end, whenever
- 1:06:42Speaker 1: the kids reunite with the parents. I don't think. I
- 1:06:45Speaker 1: don't think so because Carmen does. I feel like Carmen
- 1:06:47Speaker 1: does most of the talking, but she's talking to George
- 1:06:51Speaker 1: like she's talking to the TV. And what about in
- 1:06:53Speaker 1: the flu Palace, does it? I couldn't. I think. I
- 1:06:57Speaker 1: think it's a lot of Antonio Benderis talking. It's mostly
- 1:07:01Speaker 1: I think the main thing is that there's just not enough.
- 1:07:04Speaker 1: There's like there's three female characters in the entire movie,
- 1:07:07Speaker 1: and it's like completely outweighed. I think in little parts
- 1:07:10Speaker 1: it passes like pretty easily with with the interactions. But
- 1:07:14Speaker 1: I think it's mostly like when they're as a family,
- 1:07:17Speaker 1: it's Antonio Benderius kind of leading the charge of like
- 1:07:21Speaker 1: we're a family, we're going to do this, as opposed
- 1:07:23Speaker 1: to Ingrid Andre. Unless I'm missing up, I'm missing a
- 1:07:28Speaker 1: scene or something that I mean, given the fact that
- 1:07:30Speaker 1: we only have three female characters that have any significance,
- 1:07:33Speaker 1: all of them do have conversations with each other at
- 1:07:36Speaker 1: very least there's a sort of pass between Gridenka and
- 1:07:40Speaker 1: Ingrid that you could I mean, it's when they're like
- 1:07:42Speaker 1: when she's like on the TV or something, yeah, when
- 1:07:44Speaker 1: she's on the TV in the car. But the subtext
- 1:07:46Speaker 1: of learning with yeah yeah, so the subtext doesn't work
- 1:07:50Speaker 1: on paper, technically works. Yes, we've you know, the Bechdel
- 1:07:54Speaker 1: test is a flawed metric, and arguing about it is
- 1:07:57Speaker 1: basically pointless. Yeah. No, I mean, at very least the
- 1:08:02Speaker 1: female characters we are given, we know who they are,
- 1:08:06Speaker 1: they care about each other, and it's not always about
- 1:08:10Speaker 1: the majority men in the movie. Yes, let's read the
- 1:08:14Speaker 1: movie on our nipple scale, shall we. It's zero to
- 1:08:19Speaker 1: five nipples based on its representation of women. I'm gonna
- 1:08:23Speaker 1: give this. I suppose I would give it like a
- 1:08:28Speaker 1: three because it is handling the way women and girls
- 1:08:33Speaker 1: are represented in media better than a lot of media
- 1:08:38Speaker 1: targeted towards children, at least of the films we've covered
- 1:08:42Speaker 1: so far. You know, there's there's parody among the genders
- 1:08:46Speaker 1: that we see, but the fact that there are far
- 1:08:50Speaker 1: more men than there are female characters. The fact that
- 1:08:55Speaker 1: Antonio Benderis hates women and just want them to be
- 1:08:59Speaker 1: mummies is to at home. But no, I mean, I
- 1:09:02Speaker 1: think it does a lot of good things and um,
- 1:09:06Speaker 1: especially the fact that it's like representation of Latin xt
- 1:09:12Speaker 1: mixed family like that on screen, being the driving force
- 1:09:16Speaker 1: of the narrative. Yeah, I love Alan Cumming and all
- 1:09:19Speaker 1: of my nipples go to him. I'm gonna go this
- 1:09:25Speaker 1: is and I'm probably overshooting it a little bit, but
- 1:09:27Speaker 1: I'm going to get three and a half. I I
- 1:09:30Speaker 1: love Carmen Um and I love hearing your connection to
- 1:09:34Speaker 1: her Catherine, which it was, I mean, something that didn't
- 1:09:37Speaker 1: because I was, you know, as a little white girl
- 1:09:40Speaker 1: and had truly an embarrassment of riches of problematic characters
- 1:09:45Speaker 1: to latch on to Um. But the fact that I mean,
- 1:09:48Speaker 1: it's like Carmen is a really cool character. She's not
- 1:09:51Speaker 1: a problematic character. She's like a really cool and also
- 1:09:56Speaker 1: realistic like example for a girl that age, Like she
- 1:10:01Speaker 1: kicks her brother's ass, but she loves him, and like
- 1:10:03Speaker 1: she's good at stuff and she's observant, and like that
- 1:10:07Speaker 1: character alone is just like I don't know, like it
- 1:10:11Speaker 1: feels like a miracle that that character avoids so many
- 1:10:15Speaker 1: of the pitfalls that preteen girl character written by a
- 1:10:19Speaker 1: man would normally fall to, because it's usually that like precocious,
- 1:10:24Speaker 1: like genius child trope, like the wise beyond her years
- 1:10:28Speaker 1: child or sexualized too early or any number of horrible things,
- 1:10:34Speaker 1: but she's truly treated just like a character and has flaws.
- 1:10:38Speaker 1: She still wets the bed sometimes, like there it's I
- 1:10:41Speaker 1: don't know, I just I really love how the spy
- 1:10:44Speaker 1: kids are written in this movie. And I think that
- 1:10:47Speaker 1: like JUNI is a really, um, really cool example of
- 1:10:52Speaker 1: like not a hyper masculine little boy and having that
- 1:10:56Speaker 1: be part of like what makes him cool and like
- 1:10:59Speaker 1: part of like what makes him good at being a spy.
- 1:11:02Speaker 1: So I think it's great. Yeah, and uh, I just
- 1:11:07Speaker 1: just a fun fact I'd like to throw into the ring.
- 1:11:09Speaker 1: Robert Rodriguez walked Alexe Vega down the aisle. Oh my,
- 1:11:15Speaker 1: he has to be so nice, right, like he seems
- 1:11:17Speaker 1: like great? Well, we did ask, I did post the
- 1:11:20Speaker 1: question was Alan coming at the Megan Trainer at wedding?
- 1:11:25Speaker 1: I guess the real question is was Robert Rodriguez and
- 1:11:28Speaker 1: Alan coming? Uh? Did officiate? Like? What did they do?
- 1:11:33Speaker 1: What was their role? I hope that being Juny and
- 1:11:37Speaker 1: being an empathetic young male character is what taught Darryl
- 1:11:40Speaker 1: Samara that it's okay to be Mr. Megan Trainer. Um.
- 1:11:44Speaker 1: And also just something that I kept meeting to bring
- 1:11:48Speaker 1: up last night, and then I think I either got
- 1:11:50Speaker 1: embarrassed or tired and kept forgetting to say. Is Alexe
- 1:11:53Speaker 1: Vega who now goes by Alexa Penia Vega because she
- 1:11:57Speaker 1: um she and her husband combined their last names, which
- 1:12:00Speaker 1: is the whole thing. But she has found a very
- 1:12:04Speaker 1: successful second life in Hallmark movies. She's been in six
- 1:12:09Speaker 1: in a row, so yeah, she's coming for all of
- 1:12:13Speaker 1: the full House ladies anyways, And I do have a
- 1:12:20Speaker 1: few issues with the way that Ingrid's character is presented.
- 1:12:22Speaker 1: I just mainly wish we knew more about her and
- 1:12:25Speaker 1: that there were more female characters. But Carmen, I don't know.
- 1:12:28Speaker 1: Carmen is such a victory, uh, for for all and
- 1:12:32Speaker 1: so is JUNI So three and a half for me,
- 1:12:34Speaker 1: Gonna give all of them to Chaloub alright, yeah, wonderful
- 1:12:39Speaker 1: for all of his heads. He's going to need for
- 1:12:43Speaker 1: each of his Yeah, how about Catherine. I think I'm
- 1:12:48Speaker 1: going to give it a four out of five only
- 1:12:50Speaker 1: because I'm just jumping off of Jamie's point of Carmen
- 1:12:54Speaker 1: being such a victory and it's like the movie set out.
- 1:12:57Speaker 1: I think what it wanted to do was show these
- 1:13:01Speaker 1: kids in like a really cool way, and I think
- 1:13:03Speaker 1: it successfully did that because in my head, the movie
- 1:13:06Speaker 1: is more about the two kids learning about themselves rather
- 1:13:09Speaker 1: than the parents. Um, and I think it successfully did that.
- 1:13:14Speaker 1: And I think, like what you're saying was that, like,
- 1:13:16Speaker 1: Carmen is well developed and she's to me like the lead.
- 1:13:20Speaker 1: Like I think her and Junior equally the stars of
- 1:13:23Speaker 1: the movie. But I feel like watching her kind of
- 1:13:26Speaker 1: bumped it up, being like, no, she's cool, I want
- 1:13:28Speaker 1: to be like her, like she's a she's a spy,
- 1:13:30Speaker 1: but she's also like weird and like she can be
- 1:13:33Speaker 1: made fun of and it's fine. I think that's why
- 1:13:36Speaker 1: I pushed it up a little bit. But um, I agree.
- 1:13:38Speaker 1: I think there's not enough female characters and the other
- 1:13:41Speaker 1: two adults just weren't developed enough, and I think they
- 1:13:45Speaker 1: could have been easily. But I think it. I think
- 1:13:48Speaker 1: it does more good than it does harm. So I'll
- 1:13:51Speaker 1: give it. I'll give it that, And as a movie
- 1:13:54Speaker 1: in general, ten a ten, wherever so many good things.
- 1:14:01Speaker 1: We also forgot to mention that we learned that Carmen
- 1:14:04Speaker 1: skips school to go off to Belize sometimes she somehow
- 1:14:10Speaker 1: she manages to go from wherever they live again, never clear,
- 1:14:14Speaker 1: but wherever they live to believe to just just hang
- 1:14:18Speaker 1: out twice a month. Was it twice a month or something? Yeah,
- 1:14:21Speaker 1: she was like she skips school twice a month. Um,
- 1:14:26Speaker 1: I'll give one nipple to that scene where Junie has
- 1:14:30Speaker 1: the what is it the handcuff, the little safe handcuff
- 1:14:34Speaker 1: to his hand and he wants to get it off,
- 1:14:38Speaker 1: and he smacks it on the rock or the wall
- 1:14:41Speaker 1: and it bounces back. It is the funniest sits him
- 1:14:44Speaker 1: in the head. It's the funniest thing in that movie. Um,
- 1:14:47Speaker 1: and I will give the rest of that rating to
- 1:14:50Speaker 1: the entire Safe House. That the best thing the little
- 1:14:54Speaker 1: like packets that turn into a Those they're clearly pop tarts, right,
- 1:14:59Speaker 1: They're clearly pop tart packaging. It's a perfect product. That
- 1:15:03Speaker 1: McDonald's thing. You're just like, it's like the really wanted
- 1:15:05Speaker 1: a big mac. I know, but I've got sludge so
- 1:15:08Speaker 1: I can't eat why. I'm pretty sure you have the
- 1:15:12Speaker 1: green also maybe stolen from Night Before Christmas. I was
- 1:15:16Speaker 1: like that scene where Sally is eating the green soup. Yes,
- 1:15:20Speaker 1: I don't know, there's some weird crossover that I think
- 1:15:22Speaker 1: we're missaying. Well anyway, Katherine, thanks for coming on the pause.
- 1:15:27Speaker 1: I'm so excited I finally convinced you to watch it
- 1:15:29Speaker 1: after years. It's so fun to watch. Everyone should watch
- 1:15:33Speaker 1: this movie in a group too. It's so much fun
- 1:15:35Speaker 1: to watch in the group. It's wild. Yeah, so yeah,
- 1:15:38Speaker 1: thanks for being here. What would you like to plug? Oh?
- 1:15:40Speaker 1: I don't know where can people follow you online? Um? Twitter?
- 1:15:44Speaker 1: I guess that hellhole? Um, it's just my name at
- 1:15:48Speaker 1: Katherine Leon. They do a UCB show every Friday's at
- 1:15:52Speaker 1: eleven called JB Throwback Friday. Um. Rod Stewart Live is
- 1:15:56Speaker 1: every Wednesday in Highland Park. Stand up show Atlantics use
- 1:16:00Speaker 1: a sketch at UCB every second Thursday at UCB Franklin,
- 1:16:04Speaker 1: eight pm. Um. I think that's it all right. Well,
- 1:16:09Speaker 1: if you live in l A or if you're visiting,
- 1:16:11Speaker 1: come to those she runs this town. I'm probably there.
- 1:16:19Speaker 1: You can follow us on social media at Bactelcast. We've
- 1:16:22Speaker 1: got a Patreon a k a Matreon that you can
- 1:16:26Speaker 1: give money from any of the following countries South Korea, Argentina,
- 1:16:33Speaker 1: they're only ten country UK there's only ten of them.
- 1:16:37Speaker 1: If you don't live in one of those countries. I'm sorry,
- 1:16:39Speaker 1: but you don't have money. Also, don't like the like.
- 1:16:44Speaker 1: They listed countries that I think share a currency. Hang on,
- 1:16:48Speaker 1: let me, it's like Guatemala and Columbia, right, yes, do
- 1:16:52Speaker 1: they all? I don't know which countries use with like,
- 1:16:55Speaker 1: but like Germany and Italy are on the Euro. But
- 1:16:58Speaker 1: also I did some extra search and I think in
- 1:17:02Speaker 1: two thousand one, Italy was using another type of currency
- 1:17:06Speaker 1: in addition to like, they hadn't fully adopted the Euro yet.
- 1:17:11Speaker 1: I don't know anyway, if anyone can send us fun
- 1:17:14Speaker 1: fact about Robert Rodriguez to prove that he's a nice man, please, yeah, please,
- 1:17:18Speaker 1: any'll like, let's turn this into like chan and just
- 1:17:24Speaker 1: just a million nice Robert Rodriguez. I mean the fact
- 1:17:27Speaker 1: that he wanted down the aisle. You're just like, it's
- 1:17:30Speaker 1: so nice, okay? Uh well Patreon, Yeah, Matreon, it's five
- 1:17:38Speaker 1: dollars a month, gets you to bonus episodes every month,
- 1:17:41Speaker 1: plus our entire back catalog of bonus episodes. We've got
- 1:17:46Speaker 1: merch for sale. Uh. Feminist icon, queer icon, feminis icon,
- 1:17:56Speaker 1: feminism is the law. Now a whole slew of option.
- 1:18:00Speaker 1: I'll make a spy daddy, spy mommy, design the store
- 1:18:04Speaker 1: fun or just spy parent for parent would be such
- 1:18:10Speaker 1: a confusing share. Can I request a commission of Floop
- 1:18:15Speaker 1: and Minion but wearing like the spy gear that like
- 1:18:19Speaker 1: Carmen and Junie were at some point? Yes, well okay,
- 1:18:23Speaker 1: and then do you want Minion Minion with glasses or
- 1:18:29Speaker 1: there's so many options? Better design them all anyway? Um? Yeah?
- 1:18:34Speaker 1: By our merchant t public dot com slash dpectel Cast.
- 1:18:38Speaker 1: You can visit our website for for various things. Spectel
- 1:18:42Speaker 1: cast dot com has episodes, has a link to our
- 1:18:45Speaker 1: merched store, has upcoming live shows, so check those out.
- 1:18:49Speaker 1: And no no none, no no no no no no
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