Latest / The Bechdel Cast / National Treasure: Book of Secrets

Transcript

National Treasure: Book of Secrets · The Bechdel Cast

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: On the Bechdel Cast, the questions ask if movies have
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: women and them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands,
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: or do they have individualism? It's the patriarchy, zephy Beast
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: start changing it with the Bechdel Cast.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: We're back at it again, Jamie. A clue that leads
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: to another clue that leads to another clue that leads
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: to us.
• 0:24
  Speaker 3: Finally reuniting with Helen Mirren. Because wasn't that really the
• 0:30
  Speaker 3: full thing we had to do the whole time?
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: Yes, yes it was, It's true. Hi, Welcome to the
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: Bechdel Cast. My name is Caitlin Dorante, my.
• 0:41
  Speaker 3: Name is Jamie Loftus, and this is our podcast where
• 0:45
  Speaker 3: we talk about important entries in cinema and talk about
• 0:51
  Speaker 3: how they relate to an intersectional feminist perspective. And boy,
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: do we have a feminist text for you? Humdinger. So
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: on the fourth of July. Because you know, we're reasonable people,
• 1:06
  Speaker 3: we don't feel that there's a ton to celebrate. However,
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: the movies, they feel different. The movies really want you
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: to think that there's a ton to celebrate. So we
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: try over the years to line up this week with
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: a movie that is very American coded for better or
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: for worse. Really, last year we did idiocrity an attempt
• 1:33
  Speaker 3: at I forgot.
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: We did that for like a fourth of July episode.
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, So last year we did Mike Judge's valiant
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: attempt to comment on the state of America that just
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: ended up revealing that he hated poor people. This year,
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: we're going for the Millennial Generations attempt at Indiana Jones.
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: We're heading back in to the National Treasure expand universe.
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: And I've got to say this movie has more to
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: say than idiocrasy for me. Sure this movie Caitlin Derante
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: made half a billion dollars.
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: It really did, and we celebrate that.
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: We celebrate And what do American celebrate more than something
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: ridiculous making half a billion dollars. Yeah, it's something that
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: we love to see over here. But first we should
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: talk about what this podcast is.
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: Yes, we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens, using
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: the Bechdel Test as a jumping off point. It is
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: a media metric created by queer cartoonist Alison Bechdel, sometimes
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: called the Bechdel Wallace Test. It originally appeared in Alison
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: Bechdel's Decks to Watch out For in nineteen eighty five
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: as just like a bit a one off joke that
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: appeared in a strip of hers and has since been
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: kind of co opted to be this grand metric. There
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: are many versions of it. The one we use is
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: this two people of a marginalized gender have to have names,
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: they must speak to each other, and their conversation has
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: to be about something other than a man, and we
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: particularly appreciate it when it is a narratively substantial conversation. However,
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: we decided a few caveats, such as it does pass
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: the Bechdel test when Nicholas Cage declares that he is
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: going to kidnap the president of the United States.
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: Which is a huge relief because the movie may not
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: in factest the bechel test without that important caveat that
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: we made to save this feminist text exactly unfair criticism.
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: Well, there's another caveat that we agreed upon, which is
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: that it also passes the Bechdel test when Nicholas Cage
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: screams at a male child.
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: Yes, because that feels like a real close study of
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: different generations of masculinity in combat with one another in
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: a lighthearted yet impactful way.
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: It was cinema at its finest.
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: I really hope that entire I mean, I know it
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: wasn't because that child actor. I mean not to put
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: the child actor on the spot, but it would have
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: been very hard for the child actor to improvise that
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: dialogue exchange. But it felt so organic. Those are my
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: founding fathers, both CAG and that kid. So today we're
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: covering I think maybe one of our generation's most jingoistic franchises,
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: National Treasure. We've covered National Treasure one, not that you asked,
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: but we've already done it so before. I mean, Caitlin,
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: what's your history with National Treasure? Book of Secrets? Yes,
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: Book of Secrets will and we can't forget the really
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: important oh my gosh, and really great subtitle.
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: It's about a secret book, Book of Secrets. Oh my gosh.
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: I kind of forgot what the Book of Secrets was
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: and so I was rewatching it.
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: So my history with this movie is that I watched
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: it when we covered the first National Treasure movie, which
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: I think was the first episode we released after Lockdown
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: in March twenty twenty.
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah, because we're like, this is going to be over
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: in a second, let's have a little bit of fun. Yeah,
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: and then it turned out it's still happening. We're not
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: going to harp on it today. Yeah, but yes, yes,
• 5:46
  Speaker 3: National Treasure was a movie that came to us during
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: a time of need.
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and so I watched the sequel then. So that
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: was about three years ago, and I haven't really thought
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: about it since. But then I I rewatched it with
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: our good friend Bryant like ten days ago, which is
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: part of why I pitched we do this now.
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: Yes, and I'm glad you did. Yeah, and now more
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: than ever, more than ever.
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: We need to discuss National Treasure, Book of Secrets. So
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: I've seen it a handful of times. Now I think
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: it's not a good movie, but I also love it,
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: so shrug.
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I feel about the same way I saw this
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: movie in theaters for sure. Wow, uh brag, I remember,
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: I even this was one of the things where I remember,
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: I vividly remember a trailer moment when it happened in
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: the movie. Trailer moment when Justin and Bartha says it's
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: a little Golden Man, and then classic Bartha trailer moment.
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: Oh and Bartha is on for this. He really is
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: he once again steals the show. We love to see him,
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: and again, I feel like we constantly have to qualify
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: as of this recording, as far as we know, Justin
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: Bertha is a normal man. True. But yeah, I remember
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: seeing the trailer. I was fourteen. I was stoked to
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: see National Treasure two with my friends, which I did,
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: and I loved it even at the time, I feel like,
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: and listeners, let me know, I feel like, even at
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: the time, as a fourteen year old, I registered this
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: as whatever a fourteen year old would call something campy, Like,
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: I recognized that this was not a triumph, which is
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: not how I felt about National Treasure one. I thought
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: National Treasure one triumph. Sure, National Treasure two I thought silly,
• 7:38
  Speaker 3: But you know, I'm going to see it with my
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: damn friends and I'm gonna love every second of it.
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: And so it was. Yeah, I did not remember this
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: movie as well as I remember the first one. I
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: haven't seen it as many times. It's probably my third
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: viewing of it. Ever. I also still have yet to
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: see There was a mini series, I think maybe Misguided
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: mini series that was released around the National Treasure franchise. Yeah,
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: on Disney Plus. I have not watched it either. I
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: think Bartha came back. Yeah, let me did Bartha return?
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: Let me investigate. Bartha was on season four of Atlanta.
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: I don't know if you saw his appearance.
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: I have not made it that far into the show.
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: Hang on National Treasure.
• 8:23
  Speaker 3: Oh, and he's in the Good Fight. I haven't seen it.
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: Okay, So National Treasure. Edge of History is the series
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: from another good subtitles, Yes, from twenty twenty two. Let's
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: see who is in the cast. Justin Bartha is there.
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: I can't tell how important of a character he is.
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: It's just a guest star though. It's kind of like
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: a David Crumbholtz and the Santa claus is.
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: Which is utter bullshit.
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's that's why we don't watch Disney Plus mini
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: series because we did watch the Santa Clauses and we
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: need to break Catherine Sata Jones is in this damn thing.
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: She is? And then a bunch of people who I
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: do not recognize.
• 9:05
  Speaker 3: Jake Austin Walker. Sure that's a person. We'll see about
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: that anyways. Yeah, I don't know who's in there. Oh,
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: Harvey Kaitel comes back for a guest spot. That's fun. No, Cage.
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: Harvey loves I mean this franchise. He really does. And
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: even though he's barely in this installment, which I guess
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: we'll get to, not that he's really it's so weird
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: that he's even in this one, because you're just like,
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: why is he there? Why is he there? I mean
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: glad to see Harvey's kitel get a check. I guess
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: why not? But yeah, I saw it. I enjoyed it.
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: I think I seen it one other time and I
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: forgot so many elements. I will say, well, this movie
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: is definitely not good in the traditional sense, and it
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: is certainly not good for the purposes of this our
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: podcast that we've been doing for seven years. Yes, definitely not.
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: I will say that this does deliver as far as
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: a sequel goes for me, because it's such a high
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: concept franchise. Nicholas Cage has to steal an American artifact
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: that is, you're not supposed to steal and find a
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: map on it, and you're like, how does he do that? Twice?
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: I feel like this movie effectively raises the stakes. In
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: the first one, he has to steal the Declaration of Independence. Famously,
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: that's difficult. The second one he turns up the difficulty
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: level and he does several things, but he most importantly
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: another trailer moment, I'm going to kidnap the President of
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: the United States, which he does. Yeah, and the President,
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: not for nothing, loves every second of it. Spoiler alert,
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: The President loves being kidnapp by Nicholas Cage. Can't get
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: enough of it instantly, Yes, like, don't get him in trouble.
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: I love this guy. And then he finds the city
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: of Gold underneath Mount Rushmore. Now we have to get
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: into what the hell's going on there, but I do
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: think on its face they managed to do it. Again.
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: He is finding maps places you wouldn't believe.
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he goes from stealing a piece of paper to
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: stealing a human being.
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: He steals a whole guy, and then on top of
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: that keeps being like, I'm not kidnapping you, which he is.
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: And then there's a book of Secrets. Also Riley in
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: this movie. I was very I was like, wow, Riley
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: also has close friends who haven't read his book yet. Okay,
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: that's very me coded. I was really relating to Riley.
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: I think the president should give me a really nice
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: car tax free. Yeah, well, a weird post credit scene.
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: Riley was on all cylinders here. Abigail once again done dirty.
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: No justice for Abigail, not that we expected it, but
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: we get we get a second woman, Helen Mirren. That's
• 11:51
  Speaker 3: another sequel thing. We gotta get a second woman in there.
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: But don't worry, We're not gonna let her do anything.
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: Nope.
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: I just I think that this movie is such a
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: a seque for better and for worse. It does the
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: same thing, but more and twice.
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: It's incredible.
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: I truly laughed out loud. The shot where again spoilers
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: for those who haven't seen National Treasure two Book of Secrets,
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: The shot where they panned down from the Eiffel Tower
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: and then zoom in on the tiny statue of Liberty.
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: I was such a hard fast zoom and the music
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: like like, oh my god, Americans are so sick in
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: their heads. Everything's about them. It's just disgusting and hilarious
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: in this movie. I just Ben Gates, I swear to
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: and and not I.
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: Mean Benjamin Franklin Gates.
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: It's like right up there with Larry Geely and all
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: time worse character names for anything. And then another horrible
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: justin Bartha movie quick Justin Bartha thingcause we're talking about it.
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: I didn't know because I was just I was on
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: side this weekend talking to my talk and talk and
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: talking about Justin Bartha and how I was thinking about him.
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: And someone was like, oh, yeah, don't you remember when
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: he dated Ashley Olsen? I didn't.
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: We always forget this.
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: We history, much like what happened was going on with
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: Thomas Gates. History does not. American history doesn't want us
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: to remember Justin Bartha's relationship with Ashley Olsen. However, I
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: loved I sent it to you. I just looked up
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: because I was like, when did they even date? They
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: broke up in twenty eleven. The alleged reason for the
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: breakup was that Justin Bartha was partying too much on
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: the set of Hangover too she was, which is a
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: very twenty eleven reason to break up with someone. Couldn't
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: have happened any other year.
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: No, it's like us discover, like we go through this
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: like series of clues and puzzles to discover that Justin
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: Bartha and Ashley Olsen dated, And it's such a revelation
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: each and every time we learn this.
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: I kidnapped Bob Iger to get this information. I was like,
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: where's the book? I okay, the present? That was one
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: thing I've I've tried to fact check a number There
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: have been a number of articles that have you know,
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: attempted to fact check the historical you know, value of
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: national treasure too, Not that it really matters, you know,
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: because most of American history is fucking made up?
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: Right? Yeah, how do you even fact check revised history exactly?
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: So you might? Sure, why not to a lot of
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: this bullshit? But I couldn't get a straight answer on
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: whether the president does indeed have a book of secrets
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: where every secret from American history is written.
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: Longhand crammed into this like leather bound book.
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: Also, if I was Riley, I would be absolutely beside
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: myself because Riley is this close to knowing whether Kennedy
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: assassination conspiracies are true, and Nick Cage is like, there's
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: no time and like we gotta find a second, Like comes.
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: On, yeah, seriously, the moon landing?
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: Come on?
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: I have to know what was the whole thing with
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: page thirty seven? Was that just like setting up a
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: sequel or did we actually find anything out about it? Well?
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: Page forty seven I don't know. I wonder if that
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: comes back in Edge of History page forty seven. Yeah,
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: I think that that was setting up a sequel because
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: there was for sure supposed to be a third one,
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: because this movie made half a billion dollars. I don't
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: really know why there wasn't a third one in the moment,
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: Maybe Nicholas Cage got too busy with what would he
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: have even been doing. Also, these movies, it is like
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: kind of sick to me that Alfred Bolina did not
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: make his way into this franchise.
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: This feels like, yeah, we talked about this on the
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: last episode.
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean it's like it's so Indiana Jones coded
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: to begin with Yeah that like he'd fit right in.
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: I know, let's find out why there wasn't a sequel.
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: There was, there was a novelization, and I also love
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: that there was a There's a whole section of the
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: Wikipedia page called historical accuracy like be serious, okay sow
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: okay in made two thousand and eight. John Turtletobb confirmed
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: that there would be additional National Treasure movies, but acknowledged
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: the creative team needed time on the second sequel. I
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: don't know why, because the first sequel was awesome. I
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: guess it just like kind of went to production.
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: Hell damn it.
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's a damn shame because I remember, like, okay,
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: January twenty twenty, the last time we discussed this movie.
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: In twenty twenty, the third one was on the way,
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: and then it turned into the series, a bullshit series
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: which no one watches those and it's they always suck, unfortunately.
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: But the fun thing is that there is a second
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: one and that everyone in the world thowt because it
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: made half a billion dollars in two thousand and seven.
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: That is so wild. Should we love this movie? Sorry?
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: Should I recap it?
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: For sure?
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: Okay, let's take a quick break first, and then we'll
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: come back to recap and we're back.
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: Okay, So at the very beginning, I think if with
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: your permission, please, because the beginning is sort of frontloaded
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: with all the history stuff. Yes, so I will try
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: to share what I know, Okay, part of which I
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: independently research. But I would also like to share the
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: very defensive historical accuracy section of the Wikipedia, which mostly
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: clarifies small points that don't make much of a difference
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: to me. But you can let me know, I've kind
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: of on the historical accuracy side surprisingly fall very much
• 17:55
  Speaker 3: and leave National Treasure to Book of Secrets alone in
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: some ways, at least in the opening sequence.
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: Sure, all right, okay, So here's what we see in
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: that sequence. We are in Washington, DC. Ever heard of it?
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: It's eighteen sixty five. A mysterious man who we will
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: find out is John Wilkes Booth, along with another man.
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: They made him hot.
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: John is sexy in this. He and another man approach
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: Thomas Gates and his young son. Now John Wilkes Booth
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: wants Thomas Gates to decode a cipher.
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: It's a family tradition. They all see this. There is
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: a version of this franchise that is just like a
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: family curse where all these women throughout history have to
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: deal with these fucking guys who see maps where there
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: shouldn't be maps. But then they're right, and what a
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: nightmare that must be.
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you're really signing up for a lot when you
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: marry a gatesman.
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: You're gonna be like, enough with the maps, I've had it.
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: And then sure, a shit, there's a damn map.
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: Yep. Okay, So as old Tommy Gates is solving this cipher.
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: John Wilkes Booth leaves to go into a theater and
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: he assassinates President Lincoln on screen.
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: Famously, again disrespectful, who gives a shit? So I wanted
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: to acknowledge the guy sitting with Thomas Gates is revealed
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: if you, like me, got a public American education and
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: would not be told about things like this, is a
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: member of the Nights of the Golden Circle. This is
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: a real thing. Okay, So I'm kind to share from
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: scholarly journal Wikipedia what it says. It feels very weird
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: and defensive to me. Okay. The Knights of the Golden
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: Circle had actually disbanded in eighteen sixty three. It was
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: based in Ohio, where its founder resided. Though a native
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: of Virginia, Bickley, the founder, had actually been known for
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: being an adventurer. His main focus was not on preserving
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: the Confederate States of America, but restoring slavery in southern
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: neighboring countries that he wanted to make a part of
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: a proposed nation dubbed the Golden Circle. While some members
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: of the group would join the Confederate Army, Bickley was
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: more focused on colonizing parts of northern Mexico as slave states.
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: And you're like, well, as far as the purposes of
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: this movie is concerned, that's still an exceptionally horrible, horrific person.
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: I don't know why we need it clarified.
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: Like, actually, he was horrible in a different way. Actually,
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: you should have been more specific about it. You're like, no,
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: I think that they did a fine job, and he
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: was a.
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: Real like he was evil was the he is. I mean,
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: you can't get more bad guy than the couple of
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: sentences I just read. Anyways, I just wasn't aware that
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: the Knights of the Golden Circle. I like, that was not,
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: at least in my memory. It was not a part
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: of my knowledge of the Civil War. So already I'm.
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: Learning I did not learn about that either. So Thomas
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: Gates realizes that these men who have approached him are
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: members of this Knights of the Golden Circle. He knows
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: that they're bad guys, and one of them shoots Thomas Gates,
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: but not before Thomas rips pages out of John Wilkes
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: Booth's diary, including the page with the cipher on it.
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: Very confusing sequence.
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: Throws those pages into the fire the bad guy pulls
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: the papers out of the fire, or at least one
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: of them, and runs off. And then in Thomas Gates's
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: dying breath to his son, his son, he says the
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: debt that all men pay, and then Weld dead right.
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: You are just like, Okay, the beginning of the National
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: Treasure movie is always confusing, yes, and it's always one
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: of these damn guys solving a puzzle and then it's ugh,
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: fucking whatever. But yeah, so that whole period, there's also
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: like some people kind of getting really particular about I'll
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: just run through stuff about John Wilkes Booth. You're like,
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: who what? There is a secret basement under George Washington's
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: home at Mount Vernon apparently, so something to think about.
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: I don't know, I'll keep going. But oh, and there
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: may have been cipher solvers just like Thomas Gates working
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: during the Civil War, so this is basically and John
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: Wilkes Booth's diary did have multiple pages missing from it,
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: so this is in many ways a documentary. Yeah, except
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: for all of the jingoistic parts that take place in
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: two thousand and seven. Those are not cannon. But the
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: whole beginning I think is historically.
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: Accurate, okay, perfect, love to hear it, love to see it, okay.
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: So then we flash forward to Benjamin Franklin Gates aka
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: Ben Gates aka Nicholas Cage, who is giving a Ted
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: talk or something about the Nights of the Golden Circle
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: and the Booth Diary.
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: He brought his dad to school, and you're just like,
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: needs to get over themselves. The Gates family, Hubris, I
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: think is very on the table for discussion because it's like,
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: get over yourself, what have you accomplished? And then they
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: kidnapped the president, so.
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: They accomplished a lot. So someone attending this presentation, Mitch
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: Wilkinson played by James Harris.
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: I totally forgot Ed Harris was in this movie. Yeah,
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: but what a interesting jump scare to have him be like.
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: At actually my great great granddaddy aka a Confederate general
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: who's awesome, and everyone's like, yeah, wow, what a respectable person.
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: I know.
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's one of the first things where you're just
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: like Jesus fucking Christ. It reminded me of I guess
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: this was sort of something that was popular in two
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: thousand and seven, those videos where it was like stand
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: up comedian owns audience member. But it's like random man
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: at Ted Talk owns Nicholas Cage.
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: That's exactly what happens. Because Mitch is like, what do
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: you think happened to those missing pages of the Booth Diary? Well,
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: I have them right here, and they prove that your ancestor,
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: Thomas Gates, it was his idea to assassinate President Lincoln.
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: And you're like, huh what, And then cut to the
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: next scene. The whole audience is gone. We don't get
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: to see how people react to this. For some reason,
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: the information seems to remain fairly contained for a while.
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: It's baffling, but I'm fully engaged. Yeah, sitting my ass
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: down and I'm listening.
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: You're like, okay, what's next? Tell me more? Yeah, So
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: Thomas Gates's name is on one of these pages of
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: the Booth Diary, and it makes it seem like he
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: was the mastermind behind the assassination. And so now Ben
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: Gates and his daddy, Patrick Gates played by John Hooyt
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: again have to prove that their ancestor, Thomas Gates, was
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: innocent and not the mastermind behind Lincoln's assassination.
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: And it's like, get a life job, but they don't
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: need to get a job because they have all the
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: national treasure from the last movie, which were reminded by
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: this big ass house that he.
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: And Abigail is like a full ass.
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: Also, I know he's about to come into the mix,
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: but I felt that. Okay, first of all, very two
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: thousand and seven choice to have ty Burrell in this movie,
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: all but disrespectful. I think as someone who had a
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: big crush on ty Burrell. Oh, I love a guy
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: with big old eyebrows. But to put him in two
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: scenes not very nice. Yeah, he's really disappeared.
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: Well, Modern Family hadn't come out yet, so he wasn't
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: He wasn't big enough, probably.
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: Made to be seventeen dollars doing it.
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: For Tie for Tie.
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: They just made him like horny and weird. And then
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: they're like, all right, I think he served his purpose.
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: Let's get him out of there. Anyways, we'll get back
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: to that because that is connected to the zero movement
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: on making Abigail, letting Abigail. Have they let her drive
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: a car in this one.
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: That's true.
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: That's about as far as it gets. Yep, bars on
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: the floor.
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: Okay, So then we cut to Riley Pool and.
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: We're like, that's Justin Bartha best care. We're screaming, we
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: love him, We're crying. He's at borders, okay, two thousands
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: borders because he has written his own book of secrets
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: about the Templar Treasure aka the plot of National Treasure one.
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: But no one is buying his book, and his car
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: gets towed and he owes all these back taxes and
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: he's not doing so hot with the ladies.
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: Classic these are hashtag Riley problems. I love him so much,
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: even though he is canonically kind of a creep and
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: always feels bad for himself. It's yeah, all these all
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: these women coming up being like, why aren't you Nicholas Cage,
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: And I'm like, open your eyes, ladies, before you stands
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: a real hunk. Justin Bartha's right there. Bartha's right there.
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: He's he's so hard on the set of Hangover Too.
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: It's gonna end his relationship, but he's gonna party so
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: hard he gets dumped. Okay, So Riley helps Ben break
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: into his own house because Ben's girlfriend aka Abigail Chase
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: played by Diane Krueger. But I always forget his German. Yes, correct, Yes,
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: she has kicked Ben out of the house, out of
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: their enormous estate.
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: Good for her. He's annoying, he's so.
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, I can't wait to talk about their relationship.
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: Wildly obnoxious. I would also kick him out.
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so Ben needs to steal Abigail's work badge because
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: she still works at the archives or maybe she works
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: at the Library of Congress.
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: Now, oh literally, I don't know. She has like a
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: plot job, like she has an ID that can get
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: them to the next map, yeah without fail correct. Yeah,
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: that was a bad that That was the first kind
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: of I mean, Riley doesn't fuck up super often in
• 28:58
  Speaker 3: this movie, but the fact that his first act is
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: helping Ben break into a house where he's no longer welcome.
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: And then Nicholas Cage will get to this, but he
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: goes on this whole tirade about why she kicked him out,
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: and then Riley said something like, ugh, women, you can't
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: live with them, especially when they change the security code
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: or whatever, and we're.
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: Just like hilarious, George Bush is the President's Comedy Like ugh, Yeah,
• 29:33
  Speaker 3: did not like that sequence very much.
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: No, so Ben is stealing the work badge because he
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: wants to take another look at this page from the
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: Booth Diary because they think that if they can find
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: a cipher on it, it will lead to a treasure
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: map that will prove Thomas Gates's innocence somehow. It's a
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: I'll understand the connection.
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: I am so team Abigail on this because you're just
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: like because she I mean, I think I've I've gotten
• 30:07
  Speaker 3: into the habit of doing this where I'm like pitching
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: a sun Dance movie based off of a blockbuster where
• 30:15
  Speaker 3: she's just like she loves Ben, but he just like
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: will not give up the idea that there's a map
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: on fucking everything, and it ends up like completely deteriorating,
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: deteriorating his life and their relationship because she's just like,
• 30:31
  Speaker 3: it's over, man, you had your moment in the sun.
• 30:33
  Speaker 3: You found the map. There's not maps everywhere, but that's
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: not how this world works. No, there are maps everywhere.
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: His obsession with maps being on everything should be the
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: hymn partying too hard on the set of Hangover too
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: which it should be always should end that relationship, but.
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: Should it should be? Yeah, Abigail, I'm sure she has
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: a last name, not that we hear it Chase Chase
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: because she's always Chase saying after Treasure with her boyfriend,
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: and Riley is always pulling up with his.
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: Friends, and Ben Gates is always unlocking the gates. Think
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: about it, the secrets that will find him the treasure.
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: And then Helen Muhren's character's name is Emily Appleton because
• 31:19
  Speaker 3: Apple was the da Vinci code. It all makes sense.
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: WHOA.
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: I wouldn't put it past this movie to give a
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: character the last name Appleton because I had a ton
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: of fun learning that the da Vinci code was Apple.
• 31:39
  Speaker 3: I also think that every clue and the mysteries in
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: the National Treasure movies are more fun, engaging and make
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: more sense than the Da Vinci Code mysteries.
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: But but I think we should keep covering the movies
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: in that franchise. And Angels and Demons.
• 32:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah, my god, how many people saw Angels and Demons?
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: Was it like one or two?
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: I thought it made at least two hundred million at
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: the box office.
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: Well, that's so it's certainly not doing National Treasure two numbers.
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: That's for damn sure, no embarrassing.
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: Are you looking it up?
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah? It's like wait a second, hold the precess I
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: need to find out what the global box office take
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: of Angels and Demons was. Now what okay, came out
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: in two thousand and nine, directed by Ron Howard m
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: oh I have horrible news. It made half a billion.
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: Dollars, so a lot of people saw it and we
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: should cover it.
• 32:40
  Speaker 3: Okay, then it that is the global impact. We do
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: need to talk about it. It in fact made thirty
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: million more than National Treasure too.
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: Disgusting, disgusting, embarrassing for book of Secrets.
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: Okay, Uh, this is okay, this is very While this
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: movie is not really doing anything for women, I will
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: say that the two female leads in this movie are
• 33:08
  Speaker 3: both doctors, doctor Abigail Chase and doctor Emily Appleton Gates.
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: We've got a pair of PhDs.
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: We've got a lot of education between these two ladies
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: who we don't get to see do very much. They
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: don't do anything that they are both damseled, so that's important.
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: They also have more, at least in the way of
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: academic credentials than any of the men. Because even though
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: they're constantly like better keep giving them my ID and
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: following them around, I'm like, just let you know, well, no,
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: I do think this just let Ed Harris kill John Voyd.
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: You know, like, what are we doing here?
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: What's the worst that could happen? Okay, So Abigail once
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: Ben is like, there's a map on the thing, She's like,
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: that's ridiculous. But then Ben Riley and Abigail look at
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: the diary page under infrared and they do in fact
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: find a cipher, which Ben of course needs to decode,
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: but they need a five letter word first, which Ben
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: figures out.
• 34:17
  Speaker 3: It's not apple, which is not pretty scary. How could
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: this be true? I was on the edge of my
• 34:22
  Speaker 3: seat waiting for it to be Apple. It's not.
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: So this happens in a scene where Ben is like, Dad,
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: what's the story your granddaddy told you? And then John
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: Voight very conveniently remembers how Thomas Gates's dying words to
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: his son, which is John Voight's grandfather. The dying words
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: were the debt that all men pay? And I'm over here, like,
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: what about the debt that all women pay? Hello?
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: No one cares about that. This is also I do
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: think we probably talked about John Voight's politics in the
• 34:58
  Speaker 3: first episode, but this movie comes out on the cusp
• 35:02
  Speaker 3: of John Voyd going full Republican. Like it's during the
• 35:08
  Speaker 3: two thousand and eight election that he says because he
• 35:12
  Speaker 3: I guess had held pretty liberal views for much of
• 35:16
  Speaker 3: his life. He like protested against the Vietnam War and
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: then does a hard switch during the oit election in
• 35:24
  Speaker 3: a way that certainly feels quite racist. And I'm not
• 35:29
  Speaker 3: a big fan of Obama, but like, yeah, it's racist,
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: and then went like, really rode for Romney, really rode
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: for Trump has pretty despicable politics. I'm pretty sure that
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: has some of the reason why Angelina Julie and he
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: are not on good terms. But in any case, I'm
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: just like, do any of these despicable political views? What
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: was he talking about on the set of National Treasure too,
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: Because it seems like he really underwent a pretty gross
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: political shift, and now I need to check.
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: Maybe he was Knights of the Golden Circle. Sounds interesting,
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: Oh god, let's fucking let's fucking hope not. And then meanwhile,
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: Nicholas Cage, I guess this kind of makes sense for
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: his whole vibe. And I mean, this is an insult.
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: You know, Nicholas Cage was an Andrew yank guy. It's
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: just all a mess. It's just all kind of a disaster.
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: But I just wanted to because I know that we
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: talked about it the first time. But it feels like
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: this movie comes.
• 36:30
  Speaker 3: Out this like the summer, or like the this is
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: a Christmas movie, This comes out just just months before
• 36:39
  Speaker 3: John Voyd comes out as whatever, gross fucking Republican guy.
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 36:48
  Speaker 3: So that's just some interesting context to chew on and
• 36:53
  Speaker 3: why I will be really really letting it fly with
• 36:57
  Speaker 3: my opinions of John Voight throughout this understood.
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Okay, So Ben is like deciphering this code. He
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: figures out that the debt that all men pay means death,
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: so that's the five letter word, and the cipher ends
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: up being Labalay Lady, which refers to the Statue of Liberty.
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: So I thought that was actually a pretty hot clue.
• 37:21
  Speaker 3: Like these writers again the same writing team as the
• 37:26
  Speaker 3: first movie, Cormack and Marianne Wibberly married couple.
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: Is that right?
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: Yes, they they really fired up Google for this. I
• 37:35
  Speaker 3: was like, what the hell are they talking about? But
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: it is pretty historically accurate that Laboulay had the idea
• 37:43
  Speaker 3: for the Statue of Liberty, was not the one who
• 37:46
  Speaker 3: actually designed it, but Laboulay, lady, that's a hot clue.
• 37:51
  Speaker 3: Well you ask me. Okay, it's no apple, but it's
• 37:54
  Speaker 3: pretty good.
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: The Wibberlys are doing their research. Yes, okay, the clue
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: who is love a Lady? It refers to the Statue
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: of Liberty. So Ben thinks there must be a clue
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: or a map or something on the Statue of Liberty,
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: But not the one in New York City? Ever heard
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: of it? Because there are three statues of Liberty, and
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: the one they need is in Paris, France. Ever heard
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: of that?
• 38:18
  Speaker 3: This shot grips. We've already described it, but it's time
• 38:25
  Speaker 3: to shout it out again. It's just an unbelievable shot.
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: The cinematogphic down.
• 38:32
  Speaker 3: From the Eiffel Tower zooming in to tiny Statue of
• 38:38
  Speaker 3: Liberty where Riley has a drone question mark. I also
• 38:42
  Speaker 3: just love a Justin Bartha hacking scene. He's on a
• 38:46
  Speaker 3: flip phone, he's bitching. I just love these scenes with
• 38:50
  Speaker 3: him where he's like making little comments at the computer.
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: I love his little quips. Also, anytime he mentions his
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: book is legiti manly good comedy there, I see.
• 39:01
  Speaker 3: It's so funny. No one has read it. It's so
• 39:05
  Speaker 3: except wait, who did there's one person in the movie
• 39:07
  Speaker 3: who did read.
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: Oh, Harvey Kayitel.
• 39:10
  Speaker 3: Yes, Oh that was That was the best moment for
• 39:12
  Speaker 3: Harvey Kayitel in the movie. It was like, Okay, he
• 39:14
  Speaker 3: just earned his check by reading justin Bartha's Little Book,
• 39:18
  Speaker 3: but also doesn't Bartha I would be I don't know,
• 39:20
  Speaker 3: Riley needs self esteem because he has so many of
• 39:24
  Speaker 3: the answers. Yeah, but no one gives a shit, No
• 39:26
  Speaker 3: one cares. He knows about this Book of Secrets. There's
• 39:28
  Speaker 3: a whole chapter yeah, yeah, on the Book of Secrets.
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: There's that scene where he's like he's trying to explain
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: the Book of Secrets to Nicholas Cage and he's like,
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: if it were you trying to convince me, you'd have
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: less evidence than I'd already believe you by now.
• 39:42
  Speaker 3: And you're like, yeah, Riley, because you have really slow
• 39:44
  Speaker 3: self esteem and we need to work on that because
• 39:47
  Speaker 3: you're a smart guy.
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: Oh Riley. Anyway, Speaking of Harvey Kytel, he is in
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: the movie for some reason and he he's gets wind
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: of the news dusky or sa dusky, Sa dusky. He
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: gets wind of the news that his best friend question
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: Mark Ben Gates is the ancestor of a guy who
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: might have been responsible for Abe Lincoln's assassination. So now
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: he takes an interest in this case, and I think
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: he's kind of working to sort of discredit Ed Harris.
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: I think, is it's what's happening, but I'm not sure it's.
• 40:28
  Speaker 3: It's really like his character is for sure not necessary
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: in the movie because yeah, and it also just like, yeah,
• 40:35
  Speaker 3: I was also a little confused on like whose side
• 40:38
  Speaker 3: he was on, because it just seems like he's there
• 40:42
  Speaker 3: to like ultimately be on Nicholas Cage's side, but then
• 40:45
  Speaker 3: kind of fuck with.
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: Him, right because he's like sort of the one who
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: tries to arrest him at the Library of Congress later.
• 40:51
  Speaker 3: On, which he does in the first one too. Yeah,
• 40:54
  Speaker 3: they love to fake arrest him, but then this time
• 40:56
  Speaker 3: the President's like, it's all good. I love I loved
• 40:59
  Speaker 3: the kidnap bang. I love that you looked in the
• 41:02
  Speaker 3: Book of Secrets, page forty seven. It's our little secret.
• 41:07
  Speaker 3: I love this shot at the end. Oh when President
• 41:11
  Speaker 3: what's his name? President?
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: Oh? What is his even name?
• 41:15
  Speaker 3: Bruce Greenwood is the name of the actor. The name
• 41:18
  Speaker 3: of the character is President of the United States. Don't
• 41:20
  Speaker 3: worry about it. Do not worry about it. So when
• 41:24
  Speaker 3: Nicholas Cage says I'm gonna kidnap the President of the
• 41:26
  Speaker 3: United States, he's just using the president's full name. But
• 41:31
  Speaker 3: I love when the President of the United States turns
• 41:33
  Speaker 3: around and goes what book?
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: Oh, I was like.
• 41:38
  Speaker 3: He got so good for what book? Indeed?
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: Truly Okay. So now Ben and Riley go to Paris
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: to the little Statue of Liberty near the Eiffel Tower,
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: and there is in fact a clue engraved on it
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: with a reference to twins that stand resolute, and Ben
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: figures out that this means two twin desks. Okay, One
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: resolute desk is in the Buckingham Palace. So they go
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: to London.
• 42:09
  Speaker 3: I really enjoyed the London sequence and also history check.
• 42:14
  Speaker 3: These are real desks. These are real ass desks, okay exist.
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: Were they made from the timber from a ship called
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: the Resolute?
• 42:22
  Speaker 3: They sure were? Wow, they sure were. It is a documentary.
• 42:27
  Speaker 3: The desks are not puzzles that I was able to
• 42:30
  Speaker 3: find to help.
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 42:32
  Speaker 3: Well, but there was a hidden door in the Resolute
• 42:36
  Speaker 3: desk in the Oval office. The reason it was there.
• 42:39
  Speaker 3: History fact, huh is that Franklin D. Roosevelt wanted to
• 42:43
  Speaker 3: have a hinged front panel installed so that people could
• 42:47
  Speaker 3: not see his wheelchair when he began using a wheelchair.
• 42:50
  Speaker 3: So that is why the panel was there, which they
• 42:54
  Speaker 3: referenced in the movie. Yes, And so this movie you
• 42:58
  Speaker 3: can learn a lot by watching this movie. It's a
• 43:01
  Speaker 3: history book basically, mostly just trivia. I wouldn't say you
• 43:06
  Speaker 3: learned much about that. Themes you don't learn much about,
• 43:11
  Speaker 3: you know, harping constantly harping and obsessing over founding father
• 43:16
  Speaker 3: related history, how it crumbles silas, Yeah, and how building
• 43:23
  Speaker 3: entire franchises around white Americans really hyper fixating on their
• 43:28
  Speaker 3: ancestry is maybe not the best use of time more money.
• 43:35
  Speaker 3: But they were real desks, and so that's not nothing perfect. Yeah.
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: Okay. So meanwhile, Mitch Wilkinson again that's the Ed Harris character.
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: He finds out about the progress that Ben is making
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: and he taps Ben's phone so that he can run
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: surveillance on Ben and like spy on him and keep
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: track of where Ben is and what he's doing. Now
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: back in London, Ben and Riley and Abigail, who shows
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: up for reasons plan a little heist. They break into
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: the Queen's office, they solve the little puzzle on the desk,
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: and inside they find an old piece of wood with
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: writing on it of an indigenous language. Yes, we will
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: talk more about this, but this.
• 44:30
  Speaker 3: Is just I mean, that is I think one of
• 44:34
  Speaker 3: the movie's greatest gigantic flaws is how because the second you,
• 44:39
  Speaker 3: or at least I might in my notes, the second
• 44:42
  Speaker 3: that you learn that this convoluted secret is related to
• 44:47
  Speaker 3: Indigenous Americans, I'm like, well, they're for sure going to
• 44:50
  Speaker 3: fumble this, oh yeah, massively, And sure enough they do.
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: They really, really really do. Yes, we'll discuss this more
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: in a bit. But in the meantime, Ben, Riley, and
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: Abigail escape the palace with this piece of wood, but
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: Mitch and his goons chase them. They're shooting at them.
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: And then there's this ridiculous thing where Ben runs a
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: red light, knowing that a traffic cam will take a photo,
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: so he holds the piece of wood up for the photo.
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: Then he throws the wood in the river. Then he
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: gets Riley to hack the traffic cams to get a
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: copy of the photo, which is somehow high resolution enough
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: where they can still read the writing on it, and.
• 45:38
  Speaker 3: I what part of that was challenging for you? Because
• 45:43
  Speaker 3: I was like, makes sense basic order of operations. That
• 45:49
  Speaker 3: was so The wooden panel they find reminds me of
• 45:53
  Speaker 3: like Star Wars nine, where they have a similar thing
• 45:56
  Speaker 3: where you have to like hold it against the horizon
• 45:58
  Speaker 3: and that's how you figure out you're in the right place.
• 46:00
  Speaker 3: And again I will give National Treasure to the edge
• 46:03
  Speaker 3: of handle.
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: Ledge of history.
• 46:06
  Speaker 3: They're well, I'm not enough to watch it, but I was.
• 46:11
  Speaker 3: I was intrigued. That sequence felt like having a heart attack.
• 46:17
  Speaker 3: It felt like watching uncut gems. Like I was just like,
• 46:19
  Speaker 3: what the hell am I looking at?
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: Because it throws it into the river and Mitch's goons
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: easily retrieve it, So.
• 46:28
  Speaker 3: Like why is it so easy? Why them Like yeah,
• 46:32
  Speaker 3: and they just loop that, they just have it.
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: I guess Nicholas Cage did that to get them off
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: their tail, like to get the bad guys off their tail.
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: But there had to be a better way than throwing
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: the one clue they have right now into a river
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: a body of water. It's also like it's the type
• 46:51
  Speaker 2: of thing that like white people would be like, oh,
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: let's steal this and put in a museum like it's
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: this like incredible ancient artifact, and then Ben is just
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: like carelessly handling it and then like throwing it, oh
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: into a river, like it's this Ben Gates.
• 47:05
  Speaker 3: The thing is like Ben Gates, I don't even think
• 47:07
  Speaker 3: gives a shit about American history. He just gives a
• 47:09
  Speaker 3: shit about fresh family specifically and money, like which is
• 47:13
  Speaker 3: a very I think, like jingoistic white American trait. It's like,
• 47:19
  Speaker 3: it feels like a very like American individualist character, like
• 47:23
  Speaker 3: I care about myself and my money and my guys,
• 47:27
  Speaker 3: and that's it. I don't actually give a shit about
• 47:29
  Speaker 3: other people. I don't care about historical accuracy as it
• 47:32
  Speaker 3: pertains to anyone outside of my immediate family. He is
• 47:36
  Speaker 3: a very narrow minded man that Benjamin Franklin Gates.
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: The steaks in this movie and him right, the stakes
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: in this movie are my family name has been besmirched,
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: and I have to fix it. Like a guy who's
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: been dead for a century might have a bad reputation,
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: but because he's related to me, and I can't handle
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: that with my ego. I have to go find treasure,
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: which somehow will you know who is fixed the reputation.
• 48:06
  Speaker 3: You know, who is the relative of a very old
• 48:12
  Speaker 3: timey serial killer, Maggie may Fish. Is she stealing the
• 48:17
  Speaker 3: president trying to clear his name? No, she let it go.
• 48:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Oh my god, that's what you gotta do.
• 48:25
  Speaker 3: People should learn from her.
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 48:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah, she's been I mean she what has she done?
• 48:31
  Speaker 3: She has instead spent her time on earth healing the
• 48:35
  Speaker 3: fish name by being herself.
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: People should what's the expression, like, take a page out
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: of Maggie's Book of secrets.
• 48:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah, wow, yeah, take a look at Maggie's page forty
• 48:46
  Speaker 3: seven because it looks a little different. Yeah, okay, okay,
• 48:51
  Speaker 3: she's talked about that publicly. It's fine. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes.
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: I also knew this because I think she mentions it on.
• 48:58
  Speaker 3: Behind the Bastards.
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: Oh that's right, that's right. Okay. So they now have
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: this photo of this piece of wood with Riley mm hmm,
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: with the indigenous writing on it. They take the photo
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: to Ben's mom, who is played by Helen Mirren and
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: who is a professor of something. We don't know what.
• 49:23
  Speaker 3: It is stated. It is stated, it's it is like
• 49:27
  Speaker 3: it did seem like they went at least not that
• 49:29
  Speaker 3: this is a big compliment, but they did like say
• 49:32
  Speaker 3: what it was. It was. It was just kind of
• 49:35
  Speaker 3: too smart for me. It was like something like archaeology something. Okay,
• 49:40
  Speaker 3: Like she this is a this is a puzzle family.
• 49:45
  Speaker 3: Her puzzles are ancient languages, which seems like a better
• 49:48
  Speaker 3: use of time than what the Gates are doing. Yes,
• 49:53
  Speaker 3: the way her character is introduced, which we'll also get
• 49:55
  Speaker 3: into later, but oh my god, it is just John
• 49:57
  Speaker 3: Voight being like, oh yeah, yie, this broad that is
• 50:03
  Speaker 3: very much the vibe.
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: Quit nagging me.
• 50:06
  Speaker 3: Wait till you order a couch with this broad and
• 50:09
  Speaker 3: you're like enough stock. I understand where Benjamin Franklin Gates
• 50:14
  Speaker 3: gets his attitudes on women standing up for themselves as
• 50:19
  Speaker 3: being annoying. Yeah, and disrespectful. Meanwhile, Riley Poole Man of
• 50:24
  Speaker 3: the Century single awful doesn't make disgusting makes no sense.
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: Okay. So anyway, they take the photo to Helen Mirren,
• 50:34
  Speaker 2: who translates it. But it's only half of the message
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: because they still have to go to the other resolute desk,
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: which is in the White House because it's the President
• 50:47
  Speaker 2: of the United States desk. So they sneak into the
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: Oval Office during the White House Easter egg Hunt.
• 50:56
  Speaker 3: This is a typeer. I mean, that is a real thing, right,
• 50:59
  Speaker 3: I remember because I have seen pictures of Why have
• 51:03
  Speaker 3: I seen pictures of that?
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: God?
• 51:05
  Speaker 3: Who cares? This is such a weird, awful place to live?
• 51:10
  Speaker 3: Why do I know that? I did know that? But
• 51:13
  Speaker 3: that's related to ty Burrell. Yes, Tyberrell is the reason
• 51:17
  Speaker 3: they have the inn at the egg Hunt, because that's
• 51:20
  Speaker 3: we We haven't brought him up yet except to say
• 51:22
  Speaker 3: that spoiler work, this is the last time you'll ever
• 51:25
  Speaker 3: see him, but he's I did like the detail that
• 51:31
  Speaker 3: Abigail moves on instantly where I Abigail, I would do
• 51:37
  Speaker 3: the same. And also Tyberell vibe wise over Nicholas Cage
• 51:41
  Speaker 3: Vibeise inter relationships seems like a better bet.
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: Huge upgrade.
• 51:47
  Speaker 3: Yes, but they're like, oh, this guy sucks. He's in
• 51:50
  Speaker 3: charge of the egg hunt.
• 51:52
  Speaker 2: Right, So Abigail had been seeing this guy Connor, that's Tyberrell,
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: no last name, you know. So they call upon him
• 52:02
  Speaker 2: to help them get into the Oval office.
• 52:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah, They're like, let's not use Abigail's credentials or skills,
• 52:09
  Speaker 3: let's use her body. Yeah, to accomplish this yes, and
• 52:13
  Speaker 3: it'll be funny mm hmm. And that's just kind of
• 52:16
  Speaker 3: the internal logic of this scene.
• 52:17
  Speaker 2: Right, And then so Ben solves the puzzle on the desk,
• 52:23
  Speaker 2: but the other piece of wood with the rest of
• 52:27
  Speaker 2: the treasure map on it, which they think is going
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: to be in the desk, is missing, and in its
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: place is a seal stamped into the wood, which they
• 52:38
  Speaker 2: think is the presidential seal, but it's slightly different. And
• 52:42
  Speaker 2: this is where Riley's time to shine comes because he's like, no,
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: that's the symbol for the President's Secret Book, which is
• 52:51
  Speaker 2: a collection of documents for presidents by presidents.
• 52:56
  Speaker 3: And honestly, okay, would you I think that we've reached
• 53:01
  Speaker 3: a point in history where our generation has witnessed so
• 53:08
  Speaker 3: much absurdity. I would believe that there's a book of secrets.
• 53:14
  Speaker 2: I think there's probably a whole library's worth of secrets.
• 53:20
  Speaker 3: I think that that would be a better movie than
• 53:22
  Speaker 3: a book of secrets. And I also wouldn't be shocked,
• 53:26
  Speaker 3: just out of the shearing competence of the American system,
• 53:30
  Speaker 3: that it would be in a public library.
• 53:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I don't know.
• 53:34
  Speaker 3: Much like this book of secrets. H what was on
• 53:37
  Speaker 3: page forty seven, John Turtle Top will never know tell
• 53:42
  Speaker 3: I was on page forty seven. I love Oh, it's
• 53:46
  Speaker 3: one of my favorites. It's setting up a sequel that
• 53:49
  Speaker 3: never happens. Oh, Chef's kiss. It's like the end of
• 53:53
  Speaker 3: I Frankenstein when they're like to say, You're like, what
• 53:55
  Speaker 3: the fuck are they talking about? We'll never know. Damn,
• 53:58
  Speaker 3: I'll never know.
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: Hey, there's no sequel to I Frankenstein yet.
• 54:04
  Speaker 3: It's gonna be the ten year anniversary of I Frankenstein
• 54:06
  Speaker 3: in about six months, and I am gonna rent out
• 54:09
  Speaker 3: a movie theater and you, of course are invited. It's
• 54:13
  Speaker 3: gonna be huge. It's gonna be major incredible. Yeah.
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: So we learn about this book of secrets that only
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: the presidents know about. But also so does Riley Poole somehow,
• 54:24
  Speaker 2: so does Harvey Kaitel. A lot of people know about
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: this secret book and they assume that that's where the
• 54:32
  Speaker 2: other half of this map is. But how are they
• 54:36
  Speaker 2: gonna get to the President's secret book? And this is
• 54:39
  Speaker 2: when Ben pitches his incredible idea, wherein he says, I'm
• 54:46
  Speaker 2: gonna kidnap him. I'm going to kidnap the president of
• 54:49
  Speaker 2: the United States, and then.
• 54:51
  Speaker 3: Everyone goes, yeah, everyone loses it because we love when
• 54:58
  Speaker 3: Ben goes off the because it always works out for him.
• 55:03
  Speaker 3: Then John Voyd, i will say, does a hell of
• 55:06
  Speaker 3: a line read here where he goes, I'm your father.
• 55:08
  Speaker 3: How am I supposed to react to that? You're just like, okay, yeah, fair,
• 55:16
  Speaker 3: But he secretly loves it because two seconds later, the
• 55:21
  Speaker 3: like Ben has to do so little to get his
• 55:23
  Speaker 3: debt on board for the worst ideas ever because his
• 55:26
  Speaker 3: dad is also like secretly into it the whole time.
• 55:30
  Speaker 3: But like he's like, I'm gonna kidnap the president of
• 55:32
  Speaker 3: the United States, and John Voyd's like, oh my gosh, no,
• 55:34
  Speaker 3: we can't do that. And then Nicholas Cage is like,
• 55:37
  Speaker 3: well there's a map. He's like, oh, oh, well, okay
• 55:39
  Speaker 3: if there's a map, And that's why if we're kidnapping
• 55:41
  Speaker 3: him for a map, this family loves map We're mam, guys, God,
• 55:48
  Speaker 3: I hate them saying so much, but it's like, it's
• 55:51
  Speaker 3: so weird having a character that you can't stand who
• 55:54
  Speaker 3: is never wrong. It's like, just it breaks me.
• 55:58
  Speaker 2: It's infuriating. Also, so they should rename this franchise map
• 56:03
  Speaker 2: Quest because they're always going on quests to find maps.
• 56:07
  Speaker 3: To find it, and one map leads to another, leads
• 56:10
  Speaker 3: to another.
• 56:10
  Speaker 2: Which does eventually lead to treasure. They're right about that, and.
• 56:14
  Speaker 3: Then you get a half a billion dollars. It's so
• 56:17
  Speaker 3: it is. I mean, Nicholas Cage knows what he's doing
• 56:21
  Speaker 3: when he says the line I'm going to kidnap the
• 56:24
  Speaker 3: President of the United States. No way did they need
• 56:27
  Speaker 3: a second take on that? That was really.
• 56:29
  Speaker 2: Special, And as we pointed out in the first National
• 56:31
  Speaker 2: Treasure episode, it's basically the same exact line read like
• 56:36
  Speaker 2: the same intonation as when he says I'm gonna steal it.
• 56:40
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna steal the Declaration of Independence. He just copy
• 56:44
  Speaker 2: paste same thing, except now it's a human person who
• 56:49
  Speaker 2: is the President of the United States.
• 56:51
  Speaker 3: He is, in fact the President of the United States. Oh,
• 56:55
  Speaker 3: and then the movie gets goofy. It becomes extremely goofy.
• 57:00
  Speaker 2: Before that it was a goofy movie, and now it's
• 57:03
  Speaker 2: an extremely goofy movie.
• 57:04
  Speaker 3: We've cranked it up to an eleven. We're like, yes,
• 57:07
  Speaker 3: this is no more thinking for the rest of the movie.
• 57:11
  Speaker 2: So what happens next is Ben Riley, Abigail and Patrick
• 57:16
  Speaker 2: orchestrate another heist where they infiltrate the president's birthday party
• 57:22
  Speaker 2: at a hotel called Mount Vernon, which they're able to
• 57:25
  Speaker 2: do because they like book up a bunch of other
• 57:28
  Speaker 2: hotels as if an event for the president. They couldn't
• 57:32
  Speaker 2: just be like, sorry, I don't care that your retirement
• 57:36
  Speaker 2: party is here. I'm the president. My plans override yours.
• 57:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, move the retirement party.
• 57:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah. But they're acting like, oh my god, this is
• 57:45
  Speaker 2: already booked up. We need to find another place for
• 57:48
  Speaker 2: the president's birthday party.
• 57:50
  Speaker 3: So, as stated earlier, the Wibberleies once again are googling
• 57:55
  Speaker 3: up a storm because there is a secret basement beneath
• 57:58
  Speaker 3: Mount Vernon where you can example, kid briefly kidnapped the
• 58:02
  Speaker 3: president of the United States.
• 58:03
  Speaker 2: Uh huh, yes, great, so I love that. And this
• 58:07
  Speaker 2: president was an architectural history major from Yale.
• 58:13
  Speaker 3: Also, you're like, this guy sucks boom, No one harvs
• 58:18
  Speaker 3: your credent cheese.
• 58:19
  Speaker 2: It's like, you know, when you major in architectural history
• 58:23
  Speaker 2: and then you become the president of the United States.
• 58:26
  Speaker 3: What's next? In English major? A failed real estate heir?
• 58:32
  Speaker 3: Be serious? Yeah, that's a little topical humor for me.
• 58:35
  Speaker 2: Ha ha ha ha.
• 58:37
  Speaker 3: Anyways, yeah, I think it is just that was just
• 58:40
  Speaker 3: a weird detail to add for a character. They didn't
• 58:43
  Speaker 3: even give a first or last name to Why do
• 58:46
  Speaker 3: I know what degree this man has? But I don't
• 58:48
  Speaker 3: know what his name government name is.
• 58:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we're not sure anyway. So Ben goes up to
• 58:55
  Speaker 2: the President at the party at Mount Vernon and tricks
• 58:59
  Speaker 2: him into following Ben into the basement to find this
• 59:03
  Speaker 2: secret underground tunnel. And then Ben is like, I need
• 59:07
  Speaker 2: to know where your book of secrets is, mister President,
• 59:12
  Speaker 2: And then the President is like, ti he, what are
• 59:15
  Speaker 2: you talking about. But then after some like impassioned speech
• 59:22
  Speaker 2: about something something American history who knows, the president is like, okay, fine,
• 59:28
  Speaker 2: the book does exist, and it's in the Library of
• 59:31
  Speaker 2: Congress and here's a bunch of numbers that you'll need
• 59:33
  Speaker 2: to know.
• 59:34
  Speaker 3: The way he buckles is just shocking. It's so fast,
• 59:39
  Speaker 3: Like yeah, Also, how quickly he agrees to go into
• 59:42
  Speaker 3: the basement with Nicholas Cage is hilarious.
• 59:45
  Speaker 2: It's so funny.
• 59:46
  Speaker 3: Like Nicholas, I mean, he is a very charismatic guy,
• 59:49
  Speaker 3: but he's just like, I don't know can I come
• 59:51
  Speaker 3: to the basement. And he's like, sure, let's let's do it.
• 59:55
  Speaker 3: Like he's had like a couple of white claws and
• 59:57
  Speaker 3: he's like, let's do it. Let's get down to the basement.
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 2: Happy birthday to me. And then he's like, Secret Service guys,
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 2: get the fuck out of here. I'm with my new friend.
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 3: Oh my god. There is one guy I I they
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 3: none of the Secret Service agents get names, but there's
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 3: one guy who is like acting. He's like, I need
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 3: a sledgehammer, I need a gun. You're like, oh my god,
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 3: he's like really going for it. It was so funny anyways,
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 3: but yeah, this president is just a real dunce, like
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 3: he is just given away. He just says, okay, fine,
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 3: there's a book of secrets, and then literally, like Nicholas
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 3: Cage's character, Benjamin Franklin Gates, famously untrustworthy, famously addicted to
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 3: breaking the laws, does not believe consequences apply to them,
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 3: and they don't in this world, never do. Why would you,
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 3: as the president who knows who Benjamin Franklin Gates is
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 3: and that he famous doesn't listen to anybody, be like, okay,
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 3: honor system, promise to not read all of the secrets,
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 3: Like what are you talking about? He's using me?
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 2: And then not only that, he's like, look at an
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 2: extra secret. Take a gander at page forty seven.
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 3: He's like, don't look up whether the moon landing happened, promise,
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 3: but like the check out page forty seven and fine
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 3: and clear your and like, I don't know, it is
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 3: truly like such American like white supremacy, exceptionalism. This conversation
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 3: they have in the basement where the president is like,
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 3: I really admire how you want to clear your dumb
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 3: ass family's name again, blah blah blah, Like here's every
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 3: secret in the entire world. Promise you'll only read the
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 3: one about your grandpoppy or whatever. You're just like this fuck,
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 3: this is just I mean, it's camp because it has
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 3: to be. Yeah, but this president is just like such
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 3: a trusting man.
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 2: Yes. Also, I feel like the actor who plays him
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 2: who I like, Bruce Greenwood. He's in The Star Trucks,
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 2: ton of stuff. Yeah, I feel like he's who they
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 2: call when Sam Neil isn't available.
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 3: Oh I do. But he does have very like TV
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 3: president face. Yeah, yeah, he's been in a lot of stuff.
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 3: I really liked him. In the two thousands, the jj
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 3: Abrams start.
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 2: The star trucks.
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Same. I think he's a fun guy, and I'll
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 3: say it he did. He was. He was the President
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 3: of the United States for me. And then at the end,
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 3: the fact that he has the audacity to say what
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 3: book of Secrets? I was like, you have no vested
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 3: interest in people not knowing about this damn book of secrets?
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 3: You told the first notorious thief who asked, like, what
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 3: is rough? Ugh, We're fucked.
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah it's true. Okay, so oh we're still doing the
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 2: recap Ben. Okay. So Ben now has the information he
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 2: needs to access the Book of Secrets. So he runs
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 2: off and heads to the Library of Congress with Riley
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 2: and Abigail. They find the Book of Secrets and inside
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 2: is a photograph of the other half of the map,
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 2: along with an entry from President Coolidge with a reference
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 2: to Mount Rushmore, and Ben is like Borglum carved Mount
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 2: Rushmore to destroy the map's landmarks to protect the City
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 2: of Gold. So they figure out.
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 3: That the city of what right. The fact that they
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 3: managed to turn it up turn up the heat from
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 3: kidnapping the president. I was genuinely impressed because it's like,
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 3: at that point you gotta go City of Gold.
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 2: There had been some references prior to this about Cibola,
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 2: which is this like legendary lost city of Gold.
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 3: But if you have two brain cells like I do
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 3: you need Nichol's Cage to be like there is a
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 3: city of Gold underneath Mount Rushmore, And it's like, oh
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 3: m hmm, that's.
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 2: And that Mount Rushmore was a cover up to protect
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 2: the whereabouts of the City of Gold.
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 3: You'll never think to look underneath Mount Rushmore, just like
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 3: you'll never think to I mean, that's sort of like
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 3: what this whole franchise is predicated on. Like you would
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 3: never think to pour a bunch of aquafina water bottles
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 3: on Mount Rushmore to find the city of Gold. You
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 3: just wouldn't.
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 2: You would never think to look on the Declaration of
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 2: Independence for a map to the Templar's Treasure for.
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 3: A bunch of old white supremacists. No, I don't think
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 3: you would think that. But but someone is thinking that,
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 3: and he's constantly being rewarded for it. I for some reason,
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 3: it maybe just I was absolutely delighted that because whatever
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 3: we're about to get to this when they go to
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 3: my Rashmore. They have to pour water on to find
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 3: the state whatever. Yeah, but that they but the movie
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 3: had the foresight to get a water bottle company to
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 3: like do product placement. Yeah, Like, well, Aquafina, do you
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 3: want to be the most American water bottle? And Aguafina said,
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 3: sure thing. Yeah, yeah. Desanni found dead in a ditch
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 3: National Traders water bottle.
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, makes you think.
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah, So Aquafina reveals the At this point, you're just like,
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 3: what the fuck is even happening? Cut to the City
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 3: of Gold, Like, what's going on?
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So the FBI are closing in on them on
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 2: account of Ben having kidnapped the President of the United States,
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 2: but they escape. Meanwhile, Mitch pays Helen Mirren a visit
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 2: and shows her a letter from the Queen of England
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 2: to his ancestor, once again a Confederate general. It contains
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 2: a clue that they need to find the City of Gold,
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 2: but he burns the letter and he's like, now I'm
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 2: the only one who can find Cibola, and then he
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 2: kidnapps Helen Mirren and takes her to Mount Rushmore, where Ben, Riley,
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 2: Abigail and Patrick already are because they figured it out
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 2: that they need to go there, and then they kind
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 2: of like reluctantly all team up to search for this
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 2: city of Gold, and they're pouring aquafina onto the rocks.
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 3: Nick Cage does a hilarious fake out where he's like, oh,
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 3: my hands just kidding. Oh, I was laughing.
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 2: So there's a few moments that I feel like we're
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 2: kind of borrowed from Jurassic Park in this movie because, again,
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 2: not to bring up Sam Neille again, he does that
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 2: with the like t Rex Gate, he pretends to be
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 2: electricuted and he gets in several arguments with children in
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 2: that movie.
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 3: Nick Cage only does it once, but he does it
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 3: so it's so funny because it's like Nick Cage is
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 3: doing things that Sam Neil would do, but he's just
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 3: doing it in a way that's so annoying to watch
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 3: and the Cage I prefer it. We haven't gotten to
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 3: Nick caje argument. I mean, it happened a while ago,
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 3: because it doesn't matter to the plot, but it mattered
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 3: to our culture.
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. Yes, So, based on Mitch's clue, they pour
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 2: water all over the rocks, which reveals an eagle engraved
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 2: into the rocks, and then there's a secret latch that
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 2: opens a secret door and they go inside this like
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 2: cave catacomb type place where most of it immediately collapses
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 2: and they get trapped inside, so they have to keep
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 2: moving onward into the cave. There are various obstacles like
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 2: this like platform that's tilting all over the place. Then
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 2: they get into a room with a bunch of water
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 2: that they think is a dead end, but they stop
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 2: the flow of water and then are able to go downward,
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 2: and then that's where they discover the city of Gold.
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 2: And as they are oohing and aweing over the city,
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 2: the water starts bursting through again and it starts flooding
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 2: the city. So now they have to find the drain.
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 2: But Mitch is a bad guy again suddenly, and he's like,
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 2: we're not leaving until you agree to say that I
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 2: discovered the City of Gold, because he's also obsessed with
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 2: like family legacy. Shit.
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but he's ed Harris, so he is going to
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 3: like lose. But the I just wanted to quickly shout
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 3: out the platform scene because I remember seeing the platform
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 3: scene in theaters and I think it's a really well
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 3: done scene. I still get a little bit of anxiety
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 3: watching the platform scene even today. It's where again the
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 3: team is very quick to agree that Riley would be
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 3: the first to die. Poor this poor man needs to
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 3: like go to a trivia night, like he needs to
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 3: like make new friends. Period. He's gotten, you know, he's
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 3: got at least gotten something out of this, you know,
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 3: kind of emotionally abusive friendship he's in with Nicholas Cage.
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 2: You gotta read Ferrari out of it.
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 3: You gotta read Ferrari. He got this book deal. Get
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 3: the fuck out of there, man, Seriously, he doesn't care
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 3: about you. He doesn't care about you.
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 2: No, he didn't even read your book. He didn't even
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 2: open your book from its packaging.
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 3: And Abigail also, you know, for all the disrespects she's given,
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 3: she doesn't give a rats ass about Riley either. She
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 3: leaves him for dead instantly because this movie also does.
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 3: I noticed, and I think that this is like an
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 3: action movie trope that we've discussed in the past. There's
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 3: a very like unspoken women and children first ethos to
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 3: this movie. Definitely, it's always like a very you know, hypermasculine,
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 3: Like I'm John Voyd, I better check this swinging vine
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 3: before I bring and we were in on the You're
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 3: just like fucking whatever, Like Abigail has to be the
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 3: first to get off the mysterious platform. Meanwhile Justin Bartha
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 3: dead Like yeah, clearly he's the weakest link. You're just like,
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 3: leave this poor man alone. Although Justin Bartha has big,
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 3: Justin Long wasn't available vibes. Have we talked about that?
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 3: I think we have. Yeah, yeah, I mean Justin Lung
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 3: wasn't available for this, and that's good because Justin Bartha
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 3: made the partisan.
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 2: We love him in this role.
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: We do.
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 2: Okay, So the city is flooding and Ed Harris is like,
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 2: I need to be the one to discover this. But
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 2: then some stuff happens. I don't even quite track it.
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 3: There's a crank, there's some there's a door, it's flooded. Deal,
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 3: and then gives a shit.
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 2: Basically, it culminates in Mitch getting left behind Slash. He
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 2: decides to sacrifice himself so the others can escape, and
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 2: so he dies. N then they get out of all
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 2: the they like leave the cave. Harvey Kaitel's there to
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 2: arrest Ben, but then the president is there and he's
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 2: like I love this guy. He saved my life. He
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 2: did not kidnap me. Don't believe the rumors ti he
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 2: and he says to Riley, what is.
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 3: Definitely not a book of secrets? Wink, You're just like
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 3: this guy sucks. This guy is so bad at being
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 3: the president.
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 2: Then we cut to people excavating the city of Gold
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 2: Ye yikes, and then some shit happens. Riley meets a
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 2: fangirl of his. Ben and Abigail get back together and
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 2: the kiss and is disgusting.
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 3: And then pan up to Mount Rushford. Do Do Do
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 3: Do Do do the end.
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 2: Let's take another break and we'll come back to discuss
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 2: and we're back.
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 3: Shall we begin by discussing the women of this movie
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 3: before we get into blatant indigenous history fumbling fump. Yes, yes,
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 3: because it just feels sort of like a continuation and
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 3: in an addition to our discussion of National Treasure One,
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 3: where a huge thing with National Treasure One as well
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 3: as because I would like lump in the Da Vinci
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 3: Code kind of into this discussion because it came out
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 3: in the same stretch of years and has many of
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 3: the same issues. Even though I think National Treasure franchise
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 3: as far as watchability, far and beyond way better. But
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 3: that a big issue we have with National Treasure One
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 3: is that Abigail it feels like a very two thousands
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 3: era writing convention to give Abigail a lot of academic credential.
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 3: She is not written as just like I think the
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 3: way that often Indiana Jones characters are written of just
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 3: like a lady, and here's a lady. She doesn't have
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 3: any skills, but she's gonna be around for it, And
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 3: so it feels like a very superficial advancement of those
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 3: writing conventions where it's like, no, now she's very qualified
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 3: and like they're But still, ultimately, the way that these
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 3: characters are used within the plot of an action movie
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 3: is not much different.
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 2: They're not allowed to contribute the knowledge that they allegedly have.
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 2: They're not allowed to do really much of anything to
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 2: push the story forward, except for like little crumbs here
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 2: and there. I took inventory of the handful of things
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 2: that Abigail does that pushes the story forwards.
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 3: I felt like she's mostly treated as like I mean
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 3: she it just felt like it was she was almost
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 3: used as like a narrative device to be like, oh well,
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 3: how would Ben get in there? Abigail's ID and that's
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 3: like sort of yeah, like she's not doing very much.
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 3: She's just giving them access to a lot of.
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 2: Things for sure, or she's like doing something kind of
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 2: careless and it pushes the story forward in that way.
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 2: For example, she's meeting with Ed Harris for some reason,
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 2: I don't know why. They're like getting drinks together, but
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 2: then she gets a call from Ben who is like,
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 2: we figured out the clue. And then so now she's
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 2: like loudly talking about the clue within earshot of Ed Harris,
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 2: so he like figures things out because she's just like
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 2: being careless, right, So it's technically her doing something to
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 2: push the story forward, but not in the way you'd want,
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 2: not in.
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 3: An informed or intelligent way, yeah, right, which is like
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 3: you know, like characters can make mistakes. But it just yeah,
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 3: it just felt like she that was just like well
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 3: someone It didn't feel unique to her in any way exactly,
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 3: and like it's not really something that you would expect
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 3: her character to do. Yeah, something that had to.
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 2: Happen exactly, So it doesn't even track. But that's a
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 2: scene that takes place, Like you mentioned, she drives a
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 2: car so she helps Ben escape from the Library of Congress.
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 2: She knows where the special books are in the Library
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 2: of Congress. She does use her like quote unquote feminine
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 2: wiles to distract this man she's stringing along ty Burrell
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 2: so that the male protagonist of the movie can do
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 2: the important things, aka solve the desk puzzle.
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I hated that. That was that felt like a
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 3: regression on the two thousand and four movie where yeah, yeah,
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 3: and then there's like a really protracted joke about like
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 3: I'm making out with ty Burrell's that Nicholas He's just
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 3: like ough this, I don't know. It felt like super
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 3: dated for two thousand and seven.
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it really did. Yeah, she is the one who
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 2: finds the bird on the rocks, but only because Nicholas
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 2: Cage had figured out the clue of like, oh, we
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 2: need to pour these aquafina water bottles on the rocks.
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 3: That was yeah, that was like chance that it.
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 2: Was her exactly. And then she does get damseled when
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 2: Ed Harris holds her at knife point when he's trying
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 2: to escape the flooded room.
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 3: It's it's so close to the end of the movie too,
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 3: where I was like, well, because at this point Helen
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 3: Mirren has been damseled already. Yes, also John Voyight has
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 3: kind of been damseled, so like maybe it's a generational
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 3: damseling in this one, but it's like, no, it happens
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 3: to Abigail the last second too.
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and then she kind of like she doesn't really
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 2: join the group in their like map quest if you
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 2: will until Ben and Riley are in London, and then
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 2: she kind of gets involved because Ben picks this like
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 2: fake fight with her and we'll talk about their relationship also,
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 2: but they're like arguing and she doesn't even realize they're arguing.
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 3: But then but then at some point she does that
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 3: was maybe that was like lost in the performance too,
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 3: But I was like.
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 2: Didn't scan for me at all, There's no indication she
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 2: gets what's happening. Yeah, so that was shitty. But then
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 2: he tries to go look at the Queen's desk without her.
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 2: He's like always just trying to exclude her from things.
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 2: He's like, no, it's too dangerous. She does go along,
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 2: and she does suggest that the code on the desk
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 2: might be a year, but she doesn't figure out which
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 2: year it's. Ben who figures that out. So all this
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 2: to say, her contributions in the story are either like
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 2: by pure coincidence or her making a mistake, or her
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 2: she maybe like contributes five to ten percent of the
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 2: thing while Ben is doing the majority of it. It's
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 2: all stuff like.
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 3: That, right, I think. And that was similar to the
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 3: first one, and it also really reminds me of Marian
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 3: Courtyard in the DaVinci Code and other women were told
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 3: is hypercompetent but is not actually allowed to behave that way.
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 2: Within Oh you mean Audrey tattoo.
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, I'm being anti French. Yes, I do
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 3: ada tattoo. Yes, yes, which sucks and is a convention
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 3: that I think we still see in movies now where
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 3: it's like I feel like there's like a tacit understanding,
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 3: where it's like, well, we can't just have like you know,
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 3: but it's I don't know, it's we've talked about it before.
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 3: I find it really frustrating to go out of your
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 3: way to write a competent character and then be like,
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 3: but don't worry, she's not gonna do anything. I felt
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 3: like for me, the highlight for Abigail in this movie
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 3: was comment during the car during the car chase. That
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 3: was a cool sequence. I like that she and Riley
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 3: were just like on kind of a side quest together,
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 3: and that they almost killed a cop. That was fun. True,
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 3: that was a treat. The rest, yeah, she wasn't really
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 3: allowed to do very much. I thought it was very
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 3: interesting and by interesting I do mean lazy that they
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 3: wrote basically an identical character to Abigail to be Ben's mom.
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 3: Let's go through her, because it's, first of all, it's
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 3: disrespectful to write Helen Mirren a shitty part. Don't waste
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 3: this woman's time. She's a legend, I know, but they did.
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 3: They wrote her Emily Appleton Gates much in the way
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 3: that we learn how Ben views Abigail, which is like
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 3: I love her, but this ball and change, she doesn't
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 3: get me.
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 2: She's so annoying. She's always nagging me, mama, right.
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 3: And then we see an identical dynamic between presented uncritically
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 3: really between John Voyd and Helen Mirren. I felt like
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 3: it was marginally more self aware in that relationship, which
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 3: isn't saying very much. But I don't know, like, yeah,
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 3: so Helen Miren is playing this like archaeologist. She specializes
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 3: in ancient language like something something plot translate, yes, and
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 3: so she does do a number of things throughout the
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 3: movie to help them true and she does. I did appreciate,
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 3: and again this is like crumbs, but I did appreciate
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 3: that in most of the moments where John Voight would
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 3: criticize her, she would not accept that criticism and would
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 3: be like, no, you were seeing puzzles everywhere, and I
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 3: had to raise our son by myself. Yeah, and like
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 3: I also wanted to go on quests, but no one
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 3: was raising our son due to your puzzle issue. And
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 3: her character's pretty consistent on that issue. And I liked it, like,
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 3: and I liked it she was doing stuff. I liked
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 3: her relationship with Ben. There is no relationship with Abigail,
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 3: but they hugged for some reason. I liked how Riley
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 3: introduced himself to her at the end of the movie.
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 3: That was fun.
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he's like, by the way, I'm Riley Pool, author
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 2: of the Templar Treasure.
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 3: Boo. But I felt like, certainly an underwritten character, but
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 3: better written than Abigail unfortunately. Yeah, but that's why it
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 3: made it so confusing to me that she randomly gets
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 3: back together with John Void at the end of the movie,
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 3: because we are led to believe that she would never
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 3: do that.
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, here's my theory. So, as she says in the movie,
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 2: when John Voy first shows up in her office, she's like,
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 2: we didn't love each other. It was just excitement, adrenaline
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 2: and tequila, which is a pretty sick burn. Good honestly
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 2: to tell your ex husband.
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 3: And she keeps calling back the tequila.
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, So she basically says like, I never loved you.
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 2: I was just horny and we were going on adventures
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 2: and that was exciting. So maybe it's just that because
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 2: they went on this other adventure, she's horny again for
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 2: him and that's why they kiss.
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 3: But but then she's like, I.
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 2: Thought that was another mistake. I'm gonna go back to
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 2: my university and keep ignoring you.
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 3: And you know that information is actually like what would
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 3: have happened to them? That is written somewhere, but unfortunately
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 3: it's page forty seven of the President's Book of Secrets,
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 3: so we will never know what happens. And if the
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 3: Gates I was just like, why did we need a
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 3: Nicholas Cage parent trap in this movie? Was that necessary?
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 3: Like I would say, no, he's in his forties and
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 3: it's not necessary for him to have a parent trap
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 3: at this late stage.
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 2: And he doesn't even have a twin to help him.
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 3: It doesn't Yeah, first of all, he couldn't pull it
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 3: off well, although I think Riley could help. Sure, he
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 3: could hack his parents to make them love each other again. Yeah,
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 3: but yeah, I thought that that was a very like
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 3: callous undercutting of like, not a great well thought out character,
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 3: but the best written woman character we've seen a national
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 3: treasure so far. And then they totally undercut her at
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 3: the end by being like and she kind of apologizes
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 3: to John Voyd a little bit. She like is a
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 3: secondary party to the adventure, just like she said she
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 3: always hated being and then she kisses him at the end,
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 3: and you're just like, well, we certainly lost track of
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 3: this character in the third act. Yes, she's also damseled,
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 3: as is Abigail. She does do one thing, Well, what
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 3: did you think of this? I guess I was sort
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 3: of neutral on this as a plot point where Ed
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 3: Harris is like, you better not tell John Vod what
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 3: this means, or else kill him, and he shows he
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 3: has like an old timey pistol and you're like, huh, okay,
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 3: interesting plan. And so she has the knowledge but can't
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 3: give it to John Void and then she insults him
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 3: and then is like, I wish I hadn't drink that tequila.
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 3: I hate this man. I didn't hate that scene because
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 3: it wasn't like she she had the information, but she
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 3: couldn't do to the old timey pistol.
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 2: So here's my interpretation and problem with this scene. Okay,
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 2: So she doesn't tell him the truth. She gives him
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 2: like a fake translation that has something to do with
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 2: a hummingbird. Yeah, and she tells that to John Voight.
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 2: John Voight brings that information to Nicholas Cage, which he
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 2: realizes off screen is a clue, and he's like, wow, mom,
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 2: good work with the hummingbird clue. But we don't understand
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 2: what it is, what that's a reference to.
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 3: So we can't bad writing.
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 2: It's just bad writing. Because and so like if we
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 2: could see her logic and we understand why she gave
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 2: this particular clue and what it refers to and blah
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 2: blah blah, then we could see like, oh, she's smart.
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 3: Because yeah, she secretly gave the right answer.
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, something like that.
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 3: But I honestly didn't even register that because this movie,
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 3: I just feel like at some point my brain's just
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 3: like loop, like it just turns to goo and I'm
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 3: just like, he's gonna find it City of Gold. I
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 3: better just sit my ass down and watch.
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 2: I do think the movie is relying on your brain,
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 2: like everyone's brain doing that so they don't question the
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 2: very bad logic that's always happening.
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 3: That's why they make Nicholas Cage periodically argue with children
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 3: and do other things that don't matter, so that you're just.
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 2: Like, whoa, that's funny, and it is it is, and
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 2: they are correct. But that would have been so much
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 2: more satisfactory if we understood the clue that she gives
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 2: that is actually like helpful, But we don't understand, so
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 2: it's just like a blah nothing thing.
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 3: And what's more, we get the really frustrating convention that
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 3: we see in movies all the time, where it's like
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 3: a sequel time we got a second woman, but she's
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 3: not gonna be talking to the one from the first movie,
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 3: even though they're constantly in the same scenes and in
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 3: the same rooms. I believe that, I mean, this is
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 3: getting a little ahead of her, but it's like they
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 3: say hello to each other at one point, they hug
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 3: a couple of times, but they never talk, which is
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 3: so wild because it seems like the movie has lazily
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 3: like the only way you could, for me justify this
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 3: writing two very similar characters, which I mean, to be fair,
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 3: Patrick Gates, Benjamin Franklin Gates very similar guys. Yeah, so okay,
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 3: if that's not, you know, a lazy gendered choice, I
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 3: think that you owe it to those characters to let
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 3: them talk to each other. Do I think if these
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 3: women had a scene together they would talk about anything
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 3: other than the puzzle? Guys? Probably not. But I think
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 3: that like even having I mean, any scene between these
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 3: two characters makes a lot of sense, and the movie's
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 3: just like not interested in scene that I think would
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 3: have been really good and like firmly, firmly fits within
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 3: the context of this world. But of course we don't
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 3: get that in this Jerry Bruckheimer movie, because why would we?
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 2: Why would frustrating? Can we talk a little bit more
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 2: about Abigail's relationship to Ben, which is very reflective of
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 2: what it was like in the first movie, where he
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 2: spends most of the first movie being like, shut up,
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 2: you're so annoying. Quit being so angry at me that
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 2: I stole the Declaration of Independence. You're overreacting, blah blah blah.
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 3: This is now canon to their relationship, and she's fine
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 3: with it, question Mark.
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 2: Well until she kicks him out of the house. So basically,
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 2: he's explaining to Riley why Abigail kicked him out of
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 2: their house, and he says something like, oh, she kept
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 2: saying stuff like, oh, Ben, I guess you think my
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 2: opinion doesn't matter. I guess you always know what's best,
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 2: So I guess I'm invisible. And so what he's describing
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 2: is him being a shitty, condescending, inattentive partner. And as
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 2: he's relaying this information to Riley, he's framing it like,
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 2: what a bitch, how dare she think I'm dismissive of
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 2: her and her feelings.
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 3: Which could be a legitimate story choice if he grows
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 3: and changes in any way throughout the course of the movie,
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 3: and then even then she doesn't need to take him back.
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 3: H Right, But that doesn't You didn't even get the
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 3: chance to consider that because Benjamin Franklin Gates, like many
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 3: people will never change, He will never improve, he will
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 3: never stop seeing puzzles, and he will never stop telling
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 3: his girlfriend to shut the hell up. And so that
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 3: is someone that you leave. But yeah, it was really
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 3: really frustrating where when that happened, because I didn't remember
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 3: the ins and outs of the emotional journey of National
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 3: Treasure too, Whereas like, is there any chance that he
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 3: or John Voight, who I like think is like a
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 3: fraction a millimeter ahead of Ben's character in like at
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 3: least he is criticized to his face and sort of
• 1:28:59
  Speaker 3: takes it. He pon. It doesn't mean that he changes
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 3: very much, but he doesn't, you know, say shut up,
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 3: you know, in the way that Ben tends to when
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 3: criticized by anyone, especially Abigail. But Ben doesn't change at all.
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 3: He does the whole movie from the first one over
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 3: again but more and then at the end she's And
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 3: I feel like it also played into this was just
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 3: like I think this was just bad writing, but I
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 3: feel like it played into this like trope that surrounds
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 3: women of like, well, well, actually, I don't know what
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 3: did you think about this? Like there was this like
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 3: thing that came up A couple of times where they're
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 3: having this argument in England and she says, I think,
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 3: like not the worst point where he like makes assumptions
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 3: about her and then acts on those assumptions instead of
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 3: having a conversation with her. And she's like, even if
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 3: you think you know the answer to what I'm going
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 3: to say, and even if you're right, you still have
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 3: to have that conversation with me. Yeah, which is basic
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 3: emotional intelligence, but like, okay, interesting that they had that conversation.
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 3: He does not learn from this, and he does not
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 3: change because in the last shot of the movie, he
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 3: makes an assumption about what she's thinking and feeling because
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 3: she says the word so, and he's like, well, when
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 3: you say the word so, you're mad. And then she
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 3: sort of repeats a more convoluted version of what she
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 3: said earlier in the movie, which is, no, you can't
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 3: just tell me what I feel based on a weird
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 3: assumption You're making. What I meant to say is I
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 3: love you and move back in with me. And so
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 3: it is like almost like I was like, ooh, where
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 3: is this going? Is this gonna go anywhere? Of course
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 3: it's not, because I feel like the weird conclusion it
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 3: reaches like women don't actually say what they mean, which
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 3: is like.
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 2: Right, and again he does not earn this invitation to
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 2: move back in with her because he has demonstrated zero growth.
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 3: So it's just like and not for nothing, What does
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 3: this mean for typearell tyberal things. He's about to get married.
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he just got hardcore made out with in the
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 2: Oval office. He's got a raging boner for weeks from that.
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 3: Probably he and Riley should hang out because they just
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 3: like I think that they just need to like start
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 3: getting drinks on the weekend and like being buds because yeah,
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 3: they're just being disrespected right and left. Yeah, No, I
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 3: mean it's like hard to talk about Abigail and Ben's
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 3: relationship because it's like she much like the first movie,
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 3: and I think even more in this one, like just
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 3: behave so irrationally, like not in a way that makes sense,
• 1:31:40
  Speaker 3: And I feel like it's a little if I'm remembering correctly,
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 3: it's a little tighter in the first movie because you're
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 3: meeting her for the first time and so she pushes
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 3: back more. But now it's just like, well, obviously she's
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 3: in love with Nicholas Cage, so we could kind of
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 3: have her do anything, they're gonna end up back together,
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 3: and that feels like maybe why the writing in Helen
• 1:32:02
  Speaker 3: Mirren's character is a little more coherent because we're meeting her,
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 3: but it just their relationship absolutely sucks. She should take
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 3: his big old house and dump him, dump Tibrell, do whatever,
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 3: just don't get back together with this guy. Yeah, this
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 3: is bad.
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 2: I agree.
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 3: You've got your puzzle treasure from movie one. Leave it
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 3: at that which brings us to the treasure. Yes, we
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 3: had a different version of this discussion in our first episode,
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 3: I believe. Yeah, like we were talking about earlier, the
• 1:32:34
  Speaker 3: second that they bring Indigenous American culture into this. You
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 3: know that this Jerry Bruckheimer funded movie is going to
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 3: absolutely fumble, erase, disrespect, not care about Indigenous people or
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 3: indigenous history or redistribution or anything that would make logical
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 3: sense in this situation.
• 1:32:56
  Speaker 2: Right, So here's the I've gathered and keep in mind
• 1:33:04
  Speaker 2: listeners that I'm not a historian or an anthropologist.
• 1:33:08
  Speaker 3: You're a Helen Merrin.
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 2: I have a master's degree in screenwriting from Boston University,
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 2: a fact that I would never mention. Those are my credentials.
• 1:33:16
  Speaker 2: So the information I have is mostly from wiki, pds,
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 2: scholarly journal or just like things I already knew with
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 2: my brain, because.
• 1:33:28
  Speaker 3: With your brain and everything, Because like.
• 1:33:33
  Speaker 2: This movie makes so many missteps that even if you
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 2: have the slightest understanding of geography or time, you would
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 2: know that everything that happens in this movie doesn't make
• 1:33:45
  Speaker 2: any sense. So they find the piece of wood that
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 2: has markings on it that appear in They keep referring
• 1:33:56
  Speaker 2: to it as like an ancient Native American language. Different
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 2: ideas are floated. They're like, oh, it looks Incan or Aztec.
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 2: Later on they say that they think it's Olmec, so
• 1:34:09
  Speaker 2: they're sort of speculating. They think they identify one symbol
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 2: on this piece of wood that means sebola, So they
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 2: look up sibola in a history book of secrets. Not sure,
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 2: but what it says there is that in fifteen twenty seven,
• 1:34:26
  Speaker 2: a Spanish ship wrecked off of the coast of Florida.
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 2: There was one survivor who was a slave named Esteban,
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 2: who saved a tribe's dying chief and as a reward,
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 2: he was taken to the tribe's sacred city built of
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 2: solid gold. And then later when Esteban tried to find
• 1:34:51
  Speaker 2: the city again. He never could, but the legend grew
• 1:34:55
  Speaker 2: and explorers came to the New World in search of
• 1:34:57
  Speaker 2: the city. And so that's like the information that Ben
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 2: and Riley and Patrick and all these characters are working on.
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 2: But they're like, we still don't know what this message means.
• 1:35:09
  Speaker 2: So they take it to an expert in a language
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 2: that they refer to as and I quote ancient Native American,
• 1:35:20
  Speaker 2: as if there is one language shared among all Indigenous
• 1:35:23
  Speaker 2: Americans and that language is called Native American.
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 3: Which, unfortunately, I mean, I don't think I had any
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 3: institutional knowledge to severely questioned as a fourteen year.
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 2: Old like, well no, based on what little we learn
• 1:35:39
  Speaker 2: about indigenous people in American schools.
• 1:35:43
  Speaker 3: I think there are many elements to this becus sound ridiculous,
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 3: but like there are elements to the National Treasure movies
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 3: that just like really clearly illustrate like how vague americans
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 3: general understanding of American history is. Yeah, yeah, this is
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 3: like a really really damning example.
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. So they go to Helen Mirren, who is, you know,
• 1:36:09
  Speaker 2: an expert in the language of quote unquote ancient Native American,
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 2: and they're like, oh, we think it's Olmec, and she's like, yeah,
• 1:36:18
  Speaker 2: I think so. After all their puzzles includes blah blah blah,
• 1:36:22
  Speaker 2: they find the city of Gold under Mount Rushmore, which
• 1:36:27
  Speaker 2: is in South Dakota, famously, So, just to recap and
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 2: put all of this information together, a slave was taken
• 1:36:36
  Speaker 2: to a place off the coast of Florida, which is
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 2: somehow also South Dakota, to a secret city of an
• 1:36:44
  Speaker 2: unspecified indigenous tribe which may or may not have been Olmec,
• 1:36:50
  Speaker 2: which does track for the meso American architecture that we
• 1:36:54
  Speaker 2: see of the City of Gold at the end of
• 1:36:56
  Speaker 2: the movie. But South Dakota and Florida are famously not
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 2: near each other. They're not near each other, nor are
• 1:37:05
  Speaker 2: they meso Americas or American.
• 1:37:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:37:07
  Speaker 2: Also, the Omech people did not inhabit either of those
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 2: places of Florida or South Dakota. And the Olmecs existed
• 1:37:17
  Speaker 2: from fifteen hundred BC to about four hundred BC, meaning
• 1:37:22
  Speaker 2: that they were not around when the conquistadors were coming
• 1:37:26
  Speaker 2: to this region of meso America to colonize and steal
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 2: land and steal materials and gold and all that stuff.
• 1:37:34
  Speaker 3: Brain.
• 1:37:35
  Speaker 2: So when this Spanish ship crashed off the coast of
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 2: Florida in fifteen twenty seven. The Omech people had not
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 2: been around for about two thousand years.
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 3: So this is thank you for doing this research, because
• 1:37:52
  Speaker 3: I knew it was wrong, but I didn't know it
• 1:37:55
  Speaker 3: was that many flavors of wrong.
• 1:37:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And like you said, this is all verytive of
• 1:38:01
  Speaker 2: the way white American culture and our like education system
• 1:38:07
  Speaker 2: number one treats indigenous cultures as a monolith because they
• 1:38:12
  Speaker 2: are like jumping around in time, they're jumping around geographically,
• 1:38:17
  Speaker 2: and they're just saying, well, it's Native American, so it
• 1:38:20
  Speaker 2: doesn't matter that we're referring to a tribe from like
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 2: millennia ago who were in a completely different geographic region.
• 1:38:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah, like doesn't acknowledge any of the diversity within indigenous culture.
• 1:38:32
  Speaker 3: Speaks about Indigenous Americans as if they no longer.
• 1:38:35
  Speaker 2: Exist exactly, yes, and that like.
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 3: White American treasure hunters therefore are entitled to whatever they find,
• 1:38:45
  Speaker 3: which is one of the most colonial pieces of thought
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 3: that exists, is that you can just steal and claim
• 1:38:53
  Speaker 3: it as your own, and that this is an act
• 1:38:55
  Speaker 3: of valor, and this is an act of like that
• 1:38:58
  Speaker 3: you should be out of and profit off of is stealing.
• 1:39:03
  Speaker 3: It's like almost hard to talk about because the story
• 1:39:06
  Speaker 3: you just described is so fucking convoluted. But like I mean,
• 1:39:10
  Speaker 3: and in two thousand and seven, making this for a
• 1:39:13
  Speaker 3: white American audience, which like this movie very clearly is
• 1:39:18
  Speaker 3: written in gibberish, Like there is no doubt in the
• 1:39:22
  Speaker 3: way the movie is presented and in the way that
• 1:39:25
  Speaker 3: in most public American schools is taught that there's anything
• 1:39:29
  Speaker 3: wrong with this that like a white American guy finding
• 1:39:35
  Speaker 3: a treasury that belongs to a culture that is not
• 1:39:37
  Speaker 3: his own, finders keepers it's mine, And this is like
• 1:39:42
  Speaker 3: just colonial logic and the reason that you know, many
• 1:39:46
  Speaker 3: museums exist the way they do, the way the wealth
• 1:39:48
  Speaker 3: is distributed and stolen. I mean, it's just like I'm
• 1:39:51
  Speaker 3: sure we're not saying anything that listeners of this show
• 1:39:54
  Speaker 3: don't know already, but it's just like presented so blatantly
• 1:39:59
  Speaker 3: in a way that I don't even know would be
• 1:40:01
  Speaker 3: possible to do now. But this movie came up fifteen
• 1:40:04
  Speaker 3: years ago, Like it's not an old movie at all,
• 1:40:09
  Speaker 3: and it's so like I don't know, I mean, I
• 1:40:12
  Speaker 3: was really curious, not optimistic of how it would be handled,
• 1:40:18
  Speaker 3: or even if the iconic character the President of the
• 1:40:21
  Speaker 3: United States, the upholder of American white supremacy, would react
• 1:40:26
  Speaker 3: to this piece of information, and like, we don't really know,
• 1:40:30
  Speaker 3: it's unclear what's going to happen at the end, but
• 1:40:32
  Speaker 3: we know that the Gates family will once again profit
• 1:40:34
  Speaker 3: off of it.
• 1:40:36
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. So I'm glad you brought that up, because there's
• 1:40:39
  Speaker 2: that scene when Ben Gates is kidnapping the President and
• 1:40:43
  Speaker 2: the President is loving it and it's getting a horny
• 1:40:47
  Speaker 2: but then he's like, why would I tell you where
• 1:40:48
  Speaker 2: my Book of secrets is? And Ben says, because it
• 1:40:51
  Speaker 2: will probably lead to the discovery of the greatest Native
• 1:40:54
  Speaker 2: American treasure of all time, a huge piece of culture lost,
• 1:41:00
  Speaker 2: and give that history back to its descendants. And you're like, Okay,
• 1:41:05
  Speaker 2: if you do find this treasure, it absolutely should go
• 1:41:09
  Speaker 2: back to the Native people you're trying to steal it from.
• 1:41:13
  Speaker 2: But he's talking about himself, right, Yeah. The ethos of
• 1:41:18
  Speaker 2: this movie is, oh, well, you know Native people in
• 1:41:24
  Speaker 2: the New World, they did have this rich culture, but
• 1:41:29
  Speaker 2: it got left behind somehow. I don't know how that happened,
• 1:41:33
  Speaker 2: but it's ours now to find and to take because
• 1:41:37
  Speaker 2: Native people are a thing of the past and they
• 1:41:39
  Speaker 2: don't exist anymore.
• 1:41:41
  Speaker 3: And we're honoring them by taking this right.
• 1:41:44
  Speaker 2: They're part of history. So this treasure is ours to
• 1:41:48
  Speaker 2: turn into a fun adventure.
• 1:41:51
  Speaker 3: There's no talk of redistributing, I mean not to mention.
• 1:41:56
  Speaker 3: Much like the First National Treasure, it is like essentially
• 1:42:00
  Speaker 3: all white cast There are a handful of black actors
• 1:42:04
  Speaker 3: in minor roles, including a black government worker who's kind
• 1:42:10
  Speaker 3: of bullied for bringing up that. This is during the
• 1:42:16
  Speaker 3: Hotel debacle, but there is a black government employee who
• 1:42:21
  Speaker 3: brings up to a white government employee like there's a
• 1:42:23
  Speaker 3: rumor going on that the hotel that the President of
• 1:42:26
  Speaker 3: the United States wants to hold his birthday at used
• 1:42:29
  Speaker 3: to be a place where the clan would meet, right,
• 1:42:32
  Speaker 3: And the white government employees says, well, is it true,
• 1:42:36
  Speaker 3: and like immediately just starts like giving this guy shit,
• 1:42:41
  Speaker 3: and that black government employee response, it doesn't really matter
• 1:42:46
  Speaker 3: if it's true, we should move the party, and all
• 1:42:49
  Speaker 3: the white government employees get so annoyed they're making like
• 1:42:52
  Speaker 3: it's just like this movie. Yeah, it's doing absolutely I
• 1:42:58
  Speaker 3: mean less than nothing.
• 1:42:59
  Speaker 2: There's another black character who kind of teams up with
• 1:43:03
  Speaker 2: Ed Harris, who again is the descendant of a Confederate
• 1:43:07
  Speaker 2: general who the again, the movie nor any of the
• 1:43:11
  Speaker 2: characters care about question at all. They're like, oh wow,
• 1:43:14
  Speaker 2: a general and an army. Good for him, the same thing,
• 1:43:17
  Speaker 2: but the.
• 1:43:17
  Speaker 3: Way that they like very much excuse the Queen of
• 1:43:21
  Speaker 3: England for being like for being sympathetic to the Confederacy.
• 1:43:25
  Speaker 3: They're like, well, she just didn't want a division in America.
• 1:43:30
  Speaker 3: So and you're like, no, she's racist, Like it's a
• 1:43:35
  Speaker 3: very easily illustrated argument that the Queen of England is racist,
• 1:43:39
  Speaker 3: Like what are you talking about?
• 1:43:43
  Speaker 2: Ugh? Yes, So it really adds insult to injury in
• 1:43:48
  Speaker 2: this movie, in particular with the treasure being this indigenous treasure,
• 1:43:53
  Speaker 2: this indigenous city on stolen land, where the people going
• 1:43:58
  Speaker 2: after this treasure are all white, and many of them
• 1:44:01
  Speaker 2: are from a family who was descended from people who
• 1:44:07
  Speaker 2: were actively colonizing the New World and taking the land
• 1:44:13
  Speaker 2: and lives of the indigenous people who centuries later would
• 1:44:17
  Speaker 2: steal this treasure from because like we cut to like,
• 1:44:22
  Speaker 2: I guess the government excavating this city and they don't
• 1:44:26
  Speaker 2: even seem to be doing it properly. Because Helen Mirren's like,
• 1:44:29
  Speaker 2: are you cataloging this and they're just like nope, And
• 1:44:33
  Speaker 2: so you just like have all of these like white
• 1:44:36
  Speaker 2: American federal government people like infiltrating this place, and then has.
• 1:44:41
  Speaker 3: Turned into this weird joke where it's like, instead of
• 1:44:46
  Speaker 3: acknowledging that the American government does not give a shit
• 1:44:49
  Speaker 3: about Indigenous history, it cuts to John Voight, the King
• 1:44:54
  Speaker 3: of Republicans, being like, you should have tried buying a
• 1:44:57
  Speaker 3: couch with this lady. And I was like, oh my god,
• 1:44:59
  Speaker 3: what the hell are we doing here?
• 1:45:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, what's going on? Yes, So all of that absolutely sucks. Yeah,
• 1:45:09
  Speaker 2: and that's all I have to say about this movie.
• 1:45:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, in terms of any sort of progressivism,
• 1:45:18
  Speaker 3: this movie is doing less than nothing. It is, truly,
• 1:45:20
  Speaker 3: I think, one of the most jingoistic franchises of our generation.
• 1:45:25
  Speaker 3: And in that way, I think if we're being you know,
• 1:45:29
  Speaker 3: like just sort of legacy wise, it makes it worse
• 1:45:33
  Speaker 3: that they're not straight up bad movies. It makes it
• 1:45:35
  Speaker 3: worse that they're fun to watch, because it's like, if
• 1:45:37
  Speaker 3: these movies go down easy and they're the romp is Undeniable.
• 1:45:42
  Speaker 2: Ten out of ton on the rampometer. You can't deny it.
• 1:45:45
  Speaker 3: Then it's much easier to accept and glaze over, which
• 1:45:50
  Speaker 3: like we have done in the course of this episode,
• 1:45:52
  Speaker 3: because it is a fun movie to watch and its
• 1:45:55
  Speaker 3: core message is empty and baseless. It's not so anything
• 1:46:00
  Speaker 3: new in terms of like the emptiness of how American
• 1:46:03
  Speaker 3: history is viewed. It feels like it's ill. It's just
• 1:46:06
  Speaker 3: illustrates how ingrained the sort of white supremacist line of
• 1:46:11
  Speaker 3: thinking is in America that you can build a big,
• 1:46:14
  Speaker 3: goofy action movie around it, And at least at the time,
• 1:46:18
  Speaker 3: there was not a big questioning of the way that
• 1:46:22
  Speaker 3: history is presented, where it's like understood that it's not
• 1:46:24
  Speaker 3: a documentary, as I've argued it, but it's also like
• 1:46:29
  Speaker 3: not presented. But the things that it was picked apart for.
• 1:46:33
  Speaker 3: I went through some of the original reviews. The historical
• 1:46:36
  Speaker 3: inaccuracies that's pulled apart for are not the ones we
• 1:46:39
  Speaker 3: just discussed, right, They are like, well, actually, this guy
• 1:46:44
  Speaker 3: that believes in the Confederacy actually believed in this version
• 1:46:47
  Speaker 3: of the Confederacy, And you're like, that's not the thing
• 1:46:49
  Speaker 3: we should really be putting a big old hell and
• 1:46:52
  Speaker 3: mirror magnifying glass. To remember the scene where she has
• 1:46:55
  Speaker 3: a big old magnifying glass.
• 1:46:56
  Speaker 2: Oh wow.
• 1:46:57
  Speaker 3: Anyways, yeah, this I mean, and and it doesn't pass
• 1:47:01
  Speaker 3: the backtel test. Not for nothing. It doesn't pass the
• 1:47:03
  Speaker 3: back to test. No, and I have to give it
• 1:47:06
  Speaker 3: no nipples. I think, I think I have to give
• 1:47:08
  Speaker 3: it none.
• 1:47:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree, zero nipples on our nipple scale, in
• 1:47:12
  Speaker 2: which we examine the movie on a scale of zero
• 1:47:15
  Speaker 2: to five nipples based on looking at it through an
• 1:47:18
  Speaker 2: intersectional feminist lens, but based on everything we've discussed, as
• 1:47:23
  Speaker 2: far as the piss poor treatment of the characters who
• 1:47:28
  Speaker 2: are women.
• 1:47:29
  Speaker 3: The blatant disregard for history.
• 1:47:32
  Speaker 2: There's not a single Native person in the movie.
• 1:47:36
  Speaker 3: That revolves around a native treasure. We can't give you
• 1:47:39
  Speaker 3: more information because, as you just explained, Kalen, it doesn't
• 1:47:42
  Speaker 3: make any fucking sense. And unfortunately it's a very fun
• 1:47:46
  Speaker 3: movie to watch in many ways. Yeah, there's really not
• 1:47:49
  Speaker 3: I don't know. I like, I really it's true. I
• 1:47:52
  Speaker 3: hope that our listeners like enjoy listening to these episodes.
• 1:47:56
  Speaker 3: These movies are so incoherent, they're very goofy, but also
• 1:47:59
  Speaker 3: like we want to acknowledge, you know, the kind of
• 1:48:02
  Speaker 3: ideology that they're reinforcing. Yeah, because that does still happen
• 1:48:06
  Speaker 3: in movies for sure. And I feel like the action
• 1:48:09
  Speaker 3: genre is sort of a very common offender of this
• 1:48:13
  Speaker 3: specific kind of misrepresentation.
• 1:48:16
  Speaker 2: Especially this subgenre, because we've treasure hunting, Yeah, the treasure hunting,
• 1:48:21
  Speaker 2: and even in like the Dora episode, it like does
• 1:48:24
  Speaker 2: a slightly better job at handling this, but it still
• 1:48:27
  Speaker 2: fumbled a lot of stuff. So these like, yeah, adventure
• 1:48:32
  Speaker 2: go on a quest to find treasure movies almost always completely.
• 1:48:38
  Speaker 3: Is taken from another culture that the movie has no
• 1:48:40
  Speaker 3: interest in.
• 1:48:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah for sure.
• 1:48:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so zero nipples, no nipples, a million Bruckheimer teeth.
• 1:48:49
  Speaker 2: Forty seven pages of secrets in a book who knows?
• 1:48:55
  Speaker 3: Who knows? Anyways, we hope that you enjoyed this episode.
• 1:49:01
  Speaker 3: Are not annual because we I mean, unfortunately it's all
• 1:49:04
  Speaker 3: over the place in movies, but our you know, jingoistic
• 1:49:08
  Speaker 3: nonsense movie of the Year, National Treasure two Book of Secrets.
• 1:49:13
  Speaker 3: If you know it was on page forty seven, hit
• 1:49:16
  Speaker 3: us up.
• 1:49:16
  Speaker 2: Please, And the places you could hit us up, for
• 1:49:21
  Speaker 2: example are Twitter and Instagram.
• 1:49:23
  Speaker 3: If you know it's on page forty seven, yeah, we
• 1:49:26
  Speaker 3: where you can follow us at Bechtel Cast.
• 1:49:29
  Speaker 2: You can subscribe to our Patreon aka Matreon. You get
• 1:49:35
  Speaker 2: five sorry, you get two bonus episodes every month for
• 1:49:39
  Speaker 2: five dollars, as well as the back catalog of something
• 1:49:44
  Speaker 2: like one hundred and almost one hundred and fifty fifty
• 1:49:47
  Speaker 2: or so. And yeah, we're having a hell of a
• 1:49:49
  Speaker 2: time over there. We just wrapped up.
• 1:49:52
  Speaker 3: Junion Month, which is our union themed episodes. We do
• 1:49:58
  Speaker 3: an in depth explainer of the WGA strike, and we
• 1:50:02
  Speaker 3: also covered newsies and there's there's more some of fun
• 1:50:07
  Speaker 3: to come over on the Matreon, So please join us
• 1:50:10
  Speaker 3: over there. And in the meantime, I'm gonna go to
• 1:50:14
  Speaker 3: borders to get a copy of a story that's definitely open,
• 1:50:17
  Speaker 3: to get a copy of my man Riley's book. He's
• 1:50:20
  Speaker 3: got to move copies. Someone's got to read it, someone's
• 1:50:24
  Speaker 3: got to read it. On some page forty seven of
• 1:50:26
  Speaker 3: Riley's book, literally no one knows, no one's ever gotten
• 1:50:28
  Speaker 3: that far except Hervey Kaitel, What.
• 1:50:32
  Speaker 2: A good friend. I'm gonna crack open a bottle of
• 1:50:36
  Speaker 2: aquafina and.
• 1:50:38
  Speaker 3: Bored on the nearest rock God that there is the
• 1:50:43
  Speaker 3: moment where, like these movies at the midpoint they just could.
• 1:50:46
  Speaker 3: It's so brain dead that you're just like, oh, they're
• 1:50:49
  Speaker 3: gonna pour water on a rock? Yeah, brilliant, Sure, God
• 1:50:52
  Speaker 3: fucking damn it.
• 1:50:53
  Speaker 2: Well, I guess they ran out of good ideas.
• 1:50:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah, this which this movie is full of. Oh I
• 1:50:58
  Speaker 3: would like to just quickly one more time, shout out
• 1:51:02
  Speaker 3: Nicholas Cage arguing with the child added nothing to the movie,
• 1:51:05
  Speaker 3: but added a lot to my life.
• 1:51:07
  Speaker 2: Oh and hey, while we're speaking of books, you should
• 1:51:12
  Speaker 2: read Rod Dog. Everyone you haven't.
• 1:51:14
  Speaker 3: Already dog, Yes, it's true.
• 1:51:17
  Speaker 2: It is what secrets are in that book of it
• 1:51:21
  Speaker 2: looks secrets.
• 1:51:22
  Speaker 3: Page forty seven of Raw Dog. Oh, baby, you don't
• 1:51:25
  Speaker 3: even want to wait. Actually, let's find out. I've got
• 1:51:29
  Speaker 3: a copy right here. Amazing, Okay, page forty seven. This
• 1:51:34
  Speaker 3: is what they don't want you to know. Forty seven.
• 1:51:38
  Speaker 3: Oh it's it's the whole page about an anthropomorphized pickle
• 1:51:42
  Speaker 3: named garlic. Joe. Yes, I read about Joe. That's my
• 1:51:48
  Speaker 3: book of secrets.
• 1:51:49
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 1:51:50
  Speaker 3: Check it out. You can get it wherever books are sold.
• 1:51:52
  Speaker 3: And it's pretty anti America. Helly, And with
• 1:51:57
  Speaker 2: That, happy summer bye,