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The Westing Game · This Film is Lit

• 0:04
  Speaker A: This Film is Lit, the podcast where we finally settle the score on one simple. Is the book really better than the movie? I'm Brian and I have a film degree, so I watch the movie but don't read the book.
• 0:15
  Speaker B: And I'm Katie. I have an English degree, so I do things the right way and read the book before we watch the movie.
• 0:22
  Speaker A: So prepare to be wowed by our expertise and charm as we dissect all of your favorite film adaptations and decide if the silver screen the or the written word did it better. So turn it up, settle in, and get ready for spoilers because this film is lit. So take stock in America, my heirs, and sing in praise of this generous land. You too may strike it rich. Who dares to play? It's the Westing game. And this film is. Is lit. Hello and welcome back to this Film Is Late, the podcast where we're talking about movies that are based on books. For the first time in a while. Well, not that long ago, we had it for.
• 1:13
  Speaker B: We had. Guess who for the last one. You did.
• 1:16
  Speaker A: Yeah. Edge of Tomorrow.
• 1:18
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:19
  Speaker A: But for the first time in a while, other than that, we have every single one of our segments, so. So we will jump right in if you have not read or watched the Westing Game. We're gonna give you a brief summary right now. Let me spare. No, there is too much. Let me sum up. Where did you get this summary?
• 1:35
  Speaker B: I got that summary from the Wikipedia page for the novel.
• 1:39
  Speaker A: Okay. I was about to say there was
• 1:40
  Speaker B: not a summary on the movie page.
• 1:42
  Speaker A: Yes. The movie does not have a summary on Wikipedia and this is probably because it would be impossible.
• 1:46
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:47
  Speaker A: Based on.
• 1:47
  Speaker B: This is also like, not so much a summary as it is like a premise.
• 1:53
  Speaker A: On the 4th of July, 16 strangers receive personal invitations to rent apartments in the new Sunset Towers apartment complex, a luxurious property on Lake Michigan adjacent to wealthy businessman Samuel W. Westing's mansion. Westing made his fortune in the paper business and is rumored to be worth 200 million. The salesman, Barney Northrup, gives personalized attention to each potential resident, all of whom accept. In October, residents begin to hear rumors that Samuel Westing has died, but that his corpse remains in the mansion. Tabitha Ruth Turtle Wexler, a highly intelligent 13 year old with a habit of kicking people in the shin if they touch her braid. That. Okay. Accepts a dare to enter the presumably empty mansion. She leaves the mansion in terror after finding Westing's body in the bedroom and hearing strange noises, which no one believes. Shortly afterwards, news breaks of Westing's death And all the residents are invited to a reading of the will. The will claims that Westing was murdered by one of them, but that each is still a named potential heir to his fortune and company. It stipulates that they must work in pairs to solve Westing's puzzle and locate his murderer. And yeah, that. You're right, because that doesn't obviously reveal everything that happened. Yeah, they figure it all out. We'll talk about it. All right. We do have a guess who this week. Let's do it. Who are you? No one of consequence. I must know. Get used to disappointment.
• 3:16
  Speaker B: Her clothes were black, her skin dead white. She looked severe, rigid, in fact. Rigid and righteously severe. She must have been a handsome woman at one time, but life had used her harshly. Her faded hair, knotted in a tight bun at the nape of her gaunt neck, glinted red gold in the light.
• 3:38
  Speaker A: I. I have no idea. I'm gonna say that this just based on it being an older woman and who might make sense because she's like the most important main character woman is Erica. I don't remember their names. Bertha. Yeah, that character.
• 4:00
  Speaker B: Mrs. Crow.
• 4:01
  Speaker A: Crow. That was the last name. Erica Bertha Crow. Right. That's her. Yeah, her.
• 4:04
  Speaker B: Yeah, that is her.
• 4:05
  Speaker A: Okay. Doesn't really like remind me of her
• 4:09
  Speaker B: in the movie, but a tall black woman in a tailored suit, her short clipped hair touched with gray, slipped out from behind the wheel.
• 4:17
  Speaker A: Okay, well, there's one tall black woman in this movie and she does wear a suit because she's a judge. And so I'm going to say this is the judge.
• 4:24
  Speaker B: Yes, the judge. Judge J.J. ford.
• 4:28
  Speaker A: J.J. that's right. Yes.
• 4:30
  Speaker B: She was not a heavy woman, just wide hipped from years of secretarial sitting. Her green rhinestone studded glasses slipped down her fleshy nose as she grappled with the tall triangular package.
• 4:43
  Speaker A: Secretarial sitting green rhinestone glasses. Okay, so the other people I think this could be would obviously be her mom, Turtle's mom. Another option would be that other lady. Yeah, it's that other lady. I can't remember her name. Cause she has crazy glasses and they. Oh, gosh.
• 5:03
  Speaker B: What, what does she do? Give me something to go off of.
• 5:07
  Speaker A: Oh, she doesn't do a bunch. And there's so many characters in this that are all just like occasionally in the lady with the glasses who talks kind of crazy. And what does she do? I genuinely don't remember her name or her relation to anything, but she. At one point, I remember a scene she's in is where Turtle and her are talking in the mirror. They're filmed in a mirror and she gives her her clues or whatever that character. I don't know her name.
• 5:39
  Speaker B: You're actually right about this one too. Her name is Cydel Pulaski.
• 5:44
  Speaker A: I would never have gotten that at all. I don't know if they say her name in the movie, to be fair.
• 5:50
  Speaker B: I don't know. The stocky, broad shouldered man stood with his feet spread, fists on hips. He pushed back to the gold braided cap and squinted at the house through his steel framed glasses.
• 6:05
  Speaker A: Stocky, broad shoulder man, fists on hips. Fish back, gold braided cap. Then this, I would say would probably be the doorman. This would be. Which was Northrop.
• 6:17
  Speaker B: You're right that it's the doorman. The doorman was Sandy McCarthy.
• 6:20
  Speaker A: That's right. That's Sandy McSetta. Yeah. I'm sorry, I couldn't. I got him. They're all the same guy, so I'll
• 6:24
  Speaker B: get them all the same guys.
• 6:25
  Speaker A: Which one's which? But yes, the. The doorman one.
• 6:28
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 6:28
  Speaker A: Because just. That was purely based on the gold braided cap. Because he had like. Yeah, like a. A doorman's cap. So four. See, that's incredible because I felt like this movie, despite not knowing anyone's names. Yeah. Or what happened at all in this movie, which we're gonna get to right now because boy, do I have questions for was Gaston.
• 6:48
  Speaker B: May I have my book, please?
• 6:49
  Speaker A: How can you read this?
• 6:51
  Speaker B: There's no pictures. Well, some people use their imagination.
• 6:54
  Speaker A: If you didn't watch this, it's gonna be incomprehensible. I watched it and I still don't know half of what I'm gonna be talking about in this episode. This movie was incomprehensible, in my opinion.
• 7:07
  Speaker B: This movie was a mess.
• 7:08
  Speaker A: It was a complete mess. It felt like I thought I had this. What this felt like to me felt like watching a knives out movie where half of the scenes had been removed and they don't. Which half? Like half of the.
• 7:22
  Speaker B: I mean that. That is accurate. The book is a murder mystery and ostensibly so is the film.
• 7:30
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 7:30
  Speaker B: But yeah, it is. Like half of it is missing.
• 7:33
  Speaker A: Yeah. It feels like so much is missing that I was just like at the end I kind of put it all together, what was going on, but barely. And boy, how we got there, I couldn't even begin to tell you. But I'm gonna try to ask questions about it. So let's do it. Which starts with. When the film opens, we see Turtle dressed as a witch. And this film Opens on Halloween, and I wanted to know if the book took place or at least. And initially I was asking if it took place on Halloween. We moved past Halloween pretty quickly. But does it start on taking place or does Halloween occur during the story? And does our main character dress up as a witch?
• 8:08
  Speaker B: Okay, so similar to the movie, the book starts with various residents touring the apartments at Sunset Towers. And then the story proper does begin on Halloween after everybody has already moved in.
• 8:22
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 8:24
  Speaker B: Turtle, our main character, is dressed as a witch for Halloween. This movie came out in 1997, and it's also set in 1997, which we know from Sam Westing's gravestone.
• 8:37
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 8:38
  Speaker B: And I think I had that exact same witch wig on Halloween in 1997.
• 8:43
  Speaker A: Very possible. They probably got it. The budget for this wasn't huge. They probably went to the local Halloween store. It's probably a very easy to acquire Halloween queenwig from this time period. Yeah. Yeah. All right. But speaking of our main character, Turtle, kind of the initial. One of the initial things the movie sets up is that she's very. They had to move. They moved to the. The. Whatever they're called, apartments, the West Sunset. Sunset Towers from their house, and they have to move into the city. And she's very upset about this. And that's kind of like the main thrust of her initially is that she, like, doesn't understand. She's mad at all adults because her parents, like, won't tell her what's going on and don't, you know, basically, it's the classic, like, I'm a kid. Why are adults like that? They suck. And I wanted to know if that was, like, kind of how the book sets up her character initially.
• 9:34
  Speaker B: So this was not a vibe that I picked up on at all. In the book. Turtle starts out as kind of like the black sheep of her family.
• 9:42
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 9:43
  Speaker B: Her mother has a very clear preference for her older sister Angela, who is like, the definition of the perfect golden child. Turtle's biggest beef with living at Sunset Towers in the book is that her bedroom, quote unquote, is actually a closet.
• 10:00
  Speaker A: Oh.
• 10:00
  Speaker B: Because it was a two bedroom apartment. And so the parents got one bedroom and Angela gets the other bedroom and Turtle gets the closet.
• 10:07
  Speaker A: Fair. Okay. Then we cut forward an indiscriminate amount of time. And this is one of the things that made me very confused initially was probably the movie's biggest issue was the setup was all explained in 30 seconds in the opening monologue. And it felt. And I didn't realize they had been there for, like, months. Or something when most of the story happens, because I was like, I didn't. I thought they had just moved in. But then we have all this stuff where they seem to know all the other people there. And I was very confused. And that was just the movie, I think, cutting out way too much in the first act where I was like, what? But we jump forward and we get. Turtle is hanging out with three random adult men. And I was like, why is she hanging out with these three men? And why are they betting her to spend time in the haunted Westing Mansion? What is going on here? Does that happen in the book? What's going on?
• 11:04
  Speaker B: So this. Yeah, kind of. It does. It does happen in the book. It's a little different. I think it comes off less weird in the book than what you're describing
• 11:13
  Speaker A: here, because it just cuts. They seem to have just arrived at the apartment. Then we cut, and she is just like hanging out with these three men we've never seen before.
• 11:21
  Speaker B: Right?
• 11:21
  Speaker A: I think we've seen the doorman. But what, you know, like, basically had never seen before, like, what's going on here?
• 11:27
  Speaker B: So one of the things is that you. In the book, you get a better sense that they all know each other from having lived in the same building
• 11:35
  Speaker A: for several months that I didn't. Yeah.
• 11:38
  Speaker B: The other thing is, is that this scene starts out with Sandy the doorman Otis, who in the book is a 62 year old delivery boy. In the movie, he's.
• 11:51
  Speaker A: Is he the handyman?
• 11:52
  Speaker B: He looks like the handyman. It seems like. So the Sandy Otis. And then the two teenage boys, Doug and Theo. And Theo got cut from the movie. He's not in the movie, but Doug is there in the movie. Who's the.
• 12:06
  Speaker A: Yeah, he's the son of the Chinese restaurant owner. Yes.
• 12:12
  Speaker B: So it starts out with those four, and they're staring up at the Westinghouse because smoke has started coming out of the chimney, which is notable because the house had been long abandoned and nobody saw anyone go in that just like smoke starts coming out of the chimney. So they're looking up at the house and then Turtle pulls up on her bike and Otis starts recounting a ghost story about Mr. Westing dying in the house, which he says later that he does this because it was Halloween, but he's also depicted as much more of, like, a kooky old man in the book than what the movie does. So part of this story, this, like, scary story that he recounts, is that there was a group of kids that had gone inside on a bet. To stay inside for five minutes for a dollar, and then got scared so badly that they never spoke again. Like classic ghost story stuff.
• 13:04
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 13:05
  Speaker B: And then turtle replies, make it $2 per minute, I'm in there and you're on. But the bet is later implied to be more with Doug and Theo, who are much closer to her age and not Sandy and Otis.
• 13:18
  Speaker A: Yeah. Cause yeah, in the movie it's like the one guy who's a teen. The one kid, Doug, who's like a significantly older teenager. Also, I don't think she looks 13 in the movie to me. She looks more like 10 or something in the movie.
• 13:31
  Speaker B: Yeah, I agree.
• 13:33
  Speaker A: And then the. The Doug looks to be like a 17 year old kid, so he's not even that close to her age in the movie, and he's the closest. And then it's just two old ass men, so I was like, what? Why are they. What is happening? And again, the movie doesn't do any of this setup other than just. They're just there together when he's kind of doing this backstory and everything. Okay, well, that actually brings me to a question. And. Well, a second question and then a question I just popped into my head based on that question that I just had as I thought more about it, which is, does she. She goes in the house and then while she's in there, she discovers Westing's body. In the movie, an old man falls out of like a cupboard and his body's on the ground. She freaks out and run out. And then later we cut, and they're like, oh, they found Westing dead. And whatever is. Does that happen in the book?
• 14:19
  Speaker B: So yes, she does find Westing's body or what she thinks is his body because it's later revealed to be a wax figure. Because spoilers, he's not actually dead, Right? But he doesn't fall out of a closet. She sees his body purportedly, like in the bed. Okay, and then your second question about
• 14:44
  Speaker A: guessing what my question's gonna be.
• 14:46
  Speaker B: No, you asked another question.
• 14:48
  Speaker A: What was my other question?
• 14:49
  Speaker B: You said, does she find the body? And then like, later on, is there a newspaper announcement? Right.
• 14:56
  Speaker A: Oh, yeah. Well, and then just not even a newspaper, but just does then like, because they all start talking about how west they. She found Westing dead. She's talking. There's a newspaper. She's talking about it with her friends and family and stuff. And like, they're like, oh, yeah, you found Westing dead in his house or whatever. Is that.
• 15:11
  Speaker B: Yes, there is an announcement the next day that he was found dead. Okay, I have more on that later.
• 15:17
  Speaker A: Okay. Because my question that just popped into my head was what? I. I hadn't think about this watching the movie, but I was. I just realized, like, it makes no sense that they thought the house was a abandoned. What did they think had happened to Westing? That when she discovers his body, they're like, oh, yeah, that's him and he's dead. But they had thought the house had been abandoned forever. So I didn't think about this until just now. And I'm like, wait, what?
• 15:44
  Speaker B: So the lore of Sam Westing, as we're told in the book, is that some years prior he had gotten into this like, horrific car accident.
• 15:55
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 15:55
  Speaker B: And needed like totally reconstructive surgery.
• 15:59
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 16:00
  Speaker B: And then nobody saw him after that. So the rumor was that he like, went off to live on like, you know, a tropical island. The kind of thing that a horribly wealthy person does.
• 16:14
  Speaker A: Right.
• 16:15
  Speaker B: And that he probably has. Has died since then, but nobody's seen him. And then the ghost story that Otis tells, I think we're supposed to assume he has just made up.
• 16:27
  Speaker A: Yeah, ye.
• 16:28
  Speaker B: You know, it's just like a spooky story about like, oh, the kids went in the abandoned mansion and the corpse of the owner was lying on the rug.
• 16:36
  Speaker A: Right? Yeah, Yeah, I would. Yeah.
• 16:40
  Speaker B: But then Turtle goes in, she sees what she assumes is his corpse, and then the next day in the newspapers, it's announced that Sam Westing was found dead in his mansion.
• 16:51
  Speaker A: Okay, yeah, that was just confusing because I was like, well, it's. Again, it seemed like they thought the mansion was abandoned. And so, like, I think they did.
• 16:59
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 17:00
  Speaker A: Yeah, okay, sure, that's fine. Because, like. Because it's like, I guess nobody asked, like, okay, so how long was he dead? And we. We. Years. There's not been a person known to be living. It doesn't matter. But like, I was just thinking about, like, if it were to have actually. And again, we all know he didn't die and this is all employee or whatever, so it doesn't really matter. But fine, whatever. I'm not. I'm not gonna try to. Yeah, that's fine. So they all get it, then invited in the movie to Westing's will reading. And I wanted to know if that happened in the book and also if the. If during that will reading they. He sets up his. The Westing game in the same way. If, like, that's how it all plays out and this is kind of a Lost in adaptation, why were they invited? Why are they Heirs. Why is her and, like, these people that don't know this guy, his heirs.
• 17:52
  Speaker B: Okay, so I, like, already have a little bit of a headache.
• 17:57
  Speaker A: I already have a headache. I'm sorry. Yeah.
• 18:00
  Speaker B: So the answer is yes. Everyone in the building is invited to the reading of the will, and they are all named as potential heirs, with the exception of Theo and Chris's parents, who I don't think we ever see in the movie. So that doesn't matter.
• 18:14
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 18:16
  Speaker B: The setup is.
• 18:17
  Speaker A: Theo's not in the movie, right?
• 18:18
  Speaker B: And Theo is also not in the movie.
• 18:20
  Speaker A: Chris is the.
• 18:21
  Speaker B: Theo is Chris's speech impediment. Yes. So the setup is the same. They read the will and the. Everyone is put into pairs, and they get clues to solve the mystery in order to actually get the inheritance.
• 18:37
  Speaker A: Right.
• 18:38
  Speaker B: And the scene with the reading of the will is truncated, but I did recognize most, if not all of the lines from the will. Okay, so the question of why they're all. We don't know that at first. We're like, we don't know anything more than they do.
• 18:55
  Speaker A: So it's like a classic. Because the movie does a bad job of doing this, but it's like a classic, like. Like clue where we don't know why all.
• 19:03
  Speaker B: We don't know how they're all connected, but they are.
• 19:06
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 19:06
  Speaker B: And it's revealed throughout the book the different, like, connections that they all have to Sam Westing or to the Westing
• 19:13
  Speaker A: estate the movie did a horrible job of setting up that they are not actually. Like, I couldn't tell until eventually I kind of sussed out, like, oh, I guess they're doing, like, a clue thing where it's. We don't know how all these people know Westing or whatever, what their relationship is, and that's, like, part of the mystery. But they do such a bad job of one, explaining that off the jump that we. That these people don't like that we don't know that these people have whatever their relationship to Westing. But then on top of that, they do such a bad job of explaining half the people's relationship to Westing over the course of the movie that I never was sure what. Anyways, okay, that at least kind of I can put that together and make that make sense in my head of what was going on there. Just mentioned it. But does Turtle's partner, Chris, does he have a speech impediment? And holy shit, Turtle. You can't just ask a guy, what's wrong with you? Does she ask him that in the. In the book.
• 20:10
  Speaker B: She doesn't know a couple of things here. So, like I said, Chris is in the book. He is in a wheelchair, and he does have some kind of medical condition that the book is pretty vague about.
• 20:25
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 20:25
  Speaker B: We see that he has trouble speaking. He also has, I think epileptic spasms would be the correct way to refer to.
• 20:35
  Speaker A: He has, like, motor issues of some sort.
• 20:38
  Speaker B: And we're told that he was not born with this condition, but that it set in a few years prior and has gotten steadily worse.
• 20:45
  Speaker A: Could be like Ms. Or something.
• 20:47
  Speaker B: Could be. But by the end of the book, Chris has received some kind of experimental treatment and he's still in a wheelchair, but he no longer struggles to speak.
• 20:56
  Speaker A: Oh, okay.
• 20:57
  Speaker B: Wikipedia says that he has a degenerative muscle disease. I don't think. I. I don't think that's ever stated outright in the text, but that might be accurate based on the symptoms. But I am not a medical professional, so I. I don't.
• 21:10
  Speaker A: But also, it was written in 1970.
• 21:13
  Speaker B: Yeah, 1978. Yeah.
• 21:15
  Speaker A: A lot less knowledge about medical. That kind of stuff back then, anyways. So.
• 21:19
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And the. The like. And the experimental treatment that they talk about in the book could have been like, I guess, wishful thinking on the part of the author that, like, oh, maybe we. Maybe we will come in up with some kind of treatment for this. So moving on from that, the other thing that I want to talk about is that in the book, Turtle is not partnered with Chris. Her partner is an older woman named Flora Baumbach, who did not make it into the movie. I do think that we see her briefly in the background of the scene where she's with Angela and they're at, like, a wedding dress boutique or something.
• 22:05
  Speaker A: Right.
• 22:05
  Speaker B: Because Mrs. Baumbach is a dressmaker in the book, and she is making Angela's wedding dress. So I think we see her briefly in the background for the movie, but for all intents and purposes, she does not make it into the film, which was a disappointing change for me.
• 22:21
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 22:22
  Speaker B: Because a huge part of the book is that pretty much everyone starts out unhappy, but because the Westing game forces them into these kind of unconventional friendships, they all end up in a better place by the end of the story.
• 22:39
  Speaker A: Yeah, I can see that conceit making sense and being a thing, but again, the movie does not.
• 22:45
  Speaker B: No, the movie does.
• 22:45
  Speaker A: Nothing remotely set that up. Again, you can kind of see elements of it, like the whole thing where Turtle's mom and Mr. Who or whatever, like, work together to like.
• 22:56
  Speaker B: To like, save his restaurant.
• 22:57
  Speaker A: Save his restaurant. Yeah, I was like, what is going on there? It was so strange. But that, like, I can see that that comes from this, I assume.
• 23:04
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 23:05
  Speaker A: This idea of like. Okay, okay.
• 23:07
  Speaker B: So for Turtle, what she really needed at the beginning of the story was a mother who cared about her and paid attention to her.
• 23:14
  Speaker A: Oh, interesting.
• 23:15
  Speaker B: And Mrs. Baumbach had lost her daughter years before and was sad and lonely, so they end up like filling those needs for each other. And it's actually very sweet.
• 23:25
  Speaker A: Yeah, no, that sounds. Yeah, that could be. It's interesting because I feel like the movie doesn't really set up any sort of issues with the relationship with her mom. Now a little bit. There's a little bit of like she feels, you know, not like her mom cares more about Angela or whatever because of the wedding and stuff, but like, it doesn't seem like super like what you're explaining here, like her mom, like, genuinely doesn't pay attention to her or whatever.
• 23:48
  Speaker B: Yeah, it's kind of intense at the beginning of the book. And her mom does, like, her mom gets a lot better as the story progresses. And they all undergo like kind of smallish character arcs.
• 24:00
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 24:00
  Speaker B: But yeah, kind of the whole point was that they needed these, like, to be friends with these people that they otherwise would not have been friends with.
• 24:09
  Speaker A: Got it. Makes sense. I'm assuming not, but is there anything with the computer? So in the movie, Chris has this computer that he uses one to. They. They enter the clues into and have 1997 chat GPT.
• 24:22
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 24:23
  Speaker A: Cross referen the words and the clues to narrow down what the solution could be or what. It's nonsense, but whatever, there's that. And then also eventually he starts playing a game of virtual chess. He says over the modem with some mysterious person. And I wanted to know if the. I assume not because I knew the book came out in 1978, if there's anything with the computer. And if not, then what? That's a stand in for like what the equivalent is or what.
• 24:52
  Speaker B: So you are correct to assume that there's nothing with a computer in this book. Like we said, this book was published in 78. Not that there weren't computers, but, you know, not in the average teenager's bedroom in 1978. Yeah, the thing where they're doing like the word search, there's nothing equivalent to that in the book. The chess game does come from the book.
• 25:20
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 25:21
  Speaker B: But it's Theo who is playing chess when they go to the.
• 25:26
  Speaker A: Yeah, I thought I had a question about that. Do I Not have a question about that. The chess game? If not, then I definitely wanted to ask that. I don't think so, because I assume they're playing. He's playing correspondence chess or something. Or is he? Not in the book.
• 25:38
  Speaker B: So in the book, what happens is that when they go to the Westing Mansion for the initial reading of the will, Chris's brother Theo, who again, is not in the movie, notices that one of the pieces has been moved. So he goes and, like, moves another piece to, like, match the piece that has, like, to start playing. And then, like, continues to move pieces throughout the evening, but he can never figure out who's moving the other pieces. Like, he can't catch them at it.
• 26:08
  Speaker A: Yeah. So it's almost like correspondence.
• 26:10
  Speaker B: But not quite. Yeah, not quite. And then. But when they go back to the Westing Mansion at the end of the story for everybody to give their answers of who they think the murderer is, he starts doing it again, but this time he taps in Doug to watch so that they can figure out who it is who's moving the pieces.
• 26:32
  Speaker A: Okay, I see.
• 26:34
  Speaker B: They learn to work together.
• 26:35
  Speaker A: Look at that. Amazing. So after all the. When the game is announced, they're all split into pairs. They get envelopes full of clues, and they eat each. Each group has an envelope full of four clues that are just random words. But after you see the second set of words, it's very clear to anybody who grew up in American elementary education, K through 8 education, that the. The words are the lyrics to the song America the Beautiful. And I wanted to know if that came from the book.
• 27:07
  Speaker B: It does. Everyone gets an envelope with four clues in it, which are all words or parts of words from America the Beautiful. Now, I feel like it's a little less obvious in the book than it is in the movie, but I'm also probably a bad judge of that because I had already read the book and
• 27:24
  Speaker A: I knew that, yeah, I could have. I don't know. It would be hard to tell. I will say it wouldn't be super obvious if you just had one of the sets of clues, but as soon as we see that second set of clues, I was like, even the first one, I was like, this might be words from America the Beautiful. As soon as you saw the second one, I was like, those are words from America the Beautiful. Not that it really necessarily does anything until you get more than that, but.
• 27:43
  Speaker B: Yeah, right. But also, I think it probably is supposed to be a little bit obvious because this is a book for children. So I think there is meant to Be some element of like, dramatic irony where the reader knows what all of the clues are and can figure it out. But the characters are so hung up on trying to turn the clues into the name of one of the other players that they can't see what's right in front of their faces.
• 28:07
  Speaker A: Yeah, no, it makes sense. I don't think it's. Yeah, it is. I was watching the movie, I was like, oh, oh, God. It's very obviously America the Beautiful. And they never figure. It takes them forever to figure it out. But again, it's a puzzle for kids. So, like, I understand that it's fine that it's pretty easy.
• 28:23
  Speaker B: And that also kind of hinges on like at the end of the book, kind of the big moment is where they all come together to like, pool their clues and say, like, oh, it's America the Beautiful.
• 28:37
  Speaker A: Right. Does it the plotline happen in the movie? Similar where they start getting the clues from where Turtle starts collecting the other people's clues to figure it out ahead of time. Like, because she figures it out early. Like she has already figured it out. You know what I mean?
• 28:52
  Speaker B: I don't think she has already figured that out by the time we get to the end, but there is like clue trading. Interesting stuff like that in the book.
• 29:04
  Speaker A: Is Angela's fiance the fucking worst? Because we're introduced to Plum. Yeah, whatever his name is.
• 29:11
  Speaker B: Plum.
• 29:11
  Speaker A: Ed Plum, who is the Angela, who is Turtle's older sister, her fiance. And he is also the lawyer executing the will for. Yeah, small town, I guess. Executing the will for Sam Westing. And he's in the movie just the worst. He's just a sexist piece of shit.
• 29:32
  Speaker B: Yeah, he's like, I feel like a very 90s stereotype of like, like that kind of character.
• 29:37
  Speaker A: He's just like, where's my food? Bring me.
• 29:40
  Speaker B: Give me the bad boyfriend.
• 29:43
  Speaker A: The bad entitled boyfriend. Yeah.
• 29:46
  Speaker B: So this is another big change. The character Ed Plum is the lawyer who's the executor of the will in the book, but he's not Angela's fiance and we don't interact with him much outside of the will reading portions.
• 30:00
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 30:01
  Speaker B: Angela is engaged to be married, but she's engaged to a man named Denton Deer who is studying to be a doctor. He's a medical intern, but he often refers to himself as a doctor. He's not the worst in the way that the movie depicts, but he is kind of pompous and self important.
• 30:19
  Speaker A: Yeah. Okay, so they just combined.
• 30:21
  Speaker B: Yeah, they combined those characters because, yeah,
• 30:23
  Speaker A: the lawyer, like, he is Also like pompous and self important and obnoxious, but he's also just there. Like we're gonna go beyond that and make him just a misogynist. Like a piece of shit who's just like. He's like sitting there like demanding, like ordering her around to like bring him food. And it's ridiculous. And her younger sister, it's so weird. It's like, what's going on here? So moving forward quite a bit, we get to a point where I'm not even gonna try to recap everything because it's impossible. I don't. There so many random things happen that I couldn't. But a wreath is delivered. At one point, they're all in this one room together and a wreath is delivered to the Westing heirs. It says like to the Westing heirs on it. And they're all like arguing about stuff. They're all standing around arguing as this wreath is delivered and set down. And as they're all standing there arguing with each other over stuff. In the movie, what happens is a tiny little burst of air shoots a tiny little bit of confetti out of the middle of the wreath. And then they all act like an IED went off and blew up, almost murdered everybody in the room. And I wanted to know if that came from the book and what is going on there, because my note is just, what. Why did they all act like a bomb went off when it was like a party popper? It was like
• 31:45
  Speaker B: there is a subplot with small bombs going off inside the building in the book, but never a confetti cannon on a wreath. The first one in the book happens in the coffee shop on the first floor of the building, which is also cut from the movie. And it gets blamed on jars of tomato sauce that exploded under pressure. That confetti cannon was just silly.
• 32:10
  Speaker A: So stupid.
• 32:11
  Speaker B: It was so dumb.
• 32:12
  Speaker A: At least the gift one later looks a bit more scary. Like when it goes off, like there's some smoke and like a flash. This is literally, literally just like a celebratory. It looks like it's intentional. Like a celebratory like surprise, hooray, congratulations. And.
• 32:29
  Speaker B: But then they act like they reaction.
• 32:31
  Speaker A: Like, like somebody almost died. Yeah, like what? It's so stupid. You gotta do. You gotta have a better special effect there. I'm sorry, you gotta. Which again, it's crazy because the gift one later just do the same thing. Whatever. Yeah, we. We alluded to this earlier, but is Turtle's mom helping Mr. Who set up a sports bar called who's on first. Also, what's going on here? Because again, this is one of those things that just starts happening in the movie that feels like it comes out of nowhere. And you're like, why is. Why are we watching Turtle's mom help another random member turn his restaurant into a sports bar? What? It's. It's so strange. I. Yeah.
• 33:17
  Speaker B: So, yes, there is a subplot where Mrs. Wexler helps Mr. Hu rebrand his Chinese restaurant to be sports themed. This is part of her arc because when we first meet her, she's a housewife. She's kind of a social climber. She's kind of also pompous and self important, but we get little mentions here and there that she's really interested in interior design. And she's like, oh, I could have been really great at interior design if it weren't for life happening. And this gives her the opportunity to realize that dream.
• 33:55
  Speaker A: Okay. And I don't remember that being set up in the movie, but maybe it was.
• 33:59
  Speaker B: Yeah, it is. It is a little silly. Like, it's a silly idea.
• 34:04
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 34:04
  Speaker B: I think it works better in the book, partly because we can't see how ridiculous it looks and partly because the focus is less on the restaurant itself.
• 34:13
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 34:14
  Speaker B: And more on how working together towards that change is good for both Mr. Who and Mrs. Wexler.
• 34:20
  Speaker A: The biggest issue in the movie is that because it's an exactly 90 minute movie, it. It. It has to. It includes all of these plot points from the book that it knows needs to be in there, but has no time to give us any of the relevant character stuff to make any of this work. So it's just like, now Turtle's mom and the. The. The Chinese guy who lives on the first floor are rebranding his restaurant. You're like, what? Why? What's going on? I don't. It's just. It's so strange. And again, it's because we haven't spent any time with these characters to, like, understand why them doing this together makes sense or like, is like, what the. The character arc they're going on because of this thing they're doing. It's just a thing that happens in the movie that feels completely out of nowhere and completely unrelated to anything else going on. So you're just like, what. What's happening? But yeah, I could see within the context of like, establishing who these characters are and what. Why, you know, and again, the, the broader premise that you've established of, like, these people that are paired off together having kind of symmetric not symmetrical, but complementary. Like things that are gonna, like, help each other, whatever.
• 35:30
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 35:31
  Speaker A: You know, become better people. Makes total sense. But it's so silly in the movie because none of that's there. So we just see these things happen. And you're like, why is this happening? Okay, I wanted to know if this line was in the book because it cracked me up in the movie where Turtle is talking about how I'm trying to remember who this is in relation to.
• 35:54
  Speaker B: I don't remember who this is about.
• 35:55
  Speaker A: I think it might be. It's one of the women in the.
• 35:58
  Speaker B: It might be the judge.
• 36:00
  Speaker A: I think it might be. Yes. Because they do start to think that the judge is the murderer. They start to.
• 36:05
  Speaker B: The movie goes kind of hard, like, casting aspersions on the judge.
• 36:10
  Speaker A: They start. I don't even remember why they suspect the judge is the murderer, but they start suspecting that the judge is the murderer because of some random elements of clues or whatever. And the. So while they're. While they come to this conclusion, Turtle has this line, and it's in the voiceover. She thinks to herself, could it be. Could it be someone? But could someone be both a murderer and a contributing member of society? I was like, oh, man, kids are dumb. And I wanted to know if they came.
• 36:40
  Speaker B: I don't think that line is in the book. No.
• 36:43
  Speaker A: Which is funny because it's actually like. I was like, okay, this could be interesting. But, like, because the movie doesn't. There is no murderer in the movie. Like, there's no murder. It doesn't actually end up being an interesting lesson in, like, not, you know, not, like, assuming things about people or not like, you know, or. It's not like teaching her a lesson about, like, not trust. Like, somebody who appears trustworthy is actually bad in some way or whatever. It's like, no, it's actually you. She was just wrong. Like, that person isn't a murderer. So. But it was just a funny line because it's like, yeah, yeah, obviously. But she's a kid. So I get. Does feel like the movie trying to say something interesting, but then it doesn't end up saying anything because she's not bad. So it's like, well, that doesn't actually. Whatever. It's fine. Is Turtle's dad deep in sports gambling debt? What a timely subplot. I was like, holy cow, my man would kill for fanduel. Did he? And this was also very confusing. So he. We see that he owes all this money. We see him go to the bookie or whatever, and, like, they're like, you gotta owe us all this money. And then it is explained that he lost his stock trading job.
• 37:58
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 37:58
  Speaker A: Because he was in gambling debt, but that if he pays off his gambling debt, he will get his. His stock trading job back. And I wanted to know if that came from the book, because I was like, what? I will say, I think it is explained in the movie eventually. Why? Yeah, it is down here. Go ahead. So first, is his dad, and is her dad in gambling debt? Yeah, that. Go ahead. Sorry.
• 38:23
  Speaker B: No, none of that is from the book.
• 38:25
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 38:26
  Speaker B: In the book, her dad is a podiatrist. And then later on, there's a reveal that he also works as an illegal bookie on the side. So he's the bookie.
• 38:36
  Speaker A: Oh, okay.
• 38:37
  Speaker B: In the book, and that's like a subplot that doesn't amount to anything. Like, it's just kind of thrown in there. But I guess that's what the movie is going off of.
• 38:49
  Speaker A: Yeah. Okay, that makes sense. Well, or I say that makes sense. I don't. Sure, it's fine. But. Okay. But on top of that, I'm just going to go to this next question because then we find out that Angela was marrying Edgar because in the movie, because Edgar's dad is the president of the stock exchange and that he can apparently help their dad get his job back. And I guess the idea is that if her. Her dad pays back his gambling debt, then Edgar's dad will help him get his job back. Obviously, this doesn't come from the book, but do you have any help on this or what? And is that why Angela is marrying Edgar for, like, a similar reason? Is it like, for, like, job? You know what I mean? As opposed to, like, because she wants to marry him?
• 39:43
  Speaker B: No, she's getting married in the book because that's what she's, quote, unquote, supposed to do.
• 39:48
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 39:49
  Speaker B: And she's under a bunch of pressure from her mom to fulfill this perfect life script that has been laid out for her. And her arc is learning to break free of that and not care about those expectations and do the things that she wants to do instead of the things that she thinks she has to do.
• 40:09
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 40:11
  Speaker B: I like her arc much better in the book, obviously. But I guess the idea that she's sacrificing herself on the altar of marriage at least works with what the movie has set up.
• 40:25
  Speaker A: Yeah. Yes. No, it does. It works. Okay, well, because then that brings me to my other question that we. That I skipped ahead to get to this, which is we have this Great scene where we're at her bridal shower or whatever, as Angela's getting ready for her wedding and Turtle, because she. Turtle obviously hates the. The lawyer guy because he sucks. And during this bridal shower, at one point, she just runs over to her sister and just tells her, you don't have to marry him if you don't want to, in front of everybody at the party. And I wanted to know if that happened in the book, because it was great. And then my second question is, and then is it revealed that there's a bomb in one of her bridal presents?
• 41:07
  Speaker B: That line is not from the book.
• 41:08
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 41:09
  Speaker B: But it did feel true to both Turtle and Turtle and Angela's relationship. So it was one of the few things in the movie that I actually appreciated and would maybe put under better in the movie.
• 41:22
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 41:23
  Speaker B: There is a bomb in one of the presents, and it does blow up in Angela's face after she jerks it away from Turtle.
• 41:30
  Speaker A: Oh, okay. So that. Yeah. Cause we do see that. And then she has to go to the hospital in the movie, and they stick a single band aid on her, which I think is an intentional joke. It plays like a joke where he's just like, there, you're better now. So as we mentioned, Kris and Turtle are very suspicious of the judge, so they want to go investigate her apartment. So they head over there, and they're gonna. There's their. Their ploy for getting into her apartment is that they're gonna bring her dinner.
• 42:00
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 42:01
  Speaker A: Bring her food. So they have, like, a cloche or whatever, and they roll up to apartment, and they knock on the door, and she opens the door, and I need to know if this lines in the movie, because it cracked me the fuck up. She opens the door, and they go. I think it's on the elevator, but whatever. Hello, judge. We know that as a single woman in the 90s, you're used to dining alone. And I needed to know if that line came from the book. Obviously it wouldn't be the 90s, but, you know.
• 42:25
  Speaker B: Oh, that does not come from the book. That line fucking fried me. It sounds like a line from a gimmicky commercial.
• 42:37
  Speaker A: Yeah, it's so. It was pretty funny. But anyway, so they use that to get in there, and then eventually they're able to get the rest of the clues, and they. They put them together and they. They figure out that it's America the Beautiful, but they're like, but we don't have the rest of the words. And I was like, but you just know the rest of the words to the song. Right. Like, you can just look up the rest of the words. Because he's like, we don't have the rest of the words. And I'm like, but I know them. You can just write. Write them. And I was very confused by that, and I needed to know if that happened in the book.
• 43:10
  Speaker B: No, but they. They need the rest of the clues because they need to know which words are missing.
• 43:16
  Speaker A: Okay. Which does get. That does. I did kind of figure that out eventually in the movie, because then they get the next set of the final set of clues they write in those words, and then that reveals which words they don't have, which calls back to the clue of, like, focus on what you don't have or whatever. And then.
• 43:29
  Speaker B: And the missing words are what spells out Mrs. Crow's name?
• 43:32
  Speaker A: Mrs. Crow's name?
• 43:33
  Speaker B: Yeah. And I mentioned this earlier, but Turtle and Chris aren't, like, on a mission to figure this out for themselves. At the end of the book, everyone meets again so that the pairs can name who they think the murderer is, and they end up working together to put the lyrics in the right order and figure out which words are missing.
• 43:52
  Speaker A: Yeah. Okay. So then, as we just mentioned this, that clue, once they solve that, leads them to Erica Crow. Erica Bertha Crowe, they sometimes call bertha, sometimes called Mrs. Crow and sometimes called Erica, which drove me crazy. Made him.
• 44:07
  Speaker B: Even in the book, they just call her Crow.
• 44:09
  Speaker A: Okay. But it is that they go to. Somehow this leads them to the cemetery. I'm not exactly sure. Oh, because they say somebody tells. They ask somebody, and they're like, oh, she's at the cemetery and they find her there. They go there and it is revealed in this encounter that Erica Crow was Sam Westing's ex wife. And that. And Violet's mom, who. Which the movie, I don't think did a very good job up until this point. It does, after this, explain what all was going on here. But Violet was Sam and Erica's daughter and that Violet killed herself. She jumped. Which the movie did explain earlier. There's like. They talked about how Violet Westing, like, jumped off the balcony or something like
• 44:51
  Speaker B: that, which I don't think would have killed her unless she jumped onto concrete. Maybe.
• 44:55
  Speaker A: I mean, it's. It's.
• 44:56
  Speaker B: It wasn't very high up.
• 44:57
  Speaker A: Doesn't have to be high. You can fall from your standing height and kill yourself. Okay.
• 45:04
  Speaker B: I'm just saying that it feels more like it would have just maimed her.
• 45:07
  Speaker A: Yeah, again, you're right. It's not a super high thing. Yeah, whatever. It doesn't matter. And then it is revealed that this whole game was just a ploy to humiliate Erica Crow, Mrs. Crow, and, like, publicly shame her for Violet's death. And that the, like, the murderer, quote unquote, that they're unveiling isn't Sam Westing's murder, but in his eyes, I think Violet's murderer essentially kind of is, like, maybe, maybe not. I don't know. But that's what the movie says, is that the whole thing was a ploy to, like, humiliate her. And if that. Maybe that's not the case. I don't know. I don't understand. I'm not. You're looking at me like I'm crazy, but I feel crazy. So I don't know.
• 45:49
  Speaker B: I'm just. No, I'm not looking at you like. Like you're crazy. I'm just trying to figure out how I'm gonna explain what happens in the book.
• 45:55
  Speaker A: But anyways, is that all revealed? Is that, like, what the reveal is?
• 45:59
  Speaker B: So, yes, the first big reveal is that Mrs. Crow was Sam Westing's ex wife. However, I think the movie added the thing about Westing wanting to publicly shame and humiliate her. Yeah, I. I did not feel like that would. It's, like, kind of briefly discussed as a motive for him, like, setting up this whole game. But I didn't end up feeling like that was what his goal was.
• 46:27
  Speaker A: I wasn't sure in the movie if that was ultimately his goal or if that was speculation on their part about his motivations. And then that is revealed not to be. I wasn't sure by the end what his motivation for this whole thing was,
• 46:39
  Speaker B: but her name being the answer is a red herring. She's not her. She's not actually, like, the guilty one. So this is briefly mentioned in the movie, but we know that Westing's favorite chess move was the queen's sacrifice, where he let his queen get captured in order to ultimately win the game. And then after Mrs. Crow is revealed not to be the murderer.
• 47:05
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 47:06
  Speaker B: Judge JJ Ford puts together that Westing used his favorite chess move once again to confuse.
• 47:12
  Speaker A: We see that in the movie. Yeah, I still. I'm realizing I have no idea what. What any of this means. I don't. I'm my brain right now. I. I don't know what happened in this movie. I don't know what the plot was, like, what his plan was or what his goal was or how it ended. We see them walk through the cemetery at the movie and Discuss it. But I'm, like, realizing now I have no idea what his whole plot was. I guess we'll get there in a second, hopefully. But I'm. I'm realizing that for a minute, I thought it was. That the whole ploy was to, like, out erica as, like, Mrs. Crow, as, like, having, in his opinion, been responsible for their daughter's death. But that's clearly not it, because he seems to be, like, a happy, nice guy at the end who did this all for good reasons is what. It's implied. It seems like in the cemetery at the. I don't know. I feel insane. I have no idea what.
• 48:08
  Speaker B: So, okay, here's what I think.
• 48:11
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 48:11
  Speaker B: And please don't ask me to recount every single plot point that, like, leads up this, because I literally cannot. No, that's fine, because the book is full of, like, misdirects and red herrings, which is very fun when you're reading it, but not a lot of fun to try to explain afterwards, but. So Crow being the guilty party is a misdirect?
• 48:33
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 48:35
  Speaker B: As to Sam Westing's motivation for setting this whole thing up, I think the motivation is that he's a kooky rich guy.
• 48:45
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 48:48
  Speaker B: He's also. He's. He's.
• 48:50
  Speaker A: Can we stop real quick? Take a step back. What's the solution? I don't even know if I know what the solution to the game is.
• 48:57
  Speaker B: Okay, so part one of the misdirect is that when they're initially reading the will.
• 49:06
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 49:07
  Speaker B: Let me see if I can find
• 49:08
  Speaker A: this here, because this kind of ties into my next question a little bit of just the ending. I had no idea what was going on. I felt completely at a loss for, like, what I was supposed to be sussing from any scene.
• 49:22
  Speaker B: Okay, so the lawyer's reading the will.
• 49:26
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 49:27
  Speaker B: He reads. Third, who among you is worthy to be the Westing heir? Help me. My soul shall roam restlessly until that one is found. The estate is at the crossroads. The heir who wins the windfall will be one who finds the ashes. The doorman shouted. Some tittered to relieve the unbearable tension. Some cast him a reproachful glance. Grace Wexler clicked her tongue and Sydal Pulaski.
• 49:54
  Speaker A: Shh.
• 49:55
  Speaker B: It was just a joke. Sandy tried to explain. You know, ashes scattered to the wind. So the one who gets the windfall gets. Oh, never mind. Then he starts. The lawyer starts reading the will again. Fourth. Hail to thee, O land of opportunity. You have made me the son of poor immigrants, rich, powerful, and respected. So Take stock in America, my heirs, and sing in the praise of this generous land. You too may strike it rich. Who dares to play the Westing game? So what happens there is that Sandy interrupts the reading so that they assume that there's a word that didn't get read. The heir who finds the windfall will be the one who finds the. And they all assume they're looking for the murderer. Right.
• 50:42
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 50:43
  Speaker B: But there's actually no word there. And it goes right into fourth. Okay, so the person who wins the game is the person who figures out all of Sam Westing's aliases and finds the fourth alias.
• 51:01
  Speaker A: And the motivation. This whole thing he's doing. It's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
• 51:07
  Speaker B: Yes, it's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. He's finding the one who is smart enough and worthy enough to continue his empire.
• 51:13
  Speaker A: But also specifically, because this, I think, brings me to my next question, which is we get to the big reveal scene at the end where they're reading the thing, and that just triggered a thing in my brain where I remember. I think I now put together what in the least in the movie, what they're going for is that at the end, we get to this big thing, and they ask, like, who's the murderer? And like. Like, does anybody know? And the. Like, camera pans the room, and nobody says anything. And then Turtle's mom tells Turtle that she's proud of her for not having an answer. And I was like, what? I don't. I still didn't know what that mean. Do you know what was going on there with that, with her mom saying that?
• 51:51
  Speaker B: I'm not sure. I don't know. Because what we saw in the scene before that was Turtle wrestling with the moral crisis of whether or not to turn in Mrs. Crow.
• 52:05
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 52:06
  Speaker B: And she talks to her dad about it, and she doesn't actually tell her dad, like, who it is, but she's like, oh, I could. I have to make this choice. I could win all of this money. But if I do, then somebody who's innocent is gonna suffer.
• 52:18
  Speaker A: Right.
• 52:19
  Speaker B: And then I. I don't. I didn't think that her mother knew that, but maybe the implication is that dad told the mom.
• 52:28
  Speaker A: Yeah. Because that was where I was confused, because I think what makes sense here then is that that. That's the test. That moment is the test. That's the Charlie that's giving back the. Yeah, the. The everlasting gobstopper is that she figured out that this was all. She figured out the red herring answer, which was that Mrs. Crowd, quote unquote, killed, you know, or was responsible for Violet's death. And at least, I assume this is what the movie's getting at. Is that her choosing not to divulge? That is her passing the test of, like, being morally upright and not throwing this lady under the bus in order to try to get money? Yeah, right.
• 53:12
  Speaker B: Yeah. I think that's what the movie is going for.
• 53:15
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 53:16
  Speaker B: None of that is from the book. Okay, so that's not what the book is doing, but that could be with the movie. Movie's attempting.
• 53:22
  Speaker A: That's what the movie's doing. And then that would kind of at least make sense of, like, okay, that's her passing the final test. And that's why then he. He still doesn't reveal it in that moment. He, like, gives her the. The next thing, which is the cryptic clue where the doorman, like, keels over and goes, you're playing the wrong game, and then dies, supposedly. And I was like, what's going on here? Does that happen in the book?
• 53:44
  Speaker B: Sandy does, quote, unquote die in this scene, but he doesn't tell Turtle that she's playing the wrong game. He does wink at her while he's lying there presumed dead, which is part of what helps push her along to the ultimate answer that everyone is Sam Westing.
• 54:02
  Speaker A: Okay. And then ultimately, the reveal that Westing, Northrop, McStothers, and Eastman are all the same. That was that. Yeah, I figured that out pretty early, at least. Well, obviously, I was wondering where east was going to come, but I pushed it together, mainly because of the makeup, which we'll get to here in a second. But I was like, what's going on with this. This Northrop guy? He looks real weird.
• 54:22
  Speaker B: I actually took that note out of my. Out of the last segment so we can talk about it here. The note about the makeups. I think they're bad.
• 54:32
  Speaker A: Oh, well, I had it. I had it in. I was gonna talk about it in Lost Adaptation, but, yeah, yeah, we'll get the second but. Yeah. But then once I realized that guy looked really weird, Northrop did. And then I thought about North. And then in the mcs, I was like, okay. And then Westing, I was like, okay, I get what's going on on here. Yeah. So, yeah, that is. Okay, Fair enough. All right, I have a few more questions for Lost an adaptation.
• 54:53
  Speaker B: Just show me the way to get out of here, and I'll be on my way. Yes, yes. And I want to get unlo as soon as possible.
• 55:02
  Speaker A: We're Just talking about it. But is Mr. Northr by assumes in the book? And my question was, is he. Is he Asian, white? What's going on there? And this gets to the makeup thing and where I was like, I like, what's going on with this guy?
• 55:15
  Speaker B: Yeah. Mr. Northr does appear in the book. He's the guy who shows them all the apartment. The apartments in the building. Although the text tells us outright on page one that there is no such person as Barney Northrup. So the book actually tells you the answer at the beginning, which is fun. He's described as having a black mustache, but nothing else. There's no other description for him. I agree that the movie's depiction is pretty rough. He definitely reads like an Asian caricature of some sort.
• 55:48
  Speaker A: Times where it seems like he's doing, like, a caricatured Asian accent, and then other times where it doesn't sound like he's doing an accent. And I wasn't sure what was supposed to be going on there. Yeah, I was just very.
• 56:01
  Speaker B: And I. I mentioned it here a minute ago, but I. I think the makeups are supposed to be bad. Like, I think they're bad on purpose.
• 56:08
  Speaker A: They're at least a little int. Because it's. He's doing them, so they're at least a. That, you know, they're not supposed to be perfect. And I assume. I could buy that he's doing an accent because it's that idea of, like. Well, I assume what's going. What they're going for there is, like. It'll be less obvious the more he changes his appearance and voice and everything. So having him be Chinese or something and do a vaguely Chinese accent will be. Will help disguise him more than if he was just a different white guy. You know what I mean? Like, I think that's why that's going on. I think.
• 56:45
  Speaker B: And I think, correct me if I'm wrong, but is he doing a Scottish accent as Sandy?
• 56:49
  Speaker A: I think so, yeah.
• 56:51
  Speaker B: I don't.
• 56:51
  Speaker A: He does some sort of.
• 56:52
  Speaker B: Mentioned in the.
• 56:53
  Speaker A: Some sort of uk, Scottish, Irish. So I think. I think it is Scottish. Yeah. Well, but then that's the other thing with Mr. Northrop. He then has a line that I was like, what is going on here? Which I think they. They intentionally make him, like, racist as like a. Not a bit, but as like a character thing. Because then he starts telling her about, like. Like, all these Africans want to. He's like, I have 20 Africans who want to rent my apartment. And I was like, what is happening?
• 57:19
  Speaker B: I think I missed this line 100%.
• 57:22
  Speaker A: He's talking to Turtle.
• 57:25
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 57:26
  Speaker A: And about like, the apartment building. And he's like, I got 20 Africans who want to rent an apartment. And I'm like, what is happening? It was so strange. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 57:34
  Speaker B: Because I think. I think the judge is the only black character in the book also. But.
• 57:39
  Speaker A: Yeah. Well, we never see anybody.
• 57:42
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 57:42
  Speaker A: Saying that. Like, he says. He just says that, like. And I was like, what is that? What. What's the deal with Chris's great uncle? At one point, it is mentioned in the movie that some character named Sandy, I think, was in love with Chris's great uncle, but that Sam Westing wouldn't let him. His great uncle Mary Sandy or something.
• 58:07
  Speaker B: I think it was Violet.
• 58:09
  Speaker A: Was that. I don't know. I got all the characters confused. I have no idea.
• 58:14
  Speaker B: So this was the movie's attempt to weave in another misdirect. Red herring from the book. And honestly, I don't know why they bothered with this one, particularly. In the book, it's revealed that Theo and Chris's connection to the Westing family is that the. Their father had dated Violet Westing before she got married and that they were in love and they wanted to get married. But one of the parents. It's implied at different times to be both the father and the mother, wanted her to marry a state senator for the connections, which is why she killed herself.
• 58:50
  Speaker A: Yeah, I got that. Violet was. I guess I was just confused with names in this scene. I could parse it if it's somehow. But there's also just too many random relations and everybody has. Has weird relations with each other. Like, I was like, okay, so it's Chris's. He. I think he says his. His uncle. His great uncle. And I was like, okay, so Chris, great uncle.
• 59:11
  Speaker B: I don't know why. Why they would bother include it. Like, why wouldn't you just have the parents in there if you want to include that?
• 59:21
  Speaker A: Yeah, I don't know. I. I didn't understand it at all. It doesn't matter.
• 59:23
  Speaker B: Like, I don't. I don't know why they bothered with that tidbit.
• 59:26
  Speaker A: Yeah, it is. It seems like more elements that, like, well, this is in the book. We'll work it in here somehow. But then, like, didn't. Was missing a lot of the other pieces to make it make sense. I don't know. It also may have made more sense if I could just. There was so much. The movies. When a movie is hard, impossible to follow because so much. So much of the connective tissue and stuff is missing. It makes even other stuff that shouldn't be hard to follow. Hard to follow because I'm like, who the fuck are these characters? What are they talking about? I don't know who Chris is talking about. And then I was like, oh. Then I realized later, like, he's probably talking about Violet, because that would make sense of like, oh, they wouldn't let her marry this guy. But I'm like, oh, so the guy they wouldn't let her marry is related to Chris? And again, it's. Ultimately, it just ends up being a thing where it's like, oh, they're all. It's like this weird web where they're all, like, interconnected or whatever, but in the con, like, while you're watching the movie, until that all becomes clear, it's in incomprehensible. And I. It was so annoying. They get to the hospital at one point after. After the bomb goes off at the bridal shower, they go to the hospital and. And Angela gets, like, the band aid stuck on her head so that she can recover from the bomb that went off. And while they're standing there in the hospital, the doctor pulls up a forceps that have, like, a bandage with, like, brown liquid on it that he sniffs and goes, ammonium nitrate and phosphorus. Reminds me of chemistry class. And then this then triggers in Turtle that the bombs are made from chemistry ingredients and that Angela planted the bombs herself because she didn't want to marry her fiance. I was like, what is any of that happen in the book? What's good? What.
• 1:01:19
  Speaker B: Okay, so the scene with the doctor sniffing the thing is not from the book. Also very clunkily done.
• 1:01:27
  Speaker A: That was the part that made it the most confusing to me. I was like, what is. What does he have that he would smell the bomb there? I assume the idea is that he wiped the stuff off her face or something.
• 1:01:38
  Speaker B: Yeah, guess that would be the. And what we're supposed to connect is that earlier when they were at the breakfast scene, when her fiance was demanding food, she was reading a chemistry book. Yeah, that's the connection we're supposed to make there. What happens in the book is that while Angela is at the hospital, Turtle does figure out that she was the one planting the bombs, including the bomb in the gift. I don't remember exactly how Turtle figures that out.
• 1:02:10
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 1:02:11
  Speaker B: The book is a little vague about why Angela does this, but I think we're meant to assume that she's rebelling against having to be perfect and good all the time. And also maybe hoping that she could get out of getting married if she has a hideous scar on her face.
• 1:02:28
  Speaker A: Okay. Okay. I guess that all makes sense. Sense that, like, what. I kind of understood the idea of, like, oh, she, you know. Yeah. She doesn't want to marry this guy. So she's coming up with this excuse of, like, the bombs to, like, not.
• 1:02:43
  Speaker B: And really how it functions in the book is. It's another misdirect, right, where these. These bombs are going off.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker A: And you think it's related to the main plot.
• 1:02:50
  Speaker B: You think it's related to the main plot, but it's actually not related to the main.
• 1:02:53
  Speaker A: And that's fine. The thing that just really cracked me up about the scene and really was the reason I even wrote this to begin with was the part where the doctor is just, like. Has a thing that he. I was like, what? Why would he have a swab that has the chemicals from the bomb and he. Because he pulls it up from, like, the foot of her hospital bed. Like, it was, like, sitting on the bed next to her, and I'm like. And it's, like, covered in brown liquid. And I'm like, but what. Why would that be? There it was. I was so confused at all. It just.
• 1:03:26
  Speaker B: Just.
• 1:03:27
  Speaker A: Because it's one of those things that would be so easy to do differently, is just have. In a different scene, have Turtle find the bomb box, like, burnt out and, like, smell it or what? Or somebody or something. I did. There's some. I was just. God, it's so movie. I hate it. My last question here is kind of more on a very broad thematic level, is that I could. Towards the end of the movie, I started to realize. Okay, I think I can see that what the movie is trying to do here is. I think it could be trying to say something interesting about, like, the things that adults don't. Adults don't tell children and about how adult problems aren't nearly as simple or as fun to solve as, like, fun mysteries or whatever. Because, like, there are parts where, like, basically, like, the whole thing where Turtle slowly finds out that her dad has these gambling debts, and she's, like, mad that they never told her about it. And she's very offended at that. And he's like, well, you know, like, you're a little kid and, like, you know, it's nothing you could do about it, and it's gonna be okay. And, like. And it's not, like, I can't just solve it, like, with your money or whatever, blah, blah, blah. And. Or with the money from the prize or whatever. And. And so it feels like the movie is trying to, like, dance around this idea of, like. Like, explaining to children that the world of adults is complicated and they don't always tell you everything. And there are usually good reasons for that and that you should blah, blah, blah, that kind of thing. And I wanted to know if that felt like a similar kind of message to the book. I think the movie does a horrible job of actually doing that because it's just underdevelops everything so much. But I wanted to know if it least feels like, similar to what the book is trying to do.
• 1:05:12
  Speaker B: That is not a theme that I felt was present in the book.
• 1:05:16
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 1:05:16
  Speaker B: If anyone else who read it disagrees, feel free to chime in in the feedback. But I do agree that it feels like something the movie wanted to play with but did a bad job of developing.
• 1:05:28
  Speaker A: Yeah. It kind of seems like the only thing that the movie's really saying.
• 1:05:32
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:05:33
  Speaker A: Other than, like, I guess the vague stuff at the end about, like. But even that, it's not really any. Like, she's just a good person because she doesn't sell out some random old lady for $20 million. Like, I guess, you know, that is good. But, like, there's not really anything super deep it's saying with that. But, like, this is, like, the only thing the movie is saying. And again, it's so undercooked that I'm just like, it's nothing. It's nothing.
• 1:05:57
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:05:58
  Speaker A: All right, let's go ahead and find out what Katie thought was better in
• 1:06:00
  Speaker B: the book you like to read. Oh, yes, I love to read. What do you like to read? Everything. Turtle's defining physical characteristic for most of the book is that she has really long, thick hair that she wears in a single braid. Near the end, she has to get her hair cut into a bob, and it's like a big character change moment for her that represents her starting to move away from childhood. We don't get anything like that in the movie.
• 1:06:34
  Speaker A: Yeah. Okay.
• 1:06:35
  Speaker B: When Turtle goes to the Westinghouse for the bet, she takes supplies with her, which includes her mother's silver cross, just in case of vampires. In the movie, the newspaper article about Sam Westing being found dead mentions that he was found by a local youth. In the book, there is an article about him being found dead the next day, but it doesn't mention Turtle or any of the supplies that she dropped while she was inside of the house. And that really gets the mystery rolling before the Westing game even officially starts because she doesn't tell anybody that she saw him in the house initially. Like, she runs out of the house screaming, but she doesn't tell anyone that she saw him in there.
• 1:07:22
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 1:07:22
  Speaker B: And then the next day, the surprise newspaper article that's like, sam Westing found dead.
• 1:07:28
  Speaker A: And she's like, wait, what?
• 1:07:29
  Speaker B: And she's like, wait, what? And then it doesn't mention, like, the fact that there was clearly somebody in there that night. So we kind of already, like, get this started of, like, what is going on here?
• 1:07:42
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 1:07:43
  Speaker B: And then this is kind of a fun little detail. When they see Sam Westing's purported corpse at the reading of the will, it's holding the silver cross that Turtle dropped at the house. Yeah. During the reading of the will, Sadel Pulaski takes it down in shorthand, a document which then becomes a point of interest for everyone trying to solve the puzzle because it's the only copy of the will that they have access to. I also liked Sadelle better in the book. I think her portrayal in the movie is fine. But I liked, first of all, I liked the detail that she does. One of the things she does is that she gets this pair of crutches and she custom paints them to match all of her outfits because she's decided that she wants more attention from people. And the best way to do that is to pretend she needs custom crutches, I guess.
• 1:08:40
  Speaker A: Yeah, we do see the crutches in the movie.
• 1:08:42
  Speaker B: Yeah, we see them. Yeah. And I also liked the late reveal that she wasn't even supposed to be in Sunset Towers to begin with. Westing just got her confused with another person with a similar name. But she ends up being pivotal to both solving the puzzle and to Angela for her character arc. Right after the reading of the will, the entire apartment building gets snowed in together, which is just like a fun tropey thing where they're all, like, trapped in the building. Turtle in the book thinks that the answer to the game is investing in the stock market because each pair of heirs gets $10,000 up front. And she thinks that investing it is the answer because that's what Sam Westing would have done, was invest the money. And then she gets, like, super into the stock market, and that's what makes her good at running the business. Later, when she wins the game, Crow was another character that I thought was more interesting in the book. She's portrayed as kind of militantly religious and much crazier in a darker way than what we get in the movie, because in the movie, she's kind of portrayed as like, A little creepy at the start, but then ultimately, like a kindly old woman.
• 1:09:57
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 1:09:58
  Speaker B: But she's real weird in the book. She's obsessed with Angela because as it's revealed, Angela looks like her daughter Violet.
• 1:10:07
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 1:10:07
  Speaker B: The movie mentions Otis being an inventor that Westing stole an idea from. In the book, Mr. Who is an inventor that Westing stole an idea from. And it did feel a little racist to me to take that from an Asian character and give it to a white character.
• 1:10:28
  Speaker A: Wait, yes. Okay, so you're saying in the book. I think maybe I heard that backwards. In the book, Mr. Hu is the inventor. Yes. And in the movie. Yeah. Yeah. So he's an inventor and runs the restaurant.
• 1:10:39
  Speaker B: In the book.
• 1:10:40
  Speaker A: Okay. Yeah, in the book. Yeah. In the movie, they give it to. Yeah. Otis the handyman or whatever.
• 1:10:44
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:10:44
  Speaker A: Yeah. Okay. Well, I mean, on top of that, just the movie's portrayal of Mr. Who. Yeah.
• 1:10:50
  Speaker B: It's not great.
• 1:10:51
  Speaker A: Is a. Yeah. Caricature. Now, the. The guy playing him is at least actually Chinese, it would appear.
• 1:10:58
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:10:58
  Speaker A: Because at least when he's speaking in Chinese, it sounds like real Chinese to me, at least. So, like. Like. Yeah, it's not like a white guy doing it, but. But yeah.
• 1:11:09
  Speaker B: When they're first named as heirs, like when everybody initially gets the invitations to go to the reading of the will, Mrs. Wexler claims to be Sam Westing's niece, which the story plays as part of her social climber personality. But then it turns out that she actually is Sam Westing's niece and she didn't even know. I had to read this one line from Turtle that I loved. No, but I know how she thinks. I know what everybody thinks. Grown ups are so obvious. After Turtle figures out that it was Angela who was setting off the bombs, she sets off another one and gets caught on purpose so that Angela doesn't get charged with a crime. Two of Mrs. Wexler and Mr. Hu's clues are the words purple and fruited. And they end up tearing the word fruited in half to get Ed purple fruit, and decide that this means the murderer is the lawyer, Ed Plum. And they feel very clever about this. There's a great exchange when they're all giving their answers, and he turns to them and is like, well, what's your answer? And they say, ed Plum. And he's like, yes. And they're like, that's our answer, Ed Plum. And he just goes, oh, I thought that everything, pretty much everything about the big. Solving the mystery scene at the end was better in the book.
• 1:12:37
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 1:12:37
  Speaker B: Just everything.
• 1:12:38
  Speaker A: Everything. I'm gonna be honest. I think everything's better in the book because the movie's incomprehensible.
• 1:12:42
  Speaker B: I also preferred the book's denouement where Turtle stays friends with Westing for years and years and continues to update him on what everyone goes on to do with their lives. And they all have, like, much better lives than they would have had. The movie includes the beginning, a little bit of it. Yeah.
• 1:13:00
  Speaker A: I mean, the movie explicitly includes that. It just, like, it's played out differently, I'm sure. But like, it literally, she says, like, she explains to him all the ways that she. She reports to him back all the ways that this game helped all those people in, like, very specific ways. It like I said, the movie does include that. I could believe that maybe the books version. Version is like, yeah, but what you're describing there, I was like, well, that's in the movie, so.
• 1:13:25
  Speaker B: Well, it's better in the book.
• 1:13:27
  Speaker A: Okay, fair enough. All right, let's go ahead and find out what Katie thought was better in the movie. My life has taught me one lesson, Hugo, and not the one I thought it would. Happy endings only happen in the movies.
• 1:13:41
  Speaker B: I can appreciate the inclusion of a burial scene. There's no burial scene in the book. And I thought the shot.
• 1:13:48
  Speaker A: Yeah, it's a good shot up front.
• 1:13:50
  Speaker B: Looking at it. Yeah, it's good.
• 1:13:52
  Speaker A: Yeah, it's fun.
• 1:13:53
  Speaker B: I'm not saying it's better per se, but I understand the decision to cut Theo and just keep Chris. There were already too many characters anymore. Yeah, there were too many characters for a film.
• 1:14:06
  Speaker A: There, there. It's not even that there are too many. It's fine. Yeah, I said too many, and then, like, you could make it work too many for this movie. The way they do it, like, it's because you already don't have enough time with the characters they do have, but yeah. Yeah.
• 1:14:18
  Speaker B: And my last note here is also about a character who got cut. The movie entirely cuts Mr. Hu's wife, which I think was a good decision overall. Throughout the book, there's a red herring of different items going missing, and it's ultimately revealed that Mrs. Hu was stealing things to sell because she wanted to go back to China and needed funding for that.
• 1:14:39
  Speaker A: Yeah. Well, let's go ahead and see what the movie. Nailed it,
• 1:14:46
  Speaker B: as I expected. Practically perfect in every way. I had more under this, but then we talked about a lot of it. So I just have a couple things here. All of the windows and sunset towers face east. It's the first line in the book, it's odd. Turtle kicks people's shins when they displease her. We see that happen. Yeah.
• 1:15:09
  Speaker A: That was so confusing. In the movie, when that started happening, I was like, she's just assaulting this old man. And then it's like, oh. And then I realized at the end, you realize, oh, it's because it has to be there for, like, the big plot reveal. Because it's part of the reveal, if you didn't watch this. That at the end, part of the reason they're able to figure out that Sandy. Sandy is Northrop, is that Sandy has a limp because Turtle kicked North Rip the night before in the shit. And so Sandy having a limp right now and a bruise on his shin is because he's the same person. Yeah.
• 1:15:41
  Speaker B: My last thing here, it's in the book, it's Theo who does this. In the movie, it's Turtle. But someone does follow Otis and Crow and see them working in a soup kitchen.
• 1:15:52
  Speaker A: Yep. All right. We got a handful of odds and ends before we get to the final verdict.
• 1:16:07
  Speaker B: We both laughed at this, but that opening title card animation was really something.
• 1:16:12
  Speaker A: It's got, like a. It's like a sine wave wiggle to it or something. It does this very silly, like, it does, like, three different things and then, like, flies away. And it's just very. It was very funny.
• 1:16:24
  Speaker B: Kind of mentioned some of the stereotyping with Mr. Who.
• 1:16:28
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 1:16:29
  Speaker B: But I thought that maybe one of the roughest things was the quote unquote Oriental music. Sting for him.
• 1:16:35
  Speaker A: That classic 90s, early 2000s.
• 1:16:37
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:16:38
  Speaker A: Hey, there's a Chinese person play that music cue. Oh, all right. Boy, they had some red bleed blue and green gels for their lights, and, brother, they used them. Every single shot in this movie has, like, pools of red and blue light just, like, covering the background.
• 1:16:58
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:16:58
  Speaker A: Which isn't. It's. They would literally kill you these days if you tried to do that in a movie. Like, because that is. I. I didn't mind it. It added. I thought it's a perfectly fun, like, way to kind of, like, add a little more personality to the movie. It's completely unmotivated, obviously. It also isn't even, like, it's unmotivated in the context of the movie. It's also unmotivated kind of of thematically in the movie. Like, there's not really anything it's doing, like, outside. So it is just, like, there. Because, like, it looks more interesting than not having red and blue and green lights, like, flat hitting everything in the background. But that being said, I. It. It's fine. It. It made the movie more fun to look at than. If that hadn't. If they hadn't done that.
• 1:17:47
  Speaker B: We talked a little bit about the online chess game I have moving that online. It's so 90s. It hurts a little.
• 1:17:55
  Speaker A: Yeah. There's a scene where Turtle is crawling through, like, the.
• 1:17:59
  Speaker B: The rafters.
• 1:18:00
  Speaker A: The rafters. To spy on Otis having a conversation. And while she's up there, a spider drops down in front of her. But it's a tarantula. Yeah. Because it's a movie, obviously, so they're using a tarantula that they could train or not train, but that, you know, it's like a pet tarantula or whatever. And. But they have clearly have, like, fishing line tied around it because it drops down like it's on, like, spider silk in front of her face. And it's like.
• 1:18:27
  Speaker B: But tarantulas don't do that.
• 1:18:29
  Speaker A: Like, what? Okay, sure, whatever.
• 1:18:32
  Speaker B: Come on now. Get your spiders. Right.
• 1:18:34
  Speaker A: It's particularly funny because, like, you could just have had it crawl.
• 1:18:39
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:18:39
  Speaker A: Maybe. My guess might be that maybe at one point it was. The gag was for it to crawl on her, and either she didn't want to do it.
• 1:18:48
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:18:48
  Speaker A: And so they came up with a different solution. So they still had, like, a creepy spider scare. But it wasn't because, like, normally that scene, it would be, like, crawling on her and she'd go, ah, like. Or whatever. But. Yeah.
• 1:19:00
  Speaker B: So this is my big hot take about this movie. And feel free to correct me, listeners, because it's been a really long time since I've seen Harriet the Spy.
• 1:19:15
  Speaker A: I saw it when it came out, probably, and that's it.
• 1:19:17
  Speaker B: But that movie came out in 1996, and I had big thoughts while watching this that I wonder if they were trying to make this feel like that. I think you're right, because particularly all of the stuff with Turtle, like sneaking around, spying on people, felt very Harriet the Spy coded. And I'm wondering if this movie was ruined by the existence of Harriet the Spy.
• 1:19:45
  Speaker A: I have a feeling you're correct. I have a feeling that that is what they were. That's, like, the direct thing that they.
• 1:19:51
  Speaker B: Yeah. And like, particularly the retitling to get a clue. And then, like, the movie poster that I found for it where she's, like, wearing overalls, which I don't think we see her wear, and, like, holding a magnifying glass.
• 1:20:06
  Speaker A: Even. Even the thing I just talked about, which I guess would be slightly different, but, like, I don't know if it would be a direct reference, but I could at least imagine it. The color, all the lights and stuff makes it feel more like a Nickelodeon movie than. Yeah, you know, I do wonder if even that they're trying to like really play up like this is. Yeah. And like I said I would have to go. I haven't seen Harriet the Spies since it came out.
• 1:20:32
  Speaker B: Yeah, I haven't seen it in years.
• 1:20:34
  Speaker A: So I don't know like. But I wouldn't be surprised if we went back and looked at that and it's like, oh, that movie look like is lit similarly. I wouldn't be surprised by that because it is. Yeah, it was interesting. Yeah. No, I think you're. You're definitely right though, that that's probably. I mean that's always how Hollywood works. Is. What's the last thing that was popular that we can do something similar to. And you know, this, this would be. Yeah, that would make sense. Before we get to the final Verdict, we wanted to remind you you can do us a favor by heading over to Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Blue Sky, Goodreads, any of those places. Interact. We'd love to hear what you have have to say about the Westing game. You can also help us out by heading over to Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to our show. Drop us a five star rating, write us a nice little review. We would appreciate that. And you can Support us@patreon.com ThisFilmIsLit get access to bonus content starting at the $5 a month level. Katie, it's time for the Final verdict.
• 1:21:22
  Speaker B: Sentence fast.
• 1:21:24
  Speaker A: Verdict after.
• 1:21:26
  Speaker B: That's stupid. Book or movie? Movie or book? All answers will be revealed to those who dare to play the this film is lit game.
• 1:21:39
  Speaker A: Love that.
• 1:21:40
  Speaker B: The west in Game by Ellen Raskin is a delightful little middle grade murder mystery that's both age appropriate and doesn't talk down to its intended audience. The plot's twists and turns, red herrings, and various clues are scattered throughout the text in such a way that an 8 to 12 year old can figure out at least parts of the mystery alongside or ahead of the book's characters while still leaving some fun. Aha. Reveals for the end, it features a unique, colorful cast of characters and its ultimate message that we're all better for working together and supporting each other is evergreen. In contrast, 1997's get a clue is a big hot mess. It's not so different from the book that it's completely unrecognizable, but it puzzles me that the filmmakers were able to take such a fun, tight little mystery story and make such an uninteresting, incomprehensible trash heap with it. All you had to do was follow the plot of the book. In the matter of the Westingame, not only is the book Worlds Away better, it might be one of the best cases we've ever seen for deserving a do over adaptation.
• 1:22:59
  Speaker A: No, that's very true that, that 100%. This, this could do.
• 1:23:03
  Speaker B: This deserves better.
• 1:23:05
  Speaker A: That deserves better. And it could be easy Just, just get Ryan Johnson to do it. That was so fun. Ryan Johnson.
• 1:23:10
  Speaker B: That would be so fun doing. Get Rian Johnson on the horn.
• 1:23:15
  Speaker A: And it would be even better if just make it a Benoit Blanc mystery. If just Benoit Blanc just shows up and helps solve the mystery with a little kid, I think that would be real fun. Katie, what's next?
• 1:23:29
  Speaker B: Up next, we are talking about Coyote Ugly, a 2000 film that is based on a GQ article. Yeah, like a memoir article called the Muse of the Coyote Ugly Saloon by Elizabeth Gilbert.
• 1:23:50
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 1:23:50
  Speaker B: Of Eat Pray Love fame.
• 1:23:52
  Speaker A: Yeah, I saw that recently. I was like, oh, I didn't realize that.
• 1:23:55
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:23:55
  Speaker A: But yeah, we'll talk a bit more about this obviously on the prequel, but boy am I excited about this episode. As I mentioned on previous episodes, we
• 1:24:03
  Speaker B: watched this together not too long ago,
• 1:24:05
  Speaker A: a couple months ago.
• 1:24:06
  Speaker B: And the reason that we watched it initially was because of me. And the reason that we're covering it now is because of you.
• 1:24:13
  Speaker A: Yep, I've become. I, I have hot takes about this movie that we will get to watch. Watch. We're going to watch it again and be like, wait a second. No, never mind. This is terrible. I don't think that's going to happen. But that would be funny. But no, I have, yeah, I have. I have a hot take opinion on this movie. Very excited to share that in a couple weeks time. But in one week's time we'll be previewing Coyote Ugly and listening to all of your amazing feedback on the Westing game. Until that time, guys, gals not matter palace and everybody else keep reading books, keep watching movies and keep being awesome. It.