Latest / Houselights: A Film Director Podcast / What Women Want (2000) - Nancy Meyers | Houselights #281

Transcript

What Women Want (2000) - Nancy Meyers | Houselights #281 · Houselights: A Film Director Podcast

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the NED party.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: Welcome back to House Lights, specifically the House of Meyers,
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: Nancy Meyers in fact, where we are looking at the
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: work of legendary, legendary director Nancy Myers and her output
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: from nineteen ninety eight through two thousand and six. This
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: is the second room in the House of Myers where
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: we are going to be covering the year two thousands.
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: What Women Want a romantic comedy starring mel Gibson, Helen
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: Hunt and featuring Marisa Tomey. So I am here to
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: talk about what women want, what women need, and what
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: they desire. Most of all is to hear from my
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: two co hosts. I've heard their thoughts they wish to
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: hear from Darren Moser and Tristan Riddell. Guys, I'm not
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: even gonna try for a funny character introduction on this one,
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: because I just want to let you know that, for
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: some reason, I can hear your two thoughts and only
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: your two thoughts specifically, so this could be an awkward
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: podcast as I respond to things you're not even saying. Welcome, gentlemen,
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: Are you ready to talk about what women want?
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: Yes?
• 1:24
  Speaker 4: Yes, maybe, yes, okay, And like we joked, about it earlier,
• 1:28
  Speaker 4: where like that that would be a horror movie. If
• 1:30
  Speaker 4: all you could hear is the thoughts of podcasters as you.
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: Watch, it would be like back Rooms meets obsession meets
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: a David Lynch movie, only madness lay that way. So okay,
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: so I was the only one who had seen this previously. Correct,
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: that's true. Yeah, Okay, this is my first time encountering
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: what women want.
• 1:53
  Speaker 4: So this is my second time watching at This is
• 1:56
  Speaker 4: not a Ridell family favorite, like this is a This
• 2:00
  Speaker 4: is not a lot I go back to routinely. But
• 2:04
  Speaker 4: I didn't know this until preparation for this podcast. This
• 2:07
  Speaker 4: had a budget of seventy million, which is a lot
• 2:10
  Speaker 4: for a rom com in the year two thousand.
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: Small.
• 2:14
  Speaker 4: Yeah, but it made almost three hundred and seventy five
• 2:20
  Speaker 4: million dollars.
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: So part of this discussion is going to be delving
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: into what specifically resonated with audiences. Because if you look
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: at the tomato meter, if I'm not mistaken, it has
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: a splotchy green tomato next to it, meaning it's below
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: sixty percent. And I don't think that the audience the
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: popcorn meter is all that high. Now, obviously rotten Tomatoes
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: is not a scientific metric by a country mile. Okay, obviously,
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: especially with movies that came out before the rise of
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: social media, Like it's.
• 2:50
  Speaker 5: Exactly, yeah, it's hard.
• 2:52
  Speaker 4: It's such a hard metric for movies that came out
• 2:55
  Speaker 4: before Rotten Tomatoes was a thing.
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: But but this is a movie where when I saw
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: this splotchy green thing and I got ten minutes in,
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: I started to get a little nervous because I want
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: to acknowledge all of the great things about this movie
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: before we move forward, and going through the credits, we
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: see again Dean Kundy has come back to work with
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: ms Myers. Again. I'm like, well, okay, hey, this movie
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: should at least look terrific. And then as the credits
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: go on, I get a little bit concerned because there
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: are three editors on this and maybe you guys can
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: shed some more light on this. But I've typically been
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: told that more editors means that they had more difficulties
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: sort of ironing things out in post that Now, of
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: course Star Wars has three editors on it, so of
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: course people can come in riding from on high and
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: coming down on that. But with a rom com, this
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: is not a terribly complex movie. This is not something
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: where you see a three editor situation.
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: I mean, at the end of the day, guys, I've
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: I think our listeners want to hear what three white
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: men think of this movie. I think that's exactly well.
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: I mean, I like what you're saying, John, and I
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: like how you're approaching it. On Let's look at the
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: positives first, because I think another thing I don't want
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: to forget is the context of this is you know
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: two thousands, you know Mel Gibson is in the height
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: of his heart throb, you know Era, so like that
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: was a big draw. So I guess I'm just saying
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: it's so easy for us to look at it, not
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: just with twenty six year later sensibility, but I think
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: also look at the pieces that they put together to
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: make a good rom com for two thousand and I
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: think they did. I mean the box office shows that.
• 4:52
  Speaker 4: And this was the year for Helen Hunt as well,
• 4:56
  Speaker 4: like she came out with Castaway and Pay It Forward
• 4:59
  Speaker 4: all into.
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: But but the thing is, I'm going to push back
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: a little bit on that, Darren, because what I see
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: here is instead an attempt to try to capture like
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: the the You've Got Mail or Sleepless in Seattle crowd okay,
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: which is fine, right, or the when you know, you
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: could say, when Harry met Sally or something like that,
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: But I consider that in a whole other league, for
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: what that's worth. But I see an attempt here to
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: go for the same type of chemistry and story beats
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: that you have in a You've Got Mail. What I
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: find lacking. And I think the three editors for a
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: rom com point at this is a movie that tries
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: this stuff entirely too much into its runtime. There is
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: so much going on that it's it's difficult to get
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: it to be clean. If you go back to You've
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: Got Mail, which, as I recall, I did, like I
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: don't think I liked Sleepless in Seattle, but but I
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: thought You've Got Mail had its charms and everything like.
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: That's very clean, it's very straightforward. It's a it's a
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: you know, it's a romantic comedy. It's two people on
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: opposite ends. They have their circles and they you know,
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: they come together by the end. With this, Am I
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: missing something? Did you guys see tremendous chemistry between Gibson
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: and Hunt that I missed? I didn't see real chemistry
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: developed between the two of them.
• 6:25
  Speaker 5: Not even a little.
• 6:26
  Speaker 4: Actually, it took everything in me and not to text
• 6:28
  Speaker 4: you guys before we started recording about the chemistry.
• 6:32
  Speaker 5: I think.
• 6:32
  Speaker 4: I think that's the key thing that was really lacking
• 6:35
  Speaker 4: for me was as I'm watching this, not only is
• 6:39
  Speaker 4: there a lack of chemistry between the two of them, it's.
• 6:43
  Speaker 5: I don't believe their relationship mm hmm.
• 6:46
  Speaker 4: Like as the movie progresses, I'm like, wait, why are
• 6:50
  Speaker 4: these people in love with each other?
• 6:51
  Speaker 5: How did they fall in love? Are they in love?
• 6:54
  Speaker 4: Why are they so so? Why do they feel so
• 6:58
  Speaker 4: devoted to each other? Like like why are they even
• 7:01
  Speaker 4: using the L word? You know, Like what what is
• 7:03
  Speaker 4: going on? Like if they just made it like an
• 7:06
  Speaker 4: attachment or an infatuation, not an infatuation, but like if
• 7:10
  Speaker 4: they just made it like I don't know, it's pretty woman, Okay,
• 7:14
  Speaker 4: Like I don't know, I don't I don't remember them
• 7:16
  Speaker 4: professing their love for each other, Like they made grand
• 7:18
  Speaker 4: gestures and everything like that, but they didn't insinuate that
• 7:21
  Speaker 4: they were going to get married and live live forever together,
• 7:24
  Speaker 4: you know, at the end of the movie.
• 7:25
  Speaker 5: And I'm not.
• 7:26
  Speaker 4: Saying that that they're doing that specifically in What Win
• 7:28
  Speaker 4: one What, But it's just it felt like too much
• 7:31
  Speaker 4: too quickly with their relationship.
• 7:33
  Speaker 5: There was no build. Am I wrong?
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: M M?
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 7:38
  Speaker 3: It also you're spot on, John, you gave You've Got
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: Mail a four and Sleepless in Seattle at two, So yeah, which.
• 7:46
  Speaker 5: Is insane act He's going to be sent to the.
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: Accurate it's insane.
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: We're not insanely accurate. Okay, we're not doing that right.
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: Now, but insanely acting.
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, there there is a lot and it's
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: hard to just without playing script doctor as we sometimes do,
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: where I mean maybe if it was more of and
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: it's as hard because this doesn't necessarily get the chemistry
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: right because that's an actor to actor kind of thing.
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: But if the story was more of they're in a relationship,
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: but he's having trouble committing and they just can't understand
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: each other. What do women really want? And then you
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: know they come out of that something where they have
• 8:31
  Speaker 3: an existing relationship instead of they literally know each other
• 8:34
  Speaker 3: for days at best, maybe a couple of weeks. So
• 8:40
  Speaker 3: I see, I agree with what you're saying where it
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: just story wise, it's hard to see them falling head
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: over heels for each other. But then on top of that, yeah,
• 8:51
  Speaker 3: there's not that connection. And I don't know if it's Gibson,
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: I don't know if it's Hunt. I don't know if
• 8:59
  Speaker 3: it's because it's both of them.
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: I mean I think that, you know, even speaking to
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: the difficulty they had in the editing bay there, I'll
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: come right out and say it, you could literally just
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: about cut the daughter from this movie completely and not
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: even notice it was missing. And that's unfortunate because I
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: think that the the young lady that they cast as
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: the daughter, actually it's fine. Yeah, she she has had
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: she had like a pretty good career, as I recall.
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: I don't know if she's still active or not, but
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: I remember I remember seeing her in other things and
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: a huge.
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: On critical role. Okay, she's one of those players.
• 9:40
  Speaker 4: And also I know her from as Ellie from the
• 9:42
  Speaker 4: Last of Us on PlayStation.
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: Well there you go, just going to give out of
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: voice acting.
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but that but that's the thing, is I I
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: remember what, you know, hitting a point with the movie
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: where even he had to be reminded that he had
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: a daughter that was at the from that night, and
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: like I just started wondering. I was like, where the
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: hell is his daughter right now? Like what, we haven't
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: been back there in a while. And it's while he's
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: like going off and like chasing some other side character
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: who he happens to overhear her mental health difficulties, and
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: I'm like wait, and they just like throw that one
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: in and I'm like, what what's going on? This movie
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: wants everything and it just can't commit to anything.
• 10:23
  Speaker 4: As a result, I think, yeah, I didn't really think
• 10:27
  Speaker 4: of it that way, but you're right, because I was.
• 10:30
  Speaker 4: I was about to defend the daughter storyline, just because
• 10:34
  Speaker 4: it's another avenue to show his understanding and his personal
• 10:38
  Speaker 4: relationships and how deep of a relationship that is between
• 10:42
  Speaker 4: a father and daughter. But at the same time, you
• 10:45
  Speaker 4: could have done that and stayed in the office.
• 10:48
  Speaker 5: Like explore Judy Greer not more, or explore.
• 10:56
  Speaker 4: Oh what is her name? She's amazing and I'm completely
• 10:58
  Speaker 4: blinking on her name. She's in all them and horror
• 11:00
  Speaker 4: story seasons. Sarah Paulson or more like his assistant, like
• 11:05
  Speaker 4: like she's you know, they make it a statement that
• 11:08
  Speaker 4: she has an ivy leagage education, you know, like it,
• 11:10
  Speaker 4: and he treats his assistant, Like, crap, let's go into that,
• 11:15
  Speaker 4: you know, like have those emotional moments. I don't know,
• 11:18
  Speaker 4: I don't know. It's just like I feel like it's
• 11:21
  Speaker 4: it's either kind of one or the other. But I
• 11:23
  Speaker 4: see what you're saying. I don't mind the daughter relationship stuff,
• 11:28
  Speaker 4: but I do understand what you're saying because it feels
• 11:30
  Speaker 4: very scattered.
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: I mean, there's really four stories and they're all different
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: types of relationships. He has, you have the daughter, you
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: have the you know, just a coworker, you have his boss,
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: and you have the one night's stand, and and they
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: jump around, you know, And I get on paper that
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: makes a lot of sense, like, oh, we're going to
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: show how he's interacting with all these people, and these
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: are how he's taking advantage and this is oh now
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: he is to be serious. But it's a lot and
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: the fact that it doesn't really flow between the like
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: like you said, it's jumping back and forth where we
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: forget the other characters exist for a moment like the daughter,
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: which we shouldn't forget.
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that the movie would have worked better
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: if there had been a progression, if he had gone
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: through he gets this power and then he he you know,
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: he has his thing with Marisa Tome and he realizes, oh,
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: I use this for the wrong reason, and then he
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: uses his power with this next person and it's like, oh,
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: that was not that was very selfish, and like he
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: goes on a journey of growth. I mean it sucks,
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: but yeah, the guy is the main character of a
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: movie titled What Women Want, which feels like it's not
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: even really the way it should work, and like, but
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: it's not. You know, it's the fault of the title,
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: I guess or something like that, because it's it's a
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: thing where you know, the Marissa Tomay thing is another
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: thing where I just you could have excised that outside
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: of her first scene even or maybe even you still
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: needed it. But you know, that's the thing is these
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: are parallel storylines, but they're not working in conjunction the
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: way they should. And what I struggled with through it
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: as well is I don't think Gibson was the right
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: guy for this. I don't think he's charming enough in
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: this role. I think that there are moments where he's
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: trying to play old comedy mel Gibson, like Zany Riggs
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: from Lethal Weapon, And then I think that there are
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: parts where he's trying to play a more serious, you know,
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: Mel Gibson type of role. I don't think that he
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: ever finds his footing in this movie. I don't think
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: that that Myers ever gets him to where he needs
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: to be as the driving charismatic force in the film.
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: I mean, am I way off base? Do you guys disagree?
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: Darren? No? I I'm trying not to turn it right
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: into another question, but yeah, I see the rigs I see.
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's just hard when you're you're putting this
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: up against and it's hard not to compare it to
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: other rom coms like we were of the era, and
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: he's not a Tom Hanks. He's not like these other
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: charming couples where he's always has that edge.
• 14:25
  Speaker 5: It's like a like.
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: A John Travolta where like you can kind of see it,
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: but there's always going to be that edge that the
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: character cannot get passed where you're rooting for him one
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: hundred percent. You know, you see where the story is
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: trying to take you. I mean, I was gonna ask.
• 14:42
  Speaker 5: Who is this movie for?
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: Mh Is this movie for couples? So that there's something
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: for the men, there's something for the Is it for women?
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: Because there's a lot of like male power fantasy in here,
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: like especially with the Melissa to make you know carecharacter,
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: and just a lot of that of like, you know,
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: look at he's manipulating and gaming the system and the
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: moment he has to be vulnerable at the end. You know,
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: we barely spend any time with him after he loses
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: his power and actually has to communicate with people and
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: not know what they're gonna say, and and so I'm like, okay,
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: but there's so many scenes written where you're like, this
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: is for a guy. This is like for a guy, like, oh, man,
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: imagine you had this cool power where you could figure
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: everything out and say the right thing. And it's like
• 15:35
  Speaker 3: those movies where they have the button and they can
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: jump back five seconds and redo, you know. There it's
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: the same concept of like just having that one up
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: on the situation. But I can't see what is for
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: women in this, Like is it just the eye candy
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: of mel Gibson in two thousand? I guess I don't know.
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean I think that the movie is one
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: of those things where because I was talking about it
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: with a friend after I watch it, and I was
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: joking around with her where I was like, oh, well,
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: you know, hey, you know, here are my thoughts on it.
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: And I think that the this is one of those
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: things where even if you don't like this movie, it's
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: not one of those ones where it's offensively bad where
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: anybody's gonna be mad. I think there are plenty of
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: people who had a good time going out and just
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: having a laugh at seeing Mel Gibson trying on hot
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: wax and lipstick, so like it has that aspect to it,
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: and he gets the girl at the end and he
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: you know, like the ending, everybody's everybody winds up in
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: a happy enough place at the end, So it's a yeah.
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: I mean, if anything, it's a popcorn movie, which you know,
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: when you look at the top ten box office, you know,
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: the top ten box office of two thousand, there's a
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: fair amount of popcorn movie in that mix there. And
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: I would argue that we're used to saying popcorn movie
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: in the sense of like a big action movie, like
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: the number one box office hit of that year, Mission
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: Impossible too, So you know, box office is not a
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: metric of how good a movie is. And you know,
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: like I When I hear the term popcorn movie myself,
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: I think of a big action extravaganza. But I think
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: this is a popcorn movie for people who don't want
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: to watch things blow up, if that makes sense. Get
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: do you get what I'm saying there?
• 17:28
  Speaker 4: It's not a thinker, Yeah, is what you're saying, Like
• 17:31
  Speaker 4: it's a wrong com but it's it's not a thinker either,
• 17:34
  Speaker 4: Like there's I don't know, it has something deep that
• 17:37
  Speaker 4: it's trying to say, but it gets lost and it's
• 17:42
  Speaker 4: essentially gets broken down to its its most basic parts
• 17:46
  Speaker 4: where a chauvinist learns how to listen, and that's it,
• 17:52
  Speaker 4: and that's the movie.
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: I especially enjoy the contrivance of him losing his power
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: because he happens to be directed by an old woman
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: into an alley during a rainstorm. Then it hits.
• 18:04
  Speaker 4: A no no, an old Asian woman, yeah, who clearly
• 18:09
  Speaker 4: has special powers because she's old and Asian.
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: That's true. She does smile at the camera at one
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: point because she knows that lightning bolt is coming.
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: This movie is not about the clock tower, so she knew, right, Yeah.
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: One jikawats yeah, I mean the obviously, the contrivance of
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: him not being killed by the hair dryer falling into
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: the tub with him is one thing, but the whole
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: thing at the end of like and then you lose
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: your powers because lightning strikes a bunch of power lines
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: that are right above you, and it goes into slow motion.
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: It's like, wait, wait what I just I just I
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: don't know. I like I even thought again, to come
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: back to the technical side of it, Dean Kundy's a legendary,
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: legendary director of photography. But what one of the things
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: that drove me to distraction was the fact that it
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: was a fake background in that condo set for Gibson.
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: The fake city background when it's lit wrong, looks god awful,
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: and it was unforgivable. And I could not watch the movie.
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: Like I was just sitting there, just focused on the background, like,
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: that's not what a city looks like. That's not what
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: a city. That's not it. You didn't even put a
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: Chicago back drop back there? Why does it even look
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: like Chicago? Back to like, ah, it did that distract
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: anybody else?
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: I thought?
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: I thought there were moments that were surprisingly unsuccessful for
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: a cinematographer of Kundy's skill in terms of the way
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: that they they lit and framed it. Am I Alone?
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: Am I on a island?
• 19:48
  Speaker 5: On You're Not alone?
• 19:49
  Speaker 4: Specifically with the cinematography, I think I was able to
• 19:52
  Speaker 4: ignore the cinematography in that scene specifically, like when he's
• 19:56
  Speaker 4: putting on the penny hose and before he gets his
• 19:59
  Speaker 4: powers and everything, like just because the scene went on
• 20:02
  Speaker 4: ungodly long.
• 20:05
  Speaker 5: It felt like one and a half pod races.
• 20:07
  Speaker 4: It was so long, and I just I was so
• 20:12
  Speaker 4: confused by it because I'm just like like every once
• 20:15
  Speaker 4: in a while, I'd be like, wait, wait.
• 20:17
  Speaker 5: We're still in this scene, Like we're still going it's
• 20:21
  Speaker 5: a huge chunk of the movie, and it just kills
• 20:24
  Speaker 5: the momentum dead, just absolutely like do we need to
• 20:27
  Speaker 5: see him explore every single product in the amount of
• 20:31
  Speaker 5: time that he gave it, And it's just it kind
• 20:33
  Speaker 5: of turns you off from.
• 20:34
  Speaker 4: The rhythm of the movie early on. And the cinematography
• 20:38
  Speaker 4: itself is incredibly basic, Like it's it's not so much
• 20:44
  Speaker 4: that I wanted cinematography that insists upon itself that you know,
• 20:48
  Speaker 4: like makes you aware of it, Like you don't need
• 20:50
  Speaker 4: that in a rom com. But at the same time,
• 20:52
  Speaker 4: it was incredibly basic one two one two one two
• 20:56
  Speaker 4: mm hmm.
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: I'm glad you mentioned that scene where he's trying all
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: of the products, because I agree with you about three
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: quarters of the way through is really where I got antsy,
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: and I was just basically wondering when the hell was
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: that going to end? Because I like, again, you had
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: all of this editing power behind it. I really feel
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: like you could have found ways to trim the crap
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: out of that, and I mean literally trim the crap
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: out of it, because he could have tried all of
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: those product products and still done it in half the
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: amount of screen time, and you could have subtracted the
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: boyfriend and girl and daughter interrupting him, and you're to
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: the meat of the story way faster, like way incredibly faster.
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: That that whole scene, like it reminded me because I
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: vaguely remember the trailer for this, and that scene feels
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: like it exists purely for footage for the trailer, like
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: and so it kind of surprised me that because I
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: remember that I vaguely remember it. It was like, you know,
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: he hears what women want, and now he's getting in
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: touch with his feminine side, you know, and then you
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: see all the shots of you know, putting on the
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: wax and the paneos and all that things. So it
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: kind of surprised me that in the story that all
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: happens before he gets his power and it so again
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: it felt like, Okay, we need this scene and we
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: need a lot of coverage because we're going to use
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: this to promote the movie. Is kind of what it.
• 22:31
  Speaker 5: Felt like, You're probably not wrong, and that's sad.
• 22:37
  Speaker 4: That's sad when you're when you're watching a scene when
• 22:39
  Speaker 4: you're like no, But there are those moments when you
• 22:42
  Speaker 4: when you hate it, when you're just loss like oh,
• 22:44
  Speaker 4: this was made for the trailer, or when you see
• 22:46
  Speaker 4: a monologue and you're like, oh, this was clearly his
• 22:48
  Speaker 4: audition piece, you know, like that kind of thing.
• 22:50
  Speaker 5: It kind of takes you out of it.
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah. But the thing is, I think what's unsettling for
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: me is Parent Trap was not obvious a perfect film,
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: but at the same time, the sense of pacing really
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: seemed to work a lot better last week, Like, even
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: though the movie was about as long as this, it
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: moved a little bit better. We still all felt I
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: think that you could have trimmed time out of it.
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: But Comparatively speaking, this movie drags. If I take the
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: wayback machine to last week and I'm like, oh, you
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: could have taken ten fifteen minutes out of that movie. Yes,
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: still true. I think you could have taken twenty minutes
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: out of this movie and just cooked through. It's what
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: two hours and seven minutes, And I'm like it, as
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: as you love to say, Tristan, I'll borrow your phrase.
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: It has no business being this long, not at all.
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: This is a one hour forty five movie that gets
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: stretched to two hours seven and it's just in a
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: sense by the end of it was I couldn't wait
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: for it to end. I just wanted it to be done.
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: Just just get it over with already. That was my
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: take on it.
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: So as far as that editing it, I'm gonna relate
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: it to Star Wars John So this has some of
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: the same creative issues that episode one The Phantom Menace
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: had in that there are so many threads going on
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: by the end that you have to include them all.
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: You have to give closure to the suicidal thought, you know, coworker,
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: you have to give closure to the daughter going to
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: the prom, and so you have these all these plots
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: going and that you have to invest the time. The
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: same thing happened in episode one, where you have the
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: space battle and the planet battle and the saber fight
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: and the droid battle. They were all happening, and so
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: you had to just keep inter cutting to wrap up.
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: You couldn't cut one out. And this is kind of
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: the same unless you drastically literally took like, let's say, example,
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: know the suicidal thought coworker. If you took every single
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: scene of her out, Yeah, you could do it, yes,
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: but but now your main set piece to get him
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: to lose his power is connected to that plot, So
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: how do you get him there? So it just it's
• 25:17
  Speaker 3: all inner cut.
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: I get what you're saying. But the thing is I
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: didn't really actually have a problem with the way that
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: ending was intercut. I'm just saying that I was so
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: impatient with it because of all of the earlier sins
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: that I was like, good lord, why are we Like
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: if I had taken less time to get there, I've
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: less problem with the ending, is what I'm saying. Like,
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: the ending, I think does a good enough job of
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: juggling everything except for the very end where they kiss
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: and it immediately like smash cuts to credits. I'm like, wait,
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: what that's that's all?
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah?
• 25:51
  Speaker 5: Strange.
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, it almost feels like it got to two hours
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: seven and they were like, yeah, not that.
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: What'd you think of the ending? Trus because not even
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: the kiss, but like from the moment she says you're fired,
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: the tone shifts and then the movie's over like two
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: minutes later, And I was really caught off guard by that.
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: I was not expecting that ending.
• 26:15
  Speaker 4: It really would have been interesting if they had the
• 26:18
  Speaker 4: cojones too in the relationship right there for her to
• 26:23
  Speaker 4: say you're fired, Like, no one screws with my career
• 26:26
  Speaker 4: like you just did, like I left BBDO for this,
• 26:31
  Speaker 4: and you know, like you ruin my reputation, like people
• 26:35
  Speaker 4: are gonna know she got fired. Like it's a small community.
• 26:38
  Speaker 4: I work in that community specifically in Chicago that's going
• 26:43
  Speaker 4: to get out, and it's just let them be fired
• 26:48
  Speaker 4: and let them move on and let them move on
• 26:51
  Speaker 4: to something else. Flash forward a month later, three months later,
• 26:55
  Speaker 4: six months later, a year. I don't care. Just have
• 26:58
  Speaker 4: him show progress where he does something different with his
• 27:01
  Speaker 4: with his life, like he didn't necessarily meet Helen Hunt.
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: About women want.
• 27:07
  Speaker 4: Yeah not even no, not even that I'm talking about
• 27:09
  Speaker 4: like personal success, like not even professional success, just personal success.
• 27:12
  Speaker 4: Like he's he's he's reconnected with his daughter in an
• 27:15
  Speaker 4: extreme way, like he you know, maybe he stole some
• 27:19
  Speaker 4: of the people from his old company and started his
• 27:21
  Speaker 4: own firm and it's forward thinking. And then like at
• 27:25
  Speaker 4: their year later, Mark Helen Hunt comes back into his
• 27:28
  Speaker 4: life and you know, says like, you know, can we
• 27:31
  Speaker 4: start over? Can we do this on even footing? And
• 27:33
  Speaker 4: then that would have been like you you have your
• 27:36
  Speaker 4: moment like where you have like you show personal growth
• 27:39
  Speaker 4: and it's not just right then and there, it's long lasting,
• 27:42
  Speaker 4: right and you still get your happy ending.
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: Would it not have been great to take your idea
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: what you're talking about there and have it be where
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: he not only has Judy Greer as you know, some
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: lead copy writer or something like that, but he's yeah,
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: the owner of the company. But you see him sitting
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: in a room full of women and he's like, no,
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: you guys got it. I'm just funding you guys are
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: the brains. And he just defers, He's just like, no,
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: I'm just giving you the platform for success. I'm just
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: here to let you know, to help you guys you know,
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: get going and this is your firm. I just I just,
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: you know, ignore me or something like that. Yeah, and
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: that's that way you could have had that. But I
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: think it speaks to again, you're fired, but wait no,
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: I love you. Kiss and scene over. I think that
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: speaks to again, the movie wants everything, and so it
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: can't pick anything. It can't pick a lane because it
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: wants to be a rom com where they get together,
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: but it also wants to be a movie where he
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: learns a painful lesson, and so that's their attempt at
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: it at the end. I would not be at all surprised.
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: I haven't seen anything saying this, but I would not
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: be at all surprised to find out there were reshoots
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: at the end, because like, he did get fired, and
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: then the audience was like, I don't like the unhappy ending. Okay,
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: we gotta come back. All right, guys, get back together.
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: We're gonna shoot extra scene where she kisses him, and
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: we're happy now. Because the ending made sense when she
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: fired him. I remember sitting there and like my esteem
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: for the movie shot up in that moment. I was like, oh, yeah, okay, yes,
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: good right, he does deserve it, and he takes it
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: and he's like and he is, he's walking out, He's like, yeah,
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: I deserve this. I did a bad thing. It's like okay, good, yeah, okay,
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: things are okay now. But then they just couldn't let
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: it go. They had to come back to it.
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: Now. I agree John, when when she said you're fired,
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: I felt like, oh oh they went. They actually like
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: it made so much sense, and it felt like that's
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: something that happens in a modern movie, like if this
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: was made today, that's exactly what would happen. Of course,
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: the real world repercussions bite you in the butt and
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: the reality. But then immediately it, yeah, it felt like
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: a reshoot, like okay, come back in the same clothes
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: and we'll relight the terrible backdrop and and now you're
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: gonna say, how could what did you say? So I'm like,
• 30:02
  Speaker 3: how could I let my guy be down or something?
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 30:07
  Speaker 3: But yeah, honestly, yeah, like that would have been a
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: better ending. It would have completely surprised me, not in
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: a bad way, in a oh wow like that. That
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: is a risk for a rom com to not have
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: your lead get the girl at the end.
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: But the thing is like that, then we go into
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: what you called earlier Darren script doctor mode, because I'm like,
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: at the script level, you could have intercepted that and
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: instead even had it the Alan Alda saying, you know what,
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: I was grooming her to take my position. I just retired.
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: You get to have my job because what you just
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: did with this, and he's like no, no, no, no, no,
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: promote her, and so he gets turned into her boss.
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: And at the end she's like hey, and there, you know,
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: she's celebrating him, and he's like, no, I feel terrible.
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: I got here because you know, he does his confession
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: and then she quits and she's like, I can't work
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: under these circumstances, like and you sort of like flip
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: it that way, give her the you know, the power
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: or something like that. I'm not saying that's, you know,
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: necessarily the solution, but like something like that would have
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: felt more organic to everything rather than what they did,
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: and it just it felt like such a mash of everything.
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: And the thing is, again, we come back and it
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: gets killer box office. It's one of the top ten
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: box office hits of two thousand. So are we just
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: incredibly off base where people just absolutely you know, hungry
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: for any movie with mel Gibson and or Helen Hunt
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: in it in the year two thousand where they were like, oh,
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: thank goodness, they're in a movie together and they are
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: are we possibly Christmas movie?
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: It came out December fifteenth, so this was date night
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: Christmas season. That's exactly what it was, and it it
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: ate and it knew what it was. I mean at
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: its core. I mean, I know, we're doing a movie
• 31:59
  Speaker 3: podcast and that's like our quote unquote jobs to discuss.
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: But I think, yeah, at the end of the day,
• 32:08
  Speaker 3: the movie going public is just like we just want
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: to be entertained, and this movie is entertaining. It's funny,
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: it has witty parts, it is it a perfect flow,
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: Like I don't think people care, and that's not a
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: bad thing. But I mean, as we're to move away
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: from script doctoring for a second, I want to talk
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: about Alan Alda because I love every time Alan Alda
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: shows up in a movie. And it doesn't help that
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: I was I'm in the middle of a master rewatch,
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: so I'm like, ah, okay, here, you're back here in
• 32:40
  Speaker 3: everything that I'm watching right now, But man, you want
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: to talk about chemistry. Alan Alda on screen every moment
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: had more interpersonal chemistry with any character than Mel Gibson's
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: in this. He just oozed that you know, fatherly charm.
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: I guess, you know, for for his age, but it
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: was great. I loved seeing him in this.
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: He has such an easy on screen presence like he is.
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: He shows up and you just you feel comfortable with
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: alan Aldough, which I know sounds like damning with faint
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: praise sort of thing, but I mean like when he
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: shows up, he exudes a warmth that you enjoy and
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: unfortunately for him. Having watched Futurama, I always think of
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: the robot during the war episode that is specifically designed
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: to mock Hawkeye Pierce from Nash and so you know,
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: this isn't a war, it's a murder. And I but
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: I think that you're right. Alan Alda is great in this.
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: He's he's one of those actors who can do so
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: much with five minutes of screen time. And I will
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: if you mentioned this movie, I will think of him
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: before I think of the leads in terms of my
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: reaction to the performance.
• 33:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah, oh, I mean there's there's one scene he's on
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: the phone and he lifts up the other copy that's
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: exactly the same as hers. Doesn't say anything in the
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: entire scene, and he's acting his heart out like you
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: know exactly what he's thinking. He's not even talking.
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 34:10
  Speaker 5: Did you guys know that there was a remake of this?
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: Is it a really a remake?
• 34:18
  Speaker 5: I know there was a remake. There was a gender
• 34:21
  Speaker 5: swamped remake.
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's with Tracy Morgan, right, well, he's in it,
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: but it stars g p Henson.
• 34:30
  Speaker 4: It's literally called What Men Want. Came out in twenty nineteen.
• 34:33
  Speaker 4: I never saw it. Why would I?
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: But well it's a much shorter movie. Xbox and Star
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: Wars toys. She just walks in. Oh, he just wants
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: to play Xbox and talk about Star Wars. Okay, and
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: credits you know.
• 34:53
  Speaker 5: There you go?
• 34:55
  Speaker 4: Okay, So where did you guys see Nancy Myers in this?
• 34:58
  Speaker 4: As we finish up.
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: I didn't. I didn't. There's nothing. There's nothing in this
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: where I'm like, oh, that's the director of the Parent Trap. No,
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: I didn't. I. If anything, this feels like a director
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: who's given something to do, as opposed to somebody who
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: was excited about wanting to do it. Now, I'm sure
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: the backstory of It could be that, like she commissioned
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: the script because she was so excited. But this, this
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: is only two years after the Parent Trap. This, this
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: feels like a hey, we got a thing with big
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: stars attached to it. Can you get this across the line?
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: That's what this feels like to me.
• 35:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I don't want to speculate because I
• 35:35
  Speaker 3: don't have that information in front of me, but yeah,
• 35:39
  Speaker 3: it does have that different feel of passion project.
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: I really want to.
• 35:43
  Speaker 3: Get this made versus you know, this went through a
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: couple of directors and it landed on you know, Nancy
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: Meyer's desk eventually and then became you know, moved out
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: of production purgatory and finally became I don't know. That's
• 35:57
  Speaker 3: all speculation, but yeah, I mean there are a lot
• 36:04
  Speaker 3: of interpersonal moments that I think she does well. And
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: I think of Parent Trap and a lot of the discussion,
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: you know, between the girls or with the parents. I
• 36:15
  Speaker 3: think I see that in this movie. But the problem
• 36:19
  Speaker 3: is it's in the hands of Mel Gibson, and like
• 36:23
  Speaker 3: he's part of that equation and that hurts it. So
• 36:26
  Speaker 3: I think all the structure is there, it it just
• 36:31
  Speaker 3: doesn't quite fly with this protagonist. So and it's comprehensive.
• 36:38
  Speaker 3: You know, it gets the job done. But yeah, I
• 36:42
  Speaker 3: had not even seen this twenty six years later, and
• 36:47
  Speaker 3: it took this missing frame for me to grab it.
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, I mean, unless anybody has something burning to
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: say about Alan Silvestri's score or the music supervision on
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: this film, I think we're at the point where we
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: can give final thoughts and ratings. So, uh, you know what, Tristan,
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: I will turn it to you first. This is your
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: second time seeing this, You've had time to sit with it.
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: You get a truly the authoritative critical view of what
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: women want. So what do women want? Did they want this? Tristan?
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: In your opinion? How many? How many fake backdrops do
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: you give it?
• 37:26
  Speaker 4: I think people definitely wanted this because of how much
• 37:29
  Speaker 4: money it made.
• 37:30
  Speaker 5: It clearly found an audience.
• 37:31
  Speaker 4: And I think the one thing that I that always
• 37:34
  Speaker 4: comes to mind when I think about this movie is
• 37:41
  Speaker 4: when it first came out on DVD best Buy for
• 37:44
  Speaker 4: some reason.
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: When all in thank you for triggering that memory. You're right, yes,
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: I read oh okay, so you know it was nationwide?
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: It was nationwide?
• 37:54
  Speaker 4: Yes, yeah, because I at first I thought it was
• 37:57
  Speaker 4: like an ordering mistake that my best by did personally,
• 38:02
  Speaker 4: but knowing now that this was a nationwide problem, good lord,
• 38:06
  Speaker 4: that was. They had chunks of that movie for years.
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: It's like icebergs of this movie moving through Best Buy.
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: You just had to navigate around them or you were
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: you know what, Actually, Darren, we should be proud ourselves,
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: proud of ourselves in light of that, because it means
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: we were able to avoid this the best by cataclysm
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: of what women want for all those years.
• 38:29
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it was. It was?
• 38:31
  Speaker 3: Wait?
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: Was that was that during the era of what best
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: Buy later got like nailed for by like the FTC
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: for like underpricing their movies to draw people in to
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: like like scroll with their competition. I do not remember
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: that might have been during that that era might have been.
• 38:49
  Speaker 4: Because I think I just remember seeing just a wall
• 38:52
  Speaker 4: of what women want and then like three years later
• 38:55
  Speaker 4: it was only a third gone.
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: Not even can I just ask anybody else's wife make
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: the joke, you know, it's like, oh, I'm gonna watch
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: what women Want. My wife looks me and she says, Oh,
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: you're finally going to figure it out. I was like,
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: yah yah, thank you for the meetup gallery well.
• 39:13
  Speaker 4: So so you're rating I'm you know, like there's not
• 39:16
  Speaker 4: much I can add. I mean, this is a severely
• 39:19
  Speaker 4: aggressively okay movie, Like there's so much wrong with it,
• 39:23
  Speaker 4: but there are moments that make you laugh. There are
• 39:25
  Speaker 4: it's a it's a concept where the movie didn't handle
• 39:30
  Speaker 4: it in the best possible way. Like it's a really
• 39:32
  Speaker 4: good concept, but the movie kind of fails to express
• 39:35
  Speaker 4: it and its best way. And and like it's nobody
• 39:39
  Speaker 4: does a terrible job. It's just the chemistry is just
• 39:42
  Speaker 4: not there, Like they either should have had a different
• 39:45
  Speaker 4: leading man or a different leading woman. But like, separately
• 39:49
  Speaker 4: they all do a fantastic job, but together it just
• 39:52
  Speaker 4: doesn't work. And it's very convoluted but then rushed in
• 39:56
  Speaker 4: certain parts and slow in other parts. It's way too long.
• 40:00
  Speaker 4: I'm gonna give this a generous two and a half.
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: Okay, Okay, and Darren, where do you know what? I'll
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: go next, And we'll let Darren go last on this one.
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: I'll go next. I'm gonna be a little bit harsher
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: with this. To echo what I said to my friend.
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: This is not something where you're like mad about about
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: it at the end, but you just come away with
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: the feeling of I could have done something else with
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: my time, and I probably would have had a better time.
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: And yes, there are moments that work pretty well, but
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: even just some of the jokes that work well, they
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: just take too long to tell and I just can't
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: get over that fake background. It's absolutely killing me. So
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna go ahead and I'm gonna give it two stars. Darren,
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: tell us what you're thinking about what women want?
• 40:57
  Speaker 3: Well, you can't tell you didn't get hit by lightning.
• 40:59
  Speaker 3: N Yeah. No, I'm also giving this a two. I'm
• 41:03
  Speaker 3: never gonna watch this movie again. And I do kind
• 41:05
  Speaker 3: of wish I had watched a few more Mash episodes instead.
• 41:09
  Speaker 3: I probably could have gotten through six during this what
• 41:12
  Speaker 3: I spent on this. Yeah, it's again, Like I said
• 41:17
  Speaker 3: up front at the beginning, I wanted to think about
• 41:20
  Speaker 3: it in the context of the era it's in. You know,
• 41:25
  Speaker 3: the people are just going to the movies for fun
• 41:28
  Speaker 3: and having a good time, and there's nothing wrong with that.
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: It made lots of money, it kept you know, Mel
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: Gibson star rising. That's fine, but it has a lot
• 41:39
  Speaker 3: of issues and I'm looking forward more to next week.
• 41:43
  Speaker 3: But yeah, two stars for me.
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: Well, there you go. That is our analysis of what
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: women want. And I know that we are looking forward,
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: nonetheless to the next episode of house Lights, where we
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: are going to be looking at Nancy Meyer's next film. So, Darren,
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: what is coming up?
• 42:05
  Speaker 3: That's right, We're going to go three years later to
• 42:08
  Speaker 3: two thousand and three. Something's got to give.
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: Next on house Lights, Join the Revolution, Join the ned Party,