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Twister · The Bechdel Cast

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: On the Bechdel Cast, the questions ask if movies have
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: women and them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands,
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: or do they have individualism? It's the patriarchy, zeph and
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: best start changing it with the Bechdel Cast.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: Hey, Jamie, Twisters hate my family, like honestly, Caitlin as
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: a militant feminist.
• 0:29
  Speaker 3: Everyone in this movie needs to get away from Helen Hunt.
• 0:34
  Speaker 4: She is leading them to danger.
• 0:37
  Speaker 3: Yes, she is repeated. I mean everyone is being led
• 0:40
  Speaker 3: to danger. Everyone here has a near death kink obviously
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: right like they get off on it. We see it repeatedly. However,
• 0:52
  Speaker 3: there's only one character who the Twister hates back with
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: a vengeance, and it's Helen Hunt. Because we are in
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: from what we can understand, we're led to believe, you know,
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: like we're we're with Oklahoma natives. We are with people
• 1:09
  Speaker 3: who have grown up live understand Tornado Alley, but with
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: Helen Hunt around. There are six unprecedented Twisters in a
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: space of it seems like seventy two hours. Yeah, seventy
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: two hours generously, But we never see anyone sleep, and
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: no one changes their clothes.
• 1:28
  Speaker 4: I think it's one nightfall. I think it's forty eight hours.
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: Maybe just when you think there's not going to be another.
• 1:33
  Speaker 3: I watched this movie with my brother today and we
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: were repeatedly shocked at exactly how many times Twister delivers
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: on the titular promise. Like I thought we had reached
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: the final Twister, and then I checked the run time.
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: I'm like, hold on, and then there is like a
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: you know whatever, diegetic newscast that's like up next, the
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: biggest Twister in thirty years. I'm like, they literally just
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: finished one. It's shocking how many Twisters, and they seem
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: to hate Helen Hunt and her extended family. Well, I
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: think it's personal with the Twisters, Like I don't know
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: what Helen Hunt's family did in ancient times to a Twister,
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: but the Twisters have it out for her specific twist.
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: Like I would be like, Helen, I love you, Joe
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: love you, but clearly Twisters hate you, like you need
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: to move out of the area.
• 2:31
  Speaker 4: I think when Joe and the Twisters are chasing each other,
• 2:37
  Speaker 4: I think that that passes the Bechdel test.
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: I was gonna ask you that because they do use
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: she her pronouns for Twisters in the same way that
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: I mean there's so many, I mean, truly so many
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: parallels between this movie and Jurassic Park, but also a
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: lot of parallels between this movie and Titanic. You know,
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: she her Titanic, she her the twist Twisters.
• 3:00
  Speaker 4: She heard Tyrannosaurus Rex and the raptors and all the
• 3:04
  Speaker 4: other dinosaurs and.
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: When it all comes together, and yeah, I mean there
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: really are the Michael Crichton of it all, the gorgeous
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: science woman lead wearing a tank top whereas everyone else
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: is wearing three shirts as a man of it all,
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: the guy calling Bill Paxton boss of it all. It
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: really does boggle the mind. How what a clear line
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: there is with disaster movies, with thrillers with white men
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: wearing minimum three shirts as the romantic protagonist. Like it's
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: just Twister is a part of a cultural moment.
• 3:50
  Speaker 4: It sure is.
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: And I personally feel as someone who at the time
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: of recording, I have not seen Twisters. I don't think
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: I could, or like, if I wanted to see Twisters,
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: I would need to be sitting in a movie seat
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: at this exact moment.
• 4:03
  Speaker 4: No, it's not even out for another week at the
• 4:05
  Speaker 4: time of this recording.
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: Okay, fuck it I'm busy, I'm not I don't think
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: I'm going to see it. And here's why, Glenn Powell.
• 4:12
  Speaker 4: I like him.
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: I like him. I have enjoyed the performances of his
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: i've seen, but I just feel like it's a losing
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: battle to be like, hey, new guy have the raw
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: charisma of Bill Paxton in his prime. Like it's I
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: just don't see it. How could anyone? He's so distinct.
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: May his soul rest in peace.
• 4:35
  Speaker 4: May it indeed. I would say this is one of
• 4:37
  Speaker 4: Bill Paxton's more subdued roles because he's normally screaming even
• 4:42
  Speaker 4: more than this in most of his movies.
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: I agree. And also I think it's really funny that
• 4:47
  Speaker 3: his name is Bill, like they made it, they put him,
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: not that this movie is on easy mode, Like as
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: an actor, clearly there's a lot of physical demands that
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: come with this movie on top of like normal acting challenge.
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: But I just always think it's funny when you know
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: it's Bill Paxton and they I don't know if I'm
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: casting an actor, if the perfect actor for my lead
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: role has the same first name, I would consider changing
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: it because it is a little like they keep calling
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: him Bill and you're like, oh, you made a mistake,
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: but they didn't. The character's name is Bill.
• 5:22
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's pretty funny. Hey listeners, Welcome to the Bechdel Cast.
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: Whatever, fuck you, guys. We love you guys. Happy summer.
• 5:32
  Speaker 4: My name is Caitlin Deonte.
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: My name is Jamie Loftus. This is the Bechdel Cast,
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: the podcast where we talk about your favorite movies using
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: an intersectional feminist lens. What's the Bechdel test, Well look
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: it up on your own time. We're kind of busy
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: tonight because we have to talk about Twister nineteen ninety six.
• 5:51
  Speaker 4: Yeah, okay, Jamie, what's your relationship with the movie.
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: I've seen it a couple different times. Over the course
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: of the last twenty years. I've seen Twister probably three
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: or four times. Yeah. I have a memory of watching
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: this movie with my aunt during a vacation. I have
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: a memory of watching this movie on a plane. Like,
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: this is a movie that I didn't see in theaters.
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: I was too young to see it in theaters for sure,
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: But I just have memories of like knowing of its existence,
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: and I have a feeling that the reason I don't
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: watch this movie more. While I do think it's good,
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: and it has a lot of the elements of what
• 6:32
  Speaker 3: I like in a movie. There are so many movies
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: that came out in close proximity with similar actors, with
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: a similar premise that I think are better that while
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: this movie was I think, rightfully, very successful, I don't
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: return to it very often. I feel like the reason
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: I mainly think about this movie is because of the
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: attraction that existed about this movie at Universal Studios, Florida. Right,
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: and then Bill Paksay's in the video and he's like, Hi,
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: because that's like his whole vibe. Hi. You might be
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: wondering how did we make the Twister? And you're like, dude,
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: I was like six, I did not wonder how you
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: made the Twister? But they had, you know, if you're
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: nine thousand years old like us. There was a live
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: demonstration at Universal Studios, Florida where they basically demonstrated something
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: I would probably be more interested in now than I
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: was as a child, where they would sort of demonstrate
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: behind a pane of glass how they did a lot
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: of the practical effects in Twister. Which is part of
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: what's really cool about this movie is how many really
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: challenging and as we'll talk about very dangerous practical effects
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: that were done during this movie. And I was kind
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: of surprised on this viewing. It'd been at least six
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: or seven years since I'd seen it, and I don't
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: know that I've ever watched this movie paying one hundred
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: percent attention, if I'm being honest. So a lot of
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: plot points I'd forgotten. I totally forgot phillipsymore off. But
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: like there's so many people. I don't think I knew
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: who Alan Rock was the last time I saw this,
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: Like there's this movie has a ridiculous amount of heavy hitters. Yeah,
• 8:18
  Speaker 3: but in any case, Yeah, this was the first time
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: that I truly paid attention to it, and I was
• 8:23
  Speaker 3: pleasantly surprised at at least how relatively well. I feel
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: like the special effects hold up, which makes sense when
• 8:31
  Speaker 3: you know, or I learned after I finished watching the
• 8:34
  Speaker 3: movie that this movie was basically pitched as a special
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: effects demo versus a story to endure, which it's I
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: would argue, not wow, rude, I mean, the story sucks.
• 8:51
  Speaker 3: The story sucks, but whatever. Famous climate change denialist Michael
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: Crichton wrote this movie, you know, sort of offset from
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: Jurassic Park. It just feels like he's pulling from the
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: hits to write this special effects demo that became the
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: movie Twister.
• 9:10
  Speaker 4: Sure. Also, I mean the practical effects, yes, very good.
• 9:14
  Speaker 4: The CGI not so good. But it was nineteen ninety six,
• 9:19
  Speaker 4: so what could they have done.
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: I think the practical effects are amazing. I think the
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: CGI effects for the time for the time, yeah, are
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: pretty good. And I really got a kick out of
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: learning that the cow, which is iconic. I remember the
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: cow from the trailer whenever I saw the trailer on
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: like ABHS or whatever. Also Twister nineteen ninety six, Caitlin. Yeah,
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: from what I heard, and from what I heard is
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: from director John Debont. And it was so funny because
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: I again, this was a rewatch that I just watched
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: the movie with my brother and then I did all
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: of the research after I did no research before we
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: started watching, and I said several times I was like, wow,
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: this feels paced, whise like speed. Like every single time
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: there's a twister, there's like a brief Quippi exchange and
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: then there's just another twister, which is how speed works.
• 10:11
  Speaker 3: It's like there's a car thing and then Keanu and
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: Sandra are like, that was wild. That was wild. I
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: have a crush. No, I have a crush. Oh my god,
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: the baby.
• 10:22
  Speaker 4: Like it was cans.
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: It was cons like. And that's kind of the pacing
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: of this movie as well, where it's like, Sexy Quippy,
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: another Twister, Sexy Quippy, another Twister, and then two hours
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: later the movie ends, and then to find that they
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: have the same director. So it actually makes a lot
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: of sense. This was just like the action thriller pace
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: of this director at this time. What's your history with
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: Twister nineteen ninety six.
• 10:51
  Speaker 4: I did not grow up with this movie, despite it
• 10:55
  Speaker 4: being one of two VHS tapes at my gramm's house.
• 11:01
  Speaker 4: So anytime I would go to visit Whoa and She's like,
• 11:04
  Speaker 4: do you want to watch a movie? And I'd be like, yeah,
• 11:06
  Speaker 4: what do you have? And she had exactly two VHS's
• 11:09
  Speaker 4: and I don't even remember what the other one was,
• 11:12
  Speaker 4: which is the one that I watched all the time.
• 11:15
  Speaker 4: I just remember that there was dirty dancing.
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: No, my grandma had dirty dancing and slapshot okay, and
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: oh my god, Anne River dancing because she.
• 11:26
  Speaker 4: Was Irish fun Okay, No, I'll have to ask my
• 11:31
  Speaker 4: mom if she remembers, but I.
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: Would be so curious. I feel like that's a very
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: forbit of detail, like the especially when there's only two,
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: and you would think I.
• 11:40
  Speaker 4: Would remember the one that I actually watched, but I don't.
• 11:43
  Speaker 4: I only remember fucked up.
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: Were you watching like basic Instinct with your grandma?
• 11:47
  Speaker 4: I'm guessing it was like Aladdin or just something that
• 11:50
  Speaker 4: I was watching all the time anyway, But I was
• 11:52
  Speaker 4: always like, what's this other movie Twister? I don't know.
• 11:55
  Speaker 4: I don't know about it. It seems it seems there's adults
• 11:59
  Speaker 4: in it. I don't no, and so I just because
• 12:01
  Speaker 4: I was like ten, yeah, and so I just like,
• 12:03
  Speaker 4: wasn't that interested it. But I do remember that she
• 12:06
  Speaker 4: had it, but I didn't see it until decades later.
• 12:11
  Speaker 4: I think I watched it for the first time in
• 12:15
  Speaker 4: my twenties and then again kind of recently, like within
• 12:19
  Speaker 4: the past year. I was like, oh, wait a minute,
• 12:21
  Speaker 4: this movie rules. It's awesome.
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: It does rule. I mean, I'm surprised, and I'm glad
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: you have it now, because it feels like a movie
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: that is like you are the target audience for. I know,
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: it's a romp, it's intense, it's sexy. It's fun.
• 12:39
  Speaker 4: Ten out of ten on the rompometer. Yeah, I don't
• 12:42
  Speaker 4: need Dorothy to take those measurements. I can safely say
• 12:46
  Speaker 4: for myself that it's a ten out of ten.
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: Oh my god, it made me laugh again. My brother
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: and I were laughing so much this morning at how
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: first of all the and it feels very I don't know.
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: I read Michael Crichton books when I was too young,
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: and I like, thank you so much. Even though we
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: don't read books for this podcast, I do love reading,
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: and like I remember reading Michael Crichton books when I
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: was a kid and like getting them from the library
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: and just feeling, you know, I'm sure he researched and
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: knew his shit, but it just always felt like such
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: YadA YadA science. And so when you get to Twister
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: and it's like science balls, like this whole thing is
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: like we have to throw the science balls into the
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: Twister so Helen Hunt can cure her father wound. Like
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: it's all so bizarre that, like my brother and I,
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: every time the science balls came out, we're like, well,
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: here they are again. Helen Hunt is just like having
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: a conniption because the science balls have spilled and they surely,
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: as scientists, they would know to put a net on
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: top of they. But they're always spilling the science.
• 13:58
  Speaker 4: They're loose, loose science balls just.
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: Rolling around, and they have so many Dorothy's because they
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: present it as like this movie is funny to because
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: I think it is like fun but not good, because
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: if there's so many things that are wrong that are
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: going on, there's an antagonist who like doesn't need to
• 14:17
  Speaker 3: be there. The antagonist should be the Twister, Like, we
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: don't need Carrie Elwis there.
• 14:23
  Speaker 4: How dare you say that about my friend Carrie Ellis.
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: We need him in Saw, we don't need him in Twister, unfortunately.
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: But like it was just like every time you show
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: up and he looks a little bit too much like
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: Bill Paxson, and you're like right, and he's like, I
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: don't have any science balls, but screw you guys. But
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: they present I thought they present Dorothy the science machine
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: at the beginning, like we made Dorothy there is only
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: one Dorothy, but it turns out that's not true. They
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: have like at least four it.
• 14:58
  Speaker 4: For Dorothy's, just in case the other three got ruined
• 15:02
  Speaker 4: by tornadoes, which is what happened Dorothy Okay. According to
• 15:06
  Speaker 4: Scholarly Journal, Wikipedia was inspired by Toto, an instrumented barrel
• 15:12
  Speaker 4: shaped device used to research tornadoes in the nineteen eighties.
• 15:17
  Speaker 4: And if you look at a picture of Toto, it
• 15:19
  Speaker 4: looks very similar to the design of Dorothy. So they were,
• 15:23
  Speaker 4: you know, basing this off of real science. I don't
• 15:27
  Speaker 4: know about.
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: The They were, oh, a big barrel full of science balls,
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: and they're like, this is real. I don't buy it.
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: I don't buy it, but I don't care. I mean,
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: when it comes to science and movies, honestly, the less
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: you tell me, the better. I don't need, you know,
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: the big short someone turning to camera and being like,
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: here's what's going on with the science balls. They're the
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: science balls. They need the silence balls to get into
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: the twister to cure Helen Hunt's Father Wound, which reminded
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: me of Oh my god, contact. No. I was thinking
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: of clock Stoppers weirdly.
• 16:05
  Speaker 4: Oh I've never seen that.
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: Actually, No, yes, we have, we covered what No, what
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: is the movie I'm thinking of? Julia Roberts sci Fi
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: Father Wound, clock Alliver Platt.
• 16:17
  Speaker 4: Oh no, no, no, flatliners.
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: Flat Liner Clockwatchers, flat liners. Listen, this has been on
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: for five thousand years. Well, we covered not clockwatchers, but
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: rather flatliners. I contact is a way better point of reference,
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: like in every way, but I was thought of. I
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: think it's maybe the first time that we talked about
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: like a sci fi movie where the primary woman who
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: is also the romantic lead, her entire plot line is
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: connected to men via a romantic interest with the male
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: lead and then with a vague traumatic father wound from
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: the nineteen sixties.
• 17:04
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: True, I have to say, and I apologize to any
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: of our listeners whose father was like fatally pulled into
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: a twister. But the CGI in that scene made me
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: laugh so much.
• 17:20
  Speaker 4: It's a bit silly.
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: If your daddy got pulled into a twister, you can
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: send me a mean email and cancel me. But like,
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: I just feel like daddy getting pulled into the twister
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: is funny because the CGI and that is bad. You
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: can just see that it is an extra on a
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: green screen being like whoo b Like I was laughing.
• 17:45
  Speaker 4: Sorry, Yeah, well, I was like, okay, a movie that
• 17:48
  Speaker 4: opens with a natural disaster in which the patriarch of
• 17:53
  Speaker 4: the family dies, What is this, Paddington?
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: I Okay, see the parallels. Yeah, we're seeing through the
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: matrix and this. But I do feel like this movie.
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: It makes sense to me why this movie was very
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: successful but not particularly remembered, because it just has elements
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: of similar movies that came out around the same time,
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: with similar, if not the same actors, that were better.
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: But it is kind of like it's like cooked in
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: a lap to be a fun summer movie. I don't
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: even mean it as a criticism, but like, you know,
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: any plot point or element of Twister that you like
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: was done.
• 18:39
  Speaker 4: Better in another movie in two years, yeah.
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: Right before or after?
• 18:45
  Speaker 4: Yeah the movie. Is it a cinematic masterpiece? Perhaps not,
• 18:49
  Speaker 4: but damn if it isn't a fun romp that I'm
• 18:52
  Speaker 4: always gonna enjoy.
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: I'm smiling. It's fun.
• 18:55
  Speaker 4: It's so fun. Let's take a break and then come
• 18:58
  Speaker 4: back for the recap, shall we. Okay, here's the plot
• 19:11
  Speaker 4: of Twister. The movie opens when it's nineteen sixty nine
• 19:18
  Speaker 4: in Oklahoma. What do you mean, nothing, Jamie, nothing at all.
• 19:25
  Speaker 4: I'll tell you when you're older, yeah.
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: Tubby, yeah, Toby, tell me when I'm thirty five place.
• 19:30
  Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, So we're in Oklahoma. A
• 19:34
  Speaker 4: storm is blowing in. There are tornado warnings on the TV.
• 19:38
  Speaker 4: We meet a young girl named Joe as well as
• 19:42
  Speaker 4: her parents as they head to their storm cellar. There's
• 19:46
  Speaker 4: a very intense tornado that blows little Joe's dad away
• 19:52
  Speaker 4: and he died.
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: Like It's sorry.
• 19:57
  Speaker 4: It's campy. It's too campily done for what is a
• 20:01
  Speaker 4: tragic death that affects the main character for the rest
• 20:04
  Speaker 4: of the movie.
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you can't have cgi like that and expect me
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: to be like weighted with grief for the remainder of
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: the movie. I also thought it was equally campily funny.
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah that anytime there is this repeated image connected to
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: the opening scene that later on when who knows the fourth, fifth, sixth,
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: ninth Twister they're plowing through the wreckage of that, Helen
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: Hunt will often see this recurring image of a mother, father,
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: and a young girl who looked like her in the
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: open but the dad in these subsequent images thankfully has
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: survived and she gives them the dirtiest little look like
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: she's like, I wish your father got sucked into the twister.
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: It is wild that there is such a through line
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: runner basically joke of how like many movies of the
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: nineties in two thousands and backwards, that therapy is ridiculous
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: because no one needs therapy more in the entire world
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: than Helen Hunt's character. Yes, oh my god, Like if
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: Melissa had really sat down with Joe and we just
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: got Bill out of there. He's the weakest of this,
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: you know, his girl Friday, Like whatever the movie they're
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: pulling from his girl Friday. The man is the weakest player.
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: Let's sit these ladies down and have a therapy session,
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: because that's what Joe needs. We don't need Joe running
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: into the eye of a storm that's going to kill her.
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: We need Joe to go to therapy for one second.
• 21:42
  Speaker 4: I will say, And we can talk about this further
• 21:44
  Speaker 4: in the discussion, but it's a very common choice for
• 21:49
  Speaker 4: a man haunted by something from his past, specifically something
• 21:54
  Speaker 4: related to his father, and that being his motivation for
• 21:56
  Speaker 4: the rest of the movie. That's something we see time
• 21:58
  Speaker 4: and time again in movies for male leads, but this
• 22:02
  Speaker 4: time it's a woman, and that we don't see that much.
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: So I yes, but I agree, like I had the
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: same thought that you don't see that much, but I
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: don't think that gender swapping it makes it a like
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: more compelling thing to see, because the takeaway is still
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: the same, is that like, falling in heterosexual love will
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: cure this deep psychic wound, which is a bad lesson
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: for any person. True fucking Bill Paxton will fix some
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: of your problems, but you know, could not fix Yeah.
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: I thought that too, and I think that there's some
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: value in it, but it just feels kind of like whatever.
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: It feels like Ghostbusters twenty sixteen, where you're just like, oh,
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: now women can do it, and you're like, oh, I
• 22:51
  Speaker 3: just would rather she not don't know, or like have
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: whatever whatever. That's not what this movie is a This
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: movie is not about progress. It's about twisters.
• 23:02
  Speaker 4: It's so true, eight of them, and that makes you
• 23:05
  Speaker 4: wonder how many twisters are gonna be in the movie Twisters.
• 23:09
  Speaker 4: Apparently a lot more.
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, if you're gonna add the s, I feel like
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: you're hard pressed to have more twisters in the space
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: of a movie. I've never gotten more bang for my twister.
• 23:20
  Speaker 4: Well, because the movie Alien has one alien in it.
• 23:23
  Speaker 4: The movie Aliens has dozens of aliens, but the movie
• 23:28
  Speaker 4: Twister has multiple twisters. And then I guess the movie
• 23:30
  Speaker 4: Twisters is going to have an exponentially greater number of
• 23:35
  Speaker 4: twisters as much. So there's gonna be millions, millions of twisters.
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: I didn't. It's gonna be like Snoke. They're like, oh,
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: we have jars full of twisters. Pat has made so
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: many twisters.
• 23:50
  Speaker 4: Wow, Jamie making a Star Wars reference, I thought i'd
• 23:55
  Speaker 4: see the day.
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: I love Star Wars nine because I love Babu Frick.
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: So actually I'm the opposite of a Star Wars fan
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: because I just made a joke about Star Wars nine
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: and I like, yeah, no, I didn't count. I meant to,
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: but then I kept like gasping every time there was
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: another twister. I would say that, like set piece wise,
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: there are well there are there are four large twisters
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: because there's four Dorothy's, which says rule of threes, fuck
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: you never mind.
• 24:26
  Speaker 4: Well, also in one of those, there are three twisters
• 24:31
  Speaker 4: in one kind of moment, So I guess that means
• 24:34
  Speaker 4: there are say six.
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: None of this lines with conventional story logic at all,
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: like four and six are just not story logic numbers whatsoever.
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: But these are the twisters we get, and like I
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: honestly I mean, I forgot what the climax. I mean,
• 24:53
  Speaker 3: I remembered it involved a twister, but I didn't remember
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: that in them literally getting sucked into the twister without
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: as much as a scratch, they were just kind of
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: like it was like they had just been on the
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: Jurassic Park ride. Like they were like a little wet
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: and very horny, and like that's how I have always
• 25:17
  Speaker 3: historically felt getting off the Jurassic Park line.
• 25:19
  Speaker 4: Right, tell me about it.
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: They're so fine. It's like this movie is like everything
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: that's fun about a blockbuster, where the steaks are always
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: sky high, but also like paradoxically low at the state,
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: Like there's never a risk that someone's gonna die except
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: for that one guy who knows Carrie el Wes, who
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: I thought was killed brutally and needlessly.
• 25:43
  Speaker 4: Well, Carrie Ellis is in the same vehicle. He dies too,
• 25:46
  Speaker 4: I know, but.
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: Only his friend gets speared.
• 25:49
  Speaker 4: Oh well yeah, but then you're led to believe that
• 25:52
  Speaker 4: Carrie Elvis is also gonna he dies.
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: I mean he dies, but I was just like this
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: poor guy, like this guy we're allowed to believe in
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: the whole scene leading up to it, that it's like
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: he knows, he knows that they need to turn back,
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: and then we kill hit like he'll carry Elwiz.
• 26:09
  Speaker 4: Yeah, like final destination style.
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: Yes, kill him in a movie that is otherwise, I
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: think like very deliberately avoids those kind of kills. Yeah,
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: this is one guy who we just met and they're like,
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: fuck this guy, and they just like absolutely. I mean
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: I liked it, but I was I was shocked.
• 26:29
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's shocking. Well anyway, so that's the first scene
• 26:34
  Speaker 4: of the movie. Then we we see Joe's dad blow
• 26:40
  Speaker 4: away in the tornado. We cut to the present day
• 26:43
  Speaker 4: aka nineteen ninety six, which is when the movie came out.
• 26:47
  Speaker 4: We meet Bill Harding played by Bill Paxton, driving in
• 26:52
  Speaker 4: a truck with his fiance Melissa played by Jamie Gertz.
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: Melissa Innocent Melissa did nothing.
• 27:01
  Speaker 4: Wrong yeah, played by a fellow Jamie, although she spells
• 27:05
  Speaker 4: her name jay A m I no E at the end.
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: You can say it wrong.
• 27:13
  Speaker 4: Yes. Anyway. They are heading to see adult Joe played
• 27:18
  Speaker 4: by Helen Hunt. She is a tornado scientist, so you
• 27:23
  Speaker 4: know woman in stem Alert. She's got a team of
• 27:27
  Speaker 4: people working for her. They chase tornadoes to gather scientific
• 27:32
  Speaker 4: data on them. The team includes Philip Seymour Hoffman, Alan
• 27:37
  Speaker 4: ruck todd Field when he was still acting.
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: It is a wild crew, yeh. A woman who's forced
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: to wear a hat. Okay, here's something I thought was interesting.
• 27:47
  Speaker 3: There is one woman on the crew. This token is
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: a well I guess including Joe, there's two women on
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: the crew. But in terms of our side characters on
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: the crew, there's several men. There's one woman she where
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: is a hat the whole time until there's three women, well, okay,
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: three women who are tornado chasing in the movie.
• 28:09
  Speaker 4: And then also the Auntie aunt Megie.
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: Aunt Meg what I don't respect women. I don't need
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: to remember her name. There's three women on the storm
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: chasing team if you count Melissa, which you sort of
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: have to for the purposes of this movie. Yeah, I
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: feel like this movie has the patience for two women.
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: And then at the point spoiler alert where Melissa voluntarily
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: exits the plot rather abruptly, all of a sudden, the
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: woman in the hat removes her hat. We don't see
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: her as San's hat before Melissa is gone, and I'm like,
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: is the production team like we cannot see more than
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: two women's full head like it was so weird because
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: at the same time, like my brother and I would
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: be like, oh, yeah, there she is in her hat again,
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: and she has treated like, I think, slightly less equitably
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: than the handful of Men, where clearly Philip seymour Hoffman
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: is the sort of most present of this Bee crew.
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: I would say Alan ruck is after that, and then
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: the other three are kind of like have a line
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: here and there. And the woman in the hat so
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: the name of the character is Haynes and the name
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: of the actor is Wendell Josephers, so like she has
• 29:35
  Speaker 3: a name, you're hard pressed to find it in passing
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: in this movie. For sure, I was calling her the
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: woman in the hat like one would talk about the Babadok.
• 29:48
  Speaker 3: But then all of a sudden, when the second narratively
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: consequential woman exits, she takes her hat off. I did
• 29:56
  Speaker 3: not even notice that I was getting conspiratorial about it.
• 29:59
  Speaker 4: I was hitting this.
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: I was like, oh, now she can take her damn
• 30:02
  Speaker 3: hat off, because at first I was like, the hat
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: is a part of her personality. She loves to wear
• 30:07
  Speaker 3: the hat, the hat is a part of her. But
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: then all of a sudden, the hat disappeared.
• 30:10
  Speaker 4: The hat gets blown off by a tornado. I think
• 30:13
  Speaker 4: that's obvious.
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: I was perseverating about the hat. I was like that
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: the importance the narrated like this, the contextual like subtextual
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: importance of the hat. And then my brother was like,
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: shut up. There's another twister, which I think is the
• 30:29
  Speaker 3: proper response. Yeah, yeah, yeah, silenced by men again?
• 30:33
  Speaker 4: Wow? True Ben, Speaking of men, there are several more
• 30:37
  Speaker 4: on the team. The other ones include a guy who
• 30:40
  Speaker 4: looks like Steve Buscemi but isn't, a guy who looks
• 30:43
  Speaker 4: like Paul Giamatti but isn't, and a guy who looks
• 30:46
  Speaker 4: like William h. Maycy but isn't. And then there's another
• 30:49
  Speaker 4: guy who was in the show Lost. So there's a
• 30:53
  Speaker 4: large team.
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: Yes, yes, it took me until halfway in the movie
• 30:58
  Speaker 3: to realize that. And then you really and then I looked,
• 31:01
  Speaker 3: you know, I read scholarly journal Wikipedia about this movie,
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: and it turns out that Bill Paxton is just a
• 31:08
  Speaker 3: guy who you call when Tom Hanks isn't available, which,
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: in nineteen ninety six actually does make total sense.
• 31:15
  Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, yeah, what can you do?
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: But anyways, also also sorry, just when we're cast shout out.
• 31:21
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: I did not realize this on first watch, but the
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: child actor who plays young Helen Hunt is Alexa Vega
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: of Spy Kids. Oh whoa, she is the sister in
• 31:39
  Speaker 3: Spy Kids.
• 31:40
  Speaker 4: I imagine that.
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: Well, fine, don't be impressed. I thought it was interesting,
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: and now she runs an MLM. So how do you
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: like that? I don't.
• 31:50
  Speaker 4: I don't like it either.
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah, no one likes it. No one likes it. But
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: you know that's not what journalism is about, all right.
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: So anyways, in the movie, so I just laid down.
• 32:05
  Speaker 4: Oh I loved to keep these rants going.
• 32:08
  Speaker 3: Thank you.
• 32:09
  Speaker 4: Okay. So Bill and his fiance Melissa show up to
• 32:14
  Speaker 4: where this team of tornado chasers has gathered. Bill used
• 32:19
  Speaker 4: to work with Joe and he is married to Joe currently,
• 32:24
  Speaker 4: but he's there to get her to sign divorce papers
• 32:28
  Speaker 4: so that Bill and Melissa can get married and Bill
• 32:31
  Speaker 4: can start his new life as a weather man.
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: I really like this. Have you seen his girl Friday.
• 32:37
  Speaker 4: I have, but it's been probably like twenty years.
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: I just saw it for the first time late last
• 32:43
  Speaker 3: year and really enjoyed it. I'm looking forward to helpfully
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: covering it on the show one day and this is
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: a gender swapped his Girl Friday situation. It's very exciting. Yeah,
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: and do I think his Girl Friday is better? Yeah?
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: I do. I mean, but there's no twist. They didn't
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: have the technology, so you know, we're having a different conversation.
• 33:04
  Speaker 4: Yeah, they show up to get Joe to sign the papers,
• 33:09
  Speaker 4: but she's like, maybe stalling for reasons. Ooh, we'll find
• 33:16
  Speaker 4: out what they are.
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: She moves her ring around. Kind of fun, kind of steaky.
• 33:22
  Speaker 4: Then Joe shows Bill a machine called Dorothy, something that
• 33:26
  Speaker 4: Bill conceived and Joe built. It's a first of its
• 33:31
  Speaker 4: kind data collecting machine that releases.
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: These science balls, yes.
• 33:37
  Speaker 4: Science balls, into a tornado and they'll take all these
• 33:41
  Speaker 4: measurements that will provide information that's never been gathered before
• 33:45
  Speaker 4: about tornadoes. And this data may allow tornado warnings to
• 33:50
  Speaker 4: go from three minutes in advance to as much as
• 33:53
  Speaker 4: fifteen minutes, giving people more time to get to safety.
• 33:57
  Speaker 3: And you would think, you know, if it's technology were
• 34:00
  Speaker 3: that consequential, they wouldn't be so easy to spill all
• 34:04
  Speaker 3: over the ground during gale force winds. But that's just
• 34:09
  Speaker 3: not the situation. In Twister nineteen ninety six, it's so
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: easy to scatter these damn science balls. I liked that
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: even at the peak of the movie when the science
• 34:19
  Speaker 3: balls are finally swept into the cyclone and everyone's like, yes, yes,
• 34:25
  Speaker 3: we're never gonna die the science balls, Like we still
• 34:28
  Speaker 3: don't totally know what they're doing.
• 34:32
  Speaker 4: We don't.
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: You're like, they're up there, they're up there, they're reading
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: the tornado information. Yes, the science balls.
• 34:43
  Speaker 4: My thing was this, there's gotta be a better way
• 34:47
  Speaker 4: for them to get close to the tornado and for
• 34:50
  Speaker 4: them to release the science balls into the tornado because
• 34:52
  Speaker 4: they're just driving a bunch of trucks near tornadoes. Like
• 34:56
  Speaker 4: I'm like, yeah, can't they get in like a helicopter
• 34:59
  Speaker 4: and then have like I don't know, a T shirt
• 35:02
  Speaker 4: cannon launch the science balls into the tornado from afar?
• 35:07
  Speaker 4: Like everything they're doing is so dangerous, which is like, ye,
• 35:11
  Speaker 4: the plot of the.
• 35:11
  Speaker 3: Movie, right, But it's like, you don't need a product
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: placement jeep to throw your product placement PEPSI helicopter science
• 35:20
  Speaker 3: balls into the cyclone, Like yeah, and I get My
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: brother and I were just I mean, this is maybe dark.
• 35:28
  Speaker 3: Brother and I were like, is her dad still up there?
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: Like what is her end game? Like her dad is
• 35:33
  Speaker 3: like up in the top of every cyclone sipping tea,
• 35:36
  Speaker 3: being like you go get them, Joe, just get these
• 35:39
  Speaker 3: science balls up there.
• 35:41
  Speaker 4: Like grief looks like anything you know.
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: Well, I know, but like we've covered this plot point
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: so much and maybe I'm just like being personally irritated
• 35:51
  Speaker 3: by it, but I just feel like there's so many
• 35:54
  Speaker 3: female protagonists that it's like you cannot conceive of what
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: would possibly be the source of their distress, and it
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: either goes to sexual assault or something related to their father.
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: And that's not to say that it is not a
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: very real thing that happens in the world. I've experienced both,
• 36:15
  Speaker 3: But like I do think it's just a very lazy writing,
• 36:19
  Speaker 3: especially when the creative team is majority men. I do
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: think it's like when men are writing like a problem
• 36:26
  Speaker 3: for women, they immediately default to their relationships with other men,
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: whether it is romantically or in their family life, and
• 36:38
  Speaker 3: this movie is guilty of both of those things.
• 36:41
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I agree. In any case, the point is that
• 36:44
  Speaker 4: it's very difficult to get Dorothy in a position to
• 36:47
  Speaker 4: release the science balls, and they're explaining all of this
• 36:50
  Speaker 4: to Melissa Bill's fiancee who doesn't know anything about tornadoes
• 36:55
  Speaker 4: because she's a therapist. We will find out that she's
• 36:58
  Speaker 4: a reproductive therapist, which I didn't know that was a thing.
• 37:03
  Speaker 3: Which makes total sense. But it's like, the more specific
• 37:07
  Speaker 3: they get in pointing out how ridiculous the plot of
• 37:10
  Speaker 3: the movie feels Mollis's job is, the more I'm just like, oh, so,
• 37:15
  Speaker 3: not only is therapy ridiculous, but trauma in relation to
• 37:19
  Speaker 3: reproduction is even more ridiculous, Like you're just it's it's
• 37:26
  Speaker 3: like goofy, brainless ari ast shit that we talked about recently,
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: where it's like, why get so specific with something that
• 37:35
  Speaker 3: you're putting in there to either make fun of or
• 37:40
  Speaker 3: just serve as a plot.
• 37:41
  Speaker 4: Point, Yeah, or demonize the way our estra keeps doing. Yeah, yeah,
• 37:46
  Speaker 4: it's it's weird. But anyway, the point is she's not
• 37:51
  Speaker 4: a tornado expert, so we the audience are like, why
• 37:55
  Speaker 4: are she and Bill even together if she doesn't know
• 37:58
  Speaker 4: anything about tornadoes? Clearly he needs to end up with Joe.
• 38:04
  Speaker 4: But before we can think much about that, the team
• 38:06
  Speaker 4: receives word about a tornado that's materializing nearby, so Joe
• 38:12
  Speaker 4: and her team get in their vehicles and a hall
• 38:15
  Speaker 4: ass in that direction, and then Bill and Melissa go
• 38:20
  Speaker 4: with them because Bill still needs the divorce papers from Joe,
• 38:24
  Speaker 4: and Melissa's like, well, I want to learn about tornado.
• 38:27
  Speaker 4: I'll come with you. On the way. Bill discovers that
• 38:33
  Speaker 4: another rival team of tornado scientists, led by Jonas Miller
• 38:39
  Speaker 4: aka Carrie Ellis of Saw One Fame, is also chasing
• 38:45
  Speaker 4: this tornado, but Jonas isn't doing it for the science.
• 38:49
  Speaker 4: He's doing it for money, because you know how lucrative
• 38:53
  Speaker 4: tornado science is.
• 38:54
  Speaker 3: I love that line where they're like he's in it
• 38:57
  Speaker 3: for the money, not the science, and you're like, this
• 39:00
  Speaker 3: is actually, weirdly kind of what Bill Paxton is more
• 39:05
  Speaker 3: sensically accused of in Titanic, of like, yeah, he's doing
• 39:09
  Speaker 3: it for the money, not the Titanic, which makes more
• 39:12
  Speaker 3: sense when you know that there's money in artifacts from
• 39:16
  Speaker 3: the Titanic.
• 39:17
  Speaker 4: He's searching for a diamond that is worth more than
• 39:20
  Speaker 4: the Hope diamond, So yeah, there's a lot of money.
• 39:24
  Speaker 3: But like they're just vaguely like, you know, Tornado money,
• 39:28
  Speaker 3: Like it's just you're just like.
• 39:33
  Speaker 4: Maybe anyway, Jonas has a machine of his own, not
• 39:37
  Speaker 4: unlike Dorothy, and Bill is furious that Jonas stole his design.
• 39:44
  Speaker 4: So now it's a race between Joe and her team
• 39:47
  Speaker 4: and the evil mercenary Jonas and his convoy of dodge
• 39:53
  Speaker 4: Mini vans to be the first to collect the tornado data.
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: This.
• 39:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's something I liked about the movie. It is
• 40:00
  Speaker 3: so transparently product placement. Ye, where it's like only pepsi
• 40:05
  Speaker 3: cans and jeeps will survive the storm or whatever.
• 40:09
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Yes. And so while they're waiting to see when
• 40:15
  Speaker 4: and where this tornado actually like touches down, two women
• 40:20
  Speaker 4: talk to each other, Joe and Melissa. But oops, it's
• 40:23
  Speaker 4: about Bill, so it doesn't pass to the Bechdel test.
• 40:26
  Speaker 4: But Melissa is basically like, you're still in love with Bill,
• 40:30
  Speaker 4: aren't you? And Joe is like ti, he no, I
• 40:34
  Speaker 4: don't know, and it's clear that she did wonder.
• 40:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 40:39
  Speaker 4: Then Bill, who has agreed to join the group for
• 40:43
  Speaker 4: one day, he Spidey senses where the tornado is going
• 40:48
  Speaker 4: to form, so everyone drives in that direction. A tornado materializes,
• 40:55
  Speaker 4: but Bill kind of miscalculates and they miss their chance
• 40:58
  Speaker 4: to release Dorothy. To mention, Bill and Joe are almost
• 41:02
  Speaker 4: killed under this little like bridge thing, and Joe's truck
• 41:06
  Speaker 4: gets destroyed along with one of the Dorothy machines, though
• 41:10
  Speaker 4: it's established that there are three others. The team goes
• 41:15
  Speaker 4: back out again, chasing another tornado in the area. This
• 41:20
  Speaker 4: one turns into two tornadoes, then three, and they call
• 41:25
  Speaker 4: them sisters. So we've got some sister twisters on our hands.
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: Okay, we do, and they're determined to destroy Helen Hunt's family. Yes,
• 41:37
  Speaker 3: but the important thing here is that they're women apparently. Yes.
• 41:41
  Speaker 4: Also, cows are flying through the air.
• 41:44
  Speaker 3: I love it. Yeah, And that the CGI cow was
• 41:48
  Speaker 3: built off of the CGI zebra in Jumanji, which I
• 41:52
  Speaker 3: thought was very interesting. Yeah. They just were like, turn
• 41:55
  Speaker 3: that zebra into a cow, same color scheme, make it happen,
• 41:58
  Speaker 3: and they did.
• 42:00
  Speaker 4: They're like an animal with hoofs go close enough. Yeah, Okay,
• 42:06
  Speaker 4: cows are flying around. But then suddenly the tornadoes dissipate,
• 42:10
  Speaker 4: but the storm chasers are still thrilled because like this
• 42:13
  Speaker 4: is like the beginning of a long day full of tornadoes.
• 42:16
  Speaker 4: Although Melissa is terrified again, she can't really hack it
• 42:22
  Speaker 4: in the tornado industry.
• 42:24
  Speaker 3: I kept kind of like assuming based on how she
• 42:27
  Speaker 3: was styled and was reacting to tornadoes conceptually that she
• 42:32
  Speaker 3: was quote unquote from New York, Like it just seemed
• 42:35
  Speaker 3: like she wasn't from there, because that was something that
• 42:38
  Speaker 3: I was repeatedly bumping up against when I was overthinking
• 42:41
  Speaker 3: the plot of the movie, that there were characters in
• 42:45
  Speaker 3: this movie who were shocked that there were tornadoes, but
• 42:49
  Speaker 3: you weren't told that they weren't from Oklahoma. But that
• 42:53
  Speaker 3: makes no sense, like that they would be like, oh,
• 42:56
  Speaker 3: what is doing? What like even though there's rarely like
• 43:01
  Speaker 3: in the course of this movie seven hundred tornadoes in
• 43:05
  Speaker 3: the course of and I'm sorry, and I know someone's
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: gonna email me like tornadoes and twisters aren't the same thing. Well,
• 43:11
  Speaker 3: bad news. I didn't fucking know that. So anyways, like
• 43:15
  Speaker 3: these large cyclical storms, you know, usually twenty of them
• 43:19
  Speaker 3: don't happen in the course of a feature length film,
• 43:22
  Speaker 3: Like it still felt like Melissa was like what is this?
• 43:27
  Speaker 3: And I was like, are you not from here? Like
• 43:29
  Speaker 3: where are you from?
• 43:30
  Speaker 4: I we don't, Well, she's not from New York because
• 43:33
  Speaker 4: she speaks with accents from the American South. I'm not
• 43:37
  Speaker 4: good at detecting what accents are from what regions of
• 43:40
  Speaker 4: the South.
• 43:41
  Speaker 3: No, but it did feel dissonant to me. I feel like, narratively,
• 43:47
  Speaker 3: if a character did not know about twisters, it would
• 43:52
  Speaker 3: be stated or indicated in some way that they were
• 43:55
  Speaker 3: from in a region that did not experience twisters, right,
• 44:01
  Speaker 3: But that wasn't done.
• 44:03
  Speaker 4: Yeah, we needed a line from Melissa where she's like,
• 44:06
  Speaker 4: I'm from Georgia. We don't get these here or something.
• 44:10
  Speaker 3: Right, like somewhere in the American South that just like
• 44:12
  Speaker 3: was not in Tornado Alley. But it was just bizarre,
• 44:15
  Speaker 3: like they I feel like you're sort of led to
• 44:18
  Speaker 3: believe that everyone is from around here. But she doesn't
• 44:22
  Speaker 3: understand what a twister is for class reasons, which doesn't
• 44:26
  Speaker 3: make any sense. No, Like, I love a class narrative,
• 44:31
  Speaker 3: but not knowing what a popular weather phenomena in your
• 44:35
  Speaker 3: region is due to class does not make sense.
• 44:38
  Speaker 4: Right, because it's established that I think that she lives
• 44:42
  Speaker 4: there now, even if she didn't grow up in Tornado Territory, right,
• 44:47
  Speaker 4: she and Bill Paxston live there now.
• 44:49
  Speaker 3: I just think it indicates how kind of like underthought
• 44:52
  Speaker 3: her character is, because I think the team at the
• 44:55
  Speaker 3: time we say everyone from this movie is generally from
• 44:58
  Speaker 3: Oklahoma from Tornado Ali, but there are characters who are
• 45:03
  Speaker 3: shocked by theoretically something that they would have noted about
• 45:08
  Speaker 3: for decades at that point.
• 45:10
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't know. In any case, the most recent
• 45:14
  Speaker 4: tornado dies down and the group pays a visit to
• 45:20
  Speaker 4: Joe's aunt Meg, played by Lois Smith. She makes them
• 45:25
  Speaker 4: steak and eggs and they share a bunch of stories.
• 45:29
  Speaker 4: They talk about a scale that measures the intensity of tornadoes.
• 45:34
  Speaker 4: The ones they saw today were F two's and F threes,
• 45:38
  Speaker 4: and even more intense one is an F four, and
• 45:41
  Speaker 4: then there's the rare but devastating F five And the
• 45:45
  Speaker 4: only one of the group who has ever seen one
• 45:47
  Speaker 4: of those is Joe, because that was the tornado that
• 45:52
  Speaker 4: killed her father.
• 45:54
  Speaker 3: Another incredible narrative moment where Melissa, minding her own business,
• 45:59
  Speaker 3: is like, what is five me? Which is a fair question, yeah,
• 46:02
  Speaker 3: considering that she just moved to Oklahoma three days ago.
• 46:06
  Speaker 3: And then everyone's like, oh, and they answer so evasively
• 46:12
  Speaker 3: when it's like Helen Hunt isn't in the room, just
• 46:16
  Speaker 3: say say it.
• 46:17
  Speaker 4: Also, the guy who looks like William H. Macy says
• 46:21
  Speaker 4: it's the finger of God and that's just a very
• 46:24
  Speaker 4: funny phrase.
• 46:26
  Speaker 3: I think, Yeah, fingered by God, like it's just fingered
• 46:29
  Speaker 3: by God. There is so many awesome, creepy bizarro turns
• 46:35
  Speaker 3: of phrases in this movie, and some of them are
• 46:38
  Speaker 3: used in the context of her sexual harassment. But bear
• 46:41
  Speaker 3: with me. What is it the suck zone that's the
• 46:44
  Speaker 3: first jump scare.
• 46:46
  Speaker 4: Yeah, phillipsy Moore Hoffman is always talking about the suck Zone.
• 46:50
  Speaker 3: Phillipsy Moore Hoffman's character, I don't know if it is written, improvised, whatever.
• 46:56
  Speaker 3: He is surprised, kissing every woman he meets. It's made
• 46:59
  Speaker 3: to see him charming. I love Philip Siberhoffman, and yet
• 47:05
  Speaker 3: I don't find this charming. Although sock Zone is funny
• 47:10
  Speaker 3: and I was laughing, I believe. Let me know what
• 47:15
  Speaker 3: you think here, I believe, and my brother and I
• 47:18
  Speaker 3: firmly because I did not remember what happened in this movie, Dodo,
• 47:21
  Speaker 3: it's like washing over you kind of effect. I firmly
• 47:25
  Speaker 3: thought that we were being set up, that Melissa and
• 47:30
  Speaker 3: Dusty were gonna kind of strike something up because they
• 47:33
  Speaker 3: are repeatedly nonsensically thrown together. Where ultimately part of why
• 47:39
  Speaker 3: I think Bill Paxton's character Bill is a bad guy
• 47:44
  Speaker 3: because he's like almost always like, no, I have to
• 47:48
  Speaker 3: be with my ex wife right now and my wife
• 47:51
  Speaker 3: to be you just have to hang out with this
• 47:54
  Speaker 3: guy I know who famously sexually harasses p and he
• 48:02
  Speaker 3: and it's Philip Subra hot Fin, so we're like, oh,
• 48:04
  Speaker 3: I love him, but like, you know, objectively, that is,
• 48:07
  Speaker 3: he's repeatedly putting this woman who he knows is wildly
• 48:11
  Speaker 3: out of her element. There are multiple points of this
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: movie where I don't know it's a blockbuster, but I'm
• 48:16
  Speaker 3: in a bad mood, and so like why does he say, yeah,
• 48:21
  Speaker 3: keep coming? Like at the first time she follows the Twister,
• 48:24
  Speaker 3: Bill doesn't know and that's why, like she's joined this journey.
• 48:29
  Speaker 3: She's freaked out. But it's like, you know, unturned territory.
• 48:33
  Speaker 3: And in the second Twister sequence it's like the love
• 48:36
  Speaker 3: triangles in a car there is you know, like sponsored
• 48:40
  Speaker 3: by Jeep and it's interesting. But after that, when they
• 48:43
  Speaker 3: go to Aunt Meg's house, why does she continue? Because
• 48:48
  Speaker 3: there is a cast off scene as they leave Aunt
• 48:51
  Speaker 3: Meg's house where Bill Paxton says, you go with Dusty
• 48:57
  Speaker 3: and she says okay, and it's like real, realistically, that
• 49:01
  Speaker 3: character is not going if she's continuing, she's going with
• 49:05
  Speaker 3: the one person she knows, not Dusty, who she met today.
• 49:12
  Speaker 3: Like I thought that in some draft of this script,
• 49:15
  Speaker 3: because I know there are multiple drafts of this script,
• 49:17
  Speaker 3: Like Joss Whedon revised the script, but then he got
• 49:20
  Speaker 3: a cough and then puld like whatever, But like the
• 49:24
  Speaker 3: script was revised in the way that blockbuster scripts are.
• 49:27
  Speaker 3: I believe that there is a version of the original
• 49:29
  Speaker 3: script of Twister where they're like, yeah, and then Melissa's
• 49:34
  Speaker 3: started dating Dusty. I'm glad she didn't, but it felt
• 49:37
  Speaker 3: like for a good portion of the movie we are
• 49:40
  Speaker 3: being led to like they are together more often than
• 49:43
  Speaker 3: she's with her fiance.
• 49:45
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Anyway, what happens next, Well, the storm picks back
• 49:50
  Speaker 4: up again. You'll never believe it, but another twister is coming,
• 49:53
  Speaker 4: so the group heads back out to chase the next tornado. Also,
• 49:58
  Speaker 4: Joe and Bill are vibing. Melissa is in another car,
• 50:03
  Speaker 4: probably with Dusty, feeling uneasy. They almost crash into Jonas,
• 50:08
  Speaker 4: who is also heading into the storm, but Bill and
• 50:12
  Speaker 4: Joe get their first but things go wrong. A telephone
• 50:15
  Speaker 4: pole knocks Dorothy off the truck. All the science balls
• 50:19
  Speaker 4: go flying because they're just very loose in this barrel,
• 50:23
  Speaker 4: and she's crying. She's crying, she wants to stay hurt.
• 50:27
  Speaker 3: She's science falls and because of her father trauma.
• 50:31
  Speaker 4: Father.
• 50:31
  Speaker 3: Right, this is supposed to be a reveal when you're like,
• 50:34
  Speaker 3: do you think I'm six years old? Which I guess
• 50:36
  Speaker 3: is like people who saw this movie were six and
• 50:39
  Speaker 3: maybe it was shocking for them.
• 50:41
  Speaker 4: Maybe yeah. But Bill is like, you can't stay here,
• 50:44
  Speaker 4: it's too dangerous. This won't bring your dad back. Stop
• 50:48
  Speaker 4: living in the past and look at what's in front
• 50:51
  Speaker 4: of you right now aka me, which Melissa hears because
• 50:57
  Speaker 4: the radio slash like walkie talkie thing is picking up
• 51:01
  Speaker 4: their entire conversation. Somehow, we don't know why or how
• 51:05
  Speaker 4: that's happening, but.
• 51:06
  Speaker 3: It's one of the science that one of the science
• 51:08
  Speaker 3: balls narts, one of those one of the science balls,
• 51:12
  Speaker 3: and I thank them as a team Melissa. I'm team Melissa, period.
• 51:18
  Speaker 3: And yeah, one of the science balls told Melissa, guess
• 51:21
  Speaker 3: what writing's on the wall, and thankfully she listened, and
• 51:25
  Speaker 3: even more thankfully to whatever subsequent writer was like, do
• 51:28
  Speaker 3: not just make her end up with Dusty like let
• 51:31
  Speaker 3: her return to her work as a doctor. Melissa wins
• 51:38
  Speaker 3: the plot because even even though at the end it's
• 51:41
  Speaker 3: like do do do do do? And they kiss and
• 51:45
  Speaker 3: they're back together, like two years from now, they're for
• 51:48
  Speaker 3: sure dead. Yeah, they have two years something. They're like
• 51:51
  Speaker 3: those the cologists that yes, yeah, yeah, and it's like
• 51:56
  Speaker 3: it's beautiful, but it's also just like, okay, that's kind
• 51:59
  Speaker 3: of like you're not me being like, okay, the volcanologists
• 52:04
  Speaker 3: that got swallowed by the volcano, that's their business, but
• 52:08
  Speaker 3: like kind of it is. And that's how I feel
• 52:10
  Speaker 3: about the Twister couple, Like all right, if you want
• 52:12
  Speaker 3: a twister or to suck you up instead of going
• 52:15
  Speaker 3: to therapy, like I just like don't have the emotional
• 52:19
  Speaker 3: energy to be like no, we should help them, like.
• 52:23
  Speaker 4: Choice, Yeah, their life, their choice.
• 52:25
  Speaker 3: They're consenting adults that want the twister to eat them.
• 52:29
  Speaker 3: Helen Hunt, if she had just had a conversation with Melissa,
• 52:33
  Speaker 3: Melissa could have referred her to someone who could have
• 52:36
  Speaker 3: helped out with that, or at least helped her understand
• 52:40
  Speaker 3: that better in a way that wouldn't involve her dying
• 52:44
  Speaker 3: by twister.
• 52:45
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 52:45
  Speaker 3: I wonder if they acknowledge in Twisters that Bill Paxson
• 52:49
  Speaker 3: and Helen Hunt absolutely got sucked into a twister and
• 52:53
  Speaker 3: died because they're begging for that to happen to them.
• 52:55
  Speaker 4: I bet Glenn Powell is that his name? Yeah, plays
• 52:59
  Speaker 4: the son and the Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton died
• 53:04
  Speaker 4: in a twister accident, And.
• 53:06
  Speaker 3: Okay, so let maybe the third generation of someone who
• 53:10
  Speaker 3: refuses to go to therapy and also chase twisters with
• 53:15
  Speaker 3: an indie darling like fine, fine, I'm just tired, Caitlin, Like.
• 53:23
  Speaker 4: I know, Jamie, I'm sorry. The point is that Melissa
• 53:28
  Speaker 4: overhears what's basically a profession of love from Bill to
• 53:32
  Speaker 4: Joe because the plot needed that to happen. So now
• 53:36
  Speaker 4: Melissa knows this and it's not great for her. She's sad.
• 53:40
  Speaker 4: And then during another lull between tornadoes, Joe signs the
• 53:46
  Speaker 4: divorce papers, but before she can give them to Bill,
• 53:50
  Speaker 4: another huge storm comes on very suddenly right where they are,
• 53:53
  Speaker 4: which is at a drive in movie theater, so everyone
• 53:56
  Speaker 4: has to take shelter. Then the torny heads to Wakita,
• 54:01
  Speaker 4: where Aunt Meg lives, so the group goes there too,
• 54:05
  Speaker 4: but not before Melissa ends her relationship with Bill, and
• 54:09
  Speaker 4: she says, bye, you can go on ahead, but I'm
• 54:12
  Speaker 4: not gonna be here when you get back.
• 54:14
  Speaker 3: Well yeah, which is a great moment for Melissa.
• 54:18
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and she's like, I'm not even sad about it?
• 54:20
  Speaker 4: What does that say? And he's like, uh shrug.
• 54:24
  Speaker 3: But don't worry. The movie will express no interest in
• 54:27
  Speaker 3: her from here forward. We have no idea no what happens, We.
• 54:30
  Speaker 4: Do not, But the characters we are meant to care
• 54:34
  Speaker 4: about are Joe and Bill. They head to Aunt Meg's
• 54:38
  Speaker 4: house with the other tornado chasers. They see the destruction
• 54:43
  Speaker 4: along the way, families who have lost their homes. They
• 54:46
  Speaker 4: save Aunt Meg, who is trapped under the rubble of
• 54:50
  Speaker 4: her house, as well as her dog, Mows the dog,
• 54:55
  Speaker 4: and now weather reports are predicting a possible F five tornado.
• 55:00
  Speaker 4: That's one of those big nasty ones.
• 55:02
  Speaker 3: That's a daddy killer.
• 55:04
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. Then Joe has the idea for
• 55:07
  Speaker 4: how to make Dorothy fly, because she and Bill were
• 55:13
  Speaker 4: having concerns about not being able to get Dorothy up
• 55:16
  Speaker 4: into the tornado. But she looks at Aunt Meg's like
• 55:20
  Speaker 4: wind chime things and she's like, oh, let's fashion a
• 55:25
  Speaker 4: bunch of pinwheels out of Pepsi cans and attach them
• 55:29
  Speaker 4: to the science balls so that they'll fly up into
• 55:32
  Speaker 4: the tornado.
• 55:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Thankfully this Tornado crew only drinks classic Pepsi. Yeah,
• 55:40
  Speaker 3: and they fashion the little propellers with the with the
• 55:44
  Speaker 3: logo visible. And my boyfriend's dad worked in product placement
• 55:50
  Speaker 3: during this era, and you're like, Okay, that was whatever
• 55:55
  Speaker 3: that ridiculous plot boy ended up being was hard fought
• 55:58
  Speaker 3: by some guy.
• 56:01
  Speaker 4: It's like, no, cut the cans in a way that
• 56:03
  Speaker 4: we can see that it says Pepsi.
• 56:05
  Speaker 3: The poor pa is that had to fucking like exact
• 56:09
  Speaker 3: o knife those ridiculous science balls. It's just I hope
• 56:15
  Speaker 3: that Helen Hunt got to keep a science ball.
• 56:17
  Speaker 4: Hmmm, yeah, I'm sure she did.
• 56:19
  Speaker 3: Anyways.
• 56:20
  Speaker 4: Anyway, so the team heads out again to chase this
• 56:25
  Speaker 4: impending F five twister. Bill and Joe place the third
• 56:31
  Speaker 4: Dorothy Machine in the path of this huge tornado, but
• 56:35
  Speaker 4: once again, something knocks it out of the way because
• 56:38
  Speaker 4: this twister is kicking up so much debris it throws
• 56:42
  Speaker 4: a semi truck at them. This is also when Jonas
• 56:45
  Speaker 4: and some of his team are killed by the tornado.
• 56:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah, they're speared there. I sort of thought that, like,
• 56:53
  Speaker 3: I was kind of hopeful. I thought it would be
• 56:55
  Speaker 3: a fun plot point at least that like Jonas and Bill,
• 57:00
  Speaker 3: Bill would end up like their teams would end up
• 57:02
  Speaker 3: having to work together on opposite sides of the Twister,
• 57:06
  Speaker 3: and that Jonas could learn that, you know, that Joe
• 57:11
  Speaker 3: and Bill's approach to Twister via science balls was actually
• 57:18
  Speaker 3: thoughtful and like they would have to collaborate, but instead
• 57:23
  Speaker 3: he is he has like Saw like slasher movie style
• 57:27
  Speaker 3: killed for his hubris, which is also fine. Yeah, I
• 57:31
  Speaker 3: just don't understand why if that guy was going to
• 57:34
  Speaker 3: disappear for forty five minutes and then be speared to death, Like,
• 57:37
  Speaker 3: why even have an antagonist if it's that unnecessary.
• 57:42
  Speaker 4: I guess it's to establish that you shouldn't be into
• 57:46
  Speaker 4: tornadoes for the money, and you should be in them
• 57:49
  Speaker 4: for the love of the game.
• 57:51
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 57:51
  Speaker 4: In a way, Carrie Elwis is Carrie Ellis and saw
• 57:55
  Speaker 4: Bill Paxton is the other guy in Saw one We
• 57:59
  Speaker 4: want all yeah, and the Twister is Jigsaw and he's
• 58:04
  Speaker 4: playing a little game with these boys.
• 58:07
  Speaker 3: Exactly, except you don't get the satisfying flashback to show
• 58:11
  Speaker 3: that Carrie Elws was cheating on his wife in a
• 58:14
  Speaker 3: room that looks like every other room in Twister. That
• 58:18
  Speaker 3: is actually something I really like about this movie is
• 58:20
  Speaker 3: the movie is so obviously expensive and the action sequences
• 58:25
  Speaker 3: in this movie. I'm bitching a lot about the plot,
• 58:28
  Speaker 3: which I do think is nonsensical and ridiculous in the
• 58:31
  Speaker 3: way that a lot of nineties disaster movies can be,
• 58:34
  Speaker 3: with the exception of Titanic and others, But like, the
• 58:38
  Speaker 3: action sequences are awesome. It feels like speed, which makes sense.
• 58:43
  Speaker 3: It's the same director where it's like the wildest, most
• 58:47
  Speaker 3: elevated thing you could think of with a set piece
• 58:50
  Speaker 3: is what they do where Bill Paxon and Helen Hunt
• 58:54
  Speaker 3: are driving full speed in a jeep toward a house
• 58:58
  Speaker 3: in the middle of a twister, and he's like, we
• 59:01
  Speaker 3: better drive through it. And then we see them drive
• 59:04
  Speaker 3: through the house at every conceivable angle and it just
• 59:09
  Speaker 3: looks so expensive and dangerous and it's awesome.
• 59:13
  Speaker 4: It's fun. Yeah, yeah, so that's about to happen. So basically,
• 59:19
  Speaker 4: Joe and Bill drive into a field and place the
• 59:22
  Speaker 4: last Dorothy and this time it finally works. The science
• 59:26
  Speaker 4: balls fly up into the tornado and collect all the
• 59:29
  Speaker 4: data that they've been trying to gather the whole movie.
• 59:31
  Speaker 4: But oh no, the tornado is still coming for them.
• 59:35
  Speaker 4: So Joe and Bill outrun the tornado on foot. Sure, yeah,
• 59:42
  Speaker 4: and don't worry.
• 59:43
  Speaker 3: They linger for a long time in spite of being
• 59:46
  Speaker 3: at the top of their fields to not know to
• 59:49
  Speaker 3: run in the opposite direction of a twister, I just can't.
• 59:53
  Speaker 4: Anyways, they're just looking at it and they're like, wow,
• 59:56
  Speaker 4: the majesty of nature.
• 59:57
  Speaker 3: Wow, should we kiss?
• 59:59
  Speaker 4: Also, no point are they wearing any kind of like
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 4: protective gear, like, no weather appropriate clothes.
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 3: No, because Helen Hunt has to be wearing a tank
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 3: top or the movie cannot be released.
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Anyway, so they go and they hide in a barn,
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 4: and the barn is full of so many pointy tools,
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 4: and the tornado is throwing the sharp pointy things at them. Yeah,
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 4: it's tearing the barn apart. Joe and Bill almost get
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 4: blown away, but then they anchor themselves to some pipes
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 4: that are secured in the ground via some leather belts. Okay, kinky,
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 4: and this tornado dissipates and everyone is safe, and Joe
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 4: and Bill kiss on the lips about it. In front
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 4: of all of their friends the end. So that's the movie.
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 4: Let's take another quick break and we'll come back to discuss,
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 4: and we're back.
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, this movie is I don't know, There's a lot
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 3: of interesting things going on with it. It's tricky because
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 3: our podcast obviously addresses the narrative, story and characters the most.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 3: That's not necessarily what this movie is about. That's not
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 3: why this movie made a ton of money. It is
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 3: very much, I think, a really great example and even
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 3: though I've just been an hour being like, oh, the
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 3: story sucks, but I think that we are given interesting,
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 3: compelling characters where you know, this movie is directed by
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 3: and I'm honestly afraid to try to say his name
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 3: because I feel like I'm wrong. He's Dutch. His name
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 3: is Jean Debant. This is not the first time we
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 3: have covered his work, because he also directed Speed, and
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 3: he was, you know, tangentially involved in a number of
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 3: other movies that we've covered. He started as a cinematographer,
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 3: which is I think a really cool, like career pivot,
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 3: because you just get movies that are narratively less good
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 3: but look cool. And that's Twister to a fault written
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 3: by Michael Crichton, as well as his wife co writer. Yeah.
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 3: Co writer Anne Marie Martin, who was then married to him,
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 3: had also previously been an actor.
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 4: Yeah. I think this was the only movie she wrote,
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 4: or at least the only movie she was credited on. Yes, Yeah,
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 4: she mostly worked as an actor.
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 3: It's hard to you know, as far as writing goes.
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 3: You know, Michael Crichton, I feel like, is the big
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 3: name involved. But it is kind of hard to know,
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 3: like who to get annoyed with because it's the blockbuster,
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 3: and also because this movie did famously go through a
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 3: lot of rewrites. Josh Whedon was a rewriter. It's also
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 3: implied that the actors had a lot of say and
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 3: there was a fair amount of improv in the action
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 3: of the movie, because there was an incident where Helen
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 3: Hunt and we don't know what this is even in
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 3: reaction to I'm assuming she's right, but I don't even
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 3: know right that Helen Hunt was said to have been
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 3: frustrated with the interactions that had been originally scripted between
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 3: her character Joe and with Melissa, saying that it felt
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 3: very like shrill and shrewy and argumentative. Yeah, katty was
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 3: the word that she used, so basically like she felt
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 3: that the interactions between them were sexist. And so I
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 3: don't know if that means what was there was rewritten
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 3: or just cut, because what we get between these characters
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 3: is very minimal, which I think is a huge lost opportunity. Yeah,
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 3: this movie is supposed to be like Tornado Alley His
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 3: Girl Friday, and I still feel like His Girl Friday,
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 3: a movie that came out over half a century before,
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 3: still is a little more thoughtful in its characterization of women.
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 3: And so time is a flat circle. But the thing
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 3: is like, we're given a love triangle, and I like
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 3: both of the women in this love triangle. I don't
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 3: hate Bill, but I don't like him. I like Bill Paxton,
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 3: I don't like Bill the guy. Yeah, but whatever, Like
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 3: you know, we're given three interesting characters who are struggling
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 3: with their own individual things, but I just feel like
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 3: they're kind of like unevenly characterized.
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 4: I well to come to the movie's defense, okay, because
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 4: I enjoyed the movie, and I think there are some
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 4: interesting things as it relates to gender, where a lot
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 4: of movies would be about a guy who really won
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 4: something and he's going out and he's doing it and
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 4: there's a woman who he's allowing to tag along. That
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 4: is not the case here. It's pretty flipped where it's
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 4: you know, we do have dual protagonists in Bill and Joe.
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 4: I would argue, So you have a man and a
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 4: woman at the center of this story, and they kind
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 4: of share protagonist functions. They have the same overall goal
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 4: as far as like gathering the data on the tornadoes,
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 4: but it's the woman who has the backstory that we
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 4: know about, which is giving her a more clearly defined motivation.
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 4: He is the one with a subplot with his relationship
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 4: with Melissa, but that kind of peters out and it
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 4: turns into a romantic subplot with Joe. Another thing is
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 4: like he was the one to design Dorothy. Joe was
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 4: the one to actually like build it and see it
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 4: into fruition. She's the one who's still doing the storm chasing.
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 4: She has a team of men mostly and we'll talk
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 4: about Haines, but you know it's well mostly men.
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 3: Yes, I hear what you're saying, and I do think
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 3: that there are things that are subversive, and I think
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 3: ultimately just gender swapped to what a traditional narrative would
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 3: be and for nineteen ninety six that is impressive, But
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 3: I still feel like there's a lot of tropes present
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 3: where it is one thing to say, like, yes, she
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 3: is in a what I'm assuming I don't know shit
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 3: about what Tornado science was like in the nineties. I'm
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 3: assuming that most science was still male dominated in the
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 3: nine Times, right. Oh, so the fact that she has
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 3: a majority male team working for her is subversive, But
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 3: also it just feels swapped. It feels like, you know,
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 3: there's a world where you could you could flip the
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 3: characters of Bill and Joe. I'm glad that it's not
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 3: that way.
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 4: It does feel swapped, But I would argue that this
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 4: movie is doing better than a lot of similar blockbuster
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 4: movies from this era by having a strongly motivated woman
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 4: in Joe who we know things about, who is helping
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 4: to drive the narrative in significant ways, because again, similar
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 4: movies from this time would generally only position the woman
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 4: as a love interest to the male lead, or maybe
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 4: the woman would be allowed to tag along, but wouldn't
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 4: really be allowed to do anything and wouldn't have any
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 4: expertise in what they are trying to accomplish. And so
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 4: I think this movie. I think Twister could be considered
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 4: an example of a stepping stone movie for more meaningful
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 4: inclusion later on.
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 3: I agree, I mean, I agree to some extent, but
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 3: I just feel like the ways that it's subversive still
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 3: feeling it's leading on a lot of classic crutches, which
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 3: is like, yeah, the things that we know about her
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 3: are exclusively in relation to the men in her life,
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 3: and so this is still not a world where her
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 3: relationship to women has informed the direction of her life.
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 3: That her father died in a cyclone, and that that,
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 3: like her father's death, we are led to believe repeatedly,
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 3: is what led her to pursue her current thing. That
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 3: is very normal for a kid to want to pursue
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 3: something based on a passion or event that happened in
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 3: their formative life. But again, it's just all related to men.
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 3: And even though we are given Aunt Meg, who is
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 3: a you know, obviously a very formative and prominent woman
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 3: in Joe's life, all wes see Meg talk about is
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 3: Joe's relationship to Bill, and we see Joe in you know,
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 3: very like nineties pg. Thirteen or whatever. This ended up
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 3: being like a very blockbuster like contemplative. My hair is dry,
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 3: but I'm in the shower scene thinking about, ugh, I
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 3: love Bill so much. And then she gets out and
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 3: then her aunt is like, don't you let Bill so much?
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 3: And She's like, I don't know, And so we're given
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 3: I think the framework of like, yes, in the abstract
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 3: like she is. I think like she's. I think it's
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 3: like a very girl power thing where she is ostensibly
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 3: in charge, but the things that we learn about her
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 3: have nothing to do with her power, have nothing to
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 3: do with her sense of authority. It's very Quippi, and
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 3: it's all in relation to the men who have driven
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 3: her story before and like during the actions of this movie.
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 3: So I just kind of don't buy it.
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 4: No, I see that it is very like surface level.
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 4: I mean again, this is like, yeah, it's a blockbuster,
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 4: that's not.
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 3: I just don't think this movie is like subverting or
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 3: informing the future in any way like whatever.
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 4: No, but I'm just like thinking of other movies from
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 4: this era that like do such a shittier job. So
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 4: I guess maybe I'm giving the movie too much credit
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 4: because I'm comparing it to other like very sexist movies
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 4: from the mid nineties, not to say that it's doing
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 4: a great job, but again, I think better compared to
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 4: so many of the like extremely sexist action blockbusters from
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 4: this time. I do find it interesting that the movie
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 4: kind of explores this power struggle between Bill and Joe,
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 4: where for the most part, again Joe is leading a
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 4: team of men who we never see like question her
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 4: judgment or question her authority or try to undermine her
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 4: the way that men who work under women often do.
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 4: We don't see that, and I found that refreshing until
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 4: Bill comes into the mix, and then there's all the
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 4: ways this like no we need to go over here, No,
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 4: we need to go over here, No I'll drive, No
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 4: I'm driving.
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 3: Which again does feel very like and just because I've
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 3: seen his Girlfredda recently, Yeah, I kind of liked these sequences,
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 3: even though they feel out of place in the nineties
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 3: disaster genre. But they are kind of like weirdly copy
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 3: pasting these like thirties Quippi like no, yes, no, yes,
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 3: I don't, you don't, let's kiss no, like that sort
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 3: of like back and forth Frank Capra era dialogue into
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 3: the nineties and it doesn't totally work, And I thought
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 3: it was really weird until I knew what they were
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 3: trying to do, and it's still really weird. And it
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 3: feels like that, like, based on what I was reading,
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 3: felt like it was kind of a director thing where
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 3: it was written one way and then the director decided
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 3: on set that it sounded weird and then encouraged the
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 3: actors to improvise, which probably made it a little weirder.
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 3: And I don't know. I like a lot of the
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 3: setups that happened in this movie, Like a love triangle
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 3: in a jeep driving toward a twister is a great setup.
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 4: That's a winner, but.
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 3: The way it plays out not as good.
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 4: I do imagine that a lot of this, like power
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 4: struggle between Joe and Bill, is more about their relationship history. Yes,
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 4: because totally they're married. They were, they are married. They
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 4: apparently split up but didn't officially divorce. Yet we find
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 4: out that Bill was the one who walked out. According
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 4: to him, it was because Joe wasn't a great partner.
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 4: He says that you know, you have you had no
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 4: idea what it meant to be married, commitment, stability, supportiveness,
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 4: a house, all kinds of neat stuff like that hilarious
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 4: line of dialogue.
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, which just feels Yeah, that feels like very like
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 3: bullet points of like I just googled marriage, right, which
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 3: is very I don't know. I liked that line too.
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it was funny, but yeah, I don't know. It
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 4: was just interesting that again, like the reasons for their
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 4: breakup and the reasons that Bill sites as Joe not
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 4: being a great partner are often things that are attributed
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 4: to men when they're not when they're not great partners
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 4: and relationships. Again, it just feels like maybe another gender
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 4: swap thing. But the lazier thing would have been to
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 4: make Bill a very stereotypical tropy man and to make
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 4: Joe a very agree with that stereotypical tropy woman, and
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 4: the kind of flip side.
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 3: So I do agree with that. I like that Joe was,
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 3: you know, presented as the one who is too sucked
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 3: up in work to be able to commit fully to
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 3: the relationship. I don't think it was fully demonstrated what
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 3: Bill was doing to fully demonstrate, because it is also
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 3: sort of implied that he was also very consumed with
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 3: his work. But I feel like the fact that he is,
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 3: you know, it seems like in this very misguided rebound
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 3: relationship with someone who who does want to settle down,
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 3: which it seems like is what Bill wanted and what
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 3: Joe was unable to really give him in their marriage.
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 3: Does demonstrate that, like they wanted different things. Again it's
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 3: blockbuster logic. I don't really know what happens in the
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 3: course of them almost dying while driving into six twisters
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 3: in two hours, Like how that demonstrates that Joe is
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 3: actually now ready for a long term relationship like maybe not,
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 3: maybe not, but but I mean, yeah, no, I did
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 3: appreciate that like that in this like fairly common relationship
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 3: dynamic is swapped in a way that was I think effective.
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 3: I guess I just didn't understand narratively, like how it
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 3: was resolved they're the events of the movie.
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 4: Is the movie's not interested in that.
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 3: Which is why I honestly found myself getting a little
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 3: I mean, I think, like Bill is arrogant, but to
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 3: your point less characterized than Joe. But I found much
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 3: of what wasarized with Joe to be very frustrating, Like
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 3: it felt like the way she was characterized was pretty
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 3: standard for a woman character is like my hero's journey
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 3: is begun by something something my father and is continued
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 3: by something something my husband, and like there is this
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 3: implication of ambition and that we know that that is
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 3: a lot of what drives her. We know that's a
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 3: lot of why her marriage failed. But it doesn't seem
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 3: like she really meaningfully grows throughout the movie. I don't
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 3: really understand what changes about her. It almost feels like
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 3: it almost diminishes why they broke up, which it seems
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 3: like was they wanted different things, and I don't think
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 3: that changes at the end of the movie. I just
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 3: think they have whether they've gotten horny from another like
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 3: half dozen natural disasters. Like, I don't think that anything
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 3: has changed, which is why I'm team Melissa.
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 4: Talk about Melissa, although really quickly before we get there. Uh,
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 4: it's in this scene where Joe and Bill are discussing
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 4: why their marriage failed, where some very dated views on
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 4: therapy come up, where.
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 3: Well, that's Melissa's whole story. It's a whole runner where
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 3: it's like, yeah, oh my god, if you're in therapy,
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 3: you're ridiculous, because actually you could be driving into a
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 3: twister and it's like, well, guess what if any of
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 3: these motherfuckers had bended therapy? They wouldn't be driving into
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 3: a twister, so you know, match point.
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 4: Yeah, but yeah, just in general, the suggestion that someone
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 4: might need therapy is taken as a grave insult.
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 4: Bill Packson's character is like, what could I possibly need
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 4: therapy about? And it's like, sir, everyone needs therapy. That
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 4: is not an insult, that's just a neutral statement.
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 3: But I thought that unintentionally, that plot point actually ages
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 3: very well because you know whatever, like eighteen years later,
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 3: it's so obvious that everyone on the Twister team needs
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 3: therapy and they actually look sillier. But yeah, at the time,
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 3: it's very clear, like it's such a well because this
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 3: movie is I think, you know, sort of like Control
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 3: see Control VD, out of well worn tropes in a
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 3: bunch of different genres ranging a half a century to
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 3: make this movie work, and that's one of them. And
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 3: I feel like that is really prominent from the eighties
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 3: to the two thousands. I think the first time that
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 3: we talked about it in detail on this show was
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 3: during Freaky Friday, and also in the Santa Claus Neil
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 3: is a therapist, Like it's just a very well worn
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 3: trope and that the person it's weird because I feel
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 3: like they're sort of made to seem like, you know,
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 3: rich people and their problems, which has a lot to
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 3: do with access to mental health care. But I feel
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 3: like that the problem is like it's made to seem
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 3: that like therapy is something that is only for rich
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 3: people because it's fake, not that therapy is something that
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 3: is accessible to rich people because of how healthcare is
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 3: structured and almost everyone would benefit from it anyways, that's
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 3: what's happening here and the vague people. I feel like
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 3: that's always I want to say. In Freaky Friday, it's
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 3: like Jamie Lee Curtis's character is calling someone named Jonathan
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 3: over and over and over who's calling her with the
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 3: same problem that is made out to be very ridiculous
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 3: and very absurd. And we see that with a couple
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 3: of characters in Twister, where Melissa is talking to the
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 3: same few clients and it's made to seem like they're
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 3: very weak and very pathetic for seeking out her help,
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 3: and that Melissa is slowly realizing that there are bigger
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 3: problems than mental health. Because you could have accidentally assumed
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 3: that when someone said they drove into twisters for a living,
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 3: they were speaking metaphorically, which is all so ridiculous. Like
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 3: I was so I mean, I was very glad that
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 3: this movie subverted, or at least at best avoided what
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 3: I thought would happened in a movie in nineteen ninety six,
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 3: which is that they would just push her off on
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 3: someone else. And I did think she was being pushed
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 3: towards Dusty in multiple scenes. Thankfully that doesn't happen. She
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 3: walks away. It's her idea. I do kind of like
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 3: it feels abrupt, and I do wish that she had
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 3: had a more meaningful interaction with Joe. Yeah, but for
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 3: nineteen ninety six, it was on her terms. I do
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 3: think she walked directly into a twister and was dead
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 3: twelve minutes later. But fine, but it is her whole
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 3: profession is still unequivocally made out to be ridiculous, and
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 3: that's just like a trope.
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 4: Yeah, very representative of the you know, extreme stigma surrounding
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 4: mental health and therapy at the time. So in the
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 4: movie is just taking the thing and reinforcing it. As
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 4: far as Melissa's like function in this story, she's there
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 4: to create this you know, pretty classic love triangle situation.
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 4: I will say at least she's not characterized as being
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 4: like mean and awful the way that like Well, to
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 4: reference another Lindsay Lohan movie, Meredith from The Parent Trap,
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 4: it's more that she's just like not compatible with Bill.
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 4: They don't share the same core interests and that's why.
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 3: And I did really like that she was the one
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 3: to say and I'm not even really sad about it. Yeah,
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 3: Like I feel like it is implied that and again,
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 3: it would have been helpful if we knew because with Bill, well,
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 3: I agree, it is unusual that we know the most
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 3: about Joe of anyone in this movie. We at least
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 3: know with Bill that it sort of seems like he
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 3: wanted to be in a stable, more traditional marriage and
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 3: career and that is why he ended up with Melissa.
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 3: We don't know why Melissa ended up with Bill. We're
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 3: not even totally sure why she's from and why she
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 3: doesn't seem to know what a twister is. But I
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 3: do like that, at the end of the day, that
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 3: she is the one to state the problem, say that,
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 3: like they have very likely been incompatible the whole time.
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 3: I do think it's annoying that she says the thing
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 3: I was predicting with my brother that she would say,
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 3: which is that clearly she needs you and is not
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 3: allowed because the thing is we love trying. There is
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 3: this implied graciousness to the third party that I would
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 3: love to see subverted. But Melissa is a class act.
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 4: She's about she's two accommodating.
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 3: Maybe I just would love to see more people who
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 3: okay in future love triangle movies. And it has happened,
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 3: but I would like to see it more that the
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 3: third party who ends up with no one in the
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 3: love triangle is pissed off about it, even if the
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 3: other two people belong together. They're like, yeah, well, what
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 3: the fuck? This feels horrible? Yeah, kind of like James
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 3: Marsden in The Notebook, you know, like, well, what the fuck.
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 3: I'm a nice person. I deserve love, I imagine, and
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 3: look at my life. I mean, I imagine.
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 4: It's a case by case basis thing where yeah, sometimes
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 4: it makes sense for the person to be like really
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 4: hurt and upset.
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 3: And I'll tell you what though, Like there's so few
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 3: people that are like, you know what, it makes sense.
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 3: You're totally right for each other. And I realize this,
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 3: and I don't need help getting out of the.
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 4: Twister, especially because he takes their truck, So how is
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 4: she even gonna drive away anywhere?
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 3: Else? She dies, Caitlin, I hate to break it to you,
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 3: but she does not make it out of the two
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 3: subsequent twisters that happen after her characters exit. Where does
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 3: she go?
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 4: Where does she go? Well, here's the thing I think of.
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 4: A sexist choice would have made Melissa, you know, once
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 4: she realizes that Bill and Joe are destined to be together.
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 3: A lot of.
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 4: Especially you know, writers who are men, would have made
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 4: Melissa be really cruel to Joe and be like really
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 4: possessive over Bill or something like that, which could at
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 4: least have the potential to feel very like, oh, women
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 4: in conflict with each other in a way that like
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 4: men don't understand because women are petty and their caddy.
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 4: So at least that didn't.
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 3: Did you not feel that the converse we had between
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 3: them was like inherently that I mean, yeah.
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 4: You mean in the diner or whatever, when she's when
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 4: Melissa's like, you're still in love with Bill, aren't you?
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 3: A little? Yeah, it felt like a little bit of
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 3: like a little bit of that conversation was in that
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 3: conversation doesn't accept in passing pleasantries past the Bechdels desk
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 3: because they're talking about Bill the whole time, which is
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 3: what they have in common. But like that conversation to
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 3: be did feel a little bit like both of them
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 3: were very uncomfortable, which makes sense. I don't know, maybe
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 3: I'm overthinking it, but like I.
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 4: Think it could have been worse. I guess I was
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 4: just like primed for worse in the nineties.
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but I just like it's in a world where
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 3: they were given something to bond over and talk about
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 3: that wasn't the mutual guy they'd fucked.
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 4: Fair. Another thing that kind of rubbed me the wrong
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 4: way about Melissa's character is that she becomes this sort
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 4: of like audience insert character in the sense that like,
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 4: she's the only one who doesn't know anything about tornadoes,
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 4: and the movie assumes that the average viewer won't know
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 4: much about tornadoes, and the movie needs a way to
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 4: deliver exposition so that the audience can understand what's going on.
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 4: So you see a lot of other people, mostly men,
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 4: explaining stuff to Melissa, And I'm always wary of a
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 4: story that requires a bunch of men explaining stuff to
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 4: a woman. Now, granted we see Joe explain things here
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 4: and there to Melissa as well, but it just it
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 4: still pings for me when like, yeah, the character who
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 4: needs to have a bunch of exposition dumped on them
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 4: to be like one of the few women in the movie.
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 3: I agree, And I also think that's like part of
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 3: why I get even more defensive of Melissa's character, because
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 3: she is ultimately the audience insert because most of the
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 3: science in this movie, based on my research, is made up,
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 3: and so you do need someone to explain.
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 4: Made sciences to you.
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but it's made that she's very naive and is like, way,
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 3: what is this? But it's like, yeah, this is made up,
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 3: but yeah, but it is like recontextualized as a woman
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 3: who needs something to explain to her, mainly by other men.
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 4: Well, something else I noticed is that the two characters
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 4: in the movie who speak with accents from the American South,
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 4: Melissa and Jonas, are the characters who were not rooting
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 4: for Obviously, like Jonas is the villain, Melissa is positioned
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 4: as someone who ignorant, is like an obstacle ignorant and yeah,
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 4: like an obstacle for Bill and Joe and ignorant. I mean,
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 4: what I'll say is that at least the movie doesn't
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 4: depict them the way a lot of media depicts people
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 4: with Southern accents as being like unintelligent and inarticulate and
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 4: like backwards and all that kind of stuff. Both of
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 4: these characters are highly educated. One of them is a doctor,
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 4: one of them is a scientist.
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 3: But they are and I would say that they're still
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 3: both ignorant.
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 4: Well, that's what I'm saying, Like, the two characters with
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 4: Southern accents are the ones who are like positioned as
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 4: obstacles and who are positioned as like not having either
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 4: the same like intuition about tornadoes or just being completely
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 4: ignorant of them. So I feel like there's still like
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 4: a demonization of the American South in that regard.
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 3: Which, again, like if that is the case, it makes
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 3: no sense because they all appear to be from the
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 3: same area that.
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 4: I mean, we have no idea, I guess, yeah.
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 3: But but even that is like speaks to a lack
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 3: of characterization. Right.
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 4: The only character we know where they're from is Joe
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 4: because we see her as a kid in Oklahoma. I
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 4: guess we don't really know where anyone else is from
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 4: where we can only assume the only.
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 3: Person we know is because of Daddy trauma and the
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 3: way of Aunt Meg. Who Aunt Meg is. I feel
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 3: like kind of a quirky, older woman, kind of stock character,
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 3: and this stock character exists across gender boundaries, and I
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 3: appreciate it, releast that she's there to sort of expand
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 3: the characterization of Joe and that they have a very
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 3: close bond, and that you know, Meg has a close
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 3: bond with the entire storm crew. But again, the only
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 3: thing you see Aunt Meg and Joe talk about is Bill. Yeah.
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 3: If I got out of this shower and my aunt
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 3: immediately started talking to me about how the man I
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 3: recently divorced downstairs should actually still be my husband, and
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 3: I don't care that his fiance is down there like
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 3: he's here. You might as well go for it. It's
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 3: just a movie, a man road. I know, Anne Marie
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 3: Martin has her I don't want to like discount the
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 3: fact that there was a woman co writer, but it
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 3: just feels very like YadA YadA, patriarchal, Like, Okay, we
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 3: have to have these characters interact. I don't even feel certain.
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 3: I don't know like, do we know is Aunt Meg
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 3: her father's sibling.
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 4: Yeah, we don't know. If it's her brother who died
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 4: in the tornado, We don't know, if it's her brother
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 4: in law. We don't know if it's just like Aunt
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 4: Meg used colloquially but like not a blood relative. Yeah,
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 4: we don't know.
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so, like the movie is badly written, is my point.
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 4: Also, Aunt Meg is more excited to see Bill than
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 4: she is her own niece, than she is deceived Joe.
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 3: She's more more happish, She's more like Dusty King, like
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 3: you know, and not to say that, like your relatives
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 3: cannot perform more excitement to see others than you like
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 3: been there, But regardless, like it just feels all very
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 3: like half cooked, and it just feels like Aunt Meg
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 3: is put there because at the end of the second act,
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 3: we have to pull Aunt Meg and her Golden retriever
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 3: out of the rubble because YadA, YadA, YadA, and it
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 3: ultimately serves to make Bill Paxton look like a hero
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 3: because he saves her and the dog with Joe, but
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 3: at the end he goes back twice and it's you know,
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 3: I just think that like even the most consequential relationship
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 3: between women in this movie, which I do think is
• 1:30:36
  Speaker 3: between Joe and her aunt, is still almost exclusively in
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 3: reference to men. So so whoops.
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 4: The last thing I want to talk about is the
• 1:30:51
  Speaker 4: one other woman on the storm Chaser's team, Missus hat
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 4: missus Hat aka Haynes. Once again, the actor played Haines
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 4: is named Wendell Josepher. There's not much to say because
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 4: you barely see her on screen, You barely see her
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 4: and Joe interacting. You would think there would be some camaraderie.
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 3: I would guess, and I hope. I wonder if this
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 3: is true that all of the science side characters outside
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 3: of Dusty were written to be gender neutral, and yet
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 3: only one.
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 4: Woman was cast. Yeah, that is very frustrating. Maybe someone
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 4: would argue, well, realistically, the people who were doing Tornado
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 4: science back then were predominantly men.
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well, guess what, bitch is the movie.
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 4: It's a movie, and you can do whatever the fuck
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 4: you want. Yeah, and again, the most frustrating thing to
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 4: me is that, like, you rarely see Haines and Joe
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 4: interacting in a situation like that, where like, because I mean,
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 4: we've been there in the comedy sphere where like We're
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 4: two women on a show that has like eight other
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 4: men on the lineup, and you like develop camaraderie with
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 4: the other people who are like you, and you would
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 4: think there would be more camaraderie between Joe and Haines.
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 4: But again, you never see them interacting because the movie
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 4: doesn't actually care anything about Haines. So Bods, that's frustrating.
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 4: Oh whips, Do you have anything else you'd like to discuss?
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 3: No, this movie, I think vague like passes the Veccal
• 1:32:34
  Speaker 3: test in the way that maybe we should have defined
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 3: it at the begin name, because I feel like this
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 3: movie does pass the Bechtel test, but in ways that
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 3: we generally find to be unsatisfactory. It's pleasant trees, it's hello's,
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 3: it's quipi asides. I think it does technically pass the
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 3: Bechtel test, but in terms of like meaningful interactions, I
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 3: would say, no, it doesn't.
• 1:32:56
  Speaker 4: I think. Yeah. The closest thing would be a line
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 4: where Joe says to Melissa, if you have to pee,
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 4: do it now, because there's nowhere to stop along the
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 4: way on our path of tornado chasing.
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 3: Which is useful information but could be cut from the movie.
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 4: Could be cut Yeah.
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 3: That's the thing is like, I feel like there's very
• 1:33:16
  Speaker 3: at this point because, as we talk about all the time,
• 1:33:19
  Speaker 3: the Bechtel test is a general metric just to get
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 3: a feel for are people of a martialized gender interacting
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 3: in meaningful ways in this movie? And I do feel like, well,
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 3: there are subversive elements to the movie. The answer to
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 3: that question is no, No, that women are not interacting
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 3: in subversive ways. They're only interacting in relation to men,
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 3: even though there are ample opportunities for that to not
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 3: be made the case. And so it feels to me
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 3: like a classic nineties version. I mean, I know I
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 3: say nineties, I mean I know that it happens in
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 3: every generation where every generation feels like feminism we actually
• 1:33:59
  Speaker 3: got it right, and no one has, including our generation, right.
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 3: But like this feels like a very third wave nineties
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 3: version of like, yeah, we get it, and it's like, no,
• 1:34:09
  Speaker 3: you don't, because you were still talking about Bill Paxton
• 1:34:12
  Speaker 3: the whole time, and so for me, it doesn't pass.
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 4: There also would have been a great opportunity because there
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 4: is a scene early on where Haines tells Joe about
• 1:34:23
  Speaker 4: I think it's the first tornado that arises in the movie,
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 4: but Joe does not respond at least to Haines. She
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 4: like then addresses the whole group and it doesn't.
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, she just like turns to the boys.
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 4: It could have been so easy for Joe to be like, wow,
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 4: thanks Haines, now we know your name, and what else
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 4: do you have to say about this? And there could
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 4: have been a couple back and forths that would have passed.
• 1:34:48
  Speaker 4: But the movie didn't do it. So yeah, spiritually I
• 1:34:51
  Speaker 4: would say no, the movie does not pass the Bechdel test.
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 4: But our nipple scale, where we rate the movie on
• 1:34:57
  Speaker 4: a scale of zero to five nipples ba on examining
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 4: the movie through an intersectional feminist lens, I mean, as
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 4: much of a rump and a fun time I think
• 1:35:09
  Speaker 4: it is, I still will only give it. I'll give
• 1:35:12
  Speaker 4: it like one and a half maybe two. I'm feeling
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 4: a little generous just because I think it does some
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 4: interesting things. Compared to similar blockbuster movies of this same era.
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 4: Most other movies from this time and that were of
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 4: the same ilk did way worse. They were so deeply
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 4: sexist and like outwardly hateful toward women, Whereas this is like, well,
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 4: what if a woman was in charge, and what if
• 1:35:44
  Speaker 4: we knew more about her than any of the other
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 4: characters who were men, and you know, a few things
• 1:35:49
  Speaker 4: like that, and I think that there's something to be
• 1:35:52
  Speaker 4: said for that.
• 1:35:53
  Speaker 3: Not a lot.
• 1:35:54
  Speaker 4: Again, it's not doing the best job ever, but by
• 1:35:57
  Speaker 4: nineties standards, I was vaguely impressed. It's a very, very
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 4: white cast, no diversity whatsoever. The treatment of therapy and
• 1:36:09
  Speaker 4: mental health is dated and is presented in such a
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 4: way that perpetuates the stigma of mental health and therapy.
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 4: So there's not great things in it. But I don't know.
• 1:36:22
  Speaker 4: I like Joe's a character. She makes jokes, she makes quips.
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 4: She says, I'm gonna head southwest to the counter. Oh,
• 1:36:29
  Speaker 4: how was the tornado? It was, Wendy. These are funny
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 4: lines that I laughed at, and so I like her.
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 4: And I'll give the movie two nipples, and I'll give
• 1:36:38
  Speaker 4: one to Toby the dog, which is Joe's childhood dog,
• 1:36:43
  Speaker 4: and I'll give the other to Mose the dog and
• 1:36:46
  Speaker 4: Meg's dog. The end.
• 1:36:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm gonna think this movie one and a half
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 3: because I do think that it is like vaguely subverting stuff,
• 1:36:56
  Speaker 3: but in a way that is very unsatisfactory. I feel
• 1:36:59
  Speaker 3: like the success of this movie mainly is that, like
• 1:37:01
  Speaker 3: you were saying earlier, and I wish yeah, Like I
• 1:37:04
  Speaker 3: think I was too irritated by other elements of the
• 1:37:07
  Speaker 3: movie to fully appreciate, but that yes, Joe is the
• 1:37:10
  Speaker 3: best characterized person in this movie, and that is rare.
• 1:37:14
  Speaker 3: I still think she's mainly characterized as it pertains to
• 1:37:18
  Speaker 3: the first man she met and the man she married,
• 1:37:21
  Speaker 3: which is very reductive and to me, reeks of a
• 1:37:27
  Speaker 3: story that is written and shaped by primarily men. I
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 3: also think the way that she is like clothed and generally,
• 1:37:35
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's not excessively harping on her body, but
• 1:37:39
  Speaker 3: if you look at the way that her team is
• 1:37:42
  Speaker 3: clothed versus her, it's obvious.
• 1:37:45
  Speaker 4: That she's showing more skin.
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 3: This movie came out two years after Jurassic Perk, and
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 3: she is dressed far more scantily than Laura Durd's character.
• 1:37:53
  Speaker 3: Like it just feels a little more and which sucks
• 1:37:57
  Speaker 3: because I think Helen Hunt does a great job in
• 1:37:59
  Speaker 3: this week. I think she's really talented, and I think
• 1:38:02
  Speaker 3: that the physical endurance, which we didn't really get to,
• 1:38:06
  Speaker 3: but the fact that like Helen Hunt and the entire
• 1:38:09
  Speaker 3: cast of this movie were obviously put through because so
• 1:38:12
  Speaker 3: much of the movie were practical effects, which again I love,
• 1:38:16
  Speaker 3: but that you know, Yon Debant was kind of a tyrant,
• 1:38:20
  Speaker 3: a bit of a James Cameron, which makes sense as
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 3: he was considered as a director for this movie, but
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 3: he was busy with Titanic. But everyone was put through
• 1:38:29
  Speaker 3: the physical ringer. But the only person who was called
• 1:38:32
  Speaker 3: out as being a little clumsy was Helen Hunt. Yes,
• 1:38:36
  Speaker 3: and Helen Hunt stood up for herself in retrospect when
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 3: she knew of that quote. And it's just like it's
• 1:38:42
  Speaker 3: even being a better characterized movie in a blockbuster as
• 1:38:46
  Speaker 3: a woman is still entrenched in this theory of the
• 1:38:50
  Speaker 3: time sexism. I am very in a lot of it
• 1:38:53
  Speaker 3: is because I have no nostalgic attachment to this movie,
• 1:38:57
  Speaker 3: but like watching it, I just don't feel a lot
• 1:39:01
  Speaker 3: of reasons to excuse that. And I think Helen Hunt
• 1:39:07
  Speaker 3: and Jamie Gertz give great performances. I think their characters
• 1:39:11
  Speaker 3: are really good, and I feel like they're underserved and
• 1:39:15
  Speaker 3: ultimately two greats of twentieth century cinema into twenty first
• 1:39:21
  Speaker 3: century cinema because obviously I mean Phillip Seymour. Hoffman's later
• 1:39:26
  Speaker 3: performances are incredible. I would also shout out Bill Paxton's
• 1:39:31
  Speaker 3: performance in night Crawler, one of my favorite movies, is
• 1:39:35
  Speaker 3: a great later performance from him. Unfortunately they're no longer
• 1:39:38
  Speaker 3: with us. It's a great way to end, obviously, and
• 1:39:42
  Speaker 3: Alan ruck in the entirety of succession, like you have
• 1:39:47
  Speaker 3: a lot of great actors here. But ultimately, yeah, I
• 1:39:51
  Speaker 3: understand why this movie was kind of forgotten in spite
• 1:39:55
  Speaker 3: of making half a billion dollars in nineteen ninety six money.
• 1:39:58
  Speaker 3: And that's saying something. It does just feel like the
• 1:40:02
  Speaker 3: best elements of better movie is put into a movie
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 3: that is pretty good.
• 1:40:08
  Speaker 4: And I guess we'll find out what Twisters is all about.
• 1:40:13
  Speaker 3: So you have a feeling. I have a feeling.
• 1:40:15
  Speaker 4: Is it gonna be about Twisters? Do you think?
• 1:40:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah? And I don't think that anyone cares, so yeah,
• 1:40:22
  Speaker 3: I'll give it one and a half nipples. I'll give
• 1:40:24
  Speaker 3: one to Helen Hunt and I'll give half to Jamie
• 1:40:27
  Speaker 3: Gertz because I think and the character of Melissa, because
• 1:40:30
  Speaker 3: I think that they were great and that this movie
• 1:40:33
  Speaker 3: would have been vastly complicated in a good way, because
• 1:40:37
  Speaker 3: This movie needed more interpersonal conflict versus random twisters between
• 1:40:45
  Speaker 3: the two women at its center. It would have been
• 1:40:48
  Speaker 3: amazing if they formed an allyship and forced Bill to
• 1:40:52
  Speaker 3: reveal information about himself, but no one was thinking this
• 1:40:58
  Speaker 3: hard about it, and so I just felt a little
• 1:41:01
  Speaker 3: underwhelmed by the product. One and a half nipples from Jamie.
• 1:41:07
  Speaker 4: Well, listeners, that's our twister episode. You can follow us
• 1:41:13
  Speaker 4: at Bechdel Cast on Instagram. You can go to our
• 1:41:17
  Speaker 4: Patreon aka Matreon, where we have two bonus episodes every
• 1:41:23
  Speaker 4: month on a brilliant, genius, amazing theme that we cook up,
• 1:41:28
  Speaker 4: plus access to the back catalog, and that is found
• 1:41:32
  Speaker 4: at patreon dot com slash Bechdel Cast and it's five
• 1:41:35
  Speaker 4: dollars a month. Wow. And then we've got our merch
• 1:41:38
  Speaker 4: store teapublic dot com slash the Bechdel Cast where you
• 1:41:41
  Speaker 4: can buy a bunch of merch that Jamie designed.
• 1:41:44
  Speaker 3: So do it.
• 1:41:47
  Speaker 4: And with that, Jamie, let's get in a truck and
• 1:41:51
  Speaker 4: drive away from the twisters toward safety. Bye Bye. The
• 1:42:02
  Speaker 4: Bechdelcast is a production of iHeartMedia, hosted by Caitlin Drante
• 1:42:06
  Speaker 4: and Jamie loftis produced by Sophie Lichtermann, edited by Moe
• 1:42:10
  Speaker 4: La Boord. Our theme song was composed by Mike Kaplan
• 1:42:13
  Speaker 4: with vocals by Katherine Voskressenski. Our logo in merch is
• 1:42:17
  Speaker 4: designed by Jamie Loftis and a special thanks to Aristotle Assevedo.
• 1:42:22
  Speaker 4: For more information about the podcast, please visit linktree Slash
• 1:42:25
  Speaker 4: Bechdelcast