Coyote Ugly

[00:00:04] Speaker A: This Film Is lit the podcast where we finally settle the score on one simple Is the book really better than the movie? I'm Brian and I have a film degree so I watch the movie but don't read the book. [00:00:15] Speaker B: And I'm Katie, I have an English degree so I do things the right way and read the book before we watch the movie. [00:00:22] Speaker A: So prepare to be wowed by our expertise and charm as we dissect all of your favorite film adaptations and decide if the silver screen the or the written word did it better. So turn it up, settle in and get ready for spoilers because this film is lit. Do we serve water in this bar? It's Coyote Ugly and this film is lit. Hello and welcome back to this Film Is like the podcast we talk about movies that are based on books. Sorry this episode's coming to you a little bit late, but we've been busy out of town. Katie's been sick. Another cold. The colds are. [00:01:15] Speaker B: The colds are rough this year. [00:01:18] Speaker A: We've both had them at different times. I seem to have avoided this one somehow, which is nice. But yeah. So sorry about the episode being a little bit late, but we got so much to talk about. Lots of fun stuff. We have episodes every single segment, so we're going to jump right in. If you have not read or watched Coyote Ugly, we're going to give you a brief summary right now. Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up. This summary is sourced from Wikipedia. Violet Sanford leaves her hometown of South Amboy, New Jersey, her father Bill and her best friend Gloria to pursue her dreams of becoming a songwriter in New York City. Violet unsuccessfully tries multiple times to get her demo tape noticed by recording studios when she tries to attack the attention of a music industry scout, a bartender convinces her Kevin o' Donnell is the bar manager and Violet is hurt by the joke. Despondent after her apartment is burglarized, she notices three girls at an all night diner flaunting hundreds of dollars and learns that they work at a trendy bar named Coyote Ugly. Violet convinces the bar owner Lil to audition her, but while it doesn't go well, Violet earns a second audition by breaking up a fight between customers and goes shopping with Cammy for better apparel. Violet Violet douses the fire marshal in water during the second audition. Lil is fined $250 but offers Violet a job if she can make up the $250 in one night. Violet auctions Kevin off to women at the bar to earn the money and Kevin tells Violet that she owes him. Violet agrees to four dates as payment and the two begin a relationship. Violet's performance of Blondie's One Way or Another during a chaotic night at the bar convinces Lil to make her a coyote. Kevin helps Violet overcome the stage fright she inherited from her now deceased mother who had also moved to New York to pursue dreams of singing. Bill, Violet's father, sees a photo of Violet in the newspaper and investigates finding her dancing on the bar with other bartenders pouring pitchers of water over her. He refuses to talk to her when she calls him. Shortly after, tensions grow when Lil refuses to let Violet leave for a singing gig. Kevin arranged costing Kevin a rare collectible to a bookie. A rare. I thought that was referencing the comic book, but yes, costing Kevin a rare comic book to a bookie. When Kevin confronts a customer harassing Violet at the bar, Violet breaks up with them and Lil fires her. Violet returns to New Jersey for Gloria's wedding wedding and Bill is seriously injured when he is hit by a car while operating his toll booth. Violet considers returning to South Amboy, but Bill convinces her not to give up on her dreams and admits that her mother never had stage fright and she quit singing because of him. Violet goes to new to work in New York restaurant in a New York restaurant and little visits to offer her old job back. Violet finishes a new song and a chance to sing at the brewery bar room. She overcomes her cold feet and Bowery Ballroom. Sorry. She overcomes her cold feet and performs her song at open mic night with Kevin's help. It's not an open mic night. It's a singer songwriter spotl night. Slight difference. With Kevin's help with the Coyotes, Bill and Gloria in the audience for moral support, the performance leads to a deal with a record label. Three months later at the Coyote Ugly, Leanne Rhymes has recorded Violet's song and sings it on the bar as Violet joins in. After buying back the comic book Kevin lost to the bookies and allowing Bill to win an auction, Violet kisses Kevin in celebration and allowing Bill to win an auction. That's not what happens there. They auction him off as like a joke. He doesn't win an auction and whatever. Violet kisses Kevin. Celebration. Celebration of the realization of all of her dreams. Slow Fade out. Dolly push. In the end there is a guess who which is interesting. Let's do it. Who are you? [00:04:44] Speaker B: No one of consequence. [00:04:46] Speaker A: I must know. [00:04:48] Speaker B: Get used to disappointment. She is short, cute and tough. She has the body of a figure skater and the voice of a longtime smoker. [00:04:57] Speaker A: Lifetime smoker I would say, based on what I know about this article being written by Elizabeth Gilbert, who is like, essentially the Violet, but not really. Like, not. We'll get to it. But she's the main character of the story, so she's. It would be from her perspective, I would assume. And so I assume that she's writing this about somebody she's seeing, so it would not be her. I'm gonna guess this is one of the other coyotes. The voice of a longtime or a lifetime smoker makes me think that this is Lil the owner. [00:05:30] Speaker B: It is Lil the owner. [00:05:32] Speaker A: Makes sense. I also cheated because I think I knew that was the only person who was like in the article who's, like, directly in the movie. [00:05:39] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:05:40] Speaker A: So, yeah. All right, I have a bunch of questions. Let's get into them. In. [00:05:45] Speaker B: Was that in the book Gaston? May I have my book, please? [00:05:48] Speaker A: How can you read this? [00:05:49] Speaker B: There's no pictures. Well, some people use their imagination. [00:05:53] Speaker A: So we'll obviously get to my feelings on this movie later. But people who have been listening know how I feel about it. But I have a lot of questions. We're gonna start. Like I said, I'm gonna probably try to put all of as much of this in one spot as possible. We already referenced this, but is any of Violet's story true to Elizabeth Gilbert's story from the book? The narrative of this small town girl moving to New York to chase her dream of becoming a musician or something, or maybe a writer in Elizabeth Gilbert, you know what I mean? Anything like that. Does that narrative come from the article? [00:06:23] Speaker B: No, there's nothing like that in the article. The closest thing we get to a reason for Elizabeth Gilbert working at the Cody Coyote Ugly Saloon is a mention that she was in the midst of a bad breakup when she started working there. [00:06:38] Speaker A: Okay, that's kind of what I figured. That kind of lends into my next question, which veers right off of this, which is, did Elizabeth Gilbert have an overprotective dad who she had to help parent? Because one of the main. We're introduced pretty early in this movie to Bill, who is Violet's dad, played by John Goodman. And he is like the most cliche, overprotective father character you'll ever see in a movie, except it's played by John Goodman. So he's automatically likable because it's John Goodman. And I think he's written in a way that has a little more nuance than most of these types of overprotective father tropes. And I think he's Fantastic in this. Like, you get why he's overprotective and you. You get why he's kind of being weird about her moving to New York. And he doesn't overdo it in a way that feels paternalistic or like super gross or anything necessarily. And we'll talk more about that later. But anything about that parent dynamic come from the article? [00:07:37] Speaker B: There's nothing about Gilbert's parents in the article. No, I. I agree with you, though. I think that it's a really well done iteration on the trope. I think it feels reasonable, not overblown for once. [00:07:49] Speaker A: Yes. [00:07:50] Speaker B: And I think John Goodman does a good job with the role. [00:07:53] Speaker A: Yeah, we. We talked about in the prequel that his role was initially smaller. And in early screenings, people liked him so much that they added some more scenes with him. But, you know, I. I think he. Again, he. It's about as cliche as it could be, which is true for like the entire movie. [00:08:08] Speaker B: Yes. [00:08:09] Speaker A: But as long as you know that that's what it is and you can get on board with the fact that it's the most cliche, like the most nothing new under the sun in this movie. It's just all done in a way that I think is pretty good. Again, it's a very cliche trope, but then the movie, I think, does it in a way that makes it more interesting than if it were just the most surface level trope version of it. We move forward quite a bit, and Violet has moved to New York and is having some issues. Her apartment has been broken into. She's got all these. A bunch of her money got stolen. She got some money from her friend or whatever, and they put it in the freezer and that money's gone. And so she has all these issues. She tried to get her tapes to people, but nobody cares, blah, blah, blah. She's really down in the dumps. She's hanging out at this overnight 24 hour diner, and Tyra Banks is there with some of the other Bridget Moynihan and maybe. And then whatever the Russian actress name is, the coyotes are there after their shift because it's like 5am or something like that. And so they're there for the morning after their shift, flaunting their money around. And Violet starts asking the guy working at the diner, the cook or the server or whatever, like, hey, what's their deal? Who are they? And she asks like, are they hookers? And he goes, no, coyotes. And I wanted to know if that exchange came from the article, because it's hilarious. [00:09:34] Speaker B: So there's not anything in the article about how Gilbert learned about the bar and the coyotes specifically. Also no to that specific line exchange. But it is a pretty good. It's pretty. It's pretty good. [00:09:48] Speaker A: Amazing. Because it's so silly. It. Which again, is what this. You have to understand, like, you have to be on board with the absurd, heightened nonsense of this movie. I'll say it like a thousand times. [00:09:59] Speaker B: Yeah. You got to buy in. [00:10:01] Speaker A: You got to buy in to what this movie is selling. And I think it's possible that it wasn't even intentionally selling it, necessarily, but it. I think it does sell something pretty interesting in a way that works as long as you understand that it is peak. It's. It's not quite camp, but it's almost camp. It's hard to describe. It's somewhere. I don't even know it is. [00:10:22] Speaker B: I think it is somewhere in, like, the camp family. [00:10:25] Speaker A: Yes. [00:10:26] Speaker B: It's not camp in the same way that, like, Rocky Horror is camp, but it is like, it is in the [00:10:31] Speaker A: family in the vicinity of it in a way that it's. It's. It's straight camp. It's like. I don't know. It's. It's not really, but, like, it. It has. Yeah. Yeah. It. It. It's. Because it's basically like a musical without being a musical. [00:10:46] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:10:47] Speaker A: So you kind of have to approach it with the same energy that you would approach a musical where, like. Yeah, okay. The. The plot points are kind of cliche and tropey and, like, the, you know, like, the. The performances are over the top, and it's very silly and big and ridiculous. [00:11:03] Speaker B: Right. [00:11:04] Speaker A: It's like a musical without music numbers. The dance numbers are the musical numbers. [00:11:08] Speaker B: And I think this scene in particular is kind of a good example of kind of the campiness of it. Because this scene has always given me secondhand embarrassment because it is just so corny. [00:11:26] Speaker A: Yes. [00:11:27] Speaker B: The way she just watches them and they're waving wads of money around. It's very silly. [00:11:35] Speaker A: You have to be on board. [00:11:36] Speaker B: You have to, like. You have to buy in. [00:11:39] Speaker A: Yeah, but it is. Yeah, it is very silly. So she finds out about this bar, Coyote Ugly. She goes and she finds it, and she. She meets Lil, the owner of this bar, who's like, loading boxes in the basement or whatever. And she comes down. She's like, hey, I heard you might have a job or something like that. Or, I'm looking for a job. [00:11:56] Speaker B: Right. Because one of the things in the scene prior that we learn is that Tyra Banks Character is leaving. She's going to law school. [00:12:04] Speaker A: Yes. This is like. This was like, what, her final shift or whatever. So she's. She's leaving. So there's the job opening. And so she talks to Lil and she's like, hey, I want a job. And Lil looks over and is like, all right. And she says to her, be there. Like, I guess, like, that night or whatever, be there at 11. That's when we get busy. I was like, why in the world would you have a new hire show up when you get busy? Like, that's never. I just thought it was very funny. And I wanted to know if there was any mention of her first shift starting, like, in the middle of rush. Like, it's so weird. [00:12:39] Speaker B: It's actually kind of implied to be more the opposite in the article, I [00:12:44] Speaker A: would say, which makes sense. That's how you would do it. [00:12:47] Speaker B: So this is. So it doesn't say specifically that she's there, like, when it is busy, but this is the pull quote from the article. I'd never been behind a bar before. When I came to work at the Coyote Ugly Saloon, Lil trained me herself. She didn't overload me with information at first. She didn't try to teach me how to mix drinks or even how to use the cash register. Basically, I just followed her around and tried to absorb everything I could, which feels a little bit more reasonable than what we see in the movie, which seems to be like trial by fire, like you said. [00:13:23] Speaker A: It literally could not be more of the opposite based on that extract from the article. It literally could not be more opposite because, yes, the movie. And which, again, it's done for drama and for tension and for us, you know, it's more exciting to see her [00:13:38] Speaker B: flail move that plot along. [00:13:40] Speaker A: Exactly. Yeah. Just watching her follow another bartender around and study what they're doing for 10 years would be boring. So I get it. But it is interesting. So it is the opposite. Well, it's good to know that in real life, Lil was not as dumb as she is in this moment in the movie. So when she's working that shift, Lil then introduces her to the bar and she asks, like, what's your name, by the way? She hadn't gotten her name yet. And she says, oh, my name's Violet. And then Lil makes the executive decision. That's not a great name for a Coyote. So she says, hey, this is Jersey, because she had told her she was from New Jersey. So she introduces her as Jersey. And I wanted to know if there was a similar thing where like Lil gave Elizabeth a nickname or something like that or if they had nicknames or anything like that. Because the rest of them seem to have nicknames too. I think. [00:14:31] Speaker B: I think so. Maybe. [00:14:32] Speaker A: I don't know. Yeah. [00:14:33] Speaker B: So there isn't any mention of any of the bartenders having nicknames. But all of the patrons that Gilbert mentions in her article have nicknames. Yeah, they have fun bar nicknames. And to be, in all fairness to Movie Lil, Jersey is a much better bartender name than Violet. [00:14:54] Speaker A: Yes. [00:14:54] Speaker B: Particularly for this type of bar. [00:14:56] Speaker A: I would say for this type of bar, I still think you can make Violet work. I don't think it's like a horrible name. [00:15:00] Speaker B: No, it's not a horrible name. [00:15:01] Speaker A: It's like a bartender playful, girly name, you know, like. But. [00:15:05] Speaker B: Yes, but I do think maybe better suited to a different type of grungy [00:15:09] Speaker A: dive bar, like where the women do wet T shirt dances on the bar. Yes, Jersey makes more sense. So then maybe the most famous line and the one I used from the opening, I needed to know if this came from the article and if it is, you know, maybe a true to life thing, because obviously this is. The article is Elizabeth Gilbert relaying ostensibly true information about her time working in the Coyote Ugly Saloon. And so one of the big things at the Coyote Ugly Saloon in the movie is that if anybody ever asks for water, they respond by saying they ask the whole bar, do we serve water in this bar? And everybody yells, hell no, H2O. And then they spray them with water. And I wanted to know from like the tap. So they have water. I guess they probably have to. But I wanted to know if that happened came from the article, finally. [00:15:58] Speaker B: Yes. [00:15:58] Speaker A: Okay. [00:15:59] Speaker B: Something that is at least mentioned in the article is another poll quote. Now, if you had come into the Coyote Ugly Saloon when Lil was bartending and asked, say, for a glass of water, you would have been really in trouble. Lil would have turned off the jukebox immediately. Lil would have climbed on top of the bar and shouted to the crowd, do we drink water in this goddamn bar? And the crow would have booed and laughed. Then Lil would have poured some Jack Daniels down the throats of all your friends. Then Lil would have poured some Jack Daniels down your own throat. And then Lil would have charged you for buying her a drink. [00:16:36] Speaker A: There you go. [00:16:37] Speaker B: So there's no mention of like spraying water, but otherwise this is taken straight from the source material. [00:16:44] Speaker A: Pretty much exactly. Fair enough. All right. I kind of assumed that might be a thing that was real. It seemed like a such A specific thing that I was like, I could see that. Well, then during that first night, still, she's explaining all these rules and. And Violet is just thrown in the deep end and kind of struggling to keep up. And we get to the point where the music kicks on and all of the girls jump up on the bar and begin doing this choreographed in sync. [00:17:12] Speaker B: Yeah, they're like line dancing. [00:17:14] Speaker A: Yeah, they're doing a line dance down to Georgia on the bar. And Lil says to her, get up there. And Violet's like, what? [00:17:23] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:17:23] Speaker A: And I needed to know if there was a similar. I'm assuming based on the earlier question, the answer is, is probably not. But if there was a similar moment where they just like Lil expects her to be able to participate in the clearly practiced choreographed line dance that is occurring. And I wanted to know if anything like that happened in the article. [00:17:42] Speaker B: Yeah, no, like you said, kind of go back. Going back to our. Our earlier question, this is more of a movie, Lil. Trial by fire kind of thing. [00:17:52] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay. Yeah. It makes no sense. I guess the idea could be that it's maybe a well known maybe because [00:17:59] Speaker B: I assume maybe it's supposed to be like a well known lined dance and [00:18:02] Speaker A: not like I assumed it was one that was like their own. Right, you know, proprietary line. [00:18:08] Speaker B: It's one thing to be like, this is your job. Get up on the bar, get up and dance. [00:18:12] Speaker A: Yes. [00:18:13] Speaker B: It's another thing to be like, here's [00:18:14] Speaker A: this choreographed dance that everyone knows it's one thing. They're not all just doing their own thing. They are doing a together choreographed dance. And I. Like I said, I had assumed that it was like a proprietary Coyote Ugly saloon dance, but maybe not. Maybe it is supposed to be like, oh, this is like a well known line dance. Maybe that she thought she should know. [00:18:32] Speaker B: And I. I don't know. Like, I don't know anything about line dancing. So I don't know if that's the case. I don't. [00:18:38] Speaker A: Me either. Another fun little thing we learned that felt to me like it may have come from the article. One of those weird little things that like, Elizabeth Gilbert would have picked up and written down, which is the. The patrons like to bar the. Buy the bartenders drinks, obviously, because it's. They're hot women and they're trying to. [00:18:55] Speaker B: Yes. And one of the rules is that you can't refuse. Yes. [00:18:57] Speaker A: You can't refuse. And. And when they buy you a drink and Violet's like, how the hell I'm gonna be drunken? Like I'm gonna be like, passed out in, like, 30 minutes. What are you talking about? And so I think it's. Cassie explains to her, like, it's Cammy. Yeah. The Russian tease is what she says, which I don't think she has Russian. Like, I think I was a joke, probably, or maybe. But she goes, here's how you do it. And she says, so you take the shot, and then you get this beer bottle, and she has a beer bottle, and then you take a sip of beer. And Violet's like, well, how the hell does that make me get drunk less? And she goes, but what you do is when you take the sip of beer, you don't actually. It's no beer in it. You hold the liquor in your mouth from the shot, and then you spit it into the beer bottle so that you don't actually have to take the shot. [00:19:38] Speaker B: It looks like you're chasing your shot. [00:19:40] Speaker A: Looks like you're chasing your shot with a beer, but you're actually just getting rid of the liquor so you're not getting completely wasted. And so, like. Oh. And I wanted to know if that beer bottle trick came from the. Because that, to me, felt 100% like a real thing. [00:19:53] Speaker B: And actually, yes, it is. That is mentioned in the article. The big difference is that in the article, she said she uses a mug of Coke and not a beer bottle. But I think using a beer bottle [00:20:05] Speaker A: makes more sense, especially when the whole premise of the bar is like, we don't serve water in this bar. Like, chasing your whiskey with a. A soda would be like, a move in. In the world of this bar. You know what I mean? Like, but dude, chasing it with a beer would be like. Yeah, so. Yeah. Yeah, it totally makes more sense. I guess the idea is that with a beer bottle, you couldn't notice that they were. If you were looking really close, but they're drunk and not paying attention. [00:20:29] Speaker B: Nobody's looking. [00:20:29] Speaker A: Yeah. Nobody cares. Yeah. Except I feel like wasn't there. And I don't remember at this time, but I feel crazy. Wasn't there a joke in. In the movie when we watched it the first time, that one of the patrons would want to buy the beer bottle from. Did I make that. [00:20:45] Speaker B: Is that There's a mention of something like that in the article, which I have a note about later. I don't remember. [00:20:52] Speaker A: Here's what's crazy is that we watched it this time. I didn't remember. Like, I was like, I didn't. That. That didn't come up when they were talking about this. But I swear, the first time we watched it. I have a memory of that. Like a line about that. And I'm thinking, like, maybe it was. [00:21:03] Speaker B: I don't know, there might have been like a one off throwaway line about. [00:21:06] Speaker A: And we just missed it the second time for. So I don't. Yeah, I can't remember. But I. I was like. I was like. I could have swore. I remember something about that, but. Yeah, because it was like, I thought there was a conversation about how one of the regulars knew that they did that. And like, jokingly off. [00:21:20] Speaker B: That's in the article. Okay, I don't think it's in the. [00:21:23] Speaker A: I didn't read the article. That's. So maybe I read. Maybe when I was doing movie research, maybe like for the prequel, I read something in like an IMDb trivia fact or something. Because I just have a memory of that, so I don't know where that came from. [00:21:36] Speaker B: From. [00:21:36] Speaker A: That's interesting. Okay, random thing. I wanted to know if. So one of the. We meet all the other coyotes and I don't remember all their names. I'm not even gonna try. But one of them, I believe is played by Bridget Moynihan is like the. The mean one. [00:21:48] Speaker B: Yeah, the brunette. [00:21:49] Speaker A: The brunette's not Stella, is it, or something? [00:21:52] Speaker B: No, no, I don't remember. [00:21:54] Speaker A: Yeah, but she's the mean one and she, like, hates Violet and she's, like, jealous of her, and so she, like, gives her trouble the whole time. And I wanted to know if there was any dynamic like that mentioned in the article. Did Elizabeth Gilbert have an arch rival that hated her? An enemies to lovers trope that we just don't get to the lovers part in this movie? [00:22:17] Speaker B: No, there's nothing about that in the article. Aside from Lil. She talks very little about the other bartenders in her article. [00:22:26] Speaker A: Okay, then we get a very fun gag in the movie where because of the whole water, when somebody asks for water, they spray him with water thing. This guy comes in and asks for a water. And the aforementioned mean bartender lady, whatever her name is. Did you say it? [00:22:45] Speaker B: Rachel? [00:22:46] Speaker A: Rachel tells her, like, hey, he asked for water. You gotta do the thing. And Violet's like, oh, that's right. And so she does it and she pulls out the thing and sprays this guy. And Lil freaks out because this guy is the fire marshal. And so obviously he didn't take too kindly that. And because clearly she's kind of paying this guy under the table, able to not report them for clearly violating fire code in numerous ways in this. In this bar. And so I Wanted to know if that. That, like, where did Elizabeth Gilbert ever accidentally, like, in Bear, do something bad to, like, the fire marshal or something in a way that caused issues for the bar? [00:23:22] Speaker B: No, there's nothing like that in the article. But I do think that this is a fun escalation of the. The no water thing. I think it makes sense and it's a good moment of tension. Yeah, I like it. [00:23:36] Speaker A: Yeah. No, that's fair. So then we get to one of the big moments is because obviously Violet wants to be a singer, but she has stage fright and stuff. But in this moment, I think it might be around the time with the fire marshal thing. [00:23:48] Speaker B: I think it's the next time she's fired. [00:23:52] Speaker A: It's a really rowdy night and a big fight breaks out, like, in the crowd over something. I don't know, like somebody drags one of the girls into the audience and it's like chaos and they're unable to get things under control. I think the cops show up. [00:24:06] Speaker B: There are cops there. There's a bunch of sailors there. [00:24:09] Speaker A: Yeah, it's very silly. Like, the cops are also wearing, like, the most fake, like, Halloween store cop costumes I've ever seen in my life. It's amazing, but in order. Again, chaos is broken out. And so Violet has this idea. The jukebox starts playing one way or another, and she knows this song. So she grabs the microphone that they have for, like, talking in the bar, like, yelling at people or whatever, and she gets up on the bar and she starts singing One way or another. And this gets everybody's attention. All the fights stop and all eyes are on her. And she saves the bar and saves the day. And I wanted to know if Elizabeth Gilbert ever got up on that bar and read excerpts from Eat Pray, Love to the audience and saved the day Notes from her upcoming novel, Eat Pray Love. She read her first draft or her manuscript. [00:25:04] Speaker B: No, nothing like this happens in Elizabeth Gilbert's article. Love the idea, though. That's a whole different movie. [00:25:13] Speaker A: That's a whole different movie. If she gets up there and pulls out her manuscript for Eat Bray. Love, Chapter one. [00:25:21] Speaker B: I do just love that Violet saves the bar by singing. [00:25:27] Speaker A: Yes. [00:25:28] Speaker B: Classic. Incredible. 100% power fantasy for every girl who likes to sing. [00:25:34] Speaker A: Absolutely. [00:25:34] Speaker B: Great. Good stuff. [00:25:36] Speaker A: Absolutely. I will say this is one of my only issues with the narrative structure of the film, which sounds crazy, I know for people who maybe don't know that, I think this movie is kind of great. But I do think that her being able to overcome her stage fright in this moment they explain it away later of her being like, oh, I'm just like singing along like karaoke to like a cover. I'm not like, singing my own song. And that. She only gets stage fright singing her own stuff. I guess it feels a little. [00:26:04] Speaker B: I mean, I can buy that. [00:26:06] Speaker A: Yeah, I guess that's the thing. That's why I actually, I was like, I guess I can buy that. It feels a little flimsy, but it. I guess I could buy that. That. Yeah, that the idea of. But it's. She's so. She has such bad stage fright. But then again, she's like. But I can just get up and sing on top of a bar in front of this whole room because it's a cover. It's like maybe, I don't know. People are weird. I guess it's fine. Makes for a fun moment. So whatever, who cares? Things move along quite a bit. I haven't even mentioned the boyfriend yet. We'll talk more about him later in other segments. It's not really relevant. [00:26:35] Speaker B: He's almost like, not important. [00:26:37] Speaker A: Not really. He's actually. I think he's very important. But. [00:26:39] Speaker B: Yeah, but also, especially. [00:26:41] Speaker A: Well, in particular for stuff about that. I was asking about the articles because I just had an assumption that he was not going to be particularly relevant to any of, like, was that in the book stuff? So, yeah, that's why I don't really have any questions about that. But I did want to know if there was ever a moment where. Because like a couple nights later they're doing like a wet T shirt night or something where they're all dumping pitchers of water on each other. Yeah, well, dancing. [00:27:04] Speaker B: Appropriate use for water. [00:27:05] Speaker A: Yes. It's the only thing you can use water for in this bar, apparently. And while this is happening, John Goodman walks in, Bill, her dad, because he had seen a photo of her because Michael Bay was there earlier taking pictures for the Village magazine or what, whatever. And so a photo of her got printed in a newspaper or something and Bill found it because other. The other toll booth operators had it like up on their wall or whatever. Like, there's sailors in the war. Yeah, yeah. And so he saw and so he comes and he finds her and we get this incredible shot where they. She gets water dumped on her. And then it cuts to John Goodman just looking the most disappointed that a man has ever looked in his life. It's like comically cartoon sad. And I wanted to know if there was a moment where Elizabeth Gilbert's like, parents or something or somebody she knew or whatever. If this was inspired by a moment where somebody came and saw her and was disappointed or embarrassed or whatever. [00:28:03] Speaker B: No, nothing like that is mentioned in the article. But John Goodman's disappointed face is pretty good. It's pretty good. [00:28:12] Speaker A: It's pretty good. Which brings me to my next question, which I think is very important and gets to the core of how this movie is more feminist than you think it is, based on the premise and what all the reviewers back at the time said, which is she then spends the next few days, we get a montage of her, like, kind of figuring out what to do. She also gets fired at this point. I think it. Maybe she has. [00:28:31] Speaker B: No, that's later. [00:28:32] Speaker A: That's later. But she. She's trying to call her dad and she's like, hey, blah, blah. And she keeps calling him and he just won't answer. And because he won't, he's just. Yeah, he doesn't want to talk to her. And she leaves him a voicemail. And in this voicemail that we. We hear from her, she says, hey, I wish you would talk to me and I wish you would answer. I'm not going to come over and apologize because that would mean I'm doing something wrong. And I'm not sure I am. And that's kind of where the movie leaves that argument. And I thought it was really interesting. And I want to know if there was anything like that that came from the article that, like, I don't know. [00:29:08] Speaker B: That line is not from the article. I. I wouldn't say there's anything remotely close to this in the article, but I totally agree with you. It's a great line and it's the message that elevates this movie above others from the same era. Yeah, I think, yes, Violet and the other coyotes aren't doing anything wrong. [00:29:31] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:29:31] Speaker B: And the movie doesn't shame them for their work. And it also doesn't allow its male characters to do so either. At least not ultimately. [00:29:40] Speaker A: There are moments where they do and the men do behave like John could is, like, embarrassed and disappointed. And Kevin, like, her boyfriend, dresses her down and yells at her about being basically dancing for men and blah, blah, blah. But they are not right. The movie does not present them as correct, ultimately in either of those. In both of them, especially in Kevin's, he is just lashing out because he's hurt and he's just trying to be mean to her. But in John Goodman's case, even he eventually kind of comes to terms with the idea that, like. [00:30:14] Speaker B: And I'm being overly. Even in, like, the big emotional climax with her and her dad. He says, like, however many bars you need to dance on top of to make your dream come true, I support you or something. [00:30:28] Speaker A: When he's in the hospital, she comes to talk to him and she tells him, like, I'm coming back home. And he goes, no, don't like you. You gotta chase your dream. And however many bars you gotta, you know, dance on to do it, you should do it. Yeah. He even gets to the point where he's like, you know that again, he's. It's not like his favorite thing in the world, but he. Yeah, he gets to the point where he doesn't view it as wrong and thinks it's. Yeah, like that's fine. Ultimately, I will say I did. I was disappointed that she doesn't go back to working at the Coyote Ugly Saloon or doing like a guest spotter. I guess she kind of does. [00:30:58] Speaker B: I guess she kind of does at the end. [00:30:59] Speaker A: Yeah, Essentially, like that's kind of how it ends. But. And then my last question here for. Was that in the book, because we'll get into some other stuff in other segments. Was that if, if I didn't know if it's my one question related to the boyfriend. If Elizabeth, Violet's boyfriend ever came in and attacked a patron because she was like dancing. Like, there's a scene in the movie and this is the scene where she gets fired, where Kevin comes in and he's mad because she bailed on a music performance. We'll talk about that in a second. But he sees her like on the bar dancing with like one of the patrons or whatever. And he like freaks out and like grabs the guy and starts attacking him. And this is a big, no, no, you're not supposed to have your boyfriends there because of this exact kind of thing or whatever. And so they have a big blow up fight. And I wanted to know if there was anything like that mentioned in the article. [00:31:44] Speaker B: No, there's nothing like that mentioned in the article. Which I wouldn't be surprised if that was something that did happen. [00:31:52] Speaker A: I'm sure it had. Was the rule mentioned anything about the rule of like, no boyfriends or. You know what I mean? [00:31:57] Speaker B: No, no, I don't think so. [00:31:59] Speaker A: Those are all most of my questions for Zette in the book. Again, because I had a feeling that a lot of this was not going to be particularly in. Because it's not a book, it's an article. It's a very relatively short article. So I had a feeling a lot of the narrative Stuff was not going to be in there. So I tried to keep it limited to stuff I thought might be inspired by the article. But I do have some other stuff that I want to talk about. And we're going to start in Lost in Adaptation. Just show me the way to get out of here and I'll be on my way. Yes, yes. And I want to get unlost as soon as possible. This is a question I had the first time we watched the movie. And I had it again. Watching it this time is that when she's leaving New Jersey. We see her celebrating with her friends at a bowling alley. And it cuts inside and she is up on stage with her friends. And Melanie Lynskey is like oh, Violet, Violet. She's leaving and she's gonna sing one final song for all of us. And the entire bowling alley is like watching this and like losing their minds and like cheering. And I was trying to figure out what is going on here. Why is the entire bowling alley watching her sing? And I assume there's nothing like this in the article, but maybe you have. [00:33:06] Speaker B: No, there's nothing like that in the article. Nothing about a going away party or anything like that. I mean I. I think. I think that's probably. Probably just like a karaoke bar situation where everybody's like a little drunk and. And into it. Or maybe everybody there just knows them. [00:33:25] Speaker A: That's what I want. [00:33:26] Speaker B: I guess like small town aspect that [00:33:30] Speaker A: makes the most sense now that I think about it. I hadn't really thought. It's just something about the way it was presented in the film. Felt like way too many people for this random girl who seemingly isn't like she just like works at the pizza restaurant. [00:33:41] Speaker B: But we know that she knows everybody. [00:33:43] Speaker A: Yes. [00:33:44] Speaker B: In the like who comes into this restaurant and has been working there for a couple years. [00:33:48] Speaker A: That is true. Yeah. [00:33:49] Speaker B: So I feel like it's conceivable that she could have a pretty good crowd to see her off. [00:33:54] Speaker A: Yes. Yeah, that is. That is true. True. And then my other question here that I wanted to. To mention and I just put it here because I know where else to put it, which is I wanted to get your feelings on the meet cute in this movie where Kevin follows her around the city for blocks after her buddy or after his buddy lies about him being a manager. It's. It's one of the more. It's. It's. I don't know. What are your feelings on it? [00:34:19] Speaker B: My feeling is eh. [00:34:21] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:34:22] Speaker B: It's definitely one of the film's like less Good moments. But it's also a romantic comedy, and part of the fantasy of a romantic comedy is being pursued. So, like. [00:34:34] Speaker A: Yeah, it is this weird mix. Yeah. Yeah. [00:34:39] Speaker B: And, you know, I think tropes like this are worth criticizing, but I think they're also. Also worth understanding. I think it's worth understanding why people [00:34:51] Speaker A: like them, like, why they're so. [00:34:53] Speaker B: And like, the appeal is. [00:34:55] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:34:56] Speaker B: And I think. [00:34:58] Speaker A: I think because this is not solely a. This scene, in my opinion, at least it doesn't read to me as solely like a male fantasy part of the movie. No. You know what I mean? Like, it's. It's doesn't read. Like, this is like, you're supposed to be like, the men watching this are supposed to be like, oh, I'm into this, necessarily. [00:35:15] Speaker B: I don't think so. I don't think I. I don't think there's anything in this movie for men. [00:35:19] Speaker A: Not really, personally. Yeah, that's the thing. That's crazy. I mean, there is, but it's. [00:35:24] Speaker B: Yes, but also. [00:35:25] Speaker A: We'll talk about it. Yes, yes, it is fascinating for a movie that is, like, ostensibly as, like, opaquely horny and like, whatever as this movie is. It's actually kind of not, in a way, like you said, feels like any of it. It's like four, like, horny men, necessarily. We'll talk more about that here in a minute. [00:35:45] Speaker B: But, But I, I. Yeah, I really like. If you look at what he's doing there objectively, is it good behavior? [00:35:56] Speaker A: No. [00:35:57] Speaker B: Is it something that you would want to happen to you in real life? Probably not, no. But within the fantasy of the movie, it's. It's a power moment for her. Because she's kind of like, walking him like a dog. [00:36:11] Speaker A: Yes, exactly. Yeah. It is fascinating because it is, like, 100 accurate that within the context of the movie, she is the one with the power in this scene. Even though in real life it would be a weird, scary experience. [00:36:23] Speaker B: It would be a weird, scary experience to have. Yeah. I don't know, man. I feel like I'm gonna go to my grave defending rom coms and, like, romance novels. Not because the tropes are, like, inherently worth defending, but because criticism of them so frequently feels like unexamined misogyny masquerading as feminist discourse. [00:36:47] Speaker A: 100%. [00:36:49] Speaker B: Not that that's what we're doing. Like, not that that's what you were doing by, like, asking this question. [00:36:54] Speaker A: No, that's why I'm curious, because I thought I felt that same dynamic you talked about of her being the one in the scene with the power, even though ostensibly it shouldn't be that way. [00:37:03] Speaker B: And. And I do think that part, a big part of what makes this movie feel campy or so camp adjacent, is that kind of weird tension where, like, if you. Clips from this movie or if you just read the synopsis, you'd be like, oh, that's got to be the most misogynistic movie ever. The most objectifying, horny, exploitative. But then when you watch it, you're [00:37:34] Speaker A: like, wait a second. [00:37:34] Speaker B: For the girl. [00:37:35] Speaker A: This is a feminine. [00:37:36] Speaker B: There's. There's nothing in it that's for men. [00:37:39] Speaker A: This is a. This is a woman's empowerment story, like, is what it is, but it is presented with. With the facade of, like, pornography, kind of like, it's like, this is like. It's presented with the veneer of the male gaze, but it's not like it's. It's why I think it's such a fascinating movie. And I don't understand why it got such bad reviews. Except for people. Not in the time. [00:38:07] Speaker B: I don't think the people were not ready. People were not ready. [00:38:11] Speaker A: Yeah. It's fascinating. It's so interesting. Anyways, we got more of that stuff to discuss about it, but we're going to get a lot of talk about a lot of that in our next segment. Well, not necessarily in our next segment, but we're talking about it in our next segments coming up. And we're going to start with what Katie thought was better in the book you like to read. [00:38:29] Speaker B: Oh, yes, I love to read. [00:38:32] Speaker A: What do you like to read? [00:38:36] Speaker B: Everything. Okay. So I want to start by kind of addressing exactly what this article is, because it's not a narrative. [00:38:46] Speaker A: Okay. [00:38:47] Speaker B: Which makes sense. It's not really a story. [00:38:50] Speaker A: That's kind of what I figured. [00:38:51] Speaker B: Yeah. It's more of like, a teeny, tiny little memoir about Elizabeth Gilbert's general overall experience of her time working at the Coyote Ugly Saloon. [00:39:10] Speaker A: Right. [00:39:10] Speaker B: Like, it's. It's not really, like, there's not like a beginning, middle, end. Like, it's not a narrative. It's her, like, almost like she's writing in her diary, like, musing about. This is what I experienced and. [00:39:23] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:39:23] Speaker B: This is what I got from it kind of a thing. [00:39:27] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. [00:39:28] Speaker B: Which made it a little challenging for our particular, like, what we do here again. [00:39:33] Speaker A: We actually knew that. I had a feeling that was going to be the case going in. We kind of were fudging because I just really. [00:39:38] Speaker B: We just really. We wanted to talk about the movie. And we, we had a thin enough excuse. [00:39:43] Speaker A: We had a thin enough excuse by having being loosely based on an article in some way as it gave us because yeah, we could have done it as like a bonus episode, but doesn't get a very limited. And I, it felt, I felt it was incorrect that society needs to hear our much larger audience on the mainstream feed of thousand people instead of our patriot whatever. But like, I, I, I do. I wanted to. To discuss it on the main show so that as many people as possible heard it because I do think it's interesting and I think it's something I tell everybody all the time now when I'm like, you know, a movie you don't think is good, but it's actually really good. It's Coyote Ugly. You never would have guessed it. Like, what are you talking about? I'm like, I don't. [00:40:21] Speaker B: It's been unfairly maligned. [00:40:22] Speaker A: Unfairly maligned. Yeah. And I actually, I'm like, keep ling it back now to the fact that I think you're right. Like, it is like, it all comes back to misogyny because I do think part of the reason it was kind of maybe panned by critics when it came out is because like you said, it's for the girls. It's not what I think that subversion of what the movie is ostensibly presenting as versus what it actually is. [00:40:47] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:40:47] Speaker A: Maybe fucked with a lot of critics at the time. [00:40:50] Speaker B: Yes. I think a lot of critics, particularly male critics, which we talked about in the prequel, that a lot of those pull quotes that you had were from male critics. I think they went in expecting something that they didn't get. [00:41:02] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And, and, and, and, and I don't even think they would have necessary. And it's funny because I think that those same critics wouldn't have even necessarily liked the. [00:41:10] Speaker B: I agree. [00:41:10] Speaker A: The other version of. [00:41:11] Speaker B: If they had gotten the other version, they would have been like, exploited that it was gross. [00:41:15] Speaker A: And they would say, they would call it misogynistic and they would call it all of these things. And I think they would be accurate to some extent. [00:41:21] Speaker B: But then I think because it was then not that they ended up not knowing how to talk about Know how [00:41:28] Speaker A: to talk about it because they're like, well, wait a second. But it's why horny movie that looked like horny movie, not horny movie. I don't understand. Like, yeah, it is. Which may be selling some of those critics a little bit short, but it is fascinating. Yeah. [00:41:41] Speaker B: Okay. So a handful of things that I Liked from the article. This particular exchange. Early in my own Coyote Ugly Saloon career, I made the mistake of saying to a customer, and here's your beer, sir. Lil overheard and shouted, don't ever call anyone in this place sir. So I said, I'm terribly sorry. I meant to say, here's your beer, douchebag. [00:42:07] Speaker A: You know what? That kind of perfectly encapsulates the energy of the movie, too. [00:42:10] Speaker B: Yes. [00:42:11] Speaker A: That is like, kind of the thesis of the movie. And what makes the movie work is that the movie treats all of the men in the bar as fucking drooling idiots who these women are much smarter and much more powerful than. And like. Yeah, it kind of. In a way that is. But it plays it to such an extreme degree that, again, it borders on camp in a way that I think makes it all work as this very fun, like, power fantasy. It's a. I cannot get over it. It's a musical. That's not a musical. It's what it feels like to me, like, 100. Like the way that you have to kind of approach what the movie is doing. [00:42:46] Speaker B: Also Broadway. [00:42:48] Speaker A: Yes. [00:42:49] Speaker B: We've been making. We've been making musicals about every other movie out there. This Coyote Ugly, the musical needs to be a thing. [00:42:58] Speaker A: And can you imagine. Because the resurgence of. Because another thing that we haven't even got to. And we'll talk about it later. But it's just the time capsule. Yes. This movie is. [00:43:05] Speaker B: Yes. [00:43:05] Speaker A: The fashion, the music. [00:43:07] Speaker B: Yes. [00:43:08] Speaker A: Turning this into a jukebox musical. The early 2000s, where everybody is dressed like it is 2000. [00:43:15] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:43:15] Speaker A: It would go over like insane. [00:43:18] Speaker B: People would love it. [00:43:18] Speaker A: People would go nuts for it. There's your free idea. Broadway. Whoever. Somebody. I don't know. Mr. Broadway. Lynn. Lynn, are you listening, Mr. Miranda? [00:43:31] Speaker B: I don't know if he's the right person for this. [00:43:34] Speaker A: Absolutely not the right person. He's absolutely not the right person. Because he would. He would misinterpret this movie. So poor. Yes. I like. I like Manuel Miranda generally think he's a talented writer in a lot of ways, but I think he would not remotely be the right person for this because he would, like. He would lean far. He would go too far into, like, who did. Making a point out of it. [00:43:56] Speaker B: Who did the Legally Blonde musical? [00:43:58] Speaker A: It would need to be somebody like that. [00:44:00] Speaker B: The right person. [00:44:00] Speaker A: It would need to be somebody like that. [00:44:02] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:44:02] Speaker A: Or like Mean Girls or something. [00:44:04] Speaker B: Heathers or something like that. [00:44:06] Speaker A: Because. Yeah. He would not be. [00:44:07] Speaker B: No. [00:44:07] Speaker A: He would try too hard to insert the, like, feminist message. It's Feminist by nature of what it is. [00:44:13] Speaker B: Yes. [00:44:14] Speaker A: You don't have to like insert the critique. Critique. Like he would try to insert this like third wave feminist critique into the plot and stuff that would just dismantle what. How the movie works or how the story works on its own is how I feel would happen there in a way. [00:44:28] Speaker B: Yeah. My other thing from the article, we already talked, kind of talked about this and it is disgusting. But I wanted to mention it because it feels just so on brand for what this story is. Is the patron who wanted to buy her spit mug. [00:44:45] Speaker A: There you go. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, like makes sense. [00:44:51] Speaker B: That's like this. This story's version of E Girl bathwater. [00:44:55] Speaker A: Yes. It's absolutely. It's exactly what it is. Yeah. Buying the used underwear on the Internet. Yeah. [00:45:01] Speaker B: And my last thing here is not about the article at all. But it is my controversial opinion about this movie that's probably not actually controversial. [00:45:12] Speaker A: I think more people would have to have an opinion about this movie for it to be a controvers. [00:45:16] Speaker B: That is also true. I don't know that this movie absolutely needed a romantic plot. [00:45:23] Speaker A: Oh, I agree with that. I don't think it needs it. [00:45:25] Speaker B: No, I understand why it has it. [00:45:27] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:45:28] Speaker B: But I don't think that she gets anything from her relationship with Kevin that she couldn't have gotten from a more in depth friendship with one of the other coyotes. [00:45:39] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:45:40] Speaker B: But the movie doesn't really care to develop those relationships or even just Melanie Linton surface level. Yeah. [00:45:46] Speaker A: Like Gloria being the one maybe like trying to help her get. [00:45:49] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:45:50] Speaker A: Like follow her dream. Something. I don't know. Yeah. [00:45:53] Speaker B: If this movie were to be remade and to be clear, I don't think it should be. I think that would be a terrible idea. [00:45:59] Speaker A: Horrible idea. [00:45:59] Speaker B: Horrible idea. [00:46:00] Speaker A: A musical adaptation. That's the. That's what you do. You don't remake it. There's no reason. [00:46:04] Speaker B: But if we lived in a universe where it could be remade and actually be good and like keep what works about the original. I would want it to. I would want female friendship to be the thematic through line. [00:46:18] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:46:18] Speaker B: Get Kevin out of here. We don't need him. [00:46:20] Speaker A: Yeah. That's fair. That that message is there. It's. [00:46:23] Speaker B: Yeah, it's there. [00:46:24] Speaker A: Like because that is the big part of it is like kind of girls protecting girls and like holding each other up and all that. It's like a big part of it, but it's not the main thing. [00:46:32] Speaker B: Right. [00:46:32] Speaker A: We end on the. [00:46:33] Speaker B: It kind of gets overshadowed by the romantic plot. [00:46:37] Speaker A: Yeah. Which I'LL get to. I actually think is a pretty fine romance. I actually think it works, which I. Yeah, I know you agree with that. I. But I agree that I think you could do without it. But it helps that it's done pretty well. It makes it. It would be a. The movie would be awful if their chemistry was worse than it is or if they're like, energy and stuff together and the way their relationship was written was. Was worse than it is. It could have sank the movie. And I think a lot of reviews say that, like, they hate their performances. [00:47:07] Speaker B: I. I don't think the performances are good. [00:47:09] Speaker A: I don't get that at all. There's a few lines here and there, especially from Kevin, that sound weird, but I think it's just because he's Australian. I legitimate. Like, I'm not even kidding. I legitimately think that there are some line deliveries that just sound wrong because he's Australian. [00:47:23] Speaker B: And he. He does have a pretty, like, no offense to any Australian listeners we may have. He has like a. A pretty silly. [00:47:31] Speaker A: He has a particularly comical, to an American's ear, Australian accent. It is a very, like, over the top, like, it's. [00:47:40] Speaker B: It sounds. Is kind of cartoonish. [00:47:42] Speaker A: It almost sounds like an American doing. [00:47:44] Speaker B: Yes. [00:47:45] Speaker A: Australian accent. So, yeah, that adds to that. And I genuinely think that's actually a big part of why people think, like, some of the performance stuff sucks is because I was like. There are a few lines where I'm like, well, that sounded weird. I'm like, wait, it might have been because he said it weird because he's Australian. Like, I think that might just be, like, the accent might just be making this weird. Anyways, we got more to talk about. We're gonna find out now what Katie thought was better in the movie. Movie. My life has taught me one lesson, Hugo, and not the one I thought it would. Happy endings only happen in the movies. [00:48:17] Speaker B: We kind of talked about this a little, but I thought that the early scene of her doing karaoke with her New Jersey friends is kind of like a fun almost foreshadowing to her later activities. [00:48:31] Speaker A: Yeah, it is. I didn't even think about that. But, yeah, definitely. Yeah. [00:48:34] Speaker B: During the. The montage where when she first gets to New York and she's like, pound in the pavement, going to all of these recording studios, trying to. Trying to give them her demo tape. We interact with a receptionist named Wendy who is an icon and I love her. [00:48:52] Speaker A: This is the woman who at the end is like. And my daughter just told me she's bisexual or whatever. [00:48:57] Speaker B: Bisexual and she hates me. [00:48:59] Speaker A: Hates me. Yeah, that was great. And that's another one of those jokes that like, you could read as problematic but actually doesn't really come across that. It just comes across like a parent dealing with their teenager. You know what I mean? Like, see, you could read it as her being like a little homophobic about her daughter being bisexual. Like, you could read it. But I don't actually. Don't necessarily. [00:49:19] Speaker B: Yeah, I don't necessarily think that's even the case. [00:49:23] Speaker A: Knowing the era when the movie came out. I think that's probably the intended show. Probably. [00:49:28] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:49:28] Speaker A: But that's so many of those things in this movie loop around back. If you view them not through the lens of 2000, but through the lens of 2026, they kind of loop back around to being like progressive in a way that isn't. It's hard to explain. I don't know. Yeah. And that was one of those scenes that. Yeah. Cracks me up. She's. She's fantastic. I also recognized her from other stuff I've seen that like actors have bit parts and other stuff. I was like. I've seen her before. When. [00:49:57] Speaker B: The first time that Violet gets to the bar, they're playing the song Pour Some Sugar on Me. [00:50:05] Speaker A: The first time they all get up and dance. Yeah, I think. Or maybe. No. Well, yeah, it's when she sees them all dancing on the bar. Yeah. [00:50:11] Speaker B: Which is so obvious that it's incredible. It's again, one of those other things that's like. It's campy. It's bordering on camp. Because that bar is like. If the song Pour Some Sugar on Me became a bar. [00:50:28] Speaker A: Yes. Yeah, exactly. No, 100%. Also, the way that. And the dancing throughout the movie, the way it's shot, it's not groundbreaking. But the cinematography. We'll talk about some other cinematography later. But right now, specifically talking about. Because I. I think one of my big take was this movie looks great. It's crazy how good it looks for a mid budget 2000s Rom com. [00:50:50] Speaker B: Well, and it's. It's the kind of movie that doesn't get made anymore. [00:50:53] Speaker A: Exactly. Yeah, that's a part of it. It's the kind of movie. Yeah. Because it is like a mid budget romcom. It's the kind of thing that just doesn't really get made. But it's shot on film, it's colorful and. Oh, and we'll talk about some other shots later that I think are great. There's so many cool shots in the movie that you would not. Again, it's not like it's the, it's not on level with like a Kurosawa film. I'm not saying that, but it is for a movie like this. You're like, holy, this looks incredible. [00:51:15] Speaker B: Yeah, it's the kind of stuff that you don't expect to encounter in a mid budget romcom today. [00:51:20] Speaker A: No, everything today is just flat and like, and, and soft lighting and it just. This has so many light beams and haze and it's grungy and colorful and it feels like an actual movie. Oh, it's so good. But specifically talking about the dancing scenes, the way it's shot, the kind of frenetic energy that it has, I think works great for what you're watching, obviously. And I think part of what I like about both the way it's shot in the movie generally and we touched on this, but it's ostensibly, this is all supposed to be sexy. Like it's all supposed to be super, super sexy and horny and like all these fast shots of like women's mid drifts in their butts and their shorts and like it's supposed to be sexy, but it's shot so chaotic. It's shot like an action scene and it's so over the top and it's trying so hard to be horny that it loops back around to being not horny in a way that is. [00:52:12] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:52:12] Speaker A: Crazy. Yes. Yeah, exactly. That's cam. I am just. [00:52:15] Speaker B: The more we talk about it, the more convinced I am that it's actually. [00:52:19] Speaker A: I am just describing camp the longest long way basically. But yeah, it is like. And there's the ridiculous over the top sound effects, especially in some of the early dance scenes where they like, they swing their hips to the beat and you hear like a whip crack that's like over the sound effects and like all that stuff. It's so silly and perfect. It feels completely comfortable being the right amount of ridiculous that I can absolutely. Again, if I had watched this movie when it came out, I would. Well, I would have been 12, so I just would have been a whole different thing going on there. But if I watch this movie when I was like 21 in college or something and was an annoying, obnoxious film student in college, I wouldn't have. It wouldn't have worked for me at all. I wouldn't understood it at all. I wouldn't appreciated anything about it. But it, I can completely appreciate how intentionally ridiculous it is and it feels so perfectly fit to what the movie is trying to be that it all kind of just works in a way that I think is fascinating and I think it's great. [00:53:20] Speaker B: I love that Kevin just enthusiastically allows Violet to auction him off. Like, he gets up and he strips on the bar and everything. Yes, we should, like, first of all, we should all have a crush. So dedicated at least once in our lives. [00:53:38] Speaker A: Somebody that much of a yearner. [00:53:40] Speaker B: Yeah. But it also is the thing that makes you not believe him later on when he lashes out at her, because we know that. We know that he does not actually have a problem with this. He's just mad. [00:53:55] Speaker A: Yeah, I. This is so funny. Watching it the second time, I realized that I had a similar experience as the first time where I was enjoying the movie. But this scene is the scene where I really started liking the movie. And it's when Kevin immediately buys it to Violet, like, auctioning him off as a date to the bar or whatever. And he gets up on the bar and he starts dancing. It. It's that moment where it makes. I think it made the whole movie feel like it wasn't taking itself seriously in that moment, which makes the whole thing work. From that moment on, the movie has this energy that I just found really endearing. And that was like the moment where as soon as he just immediately jumps in and I didn't even think about what you said. That's a great point, though, that. That later makes it so obvious, which it was already obvious. You can tell just from that in exchange. But when they're having that big fight and he's. He's like giving her about dancing on the bar and stuff, it's even more transparently. [00:54:47] Speaker B: Yeah, you were dancing on the bar. [00:54:50] Speaker A: That he is just saying that to hurt her and that he doesn't actually have the, like, think that or whatever. Yeah, it's. No. That I. Again, I really noticed at this time that I was like, this is the moment where you, like. Like, it's hard to describe, but up until that point, you're kind of figuring out what the movie is and, like, what it's trying to do. And from that moment on, you're like, okay, I see what this is. It's. I get it. And then you're. [00:55:14] Speaker B: And I. I think to. To enjoy this movie properly, by the time Kevin buys in, you should also buy in. [00:55:20] Speaker A: Yes, Buy. [00:55:21] Speaker B: Buy in. When Kevin does. [00:55:23] Speaker A: Yes. When Kevin buys in. That has to be the moment. You have to just start grinning during that scene and going, okay. And then you will enjoy the rest of the movie because you're. You're ready. You were. You've been properly prepared for what, what, what the rest of this movie is. [00:55:38] Speaker B: I like that this movie includes an explanation of the name Coyote Ugly. [00:55:42] Speaker A: Is that not. [00:55:43] Speaker B: I was expecting to encounter it in the article and I did not. [00:55:46] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, I would have. [00:55:47] Speaker B: I don't know if maybe, maybe that's like somewhere else. Like maybe at some point the lil. Real lil like gave an interview and said that that's what it means or something. But it was not in Elizabeth Gilbert's article. Yeah, I also really like the set piece with all of the cardboard cutouts. I thought that was a fun set piece. Even if Violet's little strip tease gave me some secondhand. [00:56:10] Speaker A: Yeah, it's a little. Yeah, it's a little cringe in that moment, but it should be like, that's the thing. [00:56:15] Speaker B: That's the thing is that it should be. [00:56:17] Speaker A: Of course it is. Because that's how sex work. Like, that's if sex is always a little cringe. Like if you're like watching it and not like participating in it. Like that's those kind of things. Yeah, it's always a little cringy. I genuinely think they have good chemistry. I know a lot of reviews were like, well, talk about them being bad chemistry. I genuinely think they have really good chemistry. And I think he's really funny and endearing. And I think this scene I also had a note I thought was really great that he kind of helps her this fun little way. It's a unique little cute scene for a rom com that you've not really seen in anything. But it's similar to a lot of other things. But it's this movie's own little version of. Of it that is kind of fun and weird and different. And they're in. I think it's his apartment, but his apartment is insane. Yeah, his apartment is gigantic and it's. [00:57:06] Speaker B: It's like a warehouse full of stuff. [00:57:10] Speaker A: Like there's like bicycles hanging. It's crazy. But yeah, like I. The first time we watched it, I didn't realize that was his apartment. I thought they had like broken into some like old abandoned like, warehouse or something like that. Like then I realized this time, oh, that's his apartment. Apartment. There's a weird apartment. [00:57:26] Speaker B: He, he lives like a wild, free, bohemian lifestyle. [00:57:31] Speaker A: This is the classic like, single guy living on a, a line cook's wage in New York City has an apartment, like a palatial apartment that is like now it's an old beat up apartment, but it is still gigantic. It's crazy. [00:57:47] Speaker B: But to your point, I also, I do love that he. Similar to how he just immediately buys into being auctioned off on the bar. He immediately buys into trying to help her overcome this. He's just that he's a good guy. He's a good guy. [00:58:04] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:58:04] Speaker B: I really love that the Coyotes, all four of them have a soft alternate [00:58:09] Speaker A: there to be four of them and I guess like the bouncers and stuff. I guess. But yeah, they have a baseball team. And this again, it's just classic filmmaking. This is gonna sound so silly, but there is something so, so refreshing and nice to see in a. In a movie from this era made by a bunch of old Hollywood pros probably. I guarantee all the people working on this movie are a bunch because it's Jerry Bruckheimer produced movie. This is like the most quintessential studio like thing. But it has it. It knows how to use film language and how to incorporate some of the classic film. It's a rom com. So what do we get? A bunch of music montages. Because of course that's. And they're all incredible and they're all fantastic. This one for instance, we're go straight from that sex scene with the cutouts and whatever. Which we don't get much of a sexiness. [00:58:54] Speaker B: It's a. It's a fade to black. [00:58:56] Speaker A: It's a fade to black kind of sex scene. Apparently the unrated version has a lot more. But. But we cut from that and the music starts playing and then we cut into this montage of her like learning how to bartend them playing baseball together. And it is all so like early 2000s and PER. I genuinely don't know how you could watch this and hate it if you grew up and watched movies during this time period. You know what I mean? I like, I just genuinely do not blame. And more broadly than that, I don't think you can appreciate the craft of movies and like and movie making and cinema and watch this movie and think it's bad. Like I just. Again, you cannot like the story. You can think it's cheesy. You can think it's cliche. I. I defy you to watch this movie and say that's a poorly made movie. It's just not like it's just incredibly very well shot. It's the. The editing is very tight. The script works well. Again, could not be a more generic cliche script, but it did it. They got. It's hot. Hollywood knows how to hammer those things out. They got. They got that down to a science. And so it is absolutely. Yeah, it. I. Yeah, I'm Just like I said, I don't know how you can like movies and not like this movie. It's. It's. I just think it's very well made. I think it's very good. [01:00:09] Speaker B: Next thing I. You had a comment that I just moved here so that we could discuss it. Because I liked your comment and I agreed with. With it. So you go ahead and read your comment first. [01:00:17] Speaker A: So we got to the bit and we talked, touched on this a little bit. We got to the big. We get to the big blow up where he comes in and he sees her dancing. [01:00:24] Speaker B: Like our second act, low point. [01:00:25] Speaker A: Second act, low point. And it's really all sparked by the fact that he helped her get a gig singing. [01:00:30] Speaker B: Yes. He gets a gig for her to get heard. [01:00:32] Speaker A: To get. Yeah. To play at some bar, like open mic thing where. [01:00:35] Speaker B: Like that. [01:00:37] Speaker A: And. But she has to work that night. But she tells Lil, like, I gotta be out at 10:30 because I gotta go play this show. But then the bar is slammed and Lil won't let her leave. Leave. And he gets mad because she doesn't show up. She bails. She's like, I can't leave. And this entire conflict where she bails on the gig that Kevin got her, in my opinion is so well written. It's nothing groundbreaking. Again, I. I don't need to keep repeating that. But it's nothing like super unique. But it's so well written. We. Because every single person's motivations make perfect sense. You completely understand why Kevin is mad. He went out on a limb. He gave up his. It's silly, but he gave up his rare. Where Punisher makes his first appearance in the Spider man comic. He gave that up to some bookie or whatever in order to get them [01:01:23] Speaker B: the spot who I guess also collects [01:01:25] Speaker A: rare comics or whatever. Fine. It's fine. So he went on a limb to get her this. And he's mad at her because she. He knows that she's getting in her own way, that this is her being scared. Her being. [01:01:38] Speaker B: Yeah, she's the. [01:01:40] Speaker A: The. [01:01:40] Speaker B: Working at the Coyote Ugly bar has been both good and bad for her because it has allowed her to grow as a person and get more confidence, [01:01:48] Speaker A: get out of her shell. [01:01:49] Speaker B: But she is also using it as an excuse to not follow her dreams. [01:01:54] Speaker A: So you get why he's mad. You get why Violet stays at the bar Because Lil is like, hey, I need you here. And she likes Lil. She likes these people. She doesn't want to leave them out, out. And she's making good money Making good money. Yeah. It's like giving up this, like, good, genuinely good paying job where she likes the people she works with for this chance to go do this other thing. You get where Lil is coming from, who is like, hey, I need you to be here. She's the one that's maybe the most like, come on, she told you she needed to leave at 10:30 and you do know what she's doing. Like, yeah, come on, Lil. Like, be. But the movie even kind of addresses that. Later we'll get, you know, where the scene where she comes back and offers her the job back. She realizes that she was being kind of unfair in that regard. Guard. All of their motivations are completely understandable. And then when Kevin shows up and starts the fight and then they have the big fight in the street of him being a. Is also totally understandable. He's saying a bunch of mean that he doesn't mean because he's mad at her, but he's not even mad at her because of what she did to him. He's mad at her because of what she's doing to herself in the sense of, like, not following her dreams. And like, it's just. And then she's mad at him, obviously, in a way that's. It's all. It's one of those things where you're just like, holy. It's like real human drama that actually kind of totally makes sense from everybody's perspective and there isn't some making it [01:03:12] Speaker B: like, yeah, I. I think this second act conflict is really well done also. It's very. It all feels very reasonable. It doesn't feel over the top. And it's not based on, like, a stupid miscommunication which happens so often in rom coms. [01:03:29] Speaker A: Such a big problem in rom com. [01:03:30] Speaker B: Such a big problem in rom coms is that that constant conflict is often very stupid. [01:03:35] Speaker A: And like, one person would just say one thing to one other person. We would solve all of this, but that isn't happening. [01:03:40] Speaker B: But this feels, like you said, like, very realistic. [01:03:43] Speaker A: There's no easy solution here. Like, oh, well, if actually, if she had just called somebody and like, no, like, they're. Everybody is stuck in specific situations that are like, yeah, yeah. [01:03:52] Speaker B: And then like, Lil firing her because Kevin showed up also feels it's like, unfair in a way that feels very realistic. [01:03:59] Speaker A: But. But she also has. [01:04:00] Speaker B: She didn't invite him there. But then there's also this rule and, like, what she. [01:04:04] Speaker A: She can't have her employees. Boyfriends come in and attacking patrons. Like, can't have that. So even though she understands that it [01:04:11] Speaker B: was, you know, like, Violet goes back into the bar and she handles it all wrong because she's upset, and it all just feels very real and very human. [01:04:20] Speaker A: Yes, 100%. And it's. Again, I'm just. I was always amazed or amazed. Reading reviews about, like, the writing being bad scripts, like, what are you. What movie did you watch? I don't get it. Again, I guess you could. It's gotta be one of those things where if you focus in on the silly stuff, like the fact that the thing that is part of what caused all of this drama was him giving up his first edition Spider man comic book. Yeah, that is a silly thing. And, like, it does read very silly. But, like, you just gotta. If you ignore that and just look at the actual human dynamics and what is at play here, it's. It's actually really interesting. And also, sometimes things are stupid. Like that. Sometimes there is. [01:05:00] Speaker B: Sometimes things are stupid. [01:05:01] Speaker A: Yeah, it's. Yeah. [01:05:03] Speaker B: Melanie's. Melanie Linsky's character had Gloria. Yeah. She had a little throwaway line that I absolutely loved when her wedding. When they're at her wedding and Violet says to her, like, oh, how does it feel to be Mrs. Whoever. [01:05:19] Speaker A: Whoever? [01:05:20] Speaker B: And she says, I think it was a perfect choice for my first marriage. [01:05:24] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. [01:05:24] Speaker B: It's good stuff. [01:05:25] Speaker A: That's great. [01:05:27] Speaker B: I also really, really love the emotional moment between Violet and her dad. I think that works. Yeah. In the hospital. I think it works really well. I like the reveal that Violet has been thinking of her stage fright as, like, hereditary because she thought her mom had it. But then there's this reveal that actually her mom loved performing and she quit performing for her dad. Dad. [01:05:51] Speaker A: And then I assume you're supposed to assume from that that her mom told her it was stage fright in order to spare. [01:05:56] Speaker B: Yes. [01:05:57] Speaker A: Her Violet's feelings about her dad and, like, not make her resent her dad or whatever. [01:06:02] Speaker B: But that, like, this kind of reveal that, like, this thing that you think has been holding you back is maybe not a thing. Maybe not. [01:06:10] Speaker A: Maybe the power was inside of you the whole time. I mean, that is what it is. [01:06:14] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. And then her dad, like, refusing to let her give up and telling her to dance on as many bars as she needs to. It's so good because it is. [01:06:23] Speaker A: You know what? That's it. It's also. Apart from a musical, it's also a fucking comic book movie. Like, it's. It's. It's her origin story as a performer. Like, genuinely. Yeah. Because this Is this. This is the. The Spider man thing. This is the. Which is maybe intentional that Spider man is mentioned there. Oh, God. [01:06:40] Speaker B: Okay. [01:06:41] Speaker A: Because. Holy. Is this movie made than what we thought? Because that is literally. I didn't even think about that. But that is the thing you just said there of her where she realizes that this stage fright that she thought was this thing was holding her back was that she has this stage fright. She thought it was hereditary. She thought it was something core to her being that she could not get rid of. And it was just who she was. And we find out. Oh, no, actually, that's not the case. That is literally just the Spider man, like the superhero thing. Fleeting flipped of the one. I say Spider man because I think it happens a lot in Spider man where he realizes that he doesn't need the suit to be Spider man or whatever. It's, you know, that idea of, like, he thinks that he needs this extraneous. This external thing is what allows him to be the hero that he is. He needs this suit. But I think that was one of the plots and one of the ones of Robert Downey Jr. I don't know. I know it's a big thing where Robert Downey Jr. Has the line about. I never actually saw those movies, but he has the line about, like. Like if you. When you. If you need the suit, you don't have the whatever. Basically saying, like, the suit is not what makes you a superhero kind of thing. And that's like. That idea is like, Spider man thinks that he doesn't have this internal superpower or whatever. He doesn't have the ability to be a superhero inside of him or pick whatever superhero you want. That's kind of a standard thing of like, they don't realize that they have the power. The power was inside of them the whole time. And then they think it's this external thing, but then it turns out, no, actually it was inside you the whole time. This is kind of the. The inverse of that. Like, they kind of just took that and flipped it, which is really interesting. And I didn't even realize that [01:08:21] Speaker B: Kevin turning the lights off so that she can sing in the. The final triumphant moment. So corny. And I love it so much. It's great. [01:08:29] Speaker A: I got confused again. This time I was like, why did they turn the lights off on her? Because, like, she starts singing and the music starts playing and nothing happens. And then the lights shut off. And I was like, did they say, well, that's enough of the. And then we see Kevin. I was like, okay, he Was. Yeah, he did that. [01:08:43] Speaker B: He turned the lights off. And I unironically love the end of this movie. Like the denouement at the coyote ugly bar. LeAnn Rimes is there. She auctions off John Goodman. Everybody gets up on the bar together for some reason. I love it. It's great. [01:09:01] Speaker A: And we end on an incredible. The final shot I mentioned earlier is. Is this dolly push in slow mo kiss of our two leads. I mean, that's how you end a rom com. I mean, come on. I even love. And it's such a little thing. But the cinematographer. And ideally you wouldn't probably have this. But it's one of the things that makes it feel more tactile and more real. And I think it adds an immediacy to the filmmaking that makes the film work because you see this in several scenes. You can see the wobble in the camera from the dolly track when they're pushing the camera down the dolly track. It's not there. Perfectly level. And there's this slight wiggle in it from. And. Cause like, the other time you notice that is when we're doing that spinning shot around them in the wedding when she's dancing with John Goodman. That's just a dolly track, which is just like roller track or metal track on the ground, like train tracks that the camera, like, tripod essentially sits on, that has wheels that rolls around on that track. It's called a dolly. And that's how you move cameras around on sets, because that's the easiest and best way to do. And so. But. But those. Those dolly tracks, especially back in the day, were not like. They're not like, perfectly smooth and perfectly level and perfect. So there is this, like, slight wiggle and bounce in the camera from the movement of the dolly track that. Again, ideally, if you're shooting a movie, you're trying to minimize all that kind of stuff as much as possible. Cause the goal there is a very floaty, ethereal feeling push in. Which is still there and still translates. But there's something so. So endearing and again, just tactile and gritty and real about seeing a little bit of the dolly wiggle from the camera moving. That just adds to it in a way that I. I find hard to describe. [01:10:41] Speaker B: I know. And I. And I do think that particularly right now in an era of, like, AI and everything is CG to hell or [01:10:52] Speaker A: where everything's shot on the. [01:10:53] Speaker B: The volume or whatever, that seeing those little bits of. Of humanity peek through in a movie just feels really Good. [01:11:03] Speaker A: Yes. Yeah. 100% all right, let's go ahead and talk about a few things that the movie nailed. As I expected. [01:11:14] Speaker B: Practically perfect in every way. It's actually just barely mentioned in the article really. But the coyotes do dance on the bar. [01:11:25] Speaker A: That's the whole thing. [01:11:26] Speaker B: I know that's. [01:11:26] Speaker A: I know if you go to the. The Coyote Ugly guy, like Coyote Ugly Saloon. That's the whole thing is dancing on the bar. But that's crazy that it's just. [01:11:36] Speaker B: And maybe. And maybe Elizabeth Gil, maybe because it was so like obvious, maybe she felt like she didn't need to talk about it in her article. [01:11:45] Speaker A: I also wonder. No, I will say I wonder this. I wonder if when we say that's the whole thing, that's the whole thing now. [01:11:50] Speaker B: Right. [01:11:51] Speaker A: I do wonder if maybe originally it was. That was like a thing they did once a night or something. [01:11:57] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:11:57] Speaker A: That like was like, oh, and that was. Now it's, you know, it's 8pm time to do the bar dance or whatever. And that wasn't really mainly what they did. You know, like it wasn't. But it has since turned into. Because of the movie everybody. And like even people haven't seen the movie. You just know from the like the girls dancing on the bar that's that's Coyote Ugly. That's what everybody knows. Even like that's it's become a cultural lexicon thing of like if somebody gets up on a bar like oh, there's Coyote Ugly, like that it's just like a thing like. And so, So I do wonder if maybe wasn't as much of a like interview. [01:12:30] Speaker B: I think that's possible. Yeah. [01:12:32] Speaker A: The, the Coyote Ugly experience. And it just became more and more as it kind of culturally as the legend. Yeah. [01:12:39] Speaker B: The thing where they set the bar on fire is mentioned in the article, albeit it's at a different bar called the Village Idiot. When things started pressing in on them and the bartenders wanted to use keep patrons back, they'd pour rum down the length of the bar and set it on fire. [01:12:56] Speaker A: There you go. [01:12:58] Speaker B: And finally there is a mention of a bartender who breathes fire. Which we see the mean bartender briefly. Yeah. Jackie was also famous for tossing shots of rum into her mouth, holding a lighter to her lips and blowing 10 foot bursts of flame across the room. [01:13:16] Speaker A: There you go. [01:13:16] Speaker B: Which feels like a really dangerous thing to do in a dice bar. [01:13:19] Speaker A: But you got to bridge the. The fire marshal. But no, that's a terrible idea. Should not do that. Famously. Lots of horrible, devastating nightclub fires from yes. Pyrotechnics in dimly lit, poorly ventilator. Not ventilated, but with only one exit. Like, one exit? Yeah. You don't want to do that. That's a horrible idea. All right. We actually have a ton of odds and ends. Because I had a lot else I wanted to talk about in this movie that didn't really fit anywhere else. So we're going to talk about a lot of stuff right now in Odds and Ends. One of. We just. We talked about how good this movie looks. But it's literally from moment one, we get an exterior shot of this pizza restaurant. And we get the South Amboy, New Jersey, or whatever, like the title card on the screen. But then we cut inside, and it is this wide shot of this pizzeria looking towards the front windows with the light streaming through the windows. There's like this haze in the air. It looks so good. It's the first establishing a second technically establishing shot of the movie. And you're just like, what the f. Like, why does this movie look like this? It looks incredible. It's like. It's like an episode of Mad Men or something. Like, it looks amazing. And I just. Man, again, I was like, holy, how we've lost it. We've lost the secret. I don't know. [01:14:47] Speaker B: We have. We've lost the sauce. One of the things in this opening pizzeria scene is that the owner makes her sign, like, her time card or something. I'm not even sure what it's supposed to be. [01:15:02] Speaker A: Yeah. Or I think it's like the final check, maybe, or something like that. [01:15:05] Speaker B: And he has a wall of these autographs from girls who have gone to try to do things. And it feels so depressing. It's like a wall of failure. [01:15:19] Speaker A: 100%. Yeah. Absol. We're then introduced to Melanie Lynskey's character Gloria, pretty early in this movie. And the note I wrote when we hear her the first time, I was like, I need to meet the people who were body shaming Melanie Lynskey. I just want to talk to them. [01:15:37] Speaker B: She looks. [01:15:38] Speaker A: I just want to talk to them. I just have some words for them because, yeah, I have always had a big crush on Melanie Linsky. But this movie did nothing to dissuade that. I was like, what is wrong with. With people? What is wrong with you? She is stunning. I also just really like their relationship. I think it's really sweet. In particular, the little speech that Gloria gives her when she drops her off in New York about, like, how they were going to get married together or all the things they were going to do together and like how she's chasing her dreams. It's. It's just very sweet and very. It's again, it's over the top. It's very musical coded of like the best friend, like giving her the pep talk kind of thing. And it. But it's great. I just. I think it's fantastic. It's feels it. I think it works. [01:16:25] Speaker B: So this is a movie that I watched a lot in middle school, rewatching it as an adult. That part of the movie where Violet is trying to achieve her dreams in. In the big city. [01:16:39] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:16:39] Speaker B: I'm like, what was her plan? Like, how long did she think she'd [01:16:45] Speaker A: be able to pre 9 11America? Katie. You could just do whatever. You could go to New York and live on a hope and a dream. [01:16:52] Speaker B: She's just bopping around New York City without a job. [01:16:56] Speaker A: Exactly. [01:16:57] Speaker B: Spending her days taking her demo tape. Like, did she. [01:17:01] Speaker A: Living in a two bedroom apartment, did [01:17:03] Speaker B: she not think she was going to need a job at some point to like pay her rent? [01:17:09] Speaker A: She had $300 in the freezer, so. [01:17:11] Speaker B: $300 and cassette tape and a dream. [01:17:15] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:17:16] Speaker B: And thus did not need a regular job. [01:17:19] Speaker A: Again, it's you. It's. [01:17:20] Speaker B: I know. Yes. [01:17:21] Speaker A: That's why it has to buy it. So silly. Like. [01:17:25] Speaker B: But it is like. It is. It is so silly because you're like watching it and you're like, what did you like? Did you. Because that would have been my thing first. Like, I would have gone to get like, you know, a job. [01:17:35] Speaker A: Right. At a bar or go find the local pizzeria. Me like, hey, I've made pizzas my whole life. Can I make pizza? [01:17:40] Speaker B: Can I like do this part time to. To pay my rent and while I try to achieve mind. Because that's what you do. Right? [01:17:47] Speaker A: Right. Yes. [01:17:48] Speaker B: But she's. She's just bopping around. [01:17:51] Speaker A: Yeah. When she gets to that bar where the. She meets Kevin, the bar Kevin works at. And she goes up to the bar. When she walks in the calling is performing on stage. They're playing wherever you will go or whatever. On stage. A year before it came out, apparently. But it cracked me up because I didn't realize this, but the bartender, the guy who lies to her like, who's Kevin's friend, who like lies for him and like quote unquote, wings, man's form or whatever. That's the. If you have seen Office Space, that's the O face guy from Office Space. He's like, I'd show her My O face. Oh. Oh, it's that guy. [01:18:26] Speaker B: Like, he's been too long since I've seen that movie. [01:18:29] Speaker A: So random. But it's that guy just cracking me up. [01:18:33] Speaker B: Speaking of Kevin, his character being named Kevin almost ruins him as a leading man. [01:18:40] Speaker A: That is true. It's not a great name. [01:18:42] Speaker B: I don't think it's a very sexy name. No offense. [01:18:45] Speaker A: Especially for an Australian. Australian. Like, leave him Australian and, like, give him a. [01:18:50] Speaker B: More like, rugged name is Kevin o'. Donnell. And I'm like, okay, I guess. Also, I didn't realize until I was, like, looking stuff up about this movie as I was doing notes. Do you remember when we did Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen? [01:19:08] Speaker A: I don't remember. I mean, I remember doing it, but I don't remember anything about it. [01:19:11] Speaker B: He plays the pop star. [01:19:13] Speaker A: Oh, that's right. [01:19:14] Speaker B: The rock. The rock star that she has a crush on. [01:19:17] Speaker A: I do remember that. Yeah. [01:19:18] Speaker B: The inappropriate age gap crush. [01:19:21] Speaker A: Yes. Yes, that. You're right. [01:19:23] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:19:23] Speaker A: Yeah. That is that guy, huh? That's the only other thing I think. [01:19:26] Speaker B: Yeah, I think it is too. [01:19:28] Speaker A: Yeah. I was so surprised the first time when Tyra Banks showed up. Like, I. I remember we were watching it the first time. I had no idea she was in this movie. And then she's just in that restaurant. And I was like, oh, that's Tyra Banks. [01:19:40] Speaker B: Barely in the movie, but heavily featured in the promotional materials. [01:19:44] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And we mentioned this earlier, but again, and everything about this movie, it is such an incredible time capsule of exactly the year 2000 in America. But especially the music. I say especially. It's literally everything. [01:20:00] Speaker B: It is. It is everything. [01:20:02] Speaker A: The clothing, the technology, everything. Even the filmmaking techniques. But the music. We get a scene where we go during the 2000s shopping montage where it's [01:20:14] Speaker B: the ones where she's wearing a fedora. [01:20:17] Speaker A: And then Cammy comes out in not a common mono, but like some sort of. Like. [01:20:21] Speaker B: I can't think of. [01:20:22] Speaker A: I don't know the name of it, [01:20:23] Speaker B: but they were really big during. [01:20:25] Speaker A: On White Girls. And then we all realized, wait a second, maybe we shouldn't do. Yeah, but it's just the most 2000 shopping montage ever. And we go from the song. You're unbelievable. You're unbelievable. Oh, right. From that. During the shopping montage directly into Never Let yout Go by Third Eye Blind. It is insane. It helps that this was all the music I was listening to when. At this time. So, like, I. I was obsessed with all, like, this is the exact radio stations that I was Listen to is like, top 40 pop rock or what, Whatever that, you know, this stuff is. [01:20:57] Speaker B: No, it's. It's. [01:20:58] Speaker A: It's incredible. [01:20:59] Speaker B: It's good stuff. Entertainment Weekly gave the soundtrack a D, which makes me want to fight someone. [01:21:05] Speaker A: I will say. I think, yeah, a lot of it is not, like, critically well regarded music, but it is music that I love. [01:21:13] Speaker B: But then the use of it is fun. [01:21:15] Speaker A: Yes, yes, absolutely. Absolutely. This movie has just an insane bevy of cameos in it. And some of them aren't even cameos. They're. They're cameos in retrospect. Some of them are cameos. But the first one I was gonna mention is a cameo in retrospect, which is that one of. During the auction scene with Kevin, one of the women bidding on Kevin is played. One of the main ones who's, like, super crazy, is played by Kaitlin Olson, who is D from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. She's done a bunch of other stuff, obviously, but she has a brief scene in this movie, and this is before she'd done in, like, anything. So that's not a cameo. She's just. [01:21:51] Speaker B: Right. [01:21:51] Speaker A: An extra, basically. Like a bit part in a movie. But watching it, watching it back, you're like, holy, It's D from It's Always Sunny. Then later we get Michael Bay as a photographer, as I mentioned, because this is a Jerry Bruckheimer film. And he. Michael Bay heard they were filming a movie where sexy girls dance on a bar, and he said, can I go take pictures of them? And they said, yeah, I guess we'll write it in into the script. Then later, Johnny Knoxville shows up, a [01:22:18] Speaker B: person that it also makes sense to be in this movie. [01:22:22] Speaker A: In this movie that is a genuine cameo of, like, it. And then the guy he's with is another guy I recognized, like, a bit part actor from stuff from this time period. And then at the end of the movie, when they're doing the bidding on John Goodman's character, character Alex Borstein is, like, randomly in this, and I believe I read it was her first film appearance or whatever, because she had been on, like, mad TV and stuff like that was, like, the main thing she was known for. But, yeah, she shows up briefly and this is like, holy. It's just a bunch of, like, random people. It's a lot of fun. [01:22:53] Speaker B: Yeah. Earlier you mentioned lighting, and I just want to ask. [01:22:58] Speaker A: I'm gonna try to answer this as shortly and succinctly as possible, but I could literally write. [01:23:02] Speaker B: I know you could. Whatever happened to Blue lighting to indicate that it's dark. And why did movies stop doing that? Because I really like, first of all, it looks cool. Yeah, it looks cool and it looks moody in a way that's fun. But I also really like understanding that it's dark and yet being able to see the actors. [01:23:24] Speaker A: Yeah. So the reason that Chop stopped is a lot of things. Things. The very, very short answer, in my opinion, of what happened is that as technology developed, so this was the style for shooting on film and for editing and producing movies on film and maybe not editing on film. By this point, we were editing on computers and stuff, but still within the purview of, like, having just come from everything being done on film and everything. The reason we switched that style, the reason it's not popular anymore, is that as technology developed, as we switched to digital, cameras got way better. Digital sensors way better. And editing software and the way the. The workflow of color grading and color correcting movies and the way that all works changed and matured. It became possible to. To film in a lot less light and to film things actually in the dark. Previously you could not film things in the. Not really because it would just be black. Like when you were filming in traditional film and stuff. Like if you're trying to do, like, it would just be black for the most part and it wouldn't read at all. So we would. They. The way that they went, got around that was you would film with blue lights and stuff to simulate like, moonlight and to create these, like, harsh lights and all that sort of stuff. Also, when you're. When you're filming on film and you only have one shot, really, if you're trying to like, especially for like, smaller budget stuff, and in the early days of film, you really can't. Like today you can dial the light up and down in. In whatever editing software you use to whatever setting you want, and you can really dial stuff in. Back in the day, you had to make sure it looked good, you could adjust things in post, but it was not the same process. And so you really had to make sure that what you wanted to be visible was visible, which meant hitting it with enough light, which meant blah, blah, blah. Today we can adjust all that in post. So as technology got better and cameras got better and were able to shoot better in low light, the style of the stylistic choices of cinematographers and directors and filmmakers slowly changed and morphed over the years towards reals realism. We went from filmmaking style, which is like harsh lights and big, like intense lights and light beams and all this sort of stuff into what does it actually look like? Because we can actually get cameras now that pretty closely capture and replicate what actually like a low light scene looks like to your eye. And so combined with the technology, the overall. Because a lot of people say, oh, it's just a technology. Oh, LED lights can't do that. Oh, digital cameras can't do that. None of that structure. True. You can do all this stuff and make stuff look like old movies. The problem is that stylistically the, the, the style choices of especially of cinematographers have morphed so specifically from what it used to be to realism. And that is why everything looks the way it does now and doesn't look like. And it's because it is most broadly a stylistic choice by the people in the industry. I work with cinematographers from time to time time. They are every, even the smallest like commercial cinematographers that you work with on tiny budget commercials. Almost every, every single one of them that I meet, they're all obsessed with real. They want it to look as real. They want, every light wants, needs to be motivated. This isn't true exclusively across the board, but for a lot a big part of it. They want lights to be motivated. They want lights to be coming from places where light actually comes from. All of that sort of stuff, which is like so often you will see people, cinematographers talking about when they're breaking down shots, talking about okay, but where's that light actually coming from? If it were, if this were a real like in the real world, blah, blah, blah. There's a lot of that. But there, there's also now we're slowly coming out of it and cinematographers are moving back the other way a little bit. But that is broadly the answer to that question is that stylistically it changed because technology allowed it to change and it requires you to really. There's also other things involved. Like the harsh lighting from movies of this era are, is less flattering on talent than it than like the flat like Netflix style lighting you see on a lot of stuff. It. That softens features, it makes old actors look nicer than the harsh lighting. For there's a million million reasons. But that's one that's kind of the, the very long answer. [01:27:36] Speaker B: I think we should morph back away from that. [01:27:39] Speaker A: It's. We're working on it and there are. [01:27:42] Speaker B: I just think that. [01:27:43] Speaker A: I agree. I mean you're not gonna get any argument for me. [01:27:46] Speaker B: I think that this old style of lighting just looks kind of magical. [01:27:52] Speaker A: Yes, 100%. [01:27:54] Speaker B: And maybe that's Just because I'm comparing it to like the very realistic, like realism motivated lighting. But I just think it looks so much more magical and like, interesting. [01:28:05] Speaker A: 100%. Yes. [01:28:07] Speaker B: And I know we've talked about on here before that part of the problem with like people complaining that everything is too dark is that people don't have their TVs setting properly. [01:28:21] Speaker A: And that's because the, the stuff is being shot to create this like, very realistic look. And in order to do that, you can do that with really good, like calibrated monitors and cameras and stuff. But it has to be calibrated. Right. Whereas old movies can play on. You can shine it on a fucking wall from a projector and it'll look fine. Like. [01:28:37] Speaker B: And I understand that. I would counter argue, though, know that in an age of streaming. [01:28:45] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:28:46] Speaker B: And like 100, in an era where most people are watching things in their living rooms or on their phones. Or on their phones that we should probably at least pay a little bit of attention to. Like, okay, what's this gonna look like? Not on my Hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of equipment. [01:29:05] Speaker A: Yeah. And I will say I think they do. I think that it's complicated. But. Yeah, I, I think, I don't think there's no thought taken to that. But I do think it's cuz, like. Yeah. [01:29:15] Speaker B: Perhaps not enough thought or into that. [01:29:18] Speaker A: I don't know. It's hard. It's. Yeah, it's. Yeah. [01:29:21] Speaker B: Anyway, bring back blue lighting to indicate that it's dark. Absolutely, Mr. Hollywood. [01:29:26] Speaker A: Speaking of standard photography, the. The shot of. I think it's Chinatown, where she lives. It was what it looks like. [01:29:31] Speaker B: That's what it looks like. [01:29:32] Speaker A: It's about 4,000, 615 into the movie. I wanted to time code it in case you didn't watch this or, or whatever. And you want to go back and look. It's right around there. There's this big exterior, like crane shot as she's like pulling up to her apartment that is so gorgeous and colorful and full of life that I've never seen a shot like that in a romcom definitely in the last like 15, 20 years. It's stunning. And I was like. I was. It looks like a shot from like west side Story or something. Like, it's just. It's so gorgeous and. And again, there's people, there's extras everywhere. Another thing you won't see. [01:30:08] Speaker B: It's all practical and real teaming with life. [01:30:11] Speaker A: Yes, it's. [01:30:12] Speaker B: And I don't, I don't think this is the same shot here. That I have a note about, because I think this is much earlier in the movie than that. But when. When she and Melanie Linsky first get to that apartment building where she's going to be staying, there's a shot not looking up the building. [01:30:30] Speaker A: Yes. [01:30:31] Speaker B: That, like, pans up, or however you would say it. And it is so bright and so colorful and so alive and just like, so unlike anything that I'm used to seeing in movies anymore. [01:30:45] Speaker A: Yeah, No, I know. It is. Yeah, it is. Yeah. This is the. This is the Back in My Day episode, apparently, about Coyote Ugly, which is amazing. [01:30:54] Speaker B: I mean, Coyote Ugly, sadly, is back in my day. [01:30:57] Speaker A: The scene where she's playing guitar on the route, which are several. But the scene where she's playing a guitar on the roof and then she sees the dude listening to hip hop and dancing in his apartment and then incorporates that into her music is completely absurd and hilarious. And it is, like, the moment to determine if you're on board with what the movie is doing or not. Now, this is. We're past the point with the Kevin scene is where you have to get on board. This is the check, like, later in the movie of, like, are you buying what this movie is selling? Because if you're buying what this movie is selling, this scene is simultaneously hilarious and fun and ridiculous. And if you're not on board with it, it's so hokey and campy and cheesy that you're like, this is terrible. It is a. It is absolutely a bellwether test or whatever for, like, are you on board? Board with what? This movie is another. Another classic moment. We find out Kevin is an orphan. [01:31:56] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:31:57] Speaker A: Poor Kevin is one of the more cliche and, in my opinion, lame choice. [01:32:01] Speaker B: Yeah. I don't think they needed to do that because it's. To what end? [01:32:04] Speaker A: To what end really matter? [01:32:07] Speaker B: It doesn't really form his character at [01:32:09] Speaker A: all to, like, one up to, like. It's a comeback to her, like, yelling at him about something and he goes, yeah, well, I'm an orphan. You're like, okay. Like, we don't need. It's okay. Again, it. It's one of those, like, I don't know what it is. Why this crosses the line when so many other ridiculous things in the movie don't. It just feels so unnecessary. [01:32:30] Speaker B: Well, I think it's because it's. To what end? Like we said, like, there's not really. It doesn't inform his character. It doesn't inform their relationship. [01:32:40] Speaker A: Yeah, not really. [01:32:40] Speaker B: And it's not like. Whereas some of the other kind of silly stuff still feels informed by realism in a way that's interesting. This just feels like Dickensian. [01:32:54] Speaker A: You can feel the. Which I guess you could feel this all the ways, but this is one of the moments where it really feels like the screenwriter's hand coming in to be like, yes. And then we add that he's an orphan. You're like, okay, sure. [01:33:06] Speaker B: All right. [01:33:08] Speaker A: I adore the idea that every time she goes up to play piano on the roof, she carries a dozen candles up there and sets them around the roof because there's candles just everywhere burning on the roof. [01:33:19] Speaker B: An incredible commitment to a sad vibe. [01:33:22] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:33:22] Speaker B: It's camp. [01:33:23] Speaker A: Yes, Absolutely. Another incredible montage in the movie is her using her 2000 iMac laptop. The clear purple plastic, like. Oh. And then she goes and buys, like, music editing software that has a little digital drum set that. She's so silly and amazing. I love it so much. At one point, we get this scene where I think Kevin calls her and we see her answering machine. And my parents had the exact same answering machine that she has in the RIP answering machine. Exact same one. The. It was identical. I was cracking up. [01:33:58] Speaker B: Speaking of when she's in the hospital, when the. When she's visiting John Goodman, I had the exact pink pearl snap shirt in the eighth grade that she's wearing in that scene. I bought it at Charlotte Rose Ruse, and my mom didn't like it. [01:34:16] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. In my opinion, maybe the movie's biggest single flaw is that the whole thing is leading up to her playing her big song at the end, which is called Can't Fight the Moonlight. And in my opinion, the song is not quite good enough to be the big number at the end of this movie. The thing that makes it work is that it's very 2000s in a way. [01:34:42] Speaker B: That it is. Yes, it is. I agree with you. I think that, like, on its own, the song does not have enough. [01:34:50] Speaker A: It's not catchy enough. It's not. [01:34:52] Speaker B: It doesn't have quite the right climax moment energy. [01:34:57] Speaker A: It doesn't feel big enough or like it's. Yeah. [01:35:00] Speaker B: But it is, like you said, very 2000s, which makes it kind of iconic in a way that. [01:35:04] Speaker A: That is. The only thing that makes it work is that it's so over, like, the. The beat and like the production on it is so 2000s in a way that, yeah. Dates it. [01:35:11] Speaker B: Also, I will say this soundtrack has four of, like, Violet's original songs on it. And Can't Fight the Moonlight is clearly the front runner out of those Four. The other ones are, they're fine, but they're not like can't fight the moonlight is clearly on top. [01:35:31] Speaker A: Okay, okay. And then we get the big final moment at the end where Leann Rimes buys her song and is sings it at the Coyote Ugly saloon. And I, she, she's singing it and then Violet jumps up on stage and is singing it with her or on the bar and is singing it with her. And I needed to know when that started happening. And they're both singing. I'm like, wait a second. Because I knew that Leon Rhymes just did all of the singing for Piper Perabo's character in the movie. So every time you hear Piper Peribo singing in the movie, that's actually Leann Rimes. And so I was trying to figure out is Leann Rimes just duetting with herself in this final scene? [01:36:09] Speaker B: I was. According to Wikipedia, yes. [01:36:12] Speaker A: That's amazing. [01:36:13] Speaker B: Per Wikipedia, although Parabo was able to sing for her character, it was decided that Rhymes, owing to her soprano type voice, would provide Violet singing far better for the role. This means that during Rhymes cameo, she is effectively duetting with herself. [01:36:28] Speaker A: Amazing. Incredible. [01:36:29] Speaker B: Incredible. [01:36:30] Speaker A: So funny. And then I mentioned it before, but that's the ending on the slow mo. Dolly pushed in as they kiss and we fade to credits. Could not be better. It's just a good stuff. I don't know what to say, man. It's just a fun, well made movie and it's, it's again, it's not breaking any. It's not, it's not breaking any new ground, but it is the well trodden ground that it is covering. It is doing it about as perfectly as you can do it, in my opinion. For a young woman coming of age story about an artist trying to make it in the big city. I think it's, I think it's kind of nearly perfect, which is hilarious. But yeah. Before we get to the final verdict and hear what Katie has to say, we wanted to tell you you could do us a favor by hanging over to Facebook, threads, Instagram, bluesky, Goodreads, any of those places interact with us. We'd love to hear what you have to say about Coyote Ugly. Desperately want to hear what you all have to say about Coyote Ugly. Did I convert anybody? Is anybody like, wait a second. This movie is good. If one person who watches this movie after listening and I listens to our episode and comes away acknowledging the masterpiece that is Coyote, Uglia will have done my job. So please let us know. You can also help us out by heading over to Apple Podcast, Spotify. Wherever you listen to our show, write us a nice little five star review. Or, you know, give us a five star rating and write us a nice little review. You can also Support [email protected] ThisFilmIsLit get access to Bonus content I don't know where we're at in our bonus content. We just did last. What was the last we just did Juno. Juno, that's right. And that was for. For this month, right? That was May. [01:38:05] Speaker B: Yes, that was May. [01:38:06] Speaker A: So we'll have Juno, our review of Juno, out this month. It's out right now. You can go listen to it for five bucks a month. And then next month for my birthday, we're doing Tombstone. So if you want to hear us talk about Tombstone, come back in June for the bonus episode and we will break down Tombstone. But now it's time for the final verdict. [01:38:25] Speaker B: Sentence passed. Verdict. That's stupid. Stupid. When we watched this together the first time a couple of months ago, I was pretty apprehensive. Coyote Ugly was a sleepover staple for me and my friends in middle school, but I hadn't seen it since the early 2000s, and I really just remembered the general plot in a very vague way. I had absolutely no idea how it had aged, and I was ready to be embarrassed by making it my suggestion for Moving Night. But as it happened, I was pleasantly surprised. Not only did I get to rediscover an old favorite as something still worth watching, which doesn't often happen with media we remember fondly from our youth, but you saw the value in it as well, maybe even more than I did. From a filmmaking perspective, the Muse of the Coyote Ugly Saloon was an interesting read. More than anything, it was a reflection on the types of personalities that you encounter her and take on for yourself while working at a place like the Coyote Ugly Saloon. I'd recommend it, but for pure enjoyment, I don't think it holds a candle to the movie. Is Coyote Ugly a masterpiece? I don't know if I'd go quite that far. Maybe a camp masterpiece, but in my opinion it is an underappreciated early 2000s gem that's both well made and surprisingly progressive. Given the subject matter and the era. I'm giving this one to the movie with a howl of approval. [01:40:05] Speaker A: Absolutely. Katie, what's next? [01:40:08] Speaker B: Up next, we are kicking off summer. Yes, but not the summer series. [01:40:14] Speaker A: No, but we're. [01:40:15] Speaker B: We're doing. We're doing a summer classic. We're going to be talking about Jaws, the first blockbuster. Yeah. [01:40:22] Speaker A: Yeah. I didn't know this was based on a book. Genuinely had no idea. [01:40:27] Speaker B: Novel by Peter Benchley, 1975 film by [01:40:32] Speaker A: some guy I don't know. I don't know if he ever did anything else. But yeah, no, yeah, it's gonna be very. I'm very excited. It's been a long time since I watched Jaws and obviously didn't know it was based on a book so I'm interested to hear how it translates and what you know. I've already prepped you on all the things I'm gonna ask about that I know that I'm gonna ask if it's in the book or not. At least some of the things. So yeah, two weeks time we're talking about Jaws and in one week's time we're seeing what you all had to say about Coyote Ugly. Until that time, guys, gals, not binary pals. And everybody else keep reading books, keep watching movies and keep being awesome. Sat.