Episode Transcript
[00:00:11] Speaker A: On this week's prequel episode, we follow up on our beastly listener polls and preview secretary.
Hello and welcome back to another prequel episode of. The film is like the podcast where we talk about movies that are based on books.
We're going to get right into it. As always with our patron shoutouts. I put up with you because your father and mother were our finest patrons. That's why we have one new patron this week coming in at the $15 Hugo award winning level, our top tier, Eric Rabain. Thank you, Eric, for supporting us. If you haven't yet, make sure you get in that suggestion, the thing you would like for us to talk about, because reminder to everybody else at the $15 level, that's the perk you get. You get priority recommendations. So we appreciate that, Eric, get that movie in. Can't wait to cover it. And now on to our recurring list of Academy award winning patrons. And they are. Eric, harpo rat. Or Eric, or. I don't know. I think it's just Eric. I'm just going to say Eric.
[00:01:25] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:01:26] Speaker A: Harpo, rat. Nathan B. Vic Hammer Matild Steve from Arizona. Paul Teresa Schwartz Ian from Wine Country, Winchester's forever, Kelly Napier Gray Hightower. Gratch.
Just gratch. Shelby is no more. That darn skag. V. Frank and Alina Starkov. Thank you all very much. And extra special thanks to Shelby for that fantastic username change that tickled me.
Shelby is no more. Thank you for continuing to support us at that $15 level. You're all the best, Katie. Let's see what everybody had to say about.
[00:02:12] Speaker C: Well, you know, that's just like, your opinion, man.
[00:02:17] Speaker B: Well, before we get to that, we actually had.
We had one comment about never let me go that was posted, like, maybe an hour after we finished recording the last.
[00:02:28] Speaker A: And I had already was either in the middle of editing because sometimes if that happens and I still have time, I will go record separately. But I was, like, in the middle of editing, I think, when I saw it go, so.
[00:02:40] Speaker B: But we wanted to go ahead and share that from Kevin on Facebook.
[00:02:44] Speaker A: Kevin Smith. I don't know if it's the Kevin Smith.
[00:02:46] Speaker B: I don't think it's probably not the.
[00:02:49] Speaker A: He seems like a guy that might listen to our podcast, but I don't think it's the Kevin Smith. But I didn't check.
[00:02:56] Speaker B: If you're the Kevin Smith, please reveal yourself. You can do it through a DM if you'd rather. But Kevin said, I was given the book, but was given no warning on what it was about. I like that you described it as a horror that they didn't realize they were in. It's definitely bleak. In fact, the film comes off less depressing than what the book made me feel. All the unanswered questions about the society that allowed the harvesting to happen gives the novel a longevity. Way after you finish reading.
[00:03:27] Speaker A: Yeah, no, I agree with that. I will say I wanted to clarify. It wasn't us that described it as a horror that they didn't realize they were in.
[00:03:34] Speaker B: Yeah, that was a poll quote from a book review, I believe.
[00:03:37] Speaker A: Just wanted to make sure know. Don't steal that line because. Yes, but we agreed with it, but we did not make that novel, so. All right, thank you, Kevin. Just a reminder, just a heads up for everybody. We generally record these on either Monday or Tuesday evening on our schedule. Central time zone. Us either Monday or Tuesday evening. It just depends on what else is going on. So if you have them in by Sunday, you're definitely safe Monday during the day. If you're in the central time zone or whatever, you're usually pretty safe. Anytime after that.
You may not make it into that edit.
You may miss the cut off. So just for future reference for people.
[00:04:22] Speaker B: And now our feedback for beastly on Patreon. We had three votes for the book and three for the movie. Kelly Napier said, disclaimer off the top. I wrote out these thoughts before I listened to the episode, so I'm repeating some of the reflections you already made, but I didn't feel like rewriting anything, so here we are.
[00:04:42] Speaker A: That's fine.
[00:04:44] Speaker B: Okay. After I finished the book, I thought it was really dumb.
Same Kelly. I especially hated the group chat of other cursed people.
[00:04:54] Speaker A: But then, point of disagreement a little bit there.
You had it better in the book.
You liked the idea.
[00:05:02] Speaker B: I liked the idea.
[00:05:02] Speaker A: That's right. You did say that it wasn't.
[00:05:04] Speaker B: But I thought in practice it was pretty bad.
[00:05:08] Speaker A: That's fair. I do actually think that was the conversation we had not mentioned. Yeah.
[00:05:13] Speaker B: Kelly went on to say, but then I watched the movie and wow, did it make the book look like a masterpiece. I don't know if I would go that far.
[00:05:23] Speaker A: This isn't a 50 shade situation.
[00:05:25] Speaker B: It's not quite like divergent series level or 50 shades, but similar.
My favorite part, when Alex Pettifer kept slipping into his natural english accent. Also, Vanessa Hudgens love her to death.
Gabriella Montez, forever. That's her high school musical character.
[00:05:50] Speaker A: That's what I figured. I was just making sure.
[00:05:52] Speaker B: But she is way too pretty to be the outcast she's supposed to be. In no world would someone who looks like her be unpopular in high school.
[00:06:00] Speaker A: To be fair, do we know that she was unpopular in the movie?
[00:06:03] Speaker B: We don't know that for sure. In the movie.
[00:06:06] Speaker A: We don't learn much.
[00:06:07] Speaker B: We really don't. Sophie does not care to divulge anything interesting.
[00:06:12] Speaker A: I think there's definitely an implication that she's not part of the popular club, but I don't know if there's also much implication that she's unpopular. She just seems like kind of an. Like a little bit like at the party. But she's at a big party.
[00:06:26] Speaker B: Yeah, she's at the party.
[00:06:27] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:06:28] Speaker B: We don't see her interact with anyone.
[00:06:30] Speaker A: No, but Kyle. But she is at the party. And super unpopular kids don't get invited to big Halloween parties. I hope so. I don't. Yeah, but point still stands because we talked about that.
[00:06:43] Speaker B: Yeah, we talked about it. And she is supposed to be unpopular in the book. Like, she's kind of a nerd. Nobody really hangs out with her, talks to her, et cetera, et cetera.
I missed Kyle revealing himself to Sloan first in an effort to quickly get rid of the curse from the book. The movie didn't have anyone freak out about his looks, which I thought was needed to have Kyle prove to himself that he was hideous and no one would ever love him. And it was a blink and you'll miss it moment. But the explanation of why Kyle left to school in the movie was given as him going to rehab. Why wasn't boarding school a good enough explanation like it was in the book? I feel like rehab would be a lot harder to explain than him just being shipped off to a boarding school by his rich ass dad.
[00:07:27] Speaker A: I agree with that because I do remember that moment where we see, it's like a social media post from Sloan. Something about him being in rehab or whatever.
[00:07:35] Speaker B: It's crazy too, because for all that his dad is concerned about image and whatever, why would you want everyone to think that your kid went to rehab? Boarding school works perfectly fine. Yeah, he's in Switzerland or wherever. Who cares? I also liked the inciting event to have Lindy move in with Kyle in the book over the movie. The event in the movie just seemed too far fetched. Having Lindy's dad break into the house seemed to track more with the kind of person we know him to be.
I missed the mirror. It was such a good callback to the Disney movie that the audience for this book and movie would have been recalling and I thought it was a useful device for how Kyle keeps tabs on the outside world. And I liked Magda Slash Zola and Kendra being the same person in the book. A lot of what the character as Slash Zola does makes more sense when you understand that she's also Kendra who wants Kyle to break the curse when she can't do it herself. In the movie's favor, though, the soundtrack was banging a true early two thousand and ten s. Now that's what I call music compilation. And I liked the ending setting up that the dad make it his comeuppance too. So despite the fact that it wasn't good at all, I voted for the book because it was still better than the movie.
[00:08:51] Speaker A: Fair enough. I think that's what you did too, right?
[00:08:54] Speaker B: No, I did a tie movie.
[00:08:55] Speaker A: Oh, that's right. You did a tie. I forgot. You chose the cowards way.
[00:09:00] Speaker B: I don't do it a lot.
Sometimes when I'm trying to write that final verdict, I feel kind of equally queasy about choosing either. So I'm like, yeah, I get it.
[00:09:12] Speaker A: I think I have chosen a tie before.
[00:09:13] Speaker B: You have?
[00:09:14] Speaker A: Yeah, I think I have.
[00:09:15] Speaker B: Our next comment was from Nathan B, who said, I don't know which one to vote for based on quality. So I empathize with Katie. I did notice that Kyle's friend is named Trey Parker, which seems like a clear reference to South park in the.
[00:09:31] Speaker A: Book or in the book, because I don't remember.
[00:09:35] Speaker B: I don't remember. Yeah, that is his name in the book. I think the greatest failing, and that's not a low bar of the book and the film are their attempts to justify kidnapping by the protagonist. The book in particular struggled to justify his obviously wrong behavior. I think this makes it clear why beauty and the beast tales are not usually from the perspective of the beast. It just can't be justified when you're in the beast's head. Also, the elephant in the room is that Alex Pettifer is an accused domestic abuser. This made my decision for me.
[00:10:07] Speaker A: I was unaware of that.
[00:10:08] Speaker B: I didn't know that. I had heard that he was hard to work with. Like kind of a nightmare on set.
[00:10:14] Speaker A: That's the only thing I think I've ever seen.
[00:10:16] Speaker B: Yeah, I don't think I've ever seen him in anything.
[00:10:19] Speaker A: I don't even know if I'd heard of him other than until we watched this movie.
[00:10:25] Speaker B: So I guess he's not getting a bunch of jobs, which seems good. Yeah.
No, I had a note in my reading notes. About trying to justify his obviously wrong behavior with the kidnapping. But you can't do it. You kind of just got to let it wash over you. Yeah.
Next comment was from Shelby is no more. Who said the movie is trash, but it's my trash. I see your criticisms of the look of the beast in this movie and raise you the CW Beauty and the Beast. He has a whole scratch on his face in that. I don't think I've ever seen anything.
[00:11:08] Speaker A: Is it like a show? Like, I don't know anything about it. Did they make a movie?
[00:11:13] Speaker B: I would guess it was probably a show. Probably short lived since neither of us has ever heard of it.
[00:11:21] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:11:22] Speaker B: Dw beauty and the Beast. Oh, no. It ran for four seasons. Why don't I remember.
[00:11:29] Speaker A: Lana? That's Lana Lang.
Was this post Smallville?
It's got Kristen Kruger.
[00:11:38] Speaker B: He does have a whole scratch on his face. Yeah. He's even more handsome.
[00:11:42] Speaker A: That's hilarious.
He's literally just got one time. He's got like a geralt of rivia. Scar Geralt of Rivia could never find love. All right.
[00:11:54] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:11:57] Speaker A: That's post Smallville.
Kristen Couric played Bell. Interesting.
[00:12:04] Speaker B: Maybe we should watch that.
[00:12:06] Speaker A: I don't think we should. If we're watching anything from the CW, we're watching Smallville.
[00:12:12] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:12:13] Speaker A: Smallville is great. And by great, I mean I liked it when I was twelve or whenever it came out.
[00:12:19] Speaker B: All right. Shelby went on to say he has a whole scratch on his face in that. So beastly that the actor went on to play the absurdly hot guy in it, chapter two.
I don't have a problem with them casting Vanessa Hudgens in this movie. The fairy tale is called Beauty and the Beast. After all. There's a whole song in the Disney movie about how Bell is both hot and quirky. I'd say that sums up Vanessa Hudgens character in this movie.
[00:12:48] Speaker A: The issue isn't that. The issue is because, yeah, Belle is traditionally her name's Beauty.
[00:12:53] Speaker B: There are other retellings where she's not.
[00:12:56] Speaker A: Beautiful, but you were more so comparing it to because the plot in the book, and then even by extension, somewhat in the movie, is that because the.
[00:13:06] Speaker B: Whole idea in the book is that she's not hot?
[00:13:10] Speaker A: Yeah. She's not like, conventionally attractive. The kind of woman that he, or girl that he would.
[00:13:15] Speaker B: Yeah, he's not the kind of girl that he would typically go after. And the movie, I think, attempts to transpose that directly while also casting a conventionally hot person as Belle. So to me, the dissonance there does not work.
[00:13:32] Speaker A: Quite work.
[00:13:34] Speaker B: Also, I don't know if I would sum up her character as both hot and quirky in this movie. We don't really know anything about her other than she likes Juju fruit.
[00:13:44] Speaker A: That's true. Yeah, we don't know. Well, she does like weird poetry. I say weird poetry. She likes that one poem.
[00:13:51] Speaker B: Yeah, she likes that one poem. And Juju freak because we really don't know anything about her. Maybe she's quirky. Maybe she's just really boring. Yeah, we don't know.
[00:14:01] Speaker A: We have no idea.
[00:14:04] Speaker B: The fairy tale is about the beast learning that hot people don't have to be shallow or something, isn't it? That's one of the reasons this fairy tale doesn't really do anything for me. Maybe the curse should also make him see everyone as a beast like him, and that way he has to learn to see beyond looks.
[00:14:24] Speaker A: Is him learning that hot people don't have to be shallow part of his story. It's more so about him learning not be shallow.
[00:14:38] Speaker B: In this version of it, he's learning to not be shallow, which is not necessarily aligned with the majority of beauty and the beast iterations.
[00:14:51] Speaker A: I mean, the Disney one is a similar. Well, it's not that exactly. But that is part of what?
[00:14:56] Speaker B: The reason he gets part of it.
[00:14:58] Speaker A: Yeah, but it's not like the main thing because that isn't like his ultimate.
[00:15:03] Speaker B: It's not his main central flaw. His central flaw is just that he's an asshole. Right.
[00:15:09] Speaker A: And it expresses itself kind of as shallow.
[00:15:11] Speaker B: Yeah, and especially in that moment when the old hag knocks on the door, it expresses itself as, like, shallowness and vanity. Yeah.
[00:15:19] Speaker A: Yes, but it's just that he's a jerk ultimately.
[00:15:24] Speaker B: But this particular iteration of beauty and the beast chooses to focus zoom way more in on the shallow and the vanity and that type of thing.
Next comment was from Eric, who said, no thoughts, just super amped. You guys chose to look at this hilarious adaptation. I did prefer the book.
[00:15:45] Speaker A: That's a thought. You already said no thoughts, and now you're here providing thoughts. Eric?
[00:15:52] Speaker B: I did prefer the book. Kyle's inner monologue and chat conversations were so deliciously emo. I also enjoyed having more time to understand the characters, their growing relationship, and the much more nuanced character for the witch.
[00:16:06] Speaker A: Fair enough.
[00:16:08] Speaker B: And our last comment on Patreon was from Matilde, who said, I didn't vote since I didn't read the book and barely made it five minutes into the movie. Fair enough. I even tried to just have it in the background as I fell asleep and I couldn't bear it. This is a terrible movie to fall asleep to. Yes, it's loud and frenetically.
That first song blasted on just.
[00:16:32] Speaker A: Yeah, the first 20 minutes in the.
[00:16:34] Speaker B: Jump, like a foot in the air.
[00:16:35] Speaker A: And then it's just nonstop, like people giving speeches and parties and it's just like chaos for the first 20 minutes.
[00:16:45] Speaker B: Apparently I have an annoyance limit. And that pacing and terrible dialogue is it. I really enjoyed both Brian's ending and Katie's suggestion of friendship, love, being able to reverse the curse. They reminded me of Shrek and Maleficent. And if those movies pulled it off, surely beastly could have done it too. It would have made it a worthwhile adaptation of Beauty and the Beast.
[00:17:07] Speaker A: We have another comment about that.
[00:17:08] Speaker B: Yeah, we.
[00:17:09] Speaker A: Just a second here. We'll get to that.
[00:17:11] Speaker B: I have a bone to pick with the beast look, too. If the 80s tv show could make an acceptable live version of a beast costume on their budget, this version has no excuse. Let's be real. They just didn't want to uglify their actor too much and turn off their potential audience.
[00:17:27] Speaker A: I think that's probably.
[00:17:28] Speaker B: Yeah, I think that's dead.
[00:17:30] Speaker A: Which is what you touched on that and you said they didn't want to.
Making him a beast and the weird bestiality stuff and whatever. Yeah, I think that is the main reason that they decided to do that instead of making him a werewolf.
[00:17:46] Speaker B: Man over on Facebook, we had three votes for the book and zero for the movie. Sarah said, I haven't read or watched this one, but just wanted to make a comment on the opinion that the main character should have stayed as his quote unquote beast form instead of his original look after the curse was broken. This is exactly what happens in Shrek. Fiona was upset that she didn't turn back after the curse was broken, and Shrek tells her that she's still beautiful and they live happily ever after.
[00:18:15] Speaker A: So this is the one that. Yeah, that was talking about. And I can't believe I forgot about that. That basically is.
[00:18:20] Speaker B: That is how Shrek ends.
[00:18:22] Speaker A: I forgot. I mean, we've done Shrek on the show. It's been years and years now and. Yeah, I just forgot that that is what happens in.
Yeah, and I think it works really well. It's a good ending for Shrek and I think it would have worked here. Just because Shrek did it doesn't mean you can't do it, as is evidenced of a million movies who tried to be Shrek after Shrek came out.
[00:18:42] Speaker B: Our next comment was from Crystal J. Who said a few years ago a friend gave the book to me so I could read it and then watch the movie. She's really into anything beauty and the Beast related and she knows I'm a fan of retellings. Shout out to ever after I share this because when I saw that you guys were doing this one, I remembered that I've read and watched it before, but I could not for the life of me remember anything about it. A quick rewatch and reread made me realize why it's mediocre, not good, but not really horrible. If a shrug was a movie, that's.
[00:19:17] Speaker A: A great way to sum it up because I agree and that's kind of what we landed on. We thought there was stuff that worked in the movie and it wasn't like completely terrible all the way through, but.
[00:19:26] Speaker B: Just like a lot of problems and pretty clearly trying to capitalize on current trends and not doing a very good job.
[00:19:35] Speaker A: I would amend that slightly to maybe to say if a grimace was a movie because there's a little bit more judgment there, but it's still not like it's super awful. It's just like God. All right, I guess grimace was a movie, but yes, it's good too.
[00:19:57] Speaker B: My vote will be for the book, I guess.
Resounding statement from Crystal. I like the idea of him talking to the other fairy tale characters even if the author didn't know what to do with it. Yeah, that was pretty much how I felt about it.
Last comment on Facebook was from Crystal C. Two crystals. I know two crystals. I don't usually have to tack on last initials, but Crystal C. Said, I completely forgot about this book and movie until this last episode. I was eleven when it came out and it was the hottest must see movie of the year.
[00:20:32] Speaker A: What?
[00:20:34] Speaker B: Maybe you were eleven year olds?
[00:20:36] Speaker A: I don't know.
[00:20:36] Speaker B: I was in college when it came out.
I would not have considered it the hottest must see movie of the year.
Clearly not aged well since, but hilarious to hear you two talk about it.
[00:20:48] Speaker A: That does make sense though. That is the age that preteen like mid teen range would have been who it was popular with.
[00:20:56] Speaker B: Yeah, this is the tween to young teen demographic for sure.
Over on instagram we had one vote for the book, one for the movie, and one listener who couldn't decide.
MMR seven nine seven said I haven't read the book, but I'd pick the movie for Neil Patrick Harris.
[00:21:18] Speaker A: You'd be wrong.
[00:21:19] Speaker B: Is this the project?
[00:21:21] Speaker A: This is not the one to go.
[00:21:22] Speaker B: To bat for Neil Patrick Harris on, though I don't have any strong feelings on Neil Patrick Harris. I get why people like him. Yeah, he's a talented.
[00:21:32] Speaker A: I thought he was really enjoyable as what you call it in Lemony Snicket the tv series.
I thought he was a good count Olaf without I didn't read the books, but this is not the one where I would again, I've seen other things I enjoyed Neil Patrick Harrison and stuff like that, but yeah, this ain't it. This ain't the one. But if you enjoy him, know, maybe you still find I don't know if I could watch like Brendan Fraser in something and not like him. Not like him in the mean maybe. I don't know. I haven't seen a thing with Brendan Fraser that I've disliked him in.
[00:22:07] Speaker B: Our next comment was from Georgie who said didn't read the book, but I did watch the movie and had a great time, so I'm voting movie. I'm disappointed I didn't encounter it earlier because middle school Georgie would have properly appreciated it, but it's probably the good thing the movie wasn't an influence on my developing brain.
Fair enough. As an adult, I'm still team Kyle is hotter with the tattoos and body mods. Except is it just me or do his eyebrows say embrace suck in his cursed form?
[00:22:42] Speaker A: We have a note on that momentarily. And the note we have on it I actually saw when I was doing looking at stuff for the prequel. I just didn't mention it because I didn't really know what it meant or what the context was, so I just didn't include it. But yes, we'll get to that momentarily with another comment.
[00:22:58] Speaker B: Yeah, but you are correct, and we'll talk about that more in a second.
[00:23:02] Speaker A: Yeah, and I don't think you're alone in appreciate and preferring tattooed and body modded Kyle.
[00:23:07] Speaker B: Definitely not.
Next comment was from anal fracture 42.
[00:23:13] Speaker A: Fantastic.
[00:23:14] Speaker B: Who said I like to torture myself with stuff that is at least entertaining? A parentheses, good, bad. But I adore you talking about these films and books, of course.
[00:23:25] Speaker A: Fantastic.
[00:23:27] Speaker B: Glad it was entertaining.
Last comment on Instagram was from young Melissa who said all caps.
Brian, why did you ever dip pizza crust in milk crying emoji and like, are we talking thick crust frozen pizza? All kinds. I have questions.
[00:23:47] Speaker A: All right, let me defend myself here. By defend myself, I mean just explain.
This is the only comment we got about this, which is funny because I actually wasn't sure if this was a thing. This is one of those things that I didn't know if this is a thing other people did. It felt like to me, like it could just be a weird Midwest thing, but I don't think it is.
So I don't remember if my brothers did it, like my older brothers or. I have a vague memory that one of my brother's friends did it, and that's why I started doing it. I can't recall.
But to answer your questions, basically any pizza, but any normal crust, like, hand tossed style crust pizza, where there's actually like a squishy, think like a papa John's type or whatever.
Not like a deep dish, not like emo's. You know what I mean? Nothing like that.
Where when you get done, you have basically a breadstick left. Essentially is what I would do it with. As to why, like I said, I think just I saw one of my brothers or brother's friends or something. Older kid, maybe, I don't know. And I started doing it. And I will argue this. I remember it being tasty. I will also say this. I haven't done it in. I don't remember. I stopped doing it as a child, I think maybe into high school, maybe.
But it's been over 20 years talking.
[00:25:10] Speaker B: About this last night, and I posited that you probably stopped doing it around the same time you stopped pouring a glass of milk to have with your pizza.
[00:25:18] Speaker A: That would have been a big thing. Is that. Yes, eventually I stopped having milk with every single meal.
I'm a water person now. I have water with every meal, primarily, and have been for at least a decade now. But yeah, there was a period growing up, milk with every meal. You grew up like this, you had milk with, especially dinner. Breakfast and dinner, at least. And lunch, honestly, because it's school.
[00:25:41] Speaker B: Yeah, it's cool. You get milky milk with your breakfast, milk with your lunch, milk with your dinner. We've just got really good strong bones out here.
[00:25:49] Speaker A: I am a huge milk drinker. Always have been, still am, still drink a lot of milk. But yes, I don't dip my pizza crust in it anymore. And I haven't for a long time. But I liked it. And it was vaguely. Look, I'll defend it so far as to say this. It's a dairy product. Just like dipping it in garlic sauce without the garlic and the salt and the other stuff.
[00:26:12] Speaker B: You said that last night, we're talking about this and I lost my mind.
It's exactly like garlic sauce, except it's not garlic sauce at all.
[00:26:22] Speaker A: Look, just try it before you knock it. That's all I'll say. There's lots of weird food combinations that I enjoy that I say lots. There's a few. Another one you want to might as well limp on. Make yourself a plain bagel with peanut butter and cream cheese. Report back to me. It's delicious.
It's incredible. If you like those things. If you don't like those things, you're not going to like it. But if you like peanut butter, I mean, that's basically, I like all of.
[00:26:48] Speaker B: Those things separately, but I don't like the idea because when you put peanut butter on a bagel, it gets really warm and melty. Cream cheese kind of does not.
[00:26:59] Speaker A: You got to let it cool.
[00:27:01] Speaker B: I don't know about that.
[00:27:02] Speaker A: Yeah, you can toast it, but then you let it cool down a little bit so that it's not, like hot when you put the peanut butter and stuff on. But anyways, that was a thing. I still eat that occasionally.
Occasionally. It's delicious. That's a thing. That's a thing. That's a fluffer butter.
[00:27:19] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a thing.
[00:27:20] Speaker A: Maybe not on a bagel, but it's the same idea. Like whatever or. No, that's what? That's with marshmallow cream.
[00:27:26] Speaker B: Yeah, I was going to say that's marshmallow cream.
[00:27:29] Speaker A: I don't know. The peanut butter and whipped cream or cream cheese thing is, I think something my dad used to do. I can't remember. Anyways, look, all right, I'm from the midwest. We eat weird stuff sometimes.
[00:27:39] Speaker B: That comment was my cousin Melissa. She's also from the midwest.
[00:27:44] Speaker A: As am I. Yeah, well, some of us are more from the midwest.
Some of that weirder stuff that the regional stuff, I think has died out more, especially in the Internet age, as culture has more kind of homogenized a little bit.
[00:28:00] Speaker B: That is true.
[00:28:01] Speaker A: I don't think there's as much of that kind of. And not that there's none, but I don't think there's as much of that weird regional specific little things that people.
[00:28:09] Speaker B: Did because they stopped doing got milk ads.
[00:28:12] Speaker A: So my point was that, yeah, I was thinking maybe somebody a little bit younger from a generation removed from us might not have as much of the.
[00:28:21] Speaker B: Yeah, she's not a full generation removed.
[00:28:24] Speaker A: Fair enough.
[00:28:25] Speaker B: Anyways, anyway, over on threads, we had no comments, but we did get our single vote that we get every time. One vote for the book and zero for the movie. And on Goodreads, we had one vote for the book, zero from the movie, and we have a comment from Miko. And Miko said, I think the fact that I cannot remember a book on this podcast that was harder to find than beastly tells something about its quality.
[00:28:57] Speaker A: Because we've done some. A couple.
[00:28:59] Speaker B: Yeah, we've done some stuff that I felt like was more obscure.
But Miko went on to say, it's virtually absent from my entire country. I was surprised to learn the author was a 40 year old woman. For some reason, I imagined this to be another divergent situation and this to be someone's first foray into writing a novel.
[00:29:19] Speaker A: It does feel like that.
[00:29:20] Speaker B: It does. But maybe stuff like you cannot fall in love online should have been a hint of an older author.
[00:29:27] Speaker A: Fair enough.
Point and evidence. Point number 1.8. Being the host of your podcast here. I guess we didn't fall in love online, but we met online.
[00:29:38] Speaker B: Yeah, we became interested online. At the very least.
I didn't quite get where on the fantasy realism scale the world of the book is supposed to sit. Kind of had similar problems with the world building. It's a little squishy.
[00:29:56] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:29:57] Speaker B: We have chat rooms with mermaids and manimals that Kyle finds with no problem, but otherwise everything seems normal. I think it takes away from the story a bit when the beast has a support group that can actually understand what he's going through, especially as the chat doesn't seem to contribute anything. That is a super good point. I was almost expecting the chat room to be revealed as a role playing.
[00:30:21] Speaker A: That would have been very funny. That would have been a great.
[00:30:24] Speaker B: That would have pleased me so much.
[00:30:26] Speaker A: Yeah, he's just in pouring his heart and soul out, and then it turns out he meets up with one of the. He finally works up the courage to meet up with. He's like, oh, you're actually in New York, too. Oh, we should meet up for coffee. And they go meet up, and it's just like a normal kid, and they're like, wait, oh, you're for been. Because that actually would have been a big, interesting character moment too. You have to deal with the fact that, oh, I really am only happening. I don't know, that might have been interesting in its own way, but it also would have been very funny for it to be.
He ended up on a role playing website.
[00:31:05] Speaker B: Miko went on to say, I think I'm leaning ever so slightly towards the book. By copying the fairy tale. The book has a better through line than the movie. For example, the book handles Kyle's new appearance, the reason for Lindy's kidnapping, and the ending better, but at the same time it's still not good. It's sometimes trying way too hard to bring elements from the fairy tale to the story. However, they still are better done than in the movie. For example, in the book Kyle has pre existing interests like the greenhouse that tie into the creepy romance. Instead of him just copying Lindy's interests. Trying to decide which version was better really made me ask a bunch of new questions. Like is watching you sleep through a magic mirror better or worse than actually following you around from the shadows? I think there coin toss there feel.
[00:31:56] Speaker A: Equally bad to me.
[00:31:58] Speaker B: The movie feels like it took an already mediocre story and due to low budget, messed it up even more. The movie made some good improvements too, but I'll still give my vote to the book. I like etymology, so I had to check the definitions of the names given in the book. There doesn't seem to be any credible source for Adrian meaning dark one. Only a couple baby name websites and Alex Flyn absolutely went to a baby.
[00:32:25] Speaker A: Name website was like, oh, that's what that means. I didn't actually do much research beyond.
[00:32:29] Speaker B: That to confirm it really refers to someone from the adriatic sea that got its name from the illyrian adore. Adore meaning water or sea. And Kyle doesn't mean handsome as the book also states. Sorry GB or BB Kyle, but a narrow strait, even to this day in Scotland seems like while doing research on the various versions of the fairy tale, Alex Flyn disregarded other research.
[00:32:57] Speaker A: It doesn't surprise me.
[00:32:59] Speaker B: Also, I don't know if you noticed while watching, but Kyle has embrace and suck tattooed on his eyebrows in fake.
[00:33:08] Speaker A: Yeah, which is what our other commenter mentioned and was something that I saw and I didn't really pay attention to.
[00:33:14] Speaker B: It because I forgot so much in the movie because it's not like super, like they're not huge or anything. And it is written in this.
Yeah, it kind of looks like an arabic spider web, kind of like a middle earth kind of.
[00:33:31] Speaker A: It reminded me of like a scripty what is the ancient elven for that's ring or whatever kind of black language of Mordor. The black tongue of Mordor? Yeah, or something like didn't. It's funny because I even knew that and I still didn't really pay attention.
[00:33:50] Speaker B: Yeah, it's not like super obvious while you're watching the movie, but if you look up picture of boy, is it obvious that his eyebrows say embrace suck. And I really think they missed an opportunity to give him a unibrow with the word. The.
[00:34:06] Speaker A: Yeah.
Incredible. What was our final vote here?
[00:34:11] Speaker B: Our final tally? Winner was the book with nine votes to the movie's four, plus our one listener who couldn't decide.
[00:34:19] Speaker A: There you go. The movie. No, the book is the winner.
[00:34:23] Speaker B: Yeah, book.
Well, it was pretty decisive victory, but not like.
[00:34:28] Speaker A: Not like a huge, but yeah, pretty. I mean, got more than twice as many. Definitely won handily. We also wanted to mention.
I also wanted to mention we finally watched the Jenny Nicholson video.
[00:34:42] Speaker B: Yeah. This whole episode was a ploy so we could watch.
[00:34:45] Speaker A: We could finally watch Jenny Nicholson video about Beasley. And it was funny because we actually disagreed with quite a bit in it with her. There was obviously quite a few things that we agreed with a lot, but I disagreed. I remember us turning to each other more times than normal, being like, I don't agree with that at all.
I don't remember all.
[00:35:04] Speaker B: She had some criticisms of the performances that I thought were not like. I thought the performances were mostly.
[00:35:10] Speaker A: Mostly okay. And, like, the chemistry. She thought they had, like, terrible chemistry.
[00:35:14] Speaker B: And that I thought their chemistry was fine.
[00:35:16] Speaker A: Yeah. She said something about, like, Neil Patrick Harris being good. And I was like, disagree with that. I thought he was like, again, I think it was more dialogue.
[00:35:24] Speaker B: He didn't have a lot to work with.
[00:35:25] Speaker A: Yeah. There was just a handful of things that I thought it was fascinating to see somebody have kind of a pretty different perspective on it.
[00:35:33] Speaker B: But if you're craving more beastly content.
Yeah, give that a watch. The funnest thing in it, I think, was that she talked about all of the tie in merch that they made, which included a video game. And the discussion of that was.
[00:35:48] Speaker A: That was a lot of hysterical. Yes, that was very good.
All right. We do not have a learning thing segment this week because we had quite a bit of feedback and whatnot. So we're going to get right into our book facts about secretary.
[00:36:03] Speaker D: I have never had a job before, but I can assure you that I am very excited about this opportunity.
[00:36:10] Speaker C: All I need is a typist who can answer the phone.
[00:36:14] Speaker D: You have reached the office of Mr. Edward Gray.
[00:36:18] Speaker C: It's very dull work.
[00:36:20] Speaker D: I like dull work.
[00:36:23] Speaker C: I'm not here.
[00:36:27] Speaker D: How'd it go? I got it.
[00:36:33] Speaker C: This letter has three typing errors in it.
[00:36:35] Speaker D: I'm sorry, I'm.
[00:36:36] Speaker C: Type it again.
[00:36:38] Speaker A: This needs more sugar.
[00:36:40] Speaker C: Six copies of these.
What is wrong with you?
You can get a much bigger voice out of that tiny threat.
[00:36:49] Speaker D: This is the office of Mr. E. Edward Greg.
[00:36:55] Speaker B: Secretary is a short story that appears in american author Mary Gateskill's short story collection Bad Behavior, which was published in 1988. Gateskill is a pretty established writer now, but she struggled to find a publisher for about four years before that first book, Bad Behavior, was published. The collection contains nine short stories which explore themes of sexuality, romance, love, sex work, sadomasochism, drug addiction, being a writer in New York City and living in New York City.
Writers in New York City really do. Like, they really love exploring being a writer in New York City.
[00:37:41] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:37:43] Speaker B: Secretary specifically explores themes of BDsm and psychological aspects of dominance and submission in sexual relationships. It is the only story in the collection that's written in first person perspective, which I thought was interesting.
Gateskill actually revisited Secretary in 2023, according to Wikipedia, not as a sequel, but as a retelling. Like she did. Like, another go at it.
[00:38:12] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:38:13] Speaker B: It was published in the New Yorker in March of 2023, and this second version continues. This is what Wikipedia says continues, with the main character revisiting her employer after several decades.
[00:38:28] Speaker A: That sounds like a sequel.
[00:38:29] Speaker B: Yeah, I have not read this. It sounds like a sequel to me. Unless she rewrote the whole thing and then wrote more at the end, I guess. I don't know. I would be interested to find out more about that, because based on that description, it sounds like a sequel.
[00:38:47] Speaker A: Maybe it's kind of both in the sense that it's the same character going back in like, a modern time, but then a lot of the events are similar, but then examined through a different lens. Maybe something, I don't know, at least.
[00:39:00] Speaker B: Close to what it is. In an interview for the New Yorker, Gateskill explained what the main character feels, saying, quote, the me too movement, though it's not explicitly named, has caused her to look back and think about her experience differently. In a perverse way, what the lawyer did awakened her and made her feel more alive than before or since, but that aliveness came at a heavy price.
[00:39:26] Speaker A: Interesting.
[00:39:26] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:39:27] Speaker A: Because I will say that I know nothing about this story. I don't want to say I know nothing. I know that it's about a secretary who enters into a bdsm relationship with her boss or whatever. Yeah, but that's the extent of what I know, which seems heavy for kind of analysis through that lens of the metoo movement and the power dynamics of that kind of thing and the problematic nature of it and stuff like that. And it sounds like she wanted to kind of come back and reexamine it now.
So that is interesting.
But, yeah, it sounds more like a sequel.
[00:40:02] Speaker B: It does than a retelling.
My last note here. Gateskill has characterized the 2002 film adaptation as, quote, the pretty Woman version. Heavy on the charm and a little too nice.
[00:40:18] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:40:19] Speaker B: Based on some of what I've read, I have not read the short story yet. The movie I saw was described as, like, a comedy.
[00:40:33] Speaker A: Comedy?
[00:40:34] Speaker B: Kind of.
So I'm feeling like, based on what I saw about the short story, I feel like there might be a tonal difference between these could be interesting, potentially.
[00:40:44] Speaker A: Yeah. All right. Well, speaking of that movie, let's learn a little bit more about that. Right now, I'm the type of guy who wants to get married and have a kid.
[00:40:56] Speaker D: If you need any more typing, I can come back later.
[00:40:59] Speaker C: Thank you, Miss Holloway.
[00:41:00] Speaker A: Good night.
[00:41:02] Speaker C: Come into my office.
[00:41:04] Speaker D: Finally.
[00:41:05] Speaker C: This isn't just about typos.
It's your behavior.
[00:41:09] Speaker D: What about my behavior?
[00:41:11] Speaker C: It's very bad.
I'm very fond of you.
[00:41:15] Speaker D: I'm your secretary.
[00:41:16] Speaker C: If we can fully experience pain, we.
[00:41:19] Speaker A: Can live a more meaningful life.
[00:41:21] Speaker D: He's the best.
[00:41:22] Speaker C: Are you doing something sexual?
[00:41:24] Speaker A: There are other ways to show your feelings.
[00:41:29] Speaker C: We can't do this 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
[00:41:32] Speaker D: Why not?
[00:41:33] Speaker A: Secretary is a 2002 film directed by Steven Schenberg, known for the prom, hit me and rupture. It's written by Aaron Cressida Wilson, who wrote chloe. Men, women, and children. The girl on the train, and supposedly is currently working on the live action snow White script with a Gerwig.
[00:41:52] Speaker B: Is that the Disney one, or is that a different.
[00:41:54] Speaker A: No, the Disney's like, they're working on, like, a live action.
[00:41:58] Speaker B: Well, I knew that. I thought it was, like, further along than filming.
[00:42:02] Speaker A: When I say working on, I guess. Yes, that's true. It's not out yet, so I forgot that they were. Yeah, you're right. Because they've been like. She's credited as the screenwriter with Greta Gerwig.
[00:42:11] Speaker B: I got you.
[00:42:12] Speaker A: You're right. I forgot that that was further along.
[00:42:15] Speaker B: Because they did reshoots and there was that whole big hull of.
Well, when. With what's her name, who's playing Snow White?
[00:42:24] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[00:42:24] Speaker B: There was like a whole big thing where she said she didn't like the character and everybody got upset about.
[00:42:30] Speaker A: Right, right, yeah, I forgot that that was much further. Yes, absolutely. Yes. But she apparently co wrote it with Greta Gerwig.
[00:42:37] Speaker B: Interesting.
[00:42:39] Speaker A: The film stars James Spader, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Jeremy Davies, Patrick Bacau, Stephen McCatty, Oz Perkins, Jessica Tuck, Amy Locane, and Leslie Ann Warren. The film has a 78% on Rotten Tomatoes, a 63% on Metacritic, and a 6.9 out of ten on IMDb. And I like to imagine that keeping that IMDb score at a 6.9 out of ten has been a massive group effort, group effort by nice, the fans of this movie.
I like to imagine that it's a fun little game that everybody is mutually engaging in. The film made $9.3 million against a budget of $4 million. Director Steven Schemberg stated that he wanted to show a bdsm relationship that was normal and normalized, and he was inspired by the film my beautiful Laundrette, which he felt normalized gay relationships in the 80s, which I've never heard of that movie.
[00:43:38] Speaker B: Me either.
[00:43:39] Speaker A: But I guess it's about a gay romance. And he thought that was kind of like a pioneering film in depicting gay romance on film and decided that he wanted to do the same for bdsm with this movie.
So then getting into some kind of interesting production. Fun notes. There's apparently one instance while filming this movie where they got the wrong rights for the wrong park to film, and so they decided to just shoot it really quickly. Like, Maggie Gyllenhaal was apparently like, no, we'll just shoot this scene real quick. While some of the crew members distracted the police, who were like, hey, where are your permits? Blah, blah, blah. And they just hurriedly shot the film or shot the scene while that was happening, which seems unlikely to me. But not impossible.
[00:44:25] Speaker B: Yeah, unlikely, but not impossible.
[00:44:27] Speaker A: More impossible today or more unlikely today than 25 years ago or whatever, when this was filmed, but still seems.
I don't know. Because when it comes out, you could still run into issue. I don't know. Anyways, this is a story that I saw. Production designer on this film's name was Amy Danger, who designed. This is a great name. And she designed the office very specifically, like the office set where a lot of this movie takes place, which is in James Spader's office talking kind of about her process and about the movie as a whole. She said with this s m material, we could go into a dark place. But Steve and I wanted the total opposite. Steve's the director. That the nature of this relationship freed the characters to be their natural selves. And also I found some stuff that I didn't include specifics here, that one of the big things they did in the design of this film was that the office has a lot of natural stuff in it. There's lots of bamboo and wood and leather and very natural things to contrast. A lot of times when she's out outside of the office, it's all very artificial and faked to kind of present this dichotomy of these two locations of, like, this is where it's like she's free and blah, blah, blah or whatever, in the office versus in the rest of the world, that kind of thing.
[00:45:45] Speaker B: Interesting.
[00:45:45] Speaker A: So look out for that in the set design. But yeah, they built this whole set of the office specifically for the film. So getting into some IMDb trivia. So who knows how true any of it is. Maggie Gyllenhaal, in an interview about this film, called her role in the film, quote, the first time that I was given a role where I could express something about myself, going on to say that taking this role was an opportunity to, quote, explore something that's on the edge of what I know about myself, but with the protection of fiction. End quote.
So there's a pretty well known poster for this movie, if you've seen it, which is just a woman bending over in a short, uh, like, grabbing her ankles. But Maggie Gyllenhaal has said that is not her. She did not pose for that poster. But apparently, according to her, the person who did pose for it was dating her ex boyfriend, the woman who was dating Maggie Gyllenhaal's ex boyfriend. That's an interesting, a weird, random six.
[00:46:48] Speaker B: Degrees of separation kind of thing.
[00:46:50] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely.
Another fun fact, casting fact. Supposedly, Gwyneth Paltrow was originally cast in the role of Lee Holloway, which is Maggie Gyllenhaal's role.
And then finally getting to a couple reviews, there weren't a ton that I searched down, but I got a couple here. Ain't it cool news said, quote, perhaps there is something bold about saying that pain can bring healing as long as it's applied by the right hand. But even that seems obvious and even normal, thanks to Gyllenhaal. So, praising Maggie Gyllenhaal's performance. And then lastly, I went and found Roger Ebert's review for this film on his website. He gave the film three out of four stars, saying that the film, quote, approaches the tricky subject with a stealthy tread. Sorry, with a stealthy tread, avoiding the dangers of making it either too offensive or too funny. End quote. I went in and read his whole review, or not his whole review, but, like, skimmed through his whole review on his website, and I always forget that so much of Roger Ebert's reviews are just like, nothing.
I'm not trying to criticize, like, so much of his reviews are just like, facts about the movie and aren't really analysis of the on his website, like his written reviews, I think on the tv show and stuff he did, he went into more detail about what he liked, blah, blah, blah. But a lot of his reviews, it's very interesting, are sort of just like a list of facts about the movie, kind of in a way. The first paragraph usually has, like, this line is from the first sentence of the review, and then the final paragraph has also some analysis and his thoughts. And then the rest of it's just like, these are things that happen and people that are in it. And I don't know, they're very interesting. If you've never really sat and read Roger Ebert's reviews, they're kind of fascinating in a way. But yes, that's all we have there for that.
Before we wrap up, we wanted to remind you can do us a giant favor by heading over to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, goodreads, any of those old places, threads, wherever, follow us like us, subscribe to us so we can get your interaction, see what you have to say, all that good stuff. You can drop us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, any of those places. Also, ding, ding, ding. We are on YouTube now. The entire podcast has been published to YouTube with the exception of five prequel episodes that are copyright claimed and thus prohibited, but only in Russia and one in Australia. Most of our audience will be able to listen to every episode, and the rest of our audience will be able to listen to every episode except like five prequels. So, yeah, there you go. It's on YouTube. If that's a way you would prefer to consume our podcast, you can do that. And then finally, if you want to support us, as always, you can head over to patreon.com. Thisfilm is lit and support us there. We'd really appreciate it. And if you support us at the $15 and up level, you get access to priority recommendation. And this one was in fact a priority recommendation from.
[00:49:50] Speaker B: Yeah, this was a recommendation from Matilde.
[00:49:53] Speaker A: There you go. Thank you, Matilde. Katie, where can people watch?
[00:49:58] Speaker B: Secretary well, as always, you can check with your local library or a local video rental store if you still have one of those.
Withstanding that you can stream this with a subscription on tubi movie.
Every week I learn a new streaming service, plex or freebie.
[00:50:23] Speaker A: Also, I believe on just, you don't need a subscription. I believe it's just on like Tubi might have a subscription service, but almost all their content is just for you. Just log on and watch it.
[00:50:33] Speaker B: I'm not going to make a fourth category on here.
[00:50:37] Speaker A: I'm just saying people here stream with subscription. They think that. I think you can just go on Tubi and watch it. I'm just saying I think for free.
[00:50:44] Speaker B: Without signing up or who knows about Moobie?
[00:50:47] Speaker A: Yeah, I don't know about those other ones. I think Plex is similar. Like you don't have to have an account or anything like that. I only know about these because I use them for good bad or bad bad quite a bit because a lot of bad movies tend to be on there.
[00:50:56] Speaker B: But yeah, those are all made up words.
[00:51:00] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:51:01] Speaker B: Otherwise you can rent this for about $4 from Amazon, Apple TV, YouTube, or voodoo.
[00:51:09] Speaker A: Yes, indeed. Yeah, I'm interested to check this one out. So again, I've never seen this movie, but this is one of those ones that anytime you look up, like when we were doing like 50 shades of gray research and stuff during the prequel, this movie comes up constantly for other facts that we'll get into in the episode, which is interesting, which I didn't want to spoil yet about characters and names. I don't know if you know any of the details.
[00:51:34] Speaker B: They may have seen something.
[00:51:36] Speaker A: Yeah, but it seems very clear that this movie was an inspiration for one Erica.
[00:51:45] Speaker B: Erica is truly the gift that keeps on giving.
[00:51:48] Speaker A: But yeah, no, I'm interested. Check this one out, because like I said, it's actually got good reviews. Supposedly a pretty good movie, but yeah, it's supposed to be like the better version of 50 Shades of Gray. Supposedly. We'll be the judge.
[00:52:01] Speaker B: We'll find out.
[00:52:02] Speaker A: We will find out. That's in one week's time. We're talking about secretary. Until that time, guys, gals, I'm Benny palace.
[00:52:08] Speaker B: And everybody else, keep reading books, keep watching movies, and keep being awesome.
