Gone Girl

Happy Anniversary! Every marriage is hard work… can books and movies compromise or are they doomed to be like the Dunnes? Gillian Flynn served the world a twist to scare the boys for centuries to come while David Fincher delivered a thriller drenched in NPH’s blood. Yes, it’s Gone Girl. Jim and Kelly play a gendered treasure hunt for redeeming qualities in this best seller/blockbuster. It was a win for most people… but who did it better? 

Kelly takes a page out of Amy’s diary and: 

A) pretends she liked it and says something witty to defend her case 
B) seethes with hatred and tirades about it 
C) ignores the subject matter all together and focuses on Rosamund Pike 
D) fakes her own death and frames Jimmy 

Time to bleed and clean. Bye Felicia!

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Transcript

Gone Girl Seeing Read

[00:00:00] Jim: Welcome to Seeing Red with Chip and Kelly. I'm Jim Cohan.

[00:00:04] Kelly: And I'm Kelly McMurray, though some may know me as amazing Amy.

[00:00:09] Jim: Yeah, not the real Amy. Amazing.

[00:00:12] Kelly: Amazing. Amy, I'm close. Second for diary. Amy, the real Amy is the person that seems to truly emanate out of my body. And how are you doing today, Abel? Andy?

[00:00:24] Jim: I'm doing great. In case you didn't pick up on it today we're gonna be talking about Gone Girl, written by Jillian

[00:00:30] Kelly: Gillian like a fucking idiot. Yeah, I

[00:00:33] Jim: Gillian Flynn. And directed by David Fincher. But before we get into that Kelly, what's going on in the book world? What are you reading? What's going on?

[00:00:41] Kelly: I finally started my Elena Fete book that I had picked up recently in Brook. O Latte in hand. We . Yeah,

[00:00:50] Jim: Never heard of it.

[00:00:52] Kelly: It's a place. I just started the Days of Abandonment, which is one of her shorter novels. She's more famous for her [00:01:00] Neopolitan trilogy, I wanna say. It is the TV show at my brilliant by friend is actually based off of the first novel.

[00:01:08] Kelly: So we've kind of gone over this before, but a Elena Frante is a pseudonym. She does not give a flying shit if you know her or who she is. She is an Italian author, and that is pretty much all we know about her. And I'm already in this book. I think it's awesome. I really like how she's I like her writing.

[00:01:24] Kelly: I just like her writing. And that's saying a lot because it's actually translated. Genre would you say this is in?

[00:01:31] Kelly: it's kind of hard to say. I guess just n new literature, honestly, there's not really a, a. Yeah, I don't know. It's about a woman that kind of just slowly unravels after her husband just says, I'm leaving you. So it's, it's kind of domestic in a lot of ways too.

[00:01:50] Kelly: I don't know if that's it, but yeah, I don't know too much about it. I am just kinda letting down unravel. But other people might know her work too, because she just had one [00:02:00] of her books made into a movie starring Olivia, oh fuck, what's her name? That just won the Olivia Coleman,

[00:02:08] Jim: Okay. Yep.

[00:02:08] Kelly: It's called The Lost Daughter.

[00:02:10] Kelly: That was the one that was just directed by Maggie Gillian Hole. I think it was her first film. But yeah, no, I really

[00:02:15] Jim: Oh, she directed.

[00:02:16] Kelly: Yeah, I think that was, I think that was her directorial debut, though. I might be wrong. But it was, it was a good movie and I'm really curious. So I just got a taste of what she's into and I really, really like it.

[00:02:26] Kelly: Otherwise I just have a few books that I have to read for this show, and there's some good ones coming down the pipe. , maybe . I, we'll find out shortly. A small book news though, is that crying in H Mart is being made into their paper book cover. People might know her because she is the front woman for Japanese breakfast, the band, and she is actually going on tour in March and April across the United States doing signings in honor of the release of the paperback cover of crying [00:03:00] at H Mart.

[00:03:00] Kelly: I'm trying, I think it's Michelle's Honor is that author. I would recommend it super depressing. But it, it's, it's good. It's still good.

[00:03:08] Jim: There's a lot of books being turned into movies this year too.

[00:03:11] Kelly: yes, that actually, that story, which blows my mind, is actually being made into a movie as well, and it's a story about her life and losing her mother. So I don't know how that's going to.

[00:03:24] Kelly: Fair. It'd be really fucking painful, I feel, to write a novel about something really hard that happened in your life, especially losing a parent, watching them kind of disintegrate and then make a movie on it. Like, how do you cast yourself when you're just like, mm. Well, when my mom was dying of cancer, I didn't look like that.

[00:03:43] Kelly: I pictured more of a Michelle Pfeiffer.

[00:03:46] Jim: Yeah.

[00:03:47] Kelly: You know, little

[00:03:49] Jim: Yeah. How do you

[00:03:49] Kelly: really hard on the horn on that one. How do you cast your life? But speaking of movies, what's new? New in the movie world?

[00:03:57] Jim: yeah, so I saw a ton of [00:04:00] movies recently. We had our big movie day last week. Shout out to my movie day people. So me and. Pat Henderson, Brendan Paris, and John Mangini. Go to see as many movies as we can in one whole day, and we got to see five movies. Last Thursday,

[00:04:18] Kelly: That is a full work day,

[00:04:20] Jim: it was the best was it started strong with Avatar at 11:00 AM and when we got out, it was after two o'clock in the afternoon and we realized most people are almost out with work already, and we still

[00:04:35] Kelly: And you had watched one movie,

[00:04:37] Jim: and we still had four movies to go.

[00:04:39] Jim: So then after Avatar we saw the menu, and then we saw the Whale, and then we saw House Party, and then we ended it with Megan and they were all, it was a

[00:04:53] Kelly: What? A Schorge board of films. Like every genre that could be represented there I think got [00:05:00] represented.

[00:05:00] Jim: that's the goal of movie

[00:05:01] Kelly: Oh wow. You guys such renaissance men. I'm so sorry,

[00:05:06] Jim: It's once a year. It's the, it's like a holiday. So we we actually did our rankings on our, on, I posted on the podcast and I think the rankings ended up being between the four of us. We agreed it was, the menu came in first, avatar second, Megan third, the whale fourth, and house party fifth.

[00:05:28] Jim: But they're all very close.

[00:05:30] Kelly: you, do you think like why it rains like that is just based on movie experience or is it based on like a genre you preferred? Or is this like you are just such heightened chil that you've taken this movie's essence and decided what's the best one that achieved its goal? It's soundtrack was on fire every, like what, what, what were the, the calibrations went, went into this, the academy.

[00:05:57] Jim: we're not like you know, looking for the biggest [00:06:00] Oscar winner. It's whatever.

[00:06:01] Kelly: Clearly not. If the whale is like number four, you're like, I don't know. House Party had its redeeming factors over Brendan Frazier's for.

[00:06:08] Jim: House's Party came in fifth, but Megan was above the whale It's, it's all about the movie day experience, so I'm sure I'm going to hear a lot of hate of putting the menu above Avatar, but we just had a blast with the menu. We thought it was hilarious. It was the perfect time of the day. We just had our Shake Shack.

[00:06:30] Jim: So it was like perfect. I'm like picturing you as the humans from Wally. We're all just wearing pajamas and RO and moving on. Hover,

[00:06:42] Jim: That's movie day. You're just bar, you're just barely getting it from theater to the theater. So the menu was great. It was our favorite one of the day Avatar also. Fantastic. It was, it's, it's a long

[00:06:54] Kelly: thought provoking. I'm sure

[00:06:56] Jim: The very thought, you know, the plot thickens [00:07:00] guys, there's an ocean. I.

[00:07:02] Jim: Yeah.

[00:07:03] Jim: And it's, it's a beautiful movie. Very well done. It's mostly cgi, like the most of the movie is cgi. It's, there's

[00:07:13] Kelly: Weatherspoon have anything to do with this movie?

[00:07:15] Jim: The birds looked a little better in avatar than in crawdads.

[00:07:19] Kelly: shots fired ez

[00:07:23] Jim: yeah, I think Luisa Witherspoon needs to take a note from James Cameron on his C g I skills,

[00:07:27] Kelly: If only her woman brain can comprehend

[00:07:31] Jim: there's barely any humans in this whole movie. It's all just, I forget what they're called, the Avatar people, the whole movie. The, the Whale by far is probably the best movie, like acting, writing performance, probably the best movie of the day.

[00:07:49] Jim: We, it was just a movie. I'd probably only watch once.

[00:07:53] Kelly: I mean, but how many Oscar films or Oscar beat films or movies of that kind of like caliber [00:08:00] and intensity, like movies basically that could have been like on a play or made into a play or were adapted from play. How many of those do you really wanna watch more than once?

[00:08:11] Jim: yeah, exactly. And especially, but that's the be that's the beauty of movie day. You get it all in one day, you get a tear jerker, you get a horror, you get a action you get a satire. You know, house party is literally just how many famous cameos can we throw into this one movie?

[00:08:29] Kelly: You know what this, okay, so this is something I wanna ask and talk about very briefly in movie segment time. What is with. Modern comedies. Basically just being a cameo fest. Like it's not just a cameo fest, but like you have to stack your entire cast with like big names for it to be a comedy nowadays.

[00:08:51] Kelly: Like it's never, like no one's leaning on a script here. The yuck, yuck jokes were made 40 years ago and are still in on repeat, but then we [00:09:00] just added every random character actor on the face of the planet. Like, what's Jennifer Coolidge? Throw her in there. You know, like I just feel like comedies aren't funny anymore.

[00:09:09] Kelly: They're just basically name brands,

[00:09:11] Jim: well this was what this movie was made to be

[00:09:15] Kelly: They're just just

[00:09:16] Jim: well, you know, you know, going into it, the whole premise of the movie is it's about they throw a house party at LeBron James' house. So going into it, you know that there's gonna be tons of basketball, N B A players there and all these other famous people there and stuff like that.

[00:09:32] Kelly: it's like a lighter version of uncut gems.

[00:09:35] Jim: kind of very, very different movies.

[00:09:39] Kelly: No one invited Adam Sandler. That is so rude.

[00:09:43] Jim: I mean, he could have been selling some jewelry there. I don't know. Slinging them jewels. Megan was great. Also, one I would probably rewatch, you know, at some point. I thought it was a beautiful tale about a lesbian couple trying to raise a child [00:10:00] Very, very accurate. Too.

[00:10:02] Jim: oh my God. I have to rewatch it with that mindset now

[00:10:06] Kelly: please do. I, I think, I think it just, it really dispelled a lot of stereotypes and opened up a world for, you know, straight people to understand our rivals and tribulations.

[00:10:19] Jim: in the beginning it's like, yeah, we could work together to raid as this kid, and then by the end of it it's like, I'm gonna murder you

[00:10:24] Kelly: exactly. And you know what always breaks us screen time. It's just the screen time , you know.

[00:10:29] Jim: time ruins those lesbian couples.

[00:10:33] Kelly: take away our kids. They're non GMO

[00:10:36] Jim: I'll give you $50 if Caitlin is not on her phone. Right. The

[00:10:40] Kelly: She probably is. Ooh, who would? Who would be Megan in that relationship? Kate or me? I feel like Kate would be the one that created Megan, so I feel like I'm the psycho doll. That's just like a little bit

[00:10:55] Jim: a hard

[00:10:56] Kelly: it, right? I mean, we have such C great characteristics going [00:11:00] into both of those.

[00:11:01] Jim: Yeah.

[00:11:02] Kelly: don't know.

[00:11:04] Jim: You're telling me that? Yeah. I mean, if hon, if we're really being honest, like you're probably the one that would protect the child a little more than Caitlin

[00:11:13] Kelly: this is

[00:11:14] Jim: You'll die

[00:11:15] Kelly: Caitlin, here's your iPad. And I'm like, have you murdered

[00:11:18] Jim: like, Caitlin's, like go read an iPhone. What is, what's her big thing she wants to do? I forget. She wants to like do something and she keeps missing. Is it just work? That's her big thing.

[00:11:30] Kelly: Yeah. Oh, I thought you meant Kate and I was like,

[00:11:32] Jim: No, no, no

[00:11:33] Kelly: Yeah, no, she just wants to like work. She's just like, I don't know, like the attractive female version of like a awkward removed, socially awkward person, you know what I mean? Like just like very STEM sciences, maths. Like I don't really wanna play with people, I wanna make toys and Yeah.

[00:11:54] Kelly: No, I get that. I honor her that what's her name? Oh god. I hit a pitch there. What's [00:12:00] Allison Williams? Yeah. I remember her from girls initially and then she went into like get out and stuff. But

[00:12:07] Jim: Yeah. I don't know her from too much, but she did, she did the part really

[00:12:11] Kelly: yeah, I like her when I see her in something, I'm like, okay. Anyway other film, I mean we also, we've watched a lot of movies cuz you and I saw a band she ve too.

[00:12:21] Jim: oh, also fantastic. Definitely in my, one of my top movies of 2022.

[00:12:26] Kelly: I would say so too, which

[00:12:27] Jim: And the menu.

[00:12:28] Kelly: yeah, , I liked that a lot. What was I gonna say? Oh, so for those of you who wanna hear about our 2022 breakdown, we're gonna be recording soon, our Patreon video.

[00:12:39] Kelly: So you will have to be part of our patron to listen to it, but it'll be our top heads and lows of 2022. I like throwing the lows in there too.

[00:12:46] Kelly: I'm a really

[00:12:47] Jim: biggest letdowns.

[00:12:48] Kelly: so I'm gonna really fixate on that, you know? Oh yeah, those are just fun. It's like celebrities you just hate. They're like, oh, it's wanna vent. So tune [00:13:00] into that. We might be posting clips as well on our social media, so

[00:13:03] Jim: We'll be we'll be posting when we drop those episodes on our social media pages and stuff like

[00:13:08] Kelly: for sure. All right

[00:13:10] Jim: With that, you wanna get into Go girl.

[00:13:14] Kelly: there's no time like the presence.

[00:13:17] Jim: So Kelly, give us like a little overview of Go Girl. What's Go Girl about

[00:13:20] Kelly: We're gonna do this brief ladies and germs because good reeds broke me deeply on the or not. Good reads, good omens, , good omens love some bad taste in my mouth for trying to

[00:13:32] Jim: I just saw you slowly losing your brain.

[00:13:36] Kelly: my god, my eyes literally rolled out of the back of my head and like dice and just

[00:13:41] Jim: But that was me reading Good Omens.

[00:13:43] Kelly: Well, you know what, Jimmy, I'm sorry that not everyone can ate like material into your mouth and make you like a Yeah.

[00:13:52] Kelly: Mm-hmm.

[00:13:52] Jim: Okay. Mm-hmm.

[00:13:53] Kelly: Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn is about [00:14:00] Amy and Nick Dunn. They're a married couple, they've been married for five years and they're just about to celebrate their anniversary, which is on the rocks. Nick is kind of a pretty boy. Amy's a very preppy, spoiled white girl from New York City. They're both white.

[00:14:14] Kelly: I don't know why I felt like she was more white. Seems more

[00:14:18] Kelly: she, yes, yes she does. And she radiates that like the sun. So they are a couple. They had a very magical early two years together, then things kind of started to hit the rocks. They moved back out to Missouri where Nick is from originally, and things kind of go from there.

[00:14:37] Kelly: So, long story short, Amy has gone missing on the fifth, on the day of their fifth anniversary, and Nick quickly goes under suspicion for having possibly murdered Amy days go by. They still haven't hound their body, her body. She has left clues because every anniversary, ever since they had been married, she writes this little treasure hunt for like little love [00:15:00] objects and times and places that they'd spent together as almost a.

[00:15:03] Jim: this treasure hunt is every guy's worst nightmare.

[00:15:07] Kelly: Yeah, we'll get into that. So

[00:15:08] Jim: my God.

[00:15:09] Kelly: so know my wife I'll grow up. So anyway, they have this stupid treasure hunt and Nick is trying to follow the treasure hunt to see if there's any reveals about what sh where she is, what happened to her. And also just because like he, I don't know, feels guilted into it. And Nick is not necessarily a charismatic person.

[00:15:31] Kelly: He has a very, what we will like to call it, punchable face. So he goes through the emotions of trying to find Amy, he's a bro. And it just slowly turns out that he has been cheating on Amy and feels guilty, but is very resentful towards Amy as well because she's just such a perfectionist. Well, as the clues start turning up that possibly Nick did kill Amy, we get to the halfway point of the novel and Amy's [00:16:00] alive.

[00:16:00] Kelly: Amy is alive and well and bitter as hell, and has decided to frame Nick because she also knew about the cheating, and spent a year of their lives together, planning her own murder or faked murder, and then leading all these clues and little evidence all over the place, including faking a pregnancy to make Nick look bad.

[00:16:22] Kelly: And since they're in Missouri, he would go to prison and also have the death penalty put against him. So as that goes on, Amy, who is a succubus of a woman, apparently or a psychopath basically isn't faring too hot on the, the on the run kind of thing. She gets jacked off or jacked off.

[00:16:43] Jim: Yeah. She gets, she gets real jacked off.

[00:16:46] Kelly: very gendered novel and she turns the, she turns the tide by getting

[00:16:50] Jim: There is a point where she does get jacked off

[00:16:52] Kelly: She, she gets robbed. She gets robbed and by two other scumbag much like herself. [00:17:00] And she is forced to call her former quote unquote stalker. This young guy that she went to high school with, who's also filthy rich as she was, and they basically, she reaches out to him and says, I need money.

[00:17:13] Kelly: He's like, come with me to my lake house. I'll hide you for a while. Cuz she fills his ear with the fact that Lake Nick has been abusing her. So he wants to protect her, brings her to this house. Turns out he's kind of creepy and a little bit possessive too. And Amy being the creepy, possessive person she is, decides that there can't be two in one house.

[00:17:32] Kelly: Kills him, makes it look like she has been kidnapped by him and has freed herself from her captor and returns back to Nick. And this is at the time at which Nick has started to apologize publicly to Amy knowing very well that she has framed him to get her back to him. So it's sort of a, she feels like he's kind of, you know, feeling bad about what he's done.

[00:17:52] Kelly: She'll return to him and she has figured out a way to do it without incriminating herself and him. So [00:18:00] happy ending is that she ends up actually becoming pregnant and they both happily ever after.

[00:18:08] Jim: to, they just live together. They're, he's like, this is my prison.

[00:18:14] Kelly: Is he

[00:18:14] Jim: And that's how it ends. It's such a happy ending. Such a happy little ending. On that note,

[00:18:20] Kelly: What did I read guys?

[00:18:23] Jim: read? I love it. I love it.

[00:18:26] Kelly: I I just, All right, I'm gonna dive into this. So

[00:18:32] Jim: you dive in real quick question. What's your, what's your order? Did you see the movie

[00:18:38] Kelly: Yeah, I was just gonna say that. So I will say that, what was it, 2014 that the movie came out? Yeah. So 2014 was when the movie came out and we actually saw it in theaters. And I remember it because we forgot to get tickets and we get to the movie theater and it was sold out cuz it's such a blockbuster.

[00:18:55] Kelly: And then we had to go to Applebee's for two hours and wait, and [00:19:00] then went to Gone Girl. And I remember seeing the movie and being like, I am very pissed off that I just spent two hours at Applebee's to watch this movie, . I didn't like it and I still don't like it and I'm gonna get into it hard.

[00:19:14] Jim: All right,

[00:19:15] Kelly: yeah.

[00:19:16] Kelly: So I saw the movie first, read the book just recently. Did you re-watch the

[00:19:21] Kelly: Yeah, I've actually seen the movie about three times now. Cause I've watched it again re a couple years ago cuz I was just like, did I not like this movie? And I was like, no, I definitely don't like this movie. So this

[00:19:30] Jim: I love when you do that. We, me and Nikki have done that a few times where we're like, I don't think I've seen this movie. And then we start watching it. No, we definitely seen this movie, but I can't remember if I liked it. And then we get to the end and we're like, no, I remember we hated this movie. And it's like, why did I waste all that

[00:19:44] Kelly: on the do not watch list. Yeah. So I've definitely

[00:19:47] Jim: did that with the Mist

[00:19:51] Kelly: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:19:52] Jim: Is that the one where they're stuck in the supermarket and there's the mist outside? Yeah. Horrible,

[00:19:58] Kelly: This is dark ending too. And the, the

[00:19:59] Jim: [00:20:00] Yeah. I can't watch it. I can't watch it.

[00:20:02] Kelly: I kind of like that I have to watch the whole thing through cause I've seen bits and pieces of the mist and I, I do know the ending for the show and I haven't read the book anyway,

[00:20:10] Jim: sorry I went off

[00:20:11] Kelly: so sorry.

[00:20:12] Kelly: Went to better source material. Yeah. So this book came out in 2012. It.

[00:20:18] Jim: Eye roll for our

[00:20:19] Kelly: If I could swallow my eyeballs, I would it hit big. This one, it's not her first novel. I wanna say Sharp Objects was her first, which was also made into the H B O series, starring Amy Adams. Guys, I'm not a Gillian Flynn fan. I don't like her name. I don't like how she pronounces her name. I don't like her

[00:20:42] Kelly: I don't like what she does. I probably don't like how she smells. If I could smell her . Why don't you like these books? Is this your first Gillian Flynn

[00:20:51] Kelly: is my first Gillian film book. I think I might also, so

[00:20:54] Jim: Did you read Sharp Objects or Dark Places?

[00:20:57] Kelly: and like watching Sharp Objects made me feel like I was a [00:21:00] cutter. I did not wanna watch that. It was

[00:21:03] Jim: Eh? The book also makes you feel like you're a

[00:21:05] Kelly: Oh, I rem I know that because when you, Nikki, Kate and I were driving up from South Carolina, Florida once you guys had that on Audible at like eight in the morning and I had listened to this whole diatribe about cutting the letter A into her flesh and I was like, we could just drive off the road right now.

[00:21:24] Kelly: That'd be great. there's a Wendy's. Go right through it. Yeah, no, I, so let me put this in the most composed way as possible. I think there's like a couple prejudices that I have on behalf of it, and I will admit to that. Mostly because I saw the movie first, so I think like a lot of what I don't like about the movie kind of was brought back into the book, so I kind of went into this with a little bit of a chip on my shoulder.

[00:21:49] Kelly: Secondly, I would say that I just don't know if psychological thrillers are a book genre that I really love because I feel like. , particularly in the [00:22:00] genre, especially like thriller and murder mystery and all that, you're always gonna be working with tropes. So you're always gonna have something that, like stereotypes are kind of needed in book series like this because the whole point is that you wanna turn it on its head at some point and that you also kind of need that twist, you need that fodder and you need a, an array of characters to use as like red herrings or to kind of throw them off the trail of like where you're gonna hit them.

[00:22:24] Kelly: So it's like sort of like a bait and switch. And I think it's also, it's typically done in a very popularized way, so that way it can, it's sensational is basically what I'm trying to say. And I don't think that really does it for me because like you go into it, and this book is one of the most gendered books I've.

[00:22:44] Jim: Oh, big

[00:22:45] Kelly: and I don't love that. And I'm gonna get into that a little bit deeper, and I don't wanna come off as like a, a foaming at the mouth feminist. But like I know Gillian Flynn has also been accused of like a lot of like misogyny when it comes into some of her, her novels. [00:23:00] And on top of that, she's actually said that she claims that she's a feminist.

[00:23:04] Kelly: So like, it's sort of like, I don't want to basically shit down this woman's throat. And I think like there is a way for, I'm gonna argue how I do see where she tried to play it, but I think ultimately she used very, very rigid characterizations and caricatures of people and she did it to kind of shock people and she had to point as to what she was trying to make about it, particularly about journalism and how people see themselves from an outside in way.

[00:23:34] Kelly: But I think it's kind of gross to do that when you're using things that are a. Harmful to people and particularly situations where there are victims. So for me, I think that put a really bad taste in my mouth. And I think this is kind of like a borderline offensive on some things, and also extremely ignorant about other stuff.

[00:23:55] Kelly: And I do sense a lot of internalized misogyny that I think a lot of women do [00:24:00] have, where they're just like, they vented out in different ways. So to actually get to the source material here, I would say that I think

[00:24:09] Jim: Well, like we talked about this with craw dads too. You like what you

[00:24:12] Kelly: you, yeah, exactly. And that's what I'm saying. Like, I know people loved this and I,

[00:24:16] Jim: and. We talked about this with Movie Day, for example. I read the menu above Avatar and people were texting me like, you put the menu. Like, what the fuck is that movie? I didn't even know what I was watching. Oh. Above Avatar, which is like one of the biggest blockbusters of the year.

[00:24:34] Jim: And I was like, it all just depends on what you had a better experience reading or watching or whatever.

[00:24:39] Kelly: also what he's trying to say, like, like, because what we're talking about too is like, just because something was super expensive and made by an ex excellent director and I had all this money backing behind it and is literally crafted to be an experience doesn't mean it has to be, you know, the best [00:25:00] movie.

[00:25:00] Kelly: As a matter of fact, you should hold it like, I think the menu a first A list, actors and actresses, and then the, the story is actually something, it's satire. It really is because,

[00:25:10] Jim: that's, that's exactly my point too. Like with Avatar, , I think I'm expecting one of the best movies because the hype is so high and I just, I'm not quite getting the hype of at the avatar thing. I think he's just trying to, and we're going a little off topic, but my point is like, people are gonna enjoy what they're gonna enjoy.

[00:25:30] Jim: Like out of those movies I watched on movie day, everybody's gonna have a top number one, some people will put the whale at number one. Some people put Megan at number one. So it it like this book for example, like I, I really enjoyed it you read it first too, right?

[00:25:45] Jim: I read it first, then saw the movie. Cause I saw the movie was coming out and I was like, oh, this would be a good one to like read real quick before I go see the movie.

[00:25:53] Jim: And I enjoyed the, this was like one of my first [00:26:00] psychological thrillers that I had read and I liked the. The, we'll, we'll probably talk more about this, but just the, after reading this book, I was like, I don't think I could date anyone ever again. I'm scared. I scared.

[00:26:15] Kelly: I was so scared. Which is interesting too, because I think what I read when I was reading about a few of the interviews that Gillian had about it was that, She also was told, so first and foremost she was a journalist and she was a journalist for Entertainment Weekly, lost her job and then moved back out.

[00:26:33] Kelly: She actually had moved back to Chicago before

[00:26:34] Jim: Yeah. There was a lot of similarities between this book and her

[00:26:37] Kelly: Well, she put herself in the character of Nick Dunn, which is really interesting. So we'll talk about that too, because it's a very interesting person to choose. She didn't put herself in Amy's position though, I guarantee you. She took a lot of her angst and anger and like just kind of like this is a psychological thriller because what Gillian did was just shatter her own life and just put fragments of herself in different places.

[00:26:58] Kelly: So like there's the [00:27:00] avenging bitch, there is the perfectionist, there is the near do well, but tries hard cuz they have a good heart kind of person. And it's more interesting that she put herself in Nick's position and that. Okay, so let's also talk about, this is how this book is structured. So the book is, Two, two perspectives.

[00:27:20] Kelly: Okay. So it's, it's from Nick's perspective in a present sense. So it usually is Nick is narrating from the here and now, and he's talking to an unknown audience, which this really annoyed me because you really sensed the unknown audience. Well, you got to the second half of the book. So for the most part it comes from Nick's and then it oscillates between Nick and Amy.

[00:27:40] Kelly: But Amy's character, or at least her chapters, are from her diary entries. So the diary entries can go from when they first met, which is where we start with Amy, and then it kind of goes to their wedding, a few dates and it'll, it'll kind of jump around, but it starts to get a little bit more and more scared because she's talking about her relationship dissolving with Nick, [00:28:00] especially once they moved to Missouri.

[00:28:02] Kelly: So you're kind of, you're, you're being

[00:28:05] Jim: kind of catches up to the point where the big twist

[00:28:07] Kelly: where the big twist happens and.

[00:28:09] Jim: she's still alive.

[00:28:10] Kelly: the tone a hundred percent changes because you're now in present day and I was saying this to Jimmy, I was like, it's amazing. What you have in the first half of the book is diary Amy, who's extremely relatable. You know, this person, the, it's, it's the, exactly what Gil Gillian wants to do is just, you are gonna believe the wife and you're going to, you see that she knows there's something wrong.

[00:28:34] Kelly: She's trying not to be, you know, a hen ping wife, but she's still failing and she's getting more and more frustrated with her husband as she's going and kind of like, I'm kind of getting scared now because he's not reacting well. So you're following along with this and then halfway through, suddenly Amy's alive and it's just every single derogatory term for a vagina has been used in spades for this[00:29:00] 

[00:29:00] Kelly: It's just,

[00:29:01] Jim: When it becomes the real

[00:29:02] Kelly: Tuesday.

[00:29:03] Jim: Yeah.

[00:29:04] Kelly: say? Like everything that you could possibly like, she is just. Raving, raving, pissed, mad, bitter woman. And that tone is, and now she's in the driver's seat. So we're in the present day with her and we're seeing her as she's going in her, you know, posthumous life and fuck

[00:29:24] Jim: but that's what I kind of liked about the first part of this book, like leading up to when the big twist happens is because going into it blind is really interesting because

[00:29:36] Kelly: that experience.

[00:29:37] Jim: because the, because they reference, they kind of try to tell you not to believe Diary Amy for so long because they're constantly saying, this always happens in the movies.

[00:29:50] Jim: The husband's always the one to blame in the book, in the show, in the TV shows. And Nick even says like, I've watched too much TV cop shows to know what to say, what not to say. They've [00:30:00] referenced it so many times and you still like at, you get, you get entranced in the story and you forget that you're just reading a diary that she could have made up.

[00:30:08] Jim: You don't even think of that as an option

[00:30:10] Kelly: but this is the only, this is the only insight that you have to her. And it's interesting that you even have insight to her. So you're going back and forth between these two characters and you're, both of them are unreliable. And you think you have more faith in Amy because this is a past tense and you wouldn't think someone's that insane, that they're gonna write a past tense thing.

[00:30:29] Kelly: That's a lie. You know? Like that's, I can't do half my taxes, much less, you know, like sit down and write an entire seven years of my life in abstract form. So on what you were saying though, so I'm, there's so much going on. So there are these basic things happening here. You're. With Amy, who's revealed to be unreliable.

[00:30:58] Kelly: So now in the second half of [00:31:00] the novel, you don't know who to trust anymore, and I think that's, it could be fun, it could be interesting, but now you don't have any guidance with a human being because this person is not going to feed you information. You feel like you've been, your trust has been broken with her and a lot of what has been said before, now you have to down and see whether or not she is that person And

[00:31:24] Jim: this part of the book, when they transitioned to her being alive, I honestly had to go back and reread it and be, because I forgot the dates. I wasn't really paying in touch to the dates and how many days gone it was happening. So then when it got to the day it said, first day gone, I'm like, I, I didn't pick up on that.

[00:31:44] Jim: She's alive and she's the one doing this. And then I had a moment where I'm like, it all came flushing over that all these diary entries are false or some of

[00:31:55] Kelly: she says that too, and she's like, and this is what I didn't like is, so there's. [00:32:00] What I think Gillian could really use is some editing, because you can tell that she was a journalist. I think like a lot of how she talks is very journalism. When you write an article, you're kind of, you're selling yourself as much as anything else.

[00:32:13] Kelly: So it tends to be a little bit more personable and less formal. And she does a lot of those things where there'll be like little side thoughts and parentheses or exclamation points or, you know, little tiny glib things that you wanna throw in there to make it seem funny and relevant. And I think that kind of shows a lot in certain things that Nick says when he has like his kind of like dissociating moments where he's supposed to look like the worried husband, but he can't, and he's struggling with who he is and then he's kind of like having crazy thoughts at the same time.

[00:32:40] Kelly: And then you have Amy who is just bated insane, apparently and drawn to be that way, but like, that's what I think is kind of offensive Anyway. So, and we will talk about that. Fuck, what was I just saying?

[00:32:54] Jim: were talking about

[00:32:56] Kelly: What I even talking about.

[00:32:58] Jim: the, all the diary [00:33:00] entries might be false and now she's on the run. We're in the

[00:33:03] Kelly: Yeah, so what was I saying was like that Gillian Flynn can use some editing because I think that shows a lot in how she's written these characters and that they tend to, they come off a little bit more flippant. They come off a little bit one dimensional, and it's really hard too, because you've had a very dimensional version of Amy up until this point.

[00:33:21] Kelly: But onto your point about what you were saying, and I think this is the biggest theme in the novel, I also wanna point out a part of the novel. I think she really addresses what she wanted to put out there, but they actually say it in the novel and make multiple references to it is. People are constantly looking at how they're seen by other people.

[00:33:41] Kelly: So they're constantly seeing themselves as labels, as what they look like, as the, as a class, as a role, as the part of the country that they come from. There's a lot of dynamics within this novel that I don't think come off as, as, as well in the movie, let's say, particularly like class differences because Desi, who's the ex [00:34:00] lover that ends up hiding her is just like Amy

[00:34:04] Kelly: And there's a constant sense of like this how much power people of wealth do have and abuse it, and also take it for advan or take it for granted more or less. And then Missouri versus New York City and like, just like, kind of like how divided the country is, but more than anything else is media and how media plays in our lives and our perceptions, not just of, you know, a murder trial, but the fact is that we're so saturated with this all the way anyway, that there isn't even a moment where we can judge things.

[00:34:36] Kelly: By facts and, you know, meeting a person, you've already decided who that person is by how they look like. Nick looks like a douche bag. He, it says it multiple times. And if Gillian Flynn used one more reference to the eighties, I was gonna reach through the book and strangle her. She was just like, he looks like an eighties, preppy, bad guy.

[00:34:56] Kelly: This looks like an eighties ballad. This, I'm like, [00:35:00] shut up in

[00:35:01] Jim: As much as good oman's references, queen,

[00:35:03] Kelly: more

[00:35:04] Jim: Disagree.

[00:35:05] Kelly: Cindy Lauper and stick her up her whatever. I agree. There's actually a, a murder case going on in Massachusetts right now. I don't know if you heard about this, where this guy he's from like, I think it's Cohasset Massachusetts. He googled like all these ways to kill his wife. So during the court hearing, you're just listening to them reading all of his recent Google searches and it's like, yeah, he definitely killed his wife.

[00:35:36] Jim: You know, like there's no way around it, but it's just so interesting. Like she could have Googled these things, but No, in this case he definitely did. But

[00:35:45] Kelly: see that's exactly, this is why I have a problem

[00:35:48] Jim: I love it. I love it. I love

[00:35:49] Kelly: literally just gave ILS an example of like, let's not believe the victim trial. And that's

[00:35:57] Jim: this is this is fiction. This is [00:36:00] real

[00:36:00] Kelly: You know, how much stuff. Okay, so this is exactly the points that are made in the book is that we're fed these kind of storylines and all this other shit, and that we're constantly, you know, playing out the movie version of our own life, the book version of our own life.

[00:36:13] Jim: Kelly, you could say like, I watched Superman and then thought I could go jump off a building cuz I thought I could fly

[00:36:19] Kelly: You know what, Jimmy, I want you to google a few people on the internet because like for instance, what's that guy, the Romanian asshole that tried to bully Freta, Thunberg and then got arrested for literally sex trafficking. Like there are people out there and all they need is to see this example of like, especially like to take something like a rape and to, to make it like girls will go there.

[00:36:46] Kelly: Because you know what's like the shittiest part about this is that Amy is not a feminist character and I, she's not meant to be a feminist character because she is literally contrived and, and blocked in [00:37:00] her own way of being. I want a husband and this is the life I want and this is perfect, and she's not trying to run for president.

[00:37:07] Kelly: This isn't Hillary Clinton's psychopath. This is a woman that is just happy to be. The best. But she wants a man by her side. So she's not necessarily a feminist character, but she's extremely educated, smart, she's outgoing, she's friendly, and all this other kind of stuff. So you're, you're coding her to be what most people would relate to as an independent woman.

[00:37:31] Kelly: So then you're

[00:37:31] Jim: I think she's just supposed to be a villain.

[00:37:34] Kelly: Yeah, but she's, but you're still taking like a very

[00:37:37] Jim: why can't you have.

[00:37:38] Kelly: because why does she have to be, why does she have to do it within ways of like, I have to hurt a man because he cheated on me, so I'm going to pretend to be raped and to murder myself. So she basically is using these like tropes of what happens to women to get to as her only source of power.

[00:37:58] Kelly: She's not, you know, going out [00:38:00] and doing crazy things. Yeah. Any, I know. I just, I think it's just, I think

[00:38:06] Jim: I think the,

[00:38:07] Kelly: And it's so funny cuz they use that term in this book at least twice.

[00:38:12] Jim: I think it's more of just like, let's just make this powerful woman be a villain.

[00:38:17] Kelly: I think there's better ways to do it. I don't think you have to have someone that's, you know, like the girl that cried rape as, you know, the the person that has to be the villain. I just think, I don't think we're evolved enough as a society as to do that. It would be sort of like if the L G B T community still didn't have their rights and they like suddenly people dropped the movie and TV show Dahmer as sort of a, you know, like, hey the gay is not so great.

[00:38:42] Kelly: You know, like there are terrible women out there. There are all these kinds of things, but like, I just don't think she had to be such an amalgamation of everything wrong with a woman. Like she is literally, like if you took like an AI and chose all the most shitty, crazy parts of a woman and downloaded it into her, that would [00:39:00] be exactly what she is.

[00:39:01] Kelly: She is like the female terminator. And I just think it's so shitty to have that as both the highs and the lows of femininity that I

[00:39:09] Jim: Yeah, but how many times has males been that role in

[00:39:13] Kelly: males. Yeah. And I know that's a, that's kind of part of this thing too, is sort of like, I mean, on page

[00:39:19] Jim: The husband always does

[00:39:20] Kelly: exa well, let's pull some facts out of the thing.

[00:39:24] Jim: Yeah, I

[00:39:25] Kelly: not, it's not great guys when you have to say not all men, you know what I mean? Like, you're batting, you're batting a very low average rate here.

[00:39:34] Kelly: And I'm not saying men are evil, I'm just saying like, it's kind of crazy. It's like this, this book seems so much like the Lacy Peterson story. And I think, like, she literally watches, she watched all these true crime things, Gillian, and it was like, it's so easy to hate these guys because they look like doofuses.

[00:39:53] Kelly: They just don't act correctly. And that's the kind of like this whole point that, of this book [00:40:00] is that we are so willing and eager to just accept the story that's constantly fed to us. That we're gonna let the na we, we shape the narrative ourselves. Right. We get a few facts. The guy smiles at the wrong time.

[00:40:12] Kelly: He's not doing this. We don't know his backstory. But this book, and this is why I like the book a lot better than the movie, is that at least you have some kind of background. You have some, some force, some insight into why Nick is not doing the things that he's supposed to because he's so damaged from his own upbringing and he's so cautious to be lights by everybody and he knows what he looks like to people.

[00:40:35] Kelly: But that's another thing too, is that this book, I think is very much like a Greek tragedy in that they are doomed from the very beginning. And the reason why they're doomed is they look a certain way. They are a certain way. And what happens throughout the course of the novel is they actually just fulfill what they.

[00:40:54] Kelly: they, they both tried to run away from who they were and what they're perceived to be, until [00:41:00] finally they were just like, let's act the roles that we were given. And so it's a Greek tragedy in the sense that they were always going to be these people. Nick looks like a douche bag. Ends up being a douche bag, realizes it, and then suddenly becomes a bigger version of himself because he's finally filling in the places that he's been running from.

[00:41:19] Kelly: And Amy brings that out in him. And Amy's the same thing as Amy never had a childhood because she was basically what is it called? And that her parents basically just stole her childhood and marketed and sold it.

[00:41:31] Jim: yeah. So just so, just a little backstory to the, what Kelly's saying too, in case you didn't read or watch the movie. There's the, the parents of Amy made these amazing Amy books that were the perfect child. There were children's books and it was the perfect child growing up

[00:41:46] Kelly: like Amelia Bedilia kind of stuff. Like, you know, like the kid

[00:41:49] Jim: amazing.

[00:41:50] Jim: Yeah, amazing. Amy was always one step ahead of the real Amy. Like she was like the real Amy did, lost, like, didn't make the cut of volleyball, but amazing. Amy did [00:42:00] or whatever, whatever it was. And it was kind of like a psychological breakdown for Amy because she could never live up to amazing.

[00:42:08] Kelly: exactly. And her family like, it's interesting because like in the book, like I think, I think the book does a way better job than the movie of describing how the parents are though at the same time. I never really was completely sure how I was supposed to feel about the parents, because you have someone that is so sick and twisted, like Amy, you're gonna kind of question, was she just a bad C type or did they not raise her correctly?

[00:42:30] Kelly: Because it seems like they were kind of like a closed circuit in themselves because it's kind of nice, but like they were just so in love as a. and like they loved each other. They went through a series of miscarriages and stillbirths that they were, their expectations I think hit all time low and they were just so happy to have a child.

[00:42:47] Kelly: And it turns out that it's an only child, which let's be real. Not a great sign for anybody. you , have you seen a horror movie? It's always the loner kid. So she's just an only [00:43:00] child that her parents were just so in navel gazing basically all the time. And they're psychologists. And here's another thing, people that are products of like two very austere Mm-hmm.

[00:43:16] Kelly: like two therapists and then you become a therapist and then you're just bating insane because all your life, all you've been doing is just analyzing yourself the whole time or have it basically, anytime you have professionals as

[00:43:27] Jim: blend.

[00:43:28] Kelly: there's, there's no room to be human.

[00:43:30] Kelly: And I think on top of that, there's, the expectations are set so high. So I think Amy, you do understand who she is and I thought it was really cool and clever to actually have it, that she was a, the inspiration for a children's story, cuz we all grew up with that kind of shit. Like, you know, and like, I don't know what my parents would've

[00:43:49] Jim: up to an expectation of somebody else,

[00:43:52] Kelly: exactly. And then like knowing that there's this parallel of you and that you have this set of expectations and perfection and that she's [00:44:00] always playacting her life and she just wants to be the best at it. So, honestly, good for her. Like she's a type A personality. Just what, what do you do after the SATs?

[00:44:09] Kelly: I don't know. There's no more bragging rights.

[00:44:11] Jim: this is why I love this pod, because I'm just the dumb movie bro, guy who takes all stories surface level. I was not expected to get this deep into

[00:44:22] Kelly: Well, there's so many references to this.

[00:44:25] Jim: but I'm learn,

[00:44:25] Kelly: interesting.

[00:44:26] Jim: but I'm learning a

[00:44:27] Kelly: Oh, good.

[00:44:28] Jim: that. I didn't, but that's what I'm saying. Like, I, I honestly, I honestly take any story, movie or book at surface level.

[00:44:36] Jim: Like I don't dive that deep into it. I'm like, oh, this lady's crazy. And she framed her husband for murder

[00:44:42] Kelly: that's why it frustrates me because it's sort of like, read the book because at least like what she's trying to do is make you think about how we consume media, which is even more important because this was in 2012 and they make a lot of references to how the internet really changed life in America.

[00:44:57] Kelly: Cuz we're talking about post recession, we're talking [00:45:00] about just different parts of the country and how they struggled with it and just exposure to TV all the time. Like Nancy Grace and her prototype that's in the book. That's kind of like another thing too is like, people like journalism is sensationalism.

[00:45:14] Kelly: It's, it's a sense of like the same as why she's in a thriller, but you want to get people in, you know, you, you're selling something. , how much are we corrupted by people that wanna sell a good story? Because throughout the whole novel, they're constantly like, Nick, you're not doing good for tv, or, the truth doesn't work for tv, or That's not gonna make a good sound bite.

[00:45:35] Kelly: You're really selling yourself in your case. And at one point in time, Nick and Amy are both gonna have to accept who they are because they're being sold. And they, they both thought, I'm done. I'm good. I'm safe. I'm married. There's no more me having to sell myself anymore. But you have to wake up one day and realize that you're a psychopathic woman that needs to win at everything.

[00:45:58] Kelly: And you're stuck in Missouri where no one [00:46:00] gives a shit about meritocracy. And then Nick, who's just sort of like, I'm a good guy because I'm not like my father, but he's just got the word bitch on, repeat on his head, like it's some kind of rap song. So it's just like all these repressed things that people hide and bury because it doesn't look good.

[00:46:16] Kelly: And I think a lot of the allegories that are used in the book are kind of pull that out too, because there's a lot of references to Nick not licking the sun. He constantly refers to it as angry. And it's kind of interesting because a, they do say he's a Leo in the book because he was born in July or August, which

[00:46:34] Jim: Classically,

[00:46:35] Kelly: I will talk about that.

[00:46:36] Kelly: But it's ruled by the son and the son typically has a it's basically related to like fathers a lot. And on top of that, the truth in the light of the day. So the fact that he's constantly avoiding the very thing that he is and his own problems with his dad and the fact that he doesn't wanna admit the truth and bring it out into the sunlight and show who he actually is to a person [00:47:00] and another thing, why would they choose the five year anniversary?

[00:47:03] Kelly: It's wood. What does fire. Wood.

[00:47:07] Jim: I am gonna, I'm gonna leave that for the

[00:47:08] Kelly: Yeah,

[00:47:10] Jim: to

[00:47:10] Kelly: So there's a lot of stuff like and like, and like how incendiary this is and just say, what do you use wood for? If you're not burning it, you technically use it as a weapon and stuff like that. So there, and then it goes into iron. So there's a lot of references to this also.

[00:47:23] Kelly: I'm pretty positive that Amy's a Scorpio. They reference that she's in October. But another thing also very much so five years. Another thing about that is the number five is typically the one about in numerology and tarot about conflict. And interpersonal relationships and issues coming to light.

[00:47:41] Kelly: So I feel like there's a lot of stuff in this book about, like I said, media, gender, how we view gender, how gender works within marriage. Marriage particularly being that bridge between two people, but it comes off as just men are for Mars and women are from Venus. And that's what [00:48:00] frustrates me because even the iconic cool girl passage in both the book and the movie, it makes it seem like, yeah, I get it.

[00:48:10] Kelly: Men have invented this like supposed perfect woman that's out there that farts and burps and eats wings, but still is sexy and wear booty shorts that say booty on it, like the perfect woman. And we're all supposed to roll her eyes at that because we're all supposedly trying to be that. . But here's the thing, can't women like stuff like, can't, can't women like these?

[00:48:34] Kelly: And I know, I know people are gonna be like, well, that's not the point. What I'm trying to say is that in that one scene, especially in the movie, she

[00:48:41] Jim: I think we got your point,

[00:48:42] Kelly: No, but I'm just saying is sort of like what they're, what they constantly say is that women have to go back to men. There isn't always that relationship.

[00:48:51] Kelly: It, it doesn't have to be this back and forth circuit all the time. That like one thing is the yang to the yang, you know?

[00:48:57] Jim: Oh, I agree. Like.

[00:48:59] Kelly: me in this book [00:49:00] because why can't she have her own goddamn hobbies or like, or kind personality? She doesn't, and it, they don't give women with personalities in this book.

[00:49:11] Jim: psychopaths usually don't have personalities.

[00:49:13] Kelly: Are you trying to say women don't have personalities?

[00:49:17] Jim: psychopaths. Men or women's psychopaths usually do

[00:49:21] Kelly: I know, I know. I, I, but here's the part with the book. They never show who she is in the first part, so I don't know who she is. I don't know if she's a psychopath. They just hit me with the, the C word and tell me she's a psychopath. And now I'm supposed to just be like,

[00:49:35] Jim: Yeah, she's a

[00:49:36] Kelly: Yeah.

[00:49:38] Jim: You, you've kind of fucked up. Nick Dunn should have done a little more Google searching on this woman you married.

[00:49:44] Kelly: Anyway, so, so I can at least participate in this battle between book and movie. I definitely, definitely, if you wanna pick up this story in any forum, do the book, because the movie is even more derivative than [00:50:00] the, than the book is. I think the book at

[00:50:02] Jim: We haven't even gotten into the

[00:50:04] Kelly: I'm gonna, I, you can do it in a second.

[00:50:06] Kelly: I wanna talk about this book, book in a good way. I'm gonna tell it in a good way. Hold on. Anyway, the book gives you a little bit more information. There's more allegories, there's a little bit more character development. I think they show a character that actually helps frame the anti-feminist agenda, which is the fact that she had a, a girl that she attacked when she was younger, Amy.

[00:50:28] Kelly: And I think there's just a lot more going on with this book. I think it's slow-paced. Would I recommend this book maybe to certain people that I don't have a lot of faith in What Kelly, this book made you go. You, you got deep into this book.

[00:50:46] Kelly: I know.

[00:50:47] Jim: up on a lot for a book you did not like I was expecting you to be like, this book sucked. And that's my argument. And you, you had a lot of thoughts. This book

[00:50:57] Kelly: I did because I.

[00:50:59] Jim: the whole point [00:51:00] of a book is bringing out your

[00:51:01] Kelly: Yeah. And, and, but if this, maybe what I'm trying to say is I wish this might have been a little bit more well written because I know what she was trying to do. I don't think she stuck certain landings because I think she relied,

[00:51:13] Jim: I get what your point

[00:51:14] Kelly: she, I know what she was trying to do. I think she leaned way too hard into reified.

[00:51:19] Kelly: I ideologies, caricatures. I think Sheila was a little bit too fast and loose with how she writes, and I think there could have been a lot of more tighter parts, including the, I think some parts are necessary. I feel like this book dragged in a lot of places. But it's a, still, it's an interesting story.

[00:51:37] Kelly: I get why it's popular. I understand why people have this, and I, you know, I just, I worry about straight people because this is your lifestyles is basically like, yeah, yeah. But like, I do you guys like each other. Like, do you ever sit down with your partner and say what's, what's on your mind and not think about breaking her skull open and being like, why is it all Etsy inside?

[00:51:58] Kelly: I hate [00:52:00] fucking tool. What is this?

[00:52:02] Jim: Nikki's great. She watches all the Marvel movies with me all

[00:52:04] Kelly: Is she a cool girl, Jimmy? Is that it? Have you just fabricated what Nikki is? And sh right now she's faking a pregnancy so she could get you.

[00:52:13] Jim: she's faking liking Marvel movies.

[00:52:16] Kelly: God bless her for trying

[00:52:18] Jim: Well, she's very excited for our next episode. Let's put it that

[00:52:20] Kelly: Oh, Nikki. No. Get out, get out. Call friends. I can get the getaway car in Craigslist.

[00:52:28] Jim: I'll, I'll watch her movies. I'll watch. Marry

[00:52:32] Kelly: Oh, see, see, see, you're just as bad. You're just Nick Dun 2.0. What are you gonna do? Be

[00:52:38] Jim: We're all Nick Duns. We're all fucking Nick Duns. Welcome to the world Kelly. We're all fucking

[00:52:43] Kelly: Flynn is Nick Dunn. She's like, I'm just, I'm not gonna be a woman in this regard. I'd rather be the guy cuz at least he has a brain and he is stupid. Blah.

[00:52:51] Jim: Well, the goal of this episode is to make Jim look like an asshole.

[00:52:56] Kelly: Jim, you do that all your own. Don't you worry. [00:53:00] You're a Leo too. All right, so

[00:53:02] Jim: episode when I don't show up.

[00:53:05] Kelly: it's just me reading the book aloud.

[00:53:10] Jim: Yeah. By Kelly

[00:53:11] Kelly: my Kelly McMurray. This is my poetry that I posted on anonymously, online,

[00:53:18] Jim: Kelly. I would never do that to you.

[00:53:19] Kelly: whatever.

[00:53:20] Jim: I love

[00:53:21] Kelly: All right. Well, I've said enough and anyway, I can't wait to shit on the movie because that's gonna be a thrilling ride.

[00:53:26] Jim: thank God you're heated tonight.

[00:53:29] Kelly: I know. I'm sorry

[00:53:31] Jim: Well that wraps up our episode. Tune in next time. Can I go into my movie?

[00:53:37] Kelly: Please can't wait. Lemme just,

[00:53:42] Jim: by David Fincher. Came out in 2014 Stars, Ben Affleck, Rosemary Pike, Neil, Patrick Harris, Tyler Perry, Carrie Coon, and Kim Dickens. Carrie needs a Chan.

[00:53:53] Jim: Carrie Dickens plays Bonnie. She's in a couple things.

[00:53:57] Kelly: is she? The one that plays the mom. Oh, she plays, [00:54:00] okay. Okay. I got you.

[00:54:00] Jim: Yeah. She's in a few things. Rotten Tomatoes scores. Ready?

[00:54:07] Kelly: I'm

[00:54:07] Jim: 88 by the critics. 87 from the

[00:54:10] Kelly: Oh God. So it this mark my words. This movie will not age well.

[00:54:19] Jim: it. AIDS is great.

[00:54:20] Kelly: it, it aids it. It has aids.

[00:54:22] Jim: 61 million Budget made 369 million worldwide. David Fincher's highest grossing film

[00:54:30] Kelly: Wow.

[00:54:30] Jim: I think this is one of David Fincher's top thrillers.

[00:54:35] Kelly: I'm, I'm outta here. Okay.

[00:54:38] Jim: walk out because you're not gonna like the rest of my argument here. So,

[00:54:43] Kelly: just go, just go Do quick go.

[00:54:44] Jim: we did, we did do another David Fit movie a couple months ago. We did Fight Club, but he has a lot of great ones. He's done the game he's done. Panic Room. Remember, panic. What a great movie. He does that new show Mind Hunters Girl [00:55:00] with the Dragon Tattoo seven Zodiac, tons of great thrillers.

[00:55:04] Jim: And I, I just think he's a great director for any

[00:55:07] Kelly: And music videos in case you ever wanted to see Madonna's in Vogue.

[00:55:11] Jim: And really this movie, I think could have really gone one of two ways. I really think they could have made it, like, if they really, really wanted to, they could have made it like a tongue in cheek satire, funny, dark comedy vengeful movie.

[00:55:27] Jim: Because the way Amy kind of talks throughout the book, like

[00:55:32] Kelly: Hmm.

[00:55:32] Jim: she comes across as kind of like, like, I'm just gonna be vengeful. I'm just gonna be a vengeful person. You know what I mean? And like I've, I've seen like those revenge movies where like the high school girl is doing revenge on the boy who cheated on her.

[00:55:47] Jim: You know what I mean? They kind of could have, they kind of could have played that way, but I'm kind of glad they went. Like super dark thriller, you know David Fincher actually wanted to pick up this book because he really wanted, he [00:56:00] really liked the book that it's three stories in one three different styles of a story and one story I guess.

[00:56:07] Jim: So when he read it, he looked at it as like part mystery, first part's mystery second part absurd thriller, and third part satire, right when she comes back home. And he wanted to try to make a movie that had all three in one movie, and then it just ended up being a thriller. So like, he, like, can't help himself

[00:56:26] Kelly: and

[00:56:27] Kelly: And then he just failed at that, so he just stuck to one.

[00:56:30] Jim: yeah, I mean, it's, it's great. There are obviously some, some misses from the book but pretty much si similar storyline. Same exact thing. She goes missing. Nick Dunn gets accused then we find out she's actually alive. She is on the run. She loses her money. She meets up with her ex-boyfriend from high school who keep, kind of keeps her at the house.

[00:56:52] Jim: She gets away from him and then, and then goes back to Nick Dunn actually gets pregnant from an old, I guess [00:57:00] sperm bank or something. And then is like, I guess you're with me forever. That's it. But I really think what's interesting is I think it's very difficult to, this book is very, very narrated.

[00:57:13] Jim: Like, you know, their motivations both Amy and Nick throughout the book. You know, what they're thinking at every step of the way, you know, what they're planning on doing. It's very hard to translate that to a movie setting. I think when. You're not doing the narration thing. And I'm glad he didn't.

[00:57:29] Jim: I'm glad he, I'm glad he's not like Ben Affleck's not narrating his part and Roseman pike's narrating her part the whole time. But you have to still show what they're thinking through acting and directing and emotion and stuff like that. Even the diary parts, like, I'm not gonna watch a movie of just Rosen Pike reading her diary.

[00:57:51] Jim: And she really doesn't do that. She reads like the first, like two sentences and then it kind of segues into a clip of the diary. And if you're [00:58:00] going into this movie without reading the book, and you don't know the twist, you actually think these are flashbacks of their life. And it kind of plays a sim similar way to the diary where it's it's tricking the audience to thinking that these are true flashbacks when they're really

[00:58:16] Kelly: Yeah,

[00:58:17] Jim: Some of them are true and some of them aren't.

[00:58:19] Kelly: a, the flashbacks are good because, I mean, if you think about it, that's basically what the, the diary entries were pretty much doing in a book form. It's because in at least the book, you can say certain things in the movie, you have to show it. So a flashback would be basically the same thing as a diary entry.

[00:58:34] Jim: Yeah. And I think it's very hard to trick an audience, and I think he did a great job at that. The I think the casting was fantastic. Fan Affleck as Nick Dunn, I think plays a great Nick Dunn because you kind of want someone who you're not sure if you can trust or not. Like maybe he didn't, maybe he didn't do it.

[00:58:57] Jim: He's good looking,

[00:58:58] Kelly: just saying that people like [00:59:00] strongly don't like . Ben Affleck

[00:59:02] Jim: I, I disagree. I don't

[00:59:04] Kelly: I, I think people,

[00:59:05] Jim: is

[00:59:06] Kelly: I feel like he's a 50 50 for a lot of people. There's like celebrities that people are just like, I don't know about that guy. And

[00:59:12] Jim: that's my

[00:59:12] Kelly: exactly has the, the punchable. But I'm gonna say something too. I think he's very wooden in this.

[00:59:18] Kelly: I think Ben Affleck's range isn't as strong as we think it is. I think he plays a lot of the same role and I think that he just plays who he is, which maybe works in this regard, but I think like there's a little bit. Charisma and dynamic in Nick's character in the book that I think doesn't come through here.

[00:59:35] Kelly: He just comes off kind of like Hoing.

[00:59:40] Jim: Well, he's also a lot, Ben Affleck, I guess, is like huge in this movie because he's he's building up for Batman versus Superman at this

[00:59:49] Kelly: Yeah.

[00:59:49] Jim: So he's like jacked at this point, but I, I totally agree with you. I think he's 50 50. You don't really know about him, but that's exactly what David Fincher [01:00:00] wanted.

[01:00:00] Jim: He wanted somebody that you weren't sure about. And I was reading an article on this movie and David Fincher wanted somebody that had a similar. Life lifecycle in their fame to Nick Dunn's lifecycle, where it's like someone that, you know, at first they liked Ben Affleck. Like everybody liked Ben Affleck, then they love Ben Affleck, then they don't trust Ben Affleck, then they hate Ben Affleck and then they love Ben Affleck again.

[01:00:28] Jim: You know, it's kind of like similar to Nick Dunn's life cycle. Another thing too that Fincher wanted is somebody that could have a s he, he was looking for somebody that had, this is gonna sound weird, but the perfect smile for Nick Dunn and where you don't know if you're trusting his smile or not.

[01:00:45] Jim: And I guess he saw a, a photo of Ben Affleck and he was smiling and he was like, I don't know if I trust that smile. And he does that same smile when he is taking the selfie with the woman that won't fucking leave him alone. And what I like about the movie in that [01:01:00] in the book, he just allows that picture to be taken.

[01:01:03] Jim: And I'm like frustrated with Nick Dunn when I'm reading it. I'm like, why would you, why wouldn't you say something to this woman? Be like, no, just leave me alone. My wife has just

[01:01:11] Kelly: But they said, but they describe that so often. Jimmy is like, he's constantly like, I, like he's, he's so conflicted with his relationships with women that he's constantly doing a double think and like a lot of that is sort of like he constantly is talking himself through, he is like, okay, don't be too mean with her because then you're gonna come off really bad.

[01:01:27] Kelly: So he just kind of goes into neutral autopilot phase. And that is, it's so neutral that people just project emotions onto it. I

[01:01:35] Jim: I I totally agree. I totally agree. And that's what frustrated me with his character. But in

[01:01:40] Kelly: Because he's so hapless and I think that's what frustrated Amy, me

[01:01:44] Jim: In the, yeah, I agree. And in the,

[01:01:47] Kelly: because, because she's a person and I care about her. I'm sorry guys.

[01:01:50] Jim: he . Yeah. In the movie, he actually gets pissed at that woman when she won't delete the

[01:01:55] Kelly: Yeah, they do show that.

[01:01:57] Jim: So I kind of like that little [01:02:00] slight difference,

[01:02:00] Kelly: that? He's more of a dick in the movie? I don't

[01:02:03] Jim: that he's more heated and more emotional and like more pissed. Cuz wouldn't you be, if you, like your partner was accusing you of murder and you knew it.

[01:02:11] Kelly: Well, he didn't know it at that point in time. I think at that point he's, and this is what's so weird, both that book and movie, is that he was constantly weird.

[01:02:19] Jim: but his wife is gone. Like you think he'd be more frustrated and would show him more emotion than he does in the movie? More than he does in the book? I think, yeah. That's just my, my perception of it.

[01:02:27] Kelly: that's like, I, I think it might actually be a failing of the writing because like you never really get why like they do a lot of explaining and Nick does a lot of explaining of why he's not handling it too well. Cuz he's still so resentful of Amy in general. But like you never really understand like why he's so wooden when he's trying to like talk about people and not showing more emotion and he keeps going back and forth and being like, I should feel this way.

[01:02:50] Kelly: But you never feel like he's worried about Amy. I think ever.

[01:02:54] Jim: Right,

[01:02:54] Kelly: or movie and like maybe

[01:02:57] Jim: The movie a little bit more,

[01:02:58] Kelly: but maybe in the second [01:03:00] half

[01:03:00] Jim: supposed to feel

[01:03:01] Kelly: oh, you know why he doesn't care because she's a fricking psycho and he's the only person that knows her and he's just probably relieved right now to be

[01:03:07] Jim: also, I think they, I think they wrote him that way to make it look more like he might have done it and you're still not sure. They were trying to, they're trying to push the narrative that he probably did

[01:03:16] Kelly: Well, they're

[01:03:16] Jim: the first part of

[01:03:17] Kelly: the narrative. That was the whole point of the novel, is that we, we soak up a shitty narrative that's so played it to death literally, that we're just constantly assuming the whole way. So she keeps going throughout the first half of the book of being like, oh, you think you're so smart, you think you know which way this is going?

[01:03:33] Kelly: So that's, that's what she pulls the rug right out from underneath you and says, I was giving you the very thing that you're supposed to not be doing, and by the second half you're like, oh, these are actually the real people and this is the real story about it.

[01:03:46] Jim: And then we have Roseman Pike. I really love Roseman Pike for this role as Amy because you want somebody who's like, beautiful, intelligent, [01:04:00] but also you don't know what's going on in her head. You know what I mean? You don't know what she's thinking. And when Fincher was looking for somebody, he watched, I guess five Roseman Pike vi movies or stuff she was in.

[01:04:13] Jim: And he, you can usually figure out like what's her utility belt, what she's like skilled with and stuff like that, just by watching

[01:04:19] Kelly: Your utility belt

[01:04:21] Jim: Yeah. And and he couldn't figure out Roseman Pike, and that's what he liked about her. So he wanted somebody that would, could portray like this beautiful, smart, rich girl, but also have that dead eye.

[01:04:33] Jim: Into a camera. And I think Rosen Pike can play that well also. I think her narration is fantastic. I think she's super serious, but also really brilliant. And I, I just love her as an

[01:04:45] Kelly: a thing for her in a weird way. I think like more, even now that she's older, which is strange, but like I, like she could just read anything to me. She could read the, she could read a Dr. Brunner's soap bottle to

[01:04:57] Jim: For some reason, to me, she seems [01:05:00] darker. Her narration of her, Amy seems darker than the book. Like the Amy kept doing this. You know, she wrote for that, I forget that magazine where it was like, a, I do this b I do that c I do that, or whatever the personality

[01:05:17] Kelly: quizzes for like magazines.

[01:05:19] Jim: that A, B, C, thanks so much.

[01:05:21] Jim: And it's like, she starts to sound like, kind of like younger than I pictured her. But Rosen Pike is just like more serious, more like, I'm gonna fuck you up. I put her, I put Amy as one of like the top villains as at any movie. Like she's a great villain. I

[01:05:37] Kelly: I just feel like , I feel like we could give her more. I like,

[01:05:42] Jim: was scared

[01:05:43] Kelly: I don't know if I was scared with her because she's just, she is smart and she traps people, but like, I just kind of hate that. I think it's like very, very, very petty domestic stuff, like Aim Higher, Amy. I don't know. But this is what I'm gonna say about the movie.

[01:05:59] Kelly: [01:06:00] I feel like, and I love Rosen Pike. Clearly. I just said that I, I feel like maybe this is a Hollywood thing. I think the characters in this book, I think it's very hard to find a waspy actress that really shows the world of preppy New York City. old money kind of look and I don't know, Rosen Pike is a very heightened British actress.

[01:06:22] Kelly: I feel like Rosen Pike was handed a Shakespearean script and everyone else in this movie was handed like a soap opera because she is doing this like she's on the national theater in London and she is like, no, but she's performing Ophelia while everyone else is like doing Tom Sawyer Go and Huckleberry Finn going down the Mississippi.

[01:06:44] Kelly: I think she kind of is outside of it and it almost makes it ridiculous that by the time the end comes through, she like this movie. Okay, this is how I pictured David Fincher's original ending of this movie. Ben Affleck [01:07:00] is waiting for her to come back and she's covered in blood and he rips off his.

[01:07:06] Kelly: turns around and pulls out a bazooka from behind the doorframe, and then says a line in his best Arnold Schwartzenegger voice like, no, from like predator. Like if they bleed, they will die. And he shoots the bazooka at Amy and it hits her in her eye. And then she terminate her eyes and her head starts to morph back and her eye comes out and she picks herself up to insect.

[01:07:34] Kelly: Sounds kind of like the quiet place. Like, ah. And she shakes it off and, and her neck does this weird thing. And then she crab walks towards , towards Ben Affleck, and that's when the movie cuts

[01:07:46] Jim: That'd be amazing Ending. Okay. I do want to talk about the ending of the book and the movie a little bit, because I honestly think the after she comes back, it drags.

[01:07:57] Kelly: There was 19 endings to this [01:08:00] movie. I was like,

[01:08:00] Jim: it

[01:08:01] Kelly: finish it. Oh my

[01:08:03] Jim: the movie and the book. When they come back,

[01:08:05] Kelly: Oh

[01:08:05] Jim: all right, she's back, and then he's like,

[01:08:08] Kelly: They're just both writing novels.

[01:08:10] Jim: And then I thought, I thought they would just embrace each other and he'd have like dead eye, like, what the fuck am I supposed to do with this abomination?

[01:08:17] Jim: And then it would cut to black, you know what I mean? And like live it, a little mysterious. But then they go on about, she admits that she murdered Desi and she's psycho and he has to get away, but then she has the the baby pregnancy and now he's stuck there. And then they like, let's do a TV interview.

[01:08:36] Jim: And they're like, we're so happy.

[01:08:39] Kelly: It was like the, the world's slowest montage of how this might have ended. I like, seriously take more risks and just cut it. Like this is a movie that you, you shocked us halfway through where she's alive. You shocked us when she kills. The horribly mis casted Neil Patrick Harra Harris . What? [01:09:00] What the hell?

[01:09:02] Jim: wait. Before we, I know you're gonna go down this

[01:09:05] Kelly: Oh, you

[01:09:06] Jim: we do, before we do points for the movie points, points for the slasher fuck fest, that is Neil Patrick Harris. He kills

[01:09:18] Kelly: He, he killed. He killed it. Did it?

[01:09:22] Jim: and then immediately getting a throat

[01:09:24] Kelly: There is

[01:09:25] Jim: just bleeding everywhere.

[01:09:28] Kelly: That was his audition. They were just like, can you bleed like a stuck pig? I don't understand. Who else was in the room when they were like that guy. We need Doogie Hauser. He is clearly the most preppy, handsome, straight man on the face of the planet. Let's take that guy

[01:09:48] Jim: Yeah. I, I have some casting choices for Desi, but,

[01:09:52] Kelly: ooh. Do

[01:09:52] Jim: but real quick they, they somehow, They somehow like changed the [01:10:00] coloring of the movie at that point where they're wearing just white and it's all dark around them and he starts bleeding aggressively all over her. And it's like this dark blood all over her white

[01:10:15] Kelly: like night night. 90. Yeah.

[01:10:19] Jim: And it's, it's just like, they were just like, I just want the glorious fucking scene in this movie because it's not in the book. She just says he

[01:10:27] Kelly: She just drugs him and then like

[01:10:29] Jim: and kills

[01:10:29] Kelly: SLTs his throat. Yeah. I kinds really

[01:10:32] Jim: One of my, one of my favorite lines though, and it happens in the book, and the movie is when Nick Duns clearly fucking over this woman and he's, she's being interrogated by the cops and he's standing outside listening and there's another cop there and he is like crazy how she got away and killed that guy.

[01:10:49] Jim: And he's like, don't you think, how don't you think it's weird how she got a box cutter ? And he's like,

[01:10:54] Kelly: They say that in the book though.

[01:10:56] Jim: Yeah, they do. That's what I said. They said it in both and he said [01:11:00] he was like, you're still a bitter, or something like that. I forgot what the cop says, but it's just so fucking hilarious.

[01:11:04] Jim: How was like he still, that's what's so amazing about the media presence too, and like how they still wanna believe this woman, even though all the evidence says she clearly planted this shit and she still thinks she could get away with it by coming back. That's how much power she has.

[01:11:20] Kelly: just, it's the power of the narrative. Because the thing is that like, you don't like, and that's why it's kind of dangerous, is sort of like the victim holds the cards and the, especially females because they are typically victims, you know, are less repressed or more repressed. So I totally get that.

[01:11:36] Kelly: Like, it's, it's definitely a thing of like, oh, we're just gonna literally let women get away with being bat shit insane because it looks good on TV and we're told to coddle them and their children and you know, it, it, there's, like I said, there's so much gender in this, I can't.

[01:11:52] Jim: So much. It is, it is aggressive, but I just think if I just thought it was a fucking great thriller, I just went in and fucking loved another David Fincher movie.[01:12:00] 

[01:12:00] Kelly: I, I think it was like, yeah, go ahead.

[01:12:02] Jim: I'll give a my tip of the hat now to the book. The one thing I kind of wish they had a little bit more of is the dad, the dad Nick Dunn's dad in the

[01:12:11] Kelly: Mm,

[01:12:12] Jim: you only see him really once in the movie. But I think he's such a crucial character in Nick Dunn's breakdown because in the end of the book, Amy's screwing him over, his sister's screwing him over. The cop is screwing him over and he's like, all these women are fucking screwing me. And then he starts saying that line that his dad says all the time, fucking bitch, fucking bitch, fucking bitch.

[01:12:33] Jim: Over and over again. And he's slowly turning into his dad, which is like his worst nightmare. That's like the last

[01:12:40] Kelly: yeah. Or he was always that. He's just kind of covered it up, you know? And by being smiley

[01:12:46] Jim: So I wish they kind of had the dad in a little bit. My favorite line from the book does make a brief appearance from in the movie and I texted it to you when I read it.

[01:12:57] Jim: I was like, when Amy is saying like, [01:13:00] all they think we do is clean and bleed, that whole thing. And she says it in the book, it's like about a commercial or something like that. She's watching a commercial on tv, but in the movie she's actually cleaning up her own blood. So it's funny cuz she's actually bleeding and cleaning at the same time.

[01:13:16] Jim: Yeah. So I thought that was kind of cute. So cute.

[01:13:20] Jim: But yeah, I, I enjoy this movie. I mean, honestly, if you didn't read the book, it went into this movie. I think you would like it. It's a great thriller. That's my, that's when I recap the movie, I liked it. I'd give it like an 80,

[01:13:32] Kelly: Wow.

[01:13:33] Jim: I really enjoy it. I really, I, I just like psychological thrillers and I think they did a great job.

[01:13:38] Kelly: I do too. I just, I don't, it not for me. As we've gone over again and again and again punching Judy, cuddling over my head with it, but I just think like it's outside of the initial shock of that and then what she kills. Desi, I think this was just a very trophy film. I think it was a really beautifully shot.

[01:13:56] Kelly: I think this was, it was, it's you know what it is? [01:14:00] I can't think of a saying right now, but long story short, , they, they dressed to this up to look better than it is, I think.

[01:14:07] Jim: I'll say too, I, I read three of Gillian Flynn's book, all three Gillian Flynn's books like this dark Places and Sharp Objects. I mean, this is probably the most tamed one, but I, I don't think I like it the best out of the three out of the movie adaptations, it's probably my

[01:14:24] Kelly: yeah. Well, I think that's just because of like how he shot it. I think I, and it, it's, it is very, beautifully shot and in a sexy way. I mean, like even what you have with the poster with Ben Aflac, I think that was a very like it just radiates that sense of like quiet dise and beautiful shots and you know, like this is a deep in internal look at it.

[01:14:47] Kelly: And that's why like, I feel like there are feelings in it because it's just sort of like, yeah, we get it. What marriage is hard. The media feeds us stories. And I just think that there was really clunky parts of it. I [01:15:00] really hated that the ending took 92 times to get there. And I don't think it ever was satisfying.

[01:15:05] Kelly: I thought there was just, yeah, it just, I mean, the book also took way too freaking long and by the end of it I was like, kind of annoyed. I was just like, okay, so where are we going with this? What's your, what's your point now? Because I think she lost it as soon as she said that Amy's crazy and she fakes the whole thing.

[01:15:23] Kelly: What else is there to say, you know,

[01:15:26] Jim: Yeah. You could tell too they were trying to make more of a thriller in the movie than

[01:15:30] Kelly: Then there was source for it.

[01:15:32] Jim: Then there was source for us, because they changed up a little bit different too, to make it more like Nick Dunn might have done it, like the cops show up at the same time

[01:15:40] Kelly: Oh, as the house?

[01:15:42] Jim: house and that what wasn't in the book like that.

[01:15:44] Jim: The cops go to the mall and fi find out about the gun. Nick doesn't even go to the

[01:15:49] Kelly: he does in the book. He does him.

[01:15:51] Jim: the book. He does, but I'm saying in the movie he doesn't. So it's like more, he doesn't, he's less engaged and the cop, it's more of like a [01:16:00] true crime cop detective kind of movie.

[01:16:02] Kelly: And that seems like how it was marketed. I think they, they pulled it off and I think like the shock of like, Amy being like such an, you know, penultimate bad girl is kind of interesting. And I, yeah, I think like people have really kind of welcomed her in as like one of those like. The evil woman out there, but like, yet again, it's just like, is it original?

[01:16:22] Kelly: This is just like shit that they would've told you in like the, the 16 hundreds. You know, like this

[01:16:27] Jim: No, I agree.

[01:16:28] Kelly: original female villain,

[01:16:29] Jim: it's not an original,

[01:16:30] Kelly: you know?

[01:16:31] Jim: like, I just like the story. I just had a good time. I, I think Dark Places is probably my favorite out of the three.

[01:16:39] Kelly: I heard the movie's bad

[01:16:40] Jim: It's so bad. It's so

[01:16:43] Kelly: why it's so bad.

[01:16:44] Jim: I, I, I know IMT movie for most things, but

[01:16:48] Kelly: not there.

[01:16:49] Jim: is way better than that movie.

[01:16:52] Kelly: you heard it here?

[01:16:53] Jim: Sharp Objects is a good show. But I think this is the best. Gillian or Gillian Flynn [01:17:00] adaptation, but not the best book and Dark Places is the best book. But yeah, I guess dark places, I would

[01:17:07] Kelly: Yeah.

[01:17:08] Kelly: I'm kind of curious why, what David Fincher was feeling, because I think David Fincher also took the gendered parts of the novel and really distilled it a lot more. And that's why I think Amy's just so freaking ridiculous in the movie is just because like she is meant to be like kind of ridiculous.

[01:17:25] Kelly: I think they kind of lose that realm of things because she's just like, when she's covered in blood and she's just like, basically neck cracks stands up slowly and is like, ah, blood my monthly offering. You know, like she's just so ridiculous. And

[01:17:40] Jim: it's like a, it's like the fucking joker or something.

[01:17:43] Kelly: yeah. And does David

[01:17:45] Jim: crazy. Psychologically crazy.

[01:17:49] Kelly: whatever means you have blah, but yeah. But does David Fincher like women is my question , does Amy's like his only, I don't think he has a lot of female [01:18:00] roles in a lot of his movies.

[01:18:01] Jim: He's girl with the dragon tattoo.

[01:18:03] Kelly: Yeah, I guess you're kind of right with that, which I, if we're talking about thrillers, I like that book series is a lot more.

[01:18:10] Jim: Panic

[01:18:11] Kelly: Yeah, with Jodi Foster, I guess you're right. I just feel like he kind of uses, he uses like a very usual paradigm for male female relationships

[01:18:19] Jim: in, in seven. It doesn't end up so well with the female charact.

[01:18:22] Kelly: with Gwenny Gwen's Head in the box.

[01:18:23] Jim: But he has a new one coming out this year that I'm kind of

[01:18:26] Kelly: Is it called I Hate Women. They're Crazy

[01:18:30] Jim: It's just called The Killer, which is a classic David Fincher movie I actually, I did see that. It's Michael Fast Bender, right? Yeah.

[01:18:37] Jim: it's gonna be good. I'm gonna go over some casting choices for the movie.

[01:18:42] Jim: These are actual possibly casting choices that they had originally. So for Nick Dunn, originally it was supposed to be John Ham

[01:18:52] Kelly: Oh, my

[01:18:53] Jim: and he didn't do it because man, man wouldn't let him do it at the

[01:18:58] Kelly: Did David Fincher insist [01:19:00] he wear underwear and he just said, I'm pulling out, which was the second time he said it that day.

[01:19:05] Jim: well, I was thinking if he did that shower scene, they would have to do like a wide lens to get that side dick shot.

[01:19:10] Kelly: One just goes panoramic

[01:19:13] Jim: Yeah.

[01:19:14] Kelly: It's a sunset

[01:19:17] Jim: Bradley Cooper,

[01:19:20] Kelly: hello.

[01:19:21] Jim: Jake Gillen Hall

[01:19:23] Kelly: Mm.

[01:19:24] Jim: and James McEvoy. And then I added the Goss, God, Ryan Gosling in

[01:19:28] Kelly: I thought I heard that Ben af not Ben af Brad Pitt was also in rumor for a little

[01:19:32] Jim: Oh, yeah. So that was that was, that were the casting choices. I, I mean, I, John Ham might have been okay, but you gotta have somebody, like I said, that you're not too sure about. And John Ham in my head is just beats his wife from madman. You know,

[01:19:51] Kelly: I don't know. I feel.

[01:19:52] Jim: it's hard to break that John that Don Draper character.

[01:19:56] Kelly: I think like all the, like, and I think same thing with Ben [01:20:00] Affleck, because Ben Affleck is just such a brick of a guy. Like he's just, he, he has that face that the jaw just kind of juts out. Like it's sort of like a, a, a Pixar superhero.

[01:20:10] Jim: how they do that, that cover the cleft chin

[01:20:12] Kelly: If I had a,

[01:20:14] Jim: because he's got the perfect chin for

[01:20:15] Kelly: he really does. And that wasn't really in the book.

[01:20:18] Kelly: I thought, I, I thought that was a nice touch. I was like, okay, I see that. And cuz I do talk about how in the book I thought how Nick AK Lances knows how he looks to the world. So he constantly is trying to counter that. And I think I, I thought that was just better, but they kind of used the chin thing as like a way to bring that in.

[01:20:37] Kelly: Okay. So what are casting choices? I'm curious.

[01:20:40] Jim: So for Amy I had Amy Adams,

[01:20:45] Kelly: Hmm.

[01:20:45] Jim: guess Reese Witherspoon of course obtained the film rights to this, to this book. Classic, classic Reese and then had a meeting with David Fincher to do the movie, and then somehow came out of that meeting. , [01:21:00] she wanted to play Amy and somehow came outta that meeting with David Fincher still doing the movie, but she wasn't Amy, so I don't know how that happened.

[01:21:07] Jim: Wow. Yeah. Supposedly Natalie Portman was in the running for Amy.

[01:21:11] Kelly: think that's a good choice.

[01:21:13] Jim: I thought that was good. Yeah. Charli Theron Emily Blunt and Olivia Wild.

[01:21:20] Kelly: Okay. Are these also your choices for casting?

[01:21:23] Jim: Yeah, I mean, I just, I agree with a lot of these. I didn't come off, come up with anything off the top of my head, but I think Desi could be changed. from Neil Patrick Harris, please. I thought for Desi I was thinking Tom Hardy, like a, like a, he could play a rich bro. Kind of like he's a big guy so he could like, I don't, I don't picture Neil Patrick Harris keeping Amy captive.

[01:21:50] Kelly: Exactly. Or having any desire to do anything with Amy except for maybe decorate a room together.

[01:21:57] Jim: right?

[01:21:57] Kelly: I, but you know what, in the book, like I feel like [01:22:00] he was described and that was another thing that's honestly, Neil Patrick Harris was not well cast and didn't really work in that role, but it is more glaring when you read the book because I think he was described as like, if Nick is supposed to look like the bad guy in a film, an eighties film Desi's supposed to have like that sort of like very old timey like gentleman.

[01:22:23] Jim: Yep.

[01:22:23] Kelly: Leaf looking very handsome, but like good guy looking kind of person. And I couldn't really picture anyone that would do that. I think like what they got right with Neil Patrick Harris is maybe the body type. Like I could see someone that is just like, then this is what I'm saying. I think Hollywood doesn't have people with like those kind of faces working because people with Mayflower money are not gonna be like, I'm gonna do a little, what are those moving picture films?

[01:22:48] Kelly: You know?

[01:22:49] Jim: like Maybe Bradley Cooper for something like that.

[01:22:53] Kelly: He, he still has kind of like that villainous face though, like something like a little bit more innocent. I, I think something like elegant, like, [01:23:00] not Alexander's scars guard, but like, cuz that he's evil looking.

[01:23:03] Jim: no, he's definitely evil. Oh, I just thought of just thought of one.

[01:23:07] Kelly: so sensuous

[01:23:09] Jim: Oh God, I can't think of his name now.

[01:23:11] Kelly: like, kind of like a pretty boy tall, thin, but like not thin in a weak way.

[01:23:18] Jim: What about like Toby McGuire.

[01:23:19] Kelly: I, I really don't like Toby McGuire. Put it back. Put it back where he founded

[01:23:25] Jim: James Franco.

[01:23:26] Kelly: Okay. Okay. We're working with something here. I can definitely see like something

[01:23:29] Jim: I just went down the Spider-Man trend.

[01:23:31] Kelly: Oh my God. Tom Holland.

[01:23:34] Jim: Tom Holland. No, definitely not too kiddish.

[01:23:37] Jim: Any other casting choices? Any other, any comments on that? Casting choices?

[01:23:42] Kelly: I thought, because I think what they didn't get right with Nick is that he's kind of more of like a Midwestern, good looking blonde kind of guy, but still kind of chiseled, charismatic. It just maybe is that, there's something a little off about him. I thought Army hammer, the cannibal of[01:24:00] 

[01:24:00] Jim: Oh God, you can't cast him anywhere now. He wouldn't

[01:24:04] Kelly: and help per, maybe he would. Doesn't that follow his lifespan? his career lifespan.

[01:24:11] Jim: David Fincher did use him in the social network,

[01:24:14] Kelly: know he had to feed him probably like a woman's thigh and he is like, wait till the next film.

[01:24:19] Jim: I was talking about that recently and people had no idea what the hell I was talking about. I was like, this guy's accused of being like a cannibal. And they

[01:24:25] Kelly: And a hardcore rapist and stuff. Like he's just a, and I always didn't like him. I just wanna say that for the record guys. Okay.

[01:24:32] Jim: You ready for my new,

[01:24:35] Kelly: oh, I'm gonna do, okay. So I was thinking for Amy because, so when beautiful pretty like blah blah, blah, blah, blah. But kind of like old money looking very like tight features, but kind of like maybe a little bit crazy in the eyes.

[01:24:47] Kelly: I was thinking Emma Roberts. So Emma Roberts and maybe like, but someone like, kind of like, maybe like old school Roma. Just not Rebecca Romaine [01:25:00] kind of looking interface too. I don't know. I think Natalie Portman was like a, a good pathway to that if we had to talk about anybody off that list. And then I was gonna say for,

[01:25:12] Kelly: I don't think I had anybody else. , I was definitely thinking Emma Roberts, someone with like more of like a small feature kind of face but kind of like a little bit crazy behind the eyes.

[01:25:22] Jim: yeah, that would be good. Who's the girl from community? Is that Emma Roberts? Yeah,

[01:25:28] Kelly: Alison Bree could be too, but I think like she has like a,

[01:25:31] Jim: she could have been a good she could have been a good Andy,

[01:25:37] Kelly: and Andy

[01:25:38] Jim: who is the girl he is cheating on with,

[01:25:40] Kelly: Oh yeah. I didn't like the casting of Andy in the regular, the, this movie. She was kind of,

[01:25:46] Jim: She was whatever. I mean,

[01:25:47] Kelly: really played it

[01:25:49] Jim: role. Also. I wanted to talk, we didn't talk about Andy at all, but I just want a quick note about Andy. I, Nick Dunn and to all the men out there, [01:26:00] do not trust a woman who is willing to sleep with you. Who if, if you're their teacher and you, they know that you're married because they are gonna be crazy too,

[01:26:11] Kelly: I don't think Andy was crazy at all in the book. I think she was just young and impressionable.

[01:26:16] Jim: Yeah. But like she's, but like he can't trust her to keep quiet.

[01:26:22] Kelly: Yeah, because. , she hopefully knows right from wrong . Like, it's like, that's like something too is like, she doesn't get pissed off until he stops answering her calls. And I'm just like, oh God, this is like the, the second worst female stereotype in this book. But I don't, I don't, yeah, exactly. So yeah, no, it's super great.

[01:26:43] Kelly: Andy's not well done anyway.

[01:26:45] Jim: Not well done. Any book recommendations?

[01:26:48] Kelly: There's a play called Oleana by Mammo, and that follows pretty much the same path as this book does where a girl student decides that she's upset with her male [01:27:00] teacher and accuses of something and he keeps bringing her into the office to drop the charges. And each time it gets worse and worse between the two of them until it pretty much becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

[01:27:10] Kelly: So Oleana, I would definitely recommend if you wanna play the gender game?

[01:27:16] Jim: Mm-hmm.

[01:27:17] Kelly: I didn't necessarily like it, but boohooed me. I was also gonna say oh fuck. I had like some book recommendations for this and now it's kind of going out of my head. Probably more Gillian Flynn, because that's kind of what that alley you probably

[01:27:29] Jim: Yeah, they're all very

[01:27:31] Kelly: yeah. Psychological thrillers. Oh shit, guys. I definitely had another book that I wanted to recommend because it's kind of at that same alley you would probably like. There's another psychological thriller yet again. Not at my alley, but the silent patient. I think that would be kind of within the same Uber as people liking the story.

[01:27:49] Kelly: It's another hit that just came out. I'm pretty sure they're gonna make it into a movie. And then, I don't know, just read some feminist literature. Guys, please stop making these people, [01:28:00] these awful characters in this world.

[01:28:02] Jim: We gotta get, we gotta get some some books that Kelly likes here.

[01:28:05] Jim: For movies I had prisoners

[01:28:11] Kelly: Okay.

[01:28:12] Jim: for a psychological thriller shutter Island memento and Girl on the Train.

[01:28:19] Kelly: Girl on the train would definitely be,

[01:28:22] Jim: It's ferry on par with this kind of genre.

[01:28:25] Kelly: exactly.

[01:28:26] Jim: I, so it's funny cuz Girl Gone Girl came out and I liked it. And then I felt like there was like a slew of like all this very similar type of plot story, girl on the train, all these kind of stories that were very similar and, and I kind of got bored of it after a while, but God girl was the first

[01:28:46] Kelly: it did. That was like, it, it's kind of credited with being the first book to the start, the, the quote unquote girl trend in like thrillers and psychological stuff. We were just kind of taking unreliable narration and then basically turning its on its head using a lot of [01:29:00] domestic abuse as a trope for it.

[01:29:02] Jim: Yeah.

[01:29:03] Kelly: Great.

[01:29:03] Jim: We're out of time. I was, I have a new segment that I'm gonna introduce next time if we have time. But do you wanna quickly hear about

[01:29:11] Kelly: Yeah.

[01:29:12] Jim: Because Kelly doesn't know about this. So I have a new segment that I'm trying to introduce called Alien or Robot It's our favorite game.

[01:29:20] Jim: Where as you know, everybody in the world is either an alien or a robot.

[01:29:24] Jim: So I go down a list of our characters from the story and I ask Kelly if she thinks that they are an alien or a robot. All right, you wanna go

[01:29:32] Kelly: I'm gonna play. I'm gonna play. Yeah.

[01:29:34] Jim: All right. Nick Dunn.

[01:29:36] Kelly: Alien, lean

[01:29:38] Jim: Okay. Amy Dunn,

[01:29:40] Kelly: Robot.

[01:29:41] Jim: definitely. Robot. Desi?

[01:29:44] Kelly: Robot.

[01:29:45] Jim: Yep. Correct. Tanner, who is the attorney?

[01:29:51] Kelly: alien, robot.

[01:29:54] Jim: Go.

[01:29:56] Kelly: Alien,

[01:29:57] Jim: Mm-hmm. . Bonnie the [01:30:00] cop.

[01:30:01] Kelly: alien

[01:30:02] Jim: And Andy.

[01:30:05] Kelly: Robot

[01:30:07] Jim: Love it. And that's our segment of Alien or Robot.

[01:30:10] Kelly: Please let me know if I have scored correctly.

[01:30:13] Jim: Yeah, you're on par. Ca Caitlin will judge if these are correct

[01:30:18] Kelly: Oh, good. Kate. Actually late to this movie, so I don't know. She's, she said it was okay.

[01:30:23] Jim: she might be dead to you now.

[01:30:25] Kelly: She is, she is. She is slowly and morphed into a robot before my very eyes,

[01:30:29] Jim: She's slowly morphed into Megan. So that's it for for Gone Girl. Tune in next month when we're gonna be doing the Notebook.

[01:30:38] Kelly: Woo. More high-end literature for all of us crazy kids out there.

[01:30:45] Jim: It's February.

[01:30:46] Kelly: Oh, we are, we are definitely gonna do that. So watch some Ryan Gosling or maybe pick up some Nicholas Sparks and get on the reading Rainbow along with your gal Kelly over here

[01:30:58] Jim: Also don't forget to check [01:31:00] out our social media pages and our Patreon, which we talked about earlier at Seeing Red Podcasts on on Instagram at, on the po, on the Patreon. It's just seeing red. We're gonna be posting some more stuff on there, some episodes coming out. I've already posted a couple of voting favorite book or movie stuff on there.

[01:31:19] Jim: We're gonna be reviewing our favorite movies of 2022 on there, so go check that out when it gets posted. Is there anything else you wanted to add, Kelly, before we wrap up with that? Keep watching books.

[01:31:33] Kelly: and keep reading movies.

[01:31:36] Jim: Bye-Bye.