FLICK'N'BEANS
Longtime friends and bandmates Bridget and Wendy review one movie each week over fancy coffees every Sunday morning. Includes lots of swearing, laughing, and dog panting. Sometimes other friends join in.
You'll like this if you like "How Did This Get Made?" or "Unspooled."
FLICK'N'BEANS
EP 65: We Didn't Know How Much Beldams Love to Sew...Buttons
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This week we are talking Coraline, creepy doors, buttons for eyes and eating your soul. So. Much. Fun.
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Foreign.
Wendy:Good morning.
Bridget:I'm Bridget.
Wendy:And I'm Wendy.
Bridget:And this is Flickin Beads. I am super excited. Look at what you made me.
Wendy:It is a ex expresso.
Bridget:You are gonna get sent to the colony.
Wendy:I've been on the quest to learn how to make it. Had one a couple months ago and it was great. And I was like, I need this in my life. And I thought, you know what? Make it even better if I made peppermint mocha.
Bridget:It's so good. And a candy cane in it. It's beautiful.
Wendy:Oh, that was unsatisfying.
Bridget:I don't think we can make it better.
Wendy:So this week we did Coraline, Not Caroline. A movie adaptation of a book. I read the book and then we watched the movie. So I'm gonna try not to be too much of the person that's like, it's different than the book. Because it is very different than the book. But the book is less than 200 pages. And they took some liberties. The premises. There's this beldam and she likes to take children's souls, I guess, to keep herself young. That old classic story. And for whatever reason they don't ever explain it, but it's a perfect way to make this creepy but still kid friendly is that they all have buttons for eyes, which is very, very creepy. But they never show anyone like actually sewing them on their eyes or anything gory like that. But you get the gist when there's a sewing kit. She wants Coraline to sew these buttons on her face so that she can have her soul. So I actually think that's kind of genius. A way to make this world like, so creepy and scary. But it's not violent, it's not bloody or disturbing really in any other way other than she's going to take your soul. I guess there's a couple big differences that I just want to get out of the way first. And then I won't talk about how it's different from the book. Anyway, it's weird because there's no Wybie in the book.
Bridget:Correct.
Wendy:I read that the book is much more lonely. Like, Coraline doesn't have any friends. She has to do everything herself. And it's sort of more of a story of her being brave. And she talks about that a lot. One of the themes is like, being brave is doing something when you're scared. And she keeps telling herself that to get through it. And so it's more of like a self empowerment book. But the movie is kind of more like a friendship story.
Bridget:They needed Wybie in the movie so that she wasn't just talking to herself all the time.
Wendy:It would have been dialogue.
Bridget:You can have an inner dialogue in a book, but you can't really. It would be weird if she were just going around musing and talking to herself.
Wendy:I liked the Wybie character. I think it added some. Oh, man. There's, like, a main character that wasn't even in the book there. The extra stuff they added really did add to the story in the movie.
Bridget:You can get really deep into maybe the meanings or the symbolism of it all. But what do you think it's about? I guess I'm asking because I did read something that it is showing you. An abusive family, a dysfunctional family, which they are.
Wendy:Yeah, absolutely.
Bridget:Of course. She's gonna go and explore a place where she's getting ATT positive attention. Her real parents, pretty much. They're very busy, like normal parents, and ignore her.
Wendy:She's an only child, and they've moved far away from her home and her friend. There's that whole, like, sense of loneliness already because she's isolated.
Bridget:We love that theme in a movie.
Wendy:Of course they're neglectful. They don't know where she is half the time. And anytime that she tries to tell them something, they brush her off because they're busy.
Bridget:But she's bright and curious, and they know she'll find something to do.
Wendy:Yeah.
Bridget:Such as visiting the neighbors.
Wendy:Yes.
Bridget:Who are the best?
Wendy:I love those. Yeah. The ladies that live downstairs. They're two former actresses, and they are done up at all times. Full makeup. Those kind of fashiony robes.
Bridget:Yes.
Wendy:That you would wear in your dressing room. Like, their bodies are so oddly proportioned.
Bridget:They're great. Oh, they're so great. Even the Russian guy. Very oddly proportioned body. As my mother would say, like a rock on toothpicks. Yeah. These sisters, what I liked about their old Hollywood vibe was the marquee lights always flashing around their front door.
Wendy:Yeah.
Bridget:Also reminds me of Beetlejuice. Here lies Beetlejuice. And that marquis going on and on. Attention.
Wendy:I think women of a certain age starting to experience that shift in how people perceive you when you're young and cute and society as a whole, you get the message that you're valued because that's what we value. And then as you get older and you don't fit in that mold, you kind of start to become invisible.
Bridget:Aging Hollywood star.
Wendy:Exactly. Yeah. We all feel that way. This is just an extreme example of people that used to get a lot of attention and as performers, we know, like, that's part of the reason you do it. I love being the center of attention. And then you can't do it anymore because you're old and the jobs aren't there for you.
Bridget:And you're not in a mansion. You're in a tiny apartment living with your sister. Both wishing that life would come back around.
Wendy:Exactly. Just living in the past. And that's sad.
Bridget:Speaking of their wacky bodies and their weird names. Spitz Enforceable. What a great name. I was watching how they did the stop motion stuff a little bit. Fascinating stuff. So they used clay dolls. The guy basically walked the viewer through. Here's how you make one frame. It was when the two sisters are sort of trying to outdo each other, be the better singer. And one comes out and she's in the Birth of Venus. Well, one's a mermaid, one's Birth of Venus and can just appreciate so much that they move. But until you see this guy walking you through one frame, it's unbelievable. But it's not only the minor movements of the individual pieces. And he's got, like, calibration tools for each of them, including one that he slips in the middle of her b****, gives it a little turn, and they raise up a little.
Wendy:So that's how you get the bounce.
Bridget:Yes. And not only that. He says at this point, you see that there are these very bright lights here in front of the stage. He has to lean over those lights to reach that puppet to move her b****. And he has to pull his shirt up. So he's holding his shirt in his teeth because otherwise it sometimes is caught on fire. What a job. Not just that, but this is constructed in such a way that he is sort of beneath some platforms. He has to duck and squat, walk through each of these little areas of the whole thing. He had one thing that was so small, a thing that had to shrink down. Calibration chart 400 times smaller. And he says, I can't see these with my regular glasses, so I have to put these on and this. And then he tink. Just the tiniest thing. He does this. It takes five full minutes to walk through the situation and explain each thing he has to change. That's one frame. And in one second there are 24, really frames.
Wendy:I would think it would be like half a second for a frame. But no, I thought of you specifically when the other mother is making the omelette, because I feel like that would be something that you would like to make stop motion. Like the little hamster Oh, I don't.
Bridget:Know what to make any of it.
Wendy:The felt motion I love. Show her putting all the veggies in the omelet and flipping.
Bridget:I thought you were gonna say it reminded. Made you think of. Because it had mushrooms and scallions. Oh, like they were identifiable.
Wendy:It was a Bridget omelette for sure. I also thought about the stop motion when they were in the garden that was coming to life. In particular, there's that wall of blue flowers that pop out, and there's like, hundreds of them, and you're just like, wow.
Bridget:Yeah. Yeah. Each one a little bit, bit by bit. Would you have the patience to do that?
Wendy:I absolutely would not.
Bridget:Really?
Wendy:No.
Bridget:But what about, like, working in kind of like that?
Wendy:Yeah. I don't.
Bridget:Yeah. I don't know. Not for me.
Wendy:No. A lab especially makes me nervous because you had to be so clean and perfect, and I'm not any of those.
Bridget:Things, you know, I'm not either. Do you remember that car company where they would talk about herky jerky stops and starts, and you bring your car in? That would be what my stop motion animation would look like. Herky jerky. Well, I think I told you about doing the Romeo and Juliet video in high school. I leapt into the air and stopped the camera, and then I ran into the house and hung myself kind of off the balcony and then started again. Herky and jerky. Yeah.
Wendy:I love it.
Bridget:Have you just met me?
Wendy:Yeah.
Bridget:Okay, so back to, like, what's it. Its whole message there? It's pretty complicated.
Wendy:There's a lot of messages. I think initially I would say bravery and self assurance is kind of the main message. Coraline is for forced to be brave in some situations, but she also considers herself an explorer.
Bridget:Yeah. Well, let's talk about that mother daughter dynamic. You've got your regular mother who loves her, who's a normal person, but you can see flaws. Your parents aren't that great when you're a kid and they're not giving you the attention that you want. She's bored. She's in a new place. Parents are busy. Other mother. Remember I said this is like a grass is greener story.
Wendy:There's a line that I think gets repeated a couple times is, if I had everything I wanted, what. What would be the fun in that? If I correct, that would become boring in itself.
Bridget:We hear that message a lot in movies that we love. The thing you always wanted or the love you always wanted is right in front of your face. There's also the question about safety. What Places are safe. What? People are safe. Because when other mother is behind closed doors, you see that evil side start to come out.
Wendy:Yeah. You don't know what's happening like in there. Home dynamic. Wishing for something and realizing it's not what you actually want. That's a good theme for it too.
Bridget:I'll say this about the little door. I had a bedroom with little doors. It's a channel behind that door that is for storage. Stuff of nightmares. How do you not imagine there are little trolls or something coming out of there.
Wendy:Yeah.
Bridget:While you sleep. How do you not imagine that.
Wendy:Yeah. That every kid would. An adult.
Bridget:Yes. Every time I see an old house with those, I don't like it. I'm scared. Our dear friend Jody. Her old house. To access the attic in her bedroom. And there literally was a bat that came out of it.
Wendy:Oh.
Bridget:So I'm just saying it's the fairy tale. It's the forest.
Wendy:Yeah. It's a secret garden. It's.
Bridget:It's everything where you go to have belief in yourself, change. Bravery comes from that Self love, self respect.
Wendy:Can I just interject that every time we say other mother, I think about that Lonely island song with Justin Timberlake. It's Mother's Day. We should f*** each other's moms. This is totally off topic, but I just want to mention the dog.
Bridget:Yeah. Why is that off topic?
Wendy:They have an affinity for schnauzers, Spitz and Forcible. And when you go into their apartment, they have these huge shelves of stuffed past, beloved schnauzers. Oh, that could be me. But I've never kept any of the ashes of my pets. So maybe I won't carry ashes. But not stuff. That's a whole other level. But it reminded me of this story. My grandmother, she was dying. She expressly said, I don't want to be cremated because I don't want my. My aunt to keep me on the mantle with all the dogs.
Bridget:I liked the part where they show her actually making the dog's angel wings, stitching it and fitting it on dog while the dog is still alive. Well, he's. He's not looking too well these days. All the dogs had angel wing sweaters.
Wendy:Yes.
Bridget:Handmade. Nothing particularly gruesome or harmful happens to anybody. But the suggestion that she. What, ate those children. That's what I was gonna say earlier. It was pointed out that for all those meals that she served, the other mother never ate anything except those little chocolate beetles. So something tells me that once the child's eyes are sewn over with buttons, they're free to eat. Does that. What do the buttons mean to you?
Wendy:I don't know. I was trying to come up with the answer for that too. Because while I think it's a genius way for them to be creepy, I don't know where it comes from. In the movie, she has a doll and the doll has button eyes. So I thought maybe it was something about making you a doll.
Bridget:I like that if you have buttons for eyes, you go from a person to a thing. Maybe there's something there that. The other mother is played by Teri Hatcher. And as soon as she starts stretching out and elongating, she looks more and more and more like Terry Hatcher. She's got that potential too, to be a real witch. You know, I mean, she's played roles like that. I'm not saying real Terry Hatcher, but.
Wendy:Yeah, just she don't get on her.
Bridget:Bad side is all I'm saying. I particularly this comes into another craftsperson, fun fact. Clay model of the regular mom with her little turtleneck sweater on and the way that it accentuated that she had some hips and they made her look real cute when she walked and stuff. But I read that of the. I think There were like 30 artists and there were about six months for each. Each puppet, one woman was knitting with knitting needles that were almost as thin as human hair to make one of these little sweaters. I mean, can I just say, those little tiny turquoise booties she was wearing that she ended up throwing. Adorable. They're. They're real things. That's what I. When you look at a cartoon, it's not real.
Wendy:Yeah, it's drawn.
Bridget:These things are actually created and real and knitted. I want that for my job. But then I also want giant laser focused eyes and hands with no arthritis.
Wendy:Right. That would be the kicker.
Bridget:I don't think I can do it.
Wendy:I'm more inclined to want to make something larger. I would look at oversized pencil.
Bridget:You want to make a pencil? Listen, we already talked about this. You did not want to work with giant logs and move wood from one side of the world to the other.
Wendy:I don't want to do that either, but I. Okay, I don't want to do any of it.
Bridget:No, no, no, no. Now I'm teasing you. And you won't progress with your pencil. Tell me your pencil dreams.
Wendy:I just, I've seen it before. Like an oversized pencil in someone's house.
Bridget:Yeah.
Wendy:Other like oversized things. A big toothbrush.
Bridget:FAO Schwartz baby. That was one of the things From Silver Spoon, Ricky Schroeder plays a kid who moves in with his dad, and his dad has just everything. His dad's a huge, big kid himself. Yeah. There was a toothbrush, giant toothbrush and giant pencil just randomly lounging in the corner. There was also a train that you could ride from room to room. So silver f****** spare.
Wendy:Is that a movie or a show?
Bridget:It was a imagine. I just imagine Tommy Wiseau as Silver sp. You go to kitchen. I ride train.
Wendy:Why?
Bridget:Why? Why?
Wendy:I imagine Tommy Wiseau in every role now.
Bridget:Correct. And I know I told you this, but somebody needs to start an animated weekly series called To Mommy's Planet. They could be kids. You're too young to remember when Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland used to be in movies together. Tons and tons. And it was just, like, a thing they just did over and over because they were under contract. But the gist was that they were young teen buddies, and Mickey Rooney would constantly be like, yeah, let's put on a show. And it was basically that they would, by the end of the movie, put on a show. Tommy's world could be Tommy as a little kid. Director, cinematographer, movie writer, making his friends be in movies. Why did I say it? I'm gonna cut it.
Wendy:So cut it out so no one else takes the idea.
Bridget:Tell you, it's Shark Tank every week with me, we gotta talk about the dad at first. Everything she wanted in a dad. Gardening is a great thing to just throw in as a hobby that a kid and her dad would do together. I mean, they did make it their job. Yeah, but still gardening. How sweet is that?
Wendy:Yeah. The paradox, making your passion your job and how it, like, kills it a little. Both the parents are writers and they're writing a gardening book, but Coraline keeps bringing up the fact that they've never had a garden. When are we gonna put the garden in? We moved here so that we could have a garden. That's all you guys have talked about. And then they're too busy writing the book.
Bridget:You write about gardening, but you hate dirt. Yeah, I get it.
Wendy:Yeah.
Bridget:You can get. So with blinders on going through life, you forget what it is that makes you happy or how to bond with your kid. The dad's overall, everything just kind of turns my stomach. The real dad looks like he's got constant adenoid troubles.
Wendy:He's, like, got jaundice.
Bridget:He looks sick. He definitely looks like he's about to start mouth breathing anytime. Yeah, right. And he's got that exaggerated long tech neck posture. Oh, I hate it. And then progressively in the other world, you start to see dad is so manipulated, controlled by other mother. He's nothing. He's almost lobotomized in a way. And in the end, he's actually apologizing for coming after Coraline.
Wendy:How cool was that praying mantis thing? I don't know. It was a atv, I guess you would call it, but it looked like a praying mantis and it crawled like A praying mantis?
Bridget:Yeah, it's like a tractor.
Wendy:That was so cool. It was cool until it started coming up. Coraline to kill her. I liked the position of the cat in the book and the movie. It can talk, or at least Coraline can understand it. In the other world, it is not copied because everyone else is a copy of themselves. But the cat moves back and forth in between, like, dimensions, I guess you would say. And I just. I thought that that friendship and character was cool and that she got away by throwing the cat at the witch. And later she's like, sorry about that. Sorry I threw you, but nobody got hurt.
Bridget:Do you think the cat prefers one environment over the other, such as preferring that it can talk?
Wendy:I don't know. I think it likes the fact that it can go back and forth, and it sort of seemed like it was almost there to kind of keep a balance, you know? Maybe the cat doesn't even go over into the other world unless it has a purpose, like. Like to help protect Coraline. I've heard this idea before. Cats in the real world, they're always in, like, multiple dimensions. That's why they sleep so much, too, and, like, they astral project and why they like to sleep next to you because it, like, protects you from astral projecting your sleep and stuff.
Bridget:I love it.
Wendy:It plays into that, that folklore. They literally do see the world differently because of the way that their eyes are. Like, they can almost see heat and stuff. So they definitely live in different dimension in that way than us.
Bridget:Yeah. They can see phosphorescent, which is pretty.
Wendy:Cool, and makes us have stripes. Yeah, sure. So we have stripes. To cat, we're like Avatar. Avatars don't have stripes. But that's just weird spots.
Bridget:Speaking of blue people, Mr. Bobo, the Russian guy, he is blue because he supposedly was there cleaning up after Chernobyl. The radiation turned him blue.
Wendy:What turned Coraline's hair blue?
Bridget:I hope the same stuff that turned mine blue. He's very cute. Speaking of Dakota Fanning and how adorable she is, the other day I watched Uptown Girls.
Wendy:Oh, yeah, That's a cute one.
Bridget:So cute. She's just as sassy in that movie as she is in this one.
Wendy:She's in a Friends episode when she's young and she is in the house that Monica and Chandler are looking at buying. And Joey goes and talks to her and she's like, upset that they're moving. And then somebody tells her that no girl ever lived there. So he believes it's a ghost, but it was a joke.
Bridget:I love it. I believe it. Well, is there much more?
Wendy:I think that's it for that one. For it.
Bridget:It's a beautiful looking movie and creepy as f***.
Wendy:Yeah, I recommend it.
Bridget:Same. Okay. Did we do it?
Wendy:I think we did it.
Bridget:We flaked some beans. Love you.
Wendy:Love you.
Bridget:Bye. Party. All the party. My.
