Topic: Anora CoHost: Catalina Minerva

This week Topher Mac is joined by friend and midnight ballerina Catalina Minerva as they discuss the award winning movie about a stripper who marries a Russian oligarchs offspring.  The movie? Anora.  The podcast?  Can’t miss. 

Follow Catalina on instagram at https://www.instagram.com/ytq_catalina?igsh=MTNzdGFmbzAyc3V6cA==

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Alright, what's up? What's up? This is the part I normally do, some fancy hook where I'll be like, Did you know that uh people say that the motion picture was, you know, like uh created by uh the dickhead that claimed he created electricity? You know what I'm talking about, old dude up north, but he did. He just ran the company that did it, and the real guy, but I didn't do all the research for that.

SPEAKER_04 0:29

Oh, I assumed that was the one you were gonna use.

SPEAKER_03 0:32

Yeah. I I thought it would be better if we just got into it. So we're doing something I don't normally do today. We are batching an episode. So this we're recording this uh just before April starts, and it'll air uh probably in April. And I'm very excited because joining me today is the uh incredibly uh talented and um stunningly attractive. It sounds like I'm making it up, but it's true. Thank you. Catalina Minerva, ladies and gentlemen. Catalina Minerva, hello you're a professional entertainer and exotic dancer.

SPEAKER_07 1:14

Yes, I am.

SPEAKER_03 1:15

You're also a model, you're a very good model.

SPEAKER_07 1:18

Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 1:19

And uh you're the thing you're best at, I think, is pretending that I'm interesting.

SPEAKER_07 1:24

You are interesting.

SPEAKER_03 1:25

Wow, that's that's the rumor. So I thought um, you know, you're somebody uh I'm lucky to have in my life, and I thought you'd be the perfect per. That's a tree over there. I thought you'd be the perfect person to um bring on to talk about a movie that came out in 2024 that I loved. I mean just right, I'm glad that you did the movie, of course, Enora.

SPEAKER_04 1:52

It's beautiful.

SPEAKER_03 1:53

Oh my god, I loved it so much. And you know, between the two of us, we cover enough of the what it's about with real world experiences that 100%. We we we've definitely got some insight to give on this one. All right. Um uh so yeah, all right. So here we are when Raleigh is uh what's the name of the podcast? I bet you're wondering. Yeah. Uh it's Shadows That Shine, a movie podcast. I'm Topher Mac. Again, Joe.

SPEAKER_07 2:27

I was just echoing what you were saying. I thought it would sound cool. A movie podcast, movie podcasts, podcasts.

SPEAKER_03 2:35

Uh so again, Catalina Minerva is sitting beside me, Topher Mac, and we're talking about Enora, the rated art film from 2024. Two hours, 19 minutes is what it clocks in at. All right, it was written and directed by Sean Baker. Sean Baker has done some really uh interesting work. Uh tangerine comes to mind. Um, I I don't have the films in front of me, but he's he's done a lot of Oscar-worthy work. Uh, he delivers every time he that I am aware of, he's delivered every time he's come out the gate. And he really delivered on this one. Stars Mikey Madison, who won an Oscar for her performance. Before, I mean, I know we're gonna get into this, but let me just real quick. Do you think Mikey Madison portrayed a realistic uh dancer?

SPEAKER_04 3:25

I think she did an amazing job, honestly. I feel like I can see myself in her in a lot of ways.

SPEAKER_03 3:32

Interesting, interesting. What's funny is I remember uh I was driving up here because you know, uh I don't live in Raleigh, so I drove up to Raleigh for this, and I'm thinking in my head, I'm like, you know, I know so many girls that are just like Mikey Madison's character, but the person I'm going to interview is not one of them.

SPEAKER_04 3:52

Really?

SPEAKER_07 3:52

You don't think that happened?

SPEAKER_03 3:53

Oh god, no. But we'll get into that later. We'll get into that.

SPEAKER_04 3:57

Yeah, I mean, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:59

May 21st, 2024. That's when it premiered at Cannes. Now, Cannes is the film festival of film festivals, and while it was there, you know what it did?

SPEAKER_02 4:09

It won. It did win!

SPEAKER_03 4:12

Oh, look at you knowing things you didn't know 10 minutes ago.

SPEAKER_07 4:16

Thanks you.

SPEAKER_03 4:18

Uh, it won the Palme d'Or, which is not how you pronounce it, and makes me uh if you want that pronunciation to sound even more embarrassing, I lived in Paris, and that's how I pronounced it. So, anyways, it came to America on October 18th, 2024. Uh, it was a neon release um at the Academy Awards that year. Best picture, best director, best actress, best original screenplay, and best film editing. And I gotta tell you, I think it deserved every single one of those.

SPEAKER_04 4:52

I agree.

SPEAKER_03 4:53

Um, do you want to take a guess? Did you see how much the budget was? Did I tell you it already?

SPEAKER_04 4:59

You had mentioned it was approximately six million.

SPEAKER_03 5:01

Oh, see, I was gonna have you guessed.

SPEAKER_04 5:03

No, I don't remember how much it profited though.

SPEAKER_03 5:06

So with a six million dollar budget, it brought home domestically 20.5 million.

SPEAKER_04 5:12

That's a lot.

SPEAKER_03 5:13

Internationally, 37 million.

SPEAKER_04 5:15

Oh.

SPEAKER_03 5:16

For a total of 57.4 million dollars.

SPEAKER_04 5:19

Holy cow.

SPEAKER_03 5:20

Now I don't know, uh, we don't get to talk about this stuff very often, and you're not a big giant phone nerd like I am. When you deal with box offices, if you want to know if a movie made money, you immediately cut what it made in half.

SPEAKER_04 5:34

Yeah, that makes sense.

SPEAKER_03 5:35

Um, because that's what it's actually bringing in. And then whatever the budget was, go ahead and double that at least. So it's six million dollar budget means they spent at least six million dollars on marketing, but they probably spent more like 20 million.

SPEAKER_07 5:50

Right.

SPEAKER_03 5:50

So in that case, let's just say it cost 26 million dollars for that movie to be in existence in front of our eyes. Even with that, you cut it in half, it still made a boatload of money.

SPEAKER_05 6:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 6:04

So, yeah, that's all the nerdy shit out of the way. Let's get into the meet and titers of this one now.

SPEAKER_05 6:11

Meet and tatters.

SPEAKER_03 6:12

We're talking about uh, so what is Enora? Honora is a movie about an exotic dancer. We open up in a club, and uh we're we're gonna go on a journey with this exotic dancer as she ends up meeting, she's a Russian, but not like Russian Russian.

SPEAKER_04 6:30

She's Americanized Russian.

SPEAKER_03 6:31

Yeah, she's uh she's second generation American, is what we're left to assume. It's not explicitly said, but her her grandmother, possibly the only Russian-speaking member of her family, right? Um, she learned uh Russian for that reason. And I've got nieces and nephews that learn that learn Spanish so they can speak to their Spanish relatives that just speak no English. Um at least they're supposed to, but they ain't learned it. So I that speak in more Spanish and no hablo español, señorita.

SPEAKER_04 7:04

Yo si hablo español.

SPEAKER_03 7:05

Whoa!

SPEAKER_04 7:07

That's right, man. I think it's important that uh exotic dancers are bilingual. I feel like it trilingual. Or trilingual, yeah. You get more profits like that.

SPEAKER_03 7:18

In North Carolina, what other language would would you say if you had to throw a third language in there?

SPEAKER_04 7:22

Oh, that's a good question. I mean, so we have English, Spanish, and probably like Indian.

SPEAKER_03 7:29

I believe that. We got a lot of Indian guests.

SPEAKER_04 7:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 7:33

Um, oh, before we like nerd all the way out into uh not nerd out. Uh before we get into the here's the plot. Just a little background. You you're a dancer. Let's yeah, let's just talk to you for just a minute. Let's let's have a baseline here so we know what we're doing.

SPEAKER_04 7:54

So people know where my opinions are coming from.

SPEAKER_03 7:56

Yeah, that's right. So you have never worked on a film, right?

SPEAKER_04 7:59

I've never worked on a film.

SPEAKER_03 8:01

Okay, there's nothing wrong with that. A lot of the guests I bring in are like stand-up comics who the most they've done is a sketch comedy. Yeah. I'm sure the most you've ever done is as a model, I'm sure that you've shot behind the scenes footage of looking ridiculously hot.

unknown 8:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:16

Um now, so you've been around cameras, you understand the complexity of getting a good shot.

SPEAKER_07 8:22

Correct.

SPEAKER_03 8:23

Um, but uh more than that, you as an exotic dancer are essentially a professional actress.

SPEAKER_04 8:31

Yes, I would agree with that statement.

SPEAKER_03 8:33

You you not only do you um have to pretend that someone's interesting, but you have to improvise in the moment and and you have to yes hand your way through through the evening.

SPEAKER_04 8:44

You have to make it seem genuine, even though sometimes it is, though, you know, it's not all acts, but yes, most of it is but you know what that's what makes great actors.

SPEAKER_03 8:53

I think, in my opinion, if you're somebody listening to this and you're an actor, one of the best things you could do is spend a week going to the strip club. Now bring a little bit of money, but sit back, like sit at the bar and watch what's happening because you're gonna learn how to apply stagecraft in the same sort of way that like a magician can manipulate cards, yeah, but a great magician, like um, what's his name? Jay uh one moment, please. I know the answer. I forgot I'm on airplane note, so I can't look. Ricky J. There we go. See, I remembered it on my own. Ricky J is one of the greatest magicians to ever live. And not only was he a great card magician, but he also did um con work, like sit down at a table and rip people off in card games.

SPEAKER_07 9:45

Right.

SPEAKER_03 9:46

Uh, not something he's proud of, something that he did because he wanted to prove how good of a magician he is.

SPEAKER_05 9:51

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 9:51

Same with the guy that did, if you've never seen this, it's on Hulu. I don't care if they pay me, it's so good, you should watch it anyways. In and of itself, one of the best magic specials ever made, ever. It was directed by Frank Oz. That's right, Yoda himself directed this thing. Uh so bringing it back in from the tangents, um, you end up having to do a lot of improv and a lot of acting, and then when you're on stage, you're you're essentially doing uh expressive dance.

SPEAKER_04 10:26

Yeah, that's why we're called midnight ballerinas because we're dancing.

SPEAKER_03 10:30

Fancy.

SPEAKER_04 10:31

Fancy.

SPEAKER_03 10:32

Uh Mikey, uh, I think her name's Mikey, right? The actress.

SPEAKER_04 10:38

Was it Madison or Mikey?

SPEAKER_03 10:39

Yeah, Mikey Madison.

SPEAKER_04 10:40

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 10:41

Uh Mikey had to learn all this stuff. She had never danced before. And so she she trained the same way that uh Robert Downey Jr. and Chris Evans trained to be Avengers. She trained to be a seducer.

SPEAKER_07 10:56

You have to train to seduce.

SPEAKER_03 10:59

But she did, and she, you know, that's part of how she won the Oscars because you would think looking at her that this woman has been dancing for five years.

SPEAKER_04 11:07

Yeah, especially with just like her charm in the movie came so naturally. It, I mean, you you would think she's been a dancer for forever with the way that she would speak to the guests at the club.

SPEAKER_03 11:19

Well, and yeah, you know, that's one of the things that uh immediately hit me. So you spent a lot of time in a club as a dancer. I have spent way too much time in strip clubs as a consumer of the art form.

SPEAKER_04 11:32

Yes. And you did you feel like when you consumed, it was definitely because of the charm?

SPEAKER_03 11:40

Well, I watched it last year, uh, right after I started taking a break from those kinds of clubs. Um, and I just like the from the moment it starts, I go, yep, that's real. Yep, that's real. Yep, that's exactly how that happens. Oh, oh, I've seen that before. A little snickering between these two, and oh, they're tag teaming this idea over here.

SPEAKER_04 12:00

People feel, I feel like people think that being an exotic dancer is all about the dancing, but it's really not. Dancing is actually like the last of it. Of the priorities of the job. The first priority is the way that you speak, and like how you said you're it's like going to a car dealership. You have to sell yourself and try to explain why you're the best car and why they should buy you, you know.

SPEAKER_03 12:25

Come on down for the forget the price for a moment, RK pretty.

SPEAKER_04 12:29

Forget the price for a moment. Look at all these wonderful amenities.

SPEAKER_03 12:33

Um, and yeah, it's it's great. It's great. Uh ADHD, it's it's the morning. I do these things at night normally. Uh, where are we at? Lithuania. That's not a place.

SPEAKER_07 12:46

Raleigh.

SPEAKER_03 12:47

Raleigh. Well, that must mean that we're doing an episode of Shadows That Shine, a movie podcast.

SPEAKER_04 12:53

Well, speaking of locations, I do work at three different clubs. And I would say that definitely there's a difference as to how you behave in each club and the type of guests that you receive in those clubs.

SPEAKER_03 13:08

Have you worked in a club that is similar to this uh club that that is being portrayed in this? Now, this is portraying a New York City high-end establishment.

SPEAKER_04 13:19

It's so funny because I feel like in the movie it's both high and end and low end. Um it looks really bougie, of course, but the way that the entertainers behave would be something that you would see in a lower end club. And I probably shouldn't say that, but I'm gonna say it because obviously the higher end a club is, the you're gonna get a different kind of entertainer.

SPEAKER_03 13:48

Really?

SPEAKER_04 13:48

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 13:50

I um in New York City, uh, I've I've only been in two strip clubs in New York City, one time at each of them. And I felt like it matched the experience of New York City. So it's interesting that you feel that way. So you're saying now you go to you work at three different ones. I'm guessing they're at three different levels.

SPEAKER_04 14:10

Oh, yes, all three are whole different economic levels, and three different styles. I feel like Honora was way more homey. It honestly looked more like a like a restaurant or lounge setting.

SPEAKER_05 14:21

It did.

SPEAKER_04 14:22

And I don't feel like the clubs that I work at have that lounge setting, and I think it's because of location, like down here in Raleigh, things are so much more strict because it is kind of like a Bible state, but New York is like the nightlife, you know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_01 14:36

So because they're allowed to drink, which is not legal in New York.

SPEAKER_04 14:38

Right, it's not legal here, so they have more of a loungy setting that and like there's just like it's like dark, but there's like nice, um like a nice aura with like the different kinds of lighting, and we don't have that over here. Over here, it looks definitely more businessy like, in my opinion. That can definitely affect how you interact with your guests.

SPEAKER_03 15:02

Well, that's interesting. Um, I know that the one I go to is uh whenever I'm in Fayetteville, I I go to Fayetteville's nightlife scene there, and it it's a little grimy in a way. Like the environment is not yeah, it's not gentlemanly.

SPEAKER_04 15:20

Well, what I saw in Enora like.

SPEAKER_03 15:22

But the women are, yeah. Like the people that dance there remind me of the dancers from Enora, but like a little most of them aren't as forgive me, but like Enora's kind of trashy to me. Yeah, she's like uh Staten Island y sort of trash in my read.

SPEAKER_04 15:37

I get what you're saying. I see that.

SPEAKER_03 15:40

And uh she reminds me, they are specific people I think of when I look at her and hear her talk. One I know one person that looks almost just like her, but she doesn't act like her. And then I know somebody else that acts, I know four girls I could name from that club that act just like her. Yeah, and uh so it was fun to watch that play out. It was also fun to see the economy of storytelling that occurred because in five minutes, maybe, you have seen a very tight overview of this is the uh stripping industry.

SPEAKER_04 16:22

Like this is what they like starting off like right off the bat. They start off with them being like topless in the VIP room doing the laugh dances.

SPEAKER_03 16:31

But even beyond that, like it's just the way that they, you know, we were talking about tactics. Uh a car dealer has their tactics. You're seeing each tactic go through, and you're seeing different variations of those tactics go through. You're also seeing that it's not, you know, like someone who's never been to a strip club might think, oh, it's like a fucking free-for-all brothel in there, and all these girls are just going for what and it's like, no, there's business and structure and strategy to this, which in the first 10 minutes you see that because there's a uh I don't know what they're called because they don't have one at the favorable one, but there's uh a woman in charge of the women.

SPEAKER_04 17:07

Oh, the house mom.

SPEAKER_03 17:09

So there's a house mom who deals with the bullshit drama because it's a strip club and there's gonna be bullshit shit drama. If for no other reason than it's money, but it's money and it's it's like actors deal with rejection all the time, but they got nothing on strippers. Like an actor will get a hundred no's in a month, and a stripper will get a hundred no's in an hour. So that's gonna create tensions.

SPEAKER_04 17:35

Yeah, I think all clubs should have a house mom.

SPEAKER_03 17:37

I agree with you.

SPEAKER_04 17:38

It should be a requirement.

SPEAKER_03 17:39

I agree with you on that. I'm I'm friends with enough dancers that I feel strongly that you're correct. Um, let me just check on this here. We're still recording. It's best to check. Uh okay, so uh yeah, so we get into that, and then you know, backstory of her being a uh being able to speak Russian comes in handy because now we get introduced into the plot. There's this young um uh what's the plot we say?

SPEAKER_04 18:16

His name is Vanya, and he's an obligar. How do you how do you pronounce that?

SPEAKER_03 18:20

He's the son of an oligarch.

SPEAKER_04 18:22

Is it oligarch or obligar?

SPEAKER_03 18:24

Oligarch.

SPEAKER_04 18:25

Oligarch, okay.

SPEAKER_03 18:26

He's the son of a Russian oligarch family or possibly a Russian mob. I'm not sure which of the two they wanted to go with on that, but as somebody who has real world experience of uh being around Russian oligarchs, um it felt a lot more Russian oligarch and a lot less Russian mob. Not that there's a huge difference.

unknown 18:47

Right.

SPEAKER_03 18:48

Uh but he was that I have met someone before who's that spoiled. Yeah, I can do whatever I want, and I everyone around me is a tool for my own amusement.

SPEAKER_05 19:00

Right.

SPEAKER_03 19:00

And right away we see that, and we're starting to have to gauge what kind of story are we in for? Because if you go into this thing blind, you don't know what it is, but it's like, okay, well now we have a very attractive, very capable dancer and a uh young uh how would you describe it?

SPEAKER_04 19:19

He's definitely spoiled. Um, he thinks that he can just buy his way through his mistakes or just buy his way through what he wants.

SPEAKER_03 19:28

How long into the movie did you did it take for you to see that though?

SPEAKER_04 19:33

Um like with the very first dance she gave him, probably. Really?

SPEAKER_03 19:39

It took me a little longer.

SPEAKER_04 19:40

Okay. Well, that also because I'm an entertainer and I can already like it.

SPEAKER_03 19:44

You're used to selecting that's why I'm really glad that you're here for this episode for that reason. Um and um I'm gonna I'm gonna pause real quick. Uh so here's I I would say station identification, but it's a fucking podcast. We're gonna pause for a second, okay? And we're back. This is Shadows and Shine, a movie podcast. I am still Topher Mack, joined with the uh ever uh so lovely uh Catalina Minerva. She hablos the Espaniolas.

SPEAKER_04 20:22

Si hablo the Espanolas.

SPEAKER_03 20:25

Um I you know, I had to check with you before I asked this. Uh this is my time in the episode, right? That these episodes are live to tape. We leave the ums in, we leave the pauses in, and all full of AI, fuck AI. Uh this is your chance to be a fly in the wall for a conversation. And so I don't believe in heavily editing stuff. So I checked with you before I brought this up because it is personal. You used to be married, right?

SPEAKER_04 20:55

Yes, correct. I was married and now I am divorced.

SPEAKER_03 20:59

And I also used to be married, and I also am divorced, which is relevant to this story because both of us were married to foreign people.

SPEAKER_04 21:08

Yes, we were.

SPEAKER_03 21:09

Yes, and so seeing was there anything inside of those dynamics that felt familiar to you?

SPEAKER_04 21:18

A hundred percent. It's like foreign people, of course, they want love like anybody else because we're all human, but they definitely are looking for a little extra on the side that has nothing to do with love. So uh what do you mean?

SPEAKER_03 21:36

I mean like not not the country papers, but the paper papers.

SPEAKER_04 21:44

Paper papers.

SPEAKER_03 21:44

The hey, let's stick around and play papers. Yeah, no.

SPEAKER_04 21:48

Yeah, even though of course yes, you can fall in love and that's a real thing, there's always an underlying uh what's the word I'm looking for? Spanish is getting in the way in my head.

SPEAKER_03 22:00

An underlying there's there's an ulterior motive.

SPEAKER_04 22:03

Yes, ulterior motive that um supersedes the love.

SPEAKER_03 22:08

I will say, like I might have I I might have known in the back of my head whether it was said or not that that would be a way to um have a better chance with my super out of my league ex-wife.

SPEAKER_04 22:23

You can you can learn to love someone that you otherwise wouldn't have thought to be with if you have uh an ulterior motive that you feel you would benefit out of.

SPEAKER_03 22:37

You accidentally catch those films, yeah. Um I I get that, I understand that. Um my ex-wife's a very private person, so I'm not gonna say too too much about her, but she is Russian, which is why this is a film as someone who spent a lot of time recently in strip clubs and someone who uh was around wealthy Russian people. Now I was not around, like my ex-wife is not a child of the oligarch, but um I did meet children of the oligarch through that, and so it was really funny to see how fucking accurate that depiction was. It was like, we have no consequences, we're in America, it's not even a real country. Like, that is absolutely the attitude that some of some of these people have, not all of them.

SPEAKER_04 23:24

My ex-husband wasn't Russian, he was Colombian, but he came from a well-off family as well. So there is still that, like he was still spoiled and he still felt like everything could be bought if you had enough money.

SPEAKER_03 23:40

Now, it took it took Nora a while to figure that out. Did it take you a while to figure that out?

SPEAKER_04 23:46

Were you blinded by I was definitely blinded, but I wasn't, I was not a dancer while I was married. Okay, so that's why it took me longer.

SPEAKER_03 23:56

But even to me, like I'm more interested in the relationship dynamics of someone comes into your life, seems a little too good to be true, but you're like, fuck it, I deserve too good to be true. So I'm gonna be. That's how I felt.

SPEAKER_04 24:06

I agree.

SPEAKER_03 24:07

Um, I met my ex-wife on a film set. Uh that's a public story, I can say that much. And uh she was a model, much like yourself. She was not an exotic dancer, but she was a model. Uh, and she wanted to be an actress, and that that was like her first uh film that she worked on, and she wanted to be so bad, and she's such a hard worker to this day, even through uh uh what was originally a very nasty divorce, we became friends because I have so much respect for her. Very, very hardworking, the opposite of this dim-witty douchebag from the story. Um Vanya. Yeah, Vanya. Um, so it was interesting to see the the differences and the similarities, but yeah, I met her on a film set, and it took me a while to figure out because I was blinded by the beauty and I was blinded by how easily we got along because I get along really easily with foreign people for some reason, uh, especially like foreign women, which is my preference when it comes to dating. Um, and I was looking for connections with that when I'm watching a Nora fall for this guy, and it's like, oh well, there is that sort of fairy taleness of it.

SPEAKER_04 25:24

Yeah, you see all the red flags, and you're trying to like tell Enora through the screen, like that's girl, don't do it, and then you're like, I ain't gonna do it. I did it.

SPEAKER_03 25:33

At first, you think she's the one in control, which I think what I've observed with some of the girls that dance is that happens a lot more than you think, where they think they're in control, and then a switch flips, and someone that thinks that they ain't got feelings for this man, they've been bleeding money out of the reality of you being some version of physically intimate with someone. In her case, she was gone full on prostitute. You know, the girls I know don't, uh I don't think any of the girls I know do that. Um and but it still has an effect because you're building a bond with someone that has a more than friend layer to it.

SPEAKER_06 26:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 26:17

And she fucked up and fell, and then she convinced her she drank the Kool-Aid if it says you're trapped in a cycle of powerlessness, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 26:26

Is what happens.

SPEAKER_03 26:27

Um, so let's see. I how long have you been dancing, by the way?

SPEAKER_04 26:32

I've been dancing, well, let's say in total, two years, but this time around it's a year and a half.

SPEAKER_03 26:38

Two years?

SPEAKER_04 26:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 26:40

You only have danced for two years?

SPEAKER_04 26:43

Me only, it feels like forever.

SPEAKER_03 26:44

No, I just say that because your skill level, you know.

SPEAKER_04 26:48

So my skill actually comes from a background in working in male corrections for eight years.

SPEAKER_03 26:55

Okay, wait a minute. We need a follow-up to that one, please. Excusez-moi, how did uh dealing with male prisoners lead you to being a seductive uh uh good dancer for money?

SPEAKER_04 27:13

I just feel like you adapt to a lot of different personalities, and sometimes you just have to say whatever it is you have to say to make it home the next day because you know, working in prisons is a dangerous place. So you just I don't know, you kind of fenchue your way through conversations, you adapt to different personalities. Um, because you know you're around dangerous people, and even even in the club, you don't know who's who and what's who's done what. Yeah, and uh that can be dangerous too. So you really have to verbally de-escalate um situations, especially when you're dealing with people that are not fully mentally there, especially because they're drinking.

SPEAKER_03 27:55

Um which does compounds.

SPEAKER_04 27:57

Yeah, so anything can be taken the wrong way.

SPEAKER_03 27:59

You have to be very careful with your words, and a lot of your co-workers have mental health disorders.

SPEAKER_04 28:05

Um I will not confirm or deny that.

SPEAKER_03 28:07

I I'm saying that that's anything. I made the observation. It's a a great way for uh it's a great career pathway for a woman who has mental health problems to to build themselves up in the world. That's one of the reasons I'm such a pro gentleman's club. If it's run right, like I don't like when they got like Weinstein-y types run in the place, I fucking hate that.

SPEAKER_04 28:31

I just think it's ironic because I feel like women that have mental health um concerns working in the industry, it does both things, it can build you up, but then when you get rejected a certain amount of times or rejected by a guest whom you find attractive or something like that, it can actually wear you down and do the complete opposite.

SPEAKER_03 28:51

Well, I know we're talking about movies, but I want to follow up on that. So then girls will find the men attractive sometimes and get rejected.

SPEAKER_04 28:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 29:00

Shit.

SPEAKER_04 29:01

It's like it happens to all of us. Like it just like anywhere you go, it's just like any job. You might have a guest that's just attractive, and you're like, oh, let's see if I can bag this one. And then if you can't bag them, you're just like, oh my gosh, am I ugly or am I not intelligent enough or funny enough?

SPEAKER_03 29:18

Oh, that's that's so wild. You know what? I'm gonna pretend to myself that I've done that to one of the girls. I know better, but like I'm gonna pretend that I have.

SPEAKER_04 29:25

I mean, yeah, we're you know we're humans with feelings, and there's gonna be times where we come across we really genuinely enjoy spending time with at work.

SPEAKER_03 29:35

Well, I have genuinely enjoyed spending time with some of the people.

SPEAKER_04 29:38

Yeah, even as friends, it doesn't have to be in a romantic level.

SPEAKER_03 29:42

Oh, you know, that's the lessons I learned from going to strip clubs a lot is you learn um you learn a lot about male-female interaction and you learn a lot about relationships. Like it sort of did a really good job for me of I'm someone that likes pretty. I like deep stuff too. Like I need in a relationship, I have to be with somebody that uh intellectually challenges me, yeah, or at least is creative enough to distract me.

SPEAKER_04 30:14

Yeah, but your priority is pretty, like appearance first before.

SPEAKER_03 30:18

I describe it as this. So, like my my grandparents when I was a kid had a pool. All right, and when you swim in a pool, you might want to swim in like a shallow all-around pool. Maybe you like hot tubs, or maybe you want to like jump into Olympic dive pool. This pool that they had had both a very nice shallow end that you could sit and float around and be lazy in, but then it had a deep end so deep that one of their friends would come over to practice scuba diving.

SPEAKER_04 30:48

Okay, so you have you want a balance.

SPEAKER_03 30:50

I want, yeah, I need that balance. I need both. Uh, I need what honestly I probably don't deserve, but that's enough self-deprecating.

SPEAKER_04 30:58

And I don't know if like if this is just coming like for your priorities is intelligence and looks, and and my priorities, and I don't know if this is dictated by my current entertainment experience, but my priority is money, like financial stability within a partner.

SPEAKER_03 31:22

That's uh that is something I have heard a lot from dancers. That is something I've heard a lot from dancers. Um and it kind of makes sense because a lot of the women that get into that uh career pathway are choosing it uh from my observation, are choosing it to overcome financial hardship. So warning that kind of safety probably I mean, it logically makes sense.

SPEAKER_04 31:50

And it's not necessarily because we want other people's money, it's just because we want to make sure that we're not like with bums who end up taking our money because a lot of us girls are really hardworking, and it's like we're not looking for a partner just to like because people think we're gold diggers or whatever, and we want to take all our money, it's just because it's nice to have someone that's on the same level of like financial class or um responsibility or financial priorities reasons, maybe a little bit above, which is a great thing to bring us back to Nora because that's kind of what this character is.

SPEAKER_03 32:30

She's that's like you observe her do this, like she's not looking for a relationship with this guy, she's looking to pay her bills, make as much money as she can, and then along the way, it's like the oh, well, you know what, he is kind of very attractive, and I am really kind of having a time.

SPEAKER_04 32:44

Like we were talking about earlier. Yeah you learn to love someone when there's something that they can provide that's beneficial to you, and I even think that it's sort of this um she's young, and when you're young, you might confuse wealth and status with um quality. Yes, that's such a good way to put it.

SPEAKER_03 33:08

And I I think that the primary thing in this story that transpired was that that you had someone who fought quality meant that you had the most the most money, the most like quote unquote freedom that exists, and of course, all that comes undone right because you find out this man has no freedom, wealth means nothing because he has all that, but he doesn't really have anything. He's a fucking child.

SPEAKER_04 33:34

And just because you have a lot of money doesn't mean you have financial stability because he's just blowing money left and right. Oh my god. And that's why I mentioned saying I said, I want someone who's financially stable. I didn't say I want someone who's wealthy, I didn't say that. Yeah, that's why I like how you put that.

SPEAKER_03 33:49

And the other side of that is they sneak a love story into this film, and that's with uh can you uh you wrote names down of characters, the the bald gentleman who restrained her?

SPEAKER_04 34:02

Igor.

SPEAKER_03 34:03

Igor.

SPEAKER_04 34:04

Yeah, the security guy.

SPEAKER_03 34:05

Yes, Igor, who from the beginning, I didn't catch this on the first watch. I watched it for the second time last night and this morning, and um he really is whenever you have a story as a writer, what you're taught is you need to have somebody that real people can latch on to, or like well, I say real, but like normal people, like people that are not living in extremes, like your average human being and grab on and go, I'll I relate to this guy. So like in Arrested Development, if you ever saw that TV series, it was the main uh character. Everybody around him is batshit crazy one way or another, and he is trying to coexist with batshit crazy all the way until uh they rebooted the series, and then he's also batshit crazy by then. But in the original run, and it's what made it so good, is you had a character you could grab a hold of and go, okay, he sees it's ridiculous, and it is ridiculous, so I can I'm gonna go on the ride with this guy. To me, that was Igor. Igor sees what's going on, he, just like her, has a job that he probably doesn't really want to do, but he's he can do it. Yeah, he's good at it, and he's good at it, and he and he clearly, in my opinion, is trying to do it morally. Yeah, time and time again throughout the plot of this film, you see examples of this man showing humanity where others would not show humanity, right? And she's not used to that clearly because you know that's the thing about these clubs. I've had to hold crying girls because they had to see the worst of humanity presented to them. Yeah, and it becomes so normal that they become callous to it. Um correct me if I'm wrong, it's just that's what I've seen.

SPEAKER_04 36:00

I think that, and I'm not not trying to toot my own horn, but um, something that I feel makes me stand out from other entertainers is the morals and ethics that I have at work.

SPEAKER_03 36:16

Yeah, I the morals and ethics in that when if if a woman can hold on to her morals and ethics throughout that process, um I th I champion the women who do that in their career.

SPEAKER_04 36:30

And I would say that that's the main reason I have extremely stable mental health.

SPEAKER_03 36:35

Yeah, and especially relative to everyone else. Now, one of your what you know, this is a tangent outside of the movie, but you know, one of your strengths is your business hackerman.

SPEAKER_05 36:44

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_03 36:44

Hackerman. Um, you're very gifted at marketing.

SPEAKER_04 36:50

Oh, thank you.

SPEAKER_03 36:51

Both in the one-on-one interaction of trying to get a dance, but also in the uh presentation of Catalina as a business. Uh, you know, I used to say whenever when I coach actors um and when I have conversations with people in the entertainment business, I talk about when you're an actor, there's two versions of you from that point forward. There's the human being and then there's the performer.

SPEAKER_05 37:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 37:19

And you have to understand that even though they both live in the same body, they both play by different rules. And and not only that, but like you then become a product that you now have to market and distribute. And you have to make a lot of choices about that, but you also have to present it and you market it just like a fucking Oreo.

SPEAKER_04 37:36

I am definitely my own brand. I would say that something a lot of people get wrong is that they ask for money, especially a lot of the dancers when I see on social media, they'll be like, oh, send me money through Cash App, da da da. I'm the quite opposite. I think that people send me money because I don't I don't want to use the word act, but I'm gonna say the word act. I act like I don't need them. And men don't like to feel like they're not needed. So and then men also don't like desperate women all the time.

SPEAKER_06 38:09

Well, you know.

SPEAKER_04 38:10

So I want to market myself, I market myself like my life is already great. What in the world could you provide me that I'm not already providing myself?

SPEAKER_03 38:19

Plain! Jokes on you, vibrant.

SPEAKER_04 38:27

Well, they still go for that too, you know.

SPEAKER_03 38:28

So you know what? One of what I'm gonna do one of my stand-up jokes because I don't know if you guys at home know this, but I'm a stand-up comedian. Um one of the jokes, my favorite joke I wrote last year actually was a rose by any other name. It's called a vibrator.

SPEAKER_04 38:45

That's so funny because that's actually one of my lines when people ask me, like, well, was Catalina your real name? I'm like, no, but a rose by any other name was small, just a sweet. And they're like, you know what? You're right. And then they completely forget about the fact that that's not my real name and they don't really care.

SPEAKER_03 38:59

Yeah, right. Uh honestly, I I even knowing your real name, Catalina is your real name. Right? Yeah, it fits you so much better.

SPEAKER_07 39:09

I agree.

SPEAKER_03 39:10

Uh so Enora goes through this journey and it's this weird transition that happens um where she thinks you know what's uh at a certain point you can see where it clicks for her, where it's like, all right, it's not just business anymore. And she starts buying into it. But what she's not paying attention to is the fact that every single type of interaction that they've had so far and are continuing to have is extremely superficial.

SPEAKER_04 39:37

It's transactional, it's not even just that.

SPEAKER_03 39:39

Everything is escapism, it's drugs and it's sex. Those are all things you do to forget reality, right? There's no reality happening. She's never seen this man get angry, she's never seen this man be challenged in any way, so she doesn't know this man. Yeah, if you have not seen your partner challenged in some sort of way, then you you don't actually know who they are yet.

SPEAKER_04 40:03

I feel like the only time she found out who the real Vanya was was when he sobered up and he met with his mother.

SPEAKER_03 40:10

Yeah, I think that the scene with her uh where she says, be a fucking man, and he comes down the stairs. That is the first moment of you seeing who the real person is. Like, we as an audience kind of have figured it out already. Yeah, but that's the first definitive no, I'm telling you, my loyalty is when he runs away to you. Which is an extremely Russian thing. Like their loyalty to family is I've never seen matched with any other culture I've ever dated or been with. Russians bond with their family in a way that is I can't I can't fucking explain it, but they love their family, even when they hate them.

SPEAKER_04 40:49

We could see it in the movie when all the even like the security was more of a father to Vanya than his own father. His own father didn't do nothing. So like Which is very normal for the It's like I don't know, it's like Russians, their families or what they make of it, it's not necessarily like their blood, even though the blood is there, but like they took more care of Vanya than his own parents.

SPEAKER_05 41:15

Well what?

SPEAKER_04 41:19

The security and the he had like three security guards, yeah, and they were doing everything.

SPEAKER_03 41:26

I mean, that was more than just security guards, like those kinds of people, when you're in that you have handlers.

SPEAKER_04 41:31

Right.

SPEAKER_03 41:32

You have people that their job is to make sure you never get in trouble, their job is their pillows, they're buffers.

SPEAKER_04 41:38

They're almost like adult nannies.

SPEAKER_03 41:40

Yeah. And it's not surprising to me that one of the people was through religion because religion, uh Russian, wealthy Russians are very tied into uh the Russian, I think, Orthodox Church. Um, they have their own New Year's, their own Christmas that's different than ours. Um, very, very different culture when it comes to that stuff. And so I thought it was very appropriate what we had going on there. And one of the security, like all the security guards are working class people, yes, and they're in fear for their life because they know that everything that is around them can be destroyed in a moment.

SPEAKER_04 42:24

I think that reputation is extremely important to them.

SPEAKER_03 42:27

Oh my god, that is very true of Russian culture. Reputation supersedes reality. Yes, that's why it's like you married a whore mattered way. She could have been motherfucking Teresa, uh Mother Teresa, yeah, and it would not have made a difference because at the end of the day, this is what your profession was.

SPEAKER_04 42:48

Right.

SPEAKER_03 42:49

I mean, I I remember, oh no, that's not my story to tell.

SPEAKER_04 42:53

That's how I feel. Like, I actually have amazing uh educational background and all sorts of things that I feel make me a really good person in society.

SPEAKER_03 43:08

In traditional viewpoints, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 43:10

Yes. Um, I've I've done all the typical like American white picket fence things in my life. But no matter what I say I've done or whatever, it's like the main thing that's always gonna be in the front of people's faces is that I'm an entertainer.

SPEAKER_03 43:26

It's like people who do porn.

SPEAKER_04 43:28

Yeah, and I always say like everyone wants a baddie until they have a baddie and then they don't want her to be a baddie anymore.

SPEAKER_03 43:34

I hear that a lot from a lot of people. It holds up pretty I've I've had conversations, I've never uh never dated a stripper. I dated, sort of dated somebody that did porn before. I never dated a stripper, but I'm I'm not against it. I'm open to it. But when I have the conversation with the girls, it's like, well, some of them, they some of them dance for economic reasons, and some of them dance for artistic.

SPEAKER_04 44:00

Right.

SPEAKER_03 44:01

And people have a hard time wrapping that part of their uh brain around. And I was having a conversation with a particularly awesome human being who dances, and she was talking about a fucking ADHD. I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_04 44:20

You were talking to a particular person.

SPEAKER_03 44:22

You were talking about art and no, I I know the the whole thing is good.

SPEAKER_04 44:26

Okay, anyway.

SPEAKER_03 44:27

Let's pivot away. Alright. Oh, I hate it. It's not like this is a fucking podcast.

SPEAKER_04 44:32

It's okay.

SPEAKER_03 44:34

Anyways, uh, the longer the shorter it is.

SPEAKER_04 44:37

So I don't even yes, I dance for money because I I feel like my time is valuable and I get a lot of money for a short amount of time. But my dancing is a choice. I actually don't have to dance.

SPEAKER_03 44:50

So yeah, you really do.

SPEAKER_04 44:53

A lot of people do, but I don't. I really do it because I genuinely enjoy my experiences with people, the conversations I'm having. I love dancing in itself. I like music. So I would say I am doing it more for the oh, I don't want to say.

SPEAKER_03 45:09

And the control and the power.

SPEAKER_04 45:11

I don't want to say art. I love the psychology of it.

SPEAKER_03 45:14

That makes sense with what I know about you. And and it'll be different with different people. I say art because I'm I'm uh art-centric, but I also love psychology. That's why I was a really good um uh character actor when I was an actor. Because understanding people's motives has been a fascination of mine for a very long time. Like in high school, I figured out things that I didn't know were already established psychological premises, you know, like the hierarchy of needs and things like that. Um, I just thought experimented my way to that stuff.

SPEAKER_04 45:48

I feel like I'm making more of a difference in people's lives as a dancer than I did as an actual case manager or counselor.

SPEAKER_03 45:57

I believe that. Um, you know, yeah, especially because you know, you're one of the ethical ones. You're not you're not milking them dry.

SPEAKER_06 46:06

No.

SPEAKER_03 46:06

Speaking of not ethical, the fucking Masha is the most unethical, shitty fucking human being.

SPEAKER_05 46:12

Like who's Masha?

SPEAKER_03 46:14

Isn't that the name of the the guy from the we're talking about a Nora?

SPEAKER_04 46:19

Yeah, but which one?

SPEAKER_03 46:20

Masha's the the guy, the spoiled oligarch kid.

SPEAKER_04 46:22

His name is Vanya.

SPEAKER_03 46:24

Okay. It wasn't like there's a reason why I confused that. No, I was not talking about I was talking about who you were talking about.

SPEAKER_05 46:33

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 46:33

There is a um, there were Russian plays and they use a lot of the same names a lot of the time. And so this guy, Christopher During, wrote a play called Masha uh Masha Vanya, all right Sanya, Vanya, Masha, and Spike is the name of the show. And I worked at that show for like a little tiny bit of time, and so I confuse all four names all the time.

SPEAKER_04 46:57

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_03 46:58

So what was the name again?

SPEAKER_04 47:00

Vanya.

SPEAKER_03 47:01

Vanya.

SPEAKER_04 47:02

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 47:02

So Vanya. Also, names were really important in this play. Did you pay attention to that one?

unknown 47:09

I feel like they were.

SPEAKER_03 47:10

Yeah. It's funny. I looked up what Anora meant at the beginning of the movie, and then when it was brought up later.

SPEAKER_04 47:15

By Igor. Igor told her what her name meant.

SPEAKER_03 47:18

And Igor being like, my name is a warrior.

SPEAKER_04 47:20

That's fucking awesome. It is.

SPEAKER_03 47:23

Um, we're gonna take a little short break, and uh, we'll be back in a moment. This is um, this is what is this called again? Shadows that shine. The movie podcast. I'm Tilfer Mack.

SPEAKER_01 47:39

And we're back.

SPEAKER_03 47:41

Uh so we we were talking about the ending, right?

SPEAKER_06 47:47

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_03 47:47

Yes. Um, I think that he is offering a ring in the way that rings should be offered. Like you're valuable from the opposite. No, it's it's it's it's let me do something selfless.

SPEAKER_04 48:03

Because he could have taken it.

SPEAKER_03 48:05

That's why you think the ring was given to her from a selfish person doing a selfish thing. When he asked her to marry her, he didn't ask her to marry her because he loved her. He asked you to marry her, and you it's all in that scene. He wanted to run away from the stranglehold of his family.

SPEAKER_04 48:21

He said he wanted to stay in America and he thought the only way to stay there was to get married.

SPEAKER_03 48:26

Yeah. All that shit was there. He was even like, I could be poor and be with you, which is a fun, it's it's a lie you told himself at the same time he told her.

SPEAKER_06 48:36

Right.

SPEAKER_03 48:36

Obviously, that didn't add up. Now we have a moment where there's a person who had everything to gain from keeping on that, who has tried everything he can to try to um show this woman that that goodness exists through a week period of no goodness existing. Because even the good things that happened weren't real good. Because there's money has no real value, all right. Drugs um are there just to distract you from how miserable you really are, all right? Alcohol, same thing. Yeah, and the type of romance that she had was a Romeo and Juliet relationship of, because if you think that's Romeo and Juliet, this is what everyone leaves out of Romeo and Juliet. He was fucking in love with the person at the beginning of the play just as much, just as let me be whimsical and poetic about it, as Juliet.

SPEAKER_05 49:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 49:32

He just, Juliet wanted him back, and so he just ran with it. There was that's a store, that's the greatest lust story ever told. And what they had was a lust story paired with two people who have broken worldviews, in my opinion. And here's a man who's coming in and going, there's another way. I thought it was a beautiful moment for that. Now you add in this thing I didn't think about of she's getting this thing and she feels like she has to do something for it. And then when you pay attention to that, like the very specific details of uh when I direct, um, I'm this specific, so I'm assuming he's being this specific. Every movement. Her him getting on top, like she's doing her job as I exist as a sexual object. You've been lusting after me as a sexual person. And where the fight starts happening between them, the unspoken fight, is when he grabs her and wants to kiss her. And he wants to kiss her.

SPEAKER_04 50:32

And that's not part of the city.

SPEAKER_03 50:33

And in that moment, I realize that she hasn't kissed anybody in this whole movie.

SPEAKER_04 50:37

Because everything's transactional, just like when you're a prostitute, you don't kiss your get your clients.

SPEAKER_03 50:42

Exactly.

SPEAKER_04 50:42

That's why it's transactional.

SPEAKER_03 50:44

And he it's great that he's having the sex, but the sex isn't what he wants. He wants the actual thing that exists there.

SPEAKER_04 50:51

Yeah. But do you think that even if he hadn't given her the ring, she would have still tried because she feels like she owes him for his kindness?

SPEAKER_03 51:00

I think she was confused by his kindness, but it hadn't gone that far. There is no no greater uh. I think the greatest pain she experienced through all of that happened around that ring.

SPEAKER_06 51:14

True.

SPEAKER_03 51:14

Symbolically and literally. To give it back is to give her power back. And to give it back, like I don't think it would have been the same thing. Guys are nice to beautiful women all the time, it doesn't mean anything. Not really, not when it happens to the degree that it happens to women in that type of industry.

SPEAKER_04 51:36

Because humans should just be nice to each other anyways.

SPEAKER_03 51:38

Well, I agree with you, but it's it's like, you know, I have conversations, I have uh extremely attractive, physical, uh physically attractive uh female friends, and I talk to them and I've I've always been fascinated with the similarities between them and me. Now, this requires me to be self-deprecating, but it's my honest opinion. I'm not an ugly person, but I'm not uh, I like to say I'm not a first draft, uh first round draft pick. All right. My heart is what gets me in the final dance, not my um, not my physicality. I'm overweight, uh, my face is not uh perfection. It's not gross, like you're not running away like I'm the crib keeper, but it's not, you know, it's good enough. My ex-wife used to say a man just has to be prettier than a bear. Which is an exaggerated way of saying books don't matter.

SPEAKER_06 52:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 52:36

Um and uh so when when we got mother f uh I'm saying this to say that that beautiful women and uh men like me have more in common than they realize because we have the same problem. We both struggle with being seen as who we are, in my opinion. We both uh seen as who we are because all they want to see is what their eyes see. And I think in this moment, this is a man who's been with her for the weekend, paying attention to her, her situation, her actions, her loyalty to a man. Like if she really was just some fucking whore chasing after uh her next mark and the money and all that, she had plenty of opportunities. She didn't negotiate for more money when they said we'll give you 10 grand. She could have easily said, Give me 50 grand if we're gonna be able to do it.

SPEAKER_04 53:41

She did negotiate, she had negotiated 17. No, they know when he was.

SPEAKER_03 53:46

There's no negotiation on that. There was when she after she had sex with him, and he's like, How about that's when she's still doing all that stuff? I'm talking about the point at this point. She's full when they're trying to get her to divorce. She has the most power in the world at that moment. The only time she ever fights back is the anger card when she's still trying to accept what's happening because she's going through the period the phases of grief here. And she tells this woman, not even looking at her, oh still y'all come after everything. Which is obviously not gonna work. If someone this powerful, she googled them, she knows she's gonna die. If she does what she says that she's gonna do, she's gonna die, but not just her, her sister's gonna die. Her fucking friends at work are gonna die, every fucking person around her is gonna die, because that's how people on that level operate. That is absolutely how people like that operate. So she has all that going on, but at this point, even then, she still loves him. She doesn't understand that she's been used until the conversation that the quote unquote private conversation on the plane that they're having, when he says he uses the word whore or something similar to that in that conversation. That is when, okay, now she just understood it. It just clicked for her, and she feels horrible. And the first piece of humanity given to her is when Igor hands over the vod uh the vodka. I assume it's vodka, not water. Whatever liquid it was, he says, without words, I know you need something, I'm gonna give it to you without being asked, yeah, which is something I'm sure she has never experienced. Right, or at least not as an adult. And so all that's to me, all that stuff pairs together, and it's in that moment, and when the the fight at that end and the kiss, and she still won't give in, and I don't think they actually end up kissing, and she breaks away and she does something else. She allows herself a moment of vulnerability and puts her head on his chest and starts crying. Now, you uh I don't know if you said this on the cast or if it was during our private conversation, said that this is a tragedy, and I disagree with this being a tragedy because of that moment. To me, that is the cathartic release, the beginning of the anti-tragedy. Whether she ends up with him or not, it doesn't matter. She just learned what love is. Unselfish, unadulterated love, which is what this man has given her. Whether or not he actually loves her or not, he just said, I'm gonna be a human being with her, and she'll either take or not take what I have to give. Which is, in my opinion, what anyone should be striving for in a partner.

SPEAKER_02 56:40

Right.

SPEAKER_03 56:40

And I thought it was a beautiful ending, and to me, that was a happy ending.

SPEAKER_02 56:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 56:45

And what was otherwise, tragedy central because it definitely operated like a tragedy until that moment, right? Even though even the sex scene was tragedy, yeah, until he didn't let it be that. He didn't let the transaction that you're talking about happen as just that. I didn't do this for this. I like that this is happening. I mean, who wouldn't?

SPEAKER_04 57:13

Mikey Madison on top of them. So I feel like that's a really good way to end the ANORA discussion point. Yeah, I feel like you just summarize it really nicely.

SPEAKER_03 57:26

Coolio, Coolio. I really appreciate you coming on. Hey, what social media or website would you point people to if they want to look into what you do?

SPEAKER_04 57:35

Um, I would suggest starting off with my Instagram. It's at Y T Q underscore Catalina. That's L-C-A-T-A-L-I-N-A.

SPEAKER_03 57:48

I will try to link that on the post with this. Uh of course, Shadows That Shine at Shadows That Shine on Instagram is where you find our podcast. Uh, we are gonna be following uh Miss Minerva. Uh we're gonna be following her uh so you can find us through the friends list if that is too confusing.

SPEAKER_04 58:09

Yeah, just type in Catalina and his followers list, you'll find me.

SPEAKER_03 58:13

Yeah. Um, so uh thank you guys. Uh we are not done with the podcast. Thank you for tuning in so far. After this, I gotta let you know, we got some uh exciting movies coming up to talk about. Uh and in addition to that, we're gonna be talking about the box office results for this week. I saved it to the end. For those of you who fast forward that part, now you can just hit stop, motherfuckers. It's interesting. I'm gonna figure out a way for you guys to appreciate it as much as me. So we're gonna take a little break. Um, matter of fact, here's a little buffer. Thank you, John Paul Edmondson, for the words you're about to say.

SPEAKER_00 58:52

Listening to Shadows that Shine, a movie podcast starring Tophomack. Here is your host, Tophomack.

SPEAKER_03 59:10

Alright, John Paul Edmondson. That was hilarious. Uh, seriously, I I really did laugh uh very loudly the first time I heard that. I believe he was channeling his uh the that guy from the Lord of the Rings. I don't watch the Lord of the Rings, so I don't know. I think it's a Gandalf, if I'm not mistaken. Alright. Um, so I recorded that episode uh or the beginning of this episode a couple of weeks ago, and here it is. It's time to give it to you guys. I'm really excited uh to hear what you think. You can find us on Instagram at Shadows That Shine. Okay, and of course you can follow Catalina there as well. Now, let's get into the box office. Here we go, domestic box office results. Here's the winner. Um, the oh you know what?

SPEAKER_02 1:00:09

Hold on.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:10

I uh I didn't bother to check the bleepity bleep calendar. Um the third to the fifth. This would be Easter weekend. Box office. Alright, Super Mario Galaxy wins. Those bad reviews did nothing to slow down audiences. 131.7 million just the weekend. That's not including opening day because it opened on the first. Um Universal Pictures released that film. That brings their total to $190.8 million domestic. That's in I mean, that's that's impressive. 181.8 million uh internationally for a thir $372.6 million release. I have not seen it yet. I don't know if it's good. Um I have heard very mixed things. There's been people who have liked it a lot, there have been people who have just not felt it. Um and I heard an interesting critique. Someone said it's uh it's the the Mario Universe's Iron Man 2, which makes me think, okay, it's not that it sucks, it's just not what it should have been. So, hey, you know what? You watch it, you tell me what you think. Coming in in second, adding 31.7 million to its total is gonna be Project Hell Mary from Amazon MGM Studios. That brings their total so far to 218.3 million, that's domestically, 203.4 internationally, 421.7 million dollar combined gross so far. I like seeing numbers that high, and I love seeing movies as good as Project Mel uh Project Hail Mary making that kind of money. That's good news that that motivates studios to put better stuff in front of us. That means um I mean that obviously it's good for everybody, right? Third place is uh an A24 film called The Drama. It's got Zendaya in it, it's got uh Robert Paterson Patterson It's got Bob in it. Um 14.4 million dollars it brought in over the weekend domestically, 11.9 million internationally to bring its total to 26.2 million. I didn't really hear anything about it, but I mean it's got interesting actors, and it's from a studio that almost always delivers, so it's probably a good watch. Hoppers, fourth place, added 5.8 million to Walt Disney's um mega company, that is Walt Disney Studios motion picture. Um hundred forty-nine point seven million dollar uh domestic total so far, 182.6 million dollar international for 33 uh 300 be starter in 33 I did it wrong again. 332.3 million dollars Hoppers has brought in. Now, if you're paying attention to the box office grosses, that means that Super Mario Galaxy beat Hoppers. In one weekend, it has made more money than Hoppers has made in its entire run. Walt Disney Studios is not the powerhouse it used to be. It w it was not very long ago that you could guarantee a Disney movie was gonna be much bigger than anything else in the similar market. Not the case here.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:01

Um Fourth place in fact it didn't even do better than Project Hell Mary. Um, so I don't know. I kind of I kind of thought it might make more money than Project Hell Mary.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:13

I'm happy to see that that's not the case. Alright, fifth place, reminders of him. That would be that sweet drama piece. Uh it's uh to be crass about a chick flick. Um I did want to see it, I haven't gotten around to seeing it yet. $2.2 million it added. It does kind of concern me that the fifth place movie only made $2.2 million in the entire country of the United States of America. Uh but you know what? $2.2 million for Universal Pictures is a good day. That brings this little tiny uh film uh up to 45.4 million domestically, 33.7 internationally for a total of 79.1 million dollars. So yeah. Yeah. That's where we're at. Now the weekend totals were up 103.2% this week. Uh very strong week. Um that's 197.9 million dollars that were brought in in three days. Oh, movies are a beautiful thing. That's a lot of jobs. That's a lot of jobs. Um, you know, I yay. I guess a a lot of people need a distraction too. You know, I I do want to say Project Hell Mary doing well while we have people in space right now, just got across the moon. I'm recording this on a Tuesday night.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:44

They they've gone around the moon and they're headed back to that hellscape known as planet Earth. It's got yeah. Uh well, hey. I I see Super Mario Galaxy and Project Hell Mary were were well.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:00

Timed to this mission that I think the photographs that have been coming in for the moon are pretty cool, pretty nifty. I don't care if it's not about movies.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:09

I think it's interesting. You know, not everything can be movies all the time.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:14

Alright. Um, that's your box office. I am very happy about this episode. I'm very uh uh I feel good about it. I would like to know what you think about it. Please reach out to us and let us know. Give us some feedback. We are in a development stage, so feedback is being listened to, is being considered, and is very much appreciated. Did you like something? Did you not like something? It's okay. You can hurt my feelings. Uh, you know, like if you're scared to hurt my feelings, compliment sandwich me. Hey, Joefer, you know I've always liked you for that podcast, you know. You're stammering on about the things that and I don't care about the things. Maybe you can say the things I do care about. These are the things I care about.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:02

But you know what? You're a real nifty guy. You have all your hair. That's pretty impressive for an old man. That could be you.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:10

That could be you saying to me. Um, you know, we're like I said, we're still in season one.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:19

That's the developmental phase. Uh, when we move on to the next thing, we'll be a little more locked in to how we do things. Um I appreciate your time and energy. And go out and watch a movie. Um, if not this week, this month. Project Hail Mary is a great choice. If you're looking for one, that's the top recommendation I have uh for you fine folks. If you want to go out to movie theater, go see it on as big a screen as you can see it. It is worth it. If it is um, it's been long enough now I feel okay saying it's a feel-good movie.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:54

And now it's gonna make you feel a lot of feelings, but at some point during it, whether it's in the middle or the beginning or the end, will make you feel good. And um yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:05

So, I I know I said I was going to talk about movies coming out soon. To be honest, I was scrolling through the next couple of weeks of movies and I just wasn't knocked out by anything that I was seeing. So I'm not gonna talk about anything coming up soon. Instead, I'm going to encourage you to watch something uh that makes you happy. Bring a little joy into your life. Movies can teach us lessons, but movies can also be an escape. So find an escape. Run away from the misery. Uh if you're miserable. Hopefully you're not. I hope that when you're listening to this, you're like, I don't know what this misery word is.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:51

Isn't that like a movie with with like some ankles getting uh special attention by a talented actress? Alright. Thank you very much. I've been Topher Mack. Thank you, John Paul and Minson, for your uh thing. Thank you very much, Catalina. Uh mina mina mina mina mina mina mina. I'm not gonna remember how to say that last name right, so I'm gonna just say Catalina. Thank you very much. Um bye.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:23

Yeah, all that stuttering and shit. You know it's not AI. Because there's too much fucking up, too much drawling on. Bye.