Dystopian Drive-In: Mid-Apocalypse - Kenny Rogers Man Crush & Whore School/ Red Sparrow Edition

A Trident Fawn Presentation

From Jason Beard, the mind behind the award nominated audio cinematic podcasts Leo Brawn, Magnetar and Topaz & Stillman... comes your new listening obsession.

Attention survivors: what you're hearing is a second rough rehearsal, not the finished product. Consider this a limited-time opportunity to sit in on our studio session and witness the unfiltered flaws in all their glory. Enjoy this sneak preview... while you still can!

Tagline of the Week: "You successfully completed intercourse. You are now a spy. Goodbye."

The world remains a post-apocalyptic wasteland, but the bunker's film preservation mandate marches on! Welcome back to Dystopian Drive-In with your hosts Jason Beard and Justin Merritt. Broadcast live under the watchful eye of El Presidente Scott, the crew welcomes special guests Larry Oblander and Coach Pelletier to review the 2018 espionage film, Red Sparrow. 

Starring Jennifer Lawrence as a prima ballerina turned lethal "honey pot" operative, this massive budget thriller was supposed to be a serious take on statecraft—but for the bunker crew, it mostly turned out to be a massive "mid" dud. 

In this episode, the bunker crew dissects:

• The "Suck and Banger" School of Spycraft: A deep look into the bizarre training methods of "State School Four" and why it feels more like Sex Hogwarts than actual CIA espionage. 
• Inconsistent Accents & Bad Plumbing: Pointing out the agonizingly fluid shifts between Russian, British, and classic American accents, and why Russian hotel plumbing instantly cures manufactured suspense. 
• The Magical 3.5-Month Healing Factor: A medical breakdown of how Jennifer Lawrence recovers from a horrific, bone-shattering leg break to walking perfectly in a ball gown in a matter of weeks. 
• The 24-Second Love Scene: Clocking Joel Edgerton's underwhelming romantic endurance with J-Law. 
• Alternative Titles & "KGBDSM": The crew pitches their own creative titles for the movie, including Whore School, Titty Titty Bang Bang, and The Whore from U.N.C.L.E.

Does this slow-moving spy thriller have what it takes to be preserved for future generations, or will El Presidente fire up the incinerator to purge it for all time? 

Host:

• Jason Beard

Co-host:

• Justin Merritt

Guest Starring:

• Larry Oblander
• Mike Pelletier

Transcript

SPEAKER_06 0:14

Welcome to Dystopian Drive-In. The world has ended. The date unknown. But from the ash and debris of Bunker 112, two survivors have been tasked by President John Scott to restore human culture. One salvage build. Join your host, Jason Beard, and Justin Merritt, as they decide which movies are worthy of humanity and which must be purged forever from existence. Ladies and gentlemen, it's the end of the world. Let's watch a movie and dive into the drive-in.

SPEAKER_05 0:59

All right, everybody.

SPEAKER_06 1:00

Hey, once again, it's uh Hello and welcome to another episode of Dystopian Drive-In. Join your host, Jason Beard, and co-host Justin Merritt, as they sift through the detritus of the apocalypse to review the movies you hope to love. They'll do the hard work for you, and in the then and then in the end, determine if the film is worthy of humanity or if it should be purged from existence. Remember, the apocalypse may be outside, but the entertainment is in here at Dystopian Drive In. So let's roll that film and welcome your hosts, Jason and Justin.

SPEAKER_05 1:43

Uh okay. Uh sorry, who what what is that? Uh first off, great tagline. Better than I could have done it, but who who's speaking?

SPEAKER_06 1:52

Oh, uh it's it's uh uh I I'm just I'm Larry. I I I had a shot, you know, it uh I I just with the apocalypse, I just I thought it might be an opportunity. Maybe uh I almost had a shot at the prices right announcing, and that little jack hole, Bob Barker, threw me out for his old buddy, and I didn't get a shot. So I just I just thought I thought it might be an opportunity. I saw you guys on, I thought I'd throw it out there. I thought it would just be fun.

SPEAKER_05 2:21

I guess I'm not mad at it. I mean, maybe we could have talked about it beforehand. Justin, what do you think? I'm here for it. Doug. All right. Well, Larry, I mean, uh I guess you're in. Better than anything I could have done. Um, so is this your background? For sure. Thanks a lot, Justin. I appreciate that. So, Larry, what's your background?

SPEAKER_06 2:43

Is this uh what you did before the end of the world or what uh I tried to dabble in some things, and you know, when the Bob Barker thing happened, it was just a rough time. I didn't couldn't find work. I figured that every time I announced dinner for the kids, that's how I did it. And I ended up divorced later. I just, you know, going into the bedroom and welcome to another night of Hanky Panky! And it it she got tired of it, and I just the apocalypse happened, I'm alone now, and I just talked to myself. But then I see you guys, and I thought I'd have some fun. Sure.

SPEAKER_05 3:20

Well, welcome, welcome, Larry. Uh, I mean, sure, you know, the more the merrier at this point. We have people popping in and out all the time. So look, I mean, I don't know if you're familiar with uh this show. It's you know been mandated by Sean uh President Scott that uh Justin and I review movies, so that's what we're gonna try and do tonight. Um are you a fan of movies? Do you do you watch films up until you know the end of the world?

SPEAKER_06 3:43

Well, I thought I was gonna be a voice actor in some movies. I tried to do some dubbing, but uh they really didn't like some of the accents I was doing, so I kind of got a little blackballed on that one, if you know what I mean. Right. But you know, I it's I do love movies. Did you just They used to call me Larry the Cable Guy?

SPEAKER_05 4:04

That's original. Um all right, so perfect. Well, now we got an official hey, I think we're coming up in the world, Justin. What do you think about this? We we have like a real announcer, guys. Announcer now. Okay. So this is kind of official. So all right, well uh with your official narrator, Larry. It's pretty sweet. That scared me a little bit. I wasn't expecting that. But um anyway, really. Thanks for thanks for joining. All right, so I guess we've we've kicked it off. So uh I guess the next step is we'll just start uh maybe talking about the movie. But first, I'm gonna do a quick systems check and just make sure our bunker is uh up to speed here.

SPEAKER_06 4:45

Just gonna systems check brought to you by the Apocalyptic Bread Dough Company.

SPEAKER_05 4:54

Thanks, Larry. Hey, you look, you know, that was you know, we're just we're just kind of riffing here. I don't think we needed like an official segment at that point, but sorry, boss. But thanks. Nope. My apologies, boss. It's okay. All right, where was I? Gonna do a system check. Uh Justin, how are things on your end here?

SPEAKER_04 5:11

Oh, just real quick, Jason, don't listen to this. Uh Larry, he can be really bossy. So just let it roll on the back, man. Jason is bossy. But me, so yeah, so now, Jason, you can listen listen in. Um, things are great. Things are great.

SPEAKER_05 5:29

Okay, perfect. All right, well, you know, if anybody wants to join in and maybe interrupt me.

SPEAKER_07 5:39

Uh hello, hello. Uh uh uh Jake, Jared, um uh, and then I don't know who the third guy is, but uh hi, how you doing? Uh my name is uh Mike Pelletier. That's that's Coach Pelletier to you. Um President Scott.

SPEAKER_06 5:53

I don't know if you know President on the show, ladies and gentlemen.

SPEAKER_07 5:59

I like that. I like you. Oh, perfect. Thanks for pumping me up. Now, now, Jake, Jared, uh uh President Scott, uh he gave me a call. Uh after your last episode, he he said something about you guys needing a little help because you're banter. It's it's all off. It's just you guys don't know how to improv. You guys don't know, you have no chemistry, you have no dynamic. And he hired me, an acting technique guru, to come in and help you guys out.

SPEAKER_05 6:32

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_07 6:33

Well, I mean, I mean long as you're see right there, right there is what I'm talking about. Talking over each other. You just you need to listen and react. Listen and react.

SPEAKER_05 6:44

Do I just raise my hand if I want to go first? Is that how it works?

SPEAKER_07 6:48

No, uh, you've never acted before, have you?

SPEAKER_05 6:51

No, I'm a filmmaker. I'm behind the camera.

SPEAKER_07 6:54

Well, that's part of the problem. All right. The filmmakers are part of the problem, right? You guys always think you know what to do, and then the actors try to do what we are trained to do. I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_01 7:05

I'll get off the Coach's Clinic by Mike Benacil.

SPEAKER_05 7:09

I like this guy a lot. Yeah, yeah, he's he's on fire right now. Okay, well, look, I mean, if you know in our defense, this was not something that we had planned to do, okay? I thought Justin and I were the only soul, you know, so you're not survivors of the apocalypse, and we're we're just talking here, just communicating.

SPEAKER_07 7:26

Seeing right there, too. You need to learn how to pronounce words correctly. Soling survivors, you you gotta if you're going to say things, you need to say things that actually make sense.

SPEAKER_05 7:37

I could say a lot right now, if you don't mind listening.

SPEAKER_07 7:40

That is coaching. No, go ahead, go ahead. I will listen and I will critique. Go ahead, go ahead.

SPEAKER_05 7:46

Okay. Uh well, you know, I mean, maybe a few pointers. Okay, so like let's say let's say this is a start of the show, and you know, Larry hadn't shown up and you know, kind of like just stole all my thunder.

SPEAKER_01 7:57

Larry is gone.

unknown 8:00

Go.

SPEAKER_07 8:01

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 8:01

Nice.

SPEAKER_07 8:02

Love you. Love you.

unknown 8:03

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 8:04

Go ahead. So Jake. If I so we're it's Jason, by the way, but that's fine. Uh-huh. So it's it's there. You can actually see it. So um, so we're we're here. I'm I'm starting the show. Hey, Justin, how's it going today? You look swell.

SPEAKER_07 8:19

That's what you're starting with.

SPEAKER_05 8:21

And yes and see? Oh, oh, yeah, yeah. Okay, so you're just coax you're trying to coax me into saying something. Right.

SPEAKER_07 8:31

He understands. The first rule of improvisation is yes and. Okay, and what is that? Always yes and so Jared, just say something off the top of your head that a situation that you're in. Go ahead, Jared. Just just say, say something. You are doing something.

SPEAKER_05 8:52

I'm trying to run this show.

SPEAKER_07 8:53

No, no, no. Jake, hold on. I'm I'm asking Jared.

SPEAKER_05 8:56

Oh, I guess you're Jared. Me?

SPEAKER_07 8:59

You, the curly haired guy.

SPEAKER_05 9:00

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Okay, sure. Yeah. You have a Jared vibe.

SPEAKER_04 9:04

Go ahead. I am having a post-apocalyptic non-sexual man crush on Kenny Loggins, Coach Pelletier.

SPEAKER_05 9:15

No. So, no, actually, I don't think that's true at all. So, right? I I think.

SPEAKER_07 9:20

Well, see, see, okay, okay, right there. Let me stop you, Jake. See, post-apocalypse. He came in with a very specific scenario. Very specific. He has a man crush on. Now let me get this straight. Kenny Loggins and Coach Pelletier? You're the Kenny Loggins of the I'm the Kenny Loggins of acting. Oh. I think you're I like you too, Jared. Jake, I'm not so sure about. But all right. So he comes in with a very specific situation. One second.

SPEAKER_05 9:52

One second. We gotta. This is something we have to correct before we go. I think you're thinking of Kenny Rogers, not Kenny Loggins.

SPEAKER_07 9:59

Oh, you're right. I'll take either one.

SPEAKER_05 10:00

I think it's Kenny Rogers.

SPEAKER_07 10:01

Kenny Rogers roasters, for sure.

SPEAKER_05 10:04

All right, we're gonna rewind. I'll take either one.

SPEAKER_07 10:05

They're both manly men. I don't think Kenny Rogers ever sucked. No. I don't think that ever happened.

SPEAKER_05 10:16

Alright, go ahead, Coach Pelletier. We're all yours.

SPEAKER_07 10:19

So anyway, he comes in with a very specific scenario. He loves, he's got a man crush on this.

SPEAKER_05 10:28

In this day and age, it's beautiful.

SPEAKER_07 10:30

Yeah, see? Right there. That's what you should have done. That's beautiful. But instead, you came in refuting what he the scenario that he just said. You need to be able to accept and add to whatever's being said. So so say it again, Jared. Say it again. And then Jake, I want you to come in and to support the scenario that he presents to you.

unknown 10:55

Okay?

SPEAKER_07 10:56

Go ahead. Go ahead, Jared. Say it again.

SPEAKER_04 10:58

Well, not only does he make me hungry for fried chicken at a reasonable price, Kenny Rogers is a late-in-life non-sexual man crush that I have on and I'm transferred to Coach Peltier because Kenny Rogers is quite dead.

SPEAKER_05 11:20

Is he? Uh yeah, you know, I support that he's I definitely agree he's dead. Okay? I definitely can agree with that. Unfortunately, Kenny Rogers is dead. So I you know, I support that you have this late, you're saying late in life man crush, so you've never had one before.

SPEAKER_04 11:36

Never.

SPEAKER_05 11:37

It's very awkward for me. Now, Coach Bellity, was that better? I mean, I was encouraging it.

SPEAKER_07 11:46

It was better, but not happy. It needs some work. We'll we'll we'll work on that, Jake. We'll we'll we'll work on that. That's why I'm here. That's why I'm here to help, to bring out the best in the both of you.

SPEAKER_05 11:57

So you were appointed by President Scott. Now, was this by choice or is it basically like do this or uh we'll call it necessity.

SPEAKER_07 12:07

Uh there's not a lot for an acting coach to do in the apocalypse. So I was gonna say. Yeah.

unknown 12:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 12:14

Not a lot of projections going on right now.

SPEAKER_05 12:18

There was definitely some yes and happening there when President Scott was basically.

SPEAKER_07 12:23

When the president says, I need you to do this, you say yes and there you go.

SPEAKER_05 12:29

Alright. Well, I think I can see what's happening here, Justin. We got an announcer. Now we have an acting coach. They're forcing us into some sort of propaganda machine. Do you see how we're being manipulated here? Team Apocalyptic!

SPEAKER_07 12:53

Go ahead. Larry, we'll talk afterwards. Yes, coach. Now, now, Jake, let me just say.

SPEAKER_04 13:01

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 13:03

I didn't believe you. I didn't believe for one second that was a true story. It's something about your delivery, something we need to fix that. We need to give you, bring out more sincerity in you, because that just sounded like horseshit.

SPEAKER_05 13:17

Well, I I I mean, so the the the diaper was full of it, but I can tell you that that is a true story, and it is stuck with me to this day. And whenever I get down and out, you know, like I'm starting to feel right now by asking you to join this program, I suddenly realize that I'm gonna take uh, you know, uh a sunny side. Uh look at it in a positive way.

SPEAKER_04 13:41

It's not a pile of shit, it's a delicious pie.

SPEAKER_07 13:47

Don't you see now there. Jared, I believe. Jared, I I just sincerity in the wisdom that he brought forth, just in that simple sentence. Jake.

SPEAKER_05 13:59

Yes, and I gotta we also agree. Is that what I'm supposed to do here? Yes, and okay, okay, yes, and all right, well, look, I'm getting a signal coming in right now, and I don't think it could come at a better time. Enough grilling the host of the show. Let's see. I think President Scott has joined. Mr. President Scott, what an honor.

SPEAKER_06 14:28

Introducing the survivor and chief President Scott.

SPEAKER_07 14:36

President Scott, what it is, man. How you doing?

SPEAKER_01 14:39

Uh-oh. Oh sorry.

SPEAKER_03 14:45

Okay, Connie, Connie, cut it, cut it, cut it, Connie. Connie, you gotta leave them wanting more, okay? We talked about this, all right? You give them a good 10-15 seconds, and then you cut it, okay? It gives me enough time to kind of bask in the glow and power and authority, and then you cut it, okay? Then I can gentlemen, Mr.

SPEAKER_05 15:08

President.

SPEAKER_03 15:09

My fellow Amer uh, we can't really call it that anymore. Uh, wait, we talked about this. Um my fellow members of the Republic Citizens of the Re of the Republic. Um, mm-mm, mm-mm. Um, we'll just go with uh we'll stick with fellow survivors. And I am your survivor-in-chief, your president, Sean Scott. I know you all voted for me. Welcome. What it is, Prez, how you doing, man? Ah, I see ATG my teammated. So I see Coach Pelletier. Um, I assigned him to work with you two fine gentlemen to uh, you know, we wanted to just enhance this uh this historic and this remarkable program that we're putting together. And and I felt like having Coach Pelletier come on and help you guys would just make this entire production so much better. Don't you agree? There's a lot of enhancing that needs to happen.

SPEAKER_05 16:01

But with all due repair, I mean I get their prize. I think Justin and I were doing fine. I haven't really seen any value add as of yet.

SPEAKER_03 16:08

I mean I can see why you would think that, uh, in your limited purview of all things that are important. Um so therefore, it is up to me with a higher vision to assign someone who really knows what they're doing to make sure that you really know what you're doing. So please accept this charitable gift and make great use of him. He is a wonderful coach. He uh coached Connie. Uh Connie was um struggling for a little bit in her role as as my uh press secretary and uh my major domo, and she really's come along. She's come along with Connie. I mean, I'm talking about Connie. I'm talking about you, not to you. So you don't have to hover. Just sit, just I'm so sorry. Just sit on the couch. Connie, love you, babe. Uh Coach Pelletier says he loves you. And I don't I don't think that's appropriate at all. I think I think we need to talk about that. Anyway, gentlemen, um one thing I wanted to report. We can boot him? No, no, you cannot boot him. He is a permanent fixture and he will be remaining. Yeah, uh until and at least until you've shown enough um acumen in the acting realm so that you can not need his services any further.

SPEAKER_07 17:14

And at this point, I see Jake, what acumen needs is uh that you actually have some expertise in what you're doing.

SPEAKER_03 17:21

Thank you, thank you, coach, and I would appreciate it if you didn't interrupt me. Um one thing I wanted to share with you gentlemen is that uh one thing I wanted to share with you gentlemen was that uh I wanted to give you some updates. You may not be getting information from everywhere at all times. So I did want to let you know that uh the floodwaters have receded from Cleveland, uh, but the irradiated mutants are still craving human flesh for now. So you may want to remain indoors. Oh, I am not supposed to share that information with you. I apologize. Yeah, that's kind of breaking news for our president. No, no, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_05 17:54

It was mutants that caused the block.

SPEAKER_03 17:56

No, no, no. Mutants were really more of a byproduct, not a cause. So um causation and collation are not the same. So please make sure you don't tell people that it was mutants um and you didn't hear the word mutants come from my mouth. Uh that's mutated from perhaps a rampant virus of some kind. Mutated from being wonderful people to being extremely wonderful people. That's what we'll say. Um, they are fantastic. There's no problems in Cleveland. Cleveland's a fine place to live. Uh, we all love it there. Um also and yes, and also I wanted to really focus on one thing. I I hear all this focus on post-apocalyptic, post-apocalyptic. You know, why don't we focus on what's happening right now? We are technically mid-apocalyptic. Like we we keep talking about this post-thing. We're mid. We're mid-apocalyptic. We need to be more accurate in our statements. We need to make sure that when we are speaking to each other and speaking to the world at large, that we are talking about what really is and not what could be. We are in a mid-apocalyptic. There's still a uh a positive, possible outcome that could come from this, where it's not even apocalyptic at all. So uh let's stay positive, gentlemen.

SPEAKER_04 18:59

Indeed. Indeed. Here, here, uh, it reminds me of one of my favorite leaders, Winston Churchill, who said that perhaps we are not at the beginning of the end, but at the beginning. I mean the end of the beginning. He said it way better than that.

SPEAKER_05 19:18

I am sorry, you said it is wonderfully, Jared.

SPEAKER_07 19:22

Fantastic.

SPEAKER_05 19:23

That was great. You fucked the whole thing up, but perfect.

SPEAKER_07 19:26

And it was the sincerity, Jake. It was the sincerity. It's why the coach is here. This is why.

SPEAKER_05 19:32

Now we see. I get how it is. Okay. I mean, he's not the way he talks. Not a part of his.

SPEAKER_08 19:41

No.

SPEAKER_05 19:43

No, no, not a part. Well, he does have a non-sexual man crush, so we made that very clear. Oh, yes. There not to be any touching.

SPEAKER_03 19:50

You know, what you do behind closed bunkers is really up to you, gentlemen. I have no opinion on it whatsoever.

SPEAKER_05 19:55

Well, President Scott, look, it's always an honor to see you. I know you're a very busy man. Uh, are were you gonna stick around and and maybe join us for the for the movie review? I believe a few times in the week.

SPEAKER_03 20:06

I may have some time. Let me check my schedule. Connie! What is uh what am I coming up? What's coming up after this? Yeah, that's a state dinner. We don't really do those anymore, right? I mean, there's there's no state, right? There's no state dinner if there's no state, correct? Did you say steak dinner? Uh no, no, state. So no, we can cancel that. We can cancel that. I mean, it's just the rations, right? We're just gonna heat up the rations. No. Um, can you get the good MREs out? Yeah, that'd be great. Okay. No, I actually have time.

SPEAKER_05 20:34

All right. All right. Great. Well, look, I think we're about at the time where we're gonna uh break for a commercial. So, Larry, would you like to uh you know close out this segment? Dystopian drive-in potty break.

SPEAKER_06 20:50

Everybody return in five minutes. Who is this man? I thought you appointed me. Appointed me, sir. I've never seen my life. I may have jumped in here and I may have fibbed about the presidential recommendation.

SPEAKER_05 21:10

But he did I mean sounds pretty good, but uh if you if you don't mind just not hearing this part, it's like hey, Larry.

SPEAKER_02 21:18

I'm I'm happy you're here. Way better than this, coach. Hey, Larry, I agree. I I'm happy you're here as well, man. You're killing it. Is it me, Larry?

unknown 21:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 21:34

Sorry, sir. I'm sure you didn't hear any levels. Uh I heard something. I get comic to check my levels. Check my levels. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Radio interference. She's wearing that dress today, gentlemen. She's wearing that dress. Oh, what color? She always does. It's a kind of a fuchsia. It's a fuchsia. And the fuchsia is bright. That's all I'm saying about that.

SPEAKER_06 21:53

Touch improved by Coach Pelletier to remain quiet behind the scenes. Alright, it will be right there.

SPEAKER_00 22:05

Interrupt this programming coincidentally at the moment they were going to take a commercial break. So don't think that we were biding our time and waiting patiently to present our video. It would be a big mistake to think that we acquiesced at any point. We are a very dangerous, tough, and impetuous organization. And any belief that we cut in only at the very second the host cuts commercial will be both detrimental to our branding, but also you can guarantee a spot in the everlasting eternal flames in Second Hell. Okay, anyway, where was I right? So here are our demands.

SPEAKER_06 22:39

Alright. And welcome back to Dystopian Drive In with your host, Jason Beard, and Justin Merritt.

SPEAKER_05 22:45

Ah, perfect. You killed it, Larry. You killed it. Good job, guys. That's pretty good. Gotta admit, that was pretty good. See, maybe weren't worth his worth staying. What do you think, President Scott? I think uh we will not execute him.

SPEAKER_08 22:57

There you go. Execution too much.

SPEAKER_05 23:02

Alright. So let's get into it. So the uh per uh President Scott's recommendation, we watched a film called Red Sparrow. Now, look, I'm a filmmaker, or I was before the end of the world. I have close ties to the film industry, and yet I never heard of this movie. I didn't know it existed. So when it was brought up, I really had no idea what it was. So uh, but it was uh it came out in 2018, Sir Jennifer Lawrence. This is definitely like you know, around the time where she's just kind of her star is just rising meteorically to this, you know, she's just can't really do any wrong at this point. I think she's already got a few Hunger Games movies, at least the first one under her belt. Uh so a little bit about the movie itself, Red Sparrow is uh based on a novel of the same title. It is the first in a trilogy um that came out in 2013. The author is Jason Matthews, uh, who was a uh 33-year veteran of the CIA. Uh, you know, this book and these stories are often lauded for their authenticity because of his experience with trade craft. Um the series has a stacked, or the movie rather has a stacked cast. Jennifer Lawrence, Joel Edgerton, Jeremy Frickin' Irons. What? That was a surprise. Uh Jolie Richardson, uh Bill Camp, another great actor. You might have seen him in an HBO series called The Night of. Kind of always plays this kind of character, but really underutilized in this role, I thought. Uh Charlotte Rampling as the matron. Boy, are we gonna talk about her? Um take off your clothes. You get ahead of yourself. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But we're gonna get there. Caran Hines, who um I hope I pronounced his name right, but he's been in any thing from Munich, Kieran, to Munich to Game of Thrones and everything in between. Excellent actor. Uh Sakina Jaffery, the only thing I knew her from was um House of Cards on Netflix, and she played pretty much the same kind of character that she plays in this movie. And then in a what I have to say is just a baffling performance is Mary Louise Parker, of all things, which I was not expecting. She is the swan, I guess. Okay. All right. Uh here we go. So, the death of an artist, the fall of Dominica. First off, Dominica. That's an odd name. I know they were probably like, I don't want to just like say Natasha, right? But Dominica, that that doesn't just roll off the tongue for some reason.

SPEAKER_07 25:58

But anyway, she's No, but I think it's foreshadowing. I was gonna say the same, comes.

SPEAKER_05 26:03

You're probably proud. I was gonna say the same. Um, she was a prima ballerina for the Bolshoi. Um, and then in the middle, so they're cutting between, you know, in the opening scene, they're cutting between her and her ballet, and this guy who we learn is Joel Edgerton uh Nash, I think his character's name, and he's apparently some sort of agent in some capacity, we don't really know what, and he's carrying out some sort of mission. So, in parallel, she's dancing and he's trying to carry out his mission, and then at a point where she uh is uh gonna do some fancy maneuver or something, I guess her dance partner moves the wrong way or something and just jumped and he and she falls out and lands, uh breaking her leg, which would have had to have been like when they've actually show it some sort of just absolutely horrific compound fracture or something. I mean, this lady like I I I we'll we'll get into it, but her her mobility in the rest of the movie is in question. I'll say that. So um, all right. So anyway, that happens. Um and you guys are gonna have to help me. I got lost in this thing sometimes, so I was really trying to understand, like, okay, at first I thought the lady that she's living with, um, I for some reason I was thinking it was like her sister, but I guess it was her mother. Um and her mother in illness, and they don't unbutton. That's right. And so it was difficult for me to understand what that was really all about, okay, but it was kind of a minor thing. Okay. So then what? She gets word, she Jennifer Lawrence Dominica Dominica gets word somehow that that was a setup, right? That the ballerina dancing m situation was a setup. Yeah. Her uncle. Her uncle reveals that.

SPEAKER_07 28:10

Yeah, she got she got word from her uncle that the the the injury was caused on purpose because her partner wanted was having an affair with her understudy and wanted her understudy to to be the lead. To be the lead. And so she he basically took her out by f by shattering her leg.

SPEAKER_05 28:33

Right. And in so in Retributions, she finds a Russian golf club and goes, finds them in the shower, doing it, and she beats the crap out of these people.

SPEAKER_07 28:49

With an aluminum cane.

SPEAKER_05 28:51

Yeah. Oh, is it a cane? Oh, for some reason I thought it was a golf club.

SPEAKER_07 28:55

No, uh, yeah. At first I'm like, where'd she get a gun? No, she was walking with that. That's the that was the the handle end of the cane. But yeah, that did a lot of damage for uh a lightweight aluminum cane.

SPEAKER_03 29:05

Yeah, yeah, I I I thought so too. Um I felt like the body shot she gave her was like just an extra all up in the head. And then she does that one last body shot, just like bam. And I was like, I wonder if that was planned.

SPEAKER_06 29:20

Cinematography-wise, they needed to show more boobies. So you needed to do that shot in order to show more boobies.

SPEAKER_07 29:26

Yeah, she rolls over so that she's on the floor and she hits her one time and they kind of wasn't gratuitous enough. Let's shoot this again.

SPEAKER_05 29:36

Hold on, we didn't get the tits. Can you just hit her one more time, please? Alright, got it. Alright, so um i at the same time, I I found I so Joel is meeting somebody, and the authorities are are are noticing this situation, and uh he fires a couple shots to distract, and then he gets away and lets the other guy get away. We don't at this point know who that person was, but it is of some importance to him, and I don't think we even yet know that Joel works Joel, sorry, Nash. Mate Nash. Mate Nash, what a name, right? What a name. Or the CIA. Um, all right, so let's get to the uncle for a second. So now we're talking about the uncle's offer. So her uncle shows up and offers to help with a mother's apartment, a medical care, if she performs this service. And then this is where they have what I guess they call it like a a sexual honey trap. The honeypot. Yeah, and they and when the target is brutally killed in front of her, she is now this loose end, right? Like he sort of framed her already. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 30:56

Well, it was portrayed to her just to exchange the phones. That was all she was there to do was trade the phones out. But he already had his ulterior plan already set up.

SPEAKER_03 31:10

Yeah, I want to talk about that part because um granted, she thought it was uh basically an entryway to some type of spy craft, right?

SPEAKER_05 31:19

Right.

SPEAKER_03 31:20

And she she was gonna have to play her own way into his room or to somebody's room so she could make the switch. But they didn't give her any kind of training. She didn't request any. There was no, there was no there was nothing. And yes, later on she gets sent to the sparrow school or whatever, but that she didn't know that at the time. So I was watching it going, okay, she's never done this before or anything like this. And she's supposed to seduce this guy, which of course she looks like Jennifer Lawrence, so it wouldn't have been that difficult. But in order to do it in a way so that she could actually switch out the phones, there was nothing provided to her to give her that authority or that ability.

SPEAKER_06 32:00

And she he he she did have that because he's the one that met her the night that she was performing, yeah, and he already had a liking of her, and so his the uncle was saying, We're gonna use that to get you in to be able to exchange the phones out. She had no interest in becoming a spy original or doing the whole program initially. She was he was told her, do this and I'll help you guys keep your apartment.

SPEAKER_03 32:27

True. You're you're absolutely right. I guess for me, it was still kind of a matter of, yeah, she she knew the she knew who the guy was, she had encountered him, she knew he was a creep, um, because he did the whole weird thumb thing on her back. Right. Which I was like, that is such a weird thing to focus on. Weird um, but I still think that if you're going in a situation where you know you're trying to do subterfuge, so it wasn't a natural situation for her. She would be nervous, like nobody taught her how to not be nervous, how not to do any of that stuff. So that I that stuck out to me.

SPEAKER_05 32:59

Right. Yeah, it was almost like, and I I mean, I don't think that's the that's the only time that this really happens. Like, not to spoil anything, but there was never really a point. I mean, once we get to the school, we're gonna talk about that, but there was never a point there where I'm like, oh, she she's top-notch spy. Like, I mean, like, she really she's really learned the ways of of you know this this world.

SPEAKER_07 33:20

And see, that was that was my confusion as well, because I'm watching this thing, and you know, granted, I'm I'm kind of multitasking as I'm watching it. Um but yeah, we you can save the details on what that was. She's a I'm sorry, but uh no, so I I I mean I'm I'm watching, you know, she's she's dancing and then she gets hurt, and then the the the the weird uncle comes in, worst uncle ever. Um and and like says, you know, I'll out and you can do this and I'll get you out of this, and then she's there, and she's so calm until she gets to the bathroom and throws up, or tries to, and then and then comes back in and is still and the whole time I'm like, okay, wait a minute, is she actually an operative who was posing as a ballet dancer? Is she because she seems like she knows how to do this, right? And it really didn't it really didn't click for me exactly who she was and exactly what was going on.

SPEAKER_05 34:19

Right. So talking about her uncle, okay, so um I hate he pimped her out, dude. The uncle. I mean, I don't think anybody is supposed to like him, you know. I mean, uh, he's sort of his character is basically like he's the worst uncle that ever lived. But I I hate him in a way that's probably not healthy because I want the actor who played him to never act again. I his career is over, and uh I hated the way he portrayed the uncle. I hated all of the leaning in. It was like every scene ended with him holding a cigarette and leaning in and giving her the kiss on the cheeks before, and I was just like so creeped out by him so easy. So that's why too.

SPEAKER_07 35:03

I was I was wondering, is she is he really her uncle, or did she just call him that because he's a family benefactor? Unclear. Right? Unclear. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 35:11

So the Well, it was she he was really the uncle. No, he was, but it was the brother, he says she's his brother's daughter, the niece, but just the way he was doing things was just like, dude, seriously? What the heck? Taking a gift to this chick.

SPEAKER_03 35:28

Yeah, that's in the movie where they're horrible.

SPEAKER_05 35:34

So, okay, so the ultimatum is this. Uh, okay, you know, you've seen too much, uh, and now uh you either have to die, or you can become a sparrow. Uh so there's her choices. She dies, which also means her mom dies, or she can become uh uh a sparrow, which she doesn't know what that means, but there's only one choice here. So she decides to be uh uh a sparrow. And uh oh, and just one more thing. I hated the uncle's the way he looked, because even though I think this is supposed to be like in modern like well, it's 2018, but you know, it's a present-day type of film, right? Like he looks like he's from 1955 at all times. Like he just I don't know what it was, his style and everything about him.

SPEAKER_08 36:26

Came off the scene of Mad War.

SPEAKER_05 36:28

Right, right, right. Yes. So it just it just uh I really hated that guy. All right, so now we get to state school four. So this or what she ends up calling the whore school, which I was so happy she said that. Because I'm like, okay, at least you're acknowledging that this is not normal. I'm like, when I hear that this guy, Matthews, was a CIA agent for 33 years and the authenticity, I'm like, oh, okay, so this obviously, this is to me, cannot be authentic. I just cannot imagine that there was something like this out there where it's like, all right, the way to the way, the way to be a successful spy, a disrobe, please.

SPEAKER_03 37:10

Take off your clothes, please. I would argue that they weren't spies at all, though. They they were straight up honeypots. Like they they just took advantage of weaknesses to get information, but I wouldn't call them spies in the traditional sense of an operative.

SPEAKER_06 37:27

They weren't part of the cloak and dagger group.

SPEAKER_07 37:29

They were just part of the I'm gonna screw your brains up in what situation. Yeah, not cloaking.

SPEAKER_05 37:39

Yeah. It was the suck and banger uh instead of cloak and dagger.

SPEAKER_04 37:43

I just mostly compromised, yes, put people in compromise positions to black man to farm them for the information they they know. Now that was a real thing during the Cold War, uh, and the official CIA policy is that that is not permitted at all. But there is no such policy from the Soviet Union. Whether that school still is. So you're saying that's a possibility of Russia is possible, yeah. It's possible. The lady who plays them is still around today.

SPEAKER_05 38:21

Oh wow. So the lady that plays the matron, now she is she's a good actress. Charlotte Rampling. Yeah, Charlotte Rambling. She's but but as soon as I saw her, I kind of knew what to expect, you know, because she's just got this face that, you know, she can just it just be stoic and and um but the whole idea, it was so difficult to watch, and I'm sure that was the point of it. But just to there was uh sorry to say that it for me was not a very uh stimulating film for the most part. It was a sex type of sex that was very disturbing to watch, and you never it wasn't one that you could really get your rocks off of. Thank god for Pornhub and things.

SPEAKER_07 39:00

Were you looking to?

SPEAKER_03 39:01

Because I mean that's Nick and Jennifer Lawrence is still Nick Jennifer Lawrence, but but yeah, you're you're like, oh, I don't like this.

SPEAKER_07 39:13

Oh, wait, ask me again, very crazy.

SPEAKER_05 39:15

Ask me again, coach.

SPEAKER_07 39:17

Ask you again.

SPEAKER_05 39:18

Do I want to get my rocks off?

SPEAKER_07 39:20

I don't want to ask you that.

SPEAKER_05 39:21

Because the answer is yes and all day long.

SPEAKER_07 39:26

Uh I need a shower. All right, so Can we back up real quick? Yeah, because I want to tell you something that really, really bothered me. Okay, let's do it. When she's in that hotel room with the guy, right, and she goes in and she almost throws up in the sink and is like, and then all of a sudden she's like, Alright, let's do this. And she goes out and he about rapes her, and then she's he throws her down on the bed, and then dude comes up behind him with a piano wire. Right. Pull him off of her. Don't choke him out and make him bleed all over her. I'm like, you have the strength to pull him back. Why did that happen? Why did he have to like die over the top of her and bleed all over her chest?

SPEAKER_06 40:04

I think that was intentional. And that was so that the blood is on her to where now she's implicated in this murder. It was very disturbing. Which is why they gave her that ultimatum of you either die because you were there or you become a sparrow. Okay. I'll buy that. So they can't.

SPEAKER_05 40:27

Now, what was that dude's name? I can't remember what it was. I don't know if they ever said it was called. Yeah. I had a hard time sort of placing him in. I mean, I knew he was an assassin.

SPEAKER_06 40:37

Plan a wire guy. Yeah. He's Matarin or Met Maturin.

SPEAKER_05 40:41

Maturin. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 40:42

Maturin.

SPEAKER_05 40:43

Maturin.

SPEAKER_06 40:44

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 40:45

Okay. So uh maturin, and now we go to the matron. So um, so basically, she explains that uh you use your body to manipulate, and so the whole thing is like strip, do sexual things, and then you're gonna graduate and become a sparrow. But J Law's like, I refuse. And um that uh does not do well for her at first, and then there's this like jock looking dude that like tries to rape her in the shower and she doesn't let that happen, and then beats the crap out of him, and then he comes back in.

SPEAKER_07 41:27

Which, how easy was it for her to get that shower handle off, by the way? I know.

SPEAKER_03 41:30

Yep, yep, I know uh you know, rush and farming, what do you want?

SPEAKER_05 41:34

And then they take they take him away and then they let him back into the room, and she's sort of like uh, you know, calls his bluff, like, and then you realize he needs power because when I gave it up freely, he couldn't even, you know.

SPEAKER_06 41:50

Yeah, but that's the parts that were that were where I was getting lost in this. This was supposed to be, I'm so assuming, a matter of months, maybe even a year, because all of a sudden she's walking perfectly after such a horrific break in her leg. And then which, you know, going back to that of you know, she can't even figure out which leg to limp on from scene to scene, and then all of a sudden walking normal while carrying the yeah, well, d that's beside the point.

SPEAKER_07 42:20

Anywho, I have the timeline for you, by the way, because I wrote it down because I'm like, uh uh.

SPEAKER_06 42:25

Well, when she's in there talking, first of all, she doesn't know anything about spy crash, she doesn't know anything about any of this stuff, and she seems very naive as a dancer, you know, and and going through all of this stuff, but all of a sudden now she's in this school and now can suddenly magically read people like crazy. I mean, just knows she can read every single person in the room. And I'm like, where did you all of a sudden learn this? Where it's Page Boy Girl who was recruited for this broke down and couldn't do it.

SPEAKER_04 43:00

Go ahead. Uh I'm I'm sorry, I was just gonna say what I'm hearing from you is that there, despite some of the training montages, there's this Mary Jane aspect to her where she just naturally can read people and naturally has all of this spy craft that she hasn't been taught because she hasn't been off of screen learning it.

SPEAKER_05 43:27

Right. And when she is learning something, she's refuting the training. She's she's she's saying, No, I'm gonna do it a different way. You know, you want me to disrobe and use my body, and she's like, I'm not gonna do that. And then later on, it's like the CIA agent, well, he's a nice agent, and I'm not he doesn't want that from me. But then when we finally do have sex, it lasts 35 seconds.

SPEAKER_07 43:47

But anyway, that's generous. 24 seconds. I timed that too. Yeah, yeah. I actually did try and time that. Uh oh, I did. I totally did. I'm like, holy crap, Joel, come on.

SPEAKER_03 43:57

To be fair.

SPEAKER_07 43:58

Yeah, it's generous. From your life. Not do much better. I'm just saying.

SPEAKER_05 44:03

But it was her. He got her there in 24 seconds. You know, that's what was impressive. Um, all right. I have to say this about the movie. So there's a few things, just in general, it looks great. The movie is shot. I mean, there's some really great cinematography going on. Obviously, they poured a bunch of money into this. I am kind of surprised that this one was not on my radar because obviously the studios and everybody involved thought, oh, this is probably gonna be a big deal, guys. So let's let's put some film and or money into this. I mean, the film looked great. But what the one thing, the one positive thing that I'll really say about it is that based on the cover and the title, I thought this was gonna be like a John Wick-esque type of thing, or a Black Widow-esque type of thing, where it's just this non-stoppable force, femme fatale that there never gets hurt, kills everybody, and you know, like you've we've seen it, you know, ad nauseum at this point over and over and over again. So I did like that it was nothing like that, that it really was more of you know, just getting people in compromising positions. Um but the understated way they shot this thing led to it being almost too blase. There was so it was so blah. I mean, just like there was never a moment where I was like, ooh, what's gonna happen? I wasn't in in it. It was just sort of like observing these people talk like this and the Russian accents, and it was very monotone and okay. Now, let's go.

SPEAKER_06 45:36

You just hit it, which I've been my biggest pet peeve of this whole frigging movie, was you got Jennifer Lawrence, who once in a while says a couple of Russian accented words, but then speaks Jennifer Lawrence. Then you've got the matron who starts Russian and then falls into British, does majority British, falls back into Russian. You got Jeremy Irons, who, God bless him, I think he's a great actor. Oh, yeah. But man, stick to German and South African. Do not try and do Russian. It was just so horrible how he tried to do that. And I'm like, you guys couldn't have picked better actors that could have done better at this. I mean, I I first thought in my head watching this coach was uh uh Florence Pugh from Black Widow. I'm like, she would have been perfect.

SPEAKER_05 46:30

She's great.

SPEAKER_06 46:30

I mean she was 22, she was 22 in 2018. I mean, she's only six years off of Jennifer Lawrence. All right, that's not too bad. So I was like, that could have now granted, she might have saw everything that uh Francis Lawrence wanted to do with the nudity and said, I'll pass.

SPEAKER_07 46:47

Jennifer Q would not have passed on nudity. You don't think so? Let's get real. I haven't seen her in anything else. Oppenheimer sat there for like five minutes with no clothes on. I never saw it.

SPEAKER_06 46:57

Well then yeah, she I think she would have been better, but at least with the accents, it's it's just the the accents were the things that were that was the hardest for me.

SPEAKER_05 47:06

Yeah, like yeah, we I almost wish they had done like the Hunt for Red October thing where they kind of all start in subtitles. Yeah, and then it's in my notes, dude. Right. Because that was always a that was such a brilliant thing. The best transition ever. Because, you know, we we we got Sean Connery here, this masterful actor, but he wasn't gonna be able to do that. Sean Connery.

SPEAKER_08 47:38

Sean Connery.

SPEAKER_05 47:39

Oh man. So yeah, I think I yeah, they could have they could have handled it that way. Um all right, just this is just a little nitpick. I I hate I I I like Joel Edgerton a lot. I think he's a really good actor, but um there was the the dialogue to me, I guess being a writer, you know, it's some of the dialogue was just very stiff and it it wasn't an interesting, it wasn't very interesting, but there was one I just found it funny because the movie the and and please correct me if I'm wrong, but they're they're in Russia, right? Like they're they start out, they end up in Budapest. Okay, okay, and I didn't catch that. So when I'm watching it, he asks the sec after they've sort of had their meat cute at the pool, and he spots it like right away, like, oh, she's a sparrow. I thought, okay, well, that's how good is this uh organization?

SPEAKER_07 48:28

Well, not only that, not only that, I mean he sussed her out immediately. Yeah, and I'm gonna how bad of a spy do you have to be? But uh it made me think they picked a person who has uh a certain level of celebrity. She is a she is a performer in Russia, she is a Russian ballet dancer who is Yeah. She's known. And then you give her another name, and it's like, oh, oh, no, I think you're this. Oh, you're right. That's who I am.

SPEAKER_03 48:58

She just changed her hair to blonde. She had the same low-ass bangs. And he fucking noticed that.

SPEAKER_05 49:03

He even comments on the hair color to the case.

SPEAKER_04 49:08

That's why she goes, Justin, because I think you're hitting her your home her her actual real name when she signed up for the pool. Because, yeah, she had an embassy ID, but she used her real name at the pool because she wanted to send a signal to the CIA that she was here to do some dealing.

SPEAKER_07 49:31

So you look at Justin getting all deep and noticing the details while the restaurant's just going, ah, they are ha-rah-da-da.

SPEAKER_05 49:37

So just keep yeah, just keep pumping him up, coach. Just keep pumping him up, okay? So, uh, alright, so now yeah, um, but I just one little nitpick. So when Nash invites her to, I think the first restaurant is like Turkish or something, but then the next time he goes, I know this Russian restaurant. And of course, at the time I'm thinking, they're they're in Russia, don't you just say restaurant? And then he says something along with like, have have dinner with me there. And I was like, Well, what the fuck else do you do in a restaurant? You eat dinner. It was just really poorly written stuff.

SPEAKER_07 50:10

Yeah, in Budapest. Can we go out to the restaurant and pitch horseshoes?

SPEAKER_05 50:17

And I don't think she ever does it, by the way. He's not very good at picking her up. Um, all right, so we talked about the 30, 24 seconds.

SPEAKER_03 50:24

No, he m he went to the restaurant and waited for her, but she didn't show up at the end. Oh, she didn't show.

SPEAKER_07 50:27

She was watching him show. Yeah, she watched him and then followed him home. That's right.

unknown 50:31

That's right.

SPEAKER_07 50:31

And then cried outside and somehow, you know.

SPEAKER_05 50:34

Yeah. Okay, so we're she set up her boss. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So that I so let me understand that. So she sets up her boss because now she's been assigned because she's the best of the sparrows, obviously. Obvious, right? So she gets sent to this place where she laoms with Marta, which I guess is another sparrow, or is but and she's already working a deal with somebody. I didn't get the sense she was a sparrow.

SPEAKER_06 51:02

I didn't either.

SPEAKER_05 51:03

I I just thought she was a uh like a garden variety spy. Yeah. So she's a garden variety spy. Yeah, I couldn't see that's another thing.

SPEAKER_07 51:10

Like I didn't know she's although Mary Louise Parker was into her, so yeah.

SPEAKER_03 51:14

I mean, yeah, she was just working the asset, I think.

SPEAKER_05 51:16

But she was a sparrow. Work that asset, maybe right. So she's working the asset. She thinks she was. I that's what I was wondering. Is this like the safe house for sparrows where they, you know, this is their first, this is where all sparrows go after they've, you know, take your clothes off and uh get in uh the doggy style position. Now you are a spy. Congratulations. Um grab that meat. You are now spies.

SPEAKER_06 51:43

Don't cry, just grab the meat.

SPEAKER_07 51:47

Grab the meat. Oh no, massage the testicles now. Congratulations. You can feel like you want it.

SPEAKER_05 51:55

You successfully completed intercourse, you are now a spy. Goodbye.

SPEAKER_07 51:59

Um so there's nothing quite as breathtaking as a Sean Scrotum.

SPEAKER_05 52:07

Alright, so okay, so then she goes there.

SPEAKER_03 52:10

We'll see a prequel of her as a sparrow.

SPEAKER_05 52:13

Yeah. So she goes to, and now she's with Marta, and Marta's like, you should cut your hair or dye your hair. So that's how she gets her hair dyed. Uh we learn, uh uh what's her name? Uh Dominica is in the place by herself and suddenly starts snooping around as she finds this envelope within the the uh the crevice of the house somehow and looks it up and it's got 250,000, the swan. And so she kind of takes that as well. I'm gonna take this lead. Marta doesn't like that, so then she goes to what, I guess the case handler uh for sparrows. I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 52:49

The station chief, probably.

SPEAKER_05 52:50

Yeah, the another creepy guy who's like, Yep, shouldn't you be on the by now? Yeah, it's just like man, they really know how to pick this cast, man. So um, but then something happens and um oh, because he punches her, right? Doesn't he punch her?

SPEAKER_06 53:08

Well, he's suspecting her right for something, and so in order for her to get him off of her, not physic well, physically too, uh, because she was he was trying. He was trying. Um, he set her set him up on camera at the club because he basically told him he had a teeny weenie and he got pissed, and so he smacked her, uh, and then she said, Yeah, now look at the camera. And that was the setup of now I've got you. That's what I was gonna ask.

SPEAKER_07 53:38

She s he smacked her, right? He didn't punch her, he smacked her. That was quite a shiner she got from a smack. I'm not saying I have experience, I'm just saying he smacked her and she had immediately, like a couple hours later, was showed up at Joel Edgerton's and had had the huge.

SPEAKER_05 53:54

I'm just wondering when you when you're a graduate of horse school, and then you say, Hey, I got you on camera hitting me. I just wonder how much leverage that actually is over there, good old Russia. You know, like are they gonna really care?

SPEAKER_06 54:10

And then you got that little slap caused such a big giant blackness on her eye, but yet she got smacked in the face. Now, granted, okay, so I put a pillow there, but smacked her in the face with a pipe. Oh my gosh. And then barely has anything, any mark on her face.

SPEAKER_05 54:26

I'm like That's true. Really? And of course, broke her leg in 14,000 places, but she can walk and swim fine.

SPEAKER_07 54:34

Well, yeah, and let's get back to that because I again, I mean, Larry alluded to it earlier. I want to bring up this timeline, right? Because I wrote it down. Okay. She she broke her leg, she's in surgery, she looks down, she's got the halo on, and she starts to cry. Then it goes fade to black three months later. Right. She's out walking, limping horribly on a cane, not remembering which leg to limp on. She gets back home, she her mom is on the floor, she drops the cane, does one limp, and then sprints over to her. Yes, that too. And then, and then literally, he says, in two weeks, right? I I I I captured that. In two weeks, you're gonna have and and so two weeks later, she's at the ball in the gown, walking, nothing's wrong. Okay, so she recovered from that incredibly nasty double-bone break, uh, which probably should have been uh uh compound, but the CGI was so horrible on it. Uh, you know. Uh but not even a little limp. Not even a uh like not even a little limp, yeah. It was gone. And by the way, the dude sucking on the scar.

SPEAKER_05 55:41

Oh yeah. Yeah, it was really amazing.

SPEAKER_06 55:44

So she she got done with that in three and a half months, basically. Yeah, three and a half months. And I already know from experience because of my brother getting hit by a car, getting put in all that erector set, was in therapy and retrying to learn how to walk for over a year and a half.

SPEAKER_03 56:00

I saw the because that thing is called an external fixator, in case you didn't know. And I know what it is because my wife had one because she broke her arm. And that's not even a load-bearing thing. And it took her like six months to get just decently useful with it. Wow. So when I saw the fixator, I'm like, yeah, that should be jacking her up for that time.

SPEAKER_05 56:22

Like, and I remember there was some line she says to I think she's talking to the creepy uncle, but she says something like that was a lifetime ago. And that was at the three-month mark. Three months ago when you talk to come back.

SPEAKER_08 56:34

That was green!

SPEAKER_05 56:37

Yeah. Oh man. Okay, so um now we're at the hunt for marble. So now there's so many different things happening. You've got the swan happening, you've also got the marble, which is uh Nate Nash's uh contact, some mole. Like it didn't, I mean, I'm sure it was just my passive viewing of this movie, even at three times in. I it was hard for me to like stay with it. I didn't catch, I didn't catch marble the first time. Like it was I understood there was a mole at some point, but I didn't catch that's who it was. But so Nate Nash is protecting this mole for some reason, and we don't know who it is. Um, and then there's the Budapest assignment. Um let's see, so then this is where we meet Nash at the pool and he becomes a good man, then she sets up the handler, she gets punched, then she goes to the good man, right? This is where they finally have their little love scene, I think. Or no, does she walk away from that one?

SPEAKER_07 57:39

I think she walks away from that one, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 57:41

But she does she's you know kind of getting into the mode of being like, oh, I got hit. So anyway, but that sets the stage, you know. He's the this is where we see he's the nice guy. You should probably go. Um, you should probably get out of here before I give you the best 24 seconds of your life. Um all right, so but at Nash is also kind of using her, right? Like he's trying to do this double recruitment, which man, we'll get into that too than I thought. Wow. Um, okay, so then let's get back to the swan. So eventually she does take it over. That the the swan investigation, she kind of sets it up where they're gonna meet. Inexplicably, at least to me, that creepy case handler also shows up and she says, go back to the room. Uh, where they end up meeting anyway with him there, so that was strange. Um, you know, like I was like, was that part of the plan?

SPEAKER_07 58:39

Did she know he was gonna show up?

SPEAKER_05 58:44

Right, yeah, right. And it's like go back to the room, but then they're in the room at the when they're doing the final deal because that's where the the floppy disks are, guys. Floppy disks. Why are we using floppy discs?

SPEAKER_03 58:55

Mystery disks in the year of our Lord 2018. Why are you on three and a half?

SPEAKER_07 59:00

Three and a half. They weren't floppy discs. They were the little 3.5 inch or whatever, but still it's like a stack of rubber band three and a half. What was on them? We don't we don't know what the buy was for. There were mystery discs.

SPEAKER_05 59:13

Yeah, yeah. And she never had a problem opening that little hatch until you know.

SPEAKER_07 59:19

Yeah, that was the worst bit of manufactured uh suspense. Yeah. I can't open the the booby hatch. And then you go.

SPEAKER_03 59:28

I thought it was like not there that was the problem exactly.

SPEAKER_06 59:32

I thought that the handler got before her and took it out.

SPEAKER_07 59:35

And then the CIA lady's like, or the CIA switched it up, and like I'm going, okay, who's on what side now? Yeah. Is she really truly working? Are they really truly working with her? Because they should buy her some jabs. What's your mini bar?

SPEAKER_05 59:47

Can I get you because your does your mini bar need to be replenished? Because that always happens.

unknown 59:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 59:52

And can't before we get too far past it, can we just pour a little bit out for Marta? Like, I I felt so bad for Marta. Marta had her assets stolen from her by this new chick that just showed up and then got killed. Got tortured and killed. Why did she get killed?

SPEAKER_05 1:00:09

Why did she get killed?

SPEAKER_06 1:00:10

Because Dominica told her uh about the killing of the guy that tried to rape her.

SPEAKER_07 1:00:18

Which, by the way, Dominica, worst spy ever, she can't keep a secret to anybody. She's telling this, her this, she's telling Joel Edgerton that, she's telling everybody everything. But then killed by the blonde-haired guy.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:30

Yes.

SPEAKER_07 1:00:31

Yeah. And then he threatens her like Yeah, this is what'll happen to you if smell it. Smell it.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:37

And I thought that's what I'm saying. Didn't the uncle then go to her and say, We told you not to tell anybody? Something like that. Get out of here. Move it.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:46

Um because he shows up in he shows up before that when Tomardo was still alive.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:52

It was very puzzling to me why he was even there. I I never really understood why he was involved. He was effective when he was in the scene. He was a device. Right. Yeah. It was almost like a human MacGuffin in some way, except you can see him. But he just sort of showed up to add pressure when when needed. But I I didn't really understand his his role in the whole thing. So we're we're getting a sense now that even though maybe Nash and her have a thing, they are kind of also using each other for mutual reasons. Um and um, you know, at this, I mean there's never a moment, I don't think, where Nash isn't sure that she's a sparrow, whatever that means. Um the swan happens. Okay, so right. So I I know Mary Louise Parker is a good actor, but I just I didn't buy this sort of flippant American drunkard role that she was playing.

SPEAKER_06 1:01:53

I just I didn't like this character of hers at all. Loved her in red, but I did not like her in this.

SPEAKER_07 1:01:59

Yeah, I mean, there was just that slight bit of levity they wanted with her. That's it. And I think it was misplaced. Yeah, I don't think it was unnecessary. It wasn't that type of movie.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:10

Right, right. Or or just or have that little bits of that throughout. And I I think you're right. I think it might have been, well, hey, you know, let's let's lighten things up a little bit. Yeah, because they're about to smash her with a car. So before we're gonna do it.

SPEAKER_07 1:02:22

Well, your point, they because they introduced her earlier, but just like from afar. It's like, okay, there she is, and you didn't understand exactly who she was, why she was, you know, the the other the other woman's you know target or whatever. They didn't explain any of that. No, and you didn't know what kind of asset she was and who she was until they literally got in the hotel room with her, and she explained that she was the senator's uh uh chief of staff. Yeah. And it's like, oh, okay, this is why we need to give you credence. That could have been set up earlier, yeah, not exposed right there and then. Right. And so I think if there was a little bit more Mary Louise Parker peppered throughout the the, you know, the previous 45 minutes or whatever, it might have given a little more weight to that scene and would have been, oh, okay, that's who she is.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:09

Yeah. It it almost felt like the the director or the producers watched Weeds and said, you know what? That would be a cool character to have in this movie. And tried to kind of bring it some of the because that when I watched her in her scene, her couple scenes there, it was almost the Nancy Botwin character a little bit, just elevated a little that I thought I saw in that. And it didn't fit to your point.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:33

Yeah. Alright, so we're about halfway through the movie review. I'm gonna take a pause here. We're gonna go to another segment, and where this is gonna be a segment of alternative titles. Larry, you want to give us a good alternative titles opening?

SPEAKER_02 1:03:46

Dystopian driving alternative titles.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:52

All right, so if you have some, great. If not, I I have a few. Uh, you know, I'm not saying they're diamonds, but you know, whatever. So I'll I'll start. Okay, so uh knowing that the director who directed this was also a director of like I think three of the Hunger Games movies, uh uh you know, just bear with me. Okay, I know they're not where I say this is, but I just said Hungary Games.

SPEAKER_07 1:04:19

Hungary Games. Okay.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:22

All right, the next one is Break a Leg, the Dominica story. And then the last one was spy hard, really hard. All right, that's it for me.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:38

I have one I'll go next. I just have one, but it's atomic blonde.

SPEAKER_07 1:04:48

Yeah, only for the last two-thirds of the movie, though.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:53

For the most part. Yeah. All right, I wrote a list. Um uh White Widow. Um, the obvious one, Horse School. Yeah, that was on my list too. Yeah. Um Dominica Does Dallas. Um, Dude Who Stole My Morality. Yeah. And my favorite um in in honor of her hairstyle, Titty Titty Bang Bang. All right.

SPEAKER_07 1:05:25

I've got some. Okay. Um I wrote down uh the world's okayest spies. Uh Sex lies in mystery discs. Um Hey, look, J Law is naked. Uh my favorite uncle. Uh Horse School. Also, another quote from the movie from the sadistic uh uh boss, uh Magic Pussy. Um yeah. Similar Killer Bangs.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:08

That's a good that's another bad one.

SPEAKER_07 1:06:09

And then my favorite one, um KGBDSM.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:17

Very good. All right, that one that one's gold. That's it. That's it.

SPEAKER_06 1:06:23

All right. I'm not that creative. All I had was the whore from Uncle.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:37

Okay, so this is where the double game has really started. So uh Nash has successfully recruited her. Well, we hold on. Before we we get there, I just have to talk about the um swan, Mary Louise Parker, getting hit by the vehicle. I just thought there could have been so many better ways to have done this scene. I mean, like, I had to go back and watch, it just seemed like she truly shocked me. Yeah. She just freezes. I mean, like, I get it that she's afraid these people are coming after her or whatever, but it was so poorly executed that it just kind of looks like she just walks out in the street and then.

SPEAKER_07 1:07:16

Well, he did the Joel Joel Edgerton did make a comment later when he was explaining what happened that they they they uh they made a move on her too soon. Too soon. Yeah. And spooked her.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:27

And they thought we fucked her is what he did.

SPEAKER_07 1:07:30

I didn't, yeah. I did I did not see that coming. And I audibly, when I saw that, I went, whoa, okay, that just happened.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:39

We fucked her, and not in the way that I did earlier in my hotel room.

SPEAKER_06 1:07:44

And it could have been something too that just the director poorly did. That part of what I had thought originally, you know, I was the same way. I was like, holy shit, she just got hit by a car. Yeah. But then I wondered, okay, she knows she's caught. She's got she's literally surrounded. She knows that she's probably up for treason now. Was it on purpose? She backed into it. Yeah, because she did look like she backed into it.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:12

Right.

SPEAKER_06 1:08:13

And so I was like, she just knew she was fucked and just said, screw it, I'm not gonna go to jail for treason, so let's just be done. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:22

I felt like they had the you know, the the Mary Louise Parker plot so that she could end up back in Moscow. Yeah. It's like the event happened to make the plot happen instead of the other way around. And yeah, uh so that's why I kind of was like, what are we looking at?

SPEAKER_05 1:08:44

What are we even looking at? What are what is this for? So, yeah, so speaking of, so because this all happens and because the CIA fucked her, she gets sent back to Russia and she's tortured by I don't know, it was it were they part of the sparrow school or I don't know who it was, but anyway, this is where they're like beating her with the yeah, holding the towel up to muffle it, I guess, to some degree, or buffer it, but banging her and and I think they were just all part of the state.

SPEAKER_06 1:09:13

I don't think they're part of the sparrow school.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:16

Yeah. So that happens, and I think that must be what convinces her. You're like, yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna go double agent here and start.

SPEAKER_07 1:09:23

You don't think she was already thinking that?

SPEAKER_05 1:09:24

I think she had to be. I think it'd be.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:27

If you look at the montage of stuff that she did, some of the scenes were before she got sent home.

SPEAKER_06 1:09:33

Checking the passport, getting the passport number, all that stuff was well before. Like even setting up the bank account, which by the way, the bank account.

SPEAKER_07 1:09:41

Yeah, yeah, the the whole like when the uncle comes over and they're talking, and and I can't remember if it's the same scene where she creepily kissed him. Yeah. When he was leaving, and he said, Oh, I forgot my coat. And she said, Oh, wait, I'll get it for you. Oh, that was a good one. And she goes and he stands there and waits. How convenient was that? I mean, that that was I I I just the whole time she walked back, she pulled his, you know, looked, looked at his passport or whatever. Took forever. And he's just standing there in the doorway. Like, I'll just wait right here.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:12

The master spy is alone with my jacket. I wonder if anything will be.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:18

I happen to have my passport in there.

SPEAKER_07 1:10:20

And he just happened to, yeah. I mean, he just happened to leave the very thing that she needed to look at. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:10:25

Right. You know?

SPEAKER_05 1:10:26

Yeah, just way too convenient. All right, so uh she does end up working with the CIA for a little bit and um begins feeding the CIA information um while pretending to the Russians that she's close to identifying the mole. Um and uh let's see, so let's see here. So Dominica is making moves. She is no longer just a sparrow, she is the player. Um then there's uh the that so that's happening. She seems to be having a lead on the mole. I c honestly couldn't tell if it really was pretend or if it was she actually knew something, although it was nothing they ever showed us, at least that I could really find that so. Uh but she ends up in bed with uh uh Nate Nash, and um they have a late smash. Um anyway all in 60 seconds. Right, and then she's like Nash and walks out, and here's the blonde dude again, this time torturing Nash. And uh then he's like, Do you know what this is? And I just thought, I th if I had been him, I would have been like, it looks like an attachment to a vacuum cleaner, dude. I don't know what the hell that is. It's it it takes the skin off humans. Do you know how long it takes?

SPEAKER_06 1:11:55

He said it was a cheese slicer.

SPEAKER_05 1:11:57

Oh, is that what he said? Yeah, he said cheese slicer. I didn't know what he said. He said yeah, well, but he's like, Do you know?

SPEAKER_07 1:12:04

I mean, he used that on uh the roommate when she was in the bathtub. You could see the skin that was sliced off. Yeah. Oh, I never I never so it was like, okay, that's the thing. Um that was kind of his dignity. But yeah, he was your typical uh uh movie sadistic torturer, where he's going to explain everything before he explains is what I use to pull out your eyeballs. Right, right.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:32

And in in anime, um, when you explain your technique, it actually tends to make the technique more powerful. So that I assume that that's what the villains are always doing.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:41

Yeah, they're always explaining themselves. Um and there is if there was ever any real time any investment, it was here for me, where I really wasn't sure is she really been playing Nash? Is she really playing with uh uh the cheese slicer the whole time, or is she gonna, you know, betray him or you know, like join the save Nash, and which she does, and they have a very bloody knife sequence, which was actually pretty effective.

SPEAKER_06 1:13:13

Yeah, yeah. Well, and another thing that I I need to I don't want to have to, but maybe one of you guys already noticed it, so I don't have to watch it again. But when you look at them fighting with him at the at you know that they're fighting the killer, right, he doesn't have those squares on his legs. So it seemed to me that the two of them were in cahoots to fake like she was doing this to him.

SPEAKER_07 1:13:40

She he did after the fact. He did after, I mean it part of it was like you couldn't see it on his shoulder when he was doing it behind him, and then while he was falling over and in the in the grand throws of things, you didn't really notice it, but after the fact, when when they were when he was uh he did have a big slice on his leg where she got him. Oh, okay and she also had the slices on his on his shoulder as well.

SPEAKER_06 1:14:04

So again, someone very convenient that's been twice in his legs and he can walk normal.

SPEAKER_07 1:14:11

Well, I mean they he they were, you know, they they did he didn't walk normal. He said call call you know call the the embassy or whatever. And he never got it.

SPEAKER_06 1:14:22

When they did the exchange. Now granted, I think. Oh, he did a little limp.

SPEAKER_07 1:14:25

He did have a little limp. Yeah, that's a tiny one shit. Yeah, it was long, it was it was at least three months later.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:14:33

So he was fine.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:34

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_07 1:14:35

So But I I I agree though. I I actually that scene was probably my favorite in the movie because there was that tension and there is there, there was that element of, well, wait, which side is she on? Right. I the entire time was like, I know why she's doing this, she has to act, and she is going to hurt him, but then she's gonna set him free. Um, and and she did, so she, you know, she I she backed up my thoughts. But I thought I thought that scene was actually very well done, it was very tense. Uh the action was, you know, I mean, all the all the knife play, they were actually landing. How many times do you see a movie where there's it's an action scene and they've got knives and and they're not even you know landing on each other? I mean, they were they were for real, you know, slicing each other up.

SPEAKER_05 1:15:20

And even the reveal that he's there and the way he was already in mid-strangulation, and I mean it was really well done, I thought that part was.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:29

One thing I I wanted to point out of around the fighting is unlike I will you know we talked about this earlier. I like the fact that she's not a trained martial artist or trained weapons fighter.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:41

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:41

And she was fighting, it it looked like she was fighting off pure instinct.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:45

And and whatever physical training she just happened to get in the sparrow school, which they never showed any pure weapons, like they never showed any right weapons training that I recall.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:54

No just just with a shower knob, she she found and in the distance people shooting a gun, but that was uh she never did.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:02

The fighting felt kinetic. It felt really kinetic. It felt like like the way a fight might go if you had people who were at their maximum peak official, you know, muscular turn efficiency who just didn't know how to do a lot of stuff.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:13

I like it. Fights don't last for 15 minutes, they last for a few seconds, and then both or multiple parties are exhausted. So I did like that about about the fight, and I I also I also liked the the sort of you know, like you said, the the the the movie classic Russian bad guy in in uh Maturin. I I kind of liked it, you know. He's just a bad guy, he's kind of psychotic. Because he'll he'll he'll wrap you in a shawl right before the bad guys come and torture you, you know? Yeah. I just think that's kind of fun.

SPEAKER_05 1:16:57

Yeah, no, that was good. Alright, so after that tense scene, then um I'm gonna skip ahead a little bit, but he we meet we meet the mole. We find out who the mole is, um, and it is revealed to be sorry, spoilers, folks. If you're really into seeing Red Sparrow, stop and ruin it for you. Yeah, just pause here and make sure you come alright back. No, um, so it's uh uh General Korkanoy, uh, which is Jeremy Iron. So he's been this high-ranking official, is the one who's been the mole and working with Nate Nash the whole time. And um, if I remember correctly, he was almost saying, like, turn me in because you can become the mole and take my Yeah, he was basically his time was done.

SPEAKER_07 1:17:42

Yeah, and she was he thought that she would be a good successor to him, and the only way to do that was for him to be turned in by her so that she had credibility. But which I mean, you know consistently.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:55

I gotta say, it was Jeremy. It was one of the things that confused me the most because Jeremy Iron's character served its purpose. And if you kind of you know, looking at it now, we know it was just it was just one movie, but it was supposed to be all three movies, and she was supposed to take Marvel's place uh in the SBR. So I didn't know why they saved him because in the movie or in the book, he's the guy who gets shot in the head. You know, he's the guy that uh doesn't make it. They're playing the uncle. Yeah, yeah. When the when he's exchanged, uh the marble gets blasted to pieces, and you know, then the red sparrow picks up the mantle of of the marble. Um and then writings ensue.

SPEAKER_05 1:18:50

Did you read all of the whole series or just this book? Yes. No, all three books.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:55

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 1:18:56

All three books. Awesome. Um, so now I know why you suggested this movie and then told President Scott to force us to watch it. Um it was a strange movie. It was a strange movie, right? It was definitely so in the movie, so interesting. So we know where the and the source material is different in the movie consistent with how Dominica has been at every step of the way, she refuses to uh sacrifice uh the mole, and instead she has a third option, which is to frame her creepy uncle, which I can't say I'm mad at it, but again, you know, it was done in sort of this Mary Jane haphazard kind of weird way. And you know, like it's at this point where it feels like she just all she knows all the steps ahead, and it just never felt like sh her character earned the right to know that, you know. Um but she you kind of get the impression she just kind of played everybody, even Nate Nash to some degree. Um but he sort of I guess kind of goes along with it and says, Yeah, we'll we'll take we'll take Vanya, we'll take the uncle, send him on over. And then there's people in the field somewhere, you know, and they're like, uh, we've got the target, you know, or whatever. Whatever they said. I don't know. They they shoot the uncle. After another creepy one last time, I can lean in and kiss her. Oh god.

SPEAKER_07 1:20:31

Yeah, don't say anything as you pass. Yeah. She's not one for obeying. Yeah. Right. Can I just say that? Yeah, Justin, I mean, you saying that, I didn't know about that about the book, and and that explains so much because I wondered after all that happened, right? What was the purpose of him telling her that he was the mole if she had already set her uncle up to take the fall? Right. It didn't make any sense to me that that they had that scene where he's in the hospital and he tells her he's the mole and you're gonna be my successor. She already had everything in motion at that point. We didn't know it. She had a bank account, she did all that shit. She just set up the uncle anyway. So she was gonna set up her uncle anyway. So if he had never had that conversation with her, it still would have played out exactly the same.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:22

Totally agree. Uh there was that last scene where everybody's clapping and everything, and it that felt like the gratuitous Hollywood ending, and it it didn't feel like the book ending. Or even just like a like a stuff a spy novel ending.

SPEAKER_05 1:21:40

Right. So she she gets uh she becomes a high-ranking officer of some kind, and she's got power, and you know, they're all clapping for her, and Jeremy Irons kind of gives the knowing nod, like, but we know the truth, don't we, Red Spadaro?

SPEAKER_07 1:21:57

Anyway, uh so By the way, your Russian is probably about as good as anyone else's in that movie.

SPEAKER_05 1:22:05

You know what? I'm gonna take that as a compliment. Yeah, the only time she you could tell she was really trying was when she would say please, because she would be like, please, please. Please. Please.

SPEAKER_07 1:22:16

I read, I read because I do I I am I love the IMDB, and I read in the in the in the trivia there. She spent four months learning ballet and Russian, and her ballet was more believable than her Russian was. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:31

Ballet was not bad at all.

SPEAKER_07 1:22:32

The ballet was she did have a body double for some scenes, but I mean there was definitely her in the and I was watching that going, was that Jennifer Lawrence doing that dance?

SPEAKER_01 1:22:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:22:41

Pretty impressive. All right, so uh just at the very tail end, so then she's back with her mom. Now I had a thing where I know the uncle said that, hey, while you're at the horse school, I'm gonna make sure your mom, your, your mom is okay, but he's not a trustworthy person, so I kept thinking that that for whatever reason, regardless of all of his mass machinations and everything that he was trying to do and screw her over in all these different ways, he did apparently hold true to that and took care of the mom because then we see the mom and JLaw are back together again, and she was apparently fine. I'm thinking, how is this lady gonna survive while she's in horse school? I just couldn't figure it out.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:22

But anyway, so uh but then she gets the phone call. I was pretty surprised they didn't kill the mom while they were torturing her.

SPEAKER_05 1:23:31

Like that seemed like a very yeah, and then show her the video of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah, I mean, I'm I mean, you know, I'm glad the mom with her mystery element survived. But um, so then I you know, now things seem like they're gonna be going well, and then there's this phone call with nobody on the other line, but I never really caught it, but apparently there's music playing and the other end, and I guess that's supposed to mean that was Nate Nash.

SPEAKER_06 1:24:01

Well, that was the earlier.

SPEAKER_05 1:24:04

Yeah, I didn't catch any of that. Who gives a fuck? Anyway, so uh you watched it three times. I'm telling you, I really had a hard time trying to stay with this thing. All right, so some of the financials, it uh yeah, go ahead. What were you gonna say? Oh no, no.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:23

Please go ahead.

SPEAKER_05 1:24:24

Oh, okay. So the film grows to 151 million on a 69 million plus on a $69 million budget. Um, you know, it had the Black Widow comparisons, but I did think it was a much more obviously a darker, it was trying to be a much more serious film. It was just a complete dud for me. I mean, it just you know, it's a not that's a real spoiler. I guess you know where I'm gonna be going. Um, some some trivia. So for the nude comfort zone, Jennifer Lawrence was terrified of the nudity. Um so were we.

unknown 1:25:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:25:01

However, um, after filming the shameful strip scene where her character takes control of the room, she reportedly became so comfortable uh that she stayed nude between takes. Uh so you know, uh, maybe we need to see some BTS on this stuff, you know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_07 1:25:20

Uh I do that often. I'm naked from the waist down right now.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:24

No. That was great, Jennifer. Um, I think we need to do at least one more take. Um, let's get a little bit more light on her. Yeah. Yeah, let's go.

SPEAKER_05 1:25:33

Put your ass up on that disc again. Justin, I just use mystery seepage when I need to take care of business. Oh, all right.

unknown 1:25:41

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 1:25:42

Seepage. Um let's see.

SPEAKER_06 1:25:44

Well, you know, it's funny that she's uncomfortable. Said that she was uncomfortable during that, but yet she's mystique in two movies before this where she's pretty much wearing nothing. True. But it's like, so how uncomfortable can you really be? Except now you don't have blue paint on you.

SPEAKER_08 1:26:03

Here it is.

SPEAKER_05 1:26:04

Apparently, many viewers noted that Vanya, the uncle, had a striking resemblance to a younger Vladimir Putin. Uh the director claimed this was entirely accidental.

SPEAKER_07 1:26:18

But I can see it, man. Um I'm picturing I'm picturing him shirtless on a horse. Yeah, okay. Okay. Strong. Strong too.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:28

The strong.

SPEAKER_07 1:26:29

Strong.

SPEAKER_05 1:26:31

There were apparently some issues. This is more like continuity errors, but there were some issues with where the scars landed on her leg. It apparently seemed to move and shift, which I never noticed, but uh like Igor's hump in uh Frankenstein. I was looking at those scars because I've got a few.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:50

Yeah, I was gonna say people were looking at the scars in the swimsuit? I was. I because I was like, that surgery's gnarly. That's a gnarly surgery. And it had just such a perfect little stretch.

SPEAKER_07 1:27:01

She she had the she used the good cream.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:02

It covered it.

SPEAKER_07 1:27:05

Got that vitamin B.

SPEAKER_05 1:27:07

Alright. Okay, so so let's see if there Yeah, go ahead.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:12

I was just gonna say one of the things I liked about the film was that it portrayed Russia as a working state rather than some kind of failed joke of a place, which is what most people thought of in the 2010s and 2000s. Was it it was just some kind of you know uh failed state. But it was a working state, and it still fought with the United States. And I liked I liked how they showed that statecraft was not exciting, but yeah mostly just hard work.

SPEAKER_05 1:27:55

Yeah, I I agree with you, and I agree with you there. I think that they did Attempt to take a realist a very realistic approach to how they handled all this. It unfortunately wasn't very exciting at times. I think they I think in the hands of a more talented filmmaker, it could have been. Because of the graphic nature of the movie. At one point, David Fincher, who's one of my all-time favorite uh film directors, he was actually gonna do it with Rooney Mara, which isn't a big surprise because they would later do the girl with the dragon tattoo remake, which is a pale uh comparison to the original uh Dragon uh Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. So if you've never seen that, I highly recommend it. But um uh okay, so I think we're at the point for final verdict.

SPEAKER_07 1:29:03

Yeah, one one thought, I mean it it's it's to compare it to something that was similar in pace, um but was so much more well so much more well crafted and well done uh and well acted and and well shot. Uh you know, I again not not a hundred percent you know apples to apples comparison, but still set in that America v Russia thing. Bridge of spies with uh with Tom Hanks and uh Mark Ryland was just outstanding. Same type of pacing, it wasn't like super exciting, right, but just so much so much better, so much more watchable. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:29:49

Um, it's Gilbert, but it's hard to do that.

SPEAKER_07 1:29:53

Well, yeah, you got that. You got that going for you, which is nice. What about like Tinker Taylor Soldier Spy?

SPEAKER_04 1:29:59

Yeah. I saw the movie, I read the book. It is an impenetrable uh John Le Care is known as some kind of spy book master, but I don't know. It's impenetrable black to me. You know, like just the whole book will be about escaping from the trunk of a Trabant, and it'll be like, okay, my god, I just spent 600 pages.

SPEAKER_05 1:30:30

Oh yeah. It did feel like that in the movie. I have gone back since. I saw it in the movie theater and it was kind of a snooze fest, but I have gone back since knowing what to expect. And of course I love Gary Oldman, and I love so many of the actors in that movie, so it was an easier watch. But um okay, so uh any final thoughts, any last words before we move to the final verdict? And it was no white knights.

SPEAKER_06 1:30:57

Hey man. Now that was one of the things I saw too, looking at the director, is you know, up until 2007, he was only doing music videos. Music videos, and then he came out with I Am Legend, which I thought was actually a pretty good movie. I liked the way it was shot. I like the the loneliness that he was able to portray and all of that. And I thought that that was great. And then from there he did more videos and then went on to doing Hunger Games, and then he did Red Sparrow, and I'm just like, I what happened? Yeah, whatever. You know, I mean, I wasn't a huge fan of Hunger Games. I mean, I I liked it, I was entertained, but I'm like, how did you go from I am Legend and Hunger Games to Red Sparrow the way you shot it? Yeah, where just everything just seemed convoluted and not and and to say all that as far as that movie went, me being, you know, a dumb army guy, you know, I was entertained as far as the parts of trying the who done it side, you know, because I kept thinking, was it the for the longest of that movie, I kept thinking it's the uncle that was the the mole, yeah, just the way he was shooting it, just the way some of the questions were being asked, and I was just like, oh, it's the uncle for sure. Yeah, and then when Jeremy Irons came out, I went, huh? You know, just because he just the way it all went out. But now, in hindsight, now I understand why he was so hard on no, she needs to die. You need to kill her. I don't care that it's your niece, kill her. Because he didn't want them to find who the mole was because it was him, you know. So it that part made more sense for me. But I mean, that aspect of it I enjoyed, but the journey to get to that point, I was just like, I just yeah, it was a lot of bleh. As as my boys would say, it was mid. It was mid.

SPEAKER_05 1:32:57

I I think somebody else said mid earlier. It wasn't cinema. No, no, I agree. All right, who any any other thoughts? All right.

SPEAKER_04 1:33:06

The uh road that they drove to state school for, did anyone else recognize that as the road used in some of all fears to the nuclear research center? I never noticed.

SPEAKER_05 1:33:21

No, I never noticed, but you bringing that up, because that's a that's uh Clancy, right? That's the Jack Ryan stuff. So that was the that was the first thing I thought was that this movie looks like a Jack Ryan film. The way it was shot, it looked exactly like that. Sort of that flat, sort of cold, muted, colored. Like, this is a serious film. Like, you gotta take this film seriously. But you didn't have Harrison Ford, you had Jay Law, and you had the matron. Now, in order to be a spy, you must sit on this chair. You will hear a knock at the door, and the pizza man will enter. And when it opens the pizza box where there should be a pie instead will be an erect penis. You are now a spy. Goodbye.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:04

No capes.

SPEAKER_07 1:34:07

It puts the lotion on the body and then puts it in the basket.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:11

Or just the tip, if you know what I mean. You must have a big thing.

SPEAKER_07 1:34:19

She was like, she was like Professor Snape from Sex Hogwarts.

SPEAKER_05 1:34:26

Oh, you think you know how to shoot a nine millimeter? Great. Can you have five orgasms back to back? No. And you will never be a sparrow.

SPEAKER_03 1:34:36

Now, in front of all of us.

SPEAKER_06 1:34:38

Bring in the femme bots!

SPEAKER_03 1:34:42

You must make snoo snoo.

SPEAKER_05 1:34:44

It's just like really? This is what this I really I tried to look into like the author too. Like, who's who is this freak? But he was. Hey, there's precedence for it.

SPEAKER_07 1:34:53

I mean, you know, it reminds me of uh uh Team America World Release. Oh man. You need to suck my dick.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:00

So right now. Anyway.

SPEAKER_05 1:35:02

Oh my god. Justin, have you ever seen that? Team America? Oh, fuck. Yeah. Love that movie. Oh my god. Team of America. All right. Um, all right, so we're in the final verdict. All right, Larry, final verdict. This is where we decide whether the film is worthy or whether give it to us, man. Let's feel it.

SPEAKER_06 1:35:18

Dystopian Drive-in. Final verdict.

SPEAKER_07 1:35:21

Red Sparrow. Woohoo! So well done, Larry. So well done.

SPEAKER_05 1:35:26

That was very well done. Oh, yeah. I mean, well, I don't know. I I know. I'm just the I'm the novice here. He's the expert. All right, Coach Pelletier, why don't you give it to us? What are your is it worthy or unworthy for humanity?

SPEAKER_07 1:35:37

I will say I came into this with low expectations uh based on comments made by colleagues. Um it was better than I thought it was going to be. Okay. Um I I did enjoy parts of it, as we said. Uh, you know, some of the uh the the torture slash uh fight scene was was, I thought, very well done. Some of the acting was I really I actually enjoyed Jeremy Irons in spite of his accent. I I Joel Edgerton uh is always good in a in a subtle way. Um and and even J Law at times, you know, was was you know wasn't bad. But yeah, overall, just the meandering uh uh you know way the story unfolded uh to get there was two hours and twenty minutes. It could have been it could have been a hundred minutes. Yeah, I know. And and just get to the point, get to the get to the good stuff, and uh, and don't take so much time doing expositions. So I uh will give it a uh not archivable uh verdict. Uh no, don't save it, President Scott. All right, so we got one unworthy uh President Scott. Unworthy, sorry, I didn't use the correct term.

SPEAKER_05 1:36:48

Get with it, coach.

SPEAKER_03 1:36:49

Come on.

SPEAKER_07 1:36:49

All right, sorry.

SPEAKER_03 1:36:50

My opinion about the film is that uh there are elements of the film that should potentially be preserved. Maybe we could uh do uh some type of a fancy cut and haste situation. Um, but on the whole, the film is unworthy.

SPEAKER_05 1:37:05

On the whole, I agree. All right, Larry, you're up.

SPEAKER_07 1:37:11

I don't think we're gonna have a tiebreaker here.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:13

As a whole, I'd have to say, while being stuck in bunker, that with what President Scott said, it's good to have pieces cut. So that way when stuck in bunker, if you need little time for touchy feely, it might help in the bunker. But otherwise, the rest of the movie would be considered unworthy.

SPEAKER_05 1:37:40

Now that's a Russian accent. Coach, what do you think about that? Nice job, Scorpion. It was passable. Alright, Justin. We got three unworthies. What are your thoughts?

SPEAKER_04 1:37:54

Uh man, well, so this is tough because this is another one of those. I was going through this phase of reading books that I heard were gonna come out as movies. And so I was one of the 15 people who read uh Ready Player 1. And uh Oh, I was one of the 15 as well. Yeah. That very stupid thing to do.

SPEAKER_07 1:38:19

The book was great. Oh, the book was great, the movie was trash. But anyway.

SPEAKER_04 1:38:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:38:23

Go ahead.

SPEAKER_04 1:38:24

Yeah. Well, so a lot of that during that period. And uh I really liked the book. I really liked the book series. Uh the movie brought some neat things to life, but god, it was just such a product of its time. There was so much Mary Janeing with uh with J-Law, you know, some some of the stuff that you pointed out where she just knew how to do stuff that we never saw her do, or nothing was alluded to. You know, she had no struggle. She stood up to authority always, and yet she graduated the program. That is not how she was written. She was written to be a rebellious spirit, but she was not meant to be written as a person who would get immediately shot in the back of the head. You know what I mean? So I still like the movie. However, there are just so many other good choices from that year. Uh I was saying no, it is not worthy of arrival.

SPEAKER_05 1:39:25

Alright. I'll give mine. Um, yeah, I mean I'm gonna agree with all of you. I'm gonna give all of you the I'll give you I'll I'll agree with everything you guys said, and I feel the exact same way. I mean, it was um I think at the bottom line is although there were some aspects of the film which I could probably say were done well, I just there's better choices in this genre. Um, and uh for that I'd say to the filmmakers in the studios and to the actors involved. Fuck you. And um I poke you rotten hell. Uh so my verdict is unworthy. That means that means that this film, Red Sparrow, is getting purged.

SPEAKER_03 1:40:14

Connie! Fire up the incinerator! No, no bodies this time, just a film. Thank you. Red Sparrow has been deemed unworthy.

SPEAKER_07 1:40:23

Connie Marshmallows. Connie, you are an incinerator, baby. Love you. You two have a thing.

SPEAKER_05 1:40:29

President Coach, they coach is flirting. Oh no, Connie.

SPEAKER_07 1:40:33

We are we're good friends. We're good friends, we're good pals. We understand each other, don't we, President? We need to talk later. Connie!

SPEAKER_05 1:40:42

We need to talk about Coach later, okay? All right, all right, honey. That was a wonderful discussion on Red Sparrow. We're sorry that it couldn't survive the test of time, and no one will ever be able to see uh that cinematic piece of trash. But Joel Edgerton will never appear on film ever again. It's such a shame. Unfortunately, his career really took a nosedive after Red Sparrow.

SPEAKER_07 1:41:08

Isn't he dead? Or isn't he uh uh a walking undead right now?

SPEAKER_05 1:41:12

At this point, who's alive is the question. Most of the world has been annihilated.

SPEAKER_07 1:41:17

J-Law's been preserved, though. Please tell me JLA's been preserved.

SPEAKER_03 1:41:21

By the aliens, President Scott? Uh, we are not at liberty to discuss the nature of the mid-apocalypse that we are in right now, so let's just uh keep hope alive.

SPEAKER_05 1:41:31

We're never gonna figure it out. All right, gentlemen, thank you all for joining Dystopian Drive In. It was a real pleasure. Enjoyed the hell out of it. Larry, why don't you send us out?

SPEAKER_06 1:41:41

Thank you for joining us on Dystopian Drive In. Please come to our next episode for the yet-to-be-named movie that we are gonna discuss, as it has not been told to the rest of us. But welcome!

SPEAKER_01 1:41:54

Come back and enjoy the bunker. Okay, so good. Oh good.

SPEAKER_03 1:42:01

But don't know why I'm not I'm not paying him for this. I'm you're not getting paid for this. Are any of us getting paid? It's okay. Uh, I'm gonna have to go now.

unknown 1:42:09

Okay.

SPEAKER_07 1:42:10

Bye, everybody. Bye. You were sending me some MREs. Goodbye.

SPEAKER_03 1:42:14

Getting memory hungry. Memories. Think about the good food you had before. Goodbye.