In Memory of Avaryl Halley (Shadow in the Cloud Matinee)

34:58I fell out of the plane and was exploded back into it. Well, no, this is the problem. This is a movie. And I guess like, you know, you're in the middle of war, so you don't react to anything because everything is crazy. But no one. The only thing they react to is that the pulling the plane up. That's the only moment of reaction. Even when she faces off against that gremlin in that final fight scene, fisticuffs in the water. Like there is no. like holy shit there's a gremlin here's what i'll say the men in the movie seem more upset and emotionally viscerally furious they are more engaged on an emotional level with the fact that there is a woman on their plane more so than gremlin a thousand percent a thousand percent shakes them to their core they're like we can't do our job is she is that a real girl is that a dame is that a real dame it was like an episode of of is that a real dame the podcast like uh what is happening they're so upset about that but they they don't have a single word for the fact that there are goddamn life-size i mean human-size gremlins on that they are insisting are giant rats what for a movie for a movie that is only like a brisk 72 minutes or whatever it is there is missing one scene right one scene where they go just one and they give me this one scene it changes it all where literally they don't believe her like she's like there's something out there she fires a gun she lies to them i don't understand why she lied to them about firing a gun i guess because she shouldn't have had a gun whatever but she's got a baby up there i mean she doesn't want them to think she has a gun i didn't understand why she's i i i think that's true but i think i didn't understand that and i couldn't understand why she put her finger in between the lock to so that it couldn't get open that it's just gonna rip your finger off i mean by the way i also don't understand why that package couldn't fit on her lap it seemed like that package was easy enough to fit in the hole for sure like yeah okay but but i guess what i'm missing is when she says there's something out there like you don't know what you're talking about you dumb dame and then she's like no there's something out there like yeah you dummy you know And then all of a sudden when they all see it, all you want is like a moment of like, I guess you were right.

37:25No one ever like no one even acknowledges like, oh, shit has gone south here. The version we get is from Taggart, who I think is the Scottish guy who is like that. He's so aggressively misogynistic towards her. And he's so he pushes her into the gun turret. He's so like, you know, like when she finally does emerge, when she free solos the plane. and climbs back in with her baby. She spent like now minutes on the exterior of the plane. She climbs out to the, she gets to the wing. She gets the baby. She climbs back in. He's fighting a gremlin. And he says to her, his final lines, his redemptive line is, get that baby out of here, you idiot.

38:06And then he gets sucked out of the plane by the gremlin.

38:11Who's like, this guy is going down swinging. He is like, get that baby out of here, you idiot. Look, he loves it. Like, he loves that baby. You know, there is so much here that is so, like, I get that it's a midnight movie. It's a genre movie. It's a horror movie. And it's, like, trying to hit you on all these things. But it just doesn't feel like, it almost feels like it crashed mid-movie. Like, it is going towards a place. And then it just sort of, like, everything goes off the rails in a way where I couldn't figure out. I think what was hard for me is there is so many, there's such high emotional stakes to it.

38:55And it's got great dogfight action set PC kind of like, you know, planes are shooting at them. A lot of stuff is happening. But I felt like the emotional weight was never there. Like every time when Chloe Moretz would like interact with the baby, I was like, I feel like she just met that baby. 30 seconds before they put the baby in her arms and were like, okay, we're going to go. Ready? Okay, here's the baby. Great. We're going to set the baby in the box. Okay, great. Go. You know, like, I didn't feel like, and same for the actor who's revealed to be the father of the baby. Like, I didn't feel like the emotional weight was there.

39:33Because it all happened off screen. Yeah. Like, you have no connection between any of these characters. I wasn't in their love, I wasn't inside of their love story at all, you know? And while we're on the subject of Taggart, I just want to talk about this crew. Is this an American crew? Because it also is like. No, they're super international. There's a British guy. There's a Kiwi. There's a. It's the Allied Forces. It's like a whole ragtag group. But they do, again, no favors because for 80 % of the movie, they are just voices on a radio. You know? I know. I do wonder, you know, so it came out in 2020.

40:12like I do wonder the choice to have her down there for that long. It did really feel like something must have happened. It felt pandemic-y to me. Very much so. Now I did, you know, I did love the choice of her being in that little area and thinking that her child had died, like and having her, I mean, she had to do a shit ton of acting down in that little, I think she carries a lot of the weight on her shoulders and does an amazing job. But I will tell you one thing. I mean, she does her best to carry the whole movie. Like almost nobody else gets screen time for the most part, you know? Yeah. And I think the only thing that I felt bad about, because I do think that she is very good in this film, is when she dropped the accent, I didn't really notice it.

41:03Like, hey, wait, she's talking different. Oh, yeah. Is she? I know. Well, she had been doing a real British, British accent, you know, and then she dropped in and became American. I guess what I have trouble with is maybe like a 1940s accent and a British accent were close enough that I was like, oh, I didn't I didn't read it. A 1940s American accent? Like a mid-Atlantic? I'm getting in that ship and I'm going to go over there. I'm British, you see? We're going to go get in the lorry and get in the lift. Come on there. I mean, I'm so shocked you don't get more period work. You don't work more in period films.

41:39I'm trying. I got an accent work. Yeah. Hey there, boy. You think I'm over here? I'm a classic brick. I want to hear your monologue for the old audition in that accent. Hey, you want to come on down to the beach? I got to go to the old beach thing. We've been there since 1940. No, listen, here's where I, you know, obviously I just had a birthday. I'm getting older. but I was watching the movie and I'm like, I feel really like I'm watching it. I thought she was great and I enjoy watching her, but I'm like, is she like a 12 years old? And then I just was like, Oh, I mean, I'm just getting so much older that when I see someone who's like, Oh, this isn't an adult woman.

42:19This is like, this isn't a coming of age story. Like this is a story about a grown woman. She's a grown woman. It was just, did anyone else have that? But maybe I'm just like, No, this happens to me all the time in this exact same thing where I think a young, especially it happens like Chloe Grace Moritz is a great example. I feel like I got to know her when she was quite young because she was a hit girl in the kick ass movies and she was a kid. So the idea that she's now not just an adult who absolutely it's organic for her to have a child. But in my mind, I too was like, oh, no, the kid has a baby.

42:57And I'm like, oh, wait a minute. No, that's like a 30-year-old woman, probably, who has a baby. That's entirely appropriate in 1942. And especially in 1942, she would be a middle-aged woman. Yes, she's close to death. And she'd probably actually, yes, she's probably actually like an older mom. Yeah. It was just so confusing, and I'm having a hard time connecting sometimes. She is 23. She's 23 when she made this movie. So she's still pretty young. Okay, so she was a bit young. Oh, she's still young. Still, by the way, probably not too young for the role. No, no. No, because it's like you're thinking about these soldiers are getting into the army.

43:28They're all young. They're all young. The whole cast is super young, you know. But she just seemed so young to me. I was like, I'm watching a child. Yeah, I agree. Can I say one thing? But I thought she was even older, but go ahead. Yeah. When I typed in Shadow in the Cloud on Google, one of the first things that showed up was based on a true story. And then I clicked that. I clicked it. And I was like, wait, how does anyone, how is that one of the most frequently asked questions based on, um, if you watch the movie, based on a true story? Is that true? Should it happen? How could that, like, the fact that that is that often asked.

44:08Yeah. Yeah. There was I there was I will say it is a testament to her kind of star power that the movie even is watchable at all. Because it's so it is so so much of it is static. It's just her in the turret. And then the rest of it is so chaotic and geographically confusing. Who's where, when? Who's who? Who are these actors? and when she comes up out of the bubble, I was like, is the guy that she was in love with still alive? Do we even know which one of these? Like we keep seeing bodies on the ground. I know, I think she was great, but I was really connected to the basic story. Okay. And even seeing her at the end, that last moment, even though there are gremlins running around and nobody's told me why or how or where, even that last moment where I saw her breastfeeding, you know and i was like god damn it if this doesn't make me feel something and i am absolutely intrigued by the premise of this story uh so it really i really did connect to it and i did and i was like oh i so wish because i think this could have been an incredible movie um about a woman who's in this situation minus gremlins.

45:31Well, that's the thing is you can't have all these things because then it's like, it becomes too much. It's a hat on a hat on a hat, right? It's not just I have to protect my baby. It's I also have to fly and land this plane. It's also I have to fight these gremlins. Let's go back to basics. Snakes on a plane was only about snakes on a motherfucking plane. There were no babies. They're snakes. Like, it wasn't like, oh, no, there are wolves on the plane. Or, like, it's gremlins. You have to answer, where are these gremlins from? And why are they called gremlins? I mean, why are they called gremlins?

46:12And are these aliens? Like, I also was like, when they crash landed, and then she goes out. She goes out, and she beats the shit out of a gremlin. She beats a gremlin to death with her bare hands. I enjoyed that. Basically breaks his jaw into his own skull. She basically, she uses the gremlin's taloned hand and does the why are you hitting yourself thing kind of and kills the gremlin with the gremlin's own taloned hand. The gremlin never bites her or never gets a hand on her. It doesn't matter. That's fine. I kind of wanted, though, at the end, for her to be at what you're describing, June, as that final tableau of she's done it, they've rescued the baby, there was a couple of people left alive.

46:56I kind of wanted like over the crest of the hill for there to be like hundreds of gremlins. Yes. I was, let them land on Gremlin Island and then tell me, guess what? Gremlins are part of the mythology of this story. Well, but this is like, again, and this is where my mind is going and this is what it's like to, you know, to watch a movie with me. When she put the baby on her breast, which I thought was actually a very, you know, the breastfeeding moment was a very cool, visual for the end. I don't know if I feel like it worked, but I like that. Super cool visual. I didn't know how her milk didn't dry up after all that trauma.

47:35I mean, she had been hanging off a plane an hour earlier. I'm glad we're talking about this. And she was still lactating. She was still just, well, in a lot of takes, in a lot of scenes, you can see that she's leaking. She's leaking milk. You can see it. It's out there. And that's what's attracting the gremlins. That was the dead giveaway. that it was a dead giveaway that it was a baby in the box. But I thought at the end, the baby would be like, it would be like, I'm going to put this baby in my breast. And then the final scare would be like, like in the baby was a Kremlin and bite her in the chest.

48:09Oh, I never thought that. Yeah. I never thought that, but I was, I did think like, somehow these gremlins have to win, right? Like, or not win, but they have to have like a - The one that she fights and punches in the face with his own fist. Yes, I'm like that one fell from the fucking sky and it's fine tail off and it had wings. Like we think she kills it, but then it sprouts wings and flies away. I thought that was a great moment. I did a couple of moments like that where I thought it was really well directed where like she when she and I agree the geography was insane. Not seeing anybody up there.

48:45Like here's what here's what I justified. I was like something happened. It is pre pandemic, but something happened with this cast. or the plane or something where they could not shoot anything up there. Or they just didn't have the budget. Budget was cut. Like something major must have gone on. How much do you think this movie cost? $7 million. I bet more than that. Like$20 million? $10. $10 mil. I mean, it's not a small budgeted movie. I guess there are some really big... There's a couple of exteriors. There's a couple, but... But it is sort of like at a certain point, it's like a one-woman show.

49:22Exactly. For a lot of it. Well, I was going to say, would you guys help finance me? To do a remake? In putting that up? Yeah. On the West End? Only if you breastfeed. Only if you breastfeed. I would have, yeah, there was a lot of, to me, this could have been like Alien, right? Yes. Like, oh, no, there's a gremlin on the ship or there's gremlins on the ship. OK. And there could have had like for I think for me, there was too much going on. And that's why the movie ultimately kind of didn't work. I enjoyed parts of it, but if it would have you would have I would have liked more of the horror gremlins movie.

50:10And I didn't need the dog fight. I didn't need her. What did you say? I said you wanted gremlins. That's the shirt. Little gremlins. Gremlins. Oh, by the way.

50:26Gremlins. Really, like that element of it, I would have liked almost more of her in the plane with the other actors and the gremlins. So we would get to know the ensemble better. We would get to understand the stakes better and that the threat was truly these gremlins. Somebody need to be transporting gremlins. There needs to be a rumor about gremlins. We can't be talking about this movie this much. A movie that has gremlins in it and have none of the main characters really be like, what the fuck is up with these gremlins? Snakes on a plane. Why do they want that baby? They don't just say that snakes are on a plane.

51:03They tell you how the snakes get on a plane. In gremlins, you understand the rules of the gremlins, why they even exist. Every one of these movies, the thing, you get it. Like, you get alien, you get it. Here's a couple questions, though, that are grim-less. the baby in the box. I didn't see too many holes in that box. No, that was the, so that's why I knew there was a baby in the box because in the very beginning when she's packing up the box in that montage sequence, there's like an air, there's like a little ventilation patch on the box. It's the speaker area for, because it's a radio bag, she calls it.

51:39Okay, so yes, that was down on the lower right-hand side, which would mean that the baby, that's still, that baby was swaddled. in a way that the blanket is probably covering that thing. That is my thing. I was like, the baby's arm and head in a blanket, because that baby is swaddled to the... I want to say shame on this movie for... There's a moment where she crash lands the plane, and they give the one and only fantasy sequence in this movie is she visualizes her dead lover and dead baby. Like, she visualizes... I'm going to turn around and I'm going to. And but the movie shows it to you in a way that is almost as if it's really what's happening.

52:23All of those visualizations. I thought all of those were fantasy sequence like that. But in this one, it's like it's like you see that the baby thing is crushed and the lover is on the floor dead and there's blood seeping out of the radio box. And I was like, oh, fuck. Did this. And then and then it cuts out and it's clearly a it's a fantasy. but I was like, hey man, don't make me think the baby is dead. Don't, don't give me, don't, don't, don't do this just to get, just, just to zap me. You know, like, like she did it. Yeah, it's a very, it's a very hard fantasy sequence. It felt manipulative to me in a way that I was like, I don't appreciate this.

52:58Yeah, I do not like seeing even like dream baby blood. Exactly. Like, it was too much for me. It was just too much for me, yeah. They also, I mean, this is just dumb little stuff, but she says at some point, we have to crash land. We have to dump the fuel and dump all the cargo or we're going to explode. They do neither of those things and they crash land and it explodes, but they managed to get away. There was just like dumb little stuff that I was like, I don't again. I did. But OK, I laughed so hard when that gremlin whose tail she cut off and they started flying back to her when she was just trying to throw out like various pieces of cargo to try to hit.

53:38Just to try and drop it on the ground like that. You really have to have incredible aim. You're traveling at hundreds of miles per hour. Hey, look, she's actually one of those great people at a carnival that can drop the circles over the pyramid and then you get a big prize. I laughed so hard at that. And I laughed so hard also at her with a piece of pipe trying to catch the baby who's like 10 feet away. I was like, you are traveling at hundreds of miles an hour. She was on the face in the air. Face wasn't even like really rippling. There's no shear. There's no wind. There's no they're in a dogfight.

54:17The plane must be doing evasive maneuvers because they're getting shot up by the Japanese aircraft that are attacking them. She is just reaching out with that pole, going to catch this baby on a stick. I was like, what is happening? So, again, I know I don't want to keep on circling back to it. But why do the gremlins want that baby so bad? Or why do they want that plane? Like, I mean, they want the baby. They want the baby. And I think they wanted the baby before she got on that plane. Well, that's what I'm asking. Did the gremlins show up because of the baby? Do the gremlins work for the abusive husband?

54:53Was this plane just riddled with gremlins and she happened to get on it? Uh-oh, the gremlins want the baby now. Well, but the minute that she sees that guy in the beginning, right, who gets disappeared right before she gets on the plane, right? She's in the Air Force. She's in the airfield. There's a guy in front of her and then he goes. And so the gremlins are on the ground and they're there on the wing. She sees the hydraulics have been ripped out and she she mentions it to the crew and the crew's like, you didn't you didn't see that. You're alive. That's when they're saying shut up. There's a dame.

55:25You know, she doesn't know anything. You know, there's a lot of questions about why. Like, like, are gremlins mischievous or are they baby like or do they want that baby's blood? because I also feel like they took the baby like the way that you would be. Oh, I'm going to save this for later. Like, you know, like, why not tell us like, oh, Hitler invented gremlins in this world. Or the Japanese in this world. The Japanese were underneath. Yes, they have in this World War Two story. The Nazis have gremlins. They've succeeded in their supernatural secrets. In their occult stuff. Exactly. Yeah. I didn't think I think you're right, Paul, that it was, you know, I think the war was a backdrop to what was happening with the gremlins, that the gremlins wanted to take that baby somewhere else and do something.

56:18Either make it a gremlin or make hybrids or some such. Well, because here's my thought. I think that the gremlins look like, remember that movie we watched, Sleepwalkers, where it was like the mother and son who were the cats? Oh, my gosh. I mean, vaguely. Weren't there a bunch of dead cats hanging in a tree? Yes. I don't think I was there for that. You 100 % were. Because, oh, I remember. They were an incestuous mother and son, which you refused to believe was an incestuous mother and son. Did you think that they were a couple? Yes. Yeah, you were very upset about the mother and son there. I can't remember.

56:53There was some funny conversation about that. Nothing is sparking anything. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Lauren Lapkus was the guest. Oh, that's funny. but there's a really famous scene where like a cop is trying to pull over a man cat and he's like and his face turns into like a man cat but they look like they look like the cats from sleepwalkers when the gremlin is on the outside of the bubble and it's like tongue starts to expand and gets big I was like what is this let it do something I thought it was going to like I thought it was going to spit acid so it could get into the bubble or I didn't understand.

57:34Like they give you specifics, but they don't give you specifics. They don't follow through. You don't get third act explanations. There's no, this movie, no exposition. Not enough time. No exposition. I was like, what? These men and this woman have survived and this baby have survived an insane thing. A plane crash, a dog fight, a war itself, a misogyny, the threats to a baby. But the highlight should be, we saw gremlins and we fought them. Like, what the what? And won. You know, that one shot, you're right. Like, I never knew. I really didn't know what the gremlins could do. Like, did they ever really kill someone or just sort of throw them off the planes?

58:20They do. They kill people, but they also seem to be mostly, like, pulling the plane apart midair. They're destroying the engines. Very unsettling. They're just tearing. They seem to eat. Exactly. That's why the guy's like, there's a big guy, a big rat. Like, is that what they are? Are they just like rodents that have infested? Rats of the sky, like pigeons? Yeah, they've infested this plane and they're just going to. These are not real, though. It's like, this is like, I can get under, I can understand. Okay, there's a, like, they seem to have ill will towards our, like, our group in particular.

58:53Or like, why do they need three to bring in this plane? They seem like the villains in a way that I'm like, what is their motive? What is the gremlin's motivation? If it crashes, don't they die? No. Well, because at least one of them can fly. Okay. And I guess the other question, the other question I have is this, and this is. Are these aliens? Are these aliens or are these just a species? I thought they might be aliens. I assumed aliens as well. But are these just a species of animal we haven't seen before? One of the best, one of the best things about a movie like this is. I thought they were vampire bats at one point.

59:23I was like, are these going to be vampires? I mean, none of it really makes any sense. But I will ask you about this because this is another trope that I noticed. And this is off Gremlins again, just to every now and then bring it away from Gremlins and ask you this. A lot of times in these movies, like people are being very pessimistic in a moment where it feels like total shock should be happening. Like when they're about to crash that plane, it's not going to make it. You're not going to make it. You're not going to make it. And I was wondering, first of all, does that help? Would you do that?

59:56If you were in a moment like Dom Toretto shooting off the thing, like once you're in mid flight, once you are in free fall, don't you want to be a positive quiet? Actually, that's what I would imagine. Yeah. I mean, do you think that you would be June? Like if you and I were, you know, flying off a cliff, do you think you would hold your criticism back? Because at that point, what can we do? We've already committed to making it. But so at that point, I just I always find it such a funny, weird thing that people are so pessimistic in the middle of a moment of life and death. My last thing I said is take the baby, you dummy, and we're not going to make it like your last words are not going to make it is really like a dark.

1:00:40They also execute a crash landing that is so insane and and and so like bananas, like they don't just crash land. they have to do a full 180 in the plane in order to crash land correctly. And yes, they execute it flawlessly. Like they execute something that I suspect is literally impossible and do it. And it is so funny to me. That's the thing is like everything. Everybody is just doing stuff in a way that I was like, OK, cool. You're all like badasses in the air. Fine. still gremlins. Guys, wouldn't you still be saying, what the fuck was that? What did they want? Where did we pick them up? I know we didn't get over this.

1:01:33I will tell you, I will tell you that Casey has a... Gremlin? No, she has a cousin. His name is Jimmy Jett. He is a former airline pilot. Okay. And Jimmy Jett was, well, he worked for like Delta. Wait, is his name really Jimmy Jet? Yes. So his name was Jimmy Jet? Well, his name is not Jimmy Jet, but he calls himself Jimmy Jet. I was going to say, if your name is Jimmy Jet, you have to become a pilot. And Jimmy Jet maintains that he has seen not one, not two, but dozens of aliens up in the sky. Oh, yeah. This is a big thing. This is a big thing. Now, I think I'm pretty sure Delta asked him to not return after he started publishing his newsletter.

1:02:22But. Wow. We have to get. So, but, but I will say that it occurred to me watching the movie, like maybe at one point I thought maybe these guys have just seen so many creatures up there. Sure. Yeah. That they are nonplussed. Well, it also it reminded me, of course, of the Twilight Zone, famous Twilight Zone episode with William Shatner. Yes. Where there's a month. Is it William Shatner? Yeah, William Shatner is a monster on the wing. Yeah, exactly. A monster on the wing of the plane. And so when it started, I was like, oh, is this going to be like one of those kind of stories? Is this a and then when it when it when the closed captioning told me that it was a gremlin, I was like, oh, here we go.

1:03:04This movie is going to be gremlins on this plane. and then it kind of was but it also kind of wasn't like they were just as concerned about other things as they were about the gremlins again I'm obsessed with the gremlins and also I can't believe that we're allowed to call them gremlins gremlins actually was created by Rodal right or is that how you pronounce his name wrong? I didn't know that okay yeah he actually came up with that term in his first children's book oh wow to uh he and gremlins were fighting against uh fighting humans because of deforestation but But he was a pilot. The Joe Dante Gremlins is not an adaptation of the Roald Dahl Gremlins.

1:03:44No, no, no, no. Yeah. But that term Gremlins has been around since he was a fighter pilot. His first story was about Gremlins. Ah. And then Gremlins became a whole thing. Oh, that's interesting. Okay. But now I do have a question about, well. I like then that, okay, so I take it back. So I like then that this movie, which I did not know, and I guess I could have inferred from the cartoon at the beginning, that this movie is taking an actual thing that pilots would describe something bad, shoddy workmanship as gremlins having gotten at it, and it has actually said, what if really gremlins were the cause of the plane's problems?

1:04:21What if actual gremlins rather than just bad workmanship, right? That's what this movie's launching point is. What if that saying or that phrase was actually true and that the engine failure was due to not because the mechanics did a bad job, but because an actual gremlin is tearing out the wiring or whatever. By the way, I want to just, because I just Googled it to make sure I was right. It did start among airmen. Okay, so like this, and Roald Dahl like popularized it. So there was this idea that there are spirits, fairies, leprechauns, and gremlins. And so basically, there was this, you know, this, it got very popularized during World War II, but it was even starting in 1938 about these mystical creatures, you know, and there are a lot of servicemen talked about these gremlins.

1:05:20so I mean Britain saw the first gremlins that's basically all we know they're the they're the product of a machine age they believe it was a passing of the buck important to the morale of the pilots that it wasn't their fault it was another person's fault because they were such a complex machine so they didn't want to be blamed for any of these things going wrong so wow wow okay I mean yeah so that's interesting they chose to like take that and make it like an actual thing, like, oh, an actual gremlin. But then I feel like they just did, that's what they did. They did that alone. I mean, this is really funny.

1:05:56It's really funny that they created, like, a fake person to help boost the morale, because listen to these ads. Gremlins are floor greasers, so watch your step. Gremlins love to pitch things at your eyes, so wear safety goggles. These are real. These are all real. Gremlins will push you around, so watch where you're going. Gremlins will get you if you don't watch out. why help little gremlins uh you know dust in the corner like it's like they basically are creating someone not to make you feel bad for fucking up which is a really like amazing and weird thing to do yeah to basically like like like to be like hey it's not your fault it's a scapegoat yeah it's a it's a scapegoat to to cover up you know bad workmanship on complicated on flying machines Maybe, yeah, I guess that was the whole point of the story, right?

1:06:46That she was more capable. She saved them from the... The mechanical problems that these literal gremlins were causing. Yes, but she also saved them from enemy fire. And she was... Saved them from their incompetence in a way. And I guess that's all the explanation we needed about the gremlins. I guess so. I guess I would have liked a little more. I would have liked to have known, like, where'd these gremlins come from? I just say, well, I mean, what's up with these gremlins? I would have loved her to be at the end like, what's up with these gremlins? Well, not only is she like, all right, so she fights gremlins.

1:07:30She hangs out on the airplane. She's got this baby. She's transporting it. She writes her own fake letters. She's good at shooting a gun. She's good at beating up people, saving the day, exploding and all of that. And she, I think, creates the term shoot your shot because at one point she turns to the pilot of this plane and says, you got to shoot your shot. Oh, really? Yeah. And that to me made me laugh. I also didn't understand. She at some point says, you have no idea how far I'll go. You have no idea how far I'll go. And I'm like, who's she talking to right now? I think to the gremlins. I mean, by the way, at that point, I want to say we do.

1:08:10We do know how far you will go. You got blown up out of like. Not yet. She had. Not yet. This is before that. This is what she's about to climb out. And. Oh, right. Yes. You're right. Yes. So it was to the gremlins. It was maybe telepathically to the gremlins. Oh, my God. I almost wish she had been like she. I wanted her to be like a spy in my mind. She was a spy and she snuck aboard this plane because she knew there were gremlins and she's on board. to fight gremlins. You know, she's like Hellboy or something, you know, and they have no idea. And she's like, that's, that's her job is she's like a bad-ass monster killer.

1:08:53But when she was just as surprised by the gremlins as everybody else, I was like, oh no, this movie is very different. I don't know. I don't know what's happening. She doesn't know about the gremlins. Nobody knows about the gremlins. But even her first reaction is like, there's a gremlin out there. I'm going to take a gun and I'm going to fucking shoot it right away. The first thing was, I'm not going to say anything. Yeah, I'm taking this one to the grave. I'm not going to tell anybody. I just saw a gremlin. Oh, my God. Holy shit. This was some wild stuff. Yeah, but you know what? I don't know.

1:09:26You were into it. You were in. I was. I was. Holy cow. Now, listen, I like a plane movie. Yeah. So Scratch certainly scratched that itch. Yep. And then I enjoyed the motherhood piece of it. There are some very cool things. I was on the fence until breastfeeding. And, you know, automatically breastfeeding in a movie, I'm like, it skyrockets to the top of the list. So I thought it was great. I loved that moment. I did too. I absolutely loved that moment. The two moments that I remember the most from the film, well, I should say three. One, when she's working that artillery gun, when she's like, like Rambo style.

1:10:02That was awesome. And just like, she's like, she can really do it all. And I think that she does a great job of like, you buy her. Like, I don't, I never at a certain point, and there are certain action movies where you're like, oh, I don't buy that that person could hit that. Like, and maybe it's because of the hit girl of it all. But the way she beat the fuck out of that gremlin, it seemed believable to me. Like she, I felt like she wasn't a person who was into fisticuffs all the time. But that anger of a mother. The only part, which you mentioned earlier, The only part that I made her look silly was when she was trying to drop cargo on the flying gremlin below.

1:10:39Because I was like, well, that just wouldn't. The minute you drop it out, it's going to immediately rocket behind you. You're moving in a plane. That's not how it works. But otherwise, yeah, I loved when she shoots, because she shoots two of the Japanese bomber guys, one from her turret and one from a different turret. Like she is, and she lands the plane. she is like Rambo is a good example like she's adept and a badass in all way shape and form including giving her baby nourishment with with her boobs all I would have needed was a tight I already said I would need one scene but now I'll say this I won't even take a scene just at the end of the movie the credits go to black and it says reports of this were uh were blacked out for like just put a thing up there like the government hid the thing like she went off and did this but But here's the thing.

1:11:30And again, I guess the reason why people ask this movie. Wait, and her lover, the father of the baby, he lives too, right? Yes. See, I never was like, I was. They wanted all three of them to be together. They wanted, like, I wanted him to be with her while she was breastfeeding, then to be triumphant on that mountain, and then to hear this screech of a gremlin in the background. Give me like 200 gremlins descending upon them. I want to know. I want that monster from the fucking Book of Boba Fett first episode. So pop that out of the ground. Yeah, let's get us. Yeah. Why people ask it's real. I do think it is confusing.

1:12:04And I think it's again, you talked about like these moments in this movie that like are tropes or made you feel a certain way. You watch this movie, crazy ass movie. We've already talked about why it's so crazy. And then you cut to this end where it's like you're seeing all of our crew members for more screen time than they even really had in the actual film. A lot of them like in these like nice like, hey, this is them at work and play before the Gremlins hit. and then they just casually mix in real footage of actual soldiers. I think it's a weird choice. Oh, wait, I missed that. I didn't see that.

1:12:35Oh, yeah. All the whole credit sequence is all these amazing women. Because on Hulu, oh, I would have loved to have seen that. On Hulu, you couldn't watch the credit sequence. It prompts to another movie so quickly. Yeah. So I saw this sort of like outtakes, but I didn't see. Oh, so they basically have this like montage of all the wasps, which are the women Air Force Service pilots. Oh, that's cool. So it's really cool, but it is also confusing because like League of Their Own, I want to see the women playing baseball. I see. Like this is a ramp. Oh, so that's why you're saying people might have thought it was real.

1:13:09Yes, because I do think there's something, it's like this is not even a story about you. Like this is not even like, oh my gosh, this is the first woman pilot who did something. It's like this is just a straight up Rambo story. But to put real people there, I'm like, it is a little weird. I was like, that's cool. But it's also like, wait, what? I would have also liked it if they did that. It was like a black and white photo of, you know, a female pilot. But then I was just going to say a black and white photo of like a plane with gremlins on it. Or just or a black and white photo of gremlins like, you know, just like, hey, me too.

1:13:46You know, it's like all these different just classic gremlin black and white shots, gremlins and bikinis. Anyway, obviously we have an opinion about this movie, but there are people out there with a different opinion. Actually, scratch that. There are people out there with this same exact opinion. We're going to hear from them. That's right. It's not second opinions. It's third opinions.

1:14:20Second opinions for you and me. That's right. It's third opinions. There are a lot of positive reviews of this film. 42 % are five-star reviews, but they seem to be bogged down in technicalities. It's not really fun five-star reviews. So we wanted to get into some of the more fun one-star reviews. This is written by just Amazon customer. What a complete and utter disappointment. The entire premise of the movie is a joke. There's no plot, no rhyme, no reason. It makes no sense. And the whole thing's about a baby. One star. This one's written by Brian L. Nasty Vogel. And it goes like this. This is possibly the worst movie ever made.

1:15:07And I watch a lot of movies. I feel obliged not to let the unsuspecting viewers purchase or rent this mess. I managed to get through this movie only by making a game out of how many consecutive seconds Chloe Grace Moritz's face was not on the screen. I only got to 2.8 seconds. That's the highest length by far. The movie has nothing other than a ridiculous dialogue featuring only voices talking to Chloe Grace Moritz. And then it goes, the plot is even worse than the ill-prepared props of the Speary Gun turret. I want my money back. That is one star. And that was written just a couple of days ago.

1:15:46This one's written, and our final one is written by Nat. I think this movie disrespects the audience's intelligence. It's a ridiculous excuse for storytelling. Did interns write this? And by interns, they must have been interns to an elementary student council. That's it. Children wrote and directed this. That's the only explanation. Now I don't feel so bad. You kids should pat each other on the head. Job well done. Don't let anyone squash your imagination until you're adults and you actually want to make something that you're proud of. In that case, don't do this. Just quit. Run away from any association to this movie.

1:16:24It will be a step in the right direction, kids. One star. The kids that he invented. The kids that he invented. The kids that he invented. Wow. What a wild rant. What a journey. Anyway, Jason, June, any final thoughts? Would you recommend this movie? I mean, June, you said yes, right? Yes. I mean, in an absurd way, yeah. And like I said, at an hour and 20, it zips by great. I was like, okay, I'm having fun. I had some structural problems with it. But, you know, I'm like, I'm into Gremlins plus World War II plus Dogfight plus, you know, Protect the Baby movie. It just, it almost, I really, I was viscerally upset though, that I didn't think the movie was, you know, the movie is flawed, but they used Kate Bush in the closing credits and that broke my heart because that's just too great a song to use in too bad a movie.

1:17:27So that I had a real issue with. Especially after the techno synth score. Especially after, yes, the synthy John Carpenter ripoff score to give us Kate Bush Hounds of Love at the end. I was like, how dare you? I hear that. I really love the score, but it just that that since it's just scratching and trimming, I loved it. But I enjoyed it. You know, I just enjoyed it. And the gremlins were shocking. And we still have no answers. But even with them, I enjoyed it. I wonder if we're just like, are we in a place in time where the world is full of such chaos that even a movie like this? We're like, yes, thank you.

1:18:16Thank you. Listen, it took me to a place that I didn't expect to go. And at an hour and 20 minutes, I felt I thought it was a fine use of my time. I will agree that if you were in a theater at midnight with a bunch of people, it would be a fun. I can see this as a midnight movie type. Yes, absolutely. All right. So now here's my dumb joke that I saved to the end and I've set it up now. So it's going to be too complex, but I'll say it anyway. You know, one of the characters in the film is Stu Beckel. And I said, did Beckel pass the Bechdel test? by not talking about Chloe Grace Moritz with another person for one scene, and he did not.

1:19:03So that's my answer there. Wait, did Beckel pass the Bechdel test? Good job, babe. Wow. I'm not sure that you understand what the Bechdel test is. No, no, no, no. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that joke is just about the near, the sound alike of their names. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. That was a good one. I'd save that one at the end because I knew we had to get out on a high note. It's really worth it. I looked at this note that I hand wrote down. I was like, what is this? I was like, I got to read that. June, you have something really fun coming up, right, at the Jane Club? Yes. On January 22nd, we are hosting our third virtual day-long retreat, and it will be incredible.

1:19:53We have different speakers. We do writing sessions. There's meditation. It's just one of my favorite days of the year. All right, great. And Jason, anything else that you want to talk about? You know, no, not really. Star Trek Prodigy is back out and doing great stuff. And I'll just remind everybody that every Thursday night over on Twitch, which is not a scary place at all. It's just like YouTube. It's totally free. You can just log on. Rob Hubel and I host a show there and you can watch the recaps of that show every weekend on my YouTube channel. And a big thank you to our movie picking producer, Avril Halley, who picked this film, found this film, watched this film, which came out only a year ago.

1:20:34She described it as this movie is simultaneously the worst and possibly my favorite movie of 2020. And I think, honestly, like she's kind of right. There's enough stuff in here that really makes it fun, but it's so weird. And a big thank you to our producer, Cody Fisher, our audio engineer, Devin Bryant, our MVP, Molly Reynolds, our person who kind of oversees it all, July Diaz, and everybody else at Earwolf who makes this show all come together. And a thank you to Nate Kiley for all of his amazing research, his third opinions, his first opinions. and of course, the ghost of Craig T. Nelson, who designs all of our crazy fun art and Kyle Waldron, who does all of our great Facebook art.

1:21:21You can check out tpublic.com for all of our shirts and you bet there will be a Gremless shirt right next to a Googie and our Snowman shirt. There's always sales going on there. So just go to tpublic.com slash HDTGM. You'll find it. It's easy. Just type in how did this get made in the search bar. You're smart. I love y 'all. And if you want to weigh in, you could do that on our mini episode. Just give me a call at 619-P-A-U-L-A-S-K. That's 619-Paul-ask. You could talk about this movie or you can call for my advice line where I'll give you some tips about how to be a new you in 2022. All right, that's all for now.

1:21:56We'll see you next week on the mini episode.