Another Pass at Practical Magic

Case and Sam are joined by Anna Grindrod-Feeny to state for the record that it’s centrifugal motion, it's perpetual bliss. It’s Practical Magic. It’s a beloved flop. It’s a beautiful miss.

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Transcription

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00:00
Case
Hey, everyone, it's case here coming in before the episode to let you know that. Hi, welcome back. We have been on a break due to the SAG strike, but that is over. So we are coming back. So this episode was actually recorded before I had my daughter. So that is about the end of February, beginning of March of 2023, and it is currently December of 2020 D three s and I've got this weird energy because it is right about to happen and we are just trying to bank as many episodes as we can because we knew that the baby was.

00:33
Case
Going to be an issue and a.

00:35
Case
Lot of stuff has been going on in our personal lives for both of us, and we are coming back. But I also wanted to say that we are going to try to pace this out. We were going at a pretty breakneck pace doing the back or, well, doing the bonus episodes. Another pass at another pass episodes on the off weeks.

00:55
Case
It's a clip that we could keep.

00:57
Case
Up when both of our lives had not factored in particular people that we had to take care of in a way that was different than it is now. And we want to get back to that pace. But right now is not a good time for us to be at that pace. But rather than take a longer hiatus, we would rather start putting out episodes and putting out those bonus episodes, but doing each once a month. So we're going to be on a bi weekly schedule, just like we always would before we started doing the bonus episodes. And so we're basically, I know we initially promised that were doing these in addition to the regular episodes, and this is now instead of the regular episodes. I'm sorry, it's a life thing.

01:33
Case
We're going to get back to a better pace eventually because a lot of the things that had sort of been in the way kind of are up, one of which is, of course, the strike itself, but our schedule had been having issues before that. Anyway, anyway, I'm rambling and I just want to say thank you for staying with us during the break. And we are going to get back at a regular clip, and we're both really excited for the shows that we have coming out. Also, this is technically going to be considered 158 a or 158 dark two. We did the strike episode, but we're not ready to jump immediately into the next fifth episode.

02:10
Case
So we've got another episode coming up after this one before we do a fifth episode where we look at a movie that overcame some issues, just if you're wondering and trying to keep track of that part. And we've got more coming up soon that are really good episodes of the first season of another pass, and I'm excited to get Sam's feedback because they're kind of big movies that I want her opinion on. Anyway, I'm glad we're back, and let's get on with the show.

02:40
Case
I'm going to say, before we start, this movie is critically panned and not successful, which is why it's, like, a good choice for us to talk about.

02:47
Anna
I have lots of feelings because I love the book.

02:51
Case
All right, so why don't we get into it? Hey, everyone, and welcome back to the no big dramatic pause. I'm centered. I'm ready. No. Welcome to certain povs, another pass podcast with case and Sam, where we take another look at movies that we find fascinating but flawed. Let's see how we could have fixed them. Hey, everyone, and welcome back to the another pass podcast. I'm case Aiken, and as always, I am joined by my co host, Sam Alicea.

03:26
Sam
Hi.

03:27
Case
And returning from the times before, Sam, the BS times, as they were, we have Anna Grindrod-Feeney. Hello, Anna. It has been too long since we talked about Josie and the pussy cats.

03:41
Anna
It really has.

03:42
Case
I'm so happy to have you back.

03:44
Anna
I'm so happy to be back. I literally just rewatched that movie with my roommates the other night after you brought it up on Twitter. I was like, oh, yeah. And we got a massive tv. So I was like, what better way to christen it than with one of the greatest movies all time?

03:58
Case
I know. I saw the picture you posted. It's so good. That was such a great episode. Again, I'm so glad that you introduced me to that movie because it's such an underrated classic. It's the type of movie that, especially now, you can go back and be like, man, that soundtrack really fucking slams. And the anti capitalist vibes of the whole thing. That's really fucking cool. And it was also panned critically at the time and didn't do very well. And so it was, like, perfect for us to talk about here, where it's like, how could this have been more popular, even though we love it? Which is kind of good, because today we're talking about a similar type of movie.

04:31
Anna
Right? I'm here with another girl power critically panned, great soundtrack movie, right?

04:36
Case
Actually, two great soundtracks, which is an interesting one that we will mention. But today we are talking about the 90s witchcraft classic, practical magic.

04:44
Anna
Yay. I'm wearing my practical magic shirt for the occasion.

04:48
Sam
Oh, very nice.

04:49
Case
That is perfect. Yeah. So this is a 1996 movie starring Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman. It is budgeted at $75 million. It box office had $68 million dollars. So it's pretty fair to say that it's not just a flop, but it's the flop in the category of it's not even like, oh, well, it didn't double its money. It's like it didn't even make its money.

05:07
Anna
Yeah.

05:07
Case
Rotten Tomato scores, I think are like the two star at it, maybe like one and a half. Critics just across the board are not particularly good. Most of the reviews are fairly scathing and yeah, just not a hugely successful piece at the time, but had a lot of cultural cachet. A lot of people remember it even if they never saw it. They remember trailers. They remember, pardon me, on this one, the incredibly sexy shot of Sandra Bullock, like, blowing a candle to be lit. It has its place in the culture and it's the kind of movie that I think a lot of people who saw it at the time really have a soft spot for. But again, like massive failure.

05:46
Sam
I mean, I will watch it anytime it's on tv.

05:48
Anna
Oh, yeah, if it's on tv, I will watch it.

05:53
Sam
I did not need to rewatch it to talk about it today because I've seen it that often. I did, but I did not need to do that. We could have gone into this cold and I would have been like, yeah, these are the things that happened.

06:08
Anna
Remember the beats of this movie. Exactly.

06:10
Sam
Yeah.

06:11
Case
So on that note, this movie I saw actually for the first time during the pandemic when it came on HBO, Max. So this was like a year ago, maybe two years ago at this point. But again, I knew a lot about it. If you'd asked me, I was, well, you know, Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock and they're witches and they have a family of know. The trailer told me enough for the big ticket items of it all, but I had never seen it. And I just remember that people said it wasn't particularly good. And my wife was like, no, it's great. We should watch it. And I was like, cool. I enjoyed it a lot. It's a fun, cute movie with very charming characters and it makes you really want to make margaritas, like fantastic stuff going on there and rewatching it.

06:49
Case
I still share most of those opinions with the basic overarching thing of being like, man, the plot, I think, is very dumb. But I'm assuming since both of you know this movie way better that you saw this at a much earlier age. And I'm kind of curious about your experiences with this movie.

07:04
Anna
Oh, gosh. See, I don't remember when I actually saw it because it is such an overarching movie. And I missed a lot of 90s pop culture because my parents were, like, hippies and we didn't watch a lot of that stuff. But at some point, I had known enough about it and I sat down and watched it and I liked it. There's a lot of things in it that I think are really corny. I have a personal connection to this series because it's actually a full series of books. Now, I don't know if anyone's familiar with the books, but at the time, it was one book and had recently been written, and it's a lot more about sister relationships than it is about magic and curses.

07:38
Anna
That's sort of an underlying setting for these stories about generational trauma as opposed to demonic ex boyfriends possessing you. And then literally more than 20 years later, Alice Hoffman, the author, revisited the series, and she wrote a prequel series about the aunts, who are played by Diane west and Stocker Janning in the movie, and about the two sisters and their brother in 1970s called the Rules of Magic, which allegedly is going to be an HBO show. We haven't heard anything since 2019. Then she wrote another prequel about Maria Owens, who started the curse, and then a sequel to tie it all off, which came out like a year or two ago. So I read the book after, long after the movie. It's very different.

08:26
Anna
I posted about reading the book, and Alice commented on my Instagram story and was like, there's a prequel coming out. Or on my Instagram post, I was like, there's a prequel coming out. And I was like, oh, my God. Alice Hoffman. Hello. She's amazing. I've met her a couple of times, but the prequel book is actually the one I love most, like the one about the aunts. I identify so strongly with that book. Franny, who's played by soccer Channing in the movie, is, like, so much me that a friend was once like, have you read this book because you're in it? So, yeah, I have very strong feelings about the overarching story. It eventually became such a huge part of my life, despite the fact that I didn't grow up watching the movie. Probably.

09:05
Anna
I probably watched it in my teens or twenties for the first time.

09:08
Sam
Yeah, I think for me, I just saw it on tv because this is definitely not something like I went to theater to watch, but I definitely watched it on tv. And I think I don't know, one of those channels like TNT or something like that, had bought it for the month and it just was on all the time. And I would just have it in the background while I did homework and stuff like that. And the thing is that everyone in the movie is incredibly charming. Like, all of these actors are so charming. Even the terrible ex boyfriend. What? Charming, right? Everything is so lovely. And I love Sandra Bullock. And I definitely loved her when I was a teen. I thought she was amazing. I still think she's amazing, but I really loved her when I was a teen.

09:50
Sam
And so I would, like, watch this film and listen. The plot is bananas. It is out there. It is cuckoo. It is crazy. It also has one of those making drinks and dancing around and singing along to a song thing which honestly, in the movie that was made for women or geared towards women and definitely inspired many spoofs of scenes like that. Specifically that scene. But it's nice. It's fun. It's two sisters who fuck up in very different ways and they kind of figure it out together and it brings them together even though they're fucking it up while they bring them back together. And so there's something nice about that. Even though the plot is strange and weird and you're like, oh, wait, does that make sense? Wait, hold on. She just confessed to murder. No, he's just going to walk away.

10:43
Anna
Okay, cool. Whatever.

10:45
Sam
He loves her that much. He's going to commit a crime and cover up her murder. Things like that as an adult doesn't sit well. But when you're like a teenage girl and you're like, watching this movie, it's just fun and everyone's charming and everyone's so pretty and it's a pretty movie and there's magic. Oh, my God, it's wonderful. I love it. Soft spot required.

11:07
Anna
Yes.

11:09
Case
Yeah. Rewatching this movie, there's a part of me that's trying to remember what it would have been like in the. Some of the things that go on in it. The movie's sense of the legal system is really fucked up and also the way the culture perceives stuff. And admittedly, we're kind of in the backslide right now, culturally speaking, where I guess it's not quite as far fetched to be like, oh, well, people think she's a witch, so we should fucking not trust her and possibly burn her, put her in the electric chair kind of stuff. But, yeah, I just keep coming back to like, man, the plot.

11:40
Case
If the plot wasn't in this movie, I think I would be so in love with it all because all of the characters in it are charming and fun, and when they're interacting with each other, it's so great. And then it's like, oh, well, a cop read your mail, which is a crime, came to your property without a warrant and searched around and found evidence, which is also not admissible in court, and now he's prompting you to confess to a murder, which any court in actual existence would be like, no, that was clearly self defense. Even when they're like, oh, well, we poisoned him. It's like, well, yeah, but the circumstances how you poisoned him were still self defense. Like, he was actively trying to brand your sister while holding some kind of weapon to her and forcing you to drive.

12:18
Case
Yeah, no, they would have found that as self defense. Unless they're like, oh, she's a witch. We have to kill her. That's the only scenario where that doesn't work. Which, to be fair, that is the cultural history that their family has gone through. Yeah, but at the same time, you're. But is it.

12:33
Sam
It's also not even the cop's jurisdiction.

12:35
Case
Right?

12:36
Anna
Like, why stay across state lines?

12:38
Sam
Like, you're just a cop. You're not an FBI agent. And again, this guy is wanted for.

12:44
Anna
Right? Like, I believe that's what it.

12:45
Sam
And so, like, it could be, but that's not how they place it.

12:49
Anna
He's just a sheriff.

12:53
Sam
He's not an FBI agent after a serial killer. He's just a guy who's after a guy who's wanted for murder in a local murder, and he crosses state lines. Honestly, borderline obsession. There's something wrong with this cop. Like, if we're thinking about this logically.

13:12
Case
Yeah. Even if he was granted some kind of permission to pursue the guy, that's the limit of what he's doing. He's not trying to find out who murdered the guy. He's trying to catch a murderer.

13:23
Anna
Right, yeah.

13:24
Sam
And technically, he must be on sabbatical because he's not working with anyone in the area. Like, he's using his personal time to do this. We are talking, like, pacing this. In reality, this man is using his personal time to go to fight. This man is obsessed, okay? He needs mental help. He needs to seek a therapist. Yeah, again, this movie has nothing to do with that. It is super charming, and we love him, and we want him to marry Sandra Bullock at the end. The curse to be lifted. But honestly, if you think about this as an adult living in a real world, there's something wrong with a cop, too, for sure.

14:03
Case
But, I mean, I also get him being obsessed with cinderbolic. That makes a certain degree of sense.

14:09
Sam
But he's more obsessed with the murder first. Right? Like, you cross state lines.

14:14
Case
Is he, though? Because he's prompted to come here because of the letter.

14:17
Anna
Right? Like, the whole thing is that he's drawn in by the magic of the letter that she wrote and the spell that she cast as a child, which is not a part of the book. That's just the movie. The idea that she created this person who is impossible to exist. Right. Like, his favorite shape is a star, so he's a sheriff. He has one blue eye and one green. He can flip pancakes, et cetera. Just like, very cute. It's, like, very good set dressing. Adorable. Definitely. When I was reading the book, I was like, oh, well, that's not in there. And that's the thing with the pot, too, not to just compare it to the book, because I'm not. The book is better kind of person. I think adaptations need to make changes, and I think this one needed to make changes.

14:59
Anna
The book covers, like, 20 years. It's not this, like, oh, he shows up in town and all of this happens. It's like covering from when they're teenagers to Jillian showing up and being like, help, I murdered my boyfriend. What do I do at Sally's house? The aunts are sort of never really present. They're still in their house in Massachusetts, and this is taking place at Sally's house in Long island. And then it covers Sally's kids being in their teenage years and sort of like, whether they tell the kids or not and what's going on with that and how their sister relationships work and how this whole thing affects Sally and Jillian's relationship and how they both start to sort of rebuild a life. And he doesn't even really show up to the last quarter of the.

15:40
Anna
Like, he's not really a huge part of it until later. So it's not like he just suddenly shows up. It is this sort of long, drawn out study in overcoming trauma. My sister once said, and then, weirdly, Alice Hoffman said in a book talk, I went to the exact same thing, that what she writes are fairy tales about surviving and recovering from. So, like, it's all like a metaphor. Even when it's not magical. There's, like, a magical feel to it and a magical element about it. And there's a lot less overt witchcraft in the first book, too. It's very much about just, like, sister relationships and surviving horrible things that happen to you and learning to thrive beyond that. So they had to condense it into this movie. And that's where this sort of weird, awkward plot comes from.

16:23
Anna
Because how do you make a movie that spans 20 years that's just sort of sisters sitting around and solving their shit? Yeah.

16:32
Case
I mean, that makes sense because the movie. We're saying the plot, but this part doesn't even really kick. Like, I would argue that act two is when Sally goes to find Gilly. When she goes, like, find them. And the whole kills the guy thing starts and then it's a little bit after that before Gary even shows up. So the first third of the movie is them just doing montages and catching you up on everything. Because we have to go through their whole childhood and we have to go through the backstory of their ancient ancestor who was hung, then her having a very successful marriage and who then dies and what's that done to this whole thing?

17:07
Case
And set up all these characters and set up the sister running away and going off and partying and there's so much setup that it effectively becomes the first act of the movie. Yeah.

17:16
Anna
It doesn't follow a standard plot structure at all, I think, which throws a lot of people.

17:20
Sam
No, it's very montage heavy.

17:22
Anna
Yeah. It's kind of like Tolkien way where it's like they're more concerned with what's going on to the characters and in the story than hitting all the plot beats, which that's my favorite type of writing, but debatably might not be successful in a mainstream blockbuster cinema release.

17:39
Case
Yeah. I mean, in terms of, like, well, what is the actual story hook? Like, what is getting a person who's coming in completely cold? It's like, all right, well, we've got lots of montages and voiceovers and we've got. There's very little to really hook you. The first time you really have a scene with the characters you care about is kind of when she's casting the spell for the impossible man bit and then it kind of goes back into montage mode for a little while and then like, oh, now there are these two successful, beautiful actresses. Oh, and they're parting ways. Oh, more montage as we find out. Oh, we're going to speed run a marriage with children and all that.

18:14
Sam
Yeah, pretty much. You're just watching for the charm of the cast at that feel.

18:19
Anna
Like, I think that's kind of like, in retrospect, where the movie falters is that I kind of wish it had either committed to being this slice of life od, not typical Hollywood movie or being this spooky, witchy campy. They try to do both things, and I think that's kind of where it hits for people who have nostalgia for it. I have a lot of nostalgia for this movie. To be clear, I love this movie despite also really loving the book series. But also, it's a bit uneven when you're watching the first time and you're not familiar with what it's doing.

18:55
Case
Right.

18:56
Anna
It's like, plot, no plot. Plot, no. Plot.

19:02
Sam
Yeah.

19:02
Case
I can just see animal from Muppets being like, plot, no plot. Yeah. I mean, this movie feels like a wonderful companion piece if you're a fan of the franchise or of the genre, even. It doesn't go very deep into the rules of magic or anything like that. The only one we really get is, like, if you bring someone back from the dead, it's going to be fucked up.

19:20
Anna
Right. Which is, like, never in the book, right. In the book, he's just a malevolent presence who kind of fades over time and just sort of like, he's not even like a ghost. It's like just his aura occasionally is like, they are kind of making everyone in the town a little bit more irritable and crazy than they would normally be. So it's very much more tonal in how she writes as opposed to this Hollywood supernatural that we kind of see, whereas it's such a good concept. But they were also trying to ride the wave of, like, I don't know exactly where this lines up with all these things came out, but the general zeitgeist being about hocus pocus and the craft. And it was very popular. Sabrina, the teenage witch. Right. Like, Buffy, all of these things were very popular around the same time.

20:09
Case
Yeah. And, like, charmed, I think, was like, what?

20:11
Anna
Yeah, so, like, this was just there and we saw this happen again a few years ago with witchcraft was like, the thing that everyone was writing about. And so this was both the perfect piece and then not at all suited for that type of writing about it. It both applies really well and does not with how she writes.

20:29
Sam
Yeah, they souped it up for the.

20:32
Case
Well, exactly. Like, all the witchy stuff is fun, and they clearly have really fun beats of magic when they're doing the phone tree scene of who gets assigned to it. And all the pages say Sally. And it's like, well, why would there all the pages be. Why do you have multiple pages, period? But it's, like, cute that we've got the spell stuff there. We've got good scenes for the trailer. We've got great set piece moments to be like, oh, yeah, magic works full size. And then here's all the fun things you can do with it. Even at the end of the movie, them showing off in that they jump from a building with umbrellas and survive.

21:05
Anna
That's one of the scenes where I was like, why was that there?

21:08
Case
I mean, I like that everyone's accepting them as like, oh, it's just our town witches. That's great. And have them all joined in it. But that is definitely magic because any kid watching this and being like, oh, cool, I could just take an umbrella and jump from a four story building is going to die.

21:21
Sam
Yeah, I like to think that they do that from here on out for all the grand openings of anything in the town. Like, the town just invites them jump off a roof.

21:30
Anna
I love it.

21:31
Sam
It's like now they're accepted. Like, oh, you're opening a new store. You got to contact the witches so they can jump off for good luck.

21:39
Case
Well, and I want to circle back to that one because I have questions about the town, but I just want to say I think that they do all the good trailer moments to make magic cool and fun and have good scenes of magic and not have it be so subtle. Because, for example, with the first husband, that whole spell component of that is barely a thing that you see so much as you just understand that from all the looks. It's like, oh, well, that was a spell of some kind. Okay, cool, I get it. So that's all there to give you something to glom on to, visually speaking.

22:07
Case
But then the story is so compressed at all the spots that already exist, and then they insert a Hollywood plot to kind of make it, well, there's a movie, and then the most charming parts don't have anything to do with that. Or if it does, it's like the most tangentially possible. I actually really like the third act of this movie, which is a good place to be coming from because third act problems is the usual catchphrase of like, oh, the script is bad. And in this case, I think it's just that the second act should have been a tv show.

22:33
Anna
The whole thing should be a tv show.

22:35
Case
Yeah, exactly.

22:36
Anna
I am very curious to see how they're going to do the prequel, if it ever happens, because they attached the Jessica Jones showrunners to it initially, which I was like, okay, cool. But also I was, oh, like, I don't want you tonally match the movie to make people happy for their nostalgia. When the book is so good, we'll see what's going to happen. Please don't camp it up. The book is really good and has a really good plot for a show. So it worked for the movie, the first movie, but maybe for the prequel. Don't.

23:04
Case
Right. Like, this is the perfect thing for that kind of HBO or Netflix or Disney plus kind of series. There's plenty of talk about a lot of those being movies that have been decompressed too much. And this is one where it's like, well, clearly the first act is just like, how do we speed run their entire life story and multiple relationships and all these dynamic characters who are so interesting that you just have to be settled into them by the time you get to act two, even though that's set up, that's, I think, ultimately the thing where it's like they made a movie out of a thing that shouldn't have really been a movie is ultimately kind of the thing now. They did.

23:40
Case
So we're going to talk about how we could have made that better, ultimately, but it still is just like, no, it just needed more space to breathe. And as a result, some things that they put in there to fill your lungs with air real quickly didn't necessarily need to happen or could have happened in a more logical way instead of just like hand wave. Literally almost all of the legal concerns I have in this movie are said out loud and they're like, don't worry about it and just move on.

24:07
Anna
It's true.

24:07
Sam
It's like they acknowledge. They acknowledge it's handled. That's fine.

24:11
Case
It was clearly self defense. No one's going to believe that. I guess you're right. We have to do necromancy.

24:17
Sam
I mean, it's the only way, Case.

24:18
Anna
The only way.

24:21
Case
It's the only way. And then because recalibrate.

24:23
Anna
Right? Because bringing back the man who was already demonically evil when he was alive.

24:29
Sam
And then making him raise from the dead demonically.

24:33
Anna
Yeah, that's going to go well.

24:34
Sam
Really bad thinking.

24:36
Anna
Choices were made.

24:37
Case
Well, and then their first response once they do it and he's violent because he was already a violent person, trying to kill them in life is just, let's kill him again.

24:44
Sam
Well, they clearly made a mistake and they had to rectify that, and that was his death.

24:49
Case
The mistake was not tying him up.

24:51
Sam
Yes, they made several mistakes on the way to killing him, and then they made a mistake bringing him back and they had to just kill him because that was the actual solution. Yeah, honestly, I'm fine with the message. Like, kill abusers. I'm fine with that message.

25:09
Case
That part's fine. Don't make excuses for them, quote unquote, which is what bringing him back from the dead is a metaphor for.

25:17
Sam
Right.

25:18
Anna
Agreed.

25:19
Sam
They should have never done that.

25:21
Case
I mentioned that I wanted to talk about the town, and I think this is a good time for us to discuss this part. So they set up that the community that they are from is not very inviting of witches because the whole history.

25:33
Anna
Salem.

25:34
Case
Right.

25:34
Sam
Well, they've got a history of not liking them, Keith. Come on.

25:37
Case
Yeah. And that keeps going into their entire life that it's like, okay, yeah, well, witch. You're a bitch. And it's like, oh, wow. Every single generation has the same fucking rhyme. Okay, cool. But at the same time, she has, like, an apothecary that is, like, a fairly well running business that people come into and buy witchy kind of stuff, even if it's more like new age hippie ish rather than like, here's I stuff or things.

26:01
Sam
I chucked it up to classic human hypocrisy.

26:05
Anna
Yeah. The premise that comes back over and over in the books is that all of these people will publicly shun them. But the second they need something from them, they show up. There's, like, a path to the door at the aunt's house, and they show up and they knock on the door and they ask for things. Like we see in the early part of the movie, the woman who's like, this man needs to be in love with me. He needs to leave my wife. That goes very poorly for her in the book, by the way. He won't leave her alone, and she hates him. But this happens throughout the cycle of all of the generations that all of these people will publicly shun them. They want nothing to do with them.

26:38
Anna
But the second they have any needs, this is the people they will turn know, because these are the people they know, won't judge them, and will do what they want. So I think it's kind of playing on that and the respectability that Sally's marriage to this very well liked town guy sort of added to that business.

26:55
Case
Okay.

26:56
Anna
And that, I think, is very true to life, especially in terms of anyone who's kind of operating in the shadows. Like, yeah, we see it in political fights right now where it's like, all these things will get outlawed, but, you know, if they need them, they'll find a way. So I think it's a lot of that concept playing into it again, it doesn't necessarily read in a Hollywood setting.

27:17
Case
Well, exactly like talking about the shop and her first marriage and whatnot, allowing for some of that to really occur. I think it's all very true. I'm just saying that because they speedrun so much of it. And sorry, that's my catchphrase for the first act, but it is was like when I read a description where it's like, oh, well, she was able to be embraced by the town because of being in this marriage. I'm like, where is that actually in the.

27:37
Anna
You don't see it anywhere.

27:39
Case
So all of a sudden, she just has a shop and she has people who are very accepting of the witch stuff working there, even though she can't talk to them about it. It's like, I'm not a witch, you're a witch. That kind of stuff is all there. But then when Gary is going around town while you get some of that backdoor talk, he's talking about how weird the town feels. It feels actually more like it's already integrated a bit into the whole magic kind of scene. So that's where the movie isn't actually quite doing that part, where there are moments where it's like, oh, but the magic is a part of our community and people seem to at least admit it, even if they're not openly championing it.

28:15
Case
And by the end of the movie, I think we have a healthy community that has fully embraced it all. And that part is great. That I think is the much more interesting thing going on in this movie. That a lot of context that is either from the book that isn't actually brought into this or is stuff that they infer but don't actually show very well. And it's the stuff that I really like and I want to spend more time on in our pitches because that's what I want more of this movie to be about, which sounds like the book has those elements. So I think it's good fodder. Why don't we talk about the child actors in this whole movie? Because there's a few sets that we see, and they are fun in different ways. I really like the daughters.

28:57
Case
We have a young Evan Rachel Wood as one of the characters. They're really cool. I understand that. They apparently kind of condense. Most of the story beats mostly to the older daughter, which presumably she's the better actress at this point and goes on to be a big star. So it makes sense being able to see the spirits and having a lot of the actual lines and the very cute. Like, cursing the kid to have chickenpox, and then the next time we see him, he actually has chickenpox and all that. That's really fun. The younger versions of Sally Angeli also are, I think, very charming. The one who's playing young Sandra Bullock is Camilla Bell, who apparently stole Joe Jonas from Taylor Swift. And then she wrote a really mean song that apparently she doesn't do anymore because it's too. Yep.

29:37
Case
So for all the swifties out there, somehow it'll come back.

29:41
Anna
I've heard that name. That's about the extent of my knowledge.

29:44
Case
But, yeah, it's great watching some of these movies with my wife because I can get filled in on all the gossip that is just totally off my radar. And I'll be like, oh, but here's the story structure.

29:54
Anna
Speaking of gossip pouring into the plot, this movie was cursed by a witch, allegedly, according to the director, the whole vulture article about it. He's like, I don't necessarily believe that this is why it failed, but also, it was creepy and weird. He wanted to do justice. He didn't want to be just, like, campy, like Hollywood Witchcraft, which I would say he did an admirable job trying to bring in a little bit more of the legitimacy of the idea that there are spiritual and witchcraft practices out there. So he brought in a witch consultant, and then she tried to extort them for $250,000. And when they wouldn't pay her, she sent them this really creepy voicemail message about how she was cursing the production and all of this stuff.

30:34
Anna
And so they paid her off to get her to go away because she was, like, suing Warner brothers and leaving scary voicemails, and they just wanted it to end. But he was like, yeah, I sort of never understood it because we would have these sold out showings. Everyone was clapping. Everyone was having a great time. Women loved this movie. And then it was a box office and critical flop, and it never lined up. To me, he's like, so I don't think it was the curse, but I also feel like the idea of this woman cursing us left a paw over the movie that sort of, we never shook off. And then he never worked for a major Hollywood studio again. So, yeah, fun times.

31:11
Sam
He's got to find a sister. He's got to make a blood of.

31:14
Anna
He's got blood packs. He said he did an exorcism just in case.

31:19
Sam
I mean, that's good. I think he should go around the world and find out all the different superstitions for getting rid of evil and just do them all.

31:26
Anna
Like, do a world tour.

31:28
Sam
I mean, logically, critically planned for a movie that is more geared towards women, especially.

31:37
Case
Not surprising.

31:37
Sam
Not surprising. That's not a curse. That's just normal misogyny.

31:41
Anna
That's just like the film sexism.

31:44
Case
Yeah. Most of the positive reviews are know, like, it's really nice to see Sandra Pullock on screen, and it's. Okay, cool. Yes. Like, we get that we're talking about gorgeous Hollywood actresses, but there's more going on in this movie than just like.

31:57
Anna
Oh, hey, it's arguably, it's not common to have a movie where it's mostly women talking about stuff that affects women. And then people would be upset that they brought the romance in, too. So that was the other side of it was like, okay, it is a movie about women, but we still circle back to men in the end.

32:14
Sam
Yeah. I think in general, this movie is no more plot holes than some of the other movies that came out during that time. It is what it is. The minute you put a dance number in with margaritas, only four women dancing around the table, it's probably going to be clue. Critically panned.

32:34
Anna
Yeah.

32:37
Sam
Or anytime there is a dress up montage with music, it's going to be critically planned. Like, even if the movie is amazing, you can't do it unless it's done in jest and the person who's getting dressed up is a man.

32:49
Anna
Yes. Or there'll be, like, one movie that does it where they're like, well, this one. This one is good. Unlike the rest of this one, which is, like, great.

32:58
Case
Thanks. Yeah, it's unfortunate because it's just misogyny, and that is terrible. And that actually will feed into my pitch when we get there. But one last thing I wanted to talk about before we get to that is that apparently the entire score was swapped out at the last.

33:13
Anna
Oh, my God. I didn't know that.

33:15
Case
So Michael Nyman wrote the full score for it, and then just shortly before production, they canned it and they swapped it out for one by Alan Sylvester. And you can kind of hear it in that the score sounds much more cliched to other stuff that Sylvester has worked on. And you can hear musical themes, which usually is an indicative of, like, oh, I didn't have a lot of time to do this kind of compositions. And not to say that this is a bad score in any way, and there's so many great needle drops. And it barely matters from that standpoint because obviously that part isn't really connected. And it has amazing stuff to throw in there, like Stevie Nick stuff. And it's just like, fuck, yes. Fantastic. But it is really weird. And I have no idea why.

33:51
Case
Especially because you can buy both soundtracks.

33:54
Anna
Amazing. I have to go look up the other one now.

33:56
Case
Yeah, I have no idea why. Because it's themes for the characters we're not even talking about. Like, here's the big songs again, it's all the background music for it all. So I'm like, I don't know why. Articles, when I was trying to find it, didn't mention why. But this movie, because it wasn't super popular at the time and because it was panned and because it's a specific set. Again, misogyny component. The Internet is very well cataloged and indexed for nerd topics that appeal to men. Then it exists for things that are more like female centric, but they're usually different spaces. Like, Wikipedia has so much info on comic books because it's nerds like me who are like, I'm going to fill out everything and it's just not here on the usual sources I go to for movie data and so forth.

34:40
Anna
Right. We're all talking on the comment section of Alice Hoffman's instagram.

34:44
Case
Exactly, exactly. So I'm like, fuck. I don't know where to look because I'm just not versed in that lexicon.

34:51
Sam
It's probably a closed group too, right?

34:53
Anna
There was like a forum at some point, and it's like gone now, I'm sure.

34:58
Sam
Or some space.

34:59
Case
There's like some V bulletin site that is so well developed and has so much information. If you just know how to search.

35:04
Sam
Based on early Tumblr, which is like a bunch of wiccans that love practical magic, the book, how dare the movie. But also how dare the movie. Oh, my God. Amazing. Horrible.

35:17
Anna
But yes, I love it.

35:18
Sam
But also comparisons, all of that.

35:21
Anna
Totally me. Except for the Wiccan part.

35:25
Case
Yeah. So that's kind of unfortunate. And like I said before we started recording, I was like, trying to look up more information on the book and it's just hard to find. Yeah, it's all like, here's a very basic blurb about the plot and it's hard to even tell. There's so many spots where there should be an article, there should be more information and just people haven't filled it out. And that's really frustrating when trying to understand why a thing didn't do well when there's clearly a lot of love for it and it's clearly a project that had a lot of attention and care put into it and just didn't do well. And you're like, well, I want to know more. Oh, fuck, man. Like, literally fuck, man.

36:03
Anna
Yeah.

36:04
Case
Which is kind of a bummer. But I'm really interested in what our pitches are going to because this is clearly a property that is a lot of fun to look at. There's a lot of really charming components to it. There's, like, a really obvious. This was put in to make it a movie, and that's kind of dumb thing for it. I am curious about that. But it is charming. It has a good third act where the women of the town come together, and that's, like, a really nice scene. I really dig all of that. We've got incredibly charming lead actresses at the beginning of their victory period in their careers.

36:35
Anna
Nadan Quinn in his.

36:39
Case
Like, look at those fucking charming blue eyes.

36:42
Anna
And then they never give him a contact. Or weird. I guess I figured, like, oh, well.

36:48
Sam
From this angle, you can almost not tell.

36:50
Anna
We can. It's very much like the series that we no longer talk about because the author is a turf. But in the movie where they're like, you have your mother's eyes, and then they cut to her having brown eyes, and you're like, what? You could have cast a blue eyed actress. Come on. Exactly.

37:03
Sam
Because the child was cast first, so why not cast an actor that would reflect that? I do not understand that.

37:12
Anna
Or again, I don't even know. Like, something.

37:15
Sam
All of those things could be true.

37:16
Case
Or for, again, the one that we're not talking about, like, CG is a big part of that and was doable. I get you couldn't CG at this point in the.

37:24
Anna
Could color it a little bit.

37:25
Case
I don't know. While. Yes, you probably couldn't CG his eyes to be green every single time in that particular shot, you could have had it be really green in the shot that she's looking at it from. And then we would be kind of okay with it because it's mostly long shots. We're not staring meaningfully into his eyes for all the rest.

37:40
Anna
When they were filming Lord of the Rings, like, Orlando Bloom had blue contacts in all the time. Just throw in one green contact and call it a day. For, like, one shot and call it a day.

37:48
Case
Yeah. Well, yeah, contact is the easy solution. But I'm saying, even if CG wasn't really, like, in the cards. And again, this is the saying, like, well, in after effects, I realize after effects wasn't what they were using at the time when they were making this also was shot on film. I get all that. You could have had a gradient of green over one eye. And in the shot where we're looking.

38:08
Sam
At is, I mean, listen, where she.

38:10
Anna
Comments on his eyes.

38:12
Sam
By this point, it's 98. There's so many movies that have come out. Terminator has already existed. You can't tell me there's not the technology to do this, but I think.

38:23
Case
That we agree that this is a really fun movie that just didn't find its audience in theaters and has a lot of love in post. A lot of people saw it on tv. A lot of people bought the dvd for it and had it on in the background. It's a really good movie just to play if you're listening to a thing. So I'm very curious what our pitches are going to because it's, again, something that we clearly see a lot of love for. And there was a lot of love for the project, but it just didn't find its audience in theater and didn't make its money and was a flop commercially and critically. And so let's speculate on how that could better. So we're going to take a break.

38:59
Sam
A break.

39:00
Case
We are going to shout out one of the wonderful shows on our network, and when we come back, we're going to see what we could do practically to make practical magic a little bit more magic.

39:11
Sam
Hey there, screen beans. Have you heard about screen snark?

39:15
Case
Rachel, this is an ad break. They aren't screen beans until they listen to the show.

39:19
Sam
Fine. Potential screen beans. You like movies and tv shows, right?

39:24
Case
I mean, who doesn't? Screen Snark is a casual conversation about the movies and television shows that are shaping us as we live our everyday lives.

39:31
Sam
That's right, Matt. We have a chat with at least one incredible guest every episode, hailing from all walks.

39:37
Case
We've interviewed chefs, writers, costumers, musicians, yoga.

39:41
Sam
Teachers, comedians, burlesque dancers, folks in the film and tv industry, and more.

39:46
Case
We'd be delighted for you to join us every other Monday on the Certain.

39:49
Sam
POV podcast network or wherever you get your podcasts, fresh and tasty, off the presses.

39:56
Case
No, that's not.

39:57
Sam
Can I call them screen beans now? Fine, screen beans.

40:07
Case
So tune in and we'll see you at the movies or on a couch.

40:10
Sam
Somewhere, because you're a whole screen beans.

40:14
Case
Now she will be mine. And we're back. All right, Anna, it's been a while since you've been on, since the last time you were on. We have instituted a very firm rule on the show, which is that I am not allowed to go before Sam when giving pitches. So, as our guest, you have the choice. You can go first, if you would like. You can make Sam go first.

40:37
Anna
Yeah, that's fair.

40:38
Case
Then I can follow after her. Like, if you want to go last, that's totally fine. I just can't go second. If you're the first.

40:46
Anna
I can go. I don't mind. Yeah. As I mentioned before, I do think one of the biggest issues is that it tried to be both kind of like this atmospheric indie movie. And then hit these big Hollywood beats. And because I am a little prejudiced towards how the book handles things, I almost wish they would have just kind of gone fully indie ish with it. Which I know is hard with a big budget. But just a bit less on the demonic possession, a bit less on the moments that are really big and cheesy. And just lean into the fact that, all right, you're covering years and years of this family's history. You're covering these things that affect people every day. The mundane is what is magical in the stories. I mean, there is real magic. They are witches, there is generational magic.

41:33
Anna
But it's not quite so flashy and sparkly. And so I think that's the points where, for me, it starts to get a little bit like. I don't know how I feel about this. It's a bit much. It's a bit cheesy. All the stuff with Jimmy rising from the dead and floating around the room and being this horrible ghostly person. I just think there's subtler ways to do the same story that I think would have hit differently. And then if it was panned, it would have been panned for consistently being what it was. And the stuff that I personally love about it. Because I think that trying to do both things just wound up kind of undermining it a little bit more and giving it even less legitimacy, I guess, quote unquote, in the eyes of critics.

42:20
Anna
It just really leaned into some of these really corny, cheesy tropes that maybe didn't serve it as well as they thought it would to bring the audiences in. I also am really partial to. And this is just my own personal thing in the book, every generation, one of the girls has the power to sort of hear thoughts, see the dead, etc. Like you see with the older sister of Sally's daughters. And then one has the power to attract birds and talk to birds. And Sally has that power. And Franny has that power, and I have that power. So I just want to see that represented on screen. That's just a personal thing for me. Again, like I said, I am Franny. I am a bird witch. There's doves, like, chirping at my window to come feed them again.

43:03
Anna
Right now, they come and find me at other windows in my house. So just on a personal note, I want that in the prequel, if it ever gets me, I'm down with that. Just the bird witching, it's a big part of the generational magic they have. And also, a lot of what happens in the story is filled in later books that she wrote 20 years later. So it's hard, in retrospect, to look back at it and be like, I wish that this had been mentioned. I wish that had been mentioned because it wasn't in the first book at all. Maria Owens lover who scorned her was Judge Hawthorne from the Salem witch trial. So you get into more lore that did not exist at the time it was made.

43:39
Anna
So I'm just saying, if they ever get around to the prequel or remake it, let's really delve into that lore because the series is done now, so we have a lot to work.

43:49
Case
Yeah, that's a really interesting thing when looking at this movie when it was made versus now, because there's so much about the different pairs of sisters over time that I wish we would spend more with them all. The answer is so great. The answer, honestly, the best part of this movie for me, just because they're wonderful.

44:07
Anna
And so, yeah, the answer, they're barely even in the book. So I was really glad that she wrote more about them. I also think it's interesting to note that when she wrote the sequels, they were very clearly colored by the movie and the love for the movie and the reaction to the movie. So you get a lot more of the magicy side of it. Whereas initially, the book was very light on them doing magic because they're sort of like, Sally has essentially renounced it.

44:31
Case
Yeah, it was very practical.

44:32
Anna
Right. And so it's just a lot more of, like, even the midnight Margarita scene is just, like, sitting on her lawn drinking margaritas together, being like, this is a thing we so, like, I do love, actually, that the stuff that I enjoy about the atmosphere of the movie wound up coloring the later books and becoming more a part of the later books. The books can't exist without the movie, and the movie would have been made better for the books existing. And so it just kind of is what it is. I agree that it would have been better as a tv show, and I really hope that moving forward, we do eventually get a good adaptation. Like, please don't mess it up. Don't make it if you're going to mess it up. But a really good adaptation of some of the other books.

45:08
Case
Yeah. Especially, like, the animal stuff would be so interesting as being kind of like a Disney princess type kind of vibe.

45:14
Anna
Yeah. Like off kilter, darkish Disney.

45:17
Case
Yeah. But you could sell Sally is that especially when she's married and so happy for some of those chunks. Right. Like, you could really present this fairy tale world that she's living in while she's under this love spell, loving this man and having the perfect world. And just birds are flying around her and dogs run up and say, hi. I was super distracted when the husband dies that right before that, there's just like a Labrador on screen, and I was just like, oh, dog.

45:42
Sam
Oh, dog makes his death even more shocking. There you were just happily staring at.

45:49
Case
A dog, and then all those bikes come and then nothing happens from that.

45:52
Anna
And then just a car. You think you've made it and then, no, which is a great beat. It builds suspense. Well, yeah, I think there's really good elements in this movie. And the directors also said that all anyone wants to talk about is how amazing the kitchen is, which, like, yeah, dude, it's a great set. But, yeah, I kind of wish that if it was going to be atmospheric, they had stuck with that because there were movies that successfully did that, especially in the things weren't necessarily following the very Hollywood cookie cutter beats. There were movies that you watched them and you're like, wow, nothing much happened, but this is a classic.

46:26
Anna
So I kind of wish they just leaned into that a bit more and been like, yeah, it's a story about sisterhood and generational trauma and magic, and then not had quite so many of the. And then they still think you can bring in the town coming together and the shared experiences if it's more malevolently affecting them, as opposed to, like, which, again, that didn't happen in the books, but I like that as a tie off to the movie so you could have it be more affecting, kind of everyone in the town as opposed to this one evil spirit rising from the dead and possessing her and being weird and incestuous. I think they tried to make the movie and then make it mainstream marketable and they should have just made the movie.

47:07
Case
Yeah, I think that works a lot with thoughts I have. This movie is trying to force a plot that it didn't need to have, and I would have rather just let others breathe more. Sam, what are your thoughts?

47:20
Sam
Just get him a contact.

47:22
Anna
Leave it alone.

47:23
Sam
Just no saving it. Listen, the thing is that the last half of this movie is so great, right?

47:29
Anna
The third act is so great.

47:31
Sam
And I wonder, do you get the third act without suffering from the first and second act?

47:36
Anna
Do you get that? Especially the first act, because do you.

47:39
Sam
Get to win without suffering? And I don't take these lightly. The only thing that I have never changed is Hercules, because even though I know it has flaws, to me, Disney's Hercules is perfect. And yes, I staged a queue that time. For me, I feel like with this movie, I don't know that there are a lot of ways to save it or make it commercially successful in 1998. I will be very honest with you, and I think there's a number of reasons why. I think we already have Buffy charmed the craft. You've got a whole bunch of things that are already on this, and they have done magic and kind of like.

48:22
Anna
This dark stuff way better.

48:24
Sam
I think that, yes, it. Would it have been an overall better movie had they scaled back and kept it actually practical 1000%? Would it have been successful?

48:36
Anna
No. But authentically unsuccessful, though. Yeah. Yes. Agree.

48:41
Sam
I don't know that there's really a fix. Fix for this film, for this budget to fix this movie, like, the way that we would have to fix this movie in order for this movie, and it's against our rules, you would have to recast because you would have to.

48:58
Anna
Pick actors that would go below a.

49:00
Sam
Budget, because you'd have to bring this budget way down. And I don't know that's a possibility. Like, honestly, most of what is really great about this film is the acting work that's put into it, because the plot, as contrived as it is, as shoved in there and pushed in as it is, it's just carried by these amazing actors that are having a great time on screen together, kind of making this ridiculous kind of fantasy movie. And honestly, I've kind of fucking loved it. I kind of love the fact that she wished her perfect man into being and then decided, oh, that's not going to happen. She did it so that she wouldn't fall in love. I mean, like, oh, God, that's such a girl thing to be like, okay, you know what?

49:46
Sam
I'm going to make an impossible person, and then I'll never have to suffer. That's something that people normally do, right? You make goals that are so lofty that you don't have to ever go after them so you'll never be let down because you're never going to achieve that. And so I love that. I love the fact that there is parts of this that address abuse. I mean, I know it's crazy. It's crazy to murder a man and then bring him back to life and then realize that he's still a shit and murder him again. But that's what a lot of people do, relationships. You get rid of someone and then you go back to them thinking that they can be redeemed because you thought that you hurt them in the last thing you did and then you went back with them.

50:29
Sam
And so there's a lot here that I think is so good. And I don't know if you can sacrifice much of the first half and still get the same payoff in the second half. If I make any edits, though, it would be to that first half and trying to streamline some of the flashbacking, like trying to order it so that our brain is not constantly back and forth. Because I think for a lot of people, that's what disengages them for this movie, because you kind of have to.

50:59
Anna
Get through all of that.

51:00
Sam
And if you're willing to get through the episodic, like, and then this happened, and you enjoy Sandra Bullock's voice just talking to you about what's happening in her life, you can make it through this film to get to the payoff of the end, which is kind of crafty women power, kind of what the magic of the don't mean. Like, the magic of the magic depiction in movies is what I mean. And I feel like, yeah, you could have gone a different route, but I don't know that it would have fixed it. The only way that I would fix it is a couple of lines here and there. I would actually get him a contact. I would shorten some stuff in the beginning so that we sum up some stuff with conversation and not just voiceovers.

51:49
Sam
And I would make things a little more apparent in the town where people are hypocritical, where they come in and.

51:56
Anna
They'Re like, oh, yeah.

51:57
Sam
And then they ask for a plain paper bag. They don't want anything that's branded from the store. Maybe even have someone ask to go out the back way or come in the back way and have her be like, you can't keep doing this. No, but I really need. Blah, blah, you know, something that's kind of, like, funny and charming. So it maximizes that acceptance at the end. And then again, I really.

52:18
Anna
Yes. Fuck it. Throw in the bird magnet.

52:21
Sam
Why wouldn't you? I mean, like, have a bird tell Sally that the cop is coming and being like, what are you talking about?

52:26
Anna
The shape. The star shape.

52:28
Sam
What are you talking about?

52:28
Anna
Shut. Shut up.

52:29
Sam
Go.

52:30
Anna
Like, I don't have time for you today.

52:31
Sam
Just make it a little more whimsical in the beginning, and I'm going to go the opposite. I'm going full fucking Hollywood.

52:37
Anna
Full Hollywood. Yeah. I got to do one or the.

52:38
Sam
Other magic, whimsical, doubling down on that. Make sure there's a fucking contact, especially, and it's okay for the guy to come back and be demonic and for them to murder him again. I'm fine with that. Because it brings these two sisters together. That one felt abandoned. I'm fine with all of that. I think we just need to clear up a little bit in the beginning and make it a little less flashbacky and bring in the bird magic so that it's all magic.

53:06
Anna
Right.

53:07
Sam
Like, let's go full throttle budget magic.

53:10
Anna
Yeah, that's my fix.

53:13
Case
Yeah. There's a lot of what you're saying that's very close to my thoughts on.

53:18
Anna
This one, which I love that went, it's like two different movies. You either have to do the Hollywood movie or you have to do the can't. It's doing both that really makes it stumble.

53:28
Case
Right. It's the two masters that's fucking this movie. Because if it was like an HBO Max series, like some kind of miniseries, like that. Yeah, let's do big decompression of the girls growing up, spend some time with different actresses who are all playing it, that could be cool. If you wanted to really get into it, you could get into this. Their growing up can mimic the generational stuff as well. The idea that the developmental process for an organism mimics the evolutionary process for the organism, like, the way that tadpoles start off very fish like and then relate, that kind of phase kind of emulates it all. Or the same way that if you look at the baby growing in a womb, that there's a lot of more ativistic traits that sort of go away as it develops. Sorry.

54:06
Case
That was a big way of saying you could use the girls aging process as a metaphor for the processes of what went on with their ancestors as it goes the whole way. You could do a lot of fun with that if you had so much Runway to tell that story, because that would be really cool. But if you want a two hour movie that was coming out in 1998, that is a different kind of movie. And so I have thematic things that I would like to do, which I think are very similar to Sam's. And then I actually thought a little bit about how you could make the structure work.

54:33
Anna
It's just. It's sort of unsolved.

54:36
Case
So here's my thoughts on this one. What I really would like to address is that I like Jimmy here, and I didn't know he wasn't in the book, so I was going off of the premise that he's there, and that's a thing that's part of it. And it was just kind of, like, not done in a great way in the movie. And so my thought on that one is, I like the role he represents. If he is supposed to thematically represent toxic masculinity, again, talking about trauma and so forth, he is putting all this pressure on people. And as a result, I would like to blow up themes he represents in this movie, make them a lot bigger, and really discuss the role of how toxic masculinity poisons the women around them to turn on each.

55:13
Case
Like, I think that is in the text of the film from the get go, because when we see the stuff with Mary at the beginning, it's like, oh, it's the fact that there was all the wives of the hanging committee, or rather, all the wives are on the hanging committee, or whatever the line is. Exactly. But the idea that they're attacking her when it's that their husband's cheated on them, that's the kind of misplaced aggression in the scenario. Or their anger should be directed at the people who actually wronged them, as opposed to the person who was a participant, but not like, it's a home wrecker scenario. They're not the ones who fucked it up. It's the person who ruined a home. So building around that kind of world and really deal more with the town.

55:54
Case
When Nicole Kidman runs off at the beginning of the movie, and she's like, I hate it here. She doesn't hate the house that she's growing up in, but at that point, we haven't actually really seen that much of the town. She hates the town that they're in, where they're all stigmatized as witches. And I would like to spend more time with their community. It would be really great if we could see them as kids, not just, like, one time getting teased as, like, which witch, you're a bitch. But actually see how the people around them, kind of ostracize them because of all these things. Like when Nicole Kidman shows up for the phonetree scene, some people recognize her, some people don't. And then she explicitly is like, yeah, I'm back.

56:27
Case
That felt very like, that felt like, oh, I'm going back to my high school, and I was the outcast then, and they're still concerned about me and so forth. And it's like emulating this whole cycle that they're going through. Because again, I really like the third act. I really like them using the phone tree. That's a great scene of like, okay, I'm going to call phone tree to summon my coven of witches. It's so good. And they all show up with brooms, and that's great.

56:51
Anna
Someone brings a vacuum cleaner sequence is amazing.

56:54
Case
The specter of the toxic boyfriend as a metaphor. That's why I don't mind keeping him in there because I think that in terms of the role he represents in the film, I think that's fantastic. And he is also a pretty charming actor and kind of cool, and that all works really well. And we get, like a very paladini kind of scene with him and Gary where it's like, oh, here's my holy symbol. I can turn undead with. Like, I'm much more cool with those kind of points there. So I want to keep stuff like that. I think that works really Hollywood. It feels like a modern fantasy setting, like that kind of genre type stuff. So that, I think is all really good.

57:26
Case
It's just then when you actually look into the details of how the crime happens and the fact that we have to rush through all of the backstory about them, it's like, well, how do those kind of play in? Because I would like to spend more time in the stuff that they had to speed through. So how do you actually make that time in a movie? This is not like how it should have ended kind of show. Like, we're not being like, well, if they had just tied him up and then taken him to the cops when he came back to life, and we're like, this man attacked us. We knocked him out and he's tied up and they're like, oh, that's the wanted murderer. Okay, the story is done and they have him alive.

57:56
Case
And they wouldn't even check for poison because he's alive, as far as they know, prater, naturally. So. And that would have been fine. That solves the problem right there. Or go to the police and that solves the problem right there. Or dump the body in the ocean and then be like, yeah, we never saw him. Solves the problem right there. Or move the car.

58:15
Anna
Yeah. Don't have this car anymore.

58:17
Case
There's so many problems.

58:18
Sam
I mean, come on. It's a nice car.

58:23
Anna
Yeah.

58:23
Sam
I don't know why they move the car.

58:24
Anna
I do like the idea that it's these women who don't know how to commit crime, so they didn't do anything smart about, like, that's very real to the idea of abuse. Right. You don't know how to cover your tracks because you were never planning to in the first place.

58:35
Case
Yeah. It just seems like the fact that weeks when the cop shows up and it's like, oh, they didn't even put it in the garage or something or.

58:43
Sam
Put a tarp over it or change the license plates. Take the license plates off. You think with the amount of true crime women watch, they would have some idea.

58:54
Case
Law and order is popular at this point. They would have been watching that. So I like themes that Jimmy represents, and I like a lot of the stuff that is the subtext of this movie, and I would like to expand more on it. But the problem is, this movie is already finding itself having a hard time getting through all of that to get to what is a very strong third. Like, I admit, kind of a hackier way to do it. But open a little in media res open with Gary in the town asking people about this family and have them tell stories about the family so you can see multiple points in their history. So you can get someone who's like a town historian talking about Mary. You can get someone who went to school with the girls.

59:34
Case
You can get someone who knew the ants, and you can sort of start developing those stories so that you're kind of feeding this whole thing into it. And then, yes, this kind of makes it more of a murder mystery type thing. But we're opening the movie with a character who is unfamiliar with the whole situation, and then that way we get clued into it all as opposed to like, well, here's all the rules for our family. And admittedly, that sort of changes the main character into being Gary. But I kind of only want that for the opening part of the movie and then the shift focus to the girls.

01:00:03
Case
I think that act two, if act two is Sally going to get Gilly and that whole thing, I think you can just shift gears to all of a sudden they're the main characters at that point. I just think act one has people telling the story, and you could even not even have Gary be present. It could be people talking about the town and talking, and they're talking to someone, and we find out that's, like, I don't want to make Gary the focal point. It is still very much about the women, and I really want to make the third act focused on that detail. But it would be more fun to feel the town gossip. It would be more fun to feel what it was like for these girls when Nicole Kidman rushes off and is like, I hate this town. I hate it here.

01:00:42
Case
We don't see it. And she's already an adult actress at this point. It's not the teenage actress who's running off or anything. Like, so, like, it's very tell at that point. And even if it was telldown show, but it was later in her life, and she's, like, talking about everything she went through that would feel more real than in that moment that they do it.

01:01:00
Sam
So basically, you're opening this, like, beauty and the Disney version.

01:01:05
Anna
Look, there she is. We need a musical number, but that.

01:01:09
Case
Is fine, because, again, Sandra Bullock in this movie would be, like, the bell type character who has everyone, has all the birds landing on her hand and make her a bit of a Disney princess, because then you could deal with the husband's death and so forth, and it doesn't feel quite so, like, well, all right, here's a quick chapter about this. And then moving on to. Yeah, by giving it a structure of this interview kind of setting, and especially if you don't know why, like, if you don't know it's about a murder or something like that, then you can lay out all of these details that are, again, chapters in a book that don't fit in a movie's structure. You give a framing device for why there are these compartmentalized aspects of the story. And then you get to, what is this all about?

01:01:51
Case
It could be a scenario of the last person interviewed in act one is Sandra Bullock. Like, she's answering some story part. She's talking about the night that Kidman, like, ran. Like, and do you mind me asking what this is all about? And that's the first time we flip the camera around, we see Gary, and it's like, have you ever heard of a man named Jimmy Angelos? And then cut to the night that she rushes out to go get to Nicole Kidman. And then act two plays out mostly the same. We've barely spent any time with Gary, so we're not really changing him to be the focal point. He's the audience surrogate. So it's not a scenario where he's the hero of the. Like, we always want Sally to be the hero of the story.

01:02:29
Case
And so all the stories that were being told up until this point were about Sally and her family. And then we cut to her being the protagonist in act two, going off and saving her sister. It'd be great if we smoothed over some of the details for why they can't go to the cops, for why they can't do all these things, even if it's just that they are dumb.

01:02:46
Anna
Or, like, actually addressing that cops don't help people. That's the thing weren't really talking about in the precedent for that. Like, very strong precedent. But since it's never engaged with, it doesn't make sense in movie logic, because in the movies, the cops are good guys.

01:03:02
Case
Exactly. This cop in particular, again, I compared him with a paladin. He's that cowboy. He's got a holy symbol for turn undead and can deal with this kind of stuff. Like, sure, dwell on that. Deal with the fact that the town has consistently harassed them. Like, have law officials bother them over the course of things. Like, you could set up that the cops in this town are kind of shitty because Gary could go to them and it was, oh, well, they're not very helpful. Or it's like, well, they're definitely guilty. And it's like, I don't know about, like, you could set up a scenario where it's like, oh, that family, they're all troublemakers. And you could even have a bit of irony where the description that you're hearing from the law people are like, why, they're so bad.

01:03:37
Case
And then the scenes on screen are actually them helping people around the town and doing stuff and then being painted as witches or as villainous entities. So you could really set up that juxtaposition between what the town authority and the official stance of the community is on them versus the practical side of it all is like, the people going to them for help, even though it's like they have to shun them publicly. Really. I just think act one, if it wasn't just such a, like, here's a blitz to get through all the details that you need to know. All the scenes themselves are individually charming. It's just so quick, and it's one kind of hacky, but it's hacky in a way that is less engaging than, I think, at least people directly telling the story.

01:04:15
Case
And like I said, you can get the juxtaposition of the story being told and the story that we're seeing being different and really kind of sell that part of it better and build up this idea that the women of the town are feeling pressured to publicly ostracize these women, even though they actually are all part of a community and they've all known each other since they were little girls. So that we can have a bit more of a payoff at the end. Because it would be nice if all these women who are part of the phone tree at the end, when they come together as a coven. If earlier in the movie we saw male presences that they felt they had to be shitty towards the sisters, like, at different points. Because, again, it is toxic masculinity that is the problem in the scenario.

01:04:58
Case
Like, Jimmy is bad. And all the reasons why the women hate them are because of stuff with men. And when you cut away all of that bullshit, that would be kind of a nice thing there. And I think that is what the movie is ultimately saying. I just wish it was saying it more clearly. So that's kind of how I would structure all of that. I think it would be really kind of cool and cute and fun that way without really dramatically changing the movie. It would be a little bit more shooting for that. But I don't think it would really increase the runtime in any way. In fact, I think it would be, like, kind of a net, like, neutral in terms of how long the movie was. It's not really complicated shots.

01:05:29
Case
People in all the sets they already have talking about, like, oh, yeah, I remember the day he died. Like, little bits like that. I think you could work that all pretty well. And that's my general thought, which is mostly, like, structured a little bit more at the beginning to set up the stuff that I really like at the end.

01:05:44
Anna
Yeah, I think it's a movie that it plays really well when you'rewatching it for the 20th time. Right? Like, when you're like, you understand these characters, but when you first watch it, you're like, I don't know what I'm watching here. What is going on? Where is the plot? What is happening? And so a lot of our fondness, nostalgia wise, is because we have watched it 20 times. And we know the beats. We know what's happening with the family, and they're really good beats. The way it plays out both on screen and in the book is it is engaging with all these real world things, like abuse and all of this stuff and how it lingers and how trauma doesn't go away. And it's just. How do you visually play that out in a medium that is so truncated. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

01:06:24
Anna
I don't think it's particularly salvageable. Totally. As a result. And I don't think if we did, we would love it as much as we all do, but it just doesn't make it a successful movie.

01:06:38
Case
Right.

01:06:39
Anna
Like, it's so good, but it's also so frustrating. Yeah, absolutely.

01:06:43
Case
We've looked at a bunch of movies where a better movie would be a movie we don't remember, and I don't think that is the case here. Again, I think all the stuff people really like about this movie happens once we get into the fun of it, like the third act. And weirdly, the fun and games portion more happens once stuff has gotten real, like, after the halfway point, whereas usually it's between the one third and the one half point is, like, the save the cat scripting is where it's like, that's where fun and games happens here, but it's really after Nicole Kidman comes back where we see the magic really being engaged within fun. Like, we get little bits with Sandra Bullock, like, having her coffee being stirred, which is, like, such a great character bit, and with Gary investigating.

01:07:19
Case
And then again, act three, where they actually do this whole ritual, like, when the daughters are being brought in on it and like, oh, they're all engaging with the magic together. It's almost like a reverse movie where the fun portions happen much further into the movie than early on. So it's almost like the plot is happening in reverse or like the normal story structure is happening in reverse.

01:07:38
Anna
Yeah.

01:07:39
Case
And so I don't think you have to lose any of that. I think you can keep all the reasons why people really like this movie. Why, when you go back and you're like, oh, yeah, it's like this mother daughter generational, kind of like, here's this identical pair of sisters. Identical pair of sisters and identical pair of sisters all bonding in the same ways, and it's. And it's heartwarming and so forth. The thing is that the opening of the movie doesn't really hook you about that. So if it became a little bit more of a hook, I don't think you lose the charm that people would love it again. There's a lot of movies where it's like, well, if it was better, yeah, but no one would remember it. We looked at Dr.

01:08:08
Case
Moreau and I was like, well, yeah, no one would remember this movie if it was okay, but because it was a colossal train wreck of a movie, it's like, yeah, what are we going to talk about.

01:08:16
Sam
It right now, that movie?

01:08:18
Anna
No, I agree. Amazing.

01:08:19
Case
So I think this movie is salvageable, but it would still lose some of the character of the book, I think the miniseries scenario.

01:08:27
Anna
This is the interesting thing for me with this movie is that despite being so different from the book and despite the sort of campier nature of the magic, the spirit of the books is there. Very well done and very surprisingly well done by a male director to engage so much with these books where she writes about female trauma and she writes about things that she or people close to her have definitely experienced. Her two styles of books are, like, dealing with the trauma of being a woman and the things that we deal with in the world, but in a way that doesn't feel like focusing too much on the trauma. It's more on how we are resilient, often with rumagic and then jewish history that doesn't often get talked about, like really incredible jewish historical fiction.

01:09:07
Anna
And he engaged with that really well, and he thought that it wasn't just a story about magic. It was a story about the strength of women and what women endure and explicitly called that out in some interviews, said, like, oh, I grew up with strong women. And once I realized that was what this story was about, yeah, I got a handle on the movie, and I knew where to go with it. So they captured it really well, despite being also completely, not at all, because the book is like 20 years, and then you see the younger sisters being at ods with one another, but not in quite the same way. And just you see Jillian healing and grappling with healthier relationships. And just like a lot happens in the book that will never make to screen because it's not good for a movie.

01:09:48
Anna
But they did a good job with capturing what makes the book good at its heart, I think. And then, like I said, I clearly influenced her in her later iterations of this story, like the Apothecary. I don't even can remember being in the book, although it's been a while since I read the first one, but it definitely shows up in the aunts book. They open an apothecary, so it's great.

01:10:06
Case
So I mentioned I watched this movie more recently in life. It was only a couple of years ago the first time I watched it. Does that apothecary look a lot like the store from Schitt's creek? Throwing that one out there?

01:10:16
Anna
I want to know if they were, like, inspired by it when they made the show or if it's just how they all look really similar. So the interesting thing about the apothecary in the prequel, just like, I guess a fun fact is that it's in a real location. You can find the location that it's in. Obviously, they never shot it or anything, but the place it's mentioned. And she did her research. So she's like, yeah, after they moved out and went back to the aunt's house, because it's in New York, it turned into this murder mystery bookstore. And there was actually a murder mystery bookstore in that location. It's just now, like, luxury apartments. And I think there's, like, a luxury outdoorsy store there or something right now. I walk past it and I go like, man, could have been a witch shop once.

01:10:55
Case
The secret speakeasy of a spell store.

01:10:59
Anna
Just so good. But, yeah, there's also a lot of critiques about. I saw an article that was like, the problem is they keep loving men. And she's addressed that in later books, too. She's brought in queer identities. I love the universe of this story, and I love how integral the movie has been in expanding that universe and inspiring it to continue because it was never intended to be a series. And it's not a very, like, now this. Now that. Now this series, it's exactly like the movie. It jumps backwards and jumps further backwards and then it jumps forwards. Just like a really interesting concept to continue playing out. Sadly now done. The Owen sisters, the book is closed.

01:11:34
Case
On them, but okay, maybe a side character is in some other person's story.

01:11:39
Anna
Right. I think that she was like, I don't have more to say on, like, we've told the story, and that's great. I love her other books. Just, I love the atmospheric nature of it. I love how everyone remembers that house, even though that house doesn't really exist. It's like a soundstage in LA.

01:11:54
Case
Yeah. It's like a composite of a few.

01:11:57
Anna
It's just beautiful.

01:11:59
Case
Yeah. I'm really glad to rewatch this movie. It is a very fun movie. They're so fucking charming. I meant to mention this at the top. Like, Sandra Bullock is like one of those actresses that was like, the first time where I'm like, oh, she's really pretty. It wasn't like a crush or something like that, but it was just like, man, she's so pretty. I got to wait on her once when the blindside happened, when they did the opening party at the restaurant I was working at, and I was, like, the designated waiter for her station. This is years later, and still just like, radiant person. I was like, oh, my God, I'm talking to Sandra Bullock right now.

01:12:32
Sam
What the fuck?

01:12:33
Case
Wonderful to look at. Sorry. Not like I'm just saying, like, the whole energy. The movie is wonderful to look at. The energy is wonderful to look at. I'm not talking moved on from talking.

01:12:43
Anna
About, but also true. So is Nicole Kidman, right?

01:12:48
Case
Nicole Kidman is great to look at even when she's wearing those weird fucking 90s sunglasses.

01:12:52
Anna
The glasses. Oh, my.

01:12:54
Case
That we all tried to make work at the time, and then in retrospect, we're like, man, that was a bad choice.

01:12:59
Anna
I'm sure they'll be back at some.

01:13:01
Sam
Point because everything, it all comes back around again.

01:13:03
Anna
It is just so charmingly 90s, though. Everything about the set dressing and outfits and everything is like, oh, man. I used to describe myself as, like, 90s witch because that is the aesthetic.

01:13:15
Case
And the aesthetic of this movie is great. The cast are charming, even though we keep on saying the ants are great.

01:13:20
Anna
The ants are so channing, Diane Weiss, they're just like powerhouses. So good.

01:13:26
Case
Yeah, they're everything. I wish the Sabrina ants would be in any adaptation of it. We just need them to be that charming and that snarky and that cool about fucking everything. Fantastic stuff. I get it if you love this movie. I get it if the idea of us talking about this movie incites rage in you. And I hope that we conveyed that we do really like it. It's just there's a lot of dumb in what is like, a very aesthetically pleasing, a very charismatic movie that is a lot of fun and does deal with stuff that a lot of movies would avoid talking about because it is very woman focused. And I think that those are all great. And I kind of just wish that it had more success and that it wasn't this cult classic.

01:14:06
Case
But it being a cult classic is part of its charm. So I'm really glad for us to talk about it. I'm glad that we didn't feel that we had to tear it apart or that we couldn't tear it apart. It's a good space for conversation. The point of the show is not to be like, well, we fixed it because it's not like the movie is getting remade or that we're speculating our.

01:14:24
Anna
Changes would necessarily make it successful. It is what it is.

01:14:28
Case
Misogyny would still make it a thing that would people go to see these actresses as the leads? I don't know in 1998 if it would have had a box office, but I just want to at least get it over the budget.

01:14:40
Anna
Yeah, come on, you just need to put like 7000 more or something.

01:14:46
Case
Yeah, at least to hit the official budget. Of course, again, the double its numbers considered a flop, but yeah, at least get it a little bit further in that whole scenario. But it is what it is. I'm glad that I watched it the first time. I'm, I rewatched it. I'm glad that doing this conversation has been a good ground for being like, oh, yeah, here are all the really strong themes in it. Here's all the really good stuff. So, Anna, I'm so glad to have you back on and to talk about this movie. So thank you for suggesting the movie.

01:15:11
Anna
And everyone root for the prequel to one come out and two, be really good and not be. It's my favorite book. Please don't ruin it.

01:15:20
Case
And for this one to actually happen, because Sandra Bullock did try to get a tv show off the ground in the early.

01:15:24
Anna
Don't know if like HB. I mean, maybe last of us saved it. I don't know what's going out of HBO. Max. They were struggling for a while. I don't know what happened. Pandemic, it's literally never been talked about since it was optioned in 2019 and the showrunners got attached. There was like a fake graphic going around about the practical magic sequel coming out that everyone was freaking out about. And I was like, you guys, this is not real. It's never been mentioned anywhere except in these groups. Also, the plot is worse than the books, so let's hope this one isn't real.

01:15:51
Case
But, Anna, if people wanted to find you, follow you, see what you've got going on. Drop your plugs. Drop your.

01:15:57
Anna
Yeah. So I'm at Anna lionhearted on every platform, but I'm mostly active on. I just, I tweet at k pop people, and then I'm also part of a project called the BTS Tarot Project. We do witchcraft, tarot, et cetera, related to themes of the k pop group BTS, which is very spiritual and very symbolically loaded if you're not familiar with their stuff. They draw in a lot of art history and philosophy and religious stuff. And so we are making an original tarot art deck. We post astrology stuff. There's the zine, there's a blog, there's a book club. We host events. So it's like a really cool space for the merging of pop culture and witchy stuff. If that's your thing, even if it's not like, kpop isn't your thing. It's like an interesting intersection. So it's a fun place to be.

01:16:44
Anna
Highly recommend at BTS Tarot project and at Anna Lionhearted.

01:16:49
Case
Nice people should all check that out. I mean, Tarot is so huge right now, and BTs is so huge right now. So it's like two great tastes, great.

01:16:56
Anna
Together, bigger and bigger, whether they're together. Or. And we'll be having events in New York surrounding the concert coming up, or, I think, across wherever the concert locations are. But I'll be doing stuff in New York for the suga concert in April.

01:17:12
Case
Okay. This episode will be dropping after.

01:17:14
Anna
No problem. We'll have stuff going on all year long, so it's great.

01:17:18
Sam
Check in with Anna's twitter to find.

01:17:20
Anna
Out what she did. Just scroll back the tarot readings you didn't get with my tarot deck.

01:17:29
Case
But wonderful stuff. You should definitely check it out. Definitely follow Anna on Instagram because her stories are fantastic. We actually get the tarot readings and so forth. And that's so cool.

01:17:37
Anna
Also, lots of clips of 17, but that's just my thing.

01:17:41
Case
Well, again, great tastes great together. Sam, where can people find you and follow you?

01:17:48
Sam
They can find me here and occasionally, but not recently, I will check in.

01:17:55
Anna
With our discord when I remember that it exists.

01:17:58
Sam
And then other than that, they can't find me because I am experimenting with some liquids and just seeing what magic I come up with.

01:18:07
Anna
It's also called baking. But if you have any complaints about.

01:18:10
Sam
Anything I said, although I don't know how you would, because I was very complimentary to this movie or any complaints about what case said because he was less complimentary. Still complimentary, but less so.

01:18:21
Anna
You can follow case.

01:18:23
Case
Well, you can follow me on most platforms at case Aiken, except for Instagram, where I am Ketzel Coatle five, because I am holding on to that high school aim screen name for dear life.

01:18:32
Anna
Do it.

01:18:33
Sam
Be who you really are.

01:18:35
Case
But I will say the discord is a really fun place. You can find a link@certainpov.com where you can come and chat. And while the people on this call are not super invested in the discord, I will say that the discord has become very vibrant. We have a music channel that has gotten really active since we added jukebox, vertigo. Our movie discussions have been wonderful. We opened up a TTRPG area. So actually, if we want to come talk about witchcraft in a setting that is less ethereal and more like, there's math rules for this, don't join the CTRPG chat that's also gotten really active. So that's really fun. And just everyone's just working their damnedest at putting out great shows. So fun conversations, lots of really cool people. I swear to God, for everyone here on this call, you should check it out.

01:19:18
Case
It's a lot of fun.

01:19:20
Anna
Sounds better. Get back into it.

01:19:23
Case
I know we're all busy. I will say this. I have been on a lot of discords recently and ours is like a good pace. There's a lot of ones that have nothing and so many channels, but nothing is being said in any of them. And then there are ones that have so much going on that you can't keep track of what's been said. And ours is a good flow of like, you can say something and then check back an hour later and see like two or three replies as opposed to scrolling up for like 20 minutes to find the replies to what you had said before. So that's a good speed for it as opposed to some others. Because I know discords can be extremely overwhelming. I get it. For people who are scared.

01:19:59
Anna
Yeah. I'm in a language learning school essentially on Discord and it's just like, some of them, I just click mark as red on anytime I see a thing pop up, I'm like, I don't need to be mentioned in this, guys. I'm just going to go. I'm doing my homework and I am dipping. That's where we're at.

01:20:14
Case
Yeah. We're also very good about not doing everyone's in our code of conduct. It's like, please don't do that unless it's absolutely essential. I get it. Most of us turn off notifications unless we're being tagged directly. You're good. You don't have to worry about that one. So roll with, it's a lot of fun. And then you can actually be aware of what cool stuff is going on with all the other shows on the network. So you should check out all of those really fun shows. We mentioned jukebox, vertigo, but if you are a fan of the Circle of Magic series, you should check out circle of friendship, which, while it's on hiatus, you had worked through, what, four books?

01:20:43
Anna
We were in the middle of the fourth book when life got in the way, and also the fourth book handles the pandemic. And it's very well researched and it just got to be very heavy to talk about because when we all went into lockdown, extremely understandable, book two. And were like, you know what, guys? By the time we get to book four. This is going to be in our rear view and.

01:21:06
Case
No, unfortunately. But it's still an evergreen project. So if you enjoy the Circle of Magic series, check out circle of friendship. It's great conversations with you and Frankie and like just a really fun dime. So that's still up on our website. It's just on the hiatus section, so please check out those and then come back here for our next episode. Sam, what have we got up next?

01:21:27
Sam
Next time we'll be talking about Highlander two, the quickening. But until then, if you enjoyed this, pass it on.

01:21:36
Case
Thanks for listening to certain point of View's another Pass podcast. Don't miss an episode, just subscribe and review the show on iTunes. Just go to certainpov.com.

01:21:48
Sam
Another pass is a certain pov production. Our hosts are Sam Alissaya and case Aiken. The show is edited by Jeff Moonin. Our logo and episode art is by case Aiken, our intro theme is by Vin Macrie, and our outro theme is by Matt Brogan.

01:22:05
Anna
And I'm going to let my cat out. He's like screaming, give me 1 second. Everyone's looking pink.

01:22:10
Case
Yeah, no, go for it.

01:22:12
Anna
Go out. You're not coming back in then.

01:22:19
Case
CPOV certainpov.com.