Shalita Grant | Strong Female Leads

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I am sorry I brought up Dave & Buster's to a Tony nominee... but not really, because like with everything else Shalita speaks on, she not only made me laugh but also educated me (in this instance on getting what you want!)

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Getaway: Total Recall vs The Net

Two people decide to take a little vacation that kicks off a fight for their lives as their identities are called into question — it’s Total Recall vs The Net.

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Every episode of Tasteless, I take a critically acclaimed film and compare it to one that shares the same themes but didn't get the attention it deserves — and explain why that second movie is my pick. This week: two people who decide to take a little vacation, but that vacation kicks off a fight for their lives as their identities are called into question. It's Total Recall versus The Net.

Total Recall

When a man goes in to have virtual vacation memories of the planet Mars implanted in his mind, an unexpected and harrowing series of events forces him to go to the planet for real - or is he?

This movie came out in 1990, has an 82% on Rotten Tomatoes, won the Oscar for Visual Effects. It was also nominated for Best Sound and Best Sound Effects Editing. Total Recall is based on the Philip K. Dick short story "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale."

This movie is cool. The plot is cool. It's interesting. I personally would not go to Mars if given the chance. I would say no thank you. And if they said, do you want some free memories of Mars? I would say no, I'm good. But Arnold Schwarzenegger goes on this virtual vacation — they implant memories so you feel like you've gone somewhere, indistinguishable from real vacation memories. And while he's under having these memories implanted, he starts flipping out. The vacation people at Rekall are like, his brain is already very full of false memories we didn't put there. Someone else put these in. It turns out he's not who he thought he was. His memories, his mind — they've been tampered with.

Paul Verhoeven directed this film and I have a real love-hate relationship with Paul. I love his films — Total Recall, Basic Instinct, Showgirls, Starship Troopers. He has a really interesting point of view and he picks stars like Sharon Stone that are just so perfect. But I'm always brought back to the Basic Instinct controversy with the leg-uncrossing scene and that he lied to Sharon about what could actually be seen on the film. That is such an uncool move. Even though he's made movies I love, that doesn't excuse cruddy creep behavior.

This movie did lead to Sharon Stone being in Basic Instinct because she played Lori in this, worked with Paul. He saw her being able to change from this timid, charming sweetheart — Arnold's wife Lori — to a diabolical person and back again at a moment's notice. That is what's so brilliant about her.

But we have to talk about Arnold. Arnold Schwarzenegger in this movie is named Doug Quaid. That's insane. Imagine Arnold Schwarzenegger in a t-shirt, guns out, arms out, tight t-shirt, short sleeves, just like: hi, I'm Doug. I'm Doug. My name is Doug.

I can't get a good read on Arnold. I think he might be a really wonderful guy, other than the cheating. But he's a little old school in the way he talks about people, especially women. If there was a Mount Rushmore of action stars, Arnold Schwarzenegger would be on it. He was the original Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson. Where is the Schwarzenegger tequila? I would buy that.

I went on Wikipedia to see if he owns any alcohol brands and no, he has various investments. Had a restaurant that I'm devastated I did not visit. Wrote an autobiography and called it “Total Recall,” which is genius. But the best part of his Wikipedia is that there is an entire section dedicated to a battle over what height Arnold Schwarzenegger is. It says his official height of 6’2” has been brought into question by several articles. In his bodybuilding days he was measured at 6’1.5”. In 1988 both the Daily Mail and Time Out mentioned he appeared noticeably shorter. Prior to running for governor, his height was questioned in the Chicago Reader. As governor, he engaged in a lighthearted exchange with assemblyman Herb Wesson over their heights. Wesson made an unsuccessful attempt to settle this once and for all with a tailor's tape measure. Schwarzenegger retaliated by placing a pillow stitched with the words "need a lift" on the five-foot-five-inch Wesson's chair. In 1999, Men's Health stated his height was five foot ten. And that's the end of the section. I don't know where we fall. Next person that sees Arnold Schwarzenegger, let me know how tall he is.

Arnold is great at what he is great at. And luckily Paul Verhoeven knew that. There was a falling out between writer Dan O'Bannon and Verhoeven when Verhoeven replaced the satirical humor with extreme violence. In the original screenplay, dark humor was much more prevalent. But when Arnold came aboard, Verhoeven recognized the necessity to tailor the script to Schwarzenegger's talents. This is not a knock on Arnold at all. He is great at certain things. You're not going to also give him dark humor. He does incredulous, he does angry, he does surprise. That's what he does and he does it well.

Now someone who can do everything is of course Sharon Stone as Lori — a breakout role that led to Basic Instinct. She plays Arnold's wife Lori, who as it turns out was never his wife and is actually just an agent there to keep an eye on him after his memories were replaced. Arnold believes they've been married for eight years. When he realizes she isn't who she says she is, she's like, yeah, okay, I'm not your wife, but do you want to bone for old time's sake? And he's like, oh, good try, clever girl — because obviously she was just stalling so the bad guys could come get him.

Sharon Stone can take all my memories if she wants to and live in my house with me. Go for it. I don't care. I would love a remake of this movie from Lori's point of view, where she has to go live with this guy undercover — this weird giant man who thinks he's a construction worker. And you're just keeping an eye on him and acting like everything's normal. There's something very creepy Truman Show fascinating about it that I love.

The tennis outfit she wears with the swoop bangs rivals Michelle Pfeiffer in Grease 2 for level of cool outfit that I desperately want to pull off. I was really mad that when she's shooting at Arnold and he doesn't know yet that she's against him, she misses him so many times. I was offended that they would make Sharon Stone such a bad shot.

I'm currently reading her new memoir, “The Beauty of Living Twice.” I'm trying to space it out and savor it and not just finish it all in one weekend, because this is a woman who has lived and she is so smart and interesting and funny. In her memoir, Sharon talks about the work she put into being believable as someone who could beat up Arnold Schwarzenegger. And it paid off. She physically fights him. She kicks him in his head — whether he's five-ten or six-two, that is insane. And I buy it fully. You buy her physicality. She was pumping iron. She put so much prep into this movie and it works. You see their fight and you don't think he could just flick her away like a fly. No — there is weight to her actions.

The big bad guy is Cohaagen, played by Ronnie Cox of RoboCop and Beverly Hills Cop. He's best friends with the Schwarzenegger from the past, Hauser. Hauser was an agent who worked for him, and Hauser came up with the plan to have his own memories wiped, have himself replaced with this mild-mannered construction worker Douglas Quaid, to enact their evil plans.

Cohaagen has an employee named Richter, played by Michael Ironside — and Sharon Stone is his girlfriend. He's so mad that Arnold is fake-married to her. He has such a vendetta. His boss is like, stop, I don't want Arnold Schwarzenegger dead. And Michael Ironside is basically just constantly saying, are you sure? Because I could kill him any moment if you want.

Michael Ironside did a Reddit AMA and said one of his favorite memories of Arnold at the studios in Mexico City was that while shooting, his sister back in Canada had a cancerous growth in her abdomen. She was in intensive care. He'd been calling her on a daily basis. Arnold noticed him calling every day at lunch. He said, who is it you're calling? And Michael told him about his sister. Arnold said, come on, let's go to my trailer. He had one of those conference phones set up and called Michael's sister and they talked for an hour. Arnold went through a whole diet thing with her, told her the healthiest diet for surgery recovery. He called her two or three more times to check on her. Michael said Arnold changed the course of his sister's recovery. She seemed lighter, had more sense of humor, felt less isolated. And she recovered. Isn't that so sweet?

We also have Benny — Mel Johnson Jr. — this lovable taxi driver who drives Arnold around on Mars. Then we discover he's a mutant and his arm is foldable and also bones. I felt so betrayed. Rachel Ticotin plays Melina, Arnold's ex-partner and girlfriend who has been wiped from his memory, but he has these dreams about her as Doug. In real life, Rachel was in Con Air. More importantly, most importantly, she was Carmen's mom in The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. The power of Melina is that you see her and you're just like, of course, she's the perfect match for Arnold. They work so well together. I love their chemistry.

But Arnold is very rude to her because when he reunites with her and doesn't have his memories, he says, Melina, Melina, I don't remember you. I don't remember us. I don't even remember me. Start with the last one, buddy. Don't start with "I don't remember you" because she doesn't know you've had your memories wiped. She just thinks you're mean. Start with like, hey, my memory has been wiped, I'm so sorry.

But the cool thing about Rachel and Lori is they have this fight scene. I wrote the following note verbatim while watching: Women fighting women with skill. This is not a cat fight. This is two people with abilities grappling. In the IMDB trivia, it says Paul Verhoeven asked second unit director Vic Armstrong to choreograph the fight not as a cat fight but more like a martial arts fight, to give the feel of two warriors fighting each other and not simply two women. Verhoeven remarks in the DVD commentary that this is probably the first time in a feature film where we see two women fighting each other normally. This fight scene is fantastic.

Spoilers — this movie is from 1990, it's older than me, not to brag. Arnold and Sharon are fighting, and Sharon has this great delivery. She's looking at Arnold: sweetheart, be reasonable. After all, we're married, as she's slowly reaching for the gun she thinks he doesn't know about. And then he shoots her in her forehead. She drops over dead and he goes, consider that a divorce. It's so cold-blooded. It's so rude.

The Net

When Angela Bennett, a computer programmer, stumbles upon government secrets, she finds herself on the run from an unknown enemy hell-bent on destroying her completely.

Came out in 1995, has a 40% on Rotten Tomatoes. Offensive. Rotten Tomatoes has done Sandy B so dirty. It's rude. It's unacceptable.

I own The Net on DVD. I popped it in. There's a great DVD menu recreating her computer. God, it's so fun to pop in a movie and it has a clever menu or a cute montage or a great song over the DVD menu. We lose that with streaming services.

Sandra Bullock — very clearly an all-time favorite actress of mine. I love her movies. Yes, I love The Net. Rewatching it, I bumped it up a few slots on my ranked list of Sandra Bullock movies, because this is a good one. I love a dumb computer movie, even if all the computer stuff could be totally wrong. Who cares? Stop asking questions. It's computers and they do things. What does it matter to you? Are you the computer police? No. I didn't think so. So shut up. That's not how a virus works. I'm sorry, I didn't know you were Steve Wozniak.

One Mr. Roger Ebert in his review of The Net said: this stuff is so concocted. I had no business caring about it, but I did because of Bullock. How does she do that? She's very low key. She's so natural. She seems to be remembering a scene rather than playing it. She has a warm smile. She never overacts. She creates a sensation that although a scene may seem absurd to us, it seems perfectly real to her and we buy it. I think me and Roger would have had a good time. We could have hung out.

So she is a computer person. We see her at a computer, wearing flannel, ordering an online pizza, talking to some guy named CyberBob. It's my dream life. She is a homebody to the extreme. She fixes computer viruses — well, she isolates them and figures out what's wrong. At one point in this movie she has poofed bangs to rival While You Were Sleeping. And she's just so good.

She goes on vacation to Mexico and can't help but bring her laptop and her work with her, including this virus she's been working on, this floppy disk. While there she is attacked. Her things are stolen, thrown on the ground. Her identity is taken. She has no ID, no wallet. Her social security number is associated with a woman named Ruth Marx who has her exact picture. She is given the identity of Ruth Marx against her will. She's at the embassy trying to figure out how to get back home from Mexico, and the woman working there is just screaming her social security number out to her, which is so inappropriate.

To get back into America she has to agree that she's Ruth Marx and not Angela Bennett. Angela Bennett is now on the run. She goes back home, goes to her apartment — all her stuff has been sold. They're like, yeah, Angela Bennett sold this place, she moved out a week ago. And Sandra Bullock's like, what are you talking about? I'm Angela Bennett. And everyone's like, well, no one can vouch for you because you're always in here ordering online pizzas, so none of us know what you look like. You could be a crazy lady.

So much of this movie is Sandra Bullock running up to a computer, doing something on it, then running away. It's perfect. It's fantastic. She runs somewhere, whoever she runs with dies. She runs off again, puts a floppy disk into a thing. It is fantastic.

Here's how it happens to her. She's on the beach and a nice good-looking man starts talking to her — Jack Devlin, played by Jeremy Northam from Gosford Park, Emma, The Crown, being British. He's a real jerk who works for the Praetorians, the entities in charge of the Gatekeeper conspiracy. Basically, cyber terrorists enacted attacks on various facets of infrastructure and government and then sold the people who got attacked protective software called the Gatekeeper program. The secretary of defense is like, no, we shouldn't use this weird software. So these bad guys give him a fake HIV diagnosis via computer hacking and he's very homophobic and kills himself. Then they're like, okay, so do you guys want to buy our Gatekeeper program?

Sandra uncovers this by mistake. She's been sent a floppy disk from a friend who's like, check out this weird virus. It's a backdoor into what the Praetorians are doing. And they trick her in the meanest way. She's in her little chat room eating her pizza. CyberBob is like, so what do you want in a man? And Sandy says, butch, beautiful, brilliant. Captain America meets Albert Schweitzer. And CyberBob says, settle for a guy who puts the seat down.

Jack Devlin pretends to be all those things. And he is so cruel — he turns those words on her when she realizes something's wrong. She's like, why do you have a gun on this boat? It's very weird. And he's like, oh, I use it for shooting sharks. And she's like, why do you have a silencer on it, you freak? And he's like, oh, you — I got you. You wanted someone butch, beautiful, brilliant, Captain America meets Albert Schweitzer, dummy. And she's like, oh my God, you're so mean.

Dennis Miller is Sandra's ex-boyfriend who she turns to when trying to regain her identity. Dennis Miller was in a very weird array of movies. This and Disclosure are such a one-two punch of my favorite things that don't need Dennis Miller in them. He is not one of her better movie companions. The honors for best of course go to Keanu and Hugh Grant, or even Benjamin Bratt joining the two-time Sandra Bullock co-star club alongside Keanu — Speed and The Lake House — with Miss Congeniality and Demolition Man.

Should I just do a separate podcast about Sandra Bullock's co-stars?

Dennis Miller is clearly still very indecisive. She just needs someone who knows who she is so she doesn't go fully crazy. And he's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, let's get into the vodka in the mini fridge at this hotel, huh? She's like, I am kind of on the run, I don't know if that's a great idea.

Her mother is played by Diane Baker, aka Senator Ruth Martin from The Silence of the Lambs. The relationship between Sandra Bullock and her mom who has Alzheimer's is such a core of this film and it's so heartbreaking. When no one knows who she is, when documents, computers, the government all say she is someone else, she calls her mother and it's like, it's Angela, Mom. And her mom doesn't know who that is. And she's like, I just need you to tell these people at the police station that I'm me. And her mom can't do it because her mom doesn't know who she is.

It is so upsetting. I cried a lot while I watched this. I cried like I was watching an episode of This Is Us, the government-created television show meant to suck the tears from our bodies.

Her mother doesn't know her. Sandra is going through it and she needs to keep her mom safe and she needs to keep herself safe. And that's hard to do when her mom doesn't even know what's going on. The Net is something you just have to watch because it unfolds. It's fun action, it's thriller-y, it's cool. She's funny. She's charming. There is some real heart to it.

Shared Themes

Both movies share the distinction of being non-Jurassic Park films where someone says "clever girl." More importantly in Total Recall and The Net, our heroes book a little holiday getaway to escape their humdrum lives, to relax. But in a turn of events, each discovers they have had a new identity created for them against their will, and they must make the best of it.

In Total Recall, Arnold finds out the life he thinks he has built was created only in his mind. His memories of an eight-year marriage to Sharon Stone, a boring life as a construction worker with giant, giant arms — these things are a lie. His beloved wife only came into his life six weeks ago and in fact is in love with a different man. Arnold discovers the dreams he has of a brunette woman on Mars may be the most real thing in his brain, pulled from his past life. When he meets that woman, Melina, he starts to realize what has been missing.

It's like if someone told me my cat Gracie was in my head and my life wasn't real — I don't know that I'd dive into a new life. I think I'd just go to sleep for a few days. Instead, Arnold follows the path laid out for him by his past self because he wants answers. He wants to see where this thing leads. Once he's in it, he's not going to take the easy way out. He wants to regain what he had — his relationship with Melina and some sort of control over his life and his choices.

Sandra Bullock has her identity brutally ripped away from her in The Net. On the internet, scrubbed from existence and replaced with a woman she doesn't know. We exist legally in computers, in the cloud. Imagine right now that you lost your driver's license, your passport, your credit cards. And when you go to the DMV to tell them your name, they say, no, that's not who you are. Here you are, here's a picture of you with a different name.

Think about how tough it is to prove who you are even when you do have all the pieces you need. Logging into your bank needs a password and a code sent to your phone. You better have access to both. To check your email, you need to get onto your computer or your phone with face ID. When the power goes out or a computer crashes, you're lost, bereft.

Sandra has no access to her past and no way to build a future. But she refuses to accept the life of Ruth Marx, the identity assigned to her when Angela Bennett is ripped away. She sets out to figure out what has happened and why, knowing it has something to do with the disk Devlin tried to take from her. The friend who sent the disk dies, by the way. I feel like sending someone a floppy disk in the mail is never going to turn out great. If I were to get a floppy disk in the mail, I'd know my days were numbered, like the Ring tape.

The core of these two films is finding out what you're capable of. Arnold discovers he is capable of goodness and Sandra of making tough decisions and of intrigue.

I love Douglas Quaid. I love the man Arnold becomes after having his mind wiped. They implant memories of this ordinary life with a cool wife, and past mean Arnold — Hauser — scoffs at Doug. Cohaagen is so mad to lose Hauser, his friend and confidant. Doug is an embarrassment to these men. But Arnold embraces being Doug. He likes who he is — that he's trusted by Melina, that he's helping the mutants. Doug cares about people. He cares about the greater good. He thinks air should be free. And although it turns out he was set up to go on the journey he did, even when he knows the truth, he still works to beat Cohaagen. He doesn't embrace the man he was before.

He's very cool with killing his ex-wife, but otherwise Doug is a kinder man. You see this version of Arnold that could have existed without the greed. Knowing that he has that capacity — he doesn't have to be who he was. He doesn't have to go back to being Cohaagen's lapdog. He makes the choice to be a good man and to work for others.

In The Net, Sandra has been a homebody. She's asked to meet up with people and she's like, nah, I have a standing Friday night arrangement — which we discover is ordering pizza online and joining a chat room with weird dudes. She brushes off going out into the real world with people. She's been incredibly stuck in her routines. The craziest thing she's decided to do is go on this vacation, and even then she brings her computer. She only lets Devlin hijack her plans after a lot of hesitation and him knowing exactly what to say.

Once she gets back home and realizes her home is no longer hers and nobody knows who Angela Bennett is, she focuses on regaining her life. She has always been a problem solver, but of other people's problems, in a way that is removed from herself. This time it affects her and it affects the rest of the world. She steps up in a way that the FBI couldn't. She's commended at the end of the day by the news for what she does.

She also has been in this weird spot with her mom where she doesn't know how to interact with her. You see that change over the course of this movie. You see how she becomes more confident with her mother, accepting what her mother knows and doesn't know, while also making herself part of her mother's life. Instead of sitting around feeling upset about what has happened to her mother, she realizes she needs to take advantage of any time they have left.

Arnold and Sandra both don't know who to trust, but they find companionship and help in the form of rediscovering a loved one.

Arnold had been dreaming about the brunette that we learn is Melina. When he sees her for the first time as Doug, he finally feels like things are falling into place. He doesn't remember her, but there's a connection. When she realizes he isn't out to get her, she's excited to see him. I can only imagine how maddening it must have been as Melina to have this history with Arnold that he doesn't remember. But it also means they can start fresh somewhat, without the lies and deceit that Arnold as Hauser was enacting. They're a team and treated as such. They finish the movie with a kiss, glad to be together in any reality, unconcerned with the truth of the situation so much as they are just happy to be reunited.

In tough times, Sandra calls up the one person she's been close to besides her mother — her ex-boyfriend Dennis Miller. While he doesn't necessarily believe or understand what's happening to her, he wants to be there for her. But more importantly, after what has clearly been a long experience with her mother's Alzheimer's, feeling abandoned by her, unable to connect with her, Sandra is imbued with a new vigor for their relationship and works to escape her predicament to reunite with her mom, who has been hidden in a sanitarium by the now-dead Dennis Miller.

It's her mother that keeps her going. Her mother is her tether to reality, to who she is and who she wants to be, even if her mother doesn't know that.

What The Net Does Better

Total Recall is an incredible sci-fi movie with innovative visual effects, fantastic action sequences, a cool plot. But there isn't humanity — not in the way The Net explores the true impact of finding out your life is disposable.

In Total Recall, Arnold is never really emotionally distressed. Imagine discovering your wife isn't your wife. You're not who you think you are. What a spiral that would send you into. But instead Arnold is just like, okay cool, well, I'm Doug, what's up? Even the shooting of Sharon is like — consider that a divorce. In your mind you were together eight years. That has no weight? He's not at all conflicted by her death.

I think the best sci-fi makes us consider humanity as much as it makes us marvel at what could be possible in our future or in an alternate world. It also makes us take a deeper look at ourselves. Doug could have really had a crisis over the fact that he used to be a man like Hauser — the man we see via computer screens wearing his face. But instead the two are painted as completely different people with no relation to one another. Arnold is angry with other Arnold instead of horrified that he has this capacity for evil within himself.

In The Net, the relationship Sandra tries to maintain with her mother is such an important and heartbreaking thread. Her only living relative, a mother she adores, doesn't know who she is. Sandra visits her bringing her favorite candy, playing the piano, and her mother has no concept of their relationship. Her mother looks her in the eye and sees a stranger. So it's all the more frightening when the rest of the world stops seeing her as well. Her mother can't even vouch for her, can't support her, can't tell the police that Sandra is her daughter.

To have this access to her mother, to be so close yet so far, because her mother doesn't understand the world in the same way — it really is upsetting. It gives weight to Sandra's quest to regain her identity. She was easily targeted to be wiped off the face of the earth because she had no other living family and existed in relative isolation. The Praetorians believed her to be disposable. To overcome that, to prove she matters to people, that her mother has a connection with her — it's incredibly important for Sandra's development and for herself.

When she's with her mother at the end, there's an easiness in their relationship that wasn't there before. Sandra has embraced that her mother may not know her exactly, but does know who she is in some sense — that she's someone who can be trusted, someone she wants to spend time with. They are planting flowers together at the end.

My big problem with these movies and sci-fi movies where things that couldn't happen happen: I don't pick a movie apart unless I hate it. I told you to ignore any computer inaccuracies in The Net and I stand by that. But man, does it make me frustrated when a movie's like, this shouldn't have worked, it was such a tenuous plan. That's what they do in Total Recall. Among all the craziness, instead of leaning into it, they have the characters question it while also brushing it under the rug.

In the world of The Net, we see Sandra as Angela Bennett doing her computer things and she's confident in them. So the viewer is confident as well. It's not called into question in the world we're existing in. She speaks with such confidence on the subject that I don't question it. I'm along for the ride. She's the expert. She clicks the little pie symbol in the corner. She knows — that's a nasty one. I buy it because the movie is trusting me to buy it. The movie's like, here, you're here for 90 minutes to enjoy this with us? Enjoy.

As opposed to Total Recall being like, we know all this was crazy, so our characters are going to say it was crazy. That makes me mad. It's a cop-out. If you go into The Net knowing what you're doing, you're going to have a great time.

Please watch The Net. I love Sandra Bullock. I love Total Recall. Watch both. Total Recall is on Netflix. The Net is rentable, very cheap.

Hit me up at @tastelesspod on social media. We can talk about Sandra Bullock on the beach with a little portable computer in 1995. We can talk about Sharon Stone as Lori and her tennis outfit that honestly everyone should be wearing now in modern day. And why Quato is such a gross little freak.

Pipe Dream: Call Me By Your Name vs James and the Giant Peach

Two movies about sad boys with an affinity for peaches who find self-acceptance through a dreamlike adventure — it's Call Me By Your Name vs James and the Giant Peach.

Read The Episode

Every episode of Tasteless, I take a critically acclaimed film and compare it to one that shares the same themes but didn't get the attention it deserves — and explain why that second movie is my pick. This week: two movies about sad boys with an affinity for peaches who find self-acceptance through a dreamlike adventure. It's Call Me By Your Name versus James and the Giant Peach. This is not just because of the peach, okay? I swear to God it's not. But I was watching James and the Giant Peach and had a real lightbulb moment. This episode makes sense. I swear to God. Just let's get into it.

Call Me By Your Name

In the summer of 1983, 17-year-old Elio is spending the days with his family at their villa in Lombardy, Italy. He soon meets 24-year-old Oliver, an intern working for Elio's father. They discover the heady beauty of awakening desire.

Came out in 2017, has a 94% on Rotten Tomatoes. It won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for James Ivory. It was nominated for Best Lead Actor for Timothée Chalamet, Best Motion Picture, and Best Original Song for Sufjan Stevens.

I am coming at this movie in the year 2021 as not a gay man, not a man, and it is a post-Armie-Hammer-is-a-cannibal world. So you can take this review with a grain of salt. I watched it for the first time and I think it really suffered from the non-movie-theater experience. If I had watched this in a theater in the dark with a big Coke and some buttered popcorn, I would have been more easily sucked into the fantasy than watching it at home at 8 a.m. with my neighbors making as much noise as possible.

I understand completely how this movie could mean something to someone, how you could see yourself in it. But I'm going to approach it from my angle of not liking a single person in this movie.

Timothée — actually, Timotay is how you're supposed to say it — is a teen who is with his parents at their really gorgeous house for the summer. Because this is set in the 80s, it seems totally normal to everyone that they just give Timothée's room to Armie. So Elio — let's call him Elio — gets shuffled off into this weird side room through the bathroom. He has to come out of the bathroom to leave the room. That sucks. Imagine if every single summer your parents were like, go sleep in the closet, I'm giving some other dude your room. Why don't they put him in the closet room? I mean, he is ten times the size of Elio, so maybe that's why he couldn't fit. But I would be so mad.

Immediately Elio is rubbed the wrong way by this hunky American. Every time Oliver is leaving, he's like, later. Elio is like, don't you think he's impolite when he says later? Don't you think he's arrogant? And everyone's like, Elio, who cares? He's not trying to be rude. That's just how he says goodbye. It's fine. Why are you so mad about it? You should be much more mad that your weird dad invites someone to sleep in your room every single year.

There are so many bugs in this movie. Mostly all over him. There's a scene where he's about to start touching himself and there's this fly on his crotch. When they're outside at one point, Oliver is laying in the grass and Elio is playing guitar and bugs are everywhere.

When Oliver first gets there, he's tired, he's traveled from America to Italy, he conks out. Some bell rings and Elio is like, that's the bell. The bell means it's time for dinner. Oliver doesn't wake up. So he goes in and takes a book and slams it onto the ground. The bell! It's time for dinner! Oliver's like, hey, I'm going to keep sleeping. Could you make an excuse for me, buddy? Thanks. I'm a grown man. I'll eat dinner. Leave me alone.

I was really disgusted by Elio telling his dad he almost had sex with a girl. He's like, yeah, I almost had sex with this girl the other night, Dad. All I had to do was find the courage to reach out and touch and she would have said yes. And his dad's like, ooh. And Oliver's like, then why didn't you? Why are you telling this story? I hate him. I hate Elio. I get he's a kid. I get it. Teen boys have a lot of things to deal with. I did not like him. Timothée Chalamet, perfectly talented. This is not his fault. I wanted to punch Elio in the face.

Armie Hammer as Oliver — he talks like an alien trying to be a human. All his words are very purposeful. I think that's why he was so great in The Man from U.N.C.L.E., because he was playing a Russian agent so he had to be very specific with his words. He gets to this town and he's like, hey guys, I'm here. Is there a bank in town? I'd love to start an account while I'm here. The professor's like, ooh, none of my students have ever wanted to start a bank account while here. Why would you start a new bank account in this town?

Armie straight up eats a raw egg. He keeps eating eggs that I guess are supposed to be poached or cooked or something. They just look raw. He's shoveling down raw eggs. And he drinks his juice so fast. I don't know if it's supposed to be attractive. And then they talk about apricot juice for a really long time and the professor is giving the most boring lecture and Armie goes, actually, I'm sorry, but I need to talk about the etymology of apricots because actually it's from this and not what you're saying. And then the whole family is like, ha ha, you passed the apricot test. I was like, God, I hate these people so much. This is the worst family I've ever seen.

Armie, in real life, has been accused by multiple women of lewd messages and inappropriate acts. He's been taken off every project he was involved in. And it's unfortunate because this was a mainstream movie about two men in love — and how often do we get that? Very rarely, especially to have it win the awards it did, get the consideration it did. So it sucks. It sucks that Armie Hammer was creeping around.

I was not not into it when he was doing his dance in shorts and sneakers and very long socks. He's said in interviews the most uncomfortable he felt during filming wasn't the sex scenes but the dance scenes. That's because only someone with a chiseled face like that and a head of hair like that can dance so goofy.

A trivia fact that really delighted me: during the party scene where the Psychedelic Furs' "Love My Way" begins, the opening lyrics are there's an army on the dance floor — and there is literally an Armie on the dance floor. I will never get over someone naming their kid Armie Hammer, who's an heir to the Arm & Hammer fortune. It's sick. It's like if my name was In-N-Out and my parents created In-N-Out. That's not right.

Regarding the peach scene — obviously we have to talk about the peach because it is technically what made me think about this film. Director Luca Guadagnino went to Timothée Chalamet and told him that he had tried masturbating with a peach himself and found it was indeed possible. Therefore he thought they should do the scene. Chalamet responded that he had also tried it and agreed. Very American Pie vibes.

Also, whenever he's eating a peach shirtless in his bed, he throws his peach pits just onto the ground in the corner of this room. The same gross dusty room where he brought that girl to have sex with her on the dirtiest mattress of all time, this poor girl. And then later he's in that room just flinging peach pits into the corner. This kid's an animal.

Elio's final conversation with his father shows how things have changed. His father for the first time connects with Elio as a fellow human instead of his child. He talks to him about love, about how he had something special with Oliver and how Elio must realize how rare that is. And then weirdly is like, I almost had that, but I didn't. Do you not like Mom? Apparently in the next book they get divorced. So I guess he doesn't like Mom. But maybe don't tell your kid you have never felt love before.

James And The Giant Peach

An orphan who lives with his two cruel aunts befriends anthropomorphic bugs who live inside a giant peach, and they embark on a journey to New York City.

This movie came out in 1996, has a 91% on Rotten Tomatoes. It was nominated for an Oscar for Best Music, Original Musical or Comedy Score for Randy Newman — lost to Emma by Rachel Portman. I don't remember Emma having a song that explains its plot, so I'm not sure how that happened.

This will be my third Roald Dahl book-to-movie adaptation that I'm vouching for on this podcast. I hadn't actually realized how much I loved his body of work until this. Combine it with producer Tim Burton, the darker side of Disney — the director Henry Selick also directed The Nightmare Before Christmas and Coraline. I found this movie most similar to Coraline in terms of its darkness and unique visuals. It's a really creative movie. It's a PG movie that is frightening, that has intense scenes, that has a moral. It is just stellar.

Paul Terry plays James and this is the only film he ever acted in. We first meet James with his parents — he's a little kid, they're hanging out on the beach, looking at clouds, talking about this trip they're going to take to the Empire State Building. They're in England but they're going to go to New York. Then tragedy strikes: his parents are eaten by an escaped rhinoceros from the zoo. You know how that can happen.

He is sent to live with his two aunts, Aunt Spiker and Aunt Sponge, who are super mean, basically have him working all the time, wake him up early to do chores. They are played by Joanna Lumley and Miriam Margolyes. Joanna Lumley as Aunt Spiker is an all-time scary villain. There is a scene where she has this wet mascara running that haunts me. Rewatching it brought back such strong scared emotions from childhood. This further confirms my thesis that funny people can be the absolute scariest, because this character is miles away from Ab Fab and yet has a similar edge to it.

Aunt Sponge is played by Miriam Margolyes. She also voices the Glowworm. She has been in every British thing ever.

These two aunts have him working all the time. Then a strange man, played by Pete Postlethwaite — who you know from being tall and in everything — is like, hey buddy, I got these magical crocodile tongues, here you go. James takes them and drops them all over the ground next to his aunts' old peach tree that hasn't grown anything in years. And of course a magical gigantic peach grows. His mean aunts use it to make money — as you would, you charge people to see the giant peach. If I found a real big fruit, I would get out my calculator and a little lockbox for the change.

James winds up going inside the giant peach in secret, transforms into a stop-motion boy, meets some magical human-sized bugs, and they go on an adventure. Very normal stuff.

But here is the thing. In this film, a little boy sings a song and yet I still love it. A little boy messily eats a peach, chomping away, and yet I still love it. He says "whino" instead of "rhino." The scary whino ate my parents. Yet I still love this movie. It overcomes these things. There is something so eye-catching, something so memorable — such beautiful moments, stunning visuals, haunting villains.

Rewatching it brought back so many memories. As things were happening, I had such strong déjà vu of — oh my God, I watched this a million times. I knew what was going to happen despite not seeing it for decades.

I'm pretty sure the spider in this movie is why I like spiders. There's this big bulbous black spider that James sees when he's still a flesh-and-blood person. When he goes inside the peach, he meets her and her name is Miss Spider and she is French and she is played by Susan Sarandon. Of course she's French, why not? The Times of London reported that James and the Giant Peach was once banned in a Wisconsin town because a reference to Spider licking her lips could potentially be taken in two ways, including sexual. They were like, this spider is too sexy. Which is what you get when you get a French Susan Sarandon spider. Sorry, you knew what you were doing.

Richard Dreyfuss is Mr. Centipede. He has a newsboy hat. He is the worst of the bugs. He's like, I can navigate this peach — because guess what? The peach is flying. It's flying across the world. He's like, I got this, I'll point the peach in the right direction. Then he falls asleep and they get lost in some scary ice world and have to go underwater to get a compass and rescue the centipede. Do your job, Mr. Centipede. You had enough time to put on that hat. Get it together.

Jane Leeves is the Ladybug and I love her. She of course, Daphne from Frasier, star of Hot in Cleveland. I want this ladybug to adopt me so bad. She's the nice one, the little old ladybug that's just like, let me just hold on, I'm coming along with you guys.

David Thewlis is the Earthworm — he has little sunglasses on his little face and they move because it's this incredible stop motion. You see him make little facial expressions and his little sunglasses make faces. You know, he's Remus Lupin in Harry Potter. I know him from Basic Instinct 2. Simon Callow is Mr. Grasshopper. He plays grasshopper songs.

Sometimes I can break down the plot, but sometimes you just have to see it because it's all a feeling. You have to watch it. I love the stop motion — it's something that is never not impressive. And then there's this scene with a sort of 2D paper effect that's really cool.

I'm sure it's on Disney+. It is. None of you have any excuses. All of you have access to someone's Disney Plus account. If you haven't seen it or if you haven't seen it in a while, watch James and the Giant Peach. I think you're going to be surprised by how many little elements have stuck with you.

Shared Themes

Elio and James are young. They're treated as children, treated as disposable — or if not disposable, at least pliable. Like their thoughts don't matter. Like what they want doesn't matter. Elio's room is taken from him each year for the visiting grad student. He's shuffled off into that weird side room. James is ignored by his aunts, other than getting labor out of him. But in these films, their lives are changed because each boy is treated like he matters, like what he wants has consequence.

Each year, as a new student comes and hangs out with his dad, Elio wanders his family's gorgeous compound, making eyes at one girl while another makes eyes at him. His parents force him to wear a shirt he doesn't want to, ask him to play piano for their guests like a trained monkey. Normal things, but when you're a kid, it feels so much bigger — like they're exerting control just because they can. He doesn't feel like he's in charge of his space or himself.

When he meets Oliver, he's immediately struck by him. Oliver is so self-possessed. He's not worried about what people think when he says "later" instead of goodbye. No one's going to chide him. He is a grown man. Elio is jealous of this, calling out the behavior, trying to turn his family against a person he believes to be arrogant. But his tune changes when Oliver starts to pay attention to him. He writes in his diary that he hadn't liked Oliver because he thought Oliver didn't like him, that he had the wrong impression. Oliver sees him, talks to him, asks his opinion, tells him about his paper, massages his tight shoulders. Okay, that last one is where things change a little bit.

Elio is trusted with his own choices with Oliver. Oliver basically says, hey, if this is what you want, meet me at midnight. If not, no hard feelings. And when Elio says, this is what I want, I'm an adult, I can handle this, Oliver takes him at his word. That takes away a little bit of the tragedy for me. It's of course sad at the end when he's crying over his first big love. But he was given this gift in having someone who truly saw him, and it ended on good terms.

Elio's final conversation with his father shows how things have changed. His father for the first time connects with Elio as a fellow human instead of his child. He gives weight to what Elio felt. He's not like, it was a fling, whatever. He really does treat it as serious. He validates it. We see the parents decide to let Elio have alone time on the phone with Oliver, getting off their receiver and giving each other knowing looks after Oliver shares the news he is engaged. They let Elio make his own mistakes and give him time to grieve. There's a respect there. A shift into Elio feeling like an adult.

In James and the Giant Peach, after James' parents die, he is sent to live with his hateful aunts. They see him as a nuisance. A stupid child not worthy of their time or energy. He's never spoken to about his feelings, simply told to shut up, put to work. His opinion isn't wanted, his feelings don't matter. Then he journeys away with the bugs that reside in the peach, and they treat him as a full-fledged person. They look to him for answers. He helps decide the course of their travel and solves problems like when the scary metal shark is coming after them.

He's always been shoved aside by his evil caretakers, but with the support of his new friends, he overcomes that. At the end of the film, when the aunts come to take him away, he confronts them. He stands up for himself. He says, I matter. This dream he has of going to the Empire State Building — this fantasy, this one thing he's holding onto — it happens. He gets there. He tells the aunts, I made it. I'm not nothing. You are.

The bugs told him he mattered. They asked his opinion. They trusted his judgment. When he decided to go with the spider into the icy ocean to save Mr. Centipede, they're like, do you really want to do that? It's super dangerous. But when he says, yeah, I'm not leaving anyone behind, they respect that. They want to hear from him in a way he hasn't experienced since his parents died.

Call Me By Your Name and James and the Giant Peach are both fantasies. They have a dreamy quality, and much like dreams, the events of the films allow our main characters to work through how they feel. What you believe is as important as what is real.

Call Me By Your Name has such an ambiance — a feeling of summer, of longing, a reverie of eating directly from a tree, paddling around in a river, having no obligations, and the sole attention of a hunky dude. It's in this space that Elio gets to explore himself. He doesn't have school, he just whiles away the days figuring out what he likes, who he likes, who he is. He's in this isolated capsule away from the real world so he can express things more freely and see where his complicated emotions surrounding Oliver lead.

Oliver is charming with everyone, has an easy way about himself. At first Elio isn't sure if he wants to be Oliver or be with him. Although Oliver claims he made his intentions clear with the shoulder massage, it is Elio who first admits his feelings — super vaguely, but he tells him something's going on. The whole "call me by your name" aspect — to call each other by their own names, to say their own names reverently with love and experience life as the other even for a moment — shows Elio a different side of himself, a side he loves. It shows him he matters.

Oliver leaving is heartbreaking but doesn't take away from how important this time was. Elio never really wanted to be with that girl he was sleeping with — he kept blowing her off and neither was quite sure why. When he falls into this affair with Oliver, he has sex with her to gain some sort of control. And when things end with Oliver, she's understanding because she realizes he didn't know himself well enough to know he would hurt her. This was something brewing for a long time. His inability to get close to these women — to finally have an answer to why that might be is a relief for him as much as it is for her. He had to be isolated to this special, strange space where anything could happen for him to work through how he actually feels.

James and the Giant Peach presents fantasy as reality, showing a giant peach and floating bugs in New York City surrounded by human children at the end. But whether it happened isn't what's important. James, when no one believes him, says to everyone for the world to hear: I flew the giant peach across the ocean. He believes in the adventure he has had and it empowers him. He no longer cowers at the sight of his aunts, though they have never looked scarier. He speaks up to them.

There's really such a feeling to this movie. The crackling of the paper when James lights his paper lantern. The texture of the peach chunks when they're singing their Eat the Peach song. It puts you into the mindset of anything being possible and allows you to be taken away by the magic of it all.

Whether it happened or not, not important. It only matters that James has had this meaningful, life-changing experience. He speaks his mind, he stands up for his friends, he immediately is letting all the little street kids eat off his dirty peach. I mean, maybe these kids have homes. I would not bite into that peach that has just rolled its way down a building onto the concrete. To each their own. He has lived this fantastical life and it shows him what's important — sharing, kindness.

There's also an undercurrent of darkness to both films. Something just out of reach because you know things will go wrong. Elio and Oliver can't be together forever. You worry about someone finding out. They're in a little bubble. Same for James — he's floating around up there, it's fun and there's dancing and peach eating, but he's going to have to come back to earth at some point. And that eventuality looms. But by the end, our characters realize real life isn't so bad.

What James And The Giant Peach Does Better

Both films take place in dreamlike locales where the unexpected can happen. But there is a hollowness that Call Me By Your Name possesses, while James and the Giant Peach is much more fantastical but has an emotional core that has kept me thinking about it for decades.

There's a crackle of something — of perhaps longing, if not quite chemistry — in Call Me By Your Name. Whenever Elio and Armie aren't talking but simply sharing knowing glances, you feel it. But then they talk and it's like, is this what we were waiting for? The way they talk to each other is so stilted and weird. There's this whole exchange when Elio is playing something on the guitar — I'll show it to you on the piano. Did you change it? I changed it a little bit. Why? I just played it the way Liszt would have played it if he'd altered Bach's version. Play that again. Play what again? The thing you played outside. Oh, you want me to play the thing I played outside? Please.

It's all so weird and aggressive. Just play the song, man. Why you gotta be so difficult? This Who's on First forced teasing — it's like false intimacy. They're trying to make us think there's a connection when there really isn't one. What on earth does Oliver see in Elio? I don't buy it. The parents are too chill with it. The girlfriend too calm. It all feels like things fall into place in a way that — I don't need realism, but something about this rings false.

I love the longing Elio has for their relationship, but the moments when they are actually together, there's a lack of emotion. I think Elio really could have gained many of the same lessons from experiencing that longing and intrigue without ever becoming physical with Oliver, because it's really Oliver's approval that makes such a big difference. Oliver admitting he likes to spend time with Elio, that he was looking at him when they were playing volleyball — that's what is important.

But the casualness with which Oliver has sex with his professor's underage kid and then is like, okay, well, this was fun, gonna go get married — there just isn't a real connection. I don't feel the humanity. It's very manic pixie dream girl — he flits in, is like, I like you too, bye bye.

In James and the Giant Peach, James is hanging out with talking bugs — obviously insane — but Spider, whom he saved before he knew she could talk, looks out for him in such a kind way despite her slightly hardened edges. The bugs coddle him just as much as they turn to him for his thoughts. There's a give and take, a push and pull. We see who James truly is — going out of his way to save the centipede even though the centipede screwed them all over. He's a good kid and he wants to help people, and the bugs sense that about him.

When they first meet, Spider vouches for him — look, he put his neck out there with Aunt Spiker in coming to my aid. There's a connection here that is real, that is true. They all eat their little peach lumps together, they sing a song, and I feel like I'm at home. I feel part of things as the viewer. I feel the memories James has of his parents and how the new ones he's making with these bugs help alleviate some of his sadness.

Something about this fantasy allows the viewer to fully connect, to really get into the mindset and feel what James is experiencing — having people who love him again, how important that is. Mr. Centipede is probably the closest to Oliver in this film — he's just like, whatever, I'll navigate, I got a cool little hat and 40 hands, what's up? He's a jerk, he messes up, but he has remorse. He tries to fix it. There's never that moment with Oliver. Oliver is such a hollow, false, Greek-god-of-a-man with no actual substance. There's no vulnerability.

There's a very sweet scene where the Earthworm is stressed about what just happened when they were trying to escape the metal shark. James says, when I had a problem, my mom and dad would tell me to look at it another way. Earthworm says, how? First I was bird bait, then I was shark bait. James says, I suppose. But you could say you gave us wings to fly and defeated a giant shark single-handedly. Earthworm says, no-handedly. James says, you're a hero. Earthworm says, I am? I'm a wonder worm. James replies, you are.

I get more humanity out of a centipede than I do out of Oliver. And that's too bad. Although I still would be so attracted to Oliver in real life.

Being older doesn't mean you know more. Doesn't mean you know better. Growth is possible for people at any age. And yet Oliver seems unchanged by his relationship with Elio, whereas James and his anthropomorphic bug friends learn from one another. Equally.

In Call Me By Your Name, one of the most interesting elements was Elio's father coming to him as a man. When he talks to Elio about how rare that kind of love is, there's real emotion there. But I hated that Oliver truly seems unaffected. There's just no conflict for him. He had a fling with Elio and moves on completely, still the exact same guy. That's what makes the relationship strangest and brings me back to — why? What are you getting out of this?

Elio really lets himself be free. He's totally honest with Oliver in a way he isn't with other people. He's goofy instead of trying too hard to look cool. He realizes it's okay to open yourself up, even if it doesn't end how you hope. He grows.

In James and the Giant Peach, these bugs have been living their weird bug lives for ages. They've been in a rut. Then James plops into their home and suddenly they're on an adventure. Suddenly they're honest with each other. Centipede admits fault. They share about their pasts, their goals for the future. There's learning and growing. All of them gain new knowledge from their time together, new appreciation for the ways of the world.

Every relationship doesn't have to teach you something. But it certainly feels more equitable, more meaningful, to have our hero influencing the life of someone else the way James influences these bugs. These bugs that have been hiding, have been almost stepped on — they're now front and center and proud, ready to web up the mean aunts that people have been terrorizing when they were too small to fight back.

Give James and the Giant Peach a shot. It's very fun. It's like 80 minutes. It's short, it's cool, it's beautifully done. It's on Disney+.

And if I'm missing something in Call Me By Your Name, feel free to tell me. Hit me up at @tastelesspod on social media where we can talk about which bug was your favorite, or about Joanna Lumley as Aunt Spiker being one of the scariest villains of all time.

Jodi Lyn O'Keefe | Strong Female Leads

Jodi Lyn O'Keefe (She's All That, Prison Break, Hit the Floor) is a dream of a human being who lets me gush about my favorite roles of hers as I mathematically prove she has the best career — from being a comedy powerhouse to the perfect kind of villain — and she shares the romantic gesture to end all gestures, plus gives me even more reasons to adore Heretic Parfum. This show breaks down at points because I am laughing uncontrollably, what a joy!

Follow Jodi on Instagram | Follow Heretic Parfum on Instagram | Visit the Heretic site to fall as in love with their scents as I have

Heart's Desire: Black Swan vs Deadly Illusions

Two movies about a woman in a high pressure environment who is unsure of what is real and what is not, and must come to terms with her desires — it's Black Swan vs Deadly Illusions.

Read The Episode

Every episode of Tasteless, I take a critically acclaimed film and compare it to one that shares the same themes but didn't get the attention it deserves — and explain why that second movie is my pick. This week: two women in high-pressure environments who are unsure of what is real and what is not and must come to terms with their desires. It's Black Swan versus Deadly Illusions.

Black Swan

Nina is a talented but unstable ballerina on the verge of stardom. Pushed to the breaking point by her artistic director and a seductive rival, Nina's grip on reality slips, plunging her into a waking nightmare.

This movie came out in 2010, has an 85% on Rotten Tomatoes. Natalie Portman won the Oscar for Best Actress. The film was also nominated for Best Picture, Best Directing, Best Cinematography, and Best Film Editing.

These were the Oscars where everyone turned on Anne Hathaway as she tried to save the sinking ship that was getting anything useful out of James Franco. How dare we turn on her. The Social Network beat Black Swan for Film Editing. Are you kidding me? Inception got Cinematography — fine, whatever, because buildings are caving in, but Black Swan was better. Directing and Picture were given to The King's Speech, which I didn't see, but I bet it was about a turd. I will not be looking further into it. Please do not inform me.

Black Swan deserves all the awards and recognition for being a truly compelling look at a woman forced to both repress and expose herself in equal turn for the acceptance of those around her. Natalie Portman does an amazing job. I love this movie. I saw it in theaters, I think twice, and it's stuck with me. I am offended that it only has an 85% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Natalie trained for a year as a dancer to prepare for the role, paid for the training out of her own pocket until the film found investors. Darren Aronofsky attributed the film getting made at all to Portman's dedication and enthusiasm. I think you can tell when an actor has a true passion for a role, and that carries through here. Out of all the awards nominations the film received, Natalie Portman won every single Best Actress category — Oscars, Golden Globes, every single one she was nominated for, she won.

Her performance is one of the most incredible I've seen — the way she goes within herself, the vulnerability, the sadness. To contrast that with the woman who sang one of my favorite songs, the Natalie Rap. She has range. She's brilliant.

Natalie as Nina is desperate for the approval of Tomah — as she says, Tomah, spelled Thomas — played by Vincent Cassel. He heads up the ballet troupe and assigns the roles. While Natalie is a talented dancer, he believes she doesn't have the darkness or sensuality to play the Black Swan and therefore cannot play the multifaceted Swan Queen in their upcoming Swan Lake. She struggles to open herself up and be less regimented, and this isn't helped by Tomah's sexually aggressive nature. She has complicated feelings for him — a schoolgirl crush she refuses to acknowledge when pressed about it by Mila Kunis.

Mila Kunis is perfection in this film as well. There is an easiness to Mila as Lily that is something I absolutely covet. She was so perfect for this role. To get the viewer into the space Natalie inhabits — the envy, the interest. Mila is the kind of person where you just want to be in her orbit.

Although it is fully psycho when she goes into the bathroom Natalie is in, goes to pee, takes off her underwear and hands it to Natalie to hold. I would be distraught if that happened to me. But then when Mila goes to Natalie's house later to apologize — because she had really pushed Natalie's boundaries, talked to Tomah about her — I loved that. She recognizes that even though Natalie is really intense and not nice to her, she still hurt her and tries to make up for it.

She goes to her apartment, invites her out. Natalie takes her up on it. While they're out at a bar, Mila offers her drugs. And I too would take a strange pill for Mila Kunis. I think any one of us would. This is the only fun girls' night out Natalie has had maybe ever. So in her mind it becomes more than it is. She has the hallucination of going home and having sex with Mila Kunis.

Even the response when she finds out it was not real — she goes to Mila and is like, okay, last night can never happen again. And Mila's like, what happened last night? I went home with a dude. Oh my God, did you have a dream about me? And she's not even really mean about it. She's just kind of like, was I good? There's such an acceptance with her — she's not judgmental, she's just open. And it's this ease that Natalie can never achieve.

A lot of that is due to the way she was raised. Barbara Hershey plays Natalie's overbearing mom, and she's so frightening. Perhaps the scariest part of the film, besides the skin strip Natalie peels off her finger, which I still cannot look at no matter how many times I see the movie. There's a theory that the mother was possibly molesting her, and even if we don't take that as fact, the control her mother exerts is sickening. It's very Carrie — this perverted, twisted idea of love being used as a weapon to keep Natalie in line.

Although she wants her daughter to be a success, she encourages and allows for this odd regression. Constantly calling the receptionist at the theater to find out Natalie's whereabouts. And when Natalie gets the Swan Queen role, she says to her mom, he picked me, mommy, and it just makes my skin crawl. Then her mom gets this full sheet cake and Natalie's like, I'm trying to be ballerina-body, I can't eat a sheet cake. And Barbara Hershey goes to throw it away. And then it's like, no, I'm sorry, I didn't — I'm just so proud. It's this constant push of control.

This relationship is so stressful, so tense. Uncut Gems who? This is tension. You see why Natalie is living so much of her life internally and why her view of the world becomes distorted when this is how she was raised — to never feel safe, to always wonder when the other shoe was going to drop.

I was also thrilled to see Winona Ryder as a ballerina at the company who has passed the age where people want to see her perform. She's put out to pasture and accuses Natalie of sleeping with Tomah to take her job. Ksenia Solo, aka Kenzi from Lost Girl, appears as another ballerina. Sebastian Stan is one of the guys Natalie and Mila meet at the bar. I had totally forgotten that.

Here's one problem with this movie: Darren Aronofsky. I am not denying he's a genius in some of the ways we consider people geniuses. But a little piece of trivia from IMDB: Natalie Portman revealed that Aronofsky would subtly try to pit her and Mila Kunis against each other during filming, in an attempt to increase the on-screen tension. This included keeping the two actresses separated and sending each of them intimidating text messages about each other's performance that day. However, according to Kunis, this backfired because they were good friends before filming. Whenever they got wind the other was doing really well, they would respond in congratulatory support, not rivalry.

It's a job, Darren Aronofsky. Don't play mind games. These are excellent actors who can do the job without some nonsense you're trying to put in their head.

Also, IMDB has director trademarks. One for this movie was the film Perfect Blue — an overhead shot of Nina in the bathtub is an exact replica of a shot in the Japanese anime thriller. Years before, when making Requiem for a Dream, Aronofsky bought the remake rights to Perfect Blue just to use that one sequence. Black Swan itself contains numerous similarities to Perfect Blue, though Aronofsky has denied it was an influence. You already bought this movie to use in something else and now you're like, no, that movie has nothing to do with my work. Come on, dude.

Although the film was never marketed as such, Aronofsky has always maintained it was meant to be a psychological horror film. I would say yes — this is the kind of thriller that made me appreciate the genre and realize it can be layered and meaningful and truly frightening. Black Swan is one of my all-time favorite films.

Deadly Illusions

After a bestselling novelist suffering from writer's block hires a new nanny for her children, the line between fiction and reality starts to blur.

This came out in 2021, has a 13% on Rotten Tomatoes — but only eight official critics have reviewed it, so I don't think that's quite fair.

This is one of the timelier episodes of Tasteless. Deadly Illusions dropped last weekend as of this recording and Sam Hurley of Movie Reviews in 20Qs told me it existed and that it looked up my alley. I immediately pulled it up on IMDB and said, yes, it is. And yes, it was. What a film.

I have spoken before about this genre of thriller. Saying "erotic thriller" does always make me feel like a serial killer, but I don't know what else to call it. I would argue Black Swan could fall into the category as well. This was a type of thriller more prevalent in the eighties and nineties that peaked with Basic Instinct and had a late-nineties resurgence with ones aimed at a younger crowd — Cruel Intentions, Wild Things. It's this type of twisty thriller where there's a mystery and the best ones have women using their sexuality to get what they want — instead of it being something they're subjected to, they turn it on the oppressors.

Netflix has been circling this, wanting to bring back the fun twisty surprising psychological thriller with a little sex thrown in, and this is a perfect example.

As our star we have Kristin Davis. Charlotte was always my favorite on Sex and the City. Kristin Davis has shown again and again what a delight she is — between her very funny and supportive engagement with the Every Outfit on Sex and the City Instagram, which has this meme called Woke Charlotte where they correct problematic quotes from the show. Also, Kristin Davis is a big supporter of animals. She has dedicated herself to helping elephants through the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust. I just love her.

In this movie she is my favorite kind of character: an author who wrote a bestselling series of sexy thriller novels, but has basically retired from that to be with her family because she feels writing those books have been some of the unhappiest times of her life. Unfortunately her husband Dermot Mulroney does some bad business, so she has to take an offer to write another book in the series to get them some money. And she switches to full writer mode. The cigars, the robes, the cozy sweaters.

Kristin Davis's whole vibe in this movie is so cool. At one point she has her boots up on her writing desk smoking her giant cigar and I could just watch that for eight hours like a video of a Yule log. I have a Reddit thread bookmarked right now to find out where one of her sweaters is from — someone on a knitting subreddit was like, does anyone have the pattern for the sweater? Someone replied, I have this exact sweater. Three people have replied asking where they bought it. This person has not replied. It's been seven days. Please come back, Reddit user, and tell us where you bought the sweater.

Let's talk Dermot Mulroney. Hunk from My Best Friend's Wedding gets his full butt out in this movie. I like parity in my actor nudity — I want a lady butt, I want a man butt. Have it all in there. His relationship with Kristin is overall very refreshing. She says to him, what do you think about women who get plastic surgery? He goes, like fake boobs? And he kind of looks like, no, I don't want you to get fake boobs. She goes, maybe something else? He says, like a fake butt? And he mulls it over. They're kind of laughing. And he says, the hottest thing about you is you're brilliant and you're a wonderful mom to our kids.

Other than Dermot's betrayal with finances, this couple clearly likes each other and is into each other. They are going at it for half the movie. He is so attracted to her. They have such love for each other, such chemistry. It's not the usual — the wife is so busy, she doesn't pay enough attention, or the husband is stepping out with his secretary. No, they're equal partners.

In comes the nanny, with one big braid and different-colored bows and a beach cruiser bike and a lot of white-sock, white-sneaker combos. It is Greer Grammer. She seems like the perfect nanny — she loves reading and kids, is trying to make money for college, immediately has palpable sexual tension with Kristin Davis. All things that are great in an employee.

Greer spoon-feeds Kristin about 18 different foods and I love every moment of it. Honey, chili — yes, there's some sexy chili spoon-feeding. Who doesn't want that? And Greer plays Grace and she just feels so at home with this family. Kristin Davis is a great employer — she buys her bras, she hangs out with her. It seems like a really nice time at that house.

There's something about her that intrigues Kristin. We see Kristin talking to her friend, played by Shanola Hampton of Shameless — who is also a producer on this movie, which I have a lot of questions about. The only flaw in this movie is that there was not more of her. Kristin plays the role of slightly lascivious employer with such gusto. She straight up tells Shanola what's up. She doesn't hide it. She's like, I am very into my nanny. There isn't any shame surrounding it. Shanola asks, are you even into girls? Kristin goes, no, I just like that she'll do whatever I want. And Shanola is like, okay, well, keep working on your book.

So many of these types of thrillers rely on the husband and wife hating each other and lying to each other. That's not what happens here. Obviously Kristin doesn't tell her husband she's very attracted to the nanny, but she's also not secretive. I mean, yeah, they stop making out when the kids come in, but that's just being polite.

There are about 18 twists in this movie, some of which we will get into. But really you just need to watch it — it's on Netflix. And all you nitpickers who are like, what's the timeline of this movie? — shut your faces! If you want a timeline so bad, watch Memento, you turds.

This movie has one of the best visual gags I've seen in ages. There's an incident I'm not going to spoil, but you see Kristin look at the cover of what is very clearly a People magazine — same font and everything — but instead of People it says Persons, in the People font. I was really delighted by that.

Shared Themes

These films explore reality and our perception of it — how fantasy and nightmare can become more tangible and sometimes more desirable than the real world. Natalie and Kristin feel they can't trust their own memory of what has happened, because the world around them has a different view of it altogether.

Natalie in Black Swan is so overwhelmed by her drive to be the best. She is already an anxious person, so to be in a field where that's the crux of it, where there is such competition and it's so cutthroat — it's not good for her. It's not a supportive environment; it's one of pain and pushing yourself to the limit. Natalie's greatest enemy and roadblock is herself. She puts so much pressure on herself that every comment from someone else is a shot to her heart.

She sees her face plastered onto people passing her. She fights a vision of herself. She stabs herself with some glass. She's in a constant war with who she is, but projects it onto her battle with Mila Kunis — thinking this other dancer is her enemy instead of her own insecurities. Natalie is so fragile that each vision of betrayal, of being wronged, of death and destruction, pushes her closer to the edge. She doesn't know what is real and is constantly frightened, unsure of other people's motives. She sees feathers growing in on her back and tries desperately to pluck them out. She sees entire strips of her skin being torn away.

In Deadly Illusions, Kristin becomes lost in the world of her book. She writes tantalizing stories with twists and seduction and killers, and she finds herself living inside one when her nanny is a little too eager to please. She has visions of her husband and the nanny having sex on the kitchen counter, but then both deny it and Kristin is made to feel insane. She even accuses Shanola of having an eye on her husband. Shanola's like, we will talk later, you're being ridiculous because I danced with your weird husband.

Fantasy can be a place of escape and comfort as much as it can be intrusive and frightening. Natalie and Kristin experience both sides. Natalie finally finds release when she fantasizes about bringing Mila home — Mila represents a form of freedom and easiness that Natalie covets but can never quite achieve. Through Kristin's fantasies, she can take the weight of the world off her shoulders. She's adored and doted on by the young nanny who takes care of her as well as the children.

Black Swan and Deadly Illusions explore desire and sexuality in a way that is female-focused without centering their experience on gaining a man's approval. There's freedom and escape within these sexual relationships for each woman.

In Black Swan, Natalie is very closed off — in a state of arrested development, still living with her mom, focusing only on work and being the best. There's no easiness to her. It's why Tomah doesn't believe she can embody the Black Swan, but only the more virginal White Swan. It's clear Tomah has no problem wielding sexuality as a weapon — aggressively kissing Natalie, being thrilled by her biting him. He tells Natalie to go home and touch herself and she takes this assignment seriously, even though it's very inappropriate from her employer. But because she continues to be so afraid of being out of control, she can't turn off her brain. And when she finally does, her mom is there, just sleeping in the corner of her room. She doesn't have a lock on her door — she has a wooden dowel to keep her mom out.

It's not until her night out with Mila — drinking and doing drugs and having fun and not worrying about her career — that within her fantasy of sex with Mila, she's able to let go. She fights her mom, stands up for herself, takes what she wants.

There's an IMDB trivia fact I want to talk about here. An online rumor broke out shortly after the film's release claiming Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis took shots of tequila before shooting their sex scene and were drunk on screen. Kunis denied this, saying, I don't think we could have done that scene if we were intoxicated. There's something interesting and immensely frustrating here because we hear it a lot. When women have to kiss or have sex scenes, some rumor always comes out that they got drunk. We don't think that about man-on-woman sex scenes. There's something we see as other when it's two people of the same sex versus a heterosexual love scene.

Natalie wants the approval of Tomah, yes, but she wants to be Mila. She wants to feel that freedom. And that's the kind of person she can open herself up to.

In Deadly Illusions, Kristin Davis and Dermot Mulroney have so much chemistry. So Kristin can't figure out why she is so drawn to her nanny. But she comments a couple different times how intoxicating it is that she feels the nanny would clearly do anything for her.

In a life where she's so out of control in some ways — where her husband has lost their savings without her knowledge, where her book publishers constantly push for her to write what they want instead of what she feels is correct — in this relationship with the nanny, she has control. She's in charge. That power is potent and hard to ignore. With her husband, Kristin is taking care of him. With the nanny, she is being taken care of.

The nanny at one point — Kristin's in the bath — brings in rose petals and pours milk in the bath. Which I guess is okay? It seems bad. Maybe it's cream. Is that better or worse than milk? Are those the same thing? Either way, the dynamic is not something she has experienced as this high-profile author, as a mother to twins, as someone constantly holding things together. She hasn't just had someone dote on her like this.

Dermot has encouraged her to get help, to hire a nanny. He doesn't think any less of her for wanting that help as she focuses on work. But there is something so different and so important for Kristin in the nanny saying to her, let me make you happy. All I want to do is make you happy. There's no obligation there. Nothing is expected of her. Kristin and Dermot are such equal partners in so many ways, but a lot of the labor of fixing things falls on Kristin. So there's such a different type of freedom with the nanny.

Later in the kitchen when Kristin is trying to talk about her tenth anniversary with Dermot, the nanny is all up on her trying to get a piece of her — you deserve this. Kristin can just take and take without giving anything back. There's no emotional labor. She took her bra shopping and just got one little grope in and the nanny just went about business as usual. This nanny has made it so easy, has just offered herself up to Kristin. Whereas in her relationship with Dermot, Kristin feels like she has to pick up the pieces when he crashes and burns their life — and this is not the first time he has done this.

Neither relationship in both films is necessarily a measure of attraction. Yes, obviously Mila Kunis and Greer Grammer are good-looking. But it's more what they represent. In Black Swan, Mila is easy, carefree, confident, without guile. She doesn't play the same games. She takes what she wants. In Deadly Illusions, Greer is simple, innocent, pliable, and she looks at Kristin with such adoration.

We also see the other side — we see Greer with Dermot where she is aggressive, she bosses him around, because he doesn't get that from Kristin. She brings whatever the other person needs. One of the most strangely intimate moments is when Kristin takes off her bathing suit to hop in the pool and then gestures for the nanny to put it on. Which she does. The nanny puts on someone else's wet bathing suit, which — okay. But Kristin sees herself in the nanny. You see this when she picks out the bras and talks about youth being wasted on the young, wishing she had more confidence in her body when she was Greer's age. And in Black Swan, Natalie Portman sees her own face on Mila Kunis while they're having sex. They are both working through their relationship to themselves in a way that would not be possible with a man.

What Deadly Illusions Does Better

Natalie in Black Swan is a very specific character — someone so stilted in so many ways that despite her immense talents, it's as though all her regular social and emotional IQ have been converted to regimented physicality, not even general comfort in her body. Whereas Kristin in Deadly Illusions is more balanced — an adult struggling with the weight placed on her shoulders as a mother, a wife, the breadwinner. Natalie never truly grows into a full-fledged person, while Kristin has no choice but to explore who she can be in relation to what has happened to her.

In Black Swan, Natalie is not living a regular life. She's raised by an overbearing mother who infantilizes her even as she berates her, making Natalie unable to take care of herself and yet mocking her for that same inability. Each time Natalie starts to break out of the shell — going out with Mila, drinking, staying up late — this step forward is met with two steps back. She's apologetic the next morning, distraught over what she believes has happened.

There's a catharsis in Natalie's death at the end — the acknowledgment that the person she stabbed is in fact herself. She dies in this truly perfect moment. But there's no moving forward for Natalie. There's no true experienced growth. She isn't able to integrate the two sides of herself. Instead, as she starts to achieve that integration, that is how she dies. She cannot live with both sides of herself.

In Deadly Illusions, Kristin makes her choices and stands by them. She's not regretful, simply confused over the turn things take when she discovers Greer's true face. I appreciate that she stays in the nanny's life at the end — because obviously things go down with the nanny. It's called Deadly Illusions. In the promo pictures, the nanny is seductively whispering in her ear. Obviously bad stuff goes down. But despite what the nanny does to her family, she feels a connection and a fondness for this girl who has been treated with such cruelty by her own parental figures.

Kristin doesn't feel shame. She simply adjusts her perspective when presented with the rest of the facts about who this woman is. She doesn't begrudge Dermot for being seduced by the nanny as well — she was too. And despite the ambiguous ending, I do believe Kristin has achieved some sort of happiness and growth. We see she has finished her book, a woman at the office is reading it intently, and Kristin has channeled what has happened to her into that work of art for others to enjoy. Instead of penning the last pages and falling to her swan-like death, she sets to work supporting the people in her life and providing forgiveness to the young girl whose actions were not quite her own.

Forgiveness is something Natalie never is able to give herself. She acknowledges the two sides of who she is, but I don't think she ever fully loves and accepts the pieces of herself that have kept her safe amidst her mental turmoil. Kristin's forgiveness of Greer — as well as of herself — was a really interesting element that allowed the characters to not be black and white.

Natalie ends Black Swan proud of her accomplishment — performing the Black Swan serves as a culmination of her work. All the time she put into this, the way she ruined her body and her mind. There's this continued thing in movies where people can't have balance. Liz Lemon's whole bit on 30 Rock about wanting women to be able to have it all, but they can't. I get that it takes 10,000 hours to become a master of something, and it's admirable to have such dedication. But it's also inhuman. We see Natalie as this otherworldly waif — this ballerina lacking humanity in a lot of ways, all the most timid, scared pieces. Every aspect of her life is so controlled that I don't ever feel I know who she is. Is she anyone? Is she just this combination of skill and fear?

In Deadly Illusions, Kristin becomes involved in writing again because of necessity. She has to support her family, they need money. She's an incredible writer whose books have done very well and clearly gotten her this nice house with a lot of very nice outdoor spaces. But I like seeing someone whose interest isn't at the expense of everything else. You can be passionate about something, skilled at something, while balancing other things. Yeah, she's writing her book by hand with a fountain pen onto various sheets of paper, and someone's going to have to type that up later. But she's not worried about it. She's going to write some pages and then go lay by the pool topless. She's got a life to lead.

So many movies about being the best are just — this is it, this is all you can do. Black Swan, Whiplash, I, Tonya. These people have no life skills and are weirdos because all they can do is this one thing. I like the way Kristin's skill — this way she's able to tap into a book — is also her downfall in that she dives too deep, becomes too involved, and it changes how she reacts to things as she gets sucked into the book. But she can turn that off. She chooses to dive back into this darkness for the good of her family. There's something about that choice I find really satisfying — especially because she lives with the results and doesn't shame herself for what has happened.

I hope you will watch Deadly Illusions on Netflix so we can talk about it. Hit me up at @tastelesspod. Tell me which of Kristin Davis's sweater-plus-cigar combos was your favorite. If you know where any of those sweaters are from and can tell me before the people on Reddit, please do.

Glimmer of Hope: Children of Men vs Underworld: Blood Wars

Two movies where survival of a species comes down to one bloodline and hope is finally carved out amidst the despair — it's Children of Men vs Underworld: Blood Wars.

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Every episode of Tasteless, I take a critically acclaimed film and compare it to one that shares the same themes but didn't get the attention it deserves — and explain why that second movie is my pick. This week: two movies where survival of a species comes down to one bloodline and hope is finally carved out amidst the despair. It's Children of Men versus Underworld: Blood Wars.

Children Of Men

In 2027, in a chaotic world in which women have somehow become infertile, a former activist agrees to help transport a miraculously pregnant woman to a sanctuary at sea.

This came out in 2006, has a 92% on Rotten Tomatoes, directed by Alfonso Cuarón. It was nominated for three Oscars — Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography, and Best Film Editing.

This movie is about a very sad England where everything is falling apart. It's a post-apocalyptic gray sadness because babies stopped being born 18 years ago. And everyone is just like, okay, I guess F it then, we're going to go berserk, because babies aren't being born anymore. This is it. This is the end of our lineage.

Our protagonist Theo is played by Clive Owen. He's a regular office guy whose only real friend is Michael Caine doing a John Lennon impression. There's a scene at the beginning where Clive is at Michael Caine's house and he's just absentmindedly petting this cat. And then he starts petting it maybe a little too aggressively, unless the cat really likes him. I was so focused on this cat and trying to decide if he was petting him an appropriate amount that I noticed the different shots had the cat facing different ways. It was a continuity error.

This animal thing is a through line though. We find out that all animals love Clive Owen. Some dogs come up to him and someone's like, those dogs don't like anyone. And then this little kitten tries to climb up his pant leg, but he doesn't even reach down and pet it — which is the least believable part of this movie. If a little kitten came up to you and was tugging at your pant leg, you would just look down at it and be like, go about your business? Scoop that kitten up.

Clive Owen had a wife and a kid, but the kid died. So he's just kind of aimless. England seems to be one of the places left standing — there was a nuclear attack on New York. People truly went bananas when they realized no more children were being born. Michael Caine is the comic relief and does a pull-my-finger joke immediately in the film.

Spoiler: Michael Caine euthanizes his wife and his dog, which I get why he does, but come on, figure out a way to save the dog. But it's important to note that he dies farting. In this gritty exploration of humanity, Michael Caine dies farting, because he is surrounded by gunmen and he's like, pull my finger, and reaches a finger out and then gets shot. And I can only assume he died farting.

We're introduced to baby Diego, who was the last baby born, the youngest person on earth. I thought this was fascinating — seeing the news coverage of him. He dies, and the nation is in mourning. The world is in mourning. He was the last baby born and had this celebrity thrust on him that he did not want and just couldn't handle. We learn there are legal suicide kits called Quietus. There's a lot of little touches. I'm going to have to read the book because I liked all the little pieces of lore, the world that is existing.

Clive Owen gets kidnapped and brought to the hideout of the Fishes, this rebel group trying to help the refugees that England is railing against. The Fishes want equal rights for immigrants in Britain, which is great. Fishes is not a cool name for a movement, but it's a good cause. Julianne Moore plays Julian, Clive Owen's ex-wife, leader of the Fishes. She has a nose stud and I didn't know that was a look. IMDB trivia says Alfonso Cuarón wanted an actress who had the credibility of leadership, intelligence, and independence.

At one point they're in a car together, fleeing with the pregnant woman, and they play a game. Julianne Moore is like, no one's ever been able to do it like you, Clive. And he's like, I can't, not now, not in front of these people. And she's like, no, we're going to do it, and she spits a ping pong ball into his mouth and he spits it back into her mouth. And then Julianne Moore — spoiler — dies. And then I was like, yeah, I bet this is why I didn't like this movie. A dog dies and Julianne Moore dies. What are we doing here?

I do hope that Alfonso was like, Julianne Moore, you are such a credibly intelligent, independent woman. Could I get you to pretend to spit a ping pong ball into this man's mouth? And she was like, okay.

So she captures Clive because she needs him to get transport papers from his cousin Danny Huston, whose son is Ed Westwick — Chuck from Gossip Girl — playing with this weird hand robot. And I was like, what are you doing here? He gets the papers but has to travel with the person. Julianne Moore gets killed. And at the hideout with Chiwetel Ejiofor, who I also love, Clive Owen wanders around and finds Kee — who is the girl he's helping. Claire-Hope Ashitey is this actress, and she is the lynchpin. She is pregnant. She is the first pregnant woman in 18 years.

When Clive Owen finds her in the barn and she reveals she's pregnant, he is shocked. She plays this role — it's so interesting — later she talks about realizing she was pregnant, that she had never been taught about it. She's young enough that fertility had stopped before she got into school, so there was no reason to teach it. But she just knew. I would have loved more of this, of the journey Kee has taken.

I also love her friendship with the Fish that is looking out for her, played by Pam Ferris, aka Miss Trunchbull from Matilda, who has an eyebrow ring. Everybody in this movie has a questionable piercing. Pam Ferris is keeping Kee safe and is such an ally to her — her and Clive Owen are a great duo in protecting Kee.

Then we find out things aren't as they seem. Chiwetel has some secret stuff going on. Charlie Hunnam has some secret stuff going on. Chiwetel's guys killed Julianne Moore because they don't want the baby taken to the Human Project — they want to keep the baby for political gain. So Clive takes Kee and Pam Ferris and flees in the night. Later, Chiwetel sees the baby in a war zone and he's crying because it evokes something in him. It's really interesting. The baby is born and it evokes something in people.

A couple of questions. One: why are future movies so neutral slash brown-looking? It's so gray. Is that just because it's England? I'm not interested. Too gray. Two: we see the destruction society has faced. If we were all infertile for, let's say, 20 years, would that actually give the earth time to reset? In this movie it's been 18 and people are still there just being awful. What if we just stopped having babies for 20 years and let the earth chill? Cut down on global warming? Would society crumble? Would someone nuke New York City if we couldn't have babies? I think it's such a weird, interesting conclusion — that without a hope for people to come, without people carrying on your line, you would just totally go anarchist.

The movie is currently on Peacock for free, where there's an ad every five minutes, which really takes you out of a drama. But you get what you get.

Underworld: Blood Wars

Vampire death dealer Selene (Kate Beckinsale) fights to end the eternal war between the Lycan clan and the Vampire faction that betrayed her.

This movie came out in 2016. It has a 21% on Rotten Tomatoes.

I have covered a couple of Kate Beckinsale movies on this show. My love for her is well known. Love and Friendship is such a good movie. I'll watch anything she's in. Underworld is her big blockbuster franchise. She plays Selene, a vampire who has extra powers because she drank blood from the original immortal — so she can go in sunlight, she's extra strong. Before she got those powers, she was just a super cool death dealer. By the way, the original immortal got his powers because of a genetic mutation when a plague hit. So just like post-COVID, I would love some vampire powers. I want to be able to go outside. I want to jump real high, but I don't want to land hard. I don't want to land and break the concrete. I want agility. I want to be like a cat. So COVID Santa, if the genetic plague mutation could give me that, please.

We get to see Selene fight people and be cool and have fangs and blue eyes. I will say, some people look so cool with vampire teeth and some people don't. Kate looks very cool. But sometimes they have those little teeth and they're talking around them and you're like, boy, this wasn't meant for you. I worried that would be me. That if I had vampire teeth, I would talk dumb and no one would respect my vampire powers.

This movie further proves that an askance glance from Kate Beckinsale is one of the most important things committed to film. I hope we've sent a clip of one up in one of those space stations that have every seed in there so we can start a new society. Like they've got all the types of flowers — I hope there's just a clip of Kate Beckinsale in one of the Underworld movies doing an askance glance at someone.

I saw this movie in theaters. I was overjoyed when Kate Beckinsale comes into battle with the biggest, thickest coat. Yes, she has an iconic leather look, blah blah, but this is better. She comes sliding in, there's snow, her coat is so big. It's amazing. The action in this one is some of my favorite — I think because a lot of these movies, like Resident Evil, Blade, tend to be dark in color palette. I liked the contrast of this snowy tundra. The snow, the ice, that vibe. Very fun to see fight scenes in.

So this is movie five. Prior to this, Kate has gotten her cool powers, lived as a vampire for centuries, and then humans figured out there are vampires and werewolves and started purging them. They froze Kate in cryogenics. When she's unfrozen, turns out she had a kid with Scott Speedman. The kid was like 12. She finds out — this is prior to this film — and honestly, I know you're like, how can I watch this if I haven't seen the others? They do a little recap at the beginning. I had only seen the first one years prior when I went and saw this in theaters. You don't need to know everything. It's fine.

What you need to know: the kid is born, she doesn't even know because she's frozen. Right prior to this movie, the kid is like, I gotta go. You can't know where I am. You can't be my mom because everyone wants my really strong blood. If you know where I am, it endangers you and me. So that's where we're at. Kate's daughter Eve is in hiding because she has very pure blood — the father, Scott Speedman, is this relative down the line of the original immortal's family. She's very powerful.

A new Lycan leader, Marius, wants Eve's blood to get stronger. Semira, the vampire, wants Kate's blood to get stronger. And Kate is just trying to process not being in her daughter's life.

Semira, aka Lara Pulver, gets to play this over-the-top villain. She's still hurting over her mentor Victor being killed by Kate in the first movie. She's not as strong as Kate, so she wants to drink Kate's blood. She sets up this whole ambush to get Kate excommunicated, disgrace her amongst their people, and steal her blood. At one point she's drinking Kate's blood out of this big chalice and then throws the rest on the ground in triumph. Like, what a waste. You just threw all that blood on the ground. Who's going to clean that up, Semira?

Semira wants power, she wants respect, and she's trying to manipulate her way into the good graces of the council, the high elders. Meanwhile Marius and the Lycan clan are going berserk trying to get Kate and fighting vampires. Vampires and werewolves are enemies, obviously.

By the way — werewolves. They have never succeeded in making them super hot. Even in Twilight, Jacob is such a baby face. Obviously he's a good-looking guy, but he just looks so young. I think it's because vampires just pop their little teeth out but otherwise they're still gorgeous actors. Werewolves are big, hairy, gross animals. So we don't think they're hot. Which is good.

Theo James plays David, a vampire and Kate's only real ally. His dad is played by Charles Dance, who helps him and Kate after really screwing Kate over in a previous film. So it's nice that he joins Theo in saving her from the robot that is sucking her blood out courtesy of Semira.

My only complaint about this movie: a lot of people stand in water in pants and robes. They just get in water with full fabric coverage. Ooh, that's tough. They're going to get out of the water. Their calves are going to be wet. Pants clinging to them.

This is a fun series and they keep teasing that another one is coming. I do like the point this one left off — I think it's a satisfying and fitting end for Selene and for Eve, for her family. Selene battles those who want her blood, battles those who want Eve. She never breaks. They're trying to get Eve's location from her and she doesn't know it. It kills her that she doesn't know it, but it's also so good that she doesn't. She protects the people that are here. She's a good person. She's a good vampire, even when everything has been stripped from her.

Kate Beckinsale is one of our funniest actors on screen and off screen. Her Instagram videos with her cats and her dog — she'll just be holding a gorgeous sweet cat and saying the funniest things. I will watch eight more Underworlds if she chooses to make them. There's room for those movies. I love that kind of movie and I love a period comedy and I love a hard-hitting think piece. There's room for everything. Kate is so multi-talented.

Shared Themes

Children of Men and Underworld: Blood Wars both deal with the survival of a species, with individuals who have something the rest of society lacks.

In Children of Men, Kee is carrying the first baby in almost two decades. In a world where it was believed women were no longer fertile, no new babies have been born. Kee is pregnant. Not just pregnant — she gives birth. Successfully gives birth to a healthy baby girl. This baby is truly it. This baby is humanity's future. Whether we think it's because it means other people can possibly get pregnant too, that this won't last forever, or because this baby can perhaps be studied — this is the first proof that survival of the human race is even a possibility. Everyone wants a piece of Kee and her baby because of what this survival represents.

In Underworld: Blood Wars, amidst constant power struggles between vampires and Lycans and within their own ranks, Kate Beckinsale's blood and even more so her daughter's blood both represent an advantage that each side covets. Eve has hidden herself away to prevent others from using her, and those in her orbit understand the importance of her powers not falling into the wrong hands.

The blood that Eve has, that Kate shares, their bloodline — it allows vampires to step into the sun. It allows a certain level of freedom, domination, existence, survival. If these creatures didn't have to cower in the dark, they wouldn't be so much of a target. They could blend in. They wouldn't be caged by the whims of the sun. Whoever has this blood can rule, can pass it down, can create a new species — a stronger, more powerful, more balanced one. That is a legacy these creatures crave.

Children of Men and Underworld: Blood Wars are dealing with bleak spots, but both carry through a sense of hope even amidst despair. Clive and Kate have had everything taken from them, but they give themselves to a cause. And kindness comes from surprising places, further imbuing the films with a sense that goodness can be found and not everything is lost.

In Children of Men, not only is the world awful — with most countries gone besides England — but Clive's world is bleak. He and his wife separated after their child died in a flu epidemic. He used to be politically active with Julianne Moore, but he's been floating through life since his son died. His only friend is a weird old dude. But when he becomes embroiled in Julianne's plan to get Kee to safety, to the human project, it gives him a purpose. It gives him something to believe in, and in opening himself up to Kee, he is met with support in turn.

The older woman in the Bexhill refugee camp — he had been so annoyed by her. She just had this barking dog and kept getting in their space. But when they're forced to share with her that Kee has given birth, this woman comes to their aid. She dedicates herself to protecting them. We see what Michael Caine gives up for this baby — he poisons his wife and his dog and gets himself shot to buy them time. He sees their survival as more important. He doesn't feel he dies in vain. He knows what he's doing.

Kee being pregnant, giving birth, means something. It means life. It means hope. It means future. It means that there's still a chance that whatever wiped out fertility is not 100%, is not permanent. Kee's baby surviving is of utmost importance because that hope, if they even think it's a possibility, will take away the suicidal despair so many people have been feeling.

In Underworld: Blood Wars, Kate is listless, distressed over the daughter she lost that she never knew. The daughter who told her not to be a mother. After Charles Dance dies helping Theo and Kate escape, she says: it seems it's the curse of every parent to disappoint their child. Theo says: at least you fought for your child. Kate replies: yes, and lost.

She feels so helpless. But she's set on not betraying her daughter, on not chasing her — even though she wants to. She sees that Theo and Charles had a complicated history but came together to help her, to do what is right. Charles sacrifices himself saving her. He knows he messed up. And Kate knows that somewhere out there, her daughter is alive. That's the best she can hope for in a world of bloodshed.

She finds help from the vampires in the ice and responds to their support in kind, adding one of their leaders to the vampire high council when given the chance. These vampires share with Theo James that his lineage is much more noble than he believed. With a good man finally having rights to the throne, there is hope for the future — that it won't always be chaos and infighting. At the end of the film, we see a vision of Eve. Perhaps the greatest proof that this world is back on track to something decent — that fighting will be put behind them and Eve will be safe to walk around as part of the clan and not just a political tool fought over by the weak.

Clive and Kate are people who aren't into statements, into politics. They just want to live. They live as outcasts, disconnected from society, but they are sucked back into battle — into other people's battles — because of what they bring to the table.

Clive has been incredibly shut off since his child died. He doesn't care about baby Diego. When everyone mourns baby Diego, he's like, he was a wanker. He doesn't have ties. He doesn't take part in the politics he used to involve himself with when he was with Julianne Moore. But Julianne pulls him back in. He takes on her transit paper quest because she offers money — that's why — but also out of some small loyalty to her. It's not his fight. It only becomes personal when he realizes Kee is pregnant and determines he's going to protect her at any cost.

He reminisces about his days as a rebel, claiming he only joined in because he wanted to sleep with Julianne. But it's clear based on how quickly he comes to Kee's aid that he is a good man who will work to protect what he believes in. He just needed that fire stoked again within himself.

In Underworld, Kate says: I'm finished with this war. And she's told: well, it's not finished with you. Kate doesn't have anything to fight for with her daughter away. Nothing besides her own life. But she's lived so long. She's tired. She doesn't care who's in power. She only cares about the basics, about survival. The war is brought to her doorstep as people fight for her blood and her potential knowledge of where her daughter may be located.

Once she's involved, she will not let Charles Dance's death be in vain. She wants to end the terror while she can. She works to reinstate Theo James as the rightful leader. She is someone who is loyal — and though she was betrayed by her ruler of many years, she still believes there is justice.

Clive and Kate achieve redemption in a way, channeling their struggles into creating a better world for others. Nothing can bring back Clive's son Dylan, and nothing can give Kate back the time she lost with her daughter. But they still do what's right.

What Underworld: Blood Wars Did Better

Children of Men is not a refugee's story. It's not Julianne Moore's story. It's not Kee's story. It is somehow inexplicably Clive Owen's story. While in Underworld: Blood Wars, yes, it's Eve's blood that is the Holy Grail for these people after power, but we're exploring Kate's story — as a mother who has given up her child, as a person who is being hunted for who she is, for reasons beyond her control.

Now — this killed me about Children of Men. In the movie, the infertility crisis is the result of all women being infertile. In the original novel by P.D. James, it's the result of all men producing no sperm. Why'd it have to become the lady body's problem in the movie? I love in The Handmaid's Tale that it's so clear that all the dudes' sperm is jacked up, so the Handmaids have to go get impregnated by other people in secret to maintain this facade. Whatever, not important, great show.

As much as I love Kee in Children of Men, this story is Clive coming to terms with what he lost and trying to build a better future. It's not the story of the actual revolutionary Julianne Moore — she is killed so fast. We don't know Kee's past, who the father of her baby is, or what circumstances may have led to her pregnancy. We join the story when the white savior joins the story and we leave it when he does. And that is for sure an oversimplification. I like this movie and what it brings up and discusses. But if we're looking at things that are either impressive or tired — this is tired.

We've got this movie with this rich tapestry of people — the Fishes' guy who is willing to kill his own for political means, so many people with compelling narratives — and Clive Owen's is the most boring and that's who we're following.

I love the way Underworld: Blood Wars shares the story of a strong woman, a mother who struggles with her role in her daughter's life, who is seen as a threat as much as she's seen as a pawn to be used. People respect her and discard her in equal measure. She is unsure of her place in a world where she is accepted by no one. She was a death-dealing vampire but killed her leader, so vampires hate her. Humans hate her. Lycans hate her because of who she is. And yet, instead of going into the woods forever, she continues to take part in this world because she knows at the end of the day, she needs to fight for what's right.

The movie ends with Kate on the council, indicating a more positive future for the vampires. Kate's life is one of sacrifice. We join her at a point where she has truly hit her lowest, feels disconnected. We watch as she raises herself up, is brought back from the brink of death after her fight with Marius, and rejoins the war that has stripped her of everything. Kate lives between worlds, and it's her strength.

Despite not much dialogue from Kate, Selene is a compelling character — one whose story is layered and troubled and fascinating. There are great characters in Underworld, but I'm not watching it going, I wish we were learning about anyone else. The way I felt a little bit in Children of Men, where it's like — how did Kee and Pam Ferris meet? What's their deal?

Children of Men's infertile future is not a clichéd plot. It's fascinating. But all focus being on the protection of a baby, on the importance of a baby being born, of birth itself — it's a little well-worn. Underworld: Blood Wars explores the pain of choosing to let a child go for their own good, of the intensity of being away from them through your own choice, of never having a bond with that child.

In Underworld: Blood Wars, it's about a relationship that never happened, about the bonds that didn't have a chance to form. There's a longing Kate has, but there's also a certain level of detachment, an awareness of what she must give up to stay sane and to keep Eve safe.

It's a brave choice and interesting to look at — people who must give up their children for reasons beyond their control. Kate had to make this choice. It was the only option. It doesn't keep her from feeling alone and feeling that loss, but she's a pragmatist about it. She stays connected to her daughter the ways she can — carrying a lock of her hair, a little bit of mind reading, seeing out of her eyes. Vampire stuff. She never doubts the choice she made.

I love that they didn't fully reunite in this film. The kid didn't run up at the council meeting and go mommy. Instead, we're given a glimpse as a shrouded figure approaches Kate at the end. Because their reunion is less important than what both gave up for the sake of the other and for the sake of the world. It's a really interesting relationship to explore.

Children of Men is a great exploration of the impact children have, the way thoughts of lineage and passing something down determine whether people even behave as though they're in a society. But the actual story of motherhood is a little well-worn. We have this mother who will do anything for her child and keeps the child with her. Kee doesn't want the kid taken for purposes political or scientific, understandably. This birth, this biological process is so highly venerated because it has been impossible for years. Yes, it's completely new terrain in a lot of ways, but it's the same relationship we so often explore — a mother looking into her baby's eyes for the first time, that connection, that bond.

In Underworld: Blood Wars, Eve grew up without a mother. Kate gave birth in a cryogenic freeze. She wasn't even aware she had a daughter. She finds out from Eve herself. This film is about a relationship that never happened. About the bonds that didn't have a chance to form. And knowing Kate had to make this choice, that it was the only option — it doesn't keep her from feeling alone. But she's a pragmatist. She never doubts it.

Give Underworld: Blood Wars a shot. I guess watch all the other ones first — out of the other four, one is a prequel so you can maybe skip that one. But I'd say just watch all of them. Just go for it. You can watch Blood Wars right now on Tubi for free. I of course own it in 4K, because who do you think I am?

Hit me up at @tastelesspod on social media. We can talk about Kate Beckinsale's giant coat in Blood Wars and how much I love it, or we can talk about why some people don't look very good with fangs.

Brooke Smith | Strong Female Leads

Brooke Smith (Big Sky, The Silence of the Lambs, Grey's Anatomy) becomes my favorite character in every project she joins, and this episode felt like a breezy chat with a close friend. Brooke answered my questions about the satisfaction of bringing a character like Merilee to life on Big Sky, her relationship with Darla the dog aka Precious, and I called dibs on hiring her as a therapist should she ever change career paths.

Follow Brooke on Instagram and Twitter | Catch up on Big Sky on Hulu or ABC | Watch a trailer for Them coming to Amazon April 9th

Tunnel Vision: Goodfellas vs I, Tonya

Two movies about the pursuit of a specific lifestyle and feeling powerless — it's Goodfellas vs I, Tonya.

Read The Episode

Every episode of Tasteless, I take a critically acclaimed film and compare it to one that shares the same themes but didn't get the attention it deserves — and explain why that second movie is my pick. This week: two Oscar winners about the pursuit of a specific lifestyle and feeling powerless. It's Goodfellas versus I, Tonya. And yes, I was furious to discover the I, Tonya poster literally has the pull quote "the Goodfellas of figure skating." Someone thought of this comparison before me and put it on the poster.

Goodfellas

The story of Henry Hill and his life in the mafia, covering his relationship with his wife Karen and his mob partners Jimmy Conway and Tommy DeVito.

This movie came out in 1990, has a 96% on Rotten Tomatoes, and is number 17 on the IMDB Top 250. Joe Pesci won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for playing Tommy DeVito. It was also nominated for Best Picture, Best Supporting Actress for Lorraine Bracco, Best Director for Martin Scorsese, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Film Editing.

I like this movie, mostly because I love Lorraine Bracco. We're going to talk about her. But let's talk Ray Liotta first, who plays Henry Hill. Henry Hill is a real man on whom this book was based. Ray Liotta was so attractive. I knew him better from Chantix commercials and I hope he managed to stop smoking. In Goodfellas, he always looks like he has eyeliner on in a very attractive way. I also realized while watching that I know him maybe best from voicing Tommy Vercetti in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, a game I used to play for hours on the original Xbox.

Ray Liotta is our protagonist, our guy, the one doing the narration. He's a little more even-keeled than the other guys because he's the most normal, the most human, the easiest to empathize with. A lot of the movie is just him listing foods. He loves talking about foods. Made me very hungry. There's a whole scene where they're in prison and he's talking about the foods that are being made. There's another scene where he's voicing over all the things he has to get done — the cops are following him, there's a wire, he has to drop stuff off, call this person, get someone's lucky hat — I gotta chop the veal, I gotta chop the tomatoes, I gotta get a nice sear on the things. He was cooking some full meat as an appetizer. It was a big to-do. This movie will make you very hungry. I actually, after watching it, ordered pizza from a fancy place and it sucked. It sucked so hard and I'm mad about it.

Robert De Niro — also a hunk in this movie, but I would say he's a hunk now, and that I was attracted to him in the film called Dirty Grandpa. This role unfortunately is kind of just a worse version of his role in The Godfather Part II. He's just supporting as Jimmy Conway. And apparently on set he was very obsessed with realism and authenticity — he wanted to use real money for a scene where Jimmy hands out money because he didn't like the way fake money felt in his hands. IMDB claims the prop master gave De Niro $5,000 of his own money. At the end of each take, no one was allowed to leave the set until all the money was returned and counted.

It got me thinking — if Robert De Niro said, I need $5,000, you'll get it back, would I get it for him? I think I would. If I had $5,000, if that was all my savings, I'd be like, okay, here, I just went to the bank. Is this good enough for you, Mr. De Niro? Also, he was always asking questions like, how would the real Jimmy do something? How would he apply his ketchup? And Henry Hill is just like, oh my God, because the real Henry Hill talked about this movie — he claims Robert De Niro was calling him multiple times a day. Robert De Niro sounds a little clingy.

Joe Pesci is Tommy DeVito. He is always screaming and shooting people. Henry Hill had a rude little factoid about him — Henry Hill said Joe Pesci's portrayal of Tommy DeSimone was 90 to 99% accurate with one notable exception: the real Tommy DeSimone was massively built. Very rude. Joe Pesci is a little wise guy. He's like, hey, you think I'm funny? Funny like a clown? I'm gonna shoot you. Pop pop. I don't like that unhinged chaotic energy.

What I do like is a little character named Karen, played by the original Karen, played by Lorraine Bracco — who I know you know as Angela Rizzoli, the Rizzoli matriarch in Rizzoli & Isles. Love her from that. That's why I watched Goodfellas: to watch Angela Rizzoli.

What I love about her character is Karen is very down for whatever's going on. She says — because we get to hear from her in the narration — look, other women would not have been into this. He asked me to hide the gun and it turned me on. All right, Karen, cool. She wears a lot of great sweaters.

The lens through which I look at these films is a lot of the time: why isn't there more women? It's a big problem I have with a lot of these gangster movies. What's most frustrating is they always have one really good woman. Lorraine Bracco in Goodfellas is such an interesting character. When we see her with the other mob wives, she doesn't quite gel there. She doesn't quite fit in, because I think in another life she could have been the Henry Hill. She could have been the mobster, because she likes a little bit of danger and there's this undercurrent with her where nothing is what you think it's going to be. I would say the same about Casino — Sharon Stone is so incredible in that film and it's like, why are we even looking at anyone else?

Lorraine Bracco, in talking about this movie, said she found the shoot emotionally difficult because it was such a male-dominated cast. She realized if she didn't make her work important, it would probably end up on the cutting room floor. What's fascinating about that is yes, they could have carved her out of this movie. Absolutely. And I think it wouldn't have been the hit that it was. She adds something perhaps intangible, something important, something human — seeing Ray Liotta through her eyes, seeing the way she views this world. He is stars in his eyes, wants to be a mobster, loves these guys. Lorraine Bracco is kind of like, I mean, it's fine. I don't know why we have to spend every weekend hanging out with them.

It's crazy to think this movie is number 17 on top movies of all time, nominated for multiple Oscars, and she could have just been cut out. You wonder how many of these movies had storylines like hers just removed.

There's a lot of yelling at Karen. She flushes his drugs and he's just yelling and she's like, the cops were here. Of course I flushed the drugs. She could have done better. Honestly, you know what would have been great? If she had started hooking up with Jimmy Conway, with Robert De Niro. Yes. That would have been a movie. Let's redo it. Cast Lorraine Bracco and Ray Liotta and Robert De Niro all at their current ages. Have De Niro and Lorraine Bracco make out. Cinema.

Paul Sorvino plays Paulie. He's kind of the quiet one, the big mob guy you never quite know what he's thinking. In IMDB trivia it says when Paulie confronts Henry after Henry's release from prison, Paul Sorvino improvised the slap to Ray Liotta's face, hence Liotta's reaction. Imagine a job where you can just slap someone and be like, it's fine, I was in character.

A couple really great supporting women in this movie — Illeana Douglas of To Die For, love her. Debi Mazar of the show Younger. Two important Italian women and I was so excited when both popped up. And Martin Scorsese's mother Catherine plays Tommy's mother in the infamous dinner scene. Scorsese's father Charles played Vinny the prisoner who put too many onions in the tomato sauce. I love nepotism when it helps old people. That's the kind of nepotism I can get behind. Cast your moms in stuff. Good. But only if they're over 70; otherwise I don't care.

Joe Pesci won the Oscar. Sixth shortest acceptance speech in Academy history: It's my privilege, thank you. He later admitted he didn't say very much because he genuinely felt he didn't have a chance of winning. The record is two words — Patty Duke in 1963 said thank you. Somebody needs to get up there and just go thanks and walk away. Imagine the power that would have. I will now be getting into acting so that I can win an Oscar and give the shortest acceptance speech. I'll keep you all abreast of how that goes.

I, Tonya

Competitive ice skater Tonya Harding rises amongst the ranks at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, but her future in the activity is thrown into doubt when her ex-husband intervenes.

This movie came out in 2017, has a 90% on Rotten Tomatoes. It won a Supporting Actress Oscar for Allison Janney as Tonya Harding's mother. It was also nominated for Best Actress for Margot Robbie and Best Film Editing.

Clearly I've been on a Margot Robbie kick lately with Bombshell and Birds of Prey already covered this year. I don't think I quite realized what an incredible filmography she has. I saw I, Tonya at a screening, was so blown away — just frantically telling everyone they needed to see it ASAP. I was gratified to see it get awards recognition. I felt like finally the Oscars knew what was up.

The prep Margot Robbie put into this movie really paid off. She learned to ice skate, she met with Tonya Harding, and I felt like she didn't pull her punches in presenting an authentic portrayal, but she also did engender sympathy for a woman who faced hardship on an international level.

Let's face it, there's a harsh reality to what happened to Tonya Harding. I want to be cautious because I don't want to make light of what Nancy Kerrigan went through. She was assaulted. And as we watch this movie and feel such sadness at the thought of Tonya not being able to skate again professionally, it's important to note that was the reality Nancy Kerrigan faced. Nancy wound up recovering, was able to compete at the Olympics. But when all you do is skate and someone bashes your knee in, things aren't looking good. But this is Tonya's story, so let's talk about her angle.

There's a through line where she addresses the way the media portrayed her, how we reacted to Tonya Harding, the jokes, the punchline she was made. She says at one point, turning to camera: you're all my attackers too. You think about how we all knew who she was, we all knew the joke. There are a few national jokes — it's like that woman who cut her husband's penis off. There's a few where we just all know it.

The story as told in the film: her ex-husband Jeff Gillooly — they have a complicated, volatile relationship. Not even complicated: in the movie he beats her, he abuses her, he treats her like garbage and she thinks that's what love is. He gets involved with his weird friend Shawn Eckhardt, who wants to basically shake up Nancy Kerrigan because Nancy is Tonya's biggest threat. Tonya thinks they're going to send a letter, a scary threatening letter. She also gets Nancy's training schedule and tells Jeff — like, yeah, this is when she's here and this is when she's there. She's not on the up and up, but I doubt she was involved in knowing a physical attack would be carried out.

She says to camera: Nancy gets hit one time, everybody goes nuts. For me, it was an everyday occurrence. When we see her confiding in her mother that her husband hits her and her mom's like, well, you know, he needs to shut you up — it's disgusting the way she was treated. She was raised in such a hateful environment. The way the movie explores her is really nuanced and interesting. And it's also funny — very darkly comedic. At one point Jeff is telling his side of the story, saying she pulled a gun on him, and it shows Tonya chasing him around the house with a shotgun. And she turns to camera, pumps the shotgun, and says, this is BS. I never did this. And goes back to chasing him.

The only really bad thing about this movie is the CGI. And I say that only because it's so shocking amidst this incredible film. Do you remember those Elf Yourself dance videos? That's what it looks like. Margot trained extensively, but as producer Tom Ackerley stated, there have been only six women since Tonya Harding who have done a triple axel. Even if there was one doing it today, she'd be training for the Olympics and couldn't risk doing it for the film. So the jump was accomplished with visual effects and a lot of these skating scenes are Margot Robbie's head glued onto someone else's body. I would have rather had a stunt double whose hair was in their face, like old-school Buffy or Charmed.

Margot Robbie — incredible. Allison Janney as Tonya's mother is intense and awful and hateful, but is also the reason Tonya was able to train. Allison Janney herself had actually trained to become a figure skater as a child, but she walked into a sliding glass door at 17 and gravely injured her right leg. She shot for about eight days on this movie and won the Oscar. She has a little bird on her shoulder. At the Q&A, the writer talked about how they had to audition different birds to figure out which one to hire — they just wanted one that wasn't always yelling. They chose the most chill bird.

Sebastian Stan plays Jeff Gillooly. He is so charming at first, has his moments, but you see the anger in him — the way he hits Tonya when he doesn't get what he wants. Their relationship is so unhealthy, but they need each other because he takes care of all the business things so Tonya can focus on skating. Her mother raised her with no life skills, so Jeff basically takes on the role of her mother. Sebastian is currently best known as Bucky in the Avengers series, but I loved him on Once Upon a Time as the Mad Hatter, as Carter in Gossip Girl, as Nicole Kidman's criminal boyfriend in Destroyer. He has range. That is a talented actor who I think we will be seeing Oscar nominations for at some point.

Paul Walter Hauser plays Shawn, the dumb friend who is the one who basically makes all this happen. Jeff is the one who pays for it and thinks he's the boss, but it's Shawn just wanting to do stuff that makes it an issue. I hate this character so much. In the interview scenes, he's just talking with his eyes almost all the way closed, leaned back, like, I know counterterrorism. I'm an expert. And they're like, what? No you aren't. We looked. And he's like, yeah, yeah. The doubling down, the lying. I hate him so much. But Paul Walter Hauser himself, the actor — I've heard such lovely things about him.

Julianne Nicholson plays Diane, Tonya's trainer. She is there for Tonya in a way not many people are. She's frank with her and with her mother that the judges expect a certain level of presentation. She gets one of the best moments in the film — when she begins working with Tonya again and they're training for the Olympics. Some of the training is a little unorthodox. Tonya is running through the woods carrying a massive bag of dog food over her shoulders, and we hear in the narration: this is how Rocky trained when he had to fight the Russian, and it worked. Then the camera pans out past Diane, who turns directly to the lens and says, matter-of-factly: she actually did this.

Touches like this bring an extra interesting layer of humanity to the film — reminding us this is a real person who is alive today, who was such a part of our cultural conversation. And Bobby Cannavale appears as a tabloid producer, commenting on needing to fill the 24-hour news cycle. The timing of Tonya's story was such a big deal partially because the media made it a big deal because they needed to fill time.

Shared Themes

Our protagonists lose control over their lives and their selves. Their humanity takes a backseat to the pursuit of a certain lifestyle. Both Ray Liotta and Tonya are so laser-focused on one arena to the detriment of the rest of their lives.

Ray wants to be a wise guy. He sees value in getting respect and thinks joining the mobsters is how you get it. But to maintain his lifestyle, to keep his bosses happy while also getting respect from those he's shaking down, he gets embroiled in more and more criminal activities and runs himself ragged. He meets a nice woman, Lorraine Bracco, who he barely spends time with because he's always off running cons. He can never fully trust those around him — a wrong move can lead to being offed. He gets into the drugs he's selling and is always worried about the next big thing, where money is coming from, whether he's being followed, whether he'll get caught. For all his bravado, he lives life in fear 100% of the time. He is never secure. He never feels secure.

Tonya Harding wants to skate. That's all she wants to do. She's been pushed into it from a young age. She doesn't have other life skills. She says at one point when a judge tells her she can never skate professionally again after the Nancy Kerrigan incident: the people who actually ordered and paid for the attack got jail time. They got 18 months — I'll do that, your honor. I don't have an education. All I know is skating. I'm no one if I can't — I'm not this monster. I'm trying to do the best with what I know how to. It's like you're giving me a life sentence. You can't do that.

Not being able to skate is worse than prison. It is a life sentence. She has been skating since she was four years old. It's where she gets her confidence, her sense of self. In a world that has beaten her down in every other arena, no one can take from her the skill she has on the ice. No one can take from her that she can land a triple axel.

Ray and Tonya become involved with shady figures — the people who hang around their lines of business. The other mobsters, and then Jeff Gillooly, who was truly just lurking at the skate rink. Because they're only ever in this one space, they never have people in their lives they can really trust. Ray's best friend in Goodfellas is probably Robert De Niro, but by the end of the film De Niro is going to kill him. He can't trust anyone, not really. He's so by himself. Even in a house full of people, even in an organization he has helped build up.

Tonya has a mother who abused her and a father who abandoned her. She looks for love in the wrong places. Her mother hit her, so when Jeff Gillooly hits her, she takes it, accepting it as a piece of a normal loving relationship. She keeps trying to escape, but she goes back because Jeff knows her business and he knows her. When she's training long hours, where else is she going to meet someone? This is the world she is in.

Ray and Tonya get caught up in things that get fully out of control, their lives spiraling, with other people's actions creating more and more panic.

There's something so tragic about the circumstances of Ray and Tonya's birth not allowing them to ever fully be accepted into the professions they've dedicated their lives to.

Ray can never be a made man because he's part Irish, not full-blooded Italian. It's a point of contention for him and Robert De Niro, who's also half Irish, because being a made man is an incredible honor — it grants you a certain level of protection as well as greater respect. It's the acknowledgment: you're one of us, officially. But he can't change the fact that he's part Irish. Being truly part of this community is outside his reach, forever.

For Tonya, her supposed redneck upbringing has her in the judges' crosshairs from day one. She can't afford fur coats to wear on the ice. She doesn't have fancy schooling or parents of means. The upper crust of the figure skating world will never truly accept her. It doesn't matter what she does, what moves she can land — she's not considered one of them. They're like, yeah, Tonya Harding's out there, got a triple axel, which barely any other humans can do. Well, but look at her skirt. It's so absurd and she just can't change that perception. It's the perception the media cashed in on, exaggerated, dragged out, and turned into a punchline.

Power is something always just out of reach for Ray and Tonya. Something they crave if for no other reason than to finally be in charge of themselves, to not have to bow to the whims of others. They attempt to garner this power in small ways throughout their films, but Ray and Tonya are doomed from the start. The hand life has dealt them never allowed them to truly empower themselves. Their fate is left to others. At their lowest, they are powerless. Not in charge of what is happening or what will happen.

Ray spends a large chunk of Goodfellas serving others, doing as people say, trying to be a team player. As a kid, when he first dabs with the mob, he gets a warm reaction from Robert De Niro because when he's caught in a crime, he doesn't rat out his friends. That loyalty sticks with him. But when he's sent to jail, he develops his own drug connections and grows increasingly frustrated by Lorraine Bracco wanting to loop in Paulie. Paulie tells Ray straight up not to do the drug nonsense. But Ray finally has his own business going and doesn't want to turn down easy money. The problem is he's already too entrenched. They hang out at each other's houses. Their wives are friends, mistresses are friends. There's no escape. His illusion of power comes crashing down when the drug business makes him a paranoid wreck and the guys he's been with for decades stop trusting him.

Tonya is constantly slighted by the figure skating judges because they don't like her presentation. Doesn't matter if she's athletically the most gifted — she loses points for looks, for homemade outfits, for skating to heavy metal songs. It wears her down until finally she confronts the judges. She asks them: how am I supposed to get a fair shot if you're not actually judging me based on my skill?

It's an important moment for Tonya. The people around her don't appreciate her brashness, her questioning of this governing body. But it's one of the bravest things she does, because she says out loud: I am worth something. I know I have these skills. And this treatment is insane. And with the way Tonya has been treated her whole life, it's powerful to see her acknowledge her skills.

She eventually does have to bow to at least some whims of the figure skating ruling bodies. But it was a critical part of her own development and independence, leading to her finally extricating herself from Jeff Gillooly. The problem is it still isn't enough. You can't change how people see you to a certain extent. She stood up for herself, but she still is a joke to them. She still is glossed over by them. She doesn't get any satisfaction from yelling at them.

I do love that Tonya Harding, the real Tonya Harding, has said — when she first saw the film she particularly liked a certain line. She told Margot Robbie she wished she had actually said that. You don't get that in real life. So while it's wish fulfillment to watch her do it, you know it's not going to change anything. She's still powerless to these people and their whims.

What I, Tonya Did Better

Loyalty is something we all interpret a little differently, despite it being a concept you'd think would be pretty objective. For all Ray Liotta's talk of loyalty in Goodfellas, of having a crew — at the end of the day, they will whack you. At the end of the day, it's you or them. Whereas in I, Tonya, the dedication of Diane, Tonya's coach, is a through line that really touched me, as well as Tonya's loyalty to herself.

Loyalty is constantly rewarded for Ray in Goodfellas — he's praised when he doesn't rat people out, given more trust. And yet the same loyalty doesn't seem afforded to him. It seems crazy to take part in this system, talk up the loyalty, be excited about being a mobster, all with the knowledge you can never actually be a made man. It doesn't surprise Ray when at the end Robert De Niro definitely wants to kill him, even before he rats everyone out to the government. Ray cheats on his wife, not affording her the same loyalty he himself wants. It's all so false and hollow.

When we think of Goodfellas, we think loyalty. We think of these guys laughing in a darkened restaurant, having each other's backs, ready to bury a body for one another. But they also would totally bury each other. And that is rude. And that is not good friendship.

In I, Tonya, we see the ways people have let Tonya down. Everyone is looking out for themselves. The only constant in Tonya's life is skating, her love for it, even when it leads to her more difficult moments. Coach Diane coming back to find her at her waitressing job, bringing her out of retirement and giving her purpose again — it's so kind, so beautiful, so important. Diane wasn't taking on new clients when Allison Janney first busted into her ice rink, but she saw the passion a young Tonya had and has worked to help her channel that into skill for decades. Even knowing the reception Tonya gets, knowing how difficult it will be — Diane is there for her and wants her to do her best. That is loyalty.

And there's the loyalty Tonya has to herself when she involves herself in skating. She always gives it her full commitment. She gives her body her full commitment. She practices, she prepares. She never ever phones it in because this is what she's passionate about. And her passion is something Ray never has in Goodfellas.

Ray loves the life he's joined, the idea of it, but he never puts himself first. It's always trying to be bigger and better, but in the way that these other men want him to be. He never has a dream for himself. Tonya truly just wants to excel at this thing she loves. She wants to physically best those around her and find new heights of what she can achieve. That's compelling to watch.

Ray is not a full-fledged person in Goodfellas. He loses all aspects of himself conforming to the Goodfellas model. He's always trying to confirm that he's one of them. Whereas Tonya, despite the blows she takes, is herself to a fault. It's what makes her such a tragic figure and also why I don't have much connection to Ray Liotta. In Goodfellas, Ray is always trying to please other people. We see him as a kid wanting to be a gangster. We see him taking orders, constantly panicking, worried over how others will see him. He revels in their successes, but it's always a group affair, everyone together, no individuality.

One of the IMDB trivia facts says the film, told from Henry Hill's perspective, portrays him as a major player in the world of organized crime. Real-life gangsters of that era have said Hill was a minor figure and more of a hanger-on. So they already are taking liberties with Henry Hill — the story's about him, so of course he's going to do the most cool stuff. But he's still, even with the liberties, not cool. He has no sense of self. So why am I watching him? Show me anyone else in this movie, follow their story, because this guy has nothing.

In I, Tonya, Tonya Harding is so true to herself even as the world around her works to break her down. She is very clear about what she will or won't do in the sport. She wants to be authentic — not for some reason of looks, but because this is what she loves and what she knows, and she knows she's good. So to watch her find out what Jeff Gillooly has done, when she realizes what has happened to Nancy Kerrigan and her part in it — it's affecting. It's sad, because she could have won the right way. She had beat Nancy. She had come in first and Nancy second. She could have beat her. Jeff and Shawn took that chance from her.

When she breaks down in the courtroom over having skating taken from her, it's devastating. When we see Ray in the courtroom in Goodfellas, it's to rat out all his former friends and get himself a lighter sentence. Even his mantra of loyalty isn't carried out in that element of the film either.

There's something about Tonya. This movie definitely romanticizes the story a little bit — it shows us a woman you want to root for, and that's what this movie has been crafted to do. But think about the real-life woman who, when she performed the triple axel at the 1991 Nationals, choreographed her routine to Danny Elfman's theme for the 1989 Batman. She knew what she liked and she did it. And I love that.

I also think I, Tonya took the element of narration and upped the ante by having Tonya speak directly to the viewer while looking at us. Listening to Ray explain the world of Goodfellas is the backbone of the film. But when Tonya turned to the camera, gun in hand, pumping the shotgun and saying I never did this before chasing Jeff Gillooly — and when she said, turning about the news surrounding the attack on Nancy Kerrigan: it was like being abused all over again, only this time it was by you. All of you. You're all my attackers too — she turns and looks directly down the barrel of the camera. It struck me. It elevated the film. It helped me think more critically about the way we gather information, what the media feeds us, what we learn.

I hope you will give I, Tonya a chance. They don't need my help that much, but I do really adore it. It is currently streaming on Hulu.

Hit me up at @tastelesspod on social media. We can talk Margot Robbie, we can talk Ray Liotta's eyeliner, or we can talk about the fact that somebody needs to win an Oscar and just say "thanks" and walk away.

Out of Character: Face/Off vs Deadly Sibling Rivalry

Two movies about taking on someone else's identity in pursuit of revenge — it's Face/Off vs Deadly Sibling Rivalry.

Read Charisma Carpenter's THR piece, How To Be an Ally of Victims of Abuse

Read The Episode

Every episode of Tasteless, I take a critically acclaimed film and compare it to one that shares the same themes but didn't get the attention it deserves — and explain why that second movie is my pick. This week: two movies about taking on someone else's identity in pursuit of revenge. It's Face/Off versus Deadly Sibling Rivalry.

Face/Off

To foil a terrorist plot, an FBI agent assumes the identity of the criminal who murdered his son via facial transplant surgery, but the crook wakes up prematurely and vows revenge.

This movie came out in 1997, has a shocking 92% on Rotten Tomatoes with just under 100 reviews, and is just one of those action movies that people are talking about all the time. I watched it for the first time. Was shocked by everything that happened. It was nominated for an Oscar for Best Sound Effects Editing — it lost to Titanic.

The most insane part of this movie, though — where somebody's face gets swapped with somebody else's face — the most insane part is it opens on a carousel. John Travolta with his son, who he loves dearly. The son's probably about five years old. And Nicolas Cage is watching them because he's going to shoot John Travolta. And I guess to show his affection for his son, John Travolta takes his big old beefy hand and just runs it down the front of his son's face. You know, like in a movie when someone's dead and the other person runs their hand over their face to close their eyelids? That's what this looked like. It's so weird.

And then when he's trying to convince his wife that he's him later — when he's in Nick Cage's body — he touches her face, rubs his hand down her face, and she's like, it is my weird husband who rudely rubs his hand down my face. This must be him in someone else's body.

It's not a body swap, by the way. They're very specific about that. They're like, it's your body. We've shaved you and done plastic surgery and taken in your love handles. Somebody rudely says that to John Travolta — we've cut out your love handles so your body looks like Nick Cage's body. We have cut your hair and the only thing different is your face.

John Travolta is Sean Archer, an FBI agent who's been hunting this terrorist maniac Nick Cage. His son was killed by Nick Cage — by mistake. Nick Cage was trying to shoot John Travolta and the bullet went through his body into the body of his son. Not the best planning. This movie reminded me of how attracted I was to John Travolta in Look Who's Talking. Knock your — you thought I was going to say Grease? No. Look Who's Talking.

And then his enemy is Nick Cage playing Castor Troy, who is really, I feel like, not that good at crimes. He's really off the handle. When he's setting up the bomb at the beginning, every time he hits a button on this little portable computer, a little graphic of a flame pops up on the button after he hits it. Then we see him dance around in a priest's robes. I don't know why. He just dances around and grabs women's butts. He is truly a predator and disgusting.

Then he gets on a private jet with his brother, played by Alessandro Nivola — who you may know as the man in Disobedience, basically Italy's answer to Sam Rockwell. Nick Cage is hitting on this flight attendant and grabs her and makes her sit in his lap and goes, I can eat a peach for hours. But in kind of a weird valley accent, like, I can eat a peach for hours, man. And then he says that about 200 more times during the movie. That's the phrase John Travolta uses to get into his voice and his identity, because they give him this little voice box. He's just like, I can eat a peach for hours. I can eat a peach for hours. Peach, peach, I can eat a peach for hours. It's so upsetting and insane.

Poor Joan Allen in this movie has to kiss both John Travolta and Nick Cage. We also have CCH Pounder, who I love, John Carroll Lynch, who I love, Margaret Cho, who I love, and Gina Gershon, who we're going to get into in a second.

So they've swapped. They're like, John Travolta, Nick Cage is dead but we've got his brother and we need to find out where this bomb is. He won't talk to anyone besides his brother. So why don't you put on his brother's face and go talk to him? And John Travolta is like, great, sure. They give him Nick Cage's face. He goes to talk to Alessandro Nivola. Then while he's in there, Nick Cage wakes up from being dead, sees John Travolta's face floating in a jar, makes the surgeon give him John Travolta's face, kills everyone who knew that John Travolta was undercover — including CCH Pounder, which made me very sad — and goes on a rampage as John Travolta.

So we have Nick Cage with John Travolta's face, which is just the actor John Travolta pretending to be Castor Troy. And then we have John Travolta with Nick Cage's face, who is supposed to be undercover as Castor Troy. And immediately to one of the prisoners he's like, I busted you. You're in jail because of me. Oh wait, I mean — no. Sean Archer busted you. I'm Castor Troy. How are you an agent that you're this bad at going undercover?

Then he's looking around, like, the brother doesn't buy it's me. So I'm going to really pretend to be Castor Troy, and he does this insane person face that's like a meme online. And he just starts yelling, I'm Castor Troy! I'm Castor Troy! Great plan. If you want to pretend to be someone and you want other people to believe you, just scream that you are them as many times as you can.

Nick Cage, who is Sean Archer in Castor Troy's body, just keeps crying and touching his face. He finds out Tito is dead and he's like, Tito! He can't say the word "die." He keeps saying it and there's always — I watched with subtitles and that's the only reason I could tell he was saying a word and not just making a sound.

Later, Sean Archer in the Nick Cage body is trying to convince his wife, Joan Allen, that it's him. And he tells the most unhinged story: I took this girl on a date. I took her to surf and turf, but it turned out she was a vegetarian. And by the way, the story's about you. You broke your tooth on a rye seed, remember? You just ate a bunch of bread and you broke your tooth. What? This is what you picked to convince this woman that you're her husband?

As much as I hated all of Nick Cage's acting, I really enjoyed John Travolta getting to play Castor Troy, getting to be the bad guy. There's almost something a little feminine about it and something just very loosey-goosey that I enjoyed. He immediately was so creepy to Joan Allen. I feel like if my husband was suddenly a freak, I would at least be like, hey man, should you go to the doctor? Do you have a brain tumor?

Very funny trivia: one of his lines is I hate this ridiculous chin, which is Castor Troy in John Travolta's body talking about his chin. IMDB trivia says John Travolta asked the writers if they were making fun of him with the ridiculous chin line. They explained that Castor was such a narcissist that he would hate having anyone else's face. John Travolta is like, hey, is this joke about my chin? And they're like, no, no, no, it's the character. The character just hates everyone's chin. It's not you specifically.

Also in John Travolta trivia: before shooting emotional scenes, John Woo played soft, sad music to help the actors get into character. John Travolta said he didn't need it. He nailed the scene in one take, earning the nickname One Take John. Okay, that 100% did not happen and/or John Travolta submitted this piece of trivia himself.

They say "face off" about 18 times in this movie. Nick Cage is like, I want to take his face off. And his henchman is like, face off? Face off? You want to take his face off? I'm going to take his face off — for about 10 minutes. It's a real weird Who's on First thing. The studio wanted to take the slash out of the title. John Woo was like, no, I'm worried people will think it's a hockey movie if it doesn't have the slash.

Now, Gina Gershon. She is so cool in this movie. The best part is she's holding her son — probably five years old, turns out Castor is the father — and the FBI comes in to raid these bad guys. She kicks one of the bad guys in the crotch and turns to her kid and goes, I don't ever want to see you do that. IMDB trivia says Gina Gershon decided Sasha should kick a man in the groin. I thought that just encapsulated her whole personality. The whole killer mom. Yes!

She told John Woo she wanted to shave her head for the role and he said no. Then Nick Cassavetes, who played her brother, surprised John Woo by shaving his head for the role. John Woo said it was just the image he wanted. Double standard much?

A couple more bits of trivia because this movie is just a movie. The two main characters' blood types reflect their antagonistic nature. Sean Archer's blood type is O-negative, the universal donor, reflecting Archer's role as a police officer dedicated to serving the community. Castor Troy's is AB-positive, the universal recipient — someone who takes from society without giving anything back. I really hope there's never any IMDB trivia about my blood type and what it says about me.

And important trivia: a lot of people caught the flu while filming the prison scenes because of the dirty conditions there.

The grossest part of this movie is that at the end — spoiler alert — Gina Gershon dies, so John Travolta, now Sean Archer again, brings home Gina Gershon's son and is like, we're going to raise him now. He's the same age as our child that died. His daughter goes up to the little boy and just runs her hand right down his face. What is wrong with this family? Family's a bunch of sickos.

Deadly Sibling Rivalry

In trouble with the law, a woman assumes the identity of her twin sister, who is in a coma after a car accident. Her niece isn't so easily fooled, but proving it could have deadly consequences.

This movie came out in 2011. It does not have a score on Rotten Tomatoes, but it lacks me, and I'll change that.

I decided to crack into this comparison because of Charisma Carpenter's recent headlines. Now, Charisma is an incredible actress and human. I know and love her from Buffy, which led me to following her career in all arenas. She hosted a show called Surviving Evil, a documentary series about people fighting for their lives, and she shared her own story about being attacked. She's created her own virtual convention experience with MyCon.live. And recently she has been in the news because she has come out about her experiences with Joss Whedon, in support of Ray Fisher.

Ray Fisher played Cyborg in Justice League and came out against Joss and his abusive behavior. An official legal inquiry was opened. Charisma provided testimony to support Ray Fisher's claims and shared on social media what she had gone through — how she was psychologically abused during her tenure on Joss's shows. Her speaking out caused many more people from Joss Whedon's past works to come out to support her or share their own stories.

It's so hard to be the first one to do something, but it's so important. One person can make such a massive difference. Following that, Charisma wrote a piece for The Hollywood Reporter titled "How to Be an Ally of Victims of Abuse." In a time where an unprecedented number of people are coming forward sharing their stories, when people have access through social media to the people in their lives who care about them, to people who don't know them, to people who look up to them, and to people that are hateful little trolls — we don't always know how to react. Charisma's bravery is very appreciated and further cements my deep love of her, so I wanted to revisit one of my favorite movies of hers.

This movie — Deadly Sibling Rivalry — not only stars Charisma Carpenter, it stars two Charisma Carpenters. She is twins Janna and Callie. Not only is she a phenomenal actress, but she's so funny. And I love seeing doubles of my favorite actors. What a dream come true to have two Charismas on the screen.

These twins have a contentious history. As teens, they went rock climbing and their father falls to his death in front of them. Now, I will say this: maybe don't do an activity where you could die in front of your children. But it messes them up.

Fast forward to the present. Janna is a mom. She's careful, she's nice, she cares about her daughter more than anything. Instead of rock climbing and adventuring, she owns majority stake in a travel magazine where she writes about the adventures she wishes she could go on. Callie, her twin, is the so-called bad twin. She flits from place to place, no roots, is involved in some shady dealings, some prescription drug thievery, and whenever she comes to town, you know you're in for some trouble.

Janna's daughter is played by Krista Allen — who I know you know as young Jenna Rink in 13 Going on 30. She's in college now and has come back home to visit with her mom and is really excited that her Aunt Callie is visiting because Aunt Callie is fun and laid back, whereas her mother Janna is controlling. Like, yeah, that's what moms are for. Obviously your aunt is more fun. That's how it works.

This movie made the social media rounds again a few months ago because there's a scene — Callie's friend is played by Kyle Richards. Actress, Real Housewife of Beverly Hills, was an actress before that. She's Callie's shady friend involved in the drug dealings. Callie kills her, puts her in a freezer, and sits on top. It's an amazing, classic death scene — so ridiculous in the best way. In a movie where there are twins and there's an evil twin, obviously someone dies in a freezer. Every time that scene floats around Twitter because it has Kyle Richards, I have to go immediately watch Deadly Sibling Rivalry.

Janna and Callie, the twins, are in the car together and wind up in a car accident. Janna flags down help. Callie is in a coma. While Janna remains mostly unscathed, we see her rattled, shaken up, but relieved to be back with her daughter. Her daughter Fiona checks in on Callie, talks to her to help get her out of the coma because she heard that's good for coma patients. And Janna is just so happy to be alive that she says life is too short and starts being more "fun" with Fiona. But fun in the same way that Nick Cage in John Travolta's body is fun in Face/Off — where I'd be like, no, I don't want this much freedom.

She starts being more fun with her daughter, lets her drink wine, and her daughter's like, mom, you're cool now. And then her mom goes into the bathroom, closes the door, and — spoiler alert, as is revealed — it was Callie all along!

Callie has taken Janna's place and it is actually Janna who is in the coma. Callie is wearing Janna's scarf, but when she starts changing, we see the red lingerie that Callie had put on at the beginning of the film. It's such a good villain reveal. I truly gasped. She goes into the bathroom and you're like — her mom is going in to get changed or whatever. And she goes, I'm going to have to retrain that girl, and undoes her shirt. Boom! Callie's bra. Whoa.

Fiona starts to suspect something is wrong. She suspects her mother is actually the one in the coma. But no one believes her. This is just one of those movies where it's so fun from beginning to end. You're just like, oh my God, what? Oh my God, what?

There's a mother-daughter motorcycle ride. Very cool. One Charisma Carpenter shoots a shotgun at the other Charisma Carpenter. If that's not the description of your perfect movie, then we have nothing in common. I'm sorry. That's my perfect film.

Shared Themes

Our characters face a crisis when taking over someone else's identity, because a life that has been built on how they are perceived by others is suddenly shattered.

John Travolta in the body of Nick Cage — so Sean Archer, the nice FBI man, now wearing Nick Cage's crazy face and receding hairline — at first doesn't want to lean into Nick's identity, into Castor Troy. He aggressively does a bad job at being undercover, whether subconsciously or just because he's a dummy. He's like, hey, I arrested you — I mean, someone else did, I'm a bad guy. Up until he realizes Castor Troy is out in the world wearing his face, being him, taking over his life, and that everyone who knew he was undercover is now dead. No one's going to believe he isn't who he looks like.

He seems a lot less concerned with Castor Troy being out in the world, sleeping with his wife, being bad, having a bomb — and a lot more concerned with: no one is going to know who I am. The fact that Castor Troy has killed everyone who could vouch for Sean Archer's true identity really sends Archer into a tailspin.

And then we see how quickly people accept Castor Troy in Sean Archer's body — Castor Troy in the John Travolta body, slapping butts, having a nice time. Margaret Cho, one of his employees, is like, finally, you're fun and you'll drink with us. It's so weird to see how much they love him not being himself.

Castor Troy in the body of John Travolta never really attempts to take on John's identity. He tamps down his own craziness the teeniest bit so as not to fully give up the game, but he doesn't do a great job. He continually comments on missing his old face, his old body, his weird new John Travolta chin. He risks his freedom to get the Nick Cage face back. He needs his face back. He's obsessed with it. He really is loud and proud about loving himself. It's incredibly important to him that people see him as Nick Cage and not as Sean Archer.

Sean Archer in Nick Cage's body is so crushed to be thought of as evil. He just cries for most of the movie. He so quickly has to be reminded who he is — he gets Nick Cage's face put on him and his bosses are like, hey, hey, it's okay, you're Sean Archer wearing Nick Cage's face. It's fine, cool it.

In Deadly Sibling Rivalry, Callie is thrilled by the reception she gets as Janna. People trust her. They let her in. She's not thought of as a flake, as a criminal. She's always been jealous of Janna, envious of the life she lives, and now she gets to fully immerse herself in that life. She talks about herself in this third-person way, constantly complaining to other people about Callie, and she waits for other people to agree, expecting them to. It throws her off when Fiona doesn't — when Fiona sees the good in Callie.

She's frustrated by Fiona's constant support of Callie. Fiona's love for someone who flits in and out of her life. Callie doesn't understand how Fiona could keep loving her. It's clear that if Callie had had that sort of support throughout her life, things could have turned out differently. But she shakes that off, angry, and goes back to trashing the supposed Callie in the coma.

At this point, everyone thinks Callie is the one in the coma. The police want to interrogate her. She's in a coma. She can't talk. But then she wakes up. Janna wakes up and is told that she's Callie. And because she has amnesia, she goes along with it. She fully loses her identity. She doesn't quite jive with being Callie — who they say Callie is, someone who has committed crimes — but she doesn't know what else to believe. It's easier to accept what doctors tell her, what police tell her.

Fiona has to convince her who she is, of the incredible mother she is, to bring her back to herself. It's her love for her family, for her daughter, for her father, that brings back her memories and allows her to gather the strength to protect herself and her daughter from Callie's rage.

Face/Off and Deadly Sibling Rivalry are about identity and about how inhabiting the life of someone else causes our characters to further discover who they really are deep down — because there's this realization that at the end of the day, we can't escape ourselves, for better or for worse.

John Travolta, Sean Archer in the Nick Cage body, truly wigs out. He is distraught with how people look at him, what they expect him to be. He is so weirdly pumped when he finds out Castor is the father of Gina Gershon's son, because he gets to hug this little boy and play a fatherly role. Now, he does hug the little boy while screaming his dead son's name, and Gina Gershon is like, okay, please stop, you're scaring him. But Sean Archer's identity as a father is so important to him. He needs that affection. Getting to connect as a father again is what drives him — it's what brings him back to himself and laser-focuses what he needs to do to get his life back.

Nick Cage, Castor Troy in John Travolta's body, becomes so weird because he feels this need to prove himself. It's like he's constantly showing off. He wants all these FBI people to be kissing his butt so he can be like, ha ha, I got them. And it's like, well yeah, you work with them. And he's like, no, but I'm secretly a bad guy. Ha ha. He just needs that. He needs this fear of himself.

In Deadly Sibling Rivalry, we have two women who don't want to admit that there are things about themselves they would like to change. So they reject those things in others wholeheartedly. Janna and Callie are like oil and water, hating everything about the other person because they see what they themselves lack.

Janna clearly misses adventuring, is wistful over the people she features in her magazine who are living the lives she writes about. Everyone sees Janna as this uptight person without understanding how the death of her father led her to wanting to stay safe, to be cautious. When she believes that she is Callie, she doesn't feel quite right hearing the things Callie is accused of doing. She wonders how she could have gotten here. It's her love for her daughter that brings her back from the amnesia.

Everyone thinks of Janna as boring, as a stick in the mud, and there's a certain freedom to inhabiting the skin of carefree Callie. She's willing to bust out with her daughter because a little bit of pressure is lifted, a little bit of expectation. She warns her daughter though, when they're making their escape from the hospital, about being careful, about potentially getting in trouble. And her daughter Fiona laughs and is like, see, you are my mom. Callie doesn't care about getting in trouble. Janna, in this weird way, finds the best of both worlds in this post-amnesia state.

Callie is the more conflicted of the duo. She lives life carefree, globetrotting, but is resentful of the peace and harmony that Janna has with her daughter. Callie makes reckless decisions that lead to her getting in trouble with the law, but she sees a way out in the form of taking over Janna's life. As Janna, she realizes even further what she's been missing — the love of Janna's daughter, just the respect she gets, having a home to call her own. Instead of coming to terms with the things she doesn't have, she tries to destroy them.

The rivalries we witness are deeply personal because the people our characters love have gotten caught in the crossfire. Revenge is a powerful motivator, one that gives our characters some strange sense of control. In pursuit of revenge, they finally feel like they're working towards something.

Castor Troy has taken everything from Sean Archer — and by everything I mean his weird son whose face he rubs. He kills that son and Sean never recovers. So Sean is willing to have his face ripped off and replaced with another face to see through ending the criminal streak of Castor Troy. He gives up his wife and his daughter so quickly — yeah, of course I'll abandon them and wear a new face, great. He couldn't do anything to save his son Mike, so he thinks this is how he makes amends. But then when he's actually faced with the thought of losing who he is, that's when he's motivated. That's when he's like, okay, no, I have to get back to my life. A life he had been working to escape, a life he had been absent from. Joan Allen was like, oh my God, please just come home, you loser. But revenge keeps him going. It's only when he overcomes that revenge and is out to reunite with his family that he's able to save himself.

In Deadly Sibling Rivalry, Callie kills her own father when she's trying to kill her sister. She blames this on her sister. She never wanted her father to die, but it happened because of her jealousy. And so now she has to make that horrible mistake worth it. She has to get rid of the person she sees as the architect of her misery: Janna. She's given the opportunity to take Janna's life for herself and she does. When she realizes that doesn't change who she is at her core — that Kyle Richards can still sniff her out and say, I knew you were a rat, I see your hand on your hip like the uppity jerk you are — Callie can't escape herself. This revenge drives her insane. Because she can't put it aside, can't come to terms with Janna, she basically kills herself in this quest.'

What Deadly Sibling Rivalry Does Better

Despite being played by two different actors, the two main characters of Face/Off are not particularly distinct, whereas Charisma Carpenter creates two very different people in Deadly Sibling Rivalry.

According to IMDB trivia, in Face/Off, Nicolas Cage and John Travolta spent two weeks together before filming to learn how to play each other. They decided on specific gestures and vocal cadences for each character that could be mimicked. To that I say: you did a bad job. This is straight up just two Nick Cages almost immediately. Two Castor Troys. Castor in Sean's body doesn't try to blend in at all — he acts as though he's making fun of it the entire time. So John Travolta is basically doing a Nick Cage and Nick Cage is doing a Nick Cage.

Nick Cage just screams. He's supposed to be the FBI agent, the calm one. He should be the more walled-off Sean Archer. Instead he just goes bananas. Yes, okay, it's fun to see everyone acting wacky. But it's frustrating that Sean does not retain who he is when he's in this new body, except for his weird thing with touching little boys' faces. Oh my God — I can't get over the fact that he adopts Castor Troy's son and his daughter immediately is like, let me just put my entire hand on this boy's face. I would rather live with Nick Cage than with these freaks.

Nick Cage as Sean Archer acting like Nick Cage, John Travolta as Castor Troy acting like Nick Cage. Indistinct. Just immediately both full-blown crazy in a way that makes it hard to determine the real effects of the face swap.

In Deadly Sibling Rivalry, Charisma's two sisters are more distinct — and they're played by the same person. There is an art to this. One Charisma Carpenter has mastered, one people like Tatiana Maslany have mastered.

Even when we don't know yet that Charisma is playing Callie pretending to be Janna, there are subtleties to her performance that let you know something is off — things you can really pick up on on a second watch. They are two fully distinct women, women who wonder about the effects of nature versus nurture, women who have carved out separate lives despite having all the same advantages and opportunities. It's fascinating to wonder what it is that shapes us.

Callie ponders that something went awry in her nurturing since she and Janna are identical, and she constantly rips on Janna out of misplaced jealousy. I have empathy for both women. Yes, one of them murders Kyle Richards in a freezer, tried to murder her sibling, accidentally murdered her dad. But man, do I feel for that sibling rivalry.

And yes, I'm a twin. Sharing a birthday with someone, it's tough. You share all milestones. You go to the same schools, take the same tests, go to college at the same time. Everything is both of you and you want to differentiate. It's so hard not to nickel-and-dime your parents in terms of the time they spend with your sibling. Everything given to one sibling, you want as well. I feel for this woman who thinks she's gotten the short end of the stick, whose envy of the relationship between her sister and her dad leads to the biggest tragedy in her life.

Callie is clearly unwell and projects her hatred and anger onto Janna, who really just wants to do what's best for her daughter. I understand both of these women. That may come down to the fact that Face/Off feels very black and white, while Deadly Sibling Rivalry explores many facets of humanity.

The director of Face/Off, John Woo, is all about good versus evil in his works — it's a major theme. Nick Cage is given almost no redeemable characteristics. He's just evil. We don't even have the emotional payoff of Castor Troy finding out he has a son — we get Sean Archer in Nick Cage's body finding out about the relationship. Castor is just a bad guy through and through. Sean Archer is our supposed good guy. He just gets pass after pass. He's a terrible husband and father. He's just disengaged and grumpy. Somebody should have sent him home to take a nap. There are no shades of gray to these two characters.

What's so interesting about Deadly Sibling Rivalry is that I can see myself in both of these women. With Callie, even at her darkest, I understand it. I can feel for what she's been through, that she goes through life thinking she's less than. And Janna has sympathy for Callie, which is so important. Janna is upset with how things end. Fiona is surprised when Janna mourns her sister. But Janna points out — at the end of the day, no matter what, that's her family.

There's a humanity, a code, a backbone, a personality to these women that shines through and makes me want to support them and watch them and follow their story. Face/Off has some great action sequences, but are we invested in either of these men? Sean Archer is supposed to be our hero, but he spends a lot of the time crying and saying peach. We don't know them — not the way I feel I know Callie and Janna so clearly.

I hope you will give Deadly Sibling Rivalry a watch. It is on Tubi. It's very fun. Or rent it wherever you rent movies. Make sure you read Charisma Carpenter's Hollywood Reporter column — it is really important, really helpful, critical required reading for people with the access we have to people whose lives we don't know.

Hit me up at @tastelesspod on social media. We can talk about how incredible it is to watch two Charisma Carpenters in the same scene. We can talk about the fact that I'm a twin and I have yet to murder my father trying to murder my sibling, so I have that going for me.

Nicole Bilderback | Strong Female Leads

Nicole Bilderback (Bring It On, Mercenaries, Brooklyn Nine-Nine) is part of the very fabric of good teen movie making and has continuously graced our screens with laughter and action. We talked lip-synching to the earworm that is Mickey, the similarities between dancing and fighting, and the importance of being informed about the world around you.

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