269. Practical Magic 2

Talking SMAC: Welcome to Tea Smack home of the Tea Smack. May I take your order? Hello and welcome to Talking Smack, where we talked superheroes, movies, animation, comics, and much, much more. And this week, as you've seen from the title, we are gonna talk practical magic too. A Lego cool from a modest hit, but a big DVD rental streaming ⁓ cable network thing. Something that is special, powerful, magical to the millennial and Gen X woman. And because of that, we have two middle aged guys to deal with this. J ⁓ Josh took one look at it and said, Guys, I don't think I can speak to this and politely backed out. Instead, he went up to Green Bay because he's helping with their season opener. So what do you get instead? You get the best movie critic of all time, the man with at least three shows, the Bill to my Ted Justin Henson. How are you, sir? I am again fucking pissed that I am up at the buck crack of dawn for a movie that you know what? You put the script in the garbage can and light it on up. You put the script in the garbage can and light it on up. It would be so magical if you we talked about a shitty movie, maybe at night, maybe in the middle of the day. That would be absolute magic for me. But I'm fine. Well, I mean. When I think about having Justin review something that's a little bit outside of his wheelhouse, that probably's gonna make him mad. All I can think of is I need that mid-morning, and so that's what we have here. ⁓ Justin, I have a question for you. You are from the rainy place. You are from Seattle, the birth of grunge that gave us Nirvana and Soundgarden. Has it actually rained this far? ⁓ it is actually raining right now. So you picked the perfect time to bring that up. So yes, it has rained this week. You are magical, sir. Thanks. You and your witchcraft. ⁓ you know, ⁓ I think I think we need to change locations. I think ⁓ one ho rainy house may be too restricting for us. Maybe we should go to London. Maybe we should take a train. Maybe we should make a travelogue of this episode. But before we do that, let's hear from our friends over at No One fifteen. So, what's our show about? It's about some dudes talking about movies. Just like this. With Goofy scream with the So So you're talking that they should've replaced it like with a Tom and Jerry scream or something like that? Or you might hear something like this. ⁓ my gosh. That whole movie waiting to see what happens with Blanca is like the most aggravating thing in that film. 'Cause but for the most part, we talk movies from the eighties, nineties, and today. And if you grace us with your ear time, you might hear one of these thirty second jams like this. I was gonna say, I did not get a chance to watch this one this week. Give it to him anyways. Let him give it away. I'm gonna give you this I'm gonna give you the thirty second review of ⁓ Tron Uprising. Start the clock and then So give us a shot and listen to the Noah Fitteen Allcast wherever you listen to your podcasts. So something that just sparked my memory of, I saw two memes this week that made me realize how bizarre culture has gotten. One of them is a lot of modern pop stations and rock stations, they basically play everything from the 80s to now. And they say, like, that's bizarre because as we were growing up in the 80s and 90s, That would be the equivalent of a Pop Station playing something from the 50s and then Madonna. You were just full of fucking joy this morning. That why the fuck did I get up early just for you to make me feel bad? And then the other thing was: the Rolling Stones still touring right now is the equivalent of a of a fiddle group from 1985 still touring in 1962 when they formed. And I'm like, That is bizarre. But anyway, enough with Alex being confused as to like. Yeah, I'm not gonna even entertain that. Move the f move on. I would like to talk to you, Justin. First, before we begin to talk about this Lego Quel, does practical magic, the movie, actually mean anything to you? Because to me, it's not one of my seminal movies. It's not one of my ⁓ crushes. It's mostly I'm aware of it because my wife and friends, they love it. You know, they're like, ⁓ practical magic is one of our things. Like, I'm assuming I should probably ask my younger brother's girlfriend. I should ask her if like is Sisterhood of the Traveling Plants like a seminal movie to you? because, you know, they know the lime and the coconut and the story and love loss and the beetle. And I've watched it a few times in my life and I I appreciate it. I I dig it, you know. ⁓ there was a a while after we one the first times we watched it, I would just screw with my wife and I would like come up near her and be like, You're always on mama just to be creepy and weird. ⁓ like I didn't realize I could make Elvis haunting. But yeah. So does it does he have anything for you? I remember when this came out in theaters and you know what I went on a date and again going to a movie on a date, this one screamed, sweet, I get two hours of making out in the theater. This movie pissed me off because there was no making out because the girl I went with was actually watching the movie. So this movie hits me the wrong way. And as we're walking out of the theater, she loved it. And I just said, why? I don't understand. It's one of those movies that, again, I get it has a target audience. I'm not it. ⁓ but to me, it's a movie that pissed me off in ninety-eight and it still pisses me off now. Why what is this movie piss you off? I mean it Th this was 1998. This was Saving Private Ryan, Truman Show Armageddon, something about Mary. I want to So all better movies, got it. I wanna say that maybe Never Been Kissed was somewhere in there. So it was a year of great movies. This isn't one of So you just compared practical magic to saving private Ryan. What? Explain yourself, sir. Both movies are about body counts. ⁓ The war was about lost loves. I get it. So well, here's the deal. The original was innocent enough. It just went nowhere. It showcased its talent. It banked on the talent. And it really had nothing going on. And we'll get into it, but it kind of has the same problem here in the in the sequel where it kind of shoves everything in the back half. To kind of give a little bit of excitement to an extent. So there is nothing really that I could really attach myself to in the original except for the Fantastic Cast. Yeah, the first one does really do its job with the Fantastic Cast, because you have Sandra Bullock, who is just really starting to pop. ⁓ she's had a few big hits with speed, and I'm sure she's done others. ⁓ my god. Sandra Bullock, I and she was around a little bit, but speed is where she really got in what speed was ninety-four? Ninety-four, I believe, yeah. Yeah. And so this is a ninety-eight. So ⁓ she had then while you were sleeping and the net in 95. Like talk about back to back. The net is fantastic because if you actually look at the net, while it is like mumbo jumbo fear of the internet and movies, ⁓ sorry, fear of the internet and computers. So much of it's right. Like, ⁓ yeah, these people is hiding this and they can stalk you by this and then find this and it's it's actually great because like when it came out, it was like, What cyber bullshit is this? And now it's like, ⁓ okay. And of course it ⁓ it had a feature which is like she was ordering pizza to her house because she's a shut-in back then, and like you can't really and then like EverQuest came out, I think '97 or ninety-eight. And one of the things about EverQuest the video game was If you typed slash pizza, you could order a pizza to your house so you could just keep playing EverQuest. That's amazing. Yeah. ⁓ while you're sleeping, great. ⁓ great great hit about her pretending to be this guy with ⁓ amnesia from a coma, ⁓ girlfriend falling in love. It was great. ⁓ 1996 wasn't that great of a year for her. Two by C a time to ⁓ a time to kill. But that's more of a Matthew McConaughey and semi-little Jackson movie than ⁓ her a vehicle for her. 1997, her only ⁓ release was Spree 2 cruise control, a contractual obligation film. And then bam, you have Hope Floats, Practical Magic, and she did a voice in The Prince of Egypt. She was still building her stardom. Nicole Kidman was already well established by then. There was still a little bit of like, can she have her can she have her own career or she just Tom Cruise's wife? No, she has her own career by then. Stalker Channing, Diane West, no one's gonna Dare say that they are not big stars. And of course, you have the backing of this movie done by ⁓ Avika Goldsman who did the screenplay, which he is a legendary screenwriter who has done far too many things. Like Batman and Robin. Man, what a brilliant writer. Hey, hey, hey. He had the client. He had a beautiful mind. We also had Lost in Space. ⁓ I mean, come on. Da Vinci Co I mean he has some good stuff. He has, you know, some big blockbusters like iRobot, et cetera, et cetera. But just for the fact Batman and Robin, just like George Clooney's career, that's gonna be a stamp that's gonna forte on his IMDB profile. ⁓ yeah. I really hope, ⁓ years and years and years from now, when George Clooney passes away from natural causes at the age of like a hundred and thirty, ⁓ that they just started off that the first headline is Batman and Robin start George Clooney. Like in the Hollywood Reporter. That's that's the headline. But practical magic, I always thought was endearing. Sweet, sacrosine. There's there's a there's a there's a ⁓ an innocence and a nurturing to there's a yearning to it because it is about these people dealing with this legacy. They're they're needed in town, but they're shut in, people don't really like them. The ⁓ Nicole Kidman and ⁓ and Sandra Bullock's characters are learning to live their lives in the shadow of having lost their parents and moving in with their their eccentric witch aunts. I love the resolution of it. The resolution is not this big dynamic fight. It is them working I forget what is it Sally? No, ⁓ Jilly. It is them working to save Jillian's soul and what it is is the power of love and sisterhood. And it's just them doing a ritual around her and getting the other townspeople to help. And it's this beautiful little sweet thing. I loved it. And, you know, there's also the possibility that maybe they have broken the curse because Sandra Bullock is now in in love with her impossible man that she made this dream from which she was a child, like, you know, his symbol will be a star and all this crap. And I always I always loved that. It was it was hopeful and beautiful. And my wife was very unsure about going into this movie because this movie starts off by stripping that hope away because the curse got her husband. Well, you're I hate that. I will agree with you. I mean, and I'll get into the into the sequel in a second. ⁓ but it does have that feel good moment. I'm a sucker for those moments. But my problem with that moment is I wanted it longer. Again, it makes no sense, but you know what? It feels good. So I love the brooms around the town gathering, anything that unites, I love, I'm a sucker for, I love it. And we get a little bit of that here that feels unearned. But here's the question that I have that I am so embarrassed at, or I just don't really fucking care to really explore this. Is if we have this curse, how do they have parents? How are people getting married? Obviously, they're sharing the love. How are people having kids? So I was actually thinking about that. And I was really, really wondering, is the does a curse work in such a way that the first time that they have sex with any man, do they get pregnant? Or do they have to say instead of I love you, they have to like smack the shit out of each other during sex, saying I fucking hate you? Maybe it's like a reverse psychology thing when it comes to having kids and getting married. When they're saying their vows, they just give each other the finger and we're good. You know, I was kinda wondering 'cause it's not implied. It is in fact stated that Jilly is a frickin' hoe. And apparently 'cause she was getting around with the first you know, in the first movie and this one they name like nine people that she's been around like she's gone with in the past like few weeks. So much so what does a central bullock says, ⁓ listen, I haven't updated my spreadsheet with your newest conquest. But is it like is it that that's like, well, if I use contraception and I don't really like the guy, or is it something more or is it like the first time you make love, you end up knocked up and then the guy dies? I don't know. It is it is a bizarre curse. My conspiracy theory is that that fucking beetle is in the room watching these people have sex and they're like, That was hot. We're gonna keep him around. I wanna see more. That guy sucks. This guy's dying. Yeah, it's like the first time you hag ye you're like the first time like in marriage, you're like, neither of us are really into it right now, but ⁓ I mean kind of we should probably. It's been a while. The beetle's like, dead. But Sex Beatles aside, so Here's where we have in practical magic too. This is kind of where where my review is going is I felt good in the beginning. I think it had some good moments, and I felt good mildly at the end. But we get kind of the same problem. There's really no feel good moments. It just shoves everything to the end. And my main problem is that this had a good opportunity to go beyond the target audience. Yeah. So we have ⁓ introduced a male witch. I don't know if the the term for that, so maybe you can correct me. Warlock. ⁓ Warlock, thank you. So we have a warlock. I don't want to even I sound like a nerd. I don't want to say warlock. I'm just gonna say man witch. The man witch is introduced. We have a villain that I won't spoil right now, but it's also a male. It would have been wise to explore these two new characters and give us something to really have people engaged. Cause in my theater. And I had a ton of people dressed like witches. Yeah, me too. I surprised the hell out of me, man. It it I and this is where I think I'm missing something. And I knew this movie, the original, and this one wasn't made for me. But it could have. I wanted it to. Everybody in that theater, by the time the credits rolled, if they had broomsticks, I'm sure they would have jetted out as fast as they possibly could. Because you can tell the amount of disappointment in my theater, because I stayed. I was the only one there and I didn't even like the movie. Just stop pretending these movies open on Friday. They open on Thursday. We saw Thursday opening night. And it I was surprised. It was a packed theater. It w we went up to Bloit and it was in their ⁓ Bloit Classic. It was in their big screen THX, whatever crap. ⁓ I ended up having to get seats in the third row, which shocked me. And but thankfully they have leather recliners. So we reclined, we're like, ⁓ this is what it's like. And yeah, there was bunch of families there. There was ⁓ a lot of people kinda dressed up. Ha okay, this is just a theater etica thing for me. Have you noticed a trend over the last year or two who people just show up carrying full like comforter blankets in with them to like just drape over themselves? Yes. I I was confused because there were people coming in and I looked over and I'm like, okay, I can't tell if you're just lazy or those are actually your pajamas and you're dragging a comforter with you. Some of them okay, I can understand if you're a younger kid. Like, ⁓ you get their blanky and they're probably not gonna last through the movie because it's like an eight o'clock showing whatever. But when you're a full on adult with slippers and pajamas, like, are you coming here to sleep? Or are you coming here because this this is what makes you feel cozy. And okay, fine. It makes you feel cozy, but I still find it weird. You know, now you just found another topic that really pisses me off because, you know, when the original came out I brought a blanket, but it was for a whole different reason. So, you know, and that I could even use the blanket. So but you can fill in the blanks on what that blanket was for. ⁓ but you know, be comfortable. I don't really care. But if I'm seeing old people, I'm having flashbacks of what I would use the blanket for ⁓ when I'm bringing a date. But and I get grossed out if it's like eighty year olds doing it because I can't get that thought out of my head. We'll be there one day. I will refuse to ever bring a blanket when I'm not in my teens. I had some ⁓ there were some parts of this movie that excited me at first because you know, you have Sandra Bullock and Did you have your blanket over you? No, I did not bring a blanket. Okay. ⁓ brought my wife and our my best friend and we were, you know, 'cause they were both excited for it 'cause they're that right that right ⁓ age in demographic. And you have Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock back, you have Diane West, you have ⁓ Stalker Channing, ⁓ you have the original writers, some of the original producers. But then I realized they didn't bring back the original director, which okay. I mean, when you look at ⁓ when you look at ⁓ Griffin Doan's ⁓ filmography, it's kind of really all over the place and hasn't done a lot in the last like ten years. Okay, sure. So they went with somebody new. Okay, fine. That that's fine. You you do you. But then they also they didn't bring back the original composer. And I'm starting to feel a little like a little some some things are a little off. And but this person ⁓ who directed it, Susan Beer, seems to be kind of a favorite of ⁓ of Sandra Bullock's because they did Bird Box with him, which was their last like really big movie a few years back. And the tone s mostly starts off right, I feel. That you know, you saw the Sandra Bullock, Nicole Kidman trading narration stuff. You have catching up what's happening. You you get that sorrow as you realize the curse is still ongoing. You do Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock fell very easily back into these roles. Now I do have some concerns because it's been thirty years since the first film. And there seems to be no emotional growth from either of them, which always catches me a little bit. These people were supposed to be like in the early mid early mid-20s. Now they're supposed to be in their mid to late you know late sixties ⁓ fifties. And there's literally no emotional growth. There's no change. The hairstyles are the same. You know, it's that whole static thing of like, well if you hit play, sorry, if you just put them on back to back and click yes, keep watching on, you know, the streaming app, no change. I liked The I liked the laissez faire, the just the gentleness of just letting it flow in. Like the first forty minutes of the movie are really just their lives right now, as they're preparing for Jetty's birthday and kind of setting up a little bit of what's going on what's gonna be the mystery, what's gonna be going on right now. ⁓ I think they do a somewhat solid setting up of the two daughters. ⁓ course one is Very much like ⁓ Sally and one is very much like Gillian. At first, because I'd not seen the movie in so long, when Nicole Kidman calls them her daughters at one point, I was like, ⁓ that's right, these are Jillian's Wait a second, these are both of Sally's kids. That threw me off a little bit, but I think we'll get more into why I think that's important later on. I liked the first forty, fifty ish minutes as the mystery began and the curse rears its head again. To me, the movie starts really to kind of s go off the rails is when you get to the travelogue section and especially the big reveal of who the villain is and their motivations. And that is when I think when ⁓ because they brought back the same three writers of the first film. No, they only brought back Abika Goldsmith. ⁓ the first one had three writers. It had ⁓ Robins, the court, Abika Goldsman. And Adam Brooks. This one has Abika Goldsman, Georgia Pritchett, and Kelly Marcel. This is one I think maybe the first one seems polished by Three Writers. This one I feel like is cobbled from three writers, is once act one is over. I think you're you landed, but I want to take a nod at ⁓ Susan Beer, where I will give her a lot of credit. ⁓ when we talk about engagement and Reaching out to the audience, I think she really goes back to her bird box ⁓ direction style, but where she demands some audience engagement because I literally wanted to cover my eyes during this movie. So I think this one really s ⁓ stretched to say, you know what? I envy Sandra Bullock in Bird Box because I really don't want to even watch this one. So but here's my issue with the movie is It's almost like it goes to a decrescendo at the end of these characters where it just kind of feels goofy. We do have an okay start, but the movie seems to go in slow motion during the middle where every shot is 30 seconds to two, three minutes. The transitions just drag. We don't really have anything interesting happening until we get our male witch. And that could have been Prolonged, but we of course have to go into the cliche that there's gonna be a romance and it's not necessary. It feels very forced. We know what's gonna happen. And this is where I think they really skipped on an opportunity where we didn't need a mystery to this villain because we at one point I forgot that there's I didn't even think there was gonna be a villain. I think there should ⁓ she was just gonna go to the UK, solve a mystery of what the book is, and the curse will be done. So it would have been, I think, more interesting if we had our villain throughout the movie almost casting a spell luring her ⁓ to the UK. And we have an opportunity to learn more motive of what the history is. I don't think we need a mystery in a type of movie like this. We need a strong villain. And trying to force feed us an explanation at the end, it's a waste of time and it's goofy. And this is where I think it really, and I think you nailed it. Is when it comes to Kidman and ⁓ Sandra Bullock, they're just doing the same style that they did in the nineties and early two thousands. There's nothing here. There is no character growth on it. It's just like Sandra Bullock, ⁓ es especially Sandra Bullock, just walked on set set and just read her lines like she always does. So that's where I really had a problem with the performances here. It's almost like when you meet new friends, and we've seen this from sequels, reboots, whatever, ⁓ them ⁓ Of the cast appearing on screen and they're just having a good time. They're gonna get paid for seeing old friends. Here, it's like we got paid, we're just gonna read lines. I don't know if we're having fun, because we see a little bit of the fun element in the last like what five, 10 minutes where we get the lime in the coconut song, and then that's it. So I don't know. The movie just was so unevenly paced, it just dragged on to the point that I had to tilt my head back and The guy in front of me did the same thing at almost the same exact moment where we're like, can we just move on? So pacing sucks with this movie. Yeah, the first movie was a brisk one ⁓ f ⁓ 104 minutes. This one's 130. I think some of that probably could be laid to blame at the beginning, just letting things breathe. But I that's the part I enjoyed the most is establishing the s that the aunts are still very eccentric, establishing what life is like now that Nicole Kidman, ⁓ not Nicole, ⁓ Sandra Blooks' character Sally has basically cut herself off from magic when her husband died, because she's I thought we got rid of it, we didn't. And then you start finding out that the what's happening now is that a book has been found because someone had called to it and reactivated it, and this book is dark is dark left-hand magic, but it does give a method to break the curse. And so when ⁓ geez, I don't even remember the the daughter's names. ⁓ when Kylie, the more sa ⁓ Nicole Kidmeny of the kids, Joey Keene's character, when she finally says, I love you after making love to a guy, ⁓ he gets hit by a car and now is in a coma and about to die. And she finds the book that one of the aunts had hid and goes off on her journey, which takes him back to their birth the birthplace of their clan family and why why they fled from England to America. I thought all that up to was solid. I I it does bother me. I really do hate the parallels of movies where it's just like, if you have two kids, one must be like the one must be like the one sibling, one one must be like the other. But at the same time, it's always endearing. Like when like Bill and Ted face the music. That was endearing. I love that. Because that would make sense. Because those families are those two friends are so ingratiated with each other. It makes sense that the kids would just act like they're uncles, you know. At one point, I thought the Beetle had something to play here again, because it seems like every time this curse takes a boyfriend down, he's struck by a fucking car. You know that Beetle's behind the wheel. But it'd be great. Just freeze frame it as a beetle on the steering wheel. Well, and that's where I think if it's f trying to play tribute to do the same damn thing they did in the first one, why can't we have something new? I'm I again probably not the target audience. I'm wanting like a final destination scene. I want a new kill in practical magic. Don't give us the same get struck by a car. Give us something new. Let's have the love interest on a roller coaster that goes off the tracks. Let's I don't know. Have him ice fishing that goes through the ice. There's so many ways to make this new and fresh, but again, I guess girls want to see men hit by cars. That must be the thing. I don't know. But that's again, we're seeing the same stuff that goes into how slowly pace this is because we have the elements of we've seen it before, we're reunited, and then there's nothing in between. ⁓ Yeah. So did it bother you slightly to realize that ⁓ so the villain of the first movie is Jimmy, ⁓ Gillian's lover who's what ⁓ I I don't know how to pronounce his name, ⁓ Gorgian Vigniak. I forg or have his name. But that Gideon, ⁓ who is the Kylie's love interest looks a hell of a lot like him. I swear they went, Does he have a kid? Can we just have his kid be here? That would have been brilliant. That should have been like The big mystery at the end. Yeah, it turns out that this is that this is his son. And then he pops out like beetle wings. Exactly. And then he starts singing Elvis. He wakes up from the coma, you're always on my mind. And then it cuts the black. That it this could have gone in so many directions and it it's frustrating. Because there's at the end we get dangled all these hints of what it could be, but it always is so safe. And when it comes to the final battle with our villain, Sandra Bullock is almost used as a prop where even when she falls down, it looks like she's like the editing room just made it look like somebody's helping her down because of her age. She we're seeing some age there, but she's blasting magic and all this stuff. So I think it is very horribly shot when it comes to really amplifying these two older witches. So and I think it's it goes into the same problem as the first one. Where we have this great cast, but it's never really utilized. They're just mere props to showcase a very lackluster story. But I will say with Diane Weiss that it is heartbreaking. I that was the moment ⁓ in the scene with the Beatle making the noise. I'm like, no, you are the best part of this movie. You are a sweetheart. And that one got to me. And I think it's part of partly because of all the talent that we lost this year. And I'm like, this one will hit hard. And I just got a taste of how I'm gonna feel. And it was absolutely heartbreaking. Yeah, let's start going into spoilers. So, Justin, as you're on our show, you have to give the rating of either complete tire fire's pass or greatest movie of all time, or must see. What is your tire I would say tire, tire fire factory. It's not just one tire fire, it is a factory of tires on fire. I am gonna go with ⁓ because it is, you know, the internet, either it's great or terrible, I'm gonna go with Musty just because Shut up. It's not as good as the f it's not as good the first one. It is massively a step down. But in terms of its audience, the two women sitting on either side of me were crying multiple times, and they said it's not as good as the first one, but I still liked it. So I have to I missed the part where you were crying. ⁓ I was Don't blame the two next to you. Come on. Hey, my tears were tears of rage. But yes. All right, let's go spoilers from here on out. So the first part of 40 minutes of the movie deals with the fact that Sandra Bullocks doesn't ⁓ Sally doesn't have any magic because she suppressed it, hasn't told the daughters. And we get this prolonged death sequence of Jet because she found the book, but the Beatles has been around for like a week or so now. And she is passing away on her birthday. Of course, the family's coming into town. You know, the daughters are coming. My God. They dragged us out. The tears on either side of me. Diane, ⁓ yes, Diane Weist. She is amazing. She played it beautifully. Like, yes, yes, I know. It's been around. They all knew it was happening. Of course, Sandra Bulk is alone surprised by it. And then she passes away, and it is, it is beautiful, and it is sorrowful, and it punches you in the gut. And I'm like, how dare you? Because She is a legend and beautiful and wonderful and you killed her off. She didn't even get her cool whip. No, she didn't get her damn cool whip. And that hurt too. She didn't even get what she wanted for her last meal. I'm like, somebody run to the fucking quarter store and get Y some cool whip. It's the the little things that just hurt with it. But again, it drags on, but I think this is where the movie does know what it's doing. They know. This is a lovable character. The ants are the real emotional anchor to the practical magic movies. And I think they could have made that ⁓ an hour longer, and it would have been a thousand times better than what they presented. Of just make a story around family and family loss, where the loss actually hits home for them instead of non-witches, the people they love outside of that house. And I think that would have been a smarter script. Is Because honestly, if I were to watch this movie again, I'm just gonna fast forward to anything with Weiss in it. Yeah. So that sets off a ⁓ a series of events in which Joey King's character gets with her man, gets hit by a car, finds out the curse is real, betrayal, takes off, goes to England with the book, even though she has no clue how to use magic. And then ⁓ Fran ⁓ Francis or Fanning the ⁓ the the other ⁓ aunt is like, listen, you guys go after her, settle your shit, you guys cause this again. You know, which makes sense. That's what they do. They're like, Listen, you guys don't know how to deal with your magic. We've taught you. You screw this up again, go after it. So the two of them take off again, of course, Sally and Gilly just taking off, enjoying their time. That's where I think the movie starts to actually fall apart a bit, is because we have ⁓ Kylie who's doing her own thing, who is trying to like move the plot forward, but her scenes are just so expositional. She gets to London, cut in her hand, figures out she knows she needs to go to the next place, goes to the next place. ⁓ walks around, asks some questions, of course, immediately runs into the bad guy and trusts him. And that's like all her scenes. She gets maybe like three scenes for the next hour and a half. The rest of the scenes are dealing with ⁓ Sally and Julie and hanging out with Lee Pace, which by the way, I love Lee Pace. I've had a crush on him since pushing daisies because he's the pie maker. And I love him. And he is fantastic, and I'll watch anything he's in. And the second he's on screen, and of course, because he is a tall, handsome drink of water, they just have him nude on the bed who's being like suppressed by some magical spell. And of course, you have the sisters bumbling over where to touch him because they need to touch him on a piece of unmarked flesh and he's covered with all of his warlock tattoos. And so of course, what does Jilly say? Well, he has that part on his groin. Just grab that. ⁓ Which great, great, funny. When they're allowed to kind of bounce off each other, it is it is great. When you're allowed to see kind of like their chemistry of just goofing. I I like that. And then ⁓ God, I just love Lee Pace. I could listen to him talk. He's then, you know, doing his what'd you call him? A man witch. He's doing his sloppy. Yeah. He's doing his sloppy Joe presentation of like, hey, here's I I'm a witch and here's the things I can do and I can help you. And of course, what happens? He immediately falls for Sandra Bullock. And why not? Why not? But that is where things start kind of falling apart really quickly, is because You're introducing another love interest when she doesn't really want one, but you do get that. Your heart didn't palpitate a little bit when he was helping her unlock her suppressed magic and leaning against him and his hand on her chest and telling her to breathe and focus. There was you didn't have a little fluttering? Did nothing stir within that heart of yours, Justin? You know, I probably did a little bit. I probably have the same reaction of reading like a gas station romance novel from the checkout. That's kind of That's kind of what I got from it. I think I got more of a reaction seeing Joey King sitting on a bench for the hundredth time after visiting a location ⁓ in just kind of sorrow. There there's really nothing here to make my heart palpitate. I'm glad that Sandra Bullock found her witch. ⁓ but no. I I ⁓ literally, maybe one emotional moment for me in this movie that we've already discussed, but this one didn't make me want to. Be Romeo all over again. This one made me want to set fire to all the rom-coms I have in my garage. Aww. But Joey King is hot. I will give you that. He's a good looking man. Lee Pace. Who did I say? Joey King. Joey King's hot too. There's good looking young actors here. I love it. The part where I truly believe this falls apart is the resolution. Because The first person she meets in like in town takes her to the manor. ⁓ Joey Keene's character takes her to the manor. Okay, by the way, the reason why we're not talking about what Maisie Williams is doing is because they short shrift her completely. I think they cut out all of her scenes. I think they went, Wow, we're like 210 here. We need to cut something. And so they just went, Maisie, I'm sorry. You're going to like three minutes of screen time. And they just slice the heck out of it because They just occasionally cut back because she's a i I is she a nurse? I think she's a nurse who's about to become a n neurologist. Yes. Yes. And so she's a nurse while suddenly being a neurologist. She's about to take her boards or something like that. So she gets stuck in the room with the co with the coma patient. And also she then is also hanging out with Fanny. ⁓ because Fanny's like, Okay, well I'm gonna try to use some magic to preserve, ⁓ to preserve him, which this is a part that picked me up pissed me off, which is why this movie is certain to frustrating me. You get this great scene of Joey King's character going to her mom saying, Is the curse real? Stop lying to me. ⁓ Sanderbook's character still refuses to tell her the truth. While Nicole Kid ⁓ while Gilly is like, Yes, we're witches, yes, this is all true. We we're ⁓ your mom and we're sorry, we've been hiding it from you for the last 30 years that you've been alive. We never get that scene with Antonia's character. We just get her seeing her aunt do some weird stuff in the room and her seem kind of go with it. There's no resolution there. There's no discussion. There's there's no reveal. So at the end of the movie, I'm still not sure she knows she's a witch. Was she the only nurse in that hospital? She was the only nurse in the hospital. Working 24 hours a day while he's in coma. It made me question, and this is where my mind goes to, instead of having my heart flutter, is when they're changing out his capeter, do they have to brush the sage off and redo the process? It's so stupid. If I was a nurse, I'd be pissed off. Every time I had to Change the bed, change out the caper, give him a new IV, whatever it may be. I have to brush off all this crappy weeds and sage off the the bed, clean it up off the floor. That's how romantic I am. This is why this movie isn't for me, because it just is stupid. So that actually does bring up a good point because it's I think about four days that this ⁓ happens over the course of ⁓ once the car accident happens. Cause one night, come back the next night. Yeah, so about four days. Fanny's there with Antonia and she's like, Hey, listen, just hang out with me while I do this and just repeat some of my words. Which that was that was actually like that scene. She's trying to walk around the bed and Antonia just keeps getting in her way and just keeps saying, I'm sorry. But yeah, she's throwing the salt over his shoulder. You act they show insert shots of it hitting like all the medical equipment and everything. And then you're right. They they spread the stuff over him. And at the end of the at the end when he wakes back up. It's still all over him, which means, yeah, they must what the fuck were you guys doing while I was sleeping? D do they do a bed change? Like they should, because I mean you don't want to get bed sores of coma patients, you have to roll them occasionally, change sheets. Was she changing her sister's boyfriend's catheter? That's a great point. Because you don't see any medical people there at all until he wakes up and they only walk in, take out the tube and then walk out. Right. And you don't see anybody else in the hallway. No. There's nobody walking in and out. It It I don't know. And they must have kept themselves awake with a caffeine spell that we never saw. Maybe that's a whole other book that will be in number three on how nobody fucking sleeps in this movie. Yeah. Kylie's character, first town she runs into, first person she speaks to basically is the bad guy. And it turns out that deep in their family history, this is the reason why I'm basically splitting it is because this ticks me off a little bit. So bas basically, deep in their family history, Harriet or somebody Whoever was one of the first Owens has a daughter, that daughter flees to London because of basically her mom was burned at the stake. Well, it turns out the mom had another child that was a product of bad things, and they burned her at the stake. And that secret family lineage continued. And the curse, where the way the curse worked was twofold. One is you can never be in love unless you die and you're gonna die. And then the curse also cursed that other side of the family in which all their magical power was forever suppressed and stripped. And This is the part that gets me that pisses me off about the moral of the story. So the first film, the moral of the story is they're shunned and hated in town because they're witches and they're treated poorly, but people secretly need them and secretly go to them. And they have to learn to love that they're learn and love and gain the respect of the town. And the town helps them with this curse. This person is the product of, you know, the 400 years of the other side of the family from the bad thing that happened. Magic is suppressed. They are hated, berated. Their family dies young, just like all of them. He's like the last of the line. And so what it is is that he started trying to do left-hand magic, dark magic to gain some powers, realizes it's still suppressed, and Lee Pace's character tried to help him until he realized, wait a second, you're just going to be evil as shit. So what does he do? He lowers the Owens there and tries to steal their magic so that he can re-etaliate against the town. The moral of the story is they end up burning him at the stake. This distant, distant, distant family member. ⁓ Kind of bothers me that the moral of a story is that you shouldn't steal from witches. Cause they even say that at the one point, like while he's burning away at the stake, like the magic rebounds back at him, the power of the family all united against him destroys it. But they're killing a distant family member who was cursed like they were who was cursed in a different manner that they were cursed, and the resolution is to kill and set him on fire. Something just unsettles me, like I don't understand the moral they're giving me here. Why are you looking for a moral message? What is wrong with you? There's nothing to be said. Okay, sure. Bad burning witches, sure. That's the message. Whatever. But when whenever our writers throw a villain in the last 10, 15 minutes, and we're trying to justify it, trying to figure out the meaning out of ⁓ a way overblown movie, if the writers don't care. I don't care. I'm not gonna be looking for a message that randomly throws a villain in to try and put a stamp on it, and then everybody goes home and drinks margaritas. It doesn't make sense. So I swear to you, cut this out of the final edit. Do not look for a message in this movie. Shame on you. Shame on you. So that resolution doesn't really work for me. But also they unlock the book, and it turns out the way the the way the sequ Shut up Wiretap. The way the secret, ⁓ the way that they break the curse ⁓ is one of the a witch must knowingly sacrifice herself to allow the curse to be broken because something was taken from the love, therefore you cannot have love. You must give yourself away. And they cut from that res which they which by the way, they this is where I started getting the tonal whiplash, which I realized, ⁓ we're trying to run toward an ending here. And not only we're trying to run to an ending, we're trying to like six endings really quickly. They read that part of the book next to the the pillar of fire that was their distant, distant, distant relative. And then immediately it cuts to the beetle in the bed with the coma again. Yeah. With the coma guy. Because he's about to, you know, because like, well, it's been a few days. He's really about to die. Really? No one's gonna kill themselves. And then it cuts to this stupid, I mean, I which by the way, I loved it. Lee Pay, Sandra Bullock sitting on a couch together drinking tea. Trying to almost not kiss, talking about how you do know that if you touch me and I fall for you, you're going to die. And he's like, Well, maybe we can just hold hands forever. And their like lips are almost near each other, and he's Well, maybe next time. Movie over. Just fucking touch each other. Movie over. Nope. And then it cuts back to her in bed ⁓ to Joey Keane's character in bed with all the sage crying because he's about to die. And so how do they resolve this? Margaritas. Piss me off. I'm sorry. I It should not count. If you are 800 years old, Stocker Chan Stocker Channy, I love you. I'm talking about the character, not you. You are you lovely, beautiful, wonderful woman. You're a legend, and I adore you. And how dare you? She takes the book, reads a page, and she goes, ⁓ I know what to do. And then she has this moment where she and Diane Weast are back together because there's a ghost across a river, and she walks into beautiful gown, slowly walks into the river to break the curse, to rejoin herself with her sister, and the book begins to fade away under the water because she's carrying it with her, and you have this beautiful Deep scene of reflection and beautifully shot and the books fading away and she drowns and she and the sisters are she and her sister are together again, holding hands. Women everywhere in the theater are crying, and I'm just sitting here going, that shouldn't count. No, no, I'm sorry. You cannot be get to like the end of your life, have not had love this entire time because they didn't have kids, they're just neons, haven't had you have known about the curse, all this stuff, and be like, you what? I'm 975 years old. My sister just died. And when she was dying said, I'll see you soon, and be like, you know what? I'm just gonna walk into a river. Well having a heart attack just declared a win to break the curse. No. This movie and then of course what happens is the curse is broken and there's a wedding and there's drinking and lee pace and the kissing and it's yeah. Good inning, but terrible inning. Because my wife and one of my best friends said what the better ending would have been. And I agree with them a hundred percent. Justin, I will allow you to guess that ending. ⁓ I would say the cr about an hour and fifteen minutes in the credits roll. No, so the best part of this movie was the credits. That was a great ending. So there should have been either one of two resolutions. Either Nicole ⁓ either ⁓ Sandra Bullock's character should have done the self sacrifice because she has had love twice. She had her the children. Yeah, but she already did that with her career. She had the children and she's like, Listen, Jilly loves you as much as I do, and she loves being a witch way more than I do. If I sacrificed herself to allow her daughters to love and move on. Or Jilly could have, because Jilly had refused to have love throughout her life, and she's doing it for the love of her sister, and a bows to it and basically goes, like, I've lived my life of sin and debauchery. And for the love of, because she's called them My Children a few for the love of my children, she sacrificed herself. That should have been a sacrifice, not stalker chanting, because we need Nicole Kidman and Xander Bullock in the next one, because they're going to make a third one. Because this movie apparently is doing very well this weekend. But The beginning in the beginning of the movie, after ⁓ Jedi after Jetty has passed away, ⁓ Fanny goes and she turns off the light bulb because the light bulb means that like, hey, we're gonna help you. And she turns it off. They never show up being put back in. The movie should have ended with Sandra Bullock turning the light back on because they even say in the movie, we're the aunts now. And open the people into their lives. Again, the town. That should have been the ending. Instead, we get a lot of drinking. And leap it. Which I love Leap Ace. Okay. But We know Alex. My money. The resolution didn't work, man. Like, that's the part of the ticket. It is happy. It is sac. It is the whole like, ⁓ they're leaping off the it's the first time the daughters leap off the the building with us and we float down the ground. Yeah, I get it. And there's happiness and there's a wedding and all that crap. There should have been emotional punch. There should have been a tie. There should have been They should have forgot umbrellas. There it's a It's not as good as the first one. Which I understand you don't even like the first one. Yeah, I but I'm I you know me. I'm a sucker for sweetness. I must sucker for sacrificing. I must sucker for manipulate my heart, punch me a little bit, you know? And it did. It did a few times, but I couldn't help thinking that they the bow, the the bow should have been tied just a little bit better. Tie that bow. You touched on it, and this is where I think it really had an opportunity and an issue. When they go to the undo the light bulb, this is how bad the direction is. Is we have a shot of people waiting at the fence and they look more pissed off than sympathetic. They look like, ⁓ shit, w guess we're gonna go home and not have our problem solved. If it was another movie, if it was the sweetness that we had in that moment with the broomsticks and the community coming together. This is what this movie's missing is the being united. There should have been an emotional shot that we should have felt something as they present something symbolic as the light bulb. But we don't. It's a wasted shot. There's nothing that made me feel good other than knowing what that means. But why waste a shot of people just looking kind of pissed off and use that as an emotional push instead of just almost inserting three different types of ⁓ force feelings until we get to a feel-good margarita hour. So I think it misses a lot of that mark. Even when we have them coming down for the first time with the umbrella, at this point it's like they took everything in this movie and said, Shit, we forgot a bunch of nostalgic shit. We've wasted two and a half hours. We gotta find a place to push it. Let's all do it in the last five minutes. And we'll just have the viewers just kind of leave saying, Hey, I felt nostalgic about this movie. So I felt it was really, really forced. And even I you know, I like the Lime in the Coconut song. It's it's a catchy song, but it just feels like it's thrown in and the ending's thrown in. I don't know. I'm with you. The ending's not there, but that's not to say much. I didn't expect bait when we get introduced to the villain, that's where I knew this movie wasn't gonna give me the satisfaction in the end that the first one did to give me that one feel-good moment. The first one, I'll give the movie credit. That feel-good moment made it almost worthwhile just sitting through it, just tolerating it. This one, I feel cheated. Well, I shouldn't I the whole movie made me feel cheated. No, I I can agree with that. They were so focused on that ending that they just couldn't rush and it it felt off. But I'm hoping that we don't get another 30 years until the next one. I'm I'm assuming that they're probably gonna try to do something. I do. So here's a fun factoid for you. Nicole Kidman and ⁓ Sandra Bullock are about ten years older than the aunts were in the first film. Because Stockard Channing is eighty-two, ⁓ Diane Weist is seventy-eight, minus twenty-eight years. Fifties. Even the ending to this episode sucks. I hate you right now. yeah, that's ⁓ that's all we got. Justin, I'm assuming that you probably I mean you're in Seattle, ⁓ so I'm assuming you have to go play at a grunge bar or like ⁓ make something for Boeing. So I think we should wrap up. Why don't you tell everybody about yourself and where they can find you? You can find me anywhere you listen to podcasts at the MovieWire. You can also check out Antonio from the Cult Worthy Cinema Podcast ⁓ and the MovieWire crossover show, back to the balcony, that's on YouTube right now. And you can also follow me on all the socials. At movie wire show. Yeah, and you can follow us at ⁓ tsmackpod at most of the social. Well, I don't know. Josh keeps you know destroying all the socials and getting rid of them. And so what you should be doing is you should be clicking that link down below. You should be joining our Discord. And ⁓ our Discord is at tsmackpod at gmail.com. There's a link. ⁓ we have a website that we're kind of slowly tinkering with, which is tsmack ⁓ tsmackpod.com. And from there You know, thanks to Leon for our musical themes. ⁓ thank you, Beppo for Original Avatars, Virtual Studios for our Ricky Avatar. And ⁓ third Josh and I have some things in the work. We're kind of floating around, poking around with doing some ⁓ maybe start doing some live streaming with some V tubing if we can ever get around to it. I eventually need to start my secondary pod because I have been promising Justin and Josh that for like three years now and I I keep forgetting. I just keep writing scripts for it. And I really should do something with that. ⁓ maybe now that I mentioned it, I'll get off my ass. We'll find out. I mean, Justin's gonna be a staple of that one. I have to film around his Boeing contract thing, which is how is work on the the 767s going for ya? I don't know. I called out sick. But yeah, ⁓ you can find us, catch us. I it's not that bad of a movie. I this is a movie where truly it is that Justin and I are not the demographic for him. And I'm kind of the demographic because I'm a wuss. And I love I love love and hopey things. Like I saw Lee Pace and all I can think of was six Lee Pace is a massive man. He's like six five. Sandra Bullock is five seven. And so to make them even close on screen, I could all I I just they were on Apple boxes the whole time. And by the Joey Keane's like five two. So yeah, there are a lot of apple boxes being stepped on. But anyways, ⁓ Justin, should people be watching anything? I don't care. Sabrina the Teenage Witch. I hope Ember Larry likes this sleeping potion because it's the last thing you'll ever taste.