Buffaloed with Shelli Nicole

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Speaker 1: On the Bedel Cast, the questions asked if movies have women in them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands, or do they have individualism? The patriarchy? Zef in best start changing it with the beck Del cast. Hey, Jamie, Hey Kitlin, ask me how much student debt I'm in? How much student debt are you in? And how can I liberate you from it? Well, I think I'm somewhere. I honestly haven't checked in years because I obviously have no intention of paying it. But I think I'm somewhere around eighty or ninety thousand dollars in student loan debt for the master's degree I got from Boston University in screenwriting, which I would never mention. I can't believe this is coming up so early in the episode. This is never It's like borderline aggressive. I love it. Yeah, well, God bless thank you, thank you. Um. Well, look today I've been sent here, I'm pivoted hard and now I'm a debt collector and you just admit it to something pretty serious On Mike Yes and Me. Officer Jermaine Fowler though, the world's most ethically confusing person. I am going to have sex with you and then send you to jail. Actually, I was like, that does sound kind of sex hot, that is a kink of mind. So I wasn't because there's been so much talk around I mean student that's specifically recently because of the like ongoing failure to actually relieve student debt, the way that people have been saying that it was going to. I want to shout out former guests in the show. Julia Claire, one of the people closest to my heart. She had She had a viral tweet recently, m yeah, where she said, watching banks get bailed out for the second time in my adult life while also paring to watch the Supreme Court tell us that canceling a paltry ten k and student loan debt per borrower is government overreach. And then there's a picture of Scarlett Johanson and marriage story crying. It's a banger of a tweet, and I just wanted to shout I was thinking about that tweet this whole damn movie. Love it well well, Shelley. Oh wait, we should say what the show is. We should say what the show is. This is Hello, it's us, this is the Bechtel cast. My name is Caitlin Dronte, and I have a voice that sounds like this today. My name's Jamie Loftus, and I have a voice that sounds like this today. Not to brag. And this is the Bechtel Cast, our podcast where we take a look at your favorite movies with an intersectional feminist lens. Today, we have a movie that came out in twenty nineteen called Buffaload. And you're never gonna believe where this movie takes place. It is directed by Tanya Wexler, written by Brian Socca. And this movie is brought to us by a returning guest. That's so true. We don't need to say what the Bechtel test is. Not to say breeze right path. It's women's, honestly and women's. It's Women's History month, and I feel like we don't have to this month. We don't figure it out to look it up table flip. My voice sounds like this because I've just been screaming at men all months. Anyway. I haven't been using my voice. I've just been stealing. Perfect next year, just steal and burn things. Yes, save your voice, babe. Yes, we should be silent more than ever. No more than ever just burned down their house like banshees a ved sheering style. Okay, okay, that's my favorite joke that I've ever come up with. That is really funny. I are not to be pro men, but that movie rips. I loved that damn movie. I was laughing. I was crying. Jenny the Donkey, Are you kidding? Feminist icon Jenny the Donkey. Everyone in that movie rocks. Colin Farrell being like mister Derp is so cute. He's like, would why not you be my friend? I loved it. That's great. Okay, we were about to introduce our guest. Yeah, it's always going to be chaos when this guest is here. I feel like she's a culture writer and critic. You've seen her work on Architectural Digest, Vogue, Autostraddle, and you know her from our episode on Empire Records. It's Shelley Nicole aka the Return of Shreky Shrecky Too. I was like, are we not gonna say Shreky because I will close this zoom so fast. Also, I'm very happy that it's chaotic when I'm on all the time. It makes me so happy. I love it. It's so fun. We're so excited to have you back. Truly, it's so hard not to talk throughout that part, especially when it's like not to be on the side of men. But I have this, well, the floor is yours. If you have anything you want to say in response to what we've said, like three minutes ago, No, just the path that I don't want to be on the side of men, and I just thought that that was funny and that, I mean, we'll probably get into it because I was going to talk about my student loan that too, but yeah, mine's like not that much. But yeah, I'm excited. I want to talk about money and buffalo and ill fitting suits and bad hair color. I'm so excited. There's so much. This movie is truly a buffet of things to talk about. It's a lot, and it isn't a lot. It was a little stressful to watch, thinking of like various debts that I have, just like there is a low, humming anxiety to watching this movie where I paid off my student debt. But they're sarious. Well, I went to school on a scholarship and only went to school once, but it was I'm very, very lucky that I paid off my student debt. I took forever. It took over. I think it took ten eleven year or something like that. But but I have a ton of hospital bills I have not paid off, and I hear about them all the time. Well, yeah, I'm not going to do it, and we but like, I'm not going to do it. But I get you know, every there was a hospital bill I have from New York like five years ago where I didn't I went to the er and they were like, you're having a panic attack. Go home, And there's still like, but that will be five thousand dollars, Like, no, it won't be. It will not be, or it will be, but I'm not giving it to you. I'm not the best of luck to you and getting that absolute horsh Anyways, Um, it's always fun to talk about various debts. Okay, so the movie is buffaloed. Yeah, Shelley, what is your history with this movie? I mean it came out pretty recently. Yeah, I came out super recently. I um, because what was it came out in twenty nineteen. Yeah. I didn't discover it until the first Lockdown because I was just watching everything. I was watching everything. If you hear someone in the background. My partner is watching a basketball game right now. But I discovered it like through it first part of Lockdown because I was literally watching anything and everything I could get my hands on because I had ran through all of my rewatches, like my New Girl Rewatches the Office and all that stuff. And then I fell in love with Zoe Dutch. Like I started watching stuff with her and I was like, who is she? She's funny, I don't know. I think she's a really really, really really good actress. She's one of my favorite like white woman actresses, which of which I have like a few, But so I started watching it because of her, and then I fell in love with it because she's hustling, Like it's about money, it's about debt, it's about scamming a little bit, and it's all from a girl's perspective, which I thought was really cool. And I mean, I didn't grow up poor. Grew up like maybe lower middle class and Detroit. Both of my parents are. My dad like worked death a factory and my mom worked in an office. But I learned about debt before I learned about earning, you know, And I learned about hustling before I learned about nine to five's, which is in all honesty probably why I'm so success were like freelancing and why it doesn't like like if you owe me money for my I'm going to email you seventy three times at net sixty one. I'm gonna be like, hello me again, there's money, me again, the return of Shrek thing I wrote for me to turn in on time, just Shreky seven because I've emailed you fifty times. But yeah, I learned about debt before I learned about earning. My parents didn't teach me like a lot about money, but they taught me a lot about debt, and I saw my parents paying stuff off and all that kind of stuff. So I think I just connected with this movie through that. Um Because I might not know a lot about things like investing, and I was gonna say, like NFTs and all that kind of stuff, I know a ton about that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know that this is actually a finance podcast. That's why I want to come on here, um finance bros. But I um, so, I might not know a lot about that stuff, but I know about hustling. I'm always going to make a work. I can always get, you know what I mean, and this feels very similar to the story in the film. And I just thought it was dope, Like is it chaotic and is it kind of breaking apart at a lot of things. Yeah, But for the main part, I just thought it was a really dope movie to talk about like debt collecting from a girl's perspective, and from the inside it was just dope. So yeah, I do appreciate that it's a movie about like hustling, slash doing shady shit to get money from a woman's perspective, because there are so many movies about that centering men, yea, all that Wolf of Wall Street type shit and all that kind of stuff money, but all of these movies about men scamming and getting money, but it's never And also I liked that it was from the point of view of her, like she was trying to pay off student loans, like she wasn't trying to like I guess in those other movies and other films they're always trying to just like make a buck to stay ahead and get on top. But she was doing it because she was literally just trying to like pay off her ship and then wanting to do you know what I mean. So I just thought it was dope. I thought it was great. It's one of like the dopest films that I was seen about, like Debt and Debt Collecting, that is from a real something I could connect with, like that kind of perspective. Yeah. Nice. Yeah, I had not heard of this movie until you brought it to us, so my relationship with it is very brief. But yeah, I think it posits some interesting things for us to discuss. I love that side to side to Babbo. It's like I have a lot to say, but not right now, but I guess I'll just have to wait and find out. I did. Like I mean, there's I've not spent a ton of time in Buffalo, and I'd be curious, like for people who are from Buffalo, like how they felt their city was portrayed, because I always, I don't know, every time I see something that specific, I remember how like flamingly angry I get when I feel Massachusetts has been misrepresented in television or filmed, and so I am curious, especially in like a comedy. Usually I feel like there were I don't know, Buffalo heads sound off because they were talking so much about wings and I'm like you know, there's a lot of wing talk. It's like if it's a movie about Boston and we're only talking about beans. I didn't know that about Buffalo either, So I would like for someone to be like, is it really that big of a because I didn't know that. I didn't know the Buffalo was known for wings. I did not know that Buffalofalo. I was like, wait, who's gonna tell you? Oh my god, I don't know why I didn't connect that to the city, but just the animal, it's I mean, it's like a super I don't know. I like, did hotdog research in Buffalo, so I spent That's why I've spent time there. Oh my god. They keep referencing Anchor Bar, which is like, technically I think the birthplace of Buffalo wings. Buffalo wings also invented by a woman. Happy Women's History Month. Wow, Yes, yes, girl bosses, rejoice. I'm learning so much about wings today. I hate that I know so much. I love that you know so much about that. Wow. Look at that Women's History Month. Everyone look at that truly. I mean, what can't we do? While you were discovering that buffalo wings come from Buffalo, I was googling the writer of the movie, Brian Socca, who is from yes Lockport, New York. And then based on a quick little Google Maps search, I discovered that it appears to be a suburb of Buffalo. So so the writer is he's a Buffalo head. He's a Buffalo head. Yeah, but we let Matt Damon write movies about Boston, you know, so you're just not It's you can't just trust a single I just want to know what the Buffalo heads are saying. Sure, I've been. I've been to Anchor Bar, I've gone to the source. You're just bragging so much, Jamie on this episode. I'm sorry. Yeah, And I had Buffalo one day and I tried to get jealous. I was about to say that I've never been to Buffalo, but then I am lying because I'm realizing how close it is to Niagara Falls, where I have been. And then I was like, all right, Oh, who's bragg great uncle who lived in Buffalo, and I have been there. They've got good dogs. Shows you what I know? Well, shut out Buffalo. I'm a Buffalo fan, fan, fan of the buff I had not seen this movie before. I have like a lot of mixed feelings about this movie because I think you're like, I totally agree with you, Shelley, where it feels like this is like and I feel like it's probably like intentionally done where it feels like a working class female perspective take on the big short format, because there's a few different moments where she big shorts and is like, here's how money works, and you're like, she's big shorting, she's wolfing of Wall streeting. She is definitely wolfing of Wall streeting. Yeah, she's wolfing out. And I do like, yeah, like the how like the whole framework of this movie is about how she becomes this like huge hustler, kind of like super villainous character but started by just trying to like get by, and there's all this emphasis on how the system is set up to fail her and the only way that she can survive is by becoming a girl boss super villain. I don't know. But then there's other stuff about this movie that I was like, huh, but I'm really excited to talk about it. I think it's I've never seen a movie like it. And I also like, don't think that there's like what you're you're saying, like there's not a lot of movies that even attempts to have this discussion. And I'm really glad that this movie is like a really clear agenda of like wanting to talk about it. And it felt like cathartic and cool to see stuff like that addressed, because yeah, I grew up in like a lower middle class family and I can't relate to PEG's life directly. And I also didn't eat that many wings and so it's kind like we were I was too busy eating beans. But yeah, like the pressure to like you have to figure out how to get by in a system that's set up to ruin your life. Yeah, I'm glad. I'm glad it's discussed. I'm glad that this movie exists. Also, um, I did want to say the other thing that brought me to this movie was Judy Greer in the trailer, I was like, oh, for sure. Ever since Job Breaker, I've just been like I will follow you anywhere. And also I am really sad to talk about this, but Reboot being canceled really made me pretty upset. I loved that shows. It was really good and I don't think it got the fair chance. Yeah, it was really smart, it was really funny, really witty. But yeah, Judy also bought me to this movie. I was like, yes, Like, what the fuck we still haven't covered job Breaker show? And that's classic wilds. I don't know how we even well, Shreky, come on back anytime, job Breaker the return of the Turn to talk about job Breaker of all films, Oh listen, absolutely Clueless Gone wrong, just for clueless, Clueless gone bad. As I like to say, let's do it, let's get it on the books. But in the meantime, well, let's take a quick break and then let's come back and recap buffaloed and we're back back. I just keep cracking myself up. You're at how my voice is cracking so much? Anyway, here's the plot of Buffalo We open in media rez Okay, master's degree in screenwriting coming up again. That's that's a five figure term. Baby yeah, um where peg Doll played by Zoe Dutch. I think it's Deutsch? Is it Deutsch? Oh? Is it Deutsch? I never I never know. I want to say Dutch, but I think it might be Deutsch. But whenever that happens, I think I'm when I'm thinking it's like supposed to be fancier. I always hear when they're just like, no, it's it's just it's Dutch. It's just Dutch. It's just Dutch. I was like, oh, I would love for her to yell at me. It's just Dutch. Like it's just like, you know what, sure, no problem, it is okay fine. Zoey Dutch or Deutsch is running through Buffalo, New York. She stops in front of a building. She fires a gun into the air and screams, I'm gonna kill you, you fucking jag Off. And we're like, oh my gosh, what's happening to get a gun? And it's like gold, Yeah, I love it. It's a lot, it's intense. It's a good opening. Then we cut two peg as a child, she's giving a presentation to her brother j J and her mom played by a Judy Creer. Did either of you ever do that when you were kids, like give a presentation of like why I should be able to sing slutely? Okay? Sam? A thousand percent? A thousand percent. I kind of wonder. I'm like, I feel like I must have seen that convention happen on TV at some point and been like, oh yeah, amazing idea, and like why I should be able to stay over Samantha's house this Week by Jamie Mine. I did it for I Saw a Camp Nowhere, which another classic classic film, Saw a Camp Nowhere on Repaint, rented it so many times, and I was like, I'm going to fucking sleep away camp and I'm going to do a presentation as to why. And that was what I did, like one of my many presentations too, to my family. And I went to camp that summer like it were. It was like for the summer of eighth like after eighth grade, like right before going into high school. And honestly, it changed my life for the best. But yeah, I was like, if I were a parent right now and a kid gave me like took the time and I could do it, I'd be like, yeah, I gotta hand it to you, Like look at this slip, at this damn power point. Yeah, I'd been so proud of them, the effort that Mercedes bends. You want it, Yeah, he got it. He got a kid. Well. Peg is pitching peg Ink, which is her company something Something. She wants to invest money to grow a college fund so that she can go to an Ivy League school, and she wants a one thousand dollars loan from her mom, but her mom says, I don't have that kind of money. I'm already in a ton of debt myself. And then she gets a call from a debt collector. But Peg is hyper focused on making as much money as possible to secure financial freedom for her future. So throughout her youth she does various griffs. She's selling buffalo wings as if she's at a lemonade stand, she's selling cigarettes to teenagers. She starts selling counterfeit buffalo bills, tickets all to pay for and this Ivy League education that she does get into. She gets accepted into a prestigious school, but she realizes that she probably won't be able to pay for it. The scene where she gets into college, I thought was so that was like one of my favorite moments in the movie of like how well it handled the idea of debt even like generationally, because like between our generation and our parents generation that wherever, like I know we all know this and so to our listeners, but like the you know, the way that college educations were monetized changed so significantly, and so it's like when I was trying to go to college, like My parents also, similar to the Judy Greer character, were like you got in. That's awesome, you should go, and then like I couldn't go to the school I wanted to go to because like, once we looked at it, it was like, oh, just kidding, false alarm, this is impossible and you can't do it. And Judie Grew's character's reaction where she's like, I don't know, I don't know how this ship works, like you got in, yeah you should go, and like it's like there's almost so many people in our generation that experienced that and then got completely fucked like yeah, yeah, yeah, no, the same thing that happened to me, Like when I accepted into the college that I originally wanted to go to. But the thing is both my parents that are very like different. My dad is very like, I mean, we'll figure it out, and my mom is very like, um, yeah we will, but still no, you can't go there. And so I had the same situation Like I got accepted to this college. I was super excited, but then the realization hit was like, oh, we cannot afford that. And because my school, my high school, like didn't teach us a lot about like scholarships and stuff. My dad was like, yeah, you get a scholarship or grant. It was too late to start doing all that, you know, So I ended up going to another their school that still was like fucked me over, like yeah, like huge, and I was like, shit, I should have just went to school I wanted to go to if I was going to be fucked anyway. Yeah. So, and I think you're right about that generational ship too, because my parents didn't know half of the stuff that these people, these loan officers and stuff were talking to them about, you know what I mean. So of course they just wanted me to be able to go to school, so we signed so much shit, and like it is just I think that was definitely the start of me being like this is predatory and I need to like just I would rather hustle my ass off and like pay for quarter for quarter versus doing the ship that I ended up doing. Yeah, it's so fresh, and it's like we were lucky that we even got to do that, which is ridiculous, like it Yeah, I remember, like the movie doesn't go into this much detail on like student loans specifically, and it did make me want a movie about student loans specifically, because there was like I remember, like this was like early twenty times, but like the huge there's a huge confusion in my household about like what is a federal loan and what is a private loan and like what does that mean? And I think we were sort of like confused into believing that a federal loan was like good and like they're not gonna give you shit, which is not true at all. They all fucking suck like private loans or maybe like worse, but federal loans are not working for you in any way, and like the way that we I don't know, like, yeah, I think like part of the reason I was able to pay down my student debt was because, like you know, I didn't go to the school I wanted to go to. I went to the school that offered the most money. And then on top of that, like because of the way that like we fucked up the loans that we chose and so I had to start paying it back right away and worked full time through college because they were like, well, you signed one thing one time, so sorry, like go fuck yourself, like get a job, time to start cool thing. Yeah, yeah, you're a freshman in college. But anyway, you want us money already? Yeah, figure it out, bitch. And it just like it drives me nuts because it's like, you know, I'm I don't know the way people talk about it, even people our age sometimes where it's like, yeah, I'm like proud that I was able to make that impossible situation work, but like I wouldn't wish that on anyone. And there's that's that's the other generational thing where people are like, well, I had to do it, so you should have to. And it's like, no, I shouldn't want to do that. I don't want anyone to have to do I don't want anyone to have to do this, so I don't want Yeah, it's fucking terrible. It's terrible, and there's so much to talk about, but I'll wait. We're only ten minutes into the movie. But anyways, I thought that scene was really well done. Yeah, I agree. And then what happens next is she gets arrested for selling the counterfeit tickets. She goes to court where her lawyer gets in a fight with the judge while the prosecuting attorney, Graham played by Jermaine Fowler, just like watches this unfold, and then Peg is thrown in jail and starts hustling in jail selling go Gurt. I love it. She really can't be stopped. She cannot be stopped. And I'm telling you that. I'll get into it later. But her hustle mentality is what makes me made me fall in love because it's me. It's me. I'm like, oh, I'm in this situation. Cool, So I'm going to figure this out. This it's just always in me, and I get it from my mom, like it's insane. I'm excited. Yeah, because there are so many Wolf of Wall Street parallels here where she just I do respect a character that's like I refuse to improve. Okay, cool, I'm going to meet you where you are. Yeah, understood. One's proceeds. She's selling Gogert in prison because she's still fifty thousand dollars in debt from all of her legal fees. Also, debt collectors are still after her mom, so she's just trying to alleviate this debt. After around three years in prison, she gets out PEG's brother, JJ, now played by Noah Reid, who I think a lot of people would recognize from Shit's Creek gives her a job at the bar that he bought, where Peg runs into Graham, that prosecutor or more like prosecute because he's trying to flirt with her. I love Jermaine Fowlers so much. He's like saying the greatest. His character is so confusing to me. He's just all over the place. It's not his fault, I don't Understand's the one thing that I did not dig because when were I'm like trying to scam a system just a little bit, and you're just like not going to go to dinner with me? What? Well, it's like his whole day. I just look like he is so like weirdly inconsistent, where it seemed like in every scene he discovered she was a debt collector, and I was like, you know this, like I just saw you learn this in the last scene, But up until like the end of the second act, he's like you do what. I was like, like, you know this man? She keeps telling you. Yeah, confusing, but it's Deny. I think he recognizes her as the person that he like put away, like put in jail three years earlier. Yeah, but he's like, oh, let me buy you dinner and she's like, um, you put me in jail by I don't want to hang out with you. I don't want to get wings with you, mister Powler. I don't want to do this with you. And it's not like I don't believe that, you know, people who work for the DA's office can get away with all sorts of shit, like I'm sure that's true. But I was just like, is you know what? How is this allowed? They're like, I'm clear, I don't know. It's so confusing, but you know, I love I love to see your maid Fowler. I was like, cool. I thought they had like fun chemistry too, but the relationship was like I just don't understand. And then at the very end, he was like, well, guess what peg my grandfather like was it? Which is like pulling from real life, you know, things that happened in real life and are very tragic. He says, like my grandfather was completely fucked over by debt collection and then was on house and then passed away before it was resolved. But I was like, but why are you bringing this up now now? Like you could have told me that so many times. Yeah, but now when things are wrapping up like it sounds like her job is a deal breaker for you. Why do you keep showing up. He's also actively investigating the company that she works. Yeah, it's a won't work out. This is not for us, and he acknowledges that. He's like, this is going to be a conflict of interest. But they still have sex so many times. Maybe the realism is that the DA's office is unethical and incompetent. Sure, but I was confused because it seems like we were supposed to be rooting for him, and I was like, but he's doing such a bad job. He's bad. And then and then at the end, like I don't know, and she's like, I think he my boyfriend. I was like, all right, whatever, you guys are you guys deserve each other. What are you talking about? Well, then Peg gets a call from a debt collector the screenwriter of the movie too he plays sound Oh that's him. Oh gay? Yeah okay. So after talking to him for a little bit and realizing that he works in Buffalo, she realizes she can get a job as a debt collector. Because another thing that is examined in this movie is that because now she like had served time, I'm in prison. She's very limited in the jobs that she can apply for it and get. But she's like, well, debt collecting is something I can still do. She is like, this woman is a fucking bull. Like if you tell her to know and then she's like, I'm good, She's like, I'll do something fucked up. I don't care like i'd like. So she gets a job working for this guy named whiz Ji Courtney of I Frankenstein Fame. Okay, we were talking about this before the banging down the zoom door. Um, yeah, Ji Courtney. Let's talk about Ji Courtney really quick, because here's the thing about Jike Courtney. He was in I Frankenstein and we hear at the Battle Castle Love I Frankenstein Ji Courtney and I Frankenstein. He plays. Look, the man's got range. First of all, he's Australian. Oh, you wouldn't know it. In this one. He's secretly asked you do kind of you can kind of tell and I Frankenstein. But that's growth and we appreciate that from Dry Courtney because Sam Worthington is in some of the most highest grossing movies in the world and he still can't hide the fact that he's Australian. What was that? What was that like line from Avatar where he's like he's like playing a US marine and he's like when you hit wool, You're like, oh my god. Come on. Nobody thought to be like, let's try that again. Can we get another take? Anyway? Yeah? One more Sam, Sam, You're supposed to be from Michigan. James Cameron was just too focused on something else on set that day. This is and I we don't like this word and the way that it's used in this context. But the best example of that in Avatar is when Sam Worthington's like at battle it's insane and you're like, oh my god. Any Jai Courtney doesn't have that problem. He plays mister Good and I Frankenstein. He plays an angelic Gargoyle farrior who dies for Gargoyle recasts. Yeah. Yes, And this one, he's Patriarchy, the guy one of our favorite trophs, mister Patriarchy, and he's really making a meal of it. He's just like growling. The dire movie. I didn't love. The character was baffling to me, but I loved the Jai Courtney performance. He was really he was really going for it, mister patriarchy. Yeah, yeah, he was giving it a one hundred and ten percent and speaking of numbers, yeah yeah, that was good. That was good. Thank you amazing. I have a master's degree. I would never mention it. We learned how debt collecting works once she gets this job working for Wiz, where bank sell debt to like debt agents or debt brokers. I don't know what you'd call them, but they're selling. They're selling people's debt for pennies on the dollar pennies. Right. Then, debt collectors try to bargain with the debtors to settle their debt, knowing that they can kind of negotiate because their debt is actually worth far less now that they've like bought it for pennies on the dollar. But they're like, oh, like, we'll bring your fifty thousand dollars debt down to ten thousand dollars. Little does the debt or note that settling their debt for ten thousand dollars is now profitable for the debt collectors, and all of this is barely regulated by the government. Right so Peg makes a deal with Whiz that if she can become the top collector at this agency. In one month, he will erase her debt and she does it. She again has a knack for hustling. She has a knack for debt collecting. Yeah, it's a it's a hell of a montage, it is. It's just a lot of like the Zoe Deutsch reactions and writing on a chalk board or or white board. Right, She's just so Another reason why I kind of love her, especially in these montages of this is this montage of this part. It shows how slovenly she is, Like, she's just not she doesn't care. Her goal in this movie is not to like she's not trying to be this pretty girl. She's in fact, when she tries to be this girl that's like classic feminine, it goes bad for her. But I love how whenever she's at the board she's like eating, she's wearing baggy clothes. She's just her goal is to make money and get her debt erase, and I love that. In this montage it's just so dope. She's like, I'm gonna make money and I'm gonna look like shit while I do I do, I like I did you. I had that same note Shelley where it is like, oh heard cloth, like because we're told. I feel like that happens in movies a lot that are about like if you're talking about a person that not even is like living below the poverty line, but it's just like not upper middle class or above. Yeah, if they're either like cartoonishly styled to be like slovenly and filthy and gross, or they're like just wearing rich people clothes in a way that makes no sense. And it's like we see people in this movie wear the same outfit twice. We see people have stains on their clothes after eating messy food. Just like shit, that is so basic. But when you see it happen, you're like, oh, that never happens. It really never happens, especially the wearing the clothes twice. I love when it happens in shows. I love when it happens in movies, and this too. I mean it's just like I don't know, a film student trying to like reach a little bit, but I think it just showed how much she doesn't care, Like she just is trying. She has a goal. Her goal is the money. Her goal is not femininity. It's not like classiness or anything. Like that she's trying to pay her debt and she's not spending money on other stuff. She's not trying to do any of that, and it plays back into how she is as a person, just like the dudes doing all those fucking movies where they're trying to like make it and oh god, this montage part just really made me happy. Also, going back to the explaining the debt, it was wild because I knew that shit. And the only reason I knew that was because of my mom. My mom, because when I messed up in my twenties a little bit, you know, you get a credit card the mail, You're like free money, Well, I don't mind if I do. Hello, I'll take three if you have it. But then like I have to eventually tell my parents. It's like, hey, I am in a little bit debt, and I'm nervous. I was calling crying because these like debt people were calling me. I was like twenty four and they were calling me and they were telling me all this stuff, which was basically these guys Saal and his crew essentially just calling me. And then my mom would laugh at me. She would be like, they offered you what, And I would be like, yeah, and I paid it. She said, don't you ever to call right now and cancel that payment plan, because no, and just be like this is what I'm going to give you, and I want to let her I want And it works. It blew my mind. It worked, and I just I just thought that that scene was dope. Yeah, when she big short, it was great. It was great that big short scene there. I knew some not all of that, like some of the history of like how debt can be sold and sold and sold I knew much less about and it's good, Like this is like a I don't know, I really appreciate what they're trying to do because it's like, I don't know, like it's fun to see this it in such a like goofy format and in a way that isn't like tragedy porn or bashing you over in the head like it's I don't feels like a spoonful of sugar kind of like approach to talking about this in a way that I much prefer to, like watching people drowning. You're like, I could just do that. I can look in the mirror if my life like I don't need That's why I love romps. It's true. I mean this is a romp. Yeah. Okay, So she's discovering that she has a real knack for debt collecting, but she also discovers some unsavory things they do, such as exploiting elderly people like this woman, missus Cooney, by collecting on debt that has already been settled multiple times. So they're just like bleeding her drive for every penny she's got because they're because she like didn't remember that she had paid that debt. So they're exploiting situations like that often, and Peg is fully dissipating. Yes at first. Yeah. Then Peg runs into Graham the prosecutor again, who tells her he's investigating Whiz and his team of collectors and that Graham can't take her on a date if she's working with these guys and being complicit in their horrible tactics. And then this is sort of like a turning point where she realizes how awful they are, so Peg decides to strike out on her own and start her own debt collecting business. I do think it's worth mentioning that she like part of what I did like about PEG's character, even though I was not rooting for her. The entire movie honestly was that, Like, she is a very morally ambiguous character for lots of sections, because it's not like she realizes that like Whiz is unethical and then quits the job. She knows he's unethical, and she's wholeheartedly participating. It's when she does and get the cut up when it affects her bottom line. That's when it's not when it's fucking with other people, Like she knows it's fucking with other people and doesn't care until she I think that, Like she collected one hundred twenty five thousand dollars and he would only give her two thousand, so she was like, well, I'm out of here and I'll like go find a better deal somewhere else. So she is like at the end of the day, she's like about her bottom line exactly, which I also really dig too though, because I think if I would not have loved this movie so much if at that point, like when realized she was like scamming this old lady, if she had had this moral high ground and was like, oh, I'm not going to do this anymore. I'm not going to participate in this because that's not what happens to dudes in movies, Like they very much so know when they're doing something wrong and they do the same thing that she does. Peg is like, I know that y'all are doing something wrong, but now it affects me, so now I'm gonna go do it because I want my money, Like this is a out me. And I think if they had made her into this like very holier than the character, it wouldn't have been very realistic. First of all, because it doesn't take a lot. She's smart. She knows that it doesn't take a lot for her to set up this business. So I really I'm really glad that they just made her go out on her own versus trying to be a good person and sticking it out or something like. No, right, she built it right because in the movie just would have been over, it would have been also done. Yeah, it warn my lesson, And like you said, like audiences tend to permit a morally ambiguous character who is a man far more than there's an expectation that women have to be so well behaved and we can't do the illegal thing. Yeah right, And it's like no, Peg was like, actually, I can do illegal things, and I'm going to do it really really well, and then I'm gonna get a goold gun. So though at first, when she does strike out on her own, she insists that her business is going to be legitimate with no shady stuff like clean. She's gonna, you know, everything's gonna be above board. So she starts buying the debts from Whizzes supplier who's also Whizzes brother. Also she has are There is a like random like mister sweetey Pie brother that comes out to the story at random points, so Judy Greer can be like, I love you and don't be a bad influence on your brother, which I also thought was cool. I mean, this movie is doing a lot of like table attorney stuff, but in a way that I kind of I guess approved of or whatever. But I like the fact that her whole life she's been a bad influence on her. Like, it made me so happy that she was the one who was like, and he's older, I think too. Yeah, I love the fact that that she was like, you're gonna do what I say. This is bad, but we're gonna do it together. And I loved it. I loved it. Yeah, I'm excited to talk about the Judy Greer character too, because I think there's like a lot of interesting stuff going on with her and PEG's relationship, where like both of them are super in the wrong in different moments, but it's like, ooh, interesting relationship. I'm excited to talk about it for sure. Okay. So Peg is setting up her business. She hires mostly like random people who she like sees potential in as collectors, along with some women she knew from prison, such as Starla and Backer. PEG's business starts booming. Everyone is good at their job. Also, Peg and Graham are like kind of seeing each other slash sleeping together now, but you're like, yeah, I guess okay, but he keeps saying like I don't want to date you if if you're still a debt collector because of this investigation was doing. I just want to do two quick shout outs for like the character actors that compose PEG's staff, because we've got we've got some fun familiar faces in this bunch. Okay, We've got playing the part of Francis. We have Lucia Stross, who we just talked about on fifty First Dates. Better part for them. So I was thrilled to see them. Her name is Francis, not Starla. I guess that that's yeah, I'd like for whatever. Starla was her name she was using as a sexophone operator. Yeah. Yeah, she's credited as Frank got it. We have for all my Degrassi heads. We have Raymond Ablack, who was on Degrassi when I was in high school soft Bundari. I had a huge crush on him as I was watching this movie. Oh my gosh, oh, I mean he's been in a ton like, he's super legit. He's done a ton of other stuff. I think he was on Yes, he was on Orphan Black. But because if you're I mean, if you're a Canadian listener, you will know that it's the Canadian like it's the Canadian military. You have to serve for two years in Degrassi before and you can move on to the rest of your life. But he did. He's he's one of our bravest Canadian soldiers, um serving on the cast of Degrassi from two thousand and seven to twenty and ten. And you have Okay, my favorite. The woman who plays Ronda is in a small but memorable part in the original Santa clause Um who plays She plays Judy the waitress from from Dennis from Denny's. Yeah, she's an icon I mean she's also been in a ton of shit, but like iconically she is Judy the waitress from the Santa Claus And I was like, whoa, I love, isn't that amazing? I also love how excited we got about the fact that we knew she So. Ronda is the very regular client of PEG's mom because PEG's mom runs a salon out of her house, right and Ronda seems to be her only customer, also eating her out of house and home and also giving advice when it's nannied it Like, I love when she was like I could go for a fish stick, I was like, ooh, I know this lady. I know this lady. I would say no as like it was just yes, yeah, he love it so good but yes, shout out to um legend of cinema, Judy the Waitress. Just I mean, there's I love. I've got a passion for character actress and we've got we've got a real murderer's row in this movie for sure. I also enjoyed the character Backer played by Lorie odom odom Yeah, it's a it's a good batch, yeah for sure. And I love that she went for hustlers, you know, the hustlers smooth talkers, because there's so many different ways to hustle and everybody has their own sort of like niche and we keep talking about we'll see that it works out. She picked the right people. Game recognizes game, you know, absolutely, And I like that like Peg, I mean to some extent, but it's like whatever, Peg is so morally compromised that she does lie to her employees with with with regularity, and we'll like try to like be like look over here anytime they're like, when are you gonna pay me? And and I know, I know, Like again, Buffalo had sound off, would you forget that your boss hadn't didn't pay you if you got good seats at a Buffalo Bills game? Sound off in the comments. I think I would just be upset at a Buffalo Bills game. I would just be set. I would be upset in the box at a Buffalo Bills like, damn, I know that I've got some money that I'm old so because that's how I am when I don't get paid for my freelance work, right, away literally upset while I'm at the McDonald so, like, you're like, interesting, it seems like you could have used this money for anything else. It's so wild. Or I get really upset this little site. I get really upset if it's like net sixty one and then I see an article published, just like on the site, just in general, just like in general, if an article publishes, I'm like, hmm, interesting. I feel like instead of publishing that article, you could have just sent me my money. Yes wild. I was on a writing staff last year that like we were not allowed to unionize, and then they brought us to a Dodgers game and it's like, but let us unionize. Like what I like, I don't want a hot dog And that's a lot coming from me. I don't want a pretty hot dog today. I want a union. I was gonna say, come on union. Or also like, um, I don't follow like my editors on Twitter, but I know that they have one. So if it's NETS one and they're tweeting about they're like out somewhere and my money hasn't hit my account, I'm like, huh, interesting. Instead of going out or tweeting, it feels like you could have paid me my fucking money. But you know that's just me at a Buffalo's game, upset. It is my new life goal to never get on your bad side effort because at the top of the movie when Peg says like, don't fuck with my money, that brought me in because just don't like I'm a very kind person, but I think because of the industry that like I'm in and with the way that I grew up with like that, it's just very much like you could do everything else. You could publish my article late, you could do this, you could do but do not mess with like my money. It's just no, I can't handle it. It's really interesting that don't funk with my money is written on your shirt right now. It is. I didn't I really didn't want to bring it up because I know this isn't like a visual based podcast. But the photo that I'm going to send is going to beat me in this shirt. So thank you for acknowledging that an incredible shirt. I mean, it was an investment, really it marketing. I told you earlier. Started my merch is a part of my merch, your other merch being just a shirt that says shreky then on the back and it don't sue me. Yeah available now Actually I mean yeah, what a good hustle that you're running, thank you. Anyway, So Whiz is not happy that Peg has become his competition, and he's like, this is war, and he starts fucking with her, including dumping a bucket of like probably fake blood on Peg at a Bill's game, and then trashing her office and stealing their paper aka these pieces of paper that have the debtor's information on them, which is how they were able to collect the debt from people. Yeah, the whole kid the Carrie moment at the Buffalo Bills game was like the patriarchy. The guy behavior goes a little off the rails for me for part of it. But there's a carry moment at the Buffalo Bill's game. We can't take that away from this movie. And then there's also the blow up Dow, which like, yeah, was just also which led into another moment of her telling her staff it's okay, everything are fine, things are actually fine, It's no big deal, and then trying to get another date with mister Fallon, Like I was just like, what is going? Like she they just they have they must be just like terminally horny for each other because there's so many times where it's just like anyone else, anyone, anybody, anybody else. But it also seems like one of my favorite, like very movie things. It seems like German Fowlers maybe the only lawyer in the entire city of Buffalo, because he is like working on every case all the time. He's never like, what are the chances are right chances? Because he's the prosecutor in her first trial. He's also there in court towards the end of the movie in her second trial, and then he's also running this working in the capacity of an investigative journalist, like he's doing a little lot. Sometimes he's a cop because yes, I have right minutes. Then he comes in, he's a lawyer. He comes in during the raid at the end where he's like in a bulletproof jacket. I had to course correct my notes at some point because I spent the first half hour of the movie thinking that he was a police detective and not because that's how he's acting. Yeah, that's how he's acting exactly. Yeah. I love his ey secretary. She's great. Oh yes, oh my god, iconically finding it in all day long. I love that for her. She's like, what's happening? What there's a party? Awesome by I was like, Wow, that's me when I have to when I work in an office. So I'm just like, what huh, I'm leaving. And she's complaining about Graham, who is asleep at his desk apparently all the time, and also like because he's drunk on a Tuesday in the middle of the day, because there's time where she's like, you can't drive home right now, you're so drunk. I mean, he's doing a lot of work, so maybe he's got he's gotta wearing a lot of hats, he's, you know, self medicating. I guess yeah, he's. Yeah, he's he's got like five different jobs depending on what the scene requires. Okay, so Wiz is fucking with Peg a lot. Wiz also has taken ownership of PEG's brother JJ's bar, because JJ had put it up for collateral on his mom's refinancing on something something debt. The answer is always debt with this movie. So then Peg retaliates by calling the cops on Whiz, and the cops raid his agency, which gives her the opportunity to steal all the paper back that he stole from her. So now she has all this access to debt or information and she's able to make a bunch of money. But then her mom is like, Peg, you're hurting people with your job, and Peg is like, nah, these people spent money they knew they didn't have. And this is when Graham is like, well, what about my grandpa who was in medical debt and then he lost his house and then he died, And Peg is like, do I decay? What about my dad? Is what I would be? Yeah, the like end of movie there, This is another like thing that I mean a lot of movies are guilty of. And it kind of makes me laugh where it's like the end to act to random information reveal that you're like, like, I mean, with with Jermaine Fowler's character, it makes sense that that would be a but I but it doesn't make sense that he would be so deep into this relationship and suddenly it matters right exactly. It's solid motivation for him. So I don't mind that that's a part of his character at all. But it's like, but why did you wait so long to tell her that you've been dating this woman for months? Like what are you like you know, you know what's going on, Like I know she's not being totally honest, but you know she's a debt collector, and even an ethical debt collector is fucked up, like you know that that's your job. Like uh. And in the same way where it's like I think, I don't know, I guess I don't know what narrative function it really served to. I guess it like helps sort of like heal, like the information about PEG's father. How do we feel about that reveal? Because I think I'm on board with it, but I just like, what what purpose did that serve other than to like bring her her and her mom like a little closer together. I guess I think it was That's what I was saying, Like some of those stories kind of like I feel like towards that they wanted to wrap it up. Well. I kind of felt like they were like, we need to do this, we need to say this, we need to make this connection with them. Also because she was not close with her mom throughout the whole movie, which was another thing that I kind of actually really liked. So I think that they were trying to be like there's this connection and then and dropping off family stuff is a really good way to like speed up a story. Not a really good way, it's a way to speed up a story. And I think, honestly that's what they were trying to do. But other than that, I can't really think of why. Yeah, right, they did it so late. I also like very much saw it coming. It didn't even feel like a reveal because I'm like the dad. Yeah, I can tell based on the stories that these people are sharing that this guy is a piece of shit. Yeah, And it's also just be because of how much Peg loved him and how a verse her dad or her mom was to him, and like when it came to money talk, it wasn't a surprise that he you know, like shrug, who knows now? So PEG's mom and Graham are like ganging up on Peg, being like your job is evil. So then there's like this big argument among them, and then the cops show up all of a sudden because whizz Head tipped them off about PEG's mom running an illegal business or something. So PEG's mom and JJ are arrested, Which that's evil, evil evil to do what WI was did, Yes, for sure, But he's patriarchy. The guy that's the kind of thing he's gonna do. What do you expect? So PEG's mom is arrested. Then we cut to the opening scene with Peg running through Buffalo. She fires the gun that she got from Francis Um and then she attacks whiz and they're fighting, and then the cops show up again and arrest Peg. So she is detained with her mom and this is where they have this like heart to heart. They talk about their dreams and they talk about finances and debt and how PEG's dad was actually an asshole. So then Peg gets out and organizes a meeting with all of the debt collecting agencies, including WHIZZZ. Don't know why he's so like amicable all of a sudden, Yeah, suddenly he's like, I did kind of call the cops on her. So he's like, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry that. Yeah, that climactic scene. I was like, oh, rewrite city going on here? Like, um, It's like I don't know, I just like I don't need to like slam them, but it's like, um, okay, we gotta wrap this up. We gotta wrap this up. What if everyone was in the bar and then they said exactly what they did wrong? And then the movie over and you're like, and then the movie is finished, then that's exactly what And then one more Buffalo bills, right, Because what happens is that Peg pitches all of these debt collecting agencies a scenario where they unite so that they can be this like huge strong force and make a bunch of money. And they're like, yeah, I love making money, and here's all the shady shit I've done to make money. But surprise, Peg was recording the whole thing. It's a setup, and she now has them admitting to doing a bunch of illegal stuff. So the cops and Jermaine Fowler, who is a cop in this scene, come in and arrest all of these Honestly, I was so confused at that point that I didn't even realize that that was like it was weird, like but that he was acting in the capacity of not his job, like just not even remotely his job. He's should be there, that makes sense, Yeah, so bizarre, God bless. So Peg then like sneaks off and goes to Graham's office, where he has all of the evidence on all of these people to convict them, because he's again also an investigative journalist question mark, Um, he's a hustler too, investigator journal Everyone in this movie is hustler. Yep. So Peg torches all of this evidence because she wants to erase all of those people's debts, because she has learned a lesson debt collecting is actually evil. She has not had the opportunity to learn this lesson earlier in the movie. We get to wrap at us up. Yeah, and she's like, oh, debt collecting is evil, and you know, most people are in debt because of medical bills and student loans and other ways that capitalist institutions fuck over so many Americans. So Peg learns this. But because Peg destroyed that evidence, that's illegal. So then she gets thrown back in jail for a while. But she's released. She apologizes to her mom, she celebrates with her friends, and she shifts gears from to quote the movie selling nothing to people with less than nothing, which is what she did as a debt collector. And she moves on to the people who have everything, to the only hustle that's even more of an unregulated clusterfuck than debt collecting, which is hedge funds. Okay, and I love that. That was fun. Yeah, that was fun. It was cathartic. I liked it because they were like, I think again, trying to be like, she hasn't really learned anything, right, right, She's just gonna like use her powers for sort of more good now, yeah, yeah, sort of more good. Yeah, but she's still being very selfish, like you love that for her. And then there's some text on screen about household debt in the US being thirteen trillion dollars, which is over half of what our like national federal debt is. So I can't believe that's a number. Thirteen trillion, thirteen trillion dollars. It rageous, absurd. So that's the movie. Let's take a quick break and we will come back to discuss, and we're back. We're I feel like we have actually had a lot of discussion already. Yeah, I did see. I was thinking that. Every time I interrupted, I was like, I could have saved this, finished the episode. I'm like looking at the clock too, and I was like, Shelley, you're you're a hustler. Cha, thank you? Yeah so much. So what's what's left? I think like we've had this discussion around PEG, but I think that like PEG is a really interesting character. I do like this movie kind of falls apart from me in the third act, but setting up because like you were saying at the beginning of the episode, Shelley, and honestly, you've been like selling me on this movie more the more we talk about it. It's because I'm a I'm scamming, scamming me. It's sixty one and I'm fucked god artist. But I do think that, like, yeah, we have so many male protagonists that are the scammer that we like, you know, don't morally agree with. But you're like, well, I'm like down to watch this guy go for the ride, even though it's like he has significantly less to like push up against. Yeah, and it's cool to see a woman put in that role and be equally fuck you, like I am bad because I think that I'm trying to think of an example of what we've covered on the show. But I feel like sometimes when like a female lead is doing bad stuff, the movie will go way out of its way to give like ethical reasoning for it in a way that you wouldn't for a flawed male protagonist. They'd be like, well she is mommy, or like she is not Like there's like a traditionally feminine reason. She has this huge thing that's going on. This is why she's being bad, This is why she's selfish. Even kill Bill like that is like her whole She's only murdering people because she is mommy. Like that kind of hustlers comes to mind as well, where they're like, yeah, we're like baking drugs and feeding them to people, but it's because I have a daughter. Yeah, and even for me like promising young woman and stuff like, yeah, I love a revenge, Like this is not very revenge, but I mean she is kind of mad at the system people PEG anyway, the system. Yeah, but like I just don't I want I've always wanted films with like, if it's a revenge film with a woman, I wanted it to just be she's just mad for no reason, Like why can't she just want to be bad or want to be selfish or want to make these like money moves and all this kind of stuff because she just wants to She's not trying to like pay to keep her kids in the house or try to get someone out of the hospital. And that's what I kind of love about PEG. It's like, and she's been this way since she was a kid, right, Like, she's just wanted money and it's just something she learned from her dad, which I also thought was cool. Was something a movie where a girl inherits a trait or the characteristic or something from her father versus like her mom, which I think is was super super dope like, but I agree with you that it and towards the end, and there are a lot of holes, you know what I'm saying. But I think because I was so amped about the plot and the money and just how peg is, I kind of like looked past them until right now we're like dissecting. Honestly, most of my issues with the movie are not necessarily like Bechtel cast lens related stuff. It's more just like this script could have used a second draft, Like the characters are a little like cartoonish and inconsistent. The plot could be a bit more streamlined, maybe, but as far as like examining a complicated and like morally corrupt character who is a woman, which again is kind of a rare thing for a movie to examine, because those characters that writers or that like Hollywood makes space for are almost always men, right, So yeah, I think there's just like interesting too. That's a little why I guess it's been like what we were just talking about, where it's like the most of the movie doesn't like we know why Peg is doing what she's doing, but it is like a self motivated thing. She's not like I'm trying to save the family. She's like family clearly doesn't want to save themselves. I'm going to save myself. Like it's not like she doesn't love her family, but she's not like, I guess, you know, using all of her time to be like, come on, mom, it's not her like major concern. Yeah, it's not even her brother's bar. She's like, you're being stupid about how you're running this bar. I'm not gonna help you figure it out. But but like you're wrong. Yeah, But like I guess that that's why I felt a little like Studio notesy to me that she's like so thoroughly absolved of everything at the end and then she like I don't know, the whole like colluding with the DA's office at the end of like that whole thing. It's like this is a character who is self motivated and bad like see that does like see that through I don't know I guess that they sort of do, because she ends up just sort of like heel turning to do the exact same sort of diabolical shit in a way that's less harmful to vulnerable people. Yeah. Yeah, I just didn't like it too. Only the major thing that I didn't like I kind of liked that she had a shitty relationship with her mom, And I think that like hard to heart moment in the cell, it kind of made me a little upset because it helped her make a turn or basically make a little turn or whatever, being like, oh, you're just like your dad and Dada dad lah. It's like I wanted her to be like, yeah, I am, and I'm going to keep being like just like it's just who I am, Like I'm gonna be. So I kind of don't like. I didn't like that bit of it, But I don't know. I think it was because the same thing is like hard to heart, learn something from your mom, This is learn why you're doing wrong. I kind of did want Pig to keep doing I wanted her to like come back out of prison and be like, Okay, so now I've learned exactly what not to do and maybe take it somewhere else to another city, you know what I mean, Like just I mean, but I yeah, I did it. I would have ended like she's she's like a little she's a little villainous and it's like but and we know why. But it's like, yeah, yeah, I don't know. I mean, it's like, I guess, do I want Girl Boss Jordan Belford? No, But while we're here, I don't know, Like I guess I feel kind of like conflicted about it. I do like the wow, we're here part of that, though, it's like, well, if we're gonna do this, then right, like let's just do because I don't It's not like I feel like a lot of the times they do this with like black films too, They'll take a white film and like make it black. I'm not trying to tell them to like take this like male censored situation and make it put a girl there. But at the same time, if we're already here and if that feels like it was kind of the plan anyway, you got to see it all the way through, like yeah, yeah, I don't know. I guess. It's like I'm sort of all over the place in that regard because it's also like, well, our hero is actively oppressing people and ruining their lives, and that's I mean, I guess that you what this movie does really well is contextualized that like a certain amount of this is just like who Peg is as a person. She's super fucking motivated. And but then where the society ship comes in is like she has this really intense motivated personality in the context of growing up poor and in the context of being told that she's not going to amount to shit and like can't do anything. And so it's like a little mix of like nature and nurture that like brings her to where she is, And I feel like that's that's much more effective than like in a void. Oh, she's just like this. And I also think it like connects to her relationship with her mom, which I think is really interesting and feels very like boomer like late gen X parent and millennial gen Z kid, where her mom does still have a like even though she is a single mom who is like busting her ass so that her kids can get what they want. They don't have a great relationship, like you're saying, Shelley. I liked that they didn't have a great relationship. It like made sense because Peg represents all these things and these qualities that her mom is not comfortable with. Her mom still has like a fairly traditional set of values in terms of gender. That comes up several times, and then it's like this weird, well, yeah, I want to know what you think about this, because there's like that weird chafing argument with them that happens a few times in the movie where her mom is being pretty sexist towards her, and it is like, well, why can't you just like settle down and like, you know, cut the ship and settle down. You've met a nice guy, which is super reductive and horrible and shitty, and Peg never you know, entertains it. But then it also is like it almost I don't know. There were moments where Peg was like, no, I don't want to do that, and thus I must do crime, and you're like, surely there's some middle ground here. It's like, or you could just not pay for the dinner, because that's where I came. It came for me, is when she was talking about I'm gonna take you out, and then the mom kept saying who's paying, who's paying? Why would you pay? That kind of situation. And I think if instead of her being like oh, she could have just been like, I'm going to pay for this dinner, not all right, Well, I'm just gonna go open up my own scamming business situation and be a girl boss so to show you that I can pay for dinners with whatever guy I want to. It just was a very intense going against what mom wants situation. Yeah. Yeah. Also that character trait of PEG's mom that she's like holding onto these patriarchal standard of a man should pay for dinner because a man should be the provider. And then like I feel like, a couple minutes later, her mom's like, Peg, would it kill you to wear a skirt every now? And then that happened so late in the movie, and it feels like it came out of nowhere. I'm like, yeah, what has her mom been this like old fashioned, like whole weird like sexist ideals, ladies. I feel like her equivalent of my grandfather was in debt And you're like, why am I learning this now? Yeah? Why am I learning this about you now? Because if if let's say that was established earlier about PEG's mom, that like if she was sort of like judgmental of Peg for wanting to be such a go getter and wanting to make so much money because she's like no, no, no, like girls and women shouldn't have to you know, you should just go and try and find a man and and like let him be the provider. Why are you so gung ho about making your own money? And maybe that was like fueled PEG's desire even more to be like I have to prove these sexist ideals wrong. Like yeah, I don't know. It might have been like kind of corny, but at least it would have been consistent, yeah, because it also would have helped, Like again, mayked more consistent too. If why her mom like didn't really know about I guess the debt situations like in the house, Like it would have made sense if that was a part of the character. If her mom was this person and a lot of women back in her day when she was being they didn't know how the finances of the house was being ran. You feel me so because they were very much so like I am just taking care of house and home, like I make sure dinner is clipped and the house is clean and all that kind of stuff. So if they had introduced her as like more of a gen X version of that woman. It would have also made more sense throughout the film too, because I remember at one point she asked her as soon as she got home, the one of the ladies talked about her roots too, and she was like, yes, we're gonna get there taken care of and it's just like but then she was like, get a job, or I haven't seen you in a few weeks. It's just she was a little bit choppy. Yeah, that and like her being like women shouldn't like men are the providers. Meanwhile, PEG's mom owns and operates a business, like a whole as business. You would think that, like I mean, and again this is but like if I have like a movie logic helmet on, you would think that if she felt that way, she would be remarried, like she would have actively sought that up for herself. But it doesn't seem like that's been a priority for her, which is fine. I prefer that like for this story, but it's weird. I feel like there is maybe room for something a little more nuanced, because yeah, it didn't seem consistent with the character, and it's like, there are you know, intergenerational, like varying definitions of like her mom is making, you know, what would be considered like an honest living like she is, Like I guess it's her businesses and technically legal, but like she's she's not doing work that is hurting people and her job is not ethically compromised. And I feel like there's that's kind of an interesting conversation to have between a parent and a child and between a mother and a daughter of like, I don't approve of what you're doing because it's hurting people, and where is your line of compromise, like morally, Like that's an interesting conversation, but it felt more like they it became like a more basic something that's been like hashed out a million times of like put on a dress and get married, which, like you're both saying, like, doesn't really have anything to do with that character. Yeah, yeah, it just shows up similarly Whiz being so cartoonish in his sexism. And I'm not saying there aren't men like this, but like, for sure, I feel like it's chicks. Yeah. Literally. Here are some quotes from the movie Wait, please perform at Gai Courtney style. Please, he says, go be my bar bitch and get me some bears. And you're like, oh, Gi, I was hoping that you were going to start off with that one. I really really really was. And then when Peg like double crosses him, he's like, this is why I don't hire bitches, And I think what he means is this is why I don't hire women, and he just thinks all women are bitches or that's exactly Oh he is a thousand percent saying because woman, And then like he dumps blood on her head and like has a little handwritten note that says something like the only thing that bitches collect is menstrual blood. It was like cartoon ish, like you're just like a cartoon character and it is called out to She didn't even know that she was going to try to Like I guess the other knew she was gonna try to get a job there. But he was like he told me, He told me I was there was gonna be like a guest, but he didn't say she was a piece, And I was like, oh, yeah, he also, yeah, he aggressively sexually harasses her in the workplace multiple times. He like I was like, hey, is this buffalo's sexual harassment or is this character just using wildly outdated terms because could you just call me a piece? Like? But here is it? No? Um? There's another scene where it's when like he's really short changing her as far as how much commission she's supposed to earn, and he like puts his arm around her and is like making her uncomfortable, invading her space, and then she's like, I mean she pushes back, which I'm happy to see where she's just like, get your fucking hand off me. But I think this is all just very indicative of while the movie was directed by a woman, it was written by a man, and I feel like, yeah, it was like, what's his name, Brian Sokka, He's like, what does sexism look like? Oh my god, it's when men call women pitches one hundred times dumps and throw blood are blood on you at a Buffalo Bill's game, and often uses blow up. Thus from nineteen ninety two was very ol Bundy like very like what oh yes, like what that was? That was why he he was wild for that one. And it also just seemed like Jai Courtney is like as a man, was like doing kind of some old man stuff when he was not an old man he was, um, yeah, I thought, like, yeah, I think that, like honestly, that as funny as I thought that character was, I feel like it sort of again, like in the same way, it's like it felt a little too broad and like there could have been a more productive conversation of like I think a lot of like discrimination in general is done at like the micro aggression level and this but this movie just like is not Ya does not have the capacity for micro anything. Like everything is like maximal all the time, so it's just maybe not the movie for it. But yeah, now everything is very, very very to the max. And I think, like when I was watching this movie too, why I like really connected with it or because, like I said, it was during like the first Lockdown and I think this was like I watched it in May or something like that. I think it was because there was so much going on with money in the world at that situation, Like a lot of people were like concerned. I mean, it's always stuff going on in the world with money, but a lot of people were like super concerned about it. We didn't know what was going on. People were losing jobs, like all this kind of shit was happening, and I think That's another reason why I was like, oh, yeah, I'm gonna watch this movie about debt and scare myself a little bit more like why not? Of course I am, but yeah, and I'm just wondering why it's so hidden. I guess, Like, but I often find films like that where I like become obsessed with this movie that was probably not really meant to be seen. Yeah, did it have a theatrical release? Because I watched it on Hulu and I was wondering, like, oh, it's just like a Hulu production, and that's the thing. I also originally watched it on Hulu and this was like three years ago, so I don't think it was even meant to have a theatrical release. Yeah, I don't remember it getting a release if it did have one. I mean, this was something we could probably easily look up. No, I mean it made like less than thirty thousand dollars at the box office, which again, and this was like pre pandemic too, so it's like not even actually really during it. So I do think it's it's frustrating because I mean I don't know like this director Tanya Wexler, who also I was like, oh, Massachusetts heads, was one of the first queer was one of the first gay marriage became legal in Massachusetts. In two thousand and four, Tanya Wexler and her wife were one of the first couples to ever be legally married in the country, which I thought was really cool. It's just a fun fact. But like, she was already a well respected director. This is her fourth film, and I think it's like really frustrating that it didn't get more attention because it's like, is it perfect? No? Is it talking about stuff that no one ever talks about in movies in a smart and funny way that centers a woman who's poor, and like like that these are all things that like, very very regularly happen. And I wish, yeah, I wish I understood why it didn't get more attention, because honestly, before you pitched it, Shelley, I hadn't heard of this movie. And like, and I think too, like with the cast being so stacked too, Like it's a pretty good it's a pretty dope cast, like Trudy Greer first of all, but then you got all these familiar faces, like two smaller roles, but everyone is just like in it. But yeah, I just thought it was like a really dope movie because I movies I talk about money in any capacity is really pretty much interesting to me. But I don't know a lot of movies about like debt and student loans and women that are all kind of repped and poor, like being poor, a poor woman. It was just like that was really like drew me to it. But and then I just like started really liking Zoe Dutch as an actress, Like, but yeah, I saw her in Not Okay, which I know a lot of people did not like. But also she's she's the daughter of Leah Thompson, like the Caroline in the City, like what. It's just like she is like that is like some that nepotism did please me a little bit. That was one that actually that pleased me quite a bit, if I'm being honest. I was like, okay, wait, Leah Thompson of Back to the Future, she plays the random Back to the Future whoa Okay, And she's in that duck movie Howard. I think Howard the Duck, isn't she and Howard the Duck? We should cover Howard the Duck? That one that is a trip Duck December on the Matreon and due Howard the Duck and the Mighty Ducks. Oh, it'll be great. Ducks Ducks, Ducks, Ducks December. Absolutely. Wow, we're doing it. We will not stop until every bad theme has been done. Um. Oh you could also do duck Butter. Duck Butter? Did you already talk about that movie? What's that? Oh? My god, I know about all these movies that I've never heard of. That movie has uh maybe fuka, Oh, Chicat is in it and it's gay and it's bad to me. But it's called duck Butter. Yeah. That gay movies be bad. That's my campaign all the time. Gay movies be bad. But then you have dikes and duck December. Yeah, there is Wow. Okay, I love it. I love it. I love a theme. Okay, keep sending pick because we we've been I it's shocking that we haven't. I mean I think that our advantages they were never good. They were always bad, and so we never had to be like we had to think of another good theme. It's never It's never happened. I love it. Um to go back to the like discussion of like finances and money, that that's like the crux of this movie or some some might even call it the thrust of the movie. I'm bringing it back. Whoa keep saying thrust? I wish everyone could see that the eyebrows, not Jamie that went up with that, Like, Okay, I know you can't funk around with Caitlin when they're saying thrust. It's just like, okay, you win. Yeah, don't try and stop me. I'm not I'm not stop. So here's what has happened. I wrote down something in my notes, and I don't remember if it's because it gets examined thoughtfully in the movie or if it's just a really meaningful, amazing thing that I had to say. Excited, I'm still excited. So part of the story is that she never even ends up having student debt because she never ends up going to the Ivy League school that she got into, or any school, because, as she points out, that to go to the school that she got into would have been seventy thousand dollars in interest alone, So it's like hundreds of thousands of dollars in tuition and housing and expenses that she would have incurred. So I'm glad, they say, right. And one of the reasons she's so kind of hell bent on going to college and specifically an Ivy League school. Is she as that higher education is the key to financial freedom. Now I think that, I think that's tongue in cheese, and I don't think this really gets examined or challenged in the movie. But while like a degree does open a lot more doors for people, higher education is also kind of a racket and it ends up suffocating a lot of people in student debt that they have a really hard time escaping, and it doesn't necessarily like guarantee you a magnificent job. So I don't and again, I don't think the movie is actually commenting on that. I think this is my tirade against all my higher education. My view is like higher education should baseline be more accessible, because it feels like between our parents' generation and hours, it seems like you now need an expensive college degree to have access to the same level of jobs that our parents had with a high school degree, and so now there's this huge financial entry point to work at an entry level job, Like it's hard to get my I mean, my my brother is like struggling with this right now. He's trying to get a basic office job, and it's like he has a college education, but it's like it's still not enough and that wasn't as much the case with previous generations. And I don't know, it's like I don't I would never want to discourage anyone from getting higher education. I think it's more of a matter of just like I think that like I was, I'm very glad I went to college. I feel very lucky that I got to go. If I knew what I knew now, I would have chosen. I probably would have gone to a state school. I wouldn't have been as like enchanted by the like high price tag, like fancy looking like oh, you have to go here. But even that introduces this sort of thing because you're like almost buying into an alumni network and you're buying in like there are things that come I just like I don't know. I I because I feel like there's there's a discussion about this in a recent like I think it was one of the trillion bullshit New York Times opinion articles that have come out recently. I think I might be thinking of another publication. But they were like, you know, asking like well, where have all the English major's gone, and like English majors a culturally catch so much shit of like this is a useless degree, this sucks, blah blah blah. And I know, like I've probably made similar comments like I have a useless degree, like and I don't know, Like, but in retrospect, it's like you'd need people to be incentivized to want to study literature and study history, especially in like study history. Well, but you can't be in you know, six figure debt to study history. There's no way out of right, Like you're fucked. And then so what do you do just like lose certain areas of study because it's been made so impossible to even access it. I just I don't know. I think the movie kind of like explores it a little bit by saying by the opposite, right, Like I think that's what Peg thinks. She's like, oh my god, yeah, like this is what I need in order to be somebody, in order to get a lot of money in order to do all this shit. Then ultimately she doesn't go and she learns that that's actually not what you There's so many ways for you to be successful. I guess it just depends on what kind of financially successful you want. Because she's scamming, So it's a little bit different, right, But I think but successfully. But I think that like I was very bought or in like sold a dream when it came to like college. But I think that like goes back to what it says about like our parents. My parents were like I was the first person in my I'm the first person in my family to like go to college, right, like and to like graduate and all that kind of stuff. Like my brother went, but he went for like two semesters and was like, absolutely the fuck not, I don't do this, you know, good for him? Good for him? Right, And I think that I wish, like when we're saying looking back, Jimmy, I think like I wish that I had been told more like the options, like you said, a state school or going to community college first for some quarters and then transferring over or knowing that like I didn't have to do it in four years and wrack up all that debt, all that kind of stuff. But I do think that that is a really big thing. And people never I would just go for fashion, Like I majored in fashion and minored in journalism, right, But when I look back at it now, like no one's ever asked to see our degree. No one's ever asked for it. I've never got I've never had to prove it. And then like I never needed it for the career that I've made for myself now, Like I really honestly didn't need to go, but I was told that that is what I needed in order to be successful, was a college degree. And then I ended up putting myself in this debt. I ended up putting my mom and dad in debt. And that's what I was going to talk about too, with like debt in general, that's why I know so much about it because, like I said, I learned about debt before I learned about earnings because my family was always paying something off for paying a bill or catching up on a bill or something like that. So I was always more focused on that. But I personally only have thirty thousand in student loans, and I only have that because my mom and dad took on the rest, you know what I mean. And I think it wasn't a plan. I think it's just because like they were doing that same thing of being like this is your key, so we are going to take this on because this is your key to doing all the big stuff and ultimately like rescuing or being there for us, you know what I mean too. So I think that's another thing that's kind of explored in the movie too, Like Peg does want to make money for herself, but she actually does say it when she talks about going to school. She's like it's for her and it's for her family, like she herself as a she may be, she still knows that her success equals like theirs, which is kind of like a lot of pressure. But like, right, it's just a lot of pressure, so I guess, But yeah, I wish I had just been told more about loans and stuff, like it's so and I feel like it's like intentional that it's not so intentional. Yeah, you're seventeen. You are seventeen years old. And then they're like, hey, you want to go to college show you've watched those bit of do you want to take out nine four years? Don't worry, it's four years. We're gonna give you a really good degree. You're gonna make so much money, and then we'll like just get it back from me. If we're a little bit, you're seventeen, you don't know anything, and I think we know more so if our generation um like has kids and stuff like that, I think I hope that it's a little bit better for them, just because we can now teach them more about these predatory practices and what to be looking out for and all that kind of stuff. And then the other thing is like pushing for like more systemic like that's I mean, like literally what's happening in the Supreme Court right now, and like how it sucks because it's like as individuals your powers, you have more power, and like telling your own child like, hey, I fucking fell for this. We are not going to fall for this. Yeah, we will not be fooled again. But then on the other end is just like continuing to push for this to be less of a problem, which is like theoretically what should be happening with student debt relief even though it's nowhere close to the amount of like ten thousand is like a drop in the bucket, like everybody, Yeah, it wouldn't even make a dent for most people, right Yeah. And to be clear, I love education. I love learning. You have so much of it. I have so much of it in learning rocks. I'm not pro ignorance, correct, What I am against is what higher education has become as far as it's a scale like odd business, and like you were saying, Jamie about just sort of the shift in the in the job market of like our generation now needs an advanced degree for entry level positions versus what our parents needed. So people noticed like, oh, there's now like this supply and demand thing that we can completely exploit. And I mean, tuition rates increase like dramatically every single year. Sometimes if I really want to feel awful, I will google like annual tuition rate for Boston University for just a lot of private schools cost fifty eight thousand dollars a year just in tuition sixty thousand, sixty four thousand, Like it's obscene. There's so much complicity, And I like, Glin, I don't disagree with your point that like, not everyone, I mean, and Shellie you were seeing not everyone, Like if you have first of all, if you don't know what you want to do when you're seventeen years old, you are normal and you don't like yeah that is so it blows my mind. It blows my mind. It's like they're you're seventeen and they're like, okay, so what are you gonna do for the rest of your life? Are you ready pick It's just like no, I don't know. No, so like you should be allowed the grace to and then like but then it creates this wild issue where it's like, well, what are you going to do in the meantime if you can't get a job without a college degree, and like it just is a fucking whatever that fancy word for sank eating its tail is, it's that But I don't know. Yeah, But then there are like I do agree with Caitlin where there's like some things where it's like, I don't know, I went to Emerson and I should be ashamed of that, and I am, but they horrible school after disgusting what I mean, I really like whenever I'm grateful I got to go to college, I would not do that again. But it's partially because it's like that school now offers like a comedy standard and they will let wait, they will let a kid go into six figure debt when the answer is go to an open mic, open mic and humiliate yourself and it's free like that kind of shit. You're like, that's just like a predatory and a them problem with sixty thousand dollars a year and they're like, will you speak to them? I'm like, no, no, because you all you're gonna do is get on stage and be like don't do this. But I think that's the thing too, and they'll just like cut your mic and you're just written to like no, no, no, that wasn't very funny, was it. Well, I guess I didn't learn a lot. I think that's the thing too that a lot of colleges are doing, right, Like I never kind off topic, we're not really on topic about the movie, but like that's another thing that colleges are doing. I think they're figuring out that we or people have figured out that they don't need to go to college to do certain things. Like you said, a sixty thousand dollars a year to pay to learn how to be a stand up comedian. I cannot believe that that's an actu degree. Like that blows my mind. I'm sorry, but like you know, you're going to be learning from exclusively failed stand up comedians. That's not gonna be But I think that's what they're doing. It's just like they're very aware that people are going other routes to do the things that they want to do. So I think a smarter kid, especially of this generation with parents who our millennials, will be like, Okay, you want to be a standup comedian. Sure, that's fine, but I would rather pay for you to go take a two thousand dollars year class at second City versus sixty thousand dollars a year at a major college for four years to do the same thing. So I think colleges are also they're just trying to use their names that they have at these degrees and these programs to be like, you still have to go to college to do whatever it is you want to do. You still have to go to college, because that's insane to me. I did not know that you could actually get a degree in stand up comedy from Emerson College. That's I will never shut up about it. To be clear, I do not have this degree, and I'm not used to participate. But like, I don't know, Like I think ultimately, like I think something that that Peg is not affected by, and I think that her character is supposed to be gen Z. Also like this movie could take place in any year. I don't really know. You don't see people using phone like cell phones anyways, But it seems like she's like sort of a gen Z coded character, and I did appreciate that, Like I don't know, like when I couldn't go to the ridiculously overpriced college that I would have been in debt forever if I had gone on. The reason I went to Emerson was because they offered me a big scholarship and so that was really lucky. But like, anyways, like the I took it so personally. It felt like a personal failure that I couldn't go where I thought I was supposed to, and like so it felt personal, and then it I also just was not educated it on my options whatsoever, and like there was so much stigma and like shame if you couldn't do the thing you thought you're supposed to do. And it seems like Peg does not suffer under that as the movie goes on, like she's just like, well, I'm not like it. It is the system, it's not me, So what can I do? Yeah? Yeah, um, I wanted to just really quickly. I don't really have much to say about this other than I just think that the romance between Peg and Graham feels pretty wedged in. Yeah, I don't mind that like Graham is there as a character kind of you know, like representing whatever some kind of like institutional like also like the failure of like the legal system in the US. I feel like could have maybe been better represented in his character. But I'm just like why it doesn't, Like the story only suffers it was weird, that character was so weird, and the story suffers from like trying to like put them together, and I'm just like, none of this makes any sense. Like you're constantly talking about how this is a conflict of interest and it is, so why are you together? I think they thought that if they were going to make her such this kind of character, that they had to give her a romance, right, but which I do like hate, but I would have really loved if instead of making him because I agree it's one of the things about the film that I'm kind of like, this is weird. Instead of making him like a romantic interest, I think it would have been coage just to keep him as this other lawyer that it just like happens to always be around because he's involved in this debt collecting like situation, you know what I mean. Yeah, it didn't have to be romantic it could have been a little bit more comedic, and but yeah, it was kind of weird, especially because they kept acknowledging that they not and would not work out like they consistently did it, So it was really weird to me. But yeah, it was kind of like thrown in there, and she didn't need a romance. I don't think Peg needed one in general, or was seeking one or wanted one. But I think when it came to the script, they were like, well, we can't make her a girl boss and single, right right pick a lane Peg, which is like wow, because that sounds like something PEG's mom would say randomly, like absolutely, I agree, Like I don't think that the love story was necessary, but also it was like it was once again, I was just like a little confusing because it seemed like at first she was like using him, which she was for most of the relationship, but then at the end it's kind of like flipped and they're like, well, but she does love him. I'm like, I was not really picking up on that. It seemed like she would go to be like, hey, do you want to have sex when she needed to steal something from the DA's off, Like that was almost exclusively what it was, and which that feels more consistent with her character, but again it's like a third act finger at the end, she's like, I think he's my boyfriend, and you're like, I don't know if you like him, Like what do you have anything in common? Like, But that would have been great too, to keep her as this selfish person who is just very much being like I need some files. I'm just gonna do this, But I don't think they were gonna They weren't too keen on keep making peg that way in like every aspect of her life, which yeah, they wanted to like redeem her just enough by the end of the movie, yeah, which and I do I do like the kind of like half redemption of like she doesn't be like I'm gonna go I'm gonna like I'm a second grade teacher. Like she's like, I think that like where she ends career wise at the end really worked. But it was like the little things like that of like and now she's in a relationship and now she has a better relationship with her family, and it's like, yeah, she can still be an asshole, like you know for sure, but I don't know. Um, the one last thing I wanted to say about this movie is so it's a comedy from twenty nineteen, and I think you can tell that it's a far like it's a more modern comedy compared to comedies of you know, the nineties and early in mid two thousands, because, as we've discussed so many times, so much of the comedy in comedy movies of those eras rely on a lot of punching down humor, yeah, whereas this one generally avoids that. The only thing that really stuck out for me was a remark that was kind of judgmental towards sex workers, where a character says something like, oh, would you trust a lawyer that pays for sex? And she's like no. There's a little bit of a little bit of body stuff as well. There are a few offhand comments about weirdly Sal's body, which is the screenwriter, so I'm guessing that he was okay with it, given that he wrote the joke, but whatever, there's like a comment about his body. And then there is also, like I think, a pretty hardshum and overly simplistic reason about why her father died. They were like, well, he ate unhealthy and so he died and they're like, well, that feels a little you know, overly simplified. But but yeah, I mean I mean in terms of like I mean even like a movie that would have come out ten years earlier, in oh nine, I mean, it's uh pretty close to Night and Day. Although you know, there there are it's still centered around a white family and most people of color are sort of relegated to smaller roles. Um. But again, it's it's better than where are we Where where we were? Which is another thing where it's like I wish people knew about it and saw it when it came out, because it would be great to have more rompy, funny broad comedies that have like some kind of conscience come out, Like it would be cool to see those movies do better. So there's more of them, for sure, you know, room for improvement, but also miles ahead of what we were exposed to in earlier years. Yeah, does this movie pass the Bechtel test? It super does. Yeah. Yeah, there's there's no way around it, folks. It passes about it passes handily. Combinations of characters we don't even need to break down how many, because it's usually like if there are two women in the script. They I believe, all are all named, and they all talk to each other. So thrill usually about money, usually about money and crimes and scams and ethics. And you know, there are conversations that reference the boyfriend, the brother, and the father, but they are, I would say, in the minority of conversations. And now to the only metric that truly matters, the nipples scale, Caitlin, what are you giving Buffalo on the nipple scale? Um, well, on our scale zero to five nipples, where we rate the movie based on looking at it through an intersectional feminist lens, I would give this I guess like a three and a half because you know, like we discussed, it's it's a movie that allows a like ethically complicated woman to exist and explore her, like all the moral ambiguities that she's dealing with in her work and her life, which most stories don't make any room for, in a way that like I didn't mention this earlier, but it's like, I feel like this could be sort of seen as like a girl Boss narrative, but I feel like it's only truly a girl Boss narrative if the movie is endorsing the crimes which I don't think this movie is this like no, so I feel like it's, um, it's all it. Yeah, I just wish it was like I mean, I wish more people knew about it and hopefully this a little I mean, this episode is gonna just freaking what a pub felicity moment for this movie now that no, I'm kidding, but um, I should send us an edible arrangement for this. I swear to god, I think you, Zoe, But I think because there are like issues with just like it's kind of a sloppy script and the characters are extremely cartoonation inconsistent, and there's just some like kind of storytelling things. I feel like it won't like stand the test of time the way that like people still revisit movies like Wolf of Wall Street and Short and these like male centered premises. Unfortunately those movies do fucking sad. Yeah, I know, and this one doesn't quite rule quite so hard just from like a quality standpoint. So I feel like it'll be kind of like yeah, yes, yes, so, but um yeah, I'll give it three and a half. Um, I'll give one two. Francis, her pal that she met in the pen in the clink Wow, I'll give one to so Yeah, Oh my gosh, I'm so cool. I'll give one to Backer, the other woman she befriends from prison. Um, I'll give one to Judy Greer, and I'll give my half nipple to the rotting infested buffalo. Yeah, that was a metaphor for something. I was like, Oh, okay, fine, we liked them. I'll go three and a half as well. Um. I think that this is a movie that's heart in the right place. I've never seen a movie like it. I agree that the execution is a little all over the place, is a little sloppy, but I think I mean, I really like the vibe this movie has, which is like talking about something that is serious in a lighthearted, rompy way. I feel like that is like super super super the best way to or like a really effective way to start conversations like this of like not feeling like you're going to a lecture or like you're going to school, or even like you're in a fucking cry, but it's like you learn about something that affects most people in a way that is goofy and fun and accessible. I think it's cool. I yeah, like we're just talking about I think that like Peg, you know, I'm not always rooting for her, but I feel like her predicament is contextualized and that her you know, crimes aren't endorsed, but we also know why she's doing it. But it also isn't like an overly like I am mommy thus I crime kind of thing. I just thought it was cool. I thought the Triman Fowler character was incomprehensible, but that's not his fault. He he did his job, but the character was so confusing. That Judy grig character was at times confusing, like like in terms of who she was and what she was about. But I liked the relationship between I think like this movie, it was at its best for me when it was like looking at money and um generational stuff and class like that's where it really really succeeded. M and I would love to see more movies like this and very glad we got to cover it. So I'm gonna give it three and a half nipples. Uh and I'm gonna yeah, I'm gonna give one to the rotting buffalo head. I'm gonna give one to Jermaine Fowler's dirty underwear. I'm gonna give oh, yes, one to the secretary who didn't care about anything, and then I'll give my last half to Judy the waitress and oh so iconic Danny's it's an American institution, Shelley, what do you think? Okay, I'm gonna go with three. I do want to say I gave it four and a half on a letterbox, but that's just because I was just like in such a good mood after watching it. Their first people are gonna come for you. This is a life change, this is life changing. I was like four and a half, but I would do three. One it's just for Judy Greer in general, like Judy Greer being a part of this movie in general. The second one is because I really like seeing a not so kind, super moral girl when it comes to movies about money and debt, in collecting money and all that kind of stuff. And the third one is for I'm going to say the wardrobe. I know that, so Stu, but I know it looks in the credible fits are good, So I'm going to say like three total. But I thought it was like super great and I really do enjoy that it was. I mean, we keep saying it, but Women's History Month, I really do like them. A movie about a girl who's kind of an asshole when it comes to money, and she's not. She just wants it. She wants it to want it. She doesn't want it to like sol of World Hunger or to like rebuild the community center or anything like that. She just wants it because she wants money. And I really like that. And I like what it taught about, like debt and collecting and money in general. So three yeah. I love that it had like such a clear like mission too, and like that there its main character could still be a huge asshole, and I feel like it pulled it off the mission. Like I learned shit watching this serie. She was a complete jerk, but I did learn stuff. I got verified on some information that I already knew that was very happy about, which made me want to tell people about it even more. And I also think that Zoe's just a really good actress. I think she's just like good at what she does. I think she's pretty talented too, But I dug it, I really like it. I can't believe I learned so much about Buffalo's and Wings. What the fuck? It was so fun to watch your people in real time by that, You're like, it literally was. I haven't had that feel like it's so because I was not attached to that. It was the greatest. Shelly, thank you so much for joining us, Thank you for bringing us this movie. Um, if you're if you're looking to watch it, it's on It's on Hulu. It's easy, it's accessible Ulu. Yes, and Shelley, where can we follow your work and follow you online? Plug away? I gotta hate this part. I'm so hate part. I'm going to be great at this part. Um. But I'm on Twitter. Hi Shelley on Twitter, and then I'm on Instagram. Ao Shelley, A y O s h e O I, and then Hi, Hi s h e I on Twitter. Usually i just share all my work there on Twitter, and I'm always like having some discourse that I'm not really invited into. But or I try to start it and then I it happens and then I just leave and then you Yeah, I love to start a conversation on the mute. It's one of my favorite things to do to start it and then be like, oh, I don't want to be here anymore. This was just a passing thought about this movie. I've actually fucked this by everybody, and you're like, actually, see you the fuck later. I don't want to talk about this anymore. I've been a huge must. Most recently, I'm I'm on a Eurovision. I love Eurovision, and so I'm like trying. I'm mostly talking about Eurovision on Twitter right now because I've personally ranked all thirty seven songs. Oh you're that kind of on Twitter right now? I am, and I personally have ranked all thirty seven songs and um, but yeah, it's great. But that's mainly where I'm at. I'm never leaving Twitter, I even want it explodes. I will probably still be there in the ruins talking about some movie that no one's ever seen, like Buffalo. So me, I was like, I truly think of I'm like, we're like the Bad going to with the Titanic. You're like, look we are, We're two brain damaged to not be there, So it is that it is. We're guys, stay here. And I also love that you worked in a Titanic reference like oh, right under the wire. Right had to make it happen. Thank you for having me. I love the Big Back, and I'll be back to talk about job Breaker please. Ye. So excited. We're so overdue for a job breaker episode, so we'll have you then, yay. And you can follow us on social media Instagram, Twitter, at Bechtelcast. You can go to our Matreon at patreon dot com slash Bectelcast, where you'll get two bonus episodes every month. This month, we are wrapping up movies directed by women, so we covered big and we've got the Virgin suicidide as well, so you've got you've got change on the Matreon this month. Oh and uh, you can check out our merch store at tpublic dot com slash the Bechdel Cast. And with that, uh, don't pay your debt to do crime and don't pay your debt, never pay your bills. Bye bye