Can I tell you about an ad that I heard on this very podcast.

Sure you get ads, I do get ads.

I do, I do get ads.

Okay, it's a dog food ad and it's a dialogue between two people, okay, and one person says, is your dog's food human grade or feed grade?

And they go on they say feed grade is meant for cattle and livestock that can only live a few years.

And the other person says, this one's human grade.

Wow, Can I have some?

Are they gonna eat it?

That's that's that is that's the implication, Like the dog food's so good.

The owner is like, you know what, good?

Yum?

For real?

For real though, for real?

Though this this cow liver.

My doctor has told me I don't eat enough protein.

Maybe that's how I do it?

Just alpo.

Maybe farmer's friend is now my friend too.

Do you think the dog food that Crystal Connors Ain't and Showgirls was human grade?

No, that bitch was eating puppy chow, the actual kibble, breaking your teeth if you had to, would you eat dog food or cat food if you had to pick?

Oh, it's wet we're talking the West.

Yes, the wet food in my experience.

The dog wet food smells better yes than the cow.

I was gonna say if we had the same like yes, because cat food smells horrible, like really horrible, and dog foods sometimes every once in a while it kind of looks like steak.

Throw it in a frying pan.

Every time, when I feed Oliver in the morning, I have I have a little spoon and I because he doesn't get a whole can, so I have to scoop some out.

And I swear this has never happened.

But I'm so used to cooking, and usually when I cook, you like taste, and I'm like, one of these days you're going to use it.

I'm going to just absent mindedly put this in my mouth and then I'm going to scream at the top of my lugs.

Hey, Paul America, And this is that aged well yesterday's pop Culture.

Today dance movie August.

I want to dance with somebody, with somebody I know they couldn't see the jazz hands.

You think the listeners felt them a thousand percent?

They felt the jazz hands.

Right, I'll intro that with like, full chested jazz hands, full.

Chested yes, what is the over under on the number of times this month that I'm going to sing.

God, I'm a dancer so many times A dancer dance.

Too many times?

Yeah, conservatively seventy six.

Don't ruin my favorite month, Dance Month.

Don't worry, Erica, I can ruin this one.

We are mere weeks away at this point from Spooky Movie Month, followed by Classics Movie Month, followed by Holiday movie.

Just what I think that nothing can beat those like three last months of the year.

We fucking kill it with dance dance movie.

Look, spoiler.

Last month was slog for me.

I'm not gonna lie, it's not It wasn't my month.

It's fine.

This month is for me.

I love a fucking dance movie.

All right.

Before we get to the first dance movie of the month, though, Erica, we have five star Apple podcast reviews.

Erica, do you want to read the first one?

Sure thing?

This first review comes from Diane five one seventy nine.

In case anyone needs to know her pin code for her ATM.

I think that's her birthday, say it?

She is almost exactly our age.

No, no, no, pretty sure that's the pin code for at best.

Though, whenever she's in a hotel room.

That's what's going in the scene.

Oh yeah, just say it, Just say it, Diane writes, I've got a golden podcast.

Do it right, I've got a golden podcast.

Who needs a Wonka bar when you can have this podcast as a prize instead.

I'm not sure when I last saw a recent movie.

I love the hilarious recaps and analysis of movies from my youth.

I love Paul and Erica, even though they don't share my affinity for I've got a golden tick and song.

Wonka is my favorite slot machine to play, and the song makes my heart sore when the Opa Loompa feature is activated.

That's so specific.

I love this person so much.

Diane, you're the best.

Diane.

Are you in Atlantic City or Vegas?

You're in Oh?

I want her to be in Atlantic City.

I wanted to be an Atlantic City friend.

I wanted to be a Jersey girl, but it could this could be I'm in love.

We're the Jersey Girl.

Ye, no joke.

I was going to open the top of this episode with Dancing in the Dark.

I love that song and I don't have it in me straight.

I started.

I've started to do the Springsteen voice.

I was like, I don't have it.

I don't have it.

Not today, Not today, Satan, not today.

We have one more review for today.

This is from short Worker, and they write love it.

I really enjoyed this podcast.

I was hooked by the episode on Willy Wonka and the Factory.

I love the banter, and even though there is some talk that is off topic, it's not too much.

Some other podcasts been half the show or more talking about politics, which is annoying.

We only spend about five minutes talking about politics.

And then we become too depressed and move on.

And then we move on.

I don't think anyone's like, wonder what their thought is.

That's my that's my take on it.

I'm like, no one's listening to this and be like they might be like they might be getting getting for both sides.

Yeah, who knows.

Maybe they're fair and balanced.

So I appreciate the funny back and forth and for the great review of the movie.

Thank you for being great.

You have a subscriber for life.

Ah well, this this does put me off Presidential Movie Month because I don't want to upset short Worker.

I was gonna, yeah, I was gonna suggest we do right wing as.

Possible movie by Canal legislators that work month.

Oh wait, there's no movies.

There's no movie.

Aaron Sorkin wrote something.

I'm sure at some point some fantasy short worker.

Diane five one seventy nine, Thank you so much that you both love Willie Wanka and the Chocolate Factory.

We can we can place about where we are in reading these reviews, because apparently these came out right after we did Willy Wank on the Chocolate.

Factory on the podcast, like what like five seven years.

Ago something like that.

I don't know.

Time has no meaning.

If you would like a that age bel tope bag, please go ahead, give us a shout out, let us know it's is you, and I'll send it off for you.

Erica.

What is the dance movie that we are first doing for this month?

Oh my god, today's film, you guys.

Today's film is the two thousand and one Coming of age drama dance slash dance film Save the Last Dance.

Save the Last Dance, which before we even get started to.

Paul was voguing.

By the way, as I would say, I was trying so hard to pay to not break, but Paul was giving me the full fucking vogue and it was everything.

But does that title make any sense?

No, it doesn't no sense.

Right, No, that's gonna happen a lot this month.

Yeah, we're gonna get a lot of things that don't make any fucking sense.

When you try to shoehorn the world of dance into any logical storyline, it just doesn't.

Like, it doesn't make any sense.

Yes, and Save the Last Dance.

The song is so so creepily threatening when you really think about it.

But don't forget who's taken you home?

Arms you're gonna be oh d Save the Last Dance?

I guess it?

Okay, weirdo?

Can I just maybe go home with my girlfriend?

I?

Actually, I genuinely so much live all those.

Like weird, misogynistic songs from the fifties, like it just fine, it's fine, whatever, it's fine.

By the drifters, shut up, different time, all right.

Save the Last Dance was requested by Parker, Robin Christy, Laurie Mikey, Aaron, Danielle, Chris and Meghan Another, Laurie Miggi, Emily Ellen, Austin RuSHA, Mary Melissa Another, Emily Alase, another Melissa Cee end Amanda.

This was so requested, y'all.

This was the winner win Winter Chicken Dinner A deluge.

Yeah.

Yeah.

This movie was written by Dwayne Adler and Cheryl Edwards.

It was directed by Thomas Carter and stars Julia Stiles, Sean Patrick, Thomas, Kerry Washington, Fredro or Freedro Star.

I'm not sure to say that first name, Bianca Lawson and Terry Kinney.

I think it does bear just pointing out before we go on, Hm, this was directed by a black man.

I think that is good for everyone to know.

Oh good, that's that is actually you know what that does help help?

It helps us.

This movie does not age as poorly as you would think given the like if you just read the logline, I'm actually spoiler, I'm pretty fine with it.

Basically, I agree, I think it.

I don't know that age is well, but you can see all the ways it's really trying, and it's it's almost like that whole thing where like friends want to glad Award like friends at the first lesbian wedding ever on TV and now we're like friends is super homophobic or like, Yeah, this movie was definitely a step forward.

It was pushing the needle.

In representation and it should be celebrated in honor for that, even if some things make me want to curl up and die when I hear them.

Now, yeah, some of it is so like retrograde, but also at the same time, they're like trying something.

Hey man, you've got to get a movie through the studio system.

Exactly, it's not easy.

Carrie Washington was working as a substitute teacher when she booked Save the Last Dance.

That's amazing.

I love that.

Can you imagine, like, Carrie Washington, is your is like English sub for today?

You know?

She tried, she was.

She wasn't like, let's watch the movie.

She was like, what chapter of Little Women are you on?

Open your books?

Were getting into it?

She didn't when nature calls to her summer school classes.

That was not, by the way, a substitute teacher.

That was the teacher teacher, that was the main ass teacher.

Remain's one of my favorite stories.

I will bring it up every chance I get.

She apparently made so little money on this job on Dave the Last Dance, and she had to go back to uh substitute teaching after the film finished.

She did, however, switch to elementary school subbing, as she had high school students showing up to her classes to quote unquote watch Shanil teach French.

Excellent, excellent, everything about this.

Every high school student who did that kudos well done.

Also, of course that bitch top French.

Of course she did Washington, You magnificent woman.

Erica Save the Last Dance has a fifty four percent critical rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a fifty nine percent audience score, and has a fifty eight percent critical rating on Cherry Picks.

I think it's a little more enjoyable than a fifty nine percent.

Look, I get it.

Dance movies are not for everyone, sure, and I am deeply in the pocket of big dance.

So like, honestly, you give me a few good dance scenes and I'm happy.

I'm happy like like a pig and shit.

So it made you happy in this movie because I didn't think that, you know what it was?

Honestly, truly, it wasn't even that like the dancing was so good because it wasn't like a step up situation.

Well what could be?

Because step up is special.

Because step up films are excellent because they hire dance, professional dancers.

And the like cannot act except for Channing Tatum and then they're like, try acting and see what happens.

But the dance scenes are spectacular in this one.

They hired professional actors yea to then teach them how to dance.

So you're right, genuinely, it's not as like it's not directly in my wheelhouse.

But I love the effort.

I do.

I am here for the effort absolutely.

I would actually say, all this is a little low critically like it.

It's a very silly movie, but like it's one of those ones that like its heart's very much in the right place.

I don't know, fifty fourth to see feels low to me.

I would probably give it like a sixty five percent critical rating.

I'd be like the charm of Sean Patrick Thomas and Kerrie Washington.

It's gonna float a lot of stuff.

And Julia Styles as well, like actress or movie star.

I think Julia Styles has the movie star more than the actress in this movie.

I think she's a better actress now than she was back then.

Yeah, she's a little flat in this movie, but I think yes, charisma either, Paul, I don't think she's either of those things.

I love yes, charisma, I like her.

I just she's she's never like impressed me.

I have to say, she's never blown me away.

No, But but in this movie, like I do for Sarah, like there is something about her and it's not like forgive me, like the depth of performance that I do like root for her.

Yeah, and I like her and like and Sarah makes mistakes and I forgive Sarah for making mistakes.

So like to me, that means like there's an X factor in Julia styles that I just like Erica.

When did you first see Save the Last Dance?

I think probably like ten years ago, maybe.

Like, okay, it's kind of been a odd time.

Would not have seen this in the theater.

I don't know if I knew I was like into dance movie honestly, I swear to god, it's the Step Up movie that like made me realize how much I love dance movies.

You would have thought like Footloose or Dirty Dancing for when I was a kid, would have done that and liked.

I don't think it was until I saw A Step Up in the movie theater and I was like, oh my god, I want to watch every dance movie ever made.

I don't honestly remember why I saw it.

It was on TV and I was like, all right, I'll watch it, and I thought it was fine.

That was so stupid.

Yeah, but in the best way.

I think that's that was the first and only time I'd seen it, and now yesterday that was the second time.

How about you.

I had never seen this movie.

Weirdly, I don't know why I didn't see it.

This is very much my wheelhouse.

I should I should have seen this movie.

I have to presume it was like on this on the docket to see and I got distracted.

And one, we're busy, We're busy.

We're in college.

Were full aid, I'm out of college, even like we're full ass adults at this point.

Yeah.

Yeah, So i'd never seen it before.

I basically i'd seen like all of the dance scenes, just because I mean, there's a there's a whole SNL sketch about the final dance scene in this movie.

At this point, it's pretty it's pretty iconic.

It's amazing.

Yeah, And I enjoyed it by and large.

Like I said, there's some really cringey two thousand and one moments, but the movie's trying something and I respect it, and I was never bored.

No, it did make me wonder why Sean Patrick Thomas isn't a bigger star, because I think he's He and Kerry Washington, for me, were the two that like popped.

Yes, I have a thousand percent agree.

I looked up his IMDb.

He actually has worked very.

Steadily because he had had this same attorney where I was like, why don't I see this guy everywhere?

He's so hot?

Yeah, and spoiler alert, he's aged really beautiful, Like he looks hot still.

Yeah, he's like even hotter now than he was two thousand and one.

Get ugly or like like you're like, oh, I guess you're a character actor now, buddy, Like, no, no, he's still super hot.

He does like like procedurals.

Yeah, he does like TV shows that you and I don't watch, which is why we don't know him.

Yeah, And I literally wonder.

I always think when people do that, they're like, you know what I have, I've done this.

I want to be an actor, but I also want to have a life and I'm going to go get a job where I book three procedural guest starring roles a year and like do one Hallmark movie.

But he was in like one I don't remember the name of it now, so I don't have an in front of me.

But he was in like one procedural for like two hundred episodes.

Really, so he had a job.

Hold on, I'm going to look him up.

While you're talking, Paul, keep going.

Keep talking.

I'm not even going to pretend to pay attention to you.

Did you hear that listeners?

She said, I want you to fill silence.

Well, I look at this.

Okay, I found it.

The TV show is called The District and I'm wrong.

It's eighty nine episodes.

That's a little shit ton and it ran for like four years.

Okay, So like, yeah, that's what he's been doing.

He made his bank.

He's like, I saved, I save my money.

I have a nest egg, I have a nice house in Los Angeles, and I'm gonna do guest starring roles and like have a normal fucking life for him.

Also, I didn't realize this.

I didn't see this.

I still haven't seen this.

But he was in that like Macbeth that you loved, the Cohen brother remember brother, It's like one Cohen Brother made that one.

I did love that movie.

All right, Erica.

The tagline for save the Last Dance, Save the Last Dance, Save the Last Dance, Save that dance.

The tagline was the only person you need to be is yourself.

You know what?

Fine?

That works, That works for this bullshit.

The more of Elvita you can get onto this movie, the better it is.

It's like those it's like this movie, this movie is those are those?

Are those theater nachos where it's just cheese product like that just poured out of like a squeeze bottle.

Yeah, and you know, you know it's gonna lead to something horrible in like four hours.

Yeah, but you don't care.

Gastro Intestinal distress is what it's gonna lead to.

Yeah, No, that's perfect.

This movie is so cheesy and like exactly that's it's meant for fourteen year old girls to.

Yes, Erica, I really want you to read the iTunes synopsis for this movie, because I know you haven't read it yet, and i'd like to get your live reaction as you read.

So excited, Have we ready, kids, Here we go.

Sarah wants to be a ballerina, but her dreams are cut short by the sudden death of her mother.

Okay, so far, so far, so good.

Yeah, that's correct.

That is what happens in the film.

She moves in with her father, who she has not seen for a long time in Chicago.

Oh no, I read ahead, I read ahead.

I'm sorry there from the top of the sentence.

Give the audience the experience you had, Erica.

She moves in with her father, who she has not seen for a long time in Chicago, mainly the ghetto.

In the ghetto with her father, Kama, who she has not seen for a while, Comma in Chicago, Kama, mainly the ghetto.

Are we Are we comfortable saying ghetto?

I am not.

I will only be quoting it.

I don't feel like this is a ghetto.

I feel like this was written by someone who does not understand what like working class families live.

Like, yeah, I'm like, they look like my apartment building, you guys.

She gets transferred to a new school where she is the only white.

She was just reading blind.

She didn't read on that one, and I.

Tried to fix it.

My brain was like, there's another word that we're missing here.

I'm gonna read it as written.

She gets transferred to a new school where she is the only white there, not person, not girl, not transfer, just white, the only white there.

And no, she it's not true.

There's like four other white kids in this school at least.

Yes, they make a point of having a white table in the lunch room.

We're like five, that's true.

I really did love that though.

How many fucking high schools in this country have a black lunch table?

Like, yeah, they should have a white lunch table.

Okay, Eric, I'm gonna give you this next sentence is amaze.

I want you to really try to read the words on the page.

Don't fix them, read the words as they are.

Her life, oh.

God, Okay.

Her life takes a turn for the better when she is friends with Shanil period new sentence later, Comma, she falls in love with her brother, Comma, Derek.

Now the problem with.

This is tell them what she's calling in love with her own brother.

Don't worry, listeners, there's no incest in this movie.

And I know this was written before AI, so we cannot blame the robots for this.

O human person wrote this actual synopsis I've never seen, and I've forgive me for using this phrase.

A magical Negro who is also the main character of the film.

It's true.

He is both the main character or one of two, and the magical black person helping the white person.

It's it is the mental gymnastics they must have done to create the character of Derek.

I understand it, like they don't want him to have a single flaw because like the America is what it is, and so they don't want the black male character to have a single goddamn flaw, and so he is perfect in every single way.

Yeah, and to the point where he's almost not human.

I have another actual synopsis for you and the listeners.

Does this movie know there's a difference between dancing hip hop and dancing to hip hop?

No?

No, there's no difference in this.

He barely understands what ballet is.

It's barely barely.

All right, listeners, stick around.

We're gonna play a couple of commercials here.

If you hate commercials, I understand, you can just go to our patreon that's patreon dot com slash that Age Well podcast.

If you join at any you will get ad free episodes and more with that membership.

If you don't want to do that, you can stay right here and listen to these commercials and then we will come right back and take you through Save the Last.

Dance, Save the Last Dance, and we're back.

Paul, did you save that last dance for me?

I say, I had one on the table and it's gone good.

Don't tell me the cat ate it again, because I don't believe you.

You have dance all over your face, delicious, You dance all down your shirt, you filthy pig.

All right, So Save the Last Dance opens on a train where Sarah Johnson played by Julia Stiles, is sitting amongst your bags and staring out a window.

She's the girl on the train, y'all.

Yeah, she's forlorn.

I would say, I'm gonna, I'm actually just gonna stop right here.

I'm gonna I'm gonna put a pin in everything right now, right away.

I will admit this is very East Coast count content was about to what I'm about to say.

I saw this, I immediately presumed New Jersey transit.

I will admit that, okay, and then that's not crazy.

It's not crazy, FYI, listeners, They're not New Jersey.

This is Chicago.

This entire movie takes place within Chicago and the Chicago suburbs.

But we're about to see her flash back to a Juilliard audition, and I assumed for far longer than I should have, that this movie was taking place in New York City, and the amount of notes I took of being like, that's not New York, that's Chicago.

They're doing Chicago accents before I presume to question my own assumption, Oh to where they were?

You know what?

That is the journey one's supposed to take while watching this film.

Now, you did it wrong, but you still took the journey I did.

You were like, you know what, let me challenge my own assumptions about what I think the world should look like.

So Sarah is sitting on the train.

A very kind woman comes up.

She asks if is a seat taken?

Sarah says no.

She moves her bags, Girl, put your lugs on the legg of track, and the woman notices a ballet magazine sitting atop her things, and she says, oh, do you dance?

And Sarah says, I used to Jesus Christy And.

The woman's like, okay, I guess we're not having a conversation.

Never mind, I've never seen anyone know and someone it before, but okay.

So Sarah continues to stare out the window as we flash back to the extremely recent past.

I cannot stress enough how what is about to happen could not have taken place more than a month ago.

Yeah, we learned that Sarah used to live in the Chicago suburbs with her supportive single mother.

She was best friends with this girl, Lindsay, who is an extremely prayer forward young woman.

That actress is doing the Lord's work.

I'm just gonna say say because Lindsay has like three lines in the movie.

They are all the lines of like the white girl who does not understand black culture at all, and she leans hard to them and they're funny every single time.

She's like, the movie's like punching bag a little bit.

Yeah, Lindsay.

At one point, she's with Sarah and Sarah's about to go to a Juilliard audition.

It's like her last day in school, and she like grabs her hand and she starts She's like, I'll pray, I'll pray, and she starts like loudly praying in the public school hallway, and the look on Julia Styles's face excellent, excellent.

It's a perfect look of like I'm gonna let you do this.

It seems important to you, but I am mortified and confused.

Yeah exactly, which again, like I'm like, has this the first time Lindsay's done this?

It's definitely not.

Lindsay's way too comfortable for it to be the first time.

So we learned that Sarah's dream was to attend Juilliard for dance, and her big audition is coming up.

Her mother promised to take her, but she wound up needing to work on that day, and Sarah, being a seventeen or eighteen year old, girls like, come on, mom, you promised, and she can't go.

So she gets herself to the audition and we see her mother like putting her on the bus and saying I will be there before you take the stage.

Sarah's waiting for her mother in the holding area, but she's called in before her mother arrives.

She starts to dance.

Okay, I'm just gonna say really quickly, U huh.

Julia Styles does a lot of her own dancing in this, not all of it, but a lot of it, And from what I read, she took like an intense two months of like dance training to try to look as good as she possibly could.

Two months, that's it.

Two months.

That's not enough time.

It's simply impossible.

If you if Mikhail Barishnikov had never danced before and you put him in two months of training, he would not look like a professional dancer after two months.

That is a lifelong pursuit.

Like, they should have black swand this and just put another fucking dancer in every time they like cut away from her face.

Yes, they should have just done it.

They should like and that's fine.

Like, honestly, that doesn't bother me when movies do that.

No, it's very difficult to find a ballet dancers who can act.

Might I show you all centricity stage?

Yeah, Zoe Saldana was an actor who used to dance.

Ballet, Yes, and you can see that.

And then the rest of her castmates excellent dancers.

So Sarah is dancing, and we cut between her audition and her mother speeding through the streets of Chicago to meet her.

Sarah stumbles in her audition just as her mother gets into a fatal car accident.

We do meet the auditioner here and he does not know that her mother just died.

But also this actor again, Lord's work because he has two scenes and the direction is I need you to be the biggest bitch ever.

And he's like done.

He's like, I know exactly what facial hair to wear for that.

Yeah, He's like, I know the look I want to have.

I know this sneer I want to have in my voice when I talk to a child.

Yep, I just really quickly want to have a little PSA right here at the top of this episode.

For those of you who are still in high school, or for parents of kids who are still in high school, considering like post high school dreams, please have a safety school.

Juilliard cannot be her only option because bitch, you're not good enough, and it's so awkward to watch her and be like, I'm going to Juilliard.

No, you're not.

Juilliard is very hard.

To get into, famously difficult.

There are so many dance schools that'll take you, like or like colleges that have a dance department, and you can also study to be a veterinarian justin King like girl.

So Sarah arrives.

In Chicago mainly the ghetto.

Mainly the ghetto, the ghetto.

Oh my god, it's so I'm so uncomfortable, like I'm sweating saying those like what is that?

Anyway?

Moving on, she has met at the bus stop by her jazz musician father Roy played by Terry Kenny Field just in left like Sam Rock well that For a minute, I was like, is this is that?

No?

Never mind, I want to say something right now.

Uh huh.

What this movie does to Terry Kenny is not fair because they they want him to be the guy who wasn't a bad guy, but wasn't ready to be a father and wanted to be a musician and was a shitty father, but is a good guy fundamentally, Yeah, and they want him to learn to be a good father over the course of this movie.

But because this is how they've introduced him, and they give him the line that's like, oh sorry, I couldn't stick around after the funeral, had to get back for a gig.

He it's impossible, he can't climb this mountain.

He didn't go pick his daughter up and drive her back to or even go like take her bags and take the train back with her to meet him in Chicago Mainland, the ghetto.

Mainly, they have so over peppered the sauce on this guy's a dick that.

I don't think they can get it back.

They need some acid or dairy and the sauce to like take out the pepper.

I didn't put together the fact that you're right, he missed he like left right after the funeral for like a gig.

Yeah, Like who's shut down the house?

I mean honestly though, like seeing how he's how he's living, Yeah, I'm guessing like he needed that money from that gig.

Like he's like, well, I had to pay the rent, so I needed that fucking gig.

Yeah, who shut down that house?

Yeah?

What happened to that house?

Maybe they were renting also in this.

Possibly, but like whatever, there must be some money that that Sarah and you would think.

You would think there's like an ant or something that she could go yeah with a grandparent.

Yeah no, no, just to day.

The movie's not interested in any of that.

There's never a line where they're like, your grandparents are a home, so they couldn't take you in.

So Roy takes Sarah to his apartment.

Look, it looks like a dude who's been living there for thirty years and doesn't know how to do anything.

He has one bedroom that's set up and another room.

I don't understand what this other room is.

I think he has a two bedroom apartment.

And because he's a dude, he just like threw garbage in the other room and so he's never like he never set it up.

He probably got cheap because the room, like the paint doesn't finished.

It's not just this brick.

I was gonna say it's exposed.

It's not exposed breaking a hot way in a fun way.

It is plaster has fallen down, yeah, and like has never been fixed.

It's not painted.

It looks like there's holes in the floor, like where mice can get through.

He even has a line where he's like, well, you know, the rent's cheap and the mice you're friendly.

Yeah, in this.

Apartment, I was like, I hate everything about this.

Poor Sarah.

But yeah, So he basically has his daughter sleep.

On the couch, yeah, on the pull out.

And again I'm like, you had a month, buddy, Yeah, she passed away a month ago.

You've had it.

Even if you only had two weeks.

You could get a mattress, you could get a bed, like you can try.

So Roy takes Sarah to her new high school.

He's like, oh, do you want me to come in with you?

She's like, I got it, don't worry about it, Erica.

Something is different about this high school from the high school that we saw her in earlier.

I can't put my finger on it.

Have you ever been the only white person in a room?

I had been on the only white person on a subway car.

Oh, okay, like in college at one point, like I'm going somewhere in Brooklyn or something and like looking around at me, like.

Oh, I'm I'm the token.

I'm the token.

And it was a very like eye opening experience for a kid that was like sheltered and grew up in a mainly white area and like and it was fine.

To be clear, I wasn't terrified or anything.

I was just like, oh, it's is different.

It actually it's a I feel like it's honestly, I'm not ketting an experience everyone needs to.

Have, absolutely at some point.

It's very helpful.

I have put myself in that situation a couple of times.

Every time it's because it's not an accident, like the subway where I've gone to I'm like, I bet I won't be the only girl at this poetry slam.

I bet, I bet I won't be the only white girl at this jazz thing.

And I'm like, oh no, I'm the only white girl here and it's fine, and like I always walk in being like, well, it's not a big deal, and it isn't obviously, but you do notice it when you're a odd person out and it's it's absolutely the most eye opening experience.

I cannot stress this enough.

Folks, if you are a white person in America, put yourself in a situation where you are one or two of the only white people in the space, just for fun, just to try it out.

I'm telling you, Like and again, literally no one pays attention to.

Me, no one cares.

Everyone ignored me.

And every time, like I've been in that situation like five or six times, because I keep putting myself in that situation.

Stop booking yourself into the black, queer, lesbian spaces.

Ericat I'm gonna gonna win at the Apollo one time.

I'm gonna It's crazy how you immediately clock it.

And of course, like my black friends were all like duh, yeah, duh, you fucking dumb cunt, and I'm like, yeah, I know, but until you live it, you don't realize.

You don't realize how like odd it is and how eye opening it is.

By the way, poetry slams are fucking lit, So do just do that.

All right?

So Sarah, who seems to be a pretty self asshored kid, gets to the office.

She's guided to her first class, which turns out to be English.

I would like to give kudos to the filmmaker for making this a rowdy high school.

Yes, we are not getting a lean on me situation where the high school is like a literal warzone, like like literal war zone.

It is a very normal high school where the kids are boisterous in the hallways, as they aren't all kinds of high schools.

Yeah.

Yeah.

By the way, this high school, even though it's called Wheatlee High in the film, it is supposed to be Wendell Phillips Academy, which is a real high school in Chicago.

And because there's a moment where she's walking through the halls and she sees like a picture of like Dinah Washington and Marla Gibbs and Sam Cook who all went to this high school.

And I was like googling it.

I'm like, did they really all go to the same high school.

They's sure as shit did, and Wendell Phillips Academy had an insane number of celebrities that went there, including nat King Cole.

All right, like, it's a cool play, but the film I should mention is not filmed there, and in the movie it's called Wheatley.

But apparently this was the idea.

Yeah, the inspiration behind this high school gotcha?

All right, So she's in English class.

She impresses the teacher by giving a smart answer about in Cold Blood.

She talks about how Capoti mixed true crime with his imagination, but then she quickly has a run in with Dereck Reynolds played by Sean Patrick Thomas.

He manages to outshine and embarrass her for her blind spots.

Right.

He points out that Capoti's true accomplishment was bringing crime out of the ghetto and into white society, right because he said black writers did the whole like mixing true crime with the imagination thing already, but nobody read them, and then Truman Capoti got credit for it, and she's like, people read the black writers.

She's like, yeah to you, and she has nothing to say.

I would have lied, honestly.

Oh yeah, you've got to lie that one some one calls.

Me out that hard.

I would have been like have I of course yes.

And then skip the next class on directly to library and just mainline James Baldwin the fucking.

Thing James Baldwin ever wrote, and be like, I know, James Baldwin.

Sir.

Sarah heads to her locker.

She puts her backpack on the ground behind her, which even in my school we didn't do that.

Even if you're not in a place where it's you know, it might be stolen.

Bitch, that's a tripping hazard.

Yeah, like, what are you doing?

What are you doing?

You have no spatial awareness.

You're a dancer.

Your whole personality is I'm a dancer.

She has the same amount of spatial awareness as Sean Conner does as James Bond, where people are constantly sneaking up on her.

A cool girl Shan Niel played by Carrie Washington.

Okay, can I interrupt you really quick?

Sure?

May, I'm going to read you Kerry Washington's opening line, and I'm not going to be putting any spin on this.

I want everyone I see the trap that's being laid for me, and I will be saying this as whitely as I possibly can, because I am practically translucent.

Because you won't.

You won't be saying it any whiter than Carry Washington does.

Kerry Washington says, opening line, Yo, La Trees, mister Jackson's civic class, you will have a pop quiz.

Do not front on it.

It's mad hard.

I that Yeah, that wrote that.

An adult wrote it.

An adult took all the nineties slag he could.

He put it in a salad spinner.

He pressed it three times.

He threw the magnetic poetry onto the table.

He's like, Kerry Washington, say this.

He gave it to his thirteen year old Sunderraid and the kid couldn't care less.

And he's like, yeah, that sounds right.

Yeah, that's exactly how kids talk.

Yeah, that's fine, dad, don't worry about it.

So Shaneil walks behind Sarah and takes the backpack.

Yep.

Sarah turns around, her bag is gone, oh no, I've only been here a minute and already I've been robbed.

She spins around and Shanil is standing right next to her, like a few lockers down, and she's holding the bag out and she's like, be careful like, it's really easy to get robbed around here.

You got to pay attention.

Sarah thanks Shanil for being kind.

She turns back to her locker, and then when she turns back around to continue to talk to Shanil, Shaneil is gone.

Yep, we cut to the lunch room.

Sarah is as the new girl is trying to find a lunch table.

Who hasn't had this struggle.

Look, forget Saving Private Ryan, forget the first ten minute of Saving Private Ryan.

This is the this is the worst scene of American cinema.

Yeah, the scene in Mean Girls when Katie's trying to find a table.

Like we've all seen this a million times.

Yeah, I mean, it's horrible enough when you're not the new kid and just got into a fight with your friend and then you're like oh oh, it's like oh my god.

Oh no, and then you don't have you have to find a secondary group of friends and they all know why you're there, and they know you're gonna leave them.

You're gonna ditch them the minute your other friends take you back.

Uh huh.

Yeah.

So she spots the white table as we reference, there's the white table, and then she sees Shanil sitting with a bunch of her friends, and she makes her way over to that table.

Sarah, good for you.

I have a question for you, though.

Does the movie pos it a little bit that Sarah does not see color.

Later in the film a little bit?

Yeah, yes, But I think also that's where this movie moves the needle, is that Sarah does see color.

She genuinely does not give a shit.

Yeah, she doesn't seem afraid, do you know what I mean?

There's a version of this movie that could be made where like the white girl walks into the black school and his like eyes wide and like clutching her backpack to her and like acting acting like a fucking idiot, And that's not Sarah Creara.

Sarah is miserable because of all the shit that's gone on in her life.

So she's not exactly thrilled to be anywhere right now.

But yeah, she's She's walking through this high school as normally as one would in any situation.

Agreed.

So she makes her way to Shanil's table, but the last seat is taken just as she arrives.

To be clear, not a blocking situation, just bad luck, bad timing.

She turns away but not before Shanil notices her trying to like make a connection, and she walks away.

She winds up at a table full of nerds, and Shanil goes over and rescues her.

She's like, come on, stand up, come sit with us, but provide you never sit this table again.

And they're black nerds, which is nice representations.

Oh my god, and that black nerd was super funny.

That kid, she sits down and he is like angry at the world.

He's like the Internet before the Internet basically is that kid.

He's like, our entire generation is completelyda from the neck up.

It's like nobody even reads anymore.

And she's like, my name is Sarah, Will you calm the fuck down?

So Shanil brings Sarah over to her group of friends.

She introduces her around, and Sarah sits down, and that makes the very bold choice, And this is the first real rookie era that Sarah makes.

She makes the bold choice of spotting Derek and proclaiming him an asshole.

Now look, kids, PSA, for this episode, you're anew in a group, You're trying to make connections.

You don't have opinions for no less than two weeks.

You smile and nod, and they may express opinions that you don't agree with and make you decide you don't want to be friends with them, and then you can remove yourself from that situation.

But you don't come in look at a stranger and be like that person over there that I don't know your relationship to, that's an asshole.

Yeah that was a mistake.

Yeah, you agree with what they say basically, and they're like that girl sucks, that guy sucks.

You're like done and done.

They're on my shit list.

Yeah, I hate them?

Who else do I hate?

You point out everyone I hate in this room?

To me, you are a sympathy hater.

You tell me who I hate.

What grudges do I need to hold for the rest of y'all?

I'm ready.

I can take.

I am at less holding the world on my shoulders.

Only the world is your grudges.

Can we talk real quick about Shanil and her friends?

Whatever could you want to talk about?

Okay?

There are three white girls in this entire school according to this movie, right, there's a table white kids.

It seems to be mostly boys and one girl.

Maybe I missed another girl in there.

It could be another girl in there, but I just clocked one girl there right, The other white girl at the school is already at Shanil's table.

Her name is Diggy.

And then Chanil like plucks Sarah out and it's like, you can come sit with us.

Does Chanil run a club for wayward white girls?

Does Shanil run like an outreach program?

She's like, I will take the cool white girls, of which there are two at the school, and I will integrate them into my society and will guide them into my group, and I will guide them through the halls of Wheatley High School.

Because I was like, this is weird that she is so nice to Sarah.

Yeah, and not only that, but the girl playing Diggy who does a good job, but she goes for it like this is a This is a white girl that is fully ensconced in the black culture around her, yeah, and views herself as absolutely part of it.

She's not doing like a Seth Green and yeah, can't hardly wait, Like she's not overplaying it and so she's doing to be fair, Seth Green was supposed to be overplaying it.

She's doing it in a way where it's like she just kind of fits in with everyone else.

And also, this character is in a community where it is majority black, so her being of that culture would make more sense than the people that in my suburban high school where there was like there's like a I don't know, ten percent black population and everyone's playing at it.

That was problematic.

Problematic.

Yeah I had both of those growing up, in both situations, but like, yes, yes, yeah, absolutely.

So in any case, Sarah calls Derek an asshole, Shaneil turns around and she's like, you're talking about my brother, and Sarah's like, oh fuck, and she knows, like that's fine, I don't care.

She Neeel's cool about it.

She's cool well because like a sister would think her brother's an asshole.

There is a crucial thing though, Sarah goes he thinks he's so smart and so cute, and it's immediately it's like, oh, you're into him.

That's why you're so mad at him for like besting you in that scene earlier, because you want to quook him.

Uh huh.

Fair.

For God's sake, anyone who is of a proper age who saw that kid?

I mean, and Patrick Thomas is twenty four or something, if.

He's a minute when they Like.

Paul and I both had a conversation off Mike about this earlier.

Were like, Shneil and Derek are both Best Kid nominees, but we can't actually nominate them for Best Kid because the actors playing them are adults, and it's weird.

It's weird to call like thirty year old Kerry Washington best Kid.

I refuse to do it.

She not once does she appear day less than twenty five movie.

Meanwhile, we cut to Derek and his friends Snooky the class clowns.

This is not the movie's fault.

They couldn't have known.

They couldn't have known that Snooky would become famous on Jersey Shore.

I kind of wonder if, like that, if that woman took her name from this movie, if this is a favorite movie of hers and she's like Snooky, I'm taking Snookie.

Snookie is one of my favorite lines in the movie, when he's introducing himself to Sarah.

Later he goes, they call me Snook, the Kuci crook everything.

And then we meet Malachi Kai played by fred Rostarr, who is just at a juvie.

He's had a life, He's got a hard life.

This kid, this.

Kid's he's a rapper.

He's pretty good in this movie.

He's I thought so too.

I did the same thing where I was like, who are you wife?

And I seeing you before.

It's because he's a rapper.

Derek is kind of straight laced.

Derek is the smart one.

He's gonna go to college.

He's gonna be a doctor.

That's his trajectory, right.

He wants to go to Georgetown specifically, so like he's got high hopes.

So it seems like these two lifelong friends are starting to become an odd fit for each other.

It's clear there's like a lot of love and there's closeness between them and loyalty between them because they grew up together.

And we're gonna find out later there's another reason maybe why Derek feels like he needs to be loyal to Kai.

Homosexuality.

I wish, I wish.

We find out that Kai just came back to school.

He had been serving a sentence for a crime he had committed and now he's back in school and Derek is trying to keep him on the straight and arrow.

Yep.

We cut to that night at dinner.

Roy tries to be a dad, right, he tries to bond with Sarah by offering her a Swanson Hungry Man frozen dinner.

She's like, no, thank you.

He invites her to come see him play that night and then they can get dinner afterwards, and she says it's a school night, Roy and heads out for his gig.

He says, you can eat her naughtyat and I'll be back when I'm back, and like, look, I know, parenting is incredibly hard, the hardest job in the world being a parent.

You never off, you never have vacation day.

Your heart is walking around outside of your body.

It's difficult, but.

Beautiful way of putting that thank you, thank you.

Yeah yeah, but some things are easy, and not saying you can eat her naughty I'll be back when I'm back is one of the things you just shouldn't say as a parent.

Just man, just try try.

The next day, Sarah runs into Shanil, Derek, and Snook.

This is when we get that great line from Snook on her way into school and she and Derek have another moment.

Then we cut to gym class, where Sarah impresses Shaneil and her friends with her abilities on the balance.

But I love, I love that this school has the same view of gymnastics as Rydell High.

Every every high school in these movies has gymnastics.

What did we've run out of money?

I did not have gymnastics in high school, Jim, I know that.

Dear Dade County School District.

How dare you rob me of my gymnastic dreams?

This made me laugh.

There's a girl and they're like not in their circle, but like adjacent.

Her name is Nicky.

She is played by Bianca Lawson.

She is a fucking twelve.

She is a model basically walking around this school and she looks at Sarah on the balance beam and she's doing fine, She's doing some basic balance beam nonsense, and she looks threatened.

Nicky is threatened by Sarah, and I'm like, no, in no planet with NICKI look at Sarah on the balance beam and be like, oh no, there's a new hot shit girl in town.

No, what are you talking about?

They're just trying to shoehorn this, Like yeah, this animosity between these two girls into this movie so hard and it makes no sense.

Later on they're gonna they're gonna tell us a reason why, but like there was a better way of doing it.

Well, because it doesn't make sense.

In this scene, they're gonna wind up having a conflict over Derek, right, which the fundamental like idea that Nicky used to it.

Derek wants to get back with him, and now he's interested in Sarah as a point of conflict.

That's fine, but like now she's just a girl who happens to be like pretty good on the balance beam and Nicky's like, how.

Oh no, that's my thing.

No it's not.

We've never seen nick can a balance beam.

We will never see her.

Like, what is the problem?

Being good on the balance beam can't be your thing if you're also a cool girl.

I'm sorry.

I love gymnastics.

Yeah, it's just not not in high school unless you're some mo fucking biles.

It's not cool.

It's not cool.

Yeah, and dude, the movie I think smartly does it engage in like the I don't like white women.

Yeah.

So after class she kneels like, hey, you were really good on the balance beam and Sarah's like, yeah, I used to dance ballet and she kneels like, oh, you should come with us the steps, which, again, every fucking high school movie has this the local club where somehow teenagers are just allowed.

And I know this movie they're getting fake id's yea, but the entire senior class is there.

Yes, the entire senior class is in this fucking club.

So no, you can't just be like it's it's a regular dance club with regular adults, because I did that as a kid.

I was able to get into regular dance clubs with regular adults, and it was fucking weird and you had thirty year old men hitting on you and yes, creepy as fuck, and that's not what's happening.

Instead, this is this is a kid's club, all right.

So after school, Shanil asks Snookie to help Sarah get into the club.

So he's like, all right, give me twenty bucks, and Sarah's like why and he says it's for a fake ID, and he starts to spin into this like kind of monologue about how she assumes she was gonna get it on her looks.

She cuts him off with Snook, you talk a lot of shit for someone who never says anything, and Shaneil and Derek love it, right, so Sarah is validated.

Sarah gives Snookie a twenty dollars bill and when Derek says that steps ain't no square dance.

She brags that she'll dance in circles, probably around him, and Derek laughs.

Right, so this like peacocky, braggadocious energy.

Yeah, these kids are great.

Next night, Sarah heads to Shaneil's apartment.

It's warm, it's homy.

We find out a little bit about Shanil and Derek's home life.

They seem to not have parents.

There's an older woman they call Mama Dean who takes care of them.

I'm not sure if that's their grandmother or just like.

A foster mother or something.

Yeah, like someone in their in their life who takes care of them.

We also meet Chanil's baby, Christopher, who's being cared for by Mamma Dean, mostly so that Chanil can still go to school and like have a semi normal, like teenage existence.

Yea.

The girls head out and like, I am so glad this happen because I'd forgotten the scene in this movie.

And Sarah shows up to this apartment wearing a tank top with a matching cardigan and like a pencil skirt and boots and like, there's a miamiist to my brain where I'm like, if you're going clubbing, you'd wear the sluttiest thing you own.

That's how you go clubbing is you wear the absolute trashiest, street walkeryest thing you own.

Is that why you're wearing that tubetop?

Are you going out?

I'm going out after that?

Yeah, I'm wearing the tubetop and nothing else.

No, you know, like a tubtop can become a skirt, can pull it down.

Yeah faro, Yeah, my ass my asshole is on this chair.

My bear asshole is touching the chair that I'm sitting on right now.

But yeah, it's so like, I'm like, that's when you're wearing to go dancing.

What's wrong with you?

So I'm so glad that she asked Shanil and Saniel's like, yeah, you look fine because she's trying to be nice.

And then she's like no really and Saniel's like, okay, no, you don't look good.

Yeah, we have to fix this.

So they do a very quick like makeover, honestly all Shanil does, and it works.

It's enough is she takes the cardigan off, she wraps Sarah's hair in it so it looks like a head wrap, and then she gives her like like a headscarf and then she gives her her her whoop earrings.

Yeah, so that Sarah looks slightly more like a teenage girl and not like someone's actuary.

They go into the crowded club, Shanil takes a moment to like, there's a guy who grabs her in the ass as she's walking by.

She grabs him by the ball, squeezes tight and the guy's like, okay, okay, okay, you got it.

You got it, like meaning like I'll leave you alone, and she goes, got what the right to pass by your greasy tickle dick self without your paws on my ass?

I love this kid.

The tickle dick, the insult tickle.

I've never heard it, never heard of it.

I've never heard it.

And it's a little bit of a thinker because at first I was like, well, what is it?

Oh?

Oh, it's like just a tickle down there.

I can't even feel it because because you dick so small.

Oh I'm putting that together now.

I just thought it was wordplay, and I do love wordplay.

I love the internal rhymes, and I like better than pickle dick.

Oh, absolutely, tickle dick.

Tickle dick is meaner excellent.

It's better than fickled dick.

Fickle you can't count.

On honestly, fickle dick could be good dick.

It could still be good dick, but.

You don't know if it's going to show up.

What if you grab some guy by the balls to like to do this to him, and but it's fucking enormous and you're like, oh, I can't use my backup tickle dick.

I have to think of something else to say.

A brickle dick, trickled dick.

You know what, sir, too big?

No one wants that.

Put it away, Put it away, put it away, No one wants that.

That's uncomfortable.

Go into sex work immediately, you'll make a million dollars.

So Sarah is like in awe of her new best friend, which as anyone should be.

She's like, this is such an upgrade from Lindsay, I can't even say.

They go into the club, they start going around.

Sarah officially meets Nicky.

Nicky openly hates her from the jump again, Nikki could not be more beautiful.

Luckily, we find out Shanil also hates Nicky because Nicky dumped Derek and treated him like shit.

I want to circle back to another PSA for the listeners out there.

So Sarah again does the thing where she engages in the conversation in the play by play in the repartee amongst this group of black women and Diggy, but Diggy, who's notably not saying anything, just like everyone can't we be friends?

Yeah, Diggy has it right.

Yeah, So as a white person, I'm just gonna just don't police black people's use of whatever slur they want to use that's pointed at black people.

Just don't do it what they just don't do it?

Because Nicki says, I ain't walking on eggshells just because you brought the Brady Bunch to the Negro club, and before Shanil can respond, Sarah says, maybe you came to the wrong spot because I'm pretty sure there aren't any negroes here.

Too, which I admit I was also like, why are you talking?

Don't talk, Sarah, why are you talking.

Luckily they cut to Shanil and Saniel's like, oh, yeah, she got you, and I'm like, oh thank god, this went well.

Again.

The best kid for Shaneil if she wasn't twenty seven years old.

Absolutely, she's easily best kid, best best middle aged woman pretending to be a kid.

Yes, absolutely, Now now.

Should she be checking her white friend afterwards?

Be like, fy, that's fine, but again, don't police our language about each other.

I like maybe maybe she's like at the two strike policy, she gets one, she didn't one.

It's fine and it was funny, and she landed on Nikki, I'm gonna let it go and like and.

Like Sarah doesn't do it again for the rest of the movie, so like we're just gonna let it.

She kept doing it.

Yeah, she was like that white teacher, you're an avid elementary, Like Jacob, shut up, Like that's that's a different story.

I'm trying to figure out.

If I had a new friend, new girlfriend comes in, I introduced her to my friends, and the first thing she's like, your fuck?

How how how forgiving?

Would I be like what what's up?

Holmost, or even worse, if it was a straight male friend and he was trying to fit in, it's like, yo.

Oh my god, I would actually love to see that.

Can we adopt straight?

And we adopt?

And I was really confident that it wasn't like he know he loves gay people, he's trying to fit in right, like he would get the one.

I think I would give him the one.

Well if he's quoting Tricksy and Katya, you know, like Hill, if he's doing that and they're like, no, no, you don't understand he's quoting Tricksy and Katya.

Can we please let's adopt a gate a straight man, because we don't have any inner circle of friends and we really.

Need we have we have well, we have husbands.

We have husbands, yeah, but none of them.

I know them all, I love them all.

They don't have the balls.

They're never gonna do it.

My brother hangs out with us sometimes, but alas he's he's in old gen X, and I don't think an older gen X can pull it off.

I want him to try, I really want him to try.

I don't think he would.

I don't think he'd be comfortable.

My brother was the captain of the football team in the eighties and he grew up with a little gay brother who is six years younger than him.

And I've never heard him muse a geysler.

Well, yeah, but not in a good or bad way.

No, if it's in a good way, all right.

So, so now the club is bumping as the kids say.

As the children say.

Derek arrives at Steps with Kai and Nicky approaches Derek right she asked him to dance, and he immediately makes it clear he has no interest in getting back together with her after she dumped him for a college boy.

He just shuts her right down.

Yeah, she should be dating college man.

That's how attractive this.

She should be dating like a billionaires do.

I want need to write a letter of what caution to Beyonca Lawson to be, Like, if you see a Cuba or a Guayan woman staring at you.

From across trunk room, deeply in love.

With you, I want you to just calmly stand up and walk out and then get to a city place.

Am I deeply Lawson?

No?

Yes, maybe shut up.

So Sarah and Shaneil go to the bar.

They run into Kenny.

Kenny is Christopher's father who Shaneil is pissed out because he's kind of a dead beat dad.

Not really a deadbeat dad, but like he's a kid.

He's not succeeding at the whole father thing right, Like it's not like he just disappeared, but he's like I had to work, I couldn't pick him up, but I didn't call it like it's it's all the bullshit.

She also unfortunately finds Kenny irresistible.

Fair enough.

The guy's good looking.

It's good looking, man, it's very handsome.

Is he Lawson good looking?

No?

No, no one is no one is it's Bianca Lawson.

Then everybody else and.

It's literally the rest of the monsters.

Shanil goes to dance with him, but she like, she gestures to Sarah.

She's like, I'll be back in five minutes.

I'm sorry, I just I can't.

I can't not do it.

I can't not do it.

This guy's so hot.

Yeah, fair yeah.

So Sarah's very cool at being ditched at the club by her friend.

I have to say.

She's just hanging out at the bar, being normal.

She's just trying to order drinks.

Derek approaches her.

The two of them spar again, but it's so like, like just kiss already, just kiss already.

Derek points out, Hey, I'm supposed to be dizzy from all the circles you're dancing around me, remember, And suddenly Sarah's like, oh, not tonight.

I'm just here to observe tonight.

I'm not a narc.

I'm definitely not a narc.

Don't worry.

I'm not here to buy drugs.

By the way, does anyone know where I can buy some drugs?

Just wondering?

Can you point me to the highest step drug dealer in the club?

I am not a narc, you guys.

But yeah, she's very clearly like uncomfortable and he's like, no, no, come on, get on the dance floor.

So she should be better at dancing than this.

She should be better.

I am not a trained dancer.

I was better at sixteen, at seventeen than this at dancing.

I was, I believe you, like you, like, how are you this bad at this?

Because the movie posits so like for a long time, I was a TA for like movement in dance classes.

I will say that, like some of the most difficult people to teach were the ballet kids.

Like the kids kids, they were all women, the ballet girls that came in and wanted to move in a different way.

Right, So like I can kind of like understand how she may not know how to dance outside of like the very regimented way that she's used to dancing.

However, she should still have basic rhythm.

That's she's so offbeat, like the whole I'm like, this is not even a hard song, No, it's like a it's like a one two one too, and she just she can't manage to fit, yeah, to catch up to that beat.

And I'm like, why are you so bad at this?

Because when they start positing that he's gonna teach her like actual quote unquote hip hop steps, I'm like, it makes sense that she want to be good at this because there's a different way you hold your there's a different center of gravity, there's a different pose that you should be hitting, So all of that makes sense.

But this, I'm like, she should be able to like step touch to a beat pretty well, like move.

Your hips just a little bit.

How white is she?

Is?

She polar ice cap white.

Snow white.

She is snow white white.

Like it's embarrassing to watch it.

Julia House does a very good job in this scene of being like she's embarrassed, but like she doesn't let that stop her right from like trying at least to dance.

It's so embarrassing to watch, and.

Derek is so much nicer to her than I would be if I brought some guy onto the dance floor and this is what he was doing.

I mean, she was insanely hot, which okay, I get it now, I understand Like this the movie is positing that Sarah is so hot that Derek is willing to look past this.

She's not.

She's not.

I'm sorry, she's not.

No, I know I would be like, you know what, I do want to drink.

Let's go back.

You move.

I thought you moving was gonna be good, but now I'm just thinking you're gonna be a bad leg because you have no rhythm none.

So okay, so he decides to take pity on her.

He like helps her stop clapping off beat, which is so embarrassing to watch.

Hey shows her as simple step as.

The two of them dance together, and they like again like a they're warming up to each.

Other y R.

Meanwhile, Kai notices a drug deal going on in like this corner of the club, and he considers the club his turf, so he starts a fight.

Derek sees it.

He immediately runs to help his friend immediately goes to defend Kai.

They beat these two guys up.

Derek's like, let's go, let's go.

He tries to drag Kai out.

Kai is like okay, okay, and then spins around lands a couple of more kicks on the guy that he initially started beating up, and they run out of the club's back door, all of this hubbub hubbub.

Sheneel's like, we gotta go.

She grabs Sarah.

They run out the front and they meet up with Kai and Derek.

Kai heads off and Shaneil starts yelling at her brother for fighting.

She's like, you need to stop getting mixed up with Kai.

Like I get it, but like enough, he's bad news.

You're gonna get in trouble.

Yeah.

They get back to their neighborhood.

Sarah's like, oh, I'm just a couple of blocks away, and she knows, like, no, you cannot walk home alone.

It's not safe.

And Derek's like, I'll go with you, so he and Channeel's like at her house already, it's not like you can walk home alone.

Oh you're fine.

Yeah, she's already there.

So Derek walks Sarah home.

He offers to meet up with her after school to help her work on her moves.

Okay, Okay, here's what I think the movie wants me to think is happening.

Okay, what the movie wants me to think is happening is that Derek is so enamored he's just looking for an excuse to spend time with Sarah, which that makes total dramaturgical sense.

Yeah, But what I think is really happening is that Derek doesn't want to be a doctor.

Derek wants to be a choreographer.

I just want to dance.

Derek just wants to be Debbie Allen.

The rest of this movie, Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I'm going to lay out a case here that Derek's true passion is choreography, and the movie is choosing to guess, like me, with this romance that's happening with the two of them in the movie, which both of these actors have chemistry, so there is like a lovely romance in the movie.

But I feel like that is secondary to the true story that's happening here, which is Derek's budding career as the next Justin Beck, and like he needs this needs to come out.

I also, like, I just okay if he's just teaching her moves so like so you can go to steps and you cannot look like a fool on the dance floor.

All you need to do is just you just need to move a little bit.

That's it, you really, it's not.

You don't have to show off.

You will be able to freak with somebody.

That's why.

That's why I think he wants to because he's showing her like moves, and.

I mean, and these moves are not hard.

There's there's one that's almost a great vine, y'all.

There's a great vine.

There is a greapevine one hundred percent, but like and I'm just gonna scud ahead, way ahead.

Later on in the movie, there's a moment where he's like hit it, Like why aren't you hitting it?

I'm like, I'm like why He may as well be being like, girl, your extension is off?

And then like when did Derek become a choreographer?

So Sarah agrees to meet up with him after school to work on her moves, and she thanks him for walking her home and they smile at each other.

Kiss, kiss, kiss kiss.

Sarah walks in to like, I don't know, it's probably like midnight ish, I'm guessing, and it's not that late because they had to leave the club pretty fast.

Yeah, and her father's upset that she wasn't home when he came home on a break from his gig at the club.

He's like, well, I didn't go back to the club because I got freaked out that you weren't home, and now I missed half a night's work worrying about you.

And Sarah's like, well, you weren't interested in being a father in me for the last seventeen years, so I don't know why you care now.

And I'm fine.

I'm an adult.

I can take care of myself.

He snaps at her, and he's like, look, I don't need much.

I just need to know where you're going and when you think you'll be home.

These are very basic tenets of child adult behavior.

Just give me, throw me a bone.

I read Dadding for Dummies and they say I should know where you are.

But he's not wrong, No, he's not wrong, like leave a note, went out with friends, will be back by Because honestly, with this dad, if she said we'll be back by three am, he'd be like, well I don't love.

It, but okay, well yeah, he has no standing and.

As long as she's back by three am, it's fine.

He's not gonna ground her.

We cut to our first dance montage, Derek teaches Sarah how to stand, how to sit, how to grunt, along with some real slick dance moves.

There's a moment here where he's like teaching her how to manspread?

Yeah, why man spreading?

What part of dancing involved?

Like?

Is it because his budding choreographer brain.

He's like, I need her to be able to open up her hips.

Yeah, And the only way I could do that is to be like, you know how when people man spread on the subway.

Let me show you, you know, when you have a real sickle dick and you have to and you have to make room for the.

Curve, you know how, like when men take up so much fucking space.

I need you to take up space right now, Sarah?

Yeah, like instead of.

Like, don't contract expand.

So they're in the cafeteria for this one.

At the end of the session, he tells her they're gonna have to find someplace else to practice, and I'm like, why what if you could go here?

Whatever, it doesn't matter.

They move on, maybe because.

It's too embarrassing to be mean.

She demonstrates a bit of her ballet skills and when he's like, what the hell was that because she does like an arabesque whatever.

Don't pretend you don't know those dance moves.

Derek, do you know why he has today?

He's like, we gotta go somewhere else.

It's because he realizes his friends are gonna mock him for being the choreographer that he is.

God, I'm a dancer like his dancer dancer.

His friends are gonna ras him to death and be like, you were supposed to be a surgeon and now you want to be Twila Tharp.

Fuck you.

Man.

If Snookie finds out about this, he's never gonna hear the end of it.

He's never gonna hear the end of it.

So he's very impressed.

He's like, what was that?

And she's like, I don't want to talk about it.

It's not a big deal, and she walks away and he says, I think it is.

The Next day at school, Sarah's walking into the girl's room.

She sees Kai in there with a girl and Kai is like slamming this girl against the wall and being like, where's my money?

Where's my money?

Yeah, And for a minute I was like, are they wait?

Oh my god, is he supposed to be a pimp.

That's fucking horrible.

I had the same thought.

I was like, oh my god.

And then it's like, no, she bought drugs from him and then didn't pay him back or like pay him for the witch PSA.

I guess for this episode.

I never thought i'd have to say this, but drug dealers, if you're listening to us, get the money up front.

What are you doing?

Why are you selling drugs on layaway.

You can't sell drugs on spec That is a.

Bad business practice.

You get the money up front for the drugs.

I can't believe I have to tell anyone this.

I thought this was if they teach us in drug.

Dealing school, in drug one oh one, in drug pushing one on one.

I mean, while we're on this topic, do we also tell them not to get high on their own supply it?

Does he get high of her?

No?

I'm just saying just doing that, Oh, fair enough, blanket.

Look, we should start our own drug dealing one on one podcast.

I feel like there is a there is a need for this in the world.

People need to know all the all the major pitfalls one can take when entering the drug dealing world.

Yeah, when opening your own drug habitat ury.

Absolutely everyone likes everyone likes it.

A spoke menu.

We'll just start there.

We'll start there.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, make sure you under you know what, don't get high on your own supply, but also know what you're dealing with.

Yeah, know what you have, Know what your product is, know your own worth, know your own worth.

Yes, yes, let's shark tank this shit.

But anyway turns out Yeah, girl owes him money for drugs.

Sarah comes in.

She sees Kai slapping this girl around and she's like, hey, stop it, as one would.

Kai does not take kindly to this.

The girl runs away.

All of Sarah's fight kind of drains out of her.

You see it really quick.

She's like, oh fuck, I've overstepped.

Yeah.

He like gets really in her face and he's like you do not get in my way.

Do you understand?

And she's like I understand, and then he leaves her alone.

Yep.

We cut to Sarah and Derek.

They're walking to another dance practice and she asks him about his relationship with Kai.

She's like, that guy's scary.

Why do you hang out with him?

Derek says, look, Kai has a good heart.

I know.

He's like he's had a rough life.

I'm never going to abandon him, and he explains it.

A while he and Ki were caught robbing a liquor store and they were running and they went in different directions.

It looked like Derek was gonna get caught, and Kai started to make noise and sacrificed himself, so Derek got away scott free.

Yeah, and then he absolutely refused to give up Derek's name to the DA so he went to Juvie and Derek saw no consequences.

Yeah, which rightfully would inspire a lot of loyalty.

That is good writing, I tell you, because as soon as he said that, I was like, oh, because I was already with this relationship, just like the two actors have good chemistry together, and I believe that they've been lifelong friends and one just went one way and the other one went the other.

But this now is like okay, because also I'm like, why doesn't Sarah just say this guy threw me up against the wall and threatened me.

Right after Derek says that you really can't be like this guy through we have against the wall and threatened me, you have to be.

Like Okay, she's learning from that first scene, she's not calling someone an asshole until she understands the relationship they have with the person she's talking to.

Good job, Sarah, So Sarah backs off the Kai talk.

Derek asks her about her.

She immediately gets extremely defensive, and he's like, I'm just like, what, how's your relationship with your mother?

Like what's she like?

You never talk about her?

And she's like she's dead and he's like, okay, sorry.

I didn't know that Kai killed her.

So he takes her to an abandoned furniture store that he used to work at, and there's another dance training montage.

She's like, a full this.

I think this is the where he's like, no, you have to hit it a full choreographer.

And I'm like, he is now a choreographer.

He basically like you cut away from him, you cut back.

He's wearing like a leotard and like and and like yoga pants and he's got a score of heround his neck and he's like again again, he's got one of those.

Walking starts, slamming the walking stick to the beaty you will call me Madame Radmanova.

We cut to Sarah and Shanil hanging out she Neil tells Sarah and the audience out their backstory about their mother abandoning them when they were young.

She does have a heartbreaking line here where she talks about her mother's past and she says their mom was in jail for drugs and things women do for drugs, which I was like, oh, that's that's fucking heartbreaking.

So yeah, they're on their own, and then they start talking a little bit about Derek.

Sarah's like, so, tell me a little bit more about your brother.

What's swiss he into?

What's he like?

Does does he like girls?

Her offbeat?

Does he like the other white meat?

You know what I mean?

And she kneels like, oh, you like Derek, And Sarah's like no.

Then of course she can't keep the smile off her face.

And then at that moment, we hear Derek come into the house.

He's got the mail, he's thrilled he got into Georgetown, celebrating.

There's big hugs all around.

Derek hugs Sarah.

Sarah is like red in the face from blushing, Like Derek doesn't realize like how much she likes him up until this moment is very sweet.

Yep Erica, that's about halfway through the movie.

Should we take a little break.

Here, You know what, let's just stop the movie here, let's take a dance break.

Everything good has happened.

Derek got into Georgetown, Sarah's made two best friends.

We're good.

End of movie.

End of movie.

Nothing bad's gonna happen, y'all.

We'll be right back to finish taking you through.

Save the last dance, and we're back.

We come back to find Sarah and Derek on the train on the l there now, I think officially on a date.

They are like kind of snuggling a little bit, and they're cheerful and happy.

And there's a white woman, an older white woman.

Actually I'm giving that too much like class that inflection.

She's bedraggled, she's nasty, she's a nasty old white lady, and she's giving them side eye because gross interracial coupling miscegyny ew and Sarah notices it first.

She starts to like get inch closer and closer to Derek, Derek, bless him, not noticing it for a while.

Derek learned at a young age to ignore racist white women.

Yeah, who has the time?

Who has the time?

And Sarah finally like she's like, hey, we have an audience, and they see and Derek sees her too, and the lady's like hoop hooph, and so they decided to put on a bit of a show.

So like Sarah starts to like snuggle up on Derek's neck and then they start to kiss.

It's very I think they're so cute.

These two are so cute.

I like them together.

Yeah, and the woman is like gross, and she she actually stands up and like leaves the train.

So the two of them laugh.

They're like enjoying making the right the old racist uncomfortable.

Excellent.

All good.

Right, they get off the train, they're they're walking in this neighborhood and she's like, where are we going?

And Derek's like it's a surprise.

And she's like, this is your celebration night for getting into Georgetown.

It shouldn't be my super and he's like, well, that's the way it is.

He's perfect.

He is so perfect.

The worst part about him is that he is too loyal to his friend who has gone to a down a dark path.

Yeah, that's the worst thing about him.

His flaw, that's the only flaw he seems to have.

That and maybe he's a little too comfortable being kind of a dick in English class.

Yeah, it's not even that big a deal.

They walk up to the Chicago Theater advertising a performance by the Jeoffrey Ballet, and he's like, surprise, I took you to the I'm taking you to the ballet.

I am a seventeen year old boy.

Uh huh, I want to I want to say this out loud again, so everyone heard that I am a seventeen year old straight boy who is taking my girl to the ballet, because that's what she's into.

This person doesn't exist.

Yeah, this is a unicorn.

Sarah's like, oh no, oh no.

She starts.

She starts to like get even more pale than she already is.

She's like, I can't go in there.

I'm sorry, I can't go into the ballet.

She acts all weird.

The two of them eventually do end up going in and they watch the performance of the horniest ballet the Geoffrey has ever put on.

I mean like, it's inches from actual intercourse happening on stage.

She's almost penetration.

There's the only thing stopping penetration is a well placed dance bell.

It wells played dance Bell in a thin layer of nylons.

It is.

I mean, I'm like, it's so funnycause I've seen Jeffrey a few times and I'm like, I don't recall them being the horniest.

Dance company ever.

Afterwards, Sarah is emotional and Derek asks why.

She tells him that she just wants to go back to when her life made sense, when her mother was alive.

Okay, so this scene is, this scene's rough, it's it's a very difficult scene.

The writing is very surface.

She says exactly what it is to explain to the audience exactly what she's feeling, which is not really how people talk.

Yeah, and it's Julia Styles is doing her level best.

This is not her fault.

It's not her fault.

The writing is really rough.

Dancing is her fault.

I don't even think that because the director should have been like, no, we're gonna hire a body double, like you're gonna get in intense, We're gonna you're gonna do like some things, but like the majority of the dancing is gonna be a body double.

Are you gonna take like six months to learn ballet not two months?

It still wouldn't be enough.

It's still like, that's not a cut on her, that's a cut on any any twenty five year old who's gonna try to look like they've been dancing like an eighteen year old who's been dancing for seventeen years.

I'm gonna take six weeks, six weeks worth of ballet glasses at the minute we're done with this, and then show you up in a month and a half, My friend.

You would be dead in two days.

I would be a graceful Missy Copeland's got nothing on.

Me, step aside, she's retiring anyway, all right.

So Sarah breaks down.

She admits that she blames herself for her mother's death.

All her mother wanted was for Sarah's dreams to come true, and Sarah insisted that she'd be at the at the Juilliard audition, and it wound up killing her.

She's dead because of me, Right, It's the kind.

Of nonsense that like you wouldn't believe an adult, but a seventeen year old would think that.

Yes, Like I'm like, all right, yeah, that's you're gonna needed some therapy, but like, it's not your fault.

It's not your fault.

Derek perfect again is like, your mother's death was not your fault and your mother would still want your dream to come true.

Yes, got it right, Derek.

That's the thing too, he can't be best boy because everything he says only a man.

Everything he says makes you attracted to him, so like.

Like I'm uncomfortably attracted to the teenagers in this film.

Yeah, Sarah says, I don't think I can do it without her, and Derek is like, look, what do you want?

Do you want to go to Juilliard?

And Sarah admits that she does, and Derek says, then it's up to you to make your dream come true.

And he walks her home and he kisses her on her front porch and he smiles that million watt Sean Patrick Thomas smile, and then he heads home with like a spring in his step, and basements across the country flooded.

I'm genuinely how did he not become a huge star?

Yeah?

I literally am like, either it was it was like the racist system, or he genuinely didn't want to.

What Shawn Patrick Thomas needs is Shonda Shanda, are you listening to me?

You made Kerrie Washington a mega WATS star.

We need you to do the same for for this kid too, because this kid, he's literally my age.

We deserve to get to see that face.

Yeah, and that asks.

Yeah, let's get really put him on.

Bridgerton took the words right out of my mouth.

Yeah.

So after the date, Sarah's reevaluating her life, her decisions.

She goes into her closet, she takes out her point shoes, she starts practicing again.

She tells Derek that Juilliard is holding auditions in Chicago next month.

Okay, pause, yes, Paul, we have to talk about the timeline of this movie.

Uh huh, Okay, So her mother passed away at this point.

Let's say maybe she's been in in Chicago out in parentheses two months.

Ah No, I feel like it's longer.

You think it's long.

So it's like like half the school year.

Like, let's maybe her perhaps her mother passed away in like September October, so she auditioned in the Chicago area, presumptively in Chicago, no more than like five months ago, and now there's another Juilliard audition for admittance that fall.

Julliard didn't find anyone.

They were looking for Julia.

They needed Julia Styles all right, oh, like they're like, no one has used a chair in their audition yet, I have thoughts about that chair.

I I if the thoughts are that chair was perfect, change nothing that I agree with you.

The chair also got into Juilliard.

That chair expressed things.

What if the chair also got it in Juilliard?

What if she shows up for Juilliard and he's like, where's the chair?

Where's the chair?

No, we wanted the chair.

We were talking to the chair, not to you.

So she and Derek start to practice now in like in aband furniture store that he worked at last summer.

Don't worry about it.

Just don't worry about it.

These two are breaking into a building, using the fire escape to get into this, and I'm like, first of all, how are there not already people squatting in there?

Second of all, how are they not like is how is it not rat infested?

Find something?

Fight a park?

I don't know.

It's an abandoned building in Chicago in the winter, famously very cold.

Fucking freezing in there.

Good call.

I forgot about the fact that it's winter.

So he's like, all right, girl, we gotta get you practicing.

We gotta get your ballet up to shape, and she says maybe the funniest line in the entire film.

She turns to Derek and she goes, you know, I'm okay with the ballet part of the audition, but I need you to help me with my free form.

Paul, there was a montage you did not put in here earlier where she goes to a ballet class.

And watch her at that ballet class, and I can tell you, as someone who has never taken ballets, is not a dancer, but has seen ballet, has ballet.

Girl, you're not ready for the ballet part of that audition.

Okay, So here's the crazy You are not fucking ready.

Here's the crazy thing.

They put her in a ballet class.

Fine, and then they I don't know what the move is called, the move where you lift your leg back.

I think it's in our basket.

I don't know, because I don't know anything about ballet except that she is not ready.

But they put her with a bunch of girls her age who are ballet dancers.

So everyone else's leg is like two feet higher than Julia styles like, just have the other ballet dancers.

All right, girls, we're just gonna lift our legs this high, so it looks like that's what she's being told to do.

Yes, she looks terrible.

She looks bad next to them, and it's not her fault.

You're setting her up for failure.

And she's like, no, no, don't worry about the ballet.

Derek, Derek, I got it.

What I need you to help me with is this?

What's hip hop?

What is that?

So we cut to steps there is I believe it is an ice cube song that's playing with the line I got dick for days, you got asked for weeks and I have to say straight adoptee into our friend group.

That's another one you could try shouting out.

So Derek takes Sarah back out onto the dance floor.

She's much more comfortable.

They start to gather in audiences they dance, and this is one of them, like.

The I hate this so much because people are like Derek, Derek.

Go, Sarah, Go Sarah, And I'm like, I don't think.

I don't.

I genuinely don't think high school students were doing this in two thousand and one.

I feel like I did this when I was in middle school.

That was a thing.

Also, this movie is positing They're not at like a high school dance.

They're at a club.

They're at a club.

There are there people at this club who do not know who these two people are erect.

There are adults on a date at this club.

There's two people who worked a hard week at their adult jobs.

They hired a babysitter.

They're like, let's go to a nice let's go dancing.

Yeah that is that is what's in this club.

And now they have to cheer on two seventeen year olds as they're dancing badly at the club.

You know what, I'm just gonna I'm just gonna run and grab a mattress pad for Erica's seat because Nicki is back.

It's fine, I'm fine.

I don't need Look.

Is she is she the most beautiful woman I've ever seen?

Maybe?

Yes?

Is she also breathtaking?

Yes?

Also yes?

Can I handle it?

No?

Yes?

No, No, I can't I can't handle it.

I can't handle it.

She notices them dancing.

She decides she wants to cause little chaos, so she heads to the dance floor, and she inserts herself between Derek and Sarah.

You can't shurt herself anywhere.

She wants as far as I'm concerned Derek.

The movie implies that Derek's like not really paying attention.

So he starts dancing with Nicki and Sarah kind of is half dancing with Snookie, but she's also kind of left out in the cold.

Yeah, no, okay, this okay.

Maybe I was gonna say, like, Derek's worst trait is that he's too good.

Yeah, he's too good of a friend.

This I could actually be his worst trip.

This is this is a fuck up.

This is this is a major fuck up.

He starts like dancing with her, but like, like he almost gets lost in the moment with Nikki.

You know this is your ex?

Yeah, you hate you know what she's trying to do.

She's not like she's not playing innocent.

She's like, I am here to cause chaos.

And you know your girlfriend is watching, bitch, what are you doing?

Yeah?

So Sarah heads off the floor.

She's pouting on the sidelines, and Kai spots her and he's like, great, here's another chance to put this bitch in her place.

He walks over and he tells you that you never look as good as she does with him.

That's oil your milk.

Ain't no point in trying to mix, and Paul screams at the TV it's oil and water.

I get it.

I know it's a black and white thing.

I understand, but like, find a better metaphor then.

Also, just just be like you're you're seven at best, and she's a fucking twelve.

Let's not even bring race into this.

At that point, Derek, he notices that he's been titmatized by Nikki and he heads over to Sarah.

He says, he was just dancing.

There is nothing between me and her.

He's like, you were dancing with Snookie.

I was dancing with her, not a big deal.

I didn't mean to hurt your feelings.

And he apologizes so like, even when he fucks up, this seventeen year old boy immediately is like, I fucked up.

I'm really sorry.

I didn't mean to Please forgive me.

He's so good.

God, damn it, Derek, You're perfect.

So she lets it go.

She takes him back to her place.

She mentions that her father will be gone all night.

And we know what that means is that the express train to a dick down's entrance music.

I hear, are these two kids gonna bone down?

And the most uncomfortable mattress have ever made?

Yeah, do you think they pulled out the couch and they just fucked on the couch?

I hope they fucked on Roy's bed.

Oh no, that's worse than the couch.

I don't know.

I think the couch is better than Broyce Orr back.

In the Mystic's a thing where like where like what is the bigger boner killer?

There is no chance that the mattress on Roy's bed isn't a fucking crime scene.

You know what.

That's fair.

There's no chance that the mattress on Roy's bed wasn't like, wasn't found on the street.

Yeah, dragged into that apartment.

Yeah, and you know what, we did skip over this part, but he doesn't mention in the beginning that he put a new mattress on the pullout.

Yes, so she is that mattress is fresh.

The pullout couch, Like, it's gotta be cleaner than that mattress than ratchess.

Are You're right?

I want to in my because I don't want to think about these two hot people taking their clothes off, getting ready for the moment, and then one of them being like hang on and like trying to pull out the couch.

You got to pull it out before you start getting in the moment, you guys.

Because there's just nothing sexier.

I usually don't advocate for the pull out method, but in this case.

You've got to pull out first.

You gotta pull out early and first.

Like, there's nothing less sexy than watching someone try to pull out a.

Couch, porking it up, like I gotta get it this time.

Come on to get it at the right angle.

Almost there, almost there.

You're as out.

You're pulling up that couch.

Just showing full hole of the person behind you.

Then you slip and you fall over, pressed tam on the floor.

You just go, God, damn it.

The other person's like, I told you you got to go.

At an angle, get your dick caught in it.

So yeah, let's just hope they just fuck on the couch.

Young.

They're young, they're athletic, they can do it.

Yeah.

A couple of things I love about this scene.

You rarely see a high school movie where there's a sex scene where there's not like like agonizing.

Over it first, or consequences after.

Or consequences afterwards, exactly where there's like this this.

I remember even ten years ago.

The first time I saw this movie, I remember thinking, oh, that's something I've never seen before.

Kudos to not only them getting to bang it out on the couch because father's gone all night, but her father being gone all night means we were spared a scene of the white man explaining jazz to the young black man.

Oh, although honestly I would have loved that.

Yeah, would have loved that for him to be like, let's talk about jazz, okay everyone, sweet sex scene, lovely buckle up movies about take a hard turn.

We cut to a diner.

Derek is like walks in.

He sits with Kai and a couple of their friends.

They all start making fun of him for dating a white girl and he's like, yeah, well you know.

And then Kai is like, so, anyway, I'm planning a raid across town cause there's some drug dealers who are trying to encroach on my territory and I'm not into that.

And I'm thinking drive by, Yeah, what are we thinking?

That's no bad ideas in a brainstorm, I'm gonna start with drive by.

And everyone's like, wait, what you want to do a drive by?

And he's like, I know what you're thinking, don't worry, I have a gun, and then he shows that his gun, and Derek's like, ooh, okay, this is all terrible.

Maybe we don't do any of this.

Maybe you stop dealing drugs.

You just fucking go to school like a normal kid, and like try to like educate yourself and go to college and get a job and just be a person in the world that's not like a gun slinging drug dealer.

Yeah, and guys like, no, that sounds real boring.

I'm gonna do this.

I like my idea better, thank you for the idea.

But no, yeah, no, no, excellent.

I'm so glad I'm getting all the into this.

But that sounds so boring.

Yeah, and I don't want to do it.

We cut to the girls playing basketball in a gym class while Derek Kai and the boys play a pickup game in the park.

I don't know if it's supposed to be happening simultaneously.

I don't know why the girls would be in school while these Maybe maybe it's not really simultaneous, but I think.

It's like to show that, like, look, the boys are playing like nicely and the girls are not.

Tensions escalate in both games with Sarah and Nikki getting into a brawl while the boys get hit by a drive by, though no one is killed, right, they hear the gunshots, they all they all go to the ground.

Snookie's there, Derek's there, Kai is there, the other like you know, bit players are all there, is there.

No one even gets hit.

I don't think.

So the movie is starting to like it's starting to hit the stereotypes really hard, right, Like in the beginning of the movie when when shaneil had it had was a teen mom, right, I was like, oh, but the movie is like not portraying her as like, you know, she has no future, Like it's not it.

This is a thing that happened and she's dealing with it and she's still going to school and she has a support system, and like there are that's good representation, right, Like it's part of her life and there are millions of young women out there that are experiencing this.

Great right, But then we start to get into more of the drug stuff and can we deepen this a little bit?

This is first thought yeah in the hood?

Yeah, and and like like Kai, I think I think the performance of Kai is good, but like he doesn't get much depth as a character.

He kind of gets depth from Derek's story and Derek liking him and wanting to not lose him as a friend and stuff, but like he you know, learn about his.

Life now that I think about it, they don't really go deep on anyone except for Sarah and Shanil.

They don't really even good that deep on Derek, right, because he has to be perfect.

He has to be perfect.

It's perfect.

It's perfection all the way down with that one.

There's really nothing.

Yeah, there's just he likes Sarah.

He likes school, I guess, and that's it, and he's a good friend.

Yeah, But like, they don't go deep on those two are truly the only characters that get any kind of like arc are Shanil and Sarah.

None of the boys get that, which is a little disappointing now that you're saying it, because it didn't super occur to me until right now.

Yeah, and I think, like for two thousand and one, this is probably like important representation, like having an interracial relationship.

It's the head of a rom com, a teen rom com, no last like rom drum.

Yeah, fair enough, fair enough was good.

It's not nuanced, is all I'm trying to say.

Yeah, a thousand percent.

Yeah, there's nothing nuanced though, even the stuff that like we do know about that we like, oh sure, the ballet stuff is not nuanced.

Yeah, the auditions.

The only times the movie like pulls back a touch and it has like the slightest bit of nuance, You're right, is when they first show the high school that they're all in and it's like a normal high school.

It's not.

It's not the Lean on Me School of Terror and like a couple of bits with Shinil and Sarah, but there's very other than that.

Everyone is just like stereotype stereotype stereotype.

Yeah, And I can't figure out given the genre of the movie like this, it might just be more of a genre thing, right, Like this is not an indie, you know, a twenty four release where they're trying to really like go deep, Like, so is it only something I'm pointing out because it's since it's not all white kids all the stereotypes now, are these harmful stereotypes are not?

Or is it like it's all the capitol R race thing is starting to come up with a little bit.

A little bit, Yeah, one is about to come up a lot.

Yeah, so after the fight and like, we don't get much of the fight in the movie, but the aftermath is real, Like, they don't look good, they look beat up.

Sarah, nick You're sitting next to each other, and Nicki says, this ain't over, bitch, and Sarah's like, I don't even know why it started.

What do you mean it's not over?

What the fuck is your problem?

And Nicki says the quiet part out loud.

She's like, white women taking black men.

We don't like it.

It's not it's not a good look for you.

She goes, the whole world ain't enough.

You gotta conquer ours too, And this is the first time that it dawns on Sarah that it's not just old racist white ladies who are gonna have a problem with them, it's everyone else.

And like there is again, You're right, there's like it goes into stereotypes, like Derek is quote unquote the good one.

This would also be more effective if the backstory of Nicki and Derek wasn't that she cheated on him and now wants him back.

Yeah, Like what if Nicki just had a crush on him and he chose Sarah and he wasn't interested in her for whatever reason.

Well cast behind, so Sarah pushes back.

She's like, where can I like each other?

If you have a problem with it, screw you, Yes, none of your business.

That night, at Sarah's apartment, Derek comes to visit, having heard about the fight.

She opens the door.

Roy appears behind her, and Sarah's like, I'm fine, Like, we're good, you know, go now, I'll call you and Roy helps Sarah.

Patra bruises with like first aid.

So Roy's becoming a good father.

For track, Roy has an arc.

We don't really follow it, but it's true he has an arc.

He's a better father.

We cut to steps.

Kai is again pressuring Derek to join him on his planned raid.

Like Derek can't say no.

He's not saying yes, but he can't say no either.

Derek doesn't respond, and Snooky and Sarah appear behind him.

They were apparently like just dancing on the floor, and Kai kicks Snooky to the ground and mocks him for hitting the deck during the drive by.

Which like everyone did, Bro, that's what you're supposed to do in that drive by.

You're the only one who stood up and started shooting back.

Because you were the only one with a gun.

Yeah, do you not know how drive bys work?

All right?

He's drug dealing one on one drive bys?

Yeah, this is two on one, like if you hit the drive by part of drug dealing your advanced.

Yeah, there is a line here that is so goddamn funny.

I know.

Wait, is it funny or is it corny and cringey?

It's funny because someone, an adult wrote this for a child.

An adult wrote this a for a ostensible Obviously, all these people are like twenty five years old, but like the character of Kai is supposed to be seventeen years old.

Okay, Sarah and Snookie come up on their conversation and Sarah tries to intervene because there's tension there, and Kai says, this is an A and B conversation, So see your way home.

I tripped on that so hard.

How did that make the final cut of this movie?

How did the actor not be like, no, I'm not saying that.

How did the editor not be like, this is supposed to be a teenage boy?

Yeah, he wouldn't say that.

How did the director not cat like, who is who dropped?

There's so many balls that got dropped?

To the moment where Kai, the gun toting drug dealer Yah who is seventeen years old in a year two thousand and one, says that to another seventeen year old it doesn't make any fucking sense.

So Sarah's like, Hey, I'm leaving, are you coming with me?

This is when Kai does the whole a B thing.

Sarah tells him to fuck off, and Kai actually goes for her, like he steps at her, and Derek gets in his way, so Kai tells him to get out of his face and take his trailer trash ho with him.

Derek punches him and the two stare at each other, and then Derek takes Sarah and Snookie out of the club.

Right, so there's been a break here between these two lifelong friends.

We cut to Derek and Shaneil's apartment.

Kenny has arrived.

Remember Kenny the father of Shaneil's baby.

Until you mentioned that she had a baby like ten minutes ago, I'd forgotten fully and forgot.

I was like, right, she is a kid.

He comes to take Christopher the baby for the weekend.

Christopher is freaking out because like he's not he's just he's being fussy.

Cute kid they cast a really cute kid to play Christopher.

And he doesn't recognize Kenny because Kenny's not there a lot.

Yes, that's the thing.

He's like, no, you can't take me away from my mom.

Who are you?

You weird tall man?

Yeah, I don't want to be with you.

And this baby's incredible because he gets all that done with subtext.

He's so good, he's so good.

This baby went to.

Juilliard, and this baby you grew up to be Michael B.

Jordan.

This baby actually like went with the chair to Juilliard.

Yeah.

So Kenny is like, come on, let me, let me take him, and he and Shaneil get into like a verbal fight.

It gets ugly, not physically ugly, but verbally ugly, and he's like, fine, fuck off and he just leaves without the kid.

Turns out the baby is sick, that's why it's crying.

So Schanil winds up at a doctor's appointment with Christopher at a very overworked office.

Sarah is with her friend, essensibly just to help.

So Shanil, very stressed out, not in a good place, is like, oh, so does Sarah blame Derek for the fight with Nicki and Sarah says, no, I explained about Nicki, and Shanil's like, oh, so, like you don't take any response ability for this, and Sarah says what and Sheanil says, maybe Nicky has a point.

She says it hurts people to see Sarah and Derek together, particularly black women.

And this is where we say more of the quiet part out loud.

Derek's a good guy, Sarah's poaching one of the few good black men left.

I hate this argument.

Yeah, look, I get it, it's a real argument, but I just I don't know.

I hate seeing it in like popular culture that's meant for white people.

Yeah.

And the reason I hate that for a white audience is because it really like ingrains this stereotype.

Yeah again, I really do get it.

This is the world that we're all living in.

You have to consider who this movie is for and who's probably gonna watch this movie, and like it's gonna be probably a majority of white girls right watching this movie, and like it's a little iffy.

There is a really good line here where Shanil says, this is what NICKI meant by having you in our world, and Sarah says, there's only one world.

Shanil right, which is a fairly good argument, I will say.

And then Shanil turns to where she's like, that's what they teach you, we know different yep.

Also excellent argument.

Yeah yeah, and it's very true because that was what I was taught me too, a hundred percent what I was taught, right.

Yeah.

So she tells Sarah to open up her eyes, look around.

Hurt, Sarah just gathers her things and leaves, and Shanil kind of looks after her regretfully.

So we cut to the next dance rehearsal.

This is the moment where Derek.

This is where Erica goes Derek.

Is why is Derek a choreographer all of a sudden, Because this is when it dawns on me that like, not only is he like teaching her steps, he's choreographing her dance for her audition.

Yes, Like I didn't realize that until like the second time through.

He is one hundred percent like and so he gets like annoyed with her when she doesn't hit her steps and like your extension is off and like what are you doing?

And she's like, shut up, Balanchine, I'm trying, Like she's out of sorts because of the fight she just had with Shanil, And Derek is like, Hey, everything's going to be okay, Like, you're gonna have the audition.

You're gonna be amazing at it because my Steps are unimpeachably good.

Yeah.

In fact, after you audition for Julliard, they're gonna be like, guess what, girl, you didn't get into Juilliard?

But who is your choreographer?

We want them?

Yeah, He's like, hey, have you picked out a dress for Main Squeeze night at Steps?

Again?

This is this is an actual club, but this is not This isn't a prom I don't know.

I do feel like clubs are cheeseball, though I have definitely seen club promote some cheeseball shit, and like, I this this might if this club is cheeseball enough to have like a mostly high school clientele, it might be cheeseball enough to have a Maine Squeeze night.

So he's like, have you picked out a dress for our our next date night?

Right?

And she's like, I don't know, should maybe after the fight we should just cool it for a while and not go out in public very much.

And Derek's like buh, are you embarrassed to be seen with me?

And she's like, no, you should be embarrassed we see with me.

You are you forgetting what is happening here?

And she's like, I don't know what I want.

I'm just tired of having to defend our relationship to every everyone, to the world.

And Derek's like, well, that's the world we're living in.

Shit gets hard.

You don't just walk away because shit gets hard.

You have to keep moving forward and persevering.

He's such a he's such an adult.

He's like, he should be a therapist.

A therapist, choreographer, the therapies you through the dance.

You know that exists?

Oh?

Absolutely, Derek would found the studio for that and make a billion dollars.

And then he kind of hits her on like on a nerve.

He goes, you know, you quit on your on life after your mother died, and now you're gonna quit on me, and she's like, do not talk about my mother.

He immediately apologizes.

He's like, I'm sorry, my bad, and he's like, I've been defending your our relationship to everyone too.

It's not just you.

I thought we were in this together.

That's why I was happy to do so.

But if you're not happy to do so, if you think this is too difficult, then fuck off.

And then he leaves yep.

In the aftermath of the breakup, Derek agrees to go with Kai on his raid.

Buddy, Buddy.

The move here is Pint of ice Cream.

YEP is movie you cry too, absolutely Sandra Bullock movie You don't want your You don't want your friends to know you secretly watch and weep at.

Love Potion number nine.

Yeah, I did.

The move here is to go fuck Nicky.

Yeah, the move here, that's.

What you always think.

The answer is Erica.

Maybe it's a good day, Maybe I should go fuck Nicky.

It's a bad day.

Maybe I should go fuck me.

Maybe I should just like let Nicky hang out, like pick out my clothes.

But genuinely, I'm like, this is such an overreaction to a mediocre girl dumping him, or him dumping a mediocre Look.

I look, I love this movie.

I like this movie very much, But Sarah is mediocre.

Sarah continues to rehearse her upcoming Juilliard audition, and we learned that it is now the next day, so time has moved forward.

It's the day of the show, y'all.

The day of the show, y'all, at home, she's paging through a photo album of her mother and Roy comes in.

He wants to say good luck, and then he shows her that he finally fixed up her bedroom so she has her own space.

Okay, this apartment.

She walks into this apartment and he like does the reveal that he painted her room and everything, and then he has a line where he goes, some of it's so wet.

You're telling me she walked into this four hundred square foot apartment and wasn't like, why does it smell like paint?

You're telling me that he was apparently able to do it in one day while she was gone at school, and it took him three months to do it.

That that tracks, Actually, that part actually does.

She should have been like, maybe if you had done this earlier, you wouldn't have to sit on my fuck couch to watch television.

I would like you to know that I did a doggy style on.

That couch and I didn't turn the cushions over afterwards.

Now enjoy your episode of Dateline.

So Roy says that he knows he doesn't deserve a second chance to be her father, but he hopes she'll give him one and she starts to cry.

She confides in him about the breakup.

She treats him like a dad for the first time, and she says she just wants someone at her audition who loves her.

And Roy says, I love you, and I.

Gotta say this actor killed him because it got me.

I was like, oh me too, me to this actor fucking nailed it.

He's so good.

Okay, look you like, I get it.

Like with your mom maybe in the beginning of the movie, but by now you've auditioned several times for Juilliard.

You need to learn how to audition on your own.

Your mommy and daddy cannot come with you on every audition for the rest of your life.

You needs to tough enough.

Yeah.

We cut to the park, Derek is helping she kneel with Christopher.

She's like, hey, man, I heard about your breakup with Sarah.

I might have had.

Something to do that might have been somewhere between fifty my fault.

So she's she's like, listen, I'm really sorry, but I told and she tells him everything about her confrontation.

She's like, I was dealing with bullshit from like with Christopher and his father and I and I not the baby's fault, Kenny's fault, us dealing with bullshit from Kenny and I lost.

I lost my head and I took it out on Sarah.

I'm really sorry.

And Derek's like, stay out of my life, and he's like, I gotta go.

And Chaniel's like, wait, are you going to that thing with Kai?

And like what's funny is like everyone knows.

Yeah, this is the least well kept secret of this entire school is that Kai is going.

At four pm on a Saturday.

We'll be doing a drive.

We'll be doing a drive ye in West Chicago.

Like, what about the other kids, the other kids on the other side of that drive by?

Do you think they were told ahead of time?

Because fucking everyone knows.

So she's like, don't don't go help Kai.

I know you think you owe him, but you don't, and you have to move on with your life.

And as Derek is leaving anyway, Kenny arrives in the park and he and Shaniel this has clearly been a thaw for their fight, and they greet each other warmly.

I want to start tracking timing again.

Huh.

This, Paul, was your audition for NYU at ninety pm was not?

Because this movie posits that her audition for Juilliard is at nine pm.

Because I was trying to figure it out, because it's like, Okay, in the park, it's it's daylight and it's still it's not spring, because it's still very great.

Or if it is spring, it does not look like spring.

It still looks like March at the at the latest.

Yeah, yeah, but it's light.

So Derek runs to meet Kai under the bridge to get ready for the for the for the public raid and he tells Kay He's not going.

It's dangerous nonsense.

Kai should stop it.

Kai says, I should have given you up to the police, and Derek is like, you can walk away from this.

You do not have to keep going.

Kai says, I have nothing but respect and I have to defend it.

So Kai drives away with the rest of the crew and Derek runs to Sarah's house, but she's already left for the audition.

It is dark out time.

It's nighttime already.

When he goes to meet Kai.

Yes, like he from the park to meeting Kai, he like, daylight has gone.

Daylight has gone.

Yeah, the twilight has ended, and like we.

Are past the gloaming.

Why did he even agree to this in the first place.

I know he like, obviously he's not gonna go to the drive by, but like, there are things that I could reasonably believe that Derek would agree to because he's pissed off at Sarah, because he's pissed off at the world, and he just kind of wants to act out right like we're gonna go and rob something, but drive by equals murder?

Correct?

The answer is like, so Kai is reaching out to his friend and being like, would you like to come with me to murder people?

To a premeditated murder, to a premeditated murder, to ending the lives of several people, whether they're good people or bad people?

Who cares?

It's we're going to a murder and like and Derek's like, I'm really mad at my girlfriend for breaking up with me, So yeah, I'm gonna do that.

That sounds like a really good way to blow off some seam No no movie.

I don't believe that Derek would ever even get close to agreeing to that, Like, this doesn't make any sense.

We know now he doesn't do it.

He goes.

He shows up and he's like, don't go to the drive by.

So we cut to Roy driving Sarah to the audition and he waits as she warms up, and Derek sprints through Chicago.

He's on the l he's on the train.

He's trying to catch her.

Meanwhile, we cut to Kai and his crew being so bad at drive bys.

I get it, drive bys are not easy, but you could prepare yourself a little bit better for the drive by.

So they're trying to execute their drive by.

Basically, one of the rival gang members hits Kai's like Kai's car's gas tank as he's driving away.

Because they drive by, they miss everyone.

All the guys they were aiming for are fine.

Then those guys are shooting back hard at the car.

They hit the gas tank in the car kind of like I thought, for a minute, I really was kind of hoping the movie was going here because I'm like, I'm like, this is so stupid, Yeah, the car.

I thought the car was going to explode me too.

I thought they were gonna be and kill them all.

Which would have been too dark for this.

It would have been funnier if this was a comedy.

But like it's too dark.

But basically the car kind of half explodes, it like gets on fire.

Whoever's driving the car like swerves and hits another car and now they're like caught by the cups.

So as that's going on, we see Sarah at her audition, we see the ballet piece.

In your opinion, Paul, again, we are not professionals.

If you are a professional dancer or professional choreographer, or if you even attended Juilliard, reach out and let us know.

Do you think this is good enough to get into Juilliard?

Paul?

I pause it No, I don't think this is good enough to get into the community college.

It is the weakest ass ballet audition.

She at one point does one of those like jumps and it just she lands with a foot.

But that's not why we're here, guys, Paul.

Let's get into the contemporary dance piece.

Okay, She brings out her chair.

Yeah, for the contemporary dance piece.

I just want this is one of those like old folding metal chairs that that are in like every like community rec center.

Yep, right, Like that's the chair we're talking about.

Just as Derek rushes in absolutely one thousand percent would not have been able to get in.

But whatever, he's in there now, the same auditioner as earlier in the.

Movie, same stupid bitch.

That same guy that looks like he got he got he got drummed out of close up magic college.

That same guy who absolutely sends a coffee order back.

Yes, that guy, that guy again, and this actor is doing such a good job of portraying that guy.

He's sitting there.

There's a couple other people there.

Sarah starts her piece and she stumbles again.

She like does this thing where and she's basically doing like like Warrior three and she like falls forward as all of us who do Warrior three have done.

However, we are not a for Julliard, and we do it.

We're I supposed to have the core strength of a seventeen.

Year old exactly.

And then and then the yogi teaching the class goes, when you stumble, that's your body learning.

You're like, thanks, and you can get back up.

Right.

No, that's middle aged, right, that's middle age you're talking about.

By the way, when she says stumble, they cut to the bitch I did.

The guy who's auditioning her, and he goes, oh, he's sneers he's so mean.

This is a person who hates children.

You should not do his job because his job asked like you are auditioning teenagers.

This is a person whose dream it was to go to Juilliard for dance.

He didn't get in, and has he somehow managed to get a job as the audition proctor and he.

Gets to jerk off every night to the faces of disappointment that he's had that day.

She apologizes and he's like, well, are you ready now?

And she she can't speak, like, oh my god, all of this, her mother and Derek and her father and her life dreams crumbling around her.

She can't speak.

Erica, She's speechless, one might say.

And Derek shouts from the back that she's ready.

And the auditioner is what is this?

What is this?

And he runs up onto the stage and all the auditioners are like, well, this is not how we do things at Juilliard, young man.

You get him out of here.

We'll get him out of here.

And he ignores them, and he's like, I'm the choreographer.

Excuse me, I am Alvin Ailey.

You twat I shut up.

I have notes.

So he rushes up to the stage and He promises Sarah that she can do it.

He tells her, look, no one's watching you but me.

It's just me and you here.

Baby.

The auditioner is like, are you ready, you tiny little bit, and Sarah's like, I'm ready.

Derek goes into the wings and Sarah starts her piece again.

Okay, okay.

This This scene is said to All or Nothing by Athena Cage.

I really really short interruption here, please the lines.

The line got to work to get the is in this song and straight adopted to the friend group.

You can add that on after I got Dick for days.

You got to ask for weeks.

You gotta work to get the cream.

I think you do that.

You're in I really want to meet our straight OFFTI.

I'm so excited.

We're taking guys, We're taking what do you think his name is?

Submissions?

I want it to be it's a street guy name I wanted to be, like, I mean, Derek would be a good name, right, Derek.

Derek's a straight guy from this movie.

I want something, I want.

Something, yeah, top of Mind.

Yeah, we Salt of the Earth.

Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah yeah.

Like Joe Joe, Joe.

This is my friendly Joe.

I actually do have a straight friend, Joe who could probably pull all of this off.

I want to meet straight friend Joe.

I want Joe Leo Leo.

What about a Leo Leo.

I love my straight friend Joe.

He's a good guy.

It's a good guy.

It's a good guy.

Look, we all have straight men in our lives that are good men.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Every once in a while you get a good one.

He's one of the good hashtag not all straights.

This piece blends ballet with hip hop moves.

There's chair dancing, there's she uses the man's spreading.

We're like, will the man's breading come back?

Oh, it'll come back?

Fucking does man spreading famously always comes back.

Derek puts it in the dance.

I the only thing it would have made it better is if they cut to Derek in the back of the room like a dance mom doing all that the steps in a half like half steps.

He's marking the dance.

Yeah, he's marking it with her like hit it, Yes, she hit it.

I want to talk about this chair, this chair, this shitty ass folding chair that she is like stepping on and doing all these that is a death trap.

That is a death Okay, there is a famous there's a famous song in Chicago when Velma takes the stand and bib Newirth has said that she has like shoulder damage from having to carry that chair around because the chair was so heavy.

Because the chair needs to be heavy because you have a grown woman flipping and taking her life over in her hands all the way over it.

Oh so ned have a heavy chair, so doesn't fucking fall or move while she's doing that.

Right this chair, she would be dead.

She would have broken her neck.

Two arabesques into this piece.

She does that move that you see and like where she puts like she like knocks over the chair while she's dancing on it.

Like yeah, like that that chair would have just slipped out from under our and slid fifty feet across the stage.

Alas, despite the fact that Paul and Erica are duly unimpressed, yeah, yeah, the judges are all duly impressed.

They're like, well, what are these?

Is that a man spread?

Is that a man I've never seen it, I've never seread that before.

Oh my gosh, I've never seen one in competition.

What is this hip hop?

I've heard of this.

If my children have told me about hip hop, I've just never seen it before.

The judges are so into her.

She finishes and she's like thank you, and Derek's like whoa from her side, he rushes the stage, he hugs her, Sarah thanks the judges.

The absolute prick of a judge.

He takes his God he's wearing glasses.

He moves them down on the bridge of his nose.

He goes, miss Johnson, I can't say this on the record yet, but welcome to Juilliard.

Look, let's talk about it.

Like obviously that would never happen, but in my brain.

He says that to her, and she's like, fuck, yeah, I got into Juilliard.

And then literally five Misty Copelands come in right after her and blow her out of the water.

And then they're like, oh shit, oh shit, well well we can We're never gonna see her again.

We're only gonna take five girls from the Chicago area, and those other five were geniuses.

Yeah.

Then they're like, oh, remember when we said that part.

Sorry, sorry.

They're positing that she is so good that there is no way that anyone else.

Maybe she was the last audition of the day because it is now approximately eleven o'clock at night.

It's they're angry.

They're just letting people into Juilliard.

They're like, like I could murder a deep dish pizza.

Let's go, let's go quickly.

Little fact about Juilliard.

The dance, the dance.

The dance section is actually two hundred people, but they cut one hundred and seventy five of them the first day.

No, I'm sorry, you weren't meant to be here.

Sarah and Derek embrace.

Yes, victory for all.

They head back home.

They head to Maine Squeeze night at Steps, which is definitely not prom.

And she's not wearing a dress.

She's not wearing a dress, Hanil, speaking of what people are wearing, Okay, I haven't been to a club in a minute.

I'm told one would never know, Paul, Yeah, one would absolutely never know based on everything about you, that you have not been to a nightclub in a minute.

However, there was a time in my twenties where I did go to clubs and I did like dancing, And one of my absolute clearest memories is how fucking hot it is inside there.

Every time they cut to the club.

Shanil is wearing fourteen layers of clothes.

She's wearing an actual long winter coat.

Looks amazing to be clear, but like, you wouldn't wear that in a club.

It's too hot.

It's so hot.

It's Satan's asshole, is there?

Like yeah, absolutely?

No, okay.

So and Neil congratulates Sarah on her acceptance.

They hug their friends again, and then they all head out onto the dance floor to do someone more that hip hop dancing.

Yeah, Sarah, go Sarah, Go Sarah.

Oh, white Girl so embarrassing.

This movie should have been called Go White Girl instead.

Saved the Last Dance should have been called go White Girl, Go White Girl.

If no one pitched that is that is a That is a massive fail.

It's the same person who wrote It's an A and B conversation, So see yourself out and put it in the mouth of a seventeen year old boy.

All right, everyone, That is the end of Save the Last Dance.

Stick around.

We will be right back with our random observations and final rankings.

And we're back.

Paul.

I'm gonna put my chair away and ask you if you have any observations about this film.

Uh yeah, I'm gonna start with a serious one, and then we're gonna we're gonna slide into the stupid.

Got it, Okay, mine is gonna be all stupid.

Okay, perfect because you know what we.

Didn't celebrate enough, I think during the recap portion of our show is how completely stupid this movie is true.

And honestly that's a feature, not a bug.

Yeah, like you want you want your like Ernest High School for dramas to be also pretty stupid, pretty pretty fucking stupid.

If they get too serious, it's no fun.

Yeah, all right.

So in that very first English class where she first meets Derek, there is a moment where the teacher is asking the class like what did Truman Capoti do?

Like what what made him special?

Or whatever?

Yeah, and Snookie, this is when we first meet.

Snookie is like, yo, he was gay.

He had a sweet tooth, right, which is pretty funny.

And then he keeps going with like the the homophobia, you know, like yeah, it's it's not like the worst homophobia ever, like, but he's just like making fun of the fact that he's gay, right.

Which means Snookie also never read James Baldwin.

Derek.

Yeah, good point.

So the teacher is like, okay, great, we can and we can promote you to kindergarten enough.

So I would just like to submit that this is fine.

I am fine with all of this.

Too, right.

I think he's I'm pretty sure he does.

Again a situation where like, yeah, that's what a kid in two thousand and one would say, And it wasn't The actor did a good job of It wasn't like he was disgusted by it.

He was trying to be a class clown with it.

So it was it was low key and the teacher.

He's clowning on Truman Capoti.

Yes, yeah, exactly, and Truman Capote would obviously unhinches drawn swallow the kid hole, right, but the teacher shuts it down and like in a way, and the and then the class just drops it.

And I just thought that was a very good way of like because people are like, well, that's how it was in two thousand and one.

People said that.

I was like, true, and this is a way to demonstrate how you can shut such a thing down.

So I just thought that was a it was a good moment that didn't in any way like co sign any of like the homophobia stuff going on.

It was like this this is who this kid is.

This kid would say something like that, yeah, and that's fine.

Well let me start with my most serious one for he's a little out of order.

But like that sex scene, great, no real problems to it at all.

I didn't have any real problems with it.

I thought it was really elegantly portrayed for young people, you know, lots of consent everywhere, wonderful.

If I had a note, though, it would be for the person underscoring the scene with this song true Colors.

I get it, they're interracial.

I see your true Colors, but it's about something else.

It's so lame and on the nose and horrible.

And there's no way either of these two kids listens to that music.

Like neither of them is like, hang on, let me put on my Cyndi Lauper Fuck mix.

Well, do you realize that's a cover?

It is a cover.

Yeah, I get that, part two, but no, bad.

Bad, bad song choice fair enough.

I do not like this song.

This song choice killed my boner.

Do you remember Lindsay Prayer Prayer Forward Lindsay's second moment in the movie, so she has that first scene basically disappears from the movie and then we have one phone call between between Sarah and Lindsay.

This is after the first dance montage.

So Sarah has just been in the cafeteria.

She's learned how to stand, she has learned how to sit.

She has demonstrated some ballet moves for Derek, and he thinks ballet is a big deal.

Yeah, and now then she we cut back to her in the apartment and the she is in media res and a phone call with Lindsay, and Lindsay says, I'm just going to I'm just gonna do this conversation for everybody.

Did you see anyone get shot yet?

Cool?

No, I didn't move to Bosnia.

Jesus, Sarah, you're in the freaking ghetto.

Forget about the drive bys.

How are you supposed to meet anybody?

Well?

I did meet somebody.

Actually, he's pretty cool.

They got white guys at your school.

Excellent.

That honestly is pretty good writing.

Except for that.

Have you seen anyone get shot yet?

That's even your dumbest Why it's not going to be that dump another stupid one.

Yeah, this is not This is a little the actress fault.

We've said wonderful things about Terry Kenny who plays Roy.

He cannot convincingly carry suitcases up up.

There is nothing in those suitcases.

He is carrying them like they are made of air.

Like a teenage girl didn't cram everything she owns into two suitcases.

That house was big that she came from too.

How much shit did they did they make her get rid of?

You live with her dad?

So sad?

Yeah?

Yeah, Like that girl didn't have to jump on that suitcase to fit all her shit in there.

This guy is just like swinging them up the stairs like they weigh nothing.

You notice that in her first Juilliard audition, they have a placard out and they misspelled Juilliard.

No, no, oh my god, No, I didn't see it.

It's j It's they spell that j u l l i a r d.

It should be j u I l l i a r d.

Is it the only time anyone spells Julliard?

I believe so.

So that means they got it wrong one hundred percent of the time correct, not not fifty percent or twenty five percent.

One percent of the time that they showed the word Juilliard is incorrect.

Maybe they had to maybe like the high school where they can't legally say oh, yeah, high school.

They're like, it's not that Juilliard.

This is the other Juilliard in the yard.

It's the other school named Juilliard.

Yeah, I just have one more.

And it's I'm trying to decipher what the fuck this means.

There's a scene like after after they're dancing in the club the first time, Derek is like trying to get trying to like flirt with Sarah and he goes, let's go braveheart.

What what does that mean?

Oh?

Is it because of her outfits?

Because she's wearing like like like a Tartan looking like oh maybe She even says my clothes are from the Gap, and I'm like, maybe the Gap at that point was doing a lot of like Tartan colors.

You know, I heard that line and I think I meant it.

I think he I think I interpreted as him like calling her like scared to dance?

But how is that brave heart?

I don't know.

I was like she's kind of being like pugnacious with him at the bar where she's just like, yeah, I'm gonna fight back with you or whatever.

He's like, let's go brave heart, because you're a fighter.

I don't know, genuinely confused.

Well, don't you know, she screamed in his face.

You can take my life, but you can never take my freedom.

Did forget to mention she came to the club with blue covering off her face.

Yeah, she kept calling him sugar ticks?

Yeah?

No, no, she covered she covered her face in blue paint, and she didn't have a broad sword.

Yeah.

Oh, I just got where you came up with sugar tips.

I think that was absolutely not a movie, brave heart, Paul, How shall we rank Save the Last Dance?

One to ten?

Tickle dicks.

If you put crazy eyebrows on your dick, it's a whipple dick.

It's a if you if you put if you put little dots on it, it's a nipple dick.

If you hold up, if you hold up two mirrors on either side of it, you can make a triple deck a trip dick, A trip dick.

Here, even better, it's an actual trip dick.

How about one to ten?

Eleven thirty pm at night auditions?

I loved those.

I do remember a couple of times when I was acting.

If you're auditioning for like a student film at Columbia, they'd be like, your audition's at ten pm, and I'd be like, no, it's not I'm like, I'm not doing that.

I'm not getting co code.

I watched Fame.

I know what happens at ten pm in an audition room.

Try again, try I'm not taking this shirt off.

One to ten straight adoptees named Kyle.

Named Tafur.

Tofur, that's it, named straight adoptees named Tafur.

We got there.

Finally, One to.

Ten chairs that got into Juilliard.

The dancing was incredible, but the chair, that fucking chair that transcended.

Yeah, I saw God in that chair.

That chair is the next Martha Graham.

Did you see it doing the thing from bird Cage Martha Graham, Martha Graham, Madonna, Madonna, and he kept it all inside, all inside, all inside.

Let's do this one, Okay, this one makes us happy.

I think, do you want to go first?

There?

Shall I go first?

I'll go first on this one, go for it.

I think it actually ages pretty well.

I'm trying to think of, like, how many high school films had an interracial romance at the center of them up until two thousand and one, And I don't know if that I can I really genuinely can't think of any off the top of my head.

We're also they were like this is the thing.

Yeah, Like it's the point of the movie.

It's like, this movie's not really about dance, it's about like acceptance.

So it makes a level of sense that they hit the nail on the head a lot about it, right that, Like every character seems to have an opinion except for God, bless him Roy, Thank God Roy is the only character who's like, I have no opinion about you, and you're a black boyfriend, But like every other character having an opinion, and like the struggle she feels about being judged for it and like feeling guilty in a way.

Like all of that makes sense, even if it is a little cringey, because I feel like, hopefully we've moved past this conversation in cinema, not even in life, but just in cinema, we've moved past this conversation.

But you have to give the movie credit for possibly being one of the earlier ones.

And again, I'm talking about the high school genre, so I get it.

Like, if that's the message, you really want to be crystal clear with it, it's cringey now to watch it, and it's a little like retrograde now because we're twenty five years ahead of it all in all the movies, Hard is in the right place.

I think there are some stereotypes.

I'm gonna let you talk about that since you brought it up earlier, But like, and I agree with you, I think there are some like uncomfortable and like first idea stereotypes in the movie that maybe we could have finessed nuanced a touch a little bit more.

But you know what a plus for effort, I would say, thank you for Carrie Washington for carrying the emotional weight of this film on your back, on your very beautiful shoulders.

Thank you, Bianca Lawson, just for being you, just for existing, bless you.

Thank you.

I hope she did.

I hope she agedes well.

Like as much as I've talked about how much I love this woman, I genuinely don't know anything about her.

I mean, she played teenagers until.

She was forty two, except that she's so hot.

We may get a ceasing desist letter from her agent.

But you know what, it's not a problem.

I don't have a problem you guys.

But good female characters pass the Bechdel test with flying colors.

Yeah, I'm gonna give it an eight.

Okay, yeah, I want to give it more, but as a white girl, I'm not sure I might be missing some shit that I'm like, a black woman's like, girl miss that, and I'm like, oh, you're right, I did miss that.

So I'm gonna tentatively give it an eight because I just don't want to fuck this one up and be that girl.

So yeah, eight out of ten chairs that fucking nailed their Juilliard auditions.

Okay, how about you?

Uh yeah, I agree mostly with what you're saying, Like great female representation, there's no gay representation to speak of.

The little the little gay moment in the class is really all that happens, and I would say it's handled well.

I don't know what to do with the stereotypes like like they are.

They are I think broadly considered to be harmful stereotypes, but while they are not nuanced, they are they are still like stories that are being told, and at that time, the one that pops most strongly to mind is the teen mother.

I think they deal with that well because a she's shown being a good and caring mother who cares for her child and it's not ruining her life.

Perhaps there were choices she wouldn't have made earlier if this is where it was gonna wind up.

But like she loves her son, she's very happy with her son.

She's still going to school, she still has a future.

Like it's it's so, I think that's saving up for school, saving up for school for design school.

She wants to be a clothing designer.

Yeah, so I think I think that's I think from my perspective, that is a net positive.

I would say, I would say the black kid who's on the wrong path, who doesn't get off the path's a drug dealer.

And the drive by like that stuff I think is a little harder to swallow.

You also go too hard.

They go too hard on it, right, Like I wish it wasn't it didn't escalate to drive bys, like if they had kept it more.

Like selling drugs.

Drug that's bad enough, ye talking about it like it's not a big deal.

It is bad enough that he's like just to.

Have him do that, and like getting into fights in the clubs and finally eventually Derek is like, I'm not fighting, Like that guy didn't do anything you're just starting fights or something like.

I get that that like takes the drama out of it, but like it it reads as very like dare program.

I guess, like to me, now.

You take one puff of weed, next thing you know, you're doing drive back.

Yeah.

If you had told me at seven that if I smoke me and I would wind up pregnant, I probably would have believed you.

If you if you smoke weed, you're gonna end up in a drive by the next day.

Yeah.

Yeah, So I don't like you said.

We're two white people talking about we might be missing things, and we apologize if we are.

We're trying to be as holistically thoughtful as possible.

I think that the movie's a net positive, like it is pushing the genre forward.

I'm gonna give it a seven.

I want to give it a seven out of ten chairs that absolutely the extension on those legs is it's enough.

It's enough.

You're in Juliard already chair with the caveat that we might be missing something.

But I think it's a net positive, and I think that the movie's heart is very much in the right place.

It's a little bit of a time capsule piece.

It's very two thousand and one.

It's very like, it's very It reminded me of Friends.

We talked about.

Friends were like, oh, Friends like had the first lesbian wedding on TV, and friends like one glad Awards, and now we're like, well, Friends is fucking homophobic.

All things can be true.

Well, it reminds me of our conversation years ago about American Pie.

Yeah, where like, yeah, American Pie is deeply problematic, but at the time it was it really moved the needle into like sex positivity in a conversation, and it really there were a lot of girl characters that you'd never see before in like a fun sex romp movie.

Yeah, it was like that was great and so like so like, yeah, there's problems now, but at the time it if it moves the needle, I think we should give it credit.

Yeah.

Yeah, And I don't think any of this stuff in this movie ages into offensive.

It just ages into like, okay, like it still little retrograde, tone deaf.

Yeah, and so I think I think it deserves a high score.

So I'm gonna give it a seven out of ten.

Yeah, I'm not going to offer a palate cleanser.

Please watch that Chloe Fine min sketch on Saturday Night Live just Google.

Look, I'm gonna spoil something, but there is a cameo that you do not want to miss in that It's not even a sketch, it's her on weekend up date.

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It's been a while, hasn't it.

But don't worry.

Thanks to my high point, I've not only enjoyed the rich, deep flava of instant coffee, I've also never slept better in my life.

Why because it's decaffeinated.

I know in the months that have passed since I last visited, that you've covered my performance in nineteen ninety six is the Mirror Has Two Faces?

Otherwise known as the film I should have won my Oscar for Perhaps if I had that year wouldn't have been so cursed.

Best Actor Jeffrey Rush problematic, Best Supporting Actor, Kuba Gooding Junior problematic.

Best Supporting Actress Juliette Binoche nothing yet but she's French.

Let her cook?

Oh no'sat But I'm not here to talk about what should have been on that fateful night in nineteen ninety seven.

I'm here to thank Heather for being a patron of that ag dwell, and also to thank Heather's cat Hamburger Brown, I presume, for being just the snugliest little angel that's ever put What what's that coming across the telegraph?

MM?

A report that Juliette Binoche has stated that we shouldn't forget that Harvey Weinstein was a great producer.

Well, darlings, I don't want to say I told you so.

I want to say Jette laddie, which is I told you so in French, at least according to this magical typewriter in front of me.

Remember, award your legends while you have the chance.

Hashtag Audre was robbed, and keep your coffee decaffeinated.

For someone who drinks only decaffeinated coffee.

She is sprightly, yeah that one.

And she's also dead and dead.

Yeah, and dead.

You keep forgetting dead.

Shown up here, dead, and she has more energy than both of us combined.

Correct.

It is a miracle, a miracle that God himself would be proud of.

Excellent, excellent, Yes.

Erica, any final thoughts on Save the Last Dance.

I'm just going to lower my glasses to the bridge of my nose and look you up and down and say, Paul, yes, look.

I can't say this officially, but welcome to podcasting.

She apparently made so little on Save the Last Dance that she had to go back to working as a substitute teacher after the film had finished.

After the film had finished wrapped, we try that again.