Excuse me. Are you black? Well, yes I am. Would you mind following me into the woods? Hey, I don't swing that way. No, no, nothing like that. Well, what is it then? I would like to set you up for a crime you didn't commit and murder you. Oh, in that case that's fine. Let me just get my code in. Hey, what do you mean, send me up for a crime I didn't commit and murder me? Did I say that? Yes you did. Sorry. I misspoke. I meant to say you get blamed for child abduction and then I murder you. That's not any better. It's not? No! Oh, I'm so sorry. Let me try that again. Let's go to the woods and I'll give you a bag of money. Okay, that's different. Let's go! What going to does this still work? The podcast looks at all we can ask. Does this still work? I'm Joe Dixon. And I'm George Romaka. And today we're discussing Gone Baby Gone from 2007 and some historical context. First, podcast-y stuff. You can reach us at dtswpod@gmail.com on Facebook, Letterbox, and our YouTube channel. Joe is on Blue Sky at JoeDixon.bsky.social. Please tell your friends about us. Even the ones who will hate you if you do. And leave five star ratings everywhere. You can pick what we watch and get extra per episode content by funding us on Patreon for as little as a dollar a month at patreon.com/dtswpod. Now Joe, take us back to 2007. And that's the way it was. Let's stay right up front. I am not going to recite a series of newspaper articles about children being harmed. Aww. We don't have enough listeners as it is without me flying this podcast into two buildings. So, with that in mind, let's just get into the way back machine and look at some non-child-harming stories that happen in Boston, where this film is set. In 2007, the year the movie was released. George read this headline from The Boston Globe. "Underdogs No Longer - Red Sox Sweep Series Again" In Game 4 of the 2007 World Series, the Boston Red Sox defeated the Colorado Rockies. This was the second time in four years the Red Sox won the series. From 1919 to 2003, this baseball team went 85 years without winning this big game. And then, all of a sudden, they were on fire. I want to quote from the article. "If you go to a high school graduation in New England in the year 2026, you hear a lot of Jacobis, Dustin's, Jonathan's, Hadikis, when they call the role. And it will remind you of a special time when seeing the beloved local baseball team simply could not lose." End quote. We're two years short of 2026, but it looked up the most popular boy's names of 2008 and Massachusetts. According to babynamescience.com, they list 100 names and Jonathan made it to number 30. Jacobi came in at 100, while neither Dustin nor Hadikis made the list. George, you're not a sports fan, but what went into the name of your children? The letter Y, where it had no business actually being. Explained? All three of my children have that my generation, you know, thing where we had to change a letter to a Y for some fucking reason. You sounded like you weren't happy with this. Why did you do it if you didn't want to do it? I had no problem with it when we did it. Oh, looking back on it, I wonder what were we thinking? Okay. Another big news story from 2007 in Boston comes to us from, again, The Boston Globe. George, read this headline. "Two million dollar settlement over scare in a cord, Turner backs local response." The Turner reference is Turner broadcasting. What happened here? Does anybody remember Aquatine Hunger Force? This was a cartoon that aired on Adult Swim that's the Cartoon Network late night TV block aimed at people who were above the age of 18. I was a sometimes viewer of the show, and I found it really funny. The show involved a talking meatball, shake, and large fries. You'll have to look it up, but it was as ridiculous and stupid as it sounds. I left a lot of the episodes I watched. However, back in '07, the folks in Boston were not laughing. In fact, they had freaked out. The police, the fire department, and local news networks lost their collective shit. I will quote from Wikipedia, "On the morning of January 31st, 2007, the Boston Police Department and the Boston Fire Department mistakenly identified battery operated LED placards depicting the moon and night's characters from the Adult Swim animated telling series Aquatine Hunger Force as improvised explosive devices leading to a massive panic." That's right, a TV show doing a promotion that in no way was promoting terrorism caused Boston's leadership to make asses of themselves. I mean, sincerely, if you read any quotes or actually talk to cops, you'll find these people are afraid of everything. Just the most easily frightened people with guns you could ever hope to not meet. Rather than do the most basic internet search, or talk to a college student, these those went right to bomb threats. And the news departments across the city were no better. Again, rather than do any journalism, these importance just modestly repeated whatever nonsense the cops told them. And once it was revealed that these things were promoting a TV show, rather than being embarrassed and apologized in the public, these motherfuckers used their stupidity as a chance to harangue and shake down some cash from my media conglomerate. George, take a look at this picture of one of the moon and night's LEDs that was taken down. If you saw this, would you see an explosive device? Would that be the first of the pops of mine? And describe for people what you see. All right, so if you remember light bright toys, which were these just a screen with holes where you could plug in LEDs and draw a picture, it looks like somebody made a character, mostly square-shaped, flipping somebody off on a light bright screen. As to whether or not I would see a bomb when I saw this, no, because number one, I have experience with electronics, and this doesn't look like a bomb, this looks like an LED sign. But number two, I did a quick search while you were reading that. Remember the kid that made a homemade clock and brought it to school to show his science teacher, and they thought it was a fucking bomb because they're idiots and they're racist? Yeah, because kid was Arab. That was 2015, so we didn't learn anything yet. Like, I know better. People don't, because people are stupid and scared. Will we ever know better? I would fucking hope so, Joe. I would really fucking hope so. It would be really nice if we never see another story about idiots looking at things with wires on them and going, "It's got wires, it's a bomb!" Well, this is even worse because there's not even wires here. No, you can't even see the wires. It's got wires, but you can't see them. Well, I guess so it can light up, but I mean, honestly, just... Ugh, it's really stupid. Okay, George, tell us about Gone Baby Gone. Okay. This is a movie that was written, well, no, actually it wasn't written. This is a movie written by somebody else that Ben Affleck saw, "I can make a movie from my little brother" and then did that. Okay. A little insulting to Affleck's all over, but all right. I mean, I'm not wrong. Ben Affleck wrote this screenplay and directed this thing. While you're insulting Mr. Affleck, let me explain his credits. All right, so for the show, we know his work from Goodwill Hunting, Moratch, and Dogma. Now, the first one he wrote and starred in, and the other two, he was just an actor in. We both saw him in Chasing Amy, that he just starred him. I personally have seen Argo, which he directed and starred him. The Town, which he also directed. Gone Girl, which he also directed. The Last Door, which he didn't direct. Justice League, which he didn't direct. The Flash, which he also didn't direct, but, again, he was in these. Batman vs Superman, which he also didn't direct, but he was in Clerks 2, which he didn't write or direct, but he was in. J. and Son of Honor Strike Back. Boy of the Room, which he just acted, Shakespeare in Love, which he just acted in, and Going All the Way, which I'm not sure what he did there. I think he acted only. Ben Affleck's been around for a while is what I'm saying, but I see a lot of his shit. Sure. There's also written by Aaron Stockard, and we know his work from Goodwill Hunting for the podcast, and I've seen his work in The Town. Also, this one was based on the book Gone Baby Gone by Dennis Leehan, which, you know, that was also a sort, so he gets a credit credit. Yep. Blurbs! IMDB says two Boston-area detectives investigate a little girl's kidnapping, which ultimately turns into a crisis both professionally and personally. Mmm, eh, okay. Amazon. A private detective and his girlfriend used their personal connections in the close-knit working-class Boston neighborhood they grew up in to help find a missing girl, but instead uncover a complicated plot of abuse, deceit, and corruption. She showed up and gets down great at that. Not if she's not an investigation. It's just the thing, the girlfriend. Right. Number one, she's just the girlfriend. And number two, like, eh, I mean, those things are all true, but not in the direction that the Blurbs seems to be leading in. Mmm. I have to say that I can't blame IMDB and Amazon being confused about the female in this. The girlfriend/detective, because it's not entirely clear to me that she is a detective. She seems to just be assisting him. He seems to be the actual detective. And when they get in trouble, you notice he's the only one with a gun. She never pulls a piece, even though she gets threatened about as much as he does. This is 100% accurate. So it's not clear. Woo-hoo! Is she just a girlfriend? I mean, she's also up an investigate, so... Her status is not entirely clear to me. Mmm-hmm. We open to establishing shots of Dorchester neighborhood in Boston, Massachusetts. Our protagonist, Patrick Kinsey, works as poetic about the city and its inhabitants, and tells us what he does for a living. When your job is to find people who are missing, it helps to know where they started. I find the people who started in the cracks, and then fell through. I'm not gonna lie, when he says, "I find the people that started in the cracks." I thought that was some kind of Boston adding an S-thing for crack. [laughter] Because there's a good two seconds before he finishes the sentence. So I'm just left hanging there like, "So he looks for crackheads, okay." [laughter] Well, he kind of does, usually. Patrick Kinsey is played by Casey Affleck, one of the Affleck's who were insulted by George as we opened up the show. [laughter] I don't know what I said, and all I did is point out that they're related. [laughter] Anyway, believe it or not, Casey Affleck was an American pie, which we saw for the podcast. I didn't know this, but then I saw that AMD credits itself. He was in that. Also, we saw him in Goodwill Hunting, where he played a minor character. And we both saw him in Chasing Amy, and I saw him in Manchester by the Sea, and Oppenheimer. And I've seen him in Oceans 11. We land on a crime scene. On the street, outside of her home, flanked by family and friends, Helene McCready pleads to a TV camera for the safe return of her abducted daughter, Amanda. Helene McCready is played by Amy Ryan, and stay tuned. I have a theory about this character, and it will come after the end clip. Okay. She's played by Amy Ryan, who for the show we saw in Before the Devil Knows You're Dead. Joe and I have both seen in Birdman, which actually has a longer title, but I can't remember the rest of it. Yeah, I just see Birdman. And I've seen her in Wind, Wind, and Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World. And I've seen her in War of the Worlds from 2005, and The Office. Oh, that's right. I guess we both saw her, and you'll have to forget that. And Amanda McCready, the child, is played by Madeline O'Brien. At home, Patrick makes quips about police and competence, how they are guarding the sidewalk as if the abductor is going to come back. His girlfriend and partner in his missing person's business, Angie Genaro, finds this amusing. And Angie Genaro is played by Michelle Monahan, and I've seen her in Unfaithful, the Born Supremacy, Constantine, and the 2005 Mr. and Mrs. Smith. When they have that little conversation, is that one of the first times he says he loves her? Yes. And they have a kiss. Isn't it interesting that she never says it back? Not by the end of the movie, it's not. They're all just a time film, he says it to her, I think twice, and now what did you say? I love you too. Which would concern me? She doesn't even do the Star Wars, I know. The news coverage continues into the night. Police Captain Jack Doyle makes a statement. I know the pain of losing a daughter. We will not fail. Jack Doyle is played by Morgan Freeman. For the show, we've seen his work in Seven and the Shawshank Redemption, and Joe and I have both seen him in The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises, where he worked R&D for Wayne Enterprises. Right. And I've seen him in Million Dollar Baby, coming to America Ted to Invictus, Nurse Betty, Amastad, Kiss the Girls, and the Inlet the Childhood as the TV Movie. And I've seen him in Glory, Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves, Unforgiven, Deep Impact, The Some of All Fears, Bruce Almighty, March of the Penguins, War of the Worlds, The 2005 One, and The Lego Movie. The news describes Amanda as having had her favorite doll, Mirabelle, Pin and Nat, with her when she was taken. Patrick tells Angie that he went to high school with Helene, and then they go to sleep. In the morning, B and Lionel McCready, Helene's aunt and uncle, who live in the same duplex, show up at Patrick's to hire him to help find Amanda. B McCready is played by Amy Madigan, and I know her from Uncle Buck, and Lionel McCready is played by Titus Welliver. Welliver. That's interesting last name. Welliver. Whatever. I'm Welliver. It could have been related to Oliver. That could have been a musical. Welliver. On Broadway. Oliver Welliver. Oliver Welliver. I'm done. Go ahead. Yep. Me too. Angie is hesitant to take on this case. It's already been three days, and Nat doesn't bode well for Amanda, and Angie doesn't want to have to see a dead or abused toddler. No one does. No one's into that. That's why I had to avoid that for the cold open. Oh, and for the history. And the history. Yeah. Yeah. Patrick says they'll go listen to the family, and if they get a bad feeling, they're out. In the apartment, Helene is on the couch with her best friend, Dottie. There's no love lost between them and B, and Helene isn't in the mood. Things get antagonistic, and Dottie bales. Angie wants to also, but B pulls them away into a hallway and shows a picture of Amanda, which tugs at Angie's heartstrings, and now they're on board. In the kitchen, Lionel says Helene spends a lot of time down at the Fillmore Lounge, a bar on the wrong side of the tracks, and is an alcoholic with a Coke problem. And by Coke, you don't mean Coca-Cola. I do not mean Coca-Cola. This is a stronger stimulant than caffeine. Patrick and Angie take a look at Amanda's room. Captain Doyle walks in to politely give them shit for being young and not cops. Patrick asserts his rights to cooperation from the police as a private investigator, and Doyle says his detectives will reach out. Is this another case of Morgan Freeman playing a character who was written to be white? Like his shark-tracking redemption? This is the impression I get here, which would explain the end of the movie. [laughter] Because I think it would be a lot easier for him if he was a white character doing that. [laughter] I mean, it certainly have an easier time taking the kid to the grocery store. Mm-hmm. That's another we've got to discuss, but we'll get it to him, we're not even there yet. We are not there yet. So Patrick and Angie go down to the Fillmore. The bartender and most of the patrons don't like them on site. And is it just me, or is this like the bar where all of the people with medical problems hang out? [laughter] I mean, fuck up. Well, they're not there during the day, so presumably they're rolling on, oh, disability. Yeah. Disability, so yeah. Because you got the one guy with the cancer hole in his neck, and then he got a guy who just looks like his face made a cauliflower, and then he got the guy with the fucking lip. Not the pedophile with the lip that we'll get to later. Yeah, that's another thing. We have so much to get to, ladies and gentlemen, it's so much, it's so much thrown at us, but we can't get into, because we all know the ending, but this is just the beginning. But to be fair and clear, this is not a particularly long summary. Nah, not a particularly long movie. Well, it's two hours. It was a full two hours. No, that's not a... Blah, we sing three-hour movies, dude. Yeah. Someone Patrick knows from high school is there, and spills that Helene wasn't across the street at Dotties when Amanda was taken, she was there at the bar doing coke and having sex with skinny Raya Lekansky in the bathroom. She'd bring Amanda there during the day, like a bar mascot. Where do people get their nicknames from? I never had a nickname. Do you have a nickname when you're like either in high school, even in the name? In the Navy, I had a nickname. Peanut. Peanut? Mm-hmm. I believe I've told you this story before, but just in case it wasn't on air. The indicating panels that we have had these little incandescent light bulbs in them called peanut bulbs, or that we call peanut bulbs, because they were tiny light bulbs. There was an electrician that was there when I reported on board named, and his last name was light. And people said I kind of looked like I could be his kid, therefore I was a little light or a peanut bulb. So they called me peanut. Ah, wow, that's a long trick. Yep. Okay. I will not be calling you that, don't worry. You'd... I wouldn't ask you to. The other patrons don't take kindly to that spillage and threaten to rape Angie. Mm. Just... Bar from... In front of everybody. Patrick pulls a gun, cold clocks one of them, and then they leave. Yes. And again, that's another thing to say, "Well, isn't she also detective?" And yet, she just seems to be there having her boyfriend protect her, as opposed to her like, "Fuck you, man. I can take care of myself." She's there to be sexualized at random. Yeah. Mm. They meet up with Doyle's detectives in a diner. Remi Bressant and Nick Poole were expecting someone older. A scene that just keeps on giving. Mm-hmm. Remi Bressant is played by Ed Harris, who we've seen on show in Buffalo Soldiers. And I've seen in Love Lies Bleeding, Gravity, and History of Violence. We've both seen him in The Truman Show and Top Gun Maverick and Snowpiercer. And I've seen him in Apollo 13, The Abyss, and a beautiful mind. Nick Poole is played by John Ashton, who we've seen on the show in Beverly Hills Cop 2. And we've both seen in Beverly Hills Cop, and I've seen in Oh God, Book One. They list off their current favorite suspects. Corwin Earl, a convicted child molester who cut off his ankle monitor the night Amanda was taken, and his associates, Cokeheads Leon and Roberta Tred. It's not a perfect fit, as Corwin's usual prey are boys in the 7-9 age range. Patrick tells them about Helene being at the bar with Skinny Ray, which meant she lied to the cops so they all go to talk to her about it. Corwin Earl was played by Matthew Mar, who we know from the show in Dogma, and we both seen in Captain Marvel, and I've seen in Marriage Story, and I've seen in Jersey Girl. There are a lot of people in this picture, ladies and gentlemen. Leon Tred is played by Mark Margolis, who we've seen him for the show in The Secret of My Success. And I've seen him in The Cotton Club, Scarface, Black Swan, Breaking Bad, The TV Show, and Better Call Saul, all saw a TV show. I've seen him in Glory and Ace Ventura Pet Detective. We're going to try to play by Trudy Goodman, who I've seen in The Departed. First, Angie and Patrick visit their friend and drug dealer Bubba. He doesn't know where the detective suspects are, but he does know that Skinny Ray ran drugs for a Haitian called Cheese John Baptiste. Bubba is played by George Cowell, who I've seen in The Town. And by the way, see, that's a nickname I could believe. That's, you would definitely call that guy a Bubba. Mm-hmm. He looks like a Bubba. With some arguing and racial slurs, Aline admits to having stolen $130,000 from Cheese, blaming it on the cops who busted the bikers they just sold the drugs to. She says she hid the money at Ray's place, so they all go there to get it. Uh, have we, uh, have we retired the chime? Yeah, I just didn't feel like pulling it out. Okay. But there are- That's not the first time you said that. No, and after an F-slur riddled car ride, they arrive to Ray's to find out that he's been beaten bloody and then shot to death. They recover the money that Haline had buried in the backyard. The hypothesis at this point is that Cheese found out that they stole his money and took Amanda, either for ransom or revenge. The detectives decide to talk to Cheese and send Patrick to bring a tearful Haline back home. Then he goes to where the cops are and convinces them to let him talk to Cheese because he's not a cop. So him and Angie go in there, Cheese checks them for wires, and then denies having anything to do with Amanda's disappearance. And if that girl only hope is you, will I pray for her? Because she's gone, baby. Gone. And we had a title! Yep. Hahaha. Excuse me by Eddie Gefegi, who I've seen in X-Men first class and the harder they fall. And I've seen in Twilight. Hahaha. What was he in Twilight? I don't remember. But I know he was in it and I know he's seen it. Okay. And it also says that if they have his money to leave it in the mailbox and to get the cops off of his lawn. Get off my lawn! In the morning, Remy calls and says that Cheese called to say that he does have Amanda, but that they also record calls at the station and Doyle got a hold at a transcript. Oh, and Cheese left Amanda's blanket in the note in Patrick's mailbox. Doyle wants them all at the station. Doyle reams them all out for involving him in an illegal activity, then gives them the go-ahead for that illegal activity. Hahaha. And tells the story of his dead 12-year-old daughter while they plan. The exchange is to happen at night at an old water-filled quarry. The cops will hand Cheese the money while Patrick and Angie take possession of Amanda. Fulbert's plan, right? Hahaha. Genius. At the quarry, gunshots ring out and chaos ensues. They hear a splash and see Mirabelle. Again, pin in that name, we're not pulling the pin out yet. Amanda's doll floating in the water with Cheese dead on the ground. He jumps all the way into the water, injuring herself, but doesn't find Amanda. Kind of like Nick Cage did in the second Bad Lieutenant movie. Oh, you're correct, yeah. At least she didn't bust up her back and become a drug addict. Yeah. The divers don't find Amanda's body there either, and they spend weeks searching. In the aftermath of all this, Doyle is forced to resign at half of his pension, and everyone gives up on Amanda. Yeah, they all presume she's dead. And this is pretty much exactly halfway through the movie? Yep, we are not done yet, folks. But it feels like the movie could have ended here. I would have been depressing. Yes, but it's not like the real ending is any less depressing. Hahaha. Well, no, the real ending is better than the alternative. I mean, in real terms, yes, in movie terms, I could care less. Oh, geez. Two months later, another child goes missing. A boy, seven years old, conspicuously wearing a Saint Christopher medallion. So family comes a knock in this time. This time it's Bubba, who recently got some new clients, The Trusses, who pal around with that convicted child molester. Bubba takes Patrick to the condemned house that all the criminals live in to deliver drugs and let Patrick get a look around. Things get tense and guns are drawn. Patrick notices that Corwin Earl, the Pito at the top of the stairs in dim light, has specifically a Saint Christopher's medallion around his wrist. We can see that from that distance. They make it out of the house. Patrick returns with Remy and Nick. Remy goes around back and Nick approaches the front. Nick gets shot in the neck and has to retreat. Patrick calls for an ambulance and enters the house. He goes up to Corwin's room and finds the young boy dead and mutilated in the bathtub. He puts Corwin on his knees and executes him with a gunshot to the back of the head. What do we have here? He's already on his knees. Okay, sure. He just has to go and shoot him in the back of the head. No need to do anything else. In the hospital Angie tells him she's proud of him. Well, I mean, I can see that. I mean, imagine I, if you remember during full metal jacket, I said, I also would have shot the, uh, was it the PL, the CL, whatever the hell the drill instructor? The drill instructor. Totally. If you've been a gun in my hand, I totally shot him. I can imagine if I find some poor child's been murdered and there's a pedophile there. You've been a gun in my hand and he's probably going to get shot. Yeah. Outside, Remy is getting drunk. Patrick says he feels shame and Remy says he shouldn't and then goes on to admit to having planted evidence to help an abuse victim leave her abuser. In fact, he got the tip off from Skinny Ray, who earlier Remy had denied knowing. Uh oh, uh oh, uh oh, the mystery has, uh, to give me to unravel. Nick dies from his wounds. After the funeral, Patrick talks with a cop friend about Remy lying to him. That friend says Remy and Doyle knew about Cheese's missing money before Cheese himself did. And then Patrick convinces Lionel to meet in a bar and gets him to admit that he and Remy faked Amanda's kidnapping to get Cheese's drug money and teach Halena a lesson about poor parenting, and that they arranged the quarry thing and that Amanda falling in and dying was an accident. Suddenly, a masked robber comes in, interrupting the conversation and threatening to shoot Lionel. So fucking stupid. Patrick clocks the guy's voice as Remy and starts screaming that Remy and Lionel took Amanda for the money. Bartender shoots Remy in the back twice and he flees. Tough guy. Yeah. And Patrick chases him up to a rooftop for some fucking reason where Remy dies. I can tell you why he goes up in the rooftop because it looks like a good thing. You know, you're a director. You want a nice shot? Sure. What does it mean to survive? Wait, it's still right on top of the roof. Okay. Go up there. With your two gunshot wounds. If you think of the logic of the film, then yeah, it makes those shots. He's just been shot. He's gonna go up all those stairs and just down on the roof. Just to die. Yeah. Patrick gets brought into the station because an officer is dead and learns that they don't actually record calls into the station. Somebody really should have known. Yeah. When he gets out, he and Angie go to confront Doyle who had to be in on it. He's so in on it that Amanda comes running out of the house into Doyle's arms, happiest can be and asks for a sandwich. The play all along was just to get Amanda away from her shitty mom and have him be the new daddy. Yep. Dole police chief. Yep. Yep. Angie says she will hate Patrick forever if he makes a man to go back to her mother. But that's what happens. Patrick makes the call. Doyle and his wife are arrested and Amanda is returned home and Angie and Patrick break up. Mm-hmm. Sometime later, Patrick, now single, visits Halene and Amanda as Halene prepares for a date. He offers to babysit since her sit or fell through. It turns out that Amanda's doll's name is Annabelle, not Mirabelle because her mom sucks so much that she can't remember. Also, the point of that scene is that Halene was going to just ask a friend at the last minute. The friend doesn't even know if she's gonna be babysitting. The friend we saw earlier. Yeah. And she's just like, "Oh, she doesn't know yet, but she is going to be babysitting. I'm going on a date." And you're like, "Oh, I'll never mind. I'll do it. I'll babysit." The end. The end. Well, I don't know how you open this up. I get the impression you didn't like it, but I actually enjoyed this film to be hot. Right up front. Okay. There are two things I really like. I like goofy films like David Lynch type pictures and I love detective movies. I just do. It really appeals to me. Not cop movies. Detective, what PIs are doing the job. I don't know why. It just really appeals to me. Obviously, if you ever stop the thing and most private detective movies are idiotic. I mean, just like this one, how the hell was this man going to get away with bracing this child who everyone has a picture of? She's famous. I wasn't going to do, I wasn't going to do, I wasn't going to do, hold school or teachers like a teenager or something. It was like, it's ludicrous. But I didn't care. I enjoyed it. I was shocked when the kid came out. It was just really fun to watch. I thought the performances were dirty. I didn't work for me. It definitely did. I think it still holds up as a movie because it's hard to date a PI film. You're going to done this film today with the whole thing with the, is it right to return a mom who's shitty to a person who's probably going to do a better job, but they go about it the most bizarre way possible. What do you guys? There's another thing. Hey, why didn't the two, the uncle and the aunt just adopt the kid? Just like pit this woman. All the mother would have to surrender her rights. She would lose them anyway because she's going out getting shy and stuff. It's not that difficult. They really should have pursued that rather than going around murdering drug dealers and trying to get the money and all this other complicated stuff. That might have worked much better. And to the movie's credit, the movie asks that question. Well, it does bring it up. Yes. Why didn't you ask, why didn't you just call social services? I think that drug money is the reason they didn't call social services. Yeah. I think it still works. I enjoyed it. I think you can still do this film today. That's my feeling. What about you? Yeah. I don't actually think it doesn't work. I wasn't. It wasn't over the moon for it, but I like the moral ambiguity of it. I like the ending. I like that it ended with the right, the objectively right thing happening and then everybody kind of feeling shitty about it. And there's a line in Battlestar Galactica where President Roslyn is talking to Apollo and she's like, sometimes you're so hell bent on doing the right thing that you don't do the smart thing. And this movie kind of puts that into a spotlight. Like he did the right thing, but what the fuck's the point? Like, what did he, it, he explained a child to a very shitty mom who's going to leave her child again, but it does also look like she was cleaning up, right? She got a new job. She was like, it does look like she was on a better trajectory. Oh, no. You misunderstood that ending completely. No, no, no. The ending is that she, nothing's changed. She's exactly who she was at the beginning. Okay. Well, then it's even more of a better moral ambiguity, like it's, it's what, what I actually like about the movie is that all the things that were like, that's fucking stupid. We're fucking stupid. And somebody paid for it. Like, oh, yeah, the, we, we record calls on the station. What the fuck you do? But even if he believes you, like the people who perpetuated that stupidity, all went to fucking jail or died. Yeah. Everybody paid for their crimes pretty much. But even the detective wanted to pay, and he did nothing wrong with his girlfriend. Yeah. I like the, I also like the moral ambiguity of it. The reason I say that that was the ending, that the mother doesn't change is that what it says in the summary of the book. I read a little of it and he ends up, yeah, he, I think the book also ends with him sitting on that couch, looking at the little girl going like, what was this all for? I don't know this. And the mother is still a shit. And this guy's in jail, who could have probably would have been almost certainly have been a better parent to the child. Yeah. And the point is made by the, with the doll, because the mother doesn't even know this is child favorite doll, and she doesn't even know the name of it. Sure didn't. And plus, if you remember, which before she goes out on her date, she takes a drink of a beer, which shows she's still, you know, the money she's getting is not a job. The money, if you remember, she's making money from appearances about the, whether they're doing stories about her child being kidnapped. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. I, I already, you need the point. No, I'm just saying, we both think it works. You didn't like it as much as I did, but I think it's a, I felt a very powerful film. I don't know if it deserved the Oscar nomination, although the mother getting an Oscar nomination I think does make sense. She's really good in it. All right. Hey, George. What's up next? So next week, we'll be talking about anger management from 2003. Something we both could probably use. Yeah. Well, also I've seen this movie before. I am. It's an ad. Sandler movie. Of course you have. Yeah. Robert Williams and Adam Sandler. If it's out there, you probably see it. Yep. I'm sorry, but I cut you off. You're about to say something else. No. All right. All right. So I guess that's it for this episode. I'm Joe Dickson. Thanks for listening. Indeed. Because if a podcast drops and there's no one around to hear it, just another collection of ones and zeroes that doesn't matter. Me and Ray, how to do this run up Nashua, right? All right. So her and Ray do this drug run up to Nashua. So she's now familiar with Nashua. This movie came out in 2007. My theory is that this character spent the next six months trying to be a mother realized, holy fuck, this is hard, I can't do this, and then gave a man up for adoption and got a job in the age art department at the Nashua branch of Dunder Mifflin and changed her name to Holly Flax because Holly Flax shows up on the office in 2008, a year after this movie came out. Okay. You want that to be the same character? Sure. Go ahead, Cannon. You've been listening to Does This Still Work, produced by Joe Dickson and George Ramaka. The hosts can be reached via social media, email or the contact page at dtswpod.com. Be good to yourself and others because that still works. I'm not going to lie. When he said I start with the people who felt the correct, no, no, no, no, I don't remember what he said. Fuck. But you must do it again. I can. I can fucking do that. That's the longest you've ever gone without showering. How long is too long to sit on a toilet? So what do you think the CIA is up to nowadays?
