Both Sides Now: CODA and its Dualities

For this cycle's "Mise-Unseen" entry, Madeline, Emilio and Julian finally pony up for Apple TV Plus subscriptions and see 'CODA', Sian Heder's 2021 Best Picture winning film.  Like the Joni Mitchell classic at the heart of this film, the trio can't help but see both triumphantly good and puzzlingly frustrating aspects to 'CODA'.  For all the powerful and winning scenes with the Rossi family (that scene on the pickup truck!), there are clunky and shallow ones with most every other peripheral character.  For all the great ways this film centers and empowers its deaf actors and main characters, it also short changes the viewer with an overly predictable narrative.  And this group of musicians can't help but weigh in on the music plot line.  From up and down, and still somehow, there is genuine appreciation for this film, but not without some nits to pick.    

For those who are deaf or hearing impaired, a full written transcript for this episode can be found on this episode's Buzzsprout link!
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2269866/14621363

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Transcript

Madeline (00:00:21):
Hello everyone. Welcome to the Sleepless Cinematic Podcast where we explore our shared love for watching and discussing movies recorded in the late after work hours, often in lieu of a good night's rest. I'm Madeline.

Julian (00:00:33): 
I'm Julian.

Emilio (00:00:34):
And I'm Emilio. The three of us are colleagues at a Midtown Manhattan Music School. Yep. Music is what brings us together, but movies, that's what keeps us together talking at the end of the night, so we've decided to create some order to this ongoing trend and record these conversations considering an overarching theme while we cycle through five distinct categorizable guidelines for engagement.

Julian (00:00:58):
This podcast is an evolving thing, changes and tweaks here and there will most likely happen, but while we do it, you the listener, can count on the three of us doing what we've grown to love, foregoing sleep for a discussion about movies every other week.

Madeline (00:01:12):
And this week we continue our current cycle of movies related to unique best picture winners with a category we call "Mise-Unseen", where the three of us watch a film that none of us have seen before and discuss our impressions and main takeaways from a first viewing. And that movie this week is 'CODA' Best picture winner from 2021, correct?

Julian (00:01:33):
Yeah, released in 2021. The ceremony was in '22, but I always think of it as being in the year that it was released.

Madeline (00:01:39):
The year released. Of course, we are going to have a written transcript of this episode available for our deaf and hard of hearing listeners.

Julian (00:01:46):
Yes. So that the content of this episode can reach the specific target audience of the film. A good place to begin this discussion is with why we all hadn't seen the movie.

Emilio (00:01:57):
There are a couple, there's a double meaning to the title of this film because 'CODA', C-O-D-A is an acronym that stands for Child of Deaf Adults, and it also happens to be a musical term to describe a section of a song or movement that brings it towards its finale or is the finale. So it serves these two different meanings. There's the music angle, and I guess from that angle, I'm thinking there are several reasons why we probably could have gotten around to it. I think there's one big one that we talked a little bit about before, which is that this is a little bit of a hard film to track down if you are not an Apple Plus subscriber. It's Apple Plus, right?

Madeline (00:02:38):
Apple TV Plus, because Apple TV just that is like a physical device, like a Roku, so this is Apple TV plus, which you don't need an Apple TV to access. And even - I'm someone that has had Apple TV for a while because the last time I upgraded my phone I got a year for, and even I had not seen this movie until the last week.

Julian (00:03:03):
Yeah. I am a heavily subscribed person when it comes to streaming, but Apple TV plus I think came around at a time when I thought, well, I'm already subscribed to enough things I don't think I should add to that list just for my own financial security.

Madeline (00:03:17):
As a person that has this service. I mean, it's very limited in terms of content because they only have their own original content on this service, which is different than almost every other streaming service.

Emilio (00:03:31):
And I would go so far as to say that 'CODA' is something of a crown jewel.

Madeline (00:03:36):
They're their first and I assume only film to win an Academy Award. Right,

Julian (00:03:42): 
Yeah

Emilio (00:03:43):
Right. It did win the big one, so to speak,

Madeline (00:03:46):
And a couple of still big but less big ones.

Emilio (00:03:49): 
That's true, that's true.

Julian (00:03:50):
Also, won Best Supporting Actor for Troy Kotsur as well as Best Adapted Screenplay

Madeline (00:03:55):
Because this is based on a French film from several years earlier, I think 2016,

Julian (00:04:02): 
2014

Madeline (00:04:02):
2014. "La Familia Belier". I'm probably pronouncing that incorrectly.

Emilio (00:04:09):
It's been a long time since I took French.

Julian (00:04:11):
And I'm not a French speaker either, so I'm no further help with that. So adapted in the sense that it is a remake. That's another interesting thing about it being a best picture winner is that I don't think you get remakes that often in that category, nominated potentially or more than potentially, but the winner, I can't think of any other examples.

Madeline (00:04:31):
Particularly remakes of recent movies. You think 'All Quiet on the Western Front', right. That technically is a remake, but it's a remake of a film that's decades old.

Julian (00:04:45): 
Almost a hundred years.

Madeline (00:04:46): 
Almost a century old.

Julian (00:04:47):
In fact, interesting trivia - 'All Quiet on the Western Front' was the third best picture winner ever.

Emilio (00:04:52):
Ah, wow. Another one that would fall in that category is 'Ben Hur', because I know 'Ben Hur' was a film that was, I think released in 1925 first as a silent film, and then obviously became the juggernaut that it was in 1959, won a zillion Oscars including Best Picture.

Julian (00:05:10):
It's worth mentioning too, I just thought of this as we were talking of relatively recent best picture winners that are remakes - 'The Departed,' remake of 'Infernal Affairs,' the Hong Kong action thriller film from just a few years before 'The Departed.' I had the thought coming off of our previous conversation and into this one I had the thought, oh, God forbid someone remakes 'The Silence of the Lambs' someday. I was just like, don't even touch that movie.

Emilio (00:05:36):
Are you about to tell me that somebody is?

Julian (00:05:37):
No. Okay. Thank goodness. No, I'm almost a little self-conscious of having said it now. I don't want to will that into being.

Madeline (00:05:46):
Well there have been so many other adaptations of Hannibal as a character, like multiple sequels, but also Hannibal the television show, so I feel like it's possible that The Silence of the Lambs could one day get remade, knock on wood. There are lots of guitars here, someone knock on one, but they've also really juiced that character in general.

Julian (00:06:08):
Maybe nearly a hundred years later, like with 'All Quiet on the Western Front', maybe then.

Madeline (00:06:12):
Mark your calendars, everyone for 2091.

Emilio (00:06:17):
Yep. That sounds about right. Maybe then. Yeah, maybe 'Silence of the Lambs'. Very different film than 'CODA'.

Madeline (00:06:26): 
Possibly the most different.

Emilio (00:06:29):
Yeah, there's a real, we're doing a real heel turn here in terms of tone and general overall feel, but one thing I did want to mention a little bit about is that portraying, I guess deaf characters on film is not necessarily something that's totally new to the Academy. I could be speaking out of school here, but I think maybe one of the more prominent examples of a film that was centered around deaf characters with deaf actors would be 1986's, 'Children of a Lesser God', which also happens to star one of the actresses who is in 'CODA', which is Marlee Matlin. She is something of a pillar in the deaf community.

Madeline (00:07:12):
Absolutely. I think of her as being the most prolific deaf actor alive and probably ever, I mean now we have Troy Kotsur, who is now the second deaf actor to win an Academy Award, obviously in a different category, but it's just the two of them, right?

Emilio (00:07:32):
Yeah, I think it's just them and yeah, they're holding it down, both represented in 'CODA'. And on a slightly lighter subject, I also have to thank Marlee Matlin for teaching my son how to say "table" in sign language because she signs for the 'Baby Einstein' video series, which is if you happen to have a toddler in your life, it's pretty cool. But Marlee Matlin is there teaching you how to say certain things. So 'table' - thank you, Marlee Matlin, my son still knows that one! So obviously that's lesser work than 'Children of a Lesser God'. That movie obviously, I think really catapulted her in a big way, and in preparation for this conversation I decided I was going to check that movie out because that one, I had a really nice time with it, and I think it does a lot of things very well in watching it. I felt like there were some really interesting comparison points between the two films, particularly in how they chose to sort of depict sign language and deaf characters so that hearing audiences would be able to understand what's happening with these deaf characters and characters who can hear on screen. In 'CODA', they essentially use subtitles in order to relay what's happening with the sign language, and that's not something that they use in 'Children of a Lesser God'.

Madeline (00:08:56): 
That's interesting.

Emilio (00:08:57):
Actually. I got to admit, they do a rather clever job of getting around that. The William Hurt character has a very specific character trait, which is that he says that somebody in his life once told him that he can't communicate with anybody when he is trying to amuse himself, which is all the time, and it's really true because that character says things out loud to himself a lot in order to make sense of things, and he's also a little bit of a smart aleck. So what happens a lot in the film is she will be signing to him and he will sort of speak it back or respond to himself. In some ways, it's like a really busy role. He's doing a lot in terms of conveying things to the audience.

Madeline (00:09:47):
Yeah, I find that really interesting because I mean, in 'CODA', as you said, it's mostly subtitled. Every once in a while for a line or two subtitles will drop and you'll only see the signing, and I actually think that because ASL is such an expressive language that you actually generally can get the sense in these short bursts of what someone is trying to convey, more or less.

Emilio (00:10:13):
Or there's a particular intention behind not having it written out to you.

Madeline (00:10:19):
As you said, not to get too deep into 'CODA' yet, but there's a bar fight scene that I think when the character we follow, Leo confronts the guy, he ends up punching. I don't think we have subtitles for what he's saying to the guy, but we have a general idea that it's, "screw you, you poured beer all over me".

Emilio (00:10:38):
Exactly. Something to that effect.

Julian (00:10:40):
And actually I think at the very beginning moments of the movie before the subtitles actually began, I had to wonder, "wait, are the subtitles on?" Because I think there were a few exchanges in American Sign Language that happened without any subtitling that were, maybe it was just kind of the equivalent in conversation to like, "Hey, what's up?" Or something like that.

Madeline (00:11:01):
Yeah, I think on the first scene on the boat, there's some gesturing that I don't know was fully signing, although there may have been some of that as well, but I think because they're so connected and you can see their eye contact, that I feel like you can still get the sense that they are conveying something to each other, even if it may not be something that requires a subtitle.

Emilio (00:11:25):
Right. Or that it could be something that's maybe not necessarily ASL, but is some communication that they've developed between themselves - father and son, coworkers at the same time too, in a semi high pressure situation out on the seas. But yeah, I also found that to be really interesting as well, and I don't necessarily think that the movie is worse off for it. It's just a very different experience. What I will say is that Marlee Matlin is extremely expressive in this film, and you still, I think, get a really fully realized character out of her, which is one of the quiet triumphs of the film. That's just me speaking. I could totally see somebody looking back on it and saying, well, there are some things that they could have done differently, but especially for its time, I think it feels like a pretty big step forward in how a deaf character can be portrayed, and also the amount of attention that a story gives a deaf character. The story is really about her.

Madeline (00:12:26): 
It's her story 

Emilio (00:12:26):
It's her story, it's her transition and her arc in the film. Yeah, it's interesting, and both movies honestly, quietly have really similar themes. They're both about young women who find solace and comfort in staying close to a community or certain people, and then through the introduction of a new influence kind of realize that they have to seek out more for themselves than just the life they've lived so far.

Madeline (00:12:50):
And the other thing about Marlee Matlin in 'Children of Lesser God', we spoke about how she's the only deaf actress to win best actress to this day, but she's also still holds the title of Youngest Actress to win Best Actress for that film.

Emilio (00:13:07):
Yeah, that's pretty cool to knock off those two right there.

Madeline (00:13:09):
Yeah. She was 21 years old when 'Children of a Lesser God' came out in 1986. Number two was held by Jennifer Lawrence for 'Silver Linings Playbook'.

Emilio (00:13:19): 
That's right.

Julian (00:13:19):
Wasn't it Anna Paquin won Supporting Actress. That's right. Yeah, when she was 10.

Emilio (00:13:24):
Yeah, something along those lines. Very young.

Madeline (00:13:26):
And then Tatum O'Neal, also very young, but supporting.

Julian (00:13:29):
But yeah, Anna Paquin interestingly won that award in a movie directed by Jane Campion. It was 'The Piano' in 1993, but Jane Campion, who was up against 'CODA' at the Oscars in 2022 when the ceremony happened.

Madeline (00:13:45):
Yeah, because that was 'Power of the Dog' Year.

Julian (00:13:47):
That was 'Power of the Dog' year. And actually, I think we'll get into this a little bit more further in the conversation, but I think it's worth saying at the start that when 'CODA' won that award for Best Picture, I was pretty surprised.

Madeline (00:14:00): 
Absolutely. I mean, the three of us obviously keep up with film a lot. I don't think I was familiar with this movie until the ceremony.

Julian (00:14:11): 
I was aware of it.

Madeline (00:14:11):
Or I guess until the nominations came out.

Emilio (00:14:15):
I definitely wasn't either.

Julian (00:14:16):
I was aware of it, but only in the sense that I had looked on Rotten Tomatoes the week that it came out and noticed, Oh okay, there's this certified fresh movie called 'CODA' being released to Apple TV Plus. I'm kind of like, okay, I guess I won't see it right away because of where it's streaming, but I'm going to note that on my list. I'll come back to it at some point,

Madeline (00:14:33): 
Which you did!

Julian (00:14:34):
And here we are today.

Emilio (00:14:35):
We are. We're doing it now.

Madeline (00:14:37):
But yeah, I mean, I think that 'Power of the Dog' was my guess for the winner that year, and it did also win, I think, multiple awards. I mean, at the very least, Jane Campion won Best Director.

Julian (00:14:51):
And yeah, actually, as a companion to this episode cycle, I recently received and have been reading through a copy of the book "Oscar Wars" by Michael Schulman, which is a fresh new book. It was just released in early 2023, and the afterword of it, which I'll actually talk a bit more about in a moment, is it covers the ceremony in which 'CODA' won in 2022. That's the very end of the book. And now, sadly, in that night, 'CODA''s Win was overshadowed by something a little bit more sensational, which I probably don't even have to say. In fact, Jerrod Carmichael went on SNL and did a whole standup routine about how we're all going to "talk about it" without ever saying what "it" is.

Madeline (00:15:35):
But for those of us who perhaps just have no sense of time anymore, this was the year of the Slap. TM.

Emilio (00:15:45):
Oh. My God. I was literally here going, you're like, what is it? Chadwick Boseman not winning over -

Julian (00:15:52):
That was the year before.

Emilio (00:15:54):
That was the year before. Okay. I was trying to think about what other crazy Oscar scandal. Okay, there we go. Wow. It's been that long, huh?

Julian (00:16:01):
Yeah. I mean close to two years as of this recording, more like two years on the dot when it's released.

Madeline (00:16:07):
There has been one Oscar ceremony since then.

Julian (00:16:10):
There has been one, and a lot of people saw those Oscars where 'The Power of the Dog' went up against 'CODA' as the "Streaming Oscars" where, I mean, it's not like it's the only Oscar ceremony where streaming companies have competed, but 'Power of the Dog' was a Netflix movie, and that was long seen as the heir apparent to the Best Picture throne. But then in the weeks leading up to the ceremony itself, some turns started to happen where there were, I'm going to refer directly to "Oscar Wars" now, where they call it the "campaign trail gaff" in that 'The Power of the Dog' had a couple of last minute little scandals that ruined, or maybe not ruined, but -

Emilio (00:16:54): 
Tarnished?

Julian (00:16:55):
I mean, that feels like a strong -

Madeline (00:16:57): 
Soured?

Julian (00:16:57):
Soured - sunk its reputation amongst awards voters. One of those was infamously that Sam Elliott made some very bizarre comments about it on Marc Maron's WTF podcast, some just weirdly homophobic remarks about the movie. And yeah, it was a whole big thing, and actually it's something that Marc Maron still talks about to this day. It was a very odd publicity moment for that show, but then also that Jane Campion herself had made an awkward comment about Venus and Serena Williams at another award ceremony, I think for the Critic's Choice Award. Yeah.

Emilio (00:17:33):
Whose film King Richard was also being considered, I guess.

Julian (00:17:39): 
It was.

Emilio (00:17:40): 
Up for awards that same year.

Julian (00:17:41):
It was, and so then that combined with 'CODA' winning a Producers Guild Award gave it kind of this comeback energy late in the game. I was surprised to see that it was a movie I personally had not seen by the time that it won the award, and well, I think that similarly, there were a couple other maybe if not only the 'Power of the Dog'. There were some other heavy hitters that year that I thought might have been a little better postured for the award that didn't get it.

Emilio (00:18:12):
So let's talk about that. Why do we think this movie won?

Julian (00:18:16):
I really am trying to balance a few thoughts here because in the sense of the kind of story that it tells disregarding any details of representation, it feels pretty conventional in a lot of ways.

Emilio (00:18:28): 
Definitely.

Madeline (00:18:29):
Yea, it's a very straightforward story. I think we'll get into opinions later. I think that's a minor fault of the movie is that it feels kind of predictable in a lot of ways, but can ultimately make for a pretty easy feel good watch also.

Emilio (00:18:49):
Yeah. I think predictable has not necessarily stopped other films from Best Picture or doing really well at the Oscars, but I would agree that this movie, there's something about this film that right from the outset, it starts to really telegraph all of its plot points. And my general sense about this movie is I love where its heart is. I think it's a really beautiful film with a really wonderful message, and I think there are some really spectacular acting performances and really specific moments. I think that really, really resonated with me when I was watching it. But overall, this, I'm just going to say it. This movie kind of felt like a Hallmark movie.

Madeline (00:19:35): 
Absolutely.

Emilio (00:19:37):
Which I hate to say is a pejorative to Hallmark films, but it just really, really formulaic.

Madeline (00:19:42):
Absolutely. It feels like, I mean, one thing, we were talking a little bit about representation of deafness in media, in film, and where my mind immediately goes is a television series that was produced by ABC Family called 'Switched at Birth'. This was on, and I think the early 2010s, and from the title you wouldn't necessarily know that it centers around deafness, but essentially the basic plot of this is that two girls, two babies are switched at the hospital and are raised by not their biological families, and one of those girls is deaf. And so even though you're exploring in this television show, the dynamic when they find out as teenagers that they've been switched and reuniting with their birth families and connecting with them while also balancing their relationship with the families that have raised them, there's also this added element of one of these girls, one of these teenage girls is deaf and she goes to a deaf high school whose administrator, I think played by Marlee Matlin. She's a supporting recurring star on this show. This felt to me this movie felt like a sub lot on 'Switched At Birth'. It feels like this could be a character that you follow on an ABC Family TV series.

Emilio (00:21:02):
Yeah, which is slightly unfortunate because I do think that the representation in this film is a really, really lovely thing.

Madeline (00:21:09):
Yeah. I think ultimately the strongest parts of this film lie with the family.

Emilio (00:21:15): 
Absolutely.

Madeline (00:21:16):
The connection between them, the performances of all four of them, the actors that play, the parents that play Ruby, our main character that play Leo, her brother, their performances are spot on. Really beautiful. We talked about Troy Kotsur winning the Supporting Actor Oscar for this. He's wonderful, and I think my personal favorite scene, and I think a scene that resonated with a lot of people is a scene between him and Ruby, his daughter, our main character, um -

Emilio (00:21:45):
On the back of a pickup truck?

Madeline (00:21:46):
Exactly on the back of a pickup truck where she, throughout the film, has been pursuing her love of music, and that's up to this point, not been something that he can engage with her about. And so at this point, he asks her to sing for him, and she does, and she tells him what the song's about and she gets more and more powerful singing louder, and he starts to touch her and feel the vibrations in her chest and in her throat, and they're just locking eyes and crying, and I'm going to tear up thinking about it. It's so beautiful, and it's those parts of the movie that I wanted to be the whole movie.

Emilio (00:22:30): 
Yeah, sure.

Madeline (00:22:31):
Pretty much anytime we entered the high school, they lost me.

Julian (00:22:35):
That's the last scene that you described. That was easily my favorite scene of the movie. There were a few around it too that were some worthy runners up as well. 

Emilio (00:22:42):
Yeah. You mentioned that Ruby's character had been pursuing her love of music. The movie kind of situates it sort of like it's a brand new thing for her, which is also one of the things -

Madeline (00:22:54):
It's very odd. One of the things that I don't care for.

Emilio (00:22:56):

I agree as well. I think that it's a little too convenient. That little detail makes it a little too neat, and I have not seen this other movie or one of the things that kicks off this whole movie is that she and her friend Gertie are looking for electives or they're signing up for electives and she decides based on her attraction to a boy,

Madeline (00:23:22):
I am so glad you brought this up. Continue.

Emilio (00:23:24):
That she's going to also join choir with him, and the boy that she is following or she's into is this guy named Miles who is played by Ferdia Walsh-Peelo, who is also the main character of a film called 'Sing Street'.

Madeline (00:23:41): 
Mr. 'Sing Street'.

Emilio (00:23:43):
Exactly, and we were talking about extremely specific Letterboxd lists. We could definitely make one that would be titled "Ferdia Walsh-Peelo pines/is pined after and inspires dedication to a musical endeavor".

Madeline (00:24:00): 
Absolutely. But yes, I'm glad you brought this up because that's one of, I think the most frustrating things for me about how they set this up in that she goes on later to say, singing is my favorite thing. I sing all the time. I love to sing, but when she's in line, when she and Gertie are in line picking the electives, it's her glance over at Miles that makes her supposedly make this snap decision of like, I'm going to sign up for choir, and that's really irritating to me and one of my -

Emilio (00:24:31): 
Exceptionally for me too.

Madeline (00:24:32):
Yeah. That's one of my frustrations with this movie is how the high schoolers are written. Not necessarily Ruby in general, but anything happening in the school, anything to do with Miles or Gertie. I was frustrated by because it felt like adults writing teenagers.

Emilio (00:24:50):
I also - I want to ask you, Madeline, because I know that you have a background in music education. I know specifically with choir too.

Madeline (00:24:56):
Yes. For those who do not know, I taught middle school choir for four years prior to moving to New York, so I have a background with this.

Emilio (00:25:06):
Totally. I'm really curious, is this just what filmmakers think an audience is going to accept and/or want a choir teacher to look like or sound like, or in your estimation, is this closer to reality than not? I've been in choir as well.

Julian (00:25:24): 
I have too actually.

Emilio (00:25:27):
I had a very different presence for a choir teacher, or choir director. I'm curious because my initial reactions were like, are you serious?

Madeline (00:25:38):
I don't particularly care for Mr. V.

Emilio (00:25:43):
You don't want to call him Berrrrrnardo?

Madeline (00:25:46):
I cannot do that every single time. I have to say his name during this recording. So no, just the once. I don't particularly care for Mr. V, and I have a section in my notes that says Just "Mr. V" and explanations of why I don't agree with some of his choices as a teacher, which we don't need to get into some -

Emilio (00:26:09):
I'm slightly curious to get into some though

Madeline (00:26:11):
Objectionable morals in some ways in his song choices, for example.

Julian (00:26:16):
I Know what you're thinking of, but that first one that he teaches them all.

Madeline (00:26:20):
Yeah, exactly. For those who haven't seen it, they're singing "Let's Get It On".

Emilio (00:26:24):
And he's specifically fishing in that moment. He wants to see who the randiest kids are.

Madeline (00:26:31):
And he even tells them when they're not quite expressive enough, your high schoolers, all you ever think about is getting it on, which is extremely inappropriate to say to teenagers.

Emilio (00:26:42):
Yeah. I mean it may be true, but also just not something that you put out there, but it also typifies, I think a little bit of, he's sort of allowed to kind of skirt the line between what is inappropriate and inappropriate. Sometimes I get a little bothered when it's the choir director. It's the art teacher.

Madeline (00:27:04): Yeah, absolutely.

Emilio (00:27:05):
That they're allowed to kind of have that latitude as opposed to other teachers.

Madeline (00:27:10):
And I'll tell you, IRL, he would've gotten an email from a parent the next day after introducing this song.

No way would he have gotten more than one day into rehearsing this song.

Julian (00:27:20):

Relatedly, from along a different point in the movie's plot, but that scene later on where Miles, after he and Ruby have had a falling out and he just texts her in the middle of the night. In real life - he's responded to kindly by Ruby in the movie. In real life, he would've been ghosted.

Madeline (00:27:37):
Yeah. There's also the fact that she has a lot going on in her life.

Emilio (00:27:42): 
Oh God, so much.

Madeline (00:27:44):
She has so much. She's waking up at 3:00 AM either fishing with her dad and her brother, or trying to start their fish selling co-op, on top of school and on top of music practice, and so she's off often running late. And a lot of times, I'd say probably every time it is not her fault, and he just immediately, I understand why a person like a teacher, for a student who is continually late, I understand why that would be frustrating. He knows her situation, so the fact that he immediately goes to "you have no discipline, you're wasting my time", I think is also really inappropriate, and it's not what she needs at this moment. She needs compassion.

Emilio (00:28:22):
And he's situated as the compassionate teacher, which... I get. Again, for the machinations of the story, there has to be some push/pull between them. It can't always be easy breezy, "Oh, don't worry. I'm the one that gets you", "I see what's going on. You're okay in my eyes". In real life, she would've had a conversation with him to be like, bro, I'm doing this, this, this, this. I don't sleep.

Madeline (00:28:50):
Yeah, exactly. I understand. I think it would make sense in the film for him to be frustrated and like, "Hey, you need to talk to me because I'm not sensing your dedication here, and we need to know why that's not happening, because I'm not going to waste my time". He can be frustrated while also approaching her as a person rather than just cutting her off in her time of need.

Emilio (00:29:13):
Right. It's like, "I get it. You're overextended. That's people that happens all the time. Let's try to figure this out".

Julian (00:29:20):
Another thing about him too, I mean that house that he lives in, I mean, I was sort of thinking that his wife must be the breadwinner of the family because for a high school choir teacher, it's an awfully nice house.

Madeline (00:29:32): 
Very nice house.

Julian (00:29:33):
Not to say that a high school choir teacher doesn't deserve that because they very well could.

Madeline (00:29:38):
But it's definitely a public school based on financial situation.

Emilio (00:29:42):
He's got a thick record collection too. Yeah, big time. Well, he ostensibly has been in music his whole life. Yeah. Let's see, he graduated in '89, class of '89. Maybe he, I don't know, spent some years in a touring band or something, was able to stock away some money. Maybe he invested in real estate early, was able to flip a home or two. You never know. But there's also something that happens in some of these films. It's that 'Friends' effect, where you go, this is not a real apartment. These people who are scrounging for money and are complaining about their lack of wealth and lack of opportunity, and then they live in this just enormous palatial penthouse.

Julian (00:30:29):
Yeah. I couldn't help but hear David Byrne in my head as you said that. "This is not my beautiful house!  This is not my beautiful wife!"

Madeline (00:30:36): 
But yeah -

Emilio (00:30:37): 
"How did I get here?"

Madeline (00:30:39):
Even our family's house, she can repeatedly refers to as "gross", and I mean, it's a little unorganized. It's a little chaotic, and that's understandable, but I think when you see the inside, it seems quite nice. Whenever we see them in the living room, it seems very spacious. She keeps calling this house "gross", and I think it looks cool, but Miles also kind of says that.

Emilio (00:31:02): 
Yeah.

Julian (00:31:02):
It looks like a pretty cozy house to me.

Emilio (00:31:04): 
Totally.

Madeline (00:31:05):
But if we can go back to Mr. V, I have a list of things that I just want to go through of things I did not like.

Emilio (00:31:11): 
Do it.

Madeline (00:31:11):
One, he says, most people who are terrified of singing don't sign up for choir, which I'm going to say is wrong. I'd say that as a former choir teacher, this idea that every kid that signs up for choir is a diva that wants to take center stage is absolutely incorrect. And I'd say the majority of my students were students, like Ruby, who just loved to sing, or were curious about singing. This idea that no one who signs up for choir could ever have stage fright or be afraid to sing in front of their peers is absolutely incorrect, and again, inappropriate to say to a student.

Emilio (00:31:48):
You were talking about how the writers of the film seemed to be writing extremely unrealistic dialogue for the teenagers. I got to say too, I felt like they had a really unrealistic handle on music, and this was one of them I felt.

Madeline (00:32:04): 
Yeah, absolutely.

Julian (00:32:05):
And I thought, if you're going to name a music college for Ruby to potentially go to, Berklee's the first one you could look up on a Google search.

Madeline (00:32:14):
To be fair though, this movie does take place in Massachusetts.

Julian (00:32:18):
That is true. Yeah. But yeah, there is sort of that element where it's just kind of like, okay, music - college - Berklee.

Emilio (00:32:25):
Oh there we go. We get it guys.

Madeline (00:32:27):
I had I think five or six auditions. It's odd that she only auditions in one place.

Julian (00:32:32):
And she gets in.

Emilio (00:32:33):
Yeah, spoiler alert - she gets in.

Julian (00:32:35):
And this is with all due respect to Berklee too. I mean, we are music teachers. We have colleagues who went to Berklee. Totally. It's like the school is not representative of the identity of everyone who goes there. It cuts in many directions, but I sort of was thinking about that when the first scene when Mr. V suggests "maybe you should apply to Berklee. " I kind of thought the same way I did about, I felt the same way I did about when Ryan Gosling describes jazz in 'La La Land', which is just kind of like, anyone could have written this.

Emilio (00:33:05): 
Totally.

Julian (00:33:06):
And that was especially disappointing coming from Damien Chazelle who had just made a great jazz movie with 'Whiplash', even if it's not totally realistic, but certainly compelling.

Emilio (00:33:16): 
Yeah.

Julian (00:33:16):
Yeah. I felt similarly there. It's just like this is kind of like - 

Madeline (00:33:20): 
It's low hanging fruit.

Julian (00:33:22):
Yeah, it's low hanging fruit. That's what it is.

Madeline (00:33:23):
Yeah, and I think that the fact that he has heard her sing once at this point, I can't remember exactly if he has this conversation with her. The first day she sings, or not long thereafter, he started saying solo only a handful of times and is suddenly like, you should audition for one of the top music schools in the country. That's ridiculous.

Emilio (00:33:45):
Well, and it also goes right back to what you were saying before, which is that a lot of people who do sign up for choir are not doing so because they want to go to Berklee. They're doing so because they just love music and they want to be a part of a team that pulls something off.

Madeline (00:34:00):  
In my student teaching, we had a session, a class that was just like kids that just got dumped into the class because they didn't get another elective. A lot of schools have that where they just cycle through different electives or they're just assigned randomly or whatever. So yeah, if you go back to middle and high school, there are plenty of instances where it's just like, kids have to take this class.

Emilio (00:34:24):
Yeah. I'm curious what else is on your list? I don't want to put you on the spot.

Madeline (00:34:27):
Next up is "Happy Birthday" is a bad choice for this voice classification exercise. I don't know exactly what song I would choose instead. I often would just do it with basic vocalises, very basic warmups. I think "Happy Birthday" is a bad choice because of the octave jump.

Emilio (00:34:47): 
I think so too.

Madeline (00:34:47):
That's actually really difficult for a lot of people.

Emilio (00:34:50):
It also doesn't start on the tonic. It's really weird.

Madeline (00:34:52): 
Exactly. There -

Emilio (00:34:53):
It's very confusing for especially people who don't really know what they're doing, they often times start in the wrong place.

Madeline (00:34:59): Exactly. So because it doesn't start on the tonic and because of the octave jump, it's difficult for someone to find a key for "Happy Birthday", particularly if it says a voice classification exercise for kids that potentially have no singing experience, they don't know what key to start in, and when they do the montage, they're all in different keys.

Emilio (00:35:18): 
Cook Madeline, do it.

Madeline (00:35:20):
So that was number two.

Emilio (00:35:22): 
I love it. I love it.

Madeline (00:35:23):
Which also though reminded me and one of my college choirs, we spent a full week where everybody in your section had to sing two people at a time next to each other and then switch sides, so that you are on the other side of that person. And you did this in combination with every person in your section so that we could figure out the best standing arrangement.

Emilio (00:35:52):
Oh, standing arrangement, yeah.

Madeline (00:35:52):
And because of Blend, because your hearing being better in one ear or the other, just the timur of your voices working together. People who should stand next to each other because their voices blend well, or people whose voices clash a bit more. This took a full week seem like kind of a waste of time, but I guess it was effective.

Emilio (00:36:12):

I will say too, that I don't think these are the kinds of details that you have to include just for the musicians or the music nerds that happen to see the film. I think these are the kinds of details that you could totally throw in that if handled properly and researched well enough can totally become part of this very same narrative. And so to me, it's one of those things where, again, it just feels a little lazy.

Julian (00:36:40):
But also just speaking of musician representation in film and films that concerned deafness: 'Sound of Metal', that was a movie released just a year before 'CODA', also to streaming largely due to the pandemic, if not entirely due to it. But that was a movie which traces the journey of a drummer in this, I think like a hardcore band, who begins the film as a hearing person and gradually loses his hearing as it goes on.

Emilio (00:37:11):
And then tries to become a hearing person again.

Julian (00:37:13):
Exactly. Yeah. Via cochlear implants. But that was a movie where as a musician, I felt like that movie got the musician character a lot better.

Emilio (00:37:23): 
I totally agree with you, and I think that that movie handles this in a way that doesn't actually lose a viewer. That's not a musician too. I think 'CODA' and 'Sound of Metal', they're kind of like apples and oranges. There's movies with very different drives and in some ways very different messages, even though they are about self-actualization. No, but your point's a good one,

Julian (00:37:50):
And it's also that 'Sound of Metal' was a movie that I don't think it won any Oscars, but it was well- regarded by the Academy. It was nominated for Best Picture, and then Paul Raci, who's a supporting actor in the movie, was nominated for Best Supporting Actor.

Emilio (00:38:03):
Oh, he was great.

Julian (00:38:03):
In that. He was great.

Emilio (00:38:04):
Really good. Yes, I agree.

Julian (00:38:07):
Yeah, he could have won that award and I would've been happy with it. Although he lost to Daniel Kaluuya, a very worthy winner that year.

Madeline (00:38:12):
Was Riz Ahmed also nominated?

Julian (00:38:14):
I think he was. Yeah. I don't know if I should go to the Wikipedia now and figure it out, but it wouldn't surprise me. I'm already doing it. I'm on Wikipedia.

Emilio (00:38:24):
While you do that, is there anything else on your list? I'm fascinated. This is one of the big things I wanted to know.

Madeline (00:38:29):
Did you guys notice they never show Mr. V's Hands while he is playing the piano?

Emilio (00:38:33):
Oh yeah. There's that too.

Julian (00:38:34):
Well, that's area where I guess the movie got me. I wasn't looking for that, but I think my mind was on different things.

Madeline (00:38:40):
It's interesting because this is a movie that shows hands so much. It's a movie that focuses on the signing a lot.

Emilio (00:38:47): 
That's a great point.

Madeline (00:38:47):
That's true. But they kind of intentionally have to hide his hands whenever he has to play piano. They also don't really show Miles's hands when he plays guitar that much, even though that guy does play guitar. I looked it up.

Emilio (00:39:00):
He does play guitar. And you know what, on the subject of that, I don't know what we want to call this because we don't necessarily have a ton of films that meet this particular requirement, but I'm wondering if we call this "The Accuracy of Guitar Playing" Index. Maybe this is something that we can return to if there's guitar playing that happens in a film.

Julian (00:39:24):
Like with Ryan Gosling in 'Barbie'?

Emilio (00:39:25):
Ryan Gosling in 'Barbie', I also think slightly there's a character in 'Safe' that just pops out and starts playing a song.

Julian (00:39:31): 
Yeah, yeah.

Emilio (00:39:32):
Which I didn't mention in a conversation, but accurately plays a song in E Flat.

Julian (00:39:39):
Yeah, I had noticed that too when we watched it

Emilio (00:39:41):
And what I'll say is that at least in this film, Miles's guitar playing is spot on for a guitar that is tuned in Drop D.

Madeline (00:39:50):
Ah, interesting. Yeah, it seemed accurate. It just seemed like they weren't really, it wasn't a focus of the scenes whenever he is playing.

Emilio (00:39:57):
Definitely not. But also I think to your point, because it's not a focus, I think it also lends a little bit of credibility to the whole - to his casting. That detail does not have to be like, Hey, look, he plays guitar.

Julian (00:40:10): 
It's true.

Emilio (00:40:11):
It can be just a small detail that's there for anybody who happens to be looking for it, knows what to look for.

Julian (00:40:17):
Returning to 'Sound of Metal' for a moment, I have the Wikipedia up now. It was nominated for Best Picture, Original Screenplay, Best Actor for Riz Ahmed, and Best Supporting Actor for Paul Raci and won for Best Sound and Best Film Editing.

Emilio (00:40:32):
There are some really clever moves in that film. I think particularly in the final third of the film when the cochlear implant becomes a very - salient, to use a term that I know you like to use, feature of the film. Cool man, that's good to know.

Julian (00:40:50):
Yeah, 'Sound of Metal' too, I think to its credit, it's a movie that is not entirely about music, and it is not entirely about hearing either. There's really quite a lot underneath the hood of that movie.

Emilio (00:41:00):
I think you could say the same about this movie. I mean, when we first started talking about it, the things that we felt did work were what it says about family, what it says about the bond that you create when you and your bloodline, you're like a team. You're all pulling in the same direction. The moments in the film that we're trying to service that particular theme were happening. That was when I felt most connected with what I was watching.

Julian (00:41:30):
Yeah, I would agree with that. And along similar lines, so we've already mentioned this film once in the conversation, but have either or both of you seen 'Sing Street'?

Madeline (00:41:40): 
I haven't, no

Emilio (00:41:41):
So I've seen about half of it, but the John Carney filmography I think is a really interesting thing to talk about when we talk about this film.

Julian (00:41:52): 
Yeah, I was thinking about 'Sing Street' quite a bit while watching 'CODA', not just because of Ferdia Walsh-Peelo. What really I was thinking about with this is the general arc of the movie, the tone of it. There were a lot of similarities I saw between 'Sing Street' and 'CODA', and one thing with 'Sing Street' that stood out to me, and this didn't bother me watching it, but it still stood out to me, was that it seemed kind of like when the main characters of that movie decide to form a band, It seems kind of like the learning curve of music is pretty immediate. They just suddenly know how to do everything.

Emilio (00:42:25): 
That is another nit I definitely have to pick about this film about 'CODA', not necessarily 'Sing Street', although I agree with you about that too. I do remember that.

Julian (00:42:35): 
It seems more with 'Sing Street' that there's more of a time lapse that it happens there. I would believe that a little more with that movie than with 'CODA'. Yeah. It's they kind of suddenly know how to play everything, and then they're making music, which admittedly watching 'Sing Street' was pretty compelling to watch that aspect of it.

Emilio (00:42:50):
Amongst other details related to Mr. V, one detail that totally just disappears by the end of this film is that he says you have to have a prepared piece and you also have to be able to

Madeline (00:43:03): 
Sight read.

Emilio (00:43:04): 
Exactly.

Madeline (00:43:04):
And even he doesn't say "prepared piece". He says, you need a classical piece. That's right. And then we don't see her learn one, and that's another thing that was really frustrating. That's another thing on my list is the fact that he says, you need to learn how to sight read and you need a classical piece. And I often, I remember, I feel like I had two audition pieces when I auditioned for music school. Does that sound right to you?

Julian (00:43:31):
I think that in my case, I had one, but it was not the only thing in the audition.

Madeline (00:43:37):
So I'm curious if she had "Both Sides Now" and then also a classical piece that we just never saw her rehearse or perform, or if they say classical piece and then are like, we don't need to worry about that.

Emilio (00:43:47):
The audience isn't going to relate to a classical piece the way they'll relate to "Both Sides Now", which admittedly is an absolutely baller song.

Julian (00:43:55):
It is, and I honestly, the audition scene for all of the issues in the screenwriting that lead up to it, I was pretty sold on the audition scene.

Emilio (00:44:02):
Oh, sure. One of the other really strong moments of this film is what they do when that duet happens, the duet between Miles and Ruby, which is that her family, none of them which can actually hear her perform, but they're there anyway in order to show their love and support. One of the final performances of that concert is a duet. What you see happen in the film is actually really clever.

Madeline (00:44:30): 
Yeah.

Emilio (00:44:30):
There's a rack focus from the stage to the parents who were in the audience, and it's synced really beautifully with a slow volume drop completely to silence. And it's there to put you entirely in their perspective where they have to read the audience in order to know how to respond, and then how to know what kind of voice and talent their daughter actually has. And I thought that that was actually one of the most powerful scenes of the film.

Madeline (00:44:53):
Absolutely.

Emilio (00:44:53):
And it pays off beautifully for the scene on the pickup truck, which is that you see that moment there in the performance is not really about her performing this song beautifully. It is about the connection that her parents make, truly understanding that their daughter has something special. How well she performs it is not nearly as important as what that song and that performance is doing for their relationship.

Madeline (00:45:20):
A hundred percent. I genuinely said, "whoa" aloud when this happened, and I think this was a moment where the movie pulled me back in because I had some frustrations with the first half of the movie, and when that happened, I was totally dialed in, and then, yeah, it goes from that scene to the scene in the pickup truck, and I think, yeah, I agree that these are really good one-two punch emotionally that really just brought me back into a movie that was losing me.

Emilio (00:45:50):
Totally, and I would add that I think you say one-two punch. I say that.

Madeline (00:45:54): 
Yeah, there's a third!

Emilio (00:45:55): 
There is a third punch -

Madeline (00:45:55): 
The audition, yeah.

Emilio (00:45:56):
And I think that that is one very strong aspect is how performance in front of her family is handled and that third performance when she's actually auditioning,

Madeline (00:46:05):
They take her to her audition

Emilio (00:46:07):
And in that moment, she's actually able to sign the words to her family and that there's a better understanding for her family when it comes to her love for music and whether she's got what it takes.

Madeline (00:46:20):
At the beginning of the concert, I said, she should sign this before the sound drops out when she starts the duet. I was like, what a great moment it would be if she signed this. Wouldn't that be a real nice way to tie this all together?

Emilio (00:46:37):
Her hands aren't busy.

Madeline (00:46:38):
Yeah. I was a little frustrated that at that point I was a little frustrated that they didn't add that, and then they drop the sound and then you get the scene in the pickup truck, and then she signs at her audition, and I'm like, okay, this works. Because I was like, at some point in this movie, she needs to sign while singing.

Emilio (00:46:55): 
Yep.

Julian (00:46:56):
Some nice wordplay there too.

Madeline (00:46:58): 
Yes.

Emilio (00:46:59):
I was going to say really quick, I know we said we were just talking about 'CODA', but there was one movie that I couldn't help think of when I was watching 'CODA', which is 'Lady Bird'. The idea of a coming of age film is not reinventing the wheel, but I do think that 'Lady Bird' was a film that recently set a new high watermark for this kind of coming of age film. Particularly about a young girl or a young woman who was going off to college, and there are so many of the same beats here in terms of, whether her parents truly understand her, her wanting to get out of the wherever she's at now.

Madeline (00:47:37):
They're from more working class families. They both want to pursue some sort of art.

Emilio (00:47:41): 
Exactly. Yeah.

Julian (00:47:42):
That's a detail of 'Sing Street' too, working class aspect of it and of the main characters wanting to get out of Dublin and go to England to make their music careers happen.

Emilio (00:47:54): 
Yeah.

Julian (00:47:55):
Very salient details, to use my favorite word. 

Emilio (00:47:58):
No it's cool. I love that word.

Julian (00:47:59):
Yeah, I think it's effective. A lot of very salient details among just various coming of age films. It doesn't even have to be about music per se.

Emilio (00:48:07):
Totally. I couldn't help but think of 'Lady Bird'. I mean, that movie. I remember seeing that movie and it really blew my hair back.

Madeline (00:48:15):
Yeah, I think that's fair. 'Lady Bird''s a movie that I really love and is probably one of my all time favorite movies, and I can see a lot of these comparisons.

Emilio (00:48:25):
And look, not all movies can be 'Lady Bird', but yeah. So you were talking about your little collection of details about Mr. V. Yeah. Was there anything else you wanted to share?

Madeline (00:48:37):
I mean, we were kind of talking about the audition and you mentioned that he told her she would have to sight read. I would've been interested to see some sort of preparation for that, because when I was preparing for college, even as someone who had been in choir and taken voice lessons since I was 13, had played an instrument since I was 10, I took a year's worth of sight reading lessons in preparation for my audition. Sight reading is not necessarily for vocalists, something that is going to be introduced as much as maybe as an instrumentalist. At that age, I certainly found sight reading for singing much more difficult than sight reading on my violin because you have to be able to hear it. You don't have to be able to hear a piece necessarily fully that your sight reading on guitar. You have to be able to hear it when you're sight reading it vocally. A hundred percent. It's such a specific set of skills that I spent a full year with weekly lessons developing, that I find it very unlikely that she was able to put the time in to do this in particular. I also, I don't know about you, but I had to take a music theory test everywhere I auditioned also.

Emilio (00:49:41): 
Yep.

Julian (00:49:42):
I mean, I'm sure there's quite a bit about auditions. We could all say, well, Emilio, I mean, you studied film in college.

Emilio (00:49:48): 
I did.

Julian (00:49:49):
So was there any music audition element to you applying to schools at all?

Madeline (00:49:53):
Did you have to prepare a portfolio? Anything?

Emilio (00:49:55):
I prepared a portfolio, but there was a real moment where I was wondering if I was going to apply to a music school, so I looked into it pretty heavily, and there was a whole shift for me when I was in my own private lessons to focus on sight reading, to focus on putting a piece together. Also music theory. All of these things that actually do get dropped in the film, but then get discarded.

Madeline (00:50:20):
"Fortissimo means very loud, forte means loud..."

Emilio (00:50:22): 
Yeah, all of that stuff.

Madeline (00:50:24): 
It goes so fast.

Emilio (00:50:24):
No, no, for sure. I know. I know, but no, absolutely. I mean, so I have some understanding of it and whatnot, but no, but for film, it was mainly portfolio based, so I had to submit a bunch of projects and things that I had worked on up to that point, and teacher recommendations and whatnot. I mean - one of the little detail I'll mention about when the audition happens, Mr. V walks in, he comes back in and he also - he does something, I don't know, I feel kind of conflicted about. He bails her out!

Madeline (00:50:59):
When he first enters, and he volunteers to accompany her. That actually, I think is fine that much everywhere I auditioned, you had the option to bring your own accompanist. I don't think I did anywhere. They'll supply one for you, but you had that option anywhere, so it makes sense -

Emilio (00:51:17):
I'm not talking about that though.

Madeline (00:51:18):
That he can accompany her, but then he's playing at the beginning and she doesn't have the strongest start, and he's like [vocalizes a musical mistake], "oh no."

Emilio (00:51:26): 
"Oh, I messed up."

Madeline (00:51:29): 
Yeah, I'd say -

Emilio (00:51:31): 
What I'm talking about.

Madeline (00:51:31):
- she didn't get too far. If this was halfway through the song, I would feel a lot worse. I agree that I think this is maybe morally ambiguous.

Emilio (00:51:45):
It doesn't totally line up with the character. Well, actually, I don't know if it does. Maybe, maybe it does.

Madeline (00:51:54):
He's rooting for her. He's also -

Emilio (00:51:54):
Maybe that's where his character is supposed to go. By this point, he's rooting to me, it felt like it didn't feel like something that you necessarily do.

Madeline (00:52:02): 
Well, yeah.

Emilio (00:52:02):
Because ostensibly Miles shows up and he chokes as well.

Madeline (00:52:08): 
Miles bombs.

Emilio (00:52:09):
He bombs, and where is Mr. V help him there?

Madeline (00:52:12):
I wonder if that was part of Mr. V's motivation to help Ruby, because he's been helping these two students prepare. And one bombs, and he probably knows that, and he's like, she's my only shot this year,

Emilio (00:52:25):
So maybe it's a little selfish. You know what? I like that. I like that read.

Julian (00:52:29): 
Yeah

Emilio (00:52:29): 
Mr. V

Madeline (00:52:30):
Which, I'm sorry to Miles, but as soon as Mr. V says early on like, oh, miles is auditioning at Berkeley, I turned to my boyfriend. I said, he's not getting in. I am sorry.

Julian (00:52:40):
Yeah. Actually, I thought about with Mr. V, that actor who plays him, Eugenio Derbez. I haven't seen him in many things, but I've seen him in a few things, and I remember there was this movie that he was in called 'Under the Same Moon' that I was shown in Spanish classes in both middle and high school. I would have to revisit that movie to really have a refined opinion about it, but he plays a kind of similar character in that movie, in that - in no means by the milieu, it's a very different setting and premise with that story - but of the character of being this kind of, older guide to the main character who is intrinsically flawed too.

Emilio (00:53:27): 
Yeah. Okay.

Julian (00:53:28): 
Yeah, so that moment in 'CODA' when he bails her out on the audition, I thought it was going to go a similar way to a scene 'Under the Same Moon' where he's trying to act in the kid's best interest, but he just kind of messes things up for himself. But also to continue the conversation about auditions. I mean, well, actually, I have a question for both of you. Did either of you both apply to Berkeley?

Madeline (00:53:58): 
No. I mean, I applied exclusively to in-state schools. I'm from North Carolina, and I think it was always in my mind, I'm sure we would've figured something out, but in my mind, it was purely a financial decision. There's no way I can afford to go out of state for school, so I only auditioned at schools in North Carolina,

Julian (00:54:18):
Which makes a lot of sense. I actually applied to Berkeley and got accepted, but I didn't go because, no scholarship.

Emilio (00:54:27):
Yeah, yeah. No, no, that's huge. That was a big thing for me too. It was like, you want to figure out how you're not going to put yourself in a hole or your parents in a hole too, right?

Madeline (00:54:35):
Yeah. I mean, this movie, by the end of it, it's implied that she gets a scholarship, possibly a full ride to Berkeley off of this audition?! Absolutely not, not happening.

Emilio (00:54:48):
It's a little to make a wish.

Julian (00:54:51):
Yeah, yeah. In my case, thinking back on this era of auditions, I mean, it was actually pretty unusual for me because Berkeley was the only school I had a formal audition for, and yeah, as I remember, it was kind of like you picked one piece to demonstrate your talent, and then there was a sight reading element of it. Then there was also a, I think there was kind of a listen and play aspect of it too. I'm a little fuzzy on the details, and the song I auditioned with was Steely Dan's "Reeling in the Years".

Emilio (00:55:26): 
I love that song.

Julian (00:55:27):
Yeah. Very in character for the music I was into at that time. For sure, and you can attest to that.

Emilio (00:55:33):
I can. Yeah. I played drums on our version of "Kid Charlemagne", which is another great guitar solo.

Julian (00:55:40):
When I was like 17. Yeah.

Emilio (00:55:42):
Which I remember you totally crushed. It was awesome.

Julian (00:55:44):
Thank you. But then alongside the Berkeley experience, all the other schools I was applying to were these small liberal arts colleges, and it was as far as submitting demonstrations of skill, there was mostly essays.

Emilio (00:55:57):
That was a lot of it for me too,

Julian (00:55:58):
And the school that I went to, Sarah Lawrence, I mean, the way that they structure their program. Yes, there are auditions for the music department, but it's not to qualify you to get in. It's like if you enroll in the school you're in, it's more to just place you wherever it's right for you. Sure.

Madeline (00:56:14): 
Yeah. Bard's like that too.

Julian (00:56:15):
Bard is, to my understanding, like that 

Emilio (00:56:18):
Another Steely Dan reference. Sorry, go ahead.

Madeline (00:56:20):
I think I had five auditions and I had to audition formally everywhere. I did two classical pieces. I did "Caro Mio Ben" and "Danza, Danza, Fanciulla Gentile" and Teale, which are very - every soprano between the ages of 14 and 19, we'll get the "24 Italian Arias" book. We probably have one here at the school. It is absolutely the start of your Aria repertoire book. Pick two from that, and actually a lot of the auditions requirements specifically say Pick an aria from the "24 Italian Arias" Book. Sot they are that common.

Emilio (00:57:04):
They're like, don't try to get cute.

Madeline (00:57:05): 
Exactly. No, no Steely Dan.

Emilio (00:57:10):
I could just imagine someone coming in trying to do Donald Fagen. I mean, so I think we've established that this movie does some things rather well, and then other things not terribly well in general. They fall into this sort of lazy screenwriting trap. You had a list of things that Mr. V says. I made a little list and I called it my "Made for TV" details.

Madeline (00:57:40): 
Ooh

Emilio (00:57:40):
So again, feeling like there were some aspects of this movie that just felt way too neat and tidy and something that you'd see, I'm sorry, hallmark, but in a Hallmark film

Madeline (00:57:51): 
Or ABC Family.

Emilio (00:57:52):
Or ABC Family. There you go. A couple of 'em that I just want to point out, and we can hit 'em and we can move straight on, but the first one I put here was Frank and Leo standing up to the phishing regulators. Everybody's suddenly cheering them on after it's been previously established that they think of them clearly as outsiders and at worst freaks.

Madeline (00:58:12): 
Absolutely.

Emilio (00:58:12): 
Yeah.

Julian (00:58:13):
Come on. I did feel for what they were going through there, but that scene was a little too neat and tidy.

Emilio (00:58:17):
A hundred percent. Yeah, I get it. I get it. They're trying to show that this is their moment to kind of stand up for themselves, but -

Madeline (00:58:25):
I also think it speaks to just how desperate these fishermen are for better wages, for better treatment, that they're like anybody that wants to give us an out here, literally anyone?

Julian (00:58:38): 
Yep.

Madeline (00:58:38): 
Yeah, anyone? Bueller?

Emilio (00:58:41):
It just doesn't jive with the rest of the film because they've already been established very much as the people on the outside and to all of a sudden just be welcomed as "yeah, yeah. No, no, no. You're the voice for us!"

Julian (00:58:51):
And I don't know if it would've been in this scene, but one of the criticisms of the film from the deaf community was that there were some moments where Ruby is put in a position to interpret for her father in a situation where there should have been an interpreter already.

Madeline (00:59:07):
I had seen this criticism on Wikipedia, and I think that makes a lot of sense, and I definitely want to air validity towards this criticism. I will say that the director's, I think, response to this, not like a formal response, but something she said is that, yes, that's the case legally. And that's going to be the case if you're in New York or if you're in LA. If you're in Gloucester, Massachusetts. If you're in a small town, it actually does not matter if it's legally required to supply an interpreter. If there is not one available, what are your options? I'm sure that yes, there are interpreters available oftentimes in these small towns, but I don't think it's unrealistic necessarily to say that maybe a town this small may not have immediate access at any point.

Julian (00:59:58):
That's a fair point. Yeah.

Emilio (00:59:59):
Totally. There's one other, not one other, there's actually a bunch of other ones here that I wrote here. We talked about this a little bit before in reference to 'Sing Street', when the choir is singing "Let's Get It On". There's that moment where Mr. V separates Miles and Ruby and sort of gets them to try to sing it and sing out a bit, and she literally goes from sounding like she's never heard the song before. That's the other thing too. It literally sounds like she's like [unsure quiet vocalizing], and then suddenly she sounds like she sung it like 500 times in the shower. Again. I get it. There's got to be an arc to this, but - okay.

Madeline (01:00:39):
They're like, all you need is a quick breath support exercise and then surprise time to sing, and it'll just trick you into having a lot of power.

Emilio (01:00:47):
Yeah, I'll mention another one, which I slightly mentioned a bit before. It's so convenient that Ruby's pal Gertie suddenly thinks that her brother Leo is hot.

Madeline (01:01:00):
Has she not seen him in years?!

Emilio (01:01:02):
That's what I'm curious. If she's such a good friend of hers, why is it that all of a sudden?! How good of friends are they really?! And that she works at the bar that all the fishermen hang out at?! Come on! 

Madeline (01:01:13):
It's a very small town. There's only one bar.

Emilio (01:01:17):
But he even allude to the fact that she can't even drink the beers that she's giving people?

Madeline (01:01:22):
And her response is "These guys can't count to 21", which I actually think is very funny.

Emilio (01:01:27): 
Oh, totally.

Madeline (01:01:28):
One of the only good jokes in this movie.

Julian (01:01:30):
Something related to that though is I think one of the things that I thought was pretty effective about the movie was the humor, often humor based on mistranslation.

Emilio (01:01:41):
Totally. Yeah. You know what? I will totally see you on that. I think they really go for a lot of humor based directly around sex.

Madeline (01:01:51): 
Oh, yeah, totally.

Emilio (01:01:51):
Which they also talk a little bit about in 'Children of a Lesser God', now they talk about it in much more traumatic terms, but this idea that they have very healthy sex lives and to assume otherwise is selling them shot.

Madeline (01:02:04):
It's an infantilization. Also, I think of deaf people as not having the same desires as hearing people as the rest of the population, which is an infantilization based on stereotypes.

Emilio (01:02:15): 
A hundred percent.

Madeline (01:02:17): 
That they're less capable.

Emilio (01:02:19):
Right, and we were talking a little bit about Gerie Ruby's friend and Ruby's brother Leo, and that certainly becomes a little side plot for them, which is that they want to get it on 

Madeline  (01:02:33):
Something. That's interesting. I was listening to an interview between the director, Sian Heder and Emerald Fennell of 'Promising Young Woman'

Julian (01:02:43):
And 'Saltburn' as of recently.

Madeline (01:02:45):
Oh, yeah. So Heder goes onto say that they cut out a lot from this movie. They cut 35 scenes from this movie.

Emilio (01:02:56): 
Wow.

Julian (01:02:56): 
That's a big number.

Madeline (01:02:57:
That's a lot of deleted scenes. And she said that she thinks that something that she has a tendency to do is make every character the protagonist, and that that's something she kind of had to fix in editing, and I think you see that a lot in the movie, and that's part of why sometimes some of these plots, I don't know that we fully can - they all seem like they could be their own movie.

Emilio (01:03:24):
Yes. That's another detail I wrote here for Made for TV Moments, which is one thing that totally happens, it just gets completely swept under the rug, is that whole moment where Leo gets upset with Ruby, and they have that which I actually thought was super poignant, which is that he feels infantalized by his deafness and that it's something that gets in the way of his duties as a burgeoning young man.

Madeline (01:03:48): 
She doesn't allow him to become empowered because she's always there to step, step in. I was also thinking about the scene when he goes to the bar right before he goes, he tells his father, "oh, I'm going to go with them to the bar", and he's like, "should I text Ruby?" And Leo's like, "No, I'm a grown man!"

Emilio (01:04:07): 
Exactly.

Madeline (01:04:08):
And I think it causes Leo to be in a position of dependency that he doesn't want to be in.

Emilio (01:04:14): 
Totally.

Madeline (01:04:14):
The parents are so dependent on her that they can't really imagine a world where their son is not also dependent on her, that they think they're protecting him. He doesn't want her as an interpreter. He says, at one point, our family was fine before you were born.

Emilio (01:04:30):
Everything that you just said, there could be the foundation of a really powerful film. And to the film's credit, it's there somewhere in the movie, but I think the very next scene that you see is them going to her concert and he's like, cool, I'm here. I'm here to support my sister, which I feel like I really wanted more out of that plot line. It was really powerful. You just summed it up really, really beautifully.

Madeline (01:04:55): 
Thank you.

Julian (01:04:55):
I agree with that, both aspects of that statement, and it's interesting to hear that she could have treated every character like a protagonist. When you look at a lot of the supporting roles of the movie, I wasn't sold on everyone's acting, but I think that all of the supporting members of the Maine Rossi family, I was pretty sold on their performances.

Madeline (01:05:19): 
Yeah, totally.

Emilio (01:05:21):
I thought that the father, Frank.

Madeline (01:05:22): 
Troy Kotsur

Emilio (01:05:25):
I mean, he was incredible. He has some moments you were saying of the humor. He has some moments where he's got a really, really sell some humor.

Madeline (01:05:33): 
Totally.

Emilio (01:05:34):
And he totally crushes it!

Julian (01:05:36):
And I think when you look at the awards that 'CODA' won at the Oscars best supporting actor for Troy Kotsur was one of them, and I think that's the win that I agree with the most.

Madeline (01:05:45):
Absolutely. I mean, as soon as we got to that pickup truck scene, he was really good before then, but that scene, I mean everything on his face is just like no competition. I mean,

Julian (01:05:56):
Throughout the movie I was fixated on his face whenever he was on camera. He used does so much good work with it.

Madeline (01:06:02): 
He's incredibly expressive, which is common in ASL and in sign in general.

Emilio (01:06:06):
He looks the part of a fisherman.

Madeline (01:06:07): 
Absolutely.

Emilio (01:06:07):
A hundred percent. Yeah.

Julian (01:06:09): 
And then Marlee Matlin being there, I mean, I was very into her performance too. She's the established celebrity who is shepherding a cast of some, well-known names, but it's mostly underrepresented cast members.

Madeline (01:06:25):
She's first to be cast, and she also insists on casting deaf actors. She threatens to leave the film when the studio wanted to cast hearing actors to play some of the deaf characters she threatened to leave and heater in this interview I was referring to also talks about the process of finding Troy and Daniel who plays Leo. I can't recall if there are any other deaf characters other than the three of them. I think it's just them, right?

Julian (01:06:54):
I think it's just them.

Emilio (01:06:54):
I think it's just them too.

Madeline (01:06:55): 
But I mean, she said that she actually, coming from outside the deaf community had really no idea what her pool was going to be like. How many deaf actors are out there for her to choose from? Is she going to have two options for each role? Is she going to have 50? And she worked very closely with Deaf West in LA, which is a theater company that does a lot of shows that are double cast so that they have a deaf actor and a hearing actor playing the same role.

Emilio (01:07:22): 
Cool.

Madeline (01:07:23):
And I think Troy and Daniel, she both, she found them both through Deaf West specifically.

Emilio (01:07:29):
Very cool to see. I mean, it's funny because her character, I think she has one real kind of standout moment with Ruby having to admit that she was nervous about having a daughter who could hear, which again, I think spoke to a lot of what this movie does do very well. Which is when it's really just about the family, this film is really firing on all cylinders.

Julian (01:07:54): 
Yeah, and I think that Madeline, you basically said earlier that in the second half of the movie you were into it more, and I was too in large part due to those family scenes, and I think it was really where Ruby starts to get into a conflict with her parents over whether she'll go to college or continue to support the family. I think it was really in those scenes that I started to get more into it, and I felt like the writing was a little bit stronger, and then the performances were better too. Honestly, Emilia Jones playing Ruby. I mean, I think she does a good job throughout the film, but I think some moments were certainly better, were better than others.

Madeline (01:08:32): 
Yeah, she was, heater said that she, obviously Ruby was the hardest to cast. They saw thousands of actors. They tried to get an actual CODA, an actual child of deaf adults, but couldn't find anyone with the singing chops that they needed to have somebody with such a natural tone of their voice that Emilia doesn't come in with a bunch of singing experience. She takes vocal lessons, but she has this sort of rock talent that is supposed to be portrayed in the film as well, which I think it does very well. Apparently. They almost actually cast a different actor, and then they get Amelia's tape and the casting director insists that heater watch it before casting this other person, and Heder said she was Ruby from the moment I saw her, and she speaks to this because she's so expressive that every thought she has you read on her face.

Emilio (01:09:32): 
The characteristic that Emilia Jones does share with Ruby is that she came into the film an untrained singer that I did read as well, and so that was something that she could relate to directly with the character she was portraying.

Madeline (01:09:50): 
And Heder said in many ways, she kind of became a CODA on set and that she had to establish this relationship with Marlee Matlin and Troy Kotsur and Daniel Durant, I believe, he plays Leo. She has to establish this relationship with them. She takes sign lessons, she becomes fluent in Sign in ASL for this film, and often times would actually assist Heder if she needed to adjust a shot if heater needed her to communicate with them if she was too far away so that she didn't have to enter the actual shot. I found that really interesting. Supposedly, she really does kind of take this role on set as well.

Julian (01:10:33): 
One detail that, I don't know if it made your "Made for TV" list, but that kind of struck me that way, was the way that after the family faces this adversity from the, I don't know exactly what you'd call it, the union, that they're part of?

Emilio (01:10:45):
The regulating agency or something.

Julian (01:10:47):
Yes. Of all these fishing people and families, after they try to stand up to them and form their own system, their co-op or something, their co-op, I feel like just that co-op kicks off awfully quickly.

Madeline (01:11:02): 
Oh definitely.

Emilio (01:11:02):
Oh, definitely. Yeah. Suddenly they have branded.

Madeline (01:11:05): 
Yeah. It's like the mother is very nervous in a scene that they don't have the resources to be able to do this, and then within the next five minutes they get it rolling and they're signing a lease and are on the news...

Emilio (01:11:20):
And it continues to grow after they're ostensibly also putting this kid through college, although maybe she gets a full ride? I don't know.

Madeline (01:11:27):
Julian, what I thought you were maybe going to talk about is the experience with the person that invades their boat. What is this person called?

Julian (01:11:36): 
Oh the Coast Guard?

Madeline (01:11:36): 
No,

Emilio (01:11:37):
You're talking about the inspector.

Julian (01:11:39): 
Inspector.

Madeline (01:11:39): 
Yeah. I don't know if you were going to get to that, but actually know that was one of my made-for-TV kind of plot lines in that I feel like I could see this coming a mile away, and I don't really like when I can feel so heavily the tension that the movie is trying to build. I feel like throughout almost the entire film, I was like, they're going to get in some sort of trouble from a regulation standpoint of being deaf and not always having a hearing person, not always having an interpreter, on their boat. And so I just feel like that to me felt very obvious that this was going to happen at some point.

Emilio (01:12:18): 
I think that's a perfectly great capstone to this, which is I think this movie is extraordinarily predictable. For all the ways that I think it really lands the plane on very specific moments, you can see so much in this movie coming a mile away

Madeline (01:12:36):
Plot wise. Yes. And I think the scenes that resonated with us the most were scenes where you maybe didn't see an exact moment coming.

Emilio (01:12:44):
An exact moment, a filmic interpretation, that there was a creative decision there made.

Madeline (01:12:51): 
In the dropping of the sound during the concert. Didn't see that coming. I mean, I think the truck scene in general, just because of the physicality of it, is not something I saw coming. These particular moments stood out because they're unpredictable.

Julian (01:13:07): 
But I think what is nice about the representation aspect of this movie balanced with its archness is that, well, I think what a lot of people of various underrepresented groups will advocate for is the right to be average.

Emilio (01:13:22): 
Oh yeah. Yeah.

Julian (01:13:23): 
In the media that they produce, is that not everything has to be extraordinary or game changing, that this is a way of leveling the playing field. Part of the discourse that this movie is engaging with is this tradition of portraying deaf characters among other marginalized people in film as these kind of downtrodden people who are missing out on something. And that's not the reality of life for many deaf people. And that's one of the advancements this movie makes is portraying its deaf characters as these people who in many ways live content lives.

Emilio (01:13:59):
And pretty full lives too.

Julian (01:14:01): 
One of the big points that was emphasized was the sexuality of the characters. And it was interesting too that I thought that in that regard, there was something a little airbrushed about Ruby, which is that in this family where everyone is otherwise portrayed as a sexually active being that Ruby at her age, I mean, yes, she is very young, but there's something that seemed like a little bit too virginal about her.

Madeline (01:14:26):
I just though feel she also has a lot of social anxiety. I don't think it's beyond imagination, that she would be incredibly withdrawn with her peers because of how much she's been bullied.

Julian (01:14:41): 
That's true.

Emilio (01:14:42):
Yeah. I think there also could be this idea that she doesn't really feel like she fits in with the deaf community fully, and she doesn't really feel like there's a place for her amongst the hearing community.  That she sort of straddles this line, and as a result, she doesn't feel like she can fully embrace going one way or the other when it comes to maybe some of the social norms or some of the openness that you might have if you were to fall more neatly in one camp versus another.

Madeline (01:15:14): 
And that's part of what music does for her when she's talking to her mom. When she first tells her, I joined the choir, and her mom doesn't take this particularly well. She says, if I was blind, would you want to paint? She kind of takes it as a personal affront.

Emilio (01:15:29):
Right, she's like, you're just trying to make me upset or something.

Madeline (01:15:31): 
She's like, you're a teenager. And Ruby's response to that, in addition to Why does this have to be about you, is also like, I'm making friends. We don't really see her with any until it seems like she's getting along well in her choir class and her relationship grows with Miles. We don't see her with anyone else other than Gertie prior to that.

Julian (01:15:55): 
And I read too that another criticism of the movie from the deaf community, it was really actually the emphasis on music in it. That a similar story could have existed with a different passion for the Ruby character, and that as if the focus on music made it a little too much about the sensory experience or lack thereof.

Emilio (01:16:18): 
And that might also come from the fact that the director herself can hear, and I'm not just saying this to sort of say that somebody who is not of a particular community can't create art for others in a community that they're not a part of. But I think it speaks a little bit to, and we also alluded a little bit to this before too, that music is a very simple, direct device that very clearly is something that someone who can hear, can enjoy, and someone who can't hear, can't enjoy nearly the same way.

Julian (01:17:03): 
As we draw this conversation to a close, in bringing it back to this award season theme, one question that I want to pose to the both of you and try to answer myself is, so this movie won Best Picture. Would you have given the award to that movie? And if not, what would you have given it to instead?

Madeline (01:17:23):
I think it's a difficult question because I do think that this is a major step forward for deaf representation.

Julian (01:17:30): 
Agreed. Yeah.

Madeline (01:17:32): 
I can't in good faith take away best picture from this film because I really, really respect what it's going for, and I think that there are really, really nice moments of this movie. There are also moments of this movie and much of it that frustrated me to an extent, but none of my frustrations lied with the deafness of the movie. It was all like the high school stuff, or the details with the music stuff. If I'm looking at it from a more objective angle than I would say no in this lineup. I personally would not have voted for this movie for Best Picture. But I also, like I said, can't in good faith, take it away.

Julian (01:18:18): 
Yeah. I could not in good faith take the win away from that movie. I am proud of it. And that actually, when you look at the history of Best Picture winners, this is not the first movie that has a win that is a significant step forward for some kind of representation, and I'm thinking in particular of 'The King's Speech'.

Emilio (01:18:38): 
Oh yeah.

Julian (01:18:39): 
Which is rather about a speech impediment, and that was a movie released rated R, the King's speech, and then censored to PG -13 to be more accessible to the audiences of children and teenagers who had stutters. With my knowledge of what was out at that time, what I might've chosen though it probably would have on the merit of content, been either the 'Power of the Dog' or 'Drive My Car'.

Emilio (01:19:04):
I was just going to say 'Drive My Car'.

Julian (01:19:06):
Yeah. Incredibly powerful movie.

Emilio (01:19:08):
It's a really powerful movie. Yeah. I'm going to more or less echo what you guys are saying, which is there's a lot of power in -

Madeline (01:19:19): 
Representation.

Emilio (01:19:19): 
There's a lot of power in representation, and that - it wouldn't have won if it hadn't been for that, I do think it played a really big role in that, but what I'm trying to say here, I think is that there are a bunch of other worst reasons I think that movies can be exalted from a personal place. This is definitely not a movie that is up there with some of the other ones that I'm seeing here amongst the other nominees.

Madeline (01:19:52): 
It's a pretty strong year.

Julian (01:19:54): 
It is.

Emilio (01:19:55): 
It is a strong year.

Julian (01:19:56): 
Although there are some movies nominated there that I don't think I would've nominated.

Madeline (01:19:59):
I do not understand why 'Don't Look Up' is on this list.

Julian (01:20:02):
Honestly, I thought 'King Richard' was kind of an overrated movie too.

Madeline (01:20:05):
I didn't see 'King Richard', so I can't speak to that.

Emilio (01:20:07):
I did see, 'Don't Look Up', and I think I liked it more than some people, but I would not have put it on here either.

Julian (01:20:14):
So for context for the listeners, the list of Best Picture nominees in addition to the winner 'CODA' for 2021 was 'Belfast'. 'Don't Look Up', 'Drive My Car,' 'Dune' -

Madeline (01:20:26): 
Part One.

Julian (01:20:28):
Part One. Yes. 'King Richard', 'Licorice Pizza', 'Nightmare Alley', 'The Power of the Dog', and Steven Spielberg's 'West Side Story'.

Emilio (01:20:35): 
Right.

Julian (01:20:35): 
And yeah, strong Year mostly I think Good pickings and yeah, I mean it's like, in any event, it's pretty tough competition. And also when you look at one of the other awards that 'CODA' won Best Adapted Screenplay tough category that year too, because it's up against 'Drive My Car', 'Dune', 'The Lost Daughter' and 'The Power of the Dog'.

Emilio (01:20:57):
Did you guys see 'Nightmare Alley'?

Julian (01:20:59): 
Yeah, I did.

Emilio (01:21:00):
I saw it and it was kind of long, but I really liked what it was going for.

Julian (01:21:04): 
I enjoyed that movie too.

Emilio (01:21:05):
I know that's another remake. That was another, a remake of a film from the forties, I believe.

Julian (01:21:09):
Yeah. It's not my favorite Guillermo del Toro, but it was a solid movie.

Emilio (01:21:12): 
Yeah. Yeah. I think -

Julian (01:21:14): 
I've told you both before, but I loved 'Dune'. I got so obsessed with that movie when it came out. I still need to read the finish the book before part two comes out, but that movie swept the technical categories, I think very deservingly that year.

Madeline (01:21:27): 
I was just going to say for Best Picture, I feel like if I'm looking objectively, I would've said 'Power The Dog' most likely. I actually still haven't seen 'Drive My Car'. I really want to, but I keep getting put off by the runtime.

Emilio (01:21:41):
It's a long movie, which usually deters me, but it's really worth it.

Julian (01:21:45):
It's a great three hours,

Madeline (01:21:46): 
And I know that, and I've, since I can enjoy a good three hour movie, but at the time I was like, I don't know that I want to sit in a movie theater for this long. I've done it twice this year, so might as well do it on my couch now. But -

Julian (01:21:59): Oppenheimer and what else?

Madeline (01:22:00):
I mean for 'Killers of the Flower Moon' as well. So, I think 'Power of the Dog' would've been my choice. I really liked Spielberg's 'West Side Story'.

Julian (01:22:08): I did too.

Madeline (01:22:08): 
I don't think it would've won for me, but I really, really enjoy that movie. It was a five star movie for me. I cried multiple times, so I wouldn't have been upset if it won, but I understand why it doesn't quite rise to the same level as these other movies.

Julian (01:22:23):
'Belfast', that movie was pretty impressive too. I liked it more than I expected to actually. And then, I mean, well, I liked 'Licorice Pizza' a lot.

Emilio (01:22:33):
I loved everything about 'Licorice Pizza' until the last couple minutes.

Madeline (01:22:37):
I like Licorice pizza a lot. I mean, we've talked -

Emilio (01:22:42): 
We have.

Madeline (01:22:42):
We've talked about this a little before.

Emilio (01:22:43):
On mic a little bit and off mic a lot.

Madeline (01:22:45):
But famously, the Academy is not always a huge PTA fan.

Julian (01:22:50): 
Yeah. Maybe he'll get his legacy award someday. Yeah. Yeah. And then one final note before we finish this off, kind of about the milestone of representation that is 'CODA'. I had to think of this quote I heard in a different from Gina Davis once about the advancement of 'Thelma and Louise', which is that that was a great feminist movie for its time, but then she noticed this trend in the industry when it came to feminist representation of like, okay, we've got one, and then it just kind of stays the same for a while. It appears to advance in the moment, but not long term. So I wonder, will 'CODA' lead to something longer term or not?

Madeline (01:23:30):
Well one bit of representation that happened after this movie is that Daniel Durant, who plays Leo, gets cast on "Dancing with the Stars" and plays his fifth...

 Emilio (01:23:37): 
Wow!

Julian (01:23:37): 
Impressive

Madeline (01:23:37):  
...makes it to the semifinals. I watched one video. I feel like he's pretty stiff as a dancer, but I still think incredibly impressive for anyone to get that far into "Dancing With A Stars" is particularly a deaf actor who's not a dancer. So I think that's definitely a step forward.

Emilio (01:24:01): 
I think we might see as we continue talking about these unique Oscar Best Picture winners, that sometimes it feels a little bit like boxes get checked, and then maybe there's a little status quo that gets returned to, I don't know.

Julian (01:24:15): 
Speaking of both that and boxes being checked, the next film we're going to discuss in this episode cycle for our suggestion box segment will be, I think the oldest film we've discussed today, 1969's, 'Midnight Cowboy.'

Emilio (01:24:30):
John Schlesinger's most famous work, John Voight and Justin Hoffman -

Julian (01:24:37):
And an incredibly unique Best Picture Winner.

Emilio (01:24:40): 
Totally.

Julian (01:24:41):
Even to this day. Yep. Yeah, I love that movie. I'm excited to talk about it.

Emilio (01:24:45): 
Same here.

Julian (01:24:46): 
Yeah.

Emilio (01:24:46):
Awesome. I feel like we did it. We watched 'CODA', we talked about it.

Julian (01:24:50): Yes. So you can follow us on Instagram @Sleeplesscinematicpod. You can email us at sleeplesscinematicpod@gmail.com. For those of you who like movie logs on social media, you can follow Madeline or myself on Letterboxed. My handle is @julian_barthold. Hers is:

Madeline (01:25:09):
@patronessofcats.

Emilio (01:25:11):
Guys, thanks so much. Take care. Goodnight, guys.