S1E5 - Weapons: Naruto running into the dark

Welcome to Coolidge After Dark, the premier podcast of the Coolidge Corner area. I'm RC Beiler.

And I'm Jenn Evans.

And today we are going to be talking to you a little bit about the Coolidge Corner Theater itself and the 2025 film Weapons. Jenn, um, where would you like to start?

Well, I think we should start by saying that it's been a very heavy movie watching season in our apartment. We took a— sorry to scare you. We took a palate cleanser from our current Saw marathon to go see this movie. And we'll get there. But a movie I watched earlier that was very random showed up in this movie as well. So I'm kind of feeling the synchronicities are getting weird.

Wait, what film showed up in the movie?

Maybe you didn't hear me. I was trying to be quiet so no one else heard me because it was embarrassing. But I watched the 2006 critically acclaimed movie Aquamarine earlier today on a whim. And I was delighted that about halfway through this film, Sarah Paxton shows up on film. And I leaned over to you and I said, that's Aquamarine the mermaid.

I did catch it when you said that. I just didn't realize. I thought you meant like the film was playing. That's what I was confused about.

No, nope, that was her. That was Aquamarine the mermaid.

Well, I think the Saw marathon that we're doing has prepared us for some of the weird freaky shit that happened in this movie. Yeah,

yeah, yeah.

Just from a gore level. So instead of hitting up a local restaurant, we got snacks at the counter at the Coolidge Corner Theater. Particularly, I finally got Jenn to try Coop's Ice Cream, which is the micro creamery that they that they sell at the snack counter, which I am a huge fan of. And so I got what I always get, which is cookies and cream. Jenn, what did you get?

I got a salted caramel, 'cause I'm a sucker for anything salted caramel.

What are our thoughts?

It slapped. It was a salty caramel, and I—

Is that good?

Yeah, I'm a big fan of that.

Okay.

Yeah.

I've raved about this a few times now, I feel like, at this point.

Yeah, no, you were right. They were really good. We'll have to see if they exist somewhere. They don't in Brookline.

I've never heard of them. Yeah. I was gonna say, outside of, I mean, it's a micro creamery, so presumably it's not a huge operation to begin with.

Yeah, it's kind of fun that it's this like cool little special thing that you can only get there.

Yeah, like I said, we'll have to look around and see. But because— but that's also the thing is there are certain things that I like having a special place I go to get them.

Well, you love the, the beer from— I can't remember who makes it— that they sell.

Uh, Cult Classic is their— is the name of the beer, and it's, as far as I can tell, only sold there.

Yeah.

Which, that one disappoints me because that's something I would like to have outside of there, but I don't always need an ice cream. I don't always need a beer either, but—

I feel like you need an ice cream more than you need a beer.

There's the bigger thing. I don't always need a beer at the movie theater.

Sure, sure.

But I'd like to be able to get that beer other places.

Yeah.

To have with things that I don't eat at the movie theater.

Well, now it's a special Coolidge Corner thing.

Yeah, but I don't always want to get a beer at the movie theater.

Too bad!

Before we dive into plot and casting and behind-the-scenes things, I thought I would kick off our recurring bit of Jenn guesses box office numbers. So what do you believe the budget is? And what do you believe that the so far box office is?

I, this is no thought whatsoever. I hate this question because I, I still don't really understand the dynamics of this, but I think the box office is doing very, very well. It's been out for a little while at this point and our theater was full. Whereas when I went to go see Together last week, It wasn't at all. I was actually really surprised tonight.

What time of day did you go?

It was the same time. We went for a 9:40 showing, and I actually think I went and saw that at 9:40 as well.

Wow.

And there was like me and like—

Was that also in Movie House 2?

Yep, same Movie House 2. It was like me and like maybe 10 other people, maybe. This was full tonight.

Yeah,

this was like a full house.

I mean, well, I guess I don't know enough about— I know the 2 leads of Together I don't know necessarily any of the other cast. My only thought process being is that this does have a surprising number of known people in it.

But I didn't hear that they were in it.

True, true.

So I feel like that was it. I feel like people are doing the same thing that happened to us, which a friend was like, I want you guys to go see this movie and I want to get your thoughts on it. Shout out Phil.

You're not going to avoid the question though. What do you think the budget was?

Okay. Shoot from the

hip.

It was a New Line Cinema production. So I think the budget was $3 million and box office is like what it's made so far or what it made the opening weekend? So far. So far. How long has it been out? A couple weeks, you said? I didn't look at that.

August 8th, actually. So a little—

Oh, wow.

About a week and a half.

Okay. I think it is doing $5 million in box office.

I

know that's so wrong.

It really is. The budget was $38 million, which feels low for a movie that has known names.

$38 million is a low number?

To me. Well, to me it's a low number in terms of just the star power that's in the film. It's a high number given that there's not— there's a lot of sets, but there's not a lot of set pieces.

Sure.

It's mostly houses and schools, like very, very normal. locations that, you know, theoretically they might have shot on location in some cases. So like, most of the money I was expecting would go to casting and maybe some of the special effects. Speaking of special effects, actually, that's made me think of something we're gonna come back to. But the, the box office is about what I was expecting. It's like, you know, doing well. Okay. Yeah, because you think about it, you estimated like $5 million, but tickets are expensive now. So that's not that many people seeing it. If we're seeing full houses of A week and a half later,

yeah,

it's doing well, which is good, which is what we want. We want good movies to have people seeing them and people talking about them and interested in hearing about them.

Yeah,

let's dive into some thoughts. What do you— what were your thoughts on this film?

So I want to get into a web that I think you're gonna like. It took me 2 seconds of Googling, and I'm hoping you didn't find it because I want to tell you about it.

Okay,

so the guy who wrote or directed this, Zach Cregger— you know who he is?

Yes, I do.

The whitest kid you know?

That's how I know him, but also he did Barbarian.

Oh, I didn't realize that. Okay, so he's married to Sarah Paxton, Aquamarine the Mermaid.

I did not know that.

I didn't know that either until I was looking up her stuff on this and then I saw she was married to him.

So that explains why she's in it. That also explains from him doing Barbarian why Justin Long was in it.

Oh, right. Yeah. And that's what I was thinking the whole time. I was like, oh my God, I love Justin Long in Barbarian. Like, what a fun little other thing, even though He wasn't like really involved in anything. It was a pretty small part. Very small. Him and Sarah Paxton, they were married in the movie.

When I saw them in it, I was thinking like, oh, they're going to be— they're going to come back around.

Nope.

They were really only in it for a scene. Yeah.

They were just the parents of one of the missing kids.

Yeah.

But it was a nice little like Easter egg for both of them.

Just so we don't glaze over it too quickly. The extent of my familiarity with the film was that it had something to do with kids in a neighborhood. That was all I knew.

Same.

17 kids all from the same class in the middle of the night at the same time all decide to run out of their house into the darkness and disappear.

17 out of the 18 kids of the whole class.

Right, 17 out of 18. And then yeah, from that point everyone's just been trying to figure out what happened, and a lot of them are blaming the teacher played by Julia Garner, uh, Justine— Justine Grandy, which I'll have a lot to say as we talk about. I was gonna say characters, but yeah, so what I wanted to point out is one of my favorite things about this film. In a lot of cases, it's showing the same scenes from multiple viewpoints. I love when a movie does that. Yes. Like, we're getting— and this movie was actually particularly good in that we would see the lead-up to a scene, but they wouldn't always play out the same scene. They would sometimes skip to the next part because they're like, you know what happened, let's go to the next part. So it was like very respectful of your time. And, you know, in some cases you can't recreate tension the same way twice. But this film did fantastic. It really reminded me— that's why, like, I didn't know that Zach Cregger did it. I actually— the first thing I thought of, and I don't know if we ever talked about this film, but the 2003 film Elephant by Gus Van Sant.

I have not a clue what you're talking about.

It is a film about a school shooting, and it does so much the same thing. It's showing the same school day leading up to the shooting, and then in some cases after, from multiple viewpoints of students throughout the, throughout the day.

Wow.

And it also involves this— the reason that this really stuck out to me, the fact that there's a school setting, I think also kind of connected it to me. But there's a lot of tracking shots from like behind, like immediately behind someone's like shoulders up following them around. And this movie did a lot of that too. And I thought they did it to great effect. It did a good job of like kind of the mundane, like you're just kind of floating through, like you're, you know, not really— because sometimes the background is blurred out, you're kind of not really focused on what's around you. Craig was doing some interesting stuff with the— if not Craig, whoever the DP was. For me, it just seemed too coincidental to have a film that is doing that multiple viewpoints and the multiple tracking shots and a school involvement that the person didn't have that in mind. Maybe.

Interesting. Yeah.

I did like a very basic search when I, when I got home to see if there was any connections, but maybe I'm, you know, maybe I'm wrong, but it just— I felt such a similarity. Maybe I'll have you watch that film sometime. It is very good.

Well, and we'll get there, but there is like a school shooting aspect that I kind of wanted to touch on.

Oh, well, let's go on that now then.

So, but I wanted to interject and say along with the tracking shots and like the movement, like visually, there was also— I noticed it with one character's like story chapter in particular, but the sound and like music choice for this was very good.

Yes, absolutely.

That went so along with the tracking and the movement shots and the tension building.

There was a little bit of too many jump scares for me.

There were a few,

yeah. Just more than I'd prefer. If I was doing it in a home setting, it wouldn't have bothered me, but sometimes theaters are louder and I'm not particularly— I don't particularly prefer too loud of a sound. So I did have a couple scenes where I was like, I know enough about filmmaking that I know this is gonna get really loud. It's getting too quiet, it's gonna get loud in a moment, so I was covering my ears.

Everyone did too. We really had a lively house on us today.

Yeah.

Which made it so fun. I really loved the folks that were in the theater tonight.

And I think this maybe goes back to Craig's background in comedy, but there was a surprising amount of like tension-breaking laugh moments.

Yes.

Um, so that I, that I don't think were like accidental. This is not like a mistake. This is, I think, intentional.

So I saw like a very quick Reddit thread when I was kind of looking at all of this. And someone said, let's see, I think it was a review from— okay, so this is just someone on, on Reddit saying that they helped produce season 4 of The Whitest Kids You Know. They're saying this is what Kreger said: the more careless and fun you are, the better it is, he says, of writing, whether it's a comedy or a horror script. The spontaneity and capriciousness of it all is valuable.

Yeah,

so I— that kind of made more sense because I was like There is parts of this movie where you have to laugh. What is happening is absolutely ridiculous.

I want to get into a bit about the characters, but one moment, and I guess I'll start with the top of the casting bill. Josh Brolin plays Archer Graff, who is one of the parents of a missing kid who's very— I shouldn't say hung up, but he's very in the midst of it, even as some of the other parents are trying to move on.

Well, and he's got an interesting Like aspect of this because of his like job. So he's it looks like he's a construction.

I say I don't know if he was a contractor or like some kind of like

head

contractor of some sort.

Yeah. So you know he is like borderline begging police for like more intel on what's going on, and he doesn't think people are doing enough and whatever. And then because of his his job, he essentially starts looking at neighborhood blueprints and maps. He starts figuring out—

Well, trying to. He's just trying to at least—

Yeah, he's trying.

He's trying to look at it from a different angle.

He has plans. No one else would have plans outside of that industry. It's just interesting that he was already in that spot, which led him to that.

To touch on the comedy aspect though, which is why I brought his character up, is there is a moment that he has a really freaky dream sequence wakes up and understandably, but just funny for the kind of movie this is, just screams, what the fuck?

And everyone lost it.

Because yeah, that's— I think, yeah, if I was having such a freaky-ass dream, that's what I would have done too.

Yeah.

So yeah, we've got Josh Brolin as Archer Graff, Julia Garner, who I know primarily from Waco, the miniseries on Paramount. She plays the teacher of the class where the kids all went missing, Justine Grandy. I had so many parts where it was hard to root for her.

Oh, yep. And that—

and I think that's on purpose too.

I think this was one of those movies where you are having a hard time with that because they're showing that a character is maybe neither all the way good or all the way bad. But like, ooh, as we got to know her, it got harder.

And also once we found out other characters' connections to her, it made it seem worse. Like, I was initially like, these parents are being too hard on her. Like, just don't they understand that she's going through something too? But then we would also get like, she's ruining other people's lives. Yeah. And like, also has been apparently repeatedly told like, hey, you have to back off from like, you know, you're trying to make a per— too personal a connection with your students, but she doesn't. And there's like a tenacity to that where that could— is ultimately valuable to the story in this case. But it's just like, you're not going to endear yourself to the people that are upset with you right now if you continue doing this.

Right. Yeah, it was hard. And you felt bad for her because she was absolutely an alcoholic.

Mm-hmm.

Oh yeah. And it didn't seem like she was getting help for it. And she ends up dragging another character down. And then you hear later on that, you know, she had a DUI 2 years ago and we see how she's acting. pretty much in the liquor store every day.

Yeah, a lot of her— I mean, we're not seeing every moment of her, but like there's a very— it's very frequent.

And you think it's coping at first, and then you start to hear how she's been.

Right, like you think it's coping for this incident, and then you're like, oh no, this is just kind of like—

This is how she functions.

It might be a little ramped up from even that, but like, yeah, it's clearly not unfamiliar territory.

Yeah, so that was really— that was hard.

Yeah, let's, uh, let's tie her in with another character Alden Ehrenreich as Paul Morgan, the police officer.

Yep.

Who sucks.

Yeah.

But at the same time, Paul got like— Paul made his own decisions, but Justine, I feel like, knowingly made it worse. Well, maybe not. Maybe she didn't know. But we don't learn until later when we're seeing Paul's story perspective that he met her at a bar, they got drunk together, But like, when we see the story from his perspective, he also was talking to his wife about, about going to like Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. And he's like, oh, I'm fine, I don't need it. And then like, basically, it sounds like, it sounds like Justine was his ex, possibly.

Yeah, there was definitely some sort of like ex.

Yeah. But yeah, basically, so they sleep together and, you know, also, but then also his wife flies off the handle and attacks her at the liquor store. Well, the wife knew.

As soon as he comes home and he kind of is like sheepish about like where he was when she comes home from a work trip, she knew he was with her.

Well, I figured she would know that he was drinking, but I guess, you know, maybe there— maybe that's where part of the history is, is that he drinks with her.

And I think that— I think Julia Garner's character Justine did know because clearly, you know, this DUI situation was 2 years ago. Paul says no like 4 times about getting a drink. And she like kind of gives him a hard time about it.

And then he's clearly drinking enough to be hungover the next day.

Right. Which is also scary because they—

Somehow drove home.

In her car.

Yeah.

And he, at first, he's like, you're drunk. I'm concerned that you're going to drive your car home. And she's like, I'm not drunk. And then presumably they both get drunk and they fucking drive her car home. Like, it's so—

Again, makes it hard to root for her.

Yes. Or him.

Yeah.

Because you see, you see his vulnerabilities and you see that he's trying to go to AA and trying to be a good cop, but like, mm.

Well, also, his wife is the—

Daughter of the sheriff?

The daughter of the sheriff or the commissioner. I don't really know the size of that town, but the person who he reports to, which is bonkers moves to make to ruin that relationship when you're working for her dad.

Yeah.

Oh, so Alden Ehrenreich. I might not be pronouncing that name right.

I didn't recognize him.

He's been in a couple of things. The thing I know him most for is he has been recently in Marvel. He was in the recent Ironheart miniseries, and he also played Han Solo in the Han Solo prequel Star Wars movie about 10 years ago.

Okay, well, I've never seen a Marvel, and I saw half of The Clone Wars once.

You also saw Andor season 1.

I did watch all of Andor season 1.

You're in this weirdly isolated tribe.

choice, but I was like, yeah, this is good.

But you're in the weirdly isolated— you're in a weirdly isolated part.

And I watched all of Baby Yoda season 1.

The Mandalorian.

Yeah, that one. And that's it. That's all I've got.

So yeah. So he has been in other things. Those are the things I know him for are very popular franchises that you are—

Okay. That I'm not part of. Got it.

So yeah. Paul also has a recurring issue with a young homeless addict and basically attacks him.

Yes.

Yeah, this is the part where you lose Paul a little bit as a character, 'cause he does, I'll say, it was a surprisingly polite conversation up until a moment, 'cause basically Paul asked the kid, like, is there anything sharp in your pockets? Am I gonna get pricked if I reach in your pockets? And the kid tells him no, and then he does.

Immediately.

But then he just hauls off and wails on his head. Yeah. Like a single strong blow, enough to knock him out.

Yeah, and gives him a black eye. So this is James, who also has a main chapter.

Yes.

We have, Justine has a chapter, Paul has a chapter, James has a chapter.

Yeah.

So.

And they did a good job of like building out each character having a very realistic, you know, personal life. Like, and James is kind of the same way I would describe Justine, is like, oh, he's kind of likable at first, but then you find like, as it goes on, it gets harder to root for him.

Yeah, he like robs someone's car at one point.

Takes like their kid's backpack. Takes the kid's iPad.

Well, no, he takes the

kid's backpack,

And tries to hawk the kid's iPad at a pawn shop. But you, you see him, like, he's like calling someone. He's like, if you can just give me money for this, I just need these clothes for this job so I can pay mom back. And it's just, it's like, it's, it's kind of— he's got this like funniness to him, but it's sad. And we're watching him do drugs a lot of the time.

Yeah.

His music though, fantastic. Like the tension music that they had him alongside, So well done.

But yeah, he ends up breaking into a house and I don't want to spoil too much of the plot, but finds out some plot stuff that he does not react to with the seriousness it deserves.

No, because he's on drugs. Like heavy drugs.

Yeah, but like—

And I think that was it. Well, he starts to, and then he only kind of reacts to the situation because he sees there's like major reward money in it for him. True. So he's like, that's the money I'd need.

Yeah. I looked him up. I sort of recognized him. He was in Euphoria. He was also apparently on 2 seasons of The Walking Dead, which I think was probably after I stopped watching.

Who was he?

Ron something Howard? No, that's a—

That's a director.

But his name is— the actor's name is Austin Abrams.

And that is Gracie Abrams' brother and Star Wars Abrams. You know who I'm talking about?

You mean J.J. Abrams?

Yes, his son.

Yeah.

So he's a nepo baby.

Oh no.

Looking up his Walking Dead character, I don't recognize him. You never finished it all?

Yeah, yeah, I'll say, it's been a long time and I only watched like the first 5 seasons.

Oh, he was at a weird part. Oh, I know exactly who he was. Yeah, he was the son of Rick at one point, has like a new love interest that's played by, I think, Evan Rachel Wood. And it was like a mess. Anyway, that's Star Wars Abrams.

J.J. Abrams, he's done a lot of things. He did Lost, he did Star Trek too as well.

Well, good for him. He made Gracie Abrams and this guy, so.

Anyway, we've also got Benedict Wong as Marcus, the principal of the school that Justine works at, who played his character so well. I don't think I've ever seen him in anything horror before. I know him from a Marvel.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, he's a recurring character in the Doctor Strange series. has made appearances in other ones. But yeah, he plays the role pretty well. There's— I like— I liked his, like, discussions with, with Justine. It just felt like, you know, this is a boss who cares but also kind of wants to be allowed to have his own personal life separate from all this. And then, yeah, eventually he, for lack of a better term, is driven crazy and just goes off on this Absolutely gory attack against his own husband and against other people, and they did a great job at the special effects for that. And because of the nonlinear nature of the story, we see him initially when he's already like wigged out and attacking someone. He had these his eyes were huge in that scene, and I was thinking that like it was almost like an infection. I was thinking that's what I thought too because his face was like a. What's the word I'm looking for? Inflamed.

Yeah, and his eyes were bulging.

Yeah, so I was thinking, this is an infection. Maybe this is related to the story. It is related to the story, but it was actually red because he had headbutted his husband to death.

To

death. They did a good job using— they kept the husband, his corpse out of focus.

You could see his face next to him.

You could just tell how much, from the headbutts, that it didn't matter.

Yeah, if anyone's ever seen Midsommar, it was like the cliff scene all over again.

Oh, I did not see Midsommar yet. So yeah, it's, it's gory, it's emotionally fraught, and well done. It's just well, well done. The stakes were very— that was also the point in the movie where something switched and you suddenly understood what the stakes were to a better degree. And then I want to talk a bit about Gladys.

Gladys.

Played by Amy Madigan. I don't recognize her at all.

Not at all.

It looks from what I could tell she has had a long career in film. but just nothing I'm familiar with. Probably because of my cheap popcorn garbage that I love so much.

I thought she was Glenn Close for a minute.

Oh, I could see it. Yeah.

She had very similar facial structure for this character at least. Man, Gladys. Gladys is a character.

Yeah. The one thing that's not clear, she is set up as a familial relation. Do we think that's real?

I don't know. Based on everything she did to this family, I don't know if it was a lie or if they were just unluckily related to her

or related to her.

There was also a slip-up that I don't know if it was a slip-up or if it was— I don't— it mattered to me, and I don't think it was a slip-up. And I, I don't know.

Well, you're backtracking.

So when they're talking about her They talk about Gladys as the mother's sister. Sister?

Nope. Or not sister. The mother's aunt. Aunt, right.

And no one else will help this woman in her last days of like hospice. And

well, I don't even think— I think that she's just like old and sick, and so she's coming to stay with them.

They said hospice though.

Well, no, no, the husband said hospice. He said we're not set up to be a hospice space. Oh,

well,

yeah, she was old because of how she looks, uh, that he was saying like she looks really bad.

Well, she looked like she had cancer because she was losing her hair and just—

I figured she was just probably like— I figured she was hundreds of years old. That Like, I got the feeling that she was like that.

She was old.

Like, she was drain— I got the feeling she was like draining the life force from people.

She wasn't elderly though. I do think that there was some cancer thing going on or something along those lines. I think it was cancer. But when they're talking about her, they're like, we haven't seen her in 15 years. She didn't even come to the wedding. And then when she's talking to the little boy later on, Alex, Alex, the main kid, we know this is a class of what, 3rd graders? So he's like 9. And she says, she's like, I haven't seen you since you were a tiny little bean or whatever.

To me, I just took that as a lie.

Well, I was like, have you been peeping around? Oh, I was like immediately, I was like creepy. Uh oh.

Oh, it's super. Everything about her is uncovered. That's why I was wondering if it was if they were just randomly selected or if they are actually like if they were made to believe they're related and they're

not.

Or is her name not even Gladys and there is an Aunt Gladys and she just took their place

because that's her kind of whole thing, which. You know, spoiler alert, she ends up being a witch. And I thought it was very interesting that within like the first, very first part of the movie, as all the parents are upset with Justine Grandy, one of the parents paints witch on her car. And we haven't seen any supernatural things at that point.

But the whole thing has like—

just to jump to witch and not murderer, not like—

right, right. Well, just I think, I think witch just because no one could explain why all these kids simultaneously and in the same way of running did this.

Naruto running. They all Naruto ran into the dark.

It was closer to Naruto running than it should have been, but it was not Naruto running. They would have had to have been bent down.

I know.

The weirder thing almost is that they were standing straight up doing it.

Yeah.

They would have had to be bent down at like a 45 or 90-degree angle.

It was too close for me.

Well, that's fair. You would do anything you can to stay away from anime.

It's true.

You would run like that to stay away from that.

If that kept me away, sure.

Oh, one other shout out for the casting. Toby Huss played Ed, the police captain, Paul's father-in-law.

He was the father in Step Brothers, wasn't he?

He was the father in Step Brothers. He was fan-freaking-tastic on the show that I have recommended to you that we need to watch, Halt and Catch Fire. It ran for 4 seasons on AMC. I would initially have said the first season, you could pitch it as like Mad Men for computers in the '80s, but it takes such a wild turn in a good way that separates the two that it becomes its own thing. It's such a good show, and he plays a very integral part in that show, and I've loved him as an actor. He was also in the Halloween 2018, the first of the newest films in the Halloween series.

Was that the one you didn't like?

No, no, no, that— you're thinking the Rob Zombie ones. This is like the ones that came after.

Okay, I like him in everything he's ever been in.

Yeah, yeah.

He— even though he was a small part in this, he was perfect. And he, you know, helped try to fucking cover up Paul's mishap. And it just was very—

Whoa, whoa, whoa, let's not call it a mishap. Paul attacked a person. Let's not call it a mishap.

After he was stuck by a needle.

Yeah, I'm not saying that, you know, that people can't fly off the handle, but we can't—

No, but you can't just punch someone on camera.

He has a certain responsibility to keep calmer.

Yes, for sure.

But also, what's up with this police department? Why didn't he have a partner? Why was he out there on his own?

I don't know.

We got questions.

He's a lone wolf.

He's a lone wolf who does not like to play by the rules.

No.

But yeah, no, I really liked Toby Huss as Ed. I thought— I don't know if I actually caught that his name was Ed in the movie.

The wife just was like, my dad.

Oh, we also skipped over this. Aquamarine and Justin Long's scene was so good. Because Josh Brolin's character makes a request from Sarah Paxton who says, I'm not comfortable with that, and shuts him down. So he waits till Justin Long's character gets home and asks her.

He's like, of course, anything you want. Yeah, that was rough.

Also, Josh Brolin's character was originally cast as Pedro Pascal.

Oh.

And due to the 2023 writer's strike, it got delayed and then he had commitments with Fantastic Four.

See, and I love Pedro Pascal, but he wasn't the right thing for this.

This character, the character that Josh Brolin plays, Archer Graff, Archer feels enough like Joel from The Last of Us that I could have seen—

But that's my problem.

Yeah.

That's exactly my problem.

Yeah.

Is it would be too reminiscent of what we just saw him do.

Exactly. And Pedro has the range. I mean, and I'll say, I definitely liked Brolin in the role. I think that he played it pretty well.

Yep.

'Cause this guy's like clearly understandably going through it in a way that we don't get to see from the other parents. Like, because he's a focus character, we get to see more of his inner turmoil. Even like when you compare it to, I think it's his wife. When he wakes up, he's been staying in the kids' room. The wife's like, I'm going to work. And it sounds like he's been really dropping the ball at work. And so, you know, he's just clearly in a very different mental place. Also, his kid sucked.

Yeah, you find out like all the way through it that his kid was a fucking bully.

Yeah, and was bullying. So when we found out there was a witch involved, and we found out that it centered around this kid Alex, the only one who was not selected to go run off into the night. I was really thinking that it was something like he would— like almost like a genie, like he wished for—

I was

wondering, like, do I want all my— all the kids to come over my house and like me?

Because he's quiet and he didn't really like seem to have like friends. He was being bullied. Yeah.

Primarily by, by the one kid, but also like, you know, it's not like anybody else was standing up for him,

right? Yeah, that was sad. And no, he just, you know, he gets his whole life turned upside down. He gets the total short end of the stick, and then essentially he has to feed 19 people soup every single day.

As I said to you when the credits rolled, this is the worst—

That might have been the worst thing the witch did to him.

This is the worst Campbell's Soup ad ever. That kid will never eat Campbell's Soup again.

It starts with, you know, feed these couple people, they're gonna need food, fend for yourself, and then As the witch gets more people, then she's like, great, you got to take care of everyone. They just show him hand-spooning soup to this bully.

This kid didn't deserve this.

No. No, I did like Alex's character though. I thought he played it really well. I assume this is probably his first movie.

Played by Cary Christopher, who I did not see any other roles, but I thought the only thing that I would have wanted to see a little more of is I almost felt like he didn't have enough anger, like that he wasn't angry enough at the witch.

I think he was so scared though, and that's kind of where I was thinking about him in a way of like, he's so little and the witch is proving that— unfortunately, when kids get kidnapped or kids are in bad situations, They're easy to say, like, keep this secret, or I'm gonna do this terrible thing, and they're gonna, you know, believe that you're gonna do it.

Well, in this case, this person not only will— this person will do it very clearly.

And she— yeah, she kind of— there was a moment in which she was like, here, I'm gonna show you what I can do. I can do that again if you decide to tell anyone. So he's like in this impossible place where he literally— like, it's just like every kid's worst nightmare, right? Like, they show him going to bed. and kind of like taking care of himself and the people around him as much as he can and like not talking to anyone. And because he just doesn't— he's like too little to— what do you do? Like, what do you do? You're so screwed at that point.

I mean, yeah, I wasn't expecting like defiant anger, but just like, just let's change him more. Also, apparently—

He was sad though.

I was saying, I'm looking at it now. He has actually fairly, for his age, prolific acting.

Good for him.

Yeah, a lot of— looks like a lot of single-episode TV. But I thought, yeah, I thought he did— the actor did such a tremendous amount, you know, for especially for such a young kid.

Yes.

Yeah, he's 9.

Okay.

Yeah, I was really— I'm excited to see like the next thing he appears in.

Yeah.

Or if he decides to stay in acting as he gets older.

He's like cut out for drama, so.

Well, he just said, yeah, you could feel all the emotion. There was nothing like, you know, you were like, you, you, you know, he clearly showed resilience as a character.

But you could feel how scared he was.

Sure. Well, yeah, he was out and he was also alone. He was silent. He had to keep silent about what was going on. Yeah, scary.

I want to talk about a scene in Josh Brolin's dream sequence.

Sure.

Where he is chasing his son and thinking he's going to figure out where he's going. He's almost astral projecting. Yeah,

yeah.

He runs into the woods and out the other side. There's this mirror image of his house, or his house in the dark side or whatever that he goes into. Before he goes into it, they show an AK-47.

That is not an AK-47.

What was that?

It's an assault rifle of some kind, like an M16. Okay.

I don't know my guns at all, which I— that makes me proud. It had the 2:17 on the clock on the gun, which is when all the kids ran out of their house. I was like, is this a potential commentary on gun violence in school? A whole class gets wiped out.

I was like, there was a part of me that was thinking about that, how this compares to—

Is this an allegory for this?

You could definitely make some parallels, but I really— that was the one thing where I felt that came out of left field and never really was resolved as to why. Because everything else in his dream sequence had more purpose to it.

Yes.

And maybe that was meant to represent like what he thought happened, like that someone killed his kid.

Maybe.

Very— it was, it was the most unresolved portion of the film. It was the only real plot thread of why did that happen?

Okay, screenrant.com, the floating gun in Weapons explained what it means. The prevailing theory is that the gun and time are a giveaway that the movie Weapons is intended as a commentary on school violence in the United States, which is what I was kind of wondering.

Okay, because I felt that towards the beginning of the movie, but then as things went on, I felt less about Particularly

regarding the trauma it inflicts on survivors.

Okay.

The fact that one of the students who happens to be a target of bullying remains support— remains supports the notion that the disappearance is a representation of the shooting victims.

Okay.

The prevailing theory is that the rifle and time are references to the July 2022 assault weapons ban, which passed in the, in the U.S. House of Representatives with exactly 217 votes.

Oh.

The bill would go on to fizzle out in the Senate, eventually expiring without ever being ratified into law. I do remember this happening. The apathy of the adults of Maybrook that allowed the entire disappearance to unfold and the subsequent inability to locate them or identify the strange behavior of Alex Lilly is intended to represent the lack of ratification. It reshapes the entire narrative, making it an examination of apathy and how by ignoring warning signs everyone becomes complicit in its disasters effectively becoming weapons. Zach Cregger also has no, no straight explanation for the floating gun scene.

Okay, because I'll say that's, that's a very cool, like, out, out of story explanation, but that doesn't explain the in-story.

Right. So Variety asked him in an interview, and he said he didn't have a grand political narrative in mind when he crafted that image. He said, it's a very important moment for me in this, in this movie. And to be frank with you, I think what I love about it so much is that I don't understand it. I have a few different ideas of what it might be there for, but I don't have the right answer. I like the idea that everyone is probably going to have their own kind of interaction or their own relationship with that scene, whether they don't give a shit about it and it's boring, or whether they think it's some sort of political statement, or whether they think it's just cool. I don't really care. It's not up to me. I just like that it's here. We'll link that in the show notes because this is a very interesting article skimming through it. But someone also, per Polygon, Craig embraces the David Lynch method of transcendental meditation, in which you fold imagery from your subconscious directly into art and then leave it as is. When Craig says he doesn't understand it, that's what he's referring to. He knows the image is powerful, but he hasn't locked on to a singular meaning aside from the image. This is really— yeah.

That feels like such a cop-out to me, I guess. It does.

No, I—

It's like, you made the movie.

You made the movie. And that is such a poignant moment and a very tense, heightened, we're going to find answers type of scene. I was thinking, is this a school shooting parallel?

Like I said, from an out-of-the-film explanation, that makes perfect sense. Like I said, I can definitely see the parallels. I just feel like it's odd to throw something in your film that doesn't address what's happening in the film. Because that goes— because I was really— I loved the supernatural element because I really going in thought there was gonna be a non-supernatural solution to this.

Yeah.

Or explanation of some kind. Like, you know, this is gonna be a commentary on cults or something. Because I didn't— again, I didn't know anything about the background. Just— but as I was starting to go on, that's where I was thinking.

I wasn't thinking it was gonna be a witch.

I started thinking it was a witch when Julia Garner's character had a weird image of Gladys. Well, we didn't know it was her at the time. But in her dream sequence, she appeared and I was like, oh, this is— all right, we've crossed— I think it was that. I was like, oh, is this something supernatural? And then the character appeared again. I was like, this is definitely supernatural.

Yes, yes. But the whole thing being a witch is just weird.

In story, the 2:17 was kind of random, the time. I do like that it has— because in my head I was like, why did they pick 2:17 AM?

Yeah, I was thinking that too. Usually like people are like, 3, the witching hour.

Sure. 3 AM. Fun fact though, some initial screenings were held at 2:17 PM. I was thinking about it, that if you started it at 10 after midnight, your screening would end at 2:17 AM.

Oh, that's so good.

Or yeah, I guess 9 after midnight. If this movie gains a cult following, I could see that happening.

Yep. Yep.

Come to our 10 after mid— or 9 after midnight show.

Yep. Finish at 2:17.

But yeah, I thought the film was fantastic. I thought the casting was strong. I thought the cinematography was wonderful. Strong all the way through. Abrupt ending, we kind of talked about.

Very abrupt ending and a narrator that we never meet.

Yeah, well, I kind of— I, in hindsight now, I'm thinking a little more it's fun because like it's told like a story you heard from a person who heard it from a person who heard it.

Like an urban legend.

Yeah, like an urban legend at the school, because it starts off with them being like, all this weird stuff happened that they couldn't explain, so they covered it up.

Yep.

I was like, it absolutely felt like, like an urban legend, or like, oh well, my buddy who went to this school told me about this.

Yeah, and I'm googling and she really wasn't in the movie or anything. She She has a name. The character's name is Maddie, but, um— Oh,

I didn't catch that.

She wasn't in the movie. She was— that's just who she's listed as in the script.

Oh, interesting. Interesting.

Yeah, there wasn't like a thing that we missed or whatever, just a random—

Any final thoughts?

This was good. I'm glad we saw this in theaters because I think this was really powerful. One, to see on a big screen. Two, to see with other people. And three, I was glad that I wasn't like on my phone because there were a lot of bits visually of like, you'd see like parasite written on the board or they would be watching a show about parasites. Did you miss that?

I did. I caught it with, uh, with on, on TV. I didn't catch it on the board.

So in her dream sequence, when, um, Justine Grandy goes into her classroom to teach, but all of her kids are sitting there with their heads down, parasite is written on the board. And then, um, the principal and his husband are watching a show about parasites.

Right, that was the one that I caught.

And they mentioned cordyceps, and that's when we were like, like, Last of Us, and I was at that point. I was like, oh, everyone's infected with cordyceps.

Right? That's what I was. I was like, and I was like, are we being directed as to what the cause is?

But because that would it was more of like a hive mind than a cordyceps.

Yeah.

Which it a little bit in that, but it was magic. It was.

Yeah. It was magic cordyceps.

It was magic cordyceps.

I also loved that we didn't get a deep explanation of like Gladys's background or exactly how the witch powers work, but like we're given enough to work with that we understand. the rules.

Yeah.

Yeah, I loved that. I think I loved how the tables were turned on her at the end, both in a, in a story narrative and a satisfying ending. Yeah, kind of way. Yeah, I loved this film. I thought it was fantastic, and I'm glad that you suggested that we go see it.

Yeah, thank you to our friend Phil for saying he wanted to hear our comments because we probably would have seen this, but maybe not because, you know, we kind of were busy lately. So Yeah, we weren't necessarily gonna go and just—

this was, this was something I had heard a couple people say, like, oh, that movie was really good, but I didn't know anything about it, and so it wasn't really on my radar.

But I'm also glad we saw it before we knew anything about it.

Yes,

yes, like the whole thing just, it just fit well together for me for this experience.

Theoretically, you should be listening to this after you see Weapons. Um, if, if you're listening to this before, I'm sorry for the spoilers. I would still want to know what you think, given that we didn't cover everything.

Yeah, still go see it.

Well, for Coolidge After Dark, I'm RC Beiler.

And I'm Jenn Evans.

Keep it Coolidge, everybody.