chatty (cass)ie
chatty (cass)ie
Let's Chat... Love Lies Bleeding
Hi there and welcome back to chatty (cass)ie- a sleepover, just online! Join Cass this week as she re-launches the pod (after a looooong hiatus) with an episode on the new A24 Film, Love Lies Bleeding, starring Kristen Stewart and Katy M O'Brian. Listen in as Cass chats about her feelings on the real metaphors and themes lurking behind the glistening ab shots and make-out scenes. Enjoy the chat!
Five, six, seven, eight. Hi, welcome back to Chatty Cassie. Long time, no chat for real. This is the podcast where I talk about anything, everything, whatever crosses my mind. It is much like a sleepover just online. Imagine yourself in your little cozy little sleeping bag. Maybe you're on your best friend's trundle bed. And you guys are having a roaring good time. That's what this podcast is. Yes, sir. Now,
you might be asking yourself, where have you been Cass? What have you been doing? I'm so glad you asked. In the last three years, since I've uploaded anything, I moved to Arizona. I got a new job in Arizona from the previous one that I moved here for, obviously. So I've had two jobs. I made my second job. It's really lit. I've moved to a new place. I have new roommates. I'm no longer living with my ex-girlfriend.
And things are going really, really great. So thanks for asking. Oh, you might be asking yourself, what are you gonna talk about today? I'm so glad you asked. Since that little brief recap was enough, I'm really not going into detail about everything because that's a whole other episode of the last three years in Arizona. Trust me, there's so much to talk about. Regardless, today we're gonna talk about Love Lies Bleeding, the new A24 film with Kristen Stewart. Yeah. If I say I'm a lot,
sorry, I don't care. I'm not gonna edit much this episode because I don't feel like editing because that's half the reason why I don't record episodes because editing takes way too long and I don't wanna do it. I wanna start with, I'm a big A24 film fan. My favorite movie, my comfort movie, if you will, is Pearl. Whenever I'm having a bad day, a sad day, or just a day, I put on Pearl. She is so relatable. There is a whole other episode for that coming too. Don't you worry. And when I say she's relatable, I don't care what you have to say.
If you're judging me for that, oh well. I will feed you to Nata. I also have a new microphone. I'm figuring it out. It's doing some fun things for me where it like auto buffers to where it's gonna start recording and stop recording. So if there's some like cutoffs and overlaps, I didn't edit that. That was just me figuring it out. Trial and error. As the sound clearer, this episode is all over the place. Oh my God, we really need to just talk about the movie. But to preface, it is an A24 film. I am a big fan of A24.
I'm especially a fan of Ty West, but Lovely Splitting was really good. So let's get into it, I guess, for real this time. Like actually. So I definitely wanna start by saying that this episode is definitely R rated because we're gonna talk about the content of this movie. And then we're gonna talk about a metaphor that I took this movie as. And it's all very adult content. I would say 18 plus for sure. Unless R rated is 17, I think I don't really know. I've never worked at a movie theater.
That would have been cool though. I digress. So it starts off with Kristen Stewart and she is the daughter of this guy. Oh, spoilers. So if you don't want spoilers, don't listen. Anyway, so she's the daughter of this guy who runs this big gun range. And he also owns pretty much all of the town. And whenever somebody displeases him because he's illegally running firearms to the border, whenever they betray him or displease him, he kills them and then drops them into this canyon gulch,
basically. Now, he does pay certain cops to keep this a secret and keep this operation going. So before you ask that question, yes, that's happening. I'm not gonna flesh out the entire plot for you except yes, I am, because that's the point of the episode. Anyway, so that's Kristen Stewart's dad. Now, Kristen Stewart used to be involved in this life of crime with her dad. This is all background information that I'm giving you before so that it makes sense when I start talking about it if you haven't seen the movie.
And now she works at a gym in the town because this movie is set in the 80s during the bodybuilding aerobics hype, which by the way, my mom was an aerobics galley, girly gal, girly swirly. So that was pretty cool. I've seen pictures. That's another just sidebar digress moment. So Kristen Stewart works at this gym that her dad owns. It's the 80s, everybody's bodybuilding, and here comes the homeless bodybuilder.
Kristen Stewart's character is named Lou, by the way. And the other girl, I can't remember the actress's name and I'm not looking it up. Actually, yes, I am. That's a lie. That would be rude if I didn't, hang on. All right, I looked it up. Katie M. O'Brien plays Jackie. Jackie. So anyway, sorry, oh my God. So that's who it is, Lou and Jackie. Lou is Kristen Stewart and Jackie is bodybuilder.
She Hulk. So let's get into it. Jackie is homeless. She ran away from home because she wants to be a professional bodybuilder and she wants to go to the bodybuilding competition in Las Vegas that year. Kristen Stewart meets Jackie upon happenstance because Jackie tumbles into her 80s gym area because Jackie had sex with Kristen Stewart's brother-in-law in order to get a job at the gun range. And this is all unbeknownst to Kristen Stewart,
okay? Jackie and Kristen meet at the gym. It's super hot. They're like, ooh, cute, la la la. And Kristen Stewart's like, you can stay with me because Jackie's like, can I stay with you? Because they had sex and she slept over and they're lesbians, so they U-haul it. That's background for you. That's basically how they get to where they are and that's how they get into their relationship. Now, while they're in this relationship, Kristen Stewart obviously has access to everything at the gym.
So she has access to, you guessed it, steroids, injectables, if you will, actually, because I guess that was hip happening in the 80s. That's when they were going on. And I would like to add something here. I have experience dating somebody who was a amateur professional bodybuilder and she also did steroids, but she did it super quietly under the table because you're not supposed to do it and she was entering natural body competitions.
And when I tell you that there are side effects such as she had the shortest temper in the world, she had no boobs. When I say pics, I mean, she had pics and if that's the look that she was going for, whatever, but she was doing her thing and she would sweat. That was the worst part. Anytime, any physical exertion, if you catch my drift, she was so sweaty. And if you know me, you know that I have OCD and you're like,
no way, Cass, there's no way you could have put up with that and I didn't. It was disgusting. So yeah, if she ever hears this, sorry about it, maybe don't do roids. Anyway, Kristen Stewart obviously has access to steroids. She introduces Jackie to the steroids and she's like, I'll inject you, it'll be great. You need that edge. So Jackie takes the steroids at first and immediately there's this supernatural vibe to it where her veins puff up and she,
immediately her muscles start to contract and she's like, power kind of thing. So let me pause. I need to take a fricking breath. Okay, now that we're at the point where I actually wanna talk about, now that you know that she's doing steroids, injecting them and Kristen Stewart got her into them on the scene because she was like, are you sure about this? Kristen Stewart was like, all the guys do it, trust me. I'm gonna talk about the metaphor that this movie is because nobody wants to talk about it, but I will.
I'm just gonna come out and say it. So trigger warning by the way, but the steroid use is definitely a metaphor for intravenous drug use, heroin specifically in my opinion, in my opinion and I'm coming from the stance of I dated someone for seven years on and off who was addicted on and off to heroin and it was really, really tough and I watched a lot of parallels in the movie and I'm sitting there in the chair going,
oh, this isn't about steroids. Okay, cool, this is about introducing each other to the drug scene and then like the entanglement and the web that that weaves for each other and holding on to each other, clinging to each other, hoping that it will get better, the moves that you'll make, the decisions that you'll have to make together and whether or not it's gonna tear you apart. There also is an ending that seems to be happy, but if you're really looking at it from like an objective lens, it's not a happy ending and we'll get to that because with drug use, there is no happy ending.
Even though you think that they get away and everything, there is no illusion that Jackie's character gets clean, if you will, off of the steroid use, there's no illusion that they stop. They're always gonna have to be on the run kind of thing, we'll get there. But yeah, so let's just take with a grain of salt. If you think about it through that lens, the movie is really intense. It's super intense.
It's not just the gore, it's not just the murder, but if you really take away the fact that it's deeper, it's not about steroid use, in my opinion, I feel like the connection to what happens is so much more important and so much more, it's deeper, the real meaning of the film is there when you kind of take into account that this is not about steroids. So to get into the ending with Lou and Jackie getting away,
question mark, one of the things I wanna bring up is like you, and by you, I mean they, they will always have, like I said, to run. And even with Daisy's ending, Daisy is one of the side characters, her ending with Lou choking her out in a cornfield and like then Lou stealing her cigarettes out of her purse as that call back to the start of the movie,
it's that realization of like, you are truly never getting away. Like you drove away with her body in the back of the truck and you thought maybe, remember this is a horror film, okay guys, and you thought maybe, oh, we'll get away with it. But then it turns out she's still alive and you dump her body in a field. That is crazy. You're obviously not gonna get away with that. Obviously it's gonna come back to you. Like come on, especially with what you did to your dad at the end with framing him. So obviously the dad doesn't get away, which is great, but still.
What happened to Lou's mom? That's my question. Where was she for the last 12 years? Did she really leave or is she dead? Who do I believe? Also, the fact that they said that her dad was a bad guy and they tried to make him creepy and they called him the bug guy, I really liked the bug guy. I liked the dad's character. I really wish they would have fleshed that out more. I wanted more with Kristen Stewart and her dad. I wanted more in the past. I wanted more of what they were up to. I really needed that. And did I get that? No. Did I like the part where he picked up like a big nightcrawler worm-esque soul? I don't even know what it was.
And he ate it because he was so angry? No, that was disgusting. I could have done without that. But I did think that it added so much to his character. So much. And he was just the right amount of creepy looking. I think they did so well. So good. So those are my like key plot things. I wanted more of the ending. I wanted more of what happened to the mom.
I wanted more of the relationship between Lou and her dad. I wanted a lot of that. Now let's talk about the things that were not depressing, the things that were really, really hot. And yes, I said hot because at the end of the day, I am queer and that's what this is about here. Okay, that's what this movie is about. I went and saw the movie partially for the thrills, mostly for the gay-ness of it. Okay, I'm not gonna shield that. I'm not gonna hide that. We all know who I am as a person. The first note that I have on my piece of paper here for Love Lies Bleeding dash Chatty Cassie is star hot AF.
Arrow down absolutely insane to what is in parentheses sex scenes. Kay Stewart on the couch in quotations, good girl. Need I say more? Need I say more? There was so much in that film that I was like, okay, okay,
okay. Yeah, this is why I'm here. Yes, and I went with a group of people from Kickball. I helped organize this event because I was like, I wanna see this movie and I don't wanna see it alone and I think it would be fun to see with my friends. I sat next to Shay and I think I talked that poor girl's ear off the entire film, but guess what? We had a great time. We giggled, we ha-ha'd, we kiki'd. And we agreed that that movie was really hot. Okay, Shay less so. Shay was like, meh, and I was like,
are you kidding? Oh, oh, because there's that one port, port, there's that one port, there's that one part where at the end of the movie where Jackie, Jackie is like trying to get away on the tennis court and Lou jumps on her back. Kristen Stewart jumps on Katie O'Brien's back. Oh my God. I was like, little skinny Kristen Stewart in the jeans and the t-shirt with the little, but I couldn't. I was like,
this is beautiful. Her outfits. Whoever styled Kristen Stewart's character in the movie, Love, Lies, Bleeding, I would like to shake your hand. I wanna shake your hand. I really wanna shake your hand. Okay, what else do I need to talk about? Let's see, let's look at my little piece of paper. Yeah, I didn't like the ending where Jackie gets really big, like supernaturally giant. And I know that that like definitely didn't happen and unless it did,
I'm stuck on that. I'm stuck on did that actually happen or did it not happen? Was it more of like a, oh, she's so strong. She yelled him down. It felt like she was larger than life or was it actually, no, supernatural. She's damn larger than life. She's holding your dad down like a starfish kind of thing. I don't know, I don't know. So yeah, didn't like that ending part, but I understood it if it wasn't metaphorical. If it,
no, if it was metaphorical. If it wasn't metaphorical and she actually just got that big for a second, that pissed me off and I didn't like it. I did not like it. So hopefully it was just metaphorical. Daisy's ending, I would like to loop back to that. That poor girl. And from the beginning, and this is why I also wanna loop in like the heroin metaphor as well is Daisy obviously had meth teeth. Like she was obviously like, and that's the thing about the movie if you haven't seen it is it's very rural, it's very like out in the desert.
Like I said, Canyon Gulch, there's not much to do out there except for shoot guns, shoot drugs. Like, and that's the reality for a lot of places. So you have to take into account, like Daisy's character from the beginning is doomed. She is never going to make it to the end and you know that. And that's just the brutality in the story. And speaking of brutality, the brother-in-law's death against the coffee table,
could have done without that. Could have done without that. I had to close my eyes in the movie. I was like, oh God, listening to that. No, thank you. So yeah, basically overall, I really enjoyed the movie. I think that there was a lot, I don't know if you heard my shoulder crack. I really hope not. I'm just mentioning it just in case.
Basically, if you haven't seen the movie, I really think you should. And if you didn't see the movie through that lens that I talked about, maybe re-examine if you feel like it. I don't really care if you agree with me or not, or if you like this analysis or not. It's my podcast and I'll say what I want. Got it? Great, good. So anyway, thank you so much. That was like so rude. I take that back. This is a nice podcast. Thank you for listening to whatever I have to say.