Wine and...Movies: ELECTION (1999)

Happy Halloween! To celebrate, we tackle the scariest, most terrifying subject matter we could think of: POLITICAL. ELECTIONS.

And America's own election is a scant few days away. So let's watch something that's going to make us laugh and feel GOOD.

ELECTION is the second feature film by Oscar-winning director/writer Alexander Payne (Sideways, The Holdovers) based on the novel by Tom Perrota and starring Reece Witherspoon, Matthew Broderick, Chris Klein, and Jessica Campbell. It was a box office disappointment at the time, but has since gained cult status and Witherspoon's Tracy Flick chararcter has become a pop culture icon.

And this was Dallas' very first time seeing it!

Original Script with original (alternate) ending

Original/Alternate ending from VHS recording

THE WINES:
Dave's Wine Pairing
2021 Private Property Grenache, Santa Lucia Highlands, Monterey Country, Central Coast, California
Cool climate Grenache, easy to mistake for a Pinot Noir with its lighter color, body, and bracing acidity.  If SIDEWAY is director Alexander Payne's Pinot movie, then ELECTION is his cool climate Grenache flick.

Raspberry, strawberry, rhubarb, beetroot, sage, salinity, Private Property is the more affordable ($20 - $30/bottle) second label of Caraccioli Cellars (which does Pinot, Gamay, Chardaonnay, for $40 - $100/bottle). Zingy, fresh, a play of birght red fruitiness + acerbicness to match the lively, cutting satire of the film.

Dallas' Wine Pairing
2010 Château de Sales, Pomerol, France
The 2010 Château de Sales Pomerol is known for its complex flavor profile, featuring subtle notes of red fruits, earth, and spice. This complexity mirrors the intricate plot and character dynamics in "Election," where seemingly simple high school politics reveal deeper, more nuanced themes.

The 2010 Pomerol has had time to mature and develop and aged into itself. The film and the wine are elegant and well structured. 
It’s rich, velvety texture because of the Merlot base make this an excellent pairing for the film with is also extraordinarily smooth. This smoothness pairs well with the film's dark humor and the character of Tracy Flick, whose ambition appears smooth on the surface but hides a more intense core. Both this 2010 and the film have a long, memorable finish.

Chapters

• 3:22 Background on the Movie
• 6:49 Morals vs. Ethics
• 18:31 Director Alexander Payne
• 23:27 Election the Novel (by Tom Perrota)
• 27:31 Casting the Movie
• 30:25 Fun Tidbits During Production
• 36:45 Alternate Ending
• 56:06 Release and Legacy of the Film
• 1:00:40 Dallas' Wine Pairing
• 1:06:07 Dave's Wine Pairing
• 1:09:55 Wrap Up! Best of Luck to Us All!

Transcript

0:03

you He's Dave and I'm Dallas and we have opinions on just about everything. Sometimes they're on point and sometimes they go down better with a glass of wine. Join us. This is the Wine and Podcast. Welcome everybody to Wine and the podcast where we pair wine with entertainment, delude ourselves into thinking you want to hear what we have to say about different pieces of pop culture and art, but know for a fact that you need to hear what we have to say about wine because who the fuck knows anything about wine? We sure don't. Well, that's not true. We actually totally do. And we can help you find the perfect pairing for whatever it is you're planning to read, watch or listen to. Now, before we get started, please make sure to hit that follow button and subscribe. It does help this podcast grow and reach new listeners. Also, please leave a rating and or review five stars and do so if you love us and want to leave five stars if you don't want to leave five stars if you're like, You're okay at best. You could do better. Great. Send us an email to wine and pod at gmail.com wine the letter N P O D at gmail.com. We will take your feedback seriously and try to improve. If we don't improve, go ahead, leave that nasty review, but wait, see if we improve. Send us feedback first. You can also find us on Substack where you can interact with us wine and dot sub stack.com. You'll be the first to know when new episodes drop there get in depth show notes sometimes uncut versions of these episodes bonus pairings articles chats pairing directories, wine and dot sub stack.com be a cool kid drink the wine cooler aid. Join us on sub stack. Now folks. Today we are recording an episode that is going to drop on October 31 on Halloween itself. So we decided to tackle the most horrific terrifying subject matter we could think of, political elections. It's also a scan few days away by the time this episode drops of Election Day here in America. So in honor of both events, we are talking about the 1999 feature film, election. The plot revolves around a student body election and satirizes politics and high school life. The film stars Matthew Broderick as Jim McAllister, a popular high school social studies teacher, and Reese Witherspoon as Tracy Flick, an overachieving student whom he dislikes. When Tracy runs for student government, President McAllister sabotages her candidacy by backing a rival candidate and tampering with the ballot count. Now, this is going to be exciting today, guys, because election has long been a favorite of mine, but Dallas has never seen it before. This was his very first time. That was done. Like I was thinking about what can we do for election day and of course Halloween because it was going to drop on Halloween. And there were a couple options that we had. But when I mentioned election, the 1990 mine movies like, yeah, never seen it. And I was like, are you Google that shit? I'm sure you've seen this. You have to have seen this. But no, this is his first time. So we're going to hear what he has to say in just a little bit. Now, a little bit of background. Election is based on a novel by Tom Perotta published in 1998, though the film rights were secured in 1996, mostly shot in 1997, though they had to wait for a reshoot in 1998 as one of their leads, Matthew Broderick was filming Inspector Gadget at the time, and they wanted to reshoot the ending for reasons we're going to get into a little bit as we talk more about the history of how this got made. And the film was finally released in 1999. It was not a box office success, grossing approximately 17 million on a $25 million total budget. It was an 8.5 million production budget, but then 25 million is the sum total when you count all the development costs and post-production costs and marketing and blah, blah, blah. I believe 25 was their total. But it did receive widespread critical acclaim and won director Alexander Payne his first Academy Award nomination for best adapted screenplay and has since become a cult classic with the character of Tracy Flick played by Reese Witherspoon becoming a cultural icon. All right. So before we go any further, though, just a few kind of overall takes on this movie. Dallas, this was your first time watching Election. What did you think? I fucking loved it. The satirical kind of it's just a masterstroke of satire. Like it really is. The characters, characterizations are always are so well drawn. it takes you on this ride that doesn't necessarily twist and turn in any unexpected ways. But every place it goes, you're just like, yeah, this is the natural point. This is where we're good. It's just such a satisfying ride. And one thing about this director and these writers specifically is that they do like to take the sort of every man. approach to their storytelling. So the characters, I believe he also did Nebraska and a couple others that are all set in and are a wine show. Sideways. Sideways. That's right. Sideways. But it just is the interplay between these characters and to see behind the veil of these almost plastic figures is just so satisfying as a storyteller. The political kind of characterizations they draw here are right on the money. I love the third party candidate kind of trope here that they're just sort of rooting. just is so good. It's so much fun. very much for our time right now, because this is kind of the Trump message. This is that political outsider message from the third party candidate that comes in. Her big political speech is who gives a shit about elections? Right. Right. It's like, fuck elections. Vote for me. Don't vote for me. I don't kill. Then like if you vote for me, I will do away with the government, the student body, and we will never have to. congregate, like do one of these stupid assemblies again, and the room erupts. Everyone is thrilled with that message. And it's like, God, because that is the Trump message, right? It's like, vote for me, I'll fuck everything up, and we'll get rid of politics and government. And it's like, no, people, you don't understand what now a student body government, maybe. There is a lot less at stake in something like that, but it's kind of like your union as the student body, right? It's sort of like they're your voice. Like either you talk to the administration yourself personally for just the shit you want, which the administration has no reason to give a shit about because it's just you. Why do they care? Or you as a group have your president and your student body basically your, they're a voice for like, look, the students feel X is unfair. is a bad practice and this is why and as a group we're happy to make us think about it and like if you're just gonna blow us off and ignore us maybe we talk to the local paper about what our school is doing to us and yada da da da da da da da da right it is is the power as i said it is such it's it's a masterstroke of satire it is just so well done but also so easy and so accessible And again, with that third party candidate archetype, it really made me think of the Ross Perot phenomenon, right? It was inspired by Ross In the research, right? I came across this. The novelist says that's part of why he wrote this. Exactly. Because if anyone remembers, Ross Perot was kind of unheard of for a candidate to be essentially... most successful third party candidate, yeah. without question, essentially to purchase himself into the race, because he did. He went and he bought this airtime to present his case to the American people and essentially said, look, the other guys are all stupid and wrong. They're just both versions of the same shit. I'm here on one of you, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Now, fast forward to Donald Trump. He's taken that idea into a slightly different direction, but still it's the same basic principle. And unfortunately, can be very persuasive. Unfortunately, can be very persuasive. So I really enjoy this film being so timely, even though it was filmed 20 what four years ago now 25 years ago now. 99 Yeah, 20 God. my god. Well filmed in 97 to Yeah, I filmed in 97. That's right. So yeah, if you are anyone who is remotely interested in the political nonsense or theater that's happening right now, you need some perspective or you need a good laugh to kind of take some of the pressure off. don't think anyone wants to be reminded about any of this right now. But if you want to, if you want to get some laughs, yeah, about it, like this is a great satire and doesn't need to let some of the steam off. Yeah, it's black comedy Matthew Broderick as this God. Well, and it's funny. Some people have said, like a lot. think a lot of people who watch this movie and love this movie have a secret origin that that is Ferris Bueller having grown up and become a teacher. Like in their head, it's the same character. Just all the more. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it works really well because he has this impish and sort of navel gazing quality to him. So when the movie starts. he has a colleague in school that winds up having an affair with the Reese Witherspoon Tracy Flick character. And as a social studies teacher, one of the things that Matthew Broderick's teacher character does all the time is he's like the difference between ethics and morals, right? Because there is a difference and they're not the same thing. And when his colleague has an affair with a student and an underage student, because it's high school, there's not a college professor. So there is, and that's why he's like, it's like. It's immoral, not unethical. And even his friend who's already been caught and is now like, you know, completely distraught, he pauses for a moment in his sobfest and goes, what's the difference? You know? And right. then of course- character had just spent the two scenes prior giving us a classroom example, of the Right. he's like, what's the difference? And a part of you is like, well, see, if you're not educated and you don't know the difference, that's why you do these horrible things, immoral things, because you just think it's on that blah, blah. But that's not true. Because then as the movie goes on, Broderick's character, knowing the difference, I think, like my read on this is he allows himself to do unethical behavior as long as it's not immoral, because he knows where that line is. and he slowly slides into nothing but unethical behavior and kind of refuses to even take full responsibility for those unethical breaches. And it's kind of amazing to witness because he is so not uptight, but just, and not just straight arrow, but like actually well-meaning. Like he's a very He's well-intentioned. Yes. well-intentioned person and very morally upright and like not, he's not about to have an affair with an underage student, but he is willing to have an affair with some, again, he's willing to be unethical, just not immoral. And that's where the difference kind of comes in. And when he falls off his high horse and goes into that unethical territory, I mean, he goes, he falls hard and cannot pull himself out of it. Like, it's kind of stunning to watch. that's a big part of this movie watching that happen. I think anyone out there who is interested in studying character arcs, the hero's journey or the antihero's journey, it is a great film to study because, you know, Broderick, the actor, brings a likeability to everything he does. It's virtually impossible for you not to like him visually just in terms of the person on the sweet quote unquote yes he's always so weird as we natured yeah it's he's got an impish little quality in his aisle twinkle in his eye and so watching him sort of dissent this character the character sort of dissent it is almost and that it will too you know your idea of the actor which i think right is probably part of the casting cuz another sort of secondary sort of texture in this whole characterization because by the end of this, he's not a very likable individual in any stretch of the imagination, in any condition. And yet we are still forced to reckon with him as the sort of antagonist, so to speak. And it's a bit of a quandary, you know, for a person who is used to characters you know, progressing in certain ways, but very well done, very effective. The way this movie works, there is a student body election, Tracy Flick, played by Reese Witherspoon. She is this very intense, very just, this is what she wants. She is an overachiever, like a cliche, almost satirical version, you know, a comedy version of an overachiever. She's amazing at it. And then, Basically, because of the affair she has with his colleague, Matthew Broderick isn't going to take it out on her, but then he starts to get really annoyed with her and annoyed with all of her very intense ways. then his very first unethical move, and it's not the worst. He just keeps going down this rabbit hole, though, as it goes down, down the slope, down this road of unethical behavior. But his first thing is he kind of recruits the dumb jock played by Chris Klein in his debut. This was his very first role ever. Really? Yeah. Alexander Payne, the director, found him in a Nebraska high school. And they filmed this in Alexander Payne's hometown of Nebraska, or home state of Nebraska. And he found him in a high school. So him and his sister... These are both debut performances of people who had never acted in film before. The sisters. So that she's a great amazing. We're going to talk about her. She actually has a bit of a tragic story, unfortunately, after the movie. Yeah. But but Chris Pine is a dumb jock that John John Cusack, Ron Ron Ron Ron Matthew Broderick. Yeah, sorry. Wrong 80s, wrong 80s. Hard to their same mode. mode. Matthew Broderick kind of recruits the dumb jock to go against Tracy because she's going unopposed. And even unopposed though, she's like, you still have to do everything. You still have to like be there every day and like campaigning. She's very intense. And so basically Broderick's character, Jim McAllister just kind of can't take this anymore. And he's like, I'm gonna he's like, don't you think you want to like you're really popular as the dumb jock and this is a dumb jock who broke his leg and can't play sports anymore. So the way Matthew Broderick sort of like convinces himself this is okay, is he's like, I'm gonna give you something to do now that you can't play sports. And it's, this is totally well intentioned. And it's like, bullshit. This dumb jock does not like, he's like, okay. And doesn't really get what he's about to do. So he's the not very smart, not political at all, but he's hugely popular, very charismatic in the dumb jock sort of way, very sweet in that dumb jock kind of way. And he is a very sweet person. And then, The dumb jock's sister, Tammy, is a, she's basically a closeted lesbian who is in a relationship with an, or sort of, she thinks she's in a relationship with another girl. And the other girl finally is like, no, we were just experimenting. I don't want to do this anymore. And actually goes hooks up with her brother, the dumb jock, Chris Klein after that. And in an act of basically peevish revenge, The sister is like, fine, I'm going to run against my brother and joins as the third party candidate, comes out of nowhere. She's a sophomore, nobody really knows who she is, but then she has that tear it all down attitude that everyone just loves and now all of a sudden she's throwing the whole, everything off whack by being this Ross Perot, hugely popular third party candidate. So that is the basis of election. And let's go ahead and talk a little bit about the making of this film. So I mentioned that the film stars Matthew Broderick as teacher Jim McAllister, Reese Witherspoon as Tracy Flick, and two newcomers, Chris Klein, in his filmic debut as Paul Metzler and Jessica Campbell in her own debut playing Paul's sister Tammy Metzler. Sadly, Jessica... retired from acting only a handful of years later in 2002. She became a naturopathic practitioner, which is basically alternative medicine. And she passed away in 2020 at only 38 years of age. From reasons unreported to the public, though, Campbell was suffering from flu-like symptoms on the day of her death. So be careful with naturopathic medicine, folks. You might some days for some... afflictions, you might need medicine medicine to get you through the day. I'm just I'm just gonna throw that out there. Just gonna throw that out there. All right. That tragic bit and she is amazing in this movie. So I was expecting her to be a seasoned vet. Yeah, she only made about one or two other movies after this. And then basically and then had some two guest appearances on Freaks and Geeks, I believe the TV show. And then retired and like got out of acting didn't want to do it anymore for whatever her reasons, which I no one can blame anyone Not wanting to do acting. It's it's it's rough even if you get a start like this. So Let's talk about Alexander Payne the director and co-writer of this movie Because everyone is familiar with Alexander Payne won the Academy Award for sideways the Paul Giamatti Thomas Ian Church movie about the wine world and everyone loves of course like I don't I won't any fucking Merlot and he only loved Pinot right exactly he did the Nebraska film with Bruce Stern he did he wrote the screenplay for Jurassic Park 3 okay we never have to mention that again I actually love Jurassic Park 3 but that that is not his proudest moment everyone has a paycheck they do they do and then of course he recently did the holdovers with Apollo Giamatti and he did What are the descendants with George Clooney? He's done, the shrinking one with Matt Damon. What was that called? Yeah, that one. That one. He's done a lot. But he started, he got his MFA at UCLA film school and after a successful thesis film, The Passion of Martin had attracted industry attention, Payne got a writing directing deal with Universal Pictures. The ensuing screenplay that he wrote there, though Universal turned it down and turned it down, they didn't want to make it, ultimately became about Schmidt. There's another one that he made eventually. But that was the very first script, feature film script that he wrote for Universal ostensibly. But then they were like, great, no, we don't want to do it. But they did. He did make about $60,000 doing it because he was paid for this deal with them. They had the right to turn it down, but they did not have the right to not pay him for it. So he made about $60,000. which was enough in Payne's own words to fund his simple lifestyle at the time for about five years. Wow. So about 12K a year. The good old days. During this time, Payne worked in various capacities on films and television, including directing several films for the Playboy channel. Now, Payne co-wrote and directed his first feature length film, Citizen Ruth, which was released in 1996. The film is a satirical black comedy revolving around the issue of abortion rights. The film stars Laura Dern as a dim-witted woman with substance abuse issues who happens to get pregnant. She unexpectedly becomes a pawn of figures from both sides of the abortion debate. The film co-stars Kelly Preston, Burt Reynolds, and Tippi Hedren. The film premiered at the 1996 Sundance Film Festival where it received favorable reviews. Janet Maslin of the New York Times review wrote, there's no easy way out of this predicament, though Mr. Payne does beg the question with skill and Citizen Ruth can easily be forgiven for not finding a fully satisfying ending. It delivers more than enough lively, gusty satire along the way. So just in case you thought that election pertains to the current election, his first film was abortion issues. So everything pertains to this current election going on. My God, his whole start of his career. had echoes of what's going on in the world today. The story was inspired by the case of Martina Greywind, a homeless unmarried mother from North Dakota who was offered $11,000 to carry what would have been her seventh child to term. According to Payne, after Citizen Ruth, producers Ron Yersa and Albert Berger sent him the unpublished manuscript to the novel called Election. This was around 1996. So right after Citizen Ruth had debuted, and Payne said he didn't read it for a long time because there was a lot of high school movies at the time. And I couldn't be less interested in making a high school movie. And then finally, I read it and I liked it. It was set in high school, but it wasn't really a high school story per se. Also, what attracted me was the formal exercise of doing a movie with multiple points of view and multiple voiceovers and that is is a fun thing about this movie they kept that this movie switches you switch narrators from like as the movie goes like sometimes you're with the jock sometimes you're with Tracy Flicks sometimes you're with Matthew Broderick and His very characters thing to do Yes, and but it moves so seamlessly like you don't question it. You don't it's you're not bothered by it at all So according to Tom Perotta the novelist the book came out of his own obsession with the 1992 presidential election. He was unemployed and got caught up in the race. And it was, of course, the Ross Perot year. So there were three main candidates, Perot, Bill Clinton, and George H.W. Bush. When it was over, he just felt a little bit bereft. He thought he wanted to write a political novel, but he didn't know anything about politics that anyone else doesn't know. So according to Perot, a quote, I was having trouble getting people to take it seriously as an adult novel. After a while, I just gave up. So it was just sitting in my drawer and I started to write another book called The Wishbones. I gave a reading of The Wishbones at the Bread Loaf Writers Conference. There was a writer there named Janet Shapiro in the audience and she really liked The Wishbones and thought it had movie potential. She said, should get in touch with these producer friends of hers who are Albert Berger and Rang Yerxa of Bona. And it's Y-E-R-X-A, I don't know how to pronounce Ron's last name, but I'm gonna say Yerxa. Ron Yerxa of Bonafide Productions. told them it wasn't done yet, but when it was, I'd be happy to show it to them. But I said I had another book sitting in a drawer that could be an interesting movie. So I sent it to them and they were intrigued by it. And they went to David Gale at MTV Films. Yes, this is an MTV movie, believe it or not. Jim Taylor, who is Alexander Payne's co-writer on everything, still to this day, said that as soon as I read it, I knew it was a perfect material for us. I wished I could say that's happened a lot over the years, but it hasn't. It's sort of a unique experience. So according to Van Toffler, executive producer and current president of MTV, he said, it was not an easy movie to get made in a major studio system. Let me just say that I remember being called and lectured at home on a weekend about what the heck I was thinking trying to make what Paramount Pictures viewed as a hard R movie based in a high school. where pages were read to me like I'm a crazy man. Why would I think of making an R rated movie in a high school? It wasn't a typical Freddie Prinze like a high school movie. No, it's not. As you can tell, at that point, if you were going to make a high school movie, it should be PG-13, not R. And then Jim Taylor, co-writer, once again, Taylor comes back in and says, the book is written in a very distinctive form. which is first person for each of the characters. And I think it's about 16 characters and their mini chapters are headed with the characters names. There aren't a lot of movies that do that. And thankfully that was signed off on by the people at MTV and Paramount, but we obviously didn't want to do 16 characters. So we honed in on just four. So Tracy Flick, Jim McAllister and the Jock and his sister, right? The Metzlers. But apparently there are 16. POVs in the in the novel if anyone ever goes out and reads the novel now according to Reese Witherspoon She read the script and quote I had seen Alexander Payne's first film citizen Ruth at the Sundance Film Festival I thought it was so hysterical and I loved his perspective and then I went into audition for him I remember he had a suit and tie on and I said what's the occasion and he said it's Tuesday But I just remember the audition and I said I don't know who you're thinking about for this part, but it's me. I think I had a little bit of Tracy Flick going on in the audition and he ended up casting me. And then according to Chris Klein, he basically said, the principal of my high school, Dr. Rich Kolowski in Omaha, Nebraska was a huge, huge proponent of arts education. So we had wonderful opportunities to sing and dance and act. Alexander Payne was scouting our high school as a location for election. Dr. Rick made sure that he introduced this Hollywood director to the resident theater guy. And I had made quite a name for myself from all the high school plays and then in the community theater. So he made that introduction. And a couple of weeks later, Alexander Payne called me up at my folks' house and brought me in to audition for the movie. Now, according to Payne, a couple of months went by, months during which he returned to LA, auditioned a bunch of potential Pauls, the jock character, and he didn't like any of When you're trying to get teenagers in Los Angeles, he said they all seem too polished, too old, too sophisticated. They don't feel like actual kids. So I went back to Omaha and called up the high school. I didn't remember the guy's name. I just described who he was. They got him a message. And he met me at the office at the Omaha Film Commission. And that's how we discovered Chris Klein. Now, Klein says after I read the script, I called Alexander Payne and I told him I couldn't do the movie. He said, why can't you do the movie? And I said, well, and just in case you thought Chris Klein wasn't like his character in this movie, he is a nice guy. He said, well, it's a movie and my grandma's going to see it. And there's a scene where my character gets a blow job and I can't have my grandma see me getting a blow job. And Alexander Payne laughed and said, okay, kid, listen, we'll take care of it. Just come and do the movie. Just trust me. So, Klein said, we get started. And for the very first time, I put two and two together. Again, just in case you think Chris Klein is not like his jock character in this movie. For the first time, I put two and two together and I said, wait a minute, they don't play the music during the shoot? All the scenes in movies have music. How come they don't play the music? shit, they put the music in after. that means I'm actually going to have to manufacture real feelings without the aid of music. So that was a revelation. He said, I will forever be grateful to Alexander and of course never forgive him as well for launching me into the same world of Hollywood. to Witherspoon, one scene I remember doing was when Tracy realizes that she's won. The moment was like an eight of a page and it just said Tracy realizes she's won and celebrates silently to herself. And then Alexander said, why don't you actually jump up and down? So I started jumping up and down and he said, no, no, no, put your legs together. I want you to jump up and down like you're a human pogo stick. And I'm going, really? And in that scene, it's a perfect hysterical thing. And it really is. And according to the novelist Perodah, of the changes to the novel Broderick's bee sting is the one I get the biggest kick out of. at one point, Matthew Broderick's eye gets stung by a bee. and it starts to swell and slowly gets worse and worse as the movie progresses. As the second half of the movie progresses, Broderick said, that took a lot of planning. had three or four levels of how swollen my eyes should be. Cass McClure is the makeup technician. She figured it all out. And, I'm sorry, he figured it all out. And he had three or four latex molds made. They would glue on the swollen eye. I had a slightly swollen one, a just stung one, et cetera. When it was most swollen, I couldn't see out of that eye. It's just uncomfortable to have something over your eye all day. I remember Alexander and I wondering how much it would hurt. Should I be screaming or just say ow? So we tried to find the correct level of bee sting on the eye. I think my first instinct to have this huge conniption and he told me to calm down. So yeah, in the movie, he literally is just like, ow. But then, yeah. And then this thing just gets progressively worse as it goes on. And then. Pain does say it's a physical representation of the moral injury that he's inflicting upon himself as he goes. And that actually, I love that. Because it is as he refuses to dig himself out and he just keeps digging deeper, the swelling and that injury just gets worse and worse and worse. Yeah, festering. According to the novelist, Perot, He says the only character who gets a short shrift is Lisa Flanagan, who is Tammy's girlfriend who becomes Paul's girlfriend. In the book, a year has gone by before she becomes Paul's girlfriend. She and Tammy have this affair and she got scared. You have to remember this was taking place in the 90s. It's still not easy to come out, but 20 years ago, it was yet a lot harder. But they have this fling and she backs away and says she can't do this. And then a year goes by and Lisa starts up with Paul. it's still a bad thing to do to go out on your ex's brother. But in the movie, it seems like she's in bed with Tammy on Tuesday and sleeping with Paul on Wednesday, 100%. And it just seems much crueler. But that was just a matter of compression of narrative time, I suppose. Now, the one thing I will say, do think, according to this, think Peroda actually thought both girls were probably closeted and one was just braver than the other or unwilling to hide it as much as the other. The movie, I think, comes down pretty clearly on the idea that the girlfriend, Lisa, was probably just doing the experimentation thing. Maybe she's bi, maybe. But I think as a straight up lesbian, think Tammy definitely was. And the thing about Lisa is Lisa was like, no, I just I was just fucking around. Like, this is not me. This is not what I want. Once she goes, she goes hard. Yeah. And actually. in the initial viewing it came off as if she were dating befriending the sister in order to get to the brother. That's right in the initial viewing. That's kind of okay. Yeah. 100 % and again, the sister being another girl, especially if you're experimenting that safer, right? It's something you can take that first. Yeah, you can take that first little step and it's like, okay, it's just amongst us girls. That's fine. But then when you want to get serious about it, Then she was like, okay, I don't want to do this anymore. Now I want to go after you. I'm ready to go after your brother. And then further down the line, she at the very end of the movie, she even goes after yet another male character. And she seems very dedicated to them once she does. that came across to me as like, that's real. Like that is something you are authentically interested in and want to do this hardcore pun intended. and but not so much with with the lesbian relationship. OK, so I think that seems to be a difference between what how Perotta treated that character in the novel and probably what Payne was thinking when he wrote the script for the movie. So Payne said, I wanted some degree of more Kone in the score of the movie. And indeed, we even used some actual more Kone. Tracy's mental scream is stolen from a spaghetti Western. Even Tarantino told me later, I always wanted to use actual spaghetti western music. You hear stolen spaghetti western music earlier than you do in any Tarantino film. I got there first. But it was a bit of a difficult situation with the record company that gave us a bunch of rock songs that are in the film between MTV and the record label. They wanted a lot more. I remember the fight I had to go through to have the opening credits have a scored opening with an actual like, you know, Philharmonic score, an actual orchestra, not a rock song. It was deregular for movies to have some kind of rock song in the opening credits at the time. And I had to tell them I'm making a motion picture, not a jukebox. Yeah. By the way, guys, so apparently he is one of the only directors in Hollywood who has final edit cut rights on his productions, which is if anyone doesn't understand what Hollywood. is about it is a major get. It is kind of unheard of. So yeah. I mean, you have to be an auteur like this in order to get that. Like, I'm pretty sure anyone who's going to finance, like, say, Paul W. Anderson, like, he gets final cut on everything. Like, there are certain directors where you know that's why you're working with them. There's no reason for one, you're never going to give them 200 million dollars to do something. It's it will be something that is for the art house. And like, you know, that's what you're getting in pain. Pain is 100 percent one of those directors, according to the novelist Perot. So by the time principal photography wrapped and the movie went through test screenings. In the test screenings, Payne and company had second thoughts about the original ending, which was the original ending was faithful to the novel. And Perot said, the thing writers are scared about is that Hollywood is going to defang their story and put a happy ending on something that wasn't happy. In fact, what happened with election was that a darker ending was put on. his material. But what's important to know is that the original script followed closely to the plot of the book and I was actually and it was actually filmed. It was only later when I think they had test screenings. I don't know all the details, but people didn't like the ending. And then it took a long time for Alexander and Jim to rewrite the ending and come up with one that there's that is there now. I don't feel at all betrayed by that. I was aware of the process and that they tried to faithfully film the plot of the book. From what I heard, it just didn't. work. And Toffler basically MTV guide basically said literally I would read every note card from every person who went to the screening and I think they went away and did their best to revamp. Witherspoon says the original ending was that Mr. worked in a Saturn dealership after the events of the main event. anyone remembers the Saturn auto dealership. Yes. I come in from Northwestern and I'm going to buy my first car and it was the first time that I drive him past my house and show him where I live. He saw that I live in a really bad area of town. He gets out of the car and I ask him to sign my yearbook and then I go into the house and he kicks a trash can. I don't know why we re-shot it, but I really love the previous ending and I think the ending that we ended up with is fantastic. Now, The ending Reese Witherspoon describes isn't quite accurate. The original ending, there is a script floating around online with the original ending. You can go read and a VHS tape with the original ending eventually surfaced at a garage sale. And it is on YouTube. We will have a link down below for everyone to go watch the movie first if you haven't watched the movie and then come watch. I'm going to play this for Dallas real quick so he can see it's about six minutes long. And then we'll just cut this out and jump to it. We're going to see what Alice, what Alice, sorry, what Dallas thinks. If you ever changed Dallas, you know, now have your name, right? Just go with just get rid of the D and be Alice. All right, here we go, Dallas. I'm going to play this for him. Here we go. And that is that. So a couple, a couple of. things to mention about that. One, all he wrote, you can't really see it on the VHS tape, but I read the script and he just writes, dear Tracy, and then it cuts away so you don't see the rest of his message. And this comes after at the end of high school, we don't see this in the finished film, but at the end of senior year of high school, she goes to sign Paul's yearbook, the jock, Chris Klein character. And she's like, no hard feelings, like, know, best of luck to you. And he's like, yeah. And his yearbook is so filled with signatures. She can't find space to sign her name on it. And when she even tries to like find her picture in the yearbook, it's covered in other people's signatures. Like she's just like completely obliterated from it. So, cause he's so fucking popular. And then when she goes and she exchanged books with Paul. So when she goes back, he's so busy with other people. He barely looks at her again and just kind of hands back the book. And he's written the tiniest best of luck in a corner and there's no other signatures in her book anywhere. It's just empty. And so that's where you're coming from when she asks Mr. Mr. to sign her yearbook. That's why she says take as much space as you need is she's like, don't don't do it in a little corner. Like, please make it a whole page kind of a thing. And one last thing. And this is the thing that I think maybe people objected to as well is Jim and his wife do make up a little bit in the original version of the ending where he goes home at the end of that horrible, horrible final day. He like apparently strips down to his boxers and just goes into the backyard and lies down and is just like, I'm done. I'm just like life is done kind of a thing. And then she sort of her shadow comes over him and how much he's fallen seems to have brought her back around a little bit with him. And she's like, and then his voice over narration comes on and he's like, she stood by me and we made it work and I found the job at the Saturn dealership and the and she turns out to be pregnant already. with a kid afterward and so then they do raise the kid and da da da da da. So it was a weirdly happy ending for all involved to the best of everyone's ability kind of thing. And I think it was in the sweetness. Yeah, go ahead. I will say in terms of a writing exercise, it is important to consider where your characters land because in the released version, Tracy, is that her name? Tracy, no. Yeah, with a spoon scared Tracy You do get the sense that she is a Little more villainous than in previous in the other iterations You know that final scene where he encounters her with the senator There's that moment when we freeze frame on her face and he asks I don't know if she saw me and she saw me Right, and she gets into the limousine with the senator, right? And so there are these sort of illusions that are made that this young sort of blonde, maybe intern at the time, is now getting into the limousine with the senator, a very powerful senator. So there is that, that sort of frame. There's a in her eyes. like his aide, Absolutely. Any of those things. There's nothing nefarious about it. Nothing nefarious about it. But the idea, it's all about the visual. And so the idea that she's having that one-on-one sort of moment with him and then getting into the limousine and then the illusion that's drawn when they freeze frame on her face, I could see how someone, you know, with that initial arc says, okay, maybe there's something a little more villainous about her. Because also if we harken back, we refer back to her conversation with Broderick's character about the inappropriate relationship. She was clearly... cognizant of the the the sort of the players in the moment, regardless of morality or ethics. She was clearly cognizant of the players in the moment. So that's not to demonize the character in any stretch of the imagination. It's just sort of a character sort of exercise. So I say that to say that in this alternate ending, it is a very much more sort of innocent sort of portrayal. of the wounded sort of bird character that and I'm not sure which one I like more because in this this alternate ending There's a punctuation there. There's a definite punctuation to the character. that, in terms of the character arc and storytelling, is satisfying. But I do like the sort of open-ended question that's drawn in the initial, in the actual distributed version. So, yeah, I don't know. What about you? Which one do you... Well, it's interesting you said what you just said, because according to the novelist, he actually thought when he when he watches the movie, he basically says in his novel, Tracy Flick was a bit more of a sexual manipulator in that initial relationship with it. Like she was very cognizant of what she was doing and how she was going about it. think that comes through. Yeah. Yeah. Well, he said in the movie she was not in the movie. She becomes more of someone like a young person who was just in over her head. when it with something like that. And he's like, I think it was a change for the better in the movie. And I gotta go, I gotta go with the novelist take on that. I do not read it as she was much of a manipulator in the movie. She that one and only scene where she's like, Yeah, well, maybe old guys shouldn't have been trying to let you on the blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's like, that wasn't a manipulation thing. Like that is someone who is still kind of, because then even at the end of the movie, she's like, I do miss my talks with that older guy, you know, and like, I wonder how he's doing. She's the victim. Yes. And because again, when someone is that young, the reason we do it this way is like when someone's that young and someone's that old, it's like they just have so much more context. Experience and understanding and confidence and blah, blah, blah. And the younger person is like they are in over their head with something like that. So I do think that was for the better. And I, I do think the new ending is more in tone with the rest of the movie. The ending they actually went with the ending that is in the movie because it has that dark edge to it where Tracy Flick is still this go getter and making it in life and go exactly where she wants to be. And Matthew Broderick is still telling himself one thing and doing something else. You know what I mean? And he's still kind of stuck in that way, even though he does find a second life for himself. And I do like that there was no redemption for him in the old life. He had to kind of leave it all behind and go start afresh somewhere else. Which is a great little sort of morality tale in and of itself there. Yes. It's like sometimes you just got to leave it behind you. You you leave it behind you move on and find other people to give you another chance. But then don't fuck this one up. But then at the same time, like he's like, I realized I wasn't angry at Tracy Flick. Who the fuck does she think he and then throws the cup at the limo? And so it is that thing where it's like he tells himself one thing, but then he can't quite control his behavior well enough to to make that happen. I think it's more fitting. Yeah, no, I agree. I agree. You're right. The statement that the the the ending they went with Definitely is in line with the whole tone of the characters and the film for sure That alternate ending It's almost too sweet for me Because the satire was so good The darkness was so good. So yeah. Yeah, I see why they probably wanted to you know punctuate the initial Film with that alternate ending, but it just made more sense to go with what they produced I also like how in the original ending, the one we just watched... The bad part of town was just like there's a little bit of extra trash on the manicured lawn. And like the whole play, like, because it's funny, I'm looking now once Reese Witherspoon has that quote of like, lived in a bad part of town. I was like, well, that's not true. I watched the ending. There was nothing bad about that part of town. Now watching it this time, a second time, I'm like, they're trying to make it look a little rundown, but it's so little rundown. It's so minuscule. I'm sorry, we live in big cities guys. Like there is like, this is so clean and still, you know, blue velvet suburban paradise kind of a thing that I'm just like, wow, okay, this is the bad part of town. And she's like, it's my house. And I'm, I just graduated high school. And again, I, and she has a single mom. So it's like, makes sense. She, they probably don't live in the best part of town, like the most expensive, but the bad part of town is still pretty nice by most. Yeah, it does. I will say this. I'm up two minds because knowing that the book had POV of 14 or 16 characters, that sounds like it might be a bit annoying. That's just a purely superficial statement because I know nothing about the book. It really makes me want to read the book and I actually may read the book. I may go read the book because I'm curious about how much more there is to Broderick's character in the book because I think it's a wonderfully interesting character that just walks through this world with this. It isn't a holier than thou sort of disposition, but it's very much a I'm the better of the options in this environment. Like that's kind of his default. And to see him just walk through and again, it hearkens back to the sort of political debate, know, tethers and threads that we were talking about, you know, morality versus ethics. anyway, I say all that to say I may end up reading this book just to get a little more sort of. One thing I liked about the movie, I don't know how I feel about it, but I liked the... So we already know that Matthew Broderick's friend and Tracy Flick had an affair and that was, he was much older, she was underage and that was very, very wrong. Then Matthew Broderick has an affair with that guy's ex-wife, because of course he's divorced after that, And so then the ex-wife is now a wife's best friend. His wife's best friend. Yes. Yes. So this is now a single mother with a baby. And now the interesting part about that is that when the affair actually happens, she does, he kind of makes a joke sort of testing the waters because he's kind of had her on the mind. He's getting weirdly right. He's getting that seven year itch with his own wife, like where he's just like. He's in that head space, which is a bad head space to be in, which is that, you know, like, but what if, what if? And it's like, no, dude, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, And when, so he makes kind of a, he kind of tests the waters by making a joke and she's like, that's not funny. And he's like, okay, nevermind. And he does just like, nevermind after that. you know, puts it out of his mind, isn't, isn't doing it anymore. And then the next time he sees her and he usually goes over to do like house repairs and shit because I, you she doesn't have the husband anymore. So she needs help around the house sometimes, blah, blah. Or so, so this movie says, it's that thing like you need a man to do house repairs. This lady apparently thought she needed a man to do house repairs. So she calls him over and she actually throws himself herself at him. Right. and like instigates the whole thing and is like very forceful about it. And then it happens. And then even after it happens, she like walks him out to the car and is like, let's do like, when can we do this again? Kisses him in the front yard. Meet me later. And he's like, okay, this time. So then he has this whole plan for what they're going to do when they meet up again. This is all dumb on his part, of course. And yes, unethical because he's, she's single, he's not, you know, at this point. But she knows he's not single and it is the husband of her best friend. And she's the one who ultimately does the major instigation of the affair. And by the time that day is over, she has gone to the wife and revealed everything. Yeah. Before a second thing has even happened. That was one of those moments where it was just like, all right. Yeah. And then when she does, when she finally does say something to him again, a little bit later, she says, you took advantage. I was lonely and you took advantage of that. And I was like, is that how that works? Yeah. And so it's kind of a reflection though, right? Of the Tracy flick and other, but in this case, it's a different kind of situation because they are peers of each other. Yes. He's not single. She is in that sense. she's doing a less unethical thing than he is, but she knows, again, she's friends with his wife and knows about it. And then she takes it upon herself to reveal all when she doesn't have to take any consequences from that. Right? And I felt like that's a part for me. there was a part of there where I was like, lady, that's a bunch of bullshit. Like you are, you're just, wiping your hands clean of this and letting the other person take all the major fall for it for something. And you took advantage, and then she convinces herself, you took advantage of my loneliness. And I'm like, yes, there's truth in that. No question. But, but, but, and it's like, he was also in that, you know, lonely, like I'm not connecting with my wife anymore space, even though they were still together. Like there's no moment there and then yes, it happens and yes, I'm not absolving him of guilt. But there was that it was interesting how they mirrored that to the Tracy flick other and his colleagues relationship to this one. And they don't answer the question of who's right, who's wrong per se, just that everyone's wrong up to some degree or another. But I think that's a that I but anyways, but again. Broderick also, his character Jim McAllister, just keeps digging the hole deeper even after that. So he was pretty unredeemable. He really, really is. And it's, again, I'm going to say this. Casting, it's amazing the weight and baggage that an actor brings on the screen with them, no matter how good that they are at inhabiting other characters. He is one of those characters that brings this sort of aura with him that is almost inextricable. cannot separate it from him. being able to then use that to paint this sort of David. not gonna say villain, but this anti-hero, you know. It's kind of a masterstroke, I will say. And I've said that a few times about this film, but there are certain areas where it is just, it's operating on all cylinders, and that's one of them. And it's just, good stuff. Good recommend. It's funny, it's insightful. Now, just to wrap all this up, I will say that when they released it, the studio did not know how to market it. You know, they kept trying to make it a teen high school movie, right? They there is a trailer that they put out and a pain is on record as saying I remember they made the worst trailer in the world. The trailer was the trailer was so atrocious that I made sure it was not on the DVD. OK, you like got rid of it, but it is still you can find it on YouTube. Go find it. You you can watch that horrible trailer that they made. And yeah, at the time, then according to the executive at MTV, Toffler, he basically said, at that time, there were campaigns around the rating system and marketing our movies to kids. They changed a lot of the rules and regulations on TV. So there was a lot of concern. We should have respected the intelligence of the high school audience, but it was tough to market to them directly because of a bunch of the swirl around DC that was going on at that time. And Payne then said Paramount today or Fox Searchlight or anyone like that, they would know how to package this in such a way today. Perhaps make it a late year release and realize its intelligence. Obviously, MTV and Paramount were proud of it later in hindsight when it received the Golden Globe nomination for Reese and an Oscar nomination for Jim Taylor and me on the screenplay. They were very proud of it then. And he still has a good relationship with the executives over there. But the movie did not perform at. box office, even though Tracy Flick has now become a part of the American political lexicon. You can basically if watch if you've ever is anyone has watched Parks and Rec. The character there, the main character there, Leslie Knope is plainly inspired by Tracy Flick here. She is she is a carbon copy. She's a nice she's like take the uber sweet niceness of the Matthew Broderick character in the beginning of the movie and mix it with the sheer go-gettingness of a go-getterness of Tracy Flick and you basically have Leslie Knope. All right. And the only other thing there is, believe it or not, a sequel in the works for Election. The novel has already been published. It's called Tracy Flick Can't Win. And the novel was published in December, in 2022. And in December 2002, it was announced that a film adaptation for the novel Tracy Flick Can't Win was being developed for Paramount Plus. Witherspoon is slated to reprise her role as Tracy Flick and co-produce under her Hello Sunshine banner while Payne would return to direct and co-write with Jim Taylor. But Payne is still figuring out the details. For one, the book does exist. But since its plot and story are known, Payne wants to do something a little different and more original than just adapt the book straight. For two, the book does not include Matthew Broderick's Jim McAllister and Payne says he wants to find a way to work him back in. so he wants to bring him back for the sequel. And third, Tracy Flick Can't Win is another high school movie or high school story. So her character drops out of law school, has a baby, becomes a teacher and buys for the principal job in the story. But Payne says having just directed The Holdovers, which is also set in a school and having done election in the first place, he's basically over high school movies. He has no interest in doing another one. So he needs to figure out how to make a more quote unquote loosely to loosely adapt the novel. What was the name of the Roos Witherspoon series where she plays the blonde Bimbo-esque lawyer? Legally Blonde. Legally Blonde. That's what it is. Okay. All right. Yeah. Pain went on to also say that the other thing is I'm slightly averse to making another high school movie. I did election. I did a holdovers. There are bits and pieces of it and sideways. I did a TV pilot, which was hung. So I'm a little over it. So Jim and I are talking right now about how we can adapt the novel faithfully, but loosely and put our own voice into it. We'll get there. We're not quite there, but we'll get there. That was in 2023 that they said that. So we'll see what happens. in the future, but there may be a sequel on the way in the next couple of years. All right. Dallas, what are we pairing with this? man. So first of all, what are my adjectives, descriptors for this film, generally how I start? Complex, of course, there's some subtlety, subversion. It is it's refined. And there is a lingering finish. Ding, ding, ding, all you wine nerds out there. Long finish. Official terminology, There you go. And generally, I'm going to have to go with a red. And I went with a pomerol. And it is there. generally known for complex flavor profiles. Subtle red fruit notes, which are very well on display in this. You've got that dark, earthy thing that you can find in them, which, you know, there's a darkness that is just really prevalent and evident in the film. It's also very earthy, meaning it's tied to a specific place. This... crew's film work, their whole sort of... I suppose, is generally tied to near and around Omaha, Nebraska. think it's Omaha. Omaha, yeah. And you've got, again, very complex characters and plot. I don't know how interesting this film would have been for me had I seen it when it came out. I'm not to say that I wouldn't have appreciated the skill that is just on display, but I think with time it has probably matured and we have an appreciation for it now. We've gone 25 years and we, as we were talking about earlier, with this very specific political moment we're in, there is a new sort of significance. I I saw this in the OOs and I loved it. I'm sure, I'm sure, I'm sure. But I think now with the moment, political moment we're in, just it's like pairing it with a really resonant. Yeah. Yeah. It really, really resonates even more. You know, the Pomerol's generally they can develop a sort of a cult status, a cult. You know, there's people, people. People go to bat for the pomerols, man. It's very smooth, rich, velvety. think the film kind of just flows effortlessly. It doesn't take a whole lot to watch this film and follow it. a parallel for me is sort of the velvety texture. There's a long memorable finish, as they say, with the wine. So I went with the 2010 Chateau de Sal Pommeral, and I believe I paired a 2012 de Sal with something from our legacy show, but I can't remember what it is right okay. Yeah, that's too long I'll look that up. Yeah, it's been a while. It's been a while. So yeah, I like how this wine lingers. I love how this film lingers. I walked away still just giggling. For me, the test of a comedy is if I walk away replaying the jokes or the moments in my my mind and still giggle and chuckle rather than just as a writer, the writer brain taking over and examining it. And for this film, it's a testament to allowing the nature of film do the heavy lifting for the comedy because there are a whole lot of like site gags, but there's some, there's some cinematography things that are happening and editing things that are just, you're like, wow, okay. Well, for instance, there's Reese Witherspoon said she didn't know he was, if Payne was going to do the freeze frame in her most un-catering. moments every time he freeze-framed on her and she's like it's perfect it's hysterical but he would always find that moment where she looks ridiculous like the most the goofiest dumbest goofy and it would always freeze frame on that and I was like that's that's that's a good idea but that was something you find in post you know wasn't something planned in advance but that's when you're sitting there's a lot that going on and and actually I did not see who the editor was gum shot out to shots out to whoever the editing team or editor was here because yeah, just wow. So yeah, that's it. Now, pain does have final cut. know, he does have final cut. But again, even though those creators who have final cut when they're working with their editors, they're not editing them exactly. Yeah. And they often trust, you know, the editor. So yeah, that's Cool. All right. Well, for me, I went kind of I also went with the red. I went with something, you know, this is Alexander Payne and if Sideways is Gotta be his Pinot Noir movie that you pair a Pinot Noir with because that's that is the wine they celebrate in that movie versus it could be your Merlot movie, but it's a cervic I feel like Merlot is just too nice for either Sideways or this movie But I decided to go with a wine that like you would mistake for a Pinot Noir in a blind tasting easily So I went for a cool climate Grenache on this one. And I went for this is a wine. Let me see if I can get it on screen proper here. This is private property. 2021 Santa Lucia Highlands, Monterrey County, Grenache and California, cool climate, California, Grenache. You just have this acidity, this incredible acidity. It is light and bright red and like very transparent in the glass. Looking at this in the glass, smelling it, you get, mean, it's all like raspberry, strawberry, rhubarb, beetroot. There's an element of sage and a lot of salinity and this highest like medium plus too high acidity. It is, I would think this was looking at it. I think it's a Pinot Noir and tasting it. I think it's a Pinot Noir. but I've noticed this is often how the cooler parts of California, Grenache comes out. Grenache in California tends to be like, get this extra acidity, probably from soil types here. And then if you get it in a cooler part of California, it does not get as fruit driven as fruit forward and the fruit stays lighter and redder and fresher. And the whole, and just gets dialed back in that, that salinity and the acerbic-ness really kind of takes over. But this is, private property is the more it's the second label of a, of a more expensive line called a caracioli sellers here in California, a A R A C C I O L I caracioli. And this is Scott caracioli fourth generation, from the family and private property is his side hustle, generally in the 20 to $30 a bottle range rather than a of caracioli. wines tend to be more like 40 to 60, even up to $100 a bottle. And this is going to be more of your approachable, more affordable versions, but still with that sort of like, you know, kind of commitment to quality and at that level. So bright acidity, zingy, fresh, red fruit. But yeah, this it's got that bite. I needed a red wine. I wanted red because I needed the depth and complexity of a red versus anything I could probably get with most whites. to go with this, but then I needed that acerbicness. needed that zing and that bite because this is a biting satire. This is a, this is a movie that is in its way. mean, there are meaner movies out there. Do not get me wrong, but there is a cruel streak here, right? You know? And so there, there's just that element of like, and it's so painful. Like the second half of this movie, I'm, you're, I'm kind of watching it like, It's crazy. Holding I'm like, no, no, no, no, like, stop, stop, you're doing it all wrong. I can't watch this. This is so you're digging such a deep hole. And I just it's hard to watch. And so I needed something that was lighter and fresher on its feet and just have that zing and bite. And I think cool climate Grenache. And so in this case, Santa Lucia Islands private property, 2021 Grenache from Monterey County, Santa California. That's my guy. Take a look for that, guys. All right. So Thanks so much for listening, everybody. That has been Election, the movie from 1999 to celebrate Halloween. Spooky season. That's the that's our wrap up of spooky season. Everybody, you will hear from us after Election Day when the next episode drops. So good luck to us all before then. We are just going to be dropping a well, actually to celebrate post election. We are going to be dropping an episode on the album, the 2013 album, The Civil Wars from the band, The Civil Wars, a band that was a civil war in their own right, a duo that fell apart in the making of this album. So it's also going to be pretty on the nose for Election Day. And we're going to have very special guest Maria Banson. from the wine world, Semele from San Francisco and someone with a bit of a music background herself and runs Brunello Bombshell Substack. So look for that next week. Great Substack by the way guys, go check it out. Yes, yes. Good luck to all of us. Until then, we'll talk more about her when we drop that episode next week. It'll be a two-part episode dropping Thursday and Friday, because it's a long episode. Good luck to us all. Thanks so much for listening everybody. We will be back next week with another one in the Entertainment Area for your entertainment. Ciao for now. Later guys. you