Glen Powell and Daisy Edgar Jones didn’t make out at the end of Twisters and it still sorta pisses me off
This is my first sponsored article. Brought to you by The Running Man, now in theaters.
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This newsletter actually costs me money (if you factor in the domain and stickers). But Glen Powell has a new movie coming out and I’m still sorta dubious about his CHOICES. It reminded me of a few words I put down after seeing Twisters last summer. This piece is for nobody. Actually a few people have written it already. And I apologize for that. But please enjoy…
I’m in no way the first, second, or millionth person to be up in arms about the final seconds of Twisters. I’ve seen the director and cast’s rebuttal to the scene’s lack of tongue via quotes in The Hollywood Reporter. I’ve heard the screams of bloggers over at Gentleman’s Quarterly. But still, since my viewing of Twisters at the Burbank 16, I’m consumed more and more by the fact that Tyler Owens (Glen Powell) and Kate Carter (Daisy Edgar Yobez) didn’t get it on in the domestic terminal after Owens straight up corkscrewed his truck into an illegal parking spot. If you haven’t heard, apparently it was a Spielberg note. Absolutely rich, coming from the guy who made me believe that bioengineered dinosaurs, the Holy Grail, and Abraham Lincoln were real but found it HIGHLY unrealistic that these two 12s would suck face after surviving a fucking E-5 tornado. Thankfully, one extra snuck her phone on set and recorded this Zapruder-level alternate take.
But let’s not harp on the disastrous creative decision of an otherwise crowd pleasing (yet overstuffed) movie. Let’s instead join arms and demand that movies have to get more horny in general.
Our current dearth of heat is nothing new in the history of film. I’d argue the medium’s relationship with getting its freak on has always been cyclical. Go all the way back to pre-studio filmmaking in the late 1800s. Some of the earliest scenes put to film was nog (porNOGraphy…seriously keep up). But as the federal government cracked down on the illicit behavior of Hollywood screen stars (give the name Fatty Arbuckle a Google), Irving Thalberg’s famed code of standards set a precedent for squeaky clean mainstream entertainment.
Up until the late 60s, when the studio system collapsed. Deepthroat (nog) then sweeps the nation and suddenly we’re so back. The 70s and early 80s unprecedented run of sultry is seen in all styles and perspectives. The naturalistic intimacy of Claudia Weill’s Girlfriends, Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie straight up grief-boning on camera in Don’t Look Now, and Richard Gere eating Debra Winger’s face off in An Officer and a Gentleman. Sex coursed through just about every story in Hollywood and led characters down roads their brains alone would not.
But we all know what happened. AIDS. It took Michael Douglas and his historical 90s heater to remind us that people make a ton of decisions solely to sleep with one another. Fatal Attraction. Basic Instinct. Disclosure. You couldn’t keep this guy’s cheeks off screen if you tried. Douglas played the leader of the free world in The American President and the goddamn plot of that movie was him making a go at a lobbyist. Truly incredible stuff. But perhaps we went too far. Or internet nog changed it all.
The late 90s and early 2000s were marred by an over-indulgence in sexually angry bro-humor. Sure it was hilarious when Jason Biggs took it missionary to a pie or when Freddie got fingered but our sexual themes on screen began to feel incredibly one-sided, and that side was specifically a 16 year old dude jacked up on Mountain Dew and Limp Bizkit. Thus resulted in an inversion later in the decade, from the sick and twisted mind of Judd Apatow. Sarah Marshall clipped a flaccid and crying Jason Segal (followed by an onscreen fruit bowl) and Lena Dunham porked Adam Driver while The National played on Girls (TV, sue me). It all came in stark contrast to the early aughts bro-fest. Interesting, nonetheless.
The intimacy coordinators would soon follow. And with them, the clickbaiting headlines about who did and didn’t use an intimacy coordinator would follow that. It seems we’re in a world of extremes now. Movies will now either investigate sexual politics head-on in a dark and expository fashion like Poor Thangs or simply side-step the notion that anyone has sex as seen in Tom Cruise and Jennifer Connelly’s strange but kinda rewatchable smile montage in Top Gun: Maverick.
We’ve lost all ability to find to find middle ground for popular entertainment. It’s Poor Things or nothing. But simply being human on screen shouldn’t have to be brave or the performance of a lifetime and that’s exactly what Twisters is lacking. The film’s director Lee Isaac Chung defended the decision, saying it wasn’t her story to end up with him. Ending it on that would cheapen her personal journey. With all due respect to Chung, I just think that’s horse shit. We can’t run away from the fact our personal journeys are entirely wrapped up in freakiness. We either throw all logic out the window entirely or do what Michael Douglas did so well - war with ourselves over whether or not we should’ve done that thing we wanted to do. This isn’t rocket science. Glen Powell would not have cheapened Daisy Edgar’s business by sealing the deal. They instead would’ve taken part in a cinematic tradition as old as the medium itself…
Hot people sucking face on screen.