Ben O'Shea: I Don’t Want To Be The Butt Of Any Jokes Here.

There’s a new movie out today called Bottoms, it’s about two unpopular high school friends who start a fight club. Ben O’Shea gives his review to Clairsy & Lisa. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Break the Flick with Ben on ninety six a FM. Ben,
We've been intrigued for days now with what it is
that you're reviewing. I feel like you've built it up
so much now and maybe set some unrealistic expectations in
the minds of in the listeners. I was listening on
the way in this morning podcast. I heard you say

(00:21):
that ben o'she is coming out to talk about bottoms.
I don't know what people think I'm here to do
today plug an only fans account. I don't know what,
but I can tell you that. So this new comedy,
it's a coming of age kind of teen comedy, and
it's called Bottoms. But even though there are some bits
of it that are a little bit risky, it's not
about bottoms. It's not about dairy as buttocks, nothing like that.

(00:45):
But it is about these two friends, these two BFFs
that are the bottom of the food chain in the
social hierarchy in their high school. So they're the bottom,
the bottom dwellers, the bottom feeders. So that's basically where
the bottoms comes from, right, So it's a about there. Look,
you can you can imagine it is if you like.

(01:05):
And so there are these movies are a dime a dozen, right,
and most of them are pretty forgettable. You've got the
all time classics, like you've got your mean Girls and
your Heathers and You're Clueless and You're super Bad. B
Heathers was such a good film, super Bad, and so
you've got some awesome films there. And this might be
a bit controversial to some people, but I will say

(01:26):
the bottoms just as good as any of them. Really,
Like is an absolute cracker. I went in with very
crack tempered expectations. Yeah, how many bottom how many bottom
jokes you get? Any one fell out effect for that Listen,
I don't want to be the butt of any jokes here.
And now I'll throw it over to you guys. But

(01:48):
the film tells a story. The film tells the story
of these two BFFs, PJ and Josie, who are lesbians.
They're virgins, and so just like in super Bad, where
the always in that film go, do you know what,
We're going to college next year after finishing high school,
so you know, the pop the cherry, let's like get
it done before we go to high school, before we
go to college, and you know, and then we'll be

(02:09):
laughing at They take the same kind of approach, right,
but they're the bottom twenty twenty three style. Yeah, twenty
twenty three styles, so very much, so and so, and
they realize that, you know, that the ultimate would be
if they can hook up with the two hottest cheerleaders
in high school. So they set their sights very high.
And one of these cheerleaders will look very familiar to

(02:31):
viewers because she's the daughter of Cindy Crawford, kaya girl.
She looks exactly like Sidney Crawford, and so she is
one of the cheerleaders. But don't They can't even talk
to them. They don't have any way of interacting with
these cheerleaders. So they realize the best strategy will be
if they start a self defense club for all of
the girls in the high school. But because they don't

(02:51):
know anything about self defense, it basically just devolves into
a fight club, and instead of teaching them anything really useful,
they just get all the high school girls into the
gymnays and go all right, let's just like beat the
Jesus out of each other and hopefully we learn something
along the way. And it becomes so popular that these
two girls, PJ and Josie becomes sort of you know,
cult figures in the high school, and so they're loving life.

(03:13):
They're getting closer forming bonds with these cheerleaders as they're
sort of wrestling in the gym under the watchful supervision
of their really disinterested history teacher who's going through his
own divorce. For NFL exactly, and it's the casting is
quite incredible here. They've cast NFL superstar mush On Lynch,
who was known as Beast Mode in the NFL because

(03:35):
he's just insane. He's retired now and he's fantastic. Like
it could be the new sort of like Snoop Dogg
kind of crossover from another industry into movie. No, no, no,
definitely not that. And so but as they get more
and more popular, it leads to its own problems. So
it starts to create friction within their really tight friendship group,

(03:56):
and it also creates this jealousy and envy with the
high school football team, who are used to being the
top of the food chain, but all of a sudden,
everybody's more interested in this all girl fight club. The
jocks aren't happy, so the jocks try to get back
at the girls, which kind of starts this tit for
tat battle between the two groups, and it all culminates

(04:17):
in the final you know, sort of homecoming football game
where a rival football team is coming to town and
they've got their own agenda as well, which creates a
little bit of danger. And now this is an over
the top satire, so it's a sort of movie that
isn't fully grounded in reality. Like you've got the jocks
who were walking around and sitting in class in their
full football game, which is not something that actually happens

(04:39):
in real life. But the way the film leans into
it is so fun that you go along with it
and you go, you know what, that's fine. I can
live with it because the satire of social conventions and
gender and sexuality is so legit you kind of forgive
all of these extra things. You forgive the fact that

(04:59):
the plot is kind of nonsensical, because the statements that
it makes about high school life and just society in
general like really solid, like as good as a lot
of serious, highbrow comedies while wrapped up people do that
can twist the two together. Yeah, Yeah, it's good, good movie.
Its it's wowing wowing a lot of critics like myself

(05:21):
around the world. So like people like the New York
Times have loved it, The La Times have loved it,
The Washington Post loves it. It is a film that
I think will go down as one of the best
comedies of twenty twenty three, and it deserves to be,
Like I would say, it's better than Bridesmaids, better than Bridesmaids.
So you did mention, yes, suddenly you mentioned super Bad
Judd Apatow. Does it get as silly as that, because

(05:43):
that is very silly, So it probably doesn't get quite
as silly as that, and it probably ends up having
a little bit more heart too, like a real kind
of emotional depth, which you know is probably not a
surprise when you go from a film about teenage boys
to a film about teenage girls. It's a little bit
more thoughtful. But it is also hilarious, like it is
genuinely hilarious. And for fans of The Bear, the excellent

(06:06):
show on Disney Plus, so ao Eda Biri, who plays
Sydney in The Bear, is one of the main characters.
She plays. She plays Josie and is awesome, Like she
is so funny and she's fantastic, and this is well
Rachel Sennet is the other league character who's also amazing.
It's a really good young cast, a lot of faces

(06:27):
that people might not be familiar with, apart from Kaya Gerber,
who looks like her mum. But aside from that, like
I thoroughly recommend this man. People can it all? Right? Well?
How many? First rule of bottoms is don't talk about bostrooms,
bottom club. I'm going to give this four. It's a
four star. It's a ripper. By the way, you did

(06:48):
mention tit for tat. You broke the rules. It was
just be about bottoms Many well done,