True Heartland and Big Emotions: 'Somebody, Somewhere' and 'My Old Ass'; Plus, 'Janet Planet' on Max

Hey, everybody.

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We're the TV Podcast, taking it down.

We talk about TV and anything really streaming.

So it could be movies.

That's what we're doing this week, movies.

A couple of them were produced by the website the Alabama Take, where there is a whole podcast network you can go check out, read the writings involved from various writers and you can see what's in the podcast network with us.

Our podcast is designed to offer up general thoughts to you to begin help you decide you're probably busy.

You're working.

We're the working man's TV podcast, baby.

Then you can decide if what's streaming or on TV is riding for you.

Because later we'll spoil what we either offered for you or decided not to offer.

We'll get into the details why and the specifics.

We'll draw a spoiler line later on in the sand.

Sometimes I talk here at the beginning.

I don't have much to say this week.

It's Tuesday, if you're listening on Tuesday.

And I hope you've had a good week.

What I'm gonna do is bring in the usual co host.

They're both here this week.

Sometimes that's not the case, but most of the time it is.

It's Adam.

It's Donovan.

Let's just get to them.

Here we are with Donovan and Adam, both of them in in the house in studio today.

It's great to be here, Blaine.

Hey, we got our listener survey results.

I just wanted to recount a couple with y'all.

I'd love to hear it.

The one I thought were interesting was what streamers were the most subscribed.

Everyone seemed to have Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, and Max.

I suppose that's about right, though.

That's about the standard package right there, isn't it?

If you can afford it, yeah.

The ones that were less selected were Peacock, Apple, and Disney.

I'm kind of surprised by Apple just because they had such big shows, but I guess everybody was stealing somebody's password to watch Ted Lasso.

I bet it boosts when Sephiroth starts in January.

Probably so.

I think you're probably right because that one was.

I mean, that's gangster.

Like, it had the buzz, but it's also been like.

It's been two years since that came out, so people might have dropped off a little.

See a lot of people talking about it online.

The other answer that might be of interest, what streamers have the best shows.

And our listeners picked Hulu and Max.

I wouldn't have predicted Hulu.

I would not have either, but they might.

Hulu has some solid stuff, though.

We're, you know, we're in the shogun realm there.

Yeah.

I was going to say, if you're factoring in FX shows on their streaming.

Service and also Showtime, some people have their Showtime wrapped up in.

Oh, that's true.

Hulu.

A little co brand.

And it gets really confusing because I think you can now see a lot of Disney plus stuff on Hulu and vice versa.

It's like.

It is super confusing.

It's overlapping for some reason.

Not for some reason, but for a confusing reason that I don't want to talk about.

And I know not, not all of our listeners have access to Apple tv, but like Adam was pointing out to me, they're second to Max or maybe first in some cases.

I think part of what helps with them is just they, at this point in time, clearly have the money to burn and don't mind burning it to get, you know, like, good writers, good directors, good actors.

Yeah, they're getting the actors in now, the directors, it seems.

And I think the writers are coming as well.

Yeah, it's confusing, but that's partly why we.

We're here.

Sometimes we help out, I hope, with where to see something, what to watch.

When you guys watch Apple programs, are you ever struck by.

When I'm watching Shrinking and I see them use their phone, I just think, man, their phones look so nice new.

They look so new.

Everybody has a new phone and they, like, work flawlessly.

And mine tends to, like, throw up on its shoes whenever I ask it to do anything.

So it's always a bit like the product placement is very much there.

Screen is never shattered.

Mac never chugs, you know, never crashes, never pinwheels.

It just works.

I'm not upset about it, but it is like, oh, this is glossy.

This is nice.

That's a reoccurring joke that if a person's not using an Apple product in an Apple show, they're the bad guy.

They get threatening text with a green bubble.

Yeah, they're the antagonist.

Or it's going to be revealed.

They've got a secret.

That's good.

Two weekends ago, I think it is by now two or three TVs.

Hidden gym, if you ask me, premiered its first episode of its third and final season.

That's hbo.

Somebody, somewhere.

We're in the non spoiler section.

The third and final season.

This is it.

We've talked about it before, but, you know, we've kind of developed this format of non spoiler and then we'll.

We'll divide it up.

So what are you going to say to somebody who hasn't watched the show?

That's a good.

Well, I would say watch the first.

Two seasons, of course, but why?

Do you like emotions, Blaine?

Not particularly, no.

Hell no.

I try to avoid them.

I avoid them at all costs.

The last time we talked about this, Blaine, I think it was you.

It might have been you, Adam.

This quote, unquote, like normal life, but it's.

It's the.

It's also like the people in normal life that we don't always see or have spaces for.

Exactly.

I don't know.

Honestly, it almost kind of makes you think about your own life and the people.

The people you meet.

But it's also just like ordinary, relatable stuff.

Also, it's funny and there's poop.

It is.

It's pretty funny.

It is funny.

Good balance of drama and humor.

I don't think this is a spoiler, but like Fred Rococo, right.

Loves K State, loves Kate and that character, the acting and the writing.

Like, you we know this guy.

Right.

We've all met.

Like, it feels really authentic where it's like, this guy just like truly loves Kansas State football.

Well, and it's also, I think maybe.

I know we talked about this with the first season.

Appealed to us because they're not in the south, but they are in another, quote, unquote, flyover, 100% part of the country.

Part of the country.

That this last week when we had a election, you know, there was no guess what color that state was going to turn.

Wait a second.

Can you.

Can you back up?

There was an election.

Well, it's so funny that you're bringing this up because that's exactly where I was going to go with this.

Well, and I thought it was interesting that I don't know how much choice that they would have had when their show was going to be on for a show that made me think so much about how they're representing things that most people don't associate with.

Again, quote, unquote, red state life.

Yes.

That a gay couple would have an active church life and that that would be.

Even though they're not.

Who knows how that church authority body would, like, vote on an issue like that, but the people directly around them, even though they probably politically vote against the interest of those characters, they're still a part of their social life.

They never confront that Head on and on the show, or don't seem to.

Can you all remember any instance that I'm forgetting?

No, no, but I'm right there with you, especially with this specific example that you picked.

That it's not its intent, right?

That's not at all.

But I think that's why it works, is that they just show that there are people who, who for whatever reason didn't move to California, didn't move to New York, didn't move to, you know, safer blue area for who they are.

Because they're also just as much a Kansas State fan, you know, as they are anything else.

The three of us had an experience in Tuscaloosa where obviously we're straight white guys married with college degrees.

So we have a certain insulation from the folks depicted in the show, what they may face in what could be seen as backwards areas, but still, you know, we had an experience of.

Of being in art and music and all of these things and meeting people who didn't fill the classical small town life.

When you go to Obama football game, you.

You don't expect the nuance of characters that's in this show to be there, but they absolutely are.

For sure.

For sure.

It's exact.

It's a story about the real America, right?

Like literally the heartland, but about the people that really exist there, because they do exist there, and just the validity of them.

And they're fun to hang out with too.

Excellent points.

I was actually thinking about this in a recent episode, how this shows a good representation of a culture in America that a lot of people aren't used to seeing and have already judged.

And I think that it works so well to show me even sometimes that, oh yeah, everybody is just a human.

You know, there's a trans man in this show and you.

I never think that about him being a trans man.

That's not his Persona.

That's not point number one in the show.

Right.

That's point number 25.

It is cool.

I think what it does well, and maybe that's what you're saying too, is it does such a good job of like, we all have these different identities and experiences and stuff without being didactic.

To me, it communicates like X, Y and Z is just one of many things that a human being can be.

And we're all human beings, you know, and they're all human beings together and also, you know, trans or gay or whatever, which are part of the wonderful variety of human experience.

Like, my dad would have never watched this show, but I think that if he would have he and enjoyed it.

Let's just say it would have been kind of up his alley.

I don't think it quite is.

But let's say he watched it and enjoyed it and he got some laughs out of it.

I do think that maybe he could step away from it and think, oh okay, those people are just basically like us in a farm in Kansas is the big difference.

Right.

The difference is isn't asexuality or a.

Or a gender.

Yeah.

It's very real.

It's very human.

This season might be a little more heartbreaking but do watch it if you haven't.

We're fans.

There's also a certain gentleness to it that calms me.

I think it's a good show to watch right before bed and this goes kind of hand in hand.

There's a couple of things here that go hand in hand with it.

I want to briefly talk about the movie Janet Planet here in non spoiler section and I might spoil some things on the back half.

So watch this film over the weekend.

And neither of y'all did.

No, didn't.

I was watching all the porn I could.

Before it's illegal.

Before it shuts down.

January 20th before it shuts down for good.

Gotta stole it in the old mind bank.

Just downloading.

Just stacks of hard drives.

Oh, downloading it and uploading.

Oh yeah.

Apologies.

Apologies to our creators.

Janet Planet is a film.

It was released in theaters, small little indie film and now it's streaming on Max is where I watched it.

Really caught my attention with the trailer and I'll say this as the non spoiler and then we can move into certain things.

Move into the next topic.

And I described this to you guys.

It was a just outstanding quality piece of film but also maybe the most boring thing I've watched in a couple years.

I was just bored to teach years guys.

But I get it and I'm not so sure that that wasn't part of its purpose playing the back half here.

A movie that was not boring that I do full throatedly wholeheartedly recommend.

Is my old ass streaming on Amazon Prime.

We watched it.

Oh yeah.

Okay.

Oh Yeah.

A little 90 minute chunk of love.

Really.

Yeah.

We'll get to that.

Why but streams on Amazon Primes.

New to Amazon address of September 13th I think of this year but it did premiere at Sundance in January of this year.

Stars Maisie Stella as an 18 year old Elliot who has a campfire conversation with her 39 year old self who's played by Aubrey Plaza.

She does this after some hallucinogenics via mushrooms.

I'm not going to spoil anything here, but just.

Again, can't Recommend this Enough.

90 minutes, Amazon Prime.

Thank me later.

Thank Adam later because he.

He turned me on to it.

I'm gonna go ahead and get my one complaint out of the way.

It's not a spoiler.

Okay.

Aubrey Plaza playing the older character did not sit well with me as someone who aged.

Aged alongside Aubrey Plaza.

Don't love that.

But that's it.

So if you are roughly dead center, millennial, prepare to feel like an old ass.

But otherwise, it's a good time.

Yeah.

So it's our old ass.

Yeah.

Really?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Don't let the name two movies hear back to back.

A lot of similarities that have questionable titles as far as quality.

My Old Ass and Hundreds of Beavers.

My Old Ass, Hundreds of Beavers, Janet Planet.

What is up with these titles?

Now, can I briefly follow up on Donovan's Hundreds of Beavers recommendation a few episodes back?

And say, listeners, I watched this.

I had friends over.

The laughter did not stop for the entire film.

Really.

If anybody's looking to have a good time to be.

There you go.

Yep.

Well, it's on.

It was on a different streaming.

It was on Prime.

Maybe it might be.

We watched.

They front loaded some commercials.

We watched two minutes of that and then we watched.

It Wasn't two people sometimes interrupt you in the middle of it.

It's a good time.

Do you enjoy Joy?

My old ass endeared me so much more than I would have expected.

I went thinking I'd get a few chuckles and enjoy myself, but it cut me to the bone.

There's no harm in the way Adam approaches movie suggestions via text.

He said, yes.

So Adam hits us with a text just like, yeah, it's good.

And you think, well, should I watch it?

And he'll reply, yeah, it's good.

Usually if.

If it has been vetted to the point that it's coming from me into the group text, I'm signing off on, y'all should watch this.

Yeah, exactly.

Exactly.

I always assume this is like the Nintendo Seal of Quest, you know, like, this is the real deal.

There's a certain understatement to Adam recommending a movie, which is, yeah, it's good.

And here I am.

It's one of my favorite movies I've seen in the last couple of years.

Whoa.

Yes.

I feel like there's so much available right now, and people are so like, that's the joke about Americans, right?

That we're Like a little too hyperbolic in our.

We're effusive in our praise of things.

Everything's awesome, it's fantastic.

You know all this stuff.

And so you're swinging the pendulum the other way.

Well, but I especially don't want to set someone up.

I obviously respect y'all opinion on tv, film, books, movie or music, whatever.

If I'm recommending it, I think that you will.

It's gonna at least be like a 6 on the 10 point scale.

Like you're gonna enjoy something about it.

This thing was a 9.9.

Right.

But I don't want to tell you I loved this unless.

Unless I really feel like I got to convince you to watch it.

I'd rather you just know I enjoyed this.

We can talk about it after you see it.

Yeah.

Whereas I come into the text and be like, this son of a bitch was boring as fuck.

Blaine is a lot more likely to hate watch something than I am.

I can tell.

Like when Blaine, because I follow Blaine on letterboxd, when he definitely had to watch something because it.

Because his kid was watching it.

And it'll be like, some dancing, half a star, some dancing movie.

Like, this was a piece of shit.

Oh, man, I love it.

Not to digress too much, my poor little daughter picked that movie last week without any of my guidance.

I just showed her some of the new selections.

This one was bad.

This was the dancing one.

I really thought it was going to veer into Christian nationalist territory any second.

I just kept thinking, please don't bring out a cross and start praying.

Just don't let's jump into spoiler sections.

All right, quick little break, little promo for you for another podcast, and we'll come back and it'll be spoiler time, folks.

If you like quirky movies, you might know about the view.

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Jay said you guys had a Star wars themed wedding and you tied the.

Knot dressed like Stormtroopers.

And he says you're the bitch and you're the butch.

If you're a geek, you probably know about the Whedonverse.

Shiny.

Let's be bad, guys.

If you're a podcast junkie, you better know about the Mervers.

Let's go to the meeting.

I want to get there early enough.

To make sure I have humans sitting next to me.

Bigot.

Well, there's a new reality in town, the Omniverse.

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Your mind will thank you.

Yeah, I suck at Segways.

What's up, Janet Planet?

I'm going to kind of spoil this.

I know neither of y'all watched it, though I'll try my best not to dig deep into spoilers.

Your review of it's the most boring movie I've ever watched isn't making me want to, you know, jump, jump down.

And I mean, I think it's purposeful in its boredom.

I think there's something to that, but at the same time, it's just kind of hard to watch without the distraction of a phone or something.

Be interesting to try to attempt this one in a theater.

Might be a different.

Well, it would be a different experience.

It's so much of that.

And it's also kind of weird in its boredom.

There's little dialogue in those first ten minutes or so.

Man, this is a weird compliment.

It's almost like this movie's purpose is to offer sounds to remind you of what silence is like.

There's the crunch of a dirt road, the sound of an oscillating fan.

Crickets and bugs are prominent.

Summer heat.

The palpability and sound of that, if you can recall, I think this movie is set in 1991 or two.

You know, there's no cell phones, no.

No beeping as much.

It's a movie that communicates more with shots and sounds and angles and setting than what the characters say or do.

And if you can accept that, I think you will love it.

I really admired it.

I just could not dig it.

I just could not.

And I had a moment or two where I was like, oh, that's kind of touching.

Or that I feel a little something here.

It's structured around these title cards of who the mom is seeing or bringing into her and her daughter's life because she is a single mom.

And the first one's like Wayne.

And then you'll have a title card that pops up that says end Wayne.

And then you'll have a title card that says Regina.

It's quirky in that way.

It's very much like a play.

It's written by a playwright.

It falters in.

It does a few shots repeatedly.

And you have gotten the point.

Like you'll have the daughter doing something.

You can tell it's very intentional.

You're supposed to see her doing it, but you're like, well, I saw that 15 minutes ago.

I'm good here.

I've got it.

Sadly, spends a little too much time trying to make hay on sort of elongated shots that reveal little.

It's new.

I think it's beautiful, though.

I think it's beautiful.

I think if you wanted to put it on and do laundry, I really think.

I think it might work that way.

I don't like saying that.

I don't like watching TV that way, or movies at all.

But it's very rich, it's very subtle, it's ripe for exploration.

There's so much you could say about this shot and that scene, and I found it boring.

That's interesting that that's your reaction.

Just because I usually find with movies, I'm much more like, I liked it or I didn't like it.

Whereas with books, it's like, I admired it.

I saw that it was good, but I didn't love it.

So it's just kind of funny that you felt that for a movie like that.

Yeah, books can do that with me, too.

It's obvious the playwright who wrote and directed this is.

I'm blanking on her name.

Her last name's Baker.

She definitely wants to capture this childlike view of summer for Weird Kit.

So if you like that, I think you'll get something out of it.

I've talked about movies like this on this podcast, and I'll wrap with this.

It was way more interesting to read things about this movie than it was to watch.

I found myself reading things about the movie while I was watching it.

It kind of went hand in hand that way, and I did sort of enjoy that part of it, but give it a try.

Put on.

Put it on.

Maybe do some laundry and just listen to it.

I saw one review that said it had a horrible sound design, and I was like, what?

It's a perfect sound.

In fact, that's.

It should win Oscars for its sound design, if nothing else.

But it's got so much in common with my old ass.

It is like I was startled by watching these in Back to Back Nines.

It's.

We talked about Mild Ass, starring Aubrey Plaza and this young lady, Maisie.

Stellar Stella.

Stella.

Thank you.

And I said, Stellar Mild Ass, I think the name kind of was.

Just jolted me.

I was like, really?

That.

That's an actually good movie.

It sounds like a.

It sounds like it.

In the first three minutes of the movie, it looks like a teen comedy, and you're thinking, yeah, I know where this is going.

Mm.

And boy, oh, boy.

You do not.

I had seen that that was being praised online, the film.

Oh, okay.

And she said, let's.

We didn't talk about it.

And she came home and said, you want to watch this movie tonight?

I said, yeah, that sounds great.

And jokingly said in those first three minutes, like you're saying this is a 90 minute film.

Aubrey Plaza is going to show up at some point and some teen hijinks are afoot right now in like a lovely place that feels very.

Not melancholic, but like you know that you're in like the summer before college kind of.

Yeah, that's fertile nostalgia ground for sure.

I thought it was going to be very similar to the.

Oh, book smart.

Book smart.

I thought it was going to be very much in line with book smart.

Two or three teens, summer before college kind of thing.

The first four minutes of the movie starts with these three young ladies, 18 year old, summer before college, like we said, going off to little camp fireside at night to do mushrooms.

I guess this is the moment where we discuss if we've done mushrooms.

So go ahead.

Well, I like button mushrooms, I guess, like in some pasta.

Can I tell you about the first time I did mushrooms?

Please do.

I kept.

Once they kicked in and everything became dream, like hazy.

I kept repeating the strawberry fields forever line about dreams in my head.

It just repeated.

Repeated repeatedly.

Then I threw up.

Okay.

I am enamored by this conceit though, which I kind of knew going in.

And I thought, whoa, this is gonna work well as a comedy.

Or it even could work as a drama or science fiction, even action.

I think Bruce Willis and Joseph Gordon Levitt did something similar, which is.

Yeah, it's true.

That one was fun.

Yeah, it was pretty fun.

Not a bad movie.

Get to talk to your older self here.

That's.

I mean, that's the setup.

And here it's played initially as kind of lighthearted coming of age.

And then there's this like.

It becomes a quasi comedy.

And it's still so engaging.

It's still so propulsive and interesting.

There's not a much of any problems I had with it.

I do have one slot.

One.

I thought the Justin Bieber scene was just a minute long, maybe longer.

It may have been a minute long, but it kind of earned its place to me for.

In the cutaway, when they show what's actually happening in reality.

That's true.

That she's just alone.

All of it was worth it for that.

The payoff of that joke.

I thought that was pretty good.

What we end up having here is an exploration of hopes and goals and aging and living, fucking living.

Those things alone make it more relevant and profound than this genre has any.

This movie has any right to be.

I think it really does.

You were talking about there's really no dull moment.

And I think a lot of that is.

I mean, obviously we love Aubrey Plaza.

I'll speak for everyone here.

Yeah, she's very good.

And this, I think it's kind of fascinating that she didn't do.

Didn't really seem to do anything for a number of years post Parks and Rec outside of bizarre indie stuff.

And now obviously this is indie, but she's been in a lot lately.

I wonder if she's just like, hey, I can make a lot of money by just like working a few weeks a year and here we are.

But this was, I mean I don't know how this, if you got this script and knew the team involved, you wouldn't be on board with this.

But I was going to say the surprise to me was Maisie Stella is so good.

Yeah.

I think the reason that it never lumbers in any direction or kind of becomes Stale is one, it's a 90 minute film, it's edited really well.

But she's so good.

She's so good.

And I looked her up thinking that most of the time you have 25 year olds playing 17, 18 year olds or even older and she's 20 years old.

She's so good.

She's fun to watch.

She has this easiness in her own skin sort of acting and it was just joyful.

Surely she'll get big roles going forward.

She, she's got a future.

I would think.

She came from the show Nashville, apparently.

That's right.

But she may have been like, it must have been an actual child on that.

I don't know anything about the show.

Yeah, I think she was that setup.

I kept wondering during the first, first act how it's going to keep itself going.

I thought it was only going to be a conversation between the young self versus the older self.

So she takes the mushrooms, sees her older self, Aubrey Plaza's 39 year old Elliot, and she's the 18 year old Elliot.

And I kept thinking how are they going to pull this off to have this conversation?

Are they just going to show elements of her life back and forth or you know, what's going to happen?

But I kind of thought they were going to wander that island for, yeah, the night and then the sun was going to come up and there would have been some Revelation.

Same here.

You know, that is not what happens.

No, that's not what happened at all.

And I love movies that made me think of questions about myself.

So what would you say to your 18 year old self beyond advice, you know what kind of conversation?

Because it's not straight advice here and I love that it wasn't don't do drugs, it was more a conversation.

What would you say?

They kind of COVID the basis of, you know, we talk on this show a lot about the extent that shows or movies go to their own world building.

Is this actually happening?

Right?

Or is this in her head and it seems to actually be happening based on things that happen later in the film.

And then they set like immediately she's like, tell me what the next apple is and you know, you'll wake up rich tomorrow because I'll invest to that kind of thing.

She asks, are certain people still alive or not?

Until a certain moment, there's no dramatic reveal.

There's no like, hey, go to the doctor when this thing happens or get all the time in with mom that you can before the summer when you're 26.

Anything like that.

It's just be kinder to your family, savor these moments.

And you're kind of sensing that the reverse is also happening.

Maybe a sense of like, I think if I could meet my 18 year old self, there will be moderate embarrassment, but also like a sense of freedom, like, oh, this guy was an idiot, you know, and like you kind of look back on not mistakes but like, you know, you're supposed to be figuring so much out at that point.

And of course you get older and realize that's ridiculous that we put all of that pressure on, on kids.

But at the same time, what the movie's about is that naivete in a way, that pure love of life.

There's only adventure in front of you.

Older Elliot says this in the movie.

It feels like we're trying to avoid spoilers.

There's no point in that.

But older Elliot replies, this character says, I didn't want you to have to feel that.

Which carries this sentiment that if you saw your younger self, you'd view him or her as a child in need of protection.

Which is so foreign to me but so sweet because I've always looked back at myself.

Like you talked about how I'm like an idiot.

Like I don't.

It's just startling to hear, especially in that last voicemail she gets where Aubrey Plaza's character says, I love you.

I don't know that I would say that to my older self or I wouldn't realize to say that to my older self.

But that's what my, excuse me, younger self would exactly need.

Yeah, yeah.

So I found it touching for me personally, it was just very touching for certain reasons like that.

Well, in the.

I don't know that we're avoiding the primary spoiler as much as there's just so much around that.

And a strength of the film is that, you know, you find out and this is not the main spoiler.

I'm talking about that where she grew up is about to be sold.

Right.

Like the family farm is going to be sold.

And so she is living in a time that she cannot get back.

Like she's even aware of that in real time.

Obviously we look back and think kind of like the conversation that happens of like you don't know the last time that you went out and played with your friends.

Yeah.

Like that happened at some point but you weren't aware of it that day.

And even without the weird time travel mechanism involved, she is aware that she's in.

She's on the last day of something, you know, that she's not gonna be able to go home.

And so that's such a big part of the movie to then be superseded by this other reveal of Chad.

Yeah.

Love interest that she has and whom she's been told to avoid.

It's really the only piece of advice she gets.

Big people.

Can we just rip the bandaid off?

Can I ask you a question that'll rip the bandaid off?

Let's do that.

Okay, Donovan, the setup is she has this great light hearted conversation with Aubrey Plaza that's really just like, you know, what would you tell your younger self?

Be nicer to your brothers.

Mom's great.

Be nice to mom.

Hang out with her.

Mom's cool.

You're gonna figure that out later.

And she says, don't hang out with Chad.

And of course all of this is like very.

You're thinking like, well, of course she wants me to be nice to my family.

There's no way that you wouldn't.

That you regret being nice to your family later on if they're good people.

And then what confirms that it's real is this guy jumps in the water next to her at a lake and his name is Chad and he's there to work for the summer.

Blaine, when did you realize this is going to be roll 180 that Chad was going to die?

You know, this is one of the few movies I've ever one thought about the Ending ahead of the ending.

I just tend not to do that.

I try to let the movie take me where it wants to go, but.

But two figured it out pretty instantly.

I was like, oh, they're not going to fall in love.

And he breaks up with her.

It's deeper than that.

Well, at first you're like, is this.

Dude, is he mean?

Is he like a creeper?

Yeah.

Yeah.

As soon as that was out of the way.

As soon as that was out of the way, I.

I was like, oh, he's going to die.

And it is a.

Same here.

And it is a credit to these two actors that.

That their chemistry.

Yeah.

Was off the charts.

Yeah.

Because when that guy first pops up in the water out, I begrudgingly thought, I don't like this guy.

Go away.

Well, I don't want to see, I don't care about him.

I want to find out more about Elliot.

And to contextualize Donovan, she has at the end of a day of work, stripped off in his skinny dipping in.

This pond after a hot day of.

Yeah.

Of cranberry farming.

They're cranberry farmers in Canada.

That's right.

What about this setting?

It's not deadly.

You watch a movie in Ontario around a beautiful small lakeside cranberry farm.

The whole thing's gorgeous.

Yeah.

Chad's the one who brings up.

You don't realize the last day you go outside and play pretend.

It'll almost choke you up.

Then her mom has a conversation with her and it's the same thing.

But I just love that they did it one more time and deepened it about finalities.

And those endings are actually endings of things you love and you love them.

How much did that crush you as a parent?

Yes.

It's tough.

That was a great scene.

Yeah.

The similarities is just.

It's the next step.

And I just appreciated it that they continued that without.

They repeated it without being dumb about it.

Yeah, yeah.

I had this.

I had the same question for you about how soon did you know about Chad?

I think their second interaction, like once they left the pond, you know, she's very funny in like a.

Is clearly interested in him, but is being mean to him kind of way.

Oh, yeah, go away, don't look at me, all that kind of stuff.

And then when they interact again, it's like, oh, this is.

There's way too much chemistry here to not, you know, this.

This script is good in other actors hands, but it's, I mean, it's like seriously elevated with these two.

I can't say enough about the two of them.

Was it off putting to hear how many times they were using the vernacular of our just modern time.

Were you like, oh God, they're just going to continue to say bruh, I'll.

You know.

And it was, you know, when they not saved it because it didn't bother me at all.

And maybe it's partially because I.

This will be the second time that I'm the one that brings us up this week.

The election.

And I keep reading about Gen Z and I know that they're a little bit.

They'd be a little younger than Gen Z.

Maybe they would be I guess a generation without a name yet.

I don't know.

I don't know what the pram.

Anyway.

A generation that grew up with, you know, their.

Their clothes look different than my clothes looked when I was 18.

And they.

All of them at the start are like her.

Is her whole friend group lesbians or just her.

She and the black young lady are definitely okay.

The third friend who really doesn't get that much screen time.

We don't know.

Yeah.

But everything about it.

I looked at Natalie at one point, I think while she has convinced the barista to hang out and they end up spending the night together in the boat.

I was like, this would be the most scandalous movie of the year 10 years ago, 15 years ago.

And now like you don't.

You didn't hear anything about it.

That's not its center point though.

You know, that's not its focus.

But all of her like summer flings and all of the hookups that are alluded to and there are many that are alluded to are lesbian relationships not.

And that I feel like that would have been shocking to be so casual in the not too distant past.

But I think to answer your question about Is all of the current lingo, I think that having the brother play the complete straight man to her goofier side and him just like loving golf and wanting to take over the farm and like wearing a polo shirt to go play golf was so great because she's spewing all this very online liberal stuff at him and he's kind of just like not worried about it.

Yeah.

That gave it some leeway to me on that front that I don't think that it'll feel dated.

I don't know if that was the intent of your question.

Right.

No.

Yeah.

Maybe there's a critique to be made about the last four minutes of the movie being a little too saccharine and being a little bit more about the cliched idea of it's better to have love and loss than not to love at all.

But to me it was just one more example of how their endings call us by age.

I just loved it because it just spoke to me.

I guess because there's an unfairness to life that shit has to end.

This movie did a good job of doing that without depressing you.

Yeah.

And it also.

That the young person is supposed to learn from the older person.

And not that this is like a new storytelling thing where like the person who's supposed to be imparting the wisdom ends up learning a lesson themselves.

It was nice for Aubrey Plaza to take away.

Oh, I have to.

I have to start living, you know, like living again matters.

And this is.

She has chosen to be alive more fully than I have let myself.

I thought that was moving.

I thought, you know, it was.

I don't know.

Things that are cliched, when they're not done well, it's not good.

But when they are, it's kind of like, oh, yeah, that's cliched for a reason.

You know, it's powerful.

It's a powerful idea.

It's moving.

It's like very simple reminder.

You know, I mean, I felt.

Yeah, moving.

Moving is the right word for it.

There's a prosthean profoundness to the simplicity of our moment by moment life.

Yeah, well.

And also zooming out and thinking, as Aubrey Plaza herself defends, 39 is not old.

You know, did it get a chuckle.

Out of you that she younger self asks Elliot, what's good about life right now for you?

And she says she has to think.

And she says, oh, you're a PhD student.

She's like, at 40?

Yeah, I'm a PhD student.

She said, I'm not 40.

I'm 39.

When honestly that was how I made the connection that something bad was going.

To happen to Chad because she was back in school.

Yep.

I thought something, something bad is going to happen to this dude that makes her start a new project later in life than maybe most people do.

Again, not that 39 is old, but it's also not 18 right now.

Yeah.

Or 24.

Or a PhD student.

Right.

The most unimportant question I could ask is the siren on the phone call.

Yeah, that was a little haunting, right?

Yes, it was.

I didn't like that.

Felt a little too well.

She alludes to other things.

She.

She's like, eat all the salmon that you can.

Oh, did she say that?

I missed that one.

She said, is dad making salmon or something like that and says you should eat all of it that you can because you're going to miss it.

To imply that salmon have gone extinct or at the very least cannot be fished for food anymore.

So there's bad things happening 20 years down the road.

But the siren felt very much like a full on dystopian future.

It felt.

Cormac McCarthy the road, almost.

Yeah.

I respect this movie for not trying to squeeze in any kind of extra family drama or side plots about this friend having this issue.

Yeah.

That her family is loving and they're obviously pretty well to do sometimes that catches a little bit of flack.

It's just a nuclear family on a farm and they.

Yeah, they love each other and it's a good setup for it.

Lets the tragedy coming for her take center stage, I guess.

Yeah.

Sweet moment with the younger brother hanging the posters before she had left.

He's taking over her room.

It's pretty funny.

That's a pretty real moment.

Donovan, he is a.

His one ambition is to grow up.

How old do you think he is?

Blaine?

He's a little guy, 10.

She's got one brother who's probably like a couple years younger in high school.

And then the 10 year old.

His exclusive goal is to grow up, move to Ireland and marry Saoirse.

Saoirse Ron.

That's a good goal.

It is, frankly.

Oh, yeah.

Anytime.

Posters or not.

Not even posters, but just like cutouts from magazines.

That's funny.

Like dozens of them.

Let's end with this.

This second movie I watched in two days where both are about a transformative summer.

Both are set in rural areas that don't seem to have any towns.

And both sets of these families have their meals outdoors.

Is that a northern thing, to eat outside?

I got to say, this is my true Alabama showing.

When they are camping in the last nights of summer and they're worried about getting cold and they're bundled up in blankets and wearing jackets.

I just thought, screw you guys.

I hate you all so much.

I would be laying out there in my boxers begging for death if I tried to sleep outside in August in Alabama.

Yeah.

There are two distinct scenes in Janet Planet where they're eating their dinner time outside and I'm like, who does this?

People in Ingrid Berg and Ingmar Bergman.

Films, do they do this in New England?

Do you and Beth go outside and eat?

Like, if we're grilling out, we'll eat.

Really?

Yeah.

I mean, it's just.

It really is like, unless it's just horrible.

It's so much cooler.

Everyone can eat on the patio or whatever.

Yeah.

And if you're, like, on the Cape or whatever, a lot of people will eat outside.

You're not being attacked by a billion mosquitoes.

That was the thing, right?

Yeah.

Now they're having, like, breakfast at one point in Mild ass.

I don't know.

Now here's.

Here's the thing, though, is I've been to Vermont.

Mosquitoes exist.

Yeah.

Mm.

Are they telling the full story?

Tough to say.

Can we give a shout out to her boat?

I loved her having her little boat as the means of.

That was like her shitty car.

Yeah.

Nice.

I thought the world building was really fun in that everything's centered around this body of water and she, like, goes to have her shenanigans via this crappy boat.

Yeah.

Certainly something to be thought about there.

And I thought Aubrey Plaza.

Although she didn't have a huge role, you know, you would have expected.

She did.

She actually wasn't.

But in a couple of scenes, other than her voice being on the phone.

Yep.

She was less acerbic than usual.

I thought that was a really nice touch for her.

Again, playing with those expectations.

Yeah, that's.

That is funny that she will forever get to play with us thinking that she's being sarcastic all the time and that she was kind of being genuine and very sweet to her younger self.

Was.

Yeah, it helped.

Yep.

Drive all the points along that much more.

This film really had, like, a powerhouse of, you know, Aubrey Plaza.

Margot Robbie was a producer.

Did you know that?

No, I didn't.

And then Megan park.

Who.

I did not recognize her name.

She's the director.

She's still.

She's 38.

And I looked her up, and Donovan, she was on the ABC Family series the Secret Life of the American Teenager.

She played the blonde, popular girl.

Oh, yeah, I remember her well.

Good for you, Megan.

Coming up in the world, this program suckered me and Donovan in one summer in its first season because it was so bad.

Oh, and there was.

I've never heard of it.

There's no reason to have heard of it.

No, it was.

Except that it's where Shailene Woodley.

Yeah.

Oh.

Came from there, really.

But there was a character who was threatened by saying, now, if you don't pay me.

Meaning the prostitute.

If you don't pay me, there's a bad man who's going to come with a sack full of oranges that he keeps in his trunk, and he's going to beat you.

It's so good.

Well, additional context here that There is no additional context.

The prostitute is saying this to the kid who hired her by accident.

The kid has down syndrome.

Yes.

I'm sorry, what?

This is why we would just watch this show and laugh our asses off.

This is totally divergent.

Tell me the name of this again.

The Secret Life of the American Teenager.

Apparently it had a longer run than I thought it did, but that was high comedy for one summer.

Because it was horrible.

Yeah.

Kind of kitsch or something.

Or just stupid.

Yeah.

I mean, it was.

You wonder.

You know, it was like all those.

It was like trying to be a.

Like a CW kind of drama, except it was like a few years later than all of those.

And you had these absurdist lines that didn't know they were absurdist.

Like a prostitute telling a Down syndrome young man, if you don't pay me, this guy's gonna beat you with a sack full of oranges.

And with my befuddlement.

We will end this week.

We'll be back next Tuesday with more.

Maybe more on somebody somewhere.

We might talk about the Penguin as a whole.

I think I'd like to.

If we don't next week, at some point, I think it's worth.

Let's chat about it.

Yeah.

All right.

Thanks, everyone, and talk to y'all later.