Speaker 1: Will you wait, miss.
Speaker 2: Exist Sis.
Speaker 3: Sis, Welcome back to midnight viewing and potentially the weirdest
Speaker 3: fucking episode we've ever done. There's no way to justify
Speaker 3: this episode, hping. It is neither horror nor anthology. It
Speaker 3: isn't genre related in any way. This is the whitest
Speaker 3: of white movies. As you pointed out just before we
Speaker 3: started recording, I don't know that we can come up
Speaker 3: with anything wider. I suppose we're recording it to tie
Speaker 3: in with the upcoming television series, the new adaptation of
Speaker 3: it being done by Tina Fey, and we're very much
Speaker 3: looking forward to that. But really, there is no reason
Speaker 3: at all to be watching the four season.
Speaker 4: I feel like all of this work that we've done, podcasting,
Speaker 4: all these episodes we've done together and different series, it's
Speaker 4: all led up to this point. So I'm excited.
Speaker 3: This is the culmination. Is that what you're saying?
Speaker 4: Absolutely, it's a culmination of our friendship fall?
Speaker 5: Really?
Speaker 3: Oh god, what he said? All right, here we go,
Speaker 3: this is the fourth seasons. Everybody, here's the apple.
Speaker 6: Trees did cheese, Here's to cheese.
Speaker 2: Red and laughter.
Speaker 6: And life itself.
Speaker 5: Friendship can be happiness and laughter jealousy and envy.
Speaker 4: She's wonderful.
Speaker 6: Can't even enjoy hating her? Who the hell needs that
Speaker 6: anger and disappointment.
Speaker 3: I fall in love with this man, and all of
Speaker 3: a sudden, in addition to him, I've got four constant companions.
Speaker 6: It all depends on the season.
Speaker 5: We owe the depth, breast, and height of this friendship
Speaker 5: to the world's most ancient emotions, fear and panic. Universal
Speaker 5: Pictures presents Alan and Carol Burnette in a story of
Speaker 5: friendships that grow and blossom, of friendships that change, Like
Speaker 5: the four seasons.
Speaker 3: You can make them fall over.
Speaker 6: You're pretty munich. If it worse, I don't believe it.
Speaker 6: At it again? Oh, you never stopped us till we're
Speaker 6: going to kill himself.
Speaker 3: Why don't you let your anger out once in a while.
Speaker 6: I'm not pain for this. This is your expense. These
Speaker 6: people are vicious, vicious and deal.
Speaker 2: Try this.
Speaker 3: Now that voice carries How come everyone says I'm paranoid?
Speaker 6: Is the Muhammad Ali of mental illness? You boys, don't
Speaker 6: pull on your ankle for a while. We'll be back
Speaker 6: here more more more?
Speaker 1: Is this a fun part?
Speaker 4: Are we having fun yet?
Speaker 2: Through?
Speaker 6: Winter? Spring? Summer?
Speaker 2: Oh? My god?
Speaker 4: The head.
Speaker 6: I'll catch up and fall now. Wonder what other people
Speaker 6: do on their vacations. Somehow they survive at all.
Speaker 5: Alan Alda, Carol Burnett, Len Carrio, Sandy Dennis, Rita Moreno,
Speaker 5: Bess Armstrong and Jack Weston. Friendship is like The Seasons, warm, cold, constant, changing, beautiful,
Speaker 5: The Four Seasons, Written and directed by Alan Alda.
Speaker 3: The Four Seasons released on April thirtieth, nineteen eighty one.
Speaker 3: That makes us how old?
Speaker 4: Yikes, that's pretty old.
Speaker 3: Let's geez, so I'm saying when the movie came out,
Speaker 3: my friend, oh.
Speaker 4: How old were we? We were eight years old.
Speaker 3: We were eight years old, nearly eight years old, and
Speaker 3: actually premiered. It premiered on the thirtieth, but it didn't
Speaker 3: get released until the twenty second. The movie is written
Speaker 3: and directed by Alan Alda, starring Alan Alda, Carol Burnett,
Speaker 3: Len Carrio, Sandy, Dennis or Rita Moreno, Jack Weston, and
Speaker 3: Bess Armstrong. That's everybody. I'd like to point out that
Speaker 3: the cinematographer on the film is Victor J. Kemper, who
Speaker 3: shot the movies Friends of Eddie Coyle and Dog Day
Speaker 3: Afternoon and Peewee's a big adventure and this HP. What
Speaker 3: was your first experience with this movie? Why are we
Speaker 3: talking about it?
Speaker 4: I don't know that I ever Actually this was on
Speaker 4: cable pretty heavily at that time. That was probably right
Speaker 4: around the time that we first got cable TV eighty
Speaker 4: eighty one, and I was far too young to care
Speaker 4: about the middle aged crises and happy high jinks of
Speaker 4: this group of group of friends. So I'm sure that
Speaker 4: I saw the trailer for it play endlessly at that time,
Speaker 4: but I don't to be fair, I don't think I
Speaker 4: actually really saw the movie itself until you and I
Speaker 4: had some sort of conversation maybe in the last year,
Speaker 4: where you might have made a joke about the four
Speaker 4: seasons and Alan and the sensitivity of it all, and
Speaker 4: I had a flashback to the trailer with Carol Burnett,
Speaker 4: and I watched it, and I'm obsessed with it now.
Speaker 3: I watched the movie on a loop as a kid.
Speaker 4: Did you really what did you make of it? As
Speaker 4: an eight year old?
Speaker 3: I was confused by a lot of it. I was
Speaker 3: worried that this is what adulthood had in store for me.
Speaker 3: It seemed like a cautionary tale at just these older
Speaker 3: white intellectuals with no problems, making up problems, just and
Speaker 3: doing it in like the most beautiful natural settings and
Speaker 3: not noticing the fucking forest for the trees. Now, having
Speaker 3: said that, as joking as I'm being, although I did
Speaker 3: actually feel that way. I maybe it's from an anthropological standpoint.
Speaker 3: The movie came out and we were eight, but I
Speaker 3: didn't see it till it was on cable, which is
Speaker 3: probably a year or two later. So we're talking maybe ten,
Speaker 3: ten or eleven years old. That's when I'm watching this
Speaker 3: movie over and over again, and I'm just I will
Speaker 3: say the movie did seem revolutionary in a way because
Speaker 3: I wasn't seeing anybody talking about relationships in any meaningful
Speaker 3: way like this. You certainly weren't getting it on network television.
Speaker 3: It didn't have the time nor the wherewithal to delve
Speaker 3: into the sexual politics of people like in their forties
Speaker 3: or fifty forties. I guess is these are just fucking
Speaker 3: baby boomers, right, and these are basically our parents. So
Speaker 3: it was interesting. It was like reading your parents diary
Speaker 3: in a way.
Speaker 4: So kind of it's interesting you say that, because it
Speaker 4: feels I just had a revelation that this was a
Speaker 4: precursor to a show like thirty something, which was obviously
Speaker 4: by the name you can tell it's not about forty
Speaker 4: something year olds, But that is a show that kind
Speaker 4: of paved the way for the.
Speaker 3: Notion of what they've entertainment.
Speaker 4: But in that sense, I think you're right. I think
Speaker 4: this was maybe a bit ahead of its time. Which
Speaker 4: the weird irony of that is that this did inspire
Speaker 4: a TV adaptation in nineteen eighty four. Were you did
Speaker 4: you know that?
Speaker 3: Yes? You did?
Speaker 4: Which didn't. The only one who came The only main
Speaker 4: actor who came back was Jack West, and we'll talk
Speaker 4: about his character. I think Alan Alda guest starred in
Speaker 4: the first episode, but he wasn't really involved. It was
Speaker 4: mostly a new cast and unfortunately I couldn't track down
Speaker 4: an episode to watch it to see if it was
Speaker 4: how it stacked up to the movie.
Speaker 3: Oh, you know, it was terrible, you know it was.
Speaker 4: It looked bad and I can't imagine it went in
Speaker 4: with the same earnest attitude that the movie had.
Speaker 3: But I did say earnest, my god shocked. Jim Varney
Speaker 3: wasn't in this movie.
Speaker 4: I did. However, I did take note that one of
Speaker 4: the other main characters. One of the main actors in
Speaker 4: the TV show was Alan Arbus, who we can't seem
Speaker 4: to get away from Father Malone. He's in everything we review,
Speaker 4: He's in Crossroads, He's in Taxi. What hasn't the Man done?
Speaker 3: Mash Yeah, we're not going to be reviewing that one.
Speaker 4: No, not at all, but yeah, no. I think Naval
Speaker 4: Gazing is an interesting wave because really, ultimately we're going
Speaker 4: to talk about this movie at length, but there's not
Speaker 4: a lot of action. This is a very episodic movie
Speaker 4: about these friends who gather for vacations once a season,
Speaker 4: but they're really just talking about their friendship, to talking
Speaker 4: about how much they love each other, how much they
Speaker 4: can't stand each other. They're arguing, they're making up, they're kissing,
Speaker 4: they're whatever. That's really that's basically the movie in a
Speaker 4: nutshell right there.
Speaker 3: Within a year or two, the Big Chill would come
Speaker 3: out and do exactly what this movie is trying to
Speaker 3: do in a massively enteraining way.
Speaker 4: I'm stunned that I didn't make that same connection, but
Speaker 4: you're absolutely right. That was another movie about these long friendships.
Speaker 4: They're looking back on their lives and with some regret
Speaker 4: and some whatever. Yeah, it's basically the theme of the
Speaker 4: Four Seasons, but writ large and with a little more panache,
Speaker 4: And it really hit the cultural zeitgeist in a way
Speaker 4: that the Four Seasons. I don't it was a success,
Speaker 4: but I don't think it really hit the bulls eye
Speaker 4: the way that The Big Chill did.
Speaker 3: See The Big Chill was, although the characters are upwardly
Speaker 3: mobile and mainly successful in their careers, were basically normal people,
Speaker 3: whereas this is just a bunch of New York intellectuals.
Speaker 3: This is basically three separate couples, all who think and
Speaker 3: talk and act like Alan Alda pretty much.
Speaker 4: Do you want to break down these couples though, Let's
Speaker 4: do it. Yeah, So we have Alan. This is like
Speaker 4: the dating game. So the first couple is Jack and Kate.
Speaker 4: They're played by Alan Alda and Carol Burnette. Carol Burnett
Speaker 4: is his wife in it. He is a lawyer and
Speaker 4: she is the editor of Fortune magazine. If you talk
Speaker 4: about intellectuals, I mean, you can't get more intellectuals than that,
Speaker 4: It's ridiculous. Then we have Danny and Claudia. Danny is
Speaker 4: played by Jack Weston. Claudia is played by Rita Moreno.
Speaker 4: She's playing Italian, which I thought she's playing Italian.
Speaker 3: She is her character Italian.
Speaker 4: She only says it like every other word. Basically, he
Speaker 4: is a dentist and she is his successful painter wife.
Speaker 4: She's a painter, although they don't make much of that.
Speaker 4: That's kind of dropped. Then the third couple is Nick
Speaker 4: and Annie. It's played by Len Carriw and Sandy Dennis.
Speaker 4: He is an insurance salesman who likes to brag that
Speaker 4: he's an estate planner, and she is his housewife who's
Speaker 4: scattered and not all that interesting is a character. Unfortunately,
Speaker 4: she doesn't really feature too much in this picture. To
Speaker 4: be honest, I think Sandy Dennis gets real short shrift
Speaker 4: in this because she's dormat for Nick. But so those
Speaker 4: are the three couples that we have going on all
Speaker 4: these adventures.
Speaker 3: So those are three couples. We're going to get four seasons.
Speaker 3: We're going to get four separate vacations that they're going
Speaker 3: to take together, So we can reasonably assume that they
Speaker 3: do this every year.
Speaker 4: I think. So it's at one point.
Speaker 3: Is this movie take place over the span of one year?
Speaker 3: Is this twenty year summer, winter fall for one year.
Speaker 4: It is because in certain seasons they make reference to
Speaker 4: the previous vacation. So yes, it does take place as
Speaker 4: far as I can tell, over the course of one
Speaker 4: year in these characters' lives and as far as their friendship.
Speaker 4: There's a scene where they talk about how they all met.
Speaker 4: It's a little unclear, but my sense is they've seven years.
Speaker 3: And then years. I was shocked watching the movie this
Speaker 3: time that they said, do you remember when we met?
Speaker 3: You came you were a client in my thing seven
Speaker 3: years ago. I remember the date, and I'm like, wait
Speaker 3: a minute, These middle aged people met each other half
Speaker 3: a decade ago. I thought they were like college friends.
Speaker 3: I thought they grew up together. The fact that they're
Speaker 3: as entwined in each other's lives as late in their
Speaker 3: lives as they are gave me so much fucking pause HP.
Speaker 4: But it makes sense because there's such an emphasis on
Speaker 4: friendship and how much they need each other that I'm
Speaker 4: not surprised that they would cling to each other that desperately,
Speaker 4: because like, at one point, it almost seems like they
Speaker 4: need their friendships more than they need their married partners,
Speaker 4: Like they fall over themselves They're always kissing and hugging
Speaker 4: each other. I'm not talking about the husbands and wives.
Speaker 4: I'm talking about Alan Alda is forever kissing an hugging,
Speaker 4: len carry you with ebulliance and happiness. But you raise
Speaker 4: a good point because it's seven years. It's not as
Speaker 4: if they could share that much of their lives. Let's
Speaker 4: put it this way. That's a very small percentage of
Speaker 4: their lives up to that point. If they're in their forties,
Speaker 4: that's not a lot of time spent together.
Speaker 3: So it's you and I have been friends for nearly
Speaker 3: fucking forty years. When's the last time I grabbed you
Speaker 3: in a hug and held you aloft? I can tell
Speaker 3: you never, never, never, but and I love you. You know that?
Speaker 4: Absolutely the thing of this these characters, they're so white,
Speaker 4: but they're really sensualists because everything is the best thing
Speaker 4: ever early. So it starts out in spring and they're
Speaker 4: going to a rented cabin in the woods somewhere, and
Speaker 4: the first night the husbands make supposed to be a
Speaker 4: gorgeous Chinese meal for the wives, and the food it
Speaker 4: comes out, I thought, honestly, most of the time they
Speaker 4: were stoned because everything is so good. Oh, I love this.
Speaker 4: And they're bellowing at each other all the time. I
Speaker 4: love you, Dennis, I love you Denny. Whatever. They everything,
Speaker 4: they're grabbing life by the balls, fa them alone. They
Speaker 4: every glass of wine is great. Alan Alda's forever making
Speaker 4: these like pompous toasts to their friendship and all this
Speaker 4: kind of stuff. So they're sensualists. They love life basically.
Speaker 3: And I don't know where to go with that. That's yeah,
Speaker 3: they certainly are, Okay, I know where to go with it.
Speaker 3: Over on the or Anthology podcast, Projection Booth, host Mike
Speaker 3: White has a particular disdain for cinematic portrayals of drunkenness.
Speaker 3: They just never get it right. It's always grating to
Speaker 3: him on a sub atomic level, as is forced frivolity
Speaker 3: is to me. I spent years in the trenches of
Speaker 3: art house movie theaters. I've heard all the forced laughter
Speaker 3: you can possibly imagine. And there's no worse forest laughter
Speaker 3: than than the kind found in the Four Seasons. Everything,
Speaker 3: as you said, nothing is just funny. It's the most
Speaker 3: hilarious head back of fine slapping you on the back, hirity,
Speaker 3: We're having fun.
Speaker 4: There's a scene where they're floating. This is during summer
Speaker 4: or spring. They're floating on a lake. They're all lounging.
Speaker 4: They're eating French bread, which they eat a lot of
Speaker 4: French bread in this movie. It's a little weird. And
Speaker 4: they're eating cheese and drinking wine and they're all just
Speaker 4: having a great time and out of nowhere, like I said,
Speaker 4: Alan all of his character. Jack gets up and says,
Speaker 4: I want to make a toast to friendship, to wine.
Speaker 4: I love you all, and then he sits back down.
Speaker 4: Then he gets up and he says, no, no, no, I
Speaker 4: want to create something memorable for this moment because it's
Speaker 4: so important to me. And then he finishes drinking his
Speaker 4: wine and he leaps into the lake fully clothed. This
Speaker 4: is the funniest thing in the world to every everyone
Speaker 4: else in the canoe. So funny that Len carry you
Speaker 4: decides he's going to jump into the lake. So they
Speaker 4: laugh all over again. Then Jack Weston jumps in the lake,
Speaker 4: and what do they do? They start laughing all over again.
Speaker 4: By the end of it, they're all in the lake,
Speaker 4: they're all laughing, they're all hugging each other, and they're
Speaker 4: all just it's like that It's the kind of moment
Speaker 4: in real life someone jumps in the lake. Maybe you
Speaker 4: laugh a little bit, but then you say, you're a
Speaker 4: dumb ass, get out of the lake. This goes on
Speaker 4: for five minutes of forest laughter that like, this is
Speaker 4: the funniest thing that they've done ever. And there's about
Speaker 4: five scenes like that in this whole picture.
Speaker 3: Half this movie's run time is forced laughter.
Speaker 4: His laughter. I really started, like, in my mind, I
Speaker 4: thought I had remembered a scene where they got stoned,
Speaker 4: like one of them had some weed on them and
Speaker 4: they got stoned and they were raiding a kitchen or something.
Speaker 4: I think I was misremembering that for another movie, maybe
Speaker 4: Indian Summer, which is also a good picture. But but no,
Speaker 4: they just love life and they just everything is funny.
Speaker 4: Everything is. It's passion. They're so passionate. They're as passionate
Speaker 4: as white people can get fatherm alone, which is very
Speaker 4: passionate apparently.
Speaker 3: And they're gonna go to all the white people's shit.
Speaker 3: They're gonna go. They're gonna go to the Virgin Islands,
Speaker 3: and they're gonna do it on a fucking rented sailboat.
Speaker 3: When they go, is it wintertime going up to the cabin.
Speaker 3: We're gonna go skiing, babe. Fall time, we're gonna go collegiate.
Speaker 3: We're gonna go play touch football and knock the shit
Speaker 3: out of each other. Springtime, of course, we're going to
Speaker 3: just row out into the middle of a lake and
Speaker 3: just we're just gonna float there and talk about poetry
Speaker 3: or something or other.
Speaker 4: Yeah, look, we can't forget. I think you mentioned that
Speaker 4: this was written and directed by Alan Oh. This is
Speaker 4: what he knew. This is a page out of his life.
Speaker 4: So it's not a surperfa White he is And this
Speaker 4: is very much like made reference to Robert Altman, Like,
Speaker 4: this is a little bit like a Robert Altman movie
Speaker 4: because there's a lot of scenes of them having conversations
Speaker 4: that overlap each other, and that's interesting. But really, the
Speaker 4: other touchstone I had of this and I'm not making
Speaker 4: a direct comparaily, I'm making a direct comparison, but I'm
Speaker 4: not suggesting it's inspired by or but this is a
Speaker 4: little like a Woody Allen movie without the sort of
Speaker 4: some of the charm that maybe Woody Allen would bring
Speaker 4: to something like this, the quirkiness of it. Joe, this
Speaker 4: is right, This is at no time during this movie
Speaker 4: do you forget that Alan Alda wrote it, because it's
Speaker 4: they all sound like him, right? You said that already
Speaker 4: all the characters sound like Alan, all including Allan al.
Speaker 3: He has managed to make the way he talks just
Speaker 3: different enough in each character's mouths. He's given them all
Speaker 3: a different kind of tick. And then of course the
Speaker 3: actors are bringing whatever they're bringing to it. But basically
Speaker 3: it just sounds like the different personalities of Allen. This
Speaker 3: is inside out Pixar's inside out Alan Alden.
Speaker 4: This is But having said that, though one thing I
Speaker 4: was struck by is I was watching this is. None
Speaker 4: of this is to say that the performances are bad.
Speaker 4: They're actually really good for the most part, because he's
Speaker 4: got good actors. And I have to say that. So
Speaker 4: Carol Burnett has a lot to do because she's Alan
Speaker 4: all his wife in the movie. But she whether it's
Speaker 4: just the times, but she reminded me of just about
Speaker 4: every female friend of my parents from around that time.
Speaker 4: Every house we would go over, we would hang out,
Speaker 4: and my parents would have their adult friends. She was
Speaker 4: exactly like those women that I remember, the same short haircut,
Speaker 4: the same kind of mousey looks or whatever, and the
Speaker 4: same sense of humor.
Speaker 3: She really needs, the attitude the I'm not going to
Speaker 3: take that, give me that ticket, fuck you cop like
Speaker 3: that friend.
Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely, So from that perspective, I actually thought it
Speaker 4: was kind of true to life, despite the fact that
Speaker 4: it's she's saying a lot of things that Alan Alda
Speaker 4: is telling her to say. But it did stylistically and visually.
Speaker 4: She definitely reminded me of a lot of my parents,
Speaker 4: the wives of the friends that we would go and
Speaker 4: hang out at their house.
Speaker 3: Over on the weekly roundup. Just this past one. As
Speaker 3: a matter of fact, I re reviewed Bednoms and Roomsticks
Speaker 3: from nineteen seventy one, ten years earlier than this film,
Speaker 3: starring Angela Lansbury. Now, in between those two time periods,
Speaker 3: Angela Lansbury would perform the part of Missus Lovett and
Speaker 3: Sweeney Todd on Broadway. Her co star and during that
Speaker 3: run is Lenn Carrio. In fact, he had just ended
Speaker 3: his run as Sweeney Todd when he made this movie HP.
Speaker 3: For the past forty years, I have been listening to
Speaker 3: Len Carrio performing that part on that soundtrack. I own
Speaker 3: it on vinyl, I own it on cassette tape. I
Speaker 3: owned it on CD and somehow had forgotten or never
Speaker 3: really made the connection that that guy singing all those
Speaker 3: years is this guy in this movie, and was kind
Speaker 3: of knocked out that it was him.
Speaker 4: And I got to tell you, he's very good. He is.
Speaker 4: There's no villain in this movie because they're all villain.
Speaker 4: He really is because it's his decision to divorce his
Speaker 4: wife Annie sets basically the main driving sort of inciting
Speaker 4: incident into action. So they get together during the spring
Speaker 4: and he confides Len Carrier's character Nick confides in Alan
Speaker 4: Alda's character Jack that he's not been happy with his
Speaker 4: wife for decades. They just ever celebrated that forever. They
Speaker 4: just had their twenty first wedding anniversary and that's what
Speaker 4: he says. They're out oraging for firewood, other white guy
Speaker 4: type thing to do.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, the whitest thing because Len Carrier or
Speaker 3: alan Alda has one of those canvas stacks that's two
Speaker 3: sticks and you hold it open and you drop a
Speaker 3: wood into it. It's like, boh, got this at ll Bean.
Speaker 4: So he confides to It's a really good scene because
Speaker 4: Lenn Carry is a really good actor.
Speaker 3: There and they have to walk and talk through a
Speaker 3: fucking forest. Nice job, Allan, Yeah, but you know you have.
Speaker 3: What he has to do is he feels like he
Speaker 3: finally has to divorce his wife. And Alan Alda, I'm
Speaker 3: just gonna call them by their actors, guy, because yes,
Speaker 3: come on.
Speaker 4: Now, So Alan Alda being Alan all this is why
Speaker 4: don't you guys try to work it out. You guys
Speaker 4: can talk it out, and but Len carry you just says, look,
Speaker 4: I've been trying for twenty years. She's not going to change.
Speaker 4: And to be fair, everything we know about this wife
Speaker 4: of his, Sandy Dennis, I wouldn't want to be married
Speaker 4: to her either. She seems boring, she seems dull. She
Speaker 4: takes her thing is she takes pictures of sliced vegetables.
Speaker 4: That's she's a housewife who doesn't really have a job.
Speaker 4: And the point that he makes is that she just
Speaker 4: she's so stable, she's inert, he says, because she's got
Speaker 4: no fire, there's no spark. She doesn't excite him. She
Speaker 4: never excited him. So while we have we should have
Speaker 4: sympathy for him that he deserves to be happy. He
Speaker 4: was lonely for the last twenty years. At the end
Speaker 4: of the day, the other couples feel betrayed by him
Speaker 4: divorcing his wife because they're a package deal, right, He's
Speaker 4: six couples. These three couples always go on a trip together.
Speaker 4: And what happens is the following trip, which is summertime.
Speaker 4: Now we get introduced to his new love interest, a
Speaker 4: much younger woman played by Bess Armstrong. She named Jinny.
Speaker 3: And I think that Bess Armstrong was like one of
Speaker 3: the most popular actresses in the world at this moment
Speaker 3: because she seemed to be in everything right on this
Speaker 3: time period.
Speaker 4: She did seem to be in an awful lot of movies.
Speaker 4: She was in this she was in High Road to
Speaker 4: China with Tom Selik. After the fact, she was in
Speaker 4: Barefoot in the Park with Richard what's.
Speaker 3: His name, Richard Thomas.
Speaker 4: Richard Thomas, Yes, thank you. She did seem to be
Speaker 4: on the come up, but then she kind of d
Speaker 4: just three D with Dennis Quaid. Absolutely, and but she's
Speaker 4: very charming. I think she's a very winning personality as
Speaker 4: an actress. Would I wonder myself where she went?
Speaker 3: Well, folks younger than us will answer that question immediately
Speaker 3: and let us know that it was my so called life.
Speaker 3: She's the mom in that.
Speaker 4: Oh okay, there you go. But she sort of went
Speaker 4: away and then she was in a movie that actually
Speaker 4: I really liked a lot called Diamond Men. Have you
Speaker 4: ever seen it?
Speaker 3: I have.
Speaker 4: She it's a fantastic little I mean this little mini
Speaker 4: review anyone who's out there. It's got Robert Forrester. People
Speaker 4: know him from Jackie Brown that was his big comeback role.
Speaker 4: But she's in it. One of the Wallbergs, Donnie Wahlberg
Speaker 4: is in it, but he's actually pretty good.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's the one that can act.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So anyway, she that was what I saw the first
Speaker 4: thing I saw her in in Forever, because I did,
Speaker 4: I'm not gonna watch, but she's very good in this.
Speaker 4: So she has she's the younger woman that kind of
Speaker 4: comes in to replace Annie Nick's wife. And again, like
Speaker 4: I said, that sets everything in motion because from that
Speaker 4: point on, she's now part of the deal with this guy,
Speaker 4: and everybody sort of not only do they resent the
Speaker 4: fact that this guy's divorced his wife. They don't think
Speaker 4: that's fair, but they're all a little bit jealous of
Speaker 4: Jinny of Bess Armstrong because she's beautiful, she's young, she's
Speaker 4: half their age for goodness sake. So like I said,
Speaker 4: she's gorgeous in this she's really.
Speaker 3: Gorgeous and she's sweet. That's the other problem that they're
Speaker 3: grappling with. They want to hate her more than anything,
Speaker 3: just for what she represents. But as a person, she's
Speaker 3: actually pretty decent.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it would be easy if she was a bubble
Speaker 4: headed nafe, but she's actually very nice. She's very fair.
Speaker 4: She tries to be a good person and a good
Speaker 4: friend to these people.
Speaker 3: And yeah, and in that regard, I applaud alan Alda
Speaker 3: for going that route and making her more complex than
Speaker 3: just he went and got himself a young dummy, and
Speaker 3: now I often to deal with a dummy.
Speaker 4: Well, he makes the other couples look really bad because
Speaker 4: they're always making little comments, not even behind her back
Speaker 4: to the prickery man, right to her face, and he
Speaker 4: at the same time he the characters take themselves to
Speaker 4: task like why do we say that? Because I think
Speaker 4: every just about every other person in the cast says
Speaker 4: or does something really terrible to her through the course
Speaker 4: of this movie, and almost immediately they feel terrible about
Speaker 4: it because she is such a nice person. This character
Speaker 4: ginny well.
Speaker 3: Dramatically construction wise, it's great because here's here, We've got
Speaker 3: this character who represents everything that lost in their lives,
Speaker 3: and in some cases it is spurring jealousy in amongst them.
Speaker 3: That's the alan all. This character thing isn't even so
Speaker 3: much like he wants to sleep with young best Armstrong.
Speaker 3: It's that he wants to be Len Carrio. He wants
Speaker 3: to be living this care free lifestyle and not part
Speaker 3: of the unit anymore.
Speaker 4: And his wife, Carol Burnette, takes him the task.
Speaker 3: She notices it immediately.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And there's a scene with them on the boat
Speaker 4: where she basically says, look, I get it. Your fantasy
Speaker 4: is to be worshiped by a much younger woman. It's okay,
Speaker 4: have your fantasy. But he he gets upset, and one
Speaker 4: of the things that she is annoyed by this character
Speaker 4: is that he won't ever let himself get angry. So
Speaker 4: they're having this discussion where he should be his ire
Speaker 4: should be raised, but because he's this buttoned down white guy,
Speaker 4: he won't let himself get upset and be fiery, and
Speaker 4: that really frustrates her. But through that scene she he's
Speaker 4: describing the fact that she's younger, and how she notices
Speaker 4: that Alan Alda's character is sucking his stomach in and
Speaker 4: he's combing his hair and he's shaving. I swear to
Speaker 4: you fogg them alone. There's like a tear in Carol
Speaker 4: Burnette's eye when she's saying this, because she's a little
Speaker 4: bit sad that she's not the one inspiring all of this,
Speaker 4: all these behavioral changes. I thought that was really kind
Speaker 4: of marvelous.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, ultimately I'm going to bag on this movie,
Speaker 3: but not because of the performances at all, and not
Speaker 3: because of the some of the dramatic scenarios that the
Speaker 3: movie is able to present. Some of these are tough
Speaker 3: questions that needed to be asked amongst couples at this time.
Speaker 3: Everyone has to eventually examine their own relationships and everything.
Speaker 3: And it may have been revolutionary at the time, at least,
Speaker 3: like I said, it felt to me it was when
Speaker 3: I was ten. What the fuck did I know then?
Speaker 3: But going back now, it's, yeah, we get it. We
Speaker 3: all know this, like you can all should have figured
Speaker 3: this shit out before they got married.
Speaker 4: But at the same time, I don't know, we're going
Speaker 4: to I continue, like you said, to knock this movie
Speaker 4: pretty hard. I think it's mostly because of the foibles
Speaker 4: of the characters. It's the little quirks and the little
Speaker 4: bits of humor that all the injects, not always successfully.
Speaker 4: But I do agree with you that the fact that
Speaker 4: he's having Tom ask these questions and look at life
Speaker 4: from these different perspectives is very commendable because there weren't
Speaker 4: a lot of look I told you offline that I
Speaker 4: watched a ciscl and Ebert review of the Four Sees
Speaker 4: from that time, and they both really enjoyed it so
Speaker 4: and they raised the same kinds of points that we are.
Speaker 4: That it's kind of refreshing a to have a movie
Speaker 4: that is is adult in nature and execution, and b
Speaker 4: have it not be have it delve into some really
Speaker 4: interesting questions about life and about relates. I have to
Speaker 4: tip my cap to Alan Alder for doing that. As
Speaker 4: kind of stereotypically sensitive and white as it is, I
Speaker 4: still kind of appreciate it on that level.
Speaker 3: He was asking pertinent questions about his generation and using
Speaker 3: his cloud to get a movie made. A movie that
Speaker 3: couldn't We always say, oh, that movie couldn't be made
Speaker 3: now because of some sort of subject matter. But here's
Speaker 3: a movie you couldn't make now, because no one's going
Speaker 3: to make a movie about naval gazing white people trapesing
Speaker 3: around the fucking globe and put it out theatrically.
Speaker 4: But the Netflix thing is interesting, though.
Speaker 3: Right, And I think all of and as I said,
Speaker 3: there's a lot of good here in this movie, and
Speaker 3: I think there's a lot to be mined out of
Speaker 3: the good parts of it, and I'm curious to know
Speaker 3: what those things are. I have nothing but faith in
Speaker 3: the team that's mounting the television version. It's just that
Speaker 3: this one sometimes makes me want to stab myself in
Speaker 3: the skull before we go any further. But we're not
Speaker 3: probably going to talk about her anymore. Sandy Dennis, because
Speaker 3: she's the's She only appears in one season, Springtime, before
Speaker 3: she divorced by Lynn Carrio. She's a decade before this movie.
Speaker 3: A little more than a decade before this movie. In
Speaker 3: nineteen sixty eight, start in one of my favorite movies
Speaker 3: of all time called Sweet November with Anthony Newley. It
Speaker 3: was eventually remade with Keanu Reeves and Michael Rosenbaum. That's
Speaker 3: not a good movie. Go watch the one from nineteen
Speaker 3: sixty eight. It's fucking heartbreaking and she is so good
Speaker 3: in it, the original manic Pixie dream girl. So that's
Speaker 3: why anyway, as so, I just want to throw it
Speaker 3: out of my own little mini review there Go Wants
Speaker 3: Sweet November.
Speaker 4: Everybody, she has the most thankless I already said this
Speaker 4: pretty much, but she has the most thankless part because
Speaker 4: her character is for me, she's one of the most
Speaker 4: unlikable out of all of them because there's just nothing
Speaker 4: she just and this is why Lenn Carrie you wanted
Speaker 4: to divorce her in the first place. She's just kind
Speaker 4: of not a very exciting person, not a very interesting person.
Speaker 4: We do see her a little bit in Fall. It's
Speaker 4: true because in Fall we're skipping all over the place.
Speaker 4: But in Fall, the same group of couples they go
Speaker 4: to visit well, first they visit their daughter, their daughters
Speaker 4: at college. I don't know what college. But when they
Speaker 4: get there, I think at this point Ginny has been
Speaker 4: I don't I think she's actually married to Let carry
Speaker 4: you now. But Sandy Dennis's characters, they're also it's parents
Speaker 4: weekend at this college, so there's a little bit of
Speaker 4: an interesting confrontation between the two of them, and then
Speaker 4: you find out that the other women, the other wives,
Speaker 4: have not been keeping up contact with her just because
Speaker 4: she's kind of not she's not part of the group anymore.
Speaker 4: And it's an interesting scene because she basically calls them
Speaker 4: out and says, look, I feel like you guys have
Speaker 4: left me. You've left me out to dry, like I'm
Speaker 4: just I'm history now, and they all feel bad about that,
Speaker 4: and you find out a little bit more about what
Speaker 4: she's been up. It's really sad because she the thing
Speaker 4: everybody's worried about most is when they get this divorce.
Speaker 4: They're not wororried about him because he's like a womanizer
Speaker 4: and they don't really care much about that part of it.
Speaker 4: But she's the one who will be more affected by
Speaker 4: the divorce. It's not a divorce that she wanted or
Speaker 4: asked for, so she's left to pick up the pieces
Speaker 4: of her life. And you just by her talking, you
Speaker 4: find out like she she has a pet snake for
Speaker 4: some reason, because just a set of lost in life
Speaker 4: and she's trying to figure herself out again. She's making
Speaker 4: a plan to go to Czechoslovakia because she's never wanted
Speaker 4: to go to Czechoslovakia, which is weird. But I guess
Speaker 4: anybody who's been confronted with a life change dramatic like this,
Speaker 4: I guess it makes you do funny things. But it
Speaker 4: is a thankless part. And I suppose she does the
Speaker 4: best with what she could with it, but it doesn't
Speaker 4: really engender much interest from me anyway.
Speaker 3: I do feel bad for her, but I also know
Speaker 3: that she spent three years photographing vegetables with no plan
Speaker 3: on doing anything with it. Yeah, so, and had finally
Speaker 3: come up with the idea of pairing the vegetable.
Speaker 4: And we're supposed to not like, let carry you, because
Speaker 4: we do find out because when he's had this conversation
Speaker 4: all around all the time, when yeah, Alan always like
Speaker 4: you got somebody in the wings, don't.
Speaker 3: You, He's like, oh, I swear, I swear I don't
Speaker 3: have anyone in the wings, and they're just like, yeah, okay,
Speaker 3: sure pal.
Speaker 4: But then you find out that Danny the dentist found
Speaker 4: out because the guy was under sedation at his dentist office,
Speaker 4: so he told them these things while he was under
Speaker 4: the influence of the laughing gas, which is kind of funny, but.
Speaker 3: I would like to have seen that scene. Actually.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and Jack Weston is really the comic relief of
Speaker 4: this whole picture, I think there because, yeah, he's the
Speaker 4: he's sort of the bumbler. He's this sort of anyone who, well,
Speaker 4: we've all seen Jack Weston. Of course, he was in
Speaker 4: Wait Until Dark, which we covered in Cable Box Theater.
Speaker 4: Was Cable Box Theater, was it not?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Of course.
Speaker 4: Okay, he is a like I said, he's a dentist.
Speaker 4: But his character quirk is that he's a hypochondria who.
Speaker 4: He's the oldest one of the bunch, and as he
Speaker 4: gets older he feels his mortality more keenly. So he's
Speaker 4: always talking about he doesn't want to do this, he's
Speaker 4: afraid he gets sunburned, and he's complaining and all this
Speaker 4: kind of stuff. And he's also the one and I
Speaker 4: think every friend group maybe has someone like this who's
Speaker 4: endlessly keeping track of how much everyone owes in terms of, Okay,
Speaker 4: we're going out to dinner, you only thirteen dollars, you
Speaker 4: only twenty five, you only whatever. And they always give
Speaker 4: him a hard time because of that role that he's
Speaker 4: imposed on himself.
Speaker 3: That would be annoying if they were friends for life,
Speaker 3: the fact now that they've only been friends for seven
Speaker 3: years and they're these aren't like I guess they're wealthy
Speaker 3: enough in all, but shelling out a lot of fucking
Speaker 3: money on these trips, Matt.
Speaker 4: And they're fucking up a lot of stuff too. They're
Speaker 4: breaking a lot of things on there.
Speaker 3: They fucking But they destroy the front of that boat.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they destroy the boat because the anchor gets stuck
Speaker 4: and len carry you fancies himself a sailor, and he
Speaker 4: tries to back the boat out, but it snaps the
Speaker 4: railing off the front of it. And then they get
Speaker 4: beached on a sandbar and they have to sit there
Speaker 4: with the boat tilted at a weird angle.
Speaker 3: Then they shout, all in that boat the sandovar, Yeah
Speaker 3: to forty nine foot y'all from the oof of Fox collection.
Speaker 3: It was created in nineteen fifty two.
Speaker 4: Those are some good notes. You got their bottom alone.
Speaker 3: I go deep when it comes to nauticle.
Speaker 4: But in every single vacation destination, I think maybe summer
Speaker 4: might be the one exception. I don't remember what they
Speaker 4: did in summertime to destroy whatever they've got going on.
Speaker 4: I was, oh, that was summertime. Oh, that's right, that
Speaker 4: the boat was. I'm thinking of autumn. I'm thinking of fall.
Speaker 3: Sorry, while they demolished my will to live by talking
Speaker 3: to their daughters at their uptight Wesleyan stand in universities.
Speaker 4: Both daughters, by the way, were alan Alda's actual daughters. Yep,
Speaker 4: but they're not playing sisters there actually childhood friends. One
Speaker 4: of them is alan Alda's daughter in the movie. The
Speaker 4: other one is Lenn Carru's daughter who has been She's
Speaker 4: depressed because of the divorce and nobody much likes her anymore.
Speaker 4: She's morose. She talks about the only friend she had
Speaker 4: tried to commit suicide, and she's miserable.
Speaker 3: And she's just like her dad, like this not so
Speaker 3: failed threat. I'm getting ready to do myself in here, pops.
Speaker 3: This is where it becomes clear that Len Carrio is
Speaker 3: actually the villain of the piece, at least alan Alda
Speaker 3: has decided he is now because his decision has not
Speaker 3: only fractured their friend group, but he's decimated his daughter's
Speaker 3: future potential.
Speaker 4: True, but as the seasons progress, and by the way,
Speaker 4: his reaction to her being Morou's whether or not she's
Speaker 4: being overly dramatic.
Speaker 3: She's clearly depressed. Look at the way she's dressed. For
Speaker 3: God's sake. His response is to do that. I know
Speaker 3: you're gonna smile in there, that smile Like I wanted
Speaker 3: to snab him so badly. I wanted to put him
Speaker 3: in a chair, cut his throat, drop him down, and
Speaker 3: cook him into a pie.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he's not likable. But to be fair, though, what
Speaker 4: I was going to say was like, it's all of
Speaker 4: the ire isn't exclusively directed at Lenn carry you, because
Speaker 4: as the seasons progress, they all get annoyed at everybody else,
Speaker 4: particularly this guy, Danny Jack Weston's character, because his obsession
Speaker 4: with all these negative the death and his ailments and
Speaker 4: the fact that he has to be the being counter
Speaker 4: for every aspect of their vacation greets on them. And
Speaker 4: then Alan Aldack accuses him of being paranoid, which he is,
Speaker 4: but that just makes him more paranoid because now he
Speaker 4: thinks that everybody thinks he's paranoid. So it's and it's
Speaker 4: a mystery to me how someone like him gets married
Speaker 4: to somebody like Rita Moreno, which was a little odd
Speaker 4: because look, Rita Moreno was fifty years old when she
Speaker 4: made this, but she could pass for someone fifteen years younger.
Speaker 3: Oh easy, I had no idea. She looks fantastic, and
Speaker 3: she's Italian.
Speaker 4: Which she's not. We all know that she's actually Puerto Rican.
Speaker 4: That graded on me too because she's not. But because
Speaker 4: one of her character traits is that she says things
Speaker 4: without thinking about them, like hurtful things. She will say
Speaker 4: something and then someone will be very hurt by it,
Speaker 4: and then when people say, well, why did you say
Speaker 4: that to her, her defense is well, I'm Italian, which
Speaker 4: eventually leads to Jack Weston doing a classic bellowing scene
Speaker 4: where they're in a hotel room and he opens up
Speaker 4: the window and says, my wife's Italian. Do you hear that?
Speaker 4: Now you don't have to ever say that you're Italian again,
Speaker 4: and he storms off. It's really it's kind of her
Speaker 4: defining character trait, but she does her mormans despite that,
Speaker 4: is actually really soulful in a lot of ways. So
Speaker 4: there's a moment where during the summer vignette Let's call it,
Speaker 4: where Len Carry You and Bess Armstrong have really been
Speaker 4: making things awkward. First of all, they're fucking all night
Speaker 4: keeping every loudly.
Speaker 3: Loudly about that HP. If I'd known you for any
Speaker 3: amount of time and you did that, the next day,
Speaker 3: you and I would have words.
Speaker 4: It was so I didn't understand it because they're all
Speaker 4: kind of tiptoeing around it, but like.
Speaker 3: And like making little tittery jokes about it. It's like, hey,
Speaker 3: can you two not fuck so loud? We're all here right.
Speaker 4: Pretty much, but so that's they're fucking all the time.
Speaker 4: At one point they go skinny dipping and playing view
Speaker 4: of everybody, and len Carryu is giving her a little
Speaker 4: gift every day of the vacation, which is driving most
Speaker 4: of them nuts. But they have this conversation where Rita
Speaker 4: Moreno's character actually is the only one to say, you
Speaker 4: know what, I'd kind of like to be them. I'm
Speaker 4: kind of jealous of that what they have. She's the
Speaker 4: only one who says, because they've all been married for
Speaker 4: twenty years at this point, they've.
Speaker 3: All and follow out of love is awesome. So yeah,
Speaker 3: she gets it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well knows. She's recognizing the fact that after you've
Speaker 4: been married to someone for ten, fifteen, twenty years, some
Speaker 4: of the passion, if not a lot of the passion
Speaker 4: has probably gone out. It's just it's inevitable. You've been
Speaker 4: waking up next to this person for twenty years. So
Speaker 4: for her to say I kind of like to have
Speaker 4: what they're having, it was kind of like a nice,
Speaker 4: wistful moment of lucidity from the character.
Speaker 3: I agree, it's that's one of my favorite moments. You know,
Speaker 3: it's not one of my favorite moments of any movie ever.
Speaker 4: The Valdi, Well, that's the big hook of this movie, right.
Speaker 3: Isn't it? Isn't it? Though? I can't stand Antonio Vivaldi.
Speaker 3: It's like the Musac of classical music. This is like
Speaker 3: the most accessible barring tunes ever. It's all fucking strings
Speaker 3: and all horns. Man, I just I cannot stand it.
Speaker 3: Well what I don't?
Speaker 4: I agree with you to a point. But what makes
Speaker 4: it worse in this case is that the transition to
Speaker 4: every new season is depicted by or it's introduced by
Speaker 4: a montage. So if it's summer, it's a lot of
Speaker 4: images of flowers, sunshine, lakes and whatever, which, but loudly
Speaker 4: soundtracked by the Vivaldi piece that matches that season. But
Speaker 4: it happens in if this were a play, like a
Speaker 4: theatrical play, you would understand it because they need that
Speaker 4: time to strike the set, change costumes, get ready. But
Speaker 4: this to me is like time wasted. I get it.
Speaker 4: We transitioned into winter. You don't have to show frozen
Speaker 4: leaves or ice or icicles hanging off of a snowy roof.
Speaker 4: That grated on me more than the music in Isolation.
Speaker 3: HP. Do you remember Christopher film The Big Picture?
Speaker 4: I well not, yes, in the broad Strokes, but it's
Speaker 4: been many years, and so.
Speaker 3: Before Waiting for Guffman and before the improv everything. Yeah,
Speaker 3: he wrote and directed a movie about a Kevin Bacon
Speaker 3: stars as a young film school student who has graduated
Speaker 3: and made his first short film and he's attracted studio
Speaker 3: interest and he's trying to get a movie made. It's
Speaker 3: all about the foibles of trying to get that movie
Speaker 3: made and all the perversions of his original intention, and
Speaker 3: he replaces his friends on the crew and it becomes
Speaker 3: a movie about this, that and the other. It's really,
Speaker 3: really a great film, and I encourage everyone to see it,
Speaker 3: if only because Jennifer Jason Lee is so fucking adorable
Speaker 3: at the end, but the movie, he's trying to make
Speaker 3: seems to me to be The Four Seasons. If you
Speaker 3: watch the movie, you'll see what I mean. It's about
Speaker 3: three middle aged people in a snowy cabin working out
Speaker 3: their relationships. And it's two guys and a girl, so
Speaker 3: they've had interesting couplings over the year, and like it's
Speaker 3: the Four it's the Four Seasons. And thank god the
Speaker 3: studio was trying to turn that into Abe and the Babe,
Speaker 3: where Abe Lincoln and they rules team up.
Speaker 4: I don't remember that. That's awesome. Yeah, look, I don't know.
Speaker 4: The thing of it is, I've watched this movie probably
Speaker 4: about three or four times over this past weekend, kind
Speaker 4: of once to just take notes and a few times
Speaker 4: just to reaquaint myself with the rhythms of it and everything.
Speaker 4: And the weird thing is, the more I watch it,
Speaker 4: the more i'm I kind of dig it. It's like
Speaker 4: a hangout movie to me. Now, like they're they're very
Speaker 4: low stakes. I mean beyond the fact that we're talking divorce,
Speaker 4: and that's a terrible thing, but it's a low stakes movie.
Speaker 4: It's the actors are good enough that they can sell
Speaker 4: the fact that they're friends with each other. It's over
Speaker 4: the top there. There's a lot of shrieky laughter and
Speaker 4: over the top affection for each other and whatnot. But
Speaker 4: I don't know. The funny thing happened on the way
Speaker 4: to this podcast is I was a little armed by
Speaker 4: it bottom alone.
Speaker 3: That's interesting. It was not the exact opposite happened. Everything
Speaker 3: I thought I liked about the movie turned out to
Speaker 3: be a grading nightmare, and I'm now able to appreciate
Speaker 3: basically the performances. I appreciate the movie as a kind
Speaker 3: of retro time capsule of nineteen eighty one and what
Speaker 3: white people were up to. And I will say this,
Speaker 3: what I did notice this time around is that as
Speaker 3: kind of elitist intelligentsia literati, as much of that group
Speaker 3: as we're being shown, what I noticed is everything that
Speaker 3: they were like eating and kind of obsessed with would
Speaker 3: eventually settle in with the rest of America. So, yeah,
Speaker 3: they're making this like making this Chinese dish to begin,
Speaker 3: and yes, they are going crazy for it. I agree, Oh,
Speaker 3: this is the greatest thing ever. But you got to
Speaker 3: remember in nineteen eighty one, like, where were you getting
Speaker 3: anything other than regular old American food other than these
Speaker 3: people who are these defeat snobs, who you wouldn't want
Speaker 3: to piss on if they were on fire. But at
Speaker 3: least they were ahead of the curve culturally when it
Speaker 3: comes to mixing and mingling and fusion.
Speaker 4: They're so white that when check questioned is cooking this meal,
Speaker 4: this Chinese meal, his apron is a reproduction of the
Speaker 4: New York Times Living section. It's like a recipe printed all.
Speaker 3: Wearing the three men in the kitchen, and they all
Speaker 3: have the individual aprons.
Speaker 4: What's up which? But if you think about it, though,
Speaker 4: that's actually that's also something that's a little enlightened about.
Speaker 4: It is the men are in the kitchen cooking this
Speaker 4: epicurean delight while the women are doing what would maybe
Speaker 4: traditionally at that point been a man's thing, which is
Speaker 4: they're all chewing the fat, talking about life or whatever
Speaker 4: while the men are slaving away in the kitchen. That's
Speaker 4: but at the same time they are defeat snobs, to
Speaker 4: your point, so I would expect nothing less. And in fact,
Speaker 4: when they then transitioned to this idyllic boat scene before
Speaker 4: they all jump into the lake, what are they talking about?
Speaker 4: They're the thing we're introduced them to talk about. What
Speaker 4: we have for our next meal. Oh, let's make an
Speaker 4: Indian meal. Let's oh no, how about something Hesian? No, no, no,
Speaker 4: I have it chicken Florentine on it. They're so into
Speaker 4: the food, and I think you're right. I think this
Speaker 4: was sort of presaging that that that sort of idea
Speaker 4: of the gourmet not really a fad, but gourmet food
Speaker 4: became a big deal in America. It kind of made
Speaker 4: its way from the elitist sort of New York dilettants
Speaker 4: and eventually became, like you would the cookbooks were a
Speaker 4: big deal at the time. We don't really see cookbooks anymore,
Speaker 4: but that was cookbooks were like best sellers in the eighties, right,
Speaker 4: because everyone wanted to have a unique gourmet. Well, this
Speaker 4: was kind of an early look at that kind of cool.
Speaker 3: Four years after this, Jed Nelson would go sushi. When
Speaker 3: confronted with a bento box of sushi that Molly Ringwalld
Speaker 3: is eating. That is how foreign the idea of sushi was.
Speaker 3: He didn't even know what it was.
Speaker 4: You can get sushi at the mall now and in
Speaker 4: the breakfast club. It was considered like, oh my god,
Speaker 4: she's so she's so upper crust she brought a sushi
Speaker 4: dish to her detention.
Speaker 3: Also, can you imagine anything more disgusting? Can I eat?
Speaker 3: I don't know, Guva du tro? You kidding me? That's
Speaker 3: all I want to eat? Motherfucker.
Speaker 4: So I guess what I'm kind of getting at is
Speaker 4: there there's This movie isn't for everyone, that much is clear, But.
Speaker 3: This movie for HB Nostalt people like us.
Speaker 4: Well, I don't know, because I think anyone who might
Speaker 4: have been a contemporary of Alan Alda and the people
Speaker 4: in this movie either dead or they're just old. I
Speaker 4: don't think it's for them because they've aged passed where
Speaker 4: this is revolutionary. I honestly, well, it's for somebody because
Speaker 4: Tina Fay saw enough in this that she decided to
Speaker 4: make a Netflix mini series based off of this idea.
Speaker 4: So it's for somebody. It didn't just vanish into thin air,
Speaker 4: so Tina Face saw it and thought it was worth it.
Speaker 3: So that just makes me think Tina Fay saw this
Speaker 3: as a youth and then remember it later and when
Speaker 3: I think we could do better than that.
Speaker 4: I so, I assume you watched the trailer for it.
Speaker 3: I have not.
Speaker 4: You have not? Okay, Well, then I won't. I will
Speaker 4: say nothing more, but yeah.
Speaker 3: Oh go ahead, noting a fucking podcast for that reason.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, okay, I just didn't want to poison your thinking.
Speaker 4: I'm I'm always going to be optimistic because I think
Speaker 4: she's a really good writer and Steve Carell. The cast
Speaker 4: looks great, right, Steve Carell, Coleman Domingo, isn't it is
Speaker 4: that his name? And Will Fourte, which is totally bonkers
Speaker 4: as far as I'm concerned, because he's a weird guy
Speaker 4: at least that's who he portrayed on SNL a is.
Speaker 4: But first of all, this is going to be a
Speaker 4: mini series. Like it was enough that all four seasons
Speaker 4: were covered in a ninety minute movie and that was enough.
Speaker 4: I'm questioning how much it needed to be expanded upon
Speaker 4: to make this a mini series. First of all, that's
Speaker 4: not how many episodes. I want to say four maybe
Speaker 4: four one for each season, but maybe six our each
Speaker 4: I gotta look this up now, eight part eight eight?
Speaker 3: Oh my, two episodes per season? Maybe we get two.
Speaker 4: Years seems a little ambitious. For lack of a better phrase,
Speaker 4: I'm down it might lean a little bit heavy into
Speaker 4: the slapstick, but I don't know. I'm not convinced. It
Speaker 4: seems like maybe it's a it's too little to cover
Speaker 4: over eight episodes, but but I could be wrong. I
Speaker 4: think everybody involved knows what they're doing. But anyway, I
Speaker 4: guess ultimately the point is you asked the question, who
Speaker 4: is this for? Short story long, I don't know who
Speaker 4: the fuck this is for anymore. I would not have
Speaker 4: even thought to watch it again if it weren't for
Speaker 4: you making some kind of offhand comment about it and
Speaker 4: me going, I remember that movie. Holy shit? Was that
Speaker 4: a like awful and sensitive and earnest as I remember it?
Speaker 4: And yes it is. But despite that, personally I was
Speaker 4: a bit charmed by it, but you had the opposite reactions,
Speaker 4: so I don't know.
Speaker 3: There are charms to be had there. But overall, it's
Speaker 3: just as a curiosity I can appreciate. I can recommend
Speaker 3: it as a curiosity. I don't know it that I would.
Speaker 3: I would recommend it as anything, but because there is
Speaker 3: no story going on here. It's just a bunch of
Speaker 3: middle aged white people examining their lives.
Speaker 4: Good for you, guys, But as we already said, there
Speaker 4: weren't a lot of pictures or movies certainly not TV
Speaker 4: shows that went into that area or examined the lives
Speaker 4: of these people. Put aside the fact that, yeah, these
Speaker 4: are white people, affluent white people from New York.
Speaker 3: There weren't a lot of stuff films that were popular
Speaker 3: at this time either. But why do you have to
Speaker 3: go there?
Speaker 4: Why do you have to go there? Applaud his effort Alan,
Speaker 4: all his efforts to get the same look. He wrote it,
Speaker 4: he directed it, and he started it. That's pretty cool, look, man.
Speaker 3: I can appreciate what do you appreciate about this movie?
Speaker 3: But I don't know that I could tell anyone else
Speaker 3: to go watch this movie thinking they would have that
Speaker 3: same experience. I don't know that anyone else there's looking
Speaker 3: for the Alan Alda earnestness fucking extravaganza that is the
Speaker 3: Four Seasons. If that is your jam, well then jump
Speaker 3: on in. The Alda is fine.
Speaker 4: I think if you go into this thinking to yourself,
Speaker 4: all this is going to be so bad, It's good.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna laugh at all these silly motherfuckers, you probably
Speaker 4: will get out of it exactly what you put into it.
Speaker 4: In that sense, and there's a lot to laugh at here.
Speaker 4: This is dated. The fashions are dated, the attitudes are dated,
Speaker 4: the music is dated, the cinematography is dated. For Yeah,
Speaker 4: but I don't know that there's, Like I said, there's
Speaker 4: an earnest this to the proceedings that it kind of
Speaker 4: kept it for me from shading all the way into
Speaker 4: outright camp. This isn't like The Room with Tommy Wiseu,
Speaker 4: where he was like an alien who didn't understand basic
Speaker 4: human emotion or how to make a watchable movie. This
Speaker 4: is somebody who had a handle on the technical aspects
Speaker 4: of movie making and wrote a good for its time script.
Speaker 4: It has some interesting things to say about relationships and
Speaker 4: life and love during period and maybe even applicable somewhat
Speaker 4: to modern audience. We'll see what the Netflix series. I
Speaker 4: don't know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm definitely gonna recommend everyone wats the Netflix series
Speaker 3: and see this if you and have nothing to do
Speaker 3: and it's a Sunday, very narrow Recommendation's the only way
Speaker 3: I could recommend them for is if you have nothing
Speaker 3: to do and it happens to be Sunday. Well, all right,
Speaker 3: that's gonna wrap this one up. This is just a
Speaker 3: one off. I don't know, we're gonna be doing this
Speaker 3: one again, HB. Where people can find you? Where? HB?
Speaker 3: Where can people find you? If they're looking for you?
Speaker 4: Well, when I'm not thinking about my own mortality, you
Speaker 4: can find me elsewhere. On the weirding Way Network, I
Speaker 4: co host the Night Mister Walters Taxi podcast alongside my
Speaker 4: erstwhile co host Father Malone. Over here, I host the
Speaker 4: Noise Junkies music podcast. That's been fun to do. Check
Speaker 4: that out if you like music. I'm an occasional guest
Speaker 4: on the Culture Cast with Christashi and I also have
Speaker 4: a band camp site. It's Hpissickplace dot bandcamp dot com.
Speaker 4: That's it. That's where you can find And how about
Speaker 4: you Father Alone.
Speaker 3: I go to a Patreon dot com slash Father Alone
Speaker 3: episodes early and commercial free, and other series like Cable
Speaker 3: Box Theater that HB and I do. As for everything else,
Speaker 3: I don't know. Just weirding Way Media. That's where all
Speaker 3: the stuff is. I guess just say something ernest here
Speaker 3: at the end, something pithy.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 3: I'll just drop something in basically anything from Alan Older.
Speaker 6: This isn't a war, it's a murder.
Speaker 4: This is a a war. It's avoid.
Speaker 2: Still ste siss s s s stasistence,