This week, host Bobby Finger welcomes Fran Hoepfner (@franhoepfner), writer and co-host of a Jude Law podcast called Law School, and Geoff Lapid (@geofflapid), a former blogger and Netflix user since 2007, to chat about Ava DuVernay's essential limited series, When They See Us, the delightful (if overlong) new Ali Wong/Randall Park romcom Always Be My Maybe, and the twisty, turny, gory (and gay!) new horror film, The Perfection. Skip segments you'd like to keep spoiler-free with these handy time codes: When They See Us: 11:00 - 20:00 Always Be My Maybe: 20:00 - 28:50 The Perfection: 28:50 - 41:00 Call 754-CALL-BOB and share your current obsessions, and we may discuss it on a future episode! Once again, it's 754-CALL-BOB.
This week, host Bobby Finger welcomes Fran Hoepfner (@franhoepfner), writer and co-host of a Jude Law podcast called Law School, and Geoff Lapid (@geofflapid), a former blogger and Netflix user since 2007, to chat about Ava DuVernay's essential limited series, When They See Us, the delightful (if overlong) new Ali Wong/Randall Park romcom Always Be My Maybe, and the twisty, turny, gory (and gay!) new horror film, The Perfection.
Skip segments you'd like to keep spoiler-free with these handy time codes:
When They See Us: 11:00 - 20:00
Always Be My Maybe: 20:00 - 28:50
The Perfection: 28:50 - 41:00
Call 754-CALL-BOB and share your current obsessions, and we may discuss it on a future episode!
Once again, it's 754-CALL-BOB.
[Music]
Bobby: Welcome to I’m Obsessed With This, the Netflix podcast about the shows and films everyone seems to be talking about and why. I’m your host, Bobby Finger, and today, I am joined in the studio by Fran Hoepfner, a writer/grad student living in Jersey City whose work has appeared in The Awl, RIP-Buzzfeed, The Cut, WQXR, and other places. Plus, she has a Jude Law podcast with Caroline Symons called Law School.
Fran: Law School.
Bobby: You should subscribe now. It’s good. I was just listening to the Alfie one. I’m also joined by Geoff Lapid, a former blogger and Netflix user since 2007. Honestly, that’s an incredible bio.
Geoff: Thank you.
Fran: Wow. Yeah.
Bobby: I love it. No.
Geoff: Big time Netflix head.
Bobby: He loves the Flix. That’s why he came. We were going to do a Hulu podcast, and he was like, I won’t do it.
Geoff: Pass. Hard pass.
Bobby: But yeah, these are two of the smartest movie-goers that I know, most voracious movie-goers. I would call them cinephiles, maybe.
Fran: Ooh.
Geoff: Oh yeah.
Bobby: Very funny, very great.
Fran: Thank you.
Bobby: Love that they’re here with me, and I’m lucky to have them on to talk about films and a mini-series. Two films and a mini-series. Thanks for coming.
Fran: Thank you.
Geoff: Thank you, yeah.
Bobby: As usual, we will be having a spoiler-filled discussion of all titles today, so check the time codes in the show notes in case you would like to skip those sections, so let’s start with the beverage situation. Last week, both guests asked for still water, not sparkling, not coffee, not anything, not kombucha, not tea, not, you know, anything. They just wanted still water. You both chose coffee, Jeff with the hot, black, Fran with iced, oat milk. I got iced with whole milk. How is it? It’s good?
Fran: It’s great. It’s great.
Geoff: It’s good, yeah. I felt like it would be a waste if I didn’t ask you to bring us coffee. You’re a noted fan.
Fran: Noted java head.
Bobby: This is a great example. I feel like have examples, like who are we? It starts as a joke, and then it becomes an actual part of your DNA, where I was like I remember laughing at just java as a personality. I always thought it was really funny, like Cracker Barrel signage, about java, beans, needing caffeine, don’t talk to me before—I always thought it was very funny, fully as a joke, but now I really—now I look at it, and I’m like that’s so true. [Laughter] Like, me before my java, me after my java, I see myself in both of those.
Geoff: So relatable.
Bobby: It’s extremely relatable. Is there anything like that for both of you? Something that started as a bit and then became completely earnest?
Fran: Well, I mean, I think everything about Ansel Elgort for me started as kind of a bit and now is really genuine.
Bobby: Mm-hmm [affirmative]. So you can’t wait for The Goldfinch.
Fran: Yeah. That trailer came out today. I was like all right. Fair enough.
Bobby: I’m in. Because I was in a, texting with some people this afternoon talking about this morning, and someone described his puffy lips, his pillowy lips.
Fran: Oh, sure.
Bobby: I was like, would people have been, you know, lusting after Ansel’s pillowy lips a year ago? Probably not. That same person.
Fran: Maybe not. I don’t lust for him, really.
Bobby: You just like him. You just like him.
Fran: Yeah, yeah.
Bobby: You’re an Ansel fan.
Fran: Yes, to Ansel. Yes.
Bobby: You used to just kind of laugh at the idea of Ansel.
Fran: Yeah, because I love the idea of actor-slash-DJ, and I love the sort of side EDM career, and when he’d be like, I’ve been DJ-ing way longer than I’ve been acting. It’s like, okay, calm down, I wasn’t checking, you know? But now that he’s gone full acting, it’s like, I’m ready. I’m ready. I’m here.
Bobby: It’s really nice. And Violetta is, you know, extremely lovable.
Fran: Violetta doing spawn.
Bobby: Oh, she’s so good.
Fran: Spawn for [unintelligible 00:03:39]. We love that.
Bobby: The Goldfinch looks good. Why not?
Fran: Sure.
Bobby: I don’t remember. I know for a fact that I read that book.
Fran: Wow. One up on me.
Bobby: I know that I read it. I don’t remember it.
Fran: Yeah. I got nothing.
Geoff: I can’t wait for Ansel’s version of it. I’m sure it’ll be an entirely different experience.
Fran: Yeah, how he sees it.
Bobby: Is there someone you’ve ever fan-boyed over as a joke and then realized wait, no, I’m a fan.
Geoff: Oh yeah. Diane Lane. [Laughter]
Bobby: Wait. How could that ever be a joke?
Geoff: Well, it started out as a joke because I was talking on Twitter about how nobody ever sends me links to things or sends me pictures of anything, so it was like, I guess I should just be loud about what I like, and I picked Diane Lane, and I just wouldn’t shut up about Diane Lane for like two, three months. It worked. It worked. People kept sending me pictures of Diane Lane and telling me about stuff that they saw Diane Lane in, and this was like right before Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.
Fran: Is that where she’s like the president?
Bobby: Isn’t she the mom?
Geoff: She’s the aunt. She’s one of the Marthas.
Fran: Oh, okay. Oh, sure.
Geoff: So yeah, Diane Lane. She’s great.
Bobby: Have you seen Under the Tuscan Sun?
Geoff: I haven’t yet.
Bobby: Oh! That’s peak Diane Lane. You’ve got to see that.
Geoff: It might feel like too much Diane Lane for me. I need to mentally prepare for it.
Bobby: You’ve got to see it. Have you seen Under the Tuscan Sun?
Fran: No, I’ve never seen it.
Bobby: Oh, you’ve got to see Under the Tuscan Sun. It’s not—
Fran: What’s she doing under that sun?
Bobby: She’s starting over is what she’s doing, Fran. She’s starting over. What are you both watching on Netflix right now? We’ve got to start with that. We’ve got to start with that. Fran?
Fran: I’m still re-watching I Think You Should Leave. [Laughter]
Geoff: I cannot stop.
Bobby: I’ve been saying, “Oh, nice” to every—it’s an actual—it’s worse than the java problem. It’s broken a part of my brain.
Geoff: It’s infiltrated our language at home.
Bobby: What is each of your favorite lines from the—not even just car focus group. [Laughter] What’s a line you revisit?
Fran: “Figure out what you do. You’ve had all summer to think of it” is so funny.
Bobby: Think of it. I love how when he slurs his words together. Oh.
Geoff: I just love—the thing that’s just in my head and won’t leave is how he, in that sketch with the loaded nachos, how he just tearfully looks at his date and is like, “What?!” And my wife and I have just been saying that to each other back and forth. What? What? [Laughs]
Bobby: I love “Oh nice,” and I also love—he does it in a few of the sketches, but specifically the one where the baby sitter spiral, and he goes, “At all.” Like, “They don’t matter at all. Like, they’re nothing.” [Laughter] I’ve been saying “at all” too much. Too much. I can’t get over it. Is that it? Are you just watching I Think You Should Leave over and over and over and over and over again?
Fran: Yeah, and then I’ll stop mid-episode, and I’ll just pick it up a couple days later and just keep walking through it.
Bobby: It’s truly—it’s a mental problem for me, I think.
Geoff: Have you seen his episode of The Characters yet?
Bobby: No.
Fran: Oh.
Geoff: It’s the second to the last episode of that series, and it’s like another episode of I Think You Should Leave.
Fran: Yeah, yeah, yeah. There’s one sketch from that, there’s a quote from that one where he does like an old-timey sort of like 1920s gambling guy.
Geoff: A crooner.
Fran: Yeah, a crooner, and he loses and just goes, “Oh no, I’m broke!” And I think of that basically when it gets to like Thursday every week. [Laughter]
Bobby: I’m already like—I’m picturing it. I love it. I’m already repeating it over and over and over again. He’s so good, and I had no idea who he was. I’m not well-versed on like the comedy scene, and I feel like everyone knew who he was and was really a huge fan of him. He was kind of an under doggy type guy.
Fran: Well, I hate this phrase, but he was like a comedian’s comedian, where it’s like the people in it really know him, and outside of that, he had never really broken through, because he had had that one season of SNL, but it’s not like he had the sort of like break-through character over that season. So yeah.
Bobby: What a nightmare that must be. You get one chance. You basically get one chance on that show once you’re cast, and if that first year doesn’t work out, like good luck, I guess. That seems like how it usually works out. What have you been watching, Jeff?
Geoff: What have I been—I’m kind of like in between Netflix shows right now, but I wrote down some things that I have been watching. My wife will watch Gossip Girl and Parts Unknown, and I’ll kind of come in in out-of-context bits, and so I’ve seen a lot of scattered episodes of Gossip Girl, a lot of scattered episodes of Parts Unknown. Oh, Tuca & Bertie. I’ve really loved Tuca & Bertie. Have you guys seen that one yet?
Fran: Haven’t watched yet.
Bobby: Tuca & Bertie! We have a call about that, which I will play right now.
Lonnie: [On recorded call] Hi Bobby. It’s Lonnie. I’m obsessed with Tuca & Bertie. I think Lisa Hanawalt is a genius. I love the character design on BoJack Horseman, and they’re even more creative on Tuca & Bertie. There’s literal plant people, but the show also talks about like real-life issues through these animated birds. And it made feel things and made me laugh my ass off, so I think everyone should watch it.
Geoff: Yeah, I just love how demented it all seems. I love all of the sight gags. I love the way they animate them walking. I love how they get hung up on these weird animation bits. There’s a part where Steve Yeun is Bertie’s boyfriend, and I’ve never felt so owned in a cartoon before, just specifically called out. His whole deal is that he’s very routine and does kind of things the usual way, and there’s this part where they’re trying out new things with their relationships, and it’s not really working, and Bertie’s like, we could get back to just doing things the usual way, and Steve Yeun’s character is—his name’s Speckle—Speckle is chanting, “Usual way, usual way, usual way,” and I felt that in my soul.
Bobby: Love the usual way. I’m a big fan of the usual way.
Fran: Yeah, same.
Geoff: What’s wrong with it? It’s working. [Laughs]
Bobby: I love her art style. It seems very I-could-do-that, but I didn’t and also I couldn’t do it as well as she does it. You know, I think it’s deceptively simple looking. It’s so unique, even though it looks sort of like childish and simple, but you know that it’s very singular and you both know Marian. I was on her Instagram stories, and there was like she had a print of this male nude that was like in beautiful golden hour in her apartment, and she zoomed in on it, and I was like, what is this? And it was Lisa Hanawalt. It was Lisa Hanawalt print, and I was like well, I’m going to Google this later. Add it to the bookmarks.
Fran: Yeah. All her stuff is so colorful.
Bobby: Yeah, it’s great.
Fran: It’s just so pleasing to look at.
Bobby: And I never got into BoJack. I probably should. It just didn’t—it didn’t land for me.
Geoff: I wasn’t either. I watched a couple of the first episodes, and it just didn’t stick with me, and everyone I know has been saying, you’ve got to keep on going. It just gets better, and I just haven’t gotten around to it.
Fran: And when I see like isolated screen shots from it, I always laugh at whatever the joke is, but I’ve just gotten through the first few.
Geoff: I’ll get there.
Bobby: I’ll get there. Just add it to the pile. So let’s just get right into it. We’re going to talk about When They See Us, the new Ava DuVernay mini-series. We’re going to talk about The Perfection, the new Allison Williams vehicle, and we’re going to talk about Always Be My Maybe.
Fran: She’s back.
Bobby: She is. She’s back with a vengeance. I want to talk about When They See Us first. We all watched it? Four episodes, so initially, I was like oh, four hours. They’re each, you know, pushing an hour and a half, and they’re all extremely different structurally and stylistically. I wasn’t expecting that. I kind of went into it expecting a more standard, true-crimey thing, like a People v. O. J. sort of situation, but it’s not. It’s very cinematic. Ava DuVernay directed all of them, co-wrote all of them. It’s about the Central Park Jogger case from 1989, about the five boys who were wrongfully convicted of like assault, rape. There were a lot of—
Fran: Attempted murder.
Bobby: Attempted murder. There were just all of these charges piled on. They did not do it. There’ve been a few documentaries about it in the past, including I think a Ken Burns documentary from a few years ago called The Central Park Five, but this is the first, fully-formed dramatization of it. And what did we all think? It was incredible.
Fran: I thought it was amazing.
Bobby: It was one of those things where immediately when it starts, I think within the first like 10 minutes, you realize, especially watching it early before all the praise and the buzz has already been documented, you’re like oh, this is going to be the thing that everyone’s talking about pretty soon. This is going to be kind of an important moment in television this year. What did you think? We’ll start with Fran.
Fran: I loved it. I thought it was amazing, and I think one of the things I like most about it is how not pulpy it felt, and I like People v. O. J. Simpson and what little I’ve seen of American Crime Story, but I just love that it didn’t have like that true crime sheen on it. It’s like not the place for what this story is. I didn’t know a lot about this case, and what I did know, I knew just only in context of like the Donald Trump full-page ads, because that was talked about in 2016, but a lot of this was new to me, and I just think it’s like beautifully crafted and incredibly acted. It was like a very brutal but very good watch.
Bobby: One thing that’s interesting about her is that she can go, she can do films, she can do documentaries, she can do television, and then this sort of in-betweeny thing. This mini-series is its own sort of medium. She’s really good at balancing brutality with something beautiful. It’s empathetic, and it’s never melodramatic, you know? And I feel like they can always veer to that. Like, I think with the People v. O. J. stuff, there’s a lot of like scene chewing in that show, which works in the People v. O. J. It works, and especially when you have these same characters throughout the entire season, and in this one, it’s sort of broken off into these four vignettes. You have the actual arrest and the coercion from the police in the first episode. You have the trial in the second episode, the trials in the second episode, their sort of reentry into normal society in the third, and then the kind of complete horror story of the fourth one that’s just about one character, and I don’t think that many people could do that kind of as gracefully as she did it. I think it helps that she wrote it, that she had complete creative control over the entire thing. What did you think, Jeff?
Geoff: Well, I think she handled it all very respectfully as well. One of my worries going into it was that just by nature of forming a narrative around a true crime thing, it sometimes makes it feel exploitative, and that wasn’t the case with this one. there’s a lot of humanity throughout, and from the first episode, you’re really just caught up in how heart-breaking and just infuriating this case is. Any scene with all of the detectives just kind of crafting things to fit their narrative of the events and not necessarily the truth of the events was just shaking.
Bobby: Yeah, that first episode is a nightmare.
Geoff: Like, Felicity Huffman is just such a villain in this.
Fran: And like a not-scene-chewy villain, her performance.
Geoff: No. And especially that final scene that she has in the last episode, even when people are shown the truth, they find ways to just rationalize themselves out of it, and that scene, she’s like no, that’s not what happened. I’m sorry. I did the right thing. Good-bye. To her, she’s doing the noble thing, and yeah, she’s still a monster and completely indefensible, but she sells that. She sells like oh, I understand why she couldn’t sleep at night. I know why she’s acting the way she’s acting.
[Clip from When They See Us]
Bobby: There were three of the actors who were aged up, and they got adult replacements in that really great third episode, and then—
Fran: Korey.
Bobby: Korey, who was played by Jharrel Jerome, who was in Moonlight.
Fran: Moonlight, yeah. I was like, what is he from? Yeah.
Bobby: Moonlight. I was having the exact same reaction. I was like, why do I know who this is? And he’s Little’s first kiss, first everything, but he was cast in both the young and the adult roles. Ava let him take a month between filming young and old, so that he could gain a little bit of weight and like get into the character, so that he could like try to emotionally prepare for the whole prison sequence.
Fran: Oh my gosh.
Geoff: I read something about how they had grief counselors on set during the filming—
Bobby: Yeah, everyone had access.
Geoff: —just because it was so intense.
Bobby: One thing I really liked about the show is that obviously people are going to be in and out of the narrative, but the one constant are the parents. They’re just always there and they’re always played by the same people. There was something really powerful about that, and especially Niecy’s character, who goes through a whole cycle of she’s monstrous in her own ways, and then she tries to redeem herself, and it’s a heartbreaking performance.
[Clip from When They See Us]
Fran: It’s really good. I just—I don’t know drama-wise if I’ll watch something better this year.
Bobby: Yeah. And again, I think the structure of it was so unique and kind of jarring. We’re so conditioned to true crime stories at this point.
Geoff: I liked that about it. I liked that tonally, each one was a little bit different than the second episode, the beginning of it. It feels kind of structured almost like a sports movie in the here’s the crew, here’s who we’re up against.
Bobby: But they’re all like arriving and the courthouse, and it’s like —
Geoff: Yeah, that felt a little corny, but I think it also served—it felt corny at first, but I think it also served the narrative of that episode where these kids have a little bit of hope in them before the verdict is read, because the evidence clearly points that it’s not them, and then they get guilty verdicts, and it’s just the rug’s pulled out from under them, and it’s just so heartbreaking to watch those actors.
Bobby: Yeah, they’re all pretty convinced that they’re going to go home until the very end of that episode.
Fran: And even just watching—you’re watching their defense lawyers like do an extremely good job and being like, well, I don’t see how anyone could like vote against us, and then—
Bobby: Yeah, like Joshua Jackson is like doing such a good job, y’all, like oh. I love the shallow focus thing they would do really frequently with just the faces, a lot of that directly in the camera. The Barry Jenkinsy stuff. It was all really powerful, especially at the end.
Fran: A lot of that third episode reminded me of the Brian Tyree Henry sort of anecdote in Beale Street, which is just such a beautiful part about readjusting to the world and the sort of soft focus of how everything seems out of place.
Bobby: Everyone should watch When They See Us, and the thing about this, everyone will watch When They See Us. I feel like that’s just going to be one of those things that you will hear about. Fortunately, we’ve all watched it. And we can be the ones to say it.
Fran: Yeah. I want to have more conversations about it is like the best thing I can say about tit.
Bobby: Ava DuVernay is like—there aren’t many people who are—
Geoff: The Logan Marshall-Green comeback is starting. It’s real. It’s going to happen.
Fran: I got to say, I love to see John Leguizamo at a 10-minute mark in something, rubbing my hands.
Geoff: I love John Leguizamo’s like dad turn in this phase of his career.
Fran: Oh my god.
Bobby: Oh, he’s so good, and it’s just like this is—he’s no longer the pest, you know?
Geoff: No. He’s your dad.
Bobby: He’s the daddy.
Fran: Oh, he has that moment when they’re walking into the court house, and the journalists says something in Spanish about his son, and he in Spanish is like, you should know better than to do this. I was like, she should know better!
Bobby: You forget that John Leguizamo is just a really good actor. He’s just like people that you put in the comedy bucket, and then they go and do something like this. Same thing with Niecy Nash, who has been doing drama for some time, but nothing like this.
Fran: Right. I mostly know her from comedy.
Bobby: Have you watched Getting On?
Fran: No.
Bobby: Oh my god. It’s only two seasons. It’s so good.
Fran: Oh, okay.
Bobby: It’s the one about the doctors. You know about this? HBO, two seasons, Alex Borstein, Niece Nash, and Laurie Metcalf. So good. Three doctors, two seasons, incredible. Let’s move on to Always Be My Maybe. Rom com, 180 degrees, starring Ali Wong, Randall Park. Ali Wong of comedy fame, Randall Park of Fresh Off the Boat fame, directed by Nahnatchka Khan, who created Don’t Trust the B---- in Apartment 23. That’s funny. She’s a prolific TV writer. This is her first movie. Rom com is back. Here’s another piece of proof that the rom com is back. What did we think of Always Be My Maybe? Great title.
Fran: Great title.
Bobby: Great Keanu Reeves moment. The rest of it, eh. I would say that that was the high point of the movie for me, because it was just so bizarre and felt like it was out of the—it came out of something completely different.
Fran: He’s really in the movie.
Bobby: He’s in it. He’s in the movie, and then he’s suddenly out of the movie.
Fran: Yeah.
Bobby: Let’s talk about what this movie is about. Ali Wong and Randall Park are childhood best friends. They live next door to each other in San Francisco. Randall Park’s mother dies. Mother taught Ali Wong’s character how to cook, because Ali Wong was frequently home alone because her parents were always at work. They grow up. They have one bad romantic moment. They have sex in the back of his car when they’re like 18 years old. It goes badly. They insult each other. They never see each other again until 2019 when they’re both 34. The point is, they never make it happen. He comes back into her life, because she’s in San Francisco because she’s a famous chef now, and their romance is rekindled sort of, but they both have partners. Will they, or won’t they? Spoiler, they do, but then there’s 40 minutes left, and Keanu Reeves is a main deciding factor in their eventual reconnection.
Fran: Like all great couples.
Bobby: Like all great couples. Jeff, what did you think of Always Be My Maybe?
Geoff: I was a little disappointed by it, if I’m being honest. I really want to root for it, because we’re at a point now where we’ve got two Asian leads in a romantic comedy. I love that romantic comedies are back.
Bobby: They’re back!
Geoff: And I’m for it, but I just couldn’t really get entirely behind this one. I felt it was a little too long. Like you’re saying, they get together, and then there’s 40 more minutes of it. There are a lot of funny things that I liked about it. There’s a great joke about Glenn Close ordering a pineapple sandwich, which I loved. I think both of the leads, Ali and Randall, are very funny, but it wasn’t really hitting with the supporting cast for me, and I feel like that has always been one of the hallmarks of those top-tier rom coms. The supporting cast is always bringing it.
Bobby: They’re the scene stealers, yeah.
Geoff: Yeah, they’re scene stealers, and there wasn’t really much scene stealing going on in the supporting cast, there.
Bobby: Fran, what did you think?
Fran: I was always a little disappointed by it. I think it suffers from like—I want the rom com to be back so wholeheartedly. I’m finding that a lot of the more recent ones, the leads just do not have chemistry, and I don’t know if I felt that Ali and Randall had chemistry with each other. They came off like two people who had been friends, and I know they co-wrote it together, and it does have that kind of friend energy to it, but I just didn’t really feel any kind of good, flirty energy between them. And I don’t think it was actually sort of grappling with the idea of harboring romantic feelings for someone you’ve shared a lot of your past with, didn’t almost buy-in to its own premise.
Bobby: There was those reveals—that final reveal, where she’s like, I’ve had a crush on you my whole life, was presented so casually. There weren’t big emotional moments the way that you expect in a rom—like overly dramatic moments where this profession of love takes everything out of you, even the ending. I felt like nothing was big, and yeah, that’s what makes rom coms so unbelievable, and I kind of think that was one of the points of this movie, to make something that avoided those little tropes and presented something a little more relatable, because they make a compromise at the end of the movie that is a little rare. Maybe in another rom com, she would have sacrificed her New York dream, or he would have sacrificed something, but he was like, no, I’ll move for you.
Fran: Yeah. I love to see that idea sort of gestured towards.
Bobby: Where she’s like I get to have the career that I want.
Fran: And he’s just like, I’ll go for it. But I was just sort of like, okay, I figured he would do that. Seems right.
Bobby: Seems like a good idea, I guess, but the Keanu scene. Ali Wong decides that she’s single, and just before Randall Park can profess his love to her, she’s like, I met someone, and we’re going to go on a double date tonight. Let’s go to this dumb, fancy restaurant with small plates and have a double date, and you’ll meet him. Turns out, this guy is Keanu Reeves, and it’s Keanu Reeves playing Keanu Reeves, sort of exaggerated portrait of like a really egotistical male celebrity. It’s funny, but it kind of overstays its welcome. It feels like it’s out of a completely different movie.
Fran: I think also just coming off of a month of Keanu press, sort of most John Wick 3, you hear 1,000 anecdotes about how he’s like the nicest person alive, so I think hinging a whole second act on how he’s actually an asshole, I’m just sort of like, I know this isn’t true. And I don’t know, celebrities as themselves being assholes is sort of a trope in movies and TV that I’m sort of, I don’t know, kind of tired of.
Geoff: I have a theory on this Keanu moment that I’ve just come up with now.
Bobby: Share it. I want to hear it.
Geoff: So everybody’s all about how—talking about how nice Keanu is and how great he is, and it’s fine. It’s all true in my mind. I believe 100 percent of it, but we’re in this moment where everybody’s just being so performatively into Keanu, and I think it’s because this is everybody on the internet apologizing for the sad Keanu meme, just the proliferation of that.
Bobby: I feel bad.
Geoff: Just kind of like picking on Keanu in that sad photograph and then realizing how actually sad his life had been.
Bobby: No, I think that’s a great theory. We owe him.
Geoff: I think it holds water. It’s true. We do all owe Keanu. He’s been through so much, and some of it at our own hands, so I’m happy with—
Fran: We have to pay for what we’ve done.
Bobby: He’s a really good guy.
Geoff: Keanu does have that great in the movie of when Randall Park is offering to pay for the extravagant meal that they all had, where he tells him how much it costs, and how it’s less than a residual check from Speed. [Laughter]
Bobby: That’s one thing about the movie that it has a lot of good little one-liners and jokes.
Fran: Great jokes.
Bobby: But those jokes could be in anything. Those jokes could—and they also felt like they belonged in a sitcom. They didn’t become in a rom com. I almost wish it would have been like a normal rom com, like give me the exact same beats of a normal rom com. We love rom coms. Why is the structure so different? It makes me feel weird.
Geoff: Why do we feel like we need to tweak the rom com? It’s a tried and true thing.
Bobby: We want it back.
Geoff: We want the usual way.
Fran: Give us flirting.
Bobby: Give us flirting. Give us one instance of a blow up. Because they have blow ups like three times in this movie. And it’s like, I want it to happen right at the end of the second act, and I want them to get together 15 minutes after that, and I want them to get together in public, and then I want there to be a crane shot after the kiss. I want all these things, and the movie gave a lot of them, but in weird little areas, and then at the end, I just was very underwhelmed by all of it. The mere image of Always Be My Baby, I was so excited for Always Be My Baby, and I really wanted to love it. The Perfection, I was ready to fully hate and dunk on, and I’m just like, The Perfection kind of owns. I really like the perfection, and I was watching it being like, wow, this is like a weird, kind of bad imitation of a Korean horror movie, and then I was reading an interview the director, and he was like, I love Korean horror movies. I watched The Handmaiden and was like yeah, I want to do this.
Geoff: I love that one of my favorite movies, Wild Things, it really just went with it with the twists in directions, just piling one on top of the other.
Bobby: Just throw more on the fire.
Geoff: I liked that. I liked how stressful that bus scene was.
Fran: Oh, get me off the bus.
Geoff: What a nightmare, everybody screaming at you in a language that you don’t understand, your friend is sick and about to shit herself. Just terrible.
Bobby: Oh my god. And she does shit herself. She shits herself on the steps. The Perfection is a horror film-slash-musical drama about—industry drama—starring Allison Williams and Logan Browning and Steven Weber. Good to see Steven Weber, of Wings fame. Do we all remember Wings? I don’t. [Laughter] As these two virtuoso cellists—
Fran: Cello only.
Bobby: Cello only.
Fran: Yeah, they’re like five years apart.
Bobby: Cello academy.
Fran: Yeah, it’s cellos only. They get tattoos, even though they’re minors.
Bobby: A very, like, preparatory, world-renowned cello academy, and they reconnect in adulthood, and you find out that they’re both extremely jealous and obsessed with one another, and then things go from there, and it kind of is like a Handmaiden meets Black Swan. It’s very Black Swany, only not quite as nuanced. I don’t know. Not quite as thoughtful as Black Swan. It’s just let’s go hog wild. Let’s fully do the funny games rewind and show you things as they really happened after you’ve already seen them once. It relies on a lot of kind of annoying horror film things like that, but I was into it. You think Allison Williams in the villain. She’s not the villain. You think Logan Browning might be the villain. She’s not the villain. Steven Weber’s the villain!
Fran: Steven Weber.
Bobby: Steven Weber and those other two dudes.
Fran: Yeah. It was rape the whole time.
Bobby: It was always about sexual assault. It was not really body horror. It wasn’t about Ebola. It wasn’t about—
Fran: False flag. False Ebola flag.
Bobby: So many false flags in this movie. Just talk more about it, Fran. Tell me what you think about The Perfection. Convince me that I’m wrong.
Fran: I mean, I don’t know if I can do that. This is like so far from what I usually like to watch, but I was so intrigued by the premise. As someone who likes and engages with classical music a lot, I was like is Allison Williams going to be able to convince me that she knows how to play the cello? And she did okay. She did okay.
Bobby: Right. You are a classical music expert, I would say.
Fran: Yeah, and I played cello for a couple years.
Bobby: Amazing. I didn’t even put that together, Fran. I’m so stupid.
Fran: No, it’s totally fine. It’s like this is really a horror movie for me in this regard, but it was wild to sort of—they certainly would never have a cello-only academy. That’s strange. The way that they would just sort of conjure names of pieces without composer, where they’d be like, do Cello Duet in B, and I’d be like, whose? Which composer? That’s just a piece you just say. So I found myself getting really anxious about that. But I mean, as a Girls fan, I will always sort of ride for whatever Allison Williams is doing.
Bobby: I will say, she’s really carved an interesting niche.
Geoff: It’s really tight how she has been playing with those expectations of her based on Girls and Get Out, just here’s a white woman with darkness inside her.
Bobby: With darkness, who has like weird relationships with people of color, like strange and fraught and in this case, sort of sexy. Is it menacing? I’m not quite sure. And I think she’s actually very good at that. The movie would not be as unpredictable as it is, if those performances weren’t as good as they are, and I think that might be the best thing to say about that movie.
Fran: I think when you have Allison Williams in something, that automatically adds a sense of unpredictability to me, because when I watch her, I don’t know what she’s doing and will do, and I mean that in the best possible way. She could do anything.
Geoff: She’s a surprising wild card.
Fran: Yeah, she is.
Geoff: You don’t expect her to be a wild card. Like, you feel like you’ve got her pegged.
Fran: Right. You always think.
Geoff: But like everything she’s been in, there’s been a twist about her. Even Girls.
Fran: Even Girls. She won at the end.
Bobby: The end of Girls is wild.
Geoff: She was the main character all along.
Fran: The whole time.
Bobby: It was always about Marnie.
Fran: Oh, my favorite shot in this movie is after she gets tazed, and she falls, and Logan’s got her boot on her mouth, and she’s just turned a little, and her highlighter just looks amazing. Her makeup looks perfect for someone who’s been kicked on the ground three times. I was like, Allison, unbelievable. You look perfect, of course.
Geoff: We had to stand.
Bobby: I loved how the whole movie, I was sort of like, not a great wig on Allison Williams, and then at the end, she takes off her wig, I was like oh!
Fran: That was unbelievable.
Bobby: Would I have thought, that’s not a great wig, if she hadn’t been sort of selling it as a bad wig? [Laughter] She was giving a performance as someone who was aware that they wearing a bad wig, when you think about it. Allison Williams is doing a lot more than I think a lot of people want to give her credit for.
Geoff: This is an extremely galaxy brain take on Allison Williams’ wig.
Bobby: But this movie, it goes—so you go from thinking that Allison Williams is a victim or sort of sad and pathetic and like the one who got away, in a sense, the one who didn’t become the world-renowned cellist. Do those exist, Fran?
Fran: Cellists who get away?
Bobby: No, cellists that are that famous, like young cellists.
Fran: Yeah, certainly.
Bobby: Certainly, like they would have a billboard for like an alcohol? [Laughter] Like at the beginning.
Fran: Yeah, I would hope so. I want that future for cellists in general.
Bobby: Are you going to pivot to professional cellist as you age?
Fran: No, I’m not that good, but I love—it’s a beautiful instrument. I think the movie could have really showed more of how beautiful the cello is.
Bobby: So it goes from there, you go from then you think she’s fully the villain. Then ultimately, it’s like you said, a movie about sexual abuse. It’s a movie about rape, fully rape, and The Perfection is kind of again, it’s like this—the explanation for events is pretty simple. It’s like they’re rapists. That’s it. It’s a big smoke-and-mirrors operation where it’s like they have this school where they lure these talented young girls in, and then play this game where it’s like you have to play this well, you have to play The Perfection, and if you don’t, you will be assaulted, and you will be punished and tortured for it. And I think in that sense, there was something almost interesting to the way that it reveals itself to just be about that. It’s like a comment on the way that sexual abusers can masquerade as like mentory figures.
Fran: Yeah, gatekeepers.
Bobby: Gatekeepers, where it’s like those are the people who are often the people who are the predators, the ones who are in that position of power and in that position of influence and people who are held in high regard, because they use that to their advantage, and it’s like that’s how they strip those girls away from their families, by presenting it at this great opportunity. I don’t know. There was something kind of interesting about that, but mostly, I just liked how fucking bonkers it was. I like that I didn’t know where it was going. I’m not sure if I’ll ever watch it again. I’m not sure what that really says about a movie. I’m not sure if that’s fair, but I was pleased with it.
Geoff: I think with the final reveal of it being rape all along, I’m still not sure where I fall on it, because I see where you’re coming from with the how you’re saying it’s an effective look at power structures and how these women are being taken advantage of by these gatekeepers, but it also felt like up to that point, each twist that had been building up to it was, let’s top it with this thing. Let’s outdo this twist, and it just felt like the movie had kind of brought me along to start expecting like oh, this is just going to be more insane, more insane, more insane.
Bobby: Like aliens!
Geoff: And then the final—yeah. I don’t know, it could have fit. Aliens? But then the final reveal is that oh, it’s a rape academy. They’ve just been raping these girls in the school, and it’s just like oh, that’s—I was like really along for this ride, and then it just comes to a screeching halt because of this just shockingly awful thing that is behind all of it. And I guess maybe thematically that works, but in terms of my viewing, that really just kind of made me take a step back and kind of—I don’t know. I don’t know if I want to say that I’m disappointed in it, but it really just kind of took all the momentum of the movie out for me.
Bobby: Yeah. Because it goes through something that’s like completely over the top and utterly crazy to something that’s almost like painfully real. Yeah, it’s like a really—like a fucked up reality as opposed to a fucked up fantasy, I guess. But at least, there was that final shot of quadriplegic Steven Weber with an IV in his arm and two people playing the cello together.
Geoff: Is that possible, Fran?
Bobby: Is that possible? What do you think?
Fran: I have thought about this all morning. I do think it is possible, yes.
Bobby: Yeah. Especially if you’re both extremely talented, if both parties are extremely talented to begin with.
Geoff: And super in sync with each other.
Bobby: And they share that bond, yeah.
Fran: And they share that bond, yeah.
Bobby: They share that bond.
Fran: They’re in love.
Bobby: Do you think you would—could you test that with someone? Could you find another cellist and be like—
Fran: Yeah, definitely.
Bobby: —let’s try this.
Geoff: Will you be the bow or the fingers?
Fran: I think I would be bow.
Bobby: I mean, I guess if the music is in front of you, I can understand how that really isn’t that difficult to imagine, you know?
Fran: Yeah. Just because I’m right-handed, I’m just like oh, I would be the bow.
Bobby: Improvising, I can see how that would be a little bit more impressive, but if you’re just playing an established piece of music, why not?
Fran: I’ll be honest. There’s not a lot of people improvising on the cello. And I think that is sort of a failure of the industry at large, but maybe one day.
Bobby: If you had to write a horror film about the cello industrial complex, what would it be about? What would it be called?
Fran: Oh my gosh. That’s such a good question.
Bobby: Is it? I’m not sure it is, but answer it anyway.
Geoff: Bowfinger.
Fran: Bowfinger?
Bobby: Bowfinger!
Fran: I mean, the sort of high part, the neck—The Neck is maybe.
Bobby: Because you have to—is there something about—do you have to stretches as a cellist to keep your body in the right position?
Fran: I mean, all the string instruments are really hard, unlike your body and—yeah, cello really leans on back posture, whereas like it’s violinists who get really bad shoulders. Someone I grew up with is a violinist in a professional symphony orchestra, and watching that Instagram presence has taught me a lot about this world as like someone in their 20s, and it’s just constant sort of like physical therapy and body stuff. I mean, I wish there was almost—and I don’t like horror movies. I’m very squeamish. There could have been more body horror in this, because I do think like having—a la Black Swan.
Bobby: Yeah. That really went for it.
Fran: Yeah, and it’s an industry that does take a lot out of one’s body. So they could have chopped off more shit.
Bobby: Yeah, and I think that that’s why I brought that up at the beginning. As much as I was impressed by it, we’ll see how long that lasts. It’s just like this guy said. I mean, I think he’s talented, but he mostly has done TV, and this is kind of his first foray into horror film, and he saw a genre that he liked, and he’s trying to get good at it, and fortunately, I think it’s mostly successful. But the sense that he’s mimicking and not actually creating something is there throughout the entire thing. And maybe if he went a little harder with the cello industry, maybe if he spoke to someone like you, if he had a consultant.
Fran: Oh my gosh. I’m always available.
Bobby: For the next cello horror.
Fran: Yeah.
Bobby: I would love that.
Fran: It really just made me want to re-watch The Handmaiden, which I love and is one of my favorite movies.
Bobby: Also gory—gorier. It’s gorier and gayer.
Fran: Yeah.
Bobby: It’s gorier and gayer.
Geoff: Yeah, this movie could have also been gayer.
Bobby: And the one sex scene—
Fran: I’m sick of nipple-less sex scenes! Oh my god.
Bobby: Nipple-less sex. She covers up. I was like Allison, this is your moment.
Fran: Grow up.
Geoff: Grow up.
Fran: Grow up, Allison.
Bobby: Come on, Allison. We want more. We want more gay sex, and we want more gore, and we want more cello, and we want less of this, because we’re done. So thank you, Fran. Thank you, Jeff for coming on today to talk about these three very different films and mini-series. Unfortunately, we got to go. Thank you for calling in. Once again, you can call 754-CALL-BOB to share your current obsessions, and we may discuss it on a future episode. And with that, we’ll see you in two weeks. Bye, everyone.
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