Community

Welcome back to episode something of the mofi's as we enter or have now been, in the middle of the fee portion, which is the Fear Itself portion. It's been a while since we've recorded, so I am all out of whack. I don't know about you. We've completely changed the format anything now it's in Spanish. Hey, Yes, Fear Itself is what we're talking about.

You're welcome. You're welcome. The ten people that worked on Fear Itself and thought, why doesn't anybody ever talk about our show that we worked so hard on. I'm sorry, guys, I'm sorry chook out this for you. Yeah, because again, um, thus far in our experience of Fear Itself, the episodes haven't been that bad.

Right, No, they haven't been. Um. I don't know if that's keeping up. But even when even when it's bad, it's not Masters of Horror back true. Um, if nothing else, Like, I think you and I both probably do this, like we take different um missions upon ourselves to make sure people understand, like that the last Final Destination movie was actually the best Final Destination movie.

Yeah, like, you know, really inconsequential things in the scheme of things. Um, but I think one of mine is going to be that. Hey, people, Fear itself was okay, way better than Masters of Horror, So there's that. Uh, this episode is community. This episode is very exciting for many reasons.

Uh. It's one of our one of the first written by a woman, No, directed by a woman, not written by Kelly is not a woman. Kelly is not a woman. Kelly is not a woman. You know what.

I'm not gonna say anything, but that's not that surprising, and I'll get into why. But I thought I thought maybe we had a duo, which would it would have been nice. Yeah, oh that's disappointing. Okay, well it directed by a woman, the only one directed by a woman, because apparently it was you know, because like women just don't direct horror, right Christine, they don't like horror. So, I mean you and I both know that that's something that people have tried to say, which is just just wild to me.

But Mary Harron, you know, if somebody's gonna direct one of these, why not, right? Yeah, honestly should have had a Master's of Horror. But that's neither here nor there um in this one. Uh. Community, As you said, it's called as Brandon rolth In it.

That's about all I have to say about this episode. Good night everyone. Uh So, okay, I think I maybe we have different opinions on this one. I think we might. I think we might.

Well, let me say that this this is, as the title might suggest, community. It's basically a lot of my favorite shit all thrown together. Like, I love what's happening in this community. This gated community is weird. There's so many books about I think, and during Massive Masters of Horror, I talked about a fun book about a weird community.

And then there's that Yeah, yeah, there's that X Files that's about that, all that those weird happenings and like a you know, you know what I'm just saying. It's a great premise, it's a great story. I love it. Yeah, and it and it like it had You're right, it had big Stuffford lives energy a couple of times. But it is what it is at face value, and then it never does anything difference yeah, or interesting.

It only does things to distract you from how cool the idea is. And this is one that I think suffers the most from the format from and not so much the commercials ended being you know, kind of muted for network television. It's the time frame that this one did not know how to work with. I think because I didn't I didn't know how to exist in the Yeah. Um, I agree with that, and I want to get your thoughts on do you feel like those timestamped those like title cards with how much time has elapsed?

Do you feel like those were added afterwards? I wouldn't be surprised. Why don't we first? It didn't make sense? I mean, yeah, they were definitely there to express a passage of a time that might not not otherwise have been detected.

Like they actually did a decent I'm sorry, I'm gonna talking about this. I feel like they actually the time. I'll let's talk about what it's about, and then that's what I was going to ask you to do. Give us a strong feeling you're so excited about something you're not excited about. It's adorable story in my life.

Um. Okay, so Brandon Rown now my films here. Let's let's say at the beginning here up top, everybody, Brandon Routh one of the most handsome men alive. You. He is one of those men who is so handsome that I can't figure out if he has any talent at all, or if he's just really really perfectly handsome.

I look, I'm gonna say all of the above. He is perfectly handsome. I don't know if I've said this on the show before, I would I've seen him in real life, it was it was a lot. He's a lot to look at in real life. Very beautiful man.

But I also watch Legends of Tomorrow, a show that he has been on for an extensive run, and he is good on that. I don't I feel like, Look, I don't know Brandon Ralph. I haven't seen everything he's in, but I really do feel like he's good. He just needs the right kind of direction or else he kind of comes off a little cardboardy or flat. Yeah, and the things I've seen him in, um, obviously Superman Returns, which I just I hate that movie so much.

I don't and I don't blame him for anything in it. It's just terribly done. Um A Dylan Dog Dead of Night, which he's I watched it last night and to celebrate this episode. Okay, I remember watching it and just feeling bad for everybody involved. Am I wrong or what did it?

Is? It? Is it that no you're not wrong. Okay, there's a there's a lot wrong with that movie, and I think some of it has to do with some editing and possibly some some post rap narration that they were like, m let's just have this man tell us everything that's happening constantly. So it gets really heavy and bogged down.

Okay. Um, It's it's unfortunate because it could have been like a less good constant team. Sure. Sure, I think they were going for yeah, but it could It was like almost there and they I've seen him in one Hallmark movie. Oh was it good?

No, it wasn't. Um, there were there were cats in it. It was oh god, it was like The Twelve Days. I can't remember the title of it, and I'm really angry. It was some pun on cats, but it was involved cats and that was more charming than anything else.

Um. And then Scott Pilgrim where he's really funny, really good. Yeah, so he's he's really funny, and Legends of Tomorrow as well, and really there's some emotional performances and stuff. I just don't Also, I think it might be hard for I just look, I stare at him a lot. It might be hard for him to play against type, like sometimes there's some emotional stretching that doesn't feel natural.

And he is also one of those guys who because he is so perfectly good looking and not quite a good enough actor to not play that. If he's not playing that part, it's hard to ever buy him. Um. I do one thing I appreciate in this, It's something I always appreciate, UM is when you when you have an actor like Brandon Routh in something and characters acknowledge that he's like really good looking and attractive. So when at one point, like he's talking about um like his like gym equipment and making sure that's in place, I'm like, oh, good, because I need to know that this world acknowledges that Brandon Ralph doesn't get that way by not exercising.

He doesn't just show up that way. Yeah. I yes, the stage was set for something wonderful to happen. Yeah, So go into the story of this. Don't tell the people of what this episode's about.

It really is very simple. There's a there's a community, like a gated living type situation. They have stores and stuff too, like a town square, so it's bigger than that, but like community where they're very selective about who moves in and they have like some algorithm and it's it's it's just so much more of that. Well but I'm glad you said that. So it's like super sinister and like it could have been about something, but I don't feel like it was about anything, so much like how you know how screw flize solution the Masses far episode.

If you don't, you haven't been here familiar, um, you know how that was about something. Like I kept wanting this one to be about anything, and it wasn't because it really is just like the sinister gated community where once you sign all these wild things and you move in and like good things happen. You have access to good schools, and there's also i mean not the illusion, but like the information that you know, you you can get connections and industry and government because this is like some some fucking illuminati. Yeah, yeah, I went. I went for the Joshua Jackson movie The Skulls, but you could go for Current enough.

But it's very much like the Secret Society, but like in this community and like they do wild shit and you can see other people on the televisions. So then there's like a little bit of Shirley Jackson lottery thing going on a little bit and and and like there there was other there was interesting stuff there, like tell me more about how like they need a perfect like biome of like you know you have one kid and you're a single guy and you have an adult child, Like there's this way that they they figure out who can move in and I it was so boring. Instead you just had Brandon Ruth and the girl from Roswell talking a lot, and I'm just like, I don't I don't care. Yeah, and it really gives her the short shift.

Oh it is beginning, like it's it's very like again, it's it's so set up for something fine, Like this is a nicing couple who want to have kids decide like, oh, they're not ready because because they're they don't like the city. They they like sell their souls to move basically like they know they're signing a contract. It's a little shifty, but it's too good to be true. But come on, and she gets seduced, like you see her like the things she's enjoying. She makes friends, Um, you know, they want to have a baby and she's having trouble but then like, oh, I don't know, now she can and yet, but the show never gives her that moment to really make a case for it.

And so spoiler alert at the end, in the end, he's figured out this is bad. She's like, yeah, you're right, it's really bad. We gotta get out of here. They have they hatched this big planum with a diversion, they're going to escape. And then in the end, like it's revealed that she's turned on him, but we don't ever see her make that decision, and that's that sucks because it was her decision, not his.

Yeah, you never, And also there's no real weight to anything, because yeah, I get like, how many times can you tell me I don't want to raise kids in the city, But like I didn't see your hardship at all, So like, I don't know why you would do something so desperate and weird. Yeah, yeah, no, it's a good point. So it just seemed like the escalation was weird, and um, it was yet timed and toned weirdly, and I really I will again go back to the title cards because it did it did something that lots of things do now, where it threw us into the action which I'm gonna tell you I hate, I hate, hate hate when you're I think we've talked about it, because we talked about don't breathe. Don't don't Breathe opens with a character a lot like I just don't like it.

It opens with a scene that comes like fifty eight minutes into this ninety minute maybe just so that you start with a jump scare and no, oh shit, that's gonna go down, and now I have a fifty minute slow burn. But the entire time, I'm thinking, well, this character's not dead yet, because I've I've seen the opening, and it's this thing that movies keep doing, and I again, I think the reason they do it is that. And a lot of times I bet it's a like studio executive saying, well, you know, you're gonna have restless teenagers in the audience who are going to give up after a half hour when nothing happens, so you need to tell them something's going to happen, and then who cares, you know, we'll get back to it.

But it really does kill momentum and this it's not like it just doesn't do anything for the story. I don't understand it. Yeah, I there's ways to open on action and get your audience to trust you without literally showing what's going to happen later in the movie. But in this case, the show but you're right here, it didn't. It wasn't additive in any way because you don't you don't know the context for it.

You just they just show you right up front things go bad. Right, We'll see him running from a mob, and that's it. If you're sinister enough, I'm gonna immediately know that something goes bad. Like I don't. You didn't have to do that.

But it's like, it shows us that, and then it's like four months earlier, and I don't like that. So I'm like, oh, great, four months earlier and great, now we're going to build to that. What is this nonsense going to be? But they keep doing it three weeks after that and then they say Valentine's Day and what, Emily, it wasn't Valentine's Day. I have no reason to believe it was.

That's a really good point. See. I just think the passage of time is important to the episode because it is part of the story. The story is they move in and they don't realize they've signed a contract that says they have to have a kid in a year. So I feel like the narrative itself perfectly told me that time was elapsing it.

Yeah, it probably did. Um, maybe I just didn't because I had those time cards. I didn't have to think about it, so I didn't have to think whether I would have known without it or not. But like, because I was obsessed with it, I couldn't. It was clear.

It was super obvious. They he goes and sees the neighbors and he's like, I haven't seen you guys since the Cruisas party. Like, now I know time has passed, right, Like they literally wrote it in they wrote in the passage of time, like they have a Christmas com point. But then they were like, now let's throw up some title cards. This is such a sticking point from its fair because it was like, wait a second, when is it now?

So wait is that three weeks after before? Or oh? I hate yeah, I know what you mean. I hate I hate when when when? Um?

When? It's the inconsistency in that right, because if it's like two weeks later, wait two weeks later from the beginning when you gave me a time or two weeks after Valentine's Day. Yeah, that's a that's be consistent, be consistent. It was just it was one of those things that it made me feel like you didn't trust the story, Like, no, somebody didn't trust the story, so why am I gonna invest in it? It felt like it was undercutting itself.

And then yeah, all the tension, it undercut the tension, and it it almost made you feel like you didn't like you said, you kind of didn't have to pay it ten. That's a good point. And then and then it was it made me like the escalation was weird, Like I I bought, I knew what they were doing. They didn't have to sell me on like this is a this is a sinister community. They didn't have to sell me on that.

So I'm there. But then then the only thing left is that relationship and we, like you said, when you don't see the wife make the decision, or you don't know what tipped her, or you're you're not privy to anything like that, it's just it's it feels aimless. Yeah. Yeah, it was a bummer because it was all there and izz about it well, and that's why I think I enjoyed it more than um, probably most people, because it was it was all the things I want. It just didn't wasn't good, but I still enjoyed it, just because I love this kind of story.

UM. And I thought it was interesting that normally, like this is a Rosemary's baby, this is a Stepford. Almost all of these stories, it's always the woman being the kind of hysteric, not trusted. Um. She senses something's wrong, but everybody else could you know, doesn't.

So I thought like, oh, that's interesting the fact that and I don't know why, um, and I guess part of it is well, because it's probably more um it's the word more fitting or believable that it's the wife who gives in because of kind of her her desire to raise a baby. But I thought like, at least that's interesting that it's the This is almost in its own way, a weird little twist on the gender because normally she's the one that nobody believes, but in this case it's him. Again. I didn't really do anything with it, but yeah, it would have been cool if it if it played that up a little bit more. Yeah, very much.

UM's funny because I just want I think I had told you a few weeks ago. I watched upon your recommendation, Vivarium, which I loved so much, like maybe my favorite movie I've watched this year, and I think it just also put me in such a headspace of, Oh, I want more, you know, closed community stories, because I just think they're so like, it's just this weird, little, very obscure subgenre that can lend itself to a lot of very specific types of storytelling. And that's what you get here, except you just don't get it done very well. Yeah, because because for the well, for any story, but for those stories specifically to be successful, there has to be something else going on. Like it, we're at a point where where it can't just be sinister.

Because even in Rosemary's Baby, it wasn't just sinister. They were getting a baby and Stafford wives, they were replacing women. What was the big thing here? Yeah, then, well like they were setting they were they were creating communities to like mold and shape people, to like insert them into society. Well then what's the implication of that?

It was was the president in this world from the community or whatever? Like, yeah, it just didn't Yeah, you're right or right, because I took it more as like an enclosed, like biodome esque situation. Yeah, and which is interesting of like, well, you guys moved in. If you don't have a baby, then that means we're missing that component that you know, helps like even the whole Like there's a scene where there's a like a public shaming of a woman who had an affair, and so she's got to stand in the middle of time square or time square of count square and kids are throwing rocks at her, and there's something very like, oh, because she disrupted the like the way things are, Like, she's corrupted the error by doing by making this choice, so they have to fix that somehow.

Like that's interesting. If it was this idea that this community is self contained, I would have been more interesting than not explaining whether the president once lived here, I guess. Yeah, yeah, Yeah, it's disappointing. I don't recommend it. I just didn't hate it as much as I probably should have.

Yeah, I mean I was mostly just kind of like I wasn't like actively angry, okay about it. That's good. I mean, normally we don't want to be actively angry about things, so good. Yeah, sometimes it feels like it could swing that way though, So I was just like, um, it existed, it's not It's not the best, but it's not the worst. Yeah.

That's as good as one can say. I think, Yeah, it was there, but I will say again it is an installment in the series that is proving to not be bad. Yeah, it's it's more. Again, this is much better than most of the bad Masters of Horror. I would rather watch this again, and then I would, Um, I don't know Pelts, Yeah for sure, Yeah, because there was stuff here.

It just didn't wasn't handled very well. Yeah, so disappointing, all right. I guess that's what we have to say about Community, the episode of your itself, not the TV show, which is wonderful and lovely. It was lovely. Indeed, we'll see you again soon.

That in minestro me and you've been come on thing with me? Oh, who are the people in your neighborhood? Come on, Ben, in your neighborhood? Good in your neighborhood? They who are the people in your neighborhood?

The people back each day? Hey, this is good? Okay, okay, okay, Well who are the people in our neighborhoods? Well, you'll see come on out, person in our neighborhood. Who I am here?

I am? I you're telling me hello? There can bring them now? Ain't us hello? Asleep or hal?

I'll work and work the whole day through to get the lattice. Say, do your the person in your neighbor you know it in your neighbor I am in your neighbor letter carry the person in your neighborhood? Persons, dang, I was run. Listen. I got this letter here from Mary?

Are you marry? Am I married? No? No, I'm not married. Now I gotta find this Mary.

Where are you marry? An address on this letter of the marry? Well, this is great. Okay, let's be another person in our neighborhood. Okay, person in the neighborhood.

Number two, come on out, table guy or a table guy. A stop your TV so like your favorite yo walk. If you wa you nothing but fun, he'll come by. I can pick my babele guy. The person in the neighborhood, in your neighborhood, yes, gooday in your neighbor Cable guys, the person your neighbor, the person at you each day, Thank you, cable guy.

Problem, no problem. Do you think you can do me a favor. I'm having some trouble with my cable. You think you can help me out, don't worry, Benny, football out, y'all right, this is so much fun. Hey, you know what?

I want to be a person in our neighborhood. Well, sure we can sing about you. Oh, Ben is the person in the neighborhood. Yeah, in the neighbor Wait, I got I got a better idea. I got a great idea.

I'm gonna put on a costume. I'll be right back, hang on a sand what costume? Okay, I'm ready. Let's sing Ben. What are you dressed as?

I'm a person in the neighborhood. I'm a cheese jeez. Yeah, a cheese is a really great fella. You call me spiss Brie or us around. I'm a really really tasty dish, drive melty unto nothing.

Because cheese is a person in your neighborhood, cheer in your neighbor in your name, cheese and a person in your neighborhood. I've heard selection when you're walking down the street. That to me, that was really great. I think I make a very very good cheese, very convincing. Hey.

Hey, hey, hey, you guys know any place to eat around here. Yeah, it's a lunch breaking with starving Sorry I don't Oh whoa, wait a minute, there's a giant cheese right here in the neighborhood. What no, no, no, wait, tell me, tell me I'm gonna go. I'm not really a cheese thing. Let that be a lesson to all of us.

Never dressed like a cheese at lunchtime. Tell hup me, my jeez, I want to spread you on so big every week