Episode 88: My Oxford Year

Welcome back to Oxford (yes, again) where Netflix serves up another ambitious American woman whose carefully planned life gets derailed by British architecture and a charming TA. Sofia Carson plays Anna, a Cornell grad with a Goldman Sachs job she deferred - did we mention Goldman Sachs? Because the movie certainly does, repeatedly - to study Victorian poetry for a year. Her greatest challenge upon arrival? A single flight of stairs. Truly inspirational.

Peak Dumpster Moments:

• Anna's voiceover declaring "everything was going according to plan until it wasn't" as she faces... one flight of stairs with a suitcase
• The ChatGPT-perfect Oxford bucket list written in impeccable handwriting in the middle of her Moleskine notebook - fish and chips listed right alongside the Bodleian Library
• Anna not understanding the chip shop guy asking "haddock or cod?" - a joke that would work better if England spoke a different language
• Netflix's cliché checkbox: the snarky gay neighbor whose first line is insulting her shoes
• The pub that's completely normal until the camera pans to reveal it's actually a drag karaoke bar - "like going to Fridays for bottomless margaritas and finding out it's drag night"
• Jamie refusing to take his shirt off on camera for four months of relationship montage, then finally having a Patrick Duffy-style love scene right before he dies
• The 750th anniversary gala at Oxford looking exactly like a high school prom

The Oxford Cinematic Universe: This episode marks the hosts' third trip to Oxford, following Surprised by Oxford (featuring Rose Reid). They note both films have suspiciously identical shots of campus and wonder how anyone actually attends classes there with all the film crews. Also discovered: Oxford Blues (1984) starring young Rob Lowe - a gender-swapped version where an American guy pursues a woman to Oxford. It's going on the list.

The Hatfield House Deep Dive: Jamie's childhood home is actually Hatfield House, a Grade 1 listed Jacobean estate built in 1611 where Queen Elizabeth I learned she would become queen. The current owner is worth £345 million. There's a controversial £50 annual charge just to walk the grounds.

The Verdict: It's Surprised by Oxford meets The Map That Leads to You - another film where a hot guy with a terminal illness white-fangs the protagonist. The cancer subplot comes out of nowhere, the illness is barely shown convincingly (he's dancing and drinking at galas!), and the ending montage of Anna completing Jamie's dream European tour alone is genuinely devastating - even if Scott was mostly ready for the credits to roll. The library fetish jokes write themselves, and we're apparently not done with Oxford yet.

Coming Up Next: Christmas on the Alpaca Farm - finally available in our region! A woman quits her New York fashion job to make sustainable luxury knits with a single dad alpaca farmer. He's very serious about not using blends. 5.8 on IMDb. 90 minutes of pure Lifetime holiday magic.

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Episode 87: Home for the Holidays

Welcome to Home for the Holidays, where Jodie Foster directs a 1995 Thanksgiving drama that raises conflicts and resolves... well, almost none of them. Holly Hunter mumbles her way through a holiday weekend with Robert Downey Jr. (in his heroin phase), Dylan McDermott, and Anne Bancroft (Mrs. Robinson herself). This is cinema that asks "what if nothing really happened?" and got a surprisingly stacked cast to go along with it.

What You're Getting Into: Claudia (Holly Hunter) gets fired from her museum restoration job, immediately makes out with her elderly boss, then flies home for Thanksgiving. Her daughter Kit (Claire Danes) announces she's about to lose her virginity, her free-spirited brother Tommy (RDJ) shows up with his "friend" Leo Fish (Dylan McDermott), her uptight sister Joanne resents being the responsible one, and her parents engage in quiet desperation disguised as marriage. Nothing gets resolved, everyone goes home. Roll credits.

Peak Dumpster Moments:

• Opening with seductive egg yolk handling during art restoration that looks way more sexual than it should
• Claudia's mystery cold that serves absolutely no narrative purpose and is never explained
• Tommy taking Polaroids of his adult sister in her underwear - twice - which is just weird on every level
• The turkey flying off the platter onto Joanne's lap, followed by Leo and Claudia intentionally spilling all the juices on her dress
• Aunt Gladys's unhinged monologue about kissing the dad back in 1952, leaving everyone at the table mortified
• The "food and making out" scene where Leo and Claudia get intimate with turkey sandwiches and cranberries in the dark - which awakens something in Liz about incorporating food into playtime
• Tommy casually outing himself as having been married to Jack for three months, which no one knew about

The Baltimore Deep Dive: Scott provides extensive commentary on the Baltimore filming locations throughout, including the Baltimore Museum of Art, BWI Airport (with its red pillars), Memorial Stadium in the background of the parade scene, Moravia Road, Most Holy Redeemer Cemetery, and even finding the actual house on Google Maps.

The One Good Scene: The dad watching old home videos in the basement and telling Claudia about taking her to watch planes take off when she was little. He talks about looking at old footage and not recognizing himself, saying "that wasn't me at all, that was some other guy." This moment resonates deeply and leads to a philosophical discussion about aging, nostalgia, and feeling disconnected from your past self. It's the only emotionally genuine moment in the entire film.

The Thanksgiving Food Debate: Extensive discussion of optimal Thanksgiving dishes including the great stuffing divide (in-the-bird soggy vs. prepared separately), whether you need turkey for it to truly be Thanksgiving, scalloped vs. au gratin potatoes, Scott's sobriety streak facing its biggest test, Popeyes' $99 pre-cooked Cajun turkey, sous vide turkey taking 8-12 hours (or days for short ribs), and the optimal plate-loading strategy. First things on the plate: Scott goes for turkey, Liz goes for in-the-bird stuffing with gravy.

The Verdict: Is this a profound meditation on family dysfunction or just a movie that chickened out of having anything meaningful to say? The film wants credit for being "realistic" about messy families but really it's just conflict-averse. The dad's scenes save it from being completely aimless, but otherwise it's a vignette pretending to be a movie. As Scott puts it: unresolved conflict is the entire point, which feels less like an artistic choice and more like the film just gave up.

Coming Up Next: Back to Oxford (for the third time!) with My Oxford Year starring Sofia Carson. Another ambitious American woman finding love at a prestigious British university because Netflix apparently has a template for these.

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Episode 86: The Wrong Paris

Welcome to The Wrong Paris, where Miranda Cosgrove trades her metal welding torch for a reality dating show catastrophe, and Frances Fisher (Rose's disapproving mother from Titanic) finally gets the role she was born to play: Netflix rom-com grandmother. This is cinema, people.

What You're Getting Into: Dawn (Miranda Cosgrove) is a hip country artist saving money in a literal jar to attend art school in Paris, France. When she gets accepted but can't afford tuition, her reality-TV-obsessed sister convinces her to audition for "The Honeypot" - a dating show where contestants can choose between the bachelor or cold hard cash. Plot twist: the show flies them to Paris... Texas. Yes, they spend $120,000-180,000 on private jet fuel just to circle in the air for nine hours and land 45 minutes from Dawn's house. The math isn't mathing, but at least the production budget went somewhere.

Peak Dumpster Moments:

• Dawn keeps her Paris fund in a glass jar in a barn instead of investing it like a sensible hedge fund broker, missing out on years of compound interest
• The "Honeypot" show's fundamental flaw: contestants can choose the money AND still date the bachelor after filming, making the entire premise economically nonsensical
• Miranda Cosgrove's character is a metal artist without the massive blacksmith arms typically required for the job
• Trey McCallum III has an eight-pack - which we determined is two abs too many (six is fine, people)
• The mechanical bull challenge where Lexie requests "low and slow" mode and basically gives a lap dance while everyone else got violently thrown off
• A mud-pit catfight between Dawn and Lexie during cowboy boot camp that's exactly as ridiculous as it sounds
• Cowboy Magic horse shampoo product placement that we actually applaud for authenticity
• The shirtless horse-washing scene shot exactly like a bikini car wash, complete with slow-mo and wind machines

The Cast Reunion: This movie features half the cast of To All the Boys I've Loved Before, including Emilia Baranac (Jen) and other familiar Netflix faces, because apparently Netflix has a Rolodex of actors on speed dial for these productions.

Reality Show Economics: The Honeypot's premise makes zero sense. Why would anyone choose the bachelor when you could take the money AND date him after production wraps? It's double-dipping on winnings, and we spent significant time calculating the flawed game theory. Also, they're apparently offering $20,000 just for appearing, plus challenge winnings up to $10,000. For a dating show filmed in Texas.

Technical Complaints: Scott goes on an extended rant about Netflix's chromatic aberration lens choices, the weird smearing effect in their cinematography, and how they intentionally make things look less crisp to avoid the uncanny valley of high-resolution filming. Also, the band at the bar is hilariously out of sync with the music.

The Verdict: Solidly mid. A respectable 6.1 on IMDb and a 2.5-3 dumpsters from us. It's not the worst thing we've ever seen, but it's so beige and formulaic that it blends into every other Netflix rom-com. Miranda Cosgrove is more enjoyable here than in Mother of the Bride (where she played an Instagram-obsessed bridezilla), mainly because she has a bigger role and isn't just being entitled. The movie is "meh" personified - nothing particularly standout, nothing particularly offensive. Just... beige.

Coming Up Next: We're headed to Oxford (again) with My Oxford Year, starring Sofia Carson. It's another movie about an ambitious young American woman who goes to Oxford University and meets a charming local who changes her life. Yes, this is the third Oxford movie we've encountered. No, we don't know why everyone keeps making these. The cast includes Catherine McCormick from Braveheart as the token older actor, and a bunch of randos. Netflix rom-com formula remains intact.

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Episode 85: The Summer I Turned Pretty S2E7-8 (Season Finale)

We're finally closing out Season 2 of The Summer I Turned Pretty, and buckle up - these episodes are annoying in ways that even we didn't expect. Where's the action-packed finale energy? Buried under repetitive arguments and questionable parenting decisions, apparently.

What You're Getting Into: Belly drunk-dials her mom after the house party spirals out of control, leading to Laurel discovering the trashed beach house and her daughter's multi-day lying streak. What follows is a masterclass in awkward stage combat (seriously, someone get these actresses into Patrick Duffy's slap seminar), circular arguments about grief and responsibility, and somehow zero consequences for destroying an entire house.

Peak Dumpster Moments:

• The slap heard 'round the world, delivered with all the conviction of a middle school theater production
• Belly's earth-shattering revelation that Conrad once asked Jeremiah for his blessing (we're still trying to figure out why this matters so much)
• The grand revelation that Susanna's estate plan was... nothing? She thought it was all handled but apparently Massachusetts inheritance law had other ideas
• Conrad's villain era featuring passive-aggressive car harassment in the rain and emotional manipulation that would make a soap opera proud
• Steven letting Taylor take his prized Honda Civic - true love, folks

The Inheritance Mess: After an entire season of wondering why this house situation is such a disaster, we finally learn that Susanna DID try to handle it before she died, reaching out to lawyers and Aunt Julia about the trust. She just... thought it was resolved? Meanwhile, everyone discovers that apparently no one in this family understands how property law works, and we're left with more questions than answers about capital gains taxes and why Susanna didn't just buy Julia out in the first place.

The Love Triangle Status: Belly and Jeremiah finally kiss (he initiates it in the book, she does in the show - crucial distinction, obviously). She seems pretty decided about being with Jeremiah by morning, though the book keeps it more ambiguous. Conrad continues his campaign of making everyone uncomfortable, proving that being pre-med doesn't automatically make you emotionally mature.

Parental Apology Tour: Laurel apologizes to Belly for slapping her, then apologizes for being a "zombie" for four months while grieving her best friend. Belly faces exactly zero consequences for lying, partying, and destroying a house. We have thoughts about this parenting approach, and none of them are particularly charitable.

The Volleyball Subplot: Taylor spends both episodes trying to get Belly to volleyball camp like it's the most important thing in the world. Spoiler: Belly eventually goes, and the final scene features her playing volleyball while contemplating her uncertain but hopeful future. This entire subplot doesn't exist in the books because it doesn't need to.

Book vs. Show: The adaptation stays mostly faithful, with key differences including Aunt Julia's absence from the finale confrontation, Conrad having two finals to study for in the books (psych and biology instead of just biology), and who initiates the kiss between Belly and Jeremiah. The show's ending is less ambiguous about Belly's choice, while the book keeps readers guessing a bit more. Both end with Belly's line about the future being unclear but still hers.

Coming Up Next: We're diving into The Wrong Paris starring Miranda Cosgrove - a Netflix rom-com where someone confuses Paris, France with Paris, Texas for a dating show/art opportunity hybrid that makes absolutely no sense. The premise is older than dirt, the director's resume includes Irish Wish and various Hallmark Christmas movies, and the producer worked on House Hunters. This is going to be spectacularly bad, and we cannot wait.

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Episode 84: The Map That Leads to You

Welcome to the beigiest movie we've ever covered, where nothing happens except a Hemingway novel, Victor's stolen cash, and KJ Apa sleeping in an overhead train bin. Join us as we follow Heather and Jack's European "find yourself" tour that's so surface-level it makes a puddle look deep.

What You're Getting Into: After meeting on a train (where Jack inexplicably decides the overhead luggage compartment is prime sleeping real estate), Heather and her friends embark on a European adventure fueled by questionable life choices and €5,000 of someone else's money. What follows is montages, philosophical platitudes about seizing the day, and a plot line so flat our hosts could literally graph it as a straight horizontal line.

Peak Dumpster Moments:

• Jack's creative sleeping arrangements and his great-grandfather's journal (which becomes surprisingly more interesting than the actual protagonists)
• Victor the train hookup, Amy's missing Bushwick leather jacket, and the moral gymnastics of "finders keepers"
• The world's most awkward guitar performance featuring "What's Up" by 4 Non Blondes and some highly questionable strumming technique
• Reading priceless family heirlooms in bathtubs because what could possibly go wrong
• Running with the bulls goes exactly as well as you'd expect when tourists make impulsive decisions

The AI Interlude: We kick off with a truly unhinged AI-generated episode description featuring Frosted Flakes, sobbing into soup over bad avocados, a mysterious character named Chris, and frozen yogurt as "the real daddy." The machines definitely aren't taking over anytime soon, but they're hilarious when they try.

Romance Update: Temu Sydney Sweeney meets bargain-basement Archie from Riverdale in what one reviewer called "zero chemistry" despite both being attractive separately. Their whirlwind European romance spans approximately two weeks and includes deep conversations about... well, we're still trying to figure that out.

The Eternal Question: Do Europeans ever come to America to find themselves at the world's largest ball of twine? We investigate this and other pressing matters, including whether any actor is truly irreplaceable (spoiler: Pauly Shore is), and why vertical iPhone filming might be destroying cinema.

What We Learned: This movie gets a perfectly mediocre 6.2/10 rating and features Josh Lucas (you know, discount Matthew McConaughey from Sweet Home Alabama), the same annoying train guitarist appearing throughout the entire film, and enough old-world European architecture to make you profoundly sad about modern construction standards.

The Verdict: Described by actual reviewers as "meh," "just boring," and "a postcard in search of a story," this film adaptation of J.P. Monager's novel proves that mediocre books become mediocre movies. The emotional plot arc is flatter than Kansas, and if you graphed the tension, you'd need exactly one straight line. At least the journal subplot had potential—too bad we barely see it.

Coming Up: We're wrapping up The Summer I Turned Pretty Season 2 with the final two episodes. One host is dreading it, the other has full Stockholm syndrome. Buckle up for the conclusion of the beach house saga and probably more Taylor Swift songs than anyone asked for.

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Episode 83: The Summer I Turned Pretty S2E5-6

We're still drowning in Cousins Beach drama where the Fisher boys discover that trust funds require actual lawyers (shocking!), teenagers commit light breaking and entering at a country club, and someone thought spray-painting a soon-to-be-sold beach house was peak party energy.

What You're Getting Into: Aunt Julia pulls a speed-moving miracle and clears out the entire house while the kids are at the boardwalk, triggering a series of questionable decisions including: squatting at a country club overnight, fashioning an apple bong with random rich people weed, and throwing the kind of rager that would make any insurance adjuster weep.

Peak Dumpster Moments:

• The gang breaks into the country club using Cam's mom's passcode because apparently nepotism solves all problems
• Taylor crafts an improvised smoking device that Steven promptly eats, then vomits up on the golf course (Cam is not pleased)
• Belly uses her gas station girl charm on Jumper to score enough booze for a party, proving manipulation works better than fake IDs
• Milo drives SIX HOURS from Philly using Find My Phone to crash the party and attempt a spider monkey fighting stance before getting dumped mid-roundhouse kick

The Flashback Extravaganza: We get Jere's internal monologue for once (still boring), featuring: Thanksgiving dinner where he watches Conrad and Belly hold hands across the table, his bisexual prom date reveal, and Conrad asking permission to tell Belly he loves her. Because nothing says healthy relationships like requiring your brother's blessing.

Questionable Life Choices Corner: Conrad discovers he can consult a lawyer about accessing his trust fund early (groundbreaking!), while Belly gets uninvited from volleyball camp in a subplot that goes absolutely nowhere and matters to literally no one.

The Canape Deep Dive: We spend an unreasonable amount of time defining what exactly a canapé is (it's basically fancy bruschetta on a tiny toast, you're welcome), and ranking the worst types of hard liquor because why not?

Romance Update: Taylor and Steven finally make their move after he remembers her middle name (Madison - apparently the bar is on the floor), while Sky and Cam kiss with what our hosts describe as "a lot of teeth clanging." Meanwhile, Belly continues her tour of drunken emotional breakdowns, this time drunk-dialing her mom from a trashed house.

The Writer Cameo: Jenny Han herself appears briefly in the liquor store scene, presumably checking to make sure her source material is being properly butchered.

Coming Up: We tackle The Map That Leads to You, a Netflix romance featuring "throwaway actors nobody's heard of" (Scott's words) from Riverdale and Outer Banks. Expect European backdrops, shared trauma, and our hosts debating whether any actor is truly irreplaceable.

The Verdict: These episodes pick up the pace with actual party chaos, but still manage to drag with unnecessary flashbacks and a volleyball subplot that could've been cut entirely. At least we finally got some consequences... sort of. Aunt Julia's negotiating a one-week annual rental, which seems like the worst possible compromise for everyone involved.

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Episode 82: Danielle Steel's "Daddy" (1991)

We dive into the soapy melodrama of 1991's "Daddy," where Patrick Duffy graces VHS covers in questionable states of undress, timeshares are apparently the worst financial decision you can make, and mysterious housekeeper Agnes materializes whenever someone needs to ask if anybody's hungry.

What You're Getting Into: Oliver Watson (Patrick Duffy) thinks he has the perfect family until his wife Sarah drops the bomb that she's leaving for graduate school in Michigan. What starts as pursuing her writing dreams quickly escalates to "I want to see other people" territory, leaving Oliver to single-parent three kids while everything spectacularly falls apart.

Peak Dumpster Moments:

• Patrick Duffy delivers the most pathetic TV slap in cinematic history to young Ben Affleck, complete with awkward sound effects and dramatic camera cuts
• The slowest romantic scenes ever filmed, featuring sloth-like passion and enough blue-filtered lighting to make you squint
• Matthew Lawrence crying every five minutes like it's his job
• Bobby the teenage dropout kidnapping babies and essentially running an extortion racket against broke teenagers

The Agnes Mystery: We spend considerable time trying to figure out who the hell Agnes is, as this housekeeper appears out of nowhere asking "Anybody hungry?" with the timing of someone who definitely can't read a room.

Questionable Legal Advice Corner: Oliver's immediate response to teen pregnancy? "I'll pay for an abortion or we'll send her to one of those homes." For a movie called "Daddy" celebrating fatherhood, our supposed parental role model is surprisingly quick to suggest eliminating grandchildren.

90s Family Dysfunction: Between the toxic body image messaging ("If I eat anything, it will show"), the abandonment issues, and grandma getting hit by a bus, this family makes the Fishers from "Six Feet Under" look well-adjusted.

Christmas Tradition Tangent: We take a delightful detour to explain the organized, methodical gift-opening protocol that apparently no movie family has ever adopted, complete with clues, proper presentation, and strategic wrapping paper collection.

Romance Novel Evolution: A brief exploration of how Danielle Steel's relatively tame 1991 melodrama compares to modern romance novels, which have apparently evolved into "basically women's porn" according to current bestseller lists.

The Dad Sofa Experience: An extended meditation on the horrors of hospital "dad sofas" - those vinyl-covered torture devices that pass for furniture in maternity wards.

The Verdict: come listen to hear how man dumpsters we gave this schmaltzy soap opera that manages to be both incredibly earnest about family values and completely bonkers in its execution. Not the worst thing ever made, but definitely peak early-90s melodrama with enough unintentional comedy to keep you entertained.

Coming Up: We're heading back to Cousins Beach for more teenage angst and impossible timelines as we continue our Summer I Turned Pretty journey toward the series finale chaos that's apparently taking over the internet.

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Episode 81: The Summer I Turned Pretty S2E3-4

We're back at Cousins Beach where apparently nobody understands basic estate planning, Junior Mint plushies carry the weight of metaphorical significance, and Aunt Julia has access to the world's most efficient moving crew.

What You're Getting Into: The beach house is up for sale because Susanna's half-sister Julia inherited it (somehow), leading to the most convoluted property ownership explanation since someone tried to explain timeshares. Meanwhile, Belly ping-pongs between flashbacks to her disastrous prom with Conrad and present-day bonding moments with Jeremiah that involve way too much awkward touching.

Peak Dumpster Moments:

• Jeremiah can't change a tire OR put on a fitted sheet - this golden retriever boy has zero life skills

• A prom flashback featuring Conrad as the world's most depressing date, complete with forgotten corsage and mandatory rain for "emotional impact"

• The boardwalk competition featuring the slowest go-kart race in cinematic history and rock climbing with mysteriously convenient shoes

• Aunt Julia somehow clearing out an entire mansion's worth of furniture in 8 hours (we're calling bullshit on the logistics)

The Great Deviation Discussion: Our resident book expert breaks down how the show has gone completely off the rails from the source material, introducing whole new characters and plotlines that don't exist in Jenny Han's books. Spoiler: Aunt Julia and Skye are 100% made-up TV drama.

Questionable Physics Corner: We dive deep into the aerodynamics of tandem go-karts, and why Skye is apparently day-trading Bitcoin as a minor. Because nothing says teenage summer drama like cryptocurrency speculation.

The Junior Mint Metaphor: Belly chooses a giraffe over Junior Mint at the arcade prize wall, which one of our hosts insists is a deep metaphor for the love triangle. The other host remains unconvinced that stuffed animals carry this much symbolic weight.

Coming Up: We escape to 1991 for some Danielle Steel melodrama with Patrick Duffy, because sometimes you need a shirtless Bobby Ewing holding a baby to cleanse the palate from teenage beach angst.

The Verdict: These episodes mark the turn toward peak cringe territory, featuring timeline inconsistencies, impossible logistics, and enough flashbacks to make your head spin. At least the Smashing Pumpkins song choice was solid.

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