Pop Culture Happy Hour - One Of Them Days

Episode Date: January 22, 2025

Keke Palmer is one of Hollywood's most charismatic leads, and SZA is one of the world's biggest pop stars. Now, they've teamed up for the raunchy buddy comedy One of Them Days. The movie is about two best friends in L.A., who endure a wild series of misadventures as they try to make rent over the course of one very eventful day. It's rowdy and profane, but it's also got something to say about gentrification, predatory businesses, and other factors that make it hard to survive and advance in America.Subscribe to Pop Culture Happy Hour Plus at plus.npr.org/happyhour Follow Pop Culture Happy Hour on Letterboxd at letterboxd.com/nprpopculture See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

Kiki Palmer is one of Hollywood's most charismatic leads, and Siza is one of the world's biggest pop stars. Together, they've teamed up for a raunchy buddy comedy called One of Them Days. The movie is about two best friends in L.A. who endure a wild series of misadventures as they try to make rent over the course of one very eventful day. It's rowdy and profane, but it's also got something to say about gentrification, predatory businesses, and other factors that make it hard to survive and advance in America. I'm Aisha Harris. And I'm Stephen Thompson. Today we are talking about one of them days

on pop culture happy hour from NPR. Joining us today is the host of NPR's It's Been a Minute. Brittany Luce. Hey, Brittany. Hello. Also with us making his pop culture Happy Hour debut NPR producer Corey Antonio Rose.

Welcome to the show, Corey Antonio. Thank you for having me. It is a joy to have you. I'm so glad you could be here. So one of them days stars Kiki Palmer as a highly driven waitress named Drew. She's getting ready to interview for a promotion that would let her manage her own diner franchise.

But it's the first of the month and the rent is due, and it wasn't the wisest decision to delegate the rent drop-off to Drew's roommate and best friend Alyssa. She's a free-spirited visual artist played by Siza. Alyssa has made the even less wise decision to delegate the rent drop-off to her no-good boyfriend, and you start to see where this is going. The rent money's gone, eviction is looming, and matters only spiral from there. Soon enough, they're dealing with shady payday lenders, a neighborhood bullet, and a visit to the blood bank where the first sign of trouble is the presence of Abbott Elementary's wonderful Janelle James.

And a quick warning, this episode does contain profanity. One of Them Days is in theaters now. Brittany, I'm going to start with you. What did you think of One of Them Days? I had fun. I had fun. I feel like the film advertised itself as like a fun, silly movie, and it was a fun silly movie. I was charmed by Siza.

She had a very warm on-screen presence that I was really surprised by, pleasantly surprised by. I had never really known her to act, so I didn't know what to expect. This is her first film role. Yes. She did pretty good. And of course, Kiki Palmer, you said that she's one of Hollywood's most charismatic leads, and that is just nothing but true. I thought that she was better than the film, but she's also very frequently better than the film.

So I don't know if that's really saying a lot. Very true. And that's not necessarily an insult to the films that she's in. That's just Kiki being Kiki. I will say It had been I think the first time I had seen her Like in an adult role

In a straight up comedy like this And I was like I wanted more Yes I left the film feeling like Okay I could watch Kiki do this like at that Like six times a year But yeah I thought that it was a little slap sticky at times That's not really my jam 100%. But I still felt like it was a lot of fun

They had good chemistry between Siza And Kiki Palmer and also a lot of really great, very solid, comedic little roles that were filled by really, really, really great, really funny actors. Like I would see someone like Cat Williams pop up or... Rill Rale Howery. Oh my gosh, L'Rell Pop Up. Now, I will say, sometimes I felt like the movie was getting a little, like, it was spinning out a little too much. I felt like at a certain point that Alyssa and Drew should not have been friends anymore.

We're going to get to that because I have some questions about that. That was one where I was like, you actually, I think. I think y'all should end of this movie separated. But this was a lot of fun. All right. How about you, Corey Antonio? Oh, my gosh. I really enjoyed the film.

I did not know if I would like it. It's been a minute since a comedy has made me laugh. And, like, in the theaters. There aren't that many comedies in theaters. Right. Yeah, this is true. I mean, it has all the parts of a good night out at the theater. Oh, look, we're going to get into Mr. Patrick Hage.

He was so handsome. It's been a minute since I've had a leading man really enthralling me like that on screen. The chemistry between Siza and Kiki was tangible, believable, which was a refreshing surprise to me. I didn't know if Siza was going to make me lose her. Siza the personality, Siza the musician in her performance. And, yeah, it was a really refreshing take,

and I loved that it was tackling something that felt real or that is, like, people are still struggling to pay rent. It was a story that was giving us that at an age that felt accurate to what's really going on, as opposed to this idea that you just leave the house at 21 and everything's great. Very millennial movie, it felt like. What did you think, Ayesha? I echo a lot of what both Brittany and Corey have said. The thing I came away with from this movie is that making intentional comedy is really, really hard.

One of my favorite scenes involves a moment where these two characters, they try to go to like this payday loan type of place. And this is like a very astute observation about the way these places are predatory and really, really try to just entrap people. And there's a great back and forth between, you know, the two leads and then a comedic actor who I think you've seen pop up in a lot of your favorite show. but she's in Curb Your Enthusiasm. She's also in Abbott Elementary a little bit. She was on an episode of It's Been a Minute on it from NPR. Oh, yes. We're talking about Kayla Montaroso, uh, Mejia.

Yes, yeah. She plays Kathy. So she's an agent at this payday loan center. And she has no sympathy for their plate. Are you having a heart attack? I've never seen the credit score this low. No, I know. You got problems.

You guys are old. Way too old not to understand how credit was. You're denied. Your boy. I wish there were more moments like this because there's so many great character actors who pop up in this movie that I feel like the bits were not quite hanging together in the way I like it to. It just felt as though there were moments where the banter could have been faster. It felt shaggy in places. Shaggy was exactly the word I was going to use.

And that can be endearing, right? Like this is clearly trying to evoke an older kind of black comedy. I'm thinking of Friday. I'm thinking of three years. strikes. You all remember that movie. Oh, whoa, throwback. Yes, yes, yes. Directed by DJ Pooh was always on BET and like from like 2000 to 2010. It has that shaggy, like very kind of low budget, but also very crude at times humor that, you know, your mileage may vary. But overall, I did enjoy it and I agree that they, you know, Siza and Kiki, they could put them in more movies. I love it. But it didn't quite have the same

energy and pacing and tightness of something like Girls Trip, which is like, I'm sorry, I'm just always going to keep coming back to that movie as like one of the standard bearers of what a R-rated comedy starring Black people can look like. Like, that to me is one of the pinnacles. And it didn't quite have that energy in the way that I wanted it to. But yeah, I'm curious, Stephen, about your thoughts about this movie. My thoughts are very, very similar to yours. I really kind of loved marinating in the charisma of.

these leads. I do think Siza is perfectly on the nose casting as a flighty artist who you wouldn't necessarily entrust. Who chooses the wrong men. Yeah, who chooses the wrong men and who I wouldn't necessarily entrust with a logistical task, but somebody who is lovable nonetheless. There are some pretty serious script issues. I didn't necessarily think to kind of get to what Aisha was saying. I think there's a shagginess going on here where I felt like the script just kind of needed another pass. Some of the way that kind of conflict between the two leads, which is inevitable in the plot of this film, they have to kind of be together and then be pulled apart and then be brought

back together. But the way that they're pulled apart, all these scenes where they're like in conflict and we're supposed to think they're equally at fault. And yet Siza is so much more at fault. Yeah. That is true. I literally wrote in my notes, Drew needs to to dump Alyssa. Why are you friends with her in all caps? That's what I wrote. Alyssa is like 85% to blame. But at the same time, I was just sitting in the theater and I was like, I miss seeing rowdy, raunchy, low to mid-budget comedies in theaters. You mentioned Girls' Trip, Aisha. You know, Girls' Trip was a phenomenon. But that was 2017. And obviously, there was a whole pandemic between that. and now that has affected the way movies are distributed, I made the mistake of seeing this movie at like 2 o'clock in the afternoon on the Thursday when it opened.

So there were like two other people in the theater. And I really found myself like, oh, I needed to see this in a crowd. It feels like it's engineered to be enjoyed in a crowd. You know, we alluded to this blood bank scene with Janelle James. First of all, you put Janelle James in anything, and I'm immediately laughing. Yeah. And that scene goes wildly over the time. Not the substance level over the top, but it goes pretty far over the top.

But I wanted to be cringing in a room full of yelling people. I think my enjoyment of this film may have been dulled slightly by the absence of a really active crowd. I mean, I saw it in the middle of the afternoon on a Saturday. And I'll say the jokes that I didn't laugh at, a lot of people did. Yes. And it got me through the moment a little bit easier. I also saw it at like 2 o'clock on a Thursday, but maybe just because I'm in Oakland, but like my theater was pretty packed. They were enjoying it.

My crowd was enjoying it. And it was probably, I'd say the majority of the people were black and or over the age of 30. So like, do without what you will. But I think there was a lot of nostalgia. I could sense like people were like they were into it, right? And it's also, it's California. So it's like there's just a lot of little things about California and L.A. specifically that I think a lot of people in my crowd could relate to perhaps in a way that.

Stephen, you're, well, there were only three people in there. But, you know. It was hard to even get a demographic breakdown. I think that, like, for all of its shagginess, I still felt like the pieces that worked worked really, really well. And I will say, also for all of its shagginess, I thought this was, like, a nice debut for Sarita Singleton, who wrote the film, who also, I believe, was the showrunner,

rap shit on Max, which actually I thought was a really well-done, like, TV show. But I feel like there was enough in here that worked and that I enjoyed that I was like, oh, I would love to see what she does next. But I would 100% agree. I think that Drew and Alyssa needed to break up. I thought the end of the film to me, Drew should have kicked Alyssa to the curve. And I think that she really should have focused on like her career and also on her love life with this good looking. That's what I will say. The film's not lacking in good looking people 100.

I mean, Issa Rae produced this, so, like, of course there's going to be two to three different very good-looking men. Wait, Courtney and Tony, I want to ask you a question. You had mentioned in a chat that we had last week that you were like, one. I think I had seen the film and you had yet to see it and you had like some curiosity about, like, how it was going to speak to, like, the current moment of being, like, the black in your 20s and in a city trying to, like, be on the conversation. up. Did you feel like it was like relatable in any aspect or that it was like speaking in an honest way in any aspect? You know, there's a moment at the beginning of the film where they come out or they're coming back to their apartment and they see one of their neighbors and he's outside. All his stuff on the sidewalk. Oh yeah. And I had this moment where I was like,

you know, this is a comedy. Everything is hiked up to this, you know, know, if degree, you know, we've already seen somebody get blasted through a wall. But I think it was a really good representation of like what that deepest fear is when you are like young and hungry

and on the come up and you are working and you just trying to make it work. You don't know what happened to this guy. You just know he ain't make his rent. Right. There are moments in the film despite all of the, you know, antics that I feel like really take real fears and they hike them

up to the nth degree and say, okay, this is what it's going to look like in this, you know, hilarious context or what have you. But it hits, and it hikes the stakes up for the characters, too. I remember that was the moment where I was like, okay. So, yeah, I do think I found it relatable. I wanted to ask you guys about the sense of place in this film. You know, the film is shot in the South L.A. neighborhood known as the jungles. That neighborhood is really a big part of this movie.

It's almost like a character in the movie. Yes. Aisha and Corey Antonio, you guys are both in California. Did you feel that sense of place? Did it feel authentic to you? I mean, I can't claim. I mean, California's a big place. Yes.

Also, I've only lived here for like four and a half years. So I'm not here to like, I don't want anyone who's actually like from L.A. to be like, you don't know anything about this place. I did get a sense from, especially again, this goes back to the movie Friday. Like you have all these different types of personalities and everyone knows everyone or is like two or three degrees away from someone, I thought Aziza Scott, who plays Big Booty Bernice, was like, she was a character and she was in sometimes, like, sometimes kind of a caricature. But I still enjoyed that because there are people who are just, they are, that's who they are.

The Joshua David Neal who plays Kishon, Alyssa's deadbeat boyfriend. Worst boyfriend. Everyone just felt real. And the sense of the place where they actually live, the apartment where they live and how, like, you know, they have the older woman who's kind of the mother figure in the place. And then you have like... Shout out to Vanessa Belle Calaway. It just, it felt like the little that I've experienced of L.A. and what I've experienced of living in the Bay. It felt true in a way.

And I would expect nothing lost from Issa Ray because, you know, again, she's producing this. And L.A. is her home. And she... Most of the things she does are, like, love. letters to LA in a way. And I don't think this is any different. Oh, you know, I was never missed California myself either. But I will say knowing Issa Ray's work and knowing how, like, thinking about rap shit in comparison to this, I am a Florida boy. And the way that she can really sink her teeth or her productions, sink their teeth into the culture of a specific place and really

live in that and bring it out. It reminds me of, oh, Jocelyn B. out. Right. Yes. Yes. Another friend of I-BAM. Yes. It reminds me of the way she sets her stories in these really specific places and part of the enjoyment or part of the pleasure factor of enjoying the art is you get to see how the culture of this specific place really does affect the lives and the narratives of these characters. And I found that to be something that was really true with this piece. I have one last thing that I want to say, which is Kiki Palmer needs to be the lead of every movie. Whatever movies are coming out,

if they, she could have been the lead in Osferatu. She could have played it. I'm sorry. And she needs to be the lead in every movie. The same way, talented young man, but the same way Timothy Shalameh, I feel like every time I turn around it's a new version of Timothy.

You just want to replace Timothy Shalomey with Kiki. I mean, I think, I think actually he would love that. I actually think he would love that. She has that, like, not to quote, you know, Eli Wallach from the holiday, but she has real gumption. And I just, yeah, it's a joy to see her on screen. And I just wish I could see more of her.

That's how I feel, basically. That's my main review of one of them days. The way I grew up with my aunties playing Whoopi Goldberg movies, and it was hit after hit, after medium low hit, after high hit, after all right hit, after real good, deep cut hit. That's how Kiki's catalog is going to be if we can own digital media, you know, in five or six years. Yes. More Kiki Palmer.

All right. Well, we want to know what you think about one of them days. Find us on Facebook at Facebook.com slash PCHH and on Letterboxed at letterboxed.com slash NPR pop culture. We'll have a link in our episode description. That brings us to the end of our show, Brittany Luce, Corey Antonio Rose, Aisha Harris. Thanks so much for being here. Thank you. Thank you.

And just a reminder that signing up. for Pop Culture Happy Hour Plus is a great way to support our show and public radio, and you get to listen to all of our episodes, sponsor-free. So please go find out more at plus.npr.org slash happy hour, or visit the link in our show notes. This episode was produced by Hufsafothsa Fathema and Lenin Sherburn, and edited by Mike Katzif. Our supervising producer is Jessica Reedy,

and Hello, Come In provides our theme music. Thank you for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. I'm Stephen Thompson, and we will see you all tomorrow.