The Watch - The Ringer Recommends (Ep. 141)

Episode Date: April 14, 2017

Chris Ryan is joined by a carousel of Ringer staffers, who stop by to recommend a piece of content that other people should be watching, reading, or listening to. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Major League Baseball is finally back. As the new season gets underway, The Ringer Podcast Network has baseball fans covered with the Ringer MLB show playing for free on the Tune-in app for the month of April. Download the Tune-N app for free and listen to Ben Lindberg and Michael Bauman breakdown baseball's biggest stories

throughout the opening month of the MLB season. And as a bonus for our listeners, the Ringer podcast network has partnered with Tune in to give baseball fans a free 60-day trial of Tune-in premium to listen to every live home call from every MLB game around the league. Catch the Ringer MLB show only on Tune in for the entire month for free, and when you upgrade to Tune in premium, you get those live MLB games. Just go to Tunein.com slash Ringer and subscribe.

Download the Tune app for free and start listening today. Tune in Your Everything Audio app. This episode of The Watch is brought to you by Jay Cole for Your Eyes only a Dreamville film, the Grammy-nominated hip-hop star's second HBO special, which debuted Saturday, April 15th, at 10 p.m. Eastern. This is the exclusive presentation. It's a multi-narrative show that combines music performances with intimate interviews documented through Cole's lens. The special showcases songs from his fourth album as well as revealing footage containing the heartfelt confessions, concerns, and struggles of people in the South. Traveling through different cities, gathering interviews, J. Cole reveals the challenges lower-income residents face trying to obtain viable housing,

as well as the frustration for felons of being barred from voting. I'm personally really excited to check this out. It's rare that you get to see a rapper have. the chance to make something like this with the interviews, the documentary element, and the concert footage, and put it on a platform like this. Jay Cole's latest special airs Saturday, April 15th,

10 p.m. Eastern to 11 p.m. Easter for the premiere of Jay Cole For Your Eyes Only, a Dreamville film. You have to hit HBO. I need sports to have to clear the room. Stand up and walk now. Hello, and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at the ringer.com.

And today, a special episode the watch. We're joined by a bunch of ringer staff members, a variety of them. I was going to do a solo pod today that was just going to be like 63 minutes straight on the Americans. But that's premium content. You got to pay for that. The free version here is me talking a bunch of of staff members from the ringer, Sean Fennessee, Allison Herman, Micah Peters, and more. And I just wanted to pick their brains. See what they're checking out right now. Get some Ringer recommendations, and I actually don't even know what folks are going to be recommending to me right now, but we're going to start off with the Ringer editor-in-chief and my

arch nemesis, Sean Fennessey. I'm in the take canon, and I'm ready to be fired. You have the floor, man. You've cleared me out. I'm standing in the corner waiting for the ball. That's not what this is about, but I'm going to open with a story to set the scene. Oh, my God. Last night, members of the Ringer staff after a Ringer league basketball game, went to a Korean

restaurant, had some beers. had some skewers. Okay. Conversation came up. Thanks for the invite. That was cool. I wasn't busy. Well, if you could ball, you could be there. So anyway, we're at this restaurant.

We're having a conversation. It's the same conversation that everybody in America is having today. Who is the MVP of the National Basketball Association? Yes. Yes. As you know and as you feel, many members of our staff, love and support Russell Westbrook. I am wearing an Oklahoma Thunder hat right now, even though I'm from Philadelphia, two of your favorite places in America.

Right. So those are festering cauldrons. However, at this debate last night, Jason Gallagher, Micah Peters, among others, stridently supporting Russ, making their case. Right. As you know and as you've known for many years, I am opposed to Russ at all costs. Yes. I do not understand the love. I do not understand the support.

I am not moved. I hope that this is like, this is your Andy Kaufman move and that when, you know, 10 years from now and I'm toasting you as you open up your third in a franchise. of shoe stores that you've opened. And I'm like, remember when you used to hate Russell Westbrook and you just look up and it's like, it was like that was just a bit. It was a 10-year bit. It's not a bit. So anyhow, we're having

this debate. I'm arguing against it. I'm supporting Hardin. I'm making my usual case about how LeBron has been the MVP of the league for the last nine years. He should have nine MVPs, etc. Things get a little contentious as they often do during these debates. To parry back at me, Jason Gallagher,

blank-faced, looks me in eye and says, you know what, man, I don't like Father John Misty, which was just the most, it was the lowest blow. Yeah. Because you know how I feel about Father John Misty. Yeah, but I feel like you and I know that the deeper into the mist we get, the more we're going to lose other fellow travelers. Yeah.

So that's what I want to talk about. What I want to talk about is Father John Misty, not in the context of the MVP debate. He is the MVP of music in 2017. But he has a new record. It's called Pure Comedy. It came out last Friday. You send me a Slack message on the ringer Slack. Yeah.

Four weeks ago, five weeks ago, low-key, maybe 1 o'clock in the morning on a Friday night that was like, hey, man, just want you to know, pure comedy is really touching me. Yeah. Yeah. So, nature, she devised this alternative. And I honestly at that point hadn't given it as much time as I would have like. I've been giving it a lot more time this week.

We've talked about Father John Misty before. But now that it's out in the world and the takes are roiling, are you as excited about it as you were five weeks ago? Yeah, I don't think that there's, he's my favorite lyricist in pop music right now. I'm actually, like, you know, like, I have a bunch of friends who are, I don't, they're very into like, you know, oh, it's just melody and, you know, if the lyrics are there. But I have like a, I've always been really attracted to, like, probing funny lyricists who play characters

or work with sarcasm or work with irony. And it's not to say that everybody doesn't do this. But like, you know, I've always had a soft spot for people like that, whether it was like Stephen Malcolmis or, you know, Misty now, I'm sure I sound like I only have two examples. But there's something about the

dead-eyed kind of horror that lurks underneath this album and it's but it's being played like by an indie band at a holiday inn at the edge of a desert. You know what I mean? I really like this idea of almost like a lounge act at the end of the world, which is like the way I envision pure comedy playing out.

This album has a lot of elements of your favorite music, like Randy Newman, Harry Nilsson. Is it almost one of those cases where something is too close to home? It is, yeah. A few years ago, I profiled Father John Misty, Josh Tillman. We spent some time together. and at the end of a long conversation that we had, he was telling me about what he was working on next.

And he pretty accurately described what ended up becoming pure comedy, which is a sort of like existential look at the world and the way that information comes in and the way we can't get it out, you know, this sort of like never-ending stream of information that is unprocessable. This is pre-Donald Trump. This is pre all manner of things that have since distorted the world. But even at that point, he kind of knew what he was doing. and I remember specifically

thinking this is a mistake obviously I wasn't going to say that to him but what I liked so much about his second album, I Love You Honey Bear is just that it was very intimate and specific and it was very much about him and I could relate to him in a lot of specific ways

and I completely agree with everything he said about the lyricism. I completely agree with the sound of the music is a mode of music that is very sensual to me but for whatever reason, even after spending a lot more time with it this week, I can't, I can't connect. And maybe it's because I don't want to spend my time thinking about how I can't connect

to the rest of the world the same way that he can't. You know what? I have the same like miserableist view of things. So let me ask you, and this is not just because both of these songwriters have lurid lines about Taylor Swift. But do you feel like he is kind of entering that Kanye zone where the music is at once so personal but it for you but is also like a shared experience for a lot of people and there's so many takes about him and there's like he's obviously like going through a very special moment in

terms of being an interview subject and being a pundit about pop culture and the like industrial complex around how we prop up and knock down pop cultural figures do you feel like he's almost entering a zone where it's not it's no longer like a private relationship with a musician and now he's like a figure that you have to kind of like think about? Maybe. It's possible. I only felt that way

at the very beginning with Kanye. I accept Kanye belongs to everyone. I think with Father John Misty, it's more that he's trying to figure out how to stay one step

ahead of everybody. And the way that he's doing it in a form that is much more rigid. Like folk music and the form of rock music that he plays is pretty straight. It's hard to reinvent it.

He's stripped down this album from the last record. Kanye usually, usually does the opposite. Kanye is usually like, how can I blow up the last Murakami painting into a new painting? And I think that because of the strictures

that NMistie puts on himself, it makes it more challenging. But I don't feel like a loss of closeness to him. I just don't like the songs as much. Okay. So Sean Fennacy recommends Pure Comedy by Father John Misty,

obviously available wherever you find music online or otherwise. And it's a record that he's still struggling with, but is obviously deeply engaged by. Protect FJM. Yeah, okay. Let's jump to our next guest. Okay, that was Sean Fennancy. And now we're joined by the Ringer's television critic, Alison Herman.

Allison, welcome back. This is like now four times, three times on the pod? I'm a recurring guest. Is that the technical time? You're going to have to get the Tom Hanks jacket soon. Okay, so Allison, what do you recommend? So Netflix, as we know, is a never-ending font of content. Yeah.

This weekend, they dropped the second season of a British show called Chewing Gum. You might have heard about our colleague Kana wrote a recommendation for it in our running television post, but it is created by, written by, and stars a woman named Michaela Cole. And I guess the loose plot is it's about a virgin named Tracy who lives with her immigrant mom who's super Christian. her sister who very much buys into that. It's set in England, right? It's set on a real housing project or council estate, as they are called, in North London, basically. But yeah, and she decides that she kind of wants to grow up and venture out of this very strictured. I mean, it's sheltered in some ways because she's a 24-year-old virgin, but also she grows up in the middle of a working class.

housing project and she's surrounded by the realities that come with that and the show is very frank about that. And what I personally really like about the show is it follows very loosely a template of the young single girl in the city. But we're so used to seeing that template reflected through usually white, usually affluent, usually not on a council estate. Right. Usually not a virgin. Usually just not as culturally specific about anything except I'm in New York and I'm going to trade in that iconography. And I think... Extreme Hannah-Hovart voice.

Yeah, or Lana Glazer or even, I mean, there's actually a lot of parallelism between chewing gum and flea-back. I think their first seasons dropped in American stream. So they are both British imports to American streaming services. I think Netflix just distributed the first season and contributed to the production of the second. but British comedies, six episodes, American Streaming Services, they even both share that breaking the fourth wall device. Oh, okay. Where the narrator is it as dark as Fleabag or?

That's also what's kind of nice about it is that there are dark elements and that it's much more frank about teen pregnancy and the desperation that can come with poverty and these are not classy people as we might understand them. But it has this total unrestrained joy to it. It is kind of a technicolor palette. It even has a very old-school sitcom-y montage opening that's a little bit ironic but also sincere. And it brings this palpable sense of, I think it's really interesting in that it manages to balance both. It's very sharply written, and there are one-liners to be found in it.

But Cole is just such a gifted physical comedian. It's almost like if you made an entire show out of that scene in Broad City where Alana Jop. jacks off a tree. Yeah. Like, it's that level of total commitment, total enthusiasm, total lack of inhibition.

And it's really fun to watch. And I literally sat down on a Saturday afternoon and knocked the whole thing out in three hours. Okay. Is it, I'm going to ask the leftovers question. Is it a, do you have to watch the first season to understand the second season bit?

Just as like a service journalism kind of question here? It's a little bit serialized. You probably could just read the Wikipedia page. Yeah. I do think, So the first season, she sort of magically just picks up a boyfriend. And so the first season was sort of, this is my first relationship. How do I negotiate that?

And then the second season, they've broken up. Now she has to negotiate the aftermath of her first breakup. And one of the great ironies is that she manages to have this escalating series of sexual adventures. But, spoiler alert, I guess. She's still a virgin at the end of it, even though she's managed to, like, go to a sex club. It's a high degree of difficulty for maintaining virginity, I guess. Okay, I would be remiss if I did not ask you because I already know the answer, but for listeners who know Andy and I have been sort of talking up the leftovers piece by piece here and there over the last week or so, but just corroborate the fact that Andy and I are not on Leftover Island. How good is this? Without giving any away, obviously. The entire profession of television criticism is one giant Leftover's Island. We just kind of scream into the void.

Because of the boom, there's like two and a half million of you. Yeah, I think we got three people to watch it. but we're just sustaining these final episodes, but it's incredible. Can't recommend it more. I'm really excited to hear you guys' conversation with Damon. Yeah. Yeah, go watch.

Okay, Allison Herman, she recommends Chewing Gum. It's streaming on Netflix. Thanks very much for stopping by, Allison. Thanks for having me. Okay, so that was Allison Herman, and now I am joined by the ringer's chief millennial. Micah Peters. Mike, is your first time on the watch?

I think it is my first time on the watch. It's a big moment. It's a big day. It's a big day. Micah, I don't know what people are going to be recommending. And with you, I never know what you're going to recommend. I never know what you're going to bat into my office and say you were obsessed with some piece of obscure anime or like. I spend a lot of time on SoundCloud.

Like, stop judging me for it. The future base community. Michael, what do you have to recommend for the watch listeners? Right. Okay. So my recommendation is this rapper from St. Louis, who is a Chicago Transcendant. His name is Smino, and his debut album was called Black Swan. And it is amazing.

Spel Smito for people. Smino is S-M-I-N-O. Great. Okay, I can remember that. Smino, he's from, he's a Chicago transplant to St. Louis. No. St. Louis, Chicago. What's the stuff like?

Okay, so it's very, I don't want to say future bounce because that's a gold length's term, but it's very vivy and kind of mellow, but bouncy. The way that he it's kind of like a something in the legacy of Nelly, I would say. Oh. But I mean updated for

well updated for my generation. Gotcha. Okay. You're so big. Okay. What is it in the sense that is it melodic the way Nellie was? It is extremely melodic.

There's my favorite song on the album is called Father Son I'm a holy smoke. It's very much like the melody. You can tell when the melody is the bedrock for, for, like, it's more heavily weighted on the melody than it is the bedrock for, like, it's more heavily weighted on the melody than it is necessarily the lyric. I would say. Although there are things that are the way that he wraps is very, even when he does interviews.

Like he was on selection radio a couple months ago talking to Joe Kay. And even when he's just talking, like you and I are talking right now, it sounds like he's still performing. Like he's doing a melody and like his voice is inherently melodic. Yeah, it's like, you know, shout out my mama, she never judged me. Even told me on Q when I know him. I guess it's very like it's and everything is very precise and fun it's just a fun album would you compare I mean just out of curiosity because like I think that when we first started working together obviously there was that burst of like new talent that kind of broke through

a little bit in rap where it was like vert and yadi and yadi especially was like I think while whimsical I think that pre-stage to like a degree of like interest in melody that had been maybe not lacking but absent from a lot like a lot of hip-hop like do you Do you feel like that there's been a turn towards like almost sing-songs-songing melody in hip-hop? Or has that been going out for a long time since the Boconin and before that? I think it's been going on for a long time. I think that it's maybe more of a mainstream thing. Maybe it's more overt now that everything is, it's songs are consistent of many hooks rather than having like a verse hook.

bridge, whatever, structure, anything that's straightforward. There are those things, like say even just in that one specific song I was talking about before, like there's a verse structure and a bridge and a hook, but it bleeds into,

like each bleeds into the next versus like you being able to say distinctly, this is what this does and this is what this does. Let me ask you this. How did you find out about this guy? Because I'm always curious about, like, the way people find out about, especially like a little bit slightly more, your artists because of like the way that the

sort of the delivery system of like music music information has changed so much in the last few years like is this something you just like were on SoundCloud like scouting stuff or did you did it do you come to you through like do you read about it or what? No I mean okay so there was this song I want to say it was three years ago almost

Pigeon of Planes does this thing called Songs of the Week and I would like you know just look at it every like just when you're making your daily round around the internet. And there was a song called Chabata by this dude name, Swino. I was just like, that is the dumbest song name I've ever heard. But it was like, it was a song about, you know, like, you know, the different, I mean,

bread, you get at Oban Pan? No, the different words that you have for money, like Chabada, bread, cheese, so on so forth. Gotcha. But like introduces Chabada on top of that. That's good. And it was like a lexicon. It was just like, um, It was interesting.

And I was just like, okay, this is cool. But I didn't come back to it. And I wasn't like really, really in until the Monty Booker, who is the producer that works with him primarily, there was, he had a selection of white label release that just was like a handful of songs. And there was this one song on there called Colors. And Colors is, it sounds like. in like a Super Nintendo like beat or whatever. And it's just, it's so...

The Nintendo Wave is so strong with you guys. It's so, it's so sunshiney. And it's like, it plays on nostalgia, but also doesn't make it so that it's not in a way that's boring or heavy-handed or hand-fisted or whatever. It's not a gimmick. Exactly. It didn't feel like a gimmick.

It just felt very, it felt fun. Like I was saying, the entire album does. Okay. Like there's also Another song on the album called Edgar Allan Poet Up You're just making these up I'm not making I'm not making these up Chabata and Edgar Allen

Poet Up Chabada is was just a soundcloud Lucy Edgar Allen Poet Up is an official That was like that was an official There you go It was like it was one of the lead singles from the album Okay And I think that I'm just going to continue using this this explanation

for the song because somebody asked me what it sounds like remember the D-12 video for Purple Hills yeah it sounds like rolling down one of the Purple Hills in that video that's a very very evocative summary all right so this guy

is named Smino yes and you can find his stuff on Spotify Apple Music SoundCloud S-M-I-N-O on a scale of one to 10 one being like I'm over it 10 being shoot me to the sun via like a catapult, how excited are you for Kendrick tonight?

11. 11. Who is going to be the first person to be like, I'm over Kendrick? When can we get that person on the watch? And do you want to be here for it? Justin Charity already said that like two years ago. That's true. Like Justin Charity is over everything. That's true. Justin Charity thinks that... He hates fun and $2 bills and rainbows. He thinks crime is fake news. Yeah.

Okay. No, it's, you know, he's already over it, and I would gladly argue with him publicly about it. All right. All right, maybe next week. My computers, thank you for joining us. The artist is Smino. You can catch him everywhere you stream music. Thanks for joining us.

Thank you for having me. Before we get to Amanda Dobbins, we're just going to take a quick break to hear from our sponsors. This episode of The Watch is brought to you by our buddies at Sonos. Do you want to experience television movies and music with a sound you can feel from a speaker you'll hardly notice? Well, playbass from Sonos gives you just that. Its low-profile design practically disappears beneath your television, yet it fills your entire viewing room with epic home theater audio. From movies and sports to TV shows and gaming,

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You know, it takes like five minutes up. A baby could do it. Playbase securely supports TVs up to 75 pounds, which covers just about any TV that comes with its own stand. And it works with almost all TV, cable box, and universal remotes. So the remotes you have are all you'll need. Everything sounds better on Playbase. See for yourself and go to sonos.com to learn more. That's S-O-N-O-S dot com. Today's episode is also brought to you by the AV Club. Listen to this. Have you ever been on a website and thought this seems pretty good, but what if it were a TV show instead? You're in luck. Since 1993, the AV Club has produced some of pop culture's best writing on the web, and now, after 20 years of talking about TV, things are coming full circle, and the folks

at the AV Club club, they're getting their own TV show. Hosted by longtime AV Club editor John Teddy, the AV Club show is a weekly deep dive that invites everyone from fanatics to casual observers alike to look closer and laugh more at every corner of pop culture from TV to movies to music to gaming and beyond. So get your snack of choice, turn on Fusion TV, and catch the AV club hosted by John Teddy Thursdays at 9 Easter. And be sure to visit fusion.net slash where to watch for details. Okay. We just heard from Michael Peters, but now we are joined by the Queen. Queen Victoria of the ringer. Queen Victoria is still alive, right? It's Elizabeth, but I really am very pleased Amanda Dobbins is here. Queen Victoria was a Queen of England once. Yeah, no, I know. She's moved

on to another plane of existence. They made a bunch of shows about her recently. So we're both of them. Amanda, I can't wait because you have threatened to release upwards of 10 recommendations. I'm just excited for the first one, though. I mean, I'm willing to go as far as you want to go here. It's fine. I whittled it down. The one thing that I want to talk about with you, Chris Ryan.

Yeah. D. Is it a Marrow. Oh, okay. Great. I love this show. Okay. Which are you more looking forward to?

Talking to your kids about sex or drugs? Um. I feel like that's going to be the same talk. Yeah. Like, yo, they both are kind of like intertwine, my guy. if you think about it. Wow. But you got to teach your kids

how to do drugs, you know what I'm saying, the small way. And I probably shouldn't admit this because it's sort of my job to keep up with television on a regular basis. It is the only show

that I am reliably 100% cut up on DBR-wise. This makes you the perfect watch co-host. I watch the other things, just like not, you know. You know, like there are a couple billions on my DVR. I'm going to get there. I'm excited.

Okay. There are no DEC's and Mera on my DVR right now because I have watched them all. Has DZUSA Amaro changed its format at all. First of all, tell the listeners who may not know what it is. Okay.

A little bit about it. So, Deesis and Mero is a 30-minute talk show on Vicerland. It's like Vicerland's late-night show. Okay. And I, honest to God, like, never thought in my life that I would be anywhere recommending a late-night show on Vicerland. But here I am. Dees-a-Mero, two guys who, I guess they were Twitter celebrities?

Yeah. I think that there's three good people at Twitter. Yeah. There's Jason Concepcion. who we luckily hired and these two guys. And they have been, I mean, they've been good on Twitter since 2010. Yeah. I was good on Twitter in 08.

Okay. And then I kind of like fell off. Are those tweets still available? Like if I scroll back far enough, is there evidence of you actually using Twitter? I think that life is a public act. Okay. That's great. So they were very good on Twitter.

And then actually our pal Donnie Kwok when Donnie worked at Complex. invited them to do a podcast, I think, for Complex, right? That was a good move by Donnie. Yeah, it was a great move by Donnie. And they have continued to just be in the public sphere making jokes on a regular basis. And they were at Complex. They did MTV. And now they started this show.

And the show is essentially a podcast, but on TV with slight late night vibes. And it's extremely well produced. It's produced by Eric Rydholm. And it just allows them to make jokes. And they're very funny. And I think they're the only funny people on TV right now. They are the only people who can consistently make me laugh. They're the only people who I want to hear making jokes about Trump.

They're the only people that I want to hear talking about viral videos, which they do regularly. Oh, good. They'll do kind of the screen and screen where they will director's commentary, like a child interacting with a llama and it goes wrong. And like I'm just, I'm like over 30 years old and just sitting on my crouch, like crying, laughing. Do you watch it every night? Do you save them up and watch them? a batch? I think part of the reason

I can keep up with them is that I'll sit down and kind of do two in a row. It's a 20-minute commitment because you can fast forward. I'm not watching it live. It's not like I race home. Right.

But yeah, I would say that within the week, they do, they tape every day, so they're fairly current events. So it's better if you kind of watch. It's funny to watch them do the Spicer press conference like the day it happened.

Yeah, then it is like because something, some new shit happens every day. It's like if you're watching the press conference, from two weeks ago. It's not quite as funny. Okay. All right. That's a great recommendation. Did you have any other? So I know that you said that you were like, I have five. I have there's a bunch of things I want to talk. Yeah, you want me to do a lighting round.

Yeah, come on. Let's just hit us up. Okay. So I'm reading a book. Yeah. Which is great. It's called the Idiot by Elf Butuman. Oh, yeah. It's basically, it's a campus novel. Is that what you would call it? Sure. Is that the literary genre? Yeah. I don't want Julia Litton's favorite genre. Exactly. I don't want Julia to get mad at me. I'm only halfway through. It's just really engrossing. It's about a young girl at Harvard. And also, I really enjoy it. Also, the book is pink.

It's millennial pink. Do you know about millennial pink? I do. Okay, so it's on trend. I feel very cool when I'm... I actually don't know whether I feel cool or, like, played out when I'm walking around with it.

Right. Well, in Los Angeles, you look like a road scholar. So it's like, New York maybe be a little bit behind the times. Okay. Number three. But you're like one of only six people reading a novel in Los Angeles right now. I know. That's not fair.

Maybe 10. Right. Number three, Scandal. 100th episode, tonight. Yeah. I'm still watching. Yeah, how's it going? Okay, so season five was, I actually think, one of the best seasons of the show because

it was before Trump was elected president, and they kind of created a Trump character. I think they just got lucky with the timing and the way they wrote the show. Lucky. It felt lucky when you're watching it. I guess I haven't gone back to watch it now to see whether it's less funny. Okay. But the kind of president of election that they did is. In season five, they had a female candidate.

They were kind of doing parallel life before parallel life got horrible, and it was very interesting. Okay. Season six is a little more soapy and ridiculous. Like, there's a lot of spy shit, but not cool spy stuff. And is Olivia, she's still with fits? How's that going? No. So Olivia's with no one right now.

That might be my other concern is that there's no regular sex scenes on the show, which is, like, honestly, let's just be real about why we're watching. Right. But for me, it's the politics. Sure, of course. But it's still such escapism for me. I think Shonda's so good at that. Yeah. And I'm not caught up on Grey's Anatomy, so scandal's where I am.

Okay, the idiot scandal, Deez-Samero. Yeah. That's a great triple header. Thanks. All right. Amanda Dobbins, thank you for joining us. All right, now I'm joined by Cam Collins. Cam is the ringer's movie critic and one of my favorite writers on the site.

And Kim, it's great to have you back on the show. What's up? How you doing? How you doing? And now I, from some of these people who have been on the show already, I didn't know what they were going to recommend. But for you, I have to assume we're going to be talking about James Gray's Lost City of Z, which opens up this weekend in the Fast and the Furious, the Wake of Fast and the Furious. That's right. There's a major exploration afoot.

Terrible disease, murderous savages. The journey may well mean your life. If we may find a city where one was considered in person. possible to exist. It may well write a whole new chapter in human history. I'm on the record as a stand at this point. I feel like I've tweeted about this movie more than even like get out, probably. Yeah, it's my favorite movie of the year so far.

Actually, the second time I saw it, I'm not afraid to admit that I got a little teary at the end, which does not happen to me often. I was very overwhelmed. It's a movie about seeing more than one movie this weekend. I assume everyone's being fascinated, and you should, because it's really fun. But it's a movie about, you know, trip into the jungle, search for this blind. There's an old-fashioned adventure story of a kind that really has not been in American theaters in a while. Yeah.

Charlie Honom plays this British explorer, a soldier, who's looking for basically some upward mobility class-wise in British society around the I guess it's sort of in the late 19th century, right, into the early 20th century? Yeah, it's early, early 20th century, like 1901. Yeah, and so he is tasked by the sort of Royal Geographic Exploration Society or something close to that to go explore Bolivia, go explore the Amazon, make maps, and obviously there's other layers to the story about to get too into it. But for someone who's never seen a James Gray movie, Cam, can you succinctly even sum up? it makes him such a special filmmaker? I think for me it's just like he takes familiar, you know, his early movies were crime dramas.

Then he made like a movie, like a movie called The Immigrant that was very similar to like Brooklyn, which came out of the same mirror. He makes like genre, like movies, you're aware of the kind of movies that he's making. They're kind of typical movies, typical dramas. But he just instills them with this sense of, for me, sometimes it's anguish, sometimes it's just familiar warmth.

There's just something about the histories of people and the histories of relationships and feelings in his movies that just really stand out for me. It's kind of hard to really qualify. It's sort of a, if he hits for you, he hits in a very emotional way. The people who like his movies are very devoted. Yeah, I think that there's a, I don't want to get too into the plot, but there's a relationship in La City of Z between Charlie Hunham and Sienna, who plays his wife, that in 99.9% of other movies that would have, if you gave them, to 99% of other filmmakers. And we're like, okay, make a movie out of David Grand's Law City of Z. Sienna Miller's character

would be practically, you know, she would be window dressing, and she would only be kind of there to wave goodbye and say hello. And the time that James Gray spends developing her character, even if she is still limited in the scope of this

film, is like is a really good example, I think, of like, the little things that he does that are just slightly different than most filmmakers. Yeah, and I'll just say, like, the time, the second time I saw the movie when I got really emotional, it was really because of Deanna Miller's character because the movie is so, so devoted to both exploring his desire to get into the jungle, but also her inability because of her station, right, her inability that she's an explorer as much as he is, and her inability to go into the jungle and join him is, like, really moving to me.

The movie is really intently making you aware of her modernity, like her independence, but her just social inability to join her husband in the jungle. They have arguments about it. It's really, it's

frustrated for her. And that's what really, partially what really is. She's so cool. You know, we joke about Fast 8 coming out and, you know, a lot, a majority of people who are going to probably go see that this weekend. But I would

say to anybody listening is not familiar with the material or gray as a filmmaker. Cam and I are not talking about you know experimental avant-garde tracking shots of pottery here. This is actually like an adventure movie. You know what I mean?

And it's got a lot more in common with Raiders of Lost Ark than a Swedish film about like a marriage falling apart or something like that. It's a very, it's a very thrilling adventure ride, but it's, it's, it's kind of languid in the way it tells it, and it just reveals so much detail. I was, I really love your review. It's on the ringer today. And it's beautiful to look at. Oh, yeah.

It's beautiful to, I mean, toward the end, there's this shot, when he's going on his last trip with his son, there's a shot, like the saying goodbye to his family or whatever. Just this shot of the dawn in the sky. It's just like, what the, the kind of movie that I really think people need to see in theaters. Oh, yeah, absolutely. It's totally like a widescreen experience. You and I both got very excited about Gray's next movie, which he begins shooting in July, with Brad Pitt, who is now officially just keeps good filmmakers in business,

is like what I think he's trying to do. Right, totally. Brad Pitt, who was supposed to be the star of Lost City of Z actually. Oh, was he really? And B. Yeah, he was, my other thing is he was supposed to be before Charlie Annam. Now, Charlie's great, by the way. I think that would have been strange.

You can see Brad Pitt and not wrong. Yeah, that would have been a weird Legends of the Fall move for him. I'm glad it's on him. But Gray's next movie is called Ad Astra, and it's a sci-fi movie with Brad Pitt in space. And I think if I read the sort of summary right, is Gray hasn't gone too deeply into the plot points, but he's been saying that it's basically about how horrifying it must be to be in space. Oh, my God, yeah. I'm so ready.

I'm so ready. I cannot wait for this. Cam, is there any other way? I love space movies. I love it. I can't wait. Oh, yeah. I mean, just like what James Gray is going to do with shots of outer space is like I'm already there.

Give me another recommendation for people this weekend. A movie. For any literary heads out there, the movie called The Quiet Passion by Terrence Davies. The movie about Emily Dickinson and it stars Cynthia Nixon. The movie that I've been waiting to see for a while, it's kind of been in the pipeline for a while. but it's just alongside lots of the movies of the year. It's just if you're looking for a movie that really gets at what was distinctive about Emily, they can not just as a writer, but as a person, like how rebellious she was in spirit,

the kind of argument she had with people, it's just unmissable. And if like me, you are a fan for Jennifer Ely, who is not in enough movies. Oh, yeah. This is also a chance to see her in something. She's great in a... And like, she has like lines and stuff. As soon as you see her, you'll know it. It's blown up like in Jerovac 30.

Oh, yeah. And she's in, was she in Contagent, too? What else was she in? She was in Contagent. Yes, that's right. I just love to see her in things. And she's fantastic. She plays Emily Dickinson's sister.

But it's just, if you're looking for a movie where Emily Dickinson, you know, doesn't leave the house, has a crush on any dude who enters the house. And that's all these spiritual, like, anguishes. And it's also, like, kind of bitchy. It's just fantastic. Right. It sounds like it will part of it. nerd, you need to see it.

It'll partner really well with the finale of girls. Absolutely. Okay. As prickly, yeah. Cam, thank you so much for calling in. We'll talk to you again soon. And we're closing out the show with the closer, Juliet Litman.

Hey, what's up? My office roommate is what I prefer. Office roommate, my sources say, partner in crime. Not RIP. No. No, maybe we'll come back one day. Just on a hiatus. Juliet, thank you for joining me.

Thanks. What is your pop cultural, cultural recommendation? Okay, so I haven't watched this yet, but I just want to say that I'm really looking forward to the three-part six-hour World War I documentary on PBS. Is this a burns jam? No, it's an American experience jam. I don't know. I'm just excited about it. World War I set the violent 20th century in motion.

It was the first use of chemical weapons. Why ever could you be interested in World War I? Because it's the great. War. I know. I was saying it's like because it has so many echoes to our current time. Oh, I see. Cool. Yes, I'm excited about that. I'm also really excited about Riverdale when I get home. Interesting thing with Riverdale is that this happens with shows a lot, I think. There's like a cool

period. I'm not saying I'm out of Riverdale, but like basically like the thing that I think I like about Riverdale is the thing that they can't do if they're going to make X amount of episodes per season. So now it's like super soapy. This is precisely what happened with the OSC. And it's a lot of like Riverdale town business being done. Like what's going on to Luke Perry's construction site and ski Ulrich. It's incredibly similar to the OC. You could really draw a lot of parallels.

The OC premiered in the summer of 03, seven episodes. Sprouse is coming on just like Adam, what's his face did? What's his name? Adam Brody. Yeah, I like Spouse to Brody. Yeah, they had a really strong, like, first five to seven. I mean, the first seven episodes of the O.C are like just classic television. Yeah.

Like just incredible. and you're like, oh, this is a show for teens that adults can like too. Yeah. And then it just becomes so soapy. They're like, nope, this is just a show for teens. And I'm going to pretend that I am one. So I still Reco Riverdale and you're excited to catch up. I do too.

And then the thing I'm most excited to watch this right now in general, you've no interest in. But I'm going to try to convince you. It's my personal challenge. Okay. The Real Housewives of New York. I've never watched a single Real Housewives episode. It's incredible. It's just an incredible show.

Isn't there like a really political person? Okay. That's one reason why. it's great. Okay. Slash extremely painful. One of my top housewives is Carol Radswell. You can call her Radsie if you'd like.

Andy Cohen does. Okay. She is related to the Kennedys. Like she was vaguely. Lee Radswell is like her relative. Okay. And she's like extremely pro-Hillary. And so last week was a season premiere.

And in it, she's like, this guy's never going to win. He's a disgusting, sexist, misogynist buffoon. And Bethany, who is usually, my home girl was just sort of like, shut up. She just like, she doesn't want to talk about it. She didn't want to be into it, which is probably because Bethany's very savvy and knows it's not good reality TV to be so tied to a moment. Bethany was like that professor who is like, I predict Trump will win.

I have a 13, 13 reason why he's going to win. Yeah, Bethany is like, I work for the USC Dorn Seif polling. And I understand. And I've been right the last three elections. No, but so Carol is like, it's taped in October and it's like, it's kind of it makes me feel a little shook. I'm just like, God, this was, this was a different time. It's really weird.

It was six months ago. It was a different time. And so Carol's great, like for so many reasons. Namely is that a couple years ago, we saw her meet a 30-year-old private chef in one of her, the other housewives kitchen. And now they're living together and they're still dating. And it's like a May-December romance turned into like a love affair. It's kind of amazing. Do you only watch New York?

At this point? Yes. I dip in and out on Beverly Hills, but I just fucking love New York. And so Carol is like all hot and bothered about Trump. She doesn't know what's coming for her. It's really weird to watch. Are they going to have an election episode? Probably.

It is funny because last season Carol was on her co-op board and she was running for her co-op board and made a really big deal about campaigning and her election and stuff. So it's like so weird to look back and be like that was the prologue to her caring a lot of the presidential election. Is it running for a co-op board? So there's historical ramifications of number one. Number two is. How much were you reading Gawker.com in, like, the year 2006? Fair amount.

So you remember Tinsley Mortimer. Yes. Tinsley Mortimer's on the show. What? She made her debut this week. What? Yes. Tinsley Mortimer has fled Palm Beach where last season she was arrested for last year in 2016.

She was arrested for trespassing. What happened with those charges? I'm not sure. Google it. All right. You're bringing this to me. I'm not looking for a research project. So it doesn't really matter, but she's had to flee.

Palm Beach, she got arrested, et cetera, et cetera. She's back in New York. She arrives last, on this week's episode, stepping out of a cab, like very much like Veronica Lodge and Riverdale. Okay. And like, like, just fleeing to a different city, which for her it's going back where she kind of like made her name.

She walked out of this cab, like it's like a black car or whatever. All the Louis Vuitton luggage in the world. And she arrives at Sonia Morgan's house. Sonia Morgan used to be married to a rich guy and has gone through her own bankruptcy and is totally bonkers but has a beautiful townhouse from the Upper East Side and at various points,

she houses other housewives. So Tinsley Mortimer has just moved in with her while she looks for a place. Okay. So like Tensley Mortimer is like back in New York trying to get back on her feet. No, big topic of conversation as well. She's 41 and Sonia assumed she would never want to have kids. She was older than me back then. Yeah. She remains older than you now. That's wild. And she talks to how she like froze her eggs. And it's just like so weird. Are we going to get a Julia Allison cameo? We might. Anything's in play.

So we have these duly narratives of Tinsley Mortimer, socialite of the previous decade. Who I'm certain has met, like Donald Trump probably in like some weird events. Who hasn't? Yeah. that, like, resonate with my very specific interest, that, like, it's just fun to watch. I freaking love it, and I feel like you could really get into the Tinsley Mortimer stuff. All right.

If they want to just bring Gawker 06 back into a housewives, I'll check it out for sure. That would be a good mixtape, kind of like Summer 06, but Gokero 6? That's a high point. Did you already address what you're looking forward to watching this weekend? I'm very much looking forward to the leftovers. I'm curious about Gorilla, which I think airs on Sunday on Showtime. I'm going to be watching multiple NBA playoff games, which is in itself a drama. Me too.

And I've been watching, that's about it. You know, like I just, I have a lot of, like, a lot of stuff in the DVR. Me too. A lot of classics. So, you know what I was going to ask you? Yeah. Now that I have you here. Hit me.

So I was reading Lindsay Zolads as Meet Me Later piece. She directed the first episode of The Leftovers, and it is one of the most masterfully directed episode of television I can remember. I'm very excited about it. And so I was inevitably just scrolling through her ER hits. Hit and run. Do you remember that one? Oh, yes. Yeah.

Of course. Give me the Juliet Litman, top three ER EPS. I just want to say, didn't she do the George Clooney? The car accident? Yeah, where he's like in the sewer. Did she not do that? I'm not sure. I thought she might have.

My favorite ER episodes, wow. Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow. I mean, this is not, I just want to say that I have on YouTube a few videos I return to over and over again. I'm aware. The dulcet sounds of Don Henley singing, take me home with Carol arriving at the waterfront where Doug is, which was filmed in Gloucester while he was filming the perfect storm. Oh.

But it's supposed to be Seattle is probably one of my favorite clips. My favorite ER episodes, though. God, this is really hard. The Doug one of him in the car is like pretty wild. Doug when he saves the kid. Yeah. Yeah. And there's the rainstorm.

The flood, right? That's probably, yeah. It's like a, yeah. That's probably. There's the Tarantino episode, right? Well, yes. It's the Tarantino episode. I think the Doug one has to be number one.

It's so good. But in season one, very close to the end of the season, Mark Green mishandles a pregnancy, and this mother dies from preeclampsia, and her husband is just so distraught. Like, his baby lives. But it then just kind of changes the course of the show and changes Mark into, like, a really... More inward guy, right? More inward. It kind of, like, ruins his marriage.

It just changes everything. And it's, like, an incredible, incredible episode. That's right, because even in Stringfield were kind of like on it. Like, it never... married. Yeah. And it was a very bad relationship. And him and Sherry Stringfield had like a flirtation.

And then Sherry Stringfield left the show. He didn't ask her to stay. There's so many. She left the show or like her character left to the hospital. No. Sherry Stringfield left the show. To be like a movie star. To be famous.

It was a huge mistake. And then she came back, obviously. Right. That's a really good one. I think also like a little bit later period when the episode where the numbers guy stabs Kelly Martin and John Carter. Oh, yeah. That's like a really, really epic one.

There are just certain episodes in ER that you can point to them, like, yeah, that was a game changer. Like, they were going zag and they zigged. Right, right. That's another one. And they often, like, that'll happen with a character or death. Yeah. I was just, ER is just still underrated.

Yeah. The most underrated story line of that show is Jeannie Boulay having AIDS. Oh, yeah, I remember that. But she was dating her Peter Benton at the time, right? Dr. Peter Benton. Yeah, and then she ends up with Deshaunne Hardison from 90210. This is a crowdbreaking show. Okay, Juliet-Litman.

Thank you for joining us. been a special episode of the watch with Ringer staff members recommending stuff. I hope you enjoyed it. Andy and I will be back on Monday to talk about the leftovers and the season finale of girls. So thank you so much for listening. Great job, Beranskis. Thanks again to Fusion TVs, the AV Club for sponsoring today's watch episode. Pop Culture is everywhere. According to non-existent studies, it is 83% of the things you consume that's more than oxygen. At the acclaimed pop culture website, the AV Club, it's all they ever want to talk about. And now they're coming to TV. The AV Club, hosted by John Teddy, is a weekly deep dive that illuminates all the fun,

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