August 31, 2026 • 61 mins
The Platt family is barely surviving, and that’s before their neighborhood is inexplicably dropped millions of years into the past and overrun by hungry dinosaurs. The End of Oak Street isn’t nearly as concerned with explaining that premise or exploring its characters as it is with facilitating dino mayhem and nostalgia for the films of writer-director David Robert Mitchell’s youth. That can be to the film’s benefit and detriment, both of which we cover in this week’s discussion, before bringing Steven Spielberg’s War of the Worlds back in to see how these two family survival narratives compare in their respective ideas about flawed parents, imperiled children, and the universal human desire to not get eaten. Then in Your Next Picture Show we consider a couple of possible alternate pairing for Oak Street, one featuring aliens, one featuring dinosaurs, and both underrated.
Please share your thoughts about War of the Worlds, The End of Oak Street, or anything else in the world of film, by sending an email or voice memo to comments@nextpictureshow.net, or leaving a short voicemail at (773) 234-9730.
Next Pairing: Alexander Ullom’s It Ends and Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
It's very difficult to keep the line between the past
and the present. Do you believe that someone out of
the past can enter and take possession of a living being?
We may be through with the past, but the past
is not through with us!
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Welcome back to The Next Picture Show, a Movie of
the Week podcast devoted to a classic film and the
way it shaped our thoughts on a recent release. I'm
Keith Phipps, here again with.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Tasha Robinson and Genevieve Kosky.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
In our last episode, we discussed Steven Spielberg's 2005 adaptation
of War of the Worlds. We'll return to it, but
first we need to talk about The End of Oak Street,
the new film in our pairing. Set in the Detroit
suburbs of 1982, the film starts Anne Hathaway and Ewan
McGregor as, respectively, Denise and Greg Platt, a couple whose
marriage has hit some hard times. Greg's lost his job,
(00:50):
not that he's told his family, and now delivers pizzas
to make ends meet. Denise is an aspiring writer whose
in-progress novel revolves around a woman who wants to flee
her marriage. Their two kids, Audrey, played by Macy Stella,
and Brian, played by Christian Convery, are starting to sense
something is wrong even before something goes really wrong. A
fluke cosmic accident that draws the Platts and their neighbors
(01:11):
into the distant past where they have to fight for
their survival as they try to find their way back
to the present. The film is written and directed by
David Robert Mitchell, who is best known for his 2014
horror film, It Follows, but if you haven't seen his follow-up,
Under the Silver Lake, I highly recommend it, and our
episode pairing it with Chinatown. The end of Oak Street
also consciously brings to mind the blockbuster films of the
era in which it's set. Too consciously? We'll talk it over.
Speaker 4 (01:35):
Flintstones, meet the Flintstones.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
They're a modern, stunning family. When you're... Run! Get inside now! Mom, look!
What the hell's going on? Mom! I think that our
(02:01):
neighborhood has moved. We're in the past, aren't we? How
the hell is that even possible? What are we gonna do?
Speaker 2 (02:20):
We're gonna survive. All right, everybody, what did you think
of the end of Oak Street? I kind of know
what Tasha thinks. Genevieve, I want to hear from you.
Speaker 4 (02:26):
Why are we jumping straight to the end? Aren't we
going to talk about any of the rest of Oak Street?
Speaker 3 (02:32):
No, we will need to talk about the end of
the end of Oak Street, but just generally speaking. I
think you guys lowered my expectations sufficiently that I had
a grand old time with the end of Oak Street.
I also saw it at the drive-in, which I think
is a great venue for a movie of this scope
and tenor. So yeah, I mean, I'm not going to
(02:52):
claim it as great cinema, nor am I going to
claim that Ewan McGregor has a good handle on his.
Speaker 4 (02:58):
Accents throughout the film.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
I was waiting for someone to say that.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
But, you know, just as sort of a family adventure
movie of the era it's referencing, I had a good
time with it. And it was a nice blend of
like action, humor, pathos. None of them were like really... Top-notch,
you know, they're all like B-level versions of those things
But it all came together into a B movie, you
(03:25):
know And I think this does very much feel like
a B movie in a complimentary sense of the word
at least coming from me Maybe not so much from
you guys.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
No, I mean, here's the thing I left this movie
slightly disappointed because I liked I like Mitchell's other films
I still haven't seen his first show. I need to
see that the myth of the American sleepover but I
liked it okay, and it's pretty much still where I am.
I gave it three stars at the reveal, but I'm glad.
I've warmed to it. I've developed an affection for it,
(03:55):
I guess. But it's also the weird thing where I
saw some people were over the moon for it, and
some people hated it, and it's a real stop. You're
both wrong situation for me. I don't think there's anything
to praise this as a great movie, but it's also
perfectly fine. I enjoyed it. I do. And it's something
I want to get into is like, there's so much
(04:16):
subtext to our other film we're going to talk about, but,
I don't know that there's anything beneath the surface of
this movie beyond perhaps the marital drama as such. But whatever. Dinosaurs. Tasha,
how about you? Where are you with this movie? A
week later, I guess?
Speaker 4 (04:32):
I think the two of you have summed it up.
I would also say B-movie, but I think actually drive-in
movie is an even better description. I could see this playing,
you know, great fun. In my tease for it in
the last episode, I called it an Amblin Entertainment style movie.
And that's what it reminded me of more than anything.
It's just something, you know, an adventure that would be, like,
(04:54):
okay to watch with your kids, apart from a little
very slightly gnarly dinosaur-eating people action.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
It's... And the sex scene.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
And yes, and don't forget dinosaurs banging against a house.
Immortalized in the family photo in the end.
Speaker 4 (05:11):
I guess. I was exposed to animals banging in zoos.
Like I grew up in the greater Washington area. We
went to the National Zoo all the time. And I
learned more about sex from watching giraffes and elephants and
whatnot going at it. like at age seven than I
learned anywhere else. So I find it hard to take
(05:33):
a couple of CG dinosaurs having very slow, decorous sex
as something that.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
It is decorous, you're right.
Speaker 4 (05:41):
Again, I don't have kids. So, you know, don't listen
to me on this.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
If you don't want your children exposed to the facts
of dinosaur life, And there's.
Speaker 4 (05:52):
A dinosaur sex scene in the most recent Jurassic World movies,
I believe. I mean, it involves all.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
That one just slid right out of the old memory,
I'm afraid.
Speaker 4 (06:02):
Or in the first one, which I saw much, much
later than everybody else did.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (06:07):
Not the point. The point is, no, I think you're right.
My big feeling about this film was it was kind
of a slick surface and nothing going on underneath. And
that was fine, but I have been describing it to
people as entirely okay. You know, it's kind of slick
and efficient at what it needs to do, and it's
not something that you need to think about five minutes later,
(06:28):
which makes it difficult to talk about it for half
an hour, you know, a week later.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
But I want to come back to the dinosaurs banging,
because I think in addition to being like a laugh line,
and this movie does make several gestures at humor, whether
they are, you know, successful or not is a your
mileage may vary situation. But I did like the dinosaurs
(06:54):
banging scene for what it brought out in the marriage
between Anne Hathaway and Ewan McGregor, which felt like Very
perfunctory throughout the movie. It's a very tell-don't-show, troubled marriage,
I feel like. They have a couple harried conversations. But
(07:15):
then like once stuff starts going down, it feels like
not relevant to the movie anymore until he gets eaten,
which we should also talk about. But that moment where, yeah, sorry,
someone gets eaten in the dinosaur movie. Actually, the spoiler
is what happens later, which we do need to talk
about as well. But to go back to the dinosaurs banging,
(07:38):
just like kind of the the way they connect in
that moment with her like finding it funny and him
being kind of scandalized and it just felt like the
most human moment of that marriage or the most real
moment of that marriage where there was some actual personality
to it and it didn't just feel like mom and
dad figurines being ported around this movie. So, yeah, I
guess I'm just saying like that scene to me kind
(08:00):
of felt like when all the parts of this movie
or all the things this movie was trying to do
coalesced in a way that worked for me.
Speaker 4 (08:09):
I was distracted by how furry the dinosaurs were. Furry
or feathery.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
Feathery.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (08:16):
I definitely did not. They look like woolly mammoths. They
look like brontosauruses wearing mole woolly mammoth costumes.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (08:23):
And I'm, I guess I'm not up on my, is
it paleontology when we're talking about what they looked like
when they were alive? Like, I was around for the
revolution where they started saying, you know, there's no reason
they all had to be gray or green. Like reptiles
today are many, many bright colors. Maybe they were very,
very bright and colorful. I was around for the revolution
(08:44):
when they started saying, you know, they might have all
had feathers. Fur is a new one for me. Wooly
mammoth fur.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
I just saw feathers. I think there's just like really
downy feathers.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
Yeah, I know what you're talking about, though, Tasha.
Speaker 4 (08:58):
Long, shaggy, matted feathers?
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
Okay, then.
Speaker 4 (09:05):
Everybody who sees End of Oak Street after this in
the theater, pay very close attention to the dinosaur banging scene.
We've already focused most of the podcast on it, so
you're going to want to pay attention. It is the
emotional crux of the movie. But also, we need reports
on whether those dinosaurs are furry or feathery.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
Or both.
Speaker 4 (09:25):
Feathery. I mean, a lot of the other dinosaurs in
this movie are feathery and we could talk about some
of them just in terms of some of the designs
here are honestly kind of cartoonish.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
But I respect that like it's doing something different.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Sure.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
You know, especially being so Amblin inspired. I respect that
it didn't, you know, use the Jurassic Park slash world models,
even of the velociraptors. that I believe are the first dinosaurs.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
Big rooster looking things? Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
And, you know, probably at, this point aside from the
t-rex which does not appear in this movie we get
an allosaurus but uh aside from the t-rex probably like
the most iconic movie dinosaur of the last several decades
so i i appreciate that it didn't just kind of
shorthand it into the version of that dinosaur that we
are all familiar with Yeah.
Speaker 4 (10:20):
Strong agree. Anything that this movie does that distinguishes it from,
I honestly go kind of going back to what is
this movie? What does it feel like? How do we
feel about it? It also feels like an overlong classic
Twilight Zone episode in color.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
But Twilight Zone episodes have some sort of reason for existing,
you know, beyond like there there's, there's always like a,
they're morality tales essentially. And, and, and, I'm not sure
what the moral of this is other than, you know,
memorize your neighbor's phone numbers in case you ever need
to call them in an emergency. But I don't know.
Speaker 4 (10:59):
I don't know that I feel like a lot of
classic Twilight Zone tales are morality tales. Like, you know,
Terror at 10,000 Feet is.
Definitely saying something about the human experience, but is there
a moral to it? Is time enough at last? Is
there a moral there besides don't marry a horrible person
who abuses you, you know, or read all the books
(11:21):
you can while you can? Or carry a spare set
of glasses. Like, I don't know that I see.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Those morality tales. Yeah, but with that one, it's a
matter of him, his misanthropic behavior coming back to haunt him. But, wait,
this is not a Twilight Zone podcast. Maybe we should
start one.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
I was going to say, that sounds like something you
should do, Keith.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
I have enough podcasts as it is.
Speaker 4 (11:44):
I guess one of the things that reminded me of
Twilight Zone here is just sort of the feeling, which...
This is also a connection with War of the Worlds.
And maybe one of the stronger ones when I suggested
this pairing is just sort of the feeling of something
inexplicable and maybe ineffable is happening. And it's outside of
everybody's control or understanding. And it's really about what they
(12:05):
do and how they react to it. And I sort
of see that in a lot of the more supernatural
early Twilight Zone episodes. It's just sort of the sense
of like this person now has the ability to stop time.
We're not going to really explore how that happened or why.
It's just the result that matters. So sort of the
mentality here felt very Twilight Zone-y to me.
Speaker 3 (12:27):
It's wormholes, Tasha. What more explanation do you need?
Speaker 4 (12:32):
Something, something, science wormholes.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
She was reading that Carl Sagan book. It was right there.
Speaker 4 (12:38):
There is a point where the characters in this movie
find something inexplicable and yet very important to the later
action in somebody's house. I was really expecting them in
that moment to find a Professor Falcon from War Games
slash Christopher Lloyd with all of his hair up from
Back to the Future person who had been messing around
(12:59):
with wormhole generators. I was expecting an explanation of And
what we get instead is there's no explanation for this.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
It just happened.
Speaker 4 (13:08):
Sometimes entire neighborhoods like drop into the Paleolithic and vice versa.
It's just, you know, what you're going to do. But
I feel like maybe just there is not an explanation
for the following creature in It Follows. You don't need that.
Part of the terror of it is... it's inexplicable. It's ineffable.
(13:29):
It's coming for you. You know what to do to
stop it, but you, you know what to do to
evade it, but there's no way to stop it. A
story where things happen without explanation, you know, can be
a story about all of the unknowns that we face
every day, you know, the, the things that are beyond us.
And I'm fine with that. But in this particular movie,
(13:50):
I don't know, stuff happens. It just feels like, indicative
of the movie's overall lack of depth than indicative of
kind of the overall, there's exactly one painted layer to
this entire story and there's nothing beneath it.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
I have at least one more topic I want to
talk about, a question specifically for Genevieve, but we'll get
to that after the break. We'll be right back.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
What is that? What is that? What?
Speaker 2 (14:22):
So this film was set in 1982. Did that seem
like purely for nostalgic reasons for you? And also, I
know this is slightly before your time or just at
the dawn of the Genevieve era, but Genevieve, you're from
this part of the world. How well did it capture
its setting?
Speaker 3 (14:42):
I mean, not at all. It's the Detroit suburbs in
name only. But David Robert Mitchell is originally from Claussen,
which is just 10 miles up the road from where
I live. And this is set in Flowervale, which is
(15:03):
nomenclaturely close to where I live in Ferndale. And there's
the bus stop scene. There's a map. that shows like
Woodward Avenue and John R and like these like familiar
street names. There's like a Detroit Tigers magnet at one point.
There's just like these sort of like winks. But as
far as like the neighborhood itself is, There's nothing particularly
(15:29):
Michigan or even Midwest about it. And I know there's
one scene where they see something in a house on
the top of a hill in the distance. And there
are no hills like that in this area. It is
a very... flat. There are hills in Michigan, but not
in this particular part of it. And certainly not within
(15:50):
neighborhoods like like this. So you know, this was I
didn't look up where this is filmed. But if it's
not either Vancouver or California, I would be shocked.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
Nope. You'll be shocked. It's Atlanta. Oh, of course. Which
is basically the Vancouver of the 2020s. Of course. Although
I think Stranger Things faked Indiana more convincingly in Atlanta
than this does. Although it's not bad. It's just sort
of like suburban everywhere.
Speaker 4 (16:15):
Why is this movie set in 1982? Because it was.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Sort of the height of the 80s blockbuster era?
Speaker 4 (16:21):
I mean, maybe the height of Amblin Entertainment. Usually these days,
if a movie is set in a period and it's
not because it's specifically about, you know, Prohibition or Al
Capone or, you know, some historical event or figure, I
assume that it's to solve the cell phone problem. But here,
(16:44):
the cell phones wouldn't work anyway because, you know, very
few Paleolithic cell towers.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
Or satellites exist.
Speaker 4 (16:52):
And, you know, being able to use the phone actually
becomes a big plot point anyway. So I just don't
understand why the very specific setting, time-wise and location-wise, in
a movie that draws on neither of those things in
any meaningful way, as far as I can tell.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
I think it's pure nostalgia. Although it occurred to me,
given that we have Feathery.
Speaker 4 (17:16):
But, Keith, nostalgia for what? For an extremely white suburb
where everything looks like mayonnaise, there's no visual specificity, human specificity.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
For a period in which the director grew up, basically.
I'm not sure there's much more to it than that.
You get to do clothes and songs from when you
were a kid, and that's fun, right?
Speaker 3 (17:41):
I mean, it's also like going back to a pre-Jurassic
Park era too, like both the movie and the book.
So this is way beyond the movie's scope or concern,
but sort of like as a viewer, I think you
can position it as a world where dinosaur mayhem hasn't
been codified in that way yet.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
And the other thing also, and this kind of gets
a little spoilery, but we're going to talk about the
end at some point. But I actually want to maybe
wait to talk about the end of this movie when
we talk about the end of War of the Worlds.
But spoiler, they get back to 1982. And it occurred
to me that it wasn't established science that dinosaurs might
have had feathers at this point. So they emerge with
(18:25):
this great scientific breakthrough that had not– I don't think– well,
maybe it had been– suggest it, but perhaps not as
widely accepted as it is now.
Speaker 3 (18:35):
I'm stealing this observation from Sedan Tadlanka, who's previously guested
on the show and wrote a very fun sort of
ending questions piece about the end of Oak Street over
at Vulture. And he noted that, again, to sort of
be vague about spoilers when our heroes get back to
(18:56):
the present and have to warn people what's coming. They
don't yet have the shorthand of Back to the Future,
the cultural shorthand of Back to the Future to explain it.
And he also made a similar point about it being
sort of a pre-Jurassic Park moment too. So something about,
you know, just kind of predating the obvious cultural touchstones
(19:19):
by just a few years. feels, if not purposeful, at
least interesting in the context of such an homage-y movie.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
So the two big names in the cast are Ewan
McGregor and Anne Hathaway. I want a quick aside here.
I do love it whenever P.J. Byrne shows up in
a movie. He plays the obnoxious neighbor in this one
because you're going to get a first-class jerk. I'm sure
he's a lovely person in real life. All right. So
it's been a big year for Anne Hathaway. She was
(19:51):
in the David Lowery movie Mother Mary, which I still
need to see. Devil Wears Prada 2, which I watched
on that plane. I talked about in the previous episode. See,
there's a lot of connections right there. The Odyssey and
the end of Oak Street. And then she co-stars as
Ewan McGregor. She's in this, who is no stranger to
effects-driven blockbusters. How do those performances work for you?
Speaker 4 (20:12):
I love Ewan McGregor. I've been such a huge fan
of his since Trainspotting. And here, he's entirely fine. He
showed up. I will say, this is perhaps an important note,
I'm a very visually and narratively focused person. I am
much less likely to notice audio. And very frequently when
(20:35):
people start talking about how bad somebody's accent is in
a thing, it went completely over my head. I did
not particularly notice here. Like it really does have to
be like a Tom Hanks in Baz Luhrmann's Elvis level
of weird accent for me to even notice. So I
did not notice that. But what I did notice is just,
you know, he's a nuanced actor. He's a really good actor.
(20:58):
And here he kind of seems to have two settings,
you know, kind of peeved and kind of scared. And
that's about it.
Speaker 3 (21:04):
Yeah, I think Anne Hathaway gives the richer performance, such
as it is, as rich a performance as this film invites.
But obviously, she's doing so much this year. But it
was kind of fun to see her in action mode.
I feel like that's something we don't see her do
(21:24):
a whole lot of. I don't think of Anne Hathaway
toting a shotgun, you know?
Speaker 2 (21:30):
And she gets dirty and bloody by the end of
this movie.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
This is really kind of a wreck looking.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (21:37):
You get just a picture. At one point, there's just
sort of a pan across a bunch of pictures on
the wall. And one of the pictures is a younger
version of her grinning and holding up a rifle. It's
established that You know, she's comfortable with firearms. And I
actually just really like that. It is after she has
picked up the rifle and fired it for the first time.
(21:59):
It is not like a character introduction beat. But the
fact that she's kind of the firearms person in this relationship,
I just really appreciate it as a small character touch
and a small nod to modernity in a movie that's
kind of aiming to be an 80s throwback. But I
agree that she does give the richer performance here. And
I think it's in part just because she has a
(22:19):
richer character on the page. The moment where she realizes
the basement is flooded and what that means to the
work she's been doing is one of the few moments
in the movie that really feels like an authentic emotional
moment as opposed to a running scared from monsters kind
of moment. Just like something relatable and painful. And it
(22:41):
is wild, I think, that I felt worse for her
having lost the novel that she had worked on and
workshopped so much than I felt for her when Ewan
McGregor gets very quickly and summarily eaten by a dinosaur.
Speaker 3 (22:59):
It kind of gets eaten in two parts. It gets
his leg and then the rest of him.
Speaker 4 (23:03):
It still happens very quickly and summarily, though.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
That's grisly, though. I was surprised by how graphic and
seemingly final that moment was.
Speaker 3 (23:13):
Yeah. As you said, I think we need to talk
about the ending in the context of War of the
Worlds because it's one of the things they have in common,
but in very different ways. So maybe we can move
into Connections.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
Sounds like we're heading in that direction. So let's take
a short break and we'll be right back with Connections.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
Denise! Get out of there! Run!
Speaker 2 (23:54):
Now it's time for connections. When we bring these two
films together and talk about all the things they have
in common. I mean, the most obvious thing is like
it's fractured families and children in peril. These are Genevieve's
phrasing here on our list of connections. But yeah, they're
family dramas, and they're about dramas about keeping families not
just together, but alive, right?
Speaker 3 (24:12):
Yeah, I mean, it's a family survival narrative. And the
actual makeup of the families are different. And in War
of the Worlds, we are dealing with an already broken family,
but maybe a family that is figuring out its next
(24:32):
phase in the face of an alien invasion. whereas End
of Oak Street is more about bringing a fractured family,
repairing the cracks in a fractured family, specifically in the
marriage between Anne Hathaway and Ewan McGregor. And again, I
think we really need to move to the ending here
(24:53):
in order to fully talk about this connection. So maybe
should we... I.
Speaker 4 (25:00):
Feel like we could leave that for the end. I
feel like there's a little more to explore here just
in terms of I mean, there is the difference between
Ray and Marianne's marriage is kaput. There is no sense
in the movie that we're waiting for them to get
back together or that Tim is the bad guy Baxter
that needs to be overcome. Whereas I think we're supposed
(25:21):
to be rooting for Greg and Denise. Are we in
Oak Street?
Speaker 2 (25:27):
I didn't care a whole lot about that.
Speaker 1 (25:29):
I think so.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
Any failure to not have that feeling probably has more
to do with the film's shortcomings than your own.
Speaker 3 (25:37):
Yeah, and I mean, I think one of the film's
shortcomings is that it just kind of expects you to
want these people not to break up. It's like, you know...
I mean, for a Spielbergian as this film is like,
I feel like that's kind of another element of it.
Just like the assumption that a broken family is bad,
regardless of the specifics of the people in that marriage.
Speaker 4 (26:01):
I think the interesting thing there, though, is I mean,
it is partially broken because Ewan McGregor's character has lost
his job and is lying about it and is dealing
with a lot of anxiety that he's not sharing with
his partner. He's, you know, keeping secrets that he's keeping
out of pride, effectively. And in the process, he's like
not letting his life partner help. And he's adding a
(26:23):
lot of stress to the relationship. But Denise, Anne Hathaway's character,
we don't really know why. Like, we know that she
wants out. She's writing this novel that is like the
story of somebody stuck in a suburban life and marriage
with kids who is constantly fantasizing about and kind of
secretly planning an escape. And we never really get a
(26:46):
lot of perspective into what that means for her, how
far her personal frustration goes. Is she actually fantasizing about this?
Given how much the analysis, the neighbor's analysis of her
novel centered on that image of an already packed yellow suitcase,
(27:07):
I kept waiting for the reveal where it turns out
that she's got such a suitcase, but No, maybe it's
all just a fantasy. Hell, maybe it's just a novel.
It's unclear what she's expressing.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
You don't know that she doesn't have a suitcase like that, though.
Speaker 3 (27:20):
Well, and now that you pointed out the photo of
her earlier in life with the gun, now I am
kind of grafting a backstory that we do not get
onto this character of her being someone who maybe has
a little bit of a danger drive or a craving
for adventure or whatever. whatever, and she gets it through
(27:40):
this experience, you know, and again, the movie doesn't really
explicate this in any way. And maybe if it had,
it would have felt a little richer than it does.
But I can squint and see a reading of that character.
just feeling really confined by her safe suburban existence and
(28:00):
desiring a little excitement and adventure and getting it in
this really wild way. And that being what allows her
to kind of return to her marriage, feeling more fulfilled.
Speaker 4 (28:14):
So a thing that interests me about the marriages in
these two movies is that everything I said about Rey
being a kind of doubtful figure in terms of not
necessarily being the best parent, in terms of possibly wanting
to escape responsibility, not knowing how to relate to or
deal with his children, especially when they're frightened. We get
(28:36):
a little bit of that with her character through this
fantasy of wanting to leave for reasons we don't know.
And it's a lot less pronounced, but there is sort
of the implication that somewhere in the back of her mind,
she's kind of prioritizing her own freedom and independence and
fantasizing about her or desiring or burying the desire to
(28:58):
abandon her husband and her children and her life. And
I think in the same way, it complicates that character
a bit for us in terms of sympathies. Like, again,
I don't have any burning desire to see her and
Greg stay together, but I do think that especially in
the eighties to have a, a mother character who, Who
(29:20):
on some levels fantasizing about not being a mother is
saying that maybe there's something wrong with her and maybe
she's a bad person because she's willing to abandon these
children who love her and depend on her in order
to prioritize their own freedom. It's just a very Kramer
versus Kramer kind of idea of the mother who could
abandon her children has obviously a damaged mother. And it's
(29:44):
not very pronounced. It's not very well detailed. But it's
a little undercurrent there that kind of connects these two movies.
Speaker 2 (29:50):
I think another connection also is in both films, the
kids are very perceptive as to what's going on or
becoming perceptive, I guess, more. In the case of End
of Oak Street, there's sort of like, you know, they
can't pinpoint exactly what is wrong. They know something is
wrong in that film. Also, we should do a quick
shout out to those kids. I think they're both really good.
(30:12):
Christian Convery is the younger son. And Maisie Stella, who's
not a kid. She's actually a fully grown adult, even
though she's played a teenager here. But she's the star
of a movie I like to push on people, which
is called My Old Ass by Megan Park. Another time
travel movie in some ways as well.
Speaker 4 (30:29):
And Chris Convery is the star of Netflix's series, Sweet Tooth.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
I knew I knew the name from somewhere.
Speaker 3 (30:37):
Sort of a little just funny sub-connection, speaking of Christian Convery.
I found it amusing that the sons in both of
these films, Brian and Robbie, both keep running off after
something that they that they want and uh at uh
with no sense of self-preservation uh in war of the
(31:01):
worlds that's you know robbie kind of going after vengeance
or revenge or wanting to join the military you know
which is a little more fraught than uh brian just
running after starbuck the family talk the whole time but
it did uh kind of give me a similar feeling
of like Guys, settle down. Your sister and parents need
(31:22):
you right now.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
Yeah, I think I'm really interesting. Come on, you're a
dog person. How would you feel?
Speaker 3 (31:27):
I am a dog person, but I will say I
thought this was a pretty blatant use of a movie dog.
It didn't really do much for me here, maybe just
because it felt very personal. I don't know. It never
felt like the dog was not going to make it
out of the movie alive.
Speaker 4 (31:46):
It feels a bit manipulative, but it's also it's just
a plot convenience thing. I mean, Robbie's drive in War
of the Worlds to help in some way works. which
we talked a bit about how his, you know, his
desire to go strike back against the alien terrorists kind
of represents the people who joined the military after 9-11.
(32:09):
But I think even more so he represents the people
who didn't or couldn't for whatever reason, including because they
were too young and who just have a kind of
inchoate desire to strike back in some way. you know,
hurt the people who hurt us, take control of the
situation by making the people who made me feel bad,
feel bad. And the fact that he's, you know, so
(32:31):
young and he doesn't have a really good way to
do that is a little bit of a tragedy because
it's like an understandable thing. Whereas Brian's like just sort
of single-minded, I'm going to rescue my dog, while maybe
understandable and relatable, also is just the primary thing that
keeps pulling them out of shelter. We see over and
(32:52):
over and over in War of the Worlds that Ray
and his kids cannot stay in a shelter because the
disaster is everywhere except this one neighborhood in Boston. You know,
they keep going to ground and then the ground literally
crumbles out from underneath them. But there's not much reason
in End of Oak Street that that family couldn't have
just like stayed in that house, maybe scavenged their awful
(33:15):
PJ Byrne neighbor and his house for you know, more
food to eat or whatever. But there's no reason that
they couldn't just hunker down, except that Brian keeps running
off and they keep having to chase him down. So
it's one of the reasons that the dog thing feels
bad is because it's manipulative. You know, it's just a
plot convenience.
Speaker 3 (33:34):
Well, I'll push back on that slightly more by way
of just broaching another small connection that I have written
down here, which is it's inside the house. Because in
End of Oak Street, there are a couple instances of
the dinosaurs or the prehistoric eel snake creature.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
I'm not sure what that was.
Speaker 3 (33:57):
Yeah, coming and invading the house. And that snake-like creature
in particular felt very reminiscent of the tentacle. Sorry, I
forget the exact phrasing already. Yes, the Russian water tentacle
in War of the Worlds, both visually and the way
it's kind of just stalking them through the house. And
(34:19):
it does kind of evoke a similar feeling of you
should be safe inside. This is where you should be
able to hide from the thing. And then once it's
no longer a safe hiding space, it feels like an escalation. Like, oh,
the danger really is everywhere.
Speaker 4 (34:36):
I did enjoy the snake home invasion, if only because...
It was a break from chasing, screaming, slamming through walls
and windows and doors and whatnot. The silentness of it
really had the theater I saw it in going. There
was just a lot of very muffled noise from people
(34:59):
processing the terror of something that moves silently but is
also that big and horrifying. So, you know, I will
allow giant prehistoric albino eel snakes if it gets me
a sequence like that instead of a 14th feathered velociraptor chase.
Speaker 3 (35:15):
Also another fun Anne Hathaway action star moment of just
stabbing that thing over and over and over again, seemingly futilely. Yeah,
you know, she gets to play with a gun, she
gets to play with knives, she gets to do it all.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
I'm on a subreddit, a dinosaur subreddit, where apparently no
one can really nail down what that thing is. So
perhaps it is a A little bit of poetic license
about what kind of creature might have slithered its way
into the house.
Speaker 4 (35:46):
Nothing more poetic than a giant megafauna of albino eel snake,
I always say. I've lost track of how many times
I've said that on this particular podcast.
Speaker 3 (35:56):
It's basically the motto of this podcast at this point.
Speaker 4 (36:01):
I claimed it should be the title of the podcast
and I was roundly voted down. So one thing that
just really struck me about the connection between these two
movies is in both cases, you have a boy, girl, sibling,
children pair who turn to each other for comfort because
their parents are falling apart or absent or even just
(36:23):
like slightly away trying to protect them or, you know,
focused on somehow driving through a giant mob of people or,
you know, whatever, whatever it is. Those siblings are the
fallback for each other. And in both of these cases,
that kind of, you know, contentious, one of them is
(36:43):
older than the other, like they're different genders, they're different ages,
they're different interests, they have their own lives. They're just
very different people and they don't get along in very
petty sibling-y ways. But when the crisis comes, you know,
they love each other and they protect each other. I
saw those two connections as very similar. Obviously, in World
(37:05):
of Worlds, Robbie is older and has very clearly been
responsible for like helping Rachel through panic attacks in the past.
And that makes it a little different from Oak Street
where they're closer to the same age. And it feels
a little more like the older sibling, Audrey, might have
had to babysit Brian from time to time. But still,
it feels very authentic to children of divorce in particular
(37:28):
to have to lean on each other because they can't
necessarily trust either mom or dad to have their best
interests at heart when they're focused more on each other
and the split in the marriage. And also to just
have to lean on each other as the one other
person that knows what they're going through. There is a
heartbreaking moment. I wrote this down because it was one
(37:51):
of the biggest kick in the teeth of the entirety
of War of the Worlds. There's a moment where Rachel
says to Robbie, don't go with the army men, because
if you do, who's going to look after me? And
Ray is standing right there when she says it. And
I was just like, oh, my God, that's brutal.
Speaker 2 (38:07):
Dakota Fanning, man. Always good. Yeah, yeah. Just really, that's
a knockout performance in that movie.
Speaker 4 (38:14):
A lot is asked of her. She is basically doing
Drew Barrymore, you know, in E.T.
Speaker 1 (38:18):
And beyond.
Speaker 4 (38:19):
There's a lot of screaming that she has to do
in this movie, but there's also a lot of nuance
to it, and she is really good.
Speaker 3 (38:26):
But also a lot of silent emoting, too, you know.
Speaker 4 (38:29):
There's a lot of silent terror.
Speaker 2 (38:30):
Family and family, talented people.
Speaker 3 (38:37):
Another thing I wanted to bring up, which as is
my want, I phrased cutely in our script as puny humans,
big survival instinct, because I wanted to talk about the
comparative scale of these two threats, because in both cases,
you know, obviously, these are larger than human threats that
that they are dealing with. But the war machines in
(38:59):
War of the World, the tripods, are just hundreds of
times bigger than even the biggest house-sized dinosaur in End
of Oak Street. And the way its destructive capability is
just so much more. It can laser an entire street
of people away in a second, whereas the dino mayhem
(39:23):
is a little more one on one, you know, it
can fit inside your house. In War of the Worlds,
I guess we do get to spend a brief amount
of time with the aliens themselves, which are a little
more human size, but we don't really interact with them
in a violent way, the way that we do with
the tripods or the dinosaurs. And yeah, I guess I
(39:46):
just kind of wanted to talk through the relative sense
of fear that comes with the different scales of these
two threats. And if one feels more real or visceral
than the other, or am I overthinking this?
Speaker 2 (40:01):
They're both big and single-minded and surprisingly, in the Tripod's case,
but also some of the Dinosaur's case, surprisingly nimble as
well and precise in their actions. they're targeting and they'll
both consume you we haven't even really talked about the
um or the world's orifice whatever it is that draws
people in it's it's really quite it does.
Speaker 3 (40:22):
Eat them you know in a in a way because
yeah because i was just thinking about it in terms
of like the lasers blasting people to ash but there
is also this more visceral body horror element to them
as well.
Speaker 2 (40:34):
The baskets of people they're going to recycle, which I
think is what's going on there. It's a little fuzzy
on that.
Speaker 4 (40:42):
There's a definite human fascination with what it would be
like to be prey that extends through both of these movies.
Speaker 3 (40:51):
Say more.
Speaker 4 (40:54):
Just I mean, it's it's something I go back to
Spielberg's Jaws. You know, we're used to thinking ourselves of
ourselves as the apex predator and a lot of horror movies, particularly,
you know, creature features your your, you know, shark to
pusses and your crawls and whatnot. are about that kind
of like instinctive fear of something bigger and faster than
(41:17):
you that wants to eat you. To me, though, the
tripods are scarier because they're so alien, you know? The
dinosaurs are just big lizards, which might be feathery or
hairy or busy boffing and not paying any attention to you. Or,
you know, vegetarians in some ways. But one way or
the other, There's just been so much dinosaur media. It's
(41:39):
a known factor. They're fast and destructive and very, very
good at predation, but they're not unknown in the ways
that the tripods are unknown. And especially on a first watch,
War of the Worlds, I find it very unnerving because
if you're not familiar with the source material, the stages
of what is this? What does it want? Oh, it
(42:02):
wants to vaporize us and it can vaporize. But it
also wants to mulch human bodies and grow horrific, you know,
alien plants out of them to Mars a form the
planet like that series of discoveries like each one of
them is a kind of a new kind of horror
and comes with a new kind of helplessness like. As
(42:25):
we've pointed out, Ewan McGregor getting eaten by a dinosaur
happens very, very quickly. It doesn't look fun. It looks painful.
It looks terrifying. But it happens very quickly compared to
being grabbed by an alien, stuffed in a basket, carried
around for who knows how long until you're pulled out
and stuffed into an alien orifice and turned into mulch,
(42:46):
which looks painful and terrifying and also very protracted comparatively.
There's also a special kind of horror in knowing something's
coming and that there's nothing you can do about it
which you know oak street is all about running and
shooting and stabbing and and survival and not that inevitability
of being like a captive in a cage waiting to
(43:09):
be turned into ground cover basically so i don't know
i think war of the worlds is a lot scarier
as a movie personally.
Speaker 3 (43:16):
And there's also the sense that they are operating from
a plan, whereas the dinosaurs are just operating from instinct.
Speaker 4 (43:24):
Yeah, prey opportunities. Suddenly being dropped into a food-rich environment.
Speaker 2 (43:29):
Having a food-rich environment dropped on them, maybe more accurately.
Speaker 3 (43:33):
Yeah, well, speaking of getting eaten, I think we officially
have to talk about the ending now.
Speaker 4 (43:39):
The end of the end of Oak Street.
Speaker 2 (43:40):
Yeah, so it's big spoilers. Well, obviously, we always said
that Ewan McGregor gets eaten, but does he? All right,
so the end of this movie, the last 10 minutes
of this movie had me puzzled. So I kind of
want to walk through it. Correct me if I'm wrong, Harris,
but basically, Denise and her children, Audrey and Brian, escape
(44:01):
through a wormhole.
Speaker 3 (44:03):
And Jeanette.
Speaker 2 (44:04):
And Jeanette, their neighbor, who... Brian had a crush on,
but actually might be better suited for Audrey. They're making
eyes at each other. Escape through a wormhole and find
themselves back in a different part of their neighborhood shortly
before they're just.
Speaker 3 (44:20):
It's like 20 minutes before the clock stopped.
Speaker 2 (44:22):
Right, almost immediately before the events that drew them back
to the past. So at which point, Denise orders a
pizza so that Greg will deliver it to her. and
thus be safe from going back. And then she calls
all the neighbors whose numbers she knows by memory, I assume.
And then they are later drawn away. There's a time.
Speaker 4 (44:44):
Period where I knew a lot of people's phone numbers.
Speaker 3 (44:46):
There was probably a neighborhood phone tree. This feels like
a phone tree neighborhood.
Speaker 4 (44:51):
PTA, possibly, connection.
Speaker 2 (44:54):
But we're left to do so for ourselves. And so basically,
those people get out. Their other selves, like the other Denise, Audrey,
and Brian people, presumably are sucked back into the past
along with the other neighbors whose phone numbers that she
doesn't know, and it's a happy ending. Oh, but Jeanette
goes back, and then there's two Jeanettes.
Speaker 1 (45:17):
Yeah, yes.
Speaker 2 (45:18):
It's very confusing. Am I wrong? It's a little confusing?
Speaker 3 (45:22):
No, you are correct that it is confusing, and you
are not wrong about the sequence of events. I just
simply want to underline that the Greg that is alive
at the end, at the happy ending and has seemingly
reconciled with Denise, uh, has not gone through any of
the events that the rest of his family has. He
just kind of like gets, uh, forgiven because a different
(45:46):
version of himself got eaten, I guess. So that's weird,
especially as it pertains to, like I said, him and
Denise reconciling and kind of seems to put all the
weight of their relationship falling apart and coming back together
on her in a really odd way. And then, yes,
(46:07):
there also appear to be two Jeanettes at the end
of the movie because she ran off to save her
parents and presumably herself as well. So I guess it's like,
kind of like the flip side of, uh, Denise, Audrey
and Brian one prime.
Speaker 1 (46:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (46:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (46:25):
Uh, they, they disappear and I guess, and, but then Jeanette,
we don't have doubles of them the way we do
with Jeanette.
Speaker 2 (46:34):
But presumably they died at the dinosaur and that's fine.
Speaker 3 (46:39):
Especially because if they went back without, uh, Greg or
the neighbor lady, the librarian who saves them at one point,
like presumably without those characters having traveled back, they would
not have survived. So we see them survive in the movie.
Speaker 1 (46:55):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (46:55):
Indulge me here though. So there's two Jeanette's at the end.
They both seem perfectly happy. That means that there could
have been two Denise's, two Audrey's and two Bryant who
also been happy, but those potentially happy people are now dead.
Speaker 1 (47:10):
Yes.
Speaker 4 (47:12):
I don't think they're dead. I mean, this is sort
of the paradox of time travel, but they escaped into
the past. They are still those people.
Speaker 2 (47:21):
Yeah, they've got to get rid of dinosaurs. Tasha, you
know that's what happened to them.
Speaker 4 (47:26):
I mean, I think Denise on her own would have
a much better chance of protecting those two kids and
getting them out alive than Greg on his own. The
problem would be when two shotgun-toting Denise's face off for
who gets to be the real Denise. There's a Karen
Gillan movie called Duel where that happens, and I rather
like it. We can learn from that sort of how
(47:47):
things would have gone down. I think the fact that
we get to see the second Jeanette is, you know,
Mitchell acknowledging that this is a thing that had happened.
You know, it's not a loophole. It's just, as you say,
kind of a little Easter egg almost.
Speaker 2 (48:03):
But it raises so many questions.
Speaker 4 (48:06):
Yeah, but he wants those questions there. Whereas Denise and
the family, like, yeah, there is sort of the causal
effect of time travel and, like, how they survived the
librarian's house if the librarian had already escaped question. But
there isn't another... iteration of them because that iteration of
them escaped is how I would see how time travel works.
(48:29):
But regardless, I don't think this movie is necessarily asking
you to think about anything along these lines.
Speaker 2 (48:36):
Well, the reason we want to talk about the ending
anyway is because it is in some ways also a
cop-out ending, just as War of the Worlds is a
cop-out ending. In some ways, it almost feels like it's
where they're closest.
Speaker 1 (48:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (48:47):
And the sort of last minute resurrection as part of
that ending. So is Greg getting to survive and avoid
all of the trauma the rest of his family went through?
Is that more or less infuriating than Robbie popping back
up at the end of War of the Worlds?
Speaker 2 (49:06):
Well, I think also, wouldn't you resent your dad if
he skipped all that?
Speaker 1 (49:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (49:12):
I think they're just glad to have him back. I
think you guys are mean. I think if I watched
my husband be devoured by dinosaur in front of me,
and then I got him back through time travel shenanigans, like,
if our marriage was already on the rocks, that that
might continue.
Speaker 3 (49:29):
And I mean, in the moment, I would certainly be happy.
But like the long tail trauma of this situation, I
feel you don't know what we went through, Greg.
Speaker 4 (49:39):
I mean, sure, my book, honestly, given what we see
in where the world it might be better to have,
you know, if one of your parents is deeply traumatized
by an incredibly like violent, horrific experience that they went through.
Maybe it's good if the other one isn't. So, you know,
now that I think about it, something that these two
(50:00):
movies do very much have in common is Greg and Ray,
the fathers, both engage in that kind of magical thinking.
Like they're they both keep telling the kids like it's
going to be fine. Ray less so, especially towards the beginning.
He does a lot of like, I don't know, or
just stonewalling any answer and especially about what's going on.
(50:23):
Why are we running? But, you know, towards the end,
he's like, oh, Robbie's going to meet up with us later,
which turns out to be true. Oh, your mother's alive.
It's going to be OK, which turns out to be true.
We'll just meet up with them in Boston where they
were going, which turns out to be true. So maybe
he maybe has prophetic powers. And this movie isn't about
what I thought about at all. But in the moment
where he's saying those things, it it feels like, you know,
(50:46):
desperate lies to keep a kid going, but also kind
of overreaching. You know, I just might. prime example for
this is uh of all things team america uh when
the love interest tells the lead like if you you
know i've been too much trauma through too much trauma
i've lost too many people if you tell me you
will never die and never leave me we will have
(51:08):
sex right now and he's like i promise i will
never die and that's what i hear in both greg
and ray um you know, saying these, you know, everything
is going to be fine. This specific thing is going
to happen. The fact that Spielberg and Cap let Ray
get away with all of that by making it all
true is a little frustrating. But with Greg, I think
it's meant to be just kind of an important like
(51:31):
plot thing is like he thinks nothing of saying Everything's
going to be fine. Those people that are going to
shoot on by dinosaurs right now, they're going to be
they're going to be OK. We will get out of this.
And meanwhile, Denise is kind of saying, why are you
saying all of these things that aren't true? Like she
feels that it's keeping him from dealing with the situation
(51:52):
at all. So I feel like he's just sort of
a more blithe and positive character. And he's going to
come out of this with a continuing like, oh, yeah,
everything worked out. It's all OK. And it might be
better for the kids to have some of that in
their lives instead of both of their parents being completely
traumatized by a night of dino fighting.
Speaker 3 (52:13):
Well, that's a nice spin to put on it, Tasha.
I appreciate that.
Speaker 4 (52:17):
How do you feel about the dog surviving?
Speaker 3 (52:19):
I mean, I'm always glad when a dog survives, but
I don't know. I didn't get it. Starbuck didn't give
me a whole lot.
Speaker 2 (52:25):
I will say, except for the moment where he rushes
in heroically at the last moment, he does behave very
much like a dumb dog, right?
Speaker 3 (52:33):
Yeah, yeah. I forgot he did have a hero moment.
So yeah, good job, Starbuck. I'm glad you survived.
Speaker 2 (52:43):
Well, we survived.
Speaker 4 (52:45):
I'm not traumatized at all.
Speaker 2 (52:49):
I'm a little traumatized. I'm still thinking about the end
of Oak Street.
Speaker 3 (52:53):
Keith's just going to wake up in the middle of
the night going.
Speaker 1 (52:54):
Two Jeanettes!
Speaker 2 (52:57):
It doesn't make sense. So if you want to watch
War of the Worlds, it's available on DVD and Blu-ray.
It's also streaming on Paramount Plus and MGM Plus. It's
widely available for digital rental on other services. The end
of Oak Street is in theaters now, and we'll be
right back with your next picture show. Finally, it's time
(53:21):
to recommend a film or film-related item that complements this
set of episodes. We call it Your Next Picture Show
in the hopes it'll put some interesting choices on your radar.
This time we have two interesting choices, one from Genevieve
and one from Tasha. And they both are kind of
like movies we could have done, maybe. I think we
chose the right one, but I can see these episodes working. Tasha,
what's yours?
Speaker 4 (53:40):
Well, this honestly didn't occur to me until I was
writing the preview text for this pairing and was kind
of like laying out the shared plot line with both
of these movies of a small neighborhood coming under attack by,
you know, unknown mysterious forces and ordinary people having to
band together in kind of unforeseen ways in order to
(54:03):
deal with these things and survive. And as I was
writing that, I was thinking I'm basically summing up Joe
Cornish's Attack the Block, which is a film that we
haven't done on the podcast, but we have talked up
in the past as just a very enjoyable. You want
to talk about a movie that maybe doesn't have layer
upon layer upon layer, but is just a really fun,
(54:24):
good action time, kind of an action adventure and is
maybe just different from all of these movies in that
the setting just feels so different. It's a southern London
street gang. coming together to fight back against, uh, alien
attackers and, uh, stars John Boyega in, I don't recall
if it's his first role. I don't think it is,
(54:45):
but very early and, uh, kind of, if not breakout
breakout adjacent John Boyega role, he's really great in this movie.
Mostly what I remember is just thinking about seeing this
movie is just sort of a feeling of this is
a familiar tale told in a different way and told
well and told with a lot of flavor that I
(55:05):
was not necessarily expecting from this kind of, you know,
particular kind of 80s feeling throwback movie. Also, it's very
low budget, but the way that aliens are done is
very cheaply creative in a way that I think is
quite fun. And then I'm certainly not going to spoil.
So just overall, I think Attack the Black doesn't connect
(55:30):
in the same kind of ways in terms of, yeah,
it was his first feature film. He was in a
TV series before that, but this was his feature debut.
I feel like it doesn't have a lot of the
parallels in terms of like actual bio family stuff. And
in terms of the very specific relationships between husband and wife,
between the two siblings, between the optimist and the pessimist,
(55:53):
between the particular kind of attackers and the particular kind
of responses. But it does kind of fit the same pattern.
And I certainly think it's a better, more fun and
more lively and more textured and nuanced film than End
of Oak Street, as this very specific plot line goes. Genevieve,
what about you?
Speaker 3 (56:13):
The film that came to mind for me when watching
End of Oak Street is one that has a lot,
a lot of direct connections, but is maybe one that
is harder to designate a classic film. Although I would
perhaps argue for Jurassic Park 3, one of the most
maligned entries in that franchise, as being underrated. It's one
(56:38):
that I like to revisit more than most other of
the Jurassic Park's. And as far as like how it
aligns with End of Oak Street, just sort of on
a meta level, this was the first Jurassic Park movie
that Spielberg was not involved with. So it does kind
of feel similar to David Robert Mitchell doing a Spielberg homage,
(57:00):
you know, with dinosaurs. So kind of on a meta
level reminded me of that. But then on like a
pure connections level, it also involves a broken family, a
divorced couple played by William H. Macy and Taylor Leone,
trying to save their son, their imperiled child, who ends
up stranded on Isla Sorna, the second island, I believe.
(57:22):
I get confused on all the different Jurassic Park islands,
but it is sort of like the B-movie version of
Jurassic Park. So on that level, on the kind of
character relationships level, obviously on the dinosaurs level, and it
kind of has, it's a little more focused in its setting.
You know, it just takes place on this island that
(57:45):
feels kind of similar to taking place in the neighborhood
of End of Oak Street. So like I said, a
lot of people talk down on Jurassic Park 3, and
I'm not like going to, you know, make any grand
claims for it. as the best Jurassic Park, but I
think we could have had fun talking about it. Have
either of you revisited it?
Speaker 2 (58:06):
No, I saw it a couple years ago when I
was watching all those movies, re-watching them all with my kid. Yeah, no,
it's fine. It's not my favorite, but I'll take it
over almost all the Jurassic World movies, although I have
a soft spot for Fallen Kingdom. I do too. Which
kind of turns it into a haunted house movie with
dinosaurs instead.
Speaker 3 (58:24):
Which is kind of similar to Jurassic Park 3. Those
two feel like kind of like echoes across the franchise
to me.
Speaker 4 (58:33):
You know, there have been so many Jurassics under the
bridge at this point. I really don't pick out a
lot of the plot points between them. I haven't revisited three,
I think, since it came out. And a lot of
the worlds blur together for me. So not exactly a
Jurassic go-to expert.
Speaker 3 (58:50):
I believe it's the only Jurassic Park movie that could
claim to be co-written by Alexander Payne. So there is.
Speaker 2 (58:58):
That. There is that. Well, with that bit of trivia,
I think we can wind down this edition of The
Next Picture Show. Genevieve, can you tell us about our
next pairing?
Speaker 3 (59:05):
It Ends is technically a horror movie. Written and directed
by Alexander Ulm. starts with a group of friends in
their 20s who go on a road trip, head down
a mysterious side road, and are accosted by zombie-like humans
when they pull over to turn around. But when it
becomes clear that the road itself appears to be infinite
and the roadside attacks are predictable... It stops being a
conventional horror movie and starts being more like a variation
(59:27):
on Jean-Paul Sartre's existential play No Exit. The idea of
using a genre setup to more philosophical ends calls to
mind Solaris, Andrei Tarkovsky's 1972 science fiction classic about the
psychotic breakdown of space station astronauts who are orbiting a
distant planet. Both films suggest that being in a seemingly
hopeless situation really makes you think.
Speaker 2 (59:49):
For now, we welcome your feedback on War of the Worlds,
The End of Oak Street, and anything else film related
you'd like to talk about. Email us at comments at
nextpictureshow.net or leave us a voicemail at 773-234-9730. Before we
close out this episode, where can we find everyone these days, Tasha?
Speaker 4 (01:00:04):
I mean, you can barely find me these days. I'm
still recapping Game Changer over at Vulture. Otherwise, kind of
taking a little break, including from social media. But I
am on Blue Sky at Tasha Robinson.
Speaker 2 (01:00:16):
And you're here. And I'm here. We get a Toshirova
exclusive or near exclusive.
Speaker 4 (01:00:21):
Yes, you can find me here. However, what am I,
HBO to be teasing the thing that you're listening to,
advertising the thing that you're listening to to you as
you're listening to it? No. People strangely seem to be
already aware that I'm here. Genevieve, what about you?
Speaker 3 (01:00:38):
Oh, same old, same old. Behind the scenes at Vulture,
not posting at Blue Sky at Genevieve Kosky.
Speaker 1 (01:00:45):
Keith.
Speaker 3 (01:00:47):
Tell us about The Reveal.
Speaker 2 (01:00:48):
Sorry we're boring. Our absent co-host, Scott Tobias, contributes to
such publications as Vulture, The Guardian, The New York Times.
But you can find him most regularly at The Reveal.
It's thereal.film. Or you can also find me. We co-write
that movies newsletter. And it's a good one. I like it.
You can also find me. I'm one of the co-hosts
(01:01:08):
of Ford Focus, a Harrison Ford podcast with Mike Ryan,
where we talk about the films of Harrison Ford, and
we do bonus episodes, and it's fun. We're having fun
doing that. And you can stay updated on The Next
Picture Show at nextpictureshow.net and on Blue Sky at The
Next Picture Show. You can get bonus content and open
discussion at patreon.com slash nextpictureshow. And as always, we appreciate
(01:01:31):
your rating and reviews on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or
wherever you listen to the show. Thanks to Dan that
baked chicks for his assistance producing this podcast. The next
picture show is probably part of the film spotting and
family podcast. Please tune in next time.
Speaker 1 (01:01:46):
That was a good movie.
Speaker 4 (01:01:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:01:56):
Seen here before once.
It's very difficult to keep the line between the past
and the present. Do you believe that someone out of
the past can enter and take possession of a living being?
We may be through with the past, but the past
is not through with us!
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Welcome back to The Next Picture Show, a Movie of
the Week podcast devoted to a classic film and the
way it shaped our thoughts on a recent release. I'm
Keith Phipps, here again with.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Tasha Robinson and Genevieve Kosky.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
In our last episode, we discussed Steven Spielberg's 2005 adaptation
of War of the Worlds. We'll return to it, but
first we need to talk about The End of Oak Street,
the new film in our pairing. Set in the Detroit
suburbs of 1982, the film starts Anne Hathaway and Ewan
McGregor as, respectively, Denise and Greg Platt, a couple whose
marriage has hit some hard times. Greg's lost his job,
(00:50):
not that he's told his family, and now delivers pizzas
to make ends meet. Denise is an aspiring writer whose
in-progress novel revolves around a woman who wants to flee
her marriage. Their two kids, Audrey, played by Macy Stella,
and Brian, played by Christian Convery, are starting to sense
something is wrong even before something goes really wrong. A
fluke cosmic accident that draws the Platts and their neighbors
(01:11):
into the distant past where they have to fight for
their survival as they try to find their way back
to the present. The film is written and directed by
David Robert Mitchell, who is best known for his 2014
horror film, It Follows, but if you haven't seen his follow-up,
Under the Silver Lake, I highly recommend it, and our
episode pairing it with Chinatown. The end of Oak Street
also consciously brings to mind the blockbuster films of the
era in which it's set. Too consciously? We'll talk it over.
Speaker 4 (01:35):
Flintstones, meet the Flintstones.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
They're a modern, stunning family. When you're... Run! Get inside now! Mom, look!
What the hell's going on? Mom! I think that our
(02:01):
neighborhood has moved. We're in the past, aren't we? How
the hell is that even possible? What are we gonna do?
Speaker 2 (02:20):
We're gonna survive. All right, everybody, what did you think
of the end of Oak Street? I kind of know
what Tasha thinks. Genevieve, I want to hear from you.
Speaker 4 (02:26):
Why are we jumping straight to the end? Aren't we
going to talk about any of the rest of Oak Street?
Speaker 3 (02:32):
No, we will need to talk about the end of
the end of Oak Street, but just generally speaking. I
think you guys lowered my expectations sufficiently that I had
a grand old time with the end of Oak Street.
I also saw it at the drive-in, which I think
is a great venue for a movie of this scope
and tenor. So yeah, I mean, I'm not going to
(02:52):
claim it as great cinema, nor am I going to
claim that Ewan McGregor has a good handle on his.
Speaker 4 (02:58):
Accents throughout the film.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
I was waiting for someone to say that.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
But, you know, just as sort of a family adventure
movie of the era it's referencing, I had a good
time with it. And it was a nice blend of
like action, humor, pathos. None of them were like really... Top-notch,
you know, they're all like B-level versions of those things
But it all came together into a B movie, you
(03:25):
know And I think this does very much feel like
a B movie in a complimentary sense of the word
at least coming from me Maybe not so much from
you guys.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
No, I mean, here's the thing I left this movie
slightly disappointed because I liked I like Mitchell's other films
I still haven't seen his first show. I need to
see that the myth of the American sleepover but I
liked it okay, and it's pretty much still where I am.
I gave it three stars at the reveal, but I'm glad.
I've warmed to it. I've developed an affection for it,
(03:55):
I guess. But it's also the weird thing where I
saw some people were over the moon for it, and
some people hated it, and it's a real stop. You're
both wrong situation for me. I don't think there's anything
to praise this as a great movie, but it's also
perfectly fine. I enjoyed it. I do. And it's something
I want to get into is like, there's so much
(04:16):
subtext to our other film we're going to talk about, but,
I don't know that there's anything beneath the surface of
this movie beyond perhaps the marital drama as such. But whatever. Dinosaurs. Tasha,
how about you? Where are you with this movie? A
week later, I guess?
Speaker 4 (04:32):
I think the two of you have summed it up.
I would also say B-movie, but I think actually drive-in
movie is an even better description. I could see this playing,
you know, great fun. In my tease for it in
the last episode, I called it an Amblin Entertainment style movie.
And that's what it reminded me of more than anything.
It's just something, you know, an adventure that would be, like,
(04:54):
okay to watch with your kids, apart from a little
very slightly gnarly dinosaur-eating people action.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
It's... And the sex scene.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
And yes, and don't forget dinosaurs banging against a house.
Immortalized in the family photo in the end.
Speaker 4 (05:11):
I guess. I was exposed to animals banging in zoos.
Like I grew up in the greater Washington area. We
went to the National Zoo all the time. And I
learned more about sex from watching giraffes and elephants and
whatnot going at it. like at age seven than I
learned anywhere else. So I find it hard to take
(05:33):
a couple of CG dinosaurs having very slow, decorous sex
as something that.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
It is decorous, you're right.
Speaker 4 (05:41):
Again, I don't have kids. So, you know, don't listen
to me on this.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
If you don't want your children exposed to the facts
of dinosaur life, And there's.
Speaker 4 (05:52):
A dinosaur sex scene in the most recent Jurassic World movies,
I believe. I mean, it involves all.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
That one just slid right out of the old memory,
I'm afraid.
Speaker 4 (06:02):
Or in the first one, which I saw much, much
later than everybody else did.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (06:07):
Not the point. The point is, no, I think you're right.
My big feeling about this film was it was kind
of a slick surface and nothing going on underneath. And
that was fine, but I have been describing it to
people as entirely okay. You know, it's kind of slick
and efficient at what it needs to do, and it's
not something that you need to think about five minutes later,
(06:28):
which makes it difficult to talk about it for half
an hour, you know, a week later.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
But I want to come back to the dinosaurs banging,
because I think in addition to being like a laugh line,
and this movie does make several gestures at humor, whether
they are, you know, successful or not is a your
mileage may vary situation. But I did like the dinosaurs
(06:54):
banging scene for what it brought out in the marriage
between Anne Hathaway and Ewan McGregor, which felt like Very
perfunctory throughout the movie. It's a very tell-don't-show, troubled marriage,
I feel like. They have a couple harried conversations. But
(07:15):
then like once stuff starts going down, it feels like
not relevant to the movie anymore until he gets eaten,
which we should also talk about. But that moment where, yeah, sorry,
someone gets eaten in the dinosaur movie. Actually, the spoiler
is what happens later, which we do need to talk
about as well. But to go back to the dinosaurs banging,
(07:38):
just like kind of the the way they connect in
that moment with her like finding it funny and him
being kind of scandalized and it just felt like the
most human moment of that marriage or the most real
moment of that marriage where there was some actual personality
to it and it didn't just feel like mom and
dad figurines being ported around this movie. So, yeah, I
guess I'm just saying like that scene to me kind
(08:00):
of felt like when all the parts of this movie
or all the things this movie was trying to do
coalesced in a way that worked for me.
Speaker 4 (08:09):
I was distracted by how furry the dinosaurs were. Furry
or feathery.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
Feathery.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (08:16):
I definitely did not. They look like woolly mammoths. They
look like brontosauruses wearing mole woolly mammoth costumes.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (08:23):
And I'm, I guess I'm not up on my, is
it paleontology when we're talking about what they looked like
when they were alive? Like, I was around for the
revolution where they started saying, you know, there's no reason
they all had to be gray or green. Like reptiles
today are many, many bright colors. Maybe they were very,
very bright and colorful. I was around for the revolution
(08:44):
when they started saying, you know, they might have all
had feathers. Fur is a new one for me. Wooly
mammoth fur.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
I just saw feathers. I think there's just like really
downy feathers.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
Yeah, I know what you're talking about, though, Tasha.
Speaker 4 (08:58):
Long, shaggy, matted feathers?
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
Okay, then.
Speaker 4 (09:05):
Everybody who sees End of Oak Street after this in
the theater, pay very close attention to the dinosaur banging scene.
We've already focused most of the podcast on it, so
you're going to want to pay attention. It is the
emotional crux of the movie. But also, we need reports
on whether those dinosaurs are furry or feathery.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
Or both.
Speaker 4 (09:25):
Feathery. I mean, a lot of the other dinosaurs in
this movie are feathery and we could talk about some
of them just in terms of some of the designs
here are honestly kind of cartoonish.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
But I respect that like it's doing something different.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Sure.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
You know, especially being so Amblin inspired. I respect that
it didn't, you know, use the Jurassic Park slash world models,
even of the velociraptors. that I believe are the first dinosaurs.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
Big rooster looking things? Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
And, you know, probably at, this point aside from the
t-rex which does not appear in this movie we get
an allosaurus but uh aside from the t-rex probably like
the most iconic movie dinosaur of the last several decades
so i i appreciate that it didn't just kind of
shorthand it into the version of that dinosaur that we
are all familiar with Yeah.
Speaker 4 (10:20):
Strong agree. Anything that this movie does that distinguishes it from,
I honestly go kind of going back to what is
this movie? What does it feel like? How do we
feel about it? It also feels like an overlong classic
Twilight Zone episode in color.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
But Twilight Zone episodes have some sort of reason for existing,
you know, beyond like there there's, there's always like a,
they're morality tales essentially. And, and, and, I'm not sure
what the moral of this is other than, you know,
memorize your neighbor's phone numbers in case you ever need
to call them in an emergency. But I don't know.
Speaker 4 (10:59):
I don't know that I feel like a lot of
classic Twilight Zone tales are morality tales. Like, you know,
Terror at 10,000 Feet is.
Definitely saying something about the human experience, but is there
a moral to it? Is time enough at last? Is
there a moral there besides don't marry a horrible person
who abuses you, you know, or read all the books
(11:21):
you can while you can? Or carry a spare set
of glasses. Like, I don't know that I see.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Those morality tales. Yeah, but with that one, it's a
matter of him, his misanthropic behavior coming back to haunt him. But, wait,
this is not a Twilight Zone podcast. Maybe we should
start one.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
I was going to say, that sounds like something you
should do, Keith.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
I have enough podcasts as it is.
Speaker 4 (11:44):
I guess one of the things that reminded me of
Twilight Zone here is just sort of the feeling, which...
This is also a connection with War of the Worlds.
And maybe one of the stronger ones when I suggested
this pairing is just sort of the feeling of something
inexplicable and maybe ineffable is happening. And it's outside of
everybody's control or understanding. And it's really about what they
(12:05):
do and how they react to it. And I sort
of see that in a lot of the more supernatural
early Twilight Zone episodes. It's just sort of the sense
of like this person now has the ability to stop time.
We're not going to really explore how that happened or why.
It's just the result that matters. So sort of the
mentality here felt very Twilight Zone-y to me.
Speaker 3 (12:27):
It's wormholes, Tasha. What more explanation do you need?
Speaker 4 (12:32):
Something, something, science wormholes.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
She was reading that Carl Sagan book. It was right there.
Speaker 4 (12:38):
There is a point where the characters in this movie
find something inexplicable and yet very important to the later
action in somebody's house. I was really expecting them in
that moment to find a Professor Falcon from War Games
slash Christopher Lloyd with all of his hair up from
Back to the Future person who had been messing around
(12:59):
with wormhole generators. I was expecting an explanation of And
what we get instead is there's no explanation for this.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
It just happened.
Speaker 4 (13:08):
Sometimes entire neighborhoods like drop into the Paleolithic and vice versa.
It's just, you know, what you're going to do. But
I feel like maybe just there is not an explanation
for the following creature in It Follows. You don't need that.
Part of the terror of it is... it's inexplicable. It's ineffable.
(13:29):
It's coming for you. You know what to do to
stop it, but you, you know what to do to
evade it, but there's no way to stop it. A
story where things happen without explanation, you know, can be
a story about all of the unknowns that we face
every day, you know, the, the things that are beyond us.
And I'm fine with that. But in this particular movie,
(13:50):
I don't know, stuff happens. It just feels like, indicative
of the movie's overall lack of depth than indicative of
kind of the overall, there's exactly one painted layer to
this entire story and there's nothing beneath it.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
I have at least one more topic I want to
talk about, a question specifically for Genevieve, but we'll get
to that after the break. We'll be right back.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
What is that? What is that? What?
Speaker 2 (14:22):
So this film was set in 1982. Did that seem
like purely for nostalgic reasons for you? And also, I
know this is slightly before your time or just at
the dawn of the Genevieve era, but Genevieve, you're from
this part of the world. How well did it capture
its setting?
Speaker 3 (14:42):
I mean, not at all. It's the Detroit suburbs in
name only. But David Robert Mitchell is originally from Claussen,
which is just 10 miles up the road from where
I live. And this is set in Flowervale, which is
(15:03):
nomenclaturely close to where I live in Ferndale. And there's
the bus stop scene. There's a map. that shows like
Woodward Avenue and John R and like these like familiar
street names. There's like a Detroit Tigers magnet at one point.
There's just like these sort of like winks. But as
far as like the neighborhood itself is, There's nothing particularly
(15:29):
Michigan or even Midwest about it. And I know there's
one scene where they see something in a house on
the top of a hill in the distance. And there
are no hills like that in this area. It is
a very... flat. There are hills in Michigan, but not
in this particular part of it. And certainly not within
(15:50):
neighborhoods like like this. So you know, this was I
didn't look up where this is filmed. But if it's
not either Vancouver or California, I would be shocked.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
Nope. You'll be shocked. It's Atlanta. Oh, of course. Which
is basically the Vancouver of the 2020s. Of course. Although
I think Stranger Things faked Indiana more convincingly in Atlanta
than this does. Although it's not bad. It's just sort
of like suburban everywhere.
Speaker 4 (16:15):
Why is this movie set in 1982? Because it was.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Sort of the height of the 80s blockbuster era?
Speaker 4 (16:21):
I mean, maybe the height of Amblin Entertainment. Usually these days,
if a movie is set in a period and it's
not because it's specifically about, you know, Prohibition or Al
Capone or, you know, some historical event or figure, I
assume that it's to solve the cell phone problem. But here,
(16:44):
the cell phones wouldn't work anyway because, you know, very
few Paleolithic cell towers.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
Or satellites exist.
Speaker 4 (16:52):
And, you know, being able to use the phone actually
becomes a big plot point anyway. So I just don't
understand why the very specific setting, time-wise and location-wise, in
a movie that draws on neither of those things in
any meaningful way, as far as I can tell.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
I think it's pure nostalgia. Although it occurred to me,
given that we have Feathery.
Speaker 4 (17:16):
But, Keith, nostalgia for what? For an extremely white suburb
where everything looks like mayonnaise, there's no visual specificity, human specificity.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
For a period in which the director grew up, basically.
I'm not sure there's much more to it than that.
You get to do clothes and songs from when you
were a kid, and that's fun, right?
Speaker 3 (17:41):
I mean, it's also like going back to a pre-Jurassic
Park era too, like both the movie and the book.
So this is way beyond the movie's scope or concern,
but sort of like as a viewer, I think you
can position it as a world where dinosaur mayhem hasn't
been codified in that way yet.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
And the other thing also, and this kind of gets
a little spoilery, but we're going to talk about the
end at some point. But I actually want to maybe
wait to talk about the end of this movie when
we talk about the end of War of the Worlds.
But spoiler, they get back to 1982. And it occurred
to me that it wasn't established science that dinosaurs might
have had feathers at this point. So they emerge with
(18:25):
this great scientific breakthrough that had not– I don't think– well,
maybe it had been– suggest it, but perhaps not as
widely accepted as it is now.
Speaker 3 (18:35):
I'm stealing this observation from Sedan Tadlanka, who's previously guested
on the show and wrote a very fun sort of
ending questions piece about the end of Oak Street over
at Vulture. And he noted that, again, to sort of
be vague about spoilers when our heroes get back to
(18:56):
the present and have to warn people what's coming. They
don't yet have the shorthand of Back to the Future,
the cultural shorthand of Back to the Future to explain it.
And he also made a similar point about it being
sort of a pre-Jurassic Park moment too. So something about,
you know, just kind of predating the obvious cultural touchstones
(19:19):
by just a few years. feels, if not purposeful, at
least interesting in the context of such an homage-y movie.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
So the two big names in the cast are Ewan
McGregor and Anne Hathaway. I want a quick aside here.
I do love it whenever P.J. Byrne shows up in
a movie. He plays the obnoxious neighbor in this one
because you're going to get a first-class jerk. I'm sure
he's a lovely person in real life. All right. So
it's been a big year for Anne Hathaway. She was
(19:51):
in the David Lowery movie Mother Mary, which I still
need to see. Devil Wears Prada 2, which I watched
on that plane. I talked about in the previous episode. See,
there's a lot of connections right there. The Odyssey and
the end of Oak Street. And then she co-stars as
Ewan McGregor. She's in this, who is no stranger to
effects-driven blockbusters. How do those performances work for you?
Speaker 4 (20:12):
I love Ewan McGregor. I've been such a huge fan
of his since Trainspotting. And here, he's entirely fine. He
showed up. I will say, this is perhaps an important note,
I'm a very visually and narratively focused person. I am
much less likely to notice audio. And very frequently when
(20:35):
people start talking about how bad somebody's accent is in
a thing, it went completely over my head. I did
not particularly notice here. Like it really does have to
be like a Tom Hanks in Baz Luhrmann's Elvis level
of weird accent for me to even notice. So I
did not notice that. But what I did notice is just,
you know, he's a nuanced actor. He's a really good actor.
(20:58):
And here he kind of seems to have two settings,
you know, kind of peeved and kind of scared. And
that's about it.
Speaker 3 (21:04):
Yeah, I think Anne Hathaway gives the richer performance, such
as it is, as rich a performance as this film invites.
But obviously, she's doing so much this year. But it
was kind of fun to see her in action mode.
I feel like that's something we don't see her do
(21:24):
a whole lot of. I don't think of Anne Hathaway
toting a shotgun, you know?
Speaker 2 (21:30):
And she gets dirty and bloody by the end of
this movie.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
This is really kind of a wreck looking.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (21:37):
You get just a picture. At one point, there's just
sort of a pan across a bunch of pictures on
the wall. And one of the pictures is a younger
version of her grinning and holding up a rifle. It's
established that You know, she's comfortable with firearms. And I
actually just really like that. It is after she has
picked up the rifle and fired it for the first time.
(21:59):
It is not like a character introduction beat. But the
fact that she's kind of the firearms person in this relationship,
I just really appreciate it as a small character touch
and a small nod to modernity in a movie that's
kind of aiming to be an 80s throwback. But I
agree that she does give the richer performance here. And
I think it's in part just because she has a
(22:19):
richer character on the page. The moment where she realizes
the basement is flooded and what that means to the
work she's been doing is one of the few moments
in the movie that really feels like an authentic emotional
moment as opposed to a running scared from monsters kind
of moment. Just like something relatable and painful. And it
(22:41):
is wild, I think, that I felt worse for her
having lost the novel that she had worked on and
workshopped so much than I felt for her when Ewan
McGregor gets very quickly and summarily eaten by a dinosaur.
Speaker 3 (22:59):
It kind of gets eaten in two parts. It gets
his leg and then the rest of him.
Speaker 4 (23:03):
It still happens very quickly and summarily, though.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
That's grisly, though. I was surprised by how graphic and
seemingly final that moment was.
Speaker 3 (23:13):
Yeah. As you said, I think we need to talk
about the ending in the context of War of the
Worlds because it's one of the things they have in common,
but in very different ways. So maybe we can move
into Connections.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
Sounds like we're heading in that direction. So let's take
a short break and we'll be right back with Connections.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
Denise! Get out of there! Run!
Speaker 2 (23:54):
Now it's time for connections. When we bring these two
films together and talk about all the things they have
in common. I mean, the most obvious thing is like
it's fractured families and children in peril. These are Genevieve's
phrasing here on our list of connections. But yeah, they're
family dramas, and they're about dramas about keeping families not
just together, but alive, right?
Speaker 3 (24:12):
Yeah, I mean, it's a family survival narrative. And the
actual makeup of the families are different. And in War
of the Worlds, we are dealing with an already broken family,
but maybe a family that is figuring out its next
(24:32):
phase in the face of an alien invasion. whereas End
of Oak Street is more about bringing a fractured family,
repairing the cracks in a fractured family, specifically in the
marriage between Anne Hathaway and Ewan McGregor. And again, I
think we really need to move to the ending here
(24:53):
in order to fully talk about this connection. So maybe
should we... I.
Speaker 4 (25:00):
Feel like we could leave that for the end. I
feel like there's a little more to explore here just
in terms of I mean, there is the difference between
Ray and Marianne's marriage is kaput. There is no sense
in the movie that we're waiting for them to get
back together or that Tim is the bad guy Baxter
that needs to be overcome. Whereas I think we're supposed
(25:21):
to be rooting for Greg and Denise. Are we in
Oak Street?
Speaker 2 (25:27):
I didn't care a whole lot about that.
Speaker 1 (25:29):
I think so.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
Any failure to not have that feeling probably has more
to do with the film's shortcomings than your own.
Speaker 3 (25:37):
Yeah, and I mean, I think one of the film's
shortcomings is that it just kind of expects you to
want these people not to break up. It's like, you know...
I mean, for a Spielbergian as this film is like,
I feel like that's kind of another element of it.
Just like the assumption that a broken family is bad,
regardless of the specifics of the people in that marriage.
Speaker 4 (26:01):
I think the interesting thing there, though, is I mean,
it is partially broken because Ewan McGregor's character has lost
his job and is lying about it and is dealing
with a lot of anxiety that he's not sharing with
his partner. He's, you know, keeping secrets that he's keeping
out of pride, effectively. And in the process, he's like
not letting his life partner help. And he's adding a
(26:23):
lot of stress to the relationship. But Denise, Anne Hathaway's character,
we don't really know why. Like, we know that she
wants out. She's writing this novel that is like the
story of somebody stuck in a suburban life and marriage
with kids who is constantly fantasizing about and kind of
secretly planning an escape. And we never really get a
(26:46):
lot of perspective into what that means for her, how
far her personal frustration goes. Is she actually fantasizing about this?
Given how much the analysis, the neighbor's analysis of her
novel centered on that image of an already packed yellow suitcase,
(27:07):
I kept waiting for the reveal where it turns out
that she's got such a suitcase, but No, maybe it's
all just a fantasy. Hell, maybe it's just a novel.
It's unclear what she's expressing.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
You don't know that she doesn't have a suitcase like that, though.
Speaker 3 (27:20):
Well, and now that you pointed out the photo of
her earlier in life with the gun, now I am
kind of grafting a backstory that we do not get
onto this character of her being someone who maybe has
a little bit of a danger drive or a craving
for adventure or whatever. whatever, and she gets it through
(27:40):
this experience, you know, and again, the movie doesn't really
explicate this in any way. And maybe if it had,
it would have felt a little richer than it does.
But I can squint and see a reading of that character.
just feeling really confined by her safe suburban existence and
(28:00):
desiring a little excitement and adventure and getting it in
this really wild way. And that being what allows her
to kind of return to her marriage, feeling more fulfilled.
Speaker 4 (28:14):
So a thing that interests me about the marriages in
these two movies is that everything I said about Rey
being a kind of doubtful figure in terms of not
necessarily being the best parent, in terms of possibly wanting
to escape responsibility, not knowing how to relate to or
deal with his children, especially when they're frightened. We get
(28:36):
a little bit of that with her character through this
fantasy of wanting to leave for reasons we don't know.
And it's a lot less pronounced, but there is sort
of the implication that somewhere in the back of her mind,
she's kind of prioritizing her own freedom and independence and
fantasizing about her or desiring or burying the desire to
(28:58):
abandon her husband and her children and her life. And
I think in the same way, it complicates that character
a bit for us in terms of sympathies. Like, again,
I don't have any burning desire to see her and
Greg stay together, but I do think that especially in
the eighties to have a, a mother character who, Who
(29:20):
on some levels fantasizing about not being a mother is
saying that maybe there's something wrong with her and maybe
she's a bad person because she's willing to abandon these
children who love her and depend on her in order
to prioritize their own freedom. It's just a very Kramer
versus Kramer kind of idea of the mother who could
abandon her children has obviously a damaged mother. And it's
(29:44):
not very pronounced. It's not very well detailed. But it's
a little undercurrent there that kind of connects these two movies.
Speaker 2 (29:50):
I think another connection also is in both films, the
kids are very perceptive as to what's going on or
becoming perceptive, I guess, more. In the case of End
of Oak Street, there's sort of like, you know, they
can't pinpoint exactly what is wrong. They know something is
wrong in that film. Also, we should do a quick
shout out to those kids. I think they're both really good.
(30:12):
Christian Convery is the younger son. And Maisie Stella, who's
not a kid. She's actually a fully grown adult, even
though she's played a teenager here. But she's the star
of a movie I like to push on people, which
is called My Old Ass by Megan Park. Another time
travel movie in some ways as well.
Speaker 4 (30:29):
And Chris Convery is the star of Netflix's series, Sweet Tooth.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
I knew I knew the name from somewhere.
Speaker 3 (30:37):
Sort of a little just funny sub-connection, speaking of Christian Convery.
I found it amusing that the sons in both of
these films, Brian and Robbie, both keep running off after
something that they that they want and uh at uh
with no sense of self-preservation uh in war of the
(31:01):
worlds that's you know robbie kind of going after vengeance
or revenge or wanting to join the military you know
which is a little more fraught than uh brian just
running after starbuck the family talk the whole time but
it did uh kind of give me a similar feeling
of like Guys, settle down. Your sister and parents need
(31:22):
you right now.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
Yeah, I think I'm really interesting. Come on, you're a
dog person. How would you feel?
Speaker 3 (31:27):
I am a dog person, but I will say I
thought this was a pretty blatant use of a movie dog.
It didn't really do much for me here, maybe just
because it felt very personal. I don't know. It never
felt like the dog was not going to make it
out of the movie alive.
Speaker 4 (31:46):
It feels a bit manipulative, but it's also it's just
a plot convenience thing. I mean, Robbie's drive in War
of the Worlds to help in some way works. which
we talked a bit about how his, you know, his
desire to go strike back against the alien terrorists kind
of represents the people who joined the military after 9-11.
(32:09):
But I think even more so he represents the people
who didn't or couldn't for whatever reason, including because they
were too young and who just have a kind of
inchoate desire to strike back in some way. you know,
hurt the people who hurt us, take control of the
situation by making the people who made me feel bad,
feel bad. And the fact that he's, you know, so
(32:31):
young and he doesn't have a really good way to
do that is a little bit of a tragedy because
it's like an understandable thing. Whereas Brian's like just sort
of single-minded, I'm going to rescue my dog, while maybe
understandable and relatable, also is just the primary thing that
keeps pulling them out of shelter. We see over and
(32:52):
over and over in War of the Worlds that Ray
and his kids cannot stay in a shelter because the
disaster is everywhere except this one neighborhood in Boston. You know,
they keep going to ground and then the ground literally
crumbles out from underneath them. But there's not much reason
in End of Oak Street that that family couldn't have
just like stayed in that house, maybe scavenged their awful
(33:15):
PJ Byrne neighbor and his house for you know, more
food to eat or whatever. But there's no reason that
they couldn't just hunker down, except that Brian keeps running
off and they keep having to chase him down. So
it's one of the reasons that the dog thing feels
bad is because it's manipulative. You know, it's just a
plot convenience.
Speaker 3 (33:34):
Well, I'll push back on that slightly more by way
of just broaching another small connection that I have written
down here, which is it's inside the house. Because in
End of Oak Street, there are a couple instances of
the dinosaurs or the prehistoric eel snake creature.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
I'm not sure what that was.
Speaker 3 (33:57):
Yeah, coming and invading the house. And that snake-like creature
in particular felt very reminiscent of the tentacle. Sorry, I
forget the exact phrasing already. Yes, the Russian water tentacle
in War of the Worlds, both visually and the way
it's kind of just stalking them through the house. And
(34:19):
it does kind of evoke a similar feeling of you
should be safe inside. This is where you should be
able to hide from the thing. And then once it's
no longer a safe hiding space, it feels like an escalation. Like, oh,
the danger really is everywhere.
Speaker 4 (34:36):
I did enjoy the snake home invasion, if only because...
It was a break from chasing, screaming, slamming through walls
and windows and doors and whatnot. The silentness of it
really had the theater I saw it in going. There
was just a lot of very muffled noise from people
(34:59):
processing the terror of something that moves silently but is
also that big and horrifying. So, you know, I will
allow giant prehistoric albino eel snakes if it gets me
a sequence like that instead of a 14th feathered velociraptor chase.
Speaker 3 (35:15):
Also another fun Anne Hathaway action star moment of just
stabbing that thing over and over and over again, seemingly futilely. Yeah,
you know, she gets to play with a gun, she
gets to play with knives, she gets to do it all.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
I'm on a subreddit, a dinosaur subreddit, where apparently no
one can really nail down what that thing is. So
perhaps it is a A little bit of poetic license
about what kind of creature might have slithered its way
into the house.
Speaker 4 (35:46):
Nothing more poetic than a giant megafauna of albino eel snake,
I always say. I've lost track of how many times
I've said that on this particular podcast.
Speaker 3 (35:56):
It's basically the motto of this podcast at this point.
Speaker 4 (36:01):
I claimed it should be the title of the podcast
and I was roundly voted down. So one thing that
just really struck me about the connection between these two
movies is in both cases, you have a boy, girl, sibling,
children pair who turn to each other for comfort because
their parents are falling apart or absent or even just
(36:23):
like slightly away trying to protect them or, you know,
focused on somehow driving through a giant mob of people or,
you know, whatever, whatever it is. Those siblings are the
fallback for each other. And in both of these cases,
that kind of, you know, contentious, one of them is
(36:43):
older than the other, like they're different genders, they're different ages,
they're different interests, they have their own lives. They're just
very different people and they don't get along in very
petty sibling-y ways. But when the crisis comes, you know,
they love each other and they protect each other. I
saw those two connections as very similar. Obviously, in World
(37:05):
of Worlds, Robbie is older and has very clearly been
responsible for like helping Rachel through panic attacks in the past.
And that makes it a little different from Oak Street
where they're closer to the same age. And it feels
a little more like the older sibling, Audrey, might have
had to babysit Brian from time to time. But still,
it feels very authentic to children of divorce in particular
(37:28):
to have to lean on each other because they can't
necessarily trust either mom or dad to have their best
interests at heart when they're focused more on each other
and the split in the marriage. And also to just
have to lean on each other as the one other
person that knows what they're going through. There is a
heartbreaking moment. I wrote this down because it was one
(37:51):
of the biggest kick in the teeth of the entirety
of War of the Worlds. There's a moment where Rachel
says to Robbie, don't go with the army men, because
if you do, who's going to look after me? And
Ray is standing right there when she says it. And
I was just like, oh, my God, that's brutal.
Speaker 2 (38:07):
Dakota Fanning, man. Always good. Yeah, yeah. Just really, that's
a knockout performance in that movie.
Speaker 4 (38:14):
A lot is asked of her. She is basically doing
Drew Barrymore, you know, in E.T.
Speaker 1 (38:18):
And beyond.
Speaker 4 (38:19):
There's a lot of screaming that she has to do
in this movie, but there's also a lot of nuance
to it, and she is really good.
Speaker 3 (38:26):
But also a lot of silent emoting, too, you know.
Speaker 4 (38:29):
There's a lot of silent terror.
Speaker 2 (38:30):
Family and family, talented people.
Speaker 3 (38:37):
Another thing I wanted to bring up, which as is
my want, I phrased cutely in our script as puny humans,
big survival instinct, because I wanted to talk about the
comparative scale of these two threats, because in both cases,
you know, obviously, these are larger than human threats that
that they are dealing with. But the war machines in
(38:59):
War of the World, the tripods, are just hundreds of
times bigger than even the biggest house-sized dinosaur in End
of Oak Street. And the way its destructive capability is
just so much more. It can laser an entire street
of people away in a second, whereas the dino mayhem
(39:23):
is a little more one on one, you know, it
can fit inside your house. In War of the Worlds,
I guess we do get to spend a brief amount
of time with the aliens themselves, which are a little
more human size, but we don't really interact with them
in a violent way, the way that we do with
the tripods or the dinosaurs. And yeah, I guess I
(39:46):
just kind of wanted to talk through the relative sense
of fear that comes with the different scales of these
two threats. And if one feels more real or visceral
than the other, or am I overthinking this?
Speaker 2 (40:01):
They're both big and single-minded and surprisingly, in the Tripod's case,
but also some of the Dinosaur's case, surprisingly nimble as
well and precise in their actions. they're targeting and they'll
both consume you we haven't even really talked about the
um or the world's orifice whatever it is that draws
people in it's it's really quite it does.
Speaker 3 (40:22):
Eat them you know in a in a way because
yeah because i was just thinking about it in terms
of like the lasers blasting people to ash but there
is also this more visceral body horror element to them
as well.
Speaker 2 (40:34):
The baskets of people they're going to recycle, which I
think is what's going on there. It's a little fuzzy
on that.
Speaker 4 (40:42):
There's a definite human fascination with what it would be
like to be prey that extends through both of these movies.
Speaker 3 (40:51):
Say more.
Speaker 4 (40:54):
Just I mean, it's it's something I go back to
Spielberg's Jaws. You know, we're used to thinking ourselves of
ourselves as the apex predator and a lot of horror movies, particularly,
you know, creature features your your, you know, shark to
pusses and your crawls and whatnot. are about that kind
of like instinctive fear of something bigger and faster than
(41:17):
you that wants to eat you. To me, though, the
tripods are scarier because they're so alien, you know? The
dinosaurs are just big lizards, which might be feathery or
hairy or busy boffing and not paying any attention to you. Or,
you know, vegetarians in some ways. But one way or
the other, There's just been so much dinosaur media. It's
(41:39):
a known factor. They're fast and destructive and very, very
good at predation, but they're not unknown in the ways
that the tripods are unknown. And especially on a first watch,
War of the Worlds, I find it very unnerving because
if you're not familiar with the source material, the stages
of what is this? What does it want? Oh, it
(42:02):
wants to vaporize us and it can vaporize. But it
also wants to mulch human bodies and grow horrific, you know,
alien plants out of them to Mars a form the
planet like that series of discoveries like each one of
them is a kind of a new kind of horror
and comes with a new kind of helplessness like. As
(42:25):
we've pointed out, Ewan McGregor getting eaten by a dinosaur
happens very, very quickly. It doesn't look fun. It looks painful.
It looks terrifying. But it happens very quickly compared to
being grabbed by an alien, stuffed in a basket, carried
around for who knows how long until you're pulled out
and stuffed into an alien orifice and turned into mulch,
(42:46):
which looks painful and terrifying and also very protracted comparatively.
There's also a special kind of horror in knowing something's
coming and that there's nothing you can do about it
which you know oak street is all about running and
shooting and stabbing and and survival and not that inevitability
of being like a captive in a cage waiting to
(43:09):
be turned into ground cover basically so i don't know
i think war of the worlds is a lot scarier
as a movie personally.
Speaker 3 (43:16):
And there's also the sense that they are operating from
a plan, whereas the dinosaurs are just operating from instinct.
Speaker 4 (43:24):
Yeah, prey opportunities. Suddenly being dropped into a food-rich environment.
Speaker 2 (43:29):
Having a food-rich environment dropped on them, maybe more accurately.
Speaker 3 (43:33):
Yeah, well, speaking of getting eaten, I think we officially
have to talk about the ending now.
Speaker 4 (43:39):
The end of the end of Oak Street.
Speaker 2 (43:40):
Yeah, so it's big spoilers. Well, obviously, we always said
that Ewan McGregor gets eaten, but does he? All right,
so the end of this movie, the last 10 minutes
of this movie had me puzzled. So I kind of
want to walk through it. Correct me if I'm wrong, Harris,
but basically, Denise and her children, Audrey and Brian, escape
(44:01):
through a wormhole.
Speaker 3 (44:03):
And Jeanette.
Speaker 2 (44:04):
And Jeanette, their neighbor, who... Brian had a crush on,
but actually might be better suited for Audrey. They're making
eyes at each other. Escape through a wormhole and find
themselves back in a different part of their neighborhood shortly
before they're just.
Speaker 3 (44:20):
It's like 20 minutes before the clock stopped.
Speaker 2 (44:22):
Right, almost immediately before the events that drew them back
to the past. So at which point, Denise orders a
pizza so that Greg will deliver it to her. and
thus be safe from going back. And then she calls
all the neighbors whose numbers she knows by memory, I assume.
And then they are later drawn away. There's a time.
Speaker 4 (44:44):
Period where I knew a lot of people's phone numbers.
Speaker 3 (44:46):
There was probably a neighborhood phone tree. This feels like
a phone tree neighborhood.
Speaker 4 (44:51):
PTA, possibly, connection.
Speaker 2 (44:54):
But we're left to do so for ourselves. And so basically,
those people get out. Their other selves, like the other Denise, Audrey,
and Brian people, presumably are sucked back into the past
along with the other neighbors whose phone numbers that she
doesn't know, and it's a happy ending. Oh, but Jeanette
goes back, and then there's two Jeanettes.
Speaker 1 (45:17):
Yeah, yes.
Speaker 2 (45:18):
It's very confusing. Am I wrong? It's a little confusing?
Speaker 3 (45:22):
No, you are correct that it is confusing, and you
are not wrong about the sequence of events. I just
simply want to underline that the Greg that is alive
at the end, at the happy ending and has seemingly
reconciled with Denise, uh, has not gone through any of
the events that the rest of his family has. He
just kind of like gets, uh, forgiven because a different
(45:46):
version of himself got eaten, I guess. So that's weird,
especially as it pertains to, like I said, him and
Denise reconciling and kind of seems to put all the
weight of their relationship falling apart and coming back together
on her in a really odd way. And then, yes,
(46:07):
there also appear to be two Jeanettes at the end
of the movie because she ran off to save her
parents and presumably herself as well. So I guess it's like,
kind of like the flip side of, uh, Denise, Audrey
and Brian one prime.
Speaker 1 (46:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (46:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (46:25):
Uh, they, they disappear and I guess, and, but then Jeanette,
we don't have doubles of them the way we do
with Jeanette.
Speaker 2 (46:34):
But presumably they died at the dinosaur and that's fine.
Speaker 3 (46:39):
Especially because if they went back without, uh, Greg or
the neighbor lady, the librarian who saves them at one point,
like presumably without those characters having traveled back, they would
not have survived. So we see them survive in the movie.
Speaker 1 (46:55):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (46:55):
Indulge me here though. So there's two Jeanette's at the end.
They both seem perfectly happy. That means that there could
have been two Denise's, two Audrey's and two Bryant who
also been happy, but those potentially happy people are now dead.
Speaker 1 (47:10):
Yes.
Speaker 4 (47:12):
I don't think they're dead. I mean, this is sort
of the paradox of time travel, but they escaped into
the past. They are still those people.
Speaker 2 (47:21):
Yeah, they've got to get rid of dinosaurs. Tasha, you
know that's what happened to them.
Speaker 4 (47:26):
I mean, I think Denise on her own would have
a much better chance of protecting those two kids and
getting them out alive than Greg on his own. The
problem would be when two shotgun-toting Denise's face off for
who gets to be the real Denise. There's a Karen
Gillan movie called Duel where that happens, and I rather
like it. We can learn from that sort of how
(47:47):
things would have gone down. I think the fact that
we get to see the second Jeanette is, you know,
Mitchell acknowledging that this is a thing that had happened.
You know, it's not a loophole. It's just, as you say,
kind of a little Easter egg almost.
Speaker 2 (48:03):
But it raises so many questions.
Speaker 4 (48:06):
Yeah, but he wants those questions there. Whereas Denise and
the family, like, yeah, there is sort of the causal
effect of time travel and, like, how they survived the
librarian's house if the librarian had already escaped question. But
there isn't another... iteration of them because that iteration of
them escaped is how I would see how time travel works.
(48:29):
But regardless, I don't think this movie is necessarily asking
you to think about anything along these lines.
Speaker 2 (48:36):
Well, the reason we want to talk about the ending
anyway is because it is in some ways also a
cop-out ending, just as War of the Worlds is a
cop-out ending. In some ways, it almost feels like it's
where they're closest.
Speaker 1 (48:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (48:47):
And the sort of last minute resurrection as part of
that ending. So is Greg getting to survive and avoid
all of the trauma the rest of his family went through?
Is that more or less infuriating than Robbie popping back
up at the end of War of the Worlds?
Speaker 2 (49:06):
Well, I think also, wouldn't you resent your dad if
he skipped all that?
Speaker 1 (49:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (49:12):
I think they're just glad to have him back. I
think you guys are mean. I think if I watched
my husband be devoured by dinosaur in front of me,
and then I got him back through time travel shenanigans, like,
if our marriage was already on the rocks, that that
might continue.
Speaker 3 (49:29):
And I mean, in the moment, I would certainly be happy.
But like the long tail trauma of this situation, I
feel you don't know what we went through, Greg.
Speaker 4 (49:39):
I mean, sure, my book, honestly, given what we see
in where the world it might be better to have,
you know, if one of your parents is deeply traumatized
by an incredibly like violent, horrific experience that they went through.
Maybe it's good if the other one isn't. So, you know,
now that I think about it, something that these two
(50:00):
movies do very much have in common is Greg and Ray,
the fathers, both engage in that kind of magical thinking.
Like they're they both keep telling the kids like it's
going to be fine. Ray less so, especially towards the beginning.
He does a lot of like, I don't know, or
just stonewalling any answer and especially about what's going on.
(50:23):
Why are we running? But, you know, towards the end,
he's like, oh, Robbie's going to meet up with us later,
which turns out to be true. Oh, your mother's alive.
It's going to be OK, which turns out to be true.
We'll just meet up with them in Boston where they
were going, which turns out to be true. So maybe
he maybe has prophetic powers. And this movie isn't about
what I thought about at all. But in the moment
where he's saying those things, it it feels like, you know,
(50:46):
desperate lies to keep a kid going, but also kind
of overreaching. You know, I just might. prime example for
this is uh of all things team america uh when
the love interest tells the lead like if you you
know i've been too much trauma through too much trauma
i've lost too many people if you tell me you
will never die and never leave me we will have
(51:08):
sex right now and he's like i promise i will
never die and that's what i hear in both greg
and ray um you know, saying these, you know, everything
is going to be fine. This specific thing is going
to happen. The fact that Spielberg and Cap let Ray
get away with all of that by making it all
true is a little frustrating. But with Greg, I think
it's meant to be just kind of an important like
(51:31):
plot thing is like he thinks nothing of saying Everything's
going to be fine. Those people that are going to
shoot on by dinosaurs right now, they're going to be
they're going to be OK. We will get out of this.
And meanwhile, Denise is kind of saying, why are you
saying all of these things that aren't true? Like she
feels that it's keeping him from dealing with the situation
(51:52):
at all. So I feel like he's just sort of
a more blithe and positive character. And he's going to
come out of this with a continuing like, oh, yeah,
everything worked out. It's all OK. And it might be
better for the kids to have some of that in
their lives instead of both of their parents being completely
traumatized by a night of dino fighting.
Speaker 3 (52:13):
Well, that's a nice spin to put on it, Tasha.
I appreciate that.
Speaker 4 (52:17):
How do you feel about the dog surviving?
Speaker 3 (52:19):
I mean, I'm always glad when a dog survives, but
I don't know. I didn't get it. Starbuck didn't give
me a whole lot.
Speaker 2 (52:25):
I will say, except for the moment where he rushes
in heroically at the last moment, he does behave very
much like a dumb dog, right?
Speaker 3 (52:33):
Yeah, yeah. I forgot he did have a hero moment.
So yeah, good job, Starbuck. I'm glad you survived.
Speaker 2 (52:43):
Well, we survived.
Speaker 4 (52:45):
I'm not traumatized at all.
Speaker 2 (52:49):
I'm a little traumatized. I'm still thinking about the end
of Oak Street.
Speaker 3 (52:53):
Keith's just going to wake up in the middle of
the night going.
Speaker 1 (52:54):
Two Jeanettes!
Speaker 2 (52:57):
It doesn't make sense. So if you want to watch
War of the Worlds, it's available on DVD and Blu-ray.
It's also streaming on Paramount Plus and MGM Plus. It's
widely available for digital rental on other services. The end
of Oak Street is in theaters now, and we'll be
right back with your next picture show. Finally, it's time
(53:21):
to recommend a film or film-related item that complements this
set of episodes. We call it Your Next Picture Show
in the hopes it'll put some interesting choices on your radar.
This time we have two interesting choices, one from Genevieve
and one from Tasha. And they both are kind of
like movies we could have done, maybe. I think we
chose the right one, but I can see these episodes working. Tasha,
what's yours?
Speaker 4 (53:40):
Well, this honestly didn't occur to me until I was
writing the preview text for this pairing and was kind
of like laying out the shared plot line with both
of these movies of a small neighborhood coming under attack by,
you know, unknown mysterious forces and ordinary people having to
band together in kind of unforeseen ways in order to
(54:03):
deal with these things and survive. And as I was
writing that, I was thinking I'm basically summing up Joe
Cornish's Attack the Block, which is a film that we
haven't done on the podcast, but we have talked up
in the past as just a very enjoyable. You want
to talk about a movie that maybe doesn't have layer
upon layer upon layer, but is just a really fun,
(54:24):
good action time, kind of an action adventure and is
maybe just different from all of these movies in that
the setting just feels so different. It's a southern London
street gang. coming together to fight back against, uh, alien
attackers and, uh, stars John Boyega in, I don't recall
if it's his first role. I don't think it is,
(54:45):
but very early and, uh, kind of, if not breakout
breakout adjacent John Boyega role, he's really great in this movie.
Mostly what I remember is just thinking about seeing this
movie is just sort of a feeling of this is
a familiar tale told in a different way and told
well and told with a lot of flavor that I
(55:05):
was not necessarily expecting from this kind of, you know,
particular kind of 80s feeling throwback movie. Also, it's very
low budget, but the way that aliens are done is
very cheaply creative in a way that I think is
quite fun. And then I'm certainly not going to spoil.
So just overall, I think Attack the Black doesn't connect
(55:30):
in the same kind of ways in terms of, yeah,
it was his first feature film. He was in a
TV series before that, but this was his feature debut.
I feel like it doesn't have a lot of the
parallels in terms of like actual bio family stuff. And
in terms of the very specific relationships between husband and wife,
between the two siblings, between the optimist and the pessimist,
(55:53):
between the particular kind of attackers and the particular kind
of responses. But it does kind of fit the same pattern.
And I certainly think it's a better, more fun and
more lively and more textured and nuanced film than End
of Oak Street, as this very specific plot line goes. Genevieve,
what about you?
Speaker 3 (56:13):
The film that came to mind for me when watching
End of Oak Street is one that has a lot,
a lot of direct connections, but is maybe one that
is harder to designate a classic film. Although I would
perhaps argue for Jurassic Park 3, one of the most
maligned entries in that franchise, as being underrated. It's one
(56:38):
that I like to revisit more than most other of
the Jurassic Park's. And as far as like how it
aligns with End of Oak Street, just sort of on
a meta level, this was the first Jurassic Park movie
that Spielberg was not involved with. So it does kind
of feel similar to David Robert Mitchell doing a Spielberg homage,
(57:00):
you know, with dinosaurs. So kind of on a meta
level reminded me of that. But then on like a
pure connections level, it also involves a broken family, a
divorced couple played by William H. Macy and Taylor Leone,
trying to save their son, their imperiled child, who ends
up stranded on Isla Sorna, the second island, I believe.
(57:22):
I get confused on all the different Jurassic Park islands,
but it is sort of like the B-movie version of
Jurassic Park. So on that level, on the kind of
character relationships level, obviously on the dinosaurs level, and it
kind of has, it's a little more focused in its setting.
You know, it just takes place on this island that
(57:45):
feels kind of similar to taking place in the neighborhood
of End of Oak Street. So like I said, a
lot of people talk down on Jurassic Park 3, and
I'm not like going to, you know, make any grand
claims for it. as the best Jurassic Park, but I
think we could have had fun talking about it. Have
either of you revisited it?
Speaker 2 (58:06):
No, I saw it a couple years ago when I
was watching all those movies, re-watching them all with my kid. Yeah, no,
it's fine. It's not my favorite, but I'll take it
over almost all the Jurassic World movies, although I have
a soft spot for Fallen Kingdom. I do too. Which
kind of turns it into a haunted house movie with
dinosaurs instead.
Speaker 3 (58:24):
Which is kind of similar to Jurassic Park 3. Those
two feel like kind of like echoes across the franchise
to me.
Speaker 4 (58:33):
You know, there have been so many Jurassics under the
bridge at this point. I really don't pick out a
lot of the plot points between them. I haven't revisited three,
I think, since it came out. And a lot of
the worlds blur together for me. So not exactly a
Jurassic go-to expert.
Speaker 3 (58:50):
I believe it's the only Jurassic Park movie that could
claim to be co-written by Alexander Payne. So there is.
Speaker 2 (58:58):
That. There is that. Well, with that bit of trivia,
I think we can wind down this edition of The
Next Picture Show. Genevieve, can you tell us about our
next pairing?
Speaker 3 (59:05):
It Ends is technically a horror movie. Written and directed
by Alexander Ulm. starts with a group of friends in
their 20s who go on a road trip, head down
a mysterious side road, and are accosted by zombie-like humans
when they pull over to turn around. But when it
becomes clear that the road itself appears to be infinite
and the roadside attacks are predictable... It stops being a
conventional horror movie and starts being more like a variation
(59:27):
on Jean-Paul Sartre's existential play No Exit. The idea of
using a genre setup to more philosophical ends calls to
mind Solaris, Andrei Tarkovsky's 1972 science fiction classic about the
psychotic breakdown of space station astronauts who are orbiting a
distant planet. Both films suggest that being in a seemingly
hopeless situation really makes you think.
Speaker 2 (59:49):
For now, we welcome your feedback on War of the Worlds,
The End of Oak Street, and anything else film related
you'd like to talk about. Email us at comments at
nextpictureshow.net or leave us a voicemail at 773-234-9730. Before we
close out this episode, where can we find everyone these days, Tasha?
Speaker 4 (01:00:04):
I mean, you can barely find me these days. I'm
still recapping Game Changer over at Vulture. Otherwise, kind of
taking a little break, including from social media. But I
am on Blue Sky at Tasha Robinson.
Speaker 2 (01:00:16):
And you're here. And I'm here. We get a Toshirova
exclusive or near exclusive.
Speaker 4 (01:00:21):
Yes, you can find me here. However, what am I,
HBO to be teasing the thing that you're listening to,
advertising the thing that you're listening to to you as
you're listening to it? No. People strangely seem to be
already aware that I'm here. Genevieve, what about you?
Speaker 3 (01:00:38):
Oh, same old, same old. Behind the scenes at Vulture,
not posting at Blue Sky at Genevieve Kosky.
Speaker 1 (01:00:45):
Keith.
Speaker 3 (01:00:47):
Tell us about The Reveal.
Speaker 2 (01:00:48):
Sorry we're boring. Our absent co-host, Scott Tobias, contributes to
such publications as Vulture, The Guardian, The New York Times.
But you can find him most regularly at The Reveal.
It's thereal.film. Or you can also find me. We co-write
that movies newsletter. And it's a good one. I like it.
You can also find me. I'm one of the co-hosts
(01:01:08):
of Ford Focus, a Harrison Ford podcast with Mike Ryan,
where we talk about the films of Harrison Ford, and
we do bonus episodes, and it's fun. We're having fun
doing that. And you can stay updated on The Next
Picture Show at nextpictureshow.net and on Blue Sky at The
Next Picture Show. You can get bonus content and open
discussion at patreon.com slash nextpictureshow. And as always, we appreciate
(01:01:31):
your rating and reviews on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or
wherever you listen to the show. Thanks to Dan that
baked chicks for his assistance producing this podcast. The next
picture show is probably part of the film spotting and
family podcast. Please tune in next time.
Speaker 1 (01:01:46):
That was a good movie.
Speaker 4 (01:01:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:01:56):
Seen here before once.
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