Honored ear-guests: we've half-done it.  With this episode, we reach the halfway mark of the journey to 96 Greers.  We mark this special occasion with a special movie in the Judy Greer filmography:  2004's 13 Going on 30.  That's right, Barry and Patrick have taken this ode to Gen X's childhood and given themselves permission to be even more nostalgic than usual about the late nineties/early oughts.  Pull on your Uggs, update your MySpace profile, and vote for Pedro as we discuss the woes of directors aspiring to bring about the next big thing, the joys of bullying Mark Ruffalo, and the sweet sweet drone of Casiotone for the Painfully Alone.  We also have a very special Other Segment, featuring the folks who bore witness to our awkward teenage years:  Madelyn Waehner and Jessica Conger-Henry!

You can find Madelyn's articles on music and Roman history on Medium and more info about her beginner's Latin books here. 

You can find Jess on Instagram @allybaster 

New England listeners! Sweet! You can hear (and see!) Jess in The Post Meridian Radio Player's Halloween Show in October 2025! Https://ww.pmrp.org for details!

Before Octavia Butler and Taraji P. Henson were in Hidden Figures, before Ben Schwartz was Sonic the Hedgehog, and before Judy Greer stuck ping pong balls to her body and pretended to mother a baby chimpanzee, they were all in a family dramedy? TV pilot? Lightly fictionalized autobiographical video essay?  They were all in Peep World, a motion picture from the twisted mind that brought you The Key Man.  Come for the criticism, stay for a very scientific Other Segment (see figure 1 below)!

I love the spell of ape film in the morning.  Smells like a new episode of 96 Greers!  Last summer, Patrick and Barry watched Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, followed by a whimsical Other Segment-- and a harrowing Judilization.  This year, they're being called back to the combat zone, for one last entry in an iconic, decades-spanning science fiction  franchise:  War for the Planet of the Apes.  Do the philosophical questions asked by these movies support justice for the oppressed, or present an argument for eco-fascism?  Does the real-world context of an actor's career decision have an impact on the artistic merit of the role? Why cookie Rocket?  These questions-- and more-- discussed!

It's the Summer of Greer REDUX!  We're back in the MCU, grappling with more important-sounding Proper Nouns that are of no consequence to either of us!  Luckily we have Gabe Powers of Genre Grinder to get us caught up on the three years between Ant-Man and Ant-Man and the Wasp.  We puzzle over missing character arcs, the fine-line-removing potentials of the quantum realm, and sneak in a sub-atomic review of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.

After our road trip episode, we bring you: another road trip episode!  But this time the road trip is in the movie.  Kind of.  For a few scenes.  But it's mostly a gay drama about a South Carolina family in the early 70s.  Think Tennessee Williams on quaaludes.  Written and directed by HBO showrunner extraordinaire, Alan "Tennessee Williams on Quaaludes" Ball, Uncle Frank inspires Patrick and Barry to consider queer representation in early-70s pop culture, the narrative insidiousness of compulsory heterosexuality, and just how serious of a threat Stephen Root actually presents.

Barry and Patrick went on a trip and didn't record an episode in advance, so keep generosity alive in your heart for this road diary-slash-conversation of The Grand.  Can the effusive twosive behind your favorite podcast about the filmography of Judy Greer take the show on the road?  Also:  when's the last time you listened to our conversation about Elizbethtown (episode 15)?  Just asking, no reason.

Finally, someone made content for children about first responders and the cast isn't a bunch of CGI dogs (and oesn't-day eature-fay the ops-cay ;)).  But the cast does include the comedy talents of Judy Greer, Keegan-Michael Key, John Leguizamo, and everybody's favorite pro wrestler-turned-actor!  No, not Dave Bautista.  The other-- no, not Dwayne Johnson.  All right, it's your third favorite-- what?  You think Hulk Hogan's cameo in Gremlins 2 is a deftly performed homage to the gimmicks of William Castle that turns the inherently voyeuristic gaze of the audience on itself?  Okay, you know what, just download the episode.  Weirdo.

Content note: folks with misophonia may want to skip the Other Segment (01:08:00-01:37:00)

Who can say no to an indie film with regionally-specific jokes and a protagonist whose attitude and hairstyle could both be described as "Devil-may-care"?  Certainly not us, because Judy Greer is in the cast of 2019's Buffaloed, a scrappy comedy that asks: what if The Wolf of Wall Street was about America's debt crisis? and instead of being written by a living legend, was written by one of the supporting actors in The Wolf of Wall Street (yes, really)?  The only thing we're asking is where we put the bottle of blue cheese, in an Other Segment where the Scoville units are soaring!

Content note: we discuss the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic at length.

If you've listened to any previous episodes of 96 Greers, you may have asked yourself a question.  And there was an answer to that question-- up until this episode, where the answer changed.  And you may doubt that I actually know the question that you asked yourself, and you may be right or you may be wrong, but I'm not going to tell you here, because your downloads give me the dopamine that gets me through the hour before I take my antidepressants, so you're going to have to listen to this, the Family Squares episode, and find out what changed.  Spoiler alert:  everything.

Also, an Other Segment that basically dissolved into a PokeRap of beloved character actors' names.

Richard Linklater is a beloved American auteur with a heart as big as his Texas homeland and a colorful Boomer childhood (that almost assuredly included experimenting with psychedelics) to influence the stories he tells.  So it stands to reason that he would be the ideal writer/director for a film adaptation of a novel about a Los Angeles vanguard architect turned Seattle stay-at-home mom played by iconic ice queen Cate Blanchett-- and not a single frame of it Rotoscoped.  This film left us with so many questions:  why is the title question answered in the first scene?  Can you accurately diagnose a mental health condition based on interior design?  And is there another character actor who rivals our affections for Judy Greer?