Dork Matters by Ben Rankel, Lexi Hunt

June 05, 2024 Romantic Comedorkies

He's just not that into you! Or maybe he is? Or maybe we all need to just snuggle up with a good mug of tea, put on some comfy pants and watch ourselves some romantic comedies. In this episode, join Lexi and Ben and maybe Nora Ephron to really get into the world of funny romance movies. (Please note that Nora Ephron is not actually IN this episode). Are you more of a "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" kinda person, or maybe a "The Notebook" person? Listen now and pick your romantic poison!

Jess Says:
- I was going to say Swedish berries but like is that a gummy??? idk

- Rooked is mommy, thanks for the shout out - Ryan is so tickled

- You missed When Harry Met Sally!!! I just think it's iconic and the diner scene is so good

- Ryan and I's song is The Whole of the Moon by The Waterboys (idk why, it's a song that Ryan always liked and I didn't know it until we started dating and we both love it)

Transcript:

Keywords: gummies, candy, romantic comedies, romcom, chick flick, relationship, breakup, puppet, Muppet

Lexi 00:01

Just regular gummy bears.

Ben 00:03

Oh, I guess that's all right. I'm partial to real fruit gummies.

Lexi 00:09

I like a bear in a gummy.

Ben 00:11

Yeah.

Lexi 00:13

Or a coke bottle. I like a good cola bottle.

Ben 00:13

Coke bottles are good. What's your ultimate gummy? I don't think we've ever talked about gummies.

Lexi 00:19

Iced tea.

Ben 00:19

There's an iced tea gummy?

Lexi 00:19

There's an iced tea gummy by the makers of the... Haribo?

Ben 00:27

Haribo, yeah.

Lexi 00:29

They also make an iced tea gummy.

Ben 00:30

I don't think I've ever seen that one, but I'm down with some Haribo.

Lexi 00:32

I've only ever found it in the candy store in Banff.

Ben 00:36

Wow, I like their mixed gummies. I'm a gummy stan.

Lexi 00:41

Me too. I can say no to a lot of candy, but a gummy? I have a hard time passing up a gummy.

Ben 00:48

It just feels right.

Lexi 00:49

It does.

Ben 00:49

Okay. Taking away any sort of extra-special types of gummies, what's like a normal gummy go-to for you?

Lexi 00:58

Um...

Ben 00:59

If you had to choose sort of the run-of-the-mill, you can find them at the drugstore, Shoppers Drug Mart.

Lexi 01:04

Coke bottle. Any type of coke bottle.

Ben 01:06

All right, all right.

Lexi 01:06

A blue shark. I like a blue shark.

Ben 01:07

Ooh.

Lexi 01:07

I like a gummy bear.

Ben 01:12

Mm, mm, mm.

Lexi 01:12

And then, if I'm hard pressed, I'll do a gummy worm.

Ben 01:12

Mm.

Lexi 01:17

And then, everything else, I can kind of say no to. What about you?

Ben 01:20

I'm partial to sour gummies.

Lexi 01:23

Mm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Ben 01:23

I do like them. So, a sour soother is pretty good. Dina-sour, if you will.

Lexi 01:29

Yeah. Very good. My mom used to have those in bulk when she was a high-school principal, and I would just eat them off of her desk all the time. Yep.

Ben 01:36

Yeah. I used to hang out in a hot tub with my older brother when we were finished high school, but hadn't moved on with life yet, and we'd sit in the hot tub out back, and just eat sour soothers till, like, 3 in the morning.

Lexi 01:50

Well, you know, there's worse things.

Ben 01:51

Yeah, right?

Lexi 01:53

Do you have a favourite colour of gummy?

Ben 01:55

Oh, no. I've never really worried about that. I do like those fried egg looking ones though from Haribo, as well.

Lexi 02:00

Mm. Like the 10-cent candies, which are more like a dollar, like just the mix of things.

Ben 02:05

Yeah, I like a mix, as well, like a little mix bag, but I like the sour packages. If we are talking about king of gummies, for me, it's a jube-jube.

Lexi 02:14

Really?

Ben 02:15

Or a Jujube. Yeah, I mean, I'll eat them fresh or not fresh, but they are definitely better when they're fresh. They haven't gone all hard and shit.

Lexi 02:23

Yeah. I miss the pink package of gummy bears. That was the king of gummies--

Ben 02:29

Oh, I don't know that package. No, I don't.

Lexi 02:31

Do you remember that? Like, I remember being a child in going to see The Lion King in theatres and my mom was like, "You can get a snack," and I was like, "I want gummy bears," and it was in a pink package.

Ben 02:45

Huh.

Lexi 02:45

And the gummy bears—the bears themselves—spelled out the word "gummy".

Ben 02:47

Wow, I do not recall those at all, but that's dope.

Lexi 02:51

And they were my favourite. Oh, they were... I'll see if I can find pictures of them, but my god, it was my favourite.

Ben 02:57

There's a period from 14 to 16 where I was convinced that I liked wine gums, but now, as a more cultured individual, I realize that those are kind of trash.

Lexi 03:07

Yeah, they're not...

Ben 03:07

Yeah. They're bottom-of-the-barrel gummies, if we're being honest.

Lexi 03:11

Yep.

Ben 03:11

You know, I can still appreciate a run-of-the-mill, like a frog or, you know, even a fuzzy peach.

Lexi 03:17

Mm-hmm.

Ben 03:17

They're a little too sweet for me.

Lexi 03:20

You know, sometimes, I don't like a whole package of fuzzy peaches, but I'd like, like, two or three.

Ben 03:25

Yeah, if they're mixed in. Yeah, if they're thrown in with, like, a little dime bag.

Lexi 03:27

Yeah, if they're mixed in, perfect. Little dime bag.

Ben 03:31

Little bag of candies.

Lexi 03:34

Sounds nice.

Ben 03:34

Apparently, when the previous generation was younger, those were one cent, and then when we were kids, they were like 5 cents, and now they're like a quarter a candy.

Lexi03:42

Yeah, it's wild.

Ben 03:42

It's inflation, motherfuckers. Nobody's earning anymore, but those gummy prices just keep risin'. [Lexi laughs]

Lexi 03:48

Gotta pay the gummy toll... the gummy tax?

Ben 03:51

Something like that. I've always wanted to make my own gummies at home, but it seems like a complicated process.

Lexi 03:56

Oh, god, no. No, I don't wanna see what the sausage is made of. I just wanna eat the gummy.

Ben 04:01

I mean, out of sausages to make, I feel like a gummy's a pretty benign sort of thing to see. [chuckles]

Lexi 04:08

Well, it's gelatin, so it's like ground hoof.

Ben 04:10

Yeah, yeah, you put-- a little hoof or... No, I guess it's just ground-up hoof, isn't it? [laughs]

Lexi 04:14

It is. It's ground-up bone and hoof and--

Ben 04:16

You know what? Would you prefer we didn't use the entirety of the horse?

Lexi 04:19

No, you know... [both laugh] Is it...? Can you...? Is it pig or what type of hoof is it? [laughs]

Ben 04:25

I straight up don't fucking know. This is a perfect opportunity for Jess to jump in and educate us.

Lexi 04:34

What type of hoof is in gelatin?

Ben 04:34

Yeah, what's the most prominent type of hoof in gelatin? If you know, please write in. That e-mail address again is [email protected].

Lexi 04:44

I hope the answer is fish bones or something really weird.

Ben 04:47

Yeah, it's fish bones.

Lexi 04:47

Chicken beaks. The answer is chicken beaks. Like, "Ah, yes."

Ben 04:50

You know what it is? If we're being honest, it's probably all these things – everything that you can't put in anything else, yeah.

Lexi 04:54

Ah, it's a mishmash. All the hoofs and beaks.

Ben 04:58

And some big anus for good measure, you know? [Lexi laughs] That's where you get the tart from. You need a little pucker? [both laugh] We're terrible.

Lexi 05:10

We're terrible. [both laugh]

Producer Jess 05:12

[magical chime] Really bad news. I did not want to look this up because I wanted to continue enjoying gummies, but then my curiosity got the better of me. Okay, so this is from snopes.com, fact-check gelatin source. I'm going to just read this verbatim. "Sometimes the most innocuous of foodstuffs contain constituents whose origins are less than appetizing. Such is the case with JELL-O, a dessert that has graced millions of dinner tables since its 1897 debut.

Underneath JELL-O's jiggly wholesomeness lurks a secret many consumers are disconcerted to learn: JELL-O is made from gelatin, an animal product rendered from the hides and bones of animals, typically pork skins, pork, horses, cattle bones, and split cattle hides." So yeah, you were right, Ben and Lexi; it's all of the above. No fish bones. Sorry if gummies are ruined. They are for me. [magical chime]

Ben 06:13

We had some other intro topics. Did you still want to do that or is this good enough?

Lexi 06:17

Oh, yeah. No, this is good. Let's punch it.

Ben 06:20

All right, let's do the theme song then. [Dork Matters theme music, Dance by YABRA plays]

Voiceover 06:51

[echoing] Dork Matters.

Ben 06:53

Welcome back to the podcast. This is Dork Matters, a dorky podcast for dorks, and I'm your Dad Dork host, Ben Rankel. And, with me every time we do the show, is your Edorkater, Lexi Hunt. Yeah. Irreplaceably. With us, irreplaceably, Lexi Hunt. Lex, what are we doing today? We're not talking about pig anuses anymore.

Lexi 07:14

We're not talking about pig butts. I mean, maybe we are. I mean.

Ben 07:16

Maybe.

Lexi 07:19

[both chuckle] I mean, anything is possible. We're talking about romantic comedies.

Ben 07:25

There's gotta be a pig butt or two in there.

Lexi 07:28

You gotta kiss a couple of pig butts to find the right one. Is that right?

Ben 07:31

Yeah, to find a good one. Well, won't you bring us here?

Lexi 07:36

This was really popular on Instagram. A lot of people were chiming in.

Ben 07:39

Yeah, romcoms are a thing. It's interesting to me because I feel like the romcom is kind of gone.

Lexi 07:49

The romcom is gone.

Ben 07:49

Like the good one, like the blockbuster, like the big-release romcom is gone.

Lexi 07:53

Yeah.

Ben 07:53

That was a thing of the '90s and it's gone now.

Lexi 07:56

Yeah, it's a Hallmark...

Ben 07:56

Like, they just can't make bank anymore, can they? Yeah, it's a Hallmark Channel exclusive.

Lexi 08:01

Yeah.

Ben 08:01

Speaking of, I've got a fun game for you to play a little bit later.

Lexi 08:03

Oh, okay. I'm looking forward to that one.

Ben 08:05

Surprise for you after the break.

Lexi 08:06

Okay. Well, a romantic comedy is just what it sounds like. It is a comedic movie that is centred around the relationships, typically between a man and a woman, although we're starting to see more movies branch out into other types of relationships. And so, it's nice to see.

Ben 08:21

Bros.

Lexi 08:22

Yeah, but it's also romantic comedies can be associated with negative stereotypes, one might say – a "chick flick", perhaps?

Ben 08:32

Mm.

Lexi 08:32

I found a great article actually called The Problem with Chick Flicks and I thought it kind of sums it up quite nicely with this quote from Deborah Barker. In the book literally titled Chick Flicks, she says, “The chick flick has been defined variously as escapist entertainment for women, simply as films men do not like, as examinations of capable independent female characters and their empowerment, as emotional ‘tearjerkers,’ as tales of female bonding, and as the antithesis to male-oriented action films”.

Ben 09:05

Well, we got a lot going on there and I think the primary one is the outdated sort of gender norms.

Lexi 09:13

Mm-hmm.

Ben 09:13

But also, there's the malignment of female-centric media, you know, the same way that things that women like in very many different aspects of media are kind of talked down to, like, you know, boy bands, etc. "Well, it's not good music. It just appeals to girls," and it's, you know, been used, I think, to malign a lot of different culture that could be engaged with more sincerely by dismissing it because it's femme-centric.

Lexi09:46

Mm-hmm. Well, and it's not unheard of... I think it was Chevy Chase who actually said, like, "Women aren't funny," and so romantic comedies--

Ben 09:56

Old racist, misogynistic Chevy Chase.

Lexi 09:59

Old Chevy.

Ben 09:59

The guy too racist to stay on Community.

Lexi 10:04

Just, there's so many issues with him and there are so many great examples from Saturday Night Live of funny women, but so, you know, romantic comedies aren't exactly touted for being great examples of writing or even comedic writing, or even of, like, great romantic writing. They're kind of like the stereotype is they're these trashy, kind of like fun films that a bunch of gals get around and drink a bottle of pink wine and cry and laugh and have a good time.

Ben 10:35

We call it rosé.

Lexi 10:37

Rosé. Like, part of me is like, "What the hell's wrong with that? If that's what you're doing with a group of pals..."

Ben 10:41

Absolutely.

Lexi 10:42

...who cares? Do it.

Ben 10:43

Again, and this is like it's okay for dudes to get together and watch UFC, but you know, femmes can't get together and watch a romcom that's somehow... Like, we're supposed to think less of that than a bunch of guys watching people hit each other.

Lexi 10:54

If you like the movie, watch the movie. And some of the movies, we'll talk about in a little bit. One of them was actually suggested to me by a dude friend of mine because he was like, "This movie makes me laugh every single time. It's hilarious So..."

Ben 11:07

Hmm. Is it Bridesmaids?

Lexi 11:10

It is not, actually. The other thing that I was reading about too, in doing research for this here episode, was about the--

Ben 11:18

Research? Not on Dork Matters.

Lexi 11:22

Yeah. Dork, dork, dork. Nerds!

Ben 11:23

We have show notes, folks. We actually do way more work on these than I think comes across when we record them. [both laugh]

Lexi 11:32

"The guy with the... What's the name of that guy? [snaps fingers] The guy with the face." [laughs]

Ben 11:35

Oh, that's a personal failing. [chuckles]

Lexi 11:38

But, I was reading about the Bechdel Test.

Ben 11:41

Alison Bechtel, comics legend.

Lexi 11:43

Mm-hmm. The Bechdel-Wallace test is a test that measures the representation of women in film and other fiction. It's a test that asks whether a work of fiction basically features at least two female characters who have a conversation about something other than a man on screen or in the book, or whatever.

Ben 12:01

Right. And it's been expanded since that original definition, but I don't know where we're at now to include some other criteria. But, yeah.

Lexi 12:08

Yeah.

Ben 12:08

Yeah, and again, the thing that some people forget about the Bechdel Test is that it is the lowest bar that you could step over.

Lexi 12:16

Yes. [laughs]This is not meant to be like, "Hold your head up high and fly a flag." Like, this was the bare minimum. You had enough female representation in a film to have two people talk to each other, that are femme, that were not talking about the masc character in the film and, like, is a very low bar to clear [whispers] and a lot of media does not clear it.

Lexi 12:41

Well, and especially romantic comedies because, so often, romantic comedies are typically centred around like the heteronormative man-woman, cis relationship, and so--

Ben 12:51

Man-woman, man-man relationship.

Lexi 12:55

Yeah, it's typically that triangle of--

Ben 12:58

Yeah, M-F, M-M.

Lexi 13:00

--man dates woman, woman has problem with man for some reason, starts dating other man. Original man wants to get her back with something very...

Ben 13:07

Grandiose?

Lexi 13:10

...grandiose. Gets her back. There's usually some type of rain.

Ben 13:13

Oh, yeah, you gotta have rain.

Lexi 13:15

And then everything ends hunky dory.

Ben 13:18

Yeah, happily ever after. There are a few that subvert that trope, and one of those is on my list...

Lexi 13:26

Yep. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Ben 13:30

...of favs, which is what I call faves, which is short form for favourite.

Lexi 13:33

That is true.

Ben 13:35

Can you hear the "u" when we say favourite?

Lexi 13:37

Fav-our-ite.

Ben 13:38

[chuckles] I feel like we can. We're Canadian, so we say the "u". Fav-our-ite col-our.

Lexi 13:44

Col-our. [laughs]

Ben 13:47

What else we got? Although I do get tripped up because I want to add one to major.

Lexi 13:51

Mm, mm-hmm.

Ben 13:52

Trips me up.

Lexi 13:54

Can't do it.

Ben 13:54

I can't just put a "u" in whatever I want, but I want to. That "u" is important to me. Where were we?

Lexi 14:01

Uh, we've talked about what they are. Let's get into it. Let's talk about what's your favourite-- your top three.

Ben 14:07

Our top three? Okay, let's go. Why don't you lead us off here?

Lexi 14:11

Yeah. Okay, I'm going to start with--

Ben 14:14

Give me your favourite. Tell me why it's your favourite, and then let's chat about it.

Lexi 14:17

So, this is the one, I was going through a breakup. I was very, very, very sad, having a hard time.

Ben 14:24

Do you want to give us more details on your personal life?

Lexi 14:26

Nope. I was very sad.

Ben 14:27

Who did you break up with? How long were you going?

Lexi 14:30

Don't want to talk about it, but I was very, very sad and my friends, Jillian and Dylan—as I like to call them, Dillian because they're a couple—

Ben 14:37

Or Jillan.

Lexi 14:38

Jillian... Nope. Jillan?

Ben 14:40

J--J--Jillon.

Lexi 14:40

I like to call them Dillian.

Ben 14:41

Dillon? Dillian is better.

Lexi 14:45

They are huge fans of the romcom, and Dylan was actually like, "You have to watch Forgetting Sarah Marshall." It is so ridiculous and over the top, and this was right around the time Forgetting Sarah Marshall came out. That was, like, what? 2007, 2008, in and around there.

Ben 15:03

Earlier than we'd like to admit. [Jason Segel sings Peter You Suck, from Forgetting Sarah Marshall]

Lexi 15:05

Yes, but it was hilarious. Now, okay, in hindsight, yes, Russell Brand. Now, by today's standards, not a good dude. Also, Jonah Hill.

Ben 15:14

There was a long while there, where we're like, "Hey, this dude's telling it like it is in a more progressive bent," and...

Lexi 15:19

And now we're like, "Oof." But, at the time, so you have people-- it was kind of like that frat pack group of dudes.

Ben 15:27

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Lexi 15:28

So, you got Jonah Hill. Who else is there? Mila Kunis, Russell Brand... Oh, my god. I've completely.

Ben 15:37

Star of the show. [song continues]

Jason Segel 15:38

[sings] It's so self-loathing, go see a psychiatrist

I hate the psychiatrist

Well go see one anyway

I don't like the psychiatrist

You need to go see one

See a psychiatrist

I'm not going.

Lexi 15:48

Jason...

Ben 15:50

You got this.

Lexi 15:50

Segel.

Ben 15:52

Yeah. I was gonna do a caw for you, like [caws]. Is that seagull or is that...? [laughs]

Lexi 15:57

'Cause, in my head, I could see him, but I was like, "It's not Sudeikis. That's--

Ben 16:00

No.

Lexi 16:03

So basically, there's a breakup. He takes it hard. He has to get over Sarah Marshall. He goes to Hawaii, and hilarity ensues.

Ben 16:12

Guess who's there?

Lexi 16:12

Bill Hader's in it, and Sarah Marshall is there. They have this great time of, like, one-upping each other and being sad on the island. But, what I really liked about the movie was, after they leave Hawaii and things don't end well, he goes back and it shows him kind of pushing through his depression and still coping with it, still being sad, and still trying to work on himself, versus trying to get back to a relationship that, as the movie kind of goes on, you see he keeps having all these flashbacks of Sarah, and then they're so perfect at first, and then as the movie goes on, the flashbacks kind of show how the relationship actually wasn't that perfect.

Ben 16:50

Rose-coloured glasses--

Lexi 16:52

--start to come off.

Ben 16:54

Yeah, yeah, the idealization or, you know, turning somebody into an idea as opposed to dealing with them as they actually were.

Lexi 17:02

Yeah. And, seeing it from her perspective too, because she points out that he was actually quite depressed and she was trying to help him through it, but eventually had to save herself because he was not taking care of himself and she had to make this hard call. And so, then you start to empathize with her, that she's not just this bitch that she's been cheating on him. She's a person who also was really struggling. And then, it really wraps it up with, like, yeah, he kind of dates Mila Kunis to kind of get over her, but they both kind of separate and become buds in the end, and it just culminates in the funniest, cutest Muppet/puppet Dracula musical. [Jason Segel sings Dracula's Lament from Forgetting Sarah Marshall]

Ben 17:43

You know we love-- we love puppets here.

Lexi 17:44

And it's just so funny. We love puppets and so that--

Ben 17:47

With the exception of part-time guest host, Stephanie Gerk, who is afeared of puppets.

Lexi 17:52

--is not a fan of puppets.

Jason Segel 18:05

[sings] And I've been living too hard to believe

That things are going to get easier now

I'm still trying to shake off the pain

From the lessons I've learned

And if I see Van Helsing, I swear

To the Lord I will slay him! (A-ha-ha-haa!)

Take it from me

I swear I will let it be so! (A-ha-ha-ha!)

Blood will run down his face

When he is decapitated... (Aah!)

His head on my mantle is how

I will let this world know

Lexi 18:31

But, I just love that, at the end, he wants to do this ridiculous musical and he does it. He finds a way to bring it together and I just love that movie. [song ends] There's one specific line, Ben, that I think about constantly and it's from Russell Brand's character is missing a flip flop and he's trying to find it and he's like...

Russell Brand [18:45]

[with Lexi quoting along sporadically] "Excuse me, missus. I lost a shoe-- like, this one. It's like this one's fellow. It's sort of the exact opposite. It's not like it's evil or something. Just, you know, a shoe like this, but for the other foot. Otherwise, I'd have two right...

Lexi 19:07

And I think that is so funny. [laughs]

Ben 19:12

I knew it was going to be that part.

Lexi 19:13

He was funny in it.

Ben 19:13

He was funny. It's too bad it didn't work out for him to be a good person, overall.

Lexi 19:16

So, forgetting Sarah Marshall, I love you.

Ben 19:20

A fantastic pick and that idea of focusing on oneself as a means of growth, as opposed to focusing on a relationship that didn't work and obsessing over it, is something I think I appreciate from that film as well, which leads me into my first pick, in a similar vein, which is 500 Days of Summer. [500 Days of Summer Main Title by Mychael Danna Rob Simonsen plays]

Lexi 19:40

Ooh.

Ben 19:40

We got Joseph Gordon Levitt and Zoe Deschanel, who I'm generally not a New Girl fan.

Lexi 19:47

No. I go back and forth on her but, yeah.

Ben 19:50

Yeah. Yeah. So basically, you know, guy meets girl, guy and girl have relationship, relationship seems great to one, not to the other. Eventually, it falls apart and JGL's character spends a lot of time just being like, "What went wrong? Why didn't this work out? What did I do wrong? What did she do wrong?" obsessing over this failed relationship until eventually somebody kind of is like, "Hey, you are being a bit of a loser about this. You need to stop and actually think about how this relationship was going," and it's a similar situation to FSM, if you will, as we call it – us Marshall-heads.

Lexi 20:29

Mm-hmm. [both chuckle]

Ben 20:29

In that he realizes that he has built up this sort of idealized version of the relationship, and even himself and Zooey's character, in the relationship as well. And then, you get... It's told out of order, as well, so you kind of start with the breakup and then work back to sort of how that happened and you start with more of his perspective on things and kind of him as the protagonist and like the victim. But then, as you get through it more, you realize how much JGL's character has pushed this other character into something she was very clear about not wanting to start with.

Lexi 21:06

Mm-hmm.

Ben 21:08

And we eventually find out that basically she wanted to keep things casual, and then eventually they clicked enough that, you know, he pushed her and sort of not nagged but, you know, insisted upon a relationship that she wasn't comfortable with. And then, it somehow shocked Pikachu-face when it doesn't work out the way he wants. And then, she goes off and finds a thing that he wanted with her, with somebody else and, you know, it kind of culminates in a moment where he's like, "Why? Why did you tell me you didn't want this?"

Lexi 21:33

Yeah.

Ben 21:33

"And yet, you immediately went out and found it with somebody else," and she said, "I didn't want it with you. It didn't work with you. You know, you weren't the right person for me."

Joseph Gordon Levitt 21:43

I mean, it doesn't make sense.

Zooey Deschanel 21:47

It just happened.

Joseph Gordon Levitt 21:49

Right, but that's what I don't understand. What just happened?

Zooey Deschanel 21:53

I just... I just woke up one day and I knew.

Joseph Gordon Levitt

Knew what?

Zooey Deschanel 22:03

What I was never sure of with you.

Ben 22:03

And it's a very honest and humbling moment. And then, you know, the end of this movie is him finding a way to move on past his obsession over this failed relationship and better himself. And, that leads to sort of the culmination of his movie, which is like, you know, finding a way to be a better person and healthier relationships in the end. And, I like that as well.

Lexi 22:26

Yep.

Ben 22:26

Did you ever watch it?

Lexi 22:27

I did watch it and I found it not my favourite of his work.

Ben 22:36

So, I think for me it was a zeitgeist thing, as well, like same for you for Sarah Marshall. I had gone through a relationship and had found myself sort of obsessing over, like, "Why didn't this work out?"

Lexi 22:48

Yeah.

Ben 22:48

"I thought we had all of this," and then going back and being like, "Oh." Eventually, after spending some time working on myself and getting some distance and feeling better about where I am as a person, I can look more objectively at the relationship and be like, "Oh, here's some places that I pushed when I didn't need to," or when they didn't want me to and seeing some stuff that was there that you don't want to see when it breaks up initially.

Lexi 23:11

They do a really good job in that movie of showing how a relationship can really bring out the worst in decent people, because I found his character, he really ran the gamut in that movie because there's moments where I was like, I understood him, I related to him, and then other times where I was like, "God, you are like an incel," because he was so angry. [Ben laughs]

Ben 23:32

Yeah.

Lexi 23:32

And I was like, "God, get over it." And it was right around the time that the friend is kind of like, "You're not doing well.”

Ben 23:39

Yeah, it's his little sister, I believe, who's like, "You're kind of an asshole about this."

Lexi 23:42

Yeah. And I think we all have that in us. Like, we've all had a relationship—maybe not a romantic relationship, even a friendship—that's brought out not good things in us. And, sometimes, it takes a person who's really brave and really cares about you to be like, "You're not well." That's a hard thing to say to someone.

Ben 24:01

Do you respond well to that? I find, not for me. I think I have to, like, live five to six years afterwards and be like, "Oh, fuck."

Lexi 24:08

I do when it comes from certain people. Like, I have a couple of friends in my life, like if they were to sit me down and be like, "I'm concerned about you," then I'd be like, "Oh, shit." Like, I would take it super seriously because, for the most part, those people would not get involved in my problems. So, if they were to sit down and say like, "I'm concerned," I would be like, "Okay, I'm taking this seriously," and that's basically what happened with Forgetting Sarah Marshall. [both laugh] Dillian was like, "Hey, bud, you're sad. You okay?"

Ben 24:40

Yeah. [Lexi laughs] Yeah, yeah, 500 Days, as well. His little sister's like, "You're only thinking about happy stuff. I saw a lot of stuff that was not very happy."

Lexi 24:49

Yeah.

Ben 24:49

There's the part where I think it's a party where he finds out she's engaged and he turns into a real piece of shit there. And, there's a quote during the, like, press junket from this movie where Joseph Gordon Levitt himself is like, "I need people to understand that I am the protagonist of this film. I am not the hero, and I don't think anybody should be looking at me as a heroic person in this movie."

Lexi 25:09

Yeah.

Ben 25:12

And I just get that. Yeah. I felt that at the time, the obsession, the confusion, the anger.

Lexi 25:18

Mm-hmm. Totally. Love it.

Ben 25:20

And that's what that makes that one stick for me.

Lexi 25:22

That's a good pick.

Ben 25:22

The title, though, not my favourite. It's a little twee. 500 Days of Summer... Oh, because her name is Summer and they're together for 500 days.

Lexi 25:29

Yeah. Oh!

Ben 25:32

Wow. That's a year and a half. That's a long time.

Lexi 25:33

That's a good long time for a relationship that...

Ben 25:36

It's not nothing, but it's also not enough to be like, it's worth your everything--

Lexi 25:42

Well, and it's also, if you think about it from the other side of it, 500 days to be in a relationship that you never wanted to be in, in the first place, like, ooh.

Ben 25:49

Oh, my god. Yeah, it's rough. When you start moving back through that movie and realizing that she was like, "I want to keep it casual," and he just sort of--

Lexi 25:55

--like, forces her into a relationship.

Ben 25:57

Pushes. Just pushes. Yeah, he just pushes and is never cool or chill about it.

Lexi 26:00

No. Hence the incel part where I'm like, "Okay." [laughs]

Ben 26:05

Yeah, absolutely. No, absolutely. And it was before we had a word for that or, you know, a bunch of people watched that movie and we're like, "Oh, god. She's bad to him."

Lexi 26:14

She should have just said, "Yes," and gone along with it.

Ben 26:15

Yeah. "Why didn't she marry him even though she didn't feel like he was the right person for her?" [Lexi laughs] "He loved her so much, and he treated her really good, and when you treat someone good, they have to give you anything you want."

Lexi 26:27

Like, "Oh, boy." Reminds me of a friend from art school. [Ben laughs] I've said it before – best piece of dating advice I ever got from them was, "You don't date nice." Like, it's not a good enough reason to stay with someone. Like, "They're nice to me." Like, "So what? Everyone should be nice to you."

Ben 26:41

Yeah. Everybody should be nice to you.

Lexi 26:43

Yeah.

Ben 26:43

Yeah, absotootly, as they say on Thomas and Friends: All Engines Go, because they're trains and they toot. [steam train whistle blows] Yep. Absotootly. [Lexi sighs] Sorry about that. Should we keep going or do you want to do mid-break? It's your call.

Lexi 26:59

Let's do one more and then we'll go mid-break. We'l do three and three. Okay.

Ben 27:02

All right. All right, I'm gonna do the next one.

Lexi 27:04

Oh, okay.

Ben 27:06

Is that okay with you, or do you wanna do the next one?

Lexi 27:07

No, no. You go. You go.

Ben 27:09

All right, I'm launching into a problematic fave...

Lexi 27:13

Okay.

Ben 27:12

...which is You've Got Mail.

Lexi 27:15

Yeah.

Ben 27:15

It's a Nora Ephron flick. It's Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan's re-starring together again after their first tilt at Sleepless In Seattle, which is another favour of mine, but we'll do that some other time. [Over the Rainbow by George Fenton from You've Got Mail plays] You've Got Mail, I loved. I watched the hell out of this movie. I thought it was romantic as heck until somebody confronted me and, like, this entire movie is based off of a premise of complete power imbalance towards the male character who lies and manipulates the other person and then puts her out of fucking business, all while being very callous and still trying to court her surreptitiously.

Lexi 27:56

Yeah.

Ben 27:57

But it still has a special place in my heart because I liked it for so long. And then, so after I was confronted with how terrible the relationship in this movie actually is and being like, "Oh, fuck, they're right," I still like the film and I had to slow down and be like, "What is it that I actually really loved about this film?" and I realized it's the character of New York in You've Got Mail. I am in love with this version of New York that they show, which admittedly is very twee and non-existent. It's almost a Friends version of New York.

Lexi 28:33

[chuckles] Yep.

Ben 28:33

Almost. But, it's just this really romantic version of New York, to me, where like people just stroll around and there's a Joni Mitchell soundtrack to this thing that kind of slaps, and it's just one of my favourites, and I like Parker Posey a whole lot.

Lexi 28:49

Parker Posey is an absolute treasure.

Ben 28:52

So, she's a delight in this as an executive who gets kind of dropped by Tom Hanks' character and is just sort of like, 'Fuck it. I don't care. I'm successful and awesome. I don't need... Like, this doesn't matter to me."

and just sort of shrugs him off. And, you get a great Greg Kinnear as a nut who is really obsessed with typewriters.

Lexi 29:11

Mm-hmm.

Ben 29:12

I love that bit. [music continues] And... Whats his name? Steve Zahn plays a character that works in this, like, little independent bookshop who is just--

Lexi 29:20

He's always like a zany--

Ben 29:22

--zany, bonkers weirdo. Yeah.

Lexi 29:23

He always plays a zany kind of like, "What are we gonna do with him?" kind of character.

Ben 29:28

Yeah, we get a great line from him in this film, which is, "I'm going to the nut shop where it's fun." It's a real classic.

Lexi 29:37

I will say, the Nora movies, they do a great cozy vibe.

Ben 29:43

Yeah.

Lexi 29:43

Like, everybody's got a good scarf, the kitchens always very nice.

Ben 29:46

Yeah, the lighting is good.

Lexi 29:46

Like all of the Father of the Bride movies, they just feel like you're having a cup of cocoa and a big--

Ben 29:54

They're very white, though.

Lexi 29:55

Yeah, they're super white. Yeah.

Ben 29:56

Yeah.

Lexi 29:57

Very like Connecticut.

Ben 30:00

Yeah, we get what's-his-face in You've Got Mail as the bestie, which is Chris... Oh, my god. This is gonna kill me. Fucking, now he's come back as a comedian again and he's very transphobic and nobody's a big fan of him returning.

Lexi 30:17

Oh, who is it?

Ben 30:17

Dave Chappelle. God, that took me enough.

Lexi 30:19

Oh. Dave Chapelle is in that? No.

Ben 30:18

Yeah, he's the best friend.

Lexi 30:22

Are you sure?

Ben 30:23

Not anymore. You're making me really question myself. I've watched this movie, like, 3,000 times.

Lexi 30:27

I feel there's no way Dave Chappelle is in You've Got Mail. [music continues]

Ben 30:30

I'm almost positive he is. To Google! [old-school computer bleeping] [scratching record, DJ-style]

Lexi 30:39

Looking at it right now. Oh, my god, you're right.

Ben 30:42

He's in it. Yeah, he plays Tom Hanks' best friend/assistant/whatever his job is.

Lexi 30:48

I find that shocking. It has been so long since I have seen that movie.

Ben 30:54

Yeah.

Lexi 30:57

My goodness.

Ben 30:57

It's been a minute now for me too, 'cause I don't have time to do anything anymore, but yeah. Yeah, so the whole premise is manipulative and wrong, and he treats this woman like shit, in person, and then, via these emails that they're sending is just romantic and nice. And for, like, two thirds/three quarters of the movie, he knows who she is, she doesn't know who he is, and he never bothers being like, "Hey, I'm actually the guy you're emailing with. Let's deal with this relationship on an equal footing." He just fucking manipulates her. Yeah.

Lexi 31:32

No, he catfished her before it was catfishing and this was the precursor to shitty social media relationships where it's like, "Don't talk to me in public, but online we can, like, sext, and it'll be cool."

Ben 31:42

And then they meet up in the park and she's like, "I hoped it would be you." And then I'm like, "Nah, real life, she'd be like, 'You motherfucker.'"

Lexi 31:50

"No, you didn't."

Ben 31:50

Shove him in the water.

Lexi 31:51

Yes, she should. That's how it should have ended – just, "Fuck you," right in the water.

Ben 31:56

"You fucking piece of shit," and just shoves him into the water. [both laugh] Yeah.

Lexi 32:01

"You've ruined my life. But don't worry, you can be the little honey bun at home."

Ben 32:04

Yeah, "You destroyed the shop that my mother started," and that's supposed to be a great release for her, according to this movie.

Lexi 32:12

Hey, she finally let her mother go.

Ben 32:13

Yeah, "You troubled yourself too much with this shop. This shop wasn't really for you. It was for your mom." No, it's for her, too. It's her business. And now what? She gets to go edit books or something for Parker Posey? I guess that's not that bad.

Lexi 32:25

No, it sounds kind of nice too, but...

Ben 32:26

Yeah, Parker Posey hires her in the end, which I think is great. [chuckles]

Lexi 32:30

[sighs] Yeah.

Ben 32:30

[Dreams by The Cranberries from You've Got Mail plays] Anyhow, I still like the film from the version of New York, we get to the Joni Mitchell opening. Greg Kinnear is great. Steve Zahn's awesome in it. And then, you also have this like story where Tom Hanks' character's father is on his third wife and he's got these two little siblings from, like, his grandfather's just disgusting relationship with a younger woman and his father's disgusting relationship, and then eventually the nanny leaves with the second or third wife or whatever. It's amusing.

Lexi 33:01

Yeah, there's some jabs in there, but okay.

Ben 33:03

Anyhow, I can't do faves without talking about it, even though it is problematic and, you know, I now see a lot of issues with that film's writing, but... [both chuckle] I had a huge crush on Meg Ryan for a long time. [music fades out] What is your second one? Do you have a great lead in?

Lexi 33:23

I do because actually, as you were talking, I changed my mind about--

Ben 33:29

Oh, my goodness. What?!

Lexi 33:29

I did.

Ben 33:32

I saw that a pop up on the screen here that said, "Lexi has edited the show notes."

Lexi 33:35

I made a change. So, I've changed my second one to others to kind of chat about, runner up, whatever. The next movie romcom that I'd like to talk about is Baby Mama. Sorry.

Ben 33:47

So, I've never heard of this.

Lexi 33:47

[Stay Up Late by The Talking Heads from Baby Mama plays] Oh, Benjamin. It is awesome. Okay, so we've got Tina Fey, we've got Amy Poehler, we've got Greg Kinnear, and Dax Shepard. So, the whole premise is Tina Fey... Again, this movie was recommended to me by Dillian.

Ben 34:07

Oh, it's coming back to me now.

Lexi 34:09

And it's about Tina Fey, who's this corporate lady who she's getting up there in age and she wants to have a baby, but she's not in a relationship. So, she decides to just hire a surrogate who turns out to be Amy Poehler, who kind of plays this like white trash crazy lady.

Ben 34:28

Yeah. Yeah.

Lexi 34:28

And the two of them forge this, like, really unlikely friendship, and meanwhile are having their own, like, issues with men on the side. And I feel like it's a romantic comedy about friends and, like, yes, there's male love interests in both of the ladies' lives, but it's more or less like it's the coming together of two unlikely friends to form a really strong relationship.

Ben 34:48

Mm-hmm.

Lexi 34:49

And it is funny as shit. I loved it. To this day, still makes me LOL. I love it.

Ben 34:56

Yeah, laugh out loud for the younger generation.

Lexi 35:00

Just, there's one scene because. I worked at--

Ben 35:02

Wafflecopter.

Lexi 35:02

I worked at a well-known grocery store...

Ben 35:07

We all know by now, if you listen to the show.

Lexi 35:07

I worked there, and we used to joke about it all the time that this movie came out 'cause it kind of felt like working in this, like, corporate, natural grocery store, where the owner of the store is, like, fabulously rich and wealthy and very like, not down to earth, but then is also pretending to be this hippy.

Ben 35:26

Only hires granola people.

Lexi 35:28

Well, no, but like is pretending to be this hippie and kind of is, but absolutely so disconnected from life, and there's one minute, and it's they played by Steve Martin and he plays such a good wacky, hippie billionaire. He rewards Tina Fey's character with five minutes of uninterrupted eye contact [Ben laughs] and it's just so good.

Ben 35:52

My god, I can't do a three count of eye contact with anybody. Five minutes is fucking torture. It's like staring into the sun.

Lexi 35:58

It's so funny and the whole thing, it starts with Liz Lemon-- [laughs] Tina Fey's character--

Ben 36:05

I feel like when you have a prominent actor, you can call them anybody from their oeuvre of films or whatever.

Lexi 36:12

Yeah. Tina Fey's character is looking for a new location for one of their new grocery stores, which is basically like a Whole Foods, and she scouts out a place which is Greg Kinnear's juice shop and they forge a bit of a romantic relationship that way. That man plays a good romantic lead.

Ben 36:29

Yeah, he's unthreatening and has sort of big eyes.

Lexi 36:32

Yeah. Very gentle, deer-like qualities.

Ben 36:36

[laughs] Yeah, he's a deer man.

Lexi 36:38

He is a dear man. But, if you haven't seen it, Ben, you need to watch Baby Mama. It's hilarious. [song continues]

Ben 36:42

Yeah, I'll check it out. I'll put it on the to-watch list, for sure. Awesome. [music fades out] Well, if that wraps up the second, I think it's time for us to go to our mid-show break. [sings along with "Who's That Pokémon?" theme music] Da-na, na-na... [record scratches off record] No, no. What? Da-na... [record scratches off record] No, we're not doing it, not this time.

Lexi 36:56

Whaaaat?

Ben 36:57

[sings along with "Who's That Pokémon?" theme music] Da-na, na-na... [record scratches off record] We're not doing Who's that Pokémon? [gasps] We're playing a game I've stolen from another podcast called My Brother, My Brother and Me, in which I offer you a Hallmark rom comedy description.

Lexi 37:11

Okay.

Ben 37:12

I'm going to give you a romcom title and description. You tell me if it's Hallmark or AI [Lexi laughs] in a segment I like to call... [playful music plays] Hey, I?

Lexi 37:23

Oh, wow.

Ben 37:25

Hallmark or AI?

Lexi 37:25

AI.

Ben 37:27

AI, question mark. I don't know. So, that's the game we're playing today.

Lexi 37:31

Okay.

Lexi 37:31

Yeah, let's do it.

Ben 37:31

Let's get into it. You ready for your first one? [romantic music plays] The title of this romcom is Love Notes and Bookstore Blunders. "In a quaint bookstore nestled in the heart of a bustling city, a shy and reserved librarian finds herself caught in a whirlwind romance with a charming but disorganized writer who accidentally swaps their notebooks, leading to a series of comedic mishaps and unexpected connections as they embark on a journey to retrieve their misplaced musings and maybe find love along the way." AI or Hallmark? [music ends]

Lexi 38:03

I'm going to go with AI.

Ben 38:04

Ding, ding, ding! That is AI. Well done.

Lexi 38:07

Yay!

Ben 38:07

[laughs] What gave it away?

Lexi 38:11

It's a little too on-the-nose.

Ben 38:12

Is it too on-the-nose? You just wait. Some of these Hallmark ones are very...

Lexi 38:16

Okay. Well, no, I mean like I don't have... Yeah, okay. Give me the next one. Let's do this.

Ben 38:20

The next one here is Cupid's Catering Chaos. [romantic music plays]

Lexi 38:24

Oh, god. [Ben laughs]

Ben 38:26

"When an ambitious but overwhelmed chef reluctantly agrees to cater her ex's wedding, she finds herself entangled in a comedic web of mistaken identities, culinary calamities, and unexpected romance when she collides with the charming wedding planner determined to make the event perfect, forcing her to confront her past and maybe find a second chance at love." [music ends]

Lexi 38:49

I'm going to say that's Hallmark. [wrong buzzer sounds]

Ben 38:50

It's AI.

Lexi 38:53

Agh. Okay, okay.

Ben 38:57

All right. All right, let's do one more.

Lexi 38:59

Okay.

Ben 38:59

Let's see if you'll land this one. The next one is called Dater's Handbook. [romantic music plays] "Cass is searching for the man of her dreams, except she thinks she has found the ideal man. She finds out she's wrong after a few dates and decides to read The Dater's Handbook, a guide that outlines the expectations a man should achieve. George follows all the expectations in the handbook, whereas Robert doesn't, but he's equally charming. Blah blah, blah blah blah." Basically, should you follow your heart or the expectations of others? That's it. [music ends]

Lexi 39:29

I'm gonna go with AI. [wrong buzzer sounds]

Ben 39:31

It's Hallmark.

Lexi 39:32

No! Oh, my god.

Ben 39:35

Dater's Handbook, 2016m starring Meghan Markle in this cast.

Lexi 39:40

No.

Ben 39:40

Yeah, and two people I've never heard of as the other competing men. [Lexi sighs] Anyway, I could play this game all day, but it does lead you to wonder if perhaps AI is writing everything that comes out of Hallmark. [Lexi laughs]

Lexi 39:56

I mean, reading some of the titles that came out around Christmas-time, I was just like, "My god. This is awful."

Ben 40:04

I'm not going to do the full thing, but here's a couple more. There's one called Finding Normal.

Lexi 40:08

Ooh.

Ben 40:08

So boring. Summer Villa, generic as hell. Hidden Gems.

Lexi 40:12

Yeah, I've heard of that one.

Ben 40:13

Deliver by Christmas--

Lexi 40:16

I've heard of that one too.

Ben 40:15

Just My Type.

Lexi 40:18

Oh.

Ben 40:18

So, I think the thing I'm taking away here is that the more specific the title is, the more likely it is to be AI. The actual Hallmark ones are boring as hell.

Lexi 40:28

We should write one of these.

Ben 40:30

We absolutely should.

Lexi 40:32

Like, "Man in sweater likes pie." Like, "Oh."

Ben 40:34

Yeah, it's called Pie of my Eye. [laughs]

Lexi 40:38

Pie of My Eye.

Ben 40:39

When an artisanal sweater maker accidentally has their yarn delivered to the equally artisanal pie maker next door, hilarity ensues.

Lexi 40:52

Basically, there's so many ones like The Truth About Cats and Dogs.

Ben 40:56

Yeah.

Lexi 40:56

Like, that's another one of like the dogs meet in the dog park.

Ben 40:59

Well, that's not Hallmark.

Lexi 40:59 40:59

No, but I'm just saying that lie they could definitely do one where it's like, "The people at the puppy store are next door to the kitten store and they fall in love, but will cats and dogs ever truly get along?" Like, "Eugh." Puke.

Ben 41:13

Yeah, because cats are the opposite of dogs.

Lexi 41:16

Cats are girls and dogs are boys. [both laugh]

Ben 41:17

Yeah. There's a term for that stupid thing in psychology, but I don't remember what it is, so fuck that. Anyhow, [sings along with "Who's That Pokémon?" theme music] Da-na, na-na-na. [speaks] AI? The worst fucking title for that.

Lexi 41:33

That's a good one.

Ben 41:35

All right, I'm glad we got to switch it up a little bit. Let's go into our final choices here.

Lexi 41:40

Yeah.

Ben 41:40

Why don't you take it away?

Lexi 41:42

Okay, for my final romantic comedy shout-out of the evening, I'd like to... [laughs] It makes sense to me. My movie pick is Idiocracy.

Ben 41:55

Okay. Yeah. [Buckaroo by Buck Owens from Idiocracy plays] This is a strange one for me. I don't necessarily think of Idiocracy as a romcom or as a prescient look into the future that we now live in.

Lexi 42:06

Yeah, it's a documentary about our current day and age.

Ben 42:10

Yeah.

Lexi 42:10

No. I just find like the two-- well, I guess there's three main characters in. it. So, you've got Maya Rudolph and then one of the Wilson boys--

Ben 42:19

Luke.

Lexi 42:19

Luke Wilson, fall in love in a hopeless place, Ben.

Ben 42:25

A hopeless place being what amounts to now, 2024 America.

Lexi 42:32

The future. It's just so funny because both of them are kind of like useless in the present day, but then they wind up--

Ben 42:38

But really shine.

Lexi 42:38

But then they wind up-- they're absolute geniuses—geniusi?—in the future.

Ben 42:44

Yeah, geni.

Lexi 42:44

Geni. And they come together to, like, have a really positive relationship that's built on respect and kindness, and I think that's something that we should all aspire to is just like doing the best you can, be nice to each other, look out for everybody around you, and be respectful. And that movie is so hilariously bad and so much of it, Terry Crews, as the president who rides a motorcycle, and my favourite is when he--

Ben 43:17

They're spraying Gatorade on all the lawns.

Lexi 43:19

When he's doing the state of the address and he's walking up and down the stage and just like into the microphone is like, "Shit." Like, that is so funny. That entire movie is amazing and it is a great romantic comedy. I don't care what anyone says.

Ben 43:35

No, we ain't here to judge. You get to choose what you like, and I think that's a fantastic choice.

Lexi 43:41

Other favourite part of the movie is when he's in prison—Luke Wilson's character—is in prison and he goes up to the guards and he's like, "Hi, excuse me. I'm actually I'm supposed to be getting out," of jail and the guards are like, "Then you're supposed to be in that line, stupid." [laughs] "Yeah, right. Sorry." [laughs] Ah, it's so good.

Ben 43:59

The idea that, you know, a completely sort of average to below-average intelligence like myself could someday be useful or possibly a genius is very appealing to someone like me, so I get it.

Lexi 44:15

Great movie.

Ben 44:17

Idiocracy, apparently a romcom.

Lexi 44:19

Yep. It is. It is.

Ben 44:20

I'm letting you have it. I ain't challenging that.

Lexi 44:22

Prove me wrong, world. Prove me wrong.

Ben 44:24

None of us want to take the time to do that. We're all very busy.

Lexi 44:27

Busy. Well, I definitely have a lot of shout-outs about runners up, but I think we'll probably talk about them in just--

Ben 44:32

Let's do it. Let's go around in a minute. I'm going to do my next one quickly here and it's Music and Lyrics. [Main Theme from Music and Lyrics by Adam Schlesinger plays] After I started my relationship with [imitating Borat] my wife, [in usual voice] we decided to exchange romantic comedies that we enjoyed, and I presented You've Got Mail to Fiona and I was like, "Did you love it? Did you love it?" and that's when I got the, "Actually, it's fucked up and here's why" back from Fiona. [Lexi laughs] And then, she's like, here's a romantic comedy where the two main people are on a more even footing with each other and it was Music and Lyrics. This is a movie starring everyone's favourite British dude--

Lexi 45:17

Hugh Grant. Yep.

Ben 45:18

High Grant. I can't believe I just blanked on his name, who is a sort of washed-up or retired pop star from the '80s – think like George Michael from Wham, but he's straight. So, he was a young pop megastar and now he's sort of washed up and then Drew Barrymore as a... What is she? A house sitter in this movie, if I'm remembering correctly? She ends up watering his plants for some reason while he's busy taking jobs, writing shitty lyrics for shitty pop stars that he doesn't really care about, and he's just in it for the pay check and they come to a point where she starts meddling with his lyrics, and they get together and they start working on the music and lyrics together and they form this really lovely relationship where they are equals in it and they're both contributing to all aspects of it and we get this great fake Shakira in the movie that I think is just wonderful.

Lexi 46:15

Mm-hmm.

Ben 46:17

And it was the juxtaposition of the romcom that I'd offered up as a fave versus this one that has made it a fast fave for me, and also came from the person that I chose to spend the rest of my life with--

Lexi 46:30

Aw, that's sweet.

Ben 46:30

--which makes it a very special movie to me that I've watched many, many times, but it's just a lovely, wholesome romantic comedy full of laughs because Drew Barrymore is, generally speaking, charming when she's not crossing picket lines. Writers' strike reference there, for everybody.

Lexi 46:47

That's true.

Ben 46:50

And, you know, Hugh Grant is charming, always charming, and that makes this my third pick. Music and Lyrics – go watch it if you haven't watched it yet. I think you'll enjoy it.

Lexi 46:59

He's kind of like the British, Greg Kinnear, isn't he?

Ben 47:04

Yeah, yeah.

Lexi 47:05

Or Greg Kinnear is the American Hugh Grant.

Ben 47:08

Yeah, that sounds better. I think that's the way we put it. Greg Kinnear is an American Hugh Grant, with less staying power.

Lexi 47:15

Yes. Yeah.

Ben 47:18

I mean, what's that new movie that's Guy Pearce that was like Colin Farrell and Hugh Grant and is like a... [pause] Woof. We're bad at this. It's like a a crime movie.

Lexi 47:33

Is it, like, The Gentlemen?

Ben 47:33

A British crime. Is that what it's called? The one with the blond guy that looks like Thor that isn't Thor.

Lexi 47:39

Yeah, that's Charlie...

Ben 47:41

Yeah, yeah.

Lexi 47:42

The Gentlemen.

Ben 47:42

Yeah, Charlie Hunnam and is that called The Gentlemen?

Lexi 47:46

Yeah.

Ben 47:46

Yeah, it's a great one and Hugh Grant's playing this like smarmy-ass tabloid reporter.

Lexi 47:53

I'm just double checking.

Ben 47:54

It's great. He's wonderful.

Lexi 47:55

Matthew McConaughey's in it.

Ben 47:57

Yeah.

Lexi 47:58

Colin Farrell. Oh, yeah. That's a great... Have you seen the TV show?

Ben 48:02

There's a TV show based off of this?

Lexi 48:05

Yeah, it's on Netflix. There's a series now that's kind of in the same universe. It is excellent.

Ben 48:09

Oh, wow. No, I haven't, so there's a drop.

Lexi 48:10

Yeah, Guy Ritchie also works on that one too. It's wonderful.

Ben 48:16

Hugh Grant's very likeable and hilariously this is not Notting Hill, which other people might choose as his more prominent romcom adventure, but...

Lexi 48:27

I'm just making sure. Yeah. Charlie Hunnam, Michael McConaughey...

Ben 48:32

Is he in Love Actually?

Lexi 48:32

Who? Charlie?

Ben 48:35

No, Hugh Grant.

Lexi 48:37

Yes, he is. He's the prime minister.

Ben 48:37

Is he the president or I mean the premier-- yeah, prime minister. [chuckles] And he's the one that basically has the really inappropriate relationship with his staffer.

Lexi 48:45

There's a lot of inappropriate relationships in that whole film, but yes.

Ben 48:50

What I wanted to do, since we were talking about how great the response was on Instagram, is just shout out some of the favourites from the listeners here.

Lexi 48:58

Yeah, do it.

Ben 48:58

Somebody suggested that... Oh, username... I'm bad at this. We don't usually actually remember to call people out on the show, so... @timothywinchester offered up a classic romantic comedy called I've Got Your Number, and they suggested that it's more fun than they expected. For worse, the same person—Timothy Winchester—offered up Holiday in Handcuffs, which looks like a Hallmark movie with that dude from Saved By the Bell and, for some reason, they're handcuffed together.

Lexi 49:30

Oh.

Ben 49:30

I don't know. Let's keep going. What else we got? The F Word is a recommendation from somebody.

Lexi 49:36

Ainsley?

Ben 49:36

Was it Ainsley?

Lexi 49:38

Yes, Ainsley suggests The F Word.

Ben 49:41

Also known as What If? in other countries. Yeah, for some reason I can't see who actually sent these in to me anymore.

Lexi 49:46

Oh, I can kind of see here, I can see Dave, who was just recently on the podcast, Dave Stone, said PS I Love You is a great romantic comedy.

Ben 49:54

Oh, cool. We got...

Lexi 49:58

Ryan Webb says the worst is Love, Actually.

Ben 50:02

Of Rooked podcast – our homies over at Rooked.

Lexi 50:05

Of Rooked podcast.

Ben 50:05

I would say sister podcast. Mother podcast? Brother podcast. Anyhow, Ryan.

Lexi 50:11

Yeah, probably mother podcast. The best is She's All That.

Ben 50:15

As they posit, it's a prequel to the Scooby-Doo movie.

Lexi 50:19

What else do we have here? We have @photoguy79 says How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days is the best, but only for the bullshit scene.

Matthew McConaughey 50:27 Lexi

I think you're running away.

Drew Barrymore 50:32

Why don't you save your mind games for your next bet? Okay, I am not running away.

Matthew McConaughey 50:36

Bullshit.

Drew Barrymore 50:36

[softly] Excuse me.

Matthew McConaughey 50:39

[softly] You heard me. [romantic music plays] [softly] Bullshit.

Lexi 50:44

What else we have? Ling Zena has a couple – While You Were Sleeping, probably the biggest one, Irish Wish, is a cool premise but with zero chemistry and the friendships make no sense.

Ben 51:02

It's a Lindsay Lohan romcom.

Lexi 51:03

Yeah. And, I feel like that was like her comeback movie.

Ben 51:07

Her attempted revival.

Lexi 51:07

Like, she wanted... This was going to be... Yeah.

Ben 51:10

Yeah. Did not work. And the same user gave us While You Were Sleeping, which I enjoyed, I remember watching that, but it is a weird premise, as well...

Lexi 51:20

It is.

Ben 51:21

...where Sandra Bullock is so in love with--

Lexi 51:24

--a person she doesn't even know because she's--

Ben 51:25

With Peter Gallagher. Yeah, because she sees him at the train.

Lexi 51:30

Yeah. She's made up this fake world for themselves.

Ben 51:31

This delusional relationship, and then eventually, that all comes to light and it's terrible, but she falls for his brother, Bill Pullman... RIP.

Lexi 51:38

[laughs] Aw.

Ben 51:40

Peter Gallagher, if you don't recall, is Sandy Cohen from The OC. [sings along with OC theme song] Dana-nana-na-na-na. California, here we come. [speaks] Right, that's enough. So, thank you for submitting those.

Lexi 51:52

Yeah.

Ben 51:52

I think that's everybody.

Lexi 51:53

Yeah, yeah. And we have some runners-up to kind of throw down. We won't go into big detail, but there's a lot of really great ones. I'm going to throw out there 10 Things I Hate About You.

Ben 52:03

Yeah, yeah. That's on my list of runners-up as well. 10 Things I Hate About You is fantastic. We got some Joseph Gordon Levitt and his brother, Heath Ledger. Have you ever seen those memes where they put like their faces together and it looks like the same guy? [Heath Ledger sings Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You]

Lexi 52:16

Yeah, if they're the same person. Julia Stiles.

Ben 52:18

Julia Stiles.

Lexi 52:17

There's Alexis from... Well, Alex, from Alex Mack.

Ben 52:24

I don't know.

Lexi 52:24

You never watched Alex Mack?

Ben 52:27

No.

Lexi 52:27

[gasps] Ben, what were you doing in the '90s?

Ben 52:30

It's the blonde one, though, but I--

Lexi 52:31

It's The Secret World of Alex Mack. Like Alexis...

Ben 52:34

But I I mean, I know who you're talking about and I had a huge crush on her when I was younger. Yeah. 10 Things I Hate About You is just fantastic because of Heath Ledger's bleacher scene.

Lexi 52:44

Larissa Oleynick. Thank you. Sorry.

Ben 52:46

No. Please.

Lexi 52:46

There we go.

Ben 52:48

Heath Ledger's dancing up and down the bleachers bit is pretty fantastic.

Lexi 52:54

Yeah, it's a great one. So, 10 Things I Hate About You, Bridesmaids – another one about, like, finding yourself before you can care for others. You have to care for yourself.

Ben 53:04

Yep.

Lexi 53:05

Really great. And another one where a friend comes forward and says, "You're not doing well. I care about you. You got to get your shit together," so great, great movie.

Ben 53:15

Maya Rudolph plays the friend who comes forward and is like, "You are effing this all up."

Lexi 53:20

Well, she's actually-- there's a couple of people that go forward and kind of say that. Sookie St. James actually sits her down and says, "Get your shit... Better get your poop in a group." Maya Rudolph shits in the street.

Ben 53:31

Yep. Yep. Yes, diarrhea. [blows raspberry] Diarrhea. If you're sitting in a Chevy and you're feeling something heavy...

Lexi 53:38

Oh, what have I done?

Ben 53:40

Diarrhea. [blows raspberries]

Lexi 53:40

I'd also like to throw out The Princess Bride. That was what I swapped out Baby Mama for.

Ben 53:46

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Lexi 53:47

I love The Princess Bride. I think that it is--

Ben 53:49

[imitating Peter Cook] Mawage. Twoo wuv.

Lexi 53:52

There's so many great moments in that movie about love and friendship.

Ben 53:56

"Witch, get out of here!" "I'm not a witch. I'm your wife."

Lexi 54:01

Perseverance. Whenever anybody asks me to like, "Hey, what are you up to? You never post pictures of yourself on Instagram," I always send them a picture of Miracle Max and I say, "I'm not looking my best these days," and then I post that, and people... I like to laugh, Ben. I like to laugh.

Ben 54:17

I wouldn't say you look that much like Miracle Max. Passing resemblance at most.

Lexi 54:22

Thank you, but I feel like I do, at my best. But anyway, great movie. Andre the Giant. Delightful.

Ben 54:24

Yeah. Uh-huh. Absolutely. It is a delight. Another one I wanted to talk about is The Notebook. It's not one of my faves. I just like the fact that Ryan Gosling apparently did not get along so much with Rachel McAdams that they hate each other to this day.

Lexi 54:43

Really?

Ben 54:43

Yeah, they apparently just did not gel on set. Because it was everybody's favourite romance movie when it came out. It was a huge hit and I just love that little factoid that they apparently just did not work well together to the point that they still dislike each other.

Lexi 54:59

[laughs] Hey, whatever. The working relationship--

Ben 55:04

The Wedding Singer. Drew Barrymore is a great romcom star.

Lexi 55:07

Ah yes, she is. And Adam Sandler is a really good opposite for her.

Ben 55:11

Yeah. And we get a redo with them as well, later on, in kind of the same way that we got Sleepless in Seattle and You've Got Mail. We've got 50 First Dates, which is actually a super charming film.

Lexi 55:20

It is.. And there's a song in there that I sing to myself in the car all the time.

Ben 55:25

Which song is?

Lexi 55:28

[sings along to Forgetful Lucy by Adam Sandler] Cracked her head like Gary Busey. [Ben laughs] Bum, bum, bum. [speaks] It's such a great little. He's a good singer, Adam Sandler.

Ben 55:37

The more I think about it, the more I really like that film, the way that it ends with just sort of like finding a way forward together, even though things can't be the way they were initially, and I think that's--

Lexi 55:47

Yeah, or the way they want it.

Ben 55:50

Yeah. And I think that's kind of sweet and beautiful is that it's still worth having, [song continues] even though it's changed and it's harder and there's more to it. There's more difficulty. It's kind of about-- I mean it's literally about an injury, a life-altering injury for a person, but it's, you know, kind of about the idea of like for better or for worse sort of idea of a relationship and caring for a partner as their health needs change. And, that's kind of-- that's romantic.

Lexi 56:16

Yeah. Well, it's unconditional love.

Ben 56:19

Yeah. There you go. Thank you for summing that up in two words [chuckles] what took me about 50 paragraphs? I am AI. You can tell that we live in an AI because I am just spewing out nonsense that I've heard before.

Lexi 56:33

What else we got?

Ben 56:34

Groundhog Day, I want to talk about because I love Groundhog Day. I think it's funny. As a romcom though, it is disgusting.

Lexi 56:43

It's all about manipulation, but...

Ben 56:46

Yeah, exactly. Again. He never learns. Bill Murray's character never learns to be a better person. He learns how to game the system to get what he wants.

Lexi 56:54

Yes. Yeah.

Ben 56:54

It is literally the wrong message to be sending to people that want to find a healthy relationship.

Lexi 57:01

But, at the same time, too, I feel like he's punished for it because he's basically in purgatory. Like, somebody did the math and something like he lived 9,000 years or something.

Ben 57:10

Yeah. Yeah, to get all these things right.

Lexi 57:12

He is a horrible person, but, yeah, he's stuck in his own personal hell.

Ben 57:18

I don't feel like this movie gives us a change for him.

Lexi 57:21

No.

Ben 57:21

More that he just finally gets the game right and presses all the controls in the right way.

Lexi 57:24

Yeah, absolutely.

Ben 57:26

He never engages. I mean, I guess the idea is that he finally, when he stops trying and actually engages, is sort of the premise, but I never really felt that way. I felt like he's just trying.

Lexi 57:37

Figured out how to game it. Yeah.

Ben 57:38

Yeah, exactly. But anyhow, it's still a fun film and I quote what's-his-name who plays Ned. "Ned? Watch out for that step. It's a doozy."

Lexi 57:53

That's a good one.

Ben57:55

Gross Point Blank is a blast. I like the idea of an assassin romcom.

Lexi 58:00

Where he goes back to his high school reunion, trying to make something of himself.

Ben 58:02

Yeah. Yeah. Assassin is in the doldrums because he's like, "Oh, I never saw myself being an assassin. Let me go back to my hometown and see if I can find myself again."

Lexi 58:14

Tom Cusack is a is another good romantic comedy guy.

Ben 58:16

Did you just call him Tom Cusack?

Lexi 58:17

What did I say?

Ben 58:18

I think you said Tom. But, I like Tom Cusack. He's like his evil twin brother...

Lexi 58:23

What's his actual...? John Cusack.

Ben 58:24

...for Johnny, Johnny.

Lexi 58:25

Oh, god.

Ben 58:30

Yeah, and you get Dan Ackroyd as a kind of menacing villain.

Lexi 58:30

Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Ben 58:31

With a bad haircut.

Lexi 58:34

Many levels to him.

Ben 58:36

Mostly Crystal Skull vodka and ghosts. Ghost blowjobs. I like Crazy Rich Asians as well. It was kind of by the number, but also about a person pushing for respect in a relationship and kind of about her relationship with the to-be mother-in-law and earning that respect and-- not earning it, but more or less at some point demanding it. It was just a cool romcom. That's all I got. What about you?

Lexi 59:06

No, I think that's all I got. Yeah.

Ben 59:08

We've wrapped it up. That's all the good romcoms. If it did not make this list, if one of your favourites was not talked about tonight, that means it's trash and you shouldn't enjoy it.

Lexi 59:16

Yeah. And you should feel bad.

Ben 59:17

You should feel really bad, but also tell us what we missed. Tell us what we missed and why you liked it.

Lexi 59:23

We don't mean that.

Ben 59:24

And why we should watch it, if you feel passionately about that. But otherwise, until next time... [along with Shave and a Haircut, Two Bits melody] Dork, dork-dork, dork-dork...

Lexi 59:30

Va-va-voom. I dunno.

Ben 59:33

Va-va... What do you do for love?

Lexi 59:37

That's it. Yeah.

Ben 59:38

Oh, oh, oh, let's head out with this. Do you have a song? Do you and Jon have a song? [Happiness by Knots plays]

Lexi 59:50

Oh, we do, but I don't think many folks would know it.

Ben 59:49

Okay.

Lexi 59:49

It's by a Calgary musician and you can't actually find his music on anything other than Bandcamp.

Ben 59:55

Oh, no.

Lexi 59:55

So...

Ben 59:57

Hey, nothing wrong with that. Let's hear it. Who is it? This will be the only shout-out this musician gets this year.

Lexi 1:00:03

Well, because... [whispers] Oh, where are you?

Ben 1:00:06

[whispers] I'm right here. I'm just listening.

Lexi 1:00:08

Okay, so right around the time Jon and I started dating, there was a local musician went by the name of Knots, so K-N-O-T-S who released their own little CD called The Blistering Sun, The Pale Moon, and there's a song called Happiness on it that Jon and I always thought that this was like our song, so...

Ben 1:00:30

That's beautiful. Jess, just drop it in.

Neal Moignard of Knots 1:00:38

[sings] Oh yes, this happiness is mine

Footfalls in the evening slope and I decline

Every moment I've known will turn your rebel back in his stall.

Ben 1:01:06

Fair play. So, ours is Barry Manilow's Can't Smile Without You. [Can't Smile Without You by Barry Manilow plays] I think it started as sort of a joke and we decided we needed to have a song and just were running through different songs, and then it turned out it's actually a fantastic song and really sweet. [Lexi chuckles]

Barry Manilow 1:01:21

[sings] Can't laugh and I can't sing

I'm finding it hard to do anything

You see, I feel sad when you're sad.

Ben 1:01:30

So, that's ours. I guess, until next time, live. laugh, love. Dork Matters out.

Lexi 1:01:36

Doo doo. [laughs] [song continues]

Ben 1:01:43

[Dork Matters theme music "Dance" by YABRA plays] [speaks] Thanks for listening to Dork Matters. If you liked the podcast, subscribe, give a rating, and tell your friends about us.

Lexi 1:01:49

If you are a fellow dork and have a dork issue that you think we need to discuss, tell us on our social media. You can find us on Instagram and Twitter. You can also check out original art and other content from Ben and myself.

Ben 1:02:00

We'd like to say a big thank you to YABRA for the use of our theme song, Dance, off of their Astral EP, as well as a thank you to Jess Schmidt for producing and editing our podcast. Thanks, Jess.

Voiceover 1:02:12

[echoing] Dork Matters.

Lexi 1:02:14

This podcast is created on the traditional territories of the Blackfoot Nations, which includes the Siksika, the Piikani, and the Kainai. We also acknowledge the Stoney Nakoda Nation, Tsuut'ina, and Metis Nation Region 3.

SOCIALS:

Here's where you can find us!

Lexi' Hunt's website and twitter and instagram
Ben Rankel's website and instagram and where to buy his book: Amazon.ca / Comixology / Ind!go / Renegade Arts
Jess Schmidt's website, twitter and instagram
Dork Matter's website(WIP) and twitter and instagram and reddit
This podcast is created on the traditional territories of the Blackfoot Nations, which includes the Siksika, the Piikani, and the Kainai. We also acknowledge the Stoney Nakota Nation, Tsuut'ina, and Metis Nation Region 3.

Help your dorky pals spread the word: share us on social media or give Dork Matters a rating and review on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your pods! Thank you for helping us to share our love of all things Dork!

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