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Smart take. Also, when she pulled out the Christmas presents for the kids in the car, I didn't think so much that she had given up and thought they were going to die, but wanted to give the kids something to occupy themselves, and to distract the kids from the situation while she tried to figure out a solution. I do kind of like the idea of hitting a tree and going, "well, that's it kids! It's all over" Oh this movie was painful!

As a parent, I just want to say the "I'm going to get pine cones" is a ploy I would 100% use. Like if I was with my kids and I thought I heard someone trying to break in, I might say something like, "I'm going to check if we have enough cheese sticks in the fridge" or something so I could go check it out. Kids have a tendency to follow you if you don't tell them exactly what you're doing. And since you're an adult and obviously have everything all figured out, they don't question it if you say you're going to do something kind of dumb - which you most likely will since you're probably pretty nervous. The pine cone thing gets her out of the car, allows her to take a breath without panicking the kids, get her bearings, and figure shit out without kids under foot asking a million questions. Even better, she can actually bring back pine cones and say they are going to make Christmas ornaments or something to keep them occupied and set their mind at ease that their mother isn't in the middle of a panic attack.

One of the weirder moments for me was when Rock's starts seeing for the first time and he laments that all he can see are "wrinkly butts." Setting aside that he doesn't know what eyes are but immediately knows what butts are - and the adjective "wrinkly," apparently - I thought it was really weird that the mama dog makes sure to immediately clarify for him that the wrinkly butts he's seeing aren't hers ("They're not mine. They're your brothers and sisters.") I don't know, it seems like an oddly defensive stance to take with a newborn child.

That and she was picking the presents with warm clothes.

big thank yous to the boys for playing my flagrant ones theme on the patreon this week along with several other fan submissions. it was probably just a fun one time thing as Sean and Carl's song parody themes are always instant hits, but I'll still try and do a stankier remix, just to see if that's even possible

Haha seriously there's nothing better than classic Conan bits

I'm having a a weird Mandela effect moment because I thought for certain I remember seeing a line of NBA dolls similar to the WWF Brawlin/Cuddle buddies. They would have been released around the same time as the WWF one so Barkley would have been one of the athletes chosen, but for the life of me I can't find anything on them. Also, speaking as someone who worked in a dog pound for a summer, there are more reasons that a dog is to be destroyed other than "I wanna kill this dog," and yes destroyed is the term used. It's that term usually because the dog has something wrong with it like rabies or another condition that can affect the rest of the animals in the pound or humans, so they need to be put down, which is the term used more for dogs that haven't been adopted in a given period of time. So Travolta is realistically bringing a very ill animal into his home with two small children and running the risk of someone getting ill or hurt. Or even more realistically, the entire movie is a Jacob's Ladder Scenario for the dog who imagines itself being saved from the pound, saves the family from wolves, and reunites the family in the end.

I guess I’m using “life” as a synonym for “existing” or “surviving. She can go on with Stingo, but it means living with her past - which isn’t what she wants. I guess I just don’t think Stingo is as problematic as everyone else? I feel like he is an essential component to the story whether we like him or not. Honestly, I meant it more rhetorically than hypothetically, but yeah, that’s basically my point. The only person who knows whether he would be capable of writing it from her perspective is the writer. And I would guess, given the results, he didn’t feel comfortable doing that so he wrote it from the perspective of a character surrogate with whom he could 100% relate. My broader point is: if we start making changes, we have to consider the ramifications of those changes. Do they actually improve the movie? Hypothetically, maybe. If we make those changes, and turn SC into something else entirely, does it still end up on a list of great films? I don’t know, but in my view, I don’t think so.

Yes, I'm certainly not trying to judge the movie for what it is NOT, as any art should be judged by what it IS. By making the film subjective to Stingo's experience, however, the result is that it makes him a more "important" figure-- as others have pointed out quite nicely in previous posts, the story is about how Sophie impacts the Narrator, how Stingo becomes the one to carry the "message" of surviving into the world beyond the movie/story, etc. We can dig for days into the richness of the story and characters for days by just what's presented to us. But one of the ways to challenge the story and themes is to butt them up against their imagined opposites. Looking at A by considering Not-A. I wondered how the story and themes might change if Sophie was our subjective point of view. I don't think we'd need to have a linear A to B to C story, similarly the mystery of the titular choice could remain hidden until she shares it with someone. Maybe another contemporary challenge could be to rework Stingo as a female character. I guess I'm lamenting that we don't get to see from Sophie's POV because the film presented her as such a more compelling character than any others. But by that same token, if she were presented in a different way, would it have ended up less compelling?

I think this is the right answer, that Stingo is necessary to the film as a POV character through which the story is told. But I still think the character falls into an unfortunate middle ground, where too much time is spent on him for how uninteresting he is. I'd be more okay with the character as a blank slate if he didn't demand so much time. As far as the trope-iness, I'm having trouble coming up with lots of examples of the things that I think are sort of tropes. As DannytheWall said, The Great Gatsby also features a young writer serving as the narrator/POV character who moves to New York and meets an interesting person whose past is slowly revealed over the course of the story. And although love triangles are aplenty in film history, there are even examples of this particular flavor of love triangle, in which the three parties are friends as the triangle forms. Certainly Jules and Jim falls into this category, but I'm at a loss for other such films that came out before Sophie's Choice. (Can anyone think of more?) The Big Chill is around the same time period, but it's sort of a more complicated shape than a triangle. One could argue that The Sun Also Rises works in this category, although Brett is certainly a proto-MPDG as well. More recent films in this trope include Y Tu Mama Tambien and The Dreamers. It also feels like an 80s movie trope to have the stories of interesting people told through a different POV character, like in Amadeus (as Amy and Paul mentioned), The Elephant Man, or even Dead Poets Society (which I haven't seen in a while but I recall it being predominantly from Ethan Hawke's point of view). There's probably more examples of this trope as well. There's enough that's unique in Sophie's Choice that makes it work for me, but it still feels like it's hitting familiar beats.

That’s how I felt as well. Through Sophie’s eyes I feel like it would not only be super depressing, but just another basic, linear period piece (A to B to C). Not only that, but I feel like seeing it through her eyes would be like thought bubbles in a comic book. There’s a reason they’ve been mostly phased out. It’s more interesting and engaging when you’re not necessarily hearing every thought and every feeling a character is experiencing as they’re experiencing them. The structure of this movie, essentially peeling back the layers of Sophie’s past (and, to some degree, Nathan’s as well) helps color the previous scenes with new meaning, which I believe, creates a richer experience overall. I’m not saying it couldn’t be done, but I don’t know that it would have necessarily improved the movie. (Not that I think it needs to be improved. You all know what a hopeless romantic I am. )

Are these Hoopster Heroes what you were recalling? Also, while I knew the term ‘destroyed’ is used when referring to putting a dog down, is it appropriate to use it in front of a small child?

As Paul mentioned, the ad on the taxi cab is for Señor Pizza... which is a callback to a previous Kristie Alley film. What film you might ask? How about the one where Patrick Dempsey is a pizza delivering gigolo! Yup... We're talking about 1989's Loverboy! Oh and the tag line in the trailer is, "His customers always come first." Suuuupppper appropriate easter egg for this kid's film. Or maybe the gang is right and this really isn't a kid's film after all! Trailer:

So I had to Google to see if clam souffle was a thing (hoping against hope that such a monstrosity was pure fantasy) and apparently it is. Here's the ingredients list from a recipe from James Beard's Mother's clam souffle : INGREDIENTS 4 tablespoons flour 3 tablespoons butter, melted 1/2 teaspoon salt Dash Tabasco 1 cup clam juice 5 egg yolks 2 tablespoons chopped parsley 1 cup drained clams 6 egg whites Butter for the casserole No offense to James Beard or his Mother but I still gagged at the thought of this dish. I'm sorry I see the words clam juice and I dry heave.

I haven’t listened to the entire episode, but my first thought “I wonder what June thinks of Paul’s Mail Chimp impression” since she’s a monkey rights activist.

The most important thing about this movie is the Diane Keaton dog wants a slice of lemon with her water. Don't do this. Lemons can upset a dog's stomach and cause vomiting or diarrhea. The small amount of juice from lemon in a bowl of water may not cause problems but do you really want to risk it?

Maybe it went down like...

I am wet, with excitement for another studio episode. And Conan & June!!! I'm double wet. With excitement!!! I love you all!

I think the difference for me is the past/present is less a "juxtaposition" and more as a continuation. The later 'romantic' story is just as much a story of her surviving as the Holocaust scenes are. That is tragic too. And in the end, she didn't die in a concentration camp, she died trying to survive after the War ended and just could not get through it. The stakes were still high, life or death. I get the critique of Stingo, he is indeed syrupy and fairly weak, but I don't think halving the story in to parts A & B is how its meant to be viewed.

Maybe...but he doesn’t seem to me all that interested one way or the other. He seems to legitimately care for Sophie. I feel like incel-ism is inherently narcissistic (e.g. If women won’t have sex with me they must be evil) which I don’t feel like Stingo projects at all. I’d say he’s, at best, mildly frustrated in love, but not debilitatingly so. And it’s not like Stingo is secretly plotting against Nathan the whole time. He loves both of them. It’s not like he’s like, “Of boy, now’s my chance to make my move.” I think he would have been perfectly happy if Nathan and Sophie were together forever. He’s crying just as much for Nathan at the end as he is for Sophie. I just found the whole love triangle take really weird. I never got that at all. And I feel like “Stingo as incel” is really cynical. Not that there’s anything wrong with a healthy dose of cynicism, but sometimes things just are as they appear. There aren’t always ulterior motives. He loves her. As a friend - and maybe more. But he does love her.

Stingo didn't come across as an incel to me either. You're right that incels, at least on my understanding, are pretty misanthropic (with a pretty strong focus on hating women). There's a world of difference in my mind between an incel and guy who is inexperienced with sex. Stingo strikes me as the latter.

I was really surprised that Stingo was labeled an incel and came here to see if anyon else picked up on this. I can’t say that I’m an expert on the subject, but aren’t incels usually characterized by their contempt towards humanity? I feel like if anything, Stingo had a huge heart and he genuinely loved both Sophie and Nathan.

Exactly. Most of all, I think the movie as about survivor’s guilt. Sophie not only survived when her entire family was killed, but at least partially did so by employing morally murky methods, and Nathan is a Jewish man who, most likely due to his mental issues, wasn’t able to fight in the war. The subsequent rage that he feels he takes out on his non-Jewish girlfriend. As I said in my Letterboxd review, the movie seems to be making a point that sometimes the cruelest fate is to survive. How do you move on? At the end of the movie, Stingo finds himself - for the first time in his life - faced with the same dilemma. He’s the survivor. “My loved ones are dead, how do I possibly move on?” But he gives us hope with the new sunrise. And we discover that he makes himself the writer he’s always wanted to be (derivative or not). His journey suggests that while we may never fully heal, if we take the lessons we learned from our loved ones, it is possible to live life again.

I’m not done with the episode, but I’m shocked how they feel like Stingo is some kind of interloper into Sophie and Nathan’s relationship. From the beginning, for reasons that are unclear, they are the ones always pulling him into their vortex. Now, if you were to ask Stingo, I’d say *he* would probably say that he was an interloper, but they are the ones coaxing him to play piano with them. He doesn’t just say, Move over, I got this.” They invite him to dinner. They invite him to Coney Island - and not, like, Melvin or any of the other residents of the house. I feel like they see Stingo as being like them - an artist and free spirit- but in desperate need of experience. I mean, another visual metaphor I would point to is the three of them in Sophie and Nathan’s sex hammock. To me, it’s not that he’s a third wheel so much as the whole relationship is somewhat open and fluid. In my opinion, I also wouldn’t classify Stingo as “incel” as that implies a certain level of anger and entitlement that I just don’t feel is present in his character. He doesn’t hate or resent Nathan. He doesn’t act like he’s “owed” anything - at least not to me. I don’t feel like he’s just pretending to be her friend in order to get close. He just feels naive, which is something he tells us right at the beginning. He hasn’t had a life yet and is suddenly faced with two people who have lived too much life. Honestly, I’m still surprised that Amy and Paul (And iTunes apparently) classify this as a romance, but if we are, then I’d say the romance is between all three of them.

Okay so all the Skinny Rock talk made got me to do a quick google and rediscover a rock photo jem. And then of course the Mantzoukas similarly couldn't be ignored, and so I give you Rockzoukas: