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Ok, I just tried watching this tonight and could not get into it. The constant narration felt like I was being given a lecture on who these people were and how amazing they were and blah blah blah. The characters barely spoke for themselves. The narration was only broken up for the musical numbers which felt like a 90s movie trying to be a hip 70s movie and feeling fake in that weirdly ironic 90s way. I don’t know who they got to do the music but I wish they had just gotten Pulp to do the entire thing. All of this to say, when a movie is THIS RELIANT on narration and songs that I do not like (and I like glam rock, just not THIS glam rock) I stop at the 40 minute mark. Perhaps the next 80 minutes are filled with brilliance, but I’m ok on missing out. I’m glad other people liked it. I could see how it could be fun to watch! For me, no, but for you!

Yea I pretty much agree with Paul completely on this one. I do enjoy the film, very much of it (mainly scenery, most the songs, and Julie Andrews), but I definitely do not think it's good at all. That lack of compellingness @grudlian. mentioned is basically true for everything in it: beyond the Nazi escape, the romance isn't compelling, nor is the kids' music career, nor Maria's arc. What else is there then? Beats me.

Like Paul, I had never seen this before. I know we watched a lot of it in elementary school music class, but I don't know if we ever finished it. I liked the movie okay. Many of the songs are great. Julie Andrews is great. But I also agree with every criticism brought up in the episode. I don't know any of the characters in a three hour movie. The movie abruptly changes for the worse once they marry. I'd also argue that the ending is such a slight problem. Yes, it's terrible people were forced to leave because of the Nazis but the story of a wealthy family were able to leave easily without harm isn't a super compelling story of evading the Nazis. Especially when the real story of the von Trapp family was a much easier escape where they simply left by train.

Gun to my head, "Ashes to Ashes" is probably my favorite Bowie song as well. But one thing that always fascinated me about Bowie is he influence on collaborators and how they influenced him, from the 1960s until his death. I think a perfect encapsulation of that is the ABSOLUTELY FUCKING PERFECT song "I'm Afraid of Americans" and the paranoia-soaked video that accompanied it. I still feel this song and video. Real hard. The end coda of "God is an American" still gives me chills, as Bowie's voice is played out and overtaken by the NIN-ish keyboards. It doesn't hurt that I still love Mr. Reznor like I am a 16-year-old Angsty Boi.

I have a lot of questions regarding the selection of Space Jam. First of them, how dare you?

I like my women like I like my coffee. Bitter, dark, and giving me explosive diarrhea.

I have a question about the end of the movie that they didn't bring up on the podcast. Was the reveal that Sam was writing in her mother's handwriting supposed to read only as a sweet tribute to her mother? Or was it supposed to raise doubt about which persona was actually controlling Sam's body? I would say tonally at that point it didn't feel sinister. But it also felt like the only reason to bring up the handwriting earlier in the movie was to go out on an ambiguous ending that leaves the audience guessing. But maybe I am the only one guessing.