Episode 206 - Little Italy

[gigi-tastic 2322]

45 minutes ago, grudlian. said:

The families choosing to make a Neopolitan style pizza their own way sounds kind of accurate to me. Not accurate to the pizza, but accurate to the way these families seem to exist. I guarantee these families just assume the "traditional" way is whatever their mother or grandmother taught them. Families put personal spins on recipes all the time for any number of reasons but that doesn't make it the proper, legally classified way of doing it. They are just a bunch of too proud to ever admit they are wrong jerks who, even if you showed them the proper Margherita pizza, they'd say, "Ayyyyyy, you calling my nonna a liar?!?!?!?!"

These families are running a by the slice pizza place. They probably aren't using 00 flour. They probably aren't using fresh buffalo mozzarella. Their toppings are probably all North American favorites instead of traditional Italian. There's nothing traditional about anything they do.

Right. I have no problem with that. My family does it, every family does. They are... Sham Italians. Nothing about them is actually traditional even though they are ALL about being traditional. The thing that bothers me is that if the competition is on this pizza their bullshit shouldn't fly. The best most authentic version should win... Right? Wouldn't the judges want that? 

[grudlian. 4725]

1 hour ago, gigi-tastic said:

Right. I have no problem with that. My family does it, every family does. They are... Sham Italians. Nothing about them is actually traditional even though they are ALL about being traditional. The thing that bothers me is that if the competition is on this pizza their bullshit shouldn't fly. The best most authentic version should win... Right? Wouldn't the judges want that? 

Were they trying to see which pizza was most authentic Neapolitan Margherita pizza? Or just the best tasting pizza? I genuinely don't remember.

There is a genuine association for judging if a pizza is authentic enough and I assume the judges here aren't members.

[gigi-tastic 2322]

14 minutes ago, grudlian. said:

Were they trying to see which pizza was most authentic Neapolitan Margherita pizza? Or just the best tasting pizza? I genuinely don't remember.

There is a genuine association for judging if a pizza is authentic enough and I assume the judges here aren't members.

I guess I assumed that the overall best in a place all about old school stuff would be the one that's the most authentically  Italian. Sidenote as I was telling a date yesterday about this shitstorm of a film while getting ice cream we looked up and realized that the small town  pizza/ ice cream place was advertising an " Italian Stallion " pizza and I nearly lost it.

[sycasey 2.0 2301]

21 hours ago, sycasey 2.0 said:

My big question here is why the Italian restaurants and bars in Canada all saw fit to have Italian, Canadian AND American flags hung up on the walls. Was this also part of what confused everyone into doing New York accents?

Seriously, though, check out this trailer at 0:19 and then again in the upper left at 0:49. Why are there American flags everywhere? Is this a thing that happens in Canada?

 

[MariahN 11]

ok, I'm watching the movie this very moment and planning to listen to the show on my way to work but I hope to GOD someone mentions Emma Roberts dipping her finger in the sauce, LICKING that finger and then doing it again.  I screamed at the tv "DONT DO THAT!" She's a trained chef and has no problem with CONTAMINATION?!?!!?!  That is the only thing to wake me up from this bland ass movie.

 

[Cakebug Tranch 6873]

7 hours ago, sycasey 2.0 said:

Seriously, though, check out this trailer at 0:19 and then again in the upper left at 0:49. Why are there American flags everywhere? Is this a thing that happens in Canada?

 

Bars around that region are a pretty reliable place to go watch games for the World Cup: every four years the area is packed with idiots in jerseys (usually Azzuri shirts) and a lot of the promotions include world flags to cover a lot of the teams in the tournament. In that sense, foreign flags in bars are not unfamiliar. In a broader sense, though, Canadians are generally incredibly patriotic about the maple leaf, so the national flag is everywhere, on everything. There is a general antipathy against the US, being our bigger, louder neighbour (yes, that has a U in it) so the anti-US sentiment is common, although that's seemingly lessened over the years with a general sense of quiet smug superiority, but in general, yes, it would be a little weird to see American flags so prominently displayed here. Not impossible, but a little unusual.

[BertramCooper 122]

Very nice of the white folk to pair off the two Indian characters at the very end. They were clearly meant for each other simply because they're both Indian. So cute! 

I'm kinda stunned that Andrea Martin's bizarre wedding announcement that she is pregnant - which read to me as sincere and not a gag - didn't get mentioned in this ep. I mean, holy crap.

So glad that after all we've been through these past couple years, we can once again find humor in police officers committing sexual assault. Turns out those P.C. snowflakes didn't ruin it for us after all! What a relief. (Just imagine how that scene would have read had the genders of the two characters been reversed.)

[taylor anne photo 11311]

Oh my god I can't believe I forgot about a huge continuity error that made me holler with laughter during the sex scene.

Okay so while Emma Roberts is getting undressed she sees a photo on Hayden's dresser (that I am assuming was of his father?) and she immediately slaps it down so that they don't have to look at it again because she's totally ready to go to the bone zone. Well, the minute they start kissing and the camera follows them to the bed it pans over the dresser and that fucking photo is back up right with Hayden Senior looking down on them again. I was laughing so hard because I wouldn't have ever noticed that picture if they hadn't clearly pointed it out when she turned it face down. My friend was like, "Well clearly it was ghosts," which honestly would've been a way better movie.

[IRONicmerMAN 391]

Maybe it's just me, but for me, this is one of the best episodes in a while.  I enjoy guests and live shows, but this one with just the three hosts was a real treat.  This movie initiated some good discussion!

I had to look up how the film fared on ratings sites.

--On IMDB, it has a 5.7 from nearly 5000 ratings.  They're worth glancing at if you have time to kill.  Not super high, but much higher than the film deserves.  One of my favorite reviews:

7/10* It's OK

Onetrack9713 January 2019

Accents all over the place. Alyssa's been eating lots of pizza! She's pretty annoying.

--On Rotten Tomatoes, it's at 21% from 14 critic reviews.  71% from over 200 reviews.  Interestingly enough, one critic giving the film 8.5/10 had this to say about the film:

"Little Italy is a millennial's Romeo & Juliet."

Also, I found another stereotype in the film.  I present to you...the Canadian tuxedo.

[IRONicmerMAN 391]

Sorry, another incredible IMDB review.

10/10*

It Entertains !

donald-193537 November 2018

Being 1/2 Italian I coould relate. My wife really really enjoyed this movie instaed of watching the election results. Do yourself a favor--watch it any way you can & ENJOY. 11-6-18 Don Taylor, Jr

[Cakebug Tranch 6873]

2 hours ago, taylorannephoto said:

Oh my god I can't believe I forgot about a huge continuity error that made me holler with laughter during the sex scene.

Okay so while Emma Roberts is getting undressed she sees a photo on Hayden's dresser (that I am assuming was of his father?) and she immediately slaps it down so that they don't have to look at it again because she's totally ready to go to the bone zone. Well, the minute they start kissing and the camera follows them to the bed it pans over the dresser and that fucking photo is back up right with Hayden Senior looking down on them again. I was laughing so hard because I wouldn't have ever noticed that picture if they hadn't clearly pointed it out when she turned it face down. My friend was like, "Well clearly it was ghosts," which honestly would've been a way better movie.

That's Danny Aiello's IMDb picture, as noted above in the thread! So, his grandfather!

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000732/

[sycasey 2.0 2301]

7 hours ago, Cakebug Tranch said:

Bars around that region are a pretty reliable place to go watch games for the World Cup: every four years the area is packed with idiots in jerseys (usually Azzuri shirts) and a lot of the promotions include world flags to cover a lot of the teams in the tournament. In that sense, foreign flags in bars are not unfamiliar. In a broader sense, though, Canadians are generally incredibly patriotic about the maple leaf, so the national flag is everywhere, on everything. There is a general antipathy against the US, being our bigger, louder neighbour (yes, that has a U in it) so the anti-US sentiment is common, although that's seemingly lessened over the years with a general sense of quiet smug superiority, but in general, yes, it would be a little weird to see American flags so prominently displayed here. Not impossible, but a little unusual.

Right, I understand the phenomenon of bars showing World Cup games and having all the flags displayed. Same thing happens in America. In this movie there seem to be exactly three national flags prominently displayed (both in the bar and in the restaurant), only two of which actually make sense:

1. Canadian flags (makes sense, they're in Canada)
2. Italian flags (makes sense, it's an Italian neighborhood)
3. American flags (what?)

This may lend credence to the theory that everyone in Little Italy, Canada, is actually transplant from New York, hence the accents.

[taylor anne photo 11311]

5 minutes ago, Cakebug Tranch said:

That's Danny Aiello's IMDb picture, as noted above in the thread! So, his grandfather!

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000732/

Wait noted where??? I looked through this whole thing to see if this had already been mentioned (swear I'm not trying to be one of those people).

[Daventhal 2]

So confused at why they bothered to set this in Canada. I mean, obviously a lot of the people involved are from Toronto (writers, etc.), but I don't think they even mention Toronto by name, do they? You get that it's Toronto because Leo wears a Blue Jays shirt, you see the tower at one point and the sign for their Italian Fest has "College Street" written on it, but like other people have said, they didn't even film in Toronto's Little Italy. Toronto is used constantly to stand in for New York in films and television, and it does a passable job a lot of the time. But why would you set something in Toronto's Little Italy and then try to New York it up by actually filming key scenes in the Distillery District and other non-Little-Italy places around Toronto. weird.

Also, to echo the guy who said he was Indian and offended by this movie, I felt the same way. When that girl said "I'm going to squash you like a Malaria mosquito in Mumbai," I thought: "Wow. The clearly white writer of this movie is either straight-up racist or completely ignorant of how Indian people talk." But the guys who wrote the movie were named Steve Galluccio and Vinay Virmani... You'd think they would have at least been able to get their Italian and Indian stereotypes right. Maybe Virmani wrote the dialog for the Italian characters and Gallucio wrote for the Indian characters? Is that possible?

[hotironskillet 137]

In the beginning of this movie when they are kids, the girl is wearing a red shirt that says Mario on it and the boy is wearing a green shirt. I was sure the green shirt was going to say Luigi on it and it was a nod to Super Mario Bros and I was really disappointed that it wasn't.

[Cakebug Tranch 6873]

6 hours ago, IRONicmerMAN said:

Also, I found another stereotype in the film.  I present to you...the Canadian tuxedo.

When I first saw him cycling around in this jacket, I thought that there was no way that that could be licensed Blue Jays apparel, but some costume person had stuck the logo and the road jersey font on the back, but thanks to @IRONicmerMAN for the screengrab, which makes it clear that this is a real thing, evidenced by the Starter logo on the left wrist. Canadians love to lean into the stereotypes, including lumberjack plaid and the Canadian tuxedo denim, so I wouldn't be surprised if this terrible jacket is something that you can still buy at the SkyDome Jays Shop. Even with the awesome new Blue Jay logo, this thing looks awful.

[WatchOutForSnakes 807]

4 minutes ago, Cakebug Tranch said:

When I first saw him cycling around in this jacket, I thought that there was no way that that could be licensed Blue Jays apparel, but some costume person had stuck the logo and the road jersey font on the back, but thanks to @IRONicmerMAN for the screengrab, which makes it clear that this is a real thing, evidenced by the Starter logo on the left wrist. Canadians love to lean into the stereotypes, including lumberjack plaid and the Canadian tuxedo denim, so I wouldn't be surprised if this terrible jacket is something that you can still buy at the SkyDome Jays Shop. Even with the awesome new Blue Jay logo, this thing looks awful.

I just don't know what June was talking about with the hair and makeup crew.  I've never seen Hayden Christensen look so good! Ha! 

By the way, I have a theory that Hayden is fundamentally incapable of creating on-screen chemistry with anyone. 

 

[AmandaFactor 7]

Resident of "Little Italy, Canada" here. I think you owe us a live show at The Royal Cinema  just for:

a) thinking Canada is cold year-round
b) being surprised that "Canada" (Toronto) has a Little Italy (lots of major cities have Little Italy's)
c) waiting until the last few minutes of the podcast to do a five-second Google search to confirm where the movie takes place!

I blame our tourism board, actually. Historically they've done a terrible job of promoting Canada and especially Toronto. Anyways, COME TO TORONTO!

[grudlian. 4725]

21 minutes ago, AmandaFactor said:

Resident of "Little Italy, Canada" here. I think you owe us a live show at The Royal Cinema  just for:

a) thinking Canada is cold year-round
b) being surprised that "Canada" (Toronto) has a Little Italy (lots of major cities have Little Italy's)
c) waiting until the last few minutes of the podcast to do a five-second Google search to confirm where the movie takes place!

I blame our tourism board, actually. Historically they've done a terrible job of promoting Canada and especially Toronto. Anyways, COME TO TORONTO!

Would you describe the accents as accurate or extremely accurate?

[sycasey 2.0 2301]

1 hour ago, AmandaFactor said:

I blame our tourism board, actually. Historically they've done a terrible job of promoting Canada and especially Toronto. Anyways, COME TO TORONTO!

Yeah, but what's the temperature these days?

[taylor anne photo 11311]

6 hours ago, Cakebug Tranch said:

That's Danny Aiello's IMDb picture, as noted above in the thread! So, his grandfather!

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000732/

No dude I'm serious lol. I skimmed the whole thing again and still didn't see someone note that very specific photo on the dresser so you gotta tell me where it was because I wanna see the post lol.

[actionactioncut 14]

On 2/1/2019 at 7:32 PM, HeyTedBaxter said:

Sorry, it's my pet peeve when people say "Canadian accent."

There are people who can explain this better than I can, but there is no "Canadian accent."  When people say that, they are thinking of an Ontario or Alberta accent. I am from Newfoundland (pronounced New-Found-LAND) and no one talks with what people would call a Canadian accent. We sound Irish. 

 

Seriously. Somehow Americans can acknowledge that people from New York City don't sound like people from Baltimore (and hell, accents vary across New York state), yet all Canadians sound the same? I mean, vis-à-vis Newfoundland, I wish us Torontonias went around calling people "b'y", but that's neither here nor there...

[gigi-tastic 2322]

9 hours ago, IRONicmerMAN said:

Maybe it's just me, but for me, this is one of the best episodes in a while.  I enjoy guests and live shows, but this one with just the three hosts was a real treat.  This movie initiated some good discussion!

I had to look up how the film fared on ratings sites.

--On IMDB, it has a 5.7 from nearly 5000 ratings.  They're worth glancing at if you have time to kill.  Not super high, but much higher than the film deserves.  One of my favorite reviews:

7/10* It's OK

Onetrack9713 January 2019

Accents all over the place. Alyssa's been eating lots of pizza! She's pretty annoying.

--On Rotten Tomatoes, it's at 21% from 14 critic reviews.  71% from over 200 reviews.  Interestingly enough, one critic giving the film 8.5/10 had this to say about the film:

"Little Italy is a millennial's Romeo & Juliet."

Also, I found another stereotype in the film.  I present to you...the Canadian tuxedo.

Is it just me or does it look like he's wearing a pair of women's jeans? The fit is ridiculous and the rolled leg makes his legs look very weird and short. I know at least a dozen women with this exact pair of jeans.

[Cakebug Tranch 6873]

1 hour ago, taylorannephoto said:

No dude I'm serious lol. I skimmed the whole thing again and still didn't see someone note that very specific photo on the dresser so you gotta tell me where it was because I wanna see the post lol.

I heard it somewhere. Was it in the episode? I swear I didn't make it up.

[Brutalitops 3]

I watched Little Italy during a flight out of Vancouver a few days ago and it was in the top 10 for in-flight entertainment, which I hope is due to the podcast. I didn't notice Air Canada in the movie at all, so maybe it was removed for the WestJet cut of the movie. (WestJet is the Canadian alternative to Air Canada)

I found it quite strange how the only food that seems to exist in Toronto's little Italy is pizza. During Nikki and Lay-o's dinner date the appetizers appear to be pizza, followed by a main course of pizza. Even at the wedding, the "cake" is just a bunch of pizzas. I don't remember if they actually get anything to eat when they go to Korma Sutra, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was also pizza.