Dumpsterpiece Theatre

098 - I'll Be Seeing You by Lurlene McDaniel

Episode 98: I'll Be Seeing You by Lurlene McDaniel Dumpsterpiece Theatre cracks open a 1996 Lurlene McDaniel paperback and finds exactly what you'd expect: overdramatic teenagers, medically detailed suffering, and one girl's heroic commitment to making everything worse for herself. I'll Be Seeing You follows 16-year-old Carley Mattea - hospitalized with an infected broken leg from a rollerblading incident - and Kyle Weston, a chemistry club enthusiast who burned his corneas (and some of his chest) trying to make homemade rocket fuel. He's temporarily blind. She has a facial deformity from childhood tumor surgery. They meet in the pediatric ward of Knoxville General Hospital, which in 1996 apparently had rooms the size of studio apartments and a staff that dispensed sleeping pills like breath mints. Rather than tell the cute blind boy about her face at literally any of the dozen natural opportunities, Carley instead constructs an escalating tower of lies that includes: dodging his parents, refusing to let him touch the left side of her face, conscripting her hot sister Janelle into a wheelchair-based impersonation scheme, inventing a fake jealous boyfriend named Jon (who is actually her sister's boyfriend), and orchestrating a coffee shop viewing arrangement where Kyle can look at the wrong girl from across the room and then leave. We are genuinely impressed that Lurlene did her ophthalmological homework on acid versus alkaline chemical burns. Lurleen's teenage boys, however, remain consistently terrible, with Janelle's boyfriend Jon delivering the all-timer: "You're not normal, but you're all right, Carly." Peak Dumpster Moments: ◆ Carley's parents leave their hospitalized teenager alone for days because the hospital is 60 miles away and they have a bookstore to run - different times, folks ◆ Kyle's chemistry club origin story. Rule one of chemistry club: don't talk about chemistry club. ◆ The sister switcheroo: Janelle sits in a wheelchair with a blanket over her legs and is told to "just mimic my voice" - a plan with zero chance of working on a guy whose other senses are heightened ◆ Carley invents a fictitious boyfriend whose name is… Jon. Which is also the name of her sister's actual boyfriend. Or was it George Glass? ◆ The Mudpie coffee shop sting operation, where Kyle agrees to "see her from a distance". ◆ Liz reads aloud the line where Kyle expresses regret that they didn't meet two years later, when plastic surgery would have made Carley "more acceptable." Bad timing, Kyle. ◆ Kyle reads books on quantum theory. On audiobook. ◆ John's apology to Carley for calling her a dog face boils down to "sorry you heard that, but your sister's hot and I don't want you ruining this for me" ◆ Dr. Chafoo. We just enjoy saying Dr. Chafoo. The Tangent Files: Liz discusses the new busy-mom buzzword "Maycember" (or Maytember?), which Scott firmly does not believe is a real thing. Justin Timberlake's DUI situation comes up. We then take a hard left into the Fisher-Price PXL 2000, the Home Alone 2 Talk Boy, the lost art of recording songs off the radio, and the ideal silence gap between mixtape tracks. Scott cops to once owning a "For Your Consideration" bootleg of Fellowship of the Ring, plugs the LOTR 25th-anniversary theatrical re-release, and concludes that Peter Jackson is, fairly, sitting on his pile of money. And Scott's "Who are you?" Airbnb incident - the time he sat up in bed and demanded, in perfect theatrical diction, to know who was in the room - is dragged out of the archives and entered into the canon. Coming Up Next: Horse Sense (1999), a Disney Channel movie starring Joey Lawrence and Andrew Lawrence — but not the third Lawrence brother, which is a travesty. A spoiled city kid gets sentenced to ranch life with his cousin and aunt. Liz is anticipating terrible horsemanship. The trope bingo board may make its debut. Yee-haw. Goodreads [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/127438.I_ll_Be_Seeing_You] Interview with Lurlene [https://www.bookpage.com/interviews/8063-lurlene-mcdaniel-ya/] Author Page [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/authors/19817/lurlene-mcdaniel/]

097 - My Life with the Walter Boys S1E4-5 [Netflix]

Episode 97: My Life with the Walter Boys (S1E4-5) We return to Silver Falls, Colorado for another hearty helping of Walter Boys, where seven teenage boys, one transplanted New York City girl, and approximately zero well-developed supporting characters continue to grind their way through a love triangle nobody asked for. Episode 4 is titled "Nineteen" (there's a reason, you'll figure it out about three seconds before the show tells you), and Episode 5 is titled "Thanksgiving," because when you're two-for-two on uninspired titles, why start trying now? Before we get into it, Liz unveils her long-promised trope bingo board - 24 squares including Emily Good Ideas, Quirk Chungus, Chekhov's Teapot, Toby Tucker, "Am I a f-ing bet?", and the ever-reliable "how are they affording that?" We workshop squares, argue about overlap, and debate what the loser has to make for dinner. Then we plunge into two episodes where Jackie breaks a teapot, breaks a curfew, jumps onto a circuit breaker panel with the confidence of a licensed electrician, and very nearly breaks both Walter brothers in a single 48-hour period. Scott is unconvinced. Liz is annoyed by everyone. Nobody can remember which brother is which. Peak Dumpster Moments: ◆ Jackie, during a massive Colorado storm, fixes a whole-house power outage by flipping one 30-amp double-gang breaker - which Scott takes personally ◆ The English teacher, Mr. Chaudry, asks the guidance counselor out and threatens to put a little icing on her cake ◆ A truth-or-dare round at an unsanctioned lake house party with a comically oversized fire pit ◆ "I wanna put my mouth on your mouth" ◆ Mark Blucas wields a Butler of Sheffield elk-handled knife to carve the turkey. We question whether production would ever let Mark Blucas hold an actual sharp object. ◆ Haley shows up with a hairdo so structurally ambitious it constitutes a jumpscare The Tangent Files: A detour into Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet. The goth band auditioning at the Lark launches a prolonged effort to remember the name of Richmond's favorite band from The IT Crowd. Uncle Richard arrives for Thanksgiving looking like he's fresh off a Joseph A. Bank East Coast Convention. Liz delivers a full-throated sermon on the madness of eating Thanksgiving dinner at one in the afternoon. We also learn that "Treehenge" is apparently a real thing, or at least as real as "Manhattanhenge," which is dubious. The Verdict: Scott notes that the Thanksgiving episode is measurably better-produced than its predecessors, though both hosts remain united in their disdain for roughly every character except for George Walter, who is essentially Mark Blucas being a dad. We crown the show a fingerling potato - interesting-looking, structurally puzzling, and nobody asks for them at dinner. Scott concurs. A finger blasted fingerling, if you will. Coming Up Next: I'll Be Seeing You by Lurlene McDaniel, a 1996 weepy about a 17-year-old named Kyle who is blinded in a chemistry experiment explosion (apparently he poured the water into the acid) and the 16-year-old girl with a facial deformity who falls for him in the hospital. The cover features Kyle in Vietnam-bandana eye-gauze sporting a near-Hasselhoff quaff and 17-year-old forearms that could only belong to a Hobbit. Also: a pair of completely unnecessary background crutches. We dive in. IMDB [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8323628/episodes/?season=1&ref_=tt_eps_sn_1] Rotten Tomatoes [https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/my_life_with_the_walter_boys/s01] Metacritic [https://www.metacritic.com/tv/my-life-with-the-walter-boys/season-1/]

096 - Leaving Las Vegas

Episode 96: Leaving Las Vegas Dumpsterpiece Theatre takes a sharp detour from its usual diet of romantic comedy slop to tackle a genuinely good (and devastating) film. Nic Cage plays a Hollywood screenwriter who cashes in his severance check, packs a suitcase full of liquor bottles and heads to Vegas to drink himself to death. Elizabeth Shue is the escort who falls for him anyway. It's bleak. It's heavy. We watched it so you don't have to, though in this case you probably should. We run the inflation math on a 1995 hooker, debate whether a liquor store can legally sell one man that much alcohol, and try to figure out how someone survives weeks without food on nothing but bottom-shelf vodka and the occasional screwdriver. There's a spirited defense of Nic Cage as a legitimate actor, an Always Sunny comparison that writes itself, and a motel called the Whole Year Inn that Ben's booze-addled brain reads very differently. Scott shares the tale of a Vegas cab driver who handed him a brothel catalog before he'd even left the airport, and we learn that Nic Cage turned down the role of Harry in Dumb and Dumber to make this film - a casting what-if that briefly breaks our brains. Peak Moments: ◆ Ben packing for his big move: every bottle of liquor in the hotel room goes in the suitcase. Clothes? One shirt. Priorities. ◆ The rental agreement that comes with a very specific monthly payment arrangement. "I accept your terms." ◆ A poolside romantic getaway that goes sideways when Ben tries to retrieve his "drinky" and obliterates a glass table. "I'm like a prickly pear." ◆ Julian Lennon shows up as a bartender. French Stewart is apparently somewhere in this movie as "Businessman Number Two." Neither of us spotted him. ◆ A cab driver delivers one of the most callous lines in film history to a visibly beaten woman. We are not okay. The Tangent Files: A discussion of first-person-POV spiral movies produces a surprisingly deep list including Elijah Wood as a serial killer, a Tokyo drug dealer who experiences the afterlife through his own blinks, and a dance troupe whose sangria gets spiked with LSD. We also learn that the author of the source novel got his start writing an episode of Rugrats - and was disgusted by the editorial changes. There's a Laserdisc rabbit hole involving a rumored unrated cut, eBay listings between $200 and $1,000, and the open question of whether you can even find a player anymore. Scott may or may not be shopping. The Verdict: A well-acted, well-written film that makes you never want to drink again. One of those movies you see once and say "I'm good." We put it in the same category as Requiem for a Dream Too heavy for the dumpster scale, so Liz decides to debut the Potato Poll instead. This one's a blue potato. Coming Up Next: My Life with the Walter Boys - a hard left back into our regularly scheduled programming, assuming we can remember any of their names. Cole, Alex, Benny, Qbert, Filthy Dave, Dirty Sanchez... we'll figure it out. IMDB [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113627/] Rotten Tomatoes [https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/leaving_las_vegas] Metacritic [https://www.metacritic.com/movie/leaving-las-vegas/]

095 - People We Meet on Vacation [Netflix]

Episode 95: People We Meet on Vacation Netflix rolls another rom-com off the assembly line with People We Meet on Vacation, and this one checks so many formula boxes we're officially proposing trope bingo cards. You've got your opposites attract, your one-bed situation, your rain kiss, your declaration of love blocking traffic - the works. The anamorphic lenses make half the shots look like someone smeared Vaseline on the camera, and the title doesn't make any sense. We have thoughts about that. We dig into the When Harry Met Sally parallels, debate whether you could actually lock your keys in a 2016 Subaru, question why a man in his early thirties throws out his back from a gentle reach, and have a serious disagreement about saxophone in music. There's a chainsaw-carved Bigfoot that becomes the emotional backbone of the entire film, a wedding officiant making some bold wardrobe choices that nobody acknowledges, and a climactic romantic scene that one of us believes got completely torpedoed by wooden acting. We also spend some time on the logic of chasing a jogger through a neighborhood when you could simply wait on his porch. Peak Dumpster Moments: ◆ A gas station wishing well that exists solely as a plot device to strand our leads at a motel with - you guessed it - only one room available. The other room has "a big stain on the floor." Subtle. ◆ A proposal that happens with suspicious speed after a friend-zoning. We have opinions about the ethics of this. ◆ One of us gets genuinely distracted by an outfit involving red cowboy boots and what can only be described as genie cosplay. ◆ Mr. Yeti: therapist, confidant, load-bearing emotional prop. You'll understand when you see it. ◆ The big romantic payoff features the line "You're not a vacation to me. You're home." We award it the Pulitzer it deserves. The Tangent Files: A casual mention of Jameela Jamil playing Poppy's boss spiraled into a full investigation of her coming out as "sapiosexual" - which, as far as we can tell, just means having standards. This led to the discovery that the opposite is called "morosexual," that Jameela once had an accidental orgasm DJing on top of speakers at a farmers' ball, and that WebMD has an entry for all of this. We also revisited the legendary Tuscan Whole Milk and Three Wolf Moon reviews on Amazon - one of which is miraculously still live with 3,100 reviews including "In the beginning God created the heavens and the shirt." A Niagara Falls hotel tangent revealed bed bugs, a $200 fine for eating a sandwich at a public table, and the fact that Canada will not let you keep the Do Not Disturb sign up for more than a couple of days. The Verdict: It doesn't make your eyes bleed, but it doesn't make you feel much of anything either. Taylor Swift is contractually present. The title still doesn't make sense. 2 out of 5 dumpsters / 3 out of 5 dumpsters. Coming Up Next: Leaving Las Vegas - Nic Cage drinks himself to death in the desert, Elizabeth Shue is a seen-it-all hooker, and we may or may not end up doing a full Battle of the Vegases. IMDB [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt22740896/] Rotten Tomatoes [https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/people_we_meet_on_vacation] Metacritic [https://www.metacritic.com/movie/people-we-meet-on-vacation/]

094 - My Life with the Walter Boys S1E2-3 [Netflix]

Episode 94: My Life with the Walter Boys - S1E2-3 We're back in Silver Falls - population: one of every kind of person, apparently - for episodes two and three of My Life with the Walter Boys. The chaos of the pilot has not subsided. The character count has not decreased. The timeline still makes no sense. And somehow, nobody in this house has thought to split the bathroom schedule between two floors until now. Episode two kicks off with a prank war. (Bleach requires dwell time. This is not up for debate.) This also prompts a detour into some deeply questionable personal hair history - we're talking bleached locks, a thin mustache, and a chin strap that lasted approximately one week but has lived rent-free in someone's memory ever since. Meanwhile, Silver Falls continues to flex its improbable progressivism via the Lark Café, which is apparently serving vegan flapjacks and quinoa-based items to a population of football-worshipping ranchers without a hint of irony. Nobody questions this. Nobody should have to. Episode three, "The Cole Effect," brings us homecoming - and with it, the show's most accurate nature documentary moment: Alex carefully constructs a romantic straw-loft moment with Jackie (pulling exactly one piece of straw from a girl completely covered in the stuff), only for Cole to materialize like an apex predator and force the cheetah to slink back into the tall grass. He warmed her up for you, man. That's just tragic. Peak Dumpster Moments: * Jackie's bleached hair is magically back to normal by the next morning. She apparently found an exact L'Oreal match for her hair color, purchased it, applied it, and dried it before going to bed - all off-screen and without comment. * Mark Blucas probably did not actually drive the bobcat. They took the keys out. They put the sound in post. * Cole auctions himself off at the homecoming fundraiser with full crowd-work energy - and a grandmother outbids everyone at $500. She's not dead yet, and she knows what she wants. * Haley's solution to a cash-strapped wedding: sell the dress. Will's response: dramatic exit. The dress was kind of fugly anyway. * The family's vet is being paid in persimmons. George has thoughts about this. * Cole is failing every class. The school has not contacted the parents. Nobody is checking Canvas. * Alex and Cole have apparently both liked the same girl before, with Cole always winning. Isaac's reaction: "Again?" The drama is geological in depth. The Tangent Report: A conversation about the Walter family's apple farming operation - and their catastrophic moth infestation (not moss, moths, like "I love lamp") - spiraled into a full live reading from AppleRankings.com, where the Arkansas Black Apple earns a 23/100 and the descriptor "a teeth-shattering oddity," and the Newtown Pippin apple pulls a 19/100 with the tagline "Long Island's sand-filled condom" - and somehow ranks #3 for cider. The Sweet Tango, for the record, is nearly perfect. The Holy Grail. Coming Up Next: People We Meet on Vacation - a Netflix rom-com featuring Alfie from Emily in Paris, the girl from The Good Place, and Cameron from Ferris Bueller. It looks bad. We can't wait. IMDB [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8323628/episodes/?season=1&ref_=tt_eps_sn_1] Rotten Tomatoes [https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/my_life_with_the_walter_boys/s01] Metacritic [https://www.metacritic.com/tv/my-life-with-the-walter-boys/season-1/]