Tales From the Rec Room

Would it even be a season of TFTRR without super best friend of the show Liz stopping by? Following up on our deep dive into millennial pop divas, we detour into pop star movie vehicle town on the weirdly slow cross-country road trip that is Crossroads. Were critics and audiences way too unfair to this movie or… was it actually kind of bad and we just feel guilty for everything else we put Britney through? Is it possible to include all this horrific subject matter in a movie targeted at tweens? Can we please have a little less exposition and more actual acting, or however that Elvis song goes? And maybe spare some Kim Cattrall? Plus, Bree’s nephew is born in the middle of the podcast. No, really.

As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a podcast host. Being a podcast host to me was better than being the president of the United States! Mynty Cicero returns to the podcast to discuss Goodfellas and, more broadly, the legacy of organized crime, the mafia, Martin Scorcese and his gangster movies. We go over the “film bro” persona that has been much discussed over the last 20 years and what role Scorcese and Goodfellas played in this. Bree tries to convince Mynt that Ray Liotta is a good actor. Is it OK for non-Italians to play Italians? How about all the Jewish stuff in this movie? Also, is Christopher Nolan the brutalism of directors?

No items, Fox only, Final destination. It’s time for our annual video game episode! Bree and video game culture correspondent Ted Raymond – host of Let’s Playmond With Ted Raymond – party (game) like it’s 1999 with a look back at Super Smash Bros and the franchise that followed. We discuss the divisive nerdiness and overcorrection that resulted in Melee’s pivot, the limitations of the cartridge era, Nintendo’s evolution to the party game platform and the very sexy Captain Falcon.

Friend of the show Kelsey Goldman whip out their notebooks full of observations for their triumphant return to the mid-90s. In this fun and introspective episode, we revisit Nickelodeon’s first feature-length movie, Harriet the Spy. We discuss the evolution of the Kid Power genre, the movie’s meditations on the loneliness of childhood – which both of us experienced – Harriet’s iconic style and, of course, the career trajectory of the gone-too-soon Michelle Trachtenberg. There’s also a lot of ponderance on this movie’s portrayal of class, friend groups and parents that are neither amazing nor terrible at it!

Well-rounded multimedia producer and former music journalist Ryan Stephenson Price stops by to continue our journey through the early aughts and to go to where the podcast has never gone before: pop punk! Yellowcard’s violin gimmick didn’t win them a lot of fans with critics, but they were much loved by sort-of-angry teenagers everywhere – and then they sort of went away, and then came back, and then went away, but not really, and now they’re back again! We discuss the commercial rise of pop punk (and where it went), cynicism versus idealism versus the evil pragmatism of wanting to make money as a musician, the technical and theoretical challenge of being a drummer and the millennial obsession with nostalgia.

Former high school wallflower Helen joins Bree, who really should have been more of a wallflower in high school, to discuss the 1999 novel The Perks of Being a Wallflower. We discuss the pace of change in pop culture from the early to late 90s, how we see ourselves in Charlie, how to communicate deeply internalized feelings in a book versus a movie, how music shapes (or doesn’t shape) your adolescence and much more! This episode deals with issues of childhood sexual abuse and substance abuse.

Welcome to Season 3, where you can’t sleep at night, because everyone is screaming! We Hate Movies cohost, improviser and former Smash Mouth frontman impersonator Stephen Sajdak joins us to, for some reason, revisit the 2004 attempted Ashton Kutcher reinvention, The Butterfly Effect. We’d say Kutcher’s laughable attempt at a dramatic turn is the most offensive thing about this movie, but man, the mentally ill really get it, don’t they? In true TFTRR tradition, we go back to the best and the worst (no, seriously, the worst) of 2004, a time when you could still pretend mental health facilities were nightmare factories and make tasteless prison jokes while still claiming to be a serious movie. Plus, we discuss the Edgy Media Economy, this movie’s weird insistence on attachment to your childhood friends and high school sweethearts and, of course, the Bash Brothers.

“You talk about things that are important to me, I’m gonna talk about Danny DeVito in that couch.” You really thought it was going to be a TFTRR special week without Liz? No way. Comms pro and hockey writer Liz shows up to discuss traumatic Christmas traditions, Rashoman-ing your own life, actors getting too pretty for their own good, the newfound stigma of rewatch podcasts and more. What were your favourite toys? What were your Christmas traditions? Turns out, we don’t care, we’re just watching Glenn Howerton’s little kicks!

“Another sympathetic reaction is watching people above the age of 30 fall on their backs. How is he walking?!” New friend of the show Amber Flannery Field – the only good tour guide in New York City – stops by to discuss Home Alone 2: Lost in New York. Strap the heck in for a discussion on the highly protected institution of the white American boy, the “clean-up” of New York City in the 90s, the racial politics of tourism, power, homelessness, violence and – look out below – Brenda Fricker. Settle in and learn why they call Amber “America’s comic.” Also, what is a Lynchian couch? Gotta listen ‘til the end. This is about Home Alone 2, by the way.

“Would you buy an NHL game with Steven Lorentz on it?” “I mean… yes?” Shove this up your stocking! Bree and Mike Stephens get surprisingly all up in their feelings for a classic Christmas comfort watch: The Simpsons Season 7’s “Marge Be Not Proud.” We start Freud-raging, discussing the dynamic between mothers and sons, tough love, the lack of 90’s schmaltzy Christmas movies, the pain of Bart, and, of course, video game culture, uh huh?. Plus, a lot about Lawrence Tierney, that’s right. Well, try to have a Merry Christmas.