96 Greers

Content note: we discuss the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic at length. If you've listened to any previous episodes of 96 Greers, you may have asked yourself a question.  And there was an answer to that question-- up until this episode, where the answer changed.  And you may doubt that I actually know the question that you asked yourself, and you may be right or you may be wrong, but I'm not going to tell you here, because your downloads give me the dopamine that gets me through the hour before I take my antidepressants, so you're go...

Richard Linklater is a beloved American auteur with a heart as big as his Texas homeland and a colorful Boomer childhood (that almost assuredly included experimenting with psychedelics) to influence the stories he tells.  So it stands to reason that he would be the ideal writer/director for a film adaptation of a novel about a Los Angeles vanguard architect turned Seattle stay-at-home mom played by iconic ice queen Cate Blanchett-- and not a single frame of it Rotoscoped.  This film left us with so many questions:  why is the title question answered in the first scene?  Can you accu...

Zig-a-zig ha, cinephiles!  We're rolling back to 1997-- or at least, we're rolling back to 2010 rolling back to 1997, with Love and Other Drugs!  Anne Hathaway, Jake Gyllenhaal, the director of Glory and The Last Samurai?  That's the best trio since romcoms where two prickly assholes shack up, social issue dramas that assign blame to nobody, and raunchy sex comedies about boner pills!  Patrick presents a unified theory of Judy Greer attractiveness and Barry (fka Reg) finds a way to shoehorn in a discussion of a favorite arthouse director.  Yeah baby!

This episode of 96 Greers is notable for documenting a moment in time when TikTok the Gray had died, but had not yet made its dramatic return as TikTok the [tool of] White [supremacy].  It's also notable as fan service for anyone who may fondly remember the episodes of Director's Club where Barry helped out with the song parodies (and by anyone, we mean Jim).  It is not notable for the movie that we covered, American Dreamz, a comedy-flavored film legally distinct from satire.  But you should still listen to it!

It's 2025, whether we like it or not!  And as the old saying goes:  new year, new Greer.  Patrick and Barry (fka Reg) are stroking their beards and nodding seriously at the Adam Goldberg-directed I Love Your Work.  This dark tale of Hollywood delirium may be the closest that we get to being able to discuss a Hitchcock movie on this podcast.  Or David Lynch.  Or Jacques Demy.  It's a whole lot.  Other layers of reality in this episode include overly-transparent merchandise strategizing,  Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, and Patrick's least-favorite euphemism for a body part.  (CW emetophobia) 

We got Christmas out of the way early with our last episode, now we're on to the next big holiday that speaks to what really matters in This Country:  mid-season pilots!  Reg and Patrick focus test The TV Set, a 2006 film by the guy who made Red One.  Will they feel comforted by over-the-top performances and stock characters, or intimidated and annoyed by sardonic humor that definitely isn't satire?  Stick around for David Duchovny nostalgia boners, blatant stealing from smarter podcasts, and an Other Segment that's literally side-splitting. 

Yes, it's mid-November 2024 and we are covering a "faith-based" movie.  No, we don't talk about the election.  Yes, "faith" is a euphemism for Christian.  No, we haven't been "saved."  Yes, my use of quotation marks around "saved" is meant to be sarcastic.  No, I'm not playing an ad hoc improv game with myself in the description field of my podcast, why do you ask.  Yes, we talk about Judy Greer a lot.    Here is the whole album of this episode's festive holiday music, if your curiosity hasn't been satisfied. 

It's Halloween Kills, and everyone is entitled to one good podcast.  Or something.  We've waited a whole year to return to Haddonfield for the 2021 legasequel sequel to 2018's Halloween, the legasequel to Halloween.  We talk comparisons to another big-name legasequel trilogy and discover that we see a lot of ourselves in some of Michael Myers' victims.  Who did the better Loomis impression?  Our contact deets are at the end of every episode!

Don't turn out the light, listener, because you're about to hear (a plot summary and criticism of) a G-G-G-Ghost Story!  From the twisted mind of Justin Long-- yes, the guy who played relatable nerds in 00s comedies and also got turned into a manwalrus in that one movie-- comes a harrowing tale from the land of Tampa, Florida! It’s Lady of the Manor, a stoner-buddy-spooky comedy.  Like any good mystery,  Reg and Patrick have more questions than answers for this one.  Question #1:  Would a loving God allow you listen to this episode?  Answer: probably!

Reg and Patrick make a podcast, and in this episode, they're getting deep inside The Amateurs.  This "indie" comedy about a small town group of slackers who decide to make a porno features some red hot meta-humor and an orgy of acting talent, and you know Judy Greer is right there among them.  After this scintillating conversation, don't be surprised if you find yourself searching "babaloos" on RedTube, or at least doing a little reflection on your moral responsibility to public health.  Rowr!

The Summer of Greer has one more episode before we move onto the First Day of School of Greer.  Is it another installment in a sprawling sci-fi franchise?  Yes.  Is JG a mom?  Yes.  Does she, as we hoped, get the best role we're see all summer?  What I can tell you is that "A Fish Called Selma" is the nineteenth episode of the decent season of The Simpsons.  Summer days, drifting away, but oh! Those rebellious apes!

The Summer of Greer marches on, hurrah hurrah!  Another mid-2010s big budget action movie, another underwritten mom role for Judy Greer.  Reg and Patrick have the dubious honor of digging into the MCU with 2015's Ant-Man.  Gabe Powers from Genre Grinder makes a special appearance as the wise comic book expert who provides the necessary exposition for our adventure searching for traces of the lost director (Edgar Wright), remembering the ants of our childhoods, and getting horny for entomologists.  Excelsior!

Fun fact:  this is the third movie we have covered so far where Judy Greer plays a Karen.  Not a Karen-Karen, just a mom named Karen.  Well, she might be a Karen-Karen;  we don't get enough information about her, for all we know there's a version of the script out there where she's writing a hate-filled screed on Facebook about transgender GMO dinosaurs.  And why would Karen be writing a hate-filled screed about transgender GMO dinosaurs if she is, in fact, a Karen-Karen?  Because we're jumping on the Nostalgia Express and heading back to Isla Nublar for Jurassic World, baby! 

The year was 2015, and Judy Greer's film career saw her journeying through the Land of Big-Budget Franchise Movies.  Reg and Patrick are setting the air conditioner on high and expectations on low for a mini-series we are calling The Summer of Greer. Brad Bird's theme-park-turned-two-hour-family-friendly-action film Tomorrowland taught that scientific ingenuity and gumption are the key to solving pretty much any problem.  So Reg and Patrick invented a special high-powered microscope to be able to observe Judy Greer's performance.  Luckily, there are plot holes to puzzle over, disagreeable politics to sneer at, and prepositions to end sentences wit...

We did it again!  But... wait.  Did we?  What if we didn't?  What if we did something else?  What if we did something so long ago that, sitting here today, I can't even remember the names of one of the things, but we pretended like it was just done yesterday?  And what if Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was set in a dystopian future and the main character was a magic DJ in an underground rave culture/resistance movement?  because that's the strongest memory I have of the Entourage movie, and I fucking had to watch the fucking Entourage movie fo...

Choo-choo movie nerds, The 15:17 to Paris is leaving the station!  Legit question for listening Americans:  how do Reg and Patrick abide the 88-94 year old director who fills their TV with 94 minutes of military propaganda while their small audience awaits their opinions?  Can a mostly forgotten Trump-era Clint Eastwood movie share anything in common with Iranian New Wave cinema?  How does Judy Greer fare with Eastwood's reportedly breakneck production speed?  Does the kid who sat next to you in your sophomore year computer class make for a good action film protagonist?  We're doing our own research into mysterious screenwriters, MTV re...

Our wife told us not to record this podcast.  But Reg and Patrick are back to offend everyone and ask the tough questions about BARRY MUNDAY, a typical Boy-Loses-Testicles-and-Forgets-He-Met-Girl comedy, such as: Has there ever been an actually funny scene set at a support group? Will 96 Greers become a Patrick Wilson fancast? Can one third of the screenwriting team behind Rock of Ages successfully channel the universal unconscious and tap into the ur-myth of the hero's journey? All of this, plus an unnecessarily long Other Segment, awaits your ears!  ...

In February, we asked a deeply inane question:  What Do Women Want?  In March, we asked an even more inane question:  What Do Children Want?  Two dozen episodes into Judy Greer's filmography, and we have yet to cover a work aimed specifically at children (unless you count Rusty's Learning to Listen: Part 8).  As a pair of childless film snobs who find themselves out to sea, we dip our toes into the family move genre with the latest film from singular Irish animation studio Cartoon Saloon (The Secret of Kells, The Breadwinner), delve into diverting interpretations of the story, and go of...

STOP!  Are you aware that you are currently on the Internet?  When's the last time you even looked up from that screen?  Are you even aware what's happening to The Children?  Or maybe you yourself are so enthralled by this terrible technology that you are already lost in the dark labyrinth of mild BDSM fantasies, horny housewives in baggy sweaters, photos of skinny white girls, photos of skinny white girls in WIGS, and Carl Sagan.  Prepare yourself for 2014 metalinear moral panic drama Men, Women, and Children, which uncovers the horrible things that can happen when Jason Reitman gets behind a cam...

Join Reg and Patrick as they live, laugh, and love through the Nancy Meyers written and directed rom-com What Women Want.  What do women want:  a living wage, professional relationships built on mutual respect, and bodily autonomy?  Maybe, but have you considered: Mel Gibson?  Reg and Patrick have, because he's the protagonist of this movie!  They didn't have a choice.   Content note: suicidal ideation