Spoilerpiece Theatre Episode 126: La La Land

“Spoilerpiece Theatre” is a weekly movie podcast where I talk about new releases with fellow BOFCA critics Dave Riedel and Kris Jenson. We don’t give a shit about spoilers. We just want to talk about the movies.

In Episode 126 below, we review La La Land, The Dressmaker, 13th, and Why Him? among others. The episode opens with a segment of “Catching up with Crean,” aka “Crewind,” where I share my issues with The Handmaiden (at 6:18) before I cover the sharp Netflix documentary 13th (at 9:24), which has a well-formed argument about the exploitation of minorities by US lawmakers and the prison industrial complex. After that I tackle The Dressmaker (at 13:32), a zany movie that’s overstuffed with plot, yet funny and engaging, with one hell of an ending. Starting at 24:00, Kris and Dave provide very brief recaps of several films including The Little Prince, Red Turtle, The Fits, De Palma, Zootopia, and Morris from America. Once they get tired of recapping, they move on to this week’s two main events. Dave shares the excruciating agony that is Why Him? (at 32:42), or as he calls it “Why Me?”. Then finally, he and Kris review La La Land (at 42:24), a musical with Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone, which they really disagree about.