The Family That’s Prey Together, Pt. 2 — The End of Oak Street

27:51there you have it grand for the win check out grandappliance.com for full details Denise! get out of there run!

28:17now it's time for connections when we bring these two films together and talk about all the things they have in common. I mean, the most obvious thing is like it's fractured families and children in peril, is Genevieve's phrasing here on our list of connections. But yeah, they're family dramas and they're about dramas about keeping families not just together but alive, right? Yeah. I mean, it's a family survival narrative and the actual makeup of the families are different. And, you know, in War of the Worlds, we are dealing with a already broken family, but maybe like a family that is, you know, figuring out its next phase in the face of an alien invasion.

29:00Whereas End of Oak Street is more about bringing a fractured family, repairing the cracks in a fractured family, specifically in the marriage between Anne Hathaway and Ewan McGregor. And again, I think we really need to move to the ending here in order to fully talk about this connection. So maybe should we? I feel like we could leave that for the end. I feel like there's a little more to explore here just in terms of, I mean, there is the difference between Ray and Marianne's marriage is kaput. There is no sense in the movie that we're waiting for them to get back together or that Tim is the bad guy Baxter that needs to be overcome.

29:44Whereas I think we're supposed to be rooting for Greg and Denise. Are we in Oak Street? I didn't care a whole lot about that. Any failure to not have that feeling probably has more to do with the film's shortcomings than your own. Yeah, I mean, I think one of the film's shortcomings is that it just kind of expects you to want these people not to break up. I mean, for a Spielbergian as this film is, I feel like that's kind of another element of it. just like the assumption that a broken family is bad, regardless of the specifics of the people in that marriage. I think the interesting thing there, though, is, I mean, it is partially broken because Ewan McGregor's character has lost his job and is lying about it and is dealing with a lot of anxiety that he's not sharing with his partner.

30:37He's, you know, keeping secrets that he's keeping out of pride, effectively. And in the process, he's like not letting his life partner help and And he's adding a lot of stress to the relationship. But Denise, Anne Hathaway's character, we don't really know why. Like, we know that she wants out. She's writing this novel that is like the story of somebody stuck in a suburban life and marriage with kids who is constantly fantasizing about and kind of secretly planning an escape. And we never really get a lot of perspective into what that means for her, how far her personal frustration goes. Is she actually fantasizing about this?

31:22Given how much the analysis, the neighbor's analysis of her novel centered on that image of an already packed yellow suitcase, I kept waiting for the reveal where it turns out that she's got such a suitcase. But no, maybe it's all just a fantasy. Hell, maybe it's just a novel. It's unclear what she's expressing. She doesn't have a suitcase like that, though. Well, and now that you that you pointed out the photo of her earlier in life with the gun, it does now I am kind of like grafting a backstory that we do not get on to this character of her being someone who, you know, maybe has a little bit of a danger drive or craving for adventure or whatever.

32:02And she gets it through this experience, you know. And again, the movie doesn't really explicate this in any way. And maybe if it had, it would have felt a little richer than it does. But I can squint and see a reading of that character just feeling really confined by her like safe suburban existence and desiring a little excitement and adventure and getting it in this really wild way. And that being what allows her to kind of return to her marriage, feeling more fulfilled. So a thing that interests me about the marriages in these two movies is that everything I said about Ray being a kind of like doubtful figure in terms of not necessarily being the best parent, in terms of possibly wanting to escape responsibility, not knowing how to relate to or deal with his children, especially when they're frightened.

32:59We get a little bit of that with her character through this fantasy of wanting to leave for reasons we don't know. And it's a lot less pronounced, but there is sort of the implication that somewhere in the back of her mind, she's kind of prioritizing her own freedom and independence and fantasizing about or desiring or burying the desire to abandon her husband and her children and her life. And I think in the same way, it complicates that character a bit for us in terms of sympathies. Like, again, I don't have any burning desire to see her and Greg stay together. But I do think that especially in the 80s, to have a mother character who on some levels fantasizing about not being a mother is saying that maybe there's something wrong with her and maybe she's a bad person because she's willing to abandon these children.

33:55who love her and depend on her in order to prioritize their own freedom. You know, it's just a very Kramer versus Kramer kind of idea of like the mother who could abandon her children has obviously a damaged mother. And it's not very pronounced. It's not very well detailed. But, you know, it's a little undercurrent there that kind of connects these two movies. I think another connection also is in both films, the kids are very perceptive as to what's going on or becoming perceptive, I guess, more in the case of End of Oak Street there's sort of like you know they you know they can't pamper exactly what is wrong they know something is wrong in that film i should also we should do a quick shout out to those kids i think i think they're both really good uh christian convery is as the younger son and maizie stella who's not not not a kid she's actually a fully grown adult even though she's played a teenager here but she's the star of a movie i like to push on people which is called my old ass that would be megan park where you know another time travel movie and some in some ways as well and chris Convery is the star of Netflix's series Sweet Tooth.

34:58I knew I knew the name from somewhere. Sort of a little just funny sub-connection, speaking of Christian Convery, I found it amusing that the sons in both of these films, Brian and Robbie, both keep running off after something that they that they want. And with no sense of self preservation. In War of the Worlds, that's, you know, Robbie kind of going after vengeance or revenge or wanting to join the military, you know, which is a little more fraught than Brian just running after Starbuck, the family talk the whole time. But it did kind of give me a similar feeling of like, guys, settle down. Your sister and parents need you right now.

35:47Yeah, I think I'm really interesting. You're a dog person. How would you feel? I am a dog person, but I will say I thought this was a pretty blatant use of a movie dog. It didn't really do much for me here, maybe just because it felt very, I don't know, it never felt like the dog was not going to make it out of the movie alive. It feels a bit manipulative, but it's also it's just a plot convenience thing. I mean, Robbie's drive in War of the Worlds to help in some way, which we talked a bit about how his, you know, his desire to go strike back against the alien terrorists kind of represents the people who joined the military after 9-11.

36:33But I think even more so, he represents the people who didn't or couldn't for whatever reason, including because they were too young and who just have a kind of inchoate desire to strike back in some way, you know, hurt the people who hurt us, take control of the situation by making the people who made me feel bad, feel bad. And the fact that he's so young and he doesn't have a really good way to do that is a little bit of a tragedy because it's like an understandable thing. Whereas Brian's like just sort of single minded, I'm going to rescue my dog, while maybe understandable and relatable, also is just the primary thing that keeps pulling them out of shelter.

37:15we see over and over and over in War of the Worlds that Ray and his kids cannot stay in a shelter because the disaster is everywhere except this one neighborhood in Boston you know they keep they keep going to ground and then the ground literally crumbles out from underneath them but there's not much reason in End of Oak Street that that family couldn't have just like stayed in that house maybe scavenged their awful uh PJ Byrne neighbor uh in his house for you know more food to eat or whatever. But there's no reason that they couldn't just hunker down, except that Brian keeps running off and they keep having to chase him down.

37:50So it's one of the reasons that the dog thing feels bad is because it's manipulative. You know, it's just a plot convenience. Well, I'll push back on that slightly more by way of just broaching another small connection that I have written down here, which is it's inside the house. Because in End of Oak Street, there are a couple instances of the dinosaurs or the prehistoric eel snake creature thing i'm not sure what that was yeah coming in invading the house and that snake-like creature in particular felt very reminiscent of the uh uh tentacle sorry i forget i forget the exact phrasing already yes the russian water tentacle in uh in war of the worlds uh you know both visually and the way it's kind of just stalking them through the house.

38:43And it does kind of evoke a similar feeling of you should be safe inside, you know, you should this is where you should be able to hide from the thing. And then once it's no longer a safe hiding space, it feels like an escalation, you know, like, oh, the danger really is everywhere. I did enjoy the snake home invasion, if only because it was a break from, you know, chasing, screaming, slamming through like walls and windows and doors and whatnot. The silentness of it really had the theater I saw it in going. There was just a lot of very muffled noise from people processing the terror of something that moves silently, but is also that big and horrifying.

39:27So, you know, I will allow giant prehistoric albino eel snakes if it gets me a sequence like that instead of a 14th feathered velociraptor chase. Also another fun Anne Hathaway action star moment of just stabbing that thing over and over and over again, seemingly futilely. Yeah. You know, she gets to play with the gun. She gets to play with knives. She gets to do it all. I'm on a subreddit, a dinosaur subreddit, where apparently no one can really nail down what that thing is. So perhaps it is a little bit of a poetic license about what kind of creature might have slithered its way into the house.

40:10Nothing more poetic than a giant megafauna of albino eelsnake, I always say. I've lost track of how many times I've said that on this particular podcast. It's basically the motto of this podcast at this point. I sure I claimed it should be the title of the podcast and I was roundly voted down. So one thing that just really struck me about the connection between these two movies is in both cases, you have a boy girl sibling children pair who turn to each other for comfort because their parents are falling apart or absent or even just like slightly away trying to protect them or, you know, focused on somehow driving through.

40:54a giant mob of people or, you know, whatever, whatever it is, those siblings are the fallback for each other. And in both of these cases, that kind of, you know, contentious, one of them is older than the other, like they're, they're different genders, they're different ages, they're different interests, they have their own lives. They're just very different people, and they don't get along in very petty sibling-y ways. But when the crisis comes, you know, they love each other and they protect each other. I saw those two connections as very similar. Obviously, in War of the Worlds, Robbie is older and has very clearly been responsible for like helping Rachel through panic attacks in the past.

41:36And that makes it a little different from Oak Street where they're closer to the same age. And it feels a little more like the older sibling, Audrey, might have had to like babysit Brian from time to time. But still, it feels very authentic to children of divorce in particular, to have to lean on each other because they can't necessarily trust either mom or dad to have their best interests at heart when they're focused more on each other and the split in the marriage. And also to just have to lean on each other as the one other person that knows what they're going through. There is a heartbreaking moment.

42:12I wrote this down because it was one of the biggest kick in the teeth of the entirety of War of the Worlds, there's a moment where Rachel says to Robbie, don't go with the army men, because if you do, who's going to look after me? And Ray is standing right there when she says it. And I was just like, oh my God, that's brutal. Dakota Fanning, man. Always good. But yeah, yeah. Just really, that's a knockout performance in that movie. A lot is asked of her. She is basically doing Drew Barrymore in ET and beyond. There's a lot of screaming that she has to do in this movie, but there's also a lot of nuance to it.

42:49She is really good. But also a lot of silent emoting, too. There's a lot of silent terror. The family and family, talented people.

43:01Another thing I wanted to bring up, which, as is my want, I phrased cutely in our script as puny humans, big survival instinct, because I wanted to talk about the comparative scale of these two threats, because in both cases, you know, obviously, these are larger than human threats that they are dealing with. But the war machines in more of the world, the tripods are just hundreds of times bigger than even the biggest dinosaur, you know, house sized dinosaur in End of Oak Street, you know, and the way it's destructive capability is just so much more, you know, it can laser an entire street of people away in a second.

43:44Whereas the dino mayhem is a little more one on one. You know, it can fit inside your house. In War of the Worlds, I guess we do we do get to spend a brief amount of time with the aliens themselves, which are a little more human size, but we don't really interact with them in a violent way, the way that we do with the tripods or the dinosaurs. And yeah, I guess I just kind of wanted to talk through the relative sense of fear that comes with the different scales of these two threats. And if one feels more real or visceral than the other, or am I overthinking this? They're both big and single-minded and surprisingly, in the tripods case, but also of the dinosaurs surprisingly nimble as well and precise in their targeting and they'll both consume you we haven't even really talked about the world's orifice whatever it is that draws people in it's really quite biological it does eat them you know in a way yeah because I was just thinking about it in terms of like the lasers blasting people to ash but there is also this more visceral body horror element to them as well.

44:59The baskets of people they're going to recycle which I think that's what's going on there. It's a little fuzzy on that. There is a definite human fascination with what it would be like to be prey that extends through both of these movies. Say more. I like that. I mean, it's something to go back to Spielberg's Jaws. We're used to thinking of ourselves as the apex predator and a lot of horror movies particularly creature features, your sharktopuses and your crawls and whatnot, are about that kind of instinctive fear of something bigger and faster than you that wants to eat you. To me, though, the tripods are scarier because they're so alien.

45:47The dinosaurs are just big lizards, which might be feathery or hairy or busy boffing and not paying any attention to you, or, you know, vegetarians in some ways. But one way or the other, there's just been so much dinosaur media. Like it's a known factor. Like they're fast and destructive and very, very good at predation, but they're not unknown in the ways that the tripods are unknown. And especially on a first watch where the world's just, I find it very unnerving because, you know, if you're not familiar with the source material, the stages of what is this? What does it want? Oh, it wants to vaporize us and it can too, but it also wants to mulch human bodies and grow horrific, you know, alien plants out of them to Mars-a-form the planet.

46:40Like that series of discoveries, like each one of them is a kind of a new kind of horror and comes with a new kind of helplessness. Like, as we've pointed out, Ewan McGregor getting eaten by a dinosaur happens very, very quickly. It doesn't look fun. It looks painful. It looks terrifying. But it happens very quickly compared to being grabbed by an alien, stuffed in a basket, carried around for who knows how long until you're pulled out and stuffed into an alien orifice and turned into mulch, which looks painful and terrifying and also very protracted comparatively. There's also a special kind of horror in knowing something's coming and that there's nothing you can do about it, which, you know, Oak Street is all about running and shooting and stabbing and survival and not that inevitability of being like a captive in a cage waiting to be turned into ground cover, basically.

47:36So I don't know. I think War of the Worlds is a lot scarier as a movie, personally. And there's also the sense that they are operating from a plan, whereas the dinosaurs are just operating from instinct. Yeah. Prey opportunities. he's suddenly being dropped into a food-rich environment. Having a food-rich environment dropped on them, maybe more accurately. Yeah, well, speaking of getting eaten, I think we officially have to talk about the ending now. The end of Up Street. Yeah, so it's big spoilers. Well, obviously, we always said that Ewan McGregor gets eaten, but does he? All right, so the end of this movie, the last 10 minutes of this movie had me puzzled.

48:16So I kind of want to walk through it. Correct me if I'm wrong here, but basically Denise and her children, Audrey and Brian, escape through a wormhole. And Jeanette. And Jeanette the neighbor. And Jeanette. And Jeanette the neighbor who Brian had a crush on but actually might be better suited for Audrey. They're making eyes at each other. Escape through a wormhole and find themselves back in a different part of their neighborhood shortly before. It's like 20 minutes before. Right. Almost immediately before the events that drew them back to the past. So at which point Denise orders a pizza so that Greg will deliver it to her and thus be safe from going back.

49:00And then she calls all the neighbors whose numbers she knows by memory, I assume. And then they are later drawn away. There was a time period where I knew a lot of people's phone numbers. There was probably a neighborhood phone tree. This feels like a phone tree neighborhood. PTA possibly connection. But we're left to do that for ourselves. And so basically those people get out. Their other selves, like the other Denise, Audrey, and Brian, presumably are sucked back into the past along with the other neighbors whose phone numbers that she doesn't know. And it's a happy ending. Oh, but Jeanette goes back and then there's two Jeanettes.

49:41Yeah, yes. It's very confusing. Am I wrong? It's a little confusing? No, you are correct that it is confusing and you're not wrong about the sequence of events. I just simply want to underline that the Greg that is alive at the end, the happy ending, and has seemingly reconciled with Denise, has not gone through any of the events that the rest of his family has. He just kind of gets forgiven because a different version of himself got eaten, I guess. So that's weird. especially as it pertains to, like I said, him and Denise reconciling and kind of seems to put all the weight of their relationship falling apart and coming back together on her in a really odd way.

50:30And then yes, there also appeared to be two Jeanettes at the end of the movie because she ran off to save her parents and presumably herself as well. So I guess it's like kind of like the flip side of uh denise audrey and brian one prime yeah yeah uh they they disappear and i guess and but then jeanette we don't have doubles of them the way we do with jeanette but presumably they died at the dinosaur and that's fine well especially because if they went back without greg or the neighbor lady the librarian who saves them at one point like presumably without those characters having traveled back, they would not have survived as we see them survive in the movie.

51:19Okay, indulge me here, though. So there's two Jeanettes at the end. They both seem perfectly happy. That means that there could have been two Denises, two Audreys, and two Bryant, who have also been happy, but those potentially happy people are now dead. Yes. I don't think they're dead. I mean, this is sort of the paradox of time travel, but they escaped into the past. They are still those people. Yeah, they've got to eat by dinosaurs, Tasha. You know that's what happened to them. I mean, I think Denise on her own would have a much better chance of protecting those two kids and getting them out alive than Greg on his own.

51:58The problem would be when two shotgun-toting Denise's face-off for who gets to be the real Denise. There's a Karen Gillan movie called Duel where that happens, and I rather like it. We can learn from that sort of how things would have gone down. I think the fact that we get to see the second Jeanette is, you know, Mitchell acknowledging that this is a thing that had happened. You know, it's not it's not a loophole. It's just, as you say, kind of a little Easter egg almost. But it raises so many questions. Yeah, but he wants those questions there. Whereas Denise and the family, like, yeah, there is sort of the causal effect of time travel and like how they survived the librarian's house if the librarian had already escaped question.

52:44But there isn't another iteration of them because that iteration of them escaped is how I would see how time travel works. But regardless, I don't think this movie is necessarily asking you to think about anything along these lines. The reason we want to talk about the ending anyway is because it is in some ways also a cop-out ending, just as War of the Worlds is a cop-out ending. In some ways, it almost feels like it's where they're closest. And the sort of last minute resurrection as part of that ending. So is Greg getting to survive and avoid all of the trauma the rest of his family went through?

53:26Is that more or less infuriating than Robbie popping back up at the end of War of the Worlds? Well, I think also, wouldn't you resent your dad if he skipped all that? I think they're just glad to have him back. I think you guys are mean. I think if I watched my husband be devoured by a dinosaur in front of me, and then I got him back through time travel shenanigans. Like, if our marriage was already on the rocks, that might continue. I mean, in the moment, I would certainly be happy. But like the long tail trauma of this situation, I feel you don't know what we went through, Greg. I mean, sure.

54:06Read my book. Honestly, given what we see in War of the Worlds, it might be better to have, you know, if one of your parents is deeply traumatized by an incredibly like violent, horrific experience that they went through. Maybe it's good if the other one isn't. So, you know, now that I think about it, something that these two movies do very much have in common is Greg and Ray, the fathers, both engage in that kind of magical thinking. Like they're they both keep telling the kids like it's going to be fine. Ray less so, especially towards the beginning. He does a lot of like, I don't know, or just stonewalling in answer and especially about what's going on.

54:47Why are we running? but you know towards the end he's like oh Robbie's going to meet up with us later which turns out to be true oh your mother's alive it's going to be okay which turns out to be true we'll just meet up with them in in Boston where they were going which turns out to be true so maybe he maybe has prophetic powers and this movie isn't about what I thought about at all but in the moment where he's saying those things it it feels like you know desperate lies to keep a kid going but also kind of overreaching. You know, I just my prime example for this is, of all things, Team America, when the love interest tells the lead, like, if you, you know, I've been too much trauma through too much trauma, I've lost too many people.

55:29If you tell me you will never die and never leave me, we will have sex right now. And he's like, I promise I will never die. And that's what I hear in both Greg and Ray, you know, saying these, you know, everything is going to be fine. This specific thing is going to happen. The fact that Spielberg and Cap let Ray get away with all of that by making it all true is a little frustrating. But with Greg, I think it's meant to be just kind of an important plot thing. He thinks nothing of saying, everything's going to be fine. Those people that are going to chewed on by dinosaurs right now, they're going to be okay.

56:05We will get out of this. And meanwhile, Denise is kind of saying, why are you saying all of these things that aren't true. Like she feels that it's keeping him from dealing with the situation at all. So I feel like he's just sort of a more blithe and positive character. And he's going to come out of this with a continuing like, oh, yeah, everything worked out. It's all OK. And it might be better for the kids to have some of that in their lives instead of both of their parents being completely traumatized by a night of dino fighting. Well, that's a nice spin to put on it, Tasha. I appreciate that.

56:41How do you feel about the dog surviving? I mean, I'm always glad when a dog survives, but I don't know. I didn't get it. Starbuck didn't give me a whole lot. I will say, except for the moment when he rushes in heroically at the last moment, he does behave very much like a dumb dog, right? Yeah. Yeah. I forgot. I forgot he did have a hero moment. Okay. So, yeah. Good job, Starbuck. I'm glad you survived. Well, we survived this pairing. I'm not traumatized at all. I'm a little traumatized. I'm still thinking about the end of Oak Street. Keith's just going to wake up in the middle of the night going, two Jeanettes, two Jeanettes.

57:21It doesn't make sense. So if you want to watch War of the Worlds, it's available on DVD and Blu-ray. It's also streaming on Paramount Plus and MGM Plus. It's widely available for digital rental on other services. The end of Oak Street is in theaters now, and we'll be right back with your next picture show. Amazon Health AI presents Painful Thoughts. I, um, I can't stop scratching my downtown. Yeah, but I'm not itching to go downtown and tell a receptionist I'm here to talk about my downtown. Some things you'd rather type than say out loud. There's no question too embarrassing for Amazon Health AI.

58:04Chat your symptoms and get virtual care 24-7. Healthcare just got less painful. Apple Vacations, where your story starts. The Friends and Family Sale is here at Apple Vacations. Book by September 24th and save up to 50 % on all-inclusive vacations with instant savings. Whether it's a getaway with friends or a family vacation, there's always a reason to make more memories with your favorite people. Travel through August 2027 and start planning your getaway today at AppleVacations.com or with your trusted travel advisor. Apple Vacations, where your story starts. Hey, this is Kevin. This is Joe. And this is Nick from Hey Jonas.

58:44You know, I recently learned that every 36 minutes, another child in the U.S. is diagnosed with cancer. Think about that for a second. Some of the bravest warriors you'll ever meet aren't professional athletes or superheroes. They're kids in this fight. And every day, these young warriors face challenges most adults couldn't imagine. Yet they continue to show up with incredible courage, determination, and hope. That's why we're proud to support Hyundai Hope on Wheels. For the past 28 years, with support from Hyundai, their dealers, and every new Hyundai sold. Hope on Wheels has contributed over$300 million to childhood cancer research, helping save more than 40 ,000 kids.

59:19But we're not done yet. We need your help. Together, let's bring every warrior home. Learn more at HyundaiUSA.com slash Hope on Wheels or ask about Hope on Wheels at your local Hyundai dealer. Hello, appliance fans. I'm here at Grand Appliance, where Bill just bought a premium Bosch benchmark dishwasher. Talk about your experience, Bill. My salesperson was an appliance genius. She told me about their free install offer on Benchmark Appliances, and it was a done deal for me. Wow, free install from the pros at Grand? That's a no-brainer. Agreed. They make it so easy. There you have it. Grand for the win.

59:57Check out GrandAppliance.com for full details.

1:00:04finally it's time to recommend a film or film related item that compliments this set of episodes we call it your next picture show in the hopes it'll put some interesting choices on your radar this time we have two interesting choices one from Genevieve and one from Tasha and they both are kind of like movies we could have done maybe I think we I think we chose the right one but uh I can see these episodes working Tasha what's yours well this honestly didn't occur to me until I was writing the preview text for this pairing and was kind of like laying out the shared plot line with both of these movies of a small neighborhood coming under attack by, you know, unknown mysterious forces and ordinary people having to band together in kind of unforeseen ways in order to deal with these things and survive.

1:00:48And as I was writing that, I was thinking, I'm basically summing up Joe Cornish's Attack the Block, which is a film that we haven't done on the podcast, but we have talked up in the past as just a very enjoyable. You want to talk about a movie that maybe doesn't have layer upon layer upon layer, but is just a really fun, good action time, kind of an action adventure, and is maybe just different from all of these movies in that the setting just feels so different. It's a southern London street gang coming together to fight back against alien attackers and stars John Boyega in, I don't recall if it's his first role, I don't think it is, but very early and kind of, if not breakout, breakout adjacent John Boyega role.

1:01:35He's really great in this movie. Mostly what I remember is just thinking about seeing this movie is just sort of a feeling of this is a familiar tale told in a different way and told well and told with a lot of flavor that I was not necessarily expecting from this kind of, you know, particular kind of 80s feeling throwback movie. Also, it's very low budget, but the way that aliens are done is very cheaply creative in a way that I think is quite fun and that I'm certainly not going to spoil. So just overall, I think Attack the Black doesn't connect in the same kind of ways in terms of, yeah, it was his first feature film.

1:02:18He was in a TV series before that, but this was his feature debut. I feel like it doesn't have a lot of the parallels in terms of like actual bio family and in terms of the very specific relationships between husband and wife, between the two siblings, between the optimist and the pessimist, between the particular kind of attackers and the particular kind of responses. But it does kind of fit the same pattern. And I certainly think it's a better, more fun, more lively and more textured and nuanced film than End of Oak Street, as this very specific plot line goes. Genevieve, what about you? The film that came to mind for me when watching End of Oak Street is one that has a lot, a lot of direct connections, but is maybe one that is harder to designate a classic film.

1:03:10Although I would perhaps argue for Jurassic Park 3, one of the most maligned entries in that franchise, as being underrated. It's one that I like to revisit more than most other of the Jurassic Parks. And as far as how it aligns with Oak Street, just sort of on a meta level, this was the first Jurassic Park movie that Spielberg was not involved with. So it does kind of feel similar to David Robert Mitchell doing a Spielberg homage, you know, with dinosaurs. So kind of on a meta level reminded me of that. But then on like a pure connections level, it also involves a broken family, a divorced couple play about William H.

1:03:55Macy and Taylor Leone trying to save their son, their imperiled child, who ends up stranded on Isla Sorna, the second island, I believe. I get confused on all the different Jurassic Park islands, but it is sort of like the B-movie version of Jurassic Park. So on that level, on the kind of character relationships level, obviously on the dinosaurs level, and it kind of has it's a little more focused in its setting. You know, it just takes place on this island that feels kind of similar to taking place in the neighborhood of End of Oak Street. So like I said, a lot of people talk down on Jurassic Park 3 and I'm not like going to, you know, make any grand claims for it as the best Jurassic Park.

1:04:45But, you know, I think we could have had fun talking about it. Either of you revisited it? No, I saw it a couple years ago when I was watching all those movies with my kid. I was re-watching them all with my kid. And yeah, no, it's fine. It's not my favorite, but I'll take it over almost all the Jurassic World movies. Although I have a soft spot for Fallen Kingdom. I do too. Which kind of turns it in, you know, a haunted house movie with dinosaurs instead. Which is kind of similar to Jurassic Park 3, you know? Those two feel like kind of like echoes across the franchise to me. You know, there have been so many Jurassic's under the bridge at this point.

1:05:20I really don't pick out a lot of the plot points between them. I haven't revisited three, I think, since it came out. And a lot of the worlds blur together for me. So not exactly a Jurassic go-to expert. I believe it's the only Jurassic Park movie that could claim to be co-written by Alexander Payne. So there is that. There is that. Well, with that bit of trivia, I think we can wind down this edition of the next Patricia Show. Genevieve, can you tell us about our next pairing? It Ends is technically a horror movie. Written and directed by Alexander Ulm, the film starts with a group of friends in their 20s who go on a road trip, head down a mysterious side road, and are accosted by zombie-like humans when they pull over to turn around.

1:06:01But when it becomes clear that the road itself appears to be infinite and the roadside attacks are predictable, it stops being a conventional horror movie and starts being more like a variation on Jean-Paul Sartre's existential play No Exit. The idea of using a genre setup to more philosophical ends calls to mind Solaris, Andrei Tarkovsky's 1972 science fiction classic about the psychotic breakdown of space station astronauts who are orbiting a distant planet. Both films suggest that being in a seemingly hopeless situation really makes you think. For now, we welcome your feedback on War of the Worlds, The End of Oak Street, and anything else film related you'd like to talk about.

1:06:37Email us at comments at nextprickershow.net or leave us a voicemail at 773-234-9730. Before we close out this episode, where can we find everyone these days, Tasha? I mean, you can barely find me these days. I'm still recapping Game Changer over at Vulture. Otherwise, kind of taking a little break, including from social media. but I am on Blue Sky at Tasha Robinson. And you're here. And I'm here. We get a Tasha Rob exclusive or near exclusive. Yes, you can find me here. However, what am I? HBO to be teasing the thing that you're listening to, advertising the thing that you're listening to, to you as you're listening to it?

1:07:15No. People strangely seem to be already aware that I'm here. Genevieve, what about you? Oh, same old, same old. Behind the scenes at Vulture, not posting at blue sky at Genevieve Kosky. Keith, tell us about the reveal. Sorry we're boring. Our absent co-host Scott Tobias contributes to such publications as Vulture, The Guardian, The New York Times. But you can find it most regularly at The Reveal. It's thereal.film. You can also find me. We co-write that movie's newsletter. And it's a good one. I like it. You can also find me. I'm one of the co-hosts of Ford Focus, a Harrison Ford podcast with Mike Ryan, where we talk about the films of Harrison Ford.

1:07:57And we do bonus episodes. And it's fun. We're having fun doing that. And you can stay updated on The Next Picture Show at nextpictureshow.net and on Blue Sky at The Next Picture Show. You can get bonus content at open discussion at patreon.com slash nextpictureshow. And as always, we appreciate your rating and reviews on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you listen to the show. Thanks to Dan, the Baked Chicks, for his assistance producing this podcast. The Next Picture Show is proudly part of the Film Spotting and Family podcast. Please tune in next time.

1:08:37That was a good movie. Yeah, seen here before once. Hey, y 'all, what's up? This is Lorna LaRosa from the latest with Lorna LaRosa, the podcast. Remember Varnell Hill from the 90s sitcom Martin? He's back. And now on Paramount +, more than 30 years later, Tommy Davidson is stepping back into the spotlight in an all-new Martin spinoff, The Varnell Hill Show. And Varnell has just one question. Did you miss me? Now he's got network execs, a wild writer's room, family drama, and everyone telling him he's passed his prime. Varnell isn't slowing down, bringing raw, unfiltered jokes every step of the way.

1:09:11From executive producer Martin Lawrence, The Varnell Hill Show is now streaming exclusively on Paramount+. Some people use ChatGPT to answer questions. Others use it to get real work done. With ChatGPT Work, you bring the goal, plus real inputs like briefs, notes, files, feedback, data, and project plans. It can help turn them into an analysis, tracker, deck outline, prototype, or workflow you can review and keep shaping. You stay in control, giving direction and choosing the final output. Put ChatGPT to work on your most ambitious ideas and projects. Get started at ChatGPT.com by selecting Work Mode.

1:09:46available on Plus and Pro Plans. There are exciting things happening at your local CVS. Shop new Extra Big Deals with Extra Care every two weeks. No coupon needed. Plus, get access to exclusive sale prices, personalized deals, and more as a member. Extra Care is the way to save at CVS. Join for free, online, or in-store and start saving. Visit your local CVS store or cvs.com slash extra big deals for this week's deals.

1:10:45We'll be right back. Applied Bank of America and a member FDIC.