The Nerdery Movie Night #243: Fresh and Peanut Butter & Banana Popcorn

Think twice before someone offers you meatballs... or this popcorn? Idk.

Peanut Butter & Banana Popcorn

Dave: While the movie wasn’t quite as campy as I thought it might be, the dark humor made it watchable, which is high praise for a movie about cannibalism. Without some humor, it would have just been a mess of a gore-fest. The meat-eating scenes (and there are many) were almost excruciating and the slow-burn action kept me on the edge of my seat. It also made me glad I never have to date again, even if the writers made the dating “meat market” a bit too literal. (️️️⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2)

I’m a fool for anything peanut butter flavored, and even better if there’s something molasses-y like brown sugar in it. So this popcorn should have hit all my sweet spots, pun intended. Sadly, the mommy blogger* who wrote this didn’t know how to make a good caramel, so the sweet peanutty mixture ended up being globs of goo in the finished popcorn. Still, I ate a ton. And I ate most of it before Joe asked if he should have used sweetened banana chips in it and it said “Wait, there are banana chips?” So perhaps this wasn’t successful as advertised, but I think the concept has promise. (️️️⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2)

Joe: This movie is a lot. The set-up is pitch perfect, building tension subtly before it dives into outright horror and (vaguely) succeeding in some very, very, very dark humor in the second half. The acting is great, especially from Daisy Edgar-Jones, who pours herself into the hopelessness of the situation before finding her resolve. About halfway through, I wasn't sure I wanted to continue watching: I felt sick to my stomach and was deeply worried about the level of gore I might see (between my fingers). Instead, the film tips into an almost absurd level of insanity. There are plot holes you can drive a car through (especially in the final 5 minutes), and the unsettling question about the origins of the final "dinner" don't resonate with the feminist twist I think was intended. In fact, none of the feminism really lands, which is odd considering both a female writer and female director were at the helm. (⭐️⭐️⭐️)

I do not have instincts in the kitchen, but about 30 seconds into making the caramel for this popcorn, even I knew something had gone wrong. Despite watching a million cooking/baking competitions (and screaming things like "ADD MORE BUTTER, YOU IDIOT!" at the television), nary a caramel-saving idea popped into my head. Dave swung by, made a suggestion, I huffed, and carried on. When I put the "caramel" on the popcorn it looked like Ouiser, our cat, had a... litter box accident... all over the place. The caramel was gritty and an off-putting shade of brown. To say that the popcorn looked nothing like the photo on the Popcorn Board's website is the understatement of the year. Adding to the disaster, I bought unsweetened banana chips, which only added an unpleasant mustiness to this Holocaust In A Bowl. I guess it wasn't awful, but it also wasn't great. I shall leave the caramel-heavy popcorns to Dave from now on. (⭐️⭐️1/2)

* au contraire, my sweet. It's our beloved.... Popcorn from: The Popcorn Board

Fresh on IMDB