The Nerdery Movie Night #74: Other People and Cheesy Popcorn

Well, tonight was a bummer.

Cheesy Popcorn

Dave: I picked this movie because it was supposed to be a comedy. Much like the popcorn, there was false advertising involved. While there were funny scenes it was pretty devastating on the whole. Watching a woman slowly die and a family threaten to fall apart isn’t the best fodder for laugh-out-loud comedy. Molly Shannon as the mother dying of a rare form of cancer was particularly brilliant at walking the line between humor and despair, and the supporting cast, including Darcy Carden and Nicole Byer, is amazing. The ending was a bit after school special-ish - all the loose ends that animated the rest of the film were tied up too quickly to be believable. Still, it’s worth a watch.

(⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)

If I hadn’t known this was called “cheesy popcorn” I might not have judged it so harshly. If you’d told me it was “1990s co op grocery store popcorn,” I’d have said yes - it lives up to its name! Aggressively savory, with the tiniest hint of spice, like someone waved curry powder somewhere near the bowl, it was inoffensive and bland. It had an undercurrent of nutritional yeast, which tastes (and sounds) just too good-for-you to be delicious. Also, there was no damn cheese. (⭐️⭐️1/2).

Joe: Nothing like coming home after a long week at work and cozying up to a movie about cancer. Okay, so it's also about family dynamics. And strained relationships. And forgiveness? It was a lot. And none of it was particularly well done. The cast was stellar, and the acting was solid - especially Molly Shannon! Holy crap! You guys, Year of the Dog wasn't a fluke! She can act! - but the script felt disjointed with a distinctly uneven tone. For example: an emotional conversation between mother and child is interrupted with a fart joke. And shaved assholes are a "joke" after an estranged couple has sex. I cry easily when I watch movies. I'm a total sap. So it's definitely something when a movie about a family torn to pieces by cancer can't elicit even a watery eye from me. Five stars for Molly Shannon, one star for everything else. (⭐️⭐️1/2)

Popcorn Board! Which one of you was sleeping on the job? First of all: let's address the elephant in the room. Cheesy should be in quotation marks. This is "cheesy" popcorn, not cheesy popcorn! Second, this popcorn smelled like a bowl of farts. I've had nutritional yeast on popcorn before. But it did not taste like this. The butter and curry were optional, but I used them anyway. And maybe I shouldn't have, because this was fucking disgusting. (⭐️)

Popcorn recipe from: Popcorn Recipes by Popcorn.org. (The Popcorn Board, 2019).

Other People on IMDB.