We both love this movie, but we clearly ate different popcorns.
Dave: This film felt a little like the Golden Girls with trains - we got to watch three oddballs and misfits create a chosen family and find meaning and companionship in the loneliness and meaninglessness of the early 2000s. The three main actors were great, particularly quirky artist Patricia Clarkson. We’ve been conditioned to expect high drama from these films, so when Joe’s father didn’t die, Olivia’s ex didn’t become a huge plot point, or Finbar’s train depot didn’t get repossessed, it’s tempting to fault the plot or the writing. But what we get in the absence of huge drama is life, as messy and boring as it often is. That said, this film promises more than it can deliver - it would have been nice I’d the writers could have resolved a few of the loose ends they dangled as the plot developed. Still, it’s worth a watch. (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2)
I’m not sure if i would have pegged this as Hot Mustard Popcorn if I hadn’t personally dumped a few teaspoons of dry mustard into it. Even so, the high salt content was addicting and made me want to read Sugar Salt Fat again, just to remind myself that salt, though delicious, isn’t good for me. And the addition of the thyme made this taste and look - hey, thyme is green! - more nutritious than it probably was. The mustard got a little lost for me- I’d much rather have used the mustard for something like Carolina BBQ sauce or, you know, mustard where it wouldn’t get lost (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2).
Joe: We have an unspoken rule that the films for our Nerdery Movie Night should be ones we've not seen. But I had recently discussed The Station Agent with two friends, and it occurred to me that the last time I saw this flick I was living in York, Pennsylvania. For those of you keeping tabs on my life (and if you are, please find a new hobby), York was a long, long, long time ago. In fact, I remember getting this movie in the mail from Netflix (!!), so it's probably been a minimum of fifteen years. I remembered... not much. Peter Dinklage is deliciously aloof. Patricia Clarkson is, expectedly, luminous. Bobby Cannavale is goofily sweet. The movie itself is thin on plot, but huge on emotional impact. It's a lovely, deeply humanizing slice of life and, in addition to making me feel the soft glow of being alive, it made me yearn for days without social media, smartphones, or the interwebz. May we one day return to those times. And also may Patricia Clarkson never stop acting. (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)
What I didn't taste: hot and mustard. What I did taste: salt and butter. And something vaguely herbaceous. Was it gross, you ask? Is salty and buttery popcorn gross?, I respond. Not at all. But it also wasn't mustardy. And I wanted mustard. Hot mustard, actually. So. (⭐️⭐️1/2)
Popcorn recipe from: Popcorn.org. (The Popcorn Board, 2019).
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