Lupita Nyong’o

Overzealous Recycling 012: We’re all fine here now, thank you

/ Ian Casselberry / Leave a comment

This past week’s routine was thrown out of whack by a hours-long wait in the emergency room. No worries. A bit of concern with my niece that would’ve been taken care of at the pediatrician or even urgent care had it happened during the day.

But everything’s perfectly all right now. She’s fine. We’re fine. We’re all fine here now, thank you. How are you?

— If you missed the last Overzealous Recycling, you can read it here —

This pass should say “10:10 PM.”

At some point during the third hour (of a total four; my sister was there for six hours), while my phone’s battery was sinking toward 10% charged, I began thinking about an obscure, nearly 25-year-old Saturday Night Live skit called “WR.”

Do you remember that one? George Clooney was hosting the show during his ER fame, so a parody of the medical drama was a natural (maybe lazy) idea. This was Season 20 — Feb. 25, 1995 — if you’re a diehard SNL fan and completist.

Unfortunately — and normally, this might be the thing to vex me the most in a particular week — there doesn’t appear to be an embed of the skit. But it is available on NBC’s Saturday Night Live website (though not the NBC app, as the site claims):

WR: Waiting Room

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The Podcass 001: Us review

/ Ian Casselberry / Leave a comment

Us is the movie sensation sweeping the nation. Jordan Peele is considered by many fans and critics to be the new master of horror, and his second film does nothing to dispute that.

Some might not like Us as much as Get Out, but there’s a whole lot to think about and interpret long after you’ve seen the film. And the imagery could haunt you for a while. Find somebody to talk to about this movie!

Here’s a review:

We’re not yet on iTunes (or Apple Podcasts), but hopefully that’ll happen very soon. In the meantime, please leave a like on our Facebook page for a little signal boost. You can also subscribe to The Podcass on plenty of other podcast platforms, including:

You can also leave me feedback at thepodcass@gmail.com and find the show on Twitter and Instagram. Hope to hear from you! Thanks for listening!

Us will creep you out and is packed with ideas, but lacks satisfying scares

/ Ian Casselberry / Leave a comment

Whether or not you consider Us a scary movie depends on your personal preferences. If “scary” means making you jump in your seat, shielding yourself with the person sitting next to you, or screaming out loud, you might be disappointed with Jordan Peele’s latest film.

But Us is most certainly creepy, with imagery that might live inside your head for a while and revisit when you close your eyes. The broken mirror doubles that a family suddenly encounters are chilling, a credit to make-up and costuming as well some fantastic acting — both in a physical and psychological sense — from the cast.

Following Get Out, Peele has made another thinking person’s horror film. No, Us probably won’t resonate the way his first effort did. And the story’s resolution doesn’t feel as satisfying. That might compel some fans and critics to use terms like “sophomore slump” in critiquing this movie. But Peele deserves credit for not repeating himself here, something that surely would’ve been easy to do.

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