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This week on the Frotcast, ex-film critic, author of Film Critic, and star of Whoop Dreams Laremy Legel rejoins Matt and Vince in the Zoom Frotquarters to discuss Jon Stewart’s new movie Irresistible — starring Steve Carell and Rose Byrne as dueling political consultants who wage proxy war in a small Wisconsin mayoral race. At first we were like “why the hell is this movie called ‘Irresistible?’ But then the title came up at the end, along with some creative typography, and we were all “Oohhh, that’s why it’s called Irresistible.” (Note: it’s not ‘irresistible’ it’s ‘irRESISTible’.)
Anyway, it’s an interesting movie. Most people seemed to hate it. Matt and I mostly liked it. On some level, it’s kind of a good movie masquerading as a bad one for two acts. The third act twist basically saved it in our eyes (shifting it from hopelessly naive neoliberal morality play to a parody of a hopelessly naive neoliberal morality play). Though I suppose I can understand not wanting to wait 40 minutes to start actually enjoying a movie. Also, it is admittedly very Caucasian.
Though on another level, it does seem like a certain subset of the critics who saw it disliked it not for the flawed structure but because it dared utter the taboo that the mainstream Democratic party and MSNBC-adjacent media are not simply the antidote to Donald Trump but individual entities also deserving of criticism. Which some dismiss as “both sidesism,” or whatever. But I still think Irresistible‘s essential message — that our two-party system and corporate media are heavily invested in making the two parties’ fairly similar visions of America seem drastically different — is a valid one. For Christ’s sake, during this pandemic we’ve practically managed to make covering your mouth when you sneeze a political act. If that doesn’t validate the essential message of Irresistible I don’t know what does.
One thing we can all agree on, however, is that Rose Byrne is an absolute gem, and has displayed incredible comedic range since Bridesmaids in a handful of vastly underrated performances.
After all that we discuss Matt getting mistaken for the Jeff Tiedrich, the least-funny #resistance grifter on Twitter (truly an achievement) and whether Alex Jones is actually Dan Carlin’s Wario. We hope you will enjoy! No refunds.
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