Rom-Com

Sleepless in Seattle

This week Danielle brings Sam the classic 1993 Nora Ephron movie Sleepless in Seattle. Sam, the Tom Hanks character henceforth referred to as Tom to avoid confusion, recently lost his wife. In his grief, he decides it’s a good idea to move him and his eight-year-old son to Seattle from Chicago. Also, Tom is an architect because he’s a romantic interest in a 90’s movie. Anyway, in Seattle Tom’s son calls into to a national radio therapist show (somehow this isn’t Fraiser) to lament that his dad hasn’t found a new love in the mere 18-months since his mother died. Coincidentally, Baltimore based…journalist? Annie (Meg Ryan, of course) hears the radio show and immediately becomes creepily obsessed with Tom despite already being engaged to the perfect man: future president and ghost mansion owner Bill Pullman. Annie decides to abuse her journalistic position and also hires a private investigator to track Tom down. She also writes him a letter saying they should meet on the Empire State Building on Valentine’s Day, so she’s gone full wacko. Tom, meanwhile, has begun dating a lovely woman, but his son is determined to break them up because he read Annie’s letter and thinks they should be together instead. And here’s where the movie takes a hard turn into crazy town. Annie lightly stalks Tom and his son, his son continues to be a jerk and manages to run away to New York. Annie is also just the worst to her fiancé, who’s just the nicest and best person, as she waffles back-and-forth about whether she should run off to the Empire State Building to maybe meet a man she has only heard on the radio and dump Bill Freaking Pullman. So join us to hear Sam and Danielle lose their minds as they try to figure out why anyone would root for these people to get together.

AI Love You

This week Danielle brings the 2022 Thai sci-fi rom-com movie AI Love You. Dob is a sentient AI office building who pines for the woman, Lana, who works inside of him, and if that sentence fills you with a creeping sense of horror, you and Sam have a lot in common. If you’re looking for any rational reason why sentient AI buildings are a thing, this movie will disappoint. After Lana tanks her presentation, Dob helps her make a new one and then confesses his love for her. Lana dismisses it because, and this can’t be emphasized enough, Dob is a building. Instead, Lana goes on a bad date with a creepy guy named Bob, which does not go well. Meanwhile, Dob’s abnormal behavior is noticed and this is apparently just a normal thing that happens, where AI buildings develop human emotions, because the procedure of resetting Dob is immediately settled on. Coincidentally, Bob is the technician that is tasked with resetting Dob and while he’s interfacing with Dob via VR goggles (seriously) Dob somehow downloads his AI consciousness into Bob’s brain, taking over Bob’s body. Now Dob (in the body of Bob) is able to pursue Lana as a human-ish thing. First, though, Dob must learn how to be a human, since apparently he was never programmed with basic human behavior, even though he was designed to be a helpful building for people. No, we don’t understand any of this either. Anyway, Dob now must spend his nights learning about dating and trying to convince Lana to give Bob (who he’s pretending to be) another shot, while by day he’s puppeteering the building, so as not to arouse suspicion about the building not working. Did we mention there’s a (maybe secret) network of these building AIs, including the building Lana lives in, all conspiring to help Dob (as Bob) get with Lana by deceiving her into thinking he’s a better version of Bob. Lana eventually relents and they start dating, but the company the makes the robot buildings, Smart Plus, has dispatched their laser-chainsaw wielding AI hunter to recover Bob’s body and remove Dob from it, because apparently AIs take over human bodies just all the freaking time in this horrific future. So join us for Danielle’s turn sharing a sci-fi rom-com that definitely seems more like a horror film the more you think about it.

Heartbeeps

This week Sam brings the romance with the 1981 robot rom-com Heartbeeps. Val (Andy Kaufman) and Aqua (Bernadette Peters) are two companion model robots currently being stored in a factory for repairs. We’ll leave it as an exercise to the listener to determine what the purpose of a “companion” robot is. However, after talking for a little while Val convinces Aqua and a hack-comedian robot that they all should leave the factory to go look at some trees. Apparently, this factory has no security, so Val jacks a van and they quickly crash into some woods, since he was programmed to drive, but seemingly not very well. Once they’re discovered missing, two factory workers are sent out to recover them, but then also an automated tank called the Crimebuster also goes rogue and breaks out of the factory to chase the fugitive robots. No one in the factory seems to notice this latest robot escape, which is just an incredible indictment of this factory’s operating procedures. Meanwhile, Val and Aqua have built themselves a robot child in the woods, primarily so it could be used as a pack-mule to haul around spare parts in a trailer strapped to it. Shortly thereafter, the troupe of robots finds a cave, and after a convenient helicopter scares away a bear, they hunker down. While alone, Val and Aqua find a new use for their pleasure centers (did we not mention that the robots seemed to be trained using pleasure to reinforce desired behavior? Because they are, and it’s bonkers). However, the factory workers and Crimebuster robot are both separately hunting the fugitive robots, who are now intent on maintaining their freedom. The big question remains: Will our robot lovers succeed in escaping, or will they be returned to servitude? While the surprise reveal of a pet raccoon in a junkyard seems to sever Sam’s tenuous grasp on reality, the stuff going on behind the scenes is equally insane as this movie tapped top talent like John Williams and Stan Winston for its production. So see what happens when you take a bunch of amazing talents and put them into the most insane movie possible, and see if two robots can actually fall in love (no, no they can’t).

The Man’s Voice – Part 2

This week Danielle shares the conclusion of the 2021 K-drama The Man’s Voice. As we pick up from last week, the mysterious woman with cat revenge fantasies, Jenna, has been visiting a detective agency to gather information on her romantic rival Mi Rim. Meanwhile, Tae Hwa takes Mi Rim out for some day drinking followed by a day trip to Busan using his pilot powers. Towards the end of the night, Tae Hwa flips a bottle cap to decide if they’ll spend the night in the city, but unsurprisingly, Mi Rim decides to ignore the bottle cap and call it a night. Also, there’s supposedly a talking cat in the show, but no one seems to care about Natsume while out on the town. A few days later Mi Rim is interviewing for a job, which is something that is apparently a plot, but since the show decides this plot line isn’t important, we won’t say any more about it here. Mi rim is also continuing to watch Natsume who is still hurling abuse at her for no apparent reason. Everything is going well when Jenna inserts herself back into Tae Hwa’s life, and through a series of sit-com level misunderstandings Mi Rim becomes convinced Tae Hwa, who she’s had all of two dates with, is cheating on her and refuses to see him again. This leads to an interminable period of the show for Sam where Mi Rim spends weeks mourning the loss of her relationship that consisted of, and this cannot be over-stressed, two whole dates. Tae Hwa, meanwhile, handles the breakup by stalking Mi Rim’s house in a vain attempt to run into her, instead of just going to the place he knows she works. During Tae Hwa’s next flight, Jenna decides to put her cat revenge plans into action by…having the cat hotel bathe the cat too much; simply diabolical. Taw Hwa is also grappling with the choice whether to accept a new, and better, job, but doing so would mean he’d have to leave Mi Rim, the woman he is not dating and who doesn’t want anything to do with him. Will Jenna’s evil cat revenge plan work? Will Tae Hwa and Mi Rim ever reconcile? How does a cat based version of The Parent Trap factor into all this? You’ll have to listen to find out, but one thing is clear: Sam in convinced everyone is this show is actually a serial killer.

The Man’s Voice – Part 1

K-dramas are back as Danielle brings Sam another K-drama rom-com with the 2021 show The Man’s Voice. Mi Rim is a normal young woman working in a convenience store and pining over the handsome co-pilot who occasionally comes by to shop. Through a series of contrivances (primarily the pet hotel being closed for a day) the co-pilot, Tae Hwa, is left with no one to watch his large, fluffy white cat. Inexplicably, Tae Hwa decides leaving his cat with the virtual stranger Mi Rim is the best option. As Tae Hwa jets off to Paris, Mi Rim takes the cat home but it quickly escapes into the night. Mi Rim catches it just as a storm rolls in and she is struck with lightning and her skeleton is illuminated like a cartoon. Instead of doing the sensible thing and dying, Mi Rim wakes up the next day, the cat sitting beside her, and suddenly she is able to hear the cat’s voice in her head. The cat, in the voice of a middle aged man, proceeds to abuse Mir Rim to no end, and rather than simply exerting her authority as the human part of this relationship, she rolls just over and takes that abuse. Meanwhile, Tae Hwa calls and texts Mi Rim from the plane he is supposed to be flying, to check in on his cat which, again, he left with a complete stranger. The cat, Natsume, is dead-set against Mi Rim’s designs on Tae Hwa, and manages to outwit her several times, even though he’s a cat and she’s a human. As the first half of the series draws to a close, a new character makes an appearance: A mysterious woman who demands “Revenge on the cat!” What does any of this mean? Maybe part two will explain it. Maybe.

The Princess Switch 3: Romancing the Star

For part two of this year’s Winter Bizarre Danielle brings the third installment of the Netflix film series with The Princess Switch 3: Romancing the Star. Margaret is the queen of the small European country of Montenaro who happens to have two identical doppelgängers: Former Chicago baker now princess Stacy and Fiona, her cousin and former kidnapper of Stacy. Montenaro is hosting an international Christmas festival (which is, apparently, a thing) and the Vatican has loaned them the Star of Peace, a relic belonging to St. Nicholas. Due to security that can charitably be described as “utter clown shoes” the star is immediately stolen. Under the threat of excommunication, Margaret commutes her felonious cousin’s sentence so she can tap her criminal network to track down the star. Fiona puts her large network of one person to work and identifies that the star is being held by a nefarious hotelier. Instead of informing Interpol—who are investigating—of this development, Marget, Fiona, and Stacy plan a comically amateur heist that involves flirtation, sexy laser dancing, and, of course, lots of switching. The consequences for failure are almost certainly death at the hands of the villainous hotelier, which Sam thinks is a fair bit worse than excommunication for not heisting the star back. Throughout all of this, Sam has serious questions on the state of the Montenaro monarchy, which seems rife with nepotism, incompetence, and princess switching. Despite that, Danielle and Sam come up with a pretty good pitch for The Princess Switch 4, so Netflix, if you’re listening, call us!

Joe Versus the Volcano

This week Danielle brings a movie she has an uneasy history with, it’s the 1990 Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan film Joe Versus the Volcano. Joe Banks is your typical work-a-day cog, unhappy with his life. Fortunately (?) he learns he has a rare disease called a brain cloud, which is asymptomatic but will kill him in six months. Joe accepts this without question, and so also agrees to help a millionaire superconductor magnate secure the mining rights on a small Polynesian island by jumping into a volcano. None of this crazy plot really matters because this movie has, just, so many Meg Ryans, you guys, so many. It seems Sam and Danielle have uncovered the truth of the Tom Hanksiverse series of movies and it will shock you (it’s Meg Ryan, the truth is it’s Meg Ryan all the way down). Despite these shocking revelations, Danielle and Sam manage to get through this movie about a man dealing with his mortality through encounters with a series of Meg Ryans, but they have one qualm with the film: It needs more Meg Ryans.

Serendipity

In the final installment of this year’s Winter Bizarre, Danielle brings out the big guns with the John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale rom-com Serendipity. A chance encounter in a New York department store brings Sara and Jonathan together. Even though they’re both happily seeing other people, Jonathan seems determined to find a way to be with Sara. Sara dodges his advances by setting up elaborate tests of fate that will tell them if they are meant to be together. Sam has exactly zero patience for Sara’s fate-based abdication of personal responsibility, Danielle, meanwhile, is mostly just amused by his frustration. Regardless, see our “heroes” eventually brutally dump their perfectly lovely partners to be with each other because apparently fate told them to. Danielle and Sam are forced by this movie to grapple with some existential questions that are, honestly, pretty stupid. Luckily, the leads have enough charisma and charm to make everyone forget the bad philosophy and enjoy their lovelorn shenanigans.