Episode #597: ”No Other Choice” and ”Is This Thing On?”

This week everyone saw everything, so we start off with Park Chan-Wook's latest, the darkly comic thriller NO OTHER CHOICE (2:51), in which a 25-year veteran of a paper company is laid off and after a series of poor interviews, can't find another job. So he does the next logical thing: He decides to murder everyone in his field who may be more qualified than he is. Yikes! We all had our problems with this (it ain't THE HANDMAIDEN), but we did find things to like. But it seems we're outliers; NO OTHER CHOICE is getting critical raves but we all found it lukewarm for one reason or another. We follw up with Bradley Cooper's latest directorial effort, IS THIS THING ON? (28:44) Alex (Will Arnett, who's dynamite and also co-wrote the script) starts doing stand-up while sorting through the ditritus of his marriage. Tess (Laura Dern, who's dynamite) returns to her first (professional) love, and...things happen! (Sorry. It's 3 a.m.) Two of us really enjoyed this, and one of us did not. Over on Patreon, we talk about the 1985 Martin Scorsese comedy AFTER HOURS.