Today on the podcast we are reviewing the music movie Dinner In America.
Show Notes and Full Transcript
Just popping in to give you a heads up this podcast contains explicit content which might be unsuitable for some listeners. Listener discretion is advised.
As you can hear we’re doing something a little different today. More on that after the intro music.
Hey everyone welcome to the Eat Sleep Breathe Music podcast. I am your host Jeanette Kimszal. For those of you just joining us, this is the podcast where I talk about different musicians and how their music affects me and then play I track of theirs for you to listen to.
So you can check it out and form your own opinion as well.
However, today I am doing something different. This will be considered a bonus episode of sorts.
I also wanted to say Happy New Year! I can’t believe how fast the last month went by. I got caught up with the holidays and didn’t realize I had not posted an episode for about over a month.
So sorry about that for anyone who is in need of new music.
Hope you all had a great holiday. I had a nice time. I hosted Christmas and then went to visit family in Connecticut for New Year’s.
I got a little cold on the evening of New Year’s day and was sick for about three days then had a bunch of other family issues that happened over the second week in January and took up my time.
Then I had a project due and didn’t get a chance to do any podcasting for a while which was a bummer.
I am hoping to get back into the swing of things. I have a list of artists that I would like to promote and chat about on the podcast so hoping to get back into the swing of things soon.
I’ve also been thinking about sharing my previous concert reviews via podcasting as bonus episodes but will see how much time I have for that.
But anyway back to what I wanted to talk about in this particular episode.
There was recently a movie that I watched on Hulu that I have just been obsessed with lately.
I saw it in November on Thanksgiving weekend and we were looking for something to watch and we came across it on Hulu.
And the synopsis was what really kind of drew me in. I think. I have this thing wherever there is anything music-related I’m like really interested and I’m like “ooh that looks fun” and I don’t know.
Like books, movies, music, I mean anything music related it’s going to pique my interest.
The movie’s called Dinner in America. Basically, this is the synopsis that I saw on Hulu. An on-the-lam punk rocker and a young woman obsessed with his band unexpectedly fall in love and go on an epic journey together through America’s decaying Midwestern suburbs.
It was written and directed by Adam Rehmeier and stars Kyle Gallner and Emily Skeggs.
And I didn’t know anything about the director or actors. I”m not really a cinephile. I go to a lot of movies but I don’t really follow directors or movies or anything like that.
So I didn’t know anything about this movie. I also, I”m kind of not with it with a lot of stuff ( laughing).
I tend to not really go on social media or like don’t really know what’s going on in a lot of things just like what we see when we go to the movies. Like what movies are coming out?
I really am just kind of…I don’t know maybe I’m just living under a rock sometimes I feel like I don’t know what’s going on (laughing).
So I didn’t know anything about this movie. The movie was at Sundance and seemed to be at a lot of film festivals. And from there it got the ability to be picked up and streamed.
Because I was looking at a bunch of videos from interviews with the actors and just kind of information from like Sundance and they were saying I guess it got picked up.
And now it’s actually streaming because it wasn’t streaming for a while or it was only in the UK.
But now it’s on Hulu which is pretty cool. and I even asked for the DVD for Christmas and I got it.
So I’m really into this movie. Because normally I don’t buy DVDs and I don’t really get DVDs because I’m like everything is streaming.
But then I think like well you know it might not be on streaming for that long so might as well get the DVD because it’s one of those things that I really kind of enjoyed and yeah so I’m like let me get the movies so I can have it at home and watch it whenever I want.
So the run time of the movie is only like an hour and 46 minutes. It’s pretty short and it seems to take over the course of a few days.
I’m not going to do a rewatch because I…I don’t want to give anything away.
You can make your own opinion of this and the movie has been depicted as a comedy/drama or dramedy. Though the humor may not appeal to everyone since it’s kind of dry and you know it’s a little…I would say not everyone would get this movie.
Not everyone would like it. I showed it to a friend and she said it was weird. I like weird movies (laughing).
I don’t know. It’s like a hit-or-miss with people.
I would say it reminds me a lot of “Welcome to the Dollhouse.”
Because there like a central character and not everyone hates her but she is like the brunt of like jokes. She’s getting picked on. Her family doesn’t understand her.
I think the ending is a little bit happier which I feel is good because I feel like “Welcome to the Dollhouse” I’ve watched that as an adult and I’ve felt really bad for the character (laughing). I feel really bad.
But this movie is similar to that. I feel this movie is a mix of “Welcome to the Dollhouse” and Napoleon Dynamite.
It has also been described as a “Heathers” type comedy but there are no murders, nothing like that.
Umm, there is a lot of cringes though like you know? There is a lot of stuff that may not appeal to everyone. There is a lot of cursing.
There is a lot of, I guess you know being picked on. And kind of just like…there is the use of the R-word
But I think it’s more to show how these characters feel very alienated. They are on the fringes of society. They kind of are not really like the status quo of life in society.
You know it’s kind of interesting because it goes through…You know I don’t even know if I gave the name of the movie did I?
But it’s kind of interesting because it goes through all these families having dinner in the midwest suburbs
but there is this theme of “no matter what type of family you have it seems like this kind of misunderstanding or not really getting like their kids are all about”
There are still a lot of people who think their children may not be doing what they need to do. Or they’re telling them to take it down a notch.
Because the main character really seems to be misunderstood by her family and people around her are taking advantage of her and like kind of being really mean to her.
But then at the end, she kind of has this..she kind of grows as a character and I think that’s because of the relationship with the other main character.
It’s funny because at the beginning of the movie, you really have to get through the first 30 minutes in order to not hate the main character.
Because it starts out and there’s this guy and he’s in this testing facility and it gets a little gross. There’s like food and they are on this medication and there are like these side effects and you know.
He comes off as a total A-hole and you kind of really hate him. I remember sitting there watching the movie thinking “I really hate this guy. Should I shut this movie off?” (Laughing).
I don’t know. I’m not really one to shut down a movie like I was like, “really wondering what was gonna happen, what was gonna happen?”
And it’s interesting because like you know the two characters are in love with each other before they realize it themselves. When they first met they don’t realize who the other is. Once that realization sets in it change the tone of the movie.
This is the pinnacle of the movie that has been set. You see how the two of them together can be stronger and push out everyone else in their world who is bringing them down or telling them they aren’t good enough or aren’t so-called “normal.”
It’s a really nice emotional moment. Leading up to that there is also some silly comedy thrown in with them taking charge and standing up to the people who wronged them in the beginning.
This kind of lightened it up a bit. And this was something I was kind of questioning when I saw the trailer.
After we watched the trailer and I turned to my husband and said “Do you want to watch this movie?”
And he said he was in. So I’m like ok. As I said it does take about 20 / 30 minutes to get through. You know you really have to like watch past that because otherwise you’re really gonna hate the main character.
But in the end, I feel like they help each other grow. The girl character really comes into her own.
There is something about it that really touched you as a viewer. And you’re just kind of like…it’s really poignant, it’s really emotional.
It’s kind of nice how these two people can find each other within this chaotic world where everything is kind of like against them.
It’s hard to get by. But another thing that is interesting. It seems to be there is no time that it takes place.
Like it is hard to tell what time frame when this movie takes place. It looks like it could be the 90s because of the hair cut the one guy has someone who is like “why do you have that haircut?”
But it’s like a haircut that people have no so that’s why I’m wondering when does this movie take place in the 90s?
But then there was a mention of a cell phone. So I was kind of confused and I don’t know if it’s one of those things where it’s meant to just not be in any specific time.
It was interesting. She had a polaroid camera but then I was listening to something else and the people were talking about how it was a newer version of the polaroid camera.
So I was like…then she was also listening to records and there was no mention of CDs and iPhones.
I was really curious if the movie was supposed to be taking place in the 90s because she wasn’t saying she found the band online.
They also said someone was handing out fliers. And like, it just seemed like older time things about how people would find out about music and find out about shows.
I liked that kind of concept either a throwback to the 90s or just like a throwback to like no specific instance of figuring out the time it took place in.
As I said I thought the movie was pretty neat. If you can get through all of the terribleness of the main character at the beginning of the movie it is worth it.
And if you don’t mind cursing and cringy stuff you know it definitely pays off in the end. At least in my opinion. I would say it. I enjoyed this movie.
It was also described by lead actress Emily Skeggs as “a renegade love story about two misfits who find each other and themselves through music” this flick will appeal to music enthusiasts and fans of films like Napoleon Dynamite and Welcome to the Dollhouse.
There are a lot of problems with it. I often wonder if the story could have been told without all of like the crudeness. I guess it’s hard to say because the movie is made this way.
I think the feelings that it provokes, show a testament to the acting. For some reason, it evokes emotions in me and stuck with me after watching.
In the end, I really enjoyed it. I would be curious to see what other people think.
If you have some time to kill and you like these types of movies. Movies with odd humor and kind of like outcast characters may be something that will appeal to you.
And if you do watch it I would love to know what you think about it. You can leave me a message or comment. I’ll leave links to where you can leave your thoughts in the show notes.
I just want to thank you for taking the time to listen to my mini-review of Dinner in America.
And if you are interested in checking out Dinner in America I’ll leave links to where you can find it streaming on Hulu and Amazon
And just thank you again for listening! Let us know what you think about Dinner in America. Leave an audio comment here!
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