Palm Springs

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🎙️ EPISODE 284: 07.20.2020 There's a fascinating Wikipedia list titled List of films featuring time loops. The first, if we're considering this list canon, is a 1983 Japanese sci-fi film called The Girl Who Leapt Through Time. Of course, it was Groundhog Day released a decade later that really kickstarted one of the weirder sub-genre of films (if we can even call it that). There have been over 40 movies since then which warrant inclusion (though some of their merits are debatable). The most recent entry is the Andy Samberg-led comedy Palm Springs, a 2020 Hulu straight-to-streaming release, which is undeniably in the Groundhog Day mold. That this film is derivative is kinda besides the point. It is. If you can't get over that fact, then you're unlikely to enjoy this film; you probably won't put it on to begin with, so let's just move on.

I enjoyed it, probably a little more than I thought I would. In large because Cristin Milioti, who perhaps you remember as Leo's first wife in The Wolf of Wall Street or the mother from How I Met Your Mother, is excellent in the co-lead and has a nice chemistry with Samberg.

They have course try to have their own spin on the time loop story/origin: there are three characters stuck in this hell (J. K. Simmons as a quasi-villain is in the mix too), there is a source/origin (fiery space cave) and a more scientific resolution. Without getting deep into it, I appreciated the vague allusions to the multiverse and real, albeit 'out-there' physics, etc. Needless to say, that's all besides the point too: tactfully thrown in to make this FEEL different than its predecessors. It ain't.

But it nonetheless has a decent amount of laffz and a heart at its core which was just the right amount of fluffy.

CHRONOLOGICALLY
⫷ EPISODE 283B - (YOU ARE HERE) - EPISODE 285A ⫸

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