Everything Everywhere

Dennis and Bonnie discuss the movie "Everything Everywhere All at Once" in a bonus episode of their podcast. The movie follows the story of an overworked Chinese-American mother trying to balance her life. She encounters characters from different multiverses and must save the world. The movie is described as charming, adventurous, and intellectually stimulating. It incorporates elements of time travel and alternate realities. The hosts praise the film's message and its clever symbolism, such as using an everything bagel to represent the concept of meaninglessness. The movie is both funny and profound, with a whimsical tone. Hi, welcome to Simply Timeless, Dennis and Bonnie, and we are here for a bonus episode. Is it a bonus episode, yeah. Yeah, well we'll explain what we're doing. Yeah, what are we talking about today? We're talking about the Best Picture winner that has happened since we started this podcast. Yes. It's 2022, everything, everywhere, all at once. Yes. So you should kind of explain, well the easy question, the easy answer as far as why we're doing it is that we talked about Best Picture winners and it's the Best Picture winner. Yep. I saw it happen. You saw it happen? That's right. You can look it up on Wikipedia if you got it. But as far as why we're doing it now, one of the conceits of our podcast is we are doing a countdown of the Best Picture winners from worst to best, and it's something I started doing when I decided to rewatch all the Best Picture winners. It was a great idea. It was a great idea. So I decided it would be more fun to just kind of do it worst to best. So I just spent an afternoon just kind of getting lists and rankings from the internet through together an Excel spreadsheet, put in the formulas, and it ranks them for me. So I haven't actually seen the final list. I've just been going through that. And we started the podcast. So something I originally got just for my own benefit, and then Bonnie gave me the podcast, so now it's out into the world. That's a true story. Yeah. So then this one was not part of the original list. It was not, because I did this almost a year ago. Yeah, probably a year ago. Yeah. Yeah, right around Labor Day is when I started watching them. So I had a point value to just come up with the rankings. And so after the Oscars, the various lists that I used to put this together updated their lists. And so I was able to just use the same point values. And so using that, everything that we were all at once came in with 57.995 points. Okay. Okay? And so that puts it right ahead of Spotlight had 54.19 points less, and In the Heat of the Night is one more. Okay. Because that got 59.659 points. Okay. So now that doesn't necessarily mean that, okay, Spotlight is now 34, and this is the new 33, because it's just kind of a placeholder. Because who knows, you know, when I get the USA Today ranking, could they just slot in everything everywhere all at once and put everything one list? Or did they reevaluate their list and everything's ranked differently, and that would change the whole list? So this really is a bonus episode. This is a bonus episode. This is like we've kind of branched off from our normal universe where we normally do the countdown. I like it. And so next week when we go back to our list, this is kind of a one-off. This is part of our multiverse. Got it. Okay. So, but anyways, any instance of the episode is out of order if you want to. But that's just an explanation of why we're doing it now. And it doesn't have a ranking, but it's essentially 33. Yeah. Any questions? None from me. Okay. So I'm not going to go through in detail all of the losers, because we've talked about them on other podcasts. I think the nominations came out. Yeah, we did a bonus episode. But just to recap, we had A Quiet on the Western Front, Avatar the Way of the Water, The Banshees and Ms. Sheeran, Elvis, The Fableman Par, Popcorn Maverick, Triangle Sadness, and Women Talking. Yeah, I've seen, well, I watched everything everywhere all at once. And then I've seen Elvis, Popcorn Maverick, and most of The Fableman. Oh, you haven't finished The Fableman. I know. I'm hoping, I'm taking another flight this week, and I'm hoping The Fableman is on it. Oh, yeah. Yeah, The Fableman is great. So that I can watch the end of it, because that's what happened to me with the first three quarters. I was on a flight, and then it ended before I could finish. All right, well, let's get into it. Are you as capable of summarizing everything everywhere all at once? I'll give it a shot. Sure. This is a movie about this Asian woman. Is she Chinese? She's Chinese. Chinese, and American, and immigrant, probably, or immigrant family, at least. No, she immigrated. She immigrated, okay. At least in the mainstream. So it's the story of this sort of overworked working mother. She is married, but she's so busy trying to keep all the balls in the air. The laundromat is having problems with IRS, her husband, divorce her, and her daughter is being rebellious. Right. And she's just trying to find a way to make everything work. Right. And then as they introduce all these characters, her husband from a – well, somebody who looks like her husband from an alternate universe kind of steps into her life, and then you have all these multiverse coming in where she needs to save the world. Right. Anyway, and so it's really interesting how they do it. So you're flipping in and out from now to then, and it – anyway, that's kind of how it is. It's sort of a family drama at the heart of it. Right, yeah, exactly. And I would add that it's – he files divorce papers, but his – it's not that he wants to divorce her. It's more of a way to get her attention. Yeah. Not a good idea for the married couple, but that's what – he's going to work for a friend of his. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that's kind of the – that's sort of the overall basis plot. And did you know that he was her kid from Indiana Jones? Oh, I knew somebody from that. Yeah. Okay, so he's the kid from Indiana Jones. Yeah. Yeah. So my advice was just to, like, go where it leads you. Yeah. Did that help out at all? Well, it's hard to know because, you know, it was just me at home watching it, and I have to say I really enjoyed it. Oh, good. Yeah. I'm glad to hear that. I thought it was really fun, and it was also kind of intriguing. I don't know if intellectually stimulating is the term. Yeah. But it was – I thought it was charming and adventurous, and I liked – it felt like – it's not what I was expecting. I had this – I knew there was some sort of time lapse that, you know, we just hear, maybe even just from what you talked about. So I knew it would be sort of Inception-like where you're doing this. Yeah. And I knew that it was something – I've seen pictures, I think at the Oscars, they showed her doing kung fu stuff. Oh, right. And so I had this concept that she had to probably save the world or save something, and that she becomes this superhero kind of thing. But that's not really – she doesn't become this superhero. It's actually way more intriguing than that. Right. She doesn't have any superhero stuff. Overall, it reminded me of this – it's like when you're playing this complicated board game, and they tell you, like, okay, you can read the directions. Right. But you just have to, like, play it, and you kind of adjust to it as you go along. Exactly. And that's what this – you know, her experience was. Right. And we kind of experienced that with her. And so we kind of started catching on to this, you know, things that were surprising at first. Then we started seeing the patterns and catching on to it. And it was really, you know, these, like, wonderfully random things that it's like there are these people that are in some other multiverse in a van somewhere with all these computers. Right. Very similar to, like, what you're seeing. Inception. Inception are a lot of movies where they're watching and they're guiding you through. Right. So they're figuring out what does she need in this situation. She needs kung fu. Right. Or she needs, you know, something else. Right? Yeah. And so it's like, what would be the alternate – Super pinkies. What would be the alternate universe where she would have done this? And it's like they have to – she has to have some sort of a tick or a thing to think about to do something. Something that, like, your normal world wouldn't do. Yeah. Yeah. Something off that. And then press the button, put your, you know, head up, and then boom. Then you have – you're either going someplace or you're, you know, you have that strength that you need or the skills that you need. And then they just do this, like, quick, you know, like, okay, she's back at the beginning with her family. And then it's like, okay, now she – instead of going with her boyfriend, she ends up taking karate lessons. And so it's not just, like, all of a sudden she can do karate. It's that they've kind of rewired her life. Right. So that she knows karate. Right? So that she just is able to do this because she's trained in it. And so she gets glimpses of her life going all these different ways. And in that way, it's kind of like it's a wonderful life. Yeah. Also a family. Well, I was going to say, like, film dog millionaire in the sense that you realize that the stuff you need to know you kind of found out along the way without being, like, taught or educated on. Yeah. Well, this is, like, the opposite of that. Yeah. Where it's, like, what you need to know, like, you know, it sort of comes naturally to you. Right. Yeah, you're saying. So I actually really like that. Yeah. And I love the overall message of the movie. It's really pretty fantastic. It's great. So kind of surprising from Hollywood. Because it, you know, the villain in this is really this, what's built up in sort of her daughter and the body of her daughter is encompassing the concept that there's no meaning. Yes. To anything. Mm-hmm. And so, you know, that's what she's battling. You know, that's what the mom is battling this. And I, it's so deliciously hilarious that it's symbolized by an everything bagel. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And it's sort of, it's very clever. Yeah, like, you know, it's almost, like, goofy and somewhat profound at the same time. Yeah. And whimsical. And whimsical, and it, like, laughs at itself as it's going. Yes. And it's kind of funny that, you know, how she doesn't, she doesn't always know if it's her husband, it's this multiverse, you know. And so there's all these, you know, funny things that are going on. But, and I, it also has this pro-life message that surprised me in that, you know, it's just this being built up in that you have to destroy this, what is it, Juno? Jobu Tsubaki. Yeah, Jobu Tsubaki, which is in the form of her daughter. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's in the form of her daughter. So it's, it's like this, the biggest problem in, that you can conceive of right now, is the only way to get rid of that is to destroy your daughter, which is sort of what everybody wants her to do. And then she... Yeah, well, her father wants her to do that. Yeah, her father, her husband in the multiverse, you know, it's just like you. Right. You're the one who can battle this. You're the one who can solve this problem for anybody. And all you have to do to solve this problem is to destroy your daughter. Right. And, and her daughter is just really terrible towards her and attacking her and all this kind of stuff. Oh, the Jobu Tsubaki version? Yeah. Okay, yeah. Yeah. And, and even her daughter, when she's just being her daughter, she's, you know, they're... It's normal mother-daughter, you know, stuff. I mean, it goes both ways. Yeah, there's parts of it. The daughter's definitely... Yeah, the victim, right. Yeah. But... It's a complicated relationship. It's a complicated relationship. But anyway, you have this built up in this, and the mother just won't do it. She really is able to resolve it in a different way, actually, which solves the problem and spares her daughter. Yeah. And it's beautiful. It's a great... Yeah, it's great. I saw it when it first opened, and it was just one of my most pleasurable experiences in a movie theater. Because it was... I bet it would be awesome in a movie theater. Full crowd. And the crowd was just reacting so much to everything. And it was, like, reminded me of, like, you know, just that feeling of being in a crowd that's really invested in the movie. I don't think I've had it, certainly, in a full house since Avengers Endgame. Okay. But this isn't like a sequel with 22 movies before it that everyone's invested in. Right. Everybody's coming in with a blank slate. Yeah. And it's just brand new to everybody, and we're all just kind of experiencing it for the first time together. Yeah. I think Barbie kind of had that energy, just with all the people wearing pink and getting into it. But even that has an intellectual property that people know about, and the doll and everything. But, yeah, it was just so thrilling to just have this reaction. Like, the biggest reaction was to see the rocks. Oh, really? Yeah. Well, because I think it's really almost cathartic, because the movie's so busy. Yeah. And then it's really paced while we're... Yeah. It just kind of slows down. Slows down. And it's so great. Yeah. Slows down, and they're just... The mother and daughter are two rocks. Yeah. They've gone into a universe where the conditions for life haven't been met. Yeah. And... So great. It's very sweet. But they still have their personalities. And the only character that... Or the only familiar face, for me at least, in this movie, was the IRS agent. Jamie Lee Curtis. Jamie Lee Curtis playing this just delightful IRS agent slash... Mrs. Wang. Villain in the multiverse slash just another player in the multiverse. And it's such a different character. You talk about... You know, she is this beautiful woman. Right. And she's just a beautiful, glamorous movie star. And she just lets herself be this character. I know. She's so great. It's such a contrast to A Fish Called Wanda. It's a contrast, right? Yeah. She kind of revels in this whole belly... What do you call that? Like the belly coming... Ponsor. Yeah. Right. Little poof. And she's so hilarious and so good. She's great. Doesn't that freak you out? She won a... She did. Yeah. That's why I remember that. Right. Yeah. And I find... I probably enjoyed it more on re-watch. I would love to re-watch this again. I could definitely see... Yeah, I watched it again before the Oscars. And then I watched it actually three times leading up to this podcast. I was not expecting to like it as much as I did. Oh, good. I'm glad you did. I wasn't expecting... Yeah. I had heard not... I mean, you hadn't really... You hadn't said anything negative. Right. But I hadn't talked about it too much. I've heard from a couple of other people that were like, Meh. But I thought it was really fun. Yeah. Thoroughly enjoyed it. Yeah. And I think you do run into the little problem where all that people have heard about it is how many Oscars that it won. And so you're kind of... If you're going in expecting... It's a very unusual... Yeah. I mean, that would be me, right? Right. You know how I get with that. Right. But I think even... I've seen a couple of them. The other ones on there. And I just knew that this one... I think that was part of my not expecting very... I thought this was going to be an overhyped movie. Maybe even a... Okay, it's got a mostly Asian cast. Sort of like when everybody was berserk about Crazy Rich Asians. And if you didn't like it, you were anti-Asian. I'm not anti-Asian. Well, I didn't like that movie at all. Crazy Rich Asians. And everybody was like, oh, you've got to love it because it's all Asian cast. So if I had thought about it, I would have thought, well, maybe that's why this got the nudge. But I don't... I mean, this is mostly Asian cast. This is an Oscar-worthy movie, I think. Yeah. But I mean, it's probably the most unusual Oscar winner. Midnight Cowboy is actually a very unusual winner. You don't like to talk about Midnight Cowboy. Birdman, too. There's probably another oddball one. Yeah. Birdman is an oddball movie. I definitely like it better than Birdman. I do, too. And I was intrigued by Birdman. I did not like it. But this was just completely enjoyable. It's really engaging. I think maybe it might turn off people. They have to figure out how this multiverse works. You kind of just have to go with the flow. Yeah. Because it's not really about that. It's not about that. It's not about that. Yeah, I think the multiverse is kind of a metaphor for, it sounds hokey, but like our present moment. We're just kind of bombarded with information and ideas, and it's just this kind of chaotic sort of, there's no monoculture. Everything is coming at you. And it makes it hard to really come to terms with what is meaningful. Yeah. Yeah. And I just thought that was kind of sweet, the way that she does go to, you know, at one point it seems to come to the conclusion that if nothing means anything, if you experience everything, then nothing means anything. And then to just kind of have it come back to, yeah, the family. It's really discerning through the noise. Because you saw her at the beginning of the movie, and she's just trying to handle everything. Yes. And things are dropping, you know, because she needs to spend more time with her daughter, and more time with her husband, and more time on the business. And she doesn't have enough time to even keep up, and as a daughter, and all these things. And she has no balance. Like her home is part of a laundromat. Yeah. And there's clutter everywhere. So cluttered. And she has pots simmering while she has the strew with paper, and even the desk at the IRS office. Yeah. It's like that. Yeah. And, you know, when somebody comes to pick up their garments, you know, she's got to go back into their home, you know, because they've stored some of those. Yeah. So there's no barriers between that. But it's that it's almost can be interpreted as prayerful, discerning through meditation or prayer, you know. Yeah. Or mindfulness. Mindfulness that she's taking that helps her to focus her mind and discern what is real and what is important, and to just shed the rest. Yeah. And it's actually really beautiful. Yeah. And I think it's her first, the first time that she actually uses her skills or finds out the skills that she hasn't. The thing that's unusual that she needs to do is to say, I love you sincerely. Yes. To Deirdre. Yeah. So interesting. Yeah. Where she couldn't even do that with her daughter. She couldn't do it. Right. No, exactly. Yeah. She started. You can see her wanting to say that to her daughter or express something, and instead she just told her, watch what you eat. I think you're getting fat. Yeah. Yeah. And this afternoon she'll play that so well with just that look on her face. Yeah. When she got that. Yeah. We've kind of talked in some other movies about deconstruction, about how there's this kind of era in movies where they just kind of take the themes and the ideals of the past and kind of a couple of those we haven't really gotten into yet on the podcast. Oh, what are they? We talked about it for the French Connection, which is coming up next year. I already know that because we announced it. Okay. But like how that kind of deconstructs the kind of tops are heroes, good guy, bad guy type stuff. And this movie kind of is maybe part of the next step where it's taking this impulse in, like what deconstruction does is to say, hey, what we thought was meaningful is really meaningless. And then it kind of goes to the other level with taking it back to a more sentimental level. It's actually a really interesting video essay that uses this movie as an example of the metamodern aspect. There's modernism, postmodernism, and now metamodernism. That's really makes that point in a very interesting way. But like one of the postmodern things, in deconstruction was like, you'd have a lot of pop culture references, right? Where, you know, instead of dialogue that moves the plot forward, which was the legacy, you know, what we were supposed to do. It's like, okay, people are just like talking about Madonna signs or, you know, that sort of thing. And so it just kind of disconnects it from the meaning. And so I like what this movie kind of does where it brings in a ratatouille reference as a way of, at first, it's just silly, like the, you know, postmodernists are, but then it like kind of sticks to it and takes it to the next level where it's like, you know, it's like, okay, but then like kind of sticks to it and takes it to the next level where it actually becomes kind of sweet. And like, she kind of beats this guy with a, she calls it raccoon-y because she's either misremembering it or she's channeling another universe where the movie's about a raccoon. But then like, she finds out in one of her other works that her rival has a raccoon in the place of the rat from the movie Ratatouille. And that's like, she eventually like jumps on his head to pull his hair to chase after the raccoon. It's like, it's so goofy, but also really sweet. So it kind of takes this technique, which is just kind of very clever and very cynical, and then just takes it to the next level where you see the meaning in it. In some ways it's the opposite of American beauty. Right, yeah. Which takes... So definitely postmodern. Right, yeah. So American beauty takes the appearance of what is known and what is understood and what are standards, and that becomes the enemy, right? That becomes the enemy. And so it's overcoming that. Once you move beyond that, you free yourself from that. Whereas this one, the ultimate evil in this is meaninglessness. Right. And then not having any meaning, purpose. There is no reality. It's just whatever is, maybe is or maybe not is. And it's moving beyond that where it's like, no, it's not that. There really is... It works with nihilism and then rejects it. Yes, exactly. I love it too. I slice it better each time I see that. Yeah, I mean, this is a real good family movie. It could almost be really good. I mean, there are... What's bad for kids? There's the butt plugs. Yeah. There's some... Oh, no. Yeah, there's some... Oh, no. There's a lot of silliness in it. Yes, yes, yes. That's true. Hot dog fingers. Hot dog fingers. That's not glue. It's just kind of funny. Yeah. Yeah, so I think it's actually my favorite one so far. Out of all the movies we've watched? Mm-hmm. Wow. Yeah, I think it's pretty high. I think it's one of my favorite movies. Yeah, it's high. Yeah, it's... Yeah, I don't object to where it is. Yeah. I think it's pretty fun. Okay. So... Now, the problem with the... Get it for you, the Paul Wimbert, would be that... Oh. Chat TPT only goes up to 2020, right? That is a good question. There's probably not any I know what it is. Ooh. Well, let's... Chat TPT only goes up to that? I think so. That's what... Oh, maybe they've upgraded it. I think that lines. Yeah. Well, we are about to find out. Oh, it does have one. Oh, okay. Are you ready for it? Yes. So, here's the limerick. In worlds both far and near, everything, everywhere did appear. A movie so vast, a journey so fast, where dimensions entwine, never to clear. Oh, wow. That's pretty good. I mean, it's definitely about it. I bet yours is better. Was I supposed to write that? On the separate page? Yes. There we go. Oh, this is so good! You read it already? All right. Are you unmetering it? Yes. I don't read letters. Okay. So good. When Evelyn screwed up her taxes, her whole world came right off its axis. She battled and fought her impetuous daughter in this multiverse set to the maxes. I love that! So good! Oh, yeah. That is so good. I really enjoy this. It's become my favorite part of the episode. Yeah. So, I'm really going to love an Oscar nomination. You're definitely better than I am. Well, thank you. I appreciate that. There were four acting nominations. Okay, so seven. It was nominated for how many? It was nominated for 11. Okay. That's a lot. Yeah. That's a lot. And it won seven? It won seven. Okay. The most since Gravity. The most for Best Picture winner since Slumdog Millionaire. But anyway, can you guess who those four acting nominees are? I know that Evelyn was nominated. Michelle Yeoh. Michelle Yeoh. And Michelle Yeoh was... And then I know that Jamie Lee Curtis won for Best Supporting Actress. And it was also Best Supporting Actor. Yeah. So, the old guy. Was it the dad and the husband? No, it was Wingman. Oh, it was Wingman? Okay. Not the grandfather? No. Okay. Okay, so that's... It's 90. Is that right? Yeah. So, that... He's had like 400 movie titles. So, did Wingman look older than... I don't know. Maybe he did. Oh. Okay, so... Except for Indiana Jones. So, Wingman for Supporting Actor? Mm-hmm. Did he win? Yeah. And then, did she win for Best Supporting... Best Actress? Michelle Yeoh won. Oh, okay. And then Best Supporting Actress won. Mm-hmm. There was another one? The Daughters? Yeah. Yeah. That's the names who lost to Jamie Lee Curtis. Okay. Got it. Yeah. And so, won for Best Picture. Best Picture. Best Director. Yep. That was really cool. Yeah. And then... And then... And then... And then... And then... And then... And then... And then... And then... And then... And then... And then... And then... And then... And then... And then... And then... And then... And then... And then... And then... And then... And then... And then... And then... And then... And then... And then... And then... And then... And then... And then... And then... 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