The Clubhouse Podcast

iTunes Exclusive Episode Ricki And The Flash

September 24, 2017 Season 6, Episode 113

Rob, Chad, Andrew, and Don review director Jonathan Demme's Ricki and the Flash, starring Meryl Streep as an aging rocker and her real-life daughter Mamie Gummer. The film, written by Diablo Cody, follows Ricki as she returns home to console her estranged daughter after a divorce. The hosts found the film exceeded low expectations but felt the first two-thirds dragged, the script was below average, and key dramatic moments lacked payoff.

About this episode

Key takeaways

  • The film's pacing is slow, particularly in the first 45 minutes, with excessive musical numbers that feel repetitive
  • Meryl Streep plays the role as drunk throughout, which doesn't fit the free-spirited character she was meant to portray
  • Kevin Kline's performance is underutilized; his character had strong potential but wasn't developed fully
  • A major dramatic confrontation between characters arrives too early in the film and lacks proper follow-up
  • The climactic wedding musical moment is moved to the end credits instead of the scene where it would have had the most impact

Q&A

Would the hosts see this film again?

Andrew would not. Rob said he might watch it if nothing else was on while channel surfing, but wouldn't actively choose to see it again.

How does Ricki and the Flash compare to similar films?

Rob compared it to Light of Day, the 1986 Michael J. Fox film with John Jeth, describing it as that kind of film but with older characters.

What did the hosts think of the cameos in the film?

Charlotte Ray appears briefly but has minimal screen time. Most cameos didn't add to the story and seemed included only because they were friends of Streep's.

Read Transcript

The following is a sooner orgator production. The following is a sooner orgator production. The following is a sooner orgator production.

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Seven Eastern 4 Pacific, your one stop shop for all things sports and entertainment. Probably also means to subscribe on iTunes because this time for another iTunes exclusive. Welcome.

My name is Rob and I am the executive producer of the Clubhouse podcast and I have no been known to do a little singing from here and they are in time to time. You don't know. What do you do?

I don't know. But I'm not alone for this particular episode are 124th one of these. What do you mean across the desk because he tends to do?

Is my co-host and a man who is looking more and more like Jerry Garcia every time I see him. He is Chad. Thank you very much.

You're my lion. Also across the desk for me is the ginger ninja and a man who has these easy top starter kid on his face. He is the king of bowling.

He is Andrew Beckham. Thank you. Great to be here.

All righty. Three weeks away. I'll be.

I was going to say I did. Am I missing a milestone? Easy.

Ginger. And also joining us is the official fact checker of this show and a man that will be of a concert of his own. Here just a few days.

You may know I miss Fondongo but his mom and demon Dom 4 I'm going to call him Don Ford. Welcome sir. You'll be my 31st Buffet concert in one week from tonight.

On Sunday, I meet my promonti brothers at PNC Park. If you had the three minute mark is the over under for the first time Don would mention Pamanci brothers congratulations. But hey, don't lose my number.

Whatever we do one of these is to review something and today is no exception. Today we are reviewing the latest film from director Jonathan Demi. Yes, that Jonathan Demi director of films like Silence of the Lambs, Philadelphia, the Manchurian candidate.

A very underrated film called Rachel getting married. A lot of music documentaries for people like Neil Young Bruce Springsteen, the Pretenders. But he directs a new movie starring Meryl Streep and her real-life daughter.

It is called Ricky and the Flash. And here's the bit. By the way, Manny Gummer is her daughter's name.

Meryl Streep plays the aforementioned Ricky, an aging rocker who is part of a houseband and a bar in California who is also dating her guitar player played by the great Rick Springfield. And she finds out that her from her ex husband and Indianapolis that her daughter has been left by her husband for a younger woman. And she seems to think it's a good idea for Ricky who has pretty much been estranged from her kids for a very, very long time to come and console her and help her through what comes with that.

It's about as far as I want to go, I think. This is what you need to know. Also, this was written by Diablo Cody, whom you might know, of course, from writing Juno and things of it's little like Jennifer's body, the very forgettable Jennifer's body.

Now Andrew and I were the only ones to see this, but the boys are here with us to kind of, because I'm sure that they've got questions before we get even though me and Chad weren't able to make it because we're doing double duty for the Empire. Is that's how we roll? Exactly.

We got to think Ashden and everybody at Mariahson and try to start pictures for inviting us to this thing. Yeah, they were really, really good. Oh, yeah, they're like, you know, even though we weren't able to make it, thanks for the invite and thanks for letting the guys see this thing.

So Andrew and I are going to talk about this quite a bit. I think we should probably start with the style of the film. Jonathan Demi has done a lot of work with music, but I don't know that he's done a lot of stories that aren't real life stories with music, but this was about on par from visually from what I expected.

Yeah. I mean, you don't need a bunch of slam bang action films. You don't need a crane shot, sort of 360 Michael Bay things in this.

It's a basic, I guess you could call it a dromedy? That's the only way to call it. There was probably more trouble.

For me, the Demi brothers, you know, God rest his brother's soul, Ted, directly one of my favorite movies called Beautiful Girls, and you put the last name Demi on anything, that's what I automatically go to. And so that's a high bar, because I love that movie, I own the soundtrack, you know. My first thought when I saw the trailer was a whole boy, this will not be good, this will not be good.

It was like, Meryl Streep did Mama Mia, and then she's like, I want to sing all the time. Although she sounded more like the queen of England right there than Meryl Streep, but still. So going in, man, my bar was set real low, you know, there were other friends of ours that had gone to other screenings that were like, dude, but I wasn't gonna let that deter me.

You know, I wanted to go in, it's open-minded as I possibly could, just to see how this thing went. Not a bad script, but not a great script. I felt like Diablo Cody, like spent way too much time on the first two thirds of the film.

And then she was like, oh, I got to finish this, okay, here you go, like, the first probably 45 minutes of this thing dragged for me, very much so it was just too much singing. That's all it was. I didn't mind that, but it was just the whole, hey, now we're gonna get up tomorrow, and we're gonna go through the same thing again, where she yells at her mom for not being there.

Okay, the writing was far way below average. I thought the story was gonna be a little bit stronger than it was. And it had a heart to it, like, I can't say there wasn't a heart to this thing, but it wasn't, it was more than I was expecting, but less than I was hoping for, if that makes any sense.

You know, movies like this, especially as a musician, I'm always gonna be critical. And I can honestly say, if Meryl Streep doesn't play the guitar, I'll be shocked, because she really looked like she was playing the songs, you know, Rick Springfields the Andy. Rick Springfields.

You know, he plays guitar. You know, you're not worried about the quality of Rick Springfields deal. Now, would it have been better if she sang Jessie's girl or don't talk to strangers?

Absolutely. Yes. Because the irony there would have been enough for me, but they didn't do that.

I just, I don't know, like the performance here that really got me and made me go, come on dude, was Kevin Klein playing her ex husband. Where for me, I was just like, this is one of the great actors of our time. Yes, he's known mostly for comedic roles, but my thing was, he's so much more than that.

And I thought, like, they went to him and said, okay, Kevin, we know you're going to do this movie, but we need you to just play it on the page. Don't do anything with it. To me, his character could have been the strongest of them and should have been, but I don't think they wanted that, just because his onscreen presence is that, but you have to just let him do what he does, that's the genius of Kevin Klein to me.

And I don't feel that they did that here. Well, Streep, one of the greatest actresses in the history of ever, let's just put it out there. You know, she's got more Oscars and Oscar nominations and some people, you know, have pairs on to wear, but she played drunk through this whole thing, like that was her interpretation of an aging musician.

Like, there were just certain points where I just went, look at her and go, just drag that line, because she just, she acted drunk through this whole thing and it didn't fit. I mean, I know she was supposed to be like this free spirit, hippie kind of the thing, but I didn't get that. Me either.

I got it as someone that just really didn't care, just whatever she felt like doing in the moment is what she was going to do. You know, I thought, I thought she looked the part, done. I have one, you know, how would you, you know, talk about the acting here and the other stuff like the drama and the comedy, how would you compare that to something like a low-ha, or even possibly paper towns?

How's an orange? Because this is, I can't even put them in the same way, but it wouldn't even be that, no, it's just totally out of the way. Okay.

So, they're so different. Yeah. I don't, I mean, when I thought about this movie and Chad, you know, I'm sure you'll back me up on this.

I went back to a movie called Light of Day. It's been a long, with Michael J. Fox and was that Pat Benatar or John Jethos?

John Jethos? John Jeth, John Jethos into with him. This is that kind of film, but, a little older.

There were some things here that I identified with as a musician, and there's something position for a long time and I'm not saying I'm that much younger than more straight but I'm just saying um I just they had great moments but I don't know that it was consistent enough to to me the comedy kind of kept it moving a little bit and you get their reports where they just tried to hard to make it funny right I think it was written that way because he knew oh wow this is really good I mean it's better than most of the stuff the Diablo Cody's been doing she did that uh Charlize Theron film young adult you know Jennifer's body she did the show you know I'd say the terror which I never watched I don't want to say she's on the upswing but it's better than what she's been doing you know it's such a weird thing because I will I can't say I hated this film I can't do it I mean I could but I'd be lying but I can't say I loved this movie I can say it exceeded expectations if your expectations were negative I wouldn't say they were negative they were just really low okay because I was like I'm I'm sure you know I'm a big Rick Springfield fan I can sit through this you know I like Meryl Streep she's well again one of the great actresses of our time you know well you're saying after the film um how they're like a lot of cameo is in there did they really add to that like not really I mean I look some people didn't expect you're like that person there was there is one person and they they name they name check her in the opening credits Charlotte Ray is in this thing it took me longer to say that sentence than she's in the film I know I didn't know I did she was still leaving me and when you see her you don't realize it's her until you see who she is in the credits and you go that was Charlotte Ray that was Mrs Garrett but they were certain times were they just they focused on certain people that I guess were just friends of hers because they really served no purpose but we had to focus on them for a minute which is kind of weird for me the story that's how the story was written though and here we're going to introduce all these cast of characters and have none of them develop really well and if I'll say that the biggest thing for me was there is another wedding in this film and at the height of the film you know she's going to do something musical because that's the bit and you leaned over to me and you said well what songs do you think they're going to do and I thought I had it nailed yeah and when you said it I was like yeah nope it was like you do this big bit earlier in the film and you're like this would be perfect for her to do right now and there's no payoff it's just no let's just go ahead and do that later over the over the end credits and oh no again the song she played was great was a spring steam tune that I actually really loved but it took it took me out of that moment it did you know and at that point I was kind of waiting for the movie to end because you knew it was going how it was going to be if you don't from that point I think I think this thing could have been you could have moved some things around there's a scene where Kevin Klein and Merrill Street confront the ex-husband in a bar I felt that was too soon and it needed to be longer they're needed to be follow up to that and it was just like oh hey woo and we're done exactly if there was just too many and I felt the the scene when too many loose ends yeah when Merrill Street even Kevin Klein you know they got back to kind of that moment with their relationship okay I got a question a bit longer I apologize did this one drag in number two the watch gauge yes it does the first two thirds of it really go slowly my first time that I looked at my watch was at the 30 minute mark well how often after that probably did not wait 10 minutes oh really okay even when it got more interesting it still will slow okay because even when it gets to the meat of the thing you're so exhausted and you're just like how much longer like are we there yet are we there yet are we there yet are we there yet you know but again I can't say I hated this movie I can't say that easily yeah which I guess should lead us into the final analysis I don't know the show we don't just give you you'll do thumbs up thumbs down we don't do letter grades we don't do one to ten we don't do you know stars our audience we will affectionately refer to as the empires better than that we ask two questions question number one is would you see this film again if the answer is no then we're done here if the answer is yes then it becomes what would you do how far would you be willing to go to see it again would you pay full price at a theater would you go to a twilight show would you do early morning on a Saturday would you maybe wait for it on get it from red box maybe at the dollar theater would you stream it from Netflix wait for a cable Andrew would you see this film again absolutely not all right I can't say that I wouldn't see it again but it's one of those situations where if I'm clicking through channels and there's nothing else on and it's on I might go back to it yeah like I wouldn't focus on it yeah you know you could make a game out of it watching like how how many how many how many advertisements are in there you know how many companies are and see yeah because this is done by by Columbia TriStar Sony her phone is like a Sony Ericsson phone that was outdated like five years ago and they're using Sony Vile laptops it's product placements and credit yeah Sony's product placements in their films of borders on the ridiculous watch what are the last three James Bond films really closely okay there's a ton of it it's like yeah we get it Sony you produced it you know you don't have to show the Apple logo but show something different okay any other questions you boys have for we wrapped this thing up you haven't really done anything to film me on it yeah again we got to think uh asian uh incandace and everybody at Moroccan tri-star and um clump and Sony firm bias to this thing she's they're both they're really good people to us they can't really yeah we can't appreciate them enough so thank you guys I generally see the plugs visit our website www.theclubhousepodcast.com find out everything you need to know and some stuff you don't like our Facebook page look up the clubhouse podcast on Facebook found out anything you need but put the word podcast on the internet something completely different follow this show on twitter at clubhouse show you can follow me on twitter if you'd like I am a yes that rob urban that has spelled ER v i and i'm at chat in pg69 i am at king of bowling i'm at fondom go and you can email me at dawn at theclubhousepodcast.com email dawn for details on how we can come to a live show for you we love doing live remote shows you can email me if you'd like questions comments concerns tell me to go out and say and i am rob at the clubhousepodcast.com i am chat at theclubhousepodcast.com i am going pounceandagmail.com Sherlock Parker is on Pinterest because we are morally obligated to say that and jules why i'm like she's chillin in the studio keep it real make sure everything's on the rails she's waiting hi everybody our normal show every Sunday night seven eastern four pacific is your one stop shop for all things sports entertainment or just keep subscribing on iTunes because we're cool with that as well so until next time for dawn for Andrew for Chad for the empire i'm clubhouse's clothes britney pomer dancing in the bar telling you what genius it these things the preceding was a sooner or gator production

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