On Cinema at the Cinema on ilxor.com

thought this might be about office hours today, coming on in about an hour, which is being guest hosted by Tom Scharpling in a "switcheroo" with The Best Show.

speaking of, did anyone else watch the Best Show with Tim hosting from Tuesday? it was kind of a weird one

i havent watched a proper twitch-era TBS yet, just a solid chunk of the marathon. still been listening to the pod. i might give the office hours live a shot today for tom tho -- is it just a youtube live stream?

yeah, you can watch the whole thing as it happens here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZBhhx-tb_w

and then later, i think they only offer the first half (first hour of 2 hours) on youtube and you have to be a subscriber to watch the whole thing

honestly, i rarely delve into office hours, or even the best show. they're just too long. even on cinema, which i love...i'm still back on season 8 or 9, trying to catch up. it's a lot

i've grown to really love office hours. the dynamic between tim, doug, and vic is really enjoyable, they balance out tim's abrasive persona that he slips in and out of. never seen/heard the best show and my only exposure to tom sharpling was his guest appearance on office hours, which i didn't find notable, so not sure what to expect today

tim's abrasive persona that he slips in and out of

yeah, it was kind of jarring to see him on best show because...it just kind of came off as rude, heh. i'm not super familiar with best show but they had two kind of regulars on the line, on the telephone, throughout, and when one of them said something over the phone early on, tim seemed genuinely startled and annoyed that a voice could just come on the line, and he goes "who is this?", the guy said his name (i forgot), and then he said "you'll address me when i ask you to address me", or something like that. and it was kiiiinda funny? but then, he never went back to him again, for like the next 2 hours! instead, he completely ignored the whole best show crew that was on set and on the phone and instead just talked to two comedian friends that he invited, and they just kind of did the show by themselves with the best show people watching in silence.

as i type that out, it kind of seems like a bit, but...not really? i know comedians are just kind of rude, in general, but i didn't really enjoy watching that.

in contrast, when tom guest hosts office hours i full expect him to do interact a bunch with vic berger and dj douggpound

that does sound very awkward. the way tim interacts with callers on office hours can be painful sometimes, but callers really are boring much of the time and he seems to recognize that being abrasive can lead to some hilarious moments and also serves to keep things moving along quickly

yeah its funny because both both tim and tom obviously have hosting personas where they are jokingly rude & insulting to their cohosts, but each of those personas grew within the very specific & delicate personal dynamics of their individual shows, so what seems like gentle ribbing in one context can be very awkward & uncomfortable in another. i almost wish they would do it again, maybe once a year or something, because i feel like Tim would get a lot better on the Best Show once he got more comfortable with it & had a better sense of things.

oh shoot, forgot to actually post this here:

there was also this very awkward moment, the most awkward, in the last hour of the show. the one best show person that tim was acknowledging (because he was in the room) was the producer, jason, and he announced that the final hour would be a "no complaints" session, in which tim would not be allowed to complain. i think this might be a best show tradition, but i'm not sure, and tbh it seemed like tim wasn't sure either. then, jason announced that the special topic of the hour for callers would be to say what they think the best work tim has made, and then the very worst that he has made, and then reiterated that tim was not allowed to complain. tim seemed very uncomfortable with this, and if he was being intentional/comedic about it, i will say it was one of the greatest, most believable and subtle performances i've ever seen. if it was fake, he fooled me. he just seemed very unsure about the whole thing.

for most of the hour, the 'no complaining' and 'say your favorite and least favorite tim production' rules were fine, with the normal people who called in. (at the same time, they were also doing a worst 20 beatles list/brainstorming sesh, so that ate up most of the conversation). but then, near the end of the show they brought back 2 of the Best Show voices, the two guys on the telephone who were very briefly included as part of the show in the first 10 minutes and then completely ignored thereafter until this very point, near the end of the show. and one of the guys just kind of tore into tim's mistreatment of him on the show, how he had been completely ignored, referencing several times about meeting tim before the show and that how nice it was, but clearly mocking it, clearly it wasn't a good encounter, before the show. it went on for a while and then tim really had no real response -- again, if he was faking it he has become a fine actor, full stop -- and producer jason reiterated that it was a no complaint hour. it was very awkward! but also very gripping.

at the end of the show as they were signing off tim was, predictably, asking for reviews of his performance (one of the best show guys gave him 4 stars, lol), and jason mentioned what had happened earlier and explained that the guy on the phone was just doing a bit and he does it to everyone, that tom would have broken, etc. but tim didn't seem to believe that at all and frankly neither do i!

lol! i am actually going to xpost this to the best show thread because they will know a lot more about all of it, i'm sure.

i contemplated calling in but i'm glad i did not. there were only two things i could think of to talk about. one was an idea tim had earlier in the show, a prompt which starts "The Earth's population crossed 8 billion people today. But still, ..." and then he wanted people to suggest possible joke endings for that. that idea bombed, no one mentioned it and it was just dropped. but i thought i could call in and suggest "but still, we're gonna keep counting the number of people", which seemed really funny to me for a minute but i think would be brutally torn down by tim and probably hurt my feelings. the second thing was that i was going to give him an honest answer on the worst production he's done, which is the million dollar movie. i have some thoughts on that movie and saw it in the theater with someone whose personality and sense of humor is the exact opposite of tim heidecker. later, i realized that my thoughts would have been very boring and would have taken too long to explain. i also realized it was called billion dollar movie, not million dollar movie, and that they would have called me out on that and i would have improvised a joke about how it barely looked like a million dollar movie tbh, and that would have bombed. finally, while reading about billion dollar movie i learned his wife was produced that one

I love Office Hours, though I don't watch it regularly I have a real hard time shutting it off when I do

Tim definitely gets defensive in interviews sometimes and there are lots of times when I wonder if he's being a jerk or doing a bit. In fact that's kind of his whole comedic persona. fwiw I think it's not the worst quality in a podcast host since he's generally good at figuring out which bits and which callers are actually gonna result in something good, rather than just humoring everyone.

fwiw I've heard a lot of nice things about him privately. there are stories about him after shows hanging out, signing stuff and taking pictures with everyone, which is something I wouldn't really expect I guess

xpost oh god, i would never call in. i'm fully aware i can't handle the humiliation of being a bad caller. and it's kind of random what turns into a decent conversation and what gets ridiculed anyway

I called in one time, went well. I asked about a mention of a very early Tim & Eric performance (opening for The Shins live at Maxwell's) in the Yo La Tengo book. Then I said hi to Doug because I'd been exchanging music with him via email.

Tim can be brutal to callers but as a caller you have to have good awareness as to whether you are bringing any dull and/or try-hard energy. If neither you'll be fine.

Also I don't think Tim was uncomfortable at all at Best Show, and I don't think the guy (Pat?) giving Tim shit went over Tim's head. Tim has done so so so many "tense uncomfortable confrontation" bits in his career. Very experienced in playing that situation from either angle.

oh ha, i actually remember that call, gj not fucking it up!

Thanks!

Tim has done so so so many "tense uncomfortable confrontation" bits in his career

it's true...it's just incredible, the progress he has made in depicting them, lol

since we're not talking about the new episode of On Cinema I'll just say nobody yells "Fuck you" quite like Tim Heidecker

lmao next episode is gonna be a good one

#DekkarTour update. pic.twitter.com/4cPH9hmUs9

— On Cinema at the Cinema (@OCATCOfficial) November 19, 2022

my daughter asked me today if Black Panther was a sequel to Pink Panther and I couldn't stop laughing

I knew there would be body horror this season. The first time Tim opened his mouth I lost it.

lol how bout this week

lost my shit every time tim chugged the groundwater

Oh my god the Larue reveal

Gregg storming back in to take back his "Double Date" videotapes was so funny. that's exactly the sort of thing my 8 year old does with the kitchen timer he loves so much

the actress playing Kaili Amato is making me laugh more with every episode, shes really killing it

yeah I was gonna say the same thing. was kinda bummed that Rafael Torres never came back because I thought they could get a lot of mileage out of a character like that. curious what the big reveal with her is gonna be

I overhead my partner debating with her sister about a Furby she had as a kid. She insisted she had the new millennium edition, but the photo on Wikipedia didn't match her memory of its fur being silver tinsel. Turns out, it was actually a "champagne" edition. She argued that was close enough, since people popped champagne on Y2k New Year's Eve. It struck me as a very Gregg bit of reasoning.

What was Gregg Turkington’s S&S ballot?

— Sophie Bee (@pogform) December 1, 2022

I'm out there actually making a difference. I'm actually getting minerals from the ground into this solution.

Joe!!!!

(don't click if you haven't seen the episode)

https://electricsunvictims.com/

lmao @ the Hollywood Minute this week

this is an all-time season for me, i'm laughing so much

yeah the last few episodes especially. wondering what exactly is up with that Amato fella

He has connections, possibly sinister, with the Pep Boys

wanna meet that Pep-Pep

Gregg calling Avatar 2 "the greatest movie ever made" made me laugh really hard

Immortality...UNLOCKED!!

idk if that counts as a proper episode but if so it's maybe the best episode they've ever done. that middle section had 3 really amazing jokes in it:

1) Axiom not getting a chair to sit on, 2) Manuel undergoing a "factory reset", 3) Gregg: "hopefully you forgot all of Dekkar's songs too"

oh and

was Manuel wearing an Awesome Show outfit?

love how good this show is at introducing something you know is gonna turn into a shitshow and then having it go even more horribly wrong than you anticipated

Damn that was a pretty unexpected finale

yeah wow, did not expect it to be that emotional

impressed by how it would make a really cool series finale despite leaving a bunch of plot threads open. like whatever happened with Mark's baboon movie?

yeah, it isn't actually the series finale tho, right? I thought it would work perfectly as one too and it got me wonderin'

I've got the oscar fever, so hopefully not!

Tim mentioned the 2023 Oscar Special & new season on reddit! https://www.reddit.com/r/OnCinemaAtTheCinema/comments/zltw1n/comment/j07jvt1/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

lol i totally forgot about marks baboon moovie

I’m amazed at how funny this show still is. Over the years, there’s been a few variations of "Tim promotes a product that ruins him” or "Axiom/Manual become injured” but it never like a tired retread.

impressed by how it would make a really cool series finale

yeah i thought the same thing, great episode. still glad that we're getting more though!

Another sold out showing of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania staring legitimate movie star and America's #1 film buff, @greggturkington(soon to be 4-time Oscar winner for Deck of Cards).@timheidecker @RadicalMatthew @OCATCOfficial #releasetheturkingtoncut pic.twitter.com/jP84j3ixjO

— Phillip Myers (@lyraroscoe) February 21, 2023

great opening weekend for gregg

Legitimately wondering if I’m gonna have to watch Ant Man to understand some of the jokes in the next Oscar special