Kyle Kellams: This is Ozarks at Large. I'm Kyle Kellams inside the Anthony and Susan Hui News Studio. Guess who's back with me. April Wallace. April, how are you?
April Wallace: I'm great. How are you?
Kellams: Very good. You may remember April and I spent a couple years together talking about the events that were going on in Northwest Arkansas and the River Valley. And now we're going to talk about all sorts of things.
Wallace: I'm happy to be here to talk about books, TV, movies, all our favorite things.
Kellams: Some recommendations. And we're starting with, I think, someone who's a favorite actor of yours.
Wallace: I think so. So today's suggestions are all Dan Levy related. We'll be talking about “Schitt's Creek,” of course, but recently I've been watching both “The Big Brunch” and “Big Mistakes.”
Kellams: We should point out that Dan Levy was David on “Schitt's Creek.” He is the son of Eugene Levy, who I first became familiar with when he was part of SCTV, and then he was in the “American Pie” movies and all sorts of things.
Wallace: And if you haven't seen “Schitt's Creek,” you obviously need to get on that. It was written by both of them. So it's a father-son team writing this. It went on to be incredibly famous. It won all seven major comedy awards at the Emmys in its final season, which says a lot, but it's just incredibly fun to watch.
Kellams: If you haven't seen it and you've heard all of us talking about it, and you watch the first couple episodes, stay with it. Because you might think these are not likable characters. And that's the point. At the beginning, they're not exactly.
Wallace: So for anyone who hasn't seen it, the premise is that a filthy rich family who has made their money off of video rental become the victim of fraud and it makes them destitute overnight. That's what most people know Dan Levy for. But you mentioned a couple of other things.
Kellams: If you want to get into “Big Mistakes.”
Wallace: This is also created by Dan Levy, and it's his first thing that he's done since “Schitt's Creek.” He also plays the main character, Nicky, who's a pastor from New Jersey. Nicky is gay and leading a church, and he's in a relationship that he hasn't really talked to his family about just yet. So that's one of the storylines. But the main thing happening at first, we just know that his grandmother is close to the end of her life. And so he and his sister Morgan, who is a schoolteacher, they are being guilted into spending some quality time with her at the end of her days. Her birthday is coming up and they're supposed to get her a nice gift. They are the problem children of the three siblings and so they are charged with getting a really nice gift for once and doing the right thing. And in the process, his sister Morgan shoplifts a very expensive-looking necklace from what looked like a little gift shop. However, it turned out to be incredibly expensive and actually owned by some drug lords.
Kellams: All right, I have seen the first episode of this. Here is my challenge. By the end, I realized that A) This is a continuing story, this is an episodic, it's not self-contained. It appears that this is going to be the storyline through this entire first season. It made me uncomfortable because there, even though it's a comedy, it looks like the brother and sister are in over their head criminally.
Wallace: I'm afraid that's true.
Kellams: Can I take this? Can I keep watching this?
Wallace: I think so. You're kind of hitting on the fact that both of us are a little squeamish with violence a little bit.
Kellams: Well, even just claustrophobic situations where a character can't get out of trouble. And it seems like every step the character takes gets them a little bit deeper into trouble, or maybe in trouble with someone else.
Wallace: That's certainly true of this series. And actually, I did watch a CBS Sunday Morning clip about the origins of this series, and in it, Dan Levy says his inspiration for it was the fear of being trapped. But I think there is enough comedy that it will keep you engaged and happy enough because, yes, it gets out of hand, but it is hilarious.
Kellams: And where can we watch this?
Wallace: This is exclusive to Netflix. And it has been renewed for a season two.
Kellams: OK.
Wallace: So “The Big Brunch” kind of fills a different sort of hole for me. I'm a huge fan of “The Great British Baking Show.” And again, it's not the same, but it's the cooking and the stories that people have bringing into the chef's life. This is hosted by Dan Levy. He's a judge on the show, and there are two other judges, Sohla El-Waylly, who is a New York Times cooking person. And then Will Guidara. I'm not sure if I'm saying that right.
Kellams: I think you are.
Wallace: He is a famous restaurateur and owner of Make It Nice Hospitality. Or if you're just a big reader, he's author of “Unreasonable Hospitality.”
Kellams: I've seen that book. I've not read it, but I've seen it.
Wallace: So the dynamic on the show, they bring on a number of current chefs and restaurateurs who each have a goal in mind for either growing their business or starting their business, or doing something unique. They're all competing for $300,000 over the course of 12 weeks or something like that. And so they want to award it to someone with something unique to offer. And in the beginning, it kind of starts out like there's not a ton of reports, really difficult to show the judges who they are. But in the course of it, as they get eliminated one by one, we learn what makes their food and their mission unique. And so we learn a lot about each contestant.
Kellams: It's a competition, but some of the competition shows people get mean and some they're very supportive.
Wallace: Right. And that is exactly what I've been thinking about the entire time that I watched it, is that you have on one end of the spectrum, like “Hell's Kitchen,” and on the other end you have “Great British Baking Show,” and I feel like the baking show, it is more warm fuzzy than the others. But “The Big Brunch” made me think about how straightforward and fair the “British Baking Show” is with their criticism that it's not a personal thing. It's, we are judging you on these criteria. And we didn't see much of this. So try to work on that for the next time. And then, when it comes down to it, it's just a choice. Who did technically better? Well, “The Big Brunch” is kind of in the middle, I would say, because the judges. Dan is more of the entertainer. But he does weigh in as a judge. And so I felt like his comments were a little more echoing of the New York Times Cooking, who knows all about the culinary side, and then Will Guidara had more of the business sense, so they each had something unique to offer. But I think it was a little, I don't know if catty is the right word, but there were some moments where I was like, I don't know if that's necessary, but also, they haven't had several seasons to work out this dynamic either.
Kellams: And so where can we find “The Big Brunch?”
Wallace: This is on HBO Max.
Kellams: OK. You have a book recommendation.
Wallace: I may be the last person to have read this, but if I'm not, I am currently reading “The Correspondent” by Virginia Evans.
Kellams: You may be the next to last person. I have not. I have heard of this, but I have not read it.
Wallace: Oh, excellent. So this is a very good short read. It's just under 300 pages. Very charming story about Sybil, who is in her seventies, I think seventies or somewhere around there. She has gotten a diagnosis at the beginning of the book that she is losing her eyesight. She will be blind shortly. She doesn't know how long until then. She is retired, had a very long career as a law clerk for a prominent judge, and she has that critical mind. And she loved working. But her backstory is that she had a child die. There were two other children who survived. But that informs the entire story is that she's nearing the end of her life. She's thinking about the regrets that she's had as a law clerk and as a mother, and trying to work out the relationships that she currently has, including that of her other children. So we learn about Sybil through all the letters that she writes. The entire book is one letter after another, and she is a person who writes to not only her childhood friends and her old colleagues, and stays in touch with their families in the same way. But she begins to learn about her ancestry, and she reaches out to her favorite authors, and sometimes they write her back. And I think she may have caused a flurry of activity of letters to Ann Patchett as well, because she lists the addresses of people.
Kellams: Oh, wow.
Wallace: Of course, this is probably Patchett's bookstore that she listed. However, one of my favorite parts is the author bit because she is always telling her friends what she's currently reading or rereading and goes into the merits of these books, or why she's rereading “Lonesome Dove” after all this time. And the recurring one that is after my heart is an exchange with Joan Didion. And so she relies on Joan to understand what kind of grief she's going through. Joan Didion has a couple of famous books on grieving, especially for a child. And so that's how we learn about Sybil. She feels like she can express herself better through letters, and she's realizing that it's both a strength and a weakness, because she needs to put the paper down and face people in real life and have meaningful interactions before it's too late.
Kellams: It sounds wonderful.
Wallace: It's fantastic.
Kellams: All right, you've got one more thing. You want to ask a question?
Wallace: Yes. So each week we'll do this. But I thought we could start with where do you like to sit in a movie theater if you have complete choice?
Kellams: Oh, well. And which these days you kind of do, right? Because most theaters, movie theater seats are reserved now. I go middle, middle.
Wallace: I think that's an excellent choice. That's what I go for. If it's totally open.
Kellams: Right.
Wallace: If it's not completely open, I like to do back left. And of course, having small children, I have to be on the end of the aisle.
Kellams: All right. You have heard about “Schitt's Creek,” “The Big Brunch,” which is on HBO Max. “Big Mistakes,” which is on Netflix. The book “The Correspondent” by Virginia Evans. April Wallace, this is fun. Looking forward to this.
Wallace: Me, too. Thanks.
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