The Pioneer Newsletter #24

This was written before July 4th and therefore is neither timely nor patriotic. Sorry America.

Introduction

Ladies and gentlemen, my Sunday morning breakfast spot, The OP Cafe, has shut down. This has not been an easy time for The Pioneer Newsletter. I told each and every one of my editors to go home early today and hug their loved ones. Life’s too short not to. One day you’re power breakfasting with a crossword at the OP, the next day you’re strolling up to find a for sale sign in the window. What happened? I could not tell you. I was planning on giving The OP a hard copy of my power breakfasting piece, secretly hoping they’d frame my glowing review like I was Jonathan Gold (also rest in piece). Glad I didn’t. It would’ve been a waste of fucking printer ink. But that’s the last piece of anger that will come off my keyboard. Because now, 182 words into this introduction paragraph, I’ve reached the stage of acceptance. I wrote weeks ago that the OP is a “unique establishment where the rapid coffee-refill-culture of an East Coast Greek diner collides with the selective menu and rustic surfer aesthetic of the pleasant Los Angeles breakfast joint”. It’s why I loved going there. I now realize, this concept - nay this ambitious nature - is far too advanced for the world’s worst dressed and least social city. Instead, we must whittle away at our $22 organic juice shop shops and cutesy organic cafes where breakfast burritos surely are organic until their atoms are split in a microwave. But this is the trade-off for good weather and the opportunity to watch Cybertrucks roll down your block. We must forgo the art of a great restaurant breakfast and instead settle for a bowl in our car or bottomless mimosas that are refilled once every shift change. So goodbye OP Cafe. You were simply too good to be true. Maybe one day we’ll meet again in a land far away from the place that didn’t understand what made you, you.

Some (5) Plane Movies

Full disclosure, I’m on a plane right now. Where? Mind your own business. But what I will say is that it’s taking every muscle in my body to withstand the urge to close this laptop and put on The Intern with Anne Hathaway and Robert De Niro. Why? Because The Intern is a perfect plane movie. Now what makes a perfect plane movie is not an exact science. The perfect plane movie is like a ripe avocado. You never know just when you’ll stumble upon it. Maybe the story is digestible within its first act before landing. Maybe the sound design pairs perfectly with roaring engine turbines. Maybe it’s NOT Spike Jonze’s Her, a movie I just turned off after stumbling upon a naked pregnant lady 15 minutes in. Whatever it is that adds up to the perfect plane movie, it’s identifiable yet no two are the same. Here are some of my go-to’s.

The Intern

Google Logline: A seventy-year-old Ben Whittaker (Robert De Niro) realizes that retirement isn't an enjoyable experience. As a result, he decides to work as an intern at an online fashion store managed by an extremely skeptical boss (Anne Hathaway).

Essential Plane Quality: The color-by-numbers plot…

Nancy Meyers has made a legendary career off modernizing 1930s screwball films and setting them against world-class Pinterest boards, so no film from her catalog would be a mistake to throw on mid-flight (unless your seatmate catches the 2 seconds of Diane Keaton boobies in Something’s Gotta Give). But what separates The Intern from the rest is just how simple its plotting is. For as neatly presented as they are, Nancy Meyers flicks are intenionally messy. So with poor airplane sound, sometimes they can get complicated. Especially her 2009 romp, It’s Complicated. But The Intern holds your hand all the way through. It’s 60 minutes of easily identifiable conflict followed by 60 minutes of pleasant resolution - all paired with her classic bespoke kitchens and foyers y’all can’t get enough of. If you started this movie and then fell into a medically induced coma for 20 years, or at least fell asleep on your flight, I’m confident once miraculously awakening and immediately pressing play - you’ll know exactly where you left off.

Shield Your Eyes Kids Moment: Rene Russo gives Bobby De Niro a foot message but don’t worry, it’s whimsical.

Chef

Google Logline: Chef Carl Casper (Jon Favreau) starts fixing up a food truck after he loses his job at a restaurant. However, things change after he becomes close to his estranged family in the process.

Essential Plane Quality: The street food…

I love just about any cooking movie. One time I watched Burnt with Bradley Cooper three times in one weekend. Mind you, I’d seen Burt about 4 times before this. But up in the skies, on one of those terrible shatterproof screens - Micheline-level cuisine doesn’t pop as well as it should. A dank foie gras can look more like a block stake from Sizzler. So it’s important that one of the many greasy, disgustingly good Cubanos cooked up in Chef arouses the senses on just about any quality of pixel and glass. It doesn’t hurt that this cooking road movie just fucking cooks and moves. Everywhere! Not a fan of Cubano’s in Miami? How about street tacos in LA? Or barbeque in Austin? Or fried dough in New Orleans? Adam Sandler makes movies to stay at nice resorts with his family. Jon Favreau made Chef to shove the best food in America in his mouth. In turn, he lets the poor bastard shoved in the middle seat of a JetBlue flight do the same. It’s Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives with solid plotting, good music, and a heartfelt father-son relationship. A perfect recipe for your trip up above.

Shield Your Eyes Kids Moment: John Leguizamo applies baking powder to his nuts while merging across I-10. This is more impressive than inappropriate.

The Fugitive

Google Logline: Richard Kimble (Harrison Ford), wrongly accused of murdering his wife (Sela Ward), escapes while being taken to prison and vows to find the man behind his wife's death. Sam Gerard (Tommy Lee Jones), a US marshal, tries to hunt him down.

Essential Plane Quality: Do I have to choose just one? Fine. It’s over-the-shoulder watchability…

Not much to say about The Fugitive that hasn’t already. Breakneck pace? Check. Practical explosions? Check. A playground for a charismatic movie star to figure shit out? (i.e. Tom Hanks in Cast Away or Matt Damon in The Martian) Uh, yeah that’s a check too. But we know all of this. What makes The Fugitive elite on a plane is just how watchable it is on mute. Sure, you’ll miss classic back-and-forths:

Ford: I DIDN’T KILL MY WIFE!

Jones: I DON’T CARE!

Ford: *leaps 300 feet into a shallow river*

But you’ve already seen The Fugitive (and if you haven’t, how dare you). So I assure you if you decide to rewatch the heater of all heaters, another patriot a few rows back will be rubbernecking his way through the entire third act.

Shield Your Eyes Kids Moment: None. If your seatmate can’t handle a jacked Harrison Ford changing in a hospital bathroom, they’re a flight risk.

The Devil Wears Prada

Google logline: With an aspiration to become a journalist, Andy (Anne Hathaway), a young graduate, travels to New York. She starts working as an assistant to one of the city's biggest magazine editors, the cynical Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep).

Essential Plane Quality: The music…

Up in the air or down on the ground, TDWP is a super watchable movie for a myriad of reasons, so I won’t waste time on anything you already know. What’s notable about it exclusively in the air, is how much I enjoy the needle drops into montages. About every 15 minutes another one rips. Madonna’s Vogue followed by the most 2005 fits of all time. U2’s In The City of Blinding Lights followed by quick cuts of Paris. And don’t forget about KT Turstall’s Suddenly I See over the opening credits. I’m not sure I want to listen to any of these songs in full on my flight. But they sure do bang for 30 seconds in-between this Streep-Hathaway-Tucci-Blunt four headed fashion monster of a film.

Shield Your Eyes Kids Moment: As long as they’re not offended by Adrian Grenier’s acting, they should be okay.

Oh and Simon Baker sipping a postcoital cappuccino in his shower towel.

Jungle Cruise

Google Logline: Dr Lily Houghton (Emily Blunt), a researcher, and her brother team up with Frank (The Rock), a skipper, to locate a mystical tree in the Amazon. However, they are pursued by evil (cgi) entities lusting after immortality.

Essential Plane Quality: The exposition…

This one may come out of left field as I’ve never encountered anyone who particularly enjoyed or has even seen 2021’s Jungle Cruise. Admittedly, I’ve never even finished it nor do I plan to. Because for the final 30 minutes of a flight, I like to start something I won’t need to finish. And there’s nobody better at delivering expository dialogue than the classically trained Emily Blunt, WWE microphone trained Dwayne Johnson, and Jesse Plemmons with an evil German accent. Sometimes, that’s all I need as my plane makes its final descent. Sue me.

Shield Your Eyes Kids Moment: The CGI is dare I say more tasteless than any sex scene or nudity I’ve ever seen.

These are just a few. If y’all want more obvious or less obvious picks, make it known in the discussion.

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Recs

Using the word village to describe an act of service (nomenclature) - Credit to friends of the pod over at the Playdate Podcast for this one. Look out for more context clues later in the newsletter.

Bollard (band) - Another opportunity to get in on the ground level of a band from down unda. I’ve got more followers on Instagram than they do. Losers.

Patience (good quality) - This summer’s gotten hectic. In turn, the timeliness of this newsletter has suffered. So thank you to anyone who still enjoys reading it. I appreciate your…

patience.

Elevator Pitch

If you haven’t listened to Elevator Pitch yet, that’s pretty sad and embarrassing. Here are two more for you to fall behind on:

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Conclusion

Ladies and gentlemen, I’d like to introduce you to the worst person on this plane right now. No, I don’t have a picture of him. That’s Fred Armisen in Eurotrip. I’ll instead ask you to close your eyes and picture this patron of the skies. He’s wearing expensive yet ill-fitting clothing. He’s playing an off-brand word game on his 13-inch iPad Pro. He took his shoes off within the first five minutes of the flight. And unfortunately, I’ve just described about 85 percent of the modern air travel population. What sets the worst person on this plane apart, was his response to the Rorschach test of boarding.

“Excuse me, my (significant other or child) is sitting a few rows back. Would you mind switching with him/her so we can sit together?”

A simple “sure” would suffice. It’s the village thing to do. One time a very loud Manhattan Beach mother asked me to switch seats with her son. It put me from aisle to window and I wasn’t too excited to do it. But I did. And guess what? She bought me two cocktails. Greenlight. What’d this guy do? He shrugged and mumbled a weak “I mean…if they let us—-“ before failing to finish the sentence. He just left his mouth wide open and pulled a non parlo ingles which would’ve worked perfectly with his thick Italian accent, if only he wasn’t also playing an ingles word game on his massive iPad. She asked again. He shrugged. The flight attendant had to come over. Now unfortunately, I put my head down for this part but when I picked it back up, nobody had moved. The worst person on this plane had stood his ground. This man is obviously not my hero of the week. But his actions to me were so flagrant that he now bestows the honor of being my first villain of the week. Stay tuned for more villains. I like this better than naming a hero.