#213 Crossing The Streams Heads to the Farm (Bonus Ep53) – Great TV binge watching suggestions!

CTS Announcer 0:01

Looking for your next TV show or movie to binge? Well buckle up, grab the remote and settle into your couch for this special edition of crossing the streams. We're here to help you tune in and get the most out of those 50 monthly streaming channels you're currently paying for. So without any further ado, here's your host of crossing the streams. Jeff Dwoskin

Jeff Dwoskin 0:29

Hey, oh, it is Hi Jeff Dwoskin, your host of classic conversations and your guide through this bonus episode of crossing the streams. What is crossing the streams? It's me and a bunch of my pals. We get together every Wednesday live at 9:30pm Eastern time on YouTube. And we answer the universal question what should you be binge watching next? You've binge watch something you got to binge watch something else. Well, we got your back over 105 hours of binge watching suggestions on our YouTube channel link in show notes, but I get it you're busy. So here we are at this bonus episode where we grab three random segments from three of the live shows and just send them right to you from Live episode 35 Clarkston farm from Live episode 61 I am mother and from Live episode 96. The Osborne's as borns is a special one. We have special guests Sue Kolinsky. She was a segment producer on the Osborn so she gives us some behind the scenes insights into that amazing show. But to kick things off Joel fragmente and Clarkston farm take it away Joel. Let's turn our attention to our guest Joe's pick Clarkson's farm on Amazon original. I've not heard of this one. I'm excited to hear

Joel Fragomeni 1:46

you've not heard of this. Do you know Jeremy Clarkson is Jeff. I don't he's the host of the grand tour which is also on Amazon Prime. He was the host of Top Gear for years and years he hosts Who Wants to Be a Millionaire in the UK right now she's a very big he's he's a very big celebrity worldwide, the car shows have not been a giant hit in the US. Maybe they're maybe a little more what we call a cult show. But in the rest of the world. They're like, you know, some of them. They they say they said that when he was doing Top Gear that was the biggest television show in the world. As far as the Weekly viewers, he got fired from Top Gear for smacking a producer in the face because a steak was not ready for him after a day's shoot, apparently, which I know that doesn't do much to get you to watch the show. But let me continue. So he's kind of got this very abrasive personality, very opinionated about cars and really everything. And while those other shows were car shows, this is a documentary and I'm gonna put that in sort of air quotes if you can see that because op gear and the Grand Tour are sort of documentary ish shows where a lot of it is set up. But it's it's funny, it's a comedy. And the show is as well, where he now II owns a farm in the English countryside. And rather the guy who I forget what the backstory is the guy who was farming, it retired. And so Jeremy wants to learn how to be a farmer. And so you have that fish out of water element where you have this big city guy in this farming town trying to learn how to run a tractor and all this farming equipment and yes to hire on some locals to help them work on the farm. And there's a lot of a lot of conflict that goes on there. But it's all very funny. If you know and have enjoyed those other shows that Jeremy was on. This one has a feeling very similar feeling as far as the comedy goes a lot of well we need a tractor to do this job. So Jeremy gets a Lamborghini tractor you know, it's sort of the that was the whole top gear thing they were trying to do you know, it take vehicles that were inappropriate for the ride, use something else. The latest grand tour that just came out has them driving 1970s American cars across Scotland, so that was really good. That's called locked down. By the way, grants were locked up anyway. So Clarkson's farm is through that fish out of water. And people are really liking the show. I found a lot of the reviews are saying that it's Jeremy being a little more warm and fuzzy than he normally is. Which if you know his personality is sort of, it's a little bit eight, actually. And you really do care about these people. It's I think it's eight episodes and you see Jeremy trying to learn how to plant crops, he buys a bunch of sheep, he has to figure out how to impregnate said sheep. And he's at livestock auctions and I know how to do that. Yeah, well, hey, animal husbandry unboxing. It's just a lot of I mean, it definitely is a documentary about farming, a series about farming, which you may say I'm not interested in that at all, but it's great. And, you know, he opens a little store with his girlfriend to sell the stuff that they're farming and of course, they go through COVID During this as well. They go through the biggest flooding that England had ever seen, which sort of decimates His whole farming thing which he doesn't know what he's doing anyway, the supporting cast, like I said, the locals are very entertaining. There's a guy named Gerald, who is a local farmer who speaks in a dialect that you the English people can't understand this guy. And so you really, and I think at some point, they do just subtitle this guy. And other times, they just leave it where you literally don't know what this guy is saying. And then his assistant is a kid named Caleb, who's 21 and knows everything about farming, but has never left his hometown. So you have that sort of pea seed. rube really putting Jeremy in his place, which is some of the funny stuff on the show. It's him telling Jeremy, he doesn't know what the hell he's doing farming. It's just really great. I mean, if you don't know Jeremy Clarkson, so much of what he does on television is just based on that character he's created after all these years. And I actually think even if you don't know that you still probably enjoy the show, because he is. He really is an entertaining fella to watch. I can't get enough of them anything he does, I watch and I enjoy. So yeah, if you want to know a little more about farming and the economics of it, there's a guy Charlie, who was sort of the guy that's advising his business affairs. I think I forget what they call I could look it up. But it's, you know, whenever Charlie shows up, it's bad news and Jeremy's pissed off, you know, it's got sort of that sort of the, almost like that office vibe, where, you know, the boss shows up and you're just like, Oh, God, not this guy. You know, it's like, he's like the tovi trying to have fun and this guy showing up. Well, Jeremy has and you know, our barley is not looking so good. This Yeah, I'm not gonna do a terrible British accent, but it's a very entertaining show. I really enjoyed it watched all eight episodes, like, probably one a day. knock that out. It just came out in June. So it hasn't been out long. So are they 30 minute episodes, or? No, they I think they go between about 40 minutes and an hour, something like that. It's sort of that British hour, right? 90 minutes. But it's British our shows have no commercials. Not that Amazon does, but it's sort of got that format. But yeah, it's great. Showing your lighting Joel Do you enjoy the lighting? Thank you. effort into the rave or something? Like like dead? Well, I have a little I have a little I can change the colors of the lights. If you have any requests. Do you have pink? Do you want pink? Oh, hold on a second. I'll give you a ping. Yeah, I'm glad you guys are interested in the show I picked

Jeff Dwoskin 7:19

No it does sound really good. I love I love hearing about you know attack gear and stuff like cars. Tank Yeah,

Zack Wiseman 7:27

I'm not a car guy whatsoever. But I love Top Gear. And the grand tour is is like that plus like a little bit more because you can tell the like they're doing it on their own without the producers. So having Jeremy Clarkson, like try to learn farming. Yeah, I'm 100% and I'll definitely check it out. I think that's great. Yeah,

Joel Fragomeni 7:45

check it out. You'll enjoy he's so He's so annoying and everything anyways, yeah, he's just always he's a curmudgeon. He's pissed off at the world as everything Yeah, he thinks he knows it all. And of course he knows nothing about farming. And he learns and then you know, you might even I mean you get you get invested in him and his crops and his you know his sheep. It's very entertaining. Well, he's so let's I'll give you an example of his sense of humor. Sure, yes to have to bowl sheep. So all of the sheep's or Lady sheep be as 200 Lady sheeps, and he has to get to sheeps that go around impregnating the other sheep's so he names the sheep's again, if you don't know, but a lot of British sports culture man I get about one is Wayne Rooney is one of the sheeps and the other is Leonardo DiCaprio. So if you know their reputations, you would understand why he named the sheep what he did, so that's true. Yeah, good stuff really funny and kind of touching. I hate to say that I was touched by Jeremy Clarkson. No pun intended, but I definitely was

Jeff Dwoskin 8:48

the headline.

Joel Fragomeni 8:49

Yeah, I was touched by Jeremy and by the way, I will mention that our the we talked about him I think before we went live, but the lake gray quarry Hall met Jeremy Clarkson in Detroit. They were shooting a part of the grand tour and he's Corey called me. And he goes because he knows I like we both liked Top Gear and all that and he goes, I met Jeremy Clarkson. He was an asshole and I go, but isn't that what you want? It's a bunch want to happen if you meet him? You want him to be annoyed that you recognized him that's perfectly appropriate. So everyone should check out Clarkson's sign prime. It was like Oh, and also a thing that I like. And again, if you like those other shows, you'll know the quality of like the video and the sound and just the way they shoot these shows. It's incredible. It's beautiful. Really well done.

Jeff Dwoskin 9:40

All right. That was Joel fragen. Many making his debut. You can catch him on Joel radio dotnet and he is now the host of Mark Ridley's comedy podcast. Up next we have the Osborne su Kolinsky, special guest segment producer of the Osborne's and guests on classic conversations episode 136 If you want more su check that out. In the meantime, here's the Osborne's take it away. So, we have a special guest su maybe one of our most famous or guests retired Emmy nominated being on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Doris are semi finalists row for Alan brotherly love. That's Joey Lawrence, though. And Sex in the City producer on the Osborn Sue Kolinsky. Welcome to the show.

Sue Kolinsky 10:26

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So I figured 21 years after the Osborne's have has aired, if you have never seen it, you really need to give me a note from your parents. Why. So I actually watched it recently. And it was the first reality show of its kind. And in retrospect, seeing a lot of what has come after it really, really holds up. What I find to be so cool about the show is that there is no strings as far as what whether we like had Ozzy or anyone in the family, you didn't really see the producers hand basically, because I've worked on so many shows since then, that are supposed reality. And I've burst a lot of people's bubbles on a lot of other shows that I've worked on. And that was so pure. And I think probably because it was so early on, there was nothing else to compare it to. They were the perfect family to do it with because they had no inhibitions at all. I think a lot of people don't realize that cameras, you know, you could do a show, you could be an actor and be on a show. But the fact that they're shooting something in your actual house, about your life is the most invasive situation you could ever be in and the fact that people actually allow people to do that. It takes a very, very special kind of person and a family. So my experience working on the show was that because it was new. And because at the time there were no production company middlemen, it was just producers that most of us were independent contractors. And then MTV. They allowed us to do anything we wanted, because we were the first so things that we shot situations that the family just innate, innately were in your wish, and they let us shoot a ton of footage. money was no object, we never knew from moment to moment, what was going to happen, which is a big departure from shows now because they don't spend as much money and you have to produce you probably have you get like two and a half, three days to make an episode. And with the Osborne's, they just let us shoot and shoot and shoot. And then we were basically a slave to the footage. So it was really a testament to our creativity, you had to make something sometimes out of purely nothing. And it was just It was exhilarating. You know, just the fact that you had to you had to make something creative. Even if you didn't have you maybe you had a seed of a story. So you had to do things in different ways. And sometimes you didn't have the footage to support what you the story you had to tell. And I'll just share with you there was one situation where Ozzy and Sharon were going to London and they were flying out of lax and lax did not give us permission to shoot there. So we had to somehow show them taking off in a plane. So they were driving in a like a like an SUV. It was kind of like a town car SUV. And the interior kind of looked like a private plane. So we found inserts online, the driver who was actually their tour guide, tour manager, we we found that like a pilot's hand, like reaching up to press instruments on a panel like have like a regular pilot, and we inserted that. And then to make it look like the plane was taking off, we tilted the shot to make it look like the car was a plane. So it was all this kind of really, really fun stuff. And, and I when I first started I was a segment producer. And when I talked about not really having a heavy hand as a producer, because you like again, you were never going to tell them what to do or what to say you just had to put the cameras on them and just trust that they were going to be as crazy and fun and game for anything. So one night, we were shooting Jack was being reunited with his dog Lola. We were like, well, what do we do with this? So they had lights in the pool and my girlfriend and I who was another segment producer, we said to the director, you know what, we should shoot this romantically like because he was in love with this dog and he had been separated from the dog for I don't know, maybe a month or so or maybe even longer. So we shot it where and the dog likes to swim in Cool. So Jack was on one end, and Lola was on the other end, and we can't switch kept on. We knew in editing, we were just gonna go back and forth to like them getting closer. So it was a close up. It was like the dog movie. And then it was Jack's POV until they united in the middle of the pool. And then the dog was kissing him and he was kissing the dog. We made it into this like love story. So stuff like that. And I think I think the reason why the show was as successful as it was, and other shows, kind of, I think kind of fell at the wayside was that they really did love what love one another. And they did regular mom and dad things. You know, like Sharon, you know, she had a vacuum. We had her vacuuming. As he was sitting on the couch, he lifted his legs as the vacuum cleaner went underneath them, he made milkshakes that ended up being a very thematic kind of fun thing to go back to. And you would think, Oh, someone's making a milkshake. What's the big deal? Like, what, where's the entertainment in this, but it's Ozzy Osborne making a milkshake. And we would get maybe three minutes out of that. And you know, and there were times where it was challenging, because I don't know how much people know about this. But his older daughter Amy was supposed to be in the show. Um, we had shot a few episodes. And one episode in particular, she had a main storyline and but her contract wasn't signed. And Sharon kept on saying, Don't worry about it. Don't worry about she'll sign she'll sign just keep shooting with her, you know, which, you know, we really probably shouldn't have done but we did because we figured okay, she's she's telling us she's going to sign. And then at the at the last moment, this episode was going to air in like a couple of days. And she said that she didn't want to be in the show. And we was like, Oh my God, she's like the star of this episode. So we had to all hands on deck, we had to go and just look for footage to come up with three minutes and three minutes doesn't really sound like a lot. But in TV land. That's a lot of time to fill. And we just found other things that fit with the episode. And it was for me, I've been chasing that's 21 years ago. So I've been chasing the high of that show my entire career since then, how many episodes who total? I think there were 10 every season. So there were three episodes. And then there was bonus episode, where I don't know if you remember this, but they did a fake episode where they because there were a lot of rumors that it was scripted. And we just we just went along with it. And we made this fake episode to make it look like we pulled the curtain. And like when we were finished shooting with the dogs, some handler came and took the dogs out of the house. And just made it look like it was all fake. Yeah. And tell you something that was really, really cool is that for people who have never been on a on a set when the first year we I think was maybe the first and second year we shot as producers. We were sequestered in a room in the house, which was our kind of like video village was in the house. All the directors were in a room with monitors and everything. And the producers were just hanging out in this in this spare room. And a lot of times we had no idea if you know where the kids were, are they coming home. So we split the segment producers into three groups. So you're you were a morning person you got there at like eight o'clock in the morning, and you stayed till maybe noon, and then the afternoon producer came and then the night producer would be there at maybe like five o'clock and sometimes maybe leave at 10 but sometimes stay there till three o'clock in the morning. So we were hanging out with Ozzy and Sharon a lot during downtime, and they would come in and hang out with us and she would give us movies you know, she she had gotten first run movies. So he would sit there and watch movies, we spent New Years and Christmas with them. We toasted in the new year with them. We had dinner with them. So it was we really were part of the family it was it was very, very cool.

Howard Rosner 19:01

Very cool. It almost sounds like the show was to put it together was almost like a cross between like a hybrid of just a pure documentary. And then the scripted reality shows that are popular today. You know something in between those you had scenarios that you edited down to but the footage itself was raw and real. It wasn't anything planned to me one of the things and as a rule, I'm not a fan of reality shows especially the scripted reality shows, I love what I would consider some of the more documentary style like the hard knocks on HBO, which is you know, it's a little bit more documentary than reality. What I always loved about Ozzy was I grew up in you know, I was in middle school in the early 80s And I was a huge Diary of a madman blizzard of Ozzy Osbourne fan, so and that was the Ozzy I knew and so to see him as just this guy hanging around the house, almost like my dad was like, so And to not be the powerhouse Dynamo in the family was so unique. And then the other thing I loved about it is almost after the show Aussie who was such an enormous star in his own right, arguably became the least popular actively of the four of them. You know, Jack got his own show. They all ended up doing. Kelly had her show. And you know, they all did stuff even beyond him. He was just doing the occasional reunion tour. And that was it. But you know, it was there. Sharon was doing daytime talk shows. I mean, they all became so big beyond him, which was really cool and unique.

Sue Kolinsky 20:37

Well, also, it's like, I look at Jack now. And you know, he has a production company, and he's producing shows, and I get the thing that makes me laugh, too. I saw Jack recently, you know, he has like tattoos. Like he's, he's so tatted up. And when we were shooting the show, I mean, he was really young. I mean, he was in maybe junior high school, going into high school. And I remember the subject came up about him getting a tattoo, and then Kelly getting a tattoo. And as he was like, on no way he because he knew because he's all tatted up. He said, what happens is you get one and then you get another and you're not going to stop at one one of them actually did get a tattoo and then I look at Jack today and he's so tatted up and it just makes me laugh so much because it was something you know, they were really they were really being you know, you know, your conventional parents with no, I don't want you to you know, and it's coming from like your dad who like fit the head off of a bat. Like a tech tip or can

Jeff Dwoskin 21:33

you watch the Osborne's anywhere now is trying to look and I'm not I know you can rent it. But is it streaming for free anywhere?

Sue Kolinsky 21:40

Yeah. See that? See that? With this? You know, I

Jeff Dwoskin 21:43

don't think it is.

Sue Kolinsky 21:44

I don't know if it is I don't know if it is yeah, that's a shame. Yeah, I know. I'm

Jeff Dwoskin 21:48

sure it's like on YouTube, probably. But that's not legal to go by it everyone on amaz on iTunes. Yeah.

Sue Kolinsky 21:54

So so it's not even somewhere where you can actually pay for it. Like it's not

Jeff Dwoskin 21:59

you can do I think it's prime. You can. Yeah,

Howard Rosner 22:03

yeah, you can pay for it on YouTube also. Yeah.

Jeff Dwoskin 22:06

Okay. It's available for purchase to stream but not not for free to stream but well worth digging up through. Thank you for that. That was awesome. I always nice to hear a little behind the scenes. All right, that was Sue Galinsky and catch her on culture pop podcast as well. Up next, our final segment from a live episode 61 I am mother Ron Libet. Take it away. This is I am mother.

Ron Lippitt 22:39

I am mother. Did you guys seen it? No, I hadn't even heard of it. You've never even heard of it. So it's 2019 distributed by Netflix. It's an Australian film. And you're right off the bat. So I'm not so into sci fi. I mean, I definitely was into the Star Wars universe and that whole thing and I am as my kids would tell you, I'm picking up on the Marvel world, Marvel Cinematic Universe. And I'm making my way through that. So this morning, you know, it was an algorithm it my middle daughter, Caroline had actually watched it and recommended it to me, it's Australian made the the actors. There's only three actors in the whole movie. It the whole, the entire plot takes place, essentially, not entirely, but essentially in a bunker. And what's interesting about this is that a sight a sci fi movie that really does give you the sense and feel of it being truly in a in a science fiction, kind of other world place only had a budget of $5 million. This whole movie had a budget of $5 million. And and it's incredible what they were able to achieve with such limited, you know, funds for this for this movie, the robot itself that plays the character of mother is a fantastic character in this show. And to give you a sense for for what the movie is about. It's a post apocalyptic situation where the it's called the extinction event. There is a bunker that is created by human beings that's designed that should the human race ever fail, that this bunker would actually automatically turned on. And mother as a robot would have access to embryos, human embryos, and begin the process of, you know, repopulating, repopulating the earth and that's great. I'm sure there's a lot of sure there's a lot of sci fi movies, they might have a similar theme to this, but we're, we're this thing goes completely different. It takes a very philosophical approach to this and it requires you to ask the question, that if mother the robot is going to raise essentially be the first mother and raise children. Then what kind of children are these people going to be in what you know, what does what's a good human what makes a good human? And that was part of the the question that's asked throughout this, this this movie, and it's you know, It's less than two hours. It's like an hour and 45 minutes. And what you find out during the course of this movie is that the caliber of humaneness is being evaluated by the very robot that was created by humans to repopulate the earth. And it, it asks the question of, you know, what is good about being human. And so it's a very deep, in some ways, a slow moving story. But with $5 million, they can't have this, this giant set with incredible cinema and cinema effects. There's no CGI, the mother suit is literally all 3d printed. In fact, on YouTube, you can see that the making of i a mother, the suit was, I think, half the budget of the whole movie. So it's pretty crazy that there's somebody actually in the suit, as an actor, Hilary Swank as a major role as one of the three actors in this and you ask yourself out for an Australian movie that has a Danish lead character, how the hell did Hillary Swank get involved in this but she got hold of the script, she talks about it and a couple different interviews that she got ahold of the script and she forced her way into this role, because she was so excited about being part of this project.

Jeff Dwoskin 26:18

And it's interesting, I'm looking on IMDb, she's as woman Yep. As child like, they're all

Ron Lippitt 26:25

women have daughter, mother. That's that those are those are the three characters. And it's a very different vibe. And it's an it's super interesting philosophical journey. You go on with this, I won't, I won't spoil the ending. There is a twist ending to it. And it is yet another movie that absolutely makes you think and question all kinds of things. Once you see the ending, it's it's one of these movies where you gonna have to rethink everything you just saw in the movie through a new lens, because something is revealed, very worthy watch, very, very worthy watch, and it got a 91%. And for the critic review on Rotten Tomatoes, that bad, it's the only real criticism I see across the reviews is that it is a slow moving story. It's a build. It's a slow build. And so if that's okay, if you don't mind that I think you guys really get a lot out of it. And I highly recommend it.

Jeff Dwoskin 27:21

All right. I am mother. Thank you very much, Ron. lebackes You got I am mother, the Osbornes and Clarkson's farm, that's a lot. I'm gonna let you get to it. Go hop on the couch. Grab your favorite cozy spot, grab the remote, cross your own streams, and we'll see you next time.

CTS Announcer 27:39

Thanks for listening to this special edition of crossing the streams. Visit us on YouTube for full episodes and catch us live every Wednesday at 9:30pm Eastern time. Now turn this off and go watch some TV. And don't forget to tell your family. I'll be busy for a while.

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