Schmear Hunter's Brainwash [81]
Unpacking the Hype, Elevating the Unknown: 'Warfare,' 'Your Friends and Neighbors'
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Hunters,
Amazing things are happening on The SchmearCast podcast. At the top of the week, Alison Sivitz, aka
, aka Bald Ann Dowd, and I wrapped up our White Lotus S3 coverage. It was a blast covering the show, and I hope you enjoyed the recapping, whether you liked the season or not.On Friday, Jesse Aaronson and I returned to the Seth Rogen-led series The Studio, discussing the cameo-filled third and fourth episodes.
Also, I’ve been a proud member of The Pitt crew since all the way back when it premiered in January. With each week, I loved the show even more, my relationships deepening with each character.
To celebrate the finale, I was thrilled to be joined by Gerran Howell (Whitaker) and Shabana Azeez (Javad) for hysterical, thoughtful, in-depth conversations on their characters, the show, and, obviously, about Noah Wyle.
Listen to those conversations here, or watch them on YouTube too!
Next up on the pod, we’ll be covering The Last of Us S2 as well as Andor S2, so be sure to catch up on both of those fantastic shows
Let’s get into today’s edition*
*No Hacks today… more on it when I’ve seen more of S4’s episodes…but obviously it’s AMAZING
The Hype
Don’t let the marketing fool you; war is certainly hell in Alex Garland’s impressive and harrowing WARFARE (Movie)
Jon Hamm stars in YOUR FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS (TV), a comic noir that pulls its punches
Warfare (Theaters)
What’s it about? A platoon of Navy SEALs embark on a dangerous mission in Ramadi, Iraq, with the chaos and brotherhood of war retold through their memories of the event.
Who it’s for? If you admire unglamorous war stories, if you appreciated grounded tension, fans of Alex Garland’s filmmaking, viewers who value authenticity over cliches
Who should avoid? If you’re looking for a trope-laden war movie with good guys and big speeches, those looking for character backstories or emotional catharsis, those uncomfortable with graphic violence, if you’re looking for Alex Garland’s cerebral sci-fi work
Watch if you like: Generation Kill, The Hurt Locker, Civil War, Jarhead
News and Notes:
Released today
Schmear’s Verdict: A tense, stripped-down war film that trades heroics for fear, confusion, and brutal realism.
War is always hell—don't let Warfare's cleverly brolic marketing convince you otherwise. This tense, hyper-realistic chamber piece marks a collaboration between Alex Garland and Iraqi war veteran Ray Mendoza. Garland, who made his bones with sci-fi stunners like Annihilation and Ex Machina, flexed impressive action muscles in Civil War, and here pairs up with Mendoza to bring a single, harrowing moment vividly to life.
If you’re looking for a piercing exploration of the male psyche in wartime, look elsewhere—though this does open with the best in-movie use of Eric Prydz's 2004 banger "Call On Me." Between this and pushups, Warfare immediately gives the film a Bush-era masculinity and a sneaky current of homoeroticism. This agro rapaciousness is summed up perfectly in one line, as the troops decide to occupy a family’s home as a vantage point: “I like this house; let’s take it.”
Despite its opening bluster, this is actually a surprisingly quiet film for much of its runtime. Garland honed his photographic eye in Civil War and uses it to impressive effect here, arranging disquieting yet striking tableaux of the soldiers occupying the house. Until shit goes down, the prevailing mood is a certain malaise, reminding me very much of David Simon’s masterful HBO series Generation Kill, also set in Iraq—a miserable, nihilistic B-side to Band of Brothers.
For the horrors to come, the cast is eminently watchable. Clearly, Garland, who made Devs, still watches FX, as this is populated with the EXACT young male actors I’d want to see, including D’Pharoah Woon-A-Tai (Reservation Dogs), Will Poulter (The Bear), and Cosmo Jarvis (Shogun), among others.
Tension slowly builds through clever filmmaking—like turning the sniper’s lens into a camera—until the anxiety is pulse-pounding and visceral. The choreography and blocking are wondrously believable, and you get to know this home in a state of siege way too well.
Aside from Charles Melton feeling a bit too superheroic here, the spell of realism is kept to a shocking, sickening degree. Though I waited for them, trained on too many tropes, there are no cliché war moments here. The soldiers are highly adept but also young and scared, and in a moment of conflict, some freeze in their tracks, while others rise to the occasion.
Those structured silences that made the first half of the film so eerily gripping give way to a cacophony of noise amid the titular warfare. Dust and smoke lend the air a nauseating green color, and you’re seeing the synchronization of Garland’s filmmaking with Mendoza’s honest, unadorned recounting. In Warfare’s most shocking moments, I could hear and even sense the audience squirming uncomfortably in their seats.
Regarding the cast, you don’t hire these young men because they were on some of TV’s best shows, but because, of course, they are brilliant performers. With so much chaos—helmets, goggles, and smoke—it’s incredibly challenging to gather your bearings from a character perspective. This is when cast chemistry has to be most cohesive and why having someone like Will Poulter provides critical pathos in a devastating late moment.
I know the whole argument that any war movie inherently glorifies warfare, but there’s absolutely nothing glorious in Warfare, yet also so much here that's deeply admirable, in terms of loyalty and skill, best demonstrated in the tight choreography of the troop escaping in tanks. Yet the sourly ambiguous, ominous final shot shows what struck me as an impossible, ever-increasing horde of Iraqi fighters quietly returning to their street, their land—as if one hydra’s head was cut off, only for another to grow right back.
Your Friends and Neighbors (Apple TV+)
What’s it about? A hedge fund manager resorts to burglary after losing his job, targeting wealthy neighbors to maintain his family's lifestyle, but makes a fateful error breaking into the wrong home.
Who it’s for? Fans of Jon Hamm, fans of breezy crime-lite fare, if you like early 2000s-style TV, if you appreciate a morally grey lead, luxury porn lovers
Who should avoid? Hardcore “Difficult Man” show (Breaking Bad, Mad Men) enthusiasts, if you dislike voiceover exposition, those looking for bold or daring storytelling, if you dislike tonal indecisiveness
Watch if you like: Confess, Fletch, The Joneses, Shrinking, American Beauty, Dead to Me
News and Notes:
Two episodes released on Thursday
9 Episode season
Renewed for S2
Schmear’s Verdict: A watchable but frustratingly tame comic-noir that's elevated by Jon Hamm’s effortless charm but limited by its unwillingness to embrace darker complexity.
As the biggest Mad Men fan I know, of course I was excited for Jon Hamm’s first leading-man role since then in Your Friends and Neighbors—and no, I don’t count all those Mercedes commercials. Yet two episodes into this Apple TV series from Jonathan Tropper, the show, while very watchable, plays like a squishier Breaking Bad—a sanding off of the rough edges of the "Difficult Man" series (think Sopranos or Ozark) for the Shrinking crowd.
The show follows recently divorced Andy Cooper ("Coop"), who loses his high-powered corporate job due to a sex scandal imbroglio. Realizing how mindlessly privileged his cohort is—and to maintain his high-flying lifestyle and elite suburban status (country club membership, fancy cars)—he begins some petty larceny and low-intensity B&Es.
Your Friends and Neighbors has an easy snappiness to its dialogue, sucking you in early with a twinkly Out of Sight-inspired scene. Coop is far more loquacious than Don Draper, speaking his mind openly via VO (perhaps unreliably) as this steamrolls through exposition.
I waited for Your Friends and Neighbors to get a little nasty. As many shows do to hook you early, we meet Coop beside a dead body in a groan-worthy “You must be wondering how I got here” moment. Its tone is frustratingly unplaceable, best described as soft-edged comic noir. Tropper, who made the underrated and badass Banshee, is pulling his punches—like giving Coop a sister with a mental health issue, a contrived, built-in empathy button to push, lest we find his actions too despicable.
But it’s not hard to empathize…because it’s Jon Hamm. We fell in love with him playing one of the most reprehensible characters ever put on screen because of brilliant characterization and performance. There's no one more capable of wading through moral murk, though he was a hoot in the underseen 2022 Fletch remake—definitely a closer comparison point than Mad Men.
I think there’s a unique point here, and pathos too. Already picked up for a second season, there's no doubt the show wants to twist and turn into more interesting and complex places. But so far, this jaunty series has the shape of a potentially great show but the execution of something much more mediocre.
Thanks for reading!
I'll be honest, I've lost a bit of hope after Garland's two most recent efforts before Warefare, but this write-up makes me think I should give it a whirl! You certainly have me intrigued.