The Rewatchables - ‘Reality Bites’ 25th Anniversary With Bill Simmons, Chuck Klosterman, and Chris Ryan

Episode Date: February 27, 2019

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Chuck Klosterman only need a couple smokes, a cup of coffee, and some good conversation about the 1994 coming-of-age dramedy ‘Reality Bites,’ starring Ethan Hawke, Winona Ryder, and Janeane Garofalo. Stick around at the end of the episode to hear Bill Simmons talk to Ethan Hawke about his experience and interpretation of ‘Reality Bites’ 25 years later. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Terms and conditions. Apply once again, that is podsurvey.com slash the dash rewatchables, THA dash rewatchables. Thank you for your help. Guys, this is all I need. Chris, Chuck, and five bucks. Reality Bites coming up next. Hello, you've reached the winter of our discontent. I'm making this documentary about my friends.

It's really about people who are trying to find their own identity without having any real role models or heroes or anything. It seems like your friends would be perfect for that. Really captured. Oh, man. Chris Ryan is here. The one, the only Chuck Close to him is here. We're going to talk some Gen X. We're going to talk some reality bites.

We're talking about the Mount Rushmore of Gen X indie movies. Whether Gen X movies and Slacker movies can be the same thing, or are they brothers or cousins? I feel like you have an opinion about this. I don't know. I mean, thank God Chuck's, we pulled Chuck out of the mountains in Portland to come down. So here's my Mount Rushmore and tell me if you agree. Because I feel like Generation X and Slacker are a little different. Slacker was 1990.

I'm not a positive that's a Gen X movie. I feel like that's an alternate thing. When I think of Gen X, I think of all these different things. I think about the music. I think of like 902 and O Merrill's Place. I think about the Copeland book, all these different things. For movies, I would go singles, reality bites, before sunrise and kicking and screaming. Singles 92, Reality Bites 94, before sunrise, January 95, kicking and screaming, October 95.

I think those four movies, whether you like them or not. Yeah. Kind of like if you were going to explain Generation X. in four movies, I would pick those for, which one would you knock out singles? The thing is, there's a anthology book called The Gen X Reader,

and some of the Slacker script is in that book. So it's kind of hard not to put Slacker in this category. Do you think Generation X started in 1990, though? That feels early to me. Well, the popular definition of Generation X or the actual, like, when the people from Generation X started making movies. When was that generation

of where they were a generation, I guess would be the question for me. And for me, I wasn't really fully aware I was part of a generation until 92. Well, yeah, I guess there was the idea of naming the generation. That was really like 92, 93, 94. That's when that was the height of the talking, you know, discussing it. Singles is always the most interesting part of this to me because...

Chuck's anti- Singles. I really associate it with Reality Bites, but singles is not really a youth movie. It has youth music. It's their people in their 30s. A guy's a city planner. Yeah. You know, it's like, it's like, it's a, and there's a weather person, right?

Well, the one who's trying to do the online dating video cassette. I mean, it's not online then, but yeah. Well, I so, I mean, it is, in a way, like those movies are connected because they came up at a similar time and the same kind of people were going. But, you know, like, okay, so when reality bites came out, I saw it in the, Spring of 94, like I was a senior in college, and the characters were the age, essentially, I was. It seemed like a much more aggressive attempt to be generational, whereas singles had they used a different soundtrack, I don't know if we would even be connecting them to this. Singles, the music, I think, is the biggest thing that made it feel like it was part of that generation. Yeah.

Especially you have Pearl Jam playing another band in the movie. Right. And when Singles came out, like, it was, it was sort of an affront to that sensibility because people were like Campbell Scott, Matt Dillon, and Bridget Fonda are not like Seattle residents. Like it didn't feel like authentic. Whereas like in reality bites, Winona Ryder and Ethan Hawks seem like, why, I don't know if we're supposed to interpret that they went to Texas and then moved to Houston or something like that. But they seem like college kids at that time period. Well, remember when this movie's coming out, and we all loved Winona Ryder and she had been just a lot of weird. movie choices.

Heather's is, I think, 1988. And then from that point, she falls out of Godfather three leading to the Sophia Coppola disaster. But she was supposed to be in that movie. And then it's in, like, Dracula and Age of Innocence. But never had been in a movie like this. It was like, oh, that'll be cool. Ben Stiller, love that guy on the Ben Stiller show.

He was like a little, you know, it wasn't like a groundswell for Ben Stiller, but respected. And then Ethan Hawk, and it was like, Ethan Hawk? the dead poets guy the guy standing on the chair at the end and what does he say at the end of dead poets?

Oh, Captain by Captain. Yeah, so what I say every day when I come to work to you. He's our counterculture hero, Ethan Hawk? Yeah, but then he does. And meanwhile, he's awesome. Right, and he does before sunrise the next year and that pretty much cements what most people think of Ethan Hawk for the next like 20 years.

He becomes a Gen X icon. Yeah. Yeah. In like kind of the collective memory, the idea that he was like, you know, in, did poets, or in the one about the soccer team crashing in the end. He's alive.

It's like, oh, it's really weird that, you know, this guy had this other career before he became this person who for a very long time, it seemed like he was only going to be seen in that way. That has changed now. He was a child actor. He was in The Explorers. White Fang. Yeah, right. White Fang was what he always talks about. It was the dog movie.

I do remember. So I just graduated from college when singles came out. And even though it had some flaws, I still really like that. that movie, but I think it hit me the time it came out. The thing that struck me was they weren't making a lot of movies for people like me. And I think that's why Singles is remembered so fondly with people like in and out of college, because we're about to hit this era where they start making movies for people like me. But in 89, 90, 91, it wasn't really there. And even like Chris and I liked the movie Sleep with Me, Tarantino's the Top Gun Scene. That's a really flawed movie.

But there were a lot of movies like that that started to come out, starting 90s. Body's rest of in motion. Yeah, all that stuff. That was seen as real connected to that. Yeah. Yeah. At the time. And, you know, well, there's, you know, there's.

And then leading the clerks and mall rats, all that stuff. There tends to be two kinds of, like, these generational movies. One is where it's about a generation from the past, like days and confused or like American Graffiti, where everything about it is supposed to, like, is selected almost, like, the way these, she's going to wear these pants and they're going to have these post. and all these things to sort of represent this. And then there's... And some distance for the era.

And then there are the movies where they actually try to do it in real time. Like Saturday Night Fever is like this. And reality bites is like the clearest example. And some things they got extremely right about that. Like, oh, I remember being very surprised when I watched it in the theater where, like a, you know, seeing Gene Garofalo's room. and she has these portraits of like Abba and like, you know, like Boston and all of these things. Saturday Night Fever. That was, you know, that it seemed out of step, but I was like, I know people like this.

There's this kind of person now who's adopting that period as sort of their ironic but also sincere appreciation. Listening to disco music. And I was like, boy, they really got that correct in this thing, you know. So you know what it's also interesting about that is, and this is one of the things I wanted to talk about in this opening spiel was a little bit of the economic stuff that was involved back then, both in terms of like how much money the people had, the characters would have had, and how much the, you know, disposable income. One of the reasons why I feel like I got into classic rock a little bit later than the age of the people who were in this movie is because you

could buy cheap vinyl. And that totally makes sense. I mean, that was the same thing with the thrift store stuff that seemed to be like this fashion statement. Like, oh, you have like an ironic like, you know, St. Mary's women's softball team t-shirt on. But like those t-shirts, shirts for a dollar at garment district in Boston. Right. You know, and people would go and they would be, you know, you'd think you were cool for it. But so much of that stuff was an extension, and this is such a prevalent theme in the movie is like, it always, I forgot how much of this movie is about paying bills and how much of

this movie is about how much money you've got in your pocket at any given point. And no irony at all. And that's like you talk about Ginny Graflow's room in this movie. I noticed the same thing. And something shifted from 94 to like late 90s where her room five, five, years later, all of those posters are picked kind of ironically. But in 94, she's like, I really love these things and I'm not ready to give them up yet. Although the assumption is still that she is an ironist, that like she is in this circle of friends.

She has sort of the kind of the most cynical perspective, I mean, even more so than Ethan Hawk, who we are supposed to see as someone posing as a cynic who actually is a romantic. And that this is like, and that's a type of person that, has existed then. I think that type of person probably exists forever. Where she is supposed to be the kind of person where when you walk into her room and you see the image of Abba or whatever, you go like, ha ha, Abba. And she would be like, what do you mean?

What are you laughing about? Yeah. And then she would actually be laughing at you for having laughed at that, even though she's still laughing at the thing. The other thing, so the finances part really jumped out. Right. And I'm with you. And I'm sure finances are just as big of a part now.

but for some reason, I think we had less to talk about the 90s. Well, there's a big difference now, which is that, and I think that it's the thing that's most jarring to watch this movie now is even opposed to like 10, 12 years ago is the selling out idea. That is the biggest thing I thought. Which is, I can't speak fully for somebody of like Craig's generation and about how much that kind of stuff like may govern their day-to-day life. But that's sort of like the central tension of that time period is this idea that you have this pure culture or this. pure way of living that you can go about your life with dignity and integrity and make these decisions that aren't corrupted by capitalism. And then slowly as you get older and older, you have to make these concessions to that. One thing I really remember is this was in like one of

the very first, like the very like the inception of Grantland. We were at a bar with some of the other employees. And one employee we were with we were talking about the idea of selling out came out. And he was like, what do you mean sell out? Okay. And you and I both thought he was saying, why was that perceived as problematic? I mean, we're explaining how, there's this kind of this distance of the idea of like, what, you know, the reason you're in dark and all these things.

And then we realized he literally didn't know what it meant. Yeah. Like it wasn't that he couldn't understand why it was a problem. He had never before sort of even heard that expression. I do think in a way, like the 90s in some way kind of damaged me because that was such a central. central part of everything. And it really sort of complicates the way I think about a lot of things because, I mean,

this is why, you know, if there's a reason to rewatch this movie, I think this is kind of it. You know, like, so there's this, the core conflict is between like, should she go with Ethan Hawker, should she go with Ben Stiller? Yeah. And when this movie was reviewed by Siskel and Ebert at the time, that their takeaway was she picked the wrong guy, okay? And for younger people, picking Ethan Hawk, they thought was the wrong choice. Well, they were like, you know, and that was sort of made a lot of people who were my age were like, well, this proves they didn't get the movie.

Because it seemed very obvious that among these sort of two kind of, these two types of person that you would go with the person who ultimately is more like you. That they like, that their sort of, their sense of what is important about art and all these things. This is the person who's like you. And that is a very strange thing to watch now because, one, I'm older, but also I think that if this movie was shown to younger people, they would actually be more prone to agree with Siskel and Ebert's take. That Ben Stiller is the person that, you know, he's just, he's a nicer person. Yeah, because it's not only that he's more financially supportive, it's that he's actually like a more sensitive caring person. Yes, and it's like, when he had, this is like, I understand. understand her in a way you never will.

I think they'd be like, that's true. He understands that, like, she just wants, you know, to have this person in her life. It's just a... But the chances are that at 23 or however they are at the end of the end of this movie, like 23, 24, right? 22. I don't even know. Troy's going to do exactly what Tori's been doing six weeks later. You know what I mean?

Like, nobody changes. Nobody has this personality reinvention that early in life. You have to go through a few more, like, struggles, usually before you, like, kind of... Don't step on Troy's future because that's a probably in answerable question. So the thing about just to get back to like the sort of the undercurrent of economic discussion that happens in this movie, the funniest thing about it ultimately is that Reality Bites itself is something, was at least viewed by me and my friends in high school. I was going into my senior year that year. Well, I guess I would be glad I was a junior.

But we looked at Reality Bites itself as a sellout because Reality Bites was directed by Ben Stiller. and it was a major studio motion picture, even though they had trouble funding it at first. And we kind of looked at that as this is like, oh, they're trying to cash in on the fact that people are... Co-opting the counterculture, and like this is the most mainstream version of what a movie like Slacker was.

Like, you know, these kind of people exist, but here's like this mainstream version. But the economy has that in the movie. Yes, that's what I'm saying. There's almost like the Russian doll of irony in this like whole production. Well, there's one other thing, because you talked about authenticity.

and I do think that's a children of the 90s. So I guess what year were you born? 77. Yeah. So like I would say from 69 to 77, maybe 78, or maybe 68 or that 10 years, your parents were like the ones who maybe your dad almost got drafted into Vietnam or he went or he protested or he liked the music. And at some point, Jane Fonda's husband is like the touch point for this, right?

He was like one of the radicals, but then was considered like, well, then he tried to be, it's like, well, now what do we do? We got to make, it's time to start making some money. And that was always kind of the big battles. How long do you keep your authenticity? That's what the big chill is about. Yeah. What do you have, but Kevin Klein's selling shoes in the big chill now.

It's like this guy was on the front wall. Yeah, and there was also, like, what do you do? Chuck's talking about, like, how the 90s kind of ruined him. I mean, he and I both probably witnessed firsthand acts of engagement. acts of incredible cannibalism by people of our generation where they would see anyone kind of maybe succeeding in a way that didn't match up with a certain ethic. And you just basically be like that this,

like I remember actively turning on bands that I loved for signing with majors. Now, this kind of went away after a short period of time, but I know friends of mine who would just were like, this band Jobbreaker is dead to me for signing with Geffen. And you know, what the weird thing is is when I think about myself from that period, when it came to things like bands and films and writers and stuff like that,

I sort of took the contrarian position where I was like, it's okay to sell out. That's totally fine. That's totally cool. But in my actual life and the life of my peers, I was like, had the most critical sort of like cliche indie rock perspective. It was just anything that you did that in any way compromised

what your alleged goal was, If there was a reward for it, it destroyed the whole thing. I mean, like in this movie, he takes her film and he makes it into something that's not very good. But Troy doesn't do anything for it. Troy's like, I won't ruin your art because I have nothing to offer. You know, this guy's trying to make this happen. And I don't think to people who are a lot younger or even to people who are a lot older, anybody who existed outside of being a young person at that time would not see what,

he did as some kind of travesty. But her immediate reaction in the film is to recoil from it. Somehow he's never let her see it until it's being premiered, which is a weird twist. But, like, her reaction to that is discussed. And the relationship is essentially over from this attempt to help her. That, I think that that's a snapshot of a time period that's not, it wasn't like that in the 80s, and it's not like that now. When do you think selling out started? When do you think the concept was?

Who do you think the first... Well, I mean, I think that it's... Do you think the first band was? You know what I mean? I mean, even though a lot of those early British punk rock bands were on major labels, that their relative rises and falls in popularity where a lot of it was tied to whether or not people felt like

they were abandoning the punk ethos. Yeah. It especially starts to become more clear as independent music and independent cinema in America start rising in the 80s. And then I think when major labels and mainstream culture gets interested in alternative culture, for lack of a better term,

in the end of the 80s, in the beginning of the 90s with Nirvana in Seattle, even though there had been other alternative bands who had risen up then, I think that's where you got really defensive. I still remember to this day,

there was this band called Velocity Girl. Do you remember them? Yeah, I remember the name. And they placed a song in a Volkswagen ad. And I was at a show where that song got like booed. People would do that,

yeah. It got booed when they played that. song rules, too. There's like an abstract example of this in this movie, which I think is to me one of the very interesting parts in. Okay, so Ben Stiller and Winogne writer are in the car, and he's playing Frampton Comes Alive. And he, his reaction is sort of like, well, you know, it's, it's emblematic of the kind of person I am.

I'm the kind of person who listens to Frampton comes alive. In the book High Fidelity, there's a situation where the main character sees a woman who's playing a cover of a Peter Frampton song, and he's like, oh, God. Now I've got to like this song. Dinosaurs Jr. had covered a song off of that record. And that was meaningful because it was like, I'm showing you. And it was like, Jane Askus basically saying it's like these things that everyone knows are supposed to be lame I still like. Like it was almost his attempt to saying I don't agree with a lot of this Indy Rock ethos.

Now you look at that record, Frampton comes alive. There's not things like that anymore where absolutely everyone understands what its meaning is supposed to be. in this movie. You don't have to be a big music fan. You don't have to know anything about Peter Frampton. But you know the fact that the Ben Stiller character likes Peter Frampton. We all understood that this is something that existed for purely commercial purposes. That if you're into Frampton comes alive, it means it's like you like big things and you're not part of the counterculture, whatever.

That's why it would be very difficult to make a movie similar to this now because I don't think those things exist without a monoculture. Yeah, because there was a really specific point in time. especially around the time of this movie in a little bit before where the means of production were becoming more widely available. Like if you were a band and you could scrounge together

a couple hundred bucks, you could get a single pressed up, like a seven-inch. Or you could even put out an album. Maybe there would be an independent label in your town that could put it out. It's happened all the time in Boston, obviously.

This is what I'm speaking of. But the means of distribution weren't quite there yet. So you didn't have Spotify, you didn't have Apple, you didn't have Twitter to publicize yourself. You were essentially reliant on zines and alt-weeklies to get any kind of publicity

for your art. And because then mainstream culture and major labels and movie studios and everybody else starts to see money in that underground culture, there's just this incredible rejection of that. That's that point. But now I think the fact that we, the four of us here in this room, could start a band, put it up on SoundCloud, and tweet it out to however many people in a matter of like four hours, that's a completely different equation that people are dealing with today. So that's why I don't think it even,

to curse them. And there just seems to be a maxim of, I want as many people to hear, read, see this as possible. I mean, I was thinking, like, if this movie was made now and they used, you know, I'm trying to think of, you know, Ed Sheeran or something like that. But even those songs are not familiar enough. Like, there's not, there's nothing, the most popular. No, he would have played Coldplay, like Clocks or something. That, Coldplay might have been the last possible band that by the way, used in that position. We're going to get to it later, but that Frampton song was not the original choice for that scene. Oh.

Oh. Yeah. There's a little half-ass internet research. Oh, I can't wait. It's going to intervene on us along with some other things. We have to talk about one more big thing of this movie. The pop culture references, you know, I mean, they're all over this place.

I watched with nephew Kyle, who's 25 and didn't get half of them. I mean, there's literally a scene where they're playing the Good Times game, and they're just sitting around a table trying to name premises from a Good Times thing, or Good Times episode. And this was something that I think I've talked about this with you before but there was an S&L episode where Susan Day was the host

and they had a Partridge family slash Brady Bunch kind of clash and everybody in the cast was like one member of those and everyone who watched it was delighted by it because we all got that joke and it was because all the people that were either in high school, college, growing up that was one of the only things we had was pop culture

and that we all watched. these same shows and movies. And that's what really jumps out of me when I watch this movie is he's just casually throwing these Mr. Roper and Good Times and Jeffersons and commercials and Conjunctioning and that was like that was the way they bonded. And now I think like somebody like Craig's, how old are you, Craig? 24. Craig's Generation, they have a million other things other than just we just basically had

sports and pop culture and music and politics. And it was just, it was, you know, there was just syndicate. made the things he talks about like available, like the Frampton thing, like known to people who didn't even like it. That is,

there was, that was a big part, I think also of just like when the 90s started sort of looking back at culture and stuff, it was like there were all these shared things,

but they weren't all beloved things. There were things that was almost like they were kind of put upon us. Like, you had to watch different strokes or whatever because what else are you going to watch. Hey, or 12 channels.

Yeah. Music was like that too. I remember when I started buying CDs. It was only like two decades of music to buy. You also only had a finite amount of CDs. So you were just like, I'm just going to have this, maybe you tape CDs onto a tape and have it in your car.

Like I have one album on one side and another album on the other. I had, I had like a long stretch from like 95 to 97 where I feel like I had six tapes in my car with like nine albums on them. You have the tape album? Yeah, it's a super chunk and Afghan wigs and rancid and like a bunch of records. But that was like, I feel like I had

even though I probably had like 100 or 200 CDs, like I listened to them over and over and over again in a way that you can start to develop those unifying theories of Peter Frampton, you know what I mean? Well, absolutely. I mean, I think a lot of what people describe as nostalgia, it's there's always this belief that, you know, they're transporting their life back to this time

and they're thinking about themselves while they're listening to something else. Part of it just has to do is you listen to certain things and saw things so much that whatever, possible content was in there, you got it all. So you're almost like a complete expert. On a relatively randomly selected Afghan Whigs record, that you've heard enough times that there are things you think about it

that the band doesn't think about. Yeah. Although I would say that mystery, there was a little bit more mystery around some of that art back then. And I think some of the artists were a little bit more encouraging of fill in the blanks here. like there was a little bit more cryptic back then to some extent. I remember we talk about the selling out thing. I remember when you two released Rattle and Hum.

Yeah. You two had so much integrity leading up to that album. Every choice they made was like a choice that I really liked and approved of. And then they did that one and it was like they were just so clearly trying to go to this next level. That was the first time I ever really remember being. disappointed in something. But they were interesting. Then they made the process of selling out

a thing that they did to varying levels. They just kept going over and over and just doing it up, you know, up, you know, like the pop record being sort of the apex of that. One thing I wanted to ask you guys about, because this is something I thought while I was rewatching it, and this has to do with, I suppose, what we know about the person now.

But part of what I think makes this movie successful is that I think that Ben Stiller's character is much more endearing and charming than it would have seemed on the script. And you think that because he directed the movie and because he seems to be the kind of person who really wants to be liked, he could not resist making that character more likable than maybe the original, like maybe in the original intent of the movie. It should have been pretty clear that this guy is somebody who's trying to. to corrupt Winona writer, and this guy is somebody who's...

I have some information on this. Yeah, the character was supposed to be 35. And I think he decided to put himself into... And he was like selling soda, right? He was like insurance or something. Yeah.

Yeah, and I also think... Well, he's selling insurance, so how was he going to help her career? Well, this was when they had to rewrite the whole... Yeah, because I think that this went through dozens of drafts, right? I forgot to mention at the top. It's been 25 years since this movie,

and I think one of the interesting things about rewatching it is we have such a history now with Ethan Hawke. And Ben Stiller. And you're watching Ben Stiller now and it's like, I'm almost watching that character under the prism of these other 20 Ben Stiller movies I've seen because it's all the pieces of that in there. So he's like inherently more likable anyway than maybe he was in 1993. No, wait a second. Who the fuck is this guy?

No, no. Ben Stillie was more likable then than he is now. No, I'm saying the character, I feel like I'm tying more of my own history of Ben Steller into the character than just looking at the character. Does that make sense? I just feel like there's not like in the... To your point, I think that you're right in that I wonder whether or not Ben Stiller's partial authorship of the movie has to do with the likability of Michael.

But I think it's a really savvy bit of movie making that they make it just like, here's the triangle. And it's actually a tug of war and not like... This guy's a dick. What are you thinking about? The scene at the end when she runs away and they're talking to each other, you know, Ethan Hawke and Ben Stiller, It's sort of like a, it would be, it's hard to look at that and not being like, well, Ben Stiller's being more reasonable here.

And I think that his desire to be with her is less about his, like, Ethan Hawke, if you tried to get into the psychology of why his characters into the Winona Wider character, I think it's a lot would have to do with himself. Whereas with Ben Stiller, I don't know if that would be my analysis. I'm going the other way. I think Ben Stiller gets a raw deal in this movie a little bit. Like, first of all, if he's taking something to New York, Winona Ryder should have wanted to see the final cut of it, right? I blame her on that. This is the biggest moment of her career.

But then he apologizes. He goes to the bar and he's like, hey, we're going to fix this. Come to New York with me. Let's go. And she's still like, fuck you, I'm out. I felt like that was a little bit of overreaction. This is what she wants to do for a living. She wants to be a documentary filmmaker.

Have either you guys watched the DVD of this? No. Okay, because there are bonus scenes, and there is a scene that was removed from the film that would be set very late in the film where she explains to Ben Stiller why she's making this decision to be with Troy. Oh. But it's filmed in front of a huge water fowd, which you see in an earlier part of the movie, and they could not get the sound of the water out. So they just cut the scene? So they cut the scene. That's amazing.

Well, but here's the deal. That's not in my research. No, here's the situation. If that scene had been included, I don't think it would have helped the movie. I think it is because, granted, the resimilitude isn't the biggest part of this, but when somebody is in a relationship where they're dealing with two people and they end up choosing one, the other one just kind of disappears. You got to get rid of them. And that's kind of how it would be. And I don't know if Ben Stiller would have.

been very cool with the idea. Well, I mean, who know? It doesn't matter if he'd have been cool or not. Maybe he would have been. But that scene was supposedly removed because of the sound of the waterfall. Or the fountain, they couldn't. The effect of the movie 25 years ago was

you did not want her to end up with Ben Stiller. I think when you watch it now, 25 years later, one of the things that really jumps out is Ethan Hawks like a fucking asshole in a lot of different scenes. In ways that seem worse now than maybe... Amanda and I were just talking about it. It's so interesting to see it.

how when you're, if you're like when you're 18 or 20, you can't, you know, you see him, you see Ethan Hawke. He's so dreamy. You're into him. But then as you get older, you're just like, this is such an obvious choice to go with the Ben Stiller character here. Yeah. Mixed reviews

from the critics. A box office success made 33.4 million against an $11.5 million dollar budget. Certainly got Ben Stiller going. Then he ended up, I think he did Cable Guy, and then his own career took off. and he ended up becoming the biggest star of the five of them.

I'm not positive I ever liked Winona Ryder and anything as much as this movie other than maybe Heather's. And I do feel like she's had the resurgence now lately with Stranger Things and everything. But I do look at her in a way like I look at some NBA players, you know, where it's like, ah, Penny Hardaway, man. I don't know what happened there. So is Stranger Things her coaching Memphis then?

Yeah, I think it is. But, you know, I think there was a real corner for her from after Heather's came out all the way through to like 95, 96 where she really could have like just dominated. And all of the choices she might, she probably had some personal stuff too. She was, though. I mean, she was kind of the indie rock dream at that time. And that part of it. I mean, it was like she was interested in dating musicians. Yep.

And she looked the way like. No makeup, no bra. She had the look of the kind of woman you would see its shows. Yeah. And she was like the apex of that kind of juvenile sophomore projection of what you want from this person. You know, it's like the ultimate dream girlfriend in 1994. I'm going to say she's not just the dream girlfriend, but Janine Garofalo was always the female friend. I always really wanted to have and never totally found when I was in college.

Like the other things I like. It's kind of an extension of Lily Taylor from Say Anything a little bit. Yeah, absolutely. She's 28. this movie. She's playing 23. No, she's playing 23. She is 20.

She's older than the character. And it seemed like a, like that surprised me to learn that she seemed that, you know, I guess I just assumed it was like, well, that's what they say she is. So that's what it is. I guess it happens with movies a lot. The. She's so fucking likable in this movie. Yeah, I like how also the, you know, when you're watching it, if you watch it young or old,

it might seem like the ensemble of people living together is a little bit like, oh, okay, So, like, when a rider is trying to balance, like, this, like, being sucked up by this corporation, and she's getting an AIDS test and Steve Zon's in the closet. And it all seems a little too convenient so that they can touch all these bases. But in fact, like, when you're at that age, like, you just kind of find three people to live with. And it isn't like, oh, yeah, I found, like, my core four here. You're like, yeah, and then this other guy moved in. And she had a boyfriend, but there was an ex-boyfriend, but he was sleeping on our couch,

and sometimes he would pay rent. Like, there are just, like, you, everybody has a story. And he stuck underwear in our laundry. Yeah, right. Exactly. Yeah. All right, let's do the most rewatchable scene. This is presented by Slink TV.

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Sling.com slash rewatchables, promo code winger, ringer, offer available to new customers-only availability may vary by location. Other restrictions apply. And now, the nominee's most re-watchable scene. It's interesting. I've found it, I think it's an amazingly re-watchable movie, but it also doesn't have like a shitload of like rewatchable scenes

like that are just like you could point to and be like that scene that's definitely the one I listed some I think the gas station scene near the top was was one of the memorable once initially when they tell the guy behind the counter

and put on my shirona they're all dancing and beyond his naive fell backwards can you turn this up please please you won't be sorry Thank you. I remember that being a big deal at the time.

I liked after Lainey got fired when she goes out with Troy and for the first time, and they're walking and he ends up trying to kiss her. But for the first time, you can really see the connection with them. Because sometimes with these movies, it's like these two have a connection, but they don't actually spend the scene to extend the capital on it. One thing that my wife had mentioned to me is she's like, there's nothing in this movie that suggests that Winona Ryder and Ethan Hawk would have a deep connection.

But this is the scene that makes it happen. But also, this is like, you know, the movie's kind of set up. It's like we're supposed to know that almost from the inception. Like, okay, the hardest thing. The opening credits. The hardest thing to do in many movies, I feel like, is try to then within that movie,

try to show people filming themselves in a way. way that actually makes them seem natural. Yeah. And the scene of them in the opening where they're on the roof talking, that's kind of maybe some maybe the worst part of the movie. But they include that part where like Winona Ryder acts as though. It's like, this is why we were never together. And it's almost like, so the scene where they walk around, I, it's, I don't know if that

deepened our belief in this. To me, the part that deepens my belief in their relationship are actually. the scenes where they fight. Because, like, when they have, when he brings the other girl to the house and they have that fight. You shut up. I busted my ass to find a job. Any job.

You don't even bother showing up for interviews. What is it that you want for me, huh? What is it? You want me to get a job on the line for the next 20 years until I'm granted leave with my gold-plated watch in my balls full of tumors because I surrendered the one thing that means shit to me? Well, honey, you can just exhale because it's not going to happen, not in this lifetime. It almost seemed like their angry interactions

validate their connection much more than their positive things. Yeah, the relationship makes a ton of sense to me. I don't know. I mean, I just think that he pretty perfectly manipulates her. He drives her nuts, makes her incredibly vulnerable. And then just at the breaking point, like it seems like he just swoops in and it says the exact perfect thing. Well, that scene where he ends up trying to kiss her, the one I just mentioned, that's one where he does that, this is all we need, a cup of coffee, five bucks. Yeah. That's the only time where you're like, oh, he actually does like her.

Because there's a lot of scenes of movie, like, wait a second, do you actually like her? The writing of that scene is not so great, as is the very critical scene where he's talking about his father and the seashell. And he's like, I just sit here smoking my camel's straights. Those are the worst parts of the movie, I think. When they attempt to sort of, like, he looks and he acts and sort of has the posture of that kind of guy. And then every so often they try to have actually speak that world and it's not as good. Yeah. Like it would, they, you know, but of course everyone like in a sense, you know, Ben Stiller, his whole life has never been that kind of guy.

Yeah. And, you know, it's like he's, he's never been sort of that person. So it's kind of almost a credit to Ethan Hawks. So Chuck's not voting for that. No, no. Melrose Place AIDS. And it's like, it's not even happening to me. It's like I'm watching it on some crap.

I have a show like Melrose plays or some shit, right? And I'm the new character. I'm the HIV-AIDS character. And I live in the building, and I teach everybody that's okay to be near me. It's okay to talk to me. And then I die. And there's everybody on my funeral wearing halter tops and chokers or something shit like that. My personal favorite.

I'm just going to tell you that one wins. And I'll make the case for a second. Secret Handshakes scene, the Ben Steller-Ethon-Hawks showdown. Oh, yeah. And then pick him up for the date. Pick her up for the date. And then the big fight they had followed by the incredible violent film song that we'll get to Ethan Huck singing in a second. But like really shockingly good.

That could have gone so much worse with different actors. What else do you have for rewatchable scenes? You know, I think that it's not a rewatchable scene necessarily because you're like, oh, I really just can't wait to watch the acting in it. But I do think of the all I want is you drop as a pretty great use of a song in a movie. and that whole montage of her seeing him, thinking she's seeing him, going up to Steve Zahn and the diner. I should put that in there.

I agree with you. Going up to Steve Zon and the diner and being like, can you just let me know if he's okay? It's actually a, it makes me really appreciate how good that song was. Is that before or after one is on Friends?

Before. No, well before. Well, okay. You know, because this isn't, I guess, a full scene. It's more like just an exchange of dialogue. But just speaking of friends, it's interesting because anybody who remembers us,

remembers us, episode of friends that involve hooting the blowfish. Yeah. And it's like the six friends are kind of bifurcated because three of them can afford it and three of them can't or whatever. I think that the exchange in reality bites when she loses her job

and Gianne Ralph was like, you can work from me at the gap. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And she's like, I'm not working at the fucking gap. I'm not going to work at the gap for Christ's sake, okay? No. Oh, no. I'm so sorry. Oh, how stupid of me to try to drag you down to my level.

Vicki, you don't do this. Shut up. We're the same person in many ways, but we're not the same person because even though you're my best friend, I do not think of you as my peer. And I, you know, in like those situations, those small situations, like, during that age, that does happen. Oh, yeah. Like when you're, you know, when you're 2021, 22, 23, I definitely remember being somebody

who had a job, having some friends in college, me coming back to party in college and being like, let's go to a restaurant, you know, before we get drunk. Yeah. And they're like, no, we're just getting drunk now. And I was like, I understand. But it's like, let's just go and talk a little. And they're like, I don't want to waste. If we're just going to get drunk, I don't want to go to a Chinese restaurant and waste 12

bucks. Let's just do it. And it was like, that's that small weird conflict that you have when the stakes are so low. Oh, yeah. That, you know, the people in this movie are making $400 a week. So what do we assume their rent is? That's why I'll defend those seats. Like $800 a month?

I would guess. No. I would say it was probably like $500 a month. Yeah, in Houston. Maybe less. In fact, probably way, what are we talking about? It might be 450 a month. That's why I defense season one of friends,

because I thought it did a nice job of, in these weird ways of what it was like to have a roommate in the mid-90s. Even though they were all living people make way more. Yeah. You always had, I remember I had the one friend who was all of a sudden who was making $50,000 a year, and it was weird. Like we talked about it. It's like, you make way more money than I do.

I am going to pick, I'll defend the Melrose Place aid scene in two ways. One is it's just really funny that just the whole concept of them. The character shows up. There's something wrong with me. And then it ends with Melrose Place, a really good show. It always makes me laugh. But this movie does a really good job of laying out, like, how important and influential AIDS was, which is the way we talked about it with everything.

Sex life, should I get tested? Do I have it? I know somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody Do you know anything about this person? Yeah, it would be, it was constant, and it was this fear, it was post-magic Johnson, of I could get AIDS from anybody. And it lasted for, I don't know, five years, something like that.

And this movie, out of any movie I've seen from this era, does the best job of just kind of making that a character. And it worked. So that would be my case. What was your most rewatchable scene? I'm going to go with the U2 scene that I talked about. It's pretty good. Yeah.

Well, I would say the fight when he brings in the other. girl. I think that's the best scene in the movie. Tough haircut on that other girl. It was pretty popular back then. I know. It has that age well. Nephi Kyle noticed it.

He's like, what's going on with the hair? It is the, there's just, I like the part where it's like, we're fighting and I'm talking about her, like she's not here. Yeah. Like, she refers to her once like, don't fuck around with your life. Don't fuck around with her or whatever. It's like, you know. What's age the best?

We talked about Janude's Room. Talked about the Fair of AIDS. Good morning. rant. That was the kind of morning show that people had in the mid-90s. It's another form now. There's probably some women on it with died here. Did you feel like when you guys were younger, it's going to be a different answer because

you were in Boston and you were obviously in Akron. Well, how much younger? Well, just younger. Before you moved to, I was basically going to ask, like, did you think you could get a job in the field that you wanted to get in without moving to New York or L.A.? Yes. I didn't think I could get a job in the field I wanted to be in. Sure.

I mean, I didn't, I'm serious. I just did not, it had never occurred to me that those were jobs you could just get. Right, yeah. So like working for Good Morning Grant would have been a pretty decent job for Laney. Yeah, well, she was valedictorian. I mean, there's a lot of pressure on her. Well, I mean, she wanted to get in TV production. In Houston, there'd be a limited amount of, yes, you know, yeah.

More, what's age the best, Winona Ryder, Gen X, Goddess. I think what has aged the best I'm not done about this she can go let her finish come on Garofalo I think is age really well and it still makes me mad

that I wish we could do her career over again too I think there's a couple of things that could have gone other ways where I just felt like she should have been more great in the truth about cats and dogs

she's just she she became too self-aware at some point and then I think she became very political obviously and then the most moment kind of sailed, but there was a moment there where I thought she could have been more influential.

Ethan's Hawk's music age really well, considering it's an actor. Think about if this is 10 years later, it's James Franco. Like, I just don't feel like he pulls off the violent film sock. Rolling Rock was fantastic. All seeing the Rolling Rocks was brought me back to the 90s. And then the last one is just the soundtrack, I think, is really good. World Party, Crowd House, Squeeze, My Shirona. Story of My Life.

Brampton. Isn't Lenny Kravitz on and on? It goes on and on. It really feels like a 1994 soundtrack. And I got to say, I think that's probably for me age the best other than the fact that they were so smart about how they dealt age in the movie.

Do you think that Ethan Hawke's character would have been listening to that kind of music? What kind of music? Like this, it's sort of like alternative radio. But do we know he was listening to it? Yeah, I don't know if that was... I feel like he would have liked Fugazi.

I think he would like all the Joe House songs. Or Daniel Johnston or, I don't even know if that would have been around back. Like anybody would have tapes of that back then. Yeah. What do I think he would have actually been into? Well, definitely the violent famps. Yeah.

And REM. REM would probably be the biggest band he would say he'd love. I don't think he would have liked R&M. Ethan Hawke's character? No. I think he would have thought they sold that with Monster or something, whatever your monster came out. Like maybe he'd be like in like, I don't know, like, Arkwelder and stuff.

That would be pretty cool. What stage is the best for you, Chuck? Well, I would say two things, and I guess that they're both vaguely musically related. I think the naming of his band, hey, that's my bike, is a very good encapsulation of how bands were being named at that time. Where it's sort of like that. I should have put that in that. That seems like the kind of, it's the kind of name you give your band to tell people we don't intend to be popular. Like we have no expectation of this.

We're calling this because it's like it's something that should make you laugh once for five seconds, but it's our band name forever. Do you like it more than Citizen Dick or now? Yes, I do. Okay. The other thing is I'm out the soundtrack. It's, I don't know if I sit for this age as well, but the song stay, the idea of what Lisa Loeb was. Like, you know, the idea of how Lisa Loeb, your glasses, sort of the way she, you know,

because that's like, that's totally mainstream, right? She's top 40 radio. specific details of the song. It is. It does seem like... And then Ethan Hawk directed the video, right? Probably. That's a cool video.

Yeah. I defend that video. What age your best for you, Chris Ryan? Winona Ryder. I think her performance is great in this movie, too. I, uh... Penny Hardaway, I'm telling you. I like Penny Hardaway.

I think it's weird that the World Party song is just not online. Is that because of the Young American sample? Is that because it has the Bowie thing? It's just gone. I actually have it on my iTunes from your... ago before they took it off and it's downloaded. So they can't take it from you once it gets downloaded. What's age the worst?

This is a very obvious answer. So we'll go with the nominees. Troy's witty pop culture comebacks? What's that? I'm not a pepper? This girl is cuckoo for cocoa puffs. I'm bursting with fruit flavor. Like it's just, come on.

So the good times game is age the worst, even though I really enjoy it. It's just really hard to explain to basically anybody in 35, and we'll get into how we scored that in a second. There's a frightening amount of product placement in this movie, and I think it's intentional, and Ben Stiller actually admitted it was one of the ways they paid for the movie. So if you look, it's like constant Diet Coke, Rolling Rock, super big gulp. They put it all over the place.

Another what's aged of words, just for me personally, notice how there's no real coffee in this movie. They're drinking morning big gulps in the morning instead of coffee. He goes to the coffee shop when he's... It made me wonder, did friends start coffee? Well, Singles is set in a coffee shop. That's right. Give it a singles that the belief in singles is that people will not drive their cars.

You give them good music, good coffee, that's all it takes. Yeah, I'm just saying, like, it predates that. I mean, do they go to get coffee and slacker? I can't remember. People are drinking coffee, but they're drinking diner coffee. Okay. I think Central Perk started coffee. Central Perk started coffee.

I think it did. I think all the guys in Reservoir Dogs sitting around the coffee shop. Disagree. That might have done that. Then the two main nominees for What Stage is the Worst. Troy is just a fucking asshole in some of these scenes, like in a really kind of dark way. We're used to it because we've seen this movie forever, but it has to be mentioned. And then the gay character, it's like the all-time shoehorning a subplot,

but they didn't really have the balls to go with it. It was almost like, so you're thinking 94, this is right when Pedro was on Real World San Francisco, and we were just starting to introduce the concept of the gay guy on TV. And, like, Bill Rose Place said the gay guy. They wouldn't let him kiss anybody. And then they kind of shoehorned it in there. And he basically, it's poor Steve Zahn has like two minutes to be like, I'm going to come out to my parents.

And then he does. And then they're just done with him. But we never see him again. It feels a little bit like a vestige from an earlier version of the script. Yeah, it was bad. But like that character probably had more to do. But in the sort of finished product, he's like, I helped Troy move in and out of the apartment three times.

Right. And I answered, do you know where Troy is twice? What's the diner? What's age or worse for you? The Steve Zahn stuff is not a terrible answer. Although now, as I'm thinking about it, a lot of the gay people I knew at that time had not come out to their parents yet.

Like that was almost impossible to imagine that now, but like somebody who's 22, 23, 24, 25. So maybe for a lot of people, that was like, boy, this is actually a problem. Thank God we got covered. Could have given him two more minutes. Chris, you answer while Chuck's thinking about it. I don't think it's age the worst, but I think the characterization of like Michael's job was in your face TV.

Yeah. Like I get with that it's supposed to be a local version of MTV. It's a MTV parody. Yeah, but I kind of feel like that's tried too hard. Like they kind of push that over the top so that Michael can be softer, but the place he works is evil. And it just feels like a little bit too much. much. You don't think

in your face TV would have worked in 1994? I mean, it would have been interesting. I guess that's supposed to be

like much music or something like that. It was, you know, that was that period where it was this

strange thing where MTV was hugely popular and universally disliked anecdotally. Yeah.

Like you would never, you would never say like I love MTV. You would list all of the

videos you like and you'd be like, oh, I kind of like Kennedy or I, I like,

I like Steve Isaacs or whatever. You did these VJs. You would like, you might like all of these different things about it. But you would never ever possibly say that the institution of, it was kind of like ESPN in a way. It was like you would, it was, it seemed odd to align yourself with the institution, even if all of the things about your life that you love are sort of filtered through that. So they did, you know, and the fonts they use in that are just like the real world. And the real world was real young at this time. Yeah.

Like the real world had. Like third season. Well, the third season, I was already out of college when that happened. So this was two seasons. And because the LA season of the real world wasn't as popular, I think a lot of people thought maybe this is just done now. Like they did it once and they'll do it again. What a ridiculous idea. Like certainly now with reality programming.

And Puck and Pedro. Yeah. They took it to the next level. You put your finger in my peanut butter! Hey, let's take a break to talk about Bud Light. Did you know not all alcohol products are required to list. their ingredients? Neither is Chris Ryan, by the way. That was news to me. Bud Light is changing the game. They believe that we deserve to know our beer's ingredients. They put an ingredients label right on

their packaging. Chris Ryan, a passion of his. He likes to know what's on. I need to know what's inside the beer. What are you putting in your body? He loves this. Bud Light. Brewed with hops, Bartley, water and rice. No corn syrup, no preservatives, no artificial flavors. Find out what ingredients are in your beer. Budlight. Enjoy responsibly. A.B. Budlight beer. St. Louis, Missouri. casting what ifs Hawk was in a slump Winona Ryder fought for him I think it's in her contract right

Yeah put it in the contract I'm not doing this movie unless Ethan Hawk She saw him in a midnight clear And demanded that he played true That's an amazing movie People who auditioned for the role of Vicky played by Janine Garofalo And did not get it

Gwyneth Paltrow Wow Ann Hatch Parker Posey Oh Parker Posey That's an amazing Parker Posey He's the only person that I feel like could have done that role as well or better. Yeah, she would have been.

Before filming began, She Dean Garofalo is fired. Ben Stiller did not like her attitude. Didn't they work together on Ben Stiller? Yeah. Apparently she was off the rails, and then she was rehired because Winona Ryder stepped in on her behalf. Garofalo stated later, she has a really poor work ethic and hates to rehearse.

That Garoflo does. Graslo said that. Winona's like the LeBron here. She's like sign up Ethan. She really was. Trade for Garofalo. This was like Penny Hardaway, when Orlando made the finals there's really crazy.

There wasn't a lot of internet research on this. I got to say, I have to say, now that I didn't know this was going to be a question, but as we're talking about it, I have to say one of the strengths of film the casting. I can't imagine somebody having the movie's totally different. It feels like if any of the four principal people are changed. Yeah.

I mean, it really does seem like they have to be those people. I agree. Yeah. The Dian Waders Award. What are we calling this now? The Dino Waders Award. The Dino Waders Award. Based on David Caruso's character and proof of life.

I think Fetacey will shut this down. The Dino Waders Award. So I got John Mahoney as Grant from Good Burning Grant. What does this mean? It means like small. We should check the rules. Okay. The Dian Waders Award means the person who does the most with the least amount of minutes.

Yeah, comes off the bench. So, okay. It puts up huge stats. Okay. So it has nothing to do with their confidence or the fact that they're a lunatic. It's just providing a lot in a small amount. Yes. It's like, are you saying that Dionne Waiters is unfound confidence in lunacy?

Dionne Wader, shot. John Mahoney. David Spade has one really good scene where he's like classic David Spade. Indie Dick, Gene Triple Horde, and Spade all have cameos. I don't even realize people don't realize it's Gene Tripplewer. To me, I don't know who the actor is, but it is clearly the guy. who plays the new husband of Winona Ryder's mom. The guy says like, get a Ford.

That guy is the funniest thing in the movie considering the amount of the amount of time he's on screen. I don't think there's any scene he's not funny. That's pretty good. I couldn't, unless we want to give it to John Mahoney, I couldn't come up with one anyway. I'm happy to give it to that guy. No, I'm going to go with that. That's good. I was going to give him the Joey Pantzel word because I don't even know what that guy's name is.

I didn't know that until this most recent watching the Triple Horns in the. this. I had forgotten that as well. That she plays it. She has an accreditor role in this. Half-assed internet research. I guess before I did casting what ifs that I made that clear? I did, right? Yeah. Half-ass internet research. Renee Zellweger in the beginning.

Nephikile shouted that out. I've seen this movie 20 times somehow missed it every time. Ethan Hawk, the first girl he kisses in the beginning when he's leaving somebody's house that's Renee Zellweger. Isn't she like in a fleeting moment in days and confused too? Yeah. She was around for a while. And then she's in Empire Records.

She had a bigger role in Empire Records. Yeah, but she's like around the lot in those kind of slacker Gen X movies. She was, it seemed like

she was on the same auditions with all of these people. So the screenwriter, this has been known but Helen Childress, the screenwriter was 19 when she wrote the script, freshman at USC.

For three years, wrote, rewrote the script, did 70 drafts, used her friends' personalities and experiences. It's the basis of the film. Quentin Tarantino

was supposed to use Maya Sharona in Pulp Fiction and when he went to obtain the rights found out that reality bites had jumped in which leads to the question I wonder what scene they were going to use My Shirona. The Dick Dale song, I bet.

Wait, in Pulp Fiction? In Pulp Fiction. It's really out of place in that movie. Yeah, I couldn't figure it out of there. Not out of place because of the song itself, but songs from that period. Are there any other songs in Pulp Fiction from that period?

No, it would be more appropriate for Reservoir Dogs. Absolutely. For the soft rock stuff. I didn't understand it either. All right, here we go. The Frampton song when they discussed the big gop. By the way, that was a bad song.

I mean, bad scene. That should have been in what stage is the worst, that whole date. It's intentionally awkward, but it's actually like too awkward. Well, it's good, though, what he's sort of like, I know why the cage bird sings,

and she's like, why? And he's like, ah, I just like he doesn't know. Because that's part of what makes his character sympathetic. Then this is something I think maybe he brought

because he wanted to be liked in a way, is that his character, despite being the person who should know the most, is not a know-it-all. He's just sort of like, I'm faking my way through this. He's like, you know. He's a Planet of the Ape's Door. He's got this TV exact job. I'm sort of embarrassed that I'm not cool. I'm real embarrassed because he's like, I cross some lot coolness line in the sand or whatever.

It's like that's a, yeah, that's good. The song that was supposed to be playing, Beth by Kiss. Oh, I don't know that. Does that change your feeling on the scene? Probably. Well, it would fulfill the same role, I guess. It would fulfill the same role in the sense that people would know what the meaning of that song is, even if they had no relationship to kiss.

Stiller could not secure the rights to the song. And what's weird is two years later, beautiful girls got the rights to the song. So I don't know. Maybe they just like Beautiful Girls, the Gene Simmons and. Yeah, that probably won't be a rewatching. Gene and Ace. Beautiful Girls? Hasn't that movie aged poorly?

Well, I think that would be one of the reasons it would be a great rewet. You know, that was, around the time, this is just sort of extra information around the time reality bites was being made, that was around the time that Kiss was creating the Kiss Your Ass anthology compilation record where other artists were covering Kiss songs. And I can imagine them thinking, well, why don't we get someone to cover Beth in having this movie? And then they were like, we don't want that. So they were like, but we're withdrawing. Yeah. Screw you. In 2005, the real Troy Dyer, who was a film financier,

sued the writer and everybody in the movie because on the audio commentary tracks of the 10th anniversary DVD, she said all the characters were based on her actual friends and roommates. And he had been friends with her at USC? And this guy knew her, and then all these people thought he was the real Troy Dyer, and the suit was quickly settled after he received a written document stating he was not the person portrayed in the film. The Real Troy Dyer.

Tough beat for that guy. I guess so, but if you're already a film development guy, you could kind of probably dine out on being the real Troy Dyer for a while. It's not like you wound up being a homeless guy. It would be kind of ironic that that character became what the fuck was he? What a fuck? A film producer? A film finance.

Yeah, it doesn't seem like that character would then emerge. No, Troy is definitely going to be cool English substitute teacher. If that's like his ceiling. How confused do you think Chuck will be with Apex Mountain? I mean, it's really it's in the eye of the beholder, so I think it's okay. Apex Mountain,

so it's the tallest mountain in a range of mountains? No, it's like, no. Apex Mountain is, was this movie the apex of this person's career? Okay, so why is it Apex Mountain?

Why isn't it Apex? It's a mountain. Climbing Apex Mountain? Because it's like, they are on the mountain. The tallest mountain. Chuck has clearly never heard the rewatchable. The audience has turned out,

Chuck. This is your favorite. You know what? Here's the thing. Start with proof of life. Yeah. Listen to heat. You never listen to me and Chris do heat?

We should have sent that to the Peabody Awards. Yeah, let's up with that. I feel like we've been under... We'll send proof of life to the Peabody words. We don't want to sell out. Yeah. You should not do that, you know? We don't need big Peabody recognizing our podcast.

Apex Mountain Winoda Ryder. I say yes. I think this is the apex. Yeah. Check. She's great in Heather's. and in some ways Heather's is a more significant

well in many ways in every way maybe it's a more significant film I prefer I mean she's aged a bit though so she's this really is the prime like she was real young

in Heather's I guess that was I guess it's tough fun I go with a I go with single I mean it's also it is the apex of Ethan Hawk though and I love his career I love him as an actor

He's been good in many movies. No. I got training day. I'm telling you. Really? Interesting. Is it changing an Oscar? Yeah.

Because he goes from, he's making all these movies and his career is one thing. And then when he makes training day, it's like, and the podcast I did with him, he talked about this. He's like, he does training day. And all of a sudden he can make any career opportunity he wants. He has. When he dies in the Oscar montage, it's a shot from reality bites. It is not any other film. So you said that's the qualification for Apex Mountain?

Yes. It's the thing that when everything else. That's what would you be remembered for? We're talking about at this point in his career, has he ever been more powerful, more popular, more powerful? But I would go with powerful. It might be like more like they can make any decision they want, right? Oh. Yeah.

Oh. I thought it was. So it's not the defining performance. No. No. It's not the apex of his career. It's Apex Mountain. Oh, well, I guess his apex is now?

No. Does he have more leverage now than he ever has before? I mean, I think that financially he's probably in the best position because he made the purge. And I think like the people who are in those like especially earlier Blumhouse movies, like that's a pure profit thing for him. But I don't know that for a fact. I just think that that's like a very good case of that. But training day, he's an Oscar nominee. He's married to Uma Thurman.

He's the second fiddle in that though, man. He's second fiddle in this movie. This is a Ranoiter's movie. When I still lived in Brooklyn, I lived in the same neighborhood as Ethan Hawk. And there was an Italian restaurant near us where you could be. buy homemade pizza or homemade pasta like they would make the pasta during the day and you could buy a bag of it so i would do this all the time i would go in there in the afternoon when it was you know empty i go in there one day and it's just Ethan hawk and this guy who's obviously some kind of you know if he's a

playwright or a screenwriter they're the only two people in there and they're having a very intense conversation that the writer playwright guy has these pages like scripts in front of him and he's talking to Ethan hawk and i kind of i'm trying to listen but i can't really listen and i also don't want to be a jerk. So I'm just kind of standing there and all of a sudden, the conversation ends and Ethan Hawks says to this guy, the thing is, I don't really know who this character is. Is he Nick Cave? Is he Jeff Tweedy?

Who is he? And he walks out. So obviously this was something. With the guy or just to use the guy in the pasta place? Well, then the guy puts stuff together in a bag and he leaves. Like, they leave Amico. Okay. But I do wonder, like, what kind of play about a musician could leave some.

someone to wonder if they're Nick Cage, Nick Cave, or Jeff Tweedy, you know? That's a good question. It was. Or did that movie even ever get meet? I don't think it was. I don't know why I think this. I have no proof of any of this. I feel like it was a play.

I feel like the way the writer looked. And, you know, this was, this was some years back before, like, Ethan Hacks in a lot of movies now, I feel like, it seems like it was like he was doing, like, I'd seen him in a play. He was really good in a play, like, off Broadway or whatever. But I think this story. was Ethan Hawk's Apex Mountain. This pasta story? I'm going to grant you in training day.

I'm pulling from this and before. I just think he's a bigger star after he's... For Apex Mountain, let's allow it. Yeah. Plus he said that on my podcast. He said after training day. So Anona, yes. Ethan Hawk, no.

Garofalo. I'd say no. I think there's got to be some Larry Sanders. Who knows? Steve's on no. You too. Jesus Christ What?

That's like because when they're playing A Brattle and Home, the movie about them, they're like, we just want to say thank you to Ben Stellar for putting our music on a cinematic movie. It's a culture culture. Hey, that's my bike. That's my bike, Mr. President.

This was definitely Lisa Loves apex. Yeah. There's no question. Oh, that's a good run. I don't know I had heard of that. That's a great one. What about the super big gulp? Kind of a force in the script.

Kind of a force. Did anybody ever think big gulps were so great that they were a metaphor for anything? No, you would just drink them because it's a ton of soda. But even to jokingly use as a metaphor. The Joey Pants Award for that guy or that girl in the movie. Joey Pants. It's Mahoney. It just means when you see a guy, you're like, oh, that guy's Mahoney.

No, John Mahoney's John Mahoney. Okay. I think it's Suzy Kurtz's husband because I don't know what that guy's name is. Well, there's also Joe Don Baker is. is awesome. But he's Joe Don Baker, though, isn't he? Do you think he's a that guy?

But isn't Joe Pantiliano? We're having a real crisis of confidence here. I don't know what's going on. Pantiliano is Pantiliano. He became Pantiliano, but there were years and years where nobody knew what his name was. That's why it's a Joey Pantzor word.

Chuck's really uprooted our whole podcast. We need Fennacy back. The Saul Rubeneck, they knew a word. Do you want to explain that one to Chuck? So in true romance, when Saul Rubeneck turns to Bronson Pinchot, and we find that he's betrayed him and he's just like, I treated you like a son,

and you stooping in the hearts! That's overacting. This is what the award is for. So it's best overactor. I actually couldn't find it overactor in this movie. Actually, that nobody really dialed it up. Unless you want to go with John Mahoney, and I'm happy to do it.

I would say that the only person, you could say Stiller and Hawk are at various points really going for it. Stiller and that, you gave her something out of it. What does he say? Yeah. Come on, let's go.

You don't need this. You don't know. what she needs. I think I know what she needs in a way that you never will. He kind of, let's give him that. Picking Nits

is where we pick some Nits in the movie. Yeah, we're like, hey, what's up? What happened? I could have got there from context. How do you, well, you didn't understand the Deon Waders Award, aka the Dino Waders Award based on David Caruso.

I'm so hurt that he never has listened to the Lodgemos. No, that's not true, because before I came on here, I was listening to the days and confused one. Okay. Yeah. Picking Nits. How did you win the Good Times game?

They're all sitting around, and it seems like they'd been playing it for hours. You're just shouting out Good Times episodes? It was like AD&D. You all won or you all lost. I don't think that there was any... How do you drink to it, though? I really want to know more about how you play it. It could be a little bit like playing Uchug.

You know, it's like bad. I think it was just, it's like kind of a stonery thing to do, to remember stuff. It felt like something that I would have played, but I just want to know how you win. How do you think they paid rent? Do you think Steve Zahn was like secretly pulling down like 900 a week? So but Steve Zon doesn't live with them. Oh yeah, you're right.

He lives with his parents. So it's, it's Lainey and Gene Ruffalo. But Janne Ruffalo, when she's like, we're paying bills. Yeah. Steve Zon is just helping her pay bills. He's not paying bills for them. I thought he lived there. I thought he lived there.

And Vignaws on the couch. It's deceptive because after he tells his mom he's gay and he's sitting outside, he goes, I just want to get back into the house, which I guess I unconsciously read his meaning that's where he lives. It doesn't necessarily say that. He doesn't live there. Winona Ryder's like, you don't even live here. He doesn't.

Oh, that's right. That's a key. There you go. I'm trying to, like, guess what Houston rent would have been like. Well, okay, so. It had to be cheap. She goes up, I think, six a month. Five a month?

I mean, it could be pretty cheap depending on where, you know, it's like if you're not close to anything great. But they're still like, we're going to get the phone servers turned off if this happened. You know, like, they're pretty concerned about that. Do you have any nipicks? Well, I mean, I just wonder we're going to talk about what happens the day after this movie ends with their relationship. We're getting to it.

Best quote, I personally love if I could bottle the sexual tension between Bonnie Franklin and Snyder. I could solve the energy crisis. It's just so great. RIP Bonnie Franklin, too. They showed the scene and they look like they're going to go at it. This is a conversation I had in college a million times. I'm not under any orders to make the world a better place. See, that's a line, too, where when I'm,

I was watching it, I was like, it seems as though to a person who is that age now, that would be shocking that somebody would express that idea. That that is, that's real antithetical to sort of how you're supposed to look at the world. Sex is the quickest way to ruin a friendship. This is all we need. You and me in five bucks. He's weird. He's strangely sloppy.

He's a total nightmare for women. I can't believe I haven't slept to them yet. And then I just don't understand why things can't go back to norm at the end of the half hour. on the Brady bunch or something. Well, because Mr. Brady died of AIDS, things don't turn out like that. It's a harsh line, but it's actually kind of perfect for the 1994ness.

It fits his character too. And his character, and it's just like, who else would say that? I like Bonnie Franklin and Schneider. I don't know if you have a quote that you like more than that. I like you look like a doily. That was a good word.

Well, okay. I thought this, to me, I thought it was waiting for you to mention this because I thought this was, I would have assumed this, maybe this is the obvious answer, But to me, the best sort of exchange, the single best exchange in the movie is when she's like, they ask me what irony is. And he's like, it's when the actual meaning is the complete opposite from the literal meaning.

And he says it in a way that's sort of like my whole life is spent thinking about these things. And also it's like it's a great example of like someone trying to sort of I want you to commensurate with me. And the guy's like, I'm not going to commensurate you because I'm too smart. this book or whatever. He's also heartbroken. Yes. And so that, if I, if I, if I, if I, if I, if I, if I, if I, if I, if I, if I, if I, somebody said, show me this movie in 20 seconds.

That is the 20 seconds. I like that. I like that one. That's a good one to go with that one. Could this be remade as a 10 episode Netflix show? I'm going to add this caveat. It's set in 1994. You greenlighting this.

Now I have some distance. It's, it's almost like dazed and confused style. It's 25 years later. And now it's 10 episodes. of these characters living in a house in Houston in 1990. You know what I'm curious about is if you made a 10-hour version of this, who comes out better, Troy or Michael? Like spending more time with who, depending on you spend more time with one of these characters,

who you wind up liking? Michael probably wins if the more time we spend with them would be my guess. Because Troy is like about 90 minutes is enough with Troy. It would be tough because... sort of the ethos of their life is we don't do anything. Yeah. Yeah. We just sit around and don't do anything.

I mean, it's like our life is built around sort of having a passive relationship with the idea of the world. That the world is, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, there people are not in this movie like, I have a problem with the world. It's like, I have my own problems. My problem is my life. And I've retreated from the world into my couch. And I, and I'm not interested in what's happening in the world. And in fact, by you temperament. to make my show into something that's on MTV,

you're almost forcing me to say, I am part of this reality. And that is, I guess, supposed to be part of the reason that she finds you so distasteful. I forgot what age is the worst. I forgot psychic hotlines. It's hard one to explain to Craig's generation.

For what age the worst is you should do the movie singles. Singles is almost like someone, it looks like now, like someone has made a sketch about technology we no longer use. A guy has a watch that he can get 10 phone numbers in. Much of the movie is based around using a...

Isn't that Stoltz? No, that's Jim True. Oh, that's Jim True, that's right. Much of the movie, the store of the movie is based around making calls from pay phones. Unbelievable. I want to be Mr. New to you. Two answering machines that were the tape breaks. Yeah.

It's like any kind of technology they could come up with. Dating services. Yeah, on video cassette. Video dating. You couldn't have made a caricature as much as that would work out to be, yeah? And also, I don't think the example. your McDaniel reference release. I think most people would be like,

the fuck is this guy? That's my favorite part of that movie. Probably in answerable questions. Does Troy's band ever release an album? No. No. Split 7 with somebody in town. If Chuck was in Houston,

would he have hung out with Troy? 1994 Chuck. I would have. You would have? In 1997, I hung out with Troy in Boston. Because you would have worked at the record store he went to. Yeah, and I worked at a nightclub

that he probably would have tried to play. Yeah, and I probably would have been like interning at the Houston Chronicle. Probably not. Probably not. I have a confession. Or we would have been very close friends and we would have had a very adversarial relationship. But we would have hung around a lot and had a lot of fights. I waited until the end of the podcast to tell you guys this. I hated people like Troy.

Did you? Yeah. So did you know guys like Troy or Holy Cross or just like the guy who was like the English major in college who just all he was doing was. shitting on everybody else, but he wasn't doing anything himself. And I'd never had time for those guys. So would you come across them at bars in Boston? Not that much. Not that much.

But like a little bit, right? It was that whole English major thing to me. Like just over-analyzing everything and just being pissy about everything. I don't know. I was never really like the steady cigarette smokers too. You didn't? No, just, no, I didn't smoke until like 94. I started dabbling.

But wait a second. So you didn't smoke ever? Not until after college. How much did you ever smoke? What was it like your peak cigarette smoking? I would say like maybe like 12 a day. Yeah. I mean, that's actually when you do the math, that's actually probably what they're doing.

So that leads me to my next. This is the last thing I'll just say on this. But this is like kind of I'm embarrassed to admit this, but it's true. I would have thought I was like Troy and actually I was like Ben Stiller. I know, I just know that about myself. It's like because I would have, you know, I, I would, like when I watch the movie, that's the character who I aligned with. But in practice, I would not have been that way because I wasn't cool. I was, I was like the fake version of cool, which is what that, well, like, you know.

Her whole speech to him about, like, if you're going to be this person, try at being this person. don't just let life happen to you is like a very accurate thing because there were people of that time period who were like, I will not take a fucking cent from big companies I'm going to do this by myself, it's DIY and that those people were like Fugazi

those people were like we're just going to like take our art and our way of doing things on the road and we're going to work as hard at this as anybody works at anything else. But those were also the people who never paid for anything. What do you mean?

When you're out with them you always ended up having to buy out of drinks. Well, they wouldn't drink anyway because they were straight edge so they were just like, no thanks for me sir, I'm going to go to a vegetarian Chinese restaurant. When you were working, when we were in New York and you were working at Kim's Underground.

Yeah. Was there any part of you that was like this actually is a more authentic, real, meaningful thing to do? Or were you always trying to get a job that would get you out of there? No, I wasn't always trying to get a job that would get me out of there because I was like, I think I was inhibited slash not as ambitious as probably I should have been. But there's no, like, dignity in, like, I loved working at Kim's in a lot of ways, but there's, like, you're never under any illusions that what you're doing is, like, the real cool thing. Like, it seems cool, but, like, it's basically degrading. But were you cooler than the people who were trying to make it? Because in some, I guess in a lot of ways, that was true.

Turning into Dr. Malfi's office. Well, no, it was, it was interesting. It would be sort of like there was, like, who really knows. what's going on in music. Is it the person covering music for a magazine, or it's the person who works at the record store that Ryan Adams comes into and wants to start a freak country band? Yeah, I mean...

So it did... So was there part of you that was like, actually, I'm closer to this than all you guys... Yeah, but I think I knew that I had a mental block and how to do some of the stuff. Like, I just, like, never knew how to write a profile. You know what I mean? Like, I never knew how to, like, take a step towards, like,

getting out of that. I was like, it's either going to happen or it's not going to happen, based on the things that I do know how to do. Because the application to this movie, then, the question is how much of Troy's life is his choice and how much is that's the position that he's just going to be? But you're missing the one key part with Troy

and the reason I didn't like him or people like that is he was a fucking asshole. He thought he was better than everybody. I like people that were like 80% of Troy, but were also like... That would sell other people. Like you still have to... It's like basketball.

You still have to like pass the ball and sell other people every once in a while. And Troy's attitude was like, you guys are saying, hey, Troy, you want to go watch Clyde Drexlitter night? He'd be like, I'm not trying to watch that bullshit. Like, gladiators. Or like, like, why do you watch sports? Yeah. Yeah, I was never like that.

I'd never like guys like that. At the same time, there are pieces of Troy. Like, Troy is the guy that, you know, especially when I was, like, working in restaurants and bars, like, you needed the Troy at four in the morning because he was the guy that you'd hang out with, smoke pot with, and he'd have cigarettes. And those are valuable guys. Yeah, absolutely. but next unanswerable question. So the kind of person you didn't like you used? No.

That seems real problem. I wouldn't use them as a fucking asshole. No, but you were like, I'm so glad that there's some like a bunch of people out there who want to talk about. You call the drug dealer. I'll wait here. I'll wait here. You go call the guy and then getting his car. I don't really like getting in his car.

It's kind of weird. So it's like, you get in his car, though. I'll be here. Okay. The best thing about Troy was he was on a sleep cycle that. matched mine for about five years ago. He'd wake it up at 1 o'clock in the afternoon and he was up until 4.

Next time I answered a question. How did Winona Ryder always have the cigarette three-fourths of the way down in every scene? Like there were two drags left. I don't know how they did that. I mean, what I want to know is, were they doing Mad Men cigarettes,

which were like herbal or like air? Or were they, all of them were just smoking all the time on every set constantly. I think she and Hawk were definitely. I have no idea. I guess I've never thought of that until now. Oh, she, when Kyle said when we were watching, when they start making it out of there,

it's like, oh, that is a cigarette kiss. Nicotine just pouring out of their thugs. How long did they stay together? Less than a year. Did they ever live together by themselves? They do. They do. They move in together at the end of the movie.

Oh, with the boxes? Yeah. Is that moving in together? I feel like Steve's on. He's in there. No, no, no. He's helping them move again. Yeah.

And he is going to try and go straight, and he is too young, and he's too fucked up, and he's going to screw it up. I don't know. I guess when you're that age, it's always better to take the under, right? If we're guessing, like, in all likelihood, most people who date when they're 23 don't get married. I guess because it's a movie, my assumption is they stayed together. Like, I imagine them staying together, but that's based on nothing. Like, you know, I just, that's how I thought of it. Because, you know, so she makes the choice, and that's the choice she makes.

I think they're done in a year, and then they run into each other 15 years later at Steve Zahn's wedding. So, okay. And it's really awkward. It's back on again? No, it's awkward. It's super awkward. And he's not smoking anymore because he had a pall up on his tongue. Do you get to, too.

And he's got short hair. Do you in any way miss that period of life, the life where your life is very dramatic, you're constantly in and out of meaningful relationships, you're falling in love with friends, and you're saying, your friends are so close to you that they go, you know, you go through that period where your family, you kind of move, your friends become your family for a while. And when you get older, it kind of goes back the other way. But like, like, do you in any way miss that part of life? I miss the...

Well, I'm older now, so I miss all parts of life. Yeah, I mean, I miss... I sincerely do miss smoking like that. Like, really. And I miss everything in my life pretty much being oriented around hanging out. Yeah, and I think that's the thing. So, like, everything is like,

after I get done paying for, like, the bare essentials, all my friends and I are going to talk about is what are we doing tonight? Hanging out and... And even if we're staying in and what are we doing? Like, it was just like a constant, constant, socializing. Don't you worry that in 2019. I mean, I don't know this for a fact, but I do think the internet has to cut into the hangout time a little bit.

Because part of the fun about all this stuff was like you didn't have money to go out really one night hard. So you just stay in, watch a movie, and you'd play the fucking good times game or you'd look for these ways to kill five hours together with your buddies. And that was like Saturday night. And now I don't know, the internet, it connects people, but at the same time, I don't know if it connects them in that way. I think people, I think it's just a real, like, you're right at the point where you start to have a little bit of your own money, but you're like, you have absolutely no ambition other than to, like, see your friends as much as possible. But how much would these characters have been on the internet if you just took the premise of this movie to now? It's almost inconceivable to like, like Winona Ryder, the 9-11, not 9-11, what was the psychic hotline? Yeah.

Now she's just on the internet, right? And Troy's doing Tinder. and Well, and Ben Stiller's character probably works in the internet. Right. So it's like I, you know, he probably works in some kind of internet capacity.

It's so odd because it's like, also were they raised with the internet because then we have to assume they're completely different people. Yeah, this is weird. I just think my brain, bro. Do you do that with every movie? It's like, the godfather. What if they had the internet?

No, no. Somebody texts Sunny and says, don't do this. It would be like because they were right behind him. They could have been just texting Sonny like, Sonny, stop. No, but I do think like I just made me wonder what is it, what would this movie be for 2019?

Somebody should make it. I'd like to watch it. Well, because if someone's, you know, I mean, here again, like I said before, what I think is cool about this is they were trying to make a movie about 1994 in essentially 1994. So if somebody is making a movie about 2019 in 2019, I don't think any of the issues that they deal with

would be placed in this film. It's also hard because you just feel like politics plays such an outsized role in people's lives now that to make a movie about 2018 or 2019 right now and in 2020, it's just going to be like, well, that's just completely different. Who won the movie? I'm going to say Ryder. Wins the movie now. Does this mean, you got to give me a little help here?

I think to me, to me, it's when you think of this movie was the first face that jumps in here. Who wins the movie? Ethan Hawk. He won the movie. Yes, because not only did he win the movie from a performance standpoint, he wins in the end. He literally wins in this, I suppose, maybe possibly problematic thing, the prize of Winona Ryder, the girl that they are both pursuing, which he pursues by doing not a goddamn thing. Right. You know, it's sort of like that's the ultimate way.

Except showing up in a brown suit. Yeah, he came back from his. Yes. My dad died. Yeah. Yeah. I'm wearing a tie. You know, I was thinking about stuff and, uh.

Yeah. And she's going to find him. Yeah, she's about ready to leave You know, I meant to ask you this There was this weird stretch of movies Where when friends would sleep Together and the guy would run out the next morning, it seems like it's

A recurring plot. Unable to deal with it. You know, it's really, if we start this we're going to get off on a tangent, maybe it's really interesting to look at the end of this movie and the end of kicking and screaming. Just in terms of like, in terms of like she's running off to go see him, it almost would have been more fitting if like

they missed each other. Like he's coming back as she's leaving. But kicking and screaming has such like a powerful ending precisely because the great romantic gesture is just ultimately futile. That's why it's a superior movie.

But I have the tie-breaking vote. I think Ryder won the movie because Ethan Hawk was able to basically before sunrise, play a variation of a much more likable version of somebody who's in the sphere of this character

and kind of own that movie. But this was it for Winona Ryder. It's not very often that you see people... Is this true? That you see people basically do variations on a theme like this as characters. Like, Jesse and Troy are circling the same kind of... He's a likable Troy. Yeah.

Yeah. So... It just seems to me, though... And I feel like that's a better movie for him than this. So, like, Ethan Hawk completely encapsulates a certain kind of person that existed in the real world and if the best film depiction of it is his. I don't think Winona Ryder does that. Winona Ryder is that person in reality in 1994,

but her character is not. Her character is a person... It's a pretty compelling argument. I'm a offense now. She is a person less interesting than who she actually is in reality. Oh, man. In that film.

No, you're right. You know, and I think that... And Winona Ryder's, like, you know, the idea of who she was, like, her life won the period. Well, wait a second. Her life won the mid-90s. Can I add one more thing, though?

Okay. She single-handly cast Ethan Hawk. She saved Drenine Grafell's job on the movie. And then she single-handly made the movie happen. I think that goes... And she smoked the most cigarettes of anyone in a movie ever. And she had to let go in a cigarette detox after. I'm still sticking with Bonona.

What do you think, Craig? I kind of like the Hawk argument. I'm going to be honest. Oh, man. Fucking Chuck. But did this movie damage Ethan Hawks career for a short time? No. In fact, at the end of this, I want to play out.

Because we talked about reality bites for... Like he made the Newton boys and stuff like that, but I feel like there was a period where it was hard to see him and not think of that guy. Like it seemed for a while he was going to be typecast. To his credit, I think his talent has completely... Didn't Gattaca flip that?

It was like 97? You know, that was a real good movie. That was 90... But it wasn't successful, wasn't it? It wasn't. But it was a different kind of person. It was respected in a way that, you know, in a kind of extravagant way that.

It's a real good movie. I mean, it's a for the... That kind of science fiction movie, I think that's a pussyman Huma Thurman. We're going to play at the tail end of this Ethan Hawk talking about reality bites on my podcast because he had recently watched it and had a lot of thoughts. So we're going to put that on, even if you already heard it, it was a little bonus. Chuck, I don't feel like this was your apex mountain. I feel like the next one's going to be, though. Now that you know all the categories.

What was wrong with my performance? No, you were great. Chris Ryan, it got a little deep there for a second. I'm glad you fought it off. Chuck started leading in. Craig and I'm just going to leave as soon as you had a therapy session. Okay, this is the last thing I'll say about this. Part of the reason I like this movie is because it makes, it reminds me of something about

myself, which is that nothing is more interesting to me than the psychology of my friends. And if I could, there's nothing in life that interests me more than the people I'm friends with. And it's the same for these characters. Their entire life is built around their relationships with each other. And I think that is why it reminds me of something that I've felt my whole life. But you're right, kicking and screaming is a bitter movie. Bill just needs them for cigarettes. We're doing kicking and screaming at some point.

By the way, I've been to Prague. We'll be back in the React Realtrowless next week. Reality Bites, 1994. Yep. So all of a sudden, you're playing the guy that I hated in college. Who is that? Tell me about the guy you hated in college. Well, just the guy with long hair who was the English major, who thought he was smart and everybody. Who knew how to define irony?

He didn't know. Yeah, he didn't watch sports. He didn't have any opinions of when he was going on the Red Sox. But somehow the girl that I liked, like this guy. You don't think that a little bit of your anger might have resided in the fact

that he was simply shining a light on you wasting a lot of your time. Watching sports? Yeah, he might have been. But the cool thing about that movie was there was this whole era that just wasn't being captured. It was like you graduate, what do you do?

What do you do? where am I going to get a job? I thought I was this hot shit in college. Now it happens. And it's like, yeah, you're going to go work at the 7-11. Really particularly felt for Generation X, whatever that. For our generation, we were a large group of people whose parents had gone to college and we were expected to go to college.

It wasn't some giant victory to have gone to, whereas my parents, like, oh, they went to college. That was really good. And now we're supposed to go to college. And now what are we going to do with ourselves? And so going to college didn't just get you a good job like it had used to. That was what was unique to our generation.

So you had a whole, you know, had a decade of all of us in our 20s, you know, slacker that Linkletter film was about the same thing. It's just people hanging out, wondering what they'll do with themselves. Clerks was a little like that too. Those guys, I don't know what the upside for those guys were. Yeah, kicking and screaming.

That was the, I always identified with Grover because it was this writer who wanted to write, but I had no idea. But it was funny. Troy Holler pissed a lot of people off. He really did. He really pissed a lot of people. He was a great character.

It was a great character. What was funny about it for me is for a long time, a couple years after that, people thought I was Troy Haller. Like, you know, and I kept. I thought that. Yeah, but I, you know, it was. But that means you did a good job. Yeah, I felt proud of myself about it because it was, it was a specific kind of character. And it was the first, really what it was.

I had really found a character with Todd Anderson and Dead Poets Society. and I really struggled to create another character. Yeah. And reality bites, it happened. I found a new voice, a new energy. And once you can unlock that in yourself, like I have this, you know, like I think a lot of people can write one good song

or a lot of people could maybe even write a good novel, one. Yeah. You know, and a lot of people could be good in one movie. And being a professional actor is figuring out how to let this stuff flow through you and really be different people again and again and again. And that's a different thing. Well, I also think it helped that those two characters were so different.

Well, it was good for me. I mean, it was literally like night and day. Todd and Troy. And Troy, you know, who, hey, who stole my bike? Hey, that's my bike. That was the name of my band. Well, that's, so just when you're not, you're like, maybe this Troy is all right. And then he sings the violent femme song in the bar and just destroys Winona Ryder.

You know what really pisses people off about that character is he's such a self-centered jerk and he still gets the girl in the end and I think that's a show of so many guys nuts. Well, in real life she tells you to fuck off and then you just have to re-eval in real life. She goes for the rich Ben Stiller character. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, for sure. Yeah. But, you know. Well, when that came out, did you feel like a shadow from singles? Or did you feel like it was your own area? Because singles beat it by, I think, a year. But, you know, if I'm allowed to say now,

I hope the people are mine, singles isn't a great film. And, you know, I like this. It's really not. Because I was considered myself more of a singles guy, but now I'm gravitating. If you really think about the, if you think about the writing of, I mean, I'm a student of this stuff. So I'm obviously the wrong person, Judge.

I mean, I love singles too. But Singles was trying to cop on to this grunge movement, this thing that was happening in Seattle. Yeah. And what was really cool about Helen Childers' script in Reality Bites is it was really funny. Yeah. I mean, it's really funny. And the characters are really vivid.

And it's really, you know, Steve Zahn is playing this, you know, gay character. And Jureen Grofflo is hysterically funny. And here you have this female protagonist that Winona is playing that is a filmmaker and self-possessed and finding her own voice as an artist. and you have Ben Stiller, who I think is a world-class director. I mean, he makes strange movies. His movies are original. And this is his first film. And it's very watchable.

I mean, I'm my worst critic. Believe me, I spent years rolling my eyes when people talked about reality bites. But I was at a wedding about seven years ago, and I couldn't sleep at night because I had to get away from the wedding. And you're in a Ramada Inn and North Carolina. Carolina or something. And I laid down and I flipped on the TV and reality bites came on and I watched it. And I thought, you know what?

This is a really interesting film and it really holds up. I think what's cool is it really belongs to an actual era in a really significant way that when you think about the era, you think about some albums, you think about some whatever TV show is going on and then a few movies. And that's one of the movies. And singles, I agree with you. And I think Cameron Crow agrees. Like he could never figure out how to put the movie together. It doesn't quite, it has good pieces.

It has good pieces and it's a good idea and I like it and everything. But it lacks what Winona is amazing in reality. It's a great central performance. And it was iconic. She found, I mean, you know, even when it starts out that talking head song, We're on a road to nowhere. Like, it jettisons you into that moment in America. Yeah, I think. Here I am. I can't believe I'm selling that movie. Well, I don't care.

It's great. People can think whatever they want. No, it's a good movie.