The Rewatchables - ‘The Last Days of Disco’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey

Episode Date: May 23, 2023

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey skip the line to the night club and sneak in through the back as they relive ‘The Last Days of Disco’ starring Chloë Sevigny, Kate Beckinsale, and Chris Eigeman. Producer: Craig Horlbeck Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm Matt Bellany, founding partner of Puck News, and I'm covering the inside conversation about money and power in Hollywood. With my new show, The Town, I'm going to take you inside Hollywood with exclusive insight on what people in show business are actually talking about. Multiple times a week, I'll talk to some of the smartest people I know, journalists, insiders, all of whom can break down the hottest topics in entertainment to tell you what's really going on. Listen now. This episode is brought to you by Adobe Firefly. The all-in-one creative studio with AI-powered image and video generation. Build for today's creative process, Firefly helps you generate, edit, and experiment fast.

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No, you don't understand. It went perfectly. Real offer, down to the penny. They're picking it up tomorrow. Nothing went wrong. So what's the problem? That is the problem. Nothing in my life goes to smoothie. I'm waiting for the catch. Maybe there's no catch. That's exactly what a catch would want me to think. Wow, you need to relax.

I need a knock on wood. Do we have wood? Is this tablewood? I think it's laminated. Okay, yeah, that's good. That's close enough. Car selling without a catch. So your car today on... Carvana. Pick up fees may apply. The rewatchables is brought to you by the ringer. podcast network where Sean Fantasy

host a big picture. Movies are back, Sean. They are back. Yeah, Fast 10 is here. Oppenheimer is coming. Sure. I'm aware of that. Christopher Nolan directed that film.

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The watch, succession, ringer-filly special. It's gotten a little dark this spring. We don't know that. We're recording this before game seven. Before game seven. We are recording. Okay.

My name is Bill Simmons. This is the rewatchables. We're going to talk about the last days of disco. Unemployed is not who I am. I'm a fully employed person who just happens not to have a job right now. What if we don't marry some lawyer? What if we marry some meatball like you? Why is it?

When people have sex with strangers on their mind, their IQ just drops, like 40 points. Maybe in physical terms, I'm a little cuter than you, but you should be much more popular than I am. I live dangerously on the edge. I'm no kindergarten teacher. The last days of disco, rated R. Now playing at Select Theater. All right. critic, Kenneth Turan?

Yeah. This is what he wrote about our dude, Whit Stillman. Writer director, Whit Stillman makes wonderfully clever and confident films about insecure young people who are smarter than they are wise.

Yeah. And I realize this is a whole genre I'm just completely in on. I've seasoned tickets. I love these movies with really smart, sophisticated, stupid characters. This is one of my wheelhouses,

Chris Ryan. Absolutely. And this movie is Boogie Nights for Nerds. Sean? Sure. No Boundback. Well, you don't like Wes Anderson, but Wes Anderson is a part of this cohort.

I don't dislike them. I'm just, you know. Richard Linklater. Richard Linklater. You know, people having heady conversations before their time, before they're ready to really understand life, sharing all of their deep ideas,

and they're all full of fucking shit. And it's just riveting. Honestly, these people are beautiful, and they have no idea how to control their lives. I love these movies too. This is what college is for to learn how to talk like a complete douchebag and pretend you know what you're talking about when you don't. And then you hit your early 20s and you don't have a good enough job yet

and you don't really know where your life's going. But the one thing you have is the ability to just bullshit. Yeah. And make it sound like you know what's going on. Which is why the Kate Beckett's cell character in this movie is just perfect. And I think that this movie speaks to even though I don't think any of us ever were part of the disco scene or any of its revivals. Speak for yourself, brother.

Jesus. I think that all of us probably agree that life was absolutely at its apex when we were spending most of our waking time in bars talking shit. Right. Talking about Lady in the Tramp for an hour and a half. And this movie is just very much an extension of this really great time right before the internet kind of takes over where like, you know, you just have to listen to somebody. You couldn't be like, I don't know.

Is that what happens to Lady in the Tramp and we looked that up? It was like, no, I'm just going to let John. Talk about this for a while. Yeah. Get it off his chest. I'm having a little bit of a chicken or the egg sort of thing with these movies as I revisit them at this stage of my life because, one, I have not really matured as a person beyond that era that you talked about where you just learned how to bullshit.

And I'm like, look at me 20 years later, still. Look at all. Bullshitting in front of a microphone. If people don't change, it's just the context. But I saw a lot of these movies at a really young age, you know, 12, 13, 14, and I basically just borrowed everybody's personality and made it my personality. You know, I watched Chris Eagman in these movies and I'm like, shit. This is really close to what I do

And maybe not as cruel as a person But like the pump and the intellect But kind of knowing deep down You might be a little bit of a phony It's a personality type that is really prevalent So it's so funny to watch this stuff And think about how I processed it When I first saw it

Which you know was like 15, 16 years old I just want to say though You know we do this podcast and I will you You always surprise me You know we always learn things about you That we didn't know felt like sideways.

There was like a lot of personal anecdotes. I got to ask, like, what about, I never went to a million years would have been like Bill's with Stillman guy. You know, it's really this movie. I like Barcelona, but I like this movie more. And I'm a Chris Agerman guy more than, more than even. But it's just like this whole era of indie movies, which is early, early, early internet or in kicking a screaming case pre-internet of characters having.

having conversations that I was having with people in my life but had no idea anyone else was having them. Yeah. And I think that's why I responded to this whole genre. And we've talked about that a lot in the kicking and screaming where some of the stuff that happened in that movie, I was like, whoa, there's other people out there like us or even, I always told the story about how funny we thought

Miggs and Buffalo Bill was the Silence of Lambs and we only thought it was me and my friends. It's Elliot Gold leaving a message on the answer machine being like the Knicks. All me. So you see these things in movies or like, sleep with me when Tarantino does the Top Gun monologue. You see things like that in movies and you're like, oh, my God.

Like, do you see this? And it reminds you of your group. And I think the internet took away a lot of that because what people realize what the internet is, oh, there's a lot of me out there. And then you go find your group and your people. And now it's even more segmented than ever. But this time was like movies were one of the only ways you kind of. knew either you were different or there were more people out there like you.

Yeah, I know a generation of people fell that way after seeing Slacker. Or like, I never thought I would see like guys like that on screen, like that weird guy at the bookstore. He was always in the JFK section. You know, like, it just was like this sort of, they were just started making movies in the 90s about people they had never made movies about before and let them behave in ways that they had never really let them behave like before except for maybe the 70s, you know? Yeah. And this was really romanticized. at the time, but these movies were made largely by people who were not in the system.

You know, a lot of people on the East Coast, a lot of people who came out of the Sundance scene, Richard Linklater in Texas. It just wasn't Hollywood Studio stuff because you weren't used to seeing Hollywood Studios feature characters that seemed like real people. They were exciting, they were beautiful, they were doing cool things, but they felt untouchable.

And, you know, the people in this movie, even though they're like these hot-looking wasps roaming New York City in the 70s, you can kind of relate to them in a way. They seem a little bit more accessible as humans than Tom Cruise or Arnold Schwarzenegger. did. So that's definitely a reason why I clicked in with them. I was like, I feel like I know them. Yeah, and the remarkable thing about this, the remarkable thing about dazed and confused,

the remarkable thing about kicking and screaming. Well, dazed in this specifically is that these are period pieces, but they don't feel like it. So there's some hallmarks of like, like, I imagine that the cars that maybe go by in the background are late 70s, early 80s, taxis, or police cars or whatever, and there's some aspects of it that feel like a period piece, but they certainly don't talk in any kind of a dated way in this movie. You know, I mean, some of the stuff that they are talking about has dated, but like in the same way that when you watch the kids and dazed and confused talk about being young, it kind of just sounds like the way anybody would ever talk about being young. The way that these people talk about making friends

or pairing off or what guys will look for in women or what women look for in guys or, you know, it's just basically like timeless. Yeah. The friendship dynamics in this movie I really respond to. Do you? You don't see it enough in movies. These are all people. People that probably, they kind of stumbled into hanging out together and they don't really like each other that much. This happens after college, though. This happens after college where you end up, oh, I know somebody who's going to be in Boston. Oh, I need a roommate.

And then all of a sudden, that's who you're going out with on Friday nights. I'm sure this still happens to some degree, but not like in the 90s where this was it. You didn't have the internet. I have such a specific relationship to that idea because I did have the internet when I graduated from college, and I used the internet to go out and find people that I thought were like me, like Chris. I, like, reached out to Chris because I read his writing, and I was like, you are speaking my language.

Like, very similar to what you're saying when you saw these people on screen, the internet created a new version of it. I mean, a lot of people had that relationship to you as a writer. They felt like they knew you. And that did change. And I wonder if it's actually easier for people now when they get out of school to make those kinds of friendships with people that they feel related to, like connected to it in a meaningful way, as opposed to this, like, I kind of knew you.

you in college. Right. We were at the same party last summer. Yeah. These forced connections. The internet became like an advanced scouting department.

Whereas in the 90s it was just sheer pot luck. Yeah. Of who you ended up spending like these really formative years. 23, 24, 25. I always kind of remember,

so when we've done like 80s coming of age movies, we often talk about like the sort of like free play aspect of how like no one really was looking to see where we were until dinner time. you know, during, like, if you just go out and run around.

The sort of college version of that is like the bulletin board where you'd be like, oh, this guy's driving to Philly. I guess I'll get, and if I contribute gas money, I can go with him. And you're just like, cool, let's take a six hour drive together. And it's like, what the fuck? Now you would be like, oh, I'll take an Uber to this and I'll get matched up with this person who, like, has been vetted by like a company or something like that. But now it's like, back then there was just a real.

roll the dice. And no more so in this movie than with like the roommates thing, which is such a funny sequence when she's just like, I've scheduled a dinner party so we have to have an apartment by Friday. And Chloe 7 years, like, we don't even like each other. I'm not sure this is going to work. Yeah, so it hits that friendship dynamic and then

also the female friend of me thing. Yeah. Yeah. Which is now I feel like last 20 years in pop culture is a theme that has been pretty prevalent. But that was the thing like you noticed in high school and college where you're like, those two girls hate each other. Why do they pretend they're best friends? They're like mortal enemies. And you never really saw that in movies that much until

this kind of generation where they really could go in the dynamics of these are friends, but they're not really friends. They're confused as the same thing. There's these uneasy alliances everywhere. And even the men in some of these movies, even in kicking and screaming, you see like, I don't, why are they spending time with this guy when this guy doesn't sit in? Anyone hang out with the Jason Wilde. Yeah, the Jason Wiles character, Skippy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're like, that Chris Havitt's character goes,

I don't even like you. I don't know why. We're not friends. But, yeah, it's that part and then the, I mean, the three reasons I love this movie, the friendship dynamics, the friend of me thing, and all the actors are great. And then the music is,

this is just one of the all-time soundtracks. It really is. And it's constant. It's never intrusive. It's a who's who of the best disco songs and it's just always upbeat, even though nothing about the movie is really that upbeat. Yeah.

Nobody's life is turning out. Those people are all depressed. Yeah. The relationships aren't great. Nobody's really heading anywhere. And yet, it's still kind of fun and then it ends with this crazy subway scene that kind of makes sense. It was weird in the movie theater the first time.

Yeah. You're like, whoa, you're ending it like this? And it seemed like a heat check, but I don't know. I kind of love it now. It's really sweet. I like it a lot too. There was, you know, No Bombach released an adaptation of White noise last year, which was not loved. I liked it. But it ends with a similar kind of, you know, almost unrelated dance sequence. We're like, what is going on here? But it did put like an end cap on the movie that felt almost like an homage to this movie. I thought of it immediately

when I saw it. But the music is interesting because, you know, Boogie Nitz just does this. It comes out like eight months, six months before this movie. And it similarly like calls an entire era's music and, you know, puts it on that soundtrack. That soundtrack was kind of a hit. Yeah. And then this is like an even. more pop version of disco songs. Like, there's not even like a crate digging thing. It's just like, this is the hits. In fact, Igman, Des goes up to the DJ

and is like, play good times. Yeah, like, we're not screwed around here. We also, it's Spike does summer as Sam. Mm-hmm. This is... Is that the same year, too? It's right around the same time. It's like 97, 98. All this stuff's coming out. Days is 96.

96. But everybody's hitting that late 70s, New York or whatever. It's the 20-year nostalgia rule, too. Well, that's the funniest thing about this movie is that like the guy gives the big speech about like disco will come back it will live on and it does because of the movies that are about the 70s so there is like this kind of like when you get to college in the late 90s everybody has the dazed and confused and boogie night soundtracks and we're

playing it all the time there was another thing I'm a little older than you guys the weddings and I got only know so many weddings I went to from 93 to 2002 but disco was a huge part of the weddings and it was one of the reasons they came back and you would see at the end of the night, I will survive as playing and it's the one single bridesmaid just like really going out. The 93 to 2000 draft class is that, like, there's a lot of those marriages

still intact? Yeah, for the most part, I gotta say, like we higher batting average that maybe I expected. Before the steroid era. But Disco was ironically in a lot of the weddings, but then it kind of wasn't ironic because everybody really loved the songs and they grew up with them. So this movie kind of

taps in that, but the movie didn't do well, which will into. I think the other thing with these songs for me when I saw this movie was, you know, if you hear I'm coming out by Diana Ross, that's like a biggie song in my head. All the samples. Or if you hear, you know, he's the greatest dancer. There's a Tony Touch song from like 1998 that sampled that very prominently. And so all these songs were all part of rap culture too at the time. So there was like a connectivity where basically dance music starts coming back in America, like electronica starts and then it leads to EDM and rave culture and all this stuff that's about to happen in the 2000s. Disco, obviously huge influence on

all that. Plus rap, it kind of makes all that music really relevant in another way, too, not just in the wedding way, though. That's obviously in like your real life day-to-day stuff where you're encountering sister sledge. Otherwise, you would not have on the radio. I love the nightlife. I'm coming out. Got to be real. Good times. He's the greatest dancer. I don't know if it's right. More and more and more. Doctors orders. Everybody dance. The love I lost. Let's all chant. Got to have loving. Shame, which is probably a top. five knock on wood the ugum-bogum song whatever how do you pronounce that ugum-bogum yeah but that's a that's a good one to talk about because that's like the one non-disco

song when they go into the bar right right right the bar that's the bar that we were in new york yeah uh love train and i love the nightlife it's bangers all the way around no bg's but maybe couldn't get the rights um let's talk about your dude wit yeah c r you you really surf in the uh beautiful blue ocean of the Before Sunrise, with Stillman, Bomb Back. These were your guys. Yeah, well, I also really just like movies where it seems like they're written in their own language. And they all have like their own vocabulary, their own cadences.

So it's like Mamet and Gilroy and Sorkin. And I enjoy watching movies where it seems like the way that the characters talk is of itself an invention of the world they inhabit. And so you can only hear people talk like that in a Wes Anderson movie or in a David Mamet movie or whatever. And the Whitston thing that's so cool is that pretty much every single character constantly is saying exactly what's on their mind. So you have these very confrontational dramatic scenes that are actually being delivered in this like very flat affect and with this rye ironic style. But all the duplicity in this movie pretty much happens off camera. It's always

Kate Beck and sale being like, it's a shame that you have the clap. You know what I mean? And really embarrassing people. And it winds up being like this very, very, very using thing to watch to watch people just be like candid to the point that they can't help themselves. It's funny that we've been going through this like decade long run of people openly pointing towards white privilege, you know, that that concept. Because the Whitestone movies are these like self-ironizing, self-accusatory disquisitions on white privilege. You know what I mean? They're just like, he's from a very, very successful, wealthy family. He's very well educated. He went to Harvard. He's almost

40 years old by the time he gets to make a movie. So he's done a lot of writing and he really understands his own voice. And then every movie he makes in this little trio of films is basically about just like striving, ostensibly successful white

kids of privilege. And like he's joking about it. He's making fun of his own characters like the Chloe Seveny and Cape Eccanale characters when they're working as, you know, assistants to the book editors are basically like my parents pay for my life. Yeah, when the real estate agent is like, can't your parents help you out? And she's like, they already are.

Yeah. Yeah, he has a deep awareness of this stuff. So, like, a lot of these films sometimes came under fire for that. But I always felt like he was always in on that. He always understood the circumstances that he was writing. From who? The critics were just like, this is just like a lily white portrayal of life in New York. I mean, it's a movie about disco featuring a bunch of white people.

But the point of the movie is white people kind of killed disco. You know, it's like they took it from people who created disco. and then they rung it dry and then they moved on to the next cultural thing but I feel like the movie is actually quite smart about that and understands it and that's why it's about the end and not the beginning of something what did he call a doom-bougey people in love

or something like that's like his trilogy Metropolitan is in Barcelona the Metropolitan that was a big Sundance movie he got nominated for an Oscar in 91 which I had forgotten for a screenplay yeah Barcelona was a thing that came out great year for movies in general so many movies

like that, like these indie indie movies. Was that a Miramax movie? I think so. I liked last days of disco way more than Barcelona. And also like 98, which we've covered,

was just a bang in year. And it got lost. It got lost a little. There was a little battle between that and 54. And it seemed like there was going to be this run of people celebrating late 70s, New York,

early 80s in New York. I think for me, with his movies, like, it just reminds me people I went to prep school with even after you saw them in college and they weren't doing well, you knew they were going to end up doing well because eventually they were

born with the lead. You know, and they was like, oh, I'm doing this, I'm trying to work my way up. And it's like, you're probably going to be really rich in eight years. hilarious watching all the guys when they're all getting on unemployment. You know, they're all going down. It's just like, come on.

But the only character in the whole movie who's in the kind of primary lead roles that is really dirtbaggy as Iguyen. Because he's the only one who dropped out. He's the only one who's working in a non-white-collar profession. Like everybody else, they're lawyers, their book editors. He's got the nicest department. But right, but he's probably making real money, real dirty money.

And so I like that little contrast, too. But he's got that Kieran Culkin issue that's not an issue where I'm just completely in on the guy and anything. So even when he's playing a dirt bag, I'm like, nah, he's not a dirt bag. He's fine. He's a good guy. He's funny. He's cool.

Witt kind of doesn't do anything after this. He takes... It's the strangest thing. Years off. It's one of the weirder careers. I mean, Lonergan's probably number one for the past 30 years of, like, what happened with this guy? That's a really good comparison where I think the incredibly literary screenwriters and directors who obviously are not fast. You know, Stillman writes a novelization of this movie that,

kind of expands on what happens to the people, but it wasn't just like a quick book. I mean, it was like he wrote a real novel based on like with the characters. And like in the novel, I think they're making a movie of the people about last year. It's very, you know, meta. And yeah, I mean, I think he's also a guy where it's like for a couple of years there with the home video and with everything else, you could make an $8 million movie. And if it made $3 million at the box office and then kind of continued on, like you were considered like a decent bet.

And then I think that kind of changes over the course of time where it's like we don't really have $3 million to give. I bet the music was at least $2 million of it. It must have expensive. I have a theory about this. I don't know if this is accurate. So Witt wanted to expand his movies by starting to tell stories like internationally. He wrote a movie about Jamaica.

He wrote a movie about Paris that were never produced. He did a show that was set in Paris, right? Much later on for Amazon. And he did eventually come back and make movies. he made damsels in distress with credit curve, which I think is pretty good. But that long gap, that 13-year period where he doesn't make a movie, Wes Anderson basically like rises to the center of this culture. And kind of he, one, does what Witt does, but with even more style and maybe more, like, overt sense of humor in the early days.

And I think there was a market correction. Because Wes obviously then becomes this kind of international filmmaker. He moves to Paris. He starts making movies set in Europe. And he becomes kind of the grand. you know, king of these boutique, very precise, particular, ornate, language-driven movies, they're not the same director. I'm not trying to make the comparison, but, like, there's kind of only room for one person

at a time in the mainstream who does something like this. And so I think it's a market correction. And then you have Bomback also trying to... But Bomback's a good example, too, of, like, after Mr. Jealousy was, like, kind of in the wilderness, right? Yes. And it's like, that's around the same time as this where it's just like, maybe they're just not going to make movies

like these chatty white people who were kind of like ambling around. Mr. Jealousy was bad. There was some bad versions of those movies and they started to feel like a... Well, because I think that they started... They started to try to professionalize them. Like, there was like...

It's like, get a big cast of well-known... I mean, beautiful girls is like that. You know what I mean? Where it's like, it's kind of like more of a pro version of these kind of like, everybody just kind of stits around the bar, bullshitting with each other.

But I think that these guys are almost always at their best when they're riffing closely on autobiography. You know, kicking and screaming is very autobiographical. The squid in the whale is very autobiographical. The last days of disco is very autobiographical. Witt Stillman worked as a lowly book editor, a double day in the late 70s in New York and went out every night.

This is about him. It feels close to something. Richard Linklater's days and confused. It's very autobiographical. I mean, these guys, even though they're really great artists and really great writers, it feels more true when they're riffing on something that is actual. And I think that's why this one, Metropolitan might still be my favorite because I've never really seen anything like that when I first saw it. And it was kind of like PG-Wodehouse came to life kind of a story.

But this is one that it feels the closest to like what's in his heart. And it kind of feels like he never figured out how to go anywhere from here. You know, like he kind of mastered his thing in this movie. this movie gained steam it didn't do well normally i did this later but uh 8 million dollar budget only made 3 million but then it had a rewatchability factor that really helped it and then this kind of era of movie moved into a different phase right it's funny that burst ears is in this because he did it be goes down five years later which i just recently watched which was kind of the

2000s version of a movie like this way darker kind of the prototype for where we're going with prestige TV with like these flawed characters that are actually like, now they're ramping up how flawed they are but also with good music. Yeah. And that becomes this, you know,

I'm more nostalgic for this era personally. For the 90s, the late 90s. I like the 90s stuff. They're still trying to figure it out and it's not self-conscious yet. Well, I just think... The internet's not involved yet. There's also maybe we were more patient

or maybe movies were more patient, but nothing really happens in this movie. Like, it's... I don't even really know what it's... If you said what's this about, you're like, wow, these two girls that live together and they work for a bookbooks. Even how much time passes, like, I don't know. Like, you know what I mean? Is it a year?

Is it four months? At one point, they're like spring. And I'm like, how many seasons have there been before that? Because they've been wearing, like, pretty light clothing. I don't even think he cares when it is or what the time is. Yeah, it's just a hang movie. You know what I mean? Like, you don't really see a ton of those anymore.

Yeah, there's a Nicole Hollif Center movie coming out this month called You Hurt My Feelings with Julie Lively-Dreyfus. that is very similar to this. And she also makes movies like this. You know, walking and talking is very similar to this. Right, sort of like, it's four or five friends. They're having awkward conversations. Their lives aren't that hard, but they have problems. They broke up with their boyfriend.

Their therapist sucks, whatever. And when I saw you hurt my feelings, I was transported back to a time when these movies were like kind of coming out every other month. And it seemed really rare. It was like finding a ruby or something, you know, because there's, I guess there's not a market for it. Maybe what you said is right. Maybe it's just like this is the land of TV.

This is what TV can do really well. You could say stuff. Fleabag would have been a 1997, 89 minute movie. Yeah. Yeah. Your friends and neighbors was another one in this whole world. The characters were a little older, but same thing where it's like, here are these four kind of fucked up people that are all interrelated.

They all really don't like each other that much. That one's caustic though. Yeah. That gets about as dark as possible. But it's funny to think about like a version of say, like euphoria or gossip girl that's just like if the people were being just like, really just normal. I think the cosmopolitans,

the Whit Stilman show, was kind of like that. Yeah, right? That's the Adam Brody one, right? Okay, so yeah. I mean, like, you just don't see a lot. Like, Girls was probably

the closest thing that we had to this. Adam Brody was kind of like Chris Agamond dolled up for Hollywood. He had a layer of sweetness and anxiety that, Igammon under the surface, I was like,

this guy fucking hates me. Brody and Fleischman is in trouble is doing an Agamon part, kind of. Right, right. That's true. That's true. I would have been very close to argument at just about every point in my life,

all the character's he plays. I just love people like this. We go to a party and be like, oh, this guy's here. I can't wait. I can't wait for his take on everything everywhere all at once. This is going to be amazing. We're going to take a break and come back and talk about the two lead actresses in this movie. Snoring, gasping during sleep, feeling fatigued, ask your doctor about zebbound,

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V-U-O-R-I-com slash simmons. Enjoy free free. shipping on all U.S. orders over $75 plus free returns, exclusions apply. Visit the website for full terms and conditions. All right. So this is a Chloe 70 versus Kate Beck and sell apex frenemy movie. Kate is one of the great shitty characters, really the last 30 years. I just can't believe this is, if you're watching this, like with your wife or a female friend or your girlfriend or whatever, they will have. like virulent reactions to things that she says in this movie.

Yeah. Like, they'll make noises. She just, she touches all the buttons. My wife had a Charlotte for sure. And she cut her out of her life. And I was very proud of her. Everybody has a Charlotte.

And everybody eventually cuts them out of their life because they realize like, oh yeah, you're actually a bad person. You're never going to change. So anybody who says, I'm sorry, it's just that you're so terrific. It makes me sick to think that you get in that terrible situation again

where everyone hated you. Right. She is like the fucking intercontinental gaslighting champion. She has the belt in this movie. It's too bad we weren't friends in college. I really could have helped you. You're more on the kindergarten teacher's side. Just like 20 daggers. Maybe in physical terms, I'm a little cuter than you, but you should be much more popular than I am. That's my favorite. The all-time backhanded compliment. And, you know, I asked Wesley. I talked.

told Wesley we were doing this. I was like, is this, is Kate ever been better in a movie? Like, am I missing one? And he said his response was best American accent by an English actor, or actress that he could remember. I think she is fortunate that the accent of all the people in this milieu is this sort of like mid-Atlantic Catherine Hepburn style speaking.

The same with Burst-Ears. Yeah. Burst-Ears was born in America, but it sounds like he could have been born in like Bulgaria when he's talking, you know, is very, very strange inflection, like, not like the three of us speak, you know, like three guys born on the East Coast, you know, who are, like, deeply inflected by... Who watched we on this city of the time?

Exactly, yeah. But she's really great. I mean, she's really good in this movie Love and Friendship that with Stillman made six or seven years ago that Chloe Seven years also in. That's, like, to me, that's, like, her most underrated performance. But this character's so well written. Every line she has is a blade.

He wrote it for her. I mean, he saw her. She's good. She broke down Palace. Yeah. That's true. She is. Yeah, that's a heroin film.

Which is like right around same time. Yeah, I thought, I thought she was going to be a bigger deal. She made a weird move with Underworld, where she married the director of Underworld, and she was like, I'm an action star now, and she just spent 12 years making movies about vampires. She seems like she has a really dope life. I don't know if you guys know, her Instagram accounts, just like her doing, like, skits with her cats. I love that she dated Pete Davidson. Yeah, she's, she's chilling. Didn't she date Chandler Parsons?

I think she has an eclectic dating history that makes it even more. She's kind of a stickman. She's a fun Google search. Yeah. Fun Google search. Came back and sailed. Burgess Meredith. Dickman.

And then we have our girl Chloe 70. Oh, my God. It's never ever been better in a movie. Like for all the things she brings to the table. Can I correct the record for this trio here, the three of us speaking? I think there was some. some thinking that maybe I was number one in line in the Chloe 7y fan club, aka I would like to have a romantic relationship with her.

Chris is number one. Chris is the leader. Club Chloe's not like the club. We don't have a velvet rope. Okay. Everybody can come in. Yeah, like Club Carolina. It's just, you know.

Yeah, when you're nitpicking with the performance with this with stuff like, I wish she had smoked more cigarettes. Yeah. You know it's really a Hall of Fame performance. She's great. She's just great in this. She does a bunch of awesome things in this movie, but one of them is the insults from these backhand of compliments

that the Charlotte character is thrown at her. And she has this way of absorbing them, and you're kind of reading. Do people say that about me? You could see her brain turning. She's hurt, but she's not too hurt. Even the clap thing, she just start, like, crying. She's not overacting, but she's clearly, like, being affected.

And then when she comes to some of the conclusions she comes to, it really makes sense. She's just like, I don't know if we should live together. We don't like each other. It's like, oh, good, you do see this. She doesn't come, I think that one thing that makes her performance really nice to me is that, like, she is not this person. Like, yeah, she's from, like, a waspie part of Connecticut, I think, and, you know, it was familiar with these people. She's the opposite of this.

But she's the fucking it girl. Like, she's the person that they're like, oh, my God, Chloe 70s here. And she was a 90s club kid and was going to limelight and stuff. and she's not this sort of like fawn who's like tripping over herself and doesn't really understand anything. So like her naivete in this in this movie is very like studied and very like it's an accomplishment. It's like that's not her natural sort of state. She's been in a lot of complicated and crazy movies. You know, she's in like kind of Harmony Corinne universe for a lot of films.

But I feel like her persona as an actor is actually closer to this character. Me too. sort of like the quieter, a little mouseier, but under the surface, there's like, the wheels are turning. And you're totally right, Bill. Like, you can see on her face. She's just as ambitious as Charlotte. Alice is as ambitious as Charlotte.

It's just she's going about it in a different way. She's the one who wins. Yeah. Yeah, I remember I saw kids in the theater. 1995. That was her first movie. That was one of those where he was like, am I going to get arrested because I'm in the theater for this?

That movie is just insane. I don't even think they show that on cable anymore. They never do. It's an amazing artifact of the times, though. We watched it over and, It's also like definitive. Like it was just like that that wasn't my life or anything. But that was like it's like on the like among the four or five most important movies in the 90s.

It capture the moment. Yeah. And she jumped off the screen in that one. Her and Rosario Dawson. She does last days of disco in 98. She says, Boys Don't Cry in 99 gets nominated. American Psycho in 2000. It felt like she was like an A minus list actress.

Mm-hmm. Right? Like right. Maybe not as. on the Gwyneth level or the Winona level, but like kind of right underneath. She was a big bit... Kind of like Joel Embed.

Like, not an A-plus Lister, but like right... You don't know what's going to happen on Sunday while you're recording this. I just be careful. I'm trying to wake up, Chris. Will you send Craig a note to cut that out if the Celtics get their heart ripped out? Embed joke about the 23-minute mark. Use your best judgment. Then the Brown Bunny happens, and it feels like it...

I don't know. I don't know if it torpedoed her. career, but it certainly changed it. I think it changed their perception to her. Yeah, I mean, I think that she probably, I always kind of think about her. It's funny that you mentioned Broke Down Palace because I think about her in relationship to Claritans, right? Like the kind of career Claritaine's had both because of my so-called life, but then, you know, not doing Titanic, but kind of like the way that they both have kind of like flirted with superstardom. And I think in most cases would probably be recognized at any random supermarket, but aren't like on

that Kate Winslet level of like, it's just like, oh my God, this person's been nominated for multiple Oscars and it's just like a giant star. And I think she likes it that way. You know what I mean? Like, I think that the thing I like about Chloe's having you, she's fucking cool. Like, she has never not been cool. Like, the entire time I've been alive. She never stops working, though. Yeah. You know, it's not like she's not getting jobs. She's doing supporting parts in movies all through the 2000s. And then she gets cast on Big Love and she's on Big Love for five years. Yeah. And first of all, she is remarkable on Big Love. She is, like, to me, the fulcrum of the show.

Like, she creates so much chaos on that show and was so entertaining to watch. But she did move out of that, like, beneficiary of being an It Girl at the time when independent movies, like, set the standard for what was cool in movies. Yeah. And she kind of ages out of that, and the movie business kind of evolves a little bit. And those directors that she was working with kind of change a little bit. So she doesn't retain it. But even to this day, you know, she popped up in an episode. episode of poker face this year. And I was like, wow, she's still fucking awesome. Like, she's mesmerizing on screen.

She's still just such a good actor. I think that there's something incredibly beguiling about somebody who's just like untouchably cool. And just like, it's like, there are people who are obviously like, are you talking to Chloe right now or Sean? Yeah. And that's why it's just so, it's so rewarding to be around you guys on a daily basis. I have never been described as beguilingly cool.

I can assure you. Well, Brown Buddy for the people. who don't know the story. Please tell it. Vincent Gallo makes Buffalo 66, which is a good movie, and then decides to make this Brown Bunny movie where...

Brown Bunny rewatchables when you... It's... And she gives them a blowjob at the end of the movie, and they film it, and it's not simulating. Real fallacious, yeah. Real fallatio. They show it at Kahn, and a riot ensues,

and Roger Ebert said it's the worst... Basically the worst moment in the history of Khan. Everybody goes nuts. her, what did her, her agency dropped her? And it felt like it had scarlet letter potential, just that she chose to even do a scene like that, much less be in this movie. And then, like, they released the edit of that movie

and, like, maybe a year later. And now there's, like, belatedly, people have decided that actually was a pretty good movie. And her choice, she's, like, never wavered from it. She said, uh, she said, quote, in 2017, I think it was a way of reclaiming myself, which sounds odds, but after the celebrity and stuff,

being like, no, that's not who I am on this other thing, and that's what I stand for, or wanting to push the envelope. And then she said, she disagreed that it hurt her career. She said, I got my first studio film after that. I'd never been offered a studio film.

It was Zodiac. I don't think it really hurt me necessarily. It hurt me in a lot of ways. Some relationships have had trouble with it. Of course, my mom and I don't talk about it. I felt like it hurt her just from afar, just watching it. I felt like it was hard for people to separate that that movie happened versus what her career was when you're comparing to people like with Paltrow.

It's hard to know what she actually wanted. I think for a little bit of context, I would recommend people read Chloe's scene, which is this Jay McAnnerney New Yorker profile of Chloe in 1994 before kids. When she was a model. She was 19. She's a model. She's a club kid like Chris was saying. And she has a very kind of like clear integrity even then, like a pretty clear idea. of who she wants to be and what's interesting to her.

Yeah. And you could say some of it is vacuous and that being a model or being interested in that kind of music or lifestyle is empty. But she's pretty consistent in terms of like what she finds interesting. So even if that did diminish her ability to like be a Gwyneth Paltrow type star, she's had a good career, you know? She's made a lot of good movies and TV shows.

I just also think that she has a personality that's not, it's more like one in a million rather than like a dime it doesn't. It's just like she's, she does have a flat affect. She does have a very distinct look. And it's not the same thing as like, oh yeah, I'm like the life of the party.

She's the life of the party because she's like unattainable. I think. And she said, look, we weren't filming a porn. I'd had a relationship with him. I would like to do the career over again

if Brown Bunny doesn't happen just to see where it goes. Because I do think, especially in the mid-2000s, I think she was ice cold. And because of that movie. I don't want to make this like an analogy. Didn't she also have like a hugely successful clothing line in the mid-2000s?

Yeah. Well, I think, but I just think that she was never destined to be Rita Hayworth though. You know what I mean? Like she's just not that kind of an actor. She's not really, she doesn't look like that. There's something, she looked a lot like girls when I was walking down the street in New York in 2005 and that would turn my head and I'd be like, oh, that's like only the kind of cute girl you only see in New York. You know what I mean? Like the way she dressed, the way she carried herself. So I don't know, it's hard. What do you think she would have done? Like, play it out.

I don't know, because this happened in 03 range at a really pivotal time of her career where it felt like she had been kind of on an indie heater for like eight years almost. So I don't know. Sometimes that moment fades anyway, and people move on to the next person who kind of looks somewhat like that actress. We've seen actresses like they're like running back sometimes. They get spit out. And then other ones kind of reinvent themselves and keep going.

I think it could have happened to Kate Winslet. You know, and she in the mid-2000s just completely changed the type of movie she was making. And all of a sudden, she just felt like a way bigger actress. Poutreau was in a different kind of thing, right? Where all of a sudden she decided to get married and she's in Iron Man and then she's in Country Strong. And kind of eschewed whatever celebrity path. So it depends on the person. Yeah.

But like Winona Ryder or somebody that had this five-year run where she, She was the it girl, and then it flamed out. We should talk about that. I mean, that's the critical casting. What if? Yeah, we'll save that one. Okay. I think what's cool about Chloe Seve-Need,

I can't really compare to anybody. Right? If we're in an athlete, you'd be like, that's a one-of-one. I don't even know who that version of her is now. She seems like a real person. Yeah. Yeah.

Could she have been Shiv Roy? Yeah. I think so. I think so. I think that's a good call. A good call. But she never had like the TV part that could have... Was she had big love?

Could she have been... Yeah, but Big Love wasn't big... Like, I didn't watch Big Love. I didn't like it. Yeah, but Big Love was like a critical darling and, you know, like was like the pre-pre prestige TV like Stalware. What if she was the Breaking Bad Mom? Uh, I don't know.

I mean, you're, that's, that's, I think that Shiv's a more interesting question. Yeah. I think the breaking, I think Skyler is like a complicated character. You know, like she gets kind of marginalized over the course of that series. I think you could make the case that she has the best possible version of fame. Right. Famous, not too famous. She'll get recognized.

Or kids that's not even on anymore. Critically acclaimed. Made a bunch of stuff that means a lot to people. We're talking about the last days of disco here. She's the star of that movie 35 years later. And fucking awesome. I bet she can get into any restaurant she wants and doesn't need security to go there. Right.

Which is like she is famous enough to get the reservation, but is not so famous that like she can't. go anywhere without having a private life. It's got to be kind of annoying to be Kate Winslet. Well, and then on the flip side, somebody like our girl Samantha Mathis who never quite got there. She never even got to like the Chloe 70 level of stuff. Or our guy, Josh

Hamilton. He's another one, right? Never totally happened. But I love that guy. But Chloe had a run. I mean, she definitely felt like the New York It Girl and then combined with everything that was happening musically, she just felt like Yeah, she was like adjacent to

like the whole Grand Royal Beastie Boys, like Sonic Youth thing. It was just, what a time to be alive. Sean's just smirking and nodding. She's just the reason. Like, Chris has said the word cool like eight times. It's the right word. That's the word that she embodies.

This movie is released in June 98. Roger Ebert gave it three and a half stars. He said, if F. Scott Fitzgerald were to return to life, he would feel at home in a Whit Stillman movie. Stillman listens to how people talk and knows what it reveals about them. I love that quote. And the one thing I wanted to say about that,

is this movie is like the great Gatsby if everybody was Gatsby. That was how I feel about it. And it's just like everyone's full of shit. They're all like, I'm an incredible success, but I'm lying. Categories, most rewatchable scene. We get that first scene. Opening 20 minutes, pretty much. I don't even know how to separate it.

It's 20 minutes in the nightclub. Yeah, and we meet everybody. We meet literally everybody. You got a feel for everybody. And like seven bangers are playing in the background. And we're off. Yeah. It is like five or six songs, right, that we go through all of this.

It starts with Dr. Doctor. It kind of culminates with Robert Sean Leonard showing up at the end of it. We meet the douchey Dorman, McKenzie Aston's character, Jimmy. He's trying to bring his older guys in there, like classic young guy who knows he's got a network but doesn't quite know to do it yet. We're all together. Van. Only him. We're together.

Come on, Han. This is important. These are my friends. You can go in but don't have to weigh. Hey, nice coat. The girls use the cab trick to help them get in. We have our guy, Chris Agamon, with the I think I'm Gay move on Jennifer Beals of Flash Dance Fame. It's not what you think.

I think I'm gay. What? It's not possible. How? It's always been there, I guess. I've only begun to acknowledge it now. You really think you're gay? And then we get the first friend of me thing of the maybe in physical terms.

I'm a little cuter than you, but it's just great stuff. It's just that you're so terrific. It makes me sick to think you might get in that terrible situation again where everyone hated you. Hated me? You're wonderful. Maybe in physical terms, I'm a little cuter than you, but you should be much more popular than I am. It'd be such a shame if what happened in college repeated itself. Why would it repeat itself?

You're right. Next one I got is I really like the book template that they're reading. Yeah. They read for the ladies. Like the coverage that they write? Yeah, just here's what makes a successful book. And it's like, can I have a copy of that? And then we meet department, Dan, who's doing the disco sucks thing.

Matt Ross is like, it's so formulaic. And they're like, it is a formula. The everybody dancing when Robert, Sean Leonard, our guy. Neal! Neal! He's alive. I was re-watching this movie with my wife. And she was like, Robert Sean Leonard, what is he from? What is he from?

And I went, Neal. I like that everybody dancing, though, when Chloe 70 basically gets left in the booth by herself with the drink. And then she decides to go out and the dance for her. Robert Sean Leonard sees it from afar. It's amazing. It's my favorite shot. I'm iconic shot. We'll just give that the word now,

the great shot, Gordo. Yeah. Great shot, Gordon. Robert Sean Leonard, laying into Alice about the sexy seductress routine. Yeah. It's really harsh, but it's a well-acted, really well-written.

He's just being up front, just throwing torpedoes. And she's doing the Chloe 70 thing, listening to it. And it's like, is she hurt? How hurt is she? Oh, she is hurt. Okay.

You were a vision, not just of loveliness, but of virtue and sanity. What? I shouldn't talk about it. I just end up sounding like an idiot. No, what? You're very sexy and good looking and modern. But what I was craving was sort of sentient individual who wouldn't abandon her intelligence to hop into bed with every guy she meets in a nightclub. Why is it that when people have sex with strangers on their mind,

their IQ just drops, like 40 points. All that affected, sexy, seductress slinking around that Uncle Scrooge is sexy? I mean, my God, is there no limit? Do you think I'm an idiot? I'm so sick of all the lies and nonsense. Very interesting dynamic of like slightly older guy, a little more experience in the world, and she's like fresh out of college.

Yeah. Yeah. The whole, do yuppies even exist? Yuppie scum? In college before dropping out, I took a course in the propaganda uses of language. One objective is to deny other people's humanity or even right to exist. In the men's lounge, someone scrawled kill yuppie scum. Do yuppies even exist?

No one says, I am a yuppie. It's always the other guy who's a yuppie. I think for a group to exist, somebody has to admit to be part of it. Of course yuppies exist. Most people would say you two have primed specimens. We're not yuppies. You think we're yuppies? You're seriously saying you're not yuppies?

No. Yuppie stands for young, upwardly mobile professional. Nightclub flunky is not a professional category. Contrary to popular belief junior level ad jobs don't pay well at all. I wish we were yuppies, young, upwardly mobile, professional. Those are good things, not bad things. Where are we going? Rex's.

What's wrong with Rex? That all scenes. Igamen just be like, what's wrong with being a yuppie? I would love to be a young, upwardly mobile professional. No one says I'm a yuppie. It's always the other guy who's a yuppie. For a group to exist, someone has to be a part of it. It's a great point. Nobody's ever like, I'm a yuppie. I'm a yuppie. I proudly admitted I was Gen X. Nobody was ever like, yeah, I'm a yuppie. And he does the breast unveiling story too. All that. We just get to hang out with everybody for seven minutes. It's great. The breast unveiling story.

Well, I'm just saying like... It's so captivating. It's just, it is, it was like, it's like Lottie Walker's fourth quarter the other day. Yeah. Where you're just like, this is happening? He's telling this story. When I was in college, there was a girl I had a crush on who always had older boyfriends, invariably some senior.

Finally, they all graduated. And one night, we went back to her room alone. Suddenly, her shirt was off and I was confronted with these breasts, which turned out to be completely surprising and frankly disconcerting. They were rather large. and not ugly or especially strange shape, but in all the time that I had thought about her, these breasts had never figured.

She took off her shirt so quickly, there was no time for adjustment, and I sent something arrogant about it, as if her abrupt unveiling of her largest breasts was somehow going to slay my swinish male self, as if I hadn't already been slayed on a much higher level. He, his, you guys have talked about him before, but his flavor is so appealing to me,

where I'm like, this guy is the biggest dickhead. I love him. You know, like, it's just a very specific character type. I wonder if Igeman wants, does Iganman like sports enough

to have a sports pod for us? What happened, man? He's in two bombbacks. He's in two Wittsdellman movies, and then what happened? Three with Stimbing movies. He did a TV series. Isn't he,

doesn't he work a lot? He, but like nothing like this. He's never really been able to get back to whatever, like, wouldn't you watch a movie about this guy

in his 40s or 50s? Yeah, Sign me up. Of course. To me, he's almost like in basketball, where you have certain guys who can only succeed, like rim runners, like Clint Capella. Okay.

He really needs an awesome playmaker who, or Robert Williams in the Celtics. I can do these two things, but I really need help with some other. Like with him, he must just need awesome scripts. He can't carry something, you're saying. He was on...

He needs the muse. Or he needs to be the muse. Gilmore girls. You know, like he's been working this entire time. I fucking love him. I mean, I wish they ever... I've never not been over the moon to see him in a movie or a TV show.

The more rewatchable is the, oh my God, you have the collapse scene is just amazing. I'll just have a Coca-Cola. You're not drinking? Alice is not having a cocktail. I can't believe it. Well, not. What is it?

Do you have stripped throat or some flu you're taking antibiotics for? Oh my God, you have to clap, don't you? You're on antibiotics and the doctor told you not to drink or something. That's why you're not drinking. Usually there's no coming between Alice and a cocktail. She's just like, you're not drinking. Alice isn't having a cocktail. Alice loves a cocktail.

And then she does that thing where she immediately apologizes, but you know she's not Sarah. Oh, my God. I can't believe how evil I was. It's like, no, you know how evil you were. The Lady and the Tramp Breakdown. Films like this, program women to love jerks. I just love the heat check stupid dialogue and theories. The club gets busted.

That's another rewatchable. And then the end, Alice wins. Charlotte gets laid off and we get a discos over. It's dead speech. Anyway, discos over. It's dead. What do you mean? Well, people just don't growing out like they used to.

They're tired. Some are sick or strung out. It's not just the prosecutions and all the owners that Bernie squealed on. Could part of it be related to the herpes epidemic? Maybe. I've got a friend in Casablanca Records and Tapes, and she says it like two months ago, the bottom dropped out of all disco record sales. Suddenly it's dead.

Over. God, that's sad. We're getting older. We've lived through a period that's ended. It's like dying a little bit. When are we going to talk about Keisler? I have a spot for it. We've been through a period that's ended.

It's like dying. What period has been like that in the last 20 years? 20? Yeah. We're living right now. Media and streaming is fucked. Everything's all fucked up. I think broadly speaking that we probably felt that way at the end of the Obama administration.

You did. You cried. You wept that day. Yeah. You were like Shiv Roy. You were like, I'm moving to Florida. Disco is much better than that. The business-friendly policies, baby.

I've been living on cynicism my whole life, so nothing surprises me. People are arguing about whether disco men or anything or not is just, I'm going to enjoy that every time. Disco is much better than that. I also like when people say stuff like I don't envy anyone. And then the subway ending with Love Train is just so weird and stupid and great. I like it. I love that cut to all the people on the platform dancing. Yeah.

So for me, my most. rewatchable is just the first, I just love the first 15 minutes. And part of the problem with flipping channels is you would always, you're always coming in late, right? So they're like, ah, I missed the first 15. Damn it. Because it's just so much fun to just meet and hang out with all these people. But then my backup would be the, uh, just that whole yuppie section when the Aigerman just gets to cook. The whole Rex's sequence is my favorite part of the movie.

Because it shows, it's like the ultimate contrast of the two New York's. And it's like why they don't want to be at this place that's kind of dull and playing old-timey music. and even the bartender probably went to Yale or something. But everybody in the bar is having a great time. You know, and it's like New York is a really fun place in your 20s, and that is a representation of it. Even in these dingy bars that are playing 20-year-old songs,

you can have a blast. You know what's really cool about that first sequence, too, is that you are meeting everyone, but they have already all met each other and have problems with one another. So it's not just an introduction, but there's an introduction of, like, conflict. So, like, Des doesn't like the fact

that Jimmy keeps sneaking in or like Van and getting mad at Des because Jimmy keeps sneaking in clients and stuff like that and they all seem very hostile towards each other and you don't really know why like do these people are they friends or they not friends in it? Every time I watch it I'm always like oh yeah I have to orient myself to the fact that this movie

is starting on chapter six of everybody's relationship. Right. That's what makes it feel even more real to me and more based on specific experiences that Witt had because there's this level of detail into all the relationships that he's already thought. And a lot of the times what's happening It's funny when you watch it with, if you turn the subtitles on,

you notice how many times off-camera overdubbed somebody says we all met at Harvard. And it's like, it's not clear, but that is where they all sort of know each other is from school. And like maybe they didn't hang out at school, but now they all have to. What's your most rewatchable? I'll go with the first 20, but I like, Rex's is very high up there and especially for the Radcliffe girl's speech that Eigwin gives. What stage the best, late 90s indie movies? Robert Sean Leonard Just always excited to see him in anything

And then he had a long run on house But you know After Dead Poets Society It felt like he was one of the safest bets To be one of the biggest actors that we had Never quite got there But I still I still think he's really good You mentioned Josh Hamilton who mostly works on stage

And Robert Sean Leonard's the same I mean he's like he's on in plays nonstop in New York now Yeah So Sarah Edwards did the costume stuff for this movie and the outfits are a big reason why it's lasted. They're awesome. And they basically started a fashion trend, I guess. Chloe's in a couple of dresses that are unreal.

In the late 90s, it kind of, even though the movie didn't do well, they're fashioned. The blue dress she's wearing with Josh as they're like when he's on their date after the book meeting. Or like the halter top that she's wearing with the stripes or even the first dress, the beginning of the movie. Like her style is sick of this movie. The red dress she's wearing on the subway is awesome. Yeah. My wife's take was that a lot of these clothes would be happening now in a real way. Young Chloe and Young Kate mentioned them already, but got to do it again.

The soundtrack we mentioned, it isn't, I don't know if it's a Mount Rushmore soundtrack, but it's definitely a first ballot hall of fame or soundtrack. It's a lot of movies that people are already familiar with, but just the way they were assembled. There's a really good Spotify playlist that's just the last days of disco. It's like 45 songs that are in this movie, at least for like a couple of stuff. seconds and it's just it's basically everything you'd ever want to know about disco i liked uh gay day wednesday was gay day for me just fucking kills me every time so it was wednesday yes wednesday was gay day for me uh in the in the disco some of the outfits

are really funny there's one guy who's a bull's eye in his back just thought was hilarious uh sean number 485 criterion collection yeah it was an early one all three of the films in the doomed bourgeois and love films are in the criteria collection now. Does that good additional features? It has a commentary track from Witt Stillman, which is nice. It actually is kind of soft aside from that. Great cover.

It's like a drawing of the two ladies. Yeah, all three of them have the same illustrator and they are sold as a trio now. I like the department, Dan, I think, is at what stage the best. Just that character. He's just pulling out all the stops. He tries to organize the union at one point. They're like, what's going off of this guy?

Speaking of, he also was Chloe Sevenese co-star in Big Love, Matt Ross. Yeah. When he comes to their apartment, when they're moving in, he's like, I like to see, like, bourgeois women working hard. And Cape Vegas was like, why do you like watching us work hard? What else you have for what stage the best? The thing it captures about New York, which, I mean, I love all the New York scenery that they do and just, like, walking in parks and all that shit. But the thing about living in New York, especially in your 20s when you are living in a very, small apartment is that you just

the city is your living room and like you basically spend all of your time going out because your apartment is cramped and you don't want to do that and you want to be out and around other people and even just the way they articulate that in the movie I love the line that Igeman says towards the end when he's like

you see one of the problems with finding the right person and settling down is that it takes all the fun and interest out of going in nightclubs and I just really enjoy that yeah I like I feel like it using Studio 54 as the critical space for the movie, but without ever saying those words. So you don't have to hear it. Exactly what happened to Steve. Exactly. You're never taken out of your own experience the same way that 54 does or that other movies about this era sometimes make you feel like, oh, well,

you missed out on this cool thing. This is more like, this was just a club that these people went to, even though it's so obviously modeled on Studio 54. I forgot to mention railroad apartments as a Woodstage the best. I lived in one. It sucked. Sucks. I dated somebody who, had one and it was just I just couldn't believe it existed. I was like, this is where you live? It's just like a straight line with weird rooms. But you've got roommates.

And you have roommates and you're just kind of going through each other's rooms and the scene where Chloe is like aggressively banging pots and flushing the toilet. That's great. The Kid Cuddy Pursuit a Happiness Award Best Needle Drop. The whole movie? I don't know. How do we pick a song?

I'm going to pivot to the not quite disco track of The Tide As High by Blondie. I like that one. Okay. Big Cahuna Burger Award. Best Use of Food to Drink. The coffee cocaine sniff is great. It's really funny. That our guy does us. It's one of the most broad moments in the movie.

Or her making shrimp, I guess. Yeah, the cream of mushroom soup and the saute shrimp. Oh, God, that's so gross. This recipe is quick. Yeah. Yeah, that was disgusting. Well, that shrimp was looking good, and then all of a sudden she fucked it. Yeah.

Den and Theves' Benihana Award, scene stealing locations got to be the disco. Great Check Order Award we did. The Mallory Rubin Award, did this movie need a better sex scene? Just throwing that in here. Amazing seduction scene. The Scrooge McDuck scene and Uncle Scrooge is sexy. And then the dance that they do leading into the bedroom, I was like, when I saw it the first time, I was like, this is money. This is movies.

I love it. Many people said to a modern environmental movement started because of Bambi. It's so funny. Let's take a break and then we got to do the Butch's Girlfriend Award. This episode is brought to by the Active Cash Credit Card from Wells Fargo. That's a mouthful, but that's because it packs a lot in. Earn unlimited 2% cash rewards on purchases with it, big or small. So whether it's buying tickets to the game and grabbing a coffee, it earns unlimited 2%

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sweet snack. That sounds delicious. Get savings with yellow. sale signs storewide and everyday low prices on 365 brand items. Enjoy the fresh flavors of spring. Save at Whole Foods Market. All right, the Butch's Girlfriend Award, Weak Link of the film. I guess it's the time to have the Matt Kiesler conversation. It's a pretty big part.

I don't know if he's up to the task. There's some really bad acting moments. So you don't think that his sort of spaciness is appropriate for Josh? No. I don't think he's good enough. I think he's made a choice that this representation of a person with manic depression is somehow being balanced. Mm-hmm. And the flatness.

And their flatness, split seconds late on everything. Like, that's obviously purposeful. But I do occur with Bill that he, like, is not selling me on it. And it is, I agree, it is the weak link of the film. Because he becomes the most important character in the movie in the final 30 minutes. and you've got to be with him and I'm kind of not that with him especially because he's operating against

you know, Beck and Sale at her best argument at his best like people who are kind of have their best part ever and so it just, it does stick out to me. I think the other thing that bothers me so much is this is the all-time apex for like young white guy actors that we've probably ever had

there's so many other choices that could have gone with oh yeah, right? Like you could have been 30 other people you could have put into this Or you couldn't even necessarily have to make them wait. But I just feel like, wow, this is what we came up with. And, you know, I'll do respect to him. But it's not like the IMDB came back to haunt everything I'm saying here. Didn't he become like a scientist or something?

He's a physician's assistant. He retired from acting. We'll do recasting couch for some possibilities with this part. Okay. What stage is the worst? I don't like the opening credits where they try to make it like disco. Flashy? I just don't think it works.

I like them. Hard to see. Can't really read the names. This, it really bothers me that they did the disco demolition night, even though it says we're in the 80s, but disco demolition night was in 1979. It's like, come on, Whitstilman, I'm right here. Yeah. Don't cross the beams with me.

I'll tell you what, it's a great take, though. Just fuck that. It's a flaw. I didn't even put that together, SG, and that's why you're the man. Thank you. The turn with 10 minutes left where all of a sudden Alice won and everybody's coming out of the unemployment office, it feels like a scene's missing? Yeah, I like that.

I think it's cool. Give me a three months later graphic, anything? That happens, you know when you're reading a novel and then just jumps? It felt like very novelistic to me where it was like all of a sudden we're three months later. Right. Because we're going to the airport with Des so he can escape. And it's just like, oh, Jimmy's getting unemployment. And it's like, it's kind of jarring.

Josh lifted my passport after all. And it's like, you guys were going to Madrid or whatever, bro Barcelona. Yeah. I liked it because then you get Des dumping on. Jimmy, which I think is really funny. Yeah. You know, or there's that coward

who ran away to Barcelona. The film's distributor, um, it pushed the filmmakers to complete the film because they're competing with 54. Yeah. Which came out in late August,

1998. I saw both of these movies in the theater. The first time before I had met my wife and started, or started dating my wife and the next time with my wife. Okay. Yeah. Which one of these does Carrie Lakemore? Oh, this one.

54's bad. And then director cuts a little better, but 54, like, apparently with the director's cut, it really gets into, like, there's, like, bisexuality with the, it's the threesome. It gets way more complicated in a much more interesting way. I think the studio just made them cut off it. So it's kind of incoherent.

Yeah. Insanely hot cast at the time of that movie. They had Myers who had flames coming out of his ass. Austin Powers is running hot. Ryan Felipe most exciting young male actor. Salma Hayek. Nev Campbell and Salma Hayek. He was very,

it was right around cruel intentions, right? You almost like can't miss with that cast. They'd fucked it up. But apparently, if you see the director's cut, pretty good. Anything else for what's age the worst? I have more nitpicks than I do. What's age of the worst? Sean?

I think there's like some humor that he probably wouldn't write into a movie even if it was period accurate. But I think it's actually aged pretty well because it doesn't... Chris was saying it doesn't feel like too much of a period piece. Yeah, like, even...

Like, everybody in the movie is kind of like on planet with Stolman. So it's kind of... It's not like, oh, you... Like, look at the... You know, that cell phone wouldn't have worked there,

you know? And it's like... It kind of feels like a 90s movie that happens to be set in the early 80s. Yeah, because I would say what stage is the worst. You would say, well, they wouldn't make fun

of the character's mental health like that. It's like, but they actually would have in 1980. Yeah. You know what you don't see as much... So Tara Subcoff is in this movie, who's a fashion designer and model. Yeah, looking good.

And she's beautiful. Imitation of Christ. That was her and Chloe 7 years. It was part of that, right? And, you know, Tarasupkov has acted before. She's not a good actor. And you don't see that as much anymore where you're just like, huh, that person can't act.

Like, most of the time, the camera's on her, she's not speaking. She actually has a line off camera that feels like it's very dubbed in. And that's something that feels like very particular to indie cinema in the 90s where you're like, huh, that person just doesn't, like, not like Kiesler, it's like he was an actor. We got her friend Tara. She's going to be in after the scenes. Like, it does,

Holly is not exactly, you know, she's not exactly like Jennifer Jason Lee and Hudsucker proxy. Like, I think that character is supposed to be a little bit. She is, she is. But when she's talking, I'm like, hmm, okay. Ron Burgundy Flewit Award, best time for a peep break.

The miscarriage, you can probably hop out of there for about three minutes. Oh, when she, she throws her back out? If she throws her back out. Yeah. Was there a better title for this movie?

no way. Love it. It's like a phenomenal title for a movie. Best quote, I already gave the yuppies one. Could also go with women prefer bad over weak

and decisive and unemployed. I thought was a great one. Use that as your senior book. What else do you have seen? Anything I did that was wrong I apologize for, but anything I did that was not wrong I don't apologize for.

That's a good senior quote too. My favorite by far is one of the things that makes me happy in life is knowing I don't envy anyone. I don't want to be anyone else. That is my shit. I also like I'm going to turn over a new leaf in Spain. I'm going to turn over several new leaves.

S-A-S-Hoddest take a word. I kind of already did mine about Chloe. I do feel like she's neck and neck with Gwyneth Paltrow as we're leaving the 90s. And I really like Glynne Paltrow. I think she's a good actress. But I feel like she easily could have. There's an alternate universe. where she has like super cool New York City goop

that's actually works. It's like this cool thing and she's been nominated for multiple Oscars. We live in a world where Amy Adams has six Oscar nominations. I feel like Chloe could have ended up with three. Amy Adams has been murdered four times now on this podcast. That wasn't her fault, that last one. I just felt like out of everybody from that decade, her and Samantha Mathis were the two that I felt like just should have had,

She should have been in more good movies. I'm not even going to say better career. Just more good movies with them. Would you say that she was the Dana Wheeler-Nickleson of her era? Not fair. Oh, my God. You ever had us take her? Yeah, I want to know, are we sure that District Attorney Robert Morgenthau needed to be concentrating on malfeasance at nightclubs?

Like early 80s to York, we got a lot stuff going on. But those, I mean... The mafia is still pumping. Are you giving that the Vincients? Vincent Chase, I was sure this guy was good at his job work? Morgan, though? Yeah. But that was Rebell, and what was Rebell's partner's name?

I forget in the studio 54. I mean, Shregor, right? I mean, they were constantly under fire from the DA's office. They were being raided. They were being shut down. To me, it's like, that's what makes New York, New York. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah.

The basement with the things. Shipping $10 bills to Switzerland. Yeah, bags to Switzerland. You've got a stake or now. Not really. This is one, I was really surprised when you asked us to this. You actually hinted at it when we saw you a few weeks ago and I was like, huh. I mean, great. I'm thrilled, but I wonder, like, does this movie, like, live on is something I'm

kind of wondering about. It's one of a question of the tape. So we jumped it a little bit. Well, they just did a bunch of stuff around the 20th. Like, they did some screenings and stuff like that. Well, it was interesting about the 20th because I read some of the features and stuff is it was a lot of younger generation people kind of carrying the torch for it. Because I think, I think this movie just had legs, which, you know, I really liked it when I saw in the theater, but I certainly never thought it would have legs. It reminded me watching it again of how old I feel now because I think that it's possible that the last time I saw it was on the big screen in 2008 at a 10th anniversary celebration at MoMA in New York.

And I went with like five friends and we were all big with Stillman fans. And it was really exciting to see it on the big screen because I didn't see it on the big screen when I was when it first came out. But even then, it felt like everybody was saying, like, this was so slept on when it came out. And it instantly, like, as soon as it hit cable or blockbuster or whatever, everybody was like, you see the last day of the disco, so cool, so funny.

And there are a lot of movies like that that we talk about on this show. But this one in particular, I mean, it made $3 million. Yeah. It was a really small movie. And it does feel like anybody who has now seen it is like, oh, I like that. That's good. Well, maybe when we tweet the link to the podcast,

people could be like, I'm so glad you did this movie as, like, replies to the tweet. You think that's going to happen? Yeah. Great choice. Thank you. Thanks for my free episode.

Do you think people are sufficiently grateful to the fact that this show is free? Have you considered, has anyone listening considers that it's free? I can't upset when they complain about the choices. That's why I try not to look at the Twitter applies. But you are obviously aware that people are complaining about the choices. You are taunting the audience at times.

No, I looked for a chef because I was curious. I think people like that movie. It seemed like for the most part I feel like more often than not. Fuck this. When you guys could do a good movie? I'm like, great. Thanks.

How many of those replies were you, Chris? All your bots and your partner accounts? That could have been traced back to me. I mean, we're almost at 300 movies, you know? Shit happens. I do think, though, that you must admit there are some times where you're like, fuck the audience.

I don't care. I don't think that's what you're doing this week. I think sometimes you got to follow your heart. Yeah, that's what makes you hear, man. Otherwise, it's not a real podcast. I've been meaning to bring this up. to you guys. So, you know, there's a big black hat

Blu-ray coming in September. Don't act like we don't know that. Right? So it's, this is a huge deal, right? People have been begging for this for a long time. What's the exact date for it? I think it's September. Is it couldn't explain the movie? You want me to explain that movie? Is there a fucking abacist? I've seen it enough times now to well as me too and I still have. Everybody wants

to know though. Like, is it black hat time? It could be. It is. Yeah, it is. It really could be. Well, CR and I were talking about it. The Miami Heat make the finals, do we do the Revice? Yeah. Yeah, sure, sure.

The Revice. Everybody's begging for that. Yeah, definitely. I feel like we left some stuff on the table with that. Do you like what he does? Go fast boat. The,

where are we? We're at casting what ifs. Casting what ifs. Ben Affleck wanted to play Des. Stillman went with Chris Agnew. Because of course he did. And you know what, Affleck did that year? Shakespeare and Love in Armageddon.

Wow. Wow. Amazing. Can you imagine if Ben Affleck was like, I could have done Armageddon, but I was in last days of disco. I needed to be Des. Here's the thing.

If you put him in the Matt Keesler role, he probably could have pulled it off, right? This is essentially the guy he played in Mallrats. Like in a different version of the guy. Des is, yeah, but not the Keyslet, not Josh. Josh would, I don't know. I guess Josh probably isn't that fun of a part. Ben Affleck is, like, big, tall, handsome guy, too.

You know, Josh has to be a little weird. It's to seem a little off. Ed Norton? He would have been good. He would have been good. He would have been good. That's, that's, that's it. Jason Lee?

A little too. He's more in the Chris Agamara. Yeah. Well, Alice was supposed to be Winona Ryder because they offered it to her and she took too long. And during the time when she was deciding, they auditioned Chloe 70

and what Stilman's like, done, rap, tell Winona to fuck off. The story I read was that the Winona's agent took four days to return their call, and in those four days, they cast Chloe Seventy. Pretty great. I think blessing in disguise on that, Winona Ryder had already played parts like this.

It would have been iterative to stuff she'd done. Yeah, and there was an audience familiarity with her that I don't totally feel like Chloe Seventy. I was still discovering she's kids, she was in some weird ones, but she hadn't been a movie like this. I was ready for her. Yeah, I think it all worked out for everybody. You were cranking it to Gummo by this point, though.

Trash Humpers. The Ruffalo Hannah Rubenac Partridge Overacting Award. It's actually an underacting award this time for Matt Kiesler. Oh, see, I have Beals. I love Jennifer Beals. Oh, Beals down for that. But Beals is on like 12 the entire time. Yeah, that's a great call.

I feel like she shot her scenes in one day and they were like screaming them once here and then over here. I want to give her a shout out, though. I don't know if you've seen her recently, but she looks exactly the same as she does in this movie. 25 years later, it's remarkable. How does she do it? I mean, she looks the same as she didn't flash dance,

which was almost 40 years ago. I was going to go for underacting when Kiesler, when they do the bust, and he's like, fuck this clown. I'm positive, I would have done one more take. Yeah. I'm positive. I'm like, you know what?

Good take, I like it. And now let's try it this way. Let's try it one more. Where you care. Where you have a pulse. Bill Simmons, comment director is a new good category for this show.

Where did you... The take I would have redirected. I wouldn't have been good at that. No, no, that was great. One more. I just would like, we're doing that again. Just can you fucking... People, actors love that.

They love when you say, can you fucking do it again? Can you fucking do that again? No, I would do the PTA, the stare. Was that your story? Yeah. Just a fucking death stare. The Frankie Five Fingers.

Best that guy I were. is Matt Ross of that guy? What's the ruling? So that guy is kind of, it's very elastic because is it that guy because he never actually is known for other things,

but it's always just that guy. I guess Matt Ross is in the... I feel like he's not totally that guy. I think that there are some other... Mark McKinney's in this, but he's kind of Mark McKinney. If you're a kid's a whole fan, he's Mark McKinney.

Is David Thornton. It's Bernie. So I was going to say the person who, when Chloe 70 is kind of running and the dog chases her. Oh, that's the guy from... That guy from kicking and screaming.

Carlos Jacket. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. He's that guy. He's the winner. And Barcelona, right? He's in Barcelona. Yeah. Carlos.

A little cameo. David Thornton married to Cindy Lauper. Didn't know that. Yeah, Bernie. Yeah, Cindy Lauper's husband. Deion Waiter's Award. R.S. Only in like, four scenes.

Bernie, the owner of the club. The dushy doorman. First years is the Dion Waders. Okay. I'm moving to Florida. I love him at the end. That moment at the end in the street is fantastic. Disco's,

Dead. Burst, tears. Recasting catch, what if we had Affleck in the McKenzie Aston role? Would love it. That's only the second time we've said McKenzie Aston in this entire podcast. He's like the third lead of the movie. That's crazy. I think he's quite good in this.

He's pretty good in this, but Affleck would have been better. The thing I'm wondering is Damon for the McKenzie Aston part. This is right after Goodwill. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Why not Tom Hanks? Could we have gotten Denzel? Let's keep going down the list for this tiny movie.

We're talking about young actors who were in the origin of the beginning of infancy of their career. You know, you don't have to mock our thought exercise. Yeah, that's right. Houser? Yeah. Cole Houser? Cole Houser? He's a little gritty, a little tough for this part.

Casey Affleck? He was probably 14 at this time. What about Sean Aston? Well, I have for... Who you got, Sean Aston or McKenzie Aston? Who I got like... Who's the superior Aston? Well, I mean, I think Sean Aston's put up more numbers.

Yeah, Samwise Gamgee. Yeah, major numbers. Sean Ashton and Rudy and Toy Soldiers. You're not beating that. What about Lord of the Rings, the Return of the King? Sean Astin had Rudy and Toy Soldiers. And then he made some other weird movies that Mallory likes. How about Josh Hamilton over Matt Keisler?

We just bring the band back. Josh Hamilton's very empathetic, so I like it. I like Denzel Washington instead of Matt Keisler. I think you're right. Yeah, Sean, that was a good point. Appreciate that. We get Josh Hamilton, then we get Josh Hamilton. Paul Newman was still alive at this time, right?

Sidney Poitier as Keisler, Denzel, as McKenzie Aston. Book this clown. Josh Hamilton and Agamond, we get multiple scenes with them. They're back, baby. Yeah, that's what they should do. That's a little bit, though, like, looking in the mirror. Like, they got, those guys got a lot in common.

Man, fucking worked for Jack Lemmon and Walter Math out. Why go away for a good thing? Good take. I agree. Halfass internet research. Mention a lot of it already, Chloe 70 said, of all the films she's made, last days of disco,

the one people come up to her about the most. No kidding. They don't come running up to her and saying, thank you for gummo. Gummo. I just say, like, thank you for your work. What was the plot of Gummo? What was the plot of Gummo?

What happened in Gummo? It's a not really, like the narrative is not very coherent or repeatable. It's about a young boy living in dire circumstances and the world surrounding him. It was the follow-up to kids. Oh, Jesus. Yeah, it's the movie that DMX is watching at his house in belly.

I don't know if you've seen belly, but it's projected on a large screen. You've probably seen belly, haven't you? I'd like us to do a belly rewatchables, but I don't know who can ever have. Noss. Nause and DMX. It was directed by Hype Williams. I probably saw it when it came out. It's got one of the great opening sequences of the history.

Yeah. It's a stick up of the strip club. Yeah. Stillman in 2000 published a novelization of this film. Yeah. Greenwald won't it? No, Andy does, and Andy got it signed by Witt Stolman. Wow.

He said, I wish I was on this podcast. Oh, that's sad. Andy said that? Why did he just invite him? Sorry. Do I have that? I have the... Well, if he feels that strongly, I think he's got open door.

I don't think I knew Andy was a win head. Yeah. He's a Whitthead? I guess we should have known that. Checks out. Yeah. The disco was actually an old picture theater, which is being renovated in Jersey.

city. I love that they were splitting the production space with John Totoro's movie and there's like all this stuff where it's like they had to pay for the recarpeting of the place and then Tutoros people paid for the other but it was like they were shooting two movies in this theater at the same time. I didn't read that. What Totor

movie? Aluminata or something like that. Oh, okay. I haven't seen that. Apex Mountain. I say yes for our girl Chloe. She's the Aik girl in New York. They're making this movie. She's about to do Boys Don't Cry. I don't know, does she have more juice than she did right here?

Probably not, right? Maybe right before she shot that scene in the Brown Bunny. Maybe like an hour beforehand. Kate Beckinsale? Maybe broke down palace? I think Underworld probably is a little bigger for her. That first Underworld was a really big movie. Yeah.

You ever see that one? As you know, I don't dabble. I also know, I would say her Instagram is pretty apexy. McKenzie Aston, yes. The Aston Brothers says a comment. What was it? Wasn't Ashton on like Facts of Life though? Yeah. I mean, that was pretty big.

Yeah, he was at the tail end. You know what we didn't do for... When they bring kid characters in as the show's about to die. For that guy and who I think... Well, it doesn't matter. Finish it. I was just going to say we didn't mention Michael Weatherly. Oh.

He plays Hap. Yeah. Then he went on to be in that show, Bull. That's your favorite show, right? Robert Sean Leonard, no. Apex Mountain for the hatred for a ad agency people? Bad Ben?

Yeah, but it's so weird. It's like, they're so crazed about that. It's very specific and strange. Bernie really hates them. Vodkaonics? That's a great little sequence. Vodkaonics is a cliche. What's the best I'm 24 and trying to punch above my weight with a cocktail?

I mean, it was Long Island iced tea when I was growing up. That's getting punched. But trying to impress people. You're the one getting punched if you do the Marlisland ice teas. I'm trying to seem like elegant. I think martini. Whiskey sours are a big one.

Tom Collins is a big one. Yeah. You mean like a sweeter drink that you can handle? I mean, Red Bull and vodka kind of supplanted, I think. At John's Bachelor Party,

I drank a lot of Red Bull and tequila. We called it gasoline. Yeah. Yeah. Then you took a speedboat to Cuba. Book publishers. In a matter of speaking. Did it get better for book publishers?

Then. In the 2000s, having movies retroactively glamorizing book publishers before book publishers flipped? Yeah, there's... 2000s was the last great decade for book publishers. Yeah, I love that sly reference to... What's the name of the Howard Hughes fake biographer? Yeah. You know, and her book about Tibet and the Dalai Lama and everything is worse than that.

What about G&H infections? Apex Mountain for gonorrhea as a movie reference. Chris Agamon, what's his... Apex Mountain. I'd say kicking and screaming, but these are very, these movies go hand in hand. Yeah. The run he does here. This movie didn't make it.

This in Barcelona and the late 90s run for him. Yuppie Scum. Railroad apartments. Whit Stillman. Probably Barcelona. Right? I would say Metropolitan. He got nominated for an Oscar.

I think he won a Sundance Prize. That was a big deal. Studio 54 movies that lost money. This was definitely the Apex mountain. People, there weren't like three more rushing in the production right after the summer.

Although, I have to say the nightclub as a setting for a movie is pretty, when are we going to go back to that? Well, I think one of the problems is boogie nights did it so well. It kind of stepped on the idea of like going backwards

in time to a 70s boogie club with disco and all that stuff. I think we're due for like a movie set in the early 2000s about lit or something like that. Like Meet Me in the Bathroom movie? Yeah, yeah.

Or somebody plays Andy Greenwald. Yeah. Well, Andy could play it. Andy plays himself with the Irishman D.A. I love it. AI, Andy.

They're going to have AI. AI Andy plays. He just lends the voice. I'll be played by Ben Affleck, though. After missing out on last days of disco, you won't let this one pass him by no matter what. You know, ironically, it's the kind of movie

that he should have been in in 1998. Like, his instincts were right. He should have been in last days at disco. He's always had good instincts. He just then also has bad instincts. I think he did the right thing by appearing in Armageddon and Shakespeare. But maybe he could have done all three, though.

If he had done this movie, it would be like, how could things have worked out better for Affleck? Yeah. Can you see him in Armageddon maybe? I mean, those are that, that duo is what... The funnier thing is to imagine Eigman in Armageddon. See, that's what I missed. I mean, that's what I would love to have seen it.

He could have played the Steve Bichemu part. Or the Owen Wilson part. Yeah. I forgot to mention the argument, he would have been a great diehard and a blank villain. Oh my God. Like if you put him in sudden death. He could have actually been in the fourth one where Oliphant is the hacker. Right.

It's like, come on, man. Timothy Oliphon's too hot to be a hacker. Because he would have pulled off all like the sarcastic, mean, spirited lines. Yeah. I feel like we should write a movie that's like a spiritual sequel to this movie. that's called like the back half of Des and it's just about him in the second half of his life. What do you think he's doing?

He works for the fan. He's Mike of the Bad Dogs lead producer. He's a podcaster. He's obviously a podcaster. He's a phony baloney guy with a lot of opinions, lots of ambition, but no ideas. He's great at talking. Yeah.

Just wearing like the corduroy suit jacket with the pads on the elbows. Yeah. Smoking a pipe. Best racehorse name. Days of Disco? I think G&H. G&H is good.

I was going to say Lady in the Tramp. Picking Nits. Can't believe we haven't mentioned this yet. Alice just guys are crawling over. Over her. I'm sorry. In real life, you mean if she were actually. The Alice person in this movie, just way more.

She's sitting in that booth. There's five guys coming over. Nobody's going to be like, oh, I'll just leave Alice alone in the booth. Well, I do think that people are making runs at Alice. That they don't make a huge deal about in this movie is that. I think the yuppies at the club were not like the center of the club. Like they were sort of the looky-lose. Yeah.

And I don't know if there would be a ton of guys at the club who were like, what I'm looking for is like an uptight woman from Connecticut. You know, like you're really expressing yourself sexually, personally at those events, you know? You know that. I couldn't say. But I trust you on this matter. More picking. It's not nearly enough cocaine and not nearly enough smoking. Yeah.

I needed more cigarettes. I would say cocaine doesn't seem to have any effect on Dez. Even though he's like, you've got a problem. He's just acting exactly the same way he's been for the entire movie. It does make you wonder whether he just wakes up and does coke in the morning. He was waking bacon. He's just on Coke the whole time.

Not enough cigarette smoke and CR. No. That's the late 90s part of it, I guess. I mean, I was still going. Still ripping heirs? We're approaching Mayor Mike territory, you know, at that time. feel free to weigh in on that time. How did you feel about his political reign?

I didn't care for his infringement on my personal liberty. Because of all the soda you like to drink. Big Tab fan. I have a huge picking knit, which is, it's totally fine and it works for the movie. But there is just no fucking way they could have carried conversations at the volume that they're speaking in a nightclub. They're having like nuanced, beautiful, absolutely like, nobody's screaming. Nobody's like, hey! Hey, we're sitting under the speaker

Should we move over there? Because I can't hear you. It also doesn't really check out the lack of insanity inside the club. Like there's something like even the way people are dancing is kind of modest. Yeah. It's not wild. You see pictures of Studio 54. It's it's pandemonium inside the club.

Counter? Oh yeah. I think that's intentional. Just to make it more legible. Like even the way they dance, nobody dances crazy. Everybody's just kind of moving a little bit. It's like his version of a disco almost. He wanted to basically

recreate a scene that they did in Barcelona where it's like in a small nightclub and he was like, this is awesome. And he was also very excited because if you shoot in nightclubs, it can be set at night, but you can shoot during the day and it's not as demanding. But I think that he has said,

I wish I hadn't picked such a big space because it was so hard to make it look like it was off the chain with that many extras and that huge amount of space to shoot. Jimmy gets nailed in the face at one point. With like a higher area or something. It's like from far away.

I don't know. That's just like we don't want to have a fake blood explosion. Do Des and Alice make sense as a couple for even five minutes? Because for me, they did not. And sometimes there's an opposite to track thing, but I just don't see them together for more than 10 minutes. I think the idea is that they all date each other eventually. Like Jimmy's going after Alice at the end. Charlotte winds up with Des at the end, you know.

But Charlotte and Des are who should have been together. Perfect. Like in kicking and screaming, Parker Posey and Des. I belong in television. Yeah. Yeah, they're a little walkoff together is one of the best parts. Big one for me. I know it's, we know we're in the 80s.

AIDS, like, and they don't even know what it's called yet, right? But there's something going on in the 79 to 80 range. Is there a note to that when they're like, is it because of the herpes outbreak? Remember when Charlotte asked that? Like, it's kind of like they're suggesting that things are starting to dial down a little bit? I don't know. I always feel like the G&H thing was kind of standing in for that.

They're like, this is coming. Sequel, prequel, prestige TV, Blackcast are untouchable. Sequel. Sequel. Yeah. I would love like a mid-80s.

How did these people fare? How many times have they been divorced? I don't move to the fucking suburbs. Is Des still doing a joke? Come on. You know where they're going. Des stayed in the city. Des still lives in the city.

Yeah. So let's just make, instead of sex in the city, let's do Des in the city. Des is cranking out his new. York Metspod every day posting it. Alice met some dude. John Franco, God damn it.

You're fucking killing me, Franco. Alice met some dude who worked in Wall Street in like 1983. They got married. He became insanely rich and then got arrested. That's your sequel. Okay. That sounds great. She marries Michael Milton. Late 80s.

Yeah, perfect. That would be good actually. That would actually be an entertaining movie. she has to start her life again because he's serving time for securities and trust law breakage. I went to high school with, they were two years behind us, but Ivan Boski's kids.

Did you? And they got a... And he got arrested and went to jail as these poor kids were like, two classes below us. We're like, these fucking guys. So you... So you bullied them? No, there's no bullying. A lot of sensitivity that are going on in high school, yeah. No, but it was more like, Jesus.

Their dad's in jail. Yeah. I actually went to high school with a guy whose dad was arrested for some Wall Street stuff. On Long Island, really? Yeah. That's shocking. Hard to believe. And it was awkward. It was awkward. It was quite awkward. Is this movie better with Wayne Jenkins,

Danny Trao, Catherine Hahn, Steve Bouchemy, Sam Jackson, J.T. Walsh, or Philip Baker Hall. God damn, Alice! I didn't know I was rooming with Super Freak! Herpes and the motherfucking clap! You better stay on that tetracycline girl. Go through the whole. course, no skimping.

You think it wouldn't fit, but it does. One day I'm just going to get ahead of it and be like, Steve Bouchemmy, just answer the question. Get real mad about it, dude. Just feel like, God damn, I know if Baker Hall deserves to be in this. It would be much better with Danny Trejo, and here's why. I thought you were going to go with, what's the Matt Keisler character's name, Josh? Josh.

Think about the cafeteria sink. God damn, Josh. I heard you lost your mind in the cafeteria. you. Fuck them, Cloud! You know what, Des? You're going away a long fucking time. Get out of your fucking big boy. Just want

Oscar, who gets it? Back in Zell. I'm going, Aigman. Fuck it. Come on. Give it to Chris. Supporting actress. Who won that year? Who would have won? They had no chance. Remember those years were so loaded? 99 best supporting...

98? I'm going to look it up. The 99 Oscars. top of my head. The winner was Judy Dench for Shakespeare in Love. That would have been a tough battle. Dame fucking Judy. So this is... She could fucking have gotten in there instead of

Lynn Redgrave. Come on. Kathy Bates for primary colors. She's good in that movie. She is. Brenda Blethen for Little Voice. Don't know that one. Rachel Griffiths for Hillary and Jackie. It's a good movie. Lynn Redgrave for Gods and Monsters. Oh. Come on. Get back to sale.

That was doable. Yeah. 19... This Oscars is such a fucking debacle. It's an absolute nightmare. Shakespeare in love, Benini for life is beautiful. Yeah, but that was the year Merrimack's bought everything. I know, gods and monsters screenplay.

They broke it down for like 40 pages. Gods and monsters beating out of sight for screenplay. What are we doing here? You almost can't even count those. Yeah, we talk about it. It's like the 2002 Lakers King's series. Some people say the Lakers were the champs that year.

That's Shakespeare in Love. Some people say Some people say Well they'd say like Oh Kobe and Shaq won three straight It's like did they? They did Should they have?

Is what you're saying? So in this equation Pesia Stoyakovich Is saving Private Ryan? Yeah Interesting, okay Rick Adelman is Tom Hanks Yeah

I like it White Chocolate Was that white chocolate or Bibby? No, it was Bibby Bibi. Bibi is a fucking men amongst men that year Best double feature choice

Oh I forgot Probably in answerable questions I guess we covered one of them why wasn't Kate Peck and saw this good ever again. This is, it's not even really related to the movie as much, but if the Brown Bunny thing happened now, I was thinking how differently that would be treated quite, right? Yes.

I think actually our culture is even more conservative now, so it would be even worse. It would be more destructive. I actually think the whole, you can't shame her for that mechanism would have kicked in in a totally different way. I just think it would have been. What's the last sex scene you've seen in the mainstream?

But that's the thing is we're going through, I don't know if you've seen any of this. We're going through a big moment now where everybody is like, no sex scenes. We don't need sex scenes in our movies anymore. So with that way, there's a whole Jamila Jamil story about how she like wouldn't even audition for you because it had a sex scene.

Saw that. Yeah. Like that whole part of the Hollywood culture and intimacy coordinators and all this stuff that has come in in the last 10 years, I feel like this would be treated really weirdly. but on the other hand you're right there is this sense of like you can't shame people for artistic choices

I don't know it's hard it just would have been different all right here's the one I'm the most excited about for probably unanswerable questions Chris you're going to tip your hat to me and salute me which happens every once in a while yeah sometimes I sometimes I still got it

Chris Agamon best bar conversation actor ever I mean there's some some competition in I would say. Technically a diner, though. Yeah, it's more or less the same. If you're like, I'm writing a scene in a bar

with people talking about fucking nothing, I need to find a couple actors. Does it start, the conversation start with Chris Agamon? It would be Mid-Digman, Leota. No, it's fucking, you is across from Edie Falco in Copeland. That's what you really want.

Who mastered that better than them, though? I can't think of anyone. He's the best. I mean, it's definitely not Paul Newman in the verdict. We pointed out before that all those guys are sick of hearing his stories. I say Rappaport in Beautiful Girls is pretty good, too. Very good. Yeah.

Very good one. But, yeah, it's hard to find those hanging for five minutes. The bar movie scene Hall of Fame is, that's a great subject. I wish I'd prepared for that. Do it. Do it for summer when there's no movies coming out. When it's John Wick 7. That would be quite a random idea for an episode.

That would be awesome if John Wick 7 just was guys hanging out in bars. It's argument. It's John makes The Bartender at the Continental It's just a lot of conversation Nobody's getting killed So they're just bullshitting Woodwatch

They're just like guy can you believe Steve Cohen This much money For this pile of shit Oh man Those circles back to the meth sucking Huckerman weighing in On the streaming era Have episodes

You only have eight episodes of season Do you believe they canceled Glow after two seasons Now they got to pay Jalen I think one of the things about me is I could hang out with the Chris Agamon character, but I could also hang out with anybody who wanted to talk sports. Yeah, yeah.

I could circulate those two worlds, which is a lot of the ringer people. I was thinking if you open a bar, you should call it the Missoula piece. H-Jockegalled him Bazooka Joe on the pod list. By this, by the time people hear this, we might be in the best. Do you think Joe Mazz would be like a fun bar hang? Yeah, probably not. No, just like, do you think he's like actually And you guys don't know, but like outside of being on the court and stuff

Mads is a really cool guy. Get him in Amstel. He'll be pretty uptight and just wants to watch tape. That's cool. I only go to bars with Tibbs. Just me and Tibbs. Dive bars. Drinking Bud Light.

Best double feature choice with this movie. I mean, honestly, it's probably the 54 director's cut. And I think maybe you watch that first and you watch the second. The other one could be just. I would just do the trilogy. Barcelona and or Metropolitan because there is a scene in Last Days of Disco where Taylor Nichols and the woman plays Audrey is like they're in the movie. They are. That's a cute little connection that they make.

What about Boogie Nights? Just as an experience, that's a very long night. Possible. Sure. I love a long night of movies. Don't you? Five hours a movie? It's probably Barcelona or 54.

Okay. Yeah. Overruled. Understood. Except. Boogie Nights is. of kind of its own double feature. I agree to disagree.

I'm just a guy who likes to watch a lot of movies. Shots like, Amsterdam. I'm re-evaluating it. I'm not, but maybe I will. Maybe I will. Maybe that's a good idea. The Andy and Red Zawantene Award for what happened the next day. We covered it.

I think Chloe meets some guy from the financial district. Does Des get Charlotte completely addicted to cocaine within a week? Yeah. Yeah, they're both in rehab and Dez is probably arrested as well. It would be great. Another good sequel idea for this movie, or Dez and Charlotte moved to L.A. Oh, yeah. She can't work in television?

Like in 1984? Yeah, and she's working on L.A. law or something. She's working for Simpson and Bruckheimer. She's doing fucking rails. I'm trying to imagine her as like Connie Chung or something. You know what I mean? She was like a newscaster or something like that. What piece of memorabilia would you want from this movie?

movie. I couldn't come up with an answer for this one this time. I landed on the template of how to write a book. I thought it would be fun to have framed. Maybe McKenzie Ashton's Joker outfit, his jester. I would just love to have either the old-fashioned that Igeman's character seems to be drinking at Rex's. It looks nice. Coach Finstock Award, best life lesson. Women prefer bad over weak and decisive and unemployed. I think it's a good life lesson. What else would you have? That was your approach, right, to dating? That's right.

Just project a lot of strips. I don't have a life lesson from this one. Who won the movie? Well, not Whit Stilman. No. You know, this movie wasn't a hit, and then he didn't make a movie for 13 years. I think just because of this is our opportunity.

Did we, I can't remember when we did kicking and screaming if we gave it to Aigman or if we gave it to Bomback. so I would like to give it to I think Kate Beckinsaw wins this movie I would say Chloe I feel like Chloe is the key they're like 1A 1B for me the frenemy thing they're Tatum and Brown yeah the friend of me thing circling each other on this

how many how many times has the friend of me thing been pulled off this one of the movie you're right this is very well done it's pretty rare so in this in that metaphor Keisler is Hardin what are we Keesler's more like fucking Daniel House this podcast was produced by Craig Horlebeck

who's not here yeah he's at a bachelor party so we recorded he did a really good job though on this yeah maybe Craig we should just have Craig just insert his 90 seconds of takes should we try to predict you know should we do an impression I love a movie like this where it's just like people hanging out I was surprised I don't know I don't know a lot of these actors but it was pretty good Yeah.

Who talks like this, though? Craig Impressations. I like I love Craig. Craig's all going to be my boss in five years, so it's fine. Craig could have zag the other way and just done a whole I hate disco rant. Oh, that would be good. Yeah. This music sucks.

Yeah, I never understood the appeal of disco. To this? My guess is that he likes it. But Craig can insert his 90-second reaction. We'll put that here right after. we call quits. CR. Sean, good to see you as always. All right, this is weird. I'm going to give a real take here

instead of just doing what Chris and Sean and everybody wants me to do, which is to be like, this movie's pretty good. A bunch of that guys other than Kate Beckinsale. Chloe Seven-Yeh means nothing to people by age, but pretty good. Other than that, my real take is that I adored this movie as a fan of the kicking and screenings and singles, which I loved. And I'm also a huge fan of disco. As we speak right now on Monday, I'm probably at the Abba Museum in Stockholm as people are listening to this episode.

So yeah, this movie was extremely in my wheelhouse. I just love messy movies about young people figuring out their lives. The characters both seem completely unrealistic and yet super relatable at the same time. I think that's mainly because they act so much older than they are than they're supposed to be. I mean, these are all like 22, 23-year-olds and they speak like they're 40. But their actions and their experiences seem like that of a 22-23-year-old. old. So that's what makes the movie, I think, resonate with people like me. And also, nobody my age has anybody to watch with people having conversations like this and movies nowadays.

There really aren't movies like this. So I still relate to it now, despite the fact that this is a movie that came out in the late 90s about living in the early 80s. And this movie, I can definitely see how it gets better with age, even though I liked it on the first watch. Just going back to grab the clips for the episode, I laughed more and more at the characters. Just how poppous and kind of self-righteous they are. It's great. So yeah, that's my take. Great movie. I always do a top five favorite rewatchables that I hadn't seen before at the end of the year.

And this is in the running right now. Also, I was trying to think of the closest thing to disco that we have now. Since disco, I was trying to think of like the closest feeling or vibe that people have had in a club or a bar or a dance scene. I think it's EDM. I don't know. I'm sure Sean would push back on me right now as the music expert. But I think it's EDM.

I really do. Mainly because EDM just like stole disco and remixed it, especially Abba right now, but like the 2010s to now, I feel like EDM at a bar dancing is kind of the closest thing we have to disco. So maybe it's why people my age really like disco. Anyway, they don't make clubs like this anymore. All right, bye.