This Had Oscar Buzz - 160 – Elizabethtown (with Phil Iscove)

Episode Date: August 30, 2021

Joining us this week is Podcast Like It’s 1999′s Phil Iscove to finally unpack a foundational This Had Oscar Buzz text. After winning an Oscar for Almost Famous and delivering a financially succesful (if extremely divisive) hit in Vanilla Sky, Cameron Crowe decided to return to his roots with Elizabethtown. Starring Orlando Bloom as a … Continue reading "160 – Elizabethtown (with Phil Iscove)"

Uh-oh, wrong house. No, the right house. No, I didn't get that! We want to talk to Marilynne Heck. You're about to lose this company, $972 million. I'm sorry. I got fired by a film. I cry a lot lately.

I got dumped by an Ellen. Do you love me? Yes. Good. I'll call. And then, when things couldn't get any worse. Drew, it's your sister. I have some really bad news. I'll bring him home.

Louisville, Kentucky, huh? Home business or family? My dad. He's okay, right? He's... Hello and welcome to the This Had Oscar Buzz podcast, the only podcast that lives in its very own house of mirth. Every week on This Had Oscar Buzz,

we'll be talking about a different movie that once upon a time had Lofty Academy Award aspirations, but for some reason or another, it all went wrong. The Oscar hopes died, and we are here to perform the autopsy. I'm your host, Joe Reed. I'm here, as always, with my manic pixie dream girl, Chris Fyle. Hello, Chris.

Hello. Never been introduced as a manic bixie dream girl. Get used to it. It's the new thing every week. Allow me to come up and be annoying when you are just trying to sleep on a plane. You can't see it, but Chris is taking an imaginary photo of me with his little finger camera. I would like to think if, I hope it's adorable, because I hope it's adorable, because I I guess I'm doing it.

But I would hope to think that if I was a manic pixie dream girl, I would be less, you know, of a full-blown psychopath the way that Kristen Dunst is in this film. And I would hope to maybe be more of like a Clementine. Sure, sure, sure, sure. Yeah, that makes sense. I feel like Clementine gets a bad rap from a Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind as a manic pixie dream girl, because there's a lot of that movie is indeed about her character, but we can

get into the ins and outs. It treats her like she is one, but really like she is sane. Like, she's maybe an asshole. But like, Joel's a character. She's a real character. I don't know. But yes, she's a real person. She's a conceivable human from the planet

earth. So, like Claire? Yeah. Yes. Unlike a lot of people, I would say, in Elizabeth Town, but we're going to get into it. And before we do, we should, bring in our guest because we have a special guest here for this episode on Elizabeth Town

who specially asked to talk about Elizabeth Town. So I have many questions. But to introduce him, this is a writer and producer. He's the co-creator of the Fox series Sleepy Hollow and the podcast like it's 1999 podcast, where you might have heard me once upon a time talk about Mila Yoavovich and Joan of Arc also the 1980 podcast like it's 1989 Patreon spinoff which is also a very fantastic podcast

Phil Iskov welcome to this Adam's good. Thank you so much for having me and for letting me talk about this movie I know that I fester you perhaps too much about it. So we'll get into Elizabeth Town very shortly and I do want to definitely talk about the reasons why you requested this and why

this film sort of has the reputation that it has and obviously we'll get into the ins and outs of this but for all of our first time guests we do want to lead with the question that we sort of ask everybody which is talk to us a little bit about what we we tend to call it your oscar's origin story what sort of what's the earliest memory you have of being aware of the Oscars being interested in the Oscars like if if you are indeed a person of sort of Oscar watching extraction where did it all begin um I am I am a person of Oscar love, I guess, to some degree.

But I would say that for me, it probably started in 93, is my guess. I mean, that was when I was sort of really activated, if you will, when it came to, like, movies. Right. It was 13. You know, Spielberg had a very big year with Schindler's List and Jurassic Park. And I was a huge ER fan. Like, it all kind of started. around then, and I certainly

vividly remember watching the 1993 Academy Awards when he went for Schindler's List, and I have some sort of vague recollection of Sansa Lam's year, but again, I really couldn't pinpoint it, whereas I do remember sitting in front

of my television set recording those Oscars and certainly watching his acceptance speech many times over. The Spielberg thing isn't underrated, I think, entry point into the Oscars for especially people who are our age. If you were 13 that year, so was I. So we are, we're the same age there.

And I think that's true that Spielberg was sort of one of the early directors who you knew about if you were getting into movies. He was a personality. He was, you know, you saw him, you know, animated on Tiny Tunes, like that kind of a thing. Yeah. Whereas just sort of like you knew, you knew his face. You knew his sort of reputation. and if you were a kid, you knew that, like, Stephen Spielberg, in addition to the other types of movies that he made, but, like, he made a lot of movies that kids watched.

He made Hook, and he made E.T. And I don't know why I put Hook in front of it. Yeah, he was going to say, that's a super stressful. Why wouldn't you? I guess at that age I probably would have, though. Like, obviously, like, we watched E.T. when we were kids on VHS or whatever. But, like, I, you know, had my little VHS of Hook that we recorded off of the Disney Channel and watched that a lot. I was really into, like, I, I, I.

I got into merchandising early, shall we say, and I was really into, like, movie versions of board games, and I fully had the hook board game, where it was like, there was a plank you would walk, and you spun a little wheel, and it's Peter trying to, like, find his kids, or, like, whatever. It was. Oh, wow. I was very into hook. I had the McDonald's hook toys.

That is a piece of memorabilia. I would love to see if, like, anybody, if any of our listeners has that hook board game still in a closet somewhere, I would love to get a look at it. Oh, trust and believe. my sister and I have talked about like buying on eBay the board games that was the latest kids we had an Adams family board game which was basically a card game that also had a board it was very strange but like yeah we've talked about like buying them on eBay not inexpensive yeah no I imagine quite expensive at this stage yeah I think that whatever you're saying it's true Joe that like Spielberg was the first I mean I don't want to say the first but certainly one of for our generation the first household name director and even not knowing much about excuse me I just sneezed my apologies um not knowing much about the Oscars I knew he never won one like I knew it was a big deal right he had never won so when he won it felt seismic even to a 13 world he didn't know much better right like I

at that age hadn't watched chindler's list certainly not before that Oscars I'm pretty sure the first time I ever saw Schindler's list, they showed it to us in school. Like they wheeled in a TV on a cart and they showed it to us in school. So my grandparents were Holocaust survivors, so I actually, I went to see it with them. So I was 13.

Oh, wow. Theater with them and it was, as much as I said that, you know, 13 was a big sort of year for me where I felt like, you know, activated. It was also seeing that movie was a big reason why I wanted to work in movies and do all that sort of stuff.

So like that was kind of, yeah it was a big year yeah that's well and the fact that it was that movie and Jurassic Park the classic sort of art house and populist sort of movies at once that was that that makes a lot of sense as sort of an entry point year what's also funny about that year is that was the only I think kid winning an Oscar of our lifetime and and and yet representing a movie that, like, I wouldn't see for, like, several years after the fact, the piano, a movie that I love now, of course. But, like, that was not a movie that appealed to 13-year-olds. Although I... Well, right. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. I think we've talked about before watching that movie on one of the, like, premium channels and sort of, you know, sneaking a peek at that scene where you see Harvey Keitel's penis, where it was just like, I don't know what's going on in my life, but, like, this is something that, I really feel like I'm going to have to hide from people. But, yeah, that was a really interesting year.

All right. So, Phil, when we've talked about you coming on the show, because obviously you guys were very, very gracious to have me on your podcast, and we talked about sort of the Oscar-adjacent case of the messenger, the story of Joan of Arc, and how Mila had this sort of very tangential Oscar buzz that I saw on a episode of Entertainment Tonight and then never again.

That was my angle. They were just like, let's talk about something that has an Oscar angle. I'm like, well, here's the thing. I watched one episode of Entertainment Tonight. And I decided that this movie had... That really sums up if Oscar does. I mean, and it had Faye Dunaway, right?

Yeah, and Dustin Hoffman. Not like Faye Dunaway showing up in the bye-bye man today. It's like, wait, is Dustin Hoffman, why do I remember from the trailers from that movie I haven't seen? Is Dustin Hoffman like a religious imaginary friend in that movie? He's exactly that. That is exactly what he is. He is the Eve of Milojovich's Lila.

Yes. That's perfect. I love that you remember which one is fake and which one is real and Lila and Eve. I will never be able to differentiate that. But I will remember that twist always. All I'll say is that a movie where Jennifer Lopez's Viola Davis's imaginary friend should be better. It should just be inherently a better movie.

Yes, absolutely. But Phil, you had wanted to guest on the show, and you specifically wanted to guest on the show to talk about Elizabeth Town and to kind of offer a defense of this movie that has definitely been maligned pretty much since like it came out. I feel like a lot of movies sort of go through an arc of like initial like hype. and then backlash and then sort of like years later re-appreciation and like the arc of elizabeth town is a straight line and it is a straight line sort of like it's very low it's a very low straight line there was no i think once people saw that movie there was no like let's take a moment to appreciate elizabeth

town so that this is why i'm like and not to like put you on the spot and like have you like give a defense of your thesis or whatever but like um i'm very very and of course like because Cameron Crow is a filmmaker who I love. And, like, we're going to definitely get into the ins and outs of the movie. So, like, don't feel like you need to, like, present your whole... But, like, why Elizabeth Tom? Well, okay. So there's a bunch of things.

First and foremost, I would say that I am a Cameron Crow apologist in a lot of ways. I do really love these movies. And I think part of the reason why I do and why I think other people do is that no one is allowed to do what he does anymore including himself it seems at this point um but he kind of grew out of literally the james l brooks world i mean james rugs produced say anything and you can sort of see a lot of correlaries between their their filmographies in a lot of ways um but they're just they're not they're character pieces right and they're sort of kitchen sink movies specifically um you know jerry McGuire tries to do so much and it somehow kind of pulls it off. And then he thinks he can do that for

the rest of his career and shows that he can't really do that anymore. And this... I'm glad you brought that up because that was a thought that I definitely had watching this movie specifically, which is it makes me appreciate the difficulty of what Jerry McGuire was able to pull off. And like, I am not, I am not the biggest Tom Cruise fan in the world. I don't hate him, but like everybody else likes them enough for for everybody and like i will you know y'all can do that but like this movie really made me appreciate what he was able to do in jerry maguire because i'm just like maybe that was a lot more difficult than i gave it credit for because you watch a movie like elizabethtown and you're just like oh this is where it can fall apart at least yeah no for sure i mean so when i um

i mean i my favorite camera pro com is almost famous which uh is a movie that is probably his most his most, obviously his most personal, but the least ploddy of any of his movies. And his movies generally don't have much of... Right. But that one is very much plotless. Yeah. And he comes off of, obviously,

what's the Academy Award for almost famous, he's got Jared McGuire. He's got the wind at his back, and he makes Vanilla Sky. And a movie that is probably more maligned than this, or maybe equally maligned as this. Like, it's a movie that's way out of his wheelhouse, for all intents of purposes.

It's very ploddy. it's a kind of bizarreo twilight zoni pop culturey thing which I personally don't hate but I understand why people didn't like it and why I feel like when I talk about like the arc of Elizabeth Town like not having an arc I feel like at least Elizabeth or at least vanilla sky and maybe this is more my own feelings coming to play where like I think it's a fascinating failure and I think with movies that are fascinating failures there is a little bit of like an uptick of just like maybe let's at least like talk about this movie maybe let's at least like give it it's sort of room to well that's that's that's that's the blank check about right like

that's when they did his his his filmography on the blank check podcast in my opinion that's that's that's the quote-of-quote normal yes failure if you will and everything he's done since connects to that like everything is a course correction off of that film um and yeah and none of them, quote, quote, work, right? Because it's like he's, and that's why I'm fascinated by this film in particular, because this is him thinking he's doing what we want him to do. Right. This is back to basics.

This is him going back to the last. And yet, it's him doing a lot of what Vanilla Sky does, which is like him adapting his own Tumblr into a movie, where it's like Here's a post on Bob Dylan But it's like Vanilla Sky is like a movie Where you get to a certain point

You realize Oh 75% of what I've just seen Isn't real So it explains this like heightened reality Or like false reality to it And like these weird obsessions With certain scenes And these like things that don't make any sense

Or like people behaving like human beings just don't behave and it's like he does all of that in Elizabeth town but forgets that he's trying to do real people. No, I agree. Just to be abundantly clear for your listeners and for you guys, like I see this movie works at all and I'm not really going to ride for quite frankly a good chunk of it. But the stuff that does work for me really works for me, which is why I wanted to come up here and try and give it its stay in court. I'm curious. I'll be honest. I used to fully be with you and this like I used to be like you know for what this movie is actually attempting to do it's very earnest and like this movie did I will say arrive probably right at the moment that the final nail in the coffin of earnestness was slammed so it's like it fully kind of became a movie for almost no one um correct correct but like I used to be in the tank for this movie and watching it this time was a little bleak.

I'm like, I'm somebody who could sit here and defend Vanilla Sky right now and I may be a little afraid to go back and watch Vanilla Sky because I'm afraid I'll have a similar experience. I'm curious to see, I'm curious to know whether anybody has ever really gone deep on a Cameron Crow,

Quentin Tarantino sort of duality. Because it's curious to me that both of those are filmmakers who deal in the sort of film is a mixtape kind of genre where it is a very sort of obvious patchwork of influences and

obsessions and pieces of these two filmmakers seem very obviously raised on pop culture and reflect that in their filmmaking and they have very different interests like the difference in their age

probably isn't that much I don't think there's that much of a gulf between them if you know, much of anything. But I think Crow's interests, he was the young kid who looked up to that sort of baby boomer generation ahead of him. And Tarantino

was very, very much in the sort of Gen X video store, you know, probably sent away for a lot of VHS tapes of like rarities and that kind of thing. And obviously like we know their respective

genres very well, right? Like Cameron Crow was very much like your dad's music and that sort of classic rock generation, like Tom Petty's always on the soundtrack. And Tarantino is going for a comparatively more esoteric set of references. So I feel like even when Tarantino is just sort of like a bucket of pastiche stuff, It feels comparably edgier and cooler, and it's, he doesn't easily fall into a sort of sappy rut that Crow can. Because Crow, when Crow gets sort of cliched, he gets cliched in a way that feels very dad-ish, you know, for lack of a better time. I think that's, I think that's an apt and interesting comparison.

And I would, I think that the, the problem, if you will, with Cameron Crow is that he's just really not interested in Plata. And he gets himself into these jams where like he feels like something has to happen. Like fundamentally, I get the impression that Cameron Crow would much rather be Richard Link later than Tarantina. Oh, yeah. He just wants to hang out top. Like he just wants, it's a vibe. It's a chill thing, and he just wants to kind of have characters that he loves talk about. But he does seem to also have big ideas.

Like, I feel like with Jerry McGuire, the idea was, is it possible to be an idealist in a sort of soullessly capitalist environment of, you know, and obviously the most soullessly capitalist environment he could find was a sports agent. And I think, you know, in almost famous, there's a sense of, you know, you know, can you be, can you essentially be friends with the people that you are trying to sort of objectively place within a cultural and indeed sort of like historical context, right? He's sort of interrogating his own memories in that movie about just like... I would say that the major theme in camera prose films, and it's, and you really can see it

in all of his movies, it is failure. It is... And it definitely feels like he has a massive fear of failure, which makes me feel kind of bad for him since, you know, the last few years have not been kind to him. Right. But that is the over, the idea of living with failure. Like, how do you, you know, what, and I think that that's a great theme because I think it's something that more people fail than succeed in their lives. And I think that it's an important thing to be. be able to realize that you get back up, dust yourself off, and start all over again. There's a great line in Vanilla Sky where it's like every day is another chance to turn it all

around. You know, there's something really lovely about that notion, and I think that it recurs in his movies that obviously is a big theme in this movie. Yeah, yeah. But I think that he's, I think he's a lot more interesting, a filmmaker than perhaps people give him credit for I think that's right I would agree with that and I do think that

this film is a real fulcrum point for him because had this movie worked and I think that this movie has as I mentioned a lot of problems had this movie worked I think it could have opened the doors for more movies like it

but as you kind of Chris said earlier this was the end of earnestness and I think he's really struggled with that since. Like, We Bought a Zoo is such an earnest movie. I don't think it's a great movie. I think it's a fine movie. But, like, that's definitely him sort of being like, okay, I need to make a successful movie.

I'm going to make a cute kind of family-ass thing. And I think it was relatively successful, all things considered. But then he makes Aloha, which I don't know if you guys ever... I've still never seen Aloha. I couldn't bring myself to him. And honestly, like, speaking as someone who used to be an ardent defender of Elizabeth Town, I sat there watching it this time and I was like, there's just no way that Aloha is this bad. Like, Aloha can't be worse than this.

I did. Oh, God. I will say this. Aloha is, so I worked at UTA as an assistant for almost eight years when I first moved to, Los Angeles. And the first script I read when I was in the mail room was this script. It had come out just around this time, or it leaked to her, whatever you want to call it. And I was so excited to read this script. And I actually really liked this script, or at least the script that was written. The script that was written was not the one that was shot necessarily. When you say this

script, you're talking about Elizabeth Town or Aloha. Because I'll come back to Aloha in one for a second, But I'll just say that reading the script for this was a fascinating experience. For me, because it was one of the first times that I had read a, you know, not a published version of a script, right? Those scripts are not really the scripts in a lot of ways. They're the shooting script as opposed to reading something before it actually gets shot and seeing the differences between those two things. The reason I bring up this is because I read a script for Aloha, excuse me, me, before, many years before it was made, and it was called Deep

Teaky originally. Okay. I think I remember that title. And Ben Stiller and Reese Witherspoon were attached to it. Uh-huh. And it was, if you can imagine Jerry McGuire meets Joe versus

the volcano, that's what it was. Oh, okay. So it's like, this Ben Stiller character is this sort of very kind of, corporate what have you he sent to hawaii um to deal with i think it was with some some appropriation of land or what have you and his company needed him to sort of help with this island or what have you and then at the end of the movie they have to like throw all it's the

most cameron crow the least subtlest thing in the world where they have to throw all these artifacts into this volcano to like stop the volcano from erupting and it's like all these records and movies. It's just fucking crazy. Oh, my God. It's crazy. Ben Stiller is such an odd choice for a Cameron Crow movie because as we said, like Cameron Crow is so earnest and Ben Stiller, but when Ben Stiller tries for earnest, I mean,

we talked about Secret Life of Walter Middy on this podcast before. Like when Ben Stiller tries for that kind of earnestness, it just falls completely flat. And it's, oh, it's so. Like, I, what a disaster. And those are two people that, I mean, that's, I don't see chemistry between those two people either. No. Yeah. It was just, it was a fascinating thing.

And it got pretty far along. Like, if I remember correctly, this, it was in like pre-production. Like, they were ready to make it happen. And then the wheels came off the wagon for whatever reason. And Aloha is a scaled back, much more reverent of, of Hawaii, of a Hawaiian culture. even if they did cast on the stone. Yeah. But it is definitely,

I'm going to say this. Aloha, first of all, you guys should watch it because I'd be genuinely very curious here what you think of it. Maybe we'll have to do an episode. We actually should at some point. I mean,

it did. Everything that he's made has, you know, since. Even after Aloha, if Cameron Crow had a movie launched right now, somebody would be talking about it in that context. Right, because it could be a comeback. I'll just say this one last thing about Aloha. Aloha has one of my favorite

final scenes in a camera crow movie. The movie's a vast. I'm not going to say if you're watching the movie, but it has a wordless, beautiful scene at the end of the movie that almost makes it worthwhile. And the reason I'm bringing this up is because I think Elizabeth Town has two sequences in it that in the script were much

longer, which is the phone call at the center of the film between Drew and Claire and Drew's road trip journey at the end. And those two things are really beautifully expanded and unpacked in the script. And then in the movie, you just get the impression that studio, whoever, like, let's move this along. Like we, right, right. Let's get past this. Whereas those are actually, for me, those are my favorite part of the movie. So we're definitely going to talk about that for sure, because I think those two sequences are the ones that sort of stand out in the movie for, you know, a lot of different reasons. But before we get to that, we do have the portion of the podcast where we have our guest take a minute to describe the plot of the film. And I've got my little stopwatch out there, Phil, if you feel like you're ready.

Yeah, I'm ready. All right. All right. So I will start when I say go, and then you'll have one minute to depict the plot of Elizabeth Time. Are you? I'm ready. Okay. All right.

Begin now. Oh, wait, sorry. Before that. I'm sorry. I have to, I forgot our actual prize. We got to, we got to lay it out. That was not psychological warfare on my part, Phil. I'm very sorry.

I was not being the Alec Baldwin trying to like ruin your, uh, what does Claire say, by the way, about people named Phil? I wanted to write that down and I totally forgot about it. They're dangerous, yeah. Yeah, you can't, you can't trust them. I don't know if I agree with that one. I'm sorry. I totally disagree. and I remember that line all the time.

It was a slander, a slander against Phil. All right, okay. We are talking about Elizabeth Town, written and directed by Cameron Crow. It is starring Orlando Bloom, Kirsten Dunst, Susan Sarandon. It is our third Susan Sarandon in the last like five episodes, which we've done completely accidentally because the last two were choices of our guests. Listen, our guests, our guests particularly love Susan Sarandon movies that target on the death of a particular member of a family.

We have now had a Susan Sarandon dead daughter movie, a Susan Sarandon dying mother movie, and now a Susan Sarandon dead father. What was the first one? Moonlight Moonlight Moon. That was just us, though. We did not have a guest for that. Right. That one we chose, and then our guests brought more Susan.

And listen, I love Susan Saran. I mean, this almost wasn't Susan Saran, but we'll talk about that. Right. There was almost wasn't a lot of people in this movie. We'll talk about that for sure. Judy Greer also, Paul Schneider, Alec Baldwin, as I mentioned, Jessica Beale, Bruce McGill, Loudon, Wainwright, 3rd, and of course, Queen of Southern Cooking and Plantation Apologist, Paula Dean. This movie premiered at the Venice Film Festival on September 4th, 2005. It opened for real on October 14th.

I wrote down 2015, but that's not correct. It did not sit on the shelf for a decade, although it might have. October 14th, 2005. Also a very, very famous TIF bomb. one of the rare disastrous screening I was trying to think of it too as like a point of comparison

like how poorly this movie did and the reviews that it got at Tiff and like I can't think of a comparable recent bond. I mean the goldfish is the only one I can think that but I don't know if that's maybe fair Tiff was the first screening of it I think it might have premiered somewhere else

I could be wrong but I remember Tiff being like this movie is not a player yeah like immediately cratered yeah and even that one they didn't like go and re-edit the goldfinch after the tip screening no because it opened like two days later right right i mean elizabeth town only opened like a month after that's like that was a quick re-edit that they had to do to get that thing i tried to figure out what they cut out and it sounds like the ending was even longer the stuff and they just chunked Yeah, they, they chopped off, I think. It's like 18 minutes got pulled from the film,

and I think a good chunk of that is Drew's road trip at the end, which does feel truncated. There's a lot of stuff in the middle that feels like it could have been pruned instead, but maybe it was just different people with different ideas about what this movie was, which feels possible. All right. Now for real, though, Phil, I'm going to give you 60 seconds to the plot of this film. all right

I am going to start now okay so Elizabeth town revolves around Drew Baylor he's a young shoe designer he designs this shoe

for this company that's run by Alec Baldwin and it's an enormous failure they lose $972 million and it's an

absolute disaster and he is it sends him into such a spiral that he considers suicide and as he's about to commit suicide

his sister calls him to tell him that his father has died in Kentucky, where he's originally from, his father, that is, and that he needs to go to Kentucky to essentially retrieve his father's body, for lack of the way, putting it in the process, on a plane ride to Kentucky, he meets Claire, played by some Duns,

who is this very sort of sunny flight attendant who becomes sort of his guardian angel, if you will. 10 seconds. That's all I got. They fall in love. All right. beautiful all right yes that is sort of that's sort of where the plot kind of

falls off yeah then it's a lot with some meandering stuff with a lot of like local color and a lot of like shots of Paul Schneider not controlling his kid and like there's yeah

Paul Schneider who I normally love is the most annoying character device in this movie to me where it's just like I'd like what Cameron Crow is going for the vibe and such

but at one point you have him saying I want to teach my son about Abraham Lincoln and Ronnie Van Sant because they're both important and I'm like okay Cameron Crow I mean to your point and I agree I think that

this is a perfect example of stuff that felt like widows or things that were cut and trimmed like I know what he's going for which is he wants to he wants to talk about fathers and sons. Like, that's what he thinks the film is one of the myriad of things he thinks the film is about. So there's this kind of weird appendage of this Paul Schneider storyline and Loudwood Wainwright

that just never fully forms. I would argue that the same thing could be said about the Susan Surrend and Judy Greer stuff as well, which never fully took flight because it feels like it's from a different movie. That's the thing. And I think the fact that this movie sort of, this movie hooks its emotional sort of impact on two things. One of which is the sort of road trip montage that I think in a better constructed movie, and I think if you take one particular thing out of that montage, that there's a version of the movie that works. I think you have to take everything in Memphis about Martin Luther King out of that. It is a absolute disaster.

It is shocking. It is shocking. I'm not going to run for it. so, it was, it was then, and it's like, even more now. It's like, don't kill yourself. Martin Luther King existed, Orlando Bloom. Well, and to like, with YouTube, and to punctuate, it's crazy. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's insane. To scatter parts of his dad's ashes at the site, like.

There's no excuse for it. But, like, if you take, if you take that part out of the ending montage, and you set that up better, and you sort of let it, uh, breathe. in a way that feels organic and not like filibustery, then I think there is a version of the movie that works that way. But I think you have to then make your choices and your choices have to be,

we're just going to make the mother character a very small part of this throughout. And I think the problem is the movie makes her a small character and then expects you to think that she's a major character and by the time she shows up and like does the little like... tap dance. Comedy act and then a tap dance. And like that feels like such a showcase scene. And it's just like, but we don't know who she is. And like even the fact that like she shows up and you don't even see her interacting with these family members that seemingly hate her and that like there's

this tension. And it's just like let us see that. Let us play it out rather than tell her be a little bit of an asshole too because it's like much like the other female characters in this movie. It's like they're put on this weird pedestal that never kind of lets them be people so it's like I think it might have been and you also cast Sarandon too so it's like let her be a little prickly like she

shows up and she's just sunsine and roses with all these people that hate her I fully agree with you guys 100% I think that there's a couple things to come to mind as you were saying that the first is if it's a movie about fathers and sons I know that he made a concerted effort for

Drew's father to not be a character he's more of this sort of whatever people he's this apparition if you will and he's a memory he's a concept which I and we don't really get much sense

of what their relationship is like at all so it's like it's the idea of a father more than a relationship absolutely and I think that that was a big mistake I think that that the father's character should have just been we should have seen him in flashbacks we should have been fleshed out um you should have been played by a person that you know recognize a little character actor like yeah yeah um so i think that that's that's a pretty significant mistake um

i would say the other thing that came to mind uh is that that don't feel like a family i've never seen three actors in a shot together that i'm like i don't believe any of you are even friends alone that you're family. So like it's that's a bizarre thing and then the other thing is we just did an episode on parenthood for our 89 page and watching

that so close to watching this you're really hit with wow first of all parenthood's a masterpiece but also like none of these people feel lived in as much as when you think about that sequence of him of Drew first getting to Kentucky and meeting

the bailers. And you know what he wants. He wants this sort of chaotic familial energy, but it's just chaos and the jokes don't really land. And it's all kind of messy and annoying in a way that isn't endearing. So all of that sort of compounds exactly what you're talking about, which is the female characters and the mother and just all of it just unfortunately just doesn't congeal. Yeah. So I wanted to sort of talk very briefly about the movie that the casting that we almost got because this this um sort of very famously went through some big casting changes initially um ashton cucher including while filming right right ashton cucher had they started to film with ashton cucher was that the deal

and that it wasn't working and they stopped they also oh was supposed a deal with heath ledger before all of this if i'm not mistaken oh that i didn't know about that's really interesting see Because I was looking at the rest of the casting choices, and I'm like, maybe this was just sort of cursed from the break. Because, like, if it wasn't going to be Ashton Coucher, it was probably going to be Sean Williams-Scott. And I don't know. I've liked Sean William Scott in things,

but, like, I don't know if that really works either. That would have been a nightmare. And the closest one of the names that I found through my research that would have made some sense was Chris Evans. Yeah. That's still not. quite right because he's also kind of Cameron Crow's going a little bit

for this kind of like screwball you can see like influences and like older like Preston Surges type of movies but like you're not going to get that from any of these like young actors that he's looking at like Ashton Coucher

I think that it's I fully agree with you Chris I think that it's a symptom of there was a real kind of lack of I don't want to but like a lack of really great young male actors at this time that at least had some

sense of stardom like they clearly wanted they wanted someone that was going to get people in the seats that's a thing yeah problem so there was just really no one out there when I read about the Heath Ledger thing that made me go like I mean maybe but Heath Ledger's not a comedian

per se like I'm not sure that I mean maybe he works I don't know. He certainly would have had the... I would have bought the sadness. I don't know what actors could make these, like, characters work more. They were right on the precipice. Go ahead.

I was going to say, they were right on the precipice of being able to cast somebody like Jake Gyllenhaal, who I do feel like would have worked better. Yes, yes, yes. It would have felt very similar to, like, what Jake Gyllenhaal eventually had to, like, work away from with, like, the sad boy, with the like greasy bangs.

But I feel like that part of his sort of a vibe at that stage would have maybe worked in his favor in this to a degree in that like he's sort of trying to emerge from that. But also the fact that it was Kirsten Dunst in the female role, they were dating maybe right at that time. So maybe not. Or during filming, yeah. They're interesting actors to talk about during this time

because like it did really strike me. researching for this episode that it premieres at the same festival where Brokeback Mountain premieres and launches both of those young actors into much more respect in a way that like this movie failed to do.

The other thing that I think is interesting is that Kirsten Dunst to do this movie had to drop out of the village, which I feel like is kind of an out of the frying pan into the fire kind of deal. Anyway, in that just like I'm not sure like I know there are a lot of there are people out there who do stick up for the village I am not I'm one of those people yeah I am not but I'm not sure I don't know I'm just not sure and I'll just say this I think that you know Cameron Crow jumped up and down about how Orlando Bloom was his first choice I I don't buy it but you know as a director you know he wants us all to believe that this was the right guy I think because he

he knew that it wasn't really working and he just really wanted to convince people that this was the way it was always supposed to be but Orlando Bloom does have his moments in this movie where it's working there they're few and far between but there are moments where he does lock in and I see what Cameron Crow might have thought he could get out of him but he just doesn't have yeah he just doesn't have the depth and the range to be able to pull this off um on the I feel like the version of the movie that has no love story in it, but Orlando Bloom would make so much sense and he would be more right for that movie because like the parts that actively don't work for me with him is the love story. Whereas like the family stuff like it makes sense that this character who is kind of like isolated and off up his own ass in his career that like he can't connect to people and like Orlando Bloom is not. not really great with connecting to his scene partners.

I agree. I agree. So, like, that stuff makes sense. And it's like, if a version of this movie exists where there's no love story and you still have this, like, road trip type of thing, he could have maybe pulled it off. I also just feel like Orlando is, this is the, this is the beginning of the end, ultimately, you know, in terms of, it's when the ceiling just comes kind of crashing down on him in terms of what he's capable of. But I do think that I feel for him a little bit. There was a lot of issues getting him because of scheduling with the Kingdom of Heaven, if I'm not mistaken. Right. And I think that's pretty unfair to get this, to pull this guy out of a giant sweeping, you know, brooding Ridley Scott period piece and then being like,

okay, now be this quirky, funny. This would have been a stretch for him on a good day. But on top of that, the whiplash of those two roles is pretty brutal. Yeah, I think if you're making Kingdom of heaven, your mind is in a lot of, you know, physical spaces and, and just sort of dealing with the great, the giant sort of like setups of what's happening in that movie. And you're, it's, you know, maybe like a left brain, right brain kind of a thing where it's just not, it's not what's in your head. It's a bad performance that I do not blame the actor for at all. Like, this is a role he shouldn't have even been considered for. So it's not his fault. Well, and I mean, talking about, like, being an apologist. Like, I was an Orlando boom apologist for a while. I feel like I was such a, I was such a Lord of the Rings person. And again, like, not to bring everything back to, like, my early 20s when I was closeted. But, like, I was so, like, he was a very kind of, like, this sort of, like, dreamy, you know, Nouveau Errol Flynn kind of, like, figure with this sort of the elegance of the, of the elf sort of thing. And then the Pirates of the Caribbean.

be in movies where it's just like his role like what if that but with a dirty mustache but it's just sort of just like he's like the nice boy of those movies right where like johnny dep is like a giant scumbag and like kira knightley is beautiful but also like you know unexpectedly capable and she's you know fighting along with everybody else and then like orlando bloom is sits in the middle and is just like what a nice boy in the middle of all of those shenanigans and i think in the midst of all of that. He's in one sort of not well-regarded movie that I think

he's very good in, which is Troy. I feel like playing the role of Paris in Troy worked in, like, allowed him to like do all the things that he does well and allowed him to play a character who is, you know,

villainous and preening and sort of and not even villainous, but like weak. He's just like the essential weakness of somebody who looks that pretty, and it really worked for him and I thought he did better in that role than he got credit for and I think a lot of the fact that Troy

was not really well received by critics kind of just sort of like the brush sort of got painted over everything I think that is a movie that is a little bit better than it gets credit for if not like a great movie and then you're right then all of a sudden Kingdom of Heaven and Elizabeth Town and then it's just like

oh you will only be doing more Pirates of the Caribbean movies after this. I really do think that watching this movie again yesterday, I was really hit with if Cameron Crow had waited a couple years he would have had a much more interesting array of actors

choose from. I also do think that there's also the version of this where he did pick a person of obscurity for Jerry McGuire, right? Like, Renee Zellweger was nobody, right? like right right she was an indie star she uh she had either an indie spirit like nomination or a win at that point

so like she wasn't a household name by any means and obviously they were they were definitely putting all of it on tom cruise which i completely understand but in an alternate universe where elizabeth tower they go all in our person dunst and they get some you know a nobody quote unquote to play the drew role that she has real chemistry with and you make a star i you really you really maybe there's something there. I just, and it's not that their chemistry is completely, you know, devoid. There are some nice moments between them. It's not a complete shit show for me. As I said, that's the stuff that I know, Chris, it didn't work for you, but it's the stuff

that did work for me in terms of their relationship. And it's almost less about the love story as it is their relationship. And I know that I'm splitting hairs a little bit. But, like, they don't really get romantic much in this movie. Like, it's more about her trying to kind of help him through his grief and help him through this, you know, this fiasco, as he says, that he's dealing with professionally. But I don't know. I, I, some of it worked for me. But, but I, but, you know, it's, to me, to me, it's telling that the stuff in the movie that most sells me on their relationship,

is the stuff where they're not like actively talking to each other like the phone call situation where they're essentially on a phone call with each other for something like 13 hours or something like that or seemingly that we sort of

something that every normal person does but the thing is that and also like that works for me and the idea that just like of course like it's an extreme depiction but like that to me is the sort of the romance of Cameron Crow working. And it's got this, you know, Ryan Adams song

that I know that like... He's canceled now, but it's a great song. Nobody likes Ryan Adams right now. But, but that song was kind of special to me back then. And so, like, it really, like, it brings me back to a time. Like, it, like, that was the part of that movie that I was just like, oh, fuck.

It, like, really, like, just lurched me back in time. That's the, that's the scene for me. I remember reading the script. The, the scene in the script, I shit you I was probably like 10 pages long. Like it was, it was a giant meaty thing that it was clear to me from reading the script that that's kind of where it started for him, right?

He's like, they're going to have like a 10-hour phone call at the middle of this movie and we're going to watch them fall in love over the course of a phone call, which by the way, I kind of love that notion as, as antiquated as it might be today. It kind of worked for me. And then in the movie, it's obviously, you know, deeply truncated. But when that Ryan Adam song kicks in, I get goosebumps. Like, it just fucking works. Yeah.

And I wish the whole movie felt like that. I guess this sequence would work so much better for me if it would have already, like, established a real connection between them. At this point, A, he's trying to avoid her because she's acting like a crazy person. She just kind of latches herself onto him. it's not recognizable human behavior. But also, like, he's just kind of, aside from his failure and, like, his displacement with the death of his father, there's not really much going there on a character level. And, like, her character dynamic is just, you know, looney doing.

So, like, it's hard for me. She's at an 110, and he's at, like, a 55. And it's tough to... She's out of 110 that it's like, this is an alien. This is not a person. I agree. And it's like it's hard to get emotionally invested in that when it's like I don't feel invested in these characters already. I won't disagree.

I don't disagree. But I'll say this. What it does prove to me is the power of a needle drop. And it's when the music is doing a lot of heavy lifting, which let's be real, Cameron Crow tends to do from time to time. Yes. the Eldon John one I think works really well in the right like I think that he knows how

to convey and again this kind of comes back to the link later thing of just like it's a vibe right like he's gonna give you the right song at the right moment and give you just enough information if you will about that character that it will all kind of coalesce for you but I agree

with you Chris he's he's given us the bare minimum amount of information on Druid perhaps not enough like that my favorite moment of the two of them chemistry-wise happens actually after they meet up

after the phone call when they're sort of sitting overlooking the river and they're quiet for like a moment and then she just goes boy we really peaked

on that phone call and I was just like I love that I love that moment and that feels like an honest genuine moment whereas like

the whole phone call sequence feels engineered because that's what the movie's supposed to do not like the movies earned it. really do wish, and I'll see if I can find

it, if I still have the script for Elizabeth Town because I would, I'd send it, obviously, I'd send it to you guys because I would love you to read the scene because part of the problem is that it's turned it to a montage. Like, it's turned it to a sequence, as opposed to actually being this meaty

thing of these two people really getting to know each other and fall in love with each other. Instead, you know, they're just like, well, Ryan Adams will convey it for us. Right, right. And I think that's the thing with the road trip at the end too is I feel like if the I part of me was just like the this road trip should be the movie yeah that's what if that I feel like that's the part where Cameron Crow really feels like he's um and it almost feels like all the stuff in

Elizabeth town and with the stuff with dealing with the father's family and all of that almost feels like Cameron Crow trying to pay respect to his own father because a lot of this sort of comes from the idea of he had not been to his father's gravesite since his dad had died. And I think as a writer, he kind of just sort of imagined this sort of scenario with, you know, a guy who wished, sort of had always been this very sort of like Harry Chapin idea of like I was always sort of putting off getting to know my dad as an adult to, you know, next year and next year and next year. And now he doesn't have this chance. And he wants to wants to sort of get to know his dad's family, almost as a penance. And it feels like

that's what Crow, it wants to sort of give this portion of the movie it's due. It's sort of like it's airing out. And it also might have been that the studio was like, this is what we want this movie to be, is this sort of culture clash dramedy and make it that. But there is, I think the movie miscalculates in giving so much real estate. to that portion of the movie. And then you have this thing at the end where you're just like, oh, no, this is the movie you wanted to make.

Just, I wish you would have just made it rather than, you know, sort of fuzzling around with this idea of like, should we cremate my father? Should we not cremate my father? It's just like, no, you're going to cremate your father. Just fucking do it. I agree.

I think that it's a symptom of a couple of things. The first is what you mentioned. You know, Cameron Crow has been pretty open about the fact that, you know, almost famous was the love letter to his mom, and this was the love letter to his dad. You know, I think that he definitely was grappling with his relationship with his father and how he didn't really know his dad and all that sort of stuff, which he definitely wanted to explore. But, you know, it's funny because, like, I think about say anything, which is obviously his first film.

And it's so clean. It's so economic in its, it knows what he is. It's really essentially a two-hander with the relationship with the dad, which takes a turn, an unexpected turn. I mean, it's just, unfortunately, it feels like the deeper into his career he gets, the less sort of obviously constraints there are on his work. So he just kind of flails in all these different directions. And this film is obviously perhaps the most egregious of the bunch because he still got the power, like the real kind of, as you said,

and we're obviously talking about, like this had, real Oscar potential on paper and oh yeah I mean vanilla sky is a hundred million dollar movie it made a hundred million dollars at the box office being what it is of course he still has the power for this which is also why I was like okay is this informed at all by like

the critical and like audience response of that movie the whole like fiasco failure thing because I'm like if vanilla sky informed it he doesn't really seem to be aware that that movie was a hit and made money regardless of how it was perceived. I think that, I mean, I remember Vanilla Sky coming out. I remember the discourse around it, obviously.

There was not just the Cameron Crow of at all, but there was the Penelopee Cruz and Tom Cruise thing. Yeah, that made people ready to hate it. I think Vanilla Sky is a much more fascinating Tom Cruise document than it is a Cameron Crow document. For as much as, you know, Crow is such a fascinating filmmaker. But, like, I've always said that, like, the thing about Vanilla Sky that's most fascinating is,

it's a movie star document about a movie star at a very particular point in his life and career. And like, that's to me what's fascinating. I agree. And I almost am very ready to let Cameron Crow take a backseat in that one. Whereas like in Elizabeth Town, it's impossible to let anybody take a backseat to Cameron Crow in this movie. Like it really is, it's, he's, he's right up there on the screen. And part of it is that like Orlando Bloom's not going to be a dynamic enough person to take that from him but also it's just like this is so very clearly like a Cameron Crow

story. Yeah, sorry. I would No, go ahead. I'm just going to say that you know, the Vanilla Sky thing, I agree, Joe, is interesting, you know, you've got Nicole Kidman's ascension is happening right as Vanilla's guy it's dropping. So there is

this sort of the Tom Cruise, they didn't want him single for too long. There's all these weird things that were going on surrounding that film. on top of it all, the film is kind of strange in its own right, and it's Cameron Crowe going to sort of odd places. So this film feels so reactionary to that, where he's just like, I'm not going to put some giant megawatt star

in this thing that's going to, you know, suck up all the attention. I'm going to go back and I'm going to make this kind of endearing, genuine earnest love story. And obviously it doesn't really work. There's lots of things I want to talk about, One of the other things I want to talk about is watching this yesterday, I was also hit with the six feet under of it all. I love six feet under.

It's my favorite television show. Yeah. And there's definitely a little bit of that mixed in here. It's the only movie that Cameron Crow actually really deals with death head on where he makes, like this is a movie about death. It's about how we grieve. It's about how we deal with death. You know, obviously it's about.

cremation versus all these things like it's got all this stuff going on and it's a gallows humor that he's so completely unadept at like he does not know how to really deal with this stuff like the suicide stuff does not belong in this movie it's so shocking right i feel like the imagery is so at odds with the tone of just like yeah like he attaches the knife to uh like an exercise bike so that he can elliott smith himself and it's not funny. The first time we meet him, he's contemplating suicide in the first scene that we see Drew is him in the helicopter. Right. Looking out and thinking about trying to jump out of the helicopter. It's, and again, you know.

There's this borderline magical realism too that doesn't work that feels either crazy or just like a belly flop, like where he's looking at his father in the casket and the body smile. It's Like when Drew arrives to the town And everybody's pointing him in the right direction

Like they're in some creepy Kentucky Midsamar Yeah, that I noticed this time That I don't think I had noticed it the last time The other thing though is just that like The Alec Baldwin character Is too big to not recur in the movie Like it's that That was part of what was cut though

they revisit the shoes in the original cut at the end of the movie these shoes that look like stingrays who could have imagined that it would have lost a billion dollars I don't understand this company that doesn't have market research don't even yeah that's that I could that was the thing that really hit me this time around I was like let me get this straight how did you lose a billion dollars

on one shoe did you not market test at all like it's crazy So like, but that's, I mean, I guess that's a buy-in. You either buy it or you don't. I don't, but it is what it is. Well, but it feels like it's Crow being fascinated by the idea of somebody like Phil Knight. Like, clearly, like, Alec Baldwin's character is a very, very thin gloss on Phil Knight, the Nike guy.

And I think it's the same way that, like, in Jerry McGuire, he's very, very fascinated by a character like Lee Steinberg, who is this, like, superstar sports agent, right? Thank God. Cameron Crow never got his hands on Steve Jobs. Kind of, yeah, like that kind of made me think that way too of just like he's clearly very, very fascinated by these sort of iconoclast businessmen who sort of who, you know, and in this case it's, I did feel like there was some good comedy in when Baldwin's sort of like walking him through this sort of dream scape of his corporation where he's walking past and he's just like my, you know, my ecological green spaces project is going to have to go. And it's just like the sort of like the darkness of that humor I did kind of appreciate, but there's nowhere for it to go. Like it doesn't really like it's on its own little weird island somewhere. That's why I kind of wish that they hadn't cut out the full circle of that storyline. Because the originally, I guess, in the original cut of it, the shoes actually become a hit.

And weirdly because they whistle when you walk, don't get me started. Oh, God. That's what we need. Stingray shoes that whistle guys. They're the new light up shoes. So I'm not suggesting that that's a good ending. But to your point, Joe, it's so seismic up top, and you've got a relatively big movie star and Alec Baldwin,

that for it to just kind of go nowhere is a little bit weird. Well, you end up, or at least I was, throughout the movie, just being like, yeah, but what's going on with the job? Like, I thought we were supposed to really care about that. And ultimately, that's, like, kind of a mcuffin of the movie. And, like, that's fine. don't really need to know the ins and outs of this fake Nike company, but, like, they make it so, they give you so much detail at the beginning. And I'm just like, am I holding this stuff in my

head for nothing? Like, what is, like, why am I, am I, am I doing that? And I was. I was holding it all in my head for nothing. And at least like, that's very not aware of its own mess. It's just like constantly running around shitting on the floor, basically. But if, if we just had a, I, for the most part in this movie, I feel like if it was self-aware mess, that, like, Cameron Crow was intentionally having this, like, I don't know, cornucopia of, like, all of these montages and, like, was just trying to, like, intentionally be, like, messy, basically. It would mostly work, except for the shoe stuff, because... Yeah. Yeah. It's just from... I keep saying that everyone's an alien, but it's just from

another planet of rationality that Can I jump on that for a quick second? Because I think that you're, I agree with you. And I don't know if you guys read this this observation that Roger Ebert had on the film. Do you guys have you? Roger Ebert was

like, with the TIF reception, Roger Ebert was one of the few kind people to this movie. He gave him three stars, even when it was released, like in the second version of it, which he did say the new version, he liked it better So it was shorter. But he had, so I'm going to read this very quick thing.

We're on a second beginning of the film, Roger Ebert made the observation that it's really the hidden story of an angel who has fallen from grace. Claire, the angel, is met in the heavens, an empty plane, and has decided to guide Drew through his depression, suicidal thoughts, and redeem himself from failure. The corporations are found to be illusioned character names and corporations are found to be illusions of hell, the Bible, sin, and the devil. Drew has to redeem and cleanse himself from working with the devil. Claire also needs to make the choice to remain on earth at the end. And he talks about how it's

got like, it's a wonderful life dog blend, what have you. Uh, okay. So that is that though, was that Ebert? That's so generous. I always thought that was Ebert printing like a letter from like somebody who wrote into him about that theory. I mean, was that if that's he, Ebert's actual theory. It's certainly not Cameron Crow's intention at all. But the reason I bring it up is had he made that movie, I might have been more on board to some degree. Like, well, when you, if you're, like, fully, like, breaking the bonds of, of rationality, like, yeah. Sure. Yes.

Yeah. Because Claire isn't some, like, a rescuing angel. She is a, uh, possibly unwell person who decides to fall in love with this guy, makes the conscious choice to do it, and latches onto him. and it some of it I was like eye rolling really hard not trying to not be the person to be who's just like offended by this but it's just like it's incredibly convenient that she loves him so much and he is not interested in her well and clearly this is where sort of the manic pixie dream girl sort of thing comes into play which was not actually coined in the initial reception to the movie but this was like several years later Nathan Rabin had written about this for a series that he was doing on the AV club about essentially flop movies and talking about this trend of female characters who are written as essentially a conduit to help the male character appreciate life and they are sort of fully there

to be you know to fall in love with but also to not really have inner lives of their own He also brings up Natalie Portman's character in Garden State, which is I think also a really good example of that. Although, again, that is a movie, and I've never rewatched it because I'm so afraid to. But I really, really liked Garden State at the time, and I really loved Natalie Portman in that movie. And yet I'm reading this thing from Nathan Rabin, and I'm just like, yeah, that all fits. Like, I can't, like, I can't, you know, I can't deny it. The thing about this movie, because this comes out after Garden State, it feels like very much in the vein. But like, even if we're not looking too kindly on Garden State, it's kind of hard to argue that Garden State doesn't do so much of what Elizabeth Town is trying to do so much better, or at least more effectively, you know, and partly that's because Garden State is trying to do one or two things.

Elizabeth Town is trying to do one or two hundred things. Well, so it's interesting because I remember I saw Garden State in 2004 when it came out and I quite liked it. It spoke to me as a 24-year-old. Sure. Yeah, sure. This movie speaks to me. I've watched it since, and it doesn't speak to me as much as it did. It's definitely got its flaws, for sure.

And it's its own, you know, brand of not working. Right. But it has a vision, and it's got a very specific sort of tone and way of telling its story. this movie is just unfortunately caught in the wake of it when it comes to the manic pixie dreamgirl thing which I would argue

I imagine Nathan Raven maybe wish he didn't write at this point in terms of coining a term yeah I bet it's it's been so overused I feel like in the and also just my big thing is I don't necessarily have a problem with the

trope so much if it's executed well And that's kind of how I feel about tropes across the board, right? Which is, if it's done well, who gives a shit? If it's done poorly, then, yeah, we have issues. And admittedly, Natalie Portman and Kristen Dunn's characters in both these films, unfortunately, are just not as three-dimensional as we would like them to be. Well, I think that's the thing.

And we talked about it when we mentioned Kate Winsland and the Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, where it's like, that's that trope, but gifted with a writer who actually wants to flesh out that character. And I think that's sort of the most damning thing about the manic pixie dream girl isn't necessarily the manicness or the pixiness. It's the, it's the dream thing. It's just like she's not real. She doesn't exist. She doesn't have as much agency or, you know, actual character than the male character. And like, that's to me the problem. But I also feel like that is a term that has been applied in the years since to, like, any female character that in any way bothers the male person sort of writing about the movie.

And it's just sort of just like, okay, all right. Like, we don't need to tar everybody with this same brush. Well, I do, I think the other part of it, too, that plays into this. And I'm guilty of this, too, to some degree, I guess, as a writer and as just a white male straight person, is that wouldn't it be great if I found a beautiful girl who wants to make me a mixtape? Sure. And I mean, oh, you know what, she doesn't have. She may not have inner life, but you. You know what Claire has?

She has a fuck ton of time on her hands. She really does. While she is mid-flight, she is building this giant, to me, creepy, like, notebook for him with photos of her. And, like, you know, all of the super cool songs that she is literally guiding him and telling him what to do this whole trip. I find it creepy. But, like, but it's creepy, Chris, in the same way that, like, any kind of grand romantic gesture in a movie can be creepy if you think about it from the perspective of somebody who's like not into it like and I think it's but he's not into it the

dude is not that into her at first she's at first but like ultimately he ultimately the you know this is a movie character who like he gets swept up in all of this and like ultimately by the end. Like, clearly he is going on this road trip because he wants to sort of follow the path to this girl. So, like, by that point, I'm like, you're either, you know, you're in or you're out. And I think

I just feel like she's trying to insept him into liking her. And it's, it's a little icky to me, which is like, no, I want to talk about Kirsten Dunst a little bit because, like, it's no fault of hers. She's, like, fully throwing herself

into this character. And maybe that's partly why it's, like, every outlandish thing that Claire does is so pronounced because, like, uh, dunst seems like kind of uninhibited or unthrown and, like, really going for this character who behaves in this way and who's, like, you know, the, like, charm of it, um, in a way that, like, I think really speaks to her as, like, a fearless performer that, like, this could have, been one of the ones to get her some Oscar respect if it worked and of course it doesn't. I think that first of all I'm a big Kristen Dunst fan I do really love her work

I think she's a fantastic actor she's one of our MVP's in 1999 she's got three phenomenal films in 1990 yeah but I absolutely can't wait to see what it's like to see her in a

Jane Campion movie right yes so I love her And I would She doesn't bother me as much as she bothers you in this film And part of it might be because, as I mentioned that I'm a white straight guy in my 40s So I think to some degree This, you know, this performance is built to be

endearing to a person like myself But I think that There is a world where this works, as you mentioned, Chris, and it's and it becomes an iconic role and it becomes an iconic movie you know camera core has obviously done this a couple times over I'm sure person Dunn's looked at this and said is this my penny lane like is this

right is it possible sure that this is going to be that for me and I would no I'm with you on that too because I think her character is a lot where this like kind of screwbally texture that's not coming through in the movie but is being attempted I think there is a lot of that. And if that maybe worked or registered more,

you know, the character would probably make a lot more sense. Part of me wonders if he wrote this role subliminally with Kate Hudson in mind and then just never thought to cast her in it. Because like so much of this character feels like, oh, this is like a Kate Hudson character. Like this very much feels like what one of her characters would do in a way that it doesn't feel like, a Kirsten Dunst character based on everything else she had sort of done in her career.

She offered the role? No, I don't. Because we talked about the people who... She's not connected to this production story at all. Like, I've never seen her name. Jessica Beal was up for it and then ultimately gets the role of Ellen. And I guess Scarlett Johansson also auditioned. Also, am I wrong that I heard that Evan Rachel Wood at some point was in the mix for it?

Yeah. And was too young. Yeah. So, it's, Kate Hudson would have made perfect sense. I think so. Yes. You know, part of it is, I was watching this yesterday and I was so at odds with myself because there's so many moments in this film where I'm just like, oh, my God, like, really?

But then there's also a part of me that kind of likes it. I don't know how to explain when she does the, when she does the fake camera thing, and I'm just like, I don't know why I find this sort of endearing. You find it charming. I find it sort of charming, even though my brain tells me. It's certainly an indelible image from the movie. And like, when I think of Cameron Crow, I don't really think of like his imagery. Like I can't really conjure up images from a lot of his movies.

But I do think of that shot. It felt like it was trying to be the Penny Lane dancing in the middle of an empty gymnasium kind of a thing. that kind of a sort of wistful... I do like that shot. When you mentioned that, like, you can't think of Cameron Crowman images, that's the first thing that popped into my mind. Because, like, I think that's one of them for him. And I really think she has this...

There is something, first of all, there's something just very charming and daring about Kristen does to begin with. So there is that, right? Like, she is a movie star. So, like, she kind of can do anything and it's watchable kind of no matter what she does. Now, there's obviously a lot of moments in this. film that are that are silly but there's also a lot of silent moments where where she's really weaponized as a great actor i think about the scene in the airplane when she puts two and two together

that his father's dead that she does essentially silently i think about the scene later in the film when drew's telling her about all those professional problems after they've had sex and just the look on her face where she's just so clearly crushed by the fact that he doesn't he's talking about himself and not her like right she does a lot of really There's a lot of silent moments that are really lovely. I think it's also worth saying, too, that ever since, I would argue, ever since probably Jerry McGuire, every female lead in a Cameron Crow film is him trying to build Audrey Hepburn.

Oh, that's interesting. You actually get a shot of Audrey Hepburn in this movie. Yes, as you do in the middle as guy with, with Nelty Cruz. he's just really trying to build his own Audrey Epford which is an impossibility because she was obviously luminescent and this sort of next level thing.

Right, one of a kind. So it is interesting, like as you said, as you just alluded to, there's the Roman Holiday sequence where we're literally cross-cutting between Roman Holiday and her waking up in the morning. There's just a lot of stuff baked into this role

that is sort of an impossible thing for her to pull off. Which is unfortunate. And like I don't think, I don't think just like Orlando Bloom for a very different reason, none of it is his fault. I don't think like she's really to blame for anything

to do with this character. I do kind of wonder like Kirsten Dunst always has like this edge of darkness that always like makes her performances all that more interesting or like sadness too. And like there's not, it like kind of does. It like

a little bit of it, but, like, it doesn't... I don't know if the movie is really all that interested in her and her inner life enough to really, like... See, this is why you think she's a mental patient, though. ...do her thing in this movie. This is why you think she's a mental patient, though, because she has that Kirsten Dunst thing of just, like, that little bit

of darkness on the edge that you're just like, what's really going on? What's actually happening? No, I think she's a mental patient because, like, she immediately latches on to this, man, and, like, won't let him go. She is... She's working an empty airplane there. Like, she's got a latch on. I'm sitting in the middle here.

Here's my big bump that I noticed this time and part of it was that I read that originally the Ben character was her brother, not and that it was going to be a reveal at the end that like, that whatever. They should have done that. Like this idea that there was this guy

that's treating her poorly in the periphery that we never meet that to both of your points only hurts Claire's character it only makes Claire feel that much more sort of wounded and clingy and needy and all these weird things

it also muddies their romance because you're like wait is she cheating like what's going on here so it's all of it does a disservice to Claire's character but I also just creates this scenario where Drew can eventually just solve her merely by loving her back.

Isn't that how it works, Chris? I think. I also feel like if you have a stronger lead actor in that rule, he can sell that connection better than Bloom, who just, you know, God bless him, just is not able to make those sort of silent moments or those sort of like, even like all of the bantering moments between them, like he's really not pulling his weight.

And I think that's a problem with all of that. I did want to sort of like take, before we sort of run out of time, I did want to take a detour into the Holly character. We sort of, we approached this a little bit. My big note that I wrote down when I was watching this was just like exactly how much time has passed between her husband dying and her showing up in Elizabeth town. Because like, how many, how many tap classes has she taken? And how many, like, where, how, what time frame has it happened? Like, he, he was gone, like, a week, right?

By the time she shows up, like, and she's, like, taking stand-up classes, and she's got a solid five minutes already. I mean, this is the thing is just like. It's a temporal thing. Her, her- That's the vanilla sky of it. He enters an alternate reality. Yes.

Yes. But, like, I just, I think, it's an anomaly, like, lost. It's a logistical nitpick, but it's sort of also good. goes to the idea that, like, her story is just, like, fundamentally doesn't make a ton of sense on a character level. And we're asked to then make a big leap when it gets to that last scene and the tap dancing scene. And it's supposed, it should be, and it's, like, best version, this, like, because it's not like, it's a great, it's not like Susan Sarandon's out there just, like, hoofing it, right? Like, it's just, like, it's a very sort of quiet. She's doing her best.

But like, but in the ideal version of that, we're so invested in her and we're so sort of moved by her making this, you know, sort of leap into trying something new that we should be moved. But we don't know enough about her. We don't spend enough time with her. And none of it feels like it's this hard-earned sort of moment for her. So it just plays as really bizarre. And then you watch the reaction of like this room full of people who were supposed to think, have been hostile to this woman for the last like 20 years and they like just fully like fall into like loving her or and cheering for her and laughing with her jokes and it's just like

I just don't believe it I don't believe any of it and I need to I'm with you but like of all of the many many many contrivances that you're just supposed to go with in this movie it's the one that works maybe the most interesting even though it is fully ridiculous for all of the reasons that you've said. But I do think that that's partly because of the performance. I think that she's probably the best performance in the movie. I mean, I do love her as an actress.

But that character just really doesn't work for me at all. And it should. And that's the other thing. It's just like, you know, Susan Sarandon tap dancing to Moon River for her dead husband, like, conceptually should really work for me. I was going to say, it's crazy total pivot from a bone. joke to I'm just happy

to see Susan monologue I love Susan Sarandon I don't have an issue with her as an actor although I so Jane Fonda

was originally cast in the role and then for scheduling horses was wasn't in it I don't know that Jane Fonda

would have been better or worse I might have been more quote of quote interested in Jane Fonda because up

until this point she just hadn't acted very much so I Right was this the same year that she comes back with Monster

in Law 2005? the same year. A movie that, like, is dumb, but I will kind of ride for in absolutely. I will. I'm sorry. But I, the one-to-punch of Monster-in-Law and Elizabeth

Tim would have been a hell of a 2005 for James Bond. It really would have been. It really, really would have been. But I just, I think that I wonder if the 18 minutes that we've talked about, it almost feels like the Nixon tapes. But the 18 minutes that's been cut from this film does feel like

I think part of it was the holly stuff I think some of that was cut I think part of it was the Paul Schneider stuff I'm sure part of it was there too and I think that because they felt like or maybe Cameron Pro felt like well I've given her

Oscar moment in this amazing thing at the end so like it doesn't really matter if you just pop into her a little bit earlier but like her getting stuck in the hood of the car is so broad and weird like it's very broad yeah the fact that like she does the full cartoonish like sticks her leg

out and she's flailing. I was just like, that's really, that's a choice. Yeah. It at least feels like the movie is owning its craziness a little bit. Like I, I'm fine with that kind of like, if it's, if it's going to be like actively messy, then it should feel like it's intentionally trying to be that way. I agree with that. This is, this is, I think, and I agree with you, Chris, that there's a commitment to that stuff where, and I certainly would say that he's committed to the to the to the drew and clear relationship but he it's also sort of like and then you about like the the cindy and uh chuck and cindy wedding stuff which i'm just like i don't know why this is in the movie um right all of that stuff yeah stuff there that just feels like just like

there's a lot of business like just focus on if this was just a love story about drew and claire i i just think a we would care because they just have more screen time you know yeah and and i just ultimately feel like he just gets too kind of it's there's just too many shiny things that he's like oh wouldn't it be cool if this was there and what if what about this and what about this and all of it just feels like it's doing a disservice to everything i feel that way about casting paula dean sure i know it's such a small thing and like but like oh my god but and it's another huge time capsule too because i like food network has always been sort of a comfort watch for me in general but that particular time period

was very much like personality forward on Food Network, where it was like, you could watch for like an entire afternoon, and it would just be like Rachel Ray, Paula Dean, Giata DeLerrentis, Alton Brown. And it was just like, that's their sort of stars at that moment. So it was like, it was a weird like subculture thing of just like, we're going to give you shorthand as to what this character is by casting Paula Dean. And like, and it works, but I wonder like if you are not familiar with this sort of food network subculture.

I wonder if it, you know, it's not like she, like, they're not asking her to act. She's a bad actor. They're not asking a whole ton of her. So like, yeah. I, or I never maybe even connected that Paula Dean is in this movie. So when she showed up, I screamed at 18.

He's like, what? She's like a role. It wasn't even like a, it wasn't even like a bit part. She's got like, she's got like 10 lines. Well, and it's her. It's her. It's her. and Cameron Crow's real-life mother playing, like, the two sort of aunts in the family who seem to be kind of running the show. Yeah, it's, but again, and she's the one who's sort of, like, you kind of expect that, like,

she's going to be the representative of the family who's going to, like, have a scene with Sarandon where they sort of, like, work out this familial. Also, that whole goddamn phone call where Sarandon, like, is making a huge goddamn deal about Bruce McGill's character and how he's, like, shady and whatever, and it comes to absolutely nothing. probably because it was cut out. But, like, then cut that part out too. Because, like, ultimately, don't set, like, again, it's another thing for me to have to, like, keep in my mind of just, like,

well, we now need to pay off Holly and, you know, Bruce McGill. And it's like, well, no, apparently we really don't. I'll just, I just have two other quick things that I want to say. The first is, I really do feel like this whole film is really encapsulated in, Susan Saraned telling a boner joke quickly pivoting to a sad tap dance routine

and then a giant bird catching on fire during free bird It's just You're watching Like it's hard not to look at all of this And say like This is madness

Like this is complete madness And it does Sort of pivot back to what we were saying earlier Where you're just like If you were to lay out All the things that happened In Jerry McQuire

There's a lot of crazy shit That happens in that movie but like he keeps it all he keeps all of those plates spinning here these plates are falling right left and center and it is broken glass all over the floor you can't but at the same time I just want to highlight a moment that I do really love which is before all of the shit hits the fan there's this moment where uh Drew and Claire kiss for the first time yeah and I really do love the moment when you get a shot of her and her eyes open a little bit and You can see that she smiles, and it's kind of this moment where, and I know it might add to the psychosis that you feel about Claire, Chris, but I do think that it's a really lovely camera chrome moment. Like, those are the moments that I love about him, and when he's able to weaponize those, it really is a lovely thing that no one else is doing.

Yeah, I would agree with that. And I think ultimately, this is, it's too crazy for me in Elizabeth Town, but I do, like, there are, definitely those moments where I feel like, yeah, this is, and you can, again, I just feel like you can feel it in the sort of the verve of the movie. Like, this is the movie that Crow really wants to be making. And ultimately, the whole of it is not, I can't imagine this thing. When you saw the finished product, he was like, yes, this is exactly what I want. I can't imagine it. I totally agree. I'll just say the one lesson that I wanted to say about the road trip journey at the end of the film.

And you mentioned earlier, Chris, with the Elton John song and Orlando crying behind the wheel of the car. Like, there's something there. The idea of that wide shot of him dancing with his hand up in the air to... I like that scene. I like that moment. I do. I forget which of you mentioned it, that it's like the movie should be the road trip,

where it's like you should have flashbacks there because then it feels like rather than rushing that whole significant thing that feels like this. is what the movie wants to be, you know, you can call back to other things and you can actually have, like, some major impact in that moment, you know, hopefully you're also cutting the parts out of it that don't work. I fully agree, and I would say, too, to that point, you know, camera crow has never always tells a straight line. I mean, outside of Vanilla Sky, his movies are very straight line, narratively speaking.

And I think had this film literally been the road trip and a fractured narrative of jumping around in the timeline and learning all of these things. First of all, it would have been more engaging because you wouldn't know where all the pieces fell. And it also just would have really highlighted to what I think we're all saying, which is that that road trip is Drew's Ark, right? Like, that's him finally turning into the person

that he's going to be, if you will. So make that the movie. Or you need something to, like, focus all of these threads into like a very clear, if not structure, but like format to be providing us information. Yes. Where you can figure out what is important and what is not. Yeah.

Yeah. Storytelling, if you will. Yeah. I want to. The fundamental telling a story. Yeah. We haven't really talked a whole ton about like Oscar stuff. And like we've made it through most of this so we don't really need to because there's not a ton to it.

I think it gets a few critics' choice nominations, one of which is for, Nancy Wilson's score, which is a lot of it mostly just sort of makes me think of the almost famous score that I think is like one of the greatest, you know, like undersung music scores in my lifetime at least. But it's obviously very lovely and she does, you know, very, very good work. Until they just to. Right. I know. I know. That was a, that was a bummer to deal with. A couple of my notes that I wrote down were about the music, one of which is, and I get the like Audrey Hepburn connection to Moon River and that's I think probably why she's tap dancing

to Moon River but like two years before this like the Mike Nichols Angels in America used Moon River to much much much better effect and I was just like well like not enough time has passed like the part where prior and Lewis are sort of slow dancing to Moon River in in a dream sequence and there I was just like okay well that like now you can't we've we've taken Moon River off of the board for the next several years yep the other one and maybe Chris you're my Fleetwood Mac guy, so maybe you would Is that the version of Big Love from the dance that they use on the soundtrack

to this movie? Oh, I completely forget. Because it's Lindsay Buckingham doing Big Love, and I feel like it just, I was, and I couldn't quite put my finger on, whether it was, because it's just like, this sounds so familiar to me, and the version of that song that I know is the one from the dance. And obviously, that's a live album. I think that would make sense, because like, Cameron Crow is not just going to give you

the, like, whatever, he's going to give you the special acoustic whatever. Yeah, that was like a bonus on this limited, you know. But it also made me feel like if you're going to give me Lindsay Buckingham in Act 1, you need to give me Stevie Nix in Act 3. And I just like, I wanted it. I wanted it.

They didn't get it. It was great. Was there anything else you guys wanted to bring up before we wrap up and move into the IMDB game? One, because I feel like I've dogged so hard on this movie, and I have to at least, you know, pay tribute to the part of me that used to defend loving this movie. One of the crazy things that is like,

why is this here that I actually do think brings like a texture to the movie that works and you guys are probably going to disagree is like all of this that's going on during this funeral is opposite a wedding there's this wedding that's happening the whole time in the background where it's like we meet Claire just like ends up at the bachelorette they love her they're they're all big fans the groom who's drunk and sobbing in the hallway and gets on the phone with Claire. Like, I like, that is an element that worked to me in terms of, like, the displacement of what it's like to, you know, go through a grieving process. And it's like how there can be these things that are totally normal that are just like you're confronted with that feel crazy. I will say what I liked about that, that whole stuff the best, because I do feel like ultimately it's, it's one more thing that they pinned to this, you know, pin the tail on the donkey of a

movie that, like, probably was ultimately the whole thing seems a little messy. But it made me feel like, oh, other people see some, this spark in Claire. And it's not just that she exists to, you know, make Drew's life better or to be this kind of like, this is where that's sort of like the angel thesis. I was like, well, it falls apart because like she's also, you know, these other women spend this whole sort of afternoon with her. And she's part of the Bachelor party and they love her and it's just like oh clearly this girl has she's one of those people who has a spark that sort of like draw people to her and it's just like okay that to me really helps at least sell her as a person more than you know i agree that i agree that it that it showed that

i'll say this though in terms of i i agree with you chris and and at first i was like i do like that there's this juxtaposition of of the wedding and the funeral but then the fucking groom gets drunk and says like life next to death next to life and you're like Cameron we get it we're watching the movie too we understand I guess it's just one of the moments where like the comedic vibe that he's going for finally works for me yeah I agree with that I mean the biggest thing that hit me about this yesterday was there's a good movie here like if if someone was able to I don't know give him notes if someone right you know what i mean if if with a little bit of distance a little bit of perspective i think you know there's a good movie to be made out of this which is part of why i

think i still have an affinity for because i'm like there's a movie somewhere in this that i kind think i could have loved well and i think in the in the annals of cameron crow's movies i think for me the fail big movie is vanilla sky but like there are there is a way to look at elizabeth town as a fail big movie that is almost more it's more his than it is you know vanilla sky and that to me at least makes it a fascinating document in that way and he's still licking his wounds from this I would say more than from vanilla sky I think so too I think so and it makes a lot of sense and I'm always still going to root for Cameron crow I think ultimately for a filmmaker who is you know showed himself to be you know very flawed in the last

decade, I still find him quite endearing in that sort of, in that way that I can never quite be a okay boomer about things, where I'm just like, you know, I find it, I do find a lot of that aspect of him really enduring. And again, I mean, he made almost famous, which is one of my very, very, very favorite movies of all time. So ultimately, like, he gets, he gets a lifetime pass to try and, like, get back to that as far as I'm concerned. I feel the exact same way about timber. Yeah. You know, I get it.

I got off that train at some point. But I understand the attachment to that too, though, for sure. Yeah. All right. My last note on Elizabeth Town is the whistling stingray shoe is named Spasmodica. Is Spasmodica the heterosexual chromatica? I can't answer these questions. Yeah, there's a boat going around some.

somewhere on a river in Kentucky called the spasmonica that like who would think that who wants to buy a shoe called the spas monica yeah it very much reminded me it was that simpson's episode where they let homer design a car right where it's just like there's a bubble top and there's wings and there's whatever and it's just like but again like part of me and i know that like you know business magazines cover you know business in a way that like the regular people aren't going to ever like care about anyway sure but this idea that like Nike he could make a shoe that was so bad that it would be like front page news

everywhere that you would know the name of the designer and it's like no we'd still basically be blaming Phil Knight for it like ultimately like Alec Baldwin's character is the one who like is going to go down for it and like clearly Drew's going to be fired but it's going to be fired because like shit rolls downhill kind of but like he's

not going to be the one on the cover of Forbes like it's absolutely going to be Alec Baldwin unfortunately my broken brain told me you know what the spasmodic launch day would be a fun day on Twitter. My brain is broken. It would have been, though.

It would have been. Oh, yeah, sneaker Twitter would have really, like, gone crazy that day. And then you'd have some asshole being like, actually, this best monica is a really important. The fuck off. All right, Chris, why don't you remind our listeners how the IMDB game works? Hey, guys.

Every week we end our episodes with the IMDB game, where we challenge each other with an actor or actress to try to guess the top four titles that IMDB says they are most known for any of those titles are television, voiceover performances, or non-acting credits, will mention that up front. After two wrong guesses, we get the remaining titles release years as a clue. And if that's not enough, it just becomes a free-for-all of hints, needle drops, and Relatives.

Clash scrapbooks. Yes. All right. Hold from Tumblr. All right. So, Phil, as our guest, we are going to give you first dibs as to who, who, you want to challenge with your pick for the IMDB game and whether

you would like to go first or last. Oh, boy. Okay. Well, I will challenge you, Joe. And, I mean, fuck it, I'll go first. Sure, why not. Okay. All right.

So who do you have for me? Tilda Swinton. Oh, all right. I'm into this. Famous Vanilla Sky Coast. Vanilla Sky Star, Tilda Swinton. I love that. All right.

So I feel like her Oscar win will probably be on there. So Michael Clayton is my first guess. Nope. Damn it. All right. One strike. Oh, boy. All right.

Now I've got to start to like the Marvel thing kicks in and like how many of her. Because she's in two Marvel movies. We used to avoid Marvel people and Harry Potter people. I'm sorry. I didn't know that. But like the algorithm is. changed. It doesn't show up as much as Yes. But I am going to guess

Dr. Strange. I feel like that's probably one of them. Nope. No? All right. All right. Well, that's two strikes. So now you've got to give me the years for all the ones that I have not gotten, which is all of them. So two of them are from 2013.

Okay. And then one is from 2011 and one's from 2018. All right. So that sort of kind of hopscotch is around the Wes Anderson's that I was going to try and guess. I will say this is not the, these might not be the four films that I would think she's most known for. This is, well, this is the, this is the great wonder of the IMBD game. I would have

guessed up for everybody. Yes, that's the other thing. Or even Moonrise Kingdom and not there either. Okay, so is the 2018 Susperia? Yes. Okay. What are the other years again? 2013 and 2011 2013 there are two 2013s and a 2011 2011 is going to be we need to talk about Kevin correct all right

2013's what the hell is going on in 2013 that she I will jump in here and say I think festival years might be throwing this off for you based off of US releases so lock yourself into 2013

early 2014 early 2014 but Grand Budapest I don't think the other one did a best Grand Budapest was not a festival premiere both very good movies both made by Oter filmmakers

okay all right it's too early for the Luca Guadino movie even though the other obviously Luca Guadino movie besides Asperia bigger splash

Amazing movie The hell is she doing in 2013 Oh, is one of them I Am Love? No That's earlier I believe she has a Critics Choice nomination

Yes, I believe so Wait, really? Oh, yes But it's not a bad call, not a bad call Is it Snowpiercer? That is one of them, yep Shit, wow Pierser, baby

Okay Okay. All right. So that was the one that was 2013, but actually made it into U.S. Theater in 2014. Okay. No, the other one I was thinking. Oh, so it's a, you're right. I'm not sure. It could be true of Snowpiercer, but I don't remember what that movie's festival run would have been if it had one. I feel like Snowpiercer came out in the States like a good while after it played a festival. The rest of the world, at least. Yes. Okay. So. I have a hint for you. Okay. I'll take it.

for this last one. She has played this role twice. I don't know if that helps you or hurts you, but I'll just say that the role she plays in this film, she has played again on a television show. Oh, on a television show. I don't even knew this. Oh, that makes sense, though.

That's great. I need to watch this show. Oh, God. It's a television show that, uh, that we were talking about recently, or texting about it. Oh, okay. Um, um, uh, what we do in the shadows. And the movie? And the movie is, um, um, uh, it's the vampire.

It's, it's, it's, uh, only lovers left alive. There you go. That part when she shows up in fucking what we do in the shadows as her only lovers left alive character, I freaking, screamed. It was amazing. It's a so... Oh my God. Chris, it's so funny. I forgot about that.

I forgot about that. I love Only Lovers Left Alive, too. I kind of love that that's... It really, really is. All right, that's an excellent one. Very, very good. Really challenging in ways that you wouldn't expect for Tilda Swinton. All right, excellent.

All right, Chris, I am going to give to you. So I... Yes. went with we talked about how almost famous is my favorite favorite cameron crow movie one of my favorite performances in a cameron crow movie beyond like obviously there's so many and almost famous but like a million people in that movie i ride for all of them excellent i ride for forouza balk and almost famous so hard because she's so fantastic i love her so much um as sapphire in that film and um has some of it one of my favorite my friend john and i

was talking about this together the part where it's her and billy crewed up as russell hammond towards the end where like things are dying down and the tour is coming to an end and she's talking about the new girls the new uh the new band-aids can you believe these new girls none of them use birth control and they eat all the steak

such a great line um so Chris you are now going to guess the known for for Fruza bulk okay um the craft indeed the craft almost famous

yes almost famous the water boy no that's a very good guess but it's not the water boy American History X yes the other 1998 movie that she did that year

fantastic all right so you've got three correct and only one wrong answer what the Rebecca Miller movie Personal Velocity no but that's also a really good guess all right so that's two strikes

so you're missing film and I think this will probably give it to you is from 1985. Oh. 185, so she... Oh, uh, return to Oz.

Return to Oz. Return to Oz. Traumatizing. Thank you. That movie freaked me out. Yeah, terrible. It was so dark. Yeah.

Although I should watch it again. Um, but yeah. Who directed them? Oh, I love Perusipal. I do too. She's super fantastic. Um, directed by Walter Merck.

All right, so I am giving to Phil. Usually, I go through less chaotic routes to find a person. I figured since we were doing Elizabeth Town, it's a town full of Elizabeths. I, you know, I researched a bunch of different Elizabeth options, and for you, I have come up with Elizabeth Berkley. Oh, boy. There is no television. Oh, wow. Oh, my.

Okay. Well, I mean show girls. Showgirls, of course. Oh, boy. I'm trying to think of other movies with Berkeley's been in. Chris, this is insane. This is really hard. Okay.

I feel like I can see her in something else, but I'm, God, damn it. So there's no TV. So Saved by the Bell is not on there. No TV. Oh, man. I don't know if I know any other Elizabeth Berkeley movies. All right. I'm going to start with some hints.

I picked Elizabeth Berkeley for a specific reason for you. Oh, Jesus. Okay. Perhaps because I'm not giving you this hint yet because you haven't had a second wrong answer yet. But because of the name. of your podcast. There might be something on here. Is she in a 99 movie? She indeed is. Oh, my God. Now I feel even worse about this. Because I don't think she's been in one that we've covered so far. I feel like you've probably done this movie already. I'd be surprised if you haven't done this movie.

Oh, boy. Okay. Is she playing herself? No. Okay. Because I thought maybe she was in, like, the muse or something like that. You have done this episode back in 2018. Oh, Jesus. Yes. I feel really bad about this now.

Okay. You shouldn't because, like, she's not really well-known for this movie, but it's, like, it's a major attour, but it's not one of his, like, major movies. Okay. It was a Christmas release. Oh, is she in any given sense? Yes. She is indeed in any given someday. Okay. Okay. Yes. Okay. Yeah, she plays, right. She's like having sex with Al Pacino. It's super weird. Oh, God. He's like a prostitute or something like that. Okay. Oh, God. Okay. So, I'll go ahead and give you your other years. Your other years are 1996, so the year after showgirls and 2001. Okay. The year after show girls, I feel like, and maybe I'm making this up.

but I feel like she was in, like, an action movie or something. No, this is a comedy, and I think her casting is definitely very aware of the whole showgirls of it all. This is a female-led comedy. A very successful female-led comedy, I will say. Very big hit. Okay. It's a female-led comedy. It's a very big hit.

It's in 1986. There was sequel talk, but there was also talk that the stars didn't get along while filming, so that's maybe why there wasn't a sequel. Okay. They all reunited at the Oscars to present one of the greatest original song lineups at all the time. My God. A big female comedy led... So it was an ensemble?

Yes, with like... Yes, but it's a trio of women at the forefront. one of whom has like a very very very definite connection to one of Cameron Crow's actresses that he's cast is this like a is it a Kate Hudson thing keep following that how would how would this actress be connected to Kate Hudson yeah who's the actress that's most prominently connected to Kate Hudson oh is she in First Wives Club yes yes First Wives Club

I didn't know she was in that She plays the woman that Goldie Hawn's husband, who I believe is Victor Carber, he's having an affair with. Victor Carper? Yes. Yeah. I'm Monique, and you can play my mom. Yeah. Okay, so 2001 is when the next one is?

2001. Okay, let's, um, uh, what are one of the other lead actresses of the movie we were just talking about? Okay, Bedmither or Diane Keaton? yeah Diane Keaton 2001 what's maybe one of

Diane Keaton's more problematic connections oh is it a Woody Allen movie it is indeed a Woody Allen movie

2001 she in small time crooks not small time crooks Hollywood ending you're really no that's

Deborah messing yeah you're you're circling the block around oh she's got like curse of the jade scorpion curse of the jade

scorpion oh my that's a real murderer's row of four movies let me tell you i yeah that is crazy i never saw a curse of the jade scorpion that was when i tried i was seeing all of those woody allen movies in that era but i did not see that one for whatever reason that is interesting she's i gotta say i mean obviously there's been a reclamation on on showgirls many many times over and and i do like i don't want to say I feel sorry for Elizabeth Berk because that's the wrong way to put it. Like, I just feel like she didn't get a fair shot.

Was it, I don't think it was during COVID, but I think it was like before COVID where they do in L.A., I guess, those like graveyard screenings where they have people show up. And she showed up and like, it makes me almost emotional to talk about it. She showed up for showgirls and like, you know, talked a little bit about how she, you know, had such a fraught relationship with the movie, but like now she appreciates how much it makes people happy and they enjoy it. And like she, like, it got a bunch of publicity because she showed up and like, of course, it's like basically a rowdy screening and she had a good time. I'll say this also. She seems to be having a really good time on the new Save by the Bell. And I think she's really good on it. And I'm happy for her for that. So I think she's, you know,

Yeah, I guess it's just one of those It's so unfortunate that show rules was received The Way It was received for a bunch of reasons I mean, that movie is I think Does have some problematic issues Like I do think there's some stuff going on in that movie That I think is not good But I also just feel like

She just really got taken the task for it Well, even with the appreciation for the movie It still is kind of largely at her expense like it's for as much as like people are just like Paul Verhoven secret masterpiece yada yada yada and it's just like oh but like even still like Elizabeth Berkeley is terrible in it it was just like oh yeah nobody's saying secret brilliant performance right and there's also the

it does feel like the the most memed saved by the bell clip is that is her on yes that's true that is very true yeah but I think she both she and Mario Lopez I think are doing are doing very funny work which is a show that like I was very prepared to just like completely set aside and it turned out to be very funny

so I was happy with that. Thank you Phil for taking the time to talk to us about this movie. Thank you for bringing Elizabeth Town to the table. I of course adore your podcast so tell all our listeners where they can where they can find it. Well first and foremost thank you so much

for having me on to talk with this movie. I know that you know this is probably not one that you guys were super excited to talk about But I, but I, oh my God, no, I was very excited to get into this movie. So I, I really do appreciate the opportunity to, to, to fight for it a little bit, at least for the things that I did like. But, yes, our podcast, myself and Kenny Nybar, we have a podcast about podcasts like it's 1999, where we talk about all the pop culture from 99. We also have a Patreon called podcast like it's 19809, where we are talking about, you know, the bigger releases from 1989. Joe has been on for

Deadcom he's on our will be on the 89 patron dot com and he was also on for other than the messenger why do I feel like

you came up for another movie am I crazy well I've done a couple of West Wings with you the West Wings that's what was yeah so yeah you can you can hear

you can hear them on that podcast and it's on you know all the various ways that you listen to podcasts exactly you guys know where to find podcasts by now. So yes. All right. Thank you again so much, Phil. That is our episode. If you want more, This Had Oscar Buzz, you can check out the Tumblr at this had oscarbuzz.tomber.com.

You should also follow our Twitter account at Had underscore Oscar underscore Buzz. Chris, where can the listeners find you in your stuff? You can find me on Twitter and Letterbox at Chris V-File. That is F-E-I-L. I am on Twitter at Joe Reed, read-spelled R-E-I-D. I am also on letterboxed as Joe Reed read spelled the exact same way. We would like to thank Kyle Cummings for his fantastic artwork and Dave Gonzalez and Gavin Mavius for their technical guidance. Please remember to rate, like, and review us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, wherever else you get podcasts. A five-star review in particular really helps us out with Apple Podcast's visibility. So cue up Moon River and tap us out some nice words, won't you? That is all for this week,

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