WHAT WENT WRONG - Featurette: Drop Dead Gorgeous (with Ruined)

Episode Date: August 28, 2026

‘Drop Dead Gorgeous’ was supposed to be a big break for first time feature writer Lona Williams and first time feature director Michael Patrick Jann… except they couldn’t agree on anything. Difficulties with the film’s biggest star, Kirstie Alley, and a lawsuit from Dairy Queen didn’t help. In this bonus Featurette, Halle Kiefer from the Ruined podcast joins Chris and Lizzie to break down this 1999 box office bomb that somehow became a cult classic. Discover why Lona wasn’t allowed to play the role she’d written for herself, how Kirsten Dunst got cast, and why we have this movie to thank for Amy Adams’ career! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello, dear listeners, and welcome back to another bonus episode of your favorite podcast, Full Stop. That's right, what went wrong that just so happens to be about movies and how it's nearly impossible to make them, let alone a good one, let alone a great one, let alone a movie that calls into question whether or not America's a meritocracy at all or if it's just better to be lucky. As always, I'm Chris Winterbauer, joined here by Lizzie Bassett, who's going to be guiding us through today's fantastically funny. film. Lizzie, who do we have with us for this journey? I'm very excited. We have Hallie Kiefer from Ruined here with us today. Hi. Hi. Thank you for having me. Thank you so much for being here. Before we dive into the movie that we're all, I think, very excited to talk about today, although I don't want to presume. No, no, go ahead and presume. Love this movie. Okay. Can you tell us a little bit about your show and what the format is? Absolutely. So I host Ruin

with my dear friend and colleague Alison Libby. We were doing it. It's almost six years now. We worked on it for a couple of years before it came out. And it's built on a friendship where Alison cannot watch horror movies at all. She gets horrific, vivid nightmares. And I at this point almost exclusively watch horror movies, which is its own issue. But what's nice is I'm never going to spoil it for her.

So each episode of Ruin is me recapping a horror movie. And at this point, I've trained Alison. in this is like been a psychological experiment where now we have her sort of try to guess what's happening. And I feel like her guesses have surpassed where we're at with horror right now where I'm like, oh, like you've now, you know enough that like now we have genuinely new great ideas. So yeah, I feel like it's for people who can't watch horror and also people who like to relisten to the plot of horror movies, which I do as well. So a little something for everybody. It's really fun. It's a great show. You all should check it out if you have not already.

As a horror fan, I definitely enjoy it. And just a little fun fact. I, made the mistake of thinking that, you know, maybe it was like a little bit of a bit for the show that she was unable to watch these movies. I was wrong. I chose a movie that was wholly inappropriate for this initially. And then I was like, I've made a horrible mistake. I'm so sorry.

We're going to do draft tag gorgeous. Well, it's interesting. And I think like the secret of mine and Allison's success, it is that she's really not a horror person. So I feel like if she was, it's a different dynamic, she can't watch it. She can't, like, even some of the trailers, because it really is like the imagery.

and then it disrupts her sleep, which I think is so, like, now that I've done this podcast, I've met so many people like that, or it is genuinely like the images replay. I can watch humans said to me three and go to sleep and it wouldn't bother me at all. Sleep like a baby. Yeah, but it's good. We have that dynamic. It's amazing. So everyone go listen to that show.

It's really, really fun. And again, that's ruined. All right. Well, I think we should get into what we're talking about today, which, of course, is not a horror movie. So you're getting a little bit of a break, although it does feature some horrors. would argue. There's a moment now, and I think, like, I obviously saw this when it came out in 1999, but now I'm in my 40s, and there is a moment towards the end where I'm, like, genuinely like, this is sad. I'm just like, you know, when you think about it, and also the America of it all,

I'm like, wow, really got us dead to rights. Yeah. They really did. Yeah. We are, of course, talking about Drop Dead Gorgeous. And before we get into the story behind Drop Dead Gorgeous, which is actually really interesting, I'll start with you, Hallie. What was your experience? What was your experience? with this movie prior to re-watching it for the podcast, and then what did you feel re-watching it for today's episode? I love this movie. This, to me, is one of my top comfort rewatches. I will say I then, I think during the pandemic,

showed it to some people, and they didn't like it. And I think it really made me pause and be like, wow, do I, is this like maybe like a time capsule? You didn't mean, like maybe it doesn't really hold up. But now I'm seeing it, again, I'm like, nah, this is, you know. Well, yeah, I mean, it's both. It's both a time capsule. as you mentioned, and I think in other ways it does hold up extremely well and is prescient in certain ways.

I mean, Will Sassau's performance in this movie is part of kind of a run of movies that used disabled characters to comedic ends. And the use of the incessant use of the R word in this movie by today's standards, I think feels very shocking, although it was very consistent, at least with my experience growing up and coming of age in the 90s and 2000s. Also, it's just like so funny. As we enter Woke 2.0, hopefully, it is so funny. It's like, no, it is good. We stopped saying that or using gay as like an insult because we were doing it every other word.

Like, it's so crazy. But love this movie. A murderer's row of a cast. The fact that Amy Adams is just like one of the other girls in the pageant is so funny. They're all excellent at it. Kirstie Allie is so funny. This is her and Denise Richards, incredible.

So loved it when I saw it. had a moment of uncertainty, seeing it again. Nothing doesn't have his flaws, but I'm like, this is great. It's great as a mockumentary. Like, it's just hitting, other than some moments, which we'll talk about, I'm sure. I think really hitting this on all cylinders. Chris, what about you? I generally agree.

I always liked this movie. The first time I ever saw, even a scene from it, because I was 10 and 99, I believe, our mutual friend, Andy Shepard, I was at his house and his older sister. He had sisters who were, like, a few years older than us. They were watching it, and it was a scene where John Doe has... Also hilarious that his last name didn't remember that. Yeah, he was watching them do their practice... Ladder Dance.

And he's got the camera that he keeps in his car for car accidents and documentaries. And he keeps saying the young girls. And I didn't really understand it, you know what I mean, at age 10? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Good, you shouldn't. You know what I mean? But I did appreciate when one of them lands on their crotch. And it was actually the first... It was actually an important moment. I had seen so many times men being hit in the nuts in movies,

and I had not seen a woman get hit in the groin. And I thought, oh, that's great. That's funny. I didn't know that was a thing, too. It's also very funny. Yeah, it also hurts. I'm sure it does. And then I saw it at some point, and I think in college,

and I couldn't believe how dark it was. And then re-watching it again, it's very funny. As you mentioned, the cast is incredible. Kirsten Dunst, as Amber Atkins. You mentioned Denise Richards. she should have gotten 25 these roles across her career. Also, bring her back. Yeah.

I just watched Wild Things at Loz-Fieless 3. Last weekend, she's so good. She was always good as the villain. Yep. Yes, like, she knows exactly what she's doing. She's great in this movie. And she and Christy Allie are, like, such a duo. Like, they are so good together.

Oh, Kirsti Alli is fantastic. She's overqualified. You know what I mean for this? Yeah. She's so devilish and, her eyebrows are so amazing. Ellen Barkin is really great. Alison Janie, of course.

This was my introduction to Alison Janney, who looks the same now as she did then. Doesn't she? Yeah, you're absolutely right. But even like Britney Murphy, you know, is really fun in this. And we talked about her in Clueless. And then Amy Adams,

as you mentioned, is the horniest character in the whole thing. It's so funny. They won't perform naked, I asked. Like, there's so many little throwaway lines from her that are very funny. Well, we'll talk about it

because there's a line, I think, that Britney Murphy says, that it's like, just reveals her whole character backstory. Yeah, they only had me because Peter needed a kidney. Like, that's so good. Yeah. And also just, it made me so mad being like, I want more comedies. Yeah.

And also, like, a comedy in which these, not that every character is fully fleshed out, we'll talk about the girl adopted by her Japanese parents. That's the only one. I'm like, huh. Right, because even like, girl whose whole personality is dog. That was a girl in high. Yeah, that's the German Shepherd girl. That's accurate.

It's my fault. I did have the beef jerking in my pocket. That would be David, by the way. We have the male version of that on our podcast as David. If his cue could rip his arm off and be like, I had it coming. That's a dog person for you. And sorry, the last thing I'll say, I do think it's actually kind of a searing indictment of the myth we tell ourselves about America. It's a great, picker-ass story. It does. And about success. It's better to be lucky, you know. And I think that it's a movie about how you cannot control fate ultimately, because no matter all, no matter what the machinations of ultimately revealed Kirstie

Ali or Amber Atkins are, the company goes bankrupt, and nobody could have done anything about it anyway. And it was all pointless. It's like a darkly funny inverted Forrest Gump in certain ways. Yeah, because much like in Forrest Gump, Kirsten Dunst's character, she's our proof that, like, you can remain the same person and then you can achieve your dreams. Not so pretty much everybody else is either killed or maimed or...

Yeah. Missing in the Philippines. Like, I'm just like, Jesus Christ. Yeah, you get one. But also, that is America, too, where it's just like, there are people who can, like... And I hate to bring up Donald Trump. But, like, there are some people who, like, force of will are able to get to where they want to go.

It's just, like, for many people where they shouldn't want to go there. And when they get there, what they're going to do, it's not good. Yeah. Yeah, so, like, that's why she's such a great protest. It's like she is like has this hope beyond like what all of reality is showing her is true. Yeah. Yeah. But broadly speaking, I think sometimes the tone and whether or not that's the director,

who I'm sure we'll talk about with his background, with the state and stuff, or if it's the writing, I don't know. Lizzie will tell us. Sometimes it feels like the movie skews too broad for the, for me or like for the tone that it seems to want to sit in. But the cast is so good that they always pull it back down to earth for me. So I really loved it. Yeah, the dynamic between the director, Michael Patrick, Jan, and the writer, I believe, Lana Williams, or Lona Williams. I think Lana is very interesting. And we're going to talk about that quite a bit over the course of the episode.

She is in it. And I did know that when watching, but I didn't know the backstory of it, which is interesting and also a bit sad. My experience with this movie is, I think similar to what all three of us have said, which is that I saw this when I was probably, 10, 11 years old, like too young to really get it. And then we just watched it over and over and over and over again with my friends, with my mom. Like, we loved this movie. We owned it on DVD. I could, I could, and honestly, probably still can, recite most of this movie from memory. And then, Chris, I think it was your birthday trip to Joshua Tree several years ago. And we, I was like, we have to watch this movie because one of our friends had a DVD copy of it. And we put it on. And I hadn't seen it in probably 10 years at that point when we put it on. And as it started, I was like, oh, no, is this movie like horrifically offensive?

And are none of these people ever going to speak to me again? I mean, it's pretty offensive that we watched this. By today's standards. So that's okay. Yeah. So I remember that being a somewhat uncomfortable viewing because I started questioning myself and being like, God, am I a horrible person that I've found drop-dead gorgeous funny for all these years? And you've come back around and I've decided, no, I'm fine.

Well, it's kind of like strangers with candy where it's like it's offensive, but like it's by design. And also I think most topics, it's like you can joke about it if it's funny enough to pull it off. But like this movie does require your buy-in, you know. I will say there's one, you know, there's many elements of this that would never happen today that are obviously very offensive. But that I kind of will still stand by in the context of this movie. I'm not saying that they're good, but they don't bother me necessarily. the one that upon this rewatch, I was just like,

this was completely unnecessary and honestly not funny is the American girl who is adopted by the Japanese family. I was just like, what is the point of this? Wait, it's not funny enough to like, it's just not funny. No.

And so you're just like, is this like a specific person? Like, it's almost like we don't have even a reference to that. Like everything else that's kind of offensive. It's like we're referencing something for reality. That's an example of like, what do you think is funny about this?

Because this is not like a thing. Oh, just straight up racism. Yeah, and I do think there is a certain type of white woman that has like a specific blind spot around Asian racism. That's what I take. I'm like, you're very smart and very observant. The fact that you thought this was funny on its face seems like a blind spot that like we now don't have. Well, clearly I had it when I watched it over and over again when I was, you know, 15, 16 years old. But you're 15. But you're 15. I know. That is the one thing where I'm like, you know, this does this, this takes a notch out of this movie.

for me, unfortunately. I still really love this movie. I think that there's so many things about it that I think are really remarkable, including the fact that the popular girls don't win. The popular girl gets blown up. Like, this isn't even Heather's because in Heather's, she kind of manages to, it's the mean girls thing. She manages to become a popular girl. And then it's kind of like everybody's on the same level. That's not what this is at all. This is just total chaos. And it's very dark. And I feel like that's unusual, particularly for movies about teenagers and teenage girls. And I very much enjoy it. I also just love the way that it depicts a small town because small towns are so weird and wonderful. And this movie does an excellent job of it. All right, well, let's get into the details. So Drop-Deg Gorgeous was released in 1999, quite a year for movies, as we have discussed. It was directed by Michael Patrick Jan, written by Lana Williams.

It had a budget of around $15 million, and it starred Kirsten Dunst, Denise Richards, Kirsty Allie, Ellen Barkin, Allison Janney, Brittany Murphy, Mindy Sterling, Amy Adams, and so, so many more. I do have to shout out Will Sassau. That's one of the things where I'm like, I know we can't do this anymore, but...

See, that's the part of the movie that I was like over it. Really? But also, like, it was funny because he's a great performer versus, like, the anti-Asian racist is just boring. I agree. That's like when I'm like, we never have to do this again, in my opinion. We shouldn't ever do it again. He is a very funny performer. But yes, I agree. And I understand people are going to be like, you're a horrible person for saying that that it's funny.

And let me just say this as again, I would think a lot about this as someone who just has to write political comedy all day. These are time capsules. Like, so it's like, it's not like we can't look back on it. But like, I'm looking back on it. Like, yeah, it's good. We don't do this anymore. You know what I mean? 100%. Versus feeling bad about like laughing at it now. I almost feel like, there's no point to it. You know what I mean? Thank you. I feel validated. All right. Our IMDB logline, as always, is a small town beauty pageant turns deadly as it becomes clear that someone will go to any lengths to win. All right. Our main sources for today are Lewis Pitesman's 15-year oral history for

BuzzFeed and the 20th anniversary interview with Indy Wire and then also a great interview with Mindy Sterling for women in comedy. Okay, let's dive in. Our story today begins in Rose Month. Minnesota, where a nice young lady named Lana Williams was doing what any nice young lady in Rosemont, Minnesota does. She was competing in a pageant. She said, there was a pageant that everybody did as a junior in high school. It literally was that everybody does it, except for a few fry girls didn't do it. When you look back on it, it was wacky. There were crazy talents that everybody did, but you didn't really think much of it. The year was 1985, and Lana Williams did well enough to become Minnesota's junior miss.

She went on to the Nationals, where she finished as runner-up and won a $10,000 scholarship, but she was not in it for the love of the game. Just like Amber Atkins, she viewed pageants as a way to escape her small Midwestern town. And when she won the scholarship, that is what she did. She goes off to University of Minnesota. She took a screenwriting course there, and one of her professors encouraged her, of course, to move to California. She decides to give it a shot and seriously pursue.

screenwriting. And very quickly, she landed a job in L.A. as a writer's assistant on the Tracy Alman Show. Now, here's where it gets interesting. She met a writer-producer named Jerry Belson. He got her in as a writer's assistant at The Simpsons, which of course began as shorts on the Tracy Allman Show. Incredible. Yes. So I don't know if you guys are familiar with this. I wasn't prior to researching for this episode, but Jerry Belson wrote a movie called Smile, which came out in 1975. There is actually a lot of discourse online about the idea that Williams ripped off smile for Drop-Deg Gorgeous. It is a movie about a teen beauty pageant in Santa Rosa, California. You actually can't rent it. I was able to kind of piece together most chunks of it online

through being able to watch it in pieces. It's very good. I don't know that I agree with how many of the reviews and comments have said that this is a total rip of this movie. It does not feel like that. It definitely feels possible that, or likely, that she saw this and was like, wait a minute, I lived that, and I could do this from the teenage girls perspective, which is what I think she does with Drop Dead Gorgeous. And in some ways, does it a bit better, I think. Smile has almost like a Robert Altman quality to it. It's funny, but it's not slapstick. And also, it's mostly focused on the like middle-aged men who are judging the pageant and not in a creepy way they're just like more the characters that it's following than the girls so all that being said it's an

interesting crossing of streams there between her and jerry belson i do not buy in to the ideology that she stole the idea for drop-dead gorgeous having watched it that does not add up to me it feels like what sometimes people rush to say certain horror movies are too similar and it's like it's horror. There are, there are tropes to it. So it's like, it's like we can only have X number of movies about a beauty pageant. Like, it's almost like, like, wrestling or something where it's like, there's a lot of different situations where a great movie would be made out of this. So again, I guess I'd have to see Smile. It's good, but it doesn't, it's a variation on an existing theme. That seems interesting. I'm with you 100%. So we'll leave that there. William said that when she was on The Simpsons,

she basically just felt like the typist. Like, that was her job. But even if she was just transcribing, she was still absorbing so much about screenwriting. And she also wrote a ton of spec scripts while she was there, she voiced a few Simpsons characters, including Amber Dempsey in the pageant episode, Lisa the Beauty Queen. And then she went off to work as a staff writer on someone like me, which was short-lived, and then eventually the Drew Carey show, where she worked as a writer and producer for quite a long time from 95 to 2004. And during this time, she wrote a spec script called Dairy Queen's, based heavily on her own experiences in the small town pageant world. And Chris, just in case anybody is not familiar, are you able to explain sort of what a spec script is, or

or at least was, because I know that it's sort of different now. Yeah, so a spec strip is literally just a script that you write speculatively. You're doing all of the work yourself. You haven't been commissioned to do this. You're not being paid to do it up front. For the most part, they're used as samples as reference material to try to get other jobs. Spec scripts, you know, statistically rarely sell. They do, obviously, sometimes.

And even if you do get on something like the Blacklist nowadays, again, most of the time that's a signaling event, most of those movies don't get made. There used to be more of a phenomenon where you would write specs of existing television shows to try to get staffed on those shows. My understanding is that's not done as frequently now. I have not seen requests for that. Although Katie Dippold, who did Wadows Bay, I believe Wadows Bay kind of started as a Parks and Rec spec script originally. But that might not be 100% correct. Oh, interesting.

Yeah. So typically the spec script is a, you're trying to show your voice. and it's very personal in many instances. Well, that makes a lot of sense because what she wrote was based on so many things that she herself experienced when doing the pageant circuit. By the way, that ladder dance, she said that was real.

She said we used little ladders in our dance at Nationals, which is just a fucking nightmare. That's the worst thing to ever use on stage to haul around and dance with. Yeah, it's rickety little ladders. The fact that they never break, they just keep going with the paint the whole time. It's amazing.

they're just using legit turpentine on their skin afterwards is also hilarious. It's so funny. That might be one of my favorite numbers in the entire thing is when they're just more and more covered in paint as they keep going. During this time, she also took classes at the Groundlings, which is where she met Mindy Sterling, who of course, she plays Iris Clark in this movie. And then in the same year, she played Frau Farbizina in Austin Powers. It's a pretty banger of a year for Mindy. So good. She's so funny. She really is. And this script called Dairy Queens caught the eye of Michael Patrick Jan, who was a young comedy director looking for his first feature. Now, he'd come out of NYU as part

of a comedy group, the new group, which was full of other students including Thomas Lennon, Ken Marino, Michael Showalter, Carrie Kenny Silver, David Wayne, and more. After graduation, the troupe continued performing, including an off-Broadway show that, of course, caught the attention of some talent agents who encouraged them to change their name to, the state. Chris, you brought this up. Do you remember the state when it was on MTV? Can you explain this? I don't remember the state. My first experience with them was wet hot American summer. Do you remember, Hallie? I didn't watch them. I don't know why because I was obsessed with comedy at the time that, like, I would have been watching them. I don't know what, like, they are my

comedy blind spot, I feel like. I know them now. I know they're individual members, like, since then, but the actual initial thing. There was like Mad TV and them and in living color and SNL. And it was just like, there was a lot, you know what I mean, going on at the time. Yes, yeah, way more sketch comedy, yeah. So I watched Mad TV quite a bit growing up, and then I also watched Reno 9-1-1, which, as we'll learn, morphs out of this group. But I also didn't see the state, which makes sense we were too young to have watched it. And also, it didn't do very well. So what happened is their sketch group, the state, was picked up by MTV.

And even though MTV had bought the pilot, as is often the case, they maybe didn't really want what they had actually bought. So they started asking for a ton of changes to the material to make it more appealing. to younger audiences and basically kind of dumb it down. And Jan is not happy about this. So the show received pretty mixed to, in some cases, kind of bad reviews and only ran from January of 94 to August of 95. Now, as I mentioned, many of his co-stars went off to create Reno 9-1-1, which I loved. Well, the Cops references in this are pretty good, too.

And the payoff when cops shows up and they all know each other is also. Oh, excellent. What a funny moment. Very funny. That's so good. Made us laugh so hard when they're showing. shaking hands with all the cops, camera men. Of course, also you mentioned Wet Hot American Summer. That's also born out of this group. But Jan went on to Drop Dead Gorgeous. Now, he loved the script,

especially how unconventional it was. He said, I felt like it just wouldn't be like anything else. And that was really attractive to me. Deliberately or not, it undoes the idea of a story. It refuses to be the story that it sets out to be. I agree. It's pitched sort of, or it's set up, as this like girl versus girl competition, and it ends up being about the emptiness of success and the American dream. So when he took it to New Line, Chris, you'll like this. His pitch was, this is for everybody who saw Clueless

and was like, fuck them. What do they have against Clueless? I don't know. Clueless is great. I feel like Clueless was everybody who saw, she saw all that and said, fuck them, although Clueless came out first. So whatever.

Don't be smirch and Clueless. I know. Because I also feel like it does have, like, what Clueless also have, which is, like, depictions of relationships between women and girls that is actually very, like, very, like, thoughtful and tender. I agree. And it's like, they are rich,

and so it is more about that, but also that's kind of what Clueless is about. Like, that's an important element of the movie. But other than that, it's like, listen, as someone who was 14 or 15 when Drop Dead Gordas came out, and of course, slightly younger, when Cluez came out, still some of the best movies we got. I would, like, love them so

much. As a girl who was, like, a little younger or around that age, I'm like, not that this is my life, but like it speaks to something that is true and like the nice part about being a girl versus the idea that like there's some sort of animosity. Yeah. I don't know. Yeah, I agree. So he was very conscious that the mockumentary format had up to this point been pretty

dominated by Christopher Guest. So he didn't want to have the same kind of loose environment to this movie that you have with something like Waiting for Guffman or Best in Show. And according to him, he achieved that by really, meticulously framing drop-dead gorgeous. And also, there's not a lot of improv that's on camera, apparently. There's some that may have happened in rehearsal, but really everything is heavily scripted, which I think you can tell. And I love, I like it. Not everyone needs to be Christopher Guest. You know what I mean? Like, he could do it. And then what other people try to do, it's like,

writing them in, you know? All right. So the movie went into production with a screenwriter who, as we discussed, had never written a feature before, a director who had never directed a feature before, and also a producer named Gavin Pallone, apologies, if I've mispronounced your name, who had never produced a feature before. So let's talk briefly about him. He'd worked his way up the ranks at ICM to become a literary agent, which does not mean books.

It means you represent writers. And he actually at one point had applied for a job at the CIA, but he decided to stick to being an agent. And ICM got suspicious that he was planning to defect. They fired him. He moves on to another agency that merged with UTA, where he again rises to new heights, and again, they fire him this time for alleged inappropriate conduct, which he denies, they deny, it's a mess. He countersues, UTA settles. Now, I literally don't have time to go

through how many times this man has continued to be sued and countersued by UTA, but it is a wild amount. It is wild with both sides claiming unsafe free behavior. This was a crazy time to be an agent, I'm sure. Do you know what his production company is apparently called? What? Pariah. Oh, my God. I kind of like him for that. All right.

So in the midst of all these lawsuits, though, he decided to pivot from being an agent to a producing career, perhaps because he was tired of being sued by the agents. So he kicked off his new career pivot with Drop Dead Gorgeous. Since Drop Dead Gorgeous, he has produced quite a lot of well-known projects, including Zambi Land, Curbier Enthusiasm, many more. But here's the real fun fact, and the reason we're diving into him a little bit, is that according to Pallone himself,

he became really fascinated on this movie by the complicated mother-daughter relationships shown in Drop-Deggorgeous. And he starts ruminating on an idea for a TV series, one that would explore a very close mother-daughter relationship that was messy, but maybe less of them. Gilmore Girls. Oh, how funny.

Carmella's favorite show. Yep. I've never seen it. Oh, it's cute. It's good. He pitched the concept to Amy Sherman Palladino, and he has said Gilmore Girls wouldn't exist if I had not produced that movie referring to Drop Dead Gorgeous.

That's interesting. Amazing. Amy Sherman-Palladino also could write a Drop-Dad gorgeous. Yes. I feel like she could do that tone very well. She's very good at that. It would have had 500,000 more words in it, though, because everyone would have been talking at 100 miles per hour.

Yes. Quick sidebar. I read the pilot script for Bunheads, which was short-lived, but it was a good show. Yeah, I remember it. Because one of my producing professors in film school was the line producer on it. Anyway, we get the script. This is going to be wrong.

like 65 to 70 pages. And I thought, was this an hour-long show? And he goes, no, it's a half hour. Wow. And I was like, and no other writer, they would never accept a script that long from any other writer, but because it was Amy Sherman-Halladino, they knew the dialogue was going to be delivered so quickly that that would translate to 30 seconds a page, which is crazy. I also want to shout out to Amy Sherman Palli, her commitment to wearing a wacky hat. Oh, yeah. Yes. Every day is the Kentucky Derby for Amy Sherman-Balladena. It's also like she's not wearing a full, it's like she's wearing like a fairly normal outfit below the neck, and then a top hat. And it's like, no one's doing it like that. I never can. I never will. Never would. Couldn't try, but good for her. All right.

Well, right away, though, these three newbies, our writer, producer, and director were at odds, particularly Lana Williams was at odds with both of the men. She later told BuzzFeed of Jan, I just found him to be a bit of an asshole. I remember going out in the rain, crying, going to my rental car, like having a full body cry because I felt like, oh my God, this could get away and not turn out the way I see it. There were a couple things like that, and then I pulled myself together, but I really didn't favor him. He also told BuzzFeed, it was hard for Williams because she was really new to the whole thing. Sir, it sounds like you were too. Anyway, and there was a lot going on. There was a lot going on that I don't think she was entirely plugged into and reasons for

things to happen. I think I probably could have been nicer. As a 26-year-old, I was probably a little more like, no, we're fucking doing it this way. What are you talking about? I was maybe a tiny bit insensitive at that time in my life, which, like, I appreciate that he can recognize that that's, you know, he was doing the thing of like, you don't understand versus explaining to her what was actually going on, which is just never going to get you anywhere.

But they really did not see eye to eye on anything. And in fact, Williams had written a part for herself in the film. It was the candy striper in the hospital. Oh. Get the fuck out. What does you say? Unless you come back here with my smokes or whatever. What a nice, cool mint help if I shoved it up your ass.

Interesting. Yeah. You have a blessed day. But Gavin Pallone was the one who told her she was too old for the part. And she said, are you fucking kidding me? I wrote that for me. I can do a couple of lines. She was 32 years old.

She, of course, instead ended up playing who, Hallie? Our judge whose name escapes me, Gene Kangus. Gene Kangus, who does not have one line and is sexually harassed by her boss in the workplace, and is the saddest woman in this town, which that all

adds up now that you're telling this story. Yeah. And also you mentioned she has no lines in the film. That was also by design, because she was then considered a featured extra and was not paid. Oh, my God. I'm against this Gavin Pallone guy. He should be a pariah. Yeah, I mean, I don't love that. I just don't

love that they, you know, push her into this part, and then the part itself is such a, like, subjugation. Unfortunately, for me, knowing this, it makes that less funny, when initially I thought it was so funny that that was the writer of the movie. Oh, 100%. I love whenever either the writer-the-director is in a movie. I think that's so, like, such a funny thing. And to have that be your character, I'm like, that's hilarious.

It's also interesting that she probably overlapped with Charlie Kaufman on the Drew Carey Show, and Charlie Kaufman, an adaptation, which comes out two years after this, has written himself into the behind-the-scenes footage of being John Malkovich, being ignored by everybody on set in much the same way as her in this movie. Was that 99, too? Being John Malkovich was 99. Oh, wow. What a year.

All right. So Williams also really had wanted no name actors for all the roles because she wanted this to be a true documentary, which everybody was like, that's stupid. You know, like, we don't want people to think this is real. The Blair Witch Project did, of course, come out that year. So, you know, there was potentially a world where they could have done it. But obviously, New Line Cinema did need big names to sell it. So New Line, Jan, and Lana Williams reached a happy medium.

Aside from the main cast, the rest of the girls competing for the American team princess pageant were local hires from the Minneapolis area, which apparently made it easier to nail the authentic Midwestern look, which started with the eyebrows. Jan basically was like, listen, all these Hollywood girls are going to have these 90s, you know, super plucked thin. No eyebrows, period. And you can tell because Kirsten Dunst has that. Denise Richards has it to a certain extent. And then you see the ones that are definitely from Minnesota. And it's like, hell yeah. Also, like, what were we doing?

Give me a good, I want huge eyebrows. I know. It was a weird time for eyebrows. I'll take a unibrow over no eyebrows happily. Give me a frida. Give me a free to come. Absolutely. But you know what's weird is that the ones who have the super plucked thin eyebrows in this

actually look so much more dated than the ones who are just like girls that went to the casting call. Full brow has come back in a big way. But this is my favorite fun fact about this entire movie. One of those local hires, local girls for the pageant, was Amy Adams. Amy Adams, yeah. Incredible. You can tell. You can tell.

She's so good. Like, it's just really, it's wonderful. Also, I don't want to say this in a leering way. She's, like, jacked. She looks athletic as hell in this movie. Well, perfect for, like, a cheerleader. Yes, she looks like a legit cheer, like a very strong cheerleader. Yeah.

Yeah. So this was obviously her debut film. And she had begun her career as a dancer in a dinner theater in Colorado before she landed a job at the Chanheason Dinner Theater in Minneapolis, a restaurant, that showed musical theater and cabaret performances while dining. and she also, on the side, was picking up extra shifts working at Hooters. Amazing. She said, quote, it was a really good job because at the time minimum wage was $3.85,

and they were willing to pay $7 to the hostesses. And that, for me, saving up for a car and being a dancer, I ran around in tights and a leotard all day long anyway. I learned that there was a difference between dance class and Hooters, though, very quickly. Shout out to Hooters' Waitresses, especially the ones who there was an article written by a gentleman And who was gay and his dad maybe could sense that would repeatedly take him to Hooters. But then all the women there who worked there, like knew he was gay and just, like, treated him wonderfully. And he very much appreciated them.

Also, shout out Amy Adams and Junebug. She's so good in that movie. Yes, she's amazing. Also, shout out Hooters. The Wings are pretty good. I don't think I've ever been, but I've heard that about the wings. They're kind of good. Listen, I'm not against Hooters.

I know several people who have worked for Hooters, and it was, like, a pretty good. decent job in some ways. In some ways, it was horrible, obviously, and I'm not standing behind the idea that you should have a restaurant that is focused entirely on ogling women's breasts and legs. Well, and also just the name Hooters is very funny. It's funny. They had an airline for a while. It's so weird. Yeah, you can look it up. But I think this ties into like, America is such a strange place. It's weird. We're weird. Lizzie, have you seen the bikini coffee stands in Seattle? Oh, my God. So that was one of our odd things growing up. We had these bikini coffee stands.

There was just a coffee stand, a little kiosk in the middle of nowhere, and there were just, like, young women in bikinis running them. It's like a tent. It's like a glorified shed. Yeah, it's a yurt, basically. Yeah. It's really odd. It's like cold.

You know, it doesn't make sense. I think I didn't end up going with this one, like, outside Fresno that we were in the area. I'm like, I guess we could go, but, you know, next time. Next time. A must see. So Amy Adams, of course, saw the casting call for Dairy Queens, still the title of this movie, aster audition and was cast immediately. Now, as for the names, Kirsten Dunst at this point was obviously already a huge star,

Interview with the Vampire, Little Women, Jumongi. Virgin suicides right around this time, maybe? Had filmed but hadn't come out. But Jan actually cast her based on her performance on Celebrity Jeopardy. Fun fact, she got the Anne Rice question wrong. Oh, that's so funny. He still cast her. He just, he said she seemed very sweet and normal, and he said, quote, that's the girl who can grab the microphone out of the dead reporter's hand and joyfully keep reporting with no guile.

Just true. She's so good. She's very young when they film this. I believe she's actually 16 or 17 years old. Now, Denise Richards was not 16 years old. She was 28, and she looks at. Yeah. She was riding high from Wild Things, of course. And I genuinely think she has been underserved by Hollywood her entire career. Absolutely. Couldn't agree more. Having just watched Wild Things recently, in this movie. She's so good, so funny. Yeah, she's not a bad actor. Like, the idea that Denise Richards is bad is she's been miscast her entire career.

Well, I mean, if you cast her as Dr. Christmas Jones, nuclear scientist in... What is it, die another day, or which one is that one? The world is not enough, I think. Yes. Again, it's like that you're pigeonholing her. She could do a lot more. No, but could she have been the Bond villain?

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Could she have been in Austin Power? hours. Yes. She would have been perfect. Absolutely. A lot of vaginas. A lot of vaginas. She could have crushed.

I mean, and again, I like Heather Graham, but I always thought, Heather Graham, we need a different energy. Like, this is just not meshing with. She was too innocent. Yeah. She's, Heather Graham is guileless in the way that Kristen Dunst is. And then Beyonce, because she's 18 in the, they have to make it so clear if they're not fucking that it's like, when you see them interact, it's like, oh, yeah, no, that would be insane. You know what I mean? All right. So Allison Janney actually got the role following a recommendation from Brittany Murphy, who had already been cast. They had started together on Broadway in A View from the Bridge, great play.

And Murphy said, you got to cast this woman. She's fantastic. Yeah, I mean, amazing. Murphy, of course, was a much bigger star. She's coming off of Clueless. She also had Girl Interrupted come out this same year. This was Peak Britney Murphy. I just, she was so good.

She's another one. We've talked about this when we did Clueless, but, like, she ends up taking a turn shortly after this, where she just gets miscast for the rest of her, unfortunately, very short career. but she was so funny and she's so funny in this. That laugh that she does, here's Peter as Liza. Probably my favorite, whether they were doing the interview montage, and they just play her laugh for like 20 seconds, is so good. And she's just so naturally charming.

Like, she is a star, like, obviously. She's so great. Alison Janie, though, was not a big enough actress at the time to be invited to the premiere in 99, which I guess also meant that she wasn't even on the poster. That's crazy. Now, of course, the West Wing, which broke her out big time, premiered in September of 1999, shortly following Drop Dead Gorgeous.

So that would all change. And she has said that of Drop Dead Gorgeous, it's the thing that people come out of the blue to me and say, oh, my God, I absolutely loved you in. And I'm thinking they're going to say, Mom, or the West Wing, but instead, it's Drop Dead Gorgeous. She's so funny. Are we on Cops again? Hi. I think she has some of the only actually improvised lines in the movie.

I believe when she looks at the camera and says, I got some. I think that that was off the cuff, which is so funny. So they actually wanted Goldie Hawn for Ellen Barkin's role as Amber's mom. I'm not sure why that didn't happen, but they ended up with Ellen Barkin, who is wonderful. Perfect. She was only on set for about two weeks and actually never filmed with Kirsty Alley, which may have been a good thing because, unfortunately, it sounds like Kirstie Alley was a bit of a pain in the ass on this movie. Doesn't surprise me, but that is too bad. Yeah.

They originally wanted Sigourney Weaver, which is interesting. Yeah. I think Kirstie's perfect for this role. I think so, too. Absolutely. Because, and the way that Jan described it is spot on, it's that she's trying so hard to appear as poised as someone like Sigourney Weaver, but she can't keep her shit together.

And that's so much more, Kirsty Allie, and she's very good at it. Constantly slipping through her fingers. And also, like, that is a Paula Pell. I can't remember the exact phrase. She was like, describe a Midwestern woman, a polite liar or something, or like a charming liar. And there was something where it's like, this is such a performance,

but she has such total control, and then to see her lose it, it's such a good character. I agree. And I believe that she would get on the roof of a supermarket with a high-powered rifle at the end of the movie. It totally makes sense.

So filming began in July of 1998 on location in and around Minneapolis, St. Paul. Now, by most accounts, the cast had a great time and really got along, of course, with one exception. And that exception is Kirsty Alley. That's too bad. She filmed for about two weeks.

She kept to herself, and on the first day of set, she reportedly announced to the cast that she's just quit smoking, she's on a diet, and she's got her period, and she's not fucking kidding. You know what? I appreciate that. At least give them a warning. She also refused to wear many of the costumes chosen for her and wouldn't show up for fittings. She actually had her clothes sent to the Scientology Celebrity Center in Hollywood, and she would try them on there. Jesus. She refused to work with the office.

Unset Dialect Coach, which when I watched it again, knowing that, her accent is not as good as the other ones. You can tell a difference. In case anybody doesn't know, she was a Scientologist for over 40 years. She did attribute Scientology counseling to getting her off of drugs, specifically cocaine. Now, according to Mindy Sterling's recall, Kirstie Alley wasn't really very sure of herself and of the character. And at one point, she actually turned to Mindy Sterling and said, well, maybe I should actually read the script. Yeah. And Lana Williams was particularly not impressed by her telling BuzzFeed.

I didn't think she was funny. That to me was the biggest crime, regardless of her attitude or her will or won't do this. If you're really great, I don't think any of that matters in the end, but I just didn't find her funny. I don't agree. She crushed it. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Destroyed that role.

Sounds like she just was method. Yes. I mean, that's a great point. That's a great point. She was just kind of acting like the character. Yes. Jan was more sympathetic. He basically was just like, you know, she was the biggest star on set

and big stars are, you know, uncooperative. But he felt that she did do a great job. I agree, but it sounds like she was not the most fun to work with. I would have to imagine, I don't want to excuse everything, but Christy Alley was a great beauty who struggled with dealing with, like, her weight, you know, because of Hollywood's expectations for many years. She'd had a drug problem. And then here are these, all these up-and-coming young actresses

that you're acting around, too. It's such a meta-commentary on the movie itself, too, from that perspective, I think. You know, Amy Adams, Kirsten Dunst, you know, they'll all go on to achieve more than, you know, maybe arguably she did in her career. And she's also, like, probably 15 years older than the producer of the movie and 10 years older than the writer and 15 years older than the director. I don't know. I could just see it being a tough environment, you know. A couple other fun facts about filming.

During Denise Richards' iconic dance number with the puppet Jesus. So good. So good. She bears his crock. Committed a hundred and ten percent. They filled that auditorium with locals from the area, and they walked out because they were so offended by the puppet Jesus number. Amazing. It's amazing.

And on September 11th, Drop-Deggorgeous wrapped. Now, at this point, the movie was still called Dairy Queens. But guess who wasn't stoked about that? If you had to guess. New line. Or. Gersialli? Dairy queen.

Dairy queen. The correct answer is. Dairy queen. Yes. They actually sued the movie in order to force a title change, and they wrote in their lawsuit, ADQ,

American Dairy Queen, is particularly concerned that the title Dairy Queens will cause the public to associate its trademark name with the unwholesome content of the film. Well, maybe Dairy Queen would be doing better now if they had allowed.

They'd be a lot edgier. I mean, they could have used I agree. David loves Dairy Queen. He does. I love Dairy Queen. I don't know if there is one in L.A., but I, I, the dominance of Baskin Robbins in certain areas, I'm like, I don't need this.

I do need a Dairy Queen. It's true. It is delicious. One other little fun fact about a legal issue they ran into on this movie was that basically every single combination of teen princess such and such had been used for a pageant, which I believe is why they added the Sarah Rose Cosmetics, American Teen Princess page. But that's the best. It's like perfect.

And I just, I guaranteed it's a network marketing MLM. It has to be, right? It's like Mary Kay, something like that. Yeah. And I love, it just makes it so much better that it's gone bust at the end. Yeah, yes. It's also empty. I loved it.

It's incredible. All right. So Drop-Deggorgeous was always supposed to be dark. I mean, it was from the script. My understanding is that the script did not really change from when it was bought to when it was made. But, as is often the case, New Line has. had buyer's remorse when they saw the test screening numbers start to come back. And it probably didn't help that the original ending was way darker. In the original ending, Gladys, Christyally's

character, actually died by suicide in prison. Oh. And then in the next scene, you see her feet swinging in the jail cell and it pans down to an ashtray with a still-lit cigarette. Then the shooting spree still happens, but it's at the hands of Hildebrandt, the older woman who had to give up her damn tiara during World War II. Ooh, okay. Yeah. So it's also, like, confusing because she, like, snapped as a result of the pageant kind of going bust. But anyway, I do like that, but that is very dark.

Yeah, the ending is better, I think now, even though if it was a novel, go with that version. You know what I mean? Well, though, I will say the other movie that I kept thinking about as a teen girl, which I, of course, hated when it came out, was American Beauty. Yes. And there is something, like, this was a very dark time. And I feel like, yeah, like the ending we have now is like the appropriate one for a comedy. But I don't know. I feel like we were, there's a lot more suicide or like, yeah, like, job breakers.

I mean, heathers, yeah. I love, I love job breaker. So it's like, I guess it was also of the time, but I could see how. No, this was, this is a bridge too far. Yes, exactly. Yeah. So not only were the test scores bad, the movie was tracking very poorly. No one had heard of it or seemed to have any interest in seeing it.

So New Line started pushing for a bunch of edits to make it fall in line with something more like clueless, something more lighthearted, more sympathetic to the cool girls, which is like hard to do with this movie. Jan felt very burned because everybody had been so positive on this all the way up until the test screenings and now they're second guessing, everything. Also because these edits cost them their original release date. It moved the film back to a July drop, which now pitted it again. against this bonkers lineup, Big Daddy, American Pie, the Blair Witch Project, and Runaway Bride, all released in July of 1999. So Drop-Deggorgeous dropped on July 23rd, and it was a certified big-time flopper.

Oh, too bad. On a budget of around $15 million, it debuted at number 12 and took in only $3.9 million its opening weekend. It earned only about $10 million during its entire theatrical run. And it does sound like New Line kind of just dumped it. They'd had a massive success with Austin Powers just one month before. They kind of buried Drop Dead Gorgeous, probably because it was tracking so poorly, especially when compared to something like Austin Powers.

And to top it all off, the reviews were bad. People compared it endlessly to smile. Most seemed genuinely upset at how cruel the film was. According to Janet Maslin at the New York Times, quote, in the guise of sending up beauty pageants, there's a new one. Drop-dead Gorgeous manages to load up on stereotypes, sneer smugly at Minnesota, stage a scene in which beauty contestants vomit en masse and make its audience wince through what may be a record number of miserably unfunny jokes. I do not agree that this is sneering at Minnesota.

Well, also, it's like the reason that you can do all these dark things is because it is laugh out loud funny. Like, yes, if there were no laughs, this is really a hard watch. If we're playing with that tone, I guess so much of comedy is subjective that it is so, as someone who truly loves it. Well, I think also that, like, we were still, this is 99, right? We're 10 years from the fall of the Berlin Wall. We're in American exceptionalism. We believe we're worse.

Like, this movie is saying, no, all of that is wrong. You know, we are a hollow empire. We are a Scythian falling empire of consumerism and nothingness. And, you know, that's the joke, the cosmic joke of it is like, it actually, I think, portrays Minnesotans very sympathetically in the sense that they actually all continue to get on and remain optimistic with the exception of Kirstie Alley. And that's the American way.

Ellen Barkin has lost her hand at the end and she's still cheering for her daughter. When she tries to break the beer can open and then use your hand. Yeah, anyway. But it's weird to me too that they're comparing its smile because that movie was 24 years prior. That's very weird.

Even if it was a remake or a loose retelling, I just find that so odd. I agree. And it's not a remake. It's not even really a loose retelling. It exists in the same world. And yes, there are some tonal similarities, but I wouldn't even argue that they're that strong,

that this movie is much darker. Even if it were beat for beat, my point is it's been 25 years. Who cares? Yeah, I completely agree. It just goes to show you that they don't feel like there's space for two movies to exist in this world over the course of 25 years, which, you know.

And it's funny because Smile, from your point, or I haven't seen it, but Lizzie, you were saying, it seems like it's very focused on the male perspective. And obviously, this movie, Lana Williams, she wanted it to be from the female perspective, you know, which is very different. That's my guess. It's completely editorialized, but I have to imagine she did watch that movie, considering she worked with Jerry Belson. And the movie is great, and I actually do think it does a lot for teenage girls that was

less common back then in particular. it does focus quite a bit on the middle-aged men. And I wonder if she watched it and thought this would be so funny if I really took it, you know, all the way. It came from the teenage girl perspective and made it about a mass murderer. And she was right. So the reviews really devastated Lana Williams. She said it was so hurtful on a deep level because there was so much of myself in this. Just thinking back to my script, I thought it was all so funny.

And I thought everyone would find it funny. And then when people didn't, I was completely caught off guard. As for Jan, he was really frustrated that so many reviews seemed to be comparing it unfavorably to other mockumentaries, which had seemed like an emerging genre. So he said it just felt like, well, fuck. But of course, Drop Dead Gorgeous would get a second life thanks to at-home rentals. As Gia Tolentino wrote for the New Yorker, quote, the transformation of Drop Dead Gorgeous from a flop to a venerated artifact of Y2K-era camp began with bored teenagers, most of them female and or queer, who flocked to blockbusters around the country. and rented the movie over and over. Absolutely.

This was me. I remember getting the DVD, probably for either a birthday or Christmas, but I remember being like, I need to own this movie. Yeah. And that was part of some celebration. Because I don't think I saw it in theaters. Like, it honestly might not have even opened near me. Like, I feel like I was, like, kind of far out.

But as soon as I was able to, like, know about it, I love this movie. And it's been hard to find on streaming for a long time, too. So that's the other part of it. And I think that actually helped the cult status. a bit was that for many, many years, this was almost impossible to find. You actually couldn't stream it. And then the DVD, I think, was out of production for a long period where you couldn't, it was kind of a prized possession. In 2019, it finally hit streaming. It was eventually picked up by Revry, which is an LGBTQI Plus streaming service who reported it was their top title.

But now it's on Tobe, I think. Yes. And this is, by the way, an argument, though, to get physical media. If you love a movie, if you are watching it over and over, there is no guarantee it will always be available. I bought this on Blu-ray. Can I make an appeal? If anybody from Warner Brothers is listening, which I think there are a couple of people that are, Warner Brothers' is new independent distribution label called Clockwork that is doing some interesting stuff, and I think they should do a Blu-ray remaster re-release of Drop Dead gorgeous. Warner Bros. Own's new line now, so I would make an appeal to them. I think that would do very well, and it would be great. And you could reach out to us, and we could help with the

behind the scenes interviews or anything like that. Happy to. So 15 years later in 2014, BuzzFeed contacted Lana Williams for the oral history that we drew from for this episode. And she revealed that she had been so hurt after the movie's release that she had not watched it since it came out. Oh, that's so sad. Yeah.

Following Drop Dead Gorgeous, she wrote an original script, originally titled Sugar and Spice and Semi Automatic about pregnant cheerleader bank robbers. However, after the 1990-1999 Columbine shooting, the script. was, of course, heavily altered. She ended up removing her name from the film, taking on a pseudonym. The film did become sugar and spice. Later, she wrote some dialogue for Shark Tale

and Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse, but she has not written another feature. And I wish she would. I really wish she would. Yeah. But another feature written by her has not been produced. Yes. Because I just want to emphasize for our audience.

Sometimes I'll see articles that say, like, this screenwriter was hired, and they've never written a feature before. No. No. They've probably written a dozen. They just may not have been produced yet. You know what I mean?

And they may have sold a dozen. It's very hard to get a movie made. Yeah. And that's not even necessarily an indictment or a suggestion of quality. Yes, absolutely. It could be these, it could be they've written great scripts, but for whatever reason, it's been hard to find a place in the market. But I do think, to your point that now's the time.

I feel like there is a, I also think, like, as hopefully we have more queer, like, film, I feel like this is so, because it is camp, you know, like, it is, or I mean you could argue whether it's not, but it's just like it's so good it's so funny, it's so what I think people want. It's obviously dated, but it's like, what is the 2026 version of that?

I think people really want it. And like we have so few options, mostly because we're not making as many comedies. The late 90s was also so different in terms of like the number of comedies that were coming out. The movie that came to mind recently for me that this made me think of was bottoms. Yeah, which I have

not seen, but I did immediately associate that just in terms of like what they're trying to do with it. And then when you mentioned sugar and spice, because I had looked up Lana Williams' credits, I thought, oh, like, Harmony Corinne must have seen that before he did Spring Breakers. I feel like. And then put James Sprangor. I kind of liked Spring Breakers, though. Oh, I loved it. I thought it's just like, absolutely. Spring breakers is nuts. It's so fun. It's so wild.

And again, getting something about America, like the Americanness of it, where it's like, well, what if, huh? And then like when the destroyers, driving way at the end. It's like, yeah, what if? You know, like, yeah. It's a weird fairy tale. It's just such a weird movie. It is. All right. Well, at the end of this show, we always like to ask what went right. And that can be anything. It can be an actor. It can be an element of the production, an element of the story. You can go first, or we can have Chris go first, whatever you want. Chris, will you go first? And I will think on it for a moment? Sure. You mentioned how this movie does a good job of showing the camaraderie of

some female relationships because we tend to have look at like look at the other options on the landscape look at the teen movie that broke out in 1989 American Pie right not a lot of great female roles in that movie not a movie I go back too often although in 1999 I thought it was the funniest thing I'd ever seen

I was I think I was deep into my teen girl angst that I was just I think I saw it eventually but I was just like anything that anyone liked also was very I was like I can't but yeah it was a different time Yeah. Yeah. But what I will say is I appreciate that, but I also, though, wish we would get more great villain roles for some of these actresses because I do think Denise Richards and Kirstiali are so good in this movie. And especially also in how they can, they just allow them to play the circumstances of the scene.

Like, you know, they're, like you said, the polite bitchy, when she gets on the goddamn swan and Chris. She tells her to smile, and then she just flashes that, like, angry smile immediately. It's so funny. They're so good. I wish we got more of those types of roles, you know what I mean, for them and for folks in general. So I'll give it to those two. I am happy about that. One of my favorite Denise Richards moments in the entire movie is when she's in the, like, beautiful chiffon minie dress,

reloading her rifle. And they tell her that Brett's just been killed hunting. And she goes, really? Well. It's a dangerous sport. So anyway, my mom got me this rifle. 30 out six for the birthday. So good. Yeah, she doesn't

overplay anything. She got the 9-mill when she was 13. She's shooting in heels. It's great. The Lutheran Sisterhood Gun Club, yeah. Yeah. All right. Hallie, how about you? I think for me, and we talked to this earlier, but it really is the specificity of the location. Yeah. And how, like, because it's a time capsule is also, like, why the characters are so fully flesh, feel fully flesh out, for the most

part. And I just, like, there are so many, I think it's a comedy just because I feel like any kind of LA set comedy, for example, you really have to make it about your experience in LA. I feel like if you go too generic, it's like, what the hell are you talking about? Like it's just, first is like this,

it's like I grew up in a small town in Ohio. I know exactly who these people are. I knew women like that at my church. My favorite moment is when they're complaining about the sign, like the world's oldest one that has already died like years before. And he's like every year I tell these goddamn try to take it down.

It's like that guy, like his day is consumed with trying to get the Shriders should take that shit down, but he's like, I'm not going to do it. And it's like, that is what makes a small town great. It's like, you know, you know that guy, you know Kirstie Alley. You know all these girls. And it's so sweet. I don't know. And again, not like I don't like a New Yorker at L.A. said comedy, but it just makes it special.

And I think like that's what continues to make this feel special now. Yeah. I love it. Yeah. The New York L.A. stuff is always fish out of water. And these are fish in water. Yeah. This is the water.

And some of the fish are like, I got to get out of the smallest pond. Yeah. Yeah. Take down the guy. God damn free the sign, you lazy sons of bitches. Incredible. I have to give it to Lana Williams. I hope I haven't been mispronouncing your name this whole episode

in case it's Lona Williams. But I just think that this screenplay is still so funny. And obviously, like, as we discussed, there are some elements that don't work. There's, you know, the Asian characters are really pretty rough. We didn't discuss this. But the former beauty queen with anorexia, I do think that that teeters,

it eventually falls over the line into, being at her expense versus being a commentary on the prevalence of eating disorders in the pageant world, which it could have been maybe. I could have seen it working more on the page, but it goes so broad in the execution. Yeah.

I agree with you. It's a little, it's tough. But I will say when she performs, there is like, this is funny. You guys, when the nurse starts speeding up for the, for when, you know, to the choreography as she's dancing, that's the thing.

is like, this is such a funny script. This, I mean, so endlessly quotable, so many sharp lines, and the fact that, like, this was scripted. This is not heavily improvised. This is really what she put on the page. So, Lana, if you're listening, I fucking love this movie. I always have. I always will.

And I would so love to see more from you because it's very clear that you have such a skill and particularly a skill for writing women. And that is something that we need. So come back. We should hunt her down and send her this episode and encourage her to, you know she's got some features kicking around a drawer. Like I hope so.

There's just, but probably stuff that also after it bombs, if your first feature bombs, I don't know if it says true now, but like it also probably depends on like what genre or whatever. But it was of a time where it's like, if your first movie bombs, that's it. Like you might even have other work, but like they penalized you in a way that like,

I guess now it's too, chaotic to do that. I do think that because of streaming, there just are more outlets, and maybe as a writer, like, the work can still kind of speak for itself. It makes it harder, for sure, because it's just harder to package. It's harder to get people attached, because, you know, they might think, well, the material's good, but the material was good the last time, and it didn't quite work. So I don't think that's as punitive, but it, you know, it's not easy. Yeah. I think. Well, I want to encourage her to give it a another go. Please. We need it. I want another movie like this. I do too. All right. Well,

Hallie, thank you so much for joining us. Tell the people where they can find you one more time. Of course. Thank you for having me. You could find me at the ruined podcast with Alice and Libby and all our socials are at ruined podcast. If you like horror movies, if you can't watch them, if you're anywhere in between, please come listen. And thank you so much for having me on. Perfect. All right. Well, thank you so much for being here. This was an absolute blast. Thank you for watching this movie and for discussing it with us. And we will be back on Monday with Thelma and Louis. Appropriately. Thelma and Louise. All right. I can't wait. Thanks again, Halley. All right. Thank you. Bye. Bye.

What Went Wrong is a Sad Boom podcast presented by Lizzie Bassett and Chris Winterbauer. Post-production and music by David Bowman. This episode was researched by Laura Woods and edited by H. Conley.