My friend and I have this long running argument here. It is says
that when you come to a place like this, you, you can't just be yourself,
you have to have an act. So anyway, I, I saw
you standing there so I thought A, I,
I could just leave you alone, B, I could come up with an
act or C, I could just be myself.
I chose C. What?
I think that A, you have an act and that B,
not having an. Act is your act.
Thank you.
It's two Dads one Movie. It's the podcast where two middle
aged dads sit around and shoot the about the movies of the 80s and 90s.
Here are your hosts, Steve Paulo and Nick Brianna.
Hello everybody. Welcome back. The 2 Dads 1 movie.
I'm Steve. I'm Nick. And today we are talking about a movie
that came out in 1992. The movie is called Singles.
It's by Cameron Crowe and it's kind of
one of those movies that defined a generation, as it were.
Let me start off real quick and say, Nick, I think you told us at
the end of the last episode you'd never seen Singles before. Is that right?
Never seen it before? No. Excellent. This is going to be fun. This is fun
time. Interesting to see for the first time now. Yeah. Yes, we'll get into that
a little bit. As we dive over time on this podcast, we really intend
to focus on things that are nostalgic for one or the other of us or
we think are nostalgic in general for people. But it is some fun sometimes to
look back and go, well, if I didn't have nostalgia for this, would it even
be a movie worth watching? I think that's, that's a fair question to ask at
any given time. Okay, let me run down a little bit about some facts about
Singles. So it was released on September 18, 1992,
running time time of 99 minutes. Written and directed by Cameron
Crowe. It stars among a ton of cameos and,
and small parts and things we'll get into later. I would say. Fair to say
it stars Bridget Fonda, Campbell Scott, Kira Sedgwick and Matt Dillon.
Rotten Tomatoes pretty much dug this movie. The critics liked it. It got a
79, not out of this World. Pretty good, but pretty, pretty good.
And IMDb though actually kind of the opposite of the last movie we did where
the Rotten Tomatoes score was low. The IMDb score is respectable. This is a pretty
high Rotten tomatoes, but only seven on IMDb. So,
you know, maybe it hasn't aged well or whatever, but that's,
that's what it got. It did win a single award kind of in
at the 1993 MTV Video Music Awards.
The music video for Alice in Chains song would one
best video from a film. Because that song is featured pretty prominently
in this movie. It's on the soundtrack and then the video. The music video included
scenes from singles. The budget for this film, best I could find
was something in the 9 to 10 million dollar range. It wasn't actually easy to
track them exactly how much. And it earned about 18 and a half million,
which if it was 9 for the budget, that gives it about a 2x multiplier,
which, you know, that's not too bad. It's respectable. It's not a hit necessarily,
but yeah, pretty good. Pretty okay. Although looking from a 2025
lens, if you said that they made this movie in the early 90s at the
height of grunge, that included Eddie Vedder and Chris Cornell and Allison Chains
and all that, you would think that it would have done a little bit better.
You'd think, yeah, I'm not really kind of sure. I think because they
were all cameos. Like, none of the. I don't know if, like, word of mouth
just didn't work as well back then or what. Right. Because there wasn't the Internet.
There wasn't Facebook and Twitter and everything. Because it does seem
a bit. Yeah, we're like, if today there was a movie about a bunch of,
you know, people living in, I don't know, New York City. And somebody was like,
oh, my God, did you see that? You know, Sabrina Carpenter and Taylor Swift showed
up in the background of this movie. People be like, whoa, I better see that
movie. Yeah, right. Yeah. And I wonder if we have a skewed view now of
the cultural significance of grunge
at that actual time, because that's the cool stuff that survived.
So we look back and we say, well, that's cool. So that must be what
everyone thought would was cool. And in reality, at that time, the top two hits
were probably like, Baby Baby by Amy Grant and Life is a Highway by Tom
Cochran. So I don't think there was like, just a coolness that swept the nation
just because Nirvana was out. So maybe that's part of it. I think you're right.
It's also interesting just to. To point out that this film
was made in 1991. Cameron Crowe filmed
it in Seattle, created, made the movie 1991. And then Warner Brothers just held onto
it because they weren't sure what to do with it. And then in 1992,
as grunge exploded, as Nirvana and Pearl Jam,
and, you know, to a slightly lesser extent, Soundgarden, Nelson Chains exploded on the
scene. And the Seattle sound and Sub Pop Records and all that became kind of,
yeah, not only cool, but it became the mainstream. Right. It basically signaled
the end of the hair metal era of rock music. Right? That's when Warner Brothers
decided, okay, well, we've got this thing in our back pocket. Let's go and put
it out there. So it. It was. It was ahead of its time in
that it was prescient in its creation. And I
don't think there's any chance anyone involved in making the movie, and certainly not Cameron
Crowe thought to himself, I'm gonna have Chris Cornell walk up and just stand here
next to Matt Dillon while this car stereo dest. And that's the
guy who's going to end up writing Super Unknown and winning a thousand Grammys and
like, you know what I mean? Like, cultural touchpoint, this cultural icon. There's no way,
right? And two songs, Alison Chains gets to play two songs on stage.
There's no way that. That, you know, was something that they were thinking about how,
oh, boy, when. When these guys all get huge, this is really going to help
VHS sales in this movie. Yeah, this is. This is a weird
analogy. And maybe it's just because of how I feel about Alice
in Chains versus the other grunge bands of the era. But I feel like they're
not as good to me as Soundgarden, Pearl Jam,
Nirvana, any of that stuff. But they're the big ballers in this movie.
They're like the big dogs in this movie. And it reminds me of.
You can talk when I'm done. I was watching this documentary
about Saturday Night Live Season 11,
and they had this very weird cast, but full of a lot
of people who became big stars later in life. So it was Robert Downey
Jr. And Anthony Michael hall, and I don't know if Julia Louis
Dreyfus, like, people who became big stars. And the whole thing was just about how,
you know, who was unstoppable that year. Jon Lovitz.
So I'm not calling Alice in Chains the Jon Lovitz of the grunge scene.
You are, but, yeah, I think I am. Jon the Rooster Lovitz
has a lot in common. So let's take
a step back to the early to mid-90s at this point and just. I'll say,
I think everybody back then, at least among middle and early high school
aged boys, at least, right, you had like A favorite grunge band if you're
into the music at all. Unless you were just, I know I only listen to
rapper only, whatever. Okay, fine. But if you liked the music at all, you had
one of them that you were like, this one's mine. Alice in Chains was mine.
Oh, okay. Alice in Chains was mine. I thought Dirt was one of the greatest
albums, rock albums I ever heard. I still think Jar of Flies is.
Is grunge's best artistic piece, like work of art, that the
grunge Seattle sound, whatever, ever put out is the EP Jar of Flies by
Alison Chain. So I'm a huge fan. When Lane Staley died, I was in college
and I spent at least a day in despair over Lane Staley
having died. So I'll try not to be offended. But you just said.
And you know what? At that time, I've come to appreciate a lot of
that music, but I was not really into that
when it was out, right? So I came to a lot of the 90s grunge
stuff a little bit later. And one of my main experiences of it is now
in my car. We have Sirius XM radio
and there's the Lithium station, which is like the early 90s hits. And it seems
like whenever I turn it on, it's Alison Chains. Oh, that's funny. I feel like
Alice in Chains. There's something about the estate of Lane Staley and the power
they have over the programmers at Sirius X and that I'm hearing a lot of
them. So, yeah, I was not at the time, so I don't
know how it would have touched me as an eighth grader. Full disclosure, my favorite
musical artist when I was in this, like, heyday of all the best hip
hop and grunge and stuff was Steve Winwood. So nobody should take take any music
advice from me ever. Oh, now that. I mean,
you know, I saw Steve Winwood live once open for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers,
and that was a show that both made me feel young and old. So anyway,
okay, so let's jump into it. So obviously this movie is not.
It's a character driven film. It is not a plot driven
film. Not a lot happens. That's not to say that things don't happen or that,
you know, literally like people to sit around talking. But I feel like this movie
is very much in the vein of Richard Linklater Slacker and
Kevin Smith's Clerks and to where it's a lot about the characters
and their conversations and their relationships and the things they talk about in these little
Vignettes. And I think this was a really common thing in common.
But it was common enough in the early 90s, you know, that you did see
movies like this fairly often from, like, younger filmmakers. Like Crow. Was this Crow's
first. It was not his first movie. No, no, this was. I think this was
his first passion project, though. I think he, like, you know, had had a small
success under his belt when it came time to, like, do this movie,
and that's why he was able to get it made. But then even. Even that
wasn't enough to get Warner Brothers to just put it out in 1991 when it
was done. You know, they had to wait. But, yeah, so. But we will try
to walk through, I think, mostly because I think Nick and I are the same
in that we write notes linearly as we're watching the movie, so we'll still kind
of walk through it. Yeah. And the first thing that I noticed on my.
On this rewatch, because I have not seen the movie now in a few years,
is that Louise, the character who sort
of seduces one of our main characters, Linda, who I will
later be referring to as Rachel. And I'll tell you all about why Linda meets
Louise. And he's wearing five shirts and jackets,
if you notice, when he walks up to her car, like, I get that it's
Seattle, and so it's probably kind of chilly. And it's the 90s, so of course,
layering was in. But dude's got, like, T shirt, polo shirt,
oxford, like, work shirt, and jacket, like,
all on. The number of collars on this guy's neck is,
like, absolutely ludicrous. He looks like a football linebacker. And I
was just, like. It immediately brought me back to, like. I don't think I ever
wore only one shirt from, like, 1991 to 1997 or
98. Like, it was always at least layered up. Layered, like the polo, you know,
with a T shirt underneath it. Or do you had to do something. Yep.
Always layered. Yep. And I think that this really just shows how with the Zeitgeist,
this film. Really was classic, classic look. Yeah.
And Luis, Yeah, that was a good character of the kind of Foreigner
who seems very nice, and then you. You learn something about him that you don't
like. Yeah. Shouldn't really have come too much as a surprise because,
you know, their little relationship zooms by us in probably five
or six minutes. It's very fast. So clearly this is going to. I think,
you know, the. The foreshadowing of the crash and burn is pretty Clear.
And so of course, you know, Linda sees Louise at a, at a club with
somebody else and, and cold blooded reaction, really.
He could have popped up and been like, oh. Even if he was like,
oh, oh yeah, this is my cousin, she's here from out of town. You can't
meet her because she doesn't speak in. My plane was delayed. I mean something man
like. But he just looked at her kind of giving her the nod like you
lost. Which is, it was brutal. Yeah, not, not a good
move, Louise. It was, it was brutal. And I think it was definitely.
That was just, it was rough. And I think, you know, when you see her
reaction as she basically decides that she's not going to date anymore. Right. And I
think there's this, that really starts the trend because the next person we meet
is Steve Dunn and he's telling us all about how he just broke up with
a girlfriend and now he's not going to date anymore. He's going to focus on
work. So of course those two have to get together because that's how these things
work. But this running theme of 20somethings,
because we get a sense, I don't think we hear everybody's age. We get a
sense they're all going to 23 with 27. They're on that ballpark. Right. The running
theme of 20 something's concerned with time running out.
Right. I think Janet, who's 23 specifically talks about, I think time's running
out to do something bizarre. Yeah. Because once you hit 25, bizarre is just like
irresponsible or something. So they're concerned with time running out. They're concerned with being alone
forever. I feel like that was probably felt fresher at
the time, but watching it now, it is insufferable. It's really hard
as somebody who's mid-40s whose time has run out.
And I know what it's like to look back at somebody in their 20s and
say, you son of a bitch, you have no idea what's ahead of
you. If they're all feeling this sense of my time's running out,
I need to do something different, then now's the time to act. And they're just
existing still within this same 10 person ecosystem where
they keep making the same bad decisions with different people. It's. It was
pretty funny to see that. Yeah, for sure. So we get so early
on we see, we see we're introduced to Linda and she dates
Luis and then is tossed aside. We meet her friend Ruth, who we don't really
care about after this. She seemed like she was gonna be a major part.
Yeah, she just kind of dipped out. She sort of somewhat disappeared, except as background
in Linda's other scenes. But then we meet Steve and his buddy Bailey.
Yep. Right. And Steve and Bailey are gonna go out and meet girls.
And Bailey's got his watch that has.
He can store 20 numbers in his watch.
Man. Technology. I've never. I mean, I think I even had a calculator
watch like that. I didn't know it stored phone numbers like that. Literally. Yeah,
I. You know, I think it's an instance of the movies inventing a
technology that doesn't exist just to blow the audience mind and put them in a
different world. That must have been a thing. Some watch that had, like, a minimum
amount of data storage. You probably had to write out a name in numerical
letters like you used to with pager code. Right?
Yeah. And Bailey, who is one
of my favorite characters in a different program. Oh, interesting.
Bailey is in the Wire. Oh. So he plays Officer
Prezbolowski in the Wire, who's a pretty, like,
minor and not very likable character. Early in the show, he's just one
of the dumb cops who does dumb things and gets himself in trouble. Nice.
So he ends up. I think he. And. And he was also a
classic fail son. I think he was like, hey, you better hire this guy because
he's marrying my niece kind of thing. You know, it's kind of from the brass
up top. And then his arc in that show was that later he got fired
from the police department, became a teacher, like a fourth grade teacher or something.
And he was in this season that was about the school system and was
a very good kind of arc and a good turnaround. So whenever I see that
guy, I only can think of that because he was just like, that show was
just such a big thing and. But here he's a soul patch wearing doofus.
I mean, do you think when he takes that dumb hat off, the soul
patch always also comes off too, like it's attached? Yeah, well, that or
it's just. It's stick on. Yeah, it's definitely kind of fake or something. It's real
bad. I mean, look. And my history
is not devoid of embarrassing headwear. I definitely
owned my share of fedoras and such over the
years. Yeah, I had my. My newsboy hat, but I've been a bald guy.
I was 23. So really, that guy had a luscious head of hair that he
was just absolutely obfuscating with that hat. I didn't
I didn't like it. It's not okay. It's not okay. So. So they're trying to
go to this, I guess, club, right? They're going to party or whatever, and they
need to ask directions. And who do they see? They see.
Well, they initially say a clown, right? But he's clearly dressed up as a mime.
And did you know who plays this mime? I. So I thought at first and
I was like, no, that wouldn't be. That doesn't make sense. But I was correct.
Yes. Eric Stoltz. Eric Stoltz. He's not just a mime,
he's a shouting mime. Like, he's literally in the car just shouting
at them. Most annoying thing ever. But wonderful appearance
by Eric Stoltz, who I think I've never seen in something and not loved
him in that thing. He's pretty good. He's pretty good. He's pretty awesome. There's a
gag as the mime, so they stop to ask him for directions. And then
what happens is a bunch of people end up getting in their car with them
because they're all going in the same place. And there's a scene where he pantomimes
bringing a cigarette to his lips and pulling it away and then blows out actual
smoke, which is just one of those magic of the movies type things where I
just. I really, really love that. Like, props to Cameron Crowe. That's an excellent gag.
Absolutely. That's good stuff. So, yeah, so that's. That's the.
They finally find their way to this party, Right? And I believe that's where Allison
Chains is performing on stage. And my understanding is a little outside
of the movies. Reality. Reality is that that venue had
the real life, real world name of the OK Hotel.
And in early 1992 or late 1991, that actually
late 1991, a few months after the movie was done filming, that is where Nirvana
played Smells Like Teen Spirit in public for the first time. Oh,
so that was a real venue up there in Seattle where real music history was
made. Obviously not while they were filming this movie, but, you know, but Allison Chains
to get to play a couple songs. So that was fun for me at least.
Yeah. I mean, hey, and look, I. I can be convinced I'm not
locked into my. I can unlock the chains of my Alice in Chains opinion if
I need to at that concert.
This is when Steve first notices Linda and
he decides to approach her, which, as anyone, would you see
someone you're interested in talking to at a concert that everybody wants to be at
and listen to you walk over to them in the middle of a song and
shout the lamest game anybody's ever heard in their life.
Yeah, this was a big 90s
kind of. I feel like this is a big Gen X movie thing where you're.
Where you're kind of doing a. A meta. You're meta.
Hitting on someone. You're right. Oh, I'm not the kind of guy who would come
over and say something and it was just, it was hard to watch at the
time. Maybe it was cool and innovative. No, I don't think it was. I think
it was never cool. And I think that's why Linda calls him out on it
right then. Right. You know, he's saying something like, well, my friend said, you got
to play a character. You can't be yourself, so I'm not playing a character.
And she said, oh, you are. Your character is the I'm not playing a character
guy. And it's like, yeah, that's, that's accurate. That was the first moment
where I really felt like it certainly doesn't come down at
any point during the film. I really felt like, why does Steve Dunn feel
like an Aaron Sorkin character? He really feels like Sam Seaborn
or something. Like. And west, you know, he really. He's. He's too, his vocabulary
is too purple. He, he's just, he's.
There's something so like insufferably annoying.
Yeah. About him in a way that, you know, is not
intentional. He's not being played for laughs. He's not, you know, he's not intended to
be. I mean, Campbell Scott's a notoriously sort of like serious actor that at times
apparently was very hard to work with on this movie. But it's like, what.
This guy is super irritating and he's just. I don't get
him as a main character lead. The lead romantic.
Right. Well, I don't know. Maybe. Maybe Kara Sedgwick is the lead. I guess that's
debatable. But I mean, the lead male romantic role anyway.
And yeah, he's not. I couldn't imagine women
watching this movie at the time and thinking, oh, that's, that's the guy.
That's the guy I like. Right. He just, yeah, he's. He's very off putting
from the very beginning. He's like a proto nice guy. Like, I don't think nice
guys, the way we understand them today really exist or they existed in the 90s,
but we didn't recognize them for the sort of nefariously, the misogynistic kind
of weirdness that they would bring. And I don't mean this in like people who
are literally nice. I mean guys who have to tell you over and over again,
I'm a nice guy. Oh, yeah, right. He's basically an incel who gets laid.
Okay. Yeah. And the proto nice guy thing going
to even what he does for a living and stuff. So this is a,
this is an on paper great guy. Yep, this is a guy. I'm trying to
build a high speed rail super train. I'm building a super train.
And you know, I like just personally I'm glad that all got built. I'm glad
we figured that out back in 1991 because, you know, guys like
Steve really did it. But yeah, so they all kind of have these jobs.
Like the way I see this movie is him, Steve and Linda
both. Anyway, they have these positions where she's at some kind of environmental organization
and then he's trying to get the trains built. So they're doing good people
things, but they're acting very kind of selfishly and
I don't know, like they're, they're not like generous people. They're people who
are doing what they think a good person would do, but not necessarily acting
generously or. Right. Yeah. And his. When he finally
calls her to get together, it's like the most pathetic
call ever. Right. It's like, can we get dinner? Oh, you already. How you're busy.
Oh, can we get lunch? Or you already have like a lunch with you.
Whatever. Or you're already going to lunch. Can we get a drink or can we
get a coffee? How about water? How about I show up to where you're
having lunch and we'll have water? I've just never heard anything so ludicrous.
Like I was getting Jon Favreau and Swinger's
vibes. Yes. Oh my God. The way that he was leaving these voice messages
over and over for the woman, it felt it was kind of a cross between
that and then John Candy and Planes, Trains and Automobiles trying to get
Steve Martin's character trying to apologize. Can I buy you a beer? How about a
hot dog? Tic Tacs? What? You know, going through that whole thing.
But when they go to lunch though, did you notice who is next to them?
So they go to lunch. There's like the hottest makeout scene in film.
The most horrific mouth sounds ever that I've ever heard.
Just sucking sounds coming from next to them. And they turn and
who, who is it? That's. That's that's standing there, the real heartthrob.
Of the film, Paul Giamatti. Paul Jiamatti, who just looks up from his
face. Face sucking and just goes, what? That's it. That's one word
in the whole movie. Very funny. Very funny. To see a Giamatti with that
kind of curly blonde hair in the scene and dressed that way and everything.
Yeah, that was. That was a highlight for me for sure. I have Giamatti make
out scene written. Down here in my notes. Much like in our first movie that
we talked about together, Nick, Groundhog Day, with Michael Shannon making his screen debut.
This was Paul Giamatti's first screen credit. Okay. First time he was ever on
screen in something, you know, at least produced in this. In this manner.
So that's cool. So we've talked a little bit about Steve and Linda.
Yep. Let's switch gears a little bit because there's a lot of characters in this
movie. What do you think of Janet? We first meet Janet. She is, I believe
when we first meet her, we see her working at the coffee shop, the Java
something I can't remember they call it now. Regardless,
she's working there. She tells us she's 23, she's afraid of turning 25 and her
life ending, basically. And she is in love with Cliff.
Yeah. Who is Matt Dillon's character. He is the classic, you know,
I'm a dude in a band, long hair, another sort of soul patch, sort of
a little bit of chin pubes or whatever going on. And he's just
too cool for school. And he's the lead singer and guitarist for a song called.
For a band named Citizen Dick. And. And of
course, who. I'll let you tell everybody who the who. The rest of the band
of Citizen Dick. Are you aware? Well, I just. I know the drummer of
Citizen Dick is Eddie Vedder. That's right. And who are the other band members?
Betters. Pearl Jam and Mookie Blaylock. Bandmates. Jeff Ament
and Stone Gossert play the other two members. Nice. They were playing
themselves because at a scene later in the film. We'll just
jump ahead a little bit. Again, this movie kind of bounces around, so following it
linearly doesn't make sense. Anyway, later on they have gone to play. I think they've
played a show or they're going to play show in Portland, but they're looking at
a review of their latest show. Cliff does not want to hear any negative anything.
So Eddie Vedder, his drummer, is reading the. The review and he goes oh,
and this is you about Cliff Pontier. Whatever. You know, he's. Oh, I want to
hear anything negative. So they kind of have to start scanning to look for anything
positive, and there's nothing. It's saying how awful Cliff is, and they really should be
in LA and he doesn't belong here and all this stuff. Until they get to
the point, we go, oh, he was. As always, Cliff is reliably backed up by
bandmates Eddie Vedder, Jeff. So I think myself, these guys are actually
playing themselves, sort of. It's very interesting, me.
Like, I thought, why didn't they give them character names? It was just kind of
an interesting choice. I think that, yeah, that is themselves. This movie,
though, it toed the line with breaking the fourth Wall and just kind of existing
outside of the movie and stuff with people talking directly to the camera and then
things like that. So the names thing normally wouldn't make sense, but in the
context of the movie, it's like, this is a weird. It's a weird movie.
They make weird choices. Chris Cornell is in it because Soundgarden plays at that
same venue later in the movie. Or maybe it's a different venue, but later in
the movie, after Steve and Linda have broken up, after the horrible thing that happened,
which we can talk about in a minute. But, like, Cornell plays,
the Soundgarden plays there. They play Birth Ritual. Great song.
But before that, we saw Soundgarden lead man Chris Cornell,
just kind of. I guess he lives there at their little complex. It says
there's 18 units, and we see it's a rather large place when we. When we
get an aerial shot later. But really we focused on, you know, the occupants of
maybe four of the. Of the apartments. So I guess he lives there
because he comes out and he watches. You know, Cliff has. Has tried to make
up with Janet, and he's installed a new stereo in her car, but it gets
so loud, it breaks the windows. It's a pretty dumb scene, frankly.
And. And he's standing there watching it, and it's like. I guess that is just
supposed to be Chris Cornell being Chris Cornell, because his band Soundgarden,
plays a Soundgarden song later in the movie. Right? So it's just an interesting.
Like you said, there is this sort of. And then you combine that with all
the fourth wall breaking, which is almost incessant. Very,
very common to just have characters to start talking. I mean, Cliff spends the last
five minutes of the movie just talking to us to sort of make sure we're
all aware of what's happened, which isn't much.
It does kind of straddle the line between, well,
what's real in reality and what's real in this movie. And where do
they. Where does that separation occur? Yeah, yeah. Going back to Steve
and Linda real quick. So Linda,
you know, she has this job at the environmental agency.
This is kind of. They mention it a lot in the movie. I think the
characters are all kind of classic 1990s environmentalist types,
which is, which is great. It's very funny.
When he gets to her car, he walks her to her car and he refers
to it as a gas guzzling monster. And it's not like a truck or
van. It's like a Plymouth Acclaim sedan that probably got
25 city, 28 highway miles per gallon back then.
I need. I was trying to get a shot of what the actual car was
so I could find out what the fuel economy was, just to see how funny
that would be compared to, you know, what's available today. It did seem to have
that. I think it was the old Plymouth or was it the Chrysler? It was
one of those windows looked like an
old minivan that my mom had. But yeah, yeah, it was definitely. I mean,
it's a big car. A lot of the characters drive very compact, very small vehicles.
And it certainly is sort of a land boat that she has. So maybe
it's a little out of, you know, because she also makes a comment when she
first learns that Steve is working on the Super Train,
is that. Well, she's like, oh, I love my car though, you know, and that
sort of comes up a couple times. Right. Does keep coming up. Do you do
how Environment. I mean, not that like, you know, you, I don't know, like you
can love things and still want to make things better. Like, I'm not saying you
can't, but it is a little interesting. Like I feel like today somebody working at
like an environmental advocacy organization wouldn't be driving a V8
pickup. And it feels very much like the corollary of the
time. And it is odd and I think it's strange. And the funny part is
I think it's strange, but they also don't really. There's that one kind of throwaway
comment about it and it's like never mentioned. It's not really a thing.
We never examine that part of Linda. It's almost like they feel.
I feel like I have to say something in my position as a,
quote, good person that I'm establishing for myself. I feel like this is something I
need to say. Otherwise I'm not doing my job, but I don't have to pursue
caring about it. It. Exactly. Can we talk about Debbie?
Let's talk about Debbie. Let's talk about Debbie. So Debbie's the only person in this
little apartment building, it seems, that has a roommate.
She has Pam. Pamela. Pammy is her roommate.
And she is. She seems to have a pretty good job.
It seems like she had. It's funny because she's the only. The roommate. But she
also seems to be. She has more money than the others. Seems like. Seems like
the most financially career successful one
out of the group. But yeah, it is odd that she has the roommate,
I think. Yeah. Just to add some tension or something. Right. Well, it comes up
later because her main sort of put. She's. She. So we've got, you know,
basically Linda and Steve are sort of matched up for the movie. Cliff and
Janet are kind of matched up for the movie. Bailey is just there. He's tertiary
at best. And then Debbie kind of has her own plot, but she doesn't really
have a guy. Yeah, right. At least not in the main cast. So she's
doing video dating called Expect the Best.
And I'm wondering if you recognized the man who was
tapped to do her video. She shows up for the video shoot to do the
video dating. Yeah. And they talk about, oh, this guy's gonna make her. Did you
know who that was? Yeah, I did. It took me a minute. And it's one
of those people. I'm not always sure what they look like, but yeah.
That was director Tim Burton. That was director Tim Burton and he is
the next Martin Scorsese, according to. I love that. I love the mispronunciation of score
horses. But yeah, so she gets this just absolutely ridiculous,
sort of avant garde in all the worst ways kind of video dating
video made for her. And then she, you know,
really. It's funny. She really betrays the trope later on. So she. So let me.
I'm skipping ahead of myself. She does this. She puts it out there, and then
she gets a bunch of responses. And so she asks all of her friends,
hey, which of these guys should I, you know, go out with? Right.
There's like six maybe. And most of them are kind of odd. Yep. But of
course, the one that isn't is Peter Horton, who I will always. For me,
I know he was in like 30 something, a bunch of other movies and TV
shows, but for me, he will always be washed up beach volleyball superstar
Zach Barnes of side Out. And if you haven't seen that movie at some point
we will, but yeah, so Peter Horton is, is this bicycle
aficionado who, you know, she decides to choose and to go on a date
with and she shows herself as a relationship chameleon before she even starts
the relationship. Oh yeah, because she shows up to the restaurant. Turns out that's the
wrong one. But she shows up in a full like early 90s hot pink neon
bike shorts and the helmet and the, the whole whatever she
looks like she's part of the peloton. You know, it's like it's the whole deal
and it's just the most ridiculous thing. It reminded me of
the scene in Super Troopers where the guy shows up to the.
In his biker. Right Outfit and it's the cyclist
outfit, not the motorcycle biker. Yeah, yeah, very funny. And it's
too bad because Debbie seems like the character that might have the
most going for her in the first place and maybe needs to do that kind
of thing the least. It's a very desperate.
Just the ridiculousness of all these people in their mid-20s
feeling such desperation that they're not locked down for life is very funny. But I
think we can examine that for a second because I think this is how this
movie shows us Generation X. Right. And really in the popular culture,
like I said mentioned Richard Linklater's Slacker. That certainly had
an impact on what Gen X got defined as in the greater culture.
And this movie certainly is part of that. Reality bites. There's a handful of others
and I think what they were saying basically is like for Gen X,
if you're going to be cool, you either have
to be like Janet and Cliff or cool because they're aloof
or you have to be cool like Steve
and Linda where you've got jobs and you're like being a productive member of society,
but only in the way that, that it's like ecological or you know, you're working
for the environment or you're doing this kind of like greater good stuff. Right,
right. Because I believe Debbie is an advertising salesperson working.
She says I'm working for a local, I think maybe TV station or radio station,
but either way, you know, she's in media buying, basically an ad buying and media.
And it's like that's not cool. Right, right. That's a square job.
Right. She's working for the man. That's a square job. And so I think that
she is this really heavy handed reminder
that the trappings of success don't mean anything
to Gen X man. And it's Ridiculous. And it's stupid
and childish. No, that. That makes
a lot of sense. And the, the difference of her job versus the other ones
where it's like Cliff being a musician, obviously that's cool.
Steve and Linda, you talked about even Janet working at a coffee shop.
It's. There's this kind of idea of a noble struggle. Right.
So that's a cool job to have culturally. You either worked
in retail or in food service, or you didn't. Yeah, right. And it's like.
And people our age, ish. That worked in retail or worked in food service,
like, have this battle scar of like, understanding of what
it's like to have to deal with the general public. And there's something noble about
that. And there is something. And I'm not being facetious, like there literally is.
And I feel like everybody in their life. Life should have to work either retail
or some kind of food service to get that viewpoint.
And I think this is. That's what makes Janet noble, right? Is that she's in
that food service world. She's there to serve the public. And then the fact that
it's Seattle and it's coffee, that's a cool factor thing. Right. This is still pre
Starbucks being everywhere. Right. There was a sort of
a mystique around the Pacific Northwest, and coffee was cool
and espresso was cool and whatever. Yeah. So I think that's
why. That's why Janet, like, can have kind of like an otherwise normal ish job
and still be cool like Cliff. Right. You know, whatever. Right.
Right. So, yeah, no, that. That's a great point. And I
mean, I see this in my life all the time, is you can definitely spot
the people who have and who have not had to have a public facing
job like that at some point. Yeah. So.
So what did Janet. I mean, Janet felt.
Felt uncomfortable in her relationship with Cliff because she
felt inadequate. Well, to be fair to her,
Cliff kind of made it clear. Right. I mean, it's like looking whenever
we're in Cliff's apartment, the walls are just plastered with like pages from Playboy
and bikini models and kind of stuff. And it's quite ludicrous. Like this. This man
we're supposed to understand. Is it probably 25 years old?
Like, I'm guessing, but it's probably in that ballpark. I mean, I know what
my apartment looked like when I was 25. Yeah, that's ridiculous. There's no way it
was anything like that. I think I had like one or two movie posters up
because I didn't want it to look cluttered, you know what I mean? Like,
that's a ridiculous way to live. That shows him as being,
you know, he's 25, but in his mind he's actually 16.
He acts like a teenage boy, but. Yeah, but then
because Janet straight up asks him, like, are my boobs big enough for you?
And I think he said, sometimes I think, yes. It was
a very unsatisfying answer because it was like, like dishonest but
also hurtful at the same time. He really killed it with that answer. It was
the short end of both sticks. It was like, dude, like, either lie to her
and just make her feel better and lie or be totally honest and just be
totally honest, right? He's like, oh, I just have Playboy pictures because the
small boob nudie magazines have all gone out of business because small
boobs suck. But anyway, yeah, I love you. Yeah, you're great. Yeah.
She decides, and this is an interesting, I think thing that is only kind of
hinted at rather than said outright, is that, you know, we heard very
quickly throw away. I think it was as Steve was introducing, or not
introducing, but talking about all of his neighbors to Linda when she first comes over
and you know, she mentioned, he mentions Debbie and Bailey and Cliff and Janet.
And he says, janet's saving up. She's working the coffee shop. She's saving up money
to go back to architecture school. So then when Janet decides,
no, I need to get my boobs done, I mean, I didn't
really think about it until I thought about it, but it's like she's going to
waste her, her savings, her architecture tuition savings on fake
boobs for Cliff. Oh, man, that's dark.
Yeah, that's no good. That's no good, man. Architecture, I feel
like in fiction is a very popular profession. And I wonder if
it's because those tubes are such good props.
Like, so much can happen, you know, like in the Brady Bunch of tables,
the plans fall out of the end of the tube. The drafting tables are cool.
You don't have a computer screen. It's just such a camera friendly profession. It's true.
Yeah. They say that's why you never have people in TV shows and movies who
are writers, because what they do does not is not visually interesting.
I mean, there are movies and stuff about writers. I mean, wrong, but you don't
tend to show writers doing a lot of work. Right. Because it's like, what's the
point? But, but, but an architect. Not that we actually see Janet do it,
but it is an interesting thing. You write Another. And then they have their,
their main work that they're doing. So you have your architecture you're doing for your
company, but then in your apartment or your office you have a very
intricate model of your dream project. That's like your passion project. Yes,
this is George Bailey and it's a
wonderful life with his, his bridge or whatever that he smashes up
when he's so frustrated. So it's just. That's another great prop to have.
Yeah, for sure. So, yeah. So she decides
to go. She's going to get her boobs done. She goes and she meets Dr.
Bill Pullman to go and, and get,
I guess evaluated. And they go back and forth with
this computer program, which I think is hilarious that the doctor's letting the patient touch
the computer. But yeah, going back and forth with like she wants them super big.
He's like, well, you could dial it back a little. No, no, no, super big.
And they eventually split the difference, which is like, no, lady. Like, listen to the
doctor. Like he's telling you he does this for a living. He's a professional.
You probably should. Should pay attention. But yeah, but it.
Thankfully, Janet decides later on after. After a riveting
pep talk by Dr. Bill Pullman decides
not to do it. Yeah, saves her money. Does not. Wants Cliff to love her
for her. Makes the right call. But an interesting
thing is, I don't really know what this sequence was meant to tell us because
Janet enters and exits the sequence of this movie. Basically the
exact same. I mean, I guess not true. She realizes that she wants Cliff
to like her for herself and that's what it took, I guess. But it felt
very like Much Ado about nothing. It was. And the
great gag, like you said, the back and forth with the computer man,
we had limited graphics to really tell. You know, you're going to
make this life changing decision. And this is like your character modification
screen on RBI baseball. And that's the level
of graphics that we have. But Bill Pullman coming on
to her, really,
really unprofessional. Although his or setup.
So she went there ostensibly to get the operation and
she's just sitting, no gown, nothing, just sitting on a random
couch and he just has a little tray of scalpels and stuff as if you
get breast implants. And then you're just, oh, on your way. Oh, make sure
you don't drink any water for 20 minutes. Like you're leaving the dentist. I thought
it was very funny that they're trying to set this up as she's there ready
for the surgery and then she just, just leave. She's ready to go
because I'm still in my clothes and. Right. I'm gonna go out, I'm gonna go
out on a limb here and say that was not a sterile environment. I,
you know, I don't think it was. It was a morally or,
or medically sterile environment. That's fair. I actually
was watching that scene over again though, this, this watch through and I, I really,
for a second I thought, wait, do they hook up? Because I feel like Janet
and Dr. Bill Pullman should have gotten together. Right? I don't know. Why not?
I mean, yes, he's 33, she's 23. I guess that's a big age gap,
but like, not for a doctor. Yeah,
that's fair. You can make a spin off movie of Bill Pullman,
the plastic surgeon who hates big boobs. So he has to go in every
day and he's like, oh man, I hate. I wish they'd stay small.
And that's like a good internal struggle for a character.
It would beg the question why he doesn't just, you know, do something
else. But hey, he feels trapped as well.
If we go back to Steve and Linda. Yeah, because I
had a few notes about this during his whole initial pursuit
where again, insane soccer
type behavior, like, can I take you out for drinks? How about dinner?
How about a snack? How about a water? How about it? Terrible, terrible, terrible.
And then when he finally gets her to agree to spend some time with him,
he's immediately trying to give her his garage door opener.
Which is funny because the last film we talked about, toy soldiers,
involved a very prominent garage door opener.
We're in our garage door opener era here.
So the note that I had and Linda,
this was the two notes that I had. Call the police on
Steve. This movie. The message
that this movie gives to stalkers is, hey, there's always a chance, man. Just keep
trying, just keep going, just keep going. Stay the course. But then there's
a scene right around the time where Steve was just being ridiculous and she
was not repelling him in the way that I feel like she should have.
She was sitting on her couch, brushing her teeth.
No water, just brushing her teeth with paste
and a brush, sitting on her couch. And I felt like, okay, there's something wrong
with this one. She's not gonna, if she doesn't even know which room to brush
her teeth in, then she's not gonna pick the right guy.
My 6 year old daughter will walk down the hallway with her
toothbrush and her Mouth, brush her teeth and try to talk to her brother.
And I'll be like, you can't do that. If you're doing that, you're not brushing.
Go back in there and take care of your teeth. Keep it in the bathroom.
But they ultimately hooked up. Despite all this. They ultimately hooked
up. Very, very funny scene. She made a comment earlier to Steve about
the Seattle SuperSonics player Xavier McDaniel, the X Man.
And he would not hear anything about anything negative. That' favorite
player. And during the sex scene, it flashes into
Steve's internal thoughts, which is Xavier McDaniel,
which I love this gag. Again, very, very funny thing in the movie.
And he's talking, and then he looks and he says, steve,
don't come yet. Well, because she asks him, what are you thinking?
Right. In that movie? And it's clear that he's. And I look, I be honest.
I think we men, we've all been there at some point. You're just trying.
Yeah. To make everything last as long as it could. Yes. And that's not always
easy. So thinking about something that is in no way sexy is sometimes a help.
Right. And, yeah, I couldn't think of anything less sexy than the X Man
telling me not to come yet. I mean, God, the classic
one is, you know, think about baseball and everything. But I think, as we
discussed earlier, Paul Giamatti is in this movie. His father, A. Bartlett Giamatti,
the Major League baseball commissioner, just died, like, the year before. Oh, wow.
So maybe they just didn't want to talk about. Talk about baseball in this movie.
I'm sure that factor was a top. Cameron Crows. I love the,
the amount of love between Pearl Jam naming their band Mookie Blaylock
and then the presence of Xavier McDaniel and stuff. I,
I the Seattle basketball, like, there's some real fandom there. It was nice to see
the Sonics fans still exist. Sonics fans are still
pissed about the Sonics moving to Oklahoma City. They are still upset about, you know,
Kevin Durant was drafted. He was drafted by the songs right. Before the Sonics moved
and then became Kevin Durant and the superstar that he, that he became in Oklahoma
City. So they're still upset about. And I don't blame him, frankly, to date this,
this recording, as an A's fan who has recently lost his
team. Like, I don't blame Seattle basketball fans for still being heard about it.
Yeah. And I think, you know, it. It's. That was a big thing. And they
didn't have, I mean, they had the Mariners And I guess they had the Mariners
in. The Seahawks. They had a lot of sports in Seattle, but yeah, something about
the basketball team really, really touched people. The Seahawks, though,
this was kind of like post Bosworth, so they were really struggling.
Brian Boswell, post Largent. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But I love. So the. Him needing
to picture Xavier McDaniel telling him not to come. Very funny.
Steve goes into the. The store.
I think he was getting the. They had a scare. Right.
So. So Linda. Linda's late. So. So now. Now Linda's thinks she might be pregnant.
She actually seems pretty confident that she is. So. Yeah. So Steve goes to the
drugstore to get apparently every other pregnancy test that exists.
Yeah, I couldn't. I didn't know what his strategy was. I thought. I thought he
was trying to dilute the pregnancy test with a bunch of
other random stuff, but I think he got a whole bunch of. It seems like
it was all pregnancy tests. Yeah. So he had like seven or eight of them,
and it was just. Yeah. Randomly flipping them very nonchalantly off.
As a father, he should not have been so nonchalant. This was like a massive
moment in his life. He wasn't reading the backs of the boxes or anything.
He was just going off vibes. Yeah. But the cashier
at the drugstore. Great, great appearance.
And I don't know. I didn't see if this was his first appearance, but I
feel like it's very early for him. You know, I don't know either, but I
think. Yeah, definitely early on, but he was mentioned in the opening credits,
so I don't think so because, like, Jamati, for instance, didn't. Didn't get an opening
credits call. But Jeremy Piven was listed in the opening credits. And yeah, he.
He was fantastic. Jeremy Piven, just the
baldest young guy. He's just so acutely bald
in a way that is. You don't see it a lot.
I think that's when, as a bald
man myself, you're as well shaving your head with clippers.
I feel like maybe they weren't as prevalent in the 90s because that look of
the balding, early mid-20s guy who's still trying
to rock the haircut just doesn't exist anymore. And Piven
looked older there than he did in a lot of the Entourage episodes
and stuff. I mean, there's something about it that ages you. But very funny scene.
You've also perfectly described my wedding photos. That was. That was the look I was
rocking. Oh, yeah, that look. Oh, man. Not good. Yeah, not good. Should have been.
Should have been shaving it down earlier, but. Yeah. But if I could wake up
tomorrow and have one day with that haircut, I would definitely take it.
Fair enough. Yeah. So he is buying pregnancy tests. And real quick,
I don't know if you saw this in. In researching anything before coming here
to do this. Jeremy Piven apparently cost production a significant amount of money
because he ad libbed all that stuff about Public Enemy
and. Oh, God, what was it now? It was. It was blending.
Oh, the mashup of the song. Yes. He kept doing song
lyrics from both songs. They end up having to pay ASCAP fees for
those songs. And so he ended up costing them a few. I mean, not like
astronomical, but like, you know, his day rate was probably 500 bucks. Yeah. Or 700
bucks. Something in that ballpark. And he ended up costing them thousands of dollars in.
In licensing fees. Oh, that is because they. They didn't want to, like, reshoot it
because it's a good scene and it's a very funny moment and Piven's great,
but apparently that was. It costs a production a little extra money.
As an actor, I think Piven recognized the limitations
of Campbell Scott's on screen charisma and was like,
I really. I. I gotta pull a lot of weight here.
So. Yeah. So he goes and he buys the pregnancy tests. They take them
and they go through the Mr. Wizard fucking chemistry set. That is early
90s pregnancy tests. Yeah. Side note, my wife and I are rewatching
a TV show that we love called Glow. I don't know if you've. The wrestling
show. The wrestling show. The women's wrestling show set in the 80s and a character
in that show has to take a pregnancy test. And it's even more of life
like a series of beakers and. And a Bunsen burner and craziness.
Like, it's an. Absolutely. I don't know how people did this, but. Yeah. So they
have to like pour two vials into each other and wait to see. And it
was so funny that they're looking for blue liquid. They say, well, hold up something
blue behind it. I'm thinking myself, that's the dumbest thing. Yeah. Possibly do all look
blue. They realize that and put up something white. Sure enough, it's the brightest blue
liquid you've ever seen. Yeah. It's like those adult diaper commercials from the 90s where
there was pouring blue liquid. Pitcher full of blue. Oh, my God. And so.
So she's pregnant. So Linda's pregnant. It was funny that
the, the camera Was only showing kind of their faces and them
kind of. Is it blue? I don't know. I don't know. A good gag.
Again, when it finally shows it, I'm colorblind and I could see that that's
blue from miles away. It was pretty clear. Really good. Yeah.
So, yeah. So they, they have to decide what they're gonna do. And you
know, they decide and let's keep it. And he actually even proposes to her.
Yeah. Which is crazy because it just is.
But that's what he decides to do. Yeah. He sees
this as, okay, I figured my stuff out, I can do my bullet train.
And now I got my life figured out and things are gonna be happy
forever. And let's go for a little drive to celebrate.
Yeah. I don't know where they're gonna drive to, but they're driving. And this was
actually good because I knew the scene was coming, this moment was coming. But I
don't know how surprising it was to you to have that happen where Linda and
Steve are driving down the street and they're hit by a truck. It's like
a gardening landscaping company pickup truck. But I noticed this time
through because I think it did catch me by surprise the first time I watched
the movie. This time through, you can actually, in the cut, before they cut to
Steve, before they cut back to Linda, where the crash happens out Linda's window,
you can see that truck barreling down the street and kind of coming towards the
intersection, which I thought was really interesting, was a great timing, good editing, I think,
you know, but then Steve's comment is that lights
yellow for way too long. And it's like, I know you work for the
Department of Transportation, so I get that you might have some insight into this.
But like, do you know this intersection that well? And here's the thing. If that
lights yellow, the cross traffic's got a red.
Right. They can't both be right. So it's not like you're coming
up to an intersection. It was very strange. It wouldn't have mattered.
That light could have been green. Right. And if that truck was going to come
barreling into that intersection at that time, it was running a red no matter what.
It was such a weird kind of thing where they. I feel like it tried
to explain the crash to us in his little comment, but it doesn't make any
sense. Like they just got barreled in a T boned by somebody running a red
light. Well, I think it's a. It's a classic high speed train
enthusiast trying to bash the Automobile industry and make it look bad. That must be
it. They lost a baby and it obviously screws up their relationship. And I don't.
I, you know, I think it makes sense why. I think this was like a.
An earned sort of hard
thing for them to do, like awkwardness and. And, you know, I did feel like
this was a part of this movie where, you know, this horrible thing happened to
these two people. You know, it seems like they had just wanted. They were close
to figuring it out kind of thing with each other. And this sort of throws
everything off. And so she decides to go off on a trip
to sort of like an ecological research trip to Alaska. And he's gonna,
you know, try to get this thing passed with the mayor,
played by Tom Skerritt, I believe was the other, like, kind of cameo.
Yeah, but. Yeah, and that's. And that's kind of, you know, where,
you know, I think they should have left Linda and Steve.
Yeah, I mean, that, that was. That made sense. And like you
said it for him to propose and like, want to stay
with her, that made sense. But it was definitely absent the pregnancy way jumping the
gun and never would have happened. So this is all hinging upon and we have
a baby to deal with and this is the best thing to do. And then
when Linda loses the baby. Okay, that should be it.
So she goes off on her research trip. And then we get a
very sad montage of Steve's terrible life in depressing
Seattle as a single man, where it's like, sad. And he's
building a high speed rail and he's watching Soundgarden at like a 45
person venue and he's meeting all these beautiful people. It's like,
Steve, nobody feels bad for you right now. No, he needed to just move
on with his life. I did love the. The classic.
It's a trope now, but, you know, might have felt more fresh than. But it
was great that, you know, he leaves this. Honestly, it's better for him. But he
leaves this ridiculous message on her machine, pouring his heart out
and I'll never call again, don't worry, or whatever, but, like trying to be again
the nice guy. Yeah. And she comes in, of course, just as the machine,
you know, was finished with his message and beeping. And she goes to check it
and what does the machine do? It eats the tape. It eats the tape.
Classic. That just happens all the time. I, you know, I grew up, we had
tapes in answering machines. I don't think ever once that happened. No.
Any one of our answering Machines. You needed a really messed up tape player for
that to happen. I mean, it's very rare. So. Yeah, there you go. Maybe an
old Teddy Ruxpin would eat. But not. Not a real player.
So Steve's kind of fallen. He's kind of done. The mayor,
like you said, he has this meeting with the mayor. He finally gets to pitch
his high speed rail. So he's ready to put. It's funny.
It doesn't go in front of the citizens of Seattle. They're just like, I talk
to this one guy one on one, and that'll decide. Or not. Yeah.
So he tells him no. And then Steve is kind of done with his.
He's over it, right? Yeah. He doesn't care about it anymore and
he leaves his work. He quits his job, I guess. Yeah. We're not even.
It's not even really made clear until later when he talks about sending out resumes
over fast, which. Yeah, ridiculous. But. But yeah. So apparently he quits
his job and. And why did his cubicle collapse? That was
so funny. And if just one side collapsed, it would have been
funny, but it just kept going until it was all the way collapsed. I really
love that. Just another thing that made this movie more interesting
for me where there's just a couple gags that are like. It doesn't serve the
plot, but it's just so ridiculous. And it makes this movie more enjoyable.
But it's also like, it definitely. It was fun. I'm not, like, bad, but it's
like, was he never coming back for all that stuff? Cubicle was just chock
full of, like, plants and coffee mugs and, like, different things he's
done. You get whatever fits in your one box, and then that's it.
That's all you ever get. Yeah. So then
he's. He's on his sad guy. Right. And it's kind of going
back and forth and showing what's happening with Linda. What's happening with Steve. Right.
Linda is back together with her boring ex, which it had flashed back to before.
Just sitting there. Sensitive ponytail guy. Yeah. Just classic guy.
That's. That's a classic 90s trope guy. I like him.
Absolutely. And they're just boringly doing crosswords
in the same room together, not speaking or anything. And then
Steve's downfall is just. He's basically turned into a renegade
cop who plays by his own rules. He just wakes up in a
haze of beer cans and pizza boxes every morning. And then added on top of
that, because he's a train guy. He has has the sad, kind of Reverend Lovejoy
style model train set going through his apartment as
he's just lamenting the loss of everything in his life. And I really like that.
I wonder how long could he sustain
himself in that lifestyle before he found a new job? Like, did he have savings
just for going sad guy for a couple months? I feel like probably again,
I think, you know, it's a little tough to tell with all these people living
in this in the same. You know, basically it's an apartment building where Linda,
who works the coffee shop, Cliff, who works multiple jobs, but all of them sort
of, you know, he works the coffee shop, he works delivering flowers and of course
has the band, and then Debbie who works in ad sales with a roommate.
They can all afford an apartment here. So I don't get a good sense of
like, this must not be a very expensive place. If Janet can afford to live
here alone on a. On a barista's salary or, you know, wages. It's probably not
a super expensive place. So one would think a government job pays
decent, you know, so you're not going to get rich working for the government,
but you're never going to go. Go broke either, you know. Well, he had a
sob. Classic 90s. Yeah, that was. That was a good detail as well. So he
must have some savings a bit and. And was able to.
He probably could have done that for a while because it was obviously all getting
delivery because he made a comment when Janet comes over to check on him,
he makes a comment about like, oh, in today's day and age, you don't even
need to leave the house. And I'm thinking to myself, dude, doordash wouldn't be invented
for like 20 more years. At 25 more years at least. That was really funny.
But, you know, but he's clearly got its pizza and Chinese food. He's just getting
the things that have always been delivered. Right. You could get those delivery dating back
to the 60s or whatever. So, you know, he probably could
have survived on pizza and Chinese food for kind of a long time. Yeah.
Yeah, I think that's right. As long as he's eating the Chinese food directly out
of the container with a chopstick. Yep, chopsticks. I've actually one of my biggest pet
peeves about my favorite local Chinese food restaurant is that they serve their chow mein
in a. When you get it to go, it's like in a shallow, wide box.
It's got to be in the classic box because you can't dig in that thing.
Yeah, I can't I can't. I can't hold it and eat it. Like I have
to share with my family, which is just unacceptable. Yeah, very much.
You brought up the. The car stereo thing just because this kind of happened towards
the end. But I just think it was so funny when Cliff,
his kind of apology gift to Janet was,
I put this sick new stereo in your car that could use so
many other kinds of service or money invested into it. It's like that Pimp
My Ride show, you know, where someone's like, oh, yeah, I gotta drive two hours
a day to work and I have an 82 Peugeot. And exhibit's like, let's put
an aquarium in the back. It's like, God damn it, man. Just getting me
something reliable. My oil's leaking everywhere. How about some anti lock brakes?
How about that? How about an airbag? How about a side mirror so I can
see what's going on in the freeway? But the scene of the music playing
as Chris Cornell watched, which was great. The music is so powerful that it
just starts destroying the car. Took me back a little bit to
the Breakfast Club with Emilio Estevez screaming inside of
the record room at the best library I've ever seen in my life. And the
wa. And the glass just shatters. I really like that.
Oh, man. Good stuff.
So, yeah, I don't. So we know Cliff and Janet end up getting back together
at the end because honestly, at this point, I didn't care. I'll be
totally honest. But Cliff said, God bless you when she sneezed. So they get back
together. Okay, great. So, you know, when all is said and
done, you know, pretty much everybody's got it figured out. Debbie, we understand this was
like the kind of exposition at the end that Cliff just throws at us,
but Debbie apparently flew to Mexico through
la. Specifically through la on first one to sit next to a single guy and
they put him. They put her next to like, you know, a 14 year old
or whatever he was. Oh, that's right. Right. But then she meets that kid's dad
in Mexico and he wants her to move there, there for him,
you know, whatever. She gets flowers or something. It's. It's a
little silly, but yeah. So this is one of those movies where, you know,
nothing's really all that different at the end from the beginning. And that's intentional.
You know, it's a character study. It's a character driven film. It's not
a plot driven film. But yeah, so it really gets the end. You're kind of
like, I enjoyed it. I enjoy this movie. I mean, the music, the soundtrack alone.
I will rewatch this movie just to hear the random snippets of State of
Love and Trust and Nearly Lost you and little places in the background. I think
the soundtrack's fantastic, but it's, you know, not a lot happens.
Yeah, it's definitely one of those. Where it kind of ends with.
And that's what goes on in this crazy apartment complex that we
live in. Yeah. Speaking of living all together in the same apartment
building are you aware of one of Cameron Crowe's beefs with Warner
Brothers over this film? No. So this is fun. So Warner Brothers, when this
was. I don't know if it was when it was being made, if it had
been finished before it had been released, etc. Or maybe it was after was released.
But they approached Crow about turning singles into a television show.
And he did not want anything to do with. He's like, no, I'm not interested.
I do movies. I don't do tv. So then later, Warner Brothers produces a
little show called Friends. And Cameron Crow is convinced. Oh.
That this is a direct ripoff of singles. And I read that before this rewatch,
and I thought, he's crazy. It's just. It's a movie about kid. You know,
people like, whatever you have around the same age. Sure. Like, whatever. But, you know,
there's. That's where the similarities end. Yeah. No, no. Watching it with that in
mind this time. Steve is Ross. Yeah. Linda is
Rachel, Cliff is Joey, Janet is Monica.
Debbie's kind of Phoebe and Bailey's kind of nobody. But, like,
there are some really significant character similarities between five
of those characters. And I have a feeling if we
had gotten more of Bailey, he would have been more of that Chandler kind of
clown character. On the pilot for Friends, Chandler had a ridiculous soul
patch. So, I mean, it's. It's. So. Yeah. I wonder if Cameron Crowe
had a point now, as it turns out. So he, you know, approached either his
legal team or tried to get lawyers to take it on. And they could not
find enough, you know, evidence to make it worth actually filing suit. So they never
did file a lawsuit. But I don't think he's that out of left field to
say that Friends was directly inspired by this movie.
Yeah, that's very interesting. And, man, imagine if they had a little bit
more grunge influence on the Friends. I mean, all due respect to the Rembrandts,
but they didn't have the staying power of some of the bands in this movie.
So maybe they could have used Cameron Crowe's artistic vision a little bit. I think
that show ended up doing fine. I haven't looked into it. I think it.
I think it did all right. Yeah. I'm pretty sure nobody involved in
creating or running it has any regrets or money problems at this point in their
lives. So they're good. But yeah, but it really. Yeah, I think, you know,
Cameron Crowe has got some amount of beef.
Appropriate beef. So what was the next thing Cameron Crow did after
this? Was it Almost Famous? You know what? It might have been. If you give
me a second, I will find out. Out. But because he's one. I was looking
at a list of his films and I realized I haven't seen that
many of them. Jerry Maguire I'd seen Almost Famous.
I'd seen. Right. And those are the two that I always think of. I mean,
there's this Jerry Maguire, Almost Famous. Those are the ones I think of for him,
you know, when I'm like, oh, like Cameron Crowe. So as a director.
So he did. So Almost Famous was not until 2000.
Oh, so he directed say Anything. That was his debut as a director.
John Cusack film say Anything. So then. And that's what he did. Did to then
kind of be able to make singles. So then. Yeah, Jerry Maguire was next
in 1996 and then almost Famous and then Vanilla Sky. Oh, I saw Elizabethtown.
That was okay. That's a pretty good run for. For a few years. We Bought
a Zoo. So. Okay. But yeah, so no, say Anything was. So this to Jerry
Maguire. So they must have seen something because Jerry.
Unless he also wrote Jerry Maguire, it seems like one of those movies that they
would. He did write it. Oh, he did. Very nice. Okay, well,
good for him. I mean, it's a totally different movie tonally and Jerry Maguire is
kind of a classic. This is going to make a lot of money. There's big,
you know, big people involved. Big blockbuster type movie. It's a classic
kind of rom com story with a huge star in the lead. So. Yeah,
yeah, yeah, yeah. Good old Cameron Crow. All right, so that
is. That is singles, I think. Unless there's anything else on your list.
I think we kind of covered my notes here. I think. I think we can
go through and rate this. Why don't we let. As the person who saw it
for the first time this time, why don't you get started? What do you end
up giving us out of five? Yeah. So I think this movie,
again, kind of disjointed, but maybe intentionally so.
It's not like A failed attempt at a narrow, at a classic
narrative. It did its own thing. I like the uniqueness of the gags. I thought
there were some legitimately really funny parts. Campbell Scott killed
me. Yeah, I, I just didn't have a moment where I really cared about that
character at all. And he wasn't enough of a bad, bad guy to really root
against, so he was just kind of a dude. I think if there
was somebody maybe better in that role, I would have enjoyed the movie a little
bit more. But that being said, the music was cool. Just seeing a
vision into what is Seattle in the early 90s that ended
up influencing so much of our culture today. You know,
I mean, Target is even super underground. They're selling
Nirvana shirts. Sure. The state of Kurt Cobain loves that,
right? So, yeah, I'm gonna give this movie a two and a half out
of five. Okay. I think there was enough bits and pieces that it was enjoyable.
Enjoyable to me, but overall, even when I'm thinking about it,
it's hard for me to remember what happened with all these people because it wasn't
quite as engaging as far as the plot lines and stuff. But great cameos,
great music, great gags. Yeah, totally fair. I,
I, I'm only slightly more positive about this film.
I'm going with a 3.0 out of 5 for myself. Again, very similar comments.
I do think that the, the music, the, the view into
the zeitgeist and everything, I think is what, for me bumps it a little higher.
I think there's more value there for me in this movie. It really is the
kind of thing where it's like, I could watch this movie just to, like,
I wouldn't have to watch it. I could watch this movie and with headphones on
without seeing a screen because the fact that, you know, the music will just come
up at once, like I said, when, when, when Linda and Steve are just hanging
out in Steve's apartment, screaming Trees is playing in the background. And, you know,
I mean, it's little things like that. And it's really what, you know,
what makes this movie, I think, is that it is a view into, like you
said, the Seattle era, the early 90s, the Seattle Sound grunge, the Gen
X. There's so much that this movie ended up mattering
about when it comes to that stuff. So for me, it's a 3.0.3.0. For you,
a 2.5, a 5.5. Probably a little low compared
to the general populace's view of the film, but obviously we're in kind of the
same ballpark with it. So not something that either of us adores,
but again, not a bad film. It does feel like we're kind of in
that ballpark with a lot of the movies that we're talking about together where it's
like, you know, they're not bad. Yeah. But they're not great.
So on that note, Nick, why don't you tell us what's the next movie we're
gonna see? Okay. The next hopeful. Not bad, not great. That we have
coming up. Up. And this is one. I've been considering what to pick next.
And I had kind of not like a heated conversation,
but like a decent conversation with my wife about this movie today.
And I thought, okay, this would be an interesting one for us to pick.
This film is from 1990, and it stars
Melanie Griffith, Matthew Modine,
and Michael Keaton.
1990. I. I classify, if I'm giving it a title,
what I refer to it to my wife, which started this conversation as a
landlord thriller. And it's called Pacific Heights.
Okay. It's very, very interesting kind of thriller.
It takes place in San Francisco, which will be very fun, very nice to
see, and I think it'll be a lot of fun to talk about. All right.
Another one I've never seen. So this is great. This is going to be fun.
So seeing a pre.com San Francisco is always something. Different world in
different movies. There's a few. I know, at least a couple more that I'm thinking
of for later in this series that will do the same, but cool. So Pacific
Heights. Pacific Heights, the next movie that we'll do.
Yeah, that was singles and this is 2Dads1 movie. And thank
you all so much for listening. I am Steve. I'm Nick.
And thank you so much. We'll. We'll catch you next time. Thanks, everyone.