Speaker 1: Welcome to Movie Crush, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey, everybody,
Speaker 1: welcome to Movie Crush Quarantine edition here with Casey. How
Speaker 1: you doing, Casey? Hey, Chuck, I'm you know, I'm doing
Speaker 1: like probably we're all doing. Um, not too bad, not
Speaker 1: too bad. Um, glad to be talking about this movie. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there is, isn't it. Uh, this is weird unifying thing
Speaker 1: that like, you know, nine eleven happens and it's Americans
Speaker 1: going through something. Other things happened in other countries, but
Speaker 1: this is like worldwide synchronicity. It's the Yeah, it's the
Speaker 1: sort of like large unifying event that pretty much everyone
Speaker 1: on the planet is undergoing right now. And yeah, there
Speaker 1: there hasn't been It's been a while since we've had
Speaker 1: something on that scale. So um, you know, obviously it's
Speaker 1: it's a terrible thing, but in a way, it is
Speaker 1: kind of like bringing people together. So that's interesting. Yeah, Nolan,
Speaker 1: I when we're doing these minis now, we asked on
Speaker 1: the on the Facebook page for positives that are coming
Speaker 1: out of this because people are experiencing positives with this
Speaker 1: time and being at home and stuff, and I told
Speaker 1: no law, said man if If. Fifty of the world
Speaker 1: comes out of this five percent better. That's a big change. Yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: I mean I think it's Yeah, it's it's it's focusing
Speaker 1: people back on maybe the essentials in life a little bit. Um.
Speaker 1: Certainly we're not moving around like we used to or
Speaker 1: like you know, some of us are used to traveling
Speaker 1: all the time and being in different places and having
Speaker 1: this feeling of kind of I don't know, just just
Speaker 1: crawling the globe a little bit. Now we're like super
Speaker 1: tightly focused on the domestic and the neighborhood and you know,
Speaker 1: just like uh, not even a one mile radius around
Speaker 1: where we are, you know, so we're like hyper local now,
Speaker 1: which is which is very interesting and um, I think
Speaker 1: I think hopefully some some positives will come out of that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I've seen, um, the neighborhood really coming together and sharing
Speaker 1: things and because you know, people don't want to go
Speaker 1: to store, so there's just this massive barter exchange going
Speaker 1: on all over the place with porch drops and pickups
Speaker 1: and it's, uh, it's really neat. It makes you think,
Speaker 1: like it's sad that it takes this to get people
Speaker 1: to come together like that, But hopefully that's something that
Speaker 1: sticks around. You know, Yeah, it seems like the best
Speaker 1: in people tends to come out in these situations. So
Speaker 1: um yeah, there's there's always that that upside to it,
Speaker 1: and UM yeah, I don't know. I mean, it just
Speaker 1: feels like there's there's everything before this and everything after this,
Speaker 1: you know, and I certainly hope that. I mean, I
Speaker 1: know there's there's a lot of talk about when are
Speaker 1: things going to go back to normal? But I think
Speaker 1: I think normal will be something different, you know. I
Speaker 1: think it's going to be permanently altered and hopefully mostly
Speaker 1: for the positive. Yep, I'm with you there, man, Um,
Speaker 1: what do you What have you been doing? You've been
Speaker 1: watching a lot of movies or TV shows? You want
Speaker 1: to talk about anything you've been watching. Let's see what
Speaker 1: have I been watching? I'm gonna have been I'm here
Speaker 1: with my girlfriend and so she's been watching like a
Speaker 1: lot of series and I'm just kind of like glomming
Speaker 1: onto that. Um and then you know, maybe later at night,
Speaker 1: after she's gone to bed, I'll like put on a
Speaker 1: movie or something something more kind of my speed. That's
Speaker 1: you know, typically a downer, typically something you know that's
Speaker 1: that's not meant for for group consumption. UM, But I
Speaker 1: really haven't been watching too much so far. During the quarantine, UM,
Speaker 1: I watched this Russian documentary. It's well, it's about Russia.
Speaker 1: It's called Pripyatt. It's actually about Ukraine, but it's about
Speaker 1: you know, Chernobyl. UH, just because I felt like, I
Speaker 1: don't know, looking at something that somehow related a little
Speaker 1: bit to our current uh predicament. UM. And it's a
Speaker 1: it's a it's a documentary about just the handful of
Speaker 1: people that are still living in that town prip Yot,
Speaker 1: where basically the meltdown happened, or was the closest town
Speaker 1: to the to the to the plant. UM. And the
Speaker 1: people that have come back to live there, the people
Speaker 1: that never left, the people that still work at the
Speaker 1: power plant, UM, well aware that the radiation is still everywhere,
Speaker 1: and UM have just chosen to you know, basically finished
Speaker 1: out their lives there because they know they're gonna get sick. UM.
Speaker 1: And it's yeah, yeah right, UM. But in a way,
Speaker 1: it actually was kind of uplifting because UM, in that film,
Speaker 1: you saw that people can adapt to basically anything, and
Speaker 1: that in their own way, these people had chosen to
Speaker 1: be there and that they were happy with that choice
Speaker 1: because that was home to them and they just wanted
Speaker 1: to uh stay there and not and not go somewhere else.
Speaker 1: So that was one thing I watched. I think I'm
Speaker 1: gonna pull up my letterbox real quick, make sure I
Speaker 1: didn't forget anything else. You know, I feel bad. I
Speaker 1: encourage people to find of me on letterbox and then
Speaker 1: I used it for like two weeks and then stopped. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I noticed that. I noticed that some you know, it
Speaker 1: sticks with some people. Yeah. I watched Train to Boussan
Speaker 1: the other day, which I hadn't seen yet. I have
Speaker 1: not seen that one. It's great, good zombie movie. Oh okay,
Speaker 1: I didn't notice like a zombie film, zombies on a train. Okay,
Speaker 1: well I have not seen that done before. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: sort of like walking to a sort of like World
Speaker 1: War Ze meets snow Piercer. Totally would I would definitely
Speaker 1: watch that. Yeah, very well done though, Like you think
Speaker 1: you've seen it all in zombie movies and it's such
Speaker 1: a tired genre, but they managed to put it put
Speaker 1: a nice original spin on it. Really good and very
Speaker 1: moving and it was very well developed. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: Korea is just putting out such great stuff. Oh it's Korean, Okay,
Speaker 1: it makes sense. Yeah. Um, looks like the only other
Speaker 1: thing I've got here on my recently watched list is
Speaker 1: uh Antonio Gaudi. It's a documentary about the the architect,
Speaker 1: Spanish architect who made those really insane eccentric buildings. Um beautiful,
Speaker 1: beautiful buildings, and it's made by a Japanese filmmaker, Teshi Ghara,
Speaker 1: who films them in in studying fashion. It reminded me
Speaker 1: of Malick a few times. These like slow kind of
Speaker 1: pushions and beautifully kind of choreographed camera moves to kind
Speaker 1: of show the space, and um, some very interesting work
Speaker 1: with sound as well. It's it's almost no dialogue in
Speaker 1: the film. Um, the scores is really really well matched
Speaker 1: with what you're seeing. It has kind of an eerie sense.
Speaker 1: It plays a lot with silence and UM. Yeah it was.
Speaker 1: It's if if you're looking for something that's kind of
Speaker 1: non narrative. UM, I definitely recommend checking that one out.
Speaker 1: It was. It was on my list for a long time,
Speaker 1: and I kept putting it off, putting it off because
Speaker 1: I thought six or seventy minutes about buildings might be
Speaker 1: kind of dry. But it's actually, um yeah, it's it's
Speaker 1: one of the better shot things I've looked at in
Speaker 1: a long time, so worth checking out. Awesome. I will
Speaker 1: check that out, and I want to I wanna tell
Speaker 1: the listeners. You may hear some family noise coming from upstairs.
Speaker 1: Do you hear it a little bit? I don't hear
Speaker 1: it at all, No, but I mean it happens definitely.
Speaker 1: You might hear dogs barking here. Uh. You might hear
Speaker 1: people rummaging around in the kitchen just outside of my
Speaker 1: room or yeah, first stuff, you should know. I quarantine
Speaker 1: the family to the upstairs. Upstairs, I'm in the basement,
Speaker 1: so that's two floors away, including the dogs, because my
Speaker 1: one dog barks at fucking everything that walks by. But
Speaker 1: for movie crush, I'm just like, you know, if there
Speaker 1: are a few puss in there, it is what it is.
Speaker 1: It's casual. It's a hangout. It is it's a hang
Speaker 1: So we're we're like, we're you know, I have my
Speaker 1: bedroom here, the kitchen slash common area is just outside. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I remember. The other bedroom is just the other side.
Speaker 1: So it's like there's really nowhere to hide in here. Um,
Speaker 1: we're all kind of living on top of each other.
Speaker 1: But so it just obviously, yeah, that's just Paul, like
Speaker 1: your girlfriend. Yeah, yeah, to get along, um, everybody, you know, everybody.
Speaker 1: Thankfully we're on the same same wavelength as far as like,
Speaker 1: we're all pretty quiet, we're all pretty discreet, kind of
Speaker 1: like keep to ourselves and give each other's space and
Speaker 1: all that. So yeah, it's it's it's been really nice. Actually,
Speaker 1: well that's good. I mean that that can't be easy.
Speaker 1: But I'm glad that you know, Paul's a good guy
Speaker 1: and you're a good guy, and I'm sure you're going
Speaker 1: that's great. So yeah, I'm glad you're not like at
Speaker 1: each other's throats or anything. No, no, not, not too
Speaker 1: much of the whole cabin fever phenomenon yet, you know,
Speaker 1: we're not we're not turning on each other yet. Well
Speaker 1: give it a few months. Let me if you guys
Speaker 1: decided to eat Paul, that'll be a short meal, okay, exactly.
Speaker 1: I need to finish up our Sofia couple of series
Speaker 1: before you do that though, So yeah, that's right. Okay,
Speaker 1: Well I'll put it off till then. Um, so you agreed, thankfully,
Speaker 1: because you know the the usual list of movies you
Speaker 1: send out is typical Casey fair, which is to say, uh,
Speaker 1: I don't want to say downer material, but you have
Speaker 1: darker taste, not really not really upbeat, you know. I
Speaker 1: think I think realistic because I don't like stuff that's
Speaker 1: like downer for the sake of being in a downstare,
Speaker 1: you know, that's like trying hard. But I feel like most, um,
Speaker 1: I don't know, most clear eyed views of life tend
Speaker 1: to at least integrate a lot of sadness into them
Speaker 1: along with happiness. I think, I think both coexists. But
Speaker 1: you're not a bubble gum guy. Um, But but I
Speaker 1: did request like I would love to be comfort food
Speaker 1: for the listeners right now, and you throughout high fidelity
Speaker 1: and perfect, perfect comfort food film. Yeah, I really love
Speaker 1: that you love this movie. And it does not surprise
Speaker 1: me that you love this movie because it kind of
Speaker 1: has all the Casey elements. Um, it's got a snobbery,
Speaker 1: it's got it's got great music. Um, it's got one
Speaker 1: of the better scripts ever. I think, Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: so too, uh and a and a weirdly overlooked Stephen Frears.
Speaker 1: I think, um, yeah, it's it's unusual for a director
Speaker 1: to kind take a back seat. Uh, And I think
Speaker 1: Hornby's well, he didn't write it, but Kusak and his
Speaker 1: friends did. But horn Hornby's original material and John Kusack,
Speaker 1: they shine so bright in this movie that Stephen Frears
Speaker 1: is really allowed, is allowed to kind of fall into
Speaker 1: the background, which is not fair because he does a
Speaker 1: great job. No, I mean, even even this time watching
Speaker 1: and I've seen this movie, you know, countless times. It's
Speaker 1: one of those you just throw on you watch, you know,
Speaker 1: I couldn't I couldn't even begin to imagine how many
Speaker 1: times I've seen it. Um, but it's it's one of
Speaker 1: those that is deceptively simple or deceptively easy seeming, because
Speaker 1: it's also natural at all, just totally all the pieces
Speaker 1: fit together so well that you almost are not aware
Speaker 1: that there's a director working because it just seems like
Speaker 1: they turn the camera on and they're in this record
Speaker 1: store hanging out, and it's just what it is. But
Speaker 1: you realize that, yeah, I know, somebody had to make
Speaker 1: this film, and and for it to feel so effortless
Speaker 1: is just a sign of, you know, how masterful it
Speaker 1: really is. Yeah, in the in the the lack of
Speaker 1: ego and confidence to take not a back seat, but
Speaker 1: you know, to to be okay with being almost invisible
Speaker 1: as a director. Right. Um. But you know, when you
Speaker 1: think of direction, I think a lot of people might
Speaker 1: think of just like, oh, camera shots, but there's so
Speaker 1: much more that goes into it. The development of a character,
Speaker 1: and all these characters is Steven Treers, his fingerprints are
Speaker 1: very much on it. Um. It's not like John Cusack
Speaker 1: just waltzt in here fully formed. Um. There's a lot
Speaker 1: that goes into the formation of a character with a
Speaker 1: director and an actor. Absolutely, absolutely, I mean the control
Speaker 1: of the tone throughout the whole thing, the little the
Speaker 1: because I mean this this movie is kind of all
Speaker 1: over the map in terms of where it goes emotionally. Um.
Speaker 1: Even though it feels it stays pretty lighthearted, but there
Speaker 1: is you know, there's there's death and grief and angst
Speaker 1: over relationships and sort of a character asking himself what
Speaker 1: is the meaning of his life? What does he want
Speaker 1: in life? Um? But it all stays in this kind
Speaker 1: of light comic register, which without feeling faults, you know,
Speaker 1: without feeling like um, it's being artificially kind of boosted
Speaker 1: in terms of the cheeriness of it. It really earns
Speaker 1: that kind of perspective on life, and um, yeah, Freers
Speaker 1: just Um, he kind of gets out of the way
Speaker 1: a little bit, but at the same time he's very
Speaker 1: much in control. And you know, this is one of
Speaker 1: those films that when I'm watching it, I tend not
Speaker 1: to be so aware of things that directorially he's doing
Speaker 1: in terms of the camera, in terms of the editing
Speaker 1: and so on. Um, even if this movie has a
Speaker 1: few moments that are somewhat showy, I mean it has
Speaker 1: the direct address, it has kind of like any number
Speaker 1: of stylish um elements, and structurally it moves all over
Speaker 1: the place, you know. Um, but it just it just
Speaker 1: it goes down so smoothly and so naturally that um,
Speaker 1: you can you can really lose sight of that. So
Speaker 1: it's it's interesting too in a way. It's a difficult
Speaker 1: movie to talk about kind of because, um, there's not
Speaker 1: so many obvious things that the director is quote unquote
Speaker 1: doing that you can really clom onto. Yeah, but you're right,
Speaker 1: I mean, they're they're they utilized flashback so well in
Speaker 1: that first act, um, with all the past relationships, and
Speaker 1: that's that's really uh that's really such a great way
Speaker 1: to set this movie up. And obviously we're gonna be
Speaker 1: talking about Nick Horne meets Novel. I assume you read it. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: I figured you did. I read it many many years ago,
Speaker 1: because I couldn't even remember if I read it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was so long ago. And then I was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I totally read this book. I read it. I read
Speaker 1: it after having seen the movie. And it's one of
Speaker 1: those ways the movie is so impactful and so perfect
Speaker 1: of a realization of that thing that reading the book
Speaker 1: was basically like reading like an expanded screenplay or something.
Speaker 1: It was basically just me picturing the characters and the
Speaker 1: actors from the movie, you know, in London, of course,
Speaker 1: because it's it's a different setting and um and all that,
Speaker 1: but still it's it's for me. It was less like
Speaker 1: experiencing it as a book and more just kind of like, oh,
Speaker 1: so this is the material they were working with, here's
Speaker 1: what they changed, you know. Um. It was more that
Speaker 1: it was it was really tough to to approach it
Speaker 1: just as a work of fiction or something. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: it's cool too, It's not like England is so different
Speaker 1: than America, but just the universality of the record store snobs.
Speaker 1: And I don't remember, you know, this is wicker Park
Speaker 1: in Chicago. I don't know what. I can't remember what
Speaker 1: neighborhood it was in London. I'm sure it was some
Speaker 1: like cool sort of you know, burgeoning hipster neighborhood. But uh,
Speaker 1: and it's it's the same as you know, I've been
Speaker 1: going to Wake Street here in Atlanta since I was,
Speaker 1: you know, fifteen years old, and I went there a
Speaker 1: few months ago, and uh, it's the exact same and
Speaker 1: the same dude owns it. And it's the same vibe. Man,
Speaker 1: that that feeling that when you walk into a record
Speaker 1: store and you're buying, you're buying for you, but that
Speaker 1: you all also like if you leave with five albums,
Speaker 1: like I guarantee you one of those is one that
Speaker 1: you're trying to impress the record store owner a little
Speaker 1: bit with, Yes, you just want to get that that
Speaker 1: head nod at checkout or whatever, funny like, oh that's
Speaker 1: a cool record, you know. Yeah, And it took took
Speaker 1: so many years for me to build up the confidence
Speaker 1: to uh, to be like, no, I just want to
Speaker 1: like what I like. I'm not to to impress anyone else.
Speaker 1: But so much of this movie is about that. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's part of the fabric of this film is criticism,
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, oh absolutely, Um, I think I mean
Speaker 1: in a way this film is obviously it's twenty years
Speaker 1: old now, so it's it's going to be a time
Speaker 1: capsule in some way, shape or form. But I think
Speaker 1: even more profoundly it is a time capsule because I
Speaker 1: think it really captures an aspect of the culture, um
Speaker 1: that doesn't exist quite so much anymore, in the same
Speaker 1: way that has been changed, um, just with you know,
Speaker 1: the shift to um online streaming, to the way that
Speaker 1: we consume music now, Um, there's there's so much less
Speaker 1: of an emphasis on I find on being cool, on
Speaker 1: knowing the right bands, on on being dialed into that.
Speaker 1: Some of that may have come with age from myself,
Speaker 1: but I really do think that, um, you know, around
Speaker 1: the early two thousand's, that was when sort of Pitchfork
Speaker 1: was really like becoming like the main I don't know,
Speaker 1: epicenter of like hip music whatever you wanna call it,
Speaker 1: the whole kind of like hipster thing. Um. And you know,
Speaker 1: if a band got like a ten point oh on
Speaker 1: Pitchfork it was like you had to hear that album.
Speaker 1: Has one ever got the ten point oh oh yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: yeah yeah, and there there have been even um, you know,
Speaker 1: contemporary artists, not just reissues they got the ten point oh.
Speaker 1: But I mean it is something that like they only
Speaker 1: give a handful of year is that? And it's like
Speaker 1: an event when it happens, because it's like, holy shit,
Speaker 1: what what merited? You know, the perfect score, especially if
Speaker 1: it's a new record exactly yeah, yeah, yeah, well yeah
Speaker 1: and so um and of course Pitchfork is based in Chicago,
Speaker 1: so there's there's that connection to or at least they
Speaker 1: were before they moved to New York. But um, yeah,
Speaker 1: there used to be this this whole culture of like
Speaker 1: the the hipster kind of music snob, the person that's
Speaker 1: like into all the cool bands and finds out about
Speaker 1: like yeah that you've never heard of and and then
Speaker 1: goes deeper with like okay, like you like Green Day,
Speaker 1: but have you heard of this other band that like
Speaker 1: influence them? And you know, here's like this obscure like
Speaker 1: indie record that kind of like influence this bigger band,
Speaker 1: and so on all that sort of like kind of
Speaker 1: music scholarship stuff the kind of one upmanship and so on.
Speaker 1: I feel like we don't have as much now because
Speaker 1: people are just like playing playlists or going on YouTube
Speaker 1: or Spotify. You know. It's just it's just kind of
Speaker 1: like I feel like, well, because you know, the big
Speaker 1: thing in this movie is physical media, right. It's it's
Speaker 1: the record store. You have to go to a place
Speaker 1: where they have the music, and you have to buy
Speaker 1: the music, um and it comes on on a physical disc.
Speaker 1: And so it manifests itself as these physical collections in
Speaker 1: in houses and so on, uh and apartments where it
Speaker 1: is like you know, as as we see can be
Speaker 1: a form of like autobiography looking at somebody's collection and
Speaker 1: feeling like you know so much about that person just
Speaker 1: by what records they have and so on. That's one
Speaker 1: of the that is that's one of the great moments
Speaker 1: of the movie when Yes, he's reorganized and reorganizing and
Speaker 1: Dick comes over and it's such a thing. Dick is
Speaker 1: just like, oh, like he's going to cancel his plans
Speaker 1: to help him, and he immediately dismisses. He's like, well,
Speaker 1: it's it's not alphabetical because that is now rudimentary based
Speaker 1: thing into yeah, and when he says autobiographical, he's just
Speaker 1: fucking blown away. He just takes a moment he's like wow, okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: but but I mean that that that impults. I feel like, um,
Speaker 1: it's hard to feel the same way about like, you know,
Speaker 1: files in your iTunes collection or or just like the
Speaker 1: stuff that you've got favorited on on your streaming after whatever.
Speaker 1: They're there. Yeah, it's just there. I mean, even um,
Speaker 1: you know, my my era was was largely the CD era,
Speaker 1: and and even that, you know, people people would, um,
Speaker 1: some people obviously like the more hip story. People would
Speaker 1: be more into vinyl. And you know, with vinyl you
Speaker 1: get like the larger artwork, you get the gatefold, like
Speaker 1: the liner notes are bigger, um, and it's sort of
Speaker 1: like invites you to kind of you know, look at
Speaker 1: it while you're listening to it and have this kind
Speaker 1: of tactile experience. Of course you've got to flip the
Speaker 1: record every few songs and so on, so like all that.
Speaker 1: You know, the way that we consume music has has
Speaker 1: really changed a lot, um, even even in terms of
Speaker 1: like listening on like a phone or something while you're
Speaker 1: on the go, having like earbuds, in on the Train
Speaker 1: or whatever. Um, Yeah, the way we consume music has
Speaker 1: really really changed a ton in the last twenty years,
Speaker 1: and it feels like this movie is like a time
Speaker 1: capsule of that period, like five minutes before all that changed,
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, it is sort of at the tail end. Um.
Speaker 1: Although I will say, go into any record store now,
Speaker 1: because I started buying vinyl again a couple of years ago,
Speaker 1: and it's, uh, it is at time capsule. You're right
Speaker 1: back there and flipping through those records. It's just like
Speaker 1: pure joy and oh it's the best, so much fun.
Speaker 1: And John like, this came out when I was twenty
Speaker 1: and years old, so I was kind of right there
Speaker 1: at his age. It was the perfect movie for me.
Speaker 1: And so there were things that happened in the movie
Speaker 1: love relationship wise that kind of mirrored some things that
Speaker 1: I had gone through. So I really felt like and
Speaker 1: and I know a lot of people feel a lot
Speaker 1: of ownership stake in this film, and I certainly did.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I I one percent could identify with aspects
Speaker 1: of you know, the three male kind of record store clerks,
Speaker 1: the archetypes. Yeah, the archetypes exactly, because they really are
Speaker 1: kind of boiled done to archetypes. You have sort of
Speaker 1: you know, the Jack Black, the kind of boisterous, opinionated
Speaker 1: guy who's going to throw you out of the record
Speaker 1: store for asking for the wrong Stevie Wonder record or whatever, right,
Speaker 1: but also play walking on Sunshine exactly. Yeah, he has
Speaker 1: like a kind of um, I don't know, he's he's
Speaker 1: willing to be I don't know what the word would be, sentimental,
Speaker 1: a corny or you know, he's he's open on his
Speaker 1: terms exactly exactly. And if if you happen to fall
Speaker 1: outside those terms, then you're like enemy number one. You know,
Speaker 1: you can't be trusted because your case is bad. Um,
Speaker 1: they have you know, the yes he oh man, I
Speaker 1: mean every scene. Um, he just he just kind of
Speaker 1: dominates when he's when he's in there. He's just such
Speaker 1: a such a familiar kind of guy. It feels like
Speaker 1: we all have known that guy. Um, the Todd Loiso character. Um,
Speaker 1: the kind of I that's a one thousand percent a
Speaker 1: type of guy that that I've met many many times
Speaker 1: at shows and so on. Um, you know, Quieter has
Speaker 1: got the messenger bag. He's like, he says um a lot,
Speaker 1: and and you can tell when he's saying, um, he's
Speaker 1: not even saying it because you can't think of the
Speaker 1: next thing he's gonna say. It's like a tick where
Speaker 1: he's like he's trying to kind of, I don't know,
Speaker 1: smooth it or or or make himself a little bit
Speaker 1: more approachable or something. Yeah, this guy, he um, in
Speaker 1: my mind, he marries Anna, Like that's who this Shray is.
Speaker 1: He he marries he marries his first girlfriend, and you
Speaker 1: kind of get the sense that Anna is that first girlfriend,
Speaker 1: which his his sort of sweet demure sensibilities makes it
Speaker 1: so effective. Later on when he's the one that goes
Speaker 1: craziest in the fantasy sequence the air conditioning and he
Speaker 1: knocks those looks like chicklets out of his mouth with
Speaker 1: the phone. It's such a great scene. I love that,
Speaker 1: and I just want to say that. The actor Todd Loizo,
Speaker 1: also a film director, made a great, great Philip Stie
Speaker 1: Moore Hoffman film called Love Liza. Have you seen that one? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I loved I loved loved that movie. Um, he's he's
Speaker 1: popped up in little small roles in a lot of movies. Uh.
Speaker 1: He was in Snakes on a Plane. Weirdly enough. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he was in Jerry McGuire. I think he played the
Speaker 1: maybe the baby sitter or something in a couple of scenes.
Speaker 1: But it has a really important scene where he kind
Speaker 1: of counsels Jerry and um, yeah, he doesn't pop up much,
Speaker 1: but I think he's really good. Yeah, and um, I
Speaker 1: don't know that that love lives of film. It's it's
Speaker 1: too bad that it doesn't seem like he's made. He's
Speaker 1: directed a few other films, but nothing in that same register.
Speaker 1: I don't think. Um, that was a real downer. It's
Speaker 1: a downer. It's a downer. But you know, great, great
Speaker 1: Jim or Rook score to that film. I didn't know that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and Jim more Rourke is is kind of You can
Speaker 1: see one of his records and in high fidelity, Um,
Speaker 1: there's you know, there's there's like references in the background
Speaker 1: until like Drag City, the label that he was on
Speaker 1: for a lot of them. Yeah. So, um, I had
Speaker 1: that pavement poster by the way, oh, the one in
Speaker 1: the apartment. Yeah, it's so it's like hated so heavily
Speaker 1: because it's right by the entrance, right the door. Yeah,
Speaker 1: every every time he comes in, you're looking at that
Speaker 1: pavement poster. Yeah, I always wanted that thing, and um,
Speaker 1: Emily got me a rock poster book, like just a
Speaker 1: huge thing and it was in there, man. And you
Speaker 1: know they're perforated as you can tear them ount and
Speaker 1: frame them. So that's actually behind me in my band room,
Speaker 1: right here on the wall. Oh it's fantastic. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: just the I mean it's again physical, physical objects, you know,
Speaker 1: and the stories we tell ourselves about them, and the
Speaker 1: and the significance to have in our lives and everything.
Speaker 1: Um is is such a big part of what this
Speaker 1: movie is about the comfort of the tactile, the physical,
Speaker 1: you know, not the virtual. Yeah, and these guys who
Speaker 1: uh obsessively make lists like lists are a big part
Speaker 1: of this. That was a big part of Hornby's novel obviously,
Speaker 1: um and you know it's sort of that's the framework
Speaker 1: of the film is the list of the girlfriends. And
Speaker 1: it's such a clever, great way to start it, uh.
Speaker 1: In that first act when he goes through this list, um,
Speaker 1: he's he's obsessively ranking things. That first girlfriend a relationship
Speaker 1: lasted for six hours, the two hours after school before
Speaker 1: the Rockford files three days in this rock Fred files
Speaker 1: and then he gets his you know, he goes through
Speaker 1: each one of these girls, meeting them later in life,
Speaker 1: and it's he's absolving himself. But it sort of occurs
Speaker 1: to you as you're watching this film that he is
Speaker 1: he's not redeemed until the very end. He's just a
Speaker 1: narcissistic prick. Sort of. That's one thing that that really
Speaker 1: stuck out to me watching at this time versus like
Speaker 1: when I was twenty years younger, and you know, I
Speaker 1: could I could maybe, I don't know, I didn't. I
Speaker 1: didn't see as much of I didn't see his flaws
Speaker 1: as much because I was still very much in that
Speaker 1: same mindset as a watching a little bit older, as
Speaker 1: you're like, wow, there's not much uh yeah, and you know,
Speaker 1: like when especially when, um, what's her name? The you know,
Speaker 1: his the main the main girlfriend. Yeah, how do you
Speaker 1: pronounce her name? Any idea? Laura Is is the movie character,
Speaker 1: but I don't know how he pronounced that. Even I
Speaker 1: think is sort of sort of in the neighborhood. She's
Speaker 1: been around a lot. She was so good in this
Speaker 1: and then just kind of I know she's done a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff, but nothing is high profile. Is this
Speaker 1: I feel like, Yeah, she was in a large von
Speaker 1: Trier film, UM about six years after this came out,
Speaker 1: UM called The Boss of It All, which was one
Speaker 1: of his like lesser scene kind of movies. UM. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I I have not seen her in very much else
Speaker 1: and UM, her performance in this is great. I do
Speaker 1: feel like there there are a few scenes where maybe
Speaker 1: there's a few line readings that feel maybe a little stiff,
Speaker 1: but there's something about her just her presence feels so
Speaker 1: natural and so grounded and so right for the character
Speaker 1: that she's playing. UM that is sort of like it's
Speaker 1: weird because in a way, the movie is about settling
Speaker 1: in a certain sense. It's about compromise. It's about you know,
Speaker 1: growing up and being realistic about um relationships and not
Speaker 1: just wanting this like male fantasy that doesn't really exist
Speaker 1: in the real world. As he says near the end,
Speaker 1: you know, the reason that the fantasy is so appealing
Speaker 1: is because it doesn't exist, and it can't exist, and
Speaker 1: it's it's basically a byproduct of not knowing that person
Speaker 1: very well. Yet you can project only good things onto
Speaker 1: them and fill in all the blanks, and then when
Speaker 1: you get to know a person they're they're a three dimensional,
Speaker 1: rounded person with flaws and everything, and that fantasy goes
Speaker 1: away when he talks about you know, like the underwear.
Speaker 1: For instance, He's like, I used to think women just
Speaker 1: wore amazing underwear all the time, and then you live
Speaker 1: with one and you realize like, oh no, there's like
Speaker 1: granny panties, and they only wear their best underwear on
Speaker 1: the night they think they might have exactly exactly you.
Speaker 1: You kind of you become aware of, um of like
Speaker 1: femininity as a kind of performance in a way. Um
Speaker 1: that that that when you're young, you just kind of
Speaker 1: think maybe women are naturally that kind of beautiful and
Speaker 1: perfect looking, because you know dat up you know the
Speaker 1: problem of of growing up as a young boy and
Speaker 1: learning about not really learning about women, but thinking you're
Speaker 1: learning about women by watching television and movies and and
Speaker 1: looking at Playboy magazines in the woods and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: Like none of that ship does did any of us
Speaker 1: any favors as far as the reality of like, no,
Speaker 1: women are human beings just like us, and the narcissism
Speaker 1: of a man. It's this movie just nails it so
Speaker 1: perfectly to be like, well, you know, you should always
Speaker 1: just be wearing lingerie around the house or something. It's
Speaker 1: just like it really just nails the mail point of
Speaker 1: view and how wrong that is in so many ways. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's it's fascinating because he is a more self
Speaker 1: aware kind of character, um in a certain sense, because
Speaker 1: he's talking about himself, he's reflecting on his life. He's um,
Speaker 1: but it's all about him. But it's all about him.
Speaker 1: It's very narcissistic. And even to the extent that he
Speaker 1: is self aware, where he can say like I am
Speaker 1: an asshole or something, Um, there's still a deeper layer
Speaker 1: of unawareness that still persists even as he thinks of
Speaker 1: himself as like a more highly evolved kind of male,
Speaker 1: because he's not you know, like a dumb jock or
Speaker 1: something like like we would like we would say, especially
Speaker 1: you know, a stabby hipster would say about other types
Speaker 1: of people. It's like, oh no, no, no, no, I'm
Speaker 1: I'm a thinker, I read books, I watch an interesting films,
Speaker 1: right yeah yeah yeah yeah, and um, you know they
Speaker 1: it's easy to flatter yourself and think that you are um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this this kind of like highly evolved being or something.
Speaker 1: But it just goes to show that that that sort
Speaker 1: of um, yeah, that that really kind of male perspective
Speaker 1: just persists no matter no matter where you are, kind
Speaker 1: of in that hierarchy. Yeah, and they even say it,
Speaker 1: you know, in that one great line he says that we,
Speaker 1: you know, we kind of figured out that you are
Speaker 1: what you like, not what you are like. Um. But
Speaker 1: that's so not true. And that's that's part of his
Speaker 1: problem as a character, I think, is that everything is
Speaker 1: reduced like he he reduces each of his excess to
Speaker 1: these archetypes. There was the pretty nice girl prude. There
Speaker 1: was the sensitive girl who was rejected Lily Taylor. There's
Speaker 1: Charlie the uh, you know, the sexy world the uh
Speaker 1: and Katherine say to Jones, is so good in this.
Speaker 1: She's like the the one that got away or the
Speaker 1: one where he was quote unquote dating outside his Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but he realizes that she's an asshole. She's shallow and superficial,
Speaker 1: but he is too. Yet he sees her flaw not
Speaker 1: his own. She's so good in this though she has
Speaker 1: so many great little lines. There's that one small moment.
Speaker 1: This movie has so many little small moments that you
Speaker 1: can almost not notice. But when he flashes back to
Speaker 1: her and and first of all, I love all the
Speaker 1: old versions of Cusack. It says so much about the character,
Speaker 1: Like he's the clash punk in the scene, he's this
Speaker 1: emo guy in the scene. But when they're when when
Speaker 1: they're hanging out and she goes and she sort of
Speaker 1: straddles him in that big, huge, crowded room and he
Speaker 1: kisses her and she just goes, kiss my neck and
Speaker 1: he does he obeys, and that's such a like a
Speaker 1: little small moment, But that is that is that that
Speaker 1: that woman? Yeah, he's kissing her and she's like, no,
Speaker 1: kiss me here, Like she's sort of in charge, you know.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, she has all the power in that in
Speaker 1: that relationship. And you know, as as as the movie
Speaker 1: show is, like the whole time he's with her for
Speaker 1: a couple of years, he's he's worried that he's going
Speaker 1: to be found out in any moment. He feels like
Speaker 1: an imposter. You know, he feels like he's not at
Speaker 1: ease because he just has the sense that he doesn't
Speaker 1: deserve it or um, you know, he's not cool enough,
Speaker 1: he's not on her level, and that sooner or later
Speaker 1: she's going to realize that, and she kind of does
Speaker 1: you know that's that when she ultimately gives him the
Speaker 1: reasons marking up. Yeah, Marco so perfect too. He just seemed, uh,
Speaker 1: he just seemed more sunny, you know. He just seemed
Speaker 1: a little high maintenance and and you know, um, she's
Speaker 1: she's dead on um. I love Another one little detail
Speaker 1: character detail that I loved was, and it comes into
Speaker 1: play a few times, is John Cusack jumping over the
Speaker 1: counter instead of walking around. And he even does it.
Speaker 1: He does it a couple of times in the movie
Speaker 1: where or in the record store where the you know,
Speaker 1: it's four ft away to walk around the thing, but
Speaker 1: he leaps over the thing and then he does it.
Speaker 1: I never noticed this until today. I just finished watching it.
Speaker 1: He at the very um end when Laura's dad dies,
Speaker 1: he goes to the funeral. He leaves in the rain,
Speaker 1: a lot of good rain scenes, and he goes to
Speaker 1: the bus bench and he jumps over the bus bench.
Speaker 1: The fence he hops while he hops the bench and
Speaker 1: sits down, and then he helps the fence to lay
Speaker 1: down in the flower bed. But it's such a funny
Speaker 1: little character thing that was obviously very purposeful. You know,
Speaker 1: that's funny. Yeah, that's like his move, that's like his
Speaker 1: thing he does when he wants to like can like
Speaker 1: action something. Yeah. Yeah, And it's funny too when he
Speaker 1: does in the record store, like at least the first
Speaker 1: time he does it. He like each ship, you know,
Speaker 1: he like he falls over the calendar and like because
Speaker 1: he's trying to turn off Katrina in the ways I
Speaker 1: think that Jack Black has put on um. So Lisa
Speaker 1: Boni comes in. She does a great job as the Muse,
Speaker 1: and I think it's I haven't seen the TV show yet,
Speaker 1: but I think it's super cool that she plays that character.
Speaker 1: I think I'm going to give it a shot. Ifford,
Speaker 1: it's good. But um, all these guys are so submitten
Speaker 1: with Lisa Bone and uh, you know, I obsessively look
Speaker 1: at when we've talked about this before, at the movie
Speaker 1: clock as far as the screenwriting paradigm of first plot point,
Speaker 1: second plot point, and it always falls at like thirty minutes.
Speaker 1: So I was watching it today and Lisa Boni Bone
Speaker 1: comes in at twenty three minutes, which is a little early,
Speaker 1: and I thought that's a little bit early, But that's
Speaker 1: a red herring. That is not the plot point The
Speaker 1: plot point is at thirty one minute, and that's when
Speaker 1: you learn about Ian. Interesting. Interesting, that's totally it, man,
Speaker 1: because that's what spends his list about is just she's
Speaker 1: there to serve as sort of a temporary muse. But
Speaker 1: Ian the revelation that Ian what fucking the dreaded I
Speaker 1: And yeah, that's the plot point. And then right after
Speaker 1: that he finishes top top five really quickly, right after
Speaker 1: that kind of ceiling that first act thread. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: of course he he he leaves Charlie out of the
Speaker 1: list because he's like, I'm I'm not ready for that
Speaker 1: one yet. Yeah, that's right, that's right. Yeah. Um, but
Speaker 1: but you know with with Charlie, it's like he's you know,
Speaker 1: he says, um, he kind of he holds her picture up,
Speaker 1: and then he says, but I'm not ready for that
Speaker 1: one yet. And then she actually contacts him a little
Speaker 1: later in the film and it kind of restarts that
Speaker 1: sort of visiting all the ex's sequence over again, which
Speaker 1: is interesting structurally. It is that you kind of introduced
Speaker 1: this top five list and then very quick you're skipping one.
Speaker 1: And then also there's the thing where he names like
Speaker 1: the kind of inconsequential relationship is number five, but he
Speaker 1: has to admit to himself like, Okay, I actually just
Speaker 1: put that one in there because I wanted to keep you, Laura,
Speaker 1: out of the top five. But now I have to
Speaker 1: admit I'm I'm broken, and yes, you you made the
Speaker 1: top five. Yeah. Well, he has that great um part
Speaker 1: early on when she first breaks up with him, and
Speaker 1: the movie starting out with a breakup is really pretty ingenious.
Speaker 1: But when he finally goes to the window and screams out,
Speaker 1: if you really wanted to hurt me, you should have
Speaker 1: gotten to me sooner. And there's so many lines in
Speaker 1: this movie that I'm just like, oh my god, to
Speaker 1: write a line like that just is It's a movie
Speaker 1: just chock full of perfect, perfect lines, and it's it's
Speaker 1: very true. I think, Um. One of the things about
Speaker 1: maturing is that you know when a relationship does end.
Speaker 1: When I've had breakups, when I've been you know, a
Speaker 1: little bit older, it's still it's still really hard, it's
Speaker 1: still pretty devastating, but at the same time, you have
Speaker 1: more perspective on it, and there's there's less of like
Speaker 1: a sense of the world ending, I get than when
Speaker 1: you're like a teenager or in your twenties and the
Speaker 1: teenage stuff, like yeah, losing that first girlfriend is just
Speaker 1: you think it's you're never going to get over it,
Speaker 1: you know, exactly exactly, and so there's a there's a
Speaker 1: there's kind of a sadness in a way of getting
Speaker 1: to be older and the same thing happens and you
Speaker 1: kind of realize like, yeah, it sucks, but I'll get
Speaker 1: through it in life will go on, you know, in
Speaker 1: a way that's that's more evolved, that's more um, more developed,
Speaker 1: more mature. At the same time, it's kind of like, yeah,
Speaker 1: but I kind of wish it would still hurt the
Speaker 1: way it did, because that means on the flip side,
Speaker 1: it's that much more intense as well, I don't know well,
Speaker 1: and also means you're I don't know, maybe you feel
Speaker 1: more alive when you're exactly the most dead emotionally or something.
Speaker 1: H Yeah, it's it's like you you're you're you have
Speaker 1: less experience, so everything is still more new. So like, um,
Speaker 1: it's like, uh, I don't know, when you're a little
Speaker 1: kid and you like skin your knee for the first time,
Speaker 1: it's like agony. You know, you've never known pain before,
Speaker 1: and you're like, what is this? I this is the worst,
Speaker 1: you know, Yeah, and you get to be a little
Speaker 1: older and it's just like, yeah, okay, banged up any
Speaker 1: no big deal, you know. Yeah. Um. I think another
Speaker 1: interesting thing the movie structurally is a little odd in
Speaker 1: the um like what you were talking about, where it
Speaker 1: places certain things, um plot points, and you don't learn
Speaker 1: until I guess it's about halfway through the movie, after
Speaker 1: you've learned of Ian and you're like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: she's betrayed him with this this fucking world music guy. Uh.
Speaker 1: Then Tim Robbins, by the way, he's in the movie
Speaker 1: for two minutes and fifty seconds and it's so impactful.
Speaker 1: Oh man, Yeah, it feels like he's in it for
Speaker 1: way more than that does. Every second he's on screen,
Speaker 1: it is just hilarious. But um, you learn of the
Speaker 1: four transgressions he admits to uh, and the way they
Speaker 1: shot that scene is great because he's admitting two through
Speaker 1: the fourth wall to the to the viewer in real
Speaker 1: time as Laura is telling Liz Joan Cusack, who's always
Speaker 1: great about the four transgressions. After you've spent this entire
Speaker 1: first first act setting him up as a victim, which
Speaker 1: works perfectly because that's what the narcissists would do, is
Speaker 1: lead to lead everyone to believe that he had his
Speaker 1: heartbroken and he was just nothing but always there for her.
Speaker 1: You didn't tell people that he cheated on her and
Speaker 1: that she was never his fault, but it is all
Speaker 1: his fault. Yeah, yeah, and he does, he does, thankfully.
Speaker 1: I mean, he gets that perspective by going through this
Speaker 1: exercise of you know, going back and kind which is
Speaker 1: narcissistic in and of itself, right, right, And it's the
Speaker 1: kind of thing where maybe obviously probably should be accomplished
Speaker 1: just by therapy or you know, just thinking reflecting back
Speaker 1: on your life and having some perspective on it. But
Speaker 1: I mean it's great to see it illustrated in this way,
Speaker 1: and for the film, obviously it's more cinematic to uh
Speaker 1: actually have those encounters in person and to see him
Speaker 1: kind of realized that, um, you know, in the case
Speaker 1: of his his first girlfriend, it's like, oh, she literally
Speaker 1: married the next guy that she kissed on the bench, right,
Speaker 1: So that part's funny. He feels better, uh, And I
Speaker 1: love that scene. I think that's um John Travolta's mom
Speaker 1: or no, no, no, no. Travolta's mom plays Laura's mom. Okay,
Speaker 1: but yeah. This lady's like, no, you weren't the first boyfriend,
Speaker 1: and he's like, oh no, I really was. I was first.
Speaker 1: He's like, no, you really weren't. But his narcissism is
Speaker 1: never more fully on display than the second girlfriend, the
Speaker 1: quote unquote prude who reveals that he kind of ruined
Speaker 1: her and she was basically raped and and had and
Speaker 1: probably still has a bad relationship with sex because of
Speaker 1: the pressure he put on her. And it's a heavy
Speaker 1: scene and she leaves and immediately afterward he feels happy
Speaker 1: and absolved, and it's just yeah, yeah, yeah he in
Speaker 1: that moment, his reaction is just kind of like, great,
Speaker 1: that's another one I have to worry about. It wasn't
Speaker 1: about me. I was, you know, And of course it
Speaker 1: was all about him. It was all his fault, it
Speaker 1: was all his doing, it was all his sort of
Speaker 1: immaturity at that age. To kind of that's sort of
Speaker 1: superficial single minor emphasis on like sex over just the
Speaker 1: relationship as a whole, where sex would have come sooner
Speaker 1: or later ratually anyway, but he just had this sort
Speaker 1: of like um as most guys do, or many guys
Speaker 1: do anyway, Um, this kind of like single minded focus
Speaker 1: on just like I want to have sex, I don't
Speaker 1: want to be a virgin. Um, you're you're not a
Speaker 1: man until you do. Um. Uh just just this kind
Speaker 1: of like one dimensional view of everything, like are you
Speaker 1: doing it or are you not doing it? Because that's
Speaker 1: everything you hear and yeah, you know, you're a little kid.
Speaker 1: You don't know, you don't know what the fund is
Speaker 1: going on, So you're just going off of these cues
Speaker 1: that you pick up from pop culture and media and
Speaker 1: then other boys on the playground who hears things from
Speaker 1: their older brothers, and none of it's correct and all
Speaker 1: the you know, all the music that he's listening to.
Speaker 1: Where it just I mean that is kind of the
Speaker 1: where where it's all headed. Um, So yeah, it's it's
Speaker 1: And I feel like even even culturally, I feel like
Speaker 1: we've maybe turned a corner from that a little bit
Speaker 1: since even twenty years ago. So you know, hopefully, I
Speaker 1: think boys these days are growing up with a little
Speaker 1: bit more of a well rounded view of things. But well,
Speaker 1: you know, mothers and fathers teaching their exactly better than yeah,
Speaker 1: we were taught right perhaps right. It's it's that's sort
Speaker 1: of like it's a it's a generational shift where um, yeah,
Speaker 1: people are becoming a little bit more aware of that stuff.
Speaker 1: And yeah, and hopefully it will it will make for
Speaker 1: I don't know, healthier, healthier sort of attitudes towards these
Speaker 1: things from an earlier age, so that you don't have
Speaker 1: to get into your late twenties to figure some of
Speaker 1: that out, you know. Yeah. Then he goes to Lily Taylor, um,
Speaker 1: and uh has a chance to sleep with her, probably,
Speaker 1: but he has that great line, another one of those
Speaker 1: great I don't know if it was Nick Hornby. He
Speaker 1: probably reworked it to fit the American version, but he
Speaker 1: says it'd be like sleeping with Tallya Shire and Rocky
Speaker 1: if you're not Rocky. Yes, yes, so specific, so specific
Speaker 1: and funny. It was really good. Um, and I also
Speaker 1: thought it was interesting and again just pure narcissism. The
Speaker 1: only thing he cares about, and the one question that
Speaker 1: he asks Laura is if the sex is better with
Speaker 1: Ian right still so wrapped up in his own performance
Speaker 1: and his own manhood, and it's just it's so pitiful,
Speaker 1: you know, And it makes her laugh. She's like, seriously,
Speaker 1: that's what you're worried about, Like not you know the
Speaker 1: relationship that we built over how many years it's been
Speaker 1: and um, and and the sort of deeper question of
Speaker 1: like I don't want to be with you anymore that
Speaker 1: should have sealed the deal. Yeah, yeah, yeah, she's you know,
Speaker 1: if there's if there's a critique to be made of
Speaker 1: the movie, I guess it's that she gets back together
Speaker 1: with him. Yeah, she gets back together with him, that
Speaker 1: she ultimately forgives him that, you know, because he he
Speaker 1: really doesn't Um. I mean he he does. He does
Speaker 1: have some more insight, you know, he gains him in sight,
Speaker 1: but he's still work in progress very much. And um,
Speaker 1: in a way, he's kind of rewarded at the end
Speaker 1: for for bad behavior in terms of sort of pseudo
Speaker 1: stalking her even after the breakup has happened. You know,
Speaker 1: he does not certainly does not respect boundaries, and and
Speaker 1: he keeps pushing, pushing, pushing until it's really just her
Speaker 1: father dying. That kind of creates that window of opening
Speaker 1: where she knows that this Ian guy is not going
Speaker 1: to be the one. He's not who she wants in
Speaker 1: that time of crisis, and you know, her big relationship
Speaker 1: is this guy that has already kind of been you know,
Speaker 1: hounding her and so on. So it kind of just
Speaker 1: it's almost like a moment of weakness for her that
Speaker 1: she gets back with him. And they even they even
Speaker 1: acknowledged that he's like, you know what, it's too easy,
Speaker 1: too or too hard to not be with you or
Speaker 1: something like what was right. It's just like it's it's
Speaker 1: it's it's it's returning to something comfortable and familiar, you know,
Speaker 1: when when she is really looking for that having lost
Speaker 1: her dad. So um. Yeah, in in a way, the
Speaker 1: movie um is kind of Yeah, like I said, he's
Speaker 1: he's being rewarded for behavior that he probably should not
Speaker 1: have been rewarded for and um, and in a way,
Speaker 1: he doesn't fully maybe learn the lesson, um that he
Speaker 1: might have otherwise if he had just lost her permanently. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Although I will say why that sequence works with the
Speaker 1: funeral is because, um, he doesn't go in there with
Speaker 1: that in mind. He doesn't. He's not the one thinking, hey,
Speaker 1: I have an opening here. She's weak, she's sad. They
Speaker 1: played that just right, because that would have been that
Speaker 1: would have been too much for that character exactly would
Speaker 1: have been unforgivable. But he um, and this is the
Speaker 1: situation that mirrored my life. That exact fucking thing happened
Speaker 1: to me. I hadn't had an ex girlfriend, a sort
Speaker 1: of recent ex girlfriend whose grandmother died, and uh, she
Speaker 1: got together with me one and because she wanted to
Speaker 1: forget and just feel something else. And I thought like, hey,
Speaker 1: are we back together? We were not back together, but
Speaker 1: this happens sort of. I think this movie came out
Speaker 1: three years after that happened. So I was just like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, like, this is my life on screen
Speaker 1: that happens in real life. It's amazing. Yeah. Uh and
Speaker 1: then he goes, uh, well you get that great music
Speaker 1: queue when um, you learned that she hasn't had sex
Speaker 1: with Ray with we are the Champions, yes, which is
Speaker 1: so funny. I mean it's again, it's such a such
Speaker 1: a I don't know, a kind of hilariously male thing
Speaker 1: to be that obsessed with, like because I mean she
Speaker 1: you know, there's that whole the whole discussion about the
Speaker 1: word yet um where she says, you know, well I
Speaker 1: haven't I haven't done it with him yet. All Right,
Speaker 1: everyone you hear a kazoo. It's because we have another
Speaker 1: little visit from my daughter Ruby. Do you want to
Speaker 1: say hi at least to everyone? Hi? What have you
Speaker 1: been doing today? Hi? Rube in what plane? Go high
Speaker 1: and seek? Play and go hide and seek? All right, kiddo,
Speaker 1: you need to give me some a little bit more time.
Speaker 1: I'm almost done. Hey, you can't stay in here, I
Speaker 1: know you want to. So that happened with Noel as well.
Speaker 1: She popped in for a little business. I'm just leaving
Speaker 1: those small windows in um. And actually, speaking of windows,
Speaker 1: nice transition, Emily wanted me to mention that we always
Speaker 1: talk about her watching movies because she loves the apartment
Speaker 1: of the house or whatever. And she said, oh, make
Speaker 1: sure you mentioned Marita sells window room. She's like, it's
Speaker 1: one of her favorite things in any movie. Ever is
Speaker 1: this loft that she constructed these window walls out of
Speaker 1: these old windows. And so she wanted me to mention that, yeah,
Speaker 1: I I we uh, I was watching with my girlfriend.
Speaker 1: We we both kind of like notice that, yeah the
Speaker 1: other night. Yeah. So Marita sal serves as the perfect
Speaker 1: kind of like I said at earlier Temporary muse Um,
Speaker 1: she is I don't even think she qualifies quite as
Speaker 1: a red herring. No, but I would argue that the
Speaker 1: red herring is Natasha Gregson Wagner at the end, Yes,
Speaker 1: who is this super cute music journalist and he makes
Speaker 1: her this mixtape and she serves as ultimately what is
Speaker 1: a sort of his final test. Yeah, exactly. She's like
Speaker 1: the because she in that in that sort of like,
Speaker 1: you know, less mature male mindset. She is that sort
Speaker 1: of manic pixie dream girl, like the perfect male fantasy
Speaker 1: of like the girl who was into all the same
Speaker 1: cool bands that you are, and like you can just
Speaker 1: spend hours talking about records and films and you know, um,
Speaker 1: obviously she's super cute and but also has this kind
Speaker 1: of like of deferential quality to him, which needs yeah,
Speaker 1: which he needs. He needs to kind of like even
Speaker 1: though they they know a lot of the same music
Speaker 1: and so on, she even writes about it. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: he still needs to feel like the one who was
Speaker 1: like the expert expert, you know, so that he can
Speaker 1: kind of like be, oh, I'll make you a mixtape
Speaker 1: and I'll like show you these bands that maybe you
Speaker 1: don't know about. Narcissistic still and She's like, oh, I
Speaker 1: would love that. And you know, by the way, do
Speaker 1: you know she's Nettalie Wood's daughter. Yeah, I didn't know that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's very interesting. Um, she hasn't been in a ton
Speaker 1: of stuff over the year. She's been She was in
Speaker 1: that really good movie with Heather Graham and Robert Downey Jr.
Speaker 1: About like The Threesome, Remember I saw it way back when.
Speaker 1: And she's been in a couple of other things. But
Speaker 1: she's she seems to be a little choosier maybe with
Speaker 1: what she writes to do. Yeah. Um, So jumping back
Speaker 1: the the big question finally gets asked by Liz, and
Speaker 1: I think it's one of the most pivotal points in
Speaker 1: the movie is when she says, why do you even
Speaker 1: want to get back together with her so badly? And
Speaker 1: he has no answer and they kind of cut it
Speaker 1: at the right time, and that's when it all comes
Speaker 1: into full view as a viewer that like, is it
Speaker 1: her or is it his ego that has been wounded?
Speaker 1: And is it just that is it just about saving face?
Speaker 1: Is it just about like recovering something that was taken
Speaker 1: from him? You know, um, so that he can feel
Speaker 1: like he's back in control or that you know, he's
Speaker 1: he's kind of right it or wrong or something. But ultimately, yeah,
Speaker 1: is it Is it a question of him actually wanting
Speaker 1: to be in that relationship or not. That's something that
Speaker 1: he has to figure out, and ultimately he realizes, yes,
Speaker 1: I do, like I want to turn this corner. I
Speaker 1: want to kind of you know, move on to a
Speaker 1: different phase of life where I'm not just preoccupied twenty
Speaker 1: four hours of the day with like breakups and xs
Speaker 1: and what's wrong with me? And why does no one
Speaker 1: like me? And and all that stuff. Yeah, and that
Speaker 1: that line that serves this sort of the second plot point,
Speaker 1: which spends us into the third act, because that's when
Speaker 1: he finally starts to explore a little bit about what
Speaker 1: he loved about her, not just how being with her
Speaker 1: made him feel. So it's sort of the first time
Speaker 1: he's not completely superficial and shallow. It's the first little
Speaker 1: peak that you're actually going to get a character arc,
Speaker 1: which is much later in movies than usual. I think, sure, yeah,
Speaker 1: you're you're kind of um, you're trusting that the viewer
Speaker 1: is going to stick with the character long enough to
Speaker 1: um to finally come around and have some some some change,
Speaker 1: some development, some some insight, which is which is interesting.
Speaker 1: It's it's not so much like a three act like
Speaker 1: heroes journey kind of thing. He kind of all the
Speaker 1: insight happens right there at the end to kind of
Speaker 1: have this has this like Eureka moment where where it
Speaker 1: all clicks into place a little bit. Yeah. They had
Speaker 1: that great scene with um when she is in his
Speaker 1: apartment when he gets home and she's reading the top
Speaker 1: five job dream jobs, which are hysterical because they're so
Speaker 1: specific and so like, not just I want to write
Speaker 1: for a rolling Stone. It's like I want to write
Speaker 1: for Rolling Stone for these three years during a certain
Speaker 1: time period, which is well in the past, which is
Speaker 1: basically you know, he's he's made like three of his
Speaker 1: five dream jobs are impossible, that they will never happen,
Speaker 1: you know, says well, you don't want to be King
Speaker 1: of France exactly exactly. It's such a good It's it's
Speaker 1: very funny because I mean it's it just shows a
Speaker 1: kind of, um, I don't know, self sabotaging, self defeating behavior,
Speaker 1: of of a certain kind of personality. Um that that
Speaker 1: he would define his goals as things that are just
Speaker 1: on their face, never going to be achievable. You know,
Speaker 1: it says everything about him. Yeah, yeah, that he's never Um,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean it's like he says at
Speaker 1: one point, I think, um, it was easier in a
Speaker 1: way to uh, to not try, because to tries to
Speaker 1: risk failure. And so by by not trying and by
Speaker 1: just kind of like persisting in this like purgatory state,
Speaker 1: this sort of in between limbo. Um, he was quote
Speaker 1: unquote keeping his options open. But that's nothing. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: that's not living a life basically. Yeah, he's a guy
Speaker 1: who lives in a fantasy world. Uh, you know, he's
Speaker 1: the fantasy of these women, the fantasy of these jobs,
Speaker 1: instead of the reality which he rocks him into, which
Speaker 1: is and she even says, so she's like, what about
Speaker 1: record store owner, like you kind of have a dream job. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then you know it sets up that great that
Speaker 1: that final sort of redemption that he decides to put
Speaker 1: something into the world. He invents this record label sort
Speaker 1: of on the spot, which is out of character for
Speaker 1: him to put himself out there like that. And um,
Speaker 1: that the way they organized at all. That's right before
Speaker 1: the funeral stuff, which is interesting because he kind of
Speaker 1: has that redemptive moment. Then they spend that right into
Speaker 1: the funeral when he sleeps with her in the car. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I would like to. I wonder if there were alternate
Speaker 1: versions where things were sort of because you could rearrange
Speaker 1: this movie a little bit, Oh, should still have it
Speaker 1: be tell the same story and be successful. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: that is a very interesting question, whether there was any
Speaker 1: restructuring in the edit, because, like you said, you could
Speaker 1: you could kind of piece this puzzle together quite differently
Speaker 1: if you wanted to, with a little bit of voiceover, rewrites,
Speaker 1: re shoots, whatever, um, you could. You could completely change
Speaker 1: the structure. So I wonder how much of that was
Speaker 1: there in the script and how much of that was found, um,
Speaker 1: you know, in in the process of cutting the film together.
Speaker 1: But I would not be surprised if if you know,
Speaker 1: some pieces here and they're moved around. Yeah. I think
Speaker 1: more so than other films, it has a little bit
Speaker 1: of flexibility with how you could structure it. It's very nonlinear,
Speaker 1: and you know, he can he can kind of jump
Speaker 1: forward in back in time, and we can even revisit
Speaker 1: something that we've already seen earlier in the film where
Speaker 1: he gives us more information about something. UM. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's very very interesting. I mean the film is like,
Speaker 1: UM on one thing I did I did pick up
Speaker 1: on watching some of the the extras for this. UM.
Speaker 1: They talked about how in the initial you know, few
Speaker 1: drafts of the screenplay, all the stuff that was direct
Speaker 1: addressed was just written his vo He didn't want to
Speaker 1: do it. I don't think right right, and so you know,
Speaker 1: pretty quickly they came around to the idea that no,
Speaker 1: actually we should probably do direct address because these are
Speaker 1: some of the most compelling moments in the film in
Speaker 1: terms of what he's actually saying. There's a lot and
Speaker 1: there's so much of it. Yeah, like what would you do,
Speaker 1: I mean, what would you even show like him just
Speaker 1: you know, in the record store and some v O
Speaker 1: or something. It just wouldn't feel right. So because the
Speaker 1: movie in a way, I mean it's it's it's very
Speaker 1: much from his perspective. It's all coming from his head,
Speaker 1: you know, it's the way he thinks. So he sees
Speaker 1: the world as the way he organizes events, you know,
Speaker 1: So you have to have his his sort of um,
Speaker 1: you have to have his character basically in control of
Speaker 1: the movie for it to work, I think, yeah, And
Speaker 1: the fourth wall thing is, um, it's such a tough
Speaker 1: thing to pull off well, and it's been done. It's
Speaker 1: certainly been done before. Um Ferris Bueller comes to mind,
Speaker 1: and other films that that heavily used it. Um, this,
Speaker 1: this may use it more heavily than any movie, maybe Alfie,
Speaker 1: which also worked well. I think, But um, it's a
Speaker 1: tough thing to pull off. And I get why a
Speaker 1: Q sack is. I get why an actor period is
Speaker 1: reticent to go there because it has done so seldomly
Speaker 1: um so well as this, But I think careers kind
Speaker 1: of talked him into it. Yeah, it's like it's like, um,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's the thing that we're taught to
Speaker 1: not do in screenwriting or in filmmaking, which is, you know,
Speaker 1: you don't just come out and tell the audience something.
Speaker 1: You're supposed to show it in some way. So if
Speaker 1: you just have the guy talking to camera and kind
Speaker 1: of explaining how he feels or what happened in his
Speaker 1: life or so on, there's a big risk that it's
Speaker 1: going to feel too literal or too just unimaginative, not dynamic.
Speaker 1: But if you notice when when those scenes are happening,
Speaker 1: they always like it's almost a sort of reality outside reality,
Speaker 1: where for instance, he's like walking around Chicago and you
Speaker 1: don't really get the sense that there's like a lot
Speaker 1: of life happening around him. It's kind of the streets
Speaker 1: are empty. Um, it's almost a sort of dream state
Speaker 1: or something, um, where you can tell you're you're more
Speaker 1: sort of within the realm of his mind a little
Speaker 1: bit than just a guy walking down a real street
Speaker 1: or something. And that kind of offsets the tone. And
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, and I love the kind of play
Speaker 1: where even within a scene things will happen. He kind
Speaker 1: of turns to camera and sort of you know, adds
Speaker 1: another layer to it. Again, these are, like you said,
Speaker 1: these are things that we see in other works, but um,
Speaker 1: there's something about the way it's done here. Maybe it's
Speaker 1: think about the just like the the quality that that
Speaker 1: Cusack has as an actor, as a presence on screen,
Speaker 1: as somebody that we want to root for, that we
Speaker 1: can relate to. You know, he's every man in a
Speaker 1: lot of ways. Yeah, he's the ever man, but he
Speaker 1: can also convey like thoughtfulness and intelligence and um, relatability
Speaker 1: and in all that in a way that, um, I
Speaker 1: don't think most actors would would be able to achieve
Speaker 1: with the same material. Yeah, it's interesting you were talking
Speaker 1: about them, and this is what always happens with the
Speaker 1: fourth wall is is we're meant to believe that everything
Speaker 1: around him is suspended and you're addressing camera. But um,
Speaker 1: they do something I haven't really seen much and at
Speaker 1: the very end, and I never noticed it until today. Uh,
Speaker 1: at the very end, he's doing one of his monologues
Speaker 1: and Laura hears it and she says she references and
Speaker 1: she I can't remember what the line was, but she
Speaker 1: asked him. She's like, what did you just say about something?
Speaker 1: And it's sort of a very interesting, little cheekey clever
Speaker 1: thing because they don't he doesn't look back at this
Speaker 1: screen and be like, what they cheat us here? Um,
Speaker 1: but it's interesting that they chose to do that at all.
Speaker 1: And I'm I'm kind of wondering why it's it's really
Speaker 1: because they never it's not like a payoff or anything.
Speaker 1: It's just a just a little nod or something. Maybe
Speaker 1: it means maybe it means that she can finally hear
Speaker 1: him right, And maybe it's saying something about the care
Speaker 1: or that he's let he's let her in. Yeah, maybe
Speaker 1: that's what he's he's given her. I mean he now
Speaker 1: kind of shares that that internal world with another person
Speaker 1: in a way, whereas before it was something that he
Speaker 1: kind of kept. Ye, that's it. I'd be curious to
Speaker 1: hear about that. You know, Cusack is this is one
Speaker 1: of the three films he's been road showing. Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: last year. The past couple of years he's gone on
Speaker 1: tour and depending on what city or in he'll do
Speaker 1: say anything high fidelity or gross point blank and then
Speaker 1: screen it and do a Q and A afterward. And
Speaker 1: some of the movie crushers have been to these and
Speaker 1: they said it's a lot of fun to go to
Speaker 1: but um, it's you know, I love John Cusack as
Speaker 1: an actor, but he's one of those that is has
Speaker 1: such a reputation outside of the industry as a jerk
Speaker 1: that like, yeah, it's hard for me to get past
Speaker 1: that now. Yeah, but he's been in some of my
Speaker 1: favorite movies and he's played some of my favorite characters.
Speaker 1: You know. I mean, maybe maybe it's one of the
Speaker 1: things where he's able to kind of turned it on
Speaker 1: connect with the camera connect with an audience in that way,
Speaker 1: and then you know his if if that is true
Speaker 1: about his personality outside of of of movies, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's one of those things. It's it's the
Speaker 1: craft of an actor to create this feeling of friend
Speaker 1: friendliness or familiarity or someone that you feel like you
Speaker 1: already know or that certainly you would want to know. Um,
Speaker 1: any of the stuff about him, not really, No, you know,
Speaker 1: I I do, UM, you know, I've I've followed his
Speaker 1: Twitter for a long time and he's he's very very
Speaker 1: act to von there. Yeah, super political, very liberal, you know,
Speaker 1: outspoken politically and um. But but I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: my impression from from him online anyway is that he's
Speaker 1: at least in the online forum, he's very like accessible
Speaker 1: and down to earth, and you know, he's always replying
Speaker 1: to people and kind of like um, retweeting stuff, and
Speaker 1: I mean he seems very conversational. Some people approach social
Speaker 1: media as more of like a one sided kind of
Speaker 1: thing where they're just shooting stuff out and like banking
Speaker 1: on their celebrity for people to see it or whatever,
Speaker 1: and not really having a conversation. But he seems to
Speaker 1: really engage with people, even if he has his his
Speaker 1: perspective that he's not really deviating from. Let's say, um,
Speaker 1: I don't know in online anyway, he doesn't. He doesn't
Speaker 1: come off that way to me. But I mean people
Speaker 1: come off differently online than they do in real life,
Speaker 1: So that's not a big surprise. Yeah. I mean it's
Speaker 1: up to you whether or not you want to go
Speaker 1: down this rabbit hole. Um, but if you there are
Speaker 1: some stories out there that are so crazy you think
Speaker 1: like can this be true? Yeah? Yeah, Like I talked
Speaker 1: about this on the show with No before. Crazy stuff
Speaker 1: like uh, being in a luxury box at a cub's
Speaker 1: game and like throwing chicken wings at people that piste
Speaker 1: him off, and like just this just look up John
Speaker 1: Cusack crazy behavior. Yeah. Yeah, there are a ton of them,
Speaker 1: and there's so many that you've got to think, like
Speaker 1: this has got to be grounded in some truth here
Speaker 1: where there's smoke, there's fire kind of unless like everyone
Speaker 1: just got together and decided they wanted to ruin John Kissak. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean there's there are those there are those people
Speaker 1: that they hear stories about that there they're super difficult
Speaker 1: to work with or you know, off camera they're they're
Speaker 1: a nightmare and so on. Um, yeah, I don't know
Speaker 1: what to uh what to think, you know, yeah, you
Speaker 1: know it's it's um with with Cusack. I think, um,
Speaker 1: even even looking at some of these behind the scenes
Speaker 1: interviews and stuff, UM, there's there's a certain kind of UM,
Speaker 1: I don't know, Prick leanus to it. Um that that
Speaker 1: you can get. You can get just a sense of that.
Speaker 1: UM would would give me pause to like want to
Speaker 1: meet him and like, you know, hang out in person
Speaker 1: or something. I would Um, it would definitely be sort
Speaker 1: of a be careful what you wish for sort of thing. Um,
Speaker 1: maybe maybe it's better to just stick with what what
Speaker 1: he's able to create on screen, you know, don't do
Speaker 1: it casey. Uh. Then you get to the end of
Speaker 1: the film, that great record release party scene is just
Speaker 1: pure joy. Everyone gets their moment um. You have Dick
Speaker 1: and Anna, you get this great moment with with Rob
Speaker 1: deejaying like back in his element. He's produced this thing. Um.
Speaker 1: Jack Black gets to shine and he gets to showcase
Speaker 1: that great voice, and everyone's just like I'm like, you know,
Speaker 1: especially Rob is just like, oh my god, he can
Speaker 1: actually do this he actually has a two new talent,
Speaker 1: so it's really kind of a great way to end
Speaker 1: the film. Um. And the last thing you see is
Speaker 1: the only selfless act in the entire film from him,
Speaker 1: is in the final sixty seconds when he is making
Speaker 1: that tape for Laura and he says, I'm making things
Speaker 1: that I think she would like and not just what
Speaker 1: I think would be cool to expose her too. And
Speaker 1: like his ultimate redemption comes in the last forty five
Speaker 1: seconds of this movie. It's interesting, Yeah, he's he's he's
Speaker 1: finally gotten out of that frame of like taste, um
Speaker 1: and an opinion. Uh. It's funny what he what he
Speaker 1: says at the very beginning of the film, practically to
Speaker 1: to Jack Black, he's like, how can it be wrong
Speaker 1: to express an opinion? You know, when when he's saying, uh,
Speaker 1: well that guy's opinion is wrong or whatever, you know,
Speaker 1: the guy had shitty taste. Um. It takes him that
Speaker 1: long to to really internalize that lesson and and just realize,
Speaker 1: like people can like what they like, you know, and
Speaker 1: and if you really are this like musical guru that
Speaker 1: you hold yourself up as you ought to be able
Speaker 1: to um recognize what somebody else is into and and
Speaker 1: and craft something that will really work for them as
Speaker 1: opposed to just trying to bend them to your own,
Speaker 1: you know, idiosyncratic kind of taste. So again, it's it's
Speaker 1: it's him like expanding that circle of of awareness and
Speaker 1: and um, yeah, just be becoming like a real partner
Speaker 1: as opposed to this kind of like closed off, narcissistic,
Speaker 1: selfish guy. Yeah. What do you think? I guess guess
Speaker 1: the big question um here at the end is where
Speaker 1: where Robin Laura in five years? I mean, I think
Speaker 1: they're in it for the long haul. Personally, I guess
Speaker 1: I'm kind of an optimist that way. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: feel like, um, I feel like things are gonna they're
Speaker 1: gonna work out for for them. I think, um, you know,
Speaker 1: she she kind of she kind of laughed at him
Speaker 1: when when he does the proposal. But I feel like,
Speaker 1: at the same time, like, um, that that is where
Speaker 1: they're headed. Um. I think I think the label could could,
Speaker 1: uh could kind of take off maybe, you know, Um
Speaker 1: he's just uh, he's sort of like um coming into
Speaker 1: his own a little bit. By the end of the film.
Speaker 1: I think I think he's um, he's finally um, putting
Speaker 1: into the world stuff that was just bouncing around in
Speaker 1: his head for all those years, and um, you know,
Speaker 1: coupled with a with a new kind of self awareness
Speaker 1: that um, that's gonna make him, um, you know, a
Speaker 1: formidable kind of person in that in that world. All right,
Speaker 1: I can I can buy the optimism. Where where do
Speaker 1: you have a slightly more I don't know, down to
Speaker 1: earth pests still? I mean, there's there's two ways it goes.
Speaker 1: You know, he's either uh, in his like let's say
Speaker 1: it's now, it's twenty years on. He's either in his
Speaker 1: late forties early fifties, owns that record shop that is
Speaker 1: hurting because of new media of course, single and sleeping
Speaker 1: with young girls that are not fulfilling him emotionally, uh,
Speaker 1: and only put out that one EP twenty years ago.
Speaker 1: Or he's mere read with Laura. He has a cool
Speaker 1: little indie label. The record shop is being run by
Speaker 1: Barry and Dick that he still owns and they live
Speaker 1: in like a suburb of Chicago with a couple of
Speaker 1: cool and he realizes that it's not settling to do that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that he's that he's he's yeah, exactly, he's come to
Speaker 1: realize that that's not, um somehow losing in the game
Speaker 1: of life. That is, that is what it looks like
Speaker 1: to mature and to become a grown up in a
Speaker 1: relationship and have a family and all that. Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: I can I can totally see the more pessimistic version
Speaker 1: as well. And it's hard to say which which is
Speaker 1: the true which of the two would be the outcome here,
Speaker 1: because it really relies on information we don't quite have. Well,
Speaker 1: I think one is uh. I think the previous version
Speaker 1: is perhaps alcoholic and uh and headed towards lung cancer
Speaker 1: as well. Like the first version is not a happy
Speaker 1: version of his life. The second one, Yeah, he quit
Speaker 1: smoking and he has children and like that's that's called
Speaker 1: growing up. That's what people should aspire to do. There
Speaker 1: is no nobility and being the cool single fifty year
Speaker 1: old who who's after a twenty two year old girl
Speaker 1: that comes into his record store. That's not cool. It's
Speaker 1: a sad thing. I mean, you know, going to shows
Speaker 1: around Atlanta. Um, I don't go to shows as much anymore,
Speaker 1: but when I was like, you know, eighteen, high school
Speaker 1: in college, that kind of thing, Um, you would definitely
Speaker 1: see like the quote unquote the old guy at shows.
Speaker 1: You know that the Yeah, well, I mean yeah, maybe so,
Speaker 1: maybe so. But I mean I don't think you were.
Speaker 1: I don't think you were necessarily putting out the same
Speaker 1: kind of the wrong kind of old guy energy. Let's say. No,
Speaker 1: I'd like to think of putting up great old guy energy,
Speaker 1: the the guy, the guy who who is is fifty
Speaker 1: going on twenty kind of thing. Um that that is
Speaker 1: an uncomfortable energy to to be around. You know, yeah,
Speaker 1: exactly exactly. You want to you want to go upward.
Speaker 1: You don't want to go backward. Um, you want to
Speaker 1: you want to advance, not regrets. But yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: that that is that is a type that that I
Speaker 1: observed and and I guess probably made some kind of
Speaker 1: impression on me, Like, um, that's that's not where you
Speaker 1: want to be. Like this, Sadly, youth and and and
Speaker 1: and coolness and and and all that has something of
Speaker 1: an expiration date, even though I do think they are.
Speaker 1: There are certainly figures that I look to who have
Speaker 1: like advanced into their older age and have remained relevant
Speaker 1: and cool and everything. Um, I don't know that Sadly,
Speaker 1: like the first name that came into my head just
Speaker 1: then was thirsted more. But I mean that didn't work
Speaker 1: out so great, um so. But I mean in terms
Speaker 1: of somebody that is like, you know, still like collecting
Speaker 1: like obscure tapes into like his whatever, his fifties and
Speaker 1: and and still being excited about new music and everything. Um,
Speaker 1: there are there are people who manage that trick and
Speaker 1: who don't just kind of become frozen in like what
Speaker 1: was cool years ago. And that's that's the trap that
Speaker 1: I try to escape from. And it's not the easiest
Speaker 1: thing either because, um, whether it's whether it's a film
Speaker 1: or or an album or whatever. Um, if something is
Speaker 1: like twenty or thirty years old and I haven't heard
Speaker 1: of it, my interest is peaked like automatically. I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: it came out like ninety one. That could be good,
Speaker 1: you know, Whereas something from I'm kind of like, I
Speaker 1: don't know what what is this? You know? Um, you
Speaker 1: kind of I don't know. You You risk becoming fixed
Speaker 1: in place. Sometimes I think it's a natural, um characteristic
Speaker 1: of aging. But um, I don't know, something something to
Speaker 1: be navigated carefully, because you also don't want to be
Speaker 1: like I said, the old guy who's just trying to
Speaker 1: hang on to being cool being young. Yeah, casey, I
Speaker 1: think in closing here, there is nothing cooler than getting
Speaker 1: to the age where, um, you're confident in what you
Speaker 1: like and what you love and what you don't like
Speaker 1: and who you love and you don't judge what other
Speaker 1: people love and like. And uh, that's a great place
Speaker 1: to end up at. And that's where I eventually ended up.
Speaker 1: It took me a while, but because I struggle with
Speaker 1: that stuff too, but that's where I feel like I
Speaker 1: am now absolutely thing. Yeah, it's it's a it's a
Speaker 1: sign of maturity. Like we said, Um, there's there's more
Speaker 1: important stuff in the world than liking the right records
Speaker 1: or movies or as as much as that stuff is great,
Speaker 1: but um yeah, it really is more what you are
Speaker 1: like than what you like. Per se. Absolutely all right, man,
Speaker 1: good stuff. That was a good chat. Yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: enjoyed it. This was fun. This Uh, this felt like
Speaker 1: actually getting out of the house in the soul fashion.
Speaker 1: But um yeah, I mean I've not had too many
Speaker 1: other extended conversations with people outside these four walls for
Speaker 1: quite some time, so this was great. Why do you
Speaker 1: think Adam and I talked about Magnolia for two hours.
Speaker 1: Well because it's a three hour movie. It's a fucking masterpiece.
Speaker 1: But other than that, this is fun. Man. We both
Speaker 1: need this and it was great scene in your face
Speaker 1: and talking to you as always my friend, and uh,
Speaker 1: let's get it together again for a couple of weeks
Speaker 1: from now, because absolutely you know where I'll be. I'll
Speaker 1: be here as as well. I and I need it.
Speaker 1: I I definitely need these conversations. All right, good job,
Speaker 1: and thanks to everyone for listening, and uh, we will
Speaker 1: see you in your ear holes next week. Movie Crushes produced, edited,
Speaker 1: and engineered by Ramsey unt here in our home studio
Speaker 1: at Pont City Market, Atlanta, Georgia. For I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.