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You can find Joanne Robinson on House of Bar with Natalie Rubin, my longtime friend. Absolutely. You can find the three of us on the Prestige TV podcast. We just broke down the season finale of White Lotus, which we have not seen yet as we're recording this podcast.
I know. We're living in a bubble. We don't know. Yeah, we don't know.
They've been hiding the screeners from us. But Joanne's been in LA for how many weeks now? Six weeks. Six weeks.
And you've done, I think, about 95 podcasts in those six weeks. And you thought I deserved a reward today. Yeah, so I said, we got to do a Rewatchables before you leave. Yeah.
I sent you a list. And one of the two movies that you said was absolutely one of your all-timers was Can't Hardly Wait. And I was like, really interesting. Who said no?
Who said no? I can't say no to that. So we are going to dive into Can't Hardly Wait next. Start again, free guys!
Their first night of freedom. He is the most open in school. The Afghan school's over. Was their last chance, Amanda, to say what they want.
God, you're a hottie. Hey, can I see you naked? They want to do what they feel. We got you in a hat.
Listen to who we point. And be who they are. I wonder how William's doing at the party. I can't feel my legs.
I can't feel my legs! Can't Hardly Wait, played a PG-13. Opens everywhere June 12th. Here's why I was really intrigued when you wanted to do this.
It's kind of less about Can't Hardly Wait, which I think has become like a pretty big cult movie over the last 20. I mean, we even wrote about it for the ringer once upon a time. The late 90s is such an interesting movie time. And where Can't Hardly Wait fits into that, with just what was happening in Hollywood in general, and then the movie, and what it was trying to do, and how we watched what it became when it wasn't.
I don't think anyone thought, well, this is amazing when it came out. And then it just kind of kept going and going and going. And I'm not sure that happens anymore, because I just think this is a Netflix series, though. I don't even think this movie would exist.
No, this movie doesn't exist. I think, yeah, the closest you get recently, and it's not even that recent, is Netflix American Vandal, that TV series they did, or something like Booksmart. But this being as mainstream as it is, having the soundtrack that it does, having the roster of talent that it does, we don't make this anymore at all. So why do you love it?
Does it just hit you with the perfect time in your life? Yeah. Do you have a teen movie that's exactly your micro-generation? I have all the 80s.
But what's your micro-generation exactly right, if you'd pick one 80s teen movie? Probably Breakfast Club. Breakfast Club. Yeah.
But I mean, Breakfast Club, just one of the guys, Karate Kid, Secret of Iron, Can't Buy Me Love, 16 Candles. There's 20 of them. We had less channels back then. Well, 80s teen movies can't be beat, but there's something about, 1998 can't hardly wait for a very specific I think micro-generation, which is my generation, which is the one between Millennials and Gen X, that gap generation, Generation Catalano, whatever, Generation Oregon Trail, whatever we call it.
This is our teen movie. And I have, like, if you asked me, based on my friends in high school, everyone I knew, and how often they quoted this movie, I would have said this was the biggest movie of 1998. I'm not surprised. And it wasn't at all.
But like, that was what it felt like at the time. Yeah. Well, that's not, it's the internet's forming, but not really yet. But the big thing for me is how influenced this was.
And this whole era was influenced by those 80s movies. This is like the sons and daughters of John Hughes. Yeah. And all of these other things.
And they're just, they're just stealing different things that worked. Like, this movie is basically, they're stealing Say Anything. That's really good. Yeah, they admit it.
They're like, we watch Say Anything. And we're like, why isn't that big party? Why isn't that just the whole movie? They're stealing John Hughes stuff left and right.
They're stealing from Secret Admire. They're stealing from Can't Buy Me Love with the Nerds. Like, it works. But making it just slightly tuned to the frequency of 1998.
Yeah. But yeah, we're not, we're not reinventing the wheel with this movie at all. Except it's a weird bridge between those 80s movies, which were so about your social circles, right? You can't, if you're, unless you're like Boyd Dobler, you can't move between social circles in the 80s, unless you follow up with someone and that's your way across to the popular kids or whatever it is.
And then after this movie, Into the Aughts, when you get movies like 21 Jump Street or Booksmart, the message is less like, hey, you're in a clique and you belong there. And usually when you get to these like big party scenes, super bad or something like that, it's about how we're all just teenagers and friends together figuring it out. Right. You know, and this is just right on the cusp of that when you get scenes between like the nerd and the jock at the end of the movie where they have this bonding moment.
Like, it's not about, can I get a popular girl that that is the spine of this movie? But it's about, we're all about to leave high school and none of this is going to mean anything anyway. Right. And also, I'm stuck in this role that I became in high school and this is basically my last night to break out of it.
Yeah, exactly. If I don't like where I've been pigeonholed or positioned, can I get out of it this way? And you mentioned the aughts, like American Pie comes basically right after this movie and we just go from like, we're down here to blowing up and you watch this movie now and they talk about it in some of the research. Like, this should have just been, this should have started the R-rated high school comedy movie phase and they kind of had it and a lot of the stuff got cut out because it was still that attitude of, no, no, we need to get kids to be in the theater, we need high school kids.
Yeah. And they didn't see the big picture, which American Pie saw and that changed everything. Right. Like, this was originally rated R and they cut a bunch of like, in order to make it tamer and that, I think, neutered it a bit.
But there is like, something then quite sweet about it. Like, the stuff they cut out sounds like funny and fun and we'll get to that, but like, this is just a very sweet movie at the end of the day, despite all the other things that happened and some of the stuff that is aged very poorly. Right. But like, there's just like a very innocent way about this movie.
Yeah, it's one of those movies that just immediately was on for 15 straight years and one of the reasons it was on for so long was it was so translatable to TBS, TNT. Anytime they didn't really have a lot to cut, there's a couple of bad words, there's no nudity, there's nothing, people being drunk, but you're not really seeing them VD sale, I have this in my collection movie. It's funny because I was watching, I got nostalgic for that era. You know, I was older, I was in my late 20s at that point, but I was, I had, you know, my uncle's daughters who were all going to all these movies and I went with them to a couple of them and all of a sudden there was this boom and we'll go backwards because you have Clueless and then you have Scream.
Yeah. And Scream is what, Scream's the tipping point. Scream breaks Hollywood's brains. Micro budget makes $100 million.
Teen horror movie, but really a teen movie and everybody goes and Hollywood's going, hmm. Yeah. So you have this generation raised on Hughes, Risky Business, Karate Kid, Can't Buy Me, like just all those movies. Now they're ready for their generation.
You have the internet, that's not the internet yet. You have high school kids still going to movies. Like as like, nobody's like holding my mind all the time because online really hasn't happened yet. So they're still like, what am I doing tonight?
Where am I going? It's a big day thing. You also have network TV. It's just create, it's like this farm system of teen stars.
You have 90210, Party 5, and Buffy, Dawson's Creek. So it's almost like the real world creating the theater system for the challenge. It's like, here's Katie Holmes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
Hey, here's Jennifer LaFewitt. You like her Party 5? Here she is. And so it's this little sweet spot, PG-13.
This is really when they figured out exactly how far they could go. For whatever reason, and the same thing happened in the 80s, in the mid-80s. The pop music just makes sense for movie soundtracks. Like these bands like Blink-182, like they're just like, they're just background music for movies.
It's perfect. The soundtrack to this movie is insane. It feels like 1998. Yeah, exactly.
We talk about that sometimes on this pod about when music just makes perfect sense for when the movie came out. And this is one of those where it's like, of course. I was talking to a friend of mine, in terms of that ramp up that you just mentioned, Clueless and Scream to this, I was talking to a friend of mine who's just like two, three years older than me, and she's like, oh, this isn't my movie at all. I was like, what's your movie?
She's like, Clueless. You know? And so there's just like, there's a Clueless, and then there's American Pie, and it's just like in that weird gap between, I think. Because Hollywood was still trying in the late 80s, early 90s.
It's just the movies weren't that good. But then, like, there's a certain generation kind of between me and you, where like Adventures in Babysitting is their movie. Yeah. You know?
And that's another, I mean, the movie that is just a teen party, there aren't as many as you would think there are, but they're all interesting to me. And then the One Crazy Night, which Adventures in Babysitting is, but like that One Crazy Night idea is always hits for me. I love that as a concept for a movie. One Crazy Night always works.
High School is about to be over. This is our last chance to change the perception of who we are. That always works. Somebody pining for somebody else.
I mean, that was basically 16 Candles. That was the blueprint. Yeah. So this movie is just grabbing different little tiny things.
The other thing, the teen movie boom we mentioned, it's really an amazing post-screen three years. I wrote down all the movies. I think I got all these. And American Pie was the biggest one, but I know what you did last summer, one and two.
Halloween H2O? Yes. Which they reinvent Halloween, basically, as a teen movie? Michelle Williams, yeah.
The Faculty. Yes. I gotta say, I'm embarrassed by how many I saw. I saw a lot of these in the theater, including the faculty, including Disturbing Behavior.
Yeah. Drive Me Crazy. Yeah. I think we can count Never Been Kissed, even though it's Drew Barrymore going back to High School.
Yeah. I'm going to see that. Yeah. And then we have the weird ones, like Wild Things, Teaching Mrs.
Single, Jawbreaker, Drop Dead Gorgeous. Yeah. And then But I'm a Cheerleader. So that's 20?
And those are on three years. It's an amazing time. What a time to be a teenager in America. And now it's just like, more High School, more High School.
Here's more money. What are we doing with the cast of some of the others? Oh, it's more movie in High School? Great.
Oh, wait. What about that fifth lead in Dawson's Creek? Can we get them in something? Yeah, Kevin Williamson's just running the game between Dawson's and all of the screen movies and Teaching Mrs.
Single and everything else that comes out. And I guess like, and then you have like the Skulls and movies like that that weren't necessarily High School movies, but were also dipping into the same teen pool. Because Joshua Jackson is in it, you see? Yeah.
Anyway. The Dawson's Creek cast is in like almost every single one of those movies that you mentioned. It became like Mad Libs, Mix and Match. Yeah.
Because Party of Five, too. Bailey never made it. No. Matthew Fox was too old.
Bailey's in Go. Right. But that's an adult movie. What?
Lacey Chabert. What's her? Lacey Chabert. Chabert.
I forgot this because I was researching Jennifer Love Hewitt, who everybody had a crush on for probably four years. I forgot they spun off Party of Five, where she had this whole spin-off show where she went to go find her birth parents. I think I blocked this out of my mind. We didn't have...
Time of Your Life. Time of Your Life. She went to New York City to find her birth parents. How was that a show?
Who's the guy from 910 who dated Donna, who was the musician? Oh, Jamie Walters. Yeah, Jamie Walters. Is he in Time of Your Life?
It sounds like that. Doesn't that sound like that's true? Rick Rue with one T? Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, so she dated Carson Daly. She was just in that whole world. Had some tough career stuff. Lost Out on Ruman and Juliet to Claire Danes.
Thank God. Lost Out, Broke Down Palace. Your favorite Claire Danes movie. She lost to Kate Beckinsale for that role.
Oh, wow. Claire Danes is Jennifer Love Hewitt. How about that? That's the most 90s thing that's ever happened.
Wow. But the problem is you run those TV shows. You had no time to do anything else. In the research, like Melissa Joan Hart, she's the crazy yearbook girl in this, and she had to film all her scenes late at night because she was also filming her Sabrina.
Yeah. All these people, they never had the time to branch out. That's because of the 910 NoCast, too. Jennifer Love Hewitt was so big for such a concentrated period of time.
They were just coke commercials that were just Jennifer Love Hewitt. Hair dye commercials that were just Jennifer Love Hewitt. It was just like, but it was such a flash. And I remember, do you remember, I don't know how much you watched Punk'd on MTV, but do you remember her episode of Punk'd where the joke was she was going to be cast in a really cool movie?
It was like when her career was slightly waning and they brought her into a casting office to talk to a producer. And they're like, here's this really cool prestige movie that we want to do. And they were trying to freak her out by the premise of it. And at the end, it's one of the saddest Punk reveals because she's like, oh, I'm not going to get to be in the cool movie, am I?
I was devastated. Well, the first one was Justin Timberlake because I think he started crying. He did cry. Jennifer Love Hewitt was interesting because she was really polarizing.
Men liked her. And at least all the women I knew didn't like her. It made them mad that men liked her. And so she became, and this happens sometimes.
Like, didn't feel like a girl's girl? Lightning ride. Yeah. You know, sometimes women are like, oh, she's so cute.
I love her. And then other times like, you like her? Interesting. And she just moved into that, into that world for some reason.
I would say the reason, I mean, it's very clear what she has, but like, I would say out of the party five cast, there's like Neve Campbell, who's like the girl's girl. Like, the girl's like Neve Campbell. And there's a little Jennifer Love Hewitt. Yeah.
Neve Campbell had a nice one, too. She's another one. I mean, she started to scream. They filmed this in October 97.
Co-writer director Harry Alfont said, suddenly every place was open for business for teen movies. Students realized the audience was underserved. We had one. Tight budget.
The whole thing. So the movie they have, the Dorks and the Hot Girls. Green and cute guy. The girl, Lauren Ambrose's character, who's clearly going to be more successful than all these people down the road.
The queen bee with no identity. Different kids stuck to whatever their shit was that they can't get out of. The captain of the football team who can see the finish line and his psycho fan friends. Class to work finally having fun for the first time.
But then they have all these other really fun kind of cliche characters that they, some of them they ended up having to cut out, but like the girl who shouldn't have had the party. Yes. And it's just going wrong. Like, we all know her.
The over-the-top yearbook girl. The nerds getting revenge. The stone guys with a watermelon. For an exchange guy.
The klepto. Stone girl staring at a banana. Like, they're just getting all these archetypes. And it works.
What's so fun about this movie is that I think there's like six or seven characters with actual names. And everyone else is like, stoner guy. Like, in the cast, it's like stoner guy, popular girl, klepto kid. Like, all of that stuff.
Yeah, but Sarah Rue, like, night girl? Earth girl. Earth girl. Usually could have been night girl.
But you also have the cast of, it's about as 90s as it gets. Seth Green. Right around his apex. Ethan Embry.
Well, I can't wait to talk about him. Peter Fassanelli. Who ended up there and Jenny Garth. Charlie Korsmo.
I know. Complicated career. Hook. Yeah.
What about Bob Hook? Dick Tracy. Yeah, Dick Tracy. Stopped acting with MIT.
Came back for this in complicated circumstances. And then that's it. I don't think he acted really again. I still remember there was a People Magazine article.
It was like the return of Charlie Korsmo. It was just like, here he is. You remember him from Hook? I'm a teenager now.
And then he was gone again. He's great in this movie. Lauren Ambrose, who became the most successful actor. This is a 1600 prequel.
Yeah. You've got Freddie Rodriguez in here. She's blowing people out of the water in all of her one-on-ones. Lucy Joan Hart.
Jamie Presley's in here. Cleve Duvall. And then we got crazy cameos. Jason Segel.
Breckenmeyer. Donald Faison. Selma Blair. And Sarah Rue.
To name five. I love how you put Sarah Rue in that list. Jerry O'Connell. Jerry O'Connell.
He's going to be coming up later for The Young Waiters. Jenna Elfman. Jenna Elfman. Yeah.
A lot of people in this. I mean, it's just like, you've got Stephanie out of Buffy. You've got Jenna Elfman out of Dharma and Greg. Like, yeah, these sort of like, this is TV, but make it a movie.
Vibe is here. And I think what I loved, when they talked about casting the film, they said they knew so many actors who played teenagers. They weren't all teenagers themselves. They were all in their 20s.
But actors who played teenagers, they knew so many of them who were out of work. And so they just had all of them come in and read. They threw all their headshots on the floor. And they were sort of like picking and choosing.
And if you didn't make a lead role, they just stuck in one of the side roles and everyone said yes to it. Debra Kaplan was dating Breckenmeyer at the time. She's a co-director, yeah. Right.
So he just like brought all his friends over. Seth Green's here. You know, all this other stuff. And it's just like.
And now I have other jobs. So it's like, yeah, I can do two days. Or I could show up on Thursday night and play Stone Guy. Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, I like that era. Seth Green, you mentioned. This is like one of the most late 90s things about this movie as a Seth Green character because I must think five years later, it makes no sense. Five years earlier, it makes no sense.
But this was like a type of person for five years here, for maybe like three years. Yeah, yeah. And he's really funny. And I was ready to, I went into it because I didn't see it in a couple of years being like, ah, he probably didn't age that one.
I was like, no, he's actually really funny. No, it's perfect because when Lauren Everest's character calls him out later for it and he drops like his black accent that he's adapted and then when his friends drop the N-word in front of like actual black people later in the movie and they're just like, fuck, you know? So like the movie knows exactly what it's doing I think with this character. I like his Tupac for his yearbook quote.
So good. He's got a love kit. Chorus Moe's great. And then the soundtrack we've talked about.
I'll just, Third Eye Blind, Smash Mouth, Blink-182, Parliament, Matthew Sweet, The Replacement, Sublime, 311. Some of these aren't on the soundtrack but most of them are. E6, G-Love, and then a bunch of stuff that's like a little bit nostalgic-y like Tone Oak, Bust the Move, some of those like Paradise City because it's been like eight to ten years since those songs hit and they're kind of bringing back that. It's probably my favorite thing about the movie and I don't even really love a lot of these songs but it reminds me of 1998.
Yeah, the use of Mandy, the Barry Manilow piece inside of this, the use of the Guns N' Roses song, Yazoo, Only You playing at the end. That's an 80s movie throwback track. This movie knows like, hey, we're not stealing, we're homage borrowing. Yeah, exactly.
And Dire Straits is great too. Oh yeah, we talked a lot about Say Anything specifically with the party scene and then we were like, what if that's the whole movie? And it was. When I read that, which I think was in the ringer piece about this, it really clicked something in place to me because if you think about that scene in Say Anything with Lily Taylor, singing about Joe, and then Joe Lads, when he cries, you're just like dipping inside of all these different little groups at that party.
It's funny, Say Anything probably did it better at that party but they also only had to do everything in 20 minutes. This movie also just goes and goes and goes. Every scene, you're following a character out of a scene right into another character in the next scene or there are these fascinating cuts like Preston turns off the radio and has his hand blasts out the screen and let Joe Hart opens the trash can. It doesn't let you breathe in a way that doesn't feel panicky but feels like it's a wild party night and we're just going to go from one scene to the next.
I have that in what takes the best because it's frenetically edited in a good way because that's what it's like to be at a party like that. We're just like, oh, this is happening and it tries to hit that and it's doing quick jump cuts and it's not like the editing doesn't feel dated. No. I think they do a good job.
It did get nominated for an award. An MTV Movie Award. Oh, hell yeah. That's where it belongs.
Jennifer Love-Pewitt right there. That's another part of this award. The Gold Popcorn. It's the Carson Daly Show.
It's the movie where all this stuff, there's a pop culture feeling to all this crap. Oh, I didn't look into it but I can't wait to know what TRL had to do with Can't Hardly Wait. Oh, I'm sure they were plugging the shit out of it. Absolutely.
By 2012 Entertainment Weekly did top 50 best high school movies of all time. Can't Hardly Wait number 44. Way too low. Yeah.
I thought that was going to be like the teens. Yeah. 20 is the lowest I would say and because I mean the 80s were just full of them. The other thing is Deborah Kaplan and Harry Alfonn have you seen Justine the Pussycats?
Not in 20 years. I think that this movie and that movie which they also did which also has Seth Ray and Bracken Meyer and the foreign exchange in this movie and stuff like that. Terrible. It's just like a meatball right down the middle of like again a specific generation of specifics of humor and when you Justine the Pussycats is a movie that a lot of people write off because it looks so dumb.
Yeah. It's not like Parker Posey which everyone loves right now is like one of the funniest things I've ever seen and has this similar sort of joke per minute rate inside of that movie so really iterated. This movie $13 million budget made $25 million. Which is not terrible but not what they wanted.
No. Well I think part of the problem is it was a glut of movies like this so it felt like they were coming out every week. Okay Raj, Roger Ebert one half stars. Yeah.
Tough. He says there's one character in Ken Hartley Wade who's interesting and funny maybe it was a mistake to write her and she makes the other characters look like Nat Rain Bozos. Her name is Denise she's played by Lauren Ambrose and she has a married face a biting tongue in a sardonic angle in high school. And then just kind of continues We all wanted to be Denise like the best.
All right. We are going to take a break and talk about Loom by Atlassian. What's the most frustrating thing that's happened to you since you've been in LA? Traffic?
Traffic's a good one. Traffic's a good one? Yeah sure. Is it just way worse than where you live?
It's very bad but I think because I'm coming to the office so much I have an actual commute which is not true when I'm back home so yeah. I hate traffic. I hate the way people drive out here. It constantly frustrates me.
I can't get used to it. It's also really frustrating when you start feeling stuck at work with too many unnecessary meetings. Luckily there's a simple solution for that. Use Loom Video Messaging.
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Try Loom today at loom.com that is L-O-O-M dot com. Let's do most rewatchable scenes. This is hard because So hard because they're all micro scenes that sort of lead into each other. So I wrote down a few that I thought and then if I missed any tell me.
The four idiots trying to decide how that they should dump their girlfriends when we meet the football captain and his dumb ass friends throwing that in. Corzmo and the nerd setting up the attack in the house using a lot of Star Wars language. I don't know if you want to... Yeah, Boba Fett, Grandma's Tarkin.
I don't want Grandma's Tarkin. Cool. Was that a bit of that? I'll check all the boxes.
I'm not a Star Wars guy. I do know that. It's funny because I didn't put it in Westage poorly or whatever but they were all like they all want to be Boba Fett because Boba Fett's so cool and that was before Disney Plus made a TV show about Boba Fett that made Boba Fett way less cool. Oh, so that's what's the worst.
Yeah, I know. Amanda's friends trying to make her feel better about Mike dumping her and comparing her to Winifaltrow. She's not pretty. I love that part.
Candy over here, the cute girl saying she's hooking up with the next guy who talks to her because she's so upset she got dumped. Yeah. When he starts talking to her and she looks over at her friend and her friend's like, okay. The letter flying around is really funny.
It falls out of the garbage and it's just the way they do that. I enjoy watching that. Rolls on the kegs, all that, yeah. Trip McNeely's one cameo played by Jerry O'Connell.
You were a sexual icon. I thought college was going to be a 24-7 orgy. Guys, let us start a dime a dozen. We are a dime a dozen.
Speaking of which, you still have that Amanda chick? And the burp is pretty impressive. Anyway, that part's fine. Jerry is perfect.
I'm throwing Jason Segel's one scene just because it's Jason Segel and I couldn't believe he was in the movie and I forgot. And he's like, I think 19 in this movie or something like that. Yeah, that one gets in love. Yeah, yeah.
She's a happy lady. The Mike Amanda showdown. I like the big showdown with everybody watching the party which would never happen in real life because everybody's in the party. You mean record scratch is not actually happening in real life?
Yeah, everybody's like, what's happening? People are fighting. Yeah, his delivery of Amanda. You know, Amanda.
You're the one, Amanda. He's going to be embarrassed. Right. She's like, wow, you really got me there.
We're really good, really good. All the Kenny and Denise bathroom stuff and then Mike's crew turning on Charlie Korsmo at the end and Kenny and Denise seeing each other together and then we find out that Charlie Korsmo's character became the next Mark Zuckerberg. Yeah, exactly. And nothing's out well.
What did I miss? I would say Jenna Elfman's got a monologue. It's really good. It's really, really good.
But yeah, all of the Kenny and Denise if that were just one scene that's the most rewatchable scene. Like him dropping his whole thing, him calling her out, their history, do those shoes sort of an orthopedic function. Like everything that happens in the bathroom is great. I agree.
This would be fun. What's the most 1998 thing about this movie? What do you have? I mean, we've already talked about the soundtrack.
I would say Smash Mouth very specifically. Smash Mouth and Blink-182 I think have to be both mentioned. The X-Files being so prevalent in here. I had that as well.
Trust me when the truth is out there. This was a weird era for people really latching onto the X-Files as like a personality. Yeah. From this light, you look a bit like David Duchamp and he's like a day to Charlie Korsmo.
Also, one of the nerds is that place to be dating Christy Turlington has a girlfriend from the internet. I love that one. She's in Fiji right now. Everything Seth Green and the Brian Weddeth thing which you already mentioned.
I had that as well. The only thing I had that you didn't mention other than Jennifer Love Hewitt who just seems trapped in the mid-90s in a lot of ways is Amanda Beckett's yearbook quote is I'd rather see the world from another angle which is from Jewel. Just having a yearbook quote from Jewel is the most late-90s thing possible. It's perfect for her.
Can we talk about the goggles? Was that real? Were people wearing goggles in 1998? The rave culture goggles?
Not to like a party but to a rave, yeah. Okay, so you knew somebody or knew of somebody who would kind of throw on some goggles to go out at night? To like a rave, yeah. What's the point of that?
Just to protect your eyes? Fashion. Oh, just fashion. Yeah, yeah.
And also like snowboarder culture sort of leading into fashion. Yeah, yeah, okay. I can't wait to get producer Craig's take it again. I know, I'm so excited.
I never saw it and I just honestly can't wait. What's age the best? Denise Fleming, activities, none. It's like generally funny.
And then Kenny playing JV basketball for a game. Oh my God. I have a bunch. What do you got?
What's age the best? I think this is overall out of the 80s. Like from, I don't know, Porky's Revenge of the Nerds, like all that sort of stuff really felt like stratified or Breakfast Club, which is supposed to be about common bonds but then you get those archetypes. You know, we're the nerd, you know, burnout, the popular girl, whatever it is and that's just not how high school.
I thought growing up watching 80s movies, I thought that's what high school was and it wasn't what high school was at all. Yeah, Breakfast Club has a scene where Anthony Michael Hall's character is like, what's going to happen on Monday? Are we going to be friends? And Molly Riemald's like, I don't think so.
And it's like, if you call my name, at Torrance High School because we only get like the little Amanda intro is really where we're in high school. So they say this is in the Palisades? No, but like Torrance High where they filmed all, like that's where they filmed Buffy, it's where they filmed She's All That. Like all of the high school stuff was said at high school.
But what's hunting thing with a hillside? I just want to know where that is in California. I don't know where that exists. Caring about UFOs is the best because now UFOs are attacking us all over the place.
It's true. I like when Charlie Corzum's nerd character is like, basically creates a template for McLovin. Yes, 100%. But when he gets drunk that one time and he's like, I can't feel my legs.
I have no legs. Also, the beer's going bad. That's good too. All good.
The PG thing's funny. Seth Green saying, why y'all got to waste my flavor? Damn. Like all his like flavor stuff was really funny.
Time is honey, yeah. It's all good. And then Paradise City is a nostalgic rock song. I have for what's the best.
But just in general, high school movies age the best because they just capture whatever the decade is in this weird way. Charlie Corzum's character being like, I know this song. Some kid I tutored. Maybe listen to it.
I know all the words. It's really good. Big Conan Burger Award, Best Use of Food and Drink. The Wee Brownie on Denise that gets licked off by Eric Alfor.
Which they had to PG-13 and you just kind of have to know that the Wee Brownie. Yeah, you just kind of know. You know, but you don't really know. I think I should have in this word for Best Nego Drop.
There's a million choices here, but can I make a case for Dire Straits, Romeo and Juliet? That's a great song. It's a great one. And it's perfectly dropped.
When he's driving. Yeah, it's really well dropped. I gotta give it to Yazoo's Only You because Only You has that intro like at the beginning that you can play underneath the dialogue and then it hits. That sounds good.
That was music that me and my friends all listened to in the 80s. I'm like, wow, I can't believe we listened to all that stuff. The Amanda Dobbins Award for Coolest Piece of Real Estate. New category.
Okay. Yeah. I love it. I love it.
She hasn't been on the rewatchables in a while. I don't think she cares. Well, we were going to do a movie and now we couldn't because it was Amanda and it would crucify you. Anyway, the Amanda Dobbins Award for Coolest Piece of Real Estate.
New award. The House. The Pool. The House is just a great high school party house.
It even has like the staircase that goes both ways. And it's just they did a good job. I have some sad news though. Like Jen and me said.
It's in Alcadena though. It burned down. I was worried about that. I thought it was in Alcadena home and I was worried about that.
Tough one. The Chess Rockwell and Brocklanders Award for Best Character Name. It's got to be tricky. Well, it's tricky.
But in terms of the rest of the cast having names that are just their archetype, there's Ready to Have Sex Girl and there's Ready to Have Sex's Friend is what they're called in the credits. That's in the credits? Ready to Have Sex Girl? And Ready to Have Sex Girl's Friends.
Wow. Imagine telling your parents that. I'm ready to have sex girl. I'm ready to have sex girl.
Oh, you have a flex category. What do you got? What does cell phone ruin this movie? New category.
Wow, new category. Yeah. Like they talk about sex files. You couldn't do the sex files with a cell phone because if you had a cell phone you'd take a photo of the weird stuff you see or you know that sort of stuff.
And horror movies. I think all the time out of the way in which cell phones on the internet have ruined basic premises for movies. Yeah. And so let's say Amanda has a cell phone smartphone in the movie and she picks up a letter it's from Preston Meyers.
She's like goes on social media. She's like goes on his Insta. Who's Preston Meyers? Nobody's streaming from this party.
Nobody's TikTok-ing from this party. It's much harder to do those with everyone having a smartphone in their pocket. Die Hard? Can you do Die Hard if you have the same way if you have a smartphone?
So sometimes they have to come up with Well, the pay phone's involved. You know that they you know the pay phone is a device. Does Preston even get to meet Dan Elfman if he has a cell phone? No, he needs that pay phone.
That's a great one. Great category. All right, here we go. The Butch's Girlfriend Award for Weak Link in the Film.
My biggest issue with this film for 27 years is Ethan Embry and the character. I know it's a controversial take. Oh no. A lot of people get really upset about it.
Okay, let's try about it. I just don't understand Preston at all and I was doing the research and he has this interview he did like 12 years ago where he said at the time when we were shooting I was the world's biggest stoner. I remember the director came up to me and asked if I was altered and he couldn't remember anything in the movie. Then there was this anecdote about how Jennifer LeBewitt gave him a teddy bear full of breath minutes for their climactic kissing scene because everyone on the set knew he spent all his time smoking pot in his trailer and she didn't want to kiss like a pop-out guy.
So I watched it the second time after I did the research and I was like that totally makes sense with how he's playing this character. Oh no. This is traumatic for me, though. I love Ethan.
I'm sure you do girls love it. Preston Meyers is like it's funny because the way that I think people women of your generation feel about Lloyd Dobler is how I feel about Preston Meyers and Lloyd Dobler is one that I don't really fully I'm trying to raise it for my mind. The red suede jacket the like he's going to go study with Kurt Monaghan for the summer like this is just such a write down the old guy. Remember how you tried to provoke me on White Lotus last week?
I tried a bunch of times. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This one got me. This is great.
Just wait until we get to the recasting couch because I have a couple suggestions. What do you have for the butch's girlfriend? I don't know if this movie has a weak link because anyone who's like even slightly wobbly they're gone. It doesn't make me really mad.
Yeah, and I personally think the core cast is kind of perfect. The only one I would say is like because when we get to the casting what ifs I don't know if your Fashionelli is perfect as Mike Dexter, you know? I think there were some other possibilities with that character. They said they wanted Fashionelli because he had I think everybody uses like a streak of malice to him and I agree but I actually kind of wish Mike Dexter were like a little less evil than he is inside of this movie I don't know how to make sense of his character but I can just only compare it to the greats from the 80s specifically the goat Billy Zapka oh yeah and you think like if this was a Billy Zapka role now the whole movie falls you're like oh I totally get who this guy is he's not Zapka enough on the Zapka scale he's like a three yeah yeah yeah and I don't know I was trying to think of other actors from that generation or like Spader and Pretty in Pink right who's just like oh man that guy's a fucking asshole yeah but like he also has something like Amanda has this whole speech I was thinking of Craig Sheffer in some kind of wonderful you need to understand why Amanda was with him for so long she gives a speech about that about how she was nobody or old school then Mike Latch is on and turns her into a somebody but like you think a little he's just so I don't know what stage is the worst you're spending three years with this dude just because he's good at football yeah it doesn't make sense it makes you think less of her exactly what stage is the worst the gay sex rap or the F slur drop yeah there's some late 90s yeah very Heathers having a crush on Scott Baio and telling a long monologue about it this is before Twitter this is before we knew even like go back and watch Charles in Charge or Happy Days and be like wait really Scott Baio Tony loves Chachi Charles in Charge Scott Baio met something before he let us know who he was how about the drummer the band at the party saying to the lead singer that he looks like Lestat does anyone under 40 get that joke well they do not interview with Vampire's Back Vampire's Back you're right come back around and then Rekkenmeyer calls the character Hootie because he wants to wear a cowboy hat it's great alright so the R rating that this movie didn't get here's some of the research Fastenelli says they cut out one character crying drunk girl who they subtitled because she was just talking complete gibberish and she was played by by Jane Brady from a Bunch of Movies so that sounds great I wish that person was in the movie Stone Girl who you can see staring at the band at one point was in the movie way more they changed the pop brownies to brownies but we knew at one point I think the guy from Cruel Intentions what's his name from Say the Last Dance that guy Sean Patrick Thomas instead of bullshit he says bullcorn never bullcorn ever apparently Jason Segel wasn't just holding the watermelon but started to have sex with it he fucks the watermelon before American Pie happened so did American Pie just rip off like seven things when you know that and you rewatch this movie and you watch Jason Segel just like scooping the watermelon out of the rind you're like and then who said this oh Ethan Embry asked if you felt any anger when movies like American Pie and Superbad kicked off a wave of successful run-shoot teen comedies Embry replies absolutely like you fuckers this is like the last it's almost like a black and white TV before we get the color like this movie is completely different if they make it five years later yeah and he said that they also kind of neutered Empire Records as far as he's concerned and I'm like I guess there's like Suicide Attends in that movie and I'm just like what was the darker version of Empire Records the Van Lathan Award for did this movie need more black people just turn it in I bet he would say yes because there's like two black people in it there's two so there's two black characters who are like in the popular clique yeah right the aforementioned Save the Left Dance star Sean Patrick Thomas I hope you brought him up from Cruel Attentions that's a great one Donald Faison is here there's like there's a reminiscent guy like remember that time I think if you can count them on one hand though then they're not hard enough I think also when you have having Kenny and his friends in this movie it would be great if we had a like more substantial black character I'm going back to Preston you're going back to Emory man it's short for Amanda that's my side this is tough this is tough for me that's my side so do you like Ethan Emory in like Empire Records or that thing you do like if you liked him in other things he's okay I do not think he's a real choice for Preston I can't wait to give you my alternatives to CR thinks Luke Wilson could have been Harrison Ford how to stake a word what do you got Preston and Amanda should not wind up together at the end of this movie who does Amanda end up with she should Kelly she should Kelly choose herself oh the Kelly Taylor wow she should choose herself because she gets this whole model about how she doesn't do when the opening everyone knows where they're going to college and everyone's going to a good school by the way the schools are really good at Huntington Hillside High but Amanda's undecided she doesn't know where she's going to school she doesn't know who she is and that's fine she doesn't know who she is she does this whole monologue to her creepy cousin of how she doesn't know who she is if she's not Mike Dexter's girlfriend and then she immediately gets into her that day gets into her relationship with Preston she's yourself get to yourself Amanda watch Run Away Bride and figure out what kind of eggs you like go away for a weekend with your mom and your aunt go backpacking in Europe take a gap year I have my hottest take an ensemble cast high school movie centered around one big party is the easiest and most watchable movie anyone can possibly make and I don't understand why there's 20 of them a year Craig your thoughts is there an easier thing to do in Hollywood than an ensemble cast high school movie centered around one big party I don't know if it's the easiest thing you can do but it's the most watchable it's the most sought after everybody wants it but there are so many attempts that don't work so it's kind of a combination of both where I want a million of these I mean I think they try now there's movies like Sweethearts on HBO that just come and go and disappear we just need to put them in theaters I agree every year it should be like a federal law we're going to have perhaps maybe this could be a law too like federal law we have to make one a year to capture whatever the year was with an ensemble high school movie maybe this is what Mikey Madison should do post her Oscar win yeah use your power Mikey Madison back to high school on the like Preston and Amanda should not have one up together front in the original conception of this Preston winds up with Denise which of course that's the 80s template right that's the teen wolf some kind of wonderful my wife mentioned that when we were watching it and she was like she could remember they end up together at the end and I was like no they actually swerve on this I actually almost put that in what stage is the worst when it says Benny's Benny broke up five minutes later I just would have had that yeah that freeze frame on her is so good it's like the end of the graduate she's like staring off like what have I done for a moment yeah before we get to casting one ifs we'll take one more break casting one ifs they wrote the role of Kenny with Breck and Meyer in mind and he was shooting 54 instead a movie I'm kind of obsessed with because it's one of the most legendarily butchered movies ever released from an editing standpoint and then there's this whole director's cut that I don't know if you've ever seen it is like the biggest disparity between what a movie that was actually released where you're like this movie's incoherent what's happening and then the director's cut it's like oh these three actually ended up in like some weird threesome kind of relationship and got caught up in it like it fills in a lot of I believe you I'm gonna watch the director's cut anyway he took a small role as the lead singer of Love Burger so they wanted Embry to read for the nerd and Embry insisted I said no I know I'm not your typical leading man type but I thought this movie was better suited than cast that guy and they said okay big mistake here Kaplan said they were looking very closely at James Marsden for Mike Dexter but Fastinelli had a hint of danger that he didn't Marsden would agree Marsden everybody's been in on Marsden and he's finally had his moment and it took Jury Duty I think the Hulu show I think Marsden it's finally all happened it took him two decades everyone likes Marsden what's that Catherine Hagel movie he's great in that he's great in Enchanted I had to listen once to my wife and Juliet have like an 18 minute James Marsden conversation while I was wearing gasoline on myself he never miss they wanted Alicia Witt for the Lauren Ambrose role that's an interesting one she's another one that I feel like she's had some good roles over the years I thought she was so good in that Sopranos episode oh you didn't see it it made me wonder I feel like there was more there career wise she basically played this character on the show Civil she played the role Shepard's daughter and she was doing exactly this down to the red hair and so I feel like they just wanted her to do that she was great what was that movie with Urban Legend no other thing Alicia Witt Sean Fentese card carrying Alicia Witt that's a Mount Rushmore for him she's in Dune she's in a season of Justified but that's not her fault her Sopranos episode is really great so they cast somebody else for the nerd role of William that Corsmo ended up doing and it was this actor named Adam Hanbird who had been a Little Man Tate and he just didn't fit in it to fire him I think he looked like too young he's 15 years old he just looked like a baby they couldn't lean the plane on it are you a Little Man Tate have you I'm not I loved that movie and this is a real moment for me but not only Alicia Witt for Denise but also Reese Witherspoon and Christina Ricci she's only the Jennifer Love Hewitt character she's in this but she was also doing like she was kind of doing edgy at this time that was you know like she did Freeway like she was trying to do Edge and so I feel like I don't know I understand what you're saying it's just she's like Cruel Intentions like a year later I don't know she's like you put her on the front of the poster so I think unless it's a Jennifer Love Hewitt role I don't see it yeah she did Fear and Freeway in 96 and then she doesn't have anything in 97 Overnight Delivery Pleasantville's 98 Overnight Delivery in 98 which is her and Paul Rudd I don't know if you've seen that that's like a you don't know if I've seen that that movie's good it is good but she's doing she's doing Edge she liked to do Edge for a little while and then she got into Pleasantville and Cruel Intentions and sort of like the good girl thing the best that guy award category is one of the best ever because we have here's three nominees you might have more the guy who paid Dirk Digger to jerk off in front of the church he's Mike Dexter one of his friends okay oh yeah yeah yeah oh my god there's one Poppy from Seinfeld is the cop yes and then Tara from 90210 who became obsessed with Kayla Taylor and became single wave female she's in the city with one of the high school kids that is the all time big three I would say Amber Benson from Buffy I didn't know who Amber Benson I didn't know what her name was so you're a big Buffy person because in 90210 one year they had Brandon's girlfriend who went on Buffy and that was the best Brandon girlfriend that was the one you should end up with but I think she left to do Buffy I can't remember her name was but she was like the editor of the newspaper she wrote the big abortion story that it turned out she was the one that had the abortion big story at the end yeah she's amazing Buffy was like a pretty yeah the WB was just DM Waiter's award you mentioned Melissa Joan Hart I think she's eligible Sarah Rue Jen Elfman and Jerry O'Connell I think and Jason Segel can I make the case for Klepto Kid Klepto Kid's a great one and he's one of those guys I think he shows up in American Pie too Klepto Kid's just continually showing up and stealing something and I think he's my favorite he's really funny he's a gumball machine at the end Brian Kleckman who plays Stoner Guy who's not Jason Segel with the hair he's the one who's got the bell from Scooby-Doo line he's the one who says Preston wears t-shirts sometimes he's a Preston I love him he shows up with a dinosaur throughout the whole movie I really like him alright I'm recasting Caps Director City I do have a Preston candidate here Freddie Prinze Jr another one that the women like that the guys never told me about because Freddie he was often cast in the popular kid role the doc role but I think he would have really thrived in this sensitive kid role I think this would have been a good moment for him I have two options Marston Marston for Mike Dexter Marston for Preston Marston for Preston you nerd him up a little bit but I feel like I'm way more believing that she's going to be just immediately smitten by Marston changes his hair maybe he's got some weird hair the thing about Preston is she rejects him when she just thinks he's a rando and it's only because he wrote that better so nobody rejects Marston no one says no well here's my other idea no one puts Marston in the corner Jason Segel and Ethan Emmerich just switch parts okay because he's already stoned he's ready to fuck a watermelon yeah he's already watermelon fuck a grown and then we got Jason Segel first movie ever at age 19 he's like tall and skinny and gawky but he's cool and from what we know from him over the next 10 years could have pulled it off this is similar to his role in Freaks and Geeks I think he really could have Craig has a choice flex category I made up a new category great it's the Matt Flynn 26 million dollar contract award for the person I can't believe we thought was going to be a star and it goes to Ethan Embry yes I needed another woman on this one guys guys don't get it no I don't get it the whole cast I don't really understand but Greg what do you mean you don't get it he's fucking Shaggy from Scooby-Doo it's a nightmare Shaggy that's great so what's that category called it's the Matt Flynn 26 million dollar contract award for the person I can't believe we thought was a star so Matt Flynn was this guy who was a backup QB in the Packers and he played like two games at the end of the season and did well in the two games he did five touchdowns in one game and everybody freaked out so it was the last game of the year didn't leave me anything Seattle freaked out gave him this huge contract and then he wasn't good and that's who Craig compared to him that's a great category I really like it I just fundamentally disagree with the premise but I like it as a category going forward another casting option because thinking about Ethan Embry I don't know if he could have gotten away with a teenager but Tom Everett Scott from that thing you do right like in the in the person role he's got that sort of like nerdy cute sweetness yeah that's solid okay but that's another one Tom Everett Scott is another one where I was like I think for this movie to have stuck beyond the micro generation that it hit it needed it needed one more person who stayed quite famous to have been in one of the leading roles well that's 10 things I hate about you Keith Leder vaulted that movie through a whole I mean we already did that one on rewatchables half a cent of research we mentioned Melissa Joan Hart who was filming Sabrina at the same time and the B12 vitamins the Stay Energized they were the all night shoots B12 vitamins yeah I'm going to wonder what that really was and then apparently when the I'm going to wonder when they finished filming The Place, they allowed the whole cast to destroy the house for one last scene and they spent an hour destroying the house.
Because, I mean, the interior was a set. Yeah. And then the exterior is the L-Steam house which is no longer. Fun fact, Breckenmeyer married Debra Kaplan and they had two kids.
Right. Yeah. And he could have been, who was his character? He could have been Kenny, but he was the lead singer of Flerberger.
I mean, he's another one who could have been Preston. I'll basically accept anyone else from that era as Preston. But Breckenmeyer has come off clueless and he's got that stoner energy off the clueless. Justin Long.
He's too young. He's the same age as Ethan Embry. But I think he looked too young. I thought Ethan Embry looked, he kind of had a receding hairline in the 21st.
It's true. Yeah, I actually looked, I was going to put that for what's the worst thinking he was like 38 when he was on the movie and he was 21. I was shocked. Apex Mountain, Ethan Embry, definitely.
It's Ethan Embry. Jennifer Love Hewitt, no question. Party of Five, crossed with this movie, crossed with I Know He Did Last Summer. This is time.
It never got bigger. This exact moment. This exact moment. I don't know that this, and Danny Carson Daly, as you pointed out, I don't know that this movie, like of those three things, I don't know that this movie, I'm just saying this, this specific time frame, 98, the entrance she gets with the fan on her preposterously on his hair and the sneaker pimps they're playing underneath is like an all-timer.
Eddie Akron-Hollywood wants that to have happened to them at some point in their career. Fascinale, definitely. No, Twilight. Oh, I don't know Twilight.
I also don't know Twilight that well, but he is a big deal. See, how big is he in Twilight? He's the patriarch of the vampire family. Oh, that sounds important.
That's more important than this movie and being married to Jenny Garth at the same time. He's got Twilight money. Yeah, Twilight. All right, that's fine.
Jenna Elton, yes. Because she's on that show at the same time. Darman and Greg, yeah. Darman and Greg, plus she cameo on this where it's like a big deal she made a cameo.
What was the Keeping the Face? Is that what that's called? The one with Edward Norton? Yeah.