1996: Beautiful Girls

0:01 These are the movies of nineteen ninety six. What's up, everybody. I'm Jeff Johnson from a Film by podcast and I hope you're down for just one more episode of this dope series. We've broken down the fresh films of nineteen eighty six, we examined the gritty cinemascape of nineteen seventy six, and now it's time to check out the hella good flicks of nineteen ninety six. We've had a lot of fun this year with this limited series. It's given us the opportunity to discuss some of our favorite films from nineteen ninety six. Our friend Andy Frye has joined us several times, and he's been good enough to come back one last time for the last nineteen ninety six episode we're doing. Andy. Welcome back, my friend. Hey, you doing great.

1:00 It's great to see you. How was you know, Hope you had a great Christmas? Yeah? Yeah, I watched lots of movies. A good part is that there are new Christmas movies, or at least new to me. There's it's not just I mean, I love jingle all the way and I roll my eyes when somebody has to put on its wonderful life. But yeah, a couple. Yeah in Chicago, there's uh, you know, I'm based in Chicago, and there's office Christmas party I gotta watch tonight, and then it just watched Red One and there's a couple other kind of new takes on the whole Christmas thing. So we need a good Honeker movie. Probably good quant of movie, I guess too. But you know the good the good part is that there's new stuff.

1:40 It's not just remakes of the old stuff. I'd be up for that absolutely. So if memory serves, at the beginning of the year, I told you about this series, and you know, asked you to join me as often as your schedule permits, and the first thing you said was let's talk about Beautiful Girls. Yeah. Well, early this week Amber and I covered the ref directed by Ted Demmy. It's just happenstance that Beautiful Girls, also directed by Ted Demi, is our episode today. Sometimes you have to go on, you remember, to find what you want. With another person, to discover what's real.

2:23 You like that I'm going along with that silicon I can hang my olt coat on them, and to remember the friends you have, you know, I know I came back here for a reason. Beautiful Girl, rated R. It starts from the February Night, A piano player at a crossroads in his life, returns home for his high school reunion, where he finds his friends waiting with their own problems concerning life and love. And tell me, tell me about your relationship with this movie first time seeing it? What what what this one means to you? You know, back in the nineties, I talked about the ninety a lot, of course, because I wrote a book about the nineties. It was it was kind of a time when I was more on the ball about going to see movies. I live with the guy who went to film school, so that was part of it. I didn't know what. I didn't know what film noir was, probably until Paul Fishing came out, and then they had somebody kind of school me on that whole thing, even you know, pop pop film noir like Two Days in the Valley and a bunch of other movies came out and then yeah, so I mean beyond that, typically the only movies I am great about seeing when they come out are James Bond films, and we're gonna see what happens there. But one of about a handful of movies in the mid to late nineties that I saw in the theater because I was interested was Beautiful Girls. And I think it must have had to do with the I mean, I didn't know that I was going to go on to write about music, but I've always had been interested in music, So I guess the whole thing about to the Hut and playing this piano player who lives in New York City kind of going back to

3:55 the place you grew up that spoke to me. And also, you know, I grew up in southeastern pennsyl and the suburbs. I think a lot of us generation next grew up in the suburbs and moved on to Chicago. So that's something I do. I go home kind of every once in a while and see people in different places and some people in the same place as that they were with no judgments of course back when I knew them to high school. So uh yeah, to see that a movie capture all that. Plus I know we'll talk about it. Side story. I reminded my wife, like last night, I said, Beautiful Girls, I'm doing this thing tomorrow. You've seen this movie. She's like, who's in it. I'm like, well, now that you're isn't. Yeah, it's kind of like Cannonball Run, but good, it's uh, you know, it's It's got Timothy Hutton and Laurene Holly, Uma Thurman, Matt Dillon, Michael Rappaport. There's probably a couple of others that I'm missing. There's a whole lot Mirosorvino, like a couple of boy One oscars and stuff. So, uh, I don't know how Ted Demi worked out, if you just had great relationships or a great casting age, but maybe something about the story spoke to the participants in the cast the way that it speaks to me and hopefully to you and maybe anybody who hasn't seen it who will go see it. Yeah, there's something about it for sure.

5:14 Yeah, there's Well, you know, we talk about movies that are coming of age stories, you know, something like stand by Me? Right? Is it? Is it fair to say that Beautiful Girls is maybe a second coming of age type of movie. I talk about kind of coming of age stories and reverse coming of age stories. I mean, I book I wrote nineties in the nineties about a woman who I guess probably in a similar place. Darby's a record store owner. Yeah, he's you know, kind of like I think a lot of people out in maybe in gen X who are sort of encouraged. You know, you can't be a musician, you can't be a radio DJ, you can't be a painter. You got to go go and get a real job, so to speak. And then we kind of all come around in some fashion do what we really wanted to do or what we meant to do. Maybe it's for some that's being vice president of a industra lupa against company, and they're happy with that. But for me, you know, I kind of kept getting laid off and fired from great jobs, and after meeting my sales quota and the writing thing just came back. So I think I wrote a book that's sort of about that, and then I didn't even There's probably lots of movies that have filtered into my book and my writing, but I always felt like Beautiful Girls was one of those things that is one of those movies that just has a lot of great scene work, a lot of honest conversations between the characters without getting too deep about life, like let's just talk about her every day, Let's talk about where we are.

6:38 Let's talk about ice fishing or going to the bar with your buddies or grabbing a breakfast. You know, all those things are as important as climbing Mount Everest, at least to someone as simple as me. I think that movie just wrapped it up really well. And maybe it's the authenticity in the approach that just made it work. And then a great cast probably helps too. Yeah, well, so Demy has everyone, you know, the principal cast. He has them all move in together. You know, they shoot this, and I think they shoot this in Minneapolis. He said, I'm living together for two or three weeks, just to create those bonds and make it feel a little more authentic. I think that was a genius move, because you don't see that kind of stuff happening in film production in the two thousands, in the in the twenty twenties, that does it. That kind of stuff doesn't happen anymore.

7:21 But yeah, you hear about saving private Private Ryan and all the people wanted to leave until they got the pep talk. And then again, I wonder if it's some of it like generational thing. Obviously, Demi's a bit older than we are, and he probably watched probably watch The Big Chill and either loved it and said I want to do something like that, or thought, you know, I could do a better job of that. There's there's there's something missing here about this approach and people locked in together being intimate person interpersonally. That could be a little more comedy driven, a little bit more substantive. That's my read on it. Of course. Of course jen x All thinks that The Big Chill kind of sucks and can could be tweaked, But that's just me speaking there.

8:03 I like that statement because I feel there's definitely some there's some there's some Big Chill DNA in this movie. You mentioned seeing this when it came out opening weekend. It finished finishes in seventh place two point seven million, against the only other new release, which was Broken Arrow. Hard to beat Travolta in ninety six, I would think, especially after Pulp Fiction. Yeah, you know, and obviously that one took the top spot. But Beautiful Girls does end its run with twenty seven million worldwide. I think that's that's pretty decent for a film like this. Yeah. Yeah, fairly positive reviews overall, Andy, your fellow Chicagoan Roger Ebert wrote quote, what's nice. What's nicest about the film is the way it treasures the good feelings people can have for one another. He's onto something there because I like the dynamic with all these characters, because you can see like, hey, you know these this this group of people that went to high school together. This guy was closer to this guy, but this guy was in the group, and you know, you're you're friends with him by extension kind of thing. But you could so you could still be cool with this guy. You could still be nice with this guy. You know. They even have one of those moments in the diner when Uh, he's like, he's looking at the one guy with why is he here?

9:16 You know. There was I remember when the movie came out. I had a friend from college named Kelly who lives up in Uh. She moved back to upstate New York, where she's from, and I remember having this conversation with her. I'm gonna have to drop her line after this and say that my name dropped her in the episode that she had said that she liked. She's like, it reminds me like I grew up in a New York, upstate New York town. That's kind of like that one, and it reminds me of like, I know guys who worked, you know, maybe not work for the park district. You know, their job is shoveling the snow and doing stuff that is important to a northern town in a wintery area, and you know all the stuff that has been there. She had said, like the old diners still there, and the old pub is still there, and uh, maybe this is nineties thing. You know, you don't see a Starbucks in this movie. You kind of hope if you're going to watch a sequel this movie, that you're not going to see a strip mall where the Johnson n used to be. There's something where. Uh. There are some movies that like Old for No Country. Old Man is very different from that this movie, but there's in cinema sometimes you see that there's a depiction of eighties nineties America in some places, not the places aren't that much different as than they were in the fifties and sixties, and sometimes in good ways and sometimes bad ways. And I think this captures that and the people in it without denigrating denigrating them or making you feel like these are a bunch of people who just couldn't figure out anything better to do. Like they actually enjoy their lives and have a lot of a ground I have a grounded experience and a lot of cool things that's going that

10:48 are going on between them and with their friends. And I think that I don't know, somehow I just capture all that. I agree. It's you know, I mean, he's shooting in Minneapolis, but this is a fictional nights Ridge is a fictional Massachusetts town. But I feel like I feel like he shot on location there, you know. And it's it's the little things like Celtics posters on the wall, but it's also it's just it's how the guys look, it's how the guys act and talk. And I don't know about you, but man, this is the This is the perfect movie to watch in like December January, because it's nothing but ice and snow and the exteriors just it just feels like the right time, you know. It's like it's like it's like going back home, and we're going back home.

11:29 Because they said in one of the lines of the beginning of the movie, they said to said, well what did you do for Christmas? He's like, oheah went with my girlfriend of Pennsylvania. But then and what I guess, I think it's in the Johnson in the bar that their friend opens. You see a little bit of a wreath, so you kind of think maybe maybe it's the second week of January, and like the stuff has not been taken on yet, but there's no holiday thing. They go to my high school we have I have. My thirtieth anniversary was twenty twenty, so we didn't have it, but we always have it after Thanksgiving. So I don't know what the rest of the world does. But you kind of figured, yeah, it's maybe December January when this happens. There's still a little bit of festivity in the air, a little bit of coziness from the winter. And yeah, I just kind of read Northeast. I didn't even know it shot in the Twin Cities area, but it definitely looks like, you know, New England, western Massachusetts or something like that. And then yeah, all the Larry Bird of Celtic stuff and all the pictures of I think there's a couple. In the first five minutes, I see two pictures of John F. Kennedy wanted to dine or want at a bar, and then I think Matt Dylan's apartment has a huge picture of Nixon, like life sized poster like this behind me in the kitchen. You're just like, yeah, it hasn't really changed that much there in probably twenty thirty years in a lot of small ways.

12:42 Screamer Scott Rosenberg heads home to Needham, Massachusetts, during one of his hometown's worst winters. So he's waiting to see if Disney is going to produce his script for a film called con Air, and he's just tired of writing about the same old thing about guns and explosions. He gets the idea to write about his friends who are struggling with turning thirty and their commitment issues, and the result here is beautiful girls. So sometimes you know, writers, and you know I'm talking. I'm talking a great writer right now, Sometimes writers write what they know. He turned his He turned his buddies into movie characters. I love that. Yeah. Didn't we talk about this? Did we talk about Swingers? Yes? Is it beautier rules, a less grab, glamorous, less warm? Yeah?

13:26 So Swingers takes place in La and Vegas. Everybody's rinking, Martinez are trying to swing dancing. These guys aren't swing dancing. They're not drinking Martina drinking and beer, but it's cut from the same cloth. Emotionally, I love both these I love both swingers and I actually I tell my wife last night about swingers. The other night I said singles. She's like, are you talking about singles or swingers? I'm like, actually, swingers. But why did I say singles? It's the same. Nineties are about hanging out. And maybe the generational thing of us, whether you're in a small town or La or Seattle, that you know, our freedom from I don't know it, maybe middle aged, divorced, slightly angry parents a whole generation was we just wanted to fucking hang out, man. Part of my language. I just wanted to drink coffee at Martini and Whiskey's and just not have shit to do for you know, an afternoon. And that's part of our life experience that we value. And this movie, you know, Beautiful Girls, it's a different take on that, but I loved it just the same as as you know, swingers, singles, pulp fiction, like all the great movies in the nineties, they just had some vibe going on.

14:35 That's a thing something all those movies have in common a little bit with this movie we're gonna talk about We're gonna take a quick break and then I want to talk to you about this film's soundtrack. Welcome back, Andy Frye is with us. We are talking about beautiful girls. Andy, what's your take on this lineup for this soundtrack, because we got we got some interesting names showing up and some you don't hear in the movie, some you only get on the soundtrack. So you know, I'm curious, like, are you you know, because you have not one, but three of the greatest nineties Spotify playlists based off of your novel ninety Days in the Nineties. Anyone, who do you see on this soundtrack that's making the cut for your Spotify playlist? Because I'm looking at the Afghan Whigs.

15:26 Yeah, you know, and I grew I went to college in Southwestern Ohio and they're from Cincinnati, and you know, people love the African I'm not really a huge fan of the band, but I always think that Greg Dooley. I loved his interviews because he always has something interesting to say. He's kind of like a more chill Frank Zappa in a way like this isn't intelligent to say. So, I feel like the Afghan Whigs, they're definitely a nineties signature piece and should be on this. But you know, it's weird. I just talked to somebody about an hour ago who used to be an A and R rap at Columbia Records, and I mentioned Beautiful Girls because I was doing this thing with you, and she's like, yeah, that had a great soundtrack. I don't really remember the movie that much, but I had a great soundtrack. I was like, Oh, that's interesting that you would say that.

16:07 But yeah, look kind of looking at the what I see here the roster, I mean, some of the artists that I don't know that well, but obviously you know, I grew up in Pennsylvania. I know Ween, I know Miss Isaac from the nineties just because he was a fixture. Then Afghan Whigs, the Spinners also from Philadelphia. I don't know what the Pennsylvania connection between The Spinners and Ween are with that, but you know, it's weird. I think it feels like it's definitely not forced in any way. Like we talked earlier this year about Biodome not a great movie, interesting track, we had a different take. You thought the lineup was pretty good, and I also kind of, I think, converse to your approach, maybe because I didn't like the songs as much. I felt like somebody in the music supervision part of Biodome was like, Oh, we got to have these bands because they're timely out. I don't even feel like that they whoever Demi hired or brought on to handle this piece of it, didn't try to get too fancy with it, didn't, you know. I think, well, it's ninet tenety six, we got to have an Alison Chain song, or we got to have a tripping Daisy song.

17:16 Like it wasn't wasn't thought through that way. It was more like the kind of artists that you would probably see in a bar in playing like we did in the movie. Like it just you know, some solo artists, Billy Paul, Rolling Gift. I don't know much a lot about them, but it just seems kind of to fit, you know, sort of let your hair down approach to a movie soundtrack and not really get too worked up about what you're trying to achieve with it. That's just my thing. It's it's comfortable music, right, Yeah, that's that's how I look at it. Yeah, comfort food. Yeah, have you maybe one of the more notable names on the soundtrack, Neil Diamond? Can we can we talk about the sweet Hairline scene for a minute, because sometimes a movie has that that montage moment, or they have that scene where everyone's singing the song together and it's a feel good moment, or you know, like like I'm thinking like Almost Famous where it kind of brings the band back together when they're seeing a tiny dancer. What interesting thing here is we're seeing this sweet caro line scene and this is a year before the Boston Red Sox actually adopt it, and it becomes like the big thing, right like the Bop Bop you know that didn't that didn't that didn't exist until Beautiful Girls.

18:30 Yeah, I guess you know, I kind of part of me wants to say, well, yeah, Beautiful Girls kind of set the tone for this, and maybe that's why, you know, of all people, Cameron Crow, who knows music probably better than anybody's and fits it to movies better than anybody, thought about incorporating tidy Dancer and that sort of sing along scene and Almost Famous. But you know Top Gun was doing it too. You know, you have people sitting around the Mars and Great Paul's a Fire or what was wait? I was Great Paul's a Fire, the New Top Gun, which was the one that. Both Actually, yeah, you had go sand Rooster doing it. So I think that's an important you know, it doesn't feel like a filler, doesn't feel like it feels like, yeah, you're out of a Red Sox game, a Red's game, a Cubs game. Maybe you know, before we had stadiums doing the dun du you know the I hope Jack White is getting paid amply for just this one, for what was it seven seven Nation Army. There is for especially for an emotional movie like this, there's there's an emotional community connection to music that maybe not everybody feels.

19:38 I definitely feel, and I don't know it just part of it. It's like an ingredient and field good movies that you should have got. Definitely got to pick a good song, maybe a classic, something everybody knows, and just have a roll out organically. Of course, having a piano player is the main character in this movie. It just works. So yeah, that you know, makes you want to sing along if it doesn't make you want to cry. There's just something special about it that seems necessary, and I hope, I hope a lot more movies, not not too many, but enough good movies continue with that tradition of using this sort of stick that they did. Let's get into this cast. Principal roles, and look, I mean you mentioned them, you mentioned a handful of them, and I know we'd probably need a Beautiful Girl's miniseries just to do it justice to talk about everyone, but principal roles we got. We got Matt Dylan as Tommy, Lauren Holly as Darien, Timothy Hutton as Willie, the jazz piano player that that heads off to the city to make make his fortune, Rosie O'Donnell playing Gina and maybe one of the best Rosie o'donnald roles I've seen in a in a in a movie. Michael Rappaport is solid gold here playing Paul and uh and Natalie Portman yeah wow, Yeah, we didn't mention her earlier, but uh what a what a breakout role, not not even a breakout role, because she you know, she she does the professional.

21:04 But I feel like this is a breakout role though. This is a breakout yeah, because this is. Her being you know, she She mentioned it one of the first one of her first lines in the movie that she's an old soul, and you know she played she was an intelligent kid in the professional But I feel like this is a breakout in that you get to feel a little bit more of her being independent and just kind of get a glimpse of the way that she dominates movies and dominates roles in a good way. Like I mean, obviously, some movies that were kind of turds, like the episode One Star Wars, didn't really let her be who she was supposed to be. But this one, I just you just appreciate this little funny, smart ass girl who lives next door to him that to be the cut ut Willie has a connection with that. If you watch it, you know that it's not creepy. It could be obviously described as creepy if you're not really knowing what's going on in the full description of it.

21:57 But yeah, it's this. I've was there her breakout role, because I don't remember. I feel like it was after that she got a ton of I'm not a filming story, but she got a ton of roles where they knew they needed somebody to play an emotionally intelligent character that you know, doesn't steal the scene but completes whatever whatever project she's put into. So, yeah, she's got this and Mars attacks, which we you know, we covered on a film by a couple of seasons ago. Chicago Film Critics Association Awards nominates Natalie Portman for Best Supporting Actress and Most Promising Actress for this film. And to your point, what's going on with her and Timothy Hutton. I think I can. I can understand why people might feel it's it's creepy, because even his buddy in the movie, you know, points out that it's great. He's he's calling him out for it. He's like, dude, this is creepy. You can't be talking like this. But I don't know, I feel like there's an innocence to it.

22:53 Yeah that you know, Timothy Hutton's not looking at her in a sexual way, and he even mentions that to his buddy Mo played by Noah Emrick. He says, I'm not talking about that, Like I'm just saying like maybe ten years from now, I'm I'm thirty seven and she's, you know, twenty three, and then it's cool and he's like, dude, you're do you hear yourself? Like? But yeah, I remember Timothy Hutton's characters kind of having a crisis right as he's coming home. He just doesn't know who he wants to be or what or where he's gonna go, what he's gonna do. So well, I see him as that, not so much that, but as a character who is asking that question because he feels like he's at the stage where he should ask that question. I don't think he's dissatisfied with his life as a musician or with this girl that he's dating that he brings home to his hometown. I think he's just reflected about it because he knows that when he's visiting his friends that some of them are fine where they are, some of them obviously aren't and kind of never have even addressed that question. I do think this is a good coming of age movie as a secondary part of life, Like we've all seen the coming of age movies, whether it's stand by Me or Days Confused, where people kind of ask what do I want to be when I get when I get out of high school?

24:05 This is kind of like I've been there, done that. Am I on track? Or am I not that that's a serious conversation, that this is very a male centric movie. However, I think Rosio o'donald brings another side of it where she's like, we can talk about the whole thing where she's kind of giving them about being obsessed with beautiful women and that the fantasy isn't reality. But I feel like Timody Hutton's character does have an honest question on the table that he's not beating himself up about. But he was like, yeah, this is a legit question I need to kind of ask myself because I don't know if everybody else is, but I want to ask myself this question. Am I cool? Or am I? Am? I? Am I going? Do I need to get a real job and stop being a piano player? Or you know, do I even have to decide right now? I think that that's the approach, and then this perceptive next door neighbor kind of helps, you know, kind of ask them some of the same questions that he's been asking himself inside his had been not vocally, and that opens up the sort of sold the soil of relationship that these two odd balls have with each other.

25:07 I like it. Let's talk about Rose o Donald for a second, that that moment where she's explaining just male expectation for females in the supermarket and she picks up the penthouse. Yeah, dude, is she wrong? I mean, I don't know. Well, the thing is that I feel like at the time, in nineteen ninety six, we were sort of on the cusp of moving from I mean some of the best movies of the eighties, like I'm talking blockbusters that were very male dominated, you know, Top Gun and a little bit later days of Thunder and some of the Schwarzenegger movies, and then we had some really terrible misogynistic things like Porky's and Hard Bodies and stuff that just you know, would not fly that we don't even make today. So in the nineties Worth kind of the cusp of some change, and I feel like it was a role. Strangely, the dialogue to me feel a lot like a Guy Ritchie movie without without the guns and the cursing, and that it's just this this kind of rant that goes on the semantics that she's covered with. You know, you guys think that you're you, you identify beauty, you know what it is. It's uh, I just kind of going verbatim what she said. You know, it's girls with big booze, have big butts, and and it's you know, they don't come like this as they as you're seeing in penthouse.

26:26 Get over yourself. If you had any self esteem, you might realize that, you know, real beauty is out there, and you're just too weak to go find out what it is because you're scared. And you guys need to grow up. Have a nice day. She's shopping for things in the drug store and saying hi to the you know, pharmacist behind the counter that it's just she's like a little tornado, well tas many a devil of wisdom coming uh. And it's it's it's funny from their perspective too. But that doesn't make her wrong either. It doesn't. Uh. Let's talk about their perspective. Michael Rappaport gives one of the best monologues in the nineties, Like when he's talking about what beautiful girls are, and it's not that they're beautiful girls. He's talking about hope. He's talking about what they signify. Let me, let me, let me. Let's let's just listen to this for a quick second.

27:13 The supermodels a beautiful girls will A beautiful girl can make you dizzy like you've been drinking jack and coke all morning. She can make you feel high. Full of single greatest commodity known to man, promise, the promise of a better day, promise of a greater hope, promise of a new tomorrow. This particular ore can be found in the gait of a beautiful girl in a smile, and in her soul, and the way she makes every rotten little thing about life seem like it's gonna be okay. The supermodels willie that's only our bottle promise. Scenes from a Brand New Day Hope dancing in stiletto heels. A beautiful girl is all powerful and that is as good as love.

27:55 What starts off as creepy because he's got he's got like everything from Sports Illustrated to Playboy, like just plastered all over the walls like he's thirteen, starts off creepy, but then he has this little dea tribe where you're like, you know what he's He's got a point, just the way Rosy o'donald has a point on expectations. He has a point to what he's saying, Like what they represent. Yeah. So when I moved into my freshman dor my freshman year of college, I came late in my room, it was already in his side of the room was covered with pictures and posters of al McPherson. I'm not making this up. Oh my wow. Yeah. So I kind of knew who she was at the time. This is nineteen ninety and I was, you know, grew up in the East Coast, and I was saying, to know who famous? You know, this is kind of the beginning of the super model era and also sort of the second or third year of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue with people like you know, Kathy Ireland and el McPherson. I remember thinking like, oh, do I need to put pictures of another model on my wall or I mean I was putting up pictures of the Berlin Wall falling and the Eiffel Tower, and I was kind of obsessed with the one trip I had the Europe and just kind of I was like, I'm a Cold War geek. So I was fascinated by the fact that the in late nineteen ninety and early ninety one, that the Soviet Union was collapsing, and you know, Reagan's dream had come alive, and like, you know, chicks and bikinis on the walls, just like that wasn't really wasn't against it, but I was just like, wow, I had never really thought that I would cover my wall that way. So

29:26 I've kind of lived with that person. And as far as the monologue goes, yeah, Michael Rappaport is just he plays the character that he plays in a lot of movies, kind of a boatonheaded guy limited intelligence. Definitely needs to grow up, but I think the way that he frames it has bottled up hope. I mean, yeah, he's a guy who hasn't really moved towards hope. He hasn't really moved to what he aspires to in life. He's sort of happy with drinking beer and looking at pretty women in magazines and whatnot. But he gets it right, at least as far as the sentiment and maybe the metaphysical representation of what but beauty is to him. Uh, he doesn't bungle that part of it. But you know, we can we can sort of interpret the delivery method a little bit different based on where we are now.

30:11 I suppose speaking of delivery method that you know him and Martha Plumpton, just take the fucking ring like this. He's got some work to do on uh on, you know, having a softer touch. I think I was watching that scene, I was thinking about you because I was thinking, like, I grew up in the East Coast, and I get it less now that I've lived in Chicago for thirty years, but I do get people to be like, you know, you you talk to you say things differently, You're a little bit more like I get accused of being a little bit more easily riled up. And uh, you know, the East Coast people talk to each other in a different format than people in the Midwest and the Great Plains. It's just something that I know that I've noticed, and I remember seeing that scene like yeah, that I could see that happening on in any day in a diner anywhere, and you know anywhere from like New England down to Maryland that people were once proposing the other and there yelling at each other. That was like, yeah, it's to capture the East Coast, I suppose.

31:04 Yeah, a little more direct with with what you what you say. You know, again, this cast is huge. I don't know how you get this many names in one small little movie like this, but uh, you got Martha Plimpton, David Arquette, who's playing Hilton, his little brother, kind of kind of half checked out. He's having a good year. He's you know, he's got Scream, he's got guest spot on Friends, he's about his stars on the rise, Mira Servino and then Uma Thurman coming in White Hot, right, small role. Small doesn't have a lot to not to do, but it's almost like she's there just to either tempt the guys or entice them or or teach them something about themselves. And then she's gone, Yeah.

31:46 It's kind of that hope that they're talking about. I mean, you have the big city girl who's intelligent and brave and she's not gonna get pushed around way in these guys. She's not intimidated, you know. They they talk about doing Mellon ball shots, She's like, no, we're gonna do the shots at whiskey. Yeah, you know, that's that's kind of kind of character wise, this kind of woman that puts you on your best behavior, makes you step up your game. And of course they well, so she walks in as the cousin of the bar owner, like they sit up straight her and they're like, oh wow, okay, well we need to make an appearance here. But yeah, she's kind of like that presented as an archetype of sort of the ideal women, but she's probably more down to earth than they are. Throughout this whole movie. Is that character.

32:27 I can't remember how to say her name? What was it? What was her name? Uh? Adira, Adira? Yeah, Adira or Aderra. I'm trying to remember because like you only hear it once or twice. But yeah, and Deira, I think is what it is. He's she's the attractive cousin from from Chicago, you know. Uh, I love love that the rappaports. Paul's like, oh, what part of Chicago you from? And she's like, oh, you know, Chicago's like a and a soldier field. She's like, that's that's a it's a football field. She puts some she puts them on, she puts them in check. I like that. Yeah, there's She's not gonna be someone who's gonna be buttered up up by a couple of quick lines. And then later in the in the uh ice fishing hut scene with she's having it like a real conversation with Timothy Hutton, who's equally as an intelligent and culture as she is, but he's still trying to seduce her. She's like, you know, I'm happy her. My life is Sunday mornings with the paper and coffee and you know, my boyfriend.

33:26 And yeah, I'm kind of embarrassed for Timothy Hutton because he's got the cool playing the piano at the bar alone vibe happening, and he makes a pass setter. She shoots it down. Yeah, you know, he like he shoots it. She's he's shut down. Twice they go they go ice fishing, and then he's like, get right in the middle of this nice conversation. He still goes one more time, and she's like, no, I'll take Sundays reading the paper and hanging out with my Boyfriend's like, dude, that's yeah, let it go. You know yeah one uh, one guy. We didn't really talk about. We'll do, you know, can't we always like to do cameos or before they were famous. Noah Emrick not exactly an extra obviously because he's he's playing Moe, but we only saw him in a handful of TV shows before this movie, and he gets one movie credit before Beautiful Girls, and I'm happy to say Andy, he was billed as the rookie and last action hero a film you joined us for your first time on a film buy.

34:30 So yeah, and I don't remember him much from that, you know, so a completely aside. There's a show that I've watched a couple of times, a series again because I love Cold War stuff. The Spy, which is a series with Sasha Baron Cohen where he plays it actually based on a true story where he plays an Israeli Massad agent that infiltrates Sirius government and then his Boston handler is Noah Emeric, who's you know, like the most serious. Everybody is serious. Everybody in the Massade, I would guess is serious. It's probably part of being clandestinops for Israel in the sixties. But no Emeric is the one who I think is basically his handler and kind of is his chief and just does a great job. You know.

35:12 Every time I watched that, I'm thinking he was he was kind of like the grounded guy, the elder statesman among their friends and Beautiful Girls. I don't know, there's he's like a regular guy, but there's something some sort of gravitos that he has as an actor that I kind of wish I'd seen him in more stuff, because I think he's a bit underrated overall, and also in this movie definitely underrated. I like that he is like the I think you're on a something there, because you know, first off, I would love to see him and more. He's always playing these small roles, Like I think the last time I saw him where I'm remember seeing him was probably like a twenty twelve's Warrior where he just plays the bank manager talking to Joel Edgard. Now he was upside down on his mortgage. But I love what he's doing here because he's he's the button down own guy in the group.

36:01 He's got the wife, the kids, he's the plant manager at the at the mill or whatever, and he's he's happy, go lucky until we see Matt Dylan get his ass handed to him. You know, he gets jumped and then he flips a switch and he's you know what, what's uh? What's Paul calling? He's like, well, all of a sudden, Charles Bronson like he so great guy. Love. I love this guy in this movie. Yeah, we probably all of us have some guy like that in our friend group, who you know is not brings it out when he needs to and is very protective of his friends. And you also kind of feel like maybe Willie's return to uh what is it called Knight's Night Night Ridge, Knight's Ridge kind of exposes kind of exposes that these guys are. Again I'm not trying to I'm not judging like people who stay in their hometown and do what they do for you know, it's like that in these particular characters, they all kind of need a bigger brother and maybe a mom, and you kind of get the sense that probably of them still live at home or live maybe in the parents that the house that their parents owned, particularly Plympton and the exception being Matt Dylan's character, who you know, has Michael Rappaport staying like living with him.

37:13 Yeah, he's like the roommate or whatever. He has a roommate, you know. There they should be kind of moved on from that point, but they all kind of need a big brother, someone to kind of not keep them in line but look over them. And that's what no Emrich's character, you know, Moe is like he's whether he he intends to be or not. He's sort of the the big brother to them all. Yeah, he's he's trying to defend Matt Dillon, but he's also trying to talk sense to Timothy Hutton. You know when it comes to the thirteen year old girl next door. And I don't know this movie. I just I watched these characters interacting and it just feels so authentic. I feel like I know these characters. I grew up with these characters. I went to school with these characters. That's that's what makes Beautiful Girls such an amazing film. I think, yeah, definitely, let's take one more break and then there'll be time for keeping it all right, we are back. We have asked these questions before, Andy, you have always given some amazing answers. We're gonna start with a favorite and uh, I'm gonna I'm gonna say this one. Let's let's say this one sponsored by by Zob's Hot Sauce. So uh I was.

38:20 Gonna say, I was gonna say, maybe you need to check check in with them, because uh, I've known people from like podcasters to like roller derby skaters who have gotten a little sponsorship just by like reaching out to coup yeah. I always think you always get what you asked for in life. You might want to reach out to them and uh. Well, after after after this amazing gift that might have don't. Like everybody what went on here, because I'm I need to know a hot sauce fan like I am. But I just I figured i'd hit you up one day and then yeah, you can tell the audience about the ear. Yeah, I got. I got to clue them, man. So you know, first question I'm keeping it real is always about Billy Zaka, right. You know, we we talk about how he was, uh you know, it's one of our favorite actors domin the dojo's high school cafeterias and college swimming pools in the eighties, but he was notably absent from Hollywood for most of the nineties. So the question is what about Zob? And you had the wonderful gift for me. You sent me a bottle of Zob's hot sauce because I've asked you what about Zob so many times talking about William Zaka lo and behold, you know I'm a hot sauce guy. You're a hot sauce guy, and you gave me this amazing hot sauce from and it's it's Zob's Hot Sauce. I gotta tell you listeners. Yeah, if you can, if you can get your hands on a bottle of this, you will be You'll be very happy.

39:33 Put it. Put it on your chicken, put it on your steak. Put I put it on my scrambled eggs. I put it on everything. Man, it's it's delicious. And I have Andy, I have Andy Friday think for that. But yeah, so my friend, I've got a friend from college who worked at the bagel shop at Miami University when we went to school. He owns the Chicago Bagel Authority here in Chicago, which is like just an awesome place to eat great bagels. And then he had it. Yeah, he started adding some hot sauce. I call it Zabs because you know the East Coast. I yeah, so z a b. There's two versions of it. I was like, well, I'm always gonna try a hot, new hot sauce. And there's there's been ones I've tried where that like they're not good and I give them away or something. But this is seem legit, no sugar added, you know, it's just like a straight up hot sauce and uh, I don't know. So I saw it and I was like, okay, I'm gonna get some of this. And then I must have been right after I talked to you. I was like, yeah, this is you know, zab zabka. I don't know if there's I'm gonna send up. Of course, I asked you, like, because there's some people I know who can't do hot anything.

40:31 So I asked you that. They're like, yeah, I love hot sauce. Like, well, I'm gonna send you this thing and check it out. So yeah, I gotta go. I'm halfway through my uh the other bottle I have. I gotta get some more but nice dry flavor. And you know, I make a a non a meatless chili that can rock any meat chili that you've ever had in your life. I'm that cocky about it. Okay, So the rest of my family doesn't like stuff as hot as I do. But of course when when we get it out, first thing that goes in is the hot sauce. So it's a great, great addition. I like the mouth to burn a little bit. And I hope to see Billy's appet doing a commercial for them. Someday or maybe them. Sponsor Yeah, I'll take either. But my question to you Andy, what about zab so replace one actor from this film with William Zapka. Who who you going with?

41:24 I don't you know, it's kind of hard to say, because all these characters really I think really stood out. But you know there's one of the employees that that uh, the guy with a hat who's sitting in the truck. What's Max Perli, please, Kevin? That's it? Yeah, kind of a minor character. I mean, he's a short guy. They kind of kind of kind of present him as like a kind of a short, nerdy guy. The guy who's kind of more has some some some quiet wisdom. But he's not really a dominant character. I don't really know why that is. And I kind of feel like if you had, maybe I don't want to take Max Perl look at it, because he does do a lot of He does a lot of really cool minor roles, like he was in uh, what was the movie about Cocaine with Johnny Depp?

42:09 Blow? Yeah, I was gonna say snow, No, it's Blow. He's been I think he was in I think he might have been in in uh. Uh another movie with Matt Dillon about drugs. So anyway, he's been in a lot of good movies, good drug. Store, Cowboy, Yeah drug he was, Yeah, that's what that's what he was in. I was thinking of, uh, the writer h William Burrows, I was thinking junkie, but I know it was in the basically junk of the movie. Is is kind of what it was. Yeah, I think maybe a stronger character sitting in you know, I mean, yeah, you got you got a kind of a a jerk that you don't really take seriously as a person in Michael Rappaport. Maybe any kind of a you know, the cocky Bill Zabka that you have in uh Cobra Kai or back to school kind of talking some sense to Matt Dillon. Like obviously he was presented as the he was the stud in high school of the dominant guy. But if he's twenty eight and he's, you know, just kind of hanging around town and doing what he's doing in this movie, he's obviously not the alpha male that he thought he was or used to be. Maybe he could knock some sense into him. Or I wouldn't be surprised if we bump into his dad you know, we bump into the Birdman's dad saying, what are you doing? You're just still doing this thing. I can't believe you're you're hooking up with his girls in your high school girlfriend or is his bigger brother or his cousin, or somebody kind of talks some sense into him, which will we either see Bill Zabka being kind of a jerk and you know, threatening someone like Daniel LaRusso and Karate Kid, or in

43:42 a strange way, kind of talking some sense into people like he did in Cobra Kai once you kind of get to know him. So that's the only thing I could think of. Or maybe you want him to be a Darien Small's jerk husband who you know, with the help of three other guys. He needed three other guy crap out of Matt Dillon because he couldn't do it on his own. He might be perfect for that role and more of a familiar face that who's nose you want to break, you know, I mean you kind of want to break his nose back in the eighties when he was playing all those characters. Uh, he'd a perfect perfect fit for Darien Small's husband. I got him, I got him for Darien Small's husband, because we don't really see this guy till the third act, and I think, Zopka, he's he's gonna he's gonna take away like you mentioned, like all these guys, it's a it's a pretty good ensemble. Everyone's got their shining moment. I feel like maybe Zobga we need him in a in a smaller role and him showing up at the bar uh to uh to confront Matt Dillon. I'm all, I'm all for I'm all for him playing the husband.

44:46 So yeah, that does sound kind of a more of a natural natural fit just based on where he's been. But damn yeah, why not? All right, let's do a sequel, prequel remake? Andy, if you had your hands on this ip, what would you do? What would your pitch be to the studio to bring it back? Which woe? Which way? Which way you're gonna go? I think you gotta have a you gotta have a sequel, but it's got to be a different flavor. So maybe you know, taking your idea from swingers. Uh, he's either a widow or widower. So what happens? Okay, so maybe we have Willie comes back. He's deciding to move from New York City after a successful career, maybe a couple of albums as a jazz performer. I think he's more of a blues piano player anyway. But he moves back to H. Knight's Ridge with his wife and kids, ready to settle down, and he sees that his friends are still there and still in a little bit disarray. So, uh, what happens. Maybe you know, Sharon and uh Tommy the Birdman got married, but uh, Tommy's no longer with us, and we've got a you know, maybe it's called beautiful men, and it's it's a little bit about not making this, you know, breat eighty for but that maybe the women take a little bit more a dominant role as reflective on what they appreciated about the men's in their life.

46:08 But now some of them are gone, and you know, they're either looking for some wisdom from Willy or Willy's wife, or he's just trying to be a good friend guide and through kind of that's that maybe that third stage stage of life different than I like. I like what you got there with the little bit of a role reversal they're happening with the genders. I'm into that. I didn't see that. I didn't think about that one. Let me let me tell you, let me pitch something to you, because I'm going seql I'm with you. You know, this one was all about him coming. Home maybe before I forget it. Hopefully you're gonna say this, Natalie Portman is going to have a bigger role, and that's where this is steered. I'm happy to tell you. I'm happy to tell you that she does. I'm gonna give you a sequel. I want to bring all the characters back for what possibly their fortieth high school reunion, because this is their tenth and Beautiful Girls. Maybe Nallie Portman is now the high school principal. Hutton Hutton is also back in town. Just happens to be his his father's funeral.

47:07 He uh, brother's got some money. That was pretty old though. Okay, yeah, that was pretty old. Okay, I tell you what we'll do brother's funeral. You know, let's juxtapose the movie a little bit. How about he's got a little bit of money because maybe he did a couple albums at Starbucks. Uh, you know, wildly popular at Starbucks. You know he you know, the lawyer Annabeth Gish, you know, she left him and maybe uh, you know, let's catch up with this group dealing with the with retirement looking at them and the road's not taking him. Maybe maybe there is something between him and Nolly Portman, an adult Nolly Portman who would be like forty years old at this point. So yeah, I don't know. I'm gonna call it though, you know, you can't call it Beautiful girls too. I I you know, something to me like I wanted to say, let's let's call this Crossroads, but then you got the you know, we're talking about Zabka, We got you know, Machio's got the Crossroads movie from nineteen eighty six, you know, totally different movie, but the the you know, blues guitarists. But I don't know that's that's my pitch anyways.

48:02 Yeah, I kind of see maybe Timothy Hutton it comes back, maybe Star Starbucks album, or maybe he's uh yeah. I kept thinking of the line, the kind of long line of guitarists who kept playing for David Bowie. You had Stevie rayvaugh On, you had Page Hamilton from Helmet Goes from like this hardcore punk band to play like we're seeing on Saturday and live playing with David Bowie. Maybe he gets a gig like that, Maybe he's uh, maybe a Willie's, Tina Turner's last piano player, or tours with Diana Crawl, or who knows what it is. I like it. Everybody's in a little different place in their life. And who knows, maybe Darien Spalls isn't such a jerk anymore and she's I don't know, but I like yeah, I like that you are thinking about kind of different places where people can be in life. Because with the current movie as it is, we sort of think Willy's always going to go back to the city. Natalie Portman's character Marty, you know, she's obviously destined for for Harvard and so big career, but maybe, you know, maybe she just eventually, like a lot of sees the value in the small town, wants to come back to it and that it creates a whole different set of relationships and that explores a different dynamic of people in this town at a different place in their life.

49:17 Yeah, DVD extras. In nineteen ninety six, the DVD format was introduced to US markets. Compact displeased US. You know, high definition wowedest we were tossing on our VHS tapes. Cinephiles like us, Andy though we needed those exclusive special features and we were just getting scene selection or you know, Spanish subtitles. So my question to you what DVD extra which you have wanted on your DVD for this film? You can have an end character audio commentary, a making of documentary, or what we have renamed the Amber Lewis Actors Roundtable. You can have any I'll give you any actors you want. You can have like a little roundtable conversation with them. Which which one you gotta go with?

50:01 Well, I feel like the in character DVD extras you know again, I always go back to the Hangover and when you find out that mister Chow is the real person and that Ken Jones the actor he appeased Hollywood because Mitt the real mister Chow's too dangerous, something like that, Like I could either see it. Rosie O'donnald's character has a podcast now, as you know, Gina, Gina and Sharon have you know, like a call her Daddy type podcast for gen X women in their fifties and sixties who are talking about relationships, are starting a new or you have. I guess the low hanging fruit would be to have you know, Timothy hunt Is, Willie you know, we always see this if you turn it, tune into the right time on PBS, usually on a Sunday night, you're gonna see Tom Waits on the stage with Jackson Brown and Bruce Springsteen, and Willie Nelson's probably gonna be there, and Bella Fleck and all the kind of folky musicians that are up there that have been around forever. And then Willie's gonna be right in the middle playing piano, you know, with with I love It. I don't know other famous musicians could be kind of a thing on Austin's City limits.

51:09 There you go, Yeah, perfect, I'll take I'll take the roundtable, but I want to do Ladies edition, so you know, sit Nally Portman, Mirror, Sabina Rosio, Donal, Lauren hollydown talking about the making the movie and you know how it's aged, and I think that'd be an interesting one to watch, speaking speaking speaking of how it's aged, uh Andy, is this film a classic, a cult classic or a product of its time? Well, so you told me how much money it made. It didn't do too bad let's see it. So you said twenty seven million. I don't see what the budget was, but I mean probably is a little bit more. Well, I mean it's Mira Max. I guess Mirror Max can make some cult classics. It feels like a cult classic, but with that big cast, dude, Like, you can't really say it's a cult classic because I mean it was it wasn't a cult classic. So you have a similar cast, similar caliber in Days Confused, when nobody knew who the hell had met Ben Affleck was or matthe McConaughey. I mean, the biggest star was Mila Jovitch because she had been in a couple of you know, ads as a supermodel at the time. So I feel like it's more of a it's a product of its time, but it's in a good way. And I keep going back to movies in the nineties that whether it's a movie that happens over the span of a day like Friday Pulp Fiction or Days Confused, or it's one of these movies like The Beautiful Girls where you're hanging out with them for a couple of weeks, Like this movie is basically a hangout.

52:38 You're hanging out with the characters not I mean, I don't study film theory or anything, but I don't feel like there's been much attention to the fact that that is a huge part of nineties film. That is, it works, it's successful, it works in the box office, it works historically, and in terms of film appreciation, that hanging out with your friends in movie and that's the plot works, and this is another example of it. And that's the product of the time. I don't think you can I've seen it kind of faked recently in the two twenty twenties here, and I think the Big Chill kind of leaned towards it but didn't really pull it off in eighty six or whenever it came out. I feel like that's the nineties thing that was just it was just it's like, it's like a variety of wines that was mastered in the nineties, but in film, not in wine. So that's my big, h you know, nineties biased selling point there.

53:32 I just feel like it did that. This movie, Beautiful Girls did that again, and I'm so glad that it was important to do that to the director and the cast members. Yeah, it is. It is by no means a discredited film to say it is in fact the product of its time, even with some of the stuff we're seeing in the movie. You know, Elle Macpherson being noteworthy, you know that. You know Penthouse magazine, you know Actual and Actual magazine. You know Bar and Grills having apps, you know, like Stinky's like, hey, I got apps. We got apps. Now it's you know, this movie has got a nineties time stamp on it and and it's a good one. You know, you talked about the small town and you know we've kind of we've kind of talked about that several times about this this episode. You know, some people love small towns, some people are in love with small towns, and I you know, either way, it's it's not a bad thing. And Beautiful Girls, it just it captures everything that we've been talking about. It's a great film, it really is.

54:30 Yeah, it's one of my favorites. Why I brought it up and he said, nineteen eighty six. I'm not great with numbers and years, but it's yeah, I think Beautiful Girls. Wasn't that a nineteen eighty six film? Can I do that? Yeah? So thanks letting me do. It, absolutely, man, and thank you for being a huge part of this series covering these films. You definitely made it fun, informative and memorable, and I can't thank you enough for that. Yeah, appreciate it. Before we go any new developments, I know, last time you were with us, we got to talk a little bit about ninety days in the nineties and some potential things happening. Anything you can share with it right now that we're allowed to hear. I'm hearing that the script is being written or finished. You know. I kind of let the screenwriter director handle that. Don't want to get into the way of another creative. His name is Alejandro Montoya Marin. He just put out a movie called The Unexpecteds with Matt Walsh and I forget the name of the so Kevin Smith has a film fest in the fall. I don't know if you know what it's called. I can't remember the name. It's named after the theater I think in his hometown. And Alejandro and The Unexpected one best comedy for that movie. So that was pretty cool to hear about. I've not seen him since the summer, and I think he's probably still still doing a little bit of press on The Unexpected, and I think he was is or was supposed to be on Kevin Smith's movie podcast. So I'll definitely check for that. See if I find a link, i'll send it to you. But yeah, I'm just sitting tight write in a second novel, as I told you probably before

56:01 it's about Uh, I'll just I'll give you the elevator pitch because then I practiced. Delilah Russell's an FBI agent task with investigating the untimely death of a rocker Chicago rocker named Billy Shred. When she goes undercover as a musician uh To to basically sort out the case, the case takes off, and so does her unlikely music career at age thirty seven. I love it she's undercover, she used to. You know, she kind of is a music fan like me, and in going over to undercover and getting her band back together, labels want to talk to her. People want to put her on tour, and you know it's she's got to solve the case or maybe cut a record deal. We'll have to see. And working title that is called Wake Up Dead Tomorrow, but it's still in progress.

56:46 So well, listen, you gotta come back when you get some. You got some some new developments. You gotta come back and see us we got we gotta have you back because you know nineteen ninety six has ended. You know, this series has been amazing, but it's it's sadly run its course. Uh. I'll tempt you. I'll give you one. I'll pitch you one here because I know, I know this one's close to your heart. Early next year where we're gonna be covering John Frankenheimer. Uh, I know you, I know you're a fan of Ronan. Will you come back and do Ronan with us? Yeah, totally. I mean I'm almost the age of the uh the ex FBI c A I characters in the movie. I definitely have the hopefully their knees are a little bit better than mine are. But yeah, I'm not that.

57:29 I love that movie. I love Cold War stuff, and as you know, it's kind of like, uh yeah, kind of like it in the same way The Beautiful Girls is about the guys who are still hanging around in the small town. Ronan's about the uh the ex spies are still hanging around Italy, and it almost seems like they're so bored that they need to have another adventure. And I love that. So yeah, long live the Adventure. All right, listeners, you heard it first here Andy for I will be back next season, and we want to thank all of you out there for listening to our nineteen ninety six series. We hope we covered most of your favorites from the year, and if we didn't, well, there's always our Patreon available to you. You can sign up today at patreon dot com slash a Film by a Podcast and depending on which tier you choose, we'll cover the nineteen ninety six movie of your choice. You can let us know your take on Beautiful Girls on social media. You'll find us on Facebook, Instagram, and x and you can always email us at www dot filmbyopodcast dot com. Andy Matt Dylan reminds Timothy Hutton not to be a stranger. I'll remind you likewise.

58:36 Yeah, see you in the spring. The doctors sname for Respecsiona from the point