Defend the Indefensible: "Reality Bites"

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I've never seen it but it does have Ethan Hawke in it, a man whose acting talent seems to be to stand there thinking that he's smouldering when in fact it looks as if he's trying to squeeze out a big poo. Therefore it's dud.

― chris (chris), Tuesday, 6 April 2004 14:20 (twenty years ago) link

Yeah, but Janeane Garafolo in a seminal role. Way better than The Truth About Cats and Dogs.

― Catty (Catty), Tuesday, 6 April 2004 14:25 (twenty years ago) link

There are some really funny as fuck scenes in both SFW and Reality Bites.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Tuesday, 6 April 2004 14:25 (twenty years ago) link

nickalish nooooooooo
seriously, the movie was like the visual equivalent of Jeff Gomez' Our Noise, just pander pander pander right from start to finish. eeeyuck.

― sean via cell, Tuesday, 6 April 2004 14:32 (twenty years ago) link

Ethan Hawke is the fucking Antichrist. The bookstore I worked at in his heyday was drowning in copies of his allegedly ghostwritten novel "The Hottest State" from the minute it came out; we sold one. Maybe. Also, that movie made me hate Ben Stiller for a long time, and I don't think my husband has ever really forgiven me for the time we went to see it IN THE THEATER. Those were hard times. Thanks for nothing, Hawke. PS "Before Sunrise" sucked ass

― Donna Brown (Donna Brown), Tuesday, 6 April 2004 14:33 (twenty years ago) link

am i the only one who just noticed what sean did there?

― strongo hulkington (dubplatestyle), Tuesday, 6 April 2004 14:34 (twenty years ago) link

ILX ON THE ROAD NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

― strongo hulkington (dubplatestyle), Tuesday, 6 April 2004 14:34 (twenty years ago) link

opening for the Mountain Goats

― Donna Brown (Donna Brown), Tuesday, 6 April 2004 16:30 (twenty years ago) link

http://cache.gettyimages.com/comp/3102796.jpg?x=x&dasite=MS_GINS&ef=2&ev=1&dareq=E2399169AC85D6DE47D554B31AC9B1E183EB543DEA732705

― El Diablo Robotico (Nicole), Tuesday, 6 April 2004 16:32 (twenty years ago) link

He's posted that way before, as when Toronto went down in the power outage. However, now he has no excuse.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 6 April 2004 16:33 (twenty years ago) link

But the world must be warned!

― El Diablo Robotico (Nicole), Tuesday, 6 April 2004 16:34 (twenty years ago) link

Ethan Hawke isn't the only person in SFW.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Tuesday, 6 April 2004 16:55 (twenty years ago) link

Cyanide isn't the only ingredient in that rat poison.

― El Diablo Robotico (Nicole), Tuesday, 6 April 2004 16:59 (twenty years ago) link

Okay then. I'll take my "defending the indefensible" elsewhere then.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Tuesday, 6 April 2004 17:01 (twenty years ago) link

Uday wasn't the only Hussein

― Gear! (Gear!), Tuesday, 6 April 2004 17:02 (twenty years ago) link

I've gone too far.

― Gear! (Gear!), Tuesday, 6 April 2004 17:03 (twenty years ago) link

I mean, seriously, you guys do understand the "defend" part of "defend the indefensible", right?

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Tuesday, 6 April 2004 17:04 (twenty years ago) link

i thought SFW was alright. but i don't remember ethan hawke being in it at all! dorff and witherspoon, possibly.

i have nothing +ve to say about Reality Bites

― zebedee (zebedee), Tuesday, 6 April 2004 17:08 (twenty years ago) link

ha ha DORFF duh ha ha DOH!

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Tuesday, 6 April 2004 17:09 (twenty years ago) link

I can never tell Stephen Dorff from Ethan Hawke from that one other goateed dude.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Tuesday, 6 April 2004 17:09 (twenty years ago) link

SKEET ULRICH>

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Tuesday, 6 April 2004 17:10 (twenty years ago) link

If Ethan Hawke ever plays a vampire, I will totally punch him.

― Tep (ktepi), Tuesday, 6 April 2004 17:13 (twenty years ago) link

(or 'jizz' ulrich as we must now apparently call him)

(xpost)

― zebedee (zebedee), Tuesday, 6 April 2004 17:14 (twenty years ago) link

I was trying to think about which actor was >>>> than the others and my head just exploded. destroy them all!

― Gear! (Gear!), Tuesday, 6 April 2004 17:17 (twenty years ago) link

I crack up. The fury!

'Alright fine, you wanna be in a band, fine. Go ahead. Play every night. Play three times a night! Don't just dick around the same coffee house for five years. Don't dick around with her or with me. I mean try at something for once in your life, do something about it. But you know what? You better do it now and you better do it fast because the world doesn't owe you any favors.'

― luna (luna.c), Tuesday, 6 April 2004 17:26 (twenty years ago) link

"What's your glitch?"

o wot a square, he said 'glitch'!

― Gear! (Gear!), Tuesday, 6 April 2004 17:34 (twenty years ago) link

two months pass...

OK, I just watched the entire movie (on the 10th anniversary DVD no less!).
While it is watchable from start to finish and does contain memorable (!= good) lines, there really is something ultimately horrible about it, mostly for the reasons Gear! gives. Ben Stiller's Michael is the only remotely likeable (and not by that much) character. The romance between Laleina and Troy makes no sense (for the reasons Gear! gives) - or maybe it does but not in a good way. Troy's supposed to be brilliant but gives no demonstration of it at all. And, yeah, all the voice-of-generation junk, from the valedictory speech to all the so-cute ironic pop culture references, is so pandering.

― sundar subramanian (sundar), Wednesday, 9 June 2004 23:34 (nineteen years ago) link

hey we get a new EHAAMAWAG movie soon too, what with Before Sunset coming out soon.

― Gear! (Gear!), Wednesday, 9 June 2004 23:38 (nineteen years ago) link

EHAAWAWAG

― miloauckerman (miloauckerman), Wednesday, 9 June 2004 23:57 (nineteen years ago) link

http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/6327/reality.html

― EHAAWAWAG, Thursday, 10 June 2004 00:29 (nineteen years ago) link

Noone has mentioned the name of Ethan Hawke's shitty band yet? For shame, ILX!

― Sym (shmuel), Thursday, 10 June 2004 00:39 (nineteen years ago) link

Hahaha this is fantastic: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110950/board/nest/6622538

― Andrew (enneff), Thursday, 10 June 2004 00:51 (nineteen years ago) link

You also invalidated yourself by being overly dramatic -- the character of Troy worse than Hitler? Hitler was responsible for the mass murder of twelve million people. The character of Troy was responsible for some dialogue that you found to be overwrought and cliched, and for being a part of a movie that you found to be a waste of ninety minutes. Now, I understand that you weren't serious (you couldn't have been) but next time, you should be a little bit more reasonable in your comparisons.

― Sym (shmuel), Thursday, 10 June 2004 01:07 (nineteen years ago) link

The worst thing is that they so desperately try to portray Troy as somebody uber-cool. Which he is, hahaha, not.

― Pingu, Thursday, 10 June 2004 05:17 (nineteen years ago) link

I bought a copy of SFW last night for AUD$3 at a local video store. I'm looking forward to watching it soon :)

― Andrew (enneff), Friday, 18 June 2004 03:39 (nineteen years ago) link

I always admired the way it ripped off Singles.

― Matos W.K. (M Matos), Friday, 18 June 2004 03:51 (nineteen years ago) link

In retrospect it was proof positive of how shitty Ben Stiller was.

― Gear! (Gear!), Friday, 18 June 2004 05:50 (nineteen years ago) link

Anyone here ever read the original novel?

― Christine 'Green Leafy Dragon' Indigo (cindigo), Friday, 18 June 2004 14:57 (nineteen years ago) link

seven months pass...

I finally saw this tonight.

1) In spite of some good moments, it was GAWWWDawful.

2) The overarching *IRONY* was that the whole movie felt like it was produced by the putzes that ran the In Your Face channel (or is that the idea, wink wink)

3) But the worst thing about watching it was trying to convince my girlfriend that having gotten good grades in college and now feeling ambivalent about the working world makes her similar to Wynona Rider's character only about as much as it makes her similar to A MILLION OTHER PEOPLE. (She's usually really fucking intelligent, honest.)

― Hurting (Hurting), Sunday, 23 January 2005 06:21 (nineteen years ago) link

4) Ben Stiller, David Spade, Janine Garoffolo, Wynona Rider ... the movie was a veritable Who's Who in people I always found annoying and now feel vindicated that their careers have tanked.

― Hurting (Hurting), Sunday, 23 January 2005 06:40 (nineteen years ago) link

the thing i remember about reality bites is one character answering the phone with 'hi you have reached the winter of our discontent'. all their wallowing in self-pity got too much for me at that exact moment so i turned it off.

― gem (trisk), Sunday, 23 January 2005 06:50 (nineteen years ago) link

Man, that was the moment that did me in too.

― Hurting (Hurting), Sunday, 23 January 2005 06:51 (nineteen years ago) link

I felt a little like I was watching a bad NY Times Magazine piece about my generation. No, not even that good. Maybe Newsweek.

― Hurting (Hurting), Sunday, 23 January 2005 06:52 (nineteen years ago) link

Noone has mentioned the name of Ethan Hawke's shitty band yet? For shame, ILX!
Hey, That's My Bike!

The defense rests.

― Ken L (Ken L), Sunday, 23 January 2005 06:54 (nineteen years ago) link

I didn't buy Winona as the valedictorian. They could've made her someone who thrived well in an academic setting but doesn't fare well in the real world -- but in order to make valedictorian I guess I figure you're the kind of person who's just annoyingly driven and ambitious all the time.

― jaymc (jaymc), Sunday, 23 January 2005 06:54 (nineteen years ago) link

i don't want to be part of gen x if those moany whingealots are the representatives.

― gem (trisk), Sunday, 23 January 2005 06:54 (nineteen years ago) link

Anything this movie had to say was said better first by Wayne's World.

jaymc OTM, btw. I was like, "What fucking university was she valedictorian of?"

― Hurting (Hurting), Sunday, 23 January 2005 06:55 (nineteen years ago) link

xpost:
OTM. jaymc OTMFM too. The name of the band was the only thing I could think of for the defense, which defense is crushed by the overwhelming weight of evidence presented by prosecutor Gear! When the movie came out and we came out of the theater after seeing it, the only person who tried to defend it was, forgive the ad hominem attack, the woman who would have wanted to date the Ethan Hawke character. The fortuitous cinema verite accuracy of Ethan Hawke's acts smart/is really dumb dichotomy does not a great film make.

Some unverifiable gossip from me:
When they were first casting Before Sunrise, the rumor around Austin was that David Thewlis was gonna be the leading man. Man, that would have been a whole different movie!

I used to really like Janeane Garofalo when she was just doing standup. I think the tide started to turn when, after The Truth About Cats And Dogs came out, I was staying at a groovy LA hotel for a friend's wedding and it turned out she was staying there too. I saw her standing there complaining to the concierge or one of his helpers "It's not the movie I would have chosen to be my first" or something like this. This was my first inkling that she was going to make a career out of being the Woman Who Hates Hollywood.

― Ken L (Ken L), Sunday, 23 January 2005 07:09 (nineteen years ago) link

I didn't buy Winona as the valedictorian
I don't know if there is an ILX backlash against this movie or not, but for a more accurate portrayal of a valedictorian see, um, Ghost World.

― Ken L (Ken L), Sunday, 23 January 2005 07:13 (nineteen years ago) link

If I ever express any 'meh'-ness toward Ghost World, it's usually just because I liked the comic so much more.

― jaymc (jaymc), Sunday, 23 January 2005 07:15 (nineteen years ago) link

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