Defend the Indefensible: "Reality Bites"

ha ha DORFF duh ha ha DOH!

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

SKEET ULRICH>

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

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

(xpost)

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

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.'

"What's your glitch?"

o wot a square, he said 'glitch'!

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.

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

EHAAWAWAG

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

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

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

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

I always admired the way it ripped off Singles.

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

Anyone here ever read the original novel?

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.)

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.

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.

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

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

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

The defense rests.

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.

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

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?"

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.

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.

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

(But I did like the movie, too.)

If I had to choose one of those two to watch again, I'd probably just flip a coin. I guess at least Ghost World had the Blues Hammer scene.

a couple of years ago a friend of mine invited me to a party he was going to. he picked me up and we drove to a house in Silver Lake. We walked around back and into the back yard. There was a porch that required us to climb up some steps, to where we saw a handful of smokers outside chattering away. We reached the steps and we heard a guy say, "Coffee and smokes, man, that's all I need." A girl replied, "Reality Bites, right?" He replied, "Yes!" She said, "AWEsome..." Another guy chimed in, "Fuckin' great movie, dude." And all three said, "Yeah, seriously."

My friend and I looked at one another, shrugged, and turned around and left.

also fuck this movie for assisting the impression that every emaciated fuckwad with a) anger management issues, b) a stringy goatee, c) rudimentary guitar skills, and d) the occasional "life is sort of crazy" phrase accompanied by a faraway, deep look is some sort of charismatic shaman.

What really made me angry about Reality Bites (as opposed to any other mediocre movie that I'd just shrug off) was the way it had all the superficial trappings of being about my generation, and even about some people I know -- and yet got everything below the surface ENTIRELY wrong.

xpost -- OTM. The funniest part is, that isn't even one of the more memorable lines from the movie, and it's the kind of line that might as well be from ANY movie.

I was appalled all the way through the film, but when Ethan Hawke got to the third verse of "Add It Up" and left out the "fuck" ("why can't I get just one ....? why can't I get just one ....?"), that pushed it over the edge. I knew I was in the presence of truly epochal awfulness.

I did like Singles.

I just saw Ethan Hawke's butt crack last night.

Hopefully with a sledgehammer.

Now that I would like to see.

o why can't i get just one screw

God what a hateable movie. But what a lovely thread, not least for this from Gear a bit upthread:

a couple of years ago a friend of mine invited me to a party he was going to. he picked me up and we drove to a house in Silver Lake. We walked around back and into the back yard. There was a porch that required us to climb up some steps, to where we saw a handful of smokers outside chattering away. We reached the steps and we heard a guy say, "Coffee and smokes, man, that's all I need." A girl replied, "Reality Bites, right?" He replied, "Yes!" She said, "AWEsome..." Another guy chimed in, "Fuckin' great movie, dude." And all three said, "Yeah, seriously."

My friend and I looked at one another, shrugged, and turned around and left.

I must also admit to liking singles. Cambell Scott and Matt Dillon are both really good in that.

"A good review for us...is a good review for you!"

lisa loeb has a reality show on E! now where she goes on dates and tries to find a husband and they play "Stay" 30 times every half hour and mention this movie at least once every five minutes. she's still cute though.

Ben Stiller's career has not "tanked".

My girlfriend had never seen this, so I rented it for her a few months back, seeing as I'd enjoyed it when it first came out.

Wow. It really is something you watch at age 21 and think you can relate to. Then you watch it a decade later and think, "Who are these pretentious, self-absorbed assmonkeys?" And then you think, "Oh, wait, I *WAS* one of those pretentious, self-absorbed assmonkeys."

I'm surprised nobody's mentioned Roger Ebert's incredible skewering of this movie - highly recommended even if you're not a fan of his:

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19940218/REVIEWS/402180303/1023

oh I should watch my dvd of this finally.
I love winona and especially ethan.
he's amazing.

I never saw this movie. Now I'm wondering if I should, out of a duty to my *shudder* generation.

haha "the outcome will be a surprise to anyone who has never seen a movie before."

Ebert's always good for pithy witticisms - in general I like him.