Defend the Indefensible: "Reality Bites"

I dug this at the time, but am psyched to go on Netflix tonight and discover it was actually terrible.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=socgqxp0Uxs

it's also fun to imagine that Steve Zahn's character in Treme is the same character as his character in Reality Bites only ten years older (and just as "gay" as he was in Reality Bites).

The funniest thing about this movie being set in Houston is the idea that the fake MTV channel is headquartered here. Although considering how briefly entrenched the real thing got in Austin just a few years later, was it merely prophetic?

In the meantime...

http://25.media.tumblr.com/bc7fea1f2249c510465c8d2d4ddfaf3b/tumblr_miibidYu0m1rijbg1o1_500.gif

lol @ treatment of the Steve Zahn "gay" character

This has been on TV constantly lately. I've watched it like 5 times. I am not ashamed.

it's no empire records, amirite?!?

Shut up, T.

DON'T BRING EMPIRE RECORDS INTO THIS AND NO I WAS NOT LISTENING TO THE SNDTRK JUST EARLIER THIS MORNING

(I totally was. OK, now I am ashamed.)

who'd win in a fight ... ethan hawke's reality bites character or ethan embry's character in empire records?!?

(i like empire records, FTR)

Oh God Troy v. Mark?!

ethan padgett's character on ILM.

Mark smoked a lot of weed so probably Troy, I think.

Also, can we just talk about the fact that Ethan Embry was so promising in the cute/handsome stakes early on and that whole thing just did not work out for him as an adult. At all.

ethan embry is apparently awesome in that one film i've mentioned a few times on FB fwiw....

EE is in the babby movie?

^_^

i just realized that ethan embry was in (a) harold and kumar go to white castle and (b) eagle eye (w/ lol Shia LaBeouf).

babby movie just keeps sounding better and better :)

what is this babby movie in which Ethan Embry appears, btw?!?

"The ethan embryo"

haven't seen RB since '94, but I don't think it thought very well of its characters. No defense of EH doing "Add It Up" tho.

Caught it the other night after not having seen it in years. Is it weird/wrong that I have a mild affection for the film now that is almost solely based on allowing its (reasonably) attractive, young cast to worry about money? Was this the last mainstream Hollywood romcom where everyone on screen wasn't filthy (and inexplicably) rich?

pretty woman
you've got mail
notting hill
music and lyrics

all explicitly about class differences to some degree.

Good calls (though I'll have to take your word for it on NH, which I haven't seen); even though YGM essentially takes the side of the corporate behemoth, its still there.

Music and Lyrics is probably the only watchable Hollywood romcom of the last 10-15 years.

i really like music & lyrics

none of the characters in booty call are filthy rich iirc

They don't really worry about money though. Doesn't their main money-making venture involve reselling gas bought on their parent's credit cards?

Well, that was a solution to their money probs. The movie is still about people who worry about money.

http://fcsstudent.blog.ryerson.ca/files/2013/10/20.jpg

<3

there's an oral history for everything now:

http://www.hitfix.com/in-contention/20-years-later-an-oral-history-of-reality-bites

wow, i had no idea this was the first American film Emmanuel Lubezki shot.

When I read the screenwriter never had another film script produced, I thought "That would've never happened if she was a man," and "Rather just."

It only grossed $33 million tho.

http://www.sharegif.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Reality-Bites-quotesthis-i.gif

http://28.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lclw100R4e1qb7evco1_500.gif

wow, i had no idea this was the first American film Emmanuel Lubezki shot.

Ha, yeah, I tweeted the same thing.

http://26.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lclv97I2la1qb7evco1_500.gif

al leong you are making my day with these gifs

http://showrenity.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/tumblr_m8o46h5bSj1qdoy3ao1_500.gif

http://swamplot.com/how-is-houstons-reality-bites-neighborhood-doing-20-years-on/2014-02-18/

http://jezebel.com/i-re-watched-reality-bites-and-its-basically-a-manual-1527955140/

everyone in this movie talks like the people in that ben stiller show dandruff shampoo sketch, but he actually made this movie and is proud of it, somehow

at least he didn't write it

This used to be my favourite film bitd, I blame being a late virgin. Awffffuullll.

ahem this is a DEFEND the indefensible thread. go peddle your hate speech somewhere else, raggett
>:(

From the Peter Travers thread:

You may think Reality Bites is just a bunch of white kids sitting around whining. If so, what's your glitch? It's also pure entertainment.

― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Wednesday, February 6, 2013 12:48 AM (1 year ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Garofalo says in that article I posted that she never thought at the time it was a Gen X thing, cuz she's almost as old as I am.

She's three years younger than Rollins., born after JFK. It's not like I want to claim her, but I think she's ours.

Not sure how I would have felt about this when it came out--I was 32 at the time, so still not exactly its target audience. Today, I thought it was okay. Hawke is very good, even when the script isn't. Probably the most I've ever liked Winona Ryder. Garofalo, I'll take Larry Sanders. Stiller made me wince a few times. The music was surprisingly inconsequential.