Cinema Gadfly

14. Reality Bites

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My guest for this month is David Blakeslee, and he’s joined me to discuss the film he chose for me, the 1994 romantic comedy-drama film Reality Bites. You can follow the show on Twitter @cinemagadfly.

Show notes:

  • As I mentioned in the intro, this show is joining up with the fine folks at CriterionCast
  • This film doesn’t just feature Ben Stiller, he also directed it
  • It was written by Helen Childress, who is supposedly working on a television version of the film
  • Both David and I are nominally members of Generation X, although that can be argued for both of us as well
  • This film also stars Ethan Hawke and Winona Ryder when they were painfully young
  • The film bares some resemblance to my choice for the previous episode Chungking Express
  • The film reminds me of the fiction of Mark Leyner
  • And also of the essay E Unibus Pluram by David Foster Wallace
  • It’s hard for me to believe that the music of Peter Frampton changed anyones life
  • It’s also hard for me to believe that I ever drank a Big Gulp
  • My grandparents were absolutely part of the Greatest Generation
  • My mother was coincidentally in Paris for the May 1968 protests
  • I still remember my mother waking me up to tell me Kurt Cobain had died
  • David’s phenomenal blog where he’s watching the Criterion collection chronologically is at Criterion Reflections
  • The film also stars the absolutely wonderful Janeane Garafalo
  • Rob Lowe’s character in Wayne’s World is my canonical example for a corporate jerk
  • Watching Regis Philbin fail to pronounce the names of various Washington State cities was always a joy of mine
  • The film features cameos by David Spade and Andy Dick
  • Renée Zellweger also makes an appearance, but I don’t think it was a cameo, she just wasn’t well known yet
  • The Mark Leyner book I was thinking of is called My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist
  • Even Baby, I Love Your Way is unlikely to have changed lives
  • Oh and Joe Don Baker is also in this film, really a pretty incredible cast
  • If you enjoy this film you should check out Noah Baumbach’s Kicking and Screaming or Whit Stillman’s Metropolitan

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    Cinema GadflyBy Arik Devens
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