Empire Records with Shelli Nicole

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
On the be Dol Cast. The questions asked if movies
have women in them, are all their discussions just boyfriends
and husbands, or do they have individualism? The patriarchy? Zef
in best start changing it with the Bedel Cast. Hey Jamie,
Hey Caitlan. Guess what, but it's Rex Manning Day on

(00:22):
the Bechdel Cast. How are you going to celebrate? I'm
going to get the ugliest self tanner I can possibly find,
and and uh and and uh. I don't know is
there a full music video for that? Because I want
to see it. It seems like they shot a full one. Yeah.
I was kind of into like until you get to

(00:44):
know him better. I was kind of interacts Manning's like sound.
I was like, you know, I was like, you know,
I I know he's he's there for the moms, but
I would show up. What's the song? Say no more
mona more? It's really good? I was like, you know,
I could I can put that in my morning rotation,
No problem. Sure, how are you going to be observing

(01:05):
Rex Manning Day? I am going to I was gonna say,
remember when he punches a teenager? I was gonna say,
I'm gonna punch a teenager. But I'm not going to
do that. Remember what the protagonist of the movie also
punches a teenager. You have Joe punch as a teenager.
But they're like no, but it's a paternal thing. You're like, well,
that does make it worse. But okay, so much happens

(01:29):
in this movie, and yet not that much happens in
the movies. To me. The main character is liv Tyler's
crop top, and that is very important to me. The
true protagonists. I love it, I want it, I can't
pull it off. Uh, it's the Empire Records episode of
the Back Took. Yes. So this is our show where

(01:49):
we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens, using the
Bechtel Tests simply as a jumping off point for our discussion. Jamie,
can you remind me on this bright and sunny mix
Rex Manning Day the mixed Franny? Yikes, my brain is tired.

(02:11):
Can you remind me what the Bechtel cast Nope podcast
about it? It's a dark okay. The Bechtel test is
was like, Caitlin, wake up, wake up, you're dreaming. He's
going great. I ate some weed brownies and now I'm
in a gar eight music video. Oh. I was like, Kyla,

(02:33):
you can't. You don't do that. I ate fruit and
nuts this morning and I got like grate. I started like,
I got mad at I don't sometimes when make healthy choices,
I'm like, who the funk do you think you are?
I was like looking at my fruit and nuts like, oh, oh,
you're really going to make a change. Get a grip. Anyways,
the Bectel test is, and those internal monologues past the

(02:56):
Bechtel test. Wow, true, Yeah, because my rage it myself
is about women. So the Bechtel test is a media
metric created by alsin Bechtels, sometimes called the Bucktel Wallace test. Uh.
Many different versions of this test, but the one that
we use on the show requires that two characters of

(03:18):
a marginalized gender with names must speak to each other
about something other than a man for more than two
lines of dialogue. And as you will learn in our
Empire Records episode, it doesn't matter how weird or chaotic
that dialogue is. So that's the Becktel test. We're covering

(03:38):
Empire Records today. It's been a request for quite some time,
and we have an amazing guest to observe, Rex Manning
Day with Oh my Gosh, I can't wait. So. She
is a culture editor at Auto Straddle. She's also written
for Thrillist, Bitch Media, and Vogue Magazine. She is Shelley Nicole. Welcome. Um.

(04:03):
We were toying off Mike with introducing I mean, we're
all in on it, but possibly bring you in as
Shreky Nicole and just seeing how far into the episode
we at the end. That is exactly what I'd like
to be referred. I will change my Twitter handle if
I have to. I promise you I will like Shreky.

(04:23):
What's your history with records? I think so Like Caitlin
was talking about taking me brownies in Agua video before
you mentioned the Guar video, I was just like, so,
that's what kind of podcast this is. I knew it all.
I wish I could do weed every time I consume,

(04:47):
not do Weedkit. You sound like you're in the CIA
when you say stuff like that, Hello, fellow kids, want
to do some weed and listen to some war on
our walkman, like on the clock at work while I'm
literally supposed to be like working. Is that before or

(05:12):
after he Um low key assaults a woman by grabbing
her foot and kissing at her foot. I think that
was after when she was just trying to do ballet
and mind her own business and he kisses her feet. Yeah,
and he tries to kiss her head. Also. Yeah, it's
not a good look. Mark. It's not a good look.
Mark is a disaster. I'm so excited to talk about

(05:36):
this movie, especially just like learning about the production of
this movie is so wild, and some of the results
of that is you just get like bizarro disembodied shots
like that that you're like, what is happening? What am I?
What is the takeaway? And sometimes they're like, that was
just kind of a vibes based shot that we chose.
We just kind of felt like doing it, and it's

(06:00):
so we're gonna do it. Let's party Party. The narrative
trajectory in this movie is so hard to track and
fall I was getting so much whiplash. I'll save it.
But Okay, Shelly, I'm sorry. Shreky, Shreky, thank you very much.
Thank you. Tell us about your history, your relationship with

(06:23):
Empire Records. Um, it literally started with Live Tyler's crap
top and I'm commented, So when you said that, I
was like, Yeah, that's it. I watched this movie in
middle school and found it when I was in Blackbuster.
I used to go to Blackbuster with my dad. Sorry,
I used to force my father to take me to
Blackbuster on Friday. And I would always been like an

(06:46):
insane amount of time, like trying to pick out one video,
and it was to the point where he would eventually
start waiting in the car, and then I would bang
on the Blockbuster window and be like I'm ready to
check out, Like that's how long it would take me,
like pick a movie. But I found this movie. I
go through still like spurts of like I only want

(07:08):
to watch movies about this specific subject. And at that time,
I was obsessed with school girls. Into me that meant
that anybody wearing a plaid skirt was clearly a school girl. Right,
that's incorrect. But I saw this movie like on one
of the shelves, and I grabbed it because of her

(07:29):
crop top and because of the skirt, but also I
grabbed it because I recognized her from And this wasn't
like two thousand when I saw it, right, I recognized
her from the Aerosmith video as the other girl who
was with Share because I just knew yeah, I just
knew at leash was Silverstona's share Um, and I had

(07:53):
never really seen her in anything else. But that video
is also kind of a queer route for me, so
I all that, and I was just like, so, if
she's in this, I don't know, maybe share might show up,
but also maybe it'll be a little gay. I obviously
wasn't using the word gay at that time in my life,
but I thought maybe I would get a crossover. And

(08:14):
I saw it, I rented it, and then I proceeded
to rent it like maybe every week for the next
two months. Instead of just asking to fucking buy movie.
You like, sunk fifty dollars into the Empire Record industrial complex.
They needed the money. They lost a lot of money.
They absolutely lost a lot of fucking cash. But I

(08:36):
made up for at least within two months of Blockbuster
video fees. Um and I rented it over and over.
I watched it, and I just loved it because at
the time, I was trying to insert myself into movies.
I've always loved films and stuff like that, but at
that time in my life, I was trying to like
insert myself in some way into that world of whatever

(08:58):
movie I was watching, so it's epically teen films. And
I have an obsession still to this day with movies
that take place in one day, because it's easier for
me to put myself inside of that world if it's
just one day, Like what would I wear? Which one
of these characters would I be friends with? So like
in Ferris Bueller, two hundred Cigarettes, the Breakfast Club, Mall Rats,

(09:20):
all those movies one day and say with Empire Records,
and then I just got obsessed with the storyline. And
then I was like thirteen or something when I tried
to like go and work at this record store in Ferndale, Michigan.
I'm from Detroit, and they were like a year thirteen,
and I was like, yeah, but I've been watching this

(09:40):
fucking movie man, and I like really want to work
at a record store. And they were like, you're you
can't work here. So you were like the Warren. I
was absolutely Warren, and I Warren is a wild character,
but he's probably like my second favorite character in the movie.
But that's my connection with it, my love it to

(10:02):
this day. And then you wrote a wonderful piece on
the film in which you discuss your connection with it.
And the friendship between Gina and Corey. And yeah, well
we'll very excited to get into that. We'll talk about that,
but um, yeah, well we're so excited to discuss further, Jamie,

(10:23):
what's your relationship with this movie? No history with this movie.
I had not seen it before, which I don't know.
I guess I am having kind of a tricky time
knowing and like, how popular is this movie. I know
that it was like a flop on release and then
it has become kind of a cult classic, but I
don't I'm like, I don't know how many people I

(10:44):
know have seen this movie if I'm unusual for having
not seen it. There are so many famous people and
it also so I hadn't seen this movie. I've got
such intense whiplash watching it. But there were parts I
really enjoyed and and learning about I think I may
be like learning about the production of this movie even

(11:04):
more than I liked the movie itself, because it's just
such a wild story and once you know, like basically
for for listeners who are not familiar with it, it's
this movie was just like hacked to death by studio executives.
It was originally forty minutes longer. I guess they cut
three major characters. I have some guesses. Is it what
they are that Lady Jane. I feel like I had

(11:26):
to have had something else, Like you can just see it,
like there was a really, really like good script at
some point, and then they just cut out whole chunks
of it. So then you get stuff like liv Tyler
is addicted to pills, and it's like, there's only ten
minutes left in the movie, what are you talking about, um, etcetera.

(11:46):
I just thought it was a chaotic, weird wild ride.
I'm very excited to talk about it. Caitlin, what's your
history with Empire Records? I also had no history. I
thought I had seen this movie. I thought this is
one of those movies that I like watched in college
because I was like, I have to watch all these
you know, cult classics and all this stuff. And I

(12:08):
think I had just seen a bunch of similar movies,
such as Reality Bites, Small Rats, High Fidelity, Dazed and Confused, maybe,
like I'd seen all those and I just thought, this
is a lot of Rene's Elwigger movies. Really, But then
I started watching the movie and none of it was
familiar and I realized I in fact had never seen it, So, um,

(12:34):
I don't want to be the villain of the episode.
But I do like the movie, especially from like a
screenwriting standpoint, and we'll talk about how the story that unfolds,
and as kind of like muddled and random and like
whiplashy as it often gets, it's like not the fault
of the screenwriter, because, like you said, Jamie, there's a

(12:55):
lot of studio notes and and changes and also like
post product action changes that made the from a screenwriting
point of view, the story really right, which which tell
you like laid out really clearly in in your piece
as well of just like how much was hacked out
of this A lot of stuff went through it because
I got to talk to Carol Hypening, so I got

(13:18):
to talk to like the writer and everything about it,
and it was really cool and she was telling me
just like and woke get into it obviously, but like
just how hacked up the movie ended up being like
for the audience when it actually came out versus the
cult classic when like maybe ten years later when people
like me found it and like still loved it. But

(13:38):
it went through a lot. It went through a lot
so just like watching the movie with having no nostalgia
attached to it, having never seen it, watching it for
the first time in two as a person in my
mid thirties, I don't have quite the same attachment to it.
It was rooting for Mitch, it was, it was rooting

(13:59):
for Mitch. Was like, yeah, music Town, She's like making
up a day store again. Music sucks, Tower Records me.
That's what I want. Capitalism, Yes, I do love I
mean that nineties convention where they're like, capitalism is one
guy exactly capitalism. It's just this one person in and

(14:24):
he wants to sail toilets, so and he's not that bad,
and You're like, what is happening? I love it. So
the movie isn't necessarily for me, but there's a lot
to talk about, so I'm excited to get into it. Yeah,
I guess I will attempt to recap the movie good Luck.

(14:48):
I think will be the greatest challenge of my career.
Shelley jump in. Whenever you you know the text, I
refuse because I've been like listening and I've been being like,
okay during the recap, shut the buck up, and I
will probably chime in two to seven times. But like,

(15:08):
other than that, I don't think this is going to
be a very long recap. Is also that it's longer
than you think. Oh my gosh. Yeah, but there's all
these things that happened, and then it's like, well, it's
never referenced again, but it didn't technically happen. It did
kind of happen. Yeah, so I'll jump in occasionally. Okay, cool,

(15:29):
All right, here we go. So we meet Lucas played
by Rory Cochrane. He is one of the employees of
Empire Records, which is an indie record store in We're
not sure what part of the country. He briefly chats
with his colleague Gina played by Rene's Elwigger about how

(15:51):
tonight is a big night for him because their boss,
Joe is trusting Lucas to lock up, which means counting
the money dropping in to say all that stuff. And
as he's doing that, Lucas notices some paperwork about a
corporate buyout of Empire Records by this conglomerate music town.
This is all like narrated by Lucas in this opening sequence,

(16:14):
which is it's just one of the many bizarre things
this movie does that makes me laugh. That kind of
comes and goes, and there's not really any rules about
it where he's like narrating it like he's fucking Hunter
s Thompson. He's like, oh, oh no, we're being bought out.
And then he was like sometimes I'm like, is he
talking to camera? And then sometimes people are talking to camera,

(16:37):
but then most of the time they're not. Sometimes they're
just talking to themselves. It's so confusing, right, it doesn't
happen enough to make it a consistent motif, but it does.
It does happen often enough that you notice it, so
that I wish it happen more because it's whenever I do,
like when someone turns to camera, I'm like, that's such
a goofy choice, and I always like it. It's my

(16:59):
favorite thing, and it's even more of a thing when
it's unnecessary, and then in consistent it's even better. If
it's a mess. I want more of it. So anyway,
clearly the store is in financial trouble because of this
like corporate buyout that's about to happen. So Lucas gets
the idea to take the money that they earned that day.

(17:21):
I think, or I don't know if it's like all
the money in the safe. I'm not sure, but it's
nine thou dollars. Take it to Atlantic City and gamble
with it to try to earn enough to save the
store Capitalism. Unfortunately, Lucas loses all of the money and
then heads out of town the next morning on his motorcycle.

(17:42):
But don't worry, he'll be He'll be right back. Um.
But the boss Joe comes into the store. He can't
find the money. He's freaking out. Meanwhile, we meet the
other staff as they come into work that day, a
j played by Johnny Whitworth. Mark played by Ethan embry
Aj is like this artsy sensitive type. Mark is like

(18:05):
stoner doofis. We also meet Corey played by Liv Tyler.
She's like little miss perfect. I'm going to go to
Harvard and she's wearing that crop top. Yes, she just
wanted to shout it out. It's important feminist icon blue sweater.
And then we see Gina again again. That's Renee Selwigger.

(18:28):
She's like this sloody one quote unquote. They all come
into work. They are all teenagers, question mark. We're not
sure how old these people are really, except for Liv Tyler,
who seems to be a senior in high school, right.
I think they're like between eighteen and like twenty three four. Yeah,

(18:48):
I think so too, because it's really only clear that
it's her because she's going to hard she's going to Harvard, right. Yeah.
Other than that, I think everyone's like un think it
right because it's like implied that some of them are
like working at Empire Records instead of going to college
or something. Don't worry, there's not going to be a

(19:10):
talk about loans or any people in movies don't have
college loans. It's just not a thing, right. But they're
just like I don't know, like do I want to
keep chilling out here or do I want to go
to art school in Boston? Like, honestly, as someone who
did that, don't go to art school in Boston. Keep
your record store job. You're wasting your fucking money and
your life. Okay, don't do it. Zero at attention, would

(19:35):
not do again, and so much debt for no fucking reason.
Didn't learn a single thing. No, I um as someone
who went to screenwriting school and got a screenwriting master's degree,
I mean you use it every week, Caitlyn. I use
it every single week, every single week. Can I tell
you how much I wanted you to say that you
bring not that you bring it up a lot. You know,

(19:56):
no bigs. I would never, I would never bring it.
You're not Hanna person. But I'm so excited and hoping
that you would just occasionally a little bit. There it is,
and it's true. It's all true. It's all true. Okay.
So we meet the staff and also that day is
Rex Manning Day at the store. So a pop star

(20:18):
named Rex Manning who kind of had his heyday in
the eighties, it seems, is coming into the store to
sign autographs and promote his new album. I think they're
mapping him on like Barry Manila. I was trying to
is it Barry Manila? Okay, because I was like, visually
he's giving Barry Manilo. And I do love that he's

(20:39):
so furious that all of his like listeners are his age.
I'm like, what did you what did you expect, sir? Leave,
These mothers are paying your rent. Show some respect. I
have a whole thing about his fan base in the movie,
and like what that telegraphs to the audience. Yeah, that's well,

(21:00):
I mean it's like classic gen X movie like people
over thirty should die like God, the most annoying generation.
Sorry to our listeners who are remember of it. I
mean whatever, our our generation takes plenty of ship. I
mean maybe every generation is bad, just putting it on,
wipe out the species. Done. We've had our chance and

(21:22):
we blew it as humans. Whatever, Millennials and we have
ugly pants like, it's fine. Whatever. Our generation never figured
out pants, and I stand by that. I really just don't.
I think we tried like several times to like get
down pants that would work on more than one body
type conceptually, and we just like kept fumbling it into

(21:43):
an interesting way. Excuse me, my boot cut flair legs
from American Eagle. We're awesome. I'm wearing skinny jeans that
I glued to my body and I think that they
actually look and feel really comfortable. Just like, alright, we
we fucked up pants? Yeah yeah, yeah, Okay. So we

(22:05):
established that it's Rex Manning day. Corey wants to lose
her virginity to Rex Manning while he's there. We also
learned that a J is secretly in love with Corey,
and today is the day that he plans to tell her.
We meet another employee who comes in, Deborah, played by

(22:25):
Robin Tuney. She comes in, she shaves her head, She
has a bandage on her wrist, which some of the
other staff notices. She also has a pretty antagonistic relationship
with many other members of the staff, especially Corey and Gina. Yeah,

(22:45):
she's a guy's guy. I feel that's fun of the
more frustrating things about this movie, where it's like, there's
there's clearly was so much more to Deb's story, our
devs ory at one point, and it it just feels
so obvious that so much of it went away, And
it's like, I want, I want this context of why
you struggle to connect with other women, because I feel
like it would have landed so much better. When she's
it seems like she has issues with her mom, and

(23:08):
I just I was like, Oh, there was a story
in there, but we didn't we didn't get to see
it anyways. Um. Then Lucas shows back up the guy
who had taken the nine thousand dollars at the beginning
of the movie. Joe is like, where's my money, and
Lucas tells Joe that it is recirculating in Atlantic City,
which is very funny. Then Joe is like, Okay, well

(23:29):
what the hell? And he considers calling the cops and
pressing charges against Lucas, but he does not do that
because fathers and sons. I can't do that. And then
Joe explains that he had gotten together enough money to
buy the store from the owner, this guy Mitch a

(23:49):
Mr Capitalism, Mr Capitalism, and this would have allowed Joe
to stop Mitch from selling the store to Music Town.
But now he can't do that because this nine thou
dollars is gone because apparently it costs nine only nine
thousand dollars. Like where do they live? And that's the thing,
especially because he comes back so fast, like even if

(24:13):
he gets back the next day, like where are they?
But then also they're like on this like really pretty seaside,
because when Mark goes out to take a break, you
see that, and then when I go pick up Corey,
you see all that. I don't know, but it only
costs nine thousand dollars to save a record store, so
not to save, but to buy. Right, that has like

(24:35):
beach front property, yeah, and three floors, right, so much
square footage, so much square footage. It's downtown. There's three floors.
It's beach front property. It has a beautiful smoke break
section and a place for staff to live because Berkele
lives back there. Oh wait, I didn't even realize that. Yeah,

(24:57):
he like comes from back and so I don't know.
It's a very good live work space for nine thousand dollars.
So that is so funny because I and again I'm like,
I also like jen X, don't yell at me. I
love you guys. It's all good. But like, I'm just like,
what are you guys so upset about it costs nine
thousand dollars to have a three floor house downtown, Like

(25:17):
enjoy it? Well at last, bit like, what are you
so mad about? Anyways? I don't know, man, it's all
man the man. Shuck the man. The man. Mr Cavilism
is peeing on my floor like ass like all right, okay. So,

(25:39):
because Lucas lost this nine thousand dollars, Joe has no
choice but to transition the store into a music town
very soon, which means that they would have to again
answer to the man, they'd lose the cool indie vibe
of the store, they'd have to follow all these strict rules,
so no one who works at Empire Records is happy

(25:59):
about this, which is true. I mean I like that,
like this is like all based on Tower Records and
like that whole story and like saving Indian like that
end of stuff. I'm like, oh, that's like very compelling
and cool, and places like that truly do not exist anymore.
Like Tower Records I think been out of business and
like oh five or something. Yeah, I mean it reminds

(26:20):
me of working at like an indie alts comedy venue,
which I did for several years, and like the vibe
and the camaraderie with your fellow staff, and that was
my favorite aspect of the movie. But um, yeah, so
I get I get that. Yeah, So what's the next
scene that happens? Because it's truly just like and then

(26:41):
another scene happens so hard to keep track of, but
I think it's that Lucas stops a shoplifter, Warren, who
is trying to steal a bunch of CDs. The staff
shames Warren and then they make him stick around just
sitting on a couch while they wait for the cops

(27:02):
to show up. I was just like, there is this
weird like no exit vibe to that room. Like it's
just kind of like Empire Records Purgatory, where it's like,
if you're in trouble, you just have to sit in
this room and you could leave at any time, but
for whatever reason, you don't, right, yeah, yeah, because Joe
is like, Lucas, you stole nine dollars from me, Well,

(27:24):
gosh darn it, you better sit on this couch and
don't you dare get up from that couch, And then
Lucas just stays on the couch for like the first
half of the movie. Daddy said, so okay. So then,
so the people are lining up for Rex Manning day.
Rex Manning shows up with someone who might be his assistant,

(27:47):
it might be his publicist. We're not really sure what
Jane's job is. I'm convinced this is one of the
characters that got super super cut down because she seems
like there yeaheah, and it's sad here too, which is
justing like incredible. Who I'd like to nominate for the
Eyebrow Hall of Fame to this day, Yes, yes, Like
if you see her on Younger where she plays like,

(28:10):
I don't know, the coolest dyke in the world. Um,
eyebrows are still like, I'm like doing a rewatch of
Younger right now. Um, but she's like incredible eyebrows. But
also in nineteen Nighties, like she had beautiful nine eyebrows.
She did. Yeah, she's I It took me until her
second appearance in Empire Records to be like, she's from Younger, Younger,

(28:32):
Underrated baby, underrated show. She's so great. Yeah, that character.
Like again, I mean, so many characters are full chaos,
but her in particular, where she's like there and then
she has a scene and then she's like I quit.
But she says I quit to Joe, and I'm like,
do you work for him? And then later she comes
back and she's like, Okay, Joe, I want to go

(28:53):
on a date with you. And I was like, how
old are any of these characters? I don't understand how
do they know each other? I thought that they were
meeting at the beginning of that our thought so too. Yeah,
but apparently Empire Records is going to Empire Records in
that I don't know what the funk is happening at
any given point in the movie. Oh gosh, Okay, So

(29:14):
Rex starts signing autographs. He seems very resentful that His
fan base is largely middle aged women. Mostly. Everyone who
works at Empire Records thinks that Rex Manning sucks and
Jane is like, oh, yeah, I guess he does suck.
I quit working for him, but I'm going to tell
Joe and not Rex and tell someone unrelated. Then another

(29:36):
employee shows up Burko. He and Deborrah seem to have
some history. There's also been other scenes, you know, scattered
throughout the movie of things like stuff putting on music
and dancing around the store, quick conversations between various characters
to establish more of their like relationship dynamic, other random

(29:57):
things here and there. Those scenes are fun. I love
the concept of Veto. That was my one of my favorite.
I was like, oh, that is such a record store,
Like it's so cool and definitely something I tried to
implement in drama club and in high school, except no
one fucking you know what I was talking about. So
I just like, I had to eat my bag of

(30:17):
skittles and I was like, it's fine. Just because you
guys don't know film doesn't mean that that has anything
to do with me. But whatever, They're like, what is
Shreky talking about? Shreky, please sit down, and I was
just like, you know what, in about ten years, I'm
gonna have my day about this movie. So it'll be fine.

(30:38):
But also click side note, the guy who played Burko
was Live tyler stepdad at the time. Yes, oh, Coyote
Shivers is his name? Yeah, of course. Okay, first of all,
of course, Live Tyler. How's a stepdad named Coyote. I've
never been less shocked in my life. Live Tyler's had
such a wildlife. I was gonna say, if you ever

(31:01):
have an opportunity, you just want to go for a
quick ride on Wikipedia, go to Live Tyler's Wikipedia page.
It's a roller coaster. Sometimes it's like sometimes I get
annoyed at nepotism stuff, and then you read Live Tyler's
Wikipedia page and it's like she deserves everything she has
because she's been through enough. There is so much weirdness
in that poor woman's life. And and if you want

(31:24):
a real journey of the spirit, watch Live Tyler's Architectural
Digest video because it's like she's a weird lady. Do
you okay? This is taking I love a good Kismet moment. Sorry, Caitlin,
just like, um, can you all shut this is my
seventh and final interruption. By the way, don't limit yourself.

(31:45):
I hate this. Was making my partner watch Architectural Digest videos.
We've been watching them all morning and it started because
I was like, let's watch Little Tyler like and we've
been watching them older. It's my favorite one because I
want it. I want it all right. Sorry, back to
the insane plot that is Empire. I don't know where

(32:06):
we are in it, but I don't know. You love
Tyler and Dakota Johnson, two weird nepotisms giving the Architectural
Digest tours of a lifetime. You're just like, oh, no
one's ever told you that you're weird before because you're
so beautiful and you grew up with so much money.
But you're being so weird right now with Tyler. But
you're fucking weird, man. Yeah, I love it. Okay. Um.

(32:35):
The next thing that happens is Mitch, the guy who
owns Empire Records, shows up to pick up yesterday's money.
Joe decides not to rat Lucas out for stealing it,
and instead, Joe stuffs the like money pouch thing full
of scrap paper to make it seem like it's full
of cash, and then he gives that to Mitch. Then

(32:58):
Corey insists on fixing lunch for Rex Manning because that's
going to be her opportunity to seduce him, which she
tries to do and he's basically like, okay, well you
can suck my dick, and then she realizes like, oh no, yeah.

(33:18):
She feels humiliated. She runs up to the roof, where
she bumps into a J who finally professes his love
for her, but she is distraught and she wants to
be alone, so he leaves feeling very rejected. Then Gina
tries to comfort Corey about this Rex Manning thing, but

(33:41):
Corey ends up aggressively slut shaming Gina. So then Gina
decides to seduce Rex Manning and she has sex with him.
While that's going on, Corey goes up to a J
and says, I'm sorry I freaked out before, but I
just don't think of you like that. You're my best friend,

(34:03):
and I'm like, that's news to me because I thought
your best friend was Gina or what, like, are you
friends at all? We haven't seen you talk on screen yet.
I'm sure that, I was like, I'm sure that they
I thought they. I feel like the movie was like
and she doesn't even know I exist. But then she's like,
you're my best friend. I was like, she doesn't. She
just wants nothing to do with you. Very Maniloian enough

(34:27):
for her, apparently, I guess, but yeah, I know. And
then it was like she at the I mean, whatever,
things are about to get so out of control. But
she's like, you're such a talented artist. And I was like,
have we seen him do any art? Do we know
why his art looks like what is he? Eddy good
fluide some quarters to the floor called that art? We

(34:48):
do see him like sketching some things here and there,
and he don't seem to be a pretty talented artist,
so I'll allow it. But good for him. That scene
did remind me of what is it when like Steve's
on Cat from Stuart Little, or someone's like fresh friend,
best friend, there, role, move over, every everything he's ever done.

(35:13):
Steven'son as Cat from Stewart Little is so funny. Noble,
you're my best friend? Oh my god, it's so funny.
He should he could have been. He could have been
in this movie. He would have fit into this world.
Alfred Molina could have played Joe, yeah, because with his
name and Joe is played by Anthony Lapolio Paglia Apolia.

(35:38):
I'm not sure. I did not know who this man was,
but I did figure out halfway through that he is
definitely Australian because he kept forgetting that his character wasn't Australian,
where he just like it was a little thing when
he was just like, I forget. He was like talking
to Lucas about something and he's like, you give the
money back. You're like, whoa wait, hold on, where are we? Oh?

(36:00):
I kept being like, I know that's not Bill Pullman,
but is it Bill Pullman? Yeah? Big Bill Pullman wasn't
available vibes, I mean, Okay. So Corey has told a
j she thinks of him as her best friend and
that's why she's not interested in him romantically, and he's
like that's bullshit and he storms off, and then we

(36:23):
see Corey take a pill, which I think is the
first time we've seen her do that, the implication being
that she is like dealing with addiction or you know,
drug abuse issues. So then there's a scene where the
entire store starts dancing to Rex Manning's song while Rex
Manning and Gina are having sex in another room. But

(36:47):
then Joe comes down into the store and he's like, well,
enjoy this while you can, because this time next week
this is gonna be a music town. He just like
runs downstairs and it's like steaks and you're like, oh
my god. But there there's enough stakes we need to
like finish the storyline, don't start another one. And this
is when he gets really angry at Lucas and punches him.

(37:12):
He beats up. From my screenwriting standpoint, this movie, the
inciting incident happens like three minutes into the movie, which
it's more standard for that to be like fifteen minutes
into a feature length film, So it happens right away
before there's any exposition, before we know anything about anyone,
We get the inciting incident. Then there are there's a

(37:34):
full i would say, sixty to seventy minutes of after
this conflict of compelling conflict being established of like we
have to save the store, but oh no, the money
is lost. What do we do to recoup that money
and save the store? That conflict basically goes away for
like sixty to seventy minutes, and then at the very end,

(37:56):
which we're getting too soon. He's like, remember the movie,
and I was like, no, I don't, but I'm having
so much fun being confused. Okay, so but before we
get to the very end, so um Joe assaults Lucas,
but their fight quickly blows over, and then everyone finds

(38:17):
out that Gina is having sex with Rex Manning, including Corey,
who feels especially betrayed. So then a J attacks Rex Manning,
and then a J gets punched another another teenager or
like young person getting punched by a full adult man.
Then they kick Rex out of the store. Gina and

(38:37):
Corey get into a screaming match. Gina outs Corey's drug abuse.
Corey starts trashing the store, but then her coworkers stop her.
She calms down, and then Debrah provides some emotional support
to Corey. They have a nice moment together. Then several
random scenes where we see Mark eating we brownies and

(39:00):
fantasizing about being in Aguar music video, where it always
just feels like sometimes this movie just does stuff where
I feel like they're like, so that was pretty heavy, right,
here's a here's a little palate cleanser, And I remember
watching that the first time, and I actually every time
I rented it, and honestly still when I watched it

(39:22):
to this day, I passed forward through that scene. Now
a little bit, it's a little bit more blended, as like,
I guess now that I do like culture writing and
critiquing of films and stuff like that, but honestly, most
of it is just because I hate it. It makes
no sense, it doesn't need to be there, and I
hate every moment of that. It's the worst shot out

(39:44):
of everything they cut out of everything that's on the
cutting room floor. The final this movie, they were like,
now that stays, don't you touch it? And I was like, okay,
I guess, Well probably because they like paid guar. Oh yeah,
I guess. And then they're like, well, we can't just
have wasted that money, So I bet that that is it. Yeah,

(40:06):
what a mess. I'm laughing. What a mess. So then
Jane comes back. She asks Joe out for dinner and
he's like, sounds great. Then the staff has a mock
funeral for Deborah, during which everyone you know, divuloges some
personal things. They bond with each other, and this is

(40:29):
also when Gina shows back up and she and Corey makeup.
I love a good plot resolution via well timed eavesdrop
where she just happens to walk in the room and
lived Tyler was like, I miss Gina. I love her
so much. She's so she's a She's the woman I
can never be. And then Gina's like no, And then
Gina says what her stakes were the whole time? Apparently

(40:52):
where she walks in, she's like, I don't want to
be like my mother. You're like, who's your mother? And
she's like, I want to be a singer. I was like,
you do. And then one scene later she's a singer
and we're like, good for her. I guess, like yeah.
Um So then Warren, the kid who had tried to
shoplift from the store, comes back with a gun and

(41:15):
starts shooting the store up, but it's okay because they're blanks.
It is. It turns out he just wanted to work
at the record store the whole time. What is happening like,
which is like the most white teenager with a gun
thing ever to to just have it be like, oh,
he was just having a bad day. It's all good.

(41:36):
Let's give him a job at the record store and
that'll help, but you're just like, no, no, don't do that.
It's mind boggling. But yeah, he gets taken away by
the cops again sort of, but they're just like, well,
the gun was filled with blanks and he's a miner,
so we can't really do anything. And then in the
next scene he's back at the store working and also

(41:57):
drinking and drinking, and even though he's like fifteen or something, yeah,
he's real little like I just don't know what was happening. Like,
there did reach a point where I was just like,
my brain is smooth, like anything could happen. And so
when it goes to like she's on pills, the store

(42:18):
is going to close down. I love you. I don't
want to be like my mom, we're doing a fake
funeral now someone shooting up the store. You're just like, yeah, okay,
I guess, but a weird day. That was me watching it.
I was like, yeah, okay, cool, Like when I first
saw it was the tracks. I want to go work

(42:39):
out a record store. Actually, so Floren could. He's thirteen, apparently,
so why can't I Right, Yeah, who can't? Who can't
get a job at this place? And you'll never get
fired despite all the really wild things. Joe needs to
be daddy. Oh gosh. Okay, So Warren coming back with
a gun actually comes plot relevant because then news anchors

(43:03):
show up to report on the story. So then Mark
jumps into the newscast to promote a fundraiser event that
the store is going to hold that night, which I
guess Mark just decided, Oh, let's do a fundraiser. So
they put it together. A bunch of people show up,
They have a big party. Gina Burko and some other

(43:26):
guy play live music. Everyone's dancing there, drinking. Uh. They
raise a bunch of money, and then Mitch the owner
shows up again and he's like, what is going on?
And then Joe takes the money they raised and buys
the store from Mitch for again ballpark of nine thousand
dollars salad maybe two d seventy four dollars. I don't know, yeah,

(43:49):
because there's not there's not nine thousand dollars in that
not like bucket thing. Yeah, there's maybe a grand talk.
Maybe Buddy buys the store from Mitch. Nonetheless, and so
everyone is celebrating. Corey goes to a j and screams
at him and pushes him and hits him, telling him

(44:11):
you're so talented and you need to go to art school.
And he's like, okay, I'll go to art school and
I'm going to go in Boston so I can be
near you when you're at Harvard, and she's like awesome.
And then they kiss and she goes really that they kiss,
and you're like, I did I forgot that they knew
each other. Um and then and then the movie ends

(44:33):
with everyone dancing on the roof, which is fun. So
that's the story. Let's take a quick break and we
will come back to discuss and we're back. Okay, what
is hello? Like? What? Well? Shelly? Yeah, Shelly, kick us up?

(44:56):
What do you what do you want to talk about?
Because I'm like, I mean, here's the thing, like, as
I watched this movie, like I've watched this with completely
different eyes at first. And that's why when I talk
about the movie, I know every single one of its
faults that it has. Like don't get me wrong, but
there are certain movies that I'm not excusing some of them.

(45:17):
A lot of the faults on this I am like,
it's fine, I don't care perfect, But other ones I
am like, what, like, you know, with like Corey and
Rex Manning and all that kind of stuff. But as
chaotic as it is, I think it for me, I
love it because again it's one day, and it makes

(45:38):
so much sense to me appear that even the cut
of it so much can happen in a day, like
if we were to cut up our own one day
my Friday, Like we were talking about all the craziness
that I had with like breaking my computer, and then
I could all this stuff. It's a bunch of smash cuts,
and this film is a bunch of essentially a bunch

(45:59):
of small pets of stories with a really good soundtrack
and a lot of it can be excused the other ones.
I just kind of live in that film world when
I watch it and I'm like, everything's fine. That one
gift that will Cat or whatever sitting with the flames
behind him, that's me watching this movie and I'm like,
it's fine, It's fine totally, And I like, so We've

(46:24):
been dunking on the like plot of the movie pretty
hard throughout the recap and stuff, but at its core,
it's a movie about like a ragtag group of misfits
who come together. They found a community at this store
they have fairly interesting relationship dynamics among them. And that's
a very relatable story from many, many people. And that's

(46:47):
the reason this movie has developed such a cult following.
It's you know, it really speaks to anyone who might
feel like an oddball or anyone who is drawn to
the idea of a chosen family exactly and stuff like that.
So I totally get that. I enjoyed that aspect of
the movie. And then there's also like the anti corporate

(47:10):
we have to maintain the integrity of this cool India space,
you know, screw the man down with the establishment, which
in the form that it takes in this movie is
a very like nineties gen X, Like that's exactly it
version that of Like, you know, as long as I
can work in this indie record store without the man

(47:32):
breathing down my neck, I don't really care what else
is going on in the world. I don't have I
don't have time for more pressing social issues. Yeah. I
just want to listen to guns and roses man and why.
And I just want to eat skittles and burn CDs,
and I just want to live on this cow to
carry it around with me. And I don't care about
anything else that's happening in the world. But the whole

(47:54):
my whole world is this store, this that I or
wait open to midnight. Sorry, yeah, and my records open
until midnight. Can I tell you how many times I
answered my house phone like that, And so my dad
was like, we're done, We're finished, We're not doing this anymore. Also,
I would answer my phone hello, Fawlty Towers, any show

(48:15):
that had to pick up. I was just like, nice, yeah,
weird time in the household with me anyway. But yeah,
I think it was just like so nineties space, and
I was always obsessed with the nineties, like you can
be like born in a time but not be an
adult in that time. And I was like, that's how
it is, and that's how it's gonna that's how it was,

(48:35):
that's what I missed, and that's what it's going to
be like when I'm a grown up too. So that's
why I just was like, this is dope. Yeah, sure, yeah,
I mean it does feel so like of its time
in a way that it's like kind of fun and
nostalgic where I'm just like, you know, with these characters,
it's it's so funny, it was what is the I
always forget the name of it, the Matthew Lillard movie
about selling out and it's about the man slunk. Yeah, yes,

(49:01):
selc Punk. I feel like it's a more self aware
version of this storyline where it's like very clear by
looking at like and also just like knowing how generations
tend to pan out of like half of these kids
are going to be like Wall Street bankers and cause
the recession. But this is their moment. Corey is going
to Harvard, right, you know, Like no, yeah, it's not

(49:25):
things are like not gonna you know, and then you
know a j or is that Yeah, Like he's gonna
like change to business major one semester in and they're
going to be the most boring people to ever ever live.
And you know whatever, no offense to business majors ecept
actually I don't think I actually think offense because like

(49:45):
what do you Yeah, you should go to art school
like me, Why did you get a master's green screenwriting? Hello? Yeah,
we're the moral authority of the fucking planet. Anyway. It's
it's just it's it's so nineties and I mean, but
so much of like you reference us in your piece

(50:05):
Shelley of like how it seems like this story had
really good bones, and those bones were just like repeatedly
like a crowbar was taken to the bones by the editors,
And like I was fascinated to find out that um
in the original draft of this movie, Corey was not
trying to lose her virginity at all. She was just

(50:27):
a big fan of Rex. And I think what kind
of like blew me with that too, like all the
different changes that I could find. And also when I
did interview Carol, I didn't I didn't want to interview
her in a sense of being like, how did this
end up this way? You feel me? I did, but
I had so many of those questions that I wanted
to ask, but she kind of just like let it

(50:49):
out anyway and told me a lot of different things.
But what was a big part of a lot of
the changes to this movie, honestly was clueless, Like there
was already so many high school movies either in production
and posts being made, scripts had already been bought that
they were trying to like stand out in some way,
and this is already a movie about a rag tag

(51:11):
bunch of emo kids, And I don't know East Jesus
Nowhere Seattle like, and they couldn't figure out what to
do with it, and so they cut it up. They
tore it apart. And then when I think they tried
to bring it back on was the music, Because who
would watch this movie, right, the kids that think they
hear certain songs first, the kids that think that they're

(51:34):
the only one who knows like one band and things
like that. But even that couldn't save it at the
box office. It had to wait years for us to
find it for me and to be like, this is
the most important movie of all times, so right, Yeah, Well,
I'm also interested to hear more about something you talk

(51:55):
a lot about in your piece which was published in
Marie Claire entitled Old Empire Records helped Me understand my queerness,
and you site the friendship between Gina and Corey you
kind of like, yeah, I don't know if it was
like a shipping thing necessarily, but like you drew inspiration
from that in terms of like that powerful friendship and

(52:17):
that was sort of like the basis of what you
were kind of looking for in romantic relationships. And yeah,
I just I'd love to hear you speak more about that. Yeah, no,
it was because like when I was watching at that time,
this is like middle school, and like all of us, right,
had shitty time in middle school. But I always say,
like my middle school experience just by hey, it's terrible, right,

(52:37):
And I used, I was ready to get out, But
you're in sixth grade. You have two more years left,
you know, You're like, but the only way out was
through movies like this and the teen movies that I
would watch about high school, because I would be like,
this is what's coming next for me, And this isn't
only what's gonna come next to me with friends, Maybe
this is what comes next to me for like romantic

(52:59):
kind of ships to you know. But I was never
really attaching. I wasn't looking for queerness in this film.
I was just looking. I loved watching movies where girls
were best friends because like I didn't have really like
a best friend that was just like that close, you know.
And then when I started to grow up and I
went to apology and stuff like that, I learned about

(53:19):
the lesbian or queer girl trope where they're like all
lesbians or queer girls like end up falling in love
with their best friends. You know what I mean, whether
it's reciprocated or not. And I had never fallen in
love with any friend except for one girl in like
elementary school, where I realized that I was queer. But
when I was watching this specific movie, this was the

(53:41):
first one where the two best friends had like a
hell of falling out and it made me really sad
because they thought they were never I thought it wasn't
going to get back together, and I thought they weren't
going to have a friendship anymore, which for me was
breaking down my little cute world of what friendship is
and what queerness could be with another girl. Because in Clueless,

(54:03):
they were always best friends and job breaker. They didn't
like each other from me to begin with, and then
like and can't hardly wait that was an under like
unrequited love, but it was between assists male and then
assist girl and stuff. So this was the only movie
where I saw two outcasts essentially be best friends and
then fall out and then come back together in a

(54:26):
stronger way. And that's all I thought I wanted in
friendships and then eventually relationships when I grew up. So
I found clearness in it, even though that wasn't a
queer relationship at all, But at the heart of so
many peer girl relationships is friendship. So that's how I
connected fearness to it. And that's I mean, that's what's

(54:48):
really cool about a movie like this, where again, even
if I'm like dragging it from a screenwriting point of view, like,
you can still like latch onto really meaningful things like that,
And clearly so many people have because of this movie
is like cult fan base and everything. Yeah, I think
that's just like a wonderful thing. And I'll try to

(55:11):
stop making fun of its lack of three X structure. No, please,
don't mean the film is chaotic and crazy and unorganized
and all this, But there was just so many things
that I found in it, like from a screenwriting standpoint
of view, from a culture critic point of view, like
even if I was watching this movie and trying to
take my personal feelings out of it, would I rip

(55:32):
it apart? No, But I would not be giving it
four stars on letterbox like I do now. Most of
those stars are because I loved it, you know. Also,
another good thing that I saw in this movie that
I connected with was a character we lost a lot
of Gina with her um not Gina Um deborra. Yeah,
and she was clearly like cutting right because she talks

(55:54):
about it with like a lady bick and stuff. And
at that time in my life, I was also self harming,
you know, when I was doing it. So I was
seeing I saw that something I hadn't seen in a
movie that had a happy ending, you know, essentially like
but a happy ending that was so true to the character,
like that character having that funeral and stuff. It wasn't

(56:14):
like outlanded. She was one of the only things that
kind of made sense that look a bit um. But
when I saw that, I thought that was cool because
I was just like, damn, she's like going through something.
She's not telling everybody about it, she's private, she's cutting
her risk is messed up. But then she's like, all right,
I want these girls to be best friends again, so
I'm gonna put myself in my ship on the table

(56:36):
and hope they do too. And then they did and
maybe friends again. And that there was another thing that
made me be like, I don't care that this record
store costs only nine thousand dollars, just be's incredible the
whole I want to get into that, like Nest of
relationships between the girls in this movie or the women.

(56:57):
I don't know how old they are. I don't yeah,
uh these young adults. But the Gina Corey stuff, it's again,
it's like I feel like you almost have to like
headcan in your way through it a little bit, but
I don't know I was able to get there and
having a friendship like that that, I mean, the slut
Shaminus was very true to that time. And while I

(57:20):
would have liked to see more like apologies of like
I shouldn't have talked about you like that, Like that
was me being because it's clear they're projecting onto each
other in a way that it's like just talk it out,
like just have a conversation. Yeah, because Corey is feeling
insecure about like she thought she was ready to lose
her virginity and then it's like she had this traumatic

(57:42):
experience and she's like I'm not. But instead of talking
that out, she is projecting onto her friend who she
is jealous of, and it's like, well, you have sex
all the time and you're a slut. And then Redazelwager,
I mean she I appreciated how how Gina was like
fuck you like you can't talk to me like that.
I did too. That was a cool moment. Yeah, and

(58:05):
then Debora I struggled with similar stuff as well, and
like I wish that it's and you're giving these nuggets
of like, oh, there was a real story in here
at one point. There's so much there because it's like
you get the smallest bit of context of because I
was like, we talked about this in the show all
the time, of like why are women randomly turned against

(58:26):
each other? Which I think in this movie it kind
of comes off a little like they're randomly turned against
each other because of how much is cut out, But
it seems like there was enough context at one point
in the final draft. Not really, but you have that
one scene with Deborah and Joe where Deborah's doing Joe's

(58:46):
taxes and like I was like, I don't order taxes. Yeah,
she's literally doing the taxes in like the recording prole phone.
Both thing like why can't she go to the office.
Why can't you via that room where everyone actually, yeah,
that's true, you can focus on taxes. Yeah, But like

(59:08):
Joe goes in and Joe is daddy and he's like,
I'm worried about you. Are you okay? Should I call
your mom? And she says like, well, I can't find
my mom. Like she it's implied that she has a
very very strained, possibly like abandonment related relationship with her mom,
which would contextualize why she struggles to connect with other women.

(59:31):
But you don't ever fully get there. And that would
have worked for me too. It's like if if you
had just been able to gether. And then there's an
implication that, like Gina has an issue with her mom too.
It's only referenced once, and it seems like the screenwriter
like had a plan for how these relationships were going,
like and how these women were going to resolve their

(59:52):
issues and yeah, and it's just like you, I wish
we had gotten to see it. I would love to
see like a director's cut of this movie. Hell yeah,
does it exist? Especially like I don't know. I think
then I asked that because I was gonna go back
and watch, like you know how you have the interviews
and stuff, but so much kids cut out. But because
I interviewed Carol through zoom, and I think I did

(01:00:13):
ask that, and I think the answer to that is
like yes, but what we see it probably not you
feel me. But because I think if we had gotten
more story too, it would have on her it would
have made sense as to why she was so helpful
to her in the bathroom to Live Taylor and Bathroom,
because that was so personal and so like sweet, but

(01:00:36):
the way, like if you didn't really pay attention to
that character, you wouldn't have been like, oh, that makes
sense for her to do that. But I would like
to see how they even got that. And also her
situation with Berko, like what was going on there, Like
there was like half contact because she's like Debra and Burko,
who I always forget Burkos even a character, because he

(01:00:56):
like shows up happen wearing a wig. I don't think so.
I think it's just that just really bad hair. I
was like, is that what's going on on his head?
Like I don't like it, but I feel like it's
implied that they have some kind of like romantic history
and he's like are you okay? And she's like what

(01:01:17):
do you care? You didn't care last night and then
he's like, well, I don't know. And then she's like,
you know, this isn't about you, But I thought about
what happened last night and last week and last year,
and I just what happened and we don't know, we
are thinking about it too, And then she just says like,
but this is already told you. This isn't about you,
and it's like okay, But also like what is the

(01:01:39):
context of this relationship and like does that inform anything?
And there's just like isn't enough information given there, which
I feel like is kind of a dangerous thing to do,
especially when you're trying to talk about suicidal ideation. The
movie is handling of that felt pretty irresponsible and like

(01:02:00):
know how to handle it. And also like how they
introduced her to the other two girls, like when they
came to trade cash drawers and stuff like that, and
she was like shocked me, shock me, shocked me. But
it's just like why is she so hateful to these
other two girls? Is it because they are so girly

(01:02:20):
girl and she just happens to be like a punk
kind of girl who just hates those kinds of girly
girls or is it more than that or is that
just how they're playing that. I don't know, they put
all the girls so against each other and also with
like Debbie Maser's character too low Key a little bit
like how the girls saw her because she was hanging

(01:02:42):
out with Rex and she was it just they put
everybody so against each other, but I wasn't paying attention
that so much of that. I was always so focused
on Prey and Gina, like throughout all of it. And
they put them against each other too though, right, It's
like they eventually they started united and then they were
very abruptly torn apart. And like again, I'm just like,

(01:03:04):
I'm sure that there was a version of this where
it made more sense, but I do I agree with
what you're saying as well, Caitlin, of like, when you're
dealing with a narrative about self harm, it's like you
have to have all of the context there or it
becomes potentially harmful. And the cut of this movie that
was released, like it's not intentionally harmful, but it could

(01:03:28):
come off as like a little bit romanticizing, like old
girl who doesn't fit in does this because that was
how like I mean, I think we've talked about this
on the show before, but like I learned how to
self harm from an episode of Degrassi, which I don't
think was their intention at all, but it was like
that was something that was like I wouldn't have known

(01:03:49):
how to do that, but when my favorite character on
a TV show started doing I was like, oh, that's
something I can do. And then it became a problem immediately,
like it's just you can you can would be real careful.
You have to be careful. Especially Also another way they
had they kind of really should have explained a little
bit more, why was Live Tyler's character? So, I mean,

(01:04:10):
I know they changed it obviously she went to this
Oprirgina and I really but even like why was she
such a fan of this this older man? And the
way that she talked about her dad too, She was like,
my dad pressures me and he just wants me to
like go to Harvard and he wants me to do
all my work. There's twenty four usable hours and every day.
The way they made her talk about the older men

(01:04:33):
in her life but didn't really explain why she wants
to do that, it could it made it look like
it was like romantic until he was like, I don't
want to make love to you. You can definitely just
stuck my dick or whatever. But I really wanted because
for a second I was like, oh, that's when I
was watching, and I was younger. I was like, that's

(01:04:53):
kind of hot that she just like thinks this guy
is so hot and she wants to do all this
stuff with him. Movie frames it that way. Yeah, it
frames it that way. Oh my god. The way the
camera moves on in Live Tyler is a teenager in
this movie, and that's exactly movements on her is really
exploitative and gross. Yeah, I'm like, let this leave this

(01:05:16):
girl alone. Let's get her into the Lord of the
Rings movies. Let's give her some sleeves, Let's let her
live her life, Let's get it going, Let's get her
out of here, Let's get her keep the crap top,
but let's get her into the Lord of the Rings. Like, Yeah,
it's and I would say the same thing with um.
And it's so abrupt that I think that the deborah
of the issue of self harm was a bigger red

(01:05:38):
flag to me. But the way that Live Tyler's character
is addiction storyline is dealt with very abruptly was also.
I mean, it's like that one was so clearly half
big in the way it's presented in the movie that
I was like, we barely had time to deal with it,
but it's like she's not really offered any resolution in that,
like it's you're told very abruptly she is addicted to

(01:05:58):
it seems like adderall or like a speed, like some
kind of stimulant speed. And then she is outed by
her friend. Another traumatic thing she has like a small
like fit or like a break. She panics and she
like lashes out, and then she gets a boyfriend. And

(01:06:20):
I'm like, this doesn't like heterosexuality saves her or something
like like what what are we gonna do about the
addiction stuff? Well, when she goes to Harvard, he's going
to take care of her because he'll be really close by,
so he'll definitely just take care of her and take
care of everything, and she doesn't have to worry about anything,
and she'll be okay because now she's in love with

(01:06:42):
this boy. But her friend was the one who saved her,
not saved her, but not even her friend was the
one who saved her. Was another girl who helped her,
who used to hate her, but then who used to
hate her. Yeah, but then we got on the rooftop
and everything's fine. But also what I kind of another
thing that I kind of thing was good don't, yeah,

(01:07:02):
quote me. It's a podcast, you have to um, but
it'll be out here forever and ever. But another thing
I kind of thought that the movie kind of did
a bit right was and I mean light right, was
um Renai Zeliger kind of being like, yeah, I love sex,

(01:07:23):
I am this girl because she didn't apologize a lot
for it. She did she should not have done that
to like get back at her friend and stuff like that,
but it didn't seem like she had an issue being
a sexual, cool person. And I think she was of age.
I think we don't know. I think I think it's
implied that she's a little bit older than that. And

(01:07:44):
I don't even know why I think that, but yeah,
I think they just wanted to make it clear that
she's at least eighteen when she was fucking like rexpanding.
I think that's why they didn't have her talk a
lot about school and stuff. But I kind of did
that they were just having her like not be apologetic
for it. She didn't want to be like her mom,
So I'm assuming that was coming from like the job

(01:08:07):
aspects of it, and maybe just like it was with
sex to some some of it. But she didn't seem
to have an issue with it, and I kind of
thought that was kind of cool a little bit, not
like Hella a lot, but it was kind of cool. Yeah,
it seems that the it's far more the other characters
who shame her for her have an issue with it, yeah,
than than the movie itself, right, um having any issue

(01:08:30):
with like her being a sexually liberated person who's interesting, right,
So yeah, that I thought that was interesting too. It's
so but then it's like again the movie you can
just like see the studio it's happening in the last
ten minutes of the movie, because she kind of doubles
back on that at the end where she like enters

(01:08:51):
the funeral and it's like, no, I'm not a cool,
sexually liberated girl. This is actually I'm going to be
just like my mother. And we don't know what that
means because we know nothing about in this family where
like that could mean anything. And so she kind of
like I feel like she she was like holding her
ground the whole movie of like how fucking dare you
shame me? And then at the end she's like, but really,

(01:09:12):
I'm just having sex because I'm afraid to be a
singer and I'm like, you can be a singer who
has sex like you? Is it like this sex weird
binary of like lah lah lah Like, but I did
that said I did love that Live Tyler line read
where it was said, like there's just like there's a
few of these lines that I just they're so teen

(01:09:33):
movie in a way that really warms my heart, no
matter if I know what's going on or not. Where
like Live Tyler is like, you're not going to be
like your mother if you don't want to be like
your mother. And I'm like, oh, I wish that was true,
but but what a seventeen what an eighteen year old
thing to be sure of? To be like, I don't
I don't want to be like my mom, so I'm

(01:09:54):
not going to be like that's just not how generational
trauma works. But so off, Yeah, it's I think it's
like it's it's a very messy show for a film,
but I just feel like there was Maybe that's another
reason why I'm so attached to it, because I feel
like there's a cut where there's reasoning behind some of it,

(01:10:19):
and it doesn't I think it leaves all the actual
connections on the cutting room floor and I think if
we had a chance to power those up and if
the studio and stuff wasn't so it's scared about, oh,
here's just another teen movie with another girl like nowadays,
I don't think they would have given a funk. They
would have been like, there's another movie coming out that's
exactly the same as this, but we're gonna put it

(01:10:41):
out anyway. But they did, you know, they were just
like too scared, and I bet it would have done well.
It would have done well. Yeah, I really liked this.
The there's like an anecdote about how the executive who
like bought Empire Records because there was like which is
always excited, especially for a female screenwriter. There was like

(01:11:01):
a kind of like a small bidding. More over the
Empire Records original script, which I would really love to read.
I want to know how this movie was supposed to go,
because it was less about capitalism and virginity in the
first one. It was all about like found you know,
chosen family, which I love um. But there was an
executive executive who like bought it and like greenlit Empire

(01:11:23):
Records was then the next day approached with the script
for Clueless, and he was like I don't need Clueless.
I already have a teen movie. And I'm like, oh,
you fumbled so hard one and l that's so embarrassing
that he's like, I don't need it. I got I
have a hit on my hands, and I'm like, I
already have lived Tyler and Renee Zelwiger. I don't know

(01:11:45):
who they really are yet, but I'm I'm doing this instead.
I mean, I see where he was going with that,
but he was wrong. He was incorrect, especially because Clueless
was such a like surprise box office hit in itself.
Empire Records had a ten million dollar budget and only
grossed like sorry, and only gross like three hundred dollars

(01:12:08):
or something like that. But it was the studio killed it.
It wasn't because people didn't want to see it. It's
because the studio made it impossible for people to see
because they sucked it up so hard that they then
had to kill it themselves. And it's like and everyone
lost as a result. Because Carrol was also telling me,
like they started pulling theaters like they were just like okay,

(01:12:30):
well maybe not here maybe. And then the run was
also very short. It was only in theaters for like
maybe a month. Weeks or something. Yeah, something like that,
and in such a small amount of theaters. You they
didn't even give it a chance. They just and then yeah,
they just so happened to Like later it'd be like
this like big hit or whatever with like the people

(01:12:52):
who really wasn't meant for but at the time, yeah
they killed it. Yeah fucked. I don't like it because
there is a really cool coherent movie here. It's just
not the one that ends up on the screen. It's
not the one. But like there's so much potential for

(01:13:14):
a movie to be about what it's about, which again
is like misfits coming together as this chosen family having issues,
resolving those issues, like finding ways to bond, all that stuff,
all that stuff that's like very emotionally compelling and extremely
relatable and human. It's just that it's so bogged down

(01:13:35):
by so many weird random, like totally incongruous like scenes
here and there, and just other kind of weirdness. And
I feel like characters being rewritten to make weird choices,
or things like suicidality and like drug addiction not being

(01:13:56):
handled well. I mean, the overall cultural emotional and eligience
of the mid nineties was like not equipped to deal
with this kind of stuff, but I appreciate that they
were trying. They tried, and there's a lot of potential
in this premise. I mean, again from a teenagers watching

(01:14:20):
this in the mid to late nineties and like finding
so much to latch onto, like that is very cool
and I can understand why. And I'm sure I would
have if I had I seen this as a like
tween and like or something like that, Like I would
have had a different response. But it's just I understand that,

(01:14:42):
like seeing it for the first time four days ago
as a thirty five year old person living in I mean,
it's easier to criticize from that advantage point. We got
to take a quick break, but we will come right back.

(01:15:04):
Does anyone have any other thoughts about the movie? I
just think like on top of that, I just think
it's we have so much to talk about about the
relationship between the girls and then with the guys. I'm
just like sometimes I forgot which guy was which I'm like,
these are all the same goofball. There's no conflict between
except between like daddy and son, like that's the only

(01:15:26):
real but like there's no Frick there's only universal support
between these goofy boys, Like they're all just like, oh,
you're fucking wild man like in a way that it's
like it's goofy because they should maybe be in conflict
a little more with each other. But also it just
is like such a stark contrast to like the women
in this movie are constantly in conflict, only in conflict really,

(01:15:49):
and then the guys are just like, yoh whatever, man like,
like it's so stark. It was just like bizarre, which
is complicated because it's like the implication being women being
in the same space together, well, they're obviously gonna hate
each other conflict, but then it also means that those
are the far more interesting and nuanced relationships in this movie,

(01:16:10):
whereas like all the relationships with the men are just
like who are you again? Who is this? They just
want to smoke, they want to eat pizza, they bring
each other snacks like, and they don't. And that's the
weird thing because the major, the biggest conflict is like
he's stole nine grand from him, but like that doesn't

(01:16:30):
even create conflict in the story. Yeah, it's like, what's
to fight about is the fact that I want to
lose my opportinity to this guy, and for some reason,
we're going to fight about it on our break as
this really cute little cafe, Like it's weird. Yeah, it's weird.
It's weird, and they're fighting over a disgusting creep who

(01:16:51):
wants to do sexual things with a high school student,
So absolutely fuck that guy. And then also, real quick,
the Rex Manning fan base thing. So obviously he's resentful
that only women over the age of like thirty five,
who he doesn't deem to be quote unquote fuckable, like

(01:17:12):
they're not sexually viable to him, they are the main
demographic of his fan base, and he hates that that's
who likes his music. And then there's a scene where
Jane is talking about how Rex Manning's music tested well
with teen boys actually, and then Lucas says something like, oh, well,

(01:17:34):
did you compare the teen boys who like Rex Manning's
music to the incidents of homosexuality among teen boys? So
fucking nineties homophobic, like, and that's like, but also I
feel like the movie is saying the fact that older
women and gay men that's who likes this guy, and

(01:17:54):
that is part of why we're not supposed to like
Rex Manning as a character, and it's like, um, look,
older women and gay men have a lot of disposable
income and and put some risk. Good taste, Yeah, had
good tast. They're paying your rent, Like he just didn't
care because I think the main point of is that

(01:18:15):
they wanted us to take away was the fact that
he didn't see them as buckable, which is again another
trope of being like older women or whatever are no
longer hot after what or something like that, and he's
just like after that, even though like that is his
whole fan base is literally those were that when you

(01:18:36):
look at the line outside, those were the people that
showed up, and we would have under I don't think
that's why I wanted more understanding of like why liv
Tyler loved him so much, Like she didn't fit it.
And I think we would have knew that if we
would have talked about more about the stuff with her dad,
because she clearly had issues with him, but we didn't.
They skipped over all that. Yeah, it was weird. It

(01:18:59):
was weird. It's very bizarre. This movie is just so weird. Um,
does anyone else have any other stuff? I just don't
understand why Lucas didn't clearly explain to Joe or anyone
else what his intentions were with taking the money, Like
he could have just been like I saw that we

(01:19:19):
were in trouble and I tried to save us, but oops,
I lost all the money gambling. I'm so sorry. But
he never says that. Every time all they provides exposition
to himself, he doesn't provide it to other characters. And
he came back with a bunch of quarters instead, which
just get glued to the floor for the sake of art.
For art, oh gosh. But every time he tries to

(01:19:41):
explain why he did what he did, it's just so
like metaphorical and cryptic, and it's like your intentions were pure,
you can just tell what your intentions were. You were
trying to help Daddy, Like he wanted to say that,
you know, but he can't. He's an agent of chaos.
Like Luke isn't such an annoying character, but I couldn't

(01:20:03):
help but love him, and like his heart's in the
right place, but he just like he just will not
say the right thing at the right time. What a
what a sweetie, what a what a weird kid? And
you get a little glimpse into his past too, that
I assume was originally a bigger part of the story
where it sounds like, um, he was put in like

(01:20:24):
foster care. He took him in, Yeah right, he took
him in, Daddy, So Daddy can't punish the kid all
he took in, Yeah right, because he's like, well that
I got this kid like out of a bad situation,
I'm not going to put him back into one. But
it's just like movie wise, it would have been nice
to have that scene and had, you know, get Lucas
to communicate at some point in the movie, but he

(01:20:46):
just kind of never does about what's and then at
the end he's like, Daddy, I'm happy for you, and
he's like thanks son. Yeah. But instead of any of that,
like further context or development that we needed, instead we
get a scene where Mark is dusting near a woman
who's just you know, jamming out. She's closing her eyes,
she was like listening to the music, and then he

(01:21:07):
tries to assault her like he's just trying to kiss her,
and the movie plays it off as isn't this funny
and quirky and cute? Isn't that a funny thing? For
Mark to do cut Mark from the movie, Like that's
the character that is most goable. Why didn't they cut Mark?
They cut who? Did they cut? Three people? They didn't
cut Mark? Come on, This is unrelated, but just like

(01:21:31):
in a post pandemic era, not that you could even
get COVID from a pair of those headphones, but I
was like, oh, that's so gross that we used to
do that, that we used to just record stores and yeah,
it's so it's so nasty. Why God wipe us out?
Like it's just like nasty. Anyways, I think that that's

(01:21:53):
my last comment is those headphones are so gross you
couldn't pay me to put them on. My last comment
is at the very beginning, when Lucas goes to Atlantic
City and gambles and the first time he's playing craps, right,
and he doubles his money or he wins money the
first time he wins, and then the like sexy lady

(01:22:14):
that's next to him his like, you know, kind of
cuddled up against him, and then she's like, you are
sex is a thing that she says to him, You
are sex, Like I don't know about that, but it's
so funny. I know exactly about that. Um, yeah, so
that was amazing, and you are sex. We're all sex.

(01:22:39):
We're all sex, especially Gina. Apparently that's what they wanted
us especially, right, But how does she feel about it?
We'll never know, never know. Does this fast back to test? Yeah,
not a lot. Yeah, but like not as much as
you would think I was going to say. Yeah. I
think my favorite exchange is when Deborah says, hey, miss

(01:23:01):
Tina America, here's a button I made for you. Don't worry.
I didn't spit on it, and then Corey reads what
it says and it just says dishonesty. So she's like,
dishonesty and that passes the test. There's a lot of
sinister Yeah, there's a lot of sinister passes in this movie,
but it does pass, which I accept. Yeah, and I

(01:23:25):
didn't know that's the one I choose to like that
one that looks dishadesty, and it's like, well, we passed,
So we did it, ladies, we did it. Feminist win,
Oh gosh. And then as far as our nipple scale on,
we rate the movie based on examining it through an

(01:23:49):
intersectional feminist lens. I guess my takeaway from this is
that I appreciate that so many people have been able
to latch onto this movie for relatable premise of like
misfits being represented on screen, finding a community, finding a
chosen family, because not many movies were about that, especially

(01:24:13):
in this era. So I understand why it was so
appealing to people who had so little representation. That said,
the movie is extremely white, It is extremely hetero, It
is extremely like middle class. Even though some of these
like it suggested that a lot of the characters are

(01:24:34):
struggling financially, we don't actually see any manifestations of that.
It's just like because we just see them one day
in a record store and we're just kind of assuming everyone's, like,
everyone's fine. So it's just it only represents a very
small demographic of people. It leaves a lot of people out.

(01:24:55):
It does not handle a lot of uh serious topics
such as sue, subtle ideation, and addiction, does not know
how to approach handling those things, executes those things not well.
But it's extremely valid for you know, the people who
saw themselves represented in the movie and like, well, like

(01:25:19):
you were talking about Shelley, like, even though there's there's
no explicit queerness, even though you know, there's you're still
able to see yourself in it and and and see
parts of like what you long for in it, and
like that's extremely valid. And with all of that in mind,
I will give the movie two nipples. Maybe is that

(01:25:41):
too many? Way? I thought you were going to go
lower than I thought I was too. Jamie's like, I
got you, Okay, I love it. I do like that
A lot of the most interesting relationships in the movie
are among women, and a lot of the most interest
arcs are afforded to the female characters. There's still a

(01:26:04):
lot of tropes present there. But what are you expecting
from guess? Um, Yeah, I think this is maybe too
high and on I like, did I enjoy watching this movie?
From a zero to five scale, I would give this
movie zero nipples, but sorry, But from a you know,

(01:26:29):
is it doing some interesting things? Sure? I guess two nipples,
and I'll give one two live Tyler's crop top, and
I'll give one to the line of dialogue you are six.
I'm gonna do something weird here, and I'm gonna give

(01:26:51):
nipple rating to the actual movie and a nipple writing
to the movie that I think it was going to
be prior to being released. Okay, the actual movie, I'm
going to give one nipple too, because it's so messy
and it's like, I there are the like seeds of
so many interesting things. But because of the way the
movie was edited and marketed and rewritten outside of like

(01:27:15):
the writer's original vision, I feel like it does miss
the mark a lot of the time, and I like
totally echo I mean the nineties like extreme you know,
white middle class heterosexuality, which is true of basically the
whole genre at this time. But even on top of that,
like it's so it's like I see, I would say

(01:27:36):
I had a five out of five nipple experience watching
this movie because we were we were just like I
was paying such close attention, waiting for something that makes sense,
and like it was so fun to be like, huh,
what he's got a gun? Like what is happening? Um,
So healing experience was incredible. I it's it's always like,
you know, kind of disappointing in a way again that

(01:27:58):
it's like not the writer or director's fault to see
a teen movie try to approach serious issues that could
have been impactful if they had been given some room
to breathe and then see a kind of undercut. So
I give one nipple to the movie that came out,
and I'll give that to Live Tyler's Crop Top. I'm
going to give three nipples to the movie that I

(01:28:19):
like think was in there, maybe even three and a half,
Like if you had gotten like Debrah's you know, full
backstory and like gotten to fully realize a self harm
narrative that had a positive ending for the character in
a teen movie. I think that that could have been
a really cool, impactful storyline if it was done thoughtfully.

(01:28:41):
Sam goes for the Lift Tyler storyline. Sam goes for
the sludge shaming storyline with Gina like I and um,
like Carol was saying in her interview with you, Shelly,
like it sounds like the Gina Corey friendship was so
much more integral to the movie she wanted to make.
And I would have loved to have seen that. So

(01:29:02):
I'll give I'll have three and a half to the
movie that I that I think it was at one point,
And I'll give those nipples to you are sex, I'll
give them to the dirty headphones. I'll give them to
the newscaster who's like the news is on live and
I'm like, yeah, we know, uh, and I'll give my

(01:29:24):
last half to the eyebrows. Yeah. I think like with
everything that you were saying about, you know, the sistness,
the whiteness, everything a part of it, putting on that
in and also taking all of that apart and being like, yeah,

(01:29:47):
there's this, there was more here than meets the eye,
or that's on the cuting room floor somewhere or in
someone's basement and rating the movie that we actually got,
I would definitely just give it like two stars and
or sorry to nipples letterbox, I'm sorry, how could you

(01:30:10):
cut it out? Sorry? That wasn't me. Actually that was
Shreky that said stars. I would give it to nipples
um and the one Nipple, of course, goes to live
Tie was crap top like that will forever get one
and the other one I think goes for like what

(01:30:32):
it was trying to do, like everything that it was
trying to do, what it could have been, all the
holes in the story and stuff like that, because I
think they're saying something if you can not only find
the holes in the story but then be like, oh,
there's more to this. I think if your mind when
you're watching it is like, instead of just being like, oh,

(01:30:53):
that doesn't make sense and then throwing it aside, if instead,
when you're watching a movie and you're like, wait a minute,
there was something actually there and something just got sucked up,
then you can be like, you can appreciate it a
little bit more. So that's what my nipple rating scale is.
But in a universe where none of this happened, and

(01:31:14):
I'm in middle school and I'm watching this this movie
that was not meant for this, like black Girl, Midwest
middle class, like Weirdo come in, I give it like
five because it made me fucking happy, Like it made
me happy. It made me happy, and I made memories
with it. I danced around my room to it. I

(01:31:36):
would like acted out in certain scenes when I would
watch at different times, like and then I got to
like write about it for twenty five year anniversary and
stuff and talk to the person who made it. So
for that, I give it five in that world. But
that's it amazing. I'm thank you for bringing up this
movie because it really was like, of course fun worm hole.

(01:32:00):
This is like one of my favorite chaos conversations on
the show. And sometimes truly, Yeah, come back anytime I want.
And um, tell us where people can follow you on
social media, read your writing, anything else you want to plug. Well,

(01:32:23):
if you just type in Shreky on Twitter, you'll find you.
Just type that in, you'll find me. It's totally fine.
Um No, I'm mostly on Twitter at Hi Shelley, and
then I'm on Instagram at a Yo Shelley. On Twitter,
I just talked last year about movies and TV that
I want people to watch that I think they should

(01:32:44):
be watching. Um. And on Instagram, I'm just supposed to
keep pictures of myself. But yeah, and then I write
culture writer at auto Straddle and I write you know,
a lot of pieces there, but I also just edit
a lot of really dope new and emerging writers over
there too, actually black and brown fear writers. Um. And
then other than that, I writed a few other places.

(01:33:05):
I just anybody that wants to let me talk about
in a movie and pay me for it pretty much
to do it. So I'm there. You're real good at it,
Please keep doing it. Thank you, thank you. But that's
a truly come back anytime. Oh dope, I love you guys.
This is such a dope podcast. I remember when I
found it, and I really dig it every since, and yeah,

(01:33:29):
it's just dope. We're h and uh, yeah, I guess.
You can follow us on social media Twitter and Instagram
at Bechtel Cast. We've got our Patreon ak Matreon that
gets you to bonus episodes every single month. It's five
dollars a month, and you can hear such episodes as

(01:33:53):
the Stewart Little one, where Steve's on who again should
be in this movie? He says you with this friends
there man, some of my favorite matrons. You're like, you'd
think there's nothing to talk about in Stuart Little, but
there's a whole Gina Davis feminism conversation to be had.
So that's that's where. If you want more chaos. Uh,

(01:34:15):
you can also get our merch at t public dot
com slash v Becktel Cast. If you're so inclined, follow
us on Instagram, follow us on Twitter or don't, all
right or don't or do or do? Also give us
five nipples on Apple podcasts or whatever. Oh my gosh. Yeah,
because because people were getting really mad about the Zootopia

(01:34:37):
hive came for our comments section on Apple Podcasts. If
you could help out there that would actually rock because
I didn't realize how much people love um animal cops anyways.
All right, well that concludes rex spanning day on the
Bechtel cast Let's close up. It's midnight, so we gotta

(01:34:58):
go and for the fundraise their bye bye bye

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