Thanksgiving and The Ice Storm (1997)

On this week’s chilly episode of Dear Movies, I Love You, Millie and Casey interrogate their personal hatred of Thanksgiving, and they dive deep into the 1997 classic THE ICE STORM.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hey, Miley has a gun.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
Great party, Casey, great party, Casey, what are you talking about?
Great party?

Speaker 1 (00:11):
What do you mean? Have you tried the shrimp? It's incredible,
the shrimp.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
How could you think about shrimp at a time like this?
Do you know what kind of party this is?

Speaker 1 (00:20):
I thought this was just kind of like an around
Thanksgiving party. Not what's going on? Dude?

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Who has a round pigs Giving party? First of all?
Second of all, did you realize that this is a
key party?

Speaker 1 (00:34):
A key party? I don't do you even know? I
don't want a key part. What's a key party?

Speaker 2 (00:40):
A key party is some weird seventies thing where you
throw your keys into a bowl and then at the
end of the night, all the women take turns fishing
keys out of the bowl and that's who you go
home with. It's like a go a swinger's key, go
home with other people party.

Speaker 1 (00:57):
Oh fuck, this is like a swing wingers thing. Shit.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
Yes, and I just got married my husband Hunter, and
I like, this is a disaster. He threw his keys
in the bowl almost immediately, like the minute we walked in.

Speaker 1 (01:11):
Yeah, Hunter Biden, I saw him. They the keys jettisoned
out of his hand. Into the bowl. I saw it
a meet with my eyes. I was wondering what was going.

Speaker 2 (01:19):
On, Jesus the way, we feel bad about myself just
because he literally was not even through the doorframe before
his keys went sailing through the room into this fucking bowl, which,
by the way, I just thought we were putting our
keys down right, That's.

Speaker 1 (01:35):
What I thought too. My keys are in there. I
gotta get them out. Tricia will be furious with me.
I'm married, for God's sakes, Milli, What are you gonna do?
Are you gonna just wait till the end of the
night and pick some other random keys, hoping they're hunters?
Are you gonna go home with some random man?

Speaker 2 (01:48):
Well, let's get serious. I think he's not gonna want
me to pick him.

Speaker 1 (01:52):
Wow, this is a real This is a real conundrum, Milly. Wow, Wow,
all of those at a key party, Jesus Christ. Well, well,
I'll tell you right now.

Speaker 2 (02:01):
It's a similar conundrum that faces the characters of the
movie that we're talking about this week, which is.

Speaker 1 (02:07):
The Ice Storm from nineteen ninety seven. You're correct, this
exact scenario happens to the characters of that movie. What
a quinky beat?

Speaker 2 (02:14):
What aquinkyd can be And we're going to talk about
this movie as it's part of a tradition. It's a
very small tradition of films which take place around Thanksgiving,
which we've both talked about in the past as being
our least favorite holiday.

Speaker 1 (02:30):
Yeah, there are a surprising very few Thanksgiving movies, but
I will say the hit rate is pretty high. I
feel like the all Thanksgiving movies I generally like why,
which is interesting because I don't like the holiday that much.

Speaker 2 (02:43):
Right, Why do you think that they don't make a
lot of Thanksgiving movies Is because they have to cook
too many turkeys.

Speaker 1 (02:49):
Oh, that's interesting. The budget of the film would just
skyrocket because of the amount of turkeys they have to
cook in the movie. Maybe, yeah, maybe it's a shitty
holiday and there's not much to say about.

Speaker 2 (02:59):
It, but it's also a holiday that is really like
explores the idea of family. I think more more so
on Thanksgiving than Christmas, weirdly enough, and maybe it's because
we're all forced to sit at the same table together
something I don't know.

Speaker 1 (03:14):
I think there's a lot less business with Thanksgiving, Like
there is just a lot of like nothing, a lot
of hanging out. We're like Christmas. There's presence, there's caroling.
I don't know, there's caroling, yes, exactly.

Speaker 2 (03:27):
Thanks Thanksgiving really makes you stare down family members in
the fucking face, and in a way that Christmas allows
a little distance.

Speaker 1 (03:38):
You're right, It really makes you stare down your new
husband as some tramp is pulling his keys out of
the key bowl.

Speaker 2 (03:47):
You know. And I make the wrong decision and get
married to Hunter Biden, I don't know.

Speaker 1 (03:52):
Don't judge your marriage based on one one key party
gone awry, you know. But we got a great show.
I'm excited to I'm very excited to talk about this movie.
Me too.

Speaker 2 (04:03):
So stay tuned. Everybody. You are listening to Dear Movies,
I love you, Dear, I love you, and I've got
to know you love me too. Check the books. Hey, y'all,

(04:29):
you are listening to dear Movies. I love you. This
is a podcast for those who are in a relationship
with movies. My name is Millie.

Speaker 1 (04:37):
To Jericho, my name is Casyo Brain. And yes, this.

Speaker 2 (04:42):
Week we are celebrating what we analyzing, analyzing perhaps the
worst holiday, definitely fraught with controversy, I would say.

Speaker 1 (04:57):
But why don't you like Thanksgiving?

Speaker 2 (05:00):
Because Okay, I feel like I feel like I've talked
about this before, so if I talked about it on
this podcast or my previous podcast, I apologize. I don't
like Thanksgiving because it feels like it's in between two
very strong holidays. Yeah, okay, Halloween and Christmas, both of
which are getting longer by the year.

Speaker 1 (05:21):
Right, They're really invading.

Speaker 2 (05:23):
They're really invading. And I feel like, from a like
a consumerism perspective, if you will, Halloween is fucking terribly long,
Like they start putting out Halloween stuff now in the summertime, right,
and then the minute Halloween is over, they transition immediately
to Christmas.

Speaker 1 (05:42):
Right.

Speaker 2 (05:43):
Yeah, So to me, I feel like I think we're
edging out Thanksgiving naturally, I have to say, but I
also think that it's a day. It sucks. It's you know,
it's it's problematic at best. Historic. It's just kind of
a nothing holiday where we eat food, which we also

(06:05):
eat at Christmas. So it's like, what's the point everybody
has jerky at Christmas now too? I guess it's only
for football people and that maybe it exists for Black
Friday shoppers, but that's it.

Speaker 1 (06:18):
Yeah, I think it's just like such a I think
it's a combination of things. It's the worst weather of
the year. It's just like dead and cold and not
beautiful a lot of the times in my neck of
the woods and in a lot of the country, I
feel like, and also you're like eating this heavy meal

(06:39):
like in the middle of the day and then you
just kind of like lay around drunken fat for like
hours at a time with your family members, and you're
like you never have I feel like I never hang
out with my family in the way that I do
on Thanksgiving, and it's like feels very unnatural, like we're
just like sitting there motionless together. I don't know.

Speaker 2 (07:01):
Well, but here's my argument though, ultimately, is that that's
already happening during Christmas.

Speaker 1 (07:07):
I agree, Christmas Day.

Speaker 2 (07:09):
Feels like Thanksgiving Day now, where everybody opens presents really early,
nobody really changes out of pajamas, and then we have
a big meal and then everybody sits around and then
eventually people like anybody want to go to the movies
And I'm like, sure, like that's kind of like what
Thanksgiving is. So it's almost kind of.

Speaker 1 (07:27):
Like, well, it's a redundancy.

Speaker 2 (07:29):
It's it's that's exactly my point. It's a redundancy that
we can now get rid of. It's like the vestigital tale,
like we don't have it anymore, we don't need it.
Let's just move on, you know.

Speaker 1 (07:40):
Or we need to like figure out because I like
this is sort of a different conversation. But I really
like New Year's Eve. But because that is such a
different event than other holidays, it's different, it's late at night,
you know, So maybe we need to kind of maybe
Thanksgiving can be a breakfast thing, and that would like
re energy the holiday.

Speaker 2 (08:02):
Yeah, we need to rethink it completely. I didn't to
rebrand it. Yeah, it needs a complete rebrand. I mean
it is like people don't feel good about it. As
one of the characters in The Ice Storm aka Christina Ricci,
she clocked the whole thing about the Native Americans and
all that stuff in this film, and this is exactly

(08:25):
the point. Nobody feels good about it. So it's kind
of like, let's just rethink it, rebrand it, make it
a breakfast thing, and that's it.

Speaker 1 (08:33):
Breakfast burritos are the new Turkey. Yay uh mellly, let's
open up our film diary to discuss the movies we
watched this last week.

Speaker 2 (08:45):
Yes, my foe arms, it's so heavy.

Speaker 1 (08:49):
Millie, what have you watched? Tell me?

Speaker 2 (08:52):
Well, I watched only one film in between last episode
and this episode, but I felt like it was a
good one because I feel like we kind of talked
about it. I have to say our episode that we
did a few weeks back during our Halloween month, the
one that we did on hell Raiser was quite a

(09:12):
barn burner.

Speaker 1 (09:13):
That was it.

Speaker 2 (09:14):
It was a barn burner. Not gonna lie. And I
decided to watch hell Bound hell Raiser two from nineteen
eighty eight. Man, what a what a picture? What a picture.

Speaker 1 (09:30):
They spend more time in kind of the the Pinhead realm,
the Cenobite realm in this one. I feel like, am
I correct?

Speaker 2 (09:40):
You're absolutely correct? And also I have to say I
was completely wrong about Kirsty Cotton, even though you had
really oversold the idea that I thought she was a
terrible person and shouldn't be included in the franchise at all.
That's not exactly true, but I did I believe that
she was a stand out in the first film. I

(10:01):
guess not man, I revise that opinion completely. She's incredible
in Too. She's incredible in Too.

Speaker 1 (10:08):
That's great. I love to hear that she has a lot.

Speaker 2 (10:11):
Of like punchy cussing lines which make me laugh.

Speaker 1 (10:14):
Yes, yes, you get to know about pin Head's backstory
a little bit too, right.

Speaker 2 (10:20):
Yeah. Yeah, And man, I gotta tell you, Julia Woo,
she is a force in two. She is absolutely incredible.
I do love the flashbacks. They show a couple of flashbacks,
which you know, I appreciate. But then they introduced this,
like other fucked up character, the doctor is a doctor.

Speaker 1 (10:46):
Huh. I mean it's kind of like it is just funny.
It's like they kind of happen upon another freak. It's
like their doctor, the freak doctor.

Speaker 2 (10:54):
Oh and all said two. It made me realize something.
This has to be like I cannot be the first
person that has come up with this or clocked this,
But I would like to know just how many horror
movie sequels involve mental hospitals.

Speaker 1 (11:18):
That is a really interesting question.

Speaker 2 (11:22):
So many, yes, Because that's it feels like the quick
and easy way to set up a second film for
a horror franchise is to just assume that the main
character is crazy, and so you just have to put
them in a mental institution.

Speaker 1 (11:42):
And it is always such a bummer to come back
to that second one, and it's like, well, I thought
the hero kind of got away and was free in
the first one, but it's like, the events that transpired
between the two movies are really bad for our main
main character and they've been, you know, imprisoned in a
mental institution.

Speaker 2 (11:58):
Well shit, I mean, this is horror movie, but I
mean that's the setup for Terminator to a Judgment Day.

Speaker 1 (12:04):
That's and also returned to Oz. Did you ever see
that creepy ass movie. Yes, I have. I'm like, Dorothy's
in a mental institution. I don't know.

Speaker 2 (12:13):
It's just just so funny because you're basically like, oh, well,
in order for the story to continue, let's just pretend
that the first one was a some kind of crazy,
delusional dream.

Speaker 1 (12:25):
That was yeah, you know, or there's like there was
no evidence any of that happened, and it's like, really, well,
that happened in Child's Play also, yeah, I think for
Child's Play too, the little boy is said to a
foster parents because they're like, your mom was putting a
mental institution because she was talking about some chucky do
all come to life.

Speaker 2 (12:43):
It's like, yeah, I think it happens in uh, well
it's nightmare or yeah, nightmare on Elm Street. There's definitely
a mental Institution sequel at some point. It has to
be more. There's got to be more on that, uh I,
And I cannot imagine that I'm the first person who
has thought of it.

Speaker 1 (13:04):
So maybe a sub stack post is in order.

Speaker 2 (13:08):
Maybe there's a letterbox list to be created. Oh, there
you go to be looked up.

Speaker 1 (13:13):
But anyway, that's good, Melly, that's a good thing that
you just brought up.

Speaker 2 (13:16):
Well, and it's like part of the whole hilarity of
Kirsty and the second hell Raiser is that she's in
this mental institution that she's kind of like, she becomes
friends with one of the doctors, like I see you,
I believe you, and it's just so it's just so funny.
But anyway, I have to say there was some crazy
crazy things also, by the way, not for nothing. I

(13:37):
have to say this because I talked about the industrial
goth music element to the hell Raiser movies in that
episode that we did. My friend Ben kindly reminded me
that there is a song by the band Ministry called
Just One Fix that actually samples the scream from Hell

(14:01):
Raiser two. So there's like this crazy scream. I think
it's like Julia and Kirsey, maybe together or maybe just Julia,
but anyway, it's in the song.

Speaker 1 (14:09):
That's good. Yeah, it's a good scream.

Speaker 2 (14:11):
Good scream to sample. Anyway. Well that's all I saw
this week. Did you see anything.

Speaker 1 (14:20):
I saw a lot of stuff. I saw two movies
in theaters. One was an old, older movie. But I
saw Bogonia Your Ghosts.

Speaker 2 (14:33):
Yeah, I keep hearing about it.

Speaker 1 (14:37):
I was on the show Maximum Film on the Maximum
Fun Network this week talking about Bogonia with the crew
over there, and actually it's out right now today on
the day we're recording, it's already out, so you can
listen to it. Go back. I'm the guest excellent Bogonia.

(14:58):
You know, I I haven't been loving Your ghost Lanthemos's
recent output. I did not see kind of kindness, kinds
of kindness, but I didn't really like poor things. And
I didn't really like the Favorite either.

Speaker 2 (15:12):
Oh man, I liked the Favorite.

Speaker 1 (15:15):
The Favorite was probably my favorite. One of the most
recent ones come out. But I feel like his earlier
movies like The Lobster and The Sacred Dear Movie and
Dog Tooth, I felt like those were kind of like
posing interesting questions and being like, what about this fucked
up situation? I was like, oh interesting where. I feel

(15:36):
like his later output has been more like statement based.
He's like saying something specific, and I find what he's
saying in these movies not that interesting. Like Poor Things,
for example. I felt like his strong message at the
end was like women should be able to think for themselves,
and I was like, yeah, no, they shouldn't.

Speaker 2 (15:57):
That's what you were thinking.

Speaker 1 (15:59):
Yeah, that's what I was.

Speaker 2 (16:00):
I can't believe they even have jobs.

Speaker 1 (16:02):
Well, Drea Clark already made this joke on Maximum Film.
She said, you heard it here first Casey O'Brien hates women.
So but I was just saying, like I know that, no,
du so, I don't know. I just have not been
as intrued. I wasn't like. I thought this was a
cool concept and it's beautiful and well acted, but I

(16:24):
just was sort of like, by the end of it,
I was kind of bored.

Speaker 2 (16:28):
So it said it was based on the two thousand
and three South Korean film Save the Green Planet.

Speaker 1 (16:34):
Which I have not seen and has been on my
watch list forever.

Speaker 2 (16:37):
But yeah, you think that Emma Stone is going to
be in every single one of his movies until he dies?

Speaker 1 (16:43):
Yes, I do every single one, okay, And yeah she's
fine in this, She's kind of doing her Emma Stone thing.
I wasn't like. I don't know. I just I walked
away feeling kind of nothing for this, and I feel
like this is the type of movie I usually really like,
So I don't know.

Speaker 2 (17:00):
Also, just just as shout out, they shot part of
it here in Atlanta, Georgia.

Speaker 1 (17:05):
I believe it is set in Georgia. Yeah, the movie
is set there.

Speaker 2 (17:08):
So uh.

Speaker 1 (17:09):
I also watched a movie at the Trylon Theater in
Minneapolis for their tape Freaks night. It's a nineteen eighty
six movie called Magic Crystal Star. It's a martial arts
movie starring Cynthia rot Rothrock and Andy Lao, and I
love Cynthia Rothrock and the action sequences were incredible. The

(17:32):
fight sequences were amazing. But the comedy, it's like kind
of a comedy martial arts movie, kind of a Lah
Jackie Chan, but it's also fantastical, and the jokes were
so bad that it was like confounding to watch. And
also there's like this magic little crystal, the magic crystal,

(17:53):
the eponymous magic crystal, and it like grows a penis
and once you touch it, it's they say it's a finger,
but it looks so phallic and once you touch it
you get magic powers. So there's just like a lot
of bizarre things going on. But I did enjoy watching it,

(18:14):
and it was like that the fighting was very good,
so fantastic. Those are kind of the big two I
watched this week. But that's it. That's all I got
for my film diary.

Speaker 2 (18:25):
All Right, I guess we're closing it, close it.

Speaker 1 (18:40):
Okay, we're back and it is time for the Ice
Storm from nineteen ninety seven, directed by Onley, screenplay by
James Shamou, based on the book by Rick Moody. Just
some cataloging. This is a period piece in the nineteen seventies.
It's a drama. It's a coming of age movie to
Thanksgiving movie. Some themes family politics, sexual revolution, feminism, key parties.

(19:08):
There's a lot of big actors in this movie, huge standout.
I was sort of thinking of this movie as compared
to The Big Chill, maybe because Kevin Klein is in
both of them. Yes, and how this one's like not chill,
you know, not as funny, not as funny, but not enough.

Speaker 2 (19:25):
People dancing around the kitchen to motown classics case.

Speaker 1 (19:30):
Kevin Klein, Sigourney Weaver, Joe Allen, Christina Ricci, Elijah Wood,
Toby McGuire, Katie Holmes, David Crumholts, some big time actors
both young and old. Horrible Uh, famous quotes? Can you
read this one, Millie? This is one of your favorite

(19:51):
lines in the movie.

Speaker 2 (19:52):
Oh well, I was just gonna say famous quotes. I
don't really know. There's a lot of funny lines in
the movie. Yes, but you know there's this whole runner
throughout the film which I don't feel like this is
giving really much away upfront, but basically, Toby maguire's character
is reading a comic book and it's The Fantastic Four,

(20:13):
and it's kind of this allegory for his family life, really,
which is that, you know, the Fantastic Four is a family,
and you kind of have this dynamic with families, sometimes
blood related and otherwise. And he says this thing very
early on in the film, which is kind of encapsulating

(20:36):
this message, and he says, your family is the void
you emerge from and the place you return to when
you die. And that's the paradox. The closer you're drawn
back in, the deeper into the void you go.

Speaker 1 (20:54):
That's good. I wonder if the Fantastic four element was
a part of the book at all. If you read
the book book.

Speaker 2 (21:00):
No, and you want to know something shameful. I downloaded
it to my kindle probably like five years ago and
have not opened it.

Speaker 1 (21:13):
I haven't touched it.

Speaker 2 (21:15):
It is unopened on my kindles, yeah, or my kindle
law app not the Actually I don't have an actual kindle,
but you know what I mean, we.

Speaker 1 (21:22):
Got to get you a kindle. Maybe that's what's in
the way of you reading it on there.

Speaker 2 (21:25):
Well, I have an iPad, so I was like, oh, well,
I'll just read my iPad. But then I just like forget.
I forget books on my iPad. And this is the thing,
this is why I'm gonna say, I keep buying books
because I just can't if they're out, if they're not
in my presence, I forget that I have them.

Speaker 1 (21:43):
So yeah, no, I totally get that. What's your personal
connection to this movie? Millie. I'm trying to ask this,
not like Jimny.

Speaker 2 (21:52):
It's impossible, dude, you're gonna do.

Speaker 1 (21:54):
A personal connection with this movie.

Speaker 2 (21:56):
I think it's your speech impediment.

Speaker 1 (21:58):
Dude.

Speaker 2 (21:59):
It's just how I and you try to get rid
of it, but you cannot stop asking me questions.

Speaker 1 (22:05):
Like Jimmy Glick, I saw a speech therapist, but they
couldn't do anything for me.

Speaker 2 (22:12):
So I remember this like it was yesterday. My friend
April Ledbetter, who is a good friend of mine. I've
known her ever since we were teenagers. She runs amazing
record label, reissue record label here in Atlanta called Dust Digital.

(22:34):
She runs it with her husband, Lance Ledbetter, and they're
good friends of mine. But she I remember this as
clear as day. I remember we were. Was I in
the dorms? I must have been in the dorms my
freshman year of college nineteen ninety seven, And I remember
she goes, Hey, So onng Lee's new movie, The Ice

(22:55):
Storm is playing in Athens. Do you want to drive
to Athens to see The Ice Storm? And Athens is
roughly about an hour and some change away from Atlanta.
The majority of it takes place on this very long
and boring road called three sixteen aka the Atlanta Highway,

(23:17):
which the B fifty two sang about in Love Shack.
But it's you know, it's it's usually like during the
day fine, but at night it can be kind of,
you know, desolate and dark and scary. But anyway, I
was like, sure, I'll drive to Athens to see a movie.
Why not, And we drove up there. I actually did
not know much about on Lee at all. She did,

(23:39):
which means she's way cooler than me. But in ninety
seven I wouldn't have known. I wouldn't have known him,
at least not at this time. But anyway, we drove
to Athens to see the ice storm. But I remember thinking, God,
this is because it was also cold, and I want
to say it was also like around in the fall
or in winter, and I was rocked. I was like,

(24:02):
this is such a great film. It felt like such
a discovery. And then we drove back later that night afterwards,
and I just remember thinking, I mean, this is like
in line with all of these like family drama movies
that I love so much and have loved throughout the years.
You know, one of them is will be my film

(24:24):
recommendation this week, so I don't want to give it away.
But you know, Steven, stuff that I've talked about before,
like ingmar Bergman scenes for marriage or you know, like
like stuff about like families and marital strife and kids
and parents. I don't know, it's just is such a
good movie and I still love it. I still love it.

(24:44):
I've seen it probably like I don't know six times.

Speaker 1 (24:48):
I love it.

Speaker 2 (24:49):
What about you?

Speaker 1 (24:50):
You know, It's interesting because when I first saw this movie,
The Ice Storm was definitely in that like type when
I started getting into movies like as an art form
and like seeking out more artsy movies, which was probably
around the year like two thousand and one when I
was like fourteen, and The Ice Storm was definitely in

(25:12):
that like list of movies that it was like, this
is artsy, but also like was nominated for stuff at
the Academy Awards. You know, It's like it's not an
indie movie. It's like but it's like art house, you know,
and it's kind of on the list of movies that
you need to see to be like, say, you're a cinephile,
and I think watching it this time, I was like, wow,

(25:34):
this was Originally I feel like this really would have
blown my mind when it came out because there were
so many copycat movies of this, or there's a lot
of movies I kind of cribbed from this movie I
felt like or were just kind of similar in vibe
because I think I saw American Beauty and The Virgin
Suicides before I saw The Ice Storm, and so when

(25:56):
I saw The Ice Storm, I was kind of like, yeah,
I've seen this before. It was like less revolutionary for
me when I first saw it, But I've seen this
movie probably three or four times, and on this last viewing,
I was like really affected by it and really connected
to it. And this has sort of been a theme

(26:17):
for me lately, but I've been connecting with movies that
just sort of missed me when I was younger, and
I'm like, you know, this movie isn't really I don't
know if like a fifteen year old kid who would
connect with The Ice Storm as much as like, I
don't know a thirty seven year old guy, you know.
So I this time, I was very affected by it

(26:37):
and saw it in kind of a completely new light.
So it was really a really enjoyable movie viewing experience
for me this time.

Speaker 2 (26:47):
Well, and you know what's really interesting about this film, Like,
just to go back to the awards thing, this did
not get nominated for an Academy Award.

Speaker 1 (26:55):
Oh it didn't. No it Wow, I'm surprised to hear that.

Speaker 2 (26:58):
Well, it won Best Screenplay, it got the Palm d'Or
Best Screenplay. Okay, at can it won it? But no,
it didn't get nominated. And this is the thing I
want to like talk about when it comes to something
like American Beauty, which won all the awards.

Speaker 1 (27:14):
Right, yes, I'm.

Speaker 2 (27:15):
Sitting here going I feel like The Ice Doorm is
sort of a sleeper because it came out it is,
but it didn't like make a shit ton of money.
It was I will say it was an art house movie.
It was definitely a movie that was made for adults,
which is something I very much appreciate now. Yes, even

(27:37):
though when I was in college and I wasn't a
shithead face, I did watch a ton of art house
films and I did appreciate directors like Ongley because Onglee
was making movies for adults. Let's get serious. There was
like a handful of directors in the nineties that were
that were making art house movies that were about adults.

(28:00):
They had adult characters and adult themes and that kind
of stuff, and I there's been a lot of talk
about how those movies don't exist anymore, which I tend
to agree with. I think that a lot of people
have suggested that those movies are now just television shows,
which I also agree with.

Speaker 1 (28:19):
And they're there are the type of television show where
it's like you watch them and there's like three good
episodes and four kind of bad ones. And I feel
like there's a lot of TV shows now when you
finish them, you're like, I should have been a movie.

Speaker 2 (28:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (28:31):
I don't know if you have that experience, but that's
how I feel about a lot of these adult driven
TV shows now.

Speaker 2 (28:37):
Yeah, exactly. And it's like, but if you look at
like the if you just look at the facts about
the ice storm in nineteen ninety seven, I mean it
did not get nominated for an Oscar, I feel like
it should have. It feels like it should have way
way before American Beauty, which I feel like, Yeah, I
don't know, I'm gonna maybe this is shots fired or something,

(28:57):
but I think The Ice Storm is a way better
movie than American Beauty. Personally, I.

Speaker 1 (29:03):
Would agree with you one hundred percent. And I think
that The Ice Storm is held in higher regard. Now
that's what I think. Yeah, I don't know if that's true,
but that's what I think.

Speaker 2 (29:12):
I think so too. And then on top of that,
I mean it says that the budget for The Ice
Storm was eighteen million and the box office was only
sixteen millions. It didn't even make it. It didn't even
break even, yeah, which is so shocking, Like it feels
like a movie like this, I don't know what happened.
There's so many good people in it. It's an amazing story,

(29:33):
amazing people across the board, director, writer, everything, cinematographer. And
then yet it kind of didn't make much of a splash,
which is sad. And I think that's maybe why I
champion it so much, because I'm just like, this movie
is a gem, and like more people should know it's
a gem. I don't know if yes, maybe that's a

(29:55):
bad ministry to have, but I feel like it's I
feel like a.

Speaker 1 (29:58):
Half, but I think it was. I think even if
it didn't succeed at the box office or the Academy Awards.
I think it was known pretty quickly thereafter as like, oh,
this is like an excellent this is like what the
real the real head's like. That's how I felt when
I was kind of coming up in the world of,
you know, becoming a real movie fan.

Speaker 2 (30:17):
I want to be known as real head cases.

Speaker 1 (30:20):
Yeah, hell yeah. Well let's get into the plot a
little bit. Okay, if you don't mind, If you haven't
seen this movie, I would say there isn't a The
plot is a little loosey goosey. It's kind of a
vibe movie, and it is a yeah, it's a moody movie,

(30:45):
you know. So We're in New Cannon, Connecticut, Connecticut in
nineteen seventy three over the Thanksgiving break. There are two families.
We're concentrating on the Hoods and the Carvers. Ben Hood
played by Kevin Klein. He is having an affair with
Jane Carver played by Sigourney Weaver, the icy Janie Carver.

(31:06):
Kevin Klein's wife is Elena played by Joan Allen, and
her character I could describe as lost and miserable. At
one point early on, she gets caught shoplifting at the
local pharmacy, she just sort of seems stuck. And their
daughter Wendy Hood played by Christina Ricci, she is a

(31:27):
sexually curious teen, and their son Paul Hood, who's played
by Toby maguire. He is away at boarding school. So
the whole beginning of this movie is sort of just
setting up who these people are, where they're at in
their lives, and kind of the general vibe of the

(31:50):
whole place, you know. So like we kind of touched upon,
Like there's movies that we seem sort of like similar
to this one, are like influenced kind of by this one.
But I feel like so much there were so many
like nineties music and movies about kind of like the
fear of suburbia and like the fear of being bored

(32:16):
in suburbia. And I feel like, in some ways now
that feels like a quaint problem to have. What do
you think about that?

Speaker 2 (32:26):
So here in Atlanta, which is, you know, where I
grew up, I have a lot of friends who who
have had kids who have moved back out to the burbs.
So maybe you know you're from somewhere like Roswell, or
you're from somewhere like Duluth. You graduate high school, you
move downtown into Atlanta, and then you hang out for

(32:48):
a while, and then you have kids, and then you're like,
oh shit, I'd rather raise my kids out in the
burbs where I can have a good school system and
a bigger house, and then they move back out to
those places. So I have a lot of friends that
have done that, moved back out to where they grew up,
and over the past couple of weeks, a lot of
them have wanted to hang out and like had they

(33:09):
had it. I went out to a big Halloween party
out in the burbs where I'm from and was tripes
around my old neighborhood and seeing this whole suburban life again,
and I was like, damn, this is crazy out here.
It is crazy out here. I was like that, first
of all, the houses are just so much bigger that

(33:29):
there's like neighborhoods in that way with like you know,
Hoa's and like you know, like these really nice signs
with like landscaping neighbors, like the kind of neighbors that
you would hang out with, like in the movie The
Ice Storm. And also it's just like but also the
feeling like talking to some people who are maybe a

(33:52):
little unsure of being out there who missed the city
and are like, oh shit, like why did I move
out here? There's nothing to do out here. I feel
like such a such a mom, like a suburban mom,
and there's feeling of like and there and we had
you kind of have these conversations where they're kind of

(34:13):
looking at me and they'll be like, tell me about
all the craziness that's happening down there, and I'm like,
it's really not crazy, it's just different. And so I
feel like there was this moment I was having over
the past couple of weeks where I was just talking
to friends and I feel like I'm like, wow, it's back.
It's the suburban on we is back. The feeling of

(34:35):
like maybe am I stuck out here?

Speaker 1 (34:38):
Is this?

Speaker 2 (34:38):
It is this like is there culture out here? Is
there a life for me out here? And I'm like
that's crazy to think about just for me, you know,
because I, like I said, I still live downtown, but.

Speaker 1 (34:54):
Pill yeah, but did you so you grew up in
the suburbs.

Speaker 2 (34:57):
Yeah, I mean I basically went to high school out
in Marietta, which is a suburb of Atlanta, and hated it,
absolutely fucking hated it. I've got on record many times
about that. It was not for me at all. Yeah,
And I was always trying to go downtown. That was
like my mission. And it's so funny because I think

(35:19):
about the Christina Ricci character Wendy, and I mean, she's
a lot more bold than I was at her age,
but I saw a lot of myself and her, especially
the political stuff, just being like a loud mouth, and
I at her age she's supposed to be fourteen in

(35:39):
the movie. Oh yeah, I was going downtown. I was
like getting in cars with my friends and being like,
let's go to Junkman's Daughter, Let's go into Oxford Comics
or eat it Fellini's Like, you know, I was like
wanting to so I'm like Wendy. Instead of maybe sitting

(36:00):
in front of the TV and eating candy, I would
have just been like, take me to what's the big
town in Connecticut's the where's the happen in town in Connecticut?

Speaker 1 (36:10):
Do you know? Well, I think they would go into
the city. They'd go into like Manhattan.

Speaker 2 (36:13):
Oh, they'd go to Manhattan.

Speaker 1 (36:14):
Oh, you're absolutely right about that.

Speaker 2 (36:15):
I forgot. Yeah, I would have been on a bus
going into Manhattan if I was that girl.

Speaker 1 (36:21):
But yeah, yeah, it is interesting. I grew up in
Minneapolis proper, oh wow, and then I went to school
in the suburbs, and there was this whole thing. There
was sort of this dividing line between like the Minneapolis
kids and the suburban kids. Well, the suburban kids always
had way more money, sure, and they were just I
don't know, they felt like they were kind of from

(36:42):
a different world. And I was always you know, us
Minneapolis kids were like, we would never live in the suburbs.
We can't live out there. Yeah, And so it was
interesting coming back to Minneapolis after living in Los Angeles
for seventeen years to find a lot of those kids
moved out to the burbs. Yeah, and I think just
from conversations with them, they have that same sort of

(37:05):
on we kind of like or they are like really
defensive of it. Yes, they want to like get ahead
of the the the argument that they might be like
less cultured or they're raising their children in a less
cultured environment or something. But it is interesting. It's still
it's still there. It's still there. Yeah. But you know,
this movie is you know, there's a lot of movies

(37:28):
kind of and shows said in the nineteen seventies, Do
you like the seventies vibe of this movie and other
movies like this? Do you like entering that world where
you could smoke in a living room and it's totally fine?

Speaker 2 (37:40):
Yeah, I mean I think it has to be. It
is definitely a case by case basis for sure, because
you can you can either be gold Member, right, you
could be like Foxy Cleopatra gold Member, or you could
be something like this, which it feels very lived in,

(38:01):
which is what I love about the Ice Storm. It's
almost kind of like you believe that these people are
in the world. It doesn't feel like artifice, like like
in the in the kind of way that maybe, you know,
even something like that seventies show.

Speaker 1 (38:18):
It feels much more grounded in the reality.

Speaker 2 (38:20):
Yes, it feels more like you're watching again, like an
Igmar Bergman movie from the seventies, versus like something that's
like check out these bell bottoms Watergate. I mean, even
though they do talk about Nixon and Watergate, they're not
having the like the like stupid fucking you know montage
sequence of to everything term. I mean, it's like, you know,

(38:44):
they're just it's not like Forrest fucking Gump.

Speaker 1 (38:47):
It's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, Well, is there a character
in this that you feel like, because there's so many
characters that are having their own existential journeys, is there
a character that you view this movie kind of through
now in your cur place of life or has it
always been the same character?

Speaker 2 (39:05):
I mean, I mean, I'll say this, I feel like
the movie is it's so much about the women. For me, Like,
even though there are sort of, you know, elements to
some of the male characters, like the Toby Maguire character,

(39:25):
that Kevin Klein character, even the Jamie Sheridan character that
are kind of interesting, they it just gets completely I mean,
they get fucking sidelined by these women, which is so
interesting to me. And it's what makes me like the
movie a lot more because I'm just so drawn to
Joan Allen, Sigourney Weaver, and Christina Ricci and it feels

(39:48):
like there's almost kind of like a high mid low
thing happening where these are three women who are operating
in the And by the way, I have to covey
on all of this by saying I did talk about
this movie on I saw what you did, so I
apologize if I'm repeating myself at all. I feel like

(40:11):
I'm not, but you know I might be.

Speaker 1 (40:14):
I did.

Speaker 2 (40:14):
We did it a long time ago, by the way,
but you should check it out if you're going back
in the feed. Those are three women that are operating
in the same time and place, which is nineteen seventy three. Obviously,
like the women's movement is in full swing. There's so
much social upheaval that affects them, sexual revolution, and it's

(40:37):
almost kind of like you get to see the reactions
of three totally different types of women. Joan Allen being
the kind of traditional housewife but feeling very stuck, Sigourny
Weaver feeling very free and feeling like maybe she doesn't
know how she feels about that, and then Christina Ricci,

(41:02):
who is all fire, all passionate, all wanting to discover
and do everything, just experience everything. So that's I think
what I mean by like a high mid low reaction totally,
But for me personally now, I mean I think I
was obviously compelled by Sigourney Weaver when I first saw
this movie, because I thought she was, like, Wow, she's

(41:23):
so fabulous, and she's very like sure of herself and
what she wants and this kind of thing. But then
I feel like, now I kind of vacillate between Joan
Allen and Christina Ricci at this age.

Speaker 1 (41:37):
Yeah, for me, it's definitely Joan Allen. I think her
character is so fascinating because I think it's so interesting.
You don't really know what she wants, and she doesn't
really know what she wants, but it's just kind of
like this, ain't it right? You know? And I think
that mystery makes her even more enticing, where it's kind

(41:58):
of like, this isn't the life I wanted, but I
don't know what that life I do want is, you know,
And she's kind of just throwing spaghetti against the wall
in her own little world to see what if anything
can make her feel. You know. She steals makeup from
the pharmacy just to be like what if this is

(42:19):
who I am? Or like I want to ride my
bike through town. You know. She's just like she doesn't
know how to get out of her situation, and so
she's but she's also not like a rebellious person necessarily,
you know, And I don't know, she's an endlessly fascinating
person that I relate to. You know, it's like I've

(42:41):
had that feeling of being like I want out, yeah,
but not knowing out of what or where to go
right well.

Speaker 2 (42:49):
And it's interesting because her daughter is the Christini Reichi character,
and she is just like a bulldozer, like she's.

Speaker 1 (42:56):
Just like I do well yeah, And I think Joan
Allen admires her because she's said, like I saw you
riding your bike and you look so free, like like
like I want to be like you.

Speaker 2 (43:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (43:05):
You know, even though.

Speaker 2 (43:06):
Christina Ricci is a child and is just sort of
exploring and maybe doesn't even know well, definitely doesn't know
who she is and what she wants really, but the
idea that she acts first without thinking is the.

Speaker 1 (43:19):
Complete unert it.

Speaker 2 (43:21):
And you know, there's a scene that I think is
really interesting towards the beginning of the movie where basically
Joan Allen's character is out on the town and she's
like at a church. They're having a book sale in
the in the front lawn and you know, all the
books this is the seventies is a lot of like
self discovery, self help books. She's kind of going through

(43:41):
it and it kind of hovers on fear of flying
by Erica Jong, which of course was this huge, huge
novel that came out in nineteen seventy three that was
all about like female sexuality, and it's like a story
of a woman trying to discover herself, and it just,
you know, I think at that moment is kind of
the connection point between maybe like what Joan Allen's character

(44:02):
is feeling is that she's like needing her own path,
she needs, she wants to find herself. She's definitely a searcher,
you know. Yes, I'm curious what you think too, because
here's the thing about this scene. This happens early on.
She maets this like priest or pastor guy. Oh fuck
her is like total hippie and he's actually talking to

(44:24):
her during the scene where she's picking up the Erica
Jong book and again establishing her character as someone who's
kind of a seeker, and then in walks this like
fucking hippie priest and I'm like, oh, man, I hope
he doesn't snag her and put her in a cult
or something. Yeah, what did you think about him? Well?

Speaker 1 (44:44):
I think it kind of was indicative of the malleability
of kind of like predatory men. Like I feel like
you have this idea of men being kind of like
insensitive brutes, but you've seen I'm trying to figure out

(45:08):
the right way to describe how I felt about him,
But I just feel like there's a certain type of like, oh,
I'm a sensitive guy, and he gets allowed into like
sensitive creative spaces, but they end up being the worst
type of predator, gross guy, you know. And it's like
I feel like he's like this freeze thinker, but he's

(45:28):
still trying to like control Joan Allen and keep up
the patriarchy in a certain in a way? You know?
Does that make sense what I just saw?

Speaker 2 (45:36):
So it totally doesn't. He always manages to say something
that offends her, which is so funny, like and I
think he thinks he's being funny, but she's just like,
I mean, is that, well, why are you saying it
to me?

Speaker 1 (45:49):
Like that's so stupid?

Speaker 2 (45:50):
Yeah, Like, oh my god. That gets flushed out a
lot towards the end of the film where you really
do find out like just what a creepy is.

Speaker 1 (46:00):
Meaning I love I wrote down Joan Allen's line yeah,
where she says, I'm going to try very hard to
not understand the implications of that of something he says
later in the.

Speaker 2 (46:10):
Movie, Yeah, oh god, what a fucking scumback at the end.
But it's it's funny because again, I think it kind
of it gets back to that original point, which is
that I think the reason why her character becomes the
most fascinating character in the movie, especially I think as
you get older is that you're just like, yeah, I mean,

(46:31):
who isn't this? Who isn't alive for a certain amount
of time, have had a family, or have gone through
life and then has just kind of satin their tracks
and been like, huh am I doing when I'm supposed
to be doing? Is this right? Do I feel good?

Speaker 1 (46:47):
What's up? So I think there's like sort of this
element that it's like, Okay, there's all this freedom for
women that they haven't experienced prior to this time, place
and time, and now there is freedom to do stuff.
But that muscle has not maybe been utilized in her before,
where she's actually hat like she hasn't had to think
about what she actually wants because it wasn't available to her,

(47:11):
and now it is maybe kind of available to her,
and she's kind of like, what do I do now?

Speaker 2 (47:15):
Yeah? I mean, I wrote this in the notes, but
I was like I wrote that, like basically, you just
you really at some point do want her to like
just get rid of that severe bob haircut that she
has and take off her like fucking crazy like pussy
bow tops. She always is, were like these kind of
seventies pussy bow tops and just like go feral in

(47:36):
the woods. You're just like, yeah, like let go girl,
like you know, but it's it's hard in this era.

Speaker 1 (47:42):
For it's hard. Yeah, uh okay, So we've mentioned this already,
but Wendy, Christina Riachi's character is sort of she's exploring
sexually and she's very unafraid, and she's sort of dating
slash fooling around with the Carver boy Mikey played by
Elijah Wood and mike He's brother, Sandy played by Adam Handbird,

(48:02):
is also like obsessed and in love with Christina Ricci,
and she sort of plays these like sexual games with
both of them, and at one point she asks Sandy
like or she says, I'll show you mine if you
show me yours, and that really upsets Sandy gets kind
of scared and upset by that. Meanwhile, Sigourney Weaver's character,

(48:23):
Janeye is getting annoyed with Ben Kevin Klein's character during
the affair, and she like abandons him mid hookup, and
so he's like in his underwear in her house. And
as a result of that, Wendy, his daughter, comes back
to Mikey's house and starts giving him a hand job

(48:43):
with a Richard Nixon mask on, and Kevin Klein catches
them and he tells his wife Elena about this later,
but by telling her that he was there, he basically
sort of inadvertently tells her he's having an affair with Janey. So, yes,
that's sort of the next chunk here. Yeichs.

Speaker 2 (49:07):
First of all, I have to say part of the
reason I we'll talk about this in a little bit,
but the neighbor's thing is so crazy to me because
when we moved to Marietta, aka the northern suburbs of Atlanta,
I was, you know, roughly like fifth grade or something

(49:29):
like that, fifth or sixth grade, and the neighborhood that
we moved to was so huge. I mean there's probably
like hundreds of families, and there were no black people
that lived there. There were no Asian people that lived there.
We were pretty much the only people of color. And

(49:51):
when I say like people of color, it's like, you know,
my dad is white, He's from Italy, right, But even
that was exotic compared to like I mean, I'm talking
about like the whitest like Southern Baptist Christian like white
people you've ever heard of in your life were in
this neighborhood, and so they all thought we were fucking heathens.

(50:15):
I know it, Like I know that. I mean it
was like you could feel it as kids, like you're like, oh,
these kids don't come to our house. You know, our
grandparents lived with us for a while. I mean that
was unheard of, like extended families in the same home.
Weird cooking smells like my parents had. You know, my
mom has a big accent still, my dad, my grandparents

(50:37):
barely spoke English. So it's kind of this thing where
it's like we were this like weird immigrant house in
the middle of a sea of white people. So we
did not hang out with those neighbors at all. Like
my parents were not friends with any of those people, right,
So it's this thing where like if I was going
over to my friend's house, like they were not like

(50:59):
their parents and start really fucking with me, and I
wasn't fun. They didn't really know my parents at all.
So it was kind of like, and this entire movie
is about neighbors and having parties with neighbors and get
it and being so comfortable with your neighbors that you
would like fucking go home with them at some point.
And I just don't have those feelings about neighbors. I

(51:23):
didn't become friends with my neighbors until I was a
grown up and I was living in apartment complexes, and
then I would sort of wander out and hang out
with my neighbors, but we were I was an adult.

Speaker 1 (51:33):
As a child, that never happened. Yeah, that was something
I feel like I didn't quite clock until this viewing.
Was just sort of the incestuous neighbor kind of shitting
where you eat aspect of like it's like your social life,
your sexual life, everything is within this type community. It's

(51:53):
like they're all there.

Speaker 2 (51:55):
Yeah, And like to my earlier point, you know, when
I was out in the burbs over the past couple
of weeks at these Halloween parties and stuff, we actually
went to this other Halloween party while I was out
there that was in a amazing neighborhood. I mean it
was like a fucking I mean these houses were brand
new construction, beautiful giant homes. I was like, holy fuck,
where am I?

Speaker 1 (52:15):
Like heaven?

Speaker 2 (52:16):
And the house that we went to was owned by,
you know, somebody that used to live downtown, an artist,
I would say, but has since moved to the verbs
And I mean he had a built in big green
egg that was built into his deck. I was like,
that couldn't have been cheap, bro, Like, jeez, I mean

(52:37):
to have a custom big green egg anyway, that's either
here nor there. But the entire party was just the neighbors.
Like none of his like friends or work people had
come from downtown or anything. It was all their neighbors.
And I was like, I can't imagine this. And they

(52:57):
were all like nothing like him, Like they were nothing
like him. They didn't have his job, they didn't have
his interest, they didn't have anything. And I was sitting
there going, damn, is this what it's like to live
out in the burbs. You just hang out with like
randos that just happen to live next to you.

Speaker 1 (53:15):
Yeah, I want I think that's part of it. It's
kind of like going to a new school. It's like
you got to make all new friends. You know, if
you move to this new neighborhood, you're far away from
your old friends. You got to make new ones with
the people living next door, and you got to sleep
with your neighbor's wife and stuff. You know, it's crazy.
I feel like that's actually happened to me. I mean,
I'm not out in the burbs. I'm in Minneapolis. But

(53:37):
we moved here after living in La We didn't. I mean,
I know some people from grade school in high school,
but mostly my new friends are my neighbors now no
key party yet, but well, but also were still I like.

Speaker 2 (53:50):
My neighbors now, Like what the neighbors that I live
around now, like not in my new house, but in
the house that I'm about to leave. I like him,
but I wouldn't like a definitely would not have a
key party with any of them. I mean, they're all
just like so different from me. So I just I
don't know. It's so strange, and I feel like that
is the thing about these types of movies that are
about the suburban experience is that it is the neighbor thing.

(54:14):
It is the kind of like upper crusty white like
everyone's living in like Florida ceiling glass modern homes and
they're all just like messing around with each other. And
I mean, it's just crazy to me. But it's you know,
it's interesting because I want to talk about the Toby

(54:36):
Maguire character a little bit because he's sort of removed
from this world because he's away at school. Right.

Speaker 1 (54:43):
Yeah, it's funny. When I was doing the synopsis, I
did the whole synopsis and I forgot to talk about
him whatsoever. So I had to go back and kind
of insert him back into the story. Because he is
so removed, it's easy to just kind of extricate him
from the situation.

Speaker 2 (54:56):
What did you think of him? Because I when I
first saw this movie, I had a you know, I
was like an okay tolerance for Toby Maguire. I guess
I didn't really know him very well. And then now
I'm seeing this movie again recently, I'm like, God, what
a little shitthead in this movie.

Speaker 1 (55:13):
Toby Maguire my celebrity enemy. You're talking about?

Speaker 2 (55:16):
Why is he your celebrity enemy?

Speaker 1 (55:20):
So I've spoken about working at the restaurant in Venice
a lot. God, no, and he was a He was
a I worked at Intelligentsia on Abbot Kenney and Venice,
and I also worked at Jelina Takeaway on an Abbot
Kenney in Venice, and he came into both frequently. Well.
At Intelligentsia, he was there all the time, and he

(55:41):
was like, I think the biggest issue I had with
him is that he treated everyone like they were we
were his employees. Oh God. And he came up at
Intelligencia and was like, listen, I don't have time to
wait in this line every day, so I'm going to
have to come straight to the register an orator. And
we were like no, like, you have to wait in line.

(56:03):
You can't just cut because you're Toby maguire, you know.
So that was one offense. And then his assistant would
call into orders all the time. So maybe I'm more
irritated with his assistant. But his assistant would call in
with orders all the time, and he's vegan and she
would order something like this. She'd be like this is
what She'd be like, this is an order for mister McGuire,

(56:25):
and we'd be like, who she's like Toby McGuire. We're like, okay,
what does that happen. I don't care, Like sure, who cares, right?
And then she was like, uh, can we get the
kale salad vegan style? And like I should say, vegan
style is not like something that we offer at the restaurant.

(56:45):
It's not like a button you press that's like make
this vegan style, you know. So we have to be like, okay,
so no cheese and she was like is there any
other dairy or meet in it? And I was like
I don't think so. And so we gave her the
kale salad and had bread crumbs that had butter on it,
which we didn't. I didn't. I forgot, yes, you know.
And so there was there was always some issue. And

(57:07):
the one time the assistant called us and was like,
there were breadcrumbs on mister McGuire's salad and he's very
upset with you, and this is going to be the
last time this happens. Oh my god, you can't what
do you mean you can't fire me? I don't work
for you, Like, I'm sorry we put bread crumbs on there,
but anyways, it's just annoying. Wow, that's why he's my

(57:30):
celebrity enemy.

Speaker 2 (57:31):
This, I gotta tell you. Between intelligentsia and the restaurants.
I feel like you're able to spill so much tea,
so much celebrity tea.

Speaker 1 (57:42):
And I am I'm loathed too. I want to I
want to talk about great celebrities like my pal Tony Goldwell,
you know, but not everyone's Tony Goldwin. Anyways, what did
I think about Toby McGuire in this I don't. I
don't quite know what to make of his story line
because the other stuff in this movie is so rich,

(58:06):
and his feels more like he just wants to hook
up with Katie Holmes aka Libbets Casey and he gets
cock blocked by his annoying roommate David Crumholtz. Yeah, you know,
what did you think about it?

Speaker 2 (58:22):
I mean, okay, let's let's get into this number one.
I thought he was a little shit because, first of all,
him and his roommate David Crumbholtz, of whom I'm a
huge fan.

Speaker 1 (58:35):
I love David, Love gone on.

Speaker 2 (58:37):
Record many times loved David Crumbolds. They're both kind of stoners. Like,
first of all, David Crumbholts is introduced into the movie.
He's holding a giant bong and then he reveals that
he put booze instead of water in the bong, and
I was like, holy fuck, that would kill me dead
as a person who has smoked a lot of weed

(58:57):
in their life, and I actually love a bong taking
bog rips.

Speaker 1 (59:01):
It's so fun. Uh.

Speaker 2 (59:03):
I think it's more trouble that it's worth at the
end of the day, because then you have to like
have a bog in your house and it's like, yeah,
the bog water. If it's bills, you're dead. But the
idea that he would put booze in there instead of
I don't know, it just freaked me out.

Speaker 1 (59:16):
And I was like, okay, so these special concoction these
are the type.

Speaker 2 (59:19):
Of loadies these guys are. Yeah. But the thing that
I hated the most about the both of them was
that they spoken at like old English or whatever, like
they spoke like knights of the roundtable when they were stoned.

Speaker 1 (59:32):
And I'd be like, yeah, I think this this became
like I think at the time that this came out,
it wasn't as evil, but now I feel like in
cells now speak that way, and so yeah, I mean
it's like, uh, it's really annoying.

Speaker 2 (59:46):
I would not be able to hang out with those
stoners for five seconds them talking like that, and I
was like, what a bunch of dorks. So there was
that and that's but also too, it was like a
really quick way to like gather information about the Toby
Maguire character, which is that he's just a dork. He's
off doing his dorky stuff, reading his comic books. He's

(01:00:09):
removed from his family for the most of the movie,
but I think ends up becoming kind of a nice
little outsider towards the end, like he kind of rejoins
them at the end. And again, I guess that's why
that quote that I read earlier is so interesting to me,
because I sort of feel that way about my role

(01:00:31):
in the family, which is that I'm always the one
that's out. Like all my family live in the same neighborhood,
they all live within walking distance from each other. They've
always lived in the same state for the most part,
and I was the only one that really wandered, like
I went to California. You know. I've always kind of
done my own thing, and so I don't know, in

(01:00:52):
a way, I kind of feel like that's kind of
what his character represents, is the one that is kind
of like away from the chaos, like rejoins it once
in a while to be like, huh, okay, interesting. I
do like the relationship that he has with his sister,
the Wendy, which is the Christina Ricci character, and they
both call each other Charles.

Speaker 1 (01:01:14):
Yeah, what is the base? Do you know what the
basis for that is? So?

Speaker 2 (01:01:17):
I tried to Google this about a hundred times and
it was really just coming up with like anecdotal info
at best. But I don't know. I said it was
an inside joke that might have had something to do
with Charles Nelson Riley, but I don't really know. That's all.
That's all I if you know better Dear Movies at
exactly rightmedia dot com. But I thought it was really

(01:01:40):
funny that they did that and kind of cute.

Speaker 1 (01:01:42):
That was funny. I did like that, But.

Speaker 2 (01:01:44):
Yeah, I was, uh, I gotta tell you, Libbitts. This
is like a joke that happens throughout the movie, the
idea of a Libbitts. There's a girl, a rich girl
played by Katie Holmes that's named Libbitts, and everyone's like, libbts,
what kind of name is that? I was deeply concerned
for her. Though at that little.

Speaker 1 (01:02:01):
Party that they had where she passes out in Toby
McGuire's lamp.

Speaker 2 (01:02:05):
Oh yeah, I was like, I don't know about this kid,
so but no spoiler alert. I'll be happy to spoil this.
He nothing happens, He does not sa her at all,
which is great.

Speaker 1 (01:02:21):
No. No, I not that I related to Tobe McGuire's situation,
but I feel like I've been in that situation where
I'm like, oh, I've got a crush on this girl,
and I'm looking forward to this event where maybe we'll
get some alone time and one of my fucking friends
is all of a sudden stand up comedian and is
like not budding out, And that was a I feel

(01:02:44):
like I remember that feeling from middle school in high
school pretty clearly. Anyways, Uh, should we get to the
key party? Let's go key party? All right. It's the
night of the ice storm and Elena and Ben attend
at a Thanksgiving party, but this year it's a key party.

(01:03:04):
At first, she scandalized, but Elena wants to punish Ben,
so she throws their keys in the bowl, much to
Ben's horror, and Ben gets drunk and then he also
gets dumped by Jane, the Sigourney Weaver character, because he's
just annoying, and Janey at the key party ends up

(01:03:26):
going off with some young stud and when that happens, Ben,
who's like drunk, jumps up and is like, wait a second,
and that kind of alerts everybody. Oh, these two were fucking,
so that's very embarrassing, and he blacks out in the bathroom.
And this leaves behind Elena and Sigourney Weaver's husband Jim,

(01:03:47):
who's like the scientist who's played by the Jamie by
Jamie Sheridan. Those who are the only ones left behind
Elena and Jim, and they decide to take a drive
together and they end up having one of the most awkward,
horrible sex scenes committed to film, and uh, it's horrible.
So they decided to go home. And yeah, we already

(01:04:10):
covered the Toby maguire stuff cock blocked by David Crumholtz,
but lots of mess in this little suburban neighborhood. No good.

Speaker 2 (01:04:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:04:21):
Alison Janney's there though, and she's looking good.

Speaker 2 (01:04:23):
Yeah I say. I personally wrote in the notes that
she looks fucking incredible in this movie. She's kind of
like the hostess with the Moses. Yeah, and that has
a great dress on. But yeah, that key party.

Speaker 1 (01:04:36):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (01:04:37):
Is perhaps this is going to be two in the
weeds or maybe two personal. But I think about this
a lot in the sense that like having going to
a key party requires requires the sort of like baseline

(01:04:57):
attraction to or maybe uh, you know, a willingness to
sleep with someone in a group that you're affiliated with.
And I find that very hard, Like I don't ever
want to sleep with like my friends or my coworkers
or my neighbors. I feel like I'm that's too close

(01:05:23):
for comforts. I feel like if I'm just a very
much outside of the group kind of girl when it
comes to things of this nature, Like I don't want
to make things weird. And I also just don't find
like myself attracted to people that I just am around

(01:05:43):
in normal circums. I don't know, I'm just sort of like, yeah,
I don't know, I think that certain people are cute,
But when I like go home with like somebody that
I sort of know, like that, no, I mean that's crazy.

Speaker 1 (01:05:56):
I mean it is insane. I also think it's sort
of speaks to a larger societal thing at the time
where it's like the family unit is like such a
strong structure at that time that it's kind of fun
to play games to put it at risk because it's
never really at risk in a way. Like I don't

(01:06:16):
think any of these men think their women are going
to ask for divorces based off this key part or
like even socioeconomically, it's like this isn't going to ruin
them if they sleep with someone they know, you know,
Whereas like nowadays, I feel like people wouldn't do this
because like an unhappy spouse would just be like I'm

(01:06:37):
getting a divorce instead of just like eating this, like
eating it, yes, and like living with this or like
like the risk is just too high now for people
to like toy around with like their lives like this.
I feel like, yeah, I mean, just does that make sense?

Speaker 2 (01:06:56):
Would just be like mad awkward, Like I don't know,
even if you go to a work Christmas party or
something like that and people get wasted. I would never
like sneak off with some I just wouldn't. I know myself,
I just know myself. I want more out of life.
I'm not gonna, like, you know, go home with like
one of my coworkers who's like just like some merry

(01:07:18):
dude or whatever. That's just so fucking weird. But anyway,
apparently in the seventies it was a thing, and there
was so there was a lot of like the whole
a fair scenario between the Joan Allen character and the
Kevin Klein character that kind of comes to light all
at once, really like towards the end of this movie,
which is that basically it's like right before they leave

(01:07:40):
for the key party, that's when she really finds out
that he had been having an affair with Janeye. And
his tell was so stupid, right because it was like,
obviously he was sitting around waiting for Jane Akaa Sigourney
Weaver character to come back from her birth control run,
which she never did. And basically he at some point

(01:08:01):
gets dressed and catches his daughter down in the basement
with Mikey, right, So then they come home, he's getting
ready for the party, the Key party, and then she's
like he kind of like stupidly recounts the He's like, oh,
by the way, I.

Speaker 1 (01:08:16):
Was like, I caught Wendy with Mikey in the basement
at Jane's house. Can you believe it.

Speaker 2 (01:08:21):
Yeah, And she's like, well, why were you in their house?

Speaker 1 (01:08:24):
And his excuse, Yeah, I wrote this in my duds too.
I'm like, this was your lie. He's like, oh, I
had to return a coffee mug that Jim left at
our house. What And she's like, oh, the mustache one.
And he's like yeah, but she was like clearly making
that up, like there was no mustache one or it was.
I don't know, but it's like, what do you mean

(01:08:45):
you're returning? Why would Jim have brought a coffee mug
over to your house? And why did you need to return?
It was like such a weird lie that he just
like spouted off immediately. I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:09:00):
It's like his cadence in this scene, particularly because the
entire movie, Kevin Klein has this like weird way of speaking.
I mean, it is probably like an old way of speaking, uh,
but it's very proper. It's very white guy. It's basically
he comes across as being like this kind of snobby,
proper dude. And in this scene in particular, he's like
brushing his teeth and his boxers and he's basically like, well,

(01:09:22):
I showed them, you know, blah, blah blah blah, and
she's just like, what a fucking idiot, Like, you're an
idiot that just you told on yourself you're having an affair.
Now we're going to this key party and guess what, bitch,
those keys are going in the goddamn bowl and you're
gonna be a drunken idiot.

Speaker 1 (01:09:39):
Which he didn't seem that concerned about getting caught. It
was very fast and loose.

Speaker 2 (01:09:46):
Yeah, I know we're coming towards the end of the film. Yes,
I have so much to say about this ending because
a lot of like weird things sort of happened. Yeah,
at the same time, but uh, let's get like you
want to talk about.

Speaker 1 (01:09:58):
Anim Yes, I do, Okay. So it's that same night
Mikey played by Elijah Wood, decides he wants to also
Elijah Wood's character. He is like out to lunch in
a way that other characters are not. Like people call
him a stoner, but he doesn't seem like a stoner.
It seems like he just is like lost in thought.
I don't know, he's a dreamer or yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:10:17):
He doesn't smoke weed at all, right.

Speaker 1 (01:10:20):
Any and he has like kind of a bizarre way
of thinking and speaking like he's like, I want to
go out into the ice storm because when it gets cold,
molecules stop moving and I'll be able to breathe with
no molecules. It's some weird like speech he kind of
gives of why he's going out into the ice storm.
But anyways, he decides to explore outside while it's raining
and freezing, and Wendy comes over to their house while

(01:10:43):
he's gone, and she and Sandy get naked in bed
together and drink alcohol, and so Mikey Elijah Wood is
outside taking in all the beauty and he finds a
downed power line and he's sitting on this metal guard
rail and the down power line touches the metal guardrail
that he's sitting on and he dies instantly, and his

(01:11:05):
body just sort of slides down the icy road. At
this time, Ben Kevin Klein. He sobers up and drives
home and he discovers Mikey dead in the road. He
scoops him up and drives him to his house, to
the Sheridan's house, and Wendy is already there, you know,
she went over to get naked with Sandy, and Elayne
is there because Jim was driving her home, so Ben

(01:11:27):
brings the dead body of Jim's son to him, and
the movie ends with the whole Hood family picking up
Paul Toby maguire from the train station when he's coming
back from New York, and Kevin Kline just sort of
breaks down and starts crying on the steering wheel and
he looks at Toby McGuire in the rear view mirror.
There was I was really touched this time. And maybe

(01:11:50):
it is because I have a child that I have
to carry around a lot, but I just there's two instances,
and two very touching instances I felt like were inclined
carries children. One is when Christina Ricci just got caught
fooling around with Mikey in the basement's Kevin Clein's yelling
at her and then he's like are your feet cold?

(01:12:11):
And he's like, you want me to carry you? And
it's like in that moment, she's a little girl again.
He carries her home lovingly, and then he also carries
the dead body of Mikey, you know, back to the house,
and I don't really know what that's saying, but there's
something about, you know, the parents still having to carry
these children despite you know, these are still children that

(01:12:33):
need to be cared for. And I was just very
touched by both of those instances that of been carrying
these children to safety, and yeah, that was just something
that really affected me this on this watch.

Speaker 2 (01:12:47):
Yeah, it made me think about a lot of things,
you know, like about my own dad. And I was like,
my parents were just at my house fairly recently because
they're helping me with my new house, and I just
kept thinking about how I'm really really lucky to have
good parents that care about me and are willing to

(01:13:09):
drive up from Florida to like help me out. They
helped hate my house, Are you kidding me? They're in
their seventies and they were on ladders and they were
helping me, and I was like, you know, my dad
was that kind of dad like when I was growing up,
Like he would carry me, like if my feet were
hurting and we were at Disney World, he would let me.
He'd give me a piggyback ride. And that really like
reminded me of him. That like that whole scene. But

(01:13:31):
it's also kind of again the theme of the movie,
which is largely that like the kids and the parents
are the same they're going through the same struggles in
weird ways, Like everybody's just trying to figure it out,
because essentially, the Kevin Klein character and that Christina Riccie
character are in the same house pretty much under the
same circumstances, you know, for the most part. And this

(01:13:53):
is actually like a weird callback.

Speaker 1 (01:13:55):
But when.

Speaker 2 (01:13:58):
Christina ricci and Sandy character the brother Mikey's brother, are
in the house during the ice storm by themselves, and
they go into his room, they get into his little
twin bed and they start drinking the vodka that was
left there by Kevin Klein when he was about to
have his affair with the mall with Jane with Sigourney Weaver.

(01:14:21):
And I'm like, they didn't he didn't think to bring
the vodka bottle and glass out.

Speaker 1 (01:14:27):
Of the kid's bedroom. Yeah, well, I just think that's
like sort of part of the movie. It's like this
lack of thoughtfulness about their own children. It's like they're
so into their own bullshit that they're not really thinking
about the kids, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:14:41):
And then also the seventies were so wild that you
would like smoke in a kid's room and leave an
ashtray there and like, you know, leave booze out for
people like wherever anyway, and they end up drinking it
and get drunk, which is interesting. I want to talk
about Sandy briefly too.

Speaker 1 (01:14:59):
Because yeah, he's a weird, kind of creepy character. Maybe
not creepy is the right word, but like he has
kind of a violent streak. He loves blowing things up,
he loves like military and artillery.

Speaker 2 (01:15:13):
I'm saying, I don't know, I think creepy might be right.
I mean I was like, he's he's going to grow
up to be an in cell or some kind of
weird shooter, right, Am I wrong about that?

Speaker 1 (01:15:23):
I mean it sort of feels like he has this
violent streak or this violent obsession.

Speaker 2 (01:15:29):
Yeah. And I think that's the interesting thing about Christina
Ritchie being sort of interested in both the brothers is
that they're just so different, and I think she's at
some point going, I don't know, both of them seem
weird and fucked up, and I kind of like, yeah,
they're you know, I don't care. I don't have an
allegiance to one or the other. I think, yeah, which
is really interesting. I mean, obviously, I think her character

(01:15:50):
is super super interesting and she's like my favorite in
this movie. Like she plays that really well, Like she
plays that character really well. So I don't think she
gets an credit for this movie.

Speaker 1 (01:16:01):
To be honest, I love Christina Ricci. I she's still
working a lot, you know, but I don't think she's
cast in as meaty of roles as she was cast
for the this movie.

Speaker 2 (01:16:12):
You know, Okay, Well, is there anything else about the
Ice Storm that we I mean, there's so much to
talk about. I know we didn't get to everything.

Speaker 1 (01:16:23):
Yeah, you know, something I just appreciated on this watch
is that it's a movie that takes its time and
it makes it's sort of a dreamy, bizarre movie at times,
Like characters do little ticks, Like I was thinking about
Sandy just taking his like little rifleman action figure and

(01:16:44):
like pointing at someone and going like pew pew pew,
and it's like kind of slow and strange. But I
really appreciated those little flourishes in this movie on this watch,
I agree.

Speaker 2 (01:16:58):
And there's also like scenes where like one scene moves
into another where like a character is looking at the
window and then the scene ends, and then the next
scene begins with a character looking out a window, So
there's a lot of ties in between scenes. And honestly,
really I really feel like you can't not talk about
Onley as a director when it comes to this movie,

(01:17:20):
because I think that, you know, it's interesting that he
is Taiwanese. He was you know, basically born and raised there,
but he has made some very American themed films. I mean,
he made Broke Broke Back Mountain and obviously The Ice Storm.
I just think it's an interesting idea when somebody who

(01:17:43):
is like foreign born kind of comes into America and
makes it a very American film about a very American
time and place right well, and like two. I mean,
I think that obviously his Asian filmmaking influences, like he
talks about Ozoo, I feel like that kind of comes
through in this movie and also some of his other films.

(01:18:03):
A lot of his collaborations with James Shamou are like
about sexual repression in a lot of ways. Like if
you think about like Leuss Caution and Broke Back Mountain
obviously and things like that, you're like, you know, there's
this movie is about sexual repression and sort of like
what happens especially in this era where like everybody is
the messaging is like, oh, now we're all free to

(01:18:24):
do what we want. But you know, sometimes old habits
die hard, or you just don't know how to navigate
it because it's something you were never used to. But
I like that about the director. I like the screenplay.
I mean, I just think this movie is just such
a gem, and there's just so many little things to

(01:18:45):
notice about it, and I just love noticing them each time.
Every time I watch it, I see something different that
I never noticed. By the way, the thing that I
noticed this time, And one thing I wanted to ask
you was did your parents ever own a water Never
my parents did.

Speaker 1 (01:19:03):
I always think of that scene in Edwards Scissor Hands
where he puts his hands into the waterbed and the
water shoots out. I don't think I've ever laid upon
a water out. Do they still make them?

Speaker 2 (01:19:15):
I mean, in fact, I think that they there's some
kind of like insurance thing. You're not allowed to have
them anymore. If you're a renter, you're definitely not allowed
to have them. They are the fucking worst. I mean,
my parents had a fucking waterbed forever, and I was like,
this is such crazy shit, Like that is so it
is not comfortable at all, and also just it was

(01:19:36):
always leaking and had a refill it. I mean it
was like a fucking nightmare.

Speaker 1 (01:19:40):
Jesus.

Speaker 2 (01:19:40):
Anyway, Yeah, well that's the ice.

Speaker 1 (01:19:43):
Storm, right, the ice storm. Fabulous? All right, Moving on
to employees picks. This is a film recommendation based on
the theme of the discussion Millie era.

Speaker 2 (01:20:02):
Well, my employee pick is pretty obvious if you know me.
It is nineteen eighties Ordinary People that was directed by
Robert Redford, starring Timothy Hutton, who was my huge crush
back in my childhood days. But I wanted to pick
something that is a classic but also about It's like

(01:20:23):
a tense family drama about white people in sweaters, and
it's the fall and cold mothers.

Speaker 1 (01:20:36):
You know, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:20:38):
I mean I feel like there's some similarities here. If
you've not seen Ordinary People, I really encourage it. I
just think it's it's such a good movie. Timothy Hutton
is he won an Oscar. I mean, I think he
was totally worth it because he's really good in it.

Speaker 1 (01:20:55):
And yeah, that's one of my favorite movies me too.
I love Ordinary People. Mary Tyler Moore is incredible. I
can't believe she didn't have a bigger movie acting career
because she's so unbelievable, a powerhouse in that movie. I
love that film so much. Good and it's a good.

(01:21:16):
It is a It would be a good double feature
with the Ice Storm, a bummer double feature, but it
would be they would fit together nicely on the same build.

Speaker 2 (01:21:25):
I'd have that Bleak Week with you if you wanted
to do it.

Speaker 1 (01:21:28):
It Bleak Week my film recommendation. Maybe I've recommended this
already and it's I'm not like psyched about this recommendation,
but I think it works. I mean, I'm psyched about
the movie. It's my favorite movie of all time. But
I'm gonna recommend Blue Velvet from nineteen eighty six, just

(01:21:48):
for you know, white people. You think, yeah, know what's
going on on the surface, But there's this whole creepy,
dark underworld that you have no idea. And that's why
I'm recommending Blue Velvet from nineteen eighty six.

Speaker 2 (01:22:06):
Another creepy dark haired boy.

Speaker 1 (01:22:10):
Another creepy dark haired boy.

Speaker 2 (01:22:11):
I love them.

Speaker 1 (01:22:12):
I love them, can't get enough of them. All right, Well,
all right, that's it, Milly, that's our show. We went
hard in the paint for the ice storm and it
was great.

Speaker 2 (01:22:27):
Yeah, and listen if you are looking for some film advice,
if you want to resolve your film gripe, if you
have a consensual film grop, if you have a film regret,
please email us at Deer Movies at exactly wrightmedia dot com. Also,
you can leave a voicemail and we actually encourage it
because we like hearing your voice, which means that you

(01:22:49):
have to record on your phone in the notesap or
something like that, make it under a minute and email
it to Deer Movies at exactly wrightmedia dot com.

Speaker 1 (01:22:58):
That's right, And you can follow us on our socials
at Deer Movies I Love You on Instagram and Facebook.
Our letterbox handles are at Keasey le O'Brien and at
m Dechericho. And please listen to Deer Movies I Love
You on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you
get your podcasts and rate and review our show. Next week, yes,

(01:23:19):
no show, no show, nope, hiatus. But after that, yeah,
after that, it's gonna be crazy. It's gonna be real crazy,
it's gonna be nuts.

Speaker 2 (01:23:33):
We're going to talk about David Fincher's Zodiac from two
thousand and seven, which I am so excited about.

Speaker 1 (01:23:41):
I haven't seen this since I saw it in theaters.

Speaker 2 (01:23:44):
I haven't seen it since I rode my bike to
see it at the New Beverly Cinema in Hollywood, California.

Speaker 1 (01:23:51):
You rode your bike to see it at the New beveroum.

Speaker 2 (01:23:57):
I didn't like it live too far. It's like above Melrose,
so I was like, Oh, I'm going to ride my bike.
But then on the way home it was like midnight,
and I was like, I don't want to ride my
bike alone after seeing Zodiac.

Speaker 1 (01:24:10):
Yeah, because the Zodiac Killer would kill you.

Speaker 2 (01:24:13):
But it was great. It was a great screening and
I can't wait to watch it again.

Speaker 1 (01:24:16):
So fabulous. Well, thank you Millie for talking about the
ice storm. It was a delight. I feel like we
could have gone another seventeen hours.

Speaker 2 (01:24:25):
We definitely could have, And I'm going to need my
keys back, so.

Speaker 1 (01:24:29):
Let's let's gotta go find your Hoby.

Speaker 2 (01:24:31):
I don't know where he is anyway. Bye everybody, Bye.
This has been an exactly right production hosted by me
Millie to Cherico and produced by my co host Casey O'Brien.

Speaker 1 (01:24:45):
This episode was mixed by Tom Bryfogel. Our associate producer
is Christina Chamberlain, our guest booker is Patrick Cottner, and
our artwork is by Vanessa Lilac.

Speaker 2 (01:24:54):
Our incredible theme music is by the best band in
the entire world, The Softies.

Speaker 1 (01:25:00):
Thank you to our executive producers Karen Kilgareff, Georgia hard Stark,
Daniel Kramer and Millie.

Speaker 2 (01:25:05):
To Jerico, we love you, goodbye, Beca