Cinema Gadfly – Episode 14 – Reality Bites

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

Show notes:

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

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