Parker’s Obsessed with this Movie (But She Cannot Find it Anywhere)

Summary

Hyperfixed Episode Summary: "Parker’s Obsessed with this Movie (But She Cannot Find it Anywhere)"

Release Date: April 24, 2025
Host: Alex Goldman
Guest: Genevieve Adams (Parker)

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1. Introduction to Parker's Obsession

In this episode of Hyperfixed, host Alex Goldman delves into the intriguing case of Parker—a dedicated immersive theater creator from Los Angeles—who becomes obsessed with locating an elusive indie film titled "I'm Obsessed with You, but You've Got to Leave Me Alone." Despite her relentless search efforts, Parker finds the movie inexplicably missing from all available platforms.

"This week, Parker's obsessed with this movie, but she cannot find it anywhere." – Alex Goldman [00:44]

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2. Understanding Lost Media

Alex introduces the concept of lost media—films, TV shows, and other media that have vanished from public access due to various reasons like rights issues or poor distribution. He explains that while many lost media pieces belong to bygone eras, Parker's case is unique because the movie in question was released in the digital age (2014), making its disappearance even more perplexing.

"Lost media is exactly what it sounds like. Movies, TV shows, news broadcasts, music, things that were once publicly available but for any number of possible reasons, are now just gone." – Alex Goldman [03:49]

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3. Parker's Comprehensive Search

Parker recounts her exhaustive attempts to locate the movie:

• Streaming Services: She scoured both U.S. and international platforms, engaging friends abroad to assist in the search.

  "I explored a couple different avenues... sometimes it's available, and I've got a friend in New Zealand." – Parker [07:15]

• Physical Media Experts: She consulted a friend who specializes in CDs, DVDs, and VHS tapes, but to no avail.

• Public Libraries: Attempts to find the movie through library systems like Hoopla and Canopy were unsuccessful.

• Torrenting Communities: Even seasoned torrent hunters couldn’t locate the film, only uncovering a brief smartphone-filmed segment.

  "It feels like this movie just blinked out of existence." – Alex Goldman [08:36]

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4. The Missing Movies Initiative

Alex discusses his own interest in lost media, highlighting famous cases like Jerry Lewis's "The Day the Clown Cried" and missing episodes of Doctor Who. To gain deeper insights, he interviews Amy Heller and Dennis Naimi, co-founders of the nonprofit organization Missing Movies, which advocates for the preservation of cinema history.

"The idea for the project started about five years ago... filmmakers who recently realized they couldn't find their own films." – Alex Goldman [13:13]

Key Points from Amy and Dennis:

• Modern Missing Media: Films from the 80s onward are increasingly vulnerable due to complicated rights issues and the ephemeral nature of digital storage.

  "A lot of these films, the rights have expired and no one knows who owns the rights." – Dennis Naimi [14:59]

• Preservation Challenges: Independent filmmakers often lack the resources or knowledge to properly preserve their work, leading to inevitable loss.

  "Hard drives are only reliable for about five years... you need to be migrating it continuously." – Alex Goldman [18:58]

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5. Connecting with Genevieve Adams

Determined to solve Parker's predicament, Alex reaches out to Genevieve Adams, the writer, producer, and star of the missing film. Genevieve shares her experience:

• Production Insights: The movie, based on a pivotal time in Genevieve's life, featured a memorable incident where a crew member was accidentally electrocuted on set.

  "We had a lovely grip who was standing in the pond... he got electrocuted." – Genevieve Adams [26:17]

• Distribution Struggles: After premiering at the Sonoma Film Festival and a Polish festival, the film secured limited distribution through a digital aggregator. However, due to inadequate publicity and financial constraints, the movie languished unnoticed, leading to its removal from platforms like Amazon and iTunes around 2021.

  "Once the movie got posted to those streamers, nobody really watched it because nobody really knew it existed." – Alex Goldman [28:00]

• Despair and Hope: Disheartened by the film's obscurity, Genevieve had considered it over. However, Alex's insistence and the evident demand reignited her commitment to making the movie accessible.

  "This movie exists in the world. It is available again pretty much solely because of your efforts." – Alex Goldman [32:54]

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6. The Resolution: Movie Reappears on Amazon

After persistent efforts and collaboration with the Missing Movies team, Genevieve successfully reinstates her film on Amazon. The movie is now available for rent and purchase, bringing closure to Parker's long-standing quest.

"When? When did this appear?" – Genevieve Adams [32:23]
"Not only can you rent this now on Amazon for $3, you can own it if you want." – Alex Goldman [32:28]

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7. Parker’s Viewing Experience

Parker finally watches "I'm Obsessed with You, but You've Got to Leave Me Alone," expressing her joy and appreciation for the film. She praises the performances of Rachel Brosnahan and Jason Ralph, noting their authentic chemistry and the movie's impact on her.

"I laughed out loud multiple times. I just had such a great time watching it." – Parker [34:13]
"I can't imagine that either Rachel or Jason is really anything like those characters in regular life." – Parker [34:23]

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8. Final Thoughts

Alex reflects on the journey, emphasizing the importance of preservation and the role of communities like Missing Movies in safeguarding cinematic history. He celebrates the successful retrieval of Parker's sought-after film as a testament to collective effort and unwavering determination.

"Just because the thing you made wasn't noticed in its time, it doesn't mean that it'll always be that way." – Alex Goldman [19:31]

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Notable Quotes

• "Why do you want to know? Why do you care about the origins of this weird old button you found or how many grams there are in an American cup of butter?" – Alex Goldman [01:32]

• "I have a very hard time with people. So I'm, like, truly impressed by your ability to, like, engage with the world in a way that I can't possibly do it." – Alex Goldman [02:51]

• "Movies to tell not only the directors from 30 years ago. You need to find out where your rights and materials are, but to all the directors making films today." – Dennis Naimi [15:57]

• "When a film is lost, not only is the work of the filmmaker lost, but the actors, the set dressers, the editors, the cinematographer, the costumers, everybody's work is lost." – Parker [20:29]

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This episode of Hyperfixed masterfully navigates the complexities of lost media, showcasing the passion of individuals like Parker and the critical work of organizations dedicated to preserving cinematic treasures. Through persistence and community support, even the most obscure films can find their way back to eager audiences.

Transcript

[Joseph Cox]

Hey, I'm Joseph Cox, the host of another podcast I think you'll like the 404 Media Podcast. We're an independent news outlet covering the bleeding edge of technology and how that impacts you. Every week we discuss our latest stories that you cannot find anywhere else. Whether that's how AI slop is spreading across the Internet, how ice surveils social media, or overlooked stories about Elon Musk's federal government takeover. We hold tech to account. Catch me and the rest of the 404 Media gang wherever you listen. Just search for the 404 Media podcast. Chat to you soon.

[Alex Goldman]

This episode of Hyperfixed is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Fiscally responsible financial geniuses, monetary magicians. These are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to Progressive and Save hundreds. Visit progressive.com to see if you could save or Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states or situations. Hi, I'm Alex Goldman. This is Hyperfixed. On this show, listeners write in with their problems, big and small, and I solve them. Or at least I try. And if I don't, I at least give a good reason why I can't. This week, Parker's obsessed with this movie, but she cannot find it anywhere. Okay, so you know this show's about solving problems and answering questions. And if you didn't know that, it's really time for you to catch up. I just explained it about five seconds ago, but there's actually a second question undergirding every episode of the show. And it's a question that we ask of the people who write in with problems, and often it's as important as the question they ask us. And the question is, why do you want to know? Why do you care about the origins of this weird old button you found or how many grams there are in an American cup of butter? Sometimes our question askers know the answer instantly, like it's in their bones. They just immediately know why it's important. And sometimes it's as elusive as the question they wrote in with. And sometimes we just kind of have to dig around before we find a reason that rings true.

[Parker]

But.

[Alex Goldman]

But never have we had to do less digging than with this week's listener, Parker.

[Genevieve Adams]

I love conversations and connections more than anything else in the world.

[Alex Goldman]

Parker works in LA and she's an immersive theater creator.

[Genevieve Adams]

I look at every new person as a friend I haven't made yet, which sounds incredibly cheesy, but it is true, and it's how I move through the world. And immersive theater is a phenomenal way to take something that's usually extremely transactional performance and make it even closer and even more intimate than something like theater normally is.

[Alex Goldman]

Wow, dude. You're outgoing on a level that, like, I can't. I mean, I interview people for a living, and when my microphone's not off, I'm just like, I can't. I have a very hard time with people. So I'm, like, truly impressed by your ability to, like, engage with the world in a way that I can't possibly do it. Thank you.

[Genevieve Adams]

I'm an extrovert at heart.

[Alex Goldman]

Parker cares about people in the way that some folks care about sports teams. It's visceral, it's devotional, and when it's combined with a problem, it can be a bit obsessive. But we'll get to that in a minute.

[Genevieve Adams]

There is a movie that I would really like to watch that seems to not exist. It for sure was made, it was for available for purchase on Amazon prime for a period of time, and now it seems to have disappeared into the ether on a level of lost media.

[Alex Goldman]

Lost media is exactly what it sounds like. Movies, TV shows, news broadcasts, music, things that were once publicly available but for any number of possible reasons, are now just gone. The thing is, a lot of times, the media that people are looking for isn't gone. Gone is just missing. And if you ask the right person or you dig far enough, you can still find what you're looking for. Eventually. But in Parker's case, that search had not been particularly fruitful.

[Genevieve Adams]

None of the people that I've asked across a bunch of different genres of research have been able to find it for me or find much information about it.

[Alex Goldman]

Can you tell me what this movie is?

[Genevieve Adams]

So the name of this movie is I'm obsessed with you, but yout've got to Leave Me Alone, which is perhaps the most ironic title for a movie that I am obsessed with but can't seem to find ever.

[Alex Goldman]

Okay, so let me pause to say that until Parker sent in this question, I had never heard of this movie. And when I googled it, it seemed like only about a handful of people have ever seen it. And before you start thinking this is going to be a story about the coolest movie you've never heard of, pump the brakes for a second, because this does not sound like it's going to be that movie. I'm obsessed with you, but you've got to Leave me Alone is a 2014 indie movie about a college improv troupe who has some kind of experience. Then, according to the logline, they are, quote, forced to confront the group's friendship and future. The movie is directed by someone I've never heard of. It's also written by someone I've never heard of. And I recognize some of the faces in the cast, but there's only one that I can really identify by name. What is it about this particular movie that is so interesting to you? Like, it doesn't sound like anybody's. I've certainly never heard of. Certainly doesn't seem like it has any kind of cult following. I googled it and could barely find any people who had seen it. I've seen a couple reviews of it, but how did you like, how did you come across it? And why is it such a particular obsession of yours?

[Genevieve Adams]

So from about 2019 to 2023, I was aware of a problem in the world, a very minor problem in the world that was specific to me particularly.

[Alex Goldman]

So this particular problem, the problem that gave birth to the problem that I am now trying to solve. It starts with a couple TV actors. Rachel Brosnahan, who you may know was the Emmy winning star of the marvelous Mrs. Maisel and is going to be Lois Lane in the upcoming Superman movie, and Jason Ralph, who starred in the Sci Fi Channel original series the Magicians. Parker loves these two actors, and these two actors love each other. In 2019, Rachel confirmed that they got married. And in 2022, when Jason showed up on Rachel's show, Parker, who cares more about connection than anything else in the world, was eager to see their connection. But they never shared a scene together. And looking back at their IMDb pages, Parker discovered that this wasn't the first time this had happened. Rachel Brosnahan and Jason Ralph had actually been on four of the same TV shows. But according to Parker, never even for.

[Genevieve Adams]

A split second were the two of them on screen together.

[Alex Goldman]

So when Parker discovers that the couple first met on this very little indie movie called I'm Obsessed with youh but yout Gotta Leave Me Alone, she decides she has to see this movie. As you already know, Parker hasn't been able to find it anywhere. Now, I should say the couple did eventually share some scenes in the fifth and final season of the Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. But by the time that happened, Parker was already in way too deep.

[Genevieve Adams]

Once I figured out that there was this movie out there, I became obsessed with it. I have this sort of like obsessive personality when there is like a question that I dig my fingers into.

[Alex Goldman]

Okay, so what did you do, like, tell me some of the ways that you tried to locate this movie?

[Genevieve Adams]

I explored a couple different avenues.

[Alex Goldman]

First, Parker started by checking all the different streaming services. And when she couldn't find anything on the US Streamers, she turned to her international friends.

[Genevieve Adams]

Sometimes it's available, and, you know, I've got a friend in New Zealand. I asked her to check on some streaming services.

[Alex Goldman]

When nothing turned up there, she went to her local physical media expert.

[Genevieve Adams]

I have a good friend of mine who deals with all sorts of CDs and DVDs and VHS tapes, and I asked him to look at his collection and reach out to. To other collectors that he knows. He couldn't find it.

[Alex Goldman]

So she turned to the public library system to see if it was on Hoopla or Canopy.

[Genevieve Adams]

Hypothetically, the Seattle Public Library has a copy, but none of the Seattle Public Library librarians I reached out to could find it or had access to it or anything like that.

[Alex Goldman]

And at this point, solidly out of legal options, Parker reaches out to the Torrenters. Now, if a piece of media has ever been available for purchase on the Internet, generally speaking, a seasoned Torrenter will be able to find you a copy of it. Except in this case, the only thing they were able to find was some small segment of the movie that had been filmed on a smartphone. In the interest of being thorough, I checked all the torrenting sites I knew of, and I still came up empty. It feels like this movie just blinked out of existence. And Parker isn't the only one who's noticed. When prepping for our interview, we found multiple Reddit threads filled with people asking for help locating the movie. There was one person who said they found a website that would ship a DVD of it from Pakistan, but Hyperfix producer Amor Yates looked into that, and it turned out to be a scam.

[Genevieve Adams]

And the real kicker here for me is that I talked to someone who emailed the writer.

[Alex Goldman]

Mm.

[Genevieve Adams]

And the writer of this movie did not know where to acquire a copy of this movie.

[Alex Goldman]

Wow. All right, so what is a solution? Is it only being able to see the movie?

[Genevieve Adams]

The best solution, of course, is getting a copy of the movie, getting to see this movie. I think another satisfactory solution would be whoever's in charge of this explaining to me why I can't see this movie. If there is a reason, if. Even if the reason is, like, a boring legal rights reason, that's fine.

[Alex Goldman]

See, that, to me, is the. Is the more interesting part is that, like, I don't know how distribution works and royalties Work and who's owed what based on who produced what. But it does seem wild that it's not a thing we can just easily find, right?

[Genevieve Adams]

It seems like they would be making more money by having this movie for sale than by not having this movie for sale. I will pay to watch this movie. I don't need it torrented. I will rent it on whatever streaming service. Take my money, please. I would like to pay you for this product that you've created. Allow me to do so. Just. I just need someone to lay out for me how we got to where we are. And if the end of how we got to where we are ends with me watching this movie, incredible. And if it doesn't, well, then I guess we've all had, you know, movie rights, education, time with Parker. You know what would be so funny is if I watch this whole movie and they still don't share a scene in this movie. That would be the most incredible comedic tick at the end of this story. I'm so confident. They do share a scene, but I have no basis for this Confidence.

[Alex Goldman]

Yeah. What do you base that on? Why are you confident?

[Genevieve Adams]

Vibes.

[Alex Goldman]

That is very funny, though. The idea that you would spend all of this time and enlist professional help only to find out that it does not exist.

[Genevieve Adams]

I love to make something else my problem, somebody else's problem.

[Alex Goldman]

Well, you're doing a bang up job. I really appreciate it.

[Genevieve Adams]

Thank you.

[Alex Goldman]

All right, we will get to work on this and wish us luck. We'll. We'll be in touch. The issue of missing media is actually, like, really near and dear to my heart because even though I'm putting out an episode of the show a week, I put everything into it. You know what I mean? And so hearing that there are things that people sunk days or months or even years of their lives into that no one has ever seen. I want to, like, find those and bring them out into the light for everyone to see. For the last couple decades, I have been doggedly following the story of the Day the Clown Cried, Jerry Lewis's lost holocaust clown movie, which he decided after he finished it he didn't want anyone to see. And then there's the missing episodes of Doctor who, 97 of them to be exact, which went missing on the day the BBC decided that they were so unimportant, they literally taped over the masters of the show. So if you happen to have copies of these, please hit me up because I'd love to stop having such strong feelings about this. Anyway, when I think about these and other Missing movies and TV shows I'm interested in seeing, they all came out during a time when we didn't totally understand the value of these kinds of cultural artifacts. One of the things that makes Parker's missing movie so mysterious to me is that it came out 10 years ago, solidly within the digital filmmaking era. And I just couldn't think of a reason why something that recent would go missing. So I reached out to a couple of experts on the subject of missing movies.

[Parker]

We cannot tell you how often the problem is that you think you cleared that music for in perpetuity. But did you or did you only clear it for 10 years?

[Alex Goldman]

This is Amy Heller. She, along with her husband Dennis Doros, are the co founders of Missing Movies, a nonprofit organization founded on the belief that the entirety of cinema history should be available to all. The idea for the project started about five years ago. In the early days of the pandemic. The Directors Guild of America was doing a virtual panel with a group of filmmakers who recently realized they couldn't find their own films. And when Amy mentioned the names of the people on the panel, I was shocked to learn that these were not old timey, under the radar directors. It's crazy to me. One of the names that you said was Mary Harron because I think of her as being a relatively popular filmmaker. I mean, she made famously, I think, American Psycho, notorious Bettie Page, I shot Andy Warhol. What of her movies was missing?

[Parker]

Do you know I shot Andy Warhol?

[Alex Goldman]

Really?

[Parker]

It's still missing. As long as we've known her, she's been working on trying to get the rights and getting it back in distribution. But this is not unusual. Alison Anders has films that are out of distribution. Nancy Savoca had films. John Sayles has many films that have been unavailable.

[Alex Goldman]

It turns out that while most of the cinema loving dummies like me were focusing on finding missing movies from the 50s, 60s and 70s, a whole new generation of movies has started to go missing. Here's Dennis.

[Dennis Naimi]

We have discovered that the films that we grew up from, the 80s and 90s and even today, films are getting lost.

[Alex Goldman]

And this isn't just happening because the physical materials are being lost or damaged. Dennis Naimi told us that these days the main reason that movies are getting lost has to do with rights, contracts and other legal issues.

[Dennis Naimi]

A lot of these films, the rights have expired and no one knows who owns the rights.

[Parker]

Also production companies, independent films were frequently made By Small Temporary LLCs that disbanded after the production. So even to find out who owns rights is sometimes very difficult.

[Dennis Naimi]

People don't know who owns the music rights to the film anymore.

[Parker]

Sometimes there's SAG agreements that you have.

[Dennis Naimi]

To be aware of, and then you're talking about contracts that get lost, and.

[Parker]

Then you also have to stop and think about the underlying rights.

[Dennis Naimi]

So there's a whole confluence of existential problems that have been created that films are getting lost every day.

[Alex Goldman]

The radical thing here isn't that this is happening, but that so many contemporary filmmakers didn't realize it was happening. And by the time they did realize it, if they ever did, they had no idea how to get their movie back. And this is why Amy and Dennis rallied a group of their colleagues from across the film landscape to form Missing.

[Dennis Naimi]

Movies to tell not only the directors from 30 years ago. You need to find out where your rights and materials are, but to all the directors making films today. You are making a film. This is what you need to know to preserve your film, know where your rights are, and to keep track of it for the next 50 years.

[Alex Goldman]

All of this stuff was thoroughly blowing my mind. But I wasn't sure if any of it was applicable to Parker's problem. Remember, I'm Obsessed with youh came out in 2014, and Parker started searching for it sometime around 2021. It just didn't seem like enough time had lapsed for this particular missing movie to be a product of lapsed rights. There had to be something else going on. So I told Amy and Dennis everything I'd learned about this movie. I told them it was made by first time filmmakers working with actors who were unknown at the time it was made. And that aside from some film festivals, it didn't appear that this movie had ever gotten a theatrical release.

[Parker]

The issue of movies that don't get released is one that is close to our hearts. Because, you know, what kind of movies don't get released? Bad movies don't get released. Movies that may be somewhat amateurish, but amateurish in a way that's really interesting, or that may be from a community that doesn't have access to the same kind of production standards that we're used to in Hollywood. When we first started working on Films from the 70s and 80s, you know, as a film person, I was sometimes like, it's kind of awkward. That's kind of an awkward shot. Or that actor is maybe not the greatest actor who ever lived. But there's more to a film than just one level of, you know, polish. And some of these films have now become really important in inspiring a next generation of Filmmakers.

[Alex Goldman]

The thing is that if nobody notices these movies right out of the gate, if they don't have a bankable name or. Or they don't make a splash at a film festival, they can and do fall into oblivion. Especially independent movies, and especially now because there's just so much out there, and because that experience can be so demoralizing, sometimes the filmmakers will pull the movie off the Internet. They'll put it in a hard drive, push it to the back of the closet. And because a lot of filmmakers don't understand the mechanics of proper preservation, that's where the movies die.

[Parker]

We'll talk to filmmakers and we'll say. They'll say, you know, I think. I think the negative is in my mother's storage unit in Hoboken. I mean, literally. Or I think it's under the bed in my kid's room. I mean, independent filmmakers, especially filmmakers who are making short films, documentary films, and it's okay if you keep your 16 millimeter, if you keep your AB roles. It may be fine. I mean, they may not, but they may be fine. But your digital hard drive will not be fine in 15 years. We've all had hard drives, Phil. Have we not everybody knows that everybody's lost files, right? I mean, that happens to every human being. Who says, I thought I had downloaded that and I can't find it now? This happens to filmmakers, too.

[Alex Goldman]

Hard drives are only reliable for about five years. So if that's the way you're storing your movie, you need to be migrating it continuously, which can be a pain in the ass, and. And it can be expensive. Dennis was even the president of an organization called the association of Moving Image Archivists, or AMIA for short, which connects filmmakers to people who can help them preserve their movies.

[Dennis Naimi]

And it's only been in the last 15, 20 years where we've been reaching out to directors and producers and tell them we exist, we have services, we have information. You need to know this.

[Parker]

And one of the great things about AMIYA is that you don't have to be an archive to be a member. Anyone can be a member of EMEA and can go to the conference or can be on the listserv and ask any kind of question. And the community really supports conversations that really lead to more. To more actions, more activity.

[Alex Goldman]

It still takes some work, but as Nancy and Dennis like to remind people, so did making the movie itself. And just because the thing you made wasn't noticed in its time, it doesn't mean that it'll always be that way.

[Dennis Naimi]

I'LL tell you the basic motivation. Nancy Savoca says this. You need to have self worth, that you value yourself and your work to be preserved. Don't care what the critics say. They can love it, they can hate it, whatever, but you need to have self worth and give value to your work and that it needs preservation.

[Parker]

And I'll say one other thing that I think that Nancy also talks about, which is what I thought you were going to say, is that when a film is lost, not only is the work of the filmmaker lost, but the actors, the set dressers, the editors, the cinematographer, the costumers, everybody's work is lost. So it's really important to think that this is when you're doing this, you're not just preserving it to preserve it like an tourist way, but to preserve like a community of effort.

[Alex Goldman]

So if we want to make sure that movies stop going missing, all we have to do apparently is make sure that all filmmakers are armed with the knowledge of how to preserve their movies and, well, self esteem. So please spread the word.

[Dennis Naimi]

It's not difficult. It's just you have to be aware that you want this to survive.

[Alex Goldman]

Coming out of our interview with Amy and Dennis, we still have no idea why this particular movie went missing. But if it turns out to be some kind of contract situation or legal squabble that needs untangling, our friends at Missing Movies volunteered to help us untangle it. So with that in mind, we reached out to Genevieve Adams, the writer producer of I'm obsessed with you, but you've got to leave me alone. We sent an email to her manager explaining that Hyperfixed was named the number four best podcast of 2024 by Time magazine and that we wanted to talk to Genevieve about her movie. And within minutes they put us in touch. After the break, we find out how and why this movie went missing.

[Joseph Cox]

Foreign.

[David Remnick]

I'm David Remnick, host of the New Yorker Radio Hour. There's nothing like finding a story you can really sink into that lets you tune out the noise and focus on what matters. In print or here on the podcast, the New Yorker brings you thoughtfulness and depth and even humor that you can't find anywhere else. So please join me every week for the New Yorker Radio Hour. Wherever you listen to podcasts.

[Alex Goldman]

This message is sponsored by Greenlight. Greenlight is a debit card and money app made for families that lets kids learn how to save, invest and spend wisely. Parents can send money to their kids, keep an eye on their kids spending and saving, and meanwhile, kids and teens can build Money, confidence and skills in a fun, accessible way. So me personally, I got my first job a paper route when I was nine years old. And let me tell you, being nine and walking around with $80 a month burning a hole in my pocket, well, let's just say I played a lot of arcade games and ate a lot of Laffy Taffy. But can you imagine how much more responsible I probably would have been if my parents had gotten a Grease account for me? For example, the Greenlight app has a chores feature where you can set up a one time or recurring chore, customize to your household, and you can reward kids with allowance for a job well done. So like, maybe finally I can get my kids to clean their rooms? Probably not, but maybe start your risk free greenlight trial today at greenlight.com hyperfixed that's greenlight.com hyperfixed to get started greenlight.com/hyper fixed. Welcome back to the show. So before the break, Parker told us about a movie that came out in 2014, and even though it features a bonafide Hollywood movie star in an early performance, it now seems to only exist as an echo on the Internet. It's not on any streaming services, it's unavailable for purchase, and Parker is far from the only person looking for it. So when we finally sat down with the film's writer, producer and star, Genevieve Adams, we shared with her some people screaming into the Internet void in the hopes that they could find this film. Hold on a second. I'm going to share a link with you in the Zoom chat. Give me just a second.

[Amy Heller]

Okay. I like, I don't use social media. Like I know. I mean, I have an Instagram, but I like never use it. I never. So I don't know anything that's going on on the Internet.

[Alex Goldman]

So if you go to the chat at the bottom, there's a link right there for.

[Amy Heller]

Oh my God.

[Alex Goldman]

For a Reddit called Movie Finder. I'm wondering if you could read the top here for me.

[Amy Heller]

This is hilarious. Okay, so I'm a huge Rachel Brosnahan fan. I've set out to watch all of her movies as I'm in my umpteenth quarter life crisis. Anyway, I contacted the writer of the film, but she doesn't know why there isn't a way to watch it. This is two years ago. Okay. The director who the writer suggested I contact never returned my message. I feel like I tried everything and cannot find a way to watch it. Read it, please. Do your magic and help me here. It's been Damn near six months of trying to no avail. Wow, that's a lot of commitment.

[Alex Goldman]

Despite the fact that we found dozens of posts from people who are searching for this movie, Genevieve wasn't aware that there was any real demand for it. The movie was pulled off the Internet several years ago, and the story of how and why that came to be went more or less the way that Amy and Dennis imagined it might go.

[Amy Heller]

I was sort of fresh out of college, and I didn't go to film school. I had mainly been educated in theater, and I had no clue what I was doing.

[Alex Goldman]

Nevertheless, Genevieve poured herself into the making of this movie. It was based on this very pivotal time in her life, when she felt more awake and inspired than she'd ever been before. The characters were based on her friends, and when she tells stories about the production of this thing, it sounds like it ended up being a really madcap, magical experience. I think my favorite story she told me was the one about the crew member who got electrocuted.

[Amy Heller]

We had a lovely grip who was standing in the pond because we had to, like, light the pond with these lanterns, and he got electrocuted. Luckily, he's fine, but I remember he was, like, in shock. And Duccio carries him into the house. Duccio was our first ad. He has since worked on the bear, and he's a hilarious little Italian man who is just a character in and of himself and a brilliant person. But anyways, like, we come in and he's like, frying hot dogs to make for this guy who just got electrocuted. And he was like, in Italy, we give the person a hot dog and it stops electrocution. We were like, what? But, okay, weirder things have happened.

[Alex Goldman]

Obviously, I hadn't seen the movie at this time, but the way Genevieve talked about it, it made me really want to. In addition to being the place where Rachel Brosnahan and Jason Ralph first met, according to Genevieve, I'm Obsessed with youh was also the first production to cast Rachel in a comedic role, which is incredible when you think about the fact that she is now considered one of the greatest comedic actresses in television. Me and Genevieve talked about this movie for more than an hour, and it seemed like she was still really proud of this thing she made. It also seemed like she was still sad about the fact that when she sent it out into the world, it didn't have the impact she hoped it would have. I'm obsessed with you but you've got to Leave Me Alone premiered at the Sonoma Film Festival, and it played at A festival in Poland, and it got pretty good reviews, just not from any major outlets. And ultimately, the movie didn't sell. So Genevieve submitted the movie to an aggregator which works like the middleman between filmmakers and streamers.

[Amy Heller]

Film buff, who's a digital aggregator, picked it up and put it on their platform. And so it was on Amazon. It was on itunes. It did get distributed, which was great.

[Alex Goldman]

The problem is that once the movie got posted to those streamers, nobody really watched it because nobody really knew it existed. And this is the first part of the answer to Parker's question about why the movie isn't online. You see, in the deal that Genevieve made with the aggregator, all they'd promised to do is get the movie out in the world, because that's what aggregators do, figuring out how to drive traffic to the movie. That job fell back on the production team, and they'd run out of money.

[Amy Heller]

At that point, we had nothing left. Like, a lot of films have double the budget for publicity, and we literally had nothing. So without, you know, directing traffic to the film or having a really splashy festival premiere with all the actors there, you couldn't really make it visible.

[Alex Goldman]

I asked Genevieve how long the movie was up on Amazon, but she didn't remember for sure. She says she thinks it came down in 2021 when her contract with the aggregator expired, and then she chose not to even try and get it back up.

[Amy Heller]

It just didn't make sense anymore. I was like, oh, this. You know, we're not. We're not actively trying to. The movie's kind of. It's over.

[Alex Goldman]

You know, she told me the movie wasn't gone gone. You know what I mean? She still had it on a hard drive in her closet, but she also said she didn't think anybody would miss it if they took it down. I couldn't help but think about my conversation with Dennis and Amy about how one of the reasons these movies go missing is simply because the filmmakers become convinced that they're not worth preserving. So I felt compelled to tell her, yeah, I gotta say, it's not over. People want to know about it.

[Amy Heller]

That's really, really. Like, if you told me that, you know, a few years ago, I would have been like, what are you talking about?

[Alex Goldman]

If you. If you go on, like, Reddit, there are places that are. Where people are like, has anybody seen this movie? Does anyone know how to see this movie? Like, you want to watch it? Yeah, there are a lot of people being like, how do I see this?

[Amy Heller]

All right, we'll put it up.

[Alex Goldman]

Look at me over here. Problem solver, motivational coach. I'm the complete package.

[Amy Heller]

I mean, I want them to watch the movie. Yeah. So I'll try to get it out there, I guess. This is a really funny, lovely reminder of something that, you know, meant a lot to me at the time and I would be happy to share.

[Alex Goldman]

When we said goodbye to Genevieve, I really wanted to believe that this movie was going to find its way back into the world. But I also had my doubts, because while I may not know anything about filmmaking, I do know about hard drives. And when Genevieve said, this movie isn't missing, it's on a hard drive in my closet somewhere, all I could think was, God, I hope it hasn't been there for the last 10 years. Over the next several weeks, we waited to hear from Genevieve. And with every week that passed, I became more nervous about the condition of the movie. I wondered if we were too late, if Genevieve had tried submitting the movie and discovered her footage had been corrupted. We emailed her from time to time to check on the status of things. And for a while, it was hard to understand the status of things. At one point, she told us she submitted the film to 2B, but the requirements were more extensive than she thought they'd be. So she asked an editor to help her. And then I had to check out for a bit because the whole thing was getting too stressful. And then finally, just a few weeks ago, we got an email from Genevieve with a status update that we could pass along to Parker. When we connected back with Genevieve to see what was going on with the film, she was like, actually, I've got some licensing offers. You just have to wait. And then we were like, oh, my God, let's wait and wait and wait. And our thought was like, this is definitely not going to come out until right before Superman comes out. Like, this summer sometime was really, really stressful. But then we got this link, and I wanted to send you this link. I'm sending it in the chat. I'm wondering if you can take a look at it.

[Parker]

I will take a look at it.

[Genevieve Adams]

Oh, my God. It's just up on Amazon. I can't believe that at the end of this, Amazon is the good guy. Oh, my God.

[Alex Goldman]

Not only can you rent this now on Amazon for $3, you can own it if you want.

[Genevieve Adams]

When? When did this appear?

[Alex Goldman]

Like, a couple days ago.

[Genevieve Adams]

I was like, they wouldn't have emailed me unless there was some big thing that happened. This is huge.

[Alex Goldman]

Listen, Genevieve told us she never would have done any of this submission if you hadn't reached out like. And we wouldn't have contacted her if you hadn't submitted the problem. So this movie exists in the world. It is available again pretty much solely because of your efforts.

[Genevieve Adams]

Damn. As somebody who has an appreciation for the work that Lost Media people do. No understanding, but a deep appreciation. This feels really good on a number of levels.

[Alex Goldman]

Do you feel like we solved your problem?

[Genevieve Adams]

Oh, 100,000%. You have solved my problem completely. This movie is available. I could click watch right now if I had time.

[Alex Goldman]

I am so happy that you feel this way. We have one more request of you if you don't mind.

[Genevieve Adams]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Alex Goldman]

Can we get like a voice memo from you when you are either starting or ending the movie just so we can hear you in the process in.

[Genevieve Adams]

Situ, enjoying this film? 100%. I would absolutely say send that to you.

[Alex Goldman]

Awesome. I am so glad.

[Genevieve Adams]

Thank you guys so much. Seriously, you guys have worked so much harder on this than I ever could have. And what seems like a kind of a silly request, but a real problem that, like, clearly other people were having is now very gratefully solved. So thank you guys so much. I am unbelievably excited to watch this movie.

[Alex Goldman]

Awesome. We're unbelievably excited for you to see it. So congratulations. We did it. We're the best.

[Genevieve Adams]

I defy you to find a person out there who says this is not a rollicking success.

[Parker]

It's Saturday afternoon. I have just finished watching I'm obsessed with you, but you've got to leave me alone. Which is a wild thing to get to say after five years of waiting to watch this movie. I laughed out loud multiple times. I just had such a great time watching it. I have a hard time imagining that either Rachel or Jason is really anything like those characters in regular life. But definitely getting to see them on screen together was exciting. Like, knowing that this is where it started and that they got married is really cool. I think they're both really wonderful actors and I hope that they both go on to phenomenal careers with working with.

[Genevieve Adams]

Each other if they like that.

[Parker]

I don't know.

Maybe it's terrible to work with your spouse.

[Genevieve Adams]

Maybe they're like, oh, God, please stop.

[Parker]

Casting us in things together because it sucks. I can't imagine that's true. But I don't know them. But yeah, I'll never get tired of seeing them get to share a screen. Okay, that was brain dumpy.

[Joseph Cox]

Thanks, guys.

[Alex Goldman]

This episode of Hyper Fixed was produced, edited, and fact checked by Emma Cortland, Amori Yates and Serious Offer Sukinek Music is by the mysterious Breakmaster Cylinder and me. The show is engineered by Tony Williams. You can get bonus episodes. Join our discord and much, much [e-mail] Hyperfixed is a completely independent podcast and we rely on premium memberships to keep this thing going. So if you like the show at all, please consider becoming a member. Hyperfixedpod.com join we are in the process of working on some merch with some very cool designers in the next couple of months, but it will be produced in very limited numbers and it will only be available to premium members. So again, please think about joining. Hyperfixed is a proud member of Radiotopia from prx, a network of independent, creator owned listener supported podcasts. Discover audio with Vision at Radiotopia fm. Thanks so much for listening Radiotopia from PRX.