‘Can’t Hardly Wait’ With Bill Simmons and Joanna Robinson

Summary

The Rewatchables: Episode Summary – “Can’t Hardly Wait” with Joanna Robinson and Zach Lowe

Release Date: April 15, 2025

---

Introduction

In this episode of The Rewatchables, Joanna Robinson teams up with Zach Lowe and producer Craig Horbick to delve deep into the cult classic teen party movie, Can’t Hardly Wait. The trio explores the film’s enduring appeal, dissecting its characters, themes, and the unique cultural moment it encapsulates from the late 1990s.

---

Context of “Can’t Hardly Wait”

Can’t Hardly Wait, released in 1998, has cemented itself as a quintessential teen party movie, capturing the essence of high school finales with its ensemble cast and vibrant soundtrack. The film, often celebrated for its nostalgic value, serves as a time capsule of the era's pop culture, encapsulating the transition from the 80s-inspired teen films to the more raunchy comedies of the early 2000s.

---

The Movie’s Place in High School Films

Joanna Robinson highlights how Can’t Hardly Wait stands at the crossroads between the structured, archetype-driven high school movies of the 80s and the more fluid, friendship-centric narratives that emerged later.

“This is just right on the cusp of that. … Can’t Hardly Wait is a very specific movie for our generation, bridging the gap between John Hughes-inspired films and the burgeoning raunchy comedies like American Pie.”
— Zach Lowe [05:22]

Robinson adds that the movie reflects the anxieties and aspirations of a generation on the brink of adulthood, emphasizing themes of identity and social stratification within the high school setting.

---

Casting and Characters

A significant portion of the discussion centers around the film’s ensemble cast, which includes Seth Green, Ethan Embry, Jennifer Love Hewitt, and Lauren Ambrose, among others. The group analyzes the effectiveness of each character archetype and the casting decisions that contributed to the film's dynamic.

“The core cast is kind of perfect. The only one I would say is… I wish Mike Dexter’s character were a little less evil.”
— Joanna Robinson [40:55]

They ponder alternative casting choices, suggesting actors like James Marsden for the role of Mike Dexter and debating the potential impact of different actors on the film’s reception.

“Preston and Amanda should not wind up together at the end of this movie. She should choose herself.”
— Joanna Robinson [46:31]

The conversation underscores how casting influences character depth and audience connection, ultimately shaping the film’s legacy.

---

Soundtrack and Cultural Impact

The soundtrack of Can’t Hardly Wait is lauded as one of its standout elements, featuring bands like Blink-182, Smash Mouth, and Third Eye Blind, which perfectly encapsulates the late 90s musical landscape.

“The soundtrack just reminds me of 1998. It’s probably my favorite thing about the movie.”
— Zach Lowe [22:17]

Robinson points out that the music selection not only enhances the film’s atmosphere but also serves as a nostalgic trigger for audiences revisiting the movie.

---

Rewatchable Scenes and Analysis

Joanna Robinson and Zach Lowe identify several key scenes that contribute to the film’s rewatchability. From the chaotic party sequences to the heartfelt monologues, each moment is dissected for its narrative and emotional impact.

“What you had to do was watch the party scene and realize it was just like a million different stories bleeding into each other.”
— Zach Lowe [23:09]

They discuss how the film's rapid scene transitions and interconnected storylines mirror the frenetic energy of high school social gatherings, making it relatable and engaging for viewers.

---

Critical Reception and Legacy

Despite its initial mixed reviews, Can’t Hardly Wait has grown into a beloved cult classic. Robinson and Lowe explore how the film’s enduring popularity contrasts with its commercial performance and critical reception at the time of release.

“By 2012, Entertainment Weekly did top 50 best high school movies of all time. Can't Hardly Wait, number 44… Way too low.”
— Zach Lowe [24:53]

They attribute its lasting appeal to its authentic depiction of teenage experiences and its ability to resonate across different generations, even as it navigates the pitfalls of late 90s cultural shifts.

---

Conclusion

Can’t Hardly Wait stands as a testament to the late 90s teen movie era, blending humor, romance, and a memorable soundtrack to create a film that continues to be cherished by audiences. Joanna Robinson, Zach Lowe, and Craig Horbick celebrate its rewatchability, acknowledging both its strengths and its dated elements, ultimately affirming its place in the pantheon of beloved high school films.

---

Notable Quotes

• “This whole era was influenced by those 80s movies.”
  — Zach Lowe [05:21]

• “The house is just a great high school party house that even has like, the staircase that goes both ways.”
  — Zach Lowe [36:31]

• “Shower shoes are important. You don't want to get warts.”
  — Joanna Robinson [73:06]

• “Always wear shoes in the dorm shower.”
  — Joanna Robinson [73:07]

---

Memorable Moments

• Character Analysis: In-depth discussions about Ethan Embry’s portrayal of Preston Myers and Jennifer Love Hewitt’s Amanda Beckett, examining how their characters drive the film’s narrative.

• Casting What Ifs: Speculative conversations on alternative casting choices, including the potential impact of James Marsden and Freddie Prinze Jr. on the film’s dynamics.

• Soundtrack Appreciation: A nostalgic appreciation for the film’s soundtrack, highlighting how the music enhances the storytelling and evokes the late 90s vibe.

• Rewatchable Scenes Identification: Listing and analyzing the most memorable and rewatchable scenes, such as the bathroom showdown and the final dance floor confrontation.

---

Final Thoughts

This episode of The Rewatchables offers a comprehensive exploration of Can’t Hardly Wait, blending critical analysis with personal reflections. Joanna Robinson, Zach Lowe, and Craig Horbick provide listeners with a multifaceted understanding of why this film continues to resonate, making it a must-listen for fans and newcomers alike.

Transcript

[Zach Lowe]

Welcome to the brand new Zach Lowe Show. That's right, I'm back to have the same in depth NBA conversations you're used to. We're going to talk about the games, the X's and O's, the drama. The playoffs are coming up and now you get to see every episode in full on video on Spotify and on my own YouTube channel. Episodes drop every Monday and Thursday with a collection of guests you're going to love. So make sure you follow and subscribe to the brand new Zach Lowe show on Spotify or wherever you watch or listen. Listen to your podcast. Let's go. This message is brought to you by Apple Card. Apple Card is a no fee credit card that gives you daily cash back every day. That's 3% back at Apple and 2% back on every purchase made with Apple Card using Apple Pay. Apply for Apple Card and the Wallet app on your iPhone today. Subject to credit approval. Variable APRs for Apple Card range from 18.24% to 28.49% based on creditworthiness rates as of January 1, 2025. Apple Card issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA, Salt Lake City Branch terms and [e-mail] this episode is brought to you by the Home Depot. It's starting to look like spring. And spring starts with savings at the Home Depot. There are savings for every project, whether you're starting with a clean slate with convenient cordless power like a new pressure washer or leaf blower, or starting to love the art again with colorful flowers and fresh mulch. Start your spring with early savings at the Home Depot. Shop now at homedepot. Com. The rewatchables is brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network. You can find Joanna Robinson on House of R with Mallory Rubin.

[Joanna Robinson]

Correct.

[Zach Lowe]

My longtime friend.

[Joanna Robinson]

Absolutely.

[Zach Lowe]

You can find the three of us on the Prestige TV podcast. We just broke down the season finale of White Lotus, which we have not seen yet as we're recording this podcast.

[Joanna Robinson]

But we're living in a bubble. We don't know.

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah, we don't know. They've been hiding the screeners from us. But Joanna's been in LA for how many weeks now?

[Joanna Robinson]

Six weeks.

[Zach Lowe]

Six weeks. And you've done, I think, about 95 podcasts in those six weeks.

[Joanna Robinson]

And you thought I deserved a reward today, right?

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah. So I said we gotta do rewatchables before you leave. Yeah, I sent you a list and one of the two movies that you said was absolutely one of your Alzheimer's was Can't Hardly Wait and I was like, really interesting.

[Joanna Robinson]

Who says no? Who says no? I know.

[Zach Lowe]

I can't say no to that. So we are going to dive into Can't Hardly Wait Next time we get freaky. Their first night of freedom.

[Joanna Robinson]

He is the most dope guy in school.

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

And school's over.

[Zach Lowe]

Was their last chance, Amanda, to say what they want. God, you're a hottie. Hey, can I see you naked? Do what they feel. Maybe I should wear the hat.

[Joanna Robinson]

Listen here, Hootie, Hootie.

[Zach Lowe]

And be who they are. I wonder how William was doing at the party. I can't feel my legs.

[Producer Craig Horbick]

I can't feel my legs.

[Zach Lowe]

Can't Hardly wait. Made a PG13. Opens everywhere June 12th. Here's why I was really intrigued when you wanted to do this. It's. It's kind of less about Can't Hardly Wait, which I think has become like a pretty big cult movie over the last 20. I mean, we even wrote about it for the Ringer. Once Upon a Time.

[Joanna Robinson]

Great.

[Zach Lowe]

The late 90s is such an interesting movie time. And where Can Hardly Wait fits into that with just what was happening in Hollywood in general and then the movie and what it was trying to do and how rewatchable it became when it wasn't. I don't think anyone thought, well, this is amazing when it came out. And then it just kind of kept going and going and going.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

And I'm not sure that happens anymore because I just think this is a Netflix series now. I don't even think this movie would exist.

[Joanna Robinson]

No, this movie doesn't exist. I think. Yeah. The closest you get recently, and it's not even that recent, is Netflix American Vandal, that. That TV series they did or something like Booksmart, you know, but this being as mainstream as it is, having the soundtrack that it does, having the roster of talent that it does. We don't make this anymore. At all.

[Zach Lowe]

So why do you love it? It just hit you at the perfect time in your life.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah. Do you have a teen movie that's like, exactly the 80s, but, like, what's like your micro generation? Like, exactly. Right. If you had to pick one 80s teen movie, probably Breakfast Club. Breakfast Club, Yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

But I mean, Breakfast Club, just one of the guys. Karate Kid, Secret of Myron, can't buy me, love, 16 candles. Like, there's like. There's 20 of them. We had less channels back then.

[Joanna Robinson]

Well, the 80s teen movies like Can't Be Beat. But there is something about 1998. Can't hardly wait for a very specific, I think Micro Generation, which is my generation, which is the one between millennials and Gen X. That gap. Generation. Generation Catalano. Whatever. Generation Oregon Trail, whatever you want to call it. This is our teen mov. And I have, like, if you asked me, based on my friends in high school, everyone I knew, and how often they quoted this movie, I would have said this was the biggest movie of 1998.

[Zach Lowe]

I'm not surprised.

[Joanna Robinson]

And it wasn't at all. But, like, that was what it felt like at the time for us.

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah. Well, not so it's the Internet's forming, but not really yet. But the big thing for me is how influenced this was. And this whole era was influenced by those 80s movies.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yes.

[Zach Lowe]

This is like the. The Sons and Daughters of John Hughes.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

And all of these other things. And they're just. They're just stealing different things that worked. Like, this movie is basically. They're stealing say Anything.

[Joanna Robinson]

That's what they said.

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah. They admit it. They're like, we watch say anything. And we're like, why isn't that Big party? Why isn't that just the whole movie? They're stealing John Hughes stuff left and right. They're stealing from Secret Admirer. They're stealing from Can't Buy Me Love with the Nerds. Like, but.

[Joanna Robinson]

Like, but making it just slightly tuned to the frequency of 1998. Yeah, but. Yeah, we're not. We're not reinventing the wheel with this movie at all. Except it's a weird bridge between those 80s movies which were so about your social circles. Right. You can't. If you're. Unless you're like Lloyd Dobler, you can't move between social circles in the 80s unless you fall in love with someone, and that's your way across to the popular kids or whatever it is. And then after this movie, into the aughts, when you get movies like 21 Jump street or Booksmart, the message is less like, hey, you're in a clique and you belong there. And usually when you get to these, like, big party scenes super bad or something like that, it's about how we're all just teenagers and friends together figuring it out.

[Zach Lowe]

Right.

[Joanna Robinson]

You know, and this is just right on the cusp of that. When you get scenes between, like, the nerd and the jock at the end of the movie where they have this bonding moment. Like, it's not about, can I get the popular girl, though. That is the spine of this movie. But it's about, we're all about to leave high school and none of this is gonna mean anything anyway. Once we're gone, you know, and also.

[Zach Lowe]

I'm stuck in this role that I became in high school. And this is basically my last night to break out of it.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah, exactly.

[Zach Lowe]

If I don't like where I've been pigeonholed or positioned, can I get out of it this way? And you mentioned the odds like American Pie comes right basically right after this movie and we just go from like we're down here to blowing up. And you watch this movie now and they talk about it in some of the research, like this should have just been. This should have started the R rated high school comedy movie phase. And they kind of had it. And a lot of the stuff got cut out because it was still that attitude of, no, no, we need to get the kids to be in the theater. We need high school kids.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

And they didn't see the big picture which American Pie saw. And that changed everything.

[Joanna Robinson]

Right. This was originally rated R and they cut a bunch of like.

[Zach Lowe]

I can't wait to talk about all this stuff.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah, it's unbelievable. In order, in order to make it tamer and that I think neutered it a bit. But there is like something then quite sweet about it. Like somebody like stuff, the stuff they cut out sounds like funny and fun and we'll get to that. But like this is just a very sweet movie at the end of the day, despite all the other things that happened and some of the stuff that is aged, aged very poorly.

[Zach Lowe]

Right.

[Joanna Robinson]

But like there is just like a very innocent way about this movie, you know?

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah, it's one of those movies that just immediately was on for 15 straight years. And one of the reasons it was on for so long was it was so translatable to tbs, tnt, totally any channel. They didn't really have a lot to cut. There's a couple of bad words. They don't. There's no nudity, there's nothing. People being drunk, but you're not really seeing them. Like because they were so careful about the PG13. It just immediately moved into this 15 year run.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah, exactly. And everyone I knew had it on dvd. This was like a huge DVD sale. I have this in my collection movie.

[Zach Lowe]

It's funny because I was watching and I got nostalgic for that era. You know, I was older, I was in my late twenties at that point. But I was, I had, you know, my uncle's daughters who were all going to the, all of these movies and I went with them to a couple of them and all of a sudden there was this boom and we'll go backwards because you have Clueless and then you have Scream. Yeah, and Scream is what? Scream's the tipping point because Scream breaks Hollywood's brains.

[Joanna Robinson]

Micro budget makes over a million dollars.

[Zach Lowe]

Teen horror movie, but really a teen movie. And everybody goes. And Hollywood's going, hmm, yeah. So you have this generation raised on Hughes, Risky Business, Karate Kid, can't buy me lunch. Just all those movies now they're ready for their generation. You have the Internet. That's not the Internet yet. You have high school kids still going to movies as like nobody's like home online all the time. Because online really hasn't happened yet. So they're still like, what am I doing tonight? Where am I going? It's a big date thing. You also have network TV is just create. It's like this farm system of teen stars because you have 90210 and Party of Five and the WBS coming up Dawson's Creek. So it's almost like the real world creating the feeder system for the challenge.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah, exactly.

[Zach Lowe]

It's like, here's Katie Holmes. Throw her into disturbing behavior.

[Joanna Robinson]

Exactly, exactly.

[Zach Lowe]

Hey, here's Jennifer Love Hewitt. You like her in Party Five. Here she is this. And so it's this little sweet spot, PG13. This is really when they figured out exactly how far they could go. And then you have Maxim magazine. That era is there where Jennifer Love Hewitt, whoever the. The best looking girl in the movie, that they were always in that world. And then the last thing was the pop music for whatever reason. And the same thing happened in the 80s, in the mid-80s. The pop music just makes sense for movie soundtracks. Like these bands like Blink 182. Like, they're just like. They're just Smash mouse background. Yeah, background music for movies.

[Joanna Robinson]

It's perfect. The. The soundtrack to this movie is insane. It's really banger.

[Zach Lowe]

It feels like 1998.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah, exactly.

[Zach Lowe]

We talk about that sometimes on this pod, about when music just makes perfect sense for when the movie came out. And this is one of those where it's like, of course I was talking.

[Joanna Robinson]

To a friend of mine in terms of that. That ramp up that you just mentioned Clueless and Scream to this. I was talking to a friend of mine who's just. Yeah, just like two, three years older than me. And she's like, oh, this isn't my movie at all. And I was like, what's your movie? She's like Clueless, you know, and so there's just like there's the Clueless and then there's American Pie and this is just like in that weird gap between.

[Zach Lowe]

I think because Hollywood was still trying in the late 80s, early 90s. It's just the movies weren't that good. But then like, for. There's a certain generation kind of between me and you where, like, adventures and babysitting is their movie.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah. You know, and that's another. I mean, the movie that is just a teen party. There aren't as many as you would think there are, but they're all interesting to me. And then the One Crazy night, which Adventures in Babysitting is. But like, that One Crazy night idea is always hits for me. I love that as a concept for a movie.

[Zach Lowe]

One Crazy night always works. High school is about to be over. This is our last chance to change the perception of who we are. That always works.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

Somebody pining for somebody else. That always. I mean, that was basically Sixteen Candles. That was the blueprint.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

So this movie is just grabbing different little tiny things. The other thing, the teen movie. Boom. We mentioned. It's really an amazing post. Scream three years. I wrote down all the movies. I think I got all these. And American Pie was the biggest one. But you have. I know what you did last summer. 1 and 2. Halloween. H2O.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yes.

[Zach Lowe]

Which they reinvent. Halloween, basically is a teen movie.

[Joanna Robinson]

Michelle Williams. Yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

The faculty.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yes.

[Zach Lowe]

I'm. I. I gotta say, I'm embarrassed by how many I saw. I saw a lot of these in the theater. Including the faculty. Including Disturbing Behavior.

[Joanna Robinson]

I love. You're like the only person who's ever talked about disturbing behavior.

[Zach Lowe]

Disturbing Behavior is good.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

I'll still defend it. Varsity Blues.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yes.

[Zach Lowe]

Cruel Intentions, I think was one of the higher end ones. I'm throwing. And bring it on. 10 Things I Hate about you. She's all that.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

Drive me crazy.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

I think we can count. Never Been Kissed. Even though it's Drew Barrymore going back to high school.

[Joanna Robinson]

I'm gonna sneak it in. Yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

And then we have the weird ones, like wild things. Teaching. Mrs. Tingle. Jawbreaker. Drop Dead Gorgeous.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

And then. But I'm a cheerleader, so that's. That's 20. And those are on three years.

[Joanna Robinson]

It's amazing time. What a time to be a teenager in America.

[Zach Lowe]

And Hollywood's just like, more high school, more high school. Here's more money. Oh, you got to.

[Joanna Robinson]

What are we doing with the cast of Seven?

[Zach Lowe]

Oh, it's a horror movie in high school.

[Joanna Robinson]

Great.

[Zach Lowe]

Oh, wait. What about that fifth lead in Dawson's Creek? Can we get them in?

[Joanna Robinson]

Kevin Williamson's just running the game between Dawson's and all of the Scream movies and teaching Mrs. Tingle and everything else that comes out and I guess like.

[Zach Lowe]

And then you have like the skulls and movie like that that weren't necessarily high school movies. But we're also dipping into the same.

[Joanna Robinson]

Teen pool because Joshua Jackson is in it. PC. Yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

Anyway, the Dawson's Creek cast is in like almost every single one of those movies that you mentioned.

[Zach Lowe]

It became like Mad Libs, Mix and Match.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

Because Party of five two Bailey never made it. No, Matthew Fox was too old.

[Joanna Robinson]

Bailey's in. He's in Go.

[Zach Lowe]

Right. But that's an adult movie. Lacey. But Lacey Cha Bear. What's her. Lacey Cha Bear.

[Joanna Robinson]

Chabert. Yeah. Mean girls.

[Zach Lowe]

She was too young, but then rose and became Mean girls. That became the stunt casting.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

J Love being in this movie was a big deal because she was a big deal on Party five and she.

[Joanna Robinson]

Had just popped and she signed this before she did. I know what you did last summer.

[Zach Lowe]

Which popped the movie.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

[Zach Lowe]

I forgot this because I was researching Jennifer Love Hewitt who everybody had a crush on for probably four years.

[Joanna Robinson]

How she went by love.

[Zach Lowe]

I forgot they spun off.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yes.

[Zach Lowe]

Party five where she had. She had this whole spit up show where she went to go find her birth parents. I think I blocked this out of my mind. We didn't have Time of your life.

[Joanna Robinson]

Time of your life.

[Zach Lowe]

She went to New York City to find her birth parents. How is that a show?

[Joanna Robinson]

Did it have. Who is the guy from 90210 who dated Donna who was the musician?

[Zach Lowe]

Oh, Jamie Walters.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah, Jamie Walters. Is he in time of your life?

[Zach Lowe]

It sounds like that sounds like it.

[Joanna Robinson]

Sounds like that's true.

[Zach Lowe]

Ray PR with one T. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So she dated Carson Daly. She was just in that whole world. Had some tough career stuff. Lost out on Rumen and Julia to. To Claire Danes.

[Joanna Robinson]

Thank God.

[Zach Lowe]

Lost out.

[Joanna Robinson]

Broke down palace, your favorite Claire Danes movie.

[Zach Lowe]

She lost to Kate Beckinsale for that role.

[Joanna Robinson]

Oh, wow. Claire Danes, Claire Danes and Jennifer Love Hewitt. How about that?

[Zach Lowe]

That's like the most 90s thing that's ever happened.

[Joanna Robinson]

Wow.

[Zach Lowe]

But the problem is you run those TV shows. You had no time to do anything else. Like in the research. Like Melissa Joan Hart. She's the crazy yearbook girl on this. And she had to film all her scenes late at night because she was.

[Joanna Robinson]

Also filming her Sabrina the Teenage witch.

[Zach Lowe]

All these, all these people, they never had the time to branch out. That's what killed the 9020 cast too.

[Joanna Robinson]

Jennifer Love Hewitt was so big for such a concentrated period of time. There were just Coke commercials that were just Jennifer Love Hewitt. There was hair dye commercials that was just Jennifer Love Hewitt. It was just like. But it was such a flash. And I remember. Do you remember? I don't know how much you watched Punk'd on mtv.

[Zach Lowe]

Oh, yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

But, like, do you remember her episode of Punk'd where, like, the joke was she was going to be cast in a really cool movie? Like, it was like when her career was slightly waning and they brought her into a casting office to talk to a producer and they're like, here's this really cool prestige movie that we want to do. And they were trying to sort of freak her out by the premise of it. And at the end, it's one of the saddest punk reveals because she's like, oh, I'm not going to get to be in the cool movie, am I? I was just like, no. Devastated.

[Zach Lowe]

Well, the first one was just a Timberlake.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yes.

[Zach Lowe]

I think he started crying.

[Joanna Robinson]

He did cry.

[Zach Lowe]

Jennifer Lafayette was interesting because she was really polarizing. Men. Men liked her. And at least all the women I knew didn't like her and made them mad that men liked her. And so she became. And this happens sometimes, like, didn't feel.

[Joanna Robinson]

Like a girl's girl.

[Zach Lowe]

Lightning round. Yeah. You know, sometimes women are like, oh, she's so cute. I love her. And then other times, like, you like her.

[Joanna Robinson]

Interesting.

[Zach Lowe]

She just moved into that. Into that world for some reason, I would say, out of something.

[Joanna Robinson]

I would say the reason. I mean, it's. It's very clear what she has. But, like, I would say out of the Party 5 cast, there's like Nev Campbell who's like the girls girl. Like the girls like Nev Campbell. And there's Jennifer Love Hewitt. Yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

For the boys, Nev Campbell had a nice run too. She's another one. I mean, she started with screaming. They Filmed this in October 97. Co writer director Harry Alphonse said suddenly every place was open for business for teen movies. Students realized the audience was underserved. We had one tight budget, the whole thing. So the movie, they have the dorks and the hot girls. Brainy, cute guy, the girl, Lauren Ambrose's character, who's clearly going to be more successful than all these people down the road. The queen bee with no identity, different kids stuck to whatever their shtick was that they can't get out of. The captain of the football team, who can see the finish line, and his psycho fan friends class dork finally having fun for the first time. But then they have all these other really fun, kind of cliche characters that they. Some of them, they ended up having to cut out. But, like the girl who shouldn't have had the party.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yes.

[Zach Lowe]

And it's just going wrong. Like, we all know her. The over the top yearbook girl. The nerds getting revenge. The stone guys with the watermelon. Foreign exchange guy. The klepto stone girl staring at banana like they're just hitting all these archetypes.

[Joanna Robinson]

And I think it was and it works. What's so fun about this movie is that I think there's like six or seven characters who have actual names and everyone else is like, you've no idea who they are. It's like Stoner got like, in the cast list. It's like stoner guy, popular girl, klepto kid. Like all of that.

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah. What's Sarah Rue like? Knife Girl.

[Joanna Robinson]

Earth Girl.

[Zach Lowe]

Earth Girl. Easily could have been Knife Girl. But you also had the cast of. It's about as 90s as it gets. Seth Green, right around his apex. Ethan Embry. Well, I can't wait to talk about him. Peter Fasanelli, who ended up marrying Jenny Garth. Charlie Corsmo.

[Joanna Robinson]

I know.

[Zach Lowe]

Complicated career.

[Joanna Robinson]

Hook. Yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

What about Bob Hook? Dick Tracy.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

Dick Tracy stopped acting with mit, Came back for this in complicated circumstances and then that's it. I don't think he acted really again.

[Joanna Robinson]

I still remember there was like a People magazine article of. It was like the return of Charlie Horsmo. It was just sort of like, here he is. You remember him from Hook. He's a teenager now. He's back and then he was gone again. But he's great in this movie.

[Zach Lowe]

Lauren Ambrose, who became the most successful actor of the year.

[Joanna Robinson]

This is a Six Feet under prequel.

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

You've got Freddie Rodriguez here, Eric Schelman.

[Zach Lowe]

She's blowing people out of the water in all of her one on ones. Melissa Joan Hart. Jamie Presley's in here. CLE Duvall. And then we get crazy cameos. Jason Siegel, Breckenmeyer, Donald Faison, Selma Blair and Sarah Rue to name five.

[Joanna Robinson]

I love that you put Sarah Rue in that list. Jerry O'Connell.

[Zach Lowe]

Jerry O'Connell. He's going to be coming up later for Dion Waiters.

[Joanna Robinson]

Jenna Elfman.

[Zach Lowe]

Jenna Elfman. Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

A lot of people in this.

[Joanna Robinson]

I mean, it's just like you've got Seth Crean out of Buffy. You've got Jenna Elfman out of Dharma and Greg. Like, yeah, the sort of. Like, this is tv. But make it a movie vibe is here. And I think what I loved when they talked about casting this film, they said they knew so many actors who played teenagers. They weren't all teenagers themselves. They were all in their 20s. But actors who could play teenagers, they knew so many of them who were out of work. And so they just had all of them come in and read. They threw all their headshots on the floor and were just sort of like, picking and choosing. And if you didn't make the lead role, they just stuck you in one of these side roles, and everyone said yes to it. Deborah Kaplan was dating Breckin Meyer at the time. Right. So he just, like, brought all his friends over. Seth Green's here, you know, all that sort of stuff. And it's just like.

[Zach Lowe]

And they all have other jobs, so it's like, yeah, I can do two days, or I could show up on Thursday night and play Stone guy.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah, exactly.

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah. I like that era. Seth Green, you mentioned. This is like, one of the most late 90s things about this movie is the Seth Green character. Because I almost think five years later, it makes no sense. Five years earlier, it makes no sense. But this was like a type of.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

Person for five years here for maybe, like, three years.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

And he's really funny.

[Joanna Robinson]

So good.

[Zach Lowe]

And I was ready to. To. I went into it because I hadn't seen a couple years being like, he probably didn't age, that one. I was like, no, he. It's actually really funny.

[Joanna Robinson]

No, it's perfect because when Lauren Ambrose, his character, calls him out later for it, and he drops, like, his black accent that he's adapted, and then when his friends drop the N word in front of, like, actual black people later in the movie, and they're just like, fuck. You know? So like, the movie knows exactly what it's doing, I think with this character.

[Zach Lowe]

I liked his Tupac for his yearbook quote.

[Joanna Robinson]

So good.

[Zach Lowe]

He's got a love kit. KMO is great. And then the soundtrack we have to talk about. Just. I'll just. Third Eye Blind Y, Smash Mouth, Blink 182, Parliament, Matthew Sweet, the Replacements, Sublime 311. Some of these aren't on the soundtrack, but most of them are Eve 6G love and then a bunch of stuff that's like, a little bit nostalgic, like Tone Loke, Bust A Move.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, dmc.

[Zach Lowe]

Some of those, like Paradise City. Because it's been like eight to 10 years since those songs hit, and they're kind of bringing them back. It's probably the. Probably my favorite thing about the movie. And I don't even really love a lot of these songs, but it reminds me of 1998.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah. The. Like, the use of Mandy, the Barry Manilow piece inside of this. The use of the Guns N Roses song Yazoo, only you playing at the end. That's an 80s movie, like, throwback track. So. Yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah. This movie knows, like, hey, we're.

[Joanna Robinson]

We're stealing.

[Zach Lowe]

We're like. We're stealing from the best borrowing.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

[Zach Lowe]

And Dire Straits is great too.

[Joanna Robinson]

Oh, yeah. The Romeo and Juliet drop.

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah. So Harry Alphonse said we should do a throwback to John Hughes. We talked a lot about saying anything specifically the party scene. And then we were like, what if that's the whole movie? And it was.

[Joanna Robinson]

When I read that, which I think was in the ringer piece about this, I. It. It really clicks something in place to me. Because, like, if you think about that scene and say anything with, like, Lily Taylor.

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

Singing about Joe. Joe lies. Yeah. Joe lies when he cries. Yeah. You're just, like, dipping inside of all these different little groups of that party. Yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

It's funny. Say anything. Probably did it better that that party. But it also only had to do everything in 20 minutes.

[Joanna Robinson]

This movie has to drag for this movie also just goes and goes and goes.

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

Every scene. Like you're following a character out of a scene right into another character in the next scene. Or there are these fascinating cuts, like Preston turns off the radio and as his hand blacks out the screen, Melissa Joan Hart, like, opens the trash can. You know, it's just sort of like it doesn't let you breathe in a way that doesn't feel panicky, but feels just sort of like it's a wild party night and we're just gonna go from one scene to the next.

[Zach Lowe]

I had that. In what stage? The best. Because it's. It's, like, frenetically edited in a good way.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

Because that's what it's like to be at a party like that. We're just like, oh, this person. Oh, this person. Oh, this is happening. And. And it tries to hit that and it's doing, like, quick jump cuts. And it's not like the editing doesn't feel dated.

[Joanna Robinson]

No.

[Zach Lowe]

I think they do a good job.

[Joanna Robinson]

I agree.

[Zach Lowe]

It did get nominated for an award. An MTV Movie Award.

[Joanna Robinson]

Hell, yeah. That's where it belongs.

[Zach Lowe]

Jennifer Love Hewitt right there. This is. That's another part of this whole era.

[Joanna Robinson]

The Golden Popcorn.

[Zach Lowe]

It's the Carson Daly Show. It's the movie Award. Like all this stuff. There was a pop culture feeling to all this crap.

[Joanna Robinson]

I. I didn't look into it, but I. I can't wait to know what TRL had to do with Can't Hardly Wait.

[Zach Lowe]

Oh, I'm sure they were plugging the shit out of you.

[Joanna Robinson]

Absolutely.

[Zach Lowe]

By 2012, Entertainment Weekly did top 50 best high school movies of all time. Can't hardly wait. Number 44.

[Joanna Robinson]

Way too low.

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah. I thought that was gonna be like the teens.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah. 20s at the lowest, I would say. And because, I mean, the 80s were just full of them.

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

The other thing is Deborah. Deborah Kaplan and Harry Alphont. Have you seen Josie and the pussycats?

[Zach Lowe]

Not in 20 years.

[Joanna Robinson]

I think that this movie and that movie, which they also did, are, you know, which also has Seth Green and Brecken Meyer and like, all, you know, the foreign exchange student in this movie and stuff like that. Tara Reid is just like a meatball right down the middle of, like, again, a specific generation, a specific sense of humor. And when you. Josie and the Pussycat's a movie that a lot of people write off because it looks so dumb.

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

But as Alan Cumming and Parker Posey, which everyone loves right now.

[Zach Lowe]

Interesting.

[Joanna Robinson]

Is like one of the funniest things I've ever seen. And has this similar sort of joke per minute rate inside of that movie. So really underrated, this movie.

[Zach Lowe]

$13 million budget. Made 25 million.

[Joanna Robinson]

Which is not terrible. But not what they wanted.

[Zach Lowe]

No. Well, I think part of the problem was it was a glut of movies like this, and it felt like they were coming out every week. Okay, Roger. Roger Ebert, one and a half stars.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah, tough.

[Zach Lowe]

He says there's one character in Kin Hardly Wait. Who is interesting and funny. Maybe it was a mistake to write her in. She makes the other characters look like Nat Brain Bozos. Her name is Denise. She's played by Lauren Ambrose, and she has a merry face, a biting tongue, and a sardonic angle on high school. And then just kind of continues.

[Joanna Robinson]

We all wanted to be Denise.

[Zach Lowe]

Crap on this.

[Joanna Robinson]

Watching this movie, you know, like, the best.

[Zach Lowe]

All right, we are going to take a break and talk about Loom by Atlassian. What's the most frustrating thing that's happened to you since you've been in la? Traffic.

[Joanna Robinson]

Traffic's a good one.

[Zach Lowe]

Traffic's goodbye.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah, sure.

[Zach Lowe]

Is it just way worse than where you live?

[Joanna Robinson]

Niberia is bad, but I think. Well, I think because I've been coming to the office so much, I have an actual commute, which is not true when I'm back home.

[Zach Lowe]

So, yeah, I hate traffic. I hate the way people drive out here. It constantly frustrates me. I can't get used to it. It's also really frustrating when you start feeling stuck at work with too many unnecessary meetings. Luckily, there's a simple solution for that. Use Loom video messaging. You and Mallory should use this.

[Joanna Robinson]

We should.

[Zach Lowe]

It can simultaneously record both your screen and yourself. Share a quick update, provide feedback, train a colleague, everything in between. Plus add LOOM AI to your meetings. For instant written notes and recordings. Try Loom [e-mail] that is L O M dot com. Let's do most rewatchable scenes. This is hard because.

[Joanna Robinson]

So hard. Because they're all micro scenes that sort of bleed into each other.

[Zach Lowe]

So I wrote down a few that I thought, and then if I missed any, tell me. The four idiots trying to decide how that they should dump their girlfriends when we meet the football captain and his dumbass friends. Throwing that in. Charisma. And the nerds setting up the attack on the house using a lot of Star wars language. I don't know if you want to.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah. Boba Fett. Grand Moff Tarkin. I don't want to be Grandma Tarkin.

[Zach Lowe]

Cool. Was that. That. I'll check all the boxes. I'm not a Star wars guy.

[Joanna Robinson]

I do know that it's. It's funny because I'm not. I didn't put it in what's aged poorly or whatever. But they were all like, they all want to be Boba Fett because Boba Fett's so cool. And that was before Disney made a TV show about Boba Fett that made Boba Fett way less cool.

[Zach Lowe]

Oh, so that's at one stage, the worst.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah, kind of.

[Zach Lowe]

Okay. Amanda's friends trying to make her feel better about miking Mike, dumping her, and comparing to Gwyneth Paltrow.

[Joanna Robinson]

She's not prettier than Gwyneth.

[Zach Lowe]

I love that part. Kenny over here in the. The cute girl saying she's hooking up with the next guy who talks to her because she's so upset she got dumped.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah. When he starts talking to her and she looks over at her friend, her.

[Zach Lowe]

Friend'S like, okay, the letter flying around is really funny. Yeah, it's on. Falls out of the garbage and it's somebody. Just the way they do that. I enjoy watching that.

[Joanna Robinson]

Rolls on the keg stuck on someone's shoe. All that. Yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

Tripp McNeely's one cameo played by Jerry OConnell. You were a sexual icon. I thought college was going to be a 247 orgy. Guys like us are a dime a dozen. We are a dime a dozen. Speaking of which, you still with that Amanda chick? And the burp is pretty impressive. Anyway, that part's fun.

[Joanna Robinson]

Jerry is perfect.

[Zach Lowe]

I'm throwing in Jason Siegel's one scene just because it's Jason Siegel. And I couldn't believe he was in the movie. And I forgot.

[Joanna Robinson]

And he's like, I think 19 in this movie or something like that.

[Zach Lowe]

Velma gets some love.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah. Yeah. She's a hip, hip lady.

[Zach Lowe]

The Mike Amanda showdown. I like the big showdown with everybody watching in a party, which would never happen in real life because everybody.

[Joanna Robinson]

You mean record scratches don't actually happen in real life.

[Zach Lowe]

What's happening? People are fighting.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah. His delivery of Amanda. You know Amanda.

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah. Well, you're the one.

[Producer Craig Horbick]

Amanda.

[Zach Lowe]

He's gonna be embarrassed, right?

[Joanna Robinson]

She's like, wow, you really got me there, Mike. We're really good. Really good.

[Zach Lowe]

All the Kenny and Denise bathroom stuff. And then Mike's crew turning on Charlie Korsmo at the end and Kenny and Denise seeing each other together. And then we find out that Charlie Korsmo's character became the next Mark Zuckerberg. I think is. And nothing turned out well. What did I miss?

[Joanna Robinson]

I would say Jana Elfman Scott Baio monologue. Mmm. Is really good. Yeah, it's really, really good. But yeah, all of the Kenny and Denise bat. If that were just one scene. That's the most rewatchable scene. Like, yeah. Him dropping his whole thing. Him calling her out. Their history. Do those shoes serve an orthopedic function? Like everything that happens. Bathroom is great.

[Zach Lowe]

I agree. This would be fun. What's the most 1998 thing about this movie? What do you have?

[Joanna Robinson]

I mean, we already talked about the soundtrack. I would say soundtrack's in there very specifically.

[Zach Lowe]

Smash Meth and Blink182, I think have to be both mentioned.

[Joanna Robinson]

The X Files being so prevalent in here.

[Zach Lowe]

Had that as well. Trust no one. The truth is out there. This was a weird era for people really latching onto the X Files as like a personality.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah. From this light, you look a bit like David Duchovny. Is what they say to Charlie Cosmo. Also, one of the. One of the nerds is. Claims to be dating Christy Turlington has a girlfriend from the Internet.

[Zach Lowe]

I love that one. She's in Fiji right now.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah, she's a photo shoot in Fiji. Everything. Seth Green.

[Zach Lowe]

Yep.

[Joanna Robinson]

And the bride and Gwyneth thing, which you already mentioned.

[Zach Lowe]

I have that as well. The only thing I had that you didn't mention, other than Jennifer Love Hewitt, who just seems trapped in the mid-90s in a lot of ways, is Amanda Beckett's yearbook quote is I'd rather see the world from another angle, which is from jewelry. Just having a yearbook quote from Jewel is the most late 90s thing possible.

[Joanna Robinson]

And it's perfect for her.

[Producer Craig Horbick]

Can we talk about the goggles? Who was. Was that real? Were people wearing goggles in 1998?

[Joanna Robinson]

The rave culture goggles. Not to, like a party, but to a rave. Yeah.

[Producer Craig Horbick]

Okay, so you did. You knew somebody or knew of somebody who would kind of throw on some goggles to go out at night to, like a rave?

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Producer Craig Horbick]

Is it the. What's the point of that? Just to protect your eyes?

[Joanna Robinson]

Fashion.

[Producer Craig Horbick]

Oh, just fashion.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah. Yeah. And also like snowboarder culture sort of bleeding into. Yeah.

[Producer Craig Horbick]

Okay.

[Zach Lowe]

I can't wait to get producer Craig. I know.

[Joanna Robinson]

So excited.

[Zach Lowe]

I've never, never saw it. And I just honestly can't wait. What age the best Denise Fleming activities? None for the year, but thank. Genuinely funny. And then Kenny playing JV basketball for one game.

[Joanna Robinson]

Oh, my God.

[Zach Lowe]

Really made me laugh. I have a bunch. What do you got?

[Joanna Robinson]

What's age the best? I think this is overall a very, like, sex positive movie. And I also like that Kenny and Denise's sex is very bad. Like, their first time is very bad. I think that's great. I think the trick McNeely stuff really, really plays. Like, really plays. And what I mentioned before about the sort of, like, the blurring of social circles inside of this party, I really like that just feels like a step out of the 80s, like from, I don't know, Porky's Revenge of the Nerds. Like, all that sort of stuff really felt like stratified or. Or Breakfast Club, which is. Which is supposed to be about common bonds, but then you get those archetypes, you know, we are the nerd. Yeah. You know, the burnout, the popular girl, whatever it is. And. And that's just not how high school. I thought, growing up watching 80s teens movies, I thought that's what high school was. And it wasn't what high school was at all, you know?

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah. Breakfast Club has a scene where Anthony Michael Hall's character is like, what's going to happen on Monday? Are we. Are we going to be friends? And Molly Ringwald's like, I don't think so.

[Joanna Robinson]

And it's like Called my name Would you walk on by?

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

And she says to Emilio Estevez's character, like, come on. If he walked up to you, you just. Busted. But you know.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

It's like, oh, man, these people are just doomed. Yeah. There's a little. This is a little more hopeful of an error. I have a couple.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

A high school called Huntington Hillside High.

[Joanna Robinson]

And it's.

[Zach Lowe]

What is that?

[Joanna Robinson]

It's filmed at Torrance High School because we only get, like, the little. The Amanda intro is really where we're.

[Zach Lowe]

So are they saying this is in the Palisades?

[Joanna Robinson]

No, but, like, Torrance Highton Beach. Torrance High is where they filmed all, like. That's where they filmed Buffy. It's where they filmed She's. All that, like, all of the high.

[Zach Lowe]

School stuff was set upon with a hillside. I just want to know where that is in California. I don't know where that. I don't know where that exists. Caring about UFOs has aged the best because now UFOs are attacking us.

[Joanna Robinson]

It's true.

[Zach Lowe]

All over the place.

[Joanna Robinson]

It's true.

[Zach Lowe]

I like when Charlie Korismo's nerd character is, like. Basically creates the template for McLovin.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yes.

[Zach Lowe]

100 and. But when he gets drunk that one time and he's like, I can't feel my legs.

[Joanna Robinson]

I have no legs also.

[Zach Lowe]

It's so good.

[Joanna Robinson]

Beer's going back.

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah, that. That's good, too.

[Joanna Robinson]

All good.

[Zach Lowe]

The Fiji thing's funny. Seth Creed saying, why y'all gotta waste my flavor? Damn. Like, all his, like, flavor stuff is really funny.

[Joanna Robinson]

Time is honey. Yeah. It's all good.

[Zach Lowe]

And then Paradise City is the nostalgic rock song ahead for what stage is the best. But just in general, High school movies age the best because they just capture whatever the decade is in this weird way.

[Joanna Robinson]

Charlie Carson's character being like, I know this song. Some kid I tutored made me listen to it. I know all the words. Really good.

[Zach Lowe]

Big Kahuna Burger Award, Best Use of Food and Drink.

[Joanna Robinson]

The weed brownie on Denise that gets licked off by Eric Balfour, which they.

[Zach Lowe]

Had to PG 13. And there's. You just kind of have to know that it's a weed brownie kind of.

[Joanna Robinson]

No.

[Zach Lowe]

You know. But you don't really know. Kid Cudi Pursuit Happiness Award for best needle Drop. There's a million choices here. But can I make the case for Dire Straits, Romeo and Juliet. Because that's a great song.

[Joanna Robinson]

It's great one.

[Zach Lowe]

And it's perfectly dropped.

[Joanna Robinson]

It's when he's driving yeah, it's just really.

[Zach Lowe]

It's really well dropped.

[Joanna Robinson]

I got to give it to Yazoo's Only you because. Yeah, Only you has that intro, like, at the beginning that you can. Underneath the dialog, and then it hits.

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah, that sounds good. That was music that me and my friends all listened to in the 80s, and I'm like, wow, I can't believe we listen to all that stuff. The Amanda Dobbins Award for coolest piece of real estate, new category.

[Joanna Robinson]

Oh, okay.

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah, for Amanda.

[Joanna Robinson]

I love it.

[Zach Lowe]

It hasn't been on the rewatchables in a while.

[Joanna Robinson]

Let's bring her back.

[Zach Lowe]

I don't think she cares.

[Joanna Robinson]

Well, we were going to do a movie, and Mal said we couldn't because it was Amanda. Amanda would. Would crucify you anyway.

[Zach Lowe]

The Amanda Dobbins Award for coolest piece of Real estate, new award. The.

[Joanna Robinson]

The house, the pool.

[Zach Lowe]

The house is just a great high school party house that even has like, the. The staircase that goes both ways.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yes.

[Zach Lowe]

And it's just. They did a good job. I have some sad news, though. Like, genuinely sad.

[Joanna Robinson]

It's an Altadena.

[Zach Lowe]

So burned down in the Altadena.

[Joanna Robinson]

I was worried about that.

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

I saw that it was now to Dina home, and I was worried. Oh, yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

Tough one. The Chess Rockwell and Brock Landers award for best character name. It's got to be trippy, right?

[Joanna Robinson]

Well, it's tricky, Neely, but in terms of, like, the rest of the cast having names that are just their archetype, there's Ready to have Sex girl, and there's Ready to have sexes Friend is. Is what they're called in the credit.

[Zach Lowe]

That's in the credits.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

Ready to have sex, girl.

[Joanna Robinson]

And Ready to have sex girls friends. Yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

Wow. Imagine telling your parents that. I was the credits. I'm ready to have sex.

[Joanna Robinson]

I'm ready to have sex girl. Yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

Oh, you have a flex category. What do you got?

[Joanna Robinson]

What, a cell phone? Ruin this movie. New category.

[Zach Lowe]

Wow. New category.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah. Like, they talk about this all the time with X Files. You couldn't do the X Files with a cell phone because if you had a cell phone, you could take a photo of the weird stu. You know, that sort of stuff. And so. And horror movies, I think all the time about the way in which cell phones and the Internet have ruined basic premises for movies.

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

And so let's say Amanda has a self. A smartphone and movie. And she picks up the letter. It's from Preston Myers. She's like, look. Goes on social media. She's like, goes on his insta. Who's Preston Myers? Nobody's streaming from this party. Nobody's tiktoking from this party. Like, nobody's down their phone. They're all sort of, like, here and having a good time.

[Zach Lowe]

So that's a great category. I wonder who that should be named after. I got to really put some time and thought maybe the readers can help.

[Joanna Robinson]

I would love that.

[Zach Lowe]

There's a lot of movies that are just completely undermined with the cell phone.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah. Horror movies and thriller action movies. It's much harder to do those within with everyone having a smartphone in their pocket. Die Hard. Can you do Die Hard if you have a. The same way if you have a smartphone. So sometimes they have to come up.

[Zach Lowe]

With, you know, well, if the payphone's involved, do you know that they, you know, the payphone as a device.

[Joanna Robinson]

Does Preston even get to meet Jenna Elfman if he has a cell phone? No, he needs that. That payphone. So that's a.

[Zach Lowe]

That's a great one. Great category. All right, here we go. The Butch's Girlfriend award for weak link of the film. My biggest issue with this film for 27 years is Ethan Embry and the character. I know it's a controversial take.

[Joanna Robinson]

Oh, no.

[Zach Lowe]

A lot of people get really upset about it.

[Joanna Robinson]

Okay, let's write about it.

[Zach Lowe]

I don't understand in it all. And I was doing the research, and he has this interview he did, like, 12 years ago where he said, at the time when we were shooting, I was the world's biggest stoner.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

I remember the director came up to me and asked if I was altered, and he, like, couldn't remember anything in the movie. And then there was this anecdote about how Jennifer Lewitt gave him. Gave him a teddy bear full of breath mints for their climactic kissing scene because everyone on the set knew he spent all of his time smoking pot in his trailer. And she didn't want to kiss, like, a topmouth guy.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

And so I watched it the second time after I did the research, and I was like, that totally makes sense with how he's playing this character.

[Joanna Robinson]

Oh, no. This is. This is traumatic for me, though. I love Ethan.

[Zach Lowe]

I'm sure you do. Girls love that Preston Myers don't get it.

[Joanna Robinson]

It's funny because the way that I think people. Women of your generation feel about Lloyd Dobler is how I feel about Preston Myers. And Lloyd Dobler is one that I like, don't really fully. When I try to erase that from my mind. The red Suede jacket. The. Like, he's gonna go study with Kurt Vonnegut for the summer. Like, this is just such a Right down the sensitive. I knew this would get you guy. Yeah, yeah. Remember how you tried to provoke me on White Lotus last week?

[Zach Lowe]

I tried a bunch of times.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. This one. This one got me.

[Zach Lowe]

This is great. Just wait until we get to the recasting couch, because I have a couple suggestions.

[Joanna Robinson]

Okay.

[Zach Lowe]

What do you have for the Butcher's Girlfriend?

[Joanna Robinson]

I don't know that this movie has a weak link, because every. Anyone who's, like, even slightly wobbly, they're gone.

[Zach Lowe]

It doesn't even really matter.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah. And I personally think the core cast is kind of perfect. The only one I would say is, like. Because when we get to the casting, what ifs? I don't know if Peter Facinelli is.

[Zach Lowe]

He was.

[Joanna Robinson]

My background is Mike Dexter.

[Zach Lowe]

You know, I think there were some other possibilities with that character.

[Joanna Robinson]

They said they wanted Fascinelli because he has. I think the word they use is, like, a streak of malice to him. And I agree. But I actually kind of wish Mike Dexter were, like, a little less evil than he is inside of this movie.

[Zach Lowe]

I don't know how to make sense of his character, but I can just only compare it to the greats from the 80s, specifically the goat, Billy Zabka.

[Joanna Robinson]

Oh, yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

And you think, like, this was a Billy Zabka role.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

Now the whole movie falls. You're like, oh, I totally get who this guy is. He's not Zabka enough. On the Zabka scale, he's like a three.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

And I don't know. I was trying to think of other actors from that generation or like, Spader.

[Joanna Robinson]

And Pretty in Pink.

[Zach Lowe]

Right. Who's just like, oh, man, that guy's a fucking asshole.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah. But, like, yeah, he just has something, you know, I don't.

[Zach Lowe]

Either he needed to be bigger and more physically imposing, or he needed to have that Zabka kind of feel to him. Or even like a Judd Nelson kind of. Kind of wild card. I might get in a fight at all times.

[Joanna Robinson]

Guys, I feel like you need. You need to understand, like, Amanda has this whole speech. I was thinking of Craig Sheffer and in Some Kind of Wonderful. You need to understand why Amanda was with him for so long. And she gives a speech about that, about how she was nobody or old school. Then Mike latches on and turns her into a somebody. But, like, you think a little. He's just so.

[Zach Lowe]

I had that. In what stage the worst. You're spending three years with this dude just because he's good at football. Yeah, it doesn't make sense. Makes you think less of her.

[Joanna Robinson]

Exactly.

[Zach Lowe]

What stage the worst?

[Joanna Robinson]

The Gay Sex Trap or the F Slur Drop?

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah, and there's some. Yeah, yeah, late 90s.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

Very Heathers having a crush on Scott Baio and telling a long monologue about it.

[Joanna Robinson]

This is before Twitter. This is before we knew what Scott B.

[Zach Lowe]

Even like. Go back and watch Charles in Charge or Happy Days and be like, wait, really? Scott Bales?

[Joanna Robinson]

Chachi Charles in Charge? Scott Bale meant something before he let us know who he was.

[Zach Lowe]

How about the drummer of the band at the party saying to the lead singer that he looks like Lestat?

[Joanna Robinson]

Does that.

[Zach Lowe]

Anyone under 40 get that joke?

[Joanna Robinson]

The vampire. Well, they do now. Interview with the vampires backed vampire Lestat.

[Zach Lowe]

You're right.

[Joanna Robinson]

Okay, come back around. And then Brecket Meyer calls Donald Faison character hoodie because he wants to wear a cowboy hat. It's great.

[Zach Lowe]

All right, so the R rating that this movie didn't get. Here's some of the research. Fastinelli says they cut out one character, crying drunk girl, who they subtitled because she was just talking complete gibberish. And she was played by. By Jan Brady from Brady Bunch movies. So that sounds great. I wish that person was in the movie Stone Girl, who you can see staring at the banana at one point was in the movie.

[Joanna Robinson]

Way more Amber Benson from Buffy Vampire Slayer.

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah, they changed the pot brownies to brownies. But we knew at one point, I think the. The guy from Cruel Intentions, what's his name from Save the Last Dance, that guy.

[Joanna Robinson]

Sean Patrick Thomas. Yeah, like that. Yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

Instead of, he says, bull corn. I've never heard bull corn ever. Apparently Jason Siegel wasn't just holding the watermelon, but. But started to have sex with it.

[Joanna Robinson]

He. The watermelon?

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

Before American Pie happened, Jason Siegel fucked up.

[Zach Lowe]

So did American Pie just rip off like seven things from this movie?

[Joanna Robinson]

When you know that and you rewatch this movie and you watch Jason Siegel just like scooping the watermelon out of the rind, you're like, Jesus Christ.

[Zach Lowe]

And then who said this? Oh, Ethan Embry asked if he felt any anger when movies like American Pie and Superbad kicked off a wave of successful raunchy teen comedies. Embry replies, absolutely. Like, you fuckers. This is like the last. It's almost like a black and white TV before we get to color. Like, this movie is completely different. If they make it five years later yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

And he said that they also kind of neutered Empire Records as far as he's concerned. And I'm like, I guess there's like, suicide attempts in that movie. Like, there's stuff in that movie that I'm just like, what? What was. The darker version of Empire Records wasn't.

[Zach Lowe]

With them on that one. The Van Lathan Award for. Did this movie need more black people just throwing it in? I bet he would say yes, because there's, like, two black people in it.

[Joanna Robinson]

There's two. So there's two black characters who are, like, in the popular clique. Yeah, right. The aforementioned Save the Last Dance star. Sean Patrick Thomas. I love you. Brought him up from Cruel Intentions. That's a great one. Donald Faison is here. There's, like, reminiscent Donald Faison, right?

[Zach Lowe]

There's.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah, there's reminiscing guy. Like, remember that time that we did this? Then the other thing. I think if you can count them on one hand, though, then, yeah, just shouting out Van. I think also when you have having Kenny and his friends in this movie, it would be great if we had a, like, substantial black character who was like, what the fuck? Yeah, exactly.

[Zach Lowe]

The Ruffalo Hannah Ruben Partridge over acting award. I have my pick.

[Joanna Robinson]

But you go Sarah Rue. Earth Girl Sheep. All of you ba. No, you love. I loved it. Okay.

[Zach Lowe]

I'm going back to Preston, and you're.

[Joanna Robinson]

Going back to Embryo Man.

[Zach Lowe]

A shirt for Amanda. That's my side.

[Joanna Robinson]

This is tough. This is tough for me.

[Zach Lowe]

That's my side.

[Joanna Robinson]

So do you like Ethan Embry in, like, Empire Records or that thing you do? Like, have you liked him in other things?

[Zach Lowe]

He's okay. I do not think he's the right choice for Preston.

[Joanna Robinson]

Okay.

[Zach Lowe]

Can't wait to give you my alternatives.

[Joanna Robinson]

Okay.

[Zach Lowe]

The CR Thinks Luke Wilson could have been Harrison Ford. Hottest Take Award. What do you got?

[Joanna Robinson]

Preston and Amanda should not wind up together at the end of this movie.

[Zach Lowe]

Like, who does Amanda end up with?

[Joanna Robinson]

Herself. She should. She should. Kelly. Choose herself.

[Zach Lowe]

Oh, the Kelly Taylor. Wow.

[Joanna Robinson]

She should choose herself because she gives this whole monologue about how she does, like, when the opening. And everyone knows where they're going to college. And everyone's going to a good school, by the way. She knows that she. They know where they're going to college.

[Zach Lowe]

Schools are really good at Huntington Hillside High.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah. Kenny's going to ucla.

[Zach Lowe]

Crushing it. Dartmouth.

[Joanna Robinson]

But Amanda's undecided.

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

She doesn't know where she's going to school. She doesn't know who she. And that's fine. But she doesn't know who she is. She gives this whole monologue to her creepy cousin about how she doesn't know who she is if she's not Mike Dexter's girlfriend. And then she immediately gets into her. Like that day gets into a relationship with Pres.

[Zach Lowe]

I had this in picking nits, it felt a little soon.

[Joanna Robinson]

Choose yourself. Get to know yourself. Amanda.

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

Watch Runaway Bride and figure out what kind of eggs you like.

[Zach Lowe]

Go away for a weekend with, like, your mom and your aunt.

[Joanna Robinson]

Go backpacking in Europe. Take a gap year hike.

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah, I'm with you. I have my hottest take.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

An ensemble cast high school movie centered around one big party is the easiest and most watchable movie anyone can possibly make. And I don't understand why there's 20 of them a year.

[Joanna Robinson]

Let's make one.

[Zach Lowe]

Craig, your thoughts? Is there an easier thing to do in Hollywood than an ensemble cast high school movie centered around one big party?

[Producer Craig Horbick]

I don't know if it's the easiest thing you can do, but it's the most watchable. It's the most sought after. Everybody wants it, but there are so many attempts that don't work. So it's kind of a combination of both. Where I want a million of these. I mean, I think they try now. There's movies like Sweethearts on HBO that just come and go and disappear.

[Zach Lowe]

Right.

[Producer Craig Horbick]

Just need to put them in theaters.

[Joanna Robinson]

I agree.

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah. Other I'm just do these. I would every year. It should be like a federal law.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yes.

[Zach Lowe]

We're going to have tariffs. Maybe this could be a lot too. Like, maybe we have to make one a year to capture whatever the year was with an ensemble high school movie.

[Joanna Robinson]

Maybe this is what Mikey Madison should do post her Oscar win.

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah. Use your power. Mikey Madison. Go back to high school.

[Joanna Robinson]

On the, on the. Like, Preston and Amanda should not have wound up together. Front.

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

In the original conception of this, Preston winds up with Denise, which, of course, that's. That's the 80s template. Right. That's the Teen Wolf. Some kind of wonderful.

[Zach Lowe]

My wife mentioned that when we were watching it.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

She was like, are they setting? She. She couldn't remember it. After they're setting up, they end up together at the end. And I was like, no, they actually swerve on this.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah. They really do. But I, I, you know, something Kind of Wonderful is one of my favorite movies of all time. And I just think that, like, Denise deserves better than Kenny and Amanda deserves to, like, figure herself out. And Preston, Denise, have this, like, really Nice thing. So I'm. I'm pro that I actually almost put.

[Zach Lowe]

That in what stage? The worst, when it says Denise and Kenny broke up five minutes later. I just would have had that.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah. And then I wouldn't even have them get back together. Kenny's schmuck freeze frame on her is so good.

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

She's just like. It's like the end of the Graduate. She's, like, staring off, like, what have I done? Sort of moment. Yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

All right, before we get to casting what ifs, we'll take one more break. Casting what ifs? They wrote the role of Kenny with Brecken Meyer in mind, and he was shooting 54.

[Joanna Robinson]

The Studio 54 movie said.

[Zach Lowe]

A movie I'm kind of obsessed with because really, it's one of the most legendarily butchered movies ever released from an editing standpoint. And then there's this whole director's cut that I don't know if you've ever seen.

[Joanna Robinson]

I've never. Is it good? Okay.

[Zach Lowe]

It is, like, the biggest disparity between what a movie that was actually released where you're like, this movie's incoherent. What's happening? And then the director's cut. It's like, oh, these three actually ended up in, like, some weird threesome kind of relationship and got caught up in, like. Fills in a lot of blanks.

[Joanna Robinson]

I believe you. I'm gonna watch the director's cut of season. Watch the director's cut.

[Zach Lowe]

Hard to find. Anyway, he took a small role in as the lead singer of Loveburger.

[Joanna Robinson]

Anyone order a Loveburger?

[Zach Lowe]

So they wanted Embry to read for the nerd. For what Cors part?

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

And Embry insisted. I said no. I know I'm not your typical lady man type, but I thought this movie was better suited if they didn't cast that guy. And they said, okay, big mistake.

[Joanna Robinson]

Women agree. Women love Pres. Men love Jennifer L. Human. Women love.

[Zach Lowe]

Agree to disagree. Here. Here. Kaplan said they were looking very closely at James Marden for Mike Dexter, but Fastenelli had a hint of danger that he didn't.

[Joanna Robinson]

Marsden would have been great.

[Zach Lowe]

Marsden. Everybody's been in on Marsden, and he's finally had his moment. And it took.

[Joanna Robinson]

You feel like jury duty is the moment.

[Zach Lowe]

Jury duty. I think this Hulu show. Yeah, I think. I think Marsden's like, it's finally all happened.

[Joanna Robinson]

He's coming back to the X Men.

[Zach Lowe]

Took him two decades.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

Everyone likes Marsden. What's that Katherine Heigl movie?

[Joanna Robinson]

Oh, 27 dress is. He's great in that I've.

[Zach Lowe]

I listen. I had to.

[Joanna Robinson]

He's great. And enchanted.

[Zach Lowe]

I had to listen once to my wife and Juliet Litman have like an 18 minute James Marsden conversation while I was like pouring gasoline on myself.

[Joanna Robinson]

He never me Hairspray. He never misses Mars. Never misses.

[Zach Lowe]

Gotta say, met him and talked to him at. At an Oscars party. And just a handsome guy and like a nice guy. Nice and just a really talented guy.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

And doesn't seem like he has a lot of problems in life. They wanted Alicia Witt for the Lauren Ambrose role. That's an interesting one.

[Joanna Robinson]

It's a great one.

[Zach Lowe]

It's a good. She's another one that I feel like. And she's had, she's had some good roles over the year, but I, I thought she was so good in that Sopranos episode. Oh, you didn't see. Made me. Made me wonder. I feel like there was more there career wise.

[Joanna Robinson]

Oh, definitely. She was on. She basically played this Denise character on the show Sybil. Like she played Sybil Shepherd's daughter. And she was basically doing exactly this down to like the red hair. And so I feel like they just wanted that her to do that. She would have been great big.

[Zach Lowe]

What was that movie with her? Urban legend. The high school movie.

[Joanna Robinson]

Urban Legend.

[Zach Lowe]

No, another thing. Leasha Witt. Sean. Fantasy card carrying Alicia Witt. She loves a redhead that's like in a. That's a Mount Rushmore for him.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah. Two weeks.

[Zach Lowe]

Hope I'm not talking out of school.

[Joanna Robinson]

She's in Dune.

[Zach Lowe]

Yep.

[Joanna Robinson]

She's. Yeah, she's been around. She's in a season of Justified, which is not the best season of Justified. But that's not her fault.

[Zach Lowe]

Her Sopranos episode is really great. So they cast somebody else for the nerd world. William that Korsmo ended up doing. And it was this actor named Adam Handbird who had been in Little Man Tate. And he just didn't fit and they had to fire him.

[Joanna Robinson]

I think they said he looked like too young. He's 15 years old and he just looked like a baby.

[Zach Lowe]

And they just couldn't. Yeah, they couldn't land the plane on it.

[Joanna Robinson]

Are you a Little Man Tate? Have you.

[Zach Lowe]

I'm not.

[Joanna Robinson]

I loved that movie and I, I. This is a real moment for me. But not only Alicia Witt for Denise, but also Reese Witherspoon and Christina Ricci.

[Zach Lowe]

Did you believe that? I feel like you don't believe Witherspoon was too famous at that point. Yeah, she was like leading Pleasantville and she was in. She wasn't Fear at that point, which.

[Joanna Robinson]

Well, Fear.

[Zach Lowe]

I think she's too famous to be in this movie. But I think she's only the Jennifer Love Hewitt character if she's in this.

[Joanna Robinson]

But she was also doing like. She was kind of doing edgy at this time. That was, you know, like she did Freeway like she was trying to do Edge. And so I feel like. I don't know. I understand what you're saying.

[Zach Lowe]

It's just she's like Cruel Intentions, like a year later. I don't know. She's like. You put her on the front of the poster. So I think unless it's a Jennifer Le Pew Row, I don't see it.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah. She did Fear in Freeway in 96. And then she doesn't have anything in 97. Overnight delivery. Pleasantville's 98. Overnight delivery in 98, which is her and Paul Rudd. I don't know if you've seen that. That's like a.

[Zach Lowe]

You don't know if I've seen that. Who are you talking to? But like, that movie's good.

[Joanna Robinson]

It is good. But she's doing. She's doing Edge. She liked to do Edge for a little while and then she got into Pleasantville and Cruel Intentions and sort of like the Good Girl thing.

[Zach Lowe]

The best. That Guy award category is one of the best ever because we have. Here's three nominees and you might have more. The guy who paid Dirk diguit a jerk off in front of the church. He's Mike Dexter, one of his friends.

[Joanna Robinson]

Okay. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, my God.

[Zach Lowe]

There's one.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yes.

[Zach Lowe]

Poppy from Seinfeld as the cop.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yes.

[Zach Lowe]

And then Tara from 90210 who became obsessed with Kayla Taylor and became Single Wave female. She's in this too, as one of the high school kids. That is the all time big three.

[Joanna Robinson]

That's it.

[Zach Lowe]

Turf Taker, nine zero two zero and Seinfeld. I'm in.

[Joanna Robinson]

That's your retiring Craig. I would say Amber Benson from Buffy Vampire Slayer. Being in here is like.

[Zach Lowe]

I don't know who that. I didn't know who. Amber Benson.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

I didn't know what her name was.

[Joanna Robinson]

Tara. Yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

So you're a big Buffy person.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah, yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

Because in 902-101-year, they had Brandon's girlfriend who.

[Joanna Robinson]

Who went on to play Anya, who went on Buffy. Yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

And that was the best. Brandon Girlfriend. That was the one you should ended up with. But I think she left to do Buffy.

[Joanna Robinson]

She's great on Buffy.

[Zach Lowe]

I can't remember her Name was. But she was, like, the editor of the newspaper.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

She wrote the big abortion story that it turned out she was the one that had the abortion. Big swerve at the end.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah. She's amazing.

[Zach Lowe]

I. Buffy was like a pretty. That was another farm factory for these movies.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah. You got Seth Green, Sarah Michelle Geller showing up in things. Allison Hannigan in American Pie. Yeah. The WB was just farm system. Yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

Dion Waiters Award. You mentioned Melissa Joan Hart. I think she's eligible. Sarah Rude, Jenna elfman and Jerry O'Connell, I think. And Jason Siegel. Can I make the case for a klepto kid?

[Joanna Robinson]

Klepto kid's a great one.

[Zach Lowe]

Who has. No, no. And he's one of those guys.

[Joanna Robinson]

I think he shows up at American Pie, too.

[Zach Lowe]

Like, I think.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

I think klepto kids just continually just showing up and stealing something. And I think he's my favorite.

[Joanna Robinson]

He's really funny. He seals the gumball machine at the end. Brian Klugman, who plays stoner guy who is not Jason Siegel with the, like, hair.

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

He's the one who's got the Velma from Scooby Doo line.

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

He's the one who says Preston wears T shirts sometimes.

[Zach Lowe]

That's a good one.

[Joanna Robinson]

He says Preston, like, I just. I love him. He shows up with a dinosaur throughout the whole movie. I really like him.

[Zach Lowe]

All right, Recasting couch. Director city.

[Joanna Robinson]

Okay. I do have a Preston candidate here. Freddie Prince Jr. Oh, another one that.

[Zach Lowe]

The women like, that the guys never.

[Joanna Robinson]

Told me because, like, Freddie, you know, and she's all that, like. He was often cast in the, like, cool. The popular kid role.

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

The jock role. But I think he would have really thrived in this sort of, like, sensitive kid role. I think this would have been a good moment for him. Yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

I have two options for you.

[Joanna Robinson]

Okay.

[Zach Lowe]

Marsden.

[Joanna Robinson]

Marsden for Mike Dexter.

[Zach Lowe]

Marsden for Preston.

[Joanna Robinson]

Marsden for Preston.

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah. You nerd him up a little bit. But I feel like I'm way more believing that she's going to be just immediately smitten by Marsden. And maybe Marsden changes his hair that, like, he. Maybe he's got some weird hairdo until the last day. Or is he too handsome?

[Joanna Robinson]

The thing about Preston is she rejected him when she just thinks he's a rando. And it's only because he wrote that.

[Zach Lowe]

So nobody rejects Marsden.

[Joanna Robinson]

No one says no.

[Zach Lowe]

Okay, well, here's my other idea.

[Joanna Robinson]

No one puts Mars in a corner.

[Zach Lowe]

Jason Siegel and Ethan Embry just switch parts.

[Joanna Robinson]

Okay. Because he's Already stoned. He's ready to. A watermelon.

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah. He said he. He's already watermelon.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

And then we get Jason Seagull. First movie ever, age 19. He's like, tall and skinny and gawky, but he's. He's cool. And. And from what we know from him over the next 10 years could have pulled it off.

[Joanna Robinson]

This is similar to his role in Freaks and Geeks. I think he really have done it. Yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

All right, so I got you on board.

[Joanna Robinson]

You got me.

[Zach Lowe]

Craig has a choice Flex category.

[Producer Craig Horbick]

I made up a new category.

[Zach Lowe]

Great.

[Producer Craig Horbick]

It's The Matt Flynn $26 million contract award for the person I can't believe we thought was going to be a star. And it goes to Ethan Embry.

[Zach Lowe]

Yes.

[Joanna Robinson]

I needed another woman on this podcast. Guys don't get it. No, I don't get it.

[Producer Craig Horbick]

I don't get it. I don't get the whole cast. I don't really understand.

[Zach Lowe]

But Craig, what do you mean you don' He's. He's fucking Shaggy from scooby doo for 90 minutes. Nightmare shaggy. That's great. So what's that category called?

[Producer Craig Horbick]

It's The Matt Flynn $26 million contract award for the person I can't believe we thought was a star.

[Zach Lowe]

So Matt Flynn was this guy who was a backup QB in the packers, and he played like two games at the end of a season and did well in the two games and see.

[Producer Craig Horbick]

Five touchdowns in one game and everybody freaked out.

[Zach Lowe]

See it? So it was the last game of the year. It didn't really mean anything. Seattle freaked out, gave him this huge contract, and then he wasn't good. And that's who Craig compared Ethan Embry to. Your guy.

[Joanna Robinson]

That's a great category. I really like it. I just fundamentally disagree with the premise, but I like it as a category going forward. Another casting option? Yeah, because thinking about Ethan Embry, I don't know if he could have gotten away with playing a teenager. But Tom Everett Scott, from that thing you do. Right. Like in the. In the Preston role, he's got that sort of, like, nerdy, cute sweetness.

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah. Solid.

[Joanna Robinson]

Okay. But that's another one. Tom Everett Scott is another one where I was like, I really thought he was going to be a big deal, and then he wasn't at all.

[Zach Lowe]

I have to test drive one more candidate for the football player. Okay, what about Mark Wahlberg? Just. Just six years too old to be in the movie as Mike Dexter.

[Joanna Robinson]

Mark Wahlberg in his fear era.

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah, just fear. Mark Wahlberg like real really menacing. And he kind of can't believe he's in the movie. But that gave him a lot of money to be in it. I don't know.

[Joanna Robinson]

I think, I think for this movie to have stuck beyond the micro generation that it hit, it needed like adjacency. It needed one more person who stayed quite famous to have been in one of the leading roles.

[Zach Lowe]

Well, that's 10 things I hate about you.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

Keith Ledger vaulted that movie to a whole another. I mean, we already did that one on Rewatchables. Half asserted research. We mentioned Melissa Joan Hart who was filming Sabrina at the same time and took B12 vitamins to stay energized during the all night shoots.

[Joanna Robinson]

B12 vitamins.

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah. I'm gonna wonder what that really was. And then apparently when they finished filming in the place, they allowed the whole cast to destroy the house for one last scene. And they spent an hour destroying the.

[Joanna Robinson]

House because, I mean, the interior was a set.

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

And then the exterior is the Altadena house. That is no longer. Fun fact. Breckin Meyer married Deborah Kaplan and they had two kids, Right? Yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

And he could have been. Who was his character.

[Joanna Robinson]

He could have been Kenny, but he was the lead singer of Loveburger.

[Zach Lowe]

I mean, he's another one who could have been Preston. I'll basically accept anyone else from that era as Preston, but Brecken Meyer had.

[Joanna Robinson]

Just come off clueless and he's. He's like got that stoner energy off of Clueless.

[Producer Craig Horbick]

What about Justin Long?

[Zach Lowe]

See, old enough.

[Joanna Robinson]

Too young.

[Producer Craig Horbick]

He's the same age as Ethan Embry.

[Joanna Robinson]

But I think he like looked too young.

[Producer Craig Horbick]

But I thought Ethan Emery looked. He kind of had a receding hairline even at 21.

[Joanna Robinson]

It's true. It's true.

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah. I actually looked. I was gonna put that for what stage the worst thinking he was like 38 when he filmed the movie and he was 21. I was shocked that he was 21. Apex Mountain. Ethan Embry.

[Joanna Robinson]

Definitely it's Ethan Embry.

[Zach Lowe]

Jennifer Love Hewitt. No question. Well, Cardia five crossed with this movie. Crossed with. I know he did last summer. This time never got bigger. This exact moment.

[Joanna Robinson]

This exact moment. I don't know that this. And dating Carson Daly, as you pointed out.

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

I don't know that this movie, like of those three things, I don't know that this.

[Zach Lowe]

I'm just saying this. This specific time frame. 98.

[Joanna Robinson]

The entrance she gets with the fan on her preposterously enormous hair and the sneaker pimps are playing underneath Is like an Alzheimer. Like, any actor in Hollywood wants that to have happened to them at some point in their career.

[Zach Lowe]

Fastenelli.

[Joanna Robinson]

Definitely no Twilight.

[Zach Lowe]

Oh, I don't know Twilight.

[Joanna Robinson]

I also don't know Twilight that well, but he is a big deal.

[Zach Lowe]

How big is he in Twilight?

[Joanna Robinson]

He's. He's the, like, patriarch of the vampire family.

[Zach Lowe]

Oh, that sounds important. That's more important than this movie and being married to Jenny Garth at the same time.

[Joanna Robinson]

He's got Twilight money.

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah, Twilight. All right. That's fine. Jenna Elfman. Yes. Because she's on that show at the time.

[Joanna Robinson]

Greg.

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah, Dharma Greg. Plus, she cameo on this, where it's like a big deal. She made a cameo.

[Joanna Robinson]

What was. What was the.

[Zach Lowe]

It's like there.

[Joanna Robinson]

Keeping the faith. Is that what that's called, the one with Edward Norton? Yeah, yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

90S teen movies.

[Joanna Robinson]

Okay.

[Zach Lowe]

No, I don't know if it is or not. These are. We're debating.

[Joanna Robinson]

I don't think so, because I actually.

[Zach Lowe]

Think the answer is Scream.

[Joanna Robinson]

That's a good one. It might be Clueless.

[Zach Lowe]

Oh, yeah, you're right. It might be Clueless.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah, it's screaming Clueless. Clueless is like right in the middle. You know what I mean? So. Yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

And American pie is 2000.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah. So that's.

[Joanna Robinson]

Or 99. American pie might be 99.

[Zach Lowe]

Oh, if PI's 99, then I think that's.

[Joanna Robinson]

You think it's American Pie?

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

Well, the question about.

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah, that's 99.

[Joanna Robinson]

But like, the thing I would say, yes, it spawned sequels, but I think the fact that it spawn sequels, then, like, takes it out of the 90s. Whereas Clueless is just pure in the 90s. 90s.

[Zach Lowe]

You know Koresmo, I really liked him. And what about Bob? But I don't know. I don't know what his.

[Joanna Robinson]

He's great. He's great in.

[Zach Lowe]

And Hook, Run Home, Jack, all in one night. High school movies. Yeah, probably super bad.

[Joanna Robinson]

Super bad is. I love super bad. I love Book Smart Days and Confused.

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah, that's pretty good too. Yeah, I would say super bad. I think it was the most successful and it had the most people in it that went on to become even bigger decent.

[Joanna Robinson]

Confused is like the art house. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

The indie one.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

Blink 182 and smash mouth.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yes, Smash Mouth, certainly.

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

This is Smash Mouth's movie Cruise or Hanks. There's like, no adults in this movie. Where do you.

[Zach Lowe]

No, you gotta go. We're allowed to take any year of Cruiser Hanks, so you can go you can go early 80s either, baby.

[Joanna Robinson]

Hanks as Preston Myers.

[Zach Lowe]

It's interesting because I was thinking Risky Business era. Joel Goodson Cruz.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

Dorking it up. But then deep down, there's a little more there. As Preston or Cruz as Mike Dexter.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah. Cruise is. Mike Dexter is a really good one. You know who, like, gave me Risky Business? Tom Cruise is Koresmo. When he's doing Paradise City, there's like, this cruising to him. That's really interesting.

[Zach Lowe]

Craig, you pick.

[Producer Craig Horbick]

I. I was thinking the same thing. I think Hanks as the lead. I think Cruz as Mike Dexter.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Producer Craig Horbick]

Oh, Cruz is too small for Mike Dexter. He can't be a football player. They'd have to fudge that.

[Zach Lowe]

All right, so let's go Hanks. Like, 1979 Hanks as Mike Dexter.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah. All right.

[Joanna Robinson]

No, wait. As Mike Dexter.

[Zach Lowe]

I mean, as. As Preston. Yeah. Yeah. Scorsese or Spielberg. Hilarious category. I'd probably go Spielberg for this one.

[Joanna Robinson]

Definitely. Spielsberg Spielberg. Can you imagine?

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

There's scarly. Wait.

[Zach Lowe]

Lot of cocaine. Yeah. Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

Y. Yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

What role would Philip Seymour Hoffman have played? Probably trip McNeely.

[Joanna Robinson]

I would say Jetta. Elfman's angel role.

[Zach Lowe]

Oh, interesting. Male angel.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

Okay. Picking nits? I have a couple. What do you have?

[Joanna Robinson]

This is a perfect movie. I have no nits to pick.

[Zach Lowe]

Okay. The cops break up that party in one hour. I just wrote down Amanda Beckett. What's happening there? She was with this. This idiot for three years and goes to a party and doesn't seem to really have any friends and just kind of wanders around and doesn't know anyone. Like, you have no identity. Like, what? Yeah, Like, I just feel like she would have a little more.

[Joanna Robinson]

This is the thing is, like, a little more wherewithal. I was reading the negative reviews, which I couldn't wholly disagree with, and they were like, there's no depth to these characters. I. I'm like. I think some of them have depth except Amanda, who's just intentionally a blank slate. But then that's just not that interesting. So. Yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

Nobody else uses the upstairs bathroom for this entire party. I mean, has anyone ever been to a high school party? People are. They were looking at the line. They're looking around, they're going up.

[Joanna Robinson]

Single person tries the door.

[Zach Lowe]

Two hours, they're trapped in the bathroom. Nobody else goes up there. Come on. Amanda has no idea who Preston is. How. How big was this high school.

[Joanna Robinson]

But she doesn't. I mean, that's. I guess Sarah Rue's point is, like, you don't know any of us. You know your shitty popular friends.

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

Absolute iconic Jamie Pressley performance in this movie, by the way.

[Zach Lowe]

We should have mentioned her. In what stage? The best.

[Joanna Robinson]

She's great in this.

[Zach Lowe]

Always loved her.

[Joanna Robinson]

And so if she just hung out with like those four dudes and those three girls and that was it.

[Zach Lowe]

Never saw.

[Joanna Robinson]

And her cousin.

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

And had no other friends then. Yeah. But that just makes you think poorly of Amanda.

[Zach Lowe]

Right.

[Joanna Robinson]

Because at least Ione Skye's character in say Anything like had a reason. She didn't know anyone. Right. It was like she was sheltered and you know, home. Like not homeschooled, but just sort of like was on this track and stuff like that. So when she shows up at the high school party and say anything and nobody knows her, but they're all like, we wish we had known you.

[Zach Lowe]

Right.

[Joanna Robinson]

We wanted to know.

[Zach Lowe]

It was acknowledged.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah, yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

Kenny and Denise just having sex right away after they talked for 10 minutes when they were both pretty socially immature. I don't know, I'm flagging it. Late 90s, things were starting to flip.

[Joanna Robinson]

But she had had. It wasn't her first time.

[Zach Lowe]

No. I just felt like they probably. I don't know, I don't know if they're just.

[Joanna Robinson]

They like make out a bit, but they don't.

[Zach Lowe]

I don't know if they're banging boots in two minutes on the. But on the cold bathroom floor.

[Joanna Robinson]

He does have the love kit.

[Zach Lowe]

He does. Maybe the love kit. Got her sequel prequel Prestige tv all black cast or Untouchable. Can I talk you into semi prestige?

[Joanna Robinson]

Okay.

[Zach Lowe]

Like an 8 episode Amazon all set in a final night of a high school. And it's almost done. Like the Pit with no Wiley. It's like each hour is an actual hour at the party.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

Craig, would you watch that? Sure.

[Producer Craig Horbick]

Yeah, but that's similar.

[Joanna Robinson]

That's similar.

[Zach Lowe]

PIT CrossFit can't hardly wait eight hours at somebody's house.

[Joanna Robinson]

That's kind of similar to what.

[Producer Craig Horbick]

That's where the B12 vitamins come in.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah, exactly. That's kind of similar to what American Vandal tried to do with like their breakdown of what happened one night at a party. Yeah, but yeah, do it pit style. What is John Wells doing? Why not? Can hardly wait.

[Zach Lowe]

It's just crushing. Wiley is the most back anyone's ever been back.

[Joanna Robinson]

100% back.

[Zach Lowe]

He's full time back.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

Is this movie better with Wayne Jenkins, Danny Trejo, Doris Burke, Sam Jackson, Nell, Byron Mayo, Barney Cousins, Tony Romo, Harley Mays, Collinsworth Daniel Plain Bill Long legs or Wolf for Brimley in the Firm.

[Joanna Robinson]

I know I already said we could say nobody. I already said Philip Seymour Hoffman in the Jenna Elfman role. But what about Danny Trejo in the Jenna Elfman role? Just in terms of like not doesn't have to be an angel, but just in terms of like the one adult who wanders in and gives you advice and is Danny Trejo.

[Zach Lowe]

That sounds dressed like an angel.

[Joanna Robinson]

Or not. But just like is there talking about Scott Bay or whatever. He wants to talk about Danny Trejo. I think could belongs in this universe.

[Zach Lowe]

Can I offer you Sam Jackson is the cop.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

Instead of Poppy from Seinfeld, Sam Jackson comes in and just Sam Jackson's it up for like six minutes and then they just give him $1 million while.

[Joanna Robinson]

Blink 182 plays in the background.

[Zach Lowe]

Is going on at this party. You guys crazy. Just one Oscar. Who gets it? I'm going to unfortunately say nobody for this one, which we rarely have a nobody.

[Producer Craig Horbick]

But no, you have to do it. That's the rule. You have.

[Zach Lowe]

You have to do Oscar.

[Joanna Robinson]

I have one.

[Zach Lowe]

Okay.

[Joanna Robinson]

I have two. Best editing.

[Zach Lowe]

Best editing. That's good. Good answer.

[Joanna Robinson]

Mark Bridges, who's the costume designer who went on to win an Oscar for the Phantom thread.

[Zach Lowe]

There you go. That sounds great.

[Joanna Robinson]

I mean Kenny's goggles. Everything. Kenny, everything. 90s what the popular girls are wearing. They're like bra and costume design. Yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

And the nominees are. Can't Hardly Wait.

[Joanna Robinson]

Can't Hardly Wait. Yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

Sense and Sensibility. Probably in answerable questions. I don't really have any other than this one. The five year reunion sequel was sitting right there in 2003 and all these people were still relatively famous enough.

[Joanna Robinson]

And American Pirates.

[Zach Lowe]

But they could have made it way more raunchy and five year. Same thing. One night we catch up. At that point, the movie had kind of taken off as a cult movie. It's sitting right there.

[Joanna Robinson]

Great comedy.

[Zach Lowe]

I don't know why they did it. They could also do the 30 year reunion movie, but I'm not sure people would be as excited about that one.

[Joanna Robinson]

But they might because it would be like, what are these people doing now? And it would be exciting to see them. We don't see Brecken Meyer that often. Do you know what I mean? It would be fun to see him. Donald Faison is making a lot of telephone commercials and has a podcast.

[Zach Lowe]

But like, maybe Amanda has a personality by then.

[Joanna Robinson]

Maybe. Maybe she's grown a personality. Yeah. Yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

You have an answerables no. Okay. There's a one award for what happened the next day. I have. Preston and Amanda dated for two years, and then she immediately started dating the soccer captain of whatever school she was going to and dumped him. I think it's a two year romance.

[Joanna Robinson]

That or he met someone at his college who actually had a personality, who.

[Zach Lowe]

Actually could have a conversation.

[Joanna Robinson]

And. And when he's like, I'm gonna do a summer internship with Kurt Vonnegut. And she's like, great, that's great for you. But he meets someone in his college who, like, has read, who actually has red carpet.

[Zach Lowe]

That's my. What piece of memorabilia would you want from this movie or not want.

[Joanna Robinson]

This is easy for me.

[Zach Lowe]

The goggles.

[Joanna Robinson]

No, it's the Love Burger shirt from the band.

[Zach Lowe]

Oh, that's a great one.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

I also. I wrote that in the love kit. But then the yearbook would be kind of funny to have because people signed it. Yeah, the goggles are pretty good. I'll give those to Craig because he was obviously fascinated by Craig.

[Joanna Robinson]

Definitely gets the goggles.

[Zach Lowe]

The Coach Finstock award for best life lesson. Fate only takes you so far.

[Joanna Robinson]

That's beautiful.

[Zach Lowe]

I actually really learned something about life in this.

[Joanna Robinson]

Here's mine. Always wear shoes in the dorm shower.

[Zach Lowe]

Right. You don't want to get warts.

[Joanna Robinson]

No.

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

There was a kid in my dorm freshman year who got, like, something really gnarly happened to his foot in the dorm shower. And I was like, you clearly didn't see Can't Hardly Wait.

[Zach Lowe]

Right.

[Joanna Robinson]

If you had, you would have known. You always got to wear shower shoes in the dorm shower.

[Zach Lowe]

Shower shoes are important. Best double feature choice. What do you have?

[Joanna Robinson]

Super bad. Super bad.

[Zach Lowe]

So I had 16 candles. Interesting. Maybe it's a triple feature generational thing. So it'd be Sixteen Candles. Can't Hardly Wait. Super bad. And then Booksmart.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

And that's like four generations of all in one night movies. Maybe you throw in say anything for a quintupleheader.

[Joanna Robinson]

I love it.

[Zach Lowe]

Sounds great. Who won the movie? This is hard.

[Joanna Robinson]

The 90s. Did the 90s win the movie? Does it have to be a. Does it have to be a person?

[Zach Lowe]

Can be whatever you want.

[Joanna Robinson]

Be whatever I want. I would say for the time, in terms of, like, stock and recognizability out of the movie and all that sort of stuff. Might be Seth Green. This was like a big Seth Green moment.

[Zach Lowe]

So I had it narrowed down to Ethan Embry because there's just no way he was ever gonna lead another movie after this. So he gets to at least point to, like, hey, that time I let a movie movie. Seth Green, who's just having an incredible run here.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

Do we mention him in Apex Mountain? No, I might have forgotten to put him in there. Because he has Austin Powers.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yes.

[Zach Lowe]

He's Scott evil. He has this. He's on Buffy. He's just all over the place and it feels like he's. Everybody likes Seth Green. He had a really high approval rating.

[Joanna Robinson]

And then he's a robot chicken.

[Zach Lowe]

You know, this wasn't his first high school movie.

[Joanna Robinson]

I can do this. Airborne.

[Zach Lowe]

I don't know if you're gonna get it.

[Joanna Robinson]

Airborne. Does that count?

[Zach Lowe]

Not what I'm thinking.

[Joanna Robinson]

My stepmother's an alien. Is he in high school? Can't buy me love oh, can't buy me love.

[Zach Lowe]

He's Chucky, the little annoying brother who keeps trying to. Who? He's Patrick Dempsey's brother.

[Joanna Robinson]

Have you seen Airborne, though? The rollerblading movie?

[Zach Lowe]

I don't know if I saw Airborne. Oh, yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

Oh, okay. You should watch Airborne. Young Jack Black's in that movie. Seth Green's in that movie. A lot of eubac's in that movie. It's about a California surfer bro who moves to like the mid. Like Minneapolis or something like that. It's like snowing all the time. And he discovers rollerblading. And that's how they all, like, bond together. The hockey kids and the California kid.

[Zach Lowe]

I missed out on all the roller skating. Rollerblading. Skateboarding movies. All of them. I didn't want to believe any of them. Yeah. None of them.

[Joanna Robinson]

Them. Wow. Okay.

[Zach Lowe]

None of them for who won the movie? I think you could say Lauren Ambrose, because she had the best career after. And it's so cool to see her in this movie.

[Joanna Robinson]

Now she gets six feet under, sort of off the back of this. Yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

And you see the seeds of all of it. And she's had a really good career. I. I mean, in the moment, it felt like Jennifer Love Hewitt won the movie. But as you said, like, her characters doesn't really have a lot going on.

[Joanna Robinson]

But I think this cemented something for. For her moment.

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

But it didn't carry her beyond this.

[Zach Lowe]

I like your Seth Green.

[Joanna Robinson]

Cause, Yeah. I think it's the right screen. Yeah. He's the most quotable. Someone was just, like, always running around.

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

Dropping Kenny Special K quotes.

[Zach Lowe]

All right. I'm nervous. Craig Horrobeck, our producer, never seen this movie.

[Joanna Robinson]

I genuinely can't wait, because I bet. I like. I feel like you can't hardly wait.

[Producer Craig Horbick]

I can't look. I'll be kind. And the bar is just high for high school comedies, the bar is really high. And this is like watching Bob Pettit, and you're like, I get it. Maybe in the moment. I don't know if it holds up. You know what I mean?

[Zach Lowe]

It kind of feels like he's a 1950s basketball player.

[Producer Craig Horbick]

It just feels like you ran. If you ask Jack GPT like, write me, say anything in three minutes. And it cranked out. Can't hardly wait. It's tough because it, like, has the look of American Pie, but it has, like, the feel and the earnestness of, like, a say anything. And I think for my generation, the earnestness. High school comedy died before I came around. Like, by the time I showed up, it was, like, super bad and all that stuff. So kind of going back to this, like, the hopeless romantic shtick. It was tough. It was tough. And the lack of star power in the cast was shocking. And Sean. I was talking to Sean this weekend about it, and he was like, oh, yeah, Ethan Embry. Like, people thought he was. He was a thing.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

For, like, two years.

[Producer Craig Horbick]

And everybody in this movie, they were like. They thought everybody was gonna go on and have, like, a real career.

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah.

[Producer Craig Horbick]

And so going back now, I was. I was shocked at the casting of this film.

[Zach Lowe]

That's. That was one of the reasons I was so excited to do it, because it's like this time capsule that you can't really explain 27 years later.

[Joanna Robinson]

Incredible. Like, mid. Tier.

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

Of success where, like, I can name check every single person in this movie, but Craig, who just, like, is, you know, like a decade younger than me or whatever, is just sort of like that guy. That guy. That guy. Like, they were never a thing. And also, this is sort of exactly what I expected, Craig, because it's just, like, it really is a you had to be there movie.

[Producer Craig Horbick]

Yeah, totally.

[Joanna Robinson]

You definitely had to be there. And I, like, I didn't expect. I was like, craig's not gonna like this at all.

[Zach Lowe]

No, I know.

[Joanna Robinson]

It's just.

[Producer Craig Horbick]

It's laid on thick, you know, all the. All the archetypes are laid on pretty thick. I do think there are, like. Like, storylines that I like. I actually. I think the nerd kid getting drunk is funny. That worked for me.

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah.

[Producer Craig Horbick]

And I thought the best part of the movie, you didn't really talk about it. The Jerry O'Connell scene, I think, is legitimately good.

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah.

[Producer Craig Horbick]

And that could have been the sequel or just exploring the theme of Peing in high school or the guy who was awesome going to college and realizing that he's a loser and coming back. I thought that interaction between the two of them was like. Was like, you know, the ghost of Christmas past coming back and telling you, like, what your future is like. I thought it was pretty good. It was like a. You know, Mike Dexter was looking at his future on the bench. I thought that was good.

[Joanna Robinson]

So you want the Mike Dexter, like, burns out of college?

[Producer Craig Horbick]

Yeah, yeah, I want. I want Mike Dexter going to College with Jerry O'Connell.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

But you know what, Craig? Everything he just laid out is one of the reasons I like this movie is because the late 90s had no interest in really exploring anything.

[Producer Craig Horbick]

Now.

[Zach Lowe]

They just wanted. They cared about. Is there a good soundtrack? Did you get enough young stars? Can you describe the theme of the movie in a sentence? Let's go. Can you film this in 25 days? And this was just three years of movies.

[Producer Craig Horbick]

I think this movie thought it was satirizing high school archetypes, and in reality, it was just kind of sloppy versions of them.

[Joanna Robinson]

I don't think it thinks it. I don't think it thought it was doing anything. I think genuinely, and I don't see that as a negative. I think it was just sort of like, to your point, we have $2 to rub together, and we know a bunch of young people are out of work, and we want to stake our claim as directors because this writing duo had never directed anything before.

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

And so they're like, what's the lowest stake thing that they can. That we can put together and. And. And is funny throughout, which it is.

[Zach Lowe]

And so part of this era, they just shamelessly ripped off movies that already happened.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

You know, like, what was the movie, the Freddie Prinze movie where the girl, she's all that. It's. It's basically Secret Admirer, not Secret Admirer, Can't Buy Me Love.

[Joanna Robinson]

Just.

[Zach Lowe]

Just redone. Or you'd have movies like the Faculty, where they were just like, do you have the script yet? The Faculty's evil. That's all we got. But we got to shoot three weeks from now, and we have a couple people on board already. Nick stalls in. Yeah, let's go.

[Joanna Robinson]

We've got Elijah for, like, yeah, one month.

[Zach Lowe]

So let's just start filming, and we'll figure out the script. And that's just kind of how they did it back then. People were dumber back then. Craig, I don't know what to tell you.

[Producer Craig Horbick]

Too much B12. I don't know.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

That was producer Craig Horbeck. Thanks to Gahao as well. Behind the scenes.

[Joanna Robinson]

Thank you.

[Zach Lowe]

Thanks to Joanna for spending so much time in LA with us.

[Joanna Robinson]

I genuinely consider this gift to me. Thank you so much, Bill.

[Zach Lowe]

You can watch this on The Ringer Movies YouTube page as well. And we will see you next week.

[Joanna Robinson]

You have to watch it because you have to see Bill's impression of Ethan Embry with your own two eyes.

[Zach Lowe]

Maybe I'll bring in Ethan Embry for the future. For the Is this movie better off with Sam Jackson, that whole category. Ethan, every. Thanks, Jerry.