Top two problems with this film:
1) Ben Stiller's teeth
2) The fact that Ethan Hawke is just a complete jerk and Winona Ryder doesn't seem to care.
This was Ben Stiller's first film as a director, and it definitely isn't something I would expect from him. This is a film about life after college, and the "reality" of it all. Random note: the soundtrack rocks. I like the film, but the relationship between Ethan and Winona makes no sense to me. He's just mean. And not in a fifth grade, I-pulled-your-pigtail-which-means-I-like-you, kind of way. The fact that she's the one person he can see himself committing to doesn't make their "love" anything special. The ending is almost sickening. In the words of my friend Patrick, "If this is reality, I'm going to kill myself."
When Scenes
WHEN The friends dance in the gas station.
WHEN Winona changes the words on her bosses cards.
WHEN Winona gets fired and Ethan takes her on a tour of all of the places he's been fired to make her feel better.
WHEN Steve Zahn and Janeane Garofalo practice for him telling his parents he's gay.
WHEN Steve Zahn actually tells his mom he's gay and is kicked out of the house onto the curb.
QUICKIES
"I'm bursting with flavor"- Lelaina Pierce (Winona Ryder)
"Hello, you have reached the winter of our discontent."- Troy Dyer (Ethan Hawke — when answering the phone)
"There's no point to any of this. It's all just a... a random lottery of meaningless tragedy and a series of near escapes. So I take pleasure in the details. You know... a Quarter-Pounder with cheese, those are good, the sky about 10 minutes before it starts to rain, the moment where your laughter become a cackle... and I, I sit back and I smoke my Camel Straights, and I ride my own melt."- Troy Dyer (Ethan Hawke)
"You look like...you look like..."- Michael Grates (Ben Stiller)
"A doily"- Troy Dyer (Ethan Hawke)
"I don't understand why things just can't go back to normal at the end of the half hour like the Brady Bunch or something." Lelaina Pierce (Winona Ryder)
"Well, because Mr. Brady died of AIDS."- Troy Dyer (Ethan Hawke)
Fun Facts:
Quentin Tarantino had originally intended to include "My Sharona" (The Knack) on the soundtrack to Pulp Fiction (1994), but when he went to obtain the rights he found the song had already been licensed to this movie.
Screenwriter Helen Childress was 19-years-old and a freshman at USC when she completed the script.
The psychic friend who Lelaina calls is voiced by Ben Stiller's real-life sister, Amy Stiller.
The woman that asks Winona Ryder's character to define "irony" is Ben Stiller's mother, Anne Meara.
Despite Lelaina's anti-consumerism speech at the beginning, this film has a considerable amount of product placement and product references in the dialogue, including Gap, BMW, Diet Coca-Cola, Pringles, Big Gulp, Pizza Hut, Domino's Pizza, Evian, Camel Straight cigarettes, Snickers, McDonalds (Troy mentions a Quarter Pounder with Cheese as one of life's pleasures), Whole Foods Market, Continental Airlines, Cocoa Puffs and Minute Maid.
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