Every Rom Com 76: 500 Days of Summer

[00:00:01] Speaker A: Hi, I'm Jen. [00:00:03] Speaker B: I'm Sophia. [00:00:04] Speaker C: And I'm Rob. [00:00:06] Speaker A: And you're listening to Every Rom com, the podcast where we have fun taking romantic comedy seriously. [00:00:12] Speaker B: This week on Every rom com, we're continuing our LA Stories series with a movie that looks at love from the end to the beginning. [00:00:21] Speaker C: We'll talk about some historic Los Angeles locations and architecture highlighted in the film. [00:00:27] Speaker A: And we'll discuss the genre of breakup rom coms as we talk about the 2009 indie hit 500 Days of Summer. Hello, Sophia. Hi, Jenna. [00:01:03] Speaker B: How are ya? [00:01:04] Speaker A: I'm doing okay. I'm hanging in there. We're getting through our LA Stories series and soon we'll be heading into the sports rom com series. And I'm really excited to have back on the show Rob Lamorgis from the Get Me Another Podcast who we had on to talk about LA Story quite recently to you listeners, but it was actually kind of long ago in her recording area. Welcome back, Rob. [00:01:28] Speaker C: Thank you. Thanks for having me on the show. Hi, Jen. Hi, Sophia. And for those that don't know, Get Me Another. I co host the podcast with Chris Ianicone and Justin Beam. And Get Me Another, as the name might imply, examines the films that followed in the wake of blockbuster hits and attempted to replicate their success. And right now we are in the middle of recording our big summer series, Get Me another Jaws. And so I am neck deep in animals that want to kill people. [00:01:59] Speaker A: Yes, I am so excited about this series, and not just because I get to come on and talk about Piranha, which is like, I can exaggerate a little and say it's a lifelong dream, but. [00:02:10] Speaker B: That'S amazing. [00:02:11] Speaker A: This whole, this whole series of yours is going to be a fun one, I think. Like, I love your show. Like listeners, you should definitely check out Get Me Another. It's a fantastic podcast. They're very well researched, well produced, funny show. So check them out. But, like, this is the ultimate for me. Just like Killer Ocean Dwellers is just going to be the most fun of all, I think. And what a better time to have it than, you know, the anniversary of Jaws in the summertime. [00:02:35] Speaker C: So, yeah, it's for the 50th. And while there are a lot of aquatic killers, there are killers on land. We had recently recorded a double feature of Grizzly and Day of the Animals, and that was all mountains. So, you know, equal opportunity as far as your, what habitat and biomes go. [00:02:58] Speaker A: My friend Karen Carlson, she says that she really hopes you'll do Blood beach, but I don't know, so we'll see. [00:03:05] Speaker C: Well, I can say that this is a series that while I think it might be a 10 episode, maybe nine episode, it's. We've already declared there will be get me another Jaws Part two because there are too many films, just way too many. And so we, we will eventually get me another. Get me another Jaws. [00:03:32] Speaker A: That. That is too much. That is too much. And I'm really thankful for you to come back on the show. Like, I was trying to get like more of a variety of people from Los Angeles to be on the show, but Ewan Chris were such phenomenal guests and you had mentioned that you like this movie. So really thanks for coming back on with us. [00:03:51] Speaker C: Oh, thank you. Very kind words. And yeah, 500 days of summer is a movie that I truly do love. You know, it's about the city. I've been in a long term relationship with Los Angeles. It's like the relationship in the movie at times, rocky. So. [00:04:12] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:04:13] Speaker B: Are you from la? [00:04:15] Speaker C: No, I grew up in Iowa, but I've lived here longer than where I grew up, so I'm not the honorary Angelino badge at this point. [00:04:24] Speaker B: That's awesome. That's awesome. [00:04:26] Speaker A: Yeah. And our characters in this movie actually are not originally from Los Angeles either. And it's interesting. But the main character, Tom, has really formed a close relationship with the city as well. And in the movie we're going to talk about, he has like a favorite bench that he likes to go to and sit on. And I was wondering, as we're closing out, we're starting to close out the LA Stories series, what are like some of your favorite places in Los Angeles? [00:04:53] Speaker C: Well, I and I used to go to Tom's Bench back when before it was Tom's Bench. But we can, I know we'll probably get into those and another location in the movie, but we can talk about that when we get there. But one of my hidden my spot that prob is closest spiritually to a Tom's Bench is Ferndale Trail. It's on the western side of Griffith park, not far from where I live right now. And it's not necessarily super photogenic. I mean it's beautiful. But please, there's no need to tick tock this place. People like it's a, it's a special place. Don't ruin it. But my, my favorite part of it is there's a creek path and it's all tree cover and it feels like you're, you know, taking the one ring somewhere. Right. And it leads some hiking kind of and you can go out more into the open eventually. And the, the trail you can go, you know, you'll. You'll go over some steps, but you can go up the hill all the way to Griffith Observatory. Famed filming location for many other movies. My magic spot, though, is by the creek where I can kind of sit and feel like I. You just do not even feel like you're in the city. It's. It's a little bit like, you know, and there's the Trails Cafe nearby as well, which they have some very good food and coffee and it feels a little bit, you know, Camp Crystal Lakey, but without the lake, but also a little bit just kind of magic. Magic spot. So. [00:06:30] Speaker A: Nice. Nice. It's interesting. Like, I bet you would get a lot of different answers depending on who you asked. And, and when I asked that, I was sort of. I was wondering if I would get like more of a. An urban kind of location or, you know, like a cultural spot or a night spot, but like to pick nature. Like, I like that because you don't. People who don't live there don't necessarily associate Los Angeles with nature as much, I think. [00:06:52] Speaker C: Yeah, no, and it's, you know, it's sequestered in its spots, just like many American cities. But. Yeah, no, it's, it's, it's fantastic there. But there, there are so many places in la. I mean, you know, you know, cultural. Like Watts Towers is fantastic. I would highly recommend that. And the. They usually have an art museum there to go with it. Watts Towers is, I want to say it was the 40s or 50s built by an Italian immigrant back when it was, you know, the makeup of the neighborhood was a little different. And this guy was, you know, worked, you know, odd jobs, but he worked with his hands and he built these towers. And from the outside it looks almost like a ship, you know, with a mast, but it's all built out of bits of broken bottle glass and things that he found. And it is a truly amazing spot. And I would highly recommend anyone go when it is open. You can see online when it's open. And they, they will have a tour guide to help you as well. But it's. It really is. It was. One person built it. And it's really incredible when you see it because it's, you know, it's not like skyscraper tall, but it's much taller than you would think one guy with, you know, a belt and a hammer would have been doing or whatever tools he was using. [00:08:19] Speaker A: That's cool. I'll have to look that up. And I'll have to put a link to that in the show notes. Yeah, and also in the show notes I would like to link to your show and if you wanted to also then tell the listeners like, where can they check out? [00:08:31] Speaker C: Get me another Yes, I believe that we are at get me another pod on threads, Instagram and Blue sky as well. And so. And of course, wherever you listen to podcasts, you should be able to find. [00:08:48] Speaker B: Us before we get started today. A few notes. First, due to the plot structure of 500 days of summer, we will not have a spoiler free section for this episode. So if you want to get into the movie totally unspoiled, I recommend seeing the movie first and then coming back to listen. [00:09:07] Speaker A: We'd also like to remind you that you can follow the podcast on social media. Our Facebook page is Every rom Com podcast and blog. Our Instagram is very Romcom. Our Twitter handle is very Romcom Pod. And you can also find us on Blueskyveryromcom. [00:09:24] Speaker B: And as always, you can find the [email protected], send us [email protected] and if you like what you hear, please rate, review and subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. [00:09:40] Speaker A: You can now also listen to our episodes on our YouTube channel, every ROM com podcast. So there's nothing fancy going on over on our YouTube channel yet. But the videos do have a really cool feature which is built in timestamps so you can go to an episode and you can easily skip to sections of the show you'd particularly like to listen to. So I think that's super cool. And if you, if you get a minute, please visit us on our YouTube channel, subscribe to us and you know, just enjoy. [00:10:10] Speaker B: And finally, if you'd like to help support the show financially, we're always grateful to people who visit our Buy me a coffee [email protected] everyromcom all donations go towards producing the show and it really makes a difference. [00:10:27] Speaker A: All right, and now let's get into this episode by listening to the trailer for 500 Days of Summer. [00:10:36] Speaker B: I love the Smiths. [00:10:38] Speaker A: Sorry, I said I love the Smiths. You've got taste of music. I like the Smith. To die by your side is such a heavenly way to die. [00:10:53] Speaker B: I love him. [00:10:59] Speaker A: Holy. This is a story of boy meets girl. [00:11:08] Speaker C: The boy, Tom Hansen, grew up believing. [00:11:11] Speaker A: That he'd never truly be happy until the day he met the one. [00:11:14] Speaker C: The girl, Summer Finn, did not share this belief. [00:11:19] Speaker A: You should know up front. [00:11:21] Speaker C: This is not a love story. [00:11:24] Speaker A: I think we should stop seeing each other. Just like that? Just like that. Start from the beginning and tell us what happened. I tried to talk to her in the copy room. She's totally not having it. Maybe she was just in a hurry. [00:11:35] Speaker C: And maybe she's an uppity, better than everyone super skank. In college they called me Perfectly Adequate Hanson. [00:11:42] Speaker A: He used to call me Anal Girl. [00:11:45] Speaker B: I was very neat and organized. [00:11:50] Speaker A: So you have a boyfriend? No. [00:11:53] Speaker B: Who needs it? [00:11:54] Speaker A: We're young. Might as well have fun while we can. [00:11:56] Speaker C: Wait, wait. [00:11:56] Speaker A: What happens if you fall in love? You don't believe that, do you? What? It's love. It's not Santa Claus. [00:12:07] Speaker C: I think it's official. I'm in love with Summer. I love how she makes me feel. [00:12:17] Speaker A: Do you ever even have a boyfriend? Of course. [00:12:20] Speaker B: What happened? [00:12:21] Speaker A: Why? [00:12:21] Speaker C: Why didn't they work out? [00:12:22] Speaker A: What always happens? Life. [00:12:25] Speaker B: 500 Days of Summer came out on August 7, 2009. It's written by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber, and it's directed by Marc Webb. Starring Joseph Gordon Levitt and Zooey Deschanel. [00:12:40] Speaker C: 500 days of summer is the story of a romance and breakup told out of order, jumping back and forwards in time throughout the movie. The main character, Tom, is a greeting card writer who really wants to be an architect. When an attractive woman named Summer comes to work at his company, Tom is interested in her and eventually they start seeing each other. Now, from the beginning, Summer tells Tom that she's not looking for a relationship, but Tom nevertheless falls in love and they begin to have problems. Tom and Summer break up, and much of the movie shows Tom dealing with the aftermath of the relationship. [00:13:20] Speaker A: Here are some interesting facts about 500 days of summer. So, first of all, screenwriter Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber wrote the screenplay without necessarily expecting it would ever get made. The story was inspired by two of Neustadter's breakups, and he said about 75% of the events in the film happened with one specific ex girlfriend. There were also other aspects of Neustadter's life in the film too, including his love for the band the Smiths and the main character's hometown. Neustadter, at the time the movie was coming out, wrote an article for the Daily Mail, which opened the opening credits for my film include the standard legal disclaimer that any resemblance to people, living or dead, is purely coincidental. But then it adds, especially you, Jenny Beckman, bitch. That tells you a lot about how I felt when she ended a relationship that I so desperately, even pathetically, wanted to make work, even though it was always patently clear to me that she saw no future for us, end quote. [00:14:24] Speaker C: The thing about that disclaimer that I love is while it's, you know, funny to open the movie, that it really does kind of set the comedic tone and the anti romance of it all. There is this for such a romantic movie. It has that kind of romance doesn't exist edge and it changes which character has that pov, which I like as well. [00:14:49] Speaker A: Yeah. It also kind of sets you up that you're going to see a movie that's full of like little tricks and unexpected things as well. [00:14:56] Speaker C: Mm. [00:14:57] Speaker A: Neustadter refers to the movie as a coming of age story rather than a romantic comedy because Tom is the one who needs to experience growth and the characters aren't focused on equally. So we don't see as much about summer. Neustadter and Weber have cited the movies the Graduate and Annie hall as inspirations when writing the film, as well as the films of Cameron Crowe, Billy Wilder and John Hughes. But interestingly, inspiration for the structure came from The Canadian Film 32 Short films about Glenn Gould. Now, Neustadter said that he hadn't even watched this movie, but he liked the idea of telling the story of relationship through a series of short films. And I have to say I haven't watched that movie either, though I did consider watching it, but it felt ridiculous to watch a movie that supposedly inspired a movie but that the person who was inspired by it hadn't even watched. [00:15:47] Speaker C: So that is the most Hollywood thing ever. I was inspired by the thing I didn't see. God bless him. [00:15:59] Speaker A: So director Marc Webb told Entertainment Weekly he was interested in the project because of its ending. He said, quote, this was talking about something that I think a lot of people had experienced that wasn't talked about in the movies that much, which is rejection and being okay with that and not getting the girl back. And how do you handle that? Joseph Gordon Levitt and Zooey Deschanel were already friends when they were cast in the roles of Tom and Summer. They had previously worked together in a movie called manic. In 2001, the budget for 500 days of summer was 7.5 million and it grossed 60.7 million, which is quite good. The film received critical praise as well and was nominated for two Golden Globes for Best Picture, Musical or Comedy, for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy for Joseph Gordon Levitt. And in addition to the movie Director Marc Webb shot a video of Zooey Deschanel's band's she and Hims song, why do youo Let Me Stay Here? Which featured Deschanel and Joseph Gordon Levitt dancing together in a bank. I watched that. It was kind of quite cute. [00:17:05] Speaker C: Yeah, I remember that when that came out, too. That was a very good record. I remember liking it. [00:17:11] Speaker A: Oh, she and him fan here. Okay. [00:17:13] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. [00:17:15] Speaker A: All right, so let's now get into our general opinion of the movie. And, yeah, Rob, actually, do you want to kick us off on this one? Let us know, like, kind of when you saw it, what you thought of it then, and how has your opinion changed over the years if it has? [00:17:31] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, I saw it in the theater when it came out, and I very much liked it then. I very much like it now. My experience of it, I think, is a bit different because it's been a number of years. I think at its core, why I still like the movie and why I liked it initially is that I am very much romantic myself. It is, I think, rarer to have a. Even though they don't call it a romantic comedy, I will. A romantic comedy that is from a male pov that is romantic. I think there are plenty of, you know, you go in the 80s for sex comedies or whatever that you might term stretch into the rom com category, but it's. It's rare that. That you have that here. I think that what I like about it, now that I'm older, is how it does show a lot of the pitfalls that I think overly romantic people can fall into, and that generally, you know, that you live in your head so much that you are not seeing reality, and then that creates a lot of problems. And so I. I kind of appreciate that pov, but it's not. It's still. I don't believe, for me, you know, neither Tom nor Summer is being villainized or anything. It's just they're. They're not right for each other, you know? [00:19:06] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I'll have a lot to say about some of those topics later, too, I think. Yeah. How about for you, Sophia? [00:19:15] Speaker B: I. I saw it around the time it hit, like, dvd, so I didn't see it in the theaters, but I loved it. And, yes, romantic. And it's very whimsical and charming, and I love the animation stuff. I still love the, you know, the soundtrack to it, but, you know. Okay, so maybe not as I'm not as critical as I made it sound, because I think pretty much what Rob said about, you know. Yes, I love. I love love. I love romantic stuff. But I. Wow. I really didn't see some of the. [00:19:54] Speaker A: Right. [00:19:54] Speaker B: Some of the problems of those overly romantic notions the first time I saw it, when it came, you know, in, like, 2010 or 2009, as I did now. And it had some dated stuff that rubbed me the wrong way this time, but it was. It was just very interesting to see with some mature eyes this time. [00:20:16] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. So for me, I actually do not remember when I first saw this. Like, I moved to South Korea, like, around the time this movie came out. So I'm pretty sure I didn't see it for years after that. Like, maybe we. Maybe we torrented it or something when we were in Korea, because that's how people usually got their movies over there, how expats got their movies. I remember when I saw it when I was younger, I didn't like it as much. And I think it's because there's certain moments in the movie where the male characters are kind of being, you know, a bit misogynistic. Like, we heard a little bit of that in the preview where he's calling Summer a super skink because he doesn't want to, like, talk to somebody. Right. Like, there's stuff like that in the movie that, like, definitely rubbed me the wrong way, but there's also clever stuff. So I never, like, wrote the movie off entirely, and I think I've seen it a couple more times since I initially saw it and then this last time, doing it for the podcast. So usually when we do movies for the podcast, like, I'll watch them at least twice, I'll take notes on them, all this research, whatever. Like, I either come to really get sick of a movie because I've thought about it too much, or I like it better. And this is one of the ones where I've appreciated it a little more. Kind of hearing about some of the things, especially the actors were saying about the movie and their viewpoints on it and just, like, seeing how it put together, you know, like, there's a lot of gimmicks in this movie, but they somehow don't seem that gimmicky. It's weird. You know, usually, like. Like, different. You know, they're using different film formats. They're putting a musical number in there. They're, like, having narration. There's all this stuff going on, but. And they're doing reverse order, but, like, somehow it all works. I don't know how. Like, I don't know. Do you all Agree with that. Do you feel that it all kind of coheres? [00:22:00] Speaker B: Yeah, I didn't. Like, there's one section later on where they do like, like Harry Met Sally bit where, you know, it's as if people are being interviewed and they're looking right at the camera and they're talking about their love, you know, their relationships or whatever. I think that's the only moment that happens in the film. But I didn't mind. I'm like, I'm okay with that. It didn't upset me. It, it felt fine. So. But I, I hear what you're saying. All these great editing actually like even just like a look that Summer gives from the future and then they're back to the past and I'm like, oh, wow. Oh, okay. It was great. [00:22:43] Speaker A: Rob, do you feel like it coheres as well? Like the, all the different techniques? [00:22:47] Speaker C: I mean it, it does to me. Because this movie is as you'd stated in, in some somewhere earlier, up top. This is not a When Harry Met Sally in as far as this is not a balanced movie POV at all. And because we are so in Tom's head, like clearly for the whole run of this thing, I think that it really buys you a lot of these techniques. And then on the non technical side, the reason I, you know, they either work for you or they don't. They happen to do for me. And I think some of it feels like it probably was in the scripted stage. Some of it is, you know, the, the director, Mark and I, this thing, all of this stuff jammed into the movie has such a feel of a first album to me. Like this is what band, like you know, the band's first album and it's, you know, five to 10 years of pent up songwriting and perfecting and it comes out and it's got everything right when it's done in the best possible way. And this, this feels like a guy, you know, Marc Webb, a director, and then two writers who were trying to get, you know, their, their first movie made, even if they didn't think this one would be it. This just feels like, you know, all that pent up energy is there and because of the subject matter, it really, really works for me. [00:24:15] Speaker A: I like that. I like that analogy very much. And yeah, they're all first time writers and directors, so yeah, that all fits very nice. All right, so let's actually talk about this cast and crew. But first, I will note for the first time we've come to a movie on every rom com where we have already covered both the lead actors on previous episodes. I'm very excited about this because, you know, I just feel like we're making progress and eventually we will get to every actor. You know, just like we'll get to every rom com. Hahaha. Anyway. [00:24:51] Speaker C: You just did a title drop and I that is amazing. [00:24:55] Speaker A: That was pretty great. That's right. That's right. I did. So if you'd like to learn more about Joseph Gordon Levitt, you can check out Every Rom com episode 7 on 10 Things I Hate about yout. That's also with Sophia. And if you'd like to learn more about Zooey Destanel, check out Every Rom com episode 53 on yes Man. So pretty good. And since we've already talked about the lead actors, we are now going to use our cast and crew time to talk about the director and the writing team. So off to you Sofia. [00:25:26] Speaker B: We're going to kick it off with director Marc Webb. He was born in 1974 in Indiana, but he grew up in Madison, Wisconsin. Yay Wisconsin. Where Jen and I are from, where his father was a professor at the University of Wisconsin and he graduated at UW Madison with an English degree. Webb started out as an editor, then became a music video director, directing over 100 music videos before transitioning into film and TV. 500 Days of Summer was Webb's feature film directorial debut. His first IMDb credit is for the Blues Traveler video Canadian rose in 1997. Prior to his film debut, he also directed music videos for artists including no doubt, Green Day, Maroon 5, My Chemical Romance, Evanescence, Regina Spector, and Miley cyrus. After directing 500 Days of Summer, he still occasionally directed music videos including for Zooey Deschanel's band she and Him. Webb also directed for TV, including an episode of the Office before landing his second feature film directing job in 2012's The Amazing Spider man, starring Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone. He also directed The Amazing Spider Man 2 in 2014 and in 2017, Webb shifted from superheroes and instead released two family dramas, Gifted, starring Chris Evans and the coming of age drama the Only Living Boy in New York. Webb also directed more for TV in the 2010s including episodes of Crazy Ex Girlfriend, Limitless, the Code, and why Women kill in the 2000 and 20s. Webb continued to direct for TV and most recently he directed the 2025 live action Snow White movie for Disney. [00:27:19] Speaker A: Which does not look good to me. Unfortunately. I don't know either of you seen this. [00:27:23] Speaker B: I I have not gotten into the live action versions. [00:27:27] Speaker A: Me neither Yeah, I just thought because you have a child, maybe you had been roped into it somehow. [00:27:32] Speaker B: No. [00:27:34] Speaker C: My kiddo is picky about which live action adaptations she goes to and she's kind of been out for a little bit. I think she just likes the original and likes to see new stuff, so. [00:27:48] Speaker A: Yep. Discerning, discerning youth. [00:27:50] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:27:52] Speaker C: There's hope, isn't there? [00:27:55] Speaker A: You can be proud. [00:27:56] Speaker B: You can be proud. Webb is currently in production on Day Drinker, a thriller starring Johnny Depp and Penelope Cruz. He is also in pre production on a TV show called the Hurt Unit. In addition to his directing credits, Webb also has four writing credits and 17 production credits. Webb is married with two children. [00:28:21] Speaker A: All right. Yeah. And it totally makes sense. He's a music video director like you were talking about, first album, and he's using all these techniques that he's probably honed in these various music videos. [00:28:31] Speaker B: Yes. And Regina Spector is featured a couple times in this soundtrack. [00:28:37] Speaker C: Yeah. And. And for a lead character and characters actually, where music is so important to them, which when you are younger often is a huge part of identity for not everyone, but a lot of folks. It makes sense too, to be able to tap into that and that feeling. [00:28:55] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Now I'm going to talk a little bit about the writing team of Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber. So they have written pretty much everything they did. I think literally everything they wrote, they wrote together. So that's why we're covering them together. So Neustadter was born in 1977 in New Jersey, while Weber was born in 1978 in Great Neck, New York. The two met when Neustadter hired Weber as an intern at Tribeca Productions, where he was working in development. They then began writing together in their spare time. They completed one script just for fun, and then they began working together on 500 Days of Summer. After selling 500 Days of Summer, Neustadter and Weber were offered the job of writing a script for The Pink Panther 2, which ended up coming out the same year as 500 Days of Summer. In 2011, they wrote one season of a show called Friends With Benefits, which, which ended up being cancelled. But then they spent the rest of the 2000 and tens quite successfully writing adapted screenplays, including the Spectacular now, the Fault in Our Stars, Paper Towns, Our Souls at Night, and the Disaster Artist. And I didn't even know Spectacular now was adapted from a book. Like, I thought that was just an original screenplay. So it was kind of surprising to me. I've seen a Fair bit of those movies. And so they were nominated for best adapted screenplay for the Disaster Artist, which a lot of people have seen. I have not seen that yet. Have you all seen that one? [00:30:26] Speaker B: No. [00:30:27] Speaker C: No. [00:30:28] Speaker A: Okay, well, we're all disaster artist lists in this podcast. That's okay. [00:30:32] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:30:34] Speaker A: So in the 2020s, the pair wrote the adapted screenplay for Rosalind, a story based on the girl Romeo dated before Juliet. And they also wrote the popular TV series Davy Jones and the Six. So the pair currently have nothing listed as in production or pre production, which was kind of surprising to me. Most people we research for the show have something going on there, but, you know, with writing, it might just be one of those things where it's not going to be listed officially, so. And both Neustadter and Weber are married. Neustadter has two children. And interestingly, Neustadter's wife, Lauren is a Hollywood producer and was a collaborator with them on Daisy Jones and the Six. [00:31:15] Speaker B: Additionally in the film, Chloe Grace Moritz as Tom's sister, Jeffrey Arend as his single friend MacKenzie, Matthew Gray Gubler as his friend Paul, and Clark Gregg as his boss. [00:31:29] Speaker A: Yay. [00:31:30] Speaker B: Love him. [00:31:32] Speaker A: All right, so there's a lot to Talk about With 500 days of summer, where just to get us started, I just want to talk a little bit about some of the techniques that are used in the film. So, first of all, the movie uses a. Sometimes a voiceover narration, which is a omniscient narration. This was done by Richard McGonagall. He's primarily a voice actor with over 200 credits from 1963 to 2023. So I thought that was interesting. He has a good narrator voice. The narrator is often sort of used to tell parts of the story, and he describes Tom and Summer's characters right up front in the movie. He talks about how Tom has always been looking for the one as a result of sad British pop music, any total misreading of the movie the Graduate. And he then talks about Summer and talks about her parents. Divorce has made her kind of wary of romance. And there's a metaphor where she. There are two things. She loves her hair and how easy it is to cut off or how little she cares when she cuts it off. So kind of sets you up with these characters right away. Those were not exact quotes, by the way. But yeah. What do you think about the use of the narrator in this film? [00:32:48] Speaker C: Well, I mean, I love it. It gives it a real fairy tale quality, albeit a twisted one. And, you know, the total misreading of the Graduate is one bit for Tom. I mean, this is a guy who's going to totally be misreading everything, this whole movie. Right. And, you know, Summer, you know, the parent divorce making her wary of romance, as you'd said, and, you know, cutting off her hair. You know, that, again, this movie is not being coy about what it is and what's about to happen. And it's. It's just so fun that, you know, the. The style of it is such that that is fine. I mean, there are ways to state things up front that kind of. You go, okay, sure. You know, it doesn't. It feels like you're just being told things and that there's no artistry, but I think this avoids it. And I think Richard's voice and the narration is. Is actually a big, big part of that. It's just so. There's just this quality to it. You know, you could listen to that guy kind of reading anything, and there's a quality that's just enjoyable in it. [00:34:06] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. It really motivated me to find out who it was, because I was just like, who is this guy? This guy's doing a great job. Yeah. It also gave me a. It gave me sort of like a Paul Thomas Anderson feeling a little bit too like Magnolia, you know? [00:34:24] Speaker B: Oh, Wes Anderson. [00:34:29] Speaker A: Yeah, I could see that, too. Yeah. There's. There's aspects of this movie that remind me of both of those filmmakers, actually. [00:34:36] Speaker B: Yes. [00:34:37] Speaker A: All right, so the narrator also begins the movie. And we heard this, I believe, in the preview. This is a story of boy meets girl. But you should know up front, this is not a love story. So I want to. I want to ask you guys, do you think it's a love story? [00:34:55] Speaker C: You know, I agree with the narration. It's the story of a guy who's in love with the idea of being in love, you know, the movie. And this is, you know, as we'll get into the structure here coming up, you know, which I think helps illustrate, you know, Tom doesn't love the actual Summer because he doesn't actually see Summer at all. Right. And I think this is something that's a common problem in a lot of people's earlier relationships. Right. And I think if this were to be an actual love story, we'd probably follow Summer falling in love or it would be the sequel to this movie to not get too deep into spoiler territory. But, you know, and in this section with the narration leading into that credits, right. Showing Tom and Summer in the split screen as children growing up, I just. I Love that. Because you get a visual of a visual metaphor for what the narrator is talking about, where there's this one bit where Summer is. I think she's on the right side. I think all of her stuff is on the right frame. And Tom's on the left. Is a child, though. [00:36:17] Speaker A: I think so. [00:36:18] Speaker C: And that she's. She blows. She has dandelion seeds and she's blowing them, but she's blowing them to her left. So they're crossing the middle of the frame and they go into young Tom's frame, except bubbles are blowing in. They aren't dandelion seeds. And so, you know, Summer's entering his world. But there's a mismatch between what she's actually putting out in the world and what Tom is experiencing. And of course, these are separate moments from childhood. They didn't know each other. But the visual metaphor is there right up front that, you know, whatever she's doing in the world, he is not seeing it. [00:36:57] Speaker A: Wow, What a great observation. I did not even see that. That is really interesting. Wow. Like, I. Okay, Sophia, since you're not jumping in right away, I actually, I love what you said, Rob, and I totally agree with you. But I also, at the same time, I will say that I feel this is a love story. And that's only because I think so many love stories as we understand them are imperfect. You know, like, even you can go all the way back to Shakespeare. And so many love stories that are famous are based on misunderstanding, projection, misreading of people. And I just think, like, a love story can be an unhealthy love story, too. And maybe they don't succeed, maybe it ends. But, like, I will still call it a love story just because I think our failures are an important part of who we become, who we are as people in love. So that's. That's where I come down on it. [00:37:53] Speaker B: You know, even though I knew it was going to happen, and I've seen this film before and I heard those lines, this is. This is not a love story. I still went, bullshit. It is a love story. Just because I always want, like, a happy ending love story and what have you. And I think that's what maybe confused me, or I didn't kind of not see why they didn't work out and how it ended up the way that it did. And especially with Summer, how kind of quickly she moved on and whatever. And I'm like, I just didn't get it. I totally get it now. But I still had that little feeling of, like, no, of course it's a love story. I get both of your POVs. Totally. And so I can't land on either one. [00:38:43] Speaker A: The frustrating thing to me is like, Sofia, I understand what you're saying because Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon Levitt have such good chemistry that it's really hard to accept them not being a couple in the movie. You know what I mean? Because as actors, they have such good chemistry. They were actually friends off screen as well and hanging out together and you just like seeing them together. So I'm like the girl at the end or whatever. Like, whatever. Like we don't even see who Summer's with. And it just makes me feel like, ugh. Like, yeah, I don't want them to be. Be together intellectually, but there is part of me that's like, well, they're. They're fun together. They're fun to watch together. [00:39:18] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:39:20] Speaker A: Like, it was. [00:39:21] Speaker B: It was ridiculous how, like, the camera just loves both of their cute faces and they're just so cute and with like doe eyed and smirky and I'm like, I can't even stand it. So, yeah, yeah, I feel it. [00:39:41] Speaker C: And that chemistry between them is, as you say, it's very real. And it is so necessary because in a movie like this, because we know from Jump that it's not going to be a storybook, you know, you still. And also we're going to see, you know, various characters, but especially Tom, do things that are not likable at times in this movie. And yet their chemistry and the times that they do work together have you rooting for them, even though you've been told it's not going to work. You know, it's almost the reverse of, you know, a superhero movie pretending the superhero is going to die. We all know it's not going to happen, but you still might get wrapped up in the action sequence. And this is just like a flip of that. They tell you it's not going to work between them, but it works so well at times. I want it to. And I'm like, maybe it could. Maybe it could work. [00:40:36] Speaker A: Yeah, it's like me, every time I watch Titanic, I'm like, come on, it's not going to save this time. They're going to. They're not going to hand it this. She's gonna get him on the door this time. Come on, man. [00:40:51] Speaker C: Anyway, the Titanic contractor ordered the extra big door on this one, so I. [00:40:58] Speaker A: Still contend that that door fit them both. Anyway, sorry, we won't get into it. [00:41:01] Speaker B: Oh, my Gosh, there's stuff all over. [00:41:02] Speaker A: The web that shows how they could have fit seven different ways. [00:41:06] Speaker C: I watched that. Mythbusters. Oh, yeah. [00:41:11] Speaker A: Wait, before we get too sidetracked. Okay, so, yeah, so more about. Some more about the structure of the MOV 500 days of summer. So, as we said, the movie's told out of sequence, and the days are kind of listed over this. A sketch of a cityscape. So every time you see the day change, there's like a hand drawn kind of cityscape in the background, which is kind of a reference to Tom, the character. Tom's interest in architecture. So day 488 is shown right at the beginning. And day 488 is supposed to kind of deliberately mislead you in a way, because it could be read as a scene where Tom and Summ are together and quite serious with each other. But then the movie moves back and forth over different dates after that. And right near the beginning of the movie, we are also shown a scene talking about their breakup. So I'm going to go ahead and play a clip of this breakup, which is supposed to be taking place on day 290. Just start from the beginning and tell us what happened. [00:42:15] Speaker C: Things were going so well. [00:42:29] Speaker A: Then what? I think we should stop seeing each other. Just like that? Just like that, you say? Why? I mean, this thing. What are we doing? I mean, is this normal? No. I don't. [00:42:43] Speaker B: I don't know. I don't care. [00:42:44] Speaker C: I'm happy. Aren't you happy? [00:42:45] Speaker A: You're happy? [00:42:46] Speaker B: You're not. All we do is argue, that is. [00:42:50] Speaker A: Maybe she was just in a bad mood. Yeah, maybe like a. A hormonal thing. [00:42:54] Speaker B: Pms. [00:42:55] Speaker A: What do you know about pms? More than you, Tom. [00:42:59] Speaker C: Then what happened? [00:43:00] Speaker A: This can't come as a total surprise, too. I mean, we've been like Sid and Nancy for months now. Summer, Sid stabbed Nancy seven times. The kitchen. [00:43:08] Speaker C: I've. [00:43:09] Speaker A: I mean, we have some disagreements, but I hardly think I'm Sid Vicious. [00:43:14] Speaker B: No, I'm Sid. [00:43:17] Speaker A: Oh, so I'm Nancy. [00:43:23] Speaker B: Let's just eat and we'll talk about it later. Mmm. That is good. I'm really glad we did this. [00:43:32] Speaker A: I love these pancakes. What? Tom, don't go. You're still my best friend. Jesus. You've broken up with girls before. Yes. And girls have broken up with you before. This is different. Why? Because it's Summer. So you'll meet somebody new. Point is, you're the best guy I know. [00:43:57] Speaker C: You'll get over her. [00:43:58] Speaker A: I think it's kind of like, how they say there's. There's plenty of other fish in the sea. No, they say that. Well, they're lying. [00:44:09] Speaker C: I don't want to get over it. I want to get it back. [00:44:15] Speaker A: All right, so he's right there laying down kind of like the struggle of the movie. He doesn't want to get over her. He wants to get her back. And I found that scene relatable in some ways. How about both of you? [00:44:27] Speaker C: Oh, no. I. I never was the person who wasn't wanted and desperately trying to change reality. No. Yes. If I, I. If not in detail, in. In spirit, I think I've done every stupid thing Tom has done in this movie at one point in the past. Yeah, for sure. [00:44:52] Speaker A: The thing that kills me is when they show them eating the pancakes together, and she's just, like, happily digging into her pancakes, and he's like, I can't think about eating right now. And I've totally been in that position where somebody breaks up with you, and they're just, like, cheerfully going about their life, and you're just like, I have been hit with an anvil. So just like, if. [00:45:11] Speaker C: When you are. Because I've been on both sides. Right. But when you're the one who wants to break up, it's this thing that you're carrying around for however long before you actually, you know, you figure out, yes, I want to break up with them. And then however long it takes you to do that. So the telling is a relief to you. [00:45:30] Speaker A: Yeah. It hasn't worked that way for me. Like, I still feel kind of messed up, but. Yeah. [00:45:34] Speaker C: Yeah. But then the other person. This is the first they're, you know, in Tom's case, the first they're hearing of it. It's just a sledgehammer. Right? Yeah. [00:45:45] Speaker A: We also get in this scene the precocious child character played by Chloe Grace Moretz. She was an interesting presence in the movie. She appears a couple times to give Tom advice, and here she's kind of coaxing the story out of him. What do you guys think about her character and the precocious child trope in general? [00:46:05] Speaker B: It's okay. [00:46:06] Speaker A: It didn't. [00:46:06] Speaker B: I didn't. The first time I saw it, I didn't think anything of it. This time. I was like, well, what. What is she doing here? And then that she pops up maybe, like, two more times. Two or three more times. And I'm like, I don't know. This is kind of silly. But I did read that it might have been the director where. Or one of the writers did say that they went to their. Or not that they went to their younger sister, but their younger sister did offer advice and. And I don't know, they're. There are kids out there who are just wise beyond their years, have these old souls and, you know, she actually really does get to the heart of things better than Tom's friends do. Like, they seem pretty clueless. She's kind of the. She really is the voice of reality for him. [00:47:00] Speaker A: Yeah. His friends are kind of described as not having much relationship experience. Like, one of them has been with the same girl, like, basically a few forever. Like, and the other one hasn't really dated at all. So, yeah, she's the experienced one somehow. [00:47:15] Speaker B: Yep. [00:47:17] Speaker C: Yeah. And, yeah, I mean, Chloe is great in the part, I think, and I think it's very well done. You know, it is a trope that has been used a bit by this point. And I don't know, you know, where along the timeline this is, but I think it is interesting because it's the one trope in the movie that really, from where we're sitting here in 2025, that isn't subverting what the trope is. Almost every other trope in this movie does subvert what the trope is. And, you know, some in ways that it wasn't the first movie to do, but. So I think it stands out to me for that reason. But I like it still, you know. [00:47:58] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:48:00] Speaker A: So the movie jumps back and forth in time quite a bit. And that is often used to juxtapose events from the beginning and from the end of the relationship, or from the beginning or near the end of the relationship when things are rough. Writer Michael H. Weber told Vogue. We talked about when you're on the way up the mountain in a relationship, and then when it's sort of falling apart and you're on the way down the mountain, you can have the same moment twice, depending on which side of the mountain you're on. The vibe is totally different. We thought, wouldn't it be interesting if those scenes are back to back rather than an hour apart? And one example of this technique is the trip to IKEA scenes, which Weber said was based off visits to IKEA in one of his relationships. So the IKEA scene, we start with Tom trying to kind of amuse Summer at an IKEA and she's not having it. And then we cut back to them at IKEA near the beginning of their relationship when he's doing the same shtick and she is loving it and playing off of it with him, and they're basically pretending to live in the IKEA together. I really. I thought that was quite effective. [00:49:10] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:49:11] Speaker C: Yeah. I love that. The IKEA scene for a couple reasons. The earlier one in their timeline, not in the movie, when they're having fun with it. It's such a wonderful kind of double duty because it is functioning as kind of the cute couple moment that we are queued up for in this kind of movie. Even though it's nothing like it in detail, but it evoked to me that shopping spree and Breakfast at Tiffany's so much. When they're in, they're getting the masks, and I think they shoplift at one point for some reason. It had that kind of energy for me, and it's really enjoyable on that level. But even in the good times scene, when you get there, it's interesting because they're still pretending it's fake. We know it's fake. They're telling us it's fake. The movie's showing us it's fake. We know it, but the characters don't necessarily seem to. And especially Tom doesn't know it. And I find that that is such a nice little moment of depth because that could have been anywhere. It didn't have to be. And I know that, you know, that this came from their life, but if that scene was walking through a park, it would be totally different than playing house at ikea, at least for me. So it's, you know, those little serendipities. I mean, you know, you just never know sometimes how those things are gonna line up, you know? [00:50:49] Speaker A: Yeah, that's. Yeah, I see that. That's great. Yeah. [00:50:53] Speaker B: My husband and I have historically just had fights in ikea. Like, if we want to make sure we have a fight, we go try to shop at IKEA together. We went once with a friend and didn't fight. We're like, you need to come with us every time. Because we didn't fight this time. We've never had a cutesy hold hands and pretend in ikea, so that place freaks me out. [00:51:14] Speaker A: I feel like I'm never gonna leave again. Whenever I get in ikea, I'm just like. Like, they feel like I'm just being, like, led to a slaughterhouse or something. Like, I don't know. [00:51:24] Speaker B: You just keep going around and around and how do you get out of here? [00:51:28] Speaker C: Yes, I know. And then I think I'm going to find that secret cut through where I can skip eight numbers, and then I just get more lost. [00:51:40] Speaker A: Yeah, I don't blame You, Sophia is a dangerous place. So the IKEA scene has this, like, cute couple moment where they're playing house, but then it also. They end up on a bed at the Ikea. And while they're on the bed, kind of lying down next to each other, Summer reminds Tom that she doesn't want anything serious. She says, you know, some people kind of freak out, but I don't really want anything serious. Is that okay? And Tom says, yeah, like casual, right? Take it slow. To which she adds, no pressure. And to me, I'm like, wow, this is. This is so relatable because there's so many. And I think today relationships have gotten even more like this with a lot of. With young people, from what I've heard. But, like, there's. So There's. There's these kinds of relationships where you're never defining what the actual terms are. And one person is hoping for one thing, another person is hoping for another. And it gets kind of like. The language means different things to each person. And. And it just reminded me, like, how important it is if you're going to have a relationship with someone, that you are very, very clear, like, clearer than this about what you actually want, you know? Yeah. I had these relationships in my 20s. Like, even my husband and I were in a place like this for a while before we committed to each other. So this is rife. And it's just very important that people are clear. That's about all. That's my rant. [00:53:05] Speaker B: Do you think she was being clear enough here, though? [00:53:10] Speaker A: I think there. I think in each case, neither of them is being completely honest with how they're communicating. Right. Because I think she is. I think she doesn't want a relationship, but she also wants to be with Tom. And maybe she's being a little vaguer than she could be, but I think he very deliberately is, like, lying to her about what he can handle because he wants to be with her and he figures she'll change her mind. So I think there's, you know, if we want to assign any blame, there's blame to go around on both sides. But, like, I just think, yeah, this just gets back to my thesis. Be clear. Tell what you want, you know? [00:53:47] Speaker C: Yeah, I. There's the part of me that thinks that, yeah, it's totally. It is a miscommunication because Summer is not just in this scene, but other scenes saying just. Just friends. Right? She's always saying friends and that she doesn't want a relationship except everything she wants to do with Tom. All hallmarks of a relationship. Right. So she is also fooling herself. And as we know from later in this movie, it turns out she actually. Some part of her did want love. [00:54:19] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:54:20] Speaker C: And was looking for it, but she couldn't admit it. And with Thomas, the, you know, the. Obviously the exact opposite. But I. I do tend to come down on the line of. Because of both of their skewed POVs. I don't know that either of the. Certainly, there's no. There's nothing that I think Summer could have said that Tom wouldn't have misinterpreted. I'll just put it that way. [00:54:45] Speaker A: Yeah. These words, though, allow for so much, you know, like serious. Like, people have different definitions of serious. Casual people have different definitions of casual. Take it slow. Summer should have known right there that take it slow was a sign that he was trying to get somewhere, even if it was slowly and no pressure. Like, these are all just code words that you could be used to, like, slide, you know, back and forth between relationship states. So very good. [00:55:12] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:55:13] Speaker A: Oh. So the going back and forward in time technique that we're talking about here, it also allows the filmmakers to play with the nature of memory. I thought there was a really good observation from Carolyn Sita. I'm not sure if that's how you pronounce her name. S iede wrote this for the AV Club quote. When Tom's remembering the good times, he flashes back to snippets of happy smiles and intimate moments. When he tries to analyze where things went wrong, those same images play out in longer takes and we see the detachment and distance Tom had selectively edited out. End quote. So I thought that was great. Yeah. Because you do see that in the film, some of the same sequences are played again later, and this time you see Summer looking at him disapprovingly or something that wasn't shown before. [00:55:59] Speaker C: Yeah. And, you know, that particular section I just always think of as the Ringo section. And, you know, you'd said earlier that what Newstadder had said about 75% of the events in the film, you know, is with one specific ex. So this begs the question, is Neustadter a Ringo hater? Because I'm not down with that, I can say. But, yeah, those little moments are. Are so good. And I, I. You know, what. What Carolyn said was 100 spot on for AV Club. It's. Seeing that context, you know, is so key. And. Because we'll go back to the breakup, I believe. Yes. Later on, where you kind of see some of the things in the lead up to it. You don't replay the breakup scene. But that whole idea of Tom, it came out of nowhere. You know, all of this is the movie revealing to us, the audience, that it did not come out of nowhere. It came out of nowhere for Tom. [00:57:05] Speaker A: Yeah. So if you've ever been interested in trying to unpack what the order of events in this movie would look like in chronological order, I found a pretty cool thing online. Somebody made a timeline of the events in the movie in the order that they happened. And I will put it in the show notes. It was very interesting to look at that, actually, and I'm excited about that. I know, right? It's good work. I. I neglected to find the name of who did this. It might be David Potts, I don't know. That's in the website name. But anyway, it'll be in the show notes and you can. The link there and you can check it out. [00:57:44] Speaker C: This is something I love about the Internet era, which there are plenty of things that I don't. But, like. Like this happening. Someone doing the. In order chronological timeline of this movie, they did something similar, although it's impossible with, like, primer from five years earlier. Like the. The. Whatever. The Inception, the. The layering dream board. Like, people make these for these movies, and I love them. Like, I just think someone needs to have all of the posters of these things up in some room. Like in your movie room, right? I don't have a movie room. I. I live with my family. It's an apartment. But someone should do this. [00:58:26] Speaker A: Yeah, no, it is great. You can find so many interesting things online if you're. If you look for them. Yeah. Fantastic. So now let's come to the. This is probably my favorite scene in the movie. Not very surprising because I like musicals in general and I like love and I like this song. But we come to a scene which is the sort of the musical sequence in the movie. And it takes place, I think it's the morning after summer and Tom have sex for the first time. And you see him kind of. Kind of burst out the door of his apartment, smiling broadly. And it's a kind of like, fantastical depiction of what it feels like when you're newly in love, you've just had sex with someone you love, and it feels like the whole world is smiling at you. And it plays out with the hall and Oates song, you Make My Dreams. John Oates of Hall and Oates called the use of their song one of the best integrated usages of a song in a film. And I am inclined to agree with this. Yeah. What do you guys think of this musical sequence? I love it. [00:59:31] Speaker B: I just love, love, love, love this scene for the same reasons you do, Jen. [00:59:36] Speaker A: I love, love. [00:59:37] Speaker B: I love musicals and I love hall of Notes, and I love this song. I listen to a lot of, you know, radio in the car. That's all, like, old tunes. This one comes on all the time, and I never tire of it ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever. And this is. This is a great scene. I love it so much. [00:59:58] Speaker A: They also use this song in a montage in the Wedding Singer, which I also really love. But I do. I think this one is. Is done better. I like the Wedding Singer as a movie better, but I think it's. The song is used much better and more cleverly in this movie. [01:00:12] Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. This. This is one of the highlights of the movie for me, for sure. I. You know, there. There's a bunch of layers here that I really like about it. Number one is. And this is a little later, but, you know, we're well into past the, you know, mid-90s. Tarantino using pop songs in a way that kind of flips them. And what I love is that this. To invoke Tom's, like, really sincere romanticism. Right? Like, this wasn't a conquest for him. This was the beginning of being with the one forever. And it is so pure. And you make my dreams. This is exactly how you would use the song. This is not playing against the song. This is a matter of fact playing to the song, like, 120% and even to the choice of song. And I love me some hall and Oates. This is not besmirching hall and Oates, but the rest of the music in this movie is either much more contemporary or much, much more hip. [01:01:23] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:01:24] Speaker C: Right. And the fact that this is such a on the nose love song, and I mean that in a good way. Like, I don't. You know, this is an unabashed, romantic love song, and that is evoking what he feels. And I. You know, I think that is also what a lot of people feel if you are pursuing someone romantically and the first time you have sex. I mean, this is. This really, really, for me, captures the internal feeling by using all of this, the surrealistic imagery as you go through. [01:01:59] Speaker A: Yeah, like, some of that. Some of that imagery we have, he looks at himself in a car window and he sees Han Solo looking back. Yeah. There. There's a marching band comes. All the people. Yeah. And all the people in the neighborhood are kind of following him and doing a dance together. All the. There's a lot of blue costuming. Apparently, blue was the color that the filmmakers were choosing to evoke love, to symbolize love. So you see people in blue costumes, and then a cartoon bluebird, like, from a Disney movie, like, lands on Tom as well. So there's so much going on here. [01:02:36] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [01:02:38] Speaker C: But that's what it feels like. [01:02:40] Speaker B: Yeah. Oh, man, it's awesome. [01:02:45] Speaker A: Yeah, definitely. I did want to put in something. So this was also made in kind of the high point of the flash mob trend. Do you all remember the flash mobs? I remember the flash mobs. [01:02:57] Speaker C: Oh, back in three, around the turn of the century. Yes, Flash. Flash mobs. [01:03:06] Speaker A: Well, apparently the first flash Mob was apparently 2003, the first one that came to be known that way. And then apparently by 2009 is about when they were hitting their apex. And that sounds right to me because I lived in Korea starting in 2009, and in 2010, I was invited to flash mobs, like, by other expats in Korea, like, to do silly things like, oh, everybody's gonna go to the subway and just, like, stand completely still for a while and freak out. The Koreans, I guess, was the plan. I don't know, like, but, like, dance flash mobs were, like, a big deal at the time, too. And it's kind of. It's kind of fun, you know, but. But it doesn't really seem to happen that much anymore. Unless I'm missing all the flash mobs. [01:03:44] Speaker C: No, I. I've not seen. I've not seen flash mobbing in quite some time. I. I couldn't tell you when, but. [01:03:51] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:03:51] Speaker A: Yes. Our collective spirit has been killed, unfortunately. [01:03:54] Speaker B: Oh, no. Bring back the flash mob. [01:03:59] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:04:00] Speaker B: If I may talk about the coloring a little bit. Like, I didn't notice it the first time I watched it, but I did the second time. Like, the. The greeting card company, the office, and the coloring that everybody's wearing, they're very muted. There's. There's white, beige, tan. There is pink, but it's a muted pink. And. And truly, the only color is summer. When she comes in with, like, a blue ribbon in her hair and, you know, a blue dress and whatnot. And then this scene with all the blue and kind of, as in the height of their love and even after, because I think it's residual from their good time, the office starts to get more color. And I thought that was a lot of fun, and I enjoyed that. But for the most part, the guys especially stay in those muted Colors, and they're kind of drab, and summer really is this bright spot in the whole thing. [01:05:05] Speaker A: Yeah, I don't notice color as much. You always bring in the color. I think you're. You have a keen eye for that. [01:05:12] Speaker B: Thanks, thanks. I try. I try because maybe because I lived with one of my besties who's a costume designer, she taught me a thing or two. I bet you that's it. [01:05:20] Speaker A: There you go. Yep. So this ridiculously happy, joyful musical scene. We see Tom go into his office, still happy, but then the film cuts to him and another day much later after the breakup, and he is a mess. He is miserable. So on day 303. Yep. [01:05:38] Speaker B: Poor Tom. [01:05:40] Speaker A: Okay, so now I want to talk a little bit about. This movie does highlight a little bit of Los Angeles architecture. So I want to talk a little bit about that and then some of the other few locations in 500 days of summer. And interestingly, though, for a film that really focuses on LA locations and architecture, the movie was originally supposed to take place in San Francisco. So I'm betting there was a whole other set of buildings that we were supposed to be impressed by in that draft of the script. I don't actually often think about Los Angeles in terms of architecture either, but they. That might just be due to my ignorance. I don't know. Rob, do you have a sense of architecture, or is that something that you're not terribly interested in? [01:06:21] Speaker C: You know, I have friends and, and, and wife who are more cognizant of architecture, but because I'm around those people, I've sponged up a tiny bit. So LA does have some amazing architecture, and some of the greatest architects of the 20th century built multiple buildings here. You know, you've, you know, Frank Lloyd Wright, you know, you've got. Gary, you've got plenty. But the reason that you don't think of LA as being particularly architectural, it's, I think, like two or threefold, and I probably forgot one of them. You spread out. There's no, there's no center. Also, there's no zoning. So for. For much of this city, you could have the most beautiful building in the world, and then a strip mall could possibly be next to it. Rotting strip mall from the 80s that has the best sushi you've ever had and great donuts, but it looks like an eyesore next to whatever. And this is a city that's not okay. This is a city where we routinely have council members, city council members getting arrested by the FBI for corruption. And most of that corruption has to deal with land development and handing stuff out and what they are allowed to knock down and not knock down. Just to give one example, there was a great old theater, not like the oldest, but there was a great old theater. Had one on Bever or no Melrose in Fairfax. And in any event, that once was a single. It then became a triplex, just like most of them did. Someone bought it, they were going to tear it down to put up lots of housing, and they made them promise to do whatever with the housing, and then they had to keep the facade. Well, now, years later, the whole thing got torn down. The facades there. Now they're not even going to build those homes, and they're just trying to resell the land to whoever will get it. That kind of thing happens with such frequency in LA that it is rare that the area exists where things are preserved. It has to be something very big, like, you know, Barnsdall. I think that was a. I think that was a Lloyd Wright house. Not. Anyway, so there are. There are areas that are so big and so well known, they survive. But then there are things that succumb. And so, yeah, it's the. I guess that is the yin and the yang of Los Angeles as an architectural city, as far as I know. [01:09:03] Speaker A: Interesting. [01:09:05] Speaker B: Yeah, interesting. [01:09:07] Speaker A: So the site, Film School Rejects, reports on the film's commentary track, which I wasn't able to listen to, but they said in the commentary track, the production had a rule that it would only use buildings that were built before 1950 to give a classic look to the film. So I think that's pretty cool. Like, yeah, there's certain parts of the United states where before 1950 is pretty old. Certain other parts where it wouldn't be that impressive. But, yeah, in la, impressive enough. [01:09:35] Speaker C: Yeah. Most. Most of the city was built post World War II and built for cars. So they were. They really were using things that, for this city are, you know, relatively ancient. [01:09:45] Speaker A: Yeah. The LA Conservancy website has a link for a 500 days of summer walking tour as well, and I will include that in the show notes. I found lots of little treats on the Internet for 500 days of summer fans, but I should do that. [01:10:01] Speaker B: Yeah, tell us how it goes. That sounds like a lot of fun. [01:10:08] Speaker A: So there is a scene in the movie, too, where Tom kind of takes summer on an architectural tour. A little bit of Los Angeles and Sophia. This reminded me of the scene in the Lake House from 2006. In my mind, I was like, surely the lake house came after this movie. But no, lake House House came out before this movie. Theoretically speaking, they could have been inspired by it. I don't know. They probably never admit to it, but possibly. [01:10:30] Speaker B: Interesting. [01:10:33] Speaker A: You what do you think, Sophia? Do you think it did it reminds you or is it just me? [01:10:37] Speaker B: I don't think I've ever seen the lake house. [01:10:39] Speaker A: Oh my God, are you kidding? Keanu Reeves and the Mailbox. [01:10:45] Speaker B: You haven't seen that? [01:10:47] Speaker A: You haven't seen that? [01:10:48] Speaker B: Do I need to see it? That movie reviews like when it came out. [01:10:53] Speaker A: No, no, no. Seriously. Sorry, Rob. That movie is tailor made for you, Sophia. You gotta go and get it immediately. Okay. [01:11:00] Speaker B: When you put it like that, like thumbs down or whatever, like. [01:11:07] Speaker A: No, no, no, no, no. [01:11:08] Speaker B: Haters, haters. [01:11:09] Speaker A: Okay, you tell me if I'm wrong later, but I'm pretty sure, like I was so sure that you love this movie, Sofia. Just because of who you are. So I don't even know. [01:11:16] Speaker B: I mean I love those two actors and. [01:11:18] Speaker A: Yeah, you need me. [01:11:21] Speaker B: Okay. [01:11:22] Speaker A: Okay. [01:11:22] Speaker B: I might even rent it. [01:11:26] Speaker A: Okay. Sorry. Back to business. Back to business. Anyway, the lake house, it reminded me of that. So there is a sequence like that but in Chicago in that case. So part of Tom's architectural tour is the Eastern Columbia building. He doesn't specifically talk about that one, but you see it in frame and I thought it was such a cool looking building. It is this like art deco, 13 story high building which is turquoise in color. And there's a clock on each side of the tower. Apparently it was originally a department store but now has condominiums. And it was built in 1930 and I thought that was like the coolest looking building. Rob, it feels like this is a building that is prominent in Los Angeles. Or am I wrong? [01:12:11] Speaker C: Here's the thing, is that anything in the downtown area, I mean it is and is not prominent. [01:12:18] Speaker A: Okay. Okay. [01:12:19] Speaker C: Just because our downtown, it's so. It's so different. This is. This movie was on coming up when downtown was coming up as well. And it's. They. They build a lot of stuff and it became a lot hipper in different areas. But it's on the downswing again a little bit because they over built and you know, there aren't enough people to. To buy everything. But yeah, it's interesting. It's a great little building. I don't know. I couldn't even tell you how many times I've driven by it though if that. [01:12:52] Speaker A: I love the color of it. It was really an intriguing looking building to me. Yeah. Another building that Tom specifically points out to summer is The Fine Arts Building, I believe he even says it's his favorite. That one was built in 1927. It's 12 stories high. A lot of these buildings are like. Apparently Los Angeles has a height limit for its buildings, so that's why they're like kind of smaller. This one is a Romanesque Revival style with statues on the exterior and the interior. And apparently it was originally designed to be studios and gallery spaces for artists. But then the Great Depression got in the way of that great dream and it was repurposed for business and residential use. It was remodeled over the years, but it was restored to what it used to look like in 1983. So that building had quite a history. And then from his favorite bench, Tom takes summer to his favorite bench, which is in this little grassy area and it overlooks like kind of just a view of the skyline. He points out the Continental Building on Spring street, which is LA's first skyscraper at 13 stories tall, completed in 1903. And apparently many banks have occupied the building. But today it is also apartments, a lot of apartments happening here. The area which included the bench in 500 days of summer, you know, which is Tom's favorite spot and where they view the skyline is called. The area is called Angel's Knoll, and it became a popular spot to take pictures for film fans. But unfortunately the area was closed and fenced off in 2013 due to budget cuts. Then it was sold off as a site for two new high rise buildings. But that project stalled and it is now tied up in litigation and the area is still fenced off. Which kind of reminds me of what you were just telling us, Rob. [01:14:39] Speaker C: Yep, that is classic Los Angeles right there. [01:14:43] Speaker B: Oh my gosh. So depressing. [01:14:46] Speaker A: And did you say, Rob, that you had visited that bench in the past? [01:14:51] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean, it was a. It was a great little park and I want to say not too far from Grand Central Market and Angel's Flight. So if you were making a day of kind of doing some things downtown, it would be there. Yeah, no, it was a nice little. It was a really nice peaceful spot of which there weren't tons downtown. [01:15:12] Speaker A: So after. Later in the movie, after the architectural tour and trip to Tom's favorite spot, we also see one of Los Angeles's most famous buildings in this movie, which is the Bradbury Building. If you are a big movie fan, you have definitely seen this building in other movies. Some of the movies include Blade Runner, Double Indemnity and Wolf. I included Wolf because for me that's the one that I always associate it with for some reason. Maybe it's because it's in so much of the movie. I don't know. [01:15:40] Speaker C: Underrated, I feel. Wolf. I don't know why that movie is as forgotten as it is, but it's super fun. [01:15:48] Speaker A: Yeah, no, it is a fun movie, but it's just like it's funny when it's in company with Blade Runner and Double Indemnity. Yeah, it's a very famous building. It has a very distinctive look. I'm not great at making these descriptions, so I'm going to use the Los Angeles Conservancy's description of the building. The Bradbury Building is the oldest commercial building remaining in the central city and one of Los Angeles's unique treasures. Behind its modest, mildly Romanesque exterior lies a magical, light filled Victorian court that rises almost 50ft with open cage elevators, marble stairs and ornate iron railings. So let them take it. Really is beautiful. Yeah. And did you both, I'm assuming you both recognized it from at least one other movie? Yes. Yeah. [01:16:38] Speaker B: You know, I mean, as I was watching, I'm like, this is so beautiful. And no, but now that you tell me it was from Wolf, I'm like, oh, yeah. Because it is featured so heavily in Wolf and it's beautiful. Yeah, yeah, yeah. [01:16:51] Speaker C: I definitely recognized it from movies, but also from being a PA Running packages around town. I had. I cannot tell you. I don't know. I mean, I can tell you I delivered like some sort of manila envelope of paperwork went down there. I can't remember what it was, which movie or whatever it was for though. But anyway. Yeah. [01:17:12] Speaker B: So you've been in it. [01:17:13] Speaker C: Yes. To deliver, you know, paperwork for a movie or TV show and you're like, ooh, I'm here. And then you're on your way. [01:17:20] Speaker A: Yeah. Did you, Are those elevators usable? Did you go in the elevator or are they just kind of like they're used in productions but not. People aren't really using them otherwise, I. [01:17:30] Speaker C: Don'T know if they're in use. I think I just quickly went up the floors to the second, the stairs to the second. [01:17:37] Speaker A: Okay. [01:17:37] Speaker C: I did not use the elevator, but I don't know if they're in use or not. [01:17:41] Speaker A: Yes. I should have found this out, but I didn't. And I don't know if you know this. Is it primarily just used as some kind of set now or are there building, are there offices? [01:17:50] Speaker C: No, it's, it's, it's. Yeah, it's a real place. [01:17:53] Speaker A: Okay. [01:17:54] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. [01:17:56] Speaker A: I mean, I know it's real, but I was just saying. Yeah, yeah, the next. [01:17:59] Speaker C: No, but it's in use. It's not working. Building it is not solely a filming location. Okay, yeah, as I'll. I should choose my words. [01:18:08] Speaker A: It would be pretty sweet if you could actually work there just as your regular job. Just be like, yeah, yep, here I am. I don't know. Totally. Anyway, the next place I'm going to talk about isn't being used primarily for its former function anymore, which is the Million Dollar Theater in downtown. It was built in 1917 and the theater opened in 1918 and it was one of the first big movie houses in the entire country. And over the years the theater has hosted movies and live stage shows. But today I looked on their page and it seems to primarily be booked for events. Now some of these events are film screenings, but also it's booked for weddings and business meetings and just for, you know, producing movies like this one. So a couple times we see Summer and Tom at the movies in this movie. That is the theater they have gone to there. [01:18:57] Speaker C: I don't think I've ever actually been inside the Million Dollar theater for a, you know, to see a band or anything. Other theaters, sure, but not that one. [01:19:05] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, I'm kind of sad that we don't get to see more of it actually. It looked really kind of cool on the website. You only really see, you know, a kind of generic looking theater as far as I can remember in the movie. But they. There are some great themes, scenes in movie theaters. In the movie they go to this movie, a fake movie called the Giant Vampire Giant at one point. And then there's the scene where Tom's really heartbroken and he's just like seeing all these, you know, kind of send ups on famous black and white foreign films for the most part. But he is the star all of a sudden. I don't know. What did you all think of that part? [01:19:45] Speaker B: I liked it, but I lamented that I didn't know what it was, what all the films were being referenced. Like, I don't know if it were. They were just made up or they were specifically referenced from, you know, a bunch of films. [01:19:56] Speaker A: I could tell the reference for two out of three of them. But to be honest, I have not seen even one of them, which they're like. They're like some big icons of film like. Rob, how about you? What's your record on those? [01:20:07] Speaker C: Oh, I am, I am poor with the visual recognition There was the one, you know, it's wrong So I know it's not referencing the red balloon, but it made me think of the red balloon. [01:20:19] Speaker B: Right. Same. [01:20:20] Speaker A: So one of them was the Seventh Seal, for sure, because he's playing game with death. Right. I believe, anyway. And then one of them, I think, is Persona. I want to say, like, the way. Anyway, the one where Zooey Deschanel is in there, too. I could be wrong because I hadn't seen the film, but that's what it looked like to me anyway. Sad, sad, foreign films. And then that must have been fun to film, to be honest. Totally. Like, I want to put myself into some classic movie. [01:20:49] Speaker B: Oh, do you know which one? [01:20:51] Speaker A: Off. [01:20:51] Speaker B: Off the cuff. [01:20:52] Speaker A: Oh, no, I couldn't tell you right off the cuff, but it would. Just the idea of it would be fun. Well, if I was still young and, like, really pretty, I would want to be a double indemnity. How about that? I'd be Barbara Stanwyck. Okay, you got one. You got. You want to do this? [01:21:07] Speaker B: You want to throw down? Golly. I can't think of anyone at the moment, to be honest. [01:21:13] Speaker A: It's hard. [01:21:14] Speaker B: It is hard. [01:21:15] Speaker C: I'll pick. It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, and I probably messed up the number of Mads, so. [01:21:21] Speaker A: No, I think you got it. [01:21:21] Speaker C: Forgive me. [01:21:22] Speaker A: Okay. I think you got it. My husband loves that movie. Yeah, we own that. And you have a character from that movie that you're going to portray, or. [01:21:31] Speaker C: No, just the world. Like, I. If I'm gonna go, I want it to be somewhat safe. I want to have fun. I want it to be a little madcap, so. [01:21:39] Speaker A: All right. Yep. Ain't got one yet. Sophia, are we moving on from this? [01:21:44] Speaker B: I mean, we covered it, but I think the Philadelphia Story. I mean, if I could be anywhere as cool as Audrey Hepburn ever in my life. Catherine. Catherine. I was also thinking of an Audrey Hepburn film, too, but, yeah, Katharine Hepburn and be with, you know, Jimmy Stewart and Cary Grant. [01:22:03] Speaker A: Heck, yeah. Yeah. You're probably also thinking of Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday, I bet. [01:22:08] Speaker B: Yeah, probably. [01:22:09] Speaker A: Yep. Yep. [01:22:11] Speaker C: The Audrey Hepburn movie that might be my number two would be charade. [01:22:15] Speaker A: Okay. [01:22:16] Speaker C: I would be in the Cary Grant role. [01:22:18] Speaker B: Friends love this film, and it is in every place that you can possibly stream, and I have it in my queue, and I think I've built it up in my head, and I'm like, I want to see this, but I feel like I need to be in a moment for it. Anyway, I'm. It's on my list, and I can't wait. [01:22:34] Speaker A: Get it Girl, after. After you watch the lake house. [01:22:39] Speaker B: I have that waiting for me at the library, FYI. [01:22:41] Speaker A: Nice. Nice. Okay, so, yeah, Million Dollar Theater is one of the locations, the final location. I'm just gonna shout out. The karaoke scene is shot at a place called Redwood Bar and Grill. And apparently a scene from Bridesmaids is also filmed there, a scene that's supposed to be set in Wisconsin. [01:22:59] Speaker C: So the Redwood Bar and Grill, I can tell you, is alive and well. And I have had drinks there. My friend's band came from Nashville and played there that carry it. I don't know that they do karaoke frequently, but bands will play up at that spot that you see where the karaoke stage. So it looks exactly the same. And I think it's been around for a while. So the drinks are still LA reasonable. [01:23:29] Speaker A: What is LA reasonable, by the way? [01:23:31] Speaker C: Do you need any cheap for here? [01:23:33] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, like, what's an example? Like, so, like if I ordered like a, like a, like. [01:23:41] Speaker C: Like some sort of like draft beer there, like maybe seven bucks, you know. [01:23:45] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah, yeah, that seems about. [01:23:47] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. No, no, like $22. Like secret mixo drinkos. So. Yeah. [01:23:55] Speaker A: Oh, man, I can't. I can't imagine. Yeah, I can't imagine. Anyway, all right, so moving on. Anyone else want to say anything about locations and architecture in the film before we move on? Like, is there anything you noticed or that you really liked? [01:24:08] Speaker C: Well, what. I'll say one thing. [01:24:11] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:24:11] Speaker C: Which is that because this movie with the architecture theme is so centered on downtown Los Angeles, this really is a slice of LA that a lot of people. It is not the normal experience of Los Angeles. I'll just put it that way. It's not necessarily an un, you know, a weird experience. Like, plenty of people go to downtown and, you know, I think many people know it. But the idea that if you think this is what living in LA is like, based off this movie, it's a completely inaccurate version of what living in the city is probably for the vast majority of people. [01:24:51] Speaker B: Two things about that, that I wondered. His apartment. Is that a regular size apartment in la, or would the size of her apartment be more the norm? Like, what could those two working at a greeting card company afford in la? [01:25:10] Speaker C: Well, and I'm going to. I'm going to roll back rent prices to.09, you know, or even.08. Look, I don't know what greeting card company. I would. I'd say in my mind I'm going to pull numbers out. Like I'm what, Jane Austen. I would believe that you probably would need. Especially because he's living alone. We've got no roommates. [01:25:34] Speaker B: Right, right. [01:25:35] Speaker C: In a big place back then, he, he might have needed to be making like 60, 70 grand. That greeting card place, maybe. Okay, you know, 60. You know, you did. Because the thing is there, you would think that there would be a break for living downtown. Except all of those newly renovated places, you did not get a break living downtown. [01:25:55] Speaker B: Sure. [01:25:55] Speaker C: If he had been like in a true loft that looked kind of. Of scuzzy, I might have thought you'd need less dough. But yeah. So I guess what, Clark Gregg is paying well, I guess. [01:26:06] Speaker A: Right. [01:26:07] Speaker B: That's my 13 years of new York living. Who is. I'm like, I don't believe it. I don't believe anybody couldn't afford a place that big. So just wondering. I know. I mean, knowing that LA is so expensive and I. Yeah. [01:26:21] Speaker C: Even then they both would have had studios. [01:26:24] Speaker A: Yes, got it, got it. People always have better places in the movies, like all the time. [01:26:31] Speaker B: Yeah, even her place is really cute. There's also something interesting about, you know, why people move to la. [01:26:38] Speaker A: Where do we. [01:26:39] Speaker B: Where did summer come from again? Do we remember? [01:26:41] Speaker A: Michigan? Michigan. [01:26:42] Speaker B: Michigan. And when she's asked what brought you here, she's like, oh, just someplace different. And I'm like, I don't know if I believe that. I think you moved to LA for specific reasons, not just, just by the seat of your pants. I could be entirely wrong, but I. [01:26:57] Speaker C: Found that to go cliche. I would 100% agree with you that historically it felt like if you wanted to leave your, you know, your town and go to the big city, you'd go to New York. [01:27:08] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:27:10] Speaker C: If it was non specific. New York is what would take you in. [01:27:14] Speaker A: If, or if you're a hipster, you go to like Portland or Seattle. Yeah. [01:27:19] Speaker B: Right. Like, I think you go to LA because you, you want to do something with the movies. That. Or comedy, maybe. [01:27:27] Speaker C: Yeah, not anymore, but. But back then. [01:27:29] Speaker B: Oh, really? [01:27:29] Speaker A: Okay. [01:27:30] Speaker C: Yeah, it's. [01:27:31] Speaker B: It's music. Or is that more now than it was in 2009? [01:27:36] Speaker A: I don't know. [01:27:37] Speaker C: I mean, you know, I don't know that you have to move if you're in a band. I don't know why you would move to LA to do music if you were. Wanted to be a pop star. Like maybe here in Nashville. Sure, yeah. [01:27:51] Speaker B: Yeah. These were. This, this was the burning question I had about this film. No, no, this was it. Thank you for helping me. Now. [01:27:58] Speaker C: I think there's glad to serve. [01:28:00] Speaker A: I think there is a certain sense, though, in which Los Angeles represents still some kind of American dream in general. Like. Like some kind of, like, oh, you're living in the coldest place, so I'm gonna go to the warmest place. You know what I mean? So there could be that, I suppose. I don't know. [01:28:15] Speaker C: Maybe there is a reinvention aspect to coming here and I think, you know, other cities as well, but that there's. That you want to leave the old you behind, go someplace new. You don't know anyone, and you can, you know, be and do anything. [01:28:30] Speaker A: So let's now talk about the portrayal of Summer in the film. So there's been a lot of, like, critique of this movie, the character in this movie and sort of. Of Zooey Deschanel's, like, career in general, of her being, like a manic pixie dream girl. And I think in this movie, too, her character is introduced as kind of like this ideal, you know, object of male attention. Like, her character is partly introduced by this little black and white square movie that's, like, inset into the general movie. And it's basically just talking about how everywhere she goes, men stare at her and sales go up at places she works, etc. Etc. Etc. And. Yeah. What do you think of that introduction? [01:29:16] Speaker C: I'll come in. Look, it's difficult where I think there's always a push and a pull whenever you are portraying anything in a movie or really in expressing it in art of any kind, because there are things that are true. For instance, I think we've all known girls like that, right? And young women who, you know, whether a friend or whatever, who did seem to have that kind of magnetism and pull. I think we've. I've also known guys like that too, for sure, that seem to turn heads and not just, you know, handsomeness or whatever, just they just had something. But when you put it into a movie like this, it then you start to run into. Into dangers of what kind of are you saying stuff that you don't think you're saying. And you're running into tropes and you're running into stereotypes, really. And so there's that push and pull that makes it very difficult sometimes to pull things apart. I do think that in this movie, I actually think it avoids it. [01:30:25] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah. [01:30:26] Speaker C: In a few ways, you know, the movie is from Tom's pov, but there are things that we learn about Summer. She is definitely number two on the call sheet. Right. She is not as important as Tom, but You know, one of the reasons why I think that Summer is a real character is that while we don't always get it up front because I think we're in Tom's pov, we do learn things about Summer, about what she likes. Now they're given short shrift, but I do think that is, you know, on purpose. And by the end, Summer has actually changed. [01:31:00] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:31:01] Speaker C: So Summer is not only a catalyst for Tom to change, which is kind of, I think, one of the hallmarks of Manic Pixie Dream Girl. Right. They're not a real person. They're just there to serve a function for the guy. And look, you know, she doesn't get as big of a journey and we don't get as much of her interior life at all, but we do get flashes of, you know, even, like, the Ringo Starr and, you know, her reaction to the Graduate versus Tom's. So anyway, I think that there's a little bit more there, you know, but it's at least Manic Pixie adjacent now. [01:31:38] Speaker A: When you say that, it's told from Tom's pov. So the interesting thing to me, though, too, is that little video or the little section where it's talking about how she is turning heads everywhere. That's actually from the omniscient narrator's, like, narration. So it's like being sort of sold as a truth. I think whenever the omniscient narrator is talking, it's supposed to be like, this is a true fact. So that sort of complicates my feeling about that a little bit. But, yeah, I don't know. [01:32:05] Speaker C: I think it could be a true fact, but that she still wouldn't necessarily have to be, you know, an incomplete person, just because, again, it's in life. [01:32:16] Speaker A: Life. [01:32:16] Speaker C: I think we've known people like that. [01:32:18] Speaker B: And here's the thing. Does she know that about herself? Is she walking through the world being like, everyone is looking at me. I'm turning heads all over. Like, I don't. I don't think the. The Manic Pixie Dream Girl does. Knows that, you know, it's not her identity. It's the identity that's been put upon her. Yeah. [01:32:40] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:32:41] Speaker B: So I don't know. [01:32:42] Speaker A: Yeah, that's definitely true. Like, I think something that illustrates that, too is just like seeing the Tom and his co workers and they're talking about her, and the guy says, oh, she didn't talk to this guy in the copy room. So she's a. And, like. Or she's an uppity skank. And, like, really she might have. Who knows what was going on. She might have just been busy and had to take some copies to someone. [01:33:03] Speaker B: Right, right, right. [01:33:04] Speaker A: He's not walking around trying to, like, elevate people's hopes or disappoint people's hopes. But there are a lot of baggage is put on her by other people. [01:33:12] Speaker C: Yeah. I mean, for sure. I mean, the men in this movie are not always acting the best, you know, Far from it. And the character who says, you know, calls her a skank and things is the guy who we learn, you know, later on in the movie is the guy who really doesn't date at all, has no relationships with women, which I think is also telling. Yeah. And it's. But what I find most funny about kind of the, you know, casual, you know, sexism and, you know, bordering on a misogyny of some of the characters at times in this film, I find it very funny because I think that in some ways, there is not a single. Every. Every character in this movie is actually somewhat coded as a guy, including Summer, including Tom's sister. That they. And that's part of the ideal nature of it all, is that, you know, she's so cool. Right. Because she's into the same stuff as him and all of that, and even her not wanting the relationship and all these things that it's. It. It's very coded in things that are societally, often in at least the states. [01:34:28] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:34:28] Speaker C: Coded as male. And I also find that very interesting. [01:34:34] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, it could be the function of guys writing a screenplay without much experience about how to write women, to be honest. I don't know. [01:34:42] Speaker C: Absolutely. [01:34:43] Speaker A: It can be hard. I think it can be hard. Yeah. [01:34:46] Speaker C: It could also be about repressed feelings, but, you know, you know, guys like hanging out with guys. [01:34:56] Speaker A: So when director Marc Webb has commented on the portrayal of Summer in the movie, he told Vogue there were a few different readings of the film. One was that we, as the filmmakers, were incurious about the inner life of the Summer character. And I think that's true of Tom. But I don't think that we, as the makers of the film were incurious. I think we were making a commentary on that. They were mistaking Tom's philosophy for our philosophy. So, you know, I'm glad that Marc Webb had good intentions. No matter what they tried. [01:35:25] Speaker B: They were trying. Yeah. [01:35:28] Speaker A: Yeah. So. Yeah. And then another sort of adjacent topic is the. Who is the good guy in this movie? Is there a good guy? And the villainization of Summer by some viewers of the film. So I'll throw a few, like, comments out first. Director Marc Webb told also told Vogue, quote, there was a sense that Summer was really cruel to Tom, but our feelings had always, always been that Summer was always honest with Tom. He was applying a fantasy onto her character. Zooey Deschanel said in the same article that for years after the film's release, she'd be approached by people who'd say, I hate you, Summer. It's just crazy. [01:36:07] Speaker B: All right. [01:36:08] Speaker A: And Joseph Gordon Levitt, meanwhile, told Vogue, conventionally, in a rom com or in any Hollywood movie, the protagonist is the good guy. To me, one of the most clever and creative things about the movie is that it deviates from that convention. I'm seeing the story through his eyes, and he's biased in favor of himself. And that's sort of the lesson. We all see ourselves as the good guy protagonist. So, yeah, I think. Interesting, you know, like, I don't know. I haven't really had a lot of conversations about this movie with people. Have either of you had conversations about this movie and someone's like, oh, I hate that character? [01:36:45] Speaker B: Or. [01:36:46] Speaker A: Or do you remember any of your initial reactions upon watching it? [01:36:50] Speaker C: I mean, I've never hated Summer. I don't. It blows my mind. And none of my friends, in talking about it ever hated that character. Like, quite the opposite. But that's crazy to me. [01:37:06] Speaker B: I remember a classmate in film school just kind of like, you know, fainting over the, you know, romanticism of it all. And we were both like, ah. [01:37:17] Speaker A: And then the. [01:37:18] Speaker B: And then the dance. [01:37:19] Speaker A: Never. [01:37:19] Speaker B: Oh, my God. And just like, yeah. How we wanted it to be a love story kind of thing and only positive things to say about it. [01:37:28] Speaker A: Okay. Okay. Yeah. I just. I remember some press at the time about it and like, some sort of think pieces. That's about it. But, yeah, interesting. [01:37:36] Speaker C: I love what Joseph Gordon Levitt had to say, though, about, you know, conventionally in a rom com, the protagonist is the good guy. And this movie kind of deviates from that convention because watching it this time, it never really struck me before, but it reminded me so much in that way of what? My Best Friend's Wedding. [01:37:54] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. [01:37:56] Speaker C: You know, that. And, you know, both Joseph Gordon Levitt and Julia Roberts are so likable and as just, you know, Personas on screen that it kind of buys you a lot of goodwill, even as they do some not great things as the character in the story. So I was like, oh. I mean, in that way, they're like little touchstones, even though the details are Obviously, quite, quite different. [01:38:25] Speaker A: That would be a good double feature. None of us have that one, but that would be a good honorable mention double feature. Yeah, I like that. Another recent one I can think of is I Want yout Back with Charlie Day and Jenny Slate. Like, they're definitely engaging in some bad guy behavior, but you love them, you can't help it. So, yeah. So really quick, I want to play the clip of Summer making it clear what she wants in a relationship. I think there are times in the movie where she's a little less clear, but here is her making it clear what she wants. So you have a boyfriend? No. [01:38:58] Speaker B: Why not? Because I don't want one. [01:39:00] Speaker C: Come on. [01:39:01] Speaker A: I don't believe that. You don't believe that a woman could enjoy being free and independent? [01:39:05] Speaker C: Are you a lesbian? [01:39:07] Speaker A: No, I'm not a lesbian. [01:39:09] Speaker B: I just don't feel comfortable being anyone's girlfriend. I don't actually feel comfortable being anyone's anything, you know? I don't know what you're talking about. Really? [01:39:18] Speaker A: Nope. [01:39:20] Speaker B: Okay, let me break it down for you. Break it down. Okay. [01:39:24] Speaker A: I like being on my own relationship. [01:39:28] Speaker B: And people's feelings get hurt. Who needs it? [01:39:31] Speaker A: We're young. We live in one of the most beautiful cities in the world. [01:39:34] Speaker B: Might as well have fun while we can and save the serious stuff for later. [01:39:39] Speaker C: You're a dude. [01:39:40] Speaker A: She's a dude. Okay, but wait, wait. [01:39:42] Speaker C: What happens if you fall in love? What? [01:39:47] Speaker A: You don't believe that, do you? It's love. [01:39:50] Speaker C: It's not Santa Claus. [01:39:52] Speaker A: Yeah. So just what you were saying, Rob. She's a dude. [01:39:57] Speaker C: She's a dude. [01:39:59] Speaker A: They're writing her with some male conventions there. Yeah. What do you guys think? Any. Any comments on that scene or. [01:40:06] Speaker B: Well, I don't know if we'll ever get to it, but there are a few commentaries about, like, are you a lesbian? That sounds gay. And yada yada, that don't play well anymore. And so I just wanted to. That doesn't age well over the years because they do it a few times and actually, I think it's that one character, the friend, that doesn't have any girl. [01:40:30] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:40:30] Speaker B: That doesn't have a girlfriend. So, again, I think Rob alluded to that as well. Like, maybe he's got some stuff he needs to figure out. I don't know. I wouldn't believe anybody who's like, ah, love isn't real. Who needs it. I think that's too far. Like, I can buy her. Like, having a relationship's messy. It's not what I really want right now. But across the board, that doesn't exist. [01:40:59] Speaker A: And if you. If you hear that and it's somebody you want to date, is that putting you off? Like, or when you were that age, maybe, like, now. I think we probably all know better, but, like, when you're in your, like, early 20s, mid-20s, even late 20s, would that completely put you off dating that person, pursuing that person? [01:41:15] Speaker B: Yes, for sure. But that wouldn't stop me from having an unrequited crush, unfortunately. [01:41:21] Speaker A: You know, Sophia, you're smarter than I was. [01:41:27] Speaker B: Maybe far more insecure than you'd be, like, oh, that's it. There's no point to. Come on. [01:41:33] Speaker A: Young. Young Sophia's smarter than young Jen. [01:41:36] Speaker B: No. Is very insecure. [01:41:38] Speaker A: How about young Rob? Would young Rob have been sensible? [01:41:43] Speaker C: Well, young Rob was clueless. Like, I misread everything. Everything in both ways. Like, but the thing about this is the words are there, but that is. It is a little flirty, the delivery of it. And so, you know, if you really don't want a relationship, I, you know, you might go like, oh, no, I don't want a relationship. It's super messy. No way. But, like, do we really buy. Especially where the character goes. Do we really buy that she even believes it right there? Like, for, like, deep down? I know she believes it on the surface, but, I mean, that is a hell of a delivery. [01:42:24] Speaker A: Yeah. I think more the subsequent actions. So they're outside, and Mackenzie, like, kind of lets it. Lets it slip because he's totally drunk that Tom is into her. And then she's like, do you like me? Like, she's kind of daring him to tell her, and he's not really clear about it, but she's. She's putting it out there. Like, if she really didn't want a relationship, like, probably wouldn't say that. And then she goes and kisses him in the copy room later. And that. And this is the point at which, like, I don't villainize Summer, because I have been Summer before. Okay? I have been her character in college. I have been Tom, and I have been Summer, so I don't villainize her, But I don't think she's very clear with Tom. Like, as much as she's like, oh, I don't really want to get involved. Like, I don't want anything serious. But, like, you're still. You're still putting yourself. I don't know. [01:43:12] Speaker B: It's mixed messaging, because that's. I think we even said it earlier. Neither of them know what they want and aren't really being honest with each other, with themselves, I mean, because he. Tom lies right off the bat, she's like, we can just be friends, right? Nobody. He's like, yeah, no big deal. [01:43:30] Speaker A: It's like, you liar. [01:43:33] Speaker B: That's not what you want. [01:43:35] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, in college, there were a couple guys that, like, I kind of. Deep down, I knew that I wasn't gonna be too serious about them. And even, like, I would kind of say, like, well, I don't know if I really want to date you, but then I'd sleep with them. So it's kind of like. And I knew that they were into me, and it's like, did I need to be doing that? Probably not. But, like, I was in my 20s, and I was being dumb and hurt and hurtful like you. I mean. But I think a lot of times we end up hurting people if we're in a lot of relationships. And I've been Tom. I have been Tom very much. I've been probably Tom more than I've been Summer, in which I've put my hopes in people that were clearly sending signals that were saying, no, no, no, you know, like. But I kept the hopes up and, like, kept trying. And I mean, the problem is sometimes it works. Like, my husband actually, like, when we first got together, he was very non committal and. But we're married now. We've been married for a long time. So it's. The problem is it works like, one out of every ten times or something. Right. And so, like, that encourages people to be a hopeless romantic, I think. Anyway, that was my big, long rant. If anyone else has anything to say, please stop me from confessing my entire relationship history. [01:44:46] Speaker C: I do agree with you. I mean, you can't hold Summer at fault in this moment because it's not deviousness. You know, she doesn't know what she's doing. In a weird way, I think, you know, like, deep down, like, well, she knows that she's trying to, you know, flirt with Tom back, right? And, you know, have something. But I think in her mind, she seriously does think that this will. It'll just be fun. This won't be a real relationship because I, you know, so I think on that level, like, I, you know, there's nothing devious on her. Certainly Tom is more devious. I think he knows he wants a relationship with Summer, and he is saying no. And I think he's lying to both Summer and her. But I think for her, it's even more under the surface. I think she really. I Think she actually has less clue about it than Tom does. [01:45:38] Speaker A: And in Tom's case, like, we are trained by almost the entirety of our pop culture to keep trying, you know, for love, even if it seems like it's not gonna work out. Like, think about, like, one of my double features I'm gonna try is high fidelity. Like, basically a breakup movie where it's like, well, if you just keep trying, maybe it'll work out. I don't know. [01:46:00] Speaker C: Yeah. If there are any young men out there listening, give up. If you ask and it's passed, just move on, my man. Persistency is not going to change hearts. I'll just put it that way. [01:46:22] Speaker A: Except for just very occasionally. Jen whispers. Just don't be crazy. [01:46:27] Speaker C: Yes. [01:46:28] Speaker A: Don't, don't, don't stalk anyone. Don't get a wrist. Yeah. Don't get a restraining order. Please don't take it too far. Okay. Sorry, I shouldn't do that. But at the same time, like, literally, like, my husband and I, like, went through a period where we dated, but he was still, like, having trouble getting over his last girlfriend. And so we took a break and we were just friends and we got back together, but he said he didn't want to be serious. We were just like. We were just, you know, seeing each other for a while. But I really. I hung in there with him, and, like, he ended up moving to Korea, and we were long distance, and when he. Pretty much a week after he left for Korea, he's like, oh, wait, I do want to be with you. And from then on, we were like, yeah, we were officially, officially together. So it's weird. Like, sometimes these things do work out, but the majority of the time they do not. You know, it's like, people know or they don't know. Yeah. So. Yeah. [01:47:22] Speaker C: And I guess the short version of what I was saying was, guys, don't be creepy. [01:47:26] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. [01:47:27] Speaker C: Like, because it's different the other way. Yeah. [01:47:30] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, I mean, there are creepy ladies, too. Like, you can be creepy as a woman. 100%. Yeah. Anyway, so one thing, the one thing in the movie that really does make Summer kind of look a little dubious, though, is so this whole section, too, was added. Was. The studio wanted a section added? The studio said they wanted to add a section where you still thought that Summer and Tom might get back together. Okay. So that's what led to having the scene where they meet on a train and they're going to, like, I think some co workers wedding. And. And so this whole section was added, and it was the studio just specifically wanted it to mute the audience, to think they might get back together. So this ends up making Summer look a little less ideal, though, because on day 402, they meet on the train, they go to a wedding. They're dancing at this wedding, and you think, oh, well, maybe. And Summer invites Tom to a party then. And at the party, he sees that she has a wedding ring and. Or an engagement ring, and then he just. All his hopes fall apart and he falls apart as a character. Now, this does make her look a little bad because, like, you might want to tell someone before you dance with them at the wedding that you're seeing someone else or before they come to your party, that, oh, yes, I'm seeing someone. What do you think? Yeah. [01:48:47] Speaker B: Yeah. I don't think she was doing or saying anything that was misleading necessarily. Right. Being inappropriate or what have you. But I think you would have dropped in that. Yeah, come to my party. You can meet my boyfriend then, you know, like. And why isn't the boyfriend there? We never get a clue. I'm just giving it backstory and say, he was working, but, like, I don't know. That seemed like, why isn't he there? So. Yeah, my two cents on that. [01:49:19] Speaker C: Yeah. I think you already said the magic two words. Studio note. Right. [01:49:27] Speaker A: Yeah, I'll leave it at that. Yeah. Yeah. [01:49:29] Speaker B: Hilarious. That's fantastic. [01:49:33] Speaker A: I mean, I kind of like the scenes. They're kind of. They're pretty to look at and. And. But, yeah. Yeah, they do kind of mess with the characters just a little bit. And then I think we kind of already have been talking about what do we think about the character's behavior? Is there a character that you relate to more? Tom or Summer? [01:49:51] Speaker C: Oh, Tom. [01:49:51] Speaker B: Tom. [01:49:52] Speaker C: Yeah. I was a fool. [01:49:54] Speaker A: Yeah, Tom, Tom. [01:49:57] Speaker B: Not that I ever, like, acted on any of it. I was just always, like. Like, had serious, like, pining. I pine for so many people, and it was just so unrequited and so in my head, you know, I mean. [01:50:12] Speaker A: I'm a Tom, but like I said in college, I was a couple people, Summer. So, yeah, I was. I was a couple people, Summer. And I'm sorry. They already know I'm sorry because I told them. So that's good. [01:50:23] Speaker B: All right. Good. [01:50:24] Speaker A: Yeah. Forgiveness and. Yeah. Yeah. I think we can move on then. Let's move on to the scene we were just talking. Talking. One of the scenes we were just talking about, which is the party scene, which I think is one of the cleverest scenes in the movie. It's sort of the Expectations versus reality scene. So this is a scene where Tom goes to the party, but you see it in split screen. On one side is his expectations of what the party is going to be like, and on the other side is the reality of what the party turns into. And yeah, director Mark Webb made two music videos to test this split screen idea. They were Good Night, Good night for Maroon 5, and Bad Day for Daniel Powder. So that's interesting. He actually tried to test the technique beforehand. Yeah. So what do you think of what are your feelings on this scene? I think, like, for me, it's the music, musical scene, and this are my two favorites. [01:51:17] Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it is, you know, number one. I love. I love a good split screen. It feels very, you know, you know, new Hollywood in that way, in a really great way. And then just. Yeah, I mean, it's. It's one of those things. It's. It's funny because it's true. You know, I think we've all had that experience of, of pumping things up in your head and then it just, you know, does not reach there. [01:51:47] Speaker A: Yeah. Anything to add, Soph? [01:51:49] Speaker B: I think it's cool. I think it was a cool technique and a visually fantastic, like, it's such. [01:51:56] Speaker A: A heartbreaking scene for me because, like, I have been there, you know, Like, I think that was one of one of the hardest lessons for me to learn in my life, really, has been to stay in a. In the moment and not have too many expectations of any particular interaction I'm going to have with someone. This could be romantic, but it could be anything. Like, to really, like, try to stay in the moment and try to prepare yourself for things and, like, have a good attitude, but try not to pre plan how everything's gonna go. Try to be open to what actually happens. [01:52:29] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I love one little thing is the actors, especially in the first half of this sequence, the subtle body language differences in how Summer greets him, you know, in the two versions. Little things like that, like where a touch happens, how it happens. It's really just, you know, little fantastic little details like that until it gets very big, you know, at the end of it all. [01:53:00] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:53:00] Speaker C: And then. [01:53:02] Speaker A: Yeah. And the expectation scene also, we see him. Him and Summer are basically by. By each other's side for the whole party. Right. And then in the reality scene, she kind of introduces him to some people, but it kind of goes awkwardly and then he end up. Ends up. Up alone and then he ends up drinking. And then he sees Summer from across the room showing her ring to someone so pretty. Pretty dismal. [01:53:26] Speaker B: What a punch to the gut. [01:53:28] Speaker A: Yep. And I also like the way this ends. He leaves the party, he goes off onto the street. The street. Everything turns gray, like, as he's on the street. And then. Then even the street scene ahead of him all just grays out until it's just a lone figure in a gray field. And usually I don't necessarily like techniques like that, but I let them it in this movie. Like I said, this is a weird movie where, like, all these different gimmicks come together, but it doesn't feel cluttered to me at all. And there's a couple other uses of split screen in the movie. The credit sequence at the beginning, which shows their childhoods after they have a fight. And they show both of them awake in their rooms at one point with a split screen. And then there's a great split screen, which I think is supposed to be a graduate reference in some level. On one side you see Tom on a bus. On the other side, you see Summer in her wedding veil getting married. So. All right, now we're closing in to the end of the film. So one important scene in the movie is the scene where Summer and Tom meet each other on Tom's favorite bench again. And I believe that is the famous. What is that? Day 488. I think that's the correct days. [01:54:39] Speaker B: I think that's right. [01:54:40] Speaker A: And that's a scene that we see briefly a glimpse of at the beginning of the movie. But here is a clip of their conversation. [01:54:52] Speaker C: You know what sucks? [01:54:54] Speaker A: Realizing that everything you believe in is complete and utter bullshit. Sucks. What do you mean? [01:55:00] Speaker C: You know, destiny and soulmates, true love and all that childhood fairytale nonsense. You were right. [01:55:09] Speaker A: I should have listened to you. No. [01:55:12] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:55:13] Speaker B: Why are you smiling? [01:55:14] Speaker A: At. [01:55:17] Speaker C: What? Why are you looking at me like that, Mom? [01:55:23] Speaker A: Well, you know, I guess it's. Cause I was sitting in a deli and reading Dorian Gray, and a guy comes up to me and asks me about it, and now he's my husband. [01:55:41] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:55:42] Speaker A: And so? So what if I'd gone to the movies? What if I had gone somewhere else for lunch? What if I'd gotten there 10 minutes later? It was. It was meant to be. And I just kept thinking Tom was right. Yeah, I did. I did. It just wasn't me that you were right about. All right. Yeah, I love that. It just wasn't me that you were right about. [01:56:38] Speaker C: Dagger. [01:56:39] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, I guess so. But I. But I find the scene kind of beautiful. [01:56:45] Speaker B: For sure it is. [01:56:46] Speaker C: But Bittersweet. [01:56:48] Speaker B: Yep. [01:56:51] Speaker A: Yeah, I love it. Like, a lot of movies are either very idealistic or very cynical, but this movie manages to strike a balance where the main couple doesn't stay together, but it still promotes the idea that love is real. So I like that. And apparently, the real life person who inspired Summer's character got engaged while Neustadter and Webber were writing the script. So that kind of informed this plot point. They weren't really sure what to do. And then they got their plot point from real life. [01:57:20] Speaker B: How do you like that? [01:57:21] Speaker C: Oh, my God. I can imagine how excited he was after the initial shock when he heard that she's getting engaged. Like, oh, my God, I have to put this in the script. [01:57:32] Speaker A: Right? [01:57:33] Speaker C: They were like, yeah, it's got to go in the script, man. [01:57:35] Speaker A: Yeah. So after this interaction with Summer. Well, actually, I think he's already been doing this. Tom's been getting himself together before this encounter on the bench and trying to become an architect again after having the most epic breakdown I've ever seen in a breakup movie. Like, this guy is, like, just taken out for, like, days and days, and he ends up quitting his job. And it's. I can't even imagine, like, my worst breakup ever. I was not this unhinged. [01:58:01] Speaker C: I do love. I do love the bit where they try and get him to write, you know, sad sympathy cards because he's depressed. [01:58:11] Speaker B: No, I agree that. That was just really funny. Like, his boss is still trying to be supportive. He's like, I think, yeah, well, with sympathy cards. [01:58:19] Speaker A: And this. This is after he turned in the card. Roses are red, Violets are blue. You whore. Terrible. Like, I want this job where you don't get fired for that. Like, seriously, this job. The way they portray writing greeting cards in this movie, by the way, seems like the easiest job in the entire world. Like, I just gotta say, like, there's a scene where he's, like, wheeling around the office, like, suggesting very simple slogans to people. It's like, job done. We. We got it. [01:58:50] Speaker B: But they're all impressed with them. They're like, oh, yeah, that was genius. Yeah. [01:58:57] Speaker A: So Tom then does get himself together, though, and decides he's going to try to be an architect again. And that's where we see the job interview, which is held at the Bradbury Building. And at the Bradbury Building, he meets a girl, and then she says, my name's Autumn. [01:59:12] Speaker B: Perfect. [01:59:13] Speaker A: Yes, perfect. [01:59:16] Speaker C: Can I. This is my. The dumbest nitpick I have about this. [01:59:19] Speaker A: Okay, sure. Yeah, yeah. [01:59:21] Speaker B: Tell, tell. [01:59:21] Speaker C: Because Autumn is a mature time and I get it. But. But shouldn't it have been 500 days of spring and then at the end it's summer? Because summer's like the best season. Autumn is leading toward death. I mean, that's just. If you're looking from the metaphor, Autumn's actually my favorite season personally. [01:59:39] Speaker A: But anyway, it's just not a name, though. Nobody's name. Spring could be April. [01:59:44] Speaker C: I went to high school with two different springs. [01:59:47] Speaker A: What? [01:59:47] Speaker B: Stop. [01:59:48] Speaker C: Yeah. Yes. [01:59:50] Speaker B: Never. I've never. [01:59:52] Speaker C: They're up there. Yeah. [01:59:53] Speaker B: Never have heard of an April. But not like her name actually being spring. [01:59:58] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. 500 days of April, 500 days of May, 500 days of June. Could have had a freaking trilogy. [02:00:04] Speaker C: Oh, yes. [02:00:05] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:00:06] Speaker C: Oh my God. [02:00:09] Speaker B: Just call it Winter. Her name is Winter. [02:00:11] Speaker A: Could a girl be named? I've actually met a Winter. I have not met a Spring, so. [02:00:15] Speaker B: I've met a boy. [02:00:16] Speaker C: January. There are January's out there. [02:00:18] Speaker B: January, Yep. [02:00:21] Speaker A: Anyway, this like. Yeah, don't get any ideas. Yeah, just like Rob said. So, yeah, he does meet this Autumn girl at the interview. And here's an interesting quote I found. So there. Book. There's a book called Falling in Love at the Rom Coms from the Screwball Era to Today by Esther Zuckerman. And she was interviewing the people from this movie. And quote, the screenwriter Michael H. Weber prefers hopeful endings to happy endings. The difference being a hopeful ending is not necessarily that people end up together, although they might, but that they've grown as people. He told me. And about the end of the movie where Tom meets Autumn, he said, I think, okay, he's not going to make the same mistakes. He's going to make all new mistakes. End quote. Yeah. What do you think would happen in 500 days of autumn? Any ideas? [02:01:15] Speaker C: I like to think that he will not be as much of a mess. [02:01:21] Speaker A: Same. [02:01:23] Speaker B: If you don't learn anything, you got problems. [02:01:27] Speaker A: I wonder what his new mistakes would be, though. I don't know. Maybe he would flirt with other girls and maybe he would hurt Autumn's feelings. Or maybe he'd just be insensitive in some way, I don't know. [02:01:38] Speaker C: Or the classic 180, I'm gonna do the exact opposite of what I did last time. So if he wasn't really listening to Summer, maybe he, you know, listens so much to Autumn that he stops having his own opinions about things and he's really trying to get along with her and do what she wants and all of that. And then, you know, that leads into not great. Places as well. [02:02:04] Speaker A: Or maybe he's upset that she doesn't like the Smiths and he, like, gets down on her musical physical taste. That could. That could definitely be a mistake. I could see Tom making. I don't know. Anyway, definitely. [02:02:17] Speaker C: Yes. [02:02:17] Speaker A: Oh, sorry. [02:02:18] Speaker C: Autumn definitely does not listen to the Smiths. I. You see the. Like, the suit. No way. [02:02:25] Speaker A: Yeah. Maybe not. Maybe not. All right, so I. I don't want to spend too long on the soundtrack because we have a lot more to cover still. But I did find this interesting. So a lot of screenwriting advice will tell you not to include references to specific music in your scripts, but Neustadter and Weber included music references, like, throughout the script. In a 2009 interview, Neustadter told FirstShowing.net, we decided very early on to make this an authentic relationship. Part of that is every relationship has a soundtrack. You have your first song that you danced to or the song that was playing when you met or whatever it was. And Weber said early drafts of the script, there was an appendix of the mix he made for her when the relationship was going well, and then the mix of when it was a disaster. So I love that. I would love to see that. [02:03:15] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, put that up, guys. That'd be awesome. [02:03:18] Speaker C: Absolutely. [02:03:20] Speaker A: Yeah. And I've read that screenwriting advice, though, that you're not supposed to do that, so. [02:03:25] Speaker B: Boo. Throw that out the window. I don't like that. [02:03:28] Speaker A: I guess the idea being that if somebody's reading the script and they don't like the music, they will feel alienated, or if they don't know the music, they will feel alienated, or they want to be able to imagine what they want to put in it. I don't know. Rob, do you have any. I think you've done some of the work at least adjacent to this. Do you have any insight into that or. [02:03:44] Speaker C: Yeah. I mean, this is just my grand note on a lot of screenwriting advice that falls into this category of, you know, it's not talking about story or whatever, it's talking about format or style or however you want to term it. Right. And I think what they're doing is that it's well intentioned advice that when you are starting out, it's something that's extremely tricky to do. And when you are new and learning all the other parts of the craft, it's best to avoid it. That's how I would term it. But obviously there are stories where it would be really important and you would want to have it like this one. [02:04:25] Speaker A: Yeah, it does give it a definite flavor. Like the song that they're listening to when they first meet is There is a Light that Never Goes out by the Smiths. And that definitely gives it a particular flavor. Right. Neustadter himself, he says, is a Smiths junkie, so that's why that was in there. Any musical cues any of you noticed that you wanted to call out? [02:04:48] Speaker B: I think the album is great. Like the soundtrack. There's a lot of songs that I enjoyed, but the one that I listened to on repeat still up to this day is Mushaboom by Feist. So I just had to put that out there because it makes me so happy. [02:05:06] Speaker A: Rob, anything you want to note from the soundtrack or any about the soundtrack? [02:05:11] Speaker C: I mean, I love how varied it is. You know, you get a lot of different styles and things depending. But my favorite song is I. I think the first one out of the Gate Us, the Regina Spector song. I don't know. There's just something about it. It's so unusual. I just love it. And it captures the mood of this whole movie so wonderfully. [02:05:32] Speaker A: Is that the one that's playing over the. When they're growing up, when they're children and the split screen. Okay, yeah, I can hear that one then. Yeah, I can see what you're talking about. Yeah. And there's a karaoke scene, and I used to do a lot of karaoke, so. So what people choose to sing at karaoke definitely, like, gives you a flavor of them, too. Like, Summer sings an old school Nancy Sinatra song, Sugar Town, Tom sings the Pixies, here comes your man. And then, of course, mackenzie has to be the guy to do the ironic drunken rendition of Proud to Be an American. Because there's always that one guy at karaoke who has to be ironic and sing a song they don't even like when they're way too drunk to be singing. That's just a thing. [02:06:12] Speaker B: That's hilarious. [02:06:15] Speaker A: One thing I wanted to mention before we get to the breakup movies section is my favorite line in the movie, which they do this little series of interviews with different people about love that they put in a little tiny inset movie again near the end of the movie. And the other friend, Paul, the non Mackenzie friend, says, I think technically the girl of my dreams would probably have, like, a really bodacious rack, you know, maybe different hair. She'd probably be a little more into sports. But truthfully, Robyn's better than the girl of my dreams. She's real. I love that line. [02:06:49] Speaker B: It's Sweet. [02:06:51] Speaker C: Yeah. And I think that's the lesson that Tom probably needs to learn and has not fully learned by the end of this movie. Maybe. Maybe in the next one. But, I mean, that's his problem. To a table, right? That he's going after the girl of his dreams, huh? [02:07:09] Speaker A: I don't know. Because, like, I think she is the girl of his dreams in certain ways, unlike. And he has seen certain real things about her. I think he's just not seeing what she actually needs or wants. I don't know. Like, they're. The qualities she has are things that he wants those are real. But, like, just. She isn't someone that is feeling the same way about him. I don't know. I feel like it's slightly. Slightly off. What do you think, Sophia? [02:07:37] Speaker B: I don't know. I mean, I. I think I've said this a few times before, but, like, you know, the way Tom is drawn to her, like, oh, should we like the same music? My husband and I don't like the same music. You know, there are a lot of things that are. We don't have in common that I would have loved. Like, I wish he danced, like, at weddings and parties. He does not dance. Don't try to make him do it. Our taste in music is very different. We have three bands that we can agree on. And then I get sick of it, and I'm like, turn it off. But, like, the things that are real, as Paul says, you know, how we raise our kid and how we want to live our life, you know, like our ideals and stuff like that. Like. Like real. And then we just listen to our own music on headphones. [02:08:37] Speaker A: Any other random notes people want to put in? Before we get to breakup films, as. [02:08:41] Speaker C: A topic, just say, for me, this is. This is one of those odd comfort films, you know, that I could put this on and, you know, feel a little. A little bit sad, but a little bit good at the same time. You know, the eternal high schooler inside of me will always love this movie. So there you go. [02:09:03] Speaker A: Wait, are you so young that you were in high school when this came out? [02:09:06] Speaker C: No. [02:09:07] Speaker A: Okay, just checking. [02:09:08] Speaker C: No, no, no, no, no. I am. No. [02:09:14] Speaker A: Just checking. You never know. Sometimes we get, like, covert, like young millennials on this podcast. Like, yeah, I don't know. [02:09:21] Speaker C: No, no. But every now and again, I hit a movie that I know that if I'd seen it, if it had come out when I was in high school, I would have been in trouble. Bones and all. Was one recently, really years back that was the same Thing I was like, oh, I would have been doomed going around. [02:09:36] Speaker A: Wait, would you have become a cannibal? [02:09:39] Speaker C: No, but for me, this is perhaps a little too much information. That movie, to me is so like Teenage doom Romance. It's crazy with Teenage doom romance. And that was a problem. Problem of mine. [02:09:53] Speaker A: I love that movie myself. I love Bones and all, but. Yeah, like. Like, I was just wondering, how could this movie get me in trouble? I don't know. My husband. My husband. My husband didn't want to watch it. He couldn't deal with that, the content. So. Yeah, but anyway, anyway, okay, so let's see. Just in terms of breakup films, like, are there any films in the sort of breakup film genre that you particularly like? Are there any that you have watched to give yourself solace during. During a breakup, perhaps I don't go. [02:10:25] Speaker C: To this well, or I didn't when, you know, during breakups, but, you know, the one of the ones that I also love, but because it's in that, you know, just string of Charlie Kaufman movies is Eternal Sunshine. [02:10:42] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:10:43] Speaker C: Spotless Mind. Yeah, that's another great one. Just like. Like doom romance. Like, you know, you know, let's feel bad. I love it. [02:10:52] Speaker A: Oh, wow. I feel. I, like, I don't feel bad at all, though, when I watch Eternal Sunshine, I feel like such a sense of hope from the ending of Eternal Sunshine. Just like the will to keep trying, like, in that movie is so inspiring to me. I don't know. Interesting. Interesting. We can have two very different perspectives. Yeah. But for me, that's one of the classic breakup films. I will say I mentioned it. It before and I'm going to mention again, High fidelity has been something I've watched during breakups, but I think, unfortunately, it can teach you the opposite lesson of 500 Days of Summer. Like, I wanted to say just a little bit about the genre. I think it is sort of a sub genre, too, of rom coms. Like, some of the movies in the breakup genre are not necessarily rom coms, but there's certainly, like, High Fidelity is one. The Breakup Forgetting Sarah Marshall are some of the breakup films I can think of. There's a whole genre of people finding someone else after a breakup, like Silver Linings Playbook or the Wedding Singer. Wedding Singer being a favorite of mine too. And then even going back to, like, the classic era, there was a whole, like, slew of romantic comedies of remarriage or reconciliation. And, you know, Cary Grant was kind of making a specialty of that with the Philadelphia Story and His Girl Friday and things of that nature. So, yeah, this one, I think even in the realm of breakup films, though, this one stands out a little bit to me in the way it's not just telling sort of a trope filled story or doing the beats of a rom com, but it's sort of like talking about the nature of love and breakups in general in a way. I don't know. Would you guys agree with that? [02:12:32] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, even as we spoke early on, you quoted that, you know, the writers are like, this is, they call it a coming and coming of age film. Yeah. I would say, you know, they're learning, they're learning about themselves, they're learning about what they want in relationships and how to be in relationships. [02:12:53] Speaker C: Yeah. And I think that growth aspect of the characters that you mentioned is what, what gives this a little, a little bit more hope sometimes than the genre can have, but while also keeping it out of like a saccharine sentimentality too, you know, right or wrong, this feels very real to me, even for all of the crazy artifice that they have going. Right. And the techniques that they use. But like, the core of it is, you know, sometimes you're not in the right place to have the relationship with this person and then, you know, and there are some things to learn out. [02:13:34] Speaker A: Of that, you know, I do also see a connection to Annie Hall. Like they said they were kind of inspired by Annie hall as one of the references. And I see a connection there just in the fact that there's like little different gimmicks and insets in there. And also, like, even more than this movie, I feel like that is so told from the Woody Allen character's perspective. Like, you barely like Annie. Annie hall herself barely gets a word in edgewise even though the new movie's named after her. [02:13:59] Speaker C: Yeah, and same here. [02:14:01] Speaker A: Yeah, it, I feel like it's worse. So I, I started watching Annie hall again, like, to prep for this episode. I did not manage to finish it, but I started watching it again and I'm like, like, when does Dying Keaton get to talk? [02:14:12] Speaker B: Like, that's hilarious. [02:14:15] Speaker C: I, I, I have a confession to make. [02:14:18] Speaker A: Sure. [02:14:19] Speaker C: I, I dis. I have always despised Annie Hall. I know it's a classic. [02:14:24] Speaker A: No, no, that's fine. [02:14:25] Speaker B: I just care for it. Okay. Yeah. [02:14:28] Speaker C: Yeah. [02:14:29] Speaker A: Is it? [02:14:29] Speaker C: I think it's, it's not my cup of tea. [02:14:32] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:14:32] Speaker B: To me it's Woody Allen. I don't really like Woody Allen. Yep, said it there. [02:14:37] Speaker A: I like his films. But I tend to like the, but I tend to like the Films. Like, I don't necessarily like Annie hall very much, and I definitely don't like Manhattan, except it's beautiful to look at, like the cinematography. But like, I like Woody Allen films that he is not in, usually. For real. For real. Like, he write. For some reason, he writes them better and he directs them better if he is not in them. Like Midnight in Paris, for example. So I don't know. Anyway, that's a little sidebar. And Purple Rosa Cairo. That's a great movie. But yeah, you guys can disagree if you want, but I. Those are some exceptions. [02:15:12] Speaker C: No, I love Midnight in Paris. I think it's a lot of fun for me. My favorite's probably Zelig, which I realize is like, I still haven't seen that. It's like saying you don't actually like. Oh, like, my favorite Michael Bay movie is Pain and Gain. And you're like, what? You know, it's kind of one that breaks it a little bit, but interesting. It's wonderful. Wonderful movie. [02:15:31] Speaker A: I have not seen that one yet. I might check it out at some point. I've got such a huge watch list, though, so who knows? Yeah. Okay, now we're going to do our double feature recommendations. And my first double feature recommendation is don John from 2013. And the reason for this, it is written and directed by Joseph Gordon Levitt himself. And it's also a movie that deals with relationships, and it deals with kind of people's skewed ideas about relationships that can cause trouble. The title character is obsessed with pornography, kind of addicted to pornography. And he's also just kind of a player who kind of goes from woman to woman to woman. He meets this woman he considers a 10, played by Scarlett Johansson. Her character also has some kind of warped ideas about romance and dating. She's kind of addicted to watching romantic comedies of a very tropey, tropey, generic nature in the movie. And she's also quite manipulative. And when she finds out he's watching porn, she can't stand it. The movie begins, like, very satirical, and their characters are almost like caricatures. But towards the end of the movie, Don John, or John, meets a woman who, played by Julianne Moore, who kind of upends some of his ideas about relationships. And I just think it's a really clever movie and really interesting character, and I think it has some good things to say about modern love. The problems in the movie, like porn addiction, for example, really have only gotten worse since that movie came out. So I think it's think it's still relevant. I don't know if either of you have seen that one or not, but. [02:17:09] Speaker C: No, I haven't. I'll have to check it out. [02:17:11] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, it's not everybody's cup of tea, but it's very interesting. It's a very original film, you know what I mean? And I think there's some good performances. My second double feature is yes man from 2008, which we have previously covered on the podcast. And this is a movie where I really love Zoe Deschanel's character. She is, is definitely a manic pixie dream girl in this movie, like about as much as you can pee. But I think she has really great chemistry in it with Jim Carrey. Jim Carrey is playing a man who makes a covenant with a sort of self help guru that he's going to say yes to everything that he has asked. And I think it's one of my favorite Jim Carrey comedies actually. And I think it's because the humor is kind of more clever and it's not. There is some crude humor in there too, but for the most part it's kind of like fun humor and clever situational humor. And he and Deschanel have a really good vibe. You notice I can't decide whether her name is pronounced Deschanel or Deschanel, so I just keep switching back and forth. But yeah, really fun movie. It's one of my kind of favorite underrated in my opinion movies. And my final double feature recommendation, high fidelity from 2000. I do feel like this movie, 500 Days of Summer, has, has a little bit of common DNA with high fidelity. For example, there is the fact that both characters are really obsessed with music and pop culture. There's even speeches about, you know, there's a speech in High Fidelity about which came first, the music or the misery. And in this movie, Tom blames his or the narrator blames Tom's problems with love on listening to sad pop songs. Right. So I feel like there's. And wanting to have the same tastes as your partner, very common themes I think in both films and different results though. So I think these would be a really great pairing to watch together. [02:19:03] Speaker C: Oh, absolutely. I like for sure like it's, it's putting the chocolate with the peanut butter. [02:19:11] Speaker A: All right. [02:19:13] Speaker B: My first double feature is the Royal Tenenbaums. For that voiceover narrator similarity and that stylized look they both have, that was pretty much the only reason. Not that Royal Tenen. Yeah, go ahead. [02:19:29] Speaker A: Yeah, I see it like when you put that in the document and I saw it. I was like, no, I totally see it. Like, there's definitely a Wes Anderson feel to this movie in some senses. [02:19:37] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So my second recommendation is the Graduate. We've talked about it. It, they, the writers talk about it. It's referenced, there's, there's homage to it. So I think you just need to go back to that source. [02:19:54] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And how about the ending? Like, what was your feeling on the ending? Were you. Were you finding it romantic? Are you finding it cry worthy of being cried over like Summer does in the film? [02:20:07] Speaker B: Worthy of being cried over? Like, yeah. Talk about a character that's obsessed and has a notion of what he puts on somebody else. You know, the girl of his dreams, they go on one date and he's like, I'm marrying her. And he becomes obsessed with her and that's effed up. And yeah, they're not so sure too at the end either. They're like, what have we done? We don't know what we're doing. [02:20:34] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. One of the classic film endings of all time. [02:20:37] Speaker B: Yep, yep. And I put in eternal sunshine of the spotless mind for that idea of memory and how you remember the relationship, how you remember it going. And even Tom's sister says to him, I think you know the answer. You just, you know, have created illusions around what you think this relationship has been. And I think eternal sunshine is horribly depressing. I get so depressed. Even though the ending has a hope to it, it totally does, 100%, but it still depresses me. [02:21:18] Speaker A: That's so interesting. Both of you say, great film. [02:21:21] Speaker B: I love it, though. [02:21:25] Speaker C: If there's any Hollywood made film that is completely Samsara more than eternal sunshine, I. I don't know it. Yeah, that cycle of living and dying and just being unsatisfying. [02:21:42] Speaker A: Wow. [02:21:43] Speaker C: Yeah. [02:21:44] Speaker A: I watched that movie and I'm just like, this is so beautiful. [02:21:47] Speaker B: It is beautiful. [02:21:49] Speaker C: It is beautiful. [02:21:51] Speaker A: That fills my heart with joy. I'm just like, they love each other so much that even if they up, they're willing to try it again. And I'm just like, yeah. Yes, yes. The eternal hopefulness. Oh, anyway, yeah, no, I love it. Okay. [02:22:05] Speaker B: I love it. [02:22:05] Speaker A: Okay. I love it. I love it too, that there's these different views. All right, Rob, what have you. In summary, what have you got for us? [02:22:11] Speaker C: For your double features, I went with the theme of clueless dum dums who live in their own head and wreck their romantic relationships. So first up, we have 2010 Scott Pilgrim versus the world from director Edgar Wright. This cast is stacked. Michael Cera, obviously. Mary Elizabeth Winstead as your Ramona Flowers, who I think crosses definitely in a manic pixie Dream girl territory. But you've got what Kieran Culkin, Anna Kendrick, Allison Pill, Aubrey Plaza, Jason Schwartzman, you've got Brie Larson, you have Chris Evans. There are a lot more. I can't run through the entire cast, but it's crazy. Based on the graphic novels about a guy in early 20s in Toronto meeting the girl of his dreams and then having to fight her seven evil exes in order to win her hand once they start dating. And this movie is a literal cartoon. It's so fun and funny and I think, you know, in its absurdity can really get into some of the reasons why guys can be dumb dumbs and mess things up. So. But in a. In a bright shiny package, that couldn't be more fun for me. [02:23:35] Speaker A: Cool. Very cool. I can. It's very similar vibe too, that particular cultural moment. It fits right in there. Yeah. [02:23:42] Speaker C: And also a great soundtrack. I believe Beck helped with a lot of the music, you know, for the bands in the. But then they also have just some great songs and it's. It's fantastic. My second recommendation is a little known movie that I always sing the praises of, 1991's Johnny Suede. It was written and directed by Tom Tichillo, who is, you know, famed New York filmmaker. And man, oh man, this movie stars Brad Pitt and Kathryn Keener. And you know, I struggle to describe this movie in a logline manner, which I think is part of why it's, you know, a little less well known. It does. Didn't necessarily make a ton of money back in the day for various reasons, including some studio meddling. But in short, this is a guy, Johnny Suede, who lives at a time kind of in New York, right. He idolizes like Ricky Nelson and he's got a big pompadour. You wind up. There is a great, you know, smaller role by Nick Cave playing a rock and roller called Freak Storm, who also makes that kind of older rock and roll and has his own pompadour. And you can tell Johnny is somewhat modeling himself off of this guy. And anyway, he winds up meeting Kathryn Keener's character who's a, you know, a teacher. And this is after he's had this. And it's just all about a guy who hasn't had a lot of relationship luck or experience, frankly. And he is so fearful that it brings up a lot of emotions in him where he will Lash out or try and play it cool. All of the things, everything your bad boyfriend ever did, I believe Johnny Suede will do in this movie. And you know, it's a struggle for him and, you know, whether or not he's going to make it in the relationship or not. And it leaves on such a great note. I won't spoil it. But another, not dissimilar to the Graduate or this movie where you are not given a full answer, but you are perhaps shown the road that will be going down. [02:26:10] Speaker A: Nice. Yeah, I've never seen. I've heard of it, but I've never seen it, so. Very good. Yeah. [02:26:16] Speaker C: And my last movie, a little less. A little less comedic. Drugstore Cowboy, 1989, Gus Van Zing. This is a movie that I absolutely love, based on the book I Believe by James Fogle. Stars Matt Dillon, Kelly Lynch, James Legro and Heather Graham. And this is about a crew of people who rob drugstores to get their drugs in the 70s. And it is, you know, there are two couples that are part of the crew and what you see with how their relationships evolve and the group dynamics based on who's doing what to steal the drugs, and as people begin to change their attitude towards being an addict or not, how that affects their relationships and what's going to go on. And so in this way, it's a little more about a different kind of delusion, right. In that you thought you wanted to share this kind of life together and what might happen if. If someone decides they don't want that life anymore. Can the relationship survive or not? And yeah, it's just. Oh, and special shout out to my favorite William S. Burroughs film role ever. All of my friends in college got quite sick of me doing my William S. Burroughs impersonation from this movie. Quoting. Quoting lines left and right. Right. Not that he has many, but I'm out of practice now. But, oh, my goodness, such a wonderful movie. [02:27:56] Speaker A: Nice. Well, congratulations, because I'm not sure if we would have ever ended up with Drugstore Cowboy being a double feature without your presence. At some point, I'm going to put together a list, like a master list of all the movies that have been recommended as double features. And this is going to go like in there, in the, like the. This is going to be like one of the oddball slip collections, like last episode that we just put out. The Nanny, the TV show, got. Got mentioned. So, like, there's some interesting. There's some interesting things that just kind of get name dropped in the show. And I'm thank you for adding to our collection, our eclectic collection. I appreciate it. [02:28:30] Speaker C: I mean, and I will say for me at least, it's such a romantic movie. It sounds weird to say it, but it really, it. There is such a romance to it. It, you know, it goes to bad places as well, though. [02:28:43] Speaker A: Yeah, I've seen it. I don't, I don't remember looking at it from like that, like, angle, but like, I was mostly wanting to see, like, where could I find in Portland, basically. [02:28:53] Speaker C: Oh, sure, yeah. [02:28:55] Speaker A: So thank you. Thank you so much, Rob, for joining us on the show again. And can you remind people where they can find your podcast? [02:29:03] Speaker C: Yeah, so get me another. You can find the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube now and any of the feeders. So if you're on Overcast or whatever, any of the major ones, you shall be able to get it there and then on the socials. Get me another. Pod is the handle. We still do, I think, have a Twitter, but we are up on Blue sky threads and also Instagram, so everywhere. [02:29:31] Speaker A: Fantastic. Fantastic. All right, thank you so much. And for every rom com in the future, this is our last episode in the LA Stories series. We are now moving into the sports rom com series. We're going to be debuting that with challengers and we're going to be covering a wide variety of sports rom coms, everything from Bull Durham to Just Right to possibly even Strictly Ballroom somewhere in there because we're going to consider ballroom dancing a sport. So look out for those coming to you soon. And thank you for listening, everybody. Goodbye. [02:30:01] Speaker B: Bye, everyone. See you next time. [02:30:03] Speaker C: Bye. Bye, everybody.