Almost Famous with Kristen Lopez

I have to go hook up with a podcast fan, the horniest fans in the world. Are you talking about a groupie or is she more of a No, I'd say she's more of a there's no good word for like band aid, like pod aid and for a assistance. I'm more of a way a way. No, wait, wave. There's more possibilities with wave. Oh sure, it's more of a wave. Yeah, there's gotta be there's gotta be puns

like podcast something. I think it does speak to the inherent and I say this with love, the inherent dorkiness of having a podcast and being a big fan of them that instead of having our equivalent of like super fans, it's like parasocial relationships I'm very self conscious about. I'm like, oh, we're all such dorks. It's fun. It's fun anyway. Hello, and welcome to the Bechdel Cast. My name is Caitlin Darante.

My name's Jamie Loftus. And this is our podcast where we, you know, get profiled and Rolling Stone once and completely lose sight of ourselves and then almost get into a plane accident. Yes, so you know, nice knowing you. No, this is our podcast where we take an intersectional feminist look at your favorite movies. And today a long time request the two thousand Cameron Crow epic question Mark, Almost Sure the Mouse. Yeah, a long time request for the show.

And I'm actually kind of glad we're covering it now versus closer to when the show began, because I feel like there's there's ways I feel about this movie now that I may not have been had the tools to articulate five or six years ago. Certainly. Yeah, and we have an amazing guest. Yeah, should we stay what the Bechtel test is? Oh? Fun at any point? Yeah, So we've been doing the show for five thousand years, Caitlin' you're right to say that. What is the Bechtel test anyways?

The Bechtel Test anyways is a mediometric created by a queer cartoonist, Alison Bechtel, sometimes called the Bechtel Wallace Test. Many versions of the test. The one that we use is two characters of a marginalized gender with names must speak to each other about something other than a man. Hopefully it's a substantial conversation, something like one of my favorite exchanges towards the end of this movie, I forgive you. I didn't apologize meaningful. I mean that's actually a very

very meaningful exchange. That conversation carries a lot of weight and meaning. Yes, for one moment, this movie is about mothers and daughters, and I celebrated that one moment exactly. But anyway, that's the metric that we use simply as a jumping off point to industry a larger conversation and

to join us in today's conversation. Is pop culture journalist film editor for The Rape and her book But have you read the book fifty two Literary Gems that Inspired Our Favorite Films, which is coming out on March seventh. It's Kristin Lopez. Hello, I'm so glad I totally didn't plan on this, but I'm wearing my wed Zeppelin T shirt to talk about them. So yeah, yeah, I feel like I came through paired. You did. Penny would be proud. I feel like she would only the best bands. I'm

wearing my Titanic sweatshirt. Enny would still be proud. I mean, she would be proud. I feel like she'd give me some shit. I'm wearing an Ariana Grande sweatshirt. I mean, it'd be interesting to see how they the feminist world of rock star groupies would feel about female singers of today. I feel like they would have many opinions, or they would be like boomer women and just be like remember back in our day. I don't know. I feel like they'd be opposite ends of the spectrum. Yeah, totally. So

you brought us Almost Famous and we must know. What is your history with this movie? What is your attachment or non attachment to it? Please share with the class. Yeah, I mean, Almost Famous is probably one of my favorite movies of all time. I remember seeing it in the heyday of like when indie film was cool in like the early two thousands. You know, this is like the

Garden State era. Right around you know, two thousand to two thousand and three or four, when indie film was still considered small scale, but studios were starting to get into it and making independent films that just had budgets and big stars, intended to win Oscars and had great soundtracks. So for me, this was something that I gravitated towards

because of the soundtrack and the time period. You know, I love the era of the seventies rock scene, even though now as as an adult woman, I'm like, hm, there's something to reading Pamela des Bars' book about you know, groupies of the nineteen seventies and the power they held, or watching you know, Cynthia plaster Casts documentary. But then you realize that these were children running around at Los Angeles at like fourteen fifteen, sleeping with grown men, And

I've had to reconcile with that a little bit. But you know, as a teenager writing care about that, I was just like the hedonism and let Zeppelin throwing TV off of a balcony and driving a motorcycle through the the you know Continental Hyatt House, Like that's that's cool, thrilling, and also I mean it's it's probably one of the few films that actually details with some authenticity do that I don't think has changed, sadly, the desire to be

a journalist as a young person. You know, like I tell people a lot like William Miller is very much my prototype for how I started, you know, big dreams, thinking it was going to be about hanging out with cool people. And I mean Cameron Crowe because he based a lot of that on his own life, really does capture the naivete and the excitement of journalism in a

way that I don't think you necessarily get. You know, if you look at like the history of journalism movies, all the president's men, their dudes in three piece suits and you know they're they're breaking like government conspiracies. It's not sexy. It's not fun. I mean Robert Redford is, but you know, water Gates not sexy. Um. So I think there's a lot of different things too. I mean Kate Hudson's great, I mean Billy crude up like that was a moment in time that I'm not really proud of,

uh for for set problems. It was a wonderful moment in time, and I think it still remains one of like the de facto like two thousands era films that just really captures like my own desire to be a writer and to be a journalist and sets the bar high, but at times is also ridiculously authentic and like how much how little money you get paid, how much you're

working versus how less little you're sleeping. Um, you know, the celebrities are weird, man, and they say that they're your buddies until you write something they don't like, and then it's like, we'll slit your throat up, you know. So it really does capture a lot of the things that you know. Now is it as an adult? You know, I'm like, oh God, I remember those bright starry eyes I had. I mean, I still have them to an extent, but they've slowly been pounded down by time. Tell me

about it. There is something so appealing about the like, I totally agree with you. I think the seeing Little William, You're just like, oh that if you see that movie at the right time, You're like, that's me. That's so me. I'm gonna leave home tomorrow. My mom is so oppressive and I'm going to go in the road and everyone's

gonna get it. But then it ends up kind of being a cautionary tale, but then also not because if you know anything about Cameron Crowe, which I did when I first saw this movie, I like and it worked out. Now he makes movies man like, so it's not a super cautionary tale because you know that he's ends up like he stays at journalist, he stays an artists. Yeah, and then he made elizabeth Town and then people got mad at him. Oh yeah, yeah, I mean Cameron Crowe.

I think people forget the camera. Crow had such a string of hits. He was almost too big to fail in the nineteen nineties through to the early two thousands, and I mean I love most of them. You know, they're all problematic ish in different ways. I've still never seen Jerry McGuire. Jerry McGuire is a lot of fun, even though it is again incredibly troubling. But it's got

a it's got a fantastic Kelly Preston performance. So I always it's one of those movies that I don't plan on watching and then like an hour will have gone by, but it's great. But then he did this, and then I mean, I don't think Elizabethtown necessarily doomed him. I think it was the film that people just realized that they were sick of him. I think Vanilla Sky was like the first, like Wobble, which I think Vanilla Sky is a fantastic movie. Time is going to tell on

that one. And Elizabeth Town. I remember reading the script for Elizabethtown back in the days when people would like trade screenplays that they got from illicit means, and I read the script, and the script that I read was fantastic. The movie is not that. And I know that Crowe is played around with it a bit more, and he's released not necessarily director's cuts, but more extended versions of that film that have gotten I think, closer to the

heart of what he wants it to be. But the spark is gone because if you look at everything else, you know, loha, Oh my god, I forgot that with him. And then did he do we bought a zoo? He did? We bought a zoo, which is only good for Matt Damon in a cozy dad's sweater. So, I mean, I

don't know. I don't know if maybe he's one of those directors that, like, once you become so far removed from the zeitgeist, you just can't get it back because I think that like Cameron Crowe as a director really defined some some respective eras, whether that was writing the script for Fast Times a Richmond High or say Anything, or or even something like singles. I mean, he was really close to the eras that he got, and I don't know, maybe he's a maybe just you know, the

benefits of time and age. He's just not hitting it in the same way. I feel like a lot of directors from this generation are currently in a flop era, and in some cases that's a decades long flop era. I e. Robert Zemeckis and others. Oh yeah, anyway, Wow, Caitlin just took this opportunity to just fling shit for Robert Zamecas for no reason. Look, I had to. We had to watch Pinocchio recently, and I'm still mad about it. Anyway, Jamie,

what is your history with almost Famous? I honestly I rewatching this for this episode was kind of a journey because I sort of went into it. I mean I went into it being like, this is a movie I've seen maybe like two times. I was like, I think the first time I saw it would have been in high school, and I liked it, but I don't something about like movies about classic rock or just like not fun for me. Usually it's just not my thing, even though I liked the music itself, but like rock star

movies were never really it for me. However, journalism, scrappy little journalism movies are for me. But I think that I saw this movie on both sides of the raging Manic Pixie dream Girl debates of the early twenty tents and place out once before that was like a popular term and was just like, ah, this movie is like I wasn't thinking about it very hard because I was fifteen, and I was like, I want to live on a bus, and I think that might have been the extent of

my thoughts. I was like, I don't want to see people do weird stuff, but like be a loser like

that seems like we're all excel in life hopefully. And then on the other side, I think it was after the Manic Pixie dream Girl thing, and I came in with a feeling of dismissiveness towards the movie and the character Penny Lane that now watching it again years later, I think was maybe a little unfair, and I don't know, Yeah, I feel like if on a whole journey with this damn movie because now, like I don't know, I did that show Lolita podcast a couple of years ago and

really looked into how young women and in the case of Penny Lane, girls are you know, hyper sexualized by older men, and like how and then also on top of that, how like fairly complex characters and movies can be reduced to marketing symbols in a way that I feel like Penny Lane kind of has become over the years. And I didn't even realize that when I was going

into this viewing. I was coming in with the like poster of Penny Lane in my head and didn't really remember that much about what actually happens with the character, what she says and what she does. And I still think that, you know, we have a lot to talk about, and there's like, certainly not enough to be like she's actually like one of the most well developed characters in film canon, Like she's definitely not. But I do think that there was more to her than I gave credit

for on my last viewing. I have a lot of, like I guess Lolita Dolores adjacent thoughts where Penny Lane is the idea, and then Lady is the person and finding the space between that, and then I had a lot of fun looking into the person who Penny Lane is based on, Pamela de Bars. Got a little bit about her for later. I don't know, I just it's been a real day I've been I'm in the fucking zone. I didn't I didn't walk into this recording being like it's time to lightly hand it to Cameron Crowe. But

here we are. It's the day we're doing it. Caitlyn. What's your history with this movie? Not a long one. I saw it for the first time in the mid two thousands, I think as a freshman in college, and I was not really I guess I was just kind of indifferent about it. I was not like, Wow, I love this, nor was I like I don't like. I was it's like, okay, now I've seen it. So brave

of me to be indifferent about things. And then I watched it again, I would say probably within the past like six years or so, I think, just because I was like, wow, people still talk about this movie a lot. People still ride or die pretty hard for this movie, and I don't remember it at all, So maybe I should watch it again. And I watched it, and I realized I kind of confused this movie with Boogie Nights.

Not necessarily like the plot or anything like that. It's more just like scenes that I thought happened in Boogie Nights actually happened. And Almost Famous. I think, like the like guy on the roof and jumping into the pool scene, I was like, that could happen in either a movie. I feel like, so my brain kind of just like confuses scene like individual scenes from those movies. But anyway, the most important thing is that Almost Famous has no Alpha Molina, and so it is by default the weaker film.

Um but precisely, you know, I don't think that that means there's there's nothing to love about Almost Famous, But what if Alfred Molina was in it? I also, this is like so goofy. But I forgot that this was the movie where Mark Marin said locked the gates, and I sort of it like itched something in the back of my mind where I was like, wait a second, I like, I just forgot that that was where that soundclip was from. I didn't realize that was Mark Marrin.

I didn't either. Yeah, at the beginning of not to out myself as someone that. I mean, do WTFS gave me a really good show, Okay, I can, and I listened to it sometimes when i'm when I'm excited about the guest. Okay. And at the beginning of every episode of the show I've been listening to since high school. That's just started when I was in high school. Wow, And at the beginning of every episode, you guys, there's that there's that clip where he goes, look the gates.

Now I'm embarrassed. I like that show sounds like you're a podcast groupy to me, Jamie. He seems nice. Now, my mom was a podcast groupie. My mom. I mean, I think I've told the story in the podcast before. My mom. I showed her WTF when I was in high school and she got really into it, and she had a huge crush on Mark Marin and we saw

him do you Stand Up? Once? And he like remembered who she was because she had replied to all of his tweets every single day for months, and he remembered who she was, but like, not in a positive way. He was like, so, Jill the groupie is in my bloody fair Anyway, I'm excited to talk about the movie. So shall we Let's unlock the gates and started this amazing discussion. Let's do that right after we'd take this quick break. All Right, we're back and we're unlocking those gates.

Mark Marin would be so mad. All right, shall we? Is it time for Caitlin's famous recap? Yeah, let's do it. Okay, It's nineteen sixty nine in San Diego, California. Ever heard of it? We meet a young William, his mom, Elaine played by Francis mcdormant, and his older sister Anita that's Zoe Deschanelle. William's mom has a lot of rules, but she's also kind of a hippie. But she hates drugs and rock and roll's. But she's also pretty cool and chill.

She's also a non conformist who doesn't want them to They don't celebrate Christmas on Christmas. They celebrate in September, so it's not commercial. And they they're maybe vegans, I don't know, they're whatever. Yeah, they see vegetarian vegans, is right.

She kind of cracked She cracked me up because I feel like she I've known, like when I was younger, I had like friends with like kind of hippie parents like this where they were so countercultural that they sort of were back to being conservative parents, and like didn't realize it. I was like, but wait, they can't go outside or say bad words, and they're like, yeah, but that's because of counterculture, and you're like, hmm okay. So Elaine and Anita don't get along because of all the

things that Elaine has banned in the household. So Anita leaves home and leaves her music collection to William, saying it will set him free, which is the best gift that an elder sibling can give a younger sibling. That's so beautiful. Yes, and I hope that William saved all those records because they would fetch him the mint. Truly someone's dad. Yeah, So yeah, we see him listening to all these records, and then we flash forward to four years later. He is now fifteen. He played by Patrick Fuget.

He is an aspiring music journalist and he's kind of following around Lester Bangs. That's Philip Seymour Hoffmann, who is the editor of Cream, a music magazine, and Lester is like, all right, so you want to be a music journalist, great, but don't make friends with rock stars because there'll be a bad influence on you and they'll use you. Just be careful. But he gives William his first assignment to

write a thousand words on Black Sabbath. So William goes to a Black Sabbath concert but he can't get in because he's not on the list and he's a baby and he's a child. Also the baby Baby William as Michael Anganaro, which I thought was fun. He's like a child star and an adult star. He's lovely, and he's married to Maya Erskin. He's the hilarious drama teacher in Penn fifteen. If anybody watch this into Okay, he's amazing.

But the Patrick fugit, I think it's so like, I don't know, so rare that Like I as I was watching it, I was like, oh, you don't really see a lot of like actual teenagers playing teenagers. Like he's at the exact perfect moment where you're always just like, oh my god. Like he's just so pubizent in struggling, he's extremely fifteen. He's poor kid. Yeah, So outside the Black Sabbath concert, he meets Penny Lane. That's Kate Hudson

and some other they're not groupies. They are band aids, as they call themselves, because they are there not for the famous people, but for the love of the music. They're literally kind of announced themselves as like muses. They're like, we are We're not here to fuck the band. We're like a part of a grand tradition, right, But according to be Hugh Phillips, she's like, we still kind of fuck the band. Yeah, it's only what was a lie like way, it's only black jobs. Yeah, just blow jobs

and that's it. Yes, there's rules, there's standards. Yes. Uh. Then William meets the guys from fictional rock band Stillwater, although there is a real rock band named Stillwater, but this is not the same band. The Stillwater in this movie is a very fictional band. They are coming into the Black Sabbath concert. I guess they're probably like the Openers, but um, we meet lead guitarist Russell that's Billy Crude. Up. We also meet the lead singer Jeff that's Jason Lee

and the other band mates who are far less important characters. Um, but William wants to interview them, and they're like, fuck critics, we play for the fans, and then William shows them that he is a fan because he knows theirs and their songs and other tidbits about them. So they take a liking to William and they get him into the show.

Then they invite William to go to La with them and he basically starts touring with Stillwater as they're kind of like journalist on retainer where everyone's role and I know that this is like based in Cameron Crowe's actual experience, but I'm just always like it would be so stressful to me to be in a ragtag group and be that unclear on what my role was. I be like

what am I doing here? Like what is my job? Well, it's really like the ultimate who you know story apparently because like he gets the first assignment because he meets Lester Bangs the Great Philip symour Hoffmann who gives him the assignment, and then at a certain point Ben Fong Torres from Rolling Stone just calls him up and says, oh, we've seen some of your stuff. We want you to write for us, which, in Cameron Crowe's actual narrative he

did work partially for a Rolling Stone. They did hire him on not knowing how old he was, but like he was doing actual work for them before this, as opposed to just them being like, oh, we read some of your stuff other places and we want to poach you as like probably a permalance, a physition. I don't see them hiring him his staff. So you know, back in the days when you didn't have to show any proof of identity to get a job. They just call

him on the phone. They're like, you can write two thousand words for us, right, we don't need a bank account or social Security card. Just tell us where to drop the money. Yeah, no need to hill out tax forms, etc. I liked the few like actual historic figures that they bring in from this era because mostly everyone's made up, but like ben Functuras and lester Bangs, very real guys. I went, my dad was a big lester Bangs head. Okay, yeah, we had some lester Bangs kicking around the house. Make

no mistake. Okay. So William starts touring with the band and they're going around the US penny Lane and the other band aids are along for the ride, such as Plexia that's Anna Paquin and Sapphire played by for Roosa Balk and Penny Lane is having a not so secret affair with the lead singer Russell, even though he has a partner back home. And then also William seems to

have a crush on Penny. Meanwhile, back in San Diego, Elane is not thrilled that William is like touring with this rock band and she's always calling him and like terrorizing the people at the front desk of hotels and being like, send a message to my son to stay away from drugs. I wish we knew more about Elaine because I really I'm just like, she's just I'm like, I just want more context for how she got to

where she's at. I also love that one of the many people she calls and interacts with is a pre modern family Eric stone Street. Yes, yes, the guy that's like your mom really freaked me out. Yeah. I do like the idea of Frances McDormand just calling around and terrifying different men, which is kind of what she does the whole movie. And she's totally fine with the long distance charges because she's calling pretty much across the country.

Yeah right, it's so I mean, I don't know. Also, her character was more complicated than I was expecting the movie to allow her to be but we'll get there. Yeah. So then William gets a call from Ben Funktores at Rolling Stone, who wants William to write for them and do a piece on Stillwater and they're going to pay him a thousand dollars in nineteen seventies money. Oh my god, I can't a thousand dollars in twenty twenty three money

for writing something like that. You're just like, right, okay, cool, and like all expenses pay. That's how you know it's fucking fiction. They're right. So now Stillwater is apprehensive about talking to William because Rolling Stone has a reputation for like hating certain bands, and they don't know if they can trust him. But they're like, yeah, he's probably harmless. So William keeps trying to do an interview with Russell, but Russell keeps blowing him off. He's usually too busy

in his hotel room with Penny Lane. Then Russell and Jeff get in a fight about their roles in the band and the band's image and all this stuff. So Russell takes off, with William saying that he just wants to hang out with real people from now on. So they go to this party at a fan's house in Topeka where Russell does acid and is like, I'm a golden God. I'm on drugs, and then he jumps over fun.

I didn't remember what happens in this movie to the extent where I'm like, does he get injured when he jumped? Because there are I feel like a few different scenes in movies over the years where someone jumps into a pool from a great height. Sometimes it's a really cathartic moment. Other times they get gravely injured. This one was one of the cathartic ones. Sometimes you have not another teen

movie where it's hilarious. Other times you get Get Him to the Greek where Russell Brand does break his arm. I hate that. I was probably thinking about Get Him to the Greek. It was a moment in time. That's a good movie. That's also a great rock star movie. So were we ever so young as to be watching Get Him to the Greek? Yeah, Oh my gosh. Okay.

So then and the next morning, the band reconciles and they head to Greenville on their next step of the tour, but William's deadline for the Rolling Stone piece is four days away. And he still hasn't really interviewed Russell, and he hasn't written anything substantial yet. Then the band's label brings in a new manager, Jimmy Fallon, because they're they're current manager doesn't really know what he's doing. So Jimmy

Fallon comes in. He's like, I know how to do all this stuff for you, and also we're gonna fly in a plane from now on. And they're like, what abandoned Doris the Bus? Yeah? Right, that is like a fun movie paner. It's like, bus means your assault of the earth. Playing means your sellout garbage. You're like, yeah, exactly, but also what a spirit airlines mean? Not addressed in film, but also feminist icon Doris the Bus. It's true, you know,

although classically set in a nurturing role. Yeah, it's complicated anyway. So meanwhile, William keeps not going back home as he's

supposed to. He misses his high school graduation, and then Rolling Stone informs him that his piece on Stillwater is going to be the cover, so the stakes are even higher than They all head to Boston, where, during a poker game with some other rock stars, Russell is like, yeah, you guys, can have Penny Lane and the other band aids after this, because Russell's girlfriend will be joining them on the next step of the tour in New York, so they kind of have to like distance themselves from

the band aids. And then William sees this unfold. Penny sees Russell with his girlfriend Leslie. She's very upset by this, and she takes a bunch of queludes and William finds Penny in her hotel room. She's oding. He calls in some doctors. They have to pump her stomach. There's more that happens in this scene that we will unpack, but the next day she's recovered and she kind of wishes him farewell and she heads back to San Diego. Then

William is on the plane with the band. He finally is getting his interview with Russell, but then the plane runs into an electrical storm and it seems like they might crash and die. So everyone starts yelling out all of their secrets and they're like, I love you guys, but wait a minute, I hate you. I killed a man in my car, and then a very two thousand gay joke, yes yeah, and everybody slept with the one guy's wife. Yeah, yes, it's not like actual like real

stuff like I been stealing. Like I feel like the menu does this a bit better where there like actually have consequences like if you're not I mean, I know that the manager admits that, like maybe he took an extra dollar here, like maybe he's been embezzling. But like, considering most of the rock stars of the seventies that got like royally screwed over by recording companies, I feel that this guy definitely probably stole way more from them, probably.

And then so William is like, you know what, all you guys suck. You claim to be about the fans, but Penny was your biggest fan and you used her and dumped her. So it's a very intense moment. But then the plane recovers from the storm and they all survive and they land, and Russell is like, you know what, William write whatever you want about us. So now William has all these juicy secrets, and with pressure from Rolling Stone,

he writes this juicy story. But the band and eyes everything because they realize they seem super corny and amateurish. I love this like another as a fan of journalism movies, even when they suck. There's something so fun to me about the deadline call. The deadline call comes a couple

different times. The actor who's enforcing the deadline has really never given much to work with, so it always sounds kind of goofy, where he's like, all right, William, you have one minutes to get me the best story of all time or the magazine will explode, and it's like, yeah, I feel it. I love when there's a character that's like and I'm here to remind you of the stakes and you're like, thanks, man, appreciate it. And then he says something like oh yeah, when my lady wants me

to unclog the garbage disposal, I have I understand. I gotta get on it too, And I'm like, okay, sir,

thank you, Ben Fong Taurus. So the band denies everything, and so Rolling Stone can't run the story because they think William made everything up, which I have a lot of issues with that ending, well, at least that section as a journalist, Like yeah, of course they're gonna say no, they didn't do all of this, which is why you have like if he has those seats or like other thing, and I'm pretty sure like if he demanded it, they could go to legal and pretty much say like sue us.

Like the US is pretty like when it comes to like slander laws. I mean, I don't think Stoewater was going to be sue in them because they would have had they would have to prove that it didn't happen.

This is where I'm just like, come on, yeah. Also, he has all this stuff on record, like he was rolling a job that also stuck for me where you're just like, but we've seen him taking notes and recording everything the whole time he has their and even so you're totally record like he would have more you know,

leeway than it's implied. And then also at the like insult to injury that they cast off the entire like blame of that onto like shrew woman who works at the magazine who's like, you know, like the feminist kill joy at Rolling Stone ruins the story and you're just like, ah, man,

You're just like, oh, it's a conspiracy. So the Who can get on the cover of Rolling Stone, which I was like, I love that still Water with your first choice and the Who in nineteen sixteen, nineteen seventy whatever with your backup choice, Like, that's offensive to rog your daltry in so many levels, right, especially because at this point in this like fictional band's career, they were still an opening act. It seemed. Yeah, yeah, there's no like moment.

There's no like Star is Born moment where they like have a song that races up the chart. I mean, it's not it's not that thing you do. Not pretend to be nice and Josie and the Pussycats yet. No, and I mean I know as I know he sells. It is like it's a think piece, which is that's pretty much every journalist like thing where we don't know what the hell to say. We're like, it's a think piece about a working band making good and you know like, okay,

yeah that's great. It's not original, but I mean it's it's doable. Um, So I mean I guess that's that's your angle. So I mean, damn, dude, you better have a really great story to back that up from every other working band making good in the nineteen seventy Yeah, can I have I have one more? I'm late to adding that it's no blank from other music mon oh, no, go for it. It's no Cinderella from the Cheetah Girls. Folks, it's yeah, overnight hit, which I mean, I shouldn't complain.

Nobody's really watching Almost Famous for the journalistic elements of it, I get it, But as a journalist, I just have to be like, this is not how actual writing works. Are you saying that Hollywood has misrepresented something? I mean, yeah, Hollywood.

If we're talking about how Hollywood has represented journalism again, they're all hot dudes that are breaking like government corruption in three piece suits looking like Bob Radford and or they are female reporters who are sleeping with their sources a la Amy Schumer or all of the other female

journalists that apparently can't keep it in their pants. Or they're female journalists who are, in spite of being journalists, constantly referred to as mothers and wives like the recent movie she said, Oh yeah yeah, or they're they're never been kissed, you know where. It's just like, we want to have you relive your trauma in order to sustain a story. Godos. I feel like if a woman had been at the center of Almost Famous, this would have

been like pretty baby or something. This would have taken a really dark her where they would have been like, we can't take you seriously as a journalist. You're a groupie, right, she would have been completely mistaken as a woman offering sex with like a no patner hand. So, oh, you're totally right. You're totally right. And it's like, uh, I

don't think I want that movie. I mean I kind of do, but I would love, like maybe like a Lourene Scafaria or like a woman who actually understands the nuances of that era in some way to do it because I think that, I mean, I have a lot of opinions. I'll let you get through the recap before

I started throwing them out. So, because the band has denied all of these you know, stories and quotes and stuff, William basically gets fired from Rolling Stone, so he goes to the airport to go back home, where he runs into his sister Anita. They both return home and reunite with their mom Elaine. Meanwhile, Russell calls Lane to see

how she's doing. He wants to meet up and like clear the air and say the things they never said to each other, and she gives him an address that turns out to be William's address, so Russell shows up realizes it's not Penny's house, it's Williams. And he's like, hey, I called Rolling Stone and I was like, actually, what

William wrote was true. And then William's like, Okay, let's do this one last time, and he takes out his recording device and he starts to interview Russell again, and then the movie ends with William's story does end up on the cover of Rolling Stone. Penny. We see her leaving on the trip to Morocco that she's always wanted to go on. We see the band continuing to play together, and we see William hanging out with his family. Yeah the end as led Zeppelin plays at the end and

getting another Zeppelin reference in there. Yeah, let's take a quick break and then we will come back to discuss. And we're back, and we're back. Where shall we start with this movie? There's so much to talk about. I mean, I think I think for me, there there's two there's two things that are worth pointing out. So I don't know, did you got you guys. I'm assuming saw the theatrical version of this. Yes, Oh, I guess I don't know

the difference, but I saw whatever version is on Amazon Prime. Okay, Yeah, because there's there's two versions. There's there's the theatrical cut, and then there's crows director's cut, which is commonly called untitled UM, which is what he wanted to name the movie and they told him, no, you can't. People will get confused by a movie with no title called untitled,

which is fair enough. And the un title version is maybe about half an hour longer it's and it's got a bit more backstory, particularly with regards to Penny Lane's relationship with Russell Hammond. It's kind of frustrating that they cut so like that sequence when they first re meet at the hotel and the ice room where you just see her coat go over the window to block it.

There's a whole dialogue exchange there that goes on that pretty much like yeah, yeah, that lays out their history and pretty much she's like the back and forth of like she doesn't want to, but she can't help it, you know. There's an extended sequence about her birthday that is just like heartbreaking leading up to the reveal that they've sold the groupies to Humble Pie, where Jimmy Fallon just like treats her like shit and it's just like

another like poker. So there's a lot more to her character in the untitled version, as well as more like inside rock things like I think the Mark Marin scene

goes all longer in that one. Uh So I would say to people Mark Merrin, yes, I would say, if you haven't, it's it's worth watching the director's cut, if only because I think the biggest complaint a lot of people have when they watch the theatrical is like, well, I don't know why she would give this guy the time of day other than he's hot, you know, and he's a rock star. In the movie, there are a couple more scenes that showcase this history. She doesn't seem

quite as naive when it comes to him. So I just had to throw that out. It's worth It's worth a watch. It doesn't completely fix the Penny Lane issues, but it gives a little bit more backstory. Sure, I watched the ice box scene and then I read about the kind of the rest of their mouth stuff, and I do feel like it would, yeah, like help a little bit because so much of I don't know, I have so many complicated feelings about Penny Lane. But I think that in the theatrical cut, before I started doing

research when I just watched it raw. I mean there, you just don't get to learn very much about her until the very end, and that's because you know, this movie is so told through William's eyes and like part of and so that's like, I guess that's where I

struggle with it. Where it's I think the criticism around how little we know about her is like well placed, and we don't know a lot about this character, but this movie is being narrated by someone who doesn't know a lot about her and is clearly like idealizing her in a way that is, you know that maybe is like what she how she wants to be idealized, but not as is not a reflection of who she actually is as a person. And I do think that that's

really interesting in a character. I don't know, I don't know how well I'm going to be able to articulate my thoughts on Penny Lane, because there definitely is like so much going on with her in terms of like who she wants to project to the world versus who she actually is, which is like such a thing for sixteen year olds that I feel like it's overly dismissive to be like Penny Lane is not a real character.

It's like, well, no, Penny Lane is a like character that lady devised for herself to be able to navigate the world. And you know, you can have issues with that on its face, and you can have issues with like a you know world where that seems necessary. But I don't think that that means that it's not a character worth examining. It's she's a Cameron Crowe woman, I think is the big thing. You know, like Cameron Crowe is nothing if not consistent with the types of women

that he has written. You know, she's she's Dorothy Boyd and Dorothy Boyd I think, yeah, Dorothy Boyard is the Renees Awa, her character in Jerry Maguire, you know, the woman that makes you want to be a better man, you know, type of thing hit a woman who has you at hello. Yes, yes, exactly. And they're all blonde too. Like we didn't really start to realize that he was actually creating the same type, you know, like Penelope Cruz and Ventila Skies is very similar. Or of course, like

the Apotheosis is the Manipixie dream girl. Karson Dunst in Elizabethtown and that's where it becomes dissociative, yes, And I think what's what's interesting is Crowe has talked about how he wrote Penny Lane to be a tribute to the women that he saw on the road in groupie situations now what we know as groupies, And it's really jarring to me again to watch this movie as a teenager and to read Pamela Despar's book and numerous other groupies

of this time period of written books and Cynthia plaster Casts did a documentary which is also really interesting worth watching, and these women will tell you that in the nineteen seventies, which was a far more permissive time, that they felt there was empowerment in being a groupie, that they are inspiring the music right as as as she says, you know, and that did happen? You know, I think, like what is it? Rolling Stone referred to groupies by name in

some of their songs. Zeppelin did it, like all of them have name dropped. But now to go back to this post me two world that we're living in now, especially like watching the movie this week after like Steven Tyler got sued for sexually assaulting a minor who he also talked openly about having a relationship with when she was a child. It hits differently now, I think, like I realized I had aged differently with this movie when I realized that Penny Lane, they make a very specific

point of saying that she's over eighteen. She's clearly over twenty one because they're drinking too, So like she's in this weird non specific age limit where she's clearly legal, but she's not old and decrepit, like twenty okay, because yeah, because I was really I mean, and we'll talk, we'll get into this, but this movie's approach to consent. This movie is approached to underage characters and their sexuality. Right. Not bad, it's real bad. Um, But I was like,

how old are these these band aids? Because there's a scene early on where Penny Lane is talking to William and she's like, how old are you? And he's like eighteen. She's like me too, okay, but how old are we really? And he goes seventeen. She says me too, and he's like, well, I'm sixteen. She says me too, and then he's like, but I'm also fifteen, and then she stops talking. So I'm like, okay, I guess she's sixteen. But I also wasn't sure if she was just kind of like playing

along with him. Yeah, she's playing along with him. She says, the truth sounds different. You know, it's clear that she can tell that he's not being truthful. I mean, I got the impression, and I think it's helped by Kate Hudson. Looking. I think she was like what twenty twenty two was early twenties when she was twenty one when the movie came out, because she's born in seventy nine, so she was an adult one of his film. But then I went and looked at the script because the script usually

tells how old a character is or ballpark. So here's what I found. As far as Penny Lane, her character introduction does not specify how old she is, so we don't have anything to go on there. But Plexia when her character is introduced, here's what the script says. Another breathless girl teetering on tall shoes. She is in the vicinity of sixteen. Her black hair is cropped short and died red, just like the cover of Bowie's Aladdin Sane. She is Plexia, the voluptuous one from Riverside. So Polexia

sixteen years old. Here we go for outsteps Sapphire nineteen, a tall girl with taller platforms, heavy eye makeup, etc. So we have a Sapphire who's the Froosa Baut character. She is nineteen in the script. Then we have chattering excitedly with sophistication far beyond her seventeen years. Is Australia so or estralla, I don't know how she pronounces it. So she is seventeen. So we have these characters who are no older than nineteen, and some as young as

sixteen Penny Lane unclear. Again it's not specified, but I have to assume because even if they are drinking, that doesn't mean they're of legal drinking age, right because they're usually like you know, they're in hotel rooms and stuff like that where they wouldn't be carded or anything. I feel like Penny Lane could very easily be sixteen. There's definitely a chance that she's not of age. Yeah, the movie.

The movie puts her in this like she's old enough to party age whatever age that you want that to be. And and I mean to read Pamela Dispar's book in the other like groupies of that era sixteen would be nice because like a lot of these girls started out

at like thirteen, fourteen, fifteen. I mean they're they're babies who had very permissive parents, you know, or we're not you know, came from from families where it was okay for them to be running around and I mean you and I think what's hard for me to reconcile with is like the real world implications of what we now know. You know, like what is an Axel Rose adopted his teenage girlfriend, you know, so he could write sweetch out

of Mine or something like that, like absurd. Yeah, I mean there's like I mean, the list I feel like the lists of kind of classic rockers of the sixteen and seventies that didn't engage in this behavior is shorter than the ones that did. I usually, I joke quote unquote because I think that's the only way to deal with with some of this sometimes is I'm like, finding a rock star that didn't sleep with children is a lesson futility because I think, I mean, I know, like

like you know, I've read rock star biographies. I love the who you know. I'm like Roger Daughtry writes in his autobiography that like he had illegitimate children, but you don't need to know about like he was. He claims he wasn't doing anything terrible, you know, whereas as we know like Pete Townsend, you know, it was definitely dating

underach girls. So it's it's one of those things where you're like, how do we reconcile with what we historically know and in which now I think, even within the last few years with me too, is far more open about like actually know this was inappropriate and some of these these you know, women that were groupies in that era have had to go back and do their own kind of reflection on like, yeah, did I get taken advantage of? And it's hard to enjoy the movie without knowing.

I mean, I compartmentalize because as a woman, as a disabled woman, like I have to compartmentalize in order to

enjoy anything, because nothing is perfect. But they talk about this often on the podcast, and I mean, like you have to in order to enjoy this movie, because you're like, I don't really know if that's appropriator, right, because what's happening in the movie, there's certainly a historical precedent for all of this behavior, and it was very permissible back then in the in this era, and even in two thousand when this movie came out, it was still far

more permissible by our rape culture than it is today in twenty twenty three. So it's very tricky too. My thing is like it's I have no issue with even like, like, I mean, the character descriptions I think are very obviously written by a man, But I mean the fact that these characters are the age that they are, I feel

like that's just pretty historically accurate. I feel like it would be almost dishonest to be like, and these women were twenty seven and like, you know, taking time off from their job at the bank or whatever fun you know, Like it is like this was what historically happened, and it's something that I agree Christmas has been really uncomfortable and fascinating to watch the people involved have to grapple

or not grapple with that period of history. I think that my problems with it just have to do it the way that it's framed and told, and like it just seems like I mean, in some ways and for certain characters, Cameron Crowe is an excellent person to be telling this story. He literally, to some extent was William, but in other areas he's like deeply unqualified to like I mean, and even in most of the issues with

this movie are not with what's happening. It's how it's we're being told that it's happening, and the way that it's you know, like glorified as like these are the golden days, like this was the best that things ever were, and there's it's just deeply uncritical of anything and is so determined to kind of glorify certain aspects of this world, not all of them, but most of but a lot of them. There's the point at the end, towards the end of the movie where they're talking about the new

types of groupies, right Sapphire brings out. You know, none of them use birth control, and you know they don't know what it's like to be a fan, you know, until love a piece of music till it hurts. And I think that that's this real critical distinction that Cameron Crowe feels that these women are responsible for that they are responsible. They are muses, right, they are these Tripsikorean type of muses that have inspired the music. And they're

not here for the money. They're not here to get pregnant and railroads, you into marriage or any of that. You know, they're not here for anything other than the music. But as we've seen a lot of rock stars, Will Jeff says at one point, the chicks are great, and so it's a little like ridiculous to be like, yeah, it's kind of stupid for you to say that the women are here for this altruistic like they're here to inspire music and the dudes are are just here because

you know they're not. They don't see them just things to have messed around with and get weighed. And really, if we're talking about inspiring the music, I mean, sweet Child of minds a great song, but would we does anybody know the name of the girl that inspired it? No? You know, like, and I think so it is a little disingenuous to be like, these these women are here, these young girls are here, you know, purely because they don't want to And Penny Laye makes that distinction at

several times. You know, groupies want to be near someone famous. They're not here for anything else. There's a hierarchy, right, I'm also sorry. I always think of that. I also think of the song My Sharona every time that this like thing comes up, like there's so many songs and you're totally right, Christmas. It's like that you never know who it actually is, very very rarely. There's a few songs that you're like, oh, that's about yo, go on now and h and John Lennon, you know, no notes

about him? Great guy. Well there's that scene where I don't remember which character it is now, but she's introducing William two Penny Lane and being like, you haven't heard of Penny Lane. She is like one of the founders of the band Aids, and her whole ethos is, I'm tired of letting my body be sexually exploited by these rock stars. You know, we're here for the music, we're

here simply because we are fans of the music. So it's almost it seems as though Penny and the other band Aids they're again their ethos is like we're taking the power back for ourselves, like well, but they still end up being exploited by these men and in many cases like statutory rape is happening right here, and remember nobody's Williams not interested in writing about their struggle Like that's I think that's that's an actually more interesting story

than local band makes good. Like let's talk about these young girls that are supposedly inspiring the music or you. And it's almost like this we saw in the two thousands up until maybe about like what is it like twenty fifteen. This this kind of like reverse feminism, which is which was women taking things that we've historically like as a response to, like second wave feminism and kind

of like recontextualing it as empowering. Yet the girl Boss era, for example, you know, and relationships, the cougar thing, you know, like, oh, it's okay because like men have been doing it, so we're gonna do it, um right, And I feel like

they're this is kind of this is part of that. Like, and if you read Pamela des Bars and any other groupie of the seventies, like they'll say that, yeah, they thought that they were empowered and that they were doing something that was like saying screw you to the counterculture. But it's one thing to hear that, and then it's

another to read out of the same breath. You know, Pamela das Bars talking about like locking herself in a bathroom because a rock star was trying to have sex with her and she had told him no, Yeah, so you're kind of like like Crow, I think sees this as this this empowerment thing. But even the women of the two thousands into the twenty tens that we're doing this now, like looking back at this, were like, Yeah, that actually wasn't as empowering as they thought they were.

You know, it's a forty day but it's true, which again is like he's just I just don't think that he as a writer is kind of able to or qualified to give you the appropriate context, Like because even if you're watching this in two thousand as a young person, like it would have I think it would have been really helpful to in any way in the story shoehorn in like where is second wave feminism at this point?

Like there are certain things about this story that they go out of their way to give you the historical contexts you need, and then other areas where you just kind of don't know, because like I didn't understand the first time that I saw this movie. You know, I just was like, Oh, this looks really fucking cool. But how you know, like with the ethos of second wave feminism, like they are still very much under the thumb of patriarchy, like they're still very beholden to the interests of men.

The subversion, or the way that the subversion was often seen is that like, I don't have to be a fucking housewife. I'm not like demand, Like it's not demanded

that I am home and being a wife. And that is kind of where the freedom and the catharsiss is like some level of choice, but even when you're able to make that choice, you're still treated like shit, which I feel like it is illustrated in Penny Lane and the Band Aids to some extent, but it just like, I don't know, it doesn't go far enough for me, and I think it makes you wonder you look at

like the relationship with Anita. Anita is a great example of exactly what you're saying, Like she's a woman that doesn't want to be a housewife. From what we know about her, she wants to go see the world. She becomes a steward is and like seems to be having a real good life. You know, she's happy about that, and yet the movie still doesn't really I don't know if it makes an opinion about how it feels about Anita,

because she clearly has no relationship with her mother. It's unclear what her mother expected of her to do, you know, because because she seems fine with when William follows his bliss, but when Anita tries to do it, it's like, I feel like there's so much internalized misogyny going on with the mom that I would have been cool to see more. Elaine's whole thing is like, oh, this is a hobby, right, William's gonna give this up at some point and go

become a lawyer. And and even though she's opposed to it, she still allows it to happen. There's no like, don't come back if you can't do this. I mean, the kid misses his high school graduation and she's like upset, but we don't see any like severe pushback. But it's unclear what she wants from her other daughter. You know. She says to her at one point in like this really hurtful moment that you know, when she asked what their dad thought of her, and Elaine says, you are

rebellious and ungrateful of my love. Yeah, it's not really clear what she expects her child to do, and she seems to be doing okay. If anything. It seems more empowering than Penny Elaine. And yet we still have to send Anita back home to reunite with the mom, and it's really unclear she kind of stay home? Is she going? Did she quit her job? Yeah? What is the deal here? Because she's actually living this empowered life that the movie seems to be saying that the band Aids are living, right,

and she and we explicitly know her age. We know that she is eighteen when she leaves home, and so it's like, well, she's on her own, she's doing her own thing. And and by the time the movie jumps she's eighteen when when he's little right, and then right the movie jumps forward to like him, missus sears in high school. So yeah, she's she's easily like early mid twenties, so definitely old enough to make decisions and like start

paying taxes and whatnot. So I think that characterization and just like the framing of all of that is indicative of the big issue with this movie, which is that there is a far more interesting story to be told

about these characters. Like you said, Kristen, as far as the way that these teen girls are having to kind of like reframe or thinking of like, oh, well, I'm not being abused if I don't view what's happening to me as abuse, Like if I am again like kind of taking the power back and saying like, yeah, the same thing still happening, but if I approach it differently in my mind, then then it's fine. I'm I'm consenting to this actually, which young people are kind of put

in a position to do all the time. Like every generation has those situations. I feel like it's just the way that Crowe frames the Rockers, Like he frames them as assholes for sure, and he frames them as like vapid and too into their own success, but he does that in a way that still makes them extremely redeemable and clearly wants you to still love them by the end of the movie and still be rooting for their success.

Is just like, well, then he's he's coming at it like in a way that is just like not I don't know, like it just I always and maybe if I watch the extended cut I would feel different, but I am. I just I'm like I don't care about Russell. I don't care about him. I'm like, who gives a shit if this guy's successful? And at the end when like, you know, he's like, oh, I think Penny wanted you and me together. I'm like, why would william even want

to talk to you? You're the fucking worst. I don't understand why Williams still interested in you after all this time, christ And I think you're totally right. If he was a really good journalist, he would have realized that Russell's not the story or he if anything, he's the villain of the story. If anything, he would have written a story that like, Snowwater is great, but Russell Hammond's a dick, a piece of shit. Yeah, like yeah, like their music

might be good, but them as people are bad. I mean, and yeah, I mean I know that like the movie The Snowwater is supposedly loosely based on Robert Plant and Jimmy Page from from Led Zeppelin, which yeah, I'm like, okay, if that was the case, trust me, this would be way more fucked up of a movie, because if you've read even an ounce of what Zeppelin did during their heyday,

like they committed practically committed crimes. Oh so, but I always I tell people all the time, I think I put this on Twitter, like a year or two ago, who was who is your favorite trash boyfriend? And why is mine? Russell Hammond um and that like he is he is essentially like the Troy Dwyer of this movie, you know, but the Ethan Hawk in the sense that, like, I know, he's a horrid human being. But maybe it's the hair. Maybe it's like the seventies aesthetic. There's just

something where you're like, oh, I can't. I didn't. I know, it's terrible. I can't do him. I can't do him, And I wonder how much of this now? I mean, I have backstory to Mike's and my explanation for this because I think, again, as I said it up top, I had a billy crude up thing back in the day leading up to the whole like Claire Danes Mary Louis Parker triangle that happened, which again he's also part of the problem because he is just as problematic as

the movie that he's in. Google that story if you want some juicy reading. But but I mean to watch them like this was kind of like his stock in trade is he played douchebags, like inventing the Abbots, which is another favorite of mine, Like he plays the same character, he's got better hair, h So I mean, I get it, and I wonder how much that plays into all of this, And I think conceiving him as kind of like a Robert plant esque like musical genius, but he's like a

piece of shit. I hate it. I have no explanation for why I dug it then, I have no explanation for why I dig it now. But I think that like in the grand tradition of like all the trash boyfriends again going back to Ethan Hawk, in reality bites like there's just something where you're like, God, I maybe I want to feel like shit. Maybe I want somebody

to treat me bad. It's a very masochistic relationship. The movie kind of explores this in certain conversations between William and Lester Bangs, where they're both like, we're not cool and we're never going to be the type of guy who's gonna like instantly get the girl quote unquote, because it's the rock stars who get the girl and who are perceived as so cool and who you know, are

just like effortlessly like chicken magnets. It feels a little revenge of the nerds that that whole exchange where he's like, you know, like we're just we're smarter than them, Like we're we're playing the long game. And you're like, okay, so women are still objects to you, but you know you're just playing a longer game. Cool, right, So it's so the movie has some self awareness about like these dynamics, these these power dynamics as they relate to gender and

like these age gaps and all this stuff. But for me, it goes back to what would be a more interesting story here, the mental gymnastics that a lot of girls and women have to do in a culture where they are so heavily oppressed and objectified, and you know, any marginalized person has to deal with this, like the mental gymnastics you kind of have to do just as a survival, right, technique, Like that would have been the more interesting thing to

explore through the lens of like the Penny Land character and seeing things from her point of view, But instead we're seeing the story from the point of view of this teenage boy who doesn't understand her, who doesn't understand her, who's in love with her, quote unquote, but he's can't be because he doesn't know her, Like he's in love

with the right, with the persona she's crafted exactly. I feel like Sophia Coppola did this a lot better, you know what, like the year before with the version of Suicience, which which is very much about like a group of boys that think that they know these manic pixie dream girls, and Sofia Coppola's like, slow your role, you actually know shit and you don't know these people, and you know, and the source materials very similar to that. So it's doable.

It's doable if you care. And fortunately, I mean I think again this was this was Cameron Crow and his too Big to Fail era, and you know, we weren't. We weren't asking those questions. We were just like wrapped

up in the seventies aesthetic man. And I think Boogie Knights, like you mentioned, you know, really did play into this as well, because what is it the thirty year gap that we take to nostalgize stuff, you know, so like the nineties into the two thousands, was this seventies heyday, which honestly, I would love for us to go back and look at now because I feel like we still

have never reconciled. We just went straight to letting dudes make movies about how great the eighties were, but we never really looked at or criticized the nineteen seventies, which is probably one of the most fraught decades just from a gender perspective, and gender influenced everything. I mean, it

even influenced the music and in so many ways. So you know, I would love a nineteen seventies groupie story from like a feminine, like a female director script that it's just like, actually, how do you reconcile with the fact that you're like a teenage girl and you're hanging out with like again Louren Scafaria, just like make Diary of a Teenage Girl again, but like groupy addition, Yeah, I would, I mean I really would love to see.

And also I would love to see a piece about like a woman now who was who was a teenager then having to reconcile it and like getting into arguments with her daughter or something about like how because that's like it is like a fascinating, difficult position that I don't envy anyone to have to be in, is to have to feel in conflict with modern feminists because you didn't have a twenty twenty three brain in nineteen seventy two and having to process that with a modern lens,

a past middle age and figure out, well, how do I feel about that, and like challenging how you It's like challenging sort of everything, you know, which I think I don't know. I've talked with my mom a lot about that too, because I think and this movie again almost sort of I think, touches on it a little with Elaine and Anita of how a parent, in this case a mother specifically's own you know, internalized misogyny can be projected back onto their own kid in a way

that diminishes them and makes them feel like shit. And it's like, well, yeah, if you don't, if you're not able to for whatever reason, process your own experience and figure out how you feel about it, it's going to turn into like this inadvertent weapon that can like hurt people you don't want to hurt. And I don't know. I mean, I'm excited that I ordered Pamelad as far as book because I really want to read it now.

And there was a good interview with her in Vulture back in twenty twenty just talking about this with a post me to sort of focus on how she sort of views this character because there were a lot of Peter's I think three different women that Ameron Crowe has like alluded to. There's Penny Lane, Trumbull, Baby Bull, and

Pamela Dispars. Penny Lane Trumbull also fascinating person, and I think what was cool about her was that she later made a band that was like made up of other groupies and they started making their own music, which is another thing of like access, Like that's a way to gain access to a world you may not have had access to otherwise that was not as welcoming to women. But anyways, Pamela Diaspars, she says a bunch of things.

I mean, she she's particularly bothered by the Penny Lane overdose scene, not for the same reasons I'm sure we're about to talk about, but because of so she says this. She says that that scene where Penny Lane sees that Russell is with his girlfriend and then seems to attempt to or inadvertently overdoses. She says that that's quote horribly misogynists to look at what a groupie muse is. That made me so angry. This character, the groupie like she's portrayed,

is pathetic. I knew all the main groupies in a heyday of group edom, none of them would have done that. There was always someone else coming to town that really turned me off. No actual music loving goddess groupie would do such a thing unquote. So I think she thought that, you know, Cameron Crowe is being melodramatic and diminishing a

character that was very much based on her. And then the other thing that she said that I was like, Oh, yeah, they're like, Cameron Crowe hired a number of consultants for this movie because obviously he's like well connected in this period of history. Peter Frampton was a consultant on this movie. Yes, And I guess that Pamela dispars because she didn't meet Cameron Crowe when he was a fifteen year old writer, and she did see the movie, and she did have

notes about it. She's not completely dismissive of it, but she's there's a lot of things she's kind of like what the fuck about. One of them was that she wasn't brought on as a consultant, And that makes a ton of fucking sense, Like, if you've got a Peter Frampton consultant budget, you've got a Pamela dispar As consultant budget and like your Cameron Crowe in two thousand, fucking hire her. And I bet that this the material would

have been elevated. And I don't think Peter Frampton would have been giving a lot of great insider Like when you talk about top tier hedonistic rock stars at the seventies that had like groupies that were probably on that level, I'm not thinking Frampton comes alive. Okay, it is interesting though you brought up, you know, reconciling as an older woman.

People forget. Two years after this movie came out, we got Goldie Hawn and Susan Surandon in The Banger Sisters, which actually is a comedy about two women who were nineteen seventies groupies dealing with like being essentially fish out

of water. Like it's just it's just not at all Like it's a very two thousands look at groupie dom in the same way as this, where it's like Susan Surrandon's given up that groupie life and wears brown suits and she's very type A and she puts that aside to raise her children to be utterly perfect and they

hate her for it. And Goldie Hawn is like the Goldie han She's this free spirit who's still trying to be She's like, um, she's like Steve the pirate from from Dodgeball who like still commits to the bit and doesn't understand why people believe, like don't believe that she's a modern woman. She's Austin Powers. Pretty much very fun movie, but not does not reconcile at all with like the

dichotomy of that era. It's more just like Susan Sarandon's daughter in the movie, who's Erica Christensen is like, you're saying, our mom used to be fun and made mistakes and smoked weed. What What's It's very much of its era, right. Do you think Goldie Hawn, her character in that movie is somehow related to Penny Lane's character in Almost Famous because famously Goldie Hawn is Kate Hudson's mom. It took until two thousand and three, February seventeenth, at one o

six pm for me to make that connection. I did not realize that until I just started talking about it, and I wish I had made that connection that. I mean, it's very very possible. It's very possible. The movie did not do well enough to make any impact on audiences

except me, who still finds it delightful. And I think if anything, that movie also throws in like the plaster castor elements like there's a whole there's a whole sequence of Goldie Haunt and Susan s Randon looking at pictures of supposedly famous rock penises, but again never reconciling with the fact that they're like, also, hey, look at this photo of us. We were like fourteen years old, and

also we have dick pics on Polaroid. Yeah, I mean I would, and I do think that there's a way to make a movie like that that isn't inherently fucking depressing, which I think is always my issue with movies about like women reflecting on their lives. And they're like, well, of course it's safe to assume it fucking sucked, and like it was really depressing the whole time. You're like, well, it can still be like an engaging, interesting I think

we just need to write this. Yeah. Another thing that Pamela despars mentioned that also registered for me, just given the time and the scene that you're in, is she made a note in that twenty twenty interview with Vulture of saying how whitewashed the movie felt to her, and how like centered on white rockers, you know, white rockers who were certainly around and people that Cameron crow would have encountered, but like the seventies was a huge moment

for black music in particular, and like the fact that you the only black musicians and black people in general that you see are very much in the background of scenes either like set dressing and the way that women are occasionally used as set dressing in this movie as well, in a way that this is just like not historically accurate, right, I feel like Cameron Crowe has that problem in all of his movie. Well, he did make a lohot, didn't

he did. I was gonna say, yeah, I mean Emma Stone was one eighth Chinese or what I whatever the hell that movie was saying, Yeah, saying she was so you know, chronic problem, yes, but yeah, I appreciated that she called that out as well. Yeah, and yeah, I guess she teaches memoir writing classes now, which is kind

of cool. Cool, I was I want to take that what okay, Um, We've been speaking broadly about consent so far in this episode, there's a few specific let's talk about the scene, the two scenes where it's a huge thing, yes, um placing a trigger warning here for rape for underage sexual assault. So chronologically, the first one is the let's deflower William scene where three of the band aids Sapphire, Polexia and I think Beth from Denver. Question Mark is

the third one. They basically decide amongst themselves that they are going to deflower William, who they know is fifteen years old. They then descend on him while he's trying to talk to Penny Lane, who he's in love with the idea of who she has presented herself as being. But anyway, so they're talking, they descend on him. They

kind of like pull him into the other room. He's resisting, He's saying no, no, no. They are pulling his clothes off, and then they start kissing in front of him, and then we cut to the next morning they wake up and bed together, and then they say they refer to him no longer being a virgin, and everyone's kind of giggling, right,

I mean, it's very clear what happens. It's the way that it's framed as this like romantic cool moment like the scene could not be filmed more as like, pro what's happening, even though what he's saying is no. And he's in the middle of a conversation with Penny, and like they physically drag him into the bedroom. But then it's like a very romantic tone, the cameras like circling them,

and you know, it's very cropped body. You know, there's just butts passing his face and he's looking at Kate Hudson and she seems to be thrilled that this is happening as well, and she leaves the room and it's just like, well, this is an assault that's taking place, but the way that Cameron Crowe films it and frames it, you kind of would never know it. And I don't think that people really talked about it like that until at least a decade later, right, I think we still

have this weird issue with male consent. I mean, we saw the same types of discussions when Bridgertin came out. There was some deep talk about like is that a rape scene that we're watching it certainly non doesn't feel consider ENSUALU And that just came and went, like we

never really talked about it after that. And I think that with with something like this, it goes back to that whole concept of like the reverse feminism that we saw in the two thousands, where it's like, well, these women have power, they're taking it back, and like they're the ones that are offering, like as if to say that as long as women are consenting, that makes it okay that they're okay with it. And you know what kind of guy wouldn't want his first time to be

with three women? Am I right? Like it's just very much in that grand scheme of like women can't be predators. It's it's you know, if they're dating young men, it's just like doing what men have been doing all this time. It doesn't make it right. But it's this this mentality that I think we had at the time, where it's the rock and roll lifestyle and the women are okay with it, so therefore it is fine. Right, That is

very much a byproduct of rape culture. That's still yeah, permis to this day where there there's still an idea of, oh, men, there's no need for a man to consent or not, because a man is always going to consent to sex with a woman, right, And then if you don't, there's something wrong with people. And it's like your if your default isn't hyper sexual, then you're lesser, you're less masculine

or whatever that thing is. Yeah, like it's so frustrating and interesting to like reflect on that period of time. They're talking about Christen of like the girl Boss mentality of like, well, the solution to patriarchy, which already is very like cut down the gender binary, is that women should just be able to do what men have been doing the whole time. And it's like, no, it's a systemic no, no, Yeah, it's come on, like it's not a challenge of like, well, how do we view consent

in general? And like have we ever had a productive cultural conversation about consent. It's just that, you know, women should be allowed to do what men do. And it's like, well no, but we didn't like what they were doing. That was the that was a big problem. No one should mistreat anyone, regardless of gender. So yeah, the movie does not frame what happens as a gang rape, but that's what is happening. And then the movie just moves on.

Immediately they're like okay, and now there's another call about the deadline and then it just like never comes back. And this is also like would be an interesting thing to see an older man reflect on in a movie like this is just yeah, I don't know, this is sort of bizarre. But I used to be really into these self published blog memoirs that a Carney would write.

He would be around Kivered Crow's age, but like, same, what was traveling in carnivals as a teenager in the late sixties early seventies, And when I was watching the scene, I was like, whoa, this is so similar to something that Kevin wrote about in his blog of like how when he was a teenager, like there were a group of women carnies that were like, Okay, it's time for you to lose your virginity and he was like okay, and then like writing about it as an older man,

like not quite knowing how to place that experience, and like at the time telling himself as a kid like I'm supposed to feel happy about this, So I guess I feel happy about this, but in reality, it's like that's it's just because you're sort of in the same way that Penny Lane is sort of reflecting how she's supposed to feel about things in order to keep some semblance of control of her life. It's like William has to do that too, But I don't think that Cameron

Crow sees it that way. And then I'm also wondering how this reflects Cameron Crowe's life and experience like that too. We don't know he's the William character. Yeah, I was very curious about that too, but I haven't found any thing about it, not that it's any of our fucking business. Right, how Camera Crow lost his virginity? So there you go. I mean, the movie's attitude toward consents insects is very reflective of the seventies the two thousands. And then there's

the overdose scene. Yes, what happens here is Penny Lane is overdosing on Quelude's William calls a doctor to the hotel room. He's waiting for the doctor to arrive. He's like holding her, She's drifting in and out of consciousness. He professes his love to her, and then he says something like I'm going to boldly go where many men have gone before. Hilarious moon landing assault joke. And then he kisses her while she's unconscious. Good one, and the movie again it is not critical of this at all.

It does not see this as the assault that it is, and it just breathes right past this moment as if like, yeah, that's just what you do. It's also unclear what this does to their relationship, in the sense that it's not even clear if she knows. Don't think she does. Yeah, which, considering like their their relationship and that this would be a moment for them to discuss are we into each other or is she into him as much as he is into her, it's never acknowledged. The scene culminates with

the stomach pumping. I mean, I think, if anything, that the humor of having my Sharia Moore play over her bar finger gets out is probably a better use of humor than the moon landing joke. But when she, you know, has the realization later and they have that discussion, it's more of a moment for her to be real with him right and say what her real name is and talk about her background very briefly, But it never is

discussed what their relationship is. It stays fairly platonic, not for his lack of trying, but he never makes any effort to do that. While she is coherent right right. He even says, like, why am I doing this? You're never even going to remember it tomorrow, Like he's aware. Yeah, he comes so close to being self aware in that moment.

And then still and even the setup of that scene, And I mean, I think once I read that Pamela des Bars took serious issue with the fact that that scene happens at all, sort of clarified for it, like he's already set up as the hero of that scene where it's like sort of implied that not only you know, as Penny Lane so devastated that she would you know, overdose, but also that she needs to be rescued by William,

which she does. And then later Russell echoes that exact thing in that scene I don't like where he's like, oh, I think she wanted us to do our little interview,

what do you think? And then it's also one of her friends is like, oh, I always told Penny not to let too many guys fall in love with her, but I guess I was wrong because one of them saved her life kind of like Mario style, and you're like, uh, like, I feel like at that point in the movie, you have enough about Penny that if we're talking movie logic. It would have made sense to me that she would have saved herself, because that's like where her narrative is

heading anyways. But William has to be the hero in that moment, but he also assaults her immediately before, Like it's just it's a mess of a scorn horrid. How did Peter Frampton not say something? But again, it's like, I bet that scene wouldn't even be there if Pamela Dispars was a consultant, or would be there in a different form, in a different capacity. Yeah. Yeah. The last thing I want to touch on is the character coming

out as a joke two thousands a two thousand. Yeah, So what happens here is one of the other members of the band who we haven't spent much time with, so not Jeff or Russell. Um, I honestly don't even know which one it is, Larry or is it? Yeah? Oh no, it's Ed. It's Ed. It's Ed. Okay, it's Ed, someone who doesn't speak throughout the entirety of the movie.

He literally says almost nothing. So what happens is they're on the is the scene on the plane they're hitting all this turbulence, they think they might crash and die, so they're again they're like kind of being very forward with their feelings and their secrets. And the button on that conversation is, um, who did we decide it was Larry? I think okay, ed name so Ed is like I'm gay.

Everyone is like huh. And then immediately after that, the plane kind of like levels out, the turbulent stops, the light comes back on, like everything seems smooth, sailing through one lens, living his authentic truth saved everyone's life through magic.

But I don't think that's what camera Crow is trying to do exactly so, and then the character has this kind of like panicked look, which fair coming out is gay in nineteen seventy three certainly came with a lot of risk, But I feel like the coming out and then his panicked aftermath is it was a Joel played for comedy. Yeah for sure, Like, oh and now everyone knows he's gay, and isn't that funny? Is how the

movie wants you to view that. Yes, On the one hand, it's really weird to find the connection because there's a joke in Mall Rats that Jason Lee ironically tells that's a very similar story about like people on an airplane, the plane crashes and they start essentially masturbating, and then the plane rights itself and everybody asks to look at

each other knowing what they've done. Kevin Smith that in like ninety four, and then it happens in this movie in the sense that like it's a very similar and it starts Jason Lee. So I never liked know how to take that. If that's like an intentional comparison, that's so bizarre. But I mean the plane, the plane crash element, there's this this air of dark comedy in it. Right, considering how many rock stars did perish in plane crashes, do you wonder what their their last moments were, like,

you know, was it a similar like confessional moment? And I think that at the time, like as as you said, two thousands is going to two thousand, like we this is the Will and Grace era still, you know, like we were still laughing at like we accepted that, you know, gay people or a thing, and we're still finding we're trying to find humor in this type of like revelation. But I think for me, again, context is key and

knowing that it's nineteen seventy three. I was like, oh, so they would have just kicked it out of the band after this, Like what is the discussion after this? Because there I mean, I'm doing just a casual search of my brain, and I don't know any rock stars that openly were gay in the nineteen seventies, especially considering this is like the era we're coming up on, like

Anita Bryant and like harsh backlash for gay people. I don't I think that, like if anything, again, William leaves the story on the table, not that outing should be a thing, but like that would be like Ben functorres might be like, dude, wait a minute, one of these guys is gay, like the screw local band makes good, Like there would be repercussions. There would have to be a discussion because to be a major rock band came with a heavy dose of heterosexuality. That's why they had groupies.

There weren't We weren't hearing stories about groups of dudes offering sex to rock stars, you know, in this time period, even though I'm sure there were rock stars that were gay, and there probably were groupies that were also, I mean, those stories aren't told, but there would have to say that they would have gotten off that plane and not looked at him, it would have changed everything, I think.

And at the end of the movie when it's like every look at where everybody is like they show ed, He's just like, I'm with the bands still okay, So did you have to lie? Did you get a girlfriend? Like Elton John had to date women? Right, and he was the biggest star in the world. Yeah, in the same time period, what was happening with Freddie Mercury? Freddie Mury?

I think Queen was starting out in the mid seventies and even then, like I mean, Freddie was okay, well, but we still like people still made fun of him and there was still criticism and back like he just didn't give a fuck about it. Yeah. Well, I ultimately think that that joke takes place in two thousand in a movie that is supposed to be in nineteen seventy two. Like, I think that that is a very of the late nineties, well into the two thousands, just referencing queerness as a

punchline with no serious thought about the year. Like I don't think Cameron Crowe was thinking about nineteen seventy two when he wrote that Big used those oh, this is a fun button for the scene like, and it simply is not. And maybe he knows that now. I don't know. It's always one of the things that frustrates me, especially about this new world of color blind casting in period pieces.

We've just bypassed the discussion and gone straight to it's okay to see to have all these characters be different ethnicities, that's great. I'm glad that we're seeing something like Minx, and there's more black women and we're having more minorities. Minx is a great example. It's not just casting that way, it's also saying, what would the experience of a black woman in the nineteen seventies have been like? Because trust us, it would not have been the same as the experience

of a white woman in the nineteen seventies. And I think that too many films and television shows have not wanted to reconcile with how different races would have been treated in the past. Again, not to piss on Bridgertin again, but Bridgerton is a great example. It's a great world to live in where you have a predominant cast of people of color. That's great, but you have to look

at the era in some way, we can't. We have to talk about how the distinctions of having a black monarch would be in that time period, and to not discuss it with any nuance just seems disingenuous. And we're still not having those conversations. And it's twenty twenty three, It's how many years since this movie came out. We're still not able to have those those discussions. The last thing I wanted to touch on is how Cameron Crowe did have to sort of like answer for some of

his crimes in this movie about twenty years later. I think it was like twenty nineteen or twenty that Almost Famous was being adapted into a Broadway musical and Cameron crow is very involved in the process, and so a lot of the criticism that have been made of the movie came up while this was being developed into a Broadway musical. He did defend Penny Lane against the manic

pixie dreamgirl allegations. He said, I always thought that she was a soulless, selfless, loving person who was super into community and kept herself a little bit hidden, and also makes reference to the real women he was pulling from, which fair point, but they did not get the opportunity to weigh in on the characters. I feel like that is maybe perhaps a little deflective. But the positive thing I wanted to mention was that he does at least have the self awareness that he cuts the gang rape

scene from the musical that does not appear. It seems as if he took the note that that is not a sequence that you would want to glorify, and I think that his response was to not include it in the musical adaptation at all. Wow, a man doing the bare minimum. I know, yeay, not including a gang rape scene in a lighthearted Broadway musical. So that's that. Does

anyone have anything else they want to talk about? I will throw out that as flawed as this movie is, the Tiny Dancer sequence is still my favorite favorite movie

moment of all all time on feminist icon Doris the Bus. Yes, I don't believe any movie has has done the group sing with as much fun and beautifully filmed as it does in this movie, So much so that me, as a little film nerd in junior my junior year of high school, did a whole presentation about just that scene and Cameron Crowe's relationship to music and editing, and I knew I was a goner. So I give this movie, if anything, credit for that moment. Hell yeah, Well does

this movie pass the Bechdel test? Ah? Yeah, it does. It does. It passes between at least Anita and Elaine at I think a few different points. They're arguing about Anita's direction in life and Elaine's opinions on when Christmas Shippy slid rated. It passes again at the end with that exchange that was so loaded, and I was like, ah, I want to know more about this of like, I forgive you, I didn't apologize. I think it may pass the most between them, but I'm sure it passes at

least a couple times between the band aids. Among the band aids, yeah, I feel like they are often talking about the male members of Stillwater, but yea or well, yeah, we talk about music, question mark. I always forget to pay attention. Famously, I am almost famous for not remembering how to do our show. I was gonna say it might pass for that wonderful discussion between the band aids, Sapphire saying that she needs to get into a room and have a valium. I think that might that might

count Mike. My favorite pass was when Anita says, feck you, mom, and then Elaine says her sister did it. She used the effort in Little Little Williams like I think she said, fete, what's missing the letter you? And then Elaine was like, I gotta hand it to him there, Yeah, Elane. I mean, I think Lane, there's so much going on with Elane and I wish that. I mean, will you get a good amount of Elane and you get like a single

parent in the seventies. We know what her job is, we know like stuff you wouldn't normally know in a movie like this. I will say that there is a sequence in the untitled version as we were talking about like what are her beliefs as this, like maybe she's a hippie. There is an extended discussion at the beginning of the movie where she stops somebody who is painting Mary xmis on a storefront and she goes on like a five minute diatribe about how it's either marry Christmas

or happy Holidays because ords have meaning. That says a lot about her as a person. It does based on Cameron Crowe's own mother, It's true and I guess she was like on set a lot, Yeah, to keep any why couldn't you have high hired family dispars Everyone worked on this anyways. But let's get to the metric that really matters. The nipple scale shall exactly zero to five nipples based on how the movie fares when examining it

through an intersectional feminist lens. Oh, well, I would probably only give this a nipple because for the potential that

ends up being squandered. But as far as like Penny Lane and the other band aids circumstances and their situation, there's a very interesting story there that just simply goes almost entirely unexplored by Cameron Crow and the other kind of creative forces behind this movie, because it's more interested in telling, ultimately a story about what it's like to be a young teenage boy journalist swept up in the

cool world of rock and roll. And even though those rock and rollers are pieces of shit who absolutely abuse women and are predators and creeps, at the end of the day, aren't they still kind of cool? But ultim believe they deserve a redemption arc At the end, Russell actually was a pretty good guy who deserves all the success he got, which is how the movie feels. This is how the movie. They're like, he's yeah, he was flawed. But would I hire him to consult on my movie

in thirty years I guess I would. And yeah, the question, yeah, we never know if like Russell and Leslie, I mean, it's eluded that maybe they aren't together. I don't know. It could very well be that she decided after a couple of weeks that their toxic relationship is worth keeping.

I'd like to believe that he never cheated again. But again, to go back to Roger Daldry's autobiography, he could also have just been the guy that, in twenty years or thirty years would write a Stillwater biography where he says, I have illegitimate children, but my wife understood that what happens on the road stays on the road, and we're not going to talk about all of the cheating I did. I have three children from it. But you know, you

don't need to know the details. You're like, sir, sir, there this is I mean, yeah, this is like anything I hear about rock history inherently stresses me out, which is why maybe this is just like not my genre, because you do have to like like you're saying Christ and like compartmentalize so many different parts of your brain to be able to engage with it where it's trying

to come at you. It's like my mom grew up in the seventies and she always tells me stories and they always culminate with me saying how did you not die? Like how are you not on a block curtain? Because every story is horrible? And she says to me all the time, if you were there, just got it. And I think that that's like the thing is that, like if you lived in that time, it makes more sense

than us as outside observers. So maybe that's Cameron Crowe's whole thing, Like you had to be there, man, Like you know, it's like me trying to explain the beanie baby thing to somebody likes you had to be there. I can't. I can't explain that to you now. I mean you missed it. Oh I've tried to explain it to people and no one fucking gets it there. But no, I think you're right. And but again that that would only be elevated by him hiring Pamela des Bars because

she was also there. And it's like, at the end of the day, the real winner is Pamela des Bars. I think we all agreed yes, because she's she's been plugging her this entire Yes. In conclusion, the movie's failure to understand various nuances across a bunch of different topics, most horrifyingly, the movie's failure to understand consent. So yeah, one nipple for the female characters we do get who I would have liked to see more of potential was squandered.

One nipple all give to Doris the Bus. I'll give it, I guess a nipple and a half. I'll I'll skew you up a little bit, and I'll bisect a nipple for because I do think that like Penny Lane is a very rich character who is um, I think miss misused. I would be interested to see the other cut in full, where you do get more context for what her history is. UM.

I don't know. Maybe I'm just like bringing my Litlita podcast up to the to the table here, but I am always like interested in a young woman who is sort of just being projected upon like fucking wildfire and has to develop a way to navigate that. UM. Like young women, especially the further back you go historically, like are always projected upon and viewed through this very through the fucking mail gaze. God, And now I sound like

a freshman in college. But in all serios, like, I think it's interesting that Penny Lane slash Lady has to develop a persona in order to navigate the world with some feeling of power and belonging, and of course that is still not going to be enough in a place where she's not being looked out for by anybody really, And I think that there's just there's just more there than Cameron Crowe was interested in exploring, and she was I think misused in like you're describing Kristen as like

the Cameron Crowe woman, where ultimately her purpose is to show Russell and William that life is epic and boys can be forgiven for all of their trespasses and it's all good. And I just wanted you to hang out the whole time, ignore all the assaults and my lack of ability to navigate the world with a sense of identity. But I think that that was there. It just he just wasn't interest did in it, which is frustrating. I like Anita a lot. I wish that there was more Anita.

Maybe not in the framework of that story, it wouldn't have worked, But I just thought it was a good performance and a good character. I like Lane. I wish that we could have understood her a little more as well. And I don't know. I mean, there's no shortage of interesting women in this narrative, and I just feel like they're not really focused on by the story, and that is a bummer. Also the consent, I mean, and then I'll go everything you said gaitly about the consent stuff,

which is complete dogshit and forgivable. Yeah, And you know, on the part of the filmmaker prioritizing bringing on consultants who would not bring any sort of critical lens to this era, I feel like it's kind of a misstep on his part. So given a nipple and a half, I'm going to give one to lady and I'll give the other half to Anita. Nice Christ, how about you? Oh gosh, I mean, I I compartmentalize a lot with this.

But if if we're looking at it, you know, just watching it, especially somebody watching it today, you know, it's it's one of those moments in time where I'm like yeah, but in two thousand, man, it was great. I mean it gets it gets it gets a two. Uh you know, I'd give it higher just purely off of the nostalgia and you know how it affected me as a person and as a writer, Like it's it's up there with like you know, I tell people the two movies that define me are like my girl in this uh you know,

in terms of like who I am as a person. Um. But at the same time, yeah, I mean reading the stuff that I've read, like growing as a person. It's one of those movies, you know, much like Garden State is a great example going back and like being like, oh god, I have real issues with this now, um you know, but I mean as a piece of film, I still look at it and I still you know, the soundtrack and the time period in the la story, like the acting. It's I love it for all of

those things. I and I have to put all of the problems in a in a separate little container where I'm like, I love it, but uh and the butt gets longer every time I talk about it. Um, So I love it, but you know, Cameron Crow and I know it's got problems, and I am glad that Cameron Crowe seems to know it has problems. Now. That is like again, a fun, bare minimum thing to to observe of, like someone who's able to engage with the criticism of their work over time. H is not nothing. However, the

crimes of Aloha will never be forgotten. Um all right, um, Kristen, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. We're a big fan. We cite your writing frequently, so it's so nice to have you finally on the show. Come back anytime. I mean I'm always around to talk mess and feminist them and where the two intertwine. So yeah, we'll have to team up again. I'm ready. So you guys, you guys were my first like la event that I ever I ever saw came to our show at the Ruby.

I forget which movie it was, but it feels so long ago. I mean it must have been like maybe three or four years ago. Yeah, it was a robe in Michelle. Oh maybe God yes, yeah, wow it was a simpler time. Yes, I've come full circle. So yeah, well here you are, and we'll have you back. Where can people um follow you online? Check out your writing, check out your book. Yeah, so I'm I'm over at The Wrap The Wrap dot com you can search the

Rap Kristin Lopez. You'll find my my writing there. I'm on all the social media platforms, probably to my detriment, but I'm most active on Twitter at Journey's Underscore Film and Instagram at Kristin Lopez eighty eight. And yes, but have you read the book fifty two literary Gems that inspired our classic or favorite Holmes is out merged seventh.

You can buy that wherever you get books. I know a lot of authors hype buying independent, but honestly, I will just be happy for anybody who buys it anywhere. So it's wherever you can get your books. And I hope to do a lot of stuff in the LA area when the book comes out. So if you're you're around and you buy it, let me know ooh amazing. We'll be there and you can follow us on social media Twitter and Instagram. At Bechtel Cast, you can scoot

over to our Patreon aka Patreon. It's five bucks a month. It gets you two bonus episodes every month. That's at patreon dot com slash Bechtel Cash. That's where you can find the Pinocchio Wars episode that Kaitlin was dumping on earlier zamecas found dead ditch all right, you can also get our merch at public dot com, slash v Bechtel cast And with that, let's let's let's load onto Doris and get the fuck out of here. What are you saying? I'm a golden god jumps into pool, Bye bye,