[00:00:06] Speaker A: Welcome to five Minute Film Finder, brought to you by Pioneer Library System.
[00:00:13] Speaker B: Welcome to five Minute Film Finder, a Pioneer Library System podcast where we talk about movies that you can watch with your Pioneer Library System library card. My name is Tracy, and I am joined today by.
[00:00:25] Speaker C: I'm Coral.
[00:00:26] Speaker B: Hi, Coral.
[00:00:27] Speaker C: Hello.
[00:00:28] Speaker B: So Coral and I watch a lot of movies together in real life, but we have never done an episode of this podcast together, which is tragic. It is tragic. But I'm really glad that we're doing one today, and we're talking about a topic that I felt like you were uniquely qualified to talk about, which is films based off of Jane Austen novels. In this case, specifically, the Jane Austen novel Emma.
[00:00:51] Speaker C: Yes. So I am currently hosting the Jane Austen Book Club at Pioneer Library System.
We are reading through her six novels, and we're also covering adaptations and retellings as well.
So it's a lot of fun. We actually just finished Emma.
[00:01:07] Speaker B: I was like, did you just do just Emma the novel? Are you about to do Emma retellings?
[00:01:12] Speaker C: Yes. So we just finished Emma, the novel. I had never read it before.
I loved it. I listened to the audiobook, which was a lot of fun.
[00:01:20] Speaker B: Fantastic.
[00:01:21] Speaker C: And I don't know what I'm gonna do for the retelling. There's a lot of really great Emma retellings. Books, movies, everything.
[00:01:28] Speaker B: There are a lot of really great Emma retellings. I think partially because of one of the films that we're going to talk about today that is like, an absolute piece of pop culture.
I have never. This year was the first year I'd ever read a Jane Austen novel. I started off with the weird one, which is. I started off with her last novel, Persuasion. I started Emo recently. It's great. I. I've been really enjoying it. So whenever I saw that, it'll be in the title. I saw that Clueless was on Kanopy, and Clueless is tied for my number one all time favorite film of all time.
And then I saw that Emma was also on there, so I was like, great, let's go ahead and discuss the two together.
[00:02:07] Speaker C: Go all in. Go on.
[00:02:08] Speaker B: Compare and contrast.
[00:02:10] Speaker C: Oh, yeah.
[00:02:10] Speaker B: So do you want to take the lead on Emma, or do you want me to?
[00:02:13] Speaker C: I'll start off with Emma 1996.
[00:02:15] Speaker B: Okay. Wilhelm will start our timer.
And go.
[00:02:21] Speaker C: All right, so Emma 1996 obviously came out in 1996, and it famously stars Gwyneth Paltrow as Emma, which I was a little nervous going into this. An American playing an iconic Jane Austen.
[00:02:36] Speaker B: Character, but I think she did a great job.
[00:02:39] Speaker C: She did. She did.
[00:02:40] Speaker B: We did watch this movie together.
[00:02:41] Speaker C: I was about to be like, behind the scenes. We watched this together.
[00:02:44] Speaker B: We did.
[00:02:45] Speaker C: And then Jeremy Northam plays Mr. Knightley, who I thought did a fantastic job.
[00:02:51] Speaker B: I thought he was great. He was very handsome and charming and just the right amount of pedantic, I guess, is the word I'm looking for.
The cast of this movie is stacked.
[00:03:04] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:03:05] Speaker B: It also has Toni Collette in it, which I was deeply excited about.
[00:03:09] Speaker C: A great Harriet.
[00:03:10] Speaker B: She was so charming.
[00:03:12] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:03:13] Speaker B: And then I was also very excited that Alan Cumming was in it.
[00:03:16] Speaker C: He was.
[00:03:17] Speaker B: He was as Elton.
[00:03:18] Speaker C: As Elton.
[00:03:20] Speaker B: He was a nightmare. He's good in the movie, but Elton is terrible.
[00:03:25] Speaker C: Truly.
[00:03:27] Speaker B: I took some notes on the director because one of the things that we had with this movie when we watched it together is we weren't a huge fan of the direction.
[00:03:35] Speaker C: Oh, no, no. There was some very interesting choices made in this movie.
[00:03:39] Speaker B: It's weirdly dark.
[00:03:42] Speaker C: The lighting. Not the content, but the lighting choices were.
I would like to see the actor's face when I see a movie.
Preferably.
[00:03:52] Speaker B: Hey, fun fact. Douglas McGrath would not.
This was his first ever movie to direct, and I'm afraid that it shows.
[00:04:04] Speaker C: Yeah. Which number one, who is like, hey, let's take one of Jane Austen's most iconic works and give it to someone who's never directed a film before.
[00:04:11] Speaker B: He was. Because he also wrote the movie and he was coming off of having just been nominated for an Oscar for screenplay writing for the Woody Allen movie Bullets Over Broadway.
[00:04:24] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:04:25] Speaker B: So he, I think, was nominated, and then he was obsessed with Emma. Really wanted to do a modern retelling of it, not knowing that Clueless was actively being greenlit at the time that they had started to write this movie.
So then they went for, okay, traditional period piece Emma.
[00:04:46] Speaker C: And this movie did receive two Oscar nominations for best costumes, which I don't know what one, but it probably. I mean, Emma's costumes were phenomenal.
[00:04:54] Speaker B: We talked about them extensively when we watched it. And I looked up, she made 150 costumes for this in something like four weeks. The woman who.
And they're beautiful.
[00:05:07] Speaker C: They really are beautiful.
[00:05:08] Speaker B: It's a shame that this movie is lit so insanely because everyone is gorgeous and all the clothes are gorgeous.
[00:05:18] Speaker C: The set design in this movie is kind of wacky, but it's wacky in a way where every scene you're like, wait, what is that in the background? But in the most fun way.
[00:05:26] Speaker B: I commented multiple times while we were Watching this. Where did that giant floral arrangement come from?
[00:05:32] Speaker C: Truly, the goldfish in the bowls in the one scene just on pedestals, I was like, why are these goldfish here? Are they alive? I fear for them.
[00:05:41] Speaker B: It is, like, really whimsical to look at, but then it's not lit well, and so you're just like, squinting at all the weirdest. You're like, is that a portrait of a dog?
But the lighting's so weird. And then half the movie is just lit by flames in party rooms and you can't see.
[00:06:04] Speaker C: I mean, there are moments where the actors are literally backlit and I'm like, there's no reason for them to be backlit.
[00:06:12] Speaker B: There is one scene where this makes it sound like we didn't like this movie.
[00:06:17] Speaker C: I enjoyed this movie.
[00:06:18] Speaker B: We liked this. We laughed out loud several times, multiple times. The acting and the writing is really good, but it was really hard to watch it. There is that one scene where Emma and her father were in a doorway and. And truly, they're in complete and total blackness. You cannot see their faces at all.
[00:06:38] Speaker C: Such a choice.
[00:06:39] Speaker B: It was such a choice.
But then it would be like, but everyone's doing good work.
[00:06:44] Speaker C: Everyone's doing good work. And as someone who recently read Emma, like, it is a pretty faithful adaption. There is a few moments where I was like, that seems a little interesting, but for the most part, like, if you've read the book, it's, you know, like it feels consistent with the story.
[00:07:01] Speaker B: I have never read the book, but I have seen Clueless and it did feel like, okay, this is. I recognize the pattern of this story.
So it seemed good and it was entertaining and it wasn't slow paced or anything like that, but it was just, like, odd.
We have reached our five minutes. I would like to offer you your moment to have your biggest complaint.
[00:07:26] Speaker C: Yes. But there is one other thing we must bring up before the biggest complaint.
[00:07:29] Speaker B: Oh, y.
[00:07:30] Speaker C: And I want you to say it.
[00:07:31] Speaker B: Because Ewan McGregor's wig, it deserved its.
[00:07:35] Speaker C: Own spot on IMDb.
[00:07:37] Speaker B: Are there Razzie awards for worst wigs?
[00:07:40] Speaker C: It's a bad wig.
[00:07:41] Speaker B: I was reading on, I think the Wikipedia page for this movie, and Ewan McGregor, at one point, he took this role because it was right after Trainspotting and he didn't wanna get pigeonholed in roles like Trainspotting. And he was like, I shouldn't have taken that role and it wasn't right for me. And also, that was the worst wig I've ever seen in my life.
I was like, yeah. It's like the craziest fried ginger wig. And he is wearing a hat for most of the film.
[00:08:09] Speaker C: It's bad.
[00:08:11] Speaker B: The hat somehow makes it worse. He looks like the Mad Hatter.
[00:08:14] Speaker C: He looks. That's exactly what he looks like.
[00:08:16] Speaker B: He looks like the Mad Hatter. It's unhinged.
[00:08:20] Speaker C: It takes away from every scene he's in because you're just like, who?
[00:08:23] Speaker B: It's so wiggy. It's the wiggiest wig.
[00:08:26] Speaker C: It's incredible.
[00:08:26] Speaker B: And everyone else in this movie has great hair.
[00:08:28] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:08:29] Speaker B: And that was just awful. It made me so furious.
Loved him in the movie, though.
[00:08:33] Speaker C: Yeah. Frank Churchill. Great spot.
[00:08:35] Speaker B: Great spot.
[00:08:36] Speaker C: But my biggest complaint.
[00:08:38] Speaker B: Yes. Screaming at the end of this film. You were.
[00:08:41] Speaker C: Yes. Tracy was a witness to this. Because I realized. I felt like during the scene, I was like, they're not gonna say it. I could sense it coming.
And I was right. But essentially, there are really two iconic lines in the book. Emma. And the first is. The first line where it's, you know, she's handsome and rich and there's nothing that's ever vexed her. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They care. It's hard to say that line in a movie. But the line that should be said in every classic Emma adaptation is, if I loved you less, maybe I could talk about it more. Which is what Mr. Knightley says to Emma. And it's an incredible line. It's beautiful.
And they don't seem say it.
[00:09:18] Speaker B: And the proposal scene in this is not great.
[00:09:23] Speaker C: It takes away from the scene because you're just expecting that and to go off track a little bit. Emma 2020, which is a wonderful adaptation of this movie, it's a lot different than this film, and I think they both have merit and they both are great adaptations. But to see that proposal scene where he does say it versus this proposal scene where he doesn't say it, it puts them on completely different levels. And I was screaming.
[00:09:51] Speaker B: You were literally screaming. Great news is you can watch Emma 2020 on DVD from the library.
[00:09:56] Speaker C: Yes. Check out both and watch them both. I think they're both great adaptations. But you'll see when you get to the proposal seen in both, you'll be like, okay, there's a clear winner here.
[00:10:07] Speaker B: Yes. But Emma 1996 is on Kanopy and Hoopla right now. Oh, fantastic. I think you should check it out and complain about the lighting.
[00:10:14] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:10:15] Speaker B: But also, enjoy the film.
[00:10:16] Speaker C: Yes, absolutely.
[00:10:18] Speaker B: So we're gonna take a second, and then we'll be back with our second film.
And welcome back to Five minute film finder. Tracy and Coral here. And we're about to talk about our second film.
And Wilhelm can start the timer. I'm gonna take on this film. We're gonna talk about 1995's Clueless.
Woo. It's, I think I already said earlier, one of my favorite movies of all time. I think it is, no joke, a perfect film.
[00:10:51] Speaker C: It's incredible.
[00:10:52] Speaker B: It's a perfect film. I am obsessed with IMDb plot synopses. We've never done one of these before, so I always like to read it out. And this one says shallow, rich, and socially successful Cher is at the top of her Beverly Hills high school's pecking scale. Seeing herself as a matchmaker, Cher coaxes two teachers into dating each other, which I feel like is actually not a good plot synopsis of this film.
[00:11:13] Speaker C: You know, it's a good plot synopsis of the first 20 minutes of the.
[00:11:16] Speaker B: Movie, which are great. I mean, the whole movie's great. But it's about a lot more than that.
[00:11:22] Speaker C: Absolutely.
[00:11:24] Speaker B: So I'm assuming most people have seen Clueless, except for that we know someone who has not seen Clueless, which is crazy. Shout out to our friend Lauren.
[00:11:33] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:11:33] Speaker B: Who has seen Clueless, whose brother said.
[00:11:36] Speaker C: She could not watch Clueless till she read Emma, but she recently read Emma. So I.
[00:11:40] Speaker B: So we're going to Clueless together again. Even though us and producer Ben all watched Clueless in the last week. Ben can come with us to watch Clueless with Lauren.
[00:11:50] Speaker C: I'm ready to see Lauren's reaction to a certain aspect of the plot, which I feel like Lauren may not enjoy.
[00:11:57] Speaker B: Okay, we'll talk about that off of mic, I guess. So Clueless was directed by Amy Heckerling. It came out and written by Amy Heckerling. It came out the year before Emma, so 1995, which I think I mentioned during the Emma part, that they didn't know that Clueless was coming.
So this movie is sort of inspired by Amy Heckerling having so much popularity with her first movie, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, and just being like, I'm really good at writing high school movies. And she decided she wanted to write a movie about someone who was really, really optimistic.
And so she landed on sort of adapting Emma and Cher Horowitz, who is played by Alicia Silverstone, who has the.
[00:12:44] Speaker C: You know, we were on the wig thing earlier. The best hair in film, possibly the.
[00:12:48] Speaker B: Best hair, the best clothes. I mean, I think one of everything in this movie is iconic. Let's just start there.
[00:12:55] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:12:56] Speaker B: Everything in this movie is pop culture, cult classic everything. But one of the biggest things is her closet.
[00:13:03] Speaker C: Oh, yes.
[00:13:05] Speaker B: Where she. In the first scene of the movie, I think the song Supermodel is playing. And she's going through this computer screen that will tell her whether or not her tops match her bottoms. And it'll be like clash if it doesn't go together.
And then she can put on the perfect outfit, because she's perfect.
[00:13:27] Speaker C: Every outfit she puts on in this movie is perfect.
[00:13:29] Speaker B: Every outfit on almost everybody in this movie is perfect. So I was looking up the costume designer for this. Her name is Mona. I can't remember her last name right now. She did a bunch of really iconic 1990s costuming. So she did this. She did Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion, in which all the costumes are also perfect. She did Adam Sandler's the Wedding Singer.
[00:13:53] Speaker C: Incredible.
[00:13:53] Speaker B: And then she also did Never Been Kissed, the Drew Barrymore movie, which all I could think about when I found that out is in Never Been Kissed, she has that all white outfit. That's insane. And I was like, yeah, of course you made the costumes for both of these movies. Or at least, like, found the costumes for both of these movies because it's iconic.
We haven't even talked about anybody else in this movie.
[00:14:17] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:14:19] Speaker B: Brittany Murphy as Ty, which is the Harriet character from.
[00:14:26] Speaker C: Emma.
[00:14:27] Speaker B: Emma. Thank you. I'm like, they're the same film.
She's perfect in this movie. It's unreal.
[00:14:33] Speaker C: You can almost not tell it's her because of mostly the hair.
[00:14:36] Speaker B: She's so cute in it, though. And when that's my favorite part is she goes, you guys have coke here? Just like, this is America.
[00:14:44] Speaker C: Of course.
[00:14:45] Speaker B: Of course we do. It's so perfect. Stacy Dash is Cher's best friend. She's hysterical in this movie. Her boyfriend is Donald Faison from Scrubs.
He's adorable in this movie. He has that whole speech. The writing in this movie is incredible.
[00:15:01] Speaker C: Every line is quotable. Everything that comes out of anyone's mouth is just so funny.
[00:15:06] Speaker B: He has the line in it where he's like. In modern slang culture, there may be lines that have misogynistic undertones towards women, but they're not meant to be offensive. And you're just like. And then Ted goes, wow, you guys talk like grownups here.
[00:15:19] Speaker C: And then, of course, the iconic Paul Rudd.
[00:15:22] Speaker B: Paul Rudd, who ruined men for me when I first saw this movie because he's so beautiful and perfect and kind, but also smart. And we're gonna run out of our Five minutes before I've said anything about this movie. It's happening right now. Wilhelm is screaming at me.
We can go over a little bit.
[00:15:46] Speaker C: It's Clueless, guys.
[00:15:47] Speaker B: It's Clueless. It's a perfect movie. So one of the things I did wanna look up because I feel like this movie is so iconic and so perfectly cast, is some of the alternative castings that they considered.
So they had a bunch of people test for Cher, one of whom was Alicia Witt, who she's been. She was in Twin Peaks, which I thought was funny because there's a line in this where she goes, I'm having a Twin Peaks experience, which is great. Keri Russell from Felicity was considered for Cher.
Tiffany Thiessen from Saved by the Bell.
[00:16:19] Speaker C: Interesting.
[00:16:19] Speaker B: Gwyneth Paltrow was considered for this role.
No, I don't think so either.
Angelina Jolie was considered for Cher.
[00:16:29] Speaker C: This is haunting me.
[00:16:31] Speaker B: And then Reese Witherspoon, which is maybe one of the only ones that I thought would make sense.
[00:16:35] Speaker C: That's the most. Yeah, that one makes the most sense. But I mean, I think one of the things about Clueless that makes it iconic is the casting and all the characters.
[00:16:45] Speaker B: And Alicia Silverstone truly was pulled out of the Aerosmith music videos. Like, that's where Amy Heckerling found her.
Josh, they considered casting Ben Affleck or Zach Braff.
[00:16:59] Speaker C: Oh, Ben Affleck.
[00:17:00] Speaker B: I think Ben Affleck would be terrible in this.
[00:17:02] Speaker C: Ben Affleck is like. No offense to Ben Affleck. I enjoy your films.
[00:17:06] Speaker B: We love the Accountant 2.
[00:17:08] Speaker C: We could do a two hour episode on the Accountant 2. Do not get us started on the Accountant 2. But his character is like. When he's in movies, he's just, like, unlikable. He's unlikable, yes. And Josh needs to be likable for this role to work.
[00:17:22] Speaker B: He needs to be perfect.
[00:17:23] Speaker C: If he's not likable, then it's gross. It's a bad. Yeah, the ending, you're like, oh, I don't like this.
[00:17:29] Speaker B: Because they are step siblings in this movie. In this episode, to me even, it's.
[00:17:33] Speaker C: Like he's a college student and she's a high school student. Also, that, yes, to be fair, in about 5,000 times in the book Emma, does it remind you that Mr. Knightley is 16 years older than Emma? And it loves to remind you of that.
[00:17:45] Speaker B: It did it in the movie too. And we're like, shh, stop. It's okay. Do this. You don't have to.
[00:17:49] Speaker C: We can all pretend.
[00:17:50] Speaker B: Okay. The one that I thought would absolutely drive you crazy. Oh, Christian.
They considered casting Jeremy Renner.
Oh, that man is making a face from the other side of the booth. Oh, can you imagine if. So Christian is her friend that she has a crush on. She realizes he's gay.
[00:18:14] Speaker C: He's the Frank Churchill of the movie.
[00:18:15] Speaker B: Yes, he's gay. Perfect. In this movie. He's so funny. He. One of my favorite lines in the movie is him going, do you like Billie Holiday? She goes, I love him.
[00:18:23] Speaker C: I love him.
[00:18:28] Speaker B: And so. But that could have been Jeremy Renner.
[00:18:31] Speaker C: Mm. Interesting.
[00:18:33] Speaker B: I know.
Let's end with this. Do you have a favorite quote from Clueless?
[00:18:38] Speaker C: I love the scene where she's going with Christian and her dad, and her dad is like, what's that? She's like a dress. And he's like, says who?
[00:18:49] Speaker B: Calvin Klein is also my favorite.
It's just the way she says Calvin Klein. And then she goes, no, I was totally gonna cover it up. And she covers it up with, like, the thinnest made of tissue paper.
Absolutely. That whole scene, her dad, Dan Hedaya, is incredible. Cause he also says, do you think this death of Sammy Davis Jr. Left a place in the Rat Pack?
[00:19:13] Speaker C: Such a good scene. It's just a great scene.
[00:19:16] Speaker B: So everything about Clueless is iconic. If you've seen it, watch it again.
[00:19:20] Speaker C: Watch it ten more times. This is the 1996 MTV movie of the year, and it deserves it.
[00:19:27] Speaker B: And she got, like, best newcoming actress of that. She won some awards from some guilds for being the best comedy actress of that year.
And, I mean, let me remind you that it does not say RSVP on the Statue of Liberty.
[00:19:43] Speaker C: And I just want to mention, please bring back, like, 90s high school adaptations of Shakespeare and Jane Austen and any other classic writer. It makes them so fun and so approachable in high school. It really is the perfect setting for a lot of these. These classic books.
[00:20:04] Speaker B: These were great. This was a great time in teen films. And I think we need to bring it back, because I think this movie is more than just a teen film. It's way smarter than that.
[00:20:14] Speaker C: Oh, yeah.
[00:20:15] Speaker B: But it is a good teen movie that you can watch on Kanopy right now with and Hoopla. Wow. Just watch Clueless, get everyone together and be like, wow, those clothes are so good.
[00:20:31] Speaker C: Incredible.
[00:20:31] Speaker B: It's incredible. Hey, Coral, thanks for spending time with me today.
[00:20:35] Speaker C: Oh, of course.
[00:20:36] Speaker B: This was so much fun. We need to do one of these again.
[00:20:38] Speaker C: Of course. We watch a lot of movies.
[00:20:39] Speaker B: We watch a lot of movies. Together when the Accountant two comes to Kanopy.
[00:20:44] Speaker C: You all are not ready for our Accountant 2 episode.
[00:20:49] Speaker B: Just a reminder that you can access Kanopy and Hoopla with your Pioneer Library System library card. If you have any comments or movies that you want us to watch, or also overwhelming praise for the film Clueless, please email
[email protected] until then, bye bye.
[00:21:14] Speaker A: Five Minute Film Finder is a digital program brought to you by Pioneer Library System in Oklahoma.
All opinions expressed in this episode are those of the host and not those of the organization.
Five Minute Film Finder is produced, recorded and mixed by Ben Si. Theme music by Ben Si.
If you have any questions, concerns or comments, please email podcastioneerlibrarysystem.org Remember to like, review and subscribe.
Thanks for listening.
