Episode Transcript
[00:00:06] Speaker A: Welcome to five minute film Finder, brought to you by Pioneer Library system.
Hello, and welcome to five minute film Finder, the podcast where we take five minutes to sell you on a movie available on the streaming services hoopla or canopy. I'm Jamie, and today I am joined by Amanda.
[00:00:26] Speaker B: Hey, Jamie.
[00:00:27] Speaker A: Hello. So we have chosen a couple of movies, kind of. We got a theme going here, sort of like teen coming of age films, and we're gonna tell you about those and why we chose, why we like them. And we've got our trusty friend Wilhelm here to keep us on track and try to keep us to that five minutes. So I'm gonna start off. I'm gonna tell you about my pick, and then Amanda, we'll take a quick break, and then Amanda will tell us about her choice. So. All right, Wilhelm, you can start the timer.
Okay, so my choice is the. It's classified as a teen fantasy comedy called Teen Witch. It came out in 1989, directed by Dorian Walker. It is rated pg 13, and it's available on Hoopla. So I loved this movie as a kid, and I don't remember why. We were talking about something movies recently, and I thought of this movie, and I was like, have you seen this? And you had not, and I made you watch it. So Robin Lively, who she was half sister to Blake Lively, in case you didn't know, she stars as Louise. She is a nerdy high school girl who she wants to be popular. She wants the star quarterback, Brad, to notice her, but she's also, she's, like, 15, and she's been skipped her grade, so she's a little bit younger than some of her classmates, so she definitely feels a little out of place.
Also stars Zelda Rubenstein, who you may know from Poltergeist. She plays a seer named Serena, who Louise meets, and Serena tells her that she is a witch who will receive powers on her upcoming 16th birthday. She doesn't believe Serena at first, but after she turns 16, she kind of finds she's started able to do things like turn her little brother into a dog. And then she decides she's gonna use that to try and get exactly what she wants, which is to be popular and to get Brad what we all want. Right? I mean, to get Brad, who. Brad was played by Dan Gothier, and when I was a kid, I thought he was Tom Cruise.
To me, he looks exactly like Tom Cruise. And so I was convinced that that was Tom Cruise starring in this movie. It's not, but. So, yeah, she gets Brad to fall in love with her. And then as the movie goes along, she kind of realizes that maybe that's not. I mean, she wants start to question, like, does he like me for me or because I'm popular now. And so I think overall, it's kind of got. It's got a little bit of a good message, you know, maybe be yourself and all that. But it's very campy. It's almost like a musical, but not really. There's musical montages, but there's no actual singing, but almost like just like a series of music videos. So it's fun. It's campy. Like I said, I loved it as a kid and watching it as adult, like, I still enjoy it.
[00:03:30] Speaker B: She's very eighties.
[00:03:34] Speaker A: She's got, like, a side pony going. She's got the crimped hair.
[00:03:36] Speaker B: But it's great. Like, in a great way.
[00:03:38] Speaker A: Yes.
Her little brother is played Joshua. John Miller, I believe is his name. And Richie. He plays Richie. And he's probably my favorite part of this movie.
[00:03:51] Speaker B: Yeah, he's really good.
[00:03:52] Speaker A: Yeah. His little brother. He's a perfect little brother. He's terrible.
He pesters her, but he's hilarious. He's got some great line deliveries, and I really enjoyed him.
[00:04:04] Speaker B: And his one character trait is he likes to eat.
[00:04:06] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:04:07] Speaker B: Constantly eating all the time.
[00:04:09] Speaker A: I don't know what that's about, but that's just sort of like his thing is he's just.
[00:04:14] Speaker B: He's gonna be all the time.
[00:04:16] Speaker A: Maybe that's what it is. But I think the songs are kind of. There's some earworms for me. I mean, it's very cheesy. It's very campy. So if you were looking for just kind of a laid back good time or you wanna watch a movie and make fun of it, if you're one of those that likes to watch bad movies just to kind of make fun of them, this is a movie for you.
There is a bit of trivia for you. This is according to IMDb, and you gotta take it with a grain of salt. But that claims that the house that Louise walks into at the start of the movie where she first meets Serena.
[00:04:49] Speaker B: The mansion.
[00:04:50] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:04:50] Speaker B: Oh, no, not the man. Oh, yeah. Okay. The mansion.
[00:04:52] Speaker A: That's it. Apparently that was used by Michael Jackson in his 1983 video for Thriller.
[00:04:59] Speaker B: Oh, okay.
[00:05:00] Speaker A: Again, though, it's IMDb.
You know, who knows if that's true? But, yeah. So this movie is available, like I said on Hoopla. Oh, I forgot to say it did not do well on its release, apparently. I just thought this was fascinating. It grossed $3,875 in its opening weekend and only made 27,000 in its entire run. But it has since gained cult status, and it was viewed on cable. Disney Channel played it. And so now it's kind of, I think, also, like Halloween, freeform plays it. There are 31 days of Halloween. So, yeah, so it's gains and cold status. But yeah, like I said on Hoopla, if you have not seen it, I think it's worth a watch. And if you're like me and you grew up with it and want to put on some nostalgia colored glasses, take a look at teen witch. And, hey, I am actually under my five minutes for once, so. All right, so now we're going to take a quick break, and then we're going to come back, and Amanda is going to tell us about her choice.
Welcome back to five minute film finder. So I just told you all about Teen witch, and now Amanda is going to tell us about her choice. And, Wilhelm, will you start the timer?
[00:06:28] Speaker B: Okay. I'm here to talk about Ghost World from 2001, and it's on Hoopla right now. And it's directed by Terry Zweigoff. And the only other thing that I'm familiar with that he directed is the documentary crumb about the, what? Wikipedia describes the subject of crumb as an underground cartoonist. The cartoonist are crumb. I've never heard of it from 1994. I watched it a really long time ago, like in the nineties.
And it's based, but this is fiction, and it's based on the graphic novel by Daniel Clowes, I think is how you pronounce his name. It's c l o w e s is his last name. And it stars Thor Burch as our lead, Enid. But then she also has kind of a co lead. Scarlett Johansson plays her best friend, Becky. Steve Buscemi plays sad sack Seymour.
[00:07:15] Speaker A: Poor Seymour.
[00:07:16] Speaker B: And it has just a ton of actors that, you know, if you watch it, you'll be like, oh, there's that person. There's that person.
[00:07:21] Speaker A: Terry Gar.
[00:07:22] Speaker B: Yes. Plays the hated Mexie.
[00:07:24] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:07:24] Speaker B: Her dad, who, for whatever reason, we don't really know, like, we see her briefly, but we know Edith hates her. I know why. She's just the stepmom, I guess, just as a step mom. No one wants a step mom or no teenage teen daughter, like, I guess.
[00:07:38] Speaker A: And her dad was Bob Balaban. Yeah, from, like, the Christopher guest movies.
[00:07:44] Speaker B: And he's great as her dad. He's almost too sensitive because he seems to. Of course, Enid is irritated by everybody. So I guess you can't really say.
[00:07:53] Speaker A: But, you know, she's a teenager.
[00:07:54] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And it just has all these great actors in it. And then every character who's not, like, a name person has such a distinct look. They're right out of the comic book when she's working at the theater, and there's a customer that comes up with a huge rat tail that comes over his shoulder. Do you remember that guy? Yes. So every character has a distinct look. And then there's a guy in the sidewinder quickstop who has no shirt and a mullet and that nunchucks all the time. So, yeah, there's all these. It's filled with amazing actors and then also just amazing characters.
Okay, so it's about Enid and Becky, and they just graduated from high school, and they're ready to start their lives and get an apartment and get jobs. They decide they're not going to the college. But wait, Enid flunked. She didn't realize that she didn't pass art class, so she has to go to her medial art class for the summer. And so Becky goes on and is gonna plan and get a job and find an apartment for it.
[00:08:50] Speaker A: She's kind of a responsible one.
[00:08:51] Speaker B: She is, yeah. And when I first saw this movie, I have to admit I did really did not like Enid. I was like, she's making so many mistakes. She's being so many.
[00:08:58] Speaker A: I didn't like her watching this. This was my first time watching it. And I was like, she's awful.
[00:09:03] Speaker B: Yeah, she's awful.
[00:09:05] Speaker A: She's not even sure enough about her.
[00:09:07] Speaker B: Yeah. So Enid starts this class, and Enid is an artist in her own, you know? Right. Like, she keeps this diary that's her own, like, doodles. And the diary was actually created by R. Crumb's daughter, Sophie Crumb. She does the art in Enid's sketchbook for the film.
[00:09:23] Speaker A: That's cool.
[00:09:24] Speaker B: And she's just trying to figure things out. And I think it's one of the things I love about Enid is she's kind of unlikable. She makes a lot of mistakes. She's pushy.
She kind of asserts herself in things.
And also, they just do this thing where they're just kind of killing time and going around and being obnoxious and so.
And, like, kind of being mean to people.
[00:09:47] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, I didn't like her. She's annoying and mean, but I feel like she was very real. Very.
[00:09:53] Speaker B: Yes. Very. And she's.
When I like watch this film. I see a lot of myself in her just because I feel like she's, like, searching for something. A lot. Like in the film lady bird that we.
[00:10:03] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, yeah.
[00:10:04] Speaker B: That we reviewed last time. She's, like, trying on kind of different Personas, like, with her personal style, like, with the clothes she wears and, like, trying out kind of, like, flirting with Seymour and, like, flirting with Josh.
The first time I watched this film, I was so worried about that relationship with Enid and Seymour because he was so much older, and it just kind of weirded me.
[00:10:25] Speaker A: Yeah, it is.
[00:10:26] Speaker B: But she's so, you know, kind of unlikable, but then also. Yeah, like, he's a very real. And just makes. She makes mistakes and she feels bad for them. So, like, there's a scene in the film where she answers a personal ad, and Seymour shows, you know, they're just pranking him or whatever, and they. And they. They meet. She has him meet at a diner. Diner, and they just watch him sit there and suffer. But then they're suffering, too, because she starts to realize. Starts to feel really bad for what she did. But then she ends up befriending him. And they kind of become this odd couple of, like, she's, like, 18 and he's 40 something. And I read a review that talked about how this film was made, like, in 2001 at a time when, like, nerd culture wasn't, like, really mainstream yet. And so. And probably the graphic novel also. So, yeah, it has, like, characters like, Enid, who is into a lot of, like, what you call, like, kind of, like, fringe things. Like, she has. A film starts out with, like, a dance sequence. Oh, I'm over. Oh, no.
The film starts out. Let me wrap it up. A film starts with a sequence. A dance sequence, sort of. Of. Well, no, like, a montage of Enid getting ready for graduation. And she's watching a video from, like, a Bollywood, like, dance scene. And, you know, then it, like, cuts to scenes of just other people in her apartment complex, like, from the outside of their windows and just showing, like, their boring lives. Right? And so you see Enid, and she's, like. She's looking for other things to be into. She's, like, trying all kinds of things. She's into all kinds of, like, music no one else is into. And I think that kind of is what draws her to Seymour because he's so into, like, the blues and, like, blues culture. Like, very early in, like, twenties and. Yeah, like, 1920s. Not like 20 year old blues singers. Right. But the movie is as far as genre, I would say it's like a dark comedy because there are aspects of, like, she's kind of mean to seymour, she's mean to her. And she and Becky have kind of a adversarial, kind of, like, relationship. They kind of tease each other in, like, mean ways and.
But I just really love this film, so I don't have any objectivity about it at all at this point. If you like Lady Birn, it's another, like, coming of age film. If you like films about kind of unlikable characters, if you like the film young adulthood with Charlize. Yeah, Charlize Theron. She plays a really unlikeable person in that film.
You might like this one also. But like I said, it's on Hoopla. Hoopla. It is rated r. So it's not grandma appropriate. I wouldn't say, but yeah, it's just a lot of fun and I recommend it to everybody, even though the first watch might be kind of hard just because she is so unlikable. But I just, every time I watch it, I watched it last night again for like, the 10th, 12th time, and I just have smile on my face the whole time.
[00:13:11] Speaker A: Well, I know. I mean, Thor Burch is great, and she's a great actress.
Is good. I was actually kind of surprised. I thought Scarlet would have a bigger role and she didn't. She was the side character. Really?
[00:13:21] Speaker B: Yeah. She's support.
[00:13:22] Speaker A: I kind of thought it would focus on both of them.
[00:13:24] Speaker B: She's the person that's, like, conforming and ready to go out there and start.
[00:13:26] Speaker A: Adulthood, get a job.
[00:13:27] Speaker B: And Enid is like, kind of, like, stuck. Like, she doesn't quite know what she wants to do and she definitely doesn't want to have a job. Yeah, she doesn't want to work at the computer station with Maxine, that's for sure.
[00:13:38] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. Maxine's going to get her a job.
And I know my portion's over, but I just, I cannot believe that I completely forgot to mention from Teen Witch, the, the rap number topped that. Oh, like, that's the iconic scene. Most people know it, and I just completely forgot to mention it. But anyway, so, but that, yeah, so. All right. Well, thanks, Amanda, for your review. And if you enjoyed listening to our show today, please be sure to leave us a like and subscribe to our channel from wherever you receive your podcasts. If you have any questions or want to share your thoughts on the films we've covered, feel free to leave a comment and a rating. Or you can email us at podcast ioneirlibrarysystem.org and be sure and check out the movies that are offered through Hoopla and Kanopy. They are free with your library card, so. All right. Well, thanks, Amanda.
[00:14:37] Speaker B: Thanks, Jamie.
[00:14:38] Speaker A: Thank you all for listening.
