Podcast: The Spectacular Now & Lovelace
Sunday, August 25, 2013 at 11:48PM 
On this week's podcast -- four in a row bitches! (bet you thought we'd falter by now) -- Katey, Joe, Nick and Nathaniel discuss Amanda Seyfried's VOD title Lovelace and "research" on Deep Throat. We also hit the touching romantic teen drama The Spectacular Now with Miles 'Hit & Miss' Teller and Adorable Shailene Woodley. Before wrapping up we offer up 10th birthday gifts to Beasts of the Southern Wild's adorable star Quvenzhané Wallis.
To find out how Diane Warren's oeuvre, Eric Robert's junk, Lindsay Lohan & Amanda Bynes twin trajectories, and Maggie Gyllenhaal's marriage figure in to all of this you'll have to tune in.
You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download it on iTunes. Did you see Lovelace or The Spectacular Now? What would you give Hushpuppy for her birthday?
Reader Comments (22)
Much appreciated. This has become one of my favorite podcasts.
SO glad to have another TFE podcast. You guys have terrific chemistry. Are you planning on making this a weekly thing Nathaniel? If so, I think most of your readers will be very pleased.
Let's not give Amanda Bynes the attention she so desperately wants!
Loved Fosse's Star '80, the doomed Playboy starlet story of Dorothy Stratten (who was great in Bogdanovich's They All Laughed). They probably could make another movie about her and the whole Bogdanovich angle. Bogdanovich was definitely in love with her.... and then went on to date her sister Louise after she was murdered.
I've seen Star 80, Opening Night... and Deep Throat too!
I saw Deep Throat out of curiosity right after Inside Deep Throat, the 2005 documentary about its legacy. I totally recommend it. The doc not the porn.
Almodóvar and Nick Davis are right. Opening night is mandatory for actressexuals. Gena Rowlands is just marvelous.
I had the same VHS experience with Star 80, but just a little bit worse. My parents were watching it with me! I've been repulsed/attracted to Eric Roberts ever since.
It did sound like hidden hostility, though.
I'm interested in your thoughts but am too lazy to listen to podcasts (what's happening?! all my websites that brought me in by having interesting opinions/thoughts expressed through good WRITIING, now want me to listen to their voices). As lovely as those voices may be, I'd much prefer to read a transcript of the conversation with your entertaining little post-discussion thoughts mixed in.
*Note: This rant was done on principal and reflects my irritation with many of my frequent websites wanting me to listen to their stream of thoughs for 15, 20, 50, 90 minutes, when a) Reading a blog post for 10 minutes is much more efficient than listening to a much longer podcast for the same amount of content, b) the writing is better put/more interesting, c) I am interested in the topic under discussion and/or d) I'd much rather listen to my own music while reading the blog.
Disclosure: I didn't actually listen to this podcast - for all I know it is as fantastic as a podcast can possibly be.
@CMG: I really need to figure out a way to catch up with that film.
@Peggy Sue: Comprehensive as always! You complete all of us.
@Anonny: Nathaniel and his team do the Lord's work generating tons of new written content on this site, literally every day. Joe and Katey also write tirelessly, often about the same movies we discuss in the casts, even though they somehow avoid repeating themselves. I'm the most erratic about writing, but really: while I completely understand not being into podcasts (and don't listen to many myself), it's not as though they appear here as an alternative to written content. All of my colleagues' sites are teeming with that, too. You have plenty of choice.
Anonny -- i get it. and i personally think i express myself better in writing too but... what Nick said ;)
Quvenzhané will surprise you by showing that she didn't need any of those lessons you sent her. She'll slay Annie on charisma alone...
A few weeks ago I found the Best Actress birthday tab on Nick's website and I was mildly devastated to discover that there are no Best Actress nominees on my birthday, which was this weekend. So I officially claim Quvenzhané as my own!
Oh and Joe. YES. Soapdish counts! In my heart Sally has two Oscars and both of them are for Soapdish.
happy belated birthday TB!
Also, after watching DP/30 I feel like the film care packages for Ms. Wallis should also be given to Miles Teller and Shailene Woodley for not getting a reference to them being a ' potential Tracy and Hepburn team' with Teller stating, 'Oh, Cate Blanchett played Katharine Hepburn in The Aviator, right?' They both seem likable but I'd put them through classic movie bootcamp stat. I'm their age, I cannot let this stand.
Wow, TB, thank you for pointing me to that list-- and to Nick for putting it together. HOW did I never know that I share a birthday with both Gena Rowlands AND Kathleen Turner! The only date I can see that's better is April 24-- Shirley Maclaine AND Barbra Streisand.
I saw "The Spectacular Now" last Friday (and "Blue Jasmine" Saturday and "The Butler" Sunday. I need a comedy, badly). Woodley gives a fine performance, and basically floods the role with a kind of luminescence you occasionally see in young performers (I always though Keri Russell had it in spades). However, her role is more supporting than lead, and isn't as well sketched-in--she mentions her mom and sister on several occasions, but aside from an obnoxious little brother we know very little about her, compared with Miles Teller's character. (This dynamic also occurred in "(500) Days of Summer.") Similarly, referencing "Summer," Tell is also quite good, but he just can't inhabit the role as effortlessly and charismatically as Joseph Gordon-Leavitt did in "Summer." This role also has a LOT more dark and dramatic stuff, which Teller proved he was up for with "Rabbit Hole," so maybe he just needed a couple more scenes to strut his stuff, since the movie was only 95 minutes. Also, on a purely superficial level, but: Teller has a number of scars on his face and neck, but the movie never mentions them--I initially thought they were the result of some sort of abuse from his father when his character was a kid, but apparently not. I wish they'd done something to smooth them out via makeup, as they were a little distracting. (Yes, yes, I know: Danny Trejo. Nonetheless.)
i dont have any best actress birthdays on mine either. *sniffle* now i must be forced to wonder if i have any supporting actress birthdays on mine.
I'm catching up on the podcasts finally! I had to download them from the site since my iTunes has been acting up lately. Currently on "The Butler" podcast, but I'm really looking forward to this one since I've seen "The Spectacular Now" and "The Canyons" (which is what I hope you guys mention, in talking about VOD and Lindsay Lohan).
@Dback, Teller was in a car accident a couple years ago. He was asked about it recently in an IndieWire interview:
***
I wanted to ask about your scars, because there are times when they're especially noticeable in this movie. There's one on your chin, one on your neck, a few on your face, and one on your shoulder. What are they from?
Six years ago, when I was 20, I got in a really bad car accident with two of my buddies. My friend was driving my car and we were going about 80 mph on I-95, and he went to switch lanes, but there was a car there. And he just overcompensated, so we went across three lanes, flipped like eight times and I got ejected out the window. I had been sitting in the front seat, and my friends got out of the car and found me laying 30 feet away, unconscious, covered in blood. I see my buddy, and I'm like "Hey man, what happened?" And when he said we were in a car accident, I was like, "Aw, shit man, my mom's gonna be so pissed!" And then I go to sit up and I see the look on my friend's face. He said "don't sit up, you're hurt really fucking bad." Then it hit me: "Okay, I'm not in a car, therefore I've been ejected." And then there were all the thoughts that come with that — all the stories you hear. At the time I couldn't feel my legs. It just overwhelmed me and I started crying and all this shit, and I blacked out and woke up in a hospital with a doctor stitching me up. I had a bunch of stitches in my face, this cut on my neck was pretty bad, and I had like 20 staples in my shoulder. Three weeks later I was back at college, but I was pretty messed up. Every audition I went on, they were like, "Oh my God, what happened to your face?" Everybody would ask me that. Now, nobody. I've had people I've known for a long time be like, "Did you get scratched or something?" And it's like, "No man, I've had these scars forever, you just never noticed." ["Rabbit Hole" director] John Cameron Mitchell loved them. He's like, "I think they're so real! It tells a story!"
http://www.indiewire.com/article/the-spectacular-now-breakout-miles-teller-on-what-separates-him-from-the-pack-if-i-was-more-attractive-id-be-in-tv
I'm glad these podcasts seem to be a regular thing now! I thought you only did them before the Oscars. I'll probably not get to watch "Lovelace" or "The Spectacular Now," but it was nice hearing you guys dissect them for us. I did see "Star 80" though. Eric Roberts has never been better than he was in this film. On a generous day, I might even support a nomination for Mariel Hemingway. And happy birthday, Quvenzhane! You'll always be my best actress Oscar winner of choice for 2012!
I just... do not know about The Spectacular Now. I loved all those small, seemingly un-acted moments and those great long takes of Miles Teller and Shailene Woodley just being together and relating to each other, and the performances were all great... but the film as a whole built up to almost nothing for me. Somewhere in the last act it fell apart, and I'm not sure where, or why, or how. Maybe because the whole thing was SO low-key, especially for a film about teenagers falling in love? I don't know. I wanted to love it, but I ended up only liking it.
Jackson -- yeah, Eric Roberts was robbed of an Oscar nom for that movie. I think it was just too scuzzy for them. Very R rated movie.
Denny -- i sorta felt the same. The last act is deflating. But really loved the falling-in-love portions.
@Nathaniel/Katey--Thanks for the birthday wishes! Happy to point out a fun section of Nick's amazing website.
Just saw The Spectacular Now today. Genuinely one of the strangest viewing experiences I've ever had. It was...too real? Too recognizable? Maybe it's because I grew up desperately afraid that I would be sucked down and held back by all of the Sutters that I grew up with, and maybe its because that age is not that far behind me, but I totally cringed my way through the movie. Thought it was well made and that the actors (especially Shailene Woodley--that last shot!) were very good, but I can't recall the last time I was that uncomfortable in a movie theater.
Just finished catching up to all the August podcasts, and I really love them! I think I listened to "The Butler" one like 2-3 times now, haha.
I've seen "The Canyons" already, so I guess in terms of a Video-On-Demand double feature with "Lovelace" I'll add in that Brian De Palma "Passion" (w/Rachel McAdams) film!
Then I think I'll follow it up with the gorgeous looking "And While We Were Here" (w/Kate Bosworth) and that Paul Rudd-Emile Hirsch movie "Prince Avalanche"!