Film Quiz Friday

I admit, I was rooting for cousin Karen on this one because Cameron Crowe's 1992 film Singles was filmed entirely in the Seattle area where she used to reside. (Although, she was a suburban girl and wasn't likely to be found hanging out in clubs, watching Alice in Chains perform. I think.) I guess I thought she might have heard of the film simply by virtue of proximity but, alas, I guess not.

Anyway, Crowe wrote the screenplay for Fast Times at Ridgemont High, wrote and directed the John Cusack opus Say Anything, and then did Singles. He's since gone on to bigger and (sometimes) much worse things. (Can you say Elizabethtown?) Jerry Maguire, Vanilla Sky, Almost Famous, etc.

Singles was his transition film between stories about teenagers to more sophisticated, adult fare. It focuses on a group of twenty-somethings in Seattle during the so-called Grunge period. The characters meet, fall in love, break up, listen to music, lose their jobs, go back to school, etc. The film was notable for highlighting bands like Alice in Chains, Screaming Trees, and a little band named Mookie Blaylock (later to be known as Pearl Jam.) The film is also distinctive because of it's very writerly screenplay. Crowe is a guy who delights in wry dialogue and in memorable one-liners. He is the guy responsible, after all, for "Show me the money." The quotes both the Admiral and Tracy used in the comments section bear this out. Debbie Hunt is a kind of desperate man-eater character who, at one point, makes a dating video and it has a catchphrase - "Come to where the flavor is. Come to Debbie Country!" She also declares that "Desperation is the world's worst cologne" which was almost my choice for the quote of the week. (On a side note, the guy who "directs" Debbie's video is played by Tim Burton, director of Beetlejuice, Batman, Alice in Wonderland, etc. It's a tiny cameo but very funny.) It's fun to listen to the nuanced character bits that come out just through dialogue.

Anyway, the film also features Kyra Sedgewick in a rare leading film role. It's her former boyfriend, Mr. Sensitive Ponytail Man, who uses the term "emotional larceny."

Matt Dillon plays Cliff Poncier, a deluded, undertalented front man for a band called Citizen Dick. I think Dillon is a talented guy and I think this is one of his great, under-appreciated performances. He plays puff-chested cluelessness perfectly. One of my favorite moments is when his long-suffering girlfriend Janet (Bridget Fonda), suffering from insecurity, pointedly asks him, "Cliff, are my breasts too small for you?" The look of serious contemplation, confusion, and uncertainty on Dillon's face is as classic as his reply: "Sometimes?"

Campbell Scott, the male lead, did not get along with Crowe at all during filming and the two had several well-documented shouting matches on the set. One point of tension was the fact that Scott came to the film directly from filming Forever Young with Julia Roberts. In it, he played a guy dying of cancer. So when he showed up to be a romantic lead, he was bald, skinny, and looked like crap. Crowe wasn't happy to see him like that. Apparently, in the time it took them to locate a decent wig, Scott's hair grew out just enough to begin filming his scenes.

As far as the film representing the grunge era in Seattle, it seems a little too clean and polite to really be any kind of real portrait. Nevertheless, it's one of my faves from way back and writing about it has made me want to track it down on DVD so I can have it on in the background while I'm folding laundry or whatever. It's one of those that I can watch over and over again.


This week's quote is from another favorite of mine, a first film from an important director, and an inspiration to a lot of other films that followed it. I don't anticipate anyone knowing it but I'll pitch a softball next week:

"I know exactly what kind of woman you are. You're a no-good, nosey little tramp... you'd sell out your mother for a piece of fudge. You have a great big dollar sign where most people have a heart."