Wednesday, January 25, 2017

F This Movie! 370 - Chasing Amy

Patrick and Rob DiCristino finally have something personal to say.



Download this episode here. (49.8 MB)

Subscribe to F This Movie! in iTunes.

Listen to F This Movie! on Stitcher.

Also discussed this episode: Prince of Darkness (1987), Cheap Thrills (2014), Train to Busan (2016), Creepers (1985), Death Race 2050 (2017), Resident Evil: Extinction (2007)

8 comments:

  1. i love kevin smith. i even love his bad movies (except jersey girl, but that's another topic). i'm not in love with his new pothead personna (yes, more than before), but i love that he's doing whatever he wants. so we get red state, tusk and yoga hoser. i like them all

    it took me time to like chasing amy though. i thought affleck's character was too much of an asshole making too many bad decisions for the sake of the movie. over time i rediscovered it and now i love it.

    but nothing beats jay and silent bob strikes back. a movie that couldn't exist without the first part of smith's filmography.

    ReplyDelete
  2. also, regarding physical media. i also found myself nuying less and less recent movies and spending more and more on Criterion, Shout, Arrow or Twilight Time release.

    i do buy all of the marvels movies, because i love them all.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I saw this as a rental when I was 14 or 15, because my video store guy was cool, and it blew my head up. It seemed at the time that Kevin Smith was going to become some kind of new Woody Allen, exploring his own personal interests in the world and in people in ways that nobody else could.

    I don't keep up with why people hate or love him, I just watch the flicks, and I've enjoyed all of his to different degrees for different reasons. I do think he's still an interesting movie maker that could potentially still make a movie that's truly impressive.

    I do wonder that because now there's so fucking much feedback and noise non-stop about everything if it's really harming film making in a very real way. It seems like many movies are made not to be themselves but because of how the last movie was received and chewed over endlessly. Kind of the opposite of creativity if stories are crafted to NOT be something.

    And last I remember playing Resident Evil 2 on Sega and getting the big whimwhams. The movie franchise really fucked up what could've been an awesome horror action series.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I guess I was in middle school or early HS when I saw this. I did not understand ANYTHING. ANYTHING! Basically I didn't see it. I should re-watch, it sounds interesting. Oh but guys IRL like Holden, as you describe him... yikes.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Wow. I laughed through the whole scene with Jay and Silent Bob. Based only on seeing those guys on movie covers over the years, I thought they would be goofy and stupid characters, respectively, but one is super creepy and the other is bizarrely profound. HAHAHA!

      I feel like I get why the movie's beloved- from the hockey scene and on its amazing. I really liked it. Thank you, Patrick and Rob!

      Holden's male egotism is not at all on the same level I was imagining. I was picturing DT, or Casey Affleck on The Colbert show.

      Delete
  5. The show has been on a roll as of late, just great show after great show. Chasing Amy was a big deal for me as a teenager. It was my secret favorite Kevin Smith movie, not because I was ashamed of it, but rather for the simple reason that I knew that my friends and family wouldn't get it. They wouldn't give it the time of day. I first discovered Smith through Dogma, being a young Catholic, I was so fascinated by it. I found out about Clerks through a trailer on a VHS tape a long time ago and then I found out the same guy who made Dogma made that black and white Clerks movie, lol. Before I knew it I was deep into the Kevin Smith universe. It was my thing for a good year I'd say, leading up to Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back coming out around that time. So, I was always the one to show my friends these movies that they otherwise had no chance of seeing or knowing about. I showed them all of Smith's movies and they loved Mallrats and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back the most, being teenagers, that humor was perfect. However, I always thought that Chasing Amy was special, it felt like Kevin Smith's sweet spot in many ways. I think in many ways I identified with the Holden character in the beginning a lot going into this movie. I had known of homosexuality only through sitcoms as a kid, we didn't have a lot of exposure to it otherwise. I grew up catholic, but I never looked down or bought into that belief that these people are wrong or confused or whatever. I always hated that stuff, my own family members, like grandparents would make typical homophobic comments here and there if the topic would come up in conversation. Not pure hatred but just supposedly harmless yet offensive jokes. I loved Chasing Amy because it was so different, in many ways it was educational to me. I love how it takes so many different perspectives on sexuality and throws them together into one thought-provoking, conversation put to film.

    I used to love that comment by Smith on the commentary of my DVD version of Chasing Amy. I also used to love listening to that commentary track, what a time in Ben Affleck's life, just captured so perfectly on an audio commentary of all things.

    I never liked the whole, Banky is in love with Holden thing, I agree with you guys, such a cop-out. It just didn't feel original like the rest of the film does, so out of place. Jason Lee is my absolute favorite thing about this movie and perhaps all of Smith's movies. It's too bad they haven't done anything else together because Smith's words coming out of Lee's mouth were so perfect.

    Bravo fellas! I could have listened to another hour of this show, you guys broke it down very well, so much to talk about.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I saw this for the first time last fall. It really felt like a movie I should have seen in my early twenties. It really would have blown my mind if I had seen in high school or college, but seeing now it does feel almost old fashioned. I still enjoyed it, but it felt more like an artifact of its time than anything else

    ReplyDelete
  7. Listened to this (terrific) podcast and it got me to check out this movie. I really enjoyed it. You're right that it has so much to say about being a young man. I was fascinated.

    I'm also absolutely with Patrick on interpreting Jason Lee's sexuality.

    ReplyDelete