Speaker 1: We're Tarmy Lorenzo, and this is the Bitter Kitten Movie Club. Hello,
Kitten's welcome back to another edition of the b k MC,
a supplemental edition of the PSO where we take a
look at one film per week and dissected and Lorenzo
is laughing his ass off, but we're not cutting.
Speaker 2: It takes like five times.
Speaker 1: This is like the fifth time I've had the Actually
it's literally only the second time.
Speaker 2: Anyway, Are we done?
Speaker 1: Feel better? Okay? Nothing but a lamp riot here at
the b k MC. Okay, so it's.
Speaker 2: A lot of btr TC over that's white anyway.
Speaker 1: So this week's film is nineteen ninety five's To Die
For by director Gus Vnsant, starring Nicole Kidman, Matt Dillon,
Joaquin Phoenix, and a bunch of other nineties.
Speaker 2: Faces Ileana Douglas, Aleanna Douglas, Allison with a Nhim Follin
or something like that.
Speaker 1: Anyway, she dropped out. She's not an actress anymore anyway.
So we take a look at a film every week
and just try and dissect it and talk about it
and you know, and figure it out. This week's film,
like I said, is to dive for and as always
with the BKMC, there's a short podcast about the film
that gets attached to a much longer essay about the
film that will be posted on our say tom on
Lorenzo dot com. So you hadn't seen the movie, yes,
I want to start off. I want to toss to
you because we have very different experiences of this film.
I admitted last week I think I had never seen
this film. I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I
wasn't avoiding this film, but for some reason it slipped
through the cracks and I never did see it. It's
one of those films that's so much a part of
the culture that you almost feel like you have seen
it if you even if you haven't. And so I
finally sat down this week to watch it after you know,
thirty one years, and I have some observations shout there
were certain aspects of it. I was like, oh, I
did not expect this to be that. But I want
you to go first, because you have a long history
with the film.
Speaker 2: Well, I when I was a little boy, a homosexual boy,
I used to get I used to get together with
my homosexual friends and watch movies and gush.
Speaker 3: Oh, we're not a little boy. When this movie came out.
Speaker 2: Well, well, anyway, my point is that when I was young, my.
Speaker 1: Friend even that young, all right, you should be determined
to make it sound like you were fourteen years old them.
Speaker 2: And anyway, well, okay, when whenever I used to get
together with my friend and watch movies, you know, and
usually you know, all my gay friends who watch movies
about people, you know, people like Nicole Kidman and you know,
these great actresses that anyway, so I remember watching with
my friends when we loved it because she was so
bitchy and determined and evil and all that. So we
love the movie back then. And then I watch it again,
and then I watch it now for the for this,
and I still love it. I think, first of all,
I can't get over how gorgeous she looks because she's
so young, I know, and they and it's such a
great cast because that's exactly what they needed for the character,
someone blonde and and you know, just blue eyed and
and you know, very American looking and all that. So yeah,
she's perfect for that. Although she's Australian, but anyway, it's
just perfect. She's perfect for that. And I'm surprised. That
not surprised, but I was pleased that she did such
a great job, you know, in the beginning of her career.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's not.
Speaker 1: I mean, she was already married to Tom Cruise at
that point and they had she had had several big films,
but I think this was her first major solo. Yeah,
and I do think. I always think of it, and
I think in retrospect it's largely true that this is
kind of the film that put her on the map.
I mean, she was a movie star prior to this.
I think she had done Far and Away with Tom
Cruise at that point, but this was the film that
made people realize that she's an actor. Like she can ask,
she can do a good job. Okay, so my observations
going into this number one, Now, these are gonna be observations.
They're not criticisms, right, They're just I had an expectation
going into it, and then I and I was and
I'm only saying this. I wouldn't approach every film this way.
I wouldn't approach a new film this way. But like
I said, this film has over three decades of you know,
history behind it. It's kind of an iconic part of
nineties culture, in nineties cinematic cultures, So a film like
that builds up a sort of mythology around it or
a sort of vibe around it. And when I actually
watched the film, it was very interesting to me to
unpack how it did not it. I don't want to
say it did not meet my expectations because that makes
it sound like I was disappointed, but it did certain
things that I was I didn't expect. Number one, I
didn't realize like I thought her character was had a career.
Like you see all the clips and everything, and you
think she's some newswoman and everything, and then you watch
the movie and it's like, oh no, she's not. She's
not she's not what you know, what you thought she was.
And that gets to my point about the film being
quite a bit darker than I thought it was going
to be and when and I mean, it's about a murder,
so obviously it's going to be a black comedy. It's
me and I don't mean that as a criticism, but
it is a mean spirited movie. It takes a dim
view of literally everybody in the movie. There's nobody you know,
and I don't mean like, Oh, there's nobody likable in
this story. It's just like I was surprised that she's dumb,
Like Nicole Kidman's character is actually dumb.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's That's great about her character is
that she's very driven, you.
Speaker 3: Know, like, but she's not smart.
Speaker 2: She's not mark when she's in Florida, for example, you
know that scene that she doesn't.
Speaker 1: Get she doesn't get what yeah, what the guy say?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: The felloped it.
Speaker 1: In like ten seconds because none of it was planned
out or anything.
Speaker 2: But I do like that. I do like and I
think the movie makes fun of everybody, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that's what I mean about it being
mean spirited, literally everybody. I thought it was mean about
those teenagers, but I think a movie made. One of
the things I want to unpack today is is what
if this movie was made today?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 3: And I think.
Speaker 1: I think a movie in twenty twenty six dealing with
the same same topic, I think would take a more
sympathetic view of those teenagers. I don't think the film
is unsympathetic to them, because it's very clear that these kids.
Speaker 3: Have no chance.
Speaker 2: But that's that's the movies very much of its time. Like,
you know, when we used to make fun of high school.
There were a ton of movies about it, this make
You Free column by Yeah, yeah, I know. So it's
it wasn't going to unpack that sort of thing. And
also the whole Italian thing, you know, like and it's
small mind, it's small town. You have a restaurant, and
you happy with your life. That's all you want. You
want as opposed to her wanting to be you know,
like this big, big.
Speaker 1: Tele thing about the Italian stuff. Early in the film
there were references made to the Mafia, and I was like, oh,
that's kind of sloppy, you know, like you wouldn't make
that kind of joke. But it turns out there with
an actual there was an actual tie to the Mafia
near the end of the film. I mean, so, yes,
the film is a lot more mean spirited than I
then I originally assumed going into it. I really thought,
here's what like Suzanne Stone her character. I kept thinking,
you know, she exists on this continuum of like cher
Horowitz and Clueless and Elle Woods illegally blonde, and even
like Tracy Flick in Election where it's the nineties era
or roughly turn of the century post feminist, you know,
Susan Faludi's backlash, where it's like all of these super
girly characters that were somewhat threatening in certain ways, even clueless.
You know, she's like socially threatening. R el Woods, even
though she's a heroine, she is threatening to a natural order.
Tracy Flick, same thing. Now, Suzanne's stone is on a
different level because she's an actual murder.
Speaker 3: Well she's not a murder.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, I guess she is a murderer, but esthetically
she fits like she's right between cher Horowitz and l
Woods in terms of style, in terms of how she
was dressed, in terms of the entire esthetic, and even
I think Nicole Kimmens's performance, which actually does predate clueless
and legally blonde. So I don't I can't say that
she influenced those performances, but you can see them. You
can just see them in her sort of wide eyed,
perky sort of sociopathy and the and in the outfits,
the the little pink suits and the polka dots and
all of the pastels that she wears. So, like I said,
I what makes her different from those characters is that
she's dumb, none of those other like those other blonde
post feminist characters were all very very smart, but she's
actually dumb, which again I think is of its time,
because I think the assumption is, you know, pre l Woods,
that a character like that would have to be dumb.
There you didn't have a cinematic example of a smart, devious, girly,
pastel wearing blonde. So I thought that part was interesting.
I thought it was interesting that the kids were that
the script is so mean to those kids. And I
this is not a criticism, but I think if this
film was made in twenty twenty six, it have way
more of a gay sensibility to it. Gus Vansayan is
a gay director, and it's not that his gayness doesn't
inform his aesthetic or his work. There is camp in
his work, and there's clearly camp in this film, but
it is such a subdued nineties form of camp, whereas
I feel like if someone were to make this film
in twenty twenty six, it would be all glitter and
drag queens, which would not be an improvement. And then
the other thing is I did think it was there's
like no queer people in the movie at all, and
that's just a consequence of it being made in nineteen
ninety five, and there's no need to be queer people
in the story. However, the teenage girl, there's some implication.
Speaker 2: That she's a lesbian.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, and then the sister.
Speaker 1: The sister has this female friend who's in the background,
and it's a very nineties way of alluding to queerness
without actually and I wonder if modern audiences would even
catch those references. But in nineteen ninety five, gay people
would look at that and go, oh, his sister's a lesbian, right,
you know.
Speaker 2: I remember at the time when I saw the movie,
what everyone talked about was like how fabulous she was,
Nicole Kidman, and how the character, how fabulous the character was,
and how mean she was, how bitch that she was,
and everybody loved it. Oh yeah, of course she's losse
incredible and she's mean to everybody, so of course everybody's
gonna like that. Car. I think it's interesting. I think
there's so many elements. I think the movie is very
witty too. I mean, there's like the drops things here
and there, Like the beginning of the movie, for example,
when you have all the news about what happened.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the opening montage, it's beautiful. It's really really well done.
I mean it really forces you to sit there and
pay attention to the credits.
Speaker 2: And when they talk about now you need to see
the whole picture, and they kind of pixelate everything and
then to the point that it's just one big circle.
And she wears a lot of polka dots. So I
think that's interesting that her costumes had polka dot and
you know, they emphasize the fact that sometimes you two
in into it, right, that you don't see the big picture.
Speaker 1: I do think the polka dots were an interesting costume
design motile, right, And I think you're right. I think
that does refer to the pixelated pictures because I think, again,
if this film we're made today, she'd be in sequence,
she'd be in outrageous florals, and she'd almost certainly be
in designer clothes, even though that character cannot afford designer clothes.
And I did think the costume designer made a really
interesting choice that was very nineties, which is that she's
clearly wearing.
Speaker 3: Off the rack clothes.
Speaker 1: They're cheap looking, the fabrics don't look expensive, and things
don't actually fit her that well, like some of those
jackets don't actually fit her that well. Now that's all deliberate,
like it's not. Of course, if a character's wearing a
poorly fitted outfit, it's not because someone failed at their job.
It's because they're trying to say something about them. And
I think it again, if this movie were made in
twenty twenty six, a costume designer would be sourcing all
of these Chanel pieces and there would be like some oh,
she got it on the real reel or something to
sort of explain it.
Speaker 2: But I do like that she wears these fail thing Yeah,
these eye popping looks.
Speaker 1: That, to be quite honest, not to you know, toot
our horn. But not everyone's going to notice that those
are actually cheap clothes. And that's a subtle bit of
work on the part of the costume designer, whose name
I don't have in front of me, but she will
actually be mentioned in the post. I did look her up.
All right, I want to unpack a few other nineties isms.
But why don't we take a short break and come back, Yes,
all right, we'll be right back. We're back, and we're
talking about nineteen ninety five.
Speaker 3: Is to die for.
Speaker 1: And I want to get into some of the other
cast members. But before we do that, I did want
to unpack another bit of history or an example of
how the film is very much of its time but
at the same time very very forward looking. One thing
that I was struck by in the film. Again, this
goes to what did I think this film was about?
And then you watch it and you're like, oh, okay,
that's not quite what I thought it was about. Like
I really thought it was about tabloid television. I thought,
like this story exploded on the news, but it's actually
a very small story that actually basically goes nowhere. It
never goes outside of its hometown. I know there's a
lot of newsy stuff at the beginning of it, but
I think no.
Speaker 2: Towards the end of the movie, the Lydia, the character,
she gets invited to all these TV show that's.
Speaker 1: Right, that's right, you're right, you're right, you're right.
Speaker 2: I hope I get some of the some diet tips.
Speaker 1: From the right now it does. I guess I thought
it was going to be on camera, like all the
tabloid stuff happens outside of the story, and I thought
it was literally a movie about the tabloid stuff, so
that was a little surprising to me, and I kept, uh,
you know, there were scenes in her living room, in
you know, her and Matt Dyllan's living room, and in
their parents' various living rooms, and in the bar actually,
where people are turning on the TV because of course
the story's got yeah and it's those big boxing nineties TVs.
And I'm like, oh wow, this really was a long
time ago. And I'm pointing that out because her whole arc,
her whole philosophy, Suzanne is like, you're nobody in America
unless you're on TV, and that is not true anymore.
That is because TV is a dying I mean, thirty
one years later, TV is pretty much dying as and
if you want to be famous, you just look into
your phone and start shooting yourself.
Speaker 2: But she's still right.
Speaker 3: I mean, oh no, she predicted it. Don't get me wrong.
Speaker 2: The whole line is Lydia character says. It's then used
to say that you're not really anybody in America unless
you're on TV, because what's the point of doing anything
worthwhile if there's nobody watching it.
Speaker 1: Now, that's social that's social media today.
Speaker 2: I mean, I remember watching it again, it was like, Wow,
that's social media now.
Speaker 1: But the thing is, that's what's crazy about that line
is there was no way to predict social media in
nineteen ninety five. So it wasn't someone, it wasn't the
screenwriter Buck Henry being forward thinking. It's just I guess
what you're looking at is the last gaps of twentieth
century fame seeking and how it evolved before it evolved
into what it became in the twenty first century. So
it really the film serves as like a document of
a time period and a lifestyle. No one's pursuing this
life anymore. People are pursuing fame, but not like not
by being a local weather girl. No one thinks of
doing it that way anymore.
Speaker 2: No, it's very specific of the time that if you
wanted to be Suzanne famous, like Suzanne wanted, you would
have to do movie TV, right, You have to be
on your TV or a movie theater.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Today, all you need to do is have a phone
and in a social account, social media account, and then
you're famous.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yes, am I wrong?
Speaker 1: I mean god, Suzan Stone would have loved the Ring Light.
Speaker 2: Let me tell you, I imagine her now so yeah,
it should.
Speaker 3: Be an influencer.
Speaker 1: Now she'd be like a like a right wing influencer.
How much you want to bet?
Speaker 2: And then it's interesting because the line, I mean, the
quote continues and she says, so when people are watching,
it makes you a better person, and that is so
my god.
Speaker 3: I mean, that does predict social media right right there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I do want to point out Buck Henry is
the screenwriter. He also plays the high school teacher, and
you know, he's the screenwriter of the legendary the graduate.
He's he's a writer of long standing and he's very,
very witty. He writes great screenplays, this one included. But
I did sit there thinking as I was watching, I
was like, oh, so this is a lot wittier than
it's witty. It has a whit to it. And again
not a criticism, but you know a couple of times
the teenagers would say something that was just a little
too witty for those characters to say. And again that's
the film. That's that's the style of film where you're
it's all poor people in this rundown town. But every
once in a while, some of them, one of them
comes out of a line that they probably would not
have come up with on their own.
Speaker 2: I yeah, I find those movies very interesting. I love
movies about small towns and someone trying to get the.
Speaker 1: Hell out of trying to get that well that's your line, or.
Speaker 2: Mean famous, trying to be not that I'm famous, but anyway,
I just love that because it's interesting, because it's not
that there's anything wrong with the way people live, you know.
In fact, I think that fame and all that it's
extremely overrated. You can be happy having a small lives
quote unquote small life. So I love movies about that.
I like Jenni's Moretto's character, for example, because she's so
cynical about the whole thing. She understands, you know, that's
my life and you're an idiot. But I just love that.
And Eleana Doug was just such a great job she is.
Speaker 1: I think she actually is like the movie's secret weapon, right.
I think she cuts to a lot of the silliness
of the movie and the bullshit of the movie.
Speaker 3: I love.
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously the scene of her skating at end.
This is what I when I say the film doesn't
have a heavy camp factor, I cannot claim that it
doesn't have any camp factor. Because her ice skating and
that silly pink outfit at the end is.
Speaker 2: Hilarious, and she did all the ice skating.
Speaker 3: Well, you can see it.
Speaker 1: I said that we were watching and I was like,
that's all in one take. That's really her ice skating.
Speaker 2: She said. She said that when she was cast she
didn't know how to ice skate, but she said she did,
she knew it, and then when they pick her, she
took lessons and she said she worked really hard for
six months. And she said the reason why she wanted
to do the scene is because the whole movie is
kind of documentary style kind of movie, and there was
no way they're going to just put somebody there and
then back to her.
Speaker 1: I have to admit I didn't know that either. The
whole right right documentary style thing, and it's sort of
in a pistolary style movie work because they're not all
talking to the same way. They're all talking to actually different.
Speaker 2: Camera For example, you know that she's it's the whole
movie is hurt pretty much party much.
Speaker 1: But yeah, they all were talking to different camera crews
for different production So I guess it does get into
the tabloid TV thing. I guess what I I assumed
there'd be a lot of like cable TV graphics and
that sort of nineties stuff. But like I said, this
movie predates. It doesn't predate the oj trial, but it was.
They were shooting it during the trial.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was doing reading some behind the scenes stuff
and apparently the scene of that long shot of Joaquin
Phoenix in the in the interview room at the prison
or whatever, he was sitting at the table and all
the lights were on him and he couldn't see pass
the lights to the crew, so he was like, Okay,
I'm ready, I'm ready, And it turns out nobody was
there because they had all gone to another room to
watch the jury verdict and he was sitting there waiting. Anyway,
I do I love that this film is so much
so in that mix. It's so you can't not think
of the Menendez brothers or OJ or or you know,
the Pamela Smart trial is that this story was based on.
Although I don't really remember that trial all that much.
Speaker 2: It's just great and it's it's it's sharp, it's smart,
it is it is very witty.
Speaker 1: I find it witty, and I do think if you
wanted to show it to say a young person to
this is what the nineties was like. Okay, just so
you know, nobody had cell phones, nobody was on the computer,
but this is how people pursued fame and whatever.
Speaker 2: I loved the whole local new thing.
Speaker 1: I mean it was even that's the thing I thought
it was. And it's like they didn't even have that.
She was just some you know, practically a volunteer and everyone.
Speaker 2: It's great way night playing the guy.
Speaker 1: The kurtwood Smith, I know, everybody's so young, just all
of these like nineties nineties faces.
Speaker 3: Matt Dellon who I had.
Speaker 1: A huge crush on when I was younger, gorgeous in
that phone, and he's always good at playing these sort
of dumb guys, dumb gorgeous guys.
Speaker 2: Everybody.
Speaker 3: Yeah, who else?
Speaker 2: Holland Taylor. I forgot she's in a movie. Holland Taylor.
Speaker 3: Yeah, in a movie. She always plays someone's wasp, that's
all she's.
Speaker 2: I completely forgot she was in a movie.
Speaker 1: But yeah, just a fun little snapshot of nineteen ninety
five and what we were all worried about and what
we were all thinking about. I think, inadvertently a rather
sharp prediction of where we were headed.
Speaker 2: Right, I agree. Like I said, I hadn't watched the
movie in a long long time, so I said to
watch it again. And when she talked about the whole
you know, you nobody if you're not showing what you're doing, right,
I was like, oh my god, yeah, social media right there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but yeah, just a sharp good thing.
Speaker 2: Oh.
Speaker 1: The other thing I wanted to note is that, like
I said, this role I think put Nicole Kimmen on
the map as an actress, and she got a lot
of acclaim for it. I think she won the Golden Globe.
Speaker 2: Did she Yeah, I don't remember.
Speaker 3: I don't believe.
Speaker 1: I don't believe she was nominate bernoscar I could be
wrong about that, But watching the film, I thought, you know,
she's very very good in this, but she is a
much better actress now.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, of course, which I guess.
Speaker 1: Does go without saying. But you can just see what
thirty years of experience does for an actress. Same thing
with the Joaquin Phoenix, And I will go so far
as to say that I don't actually think he's all
that good in a He's good in some scenes, uh huh.
The scene where he breaks down crying is is he's
very good. Certain other scenes he does that thing. And
again he was only like nineteen years old at the time.
He does that thing where if you're playing in I mean,
the film doesn't really come down on either side of
whether his character James is just dumb or whether he's
like literally developmentally disabled. But let's go with developmentally disabled.
And he plays this he does that thing that some
actors do where to play a developmentally disabled person they
just speak really really slow, as if they were a
little drunk. Again, and that's the time that's not It
just didn't have I was like, right, I'm not getting
the impression that there's nothing going on in this guy's head.
I'm getting the impression that you're trying to convey that
there's nothing going just just to.
Speaker 2: Run a couple. She won Golden Globe Awards, a Critic
Choice Awards, the New York Film Critics Circle Awards. She
won a lot of things for this. Yeah. I remember
at the time everyone talking about it because she did
such a great job.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was big at the time for.
Speaker 1: Her and probably well, I mean probably eyes wide shut.
She was the hottest she ever was, But this was
probably the second hottest she ever was on film. She
was really hot and it's so not ring Nicole Kidman
role does play dumb women, that's I mean, she just
doesn't not anymore. So to see her playing like essentially
a dumb blonde was kind of funny to see. It's
just unexpected.
Speaker 2: I think it's it's an intelligent, funny and waity take
of television of the time. You know, driven being driven
and wanted to be famous and wanted to be on
TV because you know, you're you're somebody if you're on TV.
And like I said, it was TV and movies if
you wanted to be somebody. Yeah, well now you know
you just needed to sit a light in.
Speaker 1: A ring light and the phone. All right, I think
we have beaten this one to death, no pun intended.
Speaker 3: We will be back. Well, it's Memorial.
Speaker 1: Day weekend in the States. We'll try and get some
sort of podcast out next week. We don't actually have
a movie on the roster for next week, but maybe
we'll figure something out by Tuesday. Until then, take care
of yourself, love you mean it, have a great holiday
if here in America, and we'll be back next week.
Speaker 2: Bye bye bye,