we're on a mission from god

wendy so i got that going darling

i picked the wrong way to quit sniffing

blue light of my life

we enjoy your films

[Music]

welcome to vintage video where we're

re-watching the 80s so you don't have to

we'll be reviewing every major film

release of the 1980s in real time i'm

patrick o'reilly i'm jesse bayless and

i'm richard wells and today marks the

40th anniversary of the release of fame

on may 16 1980. it was written by

christopher gore

directed by alan parker and released by

united artist

the talent manager david da silva heard

about a public school for performing

arts in new york city

and paid christopher gore five thousand

dollars to draft a script

he then sold the project to mgm for four

hundred thousand dollars

really you just like there's a school in

new york you're like

that's gonna make an interesting movie

i'm gonna pay somebody to make a movie

about it that's exactly what happened

alan parker did a rewrite with gore but

gore was still given soul screenwriting

credit the school is based on the real

life fiorello laguardia high school of

music

and performing arts in manhattan it is a

public school and therefore available to

any new york city high school student

who successfully auditions for any of

the programs

coco is actually a graduate of the

school and leroy was actually expelled

the actor and actress playing those

parts lisa was the only current student

who scored a role in the film from 2000

auditions that took place i thought you

were gonna say she did she auditioned

two thousand times

yeah it's like finally one stuck fine

you can be in the movie

we'll give you a major role too um

this is the first film in the history of

the academy to garner two

best song nominations the title song

fame

and out here on my own and it also took

home two oscars one for best original

score and

for the title song the fame song you see

i thought that this was a musical

yes that's what i thought too because i

had never seen it it is a musical

i guess it is a musical yeah there are

three songs

i guess i guess if this was the golden

globes i would put it in the

comedy or musical category i guess but i

mean it's also interesting because i

didn't realize

having not watched this before that the

that was an original song to the movie i

thought that that was a song that

they're just like oh this fits the movie

really good we'll just call the movie

fame as well and that'll you know all go

together

is there a musical there is a musical

that came long after crazy it came after

so the musical

like the stage performance was after the

movie there was a film there was a tv

series for six seasons and then there

was a musical

okay uh this the feature film was

adapted into six

seasons of a tv series leroy bruno and

lydia

and the music teacher all came back to

play their parts in the series which

one's lydia

uh lydia was a very small part in the

movie but she had a bigger part on the

show i guess lydia was

one of the other judges during the dance

auditions

that was very interested in leroy's

performance oh yeah yeah yeah yeah

that's about all she has in this movie

but in the first or an early draft

it was supposed to be that she was

competing with coco for

roles in stuff over the course of the

film but then they wanted her to play

more of a center part of the film so

does the show just follow the same plot

like it's just works extended i assume

it's like a sequel series

okay because if the character the same

actors came back to play the same

characters

i would think it would be a continuation

of the story but they graduated

right maybe they work at the school i

don't know i never watched it pat

you need to have more information i

should have watched six seasons of this

show

i finished watching the movies that were

reviewing hours ago

so i didn't have six seasons in me today

uh madonna screen tested for both the

film and series

but was not picked up for it emilio

auditioned to play montgomery for the

series

emilio estevez the only emilio

how many emilia's do you know i i don't

i guess i don't know any

one emilio estevez he's a charlie

sheen's brother oh okay no

i i sat across from him at a desk one

time he came what did you say

i didn't say anything you didn't say it

i think i said hi to him

no you have to annoy him out of wherever

he is

with the night at the roxbury quote

you can't just let him sit near you

uh this was before i think the way was

that

his film he directed the way oh is that

the one with the culkin

i thought was the one with his dad oh i

don't know what i'm thinking of

the way with martin where they do a road

trip

yeah 2010 i think my dad bought that

deal so it must have been after

because yeah because i wasn't working

there yet so yeah he directed that

emilio wrote and directed it i didn't

realize that it's probably awful right

i i i i don't know martin sheen emily

was ever under

seems like it's a good how did he get

his dad to be in the movie it must be a

great script

it's got william holden oh it's a

different way what i was gonna say

[Music]

dead and buried oh apparently imdb has

nine william holden's credited he's

william holden i

x oh geez

that's not good um this film is a debut

role for meg tilly

who is a golden globe winner oscar

nominee and the sister of jennifer

uh this movie was originally titled hot

lunch

until director alan parker walked past a

porno theater

featuring a movie called hot lunch with

an actor named al

parker and he wanted to avoid confusion

yeah yeah that's probably a good good

call there

parker yeah hot lunch

i'm gonna live forever

i'm gonna learn how to eat

[Laughter]

montgomery auditions for the drama

department by sharing

a story about a relationship with his

mother which is actually part of a play

that he's reading but

it's supposed to mirror his experiences

with his mother some musicians and

dancers audition for their programs

uh one of the dancers uh is commenting

on

another girl that's auditioning and says

oh i really like your nose ring

i'm into culture does that hurt or is

that ethnic

those are mutually exclusive things

bruno's dad unloads a cab full of

musical equipment

and a girl shirley checks into her

audition with her boyfriend leroy

which you saw this coming a mile away

what was gonna happen

oh yeah that uh leroy who was not

interested at all in a public school

was going to be the one to make it

through the audition process i love the

scene when he's coming into the school

um because the the lady at the front

desk who's checking them in

makes him check his gut or not his bed

his knife yeah just like he's not going

in there with the knife and then they

they banter back and forth for a while

and eventually he

he gives it up after resisting for a

while and then he walks up the stairs

and he's like

i got a bunch more baby don't worry yeah

don't worry we're not gonna get killed

here

but during this audition but i like the

nerve that the teacher has

yeah they show that she's like from the

neighborhood give me the knife

i'm not afraid of you with this knife

he's like sure you want it

and he's like yeah she's like yeah i

want it she knew he had the knife before

he showed it too

doris mom pushes her into a drama

audition but

while instructing her to sing a song

because when she sings it is drama she

says

see honey you don't have to sing for us

because this is the drama department

when she sings it is drama but the drama

teacher's like

it's not really what we're doing but

okay fine go ahead and sing a song

and she starts to sing and then sort of

talks her way through the end of it

ralph comes in and fails his music

audition right away because he's

lying about all the instruments that his

father used to play they suggest he try

out for dance he fakes knowing how to

dance

with tap shoes with like pepsi cola caps

glued to the bottom and they tell him to

try for drama

he goes in and talks about freddie

prince who is his idol

doris finishes sing talking through the

way we were

and her mom cries like it's the most

emotional experience for her to hear

this yeah so correct me if i'm wrong but

she's

not good at singing right i didn't think

the point was supposed to be that she

was spectacular

okay like i did i didn't think she was

good at it

it's obviously it's a choice to go into

talking from the singing

but um i don't i didn't think it was

like yeah i i thought she

she talked saying better than she sang

saying which i think was the point

but i think it was also supposed to be

that her mom thinks it's amazing because

it's something that's very personal to

her mom

yeah and isn't necessarily as

earth-shattering to everyone else

the teacher probably saw something so

well

saw like the pain that she goes through

with this mother yeah

and probably goes yeah she's gonna have

a lot to draw from yeah we got something

to work with here

and then uh bruno brings five keyboards

into his audition for the music

department

and uh they're kind of trying to shut

that down and telling him to cut it down

to one but they can tell he knows how to

play them all at the same time and he

just has like the best

dad in the world yeah because the most

supportive yeah his dad's the taxi

driver

who's driven him up to the school with

all this gear in the back of his taxi

and they're lugging in all this stuff

and his dad's just so supportive yeah

his uncle's like trying to make fun of

the fact that he has all this electronic

equipment he's like

why can't you just play a regular

instrument like pop used to and he's

like

oh my son's so so much smarter than that

it's called progress

he's like trying to talk him up yeah

he's like so supportive it's so it's

wonderful it's wonderfully supportive

and then uh doris's mom gets the call

after the audition process that got one

yeah the doris is being accepted and she

says we're in

because it's a it's a co-achievement

group effort

then we get a title card freshman year

so we're starting the first year of

of class at the school class starts

and mrs sherwood the the anne mera

character and leroy

uh face off for the second time now when

he can't hear roll call over

his headphones she tells him not to

bring that stuff into class anymore

because he needs to be paying closer

attention all the teachers talk their

subjects up like they're

the hardest most intimidating subject

that the school offers

and the montage cutting from class to

class ends with each of the teachers

saying this is the hardest apartment at

the school

i have to say that one of the things i

appreciated

the most about this movie was the

editing and i don't know if

if the script was written that way or if

it was just edited that way but whatever

it was

i think that it was it was stylistically

i really enjoyed how they

they cut between the scenes and the

experiences of these students back and

forth

so frequently showing how they've

mirrored each other

yeah well a lot of the contemporary

critics

hated the editing oh really they thought

it was really frenetic and confusing

but i actually really appreciated it too

every time you see

three scenes happening we're given the

indication that they're happening

simultaneously by cutting

back and forth between the three of them

yeah i guess maybe maybe for the time it

was

frenetic but i think that it was ahead

of its time right because we

we see all kinds of crazy editing now so

it's harder

it might have been harder for them to

keep track of the story that way yeah

whereas

from today's perspective it's it's not

as confusing as it might have been well

and i think especially with a movie like

this where

you have so many characters experiencing

so many things throughout the movie

that you know we don't really i don't

think we really have a main character of

this movie right

uh and and so to sort of stay with this

all of these storylines you you have to

cut it this way

and i don't know how else you would have

done a movie like this without without

doing it that way but it was done

you know very eloquently it felt very

organic yeah um

ralph tries to flirt with doris in the

drama class by saying they should

accumulate experiences together

he says he has experience to spare and

that he lives with two women

which he does because they're his

sisters kids make a lot of noise

in the cafeteria that sort of slowly

evolves into music and this is

the hot lunch song yeah that would have

been about the lunch lady

yeah um and uh doris

wait lady you're scaring us doris

escapes to the stairs

because she can't deal with the nonsense

happening in the cafeteria it sits down

next to montgomery who seems similarly

frightened it was exactly

the feeling that i had about that scene

though too i'm just like oh my god

all these theater people i gotta get out

of here yeah plus like everyone's like

super sweaty like yeah i mean obviously

it was like

four four stanzas from an orgy in this

song yeah

i mean obviously there was like take

after take is being done so these

dancers are like exhausted yeah

but i was like i can smell this room

i would not eat in there well the amount

of people that they have in these scenes

are amazing like there's so many extras

just

just dancing and and singing their

hearts out here

monty and doris become fast friends and

she worries that she isn't interesting

enough to

make it in the drama department or

acting in general

ralph comes to bug monty for i'm going

to call him monty

it comes to bug montgomery monty for

drugs because

montgomery has an analyst and is on

medication to treat his presumably

anxiety disorders and things like that

um and ralph thinks they're delicious um

he also outs

uh montgomery as being gay here but then

we don't touch on it again for

like another 35 minutes or something

like that or or i guess

a couple of years yeah but we yeah it's

film wise versus versus time in the

in the movie but it's it's weird because

when it comes up again later they act

like it's a revelation and it's like

ralph said that at the beginning of

freshman year why is that news now

mrs sherwood yells at leroy for

forgetting to turn in a book report for

the second or third time

and outs him in front of the entire

class as being illiterate and this

is like super shitty of her like

i think that and maybe maybe it's just a

difference in the times but

i feel like nowadays as a teacher

you recognize the signs that somebody

like

doesn't have the skill set that they

should have at this point like he

clearly either doesn't know how to read

or really struggles with this

and so you take him aside and you try to

help him like don't embarrass him in

front of the class and berate him

you know repeatedly because he doesn't

have the same background that you expect

him to have

i can only assume that it's because of

things that are going on in her in her

own personal life and the fact that

she's always shouting back and forth

with this student that she thought maybe

she could

shame him into learning how to read or

something like that but

obviously this is not the most

productive way to get that kid to take

that lesson to heart

um because then he goes out and just

destroys

a room yeah there's like a whole hallway

of like windows over shelves

and he's just punching out every pane of

glass the whole way the glass doors over

this library

it's just a shame yeah

[Music]

but nobody says anything about it and

we're not giving any indication that

leroy is like having to pay to replace

this stuff

yeah kind of like oh darn it anyway

bruno's dad worries out loud that his

son doesn't have any friends or

girlfriends or

faith in his talent he's not playing his

music for anybody

and he also thinks like why did i get

you all this equipment if you're not

gonna like

push yourself as hard as you can and get

and he's like well maybe i'm just not

gonna be respected until after i die

maybe my ghost will get all the credit

and he's like

did i spend seven thousand dollars on

equipment for a ghost

does your mama cook and clean and we're

all clothes for a ghost

a ghost bruto elton john's mama's got

six mint coats

leroy tries to teach himself to read

under a bridge somewhere in the middle

of nowhere because he doesn't have a

house he's

literally just like picking up old

magazines and reading like maytag

advertisements off of the back of them

but he he gives up pretty quick

because he's very frustrated with his

whole situation

the guys are spying on the girls through

a crack in the bathroom wall

it's a pointy one

what um little bitty ones be cute

well somebody is using the stall that

they're standing yeah i don't know if

he's actually using it or if he's just

sitting in there practicing his music

but it was kind of like that kid from

gorp that's just like always in the

stall

please don't mention that movie again i

don't want to reference that movie on

this show

uh bruno argues with the music teacher

about whether music should be

cooperative

um bruno says that you know if mozart

were alive today that

he'd be doing all the music himself and

he doesn't need a

he doesn't need an orchestra he can just

loop everything and

and perform it with all kinds of crazy

techno filters and he would mix it

himself which is totally true like even

more so now than it was

in 1980 yeah bruno is is actually ahead

of his time but the teacher tells him

that

that performing by yourself isn't music

it's masturbation it's like no that's

not true they're solo performances

music is real regardless of how many

people are performing

it uh lisa is reprimanded by the dance

instructor for not trying hard enough

for the first of many times doris hears

michael an upperclassman

is leaving for california and

congratulates him on

he got some kind of a scholarship to a

college but um

he it turns out he's not going to use it

because he he's going to los angeles

to meet with william morris yeah he's

already got like talent

agents scouting him yeah they came to

the senior show

which these kids will have at the end of

their senior year and uh

someone some agent there saw him and

suggested him for

william morris which is was at the time

the biggest agency

sophomore year the guys are piling up on

top of

the bathroom stalls again to look at the

new girl that came in

but uh one guy is a little bit over

eager piling onto them

and is shouting and screaming and then

the girls end up hearing the commotion

through the crack in the wall and

realize that all these guys are watching

and that right as the bathroom stalls

are collapsing under their weight so

that's destroyed nobody gets to look at

the movies anymore

good one the new girl hilary van doren

is in the dance class she seems like

she's

crazy rich she's complaining about an

evil stepmother

but she also talks about how she's like

a shopaholic and spends all of her dad's

money

montgomery and doris walk down the

street talking about

painful memories that they will have to

present in their drama class

well while doris is pretending to be

blind right and being led around

excuse me blind excuse me

she's holding like a little can and at

the end of the scene someone drops a

coin in it because

they think she's actually blind and

that's what the can is supposed to be

for and she's like what's that who did

that

oh i guess i'll buy you some coffee

hillary and leroy have sex after

she was uh practicing dancing

very quickly that's just the way you put

it i

i have in my nose hillary seductively

dances for him

and then they hook up yeah

there's not much to it um

like the movie tries to be like oh did

they or didn't they and it's like

doesn't matter doesn't play

any part in the rest of the story really

well there's definitely a sign

i think it does yeah there's definitely

a sign that they did

yeah but i don't think it's relevant

that it's his baby at all no

montgomery plans to tell the class that

he's in love with his analyst

who is a man what oh yeah last year we

already knew that

doris kind of tries to talk him out of

it because that's such a painful memory

but the whole point of this is that it's

supposed to be a painful memory she says

like it doesn't have to be your most

painful memory but she's also upset

because she doesn't really have a

painful memory to share

because her life's just been pretty

boring living with her mom and

just doing everything her mom wants her

to do which is painful but not as

viscerally painful bruno's dad pulls up

in front of the school blasting

his son's music from the top of his cab

he's getting like this big speaker

system set up on his roof

and it's the song fame that was

nominated and won the oscar

for best original song um a dance riot

breaks out yeah dan a dance mob

right with people just like jumping on

cars that are passing by

yeah they're like slamming on hoods and

everything bruno hears the music playing

and is upset about his dad playing

unfinished music

ironically the song was not finished at

the time and everyone was dancing to

donna summer's hot stuff

on set um but uh

but it doesn't seem like the dad like

feels bad about it or anything it's just

like no no all these people appreciate

your music and now you see that people

like what you're doing and coco is

excited to hear her voice

yeah exactly montgomery does his

monologue

afterwards he invites doris to go to

rocky horror picture show with him

ralph mocks him for being gay right

after he gives this presentation which

is exactly what doris predicted would

happen

but then after defending montgomery for

a half of a second she decides she's

gonna start flirting with ralph even

though he just did this really hard it

seems like a weird turn for me in this

movie

that he you know ralph's a jerk for most

of the film and then she's

into him i mean i think she doesn't get

a lot of male attention

she's certainly not getting it from

montgomery well yeah well but i think

also

ralph is just like the kind of person

that like

teases hard yeah like and he does that

to everybody yeah

like he's he's not it's not

anything against montgomery being gay or

him personally it's just that

this is how hard i go out of my way to

make fun of people

which i'm not saying is a good thing to

do because they've all become friends

after this and he's also in full drag

when he starts this like joke about how

gay

montgomery is like he's willing to

embarrass himself for the joke yeah

doris has to break off dinner plans with

friends because her mom is forcing her

to sing at a kid's birthday party

because a five-year-old's birthday party

has to have a singer right and you're

gonna get great exposure because these

five-year-olds are gonna tell other

five-year-olds

that an old lady is saying happy

birthday because to them

23 is an old person or not even she's

probably a teenager at this point

if this is a high school so she sings

and it's just a bunch of kids crying in

some crappy restaurant somewhere

she decides that that's what her drama

monologue is gonna be about is that

she's like

she doesn't have a perception of herself

because she just does things for her mom

all the time so

it's just like who am i like the most

obvious

actory thing in the world and then

ralph's

is maybe even worse because it's

literally just

him crying about an actor that died

which i feel like

it's it's not a personal story at all

it's like something that happened to

someone else that just made you sad but

i mean it's a real thing that happened

freddy prince

died when freddie pritz jr was not what

not even he was like nine months old

yeah and ralph was just sad because he

was his favorite actor and he's dead now

but it just seems like such a weird

thing to be like this is my most painful

memory as a person i didn't know died

that i've experienced on television yeah

well i mean i think

he looked at him like a father figure

because it seems like he doesn't have a

father figure

right but then that i felt like i mean

i'm assuming that freddie prince was

puerto rican

or yeah or something you know that that

he identified with

yeah but it just seemed like we learned

that ralph has a lot of other drama

from his life history and it's weird

that he didn't go into any of that and

decided instead to dwell on

the death of this actor who he never

interacted with personally

like the story of his dad and where his

dad is now and why

would have been perfect for this but i

guess they were saving that for later in

the movie

miss berg officially drops lisa from the

class because she's not

upping her dance performance to her

liking

lisa walks with friends to a subway

station and they're all dancing in a

puddle to singing in the rain

and we see lisa slowly approach the edge

of the subway tracks

and then right as a train is about to go

by

she throws out her duffel bag full of

all her dance stuff and that gets run

over

and when after the train goes by all of

her friends are standing in a circle

around her because they thought at the

last second that she was gonna jump

and one of them says i'll tell you

you're a [ __ ] good actress

maybe you're in the wrong department

then we cut to junior year bruno's

equipment shorts out and cuts all the

power to the school

so the the love triangle of montgomery

and

ralph and doris i'll go to uh

montgomery's apartment to rehearse a

play that he wrote i don't know if i'd

call it a love triangle yeah there's

definitely

ralph is the middle of the triangle it's

definitely one of those corners that

isn't into either the other two

i think ralph is kind of into both of

them can we can we call it a love

hemisphere

let's call it a love angle then maybe

it's not a triangle maybe it's just an

angle so they go back to montgomery's

place and they're

they're rehearsing a play that maybe

montgomery wrote

but he's sitting and listening to the

two characters act

and then suddenly doris and ralph are

kissing and he's like wait you guys

don't kiss yet

we're cutting back and forth from this

to uh

ralph's home where his five-year-old

sister hears someone outside and thinks

it's ralph coming home

she goes outside to check on it and is

apparently attacked by a junkie

yeah i was a little unclear about what

actually happened to the young girl

um because we don't really get a full

story they don't dwell on it

the mom is i assume that's the mom or

maybe the grandma whatever it is

she's in a church with the two young

girls when ralph comes and finds them

and starts yelling at her

for you know coming to a church instead

of taking the

little girl to a doctor and i'm like

well what what exactly happened to her

yeah but i don't know if there were

subtitles

that are on here the version that we

were watching did not have any subtitles

for the spanish hospital or in the

church yeah so

we see hillary bring leroy home and uh

claim that they're studying together i

almost specifically to piss off her

stepmom

that she's like bringing home kids from

the school coco sings well not just

not just kids from the school but that

she brought home a black guy

yeah that's true we we cut to coco

singing out here on my own

in like an empty auditorium with uh

bruno leaning over the piano listening

to her bruno's dad sneaks in during the

performance it just sits in the back row

and waits for them to finish before

standing up to applaud i love bruno's

dad

yeah he's great he reminds me of uh

jason swordsman's uh dad in uh

rushmore rushmore yeah yeah he's the

barber yeah yeah

but he's like super supportive of

everything that his son's doing and he

recognizes that his son is a genius and

he's like i gotta get you into the best

school and

uh coco lies to bruno and his father

about where she lives when they offer to

give her a ride home

and so uh bruno's dad goes to drop her

off at this really nice place and she's

like oh it's my sister's place but i'm

allowed to come whenever

and he's like oh i'll watch until you go

in the door and she's like oh you don't

have to do that it's a very nice

neighborhood

as soon as they leave she goes down into

the subway

to go to her actual home not clear

exactly why she's lying about that

yeah um but she is but before she can

get out of the car

even uh bruno's dad just literally leans

through the window he's like

my son has a massive crush on you

basically um

not in his many words but uh but he

makes it very clear and bruno doesn't

seem to care that his dad said that like

there's no fallout between the two of

them and he's just like

yeah she probably knows at this point

well i don't know the dad was the one

kind of [ __ ] him earlier

like during the piano playing scene

where they're alone in the auditorium

and then he comes in and like applauds

it it's like dude they were having a

moment

where they just start screwing on the

piano but then then we have the scene

with ralph and his family

uh in the church and uh he's pissed off

that they didn't take the kid to a

doctor

but everyone just kind of says like

she's all right but they don't know

like what exactly this junkie did to her

i feel like there's

a few opportunities that this movie

misses to show something really tragic

happen

yeah and it it skips on all of them

oh not all of them well just about

i mean a couple of still really tragic

things coming yeah but they they

i was sure they were going to go much

worse than they ended up going

so far we've had a girl that could

easily have committed suicide and

doesn't play a part in the rest of the

film

that didn't commit suicide and committed

close aside

and just threw her clothes on the tracks

fabra side maybe

that sounds right and then this thing

that happened like

this girl could very easily have been

killed and that could have been like

what was wrong with ralph or she could

have been hospitalized at least for the

rest of it but she doesn't even go to a

doctor

so i just thought it was weird a weird

choice for the movie to

come so close to something really

terrible happening and then pull back at

the last second just to show like

it could have happened i guess back at

montgomery's apartment

ralph fence to montgomery and doris

about

uh his five-year-old sister's attack and

then talks about his father

telling the true story this time in the

past he's said oh my father's like

he's works for the government or he

played in all these bands but now he's

admitting no my father's in jail

and he's in jail because he attacked my

other my older sister when she was

five the same age that my younger sister

is now

because i was making her laugh

and he didn't like that she was laughing

because he was drunk and angry

and he tried to attack him but he ended

up putting his five-year-old sister's

head through a wall

so that's like the most tragic point in

this guy's story

yeah which seems like that would have

fit better as your

is your monologue for your drama class

for a depressing moment but

he tells them this story and uh doris

tries to comfort him

and they end up kissing at which point

montgomery's like

all right i guess this is your guy's

apartment for now and he throws his keys

on the bed and walks out

uh doris the next day tells her mom that

she's going to be changing her name to

dominic dupont

because dominique dupont because uh

doris isn't cutting it i forget the full

name

but yeah she she doesn't think she'll

get work with with her actual name her

mom is

a little bit mad about it but then

weirdly at the end of this conversation

she says something like

dominique sounds so smart she sounds

like she wouldn't do something dumb like

my daughter doris would do and get

pregnant

and have an abortion and it's like wait

why are you complimenting the name that

you hate

and saying that your daughter should

stay doris and get pregnant and have an

abortion like

it doesn't make any sense but her mom's

just paranoid because she spent all

night with ralph

and she doesn't know what her daughter's

turning into um

doris and ralph go to rocky horror

picture show without montgomery

which is a little sad the guy entering

the show here is sal perot who is

actually the president of

the rocky horror picture show fan club

which is pretty clear from the movie

they feel like a very authentic rocky

horror crowd doing all the

the build up for the show and all the

lines because they we actually see

a lot of the performances that the

audience does during the show

in the middle of it doris decides she's

just gonna get up and

perform with them on stage she's like

not in costume well she rips her shirt

off so she has like a slip underneath of

it so she's kind of in costume

yeah she could be confused for janet if

someone wasn't paying attention for sure

but then she just gets up on stage and

starts participating with the cast

yeah but they don't care because you

know it's rocky horror

it's it's it's a laid-back group of

people michael from the

william morris uh agency is suddenly

their waiter

um at a restaurant he tells them the

story that he went out there and

a couple things didn't work out in a row

and he shot a pilot that didn't get

picked up

and now he's here serving fried clams

to everybody um which they order yeah

they order

i think because it's the first thing

that he mentioned and they want him to

go away as quickly as possible to end

the awkwardness because fried clams just

sounds awful to me

like seinfeld the george is like i'll

have the clams casino

then we cut to senior year we're at a

nightclub

where emcee richard belzer is handing

off the microphone to ralph

who does a pretty solid stand-up set the

audience is reacting well

and not just because they're all his

friends it seems like even the strangers

are enjoying it

hillary uh is sitting in a chair in a

waiting room somewhere talking to

herself

and it's not clear what's happening

she's crying and talking to herself and

then uh as we're

pushing in closer and closer to her we

realize that she's talking to an unborn

fetus

about all the plans she has for her life

and that there isn't room for a baby

and she is here getting an abortion but

that's basically the end of this story

from this character but this is

presumably

leroy's baby it could be yeah i mean it

is a year

or is this two years after they have sex

well it means

at one point so the relationship was

ongoing

that's true francois lafitte sits down

at a diner next to coco and uh he tells

her that he recognizes her from a chorus

line

and that she's great he invites her to

do a camera test

francois lafitte is french for frank

party

lafitte means party no francois means

frank it's not a foot fetish thing

no um who knows

we would have seen some feet in a second

if that was the case leroy clashes with

mrs sherwood in a hospital yeah it's

kind of shitty of him

these two characters are very shitty

back and forth over the course of this

movie but

he hears from someone oh she's at the

hospital her husband's not doing very

well

and he's like oh okay well i'm going to

go yell at her to give me a good grade

because i want to get into this other

program so he goes

and just right right out of the gate

starts chewing into her and saying he

needs to get a passing grade because he

wants to go

to some other right performing art and

she just keeps saying it's not the time

don't yeah like let's not talk about

this eventually they do kind of

reach some sort of a a truce here where

he sits down and asks how her old man's

doing and holds her hand and

tries to like sit with her through this

difficult time but he

started it out in a very shitty way we

cut back to

frank party's house and uh he's

recording a screen test with coco

asks her to take her top off which she

does reluctantly

and she's just crying through the whole

thing and then eventually i guess gets

up and leaves we don't see anything else

happen

here we cut back to ralph at the

nightclub where he's starting to do a

little bit too many drugs

to get ready for his shows and

montgomery is no longer providing for

him because he is

he has ended things with his analyst

because that was not a healthy

relationship

and he has a big argument with doris

before a show belzer is on stage like

turning and yelling at him because the

two of them are arguing so loudly that

it's

it's interrupting his show

okay now ladies and gentlemen it gives

me a great pleasure to introduce a young

man who's very funny and very loud

especially during my act please welcome

the comedy stylings of ralph garcia

ladies and gentlemen around

uh yeah that's right mcmahon said my

name is

he still hands off the mic doris just

gets up and leaves

he tries to start his set as doris is

walking out and make a joke about her

leaving

and the set bombs horribly he's way off

script and

can't remember his punch lines and the

audience is not not into it

but then after the show he's in the the

uh green room like

getting himself back together and

montgomery walks in he's like hey you

want to go get a pizza

and like think he tries to bury the

hatchet with him because they're still

friends

um and he thinks that he can he's a

funny guy and they can get through this

and he can get back on stage and

be successful and then we cut basically

back to the school where they perform

their

the senior performance which is i sing

the body electric

and it includes all the different parts

of the

school so you have singers and dancers

and then i guess the actors are the ones

that just stand up at the end and sing

they're kind of at the back as the

chorus yeah but they don't uh they don't

suddenly start miming out scenes

it's not really acting but yeah and

that's the film

i i feel that one of the places this

film falls short is just

the dropping of characters or

unfinished story arcs for pretty much

most of the people

yeah i totally agree uh it ends early

yeah

it's like we never know if leroy

ever learns to read like does he ever

get help we never find out if coco got

the part in that movie

yeah i don't think coco wants the part

in that movie

uh but i mean like you know we talked

about you know the abortion but we never

see that character again we talk about

lisa going into the drama apartment but

we never

touch on her again yeah even even

montgomery

aside from that last scene what when was

the last time we saw doris was

after the fight with ralph we never see

anything yeah that is weird like she

doesn't

seem to can reconnect with ralph or

montgomery like we see her we see

everyone at graduation

but there's no like clear sign that yeah

we're okay now

yeah other than that they don't break

the performance and screw up like

i thought there was a chance that during

the show like coco was gonna like start

crying or something like

she's just been completely traumatized

by that encounter but that doesn't

happen

so it's just it's just to show hey this

is what

the people who you watch sing and act

and dance

go through in their real lives that

they're real people who are getting

tortured basically all day

um but yeah it is weird that so many

of the stories are left unfinished but

what honestly bothers me more is that

there's not like

one impactful tragedy that takes place

over the course of the story

like really the worst thing that happens

is that she gets tricked into that

camera test where she's not comfortable

and a five-year-old gets attacked in

some way that we don't even know if she

it doesn't seem like she was bleeding or

anything like and

maybe an abortion happened yeah i think

i think that's pretty traumatic for a

teenager to go through on her own

yeah but in a movie where someone could

easily have been

killed over the course of this story why

didn't anyone die

that's what i want to know but no

honestly if lisa's not going to come

back for the rest of the movie just kill

her here

just kill her because it cuts right from

that to

to junior year from her fake suicide

attempt to junior year so

you would have had a summer to

understand that these people are not

still like actively grieving about it in

class

yeah it just uh it just seemed like that

would have been one point that they

could have left in and i know there was

at one point a darker

draft of the script that um people were

a little bit

disturbed by how dark it went and that

things changed

and i wouldn't doubt that that's one of

the things that changed yeah

like how about instead of killing

herself she just

says she's gonna she changes major

programs yeah it's like

okay yeah sure i guess we could do that

and just take all the teeth out of the

scene

it just reminds me of like uh was it

saturday night fever where the guy dies

on the bridge

um i don't actually know okay i haven't

seen it i don't know if i've seen it all

the way through but i think i remember

seeing a scene where they're all like

hanging out on a bridge and one of the

guys falls and dies and it's like in the

middle of the story and it affects the

characters moving forward but

it also would have been interesting to

see how it affects the staff

when you cut a kid from a program and

she kills herself over it

right but that doesn't happen but all

these songs like i sing the body

electric and

out here on my own and fame have all

like taken on another life after the

movie

because i knew them i recognized them

hearing them out here on my own is like

a pretty well known song specifically in

terms of

people that are like on front come from

underrepresented groups

that need representation it's kind of it

works for

for any minority group really the

director here was alan parker

his first film was bugsy malone nice

obviously had a lot of kids in it and

uh this was probably less of a challenge

for him than it would have been for

other people but it was still a huge

challenge for him he did not enjoy

working with the cast

they were apparently very difficult to

direct because they're all

you know young teenage kids high school

drama students

difficult to direct amazingly but they

they got a decent film out of it

and then but then he did like the exact

same thing with the commitments

yeah it's like i'm gonna work with

another group of like

crazy different music maybe it'll be

easier this time but yeah so he went

from bugsy malone to midnight express

and then this

but he also has uh mississippi burning

road to wellville the life of david gale

um writer christopher gore mostly

credits for different incarnations of

fame

the tv show and the film and story

credits for

musical adaptations and stuff uh one tv

short called

fairies which i don't know what happened

with that

i don't know what a poster i don't even

know what a tv short is

uh well i would i would imagine like

over the garden wall maybe

yeah maybe uh the composers for the film

were michael and leslie gore

who are not related to screenwriter

christopher gore leslie is the singer of

it's my party and you don't own me

uh which has had kind of a resurgence

lately as a popular song she

released a remix of it shortly before

passing away and i think

2014 or something like that but uh both

good songs

eddie barth was angelo i think that's

the father of

bruno i don't know why he's credited

first unless he appears first in the

film

if it's order of appearance or what um

or maybe i'm wrong about which character

that is

but eddie barth played angelo who was a

gucci in the amityville horror and he's

the voice of champ

in rover dangerfield

uh irene kara played coco or irene kara

she's obviously the singer of fame she

was the composer and singer of

what a feeling uh and she is

she has a composer credit in flash dance

as a result laura dean was lisa

who did not kill herself uh she played

sophie

a co-worker of rachel greene's on

friends who was ecstatic when their

abusive boss dies

she's also married to bruno's brother

the actor who played bruno's brother

okay or no

sorry backwards laura dean's sister is

married to

the actor who played bruno boyd gaines

played michael

that's the william morris actor kid

he played coach bracket in porky's next

year he also

appeared as mr barber in the goldfinch

in 2019 albert haig played sharovsky who

is the

music instructor he has a lot of

soundtrack credits

for having written you're a mean one mr

grinch

excellent he wrote that song he also

plays a psychiatrist in space jam

so that's exciting paul mccrane was

montgomery he played robert romano on er

yeah that's that's definitely where i

knew him from you know i was going

through the cast of crew and i was just

like

wait a minute this guy was on the yard

oh my god he was the mean

doctor i like you didn't recognize him

because he's like

so young here and he's got this big

curly you know red afro thing happening

and

we are you know it's all tight close

shaved and he's you know starting to

to you know he's got a receiving

hairline and i didn't watch enough of er

to

recognize him well he was he was the

mean doctor

i recognized him from robocop right he

was a meal and robocop

because he's the one who gets dropped

into that vat of toxic waste and comes

out like a

a mutant and then gets hit by the car

just explodes

that you share with me occasionally um

uh he was also sorry go ahead you say

jiff

yeah that's how it's pronounced oh what

do you say i'm sorry it's a gif we have

to get divorced now oh you say it wrong

oh it's weird no the guy who invented it

gets to decide how it's pronounced and

he says he's wrong

oh okay jessica

deputy bill briggs uh

it's another character that paul mccrane

played he was deputy bill briggs in the

88 version of the blob

anne miro was mrs sherwood she's great

she's miriam in awakenings she was

louise in reality bites and she is the

wife of jerry stiller and mother of ben

and she's funny joanna merlin was miss

berg

she played jethro's daughter in the ten

commandments

uh she was also a casting director sorry

go ahead

no no this was like okay yeah i mean

jethro is zapporo's father

high priest of midian what language are

you speaking

somebody has watched that movie too many

times i just remember the part where he

comes out and he's like 15

and then he drops one or maybe that was

something else

uh miss berg was also the casting

director on big trouble in little china

and the last emperor

[Laughter]

i mean if i had to choose between big

trouble and the last emperor it's an

easy contest i agree

uh although i would have a hard time

telling you what was the last emperor

and what was [ __ ] doing

because i constantly confused those

movies because they both have like a

little child on the cover yeah

uh jean anthony ray played leroy most of

his credits are just dancer

most recently in austin power's gold

member but he came back for the series

maureen teefey which is just the coolest

last name i've ever heard

tfe tfe t-e-e-f-y

played doris uh she was sharon in greece

too

and she played lucy lane in supergirl

which i'm assuming is a relative of lois

lane

yeah so uh in supergirl uh she's

posing as a college student and her

roommate is okay

is the cousin or friend cousin

i'm assuming cousin i think because

because she's the cousin of

superman superman so it makes sense

debbie allen played lydia who uh we said

before is has a very small part in the

film but uh

went on to appear in the television

series she also played

dr catherine fox in 62 episodes of

grey's anatomy

we all watched that right no no that's

not an episode not even a commercial

richard belzer yay was the master of

ceremonies or

mc as it is known uh which is weird

because they actually call him richard

they do well yeah ralph calls him

richard yeah before uh when he goes up

on stage

um he's best known for playing john

munch

in some form or another on homicide life

on the streets

and eight other shows law and order

the x-files the beat law and order trial

by jury arrested development

the wire 30 rock unbreakable kimmy

schmidt

uh he gets a reference in luther and

he's also

in a very brady sequel although i take

issue with that

as being john munch because apparently

his imdb credit is

lapd officer and uh munch is obviously a

new york

pd officer yeah and so i would say that

uh that's probably not much

although i haven't seen the movie

recently enough to say whether they call

him munch in the episode

but he was not on the simpsons a lot of

people online say oh wasn't he also in a

simpson's episode

not that i could find and it's not on

his imdb credits so

i would say no he plays himself here uh

he he's also himself in the movie

scarface and in the movie man on the

moon

he is also playing himself in the

comedian

which is the movie written by art

lincoln who directed where the buffalo

roam

and uh he was apparently the president

in species 2

although i never saw anything past the

first one

somebody get kidnapped i think it's time

for richard to go to bed

or someone just got unkidnapped and set

off one of richard's alarms

oh god the perimeter

i have to go um i don't know who mr

england was

someone is credited as mr england but

his name is bill britton

so of course he's mr england and he was

bozo the clown

there was somebody he was dressed as a

clown in this movie no

oh the character name in this movie is

mr england oh but in real life

he played bozo the clown for the new

york area which is a famous clown

character

you've never heard of bozo the clown no

i've heard of bozo the clown but you're

just like in real life yes

if you've heard of bozo the clown it was

this guy's performance of a clown

character

okay at least if you're from the new

york area

i don't know isaac mizrahi played

touchstone i don't remember that

character in this movie at all but he's

a famous fashion designer

and regular red carpet presenter and

reality show host it's just like

like there's like other people who are

credited here and it's like like barry

bostwick it's just like

barry bostwick he was in there yeah he

was in rocky horror picture show

oh like and yeah this is something past

week yeah

it's very fast i don't like when they

credit people from footage that's in

the movie yeah i mean i get it i guess

you have to maybe

and i just did when i said that richard

belzer was on unbreakable kimmy schmidt

because that was actually a clip of

law and order that she was watching in

that episode where he got a credit that

makes more sense i thought i'm like

that's an amazing amount of crossovers

but the rest of them he actually

appeared as the character on but as a

joke yeah

okay like 30 rock and roll development

[Music]

[Laughter]

i mean it's it's i think it is original

footage for the show but

right right in the show he's supposed to

be on law and order but in luther he

doesn't actually appear on the show

right literally just idris elba leans

over the counter and says we should send

this over to munch in new york

and have them check the file because

they're just trying to touch

to connect the universes but the you

know the best the best is his

uh homicide life on the street because

there's a detective bayless on the show

that's right

i knew that if we were going to talk

about homicide life on the streets we

would have to talk about that

but yeah i actually really enjoyed this

movie um

[Laughter]

i wouldn't say that i really enjoyed it

um

i uh i i just feel like

with so many characters and such like

lack of

closure like there was definitely

character development but i

didn't feel a sense of closure really

with anybody other than they got they

graduated

but i think that's because it's the

dreaded slice of life film where you're

not gonna get closure because it's

it's the ongoing story of a person yeah

but i very much agree with richard on

this one

i think there's a lot of things i do

like about the movie i think it was well

shot i think it was well edited i think

the performances were good

i think it was lacking in

you know in terms of the story threads

it just didn't really

do it for me i agree that the story

didn't have

much and i've you know made my

complaints that there wasn't

there could they could have landed it a

lot of gravity by having a terrible

thing befall one of these people

not that i need someone to die in every

movie but it just felt like it was going

to be that kind of movie

and then it didn't happen to anybody the

whole time i also prefer when you have

these kinds of movies where you have

these sort of like

disparate story lines that they all sort

of like tie

in together at some point like we we

sort of bring them all back together but

they all just kind of drifted off in

their own

direction right but i felt like that it

was a realistic thing and i also felt

like all the dialogue is really solid

between all the characters none of it

ever felt forced or like anyone was a

fake person

they all felt like very real

well-rounded people

that i actually cared about everybody it

wasn't one of those movies where there

was like

this person's kind of badly written i

could care less what happens to them i

guess

i just i don't just sit around watching

real people's lives like the reason i'm

watching a movie is because it's

you know an interesting version because

i'm bored of the people around me

yeah no i i get what i get your

criticisms but

i think uh just going into it i didn't

expect to enjoy it as much as i did

i felt like it was it was a more

compelling story and more compelling

characters than i was expecting going

and i thought it was going to be like

a silly musical like a high school

musical thing where

everything feels really unrealistic and

like stilted and strange

but i kind of wanted that i think i

think that i and i'm trying not to hold

a bias doing this but i think i was like

i was like ah musical okay this will be

fun well you gotta get disney plus so

you can watch high school musicals one

two and three then oh and the weird

documentary

yeah the thing that they're making high

school musical is on disney plus

but it's a mockumentary about the making

of a musical adapted from the high

school musical films

i don't again ouch it's like so meta and

it really doesn't have to be like i

think i had a stroke

[Laughter]

of luck but yeah up or down richard

oh boy this is like right in that fence

i guess i'm

gonna give it a very reluctant up um

it's like i i i can't hold

my going into it misunderstanding what

it was against it

um it's very competently made it's

interesting

uh it's just you just got catfished by

it yeah a little bit but you can't blame

the movie

yeah uh so i mean it was okay

um but yeah it's a reluctant note i am

100

on board with everything that richard

just said

shocker except i feel like i lean

ever so slightly on the other side of

that oh okay i think i put it

on i think i put it reluctantly put it

down because i'm like there's so many

good things about this movie uh you know

iconic things like the songs and stuff

like that

but would i actually tell anybody i know

to watch this movie

no probably not i'm i'm going with an up

on this one

just cause i actually really liked all

the songs and i liked all the characters

and i liked the writing i

i think that it's a generally a good

film yeah

i'd say it goes in my top half probably

letterboxed

what are we thinking guys jess we'll

start with you yeah so i have it um

it's above the windows threshold we have

it um

just above midnight madness and just

below

ninjinsky which puts it really darn

close to the middle of my list

judging from the fact that richard

laughed at that i'm guessing he is in

the exact same spot

i also have it above just above midnight

madness

uh but actually uh but it is directly

below folks

below folks oh my goodness after i say

that i'm putting it directly below folks

but above last married couple so uh a

little bit higher on my list i think

than your guesses

but that is perfectly fine everyone is

their own person

i think that's about everything for this

one if you guys have any thoughts you'd

like to share with us we are vintage

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thank you so much for listening and i

hope you'll join us next time when we'll

be discussing

home movies which imdb describes like so

keith gordon is a creative young man who

films the oddball doings of his family

and peers

keith gordon is the actor's name not the

character's name so i already take issue

with this summary

let's just say dennis byrd because

that's the character's name

there's a creative young man who films

the oddball doings of his family and

peers barely better

we'll get into that next time on vintage

video

we leave you now with the trailer

there's not going to be a trailer for

this

we leave you now with whatever sound

effect i deemed appropriate

were taken by a camera that was

programmed to take

one shot every 24 hours for six days

let's see if you can see anything

unusual about them

anybody notice anything

there next there he is again

next there next

yeah next there next

there well i think you must get the

picture now

this young man a frozen

frame in his own life the former student

of mine

a tragic example of a person who refused

to star

in his own life he

day and night i rehearsed this young man

i gave him the psychological gesture

motivation

i directed him to every crucial scene i

used every angle i knew he was on the

brink of stardom

and he plunged into the depth

of anonymity

forever an extra

never a star