Latest / Cigars and Cinema Podcast / "The Quintessential 90's Movie: Empire Records" Ep. 121 9/17/26

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"The Quintessential 90's Movie: Empire Records" Ep. 121 9/17/26 · Cigars and Cinema Podcast

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_03: Welcome back to another episode of Cigars and Cinema.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_03: Grab a cigar, something to pair it with, and let's journey into another episode of Smoke and Screen.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_03: Today's episode of Cigars and Cinema is coming to you from the OGT Cigars side to join a five-pack premium custom cigars each month at an undeniable price.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_03: Join the community and smoke with us on the Oakland Tobacchinist YouTube channel as we delve into the rich experience of OT Craft Cigars and many cigars and bipolas custom made just for our membership.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_03: If you're interested and if you want to find out more about the subscription and the full post of ET Cigars, visit us at www.bacchinist.com or find us on social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok at OGT Cigars.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_03: Hello, everybody.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_03: Welcome back to another episode of Cigars and Cinema Podcast.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_03: This is the podcast where we smoke cigars, unabashely commentating, in some cases giving extreme opinions on film and entertainment.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_03: I'm one of your hosts, Eric Drazen from OGT Cigars, and joining me tonight also is Curtis Bailey.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_03: Curtis, good to be back at it again.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, um, you'll have to forgive me tonight, viewers, that uh I had I wanted to open my curtain for a little smoke and I saw I've got like this little halo effect going on.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_03: Likewise, I've I've got a bit of a focusing situation.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_03: There we go.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_03: There, I had to like fine-tune it.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_03: But uh, we're back at it.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and uh it all it means is during the show, like when you're delivering some really like sage advice about this movie, it's just gonna be like, oh, when you're doing it.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_03: Why not?
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_03: But uh thank you guys so much for joining us tonight.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_03: We have a great show because we have now moved from the 80s to the 90s, and we're talking about a very quintessential film of the 90s, but also we have a new OGT variety pack to smoke through.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm gonna go ahead and throw this up here real quick.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_03: This is our newest drop for the OGT Variety Club.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_03: If you're in the variety club along with us, you can smoke each and every cigar that we sample on Tuesday nights for Cigars and Cinema Podcast.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_03: This is a really special lineup.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, we see some repeats uh in terms of brands that being Crown Heads is back.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_03: This Crown Heads Lab Imperiosa is an incredible blend.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_03: We have Stolen Throne making its appearance with Call to Arms, Lure cigars with the Corojo, and then the other two, the one without a band is our recent uh cigar called the Horde.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_03: This is a brilliant box press Maduro, and when it's picked up by the bundle, it is nearly five dollars a stick.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_03: So it's incredible.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_03: And then tonight, what we are smoking is that red label one.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_03: This is the Los Amigos, the newest brand to drop at OGT, and very, very new to the American market.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_03: In fact, I think we were like on the first 10 list of retailers to carry this brand.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I'm super excited about it because everything that Los Amigos makes comes out of the Domain Cigar Factory.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_03: I'm a big fan of what they do.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_03: This is called the uh Sacred Blend, and we're gonna be getting into that very shortly.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm excited.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_03: Some new stuff to try.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and we also have a few comments dropping down.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_03: So, as always, I will encourage you guys if you're watching the show, if you've been joining us for some time, let us know.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_03: What are you enjoying tonight?
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_03: What are you smoking tonight?
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_03: Put that down in the comments, uh, and I will do my best to pull that up, as well as if you have any questions or comments about the movie that we're talking about.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_03: Um, Daniel Frazier says, Don't think I've ever seen this movie.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_03: Hmm.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_03: Well, you're in luck because we can explain it to you and you can make the decision whether you want to watch it or not.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_03: Uh Jason says, Hello, fellas, got my pack today, just in time for tonight's show.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_03: Excellent.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_03: Awesome.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_03: Glad to hear it.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I noticed, Curtis, you are pairing something tonight.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_03: Is it the old-fashioned standby?
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: No, uh, I'm being really basic tonight and just wild turkey.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, there you go.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_03: Sometimes you just can't beat it.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_03: Um, okay, so let's let's run through what we're smoking tonight, and we're gonna get to our movie um representative of the 90s.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_03: So the Los Amigos uh Sacred Blend, uh, this is a rather dark Ecuadorian habano.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_03: Underneath is a very unique binder.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_03: In fact, first of its kind I've seen, it's it says Indonesia, but it goes into like specifics saying Bazookie East Java Indonesia.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_03: Now, yeah, it's very, very technical, very particular.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_03: From what I know, this is what I've been told, is that Indonesia makes a really good binder for two reasons, and you'll see Indonesian binders very commonly in the cigar industry.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_03: First, of which it's a very affordable binder, it's a very like cheap way to sort of like save money and have it do its job.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_03: Secondly, it does combustion a lot better than a lot of other tobacco.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_03: So when you have that binder and you have those fillers, you want them to burn all that all together.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_03: And so that binder from Indonesia tends to work pretty well.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_01: Right on.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_03: And then inside is Nicaraguan binder and uh sorry, Nicaraguan and Dominican filler.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_03: Uh Bob is on tonight saying Ezra Zion and Rocky Patel.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_03: There you go.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_03: Awesome.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_03: Glad to have you guys join us.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_03: So glad you can have us join us.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, let's give this a cut and let this give us a cold draw.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_03: I'm very curious.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_03: I'm not gonna say anything, Curtis, but I want you to say what your impression of this cold draw is first before I mention anything.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_03: Curious to see how it shakes out.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: Oh.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: Interesting.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_03: It's very interesting.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_03: In fact, I cold draw this cigar for nearly like a minute and a half when I first lit the cigar out.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: Mild eucalyptus?
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um something that's a little bit.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: What is that?
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: It might be by pairing off the eucalyptus.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to say rye bread.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_03: Um I I'm with you with the bread.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_03: I also get this really like sweet raisin-y quality to it.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, like a raisin breadiness.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_03: Um really like syrupy sweet.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_03: It's really interesting.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_03: Um, the draw is really good.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_03: How about yours?
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, likewise.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_03: Awesome.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, so we're gonna jump into this.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, and I forgot to say the size.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_03: This is a rather stout-looking cigar.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_03: This is a five by 56, the only size this cigar is released in.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_03: So there we go.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_03: We're gonna get this lit up.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_03: Every cigar leaves an impression.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: However, it's not until you take a moment and analyze the full experience from construction to flavor to profile that you can truly appreciate it.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_03: So enjoy your cigar as you light it up.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_03: Take the time to toast it, smell the room notes, and experience the first notes as they come alive.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: In the same way, movies can tell deeper stories or show us things we haven't noticed on the surface.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: So journey with us as we take a more detailed appreciation for the craft of cigar and movie making.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_03: All right, getting this fully lit up.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_03: I chose to go with the quad flame because a single flame on a 56 can take a little bit of time.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: Sure, yeah.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_03: Um, okay, so right out the gate, a lot of flavor happening, not too much crazy spice for me, um, but good sweetness off the uh palate.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_03: What are you getting so far?
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I mean, I think that bready character definitely follows out through.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'm also getting something that I would put in a herbal slash vegetable category.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I would definitely say I'm there with you with the breadiness.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_03: It seems to be sort of a through line, kind of making up like the foundation.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_03: Um definitely also get still, I don't know what that is.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_03: It's like an extreme, like raisin-y, maybe it's raisin bread, something like that.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_03: Um, hints of cinnamon, but only hints.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was making me.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: I was also getting like just like with that broad category of like whether you want to call it um, you know, bread pudding or cinnamon bread, raisin bread, whatever.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of like all in that that category.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_03: I agree, I agree.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_03: And while, and this is what I've noticed across the board with their portfolio, while this cigar has some good like heft to it, really some deep flavors, good body to it.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_03: Um, it's not crazy aggressive.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_03: And a lot of times, especially in newer brands from Nicaragua, they tend to be a bit more aggressive, and I I personally like that, but it's really cool to offer a different experience that has that heavy, full bodiness that's not crazy, crazy aggressive, spicy, like you know, too too heavy.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_03: Um and I love the smoke texture.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_03: Smoke texture is very silky to me.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_03: It's very like silky and smooth.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_03: So a lot of stuff going on with this cigar.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_03: I was very excited to drop it in the variety.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, that's a nice start.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, let's see here.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_03: Rodney, it says, I'd loved being a part of the OGT Cigar Society.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_03: Can't wait to sign up again.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_03: Still have a few for my last membership.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_03: Well, awesome! Can't wait to have you join us again.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_03: That's great.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, so we last week we had the task, the the quest, the journey, whatever you want to call it, to embark on Top Gun once again.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_03: And now that's behind us.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_03: So now we can move forward.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, and so Curtis, this is more of a movie that you had also mentioned because you wanted to pick one representative of the 90s.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_03: So if you don't mind taking the reins.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, I mean, there were lots of things that we could have gone with here, you know, movies like Clueless or Reality Bites, Kevin Smith films, you know, there's lots of stuff that qualifies as like having that distinct 90s feel or representing, you know, 90s culture, 90s anxieties, whatever, right?
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: But I knew you hadn't seen this movie, and I remember thinking to myself a couple times over the years, because I've seen this before.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, gosh, this is just like the most 90s movie that was ever made, just in terms of like the way the characters are styled, music, um, you know, the attitudes, some of the style of the filmmaking, all that kind of stuff.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: So I was like, let's watch Empire Records.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, yes.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_03: And Empire Records is what we're talking about tonight.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_03: Quite a bit to talk about tonight.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_03: If you guys have seen this movie, what do you think about it?
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_03: What is your opinion of it?
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_03: Did you have a chance to revisit it before this week?
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_03: So we'd love to know.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_03: Empire Records was made and produced, uh, I would say released in 1995, rated PG 13, with a run hour of one hour and 30 minutes.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_03: They used to do that back then.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_03: Uh let's see here.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_03: So, uh, in terms of a quick synopsis, 24 hours in the lives of young employees at Empire Records, when they all grow up and become young adults, thanks to each other and the manager, they all face the store joining a chain store with strict rules.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_03: Director is Alan Moyle, and uh stars in it is uh let's see here, Rory Cochran.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_03: We have uh or Cochrane, we have Renee Zellwigger, Liv Tyler, Johnny Witt Whitworth.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_03: Um, quite a bit of names in here that I think even went on to get much, much bigger.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_03: So it's interesting to see it in this kind of more early stage, uh, pre-Lord of the Rings, um, pre-other other big movies.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_03: So, yes, this was the first time I watched it.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_03: You were right.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_03: This movie is very, very much like trying its best to capture that like young adult adolescence like angst of the 90s, which is really funny because every generation kind of has its like own like teen angst, but it's funny how they manifest through the decades.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, find really interesting.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, I think it's uh arguable that there's a little bit of Breakfast Club DNA in movies like this.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I don't think this movie is as dramatically effective or subtle or lasting as something like Breakfast Club is, but nevertheless, that's you that's definitely an ingredient, right, with what they're doing here with these 100% young adults, whatever we want to call them.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um and uh it's there's there's so much just there's so I I like I said, I mean, you know, like 50% of it is just like costume and music, right?
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: What's what's going on in this movie?
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: But uh you know, I I have mixed feelings about like the quality of the film itself, but as far as like representing, like you said, the you know, the where young people at that age were at in the 90s, kind of kind of positioned against you know the relative safety of the economy and stuff, like you know, you would not have a version of this movie that felt like this if it was made in 2009.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right, you know, so yeah, I I don't know.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: It feels like it captures a lot of that stuff on a relatively superficial level, but it's there all the same.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, I would say on that principle, I'm glad you chose this movie.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, because like the goal of this is we didn't say whether or not we're picking a movie that represented because we love that so much, and that brings us back to that era.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_03: Simply a movie that was made that was birthed from that era because of what was going on.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I think your comparison with Breakfast Club is something that I Mallory and I get kept going back to as we watched this movie.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_03: Um, this is proof that not everyone is John Hughes when they're trying to make a movie like that.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, it also felt like it was in few for me personally, it was infused a little bit of like the formula of friends that was that was there in terms of like but making it for younger younger generation.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_03: Now, of course, when this movie came out, I was pretty darn young.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_03: So most of my teenage years would come after this.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_03: Um, this seemed I think one of the biggest things that I feel like this movie struggles with is yes, it captures the music and the costumes and such like that, but it still feels like someone's like writing the story and directing the story like kids these days do this, right?
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and there's a disconnect there for me.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I get that.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, like we're and again with the um the Breakfast Club reference, one of the things that was relatively remarkable about John Hughes was that even though you know he did not live as a teenager in the 80s, he seems to understand teenager dumbness, you know, more than most writers do, and he had kind of a deft hand with uh that kind of stuff.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: This movie's more blunt on that, you know, uh, and I I dare say that even that is you know part of the 90s-ness of it, right?
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um but yeah, overall the quality of the uh the the characters, personas, and the character drama in this is flimsy.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's yeah, it's it's kind of and I think well, and also I I think that you know maybe this has something to say about the way that like you know, filmmakers or movie producers uh almost might have started looking down on teenage audiences a little bit because the 80s sort of birthed the teenage audience as a thing that now needed to be paid attention to when the PG 13 rating came out.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like suddenly, oh, that's that's that's where we make all the money.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: If you can, you know, market a movie that you know can uh uh bring in the teenagers, then bing bang boom, like you know, so many blockbusters came out of PG 13.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: And it feels like a little bit like maybe this movie was written simplistically because they're like, oh, well, this is the audience that it's for, right?
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: You know, these dumb kids that didn't see it the way John Hughes did.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, you know, there's more sophistication and emotional depth there than maybe we want to give them credit for.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: So I feel like that's part of what's going on here, too.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_03: And I honestly, I'm just gonna go out and say it right now.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know how much more we can talk about this movie without continually drawing the parallel of John Hughes' movies.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_03: I think it's warranted, and I think there are a good illustration of why we can show why this formula works and why the other one doesn't.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_03: One of the big things um I think is actually your antagonist.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_03: Like the the even the concept in uh Ferris Bueller, concept in Breakfast Club, it gets personified by these kind of outlandish type of villains, whether whether you have the principal uh or you have Rooney or whoever.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_03: But what I enjoy about like Breakfast Club, it even takes the moments to hear the point of perspective coming from, and I I'm blanking on his name.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but basically the principal in Breakfast Club.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it gives the moments and times to do that.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_03: The the quote unquote like antagonist beyond the concept, and it's personified in this guy who wants to sell the record company and franchise, it's so flimsy.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_03: It is.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_03: There's there's there's so little like exposition given about it.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_03: You're just like, oh, we're supposed to hate this guy.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_03: The minute he walks in, I think on like minute 45, minute 50, and it's like, well, what we don't we're not given time, we're just supposed to accept.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_03: And this movie, that's its crutch throughout the entire movie.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_03: You're supposed to accept this is how it is, because you know, kids, and it just doesn't work.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and you know, I mean, I think that's another part of the 90s-ness of this, is you know, because the Empire Records store is an independent record store, it's not part of a big franchise, but that's about to change.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: They want to get trying to get bought out by Music Town, and that's represented, you know, through that, you know, that one character who shows up in like three scenes, right?
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: So he's he's kind of insistantial.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: But I do think that there is some of that the the 90s-iness of this is that rejection of like Wall Street, you know, I'm talking about the Oliver Stone movie, Gordon Gecko, Greed is good, corporatism, you know, indie film was big in the 90s, indie music was big in the 90s, and this feels like you know, just that whole damn the corporate man thing, it's extremely thinly you know addressed in this movie, but I do feel like that's nevertheless still like a part of the whole 90s-ness of this movie.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_03: I agree, I agree for sure.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, let's see here.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_03: Mallory says it can't decide between mockery and sincerity as a perspective, whereas Hughes took the human problems with total sincerity.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and Jason says it seems everyone had a problem and it had to be a music number.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_03: Um that's that's pretty astute as well.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_03: Both are really good comments.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and I think you would what's interesting is like what Mallory's saying about the human aspect with John Hughes.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_03: Um, Bender does a bunch of horrible stuff in Breakfast Club, but then you learn motive behind it.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_03: And the only real like motives are very much in this movie, just kind of like afterthoughts that are kind of spoken.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_03: For sure.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_03: I think one of the biggest throwaways I was like, okay, I see what they're going, but it's man is this missing.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_03: When they're like, okay, so the best way to show we care about uh the lady, I'm trying to remember her name.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_03: Um Deborah, I think it is.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_03: Then what we'll do is we'll do a pseudo like funeral, and they're like trying to do this like funny but like loving blah blah blah exchange.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_03: And then Renee Zellwigger comes out of the shadows.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_03: Where has she been?
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_03: And she's like, Well, I'm scared of this.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_03: And they're like, Oh, it's so forced.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_03: It is so forced, it does not work.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and I think that's a a refrain in in this movie.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: Like, if we take one of the other kind of like main subplots going on, is and I've got again, because like I don't I don't I don't I don't fall in love with these characters.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: I've got my Wikipedia cheat sheet pulled up here because I don't know what their names are.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: Uh AJ, the artist, the wannabe artist kid, and uh Liv Tyler, who's Corey?
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: Corey.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, he he pines after her, she seems oblivious to it.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um his you know, kind of internal struggle over trying to figure out how he wants to express that to her is only surface level kind of stuff.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, the actor is given some occasionally awkward, like, you know, I don't want to say monologues, but bits where he's talked like trying to hype himself up or whatever.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: And then uh uh Corey, you know, has this thing where she tries to throw herself at Rex Manning, this sort of like you know, aged pop star that they have in their store for a signing event, and that goes poorly for her.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: And then suddenly just like you know, wave a couple wands at the screenplay, and then she's on the rooftop with him and he's like, actually, I liked you all along.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like you didn't do anything to establish that other than just it's a convenient plot turn.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: So now that AJ gets to win the girl at the end, it's just like come on.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_03: Well, yeah, and in that scene when he's like, Okay, we actually like each other, and he's like, Well, I am going to art school so I can be near you.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_03: I was like, Oh, so this was a thing?
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_03: Like you never mentioned it.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_03: He just likes to glue quarters onto the floor, like it very, very underdeveloped.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so I agree with you completely.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_03: Uh Jason says Paul Gleason was the principal of Breakfast Club.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, yeah.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_03: Daniel Frazier says they changed the texture of Welsh fruit snacks.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_03: They still taste great, but doesn't have the smooth texture anymore.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_03: That's that sounds like a catastrophe.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_03: That's not good.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_03: Um, yeah, and I I uh I think when you're dealing with a movie like this, one setting, kind of a tightly knit cast, um you do have time on your side.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_03: And sometimes you can also mistake that time and have it drawn out in and focused on places you don't need to for the sake of time.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_03: And I feel like that's partly where the movie goes wrong.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um give me I think I feel like I know what you mean, but I want to hear an example.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_03: I I feel like uh there are okay, so you had just mentioned like scenes about like Liv Tyler never really like developing this likeness for for Casey, um or sorry, AJ.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_03: While this is happening, you have you have things happening with like the Rex, uh his uh I don't know, account manager, whatever falling in love with the owner, and they're like, we should go out, and like there's no development there, but we had to get through it.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_03: You get random, uh, what's the the kid's name?
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_03: I think it's Ethan Embry, who plays Mark.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, and his random, like eating a brownie and stuff.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_03: It's like, okay, so these filler moments to feel the 90s actually is detracting from the story you're trying to say.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_03: So you're one foot in, one foot out is leaving everyone confused, and you're losing it.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um I have a real mixed feelings about the movie's sort of loosey-goosey structure because you're right, there's a lot of scenes where it's just like, oh, we're gonna take a couple minutes and spend time with Mark while he watches Guar on TV when he's eating his weed brownie.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and you know, on in principle, I like that kind of thing, you know, given little kind of character beats and whatnot.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: But um I think it works best when there's also enough dramatic heft.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: For example, we love Ferris Bueller's Day off in on cigars and cinema, and you know, there's that scene where they're at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and Ferris is talking to um Sloane about like, you know, do you want to get married?
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: And we just cut a couple times to Cameron in the background as he's doing the thing.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: You know, so there's goofy little bits that they allow that movie to have that enhance the the kind of quirkiness of the characters, but the story fundamentals are still really strong, and there's yes, meat on the bone there, right?
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, this is doing a bunch of the former and almost none of the latter.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, yeah, yes, I agree.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_03: And to your point, that scene with Cameron, I feel like in the beats that it takes and sort of what he's doing is basically the crickets of Sloane not answering.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_03: Of you have that like so, even in that, there is purpose behind it.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, not just oh, well, he's a funny kid, so for sure.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_03: Um, Daniel Frazier, okay, to follow up, says my son thought so in terms of the fruit snacks.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_03: He just had to come and inform me that instead of sleeping.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_03: I empathize, Daniel.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_03: I know exactly what you're talking about.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody called somebody called the president of Welches, right?
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: The post-paste.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_03: That's right.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_03: That's right.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_03: Uh Texas Torres says, I have a cigar question.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_03: We'll see if it's a cigar question.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_03: What's your question?
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so as before we uh continue on this, we're gonna pull up another comment, but let's uh check in real quick in the second third of this Los Amigos cigar.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_03: So a quality I've realized about this cigar and a lot of the other blends that they put out is to me, there's a level of maturity that this blend brings that I really enjoy.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I don't know if you if I I I can explain it very well, but it's like so well-rounded and it like its deliverance of the smoke, its flavor, it just feels like a mature cigar to me.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, um, it's also one, and maybe this is aligned with what you were just talking about.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, this is not punchy, and I don't say that as a a negative.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like the the flavor profile in this is pretty subtle.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um and you know, like I I'm trying to work out like you know, last time we checked on a what am I picking out, what feels a little bit different.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't want to say that it's difficult necessarily, but yeah, I mean, you know, the these are our you know flavors that are sort of like generally whispering at you and not you know clubbing you over the head, but it's not bad.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: Like I don't say that it's a negative.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um I feel like I'm picking up uh I mentioned eucalyptus on the cold draw.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like maybe that's a component of what I'm tasting now on the on the regular draw.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_03: I can see that, and I think, ooh, that was uh that was a definite, like um I that bready component, like a maybe like a raisin muffin is what I'm getting.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, I keep getting pulled back to this raisin element.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but I think what's really interesting about it, as you said, like it's it kind of hints at you in terms of flavor tone.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_03: Um, it's I think confusing to the palate because oftentimes when we have those types of flavor profiles, they're on really light, light cigars.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_03: Sure.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_03: So when you mix it with a fuller body and that being smoke texture, uh mouthfeel, with a more subtle flavor profile, then it's kind of takes your mind a minute to be like, hey, wait, what is this?
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_03: And I think that's where the beauty of this cigar really comes in.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_03: That I really enjoy.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_03: And also, it's not often you can find a cigar that's it's this like kind of dense that the retro is just this really clean finish all the way through.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_03: There's no like eyes watering.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so I'm reluctant to say a dessert cigar because when I think of that, I think more of like custardy or creamy or chocolatey.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_03: Sure.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_03: You're not really getting those notes, but because it's more leaning towards the subtle, sweeter side and less spicy, peppery, I think that's where my brain is going.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_00: I suppose if you were in Britain, did you this could be like a high tea cigar?
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_03: Mm-hmm.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_03: Exactly.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_03: Exactly.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_03: Pinkies up when you're smoking it.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_03: Exactly.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but yeah, burn burn rate is great.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_03: I really, really enjoy this cigar.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_03: So uh I don't know if you're smoking the same thing, Jason.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_03: Let us know.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_03: What are your thoughts on it?
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, let's see here.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_03: Speaking of Jason, he says, I never got how the kid that stole 40 bucks in CDU still uh was hanging out with everyone as if you worked there.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_03: I didn't either.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, um, I mean, it does seem like, you know, if we look at the character of Joe, who's the store owner, you know, he's clearly a guy who, you know, probably in his 20s wanted to be in a rock band, you know, hated the establishment, you know, failed through a couple things and wound up having to be the retail manager of this, you know.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to say it's lousy because obviously people like the store, but you know, it's not this.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think that he set out, you know, like to be a record store manager, right?
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_00: At the start of his life.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: So he does they do, I think they do consistently show that he's a guy who's kind of like welcoming all the weirdos.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's established at the very beginning of the movie that that character Lucas, you know, steals nine thousand dollars from the safe because he thinks that he can, you know, turn it over in Atlantic City and save Empire Records and not have to be turned into a music town.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_00: And the way that Joe reacts to that is extremely understated.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's a part of that positioning him as you know, he's he's a shelter for the rebels kind of thing.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, the thing with Warren, the kid who's the shoplifter, um, you know, maybe you could say that that's part of that.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_00: But again, it's just it's sketched extremely thinly, and you just kind of kind of have to either roll with it or be like, no, movie, I how dare you, you know.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like, and I I don't judge like, you know, either way that somebody wants to land on the this movie's tone when it comes to that kind of stuff.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, it's like dude was a shoplifter, and then they give him a name tag, and he's part of the crew, and it's just kind of part of the like, you know, damn the man, loosey goosey nature of this bunch of 90s kids doing 90s stuff, I guess.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, right.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's weird, it's weird.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_03: It is weird, it is weird.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_03: And to your point, I feel like this movie is trying to cast the sort sort of like spell that Breakfast Club and these other movies did.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_03: And if it does, like you were saying, if it does work for you, I think you are gonna forgive a lot of those things.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I think on this podcast is probably clear, what past half hour in that you and I that didn't really work for us in terms of that happening.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_03: Um, we got several uh things down here in the comments.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_03: So Texas Torres says, I got some postscripts.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_03: What is the best humidity for them to taste good?
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm wondering, first of which, if it's the Habano or the Maduro, uh, and what maybe uh you're experiencing.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_03: I would say really, for me, the sweet spot for especially the Maduro is like 67% humidity range, nothing too crazy because the more it's gonna be humidified, uh, especially on darker cigars, it's gonna hold that humidity and you might have more muted flavor profile.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_03: Daniel Frazier says I shoot for 69 for storage where I'm at.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_03: Try to smoke them about 62, 65, but it's one of those things you kind of have to figure it out for yourself, trial and error, depending on where you're at for sure.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_03: Um Jason says, good cigar so far in terms of the sacred blend.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_03: It might be me, but it tasting a rice note with raisins.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_03: Interesting.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_03: And then Bob is saying Mittfist youth clinging to Joe as their father figure.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_03: I agree that's what they were going with.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_03: Did they paint that picture clear enough?
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_03: I don't think it really works when they're like, okay, so leading up to like this big climax scene when they're trying to gotta rescue the whole shop.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_03: We're gonna bring the kid back in with a gun and he's gonna shoot up the place, and you're like, what's gonna happen?
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_03: Of course, uh, when Deb comes in, she's like, I'll deal with it because she already almost like killed herself.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_03: Yep, and so then they like capture him and they're like, Oh, by the way, throwaway line, it was blanks.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_03: Now, and it's just like, well, wait, what?
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_03: Like that type of thing is what this movie does for an hour and a half.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_03: They don't really explore any of those, and you just accept it.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, it's blanks.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there's a real um, I mean, I think I used this term before, it kind of like loosey-goosey approach that the movie has to uh both plot and characterization, I guess.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_00: And um it seemed to wanted to have a lot of these what they probably felt were like fun freewheeling, you know, uh occurrences and behaviors and stuff like that.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_00: But um it comes off because I I do think that some of it's effective in this movie.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's not all bad, sure, but largely it comes off as kind of like a little purposeless or not thought through, right?
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_00: You know, just kind of affect for affect's sake, and sometimes that's fun, but you know, ladled on top of all the other stuff that's already happening in this movie with lots of relative superficiality in the presentation, that's just another thing on like the cherry on top of you know, this sort of like weird effervescent Sunday of you know, uh it's weird.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_03: Well, and as you had mentioned, this movie I feel like was intentionally trying to capture that like I don't know, youth movement of the 90s.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_03: So if that's the case, with we have an hour and a half, uh, why do we focus or have the backdrop music a lot of the times not from the 90s or what was popular?
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, you have a dire straits song in there.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_03: That's right.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_03: You focus a lot on this, this, this older artist, Rex, what's his name?
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_03: Um I feel like that's a misopportunity in terms of if you're actually bringing what's like going on right there.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_03: Do you does that make sense?
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, yes and no.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, as far as the whole Rex Manning aspect of it, you know, I that feels like they put that in there just so they could have an excuse to do this sort of like culture clash between generations, I I guess.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um and you know, it's definitely a thing that does happen, you know, pop stars as they age, sometimes you know, they end up having to to do stuff like going to a crappy record store and to to sign stuff.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_00: So like I you know, I I guess it kind of functions, but um, as far as like the other music and stuff, I definitely remember as a teenager, because I was 16 when this movie came out.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_00: And we were definitely into our own music, but there was a lot of um, you know, kind of either sincere or ironic affection for stuff from a decade or two prior, and you know, that got a lot of heavy rotation on our car radios and stuff like that.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_00: So it doesn't feel all insincere to me, like when they listen to the buggles, for example, that video killed the radio star.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's the first uh music video on MTV.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, stuff like that would definitely have been like you know, like I said, we would probably listen to it ironically because we were 16-year-old idiots, but but you know, like that that was that was definitely a thing.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_00: So it didn't it didn't feel all uh insincere to me.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_00: Uh yeah.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, okay.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_03: Uh let's see here.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_03: Texas Taurus says, I got both.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_03: So yeah, I would definitely say try lighter humidity if you can with the Maduro and experiment with that um and kind of fine-tweak that that might change it up depending on what you've been experiencing.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_03: Uh Jason says this movie was quilted together too many stories where it could have been two.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_03: Um, it does definitely feel disjointed.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_03: We've talked about AJ and Corey because I feel like Corey is very integral to this story.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_03: What about her relationship with uh Renee Zellwigger's character, um Gina?
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um I don't know.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um I think that you know, I mean, I like the idea of a relationship between uh young women, friends, you know, people of this age, where it's both close and contentious at the same time.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and you know, there's no reason that you know you can't have characters like that in a movie like this.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_00: But uh because this movie is spinning so many plates and it has so many other things going on, and generally does not have a super deep take on any of the characters, these two as the women who are, you know, unfortunately doesn't quite pass the Bechtel test, you know, in the terms of like, you know, they're there's this contention between them that inevitably comes down to sex andor relationships, and it feels like a little bit like low-hanging fruit or superficial, right?
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that you know, uh somebody with a John Hughes mindset probably could have written you know a little bit more respectful, fully rounded kind of people to fill roles like this.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_00: So I have mixed feelings about it, if that makes sense.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_03: No, I I I definitely do as well.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_03: I feel like whenever you're telling a story with characters, then a lot has to do with the progression of their characters and how their relationships progress.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_03: This is an all-over the place.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_03: Gina picks her up and they're super excited because it's Rex Day, and she says all the uh Corey claims all the things she's gonna do with Rex, and they're like, Oh yeah, what a wonderful time.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_03: This is gonna be great.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_03: We're just a couple of girls in the 90s, and then like it doesn't go that way, so they meet at the diner and they have the big fight, and then they go back, and then Gina like uh comes out and says the whole thing with what uh Corey's been doing with the speed drugs to keep up and all that, and so that's the last time we see that.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_03: Next thing you know, I miss Gina.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm like, wait, wait, why?
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_03: Like it's it's so back and forth that way.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_03: And then in that confessional, by the way, I wish I was in a band I could sing.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_03: Well, there's McGuffin's gun or whatever you call it, it's gonna have to show up later.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_03: Like that type of thing is just it's being tossed, and there's it it really feels like there's no progression in their relationship, and as you're saying, kind of as the main some of the main uh women in this movie, I feel like that's problematic to its story.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_00: It is absolutely, yeah.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_00: Uh you know, it's it's all it's oh, go ahead, please.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_03: I was gonna say Mallory also says the absence of grunge as a genre, though.
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's true, for sure.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_03: For sure.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you'd have to go watch.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Cameron Crow made a movie came out about this same time called Singles that has Matt Dillon in it.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_00: And there is literally like Eddie Vetter and guys from uh Sound Garden in that movie as characters, yeah, or themselves.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, it's it's almost as if, and this is not I'm not saying that they should have done this because boy howdy, I don't think they needed to, but you know, with what they were attempting to do here, this almost needs to be like a Robert Altman style, like three-hour long you know, with all the stuff that they're trying to do.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, if you're really gonna give all of these characters their due, um I you I I either you need to stop having the pretenses to the emotional drama that you're going for and lean more into the comedy and stuff, or cut some characters out or make it longer because they're trying to blend all these things and the the container can't hold it.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's just you know, uh the it the whole thing ends up being really superficial, you know.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_00: Again, not every individual moment, not every individual idea, whatever, but like broadly, um, it's it's it's not up to the task, it seems like it kind of feels like this movie is a little bit spaghetti against the wall in a way.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_03: So, and if the if that being is an analogy that we can kind of work with, and the characters are the spaghetti.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_03: Are any of the characters, the main characters, did any of them draw you into where you wanted to kind of see more?
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_03: They at least uh held your attention to where you're like, okay, where is this going?
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I mean, what I I I have to admit, uh, to my dismay that when I was a teenager and I saw this, I did identify with AJ as the artsy kid who was pining for a girl that he didn't know how to talk to.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, Yeah, that's me.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_00: Hi.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but uh, you know, uh what after when I watched it last night, uh, you know, even though I think there's still, you know, like I said, broadly superficiality on all the guys, I think maybe lots of credit to the actor's name is Anthony Lapalia.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_00: I kind of like Joe.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, I kind of like his attitude.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and there's even that that kind of cool bit where he's like frustrated and he has to cool off, so he just goes and plays drums in his office for a while.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, I I even sort of like, and they don't beat you over the head with it where he sides with his employees, you know, Lucas, the guy who stole the money.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_00: He says, you know, my employee need he's the one of my guys needed it.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_00: You know, there's something kind of cool about that sort of like aging rebel kind of character.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_00: Again, you know, with a better writer and screenplay and stuff like that, that character could have been even more interesting.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_00: But as you know, taking the as they are face value in this movie, I kind of like Joe.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, okay.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_03: And I I mean, I yeah, I definitely think it's an underdeveloped character, but I I definitely see that.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_03: I would say for me, the character that I felt like had enough personality that made sense uh was Lucas, the one who like loses all the money.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I like him too.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_03: I think his he's one of the few, I feel like, out of the six main main, like main main figures that his quirks were actually believable to me.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_03: So a lot of the times, like Mark, who takes the brownie, it's just over the top.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_03: It's like 200% over the top.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_03: Like, yeah, you knew the kids that were kind of like that, but not necessarily like that.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_03: Like, I don't know.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_00: It was well, and there's there's a thing I really like about Lucas' dialogue in this movie is that you know he he's obviously you know kind of trying to play it as cool and detached as he possibly can.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_00: That's sort of his defense mechanism.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_00: But he's also this got this thing where he sort of like dryly yes-ands almost everything that the other characters say, you know, when they bounce in and out of the office where he's there.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so some of the lines that he gets to say, I think, are probably among the best in the movie just because of the tone and the performance and stuff like that.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_00: That character works for me too.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and I think the situations that he gets into that are kind of the what the the movie is trying to make for its bread and butter in terms of the gags, like we had mentioned him watching TV.
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_03: There's even a scene when like for some for some reason I turned about and I was like, what's going on?
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, but like there's a scene when like after Corey's like, no, I don't, I can't handle this right now.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_03: So they go downstairs and they turn on music, and then all of a sudden Deb and and uh AJ are dancing and everyone's kind of dancing and stuff.
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_03: A lot of the quirkiness going on.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_03: I'm like, I just this is not working.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_03: The the gag that did work for me is the whole stay on the couch, and he's like trying to look and he like takes the couch.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_03: I was like, okay, this this is seems like it's got a a sincerity behind it that is actually working.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_03: So that I think attributed to me liking Lucas's character.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_03: For sure.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_03: Uh let's see here.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_03: Jason says 90s movie suggestions, dazed and confused, or almost famous for great movie soundtracks.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_03: Obviously, dazed and confused forever.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, um, I think Almost Famous technically came out in 2000.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_00: So don't let I know I'm being pedantic here, but yes, great, great music in both of those films.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_03: And also, if you guys are putting out suggestions, we're gonna be moving from nineties to two thousands uh next week.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_03: So if you have any uh suggestions on what you want us to cover for two thousands, drop that in the comments.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_03: Right, yeah.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_03: Um, let's talk about the It's a Wonderful Life moment at the end.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_03: When there I I truly was disoriented when they're like, fine, let's do that, let's do this, and it moved.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_03: Into this, we're gonna have a block party to raise money for a shop I don't own, and then I'm going to give it to the man afterwards so I can buy the shop.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_03: And this businessman that's about money, money, money, money is just like, I don't want headaches, so I'll sell it to you for a jar of money.
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_03: All the things that happen, I'm like, I see where you're going, but it like the movie, it doesn't earn itself there.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_03: And to me, whatever feeling they were trying to go for fell really flat.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know if you had a similar experience or if you enjoyed it.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I mean, you mentioned it at the start with the you know, uh, pretty much everything surrounding the quote unquote villain in this, you know, that guy who represents Music Town, um, is there only to serve like the barest basic of plot function.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_00: And that's kind of it.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and yeah, the the effort that it takes to, you know, raise the money, it's like, oh shit, that was barely an inconvenience.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_00: Why didn't we just do that in the first place?
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_00: Just took a couple hours, like it's so big.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's a lot of different things.
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_03: And then to have then to have the like crescendo moment after that, and they're like, okay, CJ loves Corey and Corey loves CJ.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_03: Let's have a dance montage at the end to really like make us really contemplate what we just went through for an hour and 28 minutes.
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm like, this let's just roll the credits.
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_03: Um, it's not worth it.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_00: But the watching it last night, that that that sequence at the end definitely reinforced why I thought this was a good pick, and it's maybe not the best or the most 90s movie, but it is among them.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_00: And when you've got you know, one of your climactic scenes where a dude with the shaggy like Jonathan Taylor Thomas haircut and a sweater that goes past his wrist on the roof, kissing Liv Tyler while Jin Bossum plays in the background.
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, this is the most 90s thing.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, yes.
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, if there's one thing, I mean, the yeah, the costumes are pretty spot on being in the 90s, but no, I agree with you 100%.
• 45:53
  SPEAKER_03: Like that, I felt like the movie would have been better if they had just been like, let's make it a music video about a fictional place called Right Empire Records.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but yeah, like the block party, and it gets so fantastical, and the movie's already fantastical.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, um, but yeah.
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and they they do a weird thing because you know, the you talk about that scene with Gina where she comes up to the funeral and expresses you know how that she's like nervous about you know being a performer.
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_00: I think that happens in that scene regardless.
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_00: She gets up on the roof and they're singing this song.
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_00: She gets like two-thirds of the way through the song where she's already been singing part, you know, co-lead vocals.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, I know it's a good thing.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_00: And then there's this bit where the guitarist is like, all right, step up to the mic, you know, go ahead, like sing by yourself.
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_00: And she's suddenly then two-thirds of the way to the song, too nervous.
• 46:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's like you've already been doing it.
• 46:44
  SPEAKER_00: I wonder if people got on the street saw you doing it.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_00: Why are you nervous now?
• 46:48
  SPEAKER_03: I wonder if that's like an editing issue.
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_03: Like it was the continuity.
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know, but you're right.
• 46:53
  SPEAKER_03: It it it causes you to be like, huh?
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_03: It's it's really weird.
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_03: And I know this is a small thing, and this is probably a personal thing, but one other thing I'll give uh the like Breakfast Club one-up on is at least they chose kids who really love the music and who could also dance at the same time.
• 47:08
  SPEAKER_03: There's a lot of like the these main actors that I'm like, they're supposed to be like showing, I guess, like they're really into the music and it's just it seems so strained that even that was too much of a wall, like a barrier for me to really get lost in it.
• 47:25
  SPEAKER_03: I understand.
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_03: So uh yeah, that's that's I think most of the stuff that I want to cover on this movie.
• 47:30
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know if there's any follow-up stuff.
• 47:33
  SPEAKER_03: I was curious, I was like, did Curtis really like this movie?
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_03: Does he really like this movie?
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_03: I I wasn't sure.
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, um, it's never been a movie that I loved.
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I definitely liked it more when I was a teenager.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um uh, you know, I thought Mark was really funny when I was a teenager, and like I said, I identified with character like AJ.
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um but you know, I didn't I didn't think too deeply about it when I was 16.
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, you know, I saw it probably one or two times over the years and uh you know felt like you know, yeah, you know, nostalgically I didn't love this movie, but I still kind of, you know, I mean, I I grew up in this era, so like I know exactly what the feelings are that's going for, and I recognize the stereotypes and stuff like that.
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, it feels very uh identifiable.
• 48:18
  SPEAKER_00: But um, you know, it was reinforced after watching it last night that um, you know, this is a very superficial, many steps behind runner-up to movies like The Breakfast.
• 48:31
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 48:32
  SPEAKER_03: And honestly, Mallor and I kept asking each other, like, do you think you would have liked this movie?
• 48:37
  SPEAKER_03: Like, if we were of the right audience when this movie came out.
• 48:41
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and in the beginning, first quarter, like we had the benefit of the doubt.
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_03: We're like, no, we probably would have been into this a lot more.
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_03: And then as it continued, I was like, I I don't know.
• 48:50
  SPEAKER_03: Like Liv Tyler, while she's a actress that you don't like dislike to watch on screen, her character is really not great in this movie.
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_03: And like her freakouts that she has uh with like little explanation, like do you just kind of get the feeling like that's who she is?
• 49:09
  SPEAKER_03: And it just for me, I'm like, I I don't think this is something I would have jumped on, but yeah, yeah.
• 49:14
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, real realistically, every one of these characters, if you were to give their story their due, they probably each kind of like deserve their own movie, like really be fleshed out as people because you know, one of the benefits uh again, I you know, we it's hard to keep making this uh stop making this comparison, but you know, the thing that Brenn Breakfast Club benefits from, because it's got a similar-ish-sized cast, you could say it's a little smaller, but um because there's not all the hubbub of having to do the record store stuff and do the plot about where the money is and Rex Manning Day and all that kind of stuff, that movie really is able to take all of its screen time to just sit with these characters and who they are and see what they're like as they bounce off of each other.
• 49:58
  SPEAKER_00: This is trying to do that plus all the other stuff, and it it doesn't it doesn't work.
• 50:03
  SPEAKER_03: I agree.
• 50:03
  SPEAKER_03: At least not completely.
• 50:04
  SPEAKER_03: Mallory says, I tried to imagine, but I think I was too much of a goody too she was at 15.
• 50:09
  SPEAKER_03: So that that for two okay.
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_03: So uh let's let's revisit the sacred blend by three amigo uh three Los Amigos, uh and uh what are your thoughts on it?
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it's you know, this is typical for cigars as you get into the final third, it's intensifying a little bit.
• 50:31
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like I'm also getting um maybe even more of that cinnamon quality going on for sure.
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_03: I agree.
• 50:41
  SPEAKER_03: It's definitely ramping up a bit more there.
• 50:43
  SPEAKER_03: It's its flavors becoming a bit more pronounced.
• 50:46
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but through and through, this is a I feel like this is a cigar that you want to sit down and give it the time.
• 50:54
  SPEAKER_03: It's not a cigar that you kind of just light up and smoke because hey, I was in the mood for a cigar tonight and want something that's just kind of gonna be there.
• 51:00
  SPEAKER_03: This is definitely like nuanced and it's refined, uh, and it's kind of a different side from a lot of the other boutique cigars that come out there, that being like the attention to the flavor profile and nuance to it.
• 51:11
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm I'm pretty impressed with it.
• 51:13
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, for sure.
• 51:15
  SPEAKER_03: Uh Jason says, I give the cigar a seven, the movie a five.
• 51:19
  SPEAKER_03: So on that note, let's go ahead and put from a scale from one to ten for uh the Los Amigo cigar.
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_03: Curious to see where this is gonna land.
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_03: All right.
• 51:36
  SPEAKER_03: I have my number.
• 51:38
  SPEAKER_03: Solid seven for me.
• 51:39
  SPEAKER_03: All right, solid eight for me.
• 51:41
  SPEAKER_03: So not too far off, but in there, yeah.
• 51:43
  SPEAKER_03: Definitely a cigar.
• 51:44
  SPEAKER_00: See, we don't always line up, guys.
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_03: We were a full point apart.
• 51:50
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, and then for the movie.
• 51:53
  SPEAKER_03: What do I say with this?
• 51:57
  SPEAKER_02: All right, I've got my number.
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_02: It's a six for me.
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, I have a 4.5.
• 52:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, completely understandable.
• 52:07
  SPEAKER_00: I think that like that one and a half points is probably just because you know, there was a time in my life when I remember liking this more, and some of that affection lingers.
• 52:18
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, yeah, if I'm being um as objective as possible, it's it's a it's a lesser film.
• 52:25
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, so based on that, if someone was like, all right, Curtis, but you promised you have to either watch this movie or Top Gun again, which one would you revisit?
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_03: Oh gosh.
• 52:36
  SPEAKER_03: Like if you had to.
• 52:45
  SPEAKER_00: You know, probably this one, just because it would be well, first it's shorter.
• 52:54
  SPEAKER_00: That's yeah.
• 52:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um I feel like it would be like easier to tune out on it if I had to.
• 53:02
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 53:06
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I I I was purely looking at it economically, and like this one is only an hour and a half, so you can't um it is a hard one for sure.
• 53:18
  SPEAKER_03: I I'm gonna say Top Gun, I gave it a higher rating than this one.
• 53:22
  SPEAKER_03: Um yeah, that's fair.
• 53:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I I think with Top Gun, it's just like I've definitely seen that one more times, and I feel like I've seen it enough times.
• 53:33
  SPEAKER_00: But I don't know, maybe that's true of this one too.
• 53:35
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 53:36
  SPEAKER_00: Why do you have why are you gonna force this on me, Eric?
• 53:38
  SPEAKER_00: These are this cruel and unusual punishment.
• 53:41
  SPEAKER_03: And I would like to be on record that you suggested both of the no um okay.
• 53:48
  SPEAKER_03: So next week we're gonna finish up the decade series with a 2000s film, uh, one very quintessential 2000s.
• 53:56
  SPEAKER_03: If you guys have any suggestions, send them our way.
• 53:58
  SPEAKER_03: Social media, if you follow us on Instagram, Cigars and Cinema Podcast.
• 54:02
  SPEAKER_03: And then very shortly after, we're gonna be jumping into the realm of Halloween horror films.
• 54:08
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 54:09
  SPEAKER_03: Which last year, if you guys were with us last year, we covered a lot of recent releases of 2025 when that was coming out.
• 54:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 54:17
  SPEAKER_03: We were none too impressed.
• 54:20
  SPEAKER_03: So uh we're gonna be doing the same this time around.
• 54:22
  SPEAKER_03: Um, some pretty pretty big movies came out in the name of horror and thriller and stuff like that.
• 54:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there were there were two really big independent horror movies this summer.
• 54:32
  SPEAKER_03: I feel like it's kind of our duty to to do those ones.
• 54:35
  SPEAKER_03: Agreed.
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_03: So uh yeah, so we're gonna be back with 2000s movie next week, and then after that, we'll be doing Halloween again.
• 54:41
  SPEAKER_03: But thank you guys for joining us tonight um and hanging out with us talking about Empire Records.
• 54:46
  SPEAKER_03: And we'll see you next week on the Cigars and Cinema Podcast Show.
• 54:50
  SPEAKER_03: Thanks again, Curtis.
• 54:50
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, good night, y'all.
• 54:52
  SPEAKER_03: See you guys next week, same time.